BY GUNSMILE

“Wake up, wake up—oh, der’mo,” he hissed under his breath as the Oricorio continued to slumber on the ground.

The sight of the Gengar approaching it with tis maw wide open made his eyes bug out, because oh holy shit was the specter going to eat the—damnit, what a time for him to be so compassionate!

“W-wait,” he stammered quietly, just as the Hex struck the prone Oricorio, sapping it of what he estimated was the last of her strength.

Attacking while the opponent was down—a dirty tactic, but from the looks of things his Pokémon wasn’t going to wake up anytime soon seeing as the last attack that hit it was meant to do double the damage when the target was plagued by a status problem (or several, since the paralysis and now sleep had kicked in; imagine if there was confusion stacked as well).

“Stop,” he continued, this time his voice loud enough to carry across the arena. There was no way he was going to watch any of his Pokémon getting beat up like that while they were down.

(His bleeding heart would become his undoing, if anyone was cunning enough to notice that.)

He recalled the Oricorio, crossing through the open-air of the outdoor arena while fishing something out.

“I… specters and I don’t exactly… never mind, what’m I saying,” he continued. Chalk it down to his fear of the spectral world overriding most everything.

“You’d do anything to get what you want. You’re determined, I’ll give you that.”

He then gestured for the other to hold out their hand as he dropped something into it once the other man had done as he asked.


“Here you go, the Skyrider Badge.”