“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.

[attr="class","shcontent"]

[attr="class","shcontent"]

He had to swallow the cringe that was perpetually threatening to flash across his face—while he was sure the idiota meant well, had he forgotten about the…?

“Ollie,” he hissed as he took a quick swipe of the caramel apple that was being waved in front of his face and making a face of—that was way too sweet—before remembering to actually shove a handful of popcorn at him in exchange.

“You’re hopped up on sugar, again! Have some popcorn!”

(Hilariously, the popcorn he was offering was just plain salted. Like him.)

---

prompt: offer a carnival treat to someone else

He was sorely tempted to go back into the Safari Zone—if but to just grab the Growlithe and get the hell out of there.

(He would have to ask around if anyone else wanted the other ‘mons from the Safari Zone so he didn’t waste a trip in there.)

Either way…

Looking over at the contents of the bucket, he could only wonder.

What else was there waiting, under the churning surf?

Off for today’s dive!

For it to end like this was a—

Okay, his internal monologue got interrupted by a sudden jerking motion and he literally found himself soaring through the—

“Holy shit, I didn’t mean to buck me off your back, what the fuck!” he yelled as he felt his body go airborne. The panic was evident in his voice as he was sent flying off the Mirage’s back, before said Mirage screeched their displeasure and vanished in a burst of icicles.

“And leave me out here? Really?!” he was heard to yell—in Alto Marean—before the fragments of one broken wing of ice burst out of his back, an attempt to catch him before he fell.

He had mere moments—dropping the Dusk Ball from where Amir dwelled, he hoped his Silvally would catch him—

And would miss the mark by a few feet as he crashed to the ground, shoulder first.

“Ow, what the fuck,” he hissed as he felt the pain jarring him—and that was before the talking-down he got from the little Josh.

“Well, try facing down a Glaciate right in the face and having the shared blessing of immunity to the cold not working! We both came very close to dying that day!” he snapped back as he leaned against the Silvally, pulling himself up and ignoring the stabbing pain in his shoulder—he was sure it was either broke, or dislocated.

Ugh, why was he being snappy?

“And try having a shared headspace where you get summarily banished from the only place you can seek refuge in when you’re troubled, how would that feel?!” he followed up as he pulled himself on the back of the Silvally once they’d returned.

Boy. This was looking ugly.

“I figured, why not help out around here?” was his first reply, looking down and seeing that there was a Sylveon that had approached him, and picked up on his intentions—nothing evil of the sort at all.

Good, good—because he had absolutely no intention of changing what already worked. Something like, ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ or something?

“Plus. I do quite appreciate the taste for local drinks,” he added. It was then he realized something—

“The Brewery was part of the bar crawl earlier in the year,” he acknowledged.

“I loved the taste of the Winter’s Kiss offered at the time. By any chance that was a seasonal offering, right?” he confirmed a few moments later.

He knew that his friend would avoid the dunk tank as much as possible, due to him attributing it to be ‘cursed’ or something like that.

And, to be fair, that friend of his only started learning how to swim recently, so they were excused.

Otherwise…

Who was going to be the first victim(?) of his reign of ‘terror’ out here at the dunk tank?

---

participate in the dunk tank game — 1 stamp

And thereupon, was the snag he was hoping she’d avoid bringing up.

“Okay, see,” he began as he let out a whistle through pursed lips.

“I can get in touch with one of them easy,” he continued as his thoughts wandered to ollie morales. “He’s the easier of the others that I can talk to. The other, though…?”

He had to bite back a cringe as he remembered that Razz Kingsman had ascended to the position as well.

“I’m going to need some help talking with them, see, because of ah… because of something that happened.”

Not everything was alright in paradise, apparently.

“Why are you quick to say that,” he hissed as he elbowed the other Ranger the side (or at least tried to reach the closest part of the other’s body he could reach with his body) before mentally rolling his eyes.

Mamma mia, was this how things were done in Hoenn? A mishmash of chaos as compared to the slightly structured way the Alto Marean Rangers did it?

“Shh!” he warned the other as the sounds of a motorboat shattered the silence not too far away.

“That’s them, right on cue. We have to wait a little bit, and catch them right in the act.”

---

the misadventures continue! (mission: commitment: act iii)

“I don’t know how nonna is going to react that I caught this,” he continued as he looked at the wriggling Whiscash on the end of the line.

(Boy, if Pokémon could laugh, Suijin would be laughing his ass off at him. Alpha would be chuckling, too.)

“Are Whiscash even edible?”

He continued to panic internally as he realized the other had asked a question—thankfully he’d caught it before he sank into a muttering mess of utter shock and incredulity.

“You… you can call me Laurence.”

---

timeline: a few months after arriving in Alto Mare, so basically sixteen years old. He has like extremely limited knowledge of that language so RIP his accent

“Please, when I brought my cousin down here to help me she almost got frostbite had I not lent her my overcoat,” he retorted back, resisting the urge to roll his eyes skyward because goodness me, what the fresh fucking hell?

Either way.

“They’re a Legendary Pokémon, idiota, I’m more than certain their temperament is way different as compared to a normal Pokémon,” he hummed a few moments afterward.

He knew that fire didn’t work (thanks cousin Elinor Anderson) and then threats of flooding the place (whoops, hi skyler dross) didn’t work, so who knew if the snarky one was being either a little shit, or just making things way harder for him than normal?!

“Alright, so…” he continued as he looked over at the perpetually-thickening ice wall before swallowing the nerves down, “…when I came down here with my cousin, she tried to incinerate the ice away but fat load of good that shit did, she almost got frostbite,” he recalled with a shudder.

“And then the other instance? Well, let’s just say my other companion wanted to flood the entire place with sea water…” he trailed off with nervous laughter.

Once the nerves were gone, he settled down—somewhat.

“So you think good ol’ diplomacy might be the solution here?”