He was already halfway through the caramel-coated apple he was holding when suddenly he found himself holding two caramel apples.

What the—what was going on…?

“Wha—you don’ wan’ your appl’?” he mumbled around the mouthful he was currently enjoying, following his boyfriend partner as they were off to the booths.

Oh, hell no. Not these rigged entertainment hotspots again!

He watched with silent incredulity as—as—

Left speechless by what he’d just witnessed, Memo was lucky that he had a mouthful of goopy caramel apple to keep him from talking as he saw what had gone down.

---

Birdfrog day at the faire

Guillermo Marceliño

“We’re not going anywhere—not at least, until, I get answers.”

The blue-plumed Braviary was looking at him strangely, still getting the weird, uneasy feeling the longer that his crazy human talked like that.

(Because there was no way in hell he knew that Alexei talked like that. Absolutely bar none.)

“Look at me,” he continued in that same quiet, dangerous voice.

“Th-that’s the thing,” he continued in the same quiet, terrified voice.

“What… what if we can’t find a way to fix it? What… what if that voice just… just stays up here, inside m-my head… f-forever?” he ended with an uncomfortable shudder.

It was like fate was playing with him; the way that a snide-sounding cackle echoed out right as he said those words.

‘Because I am, and I will be in here forever. Good luck getting rid of me!’

He shook his head, muttering in Russian as he did so.

“Stop that…”

---

timeline: close to present day. Happens several weeks after by the dawn & fly me over yesterday; definitely after Frog’s birthday so yes they’re already boyfriends by this time

“I’m telling you, what if you drop dead due to relying on that too much?” he continued as this strange, unfamiliar manic gleam crossed his field of vision.

“It’s in the realm of possibility!” he went on. He’d almost very nearly slipped up and revealed that his own problem with Mega evolution was…

Yeah, not right now. Not when there was a bigger pending issue at hand, right there in front of him.

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, he decided to try a different tack.

“Look,” he began in a much quieter tone of voice, “I will also protect and defend you from whatever shit comes screaming your way. No… n-nothing will take you away from me. Nothing will also take m-me, away from you.”

Because they only had each other to lean on.

“Just… please. Don’t. Don’t overdo it.”

How long could he hold his breath in this madness, cross the room and be with his partner?

Without the strange pink mist situation that would’ve been done in an instant; however, the ugly, ugly tendrils were floating about near the floor—and so it was a calculated, absolute risk to take a deep breath because there was the chance of inhaling the damned thing and he already had previous experience with the—

“Stay where you are!” he yelled, for once fucking thankful that his height gave him an advantage. “Try not to breathe the mist in, or have it touch you!” he continued as he mentally crossed his fingers—

And literally ran straight into the curlicues of wispy fog, determined to all hell to reach him on the opposite side of the room, to reassure him that they were going to be alright, that—

But then again, this is Hoenn.

Nothing would be alright.

(To be fair, it was Imprison, not Disable, that his Kirlia knew.)

So now that they caught the smelly, skiving sneak thief—he could only blink and watch in incredulous silence as the Abra then made a full-pelt mad dash towards the fucking door…

“Not today, Satan!” he yelled, and William the Wooloo immediately sprang into action, literally becoming a white wrecking ball of anarchy that rolled in chase of the Abra while he cut around the couch and made a mad sprint to grab the Abra as well.

“What are you waiting for? Come on, let’s catch its ugly ass!”

Luckily enough, the shawarma stall was running a ‘buy one get one’ special, and he wasted no time grabbing that exact offer—unable to hide the fact that he was… okay, he was definitely more than hungry at this point.

“Damn, that smells so fucking good,” he crowed, inhaling deeply and just like—wham, two delicious beef shawarma rolls were handed to him.

“Here, take one, I gotta pay for this,” he continued as he rummaged around before pulling out some bills from his pocket; while taking a big bite in the process.

“Oof, ow, ouch, hot!” he gasped, because holy shit his tongue just got an extremely rude awakening.

It tasted hella good, though!

Of course she was going to charge. Of fucking course Freya would come screaming his way.

However, Vincent was a patient one—and literally took the attack full to the snout, never mind if he growled in annoyance (shit, that hurt) before he braced himself—and then spread his paws out and executed a Countering gesture, returning the impact two-fold on the other Lucario.

(Because no, he wasn’t going to be fucking around!)

“Whoa, uh. Okay, so what do I do—just—charge at you?!” he exclaimed, seeing as their Lucario were apparently going at it.

Today was a good day to be outside—having overheard via the earpiece he had on that the next challenger had arrived and been shown through (thanks, Claire) to the open-air arena.

He’d just finished feeding the rowdy peanut gallery Toucannon Armada™ and had dropped off the bucket along with the gloves inside it as he made his way over to where the next challenger was waiting.

“Are you by any chance related to the former councilman GABRIEL BLACK?” was his first question. “Same surname and all that.”

(Who knew just how many kids that man had?!)

Anyway.

“Down for doubles, right?” he confirmed, once he’d gotten a view of what he was going up against—an Aerodactyl and what he guessed was a Corviknight.

(For yes, he did not have a Corviknight yet, only a Corvisquire.)

“Okay, eager Bidoof, you need to pick a weapon first,” he cackled as he pointed over towards a rack of…

Pool noodles.

Yes, your average long, thin, Styrofoam stick that floated when thrown into a pool.

“Due to… reasons, I can’t have the real things out here, however after countless hours of testing, pool noodles are the next best reasonable weapon to use… although, do you want your noodle reinforced with something inside of it so it can take blows?” he explained as he’d already picked out the purple pool noodle for himself.

Safety regulations and all that.

“And of course you want to do it in mid-air,” he confirmed with another cackle.

Never mind if he had a split-second warning to brace himself as the sibilant noise split the air, the Yanma’s shrieking, buzzing noise from earlier was proving to be effective—even if the flight pattern was somewhat starting to list.

“Get ‘em!” he encouraged both his valiant fighters; however he knew that something had to give between them, the way that they were going back and forth between this volley of attacks.

Just before the sparkling Wingull would hit the ground, a beam of red light saved him from becoming a gull pancake (and angering the entire peanut gallery watching the insanity), which left the Yanma out on the field…

One on two, what were the odds? He knew that they had to level the battle ground, though—

The Yanma then made like a madman, zipping past, too close and narrowly avoiding the bolt of lightning as he chased down the Pidove, spreading the thin wings wide in a Steel Wing attack, hoping to knock the other bird out of the sky as well!

---

Yanma and Wingull is out on the field!

Wingull is knocked out, and recalled! Yanma narrowly avoided the Thunder attack, before closing the distance on the Pidove and using a close-range Steel Wing to catch the other bird off-guard!

“You’re denying their natural urge, though!” was his clapback to the entire thing.

The Gyarados continued to roar in rage—never mind if he suddenly tasted blood in his mouth the way she was being tossed around, this was still well within the known ‘limit’ of how long to keep a Pokémon Mega-evolved—as she allowed herself to be swung around before—

Realizing that she was about to get thrown into the perimeter fence, she unlatched from her grip on the Garchomp and quickly hosed down the Garchomp with a close-range, in-your-face Hydro Pump strike!

Never mind if this meant that they would either end in a tie.

---

Gyarados is out on the field!

Gyarados still getting beaned by the Outrage, however she is one persistent sunuvabinch and released her hold on Garchomp, hosing her opponent down with a close-range Hydro Pump!