Intolerable Laziness (Open)

[Deleted]

"So, could anyone explain to me how in the hell this could've happened!?"

Augustus' sudden raise in his voice was unsettling to the 3 border guards that he was questioning, as was the sarcasm detected in his voice. They were at a small clearing in the woods just to the east of Celadon City, only a short distance away from the electric fence which was supposed to keep each and every illegal immigrant from entering Celadon City. Key words 'supposed to.' The issue in this case was right at their feet. A small hole had recently been dug, it was just barely large enough for a human to fit inside. Just on the other side of the fence a similarly sized hole could be seen. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that these holes were opposite ends of a small tunnel, which at least one person had used to crawl underneath the fence, and slip past the border guards, and into Celadon City proper. What had happened was so infuriating to Augustus that he now went on a loud rant, with venom practically dripping from his mouth, "I scour the world, looking for people who are the best at what they do to work in this city, because our way of life is something that I will stop at nothing to preserve. All I ask for, is some semblance of competence from the guards who patrol our border. BUT NO! Somehow, someone digs a tunnel under the fence without anyone seeing, and gets past what is supposed to be the best security force IN THE WORLD!! What? Were all of you taking an hour long bathroom break at the same time? Were you lollygagging in dream land? I can't think of any other ways that this could've happened!!" Augustus was practically yelling now as the three guards stood still as lumps formed in their throats. "This border is supposed to be unbreachable! If word of this gets out, more people will try something like this, and based on what I've seen so far, they shouldn't have a hard time getting in!"

Seeing the sight of the intimidating guards staring at him with a look of fear in their eyes, Augustus felt that he had  made his point and decided to finish up with an ultimatum, "Cover those holes up right now." The Celadon Administrator paused for a moment before saying, "I'll be issuing a statement to you, and the rest of the guards who patrol this border when I get back to HQ. If any more holes are found, I'll have the guards responsible deported." Some people would find such terms harsh and cruel, but when it came to the protection of Celadon City, complacency was not an option, nor was it something to be tolerated. Augustus then walked along a path, away from the border fence, and towards the residential district of the city. He walked for about 10 minutes before the many estates and mansions of the district came into sight.

[Ren & Rin]

"Fetch!"

Queen tilted her head as the toy ball rolled right past her and through the yard. That wasn't an attack she knew! Her trainer was still young and inexperienced like her, but it seemed all too often that the Nidoran was told to use a move she didn't recognize. The poison pin Pokemon simply sat there in the grass, staring blankly up at the girl as she tried to figure out what was wanted from her. It was embarrassing to be able to do nothing, but 'Fetch' wasn't even close to any move she knew, and she'd been scolded for attacking the last one.

Rin had had the idea that they should teach their Pokemon some tricks to impress their classmates and even pestered her parents for some suggestions. However, the fetch game that had been explained to her didn't seem to be getting through to Queen at all. The first time, she had tried instructing Nidoran to Crunch the ball, but that had, unfortunately, resulted in its destruction. On top of that, the toy had not even been brought back, merely bitten with ease into little foam pieces and left on the far side of the lawn.

"You just have to go get it! Like this!" Frustrated, the girl ran over, picked up the ball, and carried it back to where she was standing a moment before. "See?" There was no sign of understanding from the poison type, but she still tried throwing it again. "Oops..." she mumbled when she let go of the ball a bit too hard, sending it flying at some unlucky person who happened to be passing by. Whether it actually hit him or not, she had a feeling she'd end up in trouble. Adults were just like that.

There was nothing wrong with it. That person had gotten in the way of her toy! That was Rin's personal opinion on the matter, but for some reason others often seemed to disagree, and she'd learned that apologizing before they could yell at her sometimes improved their perception of her. Grabbing her brother's arm that was about to throw a similar ball for King, she dragged Ren along with her so that if the apology wasn't enough, she could pawn half the scolding off on him, with any luck. "We're really sorry for that!" she claimed, putting her best effort into sounding sincere.

The effect was somewhat ruined by Rin kicking Ren's leg as he started to protest before her sentence even finished, "We? --" in reaction to her plural pronoun. That, however, effectively cut his complaint off to a glare at the culprit and some annoyed thoughts on the subject. He hadn't done anything! He didn't even get why she was apologizing to some stranger, let alone dragging him along like he'd been involved. He'd been too focused on his own equally unproductive and somewhat more reluctant training session to notice what, exactly, had gone wrong with his sister's, though even if he'd known he would've thought her apologizing to be ridiculous.

The Nidorans, on the other hand, were just starting to make their way across the yard as they realized their trainers seemed to have been distracted from them, curious what was going on.

[Deleted]

As he walked through the residential district, Augustus had begun pondering over how he would issue the statement to the guards. He had already decided on a written statement, that would be mass distributed amongst their ranks, but he had yet to decided exactly how to word such a statement. He certainly had no intention of mincing words, and making it seem like what had just happened was no big deal. Were it feasible, he would make out a long statement that would practically be a rant over the incompetence of security in this city, but that would make most readers loose interest after reading just a few lines. For the moment, he was leaning towards a short statement that would be to the point and would get the message across. He would make the final decision once he had made it back to his office.

Augustus' thought process was suddenly interrupted when he felt a small, and soft object strike him in the back of his left leg. Although he wasn't injured from the impact (given that the object felt quite soft), he was shocked at the suddenness of it. He turned around to see what exactly had been thrown at him. The Celadon Administrator noticed a small foam ball slowly rolling away from him. It was rolling towards two young kids, a boy and a girl. The boy was holding a ball similar to the one that had hit him, so he surmised that he was somehow connected to what had just happened. Both children appeared to be around the same age, and the girl appeared to be pulling the boy along with her. The girl suddenly blurted out an apology about how she and the boy were sorry about what had happened. To which the boy objected as he seemed to think that none of the blame for the ball hitting Augustus should fall on his shoulders. The fact that the boy was still holding his ball, certainly suggested as much.

Even though anyone who was listening to his tirade only minutes before might assume that Augustus would be similarly enraged about being his by a foam ball, Augustus actually didn't feel much in the way of anger about this. His perception of those who were similar to him in terms of wealth was far greater than those who weren't, and he applied this perception to everyone regardless of their age. And pretty much everyone who was fortunate enough to live in the residential district of Celadon City fell under this category. Even so, Augustus felt it was necessary to lightly scold the girl about trying to deflect the blame about hitting Augustus with he ball, so he said to the girl, "Oh it's no big deal, but I don't think your friend here has anything to be sorry about. Deflecting blame isn't something you should do."

[Ren & Rin]

It wasn't the first time that at least one of the twins had accidentally caused some trouble by not paying attention to others when playing, so Rin was fully expecting a scolding when the man turned to look at them. The ball bouncing back towards her suggested that it had indeed hit him, and it was entirely possible that he would assume that had been the intention. Her perspective was somewhat skewed by teachers who knew her and her brother fairly well tending to suspect incidents centered around them as being at least somewhat intentional. She had also expected some of the scolding to be deflected to Ren since he'd come with her (though unwillingly) and was clearly also playing the same sort of game she had been.

Rin was wrong on both accounts. 'No big deal' was a phrase she was more used to hearing from her parents than from any other adults, as they were much more indulgent than the people actually stuck dealing with the aftermath of everything they did. The 'but' had her think the lecture was coming anyway, on how if she'd been throwing something bigger or heavier it could have hurt someone, but instead he'd caught her out on falsely dragging her brother into it. "Sorry," she repeated, a little more reluctantly this time. Though he really didn't seem mad, she was still skeptical that there would be something more coming, even if it was just along the lines of being told to promise not to do it again.

Ren hadn't really figured out what had happened until he noticed the ball rolling in the wrong direction, like it had bounced off of something. Or someone. Then everything clicked. Luckily the man didn't seem at all angry, and Ren even shot his sister a triumphant smirk when she was told not to deflect blame. "Yeah, I didn't even throw mine," he confirmed proudly after his sister's second apology, holding out the ball... at least until the pair of Nidorans caught up to them and King jumped up and snatched it out of his hand. It seemed he'd sort of gotten the idea of the game, just missed the minor point of waiting until the toy was thrown to retrieve it. That he'd been throwing it plenty earlier was conveniently left out -- after all, he hadn't hit anyone, so what did it matter?

[Deleted]

(Sorry for the wait, and for the short post)

Well, these two kids certainly didn't seem to disagree with them, at least they weren't showing it. Augustus failed to pick up on the fact that the girl seemed to only grudgingly apologize for hitting him with her ball. As for the boy, he seemed pleased that Augustus had picked up on the girls apparent attempt to deflect some of the blame off of herself, even smirking at her as if to say 'nice try.' Augustus could relate, he had actually been on the receiving end of such blame deflection attempts when he was a kid, and he couldn't say that he had been very successful at disproving any such attempts. Perhaps in a way, that was what had led him to quickly pick up on what the girl had been trying to do.

It was at this point that Augustus suddenly realized that he had not formally introduced himself. Since he would be addressing kids as opposed to his business colleagues, and subordinates, he didn't need to be formal at all in the way that he did this. He had never been particularly fond of those types of formalities, and was pleased that e could be completely casual about how he introduced himself. So he said, "By the way, I don't think I got either of your names. I'm Augustus. You could say that my job is running this city."

[Ren & Rin]

They had learned about who the city administrator was in school, though neither of them had paid enough attention that they'd recognized him on sight, but the name and vague reference to his job description did it, and the information very clearly clicked in both their minds at the same time. Rin was even more bewildered by how he'd reacted to being hit after this new information. The extent of her understanding of Augustus' job was that he was like a principal for all of Celadon, and she had about the same general impressions of 'principals' that she did of 'teachers'.

Ren, however, wasn't bothered by the same confusion on what they had and hadn't gotten in trouble for, but he was distracted by the ball that had been snatched from his hand. "Not like that," he complained at King while his sister introduced them. "I'm Rin, and my twin brother's Ren," the girl replied to the surprising introduction, taking advantage of the opportunity to correct the original assumption that they were 'friends' and emphasize that they were twins, not just siblings.