the sound of the door opening with no care paid to stealth, awoke several bats that hung above from metal beams. luckily for skyler, they had been particularly deep in slumber, and she was able to make it down into the bunker before they were fully roused.

for now, the only pokémon that seemed to have noticed the captain’s entrance was a snorunt. it eyed her from behind a machine before deciding to make its way over and tap her foot. if not kicked away, it would peer up innocently before raising both stubby arms (?). it liked to be held.

there was another who had spotted their intruder—one much, much more menacing.

darkrai’s shadow quickly ascended upstairs. ” t r e s p a s s e r . . . ” it growled, the word echoing towards its avatar. her cigarette was abandoned over the edge of the lighthouse and down into the rocks below.

it took mere seconds for lulu's shadow to rise out from a dark corner of the bunker. whom she saw there, she could hardly believe. but honestly, who else had the gall?

”dross!”

her eyes nearly glowed, watching the woman’s finger hover over a big red button.

”don’t you fucking dare!”

skyler dross

☉

the snorunt cuddled close, seeming to motion to something across the room. an icebox, where lulu kept the icecube treats. but, now was not the time.

it was set down, oblivious to the tension in the room. luckily, it waddled off when nudged.

lulu glared, still frozen in place. she was at the mercy of the captain’s thrills, now.

it was only when skyler's hand went down that she lunged.

”don’t!”

maybe it was a bit silly… a big red button for this, but no one had been supposed to know.

when it was suppressed, across the small island, a large model rocket about the height of a beartic rose out of the ground. an explosive sound boomed, and it hissed and growled into the air, cratering the sand and spitting it all around in great plumes of dust and debris.

lulu, eyes wild and murderous, stopped and listened until it was no longer audible.

then, it was on.

with a wild battlecry, she launched to action. 

”AAAHHHHHHH!”

papers flew as she jumped over a desk, forgetting her powers and her environment in her rage. she went low, shouldering hard and attempting to take her to the ground.

somewhere up, the small engine sputtered and stalled, and the rocket's parachute carried it down onto waves off the coast of sootopolis.

skyler dross

☉

anticlimactic?

she plowed into her with a sharp shoulder, grounding the other woman onto the cold bunker floor and peeling back up like an arbok—but she was skillfully flipped before she could manage to get a good trajectory of the fist.

had dross gotten quicker?

mounted, she grinned a sick grin at the blonde, waiting, because she had gotten better too.

”important… you bitch,” she hissed, grunting. ”what, you just wash up on beaches and break into people’s houses? you think i won’t kill you?”

it had been months since their last run-in… the horrifying experience of drowning might have haunted her nightmares, had she been the type to sleep. the pain of a broken wrist was one that gave a phantom throb still every so often, though.

she stared up at mercury, poison, craving blood.

skyler dross

☉

lu. she snarled as skyler drew closer, feeling a shiver of adrenaline at the breath on her lips—and seeing her opportunity line up.

”only when it’s warranted, captain.” so, yeah. probably.

and of murder, her bluff was called, and the look it summoned on her face was a bit sour. a fresh fire roared in her gaze, lit by that rare spark skyler was far too aware she had at her disposal.

no, she wouldn’t.

”guess you’ll find out.”

she curled under her to one side and wrapped arms around her, hooking and shoving to roll them again. the second she got both knees on the ground, her fist was sailing.

no slaps today.

skyler dross

☉

they’d certainly come a way since that first run-in in lilycove, back when she’d initially arrived in hoenn. when she’d always been watching her back—except that first night, one too many tequilas deep. she’d drowned then, too, but in a different way.

now, though kyogre’s blessing was unbeknownst to lulu, they had both become chosen ones. perhaps this had something to do with the primal forces within them which had always existed. the fists, though? lulu’s could be newly credited to rocket’s THEO BECKETT , skyler’s own fishie friend.

the punches were set to rain, but the second one had no room as she was yanked close by the collar and then thrust off with surprising strength. from the ground, she tightened up and took the shot, before a hard foot burst out towards skyler’s face.

if it connected, she’d roll back to her feet, deciding she didn’t want to be on the ground anymore, and giving some distance. she wanted this to last.

”come on.”

skyler dross

☉

”you bet your sweet fuckin’ ass i have!”

there was little explanation for that one time that her hand had palmed the captain’s face, other than her at-the-time recent hand-to-hand scuffle with FERNANDO SILPH  and his kecleon ala ‘WHO DO YOU WORK FOR’—a strange manifestation of trauma.

but not today. not now. now, her trauma would manifest much more brutally. and indeed, Sénon Game would not here to use as a human shield as she tossed bottles.

”that was one time!”

the glass shattering might have drawn her from anyone else, but the thrill of the fight with this woman in particular surpassed that of scientific progress.

here, in this world they had spun up through a series of heated events, there was maybe little left to discover, and that was okay. they co-existed at the ceiling of their relationship, symbiotic in their exchange to satiate a primal nature’s needs.

blood, sweat, adrenaline. pain. domination.

or maybe it was just her. either way, it kept her from picking up the biggest shard and attempting to get it at the right place on her throat.

her elbow reacted in a pinch, and she twisted, curling up to throw it right back. a knee followed at the side.

somehow hissing through puffs, she questioned, ”why are you in sootopolis, dross?”

skyler dross

☉