EXTRACTION #2

With Hideo Kino

"I think those weirdo pokemon we fought last time might be all you." He said casually as they arrived at their mining site, pickaxe slung over his shoulder. "They were waaay too abstract to be anything from my head."

Maybe the fact Hideo could only guess at what pokemon looked like lead to weird mashups when combined with the radiation headaches?

Anyway...

"I read some of the paperwork on prolonged exposure to the radiation." He said as he approached his ore vein. "Seems like we should be fine with sharing the radiation after all; no permanent side-effects have been found yet."

He pursed his lips, before smashing the ore vein with his pickaxe, his escavalier and crustle, ever present in his mining efforts, falling in-sync with him.

"We probably shouldn't have called it radiation, to be honest."

"Doubt it," was Hideo's quick answer. "Everything I've heard says they actually look like stuff, like a weird mix of Pokemon. If it was all me, they'd just be shaped like stuff. No colors or anything."

That was how he perceived stuff in general, as shapes and textures. Even things he got from what his Telepathic Pokemon saw lacked visual details. "You gotta take some credit for your part. Can't just blame me for everything~"

All joking aside, he could already start to feel the core's effects, feeling the headache coming; they were getting close.

"Told ya," he said. "You can't just keep taking the full brunt of everything for me. 'Sides, my Pokemon could fix up any bad damage. You know my Pokemon are good at mental stuff like this."

Hideo's nagging aside, Uxie sent a quick mental message to Doug: radiation wasn't the "wrong" term, it was just a different type of radiation. One that melted minds instead of bodies.

Choice: Take the brunt equally +50 points

John Sullivan

EXTRACTION #2

With Hideo Kino

"I take absolutely zero responsibility on those walking cease and desists." He proclaimed boldly mid-ore smash, his pickaxe slamming into the vein with a resounding ka-blamo, further bolstered by his fellow miners' simultaneous blows.

"Oh, yes I fucking can." He declared. "I know it's hard for you tell, but you're like, 4 foot nothing and 80 pounds wet, my guy."

He paused mid-strike. Mostly so Hideo could hear his shit eating grin.

"I'll keep protecting you at least until puberty hits you again." He said with a snicker, acknowledging Uxie's message with a hum and a nod.

Huh, learned something new everyday.

---

• Focus on mining. Receive 1 CURIO.

"Come on. You gotta take some responsibility for what you did." Hideo was less adept at the mining part, opting to let out a Diggersby and Excadril to do it for him. "They can't be all my work."

Doug's shit-eating grin was matching in volume by Hideo's grumpy frown. "I'm four-foot eight! And I'm sure I weigh more than eighty by now!" He hadn't weighed himself in a while, but he wasn't exactly going hungry at all. "I'm big enough to be a Gym Leader. Just like you used to be."

No comment on the puberty part, though. If anything, that just got him to turn his head away from Doug, to try and listen for anything approaching. The less he thought about Galar, the better.

Choice: Focus on mining +1 curio

John Sullivan

EXTRACTION #2

With Hideo Kino

"Nah." Doug said. "You're way better than I was."

Hideo hadn't sold his soul to the ever burning war machine to get to where he was. He had worked hard, gotten out there and shown his stuff.

"But I'm pretty good right now too— and I still get punched, choked, stabbed and worse. And I'm just under 6 feet and about a hundred and eighty." He said, before shrugging— a gesture Hideo could hopefully hear in his tone. "When you're a kid in the way, you're a momentary nuisance. When you're a member of the league's brass, you're a priority target. They'll come for blood— Always remember that, buddy."

And speaking of coming out for blood...

The room temperature seemed to climb to mountainous highs as something began to emerge from the core. A burning, metallic husk landed on the floor, the sound of a weak, sputtering engine filling the air as a deformed military jeep rose. Its frame trembled and jittered on fleshy limbs of mangled, burnt gore.

"... Tch. We've got another cease and desist waiting to happen." Doug muttered without much energy. "Get it out of here, Bedy."

---

• Battle a manifested trauma/memory. Receive 50 RKS POINTS.

The praise was bittersweet; he'd wanted to be so much more than just a Gym Leader, but reality had shown him he just wasn't fit to defend the whole region as Champion.

And hearing what Doug was going through now to have gotten him this far didn't do much to assuage his discomfort.

"...you only gotta deal with that stuff 'cause of me. You joined the military to be part of that mentorship program…and to get health insurance. Which, uh, do you even use that anymore now that you got Lele's powers?"

Doug sounded like he was doing alright for someone that got punched, choked, stabbed and worse.

The sudden shift of temperature was hard to notice, the sound of an engine emerging from the core. Though Hideo couldn't see the burnt gore, he could smell it, immediately pinching his nose. "Ech," he muttered, "is that your car? Why does it smell like death?"

He turned to Doug. "That is your car back from when we found Frankie, right?"

Uxie was quick to engage the messy jeep, psychic blasts pushing it back. "'cause you can't blame me for this one. You know your car way better than I do."

Choice: Battle a manifested trauma/memory. +50 points

John Sullivan

EXTRACTION #2

With Hideo Kino

"Nothing of the sort. I made my own stupid choices." He said to Hideo's words.

The healthcare came in handy if he ever became a family man, if nothing else.

"Good guess. But no." He said simply as their pokemon thrashed the large vehicle. "It ain't mine."

Though he had taken a ride on it, a long time ago.

Probably smelled about the same as those megalopolan corpse pits, too.

Finally— the world around them rippled and began to seemingly come apart at the seams.

Meaning radiation had reached dangerous levels.

"Time to go." Doug said, nodding at Uxie. "We've overstayed our welcome— grab whatever you can and run!"

---

• Lessen the load and escape. Receive 100 RKS POINTS.

Hideo let out a small sigh. He still felt like he had some hand in Doug's current situation, one that did not sound like a happy one.

"Well, even if it's not your car, it's your mind. Not mine." He was gonna keep pushing this until Doug accepted he was wrong, no matter how long it would take.

The smell was familiar - the bad kind of familiar, one he'd managed to repress on his own. One he was trying not to dig out from his mind.

Doug's recommendation to leave stopped him from remembering the corpse pit. Uxie did notify him they hadn't collected everything they mined yet, but that was fine. "We can just come back to get more."

Not like this place was going anywhere soon.

Choice: Lessen the load and escape +100 points

John Sullivan