Now that the two were bearing down on the Pom-Pom Oricorio, and she was being hoisted into the air by the Kecleon—however the Froakie was attempting to come in with the coup de grace but there was no way in hell she was going to allow that to happen!

(Maybe disabling the Hurricane move was a mistake, because this particular Oricorio of his excelled in something else…)

One singular, sharp burst of noise from his direction meant that the Drampa was to switch targets, firing down another Extrasensory—only this was aimed at the Froakie, while the Oricorio used Mirror Move.

The yellow avian saw this as a chance to snatch an attack of opportunity and throwing an equally-sized rock back at the Froakie in an attempt to force a double knock out—at least, if that happened then there would be only one Pokémon each on their side of the field remaining…!

---

Drampa & Oricorio (Pom-pom) are out on the field!

Oricorio is currently being held by the Ancient Power, however used Mirror Move to throw back the Smack Down at the Froakie; while the Drampa unloaded another Extrasensory, however this time aiming at the Froakie as well!

Safeguard 4 / 5; Oricorio’s Hurricane is Disabled (3 / 4)!

By now, this particular gym battle was most likely being broadcast all over the Sanctuary’s live feed, and every employee who wasn’t busy in the medical bays (or feeding the Armadas in their respective aviaries) had turned out to watch.

And of course, of fucking course, someone was live streaming the entire thing online as well!

(So who knew just exactly how many people from Fortree were watching this right now?!)

Either way, the Golurk that had a screaming Birddad™ on it cleared the third obstacle, however there was a sudden swinging crush of four frozen ‘wrecking balls’ that would come in and clip on the closest part of the second Golurk that was reachable—

Hopefully Isaac wasn’t averse to getting sudden frostbite!

Assuming that they’d managed to get out of the entire thing, the last obstacle lay in front of them—myriad manner of wiring, cables and all—strung up across the last stretch of skies before the end of the entire obstacle course was reached!

“Wow, you look—a mess,” he shouted once the other had made it through before pointing at the last obstacle.

“Normally, this obstacle appears much earlier in the scramble layout, however due to the sheer size of our rides, well, this is the first time that this appeared right at the end. All you have to do? Get through without breaking any of the cables. Or the ropes.”

Now this was going to be a true test of finesse as his Golurk then lurched forward, into the final home stretch…

---

Part 4: float like a butterfly Golurk! Land at least one the numbers of Alex’s rolls to safely get through the first half of the fourth and final obstacle. Do you want to know what happens if you miss?

With the way the flurry of blows were coming—if his mental calculations were right, the next thing he could do was veer into that or the other attack, however the possibility of the Togekiss using Safeguard again was pretty high so he had to lean into it.

While the Crobat took the full force of the Extreme Speed attack, this meant that the Togekiss would be in close contact with the dual-type Pokémon, who then spread his wings as wide as possible and countered back with a close-range Wing Attack, making sure to clip the Togekiss as hard as possible before spiraling out of range!

Out of range—he had to move fast, otherwise the next hit or so would be the deciding factor of the entire battle.

---

Crobat took the Extreme Speed attack, however due to being brought close to the Togekiss, immediately lashed back with a Wing Attack!

The tiny little Masquerain was valiant, however with Bug-types there really was the issue of them being… squishy.

However, that didn’t meant to count them out completely! As the screaming flames came pelting at him, full-force, the only reaction to this was to lash out with the one move that he knew that could dampen the damage somewhat—

Thanks to the puddles that had formed on the muddy ground after the Drizzle had petered out, the Masquerain then used Water Sport to reduce the effectivity of Fire-type moves. While the Heat Wave would score a direct hit, the moisture build-up on his wings would allow him to weather through the pain—for now.

For now.

“Strong attacks don’t always necessarily mean a direct hit!” he called out from his side of the field as the Masquerain rose up again, ready to bring down tiny-sized hell on the next approach.

---

Masquerain takes the Heat Wave hit, however moves to mitigate damage via Water Sport!

“Alright, call your Pokémon out when you’re ready. You also get the first move, too!” he added as he walked over to his side of the field where a myriad of avianid Pokémon were now congregating.

(Right now the Toucannon Armada™ was being fed, so they weren’t there—but everything else that had wings and could fly was out in seeming full force.)

He wondered, though, what would he be packing? It was important to adjust his own power output to match his opponent’s, and he wondered what Lam would be bringing to the table.

“Right off the bat they’re there…” he grumbled as a wave of water went rocketing towards the three ‘guards’, however he wasn’t going to be done there. Not just yet.

Since he already had his Salamence out, why not throw something else into the mix with the torrent of water?

A singular nod to the Salamence had the draconid roaring, before summoning an avalanche of boulders in the form of a Rock Slide and throwing those alongside the wave of water that was headed towards them.

“We don’t have time to fight off everything, who knows when this entire place will warp… let’s get going!”

---

Salamence used Rock Slide!

“There you are!” he breathed out, before the cute little Fire-type (he remembered Andrea Vaneau had one) gave him a buck-toothed smile…

…and then began causing a racket with its extremely loud Hyper Voice, which made him clap his hands over his ears!

“Whoa! Not nice!” he grumbled as the Salamence came down from the skies, flinching at the loud noise and screaming as an avalanche of boulders in the form of a Rock Slide came crashing down and around the Fuecoco, who was still causing a fucking racket.

(This little one should be arrested for disturbing the peace!)

And then the next thing the Fuecoco did was trap the Salamence in an Encore, which was a bad idea considering that the move he’d last used was Rock Slide (this would only make the battle end much faster)…

The Salamence cackled before even more boulders began raining down and around the Fire-type, determined to yell his ear off.

He could feel himself shouting the words, “Make him shut up!” because the Hyper Voice rang really loudly and painfully all around them—

Before a particular bunch of falling boulders knocked the Fuecoco upside its head.

“Is it over?!” he continued, before the Salamence vehemently nodded—he had no idea he was screaming at full volume.

The last Safari Ball was then thrown at the conked-out Fuecoco, sporting a rather large bruise on one side of its head (this is what an encore of falling boulders can and will do to you).

---

catch attempt on fuecoco!

“You know I’m not going anywhere because. Just because,” he replied back quietly as they literally flew into the distortion before something—

“Frog!” he almost yelled, though his voice got stuck in his throat as he saw his partner literally fall down much further than he intended to after alighting from the Flygon’s back.

“I was going to say… be careful,” he sighed as he urged Nike on downward to follow the amphibian who’d taken a leap into the unknown—because at least someone had to be airborne and ready to fly out should shit hit the fan…

Well, it already kind of did, considering what he’d discovered where he’d landed.

The carcasses were dimly lit, before fading into darkness as he squinted—and realized that they were. Shells. Carcasses. There was even one of the big, buff bug and he felt his skin fucking crawl at the unwanted memories suddenly rising to the forefront of his mind’s eye.

“Are… are they all dead?” he confirmed, hoping that they. Stayed dead. Because there was no way in hell he was going to face another one of those—they were shit hard to take down!

Little did he realize that he was about to fly into something that would flip all the wrong switches in his head.

---

• reassures his boyfriend he’s not going anywhere
• and then he briefly saw Frog take a tumble, OOPS?!
• immediately has Nike the Flygon follow him down into the dimly-lit…
• holy shit it’s an ultra beast cemetery.
• setting up for prompt #24 on his next post

The moment they’d cleared the previous obstacle, he sighed—only minutely, of course—at least they hadn’t fallen so far behind!

However, the whistling of wind gave him a slight idea of what was coming up next—and he had a pretty good guess as to what was causing the prevalent crosswind to blow through this particular stretch.

The Salamence let out a cackle—well, to him it sounded like a guffaw, because he just knew that a certain shiny Braviary was behind all this—before he bent his head into Gabriel’s neck.

“I know you got this, Gabe, don’t let any single one of them get you down!” he hissed as he ducked down as best as he could; because not even he was immune from the effects of the prevalent crosswind, despite him being… that.

(Shalin Nariya would know, at least.)

“Just go with the flow, Gabe, go with the fucking flow!”

---

Speed: B
Endurance: C
Reaction: B

time to ride and DIE

He was familiar with Wingull, having an entire horde of Pelipper to his name (and then some) so he knew exactly how these damned avians operate.

“You’re not going to get my fingers,” he cackled as he came in for a three-point landing after taking a leap from Kyouya’s back as the shiny Braviary hovered while he poked around. Never mind if the base was in the middle of the ocean, good thing he could easily fly and get there!

“Hah, you can’t trick me,” he continued as he reached into his pocket right as Puck the Wingull came screaming at him, before he held up the little sandwich.

“Because I know you and your kind like sandwiches, take this!” he went on as the Wingull easily snatched the offering, which left him free to enter the secret base—and then let out an almighty guffaw.

Oh, he knew the owner of this one so well, too.

Seeing the pot of flags, he continued to cackle quietly as he grabbed one for himself, before sighting the marker pens and the long stretch of paper. Finding the purple one, he quickly snatched that one up and then began scrawling something in Cyrillic before belatedly realizing that Angelo couldn’t read that.

“Wait, shit.”

He had to backtrack and recall what choice few Alto Marean words he knew, and chuckled as he left a little doodle of the Skyrider Badge as his signature.

---

↠ interact with the secret base guardian (Puck the Wingull)

The moment he saw the—aww, cute! It reminded him way too much of Guillermo Marceliño’s Zuza—well, the smaller version of her, that is.

(And hilariously, out of the myriad of his partner’s Pokémon, it was Zuza of all things he got along the most with. Wonder why that was.)

“I already have you, but she’s weirdly-colored… and besides, I’m not sure how Zuza would take to seeing another one of her kind. I’onno if she’s a hella jealous mare, so…”

He then left the pastel Ponyta to wander into the undergrowth…

He was sure the one he was looking for would turn up soon. Now the problem was, he was going to be doing another back to back to back Safari trip because… well, he’d heard things about what was coming soon!

---

skipping g!ponyta

Okay, admittedly, he already had one variant of the edible Pokémon—but didn’t his friend Remiel Calcifet have a lot of these…? Or was it the Sinistea that the Galarian Ambassador hoarded?

Either way.

He cackled as the Applin came crashing down, kind of like how a certain person discovered Gravity (not the Pokémon move) and the Salamence came in screaming with a Flamethrower at the ready, almost incinerating the Applin.

“Whoa, Gabe! Whatever gender the Applin is, they didn’t do anything to you!” he yelped as he had to dive out of the way because those flames were still hot!

The Applin, not wanting to be outdone, used Withdraw and hid deeper in its apple, before lashing back with a Rollout that went ricocheting into the trees—only to be met with the burning maw of the draconid’s Flamethrower.

Once the Salamence was sure that the ‘threat’ had been handled, Alexei then chucked the next Safari Ball at it—and knew he had to pick up the pace because he was running out of time…!

---

catch attempt on applin!