Today wasn’t one of the ‘delivery days’, it was in fact time for him to bust out his blue armband and get all ‘official’ like.

(The amusing thing here was that the person he was going to be accompanying today was around the same age he was, so that was a relief not having to adjust to a much younger crowd!)

Normally, he would be waiting with his shining silver Metagross, Ro—but today was different; he was accompanied by Alpha the Lucario, already on lookout duty in case things went south too quickly.

(Because you never know!)

It wouldn’t take too long before he heard the sounds of someone approaching, and his Lucario would alert him to their presence—which made him turn off his vape a little too quickly and pocket it.

There would be a faint, lingering scent of vanilla when they approached where he stood—hastily retying the blue armband back on because whoops, he almost forgot that.

“No, you’re not late—that’s the beauty of working a job like this,” he would remark once they were close enough.

“When I was promoted to Head back then,” he would begin as they continued in chase of whatever they were hunting, “…the courier job I worked at told me I was free to go. But I told them I’d rather like to stay, since by that time I’d already gotten comfortable with how shit worked.”

The Metagross would continue surveillance, keeping an eye on the ground while they were talking.

“I actually had the option to stay in Alto Mare, to oversee my family’s shit, but. Well… that would be the same as running away, wouldn’t it.”

A bark of laughter escaped him afterward.

“Yeah, still an active Ranger. Just that. I don’t have the Head armpatch anymore, swapped it out for the Elite Ranger rank one,” he nodded.

“I’m still helping out with the new recruits when I have the time, though, so there’s that. How about you? After you had that strategy gym, you just… kind of fell off the face of the planet. Were you out somewhere after you left Mauville?”

It wouldn’t take long before the Metagross would alert them to something happening down on the ground—

“What is it, Ro?” he asked as he then leaned over the side and realized the place was… shaking, yet again!

“Another earthquake?!” he would add a few moments later as the shaking continued.

---

• TOTAL OF ROLLS MADE BY ALL WRITERS REACHES 377. - You experience an earthquake.

The terror of getting himself snared in any kind of byproduct made by arachnid Pokémon sends him into outright panic and terror mode; with him reaching up to get the sticky webs out of his hair and all over his clothes where the gooey threads had clung to.

“Ew, ew, fucking ew, god, not this, no, no, no…” he would trail off in a whine; the last part becoming unintelligible Italian Alto Marean grumbling as he made absolute certain that there were no remaining globs or strands stuck on any inch of his person.

“Ew. Just… ew,” he breathed out once he was absolutely certain that his hair and his skin were web-free.

Due to their insanity up in the air, they missed the earthquake that had happened; but Ro hadn’t, and was quick to warn them via a certain grating noise that something was happening around them.

“Wha—huh? Ro? What’s it?” he continued as he looked up from his panic-induced fit and saw that the area they were traversing was… trembling.

“Whoa. Maybe there is some benefit of travelling in the air, after all. Ro noticed the place was shaking while… that happened,” he ended with a flinch. Ugh. Weakness.

Either way.

He then looked over at his best friend once again.

“Let’s just say… the part of my family that lives in Alto Mare is tangled with… shady business.”

He would put it at that, unless the other was going to poke and prod further.

---

• TOTAL OF ROLLS MADE BY ALL WRITERS REACHES 377. - You experience an earthquake.

What on earth was…

He blinked several times at the sight that met his eyes. Why were these—the annoying, pesky, cockroach-looking Pokémon (look, to Lars the Pheromosa resemble cockroaches, okay) doing, kicking anything and everything that they could lay their eyes on—

“Ow!” he yelped as he got a quick, powerful kick to the shins by one of the passing Pheromosa.

Ouch, that was going to hurt for a while.

“The fuck’s got you cheesed?!” he yelled after the Pokémon… Ultra Beast… that snickered at him, off to find more unsuspecting, poor humans to kick in the nuts shins out of sheer spite.

---

• have your character/pokemon be kicked by a PHEROMOSA.

It just so happened his current delivery route brought him through Mauville when the sounds of the uproar caught his attention—

“Oh, cazzo,” he sighed as he pulled his motorbike over to a stop, before belatedly reaching for something when he realized—he wasn’t a figure of authority anymore! Damn, he kept forgetting.

But then again, the uproar caught his attention, so there was that.

“Yikes,” he cringed as he saw several possessed Reva—the car-like Pokémon if his mind was remembering this right—that were now spinning out of control and causing mass mayhem.

Without thinking, he would reach into his pocket and pull out a Dusk Ball—wondering if he’d gotten the right Pokémon—and then surprised as he saw that it was Valjean who’d popped out.

“Oh, perfect,” he addressed the Cacturne.

“Use your Spikes move, now! We have to stop those rogue vehicles from coming any further.”

Confused, the dual-type then nodded before scattering several layers of Spikes across the path where the approaching, possessed vehicle Pokémon were headed.

---

↠ utilize caltrops or spike strips (human or pokemon made [e.g. spikes, galarian stunfisk]) to pop tires.

“In a way… yeah. Things got rather sketch,” he would share.

Because the truth of the matter was that—

“It got so sketch to the point I actually had to go into the underbelly of Alto Mare—you know, you thought the place is all tourist traps and art destinations—well, of course there’s going to be a criminal underbelly part to it.”

There, he said it.

“Apparently, in order to fix something, one has to go through a lot of things in the criminal underworld just to set the record straight.”

While it did involve a lot of… deals made under the table; fact of the matter was that he wanted to run the clan’s businesses there on the straight and narrow as much as possible.

Before he could elaborate further, he saw something small and glittering hovering in his field of vision, which he plucked from out of thin air.

“Hey, look. Ro found something sparkly.”

Playing with the Gimmighoul coin between his fingers, the quiet wouldn’t last long because they would then soar through a patch of overgrowth that had…

Oh, you have got to be kidding me.

A string of loud cursing came his way as he then immediately brushed the Ariados webs away! Oh, ew!

Fucking ick.

“Geez. What… what kind of monster-sized s-s-s-spiders live here?” he shuddered.

---

• ROLL A NUMBER WITH AN 8. - Run into an Ariados or Galvantula web. Alternatively, find a Spinarak or Joltik climbing on you. (using the 48 roll for this fill)

“I’m sure you know that my go-to Pokémon is Ro the Metagross, but…” he trailed off, looking over at where the distressed Lucario was now outright gaping at the female greenette, “…well, sometimes you just have to rip off the bandage and pick another Pokémon, right? Well, Alpha’s getting the suit.”

And no, he absolutely did not want it to look like a furry suit… the mental images made him shudder in terror. Such was the terror of a humanoid Pokémon that was insanely popular with the general population of people that made up this world.

He then pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Well, that’s the troubling thing that’s been bothering me. What if there’s a way to actually nullify the power of a Sygna Suit?” he mused quietly as he then seemingly stared off into space; but was actually lost in thought.

---

oh look who finally decided to get a sygna suit of his own

He would grunt in the younger man’s direction.

“Good. Glad to see you’re focusing on other things now. Speaking of which… have you challenged Kyle yet?”

He knew the other had just as, if not more, badges than he did; however for personal reasons he was not going to take that assessment because he felt that he wasn’t ready. Plus wouldn’t it technically be cheating, all things considered, since he was already part of AQUA?

While he was on Ro’s back, he didn’t feel the tremors as much as his companion did; however Ro did alert him to other changes that were potentially waiting for them up ahead.

“An earthquake just happening out of the blue? Normally, I’d call ‘bullshit’ and carry on… but then again, this is Hoenn, so we have to be on our guard.”

And then, there it was again.

That feeling of being watched from the shadows. He turned to face a random direction, hissing quietly before returning his attention to his companion.

“Have you got the feeling that we’re being watched… ever since we arrived here?” he would voice out his intrusive thoughts a few moments later.

---

• intrusive thoughts alert!

It was like he’d been transported back into—

Oh, crap. Not again.

“Oh, you have got to be fucking kidding me,” he growled, before chaining that with several choice Italian Alto Marean swear words under his breath as he saw the extent of the damage that was going on.

“Come on… we have to check this shit out.”

He then pulled out his phone and saw that the good Eva Morales had already sent a report out to all League personnel, leaving it on the screen as he summoned his Lucario, Alpha—the advantage was that he was part-Steel and therefore couldn’t be poisoned normally.

(Thank you, immunities.)

“Geez, this is a mess and a half,” he would grumble as he noticed the Lucario had gotten tangled with some Pokémon who were outright attacking him on sight.

---

• use a FIGHTING-TYPE Pokemon.

“You know you can call me Lars. Most everyone does, unless you want to get me and my cousin Eli mixed up,” he would call from his position.

Right then and there, they would then hear a noise—something that sounded like an antiquated… something. Why did it sound like an ancient motorbike… or something along those lines?!

“D’you hear that?” he called back down to Doug.

“Strange noise?” while pointing ahead.

It wouldn’t take long before they would stumble upon some footprints as well.

“Hope whatever we’re supposed to capture isn’t too far away, chasing it down in a place like this is going to be a pain in the ass,” he remarked as he looked further up ahead.

After a while, though, he looked down again.

“Right now? I’ve returned to my delivery job. The same one I had before I was promoted, four years and some change ago.”

---

• ROLL 2-10. - Hear the following cry echoing from somewhere deep below (using the 2 roll from last post):
[player]https://file.garden/ZXZrnWMYuz15frfJ/HOENN%20MUSIC/MysteriousCry2.mp3[/player]

“You better not make that an obsessive behavior again, it almost destroyed you from the inside out,” he would warn as he then swapped out Alpha the Lucario for Ro the shining silver beast of a Metagross, who would then levitate via Magnet Rise and fold those massive legs on himself before he climbed aboard.

“Let’s go. Whatever’s making that sound… it’s either a mating call of some kind, or it might be summoning more of its kind,” he remarked afterward once they were on their way.

Still, though, the silence in the back of his head bothered him so much. But he would pay it no matter, because these things took time, apparently.

It wouldn’t take long for him to find trees that had been slashed at, the markings going deep into the trunk and almost snapping it into two.

---

• ROLL A NUMBER WITH A 3. - Encounter sword-like slashes on various rocks, trees, and more. (using the earlier 13 roll for this)

“Did you mean that in the platonic, or the ‘more than just friends’ kind of way?” he would sass back.

If there was one thing he excelled at, it was this: hiding his emotions especially when it came to friends he truly, madly, deeply cared about.

(Unfortunately though, la idiota wasn’t available, so he would have to hide all that pain underneath the universe’s biggest pile of salt, to never be found again.)

“Bruh,” he would huff back once he’d had a chance to gather his thoughts.

“Remember when I got kicked out of my spot, I had a lot of remaining unused paid time off? I went back there and fixed… family affairs, pretty much. It’s kind of hard to be the head of the family now despite being in another region altogether. I had to delegate a shitton of things and. Well… fix some other stuff.”

He would get into that later, if the other wanted to ask about it.

“…I don’t miss the tourists though. Way too loud for my liking.”

---

• ROLL A 99. - Find a Gimmighoul coin or chest with or without the Pokemon. Receive a bonus 25 PD (once per thread).

Sometimes, he was very thankful that the immunity to cold encompassed all of his own Pokémon, so they weren’t going to be easily frozen, all things considered.

However, his companions didn’t have the same protection; while they would bring down the shield of a Z-move to bat back the incoming frigid air that could freeze anything caught in its path, Lars would take a running start and quickly recall the de-evolving Lucario before the Jackal Pokémon fucked up the landing!

The angry, angry force of frigid cold was unamused at how there was another Z-move that had repelled their attack, cleaving it clean in half and causing the incoming burst of cold energy to dissipate and strike the walls instead.

All the while, the darkened wings of cloudy ice would manifest themselves from his back as he took a leap to face his legendary patron head-on, with a lengthened jagged shard of ice that had his survival knife buried at the base; a conduit of the power he possessed, extended into a darkly-colored blade that shimmered as he took the fight airborne and straight towards the legendary that waited to meet him in mid-air.

The two would be safe on the ground due to the protection of the Z-move that the Aegislash had casted; however the final blow would be the one between the two—between disconnected human and legendary patron of ice and snow.

A powerful explosion of icicles would burst from the point where the airborne human and the scorned legendary patron would collide…

---

Lucario is recalled as the Mega Evolution fades; while Lars takes a running start to meet Articuno head on for the deciding blow!