Secret

With Eris Halla & Isaac Merlo

Doug frowned as the ball of cotton quickly turned from white to crimson, before vanishing it to the shadow realm as he turned a smile to Eris, nodding.

He met Isaac's gaze, though only briefly. Indeed— something was obviously wrong. Luckily, they now had the means to check out what it might be— thanks in great part to Isaac.

"One Lil' Reiner, coming right up." He said, pulling out the Shinx bandaid and removing the cotton ball— before gently pressing it atop the wound.

He might've sneaked in a little healing scale in there. No reason to leave a hole in there.

"Anywho! Here's for a good girl—" He said, reaching into his bag and pulling another box.

"Leppa juice or Oran juice?" He asked, before popping open the box's other lid. "Oh, and— chocolate chip or peanut butter cookie?"

He wasn't just trying to regain big brother points after coming out looking like the bad guy in all of this— it was best to quickly replenish Eris' blood and sugar levels if she was to... well, keep fucking around and finding out in this battlefield.

But yeah, getting back points was also part of it.

Handing off the blood vial to Garo and nodding, the bug quickly moved away to get the sample to the right people.

"Tell 'em it's mine." He said simply. No reason to put it officially on record that Eris had been there.

Turning back to his sister and— patient? half-brother? Something like that— Doug, still squatted before them, cocked his head.

"I would like it if y'all took it easy from here on out, but... what'cha gonna do?"

Secret

With Eris Halla & Isaac Merlo

Nothing he wasn't used to.

Both Eris' episodes, and children afraid of needles— he had dealt with both before.

Having someone capable of calming/distracting/playing with Eris while he did what needed to be done was a rare bonus, however.

Showing his own expertise, Doug produced the cotton and alcohol quickly, finessing it all unto the crook of Eris' hand within seconds, humming softly as he bit into one of his gloves and pulled it off his hands, before tying it around Eris' bicep.

There were a million ways to jab in the syringe— but Doug was a practiced hand, even if some would argue his bedside manners needed some work.

He knew how to slip the syringe into an arm with the patient barely even noticing.

So he did. Eris probably felt the blood drain more than the pain.

"And... that's a good girl." He said politely as he pulled it out a moment later, quickly sliding the alcohol slathered cotton over the hole, before reaching into case yet again.

"Shinx or Rockruff bandaids?" He asked.

SURVEY

Yuina Higashi

"Excuse me, pardon me, outta my way—" A number of blurry figures hovering over Yuina were summarily shoved aside, before another silhouette slowly panned into view, black orbs blinking down at her.

"— 'Ello, Briar Rose!" The silhouette said before a hand was pressed against her wound— where her sound should've been, at any rate, before a soothing warmth spread out from it to the rest of her body. "How're ya feeling?"

Beat.

"Oh, and before you ask— your Charizard's fine." No real context was offered to her as the figure worked, humming to itself as it handled her injuries. "Thirsty?"

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Secret

With Eris Halla & Isaac Merlo

"Tips?" He echoed dryly, hoping that was just Isaac's cute way of calling his qualified First Aid training.

He dragged his skeptic gaze over to Eris instead, squinting at her indignant squeaking before glancing over at Reiner, the more reliable source... who confirmed as much.

He sighed in relief... briefly. At least she was eating her veggies, that was good to know. Not that it helped any with whatever this was.

Less good? Knowing that she had fought (and worse yet, been injured) by Cillian Quinn.

"I knew I should've freakin' stabbed him." Grumbled Doug under his breath, regretting he couldn't take a more severe pot shot at the man now.

He didn't get to wallow in the misery brought along by his inadequacies— Eris had some brilliant deductions to make regarding her bruises—

And he had a single response to said deduction.

"No." He replied flatly, blanket-rejecting her dismissal expeditiously. "Not how this works."

Unless she had rolled down a rocky hill in the middle of their fight, that was seriously unlikely.

He considered what it could be, knowing what he did... In the meanwhile, Isaac had taken the direct approach, shotgunning a myriad of questions at the girl.

Well, any extra info helped.

Doug rose to his feet as Eris finished answering the questions she could, cupping his chin thoughtfully.

"Bruises while asleep..." He said, humming thoughtfully "Garo."

His Orbeetle's gaze shone, before it pulled a doctor's briefcase out from the trenches, plopping it besides their group.

"There's a large number of things it could be." Doug said as he popped it open, reaching in. "Eris is right though, now's a bad time. Luckily..."

He pulled a big syringe.

"A blood test should confirm the problem." He said. "Or discard a lot of possibilities at least."

He moved to face Eris, smiling.

"We can leave the test running while we deal with this mess and come back to the results."

Supply

With Hideo Kino.

A 'resolution' was reached, but neither he nor Elga really had any say on the matter.

The little pixie following Hideo around had stepped in and 'resolved' the problem for them.

Doug could only exchange a look with Elga, shoulders sagging and brow twitching. Hideo's misery had more or less simply been put on hold...

Which both prevented it from affecting his performance while still keeping the chance to overcome this hard moment...

Okay, so maybe it was kinda 'resolved'.

As Hideo came to himself— and, naturally, began questioning the... everything he found himself in— Doug ruffled his hair, pulling his head to his chest.

"Me. Forgot already? You were resting." He said simply, stepping into the lie despite himself. "Bad dream?"

If only.

fashionably late

Let's do des.

"AH!!! MY RAGE IS BLINDING ME!" Screamed Doug as he slip and slid right past his robot target, crashing straight through the glass display of a china shop.

As well as, well, the entirety of their stock.

"ACK! SHIT! FUDGE! DAMN! FU—!!!"

With what felt like a metric ton of porcelain on his face, Doug remained glued to the floor as the owner of the china shop screamed at him, willing himself to just appear dead and not move an inch.

If he believed Doug was dead, maybe he'll give Doug the chance to get over the fact that he felt like dying.

Unfortunately, he could hear the... commotion outside begin to escalate as all manner of explosives began to go off, the mall outside sounding more like a summer festival than a monument to capitalist decay.

Seeing no choice, he released a sigh.

Springing up onto a sitting position, he dramatically revealed the fact that he was, in fact, still alive and well, rising back to his feet before reaching into his pocket and chucking his wallet at the store owner.

"I get it, shut up! I'm working on it!" He shouted before leaping out of the man's remaining window, crashing through before sprinting towards the penguin bot yet again, his hand reaching for his pokeball and finally chucking it.

"We don't like cheap fireworks for our Christmas!" He said as his Orbeetle took to the air, eyes aglow as its psychic energy enveloped several of the explosives scattered on the soil. "Garo, return to sender!"

The Orbeetle's psychic (attempted to) send several of the (mostly harmless) explosives flying back at Santa's little helper.

YAQqtVRE

SURVEY

Yuina Higashi

He tried to clear his head; to get the thought that he was operating on a friend out of his mind.

Still, a sigh of relief, one that almost seemed to scare the other doctors, rang out of his lungs as he heard about Yuina's condition.

Just a stab?

"... Hooooh, thank goodness!" He said, holding his chest in relief.

Perhaps at the beginning of the war, they would've at least questioned such a careless, dismissive remark. After having worked besides the colonel for several hours however— after having seen his magic at work— they understood.

Such injuries truly seemed paltry when put against a god's blessing.

Unfortunately for Yuina, this made her low priority compared to her much worse off Charizard.

"Sedate her; Get an IV and a blood bag too. We ain't losing her to blood loss." He said, trusting her file to contain her blood type info. as he sent off the other men. "You— join me, we're dealing with the Charizard first. The rest of you; two of you Keep Higashi stable. The other two, get me a another iv, fluids and and benzodiazepines!"

These were going to be the longest 40 minutes in Yuina's life.

---

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Secret

With Eris Halla & Isaac Merlo

"Did he now." He said blankly, slowly rolling a wide eyed, flat lipped gaze over to Isaac, as if demanding an explanation. "How c u r i o u s."

Doug was many things, and apparently, hypocrite was one of them, because he was about to rail Isaac's ass for treating the injured without medical training.

But first...

He turned his attention to Eris' injuries, eyes narrowed.

"Lele—" He began to say, before glancing down at his shadow. "... Shit. Garo!"

From afar, his Orbeetle, currently on watch duty, suddenly swiveled in place to face the group of youths, before zooming up towards them like a t-posing 3d model, virtually motionless as it hovered over them.

"X-rays; I wanna know what I'm dealing with." He said as he gently dragged a hand over Eris arm, the bruises disappearing in his digits wake. "Y'all better pray this is just bad diet."

And by y'all, he meant Isaac.

"Have you been eating your veggies, Eris?" Well, maybe Eris too.

Supply

With Hideo Kino.

The Beheeyem might've had Hideo's wellbeing in mind, but that didn't mean that its choice was the right one for the boy.

Doug couldn't go through with it without giving it some serious thought first. Something about merely erasing trauma didn't sit right with him.

It wasn't pretty, but this was the sorta thing one could get past with the right support. And Hideo had that support— friends and family that could get him through this.

The timing was less than ideal, though... but—

"... Even if you erase the memory, it doesn't necessarily mean he'll be okay to keep fighting, you know?" He said, brow furrowing. "The limbic system has been known to triggr panic attacks when exposed to stimuli reminiscent of forgotten or repressed trauma."

Whatever it was Elga's kind did to erase memories, human brains weren't PCs. You couldn't just grab 'trauma.mp4' and drop it in the recycle bin. Brain chemistry couldn't just be undone after it had already happened... right?

Doug gripped his temples, rubbing them as he tried to think.

"And... Don't worry about his career, man. Just focus on him. No one will know unless you want them to know." If the issue could be solved by erasing Hideo's memory, then it meant Hideo, his pokemon, and presumably his opponents, were the only witnesses.

The only way for it to affect the league's assessment of him was for him to reveal it to the league.

fashionably late

Let's do des.

It was a regular day in the life of John Douglas Sullivan. Christmas season was upon Hoenn— which meant one thing.

He needed to buy gifts for his friends and found-family, but specially Hideo Kino and Eris Halla.

Because much as he despised the rampant consumerist culture encouraged by Capitalist Christmas— He loved the kids' faces when they got gifts, and they were both getting older.

Soon enough, they would barely react at all and be asking him to get them useful shit like socks or shoes.

Before such a horrific moment came, he had to enjoy their innocence while it still remained.

And he had found the perfect gifts this time, too! Oh, he could just picture now their happy little faces.

Yes. He had found the perfect gifts. He had pictured their happy little faces.

Past tense.

Because just as he stepped out of the shop— A gargantuan hydro pump swept across the mall like a sniper's shot, shooting through the gift boxes he held in each hand with terrifying, almost comedic accuracy, somehow managing to burn holes through the paper Mache fabric and leaving perfectly geometric circles through which Doug could see with crystal clearness that Hideo Kino's and Eris Halla' gifts had been absolutely totalized.

Staring into the holes for several minutes of silence, almost as if frozen in place, Doug's head finally began to turn, his spine's discs screeching like rusted hinges as his dark gaze slowly rolled over and crossed the Iron bundle's blue LED eyes.

"_You." He breathed out lowly.

He maintained unblinking eye contact.

"You must realize."

His dropped the boxes, his hands falling to his sides— before a pokeball suddenly launched out of his sleeve and into his palm like a hidden dagger, growing to full size as he raised it to the Iron Bundle.

"This means war."

His words hung in the air— barely heard by anyone at all, since he had been more or less talking— well, whispering to himself.

...

He suddenly broke into a sprint towards the robot penguin.

"MOTHERFUCKEEER!"

He screamed, pokeball going un-thrown.

I4N2ySLe

SURVEY

Yuina Higashi

"Colonel! We've got two fresh arrivals in critical condition!" Yelled a medic as he ran into the patients tarp.

His glowing hand still on an injured man's chest, Doug looked over his shoulder at the man and clicked his tongue, before nodding.

"Understood. Relieve me here! Where can I find them?" He asked as they switched places, getting the information shortly after.

He was out the tarp and rushed through the camp in an instant, running around the several other officers and members of medic staff hastily working around the clock.

As with any hospital, there was no rest to be found so long as the battle refused to end.

Finally arriving at the location, Doug threw open the tarp... and recoiled.

Yuina Higashi and a Charizard were spread out on the cots, surrounded by a number of medics around trying to stabilize them.

Swallowing the curses in his throat, and the many questions and admonishments he wished to speak, Doug marched up to the group, the men opening up a space before him.

"What do we know?" He asked as he put on some disposable gloves, releasing his Orbeetle out of its pokeball as he looked over both trainer and pokemon closely.

---

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Smog

With Yuina Higashi

Oh brother. That did not sound like someone who was leaving the island any time soon.

Unfortunately, Doug wasn't the kind to force friends into doing anything, even if he believed their choices were... poor.

Sighing, he simple let go of Yuina, rubbing his temple briefly before nodding.

"Gotcha. Then..." He said, before offering his hand. "Let me escort you there, at least."

He needed to make it back to camp, in any case. They had dealt with the dream spawns, at least. Still...

His gaze wandered to the haze around them, lip curled. The smog seemed impenetrable, and he didn't have the means to deal with it. They would just have to leave it there and send someone else to actually solve the root cause of the problem...

[end thread]

---

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SEA

Doug & Kouji Matsubara

"Did you just go 'I'm built different'?" Doug scoffed, swallowing down a laugh.

It didn't last long however— a knife came flying out of the mist, making him swallow his laughter with a yelp as his hand rose to catch it on reflex.

He caught it alright. Pretty deep, too.

"SHIT! DAMN IT! Fudge!" He cursed in three steps: first in surprise, second when stabbed, third when pulling it out. "Hey asshole, you lost something!"

Now armed with a knife in hand, Doug took a deep breath before turning in the direction of Kouji's voice, lightly cocking his head at the other's words.

Not that they could see each other anyway.

"I was born and raised in Kanto." He said bluntly, beginning to walk towards the voice yet again. "My home village became one of the frontlines."

Burning fields, destroyed homes, bloody corpses, friends and family who would never come back.

"Nothing glorious 'bout that hellhole."