sasha baby birds her, as per usual, and she's reminded with a brief stutter of why they hadn't talked in a very long time. she swallows some of the embarrassment that threatens to rear its ugly head and is thankful for the storm - it hides her struggling smile. 

she's fine, though, by the time they find a pocket of nowhere. kirin's big booty struggles to fit so saskia ends up recalling her. she plops down at an angle where the sand won't hit her as it brushes past and tugs off her go-goggles. 

"oh, i've never been in a sandstorm before," she says, "so i wanted to try it." as though that were the simplest thing in the world. 

she fishes some sand out of one ear and grimaces.

"wait, why're you out here?"

Sasha Huang

☉

it'll take a miracle and a half to get her back on track again because she is starry-eyed. enthusiasm sends an excited jolt all throughout her body, zipping through her veins, and she has to stopper herself from running all over his words with some of her own. 

but at the same time she's enraptured that someone - someone finally! - seems to get just as freaking excited as she does about this.

"like, it's so crazy to think that underneath us, literally everything is so connected. and they're all just up here living their own little planty lives, you know? we can learn so much about native resistances to root pathogens just by digging in some dirt. and now i'm like, okay guys why are we hopping to other worlds when we still barely understand this one?"

porter holmes

☉

there's a difference between a scary ghost story said around a fire out in the woods somewhere and a ghost story said within said haunted house, where the spirits of those left behind might not like that their dirty laundry is being aired. very unlike sasky, she hangs on to robin's every word, completely enthralled by the story, and even though she's right next to mimi, she absolutely doesn't see the yamask as it slowly congeals behind their storyteller. 

so she startles and yelps and nearly squishes morena as she falls over the glaceon in her hurry to get away from the scary thing.

"WAH, WAHNO, WAIT!" she says before dissolving into a fit of terrified giggles.

Mimi Hirose robin coello

☉

they are attacked. so much of this place hates them. it wants them out. she's meant to protect lands and their pokemon, even if they're not her own, and look what she's done. look at how they come at them and how monday tears them down so ruthlessly. 

saskia wilts and when oleg feebly goes to fight, she cradles him close like a teddy bear. 

their last time here together. because at the end of the day, she's not good enough. no matter what she does or how hard she tries, she just doesn't grasp it all the way. not fully. not completely. never like she's supposed to. 

the back of her neck prickles. her hand twitches. oleg hums mournfully and she looks behind them, eyes going glassy and then misting pink as, impossibly, she sees another moon rise into the sky. 

'wait, monday - look!" she says, turning, reaching, only to find she's already gone. 

Lulu Flint

☉

saskia can't see kirin's fur fluffing up, nor can she see it almost immediately relax when she reaches probing thoughts out to get a sense of their supposed adversary in the sandstream. some sembleance of familiarity graces her conscious and she tucks her head to push against saskia's back.

the ranger tips forward and trips into the intrepid adventurer, recognizing her as her arms come around her with an oof. 

"oh sasha HIIII!!!! what are you doing up here?" she shouts, though much of her voice is stolen by the wind. 

Sasha Huang

☉

she'd never met kyle lopez, but maybe she should have. after all, he was supposed to be the best of the best at what he did: training dogs. so many people have promised to help her with maugrim, but none have followed up.

sven works too many gigs. Greyson Connors is busy doing superhero elite stuff. and none of her other friends are dog extraordinaires. she wants to find him. she really does, because if anyone's gonna help her train maugrim, it's that guy.

but as it is with most things with sasky, she gets sidetracked by the first interesting thing she sees. a cute glitchy rotom is one of them.

"hiya!"

Zoey Hart

☉

their companionship is steeped in the trauma they've shared on these journeys and so she wordlessly slumps into monday when they depart. an ache riddles holes in her heart, growing with every beat, and when she squeezes her eyes shut, she doesn't notice she's leaking tears.

it's when monday tells her the moon is gone that she finally draws back and looks up into that blank sky.

"i...we didn't mean to," she says thickly, almost overcome. oleg beeps a melancholy tune in her arms. "the lunala. was that its home? it was so hurt...and we - and we, oh gods, what did we do?"

Lulu Flint

24 involve themes of romance, loss, or forgetfulness in some way. this can manifest in geyser steam, gas or plants that can evoke emotions.

☉

she has her go-goggles on and she's ready to tackle the world. except not at all. except not even close. kirin was accompanying her up the side of mt. chimney. they were supposed to be measuring the soot levels and weather changes of the surrounding area and it's only because of kirin's psychic inclination that she had the split second to scurry to the side of the rock face and avoid getting blasted off the side of the mountain.

"HOENN!" she shouts into the wind. "can't you chill for like, FIVE MINUTES?" but her howls are to no one and nothing. 

saskia draws her jacket tighter around herself, tucking her hands into her hood to bring it over her face. so it must be a startling sight to sasha when the ranger emerges from the sandstorm, bright red goggles like a mothman's eyes and a large horned beast at her side.

Sasha Huang

☉

wait, what? wait, WHATTTT? fate gave her a partner who's not gonna just nod and say, wow that's cool! when she talks about how incredible lichen is?

"what? nononono, not boring at all! ever! okay, so people like birds, right? they kinda understand it when i say birds, but really did you know there are over twenty thousand species of lichen? like, six whole percent of the earth is supposedly covered by it?

"not a whole lot of people think it's cool when you're like 'oh, moss? that's my jam. moss and algae and fungi.'"

porter holmes
we're perfect

☉

sometimes she worried that her only friend in the world was going to be sven. sure, she'd met plenty of other people in the rangers and got along with them just fine, but no one came close to knowing her like sven did. but now, with a belly full of hot chocolate and an earful of pleasant conversation, she thinks, maybe i found it. 

"there's lots to do in oldale after the kyurem attack. we should do some stuff around there, mimi!"

that being said, alarm lights up in her face when robin says she doesn't have a home. that she just camps out in places?! which, sure, a lot of traveling trainers used to do that back in the day, but the region is full of scaries!

"robin, my gosh, you can stay at my place if you ever need." her family wouldn't mind. heck, they'd probably stuff her full of their cooking and insist she stay. 

but that sheds light on why they're really here and saskia's eyes widen. she doesn't mind scary things, but her history with scary things is watching b-rated old timey horror movies with sven. 

"OH! that reminds me. this little guy reminded me of you, but anyway, open it after the story please 'cause i really wanna hear it and i think the ghosts want you to tell it too." she rolls out the safari ball she'd brought with her towards robin and claps her hands together excitedly. 

robin coello Mimi Hirose

☉

it's so powerful. it's like nothing she's ever seen before. she's seen the aftermath of titans fighting: the scar in the earth just outside her home, cleaved by an otherworldly dragon, but this is different than hearing about it secondhand. different than seeing the devastation. 

oleg's whole body shudders and saskia cuddles him close, even as psychic energy zips around her and makes her feel like all her veins are vibrating. 

"i got you, buddy. not too much, not too much." she curses herself for not being stronger and when monday changes plans, they have no choice but to make their exit. 

the creature above them screeches. in frustration? in pain? she has no idea, but both hurt her heart as she scrambles up the celesteela's side. her eyes are red and puffy from the smog and she coughs, but her breath is stolen from her when she sees the other celesteela.

"they're...they're all leaving." did we do this? 

all at once the light surrounding oleg fades and he collapses in sasky's arms. she cradles him close and looks at monday. "can - can you fly us through all that?"

Lulu Flint

☉

"oh wow, so you're baby rangering," saskia says, slightly awed. with everything that's been going on in the region lately, it feels like there's always more work to be done and not enough hands. with the bubble gone, a lot of folks are getting out of dodge and those who are staying have their hands full with their own lives, nevermind all the risks that come with joining up with the rangers. 

"that's awesome! us girlies gotta stick together." she struggles to keep her mouth shut and let other people have the spotlight, but it's made easier with a hot cup of chocolate in her hands. yum, she hums to herself and takes a big, scalding gulp. 

it's sugary and delightful and a half-melted marshmallow oozes between her chompers. morena rubs up against her leg in an attempt to be cute and get some for herself, but noooo chocolate for puppyveelutions. 

she gets very affronted when sinistea gets a treat and not her, but sasky shushes her indignant chuffs. 

"work, work, work," she says with an exaggerated sigh and toothy smile. "but somebody's gotta take those double shifts, y'know? i thought i'd have some more time to do some research, but it's so hard to focus on anything when we've got something so cool like area zero to stomp around in. have you seen some of the pokemon there? mega cool."

like scream tail. that bouncy ball will be hers one day

robin coello Mimi Hirose

☉

more pokemon come at monday's beck and call and saskia fumbles with the pokeballs at her hip. she manages to unclasp one of the balls, but it rolls out of her sweaty palm and would have rolled down the other side of the moon if oleg wasn't so quick to act. 

psychic and ghost. what would hurt it? dark?! she's not a dark-type trainer! she doesn't have a dark-type pokemon. like, maugrim, she's pretty sure knows a dark-type move, but he'll only end up making things worse because there's no way he's listening to her up here on the freaking moon!!!

dogs aren't allowed on the moon!

"okay, we can do something about that though," she calls out and oleg giddily clasps his nubby hands together. with the lunala wholly distracted by the real threat to it, it doesn't sense the psychic energy wrapping around it until it's too late. 

power split makes shockwaves of energy radiate off of oleg and he beeps feverishly. sasky worries he might overload himself by taking on too much in that little baby body of his, but he holds fast, draining the lunala as it tries to power up its next move. 

"GET IT MONDAY, PLEASE, OLEG CAN'T HOLD THIS FOR VERY LONG!"

Lulu Flint

☉