interception [c - mission]

"understood."

the beat of her heart that accompanies the new mission gets her mind of everything. it is increasingly easier to just deal with the immediate task in front of her than to think back to floaroma, to jason, and how everything could have gone smoothly. but then she had been promoted, and now she was dealing with her first mission as an elite. for that, she'd been paired with someone she knew nothing about, except for the fact that the girl had been on the job longer than she was. it was fine. isabelle wasn't used to dishing out orders yet, so she wasn't out of her element.

almost immediately, she had gone from being coffee-fetching cadet to someone tasked with something dangerous and and serious. the rangers had been tipped off about galactic activity in the ruins of celestic town, and now a "person of interest" had just been sighted moving into the cave due north.

"gotcha. moving in." isabelle waits a bit for the man to make a small or get far ahead enough, and then darts into the opening, wearing a tight black suit with dark orange stripes, the general logo of the PRA stiched into the corner.

when she walks in the darkness envelops her, though it's not pitch black. she looks around-- the pathway seems narrow here but opens up further ahead, where she's guessing the spy has gone. something about the delicate, ancient stillness of the ruins makes her think back to adrien arkwright, and wonder how the seemingly passionate man may have felt at the ruins being so desecrated by team galactic.

"what was that?"

it was too late now. isabelle did not know how many were in there, though the intel hadn't told them the group would be large. a hand removed a taser from her belt, and the other held on to a pokeball, not quite unlatching it from its place just yet.

"i don't know, a bat? jeesus christ, sam, you're paranoid as hell."


isabelle breathed out.

"i think someone followed us in."

footfalls in the distance. hunched behind a large rock, isabelle flipped the safety off her taser.

everything else moved in double time-- the girl jumped out from behind her, knocked a grunt out cold, the person on the other end of the taser fainted, and suddenly two unconscious heaps adorned the hard floor of the celestic ruins. isabelle gives the other elite a small, crooked smile. "couldn't help it."

the girl seems intensely focused, but inside her there's probably some sort of calm, judging the from the crisp, clean movements of the girl in battle. for isabelle, it's the opposite. she looks steady, nothing about her shakes, but instead her insides are full of worst case scenarios and terrible thoughts.

"we need to get more space. we don't know how many there are," isabelle says flatly-- the corridors are not wide enough for any pokemon except maybe celeste, but she doubts the togetic is very threatening. isabelle quickly removes a small smartphone from her pockets, the app on screen displaying the basic map of the cavern and where they are. it doesn't account fro pokemon or enemies, and doesn't have built in radar.

she removes a pokeball from her belt and enlarges it, opening it wide unveil a large crobat, sturggling awkwardly. "find open ground," she orders, and the crobat begins flapping, moving itself in front of them. it would likely be easily glossed over by any galactics, given that not seeing a crobat in a cave would be more surprising than seeing one.

immediately, vision is restored to the duo. zahne has been equipped with lancer's gear, and has just entered the open space at the end of the corridor. her screen now shows a small excavation in progress, and two galactic spies loading some kind of goods into a trunk. other than that, the cavern almost looks empty, but the view isn't 360 degrees, and it certainly doesn't account for anyone or anything in the other sections of the ruins. but they need to decide, because the two onscreen are already talking, looking around them.

no doubt corpse one and two will be missed in a few.


"your call," she says quickly, eyes darting back up to the blonde.

and then the alarm rang out.

isabelle's eyes widened and then quickly narrowed. unlike the blonde, she felt no paranoia, instead just an itching sense of motion and the a rush of willing madness. the girl throws a pokeball into the clearing, and isabelle does the same, a blastoise exploding from its container, roaring and charging much like the camerupt, one canon aimed at an overhead alarm, blasting it with a forceful it of water, the little mobile contraption exploding as a result.

isabelle pulls on her mask as well, nodding at lena.

the smog makes it hard to see, but isabelle catches the silhouette of a man, seconds before he's mercilessly taken down but a shot to the thigh, stumbling both because of the smog and the bullet before falling down. the blonde rushes from behind to her handcuff him to a rock.

"'kay," she says easily, her voice sounding odd as the ground shakes at the rampardos's movements. isabelle moves to cover the areas that their pokemon cannot, rampardos dashing in the inner tunnels and crobat speedily moving along with-- their two screens seem to be one and the same until zahne takes a left-- but isabelle is more concerned by the movement in a small little tunnel, about big enough for a blastoise to pass, but rough enough for her to be concerned it wasn't there in the first place.

she doesn't have to wonder if the tunnel is man made or not, because just then something stirs.

she sees something move, and rushes, enlarging a pokeball as she gets to the entrance. when she arrives, she tosses the pokeball as far as she can, like it's some time of time bomb. there was always a saying that the light off the end of an ampharos tail was so bright it could be see from space, and while isabelle could neither prove nor deny the theory, the sudden blast of sheer white light is enough to give it some basis. it lacks the bang of a stun grenade, but the grunt gives off a few curses and stumbled backwards, losing his vision. the ampharos uses its sweet time in letting lose a thunderwave, crippling the man and forcing him to the ground.

by the time the sheer white had died off, and the cave seemed mostly normal again, isabelle has already swooped in and cuffed the man, and was staring at the walls around her in amazement.

"you need to see this," she says over the radio, looking at the two walls of different fossils, shining stones, and other relics she can't name.

"I know right," is all she can manage, Isabelle, too, turning breathless. For her though, it's the sheer beauty of it-- she was born rich, and she can only vaguely guess the worth of everything there, since the concrete price of anything usually goes over her head. But it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that this room value is huge, and the amount of things they could do with these resource is likely insane as well. "It's beautiful."

Her eyes flicker to her screen- the rooms that Zahne encounters are filled either with unconscious grunts, or enitrely empty. She sees the blood dotted the otherside of the screen, clenching her jaw. Isabelle's never been a fan of gore, although this elite more experienced than her, apparently, so she guesses she can't do much other than raise a questioning eyebrow, which she does.

The blonde speaks with hasty professionalism that, Isabelle thinks, doesn't suit the blood that shows on the rampardos's screen. The radio beeps, crackles, then the voice of an operator is heard. "Understood. Guards have been dispatched. Elite Ruddy, Elite Night, your presence is requested at HQ as soon as you can confirm the arrival of backup."

Isabelle sighs a sigh of relief, willfully ignoring the screens and looking at the walls of the cavern instead. "Imagine the things they could have done with this." But then she pauses...wait..

"Ruddy?" She looks over at the blonde, her mouth splitting into an odd, crooked grin. "Don't tell me you're the chick that managed to step on a hundred pairs of toes as soon as she set foot in the ranger HQ?" Isabelle lets out a short chuckle.

That had been a strange incident, one that Isabelle didn't involve herself in. She remembers the night back at Jubilife, when they had partied after stopping the Tyrannitar. The only thing most the men could talk about was how disgusting the rookie trainer turned ranger was, how dare she stand above them, and a lot of degrading, semi-sexual insults. Isabelle didn't really understand-- if the girl was good, which, she undoubtedly was, that was fine.

Besides Isabelle could relate. Every ranger at school had hated Isabelle's guts because she'd come from a rich family, without bothering to learn she'd practically dodged several threats and hate from her own siblings to get there.

Good times.

"Nice to meet you."