Ameena ducked out of the way of blades as a Scyther flew close to her head. She was just about tired of the animosity in the wild these days. She knew the coming war was stressing out the wildlife, but this behavior was abhorrent. She was hardly trespassing on the Scyther's home. "Kill it," she instructed. Magearna launched an aura sphere that it dodged, but followed up with flash cannon. Her skillset wasn't totally ideal against a Scyther, but the raw power of her moves would overcome the wild Scyther enough to force it back into hiding with its injured wings.

TAGS – [break]

NOTES – prem safari | skip![break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

The gible came out of nowhere, ok?

It launched out of the blue and clung to Magearna with its sharp, ferocious teeth. Magearna panicked and flew up high. "Knock it off, Duchess!" Ameena cried from below. The steel pokemon struggled to shake him, however. She was very high in the air now, but the Gible refused to dislodge. She launched gravity to force it down. Before it could fall to the earth, Ameena tossed a pokeball at it. This pokemon was insatiable... exactly what she wanted in a teammate.

TAGS – [break]

NOTES – prem safari | catch![break][break]

[attr="class","pkmn"]

To watch Magearna be punctured with earth power was one thing. To watch her be swallowed and crushed by the earth was another. The shattering of her gears was the last thing Ameena heard, rendered numb to her own voice as she screamed, "DUCHESS!" But of course, this was no dream. Her last tie to Amor was gone in an instant, the pokemon he had carefully entrusted her with and ordered her to take care of, a simultaneous test of her abilities in Rocket and a token of their growing relationship. [break][break]

Gone. [break][break]

Montgomery's words were worlds away. 'I've been a Rocket before...' could not register in her brain, though Gardevoir took the entire scene in in full, with disgust. Ameena's mind does not come back to her body at all until the sound of screeching from the Skarmory that burned and burned and burned. It's metal-hot-glow created an afterimage that followed her gaze. A sadistic token of this day. [break][break]

"If you cannot accept a dream, then you can dwell in a nightmare." Gardevoir takes her cue and throws a hand out to generate a psychic blast, but it is not for Claydol. She shoots it straight at Montgomery. [break][break]

Above them, sharp debris not unlike Skarmory's scalding corpse fell from the sky like tears.

TAGS – Montgomery James [break]
NOTES – Ameena spirals. She is shattered like Magearna. What is left? [break]
Magearna dies. Gardevoir uses psychic on Montgomery..[break][break]
10 MP per IC post in your prelude thread.[break]
50 MP have your character's Pokemon symbolize or represent in some way, the condition of your character.[break]

Something in her rattles at the sight of Musharna getting knocked out. Ameena's rarely put the Moira out in the field, but seeing her limp and unmoving on the ground because of Ameena's weakness... Ameena has to do something. That damned Deputy just made it so hard to be decisive and to stick to her guns. He made her weaker.

Well, as she saw his Claydol appear, an idea quickly emerged. At least she had her mind when her heart was a fucked mess. "Keep 'em down," she told Magearna. Magearna used gravity to make the field heavy. While her locked-on target was gone, gravity would still impact evasiveness enough to give her a good shot at the fast Skarmory.[break][break]

She knew Gardevoir would judge her for the events of today via their telepathy, but so long as she kept Gardevoir from mega-evolving, the pokemon could protect her from acting stupid any further. She released Gardevoir onto the field. [break][break]

Gardevoir immediately took stock of Ameena's injured state, looked to Montgomery, and visibly had an epiphany. But the pokemon was efficient as ever, launching mystical fire at the Skarmory. Ameena hoped the added weight to the battlefield would feel like a suffocating pressure on Montgomery's chest. [break][break]

"You considered it. You can play all these games," she said fighting a shiver, feeling colder than usual from the blood loss, "but I know you see the opportunity here. You already considered bending away from them." She would have to enlist the aid of Gardevoir's healing pulse when things were tied up more. "Why not drop the pretense? If you were that moral hero, you would have never felt temptation." She snarled, eyes set not on Montgomery but on her knocked out Musharna. "But you were right to feel that way. Your precious League wants to keep people down and have you enforce its tyrannical rule. Is that what you are? Some puppet for the state? I thought better of you."[break][break]

She couldn't let it go, now. "You do whatever they tell you because you want precious redemption. They know you will eat out of their hand and bark when they tell you to, but me? I have never thought you needed redemption. I take you as you are." But it wasn't enough.

TAGS – Montgomery James [break]
NOTES – Ameena's stuck. [break]
Musharna is KO'd! Gardevoir is sent out! Magearna used gravity towards Skarmory. Gardevoir used mystical fire[break][break]
10 MP per IC post in your prelude thread.[break]
50 MP for getting your Pokemon knocked out in your prelude thread.[break]
50 MP have your character self-doubt or cast doubt on another's confidence/allegiances/beliefs, etc.[break]

He moved sharply. She jerked away from immediately, which could have ended poorly for her, but he holstered his firearm instead of maneuvering to shoot her at close range. She released Magearna from her pokeball, then returned her arm to her shoulder as she regained some distance from him. She had sacrificed enough time and enough blood for him for one day. If there was anything worth saving, it would have to come to light at the end of the fight, and it would likely be preserved through force. [break][break]

She flinched at the metal sound, her ears ringing painfully. Magearna used lock-on on his Clefable to align her combat systems with the recognition software that registered Clefable. She would have to survive long enough to strike, but attacking the target of her lock would make dodging impossible - sniping, just as Ameena spent her military career doing. [break][break]

Musharna moved uneasily, unused to the impact of sleep-causing moves being used on herself, but she still launched hypnosis at the angry Skarmony despite herself becoming sluggish. [break][break]

Ameena couldn't have risked pulling out Gardevoir, despite the pokemon's healing pulse being the most useful of her whole team's moveset right now. The Gardevoir had a weird hold over her when it mega evolved, and she wasn't strong enough right now to keep it from doing so. Instead, she made herself useful by taking off her jacket - gracelessly, given the pain - and holding it against her shoulder. "What can they give you that I cannot? You want a medal? You want glory?"[break][break]

She didn't think those things of him, but she couldn't keep herself from prodding for an answer. Was there an angle she hadn't considered? An offering she hadn't provided? She had to face this reality but even as the logical conclusion stood before her, she wasn't sure she could stop trying until it was herself holding her gun to him.

TAGS – Montgomery James [break]

NOTES – Ameena fights back. [break]
Magearna uses lock-on on Clefable. Musharna uses hypnosis on Skarmony. Musharna is growing tired...[break][break]
10 MP per IC post in your prelude thread.[break]
50 MP have your character be injured by another's pokemon directly or indirectly.[break]
50 MP have your character make a sacrifice of some kind.[break]

She isn't an unreasonable woman. She understands it is unreasonable to feel resentful over his protectiveness of civilians. But he fears spilling their blood yet readily took hers. While she isn't unreasonable, she is unfair. Her life is more than any of theirs to him. It has to be. His is worth more than any of theirs to her. The only other person she would feel this reserved about hurting, the only other unplanned weakness, is Gwendolyn Conway . [break][break]

She feels relief that he even bothers to justify himself. That he is considering it. And she has seen what he wants because of Musharna. She knows she is in his dreams. This dream of hers is possible. [break][break]

"So spill no blood," she urges in his ear, her hand moving from her bleeding shoulder towards his gun. She reaches for his hand slowly, telegraphing so clearly and nonthreateningly despite the fact the lack of pressure on her wound is exacerbating her blood loss, limiting her capacity to fight in the war, costing her her place in Rocket if she fails to be valuable, and all for him, all for the opportunity of having him here in this reality. And he doesn't get it... but she can help him understand. [break][break]

"I would never ask you to kill," she says as her bloodied hand crawls towards his to take the gun. "I can have Rocket protect you. You will be valuable to me and that will be enough for them. I can help you help people. Is that not enough?" Is the law more valuable than goodness? Can he not, ultimately, achieve more good by being a vigilante, by helping people recklessly instead of only when the law permits?

TAGS – Montgomery James [break]

NOTES – Ameena negotiates. [break]
The battlefield is surrounded by a DREAMY TERRAIN.[break][break]
10 MP per IC post in your prelude thread.[break]
50 MP have your character experience great pride, joy, relief, or have confidence grow.[break]

He doesn't know what he's getting into with her. She hasn't shown her cards in any of their previous exchanges, but. She hasn't seen him stand on his threats to enforce law and order until now, until the bullet. So, she believes him when he cocks the gun. But Musharna is fast acting, and even with all the anger she feels at the loss of a potential ally, she finds herself soothed by his chuckling as the dreamy terrain takes ahold of him. [break][break]

What she sees should be a relief. [break][break]

She burns with envy instead. That should be her reality right now, but it isn't. And she doesn't have the resources, the skill, the fucking knowledge to make any of it happen. A decade of dream research and nothing to show for it. Nothing really. She made more leaps and bounds in her research in the last three months under Rocket tutelage than in that decade and goddamn it, why can't Montgomery understand that she needs this? She needs access to the dream realm like she needs oxygen. [break][break]

Heavy, hesitant footsteps have her moving away from the unconscious bodies at her feet and to his side. She doesn't reach for the gun - the effort would pull her hand from her wound, and she wants to play with this for a moment longer before she worsens her blood loss to finish him. She stands behind him, watching his gun pointed at nothing, watching his face perceive what isn't truly there. She's never activated the terrain before, doesn't know how long she has or how much he can perceive this reality. [break][break]

Still, she leans in, tucked beside his shoulder. There's no need to be so formal with a dying man. She swallows the anger and envy and asks the Montgomery before her, the one she won't see again until she has learned to roam the dream realm for an alternate reality with him: "Why can't you have what you want? Why can't you have this?" [break][break]

Why can't I?

TAGS – Montgomery James [break]

NOTES – Ameena feels anything but calm and peace. [break]
The battlefield is surrounded by a DREAMY TERRAIN.[break][break]
10 MP per IC post in your prelude thread.[break]
50 MP have your character experience great fear, hatred, envy, or have a grudge worsen.[break]

Regardless of what the most stoic, cynical, self-reliant people had to say, everyone had trust. There was that of the social contract and humanity, like trusting people to not sit on their Rotom phones in a movie theater or that a doctor that hates you will still operate to save your life. Then, there was that more cosmic, logical trust, like that the sun will rise in the morning or water will freeze when it gets cold. And, it was trust - Hoenn's anomalies and disasters proved even the law of Nature could be broken. [break][break]

And like she trusted a dream to come to her every night as it had since she could remember, she trusted Montgomery to not shoot her. So when the bullet pierced her right shoulder, she felt the full-body numbness of surprise overtake her as it forced her to the ground. [break][break]

Adrenaline, tried and true, coursed through her. She was back on her feet like a good soldier. Before clutching her wound, she made sure to pull her mask completely off. In retrospect, taking it off in the beginning might have been the move, to double down on her own humanity by letting him see her earnest expression as she had tried to appeal to his logic. But there was no turning back time: a lesson she learned again and again and again. [break][break]

He stuck to his guns and chose the law and order (and principles) he had committed to when offered a chance to try again, to turn away from his criminal lifestyle, and that was fine. She would have to commit to her own strengths. "If you wish to make an enemy of me," she said through gritted teeth, holding tight on her shoulder to slow the hot pulse of blood. "be thankful for my mercy in correcting you quickly."

Musharna used Maladaptive Mania, filling the world with a DREAMY TERRAIN. How well could he fight half-asleep and with his dreams lain bare?

TAGS – Montgomery James [break]

NOTES – Ameena learns a lesson. [break]
Musharna used Z-Move: MALADAPTIVE MANIA musharna's dream mist spreads throughout the area and creates a DREAMY TERRAIN. those caught in this terrain and stuck between sleep and wakefulness, and that that they dream of manifests in semi-visible hallucinations in the mist for all to see.[break][break]
10 MP per IC post in your prelude thread.[break]
50 MP have an antagonistic exchange of dialogue between your character and another writer's character or NPC.[break]
50 MP have your character directly or indirectly spotlight another writer's character's strengths. (His discipline and ideals)[break]

He cements it: there are no games to be played today. [break][break]

Which means its all business, and she's always been cutthroat in that realm. "You said you knew what it was like to be a criminal. Why would you do it? Why does anyone? Because I stand to gain from it. Rocket has resources and scientists that can accomplish what I need to." It's as simple as that, really. She doesn't care for the war - she's already had her fill for one lifetime - and she doesn't care for their politics. [break][break]

She should remove the mask, but she can't bring herself to do it yet. He knows her, but if she takes it off, she seals his fate. She commits to killing him. [break][break]

And despite this reality commanding it to be so, he hasn't shot her yet. She can talk her way out of it. [break][break]

"I am not your enemy. Look: I could have killed these men. I could have let you burn in that warehouse in Dewford. I think you know I am not some rotten, evil, sociopathic fuck. I need you to trust that I am minimizing the damage here." She gestures to the bodies, unconscious but breathing, at her feet. She gestures to Musharna, who is not built for combat so much as stalling and sleeping. "I could have killed you over those Yamask." [break][break]

It has nothing to do with special. And, she thinks, he won't kill her. "I think you hesitate because you know that about me. That I have not caused unnecessary harm."

TAGS – Montgomery James [break]

NOTES – Ameena stands down?[break][break]
10 MP per IC post in your prelude thread.[break]
50 MP have your character reflect on why they're fighting/reflect on their loyalties.[break]
50 MP have your character recall a past thread or event that they have participated in or not (link the thread).[break]