<sub>the moment two trainers lock eyes, a battle must begin.

traditionally, anyways. it's an antiquated practice at best, originating from the hyper-competitive ruleset in place from the indigo league's early stages. kanto and johto were verifiable battlefields, and the landscape was reduced to no man's land, rolling hills becoming places of crossfire as bloodthirsty trainers cut their teeth on one another.

this was not that.

although, it was close.

close in how mithril's body immediately tensed the moment she locked eyes with the woman currently struggling to haul two large bags of soil to her garden. close in how mithril's hand ghosted over her poke balls, the pokemon perched on her shoulder ready to jump into action at the slightest command.

not quite there, though.

exhaling, mithril cleared her throat and saved her battle hunger for another day, instead approaching the woman with a can-do attitude. the castform on her shoulder beamed, following its trainer's lead.

"sorry," mithril began with a sheepish smile, nodding to the woman in an impromptu bow and greeting all at once, "noticed you were having some trouble, did you want help with that? i'm mithril, by the way. and this is castform."

"casa," the pokemon on mithril's shoulder nodded.

Elise Calcifet</sub>

started an open thread

<sub>mithril wasn't entirely blockheaded. although she liked to keep herself out of... "current affairs", so to speak, she knew to keep an eye out for these things, and keep an ear to the ground in case anything bad happens where she might be going. she watched the news, went on the internet, all that. she wasn't stupid.

but she also wasn't scared.

she avoids these things because they get in her way, not really because they particularly strike fear into her, or make her worried for her well-being. like a wise person once said: as long as you have pokemon with you, anything is can be done. it's her firm belief that if she were to ever encounter one of these issues, she wouldn't flinch.

so when a strange mist coalesced into an older, stronger, deadlier version of mithril, one with shadows dancing in her eyes and veins clenched in her fists, she didn't even bat an eye.

"..."

"..."

it seemed that her "future" version had a similar thought process.

locking eyes with her future self, blue-on-blue, mithril assessed her opponent: her older self, or so it seemed. she seemed wiser and better in every way, and her castform definitely seemed more powerful than her own. she had no doubt that this version of herself had almost, if not every badge — perhaps even challenged the pokemon league.

older mithril raised a poke ball.

well, who was she to say no to a challenge?

mithril raised her own poke ball.

as the illusion of her older self seemed to throw a poke ball, mithril also released her own pokemon —

and her shelgon growled loudly at the roaring moon that erupted from the pink mist.

as the crowd cleared the area and others scrambled away from the wild paradox pokemon, mithril stood stalwart to face the oncoming threat, her shelgon galloping into battle against the bigger, deadlier dragon.</sub>

<sub>mithril battlem + Elise Calcifet
i can start something tonight! you'll see the tag real soon.

edit: here it is! wasn't sure where the garden would be, so i used verdanturf as a placeholder; feel free to imagine it as somewhere else as necessary.</sub>

<sub>mithril battlem + Elise Calcifet

that sounds fine! mithril can always help with any hard labor or particularly tenuous work. don't be surprised if she asks for weird favors/items as a form of payment, though. maybe elise puts out a help ad, or mithril notices her struggling and offers to help? lemme know what you think!</sub>

<sub>the base of mt. chimney was a beautiful place. being in such close proximity to the volcano meant that it was free of most of the ash and smoke that usually scorched the earth during volcanic activity, with route 113 marking the sweet spot of such debris.

instead, the ash was sparse enough that the local plant life thrived — as well as the local communities, what with lavaridge town being only a few uphill treks away from mauville's main road. it was a strange smell, one which mithril savored as she stomped through the lush plains.

"a hot springs visit doesn't sound so bad right now, actually," she murmured, her nose buried deep in a pamphlet outlining each of signature tourist attractions sprawling throughout the hoenn region, "lord knows my legs need it."

"casa," her companion would hum from their perch on her shoulder.

a rustle.

the sound made mithril's head snap to attention, looking for whatever caused it. castform stood at attention, as well.</sub>

<sub>furrowing her brow, mithril watched as the silhouette of a fish-like pokemon approached her lure. twitching her hand to bob it up and down as a bait, she waited for a force, a tug on her fishing rod —

and out of the water bounced a barraskewda, ready to attack mithril. luckily, she was prepared.

with a flash and a pop, the barraskewda's dive attack was intercepted by her metang. catching the fish's body in its claws, metang grappled the squirming water-type, and —

"zen headbutt! twice!"

one, two times, its metal head would smash into the barraskewda's skull. even as it attempted to peck at metang's arms with its teeth after the first hit, it was knocked out cold after the second hit.

metang threw the fish back into the water, floating back to its trainer's side.

"oh well," mithril shrugged, casting her line once more. there were plenty of fish in the sea.</sub>

[ ] means ongoing; [ ! ] means complete.

---

VS PETALBURG WOODS [ ! ]
VS ROUTE 104 [  ]
VS ROUTE 112 [  ]
VS ELISE'S GARDEN [  ]
VS FUTURE MITHRIL [  ]

<sub>"well, this is quite nice, isn't it? it's not often that you get to use your sunny form."

"fomu."

it's a bright and sunny day on route 104, which made it great weather for mithril to go fishing. due to the beating sun above, castform's body went from its neutral white, cloudy form to a brilliant orange, reflecting the brilliant sun beating down on the both of them.

the waters were glistening as mithril cast her line out into the pier, her good rod's poke ball-shaped lure bobbing up and down on the waves of the ocean.

someday, she'll probably visit dewford town. she's heard the cave systems there are a sight to behold, and it was possible to find some buried treasure in there. of course, mithril liked to take that sort of thing with a grain of salt, but spelunking for neat trinkets was always on her docket.

alas, as a pokemon approached, the day wasn't meant to be forever peaceful.

that was kind of the point, wasn't it?

mithril readied her poke balls in anticipation.</sub>

it's thirty minutes later, and mithril's getting closer to the end of the woods, but not quite there. it is a forest path, after all; nobody said it would be particularly short. still, it was faster than taking the long way around from petalburg to rustboro (and a rite of passage as opposed to, say, public transportation), and that's what mattered.

but all at once, the hairs on mithril's neck stand, and she whips around, her castform floating off her shoulder and into a ready position. just in time — she backpedals out of the way of a deadly blast of toxic spores, while castform floats above the cloud.

a breloom. that's why she couldn't hear it; they were light on their footwork, so to speak. at least she noticed in time, as opposed to getting a fist in her skull.

although, this one was quite quick... hm.

"weather ball!"

"casa!"

not once questioning its trainer in her decision to hold back on the wild pokemon, castform shot a ball of condensed climate at the breloom — but the fighting-type was too fast to hit. immediately, following up its backstep, the breloom sprung into the air, going for a sky uppercut that barely missed her castform. that sealed the deal.

"castform, return! go, shelgon!"

the weather sprite floated back to mithril's shoulder, before a poke ball erupted and a turtle-like dragon emerged with a growl.

"zen headbutt!"

a psychic-boosted headbutt met the wrong end of a breloom's fist, but shelgon was a tank, through and through, and the mushroom-adjacent beast seemed to be reeling from that one. well, then. she had the upper hand.

the following battle was a one-sided one. the breloom got a lucky shot in, its feint able to break past shelgon's protect, but it lacked the durability to survive an onslaught of flamethrowers, its toxic spores immediately burning up in the heat. once it was worn out enough, mithril palmed a spare poke ball, and —

went for a catch.

---

[ attempting to catch breloom! ]
shiv

<sub>the moment a wild pokémon jumps out, mithril's eyes harden, and all her focus is trained on the target in question.

"go, castform," she commands, sending her companion out into battle with a pointed finger. the forecasting pokémon floats forwards, rallying with a cry of challenge against the gloom in question.

hm. she didn't really want to start a forest fire today... but that was the point of practice. besides, she had the tools to stop a fire quickly.

"fire blast!"

castform used fireblast, its white body briefly turning orange from the heat before it emitted a focused burst of flame at the gloom. the supereffective damage did its job; the gloom fainted without a problem, and blended into the surrounding nature the moment it fell prone.

well, that takes care of that. castform returned to mithril's shoulder.

"let's keep looking around, then."</sub>

shiv

!

mithril battlem locks eyes with felicity farkas and challenges them to a —

(laughs at their last name first.)

!

<sub>you've locked eyes with mithril battlem .

most likely she's going to challenge you to a battle, but if you'd like to do other things*, she's usually down.

(other things include doing your chores, helping you with your hobbies, going on dates-but-she-doesn't-know-they're-dates, vague busywork so long as she gets rewarded, actively breaking into criminal warehouses, and barging into your house to start strange conversations with you.

really, the list is fairly extensive. she's up for whatever.)</sub>