Since he was going head-to-head with one of the top contenders in the VCT event that had concluded some months previous, he knew he had to bring his best A-game to the match.

(He was wondering if he was going to get a chance to fight the ‘cupine’ the other used as their entrant Pokémon there, since he’d gone into the danged thing with his shiny Braviary.)

“First time to meet in a ‘private’ setting like this, but I’ve heard about your run in the tournament that happened at Lilycove a few months back,” he would quip, “…with, of all things, a Shaymin.”

His eyebrows went up slightly when he instead came face to face with a Milotic rather than the Shaymin he’d heard rumors about… but he idly wondered if the other had that particular Pokémon on their person waiting in the back.

“You’re going up first against him,” he would remark as his own Salamence, swooping down from the skies and roaring from across his side of the open-air arena, would take his position.

“Ready when you are. Challengers get the first move.”

Maybe it was a good thing he hadn’t taken a Tera shard, because the next few scenes that unfolded pretty much dissuaded him from doing so—and what a nightmare it had been. Like, yikes.

He couldn’t bear to watch; and could only listen to the sound because that’s what having an overly active imagination can get you… extremely vivid visuals based from the sounds of agony and suffering alone.

He could only look over at his cell partner; once they were done being dragged through the dirt (in more ways than one) he would approach, and then hiss quietly.

“Listen—listen to me,” he would begin, in a voice so quiet that only the other could hear—muffled through the mask as it was.

“D-don’t do stupid shit like that again, you got that?!” he would warn the other.

Even though he was raring to throw a punch or two, fact of the matter was that the ‘space cannibals’ were there, like hyperly-overactive sentinels keeping watch over them.

He could only glare at the booger monkey once the strange Pokémon was done with his cell partner, before trying to haul him back so that he could rest.

“If you’re going to do anything else stupid, at least try to run it by me first, will you? There was a reason why we were both stuck together in this place.”

He grit his teeth.

“We only have each other to trust in this hellhole, you know.”

---

• Frog where are you please come save your husband!!!
• Birddad.exe gives his cell companion a bit of a telling-off
• no more stupid shit, okay?! someone’s gotta keep you alive for the inevitable escape attempt!
• Unwittingly casts his vote to TRUST in that last statement of his. (Will it count towards the total?)
• no Pokémon listed since they don’t have them with ‘em

There were so many things going through his mind, it was just… overwhelming to say the least.

(For starters, he hoped that Guillermo Marceliño wasn’t doing another righteous panic this time, because most of [if not all] of his things were back on the bedside table in their shared room back home, so… yikes. Yikes, yikes, yikes.)

Much as he wanted to rip the mask off and away from his face (the rank stench from within was already starting to make him feel queasy) fact of the matter was that he wasn’t sure if he was in a nightmare of some sort. Unfortunately, though, the screaming was all very, very real.

At the mention of ‘the three day war’, though, it felt like a trap door opened beneath his feet—squinting through the suffocating mask he immediately identified the ‘space cannibals’, also having the same strange growth coming from their bodies… which would only make things worse if someone among them were to fight, to resist, to—

His thoughts were cut off at the sound of the screaming, and then—and then the blood was all over the place as he watched one of the other prisoners in their containment cell get Final Destination’d to bits.

(Or was it Saw? He forgot. It had to be one of those gory movies that his partner loved watching during Halloween—the kind that would send him screaming and hiding under the covers because the sight of spilled guts and blood were more than enough to make his brain short-circuit and pass the…)

That was the last thing he remembered seeing, for a good while.

---

Sometime later, he would awaken—feeling feverish and unwell… to a plate of mochi.

Why did it have to be so deeply purple?! He looked over at his companion, who seemingly took a big bite out of the damned thing, but… he could feel his stomach churn at the thought of having to ingest something like this!

(Plus didn’t people tell you, the more brightly colored something is, the higher the chance it was extremely dangerous to eat?!)

“Are… are you crazy?!” he would rasp out, watching as his companion took one bite—and then—the next sequence of events made him want to hurl…

He thought he could hear familiar voices, despite him being in this feverish state… ugh…

The masks made it hard enough to distinguish who was who in the ward, so without much information he would… he wondered what would happen if he refused to eat the mochi?

(Then again, the human body could survive without food for several weeks at a time, but water was the more pressing matter among other things… was the water here even safe to drink?!)

One thing at a time, Alex.

First things first: where were they at.

Second: how were they going to overpower their captors and make a break for it?!

He would then reach towards his neck, trying to find two chains… one for a bird whistle, another for something else he always kept on himself in case of emergencies… but they were not there.

Nothing on his person was there.

He was sorely tempted to pull the feather out and try to blow either the ‘space cannibals’ or the big, booger-picking monkey guard out of the entire way and blast everyone towards freedom—but where were their Pokémon and personal effects stashed away at?! So many things to consider…

With a defeated sigh, he would reach for one of the mochi, and take the tiniest piece possible because there was no way in hell he was going to ingest something (against his will) that was clearly, obviously designed to make them subservient to… their captors.

One thing at a time, Alex. Get the fuck out of the cell first, ask questions later.

(And then the walls may as well have had ears, but.)

Once the tiniest piece of mochi had passed into the back of his throat, the wibbly, wobbly… the strange chain around his neck did weird things (he didn’t care to look) and he realized he could walk around, but not too far—

If only he wasn’t a limp noodle, he’d have kicked the ugly booger monkey upside the head!

But he had other ways to retaliate… and it involved getting his hands on whatever random assortment of Pokémon he’d thought of bringing along.

One thing. At a time, Alex.

He sighed through gritted teeth; he’d have to be careful as he set to work, hating his noodle arms for almost dropping the big chunk of rock he’d picked up and tried to smash apart, because they were looking for shards.

He recognized the tera shards at least—but how were they going to make use of them, if they had no place to hide them—

He idly wondered if he would be able to sneak a tiny sliver back, but he’d have to be extra careful because those rocks looked plenty sharp!

As he set to work, the booger-monkey came by and deliberately knocked the piece of rock he was holding out of his hands, as if goading him to get working faster!

“No need to be so pushy,” he would hiss—but the booger monkey would only leer at him, before he picked up the rock again and set to work. Hopefully he’d be able to pull the tiniest tera shard away from the pile, smuggle it back inside his mouth or something, but be extremely careful about it—

And hope to get the hell out of here.

---

• Frog where are you please come save your husband!!!
• Birddad.exe passed out at the sight of the carnage of the mutinous prisoner getting FD’d (or Saw’d) against the cell bars
• the rest of this is mostly him being a little too reflective and considering his options
• eats the tiniest piece of mocha possible (the smallest conceivable piece EVER) before getting to work
• booger monkey messes with his work by knocking the rock he was working on away from him
• Birddad.exe is trying to think of plans how to get the fuq outta here
• attempting to hide the smallest tera shard piece he can find in his mouth (should he find one!)
• no Pokémon listed since they don’t have them with ‘em

‘You run your mouth too much.’

“I know, I know,” he would chide the not-Carina as the Ribombee resumed the position; flicking away the last of the poisonous thread away from their minuscule little hands as he looked over at the poor—wait, wait a second.

He knew that the Stormbringer was much more powerful than this, but to be bested by a tiny little Ribombee?

Something was definitely up there…

He couldn’t help but mentally snicker at the image of a ‘Tornadus’ buried under a pile of purple Pollen Puffs. That was going to be one for the ages.

“I have no other choice in the matter but to face them head-on, right? So I return to where I came from, after all this. Then there is my answer.”

Hopefully, it would be enough.

See, here’s the thing.

Unlike the last time ‘he’ disappeared (hello, alternate Hammerlocke) the last thing he remembered was being incessantly spooned by his partner (for yes, despite him being the taller between them, Guillermo Marceliño wanted to be the big spoon so he’d let his partner do what he wanted) so waking up all of a sudden and realizing that he was no longer at home in Fortree…

Well…

His head was hurting, for starters. And another thing he noticed? He thought he heard someone yelling to let them out.

Wait… hold up, whoa, whoa, what the fuck?

Let them—but no, the voice didn’t sound like his partner’s so… who was he stuck with?!

As he moved to speak he thought he could feel… uh-oh! There was something else on his neck and it definitely didn’t feel like…

“Ow… the fuck?” were the first words he said, still half-out of it.

---

• okay, who is this that’s not Frog
• where tf are they
• still half-out of sorts so sorry for the short post
• no Pokémon listed since they don’t have them with ‘em

The reverberating noise was literally—making him deaf in one ear.

Earplug, earplug, get that damned thing in! he would think to himself as he popped the second one in and—shit, it was still loud!

Fact of the matter was, though, that the Noivern had finally spotted the Greninja smirking up at him—and it was time to dive.

Well, dive as fast as humanly possible while avoiding the incoming Ice Beam that was meant for them!

The chill in the wind made him shiver, though; but what made this worse was the fact that there was another echoing noise—and while he couldn’t hear it, his Noivern could; and it made them stop for a few moments mid-air.

“Not now, Fen, not now!” he hissed through grit teeth as he flattened himself on the Noivern’s back, using Agility to catch up with the retreating Greninja.

Yikes.

Those… the Sneasel-adjacent Pokémon looked absolutely terrifying to say the least; what with their Kalosian-tipped ‘French-tipped’ long nails hanging from their sides; intent on eating the noxious purple… mochi.

Not the mochi again!

“Yikes, what is up with those mochi, anyway?” he would think out loud; not realizing he’d said that. He knew that the color alone was extremely dangerous, all things considered—the sinking feeling in his stomach never did go away whenever he would look at the mochi that would suddenly appear at the scenes of the crime across the region.

“Why.”

His Braviary would only squawk in confusion at his idiot human’s distress.

“I could say the same of you,” he would hum when after what felt like an eternity; they would manage to lessen the Latias’s suffering before the two departed at nearly the speed of light.

“Normal healing moves didn’t seem to be too effective against those chains,” he’d observed once the freak weather had dissipated and shit went back to pretty much normal—tropical and humid as was typical of Hoenn’s weather.

“Although…” he would drop off, looking over at the Guzzlord with some apprehension.

“How did… how were you not eaten by them?” he would ask quietly; while the Trumbeak would caw Cian’s way in greeting while the Ribombee would alight on his shoulders; before they were joined by Tornadus himself.

“You’ve… you’ve seen the reports of when they first appeared in Mossdeep back then, right?”

---

so apparently there is a latias going monkas near Fortree and he comes across the disturbance

While the Braviary and Salamence were busy tangling with the Suicune-adjacent Pokémon, their escape would suddenly be impeded by a wink, a familiar ‘heat haze’ and then the buzzing noise that was now associated with a space-time distortion literally cutting off their escape route!

“Are you kidding me?!” he would exclaim as the Salamence would roar and then loose a surprise Rock Slide to impede the Walking Wake’s advance (not that he knew what it was formally called) while the Braviary did a quick about-face and very nearly crashed into said space-time distortion… geez, what the hell!

“Why do they keep appearing?! We can talk about it later! Come on, let’s get the hell out of here!” he would exclaim afterward; his mind going into overdrive as he quickly recalled the Salamence and urged his Braviary to fly around the distortion before—

Before the same feeling of fucking dread that had passed him three times previously came to spite him!

“Yikes!”

---

• TOTAL OF ROLLS MADE BY ALL WRITERS REACHES 666. - A rift to the DISTORTION WORLD opens briefly, like an opening eye. Peering into it fills your characters with dread. You can not enter this rift, but one may theorize the DISTORTION WORLD is attempting to map out this new area in order to create an antimaterial counterpart for the world.

“Good thing you did, and—” he was about to go on a little tirade of his own when the familiar prickling feeling on the back of his neck manifested once more as yet another space-time distortion appeared not too far from where they were!

The problem with this one though, was the fact that it didn’t even last for more than ten seconds before it disappeared without another noise.

“Geez… that’s like… the fourth time I’ve s-seen those,” he would chatter quietly, before regaining his composure.

“Oh, right. About those distortions… I have a possible idea why they keep appearing. But at this point it’s all just conjecture, so there’s that.”

At the mention of his own avian trying to make the situation worse, he wrinkled his forehead before giving Kyouya this ‘wtf are you serious’ stare to which the blue Braviary pointedly avoided his knowing stare.

“…yeah, he’s not looking at me. He’s hella guilty,” he would snicker afterward.

“Come on… let’s go back. The patients aren’t going to magically heal themselves.”

---

• TOTAL OF ROLLS MADE BY ALL WRITERS REACHES 666. - A rift to the DISTORTION WORLD opens briefly, like an opening eye. Peering into it fills your characters with dread. You can not enter this rift, but one may theorize the DISTORTION WORLD is attempting to map out this new area in order to create an antimaterial counterpart for the world.

While pretty much stinking of motor oil (eww) he thought he heard a familiar squawk—

And then the long-awaited sigh of absolute relief escaped him as the ‘lone’… search party finally found him!

Worried avian aside (as the blue blur literally flew past Miss Elise and then began screaming in his direction) he would then realize just what was accompanying her, and…

“For your sake, Miss Elise, I hope you’ve at the very least… notified the higher-ups about them,” he would remark; a bit of his dry humor emerging at the sight of the Calyrex.

Boy, the ear-lashing he’d gotten for withholding the Stormbringer for so long… he did not want to relive that all over again, all things considered.

“Did… by the way, did Kyouya try to get you both lost?” he would ask her a few moments after he’d managed to calm down the screeching, blue-feathered Braviary; complete with a wry smile on his face.

---

• oh what a dumb day to die be alive