Good.

He was more than certain hospital food was bland and tasteless, so having some flavor in the diet was always a welcome change. That and the pizza hopefully made up for all the soggy hospital food she’d been subjected to!

“Okay, so.”

He then popped his can open with just one hand, and took a preliminary sip.

“You’re familiar with the Desert ruins just outside Mauville, right? Word came up that there was something down there. A small team was sent to investigate—I distinctly recall there were several locations—and all of them were somehow connected. The underground part of the Desert Ruins being one of those places.”

He then took another sip before picking up the pace.

“So it was me, angelo vestri, skyler dross, Razz Kingsman, and Katherine Fairburne who went down there. The two lovebirds obviously going for the treasure. Kath was there for… something else.”

Oh, shit. He then cringed as he remembered what happened next.

“There was a fucking trap right from the start and we all fell down, and what made this worse? We all got separated from each other—I ended up with Razz, who at the time I had no idea was already being ‘courted’ by FERNANDO SILPH to work for him.”

He wondered if ollie morales was able to make heads or tails of the message he left behind for the other to see.

(Did it even make sense at all, he wondered. Wasn’t he supposed to like, not care at all about faelan foxgrove?)

Either way… the message hadn’t been seen yet, so it was off for another day of diving into the salty surf.

What would he find this time?

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Was he really, legitimately going to step into the figurative Pyroar’s Den with his little… ‘situation’ still not handled?

Apparently he was.

To be fair he was already at the end of his rope on how to rein in the… uncooperative Mirage, having already resorted to taking trips to the Border in that strange place between realities to look for answers—and yet, here he was.

(To be fair, he’d already been at Callan’s little Elite Four room before everyone started arriving; he’d just gone out for a quick vape. Or what he thought was a quick vaping session.)

Unfortunately, though, he saw that ollie morales was already surrounded by Illeana and Penelope… wait. His brows furrowed even more at the sight of the other redhead.

(Why, why did cousin Elinor Anderson have to leave the Council before this meeting?! At least she wasn’t going to be witnessing the insanity that he was privy to whenever meetings like this were called.)

Upon seeing Michael Navidson outside, he then tilted his head in the other man’s direction—they would have to talk later. Hopefully after this meeting.

Anyway. He then slipped back inside, stopping by to grab the tallest cup of brewed black coffee the Keurig on the table could spit out, and a plain, lightly-salted bagel as well before heading over to the only other place he could plausibly see himself taking a seat—next to Callan himself.

Never mind if he had a rather strong vanilla-flavored scent hanging around him. He was clearly stress-vaping again.

---

• shit isn’t as it seems with him (iykyk)
• Lars was actually outside taking the single longest vaping session he could
• grabs the tallest cup of brewed black coffee and a plain, salted bagel before taking the last vacant seat next to Callan

“I’ll be getting to that,” he cackled as he furtively looked around and made sure there were no cameras around—before pulling out two cans of sparkling spiked soda from his inner jacket pocket.

“Are you allowed this?” he showed her one of the cans. It was one of those nice, fancy-ass Johtonian flavored drinks—none of that Charja-Cola or Zapsi stuff; this was the real thing from somewhere in the region that had a strong lemon flavor.

“Okay, so see—here’s the thing.”

He then wondered if it would be better to give her the entire tale or the cliff notes version.

“You want the whole story or the cliff notes, annotated version?” he confirmed with her. “Because this is going to get fucking long.”

Him, worried about faelan foxgrove?

What the hell was going on, what was coming to this world…?!

He shook his head as he snuffed the last cigarette from the pack he had with him, before taking his phone out and sending ollie morales an extremely hypothetical question about how to deal with feelings that one thought were long dead—

And then left the message on that as he put the phone into the waterproof case he had with him, before going out on today’s dive into the murky waters.

What was out there today for him to find, he wondered.

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Once he’d made sure to pay the Gimmighoul the coins needed once they’d reached the opposite side of the river, it didn’t take them too long to get the ‘base camp’ settled down—and not a moment too soon.

Before he could let the other Ranger go out of sight, though, he had to make sure that they were not—

“Wait a moment,” he remarked quietly as he then summoned his Gastly, the flickering ball of… well, literally gas began circling around them. “Do any of you have Ghost-types we can either leave behind or use to scout ahead? You never know if we’ll run into some trouble out there.”

Much as he was tempted to bust out the ice ‘wings’, he knew better than to do that—especially with people who may not be aware of his status as an Avatar… at least not yet anyway; who knew if there would be answers when they came out here to find…

Things.

A few moments later he then summoned his Drakloak as well; additional ‘firepower’ for whoever would be leaving guard Pokémon behind.

“I’m leaving my Drakloak here as a guard… I can suggest more ghosties for either guards or scouts before we continue.”

---

• (in case we forgot) completed 07: offer coins to the gimmighoul ferryman to take a ride across a river; a.k.a. Lars paid the gimmighoul ferryman!
• setting up prompt ‘utilize ghost-types in an advantageous way’ by suggesting to have some ghostie scouts and camp guards while they go out to explore

Thankfully, Mirana the Salazzle found no more Pokémon that were in immediate need of rescuing, and he added his own collection of occupied Pokéballs to the pile she’d procured—all of which contained sick Pokémon that were in need of healing.

Very different from Amir when I first got him… but then again, I had him around to help me navigate the strange behavior… he thought as his brows remain furrowed.

“It’s an unfortunate thing, however… I will have to agree with you that the best cure for this is indeed, time.”

Which hopefully, would heal everything in their lifetime. If not? Well… he’d rather not think about that.

“Alright, while I did help out, you had a handle on most the situation, little Type: Null situation aside. However, don’t rest on your laurels. Expect a surprise in the mail soon.”

Once he’d climbed back on the back of his Metagross (and recalled the Salazzle) he then remembered—

“Oh, and, remember what I mentioned about diversifying? Keep that in mind. Anyone who knows your trick and can counter the gimmick will have you beat in rough situations. Just my two cents.”

“And this is why I hate puzzle dungeons!” he was heard to shout as the singeing flames cut away at him.

While not as bad as the damage the other had sustained from the brute force of the cold-type attack that engulfed the other, he knew that they had to get the rest of the treasures that remained before going into the actual boss room.

Before he could stop the other physical attacker, he sighed—before looking at Ace and Belle and apologizing.

“Sorry. He’s really overeager at times…” he trailed off as the wings made another appearance—and he took off towards where the other was surrounded by the Golurk statues.

“JOSH!” he yelled once he’d closed the distance as fast as he could propel himself.

“I would advise you to fucking move!” before dropping the Cold World spell all over the four Golurks.

While they were indeed clustered together, hopefully the other had fucking made a run for it because holy shit, getting struck by that particular spell meant—

Yeah.