I don't need gravity, I just need growth

All camaraderie and jest falls silent in wake of the next round of announcements. The Professor’s voice is steady despite the harsh wave of criticism and doubt, reaching crescendo as she establishes just what she is here for. Her purpose, her ambitions—her failures.

Stretching yourself thin and pouring out everything you have for a single lofty goal, against all reason and odds—now that is familiar. That is something Kazuki knows better than pixel creatures and games. That is human.

He listens even as Zapdos makes his stand, the bird’s scream to Ash, to the skies, to humanity: his cry for help. Kazuki is a piece of shit and a half, but he can recognize it, can feel the pain saturating each decibel. He has, begrudgingly, at a crawl’s pace, learned to see heart within these artificial beings. It has taken months of fighting, making stupid mistakes, and traumatizing to make this progress.

But sympathy does not take precedence in wake of necessity.

He has seen and walked and suffered through the horrors that lie in the border of Asper. The life of a prince is not worth an entire kingdom.

He doesn’t know how he catches Verai’s words, but he does—always so attuned, his world capable of zeroing into that voice beyond the storm—and while Verai takes in a breath, he lets go of his own.

“Hold steady, Snake.”

Steelix blinks. <TRAINER…?> His slow drawl loud with alarm as he feels the weight on his back shift, hears the sound of clinking armor, until all he feels connecting him and his trainer are the man’s shoes.

There are thousands upon thousands of feet worth of howling winds below. Kazuki only offers it a glance, before he launches off his pokemon’s back, his eyes set beyond the chasm, to the infuriating man flying just within reach.

And collides in a crash of metal. He sinks his claws into the handcrafted armor, his hair a soggy curtain that drapes over the two of them as he glares into clear eyes that can’t see him. Into eyes that can only see Zapdos.

“You are going nowhere.” He hisses. “You heard the Prof. This is the only way. The Prince has to go.”

And then, quietly, but with no less vitriol: “Or do you really care so fucking little about the rest of us?”

Kitten’s protest falls on deaf ears, Kazuki’s focus entirely on his target, the rickety platform keeping him from steady. The antigravity belt offers some relief for Verai’s exhausted arms, but Kazuki had never figured out propulsion. Without the other’s grip, he would be aimless.

And yet, when Verai speaks, it’s with the voice of a man lost to his own goddamn sympathies.

“Pleasure? PLEASURE?” Kazuki roars, unhooking his fingers from steel to grab Verai’s face, trying to drill his words—sense—into a brick wall. “You’ve been to Mistra! You’ve seen what Corruption can do! Now, we finally have a fucking solution, and you’re throwing it away just because one giant bird squawks?!”

This righteousness had once been a favorite of his. He didn’t care about disagreements—disagreements were just more buttons to push. It is one of the things that made Verai fun.

This is not fun. Watching the man deny victory in favor of playing hero for a creature that nearly killed him is not fun.

“Ver. He isn’t real. The players that go through Mistra are real. Taking him down means making Asper safe.” The fingers clinging to Verai’s skin pinch, trembling in the freezing storm. “Do you think we're the only ones that'll suffer? What would you do if your daughter opened this game, walked into that death trap, and saw her worst nightmare?”

Kazuki chokes, the hands sinking into Verai’s face releasing to move upward, grabbing the metal gauntlet cutting into his throat. His fingers flinch. The metal is freezing, but they grip into the studded grooves, trying to pry it off him.

They manage just enough for him to speak. “And you are deciding,” he chuckles, “that saving your fake bird is more important than saving a fake world. I wonder what that says about you?” Perhaps he shouldn’t have brought up family, but the point is made. There are children playing this game. Not all of them have doting parents.

There’s a harsh grinding off to the side. Steelix rumbles, the metal behemoth catching sight of the fight. The end of his tail, a tip sharpened like an anchor, swishes through the pelting rain, aiming for the assailant.

And just when he’s sure he’s provoked Verai, the world flips.

There’s a strange, hollow CLANG! as Steelix’s tail collides with the barrier, the impact still enough to send his trainer’s assailant whirling away—with said trainer.

Kazuki hisses, his head smashed against a cold chestplate, hands scrambling against metal as they spin through the air. It takes a good second before the dizziness subsides, Kazuki finding himself, of all things—saved. Their trajectory is lost. Verai stammers, jarred and rattled as if his brain has been through tumble-dry.

“You are impossible,” Kazuki croaks, pulling himself from the armor enough to shove his fingers in his mouth, his whistle sharp enough to permeate lightning.

Steelix, still riding his little antigravity bubble, swims back at the sound. With almost apologetic tenderness, he moves his body to act as a cushion for the hamster ball of trainers.

At the touch of safe ground, Kazuki shoves Verai off him and stumbles to his feet. His ponytail is loose, hair half stuck to his face and his ruined armor.

“That’s why you’re so hellbent on this?” he says, voice low. “Because you see yourself in him?” The chains. Being made to fight against his will.

Kazuki’s eyes narrow. “You aren’t him, Ver. And he isn’t you, because while you are also an infuriating bastard, you would sooner sacrifice yourself for someone who wants to kill you than fight someone who doesn't deserve it.”

Kazuki does not rush him. He waits, because he knows Verai is of harder stuff, until the man coughs through the rest of his words. “You fight.” Kazuki scoffs. “I doubt Ash has the full picture either. She’s not a player. But right now, what we need is to bring him down, and like hell am I letting you pull the same bullshit you did at the start of the battle.”

The consequences of it linger, amplifying as Kitten pops out from her hiding spot and decries Zapdos for his terrible playground manner. It makes Kazuki snort, laughing a little. She’s frizzed up from the rain. The mention of Waffle makes his fingers twitch, touching cold air instead of fluff. His mind helpfully reminds him that he still has one support on reserve.

His thoughts are arrested by the question Verai asks next.

Green eyes are wide as they stare at him, the answer taking too long.

“About what? This fight? The game?” Swerving from oncoming traffic. "Be specific."

He swerves, only to hit a fucking ditch.

Verai addresses him as if he’s a captain watching his entire ship sink to the depths—exhausted, resigned, and slow.

It is a stupidly simple question.

Why does he care so much about Verai?

The impulse answer sits on his tongue. Something about the ease at which he can mess with him, something about how it’s annoying to see him martyr himself over and over, something about how long they’ve been at this, or a hundred more little excuses that have added up until it’s all clogging his throat.

Verai had only just betrayed him. He thought he was done. He had turned from him—and yet he’s here, clawing to make him come to his side. No excuse can justify it. It goes beyond reason.

He hates this feeling; of being paralyzed by nothing. He's used to speaking his mind. He's used to moving. “I care, because I chose you.”

Every word is spat out and punctuated with a step forwards, his voice rising to best the winds. There is no waver or stammer to it, only bite and resolve. “And it’s a choice I refuse to regret. I made it when you fucking elbowed me in the face on that first day—” and he can’t help but laugh at the memory “—because I knew you’d be worth it. And I was right.”

He grabs Verai by the thin chains of underplate around his collar, pulling him, always demanding full attention, always refusing to let go. “Ver, you are a self-righteous, stubborn, tough son of a bitch. You've gone through hell and you keep coming back for people who don't deserve it, and your heaven is just an afternoon with cats. You are ridiculous.”

He snorts, amazed he’s been pushed to this point, having to lay it out on the table. “And you are my favorite. I. Like. You.”