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Petal cheered as the whirlpool drained all her troubles away. She whipped at the sides of the vortex like a potter slapping her clay to make it spin faster. "Get out and stay out, you...you..." she struggled to find the right word, and her skin tinted red with the stress "you compost!"

She panted, watching the Kartana drain away along with her rage. Petal's vines found Zac, and she lead him out into the open like a long-range seeing-eye dog. "Was that too rude?" she asked, now uncertain whether she'd crossed some sort of line. "Compost is actually really important for plant growth. It's full of nutrients!"

"Compost is trash that helps plants like you and me grow strong, ay?" he asked, giving her vine a squeeze. "Sounds perfect to me."

"There's a fine line between scrap and crap," Buzzster said wisely, as he hauled a massive washer-dryer combo onto the makeshift trolley. Thankfully the laser blast had melted together a bunch of old tricycles, and with some help from Bergamot Gristleborg's Guillotine Flatflipper they'd been able to bend the molten into an almost flat surface complete with a hundred tiny wheels. "Really it's just the 'S' that's the difference," he said, lashing down the machine with some bungee cords and sprouting vines cultivated by Petal. "But you wanna know what the S stands for?"

"What does it stand for?" Chikorita asked earnestly. She held onto the rickety trolley with her vines, preventing it from rolling straight down the road and into town.

Zac found some screws on the ground and used an old wrench to nail down some of the ropes in a stunning display of ingenuity that would make give an OSHA rep a stroke. He gave Petal a grin and a confidential wink. "It stands for RATS!!" Zac shouted, as he was interrupted by the pitter-patter of a thousand plague-bearing feet. The wave of singed rodents surged forth from the junkheap like a barbarian horde, gnawing and chomping and giving Zac unpleasant flashbacks.

It was clear that they only wanted revenge on him, and they surrounded him like bodybuilders at the deli meat section of an all-you-can-eat buffet. "Stay back ya damn purple rats!" he said, kicking at the Rattata with his size 14 loafers. Thinking quick, he backed towards the lashed dryer.

Zac reached into his pocket for a distraction and tossed a handful of biscuit crumbs, glitter, and loose change at the Rattata, simultaneously feeding, confusing, and financially supporting them with the semi-edible shrapnel.

Taking advantage of the distraction he lunged at the dryer and pulled open the massive door. "Quick!" he yelled, and La Trixxia and Petal jumped in with him. With Petal no longer holding the trolley it started to roll, and Zac slammed the door shut. "Go chew an electrical wire!" he shouted at the Rattata, flipping them off through the glass door of the dryer.

XUSmHwHD1-6x10 Luck Points
+20 for Vine Whip + Leech Seed to help hold trolley together
+10 for using Gardener ability to grow vines and sprouts through the trolley quicker
+10 Teamwork for working with Guillotine to mold the trolley

Mechanical: 240/300
Scrap: 200/200 +60 from Washer/Dryer Scrap!
Electrical: 180/400 +10 from Washer/Dryer circuitry
Wagon: 100/100

"We've gotta go quick!" Buzzster agreed, now smelling the poisonous smoke. "With all this smoke it seems like this quest just got 'hard mode'."

He stumbled back the way he came, using his Vavroom like a guide dog to help him stay just ahead of danger. He dodged a pile of glass shards, a decayed section of floor, and even a fallen, shin-high filing cabinet.

And then they reached a gap in the wall. He felt the rush of wind and realized he would be climbing blind. He fumbled for another Pokemon and sent out Chikorita, who sat worriedly on his shoulder. "Take us up to the next floor!" Zac yelled, and vines exploded from the buds on her neck. Half of them wrapped around Zac's upper torso like a bright green harness and the rest attached to the exposed rebar frame of the floor above them.

Petal pulled at her vines and they tightened around Zac's chest, crushing the breath out of him and hauling him skyward like some sort of hung Tarzan.

Zac appeared in the office space an instant before Morgana blinked away, struck down in her villainous prime by Kartana's cruel yet fair blades. They were like two ships in the night, one returning from a long and fruitful voyage to the land of 'Upgradia' and the other some sort of AU Titanic where it sunk because the ship's electric cat was assassinated by a pair of sentient scissors.

"Morgana?" Zac called, his voice echoing off the concrete and abandoned desks.

"My name is Quacxee!" Quacxee said helpfully.

"Not now Quacky, I'm expecting a swift reply from my darling niece," Buzzster said, unaware that his niece wasn't just silent but not in the building. Buzzster bumbled around the office floor, grabbing onto desks and almost tripping over chairs. "They should really add visuals back into this game," Buzzster mused. "It's much harder to play since the update." He grinned, proud of his expert use of gamer lingo. "But hey, if you don't hit the gym every day then you wont be able to steal from the lockers of the meatheads who spend too long at the weight benches," Zac said, using the gym as a metaphor for his blindness, petty theft as a metaphor for the heightening of his remaining senses, and weight bench meatheads as a metaphor for the world at large, or perhaps the government.

"It looks like you're trying to fight an high level enemy! Would you like some help with that?" asked Quaxcee, appearing beside Zac.

"Rebel Wilson?" Buzzster asked, staggering and steadying himself against the Thunderfall Shrine. Static roared through his body and he withdrew his hand with a yelp.

"My name is Quaxcee, and my job is to assist beginner players in learning the ropes! If you'd like I would be happy to help you upgrade your HP and return to your previous location!"

"I'll have you know this beginner has been playing for months!" Buzzster said, not realizing the epic self-burn he was inflicting.

"Recent player survey data indicates that you are in the bottom 0.5% of all players in the NA server."

"That's bullshit. Now show me how to do the thing so I can get back to saving my niece."

"I've got more!" Buzzster said, grabbing for a second ball. Again, the result was not the steely Varoom that he was imagining, but instead a bright blue and highly squeezable Surskit. The bug skated off across the rooftop in search of a puddle.

"Now this Ultra Beacon you were talking about, how does it-" There was a swift and wicked SNICK as a blade as sharp as Zac's tongue sliced through the rooftop from below, instantly knocking out Shuckle. Buzzster saw nothing, he only heard the slow grind of shifting concrete slabs. "What happened?" he asked, a moment before his UI flashed white and a notification was spoken into his ears.

You have whited out! You will respawn at the nearest shrine.

There was a rush of air and concrete under his feet was replaced with the wet, crumbling rock and charged air of the Thunderfall Shrine.