It's a quiet night, thus far. Disappointing, if he's honest; the reports coming in from Rocket's operations around Slateport have set off more than a few alarms, and Gavin's half expecting the warehouse to be raided by the time he gets there.

It's not, so he resigns himself to watch with a pack of cigarettes and a burner phone he uses to keep in touch with HQ. Right now, he's using that phone to take selfies to send to his husband. He won't include that in his report.

In the rafters, his Aerodactyl rumbles a warning.

Gavin pockets the phone, lowers the cigarette from his lips, and blinks at Tam Fawley as the lone ranger bursts through the front door behind the might of an Ursaluna's claws.

"What the fuck?"

He's expecting a raid, not a single dude out on patrol.

"You must be lost." His deep voice echoes in the emptiness. They've already moved out most of the cargo after being tipped off. "I'll forget I ever saw you if you turn around and walk out."

Despite his calm tone, SHADOW MIASMA begins to spread throughout the space like an eerie fog.

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Laughter echoes, too, enforcing a sense of vacancy.

"Are you, now?" Gavin drops his cigarette to crush it beneath his heel, rolling his shoulders. It's been a while since he's had a good scrap. "I'd like to see that."

As the Ursuluna charges forward, the Aerodactyl crouched in the rafters dives it with SKY DROP, the DARK PREDATOR selecting its prey. Miasma swirls around the crystal-coated creature, enhancing speed and strength.

A luxury ball tucks tight against Gavin's palm. An Escavalier appears in a muted flash, and Gavin clicks his tongue. SKY takes on the colour of SHADOW, dark rain hissing from above. With its OVERCOAT, the Pokémon itself is protected, and Aerodactyl seems similarly immune to its adverse effects. PRESSURE settles over the urban battlefield.

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DEFOG serves to lighten the mist, but Gavin's SHADOW MIASMA returns with a vengeance. It bleeds from him with an ease he'd once lacked, his power trained and strengthened like any other muscle. In spite of it all, his opponent remains resolute. Shame he wasn't Rocket, really.

A sharp whistle gets Aerodactyl's attention, the prehistoric Pokémon diving back with AGILITY further boosted by the miasma's effects. It screams at its prey in anger and defiance, flying up and out of reach.

SAND STREAM succeeds where the DEFOG had not, the purple-black sky replaced with stinging sands.

Convenient.

Another luxury ball is tossed to reveal his own SHADOW TYRANITAR, her DARK SANDSTREAM swirling in tandem with the SANDSTORM summoned by her kin. She matches the titan's roar with her own, the ground trembling beneath her weight.

With its weather condition neutralized, a click of Gavin's tongue instructs the Escavalier to target Togekiss with ACID SPRAY.

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A SAFEGUARD shimmers around his foe, but Gavin isn't seeking a war of attrition. He has been bled and beaten in Kanto, taught to favour an all-out-offensive until someone was dead. It won't be him.

Safely out of range of the Ursaluna's claws, the Aerodactyl fires off a searing HYPER BEAM with a sound like a cannon blast. The building shakes with the force of it, but the prehistoric Pokémon does not stop moving. It presses on with no regards for its own safety, wing muscles straining with the effort to stay airborne after such an assault.

Escavalier takes the full force of Ursaluna's HEADLONG RUSH, its steel shell cracking under pressure. It takes the opportunity at close quarters to stab at the charging bear with its FELL STINGER.

Dark crystals sting Gavin's exposed skin, but he does not flinch from them. Beautiful.

Where a ranger such as Tam may wish to protect the environment, Gavin holds no such reservations in this place. Perhaps if it were Sootopolis, but not here. A click of his tongue and his own Tyranitar retaliates with a brutal EARTHQUAKE, seeking to shatter stone and break bones. The heavy crate next to which Gavin is situated is what keeps him standing, one arm braced against it to maintain his balance.

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"AERODACTYL!" Gavin snarls, no clicks audible over the rumbling in the warehouse. "AGAIN!"

With only a single beat of its wings to orient itself in the air, the prehistoric Pokémon unleashes another devastating HYPER BEAM, this time aimed toward the still-standing Togekiss. The powerful attack seems to wound the shadow creature in turn, cracks forming along its rocky hide and tatters appearing in the membrane of its wings. It's forced to land among the trembling rafters, trembling itself from overexertion. In the heat of it, Gavin is merciless and blind to its struggle.

Kill or be killed. In battle, he sees only the fires of Kanto.

He ducks behind the crate as the ranger's Tyranitar swings with wild abandon, narrowly avoiding having his head taken off by the titan's claws. The furious, agonized cries of his Pokémon foretell that they had not been so lucky as to find cover. The metal crate bends inward with the force of the shielded blow, cracking open like an egg. Many eggs, in fact, for the cargo is revealed in a mess of cracked eggshells and spilled yolk. A few surviving eggs roll out across the floor.

Its own shell cracked by an earlier attack, Escavalier goes down between the coordinated attacks of its foes. Gavin doesn't spare it a passing glance, already reaching for another pokeball. SHADOW ROSERADE is trained to release its DARK SPIKES upon entering battle, venomous thorns reaching up through earthquake-made cracks in concrete.

Tam Fawley is not retreating. Unfortunate.

A peculiar whistle sounds as the rumbling of the warehouse dims. Gavin's Pokémon turn their attention to Tam. The whistle's meaning is simple. Kill.

Shadow Tyranitar answers with a BRUTAL SWING of her own.

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His opponent is resilient; a grudging respect settles somewhere behind Gavin's annoyance at Tam Fawley's refusal to die. His Tyranitar is equally headstrong, grappling his own with ease through the might of mega evolution. Though a keystone glints in Gavin's glasses, his shadow Pokemon are immune to the phenomenon. Their strength lies elsewhere, in outright brutality.

SURF soaks the crumbling warehouse, sweeping debris and eggs alike down a slope toward the sea. Pressurized water seeks the cracks in the other Tyranitar's armour as the DARK SANDSTORM rages on. Roserade twirls a crystalline flower as its GIGA DRAIN targets their titanic foe, and the injured Aerodactyl ROARS defiance from the rafters before the AVALANCHE brings it down.

Gavin stalks toward Tam, fingers curling around another pokeball at his side. There is no anger in his eyes, only a murderous determination.

Sirens scream in the distance.

Scowling, Gavin pauses his approach. To Tam, it would look as if he'd merely reconsidered, but the brush of a psychic presence in his mind precedes an overwhelming PRESSURE that fills the air. It dwarfs the Aerodactyl's power, each breath made laborious by its suffocating shroud. Through the gaps torn in the building's roof by ice and snow, shadowed wings block the moonlight. Lugia's HURRICANE destroys what's left of the roof in a cyclone of wind and debris, earth shaking as she lands next to her chosen.

How close?

CLOSE ENOUGH.

With a last, disparaging look at Tam Fawley, Gavin leaves the ranger for dead.

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