daybreak

With freya morningstar

Doug slept like a baby and rose like a glorious king.

Life was at its best when shared with your other half, he had recently found out.

And beds were a lot more comfortable after a stay in Ultra Hell's prison.

All that was to say— where Freya was understandable tense, Doug was very much not as the doors leading into the emergency ward swung open, revealing the refreshed looking young man.

"Good day, Ms. Morningstar!" He chirped, holding his clipnote against his shoulder as he grinned at her. "Ready? Cuz I sure am. Follow me!"

He half turned with military precision, a marching soldier with far too much pep in his step as he led her towards the surgery room.

Well, at least his confidence couldn't be questioned.

---

TL;DR:

LESSER MEGALOPOLIS: JY

Ft. Yuina Higashi

"Cozy." He said as he took in the... dark.

And the occasional, distant, silhouette of a behemoth structure on the horizon.

As far as the league knew, this was his first time in Megalopolis.

That wasn't entirely accurate, however.

"Huh. Looks about the same as last time." He commented idly, before kicking a pebble of concrete on the floor. "Only... even shittier."

He turned over to Yuina, reaching over to palm her back spiritedly.

"Look alive, Cadet!" He said, grinning. "We've got our objectives, and we've got our expert."

He winked.

"So first things first— let's make camp." He said, the weight of their equipment still on their backs. "Lead the way, love."

---

TL;DR:15-search for suitable locations to set up camp/base (e.g. an abandoned building).

Sweet Lady Lioness

From one Silph to the next— hello, Delilah Silph!

If only they knew.

"I try to be polite." He said in response, before snickering. "Hope you two have fun. Tell him I said hi."

Hopefully, MATIAS SILPH would be able to drop the crazy man act and just be himself again with his family.

FERNANDO SILPH aside.

Unfortunately, family matters eventually came around to him. Worse yet, he had little to report.

"No. When I arrived to Hoenn, it was just mom, dad, and grandpa. Never had any siblings." He said, turning his eyes to his drink briefly. Very briefly— his eyes were back on her before any silence settled. "But my family as a whole ended up being very unlucky after Rocket came into the picture— both in Kanto and Hoenn."

He was technically 27 years removed from his traumas by now. He had processed them, for the most part. Discussing them wasn't too much of an ask, even with a new acquaintance. Not as much as it used to be anyway.

The Spider and the Fly

With Yuina Higashi

Yuina was screaming for help.

Nuclear option it is.

"I'm sorry, forest." Doug muttered darkly as he returned Lucci back to her ball, the poor flier all tangled up in sticky webbing.

Well, that wouldn't be a problem for the next one.

"Nice cooperation— but I gotta split." Doug said, patting Basara on the traps. "See you at the top."

He proceeded to push off the axe-bug's back, putting some minimal distance between them before beginning to rapidly descend.

Boy, trees sure were tall in Hoenn.

"Mothra— don't kill everything!" Doug ordered as swung his pokeball down— releasing his oversized Volcarona beneath himself, the huge moth spreading its wings wide as it suddenly found itself on freefall, feeling a familiar weight settle upon its back. "But don't hold back too much, either. We're going up NOW."

Fire danced around the Volcarona as its wings flapped, ascending towards the canopy. Any webbing in her path combusted upon contact with her body, the searing heat and raw speed carrying them through until they came blasting through the leaves and into the Spidops' nest.

"If y'all think I'm above pinning, ya got another thing coming!!!"

---

TL;DR:

PRISMATIC PENITENTIARY

He's insulted quite harshly by some. But stick and stones, all that jazz.

He pays it little mind, keeping his eyes on the crystals and counting the time until the images of the other wards are taken away.

"Hm. Hm." It doesn't feel great, but nothing good ever came from stewing in the desire to throttle something.

The wardens' time would come.

For now... Shit. They had screwed over the dummies. If they were lucky, those guys would never find out it was them.

He was never lucky though, so... he could only hope this wouldn't come back to bite them all in the ass later.

Not that their asses weren't well chewed already.

He marches up to Michael Navidson after the man's gotten the crap beaten out him, squatting down in front of him and... other guy Uh. Spiney. Doug didn't really care about that one— or did he? The guy had stood his ground besides Navy in front of the guards— but he had also been spineless in front of the other inmates earlier.

Eh. The dichotomy of man, he supposes.

"Get up, you two." He says, reaching out to try and help Navy and Spiney back to their feet. "You'll get dragged along if ya linger."

There was something wrong with Navidson— but Doug didn't have the tools or means to treat any sicknesses in prison... yet. Hopefully, it wasn't anything serious right now.

Hopefully.

They are flown into the 'chamber of desires'.

It is not a comfortable flight.

They're being lugged around by the neck into an opium chamber, and worse yet, he bangs his shin on a metal panel on the way there.

The hall seems to go on forever.

He closes his eyes and continues counting the time.

Eventually, they come to a stop in a circular chamber. There's a crystal mask at the center, lodged into a machine.

Their masks pop right as they land. For a brief moment, he considers putting it back on, but if the warden doesn't take issue with it, he's sure his inmates will.

He considers doing it anyway out of spite.

Oh hey, this does look like a brainwashing room. He notes dully as noted General Velmos marches up to them and begins to extol the virtues of opium at them.

He doesn't pay the guy any mind, looking around instead and finding the same guy who threatened him... wait, was he the same guy? The woman besides him certainly looked like the same one.

He looks like the King of Hammerlocke.

Whatever, who else was in this shit hole?

Some faces he knew, lots of faces he didn't.

FERNANDO SILPH. freya morningstar. luka chêne. Michael Navidson. People he had actually spoken with.

Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki. annalise henderson. People whom he knew of by reputation.

And—

Oh, shit... he really let himself go.

Shock and awe— spiney was former Infinity Energies CEO oscar clayton!

Unfortunately, that was were the good news ended.

There were a few rockets he knew about, and likely a litany more he didn't.

And of course, the most important person—

He squeezes Yuina Higashi's hand, smiling her way despite their circumstance.

It's the most they're afforded in this hell hole— but he's glad to see her face again,

Speaking of faces, though. His turn to look into the mask arrives.

There's a trifecta of asshats awaiting to beat his ass into the mask if he resists, so he steels himself for what's to come instead and steps forth.

---

SPOILER: Click to show

---

He steps away from the mask unsure of what he just saw. Was that his desire? Kind of mundane... if not entirely unpleasant.

The same couldn't be said about what came next.

They're shoved into communal showers.

He sheds his clothes without protests.

Almost scalding hot water poured periodically unto them.

Almost burning doesn't mean much to him anymore. His pain receptors barely worked after being overstimulated for so long.

No, the real problem was figuring a way to shield Yuina from this mess.

Unfortunately, there was nothing to figure out.

He could only hold her hand more firmly and try to stand between her and the rest of the inmates' line of sigh.

---

5GeW8FnJ

TL;DR:
-counts time.
-sees dream.
-dice roll.
-salac x2

2 AM

An evening with Yuina Higashi

He was a grown ass man. He was not one to be giddy.

The smile on his face was to be completely ignored. Shut up.

"I... think that can wait." He said.

It was pretty difficult to make Doug willing to put off his medical duties, but...

"I wanna stay like this for as long as we can." He said, reaching over to grab her hand.

This time, he would allow himself to sleep in. For once, Hoenn could wait.

TL;DR:-Doug is awake.

2 AM

An evening with Yuina Higashi

He leaned into her hand, eyes shutting as a smile tugged at his lips. He felt the warmth of her breath against them and felt a flutter in his chest as the initiative was swept right from under his feet, Yuina claiming their second kiss... well, their second innocent kiss.

He offered her a soft, toothy smile, reclining his head unto his bicep as he cupped her cheek, thumbing her lips.

"It'll never go away. S'long as I'm breathing." He said softly, his lips pressing gently against her forehead. "There'll always be a home for ya with me."

TL;DR:-Doug is awake.

2 AM

An evening with Yuina Higashi

3:57 am

"Says who?" He mumbled after a moment, kissing the crown of her head whilst snickering. "Maybe I just wanted ya play contrarian."

It certainly had been a 'do as I say, not as I do' kind of situation, given how all over her he had been the entire time. Looking back... a couple of hours ago, it was actually a little embarrassing how unsubtle he had been.

They really had gone and done... it. After 40 years, he had begun to believe he might just not be interested in anyone in that way. Maybe his desires had just... disappeared alongside her.

Turned out, they were just waiting for the right person.

He began pecked her head with kisses furiously, face flushed red.

Her warmth that pushed away the the night's chill, the peace of mind that having her at his side brought him... he couldn't imagine living without it; not anymore.

He turned on his side towards her, wrapping his arms around her.

"Yuina."

He paused, face growing red as a tomato as his mouth opened and closed, at a loss for words.

"I-I... Stay with me."

The words were difficult to say still— but he would say them before the day was over.

TL;DR:-Doug is awake.

PRISMATIC PENITENTIARY

ft. a whole lotta noodle arms, dummies and uggies.

"Shove it." He snapped at priam conrad bluntly. "So far, we ain't thinking past what's in front of our noses."

The grinding of his teeth had hurt his jaw. The burned man's thrashing and screaming was still ringing in his ears. There were limits to what he could compartmentalize for the sake of a mission.

The carrot and the stick, a trick as old as time, was being efficiently wielded to beat both the spine and common sense out of all of them.

Shut up, keep your head down and play along while the warden was watching...

That was the plan. But, if he continued following it to the letter now, a woman who's voice he could recognize as Elisabeth Fiorelli would lead them all straight into the gallows. Of all things, a rocket underboss had to be with them. Given that rockets didn't usually have enough of a spine to openly go against their superior's words, they all may have already been well screwed.

Only time would tell what the Rocket-to-common-sense divide in the room was.

"Haaah... Are we so full of ourselves we think we'll win every time? Are we forgetting what's going on right now?" He said in his obviously fake and exaggerate galarian accent, raising his voice to be heard. He wasn't much of a public speaker, but whatever. "We're missing the forest for the bloody trees. As we speak, the other wards are having the most direct kind of communication we could have in this place."

Their voting? That was a two-sided comm. Whatever each side chose, it would communicate their intentions towards one another perfectly from here on out. And who was out of that conversation? Who would only get to deliver a sucker punch to either side?

"If Dummy and Weakling play nice here— and we come in and bust either one of their balls, guess what? That's an alliance with an obvious enemy. We become the odd ones out. We become the valid target for both of their wards moving forward. Anytime this happens again? We're forsaken. Nobody's ever trusting us. And whatever extra punishment's coming down? It's on us, too."

And they were not going to win every time. Hell, they were probably gonna lose most times. They could count the amount of people on the other wards from here— they were outnumbered, and now that lessons had been beaten into them, probably outdisciplined, too.

"We ain't doing ourselves any favors by being short sighted." He finished bluntly. "I vote Ugly."

And why they were all so eager to walk into what essentially sounded like an Opium Chamber, he had no clue.

---

TL;DR:
ACTION: -Doug used Foresight.

Ruler

John D. Sullivan

Actual Statsheet

Deck

1 busters (1 hit), 3 arts (3 hits), 1 quick (6 hits), extra (5 hits)

STR	C	MAN	A
END	A+	LUK	EX
AGI	B	NP	A++

Skills

• Brilliance from within the Jaws of Death A:[break]Increases party's attack for 3 turns.
  [break]Increases party's defense for 3 turns.
  [break]Charges party's NP gauge by 25%.
  [break]
  
• Bugcatcher A+++:[break]Charges own NP gauge.
  [break]Charges party's NP gauge by 25%.
  [break]Increases own Arts performance for 3 turns.
  [break]Increases party's Arts performance for 3 turns.
  [break]
• Avatar (Tapu Lele) EX:[break]Grants party Guts status for 3 times, 5 turns.
  [break]Charges party's NP gauge by 25%.
  [break]

Noble Phantasm: ARTS

TAPU LELE A++

Scourge of Alola

Increases party's Arts performance by 30% for 3 turn. (Activates first)
Reduces enemy's defense for 3 turns.
Deals damage to enemy's party.
Reduces all enemies' NP gauge by 1.
Inflicts Curse with 5000 damage for 6 turns to them.
Reduces party's skill cooldown by 1.

One Last Hope

Ft. Aubre McKenna-Settentrione

He resisted the urge to smile.

This was clearly very important for the young woman. She had seen numerous experts prior to him, she had said so as much when first addressing him.

He couldn't act dismissively just because it seemed easy to him, the literal magic man.

"I can assure you that I do not lie." He said, raising his arm to the waiter. "Might be a lil' difficult to imagine, but it'll be become all clear soon."

It was mildly disturbing to receive a name and a threat in the same breath... sentence... whatever.

He finished paying off the tea before standing up.

"Petalburg General ain't too far." He said. "Do ya need any help walking there, miss?"

---

TL;DR: Nice to meet you, Ms. McKenna.

PRISMATIC PENITENTIARY

ft. a whole lotta noodle arms, dummies and uggies.

He stared at the mangled, decapitated corpse left in the Warden's wake with a burning, unblinking gaze, searing the sight into his frontal cortex.

It was difficult for gore to get a reaction out of him at this point— he had seen what people's and pokemon's innards looked like countless times by now.

The callous ending of life, however, never failed to get a rise out of him; where the floor beneath him anything less than solid cement, he would've crushed it under his grip. As it were, all he accomplished was injuring his nails.

The price for disobedience was steep— and the loss of a life, specially in circumstances like these, was tragic.

But he could take solace in the fact that their captors were foolish enough to actually believe intimidation tactics would work on Hoennians.

The bird. 3 wards. Chamber of desires. Never-rot. His digit dragged over his chain as he rose from his place against the wall, approaching the Megalopolan guard standing before the bars before looking down at what he offered.

Mochi. He thought as he stared at the sweet. Toxic Chain. Bird. Three Wards. Three... Statue.

Right— he had seen those statues. A dog, a monkey, and a bird.

Three wards. Dog. Monkey. Bird. Weakling. Dummy. Ugl—

"The hel— I am at least an eight!" He suddenly snapped as he snatched his mochi, snarling at the guards.

The f*cking nerve of these aliens; their taste was so shit they ate people, who the heck were they to call him ugly?

He chomped onto his mochi without hesitation, grumpily chowing it all down and chucking it down the hatch. It tasted pretty good, despite the... color, texture... everything else, really.

Whatever, it went down easy at least.

Watching his chain get attached to the bars, a thought briefly popped into his head as he took everything so far into consideration.

We could easily detain Rocket avatars with this thing.

He vanished the thought as soon as it came, though. This really wasn't the time to consider the uses the damn thing could have. He had more important things to keep track of.

The plan remained the same— shut up, keep your head down and play along while the warden was watching. Nothing had changed, which made him glad he hadn't let his mind wander too far yet.

Keeping track of time in a place like the one they found themselves in was difficult, usually intentionally so.

So he had been trying to do that ever since he woke up. Emphasis on trying, anyway.

He was a soldier— the discipline beat into him by the drill sergeants could be pretty useful on occasion.

His body tended to wake up within a specific time window. Somewhere between 6 to 8 hours after he went to bed. The more tired he was, the closer to 8.

He hadn't quite made it to bed the day before, but he more or less knew the time around which he had fallen unconscious. So he had what he considered a reasonable idea of how much time had passed between him falling asleep in front of his apartment's door and waking up in a jail cell.

Which made it much easier to try and draft the jail's schedule as the day went along...

It wouldn't bear fruits until at least a day or two passed, though. He would have to keep deep focus until then.

Perhaps ironically though, only time would tell if the effort was worthwhile.

For now... They had a mind numbingly boring task ahead of them. Actually sort of good for him; keeping track of the passing time was easier if he wasn't dedicating too much brainpower to something else.

Only problem was that his brain tended to try and wander to other... places.

She's fine. She's definitely fine. Stop thinking about ither. Don't get distracted. Just... focus on your work.

Get it done quickly.

Maybe if the fucking bird would stop messing with his freakin' rocks.

"Nghgtrghggrrr...!" He took in a deep breath as he got his rocks slapped out of his hand by the passing warden, the damn bird not even stopping to appreciate its handy work.

There was a large cut running along his palm now. After watching him deftly avoid prickling himself on the damn rocks for the past hour, the freaking bird had apparently had enough and gotten it done itself.

Dick.

He was more pissed at the thing's smug attitude, though. The sound of his grinding teeth alone seemed to be enough to make it preen.

Just another reason to calm down and quiet himself.

The crystal had some of his blood on it now. Fantastic.

With an irritable grunt, he brought it against his top and began to rub once again.

They had been at this for while. Where they expected to stay there until all crystals had been sorted?

His gaze rose from his hands, looking near himself briefly. How was his cellmate holding up?

Miserably. The answer was miserably.

There was something awfully, frightfully familiar about the sad, miserable silhouette his cellmate cut. Shoulders hunched, occasional choked sobs, small frame...

His hand moved on reflex to catch the crystal they dropped, snatching it mid bounce between index and thumb.

"_Careful." He muttered lowly, rolling the crystal in his hand before clicking his tongue.

There was blood on it.

"_{Damn it.}"

Getting injuries, even small ones, in a place like this was dangerous. Infections were abound in prison.

His gaze rose to the other's hand as he began scuttling closer, bringing the crystal to the inside of his thick uniform... before he began cutting into it, ripping a small strip of fabric.

"_{Let me see the injury.}" He doctor-ordered, reaching for their wrist, digits wrapping around i—

Huh.

His hand squeezed gently at the wrist, fingers dragging over... suspiciously familiar blemishes.

Gripping more firmly, the doctor turned his gaze down and stared, rolling her arm around to look at the scars.

The very familiar scar.

Oh no.

His head slowly craned up to look at his 'cellmate', the eyes behind his mask growing wider, and wider...

No no no no no.

Even as he screamed inside his head, his hands worked, fastening the strip of fabric around the girl's hand, sealing her cut. He finished it off with as neat a bow as he could, patting her hand gently, cupping it between both of his own, before slowly letting his hands slide off hers.

She is not safe she is not safe she is not safe she is not safe—

She was right here, with him.

And that knowledge only filled him with dread.

---

_to9oelM

TL;DR:
ACTION: Keeping track of time.
-Working
-Sealing Yuina's cut with fabric from his kimono-thing.

2 AM

An evening with Yuina Higashi

She didn't pull away.

No, she came closer instead.

This girl is going to be the end of me. His lip curls into a smile.

He shivers as dainty fingers fleet over his chest, warm settling on his shoulder and quickly spreading all over.

His whole body was welling up with strength as she finally anchored herself, an unspoken communication passing between them.

His arm slid around her waist, pulling her closer to him with irresistible force.

There was nothing more to be said.

With his arms secured around her, with her arms firmly around him, he finally took the plunge.

His lips pressed gently against hers— savoring the taste of her, the feel of her.

The desires he had held back within him for 20 years came free then and there.

TL;DR:-Doug is awake.