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Post by KANE on Feb 3, 2012 19:34:18 GMT -5
Through All the Thunder
[STYLE=width: 450px; padding: 10px; background-color:0f0f0f;] [atrb=cellspacing,0,true][atrb=border,0,true][STYLE=width: 100px; padding: 5px; background-color: ececec; text-align: left;] | [STYLE=padding-left: 10px; color: ececec; font-family: georgia; font-size: 30px; width: 330px;]★ I ONCE HAD CAUSE[/style][STYLE=font-family: georgia; color: ececec; font-size: 15px; text-align: right; width: 330px;]AND I ONCE HAD STRENGTH--[/style]
[STYLE=font-family: georgia; width: 330px; color: ececec; font-size: 5px; padding-left: 10px; font-size: 10px;]( ★ ) 403 ( ★ ) alyssa ( ★ ) [/style] |
[/style][STYLE=width: 450px; padding: 10px; background-color: ececec; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px; text-align: justify; color: 202020; border-bottom: 5px solid #0f0f0f;]Sootopolis City had been wrenched from Nox control in a coup that had been unprecedented in Lux's overwhelming victory. Thalia herself had not been on the battlefield, but she had heard the story, both from Lux's official paper, and from the other soldiers who had been on the field themselves. Nox had been broken thoroughly, chased away from their former haven. But perhaps the cost had been too great. At least, that was how it appeared to Thalia now as she surveyed the city from her vantage point atop the hill overlooking the day's latest construction site. It had been a month since the last battle had come to an end and Sootopolis had rejoined Lux's territories, but only now were the last of the corpses being pulled from beneath the all-encompassing snow; only now was the last of the rubble and debris being cleared away in order to rebuild. She could take some credit for that, although it didn't feel like enough. Her new rank was useful for such-- prodding. She'd been able to comandeer two additonal Lux squadrons to join those already working on the construction, and to guarantee a constant influx of food and supply air drops. Hoenn was not Johto, but when a Champion said “Jump,” most people only asked “How high?” A handful of Pokemon—her own Swampert and Charizard among them—were hauling the last of the brick and mortar that would be used for the project today to the site. A new house for a family of four to replace the one they used to own, which had been destroyed when a Nox member's Venusaur's Solar Beam missed his opponent. Thankfully the family had been at a shelter—no one had been injured or killed—but their house had been decimated. At least Thalia could give them another one, a better one. At least she could do that. The workers—her squadrons, and a few volunteers from Sootopolis itself—were off to the left of the Pokemon, going over the blueprints and assigning roles. With a sigh, Thalia stood up to join them. Her signature white cape and white clothes—she'd forsaken the armor for today, it would only hinder her ability to aid in the construction—gleamed against the snow. White: clean and uplifting and the color of Lux. But she felt no joy as she went over to the group, only a bone-deep and unyielding weariness.[/style][STYLE=text-align: center; font-family: arial; font-size: 10px;]made by MINNIE of BTN.[/style] |
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Post by KANE on Feb 3, 2012 19:35:43 GMT -5
Her time of rage at Shoal Cave had proved effective. Alyssa had regained enough control of her emotions to actually enter Sootopolis City. Her, or rather his face was a mask of sadness and stifled disgust at the damage that had been wrought. With the expression, one would say that she were brilliant at reflecting the mood of the Lux members around her that she had infiltrated. But no, her expression was not a reflection – it was genuine. The City’s loss had been an embarrassment on the part of Nox. She had been unable to be there herself, what sort of Leader was that? She’d been torn by her duties and was unable to fight at Sootopolis.
If only I had been there… she thought for nearly the hundredth time as she released bricks from her clutches in a pile where they’d begun getting stacked for the reconstruction of damaged homes. Nox would have done the same – that would have been her first priority. The Nox supporters in Hoenn would look to her for that. But now there was nothing that she, Hoenn’s Leader, could do for Sootopolis – only plot the siege that would take place in the future to re-claim it in the name of Nox, along with everything else in Hoenn.
I must be patient… she told herself, helping a man lift a long wooden board and carry it up steps to the base of a house. She was shooed away from the work, told it was no place for a young man. Technically she looked like one now – dressed in a medium-length black wig, oval glasses, a nice enough dress shirt covered by a sweatervest and slacks, she didn’t look like someone that would have readily volunteered to help out. Most of the people here were adults, and while there were a few teenage boys nearing manhood about, there were very few.
If anybody asked, she was a resident that only wanted to help.
Scuffing some snow aside, she walked up the steps to a path with no houses, heading towards the sacred Cave of Origin. Aside from helping out, the main reason she wanted to be here now was to check on the Cave. She hoped the Battle hadn’t angered any of the pokemon – or worse the Legendaries – to a state of anger that was just waiting to erupt at a breaking point.
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Post by KANE on Feb 13, 2012 15:16:51 GMT -5
The volunteers around her set to their task, the Pokemon assembled and ready to begin raising the frame of the new house; everything felt as it should have been—there was no reason for the creeping worry that set into Thalia's bones. The feeling that she was missing something important, overlooking a step. She smoothed the blueprints with her palm as she stood at the makeshift table they were stapled to. There was nothing wrong it, she'd poured over the plans a thousand and one times. She lifted her gaze to scan the landscape, braced, as always, for the quiet hurt of the slumped houses, ruined and desolate against the snow. And, as always, she saw that same sad sight; but for once, the barren landscape was not unpopulated. Usually, at this time, most residents were still tucked inside of their houses, or at best, were scuttling from house to house or house to store, timid and quick. But there was a boy—or a man, perhaps, it was hard to tell his age from behind at such a distance, but his slender build seemed to indicate an adolescent boy or young adult—making his way down the path that led to the Cave of Origin. Thalia hesitated for a moment. Should she call him back? Civilians ought not to go in such a place. At least not alone. Within half a heartbeat, she was jogging after the boy down the path. ”Hey,” Thalia called out once she was within speaking distance. ”I understand if you want to go visit the cave, but don't go alone, okay? There are Pokemon in there that might have been disturbed by the recent battle.” Latios, she sounded like an old maid teacher, but there was no helping it. Responsibility lay on her back like a knife. ”I'll go with you, fair enough?”Not that it mattered what he replied. There was no way she was letting a kid just go into the Cave of Origin by himself. ”What's your name?” she asked. There was no reason not to be friendly. Kids made her uncomfortable, most of the time, but he seemed old enough to be out of that zone for her. ”I'm Thalia.” |
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Post by KANE on Feb 13, 2012 17:45:10 GMT -5
Her shoes tapped quietly against the stone path which she followed, descending into the northern curve of the caldera formed around Sootopolis City that protected the residents within the hollowed out volcano. She remembered when she first tried to visit the Cave of Origin – she’d been stopped until she defeated the Gym Leader and carried permission to gain entry coupled with a badge from the Gym. It wasn’t as though she sought harm to befall the cave – she wanted to go because of the legends surrounding it. As she walked, she recited to herself bits and pieces of Hoenn’s lore that she’d grown up with and always been fascinated by –
All things have an Origin. Places, people, pokemon, the entire world. It is only after we realize where we come from that we know our roots. The Shrine of Awakening marks the place where life begins. Opposite of it is the towering Mt. Pyre where life will one day end, but only after it has accomplished everything it is meant to do.
Sighing, her breath coming out as a cloud before her and fogging up her glasses, she drew to a halt at the sound of a voice. Looking its direction, she saw a young woman jogging towards her. Taking off the glasses, she looked down and cleaned them with the tail of a shirt. She kept her gaze directed towards the ground in case she was more easily recognized without the glasses than with. Sliding them back on her face she looked up and cleared her throat to respond to the young woman that had joined her.
”To be honest, the reason I want to visit the Cave is exactly that. I want to see to it that the pokemon are adjusting as well as possible, and that the disturbances of war haven’t affected their lives too badly.” Alyssa didn’t exactly jump at the thought of having a member of Lux in the Cave of Origin with her, but she would not argue. Having been away from her duties as Leader for a few days while she practically vanished as far as being traceable went, and knew she would need to pull at least one all-nighter once she returned.
She filed the name Thalia in her mind to pull up later when reading any gathered information on Lux from her spies. A bizarre inkling within her chest told her she would need to remember it – and for good reason.
”My name is Wolfgang.” she said, keeping her voice level and slightly lower than it naturally was so she sounded more like a young man whose voice was still cracking as it changed. ”If you’re ready, I would like to get started…it’s the sort of feeling that comes with something you know has to be done, you know?”
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Post by KANE on Feb 29, 2012 13:04:56 GMT -5
”Nice to meet you, Wolfgang,” Thalia answered. The kid seemed a bit...well off seemed pretty rude, but it was the only way to describe it, really. So formal. That couldn't be what all Not that she would really know what kids his age were supposed to be like. He didn't look past sixteen at best—to be honest the poor guy looked like he hadn't hit puberty yet—and Thalia had never really had an adolescence in a town, going to school and interacting with other, familiar people on a regular basis. It had only been city to city, gym leader to gym leader at that age. Nothing wrong with it, she supposed, but different. Now, of course, it was harder to travel about with the war. She stifled the sadness welling up at the thought that this kid might never get the chance to earn a gym badge, to beat a region and challenge the Elite Four. For kids like this, this was why she was on every possible front line. So they could have a normal life when Nox was finally defeated. ”I know the feeling,” Thalia said softly. Perhaps that had come out a little more softly than she intended. No need to burden him with her feelings. ”Was that feeling what brought you out to volunteer in the first place? Or did you always mean to visit the Cave? I had assumed you were a native of Sootopolis, because you weren't in any of the squadrons I brought over, but are you not?”The Cave of Origins was drawing ever closer, and Thalia felt her steps become more measured, almost automatically falling into a soldier's march before she corrected herself. Sootopolis was secure. She was escorting a civilian. Even if they were to encounter trouble within the cave, it would be of a refreshingly simple—if no less dangerous, of course—nature: that of wild Pokemon disturbed in their habitat. No guns, no ideologies. Just a battle like in the old days. Well, not quite, she reminded herself. Catching and obtaining a wild Pokemon second, protecting the civilian first. Still, as the two of them drew even with the mouth of the cave, she couldn't restrain the wild thrill of excitement that went through her. |
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