This was possibly the most inane fight they'd had yet, but everyone insisted it was important to "train them for facing the Blacklight", or whatever, as if fighting twelve weirdos from another world in a fucking sports stadium in front of a bafflingly enraptured audience would be anything like fighting the Blacklight again, and so Dave had been reluctantly dragged along to this thing. 'You're important', 'You're our best hexer', et cetera, all very flattering and true and all but didn't stop him rolling his eyes as he walked into the arena, casting a skeptical glance at the cheering crowd.
The whole thing started oddly calm; the Miracle Matters were playing defense, barely attacking to start with, just bunkering up together in the center of the arena and protecting each other like they were afraid Team Spectrum would instantly wipe them off the face of the planet otherwise.
Mia's eyes were wide and alert, and when they'd barely gotten set up, she insisted, insisted this was an opportune moment to rush in and intimidate the fuck out of all of them and bait the supportive ones into attacking which'd make them useless and-- and, well, fine, sure, yeah, let's rush ahead alone right into the middle of the twelve fucking other people, that'd go fucking swimmingly.
And yet, he barked out for some support and cover and then darted into the fray, snarling, shadows gathering around his feet. Maybe, if he was lucky, the fuckers would attack him first, and he'd have to spend less of his time in this dumb fight.
...Instead, they ignored him. Acted like he wasn't even there. The Lopunny rang a clear, resonating bell that left most of what he'd been doing moot, and then grabbed the Arcanine and just fucking disappeared. What on God's green Earth.
Dave looked around in the middle of the group of others and wanted to throw up his hands. Mia darted to him and told him some strategy nonsense that people were apparently thinking about and -- yeah, sure, whatever. Pick up Mellow's Fire Pledge move, the one that made fucking rainbows? Make Bahamut do some elaborate portal routine to make him switch places with Starr, only to run right back? Why the fuck not. This battle was so many levels of utter bullshit that he didn't even care anymore.
Mia was having the time of her fucking life, though. And Brisa was determined as ever, running around, dishing out damage, 'connecting' with the enemies with her Whiplash thing, working as hard as she'd ever worked in a fight with real stakes.
Blacklight sizzled in Dave's fur, the Radiance blinding. This was utterly fucking pointless, but maybe doing it for them was enough.
He let out a vicious snarl before sinking his Blacklight-poisoned teeth into Alice's glittering scales. "Brisa's about to fucking destroy you. Have fun."