[attr="class","lance"]

[attr="class","lance b"]

[attr="class","lance i"]pain echoes from his arm but he has little time to regard it. adrenaline keeps him fighting as he reaches out his free arm to hold onto the line of rope that's tethered to the harpoon. it keeps pressure off his left arm, possibly saving it from being torn apart. unfortunately, there's not much else he can do besides that, as he continues to be pulled deeper and deeper.

lance feels his hold over the rope loosening, muscles unable to find the oxygen it so desperately needs. thankfully, the rope suddenly slackens, and he blinks to see mimi's drampa over the two divers.

with the last of his energy, lance uses the rope and pulls the harpoon towards him, heart pounding for oyxgen, before floating back up to the surface for a breath of fresh air. he immediately looks around for mimi.

Mimi Cheng
mission!

[attr="class","mimi"]relief washes over her when lance and shifu make it to the surface. the pirates don't follow them, instead preoccupied with mimi herself. she holds onto her garchomp's back fin, and the two fly through the water with the same ease with which the garchomp would dig tunnels back on firm ground.

the first scare is as easy as dragon-rushing right into the pair, only to stop inches away and kick them back instead. a retreating kick, just like mimi had taught the dragon, has the trainer-pokemon team creating new distance between them and the pirate divers.

the second would be a little harder, requiring both swiftness and precise movements to catch the tentacruel's arms at the same time it attempts a move on them. being underater helps with visibility on the tentacruel, but mimi's air supply is limited, and they resurface without much progress on this front.

a gasping, but alive, lance. mimi sighs. "shifu, clear the area!" his dragon breath makes a rather persuasive threat. even then, mimi knows they're not safe yet.

she's dropped off by the garchomp next to lance and her drampa. at long last. "lance, can you hear me?"

[attr="class","seelie"]
LANCE VOLLANS

[attr="class","lance"]

[attr="class","lance b"]

[attr="class","lance i"]by the time mimi makes it back up to the surface, lance had climbed back onto the boat with the help of her drampa. he's doing what he can to tend to the harpoon sticking out of his arm. there's nothing he can do, really, because pulling it out would be disastrous.

"yeah. are you okay?" he asks, turning his attention to mimi as she's dropped off next to him. his own pokemon are still underwater, seeing to the threat. he can see them through the water, which fills him with a small sense of relief.

looking back down at his left arm, he winces at the pain. "how bad does it look?"

Mimi Cheng
mission!

[attr="class","mimi"]despite lance himself not seeming to be in that bad a shape, mimi takes a moment to touch the back of her hand to his forehead. she knows full well a fever wouldn't develop until at least two to three days after an infection, if his wound had gotten infected, but the reassurance from physical contact is what she needs in that moment, as silly as it may sound if she were to say it out loud. once she's satisfied that lance is fine and won't faint without notice, she nods. she's okay too.

"a lot better than i was expecting," is her answer and, perhaps to his surprise, it's sincere. she's not talking about only the wound, either. with the amount of blood she'd seen, she was fearing the worst.

mimi's garchomp is called down to once again cut away at the harpoon with her fire fangs. without the drifting movements of the sea, she's able to make cleaner cuts, leaving only a shorter piece of metal stuck in his arm. to dress it, she rips pieces of her discarded pants. they don't have antiseptic on hand, or much of anything really, so she does what she can with what little they do have at the moment.

while she works on wrapping the cloth around his arm, she briefs him on her plan. "i'm going back down to deal with the tentacruel. you stay here."

[attr="class","seelie"]
LANCE VOLLANS

[attr="class","lance"]

[attr="class","lance b"]

[attr="class","lance i"]her hand against his forehead confuses him but he doesn't pull away. it takes him a moment before he realizes it's to check his temperature, but even he knows a fever wouldn't develop this quickly. her nod is reassuring.

"at least it wasn't the leg again." still, this is no laughing matter. he knows he can't move his arm without tensing his muscles, which only causes him immense pain. he stays still against the fire fangs, understanding that there's nothing that can be done about it right now.

the cloth is tightly wrapped around the wound. as much as he disagrees with her plan, he is in no shape to follow her back down there. he hates this.

"fine." lance reaches a hand out to latch onto her arm before she fully dives in. he meets her gaze with an expression unfamiliar to him. it's akin to worry. desperation. "be safe."

Mimi Cheng
mission!

[attr="class","mimi"]the leg, again? mimi squints at lance. that's a story she'd force out of him some other time.

she's surprised by the pull, foreign and uncharacteristic coming from him. her eyes grow wide at the strange expression on his face, but understanding lies in the loss he's experienced too recently. "i'll be back soon," she says with a smile, touched by his worry. "you can start thinking about how you'll repay me for my help."

true to her word, mimi returns after only a few minutes. her back is sore from a strike she took from a sneaky tentacle, but she's neither bleeding nor missing any limb. though, she does have some ink sticking to her hair and her hands. not bad, all things considered. on her way back, she could see the feraligatr from before chasing after lance's mantyke with a pair of hydro pumps. they emit enough force to shift the underwater currents. she leaves her garchomp to aid her while mimi herself swims up to the boat.

having had time to think about their priorities, the first thing she says is "we need to get you to a hospital."

[attr="class","seelie"]
LANCE VOLLANS

[attr="class","lance"]

[attr="class","lance b"]

[attr="class","lance i"]soon doesn't come fast enough. he sits and stares into the waters for what feels like hours, dreading every second of it because he hates not being able to do anything. it feels powerless. out of his control. and it's an all too familiar feeling.

relief hits him the moment she surfaces again. "took you long enough." he breathes a sigh and reaches a good hand down to help her back up. in that same movement, he looks for any visible injuries, but the only thing that sticks out is the ink on her hair and hands.

a hospital. right. "it'll take us a few hours by boat." he'd probably bleed out by then, so he disregards that option. "we'll have to fly."

Mimi Cheng
mission!

[attr="class","mimi"]she's tempted to tease him, to tell him to be careful because he was showing too much worry, and that could easily worry her in turn. if he continued, she might begin developing a form of capgras delusion. but isn't bullying a wounded person overkill? she decides against it.

it takes lance a second too long to conclude that they'd need to fly. it's understandable, considering he himself had mentioned having no flying-type pokemon. that second is enough for mimi to call a dragonite out of his pokeball. dashixiong, or laoda as she often liked calling him, is a more recent addition to her team, yet he already has earned a place in her main team, thanks to his resilience and hard work.

"glad you mentioned it." the dragonite would be big and heavy enough to fly both of them on his back, unlike the lighter garchomp. "can you recall your pokemon? leave the rest to me."

[attr="class","seelie"][attr="class","pkspr pkmn-dragonite"]
LANCE VOLLANS