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This. This is what it should have been. This is what it ought to have been the entire time. Beau, keeping a careful eye on the steel bulk of the pokemon that assessed Orson with bright crimson eyes before barreling forward. Orson, meeting the assault not with equal, implacable force but a swaying stance, flowing from one form to the next as he battered the armored enemy with a series of rapid strikes.
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Beau didn't want to bring himself to look the woman in the eye, so her fumbled commentary landed somewhere around his temple. Her cry as her arm was splinted against her side elicited a visible flinch. He hadn't attacked someone like that since he was a fucking teenager, when he didn't know any better, and he thought that bigger meant better in every respect.
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He didn't want to bring himself to look behind him at the girl who'd lost her arm, because somewhere in the back of his mind was a little voice that said yes, you gorilla, you could have saved her. How many pokemon do you have that could have healed her, could have at least staunched the bleeding until she got somewhere safe? Instead, here you are, writing her off as collateral damage and using her as an excuse to beat the hell out of a woman half your size. If there's an afterlife, she's disgusted with you.
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So he looked the only place he could: the back-and-forth between the Iron Boulder and Orson. This, he knew. Pokemon battling was easy, formulaic, predictable.
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Didn't get the hands dirty.
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The ground shook underfoot as an explosion rocked the Mossdeep Space Center, a plume of black smoke rising into the sky like a stain, and Beau cursed. Gwyar was going to kill him, if he was actually around to kill him. His opponent saw it too, and in his confusion he forgot that he wasn't supposed to be looking at her, and he looked, and she was looking right back at him, through him, with ice - and was that sympathy -
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A thick cloud of smoke erupted from somewhere, blocking her from sight, and as he choked and charged forward through the obstruction, his frustration, guilt, and failure only mounted; she was gone.
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A sound like a kettledrum drew his attention back to the battle, Orson landing a solid blow on the Iron Boulder that actually managed to dent its chestplate, sending it stumbling to the ground. "Nah, no, not letting you leave," Beau managed raggedly at the thing, throwing a ball at the stunned pokemon. He wasn't sure if it would work or not, being another trainer's possession, but the sigh he released at seeing the ball settle with its prize was welcome nonetheless. He crouched to pick it up, eyeing it warily, and murmured, "You don't get to kill anybody else today."
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No rest for the weary or the wicked, though, however unintentional the wickedness might have been. He beckoned to Orson and the two began running up the streets against a throng of panicked people, toward the explosion rather than away.
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He had to get there, if there was anything left to get to.

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Atlas, for all the stolen vitality it had siphoned from Ceruledge, was on the back foot. Even when powered by extraplanar force, an insect could only survive so long against superheated steel. Driven backward and stumbling into the fissure left by the Iron Boulder's inciting attack, it landed on its back, its compound eyes flickering in sync and widening as the final blow came.
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It did not rise.
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She screamed. He snapped her arm like a twig and she screamed, and it was enough to bring him back to the controls. Beau's fist froze mid-strike as he blinked, surveying exactly what he was engaged in. No pokemon in sight, strange. Him having the upper hand? Also strange, given the circumstances.
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A Rocket - a woman - that woman - bloodied beneath him, screaming, twisting, laughing. What was he doing? Why was he attacking her?
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Oh, she'd taken that girl's arm. Probably her life. Still, wasn't the right course of action to detain her, to ensure she faced justice for her actions?
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No, he frowned. Penitence wouldn't undo the damage that she'd done. If he had the time to think about it, this was fair. An eye for an eye. A life for a life.
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Firmly in control of his own faculties once more, he hit her again, and this time the crunch of bone under his closed fist loosened the knot in his chest ever so slightly. A tiny dose of satisfaction. He could use more of that.
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The flicker of red light behind him as the Iron Boulder reoriented was as lost on him as its subsequent revving, and it should have been a clean hit for the Paradox. An instant before impact, one of the pokeballs at his belt burst open, and Orson materialized to take and shift the brunt of the blow, forged steel carving into hardened muscle as the pair skidded to the side of Beau and Parker.
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Breaking the stalemate, Orson shoved the metal pokemon back, slinging a streak of his own blood against the ground from the newly-opened wound in his forearm. He glanced to Beau, then offered a low growl as he saw his trainer's position against the otherwise defenseless woman. Beau continued laying into her, heedless of his ursine friend's concern.
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Orson couldn't get Beau's attention without letting the Iron Boulder get an easy shot on them both. He couldn't retaliate against the Iron Boulder without leaving Beau to his one-track vengeance.
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He had to do something, or Beau would be lost either way.
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The bear's eyes flicked from one assault to the next. Back. Forth. Back. Forth.
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He roared.
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Focusing his energy inward, he adopted a sturdy stance, muscles bulging as a soundless wave swept over the area. He slid smoothly into a fluid pose, opening his hands as he surveyed the scene before him. Even Beau's mindless assault was disrupted as the Urshifu's power increased, as his focus shifted from the one to the many.
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Moving gracefully into action, Orson flowed forward in the first of a series of SURGING STRIKES, pummeling the Iron Boulder once, then twice, driving the assailant back. The third strike was reserved for another: shifting gracefully, the last blow caught Beau himself in the side, breaking him from Parker and sending him sprawling against the ground in an ungainly fashion.
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Beau blinked, staring up at his pokemon, and seemed only then to collect where he was and what had occurred to land him there. Orson, for his part, looked pointedly from Beau to Parker, and the man choked as he surveyed the other woman from his vantage point on the ground. "Wh...what?"
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What had he done? That was him? He couldn't blame a toxic chain or a simulation this time. Only himself and his convictions.
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His convictions which, he realized with a flip of his stomach, did not necessitate the conviction of others. Not by him alone.
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Orson reached a hand down, and Beau stared at it plaintively. "I...yeah, no, we gotta go. We do this the right way."
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He took the ursine's hand, and hauled himself to his feet with a low groan, his focus shifting to the opposing pokemon. "Let's finish it."
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And now, with his Urshifu beside him, he felt he could. He'd worry about the cost later.

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The Buzzwole's energy flagged as the Iron Boulder moved on the offensive, its movements flagging from the exertion of the Superpower.
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A TAUNT was halfhearted but necessary, if it didn't want the robot aiming for its trainer. Not yet, not yet, because Beau was occupied.
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It was almost cathartic, in a way.
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"What was he even doing here?" Beau had asked himself, only moments ago. "What can one person do against Rocket?"
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He hadn't known. It seemed so pointless, so beyond him, to think about the ramifications of the large-scale moves that were being made, of whatever was going on in the Space Center, of any of the other region-shaking schemes the group had planned. Beau was just a Ranger, and if he wasn't being a Ranger, he was doing his best impression of a good soldier. Go where he's told to go, maybe find some people he can help along the way. Make sure nobody had to deal with what he had to deal with, or worse.
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Now, though? Now, Rocket had a face. Rocket wasn't spouting grandiose declarations or using five-dollar words he had to pause and think about just to play some kind of superiority complex. Rocket wasn't fucking around with the next supernaturally cosmic threat that was going to abduct everyone and their mother out of their beds and somehow twist it into a shell game of economics and power.
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Rocket was a crimson-haired woman who had just cut a kid's arm off. Rocket had taken the fight to the innocent, right in front of him, and somebody was going to die as a result.
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Possibly more than one somebody, and it was hard to say who.
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But if he thought about it, through the haze of red, he knew, he knew who he wanted to die alongside that girl.
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It came in flashes. She stood across from him, awareness flickering into her eyes as she took in the set of his jaw.
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Stubborn, tough, unyielding, as she blocked his blows to her abdomen, twisted away from them, tried to minimize the impact.
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Red, stained red as her hair, painting her lips as she fell under him, coughing.
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He was moving, his arms were moving, he knew they were because he saw himself grab her arm and twist, heard the clean snap of bone, heard her cries.
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This wasn't what he had meant to use his strength for. He was supposed to protect, to support, to stand up for the people who couldn't.
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He hit her again. She was still too clean for what she'd done. She was still moving.
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It was like watching a film. Distant. Clinical. If he were in a thinking position, he'd think about the simulation where he'd been in her position and as a result bludgeoned someone to death.
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But he wasn't in a thinking position, he was in a problem-solving position. She was the problem and she needed solving for good.
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So he watched his arms move.

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Ah jeez, ah shoot. This was nothing near a fancy dinner, and he'd gotten to know enough about Ollie that he didn't feel intimidated lunching with the Head Ranger like he would have, once - did, once - but he still didn't like looking like a klutz in front of his companion. They were supposed to be having a calm and adult conversation about the increasingly serious things going on in the region, and Beau couldn't help but find his attention divided as he wondered who in the wide world ever thought eating food with two little sticks was efficient, productive, or fun.
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Lost in thought, considering the usage of chopsticks that he was sixty percent he could probably hold correctly if he had to, he could only look up and give Ollie a commiserating nod at the notion he'd been caught out. Beau couldn't say he'd be too happy to get jerked around all the time either, not like he was on a chain for the government. Maybe that was being dramatic, because it definitely never seemed to affect Ollie's mood, but...well, it definitely looked like a lot more political moving parts than what Beau was used to dealing with.
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The chopsticks were grim, and his brief assessment of Ollie's situation grimmer, but the appearance of plastic utensils parted the concern on his face like a rainbow after the storm. Gratefully taking a set from the other man, he neatly split the plastic package open and beamed in victory.
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"Brah, you have no idea," he enthused. His usual animated demeanor was no stranger here - not because he was excited about the subject matter, at all, but because he had someone to talk to about it. "Just the usual, right? Investigating disturbances, goin' t'beat up some poachers an' calm down some nests where we have to, the normal stuff. It's all goin' absolutely great, no complaints."
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He paused, a muscle in his jaw twitching. "Then Navy tells everybody to batten down the hatches in case there's trouble, which - man, there's always trouble, but it's never that bad, right? Except then a ton of Rockets show up with a freakin' pirate ship and start wreckin' the place. Me an' Eduardo Hisakawa did what we could - I think he went for the ship itself - but some asshole with a LARP outfit and a hammer almost got me while I was tryin' to make sure everyone else was safe."
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He took a gulp of water and grimaced. "Fuckin' Rocket, y'know?"

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It was nice to get out, once in a while, and it was nice to be able to pretend - maybe for a minute, or two if he was lucky - that the world wasn't falling apart at its edges inward. Beau clung to his Gyarados as it cut sinuously through the water alongside the sheriff's Kingdra, and even his excitement at something resembling a lower-stakes investigation was distressingly dulled at the mention of probable human instigation.
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After months of dealing with the same, and the tensions between Rocket and, well, the rest of Hoenn coming to a head, Beau had come to the conclusion that people sucked.
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"Pirates?" he echoed, raising his eyebrows. "Huh, maybe. Think they have the cool soundtracks to go with?" Not the most likely scenario, surely, but he could dream. It would make fixing their mess just a little more enjoyable.
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At Navy's next question, he gave a rueful grin and a quick thumbs-up, moving to grab back onto the Gyarados before the water-type's shifting coils managed to unseat him. "Hangin' in there!" he called back. "The prison was wild as all get-out, brah, but we made it through, him an' me!"
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A proud - and maybe wistful? - grin stretched across his features as he recalled the events of the penitentiary. "Wouldn't in a milion years say I'd want to go through it again, but we got each other outta there just like we said we would. Still, gimme like a hijacked cruise or something next time, y'know?"
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He looked over to Navy with a little laugh, canting his head curiously. "What about you? Stuff's gettin' nasty out there, and I keep hearin' it's only gonna get worse. You think?"

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For the second time in as many weeks, Beau found himself embroiled in a conflict with another person, so much so that he could not properly spare attention to the pokemon battle roaring down the street behind him. He was gaining ground against the woman, but it turned out she was as sturdy as she was scrappy, and this was taking way more time than he had to spare.
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As her gaze slipped over his shoulder, he paused, turned his head - what the FUCK had Atlas done to that ghost thing? His attention snapped back to his opponent with a precision he rarely managed to muster, readying for her reaction.
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What he had not expected was the manifestation of - what did Eduardo Hisakawa call Telly? An Iron Boulder? One of those weird robot-looking things that Beau still felt would have been more appropriate to run across in an auto shop than in the wild. He threw his arm up, beckoning to Atlas, because fuck all if he was going to be able to make a dent in the thing, but the metallic monster moved faster than the Ultra Beast.
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The light arced forward, tearing the earth beneath it.
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The light blazed with white-hot intensity, and Atlas staggered backward, recoiling, dropping his fallen prize.
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Beau gaped, following the trajectory of the attack as it kept going, and kept going, and suddenly there was a pair of girls in the way.
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Then one of them was down, spreading crimson, and the other shrieked, and the woman screamed, and Beau roared, too little, too late.
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This was his fault.
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If he'd gone through five minutes earlier, it would have been alright. If he'd taken a different street to move into Mossdeep on, the girl wouldn't have lost her arm. Hell, if he'd been stronger, he could have ended this confrontation before it reached this point.
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A thrumming buzz heralded Atlas charging forward at the Iron Boulder, a SUPERPOWER among insects.
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It was enough to make him turn.
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To stare at the woman.
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To feel the hatred welling up from his gut, like fire, like arsenic. Poisonous, burning, and unstoppable. His eyes blazed as he stared at this woman, and for the first time in his life, he welcomed this hatred. The girls had nothing to do with this. Small miracle if one of them didn't die.
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He couldn't save her, didn't have the skill for something that serious. But he could pay back her attacker in kind.
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No witty quips. No questioning. No proselytizing.
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He clenched his fists so hard his knuckles cracked on their own, and he charged her.

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Though Beau himself was occupied in a physical struggle that he was unable to achieve the upper hand on, his Tinkaton had no such compunctions. Blow after blow was traded with the sharp clang of steel on steel, the dull impact of fists and legs and, underlying it all, the telltale rose-hued film that hung in the air punctuating her attacks.
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When the Kingambit pulled backward to unleash another attack, Millie giggled and twirled her hammer, curtseying coquettishly. "You're pretty strong for a total moron!" Imitation, it was said, was the sincerest form of FLATTERY, and while the Tinkaton's attempt was anything but sincere, it did manage to avoid putting her in harm's way of the stymied Sucker Punch.
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Beau, momentarily distracted as he chanced a look at the dueling pokemon, was summarily removed from his position as the other man delivered a vicious kick that sent him sprawling, the armored leg extending to hold him at bay and block him as the other reached for the weapon that would determine the outcome of this confrontation in mere moments.
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"No way, brah," Beau panted, "Get the hell back here." He gripped the man's ankle and tried to shove the booted foot from his chest, but the other was already rising. Fuck.
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He didn't have a hammer, or a weapon, or really anything that could stand up to a man in full armor with an implement he could easily cave Beau's head in with. He was desperate - and at least he could reason that desperation might forgive a little rule-bending, because certainly Rocket wasn't liable to play by the same.
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His arm whipped out, and the Swampert appeared in another flare of light. "The hammer!" he hollered.
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Nemo cast a bewildered glance around before setting eyes on Grigori's prize. With a low cry of acknowledgement, he slammed his front legs into the ground, creating a crazily zig-zagging series of cracks that emanated forward, spreading and growing larger as they raced forward. He only had time on his hands, and Beau, so far from being able to reach the stoic man in time, had to hope that the hammer would drop into the abyss before it dropped on him.

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Damn it, he couldn't get any ground. The redhead was smaller than him, sure - most people were - but she hit with purpose, like she knew just where to aim her strikes to take him down. The elbow to his abdomen winded him, and he retaliated with a broad swing that she easily evaded, following up with a bruising strike to his side that sent him staggering, followed by another in exactly the same place, and dammit, if she kept that up he was going to be down a rib or three.
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He was sick of being out of his depth, of his weaknesses being so glaring - and he had plenty of them, to be sure. He couldn't hit the ground, though, couldn't lose here, not when so much was at stake. He'd seen what Rocket was capable of throughout the past several years, and it seemed that the longer they were allowed to operate, the more bold and ruthless they became.
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If they couldn't be stopped now, here, they never would be.
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Dizzy from trying to keep up with his liquid spitfire of an opponent - or maybe he was just blaming it on the rush of blood to his head - he was half-bemused at the mental image of Gunner Graves flickering across his mind's eye, looking entirely out of place with a kung fu master's long white beard and mustache. "Do not begrudge your weaknesses, young Fontaine, for they are your only opportunity to grow stronger." Kung-fu-Gunner's serene demeanor was broken as he cast a dry, deadpan look at Beau in his mind's eye, supplementing: "Shut up and be serious, you lummox, you have a job to do."
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Chastised from his reverie, Beau dug his feet into the dusty pavement underfoot, shaking the disorientation from his head with a sharp movement before squaring up once more, offering Parker a mirthless, toothy grin. For once, when it counted, he wasn't going to back down.
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The woman's sudden outburst at their pokemon was for good reason: Atlas had the Ceruledge in a firm grip, and though the smaller pokemon flared and writhed, smokelike, she could not escape the implacable grasp of the Ultra Beast. With a thrumming reverberation that buzzed Beau's teeth in his jaw, the larger pokemon lunged forward, burying its stinger-like proboscis in the Ghost-type's neck, and siphoned.
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It was violet flame as much as it was brazen battle-lust and wild, untamed unpredictability. The energy transferred from one pokemon to the other, and as the movements of the smaller grew increasingly weaker, the larger stood taller, broader, surging with strength as its injuries mended.
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Beau, for himself, settled on dashing forward with a powerful uppercut, roaring, "Where are you looking?!"

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