Thomas tilted his head and listened to the shifting cadence of voices, the slosh and crunch of feet in the mud. He reckoned there’d be eight or nine individuals, all caught up in Bachannal glory, completely unprepared for the human equivalent of the wrath of god to come bursting down upon them. Or, maybe, that’s what they wanted, but this was going to be a decidedly different flavor than their god.

Not that he believed he was a god, he thought, smile wry as he tugged his gloves on tighter. Not at all.

“Well, I quite like a little shock and awe to go with my supernaturally struck thunderstorm, don’t you?” there it was, that cheery tone again. Like walking in and causing mass destruction was a walk in the park.

He pulled his collar up and spun his hand, like a magician doing a magic trick, producing a Pokeball (he’d pulled it out of his sleeve, but he’d spent so long trying to learn that sleight of hand, they could pry it from his cold, dead hands) and releasing his Gourgiest.

“I’ll disrupt them, and then we’ll both come in from the sides. They’ll never know what hit them.”

He grinned, looking all of 15 for a moment, before Zachary dropped a moonblast directly into the middle of the cultists. It went off like a flashbang, and a storm of lunar-colored sparks burst against the skin and eyes of the chanting cultists.

Nightingale gave Lethe the briefest of winks before his Gourgiest wrapped them both in shadow, using phantom force to shift them to the opposite side of the ritual.

Lethe Ascelin

☉

That tone again. It was almost admirable, to be so cheerful in the face of cultists. However, it was also worrying. “Shock and awe… right,” Lethe had never been good at shock and awe, and that wasn’t about to change.

Luckily though, as Lethe observed, it seemed more likely by the moment that their worries about this man had been unfounded. This is confirmed to them as they suddenly find themself, and Thomas, on the opposite side of where they had begun. Between the two of them, and the likely relatively small number of cultists, they could handle this.

After the moonblast had been released, Lethe’s hand had moved to their pokeballs, crammed into their back pockets. Now, on the other side, they stood holding the ball for their Zebstrika. They hoped the sounds of the commotion before them would cover the noise as they threw and released it only a short distance away. They weren’t nearly as ceremonious about it as Thomas — just a simple toss, no emphasis on shock, awe — but it did the trick well enough, and their Zebstrika stood before them now.

“Right. They seem disrupted enough to me. Time to go in, then, I’m assuming.” While they weren’t sure, they tried to write it off as nerves. Those had a nasty method of getting in their way all too often, with the only solution being to dismiss them.

They gave Chamomile a pat, looking between her and the cultists. Stepping back from Chamomile, they give her a moment to prepare for a spark.

thomas nightingale

☉

He heard-- distantly, as the world warped around him in Zachary’s Phantom Force, the doubt it Lethe’s voice, the hesitation in her words. Don’t worry, he wanted to say, I’ll do most of the shock, and you can stand back in awe, but luckily for Lethe, things were already underway.

Because this was the crux of Thomas’ world: there was chaos and there was order, and if you looked close enough, you could, if not organize, construct the chaos to benefit yourself.

“Quite,” he said, a curt nod in agreement as she called forth her Zebstrika and prepared herself. “I’ll take those on the left, if you’ll handle the right side, please. That will be four each.” He gave Zach a light tap with his cane and then stepped into the fray.

His Gourgeist rained down a volley seed bomb, the small explosives peppering the ground and erupting with wet sucking sounds as they blew the mud and rain sky high. Thomas stepped neatly around them, using them as a barrier between himself and the cultists’ Pokemon, while he focused on the human aspect.

Utilizing his cane as an extension of himself. With a flick of his wrist, it was up and jammed into a cultist’s throat; at the same time, he extended his left hand, fingers finding the soft eyesocket of another cultist, whom he bore swiftly to the ground, managing to not wince at the squish of aqueous humor against his fingertips.

An exploding seed landed directly on one, going off as they shouted and smacked at it before being leveled to the ground. That left one more for him, and a smattering of Pokemon; though he dodged out of the way of a heavy, uncoordinated, swinging punch, stepping back to look at Lethe and ascertain where she was in her process of things.

Lethe Ascelin

☉

Flashing Thomas a quick thumbs up, Lethe agrees with a short “got it.” Thomas seems sure of himself — more sure than Lethe, to be honest — so they don’t pay much heed to his side of things as they move into action.

They provide no chance for the cultists on their side of things to recover from Chamomile’s spark. Hurrying into the crowd before them, they rush to the one on their side who had seemed the most affected by the spark. They gift said cultist a kick to the chest, stepping to the side to ensure the back of their knees are forced to give out with another brief kick. A low-blow perhaps, but a final meeting of their foot with the cultist’s face provides Lethe with satisfaction that this one will have no plans of getting up anytime soon.

Not forgetting that three others, as well as possibly their Pokemon, remain, they point to the Zebstrika, a positive signal for her to use a thunder wave upon those around. It seems to disorient the cultists well enough, one even falling back. Chamomile seems to see this as an invite to place her foot firmly on the cultist’s chest. Lethe almost winces in empathy — Zebstrikas were hardly the lightest creatures. At least it was one fewer to worry about, they supposed.

Two down, two to go.

Recalling the effectiveness of an elbow, and as a cultist stupidly moves towards them, they gear up to hit their windpipe with no less than the point of their bent left arm. The first hit doesn’t seem to be enough, so they repeat. This one’s boldness appears to have worked against them, as they sputter their way to the muddy ground beneath.

One last one. They stand facing their final human opponent, who doesn’t seem so willing to be taken down. Okay. Lethe could solve that. Moving a hand to the Pokeballs in their pocket, they hope to take down the cultist and some of the remaining, angry Pokemon as quickly as possible. They hope Chive and Basil are ready to be called in for the assist, if necessary.

thomas nightingale

☉

She seemed like she had things well in hand.

Thomas took another step backwards, avoiding, this time, a fiercely swinging uppercut, and landed poorly on his bum leg. He winced as his knee buckled, caught by the brace hidden under his clothing but stupidly frozen in place. The bruising cultist aimed a sharp cross jab at his perfectly-punching-height head.

But that just would not do. Not only would it hurt, but it would be embarrassing-- and he was saved the dishonor by the timely intervention of Zachary, who blew the cultist off his feet with a close-range moonblast that sent the cultist spinning skyward, and left Thomas’ ears ringing and sparks burnt into his irises.

He swallowed, shifting his legs together in painful stages, much like a car shifts up through gears after the engine’s thrown. Once he was on two feet and standing, the pain faded to its normal, constant thud, a line of electric heat burning down his spine and into his ankle.

Arms crossed behind his back, he was standing straight again, a perfect gentleman.

Zach went to work dispersing the cultist’s Pokemon with lethal moonblasts and barrages of seed blasts, filling the air with soft explosions and the smell of a rotting vegetable garden. Amongst it all, Thomas stood, an untouched bastion against the chaos.

“All done, then?” he asked Lethe, watching with half-lidded eyes as the ivory-haired cyclops dealt with their last opponent, completely convinced of their capability to do so.

He had never doubted for a moment. For even if Lethe proved underpowered for the task, Thomas never had anything less than full, unwavering confidence in himself.

Lethe Ascelin

☉