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[attr="class","bisc"]The brunette listened with his typical politeness. At a consistent interval, Biscotti would make an encouraging noise.

Even if he didn’t think captains should be a-okay with playing mad scientist., it wasn’t right to interrupt. Mom hated that stuff. Which, in a house with eight kids, totally made sense. Still, as she talked, he couldn’t stop his hands from curling into his pants.


A small chuckle emerged. Which kind of made it sound like he was laughing at her dreams. Which he totally wasn’t—not outside anyway. “Sorry, I—it makes you guys sound like mailmen.” Still, if that was the kind of stuff she wanted to do, what was stopping her? People chased tornadoes all the time! They even built Hot Wheels to do it. The talk of force made him wince.

“They’re desperate?” His voice faded to a half-hearted mumble. “I dunno.” He’d lived at war for 20 years and was no closer to understanding why people wanted to kill each other than before.


Again, he nodded. “Well, I, uh, wish you luck.” Hopefully, she didn’t need to off any more Pokemon to get that promotion. It seemed like a lot of work to lodge a formal complaint though. “Couldn’t you just start a petition or something? If you guys helped so many people…” Then, surely, someone would sign it. And, since the League was all elected, they’d have to listen to the people. Probably. “It seems like a lot of work.” Not that he was scared of that; Biscotti was just scared of blood, sweat, and tears that ended in nothing.


He nodded as she stood up to say farewell. He did the same thing. His Runerigus popped briefly out of his skin to wave a slow, fond farewell. “You’re, uh, welcome.” The brunette muttered. Confusion was evident. What’s she thanking me for? I just called her a monster and told her to kick rocks. Not sure what to do with the invite to share information, he just quickly rattled off his phone number. Was that lot in common an insult?


“Hey,, Shalin.” He took a deep breath. “You got this.” Even if they didn’t agree on her past, she did seem to want to do better. Which, as his dad said, was worth a lot. It should be encouraged. “I hope you and Lathiel, you know…” Reach some kind of understanding.


Turning around to wave goodbye, he tripped over one of the Ferris wheel’s wires and almost ate a bunch of dirt.


The world’s got to keep you humble.

Notes

Shalin Nariya

☉

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[attr="class","bisc"]The closer Shalin came, the redder Scotti’s cheeks turned. Sure, he swung both ways but girls intimidated him. Maybe it’d been all those talks with his sisters about respect and consent. His hands vanished into his pockets, so he didn’t accidentally touch anything. His chin, meanwhile, tucked closer to his chest—as if to respect himself from the woman’s femininity. “Uh—” Honey eyes dipped to the spot where a tail wouldn’t be. “--that’s good. I don’t do much but walk.”


“No.” Again, there’s a surprising firmness to the brunette’s voice.

“They can scare you, but there are a lot of jobs out there. It's not worth selling your soul over.” Sure, rangers were a go-to for people who wanted to help Pokemon, but it wasn’t illegal to be a good person.

Maybe open up a training facility or something. Or, heck, she could just deliver pizzas or something. The rest of her sentences made him frown. But, then, he smiled. Maybe in an attempt to add some levity to his anger—being judgmental made him uncomfortable. Like his pants were too tight.


Luckily, the girl’s future dreams were nowhere near as offending as her past. “Okay.” He sounded skeptical. “Then what?” This sounded a lot like a plan he’d make. “Change it from the inside out or something?” It didn’t sound very likely. Was that why his dad went missing? Kicking up too much stink? “Won’t they just fire you then too?” To him, it seemed like this girl had a bad case of imagined helplessness.


The Ferris wheel began to inch downward back toward the platform beneath. But this stuff made it so Scotti couldn’t even enjoy the view. “You might think I’m a coward for this—” His breath was shaky. His hands curled up on his worn cargo pants. “But I’d just quit. Build my own thing. Screw them.”


And, in his twenty years in Galar, he’d gained plenty of experience building things from scraps.

Notes

Shalin Nariya

☉

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[attr="class","bisc"]One of the poisoned tendrils lashed across his arms. Blood mixed with weeping poison. But the young man with the bag did not hiss. It was almost as if he didn’t notice. In his mind, the drip-drip of blood and panicked sweat were the same.


The tunnels fill with viscous, toxic ooze. It laps at his white converse. The sound as it nuzzles the rubber is akin to a hundred snakes—figurative tongues testing the shoe for taste. “What flood?!” Biscotti shouts back as he stumbles away from the encroaching wave.

“We got out of there all right!” Then, her hand is in front of him, and he’s grabbing it.


“Yeah! I’m fine blowing this very ugly popscicle stand.” He paused. “--err organ stand?” A few purple shards scatter into the ground. As Eternatus’s toxins coat them, they twinkle with something akin to glee—hapyp to return to the thing where they belong. Though not trusting the weird, translucent jellyfish, he allows the daisy chain to pull him toward the surface.


Only when he gets to the rendezvous point does he notice the hole left in his shoe and the dripping red beneath the layer of sweat. But these seem a small price to pay as he lowers their catch onto the scales.


With each tink, the normally pacifistic boy feels a reverberation of righteous anger. Each tink is accompanied by a single thought: Fuck you, Eternatus.

Notes
Let one side take the brunt

Vanilla Kingsley

☉