Welcome to Gaia! ::

He still wasn't really sure how he was supposed to react to this. He remembered meeting Rosie on his first day in Kodo and how troubled she had looked, and he remembered seeing her in the Sandalwood hospital after the tragedy that was the raided contest. Was he supposed to feel sad like that? Or angry like how he had felt after hearing about it? If it had been me, what would I have done? It wasn't as though he had never considered the question, especially given how present and active the Rockets were in the region, but he had never found an answer. He still didn't know the answer, really. It all just felt kind of distant and surreal, and though he was tired, he felt it would be a good idea to continue dreaming a little longer before returning home to try and make sense of reality.

The salt-scented beach breeze wasn't unpleasant, and the dying summer sun was warm without being oppressive. Luke didn't recall arriving at Camphoreon's boardwalk, but it certainly didn't seem like a bad place to be. He moved past the modest shopfronts, his eyes absently watching the illuminated waves lull in the distance. His inattentiveness was interrupted by the recognition of a moderately-sized group of pokemon formed around a familiar trainer on one of the benches. It wasn't too terribly uncommon to run into Seraphine around the city, but it was odd to see her looking anything but perfectly confident. Passingly curious, he approached the bench.

"Hey Sera," he was somewhat surprised by his tone of voice; he sounded far more tired than he felt. "What's up?"

There was definitely something odd about her, something unusual in her disposition. Offhandedly Luke hoped that it was his imagination or overanalysis and not the result of something bad. He'd quite had his fill of bad somethings.

'Nothing,' that was a pretty safe answer - one he wouldn't mind returning when the same question was asked of him. He found it difficult to form the response on his voice, though, and his friendly nonchalance, against all effort, faded. "Some stuff, I guess," he offered with a wilting shrug, his hands finding his pockets and his gaze falling away. Recognizing the vagueness of his reply, he substantiated it slightly, "It's been kind of a long day."

He laughed briefly, "No, I wouldn't really call it good." Something fell into place, and Luke began to understand his response to the matter. It was a helpless sense of guilt, a knowledge that his own actions, or lack thereof, were a determining factor in the way the results had played out and an understanding that there wasn't anything he could do but accept it. He raised his eyes to meet Seraphine's attention, an empty smile in his features, "My Flareon was stolen earlier, by some Team Rocket woman."

It was easy to blame his troubles on himself, but the feelings dredged up by Seraphine's confession were nothing short of anger and hatred. "Well who the hell else would it be?!" he shouted suddenly. He recognized that this wasn't the time or the place to raise his voice, but he had mysteriously little control over his words, as though some final safeguard had been tripped. "It's always been Team Rocket! What have we been working toward for so long that they can just waltz up to us and take whatever they want?! What the hell is the League doing that they can waltz up to us and take whatever they want?!"

He took a moment to exhale his residual anger before speaking in more rational terms, "Have you been in contact with the League at all?" Not that they seemed to be doing a whole lot of good, but that one guy did say to call if anything happened.

Ah, that wasn't really what he was trying to achieve. He hadn't specifically wanted to say any of that, but it was kind of hard not to get mad. He could accept that Mieu's theft was his own fault, but the fact that his friends were being targeted as well was unforgivable. "Sorry." He drew a breath and exhaled slowly, dispensing of residual frustration and focusing on words that could actually help. "That guy at the party said to contact him if anything happened, right? It's better than doing nothing.

"You're not weak, you know? You spent all that time in Hoenn, and you have all these pokemon willing to help you fight. It's not like whoever stole your Umbreon just disappeared off the face of the planet. I think the best thing you can do is just be ready to fight them whenever they show up, and know that you can win."

It was weird to say such things as if he believed them himself. Certainly he would continue to work hard, and certainly he would continue to fight against Team Rocket, but the idea that he could recover Mieu from either of those efforts just sounded like a happy lie.

He clenched and unclenched his hands idly, softly focused eyes watching the sun-dyed waves ebb and flow. "I'm probably not the person you should be talking to about this," he said. "It all feels pretty pointless to me too. Maybe I'm just stubborn, though, but I don't want to give up." He tensed slightly, frowning, "I don't want to lose more pokemon or see any more friends lose theirs, you know? I don't know if training will do any good, but I know that doing nothing definitely won't."

The weight of his sword at his waist was a welcome familiarity after not carrying it for so long. More than recovering Mieu or avenging anyone else's loss, he found in his thoughts the distant notion that he would be happy simply to have the Rockets atone for their actions. There was a vague concern stirring in his subconscious for what that atonement had to do with his intentions for the blade he had decided to carry once more.

"Yeah." He could agree sincerely with that much, at least. "Good defense is the best offense, as they say... I dunno how true it is, but there's a lot to be said for being able to kick someone's a** before they can even get close to you." There was a lot to be said about the confidence that came with that ability as well. A little more confidence and a little more sense probably could have saved Mieu, but it was too late for that now, just like it was too late for Anastasia. They could only look forward now, but what was ahead was all the more crucial because of that.