Vibe Check

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Peirce: [Energy: 22 - 16 = 6]
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Scorchfall Desert. Often described as a place “that very few dare to venture through.” That wouldn’t stop Pierce, however. He was determined. Determined to wander aimlessly, because he had mistaken aimlessness for determination. The small bird stood atop a particularly pointed rock, taking in the sights before him. It was a marvelous sight—he had never seen anything like it. It was like a vast sea—except made of sand, which made it strictly better than the see in every way; because it wasn’t full of water. No, it was full of sand, and mystery. But, probably mostly sand.

He felt moved by what he saw before him; overwhelmed by raw emotion at the wonder before him. He was compelled to vocalize this emotion—to express the complete and other wonderment at the scene before him. He took a deep breath, and then...

…

”SAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNND!!”

The little bird jumped from the rock and face planted directly into a dune. He frantically flapped his wings and kicked with his feet trying to unbury his beak—the entire time still trying to express his excitement, but it was now muffled by the very thing that excited him. ”SSSSNNNNND!”

[Energy: 1 + 1 (Page)= 2] [Weather: Hail] [Weather Band]
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As the sand settled and the hail continued to fall, Pierce suddenly stopped his frantic hopping and yelling, returning to his previous state of staring blankly at the scene in front of him. He looked around, taking in the aftermath of the Earthquake. He had lost track of the water types. HIs attention thus turned to the sound of a new Pokemon, calling for help.

He could help. Pierce darted toward the source of the sound before he even registered what it was, or the situation it was in. It was a grass type, he could tell by the Pokemon’s color—green. Green Pokemon were, naturally, always grass types. This, Pierce was sure, was a fact. What Pierce couldn’t discern was why the serpent was calling for help. He didn’t appear to be in any danger. The only thing of note in his proximity was the charizard—who was a good guy, right? He beat up the mean sand monster, after all.

Pierce arrived at the grass type’s side with the grace of a bird who tripped and beak planted into the sand, as he tripped and beak planted into the sand. He quickly picked himself up, dusted himself off with his wings, and turned his attention to the grass snake.

”Hi!”

If Dreyar had the presence of mind to take stock of the situation, he might have felt ashamed that Pierce, the little strange bird, had beat him to the punch when answering a cry for help. Both fortunately and unfortunately for him, he did not have the ability to function at this moment, having just been rigorously slammed into a sand dune by just the shockwave from the charizard's ridiculous attack on the hippowdon. Said dune had collapsed onto itself—and thus, onto Dreyar—leaving him rather occupied for the moment.

It took time for him to cope with the pain and shake off the loss of equilibrium, and even more time just to register what had happened. His little blue arms and legs went to wriggling fiercely, poking out of his protective shell to dig in a direction he hoped was upward. But no, he'd made a wrong turn somewhere, and ended up crawling out of the other side of the giant pile of sand he'd knocked down. Shaking his head to clear the sand from his ears, nose, and everywhere else it'd wormed its way onto, he serendipitously caught sight of Pierce... faceplanting right in front of the Snivy.

Which was also worryingly close to the previously raging Charizard. Oh no. Dreyar froze, his body and mind going thunderously blank in the heat of the moment, absolutely dreading what was about to happen next. Would the giant dragon lash out?

Hmm...this snivy smelled. Not particularly bad or anything of the sort. The scent of the serpent was anything but. It just struck a particular feeling of familiarity with him. Garnet's focus honed in on the terrified pest. His eyes squinted, though it looked more akin to a leer as he stepped closer to the...stranger. His head lowered to the snivy's level in order to see eye-to-eye.

He cared little for the comfort of the other pokemon. He needed to figure out what it was that made him hesitate with this one. What was that feeling of familiarity? He had to know...

He could hear another voice off to the side. It snapped his attention towards the colorful bird and away from the soothing and familiar green. A friendly face certainly, but not a familiar one. His attentive and sharp gaze narrowed as his lips pulled back into a growl. He raised his head back up high with his wings stretched out wide. The sun on his back, he cast a shadow over the duo, but his attention was focused on the archen in specific.

---

Jade was mortified. He quivered and shook like the leaf he was. He couldn't even begin to imagine just how painful these next few moments were likely to be. He was going to end up like that carcass of a hippowdon just over there...this is where it all ends...then, the archen came to his "rescue."

He immediately regretted asking for help as soon as it was apparent that the little bird was rather young and naive. His heart jumped right through his chest and into his throat. His eyes snapped back to the fire type as reared back up threateningly with a rather dangerous looking glare. His heart raced. He continued to shiver on the spot, pure fear paralyzing him to the spot. It wasn't until he realized the very real chance that this Archen was about to become chow that he finally did something.

"U-Uh..." he wasn't one for violence, so...maybe he could talk...? There's no way he could take on this creature in a fight. Not just him and the archen at least. The charizard ignored him, which prompted him to stand in front of the Archen.

"H-Hey! Hey! You w-wouldn't have happened to have heard of a charmander by the name of Garnet now, would you?" The snivy chuckled nervously as he attempted to distract the larger creature. He held his arms out to each side with a hushed voice directed in the Archen's direction, "Nevermind, run!"

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Namataki had a similar fate to Dreyar, finding herself buried under the sand of a dune. She wriggled free, not too far from the squirtle with no real direct line of sight to the situation at hand. That was alright, however, as she was far too busy coughing an hacking up sand to really care in that particular moment. She belched out water onto the sand, further cursing her presence in such a miserable place. Had she died and gone to the bad place or something? What on earth had she done to deserve such a terrible awful no good fate!

[Energy: 2] [Weather Band]
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Pierce did not run. He understood the command well enough, but it didn’t make any sense to him. First the green snake called for help, now he’d changed his mind? That was fine by Pierce, he didn’t mind that too much. But he wasn’t going to run when there was a really cool definitely a dragon Pokemon right in front of him who could fly (which was like, super cool) and who beat up the big mean sand monster.

Furthermore, the charizard deserved some form of thanks for saving them all from the scary sand monster (even if he did it by making the ground do the scary bad shaking), and since the snivy wasn’t doing it, it was up to him. Pierce was taught to be polite, both by his father and by his grandparents—despite the fact that none of them really let him interact with many other people to really practice said politeness. He also usually forgot his manners anyway. But not this time!

The little bird sidestepped the snivy trying to block him and beamed up at the charizard staring him down, completely unfazed by the intimidating stature and overall generally threatening aura of the Flame Pokemon. “Thank you for stopping the bad sand monster Mister Dragon!”

The charizard was posturing. Dreyar had no idea what that was supposed to mean or signify, but it did not look good to him. From his position behind his sand dune, the squirtle took a few trembling, yet brave steps forward, his cheeks bulging with built-up water as he stared at the group of pokemon interacting. The dangerous charizard, the snivy in distress, and Pierce, who was so painfully oblivious that it almost undercut the tension of the impending disaster.

Drey held onto the Scald he was forming in his mouth, keenly aware that whatever he did would be useless against a pokemon as powerful and fully-evolved as a freaking Charizard... but if it lashed out, he fully intended to spray the fire-type down, and hopefully serve as enough of a distraction that at least the snivy and Pierce could make a run for it. The grass-type seemed to have the right idea already. He would help. If the charizard forced his hand, Dreyar was going to blast it for all he was worth, and then do his level best to be as much of an obnoxious distraction that these others could find a place to hide.

Normally, he'd try to talk the great big dragon down, but the snivy was already trying. And it didn't look effective. He had to hedge his bets.

So he stood silently off to the side, his position now fully visible. The squirtle appeared... not fearless because there were telltale signs of his fear and caution. Sweat formed all over the water-type that was not entirely due to the heat, his tail was tucked low between his legs, and said legs were slightly trembling. It was more accurate to call him... well, brave would be a generous descriptor, but stupid was far more accurate in this case.

The squirtle went...well, entirely unnoticed by the monster-dragon. Garnet's tail waved about behind him, lashing to and fro as he struggled to retain both focus and restraint. Each breath was deep and strong. Each exhale cast a puff of smoke a short distance before him, ever so slightly into the faces of the much smaller to-be victims.

He stepped forward, which pressed the snivy to push back, against the Archen if he had to. It was clear to him that they were afraid, but he wasn't quite sure what he wanted to do with these two. Have a snack? Ignore?  Those seemed like the most sensible options at the moment in his hazed unwell mind, but there was something keeping him anchored here...what was it?

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One step forward elicited one step back. Ever still jittery and vocal, he continued his attempts at diplomacy, "H-H-Hey now, don't get too close! Smoke isn't really that good for us..." He couldn't stop his voice from being pitched. He cleared his throat and swallowed, but the fear remained a part of him. "I-It's alright if you haven't really. H-He's right though, we're really grateful you took care of that bully, we would have been toast without you-" he babbled on in attempt to distract, hoping the archen would suddenly realize the err of their ways and flee.

"..." The charizard's attention was back on him-focused. With another frightful swallow of his fear, he squeezed his eyes shut and prepared for the worst.

"...Jade...?"

The tension snapped, but not in the way he'd expected. The fear flushed away as his arms slowly fell back to his sides, his tail drooping ever so slightly as emotional exhaustion already began to set in. He opened his eyes to see his friend...get smacked with a Hydro Pump.

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Namataki wasn't at all listening to the conversation at hand just a ways away from her and the squirtle. The inevitability of her interference finally came to be as she stood herself up, flung off the dirt and mud to get a good look at her surroundings...to see that the big mean lizard was about to murder two innocent little pokemon!!

Eyes as wide as they can be, she gasped with every bit of breath her lungs could take in. Her attention focused on the little squirtle with bulging cheeks just off to her side. Immediately, she made her opinion of this matter known, "WHAT ARE YOU DOING? SHOOT IT ALREADY!" She moved forward with an attempt to man-handle the squirtle ever so slightly, attempting to make a grab for the rim of the shell and spur him into action with a shake. Whether she was successful or not, she would deliver her own blast of water aimed straight for the face of the terrifying monster.

[Energy: 2] [Weather Band]
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Pierce looked between the two reptilian Pokemon. There was a clear shift in the tone that even the archen couldn’t miss when the charizard spoke. Then the tone was completely and utterly undercut by a fierce blast of water, which probably surprised everyone and terrified Pierce.

”Ahhhh!” The little bird darted away from the point of impact—the charizard—as quickly and frantically as he possibly could, diving into a dune to take cover from any further incoming water attacks. He spent no time to see from where the attack had come from, he could only assume that an army of powerful water types had come to destroy the dragon and anyone else who stood in their way, and he had no intentions of being destroyed today.

He employed his ultimate defensive tactic of diving head first into a sand dune, obscuring his vision (and hearing) from his surroundings and thus rendering him completely unobservable to any would be assassins. Yes, he could not be seen at all, not any part of him. Not even the entire rest of his body, which remained outside the dune, clearly visible to anyone and everyone around.

Dreyar was poised, alert, afraid, on edge, and ready to leap into action at the first sign of aggression. Even the slightest provocation or tip of the scales would set him off, and he stared intensely, fear in his eyes at the giant dragon—ohgodwhattheheck THERE'SaPENGUIN ONhisSHELL

The water bulged in his cheeks exploded outward, a startled reflex as the squirtle was caught off guard by Namataki's jostling of him. It was a less impressive attack than hers - not only was his aim significantly off, thanks to his fellow water-type jerking him around by the rim of his shell, but it was less of a concentrated blast of water and more of...well...more of a giant spit-take. Not to say that it wasn't a Scald, it just wasn't entirely proper.

That being said, Namataki's surprise hydro pump more than made up for it. As soon as it dawned on Dreyar what had just happened, he looked between the charizard that had just been soaked and the piplup next to him who stupidly, stupidly just provoked it with a building sense of terror. "Oh... oh no," he bemoaned. "Crap."

Ideas swirled around his head, but he knew running away or hiding was useless now that they'd attracted its attention. Instead, Dreyar none-too-gently attempted to herd the piplup behind him, half-turning around so that his shell was facing the charizard as he looked back at it, presenting it as something of a shield between himself, Namataki, and the likely-to-snap fire-type. At the first sign of aggression, he was going to pounce on this penguin and pray to Arceus that his shell could absorb whatever punishment this dragon dealt out and save the both of them from its wrath.