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This. This is what it should have been. This is what it ought to have been the entire time. Beau, keeping a careful eye on the steel bulk of the pokemon that assessed Orson with bright crimson eyes before barreling forward. Orson, meeting the assault not with equal, implacable force but a swaying stance, flowing from one form to the next as he battered the armored enemy with a series of rapid strikes.
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Beau didn't want to bring himself to look the woman in the eye, so her fumbled commentary landed somewhere around his temple. Her cry as her arm was splinted against her side elicited a visible flinch. He hadn't attacked someone like that since he was a fucking teenager, when he didn't know any better, and he thought that bigger meant better in every respect.
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He didn't want to bring himself to look behind him at the girl who'd lost her arm, because somewhere in the back of his mind was a little voice that said yes, you gorilla, you could have saved her. How many pokemon do you have that could have healed her, could have at least staunched the bleeding until she got somewhere safe? Instead, here you are, writing her off as collateral damage and using her as an excuse to beat the hell out of a woman half your size. If there's an afterlife, she's disgusted with you.
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So he looked the only place he could: the back-and-forth between the Iron Boulder and Orson. This, he knew. Pokemon battling was easy, formulaic, predictable.
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Didn't get the hands dirty.
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The ground shook underfoot as an explosion rocked the Mossdeep Space Center, a plume of black smoke rising into the sky like a stain, and Beau cursed. Gwyar was going to kill him, if he was actually around to kill him. His opponent saw it too, and in his confusion he forgot that he wasn't supposed to be looking at her, and he looked, and she was looking right back at him, through him, with ice - and was that sympathy -
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A thick cloud of smoke erupted from somewhere, blocking her from sight, and as he choked and charged forward through the obstruction, his frustration, guilt, and failure only mounted; she was gone.
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A sound like a kettledrum drew his attention back to the battle, Orson landing a solid blow on the Iron Boulder that actually managed to dent its chestplate, sending it stumbling to the ground. "Nah, no, not letting you leave," Beau managed raggedly at the thing, throwing a ball at the stunned pokemon. He wasn't sure if it would work or not, being another trainer's possession, but the sigh he released at seeing the ball settle with its prize was welcome nonetheless. He crouched to pick it up, eyeing it warily, and murmured, "You don't get to kill anybody else today."
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No rest for the weary or the wicked, though, however unintentional the wickedness might have been. He beckoned to Orson and the two began running up the streets against a throng of panicked people, toward the explosion rather than away.
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He had to get there, if there was anything left to get to.

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