Team Red Rose Writing App 2.0

Team Name: Team Red Rose
Rank: Chatot
Guild: Rescuers

Member 1 Signature: Aurora the Chikorita
Gender: Female

Trait & Personality: Sassy, Strong Willed

Move 1: Leafstorm
Move 2: Energy Ball
Move 3: Leech Seed
Move 4: Round

Accessories: Pink Ribbon
Items: Evolution Scroll (E1), Evolution Scroll (E4)

Member 2 Signature: Ruby the Shiny Vulpix
Gender: Female

Trait & Personality: Gentle, Good Perseverance

Move 1: Flamethrower
Move 2: Dig
Move 3: Toxic
Move 4: Round

Accessories: Pink Ribbon
Items: Accessory Voucher (M2), Evolution Scroll (E2)

Member 3 Signature:
Gender: Male/Female

Trait & Personality:

Move 1:
Move 2:
Move 3:
Move 4:

Accessories:

Member 4 Signature:
Gender: Male/Female

Trait & Personality:

Move 1:
Move 2:
Move 3:
Move 4:

Accessories:

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One particularly unfortunate cold, stormy night, two lone figures seemed to have lost their minds. Or perhaps, they were homeless? Why else two young pokemon—girls at that—would stand outside a stranger's door on such a night, I can not imagine—

"Oh, can the sarcasm already!" Despite the pouring rain and the screaming winds, this young Chikorita's inner fire certainly still blazed: "I can't believe we have to register our team. AGAIN!"

"Aurora, don't be rude. Given all that's happened in Tao lately, the least we can do is be a bit more understanding and cooperative—ACHOO!"

Aurora turned to her partner at the sound of her sneeze, alarmed by the sight that met her eyes. The Vulpix before her still managed to strike her as beautiful though her fur was completely soaked and her skin considerably paler than normal. Worst of all, she had begun to shiver—a development Aurora cursed herself for for not having noticed earlier.

However many forests her inner fire could burn to the ground, Aurora knew her partner as a fire type would not be able to keep this wait up much longer. She gently nudged the Vulpix forward, positioned herself so as to hover over as much of her partner as she could—very thankful for being almost a foot taller—while using her head leaf as an umbrella of sorts.

For her partner's sake, Aurora then called out at the wooden door before her as calmly and politely as she could: "Excuse me? You could open the door any moment now!"

As no response came, Aurora's face twisted in annoyance, and she shot a mini-blueish green ball of energy at the door—just small enough to make a noticeable noise without leaving any dents—and screamed: "HEY, WHAT'S TAKING YOU SO LONG?! GET YOUR LAZY BOTTOM TO THIS DOOR BEFORE I BLAST THE ENTIRE BUILDING DOWN!"

Before she could even take another breath, the door suddenly swung open, and Aurora a Ninetales with the most infuriatingly smug smile on his face looming over her.

"Come in, come in! My goodness, come in! I can't believe you've all been waiting outside in the rain all this time! You could have knocked earlier, you know! My name is Callahan, or Calla, for short. I'm the guild registrar, you know. I'm quite good at it!"

Aurora listened impatiently to the fellow blabber on about himself, chewing the inside of her cheek to stop herself from doing anything she'd regret. She knew she was outmatched to try to teach the impertinent jerk a lesson now.

"Oh, please allow me to take your belongings; they're all wet! I'll just hang them in front of the fireplace to dry as we go over the formalities. Don't forget to take them when we're done! You wouldn't believe how many people leave their accessories here with me! (Please don't do that, I have so many things cluttering up my attic in dusty old boxes...)"

Aurora recoiled at Callahan's first attempt to grab at her wet ribbon, but she realized that her partner's shivering had only gotten worse.

"Ruby ..."

Her partner's name barely escaped in a whisper from her lips. As worry for Ruby overtook her distaste for Callahan, Aurora reluctantly handed over her and Ruby's ribbons to him before gingerly helping Ruby out of the rain.

"And the paperwork, of course! There will be a lot of that, don't you worry one bit!"

Aurora tensed and stepped in front of Ruby defensively upon seeing Callahan smile as he spoke. She couldn't tell if he was just sadistically overjoyed at being able to dump paperwork on another helpless team, or if he, like all the other perverted males she had run into, had taken an interest in Ruby, who was certainly in no condition to defend herself.

Callahan continued, an unreadable twinkle in his eyes.

"You do have the forms that we've mailed you filled out, yes? That does always make things go much quicker here."

Having recovered somewhat from the rain, Ruby raised her head and shakily padded around Aurora into Callahan's line of vision once more, pulled out the registration forms, and responded, "Yes, Mr. Callahan. They're right here."

"What's this? These forms are soaking wet.. and the ink has run! Goodness, we're in for a lot more paperwork than I could have hoped to dream of!"

Aurora's eyes seemed to bulge out of her head as she glared at Callahan for such an outrageous claim: "Look, for standing out in the rain for all that time, those pages are miraculously dry! Maybe you need new eyeglasses, or if you're afraid of handling a little big of sogginess around the corners, I could kindly ask a friend to send a whopping hydro pump your way to teach you what soaking wet really means!"

The twinkle in Callahan's eyes seemed to brighten dangerously, but Aurora refused to gulp in fear. She continued to stare daggers at him, indignant that such a foul Ninetales existed to tarnish a species related to Ruby. She noticed that his gaze shifted to Ruby at one point, sending cold shivers down her spine. Her mind rushed through all the possible disasters that could ensue, planning how to keep Ruby safe from any attack that may come their way. Though she braced herself for the worst, ultimately, nothing came. Only when Callahan finally continued after a short pause did she realize she had been unconsciously holding her breath.

In fact, she had been so distracted that she never realized that Ruby had stopped shivering, was standing firmly on all four feet, and was smiling so sweetly at Callahan that it was a wonder the Ninetales had noticed the sharp glint in her eyes that seemed to be challenging him to try something on Aurora only if he wanted a taste of retribution.

Ruby cleared her throat, and apologized, her voice dripping with honey: "Mr. Callahan, please excuse my partner's outburst. She was simply concerned for my well being, seeing as I was the one holding onto these forms. If we cannot register now, we can always take our leave and come back on a more pleasant day."

Both pokemon's gazes returned to their normal states, Callahan's as derisive as usual, though now clearly with no further harmful intent, and Ruby's completely as gentle as the words she had just spoken.

"No matter, I have spare forms, and all the time in the world! I trust you have no pressing appointments yet, so I'll write down your information now. With your help, of course."

Aurora shuddered at Callahan's smile. She suspected he found her frustration thoroughly amusing, but it wasn't in her nature to be able to hide it. Her only comfort was in the fact that he was about as disappointed in as she was pleased with Ruby's recovery of her typical composure and gentle demeanor.

"Let's get right down to it, shall we? My fastest time for entering a team in the official guild registrar is a touch under a few hours; let's see if we can break the record!

All right now.. names, please?"

Ruby maintained her pleasant smile and reported, "Aurora and Ruby."

"Ahh.. what.. commo- er, good names you all have! How do you spell them? Interesting spelling! Are you foreign? French, perhaps?"

Aurora's mind tingled at the word French—it was the first time in a while since she had been reminded of her past.

However, she sealed off the wave of memories that threatened to crash down on her, refusing to drown in them after narrowly escaping death by torrential rains just moments ago and rolled her eyes, thinking to herself: Yeah, we're about as French as french fries are French.

Thankfully—and it was certainly one of the only times Aurora would probably ever be thankful towards the Ninetales—Callahan moved on. On his end, Callahan was used to seeing the blank expression that appeared on Ruby's face, although to her credit, she looked more cute than stupid sporting that expression. The split second's worth of recognition on Aurora's, however, he rarely saw and found incredibly strange. Both were perhaps equally willing to move on, indeed.

"Ah, no, forget it, France is just made up here, you know. Often used as comic relief. Er, just forget that.

Moving on!

What alias do you wish to give you lot of fellows? I hope it's something good! I've been so bored by Pokemon insisting to use a name like "Team Awesome" or anything of the sort. More like "Team Mediocrity," I like to think! I'm sure you have a much more original name."

Aurora replied curtly, "Team Red Rose."

"I knew you wouldn't let me down! Is that the normal spelling, or do you insist on losing letters, or replacing them altogether entirely? (I hope not..)"

Ruby shook her head: "Just the normal spelling will do, Mr. Callahan."

"And... done. All right! Next topic!

You there, lad! You seem to be the leader of the team, here. Why don't you tell me about yourself? Please make it interesting! I'm not filing a police report, you know. I don't get paid for this, either. I do it for the stories people tell! Everyone has a story! (Some are better than others, though. That's for sure..) However, I do hope yours isn't filled to the brim with angst and darkness, you know. We have enough of that as it is with the recent crises we've been going through!

If you insist on weaving a yarn of incredible sadness and general malaise, please make it good. I'll discern the necessary details from your story and put it down in the log book here."

Aurora cocked an eyebrow at Callahan and considered what to say.

When she finally opened her mouth, the story she chose to tell was about as vague and emotionally devoid as she could get: "I come from a rather distant land. Some would say I was spoiled rotten with the perfect family. I would say I earned my keep, but they're not exactly wrong. But I chose to leave that family to help a friend in need. Well, I suppose I didn't know for sure whether or not she was a friend when I made that choice. Call me reckless, I did it anyway. But I ended up helping teach a huge jerk not to aim a billion lightyears out of his league and meeting a friend I couldn't imagine life without anymore. And now I'm here, dealing with the insufferab—interesting task of registering our team ... with you."

Callahan narrowed his eyes after Aurora finished delivering her succinct monologue in perfect monotone. On one hand, he wanted to say that she had no story-telling talent at all. On the other, maintaining such a monotonous voice was clearly intentional, probably done out of spite towards himself, and admittedly wasn't the easiest thing for anybody to do.

"What an ... 'enchanting' tale! I can see why you'd probably like to join the Rescuer's Guild.

And you there, lad, what is your story? Your leader has done an excellent job of keeping me awake at this late hour, I hope you do the same!"

Aurora practically barked at Callahan before Ruby could respond: "Don't call me her leader!"

Callahan raised an eyebrow: "Well, you are the leader of the team are you not?"

"Yes."

"And she is a part of this team, is she not?"

"Yeah."

"Then, while I may or may not agree with your position in the team, it is a fact that you are the leader, she is not, and thus, you are her leader, are you not?"

Aurora exhaled sharply and grunted: "Fine, then as her leader, I assume the right to tell her tale for her. Now, if you'll excuse us, I don't believe you need to know any more about her life than the fact that she and I met under the circumstances I described earlier, formed a team, came to Tao, and are now ready to leave."

Callahan was certainly not pleased with such a short rendition of what may have been a story with great potential, but he did have all the information he needed and so decided to keep the unwilling Chikorita no longer.

"Very well, then! It seems I have all I need in order to register you here in our peaceful Tao Village! If during your travels you decide to recruit or add on an extra member to your team, please have them visit me and fill out the necessary info at the top.

I don't think I'll keep you here any longer, I have everything I need from you! I haven't broken any records for time tonight, though. Your story took up quite a bit of it! (Thankfully, it didn't put me to sleep... it's happened before). Time to conclude our business here!"

Aurora and Ruby found themselves hastily ushered back into the rain. "Kicked out" was the impression Aurora was left with, and she almost felt sorry about all the mean-spirited things she had said to Callahan that might have influenced the way in which he showed them the door. After all, she had no idea what state of health Ruby was in or whether or not she could even make the trek back home. Then she realized that the Ninetales had kicked them out without returning their accessories, and her remorse completely evaporated.

After banging on the door and asking for her and Ruby's ribbons back, Aurora quickly started to make her way back home with Ruby.

"Come on, Ruby. I don't want you to catch a cold."

"If that were true, perhaps it would have been wiser to let me share my full background back there? I understand why you couldn't share yours and your reluctance to share mine, but we may have stayed long enough to wait out the rain."

Aurora bit her lip, guilt-stricken once more, but continued shuffling forward: "I'm sorry ... but he didn't deserve to hear your story."

Ruby suddenly cut off Aurora's path, bounding in front of her and startling her to a slippery halt. She placed her front paws ever so gently on Aurora's front feet, the coldness in their bodies making the gesture less warm than it was meant to be.

She looked Aurora straight in the eyes, and though Aurora averted her gaze, Ruby continued: "Well, make up your mind then. If you're sure what you did was right and good for me back there, stop worrying out of your silly little head about my health and snap out of this foul mood of yours! You're so overprotective of me, but sometimes all I need is to know that my best friend and teammate is happy and can trust me to be able to take care of myself every now and then. Unless you don't think I can?"

Aurora's eyes shot back up to meet Ruby's gaze as she rapidly shook her head: "Of course I think you can! I've never thought of you as weak, not once since I met you!"

Ruby smiled and turned to continue the journey back home: "Then there's no harm done!"

She turned back one last time and smiled challengingly at Aurora before sprinting off: "Race you back!"

Aurora was completely caught off guard and was left yelling through the rain as she chased after Ruby: "Not fair! I wasn't ready!"

"What, you don't think you owe it to me?"

"To lose a race? Heck no!"

The rain continued to pour long after the girls reached home, but up until they did, trails of their laughter, screams, and the sound of feet and paws splashing now lightly, now emphatically in puddles mingled with the pitter patter chorus of droplets echoing throughout Tao Village.