Kepler didn’t see the Mega Swampert because he was too busy hiding. His cheek was pressed into Kiryu’s cold, steel exterior, and he was clinging tight enough to make his shoulders hurt.

It was simple physics: the wave would continue moving, be highest at its frontmost point, and everything after that would be safely low enough to breathe. Ideally, he’d be up higher-- but he didn’t really trust his climbing ability at that time.

Apparently, his gripping power was also useless because he felt himself get jerked away, and for a second, he thought he was caught in the wave; then he felt the sting where Isaac’s fingernails had clawed him on accident, felt the press and warmth of another body, and then he was looking up into the horrendous brightness of Kiryu fracturing.

“Fuck,” he whispered, a noise of awe and fear, a dual mixture of horrified and intrigued-- enough that he didn’t realize that he was embarrassingly close to Isaac again.

All of Isaac’s Pokemon rallied to the cause, and then Isaac himself stepped forward, Kepler huddling ignominiously under his arm like the rescued princess he so very much felt like.

At the last second, before the Mega Swampert could careen into Watson, Kepler remembered something. “Shit! Oort!” He fumbled with a Pokeball, before launching it out towards Watson. “Oort! Oort, use counter!”

Oort burst forward in an explosion of light, falling in front of Watson like a noble, blue buoy. He cocked one arm in the traditional manner, gave his call sign (“WAAAAH--BAH-FET!”) and took the hit like a champ, rocking backward like an inverted speed punch bag. As fast as he flopped backward, he sprung forward faster, glowing with silvery light, hitting the Mega Swampert with a retaliatory Counter twice as hard as the hit he’d just taken.

Isaac Merlo
kepler does something!
oort uses counter

☉

“I am interested,” he says, forcibly keeping his voice calm. Never buy too much into what they’re selling-- survival rule number, like, six, or something. “But it always seemed like something the big brass had a knowledge of and the rest of us found out about down the line.”

He supposed this was far enough down his line.

Then Jayden starts throwing out names and he blinks.

“I’ve only been here since, like, December,” he says, “so I wasn’t there for that. I know there were meteorites and they caused… weirdness. Interdimensional weirdness, which I would love to see the math for.” A big, gnarly, Interdream Zone hernia, where the organs push through the muscle and tissue and out into the big, wide world.

“Were they Unown assassins?” he asks. “Or, like, human assassins, with Unown. The reports never really made that clear. At least, the kind I have clearance for.”

---

wearing

jayden cross

☉

Kepler had to fight the urge to roll his eyes. It wasn’t hard, he was too focused on running, on forward motion, which was difficult enough because he was really out of shape. I hardly think throwing a chicken at someone constitutes kicking ass, he wanted to say, but he didn’t have the breath.

“Not-- used to-- this much action,” he panted.

Isaac’s team worked like magic, chaos and order, like how humankind would be if they ever got around to managing entropy. Compared to them, his Pokemon were like children, Deimos appearing randomly in front of cultists to scare the daylights out of them, then dissolving into cackling laughter, rolling in the air; Gaia continued to scratch and claw the scalp of the cultist she was attached to; Mercury was the most successful, zipping here and there to deliver bone-shattering kicks to shins and guts.

Isaac was still talking, but Kepler could barely hear anything over the rush of his pulse in his veins-- then the bunker cracked, like lightning, and he realized it wasn’t his pulse he was hearing. At least, not entirely. They paused, turned, and Kepler’s stomach dropped into his shoes; or it would have if he was wearing shoes.

His chest burned. His legs were shaking.

Stand and fight?!

“Are you crazy?!” Kepler yelled, scrabbling to flee, he tripped and his fingers clawed the ground as he propelled himself forward on flailing, trembling legs. His logical brain had sputtered out a long time ago, not enough fuel to keep the fire burning, so now he was operating on base instinct: big wave. No breathy water good.

But there was no outrunning that tsunami of calamity.

A tendril of water lashed out and struck the cultist that Gaia was perched on, knocking the tiny Torchic off and sending her rolling to the ground-- dazed, but clear of the wave, which may have very well been deadly to the Fire-type.

Mercury skidded to a stop, staring down the deluge with wide eyes.

“Merc, run,” Kepler gasped, stopping-- why was he stopping-- to wait for his Scorbunny. Out of all of them, he was the one who maybe could have made it.

But he didn’t move.

“Fuck!” Kepler lunged, doubling back; he slapped Mercury’s Pokeball against the rabbit’s scarf, absorbing him into the safety of the sphere-- but by then, it was too late to run, so he picked the heaviest thing he could find-- which happened to be Kiryu-- and ducked down behind her, wrapping his arms around one of her legs, and holding on for dear life.

Then, from out of nowhere-- literally out of nowhere, because she appeared right in front of him-- Deimos popped up. She let loose a characteristic, bone-chilling Midsreavus screech, forehead-to-mask, in the cultist’s face, striking him with warbling waves of purple hex energy at point-blank range.

Isaac Merlo

☉

Kepler cultivates space around him like a gardener does flowers. It’s safe. It’s protection. He’s a much smaller target the further away he is. Harder to hit. More difficult to throw things at.

“Mm,” he hums, tugging a stool over and hopping up to sit on it, “how exhilarating.” He takes a sip of his drink, eyes slipping up to Jayden’s face. All he can think about is how boring plant biology was in school. Maybe someday he’ll have a better range of things to compare the world to.

He tilts his head when Jayden speaks, hunched over his coffee like a little, teal-tinged gremlin.

“I haven’t seen it, exactly,” Kepler confesses, “but I know about it.”

Not as much as he would like to, of course. One can theorize around in circles forever.

“Why?” his gaze jumps to Jayden’s phone.

What secrets do you bring me, O Keeper of them?

---

wearing

jayden cross

☉

Kepler hunched his shoulders, frowning; he was wrapped up in his flannel over the voluminous cultist robes, not to mention a nice coating of mud, to boot. He was trying to wriggle out of the robes but should have done that before he put his old clothes on. You know what they said about hindsight.

“O--kay,” he said, as he finally shucked his arms in his shirt and wrestled the cultist robes off his shoulders and to the ground, popping back out like a Squirtle out of his shell.

Mercury led the charge-- literally, with flame charge. Wreathed in golden fire he chugged straight through the closing line of cultists, who yelped and jumped aside to get out of the way. Deimos faded from view and popped up behind a Marill, scaring the ball off the poor thing and then pelting it point blank with power gem.

Gaia ran next to Kepler, who was following behind Isaac; when a cultist came too close, she bounced in the air, then landed right on the guy’s head, clawing at his face with her little talons. He shrieked as her claws shredded his mask, and he smacked himself in the face hard enough for the slap to echo.

“We’re-- almost out!” Kepler panted, one hundred percent not used to this much strenuous activity in one day but by god he was going to start working out.

Isaac Merlo

☉

Kepler’s eye fluttered open, and he realized how dizzy he was. Isaac’s arm was a comforting weight at his back and he inadvertently leaned into it, folding slightly towards the crook of his body, before realizing what he was doing and almost jumping away, like he’d been electrocuted.

“He’s my best friend,” he mumbled in response to Isaac’s compliment, feeling sheepish and turning red, and god damn it why was he still naked?!

Oh, there. He took the robe and slid into it, only wincing slightly at the smell of sweat and slight dampness. “Thanks,” he said, cinching it around his waist. Then he reached up and wrapped his long, pale fingers around Isaac’s hand, accepting the hoist up; from the corner of his eye he saw Mercury darting between downed bodies and sacks of loot and goods, rifling through belongings in search of his stuff.

Instinctively, Kepler wrapped his arms around Isaac’s waist and buried his face in his back.

The bunker shattering sounded like a building coming down and Kep squeezed.The impact from the fall never came, only a gentle jostling as the Aggron touched the ground and lowered onto its front legs to get them closer to the ground.

Kepler opened one eye and peeked around Isaac, before realizing, again, what he was doing and letting go. He tumbled backwards off of Kiryu and landed on his back in the mud and ice with a pained grunt, knocking the wind from him.

Mercury appeared over him as he blinked up, clearing the stars from his eyes. The Raboot helpfully tossed Kepler’s raggedy flannel and jeans over his head, obscuring his vision.

“God damn it,” he muttered as he flailed around for a bit, trying to get the fabric off his head and struggling to stand at the same time. He slipped a bit in the mud but managed to tug the flannel on-- over the robe, which was warm, if not ridiculous, and he discarded the jeans entirely.

“Let’s blow this popsicle stand,” he said, voice wavering only slightly, as he slung his belt over his shoulder like a bandolier. He gave two Pokeballs a toss and out popped his Torchic and Misdreavus, Deimos and Gaia.

He looked up at Isaac for direction.

Isaac Merlo

☉

Kepler is tired, so very tired, and he wants to curl up into a tiny ball and sleep forever, like he used to when the kids back in Alamos would beat him up after class. A headache is bursting behind his temples and he has to rub at his crusty eyelids to wipe away the blur. He drearily follows his rescuer’s pointed finger towards the Cubone deftly dealing with their party of attackers.

There was a rhythmic banging noise that Kepler realized was a small army of angry Drednaw bombarding their shield and not, in fact, his own pulse partying in his cranium. So as much as he wanted to lay here and be pathetic he couldn’t. His savior was talking to him and he had to focus. He still didn’t stand up, even as shivers wracked his mostly-naked body and the mud adhered to his skin began to harden and itch.

“I don’t--,” he started, voice hoarse, brain working on autopilot; it shut off while his visual recognition watched the Dhelmise anchor sinking towards them. With a frustrated grunt, he squeezed his eyes shut, willing his stupid brain to work. “Malamar!” he yells, squeezing his fists, “they had a Malamar mask.” But I’ll do you one better, the thinks, rocking forward onto his feet and jumping up out of the mud (this is going to chafe so horribly when it dries) to grab onto the Dhelmise’s anchor.

Briefly thankful they don’t actually have to climb, Kepler rides to the top of their fracturing ice fortress; at the pinnacle of the fragmenting wall, he cups his hands around his mouth, and screams:

“MERCURY!”

It’s loud (and shrill) enough to overcome the sound of combat, and so startling, that everything quiets for one second, two. Then there’s the lightburst sound of a Pokeball releasing and the smell of burning-- it smells so good after all this water and mud, smells clean-- and his Scorbunny is zipping a hot trail around the ice wall, leaving red-hot footprints in his wake.

Except Merc isn’t a Scorbunny. Not anymore.

The newly-evolved Raboot aims a devastating double kick right into the line of Drednaw-- one blow, a spin, then the other-- the shockwave knocking the first into the next, and over and over and over again, until the whole line has been knocked off-kilter.

Merc speeds back over to look up at Kepler.

“My clothes, Merc!” he yells, trying to keep the relief out of his voice. “My belt!”

Mercury salutes, and dashes away, dodging in and out of cultists and their Pokemon. It’s a brief victory, but Kepler loses him in the fray, legs sagging under the stress and weight of brief solace, and he doesn’t realize when he’s tipping backwards off the anchor.

Isaac Merlo

☉

Chin in the dirt, mouth full of mud, Kepler was keen on laying there and dying. It seemed like a fitting end to his pathetic life-- and he’d never been one for fighting, so why start now?

Someone jerked back on his restraints and he yelled in pain as his shoulders rotated in a way they were not supposed to-- the rotator cuff is made up of four muscles, his Anatomy & Physiology professor rattled off in his head, supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis. He was pulled up and back, as fingers roughly gripped his hair and yanked on his scalp, baring the pale column of his neck for the individual in front of him who, he realized, now had a knife.

Cool, he thought, as the panic mingled with the pain and filled his body. This was super cool.

His wet hair clung to the sweaty dampness of his forehead, impeding some of his vision; he was sure his breathing was coming in ragged, half-sobbing gasps. He was scared. Wait, was he scared?

Then everything hit the fan and the next thing Kepler knew he was falling forward, face in the mud again. He groaned into the earth, so very not used to this kind of abuse; the ground rumbled against his skin as a crown of rock sprung up around him and his would-be assailant. Then the air became exceedingly cold and what Kepler thought was his eardrum bursting was actually a wall of ice going up around them.

The blonde cultist who was supposed to kill him was a stranger, but a helpful one, who began working at the ties around Kepler’s wrists. His shoulders screamed for mercy and his face hurt, too. “I-if only we had a knife,” he coughed, pushing himself up on his forehead to give him enough space to make smartass comments. His wrists were petite, if not skeletal, and he was soon free, rolling over onto his back and exhaling through clenched teeth as his shoulders made horrible cracking noises settling back into place.

Now he just wanted to lay on the ground in the mud and do nothing until this was all over, but a well-placed attack of something hit their Fortress of Solitude hard enough for it to crack, sending frigid chips of ice scattering across his face.

“If we find the asshole who has my Pokemon, I can help,” he finally said, sitting up-- there was a wet squelching sound as his back disconnected from the mud that had formed around his shape-- and rubbing his arms to fight off the shivers.

Isaac Merlo

☉

Kepler shivered, even in the summer heat. He was waaaay out of his comfort zone-- he knew it, his captors knew it, hell, most of the Hoennien countryside probably knew it, by this point, given how much he’d screamed. Him being so out of his depth was probably why he’d gotten captured in the first place.

He’d just been trying to collect some weather balloons and take some readings when he’d accidentally stumbled into this freakish little slumber party. They’d outnumbered him and then sicced their Ludicolo on him in a five-to-one teeter dance pounding that left him dizzy and disoriented. He was still seeing stars from it almost two hours later. Anyway, they’d stripped him down to his skivvies and tied him to a tree and left him there while they went off and did their campfire songs and whatever the hell else it was cultists did.

He figured himself pretty much abandoned and left for dead when three of the cultists came back and tipped a huuuuge pot of water over his head-- enough that he was left gasping for air. Cool, now he was half-naked and looked like a drowned rat. Beautiful.

He didn’t have a lot of time to ruminate on it because he was jerked out of the mud and led forward on a tether attached around his bound wrists. He slipped and stumbled in the mud before he found his footing-- just in time to be led out amongst the dancers and their star-shape.

Okay, it was becoming pretty clear that he was to be used as some sort of scrawny, human sacrifice, as one cultist forcibly painted lines on his cheeks and forehead and around his eyes, and another forced him to his knees in the middle of the star. They looped his leash around his neck and kicked him in the back, sending him grunting to the ground, before retreating and rejoining the dance.

Isaac Merlo

☉

Listen, that was how rabbits worked: they froze, then they ran.

Kepler cursed as his tailbone jolted off the floor of the hallway for a third-or-fourth time, honestly, he’d lost count and he hurt. This was a lot more action than he normally saw in one day.

Eventually Mercury skid to a stop, pawpads dragging a burnt, black line into the hallway. The Scorbunny tilted forward, panting slightly, still clinging to both grunts by the back of their shirts.

Kepler winced and stood up, then bent over, grasping at the bruises surely forming along the side of his body.

“I have,” he panted, “an idea. It’s kind of… a long shot. But… I think it’s the only shot we have.”

He stood up, closing his eyes and then opening them again because all he saw when they were shut was that eldritch horror writhing against his eyelids. With shaking fingers he released Venus, his Golett.

“To take down a ghost… you need… a ghost,” he said, straightening his back with a powerful crack and leaning on his forearm on the wall. And lucky for them, he had the friendliest ghost in the world right at his disposal.

“Venus,” he said, jerking a thumb weakly in the direction they’d run in, “go make a friend.”

The little Automaton saluted, then turned and stomped away, heading towards the eldritch abomination they’d run from, her heavy footfalls echoing along the hall.

Rico Bassanello

☉