unfortunately, amulius hadn't managed to make it in time before nomi put them in the thunder dome. she's not worried about him. out of sight, out of mind and all that, and besides, he can hold his own. mr freeze ain't got nothin' on his hot chicken wings. 

she's still mad as hell, but that doesn't mean she wants nomi in pain. so she clips another ball from her belt and remus emerges in a crouch. he blinks, nose twitching and appendages lifting as he senses all the fun and exciting threats that could kill them. 

parker waves in front of his face. "chillax. you're not here to fight. help fix her leg."

he doesn't need to be told twice. gentle heal pulses emanate from outstretched paws over nomi's ankle. parker turns her back to them all, stalks over to the edge of the dome, and plops down with her back against the wall. 

she glowers at nomi while she talks. shared dream of galar? is that what haunts the edges of her vision? there are memories there she can't grasp - can nomi remember? and if she can, why hasn't she told her?

at the end of it all? "sure, doc," she says. she hasn't called her that in some time. for the past few months, it's been nomes or cupcake or baby or some other egregious pet name she thinks of in the moment.

a loud boom rattles their structure and makes parker's spine shake. she grimaces, shifting away from the wall in confusion. cold air spurts through an open crack and she groans, getting back to her feet. she clinks her knuckles together, gold glinting, and nods down to remus. another pound hits the side of the dome. pieces of crystal shower all around them. 

"fine. he's not your enemy, but you damn well better put on a fuckin' oscar-worthy performance once this shit busts open, nomi, and everyone else sees."

Naomi Sato El Sunderland Isaac Merlo
tn3GVNWW

☉

it's all red. red like the veins in her hands, straining against tawny skin. red like the capillaries bursting in her cheeks, making a blush to stave off the freezing cold. 

her fists glance against something. and then something again. and it's not the satisfaction of the meat pillow encasing a skull. it's an object attached to another body with another mouth and after a couple of hateful blinks, her peripherals come back and she realizes they're trapped in a crystal sphere of nomi's making.

they can't see us in here. nobody can.

the person with the stick - cane - el, saying, is now really the time? well they can fuck right off. and so can isaac, for shrugging his shoulders and saying yeah, let's all kumbaya here 'cause nomi said so. 

she spares a glance at her girlfriend, brows furrowed, nostrils still flaring, and calmness sweeps over her. compassion to do the right thing. courage to make it reality. 

she turns. isaac reclines against the crystal. she takes a moment to collect her thoughts - the visionary gets injured. the visionary is helped by the liberator. the visionary traps them all in a bubble of crystal.

sure.

her golden fist comes down again and cracks isaac against the jaw. 

Isaac Merlo Naomi Sato El Sunderland
YITxJIim

☉

its nads are too high up for aurelius to really hit, but the flames arc outward and do something. maybe. she can't really fucking tell 'cause the wind is howling and her tits are freezing. they're not the only ones here either. hoenn and its crazies, flocking like gulls to the basket of super-freaky fries.

can we go home now? she wants to whine because amulius basically did the equivalent of spitting on it and really, that dragon could EAT THEM IN ONE FELL SWOOP - GOBBLE, GOBBLE, YUM.

reality-bending powers don't matter if you get crushed by a giant foot or crunched between skyscraper-sized teeth. and she's about to say as much, while amulius continues palm-striking the creature in close combat quarters, when nomi freezes.

parker throws a hand out, but doesn't take her eyes off the giant, towering dragon. at least, not until she drops his name.

she'd instantly regretted the brass knuckles when she realized how cold it was. she's never been this cold in her whole life and she's pretty sure they've frozen over her hands. but now, now she's glad she's brought them. anger shrugs away the cold (not really, but we can pretend) and she rounds, nostrils flaring, looking for him. 

snow blasts her in the face and her arms pinwheel as she loses her footing. nomi cries out and all of that anger turns towards a new source. her lips twist in a half-snarl as she fights nature itself, clawing her way through the impromptu avalanche to reach nomi. 

mîr spins, glowing, and parker stupidly wonders if it's calling daddy a. her fingernails scrape against the boulder, cheeks huffing with exertion as she tries to force her shoulder against it. 

"mul," she howls, but the blaziken is too far away to help. 

or is he?

fire lashes and nearly singes off her eyebrows. she leaps back, confused, and until the boulder is half its size does she realize the THWACK-THWACK-THWACKING she hears is someone on the other side of it, punching it to bits. and then it gets smaller and seeing a familiar swathe of hair, then broad shoulders, makes her snarl. 

around them are rockets. around them are supervisors. around them are murderers. and somewhere, in the midst of all of this, is Cillian Quinn . 

nomi's hurting and Isaac Merlo can help.

that's why this next part kills her. 

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HER, MERLO!" she screeches and crashes into him, brass knuckles looking for his face.

Naomi Sato  Isaac Merlo

get away from her, u dirty rat
1/3 fail

LiQsd5Al

☉

here's the thing about living in a region that's constantly under threat of complete and utter turmoil - it doesn't leave a lot of room to breathe. parker has been stewing for a bit.

stewing because her girlfriend is the avatar to god's favorite creepy eyeballed children. stewing because her friend who definitely could have been her best friend up and complicated things for no godsdamned reason and she hasn't had the heart, or the time, to tell nomi that she saw isaac. 

stewing because things are really fucking good when they're good and it's so easy to pretend it's all good - to kiss nomi every which way, to flirt with her all night at a silly party, to pretend everything is normal. 

but then shit like this happens and she's reminded, as she's teleported onto a frozen-ass battlefield, that she's out of her fucking league - 

AND HOLY FUCK, THAT THING IS HUGE.

"nomes, why is it so big? nomes, dragons don't get that big. nomes, it's going to eat us, isn't it?"

'let's go together.'

she'd been on her way to nomi's lab when the comms came through. she'd been on her way to tell her, hey baby, we should maybe talk because i'm gonna explode and also my sister is back and you should meet her. 

can't the world chillax for ten minutes? maybe?

amulius gives her a look and knocks her on the back of her head. she rolls her shoulders and looks up at the monster. then back at her reality-bending beauty of a girlfriend and says, "yeah, fuck it. i dunno what a reshroom is, but let's melt this piece of shit."

and amulius sprints forward to deliver a blaze kick.

Naomi Sato

arrives with nomi; lots of drivel
kicking white kyurem in the nads

OQFM2Lu8

☉

running around and dodging nomi is fun in theory. and it's easy in practice. and in reality, it's absolutely terrible. 'cause she's had like four bubbly drinks and she misses nomi and she wants to hold nomi and put nomi on her arm and parade her around and show her off and tug on her adorable little bow - 

but no. NO!! she has to be strong. she can be strong. she can make her super powerful reality-bending girlfriend wait for the hottest makeout session of her life. maybe she'll steal her away and into the casino's pool and do an x-rated runback to their r-rated shenanigans in meteor falls. 

one paragraph later and her 'she has to be strong' is fucking decimated at the picture. if this were a cartoon, parker jones would be standing there one minute, ogling the photo, and the next she would just be a silhouette of white lines and a gust of wind in her wake. 

she passes the poker table, bleating out in one breath: "ohey-jayden-and-is-that-yumi-you-look-great-have-you-seen-nomi-no-okay-bye."

and scampers around. another glass ends up in her hands. this time it's not shitty bubbles. it's some creamy, sugary confection and it's literally heaven. sorry, nomi, but it does distract her for a bit. long enough, though, that she's standing in the perfect position when the lovely done up pink-haired woman walks right by her. 

reflexively, a hand comes out and she does what she's been wanting to do all night - she tugs on the ribbon at her neck. 

Naomi Sato
hi besties Hitoshi Inoue Yumi Hasegawa BARNABY FINCH jayden cross

☉

whatever it is, she hopes it gets this matias guy's rocks off. 'cause that'd be fucking hilarious. looking at the gibberish, she'd have to be absolutely mad to think this is in any way sexy (or maybe desperate? or both?) but honestly, maybe that's just on account of the presence of the eggplant. 

no eggplants near parker jones please and thank you. 

if nomi sent her a plant bud, that'd be kind of hot.

should she send nomi a plant bud emoji?

no, that's crazy.

"how d'you sext?" she asks without thinking. and then, after registering what he said: "yeah, i ain't actually worried. i'd prob'ly be too embarrassed to even mention this to anyone if i was her."

priam conrad

☉

priam takes the phone and parker's so into it, she can't wait for him to turn it around. so she sidles around him and shoves her face right near his, cheeks almost touching, as she looks animatedly down at the phone. 

"is the sad tulip a limp dick?" she asks.

"is the mushroom the clit?"

sweat drops. everyone knows what that is. 

"virgin caterpillar goes on a wild ride and emerges a butterfly, but only if he touches her plant bud."

she hmmmmmmms. and thinks about it. and says, "yeah, fuck it. i dig it."

"we're totally dead if she ever figures out we did this."

priam conrad

☉

she feels ill right now. she swallowed sea water and gods knows what else. space grapploct is something she could have gone her entire life without the pleasure of tasting. oh, well. now she has a story to tell. 

parker stretches from the tips of her toes to the tips of her fingers. 

"yeah, i heard it. tried to clamp your mouth shut 'fore you said somethin'. last time it happened, i got a face full of butterflies." she grins. "and those didn't make me sick either so hey, we're probably good."

Lulu Flint

☉

every time she says something that would warrant her a scowl, or at least shred of anger, he goes and throws cold water on her. tells her that no matter how many bricks she puts in front of herself, no matter how fucking tough she tries to make herself look, he's gonna see right through it. he's gonna see right through her. 

it kills her that he's here. as much as she was - is - at him for showing up like this, she's madder he's here without answers. 

she snorts. "me 'n my 'parker no kill' line doesn't make me a good person, isaac. don't mean i earned shit."

what the hell has she done. what the hell has parker jones ever done except wake up, work out, shit, and rough up some low lives for money? she's a bad person and that's her choice and she's fine with that. nomi's a sore subject. she's done some fucked up things too. 

"you wanna help me, isaac? stay away from us. you stick your neck out for us and they see? you know what's gonna fuckin' happen. i tangled with dross once and on godsdamned rumors alone, cillian shadow-tentacle quinn ripped my leg apart to make a point."

she shows teeth. "you see me get cut on the field, you walk the fuck away. 'cause they question me, they question nomi, and there's no comin' back from treason."

he knows that. 

"but yeah. yeah, i'll talk to her." all the fight leaves her. stressed, she runs her fingers through her hair, slicking cooling sweat into the pink. 

Isaac Merlo

☉