Cactus Field Tasks General Briefing (Part 3 of 3)

    The barbecue had a very lively atmosphere, everyone talking or laughing, from the tables with groups of pokemon, to the pokemon cooking and serving. Emerald saw familiar faces, Velma and Cassie included, to a certain Chespin and Inkay. As Emerald introduced Team Secret Spells to Team Enticing Consonance, they sat one one of the few unoccupied tables left. Then, Cassie got to her story about their mission and how they were successful in it.

"...and then I got the disco ball and Velma was like, 'How did you get that?' and I was like 'I'll tell you later', and now I am, but that isn't important right now, so, I got the...," stopped Cassie, looking in alarm at the passing pokemon, whom she was sure was in the Hunters Guild, and if anyone heard...Cassie shivered. "Can you pass me those..things," she said instead.

"There called Charti bombs, and you're supposed to say please at the end," said Velma, starting to get the plate of said food to pass to Cassie, but Emma beat her to it and passed them to Cassie. Emma grinned, and Velma couldn't know if the other Kirlia was doing that to be competitive, but her next words stopped those thoughts.

"Let Cassie go all out today, after all, this cookout is for us to be social," said Emma, grinning wider.

    Cassie grinned at the Kirlia for being on her side, then looked at Velma. Cassie then made sure there were no Hunters close by, then continued with her story. "The Disco Ball was outside the suite, so I was like 'why not', then just rolled it in, closing the door after, so nobody would see us. Then Velma jumped out of the window like she had jumped windows all her life." Cassie ended, turning all the attention to Velma. The other two teams congratulated Velma, from a barrage of praises, to a single, quiet smile. Velma grinned shyly and blushed at all the attention. 

    The three teams then helped to clean up after, Emerald, Velma and the rest of the group who had Psychic used their move, to speed up the cleanup. The rest helped with whatever their partners hadn't already done, like sweeping the floor, cleaning the plates and cups, etc. After finishing up, most were sitting down, apparently tired from the cleaning. Cassie wasn't one of those. 

"Come on, let's go patrol around camp, we can't let those ruffians get the best of us!"

"How are you not tired," asked Velma, "you're much smaller...where do you get your energy from?" 

"I think we'll keep that a secret~."


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    As they all gave their third lap around the campsite, they were all kind of tired. Cassie was sleeping on Velma's hair, her boundless energy now gone, Victoria got picked up by Rubellite, much to the Jynx's embarrassment.  Lance looked towards Emerald, who was slumped, and he was gathering up his courage to grab her from her hips to carry her like Rubellite had done to Victoria, but a faint whisper caught his attention. He stopped, his ears twitching as he tried to find the voice's direction. When he located it, he saw a Maractus calling him. She looked like all the other cacti, what differentiated her was the bows she used.

"Oh, hey! hey. Can I have a word with you? Err, somewhere quiet?"

"… Alright. I asked around, and your leader said you were dependable, so I think I can trust you with this job. Do you know the pokemon Sigilyph? If you’re out on patrol during the night shift, I want you to keep an eye out for that Pokemon. If you see one sort of ... hovering, and they don’t respond to you at all … well, you can try to run them off, or otherwise just keep tabs on them until they go away. Just whatever you do, don’t chase them outside of the Cactus Fields. And definitely don’t try to capture them! Just trust me on that, o-okay?"

"I’ll try to pay you back for this somehow, I promise!"

    Lance listened to everything first, then agreed with a nod, and before he left, he could've sworn Aisha was blushing. As he slowly and silently made his way back to his friends, he saw that nobody was looking for him. Good, he thought as he walked behind Emerald and picked her up. Her giggles made everyone turn around, to see the Lucario with the Kirlia in his arms, giggling. Emma and Victoria grinned, while Victoria, who was still being carried by Rubellite, looked away, blushing, thinking it was a private thing. Velma smiled, and Emerald thought she saw something flickering under Velma's bangs, while Cassie mouthed "Lucky" to Emerald.

    Throughout the patrol, they chased a group of bandits which make Cassie regain her energy and loudness. Emerald also helped with the chasing, but then fell asleep in Lance's arms after. Victoria was now walking as she saw a Sigilyph and pointed it out, and as they kept walking, it looked like it was following them. Lance was about to make a detour to scare it away when it left before he could do that, so he just kept going. As they were starting another lap around, a pokemon told them to rest, that their shift was over. The ones still awake screamed in joy, for they were finally going to rest.

    As they were headed to their tents, which were close to the others so they could just walk to them, but far enough so they could have privacy. As they went to their own tents, Emerald stirred and Lance looked down. She looked so peaceful, he thought, and then he thought enough time had passed.

"I know you're awake," he said to Emerald, who opened one eye, grinning softly.

"I thought so," she replied. "Lance, I just want you to know that..well you know..." Emerald trailed off, blushing.

    Lance's ears twitched. He had never thought of Emerald as shy, she was always happy and loud, like Cassie, but on a more....gentle level. This Emerald, blushing and close to tripping over her own words he had never seen. He decided to steal Emerald's words out of her mouth. He put her down, and Emerald stood, looking at Lance as he leaned close to her face. Then, he said the words that she was planing to tell him.

"Yes, I know you love me. And so do I."