A flash of light illuminates the tunnels from behind Xenon as she runs, it seems like they had decided to stay behind and fight like idiots, or at least one of them had as she hears a second set of pounding footsteps behind her. Or maybe that was just the swarm rushing right over them to rip her apart. She didn't bother to look behind her and find out, either way she just needed to keep running faster, that's all she could do in the face of overwhelming death, she had too much experience running away from certain death, but that experience didn't matter, nothing in the past did, nothing mattered-
[break][break]
Maybe she's still too oxygen deprived, she's panting and gasping like a newborn Blitzle taking its first steps as she blindly runs through the tunnels, she has no idea which way is out, only brief flashes of fire and dark energy keeping her from running face first into a rock wall. She didn't know these caves, the Durants did. There's two tunnels in front of her, one to the left and one to the right. Her first instinct is to move to the left, her life flashes before her eyes as she runs straight first into yet another stream of Durant ready to tear her limb from limb. Fuck. Shit. Is this really how's she's gonna go? Getting torn the fuck apart in an alternate dimension by a bunch of metal ants?
[break][break]
...well, it's better than suffocating at least.
[break][break]
Suddenly, a clawed hand grabs her from behind and throws her back. Promethium. The Cacturne. She had no idea how the fuck he found her in this darkness, but it doesn't matter. It lets out a chilling roar as it points down to the other tunnel, already fighting back the horde as it fires off an Energy Ball into the swarm trying to keep them back, her hand twitches towards his Pokeball to return him, but another defiant roar stops her. She needs to go, now. He's sacrificing his life to give her the gift of fire, pointing her to the light at the end of the tunnel and the freedom that awaits. It was his namesake after all.
[break][break]
Would you consider her cold if I told you that she didn't even give it a second thought as she scrambled to her feet and abandoned her partner to his fate? That's simply how the Ultramodernist is. His sacrifice paves the way to the future, if the tables were turned and she needed to kill herself to cement her ideals than she would do it without hesitation. So as Xenon screams at the duo to follow her down through the tunnel, up to the surface, bursting out into the light and escaping the Durant colony, she doesn't mourn Promethium and his sacrifice. He takes down as many as he can before he activates the Destiny Bond, taking out just one more Durant before they tear his body asunder in a feral frenzy.
[break][break]
CXWNFlXf
[break][break]

+ Ultra Desert #2[break]
Gerald Kaiser Frank Caffey

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

It feels like they walk for hours through the darkness, there's no way to know how long this goes as she puts one foot in front of the other into the abyss. The only way she knows she's moving is that stopping means Gerald would move on ahead, otherwise she might as well just be walking in place as they trudge further into the depths of the unknown.
[break][break]
Unknown. Unnown. Unown. Unblinking white eyes stare into her soul one by one, the alien voices scream back to life as her body is picked up and thrown like a ragdoll, pinned to the surface by an invisible hand that threatens to crush the life from her body as it screams of running. Or was that her screaming? The letters combine into an indecipherable lexicon of babel within her mind, choice words picked out as she finds herself dropping back to the floor and running, running as fast as she can, as hard as she can, running running running runningrunningrunningrunningrunning-
[break][break]

+Gerald Kaiser

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

The beam of Night Shade dents the ground where he was just standing, a testament to the sheer power her Gengar was packing to leave such a mark in a facility designed to take this kind of punishment with nary a scratch. Even as she chased the future and the potential of the Ultramodern Paradoxes as she had coined, still the shadow of her past remains her strongest card. Not that she would ever acknowledge such a contradiction to her personal philosophy, not in any kind of future she could possibly imagine.
[break][break]
Pointed stones dig into the Infernape's body with ruthless precision, doing their best to draw blood before the first blow can even be thrown and doing a fairly good job of scraping the monkey's skin up. Just enough to soften it up for the next attack, her Scolipede crashing into the raging primate's Flare Blitz with all the strength of a freight train. The clash between forces creates a shockwave that blows away the smoke ever so briefly, creating just a small window for Gerald to see where the next attack was coming from, a third Pokemon making its way towards the man with no mercy. The miscolored Metagross looks oddly cheerful as its four arms hum into action, throwing a combo of Thunder Punches and Ice Punches at him to force him on the backfoot once more.
[break][break]
Except, no, that wasn't quite right. A trained eye could easily tell the Metagross was taking it easy on him, giving him enough room to summon yet another Pokemon to take it on. And the Gengar from earlier hadn't fired another Night Shade since the first. The point of the exercise becomes abundantly clear with even a iota of brainpower dedicated to it, this was training on multi Pokemon battling, Xenon's specialty. Coordination between upwards of three Pokemon at once, fighting wars on multiple fronts until one point of attack eventually made it through. It was just her style, a relentless offense that gave you no time to breathe or think, waiting for you to falter at one point and then focusing all her strength on that to break the opponent in a matter of milliseconds.
[break][break]

"Now, let the battle begin!"

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+ - Gerald Kaiser

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

Perhaps it's bad luck that Indium would occupy so much of Argon's attention, or maybe it's good luck that Cobalt would end up running off into the forest, wandering into the woods to find some kind of adventure to quell her boredom. The Eevee bounds up and down over fallen trees and through thick shrubbery, crawling through to find something interesting or perhaps something tasty, she reflects her partner in many ways even without Xenon knowing.
[break][break]
A rustle in the bushes near Tsubaki would assuredly attract her attention, a curious Eevee emerging from the green and approaching the girl and her Gengar with intrepid curiousity, comparing the shadow to that of her partner's with an appraising eye. The coloration was slightly off, or maybe her partner's Gengar was the one with the strange coloration, but they were certainly different in a way that she needed to compare side by side. The little fox yips as it circles Tsubaki and the Gengar twice, trying to get them to follow her as she starts to lead them back to camp. They certainly didn't have anywhere else to go at the moment, why not follow?
[break][break]
And as they approach, the sounds of faint cursing and screaming would ring true as Xenon continues to try and fail in setting up the most basic of tents in her little campsite clearing, Radon's insect antennae twitching as it turns its gaze over to Tsubaki with a cautious eye. Even if Xenon hadn't noticed her yet, the rest of her entourage certainly had.
[break][break]

+ Hyakkaryōran Tsubaki

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

His stance briefly annoys her, the way he moves reminds her of a primitive, but she pushes down the emotion and focuses the anger on what she came here for. Come at him with the intent to kill huh? That's no problem for her, either he would live and teach her a valuable lesson, or he would die and he wasn't even worth the time she had spent to come here.
[break][break]
There's only one rule set in stone, but there's surely some set of unspoken rules that goes along with the atmosphere that he's set, the expectations he has, this was meant to be a brawl between two beasts and their claws and teeth. But Xenon is an ultramodern woman born of an ultramodern society. Beasts and primitives fight with fangs and claws to tear each other's throats out, she fought in a civilized manner.
[break][break]
She didn't bring her sword with her today, but she always had a knife on her person stored at the side of her boot. Xenon held no qualms bending down and pulling the blade from its holding place with one sharp movement, madness meets madness as she ups the ante before the game has even begun. "No pokemon."
[break][break]
And then she's off like a bullet. The knife in her hand is 11 inches in length, only 7 of which are actual steel cutting power, but that's more than enough to extend her range of attack by quite a bit as she moves in low and sweeps for his face, his eyes specifically. She stops just out of reach of his longer arms and dances around him, striking with shallow cuts to test his range of motion before she fully commits to a plan of attack. It's only the opening move after all, to blow your load so soon would just be disappointing.
[break][break]

+ Tempest Quinn

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

She saw right through her of course, even if she never outright said it, it was clear she was the culprit behind it all. Maybe she could've played the innocent victim, tried to deflect the blame and just claim to be an innocent civilian asking questions. But she wanted to get to the meat of the matter, she wanted to Understand just what drove fools to risk life and limb for no reason at all, even if she could never really understand the perspective of someone other than herself.
[break][break]
"But why do you care about those people in the first place?" The questions continue heedless of the threats thrown about her way. "You don't know any of those people. They're all weak, none of them have anything to offer you. If they truly had any value they wouldn't need saving in the first place, they would be strong enough that they could save themselves. What's the purpose of saving people when you don't get anything in return? What value do you all derive from such a pointless show of charity when you're all more than strong enough to just take whatever you want?" She just couldn't understand, such a basic thing like empathy and compassion was so far beyond her that she just couldn't understand no matter how far her future stretched.
[break][break]
Ah, but speaking of stretching futures... it would seem that a portent of doom has arrived. A beast stalks forth from the flickering shadows, the light of the flame illuminating its back as the darkness it casts stretches over Shalin and her beloved Sandy. The Absol leaps forward once, twice to place itself between the Flygon and his trainer, a strange glint in his eyes as he prophesies an imminent doom in their future. "Ah, my beloved Antimony. Has the conversation already drawn to a close? How sad, how pitifully primitive. I expected more from her, I always disappoint myself with those pesky expectations don't I?" It didn't take a psychic to know that the conversation wouldn't reach any kind of satisfying conclusion for either party. They could only deny one another in favor of their own world, such was simply the nature of humankind.
[break][break]
"You should leave. It doesn't matter what kinds of toys you might wear to the party, you don't stand a chance against me. Your future was set in stone the moment you woke up tonight."
[break][break]

+ - Shalin Nariya

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

They all run and scream, hiding from her little minions while she preoccupies herself with the biggest and baddest of targets aboard, such delightful terror was simply outstanding, truly ultramodern in its aesthetics even as the carnage dies down and all eyes focus on them. A distant tune reaches her ears and her eyes flutter for a moment as the siren song tries to lure her to the land of dreams, but the steady thump of boots on deck is more than enough to grab her attention as her eyes snap towards Oliver stalking towards her, combat baton held by his side to attack her directly like she was some kind of neophyte who could be beaten with a single strike to her skull.
[break][break]
Maybe if she were some kind of lowly grunt the idea of a physical confrontation with a trained ranger might have put the fear of Arceus into her, but Xenon Civitas Antheil is an Elite. A duel was right up her alley~
[break][break]
It might surprise Oliver to see Xenon reach for the hilted sword by her side, drawing the blood stained blade free and pulling it into both hands as she faces down the ranger with a confident smile. "That's a nice little stick you got there. Mine's bigger." She would be the first to make a move as she takes a wicked step forwards and sweeps her sword straight for his heart, the sound of the wind screaming as her blade tears through the air physically palpable as she puts her all into the strike without hesitation.
[break][break]
Rhodium had no problems taking the powerful Hurricane head on, cutting winds etching minor scratches and nicks into its metal plating while its mechanical eyes bounce back and forth with the efficiency of a supercomputer calculating its next move. It knows where the Dragonite is going to be before the Pokemon itself even does, aiming just ahead of the dragon with a roaring Dark Pulse from its triplet heads in staggered firing patterns, never letting up on the barrage and giving it the opportunity to strike back.
[break][break]

+ - Oliver Shrakes

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

"No, not even close." The mirth that she held vanished in an instant upon that comment, to call her a dictator was simply wrong. "The way a dictator holds power is passive, its limp and indecisive. They only hold power through the consent of those below them, through laws and regulations that convince a society that they have power. That's not real power, not the kind of power I have any interest in." She was an insane person sure, but she was an insane person with a very detailed world view. Someone with a philosophy, a philosophy that shifted at a whim of course, but always a well thought out idea of how the world was supposed to be. It was never violence for the sake of violence, always with purpose guiding it.
[break][break]
"I could ask the same question of you Red. You're the one who decided to join a terrorist organization just to protect a handful of people." Had she read her mind? No, she was just that kind of person, easy to read. "Insanity is simply a label that society uses to denote those who are different from the greater whole, those whose values don't align with yours. I'm insane for not caring about values like right and wrong, you're insane for going along with a bunch of murderers and fascists just to make your life comfier, it's just the entry requirement around here." Xenon leaps into action, but leaves off on one last thought before the fight begins.
[break][break]
"Is it really so crazy to fight for a future you believe in? Even if that future is just a little out of line with everyone else's? All I want is a future where everyone can be free to pursue their ideals, unbound by the laws and morality that they tie themselves to today. What kind of future do you want Ms. Garcia?" And off she goes.
[break][break]
If Xenon was grossed out by the trash she was gathering up she certainly didn't show it as she dived in head first, moving piles of garbage around into strange heaps, almost like she was preparing for something that only she could see. Hafnium watches from atop another heaping mount of waste with glowing eyes, scanning the future and directing her trainer towards the optimal path, the throngs of poison types sway back and forth to her will, pheromones and gases directing their bodies to the perfect spot, right in front of Xenon as she creeps up behind that Galarian Weezing and... pushes. North by northwest, the Weezing bumps into a Grimer, the Grimer splatters its muck all over a Koffing, the Koffing lets out a surprised belch of poisonous gas onto Trubbish, the Trubbish stumbles backwards into one of the mountains of garbage Xenon had set up, and the pile all collases onto one particularly irate Swalot who lashes out at the first Weezing with some garbage it had swallowed an hour prior. And so the brawl begins as Xenon scrambles out of harms way, smelling absolutely awful as she swings behind the Salazzle who started this Rube Goldberg machine of violence. It was all just walking towards the future, that's it.
[break][break]

+Ruby Garcia

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

A beat passes as Xenon continues to stare into Frank's eyes. Her brain is working slow as she tries to recover from the extreme oxygen deprivation she just went through. Another body falls on top of her, further crushing Frank under the combined weight of the duo. Eventually enough is enough as the girl pushes Gerald off of her and slowly rolls off of the man, taking in deep breaths of stale air as her eyes adjust to the darkness. This is a good thing, it means there's at least a little light coming from somewhere.
[break][break]
There's also noises coming from behind, a lot of noises. Thin stick like legs hitting the sand, echoing down the tunnel they were in, getting closer and closer. She barely has the presence of mind to unclip a Pokeball from her belt and release her Gengar, another deep breath in and out. "Alright boys, nap time is over. Something nasty is coming our way, so get ready for a brawl." She finds herself slipping into an accent she doesn't know, or maybe she knew once and forgot about until now, reminiscent of Unovan if either of them were familiar. It didn't matter. It never did.
[break][break]
A swarm of Durants come barreling down from the darkness towards the trio, the ultramodernist lets out a screamed curse as Argon lets loose a blast of Night Shade trying to hold them back, but he can't do it alone. Just from what's in her immediate sight there's at least a dozen biting and clawing at the Gengar as it lets loose blast after blast of Night Shade, it's a veritable swarm and they need to RUN. And that's just what Xenon will do as she grabs Argon by the nape of his neck, turns tail, and runs straight past Gerald and Frank as fast as she fucking can. Doesn't need to be the fastest, just need to be faster than the slowest.
[break][break]

+ Ultra Desert #2[break]
Gerald Kaiser Frank Caffey

[attr="class","pokeclass"]

Slowly the rangers trickle in one by one, fighting the inevitable with their little spouts of water and trying to evacuate the city as best as they can. That's fine, Xenon never believed that this one strike would be enough to destroy the morale of an entire city. It was just one cut, a deep cut that she had planned for months, but only one cut of a thousand.
[break][break]
For a moment she considers leaving as she hears the approaching Flygon, it was well known that criminals would stay at the scene of the crime to view their handiwork after all. Maybe she wanted to be caught though. Maybe she wanted to publicly sign this vile act, proclaim out loud to the world "This is my future, look at it and kneel in respect." She's already approaching Shalin before she even finishes the thought, her gas mask hides most of her face, but her voice is unmistakable as she speaks up from behind the ranger.
[break][break]
"Why bother?" A moment passes as she waits for Shalin to turn her attention to her before she continues. "That's not a rhetorical question by the way. Why do you bother doing all of... this? You can't possibly think you're going to be able to put this out all by yourself, and by the time enough people get here for any serious work to get done, it's going to be too late. The city is going to be soaked in poisonous soot, the soil will be permanently tainted, nothing new will ever grow here after tonight. So why are you even bothering to try?" The answer mattered, even if the results would stay the same regardless. She didn't understand people like this, she didn't think she ever would understand people like this, she didn't even particularly want to understand the woman in front of her. But the answer still mattered, the purpose of these actions needed to be vocalized, the philosophy that she followed needed to be spoken aloud. If only so Xenon could crush it herself.
[break][break]

+ - Shalin Nariya

[attr="class","pokeclass"]