[attr="class","robinsgift"]



It cannot move in time. [break][break]

The avalanche is unexpected from the Nagandel. Snow buries it and condemns it to an icy, silent tomb. There is no space to scream or torment Melody further. It opens its mouth and snow falls in, heavy but light on its tongue. [break][break]

The spirit flees. Robin remains. She comes back to herself in a dark and invisible, suffocating trap. She cannot scream - it feels like the snow in her mouth is going to fill her lungs. For a moment, she is reminded of her near-death experience with palossands that sought to bury her alive.

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[attr="class","robinsgift"]



Out of the shadows steps a Robin. Its eyes are a glowing, daunting red. Subconsciously, it is recognizable, but the conscious mind has not caught up to what its darker depths have picked up on. [break][break]

"A zorua?" Robin's voice is curious, but annoyance festers beneath the words. She's been hunting ghosts all month based on social media posts, and more often than not, the perpetrator has been something far from ghostly. She hates the mockery of it. Ghosts tell a story, they are innate survivors, they are othered but they belong and they are inevitable. Robin's always loved them. These cheap tricks elicit a vile that sits at the base of her throat. [break][break]

It cocks its head. [break][break]

Yes, this must be a pokemon. It blocks her path back home. She doesn't want to return, as she'd much rather continue stepping through the dark forest until a true ghost appears, but now she wants what she cannot have. She wants to walk the path that is blocked to her. [break][break]

"Move or be moved."

[break][break]notes
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[attr="class","robinsgift"]



Small, incomprehensible whispers brushed past her skin as she walked through the Border. Ghosts flocked her. Presences too old and forgotten to truly be ghosts tugged at her, too, with the desire to be remembered and made whole. It was hard to avoid letting it all get to her head when she got this celebrity treatment... but she wouldn't be able to explain such a thing to her new companion, Summer. [break][break]

"To a safe spot." Safe enough, anyhow. "We are East, which means we're in the Warden's territory. We'll want a spot to rest, so you can take him on." She didn't refer to herself as needing rest or strength to fight him. She was sure he wouldn't mind her presence at all, to be matter of fact about it. "This plain below is low-activity. We can use the hollowed tree and some large rocks to shelter from the elements." The elements being possessions and shadow attacks, of course.

[break][break]notes[break]
17 begin building a base camp/settlement of some kind

[attr="class","robinsgift"]



Aqua cutter, spatial manipulation, and a bleakwind storm collectively keep the vicious v-create from burning them all to a crisp. The last of the fiery attack is visibly extinguished as it strikes the spatial construct - leaving an absence and a chill. The vestigial spirit shivers before them, but a flare blitz surrounds the spirit, and the heat of its flames restores it of any frostbite. [break][break]

"We created an opening and ran last time," she answered Lam. Her voice was filled with awe rather than trepidation. "But we didn't experience such a strong force, then. It seems more powerful than before." More emotional, more burdened. [break][break]

The ground beneath them cracked. [break][break]

A poisonous gas billowed up from the ground, reminding Robin of the month where toxic chains were abundant over the region and sickness was impossible to avoid. The stormy weather kicked at it, but the pure amount of gas rising kept replacing all that the winds displaced. It curled hot and acrid around them. Robin coughed and nearly hurled as the poison sat heavy on her tongue. They needed to scatter since the gas could be flammable. [break][break]

Victini charged, overheating.

[break][break]notes[break]
difficult to move bc the ground around them is cracking open; flammable poison gas is floating up from the cracks, and victini is charging with overheat[break]

[attr="class","robinsgift"]



Robin lowered her hand and offered Summer an intense staring contest. After a beat, she broke into something more animated and 'natural' as she took strides to the subdued Marshadow. Without looking back at Summer, she answered. "A ghost told me."[break][break]

She tossed a pokeball at the Marshadow. "If you want to learn more, follow me deeper into the Border. We can get to a place where you see the dead more easily. They have a lot to share, if you're willing to listen." At her core, teaching others to embrace ghosts was her goal. Nothing had changed since the day she determined that as her purpose, except the acceptance of her Fate. "Since you don't have the abilities I have, I'll be an open book for you to even the playing field. How's that?"

[break][break]notes[break]

Both of them saw it coming, but Flutter Mane couldn't duck out of the way of the ice hammer that struck her. The small steel pokemon took no time to savor her strike. She leaned the hammer back and full committed to another slam of her hammer. Flutter Mane had enough time to recover from the first shock, however. FM launched a mystical fire that the ambusher failed to dodge. She cried out, but she also picked up her hammer after a moment of despair to strike once more. Robin tossed a pokeball while she was mid-swing. Such a ferocious pokemon would serve her in the future.

[attr="class","robinsgift"]



Summer had the right idea. Most psychics did scam. The Clairvoyant Coellos were the peak example. It could be true that Robin was the only true psychic on the planet, though she hoped that was untrue. In any case, she couldn't fault Summer's disbelief, but Robin knew the woman would come around if she stuck with Robin long enough to see the truth in action. [break][break]

"They're easy," she assured. "They learn quick, so you have to avoid fighting for a long period of time, but they struggle when others use shadows against them." Marshadow approached Summer's Emboar with a thunder punch. Whether it was pushed back by the Emboar or not, Robin's Dhelmise would phantom force underneath the Marshadow, popping out of its shadow and using power whip to hold it down, sapping it's strength with a mega drain. The repeated onslaught of attacks would come too quickly for the Marshadow to adjust. [break][break]

"If you stick with me, I can help you catch one." She wanted to share her love of the Border. She extended a hand, feeling for a brief moment like she was a bright-eyed and brand new Ranger again. "Robin Coello, at your service."

[break][break]notes[break]🗺️ SPECIAL HUNT

[attr="class","robinsgift"]



Summer's been emotionally distant the entire time, but this is a new layer of iciness that Robin hadn't expected. It's delightful, if only because it shows that Summer is paying attention to Robin. She should, however, be paying more attention to the world around them. "You don't hear them, do you? It can be hard. Some of them are not as potent as other ghosts."[break][break]

Her eyes are glued to Summer's, but she ducks in time to avoid a Marshadow - one moving like a bullet with its spectral thief that fails to land, despite how it came from her blindspot. Robin leans in close, disregarding personal space, and stage whispers: "I'm a psychic." How else could she have intuited the Marshadow's position? How else could she be so attuned with the dead? Oracle, ghost whisperer, psychic. [break][break]

"You didn't know it when you saw me, but I'm the best guide you can have in the Border." She jams a thumb to her chest, a spark of the usual Robin burning through the fog of the possessed one. Dhelmise launches an anchor shot to tie the Marshadow to the ground as it approaches again. "Now, come, have you seen this one before?" She steps close to the downed Marshadow and leans in close to it, unafraid of its supernatural prowess. She's already claimed one. But the Border is her true home, and she wants to be a good host. If Summer seeks the rewards of the Border, Robin will help her claim it.

[break][break]notes[break]🗺️ SPECIAL HUNT: ROBIN will now be able to encounter and catch a MARSHADOW. you must be able to defeat or prove to the marshadow that you are worthy of training them, but this will be no easy task. they quickly learn you and your pokemon's movements, able to mimic their movements by analyzing or hiding in their shadows.

[attr="class","robinsgift"]



Robin follows her away from the shadow, spirit figures, letting Dhelmise tie up the shadow Robin with its spectral chains. "Ghosts are pretty playful. We're in their domain." They go North, where more human figures appear. Some of them might only be visible to her, she's not sure. She seems to hear ghosts when others can't, but she's not so sure about the sight of them. In any case, she hears the haunting whispers of summer, summer, summer... [break][break]

"Is your name Summer?" As she posits the question, she gets a feeling. A familiar one, one that comes before a Marshadow. "Hold that thought," she urges with a raised finger to hush Summer. "Are you familiar with Marshadow? One is coming."

[break][break]notes[break]

[attr="class","robinsgift"]



It's a good question, but no answer comes to mind. Instead, her gaze falls on the moving shadows - and there appears to be two. "Be careful," she warns the other woman, but any other commentary about the potentially-attacking shadows falls short as her feet find a yawning opening of the bridge. She descends for a brief moment before one of the shadows besides the newcomer flickers out to her. [break][break]

Dhelmise. Ah, so that's where it'd been. It phantom forces to her and uses anchor shot to launch a chain back up to the other trainer, dragging Robin up in the blink of an eye. [break][break]

Robin looks completely unfazed by the experience and dusts herself off. Finally, an answer comes to mind. "I'm here because the ghosts want me here. You should be careful, though. I see they want to play with you." Her gaze flickers past the other's shoulder - and behind there is a shadow visage of Robin coming towards them both. It leads the charge of several ghostly soldiers behind it.

[break][break]notes[break]29 encounter shadowy copies of yourselves or your pokemon that mimic movement, form, and more.

[attr="class","robinsgift"]



Annalise's response is a eulogy. Robin can't speak to what they're mourning, but she knows a dead thing when she sees it. [break][break]

The League is their only hope. It's an idea she can't internalize, not yet. She's not ready to accept a dead end after walking through the spiritual maze in Sootopolis that gave her Omen. For the first time in her entire life as a Hoennite, she thinks there might be three factions at play in the political battlefield of Hoenn. The world does not exist in the dichotomy of Rocket and League. [break][break]

But tonight, it does. [break][break]

That's reason enough for her to accept Annalise's explanation. For tonight, at least. "Is the League okay with what we've done tonight?" Her voice falls quieter. This is the core of it - the juxtaposition of her righteous anger (of their righteous campaign against the terrorists that act against Hoenn every second) and the law, order, principle of the League. What they've done tonight is right. If it wasn't, it wouldn't have happened. Fate has put her on this path. If the League disagrees, it is wrong. [break][break]

She shakes her head to rid the line of thought. "I want... I want to do this again. When and where it's necessary. I trust the League enough." The diplomatic words feel like a surrender, strangely enough. "But I think the League needs help. We need people who work in the shadows like Rocket does." She gestures between them, but it's more Annalise than Robin that has seen the raw and diseased state of the world and chosen to be the scalpel that cuts the sickness out. Robin's following on her coattails. [break][break]

"Someone has to make the bad guys afraid of the dark."

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