Noctowl vs TrueToCheese

Upon release, both pokemon take a moment to look around, intrigued by their surroundings. Perhaps they’d never been inside an office building before - they’re both young battlers, after all - but they certainly seemed interested in everything, sniffing at desks and poking computer chairs, jumping a bit in surprise when their trainers call their commands.

Right - the battle. Bonnie immediately wisks up his paws, carving around him a protective shield, and seeing this, Madeline shakes her head in concternation. She bounds off, dashing around the small room, jumping onto and off of desks with rising speed. She kicks off of chairs, sending them spiraling and toppling over; she lands hard, jumping up again and kicking off another desk, going so fast as to become a tiny chaotic blur. Her speed increases so much as she dashes around, it seems there are dozens of her - but when she suddenly stops, there are only five skorupi, tapping their feet excitedly with the remaining energy from their romp.

Quite impressive, Madeline thought, and she felt Bonnie should share these feelings. Though it was kind of hard to… make herself beautiful, the tiny scorpion plushed herself up - as did her clones - and somehow this impressed Bonnie enough to feel overcome with emotion, a momentary flush of love.

Somehow managing to pull his attention away, the bunnelby skittered towards a desk and punched the legs off. It toppled over, and Bonnie collected the scattered wood, piling it up and sticking it together with lobs of saliva. He continued to smash at the wood and slobber on it until it meshed up to form a somewhat familiar shape - something like another bunnelby, if a bit less… solid. Eyeing Madeline, he breathed a bit of life on his miniature, and the substitute jumped up to shield its master; there, wasn’t that impressive?

Apparently, no. Madeline seemed quite upset - for she bounded at Bonnie, a swarm of arachnids pouncing on his substitute fangs-first. It was quite untasty, as evidenced by their disgusted expressions as they backed away, but it still did decent damage; the substitute definitely looked worse for wear, a giant bite mark gauging its woody side. Bonnie stared at it in shock - why would Madeline do that…?

Didn’t she love him? Wasn’t he good? His feelings were rushing around in his chest, an overwhelming feeling of turmoil, and he ended up slamming the office floor with sudden fury. It shook violently, so much Madeline’s many legs felt suddenly like rubber, shaking to her - well, her bones were on the outside, but they were very unsopportive. Her clones even less so, disappearing at the force of the attack; she looked around in sudden panic, all alone.​

Bonnie feels pretty confident he looks good enough for Madeline, but one can never look too good, right? That’s what he things, anyhow, as he flexes his tiny bunny muscles, stretching his biceps for Madeline to see - so big! - then dropping to do some quick push-ups. He feels all worked up, but mostly he’s focusing on whether Madeline is noticing…

And she doesn’t seem to, really. She’s busy darting across the office towards his substitute; her up-raised fore-arms (pincers? head-bobs) out-stretched eagerly to slice cross-length along the doll. It rips into four halves along each tear, falling to the floor in tiny shards of wood, Madeline skittering backwards to avoid having it land on her. She chitters, glad to be rid of it, finally.

Bonnie, less so. A sour expression crosses his face; but before he can mourn, his lot turns even worse. All he sees is a tiny slop of purple before it smacks him in the chest; he stares at it, shocked, then looks at Madeline - how could she? He doesn’t even try to rub it off before the poison seeps into his fur; it’s too late now. He can feel the poisons entering his blood stream, but it’s the emotional pain that’s getting the worst of him.

His face scrunched up like he was about to cry, but instead he bounded into the air, nearly smacking the ceiling. Somehow he stayed there, floating in midair and observing Madeline below for what was surely too long to be physically possible…

… and he tumbled down, fumbling feet-first into Madeline, scrambling off in a hurry as if he wished it had never happened - he didn’t mean to hurt her, honest, oh, but it was too late - Madeline squeaked under him, her exoskeleton making awful cracking noises, and her eyes looked furious. Oh, this was awful…

He couldn’t have expected just how mad she was - her fangs open and a searing hot pile of toxins spew from her at Bonnie. It hits his chest and it feels like it’s crushing him, his chest heaving in on itself like a heart attack, his blood fighting to get out, so hot like lava bursting from a volcano - it hurts, it burns, he doesn’t even realize he’s screaming, down on his knees, until it’s finally over and all that he knows is the tingling leftover sensation of pain. He’s panting when he looks up at Madeline; there’s no love left there. No, just betrayel, and rage.​

Before anything funny can happen, Bonnie throws his paws up in front of his face, pulling up a blue screen around himself. Madeline can clearly see this, and doesn’t waste time attacking; instead she skitters once again about the room, bringing up familiar familiars behind her. Once she - they - stopped running, there remain five skorupi, twitching anxiously in preparation for battle.

But it’s Bonnie who’s clearly rearing to go - or at least, he would be, if he knew what 'fake out' was. Instead he stares perplexed at his trainer and waits for commands he understands a bit better. Meantime, he glances around at the skorupi-herd, utterly perplexed… which one is real? It becomes all too much for him - they begin to blur together in his mind, glowing brighter and brighter until they’re too bright to contentrate on and he has to close his eyes. He rubs at them with his paws, but it’s too late, his mind is completely befuddled; he can’t see straight for all the skorupi…

A solid, stinging, overwhelming pain brings him back to focus. He opens his eyes - purple sludge is coating his fur, sinking into his skin, merging with the toxins in his blood to create a familiar burning pain. It’s still hurting when he gets to his feet, shaking a bit, and slams one foot down hard - like a child throwing a tantrum, maybe - inciting the whole office into a violent fit. Everything topples over; chairs, desks, computers, none remain standing where they were; the floor itself cracks, at least managing to remain intact through the attack. Which is more than could be said for Madeline’s clones; they all vanish instantly once the shaking reaches Madeline herself. Her tiny jittery legs shiver and she scrables to avoid falling debris, knocked-over keyboards and chairs, until the shaking finally stops and she can pause to catch her breath. That… was not fun.​

Bonnie’s eyes clear suddenly, and without hesitating he throws himself at Madeline, a wild frenzy of limbs thrashing about every which-way. Madeline screeches as Bonnie’s tiny fists slam into her exoskeleton, his thick feet kicking at her delicate legs, his ear-paws flapping wildly at her face - so frenetic in his movements that Madeline can’t even see around him, just a big blur of tan-gray fuzz. He wears himself out and falls on his behind, panting, eyeing the bruised skorupi; good. She deserved it, stupid over-large spider thing…

But she definitely didn’t agree. Bile rose in her throat at her disgust, and she spat it out at him, coating him entirely in a new layer of sludge. He screamed in agony; he couldn’t take more of these, the toxins inside him stirring like a flame. He felt hot, burning hot, like a fever, the confusion making him dizzy, and he wobbled unsteadily to his feet.

This was far from over. He wasn’t the sort to give up until there was nothing left in him. He ran, head first, slamming into Madeline, assaulting her poor side as badly as before; and when he’d finished, she retaliated just as severely, spitting more toxins on his now entirely purple fur. He didn’t bother trying to shake it off, just pawing at it dejectedly; each touch stung like electricity, deep down to his bones, and he was shaking uncontrollably now. At last, the confusion was cleared, but he still felt violently sick… like he might add his own bile to the growing collection on the office floor.

It fueled him, though, pushed him forward as he rushed at Madeline and crushed her further with his tiny mounting rage. She didn’t look like she could take much more; even as he backed away, she lay crouched down, low to the floor, chittering in fear and pain and unwilling to move. Hesitantly, she stretched forward her front-most limbs, waving them in the air as if calling to something - rocks, somewhere, come out! - but nothing answered. At least, nothing visibly answered. Maybe outside, way below at ground-level, some boulders had risen and tombed themselves around a random bystander … But here in the office, no desks had suddenly collapsed around Bonnie. Madeline didn’t look very sure she’d done her job right, and she turned to look at her trainer in confusion.​

Mouth still dribbling from her previous attack, Madeline spits out even more goo onto Bonnie, thickening the gunk coating his fur to something solid. He barely shows a reaction; he’s shaking so hard that it couldn’t get any worse, his eyes are burning red, his nose running, and he barely manages to stay on his feet. With all this in mind, it’s a bit pitiful when he starts mocking Madeline’s battle tactics, but the poor skorupi feels just as battered as he does, and she honestly takes it to heart. She is relying so heavily on one attack, he’s right… maybe she’s not cut out for this whole battling thing… She lets out a chittering whine, desperate to prove herself.

Bonnie knows all about desperation. He clasps his eyes shut and throws himself with all his remaining energy at Madeline, a burning white light enveloping him as he slams into her. It burns like fire on contact, so hot she screams and scampers away, hiding under a desk; her exoskeleton is completely smashed where he’d landed, two of her legs barely managing to hold her up on that side. A constant whine is coming from her, but she still manages to hack up more poison, a bit more solid than the last, throwing it violently at Bonnie …

And as it hits, exploding like a water balloon on contact, he simply falls backwards to the floor, nothing left in him to keep going. Madeline is too shocked to believe it at first, but she squeaks finally in sheer joy - she did it! Maybe now she can get some well-deserved rest…​