Oh shit.

It looked like she’d gotten herself tied into a corner, didn’t she?

“Don’t you dare give up now!” he shouted from his side of the arena, watching as his Lopunny braced herself for the incoming impact.

It was time for a Reversal of fortunes—but who knew who was going to come out on top of all this?!

Even though he was outside the ring, Arashi also braced for impact…

“Give me a few moments,” he began as he got up, balancing the rolled-up blueprints with his remaining hand and limping over to the desk before setting the paper down and pulling at the string.

“Sorry, it’s just—I haven’t had the time to get a replacement in, so I’ve been doing a lot of things one-handed. It’s not easy, especially since…” he trailed off as he smoothed out the paper for her to take a closer look at.

Making sure to lean on his right leg for stability, he pulled his left leg up a bit to alleviate the pressure on it. Ow, had he really grown that much in such a short amount of time? Wait—was he—

“Even my leg’s bothering me,” he admitted quietly a few moments later.

There, on the paper in messy scrawl, was the outline, the plan, of how the little atelier he’d gone to back in Enju had helped him draw up the rough outline for his right arm (and left leg).

“I had some help, because well, you can see,” he continued with an attempt at humor, waving his left hand around. “Once I got the arm in, it was easier to build my leg from scratch. But now… this is a bit… dated. It’s been that long since I last got a replacement in.”

“Sometimes, y’know, just gotta get through to these blockheads with a lil’ bit of… force,” he admitted with a grumble.

He was still ready for a scrap, all things considered. Although hitting a… a kid, despite him not being one at all, would definitely have crossed the line.

What they didn’t know that he wasn’t exactly a… ‘kid’ anymore, by any means or sense of the word.

“That’s done, at least. I could’a still slugged his ugly mug, though. Inconsiderate little shits,” he added with a gruff shake of his head.

The Feraligatr shook his own head as well, before releasing another burst of Hydro Pump skyward, before it fell back to the ground as his own ‘rendition’ of Rain Dance.

“Well, that’s that settled… for now.”

It was them—everyone present—against whatever the hell was now bound by those red chains.

While Arashi didn’t know hide nor hair of whatever the hell was going on, fact of the matter is seeing so. many. powerful beings of lore unknown to him made his head spin.

This was too much for his brain to process and parse properly!

After his Rapidash fell back in a glorious explosion of flames, Mustang galloped back to where Ava was, and with a clumsy gesture, he recalled the Rapidash back to safety. Back to him.

(Because this Rapidash was a gift from a dearly departed friend, and there was no way in hell he was sending him to his doom.)

Despite wobbling and having a hard time balancing his ass, he was about to dismount back on the ground when all primordial hell broke loose—whatever was being held back by the chains was trying to break free, and wanted to lash out, bring as many of them as possible with them—

“Not today, Satan!” he growled to himself, quickly sliding down from Ava’s back as the Noivern let out a cry of alarm. Just as he was about to command her to take to the skies and help out with the assault—he turned around and saw that Hideo was being overwhelmed—

Overwhelmed.

John Sullivan would have his ass if anything happened to Hideo.

But where was he even going to start?! As he was about to make a run back towards Hideo and help the other boy out, something caused him to slip and fall forward—

“WHOA!” he yelped, before making a grab at the offending object—wait, why was it pale blue and… silver? Where had this come from?

His Noivern let out a shriek, and he realized that maybe somehow, somewhere, Luxu and Alfons… were still there. Lingering around him, maybe giving him one last shot at going out with a bang—

(artist’s impression of Alfons the Golurk’s spirit still guiding Arashi)

“I know,” he hissed as he roughly wiped down the marble on what remained of his overcoat and biting it with his teeth as he fumbled around, one-handed, and pulled out a Heavy Ball—quickly summoning his Steelix, Alex Louis.

Hopefully this wasn’t going to be another sacrifice.

“Alex! CATCH!” he shouted, as he quickly threw the marble, and somehow, the shining rock lodged itself into one of the plates on his massive tail, before he pulled out, with his remaining hand, something that sparkled with all hue of the rainbow in the palm of his hand—

“Ava, take me up!”

The Noivern dived, scooping him up on her back as the Key Stone in his remaining hand shimmered, the light that shone so bright from his Steelix’s form consumed all—

In a burst of power, Alex Louis grew even taller, longer—more ferocious—and let out an almighty roar.



“STONE EDGE!” he shouted from the Noivern’s back, and with a loud, deafening scream, the Steelix began summoning a ground trail of sharp boulders rising from the ground, aiming them towards the Pokémon who were attacking Hideo and trying to eviscerate the younger boy to bits.



“Ava! Tailwind!” he continued as the Noivern let out a screaming noise, before whipping up a fierce wind to speed up all allied Pokémon on his side of the field.

---

• did they win…?
• for 0.5 seconds, Arashi thought they did
• but THEN—shit happens all over again, and corrupted Pokémon (Shadow Pokémon) start attacking everyone
• this is way too much for him to comprehend, what the fuck!
• recalls Rapidash and lands on the ground, almost trips over—a Steelixite.
• Arashi, who normally doesn’t believe in coincidences, knew that there was something he could do
• he then makes his way back to where Hideo is, on his Noivern’s back
• summons Alex Louis the Steelix, and uses Mega Evolution
• if we’re going out with a bang, we’re going out with a FUCKING BANG
• mega!Steelix used Stone Edge on the attacking Shadow Pokémon that are trying to attack Hideo!
• Noivern used Tailwind!

The strike connected, but the Hitmontop definitely had other tricks up its sleeve!

“Get out of there while you can!” he shouted, hands clenched on the edge of the railing, as the Lopunny was—obviously caught off-guard, but kept her cool.

There was no way she was going to let this… this Hitmontop get the better of her!

Banking everything on the next attack, she then got in place and then attempted to execute a Reversal, because who knew if it was going to work?!

committing to this!

Purchasing 1 Mega Accessory, accompanying stone: Steelixite!

flavor text where the Steelixite came from / how it was acquired:

‘found on the ground during the Dawn of the Darkest Day, Arashi comes to the realization that in order to exact vengeance for the ones who saved him from certain death, the Serpent of legend has to be summoned from the bowels of the Underworld.’

Total: 500 PD

Well, first strike and they equally rebounded off each other.

How was that for ‘rubber match’ opening?!

The Lopunny didn’t break her stride, carefully taking a deep breath and going in for the Drain Punch this time. Blows were going to be traded, and who was going to score first blood?!

(Hopefully she did. Let’s see, though.)

Arashi stood there on his side of the field, watching everything ever so carefully and muttering under his breath…

He’d been sitting around a while—and then, right then and there, ooh—the next round was up!

“Same to you!” he called out from his side of the arena, before whistling sharply exactly once—and the Lopunny out on his side of the field quickly sought to counter the incoming attack with a Triple Axel of her own.

The Hitmontop surely meant business, and she was going to deliver said business—by hook or by crook!

Up until now… he’d been wandering around the region with only one arm, and a creaky leg that he was absolutely sure needed fixing at this point.

Not only did the stub on his knee start hurting a lot more when the weather went bananas (see: rain storms and end of the world shenanigans caused by a black creature) he could tell that his gait was starting to look lopsided. Like there was something definitely wrong with the way he walked.

Unfortunately, though, due to what had gone down at Sootopolis he’d lost his ‘main’ source of transport, and now had to rely on his secondary mode of getting around (Ava the Noivern) due to this.

Not to mention he’d been getting all sorts of weird looks from the people who passed him by, because what did it look like to them? Wasn’t a one-armed kid normal, anyway?

He hadn’t picked up his tool box yet from where he’d left it at the Mauville Gym (seeing as John Sullivan was busy and had borrowed it, whoops) however he did have a copy of the last blueprints he’d drawn up for his prosthetics with him.

(He was sure that edith joy was going to blow her top when she found out about his missing arm and the circumstances that happened to cause the loss of said arm, but it was just another normal Tuesday for him at least. At least until she found out. Which he was sure she knew about, by now.)

Several doctor’s appointments later (it really was a shift from being almost nothing to having near-access to every single thing available, all because of what had happened prior to said limb-blasting shenanigans) he somehow had managed to land an appointment with one of the head honchos, he made sure to look his best.

Well, his absolute best with one missing arm, anyway.

So with blueprints in hand, dressed up as nicely as he could—thank hell he still had one more overcoat to wear, the one he usually wore was shredded to bits—he’d made his way into the woman’s office, blinking at the simplicity, but also noticing the finer details of grandeur that were strewn about here and there in a tasteful, decorative manner.

“Thanks,” was the first word out of his mouth, eyes still scanning the entire place before taking the offered seat.

“I—I brought along my blueprints, in case you may be… curious. Sorry if they’re messy, that was from the last time I did my tune-up.”

Which was… a while ago, to say the least.

Everything was still just so fucking raw for him.

So it was kind of surprising, really, to see him, Arashi, #1 hater of sand because it got stuck in his joints—out at Slateport Beach, atop the head of his Steelix, Alex Louis.

There was carnage out in the water. Unbelievable.

Why were the Gyaradii acting like mf’ing krakens on crack?



(See what he did there?)

“Geez…” he said with a one-armed sigh—oh, that’s right—he hadn’t gotten his right arm replaced yet, so there was this tingly, funny, weird sort of ‘phantom limb’ experience going on with him right now.

“Bring us closer.”

The Steelix inched forward further, not wanting to go closer to the edge of the water.

“Fucked up shit…”

He then took a clumsy aim with his left hand (seeing as he didn’t have a right one, at least for now) and then threw an empty Pokéball into the gnawing, thrashing mess.

Losing his Salazzle and Golurk was the last straw.

He didn’t know what else was about to happen, but another bout of exploding—oh, fucking hell!

Since his Tyrantrum and Noivern had gone after the Dustox, Arashi had effectively lost track of them.

What he didn’t realize was that out of the two, he wasn’t going to be seeing his Tyrantrum ever again, especially not after—



“Not this shit again!” he shouted as he clung onto his Rapidash’s back with his remaining arm, the powerful attack going off again. Thank fuck his Noivern had flown some distance behind, which unfortunately meant that Ava had seen Ira get vaporized (along with Hideo Kino ’s Dustox)…

This was not going to be good.

And then—

Everything just went off all at once, powerful attacks coming from multiple directions—and the Noivern decided to bank backwards—catching up to where the Rapidash was galloping forward, dodging as many attacks as he possibly could while trying to keep his rider on his back—it was hard, okay!

“Ava?!” he shouted as he saw a familiar shadow midst all the attacks exploding everywhere, aimed at the—and then it started to rain.



Couldn’t this day get any more worse?!

He could hear the Rapidash’s whinnying of protest, however Arashi, driven on by this bubbling, burning rage within whistled sharply exactly once, which the Noivern heard, suddenly diving as he jumped from his Rapidash’s back—

A small, lithe, one-armed body vaulted through the air, before the Noivern caught him on her back—and the Rapidash literally charged forward, entire body glowing with—

“Wha-what’s going on? Ava?!”

The Noivern could only screech in shock as the literal comet that was the Rapidash gained speed, energy—suddenly taking on the properties of fire as the energies from all around encapsulated the Rapidash, wrapping the flaming equine’s form with even more flames than what was normally possible.



While he was absolutely sure that Mustang didn’t know Burn Up, it looked like the charging equine—defying the pouring rain—continued to gallop forward, consumed in a powerful burst of energy as the Rapidash unleashed a burst of Immolation, aiming to slam into the black little prismatic crystalline shit—



The same one that had taken away his Golurk, his Salazzle, and now, his Tyrantrum.

Just how high was the body count going to get?!

---

• Arashi has no idea that his Tyrantrum is also dead
• however, his Noivern knows
• Arashi, however, catches sight of the short-circuiting attack going off and killing whatever else got caught in its path (which includes his fucking Tyrantrum)
• the Noivern flies back to where Arashi is once all the attacks start heading towards Necrozma
• driven by angery rage, he whistles sharply once before somersaulting up and off from the Rapidash, who continues to charge forward despite the torrential rain pouring down all around them
• Rapidash used Z-Move: Immolation!
• Arashi is on his Noivern’s back as this goes down