Treasure Town ~ Marowak Dojo

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Take this!"

Everything was so bright. Her feelings were a battle-high like none other, this was fantastic, she was so glad to fight Curio, Curio, her friend! She was powerful, they were both so powerful, and it was only gonna get better from here! Fuck yes! Wow! What a fight! Curio was... saying something? Yeah! She was excited too! Right?

Right?

"Curio?"

Something was very wrong.

Brisa barely had time to panic. The light inside her grew brighter than she was durable and her body ruptured outwards, in an explosion of radiant light. The electric surge fizzled out. The radiant bars flickered into nothing.

She slumped forward into unconsciousness.

 

[NebulaDreams]

The next minute or so felt like an eternity. It might've been a minute or just a few seconds. Same difference. But when it all stopped, at long last, the effects still lingered on, in more ways than one. Curio fell to her knees and shivered, clutching herself for comfort.

Bris-- No. She couldn't bring herself to say her name right now. The Shinx had fainted, freeing her from the restrain-- Radiant bars. But that wasn't enough. She couldn't think or rationalise the situation as it happened. Right now, she wanted to strangle that Shinx. It would've been so easy while she was out cold. But... Curio couldn't. It seemed like her moral compass was still pointing somewhere, wherever it was.

For now, Curio wanted to be alone, or at least anywhere but here. So Curio got to her feet and stumbled blearily out of the dojo.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

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[windskull]

Day 15, Early Noon

They really did a number on this place, huh?

Nip stood in the center of the training room, eying the crater left behind. Though the details were lost to him, he'd heard that some of the other members of the group had caused the damage while training. He winced ever-so-slightly, wondering how the marowak owner felt about it.

He turned his attention away from the damage and instead focused on himself. While his search for a sparring partner had been fruitless thus far, he was certain that someone would come up to the dojo sooner or later. And while he waited, he'd just try to figure out his newfound power by himself.

 

[Disco]

Mellow stumbled into the dojo, glancing over her shoulder. She didn't even seem to bother looking at anyone. The Charmander stood at the entryway instead and peered just past the edge. Something out of view made her shiver, but it wasn't out of hearing range. Mellow was so preoccupied by the unseen but not unheard threat, that she didn't turn even when others began to approach the door as well...

 

[windskull]

His focus was pulled away by the sounds of the charmander entering the building. He opened one eye and tilted his head. "Mellow? What are you doing here? Thought you'd still be at your stand."

 

[Disco]

She jumped and squeaked, a ghostly kind of flame wavering into being as she turned. Once she recognized who it was, however, she let out a sigh of relief and the small flame vanished.

"Oh, Nap, it's only you... Um...well, right now isn't a good time to be out in the open like that. There's a Garchomp- She looked awful. Like she was possessed... Ah, and Owen and... Um, Durian were out there too! I hope they aren't in trouble..."

 

[windskull]

N... Nap? "I-it's Nip," he stammered debating over whether to focus on how she managed to mistake his name for Nap, or to focus on her other statement. Ultimately he ended up focusing on the more important of the two.

He didn't know who Durian was (he didn't remember anyone picking that as a native name, at least), but he at least recognized one of those names. "Owen's fighting a possessed garchomp?" He asked. "In the marketplace, right?" That's where she'd been earlier, so it made sense. Without waiting to find out, wordlessly bolted out the door.

Training would have to wait.

 

[Disco]

Mellow blinked, but couldn't say anything before Na- er. Nip- ran out.

She stood there, feeling lost and unsure of what else to do. Quietly she slipped out of the dojo and went to the woods to think.

<><><>

 

[windskull]

Day 16, Late Morning

Despite everything that had happened yesterday, here he was again, standing in the middle of the damaged dojo. After everything that had happened yesterday, he'd elected to stay out, wandering around till well after dark, returning to the dojo after most of the others had gone to sleep. Though he still felt uneasy about everything that happened at the marketplace, now that he had time to sleep on it he'd had time to stuff that away into some corner of his mind where he wouldn't think about it. Not now, at least.

He turned his attention to one of the training dummies, scraping his claws together. Don't think Sq- about the shade, think about training. He needed to figure out how to call on his radiant powers before something even more serious than a rampaging garchomp went wrong.

 

[Tanuki]

Zane rolled out of bed at around the same time, rearing and yawning to take on the day. Without any more community to service, he had all the liberty in the world to sleep in, and he took it. Wandering on his way to nowhere, he spotted Nip. Standing there.

Was Nip okay? Maybe he and the dummy had a feud. Of course, Nip definitely had qualms with a dummy, but Zane failed to realize it wasn't any training dummy. Zane was, after all, quite the dummy. "You doing anything, or what?" he asked. Maybe training worked like that. He never had seen pokémon train; perhaps he had an opportunity to learn something.

 

[windskull]

Nip's ear flicked at the sound of someone entering. He turned his head. It was... Zane? Great. Just. Great. "I am doing something, actually," Nip said, trying to keep his voice polite. "I am trying to prepare myself for whatever disaster is going to strike next."

 

[Tanuki]

Zane, unfortunately, took this politeness to mean Nip didn't think him the scum of the earth. About the closest he had to a friend, Zane decided not to let this opportunity pass him by. "Ah, hey, well, if you're preparing for disaster," he gestured to himself in an awkward, unfortunate attempt at a joke. Unfortunately, he'd failed to think up a punchline (likely too used to being the punchline).

Ever accustomed to failure, however, he quickly recovered. "Eh, train together?"

 

[windskull]

The joke flew over Nip's head. Well, at least the zangoose was willing to admit that he was a walking disaster. Nip could respect that, even if he didn't respect Zane himself, per se.

He blinked a couple of times. Zane... wanted to train. With him? Was this some sort of joke? Still, the fact of the matter was that there was no one else around to train with at the moment. Experimentally, he flexed his claws. "Sure. Whatever."

 

[Tanuki]

Nip agreed? Zane failed not to show the surprise on his face, but recovered by replacing it with confusion. "Right, yeah. Training. Let's." His eyes hopped from one dummy to the next. How would this even work? Would they watch and coach? Zane didn't have much to offer in coaching. Or fighting. Or anything to do with being a pokémon.

"Well, uh, go for it," he mumbled, finally looking back to Nip with his arms crossed in a relaxed stance. "You first?"

 

[windskull]

Was he seriously going to just... stand there and stare and leave himself open? He really was an inexperienced fighter, wasn't he? Nip was quite certain any sort of sparring match would be over in an instant, with the odds in his favor. This was going to be a waste of time and energy, wasn't it? Unless...

Nip took a deep breath as he focused, channeling his, well, they called it aura here, right? "You know... Training works best when you have to react to what's coming at you, instead of just slinging moves at stationary targets." He focused his aura into making him go faster, using the burst of speed gained by Agility to zip around Zane. Digging his claws into one of the dummies behind him, he scrambled on top, perching on its shoulders so that he was nearly at eye level with the zangoose.

"I won't attack back for right now. So go ahead, try to hit me with your best shot."

 

[Tanuki]

Zane couldn't blink before Nip dashed behind him. He turned around just in time to see Nip sitting on top of his attack's aftermath. He talked himself into a fight. One against probably the hardest hitter of their team. "Won't attack?" Was that a trick? Nip didn't seem to be preparing a counter-attack, but Zane had the battle experience of a marlin in a lake.

"Sure, just lemme, uh...," he trailed off, looking around while pretending to know how to stretch. Did zangoose squat, or would that make him look like an idiot? Wait, he already looked like an idiot. "All right, um, ready?" he asked himself.

Just a simple attack. He squared his stance, curled his fists, and ran forward. Just a few steps away, he jumped for Nip and threw a punch with all the momentum he could muster.

 

[windskull]

He grew tense in anticipation of an oncoming attack. Instinct told Nip he should be afraid of the zangoose. After all, they were known for being vicious predators that could kill with one swipe of their claws. But as Zane charged forward with all the fury of a newborn kit, he couldn't help but be... disappointed, almost. He had no fighting skill, did he? If nothing else, he lacked the fury Nip expected. Or... maybe he shouldn't have expected anything at all, actually.

He sprang backwards, out of the way of the punch, and landed still facing Zane. "Is that the best you got?" Nip taunted, a smirk creeping onto his face. "You'll never hit anything fighting like that! It's like dodging a child. Come on now, you have claws. Use them!"

 

[Tanuki]

A brief moment of realization struck Zane before he remembered he wanted to look competent. "What? I'm supposed to gore you in a spar?" He flexed his claws half to demonstrate his point, half to remind himself he had them. He hadn't even washed them this morning. A scratch could give Nip an infection. Zane would hate—for the team to deal without Nip because of him.

Then again, Nip called him a child, and verbatim asked for it. They had hospitals, right? Besides, Nip took a hell of a beating in the fight. "If you say so," he mumbled. Of course, with Nip's speed, he didn't have a chance at landing a hit without...

"Catch!" Zane tossed the dummy next to him at Nip, dashing right after it. His claws flared out while white light engulfed him, the same sensation pushing his legs to barely run fast enough to catch up with the dummy. When he reached the dummy, he vaulted over to Slash at Nip.

 

[windskull]

"To gore me, you'd have to actually hit me."

He bounced lightly from one foot to the other, waiting to see what Zane would do next. He hadn't expected him to throw the dummy. It was a dirty trick, but it was resourceful. He bounced back, barely avoiding being hit by the projectile. But he was so distracted from trying to dodge it that he wasn't prepared for Zane's follow-up attack.

Dangerous claws scraped at his shoulder, running two thin, diagonal lines down to the gem on his chest. He let out a hiss of pain and scrambled backwards out of the way of any follow-up attacks. The scratch seemed shallow enough, fortunately, not drawing blood, but Zane had got him better than he expected.

As soon as he was done assessing the damage, he looked up, flashing a toothy grin. "So you can fight. Alright well, let's pick up the pace a little, then, shall we?" Frost was forming on his fur, condensing into small crystals. Larger shards of ice formed along his arms. "Your turn to try and dodge. See if you can avoid this!" He flung a single set of ice shards in Zane's direction.