_{[Before anything else, Heather's voice: a little husky and hoarse-sounding, but otherwise high-spirited.]}

Hey.

Hey guys.

Watch this.

<sub>[Is she aware of the strange outbreaks and Team Rocket threats all over the news? Yes. Yes, she is. Should she be spending her time being concerned about this? Probably.]

[But she has much better things to do with her time.]

[Like film Wren the Murkrow skittering across the top of the coffee table in their Ecruteak Inn room with a tiny plastic battleaxe toy in her beak, where she proceeds to bull over a GeoDude (tm) superhero action figure with a viciousness appropriate for the battlefield. Which is what is being broadcast, of course.]

[What follows is a series of cuts showing her triumph over various other toys (pretty obviously grabbed from a discount bin in some shop somewhere), including Armaldo Schwarzenegger and Darmanitanman ("The Meditation Sensation!") and even a figurine of Barnaby the Shiny Charizard.]

[In several of the shots, Heather's other Pokemon are visible-- Arty the Furret looking on in contempt and Cheryl the Eevee watching in utter fascination over the edge of the table. At one point, the fuzzy baby Joltik she'd hatched a few months back skitters onto the scene, eager to help, but is promptly chased off the table again by the axe-wielding Murkrow, who apparently is a Lone Warrior who needs no assistance.]

[The whole time, Heather is humming ominous theme-music and jiggling the camera in that classic 'found footage' way.]

[Eventually she turns the camera on herself to address the surely-enthralled audience solemnly. Her face is oddly flushed, strangely... although perhaps not, given the summer heat.]</sub>

This has been a Public Services Announcement: my bird is an unstoppable killing machine. Nowhere is safe.

Keep your children in at ni-- oh noooo.

<sub>[As though on cue, the vaguely football-shaped black bird had come wriggling onto the screen again, clambering up Heather's arm to determinedly butt the side of her face with the toy axe. >:(!!!!]

[There's some 'fighting' and then the camera goes blank.]


[END FEED]</sub>



[ACTION]

<sub>[With Wren successfully wrestled off into doing something else, Heather shuts the 'Gear and sets it aside, slumping back in her chair with a sigh. Even in shorts and the skimpiest top she owns, it's miserably hot. Enough to sort of make her head pound. She doesn't get it. She remembers the fading summer heat last September being pretty well-managed by all the whirring fans in the Inn...]

[Twisting around, she drapes herself over the back of the chair, poking her tongue out discontently.]</sub>


Guys.

Guuuuuys.

Aren't you just dying in here? This heat is gross.

<sub>[The TV's on over in the corner. They're talking about the outbreak-- about all the people coming down with mysterious fevers.]

[But that's somewhere else. It can't touch any of them. .... Right?]</sub>

<sub>[True to her word to several by this point, Heather's almost back to Violet. Her end of the line has been oddly silent for the past few days except for a few snarky remarks or other brief conversations, and that's largely due to her... well... unexpected traveling situation. But she's dealing! It's okay. She's got this. Really.]

[.... Or not? When the camera comes on, it's Cloverfield-level shaky, with the view swiveling around drastically and showing flashes of bare ground and campfire-- and something green off to the edge that was probably James and a sort of interested-looking Harry Mason standing up by the fire and peering over in the direction of whatever was shaking the camera around. Somewhere behind the log he'd been sitting on, if the viewer was paying very close attention in the BRIEF INSTANT that particular spot was visible, they could see a very vengeful set of Furret eyes glaring over the log at Harry. But that context is a tale for another time.]

[For now, the camera finally turns to focus on Heather's face, and she looks wide-eyed and excited. The past few days've been hard on her, but the situation at hand is temporarily drowning out any and all weird emotional problems she might or might not be having.]</sub>

RISE! RISE IF YOU'RE THERE, THE EGG'S HATCHING!

<sub>[No punctuation and all.]

[The camera turns down to the large cream-speckled egg that Heather's last transmission had asked about-- its surface is shinier than before and reflects the light of the campfire. But more importantly, it's starting to wiggle around and crack. Heather wasn't NEARLY this excited about her other eggs, but this one is a ~*~mystery~*~ and it's BIG so she's sort of kind of wiggin' out.]</sub>