victory_road | Looking for Entrapta (OTA)

Who: Bucky/Winter, and OPEN
Where: Various cities around the continents, mostly Johto, ending in Goldenrod
When: First half of December
Summary: Somebody important in Winter's life is missing
Rating: PG-13-ish

I. Pokemon Center World Tour

Over the past six months, Winter has picked up a lot of different warp registrations. This week, he's trying them all, sometimes with a companion, sometimes just with his pokemon. Each city and town he has a warp in, he spills out with Grace the Absol and Leslie the Grimmsnarl close behind and does a systematic sweep of the town and nearby terrain. Often he does so on Dugan, his Mudsdale, to try and cover ground more quickly. He crops up all over Johto, and in a scattering of cities in Kanto.

"Have you seen a girl with long purple hair?" he asks of anyone who winds up in his path. "About this tall, talks about robots all the time? Might have tried to take something apart?"

There's part of him that knows what this is. People disappear from here. He's seen the messages, heard the stories. Her pokemon are all here. Her communicator is still here. But Entrapta is the person he's wrapped up most of his being in, on this world. He has to look. He has to look.

II. A Message

[Winter never posted to the network, but he's running out of places to check, so here is a text out to everyone who might be reading:]

I am looking for Entrapta. She's got long purple hair and a welding mask and talks a lot about robots. We were last in Goldenrod. If you have seen her, please reply.

III. Back Home

He's not stupid, even if he is stubborn and desperate, so when nothing turns up and even Leslie is starting to droop, Winter returns to Goldenrod and holes up in a room at the pokemon center for a while. He stays there a couple days, ordering take-out and playing listlessly with his and Entrapta's pokemon, before venturing out again to see which of his other friends are still around and want to deal with a depressed and aimless supersoldier.

Somebody remind him of the plans to rescue the Nulls, that might snap him out of it.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It doesn't take much to convince Catra to help with the search, at least at first. She's seen the messages too, heard the explanation that sometimes people vanish as abruptly as they arrived, whisked away back home for a time or for good - but 'they went home' is flimsy and unverifiable, and hard to swallow when it's actually someone she's invested in, not just a stranger she might have spoken with once, if she recognizes the name at all.

She doesn't stick with him while he canvases each town - they can cover more ground if they split up, and if she splits her attention between looking for places she thinks Entrapta would most likely be drawn to and seeking out rumours of anything unusual, well.

She returns to the Pokecenter each night a crackling ball of tension, unsatisfied by the utter lack of answers and always with the same question. "Any luck?"

Having someone to share the work is-- novel. It doesn't entirely make the nagging "not doing enough" feeling go away, but it's good to have company. He slides down from Dugan's back, a hand on the Mudsdale's shoulder for both their comfort, and Leslie hovers over his shoulder unhappily.

"Nothing today," he says heavily. "You?" Though the lack of immediately spitting out good news means probably not, he still has to ask.

"No," she says. Her hands clench at her sides, and she glowers around the Pokecenter as though she can intimidate the universe into giving her what she wants. Which is her friend back, or a satisfying explanation of where she went.

"One guy thought he'd seen her, but it was a dead end."

A dead end, and one very confused young trainer who had ultimately borne no real resemblance to the missing princess beyond shared hair colour and a fondness for pigtails.

"How could anyone mistake anyone else for Entrapta," Winter says more than asks, shaking his head. Purple pigtails or not, Entrapta is... pretty blatantly herself rather than anyone else. If you saw her, you'd know.

He gives Catra a sympathetic look. "Come on. We should eat. Try again tomorrow."

"The locals are weird," Catra replies, more uneasy complaint than answer - there's something that still strikes her as slightly off about the people native to this world, even when she isn't primed for suspicion by the abrupt absence of one of the few people she calls friend.

She stiffens for a moment, as though about to protest, then deflates and gives him a curt nod. Plowing ahead and neglecting food and rest won't help anyone, least of all Entrapta if she has gotten herself into serious trouble.

"Yeah. Okay. Let's find some food."

He hardly has anything to compare it to, so all he has is his own paranoia to make him uneasy, but that had been... less, with Entrapta around. Now it's back up to uncomfortable levels. Catra helps, just having her here gives some measure of stability.

And Dugan helps, lipping affectionately at his hair, and Leslie helps, keeping close, as Winter leads them all around the building towards the pokecenter's cafe. "Wherever she is. She's probably talking someone's ear off."

You know what else Sento acquired during his time in the Sevii Islands? A Rockruff! He's got that Rockruff out of its Pokeball now, and he is trying to be as calm as possible because it doesn't take a genius to see that Winter is quite upset. (And since Sento is a genius, of course he notices.) "Do you have anything of Entrapta's, any clothing or anything like that? We could have Smartphone smell it and see if he can pick up a scent."

"Ruff! Ruff!" The oddly-named Rockruff bounces up and down a bit, eager to maybe help out.

Technically, Winter has a rockruff, too. She's just dumb as a post. He pauses on his way towards the warp pad for the day, bites the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something dumb, and wordlessly offers her communicator. Leslie crowds up, too, looming over Smartphone.

"I've had it on me for a few days," he says. "It might smell too much like me. I have. Some of her pokeballs in the backpack, I guess."

"It's worth a shot," Sento says as he takes it and lets the Rockruff take a whiff. "Smartphone's going to give it his all."

"Ruff! Ruffruffuruuuff!" Smartphone's just excited to be helping, really. He's bouncing up to sniff the backpack once Sento goes to hand the communicator back to Winter.

Winter settles the backpack on the ground and lets Smartphone sniff inside it. But he has to ask, desperate for answers or not: "How did you pick the name?"

"It's a Best Match," Sento says confidently. Matter-of-factly. "Smartphone," he says, gesturing with one hand. "And Wolf," which accompanies a motion with the other hand. "Definitely a Best Match."

It seems to make sense to him, at least. It is entirely possible he's relying on the sheer absurdity of it all to at least temporarily jostle Winter out of his funk.

It doesn't quite shake the overwhelming fear, but it does earn Sento a look that says that's one of the dumbest things he's ever heard. "You know I don't actually know what a best match is. In that context."

"It's my research back home," Sento says loftily. "I'd work with purified forms of Nebula Gas--it would take the form of a bottle with a thematic element, and a Best Match was two bottles that were particularly resonant with one another that would provide the results." This all makes lots and lots of sense. "There was always an inorganic and an organic component, and Smartphone and Wolf were a Best Match." He shrugs. "Sort of like how Rabbit and Tank are a Best Match, and that's how Tank got his name."

Looking for Entrapta (OTA)

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