Avatar of Vertigo

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1 mo ago
online spottily
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2 mos ago
posts done, will get to PMs tomorrow!
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2 mos ago
feeling better, going to start catching up. sorry for the wait!
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3 mos ago
still sick
3 mos ago
back! though sick... will be getting back to writing next week
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Most Recent Posts



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"Hey, are you listening to me, you—"

Before Chloe could finish her sentence, much less register the ghost type's intent towards the Snubbull, another voice cut through the empty laboratory. Out of reflex, she turned her gaze to find what she supposed must've been the professor — and some help or whatever — across the hallway. Finally!

She was just about to relay the tale of why she was like the only person in her life today who was not late, when the professor was already taking off again. For a meeting with some random guy called Maximus, or something.

"What's her problem?" Chloe huffed in the professor's wake, only to suddenly remember the other annoying shortie she'd ran into earlier. She held onto her hair and looked around wildly, but the thing seemed to have disappeared. "Look, I'm sure you can do a fine job catching me up — Frieda, right? — so this isn't like personal or anything, but it should really be the professor's job to deal with the people she hired. Like I don't expect a welcoming party — though it would be nice, the trip was long — but at least she should keep her Pokémon from attacking people, seriously. I'm so going to mention that in a review."

She looked to the assistant at last, and for what it was worth, she did seem genuinely nice and apologetic at the very least. Chloe sighed, just about to assure her that she would leave her out of any bad review, when they reached the reception and someone waved at them. One of the trainers from outside, with an Aipom. That was a... uh, unique choice for a Pokémon.

Not as unique as the girl's fashion sense though. She needed some emergency help in that area, stat.

Chloe couldn't help but smile at seeing the Aipom playfully whack at the girl, though. She would never own a weird monkey like that herself, but she could tell the two were close, and honestly? She loved that for them.

"Well hi, Jill! I'm Chloe, and this is Snuggles," she introduced herself cheerily in turn, moving the bag slightly to show off her partner. Really, she could tell she and this girl were very different, but the other's relationship with her Aipom reminded Chloe of herself and Snuggles, soundly asleep in — oh.

Her eyes trailed all the way down to the bag. Oh, no.

Chloe snapped her gaze back up just as Jill was apologizing about not saying hi earlier and offering for her to travel with her and a friend, an offer she would so rescind in a second, when—

"Snuggles, no! Sit! Gosh!" Chloe took off after her Snubbull, who'd woken up, seen a creature she could actually bite, and immediately wiggled her way out to dash towards the Aipom, its swinging tail reminiscent of a big, thick chewing toy.

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As the dragons touched down for a break, Fellwing found herself sighing in relief. She counted herself lucky to have survived the flight at all, much less in such great health. Throughout, she'd debated what would make her plummet from the sky first; a sudden gale or the weight of the awkward atmosphere she'd helped create.

As it turned out, neither. The currents had been favourable, so much so that her wings were barely sore despite the distance, and apparently awkwardness could not, in fact, prove fatal.

Fellwing took in her surroundings as she stretched her wings, only to spot an older dragon staring at them — at Garrock, rather. She quirked a brow, gaze trailing to the old grump as she pondered on the two's relationship.

"I'm not opposed to a rest, certainly," she answered when prompted, turning to her clutchmates who seemed to echo the sentiment. She smiled despite herself at Stargaze's enthusiasm over Kyte's comment, figured Skobeloff's detour must've been part of a new scheme of his, and then glanced back over her shoulder to the old dragon from earlier.

Oh damn, decided to roll for funsies, and apparently Fellwing continues on her good roll streak, because I got a 10.

Uh. Maybe she's really good at navigating the currents.
Like the others said, no worries at all. Glad to have you back, and hope Feb treats you better!

Also curious about how to determine how exhausted we are, whether it's a choice or a roll. It's been a while but I remember establishing that Fellwing has the technique of flying down pretty well for a drake her age, but-- she is a scrawny one and at the mercy of winds. So I'd imagine she gets exhausted very fast and doesn't have much stamina. Now whether she'd actually admit that...
In SPIRITUM 12 mos ago Forum: Casual Roleplay

__________________________________________________


Silje watched, magazine still clutched in one hand, as the situation... continued. It wasn't really escalating, considering no one was getting hurt, but everyone was too tense and on edge to say it was de-escalating either. Silje's own expression was locked into a faint smile, her eyes the only part of her that moved at all; a cat's gaze, flitting from one person to the next as they spoke.

Briefly, out of sheer reflex, her hand threatened to flick to her gun when Justice asked to be shot — that's how serious she sounded about it, and that's how eager Silje was to grant her friend's wishes. Justice always did tell her she should listen more, too. Thankfully conscious thought caught up with her before she could ever act on that reflex. It's not like she didn't understand what shooting someone meant, after all, even though some might assume otherwise. For some reason.

Besides, Gerard and Lance were doing a good job distracting her. The mere sight of the latter made her shudder with the memory of scorpions she hadn't yet even seen, a sudden prickling nibbling at her toes. The former, talking directly into her ear through their communications, well—

"A reminder: I think homicide is illegal in most places- this one included. Just food for thought."

He gave her an idea.

Silje's grin cracked wider. Though she addressed him back, she was very much speaking out loud to the entire room. "Hey, do you think... it counts as homicide if you don't have enough remains to tell it used to be a person? I'm kind of curious." she turned to the civilians, head tilting in thought. "Oh, but we can't just start a fight, right? That's the rules. They'd need to do it, and they don't even have proper weapons. Hm."

She tapped at her cheek, once, twice, and then she was off, scurrying over to the civilians with her own gun in hand. She offered it handle-first to the biggest of the bunch. "Here, I'll lend you mine! So that... if you wanna start shooting, you can."

"But, if you do," her eyes narrowed in tune with her widening smile, the air around her rippling and crackling with Mist. Through it, the man was already painted in various shades of red. "It'll be my turn next."

And she sounded very, very giddy about it.


__________________________________________________


Camphor's Lab


Once Chloe realized her welcoming committee consisted of nothing more than bare walls and empty halls, the click of her heels came to an abrupt stop, her free hand pressing against her hip. Really? No one? Was she seriously supposed to believe that not only did they not wait for her arrival, they left no one behind to look after an unlocked laboratory? Geez, their research must've not been very important.

"Ugh, come on Snuggles," she sighed to her still-sleeping companion, "let's go ask the weirdos outside if— HYAHH?!"

At the sudden tug, Chloe spun around, eyes wide with surprise. She expected to find an assistant with no sense of self-preservation, or a runaway kid or... a person in general, but what stared back at her was... a Pokémon? She blinked. The floating creature looked like a peculiar Misdreavus. Still pretty, as Misdreavus tended to be, but this one had weird, wing-like strands of hair and creepy looking eyes, mouth filled with... oh.

Her eyes widened further, startlement dissolving into shock of a different kind. "Oh my ARCEUS!" she screamed, so loud that even her Snubbull finally jolted awake. "What do you think you're doing?! Who told you it was okay to touch my hair?! Listen, I don't know who or what you think you are—"

She tried to yank the srands free and turn fully around so that she could point a lecturing finger directly between the thing's eyes. "But just because YOUR hair looks like it's been pulled in four different directions by Tauroses doesn't give you the right to mess MINE up as well. What, did you die from jealousy? Is that why you're a ghost?!" Not that she believed Pokémon were real ghosts, but that was a debate for another time. "Now if you weren't aware—"

Snuggles, having blinked away the drowsiness to quickly take in what was going on, realized her trainer wasn't going to stop her lecture in a while, and that she could probably take a second nap in that time. The Snubbull liked fighting many things, but ghost Pokémon had never been the most fun to bite, so she wiped her nose and closed her eyes, even as her trainer rambled on above.

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Duncan broke into a laugh as he watched his friends flail through the air and plummet into the lake one after another, splashing water at his face in the process. It couldn't have been easy for normies like them to make the jump, especially with that asshole Hiroshi spewing math at them, but Daisuke and Maki were real ones, and he'd known they wouldn't let him down.

"Dude, you should've seen yourself! Thought you were gonna chicken out for a sec. You owe Maki one for that," he shouted as he swam closer to make sure neither of the two had broken any bones — and that they weren't actively drowning as he spoke. They seemed more or less alive, so he kept going. "Tell you what Dai, I'll give ya this one. But next tim—"

Duncan's mouth closed and eyes opened wide as he saw everyone's gazes turn back towards the tower. He'd expected them to be joined by others eventually, could already see some of their fellow students sliding into the water at the shore, but to see Sasuke of all people atop the tower was... new. He grinned nonetheless, encouraging the guy all the way down.

"Hey, Maki," Duncan leaned towards her. "The show off's trying to one up you. You gonna take that?" The two might never engage in that epic martial arts fight everyone was hoping for — and that Duncan knew Maki would win — but maybe he could goad them into a dive-off.

Whether he could or not, the day at the lake continued, along with the precarious dives. Many of the latter were courtesy of Duncan himself, every impact with water a new wave of relief crashing into him. He did other things too, of course; challenged people into swimming competitions, nearly drowned holding his breath for a time no human should've been able to, and avoided Asahi once he emerged from whatever distant spot of the lake Duncan had accidentally thrown him into. He laughed, he talked shit, and he pulled some of the more unsuspecting floaters under when they least expected it.

Haruko never came to watch.

Duncan wasn't worried though, not at first. There were far more reasonable explanations to her absence than there were worrisome ones, the sun was shining, the water was cool, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Duncan was feeling great. There was no room for worry in a mind preoccupied by pleasure.

But as the novelty of it all wore off, each jump yielding diminishing returns as far as adrenaline went, Duncan found his gaze drifting back to the shore more and more often in search for a familiar, tiny figure amongst the students. And with every failed attempt, he felt a pang in the back of his mind. Everyone else was here, from what he could tell. Where was she? Was she not feeling well, or something? Resting at the camp?

"Be right back, gotta take a leak!" he shouted back at the others, then swam to shore.

When Duncan first asked whether one of the students loafing about by the lake had seen Haruko, he wasn't terribly upset when he was met with a shrug. But as one shrug became two, three and then five, he could no longer deny feeling an eerie sense of dread. If she was just resting, someone should've known about it.

In the end it was the nerd Fujita that could provide an additional piece of information: Haruko had gone off somewhere — with Akito. At that, Duncan paused, more out of confusion than anything else. What was she doing with Akito, of all people? Dude was a nobody. Had something happened? He knew there'd been some drama between Kogen and Akito last night and that it'd gotten pretty bad, but he hadn't really paid attention to the details, his mind preoccupied by—

Duncan shook away that thought before it could form, asked which way Fujita'd seen them go, and set out without even bothering to fetch his clothes. Maybe Akito'd been more hurt than he realized and Haruko wanted to care for him, Duncan reasoned. She did that, cared about people. But they wouldn't have needed to leave camp for that.

If that little shit had any ulterior motives for being alone with his girl, he fucking swore...

Duncan knew his senses were better now than they'd used to, and for once, it wasn't a nuisance. He focused on listening to the sounds around him, doing his best to filter out the slowly distancing merriment at the lake, the sounds of nature and the quickening of his own heartbeat.

At some point, his hand clenched into a fist.
Wip, still need to make the edits to his powers!

Edit: done ay


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Once it became clear that no one was hurt by her little runaway explosive, Silje stopped trying to hide her amusement altogether and let herself break out into a giggle. She caught the soda Gerard sent her way, sticking her tongue out in gratitude. Before she could open her next dose of sugary goodness however, she noticed movement in her peripheral vision.

Silje turned, staring directly into the barrel of a gun. It was Kalina, serious as ever, ready to eliminate whatever threat she mistook her fireworks for. Silje waved her soda at her friend, but whatever feeling that was supposed to convey, if any, was left unclear.

The soda didn't make it far out of the can before they met another pothole.

-

As much as Silje had enjoyed their ride, getting to actually move her legs was a refreshing change of pace. She stretched every limb in every way she could think of, looking like a woman possessed as she furled and unfurled herself on repeat. Her legs itched from where she'd concentrated Mist on, and she kept scratching as she walked up to the others.

"Seems boring," she commented idly, taking in both their surroundings and her friends' comments. "Sleeping in a mineshaft would be cooler!"

Tony broke off from the rest and started towards a nearby store. Silje, with the contents of her last can still soaking through her shirt, followed suit. She needed to restock too, and maybe find some snacks.

She was browsing through a rack of magazines, sidetracked from her original quest, when she heard Tony's sudden burst of laughter from the counter. She raised her gaze from the upside-down magazine she didn't remember having picked up, and smiled. Oh, wow, Tony was making friends! And one of them was-- oh, she had to tell Kalina-!

Silje peeked back out of the store, looked around until she found who she was looking for, and started wildly gesturing behind her with a rolled up magazine. "Kali, Kali, come look, Tony's making friends! And one of them is just as clueless about jokes as you are. Look, that big one over there, the one that looks like he's been ran over by a buffalo!"

If she'd meant to make matters worse, her genuinely cheery tone gave none of it away.
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