#like you can run from wild pokémon at least but not those guys

[goldensunset]

pokey mans time. i’m going to be so brave and suffer through the part of the game that gave me grief in its predecessor

[mydewottwantstofightme]

@pokeformersam

AITA - when accepting Pokémon into performances, I don’t accept legendary Pokémon (Too dangerous, too big and often expensive repairs take place after. Also why would you force God to do a silly dance. That’s mean.).

I thought Volcarona was part of this. I recently found out that they are intact NOT legendary and are ether mythical or just…Pokemon. What are they!!? AM I AN ASSHOLE?!

(I uh, may have misread what you said and went on a whole tangent. Just skip to the last paragraph if you wanna ignore an infodump about Volcarona and get to the point. Tl;dr, Volcarona are just Pokémon, not legendary or mythical, and for Pokémon they are actually rather average sized. YTA, allow them into contests)

NTA. As a Volcarona owner, they’re like Arcanine: Rare, important in some cultures, and in the wrong circumstances, high maintenance.

If you have any experience with Dungeons and Dragonites, Volcarona are the perfect examples of Pokémon with high wisdom but low intelligence, at least mine is. Nova is very emotionally and situationally aware, but doesn’t know what most human things are and is perfectly willing to nibble on curtains.

Their legendary status comes from old desert cultures in Unova, but despite being discovered more commonly in regions such as Alola, Galarian settlers in Unova first found Volcarona in Unova and gave them a legendary status, before later discovering they not only had pre-evolutions (adorable Larvesta), but are also more common in other regions. However due to colonization and disregard to the knowledge of locals, the precedent stuck. Volcarona and Larvesta can be found in the wild in Unova, but they are far rarer here than any other region. I personally never found a wild one, Nova was instead gifted as an egg from some random guy passing by me on Castelia streets.

In any case, despite having very minimal personality issues if raised from hatching (they’re very emotionally intelligent and respectful as far as I can tell), they do have a lot of maintenance issues. For one, they have a bad habit of overheating spaces they’re in. Good in the winter, bad in the summer when your AC is already working at full blast. As a Larvesta this issue is less pronounced, but Larvesta also cuddle a lot more for heat, and the little tendrils sticking out of them could accidentally contact you and cause some bad burns. With Volcarona those habits become subdued but are still there and are much more dangerous, as now their massive wings are the parts you wanna avoid. But if they’re willing to listen, they should stick outside most of the time and not mind as long as it isn’t raining or hailing or something.

Apart from being a living space heater, the second issue is their shedding. Once a month, Volcarona shed scales from their wings that burn anything they touch, like cinders from a firework. These are normally willingly released for self defense, or once in my case for contest shows, but when shed unwillingly it can be a REAL bad Fire Hazard. Thankfully I have a Cinccino and Dewott (love ya Queen and Torrent) helping me out with cleaning up so that balances out. However sometimes Nova will run into something or be jostled real bad and shed some burning scales, and that’s always an issue. This is probably where the high maintenance for Volcarona comes in.

Then their personality. This isn’t an issue for me, but it might be to you. Basically, their wisdom means they’ll rarely be troublesome for you, but it also means that whenever you’re not directly asking them to do something, they’re probably gonna go off and do something else to not be bored. Like a cat Pokémon. And I can’t imagine how bad it would be if your Volcarona didn’t like or respect you. In that case they probably would not listen to your commands without some serious persuading every time, or you doing something big to earn their trust.

On the plus side, despite having considerable fluff, they rarely need grooming in that respect, as they’re good enough at doing it themself and it’s sorta made from different fibers.

As for diet, Larvesta eat a lot of fruits and berries, and eat a lot in order to prepare for evolution. They tend to prefer well cooked (read, burnt) food, so they’ll tend to burn anything they want to eat before eating it. They can eat meat, but it needs to be extra juicy but also extra burnt in order to appeal to the Larvesta, so they rarely do. They also lick stones in order to gain nutrient from them, like they would in their volcanic habitats. This habit carries over into being a Volcarona, as their diet changes to an almost entirely liquid one. The only real exemptions are charred dust from foods they can’t eat, which should be treated as a treat more than anything, as too much can dehydrate them and cause them to start coughing (and therefore shedding).

As for size, Larvesta tend to be around 3’ 7” long, and are plump adorable little guys that just kinda eat and laze around. They occasionally get into fights for self defense or out of boredom but rarely actively do anything. Volcarona are around 5’ 3” on average, but their wingspan and habit of constantly flying increase their stature by about 2 extra feet. They are also a lot more active, tending to fly around to exert and entertain themselves, but they also spend a lot of time sunbathing as well. In battle they are forces of nature, utilizing their dances to empower themselves and unleash firey wrath that is both beautiful and detesting…

I think after a point I stopped addressing your question and started infodumping about Volcarona. Anyway, you’re not the asshole. While Volcarona are definitely not as bad to care for as other high maintenance Pokémon, they are still high maintenance. But I would in the future recommend you take one in next time you get the opportunity to see if you were missing out on anything…

Also I reread your ask again, and I thought you were a nurse cause I followed your blog but I think you’re talking about Pokémon contests here… in which case you’re the asshole, YTA, Volcarona are beautiful Pokémon with great self control and the ability to make amazing displays woven into fearsome fights. I used Nova in a context once and put on one hell of a show. Sorry my poor reading comprehension forced you to go through a tangent, but also kind of not sorry because you have been prohibiting perfectly good Volcarona to participate in contests. Also I reread your ask again and you said performances and now I must ask what exactly do you do????? Because I am confused.

[rosebloodcat]

I really like your Ingo ends up as a Sneasel in Unova AU. How does Emmet find out the Sneasel is Ingo? And what other stuff goes down in this AU?

*Excited wiggles* Oh I am so glad you asked. (Please note I'm taking some creative liberties with how Poke-world works. Also, this got long...)

The answer is DNA. That's how Emmet learns Ingo is, well, Ingo!

(It sounds weird, I know, but I have put THOUGHT into this.)

The people he rescued Ingo from were... Basically, poachers (or illegal Pokémon dealers? Basically Not Good People) who hurt Ingo kinda bad while trying to trap/catch him.

Normally, most trainers would just take an injured Pokémon they found to a Pokémon Center. But since Emmet is dealing with a sneasel that doesn't look normal and was being hunted by criminals, he decides taking it to a normal Center is not a safe idea. So he takes Sneasel!Ingo to a Pokémon Hospital instead.

(Because they probably have those, like how some vets are clinics and others are actual hospitals.)

It means taking him into the city but also lowers the chance of someone trying to track him down again. (Police/Rangers are also notified because criminals in the forest where he found the little guy are something they should know about.)

The docs run tests and one of them is on this weird Sneasel's DNA, to figure out typing/health things they might need to deal with.

But when the tests come back, they find human DNA mixed with the pokemon DNA.

At first, they think someone wasn't careful with the samples and redo them. Except they keep coming back with the mix.

Someone finally goes "Okay, who the heck is this person we keep getting??" and tries entering it into a database of people. By pure chance, this database is also linked to the "Missing Persons" database for Unova.

And it comes back as Ingo.

Repeatedly.

Because they double and triple check this going "What on Arceus' green earth is going on here??" Even going so far as asking Emmet to bring something of Ingo's in so they can check and make sure their database isn't glitching/going screwy. (Still comes back the same.)

So, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that, somehow, the Hisuian Sneasel that Emmet brought in is Ingo. Someone who's been missing for several years now. (Or at least has his DNA in it.)

[Side note: Did you know that, irl, a missing person can’t be declared dead until 7 years after they've gone missing? And only if their family actively petitions to have them declared dead? If you didn't, now you do.]

Emmet is speechless when they pull him aside to tell him this, but they have proof, so he can't deny it.

His brother has, somehow, been turned into a pokemon. And considering the wear and tear on his clothes, especially his hat/coat, it's not hard to imagine that he's been stuck like this in the wild for a while now.

Now Emmet is the one who has to figure out what to do about this.

There is more, but I’ll leave off here to keep this answer from getting too long for people to read.

[realm-sweet-realm]

1. What's each Pokemon villain's favorite and least favorite smells? 2. How would they react to Stunky/Skuntank? 3. What do they do in their spare time?

I appreciate the enthusiasm, but one question at a time, please! These do take me a while. I’ll do “what they do in their spare time.” :)

Giovanni: Giovanni is very busy with running his criminal empire and his gym, and honestly doesn’t mind spending so much of his time working because it’s varied work and he gets a lot of joy out of it. That being said, everyone has to get away sometimes. When he needs a vacation, he’ll take his yacht out to sea for a few days to relax, read, sunbathe, and so on.

Silver: before he was on his Pokémon journey, he was on his school’s basketball team and flitted in and out of various school clubs while trying to figure himself out and find a way to feel powerful. He also did some shoplifting, vandalism and other petty crimes during that period to see what he could get away with. Giovanni got him out of trouble the one time he was caught. He also enjoys mountain biking.

Maxie: Maxie likes things that calm him down and take his mind off work. A nice, long walk in the countryside with his camerupt. Curling up with a hot drink and a good book. Visiting his more free-spirited friends. Stuff like that.

Archie: big into sailing, often with members of his team. He likes going sailing far into the ocean and swimming with his water-based Pokémon. He’s a very social person and spends many evenings out at bars with his friends. Aside from that, he loves to bake, but shh don’t tell anyone. He also definitely works out.

Cyrus: His favourite hobby is stargazing. He could tell you an endless amount about astronomy or about astronomical events he’s travelled to see, but don’t ask to come with him- it’s his time to enjoy some silence and solitude. Aside from that, he enjoys tinkering with machines. There aren’t a lot of devices in his home that he hasn’t taken apart and put back together, likely with some alterations. He also researches various topics for the heck of it. Falling down a “Sinnoh Myths” research rabbit hole is part of how he realized that he could turn his far-fetched wish to rid the world of emotion into a concrete plan.

N: is pretty limited in what he can do thanks to Ghetsis. Materially, Ghetsis gives N essentially whatever he wants so that N feels like he’s lucky and privileged, so N has a lot of toys he can play with, and he often does while lost in thought. The exception to this is media like books and games- Ghetsis is very careful about what media N is taking in so that he doesn’t wake up to how abnormal his upbringing is. N enjoys fantasy novels and video games, and one of the first things he did once he was allowed to travel independently was to go to a library. He also has a lot of Pokémon to care for and play with. A few times a week, Ghetsis takes N to the secluded wild area he was found in so that he can enjoy nature and visit the Pokémon he spent his early years with.

Ghetsis: He’s good friends with the rest of the Seven Sages, and they enjoy having little private parties and gossiping together about Team Plasma’s goings-on. He also enjoys spending time at the gun range, and has had the privilege to do some hunting (and possibly poaching) in other regions. He definitely has a room with taxidermy hunting trophies in it. Aside from that, he’s a fan of theatre.

Lysandre: Lysandre has a taste for the finer things in life. Good restaurants, good art, fancy vacations, things like that. He loves fashion and spends a lot of time and money keeping up with trends. He also spends a lot of time on the care of his Pokémon. In addition to the team he uses for battling, he keeps like half a dozen litleo as pets and loves brushing and playing with them.

Guzma: Guzma spends a lot of his free time with his team, and those guys party hard- lots of drinking, lots of dancing to loud music, driving dangerously in the empty streets at 2 AM, street races, etc. Guzma works out, and puts time into honing his skills and his style. He can physically fight, and do it well. He can dance, and do it well. He also likes just chilling with his golisopod (and maybe Plumeria) and watching movies.

Lusamine: has a fondness for fashion. In addition to being a bit of a shopaholic, she’s able to upcycle old clothes through her skills in sewing and embroidery (though many of her attempted creations go in the garbage- Lusamine has very exacting standards). This is how Gladion picked up the ability to patch his own clothes. Ever into beautifying her environment, Lusamine also knows a lot about interior design, and, in addition to any real-life application she can find for those skills, enjoys online games that let her design pretty houses and the like.

Piers: no surprises here, Piers is dedicated to his music. It’s where the majority of his free time goes, and a good deal of the time he should be spending asleep. Marnie and his other family members have dissuaded him from practicing at night, but he will stay up late going to concerts for fun and for inspiration for his own shows, performing at his own, or getting his lyrics just right. It’s basically his calling, his second job and his obsession. He also likes drawing. He’s not very good at it, though, so he doesn’t show anyone other than Marnie.

Rose: frequently attends sports events, both Pokémon-related and otherwise. He’s also into film critique and gardening.

[hexalianrebel-blackfeathers]

Rough Crows Have Soft Feathers

Panda’s Notes: It’s my first commission; I can’t believe it!! Funny enough, it was a request to finally tie up a loose end on an old series of mine. >w> Thank you so much @wertzunge, for the commission in general and giving me some actual ideas that my own brain couldn’t provide. You’ve always been kind, and I hope you like it!

Word Count: 5254

Ao3 || Ko-fi

“Tsukki, c’mon!” Yamaguchi called as he chased after Tsukishima, closing the small amount of distance the blonde kept putting between them. “Rough Crows have Soft Feathers? How do you know the code phrase or whatever if the third-years don’t even remember it?”

Tsukishima glanced at him, a smirk hinting on his face as he shook his head. “Just because someone couldn’t pull it off the top of their head doesn’t mean it’s some ancient phrase no one knows. It’s probably still in that book; it’s been passed down for years.”

“How do you know that?!”

He paused, shifting his bags’ straps on his shoulders. “If I tell you… You’d better not repeat a thing. What I tell you never happened, got it?”

Yamaguchi couldn’t help rolling his eyes, but the way Tsukishima glared made him realize he was serious. The story must have been pretty wild.

“Alright, alright; I promise.” Yamaguchi nodded quickly, smiling and bouncing slightly on his toes before continuing to follow him.

------------------------------

Tsukishima sighed tiredly after practice, running a hand through his hair and dragging his headphones off onto his neck. “Yamaguchi, come on…” He murmured to himself, leaning on the railing at the foot of the clubroom stairs.

“Tsukishima, hey.” The blonde flinched when he was poked on the back of his head, glaring up at the culprit. He flinched back again when he realized it was Nishinoya, perched up on the angled railing with Tanaka holding onto his jacket to keep him from falling off.

“What are you doing?” He asked, trying not to sound too worried about his little stunt.

“Heh, we’re here to invite you out, ya brat.” Noya smirked, spreading his arms out as he wobbled. “You want to come hang at Suga’s this weekend? Most of the team should be there if you bring Yamaguchi.”

“If Sugawara-senpai is having a party or something, why wouldn’t he tell us himself?” Tsukishima huffed softly, starting to put his headphones back on.

“It’s a tradition, tough guy.” Noya grabbed Tanaka’s shoulder and jumped down onto the stairs before poking Tsukishima’s arm. “We meet up just about every weekend. Second-Years invite their new juniors to the party.”

“It’s a team thing, Tsukishima;” Tanaka declared, resting his hands on his hips. “You in or not?”

The first-year looked away from them, but he couldn’t shake the feeling of their eyes on him. He groaned, pulling his headphones back over his ears. “Can’t I think about it or something?”

Noya pouted and sighed, but Tanaka shrugged. “You can do whatever you want, but we’re meeting up Friday night.” The second-years waved passively as they started to leave, with Noya sticking his tongue out childishly. “Bring an overnight bag if you’re coming!”

Tsukishima sighed softly as they finally left, slipping his hands into his jacket pockets to mess with his music player. Some part of him couldn’t help wondering why he didn’t want to interact more with his team, but a larger, clearly more reasonable part quickly moved to shut that voice down.

“Tsukki!” Tsukishima glared up the stairs as Yamaguchi ran toward him. “I’m really sorry, okay, but Hinata was showing me his Pokémon team, and then he and Kageyama were arguing again, and then they asked me to help them practice some more but I—Eep! Hey…”

Yamaguchi pouted, covering his stomach where Tsukishima had managed to sneak a single poke.

“I don’t care if you want me to wait, but I’d appreciate you saying something first.” He huffed, turning to start walking.

“Right, right; sorry, Tsukki…”

As they made their way along their usual route, Tsukishima rested his hands in his pockets as his mind started to wander. Yamaguchi was definitely the more social of the pair, despite how shy he could get sometimes; if the team was meeting up every weekend, why did Noya and Tanaka act like Yamaguchi had never been before? If he had been before, he probably would have brought it up.

“Ah, hey…” Tsukishima sighed, pausing under a lamppost where they would normally have parted ways. “Are you…busy this weekend?” He asked, looking off into the distance.

Yamaguchi had brushed against his arm when he stopped, looking up from his phone and cringing a bit. “Yeah, actually. Sorry, Tsukki, but my mom’s got me booked up until, like, Wednesday. Why? Did you have big plans or something?” He gently nudged the blonde’s bag with his elbow, putting his phone away as he did.

Tsukishima shook his head, letting out a breath he hadn’t noticed was being held. “Nah…” He sighed. “Just checking.”

“You sure~? ‘Cause if you want some plans, you can come and help me with all the chores I’m going to be doing.” Yamaguchi threw up the jazz hands, and Tsukishima couldn’t help chuckling as he rolled his eyes.

“Very funny. Shut up, Yamaguchi.” He smirked, giving the shorter boy a little shove on his shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry.” Yamaguchi waved casually as he made his way down the other path. “Night, Tsukki!”

Tsukishima waved passively, making his way in the other direction as his mind continued to wander.

What was that about anyway? Why would he want to invite Yamaguchi somewhere he didn’t even want to go? Then again, the team was always more tolerable with Yamaguchi around to lean on when they got all rowdy.

…Did he actually want to hang around the team? He couldn’t help being reminded of all the times his brother nagged him to be more open and kinder to people. As he reached his front door, he groaned to himself as his mind argued whether or not it’d be worth it. Within the fifteen minutes it took him to settle into his room and spread his homework all over his desk, he was also stealing glances at his cell phone and the half-written text message he had considered sending to Sugawara.

“Come on now, Kei,” Akiteru said gently, passing the volleyball carefully so his brother didn’t have to run far. “A birthday party sounds fun. When you’re my age, birthday parties are just guys talking about girls and watching movies we’ve already seen in the dark.” He made a face, hoping for at least a hint of a smile, but Kei rolled his eyes and just passed the ball back smoothly.

“Birthday cake and cheap ice pops aren’t exactly my idea of a good time.” He’d griped, cracking his knuckles and watching his brother’s face for any hint of where he’d need to go next.

“I know what you’re not getting next year then.” Akiteru teased with a chuckle, sighing as he bumped the ball with his arms. “I’m being serious though; I think you could do well with some new friends. They seemed nice enough when they were inviting you.”

Kei wondered if they’d been in the same parking lot that day. Those boys had ‘Mom made me invite you’ practically written on their foreheads. “Those guys are lame, alright?!” He insisted, catching the ball and pouting. “…And they didn’t invite Yamaguchi…” He finally admitted, his fingers tensing on the white stripes. “Said they didn’t want him there.”

“Oh, I get it now~!” Kei cringed and blushed as Akiteru playfully poked his forehead. “I guess I can’t fault you for looking out for Tadashi, but that’s no excuse to keep being so obstinate about not making other friends, okay?”

“Obsti…” Kei murmured, trying to remember if he knew that word or not.

“Ugh, just… when you meet some people; nicer people, I mean, promise me you’ll give them a chance?”

Kei had stared down at the ball, heaving a sigh before nodding once.

Tsukishima had stared down at his phone, heaving a sigh before sending the message he’d written.

Sugawara responded within minutes, and Tsukishima realized it was too late to back out.

--------------

“Hey, you!” Tsukishima let out a choked noise when his senpai’s arm was suddenly thrown around his neck, causing him to be dragged down a bit. “Did you think about coming to the session tonight or what?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.” He pouted, loosely gripping Tanaka’s wrist to stable himself. “…But I did make up my mind.” He tried to squirm his way out, only to flinch sharply when he felt a prod on his exposed side.

Nishinoya laughed lightly as he skipped by, and Tanaka smirked as he let the blonde go. “Aw, c’mon Tsukki, it’ll be fun. Might fix that attitude for a night too.”

“Guys, leave him alone.” Daichi chuckled as he exited the gym, grabbing Tanaka by the back of his shirt collar and pulling him slightly. “We just said you should invite them, not force it. Tsukishima, do what you want. You two, come with me before we miss our ride.”

Tsukishima gave a halfhearted wave as his senpais walked away, smirking just slightly as Yamaguchi stepped out and stretched.

“So, you’re absolutely positive that you don’t want to help me do yardwork this weekend?” Yamaguchi teased, nudging the blonde with his elbow.

Tsukishima scoffed, almost giving a smile as he ruffled Yamaguchi’s hair. “Are you going to have a new joke when I see you on Monday?” He teased.

“Heh, I could consider it for you.” Yamaguchi smiled, softly squeezing Tsukishima’s hand before he turned away. “Anyway, my mom’s picking me up; don’t get lost going home!”

“You’re not funny!” The blonde smiled after him before sighing as he already kind of regretted not telling him.

“You two are awfully cute, you know that?”

Tsukishima flinched as he heard Sugawara calling down to him from the club room, grinning playfully as he waved. He crossed his arms, looking away slightly as he blushed.

“Aw, lighten up.” Sugawara laughed softly, starting to walk down the stairs. “I got your bag for you. Let’s get going before we miss the bus.”

Tsukishima let out a huff as the duffel bag was tossed into his arms, smiling just slightly. “Thank you… So, you didn’t tell any of them?”

Suga shrugged. “I might have told Daichi, since he’s buying the groceries, but I knew you wouldn’t want it to be broadcast around the team. Heck, if you want; I can pretend I didn’t know you were coming.”

The first-year couldn’t help a soft chuckle as they approached a bus stop. “You don’t have to go that far, just… What is this all about?”

“Ah, don’t worry about it too much. Those two are probably all riled up about your initiation.”

Tsukishima paused, finding his bearings when he heard a bus approaching. “My what?!”

Sugawara laughed, pointing up at his face. “You should see yourself! Heh, relax, Tsukishima. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I think it’s fun. Hinata and Kageyama were a riot during their initiation.”

Sugawara waved as the bus slowed down, and Tsukishima clutched the straps on his bags. “Could you, maybe, tell me more?”

The older boy smirked back at him as they boarded the mostly empty bus, motioning him to sit in a window seat near the back. “Are you actually interested, or are you scared?”

He just had to say ‘scared’, didn’t he? Tsukishima tipped his head back and glared out the window. “’M not scared.” He huffed, blushing faintly when Sugawara snickered. “Just, um, curious, I guess. It sounds…familiar.”

“Does it? Apparently, it’s been tradition for at least a few years.”

Tsukishima blinked as a piece of memory resurfaced: something about Akiteru coming home bragging a bit about winning some game during a sleepover. “Some kind of game, right?”

“Well, yeah. But more importantly, a prize.” Sugawara squirmed a bit in the chair, pulling his house keys from his pocket. “Don’t tell the others I told you early, but… You’ll get this.” Holding together his set of keys was an apparently homemade keychain: a pair of feathers made of black leather and embroidered with ‘Karasuno’ in bright orange thread.

“Huh… Is that it?” Tsukishima couldn’t help asking, smiling tauntingly as he reached to touch it curiously.

Sugawara pulled it into his palm before he could, chuckling. “You’ll get bragging rights too! And more importantly, Tanaka and Nishinoya will leave you alone for a while.”

Tsukishima shook his head. “You still haven’t told me what I have to do.”

“I can’t give away all the surprises, you know. Oh, here, get up.” Suga gently pulled his arm before getting to his feet and approaching one of the doors.

The blonde pouted, following after him as he stepped off of the bus.

“Hey, senpai!” Tsukishima blinked and cringed as he recognized that voice, his eyes narrowed as Hinata came rolling up to them with Kageyama running behind. “Tsukishima?”

“Yep, Tsukishima is going to be joining us tonight.” Sugawara grinned. “Be nice. That goes for all of you.”j

Tsukishima huffed, expecting a similar response from Kageyama, but the setter hinted a smirk instead, giving him a playful shove as he and Hinata went by.

“That’s not—ugh…” Sugawara huffed, hands on his hips as he followed after them.

“What’s their problem?” Tsukishima asked with a huff of his own, crossing his arms.

“Looks like they have it out for you. I’d say tonight is definitely going to be fun. If you’re up to earn your wings, of course.”

“You can stop dancing around me, senpai, I’ll play the stupid game.”

Sugawara seemed to light up, snickering deviously as he pulled out his keys again.

-----------

Tsukishima was surprised to see all the space Sugawara had, even for this one room. Hinata had called him over to add his duffel bag to the pile, and while he was rummaging through his overnight bag, he flinched and nearly fell into the pile. His hand shot to his side, where he’d felt a sudden poke.

“Ha!” Hinata stood in the closet’s doorway, poised to run off again. “Did you think I’d forget so soon, Tsukishima?” He called teasingly, smiling as the blonde glared at him. “Good to hear you’re not backing out of the game~!” He zipped off before Tsukishima moved, and the blonde rolled his eyes as he finally pulled out the items he was looking for before returning to the center of the room.

Kageyama and Sugawara had just finished pulling out the bed from the couch when Hinata threw himself onto it, and Suga chuckled as Kageyama nagged at him.

“Alright, you three, be good.” Sugawara began, pulling his phone out of his pocket and checking it. “The others are going to be here soon, so you guys pick a movie or something while I man the door.”

Kageyama had tackled Hinata into the mattress, so Tsukishima nodded in affirmation for them. Their senpai pointed out the remote to start some streaming apps before disappearing into the hallway. Tsukishima sat on the edge of the bed, tuning out the wrestling pair as he flicked through some titles he’d never heard of indecisively.

“H-Hey, don’t!” Hinata cried out, loud giggles breaking his voice as Kageyama chuckled over him. Tsukishima blinked and glanced back at them, catching a glimpse of the setter pinning Hinata’s shoulder with one hand while his free hand clawed and scribbled at his stomach.

“Where’s that infinite energy you always act like you have?” Kageyama taunted, grabbing at the hand that flailed against his face and shoulder.

“Tsukki, help! It’s not funny!” Tsukishima flinched, glaring slightly when he used that nickname. He hadn’t even noticed that he had been smiling as he watched them.

“Why exactly should I help you?” He asked derisively, turning back to the television to keep scrolling. He felt a distinct sort of tingle in his spine when the pair behind him suddenly got quiet again.

“Well, what do you think is going to happen to you?” Hinata had countered, followed by a yelp as Kageyama pinched his side.

“Why would you tell him?” Kageyama huffed, rolling his eyes as he scooted away from Hinata.

“Aw, c’mon, Kageyama; the guys didn’t tell us anything when it was our turn!”

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure that was the point.”

“I didn’t really think that was fair, though…” Hinata flailed when Kageyama grabbed a pillow to smack him with.

“Obviously, but you picked him to be fair with?”

Tsukishima rolled his eyes, grabbing the pillow. “Stop! Okay, wait; that’s the initiation thing Sugawara was going on about? Some tickling game?”

Kageyama huffed, a bit of red crossing his face as he looked away. “Yeah, an intense one too.”

Tsukishima snickered, shoving Kageyama’s shoulder mockingly. “Too intense for our king, then?”

Hinata scoffed. “Oh, please; don’t sit there acting like you’re not ticklish all of a sudden. The whole team was there when I got you!” He flinched when the blonde’s eyes narrowed in his direction, smiling nervously when his hand grabbed his shirt.

“Y’know, now that you mention it, I don’t think we ever finished discussing that…” He growled.

“Hey, hey!” All three first-years looked up as Asahi walked into the room. “Don’t fight, you guys, come on, Tsuki--”

“Tsukishima’s here?! There was a commotion in the hall before Nishinoya and Tanaka had suddenly burst into the room with Daichi’s voice and Suga’s laughter chasing after them. Tsukishima winced as Nishinoya’s arms were suddenly thrown around him and his hair was ruffled by one of their hands.

“You actually showed up; I can’t believe it!” Noya practically shouted.

“Ow, okay! Let me go!” Tsukishima griped.

“It’s great to see you, man!” Tanaka laughed. “I hope you’re ready for—”

“Get back here, you two!” Daichi barked from the hall, and Ennoshita shed his own backpack to toss into the pile as he came through the door. Noya and Tanaka waved as they went to face Daichi’s wrath, and Ennoshita flopped back onto the bed and stretched.

“It’s going to be a hell of a night, isn’t it?” He asked with a slight grin, and Tsukishima figured he would probably be right.

-------------------

“Alright, alright; everyone, sit still.” Daichi called out once everyone present was finally in the room. The boys were trying to find comfortable leaning positions more or less on top of each other. Tsukishima had scooted over to the edge of the bed, pulling one knee up to his chest as he poked around on his phone.

“Sugar, what are we looking at for time?”

Tsukishima couldn’t help snickering at that nickname as Sugawara pouted, but the older boy crossed his arms and checked his own phone. “Asahi volunteered to keep an eye on the oven timer, but we should have at least ten or so minutes free.”

“Good, good. Okay, as you all can see, we’ve got a new guest tonight!”

Tsukishima cringed as he felt all of their eyes on him. He slipped his phone under his leg and sat a bit straighter.

“It’s great to see you, Tsukishima! Now, if you’re interested in earning your wings…” Daichi quickly pulled his own set of keys from his pocket, showing off the same feather keychain Sugawara had shown him earlier as he smiled softly. “…as well as eternal, irrefutable bragging rights.”

“Ugh…” Tsukishima groaned, and Ennoshita laughed softly as the others stared. “I’ll play your dumb game, okay? What do I have to do?”

Daichi feigned an offended look, glancing over to Suga as the co-captain moved to stand beside him. “Well, if you’re going to be that way about it, maybe we shouldn’t go easy on you?”

Sugawara stepped away, disappearing into the closet for just a moment before Tsukishima finally looked to see him and Asahi carrying a chest out into the room.

“I get the feeling you wouldn’t have gone easy on me anyway.” Tsukishima huffed with a slight smirk.

“They’d better not after everything they put us through.” Kageyama griped, flinching when Daichi cast him a sideways glance.

As Sugawara approached Daichi again, he held a composition book that he was flipping through casually.

“Anything in mind, Sugar?” The captain asked casually, smirking as he got a soft shove and looking at the book over Suga’s shoulder.

“Honestly?” Sugawara asked, closing the book in one hand. “For our dear Tsukki, acting so stiff and plain all the time… Why don’t we just give him a good old-fashioned penalty time? No bells and whistles; I say we just wreck him.”

Tsukishima tingled a bit nervously as the others giggled behind him, but he kept a straight face as Sugawara placed a hand on his shoulder. “What do you say, big guy? Should be a cool fifteen-minute free-for-all.”

“Sounds pretty easy, if I’m being honest.” The blonde scoffed, and he jumped as someone’s hands goosed his sides.

“Pfft, yeah?” Daichi smirked, hands resting on his hips. “How about we play the quiet game then?”

The team griped and laughed a bit, but Daichi waved them off as he instructed the group. All of the others got up from the bed, stretching out and seeming to occupy themselves so Tsukishima wouldn’t feel crowded. He rolled his eyes at the gesture, but he followed the captains’ instruction to lie face-down on the bed.

“Alright, Tsukishima,” Suga teased, pressing a pillow against the back of the blonde’s head until he took it to set under his chin. “Quiet Game means you can’t make a sound; Pretty self-explanatory, really. Everybody ready?”

Tsukishima rested his chin on the pillow a bit nervously as the others voiced affirmatives, sighing as quietly as possible through his nose and reaching to slip his phone out of his pocket.

“Looking for this?” He blinked and glanced back at the sound of Kageyama’s voice over him, and he twitched a bit as he felt someone moving to straddle his back and a cell phone being placed on his head. “Don’t be such a stick in the mud; we’ll keep you busy.”

It was surprisingly difficult not to say: “You’re one to talk,” at that comment, but Tsukishima managed, pulling his phone off of his head to start looking at it in an attempt to distract himself. He could practically hear Kageyama roll his eyes, and he smiled smugly into the pillow.

His attitude changed quickly when someone’s fingers dragged slowly along the sole of his right foot from his toes up to his heel.

“Oops.” Suga snickered as Tsukishima curled his toes. “Seems like your feet are a bad spot, huh?” He hooked his fingers, dragging his nails more firmly against the stripes on his socks. Tsukishima’s hand tensed around his phone, and his breath caught in his chest as he buried his face in the pillow. He flinched again as Kageyama’s hands rested between his shoulders.

“Definitely looks pretty bad. You’re getting all shivery just from that?” Kageyama smirked, moving his own hands to lightly ruffle Tsukishima’s hair before brushing his fingers over the tops of his ears. His shoulders hiked up instantly, one hand batting lightly at Kageyama’s as a smile pulled his lips already.

“I don’t get why you guys are being so gentle with it, senpai.” Hinata said, climbing up onto the bed and taking his own position on their victim’s other ankle. “I thought you said we were going to wreck him.” Tsukishima’s entire body jolted, and an obvious sound was barely caught in the pillow as scribbling fingers raced up and down his other foot.

There was a collective, conspiring sort of chuckle. “Hinata, you should know there’s a flair to these sorts of things.” Sugawara explained. “Honestly, what did we get all that stuff out for you two if you weren’t going to learn anything from it?”

Something about the dissonance of their conflicting methods made it so much worse, and Kageyama wasn’t giving up his search for openings along Tsukishima’s neck and ears. He clung tight to the pillow, his shoulders shaking as he started to squirm.

“If you’re going to make this difficult, I don’t mind playing with you, Kei.”

Akiteru had yanked the blanket partially off of his little brother one Saturday morning, smirking slightly at the very telling full-body cringe. “Come off it, Kei, I know you’re awake.”

The stubborn junior-high student gave a fake sort of stretch before curling over to face the wall. Akiteru rolled his eyes and cracked his knuckles quietly, and Kei’s subtle glance toward him didn’t elude him. He kept as quiet as possible, standing at the foot of the bed as his hands moved down to scribble at the soles of his brother’s bare feet. He smirked as Kei flinched away from him, glancing up to watch his face: a face that was already being covered as Kei was shivering and trying not to smile.

“Someone here seems awfully giggly for being asleep.” His fingers prodded playfully under his toes before he suddenly disappeared. “I wonder if he’d wake up when I do… this—!”

“Gah!” Tsukishima’s voice jumped out around sporadic giggles as someone’s hands latched onto his flanks, thumbs pressing firmly into the small of his back at a frustrating rhythm.

“Ha! Just like that, Asahi.” Hinata had called back, yelping as he struggled to keep Tsukishima’s ankle pinned. “I knew his hips would break him again!”

The others were laughing, and Tsukishima could kick himself for spacing out like that instead of holding his ground.

“Welp, Tsukki, I hate to tell you this, but you lost the game.” Daichi said playfully, leaning on the back of the couch so Tsukishima could look up at him.

The blonde panted softly as the roaming hands became still. “So, I don’t get your dumb keychain? That sucks.” He tried to taunt him, earning quick scribbles right under his toes that made him writhe.

“So, you get a penalty!” Daichi clarified, leaning down to slip his glasses off. “And you can act as tough as you like, but we already know how to make you laugh~ Give him hell, you all.”

There was suddenly a lot of shifting around, and Tsukishima huffed softly as several of them climbed over his back looking for positions. He made an attempt to get his hands in to push himself up, only for Kageyama to find purchase on his neck again. His breath hitched on a stifled squeak, and his shoulders pinned the setter’s hands in place.

“Big bad Tsukishma can’t even take scritches without getting all scrunched up, huh?” Tsukishima could feel heat rushing into his cheeks as he stifled giggles, only to get a feather duster shoved up against the side of his head. Any sarcastic comebacks he wasn’t able to think of were lost in muffled squeaks.

“Okay, wait; wait; wait!” Hinata suddenly shouted, crowding next to Kageyama.

“Could you guys quit climbing all over me?!” Tsukishima griped, flinching a bit as he felt his socks coming off.

“Before everything gets too crazy, I have to try this spot!” The redhead’s small hands shoved themselves under Tsukishima’s arms, and the poor blonde nearly screamed with helpless laughter as his arms clamped tight around Hinata’s hands.

The room was loud again, mostly with his own laughter, but the others were laughing too. Noya bragged loudly about the hairbrush he was scrubbing on Tsukishima’s bare sole, and Tanaka had feathers between his toes while Sugawara scratched his heels to keep his toes splayed out. Asahi’s fingers crawled up and down his back and sides, and Hinata and Kageyama were arguing over his shoulders while occasionally scribbling at his skin.

It was chaotic and noisy and kind of stressful, and yet…

Akiteru ruffled his hair roughly, snickering along with him as he let him go. “Come on, ya brat. I know it’s tough getting used to people, but you like playing, right? Team sports mean you’re stuck with a team.”

Kei had whined softly, pulling the pillow into his face as he sat up. “The guys on my team are so obnoxious though…And my senpais are all stuck-up.”

“You should get along great then.” Akiteru smirked as he sat on the bed with Kei. “Listen, no one can tell you how to feel about people, but you’ve got to give them a chance first, y’know?” He poked his brother softly when he reached to grab his glasses. “Promise you’ll get to know them? At least a little?”

“Will you give me a chance to see you in a game, Ace?”

“Hey, we’re not talking about me here! Besides, sometimes annoying people are just putting up a front. In my team, they have this phrase: Rough Crows have Soft Feathers.”

“Really?”

“I know how it sounds, but I think there’s some truth to it. You’re pretty soft too, you know.”

Someone was tapping his head. “What do you think, Tsukki?” Daichi asked, grinning down at him.

His breath was coming slowly; everything had stopped. He took a deeper breath as he glanced up at their captain. “I think you all could use some help.” He chuckled, unable to keep from sounding exhausted.

“Ah, he’s fine.” Sugawara giggled, patting his shoulder as Daichi handed his glasses back.

“Good to see that you can be a good sport once in a while, Tsukishima.” Daichi chuckled as the others were getting up to let the blonde stretch. “Now, the tradition goes that whoever’s in for initiation gets to pick who gets it next.”

Tsukishima blinked smirking subtly as he glanced over his shoulder at the others. “Really now?” Hinata caught his gaze, knowingly trying to shrink behind Kageyama.

“Heh. You want to pick now? We can wait until after we eat.”

“I guess I can wait. I’m tired anyway.” He admitted, motioning for Daichi to lean closer once the others’ eyes were off of them. “Definitely Hinata.”

---------------

“So, hey…”

Tsukishima looked away from his phone to the setter whispering from the bed. The game room was quiet, the main light coming from the now muted television.

“Pretty chaotic, huh?” Sugawara smiled down at him, resting his chin on his arms. “You still hate us after that?”

“Yeah, well…” Tsukishima shrugged, yawning quietly. “I don’t hate you guys… I just, uh, I definitely have my preferences. Like, I could get used to this.” He motioned vaguely to the sleep-filled silence.

“I’m glad you came out today. That was so much fun.”

“Even if I didn’t ‘earn my wings’ or whatever?”

“About that…” Sugawara shifted slightly, and Tsukishima flinched as something was tossed onto his chest: A familiar keychain, the stitches looking brand new. “The torture thing is a formality; you’re fine. Besides, it’s my sewing machine; I do what I want with them.”

Tsukishima chuckled, tipping his head back into his pillow as he picked up the keychain, He was surprised he could read the letters in the low light. “Thanks, senpai.”

“Same time next week?”

“Pfft, honestly? I’m going home tomorrow morning. I’ll think about coming back though. I guess it wasn’t the worst thing.”

“Ha.” Sugawara yawned, reaching to lightly tap Tsukishima’s forehead. “Never change, Tsukki.”

----------

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you went to a session!” Yamaguchi complained, throwing his hands up as Tsukishima chuckled. “They had asked me why you weren’t there this weekend.”

“Oh, if I was there, you would have lost too.” He smirked over his shoulder. “Did they find out how weak you are to raspberries?”

“Hey, shut up!” Yamaguchi laughed lightly, running up beside him to take his hand. “Would you want to go back again though? I think I’ll be there pretty often.”

Tsukishima sighed heavily. “Maybe if you’re there with me, Tadashi.”

[mx-myth]

Long (be prepared) namelessshipping/originalshipping AU idea/prompt post

Idea/Prompt for anyone who writes namelessshipping/originalshipping because I haven’t ventured into that part of the Pokémon fandom yet: A/B/O AU where Red and Green mark and mate each other as children because they’re a bit too young to understand the implication of bonding??? (“He’s my special someone because he’s my best friend! I love Red/Green!”) Like their respective families start freaking out and crying over it until they think to ask them who “bit them”, and they just beam and say “Red/Green! I bit him too!” Cue heart attacks.

Skip to when Green starts pushing Red away: They’re still bonded, of course, and they’re both in pain. Even more so when they head their separate ways on their journeys.

Skip again to when Red wins the champion seat from Green: Red did it to prove himself to Green, but of course, angsttttttttt. More pain. Red runs up to Mount Silver without letting anyone know, giving Green the guilt trip of a lifetime. He actually stays in the champion room, it being the last place he saw Red. Lance has to step up as champion, and they’ve closed off the champion’s room because Green’s locked himself in there. The Elite Four do their best to care for him, but he barely eats or drinks. There’s exactly one camera in the room and they check it almost religiously because they care, and one day someone (Agatha maybe? Or Lance, for plot purposes) checks it because something’s happening with Green’s Pokémon. 

Green, if you haven’t figured it out yet, is depressed. As fuck. No one (but his Pokémon) knew he was cutting himself, and the Elite Four rush him to the hospital because GREEN. IS PASSED OUT. IN A POOL OF HIS OWN BLOOD. The doctors tell them and Daisy (because FUCK OAK) that it’s unlikely he’ll survive without his mate, even if he is Green Oak. They desperately take over all the media outlets and let anyone and everyone know that Red needs to be found, stat. They offer a reward, literally anything. ANYTHING.

And then they get a tip that “Hey, I battled this super-strong guy on top of Mount Silver, and I think it might be your guy?” (It’s Gold, probably, and you can also hear Silver in the background, probably, because I’m also weak for preciousmetalshipping (“Oh, yeah, and that reward...?” “WE DON’T NEED THE REWARD, IDIOT.”)) And, of course, like the fucking whipped adults they are for this angry smol teenager, the Elite Four immediately set to climbing Mount Silver. (Also LANCE, in one of those parkas with the fur-lined hoods? Please.) (The Elite Four may or may not have psuedo-adopted Green)

But RED, Red actually knows the big stuff going on down below because of Blue/Green/Leaf, and possibly Gold and Silver and/or Crystal/Lyra. And he immediately latches on to even the prospect of Green, because he’s his mate???? Like the pain has certainly not dulled and he still loves him??? So once he hears you better believe he is FUCKING down that mountain.

So Elite Four search the whole mountain but the only trace of Red they find is his old hideout? They search for a week but he’s just not there, so they dejectedly head back down and resign themselves to praying to Arceus very forcefully that Green pulls through.

And when they get down to the hospital they just find out that this week-long feud (because Red knows that mountain like the back of his hand at this point) between the hospital staff and this desperate, sleep-deprived (because he’s been up for a week straight arguing, when the staff at least try to get him to sleep he tells them all matter-of-factly that he’s been awake longer) lean guy wearing Red’s hat and jacket is happening??? Because although a lot of people know sign Red doesn’t know it because Green always translated for him when they were little and he just wrote things down or really intimidated people into going away??? He keeps trying to see Green and tries to prove he’s family/related to him by showing them that they’re bonded, but Red’s family and the Oaks couldn’t sign the bond agreement because they were too young to legally have been bonded? And once they could sign it themselves they really couldn’t because of Pokémon journey/they were never at the same place long enough really/Red thought Green hated him and Green was just Teenage Angst Green??? So legally they’re not in the system but as soon as the Elite Four see Red it’s all “WE’RE LECTURING YOU LATER JUST COME WITH US”.

So that’s how Red gets to see Green for the first time in years. The Elite Four leave them alone but whenever they check in or stop by Red’s either sleeping full-on clinging to Green or touching him (NOT LIKE THAT) or holding his hand and quietly, raspily telling him what’s happened since he last saw him. There’s also AT LEAST twelve Pokémon stuffed in there at all times, so.

And a few days later when Green wakes up the first thing he sees is Red. In this order, he stares at him, shrieks (waking Red up, ‘cause he’s been sleeping), punches Red in the face, starts sobbing and crying, and hugs Red. Red, of course, is surprised, but hugs Green back and starts silently crying himself. The Elite Four rush over at the commotion, because PARENTS, and see what’s up. Then they quietly file away, smiling to themselves.

Red and Green sign the bond agreement before Green gets discharged, and after The Reunion while the Elite Four (one by one) makes sure Green is okay the others chew Red out. Majorly. Less about camping on a freaking death mountain for years and more about deserting Green. Red quietly apologizes and promises it won’t ever happen again, which is basically the first time he’s ever spoken out loud to them directly.

The hospital staff also apologizes to Red for not letting him see Green, but he tells them he completely understands, because if someone burst in all wild-like claiming to be his most dire patient’s mate he wouldn’t believe them either. Green, however, is planning to go to town on them, but Red, the Elite Four, and his Pokémon say a firm no and drag him out.

And of course the League has actual rooms and stuff??? So they stick Red and Green in one and tell them they better be on the track to making up when they get back. They close the League for a bit longer (it’s been closed since the EMERGENCY ALERT: FIND THIS TRAINER *most recent picture of Red* went out) and hike up Mount Silver again - this time slower - to fetch the rest of Red’s stuff, since he literally nyooooomed down the mountain with six Pokémon and a backpack of Full Restores and Max Revives. No food. No money. No water. Just the ‘Red Essentials’.

So for the first day they basically avoid each other like the plague because Red thinks Green needs space to process this all and Green thinks Red needs space to intergrate back into society (even though there’s no one else there). They eventually start to make up and when the Elite Four return they literally are greeted by this grinning couple who are perpetually holding hands forever and only split to use the restroom or whatever. They groan and pull straws like forty thousand times to decide who’s giving them ‘the talk’ because “You cheated, Lorelei!!!!” “Lance we all see that straw behind your back.” “Agatha WHAT THE FUC-” “Bruno no you cannot break the walls to avoid pulling straws”.

And while that’s happening slowly all the trainers/main protags/rivals that Red and Green have met are showing up? To congratulate them on their *jokingly* ‘engagement’ and whatnot. And they just stay (“Hey these rooms are pretty nice.” “I CALL THIS ONE!!!!”). And suddenly the Elite Four are having visions of horny teenager orgies even though most of them have coupled up.

On a last minute panic-decision they confisicate everyone’s phones and Pokémon and everything and lock everyone in the League’s threatre room (yes, they have one) and have them watch a sex ed film. When they come back Gold’s making sex noises constantly, basically everyone is bright red, and N is watching the film determinedly while asking Touya questions (because I CANNOT resist isshushipping) (The Elite Four where actually pretty skeptical when N and Touya dropped by (Lance practially drooled over the sight of Reshiram and Zekrom) because age difference??? But then they saw N playing with everyone’s Pokémon like he was a Pokémon and just went “Oh. Oh okay. So this is the one whose innocence we should be concerned about.”).

Anyways that’s how Kanto’s Elite Four ends up like professional babysitters? 

I know I didn’t mention what were their secondary A/B/O genders but that’s up to whoever maybe-actually decides to take this on. The usual Alpha/Omega relationship would work though either of them could be Alpha or Omega, or even same secondary sex (Ex: Alpha/Alpha or Omega/Omega) would work. I may or may not decide to circle back around someday and write this, but anyone can use this idea. Just please give me credit for the prompt and PLEASE. I BEG YOU. LET ME KNOW WHEN IT’S DONE AND WHERE I CAN FIND IT. I WOULD LOVE TO READ IT.

[echoeternally]

Mini Gift

It’s @mrnerdling‘s birthday, and I wrote up a longer story for the day. However, I also wanted to write a small thing based on another suggested pairing! So, I did, and it’s sloppy, but I tried to cram it in within like...I dunno, four hours between research and writing.

Anyway, I know extremely little about Pokémon Unite, so it’s going to be rather choppy and probably have nothing to do with the game. (I didn’t even include evolutions because that hurt my brain to consider evolving back and forth, which I think they do in Digimon, but not Pokémon.) But, hey, it was worth a shot, and I experimented.

Just a cute fic to feature some ship teasing that he should enjoy. And I hope you do too!

...

Four trainers joined together at the Aeos Island team rooms. While they carried on discussing strategies for their upcoming practice, they sent out their current selected Pokémon, allowing them to gather together while their trainers continued planning.

 Lucario folded his arms and surveyed his team, noting his usual companions in Cinderace and Slowbro. He tilted his head at the appearance of Blissey, a newcomer to the team and the island overall.

 “Huh, first of our team newcomers.” Lucario nodded. “Welcome aboard, Blissey! My trainer is the team captain, so I try my best to reflect her efforts.”

 “Oh, thanks for the welcome!” Blissey bowed her head and smiled. “It’s going to be fun getting to join everyone.” She blinked and blankly stared at the group. “To be honest though, I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.”

 “Me neither,” mumbled Slowbro.

 “But…you’re already on this team.”

 “…I am?”

 “Don’t worry, Slowbro’ll come to life in a little while.” Cinderace rubbed his nose and smirked to Blissey. “Name’s Cinderace, and I’m part of this team too. Our trainers tried to match the variety in roles among Pokémon for this island.” He pointed at the egg in Blissey’s hands. “You’re a healer, right?”

 “Normally, yes.”

 “Right, so there are a few different types of roles for each of us,” went over Lucario. “Since you have a focus on healing, that makes you our team’s new Support member. Slowbro can make strong blocks, so he’s our team Defender.” He pointed at Cinderace. “Since he’s fiery and likes to battle, Cinderace is our Attacker.” Lucario rubbed behind his head. “We’re supposed to have someone that’s quick around the field, who is the team Speedster. I suppose you’ll meet him later.” Lucario shrugged. “As someone that tries to cover multiple roles in one, I do my best to be the All-Around type on our team.”

 “Wow.” Blissey brightly smiled. “This already sounds complicated. I love it!”

 “It takes a bit, but you’ll get into it after a few rounds,” offered Cinderace. “Since we’re just practicing today, though, I don’t imagine it’ll be too rough on you.” He stretched and winked to her. “Basically, we just need to worry about scoring more points than the other team, and that’s the idea of the game.”

 “Each role helps determine how well we perform,” brought up Lucario. “So, with that, we’ll let the rest get resolved on the field.”

 “Ooh, my trainer is calling me over that way,” pointed out Blissey. “What do we do by the benches?”

 “…Wait for your turn to practice, I guess,” determined Cinderace, glancing at Lucario who shrugged.

 “Neat!” Blissey wandered off from the group. “I still don’t get any of this!”

 “Well, waiting won’t help much,” mumbled Cinderace. “…Huh. Hey, Slowbro, they’re calling you over too.”

 “…Who?”

 “Your trainer, knucklehead.”

 “Oh, ok.” Slowbro blinked and then slowly waddled down the same direction that Blissey had gone in.

 “Guess they want to focus on offensive plays first,” suggested Cinderace. “If those two are sitting on the sidelines, that means it’s you, me, and whoever the newbie is when they get jump in.”

 “That makes sense, since we’ll need to learn covering the field.” Lucario tapped on his chin and nodded. “Ok, so, practices today are mostly relying on us getting Aeos Energy to score points. If we’re doing some offense training to start, that’s the main goal to focus on.”

 “Are we just going on the field as is?”

 “Yep, going right into it.”

 “Huh, should be fun.” Cinderace grinned and lifted a thumb up to Lucario. “Want to see who can score the most points between us two? New guy will probably figure it out and join in.”

 “We do need to work on strategies too.”

 “Where’s the fun if we’re only working and not bringing out the best of each other?” Cinderace slid closer to Lucario, patting his head and nudging him. “Come on, huh? Let’s have some fun with this!”

 “Well…it is technically part of our exercises, tallying high scores—”

 “Aha, knew you’d see it my way!”

 “Just don’t get too carried away,” requested Lucario. He frowned and looked over as Blissey tried talking with Slowbro, who vacantly stared off around the meeting room. “Last time, you knocked Slowbro too hard on the head, and now he seems like he’s back to basics.” Lucario lowered his eyes as he watched Slowbro drool, while Blissey chattered on. “…Or worse, actually.”

 “Coach, you’re thinking way too hard.”

 “Don’t call me that.”

 “Why not? You basically are!” Cinderace jogged in place, getting his feet warmed up. “Going to roll some heads on the field and get the highest scores like you wouldn’t believe!”

 “Do you ever turn over the competitor in you?”

 “Nope!”

 “Well, that does help us.” Lucario shrugged and smiled. “Come on, let’s get ourselves ready.”

 “You’re so cute when you’ve got a big work ethic going,” teased Cinderace, leaning over Lucario’s head.

 “Get off.”

 “Make me.”

 After chasing his teammate to the practice field, Lucario lined up with Cinderace at the starting gate. Their trainers readied their supply of Aeos Island balls, ready to capture the wild Pokémon that their partners battled against. The two trainers were joined by a third, who hurriedly sent their choice to the field as they set the practice timer.

 However, the purple gates opened, and Lucario raced off alongside Cinderace.

 “Try to keep up, Luca!”

 “Don’t call me that either!”

 Laughing, Cinderace hurried up the northern route, while Lucario traveled down the southern side. Kicking streams of fire and sliding past his opponents, Cinderace swept at the wild Aipom and Audino. His trainer from the sidelines collected Aeos Energy from the capture.

 “Nice and easy,” cheered Cinderace. “They better get that Speedster straight to work to catch up with me!”

 “Might as well, you’re right!”

 Blinking and halting from the new voice, Cinderace turned around as a yellow blur rushed past him. A loud clap rang out, as lightning bolts danced through the air and zapped at the wild Pokémon nearby.

 The striker rabbit watched as the blur raced around, snatching more Aeos Energy before running for a hoop. Jumping up, the thunderclap cat slammed in a ball of energy, scoring points for the corresponding trainer.

 Setting down, Cinderace gawked as the cat beamed to him.

 “Hey there, sorry for the interruption introduction,” called the newcomer. “I’m Zeraora, and I’m your team’s latest Speedster!” He swiped below his nose. “Heard that we’re having a little contest of our own, so I hope you don’t mind me joining in.”

 Slowly nodding, Cinderace looked the yellow cat up and down, impressed at just the sight alone. Watching him run around once again, Cinderace flailed around, trying to attack the wild Pokémon to score more energy.

 However, Zeraora’s speed helped him collect bits of energy from the ground and take down emerging Pokémon faster than Cinderace could keep up with.

 Knocking enough energy into the goal, Zeraora grinned as it faded, and spun around to Cinderace, winking to him.

 “Check it out! We scored a load of points on this one.” He waved. “Come on, cutie, let’s see if you can keep up!”

 “Wow, I think this is how I sound to Lucario,” mumbled the flushed face Cinderace. “…Why doesn’t he like me even more?”

 Both rushed to the next goal, knocking more energy into it. Lucario had chased an evasive Audino over, and was able to help his trainer capture them for Aeos Energy. Once that was done, however, Lucario gawked as Zeraora raced past him, jumping up and slamming more energy into the nearby goal.

 “Wait, what?” Lucario fumbled back and stared up at the cat hanging from the hoop. “Are you the new speedster?”

 “Nice, you’re the team captain!” Zeraora grinned. “They told me you’d be handsome, and they weren’t kidding!” He dropped down and ran for the next wild Pokémon. “Come on, little guy! Let’s see if you can keep up with me!”

 “…He’s like Cinderace, but worse,” muttered Lucario as he blushed.

 As they continued scoring points, practice time ticked away and ran out. Checking over the final scores, Lucario gawked at how high Zeraora’s score was, in spite his late start. Cinderace had scored the lowest, which was quite unusual for him. Turning for the rabbit, Lucario raised an eyebrow, as Cinderace shrugged and gazed back to Zeraora, beaming from his results.

 “Ha, check it out!” Zeraora placed a hand on his hip. “Didn’t think I’d score so high, but you guys made competing pretty fun. I think we’ll make a strong combination!” He winked to his teammates and wandered toward the exit. “I wonder who else is on this team? I think they were both pink…”

 “Well…at least he’s fast,” decided Lucario.

 “He’s amazing, and I have to know more,” rambled off Cinderace.

 “Look in the mirror.”

 “He’s even better than me!”

 “That’s not what I—”

 “Best newbie ever!” Cinderace hurried after him. “Hey, Zera! Tell me more about yourself! Like, everything!”

 Rolling his eyes, Lucario slapped a paw over his head and dragged it down. Sighing, he followed his teammates out from the first practice field, looking to join them for the next session.

 Though Zeraora enjoyed chatting with Cinderace, he would steal glances to Lucario and grin to him, making the captain blush.

 This was certainly going to be a new dynamic for them.

...

Whoosh, there it is!

Yeah, I did my best while hurrying it along. This wasn’t the original gift idea, but I wanted to include both ideas sent to me.

Since I normally write like medieval Pokémon, or otherwise normal stuff where they battle and such, I decided to try following another game, and went with one that all three leads appear in, which was the latest game.

Even though I’ve never touched it, so maybe that wasn’t the best idea, but oh well! That’s what research is for. (Also, there’s other stuff that I didn’t get to touch on about Unite, but alas.)

If I had more time, I’d probably write more, but this is it for this one. Hope you enjoyed the quick bit!

[theheadlessgroom]

(1, 2 and 10, please!)

Thank you!

1. I've always seen Hatty as being a lower-class man, in contrast to my perception of the Bride being from the upper-class, and sort of went from there. As I've mentioned before, I adopted the name Randall Pace from the Slave Labor Graphics comic series; I didn't jive with the backstory they gave Hatty, but I did like the name, and I added in Randall's middle name, Huit, as a nod to one of the headstones in the graveyard. I did a little research behind the name Randall, and I found it was of Irish origin, and from there, I began to construct a backstory with Randall being Irish-American, adding another hurdle that kept him from being with Emily, given the historic prejudice against the Irish in America, in addition to his lower-class status.

As I've mentioned previously, my earliest draft for this blog was very different; in that early draft, Dorian and Emily were engaged to be married, with Randall serving as Dorian's best man as well as helping with his hat and Emily's veil. Emily didn't want to be with Dorian, and Randall found himself between a rock and a hard place, wanting to help Emily escaped her impending wedding (while also falling in love with her), but not wanting to break his childhood best friend's heart. At the same time, Constance (who had been previously engaged to Dorian, and was furious that he'd broken it off, having been suspicious of how many 'tragedies' she's faced) was scheming to get revenge with the help of Ramsley (Beau wasn't in this draft), and the whole house would've fallen under a curse thanks to them. I liked the concept, but I decided to scrap it ultimately and simplify things a lot, and I'm glad I did-I like the backstory I ultimately settled on a lot better!

2. Honestly, given that there is no concrete backstory to Hatty, I was really excited: All the characters I'd written before (such as Nice Guy Eddie from Reservoir Dogs and Bill from Pokémon) were pretty open-ended themselves, but at least had some canon to work with, so with Randall, I pretty much got to build him from the ground-up! All I had was that A) he was beheaded and his head was placed in a hatbox, and B) he's linked to the Bride; his head and her heartbeat are supposed to synchronized, and the Song and Story album specifically refers to her as his bride. So with only those two things in mind, I could run wild from then on!

10. Oh, it's shaped Randall in so many ways! Let's see if I can break it down:

-The death of his father at a young age led to his abstaining from alcohol later on in life.

-Working alongside his mother in order to support the two of them made him deeply value hard work and resilience in the face of hardship.

-The bullying and prejudice he faced from his youth onward made him wary of people being strangely kind to him, given how other children would pretend to be his friend just for a cruel prank; it also made him try to hide his Irish heritage, in an effort to get more job opportunities.

-His friendship with Dorian showed him that not everyone (particularly the upper-class) are prejudiced and classist, potentially paving the way for his romance with Emily.

And those are just the ones that are off the top of my head! There's probably a whole lotta others that I'm just not thinking of right now, but Randall's backstory has defidently shaped him in a lot of ways!

[carlotta-the-nerd-winters]

Rough Diamond - Chapter Three: Into The Unknown Team

A Week Later…

Postwick…

Something she had discovered about Blaze after spending their first night together—he was a snuggle monster. He made a beeline for her bed and buried himself under her quilt and blankets. The fire-type seemed content to sleep by her side and Gloria had to admit, it was nice having a warm plushie-like figure to sleep with at night.

Second thing she discovered about her newest partner—he was insanely fast. Even without the use of Quick Attack, Blaze had some fast feet. Something she was more than happy to have in battle. But chasing after him had been another thing entirely. He’d zip away when she’d tried to get him back into his ball. Eventually, she just gave up after her father told her that out of the three he gave to Leon, Blaze despised his pokeball.

But she had spent the week training and getting to know Blaze a little better. Most of the time, she had been out in the Wild Area and would return home in the afternoon. Charlie and Sonia had uploaded the Pokedex app onto hers and Hop’s phones. Both of their families had gifted them camping supplies and one of those never-ending space bags that were popular in Kanto. All that was left for them was to grab their Dynamax bands from Professor Magnolia.

“Gloria! You’ll be late for the train if you don’t head off now,” she heard her mother shout from downstairs.

“I’m coming!” she shouted back, fixing her black ripped jeans. Glancing one last time in the mirror, she combed her hair back and tied it up into a small ponytail. Maybe I should let it grow out more…

“Gloria Elizabeth Aegis!”

The brunette groaned, grabbing her brown backpack and left her room. Running downstairs, she found Hop waiting in the foyer with her mother and Victor who had Blaze snuggled in his arms.

“Honestly, what could be taking you so long to get dressed? You’re participating in the Gym Challenge. Not Love Islands,” Kathleen clucked her tongue as Blaze jumped out of Victor’s arms and onto her shoulder. “I’ve phoned ahead to the professor to let her know you’re on your way.”

“Thanks Kathy,” Hop smiled, hands in his pockets.

“Call us when you’ve arrived at Motostoke. Be safe you two,” Kathleen told them, looking between the two teens. Victor hugged his little sister before messing with her hair.

“Piss off,” she swiped at him, fixing her hair immediately as he laughed.

“Just have fun you guys. And know I’m betting on you two to take down Lee,” Victor said as Hop beamed. Checking the time on her watch, Kathleen ushered them out of the house.

“We better get going. I can’t wait to get my band,” Hop told her as they walked down the front steps of Gloria’s place. A few Wooloo cried in the distance as the morning sun shone down.

Out of habit, Gloria glanced at the fence that blocked off the Slumbering Weald and found it thrown open. “Hop,” she tugged at his sleeve, pointing it out.

His eyes widened. “Crap. There was a Wooloo there earlier tackling it. I didn’t think it’d actually bust through,” he said and she stared at him.

“You didn’t think a Pokémon using a physical attack move could break down an old wooden fence?” she asked sarcastically, shaking her head at him and headed in.

“What are you doing?” he asked, grabbing her wrist.

“Going to get the Wooloo out of there.”

“But it’s off-limits. Nobody’s supposed to go in there,” he reminded her. “Remember when the professor’s granddaughter went in once, and she came back in a real state.”

Gloria frowned. “Yeah but I went in there too and came back fine,” she pointed out, shaking off his grip and taking her wrist back. “Look, I’m going in there with or without you,” she said, marching on.

Hop groaned and ran after her, glaring at her smile. “This doesn’t mean you’re right. This is just the kind of scene where you simply have to do what’s needed!”

“Whatever you say, Hop,” she responded, letting Rookie out of his ball when the fog began rolling in. “Remember this place buddy?”

“Corvi,” Rookie chirped, looking around.

“There’s a Wooloo that’s gone missing. Take to the skies and see if you can find him from above,” she instructed as he nodded, taking off. He flew through the trees disappearing from their sight. “Stick close. It’s only fog from here on out.”

“Right,” he murmured, standing closer to Gloria as they began walking through. Blaze was staring at the forest in awe. “That Wooloo…where do you think it got off to?”

“Not sure,” she admitted, taking in the surrounding area. The sounds of many different Pokémon cries, singing their tunes. Barely any sunlight managed to break through the thick leaves on the dozens of trees. The air was cool, a slight breeze running through and stirring up the leaves on the ground. The forest hadn’t changed since she was a child.

I wonder if that large Pokémon is still here, she wondered, coming across the small pond. “Careful to not slip,” she told Hop as she jumped on the small stone and got across.

“You seem at home in here,” Hop noted as they continued on, walking across the old, stone bridge. Covered in vines, leaves and moss…it had been here for a long time.

“Yeah,” she agreed, smiling a little. “It’s…it’s hard to explain but there’s just something that calls to me in here. And don’t you think it’s fascinating that time just stands still in here?”

He stared at her as she stood still, gazing softly at the dark forest. “Like there’s someone waiting for you in here,” he said, and she whirled around, beaming at him.

“Exactly. I knew you’d get it,” she said and Hop chuckled, lightly elbowing her in the side.

“I still think you’re barmy,” he winked and grabbed her wrist. “We better keep going or else that Wooloo might be in real trouble.”

She followed as they jogged further in. Just as she remembered from her childhood, the deeper they went in, the denser the fog became. Hope kept a hold on her wrist and eventually moved to her hand in order for them to not lose each other.

“This is mad!” Hope swore, squinting his eyes as they slowed to a walk. “I can’t even see my own hand in front of my face.”

“It gets worse the further we go in.”

“I think I get now why this place is off-limits,” he muttered as a large figure appeared in the fog. Hop flinched at the sight of the large, scarred dog-like Pokémon while Gloria beamed.

“It’s you again,” she smiled as its yellow eyes focused on her again. “Thank you for helping Rookie and I out that time.”

It growled low as she held a hand outwards. It stared at the hand for a moment before sniffing it. It’s ears, which had been previously close to its head were standing up straight.

“We need your help again. A Wooloo has gone missing around here,” Ria continued as it pulled back. It howled, the loud sound forcing the teens to cover their ears and more fog was released, covering the area.

“Ria!” Hop called out. “I can’t see anything. You okay?”

“I’m…I’m fine.” She answered, feeling a little weak in the knees and exhaustion washed over her. Her eyelids felt heavy and she struggled to keep them open any longer. It was if the fog itself was sucking all of the energy out of her body. “Hop…”

He called her name again as she collapsed onto the ground, darkness taking her.

We have waited for you, children of Alastair and Sander.

When she came to, Hop’s golden gaze was staring at her and his brows were furrowed. Behind him were the large, dark trees of the Slumbering Weald. Something warm was on her chest and she looked down, finding Blaze on her with his little paws gripping her grey cardigan.

“Ria, thank Arceus you’re awake,” Hop sighed, holding her tighter in his arms. She soon wiggled out of his arms and rose to her feet, holding the shaking Blaze in her arms. He must’ve been frightened by what happened.

“What happened?” she asked as she put her fingers to her lips, whistling for Rookie to return to her.

“I’m not sure, mate.” Hop admitted. “I was clonked out like you and woke up here. Heard Blaze here crying and saw you unconscious,” he shook his head, staring at her. “Gave me a real fright. Did this happen last time?”

Ria shook her head as she heard Rookie’s cry ring out across the forest. She whistled once more, hearing him draw closer—along with Leon.

“Wha—? Lee?” Hop exclaimed as his older brother broke through some thick bushes along with Rookie. Ria’s Pokémon landed in front of her as Leon checked on the pair. “How’d you manage to find your way here? You’re pants with directions. You always get lost.”

Leon shot him a glare. “Oh, that’s nice to hear from the little brother who had me worried sick,” he snapped at him before pointing his head at Rookie. “I’d been waiting for ages for you two and when you never showed up, I went to Ria’s place. Rookie found me and brought me to you guys.”

Ria crouched down, stroking her partner’s head. “Thanks for getting help,” she said as he nudged her hand.

“Where’s the Wooloo? We were trying to rescue that Wooloo.”

“The little chap’s fine by the entrance. Charizard is with him,” Leon answered, crossing his arms over his chest. “But you two know this place is off-bounds. However, it took courage to come in here all the same. And I can understand well enough why you did it.”

Hop rubbed the back of his neck, smiling. “At least that Wooloo’s all right.”

“Come on you two, let’s get out of this place. You’ll be all right now that I’m here with you,” Leon said, walking ahead. The two soon followed and Ria noticed Hop sticking close to her side.

“You okay?’ she asked him quietly and he nodded.

“Yeah. Just shaking off the shock,” he reassured her with a smile. “Even if we did get an earful from Lee, what an experience. This’ll make a pretty fine first page in the tale of my legend.”

oOo

A Few Hours Later…

After a flock of Wooloo halted their train ride to Motostoke, the teens were walking through the smaller Wild Area outside the great city. Eventually Hop parted ways to have one last training session before the opening ceremony tomorrow. They promised to meet up at the stadium so they could sign up together—something the darker teen made her swear by.

As she was walking along the Axel Lake, Rommie flew out of her pocket with Teddy’s ringtone playing. “Teddy’s requesting a video call.”

“Put him through,” she instructed, coming to a stop. Blaze jumped out of her arms, choosing to run around the area. “Stick close by where I can see you.”

“Bun!” Blaze answered back, disappearing into the bushes.

“Sounds like you’ve got your hands full already,” Teddy chuckled as his image flicked onto the small phone screen. He was the spitting image of their father—the same black hair and the Sycamore grey eyes—but he had a large scar across his left eye from a Pyroar a few years ago. Teddy jokes that it’s the only way people could tell him and their father apart. “I wanted to wish you luck on your journey. Sorry I couldn’t be there to see you off.”

Ria shrugged her shoulders. “It’s fine. People in Almia just don’t get how big the Gym Challenge is. They don’t even have a league there.”

“Aye but all the same, I’ve missed out on a family reunion. Have you got a game plan?”

“I picked up a Scorbunny. Both my fire and flying types will be at an advantage against Milo. I just need to get my hands on either an electric or a grass-type for Nessa’s gym. I’ll be able to find a water-type in Hulbury somewhere for Kabu’s gym.”

“Good. Make sure to follow through on your plan. I’ve got my TV set up to record all of yours and Hop’s matches. Tell him good luck for me next time you see him.”

“I will,” she promised as Blaze’s cried out. Frowning, she, and Rookie rushed over to where her smaller Pokémon just as a small explosion erupted. Dirt and dust flew into the air and Ria coughed a few times, swiping it away. “Blaze? Are you okay?”

“Bun, bun,” the small Pokémon confirmed as she discovered a small, lighter coloured Budew shivering behind him. Blaze was protecting it from his stance, and she glanced to where he was glaring. A couple of Nickit were on the ground, clearly injured and growling at Blaze.

They were attacking this Budew. Or at the very least antagonising it, she realised, running over, and picking up the Budew in her arms. “Rookie, use Air Slash to clear them away,” she ordered as he sprung into action. Using his large wings, he sent gusts of razor-sharp air pockets to whip them away. Only one hung onto the ground and sprinted towards Blaze once the air died down. “Blaze, use Quick Attack.”

Blaze disappeared for a split second before reappearing and knocking into the last Nickit. The collision sent the dark-type flying through the air and landing on the ground, completely knocked out. Seeing the enemy defeated, the fire-type spun around to flash them a wide grin.

“Good job bud,” Gloria complimented and knelt down to gently place the Budew onto the ground. A flash of light caught everyone’s attention and it turned out the source was none other than Blaze himself. Having seen an evolution in progress plenty of times at her father’s day care, the brunette watched in fascination. His body began to grow in height and width, his ears getting longer and flopping down. When the light disappeared, Blaze had finished his evolution and was staring at his paws in fascination.

“You got him to evolve already?” Teddy’s voice interrupted her stare, alerting her to the fact that he was still on the phone. “That was too quick. What kind of training regime have you been doing with him?”

“The same one as Rookie’s,” she answered, eyes flicking over to the floating Rotom phone. “Rommie, scan Blaze and bring up his Pokedex entry.”

“Okie dokie,” she chirped, quickly scanning Blaze’s form and brought the information up on the screen.

Raboot, the Rabbit Pokémon and the evolved form of Scorbunny. It’s thick and fluffy fur protects it from the cold and enables it to use hotter fire moves. It kicks berries right off the branches of trees and then juggles them with its feet, practicing its footwork.

“Congrats on evolving, Blaze,” she smiled as he checked on the Budew. Seeing how he checked for injuries had Gloria smiling widely. She also couldn’t help but stare at the different coloured Budew. It’s outer layer was a brighter green and the little bits of petal on its front was purple instead of the usual darker green. It took her a moment to realise that the Budew in front of her was an infamous ‘shiny’ Pokémon. Gloria had planned on obtaining a Pokémon for Nessa’s gym and the Budew line tended to have higher special attack stats. “Hey Budew,” Gloria caught its attention and smiled. “How would you like to come with us?”

Budew glanced at Blaze who gave her a nod. Encouraged, Budew walked closer to the teen and lightly tapped its head against the outstretched Pokeball. After disappearing and a few tense seconds later, Gloria had added a Budew to her team.

A quick scan on her Pokedex showed that this Budew was a female and had the ability of natural cure. An ability that would no doubt come in handy during the Gym Challenge.

Gloria released the Budew and pondered over a name. Not wanting for Victor to make fun of her again, she moved away from the obvious choice of Rose. Finally, after musing over a few choices, she smiled at her new Pokémon. “How does the name Pollen sound?”

“Budew,” she chimed happily as Rommie registered the name.

“Welcome to the team, Pollen.”

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Songs: Into The Unknown by Panic! At The Disco and Team by Tova. Both songs have been added to the Spotify playlist for this fic. Each time I'm writing up a chapter, I add the songs I'm listening to when writing said chapter so think of it as a preview. If you wanna check it out, it's called the Rough Diamond Playlist. 

Thanks to everyone who's kudos and a special shout out to a_human_called_aoife for your lovely comment! Honestly had me smiling while reading it and I hope you continue to enjoy this fic. More comments are appreciated! Seriously, they make writers post work quicker. 

Also, this chapter took a while as I've just moved into my new house and getting a new job. 

[leavaloo]

Soo ... do you think we could do a sorta Protective Raihan and he comes to protect his S/O from Pokémon ( maybe his S/O is injured and he gets angry ) ....?

Ah yes, you’re playing to my strengths here. *Cracks knuckles* Angst time!

I decided to lump these ones together because they were both similar and also because I can write some really good angst for these!

Tags: Violence, blood, straight up a roundhouse kick, and reader is badass.

There were things that were good about the fame that came with being a gym leader. Raihan had enough to support his family, friends and himself, along with the stability that came with his job, with the added bonus of being able to absolutely lose it on the battlefield. However, it was times like this that he really wished he had never become this level of famous.

You had been taken hostage by some grunts from another region. Apparently, they had gotten wind of his fame and how much you meant to him, and decided to straight up kidnap you in the middle of the night. Now, here Raihan was, fuming at the edge of their warehouse that they were simply chilling in.

He had already told authorities about this, but they were taking too long, and they had threatened to kill you at this point. In his hand was a briefcase, and as he hid in the shadows of some trees, he took a deep breath. He tapped on one of his pokeballs, expected the familiar light from his Duraladon being summoned, but there was nothing.

Raihan looked down at his pokeballs, confused. There was no light coming from any of them, and none of them were responding to his touch. He gritted his teeth and cursed under his breath. They had anticipated this. The dragon was, unfortunately or fortunately, unfamiliar with some of the evil practices from other regions, but he was smart enough to realize that they were using a jamming signal to mess with the pokeballs functionality.

After another deep breath, he brought himself from the pits of anxiety, and started to allow his rage to build up. He entered the building, and several people clad in black awaited him. They smirked at his entrance, obviously praising themselves, but his focus was mainly on you, duct tape over your mouth and hands cuffed behind your back. And you looked just as pissed as he did.

He swallowed. “I got your money, now let her go.”

“Put the briefcase on the ground, then,” one of the seemingly head grunts told him.

He set the money on the ground, kicking it over to them. In the end, it was a fairly minimal price, at least to him. To others, that might have seemed like the world, but you were the most priceless thing ever, and so 500k worth of pokedollars was nothing.

As they started to count it, he put his hands in his pockets and met your gaze. There was something... off about your demeanor. You nodded slightly to the grunts, and Raihan knew you well enough that it meant to cause a distraction. So he put on his usual little grin, leaned back in a cocky stance, and glared at the grunts.

“Ya know, you can easily get this much just by scavenging around the wild area for a bit right?”

All of the grunts in the area looked up, bewildered and confused.

“What?” one of the dumbly asked, holding the briefcase open. Basically all of them had frozen in their place at his words. Perfect. He had their attention.

Raihan shrugged. “Well, I know y’all are from out of town, and that’s probably why you’re doing this, but if you look around the wild area enough, you can find all sorts of valuables that can add up to big money.”

“Like where?”

Raihan started listing off some of the best places to get items worth a decent amount of money, and some had scrambled to write these places down. Little did they know, the places that he was listing were also by extremely dangerous and territorial Pokemon. Of course, the valuables thing was true, but these Pokemon didn’t take too lightly to stealing their treasure hoard.

All the while, you fidgeted in the background, and while they were completely distracted, Raihan heard a clink of metal, and in a movement like the wind, you stood and straight roundhouse kicked the main guy into a bunch of supplies behind him. The wind was knocked out of him, and thankfully that was enough to surprise the others, giving you enough time to knock both of them out in a couple of punches. You tore the duct tape off of your face, glaring at something behind Raihan.

“Raihan! Behind you!”

He ducked just in time as a fist came flying in his direction, and so the fight began. He allowed his rage to take over, and while they were entirely outnumbered, his roars of defiance and overly powerful punches intimidated those who came near, and knocked out those who had the unfortunate destiny of meeting them. You were just as scary though.

You were usually the sweetest thing possible, what with your Sylveon cuddling up to you at every opportunity, and making cute little cookies for Raihan when he had a tough day at work, or peppering him with thousands of kisses cause you missed him so much. All these little cute things you did, and he watched as you roared just as terrifyingly as he did, though you mostly used your legs to counter every attack that came your way.

Of course, you two had also taken damage, and though you had won by the end of it, blood had started to run down the side of your head, Raihan had a bloody nose and a cut on his cheek, and you two had bruises everywhere. The grunts were strewn about, groaning in pain, and the two of you just stood, panting and exhausted.

“I...” Raihan started through a bloodied grin in your direction. “I didn’t know you could fight!”

You wiped some of the blood away from your face and laughed. “I bet you didn’t know I could lockpick too, huh?”

“Nope!”

Raihan heard sirens outside, and the sound of footsteps rushing in, but all he cared about was holding you close. You collapsed into his arms, tears threatening to break the corners of your eyes. Leon came rushing in afterwards, as did a couple of other gym leaders, all making sure that they were okay. After a quick health check for both of you, the grunts were rounded up and dragged into various police cars, the money that was strewn about gathered and handed back to Raihan, even though he protested, and the two of you decided to take a week to yourselves. Three of those days were spent recovering and sleeping. The rest of the week was spent turning off every electronic and just spending it with each other.

[himbowelsh]

webgott + jane/ chicken pox

a little fall of meme can hardly hurt me now  ( accepting )

AN:  this is almost certainly not what you were hoping for, but do you have ANY IDEA how much i’ve missed this little family??  writing jane??  this is officially part of the single dad web au and i regret nothing

It takes exactly thirty seconds of Googling for Joe to declare Webster banned from the house.

“What?” Webster exclaims, bracing himself against the doorframe as his fiancé blocks his way. “Are you serious? This is my house.”

“Our,” Joe corrects, because this is the hill he’s willing to die on, but not one Webster should. “The day I moved in, it became my house, and I’m temporarily kicking you out.”

“This isn’t funny, Joe. Let me in.”

“Nope,” Joe declares, and moves to slam the door in his face. Webster blocks it, and nearly gets a broken shoulder for the trouble. He’s nothing if not determined, the idiot. Gritting his teeth, Joe moves to shove him out, but Webster takes advantage of his loose stance to push himself further inside.

“My name is on the lease, so you can’t evict me — Joe, seriously, what the hell?” Finally, Webster pushes his way inside; he stands in the middle of the living room, hands on his hips. Webster’s got a Dad Mode, obviously learned through experience, and it’s in full gear now; he looks like he’s about to take away Joe’s X-Box for a week, though the genuine anger on his face speaks for itself. “What are you trying to do?” he demands, taking a step forward. “My kid’s in there, and she’s sick, so what do you mean I can’t be in there with her —“

“She’s got spots, Web,” Joe interjects, voice flat. “They showed up while you were at the store. Her arms are covered in them.”

Webster processes this for a moment, understanding dawning across his face. “Just chicken pox, then? Okay, that’s not so bad.”

Joe snorts, running a hand through his hair to force it back. When Webster raises an eyebrow at him, he just shakes his head. “That alone tells me you ain’t ever had chicken pox. So you’re gonna stay out of this house until Jane’s better, and I’ve deep cleaned everything. Not taking any chances.”

“Joe. Come on.” Webster’s incredulity is clearly toeing the line of frustration, but he doesn’t get it. “It’s just chicken pox.”

“Yeah, for her, because she’s ten.” Joe sweeps a hand towards Jane’s closed bedroom door — brightly decorated with drawings of Pokémon, sea creatures, and cartoon characters. Behind it, the poor kid’s laid up in bed, sheets thrown off because she’s too hot. Her dark curls are a tangled mess, since she couldn’t be bothered to tame them this morning; but they can’t quite hide the bright red rash steadily creeping up her neck. Joe was freaked out for a few minutes, before he recognized it. Once you’ve had chicken pox once, you never really forget those splotches, or the goddamn itch. “For her it’s just a little thing, sure. It’ll be over in a week. But in adults, it’s not so little.”

“Oh, come on —“

“Chicken pox is twenty-five times deadlier in adults.”

That shuts Webster up.

“I — you —“ He fumbles for words for a moment, the gears in his pretty little head apparently jammed up. “Have you —“

“Yeah, Web, I’ve had it before. Gave it to my whole family when I was six.” He rolls his eyes, before they catch on the plastic bag in Webster’s hand. Leaning across the room, he gets just close enough to pluck the bag from him, and immediately starts pawing around inside.

“Whatcha get, whatcha get... Tylenol, good.” He tosses it on the counter. “Children’s vitamins, weird, but okay — seriously, Web?” He holds up a shark plushie with unnervingly large, glittering eyes. 

“They were on sale,” is Webster’s only defense. “And Jane loves getting new toys when she’s sick!”

“Amazing you didn’t raise a spoiled brat.” Joe returns to the bag with a snort. Pulling out a pack of mango orange juice — the only thing Jane will drink when she’s sick, apparently — he finally lays out Webster’s haul on the counter. For a moment, he scrutinizes it, lips pursed. “You’re gonna have to go back,” he finally says. “She’ll need calamine, for the itching. You can find it in a bottle, or a little can that sprays... and who can you stay with ‘til this blows over? We could ask Lip, he’s got an extra room, or — could you call Hoob? Dukeman?”

“For god’s sake, Joe,” Webster groans, “I’m not going anywhere, just to leave you to take care of my sick kid!”

That actually bites. Joe goes still, words dying in his throat. His gaze stalls on the counter for a moment, intent, before he rounds on Webster. This is a conversation they’ve had before — many, many times before — and he didn’t think they’d need to have it again.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he demands, voice low instead of harsh. “You really think I mind it? You think when I moved in here with you guys, when I put that ring on my finger, I wasn’t signing up for this?” He pauses for a moment, drinking in the silence, before throwing his hands in the air. “Jesus, Web. Shit. If we’re still on that page —“

“Alright.” Webster, at least, looks appropriately shamefaced. In any other situation, this could easily spiral into an argument — not like they haven’t gone to war over dumber stuff — but now isn’t the time or place. He sighs, raising his hands in surrender. “I’m sorry. It just... feels wrong to leave you on your own.”

Jane’s not bad company at the best of times. Actually, Joe likes hanging out with her more than he does with her dad. At least Jane can put up a good fight in any video game — even the ones she’s technically not allowed to play — and she’s got enough stories to fill a library. Half of them, Joe suspects, she’s just making up off the top of her head, but Jane’s got an imagination like a firecracker. Her drawings are always brimming with color and life. When she brings them to her dad or Joe for inspection, she demands constructive criticism, and takes it seriously. Jane’s always busy — if she’s not drawing, she’s reading, and if she’s not reading, she’s writing, and if she’s not writing she’s caught in a very intense make-believe game in the backyard — but somehow she still finds time to spend with the adults.

It’s not like Joe doesn’t like Jane. It’s not like being around her is some burden or anything. Hell, he thinks he even loves her a bit — in a way he never imagined getting to love a kid of his own. He loves Webster, and Jane means the world to Web, so it’s simple as that.

And Web thinks he wouldn’t want to take care of Jane while she’s sick? Jesus.

“You kidding me? We’ll have a great time. Jane’s been trying to get me into Harry Potter, anyway, and you gotta show your kid Star Wars… I don’t trust you with the greats.” His topic shift is clearly a dismissal of the entire argument. Good old Web doesn’t get the hint.

“But you shouldn’t —“

“Fuck’s sake!” Joe exclaims — and if he wasn’t genuinely mad before, he is now. His tone lowers a second later, mindful of Jane in the other room, even if it’s hardly the first time she’s heard the two of them tear at each other. Instead, Joe settles for tossing the plastic bag on the ground, in blatant defiance of Web’s “pick things up” rule, and glaring at him. When Web gapes at him, incredulous, Joe just raises an eyebrow. Whatcha gonna do? Come over here and pick it up? It’s probably got chicken pox on it.

“You,” Joe says in a low voice, “are gonna let me do this for you. I’m gonna look after Janie. You are gonna go to the store and get some calamine, for shit’s sake, and then you’re gonna call up Hoobler and ask if he’s got a spare room. You can get whatever you need from our room, but I want you outta here, Web.”

Webster is silent for a moment, like he has to thoroughly chew his thoughts before saying them. His sigh, when it comes out, shakes a bit. “Joe…”

“Just let me take care of you,” he says again, and sees the exact moment Web breaks.

“What sort of lotion do we need again?”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joe’s encountered Sick Web in the wild before. He’s a drama queen if they ever existed — clingy, listless, and depressive. If he can manipulate you into doing something for him, he will; if he needs to act sicker than he is, he’ll damn well do it. If he gets you sick, he’ll have no remorse. Flu season in their house still feels like a bad dream, one Joe prefers not to revist.

Sick Jane, in comparison, is a dream.

“It’s so nice not to be in bed,” she chirps, sounding downright cheerful as she balances a soup bowl in her lap. Joe keeps an eye on her — not just because she’ll be devastated if she spills on her octopus PJs, but because of the scratching. Jane’s a sneaky scratcher. Joe’s caught her doing it at least twenty times today, and no matter how much he hammers the point home that she won’t get better if she keeps scratching at the things, she doesn’t quite get it. There’s a patch of spots just under her chin that are really giving her trouble, but other than that, she’s holding out well.

“It’s only if you’re up for it, okay? You start feeling tired and it’s back to bed.”

Jane makes a face at him. Joe rolls his eyes and makes a face right back.

“So,” she says, having seized control of the remote. “What do you wanna watch now?”

“I dunno, the amount of movies we’ve watched this week —“

“You want to watch a cartoon? Some of the new Marvel ones are supposed to be good, I haven’t seen them.”

“Meh. We could. Ooh, how about Young Jus—“

He’s cut off by the sound of hammering — not at the door, but at the goddamn window.

Jane yelps as a splash of her soup hits the couch cushions; Joe nearly falls to the floor, scrambling for the first weapon he can find, which happens to be the remote. The curtains are half closed to the cool night, which means anyone outside could see in if they got close enough — and, as Joe approaches the windowpane, he can see a white hand pressed to the glass.

It clicks for Jane first. “Oh my gosh,” she gasps, leaping from the couch. “Daddy!”

Joe has to fight the urge to groan as Webster’s smiling face appears in the window. How many times is this, now — eight? Nine? It’s been almost a week since Web left, but he sure hasn’t let himself be forgotten. Every day, he stops by… either to see Jane and leave gifts, or to see him and leave gifts. Collectively, they’re now three books, two plushies, three video games, three DVDs, and a dozen snacks richer.

At the moment, though, Webster’s not carrying any bags. He doesn’t seem to have shown up with anything — just himself.

It’s also impossible to hear him through the window, but to Jane that doesn’t seem to matter.

“Hi, Daddy,” she says, pressing her hand to the outline of Web’s in the glass. “Are you okay? Are you staying safe? Look at my spots, these ones are starting to get scabs. Joe’s been making soup every night, I’m so tired of it — can you get me a fruit salad? I like the hammerhead you brought over—“

Heaving a soft sigh, Joe steps back, giving the two some space. Knowing Jane, she can go on for a while… and she’s missed her dad. Rather than intrude on the moment, Joe slips out the kitchen door, into the backyard. The night air is sweet, waking him up in all the places exhaustion was starting to weigh on him. He closes his eyes, tilting his head to bask in it. The temptation to light up a cigarette is strong, but he’ll never hear the end of it from Web if he found out, so Joe just sits in the steps, arms braced against his knees as he stares into the night.

Sure enough, a few minutes later, footsteps echo around the side of the house.

“Oh, scarecrow. I think I missed you most of all.”

Joe exhales, deep from his chest. “That why you’ve been coming around every day? Careful, Web. I’m gonna start thinking you’ve got a crush on me.”

“Now, more than ever,” Webster replies, and the sweetness in his voice takes Joe aback.

When Joe looks over, he finds Web standing with his hands in his pockets, silhouetted against the porch light. His expression is open, warm — and his eyes might be glittering a bit too, which, crissakes Web — vulnerable in a way that leaves Joe feeling unmasked.

These are not the sort of feelings Joe knows how to deal with. He shrugs, eager to shake them off.

“Hey, you know, you don’t come back soon and Jane and I might take over this place for ourselves. We’re thinking of putting in a movie theater… indoor swimming pool…” Web is still smiling at him, and it leaves Joe feeling a bit weak. The bravado in his voice slides away, tone gentling. “A few more days, yeah? You saw her. She’s doing great. As soon as those spots scab up, she’s all yours.”

“You’re doing a great job, Joe.” And, because Web can never resist making everything ridiculously sappy, “Thank you.”

Joe shrugs, and has to look away. “Next time you visit, bring a pizza or something, huh?”

“I do have something for you, actually. Jane, uhh — Jane told me to give it to you.”

“Yeah?” Interest piqued, Joe turns back. “What?”

Web isn’t smiling now. He actually looks a little mortified. Sterling himself, he shuffles his feet, clearing his throat. “I — okay, Jane told me, remember, she said I had to —“

“Web.”

At last, Webster cracks. He raises a hand to his lips, and — to Joe’s amazement — blows a massive kiss.

“Thank you,” is all Web says — and he doesn’t get upset, even when Joe almost falls over cackling.

Any time, Web, he thinks, gripping the porch railing for dear life. Any time.

[underrated-cos]

𝙇𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙇𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙀𝙡𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙘𝙞𝙩𝙮

𝗥𝗮𝗶𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗫 𝗢𝗙𝗖

𝑃𝑅𝑂𝐿𝑂𝐺𝑈𝐸

---------------------

Former Alola League champion and Current member of the Kalos Elite 4, Uila (oo-ee-la) Naga sets off to the Galar Region, in hopes of growing on her personal journey and forgetting the past. With a strange mixture of Electric and Dragon type Pokémon (along with plenty of others) she makes her way through the region. With her knowledge on both Z-Power and Mega Evolution, she is not afraid to prove her strength. When she encounters a Gigantimaxed Pokémon in the wild area, her blood starts to pump with excitement. Before she could oven call out her firstmove, she is interrupted by a pair of rivals.

----------------------

Uila pulls her hair behind her ear as she reaches to grab her bag from under her seat. She could feel her Pokémon squirming excitedly in their pokeballs, undoubtedly as excited for this new chapter in their life as she was.

She slides the large travel bag over her shoulders, along with a mystery Pokémon in a box from Diantha. She hadn’t checked the box and wanted to wait until she was at least settled into a hotel room before looking inside the medium-sized box that held a new friend.

She steps off the plane with vigor, eager to start her new journey and begins the walk to Hammerlocke, cutting through the wild area instead of hopping on a train. Her partners wriggle restlessly in their pokeballs.

“Alright alright, calm down you guys, once we get to a good area to relax you can stretch.” She laughs lightly. Almost all of them calm down, all except for her best friend and all-time partner. She sighs, grabbing the ball off her belt and holding it up to her face.

“You are really adamant about this aren’t you?” The ball wriggled in reply. She sighs, pressing the release figure on the pokeball, throwing it up in the air. Her Lucario shouted excitedly as it’s released. He looks at her, happy to be out, before running off. “Don’t go too far Lucario! I would rather not spend tonight out here!” He nods and runs through the grass. A little bit in,she sets her bag down, grabbing the pokeballs from her belt and releasing them, before reaching into the smaller bag and letting her secondary team out.

Uila settles down against a tree, watching as Torracat padded up to her, settling into her lap with a satisfied huff. She giggles lightly, watching as Fraxure tackles down Tyrunt, the two rolling around gleefully. She strokes Toracats warm fur and takes in their surroundings, noting many familiar and unfamiliar Pokémon. She eventually sighs, picking up Torracat and setting him aside. She pushes herself up and brushes off her pants.

“Alright guys, we need to get to the hotel, and unfortunately that means you will have to go into your balls.” She hears a few whines in protest. “I know you guys don’t like it, especially those of you from Alola, who got to be out whenever. Unfortunately, I don’t have the space for all of you to stay out, I can only have 2 or 3 out at a time. It won’t be long, I promise. Once we get to the hotel, I’ll get adjoining rooms and let you guys run wild Alright?”

Uila returns all of her Pokémon except for Lucario and Torracat, and places their balls back into her large bag, being careful not to bump the egg. Once she was re-packed, she hoists her bag onto her shoulders. She turns to her partner Pokémon and smiles, “Alright guys, let's get to the hotel. I know you guys want to sleep and relax.” “Lucar!” “Tora Tora!” She laughs, and holds her hands up in an ‘I surrender’ gesture. “Alright alright, we’re moving.” Torracat wastes no time in jumping onto Uila’s shoulders, relaxing and purring softly. She holds her hand out for her Lucario to take, Key Stone on her finger glinting in the light. Lucario grabs it, a matching bracelet on his wrist.

A new journey begins.

[unibrowzz]

My 2020 reviews

All the cool kids were doing these so now I finally dragged my ass into doing them too lmao. 

Albania- Fall from the Sky

A song I swear cursed this whole contest from the moment it won Festivali i Këngës. Like with the shitshow this song caused I just knew the whole year was fucked. With half the fandom whining they didn’t get their first club song of the year to the other half smugly shoving it as their winner despite no other songs being around to compare it to, the whole fiasco just left me knowing that 2020 would end in tears, just hopefully not my own. As for the song, it’s lame. It’s a standard ballad with OBSCENE amounts of autotune, which is weird because the girl can actually sing pretty decently without it, so why they decided to make her sound like a damn computer is beyond me. And WHY did they translate it, haven't the past few years proven that Albania's better off leaving their songs in Albanian? 

Armenia- Chains on You

A bootleg Ariana Grande song, and a really shit one at that. The kind of song only people who think being young, gay and mean counts as having a personality would say is good.

Australia- Don’t Break Me

One of the few decent Australian entries (but that REALLY isn’t saying much coming from me, I barely care they’re in the contest by this point) but marred by a horribly untidy performance and lacklustre lyrics. At least it’s not fucking pop-opera, that’s all I can say. I’d rather listen to the sound of my face being dragged down the runway at Heathrow airport than be subjected to another Zero Gravity.

Austria- Alive

One of those pseudo-jazz dance songs, á la Olly Murs or Bruno Mars (I swear there’s a song like this in every recent contest). I mean, it’s good, but it’s just kinda meh since I’m kinda getting tired of this genre rearing its fedora-wearing head every time a new lineup rolls in.

Azerbaijan- Cleopatra

One of the “better” trashy entries this year, comprised of about five different musical genres, six ancient cultures being appropriated and absolutely zero class. Probably sounds at least 50% better when you’re absolutely steaming drunk and face down on the floor in the middle of a gay bar.

Belarus- Da Vidna

Somehow, this song sounds both very unique and original yet trite and average at the same time. I couldn’t decide whether listening to it was a new experience or if I’d heard it a million times before.

Belgium- Release Me

A song which just drones on till it ends. I would say it’s ripping off the song that won last year, but it forgot that having a chorus stops your song from being three minutes of snooze.

Bulgaria- Tears Getting Sober

A typical breathy mumble-girl song, AKA a genre I can’t fucking stand. Really don’t see the hype with this one, the melody is pretty but the vocals are out for lunch and it’s otherwise completely and utterly boring.

Croatia- Divlji Vjetre

One of the token big dramatic ballads you listen to once, enjoy, then forget about until Darius in the Discord server plays it one night whilst you’re hitting up the radio bot with requests. You’ll find that “nice, but forgettable” is a common theme for this year.

Cyprus- Running

Ironically Cyprus didn’t send a crappy Fuego knockoff for 2020, and I say ironically because a crappy Fuego knockoff would’ve actually stood out this year, and I say crappy because honestly Fuego wasn’t even all that great to begin with. "Running” itself is just one of those edgy tortured soul pop songs which, let’s be honest, would have been paired with an impressive performance which would’ve overshadowed how bland it is. Kind of like “You’re the Only One”. Or even Fuego for that matter.

Czech Republic- Kemama

Standard Afro-pop, a genre we don't often see at the contest so I'll let it pass. I feel like this is the kind of song that’s infinitely better live, and that it would’ve been one of those songs that suddenly became a frontrunner after the semi finals, but I guess we’ll never know eh?

Denmark- Yes 

The quintessential mid-10s Eurovision song. It's got guitars, happy people, Scandinavian origins… it’s just a typical radio guitar song, nothing special.

Estonia- What Love Is

I mean it's better than La Forza. Granted, the sound of someone pissing directly onto a microphone installed in the bowl of a toilet would sound better than La Forza but still. Going back to this song, it’s just... a standard Eastern-ballad with some very desperate lyrics. It feels kind of outdated, if I’m honest. Like something about this just reeks of 2011.

Finland- Looking Back

Yet another dreary, forgettable ballad. It comes to something when the best song they COULD have sent was a party song which sounded like it was from the mid 90s. At least that song was memorable. That said, this one at least has some decent lyrics. Bravo for that I guess.

France- Mon Alliée

France decides to say “fuck it” to being an underground fan-favourite and takes a leaf out of the UKs book by sending the same rent-a-Swede schlock they’ve been sending since 2015. I’m just confused as to why anyone in their right mind would choose to follow the UKs example but you do you France.

Germany- Violent Thing

A rehash of Sweden's entry from two years ago, but this time sung by Justin Bieber circa 2008. Kind of alright if you can stomach the singer's whiny voice, but otherwise pretty dull and kinda forgettable.

Greece- Superg!rl

Hello fellow kidz, we are hearing you like the girl power? The super heroes? The t3xt $p3ech? We made you song, please give us the votes *dabs*

Georgia- Take me as I Am

I mean… this sure is a choice. This feels like one of those songs that everyone memes on because the lyrics are kinda janky and the singer’s voice (and accent) take a bit of getting used to, but other than that it’s just one of those NQ songs for hipster fans to declare as their unironic winner at a later date. All in all this just feels like the male equivalent of one of those mid-10s fat acceptance women’s songs, only a lot shoutier and this time he has more flaws than not being skinny.

Iceland- Think About Things 

A bootleg George Ezra song, performed by a load of disinterested tumblr users in their pyjamas. Because if there’s one thing that sells me on a song, it’s being given the evils by a bunch of nerds who look like they’ll send me death threats for not agreeing with their Pokémon headcanons. To be fair, the song is kind of groovy since it sounds so 70s, but the performance is very off-putting to people who aren’t in the Eurovision loop. And also people who are, because I sure as Hell don’t see the appeal in this myself and this whole performance just feels like Save Your Kisses for Me without the charm. I feel like this would’ve come second or third, definitely with a lot of televotes but either the jury would’ve dragged it down or it wouldn’t have scored enough televotes to win.

Ireland- Story of my Life

A song that’s at LEAST ten years out of date by this point, think like an early Katy Perry, Jessie J or Avril Lavigne song. I’ll forgive it because even though it sounds like it should’ve been entered in 2013 (at the latest), it at least evokes some nostalgic memories of shitty school discos and holiday parks.

Israel- Feker Libi

The female equivalent of the Czech song. Unsurprisingly, people went wild for it when it was released. I guess only women are allowed to sing Afro-pop at this contest. Like with the Czech song, I’ll forgive it since Afro-pop is a cool genre anyway, and even though this is just another club song I can at least see myself dancing to it.

Italy- Fai Rumore

Well, at least my wish of “Italy sends a typical power ballad devoid of anything the mainstream fandom likes” finally came true. It was pretty refreshing to have a year where people weren’t shoving Italy’s entry up my nose left right and centre. In terms of my actual thoughts I can’t deny that the guy has a tremendous voice, but for some reason the song just doesn’t… click with me. I guess I like my male Italian singers a little more gruff and raspy, if you know what I mean. They gotta sound like they smoke at LEAST five packets of cigarettes a day for me to take notice.

Malta- All of my Love

Listen I am 100% rooting for Destiny Chukunyere to win this contest some day but man was this song a disappointment. It feels so… un-special and generic, like it gets the job done and that’s it. It’s not the stand-up-and-belt-it-out soul anthem I’d hoped for, it’s just… there.

Moldova- Prison

All I remember about this song is that it vaguely reminds me of that one Meccano song about the gypsy who makes a deal with the moon or something. And I’ve TRIED to remember more about what it sounds like, trust me.

Latvia- Still Breathing

The one horrible weird song you get every year which overuses strobe effects to the point it comes with an epilepsy warning. Would be bearable if it wasn't for the singer’s insistence that this is actually some feminist masterpiece when it's really just a self-empowerment club song about the singer fingerbanging herself over the fact she writes music.

Lithuania- On Fire

One of the songs everyone thought was going to win at one point, even though it seems like a surefire non-qualifier to me. It’s one of those weird entries, but not the kind of over the top, batshit insane, you’d-have-to-be-drunk-to-enjoy-it weird, the kind of subdued surreal weird. Like this is weed instead of LSD or cocaine weird. Granted my mom, who I consider to be a "typical" Eurofan, actually really liked this song when she saw it in the recaps, so who knows maybe this would have done well with televoters after all.

Netherlands- Grow

I appreciate this song for how artsy and clever it is with its structure, since it starts off acapella and the instrumental builds up with the song until it stops suddenly, symbolising a person’s growth from a child into an adult, and ending suddenly with their death (Geddit? The song’s called “Grow”). But it feels like the kind of song that would be lost on a Eurovision audience. The juries would have taken note, for sure, but the televote… let’s be honest, they’d have been too busy drunk voting for Russia to care about anything else.

North Macedonia- You

Well, it's better than the miserable dirge they sent last year, but given how I'd rather pleasure myself with a steak knife than listen to that song, that really isn't saying much. Going back to “You”, it really just feels like a diet version of Switzerland’s entry from last year, combined with Sweden’s song from 2018. What I’m saying is it’s your average “I’m a man in a club and I want to dance with and probably fuck this hot girl I just met” song, which I a new genre I just made up. You’re welcome.

Norway- Attention 

One of those songs you appreciate because it sounds nice and the singer has a good voice, but instantly forget because it’s really not all that interesting. If I sound like I'm repeating myself, welcome to Eurovision 2020.

Poland- Empires

“Rise Like a Phoenix” but sung by a wannabe Adele and not a mascara-wearing Jesus in a dress. Like a lot of other songs on this list, it’s just average across the board, likeable when it’s on, but instantly forgettable as soon as the next song comes on.

Portugal: Medo de Sentir

Pretty, but also similar to their ill-fated 2018 entry, only with a bit more energy and less pink hair. What I’m saying is this would have been another NQ unless the crowd who enjoy subtle ambience music come in to save it like they did with Slovenia's entry last year.

Romania- Alcohol You

See Bulgaria, because this is practically the same song. It’s just as dreary, just as badly sung (if not worse because holy shit this girl sounds like she’s being suffocated), and I suppose you COULD excuse that by saying she’s drunk or hungover… but I don’t want to listen to someone ungracefully mumble into a microphone for three minutes.

Russia- Uno

A classic big camp party song, the kind of song people who haven’t watched Eurovision since 2003 think wins on the regular. I can see why people would like it (especially in this boring year lmao, I applaud Russia for taking the opportunity to loosen their corset and just send a complete mess instead of their usual clinical vote grabs), but it’s just not something I enjoy. It's the song that plays into the misconception that Eurovision is just a clown show for drunk people, like this is just here to be that one flash-in-the-pan meme song that only entertains people who don’t really care about Eurovision until the day before it airs. Kind of like the old ladies they sent in 2012 (remember them?).

San Marino- Freaky!

San Marino, in true Sammarinese fashion, have yet again sent a decade-ambiguous song which sounds like it was either released in 1978 or 2003. I feel like this would have been one of those songs which could have surprised us if it had a really wacky, creative performance (think like Moldova in 2018), but this is San Marino so you know that would never happen.

Serbia- Hasta la Vista

Insert unoriginal joke about a decade wanting their shitty trend back right here. Okay maybe that’s a bit harsh, especially considering how this song is actually, yanno, unique in comparison to the rest of this year. But it still feels weirdly dated, in a way where I can’t decide whether it sounds like it belongs in 1998 or 2018. I suppose girl power ages a song regardless of when it was released.

Slovenia- Voda

Yet another standard Balkan-European power ballad which you appreciate because it’s well sung, but forget the moment it ends because it’s kinda boring. … Does anyone else have a bit of deja vu?

Spain- Universo

For some reason I feel like this song is shilling itself out to someone but I have no idea who. Aside from the horny people voting solely because the singer is moderately attractive even with that wretched Jedward haircut.

Sweden- Move

Imagine soul but… boring.

Switzerland- Répondez Moi

Imagine Arcade but… in French.

United Kingdom- My last Breath

Not the best the UK could have done, but it’s at least a modern offering unlike the residual dregs of the mid-90s that we sent throughout the 2010s. It’s definitely a bit too generic to have done any better than maybe 15th, but hey at least the cancellation means we won’t have to see it not do as well as the BBC thinks it’s entitled to do, prompting a billion clickbait articles about how Brexit somehow affected our performance.

Ukraine- Solovey

At long last we come to something you probably weren't expecting: a song I actually really like. Which is weird because I usually don't care for or don't like whatever Ukraine vomits into the contest, so I was pleasantly surprised to find a song I liked from them in such a weak year. This song isn’t for everyone, it’s white noise singing which is a very acquired taste, but this is honestly the only 2020 song I find myself coming back to over and over. And it’s in Ukrainian too, so you don’t have to put up with their usual mangled English offerings.

[bard-of-worlds]

The Beginning in Kalos 14

Lilith sighed as she walked through the castle, ever since she had returned from her mission to Kalos she had been missing her friends.  Thankful she had been able to dodge him the last few times she had attended court with Lady Camilla so there was that at least, but her cousin had picked up how she had been lately and had needled her about it but if she was honest about her feelings, then she missed those days of being with her friends, talking about fashion with Serena, teaching Bonnie how to fight and dance, debating Pokémon training tactics with Ash and helping Clemont with his inventions.  But when they returned to the Lumiose City she had to go home because of the threat, yes the…wait, this is….

 Snapping her eyes open she bolted upright throwing her hand across her mouth and noise and immediately activated an Aura skill to block out whatever was in the air.  Looking around she saw she was in a room and she noticed four things first, one; she was in a closed room with golden pollen or…scales dropping from a rotating fan, two; there were three other girls her age with her in the room on beds like the one she was on, three; the room had no windows and only one door and four there was a one way window to let people observe what was happening in the room she was in.  She reached up and caught a bit of the pollen and brought it to her hand as she caused her hand to glow blue and wasn’t surprised when she saw the pollen in her hand gained a golden glow.

 Alchemy, this was created with Alchemy.  I thought Nimue said Aura use had died out here in Kalos, but someone created or sold Dreamer’s Sand to these people.  Probably trying to break them as their fondest dreams are destroyed and all they have lefty is what they want them to have, servants then, but domestic or other?  Whatever I’m so helping Ash and the others learn that trick M’Lady taught me when they finally learn about Aura Users.  Lilith thought as she tried to remember what had happened to her. She looked at the other girls and noticed a few signs that two of them had been wearing well done makeup and the other had on stylish clothing that complimented her figure, with these factors the answer was clear.  She got off the bed and started to pat herself down, smiling when she that while she didn’t have her jacket and her whip, she did have her backup whip and her shoes.  She took of her right shoe and opened a hidden compartment and pulled out a multi tool.  Walking to the door she first unfurled her backup weapon from around her waist and started to pick the lock using her multi tool.  

 Hearing the bolt open she slowly opened the door and saw her main whip and her jacket in a room that had two doors across from each other and a few items that showed the girls in the room she had just left were trainers.  Donning her jacket and putting her backup whip away she picked up her whip and moved and pushed down a switch next to the window, smiling when she saw the pollen that was falling had stopped and looked towards the other door.

 “Okay girl, let’s take stock.  You were with Nimue, Serena and Bonnie.  You noticed you were being followed and Nimue got Bonnie….Serena!  She’s not here, so she has to be somewhere else, was she the target, they’d never use something like that if they knew I was active so she has to have been their target.  But why…question later, find her now.”  Lilith said as she looked at the other door and noticed hinges on her side.  Opening the door as quietly as she could, she peered out and saw that the hallway was empty, trying to hear anything but hearing only silence she moved into the hallway, activating Ghost Walker as she did so she could strike first against anyone she came across.  Ready or not, here I come.  Hope your ready scumbags.  She thought as she moved silently through down the hallway, trying to find her friend.

  Ash dropped the last Buzz Lord trainer in the hallway and looked at the trail he and his team had left behind them, moaning, paralyzed or knocked out gangers and their Pokémon littered the hallway and he gave a small sigh as he shook his head.  Why, oh why do people always choose the hard way, I mean just once I’d like to do this the easy way.  I mean all the times this played out before and they never went the easy option. Ash thought as he looked down the hallway, hoping to find some clue to where his friends were.

 A ganger on the floor snarled as he looked up from where Ash had dropped him and smirked as he reached for a weapon to strike at him with when suddenly he felt fur?  He looked at where his hand was to see Pikachu smiling cutely at him before he gained a savage grin on his face as the ganger paled.

 “PIKACHU!”  Pikachu exclaimed as he fried the ganger.  Ash looked back and shook his head with a sigh as he saw what Pikachu had done.  Froakie and Fletchling finished off their opponents and started to move back towards him, Froakie stopping at a partially open door and looked into it before it dropped back and quickly dashed to its trainer, pulling on Ash’s pants to get his attention.  Ash looked down and followed Froakie’s hand pointing at the door it had found.

 “What is it Froakie, did you find something?”  Ash asked as he walked to the door and opened it, staring with shock before his gaze went hard.  Ash’s eyes saw five girls cowling behind bars and saw three others chained up.  A bloody mattress was alongside the wall the door was on and Ash noticed a few stains that he didn’t want to identify. He moved towards the girls when he saw the ones on the ground move farther away from the cell door and stopped. He looked around and saw a ring of keys on a holder next to the door and walked back into the hallway and collected a few of the weapon the gangers had used and dropped them in front of the cell and threw the keys to the cowering figures.  They stared at him as he turned and walked to the doorway.

 “I’ll close the door; I knocked out the gangers so you should have no visitors.  If everything goes according to plan in a few hours at most the local law should be here, I would fort up in here if you don’t want to run for it.  Go, stay here and barricade the door, those are your choices, I can’t make it for you.” Ash said as he closed the door and walked down the hallway, stopping to give a savage kick to one of the gangers on the floor before he quickened his pace.  I have to find the girls before their put somewhere like that; I can only hope I find Serena and Lilly in time!   Ash thought as he stalked through the hallways.

 “Just when you think you reached the limits of the evil of humanity you seen something like that and you realize you haven’t even reached halfway down there yet, hu gang?”  Ash asked softly as he led the way down the hallway.  He had seen thieves, murders and people out to conquer the world, but why were the smaller groups that were always the sources of such vileness?

 “Pikachu.”

“Froakie.”

“Fletchling.”

 His Pokémon agreed as they followed his trainer.  Ash just let his thoughts run wild as he moved, stopping when he heard a commotion ahead of him.  Around the corner thundered ten gang members and 1 Heracross, 3 Pinsirs and 2 Beedrill.

 “I THOUGHT I HEARD SOMETHING!!  ALRIGHT BRAT! You’ve had a good run but I’d surrender if I were you and maybe we…won’t…kill?”  The leader trailed off as he saw the face Ash was making and the glint in his team’s eyes when they saw them.  He backed up into the squad he had lead and went white as

 “Oh, hello well timed targets, shall we get to it?”  Ash said as he smiled as Pikachu sparked, Froakie formed a water sphere and silvery crescents started to from by Fletchling’s wings.  The gangers started to pale as Ash and his team walked towards them, moving backwards as their own Pokémon started to cower behind their trainers even though they all outnumbered Ash and his team.

 “N n now just surrender and I promise we’ll let you go with no further problems, alright?”  The leader asked shakily as he looked at the monster that was stalking towards him with three Pokémon as backup.  Not even the boss on his worst day has this kind of presence, what did we do to make him so mad!  That was the only thing going through his head as he heard his men start to whimper.

 “Leave him for last; we can question him after we’re done.” Ash said before he and his team charged at the gangers.

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  Lilith moved down the hallway, hugging the wall as she did so that no one would bump into her, no matter who they were when people ran they usually ran down the center of the hallway to force others to the side, a lesson she had learned the hard way once or twice that her teacher had thankfully trained out of her.  One thing for sure, this always made it easy to find what was important in enemy buildings, just make a distraction and follow the runners.  Hearing a commotion ahead of her she saw a few trainers in green shepherding a few girls in maids outfits down the hallway.

 “Come on you idiot, we gotta get these dames to their rooms before we get back to the boss, the way that intruder has been going through us we have to hold him at the throne room.”   One of them snapped at the other as the girls followed obediently.

 “Think this is connected to the…what happened to the boys in the monitoring room?”  The other asked as he looked down the hallway for anything, not even seeing anything he moved on, Lilith moving silently behind them, just in range to hear them.  

 “No, the boss only gave the orders around the same time it happened; there is no way that the intruder is connected to that.” The replay caused Lilith to pause. What are you talking about boys, and can I use it?  Lilith mused before she heard the next words.

 “So far what the intruder is doing is knocking out and moving on, he isn’t killing anyone so I think there’s no way he has anything to do with the deaths of our guys, but maybe he destroyed the equipment.” The other nodded at what he heard and stared ahead of them.  Lilith stopped dead, someone had killed people and destroyed the room they had to monitor this place, so that was why she had escaped so easily.

 “To bad about it though, one of them owed me money, guess I’ll take it from his stash.”  His comment caused the other to give a laugh and a look of contempt.

 “He owed everyone money, I doubt you ever get paid.”  The only replay this gained was a glare as they moved, Lilith meanwhile stayed where she was, thinking about what she had overheard and panicking on the inside. An intruder that’s not killing, Ash it has to be Ash.  This is like when the boss destroyed that slaver base and left them alive, ‘Death is to light a sentence on such crimes, I want them to suffer before they go to judgment.’  Guess some things are a matter of blood, if I wasn’t already convinced about who he is.

 The two gripped at each other as they moved down the corridor, the girls following them oddly silent as they moved down the hallway until they reached a nondescript group of doors that the girls walked to, 5 to a room and after the last one closed the two turned to each other.

 “So back to the throne room or the other place?” The second one asked the first, prompting him to stare at him in a total dead look.

 “The other place in the basement stupid! Didn’t you hear him say to bring the blond to him there?”  The first asked exasperated with his friend.

 “Oh lay off me, you know I had the night shift. Say, did they tells us where they put her Pokémon and that spear thing she had?” The second asked causing to just move on ahead.  Lilith smiled, this was something she could use and maybe she could….

 “Of course they didn’t need to tell us!  It’s where they always put their possessions!” The first said with a snort.

 “Why we don’t sell their Pokémon I don’t know.” The second said with a huff.

 “Cause then we’d step on the toes of those people who deal in the black market.  Why won’t you just wakeup, it’s all hands on deck sot start thinking!”  The first said before he heard a thumping sound and turned to see the other one passed out on the floor.   While he looked around to find what had caused it something wrapped around his neck and he was pulled forward.  He stopped when a hand grabbed his neck and he saw Lilith smiling at him, her eyes dark.  He tried to breath and  

 “How about you tell me where my friend’s Pokémon and weapon is?  And maybe I won’t break your neck for being a part of this travesty?”  Lilith purred as she held him off the ground.  The ganger stared at her in total shock.

 “How’d you get up?  We take girls to Imitation and they stay asleep until we wake ‘em.” He wheezed.  Lilith tightened her grip and forced his eyes to meet hers and he started too sweat as he saw the look in her eyes.

 “Don’t think about that, think about what I want to know.”  Lilith said as she looked at her prisoner.  He gulped as he tried to think about what he could do to get her away from him.

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  Lilith giggled softly as she dashed down the hallway; she had knocked out the ganger she had interrogated and had been able to make it to where he had said and was carrying Serena’s naginata on her back and Fenniken’s Pokéball on her waist.   This is perfect, I have her weapon and her partner, now all I have to do is find Serena, we find Ash and break out of here and call the cops to shut this place down hard.  Lilith stopped when she saw three gangers charge down the hallway and smirked, jumping and willing her hands to glow black as she used another Aura Tech, she struck two of the three as she passed over their heads and as she landed she drew and struck out with her whip, knocking out the last ganger before she moved down the hallway.

 “But nothing says I can’t cause them some trouble before we escape.”  Lilith said with a giggle as she tried to find Serena and cause all the problems for the Buzz Lords she could before then.

  Ash stared down at the leader of the group he and his team had just curb stomped as Pikachu jumped down onto Ash’s shoulder and Froakie and Fletchling stood on either side of him as Ash stood over him.  The man was trembling, Pikachu had taken out most of the enemy’s Pokémon and knocked out most his group and Ash had dealt with the rest in minutes.

 “Now I know you have your reasons for doing this but really, do we have to do this?”  He pleaded as he looked up at Ash and prayed for mercy. Ash looked at him flatly and decided to hurry this along.  He had dealt with a lot of people like him on his journey, a show of force sometime broke people and they were quick to tell him what he asked of them.

 “Two girls were brought in earlier today, one was brought to General Initiation, the other was brought to your boss, where are they?”  Ash demanded flatly as he locked eyes with the person on the floor.

 “The black haired one was to be sent to General Initiation, it’s up a floor and towards the back, you need an an antidote for what is used on people brought there.   The other one the boss asked for, he has a room in the basement where he has people brought to him to to talk to.  They’re inb both of those two places or they’re in the throne room towards the center of the building. That’s all I know so can I go now, please?  And just me, you can do what you want to the others.”  He begged as Ash glared down at him.  The one thing Ash hated more than people who hurt others was someone who abandoned his own.

 “Pikachu, knock ’em out.” Ash said flatly, causing the guy to try and escape, only for Pikachu to shock him into unconscious.  Ash shook his head and moved down the corridor, Pikachu nudge the smoking body and shook his head before he followed after Ash as the others followed them.  After a while they reached a wide doorway with a plaque above it saying stage access. Opening the door he looked to see what looked like the side of a stage, thankfully no one around and a large throne in the center.  Ash looked at his team who nodded at him and they moved into the room, Fletchling going high and taking a circle of the whole room while Froakie stayed in the shadows and Pikachu stayed by Ash.  After a few minutes they gathered back together and went towards a door that had the word stairs above it.  

 “Lilly’s up and towards the back, Serena might be down.  Damn it, I can’t choose who to save, if I leave one of them alone then the other might get hurt.”  Ash snarled as he leaned against the wall.

 “You don’t need to save me Ash, I can save myself.”  A female voice said causing him to turn to see Lilith walk towards him with a smirk on her face and Serena’s naginata on her back.

 “Lilly, thank Arceus you’re okay!  But how’d you get away from them, are you okay?  The guy I talked to said you’d need an antidote do to what they used on people!” Ash said with relief that Lilly had gotten away.

 “I guess I have and immunity to whatever knocked us out.  I woke up before they brought me to wherever that was and I was able to find out that Serena was brought to their boss.  You go first and I’ll come down after, if we find a fork in the path we’ll take them both.”  Lilith said as she looked at door.

 “Follow me Lilly; Clemont should be here soon with the police before too long.  If we’re lucky we can save Serena and find a place to hold out until they get here.”  Ash said as he led the way down, Lilith followed a moment later, not letting her thoughts show on her face.  Great, just great.  It’s a good think I took that one’s short term memory when I questioned him.  Still I hope we can leave sooner than later after this, I so don’t want to answer any questions in an official interview.  Lilith thought as she followed after Ash.

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  “Why the hell did I want my armor to look like this again?  I had a reason for it but I just can’t remember it.” Rex muttered as he finished setting the armor on his right shoulder as the stood before his throne and wondered why he had commissioned such large spikes to be on his shoulders. He looked around and notice that only four gangers come when he called for all members to join him in his room, he would have wanted more of them but beggars can’t be choosers, he was just about to give a speech when a commotion to the front of the room caused him to look up and saw Serena being brought into the room by two more members.  He let his eyes wonder over her body and he had to admit that Ash had good taste.  He thought that he had seen Serena somewhere before but dismissed it as unimportant. Serena meanwhile glared at Rex as he released two Pokémon and picked up two lances.  The first he released was powerful looking dark green dragonfly Pokémon with four wings, two on each side and large red eyes.  The other was menacing looking humanoid hunched-over arthropod with a light purplish inner body and a silvery exoskeleton with a bright purple antennae converge forming a mask with its two small eyes. Below the neck are three pairs of arms, the two frontal pairs of arms are thin, each one tipped with a sharp, black claw. The rearmost pair of arms is the largest, and ends with two large, purple "hands" equipped with two large claws each.  Both moved to stand by their trainer and Serena choose that moment to speak up.

 “So what do you want from me? And where’s Lilly?”  Serena demanded as she struggled against the people holding her.  She was surprised when Rex started to laugh so hard he had to plant the lances into the ground to stay upright.  It actually took him a few minutes to catch his breath before he looked at her.

 “You? Nothing; you’re nobody, just bait for the person who beat Viola.  I was going to offer you as his own personal servant after I had you initiated but I think I’ll just beat him and force him to serve me that way instead.  Maybe I could use the both of you to reinforce your Initiation.  And the girl who was captured with you is having a wonderful nightmare that will end with her entering my service.”  Rex said after he stopped laughing.  Serena went pale when she heard why she had been captured before she went red in the face.

 “He’ll never work for you, and why’d you dress up then, to try to scare him?”  Serena demanded only for him to chuckle.  What’s his deal?  What the hell are they, the way he’s talking he’s more than a gang leader.  I have to find some way to escape from them, I just have to.  She thought eyed the two people holding her, trying to find a way to get her arms out of their grip.

 “No I got my armor on because your boyfriend is here and making a mess of my followers.  He’s already gone through at least a third of them already.”  Rex said causing Serena to stare at him.  She was so shocked that she stopped struggling. I knew Ash was strong but this strong?  He’s doing this because I was captured; he really lives the old man’s virtues, doesn’t he?  Serena thought as she looked at Rex’s two Pokémon.  She knew what the Yanmega was but the other was a total unknown, it wasn’t from Kanto or Kalos, so where the hell did he get it.  Rex followed her gaze and laughed at her look.

 “Don’t know what that one is, do you?  This is my Golisopod, my strongest partner and ace.  I can’t wait to beat that punk into the ground, that’ll take all the defiance out of him.”  Rex said with an evil grin on his face as Serena looked at him with a glare on her face. A commotion from the door to the room caused both of them to look as the body of one of the gangers crashed through the door, breaking it and through it stalked Ash holding his sword and shield in both hands with Pikachu on his shoulder, Froakie by his side, Fletchling flying through the door to hover above him as he looked around the room. He saw Serena being held and his glare centered on the two holding her, causing one of them to loosen his grip, something Serena noticed as she shifted a foot towards the other one.

 “Serena are you okay? “ Ash demanded as he looked around the room.  Rex looked at Ash with a smirk on his face.  This was perfect, he was strong, forceful and brave; a perfect second in command!  Now to get him to heel….

 “So we finally meet Ash Ketchum!  I am Rex Tristo, master of the Buzz Lords!  Our strength in unrivaled among all of Kalos but one thing we were lacking is someone who could strategize!  I had a basic plan for my goals, wondering where I could find someone who could shoulder this burden, and I have finally found him, you! I saw your match with that whore Viola the other day, with those skills added to the Buzz Lords, we will be unstoppable! Join me and together we will conquer this continent, bringing it under our power!  Serve me well and there is nothing I won’t give to you!”  Rex exclaimed as he gestured at Ash as the other gangers in the room looked at Ash, waiting for his reply.  Ash only snorted and shook his head and looked at Rex with such a look of competent that Rex was taken aback.

 “Man, you hear one would be conqueror, you’ve heard them all.  Still you are the only one who wanted me to join him.  So here’s my counter offer, surrender to the police and you’ll probably only get imprisonment for a while.”  Ash said, causing Rex to stare in shock before he went red in anger.  He couldn’t believe that Ash had actually refused him, more that

 “You pathetic fool! This base is so secret that the local law enforcement will never find us!  And if you think you can break out on your own with her, I’ll still have the other one!  So surrender before I do something to your friend that you’ll regret!”  Rex bellowed.  Ash merely smirked at him and stepped to the side before a whip shot from the door from the hallway the striking the one still holding Serena’s arm strongly.  It hit his hands and he reflexively let go of her, giving Serena the chance to grab the other one and throw him at one of the four other gangers and run towards Ash as her living missile brought both of them to the floor.

 “STOP HER!”  Rex bellowed, causing the gangers to start to move to grab her when an Ember attack shot from beyond the door way and hit one before another whip strike hit the other.  

 “Serena, catch!” A voice called before a long stick was towards Serena, she caught it without realizing it was her naginata, and she spun it around and slashed the blade down, scoring a hit on one of her pursers forcing the others back.  Lilith came running into the room and stood beside Serena; Fenniken then came charging towards her trainer, stopping when she was between Serena and Rex, snarling as she stared him down.  Serena looked at Lilith and smiled as Rex stared in shock at her.

 “You okay Serena?” Lilith asked as she watched the gang members start to draw out their weapons as Rex’s Pokémon started to stare down Ash’s.  Lilith looked at Rex and noticed that he had a look of confusion on his face at her presence but saw that while his Aura was active he wasn’t using it and seemed to have forgotten about it. Strange, why would he….oh great someone pulled off the old mind trick on him, I think Kalos just became more complicated.

 “LILLY, you’re okay!” Serena exclaimed with happiness as she realized who was next to her.  Lilith smirked and looked right at Rex before she replied.

 “It takes more than whatever they use to knock us out to keep me down for long!  And idiots like these guys always use the weak stuff.” Lilith smirked as Rex just stared.

 “I’ll still beat you all and then I’ll see how much of your skills are still there when I’m done Ash! And for the police, they’ll never find this place!  The people who do know where this base is are too involved with making money off of us to bother with something like justice!”  Rex declared only to be met with a look from Ash that shut him up.

 “Like my friend Clemont, who I told where you are and then went to tell Officer Jenny personally?” Ash asked with a smirk on his face as Rex went pale.  He did what.  No choice then, time to activate my contingency.

 “You made me do this, I didn’t want to.  Remember, this was because you forced me to do this.” Rex said as he pushed a button on his throne.  Ash looked up when they heard a large and savage looking shrill and then looked at Rex with a hard look on his face.

 “WHAT DID YOU DO?!” Ash demanded with a glare as cries started to echo down the hallway.  Rex only answered the glare with a smirk.

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 Glasses woke up and looked around, wondering how he’d gotten there before he remembered what had happened. He paled as he looked towards the theater and started to sweet as he saw the carnage on the inside, the people on the floor and the wrecking.  He was in such a state that he never even heard cars stop and people getting out of them. He never even noticed that people were walking towards him.

 “That brat with that Pikachu!  I can’t believe he did this.  This is bad, this is so bad.   If he’s strong enough to do this then the boss might do that, I gotta get outa here, the boss…Rex’ll kill me when he figures out I told that brat anything.”  Glasses muttered as he got up and backed away from the broken door.  

 “Rex, would that be Rex Tristo, the person who disappeared when he was passed over for Leadership of the Gym?”  A voice behind Glasses asked.  Glasses’s was so scared he never even noticed that someone had asked a question, he just answered as he looked at the broken door.

 “Yeah, you can’t go a day without hearing him talk how Viola stole it from him.  But we gotta move, we can’t be here if….someone….else?” Glasses trailed off as he realized someone was there and slowly turned his head and went white when he saw Officer Jenny, Clemont, Viola and a lot of police officers who were looking around at the scene.  Clemont grabbed Glasses and pulled him towards his face.

 “Where are the two girls that were brought here earlier?!”  He demanded as he glared at the gang member started to splutter.  The others looked at Clemont and Jenny nodded at two of her officers.

 “Inside!  But we gotta get outa here!  Rex has a contingency plan if things go belly up like this!  And it’s to cause enough destruction that he could take over!  A way to throw doubt on Viola’s eligibility to lead the gym and cause enough carnage that he could get away with killing her and her sister to ‘stop’ it.”  Glasses said as he tried to struggle out of Clemont’s grip as the others listened to what he said as the officers started to round up the gang members on the ground.

 “So Rex was responsible for the Buzz Lords, out of all the people it could have been I wouldn’t have chosen him as the one.  I mean I knew he hated me for taking what he considered his but all the crimes they’ve done, he always spoke about law and order, I just can’t see him being involved.” Viola said quietly as she stood with Jenny who nodded.  Some officers had come to Clemont and taken Glassess from him and was leading the ganger towards the vans.

 “I thought he had just gone to take over his family’s business.  But he’s been the leader of the Buzz Lords for the last few years? He wasn’t even on the radar of possibilities; no one even spoke his name as a possible.  He gave no impression that he would create some kind of gang because of his being passed over.  And he’s a member of the old nobility that used to rule around here two.”  Jenny mused as she watched the building with a critical eye, taking note of the wide windows on the front and the gargoyles above it.  If he is the boss I need to talk to a judge about a search warrant for his house in the residential section. This might be enough to put him away but if there’s any evidence there then the case would be even tighter.  Jenny thought as she looked over the front of the building, trying to see if anyone was looking at them from it. Viola frowned as she looked around and turned to Jenny.

 “Isn’t this the old dinner theater that went out of business a few years back, and then didn’t someone use it to run a counterfeit operation?”  Viola asked as she followed Jenny’s eyes. Jenny gave the area a once over and let her memory go back and realized that Viola was right about where they were.

 “Yeah, the rage they displayed when they resisted arrest, the damages it caused led to the whole neighborhood going out of business; I remember how a lot of them tried to stay open. Didn’t they all add the gargoyles on their roofs because they could open their mouths and drop things just for their going out of business party the neighborhood had to ‘really go out on a bang’ as one of them said?” Jenny asked as she started to feel like something was going to happen and looked around. Viola looked up and stared at the gargoyles, hoping the feeling she was getting was wrong.  What’s bothering me about those statues? What am I seeing that I can’t register, is it something about the size of the mouth… Wait, those mouths would be big enough for…. Viola went white as she figured out what her instincts were telling her.

 “Say Jenny, do you know how long a Pokémon can last in a Pokéball before they need to eat?”  Viola asked shakily as she looked upwards. Jenny looked at the gargoyles and noticed that the mouth seemed particularly larger and a different color from the rest of the statues.  Suddenly the mouths of the gargoyles opened and seven Pokéballs dropped from them and hit the ground.  From six of them came an even mix of Pinsirs and Scythers who looked at the humans around them hungrily, but the real problem was what came from the seventh ball. The Bug Pokémon that was released would normally be a large, moth-like Pokémon with four small feet, compound eyes and small four feet on its ‘chest’ but with white fuzz on its top and red horn-like structures on each side of its face this specimen with six orange wings with black spots of them, but the appearance of this one was anything but normal. Its right eye was a pale white and the horn on its right was smashed, its fuzz had scares of pale skin in random patterns and four balls of fire appeared around it as soon as it appeared. Viola stared in shock at the creature before them and whispered a single sentence, identifying just what was before them.

 “That’s a Volcarona; the sun Pokémon.”  This was the only thing she could say before the Volcarona gave a savage shrill and the other Bug types charged at the people in front of them as Volcarona breathed a blast of fire at them.

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   “What I did was release a few Pokémon I… prepared for this kind of situation, wild beasts that know only to kill; in fact I conditioned one especially for this.  I would hate to be your friend and whoever came with him; of course if no one is there they’ll just go into the town and find people there to kill.  So thank you Ash, the carnage will decide my fate one way or another!”  Rex said with a dark chuckle as Ash stared in total shock before he started to glare and grit his teeth.  He gripped his sword tighter and Pikachu started to look at the two Bug types and zeroed in on the white one, he would take that one down for his trainer.

 “Girls, I’m sorry but could you handle the others, I need to talk to this person for a while.”  Ash said as he walked towards Rex.  Serena and Lilith shared a look and nodded at each other and faced the four gangers in the room as two of them were helped to their feet.

 “We’ve got this Ash, you handle him!”Lilith called out as she stroke with her whip.   Golisopod saw Ash move towards its trainer and tried to stop him when a bolt of electricity shot between it and Ash, causing it to turn and look at Pikachu who stared it down as Froakie and Fletchling moved to back him up, only to stop when Pikachu raised his tail.

 “Pika! Pika Pikachu chu.” Pikachu ordered the others and locked eyes with Golisopod.

 “Froakie!” Froakie called out as it formed a water sphere and shot it at the Yanmega.  Yanmega hovered higher and fired silver crescents at Froakie, only for them to be intercepted by crescent blades of wind.

 “Fletchling!” Fletchling declared as it hovered above Froakie, daring Yanmega to attack them. Yanmega flew at them like a bullet when a few small orange sparks hit its right side and forced it down to the ground, burning it as well.

 “Fennekin!”  Fennekin declared as it joined the other two staring down Yanmega.

 Serena blocked a blow from one of the gangers with a club and spun her naginata around, slamming the blunt end of her weapon into his head, sending the ganger to the floor.   She had sent Fenniken to help Froakie and Fletchling when she realized the gangers didn’t have any Pokémon, why she didn’t know but she wasn’t about to look a gift Ponyta in the mouth.  One of the other three gangers charge at her with a hammer but a strike from Lilith’s whip scored a cut above his face that caused him to close his right eye and fall back with his hand over his wound. We’re a good team, she wounds em and I knock’em down.  All we have to do I last long enough for Ash to finish their leader.  Serena thought with a smirk as she looked at the other two gangers who still had weapons and frowned when she noticed that one of them was backing up towards a corner with a tapestry on it.

 Pikachu dodge a glowing purple stab from Golisopod’s right arm and spun around and hit it with its tail glowing white and striking Golisopod’s body, the blow sent it to its knees. Pikachu barely had a second before Golisopod spat a stream of brown sludge at him forcing him to dodge to the left as he tried to get behind it.

 While this was happening Ash had been trading blows with Rex, catching the spear trusts with his shield and sword and trying to use his mobility against Rex reach.  Rex stabbed forward with his right and Ash spun to the right and slashed down at the right lance, Rex twisting his arm upward, dodging Ash’s slash by mere centimeters.  Rex laughed as he moved backwards and grinned with a crazy edge to it as he looked at Ash.

 “You are strong as both a trainer and a warrior!  Once I beat you and bring you to my way of thinking you’ll led my forces to conquer!” Rex said with a crazed gleam in his eyes.

 “As if!”  Ash snarled as he moved in and slashed at Rex as he tried to get in closer. Rex just laughed and dashed backwards and grinned savagely.

 “You’d think so, but you won’t be the first trainer I beat then drafted them, FLASH!”  Rex roared startling Serena, but Ash, Pikachu and Lilith closed their eyes merely a second before Yanmega took action.

 “YANM!”  The Yanmega cried as its eyes released a blinding flash that stunned Froakie, Fenniken, Fletchling and Serena.  Rex looked on as his followers started to snicker, their boss flash strike strategy always worked.

 “Get them!”  Rex screamed as he moved forward, thrusting forward with his left lance as Golisopod moved to strike Pikachu as the gangers moved in.  Suddenly Lilith struck out with her whip, score blows that forced the gangers back while Pikachu dodge the blow from Golisopod and struck back with an electric bolt! Ash parred the blow from the lance and pressed forward, scoring a hit on Rex’s right arm that forced him to drop his left lance and grab the wound, blood coming from between his hands. Serena blinked her vision back and moved forward, spinning her naginata as she moved in with Lilith beside her

 “You don’t think you’re the first person to try and blind me, are you?”  Ash asked with a smirk as Rex stared at him before he released a roar and charge at Ash.  Ash dodged the blows as he moved backwards until he dashed in, blocked a blow from the remaining lance with his sword and bashed his shield against Rex’s face. Rex stumbled and grinned idiotically before he crumbled to the floor!

 “Yanmega!”  Rex’s Yanmega cried as it turned towards Ash, giving Froakie the chance to jump at it and slam a sphere of water against its right side the same second Fletchling sent two silver crescents of energy against its left side, the force of both attacks sent it to the floor!  Pikachu parried another purple blow from Golisopod with a white glowing tail before a blast of fire hit Golisopod’s back sending it stumbling forward.  Pikachu looked up and saw Fenniken glaring at Golisopod as Froakie and Fletchling surrounded the Bug-Type.  The Golisopod roared but blasts from the four Pokémon caused it to faint.

 Serena slammed the blunt end of her weapon down on the head of one the gangers as Lilith used her whip to pull one of them towards her to deliver a blow with her fist that knocked him out.  Serena looked towards Ash and smiled when she saw that he had knocked out Rex and turned when Lilith gave a sharp cry.

 “Where’s the other two!? They never got by us so where are they!?”  Lilith demanded as she looked around and Serena glanced around and noticed the tapestry on the wall was fluttering.  She clicked her tongue and gestured towards the tapestry when Lilith looked at her, receiving a nod and moving silently as their Pokémon and Ash moved towards them. Lilith raised her hand and held up three fingers and slowly lowered them until on the last she pulled the tapestry down, revealing a passage that slopped upwards.  

 “The other two must have escaped when Rex caused that flash.  You two go ahead, Froakie, Flechtling back them up.  Pikachu, with me, we’ll carry this one with us.”  Ash said as he gathered the tapestry.  Lilith shot a look at Serena and both girls nodded at each other.

 “I’ll help you wrap him up, you make sure no one surprises us Serena.”  Lilith said as she moved to help Ash as Serena took up a guard position with Fenniken standing next to her.

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 Clemont dove behind one of the buildings as a blast of fire hit where he had been standing as his Bunnelby threw blasts of mud at the Volcarona as the officers tried to handle the Pinsirs and Scythers as Jenny’s Manectric fired bolts of electricity at the Volcarona as they all tried to survive.  Clemont watched as the balls of fire intercepted the mud and electricity as the Volcarona fired streams of flame down at them, Viola and her Pokemon were doing what they could to keep it from sparking a fire on the buildings but it was a losing strategy, as soon as the inside of one of the buildings caught fire, it would be hard to stop it.

 “Yeah, we’re by the old dinner theater, that’s where their base was!  They’ve released a mad Volcarona with a pack of bipedal Bug Pokémon!  Get the Fire brigade on standby before you get over here! It’s gone mad!  I don’t like it but we might have to take it down preeminently!”  Viola was hollering into her Pokégear as she hid behind a building as her Vivillon hovered protectively above her as her Surskit fired bubbles at the one of the four fireballs, but the heat caused the water to evaporate before it reached the balls. Clemont looked at the wounds on Volcarona’s body and cursed as he looked at it.

 “This is insane!  What did he do to that Volcarona can’t be called civilized!  When I get my hands on him!”  Clemont snarled as he looked at the abused Pokémon.  Viola turned her ‘gear off and looked at Clemont with a dark look.

 “It wasn’t but I think it’s rabid, we don’t have a choice do we?”  Voila said as she looked at the Volcarona and Clemont sighed and nodded.

 “No, I don’t think we do.  Bunnelby, Mud Shot, aim for its left eye!”  Clemont commanded.  Bunnelby looked at is trainer and nodded and jumped out from behind the building, firing as it moved hoping to hit.  One shot of mud hit one of the balls of fire, causing an explosion that caused a splatter of flaming mud to hit the Volcarona’s good eye and it screamed in pain, the other two balls of fire moving erratically as it fought to stay in the air.

 “Vivillon, while it’s distracted, charge Solar Beam and fire at the right eye!”  Viola cried, Vivillon flew upwards and started to gather sunlight in a sphere above its head when one of the balls of fire shot at it and exploded when it hit the Pokémon!  Voila watched it fall to the ground and barely grabbed Vivillon’s Pokéball before Volcarona regained its barings and fired a blast of fire at the downed Bug type.

 “Vivillon return!” Voila cried, the beam hitting Vivillon seconds before the fire hit where it had crashed.  Clemont stared at where the fire had hit and looked at the Volcarona and realized something.  He wouldn’t he couldn’t.  But that’s the only thing that makes sense about this

 “It was trained to kill and only to kill.  A defeated opponent is only a target that can’t move to it.”  Clemont said with shock before he gained a glare that caused Voila to freeze for a second.   In Arceus name, what did Rex do it that thing?! What the hell was going through his head when he thought of this, did my becoming the Gym Leader really affect him or was he just good at hiding what kind of person he was? Voila stared at the Volcarona before she shook herself back to reality at the Volcarona screeched and two more balls of fire formed and started to orbit the Bug type.

 Bunnelby had moved back to hide with its trainer as Clemont looked at the fireballs as and scowled.  Those fireballs aren’t a normal move, what did he do to that Pokémon, how did he teach it to use them? Clemont’s thoughts ran in circles trying to figure out how he and Voila would survive when a pull on his pants from his Pokemon caused him to look down and give it an encouraging smile when he saw the worry on its face.

 “We’ll survive this partner, I promise.”  Clemont said right before one of the fireballs shot and hit one of the Pinsirs, barely missing the Police man who jumped backwards from trying to corral it.

  Darcy looked on from the top of a building away from the commotion with a frown on her face as she looked at the chaos Rex had unleashed.  She had to give him credit where it was due, he had hidden his final card very well, she hadn’t seen a single impression that he had a scorched earth policy in case things went away from him to the extent he would be captured. She looked towards her Zoroark and made a decision.

 “Looks like we need to get involved like that masked idiot does in Lumiose girl.  Go charge a good blast and when you’ve got a clear shot hit it in its head, than I want you to get out of there, and meet me at Rex’s place, we have to finish up dropping the last few pieces of the puzzle.”  Darcy said as her Zoroark shot her a look that made her trainer chuckle at her as she reached over and scratched its right ear.

 “Relax girl we’re far enough away and I’ll be heading to ground level and make for the town’s southern border.  Just dart in and strike and then get back to me and we go to Rex’s place to drop the last puzzle pieces.”  Darcy promised her Pokémon who nodded.  Zoroark turned and moved towards the edge of the roof and jumped to the next roof, running as soon as it landed, moving ever closer to the Volcarona as it gathered power.   Darcy looked on for a few seconds before she turned and ran for the fire escape, hoping to do what she said that she would be able to slip by the police.

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 Serena and Lilith came out into an alleyway behind a damaged building, looking around for anything that might attack them.  Ash and their Pokémon followed, Ash carrying Rex’s body wrapped in the tapestry.  Ash looked up and frowned when he noticed a glow farther back towards the right.  That was a long passage, we’ve probably moved from at least three miles from where the base is.  That over there, that has to be his contingency plan, I can’t let the girls get hurt and Lilly doesn’t have her team with her.  Froakie and Fletchling should stay here, if this scum gets away after what he did, he’ll be ever worse or have no limits on what he would do.

 “You two stay here; I’ll check and try to help out if it’s as bad as I think it is.  Froakie, Fletchling stay here and help keep that one locked down.”  Ash said as Pikachu jumped onto Ash’s shoulder before Ash moved towards the fire.

 “Ash, no you can’t go alone!” Serena said before Lilith grabbed her shoulder.  When Serena looked back at her Lilith only shook her head.

 “He and Pikachu have the experience to help deal with whatever this scum let loose and we have to watch him.”  Lilith said as Ash ran towards the light, praying that he would be okay.  Even if you not who I think you are Ash, you’re one of the good ones out here. You’d better be okay.  Lilith thought as she and Serena started to guard Rex.

  Ash ran and looked upwards, hoping that he wouldn’t see any fires on the buildings and that Serena and Lilly would be okay.  He looked up as he came towards where the sound was and saw Policemen being attacked by Bug Types, a Volcarona that looked abused rampaging and there was Clemont and Voila.

 Pikachu, get high up there and use Thunder!”  Ash commanded as Pikachu jumped off his shoulder and started to climb up a nearby pipe he jumped to.  As Pikachu moved upwards Ash raised his shield and moved towards Clemont.

 “Clemont, what’s happening!” Ash demanded as he huddled with Clemont and Voila.  They turned towards him in shock.

 “Ash! Wait, where are the girls!?”  Clemont demanded as soon as he saw him.  Ash pointed back the way he had come and smirked.

 “Back there keeping watch on the boss of these bastards.  And I really can’t wait to hear about what’ll happen to him for that.  Pikachu will attack from above; we just need to take this thing down.”  Ash said as he looked at the Volcarona as it screeched. Ash looked as a bolt of electricity hit the Volcarona. Volcarona screeched and two of the fireballs orbiting it flew towards where the blast had come from.  After the blast hit the roof another blast of electricity shot towards Volcarona but the last fireball intercepted it.  It screeched and another fireball formed when suddenly a blast hit the deadeye from the side, blasting apart its good eye and sending it to the ground where it whispered for a few seconds before going still as blood poured from the wound.  The other Bug types ran away, each of them running towards the outskirts.

 “All officers with ID end with even numbers, after them, don’t let them make it to the center of town!   All other go into the restaurant and start rounding up the Buzz Lords!”  Jenny called out as

 “Pikachu, find where that blast came from!  The girls are over there back about three miles behind a building with a broken red sign on a post.”  Ash called as he started to climb up a ladder, Jenny and Voila following him as Clemont ran towards the girls.  Pikachu jumped onto the building Ash was climbing and moved towards where the blast had come from and when he got onto the roof he started to sniff the air. Ash got onto the roof and moved towards Pikachu and helped Voila and Jenny to get onto the roof.  He saw Pikachu with his tail raised up and moved towards him, dropping besides him and looked at what he had found.

 “What is it?”  Voila asked as she and Jenny joined Ash and watched as he picked up some red fur and handed it to Jenny.

 “A Pokémon with red hair that could fire a Hyper Beam, afraid that doesn’t narrow down the lists down does it, and heck it could have been wild.”  Ash said as he walked back towards the roof’s edge.  

 Jenny looked at the fur and removed a small evidence bag and put it in it, before she looked towards the edge and saw police van’s coming towards the area, the reinforcements that she had called for cleanup, and beyond them were two fire trucks.  She watched as he started to climb down, Pikachu jumping onto Ash’s shoulder as he climbed.

 “You and the rest of your group are going to the hospital Mr. Ketchum, do you understand me!” Jenny called out as Voila went next. They never heard the patter of feet as something moved about the roof and jumped away.

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  A large helicopter flew through the skies as clouds moved above it.  In the cockpit of the helicopter a humanoid figure wearing a mask over its face and in a robe looked out the window and moved away, leaving the cockpit empty of anyone as it walked towards the hold.   Finally the figure reached a door and opened it and entered. Inside 6 three foot tall humanoid forms were being held up by scaffolding   descending from the ceiling of the room. At one of the humanoids a second figure in a robe and mask was finish manipulating something in the humanoid’s chest and turned to the figure that had just entered the room.

 “Final data-slave to Observer installation finished.  All mobile units ready for operation/LHT01.”  The second figure said robotically to the first.  The first looked over the figures and turned to the second.

 “Observer upgrades and installation of cleanup module finished to parameters?” The first enquired as it turned back to the second.

 “Affirmative, time to reach site less than 5 minutes.  All know local combatants loaded into hard drives of test units. Directives if trainers or others encountered included as per last revision of operation plan. ”The second robed figure said flatly as the helicopter started to slow down as they reached their target zone.   The helicopter slowed down and descended to hover above a clearing far from any human made structures.  As the helicopter hovered over the area six coverings opened on the underside, from which the six humanoids were lowered to the ground.  A shaft of moonlight caused the figures to be seen by anything that was watching.  The figures were robots that had a single camera lens on their head behind a glass visor that covered the top of their face while their bodies were colored a uniform grey.   They had normal looking arms with a box on the tops of them and four fingers in a cross formation with an opening in the center of both palms. Their legs had two wheels on both sides of them for a total of four and the front of their feet were a sharp blade. The robots dropped the last three feet to the ground and their camera lens started to pan back and forth until the six units started to charge into the woods. As the units charged off a metallic saucer detached from the side of the helicopter and flew off in the same direction as the units{[Observer]}, silently recording everything they did. In a room within the helicopter the vision of all six robots was up on six monitors as the two robbed figure watched in total silence as they recorded all the data.

 “So far real world data of unit performance follows projected values.  Data based on weapon performance only unknown factor.”  The second said as they watched the units move through the underbrush.

 “Real world combat data retrieval one of reasons for test.  Local life forms will test all parameters to necessary extent to allow for design limits to be shown.” The first observed as the units came upon their first targets, a wolf pack 15 strong eating the remains of a wild pig.  The monitors started to display bio data the sensor data from the Observer on the over watch.  

 “Life forms designation Canis lupus feeding on killed life form Sus scrofa, suggestion battle with emotional motivator.”  The second said flatly to the first.  The first looked at the data on the wolves and sent a command to the units in the field. The monitors cycled through the individual wolves and stopped on three pups that had been shielded from the sight of the camera by two of the wolves and the bio data on how healthy the whole pack was displayed alongside the pups. After a few minutes of looking over the data a wolf on the screen turned towards the camera and growled, causing the pack to look up from their meal and the one of them, the leader to stalk towards the units.

 “Affirmative, combat incentive approved.  Send directive to begin with motivational incentive on youngest target.”  The first said as a targeting icon highlighted one of the pups.

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The wolf leader growled at the units as the other members of the pack started to move from the kills to the sides of their leader, backing it up.  As it growled at the robots the front one raised one of its arms towards the pack.  Something passes by the leader’s muzzle a second before two of the pups cry out and starts to whine as the pack turns to the noise, see the smallest pup collapsed on the ground, a red hole in its head.  The leader stares as the two other pups start to nudge the third, before it bares its teeth and howled before it sprang at the units, half the pack following the leader with the rest running away, grabbing the two pups as they ran away from the battle.

 The leader charge alone at the one that had fired a shot as each of the other units found themselves under attack from two wolves each.  The Leader barreled into the unit that fired and pushed it to the ground, snapping at the face of the unit.  It moved its arms and grabbed the wolf, the wolf struggling to get at the head.  The unit tried to get the leader off it but the wolf used it front legs to keep the units arms down and kept trying to bit through the arm that had fired the shot that had killed one of its own.  The unit’s self-diagnostic showed that the arm was near the point of being torn off and choose an action that might have saved it. A micro explosion went off in its shoulder and was pushed off the main body, the wolf overextended itself and went lopsided, freeing the unit’s remaining arm and with a swift motion it grabbed the wolf’s head amd fired a point blank shot, killing the pack’s leader and looked toward the other units.  Two of the other units were down, one of them had its head torn off the body, and the other had its legs torn off and the last three the units were back to back, firing shots at the wolves as they circled the units, one of them was missing its right arm and all three had scratches and gorges on their bodies that sparked, showing internal circuits in places.  The unit raised its remaining arm and shot three quick shots, killing two of the wolves and wounding two more.  The wolves saw their leader was dead and dashed off in different directions disappearing from the sight of the units.  The other three units converged on the first and waited in a diamond formation looking out into the woods as their masters conversed.

 “Unit strength at 60%. Action choice limited to either continuing the test or retrieve units and return to base.   Test has shown upgrades needed to design, combat has not followed projected outcome.  Redesign of unit is recommended.”  The second figure stated to the first as they watched on the monitors, two of them black with their data source inactive.  The first robbed absorbed all the data coming in and noticed an alert from the Observer and made a decision.

 “The recovery of the test units was not prioritized as critical part of test, pushing design to limits is greatest priority.  Scanner data shows two high combat life forms moving towards battle site.   Test units are to attack with Alpha Strike and Observer unit is to fall back to medium range of data slave and return when unit strength drops to below 16%.”  The first ordered, causing the units to leave the kills in the clearing.  Orders sent the view screens on showed the units moving off into the woods, moving in the direction of what the Observer had detecting, the units preparing themselves for combat

 After the sounds of the units had died down; a bush by one of the dead pigs moved as a small looking Goblin got up and looked upon the carnage.  It had been hoping to grab something to bring back to its Sire and when it found the wolves feeding it had hoped just to get away alive. It looked at the dead wolves and moved towards the dead pup, looking it over and started to claw at the hole the unit’s shot had made, if it wanted to get the credit for the kills, then it {[Salvager]} needed to doctor what kills it brought back, not much but enough to make the others think that it had killed them.

 Broken Sting thundered through the woods as Dark Flare guarded their back as they moved towards where they had heard the howl from.  They had been looking for a place to spend the night when they had heard the howl and moved to investigate.  They had begun moving when they had heard it, they had run into the pack they thought it came from and anything that could cause the pack’s leader to howl like that had to be faced while it was hurt if, if the two of them waited for it to recover then they might be the ones who would be killed next!  When they came across part of the pack, they didn’t even reacting to their presence as they charged by, ignoring the wolves as they barreled past them.   Dark Flare saw something ahead of them and dodged to the left, an instant telling it to dodge something that hit a tree behind it, creating a circular indentation in the tree.   Four grey figures were revealed to the Chimera, one only had one arm and it was raised in a line with the damaged tree.  Dark Flare wasted no time and fired a blast of flame from its mouth at the figures, but the one with only one arm lunged to the side and aimed at Broken Sting, the others stopped moving after the flames hit.  Broken Sting wasted no time and fired two blasts of water from its claws at the grey figure and Dark Flare fired its own flames, joining the blast form Broken Sting, after they stopped firing they saw the figure was now nothing more than a mass of melted something that smelt unappetizing.  The two Chimera looked at the other three figures still not moving and Broken Sting poked the closest one, sending it backwards into the others, all of them falling to the ground.  Dark Flare looked at Broken Sting and both sent a feeling of confusion towards the other before they moved on.

 They finally reached a clearing with a dead pig and the corpses of two wolves.  Dark Flare looked at the ground and saw blood splatter on the ground and showed two sources of blood were dragged away into the woods away from where they had battled the grey figures. Dark Flare sent a feeling of confusion to Broken Sting, where was the leader, it hadn’t been with the others and it wasn’t here, so where was it? They looked around and turned Dark Flare motioned towards the wolves and Broken Sting sent a feeling of ‘no’ towards it, they would leave the wolves where they were, they had stayed behind to either avenge the source of the source of the blood on the ground so they would leave them where they had fallen.  As the two of them moved out of the clearing, Broken Sting grabbed the pig’s corpse as they passed, waste not wants not after all.

 After they had left the area Deadeye walked into the clearing from the direction of where it had been watching the battle the two Chimera had with the grey things.  The Flame Horn that its sire wanted dead had a good leader, but it was as weak as the fool Protector. But the grey things had caused a hole to form in a tree far away, another kind of those things the grey creatures where it had eaten the fruit had, something to look into.  Deadeye looked over the corpses and grinned, they had left such good food behind and it could use them, it walked towards the remaining wolf bodies and spat some of the black liquid onto one and took a bit from it, it sensed what the wolf could give it but choose to not change at all quickly consumed both corpses before it started to walk back towards its sire’s cave.  It would lose all the chances to kill its sire if it changed now but it would hunt down the rest of the wolves in the area in the future, it would take what it sensed from them latter.   Deadeye walked away from the clearing, never noticing while it had been eating that the Observer had been watching it before the Observer had left.

 The large helicopter moved off from where it had been hovering and started to move backwards on the course it had flown.  The Observer flew towards it and docked, within the craft the two figure were moving cataloging all the data.

 “Test unit current configuration is inefficient in current configuration.  Critical weakness identified, internal circuitry need to be protected from damage that breaches unit-armor.  Secondary weakness identified; close combat ability below projected values. Tertiary weakness, armor two weak to handle combat. Possible improvements; increase in movement abilities, increase in reaction time, close combat weapon, increase in armor strength or change material used. ” The second robbed figure said as the first stopped and looked over the data collected on the wolves. It looked at the wolf pack leader as it charged at the camera and went over the combat data and made a decision.

 “Possible weapon platform identified.  Test results to be logged and possible improvements to be planned on test unit for next live test.  We shall return to base to begin.”  The first robbed figure said as the helicopter traveled silently through the sky.

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Riley lead the way with his Lucario as the five of them moved down the mountain, Cameron was watching their back and Brock and Rosette were in the middle of the party as they moved as fast and as safely as they could.  So far they hadn’t been attacked by anything but so the mountain was silent so either the animals detected danger or they were all dead.  

 “We’ve got to find them soon!” Brock snarled as he looked over his shoulder as he followed the people who had saved him down the mountain.  The Chimera that had retreated still left a bitter taste in his mouth but he had to find Yuji, Kunz might have killed him by now.  And he was still feeling weak from whatever had happened to him earlier.  Looking at his waist he cursed that he had only brought three Pokémon with him, if he had only brought Crobat or Ludicolo with him, then he might be able to do more!

 “Don’t worry Brock, we’ll find them and get off this mountain, or at least we’ll set up camp somewhere where we can defend ourselves.”  Riley’s words caused him to look up and sigh.  When the four of them had left the campsite they had heard a few cries farther up the mountain,

 “It’s not just that, a hurricane is due to hit soon, within the next few days if we’re lucky, tomorrow if we’re not.”  Brock said as he navigated down the path, not noticing that Cameron had stopped and paled in horror.  

 “A hurricane, you went up here knowing something was wrong when a hurricane was coming?!”  He demanded as Brock nodded at him.  The other two were looking at him, waiting to hear why Brock had taken such a risk.

 “The number of Chimera was a surprise I admit; I thought at most it would be a small group of them. But the hurricane was why I’m here in the first place.”  Brock said as they walked towards a small forest on the mountain plateau.  

 “How so, what caused you to come up here?”  Rosette asked as she looked around for any sign of the Chimera that had attacked them had returned.

 “A spore is causing an outbreak among the Pokémon in Viridian City, wind patterns showed the source was up here.  I dealt with something like that before and the source was a Chimera that used them to hunt, so I thought it might have been something like that.  The wind was the only thing that could account for the wide spread infection and the fact that it was the worst near the mountains was the final point to it.  If we didn’t have a cure or eliminated the source before the hurricane hit the area, I don’t want to guess what could happen.”  Brock said grimly as they moved towards the trees.

 “How bad is the outbreak?” Rosette asked in worry her sister was in Viridian damn it!

 “It’s been debilitating so far, but so far it doesn’t seem to be terminal thankfully.   The symptoms are different for each species of Pokémon, but the one thing is that they can’t move because of how weak they are.  We found a Chimera that looked like it came from the same source as those things that attacked my camp before you arrived, and the same as what attacked your cabin Ms. Zargo.”  Brock explained before they heard something ahead of them.  

 “Incoming! Everyone get off the path!”  Riley bellowed as he grabbed Rosette and Cameron grabbed Brock and they jumped to the side out of view of anything coming at them while Lucario jumped into a tree and was ready to strike at anything.  After a few moments a rider on a Rapidash came into view that caused Brock to stiffen.

 “That’s Kunz, why is he alone?”  Brock asked with worry.  Cameron pulled out a Local Gear and pressed a button before he passed it to Brock gestured to him to speak into it.  Brock shot him a look and Cameron swiftly explained.

 “Master Riley has a throw away one set to broadcast; he just threw it to a bush near him.  This is and old trick we’ve used before to handle wild animals that we had to hunt, this way we can test just why he’s alone, trust us with this Brock.” Cameron whispered at him, Brock looked down at the Gear and made a decision.

 Kunz rode his Rapidash through the woods with no care to what might get in their way.  Already since he had left Yuji to his fate they had run down a few Pokémon, no doubt trying to escape the Chimera, now that had been pleasant.  Hopefully that Gym brat put up a long enough fight to buy me enough time to get away or those wild things will be enough to feed them.  If everything is working perfectly then she will be around here to get out of this nightmare mountain!

 “KUNZ, Where’s Yuji!” Brock’s voice came from a bush ahead and that brought a savage grin to his face.  So maybe I could handle Brock after all.  I always like it when I could finish them and watch their flesh burn to ashes.

 “Rapidash, Fire Blast! Full power at that bush; let’s roast him!”  He commanded with a cruel tone.  His Rapidash breathed a full stream of fire that had only just hit the bush before a ball of blue energy missed them by inches from above as a trainer glowing blue burst out of cover from the opposite direction and aimed an open hand at him and fired a blue sphere at him.  He hugged Rapidash’s neck, dodging the sphere and wincing when he felt something pass by his head, hearing the sound of a bullet hitting a tree to his side.  An ambush! They must have been with that failed Gym Leader!  And that one’s a wilder, I gotta get out of here and tell the others!  He thought with worry as he looked and noticed a Lucario in a tree lining up on him and his Pokémon.

 “Flame Charge, we’re out of here!”  Kun roared before flames envelope him and his Rapidash as they increased speed and blew past the area, dodging bullets and blasts of energy as they went.  Kunz let the flames die out before he looked back and snarled as he realized that Agalia had failed, and that a wilder was with Brock! He had to get back and worn report what had happened, the ability to use Aura can’t become basic knowledge, that would led to the downfall of humanity, that was against all that the Order had fought against for years, he wouldn’t fail!

 Brock looked where Kunz and Rapidash had speed off to and shook his head.  I had hoped they were wrong, but if I had called out to him he would had had his Pokémon attack me with lethal intent, and it obeyed without a thought! Just who the hell did Karin send up with us? Once was a surprise, but twice is enemy action.  I’m going to be looking over my shoulder for months.

 “So they were working together, and here I was hoping she was alone.”  Brock said as Cameron patted his shoulder.  Riley and Rosette came towards them.  Riley had a frown on his face and a resolute look on his face.

 “I’m sorry Brock, but I need to ask where those two came from and how they joined you’re expedition.” Riley said with a hard solemn voice.  Brock just sighed and looked at him, wondering if Riley and the others would believe who had sent them.  

 “They came on the recommendation of Karin of the Elite Four.  I know how hard that might be to believe….” Brock said only to stop when Riley started to shake his head with a scowl.

 “Not as hard as you’d believe Brock.  I’ll tell you why when we reach safety.  We need to find this Yuji is, but we can’t risk our safety we’ll keep looking but we have to get out of here alive, I’m sorry.”  Riley said with a hard look on his face.  Brock looked like he wanted to argue but he could only nodded at Riley’s words.

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 Yuji looked behind them as he and his Rhydon ran through the woods, they had left the clearing and he had been worried that some other group of those things would attack them.  So far they hadn’t been yet but he was had seen enough of them back at the cave that he was concerned that they might have sent another party after him.  He was worried about the way that explosion had happened after whatever or whoever had happened to kill the Chimera’s leader.  All he had to do was make it back to Brock and get off the mountain and tell the League to send in the Calvary.  All I have to do get this information and sample to back to the League, and then I’ll stay in Viridian and help defend the town against the Chimera up here.  There is no doubt in my mind that there is a connection to the outbreak with the Chimera here, I’ve seen at least four different variants of them so it’s not too far out there for the source to have been another strain we haven’t seen yet. And then there’s that bastard Kunz, why the hell did he do that!?  Who the hell does he work for that he had to kill me!  And how long will it be before they send more of themselves after us, are they trying to get that larger one somewhere safe first then they’ll come at use? What is that thing to them; listen to me, as if they can plan of all things!  ‘Chimera are nothing more than mad beasts waiting to be put down’ yeah right!  The way they fought in that clearing casts a lot of doubt on that fact!  Yuji thought with a snarl on his face as he led the way through the forest, hoping that any stray sound he heard wasn’t one of those things leading a group against them.

 Sounds ahead of them to the right caused him to signal his Rhydon to stop moving.   He moved as quietly as possible and stopped at a tree to sneak a look at and saw an unknown man in blue with a Lucario and gritted his teeth. Is he one of Kunz’s friends?  We haven’t seen anyone since we came up these mountains.  So who the hell is he?  Yuji gripped his mace and wondered if he should attack him when the bushes behind him moved and Brock led two more people out of it.  Yuji sighed with relief and cleared his throat loudly, causing Brock and the others to turn and see him.  Brock seemed to decompress a bit and looked relieved at seeing him

 “Yuji, thank Arceus your safe!  When we ran into Kunz I feared he’d killed you!” Brock exclaimed in happiness.

 “All he did was have his Combusken fire a blast above a cave and bring the mountain down on a group of Chimera that looked a lot like that corpse we found at the Cabin farther down the mountain!  We’ve got problems boss, these things have at least four variants, and one of them explodes when they die!”  Yuji said as he waved back towards

 “The campsite we were setting up was hit by a pack of them, made up of two variants, a few of those exploding ones leading at least five each of another variant.  After the last exploder was killed the others retreated and then Agalia tried to kill me.  She would’ve gotten away with it if these people hadn’t come across the campsite!” Brock said as he kept just why she had wanted him dead from Yuji.  He starred when Yuji’s Rhydon came into view, carrying its cargo.  Yuji saw what they were looking at and grinned at them.

 “Yeah, I got away but not before five of them started to chase us.  Fought our way to this clearing and the exploder held back and let the others attack us.  Something killed it while we were dealing with the other four.  This one was the most intact so we brought it back with us, figured that maybe you could learn from this like the other one.”  Yuji explained as he shrugged his shoulders with a smirk.  A loud explosion sounded father back in the woods caused them all to tense and group back to back, after a few seconds Riley move in the direction of the path Brock and Yuji had gone up to come onto the mountain’s plateau.

 “Whatever that was we should move, if we have a sample of the other attacker strain then we have to get back to Viridian, we have to at least get the head back; I assume the brain is still ‘good’?”  Riley asked Yuji as the other started to follow behind him.

 “Maybe, I stabbed it in the center of its head, fast and quick and partially so maybe it’ll be okay. And he’s right, we should leave this place, if that explosion is from a leader strain then any of the other things are no more then made animals now.”  Yuji said as he looked behind him, not noticing a branch high in a tree farther back moving up and down as if something had jumped off it.

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  Shadow had heard the same shrill and moved towards it through the trees as the others ran down the mountain.  If the Chimera had found the group he would fight them off until he was sure they could get away, if the Chimera were attacking one of the two Order members then he would kill them and let the Chimera have the corpses for a meal.  He jumped from tree to tree and stopped when he reached a clearing he stopped on the branch and looked down and swore in his mind at what he saw.

 A Nidorino stood in front of an Alpha with five Warriors spread out behind it.  He saw a crater behind the Nidorino with body parts from an Alpha nearby and an injured Nidorina was near the hole in the ground, trying to get back to her feet with one eye closed.  A Clefairy had its hands on the Nidorina, releasing multiple multicolored waves of energy into her as it watched Nidorino stare down the Chimera. He looked over the scene and saw the corpses of five other warriors and noticed at the Nidorino had a few marks on its body, taking a quick look at the Clefairy and noting the wounds on it he nodded as he realized what had happened.  So at least two parties of these things were here, if there strength was the same as the one that attacked Yuji then it was a leader and four soldiers each, what was the target, the one of them or the little one.  If it was the little one then these things are after a healing ability, that’s all kinds of bad for everyone around here.  Shadow thought as he looked at the battle and noticed one of the Warriors was backing up, seeming to retreat but from where Shadow was he saw a path around to hit the Clefairy from behind.  Time to step in.   He thought as the retreating Warrior had moved then feet from the confrontation between the Nidorino and Alpha and decided to intervene.

 “Noivern, Rattata GO! Noivern, Boomburst on the three Chimera near the one with the horn, Rattata Flame Charge on the one trying to escape!” Shadow barked as he released his two Pokémon and jumped upwards, throwing the Pokéballs towards the ground, releasing them and when he landed he threw two throwing knives at the Alpha.  Noivern’s ears glowed white and a blast of powerful sound waves were shot at the three Warriors, blowing them away from the Alpha and the!  At the same time Rattata charged at the other Warrior, its body being engulfed in flames as it charged and jumped at that the Warrior, the Warrior tried to dodge but Rattata charged through its right arm, severing it.  Nidorino had hardly been ideal, as the Alpha was stunned for a second it opened its mouth and fired a purple dart that shot at the Alpha, but the Alpha moved at the last second to the right but its left eye was hit!  As it looked around it noticed that the Boomburst had killed two of it subordinate and only had one arm left.  

 “KKKKRRR!”  It shrilled and charged away from the area, the surviving Chimera following behind it.  Shadow saw his two Pokémon were looking at the other Pokémon three in the clearing and saw the Nidorina moving to stand by the Nidorino as the Clefairy peaked at Shadow from behind the other two.  He gestured at his Pokemon and moved towards them, dropping three Heal Balls before the wild Pokemon.

 “Those three are Heal Balls, they’ll help you all heal and make it so I can carry you down the mountain easier.  Once you’ve healed up I’ll let you go or you can decide if you want to go back to the wild or stay with me and my friends.”  Shadow said as he stepped backwards to let them decide on their own.  He saw that the Nidorina and Clefairy were on the edge of doing so while the Nidorino didn’t trust him.  Nothing to do but to show them all why they can trust me.  Shadow thought as he undid some of his armor, revealing his bare hands and willed a purple glow form around it to the wild Pokémon’s shock. He clasped his hands together bowed to the three before he made a small vow.

 “I swear by my power and by my heart, I will release you three when you are healed once we are off this mountain range.”  He said solemnly.  The Nidornia nudge the Nidorino and when he turned to her she nodded at him before she walked and touch one of the balls, let it ‘capture’ her.  The Clefairy jumped and dashed towards another ball and as soon as it ‘captured’ it the Nidorino sighed and nodded at Shadow before it walked to the last ball.  As soon as the balls closed Shadow picked them up and put the three balls into pockets on his suit, until he held Nidorino’s ball in his hand.

 “Thank you for trusting me.” Shadow said as he put Nidorino away. He recalled Rattata and gestured for Noivern to get down so he could get on its back.  As Noivern took to the sky a crash to towards the mountain peak caught his attention, turning his head once Noivern started to hover he saw trees starting to fall in a line towards where he had left the expedition.

 Agalia breathed a little easier as her Pyroar started to move over level ground, grass underfoot as they left the rocky terrain of the mountains.  They hadn’t seen anything for the last few hours and soon they would get within range of a signal booster so she could send the signal to a Cleaner in Viridian to deal with the other members of the expedition.  It was too bad that I couldn’t handle that Gym Leader but I have to let the others know that a damned GUARDIAN is still alive!  I thought that the Order had killed off those heretics years ago!  We lost half our leadership and still one of them is alive!  Once milady Karin lets the others know her standing will rise higher than that whore and she’ll let us kill that pagan and executed her bastard spawn! And I will rise higher with her, eventual becoming one of the Lords as she rises to become the Empress!

 Agalia was so drunk on the future that she never noticed an Observer was following her ever since she had used her Fire Aura abilities.  As they passed the mouth of a side trail three figures in body suits on motorcycles raced after her.  One of them pushed a button on one of their bikes handle bars and a blast of electricity shot at Aracanine, but it jumped over a log in the path and the shot missed, hitting the log and destroying it with a boom!  

 Agalia turned her head at the sound and paled as she saw the group riding after them.  FUCK!! Who the hell are these bastards, a gang out for an easy score wouldn’t….what made that explosion just now?  Normal bikes don’t have weapons on them and they have no Pokémon out, so how?!  Agalia thought as she looked over her shoulder. She was shocked when she saw a bike fire a blast of electricity from the light on the front.

 “Pyroar; dodge to the left, now!”  Pyroar lunged to the left as another ball of electricity shot by them.  The bikers chased after Pyroar silently, and when it tried to go onto uneven ground to escape them the bikes speed up to decrease the distant between them as Pyroar thundered on, trying to get away from their pursers. As they dashed past trees and rocks she looked back and cursed as the bikers kept pace with them.  Who the hell are these scumbags!?  Where’d they get their transportation, was that an Elecro-Ball launcher?  Who are they to have tech like that!  Agalia thought as she tried to make as small a target as possible as more balls shot by her head as they tried to escaped the bikers.

 Suddenly a ball hit them from the front, shocking them and causing Pyroar’s legs to lock up and trip, throwing Agalia to the ground as the riders surrounded them,

 “So you got us into a battle, we’ll I won’t be easy prey! Burn them all, Turtonator!”  She roared as she released a large bipedal, turtle-like Pokémon with a spiny shell with fin-like projections on the shell and tail and had muted green skin on its head and limbs.  The bikers looked at her and drew forth black balls that they threw and released two Blastoise with metal spikes around the mouths of their canons and arms that ended in metal spears and a Golduck with reversed metal legs and large claws between its fingers on both hands.  Agalia looked at the Pokemon as her Pyroar tried to fight off the paralysis and while his trainer stared in shock. What the hell are these things, who are these bikers?  She took a step back as she looked at the creatures facing her as one of the Blastoise aimed one of its canon and shot a blast of water at Turtonator as the other one shot a pale blast of energy at Turtonator from its arms that froze the Fire Type in a block of ice.  Before she could react the Golduck was next to her and pierced her body with the claws and delivered a shock that knocked her out.  The Golduck moved towards Pyroar and repeated the action it had done, knocking out the Pokémon as one of the bikers moved and pulled out a small container and drew out two syringes that it injected first the trainer, then her Pokémon.  A large truck pulling a container with eight wheels came towards them and pulled up. From the truck four Machokes that seemed to be wearing armor on its limbs came and loaded up Agalia and her Pokémon into the truck and as the doors closed the bikers recalled their Pokémon and drove off, guarding the large truck as they moved into Johto.

 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

  The party had been moving towards the pathway Brock had lead his group up the mountain earlier, moving faster as they heard crashes in the distance.  Riley looked back and cursed when he saw a tree fall at the edge of their sight. If that’s another Chimera group like Kunz this situation is a lot worse than I thought. We have to get the Intel back to Viridian, it’s the closest city and the probably the swarms first target; we can’t let them face it without any warning.  Riley heard another tree fall and looked back, seeing another, closer tree fall onto another and push it down and Riley forced himself to speed up.

 “Brock, how far are we from the path you took to the plateau?!”  Riley demanded as they ran.  Brock looked around and then looked over his shoulder at Riley.

 “We’re almost there, a few more minutes and we made it!”  Brock called back as the sound of another tree falling reached the group. Riley looked back and thought he saw a flash of black at the edge of his vision and made a choice.  He stopped and drew forth a Pokéball and released his Lucario. When he heard the others stopping he turned and looked at them.

 “Keep moving, I’ll hold them off!  Cameron, get them out of here and watch the skies!”  Riley called and with a look of worry Cameron grabbed Brock and Yuji’s arms and pulled them towards the path.   Rosetta drew her guns and released her  Aracanine, moving to stand next to Riley who turned his head to shot her a questioning look, only for her to scoff.

 “I might not have been high up in the guards but I know tactics, we can hold them better as two and my guns could hit the leaders of these things, might take a few out and make it easier for us.”  Rosetta said as she aimed her guns into the trees and started to fire into the woods. An explosion a few seconds later a Warrior head flew through the air to land before them.  Riley looked at the head before he looked up and readied himself, forming a glow around his hands and feet as 4 Warriors charged at them from the woods.

 Brock looked behind him as the explosion, never stopping as Cameron pulled him along.

 “Come on Brock, Master can handle a few Bugs; we’ve got to get away so when those two fall back we don’t all die!”  Cameron said as he pulled Brock along, fighting to keep his face from showing how worried he was.  

 “What did he mean by watch the skies… tell me those things can’t fly!”  Yuji demanded as he followed after the other two.  Cameron gained slight winced before he replayed.

 “We’ve only come across one of them when the two of us rescued Rosette, so we don’t know how many of them there are.”  Cameron’s words caused Yuji to look behind him as they moved along, a feeling of worry in him as they moved.  It didn’t help that with every step, fading out and fading in second by second, he could feel something above them.  Yuji looked at Rhydon and noticed his Pokémon was on edge and was looking around.  He snapped his head towards a feeling ahead of them and blanched at what he saw.

 “Well there’s four of them ahead of us!”  Yuji said, causing Brock and to stop and look forward and saw four Chimera that looked like normal Warriors with only two legs and bee like wings{[Warriorfly]} hover in front of the path downward looking towards Viridian.  At Yuji’s cru]y caused them to turn and start to move towards them slowly.  Cameron reacted fast and released two Pokémon as he willed a blue glow to form around his hands

 “Ferrothorn, Lucario lets fight!  Ferrothorn stay back and protect the guy with the hammers, Yuji, I need you to back us up!”   Cameron said as his Lucario dashed and jumped at one of the Warriorfly and jumped at it, spinning as it did so to deal a devastating downward kick at its target, cracking the Winged Warrior’s head as it connected.  The other three Chimera flew upwards and started to fire Poison Needle attacks at the party, with Ferrothorn forming green screen the needles bounced off. Yuji saw the Chimera start to move towards the open air and cursed as he realized what they were doing, and then he realized how they were doing it.

 “There’s one of the leader strains around here, we need to find it!” Yuji called as he started looking around as Rhydon looked away from the Warriorfly and started to look for the Alpha leading the other Chimera.  Brock looked around as he held his hammers and cursed Agalia for her sneak attack, if he still had his team they could have helped out more. Suddenly something crashed into him and pushed him to the ground.  He looked up into the face of the Alpha and dropped his hammers to grab the Chimera’s arms to keep them from piercing his body.  As he struggled he saw Cameron move towards him when Yuji stopped him.

 “When those things die, they exploded, remember?!  We’ve got to get it away from Brock without killing it!”  Yuji said as he looked at Brock as he struggled with the Chimera.  Yeah, no kidding but that’s going to be harder than it looks!  I have to keep these stingers away from me and not die by killing this thing.  Brock thought as he tried to keep the Chimera from biting him.  None of them noticed that Brocks eyes started to release a brown glow before glowing rocks formed around his upper arms and hands, forming a hard covering around his hands and down a bit of the Chimera’s stingers. Brock’s eyes widened and as the Chimera tried to move at him closer to bit at him but the rocks covered limbs refused to move.  How the hell did that… did I do this?  Brock wondered as he looked at the rocks covering his arms and part of the Chimera’s stingers.

 “I’ll slice, you throw Noivern!”  A voice called out before something sliced through the arms of the Chimera and a black shape that flashed by over Brock’s head and grabbed the Alpha and threw it into the open air.  Before the Chimera could recover a knife hit its head and as it fell away it exploded. Brock was in shock as the rocks on his arms slowly dropped off as he looked up and saw a figure in a black covered bodysuit move his arm away from a throwing position and looked at him as his vision darkened.

  “Brock! Rhydon Stone Blast multiple targets, fire” Yuji cried as he and Cameron saw Brock collapse to the ground.  Rhydon roared and three rings of glowing white rocks formed around its body before the rocks shot at the flying Chimera, piercing the bodies of two of them and scaring the other two off.  Yuji turned to look at Brock and saw Lucario leap to land between Brock and the bodysuit wearing figure, Yuji moved to check on Brock’s health as Cameron moved to stand by his Lucario.  The figure raised its hands before it spoke

 “Don’t be too hasty, I’m a friend, who do you think killed the leader when they corned your friend in that clearing.”  The figure said as it drew a knife and showed it to them.  Yuji stared as he remembered what he found before he and his Rhydon left clearing with the remains in their possession.

 “You killed it, I never saw you, were you spying on me?!”  Yuji demanded as he looked at the man as the Noivern took flight and flew back towards Riley and Rosetta.  The figure moved after it before looking back at them over his shoulder.

 “Not on you, the one who abandoned you after he poked the Chimera, I followed you in case you needed help.  It’s a long story as to why and I’ll tell your group after Brock-san wakes up.  And you two stay here; he needs someone to watch him as he recovers so I’ll go help the other two.  And please, call me Shadow.”  The named Shadow said as he moved into the darkening gloom, Cameron and Yuji only looked at each other as Ferrothorn moved to stand by them.

  Riley bashed another Warrior as he looked at the battle.  Rosetta was still blast away, but has signaled that she only had a flew clips left, the first four Warriors had been dealt easily with then eight more had charged at them and then Arcanine had shot flames at one of them, but it missed and caused a wildfire to start, but thankfully that cut off anymore reinforcements but the wind would blow the smoke towards them soon.  All they had to do was survive the Warriors and hoped they could make it before the fire got them.  He threw himself to the sides as a Warrior jumped at where he was, missing him by inches. He looked at the battle, seeing Lucario using Bone Rush in both of its hands to bash Chimera while Rosetta shot at a Warrior tying to stab at Arcainine on the same side she was on and frowned for a second, he didn’t understand what he was seeing before he realized what the Chimera were trying to do.  He looked at Rosetta and cursed as he saw her dodged away from Arcainine before he called to her.

 “There’re trying to divide us!  Stay with your partner!  Lucario get to them!”  Rily’s call caused Rosetta to look at her partner and shot at a Chimera that tried to move between her and her Pokémon, blowing off the Warrior’s right lance at the shoulder.  Arcainine bit down the Warrior’s neck and threw the body at another Warrior before it fired a blast of fire at one more that was trying to charge its trainer, hitting it right in the face, destroying its eyes.  As it struggled and shook itself Riley jumped and sliced down with a right, cracking one of the lance of the blinded Warrior and jumped off it, landing next to Rosetta who shot the blinded Warrior, hitting it.

 “We haven’t taken out a single one of their leaders, how are they seeing this to command them?!” Rosetta snarled as she put one of her guns away to get a new clip into the other, firing as soon as it clicked in. She’s right, where are those things!?  Riley wondered as he looked around.  Two of the Warriors started to move towards them when two streaks flew past them and the two Warriors slumped to the ground!  He looked and Riley saw two throwing knives stuck in their foreheads, dripping their blood as the bodies lay there.  Riley stared as something jumped through the smoke as a Noivern suddenly appeared and sliced through two of the Warriors with white glowing wings.  Two explosions behind the fire proceeded the last two Warriors to start fighting each other before two knives hit them in the back of their heads as a figure in a black bodysuit landed before Riley and Rosetta.  As the Noivern made soft noises at its trainer, the figure reached over and rubbed its chin before recalling it to its Pokéball.

 “Thanks for all your hard work partner, you deserve a nice rest.”  The figure said as it looked at the Pokéball.  He looked at Riley and waited.

 “Who are you?” Rosetta demanded as the figure turned to look at her.

 “I’m called Shadow, and to make a long story short since we don’t have the time since one of those things leaders got away; I was up here spying on the two people with Brock-sans group who used Fire types.  I saved the other three from a leader that got by you two or was already there waiting. Currently Brock-san in unconscious and we should get out of there range, fast.”  Shadow said as Riley looked at him.  Rosetta looked like she would continue but Riley put a hand on her should, shaking his head when she turned to him.

 “Fine, once Brock’s up you will explain.”  Riley said as Shadow nodded and moved towards the trail down the mountain.

  Cameron looked up as Shadow walked back towards them with Riley, Rosetta and their Pokémon following Shadow.   Cameron started to speak but Riley held up a hand.

 “Our friend here told us what ambushed you, you did great Cameron.  Help me get Brock onto Aracinine and we can get off this mountain.”  Riley said as he moved towards Brock.  Cameron looked at Shadow before moving to help get Brock on the Fire type.

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  “At long last we’re departing on our maiden voyage; finally our future begins right now!”   Squall declared with a smile as he felt his ship move under its own power as they finally left dock.  He had to wait for the blockade that Lynda had caused but he would bring that up to her the next time he saw her.  He walked around his ship’s deck as he looked over the harbor; smiling as he listened to the engine’s growl as the ship sailed on.  It had taken years but they were finally under way!  He had chosen a small crew and everyone had to pull double shifts but it was this was all theirs!  All they had to do was make it to their destination and get another cargo and the wide ocean was theirs to explore.

 “You’re in a good mood Squall.”  A humorous sounding voice caused him to turn to see Doubar looking at him with a small smile on his face.

 “Why wouldn’t I brother, we’re finally underway, our destination isn’t too far that the time we weren’t sailing that we might still with time to spare, giving us a great reputation for our new lives!” Squall said with a laugh as he walked towards the bridge.

 “We’re carrying basic building material my friend, a simple government job that we only got because the other captains want cargos that make them profit, with all our expenses at the end we’ll probably have enough to pay the docking fees for a month and keep us feed while we look for a new cargo.” Doubar said as he looked at his captain who only laughed.

 “And what do we care for profit my friend?  We have the ocean and our ship, all we have to do is get enough money to survive and I’ll be happy!  And we’ll be free and away from everyone who wants to get us, so there’s that too my brother.”  Squall said as he looked over the harbor as the ship moved towards the mouth.  Doubar only shook his head before he released a sigh.

 “Of course you would. Anyway, its soup tonight so make sure your there so you can have something.  And your right, it’ll be good to get away from all the people we made mad when we made the money to get this ship of ours.”  Doubar said as he walked towards a door into the ship.  Squall looked at where he had gone for a few minutes before he walked towards the railings and looked over the harbor as he walked towards the stern.  I can’t deny that I’m happy we can finally leave that town.  The way lord Rodruss has been eying me ever since we caught those slavers, I just don’t like the way his eyes make me feel. Still, if I can keep sailing maybe I’ll find out who I am and where I come from. Squall thought as he stopped and looked over the water as he sighed.  He saw a three young boys sitting on a peer and thought back to his youth in the orphanage and how he’d always been drawn to the sea, how he always longed to be on the ocean.  He just sighed and turned towards the back towards the prow when he stopped and slowly turned and walked to the port side.  He had felt something on his back and once he stopped he locked eyes with his oldest foe, Francisco El Yutra who stood on the deck of his own ship.  He and Francisco had fought against each other since their first day of school, him an orphan who didn’t know his heritage and Francisco the grandson of a Lord who died fighting a Chimera.  It didn’t help that Frany has a sense of entitlement that everyone is just a stepping stone if they can help him and worth nothing if they stand against him or can’t help him.  The little brown nosier sure could suck up like the best of them.  Squall thought as he locked eyes with Francisco until his ship moved him beyond the edge of his vision and Francisco disappeared. Squall turned and walked towards the galley.

  Francisco watched as that orphan runt sailed away as he stood on his ship.   That fool had always a pain in his side, and the only one who bothered him more was that pirate bitch!  He snarled as he walked into his ship and saw the people working on it, when that old fool had handed him the papers for the ship he had invoked part of the insurance on it to give it a full overhaul before he took her out to sea.  And he needed to get something to handle that pirate bitch and get a crew with the right sensibilities and then he will start to build his power.  A cruel smirk grew on his face as he walked through the hallways; yes he just had to find the right crew members, people who weren’t like….

 “Mon Capitan, there you are!”  A cheerful voice came from behind him and caused him to gain a scowl on his face.  Out of all of them, why did this fat orphan fool stay, why couldn’t the right short stay instead. Francisco thought as he turned and faced the speaker.  A small roundish figure with blond hair and a mustache dressed in a black uniform with a black cap walked towards him with a smile on his face.  Demetrio was the only member of the crew that had stayed on when the ship had changed hands, even though he had strongly hinted that he wasn’t needed.  The man had stayed when all the others had left, citing loyalty to the ship and captain.  The fool had been moving about, collecting reports on the progress of the repairs and observing it.

 “The head says the engine should be fully installed by dusk, and the galley will be finished by tomorrow. They finished inspecting the bottom and there were no damages to repair, and the holds will be ready by the end of the current shift.  Should I go and set up notices or will you be going to the sailor’s union to interview crew candidates’ sir?”  Demetrio asked as he saluted Francisco as he stood at attention. Francisco merely glared at him and walked off, Demetrio following in his wake.

 “So what you’re saying is that we can leave port as soon as the day after tomorrow if we only had a crew ready?”  Francisco asked as he led the way towards the captain’s office.  Demetrio nodded as he followed his captain, then realizing he couldn’t be seen spoke up.

 “Yes Mon Capitan, but I think it might be a bit hard to find anyone who will want to go pirate hunting who haven’t signed up for service already, given the time of year.” Demetrio said, causing Francisco to stop for a second before he resumed walking as he realized it was the beginning of the school year and recent crack downs would have put the gangs into a ‘holding pattern’.  Where am I going to get the kind of people I want to serve on my ship?  This might be harder than I thought when I accepted this ship.  Dud the old man know this, was this a part of his plan? To see how I would handle this kind of hurdle? Francisco thought as he entered a bare office and sat behind a simple desk.  Demetrio stood at attention and look out the office’s only window before speaking.

 “Yes that’s true.  Put up a notice at the union and maybe we’ll get luck and get a large enough crew that we could leave port.   While you’re there look into any cargos or rumors that might spark that witch’s interest.  And get back before midnight, understand?”  Francisco commanded Demetrio saluting him before he turned and walked to the door, stopping as he opened it.

 “Did you see Señor Squall’s ship leave port Mon Capitan?  I don’t think a lot of people will be happy he won’t be around for the next city wide tournament, a few people spoke of wanting to try him for the title.”  Demetrio said with a cheerful tone of voice that caused Francisco to look up with a scowl.  He had lost against Squall in the last tournament and he had to admit the chance to take him down being gone was something else to be mad about.

 “Yes, yes, people won’t be happy that he won’t…..People won’t be happy. Don’t bother going to the union, I’ll tell you where to put up the posters tomorrow, go get dinner somewhere.” Francisco said as he leaned back as a grin formed on his face.   That brat has a habit of making enemies and he broke a few gangs here or there, I’m sure the remnants would be happy to sign up to take their trade out to see.  And there are a few individuals that escaped from him, and they could be quite a game changer if I’m able to get the right one or two.  That maker or that caster, then I might just….  Francisco’s thoughts trailed off as a savage grin formed on his face as he waved off Demetrio.

 Demetrio looked back at the ship and gained a savage grin on his face as he walked off.  It’s like mamma always said to me, ’there’s no fool like a prideful fool’.  I thought that I would have to dangle that idea for a few days before the idiota took the bait.  But I never thought that he’d let me handle the recruitment, that will make step two so much easier.  And now all I need to do is call on my own forces to crew and once that fool captures the sea witch and then kill them the both of them.  And then I’ll be one step closer to killing the lord of this city or taking over for him before the invasion. Demetrio thought as he walked towards a bar with a spring in his step.

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 “Must we put so much effort into just having supper with my father?”  Nudara asked as one of her maids finished touching up her make as another one brushed her hair.

 “My apology’s milady but we have our orders; your father wanted a trial run before the party.” One of the maids said as she moved away and let her see how she looked in the mirror.  Her hair was free and curled, while she had on golden lipstick and eye shadow.  Taken in with her golden dress she was sure she would sparkle.  Beside how dad likes to dress me up, most people wouldn’t think he has nothing more than a bad sense of style, if I didn’t know about his ‘side business’ I’d think he was just an eccentric.  She thought as she stood up and walked towards the dining room.  As she walked she eyed the Maids, noting the marks that identified them as Homunculus as she moved by and kept her expression blank as she moved, showing none of her feelings.

 She walked towards a door and two of the Maids opened the door to reveal a long room with a long rectangular table with a black tablecloth on it, she looked towards the far end and saw her father sitting at one of the only two chairs, a place set beside him for her.  She walked towards him and spun around when she reached him before sitting down.

 “You look marvelous my dear, I’m certain you’ll make a wonderful impression on sir Magnus at the party!”  Sadri Don Rodruss said as he raised a goblet in her direction before taking a deep sip. She smiled demurely before starting to eat as well.

 “Father, while I was coming into town I noticed the port was on lockdown, did something happen?”  She asked absentmindedly as she ate, keeping her face blank as she watched her father scowl out of the corner of her eyes.

 “Pay it no mind my dear, merely a problem with Nightsprout.  One of my ships was raided again and I had the port locked down to see if we could find any of her spies.  Nothing as usual, I’m at my wits end trying to find that witch!”  Sadri said as he fumed as he ate.

 “But did you have to invite him father, I thought after the last time Lady Camilla and her student came you wouldn’t invite him again?” Nudara asked point blank, causing her father to stare at his daughter for a few seconds before he realized who she meant.

 “Oh, him, I ran into him while I was talking with one of my customers and he learned of the party and told me right in front of my associate that he and his sister would be there, quite loudly in fact and to save my business I had to replay loudly that I will mark him down as coming. Quite shrewd of him I would say.” Sadri said with a sigh. Nudara kept her poker face on as she ate and noticed one of the new maids was bringing in a teapot that she poured into her father’s cup

 “I noticed a few new Homunculi around the garden; did you get a good deal on them?”  She asked as she cleaned her face.  Her father smiled and started to laugh a little.

 “Oh yes I did and I’m currently looking into if the creator will come to my employment, the products were quite good.”  He smiled, never noticing that his daughter’s eyes were locked on the maid for any kind of reaction to her father’s words.

 “Will anyone else of note be coming besides Lord Magnus him and his sister?”  Nudara asked as her father stood up and she followed his lead.

 “An associate who is a middleman between resource gathers near the Rest might be coming with his son. I say maybe because there was an…incident a few days ago.”  Sadri said with a slight frown.  At Nudara’s look he waved it off.

 “Pay it no mind, I’m told nothing has happened beyond the initial incident.  I want you to spend the next few days getting ready, I want you to make a good impression on Sir Magnus and whoever he brings with him, the prince is the target of the game now.”  Sadri said as he walked towards his office as Nudara curtsied to him and walked towards her room.  As she walked she kept a graceful smile on her face as she went over what she had learned from him.  New Homunculi and a possible event in the Rest, I think I might try the gossip circuit during the party and see if I can pick anything up.  I hope this party is as useful to my goals as I hope it will be.  

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 Jenny looked over the trucks to take the last of the evidence and captives back to the station. Ash and the others had left a few hours back and Voila had gone back to the gym, leaving her to handle the cleanup. She smirked when she realized that at least she could handle Rex’s interrogation after he woke up tomorrow personally.  All that was left was to handle the last few trucks and look over the base for anything else to charge   And that’s not counting the other various Bug type gangs and groups around the area; but if Rex was their overall leader then it might be worse before it gets better. But if they fight each other for power or position in their ‘new’ gang then it might be better or worse for the town. Jenny let her thoughts die out as she got onto her bike and drove off, the trucks following behind her, never noticing that the last one had veered off course or the drivers weren’t members of her station.

 “This is perfect Jess! We got away clean and this time they won’t try to go back to their trainers because they don’t have any!” James said as he drove the police van towards the western outskirts of the city.  It had been easy to knock out the drivers of the last truck and hide them away and quickly get into their cloths.  Now all they had to do was get back to where they stashed the next part of their plan and they were golden.

 “Yes and now all we have to do is dump this, transfer the eggs to our truck, get it to a city where we can sell it, put the eggs into stasis and send the key for them to the boss!” Jessie said with a laugh as she leaned back as Meowth chuckled as he leaned back against the seat as he looked forward and leaned his head back.

 “And the best thing was I never had to tell the cops about where the hideout was, but I’m wondering who sent in that Weavile in.”  Meowth said with as Jessie looked at him as James’s eyes widened as he tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

 “What Weavile, and you didn’t throw the rock!?”  Jessie demanded as Meowth just sighed and shook his head.  

 “Saw a Weavile get out of a vent on the station’s roof, then saw it throw a piece of meat up and swallow it, think it was an eye and I’m thinking human with the way they all poured out of the building before blondie tweep got there with the info.”  Meowth said with its arms crossed as Jessie looked at James who swallowed before forcing a smirk onto his face.

 “That’s worrying, but still, over 16 eggs to send to the boss, this is quite a feather in our caps chums!”  James said with a glance to Jessie and met her smirk with his own.  Jessie merely bit her thumb as they drove onward, her thoughts falling back to what Meowth had said.  An Ice-type as one of a Bug Gang? There’s no way in hell.  Why do I have a feeling this whole region is a lot more complicated than the boss thought it was?  She thought as they drove onward.

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 Ash walked through the hospital towards a computer room and slipped into it and plopped himself down on an empty chair and released a sigh.  Pikachu was having a snack with his other Pokémon and he had gotten away from the doctors while they were drawing blood from Serena after Lilly had kept them from getting any from her, something about how she’d never hear the end of it if her regular doctor found out.  She had consented to sending a blood sample sealed back to her home and promised to tell them to contact the hospital once the tests were done.  That had pacified the doctors and Ash had slipped away to contact his other friends, it was that time again to talk to his old companions. Login into the chatroom he noticed May and Dawn were already there and started to type.

WorldTraveler:  Hey guys!  How have you two been doing lately?  Say heard from Rockdoc or Depthlover lately, know if they’re going to miss our chat?

 PastSeaker:  Hey WorldTraveler, everything’s great!  I’m done with Unova circuit and got an internship with an archeologist!  She’s incredible and I can’t talk about too much but wow!  And no I haven’t heard from them since our last chat.

 PokeBaker:  The same, the Pokémon Fashion tour is over for the season and I’m currently relaxing on a cruise ship bound for Kalos!  A few months of traveling and quests before a show after something called the Pokémon Showcase Master Class happens.

 WorldTraveler: I’m in Kalos, Santalune City Hospital to be exact.  And there was another incident with a gang, again.

 PokeBaker:  Let me guess, they tried to recruit you, rob you or one of your current companying and got beaten down for their troubles.

 WorldTraveler: Yes and no. They kidnapped a friend of mine and someone else while the girls were out shopping.  They did so their leader could draw me in and recruit me to conquer this town.

 PastSeaker:  ‘Girls’ you say, what is there another member of the ‘My Bike was destroyed by Ash and Pikachu club?

 Ash gave a chuckle as he grinned sheepishly as if they could see him; he and Pikachu weren’t that bad about destroying bikers, were they?  Ash perked up when he noticed a popup saying DepthLover had loged in.  Great, now if only Brock would get here then this might be a normal day after that hell with those so called Lords! Ash thought with a smirk as he read Misty’s text.

 DepthLover:  Hello guys, how have you all been for the last month?

PokeBaker: hey DepthLover, WorldTraveler was just telling us how a FEMALE friend of his was kidnapped and he destroyed another gang to save her, say, have you heard from RockDock, there a reason he isn’t here?

 Ash just shook his head. Sometimes he had the hardest time understanding them.  So what if Serena was a girl, if she had been a boy he would have done the same thing. If anyone took any of his friends then he would have destroyed them all the same.  But I think she means something else for the others to pick up on, don’t know what but those three really get each other.  Ash thought as he tipped out his reply.

 WorldTraveler:  She wasn’t kidnapped alone, someone else was taken too and they attacked my friend twice already!  And yeah, where is RockDoc?

 PastSeaker:  Of course she wasn’t WorldTraveler, of course that makes is so much better.  So why’s she traveling with you, did you destroy her bike too?

 DepthLover:  What are the odds something like that would happen for a third time PastSeaker, twice was enough!  But I can’t believe that this happened over the last few days when at the same time what happened to me did to!  

 WorldTraveler:  No I didn’t!  She’s and old friend that lived in Pallet during the last Siege and moved to Kalos for her mom’s career after the Pokémon Racing circuit died!  And what happened to you and Rockdoc DepthLover?

 PastSeaker:  You still there, nothing happened on you end did it?

 DepthLover: Yeah, just getting my thoughts in order and I don’t mind guy.  So here it what happened to me, my sisters got me a surprise makeover when I thought it was just some pampering at a spay, found a girl under attack by three others who it seems were tortured to do so, discovered she was an orphan from an rather mercantile caretaker, took a field trip with the class whose teacher is one of my oldest friends and when we were there a swarm of Chimera of at least two kinds attack the whole beach, fought them off and got home to tell Jenny what happened.

  Ash had gone still as soon as he read Misty’s text before a glare appeared on his face. Chimera’s, always they turn up in the last places they should do.  How the hell did a force of Chimera make landfall near Cerulean?  Did anyone die or did they all escape.  Misty okay so they probably did.  Ash thought as his fingers moved across the keyboard even as other messages came up onto the screen.

 PastSeaker: Chimera, near your city, are you okay did everyone escape alive?

 PokeBaker:  Two kinds, were they different colors, any of them?

 WorldTraveler: A swarm attacked a beach, were you alone with the class or were others there to, I mean Chimera usually pick off loners.

 DepthLover: Now that you mention they were all black and what I could see they were all black and get this, they used steel barrels and the larger one the wreck of a car as armor.

 WorldTravelerPM- DepthLover: It wasn’t her was it Misty, don’t tell me that bitch was still free after all these years!

 DepthloverPM- WorldTraveler: Yeah, it was her.  Jenny told me they never published it because she got away, Jenny even thought she might have been in the Orange Islands, one of the smaller one with her ill-gotten profits.

 PastSeaker:  I don’t know how the League in Kanto is, but back home they would drag their feet a bit if Chimera attacked people away from the main cities, how much help do you expect?

 Depthlover: Not much really, I’m thinking about calling the LT for help and a certain person who travels with a rather large collection whose spending some time around here.  So you’re challenging the Kalos league? How’s it been there?

 WorldTraveler: Complicated. The people here defer to old nobles and give them preferential treatment and a new friend said some people still rule cities as Kings.  And the gang leader was one of them.  Thankfully it seems that the Gym cities put that treatment to the Gym leader so I expect that he’ll go away for a long time.  Escpecially given how abused that Volcarona was, scars and a dead eye not to mention its mental state.  They had to kill it.  And stop not telling us about Rockdock DepthLover

 Depthlover:  Fine I can’t keep it from you, there was an outbreak of a virus or a mold spore that he thought might be from a Chimera and he got together an expedition into the mountains to find the source, when he contacted me he said they were departing the next morning so there wasn’t enough time for me to get there.  

 Ash went still again as he started to pale.  A viral outbreak in Kanto and it might be from a Chimera, those were always the worst. Man oh man Viridian is in so much trouble!  I can’t believe….wait didn’t I hear that there’s a hurricane coming in when I left Kanto.  The only reason Brock would go up if its airborne then that means…MOM! Ash thought as he fanatily started to type away.

 WorldTraveler: If he went into the mountains then it must be airborne, DepthLover isn’t a hurricane due to hit the area in the next few days?

 Depthlover:  Yes there is.

 PastSeaker:  If the outbreak is airborne then it might hit Pallet! And being on a mountain during a hurricane, that’s crazy!

 Depthlover:  He said he’ll just do a quick survey and get down before it hits and he’s been gone a few days now.  We have to trust him to come back alive and that’s all.

 “Mr. Ketchum?”  Ash looked towards the voice and saw a doctor looking at him with a stern look.   He smiled sheepishly and gave a shaky smile.

 “Hey doc, did you need something?”  Ash asked as he looked at the doctor who responded with a glare of his own.

 “Yes I do.  You’re the only one of your party who hasn’t been examined yet and if you would sign out of whatever you’re doing and come this way, after that you can stay here tonight and can leave in the morning.” The doctor declared with a hard look, Ash only nodded and turned towards the screen and typed out a quick message.

 WorldTraveler: Sorry guys, the doctor wants to look over a few injuries I’d gotten during my raid, I see you all in a weak or so back here.

 Ash stepped away and followed the doctor out of the room.  Ash noticed phones against the wall and cleared his throat and gave the doctor a sheepish smile.

 “Mind if I stop and call home first, I learned something that I need to call home about and I don’t want my mom to see me as a mummy if you know what I mean.”  Ash asked the doctor who gave him a sharp glare.

 Ash walked towards one of the video-phones and smiled over his shoulder at the doctor who crossed his arms, Ash turned and moved to the phone and punched in his home number and waited for an answer.  A girl with brown hair in a bun answered the phone and gave a small smile to Ash.  Who the hell is this, where’s mom?!  Ash thought as a glare formed on his face as he looked at the phone.

 “Hello can i…”  The girl began before she stopped when she saw the glare on Ash’s face.

 “Who the heck are you and where’s my mom?”  Ash said darkly as the girl dropped her mouth open and seemed to shake a bit as Ash glared at her.   Finally the girl started to smile shakily at him and stammered out a reply.

 “You’re Ash?!  I’m Albia; the new worker, Delia’s been letting me crash here instead of the Pokémon Center.  You want your mom, just give me a second to go get her.”  Albia said as she dashed off.  A few seconds later Delia came in front of the phone, a smile on her face.

 “Ash!”  Delia said as soon as she saw her son.

 “Mom!  Are you okay, I heard there was an outbreak in Viridian and with the hurricane coming in.”  Ash said, causing Delia to start to giggle.

 “I’m fine Ash, really! There was a general warning about what’s happening in Viridian and we’ve all begun preparing to weather the hurricane once it makes landfall but its business as usual here.  Really….wait. Is that a hospital?  Ash Ketchum what have you done now Mister!”  Delia demanded, causing Ash to laugh sheepishly as he paled a bit.

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 Albia walked into the room she had been given and dropped on to the bed, holding herself as she shook. She hadn’t been so scared ever, not even when she was being hunted!  She thought she had experienced true fear then, but just a few words and a glare Ash had terrorized her completely!  And Ash’s glared had been a look of murder and carnage in his eyes, as if he could reach through the phone and grab her!  She had seen his battles in the Johto League Championship and with the way he had looked at her when she answered wondered if he had improved or if his opponent was just that good or if Ash’s luck was just that bad, if Ash was the same then how, just how he had lost the way he had.  

 “Maybe I should talk to Amanda about putting aside some money to buy a ticket or two so Delia can see Ash’s battle in Kalos Championship in person, because win or lose that will be one heck of a show.” Albia said out loud as she hugged the pillow.

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  “I think that’s everything I needed to do here.”  Darcy said as she clapped her gloved hands as she moved through the room and looked back over what she had added to the room; a dart board that flipped to a damaged picture of Viola there, a map of the town with notes on how to invade it here and to finish it up a doctored journal that had enough hatred and insults.

 “I think that the police should be here soon, so it’s time for us to leave, and please make us look like birds.”  Darcy said as she looked away from her work.  Walking towards a doorway onto a balcony she slipped though and into her Zoroak’s arms and it carried her away under a cloak. They stopped on a house a mile away and looked down at two Police cruisers moving up the street and Darcy smiled, bringing a hand to her face to hide a giggle as she used her other hand to rub Hypno’s Pokéball. The only way that they got here so soon was that the few triggers I dropped into the higher grunts went off, thanks partner.  Now all we have to do is report.  Darcy thought as she smirked.

 “If everything works out perfectly and they don’t deviate from what their orders are then I think that’s it then, now all we have to do is go back to back and get our next assignment.  The Reign of Rex Tristo is ended; have a wonderful hell Rex-boy!” Darcy said as Zoroak jumped to the next building and they moved towards the edge of town.

 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

 Arbok and ‎Weezing moved through the underbrush, ‎Weezing turning in a circle as they moved, hoping that they weren’t being hunted by any of the local Chimera.  The pack had dispersed and most had moved on towards the mountains to the south while the two of them had moved towards Santalune City, hoping to use their past experiences as a way to get enough food so they could find a way back to Kanto and then Team Rocket and their trainers.  As they made it into the outskirts of Arbok stopped and sighed, causing Weezing to stop and look at its comrade.

 “Weez?”  Weezing asked as it hovered and waited.

 “Arbok bok.”  Arbok said causing Weezing to sigh as well.  The chance for the two of them to find a way back to their trainers was almost miniscule, but they had to try!

 “Weez zing!”  Weezing admonished its companying and Arbok just sighed and stuck its tongue out and then went still.  It turned its head and looked towards the wind its eyes starting to water.

 Weezing, weez…” Weezing trailed off when Arbok spoke next and went still as it felt hope.

 “Arbok?”  Arbok barely spoke before it shot off, Weezing trailing behind it as they moved between the decrepit buildings as Arbok speed up.  That scent Arbok had picked up had to have been her, it had to be!  

  Jessie moved the mask off her face as they looked over the truck they had bought earlier.  They had just finished putting a second coat on the truck and left the remains of the first coat they had put on the truck, leaving the waste from that for the police to find.    A classic strategy, leave traces for the person looking for you that lead to where you weren’t, basic really. She walked outside of the abandoned warehouse and looked over the police truck James was in the middle of dismantling and walked over to him.

 “Found anything useful in that thing?”  She asked when she reached him.  He looked up at her and just shook his head.

 “The positioning system is at least a few years old, we probably did them a favor when we took it from them, might force them to upgrade. The RAM is good as is the CPU, the engine now that’s a lot better than I thought it would be.  All in all a good haul, should I leave the positioning system or not?”  James asked as he looked at the truck in disgust at how low tech it was.  Jessie grinned as with this their next machine would be a bit under budget.

 “I’ll help you put the engine between the doors and the eggs. This way if the cops stop us they’ll think we’re just people bringing tech to a salvage yard.”  Jessie said before a commotion caused the two of them to look towards the noise. Jessie put her hands onto a dagger on her right leg as James raised moved his hand to his rapier before a serpentine form charge and pushed her to the floor.  

 Jessie blinked and saw an Arbok crying as it looked down at her.  Her eyes started to tear up as she reached a trembling hand and put in on the Pokémon’s hood and started to cry as well.  James moved towards her when suddenly something crashed into him and sent him to the floor next to Jessie.  He looked up to see a tearing Weezing and started to sniffle as hope blossomed in his heart.  Meowth meanwhile had just comeback from checking out the area and was eating a rat with his eyes closed as he walked towards them.

 “The area’s still secure guys, all we need to do is get outa here in the next hour or so and I think we’ll get away clean.  So how’s the truck Jamesy, anything….Arbok, Weezing, that you two?”  Meowth asked as he opened his eyes and saw the two Pokémon.  Once Jessie and James realized their hopes about who were in front of they continued to cry as they held them, and Meowth joined them and hugged all four of them.  He moved back, tears still flowing from his eyes and looked at the two Poison types.

 “Man, its great ta see the two of you, but what happened to those others you were guarding, what the heck are you doing in Kalos?” Meowth asked as he fought to get his emotions back under control.

 “Arbok. Arb bok Arbok.” Arbok said as its tears dried up and started to look proud as it spoke.

 “Weezing weez zing Weezing weez.”  Weezing said with an eye roll that caused Arbok to glare at it.

 “Really, that happened!?  Who the hell were those bastards, did ya ever find out….wait, why were didn’t the rangers move ya?!”  Meowth demanded as he gained a look of rage.

 “What happened to them Meowth?”  Jessie demanded as she looked at him as James frowned.

 “Yes chum, don’t keep the two of us wondering what happened to our partners!”  James cried out.

 “Cool ya jets, I’ll translate, was just taking it in. It ain’t good, that’s all I’ll say first.  What they told me was according ta them a few months after we split from each other the pack they were guarding was transferred by two Rangers to a swamp sanctuary that used to be nearby.  For a few years they had a good run, members of the packs joined up, evolved and had kids and generally had great lives.  About a year ago the packs started sensing something wrong with the water and about three months ago the prey started to taste bad.”  Meowth said with a glare.

 “’They tasted bad’, but their Poison types!”  James said as Jessie held Arbok as she looked at it.

 “Yeah, and I don’t have to tell you what that means for Poison types.  Humans had apparently dropped barrels of something or other in the swamp, the locals who were running it closed it down and they just left the animals and Pokémon to themselves.  After the local wildlife started to mutate the two of them called the pack together and decided that the best thing were for them all to split up.  A local unified pack sent some emissary’s to them and they think at least one of the groups went after them.  These two decided to find a way back to Kanto to find a way back to you.”  Meowth said as James and Jessie absorb what Meowth translated and started to grow angery as well.

 “Those Ranger brats never even kept an eye on you all?” Jessie snarled as James looked back towards where the two had come from.

 “A unified pack?  In the area?”  James’s words caused him and Jessie to shot each other a look, remembering a few other packs they had meet and fought.

 “Another reason to leave soon I’d say.”  Meowth said as Weezing and Arbok nodded.  Jessie smiled and looked the others before.

 “Well the gang’s back together then!  Let’s start dismantling this truck before we move out, Meowth your on overwatch.  We need to get our score to safety before we can try again to get Pikachu!”  Jessie said as James moved towards the truck with a smile on his face, Weezing following him as Arbok to up a guard position by Jessie as Meowth climbed the structure they were ussing.  With these two back with us it’ll be a lot easier to survive here.  I don’t like that a killer Pokemon infiltrated the station because of that gang, it doesn’t track with small gangs limited to a single city’s area.  I have a feeling we’re going to need these two before our time in this region is done. Jessie thought as she moved towards the truck they had transferred the eggs to.

[cloudbatcave]

Cloud Plays White: Finale

This is a long one, folks, since I realized I had a bit in my notes I had forgotten about and only found after I posted this, lol, so I have now edited it in.

when we last left off I was criticizing Alder for being useless in apprehending Ghetsis and Iris for not just taking me to Drayden’s house herself when it is Right Fucking There. 

So I’m still futzing around Opelucid here.

“No way, without pokemon, I’ll be lonely and sad! …but am I just using my pokemon, then?”

wow, seems there’s some brain cells there after all. you keep exercising those, brah.

I run into a guy who thinks that it’s okay for team plasma to take pokemon from weak trainers, even though he considers himself one and feels bad for the people they rob.

There’s another dude in the same room who used to be part of team plasma but left because it was weird for him that everyone thought the same way.

See, I appreciate this part of the game’s writing - I wish there was more stuff like this, people who are conflicted and their viewpoints being front and center instead of the simplistic garbage we’re fed by Iris and Alder and company.

Though there’s an absolute nut job who says that despite the years he’s trained with his pokemon he’ll let it go if it makes it a perfect being and I am just not even gonna unpack all the lunacy there.

There’s a kid who thinks that just because N has the legendary pokemon, he must be the hero.

I am very concerned about everyone in Unova being so gullible.

“Your Scrafty looks like it can try a little harder.”

WELL FUCK YOU TOO RANDOM LADY??? LAD DOES HIS BEST AND I WILL NOT HAVE HIM SLANDERED THIS WAY

I finally go to Drayden’s and get told how the original dragon performed mitosis and now we have two dragons and also they once destroyed the region with fire and lightning but it’s chill.

“People may hurt pokemon even more by imposing their selfish thoughts on them. But no matter what, Pokemon and people believe in each other, need each other, and will continue to live together…”

Drayden is smarter and more nuanced than like, anyone else, why is he not a main character.

Iris chips in about how much she can’t forgive Plasma and Drayden mentions they don’t know how to wake up Zekrom.

Well, to be fair, I’d be very surprised if they did.

Off to the gym, this’ll be interesting since I have no ice or dragon moves on my team.

I get through the trainers okay, now time to fight Daffodil.

Her Haxorus was a bit tricky but nothing I couldn’t handle, and when I walk out Juniper shows up.

And somehow she knows how to resurrect Zekrom. Cool!

She blahs about how it’ll wake up when it deems someone worthy and talks about how much I’ve changed and shows me to the gate where the route to the pokemon league is.

“Chirae? Do you regret setting out on your pokemon journey?”

UH.

MAYBE?

mmm, that’s not fair to my pokemon though - nigh everyone around me may be looney tunes or incompetent, but they’ve been good pals.

So I hit “no” after all.

and she gives me a master ball. dope.

I make it to the gates of victory road and I honestly really like the bit where each section of them is themed after the badges! That’s a nice touch, I think that was only also done in the FRLG remakes if I recall correctly. It makes it feel a lot more ceremonious and important.

Ah here come my two idiots.

Bianca asks Cheren to smile and he’d probably implode if he did. He finally isn’t an asshole though, good for him.

The bug badge guard tells me to “fight valiantly like an insect” which is funny but I guess does make sense. Ants can fuck some stuff up, man.

Honestly I want to be a badge gate guard, seems like a fun job.

Also, I caught an excadrill in a raid the day I wrote this, and caught an excadrill in this game. Their pokedex entry includes this gem:

“Their tunnels can be destructive to subway systems”

Given the battle subway exists in this game, their insurance payments must be obscene. Imagine getting your match interrupted by a giant mole with metal fists that doesn’t give a fuck.

I named her Beans. She looks like a Beans.

I also caught a Deino. The Irate Pokémon that can’t see and tackles people to learn about its surroundings. I feel a kinship with this creature.

I named him Mezzo for laughs.

And I managed to get myself back to the beginning of victory road. Good job, cloud.

Okay I think I’ve found the right path, found a new dude to beat up which is a good sign. Apparently he’s lost too.

Love when a trainer switches out to a Pokémon mine doesn’t have a type advantage against and it gets wiped in two hits anyway. Death is inevitable.

“I’ve thought about what I can do to help my Pokémon win and I finally figured out the answer!”

Is it git gud?

Flame charge raises my speed, opponent’s klang uses automotize to prove it can do that too, dies because it’s too busy trying to go fast.

Then I get nailed by a flare blitz. Darmanitan is toxic to gen 5 nuzlocke runs, I swear. Especially since I have no one on my hodgepodge team resistant to fire. At least my unfezant is faster.

“Read what your opponent wants to do. Your opponent is human and may change plans from moment to moment. Be careful!”

There’s some meta joke to be made there but I’m not thinking of anything witty. Something something AI having a point even if not in this context.

Back to the beginning again but I think I know what I need to do now.

I looked at a walkthrough to check, tho, lmfao. Was tired of climbing up there only to fall down the wrong spot.

“There’s an item at the bottom! Do you want to slide all the way down?”

You’re the devil talking and you tempt me but I will ignore your silver tongue for now.

So I’m at the league and I thought Cheran would pop out of the bushes before I got here. That’s weird. I could swear he fights me one last time before I challenge the elite four.

NO CHERAN. OKAY. WHAT. IS MY GAME GLITCHED??

I guess not! Huh.

All right then. Time to try and see if I can win with my very unbalanced team.

Lmfao yeah my first attempt against the ghost trainer crashed and burned. Literally, thanks to her Chandelure. Very glad I saved on the outside. TIME TO GO TRAIN MORE.

No Marty, you may not learn wild charge, this is a no recoil moves household, self harm is bad.

Some grinding later, I am ready to try again.

Shauntal gave me a little trouble but was much more manageable. Grimsley was easy, only his Krookodile gave me issues.

I really like the elite four battle areas in this gen, I do admit. Very aesthetic.

Ah shit I know that Musharna is coming.

Never mind, that pink and purple snoozeball went down easy. I didn’t have a single Pokémon faint.

Unless Marshal breaks the trend the fights have actually gotten easier as I went.

He actually was a bit tricky, gave me a good show.

Hello endless stairs, hello N and Alder, hello giant random castle that just explodes out of the ground somehow.

“What has just appeared is team plasma’s castle”

Thanks mate, never would’ve figured that out without you. Why do you need a castle. 

Oh wow, the gym leaders finally decided to be useful and fight the sages for me instead of letting extremists wander around unchecked.

Thanks y’all! Trying not being pointless more often!

“Ignoring team plasma...that would be a terrible thing for us gym leaders to do.”

You all already did that, Elena. I watched as Clay and Iris let these assholes go. We could have avoided this whole plot if literally any of you had done more earlier.

So the game says the castle was built by the Pokémon team plasma took but how the fuck did they like...work underground...you know what I’m not gonna even think about it too hard because it makes no sense and I know that. I must make my peace.

I also like how the castle is nonsensical and yet there’s a line of dialogue about how they’ll liberate the Pokémon in PCs too for their Master Plan(TM), which is surprisingly thoughtful. This game is so inconsistent with how much sense its lore makes. It’ll come up with something clever and then wear its underwear on its head the next minute.

“Will you go the Pokémon league?”

Hey what - WHY DID YOU TELEPORT ME HOW CAN YOU DO THAT. DO YOU HAVE AN ABRA OR WHAT

THAT WAS RANDOM

Well at least there’s someone there to randomly teleport me back too.

WHEEEEEE

Hi Reshiram, convenient how that mini fire tornado you made didn’t burn me or N.

Hi Zekrom, convenient how your lightning didn’t hurt us either, you’re a considerate chap

Aight, let’s see if I can catch this bastard

...I did and it only took me like five balls. Okay then.

N gave me a good fight, so there’s that.

Love how Ghetsis’s bouffalant kills itself via recoil from its own move and my scrafty’s rocky helmet.

He gave me a good fight too though.

I do like the ending, despite my issues with how the game presents its message. N is a great character and I appreciate what Nintendo was trying to do with the game’s plot, they just...didn’t really delve into it like they should have.

I’m glad I replayed it. I still have my issues with gen 5 but I see a lot more of its positives now.

We’ll see if I do any post-game content, I have gotten kind of attached to my grump-ass trainersona and his weird team.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep1 Part 2: The Soul Stealing Motorcycle Card Gang With an Australian Accent

So a lot of things that happen at once in this episode, and one of the wild things is something that has been building for 3 entire seasons of Yugioh but because all this other stuff is happening, it’s like...secondary. Slowly, we’ve been watching all of these cards becoming more and more real to the point that yes, they are in fact Physical now--other people are noticing, it’s finally happening. the cards are finally real. Magic exists. This is a very big deal.

Like I’ve seen some of y’alls comments about how S4 is kind of crazy and well...cards becoming real was my one and only guess as to what crazy thing could happen in S4 and that happened halfway through the first episode so...it’s all uphill from here

But what’s crazy about this is that although this has been built up for so long,  all our main characters are so freakin distracted, that they look up at the sky and see...youknow...this tapestry here:

And treat it like they’re looking at a flock of really weird birds or something. Like this is world breaking, terrifying, end of the world, Independence Day level red alert and yet instead of the military marching down and shooting lasers at all of these things, everyone is going to just simply walk home.

No one is going to evacuate. Yugi’s Dad isn’t going to show up in a Mad Max style motorcycle in jean cutoffs and be like “I knew it was happening, Son, this is what I’ve been doing for the past 3 years PS, it was worth it now, huh?” no, that isn’t happening.

Instead we’re going to very patiently, and very carefully just not panic and walk home.

Everyone’s just gonna...walk on the sidewalk home, huh? Patiently follow traffic laws? Wait for the light to turn red and everything?

No one even slightly wants to know what any of these monsters taste like? Just me? I mean this is your one opportunity to cook and eat a scapegoat and you know that thing’s got to be delicious under barbecue sauce.

And the funny thing is, people saw this happening and was like “I should call that game company and let them know that there’s real ass dragons that look like their video game flying around.”

Like imagine that Nintendo became real and there’s just...Goombas everywhere. Would I be...calling the Nintendo Hotline?

Hell No. I would be checking all food blogs everywhere for how to roast a Goomba on a grill, because you KNOW those things would be nuts after a few hours in a marinade, draped with fried egg on rice.

But in Yugioh, they’re like calling up Kaiba Corp and hoping that customer service can somehow make the living, breathing dragons and whatever that flying turtle thing was just...stop existing. They’re pretty sure Kaiba can “turn off” the flying monsters.

I think I’m still spelling it wrong, too.

Also, Kuriboh is real now and that...sucks.

That’s a lot of gross hair just flying around and I guarantee it’s gonna give everyone lice. That nasty ass sentient ball of hair you pulled out of your shower drain is just...flying around outside with huge googly eyes.

Freakin sucks. You can’t possibly eat a Kuriboh, it’s way too much hair and I guarantee when you skin that thing it’s like just a meatball to put on the tiniest little skewer and that’s it.

Sorry Bro just informed me that Kuriboh is a ghost??????

???

Also one of the cards is straight up an American Quarter.

I just want to bring up that there’s one (1) cursed ass American Quarter somewhere on Earth and that is going to be a real shocker for the one person that picks up that Quarter and doesn’t realize that when you flip it, it can kill people.

And I just did hunt to figure out what the hell the quarter card is called and I’m starting to think maybe the the show made it up? Wtv my memory is patchy when it comes to the cards.

And for all the cards that are just people but with more muscles, what are they gonna do? Is Dark Magician gonna have to go try and get a reception job to pay the bills? Is anyone going to hire Dark Magician in this economy?

(read more under the cut)

On their pleasurable walk home amongst all the horrible abominations and I guess a couple of bizarre magician hats floating around, they come across...this:

They just left them there in the middle of the street next to this nasty ass Gecko that would ABSOLUTELY eat them.

Also that Gecko...that’s just an alligator that can climb walls, right? Like this is Florida level of insane terrible creature you never want to have climbing walls? That was the one thing we had on alligators--vertical walls.

Youknow, Florida is probably the only place on Earth in this Universe that is actually completely fine.

On the other side of town, Roland is having his best day ever.

I do enjoy that Roland's line was “Mr Kaiba assured me that it’s not their company’s fault” which makes it sound sort of like he had some serious doubts. And might still have some serious doubts. And that he’s so sure that it was Kaiba, that he’s just going to say the “company” isn’t to blame.

And so they decided, well instead of evacuating the city, lets go have dinner at the Muto house. So, they all decided to not check in with everyone else’s parents and family and instead had a fun hang out sesh and watched TV.

They went to school with this guy.

Like they went to school with this guy like a month ago and now he’s giving press conferences in front of a dictator-style tapastry.

The imposter syndrome in Domino High must be pretty wild if you’re always getting compared to Seto Kaiba, is all I’m saying. Maybe that’s why the rest of the class has just decided to drop out.

*Cut to Pegasus’ island where there’s like 80 dead wife zombies running around and Pegasus and Croquet have locked themselves into the bathroom while they watch the zombie wives eat whatever’s left of PaniK.*

It looks like my dream ending of Yugioh, that Seto Kaiba’s company gets sued to hell and back and everyone goes to prison isn’t quite realized yet but it’s looking slowly and surely more real every day.

Kind of surprising that they assume so quickly that Kaiba is lying when they’re sitting next to Pinocchio over here.

So once you think, well...they can’t add more to this episode, no, we’re just gonna straight up knock out Yugi’s Grandpa...again. He needs a life alert. Does Yugi wear a life alert?

And you’d think they’d assume that a monster did this, right? Nah. It’s people. Real ass people did this but not one of the many huge ass monsters that apparently are kind of like Pokémon and don’t feel like doing more than just flap their arms and sit on stuff.

Anyways, the God Cards are gone. Goodbye, Deux ex Machina cards.

Feel a little bad for the one building just directly under the shadow of obelisk, looking up and just seeing a giant, glittery, blue ass.

And then a whole bunch of motorcycles showed up??? Like MOTORCYCLES. And I was like “BRO are they gonna play cards on motorcycles!?” because one of the only reasons I decided “OK Bro, lets actually watch Yugioh” is, and I’ve said this before, because someone mentioned on twitter that they’ll play cards on motorcycles but no.

No one plays cards on motorcycles this episode, they just show up to rev their engines and shine their brights.

Also at least one of them has like the thickest stage Australian accent and it is...rough. He said “bum” once instead of “butt” and you could tell it was just...they said bum to make him sound a little bit more Aussie because we don't really know how to do Australian in the States. We don’t know how this accent works, I’m so sorry.

But anyways, apparently after the God Cards got their energy sapped out, they can now just...be played by whomever? Not entirely clear.

And then they just...drove away.

Like they drove away without even telling them where to go?

And I was like...maybe they just went to that building under construction right there that is...somehow directly across from Yugi’s house which is...directly across from a super wide 12 laned street?

But...that can’t be right, right? I’m sometimes a little confused by the geography of this show but it’s a cartoon and they’re hard to make so we’ll forgive it.

Anyway, while Grandpa Muto counts up the damages to send to the insurance company, they figure out where to go, probably by following the God Cards which are...summoned here like holograms although...they are real? Right?

Like...

...so if there’s monsters just flying around, and it’s all the monsters of the duel monster deck, then there is a version of Slither just hanging out somewhere already, right? Or is the one they summon with the card the real Slither?

The show never thought that hard about it honestly. You can both play duel monster cards which I believe are no longer holograms when you play them and also they just inherently exist now so...Lets not think about it and just go to a brand new fight club roof. You know how much these kids love construction equipment.

Also is this the roof of a freakin IKEA? Look at the size of that thing.

This cultist just begging for Seto Kaiba to run a helicopter straight into him. Which Seto would probably do all over again if Seto were here.

I guess Seto decided to either go the hell to sleep and hope tomorrow will prove today was a bad dream, or he is celebrating the very best day of his life with his brother, sight seeing all the dragons and desperately trying to lure the dragons into his home with carrots under a box trap or something.

This guy ABSOLUTELY does Shakespeare in the park and only gets like minor, very minor roles, right? Like he’s the understudy for King Lear’s manservant who has no speaking lines and just pours water into a cup in one scene? And he takes it VERY seriously?

Yo these side burns.

So bro was like, who do you think would have more product in their hair? This guy or Yugi? And it’s like..well...here’s the thing about Yugi’s hair, he’s got a lot of product, but he has enough scalp to tease the hell out of it. But how do you tease your side burns? How do you tease your side burns so they have the lift of an old timey moustache? you can’t. Those side burns are 90% Elmers glue.

Hello there, offbrand Final Fantasy guy I see you got a Cloud shoulder pad but you wear two of them.

...

It’s a look they chose.

I...there’s a lot going on with all of these looks, especially the guy who is straight up wearing pieces of armor on his shoulders in the middle here for no reason but oh I will get to the looks when we see them in more detail later.

But it’s like, do you think Mr Monocle, who’s only character design trait is a single Monocle, will stay in the show very long? Compared to these guys?

Hm.

I guess we will see.

Thanks, Pegasus.

Thanks for giving us absolutely NO heads up about any of your disaster cards you produced and let loose across the world. Congrats on that. Congrats on printing this freakin card that steals people’s souls and delivering it out there where children could find it in their happy meals.

Like do you think he printed the Orichalcos card before or after the God Cards? Because I’d like to think that he finished up shoving the God Cards onto Ishizu and then was like “phew, crisis averted” and then immediately painted a weird geometric shape and was like “Damn it! I did it again!? Every time I decide not to paint my dead wife I just paint something even worse!”

Anyways, it’s aesthetic takes me back to a much simpler time of my life, and when it shows up the Titanic song pops up in my head? I can’t explain it. It’s just very...very...

It just screams edgy Riverdance to me, maybe it’s just me, but I feel like it should be accompanied by Enya? Just me? The runes just seem very old world Europe.

Bro really wants these to be the runes above Noah’s fireplace and he’s been holding this in for like an entire season, but that’s not going to happen.

Because I have the receipts:

Evidence again that Noah’s fireplace was just what Noah thought art was, since he’s a computer and all. He rendered perfect fire and then got to the art and was like fuuuuuuuuuuu just like anyone else who first gets into Unity.

Anyway, Joey got knocked over, so Pharaoh decided to save his friends and it got him nowhere because, like we already figured out last episode and basically more and more every episode of Yugioh, Pharaoh is a freakin idiot.

So fun fact about the 00′s I’m sure everyone here fondly remembers unless you’re 12 (in which case, why are you on tumblr?) Remember how much we were OBSESSED with glowy blue-green lines and dots on everything in concept art? I really think that trend lasted until about James Cameron’s Avatar when we realized “we took it too far y’all” and then it just kinda died. Still hangs around, but it’s not quite as obvious as the 00′s when it was like “ah I see you have a glowy pastel magicky thingy in your art. A+, lets put it in a grimdark dystopian YA fiction.”

...It was a phase and seeing this shade of green as a glow just really brings me back to the halcyon days of a little less than 10 years ago. It’s very something that would have been in steampunk.

They also get this logo on their head when they use this card, just like Pharaoh but significantly less cool. And it’s on all this guy’s monsters too, so everyone gets the power of branding. With this logo that looks like a joke Portlandia would make about indie logos.

Pharaoh kind of shrugs this off because like...his soul lives in a freakin necklace and he has magic so...whatever.

And then we get the full cheese spread--look at this cheese!

WOWOWOWOW

Look at Dieselpunk Amelie! Here I thought that now Marik wasn’t around we’d have no more stupid crop tops, but it’s back and man I am so happy it’s back. Damn. Everyone has a popped collar covered in as many square inches of belts as they could fit on em. Belts just hanging off willy nilly in every direction so you can barely walk through a hallway without your belt slapping on the edges. Them walking through a revolving door must be the most dangerous game outside of Duel Monsters.

woah.

Oh man, and I didn’t even noticed that they made the middle guy ripped as hell for no reason. His arm looks like a Payday candybar.

But MAN.

Someone give that guy on the right a sword the size of himself because...holy hell his jacket is so massive that it has an accordion shoulder pad for some reason???

Oh shoot I didn’t even realize guy on the right has about 6 rivets on his fingerless gloves, too. Wow.

Oh man it’s a lot to take in.

Do you see em? Do you see how many weird ass accessories are all over these characters these underpaid animators will have to draw SO MANY TIMES?

Oh man, the poor cosplayers! It must be so hard to go from Bandit Keith--a fairly easy cosplay--to the Accordian shouldered 11-belted jacket on Mr I-Dare-You-To-Cosplay-These-Sideburns.

And then this guy screws himself:

I’m not gonna add him to the Yugioh Death Counter yet, but I have a feeling, especially after seeing how few belts this guy has on...I just have a really strong feeling he’s absolutely going to die.

Goodbye, normal guy, you were too normie for this bizarre world.

Anyway, feel free to leave in the comments, if Yugioh cards became real, which one would you immediately eat and how? (and we can count plant cards as actual plants for the vegans, even if they can talk or whatev--them’s plants, they’re kosher.)

(realizes I have no idea if there’s even plant type cards in Yugioh or if that’s just a pokemon thing)

Anyway that’s all for now but if you just got here, this is a link to read all my Yugioh recaps in Chrono Order, fair warning...this is S4.