Fuchsia City had, for as long as written records could track, always had two clans of shinobi vying for space within its borders.
Doksu, the poisoned thorns growing amongst the cherry tree’s roots, and Mutsu, the deep shade cast by its abundant blossoms.
They were as similar as they were distinct, two flowers of different colour emerging from the same bud. One was small and slender like a creeping vine, paradoxically bright and visible so the eye could see its venom. The other was broad and sturdy as an oak’s trunk, its petals dull to better blend with night’s camouflaging shadows.
But while they were siblings, in soul if not always blood, they were not necessarily equals.
Or allies.
That much could be shown by the current arrangement: Tsuyu Mutsu, head of the Mutsu clan, was being forced to stay still and wait for the Doksu heir to make the first move. Janine was crouched on a lower branch, her bright red scarf easily visible despite the early-night gloom.
Well, visible to me, at least.
The younger woman was infuriatingly motionless as her clansman passed beneath, followed thirty seconds later by a group of three – or ten, if you counted Pokémon – members of Team Rocket. Damn, Tsuyu cursed in her head, that really is Shenja’s son. I was hoping it was just a lookalike posing as him, part of some scheme, but… If Rocket could disguise themselves well enough to fool her, especially with her own flesh and blood? They’d have used it long before now.
Seconds ticked by as the three criminals confronted the plant. “She’s a wreck,” Tsuyu spat down, causing the Doksu heir to wince. The motion was nearly imperceptible, but the older woman had completed her training before the younger had been born.
“Stay hidden,” Janine spoke back.
“She’s literally revealing herself as we sit here.”
It wasn’t an exaggeration; “Your last name isn’t Rose, is it?” said her nephew, and the little girl could do nothing but giggle in hysterics.
It was a complete shitshow. This Nerine had obviously cracked under the pressure. “I’m stopping this,” Tsuyu stated as she drew her knives. “Your agent is compromised.” What else could they expect, sending a child?
Just because Janine had become Gym Leader at a similar age, didn’t mean the rest of her clan were made of the same stuff. The Mutsu matriarch stepped into open air and hit the ground a half-second later, the impact producing not a hint of sound – and with the lightest grunt of frustration her junior followed. Janine’s long scarf and stiff ponytail whistled slightly as they caught the air.
Tsuyu would have scoffed at the sloppiness, but she actually respected the Fuchsia Gym uniform; there were certain practicalities that were incompatible with each other, and the flashiness necessary to hold the title of Leader was simply a necessity – if she had come in her clan uniform, then this would have been much harder to label as official action.
“Don’t,” Janine hissed, finally doing something only now that the issue had been pressed.
“Stop me.” We should have captured them yesterday; they were exhausted, and split into neat thirds.
No, I’m not letting the group reform again, and certainly not with a hostage. Tsuyu tilted her head in contempt – and threw, her arm blurring like the lash of a whip. Janine’s teeth grit as she moved even faster, her needles deflecting off of Tsuyu’s knives just hard enough to alter their course – which also put the needles themselves onto the correct path.
A dozen poisoned thorns bit into flesh, peppering her nephew, the orange-haired woman, and most of the Pokémon while the more deadly full blades flew off into the darkness.
The Gym Leader sighed, the sound only half-angry. “I’d prefer you hadn’t done that.”
“And I’d prefer if you’d stop playing soft.” Tsuyu cracked her neck and stepped forward, placing herself into view of the little girl and her Rocket friend. “We don’t need the Pokémon.”
There was silence for a moment, and then... “Who are you?” the heavily muscled woman asked, immediately outing herself as an idiot. We’re wearing the full uniform. “Are you-?”
“I am Janine Doksu, Gym Leader of the Fuchsia City Pokémon Gym,” Tsuyu’s nominal superior said as she stepped forward as well. “Return your Pokémon to their balls, now.” The order was given without the smallest amount of compromise; it was obvious that if the woman – Puce Gracile, daughter of Mauve and Mint Gracile, owners of Green Grocer and Sweet Fairy Delights respectively – failed to comply, she would get the same treatment as her colleague.
She was speechless, mouth flapping like a fish as the two shinobi approached – until a small hand on her shoulder caused her jaw to snap shut. “Puce,” Nerine breathed, “You’re my partner, okay? That’s the story you need to stick to: you’ve been helping me for the last few months. You were never a real Rocket. Okay? Do you understand?”
Tsuyu rolled her eyes. Compromised to the bone. “Why did you choose this one as your plant? She can’t have been anywhere near the best you had loitering around.”
“It had to be me,” Nerine muttered. “Had to be me…” The girl withdrew into herself with every step her senior sisters took, and Tsuyu’s nose wrinkled at the smells of stress and vomit wafting off her.
“Nerine,” Jasmine snapped as they came close enough that Tsuyu could have drawn her sword and beheaded the three of them in one motion. Her voice was only slightly less severe than when she’d been speaking to the Rocket, but then her expression softened – and Tsuyu got the urge to roll her eyes again. “I know it’s been hard, but good work.”
“Had to be me,” the girl muttered again, and Tsuyu glanced aside at the Gym Leader. Again, this can’t have been the best choice. Is she even trained? “Even if- even if the instructors found me,” she continued more calmly, “They won’t – they don’t kill kids. Even if they’d found me out.”
Well, at least you did part of your job, little girl.
Tsuyu tuned out the three women as they babbled back and forth, instead turning her ears to her nephew as she hoisted him up on her shoulder. “Hello, Hoshi. Been about… six years, hasn’t it?” Strong heartbeat, and he’s breathing fine. No adverse reactions – not that I expected differently. The man’s eyes rolled, and she nodded, impressed. “Ah, you’re conscious? I guess Shenja’s blood flowed true. Unfortunately, I can’t get you out of this completely, so you’ll be spending a year or two in the clan compound until we can find and burn your name out of all the paperwork.”
The Rocket’s screaming tirade was becoming loud, so Tsuyu stepped away. “Janine, I’m getting my nephew to safety before the fireworks start. Don’t do anything-”
A sudden movement behind her, nearly as fast as a bullet, and Tsuyu wouldn’t have noticed if she’d actually been paying attention to the melodrama unfolding a few paces away – but she hadn’t, and so she dodged the Swift by a hair. The attack tried to turn, but struck Nerine’s puke-tree and detonated instead. Splinters penetrated the thinner sections of her clothes, and she sucked in a breath as she unsheathed her sword.
“Ha,” came a smooth and masculine voice from the direction of the Rocket camp, accompanied by an offended grumble. A man with a ridiculous pompadour stepped out of the greenery together with an electabuzz, the former grinning smugly. “I knew we had a rat. Cliff, over here!”
She threw a knife, it was deflected by a flying crab? What? And then she felt the weight resting on her shoulder stir.
----------------------------------------
Hoshi was no longer a mere man. No, Hoshi was something else – a great many points of light, brilliant, impossibly large and even more impossibly far apart.
A constellation, connected only through a trick of perception rather than any physical proximity.
I’m hallucinating, said one part of him. I need to help Puce and Casca, said another. Those two were relatively close together, a thousand lightyears rather than millions. The rest of him was further away, points of distant colour shining in the darkness.
Is Dad carrying us? asked one.
I need to be in Pewter by the twenty-seventh, reminded another. For Harvest.
The ice-cream place near the Gym is trash, I should take her to the one on the docks.
Is Casca dead?
No, it isn’t bad, it just reminds us of… that first time it happened.
I wonder what kind of powder they used. Oddish? Paras?
She can’t be she can’t be she can’t be she can’t be-
Did mom really just fall in and drown? Or did she kill herself? Was she murdered?
Was that Auntie? I’ve only seen her twice in my life, but I think that was Auntie.
The disaster in 2007 unearthed large numbers of previously-undiscovered ore and gem seams. As such, the price of sapphires has been at an all-time low.
What did she say? Something about a year or two..?
Shut up. Shut up. I can’t think. Shut up.
She can’t be she can’t be she can’t be-
It was loud, being a constellation. Each star was screaming out into space, radio waves splashing over its neighbours like storm-driven water hitting the docks. It was impossible to focus on any single one; if Hoshi was going to pull himself together, it was going to have to happen all at once.
Auntie Denju? No, she’s in Pewter. Entirely different side of the country.
Island Special. That’s her favourite. Remember it.
Not her, dummy. The other Auntie.
But conversely, it devastated the local wildlife. Cerulean doesn’t actually produce much fish these days – even less than Pallet. We need to supply most of the ingredients for their restaurants, and the price of food in general has gone up across the heartland.
She could never walk right after the porygon attack. She wouldn’t have been able to swim at all.
Dad? Is that you? Help me. I can’t feel my legs. Help me.
Shut up! I’ll kill you! I’ll fucking kill you!
Where’s Guts? Crow? Where are my girls?
Rattata generally evolve before they learn Hyper Fang, and most Pokémon Encyclopedias agree that their bite strength is directly tied to the evolution. So if I skip Pursuit and just focus on training Bite, then…
I'm dead. I’m dead and this is what being a ghost is. The church was right, being psychic really is a curse.
“Hoo hoo, there’s no need for superstition!”
The voice, somehow both more and less real than Hoshi’s own self, blasted through the tiny swirling galaxy. He blinked, catching a glimpse of yellow and black before his eyes whizzed past into the distance, disconnected from any other part of him.
“I don’t think it’s an unwarranted question,” he replied, in that same real-and-not quality. The sound came from somewhere between the stars.
A memory?
We’re unstuck in time.
Maybe it’s the future.
A full-grown tauros weighs two hundred pounds, while a specially bred beef cow weighs one-thousand-four-hundred. However, people are willing to pay over ten times the amount for tauros beef, so economically it makes more sense to raise tauros.
Hypno waved his hand, not turning from his computer. He’d had Hoshi drag the thing over from a different room, and whatever it was showing was apparently fascinating. “While a psychic’s vulnerability to possession is a factual reality, the danger is overblown. Besides, if it did happen then my darling Hiebelle would notice and evict the… hoo, tenant.”
“Hiebelle?”
“My gengar! Now, we’ll be doing the mind-reading test again. I’m going to think a phrase, a full sentence, and I want you to guess it. As always, don’t think, just say what comes to mind.”
The stars turned around an invisible axis, orbiting the scene. Hoshi looked down at himself, sitting in the torture chair with a mad-science contraption strapped to his head.
He has a fucking Gengar? Since when?!
Boring. I’ve seen this show before.
She can’t- she can’t be! I refuse! Casca’s alive!
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
We’re poisoned. Does psychic resist poison? No, it doesn’t – we should switch to ground type instead.
The memory skipped forwards in halting, jittering spurts, like a damaged movie, and suddenly Hoshi knew it was a different day. “Hey, Doc,” he said, more casual – they’d been doing this over a week, and he could only keep up his wariness for so long. “If I’m vulnerable to ghosts, does that mean I’m… better at doing whatever it is I can do to poison types?”
“No,” Hypno answered swiftly. “Do the new gloves fit?”
“About the same as the old ones. Why not?”
“Because you aren’t a Pokémon, grunt. To my recollection, I’ve explained this at least five times before.”
“So, what? Ghosts just happen to be strong against both human psychics and psychic Pokémon? Seems too coincidental.”
The doctor fiddled with a wheeled television, obviously not very familiar with it. “It isn’t a coincidence, but neither is the link as straightforward as you imply. Hm, I think this is broken…”
“You’re pressing the menu button, Doc. Power’s the other big one.”
“Ooh, thank you. Now, this is a variation on the electrokinesis test; try and do something to the image while it’s playing.”
The TV flicked on, and Hoshi saw a dark forest. He scowled. “Like, try and make something happen?”
He – that is, the new Hoshi, the one on the screen inside the memory inside the black void of space – was wedged into the crook of a tree, twitching slightly as blurred shapes fought in the background. A woman screamed: “How could you?! Everything was going right! We were friends!” The video zoomed in, showing the four, five, six needles embedded in her face and neck.
Oh, wow. That’s like, the same amount that took out Pinch.
She swung, and the punch took out a tree – just smash, no technique or form or thought, and Puce’s fist went right through the wood. Nerine dodged, but the movement was sluggish – she had blood streaming down her face from a large gash on her brow.
“Puce, please. I gave them all your names months ago; even if you somehow win, your lives are over – just let me save you!”
She must be half-paralysed. I wonder, how strong could she be if she actually worked out?
Oh, I saw orange! Pan left, pan left!
Kill her. Fucking kill her, rip her guts out and put them back in through the other hole.
Who’s that Pokémon? It’s all spiky. Are those holes on its chest?
Turn the brightness up.
I hate ninja movies, they’re always so unrealistic.
“Yes,” Hypno replied. “Distort the screen, or the audio, or whatever you want. Don’t be discouraged if nothing happens; we’re only a week in, and already your brainwaves are showing signs of more sophisticated action.”
Hoshi frowned harder. “Fine.” He pulled on the screen in his head, imagining something changing.
The Hoshi in the tree twitched a little harder. Around his head the constellation swirled, as though his brain were a black hole. Nothing.
No, wait, we did it already.
Answer the question properly, Doc. You always cut yourself off in the middle.
Dumbass. Obviously this isn’t really happening – I’m just dreaming. Ryan probably conked us out with a boring-ass speech about being a rich fuck.
Auntie Tsuyu – he was pretty sure it was her, even with the mask – deflected a rocketing Beady with her short sword, the kabuto whizzing off into the crooked trees. The flash of steel brought out another memory, and suddenly the battle court intersected with the lab. Doc Hypno ballooned out, his greying hair becoming richer as his beard lost volume until it was just a ratty goatee. “You think you can upstage me?!” Kiribo yelled, voice high but dangerous. “To my own uncle?! I’ll put you in your place, grunt!”
Hoshi shook his head, the unwieldy helmet crackling as its tubes and wires trailed off into nowhere. Guts’s ball jumped off his belt, wobbling in anticipation as the Rocket Hunter swept his ill-fitting labcoat aside to reveal his own ball.
Despite Hoshi having a head-start, they threw at nearly the same time; Kiribo’s draw was fast, and his alakazam came out a hair before Guts did. “Quick attack!” came the Senior Grunt’s order, and-
Guts didn’t move. A needle was buried in her shoulder, and the rat was softly sleeping. “A foolish effort!” Kiribo exclaimed. “Teleport!”
The alakazam didn’t move like a living thing – when it was just loitering it did, but in battle that act was discarded. It hovered and flew like a puppet on strings, head lolling, limbs slack.
This is the part where he throws a tantrum.
Man, he really kicked our ass. We didn’t land a single hit, did we?
You know, we have a really bad matchup against psychics. Poison, fighting, normal…
Casca? Casca, where’d you go?
Oh, I know this one – that was tyranitar, the Armour Pokémon! That would beat an alakazam easy, we should catch one!
Make her choke on them. I want to see it, the moment she gives up and accepts it. When her eyes go dull and her muscles slacken.
His eyes flew past again, the constellation momentarily aligned in just the right way. Hoshi couldn’t move – or at least, not enough to matter. His fingers could twitch, his eyes could swivel in their sockets, and he was in very real danger of biting off his own tongue, but that was it.
“Casca…” he said, though it probably didn’t come out quite like he was hoping. Probably sound like Danny right now. “Anyone..?”
He could tilt his head, just slightly, and-
Oh. Oh wow. The forest had changed. Not only were the trees leaning haphazardly, some were on fire. A thick grit flew through the air, too, a dense cloud of ash and sand joining the night’s darkness to obscure everything despite the burning forest casting more light than all their flashlights combined. Hoshi’s fingers twitched harder as he frantically scanned around the limits of where his limp neck allowed him to look. “Casca..?” My pack. I have medicine in my pack – I just need to reach-
The alignment ended, and the screen blinked off as Hoshi’s body flew apart, orbiting his head as he sat in Hypno’s technically-not-a-torture-device. “I couldn’t make it do anything.”
The scientist hummed. “Are you sure? I thought I saw it change colour a bit – but anyway, I think we’re about done for today.”
“Really?” Hoshi’s jaw worked as he removed the helmet. “Feels like we just started.”
“Ooh, I would love to spend all day poking around in your skull, but unfortunately I have higher duties to attend to. The rocket doesn’t ascend on its own, hoo hoo!”
Quick, ask him again.
We don’t remember what the answer was, do we?
I think I just felt an Earthquake. That has to be Cliff’s Pokémon.
Lots of stars out tonight.
“Hey Kiribo,” he asked as he wiped sweat from his brow. “Does our… thing work on the same rules as Pokémon attacks? I keep asking the Doc, but I feel like I get a different answer every time.”
“Ah, an astute question!”
The court was blurry, trees poking up and machines crowding around the edges. Casca and Puce sat on a sofa in the corner, crowding Hoshi’s father as they watched something on his tiny apartment television. I… don’t think it is? Do you even know what astute means? “Well? Go on.”
The Rocket Hunter set his weights down. To his chagrin he wasn’t able to consistently lift the same ones Hoshi preferred, but luckily he hadn’t freaked out about it like he had with the psychic shit. “As I’m sure you know, our incredible blessing comes with a minor downside…”
“The ghost connection is the one part your uncle is actually consistent about. Skip!”
He laughed, the “Doh ho hoh!” echoing through the dark, partially-aflame room. “Very well! But I’m afraid I must repeat the good doctor a bit anyhow, to set up the proper context.” He swept back his hair with one hand, the other playing with his sheath – and for just a moment, his figure changed into something substantially more feminine. Tight fabric of midnight blue hugged his aunt’s body all the way from her toes to the bridge of her nose, her silhouette only barely discernible due to the dancing firelight. Broad shoulders, but not particularly bulky except where thick armour protected her vitals – not like her older sister, Auntie Denju, who had more in common with Hoshi’s father.
“Hoshi!” he exclaimed from the couch. “Is that little Tsuyu? Invite her in already – you won’t believe what they’re saying on the news!”
Hoshi concentrated with all his might, trying to force the memory back. This is important. I don’t remember why, but I just know that it is. Kiribo returned, peeling himself out of the Mutsu clan uniform like an inordinately fat butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. “Pardon, what were we talking about? An errant thought distracted me.”
“Pokémon moves,” Hoshi said, his numb tongue slurring the words so bad he couldn’t even hear them. “How are they different from human psychic stuff?”
“Ah, yes, I remember it now!” I remember now. I remember now. I- His face morphed again, becoming a leering caricature. “Pokémon use psychic type energy in their attacks,” the amalgamation of the two Kimigawas said. “But humans have no inborn access to such energy. Our abilities are due to the physical structure of our brains – hence the potential to increase them with stardust and other neuroactive substances. The witches of Kanto’s swampy southern coasts sometimes poisoned themselves to better see the future, but of course we have much better methods in the modern day – less dangerous ones as well, hoo hoo, ho ho, hoo hoo!”
It’s there. We know the answer.
Just say it, so we can remember.
“I don’t remember it very well, " Shenja said from the couch. The fire licked at his eyes, many-coloured sparks reflected in each black pupil as they shrivelled from the heat. “I gave all that up when I was a teenager. My sisters were always better at it than me – not to say I was bad, mind.” His smile was nostalgic, even as the fat under his skin melted. Hoshi’s father didn’t always smile, even when he was happy, but when he did it seemed to come off the edges of his face, the expression almost too pure for the dirty, terrible, beautifully complicated world they lived in. “But let’s see if we can find my box of tricks anyway – maybe you’ll have a knack for it.”
The Mutsu formulae for paralysing agent is made from a base of paras spores, the same as their sleep-inducing agent. First, a tincture is made with alcohol, then an extract of several common flowers is added until the mixture is thickened to a paste…
Like a puppet on strings. The muscles don’t matter, it’s magic. A pattern of energy. Pure force, cause divorced from effect – you need the energy to do it, but it doesn’t need to be connected. You can be somewhere else. Move something without touching it, see light without your eyes being there.
It won’t be exactly where we put it – things will have shifted around. We’ll probably only get one shot; we need to grab the right medicine. Not a Potion, or Repel, we need Paralyse Heal. It won't work all the way, the complete poison is more resilient than the natural stuff that goes into it, but it’ll get us on our feet again.
“It comes from within,” Kiribo explained. “Not necessarily the head, but inside. From one’s self, from one’s warrior spirit. There can be no doubt or hesitation – In fact, I would say it is not unlike the wielding of a blade!”
“Dark types can hide from you,” Hypno continued. “Because they aren’t defending against psychic energy, they’re concealing themselves from all energy in general. That is why they are called dark; light doesn’t quite touch them unless they let it. And telekinesis is an expression of human energy, so you won’t be able to lift, say, an umbreon no matter how hard you try.”
“I can’t lift shit, Doc.”
Annoyance, sickly yellow. Hoshi thought that maybe he could see the colours a bit clearer when he was like this, out of his gourd with the stardust in his veins. But it never seemed to be on purpose, never under his control. “Again, stop focusing on the result. This is going to take time, grunt. Power comes from effort. But getting back to the point – dark types will evade any extrasensory perception, and bug types are simplistic enough that their intentions are less discernible. But they won’t do ‘extra damage’ to you, that’s an absurd notion.”
“And poison?”
“As I explicitly said, no. You have no special advantage against poison types.”
“Kiribo said he often goes after poison types that other Hunter’s don’t, though. He said…” ‘My great powers allow me to resist their subtle treachery, and expose it to the light of day!’ “That he had a special resistance to poison, because he was psychic.”
Hypno frowned, shaking his head as he scribbled at his notes. Behind him a tree crashed down, crushing the fragile equipment under blackened wood. “Well- fiddlesticks, that boy’s going to tie your head in knots. He isn’t wrong, but the mechanism has nothing to do with Pokémon types; it’s one’s psychic perception of their own body that lets them expel dangerous substances. You need to stop asking him these things, or you’ll have a skewed understanding of what your abilities actually are-”
He was out of time. Hoshi disappeared again as he let the garbled-together memory go. For a moment there was nothing, and then – effort, tremendous effort, as he tried to pull down the stars.
----------------------------------------
Tsuyu was the rare combination of frustrated, impressed, and elated. This must be a Senior Executive, to have such strong Pokémon. I wouldn’t have expected Rocket to send someone so capable to guard mere grunts, but I’m glad they did – if he was back in Vermilion, standing next to his peers…
Surge and the rest might not have been enough.
But of course, him being here meant that she had to fight him, which was proving… troublesome.
“Crumb, Stone Edge!”
The tyranitar – and the fact that such a Pokémon could be accessed by Rocket at all was distressing, much less one of this size and power – let loose its attack, multiple blades of stone erupting from the earth. She dodged, her shiftry dodged, but Vileplume was too slow. The dancing flower was struck full-on, her tough petals spraying fluid as they were torn through.
For a moment it looked like she would soldier on, but then her next step faltered and the Petal Blizzard stilled. The Rocket looked on with a savage smile as Tsuyu was forced to return her Pokémon.
“Ha! Two down, woman! Don’t think your type advantage will be enough to even the odds!”
She threw a salvo of knives as she landed, but Clifford Moon, forty-one, no criminal record, Apartment #212 1092 North Vermilion simply stepped behind his tyranitar, the oversized thing easily hiding his bulk.
“Shiftry, Leaf Blade,” she ordered, stepping into the shadow of a listing tree so she could catch her breath. Her eyes darted across the battlefield, taking in each combatant in an instant.
The staryu is guarding its master, Haunter is doing well against the Rocket’s venusaur, Janine is locking down those four, Umbreon and her crobat might need help with those other three soon…
The Doksu girl seemed to be in a pinch; her venonat was keeping the Rocket woman’s koffing and slowpoke at bay with a combination of Disable and Supersonic, but Puce herself had her hands around the girl’s neck. And it didn’t look like she would be letting go any time soon, despite the ekans Wrapped around her own neck and shoulders.
The Pokémon was peppering her face with Bites and Poison Stings, but the woman was the size of an ursaring, her face a rictus of betrayed rage.
Damn, that kid’s gonna die. With swift movements she shoved the nozzle of a Revive into her murkrow’s Pokéball, sending the contents directly in with a pull of the heavy trigger. She expanded the ball and placed it on the ground, then drew more knives. This is turning into even more of a shitshow. If we both make it out, I’m going to have Janine’s ass for making us wait so long. “Wait for the right moment, then renew Shiftry’s Tailwind. Join whichever fight looks worst after.”
Then she was off, flitting from shadow to flickering shadow. As she passed she put a blade through the pompadoured Rocket’s knee, dodging the retaliatory Mud Bomb from the Pokémon on his back, and in short order she had snaked her arms around Puce Gracile’s thick shoulders. “Let go or die,” she ordered with her sword pressed to the woman’s vitals.
Despite the sword drawing a line of blood, Puce didn’t seem to even notice; she continued to crush the life out of the much smaller girl, her nonexistent knowledge of proper strangulation completely meaningless when each of her fingers encircled Nerine’s entire neck.
“Last warning,” Tsuyu spoke loudly, pressing the blade deeper – then she exhaled. Fine. Some lives, like spring blossoms, must fall early for the tree to remain.
Her sword arm moved – only for a force to twist her elbow. She dropped the blade rather than bisect the ekans still valiantly attempting to save its trainer, hissing through her teeth as her fingers spasmed.
A knife went behind, where she could hear a heartbeat. Sloppy. Didn’t check the treetops – and I shouldn’t have hesitated, either. I’m out of practice.
The knife thunked with an unsatisfying sound as she retrieved her sword, turning to look at – ah. “Hoshi. You shouldn’t be mobile.” One of the others? No, they’re all accounted for. How?
Her nephew’s hand went up to the handle sticking from where his armpit and ribs met. “Ow.” The rattata and mankey gathered around him bristled with anger, equalled by the dugtrio and staryu guarding over the woman – Cascade Kichi, daughter of Clarence and Nami Kichi, moderate capture target – staggering against a half-fallen tree in the background.
“I probably can’t talk you out of this, can I?” Tsuyu asked. Hoshi was silent, his expression slack but his eyes determined, and so she once again put her sword to his ally’s neck. “Fine, how about this? I’ll spare-”
She nearly bit her tongue mid-sentence as a piercing, balance-destroying shriek from above tore through her eardrums.