Whatever sort of environment Grumpy's Lounge was, it was one that Astrid instantly deduced she was not at home in. The little rows of roses out front and the look of a log cabin with a bridge for a roof was innocuous enough, but the rambunctious nature of pretty much everyone else inside instantly made her feathers fluff up. The floors, walls, and furniture fixtures were all made of dark wood, and apparently that wood had seen better days, for many pieces of it had either singe or scratch marks in them. Another pretty little rose sat in a pot at the center of each table, mostly pink or red or yellow, and in the windows were more little flower pots that looked rather cheerful. Thankfully for the Dartrix, her group and Team Sweetheart took up near one of the windows, and the second the opportunity arose, she nestled herself between two of the pots with her back to the window glass, hoping to stay as far out of sight as possible without blatantly hiding under a table. Raijin didn't stray far from her side, and Arashi was close by, but by and large, the Frogadier was the one enjoying all the company.
A Flygon and a Wartortle appeared to have one heck of an argument across the room, both of them with foaming mugs in their hands, and their Torkoal tagalong was apparently trying to talk sense into them. Still in another corner, a Dusclops and Porygon-Z looked to be giggling at something, but what that something was, no one else had any idea. The entire place was abuzz with similar interactions, hardly a quiet soul among any of the occupants, and their own bunch wasn't very far off.
The antics of the seasoned expeditioners only got more pronounced the more they drank, and given the giant pitcher that 'Grandpa Grumpy' the Grimmsnarl himself left for them shortly after their arrival, there was plenty to go around. Jingle had Arashi cuddled up in his furry wings for a bit while Chira groomed the Frogadier with her scarves, both of the pink bandana-wearing Pokémon slurring their words together as they happily cooed over the smaller figure. (Arashi didn't protest it at all and the three of them even made beckoning gestures at Astrid, but she stayed put. Cinder likely would've fit the 'cute unevolved form' bill too, but apparently, no one dared to say such.) Lazuli's ease of chattering practically went into overdrive, for if the Azumarill wasn't striking up conversation with anyone else, she was happily humming to herself and dancing in place until either Cinder or Yunael gave her a little nudge with their wings and carried on with her instead. Rozen couldn't stop grinning, and Rush wore a wild-eyed smirk, absolutely happy to punch at the air (but not any sentient creature, thankfully). Adnea stared in utter silence while occasionally taking a sip from a mug that floated next to her, her gaze still as piercing as ever even if she occasionally wobbled while levitating herself. The only ones that didn't partake in getting tipsy were the Starstorm trio and Dren, the latter of which munched on a roasted Noctowl (definitely from the wild, and that apparently a living Noctowl not too far away evidently wasn't spooked by, Astrid noted).
"… This place is really busy," Raijin softly remarked.
"… It really is," Astrid concurred, eyeing the rest of their company.
"We should come here more often!" Arashi happily suggested, much to Astrid's dismay and Raijin's uncertainty.
The Dartrix and Xurkitree cast him a glance, both of them wordless but the sentiment of doubt getting conveyed fine enough. Arashi only giggled, not minding too much.
"Um…" Astrid's voice trailed off, her gaze travelling up to the ceiling somewhat aimlessly. "Okay, this might sound pretty random, but… Do either of you know where berry beer comes from…? This stuff is… oddly familiar, but… for different reasons, I'm thinking."
Both of her comrades studied her for a second, Arashi with intensely inquisitive eyes.
"It's familiar? Why?" Arashi quickly inquired, grinning curiously.
Astrid tilted her head to the side. "Well… something about… juice from berries… just sounds familiar," she answered, trying to scrounge up something, anything in her recollection to place where the familiarity was coming from.
Her partner chuckled. "You vaguely remember the weirdest things, y'know that?" he jested, giving her a playful shove. "Spelon berries, middle fingers, and now this!"
She blushed a bit under her feathers, but she had to admit that Arashi was definitely right in that regard.
"I have no idea," Raijin freely admitted. "I'm not sure where anyone would grow berries on Ultra Space in the first place to make berry beer with. I doubt they'd ever sprout in the vast majority of the terrain."
That sounded par, Astrid figured.
"I know Shuckles make it quicker than anything else," Arashi, on the other hand, answered. "They take some berries, stick 'em in their shells, wait a few days, and voila!"
At that, Astrid perked up with slightly wide eyes. "W-wait, really? That sounds familiar too, but…"
Her comrades studied her more, Arashi's grin spreading.
"Astrid?" the Frogadier playfully inquired. "I thought you weren't the tipsy type! Did your human self have a huge drinking problem or something and now your Pokémon self is having issues?"
Again her cheeks went turning bright red under her feathers, all of which puffed out on end. "N-no! Absolutely not! That's not what I'm getting at!"
"Then what are you getting at?" her partner asked with a grin.
She deflated. "Well…! For some reason, I'm remembering this as a healing item, I think… Like you drink it after getting hit by an attack…" She thought some more for a second, both of her comrades still studying her. Her own eyes narrowed in scrutinizing thought. "But… if that's the case…"
Arashi giggled. "Oh, I can see that! Drink some of the stronger stuff and I'm sure you wouldn't be feeling whatever damage you'd taken, or probably anything else!"
Astrid shook her head, considering the implications of that thought for a moment. "How did I never notice that, then?!" she wondered, hapless exasperation in her voice. "If you get drunk off of and heal from the same thing, then… Oh, sheesh!"
Arashi couldn't help but laugh, amused at her realization.
"So… let me get this straight," Raijin chimed back in, sounding somewhat disbelieving. "If you're right, on your homeworld, humans sometimes give their Pokémon companions an inebriating substance to heal them."
"Apparently so," Astrid replied, unamused. "My gods, of all the things to jog my memories…"
The Xurkitree tapped his finger together, shaking his head too. "… I have questions."
"So do I," Astrid concurred.
Arashi was too busy laughing at the idea to care.
Yet, of all the things to grace their senses, something else was a bit more worthy of spectating that both she and her comrades couldn't help but gawk a bit at when it started happening…
A certain Blissey held a certain Scrafty's hand while the two of them danced in a circle, both of their cheeks a much brighter shade of red due to the (many) empty mugs of berry beer sitting on the table.
"'Cause as my heart flutters on and we come out to play, you know we all know inside that love will always come save the day!" Ama sang.
Rush haphazardly carried on, but clearly he was out of the loop. "I ain't got a damn idea what the words to this song are and I'm not sure how much longer I can play along!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh yeah~!" Yunael chimed in.
Chira and Jingle provided a cutesy bridge of la-la's and 'Love, more love!' before Ama picked it back up again.
"The answer to our problems and the things we all want more of are really one in the same: just add more love~!"
A cheerful whoop came from four of Team Sweetheart's members while Millicent only held up her usual heart-shaped hand sign, Ama and Rush ceasing to spin around and both of them struggling to regain their balance for a second before Dren's tail reached up and steadied them both. Some of the other Pokémon in other groups nearby clapped, getting cutesy little waves from Ama in return while Rush haplessly shook his head with a pointed grin directed at the Blissey.
"You're the only 'Mon that can rope me into doing cutesy shit like that," the Scrafty remarked.
Ama giggled. "Oh, darling, I'll take that as a sign of your love, ahahaha~!"
Lazuli and Cinder watched in amusement, the former not even hiding her laughter as she sipped her own mug while the latter kept an unfazed expression, laughing only with his eyes. Adnea might have been laughing with her eyes too, but her stoic expression and wordless state made it hard to tell.
"Oh, I have plenty of love, Ama, I'd just rather not run around talking about it," the Scrafty laughed before grabbing up one mug and finishing it off. He grinned, but it was a rather confused grin at the same time. "Is… Is someone turning the lights on and off?!"
No such thing was occurring. However, at that moment, a Thievul strolled by, which Rozen appeared to take note of.
"You have lovely whiskers," the Audino amiably complimented.
The Thievul grinned and replied, "Thanks, chum!" before slinking off to his own company.
Cinder, though, once the masked vulpine was out of earshot, couldn't help but pointedly mutter to Yunael and Lazuli, "Are you kidding? He calls those whiskers lovely? If I woke up in the body of a Thievul, I'd throw myself off the nearest cliff out of embarrassment."
It wasn't out of earshot of the Scrafty, though, who shot Cinder a playful smirk. "Oh, go to hell, Cinder! Not everyone is born as a magnificent bird!"
"Maybe they should be," the Fletchinder shot back without a care.
Rush, however, reached into his hood and pulled out a marker (much to Rozen's surprise, who gave it a funny look) before turning to Lazuli. "Yo, Big Blue, can I borrow your face?!"
"Sure!" the Azumarill didn't protest, skipping over without a care.
Shortly, Lazuli's face was getting covered with black markings greatly resembling a Thievul's whiskers and mask, which Cinder gawked at in horror.
"Where… where did you get a marker?" Rozen inquired, smiling but befuddled. "You emptied your hood into the basement stash days ago and haven't stowed anything else away in it…"
"Your mom, in the Distortion World," the Scrafty brushed him off.
That only confused everyone else much more. Surely, if any mission had been made to the Distortion World, that would've been a memorable occurrence, but judging from the pointed looks that the rest of the expeditioners (especially the Coalition members) gave Rush, Astrid figured that their lead was telling a bold-faced, drunken lie. Still, where he had produced his drawing utensil from was anyone's guess, but that certainly didn't concern Cinder, who was far more upset at what was being done with it.
"What're you doing?!" Cinder exclaimed, flapping his wings frantically and darting closer. "Don't tarnish Lazuli! Why, you-!"
Nothing but a horrified, flustered squawk escaped the Fletchinder when Rush turned around and made a move to draw whiskers on his face too, only a small streak of ink getting left on his beak. Still, it was plenty to send Cinder bolting behind Chira, flapping in frustrated panic the entire time.
"Chira! Oh gods, Chira, help me get this hideous gunk off!" he cried.
The Cinccino giggled, as did Jingle who gave the hapless avian a gentle pat with one furry wing, but shortly Chira was carefully wiping off Cinder's beak with one of her scarves.
"Hey! Can you do me, too?!" Arashi excitedly inquired of the scribbling Scrafty.
"Sure thing, Li'l Blue!"
Millicent made a few hand gestures that indicated she wanted in on the face-drawing as well, and shortly both the little cream fairy and Arashi were getting marked up much to Cinder's chagrin. Astrid blinked a few times in stupor at the events unfolding before her, and if Raijin had visible eyes, he probably would've been doing the same. Both Ama and Dren were giggling, the Salamence rattling off ideas such as giving Millicent's chest a Ditto face and drawing monocles on Arashi, both of which the ones being marked up were totally okay with.
"… I will bet all my left wing feathers that he is gonna wear that until it wears off and fuss when it starts to fade," Astrid remarked, studying her partner.
"I won't judge him if he does, but it does look fairly ridiculous," Raijin replied.
Sure enough, once Rush was finished haphazardly scribbling on the Frogadier, he jumped into the sill and took up next to Astrid again, the familiar fanboyish excitement displayed in his countenance that she so easily recognized.
"I am gonna wear this forever!" he happily declared under his breath.
"If that's what makes you happy, that's what makes you happy," Astrid haplessly replied, patting him with one wing.
He giggled some more, but shortly was turning back to the Coalition lead. "Hey, Rush, mind if I ask you something?" he inquired, a big grin on his face while he tried to keep his fanboyish antics under control.
The Scrafty took another swig and looked back at him, smirking. "What is it, Li'l Blue?"
Astrid could quite easily tell that her partner's enthusiasm was about to boil over, but nonetheless, the Frogadier kept it under control as he asked with sparkling eyes, "If I've heard right from Big Blue… You've got some stories from the beginning of the Coalition's formation that are pretty great! Can you tell us some?!"
Rush's eyes too lit up at the inquiry, and he smashed one fist into the table's top with a clunk while his smirk grew bigger. "Oh, you wanna know about Nifty and Swaggy, is that right?!"
Of course, the Starstorm trio had no idea who 'Nifty and Swaggy' referred to, but the rest of the expeditioners perked up at the mention.
Lazuli especially took note. "Yeah, that's the one! I didn't wanna tell him since you obviously handle it so much better than me!" she said, giving a glance to both Arashi and then the Coalition lead.
"Oh, my, it's been quite some time since I heard you mention those names~!" Ama giggled.
Rush snickered to himself, shoving the marker back into his hood before fixing another mug. "Yeah, it's been a long-ass time since I heard me mention those names too," he noted, laughing.
Even Rozen got a bit of a smirk, crossing his arms too. "Oh, those hooligans…"
Dren chuckled, likewise cheerfully sly, his tail happily (but very gently) slapping the ground it rested on. "I quite remember those two as well. The first and one of the few times I've ever used my Mega Stone."
The Frogadier was getting even more excited, and Astrid took note of the fact that all the seasoned expeditioners seemed to know the names mentioned. What, precisely, that entailed, be it fame or infamy, she couldn't quite tell from their grins, but if Dren was mentioning Mega Stone usage, she had to assume the latter.
Rush looked to the Starstorm trio, throwing himself back in a chair that he turned to face them all. "A'ight, if y'all are a part of this team, I oughtta tell ya how the hell it came to be."
Astrid and Raijin were certainly paying attention, and Arashi pinched one of his arms to keep from squealing in excitement.
"Let me ask you three something," the Scrafty said, looking them all over. "What do ya know about the Scraggy line, if anything?"
"You've got a ruffian nature but you take care of what's important!" Arashi instantly piped up.
"You're Fighting- and Dark-types that are quite physically strong," Raijin added.
Rush giggled. "You're both right, but that ain't what I'm getting at," he brushed them off. He pointed at the crest on top of his head, still smirking. "What about this?"
"The Scrafty with the biggest one is the most respected," Astrid answered.
"There we go!" Rush affirmed, balling one fist up and swinging it at nothing in particular. "When we're little-ass Scraggies, it's the bagginess of our skin that determines hierarchy, and when we evolve, the size of our crests! And y'know where I was in the hierarchy?!"
"The top!" Arashi promptly exclaimed.
"No!" Rush immediately said to the contrary, crossing his arms again and laughing at the idea.
"The middle?" Raijin asked.
"I wish," was the answer.
Astrid tilted her head to the side but uncertainly inquired, "The bottom…?"
Rush's eyes practically glinted with mirth as looked at her and replied, "Damn straight, Li'l-li'l Green! Dead fucking last, to be exact!"
Both the Frogadier and Xurkitree were taken aback, Arashi blinking in surprise and Raijin giving a twitch.
"… You're joking, right?" Arashi asked incredulously, grinning uncertainly. "You?! I… I can't see you at the bottom of any hierarchy!"
"Forgive me if it's not my place to say, but that sounds like an incredibly unfair system," Raijin noted, tapping his fingers together. "Why… Why would an attribute you have no control over be any indication of how much respect you get?"
The Scrafty laughed. "If ya figure that shit out, Raijin, you tell me, 'cause I ain't got a damn clue," he jested. "But let me tell y'all- Arashi's right, we're mostly a bunch of damned ruffians, and yeah, if there's a fight, we'll be solving it with our fists and kicks like Raijin said. And when you're dead last on the hierarchy… well, you don't really qualify as 'important' to anyone so you end up dealing with ruffian bullshit all the damned time." Again he went balling a fist up and punching at nothing, cackling without a care. "Don't get me wrong! Y'all know I love punching shit and raising hell, but there's only so much bullshit you can put up with before you snap and put someone's face through a wall, ehehe!"
Judging from the way his hands clenched around nothing, it seemed as though he might have been inclined to do just that had any candidate for head-smashing been around to get his hands on. Astrid fluffed up a bit, slightly hesitant at the playful aggression, but Arashi was grinning as widely as he could.
"Anyways," Rush said, settling back down again (at least, as much as he could seem to). "Ya head way southwest from the Crossroads and you'll find a place carved out of a mountainside called Rugged Slope, and it's all a bunch of Scraggies and Scrafties, so that kind of stuff is the norm. That's where I'm from if it ain't obvious to ya. At the top of the crest ladder was this bastard named Swaggy and this bitch named Nifty. Ya practically never saw those two apart from each other, and if ya knew what was good for ya, ya listened to 'em without question. So, let's just say… I didn't get along with pretty much anyone else there."
It was a pleasant day, the air cool and the flora alive with the vibrant greens and pinks and yellows of spring, several berry and fruit trees casting shade over a mostly open field of grass that gave way to a steep cliff side. Whatever houses were there were carved out of the reddish-orange mountainsides to the north, perhaps not the comfiest of dwellings with their cold hardness, save for only a handful of log hutches dotting the opposite side of the clearing. It certainly seemed a bit 'rugged,' for from the distance, the stone-carved houses probably could've been taken as oddly-shaped rocks if someone didn't study them too much, and a village literally situated on the edge of a cliff seemed precarious at best. Surely, anyone there had to like the rugged environment, but even if it did seem a bit unwelcoming, it felt homely to the occupants. A Scrafty off in the distance loudly bantered with two smaller Scraggies, and on another corner of the town, a group of three or so Scraggies were apparently taking turns Headbutting a Pomeg tree to see who could make more berries drop.
However, as soon as another voice was added to the mix…
"Yo, Rush!"
One Scraggy very begrudgingly looked up from the notebook he scribbled a few lines down in to a quartet of four more smallish yellow figures with baggy skin, mischievous smirks on their faces. The Bluk berry tree that Rush perched under might have made a nice place to sit and enjoy some fresh air, but whatever enjoyment he was having left instantly the second he laid eyes on his company.
"… The hell do you guys want?" Rush asked flatly, frowning. He eyed two of them in particular, one with very baggy skin and another that was fairly close behind. "Swaggy, Nifty- ain't y'all got anything better to do?"
"Not really, no!" laughed the slightly less baggy of the baggiest ones. "You just looked so lonely!"
"And ya think I'm happy to see you, Nifty?" Rush shot back, unamused.
The baggiest one laughed too, reaching down and plucking up the book in Rush's hands before jumping backwards and holding it up so as to make it harder to reach. "What're you up to, huh?!" Swaggy asked with a laugh, scanning the page.
"Nothing important, probably!" Nifty said without a care.
Rush growled, jumping up and darting over. "Hey, asshat! That ain't yours!"
The other two Scraggies stuck themselves in his way while their ringleaders studied the pages, snickering all the while. Rush snarled, batting them away as best he could, but apparently they were determined to be as annoying as possible while impeding his movements.
"Ehehe, what's all this?!" Swaggy cackled, flipping through. "You're listing all the wild 'Mon in nearby dungeons and what attacks they use?! Hah, what good is that gonna do you?!"
"It's for expeditions, bastard!" Rush protested, trying to push past the other two Scraggies but getting held back by the both of them.
"What expeditions?!" Nifty giggled. "No one wants you in their group! Anytime someone goes exploring, you ain't there!"
"I go by myself, dumbass!" Rush still hollered in return, staring daggers at them both. "I don't want any of you asshats with me! All you'd do is throw me in front of whatever dungeon-dweller ya came across and run the other way! If I get to the next floor, it's 'cause I fucking made it myself! Ngaaaaah!"
With his last shout, Rush smashed his head into one of the Scraggies holding him back and pounded his fist into the other's face, eliciting two distressed cries of pain. The ringleaders perked up, Swaggy throwing the book down and rushing over with Nifty close behind. The one with Rush's fist in her face responded with a Low Kick, knocking Rush off of his feet while the other one exacted Payback with a dark-shrouded fist.
"Ngh-!" Rush grunted, trying to shield himself with his arms seeing as there was very little sag in his skin to pull up as cover.
"Bastard!" Swaggy hollered, giving Rush another kick. "Don't you go hitting Spunk and Shady!"
"Damn, you just won't quit!" Nifty too fussed, dropping down and Headbutting their common target.
Rush struck out a few times with his own fists and feet, but four targets at once was a little too much for the hapless lone Scraggy to handle. Still, he got an 'Owwwww!' when his fist made contact with one of the followers' faces, though the quartet only backed off when his movements slowed and his eyes started fluttering shut. He tasted blood in his own mouth and his sides ached from the kicks, but the glare didn't leave his face.
"Have fun with your dreams, asshat," Nifty mocked, brushing a scuff mark off of her own face.
"That's all they are- dreams," Swaggy corroborated. "You'll never be one of us."
With a motion of Swaggy's hand, the four of them set off to somewhere else, Rush struggling to get back to his feet again while growling in wrath.
"… I don't wanna be one of you asshats," he snarled under his breath. "Just you wait! You won't be able to beat me up forever, dumbasses! I'll make my own team and I'll listen to anyone that needs me, not just the ones I think are cool! You all are pathetic excuses of 'Mon!"
He went to reclaim his notebook with a shaking hand, and thankfully, the contents were intact even if mussed up from being snatched and thrown around. Rush let out a heavy, tired sigh, slumping back down against the tree trunk.
"All the damn time," the Coalition lead said, rolling his eyes and punching at the air again. "We got into a lot of fights, ehehe. I basically went back home to Ma and Pa with a new set of scratches or bruises every day."
Astrid stayed a bit fluffed out at the idea, and Arashi's eyes were held slightly wide.
"… Oh, wow," the Frogadier mused. "That… That must've sucked!"
"… Sheesh," Raijin was in agreement. "No one did anything about it?"
The Scrafty rolled his eyes. "Everyone told me that's how it is. But I mean, even if li'l Scraggies are a bunch of li'l shits to each other, everyone else had camaraderie, but when it came to me, it was every 'Mon for themselves."
A certain red-cheeked Blissey, though, skittered over and spun around, throwing her hands out to the side. "See~?! This is why the world needs more love~!"
Rush snickered at her, shooting her an amused look of agreement. "Ama, I bet you could've set those bastards straight! If we ever run across Dialga or Celebi and go back in time, I wanna see you giving all those other li'l Scraggies your love talk!"
Both he and the lead sweetheart giggled, but Adnea rolled her eyes and chimed in, "That is a foolish idea. Messing with the happenings of the past in any regard is a messy slope to navigate, and you very well could cause the downfall of the universe by changing only a single detail. You should know better."
The Scrafty, however, brushed it off, snickering again. "No worries, Adnea! I wasn't serious!"
"Good," the researcher flatly declared before taking another sip from her levitating glass.
"Anyways," Rush went back to his tale, "y'know where ya go when you're sick of basically everyone in your neck of the woods?"
"Where?!" Arashi eagerly wanted to know.
The Scrafty got a wild-eyes smirk, his eyes practically glinting. "Dungeons, Li'l Blue!"
Dim Quarry 1F
If there were cozy surroundings… then the dungeon wasn't it. Every surface was hard and cold to the touch, made up of slick, damp, dreary grey-colored limestone that made every sound echo through the tunnels. Stalactites hanging from the ceiling and stalagmites rising from the ground almost looked like fangs, especially when they surrounded the top and bottom of a corridor's opening. Occasionally the ground and walls would shake, but with the dungeon-dwellers there, that was to be expected. A lone Scraggy trekked through, a small sack over one shoulder and slightly worn notebook tucked under one arm.
"Diglett, Nosepass, Aron, and-…" Rush mused to himself.
Rrrrrrrumble!
The ground started quaking again, and one side of the room he traversed started to rattle far more than the surroundings. He smirked a bit, darting further back and laying his belongings down behind a stalagmite before rustling through his sack a bit.
"… Onix!"
Sure enough, the ground burst open and out came a rocky serpentine form, very easily dwarfing the Scraggy. The thing almost reached the ceiling, and only didn't accidentally bump the top with its head because of the twists it made with its long form. Rush himself was hardly even the size of one of its rocks, but he still locked his eyes on it without a shred of hesitance. At first the dungeon-dweller didn't seem to notice outside company, looking about as if to inspect its new surroundings for a moment, but soon it locked its eyes on the lone adventurer on the other side of the room.
Rush snickered, clutching a gravelerock in one hand, while the Onix opened its mouth with a bluish cloud of sparking smoke forming in it.
"Let's go!" the Scraggy cheekily taunted, drawing his rock-toting hand back.
As it breathed down a Dragon Breath, Rush flung his stone at its face, not intending to do much damage but making it flinch and growl in discomfort when its eye was pegged. Rush didn't waste a second, darting up to its rocky belly dragging the floor and delivering a swift Low Kick into it. A few small cracks ran out from the impact, and the Onix definitely took note when it went toppling over with a gravelly growl, but it still had enough energy to bust a few stalactites down with its tail and fling them at the outsider. Rush jumped back, ducking down to let one of the stony spikes fly over his head, but braced himself to take one that was sideways without a pointed edge aimed straight for his face. The force smashed him into the wall, and while being forcefully sandwiched between a detached stalactite and hard limestone wasn't pleasant, he smirked a bit when his fist became shrouded in darkness to exact his Payback on the dungeon-dweller. The Onix might've been thrashing its tail against the wall to make a Rock Slide come crashing down on Rush, but Rush darted up to it again and smashed his fist into another rocky segment. Cracks shot up and down the wild one's body, probably an extremely unpleasant sensation for a Rock-type, and the ground rumbled yet again when the entire serpentine form clattered unconscious onto the floor.
"… Ehehe," Rush giggled, striding straight up to the Onix's expressionless face and smirking at it. "I know, I know- the others that look like me always come in groups of at least three! Ya probably thought I'd be easy to pick off, but when you go solo, you gotta hold your own!"
Still, when he went and picked up his notebook next, he went turning to a page labelled 'Dim Quarry' and quickly scrawled down 'Dragon Breath' underneath 'Onix.'
"Y'know, maybe ya don't know what the hell dungeon-dwellers are saying and maybe they're pretty much always hostile, but they're dungeon-dwellers and they can't help bein' how they are," Rush remarked with a laugh, starting to slur his words together a little. "I'd take them over us other 'Mon actin' like asshats any day, if ya know what I mean!"
It made sense, Astrid figured- the Pokémon in dungeons didn't particularly know better than to attack anything they didn't like, while the ones in Rugged Slope that Rush described sounded like they did know better and blatantly chose not to act like such. If given the choice, she would've picked the dungeon-dwellers too.
"… You must've gotten pretty strong, then!" Arashi noted. "If you spent most of your time in dungeons, I mean! I bet you won a lot of battles!"
Rush snickered again, sticking his hands behind his head. "Oh, I had my fair share, Li'l Blue," he answered. "I was the only one my age that could down an Onix all by myself, ehehe! I did get fucked up by the wild ones plenty at first though, since I was just one li'l-ass Scraggy alone, but I made sure to keep track of everything they could throw at me so I could be prepared."
"Ngaaah… Damn…"
The Scraggy's eyes fluttered open and stared up at the blue sky overhead- certainly not the dreary stone walls of the quarry. The ground wasn't as hard either, but rather grassy and soft to the touch, and a quick glance to one side showed the entrance to Dim Quarry sitting nestled between two grassier cliffs.
The last thing he remembered seeing was a Diglett switching between several different burrows in the ground before feeling something sharp across his back once it disappeared again… surely a Slash, even if nothing about a Diglett seemed sharp enough to do such.
"Do they got claws under the ground or some shit…?" he mused tiredly, shaking his head and flexing his fingers a bit. "Gotta record that… The others ain't used nothin' but Dig…"
He looked to the other side, expecting to see his notebook sprawled out, and he did see it, but not where he wanted it to be.
"Yo! You finally awake, Rush?!"
His eyes instantly narrowed at Swaggy's voice, and his expression got even more peeved when he saw his notebook in a snickering Nifty's hands. Three other Scraggies huddled behind her, all of them scrutinizing his pages with amusement in their eyes. Swaggy swaggered closer to Rush while he picked himself up off of the ground, still feeling a bit tired but ignoring the aches of his body for the frustration he felt.
"The fuck you guys want?!" Rush fussed, snarling at them.
"To know what the hell you were up to!" Nifty chimed in, looking up from the pages. "You're still writing this shit down?! You were fainted out here; there ain't a damn reason for you to be thinking about expeditions when you ain't got no one to go with!"
"Fuck you, Nifty!" Rush shot back, looking like he was going to stride closer to her for a moment.
However, he was interrupted when he felt Swaggy's grip on the back of his neck, and quickly he was whirling around and slamming his head into the other Scraggy's. Swaggy stumbled a bit but balled one dark-shrouded fist up, which Rush ducked underneath while dropping down closer to the ground and Low Kicking his target. Shortly, Rush's book was on the ground and looking less-than-stellar again when Nifty dropped it and both she and the tagalongs were darting over, three sets of feet trampling over it. Rush swung a fist at Swaggy while the both of them were down, but when Nifty wrenched him up, he swung at her too while one of the followers kicked at him in turn. The six Scraggies practically turned into a blob of swinging fists, thrashing feet, and butting heads, the occasional drop of blood or pained yelp leaving the fray.
"Fuck all of you, too!" Rush hollered, striking at whoever he could reach. "Ngah-!"
The ones he hit had things to say themselves too.
"Fuck!"
"Ow!"
"Bastard!"
While there was more than one bloody nose or lumped head to go around, and though Rush's blows definitely hit harder than the other five, the simple number he was up against overwhelmed him. His assailants were definitely banged up, but just as he had been not long prior, his vision started blurring over and his senses started fading. They finally backed off once his movements slowed to a halt, the lone fussing Scraggy left in a pained slump on the ground.
"Freak!" one of the tagalongs hissed, wiping blood from her face. "Useless fucking freak! Get a life!"
"What kind of asshat does that?! No wonder you think you belong in the dungeons!" another concurred, clutching the side of his head.
"C'mon, guys," Swaggy said, motioning the rest along. "Let's leave the asshat that no one wants to his asshat business. Fuck you, Rush!"
Only a pained, faint snarl of rage was the answer as the troupe of Scraggies trailed off elsewhere away from the dungeon. "Just you wait…!"
As Rush relayed the happening, he was up and jumping around, wildly imitating whatever moves he might have been making with very haphazard motions. Lazuli, Yunael, and Dren were giggling at the sight, the latter occasionally reaching out with his tail to keep the Scrafty from faceplanting into the floor when he tried to mime a Headbutt or another attack. It was like watching a Magikarp trying to climb a tree- the attempt was there, but the action at hand simply wasn't happening in any graceful manner (if slamming fists into someone's face qualified as 'graceful,' at least).
"Say what ya will, I might've lost, but it took five of those bitches to fuck me up when it only took one of me to fuck them up! Ehehehe!" Rush laughed, plopping back down in his chair.
That much was true, no one was denying.
"Oh, that's my worst nightmare- a group of Pokémon punching and kicking at me!" Ama cried in a hapless voice. "Ah, even if I've already heard about your escapades, it still makes me feel not blissful!"
Rush laughed. "Oh, hell, Ama, just imagine it was five of Raijin instead- no physical moves involved," he jested. "But I definitely could've used your team, ehehe! Chira's grooming and Jingle's cuddles would've felt great at the time!"
The Blissey clapped her hands together, jumping in place for just a bit before she too started looking unsteady. Jingle certainly looked happy at the idea of cuddling a little unevolved form, and Chira's scarves flicked. Astrid and Arashi, though, couldn't help but give each other funny looks at the idea of five hostile Xurkitrees being a welcome sight to anyone, but with the ease Ama had been brushing off their Beast comrade while barely hanging on from Rush's attacks, perhaps it was possible.
Rush rolled his eyes again, balling his fists up and pounding them together for a moment. "But at the rate I was going, it looked like I'd be the first one out of that li'l Scraggy bunch to evolve," he noted, rolling his eyes. "And y'know, I thought that eventually I'd win my respect and they'd back off… but y'all probably know, there ain't no winnin' respect from folks that have decided you're worthless. So if I evolved before everyone else, well, they couldn't have that, now could they?! Hell nah, that'd make 'em look bad! So the other li'l pipsqueaks in Rugged Slope started getting together to go explore dungeons a lot more often, Nifty and Swaggy would follow my ass around and try to gang up on me whenever we found each other in one, and folks were just generally a bunch of asshats callin' me a bunch of names. I trekked off to an evolution spot all on my own, and when I came back as a Scrafty, it only pissed 'em off more. Nifty and Swaggy and a fucking gaggle of other li'l pipsqueaks made their ventures for the same reason, and that's what made me realize that nothin' would ever change. Ya play stupid games, ya get stupid prizes, and my stupid prize was seein' that nothin' I'd ever do would make those 'Mon see me any different. I was always gonna be a useless waste of breath that they only liked when they were beatin' up. So y'know what I did?!"
His eyes practically glittered with naughty mischief.
Arashi was enamored. "What?! What'd you do?!" he asked excitedly.
Rush snickered, smirking as wide as he could. "I stopped givin' a damn, Li'l Blue."
The Bluk tree was as nice of a shade as it always was, the lone Scrafty giving the trunk a soft punch to shake a berry loose that he then munched on. The pages to his notebook were starting to fill out such that making new notes was becoming impossible, for almost every single one was taken up with scribblings and scrawlings. 'Rugged Slope' was jotted down in the middle of one page with a haphazard drawing of a cliff denoting it, 'Dim Quarry' was a cave labelled to the west, 'Hazy Path' was a forested crevice, and some others too were jotted down. Each dungeon had its own set of pages, complete with notes about the number of floors, terrain, potential hazards, items that could be found naturally, and of course, the inhabitants. If anyone wanted to expedition in the area, the notebook could certainly function well as a guide, even if it was worn and beat-up.
On a few, though, were some other drawings. In one, a small-crested Scrafty beat the everloving daylights out of two much larger-crested ones, complete with scribbled pools of blood and teeth hanging out of their skulls. On another, two larger-crested Scrafties had their crests drawn so comically huge that it caused them to tip over and their heads to smash into the ground, while a smaller-crested one pointed and laughed in the background. The next page, two larger-crested ones had a flock of wild Pidgeys building a nest on their heads, while a smaller-crested one casually strolled by. Rush quite liked those drawings, even as otherwise useless as they may have been.
Still, he was perfectly content to perch under the tree with no company while the happy-go-lucky voices of others in the distance made it obvious that plenty of other Scrafties and Scraggies were out having fun with each other. He didn't care. He could never have fun with them, that was for sure.
So when he heard two sets of footsteps behind him and saw a hand reach over his shoulder to snatch his book up…
"What?" he asked flatly, grip tightening on the hapless set of pages so they couldn't be snatched up.
Apparently it was Nifty doing the grabbing, for Swaggy darted around from behind the tree with a cheeky grin. Nifty tugged, but Rush's grip tightened to keep her from being successful, and she gave up before darting around too.
"Oh, come on, you're still doing this stuff?" Swaggy mocked. "That's a whole lot o' work for nothin'!"
"Say what you wanna say, Swaggy," Rush brushed him off, shutting the notebook and setting it down next to the tree trunk.
Nifty snickered. "Oh, come on! What's with that attitude?! Don't be so glum!"
Rush didn't say anything; only chuckled to himself while looking straight at them with narrowed eyes. Apparently, Swaggy didn't take kindly to that, for his eyes narrowed too and he strode closer to Rush, who didn't react much.
"Ya laughin' at us?!" the larger-crested Scrafty protested.
Rush smirked. "I sure am, Swaggy.~"
At that, Swaggy reached down to grab him, but Rush was on the same train of thought and jumped up, grabbing Swaggy's arm and drawing one fist back. Given their previous interactions, the ringleaders were probably expecting such, but from their surprised faces, the sudden shift in demeanor from restlessly protesting to amusedly apathetic caught them off guard.
… They didn't have much time to be surprised, however.
Astrid and Arashi had an idea of what was coming, and from the way Rush's fists were bumping each other in quick succession, it was likely… ugly.
Rush's eyes turned wild and he looked straight at them, smirking with such wild mischief that it was almost malevolent. "And that, my dudes, is about the time I lost. My. Shit."
If it wasn't pure viciousness in Rush's eyes, then they didn't know what it was.
"NGAAAAAAAAAH!"
Crack!
Swaggy couldn't even vocalize the hit he'd taken after Rush pounded his fist into his face, a much easier act from the way the larger-crested Scrafty was held in place by one arm. It looked as though Swaggy's eyes would roll back in his head for a moment, but he regained his composure, albeit rather pained, and shakily drew his own fist back too.
"Swaggy!" Nifty hollered, darting over with her own fist balled up.
Rush ducked down under Swaggy's Payback, then jumped over Nifty's Low Kick while aiming two more Brick Breaks at both of their faces. An energy shield Protected Nifty, but Swaggy jerked aside before grabbing Rush's fist and yanking him closer. A loud thud resulted when Swaggy Headbutted their lone target, and as soon as Nifty's shield faded, she was slamming Rush too with a Façade, even if it did put her in a perfect position to get a Throat Chop to her neck.
"I'm done with you all," Rush snarled, jumping back from the ringleaders.
"Oh, that's cute," Nifty mocked flatly, voice hoarse for a moment.
"Like it matters," Swaggy shot back.
It was Nifty that ran at him again, and even with her fist swinging, Rush grabbed her by the hood around her neck and slammed her in the face with a Brick Break too. Only a faint gasping sound came out of her, and much like Swaggy, she too haplessly stumbled back with a temporarily blank expression. Of course Swaggy wasn't going to waste time, for in moments he was spitting a suspicious purple fluid onto one fist and swinging it at Rush, poison getting flung about as he did. Rush braced himself and took the hit, not bothering at all to brush off the acidic ooze, but even if the sensation of poison seeping through his skin was unpleasant, he smirked and snickered.
"Nice job, jackass," he taunted.
At first, it appeared Swaggy took it as a sarcastic compliment, but the next moment, he knew that was not the case when Rush's Façade hit at twice the power it usually would due to his bad status condition. That time, Swaggy's eyes really did go rolling back in his head as he went limp, another unsettling cracking sound filling the air as Rush slammed the side of his head with enough force to throw him clear across the ground several meters and leave a trail in the dirt where Swaggy went skidding. Nifty would've swung next, but Rush was darting over and pouncing on the limp Swaggy, grabbing him by the hood and pounding his face with his fist over and over again.
"Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!" Rush snarled.
Swaggy wasn't even responding, his body only twitching from the force of the punches he kept receiving. Blood trickled out of his mouth and nose, but whether Rush was too entranced to notice or just didn't care was impossible to tell.
"No!" Nifty shouted, darting over too. "Cut it out, freak! What the fuck is your deal?!"
She reached out to pry Rush off, but Rush whirled around to hit her with a Façade too. She Protected herself just in time, but her countenance was quickly getting more uncertain at the sight of Rush's wild eyes and bloodied fists. The moment it faded, she went for a Low Kick, but Rush jumped over her and knocked her across the grass too when she tried to scramble back to her feet.
"You can go to hell too, bitch," Rush snarled, albeit sounding fairly tired. "Fuck you!"
Swaggy still wasn't moving, and Nifty limply twitched a few times as well when Rush gave her some more punches for good measure until blood dripped from her mouth and nose just the same. The two of them weren't going to wake up any time soon, that was for sure, and Rush was certainly happy for such. He turned away, running back under the tree to snatch up his notebook which he tucked into his own hood. It was only just beginning, but he could feel the poison starting to spread, and he moved as fast as he could as he ran away towards Rugged Slope's inner boundary connected to the rest of the mountainside.
"Hopefully that'll leave you a nice reminder of me," he snarled under his breath. "I'm leavin' this hellhole and I'll go stay with the fuckin' dungeon-dwellers if I have to. Fuck the entire lot of you."
His feet moved as fast as he could make them, but with the damage he'd already taken and the poison's effects becoming more pronounced, his steps started to teeter. He ignored it as best he could.
"What the fuck?!" came another voice from further behind him.
The rest of the exclamations were something he didn't pay much attention to, but from what he did hear, another bunch had picked up on the fact that his scuffle with the ringleaders hadn't been a normal one. Some yelps of dismay and shock filled the air as the others in the village realized what had befallen Nifty and Swaggy.
"Someone go get some Oran berries!"
"Forget Oran berries, we need a damned cleric! Does anyone know where a Chansey or an Audino or someone like that lives?!"
"Did that bastard seriously do this?!"
Rush snickered. He kept running, haphazardly ducking over or between any boulders or bushes that got in his way.
"C'mon, Rush…" he said to himself under his breath. "Hazy Path has some Pecha berries… You can make it and you'll be fine…!"
At least, he sure hoped he could make it. The poison had given him the boost he'd wanted to smash Nifty and Swaggy's faces in, but trying to ditch a town whose occupants would likely be angry and ready to exchange blows in return wasn't exactly the best of situations to have something gnawing at his remaining shred of health. His steps became more uneven and heavy as the town started to become small on the horizon, and try as he might to ignore it, it was all but impossible to do so. A grove of trees could be seen in the distance, and deeper within them was the place he wanted to reach…
"Fuck…" he panted, tripping over a stray stone.
With quite a bit of effort, he picked himself back up, for everything felt heavy and the area the poison had seeped in stung like an angry Beedrill.
"C'mon, Rush… You can make it… Don't let those asshats catch you; you're dead to them now…"
By no will of his own, his eyelids started to flutter shut. He tried to hold them open, but it was a struggle to do even that. His feet started dragging the ground, making running quite a difficult task. It wasn't too far; surely, holding out just a little more wasn't impossible…
"C'mon…" he gasped, stumbling.
He tripped again, sprawling out on the ground haplessly. Try as he might to pick himself up and keep going, his body wasn't listening.
"Fuck…" he breathed shallowly, vision blurring over.
Not a single muscle would move. He tried to hold his eyes open, but his eyelids were just too heavy and drifted shut as his consciousness faded.
Astrid and Arashi had wide eyes, and Raijin seemed fairly concerned too.
"But… you won, didn't you?" Arashi asked uncertainly. "Did you get caught?!"
Raijin's fingers tapped together. "I-I'm only curious… Did… You didn't kill those two, did you…?" his voice inquisitively trailed off. "That sounds… ugly. Really ugly."
"Hell no, I didn't get caught, and hell no, I didn't kill anyone… even if it was tempting," Rush answered, smirking and rolling his eyes. "Don't get me wrong, I hated- and still do hate, ehehe!- those two, but killin' 'em wouldn't have solved any of my problems. Besides, just lettin' 'em stew in their own suckiness stings a hell of a lot more."
Team Sweetheart all looked a bit perturbed at the mention of hate, but not a single one of them said anything. Ama only let out a pitying whimper, her eyes drooping a bit while she still smiled. Astrid, though, easily agreed that Rush was right- as much as beating up the ringleaders so badly would've garnered hostility from the Rugged Slope occupants, being the direct cause of their demise probably would've carried a fairly heavy stigma regardless of the context to anyone who simply heard 'Rush killed two Pokémon.' Besides, letting them live with the knowledge that someone they deemed a worthless waste of time bested them had to sting, just like Rush said.
"Well, what happened?!" Arashi wanted to know, leaning forward a bit with an intent look in his eyes. "Did you actually go live in the dungeons?!"
"Hell no!" Rush laughed, making a haphazard waving motion with one hand. "I made a friend! A mellow, fluffy, pink and white feeler-eared friend, that's what!"
The Scrafty's gaze fell on Rozen, who chuckled a bit at the description. "And what an experience it was, too," the Audino remarked, amusedly shaking his head. "I truly wasn't sure what to make of you."
"Well, I didn't know what to make of you, either!" Rush exclaimed, getting a funny-eyed grin. "If you're on the run, ain't got any friends, convinced you're probably gonna wake up getting thrashed to hell, and then ya wake up in some town you've never been to before in a stranger's house, well… Hell nah! You'd freak the hell out too!"
Rozen only chuckled some more. "Oh, friend, I don't doubt that, but I had no idea that was the case at the time!"
"Pfffft!" Rush playfully scoffed. "You're just too damned nice!"
The Audino shot him a playful smirk as well. "Yes, and that is why we're partners, you foul-mouthed degenerate!"
The Coalition lead cackled, jumping out of his chair and darting over to Rozen before throwing his arms around the pink and fluffy feeler-eared one. "Isn't he the best?!" Rush cried, winking at the rest of his company. "I love this bastard!"
Rozen haplessly rolled his eyes while smiling, sticking one arm around the Scrafty too.
Adnea, though, chimed back in with her usual flat tone. "Tell them what happened, you oaf," she said rather pointedly. "Your aquatic fanboy's heart is about to beat out of his chest, and none of us want to deal with that mess."
At the mention, Arashi blushed a bright red and Astrid tried to sink back into her feathers again, if only to keep her partner from seeing the amusement on her face at Adnea's call-out. Her beak trembled and she tried not to giggle, making hapless little gasping sounds that she tried her hardest to muffle. Of course, Raijin didn't have a mouth with which to laugh, but the brief buzzing sound that came from him and quickly cut off indicated that he was in largely the same position as the Dartrix too.
Nonetheless, Rush turned loose of his partner and flopped back into his chair, crossing his arms and snickering to himself. "A'ight, a'ight," he brushed off the Orbeetle. "Let me tell ya.~"
Author's note: Ama and Rush's song is sung to the chorus of Red Velvet's "Russian Roulette." A friend of mine sent me her (very extensive, I may note) list of cutesy songs for spoofing purposes, for which I am rather grateful, ehehe. Shout-out to you, Mireirei, if you ever see this.
I do hope the loads of flashback scene changes weren't too hard to follow; I tried to delineate them as best I could to make the sequence obvious. If there's a better way, do let me know.
And lastly, for those who celebrate it, happy Hanukkah.
