His expression turned pained. He understands… conceptually… that not everything is his fault. He understands, also conceptually, that he really doesn’t need to apologize for things outside of his control. But he’s got so much latent guilt from cyberspace fuckery and he’s desperate for some relief. The I’m sorry’s are like bandaids slapped over bullet wounds-- an attempt at making himself feel better.

The blush creeping its way from the tips of Alex’s ears, leaking into the pale of his cheeks, made Memo brighten a little bit.

“It was just-- a really bad one,” he said, realizing it was a lame attempt at explaining away the issue. He also realized they’d be talking around in circles like this forever. One of them was going to have to give, at some point.

“I… I’ve been having really bad ones a lot, I guess.”

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

“It’s the honey,” Memo said, smelling it on the air, too-- the thick scent of caramel that had gone too far and burnt. “That’s the smell of the honey burning.”

“She’s the size of a house!” Praxidike shrieked, her head echoing with the screams of the ailing queen. She fought through the stunning noise, rushing forward, blade of air forming around her two golden claws. The Primal Queen heaved forward. Their two attacks, fell stinger and air slash, arched towards each other in opposing crescents, Praxidike aiming up into the opened wound in her chest, the enemy queen aiming down at where Praxi’s arm met her body.

“Yes,” Sibella purred, snagging a stray bee out of the air and crushing it against the sticky, melting expanse of the hive. She winced, the screaming of the Primal Queen reaching a fever pitch, her sensitive ears pinning back against her neck.

Alexei Ivanov
my pokemon's speech colors changing? more likely than you think

☉

“He’s just worried,” Memo said, coming to bat for the wayward Wooloo. It was a pattern he kept falling into and one he would gladly repeat, because it seemed like very few people were willing to do so.

“Good.” He bit back a wry remark about hopefully he doesn’t have any more mystery babies, another pattern; the anger that Smokey’s transgressions evoked in him (themselves moderately innocent given the general lack of weight Pokemon decisions seemed to have in the world) was definitely a concept he would have to investigate at another time.

Alex stood to his full height and Memo looked up at him, reaching out to take his hand and give it a comforting squeeze. He appreciated Alex’s bravery, even if it meant there was definitely going to be suffering in his future.

“He seems nice,” Memo said, glad for the distraction; then the teapot popped up and ruined everything.

“It’s probably just scared!” he said, after the Polteageist took a swing at Fenrir, putting himself protectively between Alex and the ghost of cold tea; he couldn’t help but laugh at the accidental capture. “Why does that keep happening to you?”

Cora barked from up ahead. Memo tugged Alex along behind him as they traversed the mist, breaking through a particularly thick cloudbank to find the Stoutland locked in a staredown with a Metang. Memo tossed a Pokeball at it to clear their path.

“See? It’s not so bad.”

Alexei Ivanov
ghost/psychic
catch attempt metang

☉

“Sure seems like it, sometimes,” he said, affectionate, not conceding the point; honestly, sometimes it seemed like Alex had too many Pokemon. They were all unique and, if he was being truthful, a little bit crazy. Or so it seemed.

Granted, he had very little room to speak.

Still. Memo was pretty sure when Alex laughed angels got their wings, or whatever the fuck the saying was. He was really down bad, huh?

“You? Having a sassy Pokemon?” he joked, covering his mouth in mock scandal, the sarcasm in his tone thick. “Never. I’ll never believe it.”

Freya, bored with the conversation and unimpressed with the flirting, found a Skiddo and scooped it around the middle, pressing it skyward with one arm, to show off. The little goat bleated in confusion but seemed happy enough to be used as a living dumbbell.

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

☉

He set one hand on Alex’s upper back and stood by him as he caught his breath. He was freshly off a near-major reconstructive surgery of his chest cavity, and was in no shape to be running wild all over god’s creation.

“We’ll find him,” Memo promised, waving Paloma skyward to search for their missing Wooloo. The jingling of Will’s bell-crown was steadily getting further away.

Memo released Corazón, who immediately put her snout to the ground and began searching for a scent trail. While the Stoutland detected, Memo stepped around to the front of Alex, helping him stand up.

“You can go back home, if you want,” he said, setting a gentle hand against Alex’s wrist, “and I can keep looking from here?”

Because they were getting into ghostly territory.

Corazón sniffed all the way up a Claydol that rose up out of the ground, startling back. Memo winced at the creepy effigy, knowing that it was just a precursor of things to come. While Cora and the doll were locked in a staredown, Memo hit it with a Pokeball, mostly to get it out of the way.

He immediately wished he hadn’t. Cowering behind the Claydol was a little pastel teapot, chipped near the handle. It peeked nervously from under its lid.

Despite himself, the familiarity of it made him smile.

“Remember when I said the scariest thing in the Galar region was the ghost of cold tea?” he asked.

Alexei Ivanov
ghost/psychic
catch attempt claydol

☉

Hoenn didn’t go through the same autumnal changes as other regions. In Galar, for example, the latent, wet, gray heat of summer turned into a wet, gray chill. Alola was either sunshine or rain, and nothing really in between. Johto had real winter, in places, which meant real fall. He hadn’t stayed long enough to experience it.

Hoenn stayed green. He was coming to enjoy it more and more.

Green was his favorite color, after all.

Coquí was hunting bugs through the humid undergrowth and Frollo perched on his shoulder practicing his mimicry of the Politoed’s sounds. His Togekiss hummed through the air above them, hunting aerially for Pokemon-- though whether they found any or not, it was nice just to be out and enjoying the day.

Fae Madden
poison / dark / fairy

☉

Memo had to wince against the noise, too; the noise and the smell, burning sugar, burning everything. He turned away from the sight of the fire and the bees that plummeted, blackened and smoking, to put his own hands over Alex’s where they were covering his ears.

He had a feeling everything was going to get worse before it got better.

Praxidike was almost overcome with so much rage she could not breathe. She was rapidly dodging poisoned spikes longer than 2/3rds of her body, trying to line up an attack but unable to stay still long enough to do so. Part of it was the innate, instinctual burn of the enemy queen in her blood; there were not supposed to be two queens in such close vicinity; part of it may have been the Primal Energy in the air.

A lot of it was her inability to fathom stupid questions.

Kyouya’s aerial ace was, as always, a direct hit. It caught the side of the Primal Queen’s face, opening a rift above one mandible. Blood the color of pale straw oozed from the slice. On a normal Vespiquen the blow would have taken off her head-- on one this large, however, it was merely a cut.

Still, it gave Praxidike enough time to focus a power gem towards the enemy queen, the red crest on her forehead glimmering and refracting, until a ruby-red beam shot forward. It struck the enemy queen in her corseted midsection, blasting away chunks of comb and flesh, blowing out a portion of her aortic chamber (which was located at the junction of waist and hips, and not in the chest, such as in vertebrates). Yellow ichor splattered against the back of the hive, and the queen screamed.

The shrill cry echoed amongst the Combee, who reverbed it like an amplifier. They began to break off in almost living tendrils to go around the flames. Only a handful managed to make it before Gabriel’s rocks piled down, crushing them flat and sending spurts of yellow blood out along the stones.

Sibella rose up and then flared out, pirouetting down and spitting fire the entire way. The spiral of flamethrower channeled through Gabriel’s rock slide, superheating the stones and creating an oven effect that roasted the bees alive.

Still, they screamed.

Alexei Ivanov

☉

“I’m still sorry.”

He closes his eyes, forces himself to breathe.

“It was just a night terror,” he repeats, pulling at his wrists again. His eyes open. He endeavors to sit up. “I have them from time to time.” He offers a laugh, a soft chuckle that is more meant to be a balm, a way to say see? I can laugh it off, you can too.

Mentally, he begs Alex to leave it, to let him go, bid him goodnight, go back to his midnight snack.

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