Team Snagem HQ (Mt. Silver)

[Ms Edyn]

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Night sat on the floor in the main room, tossing a small rubber ball across the room to bounce from the floor to the wall before being caught by her shiny Zorua, Eris, and returned to her by the small fox to be thrown again. Meanwhile, her houndoom, Heru, lay on the floor beside her, offering the somewhat distressed hybrid whatever comfort she was capable of.  

[Atlantis_Darts]

Blizzard120

"More than I wanna..." Tristen said. "Zebstrika when he was still a Blitzle...Magmar, too. I don't even know how long he was a Shadow Pokemon while he was with Zera...but...did I try to do the right thing?" Tristen said. "Blizz told me time and again that I shouldn't do it unless there's no other option and stuff, but at the same time, I remember a time where he said he tried doing it; tried to leave Ein, or who he thought was Ein, to die by leaving him mauled by a bunch of Pokemon who he really messed up, but it didn't sound like there was 'no choice'. He said he and the other Snagems had that guy pinned down with no way out. I...just...don't know..."

"Did you make the right choice? ...who is the judge of what is right and wrong, really?" Darts looks over at the distraught kid, and smiles a little at the fact that Tristen was still enough of a child to have this crisis of conscience. "Let me put it like this. In this team, what we do here, I often have a lot of questions. Are we doing the right thing? Is how we are trying to do them the right way? There's no final arbiter of whether or not what we did was right or wrong, at least not in this life. I've made a lot of mistakes, some of them innocent, some of them choices I've regretted later. But you can't let the fact that you had to make a decision you don't know whether or not it was right take away from the fact that when the chips were down you still made a decision. Sometimes that's harder than doing nothing. Usually, in fact."  

[Atlantis_Darts]

Blizzard120

He listened to Darts's words and they sunk in...rather deep in fact. The fact that he had to make the decision within that few seconds to take Zyra out or be taken out himself, and for that matter, risk the Pokemon to be contaminated by the virus that she is all too happy to spread for Ein, he couldn't necessarily be judged for. It was what it was, and there was no changing it. But then, he wondered... "Would you have done the same thing I did?" Tristen asked Darts.

"That's another question I think you're never going to get a satisfactory answer to." Darts said. "I've got options with this... body of mine that you can't possibly hope to accomplish, just on a base physical level." He places his hands on the ledge and lifts himself into a handstand for emphasis, flipping backwards and landing on his feet. "But that doesn't mean all options are good options. In fact, the more power you have... the more ways you have to screw up. Would I have done the same thing as you? Maybe. ...But there's always the question of would I have been able to do something worse?" He flares his wings into existence, ephemeral red spines extending from the different remiges on his wings for effect. He stares out at them for a long moment, before letting them fade back into invisibility. "So don't worry about what I would have done. Learn to be able to live with what you have."  

[Atlantis_Darts]

Blizzard120

Tristen sat there and thought for a moment as Darts explained his case, or lack there of, but what he said made sense. Frankly, there could have been worse in Tristen's case, the more he thought about it. While anything better would have been a point that could be argued about to the ends of time, it was what Tristen could do at that point in time with what he had and what time he had to do it. At that point, he finally understood what Leslie had to say to him and...he owed an apology to her. A notion he'd tried to make later...though she's still a pain even if she didn't make a point like that. At least he'll own up to his end, anyways. The boy mad a sigh, he was considerably a bit more relieved now. "...thank you, Darts..." The boy said.

"Think nothing of it." Darts says with a mock bow. "Fees for consultation come to 19.99 plus shipping and handling and a few other charges." He ruffles Tristen's hair fondly as he walks back over to the edge of the building, looking out over the ledge with a snort at the no doubt indignant look on the kid's face. "Kidding. Run along now, but safely and off the roof. Go play or something. Enjoy it while you're young."  

[Atlantis_Darts]

Blizzard120

The boy winced hard as the top of his head gets ruffled but then looked back towards Darts for a second as he sees him make it towards the edge of the roof once more as he tries to straighten his fur back out on the top of his head. The boy wouldn't say much; he got his answers, or at least ones that got him over this rut for the time being. Tristen would find his way back to the entrance to the roof and made his way back down to the main floors of the HQ below, with a weight lifted off his shoulders.

"You can come out now." Darts says, seemingly to the open air. "I would ask how you got up here without us noticing but then... you always did have a way for the dramatic entrances ala Golbatman."  

[Atlantis_Darts]

Blizzard120

"Seriously, you'd think I've become Sol." I came out of hiding from the back, right into sight, crossing my arms. "Then again, I guess someone needs to fill that niche of being 'O-so-Brooding-and-anti-heroish' I don't know. "For that matter, probably should be grateful he's canine and not avian, otherwise, he'd point me out in a hurry anyhow. A little upset at myself that he still didn't come to me otherwise before going to someone else, nothing against you at this point, mind. Just...me trying to be there for him and yeeeah...this is turning out like Tails all over again." I said.

"Ahhh, he's getting older." Darts says wisely, leaning forward to settle his elbows on his knee on the rooftop ledge. "Then again we all are. Don't take it too personally, everyone gets to a time when they can't rely on their 'parents' some it comes earlier, some later." He pauses for a second, letting the silence stretch out. "Are we doing the right thing?"  

[Atlantis_Darts]

Blizzard120

"As far as what? Dealing with Flare and Cipher and all of them? Oh most definitely. The methods in dealing with them? Perhaps questionable at times, sure. But allow me to repeat as I managed to catch you telling Tristen just a few minutes ago: 'There were worse ways'. As I see it, we're in a rather profound spot that a rare few has been in before us and they weren't in any coordinated group like us. The only edge we have is that we're kind of packing a considerable bit more experience than them and gifted or cursed, depending on your point of view, with the means to actually bringing some sort of right to a lot of the wrongs out there; read say Lysandre or Ein, when there are...really not that many out there to do so, and in roughly the same fashion as we do I might add. That said, I do regret dragging Tristen into this...though, I have the feeling that he would of gotten involved anyways by proxy of me being involved, so go figure on that." I said to Darts, picking a spot next to the Giratina Hybrid and sitting down right next to him to stare at the dark expanse that was the cavern.

"Yeah. It used to be so much easier. Evil team has surefire plan to rule slash enslave slash destroy the entire world. We swing in and stop them. Good guys win, bad guys lose. When did we go from that to fighting wars and preventing bioweapons from wiping out whole regions?" Darts mutters, concern in his red eyes underneath the crest as he looks in the same direction as Blizz.  

[Atlantis_Darts]

Blizzard120

"Times change, as does the nemesis." I said to Darts. "I don't like it any more than you do. It comes to show just how much they are willing to go. And...what's the price we pay if we sat back and done...nothing?" I asked Darts.

"War never changes." The Giratina hybrid asserts, echoing the sentiment of many an old soldier. "And even if we've changed, it hasn't. I know we can't lie back and let sociopaths like Ein and Lysandre burn the world down. But when does it stop? When do we get to stop fighting and let the world go on without us? Are we stuck in an endless cycle of seeing what cards the fates decide to deal us?"  

[-l- JoltiBun -l-]

Gima overheard darts and blizz and walked to where they were talking "As if getting beaten up by frogadiers wasen't enough, You two still reminiscing on Zera? Shes better off dead, Ein too, If we don't do something who will? Surely Not the citizens of the regions. we are fighting psychotic murderers , we cant hold back If we do Then the world we live in dies itself, trust me i want it to end peacefully too but you can't reason with a character like ein." gima spoke up as he walked in on darts and blizz.