Treasure Town ~ Marowak Dojo

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa's mind held a cacophony of violence and little else, at this point. Dodging and feinting and landing blows were exhilarating, but teeth in flesh and flesh between teeth was a primal feeling like none other.

Yes. Fight. Win. Win now.

With Zane's jaws clamped into her back, she let loose all the electrical energy she had. Her fur lit up with the intense power surge. There was no dodging that.

 

[Tanuki]

Zane ripped his mouth off while the shock burst through him. As many, many shocks as Jolt had suffered him through, this surge brought him to his knees. His stubbornness lost out, and he shouted, "Stop!" while he threw her off. "You win, all right?!" he struggled to scream while his lungs rasped for air.

"Of course you won!" With his shoulder out of commission, he could only lie down while his lungs begged for oxygen. While he clutched his shoulder and curled into a ball, his bravado sloughed off him. "What did you expect? I can't fight! I can't attack!" Self-awareness leaked out his shell while the blood seeped through his fur. "I can't do anything but stand in front of people and get arrested! Congrats! You beat a fat, brick wall!"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

It was difficult to feel sorry for Zane

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

OOC: I'm leaving that accidental post cause it's fucking hilarious.

It was difficult to feel sorry for Zane with her shoulder and back singing with pain, and it was difficult to hate him with her battle-yearning sated. Still, he was making a pathetic show of his loss, and it soured the victory.

"You landed three attacks!" snapped Brisa, "Get your story straight! Hmph. I reckon you used 'mimic' on me to pull off that bite at the end there. Not a bad move to know. So quit yer' whining."

 

[Tanuki]

Anger bred more anger. "Shut it!" Zane rolled up to a sitting position. "You wanted to fight me because you knew you'd win. Don't act like I made a good show now." He rolled his eyes with a sneer. "What? You expect me to believe you got mad enough to fight because I said you and Starr are both cats? You wanted a punching bag and got one. Don't act like I'm anything more."

His eyes settled on the floor next to him, conveniently not facing Brisa while he bit the inside of his cheek. "I can't be."

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa rolled her eyes.

"I got mad enough to fight because you landed on me, boasted about winning our first fight, and called me a demeaning nickname when we aren't fucking close. Anyway, you did just fine for a feller who's seen more hot dinners than real scraps, but you need to be more than that if there's more shit out here like that Darkwhite windbag. So get on yer damn feet."

 

[Tanuki]

The accent took him back just enough to wrench him out of self pity. A little bit. It was, admittedly, kinda comfy down in the dumps, but he listened to her and stood anyway, making a show of how much it hurt to stand on his bleeding foot. "There. On my feet. That what you meant by more?"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa nodded, and sat back to enjoy the battle-satiation and the cathartic pain from her wounds.

"That 'hero's aura' stuff didn't 'xactly sound watertight to me, but you oughta have a lot of potential in you if you're here in the first place. I figure everyone in our posse does. I want you workin' towards whatever that is, makin' yourself an indispensible part of the team. Am I gonna get to see that?"

 

[Tanuki]

Zane let her talk, brow raising and head tilting the more she went on. At each others throats moments ago, and now she sat back to have a chat. “You tear me to pieces just to give a pep talk?” he mumbled.

He shook his head. She was probably much more accustomed to fighting than him. Everyone was. All he had for an answer came from a shrug. “Don’t know what to tell ya. I’m a human turned pokémon twice, and I still can’t figure out anything but punches. It’s easy to say reach for your potential when you have some, but,” he gestured to his wounded flesh, “I’m lacking in that department.”

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Human, huh? She'd had a suspicion, what with the weird fuckin' way he acted, but it was good to know.

"Pokémon... like to battle," Brisa said, as if explaining something to a slow child. "It's exciting in the moment, and feels good after. It's also how we understand and respect one another. I know you better than I did five minutes ago. I know you're hurtin'. I know you're makin' shit up as you go. I know you got some mighty wild mood swings. I can tell all that just from how you fought."

She sighed, and looked him in the eye. "I can also tell that you got just as much fightin' power as anyone on the posse. You just gotta figure it out. So start figurin'."

She stood and shook herself, and some of her own blood spattered the battleground. "Sure hope they got good cleaning products here," she muttered, apparently unphased by her injuries.

 

[Tanuki]

The more Brisa talked, the more she confused Zane. Her... accent befuddled him enough, but even stranger, the more she said, the more he struggled to interpret her words as denigrating. If he didn't know any better, he'd think she didn't hate him. The cognitive dissonance threatened to buzz his brain into another dimension (which, for all intents and purposes, would have been for the best), so he had to clear the record for his own sanity (at the unfortunate expense of everyone else's).

"Hold on, wait," he grumbled with a limp after her. "You're sounding really..." lack of experience left him in want of a dictionary. "Optimistic about me." He twirled his claw, question obvious on his face. At least, his face made it clear he was asking a question, but even the finest psychic had little chance discerning it.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"I guess so. After all, that's two fights you've shown up to now. Y'ain't too craven to take a beating, which means you can train, which means you can be an asset."

Brisa peered at her shoulder. Not a bad wound, she had to admit. She'd pop an oran on her way out and be right as rain, though.

"I'll be in here some time most days, I 'spect. If you want to spar, learn a thing or two from me, get stronger? All it'll cost is some blood, sweat 'n' tears. If that sounds good to you, come find me."

 

[Tanuki]

"You're, wait, what?" Zane's head spun. "You're offering to help me?" Not only had she encouraged him, now she offered to help? He tried to fit the pieces together, crunch the numbers like a calculator (solar powered, left in a cold, dark basement for many years), but, like an inverse sine graph, it didn't add up. His head fell to pieces, the remnants of his mind leaking out his mouth. "You, being me to the are nice?" The words didn't make sense to him, but in fact, he barely knew he'd spoken.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

"Yeah? Yeah. Be seein ya, Zane. Take care, now."

Hmph. What a weird guy.

Brisa went to leave, feeling little of the tension from earlier that day. So long as she didn't have to witness too much bullshit or have any run-ins with Starr, she'd do alright. She'd be ready to fight when the next mission came.

<><><><><><>

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa burst into the battlegrounds with radiant light still lingering around her eyes. Everything looked so sharp and vibrant. She was bursting at the seams to try out this power in combat.

"Don't dawdle, Curio!" she called, her voice still reverberating in her ears.

 

[NebulaDreams]

"Don't dawdle, Curio!" she called, her voice still reverberating in her ears.

"Yeah, jeez, you're full of piss and vinegar, aren't ya?" Curio wasn't sure she was as pumped up as Brisa, but she felt different. "Well, let's see what our new powers can do. Um... Curio, use, er, the radiance thingy. I don't make for a good trainer--"

Just like that, a glowing, transparent arm threw a flying punch, aiming straight for Brisa. It was a literal phantom limb.

"S-shit! Brisa, outta the way!"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

Brisa faced the fist and caught it head on. It sent her flying back and crashing into the ground behind her, but instead of groaning on impact, she laughed.

"Let's have at it!"

Now to see what this power could do. She willed the bright energy inside her to manifest, and as she cried out, it did so in the form of a field of flickering bolts of light around her opponent, hemming Curio in and preventing movement.

"Y'ain't going anywhere!" yelled Brisa, every limb thrilling with the brightness she was channelling.

A pressure began to grow behind her eyes...

 

[NebulaDreams]

Oh, well then, Brisa was fine after getting hit by a giant, fuck-off arm. But now Brisa cast her own Radiance attack and, well, Curio didn't know what to call it. They looked like glowing prison bars. She didn't even have time to act before they closed in on her, entrapping her in a neon cage. She crossed her arms.

"So, you wanna fight, huh?" Curio held one of her remaining iron thorns like a dart and lobbed it from the impromptu prison straight at Brisa.

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

The projectile scored a gash down Brisa's flank, but far from deterring her, the pain was exhilarating!

She returned fire with a surge of electrical power, rendered radiant by the light within her. It felt potent. It felt joyous. It felt...

...odd.

A tiny part of Brisa's brain started hollering an alarm. She didn't listen. She was intent only on securing her victory against Curio.

Everything looked so bright.

 

[NebulaDreams]

She managed to hit Brisa, but didn't feel as good about hitting her as Brisa seemed to feel about being hit. Wow, she didn't peg Brisa as that type. But then, something changed. Brisa's eyes hollowed out and shone bright gold from their sockets. Curio was powerless to stop anything as long as she was stuck in that cage.

"Brisa, you're--"

Curio didn't register the next few seconds. Neurons shot up her whole body, intensified by the conductivity of the Radiant cage. All of her nerves were on fire. This felt just like before, when she was in that room, when they--

No, no, no, nononononononono