foolishwren | 73. [Video/Action] Afternoon

_{[What tiiiiiiiiiiime is it?]

[.... GYM BATTLE TIME!]

[The feed, as often is the case whenever Heather actually films one of her battles, seems manned by the resident camera-crocodile, and airborne thanks to Honey the ever-patient Butterfree (although not quite as airborne as it was back in Violet City during the victory over Falkner-- Godzilla isn't exactly a little baby anymore...]

[Nonetheless, the fight is filled with the usual combo of snippy one-liners from Heather and NON-STOP ACTION, because man, if it's gonna be broadcast, might as well make it showy! The first half of the battle is largely dominated by Cujo-- but when Jasmine sends out her monstrous Steelix, Heather recalls the pup and turns briefly to the camera to smugly reassure the viewers--]}

Cooj totally has this, but it wouldn't be fair to let him have ALL the fun, y'know?

_{[With a knowing grin, she promptly hucks a different ball onto the field-- releasing a dainty Ponyta.]}

GET 'em, Carousel!

_{[For something that had been a gangly little foal around Christmas, Carousel's done a lot of growing-- which is PARTICULARLY evident in the fight that she proceeds to put up against the metal snake's attacks, prancing and leaping to avoid most of the blows-- Heather had clearly been training her quite a bit during the month or so she'd been in Olivine by now.]

[Although, something a little odd-- which could of course be because of Zilla's filming, the Totodile doesn't exactly have the steadiest hands (claws?) when it comes to holding the camera... but... did Carousel suddenly get quite a bit BIGGER as she came leaping over the Steelix's flaming coils...?]}

_{[... HUH. Well, whaddya know. What lucky timing!]

[As the Steelix comes crashing down to the Gym's sandy floor, rolling feebly to put out the flames, the audience is treated to a very artistic sideways view of the a set of long, snowy legs trotting over to their trainer, who is looking surprisingly NOT triumphant over her victory. In fact, she looks kinda... shell-shocked. Aaaand then the camera swings away again to show the defeated Gym Leader, who fortunately handles these sorts of things a LOT more gracefully than You-Know-Who in Goldenrod...]}

My goodness...

_{[The camera shuffles a short distance away so it can get a good view of both trainers-- Zilla wants to give people the FULL EXPERIENCE, after all!]}

That was a quite exciting battle... Did you know your Ponyta was about to evolve?

Um...

_{[Shooting the now-Thoroughbred-sized animal beside her an unsure look, Heather startles sideways slightly when the Rapidash stretches her neck out to nose at the side of her face. Shuffling a step or two to the side, she pats Carousel's nose distractedly, more with the intention of pushing her gently away than anything else.]}

No...

Well! What a... lucky coincidence! ... I'm sure you would have done fine anyway, though... your Pokemon are quite the little spitfires! Please, um... take the Mineralbadge. You've earned it!

Thanks--!

_{[Too distracted to even snicker at the unintentional pun, Heather sloooowly steps away from the fiery unicorn and starts to head across the sand towards the camera to claim her prize-- which is where the feed cuts out.]}

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

... That's right, you didn't really like...

Yeah... _{[IT ... IT IS HONESTLY KIND OF EMBARRASSING HOW MANY SECRET LITTLE PHOBIAS HEATHER HAS. She knows they're not her FAULT or anything, buuuut.]

[She manages a sort of wry grin.]}

At this rate, I'll be walking everywhere forever.

You know you could always borrow Crystal, right?

Well-- yeah. I don't like moochin' off of people, though.

_{[She'd already had Snake's Steelix for like... weeks before being able to give it back to him, after all.]}

It's not mooching, it's giving her a chance to, er... stretch her rocks.

'Fair nuff, but I still wouldn't wanna keep her from her trainer that long!

... Plus, one of the guys I'm traveling with is kinda... um.

Jumpy.

_{[He'd been okay during the battle, it looked like, but she's a little worried that RIDING a Steelix would like... cause Henry to just vibrate out of the space-time continuum.]}

Bad jumpy?

One time he was sitting on the bed and I said something to him a little more loudly than I intended.

He got down on the floor and hid in his sleeping bag before replying.

... Super bad jumpy.

Yeah. I'm kind of worried to leave him alone in the room with my Pokemon for any length of time because I'm worried one of them will give him a heart attack...

How long has he been here? Maybe he just needs to get used to this?

Well, a few months, I think...

But I uh... also think it's because. ... Well.

He's from home.

-- Oh. [ and after that, it's hard to believe people are from there, but it makes sense now. ]

Yeeeaah.

I mean... I didn't know him... but ... he was affected by that town too.

_{[Admittedly, the place didn't ALWAYS look like what Rise had seen... to most people, Silent Hill was a perfectly normal little town... One with a rich and sometimes troubling history, but still a normal town. Even most of its residents probably didn't realize what a festering pile of metaphorical AND literal bones they were living on...]}

So I can't really blame him for being a little jumpy...

_{[Henry is as quirky and odd as they come, but he's a nice guy! ... And destined to save the world like Heather and her father both had to, despite the fact that he's even more of a clueless everyman than either of them were, put together.]}

Yeah, I can't either... that poor guy, it must've been rough.

Yeah... He told us a little about what he went through.

It's... pre-tty wild.

_{[And Rise knows Heather well enough to know that when she says that... it's... really saying something. Especially when it's being compared to what she herself had been through.]}

... I keep thinking that there's no way I could ever make it there, so hearing that from you...

Yeah...

_{[It's not so much that what Henry had gone through was WORSE, but in terms of the level on the flat-out-crazy meter? She's pretty sure it beats out her experience on at least SOME levels.]}

But he's a nice guy, all things considered. Dad's the one who found out he was from our world... wouldn't rest until we'd gotten hold of him and given him a place to stay that wasn't in the middle of the woods.

_{[HARRY MASON ADOPTS ALL THE CHILDRENS. Even if the childrens are socially-inept twenty-somethings who talked to animals more often than people and wrote their name on their Pokemon in sharpie.]}

... Your dad's a pretty great guy too, isn't he? [ her own was so strict that Rise could honestly say he'd have a heart attack before he went around welcoming strangers in. ]

He's the best person I've ever known.

_{[... And there's not even the most molecular of traces of sarcasm in her voice when she says those words.]

[Harry had his cold side... after everything he'd been through, paranoia was inevitable. ... But he never had been able to turn strays away. Heather herself had been one, after all.]}

It's too bad Grandma isn't here... I bet she'd love you guys, too.

I'd love to meet her, then.

Heh... y'know, I've never actually had any grandparents. S'it nice?

Well, I really only know my Grandma... my grandpa died when I was pretty little, but I think there's something about being able to go to a grandparent when you can't go to your own parents, you know? She taught me a lot, and she always listened without making me feel dumb...

... That sounds really nice...

I'd love to meet her if she ever came here.

You'll be the first to know!

73. [Video/Action] Afternoon

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