"Are you planning on actually buying anything today?" the shopkeeper sternly prompted the girl who was loitering around the shelves. The hood of her coat had been pulled up over her head so he couldn't clearly see her face but he could only imagine she was, what, 15? 16? A kid like that should be home already, not wandering the shops of Pyrite on her own.

Well, okay, correction, the girl wasn't on her own, not really. She did have a Pokemon with her, a large and hostile-looking Mightyena who was standing protectively by her side. The creature never seemed to relax, it's shoulders always tensed and its jaws seeming to be permanently clenched into a snarl. Ferocious, yes, but the shopkeeper highly doubted that it would stand a chance against one of Cipher's Shadow Pokemon. 

At his question, the girl glanced over at him and tilted her head to the side. "Hmm?" she said, seeming a bit dazed for a moment. "Oh, oh yeah! Sorry!" She gave a little laugh before taking a few items off the shelf. Most of them were potions, but she had also grabbed some fruit for herself. She carried them over and placed them on the counter. "I'll buy these."

The shopkeeper glanced down at the potions. She had taken a lot of them. "Hm, I see," he said. He scanned the items for their price. "You travelling somewhere?"

"Something like that," the girl said casually. She began rummaging through her pockets for money.

"That will be 1500 Pokedollars," the shopkeeper said.

The girl continued to searched for the money and, for a moment, the shopkeeper had a feeling she may not have had enough and was wondering about whether he should go easy on the kid or toss her out for wasting his time when she finally brought out the payment, exactly 1500 Pokedollars, and placed it on the table.

"Ta-daaaa," she said, the same way magician might do upon performing a trick.

The shopkeeper frowned but decided against saying anything, instead simply packing up the items in a brown paper bag and handing them to the girl. "There you go," he said. "Now, you better head home. Cipher Peons are crawling all over the streets. If you don't hurry, they might attack you and try to take your Pokemon from you." He glanced at the Mightyena, who was snarling viscously up at him.

"Thank you," the girl said cheerfully, not seeming to worried by this warning. She picked up the bag and exited the PokeMart, her Mightyena hurrying after her. Once they were out of the shop, the girl breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "Thank Arceus," she muttered aloud. "For a minute there, I thought he was gonna start asking all sorts of questions." She glanced down at her companion. "Well, Jasper, chow time!" 

At this, the Mightyena's usual hostile position melted away and she looked up at her trainer with wide eyes, wagging her tail cheerfully. "Gur raa! Ra!" she barked happily.

The girl grinned and took an apple from the bag before crouching down to the Mightyena's level. "That's right, Jasper! Who's a good girl for not attacking the nosey old shopkeeper?" she said, waving the apple in front of the Mightyena's nose.

"Ark! Aaark!" the Mightyena, Jasper, barked in reply.

The girl giggled. "That's right! You are, you are!" she said. She then reached out to give the apple to the Pokemon, who readily snapped it up in her jaws and began munching down on the juicy red fruit. The girl laughed at this. "You must have been hungry," she said. She smiled softly and placed a hand on the Mightyena's head as the Pokemon continued eating. 

The girl, Justine, gave a deep sigh as she watched Jasper for a moment longer. It had been a hard few months for them ever since they had left home. Even with all the money she had taken from her mother, she wasn't sure how she was going to afford to keep them all fed and cared for while they searched for answers. Sure, they were able to spend night in hotels and food was currently not too much of a worry, but on top of buying all that and buying supplies for battle, she wasn't sure how they were going to cope. For a moment, a small doubt began to form in her mind. Was she doing the right thing? Was she really going to be able to take Cipher down and rescued her father all on her own? She only had two Pokemon, Jasper here and a Meditite named Coral, who was currently resting in his Pokeball, and neither were particularly high-leveled. Did she...

She shook her head, trying to shake those doubts away. [i]No. I can't think like that,[/i] she thought. [i]What would Dad think of me if saw me giving up so easily? Besides, this can't continue! Cipher can't be allowed to continue ruling like this![/i] She stood up to her full height, her usual grin now replaced with a determined expression. Jasper, by now finished eating, glanced up at her trainer, suddenly alert now that the girl's mood had changed.

"Come on, Jasper," Justine said. "We gotta find ourselves a place to stay." With that, she began walking down the street, Jasper quickly following after.