Crimson Soudoyer

[Raven]

"Oh," Ryan said. "When was this?"

[Gifted]

"My brother came back like two hours ago but by the sounds of it she's been there all day, man."

[Raven]

"Hm," Ryan said, and left the bar to head to Heffly street.

[Gifted]

Sure enough, when Ryan got to Heffly street, he saw Melody locked in a pokemon battle with a small, crying blonde girl. Melody had her hand to her throat, trying to order her Marowak through the pain as it savagely attacked the crying girl's Trevenant. "B-Bonemerang" She ordered.

[Raven]

Ryan threw his pokeball, and a giant, fluffy dog emerged. "Arcanine, break up that fight," he ordered, and the dog bounded much more quickly than Ryan himself could move, to shove its way between the Trevanant and the Marowak, snarling at both.

[Gifted]

The sudden appearance of another pokemon caused Melody to jump and the Marowak to step back and look at her. Melody looked anxious, but said. "Crybaby, back off." She did not, however, return him to his pokeball. The crying child looked hopefully to the person who was stopping the fight.

[Raven]

"Go home," Ryan ordered the child. It seemed strange that a kid would have a pokemon as powerful as Trevanant.

[Gifted]

The little girl didn't need to be told twice. "Th-thank you..." She returned her pokemon to her pokeball and ran.
Melody breathed a sigh of relief and beckoned her pokemon over. It jumped in her arms and she hugged him like a child. "Thanks." She told it. She was just happy he wasn't dead.

[Raven]

"What was going on?" Ryan asked Melody, his arcanine still staring the pair down.

[Gifted]

Melody looked down. "My punishment...for....desertion." She said.

[Raven]

"What?" Ryan asked, bewildered.

[Gifted]

"Angelica... Need to save her..." Putting a weaker ghost against a stronger ghost was never a good idea, and the pokemon in question was poisoned and near death. "Where's a pokemon center?"

[Raven]

"Come on," Ryan said, leading the way to the nearest one. "What do you mean?"

[Gifted]

Melody frowned as they walked, thoughtful for a moment. "Suppose I... don't have much... left to lose." She admitted. She pulled out her wallet and pulled a photograph from behind her ID. The photo was old and faded, with creases across the middle that suggested she had kept it in her wallet for a long time, like it was very important to her but she didn't often take it out. "What's wrong... with this photo?"

When Ryan unfolded it, the picture was of seven kids at a park together, laughing and posing with several powerful pokemon. Melody was in the picture between two other kids, eyes having closed at just the wrong moment, giggling and holding bunny ears over the head of the boy next to her. A Trevanant stood between the two of them. Other kids in the picture had similarly powerful pokemon standing around them - a blonde girl on the end that Ryan recognized as a low level Saint had her arm around a Mawhile, and the oldest boy, a kid named Jacob who was one of the few unaffiliated with either gang, stood with a mightyena by his side. Two boys sat atop a gigalith, one of which actually appearing very similar to the boy who'd directed Ryan to come here and the other was now a decently high ranked Saint. All of the kids were smiling or laughing and looked incredibly cheerful. Most of them looked to be between eight and ten years old, except for Jacob who was in his young teens when the picture was taken.

[Raven]

"No way a bunch of kids get pokemon like that," Ryan said.