Frontier Town Frontier Town Outskirts

[Ambyssin]

As Owen had winded down his part of the meeting, Nova had put forth a reckless idea: to send some Wayfarers directly to Eremus Rift via Twilight Quarry. And he had volunteered as tribute, right on the heels of saying what the Comb showed him. Given some folks' reactions to that, he figured it would be best not to linger. So, Nova had quickly excused himself and made his way along the outskirts of Frontier Town.

The gifted darkness tingled deep inside of him. It wasn't quite ready to blossom, but Nova didn't think it would be long. There was a familiar tug in the pit of his stomach. He knew it well. And Nova figured there was no way this power could follow him to Forlas. But he was wrong. The question was how it would manifest. Would it be more... protective in nature here?

Nova sat down. He slotted in the Fire Memory. As a fiery red replaced his standard turquoise, he shut his eyes and tilted his head, bathing in the sun's warmth.

 

[Phoenixsong]

Deep breath. Hold it for a beat. Feel the sparks inside his chest catch and flare with the rush of oxygen, the heat building in the back of his throat. Face the target head-on, nose pointing straight at it and not turning at the last second to investigate whatever scent the wind carried over from that saloon (usually just skunky booze, but one time they'd been grilling something and it'd smelled amazing and Dog Brain needed to know what it was and anyway that's how you accidentally spit embers into your friend's face, sorry Leaf). Focus, focus, and exhale—

Tiny cinders flew from his mouth and scattered across the pile of scrap wood. Too scattered—not enough to cause more than a pathetic little puff of smoke, and that lasted a whopping three seconds before it might as well never have been there at all. The only way that could've been worse was if he'd been close enough to the busy part of town for anyone to actually witness that colossal embarrassment.

Blue just about managed to catch the growl before it slipped out, forcing the air into a sigh of frustration instead. Of course. He'd been making some actual progress the past couple days, when Leaf had been here to show him all the "being a pokémon" ropes. There'd been honest-to-god fire once, even. So surely he just needed to keep at it. Maybe even easier today, what with less weird background psychic fuzz jabbing at the corners of his brain. Golden, right?

Ahaha. Nope. He comes out here by himself and straight garbage, all afternoon. Couldn't even ask what he was doing wrong, because Linden had to be off somewhere else doing one of the fifteen jobs she'd apparently taken on since landing here. Big bad gym leader, champion, guy who'd brought out the best anyone'd ever seen in a charizard since Samuel Oak, he knew fire pokémon, he'd thought he was actually starting to get used to being one, and all he had to show for it was a whole lotta nothing.

Heat sizzled unbidden along Blue's back and up the sides of his face. He dug his claws into the soil and stuffed it back down, willed himself to focus it all back into his core. Deep breath. Hold it for a beat. Feel the sparks inside his chest building into fire, c'mon, Oak, you're better than this, actual god damn fire, aim, and—

Blue spluttered as the cinders caught in his throat, missing the woodpile entirely. Smoke curled from his mouth as he coughed. And growled. Thank god nobody was loitering around at the edge of town right now.