love. love in a house and love in a heart and love in a body and the last part is what scares her so bad. bodies are fragile little things and it's not fair that they hold shit that's so fucking important. 

she placed what protection she could against nomi's skin, every furtive kiss a small piece of the barrier warding her away from the all the bullshit that's coming. maybe karma'd be good to her, to the both of them, for once in their godsdamned lives. 

nomi's earned that much.

but in the grand scheme of things, her lips and her tongue ain't gonna do shit when the league, the drk triad, or literally anyone else in the universe ('cause it sure seems, at this point, that everyone out there hates them) comes knocking. nah, it won't protect her against the fires of war.

but that's what parker's here for. 

i'll hold the line. don't worry about the noise. get what you need and then i'll find you. i promise, cupcake.

there's spittle on the corner of her lip, blood on her knuckles. her hood is up, thick fabric cinched around the corners to hide her iconic pink hair. but fuck, hoenn's hot, and they really don't tell you about the discomforts you feel when you're in the in between parts, catching your breath, palms on your knees. 

she witnesses him. the guy and the kid. and if she hadn't punched the mirror in her gym's locker room as one last fuck you to her reflection, maybe she'd have felt worse, but right now all she can do is stare hard and hope her ceruledge hasn't cut down his fucking parents. 

"ew, gods, fuck," she snaps when said ceruledge sticks the fiery tip of one of her sword hands into the twitching shape of a sizzlipede. it stills, smoldering. 

her comms crackle.

'all nearby rocket agents currently not engaged, move in to mossdeep. the league has called reinforcements!'

"nomi," she murmurs and takes off running. in front of her is the beefcake and she swears under her breath, eyeing the pokemon!beefcake at his side. she has no idea what it is, but ceruledge looks more than happy to fight it. but homeboy is fast and parker's a stamina gal more than anything.

"get me in front of 'em."



ceruledge races forward, leaving embers trailing behind her, eyes burning with wily joy. her lithe form darts around them easily and then she twists, leaping, waving one arm in front of her before she's enveloped in psychic energy. her form blurs and by the time she's hit the ground, it's not her at all. 

mossdeep's glass dome glitters behind her. parker holds up her fists.

"heya, buddy. where ya goin'?"

Beau Fontaine

+ 50 MP have your character reflect on why they're fighting/reflect on their loyalties.

☉

parker bounces from heel to heel, snickering at the joke. and then after a beat, what he said really hits her and she barks out a full-blown laugh 'cause fuck, that's good. like, the world is falling apart around them and they're on the brink of (no, parker, not on the brink of - in the midst of) total warfare. 

he looks around her, assessing the environment, looking at the situation. yeah, yeah. i can't let ya pass. ya, you're bad news bears. he's big, but his buzzwole's even bigger - heh, there's a joke there somewhere - and ain't no way is she gonna let him get a pass and go wreck nomi's shit. 

"i'm always coming," she fires back with force, grinning like she'd just said The cleverest clapback in the world, but then her brain catches up and, "wait, no - " 

ceruledge, on the other hand, does not care much for witty banter, superhero one-liners ('cause they're the heroes of the story, right? that's what nomi always says?), or parker's whole shtick, which is fine, because she gets to tango while parker dukes it out old skool stylez. 

the sword-for-arms knight emerges from the buzzwole's shadow, blades raking against its hard red carapace. her eyes flicker, gaze darting to her trainer, wishing she cared more about training where it mattered. 

ceruledge is out of her depth against ultra beasts.

parker, blind to her pokemon's realization, holds a hand out palm first, turns it, and folds her fingers back in quick succession. 

"c'mon, bro. you wanna go? let's fucking go." despite her invitation, she's the first one to move, boots crunching against gravel as she closes the distance and hits him like a grease fire.

Beau Fontaine

+ 50 MP have an antagonistic exchange of dialogue between your character and another writer's character or NPC.

☉

six times. six fuckin' times. six hits to the face and that's all she needs to mash your eyeballs into their little caves, tuck them into the spaces in your cranium where the sun don't shine. 

she hits him in the stomach and it's like her elbow cracks against a godsdamned brick wall. holy shit. but she's gone against bigger and stupider and worse odds than this animorphs of a man if the animal in question was a monster truck and not an animal at all.

or, now that she thinks about it, he's kinda like a bigass ursaring. 

one she can definitely not let get his meaty hands on her. one grab, one toss, and he'll throw her like a sack of bricks. a suplex could probably snap her spine in half, but that part she's not so worried about, 'cause his spirit's not in it. 

he's not in the kill or be killed that's plagued her every fucking waking moment since selling off her soul. he hasn't beaten someone so close to dead, they're probably better off dead, and that's a line people don't cross all too easy.

she knows. she knows, she knows.

ceruledge is having similar problems. that ridiculously long stinger-mouth-thing lunges towards her; the flames in her eyes spark in surprise and then pain as it digs into her armor, scraping with a screech along her shoulder. her other arm comes up in a quick guard, batting away with some difficulty the next snap that comes her way, but she's on the defensive now, flames billowing hotly in frustration.

"just go home," she snarls, trying for a one-two punch at his sides. "and take your big, red dog - hey! hey, put her down!" she snaps, blue eyes darting behind the leaguer and at the buzzwole that's got her struggling ceruledge in its boxing glove-sized hands.

Beau Fontaine

+ 50 MP have your character's Pokemon symbolize or represent in some way, the condition of your character.

☉

parker's arms ache. hitting him is like hitting a concrete slab. maybe i shoulda fuckin' taken one outta KING WAYLAND 's book and beat on remus some more. she thought him crazy for sparring with his lucario, but she'd be damn well better prepared for this if she had. 

but that's why she can't back down. this guy could snap Naomi Sato like a twig if he wanted to. he could stop her. and stopping her would piss her off, but worse, it would make her sad and parker can't stand it when nomi's got a reason not to smile. 

people are still running around them. the world is a dizzying array of movement and combat and in the midst of it are civilians running between cover, heading towards the docks. heading towards safehouses. heading anywhere but at the mossdeep space center, but she and beefcake are caught in the middle, parting the river like fuckin' rocks. 

pain radiates down her side as he gets a smack in and she struggles to hold her footing, arms crossing in front of her chest to block a follow-up. gravel skitters and she's put on the backfoot. ceruledge is turned into a pokemon blood bag and parker swears, one hand fumbling for her belt, the other rising in a half-hearted attempt at blocking his next strike.




her head rattles. all of her teeth quake in their sockets. pain splits under her jaw and blood gushes in her mouth as she bites her tongue. ceruledge isn't absorbed and neither is amulius released; by her side, instead, rises a terrifying machination of steel and whirling servos, digital eyes blinking at the scene in front of it. 

the biggest baby only understands violence.

"wai - fuhhh - " she starts and things move in slow motion.

two little girls break into a run between two cars. the biggest baby rears back its head. orange light snicks, superheated. ceruledge sags in the buzzwole's arms. parker feels pain in her elbow. a wordless scream makes spittle and blood fly. a blinding white light races forward.

the ground is rent in two, separating the buzzwole and ceruledge, but it continues onward.

this is how hope is killed.

she only wants safety. she can almost see it. ( this way, aves. this way. you still got those bobby pins? ) almost to the other side of the street, running from ruin. ( i got you. i got us. it's okay. we're okay, avery. ) always running from, never stopping, knowing in the end all roads led to bars, and debt, and the never-ending haze of anger. ( all that matters is we're okay. )

the light cleaves her right at the shoulder. her arm lay at her feet. she screams, and her sister shrieks, and parker howls. 

Beau Fontaine

ceruledge faints!
iron boulder separates buzzwole & ceruledge; hits civilians in the process

☉

GIDEON GRAVES. just a flash of his face, a pained look in his eyes. that's all she sees and she's got no damn clue why, only that it's coupled with an aching numbness in her own left arm, one that leaves her gripping it with a scowl. staring forward at that little girl across the street, a chunk of her on the ground. 

her sister is standing over her, trying to get her to move, crying and screaming and giving up and going hysterical. 

and the biggest baby is charging up another attack.

her throat is sore. she realizes she's still screaming when the world claps back into focus. her eyes lock with the leaguer and she knows instantly she's in deep fucking shit. she's on the ground and her arm doesn't feel like it's working for some reason. 

at the very least, she manages to take the first couple of hits. not without blood of course. it sprays out of her mouth, slakes her throat, leaves any witticisms on the backburner. not that she'd have much to say anything.

except, maybe, while he's pummeling her. while her ribs are bruising and her skin is turning blue, while the biggest baby ignores her in lieu of fighting the alien freak, she manages a weak, "shthee's gonna die if we dun help."

Beau Fontaine

parker is losing badly :(
biggest baby fighting buzzwole in the bg hi i hate pkmn battles

☉

he doesn't take the bait. 

that's all it had been, in the end. some little girl bleeding out in the street and she's fucking bait. made to get his back turned so she can scoop herself up onto the biggest baby and make it to nomi. 

but one of her eyes is swollen shut now the other is blinking hard through blood from a cut above her brow. blood in her mouth and on the pavement and her sister's gone now - where did she go?

they must have been horrible little children, leaving each other like that. 

( i'll never leave ya, sis. i gotcha. s'long as we're together, we're invincible. )

off she went to fight a war at rocket's hands and here parker stayed, too chickenshit to get bloodied, to really and honestly fucking accept what they are. what they're meant to be. 

those joneses, yeah, they'll fuck ye right up. 

after a while, pain seems very far away. she's used to it, pulling her own punches and getting treated like a punching bag in return. always so she could leave her contacts without any permanent damage, always so she could tell herself she was a good person with shit luck.

she wishes he had taken the bait.

because he breaks her arm and then all the pain comes rushing in at once, making her scream. maybe it's something in her scream, maybe it's the biggest baby getting bored with its quarry, maybe it's the universe saying i'm not done with you yet, you fucking prick, but the iron boulder turns and its sensors turn red as though it can read the leaguer's rage, and then it charges.

and parker, parker, starts to laugh.

Beau Fontaine

owwwie

☉