Third.

[azumods]

ENCOUNTER 3. Snowpoint City is small, cold, and definitely not covered in waist-high snowdrifts. The traveling becomes far easier as soon as you enter the city limits, and the bright orange roof of the Pokémon Center is easy to spot among the white blanketing of snow dusting the ground and the local buildings; it's warm in there, and the attendants inside seem used to this sort of thing - people wandering in bedraggled and cold, unprepared for the weather and the routes leading up to this place - and they'll give you warm, fresh blankets and mugs of warm drinks that steam in your hands. The taste is difficult to place - it's definitely made of berries of some sort, though it doesn't seem to be proper tea or coffee; the point, however, is that it's good at warming you from the inside, and while it doesn't have proper medicinal properties, it'll at least perk you up a bit and make it seem like facing the rest of the day might not be so terrible. Which is fortunate, really, given what's to come. Come mid-afternoon, there's a loud, sharp whistle from the doorway of the Center - it's high and shrill, the sort of thing that's designed to get as much attention as possible, in as little time as possible. It'll stop before it goes on too long, but it's definitely enough to be heard, and the source isn't exactly hard to spot. She's another one that isn't dressed like the other members of Team Galactic, her hair and outfit far different from the usual grunt attire; she seems a bit older than Saturn, her expression harder and more experienced. She's smiling a bit now that she's holding the room, but the expression is strange in that it doesn't reach her eyes, even though those are just as bright and alert as her fellow Commander's were. It's cold. Unwelcoming. And deeply, deeply wrong in a way that's both vaguely similar and completely different to the way the emotionless people here tend to present - it's unfeeling, but in a way that's natural rather than enforced. Dangerous. "So you're the group that left us before I could get to know you properly," she says, and her voice is as cold as the rest of her; it's cordial, perhaps overly so, but there's a firmness to it that heavily implies that she's only being nice because she's expected to be nice. Because maybe if she's nice, this will go nice and easy and nothing will happen. "I'm Commander Jupiter, serving Team Galactic under the orders of Master Cyrus. Sorry I couldn't meet you all properly before; things got a bit hectic. But we can change that now." Her tone implies that that isn't a request.

Comments

[discutio]

No such noble goals as improving the world, for a given measure of 'improving'? That's almost a bit of a disappointment. Why, it almost sounds as though you don't believe in your master's ideals at all.

[azumods]

What I personally believe doesn't really matter much in the face of what I'm willing to do, I think. I did still help him do all this, after all.

[discutio]

It doesn't matter at all, ultimately. I just find your motivations in doing so something I wish to know more about.

[azumods]

I'm not going to make attempts at pretending to be noble, or claim that I think that I'm doing the world a kindness or anything, if that's what you're getting at.

[discutio]

You don't quite sound the type, no. I just find it hard to grasp 'because I felt like it' as reasoning.

[azumods]

What's so difficult to understand? Talk to me.

[discutio]

I don't claim to have much of a greater understanding of how things work in this world, but in my own one might be hard pressed to find the average person willing to join in the complete rewriting of existence just because the possibility was there.

Do you get nothing out of your part in Team Galactic in return?

[azumods]

I get the knowledge that I'm one of Team Galactic's Commanders, and I've been given free rein to do what I want with the people of the region.

So I'd say I'm getting a lot, actually.

[..............yeah.]

[discutio]

[jesus lucian christ]

Really. [Not impressed.] I dared think more of you than a child on a power trip, Commander.

[azumods]

You can call it childish if you want. It's been working out pretty well for me so far.

[discutio]

'So far'. I have to ask, what will you do if that changes?

[azumods]

I can't really answer that without knowing what the change looks like, can I?

[discutio]

A hypothetical, then. Say that this world proceeds on its current slight course, to such a point that Galactic's influence...diminishes, shall we say. What do you think your course of action might be in such a potential situation?

[hyruglyphics]

[ . . . On the one level, that's deeply disgusting, but on another level, even as she makes a fist at her side, it does appear to her that... is an opening. It means she doesn't have an ideological attachment to the organization.

... It's a game.

And it's possible they can be more entertaining. ]

[semistableman]

[Is he supposed to be surprised?

Because this is absolutely nothing new to him.]

[anythingforyou]

[...Gods, the woman would fit right in with Nohr's power hungry nobility. It's disturbing, really.]

[enjoymyatelier]

[...]

Well, I can't help but say I almost respect that a bit more than people like Saturn prattling on about how this nonsense is a good thing and we're imperfect for having silly things like emotions and the like.

[azumods]

Saturn and Mars both love Master Cyrus, as far as I can tell.

[From her tone of voice, it's obvious that she doesn't get it.]

They love him, and they love his ideals. It's not all that hard to see why they're so devoted.

[enjoymyatelier]

...

Is he attractive, or just charismatic?

[azumods]

...Charismatic.

[She's keeping a straight face, but the tone is so oh-god-we're-awful.]

I mean, I don't think they're... [...] I hope they're not romantically attracted, as that isn't going anywhere. For very obvious reasons.

[semistableman]

There are different kinds of love, Kayneth. What she's talking about is different from... that.

[redbellion]

[ can he punch her yet or ]

[hyruglyphics]

[ Please don't?

She will send out her new Rock Snake if need be? ]

[redbellion]

[ bUT WHY!!! ]

[hyruglyphics]

[ Mostly because we're impossibly outmatched here and only surviving through their good will and our diplomacy and breaking that diplomacy changes this into an open conflict we can't actually win.

... We've been on a few of these u haven't after all. ]