Virgil134's Nominations

If that miracle was somehow waiting in the wings, it was surely not in the same room as Pleo at that moment. When the young Protector woke up from his bump to his head on the docks, he was greeted with a forlorn and unassuring environment. It was a dark, featureless room, devoid of lighting from any source. The only reassurance that the place was even a room at all and not some abyss was the texture of wooden planks underfoot that bobbed and creaked up and down rhythmically.

There was some sort of cloth over his snout, loose enough to allow him to speak, but still snug enough to even keep him from fully yawning, let alone to be able to form and spit up a glowing ball. His feet and wings were held in place by strange, smooth ropes of some sort. The bindings were made of interconnected loops that felt as cold and unyielding as stone no matter how hard he tugged or pecked at them, with no discernible knot to try and undo.

It felt like nowhere on Tromba at all, not even like a place beyond the fog and in the Mystery Dungeon. From everything that Pleo could remember from before he woke up, he reasoned that wherever he was, it had to be the fault of that Samurott. So with nothing else at his disposal for breaking free, Pleo did what little he could think of at that time.

"Let me go! Let me go!"

Namely to shout repeatedly into the darkness and thrash against his bindings, over and over again, until his voice started to become hoarse, his body began to grow sore, and tears of exhaustion welled up. How did this even happen? Why? Why wasn't his power as a Protector, the one that was supposed to have helped the town, there for him now to blow away the darkness all around him?

All of a sudden, a harsh voice called off from the distance, muffled by an unseen barrier.

"Are you still going on about leaving that hamlet?"

The darkness gave way with a creak as a door opened, letting in a little blotch of light from a candlelit jar outside. The light made the room a little more visible: the walls and ceiling were made from rough wood much like the floor, and the loops that connected and tied down Pleo had a dark, grayish-black color to them that reminded the young Protector of Hess' hide and metal armor.

The young Lugia's observations of the room around him were quickly cut off as Lyn entered. Banette and a Toxicroak followed closely behind him, shooting a piercing, scowling glare at the young Lugia all the while.

"Why are you doing this to me?!" Pleo squawked. "Tromba's my home!"

"Because if I bring you to my father, it'll validate me in his eyes and he'll finally accept me for the first time since I was young," the Samurott answered absentmindedly as he fished out one of his blades and began to twirl it in his paws lazily.

"E-Eh?!"

Pleo's startled cry was answered with a scoff as Lyn spun his blade a few more times about his knuckles. The seamitar's twirling suddenly came to an abrupt halt as Lyn grabbed its hilt and addressed the young Protector in a much more serious tone.

"Nah, I'm doing this because you're my ticket to being promoted to an Administrator. Unlike some Pokémon, I don't let emotional sops get in the way of my tasks."

"An 'Admi-what'?" Pleo asked, before he shook his head and hardened a leer at the Samurott. "And I'm a Protector, not a 'ticket'!"

"You still can't figure it out?" Lyn scoffed. "Really now, that island's an awful lot like the clutter around your neck there."

The Samurott then placed his seamitar at the side of Pleo's neck, holding it still as Pleo's eyes widened in frightened shock. Pleo flinched as he felt a swift motion forward and away from his neck.

Thump

Pleo heard something small abruptly drop to the ground. Looking around, he saw that Lyn was still in front of him, but had moved his sword away. Lyn's lackeys were picking up a few objects bundled in cloth off the ground… when it suddenly hit him.

That bundle was his scarf, his badge, and the lucky charm Hatteras made for him!

"Wait! What are you doing?! Those are mine!" Pleo cried.

"Quiet! You won't need those anymore!" the Samurott bellowed, as the Banette suddenly came up beside Pleo and roughly slipped another cloth about his neck. After the Ghost-type finished her claw-work and made some sort of remark about "There, much better now," Pleo looked down, and saw that the creature had replaced his scarf with a lavender one with a violet square in the middle.

"As I was saying," Lyn continued. "They're cute to look at and have around, but they're utterly useless to you and weigh you down. Why should a god, a creature meant to protect Pokémon and their livelihoods, be watching over some nowhere island when there're much bigger problems in our territories we can point you at?"

The ship's captain then looked over his shoulder to the Toxicroak, and spoke nonchalantly.

"Give the King's Rock to Mercury after your shift's done outside, she might find some use from it. As for the rest, it's garbage. Do whatever you want with it."

The pair gave a summary "Aye" and promptly walked out of the door, much to Pleo's indignance.

"No! Give them back!" he shouted, struggling against his strange bonds. "Give them-! A-Aah!"

Pleo's angry cries abruptly gave way to terrified silence as Lyn swung his seamitar at his neck, touching the tip just under his lower beak.

"Tell me, did you ever wonder why your flight feathers were untouched instead of clipped short like some captured pirate? It's because getting too forceful with you would risk trouble with bleeding-hearts like Osmund that might have slipped past screening when I put this crew together," the Samurott growled. "So I'll be nice and explain this to you once."

"You're ours. The Company's asset on the Company's territory. So play along nicely and help me and your future superiors out as we need, and it'll all go well for you," Lyn said as he slipped his blade back into a sheath along his arm, while Pleo continued to tremble. "And if not… well, even a god can have the foolishness whipped out of it and have its priorities set straight."

The Samurott then walked over to the door, and called out back to Pleo.

"Your old life is gone. Dead. Buried at sea. You don't have a prince to come and rescue you and carry you over the horizon, so get over it and move on to your new life as the Protector of the Company's interests."

He slammed the door, the barren room returning back to its inky blackness. The sounds from the room died and an eerie silence lingered for a few moments, punctuated only by the creaking and groaning of the ship as it bobbed on the sea's waves… only to then be joined by a whine and the quiet, despairing sounds of a young Pokémon sobbing.

"Bad things sometimes happen in life, and you just have to make the most of them when they come," he explained. "It's not healthy to instantly assume that everything that goes wrong is your fault because you were there for it!" - Kiran