Good thing for Miss Elise…

Despite the earlier setback they’d encountered at the previous obstacle, things were starting to look up for them this time around! While most of the ricocheting noises meant that a vast majority of the Bullet Seed mortar ‘shells’ whizzed past by her harmlessly—

Over where he was flying, though, was going to be a bit of a problem.

“Oh, come on, Fen, don’t stall on me now!” he wailed as the Noivern, for all that he was—was still a big-ass baby at heart. The moment some of the ‘mortar rounds’ hit the Noivern’s eyes, though, he’d almost gotten bucked off; which caused him to fall behind and have the other rider take the lead for now!

However, being up ahead wasn’t always a good thing… was it?

The ‘rounds’ continued in intensity as even the heat haze caused by the glaring sun from above caused the shimmering air around them to distort—oh, boy…

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part 3: mortar rounds, featuring the Toucannon Mafia™: roll lower than the total of Birddad’s rolls to continue; do you want to know what happens if you roll higher?

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The next obstacle that was waiting for them up ahead—while it looked clear, fact of the matter was that there was a certain Toucannon at the helm today.

For yes, the entirety of the evolved part of the Toucannon Mafia™ was out and about; flying around under the heat of the blaring sun while firing, on constant repeating cylinders…

Bullet Seed mortar fire.

Thankfully, the other rider would be able to catch up with them—at the cost of being a little disoriented due to one of the Charizard angrily roaring at her before flying off in a huff.

“Yeah… welcome to Bullet Hell, in more ways than one,” he cackled once the other was close enough.

“You know how it goes. Try to get past this entire stretch in one piece; if you get hit, minimize the damage you’ll get!”

And off he flew straight into the thick of it, the angry recoiling noise of hard-shelled seeds literally pinging like bullets in mid-air.

They were small, fast, and damned hard to see! Eye protection would be a necessity this round.

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part 3: mortar rounds, featuring the Toucannon Mafia™: roll higher than the total of Birddad’s rolls to proceed, do you want to know what happens if you roll lower?

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“Sure did,” he continued with a grin as he then closed the fence gate behind them once she was inside; the Pidgeot keeping an eye on them from the gate itself.

“It wasn’t easy getting the cash together for the place, but somehow I managed it. Saved quite a lot of money for the initial plot of land, took me almost seven years to get it all together. The expansions were funded much later.”

Right now they were near the multitude of perches where there were other avianid Pokémon resting on some of the branches; there was an Altaria cleaning her cloudy puffy body on one; while another had an upside-down, slumbering Crobat. In broad daylight!

There were also two Wingull flying around—one of them shiny, the other sporting the normal coloration… before a sudden chorus of what suspiciously sounded like “mike” rather than “mine” came rising from a literal flock of Pelipper that were chasing after their wayward ‘children’.

“Whoa. Hey, Mike! Knock it off, will you? I have guests!” he hollered toward the Pelipper horde; who then about face’d and did a 180 on him, before squawking very loudly and heading in the opposite direction.

“…yeah, I was not expecting all of them to do that!” he continued with an embarrassed grin on his face.

“That’s Mike, commander-in-chief of the self-coined ‘Shitsquawk Brigade’, along with all the other Pelipper under his… ah, ‘command’ if you put it. Three guesses why they’re called the Shitsquawk Brigade.”

These Charizard weren’t out to play; they were here for serious business.

What made this section of the entire thing even worse was the fact that the further in they flew, the more… obscured their field of vision would get! It was like there was glitter hanging in the heat hazes—mirages were prone to appearing if they weren’t careful…

Much like the illusion of safety that Miss Elise had found herself in.

(This is what heat does to your head, everyone!)

While it looked like there were next to no Charizard flying around in her area, truth of the matter was that there were two flying low that suddenly took an aerial rise in the middle of wrestling with each other! The two Charizard were also breathing fire like it was nobody’s business; and one stray tongue of flame would catch on her Noivern’s wing.

Up ahead, even he was also having problems; coming to a very rare stop near the edge of the course to better figure out that he wasn’t seeing things either.

Back to where Miss Elise was…

The other Charizard’s tail would then come swinging wildly upward towards the rider; and if she wasn’t fast enough to dodge, she may get knocked off Minerva’s back!

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part 2: welcome to the flaming aerial valley! match exactly one of the rolls to proceed; otherwise dare you want to know what happens if you miss?

Thankfully, he was able to clear the second obstacle.

And yet there were two more waiting up ahead…

While he waited up ahead for his challenger to catch up so that they could enter the next obstacle together, several ricocheting Bullet Seed shells would strike the Flygon’s tail; thankfully missing her completely.

However, with her Flygon’s tail getting struck, steering and balance may prove harder with the next obstacle… one that hasn’t been seen in a while.

The flames were back, oh yes… however they were now rings on fire.

“Can’t skip around them!” he yelled as he blew on ahead, easily clearing the first few wildly-swinging hoops that were on fire.

If she wasn’t careful, then she might end the course with less hair on her head!

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Part 3: aerial Circus Charlie; roll lower than the total Alex’s rolls to pass! Should you roll higher, do you want to know what happens?

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“Shit happens,” he continued quietly.

“I don’t know how to exactly put it into words, however it makes me quietly angry whenever people abandon Pokémon and just. Life goes on for them, but what about the Pokémon?” he went on.

When asked how large the Sanctuary covered, there was an unreadable grin on his face.

“I have enough hectares of land to have separate aviaries for public touring, as well as land to let all the employees, as well as my own Pokémon, run free rather than being cooped up in the storage system.”

He couldn’t help but look over at the other; a kindred spirit.

“We can take as much time as you need,” he nodded. He was accommodating like that.

While the whiplash made his companion scream from the way the ride recoiled before it settled down and let them hop off so they could go on to the next one.

It was like seeing stars pop the moment he was back on land when they disembarked to go to the next ride.

“I’ll agree with you on that, doing that on the back of a Pokémon is way better than doing it on a ride,” he nodded.

“Is there like… anything else you want to after this ride?” he asked his companion for the day.

“Now if only I could guess what mine was thinking. I kind of miss the other one… the one I met before the one I have with me now,” he corrected as they began to rise above the crowd.

In no time flat they were hurtling towards the apex of the drop ride, and he could only flash this absolutely demonic smile on his face.

“Why don’t you ask her?!” he shouted to the wind, the moment they hit the ceiling before suddenly going into freefall for a few seconds—to others it felt like an eternity; but to him it was like all those times he’d done those aerial transfer maneuvers…

Sometimes, relying on one thing too much would end up biting you back in the ass…

As was about to happen to the greenette that had surprisingly decided to lag behind somewhat. While he had barrel-rolled several times to avoid getting sniped out of the air by the other Toucannon that were going full-tilt like the aerial rocket launchers that they were—

A surprise squawking noise from behind would eventually catch Shalin off-guard, slamming the Flygon with enough force to knock them off-course; and should they not fix their trajectory, would end up on the receiving end of more than just Skill Linked Bullet Seeds being fired her way!

Up ahead, even he’d almost gotten beaned in the shoulder by wayward ‘bullets’, had his own Flygon not pulled off several tight aerial maneuvers he was capable of while under duress.

The latter half of ‘Mortar Rounds’ would only increase in intensity—as the rest of the Toucannon flying to disrupt their aerial progress with Bullet Seeds being fired off like watermelon seeds continued to be a relentless force.

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Part 2: blinding Mortar Rounds featuring the Toucannon Armada: land either one of the two numbers of Alex’s rolls to pass! Should you miss, do you want to know what happens?