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[attr="class","athread"]The girl’s expression barely changed, unconvinced by the woman’s words. “People did work for years. Across several regions, for years. They’re the reason why we don’t have problems in Hoenn.” She lifted Lucha a few inches up, drawing attention to the little fighter.

“This is my Hawlucha. He’s purple and yellow. …Just because I’ve said it doesn’t make it right, especially when you don’t have any proof.” The girl made no effort to hide that she was on the defensive, especially when the journalist questioned her confidence. Annie gave pause, squinted eyes trying to figure out if she was being tricked. No, she realised… There was no angle, only a disappointing string of questions.

Her face fell, and with it her voice lowered. “You made me think you were a really good journalist for a bit there.” The illusion of having found a kindred spirit cracked, and the betrayal showed on her face. “Of course I was there. It’s not a secret. I took interviews on it. It was front-page news. Shouldn’t somebody searching for the truth know that?”

Her little beast grimaced at the source of her displeasure, and Annie was quick to follow. Her words went from displeased to outright accusing, and with every word she grew a little louder. “You didn’t have to be there to know that people died. We almost died fighting those things off. We didn’t do it so some random that couldn’t even do research could jump in with her crackpot conspiracies!”

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Another rough hit introduced shades of red to her health bar. She’d ignored it thus far, but the tinted edges of her vision and the throbbing of her controllers made it hard to ignore. It didn’t matter, she told herself. She could either die trying to take down a mage in that moment, or die getting tag-teamed by them when her ally was out of the picture.

She preferred the option where she had a chance.

The samurai stayed stalwart in spite of the pain, intent on giving her target no option but to focus on her. For Alec, she had another gift: a boulder dislodged from the earth. It was an oversized baseball, and her sword was the bat, lobbing it over to him.

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Annie seemed unconvinced by Selena’s words. “Even by Pokemon standards, being born with a vegetable doesn’t sound right. I’m putting ‘finding the supply cave’ on my list of things to do. Just you wait. I bet the first person to find a Dracozolt was called crazy too, until everybody else found them.” Her character paused and shook her head. There was probably something more important to focus on.

Right. The ducks. Auto-attacks allowed her to mindlessly cleave through whatever dared cross her path while she spoke, picking up the Leek items without a second thought. “Yeah, I think I’ll pass on that one for now. People know this face outside of the game! It’s a bit too early for me to get a reputation as a thug with no honour. No offense.” Leek.

“I had something else in mind. Us melee guys could get aggro on a bunch of the dumb birds, lure a whole bunch of them into one spot.” Leek. “If they’re all together, then one of the mages could blast them all with one attack, right?” Big Leek. “It might save us time, and if somebody sees all four of us working together, they might think twice about causing trouble, right?”

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The girl was young, but life had already thrown her more than her fair share of lessons. Persevere, even when it seemed stubborn to. Hold hope in your heart, and an opportunity will present itself. Stop pissing off Zigzagoon in dark alleys. At least two of those rang true as the smoke cleared, and she saw her two targets mere feet away from her.
Standing back to back.
A few steps out of her sword’s reach.

The moment was brief, but she was close and determined to make it count. Her blade shone with a blue light – a repeat of her last attack, with double the targets. Instead of running into them, she commanded her character to rush past, blade set to slice through the pair as she drew their ire towards her… And in the opposite direction of her ally.

If the mages hoped to scare and taunt somebody into submission, they’d have to try again with somebody that hadn’t faced real monsters. A girl that worn the mask of bravery for so long that it had fused with her face wouldn’t slow at the sight of some adults playing pretend. No, she’d rather charge. Recklessly.

“Ultimeeeeeite Slice!” Hers was an obnoxious cry, but that meant it would serve all the better as a distraction. If Alec meant to swing himself into striking the rogue, then she’d see to it that he wouldn’t leave without a farewell gift.

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Annie didn’t need to be told twice. Should any of them look her way, they’d see the girl hunched over, wiggly fingers hovering over leftover leeks. “What? If I don’t take them, somebody else will.” And so she claimed a few for herself, leaving the rest for the new arrivals on the scene. “I’ve found one. One damn oversized leek. I don’t even remember why we need these. What could anybody, anywhere need that many vegetables for? Where do the Farfetch’d even get them from? Are they born with them? Do they have a supply cave? Can we raid the supply cave?”

Grinding had left the child with a lot of time to think, and not enough people to voice those thoughts to. Fortunately, eventually, her train of thought led somewhere more productive. “Anyway. Stuff like this can only get done faster with numbers. The mages can take out bigger groups faster, because why else would you pick that class, but then there’s the loot left behind.” She gestured to the leeks laying on the ground – or the spot where they would have been. If the others hadn’t claimed them, other players swooped in like the Mandibuzz they were. “For some reason, specifically for this quest, they’re free pickings after a few seconds. Trust me, I know.” There’s a bitter edge to her voice, and considering that they’re in a PK zone, it isn’t hard to guess how stealing ended.

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[attr="class","athread"]The first death could have been excused as a glitch. The second was an indication of something sinister. Would that stop Annie from storming her way back to the sword? Of course not. It had made a fool of her, and that meant that she needed to show it who was boss. Just as she had before, she planted her feet against the sides of the rock, grabbed the hilt and gave it a fierce yank.

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[attr="class","athread"]Just as she landed, a bone club smacked her on the back of the head. The edges of her screen turned read, a threatening flash that would frame the Marowak once she turned around. Turns out that more than one enemy could hear at a time. Who knew? A missing chunk of her health-bar excluded, she was still perfectly capable of beating the enemy. Eventually. Theirs was a battle of auto-attacks versus flying bones, but a regular enemy couldn’t hope to win out against the young samurai.

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Blitz doesn’t back down. He was too deep in to dodge the strike, and so he kept up his strike in spite of it. If luck was on his side, the Brick Break would land itself on the Aurorus. Good thing, too- Annie’s attention was elsewhere, watching and waiting for-

There it was – the flames of a move Annie and Glimmer knew much too well. Flames she knew couldn’t be seen again. It was much too early in the match for them to be taking risks, but an invisible enemy left them with little options. “Disable!” Could the move even hit an enemy that couldn’t be seen? She had no idea, and judging by the twitch in her Ninetales’ eyes, neither did she… But that moment was as good a time as any to find out. The flames gave an approximation of the enemy’s location, if only because of her familiarity with them… Psychic rings floated through the air and to the spot they hoped the Froslass lay.

Such an attack couldn’t come without a cost; there wasn’t enough time to Disable future uses and dodge the current one. Try as she might to leap above the flames, the Hex mostly found its mark, setting the snow fox alight all over again. When her paws touched the ground again, it was with a light stumble. Annie felt no need to hide a look of concern from the machine, however brief it might have been.

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[attr="class","athread"]An attack indicator at her feet was the first sign of trouble. The samurai leapt up just as the ankle-biter launched her head out of the sands, snapping at the space where Annie had once been… And was going to be. Jumping was one skill she hadn’t quite mastered yet (‘Probably in that tutorial I skipped…’), which meant that gravity was set on taking her right back where she started

The girl wasn’t very keen on being gnawed any time soon, so a hand wrapped itself around her sheathed sword as she descended. Her character wouldn’t move again until the mob was in reach of her blade. The samurai’s iaido showed itself as the katana went from unsheathed to piercing the earthling in one swift movement, a Breaking Swipe granting it a quick end.

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[attr="class","athread"]Gone. Not hiding above the arena or behind their trainer, just gone. The disappearance gave a much-needed moment to breathe, but with the timer counting down it was the last thing she wanted. Where the hell were they? Had the attacks hit? Apparently not, but why? Had the dragon really withstood a quadruple-effective attack… and then some?

The heat of battle had started to show on the girl’s face. She loathed to let the man think that he was troubling her, but… he was. Much, much more than she’d prefer to show. Annoying and expected, but she hadn’t come that far to give up just because one battle looked tough. “Leia, eyes up. Turn around and keep it going.” They’d go for the weakened healer, no doubt, and she had little defence against an enemy they couldn’t see. The Petal Blizzard would have to do, ensuring that wherever they struck from, something would hit. A brief pause between attacks gave the crown a chance to turn a half-circle atop her mount.

“Wildfire, arm at the ready.” His move, for once, had no visible effect. The Emboar spread his feet, prepared for the next strike. When the attackers came, he’d greet whichever was in front with a Sucker Punch… Once he knew where they were coming from. Still, the attack came with speed ill-befitting of his size and stature, and with them both watching each other’s backs, there were only so many angles to hide in.

[attr="class","tag"]kyle lopez

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There was the one – the one skill that could shut down any of her assaults. Or try to, at least. He grabbed her blade, still unable to stop himself from gloating. Annie’s face took a turn for the unamused; a raised eyebrow asked if he really thought he could stop her strike. His strengths were mystical; hers were literal.

A single thrust wrested her arm from his grip. The katana came free with it (Annie shuddered to think if the game would account for the pain that could cause), and she impaled it into the ground, preparing a shield of her own. The explosion engulfed the pair in flames and smoke… But when it cleared, Ultimeite was no worse for wear.

She could only hope that she’d bought Steal enough time.

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It was near-frustratingly difficult to read the emotions of a masked man, but in a situation like there’s, silence could only be taken as a good thing. The girl’s grin went from ear to ear, not just because of the hero’s approval, but her Pokemon’s power to leave a lasting impression. Where they were headed, they needed to make a mark everywhere they went.

Seeing the man talk to his Pokemon helped to lift the Ampharos’ spirits too. Drifters like Annie and her Camp met a lot of trainers, and most of them fit into two camps. Those who treated their partners as dear friends tended to be further down the ladder, while those that barely spoke to them in the midst of action made up most of their challenges. It was refreshing to see a man that could do both. At least, he assumed as much. Why else would Annie force a Mega Evolution on him?

No amount of stones could protect him from an Encore, and so the dragon found itself charmed into sharing his trainer’s ego. Without a thought, he bowed to the party, while the girl behind him stifled her giggles. “Sounds like a plan, team! Let’s see how it goes!” A pair of Pokemon aided each other in taking the Wailord for a ride… Or at least, trying to. “Well, it could've worked,” Annie muttered.

Amp charged the Focus Blast over his shoulder, because it was the only thing he felt compelled to do, and Annie realised too late that he couldn’t stop himself. “Step away from the Wailord!” she called, seconds before Amp Hadouken’d his blast into the beached beast. Again, the attack shifted it closer to the ocean, and again, the poor thing bemoaned its fate.

Pocky pursed her lips, a hint of regret and pity briefly revealing itself. Even for a Pokemon of its size, a blow from a Mega Evolved Pokemon was nothing to joke about. On top of that, there was only so long that Amp could safely stay transformed, and that time was close to running out. “I think we’ve got about one attack left in us, but we can make it count! Anything explosive or forceful that can get it up will be great… We’ll time it better this time, so we can really send it flying! Then your Blissey can heal it up before it goes, right?” Amp nodded in agreement, his train of thought otherwise unhindered by the Encore.

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[attr="class","athread"]Lucha Libre narrowed his eyes at the trainer. “That depends on what your idea of funky is,” Annie giggled. “They all mean something special to me, so I try to give them names that match. Lucha’s going to be one of the most feared fighters in Hoenn one day, so he needs a name to match!” Moral support stopped the bird short of trying to argue; he settled for a cheer and making himself comfortable in her arms instead. Being there stopped him from chasing after every unclaimed Pokemon that showed its face, and for that Annie was grateful. It wasn’t often a drifter like her got a chance to talk with no strings attached.

‘Flattery will get you nowhere’, some said. Not Annie, not ever. The ego boost was always appreciated, but even she had the sense to try and be humble. “Oh, I know!” Try. “I’ve done a lot… But I’m not anywhere near done yet, so there’s no time to rest. You get it, right?” Of course she did. They were fellow hard workers, each chasing a dream few wanted them to reach. There was a certain kindship in th-

Annie’s face froze. Confusion took hold, then outright disapproval. She held her Hawlucha a little closer to herself. There was a lot about the woman’s words that she didn’t like. Extra-terrestrials, the missing man, but more than that… Rocket. Mention of the organisation would stir unease in most of Hoenn’s populace, but being a native from Kanto meant the name hit a little harder.

“Rocket doesn’t exist anymore.” There was an assertive edge to her voice. “Not here, and not for a while. We’re done with that.” A firm tone helped to mask the wave of unease that always followed memories of New Year’s Eve. “So there’s no way they’d have anything to do with all of that other stuff.”

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