Flipping the Script [Event]

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Everspring Vale: Round 2.

Last time Osiris had stomped through these grounds, he'd met a very good friend and had a very bad day. The dratini had been woefully underprepared, weak, unimaginative, and a burden to the people that he wanted to take care of. Today, he wasn't much different. The most prominent difference was that he was aware of it and actively looking to flip the script, thanks to some much-needed advice he'd gotten.

It was time to really, honestly challenge himself for the first time. Fully, fairly, and most importantly safely. The dragon worm slithered through the tall-grass of the Vale's many forestlike areas, ducking through bushes and between trees as he searched for good match-ups. He'd brought his satchel with him this time around, packed full of supplies and useful items in case he found himself hurt, needing an edge in a fight, or a way out of a sticky situation.

It was time to do this right.

43 - 20 (entry): 23 energy

"Um. Two, I'm pretty sure," Osiris obediently replied, staring up at the enthusiastic flying red... creature-thing. "I think I'm not broken. I feel pretty good, actually." the dratini realized, looking himself over with a speculative and pleasantly surprised eye.

Had they been rescued? Talk about a stroke of good fortune - he really thought he was a goner there for a second! The dragon-type looked back up at the two mysterious fliers gratefully. "You guys got us out of there and healed us?" he asked for clarification, his tone a little bit confused still but tentatively cheerful - it was clear he wanted to be thankful, he was just a teensy bit lost. Victoria seemed relatively well too; she still had it in her to grumble all mean and grumpily, so she was probably fine.

He knew the feeling, even if he didn't share it at the moment. Osiris was just a little bit too happy to be alive after that impromptu disaster.

"We sure did! It's kinda our job-but well, we were kinda tryin to fight the big-guy but then we saw you guys were already there and getting TOTALLY messed up along with those other pokemon-soooo yeah, gotta clear out the injured before there's causalities or something horrible like that. OH! By the way-I'm Latias...and he's my brother, latios!!" Latias drifted and floated every which way as she spoke, accentuating her never-ending sentence with each movement.

"If you two are feeling fine, then our work here is done. There's plenty others we have to tend to and Regigigas is still rampaging. You two need to turn around and evacuate, this area's too dangerous to explore with the panicked inhabitants and Regigigas tearing the place apart. Rest assured professionals will be handling this situation from here on...but if you choose to go back, we will not be held responsible for anything that may happen to you." Latios spoke more as if he were addressing the energetic sister rather than the duo in the first half. As he progressed, his look turned to Victoria questioningly. His words were almost dismissive, as if he were bored of this situation already.

"Oooooh! Yes-yes! We're gonna give it to him!!" the latias sang with a spark of determination in her eyes. She began to bounce about in the air with a practice-punch into the air here and there at an invisible foe.

Her first big fight with something big or almost as big as her and she lost-horrifically. This was unacceptable. She had half a mind to march right on back for round two, but that thing hardly even noticed her attacks. The big lug was left to wallow in her defeat, uncaring for the two intriguing pokemon before her. As the blue creature looked to her, she couldn't help but feel a little degraded. How condescending this "latios" sounded, she hated it.

Despite this, she swallowed her anger and slowly stood herself back up. She could still feel aches and pains on her side, but determination and pride kept her from flinching or whining. Once she stood up, she towered over all three smaller dragons. Still, she didn't quite feel the same sense of power she did before.

"Understood," She spoke through clenched teeth, "Thank you for your assistance, I am...grateful."

"Latias and Latios..." Osiris mumbled out loud, staring up at the two strange pokemon. He wanted to ask what kinds of pokemon they were, beyond their names, but the truth behind their deed held him back. Despite being nothing but polite, earnest, helpful, and vital to their continued survival... these two were serious business if they were to be believed.

The dratini only had a few foggy moments of memory relevant to his and Victoria's struggle (mostly Victoria's) with the "big guy"—Regigigas?—and all of them painted a clear picture. Both he and his infinitely stronger companion were out of their league, but these guys had the skill, speed, and decisiveness to swoop in and rescue them safely. And they were planning on going back, not just to save more pokemon, but to fight the guy! So, yeah, it was probably a bad idea to risk asking the wrong question and getting fried again.

So instead he rose up to a modest height and nodded furiously. "Yeah, thank you, really! We had no idea what we were walking into there." the dratini agreed, sneaking a glance up at the tyrantrum at his side. She did not look happy... "I think we're gonna high-tail it out of here like you said. Um... good luck out there!"  It crossed his mind to offer them some kind of aid, but honestly, what could he do for butt-kickers like these aside from getting out of their way?

Nothing, yet.

As Osiris gave his well-wishes to the duo, the two began to float higher and higher off the ground. They waited until he finished his sentence before

"Thannkk yoooou! Stay safeeee! Don't let the the rabies-stuff get to yoooou!" The red dragon type chimed gleefully with a wave down at the little wyrm and his dino. Latios also shared a wave with a bit more of a warm smile to his expression.

The siblings exchanged glances with one another, each giving a knowing nod. Their fore-legs folded up as their wings adjusted back a slight amount. Each one took on a strange and particular glow as a rainbow-colored orb with swirling shades encircled them both. The sphere that obscured them shattered with a burst of wind and color that whipped at the trees with enough strength to seemingly bend them. Two streaks of purple seemed to break through the sphere and take off down south. It only took a second for them to disappear into the distance. The strange colors lingered in the sky for only a small window of time before they dispersed.

Notice: This marks the conclusion of the Regigigas encounter for this thread. To submit your score and see the progress, end the thread and give it a lock. If you would like regigigas to appear again, contact me when you're ready for him to show up.

The strong wind left behind by the duo was enough to threaten knocking her back down again. She was quick to catch herself and brace the winds with her weight and strength, but would not be able to catch Osiris if he were to struggle with them. Once the winds settled back down, a peace seemed to settle over the area.

Victoria watched the direction the duo left, her gaze lingered a moment longer before her eyes shifted back to the floor around her. "Osiris?" she inquired, checking to make sure the dratini didn't get sent off to the other side of the dungeon for all she knew. She paused for a moment as a different concern came to mind, "...Where did those two drop us off exactly?"

Unlike Victoria, Osiris had absolutely no weight or bulk to speak of and was subsequently sent flying when the two pokemon blasted off. He conveniently crash-landed in a bulk of foliage, straining against that for a moment before he slipped through and bumped against a tree. He slid down it with clenched eyes, slumping against the ground trying not to cry out in surprise or pain. Just because those two saved them didn't mean they could pull crap like that!

He sighed, only to perk up and shake himself out at Victoria's prompt. "Um... not... close," The dratini replied slowly, looking around. This area looked totally unfamiliar to him - even he and Kiba didn't come out this far. "Definitely not close... probably nowhere near where we met." He realized this with a sinking heart, sagging in place. Osiris slithered away from the tyrantrum for a moment, studying their surroundings.

They were still in a forest - or much likelier the outskirts of one judging by the large scarcity of trees - but there were a number of new surroundings that he'd never seen before. Just ahead, he could spot the edge of the woods and the crest of a large hill, and he could even make out a large waterfall in the distance. Landmarks and terrain largely unseen by him in this dungeon; ergo, they were somewhere he'd never been, and that meant they were lost.

"Oh, great! They couldn't have asked us if we needed directions before they blasted us off two who-knows-where?!" he exclaimed rhetorically, turning around and heading back towards Victoria. He thought it went unsaid that they'd stick together until they found familiar ground. "I don't even know which way we came from! Maybe it's the same way they went?" Osiris guessed, looking up into the air where their two mysterious saviors once were.

"Perhaps, but that would also mean that "Regigigas" is that way as well," she retorted immediately with a bit of spite of her own to her words. The tyrantrum snorted distastefully. She too took a look around, not really noticing anything noteworthy beyond a pineco hidden in a tree and a Boufallaunt enjoying a lovely drink over by the falls.

"Which means we'll probably either have to find a new way out or take a very long and wide walk across this whole valley!" her irritated voice boomed, as if the latis might here and return if she were loud enough. Although, all this seemed to do was spook the nearby normal type and pineco...serving to anger her further as those were two perfectly seemingly non-hostile candidates for asking directions. Just...great!

Osiris winced at his companion's volume and aggravation. It didn't take a genius to realize that she was probably feeling a bit prickly at the moment; few things hurt like an honest defeat. Iris knew that pretty personally, and both as someone who thought Victoria was awesome and someone who didn't want to see what it was like if her mood soured, he wanted to distract her from what just happened.

So he just had to take her mind off things somehow, figure out a way back home that didn't lead them back into the path of the rampaging giant, and actually make the trip without getting killed. Wonderful. "W-well, maybe it won't be as tough as you might think. We could get lucky and come across an escape orb or something. That's saved me from a long trip before." he said, trying to placate the tyrantrum. "Or we could just find someone who looks smart and ask for the quickest way out of here that isn't that way." Osiris finished, nodding in the direction that Latios and Latias went.

There was nothing to be gained from sitting around here and feeling sorry for themselves, though, and they were wasting daylight. "Either way, maybe we should get moving before it gets dark."

The dratini was correct. The last thing they needed was to get stuck with that lumbering giant in the middle of the night. Still, it wasn't enough to distract her from the burn of defeat and embarrassment of being saved like some sort of lost princess. "Get on." she ordered the dratini, expecting the little worm to hope aboard once more.

"An escape orb will only send us to one of our homes...and my home is distant from Grassveil. Knowing how fate likes to toy with people, we probably won't find one anyways. So we might as well get to looking for a local." If she didn't scare them all away already. At the very least, she could catch the scent of...something. She wasn't sure what, but it was better than nothing. It led just down the river, from the waterfall, to what appeared to be a little dam that was in the process of being built.

"Yes'm," Osiris replied dutifully, wasting no time in getting closer and making the same jump as earlier, slithering up and coming to a stop on the top of the tyrantrum's head. He was still a little excited about it - sue him.

What she said made sense. Iris didn't know where exactly Victoria lived, but she'd mentioned being close enough to Everspring that some people around her could feel the tremors from the giant. And while he didn't know how far earthquakes could travel, it didn't change the fact that he'd be quite a ways from home. "Can we head toward the falls?" Osiris suggested from on high. "There should be pokemon near water, even if they're just water-types." And even if there was no one there, they wait around out a bit and wait for some pokemon to get thirsty.

Little attention was paid to the dratini now that the worm was in his proper spot...or what she thought was his proper spot. She grunted in some sort of half-hearted acknowledgement before her heavy footsteps began to shake the earth once more. What she once thought was loud and proud now seemed so inconsequential compared to the marks the regigigas left.

She made her way towards the waterfall, but started to head a little downstream. A dam stood strong in the waters, nearby two bidoofs worked away at it without a care in the world. They seemed to have not noticed Victoria's earlier upset, which was both fortunate and concerning.

"Hey," she called out to the two bidoofs, "Either of you two know which way is out?" she asked.

Both bidoofs' head popped up at the tyrantrum's question, staring at her for a second before they glanced at one another and stopped in their work. The two normal-types swam to the edge of the stream, seemingly not intimidated by the dragon-type's size and stature. Osiris nearly boggled at their nonchalant manner; didn't they realize Victoria could take one leap and crush them like nothing? "Well, you can pick jus' about any direction n' head that way 'fore ya find a way out!" The one on the left called back, its voice rustic and friendly. "Ain't nothing holdin' us in here but our love for the forest."

"Stupid, she wants the quickest way out," The other bidoof cut in, harsh and to-the-point. "Listen here, lady, you're gonna wanna head east from right here, that way now, and you go until you find a big ol' walnut tree with claw marks on all its sides. You go south from there and you'll stumble on out somewhere closer to the desert." it advised, gesticulating wildly with its arms as if directing them out.

"Erm, Wily, ain't there all them geyser fields out that way?" Stupid interjected, hesitant to interrupt but sounding sure enough of his input. "They're gonna have to loop around those and that big mean feller was there not too long ago, I think. Y'all wanna go south right away, away from the forest and toward the valleys. From there, you can head northwest towards the mountains, or keep goin' west towards that Greenville town."

Stupid nodded proudly at the end of his guidance, kicking back in the water and floating lazily. The one called Wily thought to itself with a concentrated expression, as if something wasn't quite correct. "I think you're half-right, Stupid. I didn't think of the geysers, but that's not the quickest way toward the plains. It's a straight shot west from here if you wanna cut through a chunk of forest, then you do as he said." it finished at last. "Northwest if you wanna head for the mountains or west towards Grassveil."

Osiris at this point was quite lost, looking between the two bidoofs, feeling like his head was spinning with the contrasting advice even if they seemed to agree in the end. He didn't feel the need to interject; Victoria was the one in the steering wheel, so to speak, since he was just hitching a ride.

The moment they opened their mouths was the moment Victoria became tired of them. It was quick and unreasonable given that the two hadn't done anything, but she was on a rather short fuse at that moment given what happened earlier. The tyrantrum stared down at the two bidoofs as their directions were...quite obvious. The mountains were where she wanted to go, so of course she just had to head back up North...the only problem was that this place was filled with mountains and valleys in of itself, so travel wasn't as simple as "A straight shot" as one of the doofus duo put it.

She watched the two in contemplation, half-seriously debating just snapping the two up right now. One to satiate her growing hunger and the other for...well, stress relief. Fortunately she had the sense to avoid that kind of immoral act.

"Mhm...yeah. Alright. Thanks," her voice lacked a sense of gratitude and genuine gratefulness, it could have even sounded like she hardly even listened to them. She made her judgement on these bidoofs and already determined that she wasn't going to get what she wanted out of these two bumbling idiots. She would require the assistance of someone more...intellectual. She could ask them for more specific directions, but she doubted she would be able to take much more of their blathering.

Without much else to be said, she began to walk along towards the west. The depths of the river failed to even reach her stomach as she crossed it, each step causing a large splash that tossed the water about.

"Productive," She snorted sarcastically...mostly to herself, but the noodle was around to hear it.

"Better than nothing," Osiris offered, dangling his head down to look at Victoria. "At least we know which way not to go."

Stupid raised his head, slightly alerted now that the tyrantrum was entering the stream, but remained nonchalant. "Y'all be careful now! Pretty sure that big fella ain't out that way, but if you feel 'em comin', ain't no shame in turning around!" he called out to them, easygoing and relaxed as ever.

"Remember! Head west, then north for the mountains or west even further for Grassveil!" the other bidoof said one last time, waving at the dinosaur dragon stomping through its stream.

The dratini on its back merely stared at the two normal-types, slightly in awe of their calmness and casual nature in the face of the absolute unit that was Victoria. It was kind of enviable - he would have killed for that kind of composure like half an hour ago with Regigigas. Maybe then he wouldn't have made such a blunder of things.

The tyrantrum's only response was a huff of disdain...and only minor agreement. The normal types were nothing but an annoyance. She proceeded to ignore the bidoof's farewell. She was completely ready to just continue on, mind her own business, and-

Proceeded to get slapped across the face as soon as she approached the edge of the tree line. Bellows and roars suddenly erupted from the bushes as an Ursaring lunged forward from the shrubbery and jumped onto the side of the tyrantrum. Victoria's own roar struggled to gain volume briefly but quickly switched to bouts of pain as the normal type proceeded to tear into her stony hide with silver glowing claws.

Victoria quickly turned to latch onto the bear, but it was jut close enough to her neck that she couldn't quite turn and grab him. This led to a rather amusing spin as her jaws clamped at a grand total of nothing. The snarls of the ursaring continued to grow as the hungry and seemingly rapid pokemon clawed its way up, going straight for the dratini.

Sweet nameless draconic gods of time and space, he hated this place! Mightyenas, kangaskhans, bouffalants, Regigigas, and now surprise ambush-bears?! Osiris ground his teeth in effort as he struggled to remain stable on Victoria's head, clenching his tail around her crest hard enough for it to bite into his scales. He didn't even have a chance to be terrified at the ursaring's bellowing roaring and growling, more concerned with not sliding off onto the ground where he'd probably get stomped to death in their fight.

Which was why he was taken by surprise when a pair of sharp claws bit into him every bit as hard as the jaws of a giant dark-type mutt, squeezing him on all sides. A panicked gasp escaped the dratini as he was rose up into the air swiftly by an upward-angled claw strike, the air being driven out of him as he was driven up. He wasn't permitted to go flying, though, as the bear pokemon had quite the crushing grip on him, and as always, he was only left with one option; struggle in vain.

Osiris clenched his eyes shut and threw his head back, suddenly and immediately channeling a thunder-wave all throughout himself. He heard the telltale surprised tone in the ursaring's growls—familiar with using this strategy against handsy pokemon by now—and knew it felt the electricity taking root. He didn't have the weight or the power to get free yet, but he could work his way there, to say nothing of the massive dragon-type fighting at his side.