[attr="class","dragomirpt"]

Bash its face in became the plan, then. Small Josh upped their speed, which caused Josh to almost fall off his Charizard the moment he re-mounted it when he flipped forwards over it. Something that forced him to catch himself and handstand atop the visibly annoyed Charizard's head before he managed to get onto its back. Despite being a projection, Charizard didn't seem thrilled as it looked back and snorted smoke at his face. "Sorry!" Josh apologized to the Charizard before they shot off into the air.
[break][break]
With Small Josh as a distraction, that gave Josh an opportunity to circle around aboard Charizard. Flipping through the different spell options, he noticed a meter had filled without him seeing before.
[break][break]
"Huh. What's this?"
[break][break]
Hitting the button, his comically large sword began to glow. Unfortunately, just then the others were struck by some kind of curse and they were all incinerated pretty bad. Josh grit his teeth, then. Here goes nothing...
[break][break]
Taking a deep breath, he relied on the inputs the game seemed to be placing into his head before leaping off Charizard. The sword would allow him to float, before he began slashing at the creature's heads in rapid succession, one by one, hitting each head with several slashes at almost unreadable speed. Even Josh was having a hard time keeping up with how fast he had found himself moving, until he felt compelled to bring one last shot down, a big overhand slash, on the middle head.
[break][break]

Josh Devlin

[attr="class","dragomirpt"]

Once Josh had sat down quietly in hopes of grabbing a bite to eat, he was soon joined by the other Josh. The kid was quite cheerful considering all the trouble that he'd apparently gotten into since Josh had last seen him in their Gym Challenge. Some pretty... Gruesome stuff, to say the least. He didn't approve, but he also could understand emotions at his age. Hadn't he brutalized those pirates pretty bad himself back in the day? Like, not even with Pokemon, but with his bare hands? He'd been scolded pretty good for that too... At least until Josh pointed out they took his kids hostage. Then everybody went quiet and it was never mentioned again.
[break][break]
Also was that... A Mythical Pokemon with him? Josh should be surprised, but... Nothing surprised him anymore at this point. "I am currently fooding. And not planning to make any big announcements this time" Josh admitted to the lad. He had been listening to the talk around him too, of course... So the Silph boy was Head now? And had even given up his Silph role for it? Good for him, he supposed. Josh wouldn't have done the same. Not because of greed or anything, but he felt like he could do more good for people doing what he was doing. Not that they'd promote him to Head anyway, Josh was pretty lowkey. Which he was fine with, to be honest. He'd had his time in the spotlight. And it was pretty overrated.
[break][break]
Others disagreed with the appointment, however. And Josh couldn't blame them either. Hadn't he thrown a giant petty tantrum at the last big meeting? What had changed between now and then? He wasn't high enough on the totem pole to be in the know, apparently. Also apparently Lars had lost contact with his avatar Pokemon. Which was bad. And then they were handed party cue cards. Lovely.
[break][break]
"To be honest? I've just been busy with all the cleanup. This whole meteor thing's left Hoenn a big-ass mess" Josh did in fact speak up a little bit. "Pokemon are losing their shit, there's these rifts appearing everywhere. Some more permanent than others, apparently. At least I'm almost done with the eyepieces. Hopefully they'll be fine-tuned before the next big threat hits. Which knowing our luck? Will probably be soon."
[break][break]
Then Small Josh announced his temporary replacement as Leader, not seeming happy about it. But them's the breaks, it seems. That's what happens when you work within the system. Sometimes the system bites.
[break][break]
Maybe it was a good thing he stayed below the radar after all. He remembered having to deal with inner politics in Interpol... That hadn't been fun. Not something he would do again, that's for sure.
[break][break]

@tag

[attr="class","dragomirpt"]

It was rare that Josh asked his own Raichu to take a PokeJob, but the Trainer himself wasn't too far behind. Modelling hats was pretty tame, but for a Pokemon like Lightning, it meant that their cuteness had a use for once. Several hats were tried, however, and the Raichu didn't seem too thrilled with many of them. At least, until they tried a cute little bowler hat alongside the Raichu's bandana. The combination put together got out a cheerful chirp from the Raichu, and they were able to model it as asked.
[break][break]
They were even allowed to keep that hat, since they hoped the pictures would sell many more. Maybe they could use this at a Contest sometime?
[break][break]

@tag

[attr="class","dragomirpt"]

Communication was definitely tantamount to a relationship. Though some of the way this guy worded things came off as weirdly sexual, and Josh didn't quite know how to respond to that. But fair enough, people talk like that sometimes right?
[break][break]
Annnd then it got weird.
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Yeah, he should have seen this coming after the two other community ones. There was no way in hell this was going without some kind of incident. Or the person involved being completely unstable. But this guy's instability led him to try to "sacrifice" himself to the lava, with you as a witness. If he ever saw this guy in real life, he might actually slug him for this.
[break][break]
As a Ranger, it felt like it was his duty to save his dumb ass, virtual or not.
[break][break]

@tag

[attr="class","dragomirpt"]

Surprisingly the savages chose mercy in their own way. Likely out of a desire to have something for themselves that wouldn't be even attainable in the real world. Maybe they were just projecting their desire to have which they cannot? But at least they had managed to spare the life of the creature in this fictional instance. Even if Josh was still dreading what hellish bullshit he was in line to deal with in this otome considering they were avatar killers.
[break][break]
Especially as the harebrained assassin researcher gave her delusional take on matters that considering her occupation, Josh really wasn't very inclined to listen to. Kind of hard to when you're listening to a confirmed psychopath. There was no justifying what these people had done, so their opinions were mud.
[break][break]
Then came the weird crystal, and more drivel. Then a weird question with a few choices. Thinking logically? Probably the primal rifts. Literal rifts in time that caused things from different points in time to cross over seemed like the obvious choice for something that could literally fold their existence.
[break][break]

@tag

[attr="class","dragomirpt"]

Was that-
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That was it! The thing from the posting! The new Pokemon! And it was... It was...
[break][break]
BLOODY ADORABLE! HOLY SHIT! Josh's heart was already melting. Of course, Lightning made a face with jealousy when he saw his expression, so Josh probably wasn't getting any help from the Raichu with this one. So he took a deep breath as he approached it slowly. He didn't know anything about this Pokemon, so he was going to have to consider how to do this right. But then he was spotted. But Fuecoco didn't seem to think he was a threat. Instead, it saw the energy bar in his hand and immediately leaped at him, grabbing the rest and snapping it down to eat it whole. Wrapper and all.
[break][break]
"Well, okay, I guess there goes the snack. Fair enough. Let me just..." Josh trailed off as he pulled out the Safari Ball to try and catch it while it was eating. But while rooting around for more, Fuecoco mistook Josh's fingers for more of the power bar and well...
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BITE!
[break][break]
The ball had rolled towards Lightning as Josh began screaming "FFFF-AHHHHH THROW THE BALL THROW THE BALL THROW THE BALL!"
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While hesitant at first, the Raichu complied just to stop the screaming and hoisted up the Safari Ball to yeet it at Fuecoco.
[break][break]

@tag

[attr="class","dragomirpt"]

Of all the things to be overruled for, Josh was somehow expecting it for the choice of food even less than he was the whole execution thing. Seriously, these guys were downright sociopaths. Killing people because they want to, and then enjoying yamper pasta? It was as generically cartoonishly villainous as could be, to the point he didn't even know if this was a Rocket propaganda piece anymore. Was this from someone straight up making fun of them? Because this was looking like a mockery.
[break][break]
And now the guy was doing paperwork? God, he was making Rocket look so boring. And now they were masquerading as Celadon Gym Trainers after killing their leader. Because that wasn't suspicious at all. And now they were painting themselves to look like the Gym Leader?
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This was actually stupid. Though it did make him wonder if they could actually do that...
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Well, a stupid thing makes for a stupid answer. Because stupid is as stupid does.
[break][break]
❤️ To become powerful like you.

[break][break]

@tag

[attr="class","dragomirpt"]

Oh god, this was so cheesy. It was a nice change of pace however, from the pure batshit insanity that he had dealt with thus far on these other public ones. Seriously though, these responses were forward to the point that even his previous self might shake his head at just how cheesy this was. He hadn't even been this forward with Izumi! Well, he HAD. But not with THOSE words, sheesh!
[break][break]
Then they were moving. Okay, well, now they were in the cable car. Three choices... He should answer honestly. Communication it is.
[break][break]

@tag

[attr="class","dragomirpt"]

While Josh had an Applin already, he had heard of there being multiple forms that they could evolve into. This seemed like the way to go. However, he only had one ball left. And he had yet to encounter that rare Pokemon he had been looking for. He did however, see a strange breed of Ponyta clop by.
[break][break]
While he was interested in the creature, he knew he needed to use his last Safari Ball wisely. Otherwise he wouldn't be able to catch what he had come for.
[break][break]

@tag

[attr="class","dragomirpt"]

Josh himself had gotten a little hungry, and had been about to take a bite out of the protein bar when he saw an apple in a tree. Odd, there weren't usually apples here, were there? For the Pokemon maybe, he supposed he could just take one down to give to one of the local Pokemon here, would be easier to catch them that way...
[break][break]
Unfortunately, when he reached up, the thing became sentient and attacked with Rollout. Josh was forced to dive away before the airborne Rollout caused him harm. The action caused his Raichu, who had allowed itself to stay in the ball while it as asleep, to wake up and let itself out. Lightning promptly used Thunderbolt without hesitation to try and fry the thing.
[break][break]

@tag

[attr="class","dragomirpt"]

Overruled again, huh? Josh was honestly surprised there were enough people insane enough to still be playing this bullshit after the first bit of expose. How many people playing this were actual sociopaths? Enough to pick the future option, apparently. Who wanted to try to think up futuristic things when you get enough of those in movies? Sheesh. Either way, it didn't go well. And now he was kind of hungry too.
[break][break]
Except then there was a Metal Delibird. It was pretty freaky, to be honest. Like, in a soulless and disturbing kind of way. Killing it though? Kind of excessive, it wasn't doing anything wrong.
[break][break]
He picked to Catch It Himself, hoping that he wasn't in a server again where everyone involved would pick to kick a baby if allowed.
[break][break]

@tag