"Zac?!" A lopsided grin stretches her lips as recognition hits her, silver eyes regarding the red-haired man with the same kind of enthusiasm one would an old friend. Rivals they may be, but Skyler couldn't help enjoying the man's cheerful company. There was a specific kind of satisfaction to be had in butting heads with someone bigger than you. Literally and figuratively.

Unfortunately she hadn't brought Shoalgun along, but she couldn't see Odium - the Dewott's eternal rival - on the other side of the net either. Skyler figured Shoalgun could forgive her this one time.

"You tell me, muscle man!" Still utterly oblivious to what she'd signed up for, Captain Dross figures she might as well play the part. Noticing the three pokemon on Zac's side of the field, she releases three of her own.

"Get ready to eat sand." Lofty words from someone who has absolutely no idea what they're doing. The competitiveness that flares in her eyes, however, betrays her excitement - and it only compounds upon itself when she catches sight of the volleyball ball. 

The pokemon around her take position. "Flip a coin, Zac?"

---

rotation battle // volleyball match

Zac Ramsay

Watermelon? Yummy.

Captain Dross gives it a cursory look, somehow managing to look both uninterested and greedy at the same time. The headband she'd been wearing in the previous mini game makes a reappearance, pulled tight around her forehead - the words 'TEAM RED SUCKZ' now faded into something unrecognizable but equally threatening - in Skyler's mind at least.

She steps forward along with Pads and Boe, Clarabelle staying in the back and hopping from one foot to another in restless anticipation. "I go first, ey?" Sharp eyes cut to the watermelon again, cogs whirring behind their silvery depths as a smirk blooms onto troublesome lips. "Let's make things interesting." Her team is the one to start, so Skyler eagerly accepts the Togedemaru that is unceremoniously shoved into her hands. "I win, you owe me a favor. You win..." She let's her words trail off, positioning herself in the field. "I owe you one favor." The deal is kept intentionally vague, dangling temptingly in front of Zac. "Nothing outrageous, of course." Her mischievous smirk, although benign, is utterly at odds with her words.

Regardless of Zac's response, Skyler barely waits for the starting whistle before the Togedemaru is sent sailing into the air and over the net. Her own pokemon are still, watching.

Testing the waters.

---

skyler's turn

rotation battle // volleyball match

Zac Ramsay

Skyler looks and there's a Togedemaru ball on the field, flying over the net to be caught on the other side. She blinks, and that ball has caught aflame and is descending onto their half of the field like a freakin' meteor.

For a stunned half a second her finger lingers on the side of her metal flask and she wonders if she's had too much to drink. But that notion is quickly shoved aside to focus instead on the ball of death and destruction that will make them lose a point.

Fuck no.

In response to the Blaziken's kick, Pads the Floatzel steps forward and uses her normal buoyancy to meet the ball halfway. Kicking off of the ground, the otter pokemon spins on herself to slam her two tails against the flaming sphere, the AQUA TAIL putting out the fire and crashing into it hard enough to throw the unfortunate pokemon over to Zac's side of the field. With the added benefit of making it more slippery due to the water coating its surface.

Captain Dross lets out an uncontained bark of laughter at Zac's proposal, accepting the challenge with a wide grin. "An outrageous favor it is!" A couple of ideas are already floating around in her head. "Guess I'll need to win this. No hard feelings, Zac!"

---

floatzel's turn

rotation battle // volleyball match
note: you don't want to know what i got when i mistakenly googled wet balls gif jfbzgjblgjbçdgbçhbhm

Zac Ramsay

It seems to Skyler, if only for a moment, that things happen in slow motion. Her silvery gaze follows the path of the ball as its wetness is all by slurped into the Poliwrath's amphibian body. She can't help but whistle in appreciation, competitiveness momentarily put aside. "You handled that wet ball like a champ!" Whether she was saying this to the Poliwrath or to Zac is entirely open to interpretation.

As soon as the ball is back in their side of the field, Skyler jumps into action. "Boe, get it. Use those fists!" Looking not unlike his cartoonish version, Kung Fu Pangoro, Boe jumps to intersect the ball, catching the edge of it with his crashing fist. The result isn't nearly as spectacular as it could've been, but the poorly aimed ARM THRUST sends the volleyball sailing just over the net, loosing the momentum immediately after and starting its descend down.

Utterly distracted by the match, Skyler doesn't see the timer counting down the seconds to inevitable doom. Not until a shrill screech hits her ears, accompanied by an increasingly strong bitter scent. Between one blink of her eyes and the next, the volleyball field has been filled by this strange, glittering steam... And suddenly the captain's thoughts start rolling around in her head in CONFUSION...

---

pangoro's turn

rotation battle // volleyball match
note: off-camera g!weezing used strange steam!
i hope you don't mind me hijacking the hazards; i can edit it!

Zac Ramsay

For a brief moment everything is suspended in time, seconds stretching out to endless lengths that curl upon themselves and dance daintily over Skyler's single, precious braincell. A blink of her eyes takes a lifetime and for a second (an hour? a year?) she swears she can taste sunlight on her tongue, hot and burning. Also, kind of sour. Huh, who knew?

Her pokemon aren't faring any better, having inhaled the fog already being drawn out of the battlefield by an oceanic breeze. Much to her later annoyance, the captain misses Zac being hit by his own pokemon (she'd review the video later just to poke some fun at her treasure hunter rival). She only comes to when the tiny Togedemaru trots over to her, looking expectant. For a few moments, confusion settles into silver eyes - then, some semblance of rationality (or, more likely, muscle memory) has the Captain finally picking up the round pokemon, positioning herself to face the net - after some confused adjustments.

Wobbling slightly in place, Skyler is about to serve when something jumps at her, the abrupt collision knocking her balance askew, making it easy to steal the ball from her limp grasp.

Stunned, the captain looks to the side to be greeted with the sight of a cackling Floatzel, making its way to the ocean with its stolen ball/togedemaru as a few of the referees try and chase after it.

"Err. Zac Ramsay! One point!"

Similarly to what'd happened before, a second Togedemaru pads over to Zac, looking very much like it does not want to be here.

---

floatzel's (?) turn

rotation battle // volleyball match

Zac Ramsay

"Aaaaaahhhh!" Captain Skyler Dross screams in a vocal register that no one would think her capable of (and wholly unlike her normal self) as a single, accusing finger is pointed at the incoming rain of extraterrestrial death and doom. "The sky is falling! Zac, you broke it!"

While erstwhile referees are still chasing after a cackling Floatzel in the shallows, Clarabelle steps forward. The scarred Lopunny seems strangely calm given the amount of insanity going on around her. Only a rhythmic twitch of her single visible eye (the other being, apparently, under a seriously cool-looking eyepatch) betrays something wrong. With her chest puffed out and paws resting over her hips, the Lopunny wouldn't look amiss in the next issue of Captain Lopunny. Except that, of course, she's utterly and completely high on sparkly Weezing smoke.

"Go get 'em, Clarabelle!" Having gotten over her initial panic despite the shrapnel that is nearly upon them, Skyler eggs the bunny on, a fist raised in encouragement. 

The COPYCAT casts a rosy sheen over the Lopunny's brown and cream fur. For a second it seems as if Clarabelle had dyed her fur pink, just before a second DRACO METEOR materializes into existence above them, moving to intercept the first volley of space shrapnel and the unfortunate Togedemaru caught in the crossfire.

Clarabelle turns around to look at Skyler in slow motion, the world erupting into chaos and destruction behind and around her as she raises her arm slowly in a thumbs up (even though she has no opposable thumbs).

Cool Lopunnys don't look at explosions, after all.  

---

lopunny's turn

rotation battle // volleyball match

Zac Ramsay