“you can take it.”[break][break]

he picks the berry out of the tree. juice wells out of the overripe, bruised skin; with sap-sticky fingers, nagi drops it gently in the smear of berry-mush by the heliolisk’s feet. [break][break]

above them, branches laden heavy with fruit — half rotting on the vine, half picked clean by passing flocks of pidgeys — cast a coruscating canvas of shadows over the overgrown grass. it tickles at his ankles, at the bare slip of skin between his slacks and his socks.[break][break]

“you’ll put it to better use than me.”[break][break]

nagi sits down in the grass, weeds up to his elbows, and watches the heliolisk eat. the wind in his hair; the early-summer sun searing the nape of his neck.
[break][break]

still here.

[attr="class","ooc"] @charname [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

smaug lurches upwards. the man's soul is a wisp of white against the half-light of the pallid sky; below, jutting spires and winding paths, and — when nagi chances a glance downwards — the sprinting specks of his merry mountain band approaching the seal.[break][break]

nagi may not have thought this all the way through. it's a long way down to fall. [break][break]

and what's he going to do when he catches up — yeet the soul down to the man's body with his bare hands and untrammeled force of will?[break][break]

a final burst of speed from smaug pulls them up close beside the vagrant soul. this high in the air, it's either the asphyxiation or the panic that's making him light-headed, thinning the oxygen to his brain. nagi scrambles for his pokeball; fumbles for an idea. [break][break]

"humbug, grab him!"[break][break]

his haunter's spectral arm reaches out, out —
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Killian Decker ryuji katahara Eris Halla [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

a spray of blood, arcing red against the pallid sky. oh. he thinks. a documentarian's detachment. how are we going to put all of that back in him?[break][break]

a wisp of white rises from the man's mouth. nagi's eyes dart up to follow it — only to be yanked back down by movement where there should be none. [break][break]

like a puppet jerking on a string: the man sways, and stiffens; muscles seizing where they should have gone slack.[break][break]

and then he is sprinting.[break][break]

a tera blast from the mesprit rips the vestigial moltres into ash and air. the girl chases, hot on the heels of the shambling should-be-corpse, ryuji close behind them. [break][break]

"smaug!"[break][break]

nagi gestures, urgent and wordless. his dragonite yanks him up off his feet by the armpits, shooting into the sky. he needs a better vantage point. he wishes, absently, that he had time to clean the sweat-smudges off his lenses before the fight began.[break][break]

something glows to the north, set against the rock. he squints through the fog. if that's where the body is going —[break][break]

hair whips into his face as smaug's extreme speed closes the distance between them and the man's sprinting body. nagi trusts his dragonite to keep an eye on the people on the ground; he keeps one eye on the seal, and another to sky, to the line of wisps, searching for where he'd seen the man's soul drift.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] Killian Decker Eris Halla ryuji katahara [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

congenitally sedentary, outrunning the moltres is out of the question.[break][break]

nagi isn’t fast. he has his doubts about "capable", too — but he has enough situational awareness to know that this isn't the time or place to air them.
[break][break]
one year has been enough for hoenn to leave its mark. as his mime’s protect gives way under the force of the ghost moltres’ fire blast, nagi does what he can.[break][break]

"mime— mimic. keep it back."
[break][break]
the storm of petals swirls into a thick cloud, a barrier of viscous billowing pink attempting to buffet the ghost of the moltres backwards.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] @charname [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

danny's disbelief is met with quiet confirmation, a monosyllabic "n" hummed between teeth.[break][break]

he'd been surprised, too. but also — not.[break][break]

like a stone hitting the bedrock of a trench after a long time falling. it had felt like culmination.[break][break]

he spreads his hand wide, catching sunlight on the flat of his sand-crusted palm.[break][break]

"how else to change it, than from within?"[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] DANNY HALL [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

nagi brushes off michail's concern with ill-fitting bravado and a wave of his hand. [break][break]

"... it's just the lighting."[break][break]

the lighting is fluorescent white. nagi is almost turquoise. [break][break]

anytime else, he'd be overthinking the split-second stutter in michail's usual composure, backtracking his words for the exact point of his misstep. now, though, with his brain set to broil — he'll leave the overthinking to when he's medicated and horizontal. [break][break]

"i won't be good lunchtime company," he admits, dropping bravado in favour of exhausted honesty. "i think i'll — " he shakes the baggie of medication, plastic crinkling " — and sleep. maybe for a week."
[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] jayden cross [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

"that makes two of us."[break][break]

michail's casual admission of discomfort loosens the nervous clench of nagi’s fingers around his cuffs. his jaw softens. if someone dressed to the nines feels out of sorts, then nagi — a solid three at best — might have some hope yet.[break][break]

“good enough. healthy, thanks to you and yours." [break][break]

he ducks out of the way of the windmilling arms of someone's tipsy pirouette, sidesteps carefully over the hem of a trailing skirt.

“you?"

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] jayden cross [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

nagi has no qualms with letting penelope take the lead. hand in hand, one foot here, a toe there; he falls into step where he needs to be, moving as she directs. in a way, it’s a dance they’ve already practiced.[break][break]

sweat in his palms. the weight of penelope’s hand on his shoulder is a sharp pinprick and the low buzz of an electric shock all at once. unused to touch, nagi is hyperaware of all the points of contact between them. he tries to dull the onslaught of unfamiliar sensation with rhythm, counting the beats of the waltz as he shuffles in time. [break][break]

penelope’s comment draws a wry smirk from him. threaded between the steady tempo of one, two, threes, his answering words fall with a measured cadence.[break][break]

"with our combined expertise, we'll leave this dance floor with a body count."[break][break]

he keeps his eyes on their feet, stepping lightly out of caution. nearby, someone twirls their partner into a dip. a straight leg ending a glittering, stilettoed heel points up at the chandelier, a sinewy beacon among the sea of bodies.

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]

as it always has been since the day she swerved into his life, penelope raises a question like the proffered hilt of a sword: what next?[break][break]

he raises his gaze to meet hers. [break][break]

what else is there to do?[break][break]

“find out what i can do,” he answers, plain and without embellishment. a story only he can write.[break][break]

his reflection swirls in the glass, distorted over the rippling surface of amber. if pressed later, he’ll chalk it up to alcohol. to the fuzzy, warm edge the drink has lent to the world, to the distilled courage of 27% abv on a two-crackers-and-a-grape stomach —[break][break]

in the dim-lit corner of the bar, under the spotlight of penelope’s gold-alloyed gaze, he says before he can think to regret it: “thank you.”

[break][break]

[attr="class","ooc"] PENELOPE LIVY [break]


[attr="class","pkspr pkmn-litwick"]