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Although the Dynamaxed Excadrill put up a significant fight, Beau was grateful of his positioning; having to split its attention between the Rillaboom and the Aggron divided its offensive, and though he and Jack were able, at length, to bring the creature down, he shuddered to think what the result would have been if they hadn't been so fortunate with their accidental tactic.
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"I guess," Beau returned uncertainly to Jack's comment about the professor, "But ain't it kinda dangerous down here for an egghead like that? What if he gets squished by somethin'?"
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As he moved around the fallen Excadrill, he glanced over at it with pity - so many pokemon weren't built to survive Dynamaxing in the wild, and this one was no exception. A sparkle caught his eye, however, and he peered closely at it, then abruptly recoiled with a cry of disgust. "Brah!" he called, jogging around to meet up with Jack and pointing at the gargantuan corpse that now occupied the center of the den, "That thing's got Dynite Ore...IN it."
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Surely enough, the body of the now-still creature was studded with ruddy stones, glinting innocently at irregular intervals across the carcass. "I ain't touching that," Beau affirmed, unshouldering his pack and moving a more natural - if it could be called natural - cluster of ore, glancing back at Jack meaningfully. "Let's get some so we can say we got some, but I think we oughtta get out of here sooner over later. I'm not lookin' forward to what could pop up here next."
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They were assholes, Beau had to agree. He didn't know what the Megalopolans were after, necessarily, or what beef they seemed to have with what seemed like everyone in Hoenn, but clearly he'd been swept up in something that called too closely to grudges already held. Come to think of it, jack wainwright had mentioned running into these guys before, but Beau had probably been too busy chasing after Orson. Damn, if he'd only listened when he'd had the chance, maybe he'd have some more insight at this point.
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Then again, maybe there was something to Eddie's mochi idea, too. Beau didn't think so, though, not at this point - the guards seemed as calm around Okidogi as they did with each other, so he wasn't willing to bet that something - or someone - else was pulling the strings. He stewed on this for a moment, but Eddie - as he seemed to be in the habit of in this hellhole - managed to once again divert his spiraling train of thought.
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"Plans? Beau echoed, blinking into the darkness. "Oh, dude, hell yeah," he enthused as Eddie laid out his own designs. Dewford was invariably a favorite topic of Beau's - it was his home and where he'd always come back to, and his family had often joked - justifiably - that Beau had more seawater in his veins than anything else.
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"I know a great spot for catchin' some waves, just up the coast. Oh, brah, and you gotta meet Chaos," he added, then paused momentarily. Chaos - he'd almost forgotten about the elderly Snubbull in the midst of everything going on. He immediately tried not to think about it, but the thoughts came faster than he could bat them away; was Chaos safe? Would anybody bring the little guy food and water? Would they even notice Beau wasn't coming home? Did Chaos miss him? God, maybe he thought Beau had abandoned him and wasn't coming back, he couldn't think of the last time he'd been away from Chaos this long, if ever, and the little guy was tough but old, and what if something happened-
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"Stop," he spoke aloud, startling himself out of the loop. Those fucking icy claws gripped at his spine again, he could feel them, but he wasn't going to let them get the better of him. Eddie was right - it was a when, not an if, and Beau was damn sure he was going to find his way out of here.
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"Sorry," he offered, more quietly. He shifted slightly again, and the fear wasn't moving much, but it was moving. "Yeah," he tried to continue, "It's gonna be great. You c'n borrow one of my boards, if you wanna, an' I'll show you all the stuff the tourists don't know about."
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It was a nice thought, at least. If they ever made it out of here, Beau would hold himself accountable for making sure Eddie got the real Dewford experience.
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Wait. When, not if.
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"So, uh," he hedged, moving desperately into that sea-scented hope, "What's your beach drink, brah?" He chuckled lowly, but the sound was shaky, as though he was trying to force himself to find the humor in the situation. "I gotta know what to have ready for you when you head out my way, yeah?"

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The tunnels wound and narrowed as Beau and Jack made their way through, the taller man only pausing to allow Jack's pokemon to wash the sludge from his shoe before continuing after a grateful nod.
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As they progressed, Beau could have sworn he heard footsteps and rustling overlaid with their own, but try as he might he couldn't catch sight of anyone - or anything - else in the caves apart from himself and his companion. Eventually, the tunnel widened enough to open onto a cavernous den, and darting across the other side of the space, a lanky, haggard figure in researcher's clothing that had clearly seen better days.
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"Hey, wait!" Beau called, breaking into a jog as he moved to catch up to the other man. "I'm not the Creighton you're looking for!" the professor called raspily over his shoulder, picking up speed as he made for the exit on the opposite side of the den.
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As Beau barely reached the center of the chamber, the floor began to shake and buckle, splitting in the center to reveal an Excadrill burrowing up from below. Beau skidded to a halt, narrowly avoiding running into the thing, and the pokemon turned and fixed its gaze on Beau and Jack, uttering a cry that seemed to...reverberate a little too deeply for its size.
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The sickening feeling of dynergy in the chamber suddenly surged, and with no more warning than that, the Excadrill Dynamaxed, growing to incredible size in the space of moments. Cursing, Beau danced backward, recalling his Toucannon and releasing Dominic instead. "Well, that ain't ideal!" he hollered back to Jack, his Rillaboom offering a DRUM BEATING that caused enormous vines to rip upward from the earth, battering against the Excadrill's Dynamax Shield.
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Beau's impromptu leap into the power spot and his subsequent descent made him consider, mid-plummet, that perhaps the cavern beneath was more than a few feet of a drop. He glanced down and, with a mild frisson of fear running through him, confirmed this to be the case, as the floor - dozens of feet away - grew close at a rapid pace.
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Yelping, he fumbled at his belt for a pokeball and released his Toucannon, grabbing on to her claws tightly. Squawking indignantly, she flapped her wings madly; though she was far from large enough to carry a man of Beau's size, it was enough to arrest his descent from a bone-shattering speed to an uncomfortable one. He landed and took a few stumbling steps before tripping and falling on his face.
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"Oof," he pronounced, muffled, from his place on the floor.
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Standing up slowly, he dusted himself off and looked around the enclosure. The maze-like passages of the cave offered two means of egress, and the thrumming presence of dynergy did little to settle his nerves. He glanced up as Jack and his Mismagius floated down in a significantly more graceful manner than he'd managed, and offered a wry, self-deprecating grin as the other man landed.
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"Alright, time to find what we can find, I guess. Left, think? I have a pretty good feeling!" Beau set off leftward, rounding the bend and immediately stepping in a clump of poison-dripping moss on the cave floor. "Okay, well, something that might be a good feeling if you squint, I guess," he frowned, lifting his foot to look at the damage before shaking his shoe in an attempt to get the sludge off of it.
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Beau was wearing down.
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The work was fine enough, if he kept his head down and focused on the job. Eduardo Hisakawa being in constant proximity was at least a balm for his misery, or as much a balm as he could hope for in a place like this. His new routine, day in and day out, managed to tamp down even the smallest attempt at humor or levity, because even when Okidogi and the guards weren't administering punishment or drawing others - or himself - to the center of the ward as horrid robotic laughingstocks, he couldn't dream of a way out of the circumstances no matter how hard he tried.
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The dreams, speaking of, were another thing entirely, and he found himself in the same place every night, every time he shut his eyes. His pokemon, floating in cases, unmoving and unresponsive but unerringly still *there*. His explorations, when he dared to move further into the city, revealed glimpses of familiar faces, and he once thought he'd noticed jack wainwright's distinctive hair darting around a corner, but dismissed it as an optimistic hallucination. The tower at the center, though, with its little blue pokemon suspended prominently within - that was interesting, and Beau found himself curious if the little guy was somehow at the center of all of this.
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What stuck with him the most, though, was the first time the Weakling Ward was taken to the Chamber of Desires. When Eddie stepped away from the mask and offered Beau his turn, the younger man looked into it with some trepidation.
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Gosh, he'd forgotten what the sun on his back felt like after so long in the prison. The beach along the shoreline of Dewford was golden and sparkling, and although it had taken months of hard work with Michael Navidson and Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki, the threat in Granite Cave was closed - for good, as best as they could tell, the ghosts dispelled, and the island town had never been more pristinely, comfortably home.
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Orson, his Kubfu, tottered about in the shallows eagerly, chased by a grinning ollie morales. Torben, his Pangoro, regarded the scene lazily from his reclined position in the sand, a small smile quirking the corner of his mouth. jack wainwright chatted with Gunner Graves, the latter looking grim for the impressive tan he sported, and even klaus anchoret was grudgingly enjoying himself, batting a beach ball back and forth with his meowth.
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Beau sighed in contentment as he sipped his drink and stared out at the waves, the afternoon sun shimmering on their surface. For the first time in forever, he had nothing to worry about - no extraterrestrial threats, no Rocket, no environments on the verge of extinction, no fear that one day he wouldn't have a home to come back to. Still, something was missing, and he couldn't put his finger on it...
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A brawny pair of arms encircled his waist and lifted him bodily from the ground as a booming laugh sounded from just behind him, hurling him forward where he landed in the water with a splash. Sputtering and guffawing, Beau flailed to upright himself, turning backward to stick his tongue out at Eduardo Hisakawa, who regarded Beau with boisterous amusement. "Too much thinking, not enough enjoyin' life!" the older man proclaimed, and Beau lunged for him playfully. Surrounded by his friends, his heart had never been so full.
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He pulled away from the mask, blinking tears away as the vision ended, wiping them away on his sleeve, and cold fear clutched at his spine as he was ripped from the happiest day of his life to the penitentiary once more. It was somehow more painful to see what he'd never have and be coldly reminded that this was his life now.
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He'd rather be dreaming.
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"I know exactly what you mean, brah," Beau sighed in response. He wondered if anybody was actually getting any sleep in this place - well, maybe the ones who had been whaled on by their captors, at least, but that just made him even more uncomfortable to think of.
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Was he holding up okay? He had to be, because he was the strong guy, but the concern in Eddie's hushed voice went straight to his stomach and caused it to knot painfully. He was worthless without his pokemon, he was worthless with this thing around his neck, and he found himself in a predicament where he couldn't even protect his fellow prisoners from whatever beatings their jailers chose to give. If he couldn't punch his way out of it, then what? Was he forced to wait for someone smarter than him to find an opening and think of something?
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"Yeah. Course." He lied smoothly, and only felt a little worse for it.
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He could feel the anxiety in his spine, and almost laughed at the appropriateness, like it was the only thing supporting him, the cornerstone holding him together. At home, at night, alone with his thoughts, he'd stretch and roll over to dispel it, force it to have to gather again if it wanted to do him any more mental harm. Here, he didn't have that option, but it didn't stop him from automatically shifting against Eddie, and he was grateful enough for the ice in his spine lessening slightly that he didn't apologize.
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Eddie's next proclamation brought it back in full, though. Eddie had been on enough expeditions with Beau to know what placing his faith in the younger man was worth. Did he really expect Beau to come up with something? Hell, did Beau expect himself to come up with anything? Had he just subconsciously been planning on being a good little worker bee until the dog out there decided he'd outworked his usefulness?
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"...Same," he managed quietly. If he wasn't capable of anything else, he was at least capable of making sure he could keep Eddie as safe as he could. One thing he absolutely couldn't allow himself to do was show weakness. Eddie being here was keeping Beau going, at least, so Beau had to do the same for Eddie.
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Whatever came next, they'd have to deal with then.
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Beau shifted again, but the ice wasn't going anywhere. "Hey, uh," he hedged, pausing.
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"Why do you think they did this?"

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