“Oh, please,” Memo joked, waving his hand as though to dismiss a bad smell, “coming back alive is the bare minimum. And I excel at the bare minimum. After you, your highness.”
[break][break]
The Vespiquen glared, but she quickly hovered up and over the embankment, and over to a nearby tree, after looking both ways like she was crossing the street. Memo watched from safely behind the lip of ground, as she heaved once, steadying herself, before-- reaching under her comb-dress and pulling out two thick globs of honey, that she then smeared all over the tree.
[break][break]
“Gross,” he whispered, “I will never eat honey again.”
[break][break]
Once she was done, she shook her arms to dislodge any remaining honey, then speedily buzzed back over and down behind the hill again.
[break][break]
“Wonder how long it’ll--,”
[break][break]
The buzzing was getting louder.
[break][break]
“Shit.” Memo dropped back to the ground, bringing some soil with him as he went, and pulled Tumsi’s Pokeball out. He looked at Alex. “I don’t know who you brought with you, but you may want to be ready to run.” His whispers were quickly drowned out beneath the ominous hum, rapidly growing louder and louder as the swarm returned.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Alexei Ivanov [break]


[attr="class","pokesprite pokemon rapidash-galar"][attr="class","pokesprite pokemon togekiss"][attr="class","pokesprite pokemon numel"][attr="class","pokesprite pokemon skarmory"][attr="class","pokesprite pokemon walrein"]

He wanted to tell Alex about the weird Vespiquen self honey extraction but the time had passed. They’d have a giggle about it later, he supposed.
[break][break]
He hupped as he pulled himself back up to perch on the edge of the embankment-- but the clearing that had once been before him was now a writhing, buzzing, living mass of yellow and black bodies. The swarm moved like liquid, a mobile Fibonacci spiral of Combee, and the air was made hotter by the sheer energy of their wings.
[break][break]
He released Túmsi next to him, crouching low and putting a sweaty, slightly shaky hand on the Numel’s hump.
[break][break]
“All you gotta do,” he whispered, voice barely audible over the drone of the swarm, “is point a yawn at the edges. We’ll grab whoever drops.”
[break][break]
But as he was watching the veritable blending action of the Combee, his hopes for the plan to go well were slowly diminishing.
[break][break]
Túmsi, to her credit, did what she was told; she aimed a Yawn at the far right edge of the swarm, where it went as a little, white puff of air. It buffeted against the swirling, whirling throng of Combee as gentle as could be. They were all too enthralled in the honey-smeared tree to notice-- but, unfortunately, those affected by the yawn had enough time to buzz back into the center of the mass, intelligible from all the others.
[break][break]
“Shit.”
[break][break]
He waited with bated breath as the seconds ticked by-- then, like a miracle, one Combee dropped, the force of its forward motion making it roll. Then another, and a third, and a fourth, all scattered haphazardly over the forest floor. There were a couple gentle thumps from other bodies falling, but they were safely ensconced in the living wall of bees.
[break][break]
Memo recalled Túmsi, mind whirling. The clock was ticking, now-- there was no telling how long their sleeping bees would stay asleep, or how long they had until the honey was gone and the swarm noticed them.
[break][break]
He inhaled a sharp breath and released Zuza. She took one look at the situation and gave him a withering glance.
[break][break]
“Don’t look at me like that. Listen, I need you to-- carefully and slowly-- use Psychic to drag the downed bees closer to me. Just a little bit.”
[break][break]
She quirked one ear in a question, then turned and did as she was told, her horn glowing a faint pink. A matching aura appeared around three of the bee bodies slumbering on the ground; slowly, like molasses in January, they began to drag and roll closer to Memo, an inch at a time.
[break][break]
The swarm continued on, unaware for now.


[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Alexei Ivanov [break]


[attr="class","pokesprite pokemon rapidash-galar"][attr="class","pokesprite pokemon togekiss"][attr="class","pokesprite pokemon numel"][attr="class","pokesprite pokemon skarmory"][attr="class","pokesprite pokemon walrein"]

He sensed, rather than saw, Gabriel enter the field of play because he got the feeling of disapproving eyes on his back. Neither Gabe nor Kyouya were super big fans of him-- at least, not yet. They would be, someday.
[break][break]
If he survived this.
[break][break]
He flashed a thumbs up over his shoulder as he dropped to his knees and crawled forward, slowly, barely daring to breathe, reaching out to grab one sleeping Combee by its gentle wing. The appendage felt soft and crinkly under his fingers, and he mentally apologized as he dragged it closer to him, bundling it up in his arms. Got one.
[break][break]
That made him bold, and he hopped a little bit closer to the second, picking that one up. Got two.
[break][break]
He really should cut his losses. He was close enough to the swarm to feel the pulse of the air off their wings. He really should turn around and go.
[break][break]
He reached for the third bee.
[break][break]
With shaking fingers, he grabbed one of the little honeycombs, gently picking it up and bringing it back to his chest. Arm full of slumbering bees, he had to figure out how to get back without making too much of a scene.
[break][break]
There was a warm feeling on his skin, and he felt himself lifting up, as Zuza’s Psychic raised him off the ground by a few inches and dragged him back to safety.
[break][break]
He didn’t exhale until he had pushed off the top of the embankment and landed, three Combee in hand. He offered one to Alex and fished out Zuza’s Pokeball, calling her back before heading for Gabe’s waiting back.
[break][break]
“Let’s blow this popsicle sta---,”
[break][break]
The buzzing shot up in pitch, becoming frantic.
[break][break]
“Shit. Let’s go!”
[break][break]
The Vespiquen hovered over the Salamence, as Memo tried to clamber on with only one arm.
[break][break]
“We’ll find out what we can,” he promised her, as the sound of her irate, disobedient Combee got louder and louder.



[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Alexei Ivanov [break]


[attr="class","pokesprite pokemon rapidash-galar"][attr="class","pokesprite pokemon togekiss"][attr="class","pokesprite pokemon numel"][attr="class","pokesprite pokemon skarmory"][attr="class","pokesprite pokemon walrein"]