As you reach the bottom of the hill and arrive at the battlefield proper, you find yourself looking at imminent victory.

The trainer? Beaten and bloody. His Raging Bolt? Knocked out. It's your Walking Wake against his, and if you were a betting man, you'd go all in on yourself. Still, as the clouds begin to part and the sun begins to shine, your eyes narrow. No point in getting cocky. At least, not until you've got this firmly in your grasp.

As your own Paradox Pokemon's Protosynthesis bulks up its vicious maw, his seems to empower its legs. Still trying to outspeed you, even now, hm? This guy really is all cheap tricks and going quick, isn't he? What a mark.

"AQUA JET, AGAIN!"

With a hiss, your Walking Wake repeats its prior trick, bursting forth in a blast of water as it sprinted straight towards its mirror image.

---

Josh Devlin

A nerve is touched.

"DON'T--"

Anger fills your mouth like venom, only for you to swallow it back like bile. The taste is wretched. You'd have preferred to spit it out, but where could it have gone except where you don't want it to go?

Still, a few drops spill from your lips.

"--You tell me what I would and wouldn't do." You hiss, glaring down at the pleading archaeologist as though he were no different than the dirt he was grovelling in. "Don't tell me when I have and haven't failed. You don't have the right."

If Howard Slayte, Rocket Admin, wants to play the historian, then so be it. But he can't also play the prophet, too. He can have his cake and he can eat it, but he can't eat his cake and have it.

You won't let him.

"...Fucking... Why the FUCK is Grigori's daughter even here, huh? If he's so goddamn fucking protective, and you've gone and fucking whitelisted her, and, fucking... WHY, the FUCK, is she HERE?!"

---

howard slayte

[googlefont=Rubik Burned]Before you know it, the neverending cycle of this place has taken hold of you.

Wake up. Eat your mochi. Endure the humiliation. Get to work. Lift the rock. Fail to lift the rock. They're still laughing at you. Take your punishment. Wash off the blood. Head back to your cell. Sleep. Dream. Wander the neon city. Then, before you know it, you're waking up again.

Sometimes, others are humiliated instead of you. Sometimes, you're rewarded for your efforts. Sometimes you sleep on the cot, sometimes on the floor, and sometimes... Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes. It's all just sometimes, isn't it? But you are not sometimes a prisoner. You are ALWAYS a prisoner. As your perception of time blurs together into days and weeks and months and more, you start to wonder if you'll ever stop being a prisoner.

People rally around the strange creature in the centre of the Megalopolis. A voice in your beckons for you to seek it out. Lulu Flint tells you to believe in your freedom.

But you just can't.

Not anymore...

---

When you wake up on the supposed "last day of work", the weight around your neck feels surprisingly light. You find it easier than usual to drag yourself up to your feet, and easier to stand tall. Despite that, you slouch anyway. Not much worth standing tall over. Not yet. But that'll all change soon.

YOU MUST LIFT THIS ROCK.

As the cell bars slide open, you immediately march back over to the boulder, right where you left it. How long ago was it since you first tried to lift it? Since then, it's certainly gotten much smaller, bits and pieces chipped away by your effort and exertion. Still, it's big, and still, it's heavy. But today is your last day. This chance is your last chance.

YOU MUST LIFT THIS ROCK.

Your first attempt is pathetic. You hunch over and try and hoist it up, only to fail to even budge it.

YOU MUST LIFT THIS ROCK.

Your second attempt is better. You put more into it. More consideration, more strength, more care. You manage to pull it a few inches off the ground, but eventually, you're forced to put it back down.

YOU MUST LIFT THIS ROCK.

More. More consideration. More strength. But, less care. You don't care how badly it's going to hurt you. You don't care if it minces your arm like meat and snaps your back like a twig. YOU MUST LIFT THIS ROCK.

And you do. Centimetres, then inches, then feet. As your muscles scream in pain, you slowly manage to pull the rock up to your chest, but that's where it ends. Your strength runs out and your body starts to fail. You freeze for a minute, arm trembling as it struggles to simply hold the rock in place. You can't do it. Not right now. But from this height, with enough force...

YOU MUST LIFT THIS ROCK.

So, sucking in a breath, you smash the rock down onto the ground.

It cracks.

It breaks.

IT BURNS.

A scream of agony tears its way out of your throat. It feels like an atomic bomb just detonated beneath your feet. The intense heat washes over you like a river of fire flowing towards the new sun. As the last of the burning pain leaves you, you fall to your knees, coughing and spluttering gasping for breath as you clutch your chest.

Something feels different. You don't know what. But you can tell...

Your thoughts are interrupted as the green dog's Toxic Chain smashes right into you. It's excruciating, made doubly so by the fact you didn't get the chance to recover from the prior blaze. Yet, it's not unexpected, is it? After all, that fucking mutt has never liked you. In a chain of "weak" links, it clearly thinks you're the weakest. It's always tried to hurt you, ever since the very start.

Perhaps that's why your Toxic Chain mutated in the way that it did.

In the split-second following the impact, your own Toxic Chain reaches down to sink into the hound's, like a parasitic worm burrowing into another parasitic worm. Strange lines like the ever-branching canopy of a tree spread out from its touch, flowing through the magenta organ like trickling water. Harmless, at first.

And then, they reached the nervous system.

Sharing is Caring: Through contact with the Toxic Chain, Shred is able to "share" his nervous system with another, allowing them to feel what each other feel - Namely, the overwhelming pain that is Being Shred Zeppelin.

---

_LMqSNsf
Lulu Flint
TL;DR - Shred loses hope, continues to hyperfixate, regains hope, breaks the rock, gets himself burnt but doesn't notice the orichalchum marks (yet), gets ownzoned by Okidogi but unfortunately for him he fell for one of the classic blunders!!!

"Oh my?"
"Oh, dear!"
"WOAH! Really?!"
"YIPPEE! Let's go find that cheese!"

You stand there, dumbfounded, as your Maushold scurry off, kicking off the next great Maus era and beginning the hunt for a piece of cheese. You glance over to the Dusknoir with a raised eyebrow, as if expecting it to say "sike". For better or for worse, that never comes. Holy shit, he's actually completely serious.

"Alba..." You trail off, looking over to Alba. You're struggling so badly to find what to say. It feels like you've just witnessed something profane occur before your eyes, something blasphemous, something sinister. Eventually, though, the words come to you. "...Did we just hear the voice of a dead person tell us to find their cheese?"

What the fuck.

---

Alba Evovae

It's a busy day for the docks of Sootopolis. Ships come in packed with cargo and leave completely empty, and the moment they begin to move off, another moves in to take their place. Boxes full of food sit next to crates full of weapons sit next to cages full of Pokemon, all of them getting stacked higher and higher with each delivery. All the while, Rocket grunts hustle and bustle about, like dilligent Combee tending to their hive.

You suppose that makes you the Vespiquen in this metaphor, doesn't it? And as it happens, being the Vespiquen is a real pain in the ass, and these Combee? They're a bunch of slackers and morons and dickheads, and they're doing such a shit job that your throat is raw from yelling at them.

Arceus, you'd kill for a lozenge.

But it'll have to wait, because another ship's rolling into harbour, and you'll be damned if you let these idiots handle it themselves.

---

Alphonse Zoram

Taking with Alphonse Zoram

Trading Shred's CRABOMINABLE ICE HAMMER SLAM IRON DEFENSE BRICK BREAK PROTECT AVALANCHE CRABHAMMER to ameena abadi for a gacha Flareon

How do you solve a puzzle when you don't know what the pieces are?

That's the thought that dominates your mind as you hold the White Stone in your hand. This is what's left of Reshiram. This is one of the few links you have left to the missing Kyurem. This is the sole prize that your sacrifice earned, and even if it isn't truly yours, it's still the one thing that gives your sacrifice meaning.

But, more than that? This is a blank slate. An unknown variable. A question mark. Beneath your bandages, you furrow your brow. What actually IS the White Stone?

Like... What does it do?

Nobody seems to know, so you intend to find out. Course, that's easier said than done, isn't it? It's not like there's buttons to press or switches to flick, no, it's literally just a rock. An extremely valuable and highly irreplaceable rock, so that means that cracking it open is off the table. But there's no point in focusing on what's off the table, is there? No, the better question is, what's still ON the table?

"...Do you think it'll do something if we beam a bunch of Pokepedia pages into it?"

---

howard slayte

They didn't lie, those ens really were deavour.
1. capture/defeat/redeem a ground-type pokemon in a wild, safari, gacha (no trades/gifts). - X1 LEVEL TUTOR
2. buy a pokemon from the black market. - X1 ABILITY CAPSULE

Rotting leaves perfectly preserved between life and death. Ochre eyes staring out into the horizon unblinking. A list of a thousand grudges that can grow no longer. The inevitable and undeniable ruination, left evitable and denied by a simple machine.

You've never been one for schadenfreude, but seeing Elisabeth Fiorelli's bastard of a snail stuck in this trap? It does put a smile on your face. The dark and terrible Wo-Chien, now left powerless. The Ruinous Treasure has been returned to its vault, and left no better than the common Caterpie, or the unassuming Sunkern. The so-called "Gods and Monsters" of the Pokemon world are left no better off than anyone else.

You stroke your chin as you ponder the sight. Hm. You wonder if you'd be able to find PENELOPE LIVY's Chi-Yu elsewhere in this dreaming city? Or maybe, if you looked hard enough, you could track down...

...Well well well, speak of the devil.

"Jayden." You turn to face the man as he approaches, your unfamiliar face contrasted by your all-too-familiar voice. "They got you too?"

---

jayden cross

It feels a little strange, to be back here.

Not that you were ever really "here", mind. From what you've been told, Lesser Megalopolis and Ultra Megalopolis are different places? It doesn't matter to you. Whether it's Lesser or Ultra, reality or a dream, cloaked in sheer dark or bathed in neon light, it's familiar all the same.

And it's no easier to navigate than it was last time. Once again, you find yourself blindly wandering these alien streets, getting more and more lost with every step. Unlike last time, you know exactly what you're looking for, but just like last time, you have no idea how to find it. And this time?The clock is ticking. You don't know when you'll wake up. You need to find her, before--

"--GAH!"

As the horribly familiar spectre of Andrea Vaneau returns to haunt you once more, your eyes go wide and you all but jump out of your skin.

"You! What are you doing here?!"

---

Andrea Vaneau