Either this was going to be really funny, or absolutely ironic, because a literal rocket would take off not too far from where they were hiding!

(Idly, both human and Pokémon wondered if hearing loss was actually possible.)

‘Shouldn’t we move?!’ the corvid yelled over the noise of the wild Celesteela taking off not too far from where they were hiding, watching the nearby landscape.

“What?!” he would holler over the extremely loud noise—sticking his fingers into his ears didn’t even dampen the very loud noise of exhaust belching smoke and heat dangerously close to where they were—

‘Let’s get the fuck moving!’ the Murkrow would scream over the exhaust vents; taking off in a seemingly random direction which would cause him to get up and run after—

“Wait for me, you little shit!” he would scream over the very loud roaring that almost knocked him off his feet the moment he started to move.

boom boom pow

The whizzing noise of something else would make the Murkrow scream for him to hit the floor—and he would do that not a second too soon, because something large, and fast, and… purple… was headed their way.

‘Move, move, move!’ the Murkrow would yell at him; before dive-bombing so low to avoid the incoming screaming noise of the stinger on the Naganadel’s ass from knocking him out of the air.

“What was that!?”

‘No idea, but if you value your ass, you’re gonna get moving as fast as you can away from here! I’ll follow you!’

“You’re not staying behind, you’re coming with me!”

‘What—’

A red beam of light would recall the Murkrow; before he would begin crawling away through the grass—he didn’t want to face down the strange one that had a literal stinger built into its butt!

Not today, Satan!

boom boom pow

It was like he was being followed.

He had a feeling… maybe it was because he’d been exposed so much to the Corruption his inherent sense of danger had spiked recently and… never really went away after that.

‘Hah. You’re scared, I can tell.’

The ‘unfamiliar’ voice made him look around; briefly possessed by a bout of paranoia.

“You… you’re not supposed to be out here,” he would say to nobody in particular—okay, dial it back, talking to yourself is a sign you’re losing it. Calm down, Alkaid!

‘That’s where you’re wrong.’

His eyes continued to dart around; was he that close to the Corruption? But wasn’t it confined exclusively to Mistra alone? Were they… was there a point around here where the Corruption touched the borders of Ostellia?

Absently, he would look at the roughly-bandaged right hand—it wasn’t twitching now, was it, but…

He had a feeling—more like a sense—that there was something coming up behind him while he couldn’t physically see it; the clear and present danger of what sounded like a low humming noise made him drop horizontal to the ground again as another shockwave detonated so close to where he was standing!

“Ow, ouch, the fuck…” he groaned as he felt the power so close—shouldn’t he be fading into pixels about—right, reduced pain levels—as he crawled away and saw…

The clown.

clown time.

His brain was lagging due to the pain from his back; the belated realization then sunk in as he realized that this entire place was Ostellia, so there was next to no chance of the strange whistling noise to start acting up. There was just one thing, though—he was still iffy on trying out the other thing—the thing he wanted to see if his harebrained theory was correct.

Was his Celesteela French? Or at the very least—more aligned to listen to him when he gave his orders in that language?

What was up with that?

Hissing as he released a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding in, he would try to touch the tender, seared flesh that he could reach before swearing as he realized just even the slightest amount of pressure on it made him see darkness at the edge of his vision.

Hoping and hedging that his bets were right, he would yell, [tangent=“Make it quick!”]“Faites vite!”[/tangent] and mentally crossed his fingers, hoping against hope that whatever had happened during the Asper Cup wasn’t just a fluke and the Celesteela understood him.

clown time.

It was like watching a demented game of baseball in slow motion—the rocket ‘arm’ had come swinging out of nowhere to bat back the incoming technicolor ‘head’ that was already glowing like it was ready to explode on contact; while his eyes widened at the impending doom that was flying towards him.

A few seconds later, he felt himself turning around and making to run in the opposite direction; before a very loud smacking sound echoed through the immediate area.

Did he turn around? No, definitely not.

He made to run as fast as he could because he knew how destructive the power of an explosive move was; bracing himself for whenever the impact would send him flying (and possibly knocking him out of the game due to how much pain he was already enduring from that surprise explosion from earlier) but—

Nothing came.

He turned around, as if in slow motion, to see that—

clown time.