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[attr="class","bisc"]“Six croissants, two slices of vegan cheesecake, and three lemon cookies—” Biscotti murmured the customer’s order back to them as he piles up a Kingsley Confections box. The baked goods are still warm, the heat courtesy of the Dachsbun sleeping beneath the display case.

With an awkward grin, he sends the client out the door. He lifts his hand to wave but it’s at an empty space. He’s too late. Scotti’s raised hand stays there for a moment as the teenager tries to overcome his awkwardness.

Before he can figure out a good place to put his hand, the door opens again. His fingers are spread wide, waiting for a high-five that will never come. His cheeks flare red as he stuffs it into his pants pocket. But the uniform slacks are too small for that.

“Hey man!” Biscotti’s voice is friendly—a bit like an excited but nervous labrador. “Welcome to Congsley Kingfections.” He blinks twice and shakes his head. “Kingsley—-you saw the sign.” The dog peeks up sleepily from her bed. Her breath escapes in a resigned huff. C’mon, man. Can I get some support here.

“Can I help you?”

absalom steel

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[attr="class","bisc"]Biscotti blushed as he felt her weight on his shoulder. He wasn’t exactly strong, and she smelled nice. But he doesn’t immediately faceplant. He wrapped his arm tenuously around her waist as he tugged them backward.

The Onix stares at them with narrowed, beady eyes. The crushed remnants of the statue are turned to powder beneath its coils. “R-right.” He swallows as he stumbles toward the exit. He offers a nod of thanks to Bruno as the sounds of falling rocks grow louder.

“Uh, not really, no.” Scotti wasn’t really a guy who picked fights with people. He preferred tossing in the towel. You thought his hair was stupid? He’d laugh at it with you. But this Onix wasn’t exactly arguing with him. It was just mad. “This is the first time I’ve even seen one.” The baker’s throat felt tight as he tried to swallow down his nerves.

A scarred hand lifted in a nervous wave. “Hey bud.” His next breath is meant to calm him. “You—uh—we don’t want any trouble.” Jangle moves to stand between them. Her lips pull back in a feline snarl. The air above her stripes begins to shimmer in the heat. Her defensiveness really wasnt helping.

“So, can you just—yanno—go back in there?” Those beady eyes narrowed to lavender slits. Something purple and bulbous—like a pop ring—hangs from its neck. It roars and thrashes in its tunnel. “I’m going to take that as a no.” It lunges for the humans as Scotti tries to run toward the falling cave-in.

Jangle lunges forward to. unleash a Drain Punch on the Onix’s nose.

nabi park

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[attr="class","bisc"]“Never better!” Biscotti shouted back. Totally false, but it sounded good. And it wasn’t like stuff could hurt. Maim and kill? For sure.

At Nabi’s admission, the young man gasped. “What?” He chewed on his bottom lip. “Hang on!” In the dark, he didn’t see any blood or anything. But it was obvious she favored that left foot. With no hesitation, Scotti rushed toward her. He knelt in a growing puddle of his own ichor. After a moment of awkwardness—trying to figure out where to place his hand—he settled an arm around her waist. “Just lean on me, okay?”

He shook his head. “It’s all right.” Any thought of missing people went out the window. “I don’t think they were here anyway. Not anymore.” Just a few creepy statues and an empty room. Another growl. Correction: an almost empty room.

Hoping she’d accept his help, Biscotti began to back away from the hole. From it, an Onix’s head emerged. It obviously wasn’t happy.

nabi park

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[attr="class","bisc"]That was one way to put it, he guessed. It definitely wasn’t unpleasant. Just made it hard to focus on parts of him that weren’t vibrating. Some part of him wanted to ask the cat to can the rumbling, but he figured that was kind of rude. It was just trying to show its appreciation.“Uh, yeah. Sure.” It wasn’t like this stuff lasted forever.

As his destination is revealed. Biscotti frowns. “Kind of a weird place for a house.” There’s a pause as he chuckles, the sound awkward and stilted. A hand reached up to ruffle his hair. Even if it wasn’t his father doing it, the gesture still brought him comfort. :”You sure the guy wants visitors?” At the talk of ride Pokemon, he gave the Persian beneath him a light pat. Good thing I went with her, huh?

“Nah. I’m good.” He pulled out his phone. The red-on-black case looks like something out of a children’s racing game. “It’s on here somewhere.” Besides, Scotti had zero plan to take the lead. He was more of a support guy.

At the invitation, the baker shook his head. It was one thing to admit you had no idea what you were doing. It was something completely different to do it with a cute girl. So, unless he was going to die, he’d just figure it out. “Here we go!” He gently bumped the cat’s sides with his flat tops. As he did so, Biscotti leaned over the lithe creature’s back.

“Take it easy on me, okay?” The path inclined slightly. So far, so good.

Shalin Nariya

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[attr="class","bisc"]Sure, he had a dinosaur and a kaiju. The fire puppy was also pretty cool. But there was still one dream unfulfilled: catching a dragon. Seeing his buddy with a Noivern had brought that wish back to the forefront. And now, he wanted to do it.

As long as he could find one willing to indulge him. Slavery wasn’t his thing. And, except for the Pangoro incident, all of his Pokemon had come by choice. The bear had come to his side easily enough. Hopefully, those same strategies will work today.

A little plastic bag hung from between scarred fingers. Around half a dozen crushed cookies sat in it. They’d been left over from some toddler’s birthday party. Hopefully no one minded that they were Snubbull-shaped.

Because, uh, now that he thought about it, that might be a little insensitive.

Still, he had a job to do. Biscotti pushed some foliage aside.

Fairy/Dragon/Rock

@open

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[attr="class","bisc"]He didn’t even get a chance to think the Mimikyu was cute before it charged at him. His scar-pocked arms rose reflexively to shield his head. The wood tail came down on his helmet of hair. “Whoa!?” The brunette staggered back with a noise of alarm. He batted weakly at it. “Hey! Watch it!” Biscotti’s protest is more out of surprise than pain.

When he looks back up, the Mimikyu is lounging in its trainer’s arms. For a second, he debates on asking it for a hand out of here. But that’d seem kind of desperate. And he doesn’t want to seem desperate in front of this gorgeous—very nice young lady. So, instead, he focuses on Bella.

His cheeks light up beneath the layers of dust. “Yeah, uh, I thought it was a carpet.” He could even remember what the pattern looked like. “But it must have been a hole or something?” But why had he seen all those patterns?

As he fought in this confusion, Bella jumped off the deep end. With a slow blink, Biscotti jerked his head up. “I—uh—I don’t think I’m dead? And it hasn’t been years. It looked like they had the same phone! “Definitely not for years!”

But if he had died, would he know? He couldn’t feel pain, so who knew what else his brain couldn’t process. With a rising sense of suspicion, Biscotti swept his eyes across the basement. But there were no corpses to be seen. Just a lot of broken wood and dirt walls.

Was she laughing at him? “Uh—I don’t think I said anything funny.” A shadow shifted behind them. There was the sound of zipping from above them. Then, the world plunged into darkness.

The Night Shade plunged them into darkness.

Fairy/Dragon/Rock

@nifgrshade

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[attr="class","bisc"]This was stupid. Arceus, what had he been thinking!?
[break][break]
This is what Biscotti thinks as something explodes under his front bike tire. In a panic, he reaches for the big white box shoved in its white basket. There’s no thought for his well-being as he crashes into the ditch.

Sure, delivering baked goods to the soldiers seemed like a good idea. Rustboro and Petalburg weren’t even that far apart. And he was a nobody, who would pay attention to him. But not all weapons needed intent to fire.

His head slams into the ground. But he doesn’t feel any pain—he can’t. He also doesn’t notice as the foliage tears into him like an angry Liepard. All the boy’s labrador eyes see is baked goods raining from the sky. Some of them feature great, big Jigglypuff eyes over a silly smile. A few cookies shatter into dust. The Sinistea patterns he worked so hard to swirl smash into sugar cookie dust on the road.

Biscotti barely notices as a Larvitar cupcake hits his cheek.

He’d wanted to help so badly. To do something to make soldiers smile—just like he did in Galar. But he’d just messed it up.

Wallowing in inadequacy, he watches as dogfights rage in the skies above him.

Ignoring the five-second rule, he reaches for a cookie that'd fallen beside him.

@open

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