halloflamer | POKEGEAR (MoM IC Contact)

[good. he doesn't notice, assuming he was heard. excellent. wonderful. did it.

and he pauses.] Hm? Yes, for... Arcues, a long time indeed. What is it you wanted to ask?

[Blue pauses for a long moment, then goes back to making lunch or whatever instead of looking at or being in the video feed, because talking about this without looking is much easier (or you could just switch it back to text, Blue, you infant)]

[But that would be weird]

[Anyway]

How'd you... guys end up doing all that, anyway?

Forming teams like that. [Which is only scratching the surface, really, of what he really wants to ask about; but it's unthinkable to him, to consider how these villainous groups got their start. It was easy to imagine madmen, drunk on power, abusing their way through a region. But knowing them, now... How did it even enter their minds to do this?]

[Well, Blue had some idea.]

[maxie would have words about that but the question throws him off. he might be more defensive about the topic but it was blue, and if anyone probably deserved to know it was the kid he potentially harmed with his stunts.

he goes quiet, considers his answer.] Archie tells me you know we were in Team Rocket. What do know of that?

[There's a long silence while Blue is looking away from, outside the scope of his comm's feed, and the video is just a blank stream of the kitchen wall for a few moments. Then, it's disturbed slightly, shadows passing over the light as he moves around the kitchen, clanking from dishes.]

You were one of 'em too, huh.

[His voice doesn't sound especially surprised.] Doin' what? You don't seem the grunt type.

I was a scientist, or at least worked in the science team. Our focus was legendary Pokemon- Giovanni had a very... narrow focus there.

[god this was awkward. so fucking awkward.] At the time it seemed like the best chance to get to actually work with something I was passionate about. I was aware Team Rocket was... unsavory but you must understand, I was new to Kanto. I didn't know much besides overblown rumors.

... not that it excuses anything. I should have dug deeper but I thought I'd be willing to deal with some corruption in upper ranks to be able to move forward.

[Another long lack of words follows broken by kitchen noise.]

Don't tell Red. [Is all he finally says on that matter, and he's not going to press any further on it. Who cares what they were involved with; the Rockets were long since toast.]

Why'd you leave and make your own team, then? You guys both, right?

[Whatever stupid thing had caused them to focus on opposite sides of the spectrum. He didn't get it, their opposite focuses on Hoenn's legendary Pokémon, or why it mattered which one they picked. Messing with legendary Pokémon always ended the same, either way.]

I can't promise it won't come out. Frankly... maybe he should know. [sighing forever. life was suffer.]

Their treatment of Pokemon was what drew us away. I met Archie when he was assigned to help me on an assignment, we... well, we became friends. We both felt strongly about the abuse going on and ended up leaving rather unceremoniously when it clearly would continue.

After that... [he adjusts his glasses and considers again, long and hard.] I won't speak for Archie. Our ideological differences set us on different paths but we both wanted to incite change. Even if we left Team Rocket on bad terms the idea behind a team of Pokemon trainers isn't necessarily a bad one. Or so I thought.

It wasn't some instant decision, I started to gather people who shared my flawed vision and it naturally progressed to making a team.

[Blue shrugs half-heartedly; he tried. If they wanted to get on Red's bad side, well.... he wouldn't get between that.]

[It wasn't as if Blue had never seen what the Rockets did. It wasn't as if his own inaction was because he didn't care. It was just... he was a kid. He was one kid. What was he supposed to do, when the police even couldn't put a stop to them?]

[But Red did it. To this day, Blue wasn't really sure how he'd managed it, how he and his team had fought through that army of thugs right down to the boss all by himself. He didn't like to think on it for too long. It could have ended so differently. And then where would he be? What would he have done, if he'd just left Red there at the Silph Headquarters, and he'd never come back out?]

[Would he have fought, then? Or would he just take the coward's way out after all.]

[Whatever the change was that they'd looked for, he didn't get that either. He didn't get any of these people that took matters into their own hands.]

So, what now? That change you wanted... you didn't get it, right? [He intones, sounding bored, but probably put-on.] What was the change you wanted so badly?

The change I wanted was misguided. I was so sure of the logic and righteousness behind my actions I was blinded to the fact I was- [well, he's getting emotional again!! shocking. he grits his teeth, exhales through his nose.] I was an idiot. Narrowminded, just like Giovanni.

[bluh bluh seriously why did maxie think his stupid plan made any sense, question for the ages] I wanted to make more land with Groudon's power, more space that I saw as dwindling and taken from the Pokemon on land. There's arguments to be made for the limit of resources and how we have used too much but-

You've seen. It was foolish, I played with powers beyond me and others paid for it. The path to hell paved with good intentions, as it were.

[Okay well it's Pokémon logic so somehow it makes some sort of sense to Blue. Or as much sense as a madman can make. Blue's not going to ask how he ever thought he would manage to bring a legendary weather god under heel, as if the ancients could do so, as if that was the biggest thing wrong with this entire plot.]

[He just shrugs it off. He'd heard it already; Archie had said all the same things.]

What'll you do now? [Here, whatever, back home. Sure, they were from his past, and he'd never known them back home; he had no way of knowing what they could have been up to by his time.] Change things a different way?

[thanks for not going wow your pokemon plot is stupid, blue

and that is a personal question, one maxie clearly isn't entirely sure the answer to given how he hesitates. lord he hated sharing things like this. heart to hearts and emotions and things like that. awkward and unsettling.

he sighs] I don't know. I was so sure of my logic, so completely certain it was sound. Now it is... difficult. If I cannot trust my ability to logic then how can I-

I don't know, make amends, I suppose. Somehow. Or at least attempt to do so for as long as I am capable.

[Blue huffs a little, feeling somehow... disappointed, or ill at-ease. He wanted to get it- how Red did it, even how these two did it. Going full-on into something, believing in it so strongly that one doesn't believe in failure. Even just having the guts to do what they did...]

[Maybe Archie was just right about him. No conviction. He was just a coward that ran away from his problems.]

[He shrugs at Maxie's response- he wasn't really looking for anything from him. No penance, no apologies. Even when it came to Cinnabar, it had simply been something that came to mind, a barb to hurt back. He hadn't thought on it much further than that. He never liked to dwell on those times, anyway.] Your Pokémon seem happy. It's probably fine. [Then again, Red told him the same thing, and he remained unconvinced. But Maxie, even a Rocket, had probably been kinder to his Pokémon than Blue had.]

[maybe you should talk about it, blue. and not drink? maybe??

maxie was hardly expecting that response, and even he can tell it was probably... what, a peace offering? a begrudging comment that he wasn't as bad as he seemed?]

I put them through a great deal with everything that happened. I owe it to them to make this place happier, at least.

[Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm nope]

[He considers the burden that they'd put on their Pokémon, too, through everything that they did. Nothing like actual Rockets, maybe, but after all... May had defeated them.]

But they probably believed in you. [Misguided, sure; and no wonder Maxie (and Archie) would feel as though he had led them astray as well.] And you had all those people that believed in you too. Even if you weren't right in the end, they musta trusted you for some reason.

[He wanted to know what that felt like.]

[maxie and jon are going to get an intervention episode going at this rate.

that comment doesn't make maxie feel much better, his shoulders slump in guilt at the thought. it wasn't a new one.] Well, yes, I suppose. It makes my crimes worse, at least many of the Rockets were simply paid or unpleasant individuals. My grunts- they weren't a bad bunch. Foolish, on occasion, perhaps overzealous...

[he rubs the bridge of his nose, god all this. talking.] I wondered the same, you know. I'm not exactly personable. One of my Admins, Tabitha, told me once it was because we all 'understood each other.' I'm still not entirely sure what that means.

You remind me of them, in some way. My admins, that is.

[Blue makes a sound of agreement. He can understand where they were coming from; the sense of betrayal, of disappointing and letting down the people that had trusted them. He understood it maybe too well.]

Great, so you're saying I got the potential to be some crazy planet-destroying whackaDiglett, too? [He laughs self-deprecatingly, but that comment... about understanding one another... Isn't that what he was trying to do?]

[But he didn't feel that way at all.]

[Maybe he just wanted someone to understand.]

[There's a long pause, breath held, where it seems Blue might say something. But he doesn't.]

[maxie huffs and, shockingly, doesn't take offense. i mean he wasn't wrong. courtney even tried to destroy everything after but he's not bringing that one up

he does hesitate because putting this to words was difficult] Well... I suppose I'll be frank, you seem to lack the social niceties and impulse to indulge in them that they do- that I do.

Courtney and Tabitha- and I- we were never very... sociable. Pleasant. In different ways but similar enough that meeting each other was rather novel.

[Sorry this thread was going nice places and there might have even been an emotional breakthrough]

[But let's hold the fucking phone real quick]

Did you just call me a loser?

[maxie just. sort of looks at the screen.]

I think I was more calling you a jerk than a loser. And myself, at that rate.

[Hmmmm. He glares at the feed a little longer, then shrugs.]

Oh, well that's fine.

[Priorities.]

--Well, that seems to work out for you just fine. What's so wrong with it? [Ignoring himself, for just a moment; being a jerk was really only the half of it, and not even really the truth, wasn't it.]

[But.. like Archie, no one ever really got it.]

[maxie just huffs a disbelieving breath]

Hurting people, I suppose. Usually unintentionally. Still, I never said there was anything wrong not subscribing to the sort of pointless social niceties most do. And being a 'jerk' is over simplifying anyway.

I'm not sure how to word it. I suppose it's having a hard time connecting to people, emotionally. [he makes a face] I hate this sort of thing, honestly. Soppy nonsense.

[Well....... it wasn't as if Blue was being entirely serious in asking, but the answer hits right on the mark, doesn't it?]

[Of course, Blue getting called a jerk mostly involved him ribbing people a little too hard and them not being able to roll with a punch, or getting whupped in battle and then crying about it, in his opinion; but that was neither here nor there.]

[Blue opens his mouth, then closes it. Connecting to people. Hurting people.]

[Red, in so many ways more than the obvious, was so much better than him at everything.]

Don't you ever get lonely...? [He asks, barely audible, turning away from the camera again to tend to the kitchen.] With that kind of attitude.

[well, they're in full emotion town now, huh?? usually maxie would draw away from such a question but... blue really did remind him of his admins. and he missed them.

he releases a breath.] Yes. I do. I did. When I was young I aggressively convinced myself everyone around me was wrong and all I needed was Numel anyway.

[he sighs, taking off his glasses to rub the bridge of his nose.] Of course it was nonsense. Even now, even after learning as much as I have, changing, having Archie around it can be... isolating.

[It's too close. And it's taken Blue so long to realize it, the same things, yet what Maxie is saying is so obvious now. And yet he'd never really had real friends other than Red. Family, and acquaintances; peers and students, sure. But Red was the only person he'd ever really let inside, in his entire life. The only person who knew him, behind all the bullshit bravado he put on. And what was behind all of that? Just an even worse person.]

[How was it that Blue only realized how lonely he was, how wrong he'd been, once he finally wasn't alone anymore?]

[Maxie receives silence for a while, until Blue's voice creaks in, quiet and strangely meek.] I just... didn't wanna be left behind.

[maxie was not expecting their conversation to go this way but was he surprised by any of this? no, not really. like he said, blue reminded him of his admins. frankly, more than anything, blue reminded him of himself when he was young. blue had his life far more together but it was still, it was there.

the worst part of the whole thing is he still has no idea what to say. what would he say to himself when he was younger? probably chew him out. he certainly wasn't going to do that to blue.]

I... understand. [boy did he.]Everything seems so much starker and more obvious when you have what you were lacking all that time.

[he clears his throat] I haven't met your Pokemon enough to say but Red seems happy. [kind of returning the compliment?? or fact]

POKEGEAR (MoM IC Contact)

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