“You can’t promise that,” he says, and he’s, again, shocked at the betrayal of his own vocal chords. “I watched you die. You don’t remember, but I do.”

His breathing grows quicker. A slightly maniacal giggle escapes him. “You-- you know that’s twice, now, twice I’ve caused you to get gravely injured and I haven’t even known you for a year.”

He presses the heel of his hand into the bridge of his nose, hard; trying to stop from spiraling. Trying not to break apart.

"I watched you die and I didn't even care. I couldn't do anything to stop you and I promised-- I promised that would never happen. I lied to you, Alex."

And then. And then.

“And then--,” he’s crying a little now. “--the next time I see you you’re unconscious on the beach and you’ve clearly been through something bad and I. I wasn’t. I couldn’t help. I was useless.”

[attr="class","mintag"] Alexei Ivanov

Of course he was awake. When did he ever sleep?

He was, at that very moment, sitting and staring up at the ceiling, overthinking things to pieces, stewing about was he really going to spend possibly his last night on earth apart from the love of his life?

But he didn’t want to be a bother. Didn’t want to impose. This was Alex’s space, after all, and he was already taking up enough of it.

The knock on his door was a huge weight off his shoulders. Oh, thank god, he mouthed, quickly sitting up.

“It’s open,” he said, rubbing one hand down the back of his neck, “c’mon in.”

Like the apartment before it, ‘his’ bedroom is sparse. Most of it is leftover furniture Alex had managed to wrangle-- bed, bedside table, chest of drawers. All of his good clothes are hanging in the closet. The walls and floor are bare.

[attr="class","mintag"] Alexei Ivanov

He got lucky. He got-- he got exceedingly lucky, holy shit. His shoulder connects and his feet find purchase and he’s too shocked to fucking followup because holy fucking shit he actually suplexed Rocket Beast Alexandra Briarwood.

In his frozen shock her boots shoot out, the flat of her left one connecting completely with the front of his thigh, heel driving into the soft space above his kneecap. The join pops a little in protest, pain streaking down through the side of his knee and his calf, and instinctively he slides his leg back, boot scrabbling through the dirt, as he falls to plant one hand next to Lex’s prone body.

He has two seconds to look up from where she’s glaring at him to the Zoroark turning away from Shivani’s limp body to advance on him when the ground directly beneath him heaves and he’s suddenly rising upward on a ridge of earth. He flattens himself to his belly and holds on for dear life as it pitches violently to the left and he’s flung off, landing on his back on another upward thrust plate.

The wind is knocked out from beneath him as the landmass shifts away and a large fissure is split between him and his attackers. He rolls over onto his stomach, spitting dust, mouth dry, and forces himself up into his forearm, meeting Lex’s eye over the newly formed canyon and he sears her face into his brain.

Next time. Next time, for real.

He coughs, hacking up grit that crunches in his teeth and some latent remains of purple goop from when Shivani had been filtering her malice through him. Gravity fights against him as he sways to his feet, stumbles the few steps over to where Shivani lays still in the dirt, before retracting her safely into her Pokeball and remembering he has to find Alexei Ivanov.

Tl;DR

this battle ends in a draw!
shivani the banette faints (again)!

mp counter
50 mp for participating in a battle
50 mp for posting in a spin off thread
50 mp for getting your Pokemon knocked out.
100 mp for completing a battle.
200 mp for tying a battle! man (ic thoghts: man these sure don't feel like ties)
450 mp total

“No,” Memo said, unable to keep the disappointment from his voice, “just a wild Metang.” He knew Alex was not having a good time and that meant that he was not having a good time. No one liked to watch their loved ones suffer, after all.

At least the Bronzong made Alex laugh. Memo found himself giggling along, too. He took his boyfriend’s hand and they continued on into the night, as the mist grew thicker and thicker around them.

If not for the missing sheep and Alex’s powerful fear that permeated everywhere-- Memo could feel him shaking in the space beside him-- it would almost be incredibly romantic.

He frowned into the dark. God, he was really down bad if he thought this was romantic.

“He’s just worried about the lamb,” Guillermo repeated, cocking his head to listen for something that could’ve been the tinkling of a bell-- or his imagination. “I’m sure once he finds them he’ll start heading back. We’ll probably bump into them on their way.” It was both wishful thinking and also 100% his true opinion.

Will couldn’t do a whole lot of wrong, in his eyes. He had brought them together, after all. Well, pictures of him.

They were interrupted by a Sableye morphing out of the dark; Memo stepped in front of Alex to defend him. Before the dual-type could attack, Frollo flew down and landed on its head, then released a loud, cacophonous chatter straight into its skull. The thing winced and fell back on its ass, allowing Memo to zap it with a Pokeball before it could do any harm.

His Chatot looked back up at him, cocked his head, and opened his beak: releasing a distinctive sound, like jingling bells.

Alexei Ivanov
ghost/psychic
catch attempt sableye

☉

“William’s perfect and has never done anything wrong in his life,” Memo said, knee-jerk and immediate and with all the conviction of stating an indisputable fact.

He stood in concert with Alex and watched Freya do her goat workouts.

“She’s… special,” he allowed, earning him a glare from both Freya and Sibella that had him lifting his hands up in mock surrender. “Look, I don’t know what conflict you got going on but you need to figure that out yourselves.”

The Pokemon exchanged angry sneers and looked away.

Memo shrugged. “Well, they can’t all get along like your old men.”

Freya continued to press the Skiddo, and was much delighted to find a Skorupi toddling along at her feet that she picked up in her empty hand; she proceeded to standing bench them both.

Alexei Ivanov
grass/bug/flying
catch attempt skorupi
<3 <3

☉

Part of him (a crazy part, a tired part, a part so worn and raw and stripped) wants to throw himself into her fist. Feel the crunch of his nose again for the sake of feeling something. But just as his reach is too short, he is too short, and her hook sails over his head as he gives up on practiced pretenses, ducks, and charges forward to slam his shoulder into her gut.

With any luck he’ll press himself up, lift her, and Randy Savage her into the dirt.

With any luck.

Shivani’s attacker shivers with the voltage coursing through its body and the little ghost ethereally slips into the ground, rising again a few feet away. She exhales, relieved-- but its too soon. The Zoroark’s deranged noise warps the air and Shivani turns to watch its body rip open.

She can feel it before she sees it-- she, too, is a creature of resentment, of grudges, deriving her power from being forgotten.

The attack that hits her completely blindsides her, reminiscent of Elisabeth Fiorelli ’s Tsareena and the vicious payback strike. Like any strength Shivani pours into her attacks will just end up warped and aimed back at her.

Both Alexandra Briarwood and Memo will hear at the back of their minds a voice, like catching a whisper through a wall.

Not this shit again

Shivani faints.

The ground beneath Memo, Lex, and their two Pokemon breaks, beginning to heave and throw for real, this time, as though all the past tremors have merely been practice.

Tl;DR

shivani the banette is hit by bitter malice!
shivani the banette faints (again)!
memo dodges under lex's punch and goes to lift her and suplex her into the ground.
the earth beneath them splits open and begins to undulate.

mp counter
50 mp for participating in a battle
40 mp for posting in a spin off thread
50 mo for getting your Pokemon knocked out.

Both trainer and Pokemon are so distracted by the terrible noise they don’t notice their opponents closing in. Distantly Memo wonders if get your shit together while fighting should actually be at the top of his to do list.

Regardless, there’s a blink of his stomach sinking because this was far too easy and then in the next breath there’s black leather and red hair in front of him. He’s so tired and just-- just out of fucks to give that he welcomes the challenge.

Alexandra Briarwood advances, Memo feints back, not having grown up with 5 siblings (one of which a national jiu jitsu champion) without learning some things. He’s shorter than her, which gives her the reach advantage, but he’s quick, and for all his small stature, he is strong. He drops back on the toes of his hind foot, like he’s going to turn and run, but instead coils his off hand and launches a punch towards Lex’s throat.

Shivani, meanwhile, is stunned by the arrival of the strange Zoroark, its protrusions revoltingly reminding her of writhing flesh. The beast emerges from its shadow sneak and pins her down, one fiercely clawed hand wrapped around her doll-like body. Shivani’s eyes glimmer with rage, and she calls down a thunder directly on top of them.

The move causes the heavens to boom with sound. Almost like an echo, a crack in the ground begins to evolve, shaking the earth beneath their feet.

Tl;DR

shivani the banette is hit by shadow sneak!
shivani the banette uses thunder!
memo tries to punch lex in the throat!
groudon is doing shenanigans somewhere, it seems

mp counter
50 mp for participating in a battle
30 mp for posting in a spin off thread

Neither Rocket rose to the challenge of his witty smack-talk. Memo cataloged that for next time-- provided he survived this. Improve conversation starters.

Yeah, he was definitely blitzed, if that was #1 on his priority list.

He was still dizzy, his mind was swimming, and now the air smelled like trash. “Remind me to have you forget that move,” he says on the front end of a gag, and he covers his mouth.

The purple beam of gunk splattered against the anchor and its image shattered, pieces of a broken mirror that fizzled off into sparks. The hunched, slobbering beast left in its stead was definitely more terrifying than the Dhelmise had been.

They had little time to reflect or celebrate their small victory, as the most horrible, high-pitched noise Memo’d ever heard hit them both-- Shivani moreso, as she was the actual target, but he caught the fringes of the piercing mental blow. Like the ringing in your ears on the cusp of blacking out (he’s intimately familiar), it went from soft and annoying to loud and debilitating in seconds.

Shivani shook her head and covered where her ears would be with her hands, frown growing even deeper.

Tl;DR

shivani the banette is hit by extrasensory! she flinches!

mp counter
50 mp for participating in a battle
20 mp for posting in a spin off thread

He was exhausted. But he was conscious.

A step in the right direction.

Opposed to Lex’s journey, Memo’s felt like he’d been careening down a mountain in a car with no brakes… or airbags… or doors or windows or really, he was just falling. From landing in Hoenn to the Littleroot fire to the digital world to this. Just a free fall.

In the hubbub he’d gotten separated from Alexei Ivanov again-- he couldn’t be far, and Memo was too tired to panic. He was too tired to do anything.

He felt, more than saw, Alexandra Briarwood’s attention turn to him. Oh yeah. Her. The strappy broad on the horse he’d taken a potshot at earlier.

Well, he thought, licking his chapped lips that still tasted like iron, play dangerous games, win dangerous prizes.

His mother used to say something similar. Tú te lo guisas, tú te lo comes. You cook eat, you eat it. Funny how the taste of blood in his mouth made him think of his parents. Real Pavlovian shit, that.

Her Dhelmise seemed to pendulate in the space between them, like an angry, vengeful grandfather clock. Or the obstacle in an extremely sadistic Looney Tunes skit. The thought made him giggle.

Shivani looked at him, frowning. She was obviously concerned by his delirium. Having been healed up by Alex’s Gardevoir, she was back in fighting shape. She still had dirt on her face though.

“Technically we’re all next,” he says, voice hoarse, smile a little manic, “if you don’t fuck off and let us do what we came here to do.”

The air turns foul as Shivani conjures up a beam of ichor, highblood purple and dripping toxins onto the rent ground.

He wondered vaguely if Team Rocket all had the same stylist. They really needed a new one.

V4SOt5NY

Tl;DR
accepts your challenge Alexandra Briarwood
shivani the banette uses gunk shot!

mp counter
50 mp for participating in a battle
10 mp for posting in a spin off thread

☉