“I don’t know why it took them a while to tighten up the screening for whoever wanted to apply to a Gym Leader spot,” he hummed quietly once the tremors had passed and everything was quiet once more.

(He made sure that the mic on his headpiece was off, because boy there was a lot of information being exchanged between the two right now that was definitely… yeah. Risky, if it fell in the wrong hands.)

At the mention of the paradox beasts and how some of them looked like—

“Wouldn’t put it past ‘im to do that, knowing him,” he would quietly cackle.

The moment he would mention one that looked like Cobalion, the cackle would become a snort of laughter.

“I have the exact same one, too. it’s like a vicious mockery of the actual one running around with Melody Miro—yeah, I’ve seen the real thing with her some time ago. These ones that came from… from when that gigantic ice dragon woke up—they’re not the same…”

He would fall silent as he thought long and hard between the previous and what he wanted to say next.

Another snort would escape him.

“Funny you say that. We broke up before he joined Team Rocket, so… nothing of the sort happened.”

(But that wasn’t like that one time he had with Sorrel, too… boy that was even worse when he found out the other man’s secret, too. And that sucked ass.)

“My partner… Guillermo Marceliño has a jealous streak because of you know. Inferiority complex issues. About how all my exes were handsome compared to him, but I shut him up with these words.”

He would then clear his throat.

“Does physical looks really matter, when it’s the personality that you should focus on? Looking handsome is just a bonus. What really matters is what’s inside.”

It wouldn’t take too long before he would hear Ethan’s voice this time.

“Look out in your area, there’s a—whoa!” the yelping noise would make him look up right in time to see that there was… there was an anomalous space-time distortion that had appeared some distance away from where they stood!

He then turned to Hideo.

“You’re familiar with the distortions, right?” he would ask the other.

“Can you hear the familiar crackling noise that comes along with their sudden appearance?”

(Because asking the blind kid to take a look in the direction where it had appeared was pointless!)

---

• TOTAL OF ROLLS MADE BY ALL WRITERS REACHES 666. - A rift to the DISTORTION WORLD opens briefly, like an opening eye. Peering into it fills your characters with dread. You can not enter this rift, but one may theorize the DISTORTION WORLD is attempting to map out this new area in order to create an antimaterial counterpart for the world.

‘Oh, my god. You know, if you gave your name earlier—’

“Now’s not exactly the time for that, is it?! I know a lot of tales about the fae and once they have a human’s name, they’re not going to return it that easily!” he would holler as the telltale signs of a Tailwind would blow—but not from his direction.

Which meant they were essentially going to get fucked over.

“I don’t want to fight—” he would yelp; however the Ribombee would sigh.

‘Too late for that!’ the not-Carina would holler, quickly fluttering her—their wings and preparing a Quiver Dance, the better to be able to get the hell out of firing range the moment—

“Are you kidding me?!” he would all but shriek a few moments afterward as the ‘Tornadus’ set up the weather with a Rain Dance, which made him groan; and he already knew what was coming a split-second later as he quickly zipped up his jacket and threw the hood over as the torrential downpour began to rip through the foggy area—

A Hurricane force burst of wind would come screaming their way; had it not been for the earlier Quiver Dance they would’ve been pretty much fucked.

Thankfully, though, the Shield Dust that clung on the Ribombee’s wings would protect them from further harm; before the tiny little body mustered up all the force it could throw behind as it would meet the Hurricane head-on with a sudden flash-bang of light that took the form of a Dazzling Gleam.

Huh. That was definitely not one of the attacks his Carina knew—because the affectionate Ribombee that traveled with him knew Moonblast and not this variant.

Uncowed, but not deterred, an Air Slash would come screaming their way; and one flap of the tiny wings later, a loud, discordant racket in the form of a Bug Buzz would shake the clearing, forcing him to stuff his fingers into his ears.

Oops.

He forgot his earplugs.

A surprise Hammer Arm would come screaming from the ‘djinni’s’ direction; and thankfully the ‘Ribombee’ was fast enough to get the hell out of range, flying upward before commencing…

The Pollen Puff bombing run. Or at least that’s what it looked like, as one, after another, after yet another, and yet more purple poisonous strings of ‘candy’ would start falling towards where the ‘Tornadus’ was…

This was… definitely a ‘David and Goliath’ situation, wasn’t it?

The good thing here was that he wasn’t afraid of spiders, so this was perfectly fine for him to handle—unlike his poor friend who was fucking terrified out of his wits at the sight of one of—

“Geez, what’s up with all these traps, do I gotta do an Ethan Hunt here or something?” he huffed at the sight of the multitude of traps that had been laid out across the route.

Honestly, this was nuts. Way too nuts. Like a Mission: Impossible gone all wrong.

“Much as I want to incinerate everything with fire, that’s not exactly feasible, so…” he sighed, before finding his Skarmory’s Heavy Ball and popping it open.

Tine to fight the goop with a slash here and there, right?

“Alright, Valk, let’s free some poor people who almost ended up becoming lunch.”

The two would then go over to the nearest wriggling pod and the Skarmory would then get to work, trying to cut open the nearest human-size cocoon.

Yikes.

What had he arrived into?!

The entire place was a mess, however…

“Alright, Kyouya… let’s deal with this shit.”

He then threw the black orb and saw the funny hat appear once more in a burst of light. He would follow by example today, using Terastalization to help with the current situation.

(Those Bug-types stuck on the trees though. Maybe it was a good thing he wasn’t terrified of them.)

He knew these imp Pokémon were nocturnal (because Guillermo Marceliño knew the lore behind them) but goodness. Wouldn’t Shalin Nariya be annoyed at all the graffiti on the trees when she saw this in the morning?!

Poor girl.

Putting out the electrical fire with water was a bad idea, and some shuffling later he would eventually pull out two Pokéballs—one with his Charizard, and another one containing—surprisingly—a Ninetales.

Why Ninetales?

“Ravana, I’m going to need your help! Can you help put the fire out?” he asked his trusty Charizard—before the Ninetales then rushed forward, seemingly drawing the fire unto themselves thanks to their Flash Fire ability.

“Yeah, any missed spots will do!” he added as he then chased after the two Pokémon, recalling the Tornadus before things got even further out of hand than they already did.

They would have to deal with putting out the electrical fire now, after all.

This was their last chance to show what they had—and he had an idea.

Although, the problem now was—which of the two would he use? He would continuously ping-pong between the two Mega Stones until he’d made his decision—

And rubbed his Charizard’s neck for good luck.

---

They would be the next up to perform on stage, and so he got this crazy idea—to ride out on the back of his Charizard—not seated, but standing on their back! It was a crazy-delicate balancing act, however he knew that he had to ‘wow the crowd’ with this one last performance.

He knew that smashing rocks was what he got away with last time; so it would be the Scorching Sands that would signal their entrance this time; almost like a blazing-hot version of a sandstorm—

And then, he timed it right, pulling out his bird whistle and then blowing one unheard note.

To his Charizard though, that was the key to start transforming.

As they flew over the crowd’s heads, the Scorching Sands would somehow transform into space glitter that shimmered silver, black, and blue as the normally-orange body of his Charizard transformed with the light of Mega Evolution, revealing the black-bodied, blue-flamed Charizard he would emerge from once the ‘attack’ had cleared out.



“Don’t count me out of this, not yet!”

And they would then fly, soaring above the crowd while the cosmic ‘space dust’ of silver, black, and blue glitter would rain down upon everyone watching in the crowd.

---

Charizard used Scorching Sands & Mega Evolution into Charizard-X for their final presentation!

“Well, hopefully they’re not getting themselves into too much—”

Oh, how the rest of the sentence would fall on deaf ears as there was a commotion at the very front of the tent where someone had quite literally, fainted.

“Trouble,” he continued, but mostly to himself as he quickly hauled ass to the front of the tent only to see the alarming trail of red that went straight back into the depths of… of wherever those ‘mating’ noises were coming from.

“Miss Elise! Can you get the stretcher ready?!” he exclaimed as he internally screamed; before steeling himself and very pointedly looking away from that spreading red because any sign of fear would betray him and—yeah.

He would approach the passed-out League personnel (oh, how he had no idea) and would begin to look over the extent of the injuries, hoping that it wasn’t going to be too serious.

The absolute worst at the moment was that they would need a blood transfusion, from the looks of things.

---

• Area Zero Excursion: D
• hello Rocket, feel free to come screaming in when you wanna.

“I’ve been around the block far too long, so I’ve seen a lot of people come and go. There should be a more stringent screening process for anyone who wants to become a Gym Leader because even though our position is what it is, we still have—influence, at least in our local areas.”

The noise that reached his ears afterward was definitely… geez. Again?

“When I came down here with Thomas Benoit and we brought back that ‘Walking Wake’, or whatever it’s called, we kept hearing two versions of that noise. One sounded like an old-school… something, while the other was decidedly more—yeah. Like that,” he gestured in the general direction where the noise had come from.

And even though the other couldn’t see it, there was this extremely ironic grin on his face.

“…only my partner knows he’s my ex, but not the fact that Tempest Quinn is with Team Rocket. Did get kinda jealous when I told him about that connection we had, though.”

---

• ROLL 89 - 98. - Hear the following cry echoing from somewhere deep below:[break]
[player]https://file.garden/ZXZrnWMYuz15frfJ/HOENN%20MUSIC/MYSTERIOUSCRY1.mp3[/player]

The sound of… discordant, electric—almost motor-like… ‘noise’ would reach the Braviary’s ears; before he turned around and gave one very loud squawking noise.

He… to be fair he wasn’t okay, because he was just as worried about leaving his idiot human behind with no Pokémon! Either way… he would shake his head, before spreading his wings wide and then turning around to examine the area where they were at.

No… it definitely wasn’t here.

So instead, he would shoot off towards the supposed direction where the strange ‘mating noise’ had come from.

Meanwhile over at where Alex was waiting up in a tree…

“Really? Again? Now it’s the other one?” he mused; taking a mental note to tell Thomas Benoit about the other noise this time—the last time it was the antiquated-sounding one; this one sounded more… futuristic?

If that even made sense?

---

• ROLL 89 - 98. - Hear the following cry echoing from somewhere deep below:[break]
[player]https://file.garden/ZXZrnWMYuz15frfJ/HOENN%20MUSIC/MYSTERIOUSCRY1.mp3[/player]

The one thing he was sure of was that Team Rocket would not stop at anything to get what they wanted. See: the Kanto region.

“I don’t doubt your words that there are people still trapped inside Rocket’s underbelly… I just hope that something can be done for them before they reach the point of no return.”

He felt his throat run dry. There was another question bothering him in the back of his mind, however he decided to come out and ask it anyway:

“Have you… like, you know, killed someone?” he asked in hushed tones, so low the other would have to lean in close just to hear it. He didn’t want to set off any alarms—they were still in public, after all.

“Or was it not part of what they asked you to do?”

He wondered—what if they’d met earlier, before the other had joined Team Rocket, would things have been… different?

“If and when you do add a non-traditional option, let me know,” he mused as he looked over at the work that was being done in the immediate area.

“I can test run it for you. I mean, you know me. I have like. Three versions of a non-traditional gym challenge, each one of them unique.”

(Of course, he’d have to revamp one of them down the road, all things considered, as they were becoming too similar now that he looked at it!)

He hummed quietly—oh? Lilycove’s Birddad™ also had a partner?

“Ooh?” he crowed, ears perking. “Have I met or at the very least come by my Gym for a challenge before like you did?”

He tried to remember the scores of challengers, wondering if there was any that stood out asides from the greenette in front of him. Should they have taken the non-traditional challenge, then that alone would make them stick out easily in his memory.

“Honestly, I’m telling you… some of these Pokémon will do whatever they want when left unsupervised…” he trailed off as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

Either way, the Heatran then rolled over, sinking the heated coals on their back deeper into the ground…

“Speaking of which, I was trying to get a hot spring made out here, but see, the problem is—where can I put the Heatran? Think you can help me out here?” he would offer to her before looking over at the Smeargle who had… huh?

“Wait. Oh, no. I think the Smeargle copied the Heatran’s move,” he mused a few moments later.

“I’ve seen videos of Smeargle copying moves left and right on the Pokénet. The shit they can get gets to be pretty… wild.”

As demonstrated by the Heatran who was now lounging in the ‘pit’, stubby legs wiggling in the air like some kind of demented, silly little child.