Just when Tuesday thinks all this couldn't get any worse, it does, because of course it does.

As she keeps walking, the verdant ground of the Steppes gives in under her steps, resulting in her boots sinking deep in mud. Up to her knees in mud.

"Oh for fuck's sake! Orm, help me out here!" She yells for her Dragonair, who this time sighs and does as asked. Wrapping his serpentine body around his trainer, Orm pulls her upwards and out of the dense mud.

She still ends up covered in it, though.

"-and that's why, in a self-defense situation, there is no practical difference between any of the basic forks aside from their length. Discounting the dessert fork for obvious reasons, the others all have four prongs and ample point-to-point piercing-" a message appeared on Sarah's UI, interrupting her daily lecture. She saw who it was from, flicked to expand the notification into the full message, and less than eleven seconds later landed at the Giant Shrine.

"Hurry Freedom!" Sarah shouted, from her seat between the Duraludon's shoulders. She had Focus the Fennekin clutched under on arm, her ears perked up with the promise of battle instead of more etiquette lecturing.

Sarah brought up her map, tagged a point, spun the minimap to orient herself, and gestured with an accusatory finger at the grinding clouds out over the sea of grass. "There! Head toward the clouds! Tuesday just became payday."

Minutes later they were stomping through thick mud. Luscious grass had transformed into a tangled mass of pulling, heaving foliage that stuck in Freedom's chunky joints, threatening to drag them into the depths like they were mere horses in a swamp.

"Don't slow, she's right around here," Sarah said, spitting out muck and rainwater. "Focus, burn a path ahead!"

The soaking wet Fennekin was happy to oblige, and a gout of purple-tinged flame blasted a sizzling hole forward. No flames would catch in this downpour, but even wet grass is still grass, and at the end of the day everything burns.

GYAROOOOOO!

Including the rogue Duraludon that had been in that patch of grass.

Sarah kicked Duraludon's sides, like a rider urging their silver steed into battle. "Prepare for impact Focus, we're going in!"

The call carried through the blasting winds. Wet weeds slapped Sarah's side, and Freedom stormed forward as the howling hurricane lashed them from all sides. It was like being rolled in the surface, only she could still breathe.

"TUESDAY!" Sarah shouted back, barely a second before Freedom crashed into the rogue Duraludon and her whole body was whiplashed back and forth with the impact. Her teeth clicked as her chest hit Freedom's back, and she bit back a very un-presidential expletive.

But Freedom was more than a battering ram. He was a dragon. Proud and furious and anything but a fair fighter.

As the wild Duraludon got back to its feet Freedom punched down, his iron fist hitting with a sound like someone backing over a typewriter. But you don't get to be an apex predator without having a few tricks, and the wild dragon snapped at Freedom's legs, tearing into the metal struts that supported his bulk, and forcing Sarah's steed backwards.

But the for had forgotten about one thing: Tuesday. And now his back was wide open for Dragonair's strike.

That was the number one rule of video games. Something Sarah had drilled into herself through countless hours fighting the strongest enemies this world had to offer.

Never go easy on a boss.

The clash of titans knocked Sarah off her steed, and she dove gracefully into the frozen muck that surrounded the scrapping dragons. It was both a blessing and curse that their battlefield for the day was little more than an icy mud pool.

She pulled herself up onto an island of solid muck and spat out a clump of something horrid. This whole event was horrid. Why was it that whenever she and Tuesday got together they ended up with cold, mysterious liquids in their mouths?

It was small solace that the battle was over in moments. "Have you got that title yet? I'm really not looking forward to another wet and wild battle," she said flatly, before tossing a ball at the Duraludon to catch her copy. Those things were worth their weight in gold recently. And they weighed a lot.

"What do you say we go and get coffee somewhere? Or better yet: T.E.A."