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Orson ran ahead, eyes narrowed as he sharply scanned the surroundings for potential threats. Beau took a much more leisurely pace behind the little ursine pokemon, hands in his pockets as he watched the little guy with a small grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
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It had only been a few weeks since Beau and Torben had found the little guy, shivering in the snow, and Beau couldn't help but marvel at exactly how far the cub had come since they'd essentially had to nurse him back to health. Where once Beau hadn't been sure Orson would make it through the night, now the Kubfu was alert, focused, as though he were trying to prove himself.
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Beau shook his head slightly; the fella didn't have to prove anything. He was already part of the family.
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A disturbance in the water caught Orson's focus, a splash preceding a Mareanie surfacing from the depths, launching a SPIKE CANNON against the small bear. With a high-pitched cry, Orson DETECTED the incoming attack, dodging each of the poison-pointed missiles as he weaved toward the Water-type. Leaping high into the air, the Kubfu retaliated with an AERIAL ACE, lashing out at the Mareanie and sending it skidding across the sand.
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Letting out a whoop, Beau chucked a pokeball at the Mareanie before jogging over to Orson, fistbumping the smaller pokemon. "Heck yeah, brah, that's how you do it!"

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He shouldn't have felt good. He shouldn't have felt the palpable relief that threatened to sweep him off his feet as he watched Okidogi lose control of the Cornerstone Mask and become literally crushed by the weight of its own ambitions. He did, though, a tiny thrill, a shred of victory after time-condensed days of labor, humiliation, exhaustion, and pain.
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The next wave of mochi bursting into netlike chains caused him to retch, the accumulated illness of repeated exposure to the chains throughout April rearing its head against him once more, but between his attempts to shred the chains apart and Nemo's bulky frame assisting, they soon littered the floor around him in pieces.
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Then they crashed, and everything littered the floor around him in pieces. Coughing, he pulled himself free of the debris, his ears ringing, and looked around frantically. Eduardo Hisakawa was there, leaning on Other-Beau, but Nemo? Where was his Swampert? A weary exhale left him as he saw the amphibian emerge, battered and devoid of his Mega Evolution, but alive.
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The politics and machinations of these aliens were beyond him - he had little context and even less understanding of what had transpired and had yet to transpire, but he knew that if the Pecharunt were allowed to attack once more, they'd be in the same boat all over again.
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Then Cyllora's anger turned into bargaining, a desperate, manic proposal. They were all of them worn down by the experience, but what was the right call? Being sent home, away from this mess, sounded like a dream to him, but if left unchecked, would they just be setting themselves up for a worse crisis when the Megalopolans got a new ship?
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No. Beau moved toward Eddie and his Tauros, his free arm raising to rest his hand on the other man's shoulder. "Let's just get outta here. There's been enough. It's enough."
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The beach at Slateport was fine, really, but in Beau's opinion it didn't hold a candle to the sands of Dewford. In Dewford, at the right time of day, you could lose yourself to the golden sands, the surrounding islands, and the sheer vastness of the sea. For him, it always managed to put in perspective how huge and incredible the world was, and how little he and his problems were in comparison. But not, like, in a depressing way, brah.
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Slateport was completely different, and he'd put money on the idea that this had been completely manmade at some point, an attraction built to suck tourists in instead of a natural wonder to be appreciated.
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Still, sand was sand, and he'd take what he could get right now. He couldn't in good conscience truly play hooky from the preparations on the horizon, however, so he figured training was substantial enough to justify his time there, and make it at least somewhat 'worthwhile'.
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So he'd let Orson out, the little Kubfu trotting eagerly on the beach. Beau hefted his Tera Orb experimentally; he wasn't sure how the thing worked, so he held it out toward the small bear and scrunched his eyes shut, willing something to happen. Fortunately, it did, and umber-hued light sparkled around Orson as he Terastalized into the Ground-type.
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Ground versus water wasn't a great matchup, so Beau figured this would be an adequate test of Orson's abilities. "Hit 'em first and you won't get hit, brah," he grinned widely.

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"I get that," Beau commiserated, tapping his bottle amiably against Eddie's mug before joining the man in another drink. "No rest for the weary. What do they say? 'I'll sleep when I'm dead'?"
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He gave a tired, rueful little chuckle, then managed to perk up at Eddie's mention of Dewford, expression brightening. This, he could talk about. "Oh, hell yeah, brah, I'm not lettin' you get out of that one!" he grinned. "We c'n bring Chaos down with us, maybe a cooler, some burgers..."
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He trailed off momentarily, brow furrowed in thought as he considered the logistics of an afternoon of shirking doom and gloom for whitecaps and sun. "You've got my number, brah, hit me up and I'll show you a good time!" A little levity, something to look forward to, was enough to lift his spirits and get him backed up, at least a step or two, from the yawning dread that their conversation had had him circling.
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He nudged Eddie playfully with his shoulder, offering a sly wink. "We c'n call it training, maybe you can block off some time for it. Poke our heads in a cave, make sure nothin's coming down around us, that's us doing our job, yeah?" Okay, maybe he needed this a little more than he thought he did. "Then we can go back to buffing up and showin' these Rocket assholes what they're dealin' with."

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'Perceptive' was never the first adjective to be applied to Beau - nor the second, or fiftieth, really - but even he cast a long, searching look at his friend when Eddie's gaze dropped down. "Yeah, alright," he allowed, as the bartender took his empty and replaced it with a fresh, cold bottle. That was it, then - he'd just have to make sure that while he made it through, and jack wainwright, and klaus anchoret, and Gunner Graves, that Eddie would be with them. That when everything was said and done, they could go back to normal, everyday problems.
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He thumped Eddie on the back good-naturedly before reaching to inaugurate his new beer, crisp and refreshing compared to the lukewarm flatness of the previous dregs. "No, you're right. We can't - I can't - let this get us down. It's gonna happen anyway, an' curlin' up ain't gonna help anybody."
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He toyed with his bottle, leaning his chin on his fist and observing the swirling liquid. "We do this thing, we're gonna win. Gonna show them that scare tactics ain't gonna get 'em far." He raised his eyebrows, possibly a little too relaxed, by this point, and glanced at his drinking partner. "So let's make it to the other side of this thing, yeah? The Rangers have been pickin' up steam, it's upside-down out there compared to what we're used to. What about you? Where you stationed these days, what do they have you doin'?"

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Beau's solemn features at the other man's assessment of the situation gave way to a nervous smile as Eddie nudged him. He reached up to rub the back of his head out of habit, giving a little shrug. "I mean, yeah, yeah I have," he replied. "I miss surfing. I miss runnin' my little gym in Slateport, used to be all I had to worry about was orderin' enough protein powder an' makin' sure I could make rent, y'know?"
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He sighed, deflating in his seat a little. "Now I worry about gettin' lifted off into the afterlife or eaten by rock monsters where the League is sendin' us, or Rocket decidin' they've had enough one day and just nuking the whole region, city by city. One o' those assholes has that huge light-eating demon-lookin' thing, and that's just one of them."
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He rubbed his eyes tiredly, and his smile was more rueful. "They got weapons. We got weapons. It's not gonna be pretty on either side, feel me? I could go back home and pretend nothin's happening, but I'm not gonna stand by and let people say I didn't do anything. The hell do you do against stuff like that, though, y'know?"
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He finished his beer off in a few gulps, setting the bottle back down and signaling for another. "You gotta get stronger," he answered himself. "We gotta get stronger, 'cuz I gotta tell you, Eddie," he leaned in, conspiratorial. "If I'm gettin' through my shit to stand up to 'em, an' you're ready to fight, I ain't letting you go down."
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He was stern, probably the most serious he'd been in two years. "We fight. We win. We make sure people's kids don't ever deal with what we're having to deal with. You get me?"

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Beau offered a soft laugh in response, but it was empty, and didn't even make it to his eyes. "Yeah, I guess," he grunted amiably, snatching a piece of sashimi. "Can't let the bad guys win, but these are bad guys, brah."
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It was just too bleak. He'd made not only a career but a life out of being able to see the silver lining, but there was no ray of sunshine parting the clouds on the horizon. "They, uh," he began slowly, "They don't care about pokemon or about people, not when it comes to what they want. If they do to us what they did to Kanto, that's all she wrote, we're done."
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He took a long swig of his beer, grimacing. "I'd say they didn't have a chance, but they own Sootopolis already, an' what can the League do about that? Nothin', I guess. Navy said there was even a skirmish out by Dewford at one point, so 's not like anywhere's safe. We got the deck stacked against us."
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The morose train of thought wasn't doing him any favors, and he found his mind wandering to the RKS Simulation from months past, where he'd gotten a taste of what the other side was like. His beer threatened to come back up as he considered it; did he feel like he had anything to worry about, with the power of a totalitarian force behind him? No, but he couldn't achieve that at the expense of propagating others' fear.
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"Fuck 'em," he spat, his bottle landing on the table with more force than necessary. "They don't get to have us too. What about you?" he glanced back up at his friend. "You gonna fight? You think we have a shot?"

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It had been a long few days of work, smelting metal and moving supplies and crossing paths with a number of people Beau had only heard of, or hadn't, in some cases. The little dive he'd chosen to spend the evening at wasn't far from the warehouse, and while a sizeable array of sushi and a few ice-cold beers were normally the ticket to a relaxing end to his day, he wasn't feeling especially mirthful.
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The air had been thick with (mostly) unspoken tension, and while Beau was normally inclined to wear a pervasive smile and otherwise operate by the seat of his pants as problems came up, he couldn't help but turn introspective. They said war was coming, that the conflict between the League and Rocket was nearing a head. So far, Beau had managed to avoid too much direct conflict with the terrorist organization, instead settling for keeping the natural and unnatural hazards of Dewford tamped down as best as he could, and undertaking Ranger missions to do his best to keep the pokemon, ecosystems, and civilians of Hoenn safe where he could.
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Now, though, it looked like he'd have to properly make a choice. "No getting out of this, brah, huh?" he inquired of his drinking partner, glancing to Eduardo Hisakawa with a searching look. "What do you make of this whole situation?"

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Beau's eyes widened as Eduardo Hisakawa took a closer look at him and began to approach. "No, brah, what are you- I'm fine, we gotta kick their ass or they're gonna-"
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His protests fell on deaf ears as Eddie shucked his uniform top and fashioned a rudimentary sling. Yeah, his arm hurt like hell as it got maneuvered into position, but he shook his head at the other man's single-minded stubbornness, offering him a rueful grin. "Now we're talkin'," he agreed, jerking his head up to the ruined ceiling of the enclosure. "Now can we kick their ass?"
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Almost in response to his plaintive challenge, the marionette-strung Megalopolan descended, followed by their three wardens, significantly larger and significantly more...well, masked, than the last time he'd seen them. He grinned a little, not necessarily letting Cyllora's tirade sink in but instead basking in the momentary satisfaction of their group having caused her even a fraction of the consternation and upset she'd caused them.
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Then the weird nut-looking thing holding her up opened and spit mochi at everyone, and Beau flinched back, Nemo lunging in front of him to block a few of the sweet confections from bursting against him. "I knew those things were no good, I flippin' knew it, dude!" He turned his attention to Okidogi, the enormous gray mask gazing impassively back down at them. "Gettin' bigger didn't improve your looks any, brah, but the mask sure helps!" he yelled up at his former captor.
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As the petals swirled forth and Eddie whooped in excitement, Beau shot him a conspiratorial grin and swung his uninjured arm forward with a "Hell yeah!", sending Nemo launching toward Okidogi with a roar, lashing out to vent his OUTRAGE.
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