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Hearthome City/ Contest Hall| Morning
Reeves could feel Thread approaching fast, and his body tensed to flinch away. Surely the news they'd lost the jolteon was enough for some sort of punishment... But thankfully, the female charizard distracted the fossil's wrath. Breathing a small sigh of relief, he instead turned his attention to movement beside him, the soft shifting of Elidr's coils sounding in his ears. "Something is off about her," the dragonair whispered, the deino subtly turning to the dragon in question. "She looks like Charizard but..."
...But? But what? He opened his nostrils and sniffed once more, focusing more on the charizard than he had before. Female, Fire/Flying, Adult... Yes, it was all the information he'd gathered before. But upon sniffing once more, there was a strangeness, a quirk about her scent that made him pause. It was subtle, to be sure... Perhaps cosmetic? He couldn't detect any sickness or abnormality in her scent otherwise... Some... sort of mutation, maybe? "...What's wrong with her?" he whispered back, barely audible with Thread and the newcomer barking back and forth.
"I want nothing from you. But if that was intended to be a follower then I will tell you that your method of 'recruitment' shows the weak mind of an even more pathetic leader."
“And what would you know about leadership? A female. A freak,” was Thread's retort, confirming Reeves' suspicions. So there was something cosmetically wrong with her. Weird, but not surprising. With such a crisis in the natural world, evolution usually took its game upward, creating more adaptable creatures so that life may survive. Mutations and new species was simply that course of action. She wasn't to be shunned, she was to be embraced... but the fact that she was currently pitting herself against one of the most ruthless pokemon he'd met since his mother was likely going to end her life quicker than any natural disaster.
"Are you here against your will young ones?"
Reeves' instincs flared, spotting the trap even without eyes. Siding with the female now could mean death, as Thread seemed the type to take mutiny very, very seriously. Frowning, Reeves remained carefully silent as to not tip off either party to his true standings. “No,” Fortunately, Thread was keen to answer for them. “They wanted training; I’m offering it to them. I run a strict schedule – they knew what they were getting into.” Another sigh exited the small deino, glad at least, that danger had been avoided for now.
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The morning rays of light shimmered cheerily, the sun and clouds above blissfully unaware of what took place beneath them. A silhouette emerged from the light, a strange, morphing thing as it grew and grew, revealing itself to be two instead of one. Wings were soon visible, and a streak of green and blue flashed by in the air. A flygon chased by a rotting salamence played ballet for the celestial bodies above.
Isaac panted, his wings pumping hard as he veered through the skies, desperately trying to lose the salamence on his tail. When would that dead son of a bitch finally just give up?! His lungs screamed for air, his wings ached for relief. He was nearing his limit, his edge of physical ability, and the damn thing behind him was gradually catching up. No amount of zig-zags, fake-outs, attacks or loop-arounds would deter the dragon behind him, his crimson eyes set for the flygon's flesh. Oh, Legends above, this wasn't how he was going to bite it, was it? Some relentless, mindless moron finally wearing him out and killing him like that? Swallowing, trying to wet his dry, thirsty mouth, he summoned the last of his strength for one last maneuver, his last, desperate bid to save his own life.
Hurling himself suddenly upward, he headed straight for a cloud and stayed within it. Hovering, praying that his scheme would work, he heard more than saw the salamence rip through the cloud as well, its hungry roar signaling how close it was. Using the cloud as cover and not wasting time, he dove down into another cloud, hiding within it instead. With each raor beginning to get further and further away, he used each opportunity to step down and down and down, soon finding himself above a ruined city. But exhaustion soon overtook him, his wings finally giving in after hours and hours of relentless work. He fell, only half-conscious as he stumbled through the air, trying to slow himself with half-hearted wingbeats.
Reeves had not payed attention to his surroundings, his senses directly focused on Thread and the strange newcomer. He did not hear the low, continuous humming, nor the far-off roars of an angry corpse. It came as a very large surprise when, then, a voice from above called out, "LOOK OUT!" The stranger crashed into the deino, rolling with him and tangling their limbs together in a terrible confusion.