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In the same vein, he paid Artichoke little mind. Years of companionship led to confidence in the decidueye’s skill and self-management. Unable to conjure the full power of his retaliation in time, the AERIAL ACE followed by the sharp drill of a narrow beam struck true.[break][break]
The fearow bruised the bone, bloodying tender skin under the soft fuzz of feather down. Amber eyes narrowed, beak clicking in fury. His feathers rustled, rising around his face and haunches to make himself look larger in the face of a threat.[break][break]
And then the SOLAR BLADE shaped itself fully, and Artie drew it up from below—a swing aimed at striking soft belly.[break][break]
Yes, Lam could focus on getting loose. Because Peaches was another story. He felt a rough hand close at his throat and he struggled harder, stare fixing on the cocked fist and then his face. Eyes behind the glasses. “That..doesn’t make any sense,” he wheezed, though maybe it does, actually.[break][break]
Only he wasn’t all that content to die, and he doesn’t see why this guy should be either. What was this all for?[break][break]
Again, he was struck by the weight of obligation. The expectation to fight in a war he hadn’t really intended to sign up for, but can’t turn a blind eye to, either.[break][break]
The yellow blur of his Psyduck from his periphery tore him away, head wrenching to the side in the man’s grip as Peaches was thrown back by some psychic force that wasn’t her own. He couldn’t howl her name, but he forgot about the blow to come. All he could do was pry at the fingers around his neck in the effort to break away.[break][break]
And then Torandus solved that issue for him.[break][break]
The pressure lifted off of him and Lam scrambled away from raphael dos plumas as he rolled away. On his knees he coughed and dragged in breath, only to look to where Peaches had landed in the sand. She didn’t rise.
Panic clutched at his chest, constricting and painful. It was just as it had been in the deep sea. Someone holding him back as his Pokémon was destroyed in front of him. Panicked hands shook as they fumbled for her pokeball.[break][break]
She was pulled into the beam of light. Unconscious, not dead. The tension in his chest eased just enough to drag in another breath.[break][break]
Above them, Tornadus held its ground. When he looked up again, a strange articuno had descended to meet it in conflict. Lam wasn't sure why it was there, but he wasn’t going to question or deny the djinn’s help. The icy glare pinned Tornadus in place, but it would not be deterred.[break][break]
It inhaled, and blew out—drumming up the mighty winds of a HURRICANE.[break][break]
As he watched two greater forces collide, it all began to click.[break][break]
The appearance of the bird. The strange, metal feathers. Neon.[break][break]
Except when his eyes turned back toward the Rocket, mutinous for the crime of harming his Psyduck, it wasn’t Neon who met his gaze. Something cold shot through his veins. A sick feeling turned in his stomach.[break][break]
“Mint..?”[break][break]
There was no way to deny it, no matter how much he would’ve preferred to. “You. You’re—“ The accusation of avatarship fell away in the cold light of revelation as two identities merged to one.[break][break]
It wasn’t the sense of betrayal that came from finding out that he was one of Rocket’s own. He hardly thought of it in the rush of confusion and hurt that followed. “What is wrong with you?” was what came out instead. That he would do this to Peaches, to him.[break][break]
Hadn’t they been friends? Hadn’t it not been so long ago that he’d ruffled Mint’s hair and subjected him to terrible jokes? On the boat, it’d been him. All of it crashed and conflicted with what he’d come to know of the person he’d called friend.[break][break]
But this was a stranger.[break][break]
Remember, Lam! This is your fault![break][break]
It was. It was his fault for being so stupid and trusting. As a boy, his mother had left them all behind, and he closed the door on what it was to know or miss her.[break][break]
This felt the same. Something snapping inside of him. The sound of a door snapping shut, the click of a lock. He didn’t know this person. Not anymore.[break][break]
His hand had curled around the magical leaf and as he stared, his fingers opened and it caught itself up in the gales Tornadus wrought across the sandy dunes. Then it spun away in summons.

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mint frost raphael dos plumas[break]
tldr;[break]

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