“A… spaceship?”

Unfortunately, her own Xurkitree had led them to… who knew where. Kept running off. Even now, she had it gripped like a Yamper on a leash. It strained against her grip, but it didn’t make much distance. Probably because it knew it’d just be recalled if it fought back or actually broke free.

Point was, there wasn’t one. They were outside a spaceship, and she couldn’t rush forward fast enough to stop Annalise from opening the hull. She inhaled sharply as the machine hissed, stiff as a board. Her muscles relaxed when nothing immediately tried to kill them.

“Well…” June straightened up. Then, she walked past Annalise and straight into the aircraft. “When in an alternate universe.”

In reality, she wanted an excuse to fuck around with a machine. It’d been too long, with work and work and more work. That’s why she immediately fumbled around, one hand on various switches and levers and the other still on one of the black cables. Outside the ship, the Xurkitree struggled to keep its ‘head’ outside.

“Don’t just stand there,” she called out as she slammed her hand into a panel accidentally, “give me some light! A/C doesn’t like tight spaces.”

As if on cue, said Ultra Beast spat out a few sparks from its cables. “Or me. Flashlight or… what’d you name your alien?”

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annalise henderson

June scoffed. “The problem isn’t me in this relationship. Thing keeps trying to run off– like it’s looking for something. Or someone.”

“And… Licorice? Seriously? Annalise, we have GOT to teach you better nickname schemes.”

But with the light, the mechanic finally put herself upright and into the nearest seat. It felt cold, ancient, and entirely uncomfortable, but it let her get her hands on the control panel proper. Dust covered each switch, and the buttons stuck in their sockets like bolts. But with her hand on A/C, it would be impossible for her to do any work.

So, without warning, her hand reached to her belt and released another Pokemon. In a flash of white light, the creature appeared on the second seat next to her. It had a gear on its head, a bright smile on its face, and a body made of gears. A clockwork doll, whom June immedately put to work.

“Here,” she gave her hold on the black cable to the Magearna. It held on for dear life, but the Xurkitree that struggled still failed to make any ground. “Now, I can fix this thing.”

Not that she had the tools. But the coin in her pocket undid the bolts that held the top of the panel just fine, and she lifted it up within a few moments. More dust, more wires, and even more confusion.

She started to fiddle with the multicolored pieces that went every which way. The work was weird, but she finally settled on a specific wire in the middle. She yanked it from its socket, and then a second wire close to the left. With the safety covering torn off, it was all to easy for her to tap the wires together. Nothing happened the first time, nor the second.

But as always, the third time was the charm. Filthy yellow lights flickered on above, and the entire spacecraft rumbled to life. “I'll be fine. A/C’ll be fine. But what won’t be fine is you if you don’t get in her proper and take a seat. We’re going for a drive. Fly? Whatever.”

PROMPT COMPLETE: Attempt to repair a smaller megalopolan spacecraft. doing so successfully, will allow you to launch briefly; however, the frequent lightning storms will prevent you from flying for too long.

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annalise henderson  
 

“Never ready,” June responded. “And sorry for ignoring you there– hard to talk and work when thinking.”

“No idea what it is, never flown anything that wasn’t a Pokémon, that log might as well mean nothing to me, and Knight would be very upset with you if he were here right now,” she rattled off the answers like she was uninterested and wanted to rush to the end of the segment. “But, y’know, it’s like riding a bike.”

A very big, dangerous, alien bike with no training wheels. That didn’t stop her from touching more buttons, the ones with the pictures next to them, and putting both hands on the stick. The Magearna ground its gears at June, and flailed the black cable in its arms around. “A/C’ll be fine. Might get it a vantage point to find what it’s looking for.”

Thus, she pulled slightly back. The spaceship grunted against the stone and screeched in anger, but they did rise into the air. Very, very slowly. “If you’re airsick… please be airsick somewhere away from me and the electronics.”

They rose further into the air, until they were a solid ten meters from the ground. Then, she pushed forward. They went forward. No reversed controls let her heart rest easier, but it pounded inside her chest as they continued on. Eventually, they went above and over the edge of the rock. Now they were truly in the air, without any vague safety below them.

If they fell, they’d likely die.

She spared a glance to the Magearna, with the black cord still in its hands. Looked like their passengers were still around. Good. "So... what's new?"

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annalise henderson
 

“Wh-what does that– oh, that’s what you mean,” June said. Sure enough, there was a very big thing in the darkness. It returned to the cover of pitch black after the lightning faded, and her imagination had to fill in the gaps. It was big, it was vaguely round, and it was awfully big.

She squinted her eyes, as if that would suddenly let her see through the black of night. “Well… Regieleki sure has gained a few limbs, since we last saw it.”

What other explanation was there? Not like there were many other massive creatures in this stupid awful place. It was either the Regieleki in a new shape, a conglomerate of Xurkitree on the hunt for their missing friends, or some secret third thing that Annalise had never told her. Or her bosses. Someone didn’t tell her, that was for certain.

“But I’m not sure if now’s the time to go after it,” she said. Lightning crackled in the sky, dangerously close to them. “If it doesn’t blast us out of the sky, the weather will. And then it’ll kill us.”

Even if every bone in her body egged her to jam the stick as far forward as it would go and charge in, her promise clung to her skull like a kernel between her teeth. It’d be too hypocritical too soon after she made it. Couldn’t have that on her conscious. “Maybe we should–”

Another surge of crackles from the sky sent June’s mind into a tizzy. Not because of the suddenness, but because of what it revealed: the thing was not a Regieleki, it was just as big as it, and it had gotten a lot lot closer in the last twenty seconds. Even worse, it had electric potential as well.

Why else would it suddenly lift an arm and point it at their vessel, its tail aglow with blue light? “Fuck, fuck fuck–”

The stick flew backwards, and her stomach went into her shoes. Her body imprinted in the chair as they rose suddenly, up into the nearest stormcloud. “Wh-what the fuck is that?!”

Prompt Complete: Encounter a ZEKROM that seems to have been intentionally let loose into the realm; however, it has decided that this realm has LOST ITS RIGHTEOUSNESS and in doing so, has decided to annihilate it. battle the ZEKROM to prevent it from annihilating you and the realm temporarily.

Use unusually low hanging lightning clouds as cover, though using such an endeavor is dangerous.

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annalise henderson

June never thought the sky could explode twice. Granted, that was before she flew an alien spaceship into an active thundercloud as another massive creature hurled streaks of lighting up at them. A dizzying amount of yellow-white flashes filled the cockpit, and it felt like she was about to tear the stick out of the console.

“What the fuck is a Zekrom?!” She yelled out. Her hand relaxed around the stick as the first volley faded, but she knew a second one wouldn’t be far behind. “You didn’t think to fucking tell me about–”

Sure as rain, the next barrage started in earnest. It probably aimed as blindly as she flew, but that only meant their inevitable death would be due to random chance. That wasn’t a prospect she liked, so when Annalise offered an alternative plan, she jumped on it as she jumped out of the seat.

The stick stuck in the up position. “Of course we’re abandoning ship! Out, before the engine stalls!”

June grabbed Annalise first, and then she grabbed Gears, who still held onto A/C for dear life. The abrupt conga line was dragged back to the door, which she did her best to shoulder through. Stuff like this had emergency mechanisms, right? Where she could just brute force the door?

Thankfully enough, A/Cs desire to break free helped break open the door. And when it did, it opened fast and violent. The hinges broke in record time, and the door spun like a top as it arced into the grey angry clouds. “One, two–”

“Three!” June jumped, everyone in tow. Hopefully Annalise really didn’t hate heights. She was perfectly fine herself, as air assaulted their hair. All they had to do now was–

A very, very, very loud crash echoed above them. Like, maybe a mile above them. The airship had enough thrust in it to make it that far, surely. But… what? No way in hell there was a second aircraft in the air above them. It sounded like a high-speed car crash. 

Prompt Complete: Using a repaired megalopolan spacecraft and/or pokemon, discover that the sky is false and has an endpoint. reaching the boundary means hitting an invisible barrier, similar to the invisible dome hoenn had been contained in before

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annalise henderson
 

“C’mon, you tubby bastard! Stabilize, stabilize!”

Despite June’s best efforts, she was unable to convince the Roaring Moon to start any sort of ascent. Her, the Xurkitree that clung to its leg, and the Magearna that clung to it. It was painful to her eyes, and bothered her stomach to no end. Not the movement, bur rather the lack of lots of it. This was nothing, and she dug her nails into Annalise.

As electricity and metal parts and who knew what else moved all around them, she racked her brain for what the hell to do. They needed to get out of the clouds before the raw electricity fried them, but not so much that the ‘Zekrom’ did the same. Or the engine of their former ride didn’t brain them on accident. “I have a plan, I think.”

June recalled A/C. That also got Gears off of the weight list, and they vaguely stabilized. She watched the mechanical doll plummet between the grey clouds.

Wait. That wasn’t the right ball. “Fuck, down, down!”

“Never mind, cover my ass!” June pulled herself from the ranger and let gravity do the hard work. She unmounted the dragon and started to fall as well. So much for promises. It was all too easy to tuck her arms close to her side and cut through the wind like a hot knife through butter.

Down, down, down, until she saw the grey Pokémon. And not the grey clouds. The ground got ever closer, but the plan involved not becoming a pancake. One hand grabbed the creature by its ear, and the other released a different Pokémon.

Her own Roaring Moon. Midnight appeared below them, and managed to both not crash straight into the earth or clip the rocky outcrops. June shoved the Magearna into her lap and clung tight to the dragon. “Dodge, dodge! Get back to Annalise!”

She kept her eyes to the sky whenever possible, from where they fell, as arcs of lighting went all around them. Annalise was fine, right? She had the massive beasts attention, she could do something to fix the crisis at hand. Or they could reconvene in the clouds and figure out a gameplan that didn't involve their painful, awful deaths.

---

annalise henderson

Thank fuck for that third strange alien-creature and Annalise. Otherwise, June surely would’ve perished against another barrage of attacks. She let out a deep breath of relief and pointed to a nearby outcrop, “There, land there!”

Even if Midnight didn’t understand, it complied regardless. After several heavy flaps of its wings, which rocketed dust into the air and gave her a coughing fit, she touched down and waved the cloud away as best she could. Gears hopped out of her lap and walked closer to the ledge.

“Not– agh– again. Please. I know the first time was my fault, but–”

“Gear, Magearna!” The little mechanical doll pointed to the fight that raged on in the nearby distance. Annalise and the alien versus the… Zeek-rum? Zek-rome? The big one– a fight for the ages. If one of the very real possibilities didn’t end with her friend dead by several different methods, she’d be rooting them on.

Instead, she absentmindedly chewed on a fingernail. “Yea. I know. I don’t know… what’s the gameplan here…”

It wasn’t her fault this time, but that didn’t make it any less dangerous. The obvious play was to jump back on Midnight and go back in for another round. But that didn’t really solve much– no way in hell they could beat that thing so easy. One wrong move, and it’d be back to the barely-not-really-fair two-versus-one.

For the first time in a long while, her feet were stuck to the ground and her mind locked in decision paralysis. Every second she didn’t move was another that rolled the dice. If she lost the metaphorical bet, Annalise would die. Odds were her own death being close behind.

One of them had an idea. Gears ground and June looked to the Magearna. “Wh-what are you–”

All at once, power expanded. A little box of pink, gridlike and perfect in nature, exploded out from a point of origin. Much like a flame in a dry forest, it ate up the available space without little thought or reason. The walls expanded into the rock, through the charged air, and eventually engulfed the fighting trio in their entirety.

Reality changed and imposed on everyone without denying their ideals. A Trick Room to change everything. If she felt slow before, it only got worse with the introduction of the flipping of speed. Save for Gears, who looked none the worse. If anything, it looked more than ready to attack. Pink energy gathered in its chest, and lit the doll like a lantern. “Uh… what are you–”

A pink ray shot out, straight for the Zekrom. Fleur Cannon.

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annalise henderson