nagi wouldn’t have pegged the beach to be one of his favourite places. [break][break]

the concept of one certainly hadn’t appealed to him: grit in his toes, sweat in his hair, people. and all he had was this — the vague, unpleasant concept of a beach, pieced together from late-night travel tv and postcards — before he came to hoenn. until, shacked up in the lilycove motel, he had found himself shaking sand out of his sneakers every night, counting the stars and listening to the crash of waves into the bay.[break][break]

it’s lucky, then, that his newly-formed habit had followed him even after he'd packed up and moved his boxes from the motel to mauville. head canted up at the sky, lungs brining in the sea air, the glint of the minior’s shells as they plummeted seemed at first to be a trick of the light. dirt smudged on his glasses.[break][break]

nagi blinks. the dirt shifts, growing brighter. closer.[break][break]

“oh. shit.” [break][break]

god. fuck. of course, hoenn.[break][break]

he steps forward, then back, a panicked jig digging divots into the sand until the whistle of descending rock overrides all sensible thought — and then he sprints one shoe flying into the sand, another splashing into the surf, seawater soaking into his socks and up the hem of his pants, he stumbles in a mad dash towards the one other person still standing on the beach, struck dumb by some water-bound revelation. [break][break]

move, moron, nagi thinks. what comes out of his mouth, in a crackling, hoarse yell, is: “up! up! up!”[break][break]

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] john nelson [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

quick thinking, nagi thinks. a split-second after, the blast of the exploud’s HYPER VOICE sends him reeling backwards, eardrums reverberating. [break][break]

the minior patter into shallow water. the stranger on the beach saves himself from becoming a smear of red paste polluting hoenn’s pristine shores. nagi exhales, tension unwinding from the rigid set of his shoulders — but the stars, blinking not-so-far above them, offer only a moment’s respite. the dopplering tone of rapidly-descending minior wrenches through the air again before he's barely taken a breath. [break][break]

he splashes the rest of way into the water, and thrusts a seawater-and-sweat soaked arm at john. [break][break]

“we should —” his voice is scratchy from his earlier yelling. his eyes comb the shore, flitting across flimsy beach umbrellas and discarded towels; there is nothing sturdy enough nearby to serve as reliable shelter. “ — get out of here.”

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] john nelson [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

with all the running he has had to do since he touched down in hoenn, it’s a wonder how nagi hasn’t built even a shred of cardiovascular fitness. he's already starting to wheeze. [break][break]

how is he going to apologise to the stranger in the afterlife, if his lack of stamina gets them both killed? sorry for being a loser, pls forgive[break][break]

the exploud’s HYPER VOICE tugs him out of his thoughts before he can embark on his panic doom spiral — loud and piercing, an air raid siren taking matters into her own hands to bat the projectiles out of the sky with unerring precision. if not for the spectre of impending cranial damage, nagi would be thoroughly impressed. he tables his admiration for later. survival comes first.[break][break]

water drags at his ankles. he almost trips, heaved upright only by the man's grip around his bicep, coarse sand tearing at the heels of his waterlogged socks in their drunken, headlong stumble.[break][break]

"there!" [break][break]

his arm flails outwards, index finger stabbing at the murky silhouette of the seashore house further up the shore. the lights in the shack have been dimmed, the shutters down, too late in the day for any summertime beachside attraction to court customers. minior litter the sand around it, denting the slate roofing. 

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] john nelson [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

he’s up on the balls of his feet, then his toes, and then the man has tugged him off his feet and into the air, nagi dangling like a ragdoll in his grip. part of him — the bit paper-mache’d out of petty, fragile pride — bristles at the treatment: i can run on my own. the sensible part of him remembers that yeah, uh. no. [break][break]

at least he isn’t left to stew in his humiliation for long.[break][break]

the door flies off its hinges; they go flying in behind it, hurtling into the building in a desperate, forward dive, nagi slack and useless all the way down. sprawled on his belly, damp forehead plastered against the floorboards, he swallows, coughs, tries to get his breathing back under control. the man’s voice rises in a question over the roaring of his pulse in his ears. [break][break]

he shifts, pressing his cheek into the floor, head turned just enough to make out the man’s silhouette fumbling about in the dark, blurred through the sweat-fog over his glasses. he doesn’t feel like getting up yet. with his adrenaline draining, he probably couldn't.[break][break]

“d’rno,” he mumbles, directed more into the ground than at the man. his second attempt at intelligible language goes better. “ten dollars and a kit kat?” [break][break]

outside, the minior continue to fall. whizz. thunk. whizz. thunk; the apocalypse symphony in common time. [break][break]

he’d still be out there, if not for the stranger.[break][break]

"doesn’t matter. i’ll pay for it." he gestures out at the doorway — framing a rectangular slice of beachside sky and letting a draft in — at dess, and then in the general direction of his still-intact skull. “it’s the least i could do.”

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] john nelson [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

“i’m a working adult.” nagi builds his case by enunciating the last two words with the sulky, aggrieved petulance of a teenager sticking it to the man (and also the man). “we can go halfsies.” [break][break]

petty spite is a powerful motivator: he’s not about to be one-upped by some geriatric. the sight of the man heaving himself to his feet, joints popping, has nagi rallying. he pushes himself up onto his elbows, and then to his knees, and, finally, up — an undulating, unglamorous squirm that nonetheless gets the job done. he's vertical. vaguely. [break][break]

he props his tailbone up against a table behind him to take the weight off his shaking legs. being vertical sucks, but no longer pancaked against the floor, nagi's eyes growing accustomed to the dim light — dimmer, now, with dess' imposing figure guarding the doorway — the man is no longer an oblong blur in the dark. blond, slacks, a soaked-through button-up; office wear? then — [break][break]

“... are you a trainer? you and dess — “ a mimed gesture, his hand karate-chopping an imaginary minior out of the air. “ — good instincts.”

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] john nelson [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]