Kepler’s mouth opened and closed again, completely in shock. “A-- better person?” he parroted, unbelieving. “You-- you’re already a good person. You’re a great person.”

The math was totally not adding up. How could the addition of Kepler to any situation make anything better? if anything, his presence was a subtraction. the figures didn’t fit and, like with every problem begging to be solved, he turned them over and over again in his head until they worried a raw spot in his brain.

but… some parasites do reach symbiosis with their hosts.

still.

He has this horrible feeling that he’s introducing rot into the wound, a sickness into the hive. Ash is so real and good and-- and already planning on rewriting his entire life for Kepler.

he squeezes Ash’s hand when their fingers come together. the panic makes him honest.

"i’m scared, ash. what if i-- what if i’m bad for you?”

Ashley Shepard

☉

The science was contradictory-- or maybe just assumatory. For the longest time it was imagined only warm-blooded creatures could survive in harsh environments because of their warm-bloodedness. But it was, intrinsically, an overtly vertebrate focused concept. In fact some of the best survivors on the planet didn’t have blood at all.

But that was a digression.

“Ideally, a blood sample, a toxin sample, and I’d like to take a radiograph of the… weapon system, in the thorax.”

There were a thousand tests he wanted to run. A million things he wanted to measure. But he’d start there.

THEO BECKETT
googles 'can you xray a bug'

☉

[attr="class","top"]

Kepler was not a big believer in weaponry besides his Pokemon. His rabbit was an accomplished MMA fighter and spat fire. Why would he need a gun or a bat?

"You’re right. Ghosts don’t exist.” Scientifically speaking, of course. Kepler’d dabbled in the supernatural, however briefly. It hadn’t panned out. “Except these ghosts,” he added, and Phobos and Deimos chose that moment to appear in twin flashes of light, the Misdreavus cackling wildly and spinning one direction, the Drifloon silent and spinning the other.

"So there’s nothing to be scared of,” he said, over his Pokemon’s mocking laughter, as the two little spirits split off to go investigate on their own. "There. Now we have a logical explanation for weird noises and things.”

True to form, the lab came to life with distant clanking, honking, and faraway giggles. To Kepler, it was comforting. Like being back on the sub.

The walls were tall panels of metal that, had there been light, would have reflected altered versions of themselves back at them. The ceiling above came to a point. Kepler squinted at the directional signs until he found the one that said ‘SYSTEMS’. The doors were designed so as to almost be invisible same for the small seam in the wall and the keypad.

He waited for Ruby to catch up and buzzed the keycard. The lock clicked but nothing happened. He frowned, and did it again. Again, there was a click, and nothing.

"Goddammnit.” He slapped the keycard to the reader and at the same time the intercom buzzed, pitching up until it was a warbly, staticked shriek:

GO AWAY!

Ruby Garcia
set just pre-PAAA
wearing

Kep nodded at Zilla’s assent and then nodded again at Hagakure. The blade slipped into the darkness of the floor, slithering and expanding under the door.

Once the beam of light passed, she dashed across the floor, under the lense (her dark form refracting in the lense panes). She slid up and rematerialized just as the Ampharos finished three-quarters of a turn.

Hagakure struck the Ampharos. The fresnel lens lit up red with light streaming through a film of blood. Kepler chose then to open the door and enter the room; the Ampharos cried out weakly and there was a strange humming noise. Static shot up his arms and Hagakure pitched upwards, drawn by the magnetic change in the air.

The Ampharos lurched sideways, down but not yet out, and the flashing, though weakened, took on a specific pattern: dot dot dot, dash dash dash, dot dot dot

Zilla Dumay
MISSION
ampharos used magnet flux

☉

“No,” he says, instantaneous. “There’s a lot of unreasonable but very real shit out there.”

Like healthcare costs. And taxes. And going to the meteor to mine it before it destroys their entire dimension. Real, somehow. Very unreasonable.

“I’m too smart to appreciate things for what they are,” he said, flatly, head lolling to one shoulder, “and I thought you were, too.” Because there’s always extraneous factors. For every light there is shadow. The energy of a system is equal and opposite to the energy of its surroundings. Every plus a minus. Every up a down.

“Life is a gradient. Warm to cold. Endergonic to exergonic. There’s always the bitter with the sweet. The downside to existentialism is the dread goes hand in hand.”

Maybe it’s closed-minded. Maybe it’s the clinical depression.

“Who’s who at this shindig?” He asked, tipping his cup towards the crowd.

Martín del Mar
we stan a genderfluid monarch

☉

“Thank god,” Kepler said, both in real relief and for the irony of it all, "for a second there I thought I was going to have to kill you.”

It’s a joke. He really couldn’t. Probably couldn’t have before Mars was all funky and super-powered but definitely couldn’t now.

His two little nightmares spin an Exeggutor around in circles until its dizzy and falling over. then they tug at its palm fronds. kepler throws a pokeball to save it further suffering.

“i don’t do any of that shit,” kepler said, a wry, forceful sort of unimpressed. “i have hashimoto’s and cardiomyopathy.” he exhaled a cloud of smoke and tapped the cigarette between his fingers to ash it in the air. "it isn’t a competition. but i’m the kind of fucked up that doesn’t come with supernatural perks.”

his gaze flashes up to mars’ face: petulant, bratty. “is that a rhetorical question?” he asked with a snort.

after a beat of silence, he added, "i think it’s just hoenn that does it, mostly.”

Martín del Mar
ghost/psychic
catch attempt exeggutor
sorry 4 tha delay

☉

he’s almost back to the MASH when the meteor shakes violently from the clash of z-moves and terastyling. he loses his footing and falls onto his stomach, only years of practice from getting knocked down stopping him from hitting his face.

covered in space dust, he rolls over in time to watch the deoxys shrink to its core. watches that core begin to float towards the edges of METENO’s latent gravity.

"that!” he shrieks, as hagakure floats to him, "grab that!”

the doublade goes to do what its been told, attempting to securely wrapt the core in its pink ribbon.

the hitting of the primal energy beams causes kepler to lose his footing AGAIN and this time he lands on his ass. in a panic he recalls hagakure (hopefully with her deoxys orb in hand) and releases Pluto once more. The Beheeyem-- instinctively more used to outerspafe shenanigans-- scoops him around the middle and splits.

Kepler is carried like an unruly child as the meteor disapparates. He makes grabby hands at the fragmented minerals as he hopes to god his many cameras record the tesselation of the Hoenn region below.

Treasure obtained, he orders Pluto to “Find Ruby Garcia!” Bracing one hand on the Beheeyem’s mantle to lift himself. Pluto does so, locating the bodyguard with an affirmative beep and flashing of green lights. It swoops down to offer a hand not falling to earth, if she needs it.

JYtGHbSR

Ruby Garcia

tl;dr
kepler's doublade attempts to grab the deoxys core
recalls doublade (hopefully w core) and switches out beheeyem
beheeyem grabs him, goes airborne
kepler tries to grab a crystal
looks to go help ruby

So in all of his endless suffering on this piece of shit rock, Kepler didn’t realize the meteor Deoxys had a fancy, special treasure-chest shaped hat on its head. He doesn’t see that part until later.

The meteor beam hits the meteor and sends up big chunks of stone shrapnel. The whole rock seems to vibrate with the power and energy being dumped into it. Kepler peeks up for two seconds and watches Andraste get caught in the beam.

It’s like a scene out of an anime. Her form turns into a silhouette and then, frame by frame, turns to dust, and disappears. It really couldn’t have taken longer than a second but he swears he’s staring into the sun for half a minute.

Missed him by the skin of his teeth. He is trying really, really hard not to piss himself, as he stares through the space-dust remnants of his Pokemon at the rapidly enlarging visage of Hoenn below. Incredibly blue, his brain supplants, helpfully.

He pushes to his feet, trembling like a leaf, and sees the ninja lady-- wait, what the fuck? “What is happening here?!” he asks no one in particular, very fucking confused at everything that has transpired. The ninja (what the fuck?) says she’s going to warp the whole kit and caboodle away.

Then everyone attacks her?

“Isn’t that what we want?” He asks-- again, no one in particular-- as something like steam, but sparklier, begins to puff up through the cracks in the mineral vein. He’s ground level and point blank and inhales a big lungful as he stumbles back, coughing and waving to clear his face.

Lulu Flint and THEO BECKETT say it’s time to fucking bail and Kepler is more than ready to get off this hell-rock. But that stupid treasure-chest-hatted Deoxys is in between him and the Mash.

He throws out his Doublade and reaches for a pouch in his spacesuit labeled SUPER DUPER EMERGENCY ONLY. He pulls out a z-crystal and crushes it against the dual-types blade as Hagakure’s surface slowly becomes crystalline.

”Flash cannon!” Kepler says, pointing at the giant, floating alien, before making a bolt for it.

qWPmiUiP

subtags for
Lulu Flint THEO BECKETT

tl;dr
Kepler's dragapult dies frowny face
brings out Doublade.
Doublade terastlylizes(?) STEEL-TYPE. Kepler uses his one Z-CRYSTAL to turn FLASH CANNON into CORKSCREW CRASH
and then runs for the space pod (so back across the meteor)
tagged a homie, interacted with deoxys, referenced the view of hoenn

i wanted to do more but brain too small
EDIT: I STILL HAD MY SALAC ROLL SORRY. TOOK THE FIRST ONE

Kepler frowns more, even as Ash tilts his head up.

“I don’t want you to have to reshape your entire life just to accommodate me,” he says, mad at himself for bringing it up. He’s mad at himself for a lot of things: mad that he’s being a problem, mad that he can’t just take this for the opportunity that it is, mad that he has to overthink it into the fucking ground.

But he is Kepler Brueshaber and thinking is what he does.

Ash’s admin crack breaks through the clouds, a bit, and he smiles.

“I have full faith in you,” he says, genuine, closing his eyes as Ash’s lips brush his forehead; when his boyfriend lays his head back, Kep rests on Ash’s chest, ear over his heart, listening to the rhythm of it. He hears it pick up and has a belated thought, looking up at Ash with a grin.

“Do I make you nervous?”

It was an almost impossible thought. Kepler Brueshaber, making someone else’s heart flutter in their chest? Inconceivable.

Ashley Shepard

☉

Maybe it’s the bluntness with which Theo speaks or maybe it’s finally seeing the thing in real life: sleek purple curves, thorax segmented like a wasp, not at all bloated or unbalanced as the depictions make it seem.

It is leagues above the shrimpy shadow Inkay Mars had shown him. And he wanted one, almighty god in heaven, he wanted one so bad, even if it killed him which it probably would.

He cleared his throat to shake himself out of his daydreaming.

“Subjective,” he says, voice gone a little breathy in awe, “subject presents with both insectoid and draconic features. Estimated weight to be roughly between one hundred and two hundred kigs. Administrator Beckett, do you know if Nagandel presents ectothermic or endothermic?” The science all pointed to ectothermic-- cold-blooded. But a lot of new science was revealing dragons with warm-blooded systems.

And, of course, evolution moved from cold to warm, as a general observation. Kepler didn’t exactly know where on the evolutionary chain Nagandel fell, though.

THEO BECKETT
let's science this bitch

☉

It’s later and they found their way back to bed. There had been multiple stops in between, for various reasons. Kepler is once again half-moon curling over Ash, legs entwined, drawing lazy circles on his boyfriend’s bare chest.

“If-- if I move in,” he says, timidly, like he’s afraid to broach the topic-- because he is, he’s very afraid, he’s terrified Ash will change his mind, take it back, laugh it off in the bell-ringing post nut clarity, “I’ll need to bring some of my equipment with me. I’d still have to work-- to do research-- here and-- I pretty much eat, sleep, and live in my lab.” He quiets for a moment, eyebrows knitting in consternation. “That’s a vast understatement. I do eat, sleep, and live in my lab.”

He pushes himself up onto his forearms to look Ash directly eye-to-eye.

“Up until you my entire life in Hoenn has been for the organization. For Rocket. I’m very, very scared that any drops in productivity will have them looking for probable causes. I don’t want to give them a reason to look. Does that make sense?”

Kepler didn’t exactly know how relationships worked in the normal world, let alone in the Rocket one. Call it anxiety, but he didn’t want to present any excuses, give them any inklings, as to what may be causing problems in his output-- and he certainly didn’t want them offering solutions. He didn’t trust them to not be amenable ones.

Ashley Shepard

☉

Kepler doesn’t know what to say. His eyes go a little hazy, limp as Ash pulls them closer together. His brain is fried. It’s trying to process what has just been professed but can’t.

Ashley maneuvers him into position and locks their eyes again, and Kepler feels like a doll with all its strings cut. But, like, in a good way. In a way that uplifts instead of falls down.

And then they’re kissing again, and it’s like he ignites. His arms come up and wrap around Ash’s neck and shoulders as he orients himself on his boyfriend’s lap, a grand impersonation of how they’d been last night. He’s more sure, now, head tilted so he could take what Ash was giving, the taste of chocolate on his lips. His kiss is his answer. It’s a resounding yes.

He breaks away for just a second to catch his breath, eyes filled with light.

“Because I sound smart?” he parrots, grin wild, lips parted. “I am smart, thank you very much.”

He punctuates his statement with a forward roll of his hips, as though to illustrate his point.

Ashley Shepard
they're going to be degens again

☉