[attr="class","minicharh"]

Laurence Anderson / gaslight

[attr="class","minicharentry"]

Lars sounds somewhat wounded, anxious to write off the Nihilego escapade as a one-and-done thing. Fox was not so convinced of the Head Ranger’s capabilities to avoid other such happenings in the future.
[break][break]
“For your sake, I hope you’re right.”
[break][break]
The cave bends and drops, steepening.
[break][break]
“Yes. Anti-venoms and charcoal and other natural filtrates,” Fox says, as he stoops to begin to climb down, testing the strength of the foothold beneath him before he full commits.
[break][break]
A few feet down and his foot slips in something viscous and rank, though he’s got a good enough hold to avoid plummeting to his death.
[break][break]
“Eugh. Careful of th’ goop.”

---

[attr="class","minicharf"]

[attr="class","minicharh"]

Laurence Anderson / gaslight

[attr="class","minicharentry"]

Laurence Anderson told Fox to lead, so he did, taking point as they walked deeper into the cave, the only sound was their footsteps and the noise of their lungs pushing air out the gasmask rebreather.
[break][break]
It was quiet. Too quiet.
[break][break]
This shallow, the smog was just barely noticeable in the air, faint wisps of purple that rose and clung to the cave ceiling-- though the further they walked, the more downward the slope, the more they plunged into the toxins below.
[break][break]
“Stay close. We don’t know what we’re walking into. And I’d rather not have you get envenomated again.”

---

[attr="class","minicharf"]

[attr="class","minicharh"]

Laurence Anderson / gaslight

[attr="class","minicharentry"]

The mission brief is dire, but it does not scare him. He’d been privy to routes of chemical warfare many times in the past, and this was no exception-- though he was knowledgable enough to know the difference between Weezing toxin and the various botanical poisons and venoms he dabbled with on the regular.
[break][break]
It was an odd facet of Pokemon, to take something so inorganic and make it natural.
[break][break]
He snaps on his gas mask and checks to make sure the filter is secure.
[break][break]
“Once more unto the breach.”

---

[attr="class","minicharf"]

He managed to wiggle and fight his way free of Lars’ grip and he dove head first towards the wall of flame--

--only for the air around them to warp and buzz, almost like a zipper being done up. The ground below shifted and seamed together, fusing, and all at once, everything was gone: the fire, the mist, the hallucinations.

Fox fell onto his knees in the dirt.

Laurence Anderson
stretch of the imagination

☉

[attr="class","samknox2"]

[attr="class","samknoxw"]Fox couldn’t get a reply out. He was laughing so hard he didn’t even have the ability to fight back as Lars grabbed him and put him in a noogie-lock.

He was still laughing, even after it finished.

[attr="class","samknoxt"]
boxing bouncers
Laurence Anderson

[attr="class","samknoxc"]☉

[attr="class","icon"]

Fox turned away from the gore and swallowed a sigh, bending to sift through another concave mound of sand.

[break][break]
He let the woman utilize her Pokemon as she saw fit, his own preference being for counting out and lifting all the baby turtles, collecting them in the cup of his shirt. Once he was satisfied there were no stragglers, he waddled to the water’s edge to let them free in the surf.

[break][break]
“I’ll let you finish up here as you see fit,” he said, swiping sand off his stomach as Inari carried a final load of hatchlings to the sea. “You can leave the corpses. I suspect the birds will make quick work of them, eventually.”

[break][break]
Inari dropped to all fours to crawl into the surf and Fox hupped up on her back so they could swim out and away, leaving the red-tinged beach behind them.

[attr="class","bottom"]Lydia Magnusson [break]

“Oh, yes,” Fox said, looking over his shoulder with a re-assuring smile, “their chrysalae are extremely sturdy.” As he speaks, more Kakuna fall and hit the ground below with heavy bumps, like dropping stones.

Heading back in towards the office, he gives his Pokemon a thumbs up. “Keep it up. Climb a little, if you need to.”

Turning back to Frank, he explains, “Now I’ll just go down and gather them up with my Bayleef and get them moved to a nice park or forest.” Which may take a few trips, but as long as they weren't clinging to the face of the building, it would be easy enough to do.

Frank Caffey
for the swarm
my knowledge in this post is derived from Pokemon Stadium.

☉

“Ah,” he says, and there’s a slip of a smile, “oops.”

He’d neglected to mention that part, earlier.

Phage hovers over a Seaking that has been displaced by the shifting stones. Fox tosses a Pokeball at the flopping fish to save it the torture of a long, slow death.

“Yes, I was briefly detained by the League. Though whether or not they were using it as an enlistment tactic remains to be seen.” He shrugged, stepping up onto a rock ledge that led towards an unearthed passage.

“It was very nice to meet you, Wren. Maybe we’ll do a video together if we make it through the apocalypse?”

wren rourke
catch attempt seaking
rock/water

☉

[attr="class","icon"]

Fox wasn’t one for overdramatic displays of emotion, either, but hers didn’t bother him. He did think it was a little foolish to rage against the way of nature-- something that, inevitably, no mere human could ever fight against-- but that was the ecologist in him; his background in science had given him a tougher, more logistical scope of the world.
[break][break]
“Just so,” he agreed, stopping to pluck an errant baby turtle out of the sand and hold it in the warmth of his hand. Whether Arceus or nature or just simply the way of things, the wheel went around, Mother Earth and Father Time, yadda yadda.
[break][break]
The crowd of seabirds looking for an easy lunch was beginning to thin, and Inari had brought a number of them to heel in her fierce jaws. The sand around her was splattered with blood and feathers and still birds. Even more, were being shredded and torn asunder by the Lycanroc’s earthly attacks.
[break][break]
“I’m fine, thank you,” Fox said, stiffening at the collection of corpses the pair of them were making-- though he felt it was an apt lesson to learn, when you stood up against the grain of the world. “Although I dare say we are making things worse. Perhaps it would be best to finish depositing the little ones in the sea and move on.”

[attr="class","bottom"]Lydia Magnusson [break]