Today on ’What stupid thing will Vic do this time?’ he happened to have a week off, so of course he decided to spend it doing something relaxing, not at all stressful, and definitely not dangerous – like any normal person would!
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Ha. As if.
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The moment he saw the tourism company’s advertisement was the moment he decided the deserted island challenge was how he was going to spend the week, and nothing the contract said could have stopped him. Not like he read it anyways, because reading was for people who weren’t as impatient as Vic!
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So it is that with nothing but the clothes on his back and his two pokéballs, dear Vic stands on an empty beach. Well, empty aside from that one guy, apparently. “Oh, hey! Yeah, I’m Vic. Guess we’re doing this together, huh?” He beams, ever-friendly and eager to meet someone new.
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Awesome news though! Since, as much as Vic did enjoy camping and had spent his fair share of time outdoors, it sure as heck would be much easier to do this with someone else than with just his pokémon, especially considering that… well, he did have just two of his pokémon. Why didn’t he bring a water type when moving to Hoenn, or even his Chansey?! The egg supply would have been helpful! But, of course, Vic doesn’t think about things like those.
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Instead, what he does is reach for his pokéballs, calling out a large Arcanine that wags its tail excitedly upon release and a Dragapult that does nothing more than open its large mouth in a yawn (mimicked by the Dreepy resting inside its horns). After all, he would need them for the whole week, so there is no point in having them stay in their pokéballs.
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He looks at the stranger once more, his smile just as bright as before. ”Are you any good with outdoorsy stuff? We should probably figure out what we’re working with here, huh?”
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Honestly speaking here, this man isn’t nearly as well-prepared and equipped to be as calm and excited as he is.

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+ aaron faust

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

"i guess so," he agrees with a smile, the words trembling around a laugh. after his near brush with death (read: being without the internet and human contact for a week), it's hard to conceal his relief behind a shroud of cool guy aloofness. he almost really fucked up by not reading that contract. "i'm aaron."
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the pink-haired dude, vic, reaches for his pokeballs and aaron watches curiously. only two? in a flash of light, an arcanine and a dragapult appear in front of him. this isn't it, right?
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vic turns back to him, beaming, and asks if he's good at outdoorsy stuff. 
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"uh ... yeahhh," his voice lifts with his lie. he has pooped in a bush or two in his day, but he isn't a nature guy. even out on routes, he's never been terribly far from civilization. not like this, at least. "i'm a trainer so i travel a lot." a laugh. he turns the question on vic before he can prod for a more substantial answer: "what about you?"
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while they hang out on the beach, the sun droops further towards the horizon. 
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+ deserted island 4 Victor Wexler

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

Without a doubt, a more observant person would catch the lie in Aaron’s words, or at least be even slightly suspicious of the guy. Not Vic though! Vic trusts people, and while at his twenty-seven years of age he should know that doing as much can come back and bite him – as it has happened many a times – not even a second thought is given to if he should trust him.
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“A trainer? Cool! I did some of that too, but now I’m working on becoming a ranger.” He laughs, and while some is definitely an understatement, there’s no need to get into Vic’s extensive history with gym challenging and pokémon training – the whole thing makes him a bit sad, and a sad Vic doesn’t get much done.
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‘What do people need to survive on a deserted island for a week.’ In his mind, he quickly comes up with a list. Although, if one were to ask someone else they would probably say he should have thought of that before signing the contract, or at least before arriving at the beach…
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”Do you have any water pokémon, Aaron? If not, I can have Taffy here fly over the jungle to look for a stream. We can’t really drink saltwater,” with these words, he points with his thumb at the sluggish Dragapult, because it is true: they can’t drink salt water. Vic has learned that the hard way.
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Musing to himself, he goes on: ”Uhmm… and we should probably gather some wood so we can start a fire, it’s getting kind of late… Not too sure what to do about food though…”
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See? So very prepared.


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+ aaron faust

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

"oh cool," aaron says, his enthusiasm leaving something to be desired. though he doesn't care much for the way rangers rangersplain how wonderful being a ranger is, having one on a deserted island with him has its merits. a moment ago, his confidence had waivered at vic being seemingly underprepared, but he feels better about it now. more than better, actually. this guy must have brought only two pokemon because he's that outdoorsy. 
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this is going to be a cakewalk. 
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"oh yeah, i do." he reaches for the unfashionable belt looped through his jeans and plucks a pokeball off of it. he pauses. "i'll be honest, vic, i don't know if the water is saltwater or not. also, um, won't it be kinda gross? it comes out of her mouth so it's like — y'know maybe you should have your pokemon check for water. just in case."
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he releases his feraligatr anyways. 
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"yeah, wood," he repeats absentmindedly as vic lists what they need for the night. a fire is easy — they can stand around his cyndaquil if worse comes to worst. food, though? 
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"maybe there's some berries on this island?" he offers uselessly. following vic's lead, he releases the rest of his pokemon. "hey, listen up, guys, i need you to find sticks. dry sticks. got it? and — and food. find us some food." it was wishful thinking that one of them would return with a box of pizza, but it didn't hurt to be optimistic, right?
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his pokemon scatter along the beach and up to the jungle treeline. 
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+ deserted island 4 Victor Wexler

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

Did this guy think water type pokémon attacks were their saliva or something?! (Wait… Were they?!)
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Vic chooses not to ask. Instead, he humours Aaron, giving a short laugh. ”Sure thing! You heard him, Taffy, can you go check for any streams?” he asks the ghostly dragon, who in turn looks at the man it doesn’t recognize, squinting at him in an intense stare that almost seems to say ’Wow, who are you to make him make me work, huh?’. It yawns then, which could have easily counted as a ’If I get hungry I’ll eat you for lunch!”, but it does fly up indeed, disappearing among the treetops soon enough.
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Feraligatr, Pikachu, Furret, Cyndaquil, Quilava, Braixen... Vic counts the other’s pokémon as they’re released, honestly being somewhat surprised that he had actually brought a whole team. At least some of those pokémon could probably be really useful for foraging, right? Since, well… Wasn’t that what they did in the wild?
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”Wow, you could almost be a Fire Type specialist with that team.” His gaze falls on his own patiently awaiting Fire Type, the agreeable Arcanine’s soft fur definitely not being made for days spent out on the sand. On the bright side, at least he would be warm to cuddle against at night…
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”How about you go looking for some food too, bud?” The words are met in a loud bark, and just like that, the pokémon disappears in a flash of orange.

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+ aaron faust

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

a fire-type specialist? aaron turns to look at his team. okay, yeah, half his team is some flavor of fire-type. "could be," he agrees, watching his cyndaquil root rather  uselessly among a pile of driftwood. "i know a ton of people like to specialize but i dunno ... it isn't really for me. well, i guess you could say i specialize in cool pokemon." he laughs. 
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vic sends off arcanine to search for food, leaving them to stand in weird silence for a while. aaron crosses his arms, uncrosses them, then crosses them again. he sighs and taps his foot against the sand, craning to see into the jungle where most of his pokemon had disappeared into. after what must have been only a minute or two at most, he says, "man, when are they gonna come back?"
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his braixen returns with strange herbs. his pikachu returns with plastic she found along the beach. his feraligatr comes bearing a magikarp who looks very unhappy to be there. his quilava has sticky berry juice on her face but has nothing to show for it. his cyndaquil finds nothing.
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his furret skitters back to him, holding a blue berry between her teeth. "good job, buddy! can you take us to where you found this?" she nods and begins loping towards the trees.
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"you wanna come with, vic? might wanna start scoping out some shelter for the night, too."
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he follows his furret. 
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+ deserted island 4 Victor Wexler

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

”Ha! A lot of pokémon are cool though! But yeah, I get that… Honestly, not specializing is better anyway, otherwise your whole team can get wiped out if you get a bad type match,” he shrugs, well aware that this is true. Since, back in his “pro trainer” days, Vic happened to have caught and trained plenty of pokémon belonging to just about every type – most of them now resting back at his parents’ home in Mistralton. Man, they were probably having dinner right around this time… His mum’s cooking would have been so good right now...
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While they wait, his stomach audibly growls, Vic finding himself sighing and looking at the treetops as if hoping to find some fruit he can climb up and grab. At least Aaron’s pokémon don’t take too long to come back though, and apparently one of them had found something useful enough…
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”Hell yeah! We can worry about shelter later, let’s get some food.” Priorities, huh? Blame being blinded by hunger and all that.
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Too bad they don’t end up making it very far.
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For, in the distance, there is the loud sound of his Arcanine’s barking, the very ground beneath them rumbling. The pink-haired man squints at the treeline, wondering what’s going on, and he sees it clear as day the moment the rumbling stops…
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”OH SHIT! DUCK!” Without waiting for a response, he pushes Aaron down to the ground with him, just in time for about a dozen scared Tropius to fly above, something dropping all around.
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Yellow, banana-like head meat fruit. Fresh and perfectly edible too.
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Nougat appears then, wagging his tail as if expecting praise for doing a great job.


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+ aaron faust

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

"exactly! i'm not trying to get caught with my pants down during a battle." or in any scenario, literally or figuratively. "sounds like you have a lot of experience with all this trainer stuff." even after a year, aaron still hasn't grasped the intricacies of pokemon training. his mentality boils down to: is it a badass-looking pokemon? does it not try to kill him on sight? cool. everything else (like team synergy, for example, if one judges him by his lopsided team) has fallen to the wayside. 
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vic accepts his invitation to go on a jaunt through the thickly-shaded jungle with him. his priority — finding food above all else — endears him to aaron. they might die on this island, but at least they'll die on the same page, right? 
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aaron follows his furret with a sort of lumbering gait as the sand beneath him shifts with each step. as they make their way into the thick shade of the jungle, the navigation gets easier, but not necessarily easy. the undergrowth snags at his pants as he takes an awkwardly long step over a fallen branch. ahead of them somewhere, he hears — or hopes he's hearing — the bark of vic's arcanine.
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and rumbling.
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"hey, i think we're near a waterfall," he announces, feeling a little proud of his outdoorsmanship. before he can take another step, vic yells, grabs him, and sends him sprawling onto the jungle floor.
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"WHAT THE FU—?!" he yells as he falls, the rest of the curse transforming into a grunt as the landing knocks the wind out of him. before he can suck in a breath and give this guy a piece of his mind, a herd of scared tropius zoom through the foliage overhead. fruit rains down all around them and aaron raises an arm so he won't get tropius meat to the face. 
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"thanks, bro," he says, ragged, once the jungle grows quiet again. sitting up, he reaches for one of the yellow, nanab-shaped berries. "i think we found the solution to our food problem."
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like a proper hunter-gatherer, he takes an indiscriminate bite out of it. "hey, this tastes pretty good! i guess i'll let you know if it gives me the shits?" a nervous laugh finds its way up his throat. it dawns on him that maybe he should've asked the ranger guy if it's safe to eat before he ate it.  "i mean i think i saw a guy eat these on a survival show once so we should be okay, i think."
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+ deserted island 4 Victor Wexler

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

Curious as to what in the world he’s doing, his Arcanine approaches him, licking his face and causing Vic to sigh right before allowing himself a small laugh. He manages to use the pokémon’s large body as support to get back up, giving himself a moment to recover from everything that happened just now. Even if mildly, his body aches from the sudden fall, in a way it usually does not, and for a second, the man can’t help but wonder if this is what it feels like to get old...
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Only for a second though.
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”You did so good, bud! Nice work finding those Tropius!” He praises, scratching behind the Arcanine’s ears as he knows the pokémon loves. Then, he looks around, his gaze wandering over all the fallen fruit until landing on Aaron.
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Wait…
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Had he just…
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Did he really just eat that without knowing if it was edible or not?!
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Vic chuckles, shaking his head. ”Nah, don’t worry, Tropius’ fruit is edible, you’ll be fine!” There’s always the possibility that the Tropius in this island have a diet that makes it not be, of course, but as much as Vic knows about pokémon, he doesn’t think to consider that part. He’s too hungry to think about that, and as they talk, he also picks up one of these fruit to take a bite.
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”Guess we should gather these… If there’s pokémon here, there’s gotta be a water source, so Taffy should be coming back soon if he finds it…” It must be some kind of talent to be able to consider things like those but also act so dumb...

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+ aaron faust

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

aaron isn't sure he can trust vic's tropius meat intuition one hundred percent, but it is comforting to be reassured that he won't be shitting himself for the next seven days. he takes another bite and paws at the rogue streams of berry juice that trickle down his chin. he polishes it off as vic takes the lead, suggesting they collect what they can carry.[break][break]
"man, i wish i had my bag with me," he laments, mostly to himself, as he crawls around the jungle floor in search of fallen fruit. he gathers as much as he can hold in his arms and awkwardly gets to his feet, dropping a couple in the graceless process.
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"right." he shifts restlessly. "i hope he found something." he feels a tug on his pantleg and sees his furret trying to get his attention. "we have plenty of food now," aaron tells her gently, but she persists. he's not really the best at reading his pokemon, so he offers her a berry. she takes it but doesn't eat it, her eyes still fixed on her trainer.[break][break]

—[break][break]

despite their collective incompetence, aaron and vic manage to survive a week on a deserted island with nothing but their pokemon and each other. they get to know each other a little too well, but in a no homo, just two dudes hanging out kind of way. aaron's screentime goes up 1000% when he returns to civilization.[break][break]

+ deserted island 4 Victor Wexler

[attr="class","pokeclass"]