Fox looks up at the hail of his name and passes an appraising eye over paxton concordas’s fanciful attire. “Director Concordas,” he says, voice polite and respectful and not at all breathy, thank you very much. “You’re certainly underdressed.” The sarcasm made up for the back foot Paxton’d pushed him to, but his smile was bright as the sun.

When not mired in the dark expanses of the Ultra Sea and shadowed by remnants of active combat, Paxton Concordas cut a rather striking figure. Not that Fox would admit that, of course. That would be entirely inappropriate.

“We’ve got to get them back in the water, obviously,” Fox added this last bit because. Well. it was obvious, but he didn’t want Paxton to think he didn’t know that and, fuck, when had dealing with handsome men put him so forcibly out of his element? “If you keep them--,” he would not say the word ‘wet’, he would not-- “--hydrated, I’ll see about applying some force.”

He summoned his Steelix forward in a burst of light. Calchíu grumbled good-naturedly as she went about trying to shift the massive beasts, to little avail.

[attr="class","membot"]paxton concordas

[attr="class","memboc"]☉

[attr="class","minicharh"]

Yujin Ha - berry patch kids

[attr="class","minicharentry"]

Fox dropped a shoulder and gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry. You can take the man out of the lecture hall but, it seems, you can’t take the lecture out of the man.” How many hours had he spent in front of a Powerpoint talking to bright young minds and feeling like it was his job to pass down this knowledge to the next generation (even if they were all similar in age?)
[break][break]
The proximity to a long-ago life disheartens him, and he skates away from it by reaching down beyond the soft, down spines of a stinging nettle and grabbing it close to the root.
[break][break]
Miss Ha identified herself as a geologist, and Fox’s eyes lit up. He stood, pulling the nettle from the soil, shaking off clods of it as he tapped the root clump against his pants.
[break][break]
“Ooh, that sounds fascinating. Perhaps you could give me a lecture.” He grinned and tucked the nettles in his pouch, moving on in search of more flora. His tone was genuine and warm, and revealed the innate desire to learn in him that nothing-- not years of blood fighting Rockets back home or a lifetime of inner turmoil-- could ever truly burn out. “Such as, when to lick rocks, and when not to.”

---

[attr="class","minicharf"]

[attr="class","minicharh"]

Yujin Ha - berry patch kids

[attr="class","minicharentry"]

She asked for a generalization and Fox made a face, turning away from her to squint into the sun in thought.
[break][break]
“That’s no small task,” he said, bending to run a gloved hand through a small patch of weeds that all looked nigh-identical. “But I guess the first rule would be If you don’t know it, don’t eat it. Or touch it with your bare skin.”
[break][break]
All poisonous plants (and Pokemon species, of course) ended up that way because of evolution, and evolution’s prime catalyst for change was survival.
[break][break]
“The second rule to follow-- in a generalized context, of course-- is that ‘bright and flashy’ generally means unsafe. Hemlock, oleander, foxgloves, yew, and a whole host of other toxic plants are bright and look pretty. It’s why they end up in gardens or, for the unknowing forager, in salads.”
[break][break]
That wasn’t always the case, of course. Thistles and nettles, for example, looked much the same as your garden-variety (pun intended) grasses and dandelions. But. she’d asked for general.
[break][break]
“For mushrooms and fungus, avoid anything with a red cap, white gills, a skirt or ringed stem, or bulbous base.” Fox swept hair behind his ear, slightly agitated. “I feel like I’m doing you a disservice by not-- explaining. It’s hard to apply rules to nature.”

---

[attr="class","minicharf"]

[attr="class","minicharh"]

Laurence Anderson / gaslight

[attr="class","minicharentry"]
He’d thought Lars would be right behind him.
[break][break]
For all their-- tenuous, thin, professional, and forced-- time knowing each other, Fox had come to expect it. Walking into dream mist, apprehending thugs in cement bunkers, crossing a warfront, and Lars had always been a step behind him.
[break][break]
He wasn’t, Fox was realizing, now.
[break][break]
The smell of burnt hair and burning rubber made the cavern acrid despite his rebreather’s best efforts. Heat began to blister through his armor and he had to grit his teeth to stop from screaming as he slipped in corrosive mud trying to dive for cover.
[break][break]
Where was Lars?!
[break][break]
The entire cavern shook as the cave floor broke open, Calchíu bursting forth from within. She shot out like a silver arrow, dig launching her head into the Salazzle and pinning it to the cave ceiling with a wet-sounding squish. This cut off the stream of fire and allowed Fox to slow, pulling up to one knee and turning back to face the lizard and his Steelix.
[break][break]
Calchíu pulled back and the Salazzle unstuck from the ceiling, falling the twelve or so feet to the ground with a splat.
[break][break]
Just in time for Lars to ride up on his strange homunculus.
[break][break]
“Where were you?!”

---

[attr="class","minicharf"]

[attr="class","minicharh"]

Yujin Ha - berry patch kids

[attr="class","minicharentry"]

When Fox’d made his AmiGo profile he’d been three vodka tonics in and alone on a Friday night. Insert the meme here.
[break][break]
Who would have thought it would have turned into a date! Not a date date, obviously… more like a lesson. Yujin Ha was curious to learn about foraging in the region, and Fox just so happened to be cataloging Hoenn’s fungi, algae, and mosses.
[break][break]
“Hoenn is a great place for foraging because it’s so tropical,” he explained, reaching out with a gloved hand to pluck a low-hanging Pecha berry off its tree. “Obviously, you have your normal width and breadth of berries; but there are also a lot of edible fungi, roots, and shoots.”
[break][break]
The grove around them was full of a variety of berry bushes and trees.
[break][break]
“This started as a cultivated project, but it quickly bloomed out of control and spread to the surrounding areas. Hoenn’s warm winds and wet, nutritious soil, plus its annual rainfall and permanent summer, make it perfect for growth.”

---

[attr="class","minicharf"]

Fox slid off his Noivern and into the sand, feeling the warmth of it against the bottoms of his bare feet. Along the stretch of beach in front of him, seven giant, blue bodies rocked, anxious, side-to-side.

“I’d hoped with the barrier gone we would be done with this nonsense,” he sighed, drawing his hair back into a ponytail. “But I see that life continues to find a way.”

Lifeguards had cleared the civilian populace away from the stuck Wailords so as to avoid any collateral damage, but it was up to him to get them back in the sea.

[attr="class","membot"]paxton concordas

[attr="class","memboc"]☉