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Since Navy didn’t exactly give him any kind of word about collateral damage he presumed that all moves were a-go out here… despite being hilariously underground.

(It reminded him of this huge-ass training space seemingly hidden under a ‘general supply store’ in one of those graphic novels he’d consumed back then.)

A flicker of movement caught his eye and then suddenly—

“Wait, shit, where’d you come from?!” he yelped as he held on tight for dear deer fucking life as he felt Fenrir wobbling in mid-air, before a sudden, rather loud burst of energy shook the area…

Shit! he thought, quickly slipping in the earplugs as best as he could while his Noivern attempted to make as much noise as humanly possible with the extremely loud Boomburst attack—

He only had one ear plug on, so half the noise still meant he was gritting his teeth because shit, there was good reason why Thomas Benoit had advised him long, long ago to always carry a pair of earplugs when travelling with a Pokémon that could use this particular attack!

It was a literal blur of motion the moment he saw the second shape in mid-air suddenly following him and literally coming up for the first strike indeed!

Still hanging from his ‘upside down’ position, he chuckled.

“You do think fast, however I did notice one thing—you tend to rely too much on speed moves a lot in battle! It shows!” he chirped as he then righted himself and his own Pidgeot shook her head, looking unfazed but ouch.

Wow, that strike hurt!

“First point’s yours!” he added a few moments later before suddenly, seemingly disappearing in a free-fall drop to lure the other to follow him!

Because oh no, they weren’t going to be staying in one position alone, it was time to even out things as he spun his hand that held his purple pool noodle before coming in for another clean strike!

---

land exactly one of the numbers in the rolls to claim the second point, otherwise Alex gets the point!

Jersh - 1
Birddad - 0

The moment his sleepy ol’ grampa dragon was on the warpath there was… literally no stopping him.

Uh-oh.

Thankfully, the battlefield was now a one-on-one, however fact of the matter here was that he was now locked into the Outrage for a few more turns as the ‘fur’ and ‘feathers’ from the Drampa went flying, long neck lashing out like a whip as he charged recklessly and indiscriminately in said blind rage.

The Drampa was trying to smack or at the very least reach some part of the Kecleon while getting bashed by the Psybeam attack from what felt like multiple sides.

(He had words to say about the Kecleon but he would rather keep that to himself, for now at least.)

---

Drampa is out on the field!

Drampa is locked into an Outrageing attack, indiscriminately trying to hit the Kecleon while getting smacked by the Psybeam attack at the same time!

“Only the two of you if I’m being honest,” he cracked at her mention of the Beedrill-riding shenanigans. To be fair, though, there was a perfectly legitimate reason as to why he only rode on avians and on larger insectoid Pokémon like Flygon—it was due to their size in general.

(How in the seven hells did Kaida Adachi manage riding a Yanmega he will never understand, but then again he was lankier and taller than most.)

“I mean, it’s not too late if you want to swap out to your Flygon so we can go head-to-head,” he suggested once they were outside at the open-air arena out back. “Oh, and…”

He couldn’t help but cackle again.

“Surprise.”

With a ‘grandiose’ gesture, he then flung out his arms to the… insanity that was the aerial course they were going to fly. Unlike Josh Devlin’s which put emphasis on speed, his was literally, and quite literally a hodgepodge of obstacles: truly a lesson in aerial navigation.

“Don’t get me started on the time I had a rubber match with a Golurk out here! Everyone had to scramble to blow up all the obstacles because the original size configuration was for either my Salamence or Braviary—moment Isaac Merlo came out here with a Golurk things got really crazy!”

(He cackled again.)

“Oh, and one other thing—it’s all natural flying out here, no speed boosts or anything.”

The Minior had his attention, oh definitely.

“I know quite a few people who collect Minior,” he mused as he remembered Zac Ramsay. Great guy who loved nature and all that.

“They do the collecting because. You’ve seen the inside of a Minior after they shed their rocky shells, right?”

(The bonus here was that his Minior was a shiny one so it was literally like holding space in the pam of your hand… if you could carry a meteor that was several times heavier than a sack of rice!)

“Come, come, follow me. We ain’t fighting in here at the reception area!” he chuckled as he then led the way to the right-hand side door (there were two; the one on the left led to the Sanctuary proper as well as the medical facilities and the right led to the outdoor arena) and held it open for her.

“To be honest, you’re… you’re going to see why out of every single Gym Leader in Hoenn, I’m the so-called ‘easiest’ to get a badge from once we’re out on the battlefield.”

While on the way over, he would give her a handful of said jelly beans to munch on.

“You know I want answers.”

By this time, he turned to face the other—having approached the door that led to the outdoor arena and holding it open, waiting for the other to follow him outside so they didn’t make a mess of the place.

“And I want the real answer as to why you left, all those years ago. Speaking of, I got a letter from Tulio recently, of all things, from out of nowhere, asking about me like it was just yesterday.”

(Said letter he had to hide from his partner because. Well, with a jealous streak like that he was sure the Frog would sink into another mire of self-loathing because of ‘all the hot exes you had before me’. He was more than certain of it.)

“And also answers why you came out here in a disguise, what is up with you?”

Unless…

Unless that ‘game’ he played when it swept through the nation in a frenzy… did it have some kind of a grain of truth in it?

(It was more like… he wanted to be careful about asking questions. But we digress.)

“I… wanted to ask how you can see me without opening your eyes. Or unless your eyes do that weird flash-memory wipe thing like in that one movie I’ve seen.”

(Little did he know he’d skirted ridiculously close to the truth. But then again. He didn’t know of most other Legendary Pokémon outside of Unova at least, so there was that.)

He realized he was straying from their question, so he’d come to a stop and think.

“To be honest… I enjoy being a ‘caretaker’. You’d have to contend with so many other personalities all at once, though, because taking care of a lot of Pokémon isn’t easy—especially when… especially when there’s a lot of one particular kind that like calling the place you live at, ‘home’.”

He… he did not want to challenge the ‘Queen’ as it was. Too risky.

“Aye, and you’re such a strange one,” the not-so-little Ribombee sassed, finally speaking up after all this time. “You say weird things at times.”

“Wha—”