Thread Link: bonus points (tos event mission)
Thread Type: Mission
Number of Pages: 1 page
Berry: pecha berry
Berry / Ingredient Effect: allows you to change your pokemon's forme (alolan/galarian, rotom, wormadam, lycanroc, etc.) alongside any applicable abilities or moves. forme changes that only affect the pokemon's appearance are exempt from requiring a purchase.
Thread Summary: Izumi encounters a stranger while destroying a car for charity.

Thread Link: take a hike (tos event mission)
Thread Type: Mission
Number of Pages: 2 pages
Berry: persim berry
Berry / Ingredient Effect: allows you to change your pokemon's ability. hidden abilities can be selected.
Thread Summary: Izumi and Josh face the issue and question of morality and death while hiking up Mount Chimney.

Thankfully he understood what she wanted to emphasize. That was another good thing about having him around when she was so close to breaking down and just… blanking out about things that mattered to her. How… inadequate it was for her to grow up without a father, and…

Wow.

After a while of just enjoying his presence with the embrace he had willingly given to her, she nodded—even if there was a hint of a sniff behind her words.

“Y—yeah, let’s go. Who… who knows what the hell the kids are up to now, waiting for us to get back,” she added with a soft smirk on her features before giving him another peck on the forehead.

It was nice, really… to have someone like him around. Who understood everything. Well, they were almost in the same boat, at least until recently in her husband’s case when he had found out that his own father was alive and well.

“Now you know why I got thinking about that mission we did all those years ago…” she muttered softly as she took the offered canteen from her husband and took a drink from it. Drat, that was the one thing she forgot to bring along.

She was pretty sure the kids were now having the time of their lives messing around with the water canteen she’d forgotten to bring along in such her haste to get to where they had started at the bottom of this ashy mountain. How… how far had they been climbing? She had no idea anymore.

Either way, she very much welcomed the embrace and threw her own arms around him. If he looked closely, he would notice that she was shaking. There… there really were no words for what she had mentioned earlier after she’d taken a sip of cold water and returned the container to him.

To be fair, the way she had dropped that revelation felt like a hitstun to her the more she dwelled on the thought.

Josh Dragomir

Forgive me for I am about to sin with a terrible joke:

There are so many forms of martial arts, it’s kind of... Kung-Fusing

---

Either way, you know what I’m here for. So what are we going to do with our kids, then? How many social threads we going to have introducing them to the world at large? I know we picked out June as their birth month, but… when exactly is their birth day?!

At least we have a social thread to look forward to, right? Right?

Also, highly suggest taking the Bonus Stage: Destroy Car quest for the Tower of Strength as well. What do you think?

“It was still scary… for me, at least. You know what I mean,” she remarked, giving the other a knowing look. If he understood that much about her, he would understand what she was implying at that point.

The fact that she grew up without a father, it really hit home with her in this case. She could understand why she saw her mother in the old lady’s case—desperately clinging onto something that they could still hope to use. However, that wouldn’t be the case with her as she had found out so early—so soon, even.

“It actually reminded me of something else, too,” she continued in the same quiet voice, accepting her husband’s help once they’d reached a flat stretch of rock where they could take their first real break.

“It reminded me of the fact that I had no father to look up to, growing up.”

After the blinding Hyper Beam struck the car, she was pretty sure that there was nothing left of the damned thing. Izumi could still hear the car alarm ringing in her ears. Wondering if the car had been really done in, she looked up from where she had shielded her eyes and saw that it was practically toast not.

Either way, the Braviary wasn’t going to let up and continued to attack the car from behind. Look, if the car was a Pokémon, then the thing wouldn’t have survived the cross-up attack that the Braviary was now doing, unleashing a final Aerial Ace on the toasted, smashed remains of the vehicle.

Wow, had they really done this all in one go? Izumi blinked and wondered who her mysterious companion was. Either way, the Braviary brought up the hunk of metal for one last Sky Drop attack and brought the remains of the wreck crashing down a few moments later.

At least she was now reassured that her Flying-type had gotten all the stress squared out!

First target and it’s something she remembered seeing from Unova…

…unfortunately, not a Riolu, but she would still take the challenge. Before she could send out her Cyndaquil to handle the mess, a burst of red light manifested from her pocket and she was not surprised to see her Gardevoir, Momiji, emerge from within its depths.

“Okay, Momo, what is it?” she asked the dual-type, to which she pointed one of her two limbs at the Timburr. “You sure?” she added, unable to bite back a chuckle. “I mean, you’re outclassing this one, but… go ahead,” she added a few moments later as the Timburr charged forward with a Slam attack.

Sidestepping gracefully, the Gardevoir then Teleported out of the way, before appearing behind the Timburr. As the Fighting-type then used Bulk Up to prepare to attack, the dual-type then released a blast of powerful Psychic energy, catching it upside the head and sending it flying.

Of course the Fighting-type wasn’t going to quit. Now sufficiently angry, the Timburr used Bulk Up once more in an attempt to intimidate the Gardevoir, but the dual-type just looked blankly back at the Fighting-type, before letting it come closer and warping away with another Teleport.

A few seconds later, a second burst of Psychic struck the Timburr, causing it to skid against the ground and away from where Izumi stood.

“Wow, that’s something,” she remarked before nodding and going deeper into the area to continue their search.

“I don’t know why I didn’t listen to my instinct that day,” she muttered as she swung over to another handhold and letting her legs dangle in mid-air again for a few moments. “Why didn’t we choose to cancel… that always bothered me so much…” she added quietly.

It was like, they knew they had to help the old lady at least come to terms or bring the old man back alive, but they had ended up fighting a specter inside the cave. Then… why was the Pokémon all too real? Or was it just there to test them if they were strong enough to handle looking at death in the face?

“I actually have a confession to tell you,” she went on, having shifted her weight once more as she tackled another overhanging ledge as she moved sideways to find a new hand hold.

“I’ve… never gotten the image of that dead skull out of my head.”

Maybe now was not a good time to look down…

Once she had moved up to the next overhang, she let herself dangle in mid-air for a few moments before swinging her feet up into another comfortable position. Looking down from where she currently hung onto said overhang, she sighed.

“You too, huh? Wait… what day is it today?” she pondered out loud. Honestly, the day that they’d taken that one particular mission was… one for the ages.

She remembered how the old lady had come to them and looked on the verge of collapse, not having heard from her husband in quite a while. The sight that had met them in the very back of the heated cavern made her skin crawl for days on end.

It had taken a while for her to scrub all the damned sulfur out of her skin after they had gotten back and delivered the memento that the old lady was looking for.

“Don’t… don’t you think it was… today? When we agreed to take the job, all those years ago?” she hummed presently, waiting for him to catch up to where she was.

“Look, I never believed I would have to face something like that, you know,” she muttered quietly as she found a handhold and began to pull herself up.

Since her movement style was more parkour-based, it was easier to pick out places to wedge her hands and feet into without missing a beat.

“Death… and ending. It really… made me stop and reconsider quite a lot of things, you know,” she added a few moments later as she was now juggling keeping her balance as well as trying to find the next foot hold. Why did they decide on doing this without taking the easy way up?

It offered them more time to think, that’s what.

“How come it hasn’t affected you?” she inquired of her husband, leaning over to check that he was managing the climb alright. “You know… what we saw in here. Back then. Or do you have nightmares about it?”

“I know it’s going to be a very long climb,” she remarked as she reached for the goggles and snapped them on snugly.

“That, and I also wanted to dwell on what we did here that very first time, long ago. Like… don’t you remember how it ended? It was really… sobering, to say the least,” she added quietly as she approached him and gave him a peck on the cheek.

“No, really…” she continued as she then turned to face the route they were going to tackle. No bikes today, nothing to make this easy. This was going to be hard work from the both of them, and it was incredibly profound.

“Also… sorry if I got here ahead of you,” she added quietly as she waited for him to catch up with her. They weren’t taking the road today, no. Not in the slightest, because that would be too much of a frame advantage now…