OTHER NOTES.
Music: Waltz No. 2 by Dmitri Shostakovich
Space-Time Distortion RNG outcome: Nat 20 😎
Leon has specifically chosen the driest, most barren terrain possible for his performance staging. His exact request had been for farmland that looks like it hadn’t seen water in a century, and Hisui had delivered just as perfectly as he’d hoped they would. The earth is caked with dried mud, cracked and kicking up clouds of dust with every slight breeze that passes by. There’s even some withered crops still planted firmly in the ground, wilted and with their curled leaves stubbornly clinging on.
Perfect.
Leon leads his first two performers out as the first notes of music begin to play, Char and Duke taking their places on opposite ends of the field.
Char moves first, crouching down on all fours and puffing out short bursts of Mystical Fire. The flames are much smaller than any he’d use to fight, spiralling through the air and catching on the withered plants embedded in the stage terrain. As he does this, however, his tail swirls around to his side and flares a bright white, soon releasing a move of its own: Will-O-Wisp. These flames come in a range of colours, everywhere from light blue to white to lilac, their cool tones mixing with the Mystical Fire’s warm and setting the dead crops alight in a rainbow of fire.
The attacks keep coming, each new pair of flames released in sharp one-two bursts on time with the music, spiralling across the field in bigger, more elaborate dances until they find the next thing to burn.
Once all the dead crops are ablaze, Duke makes his move, twirling and waving his arm to summon a light Blizzard. The snowflakes move quickly, mingling with the flames and shrinking the ones getting too excitable. This gentle weather mix keeps everything under control, the flames unable to be snuffed out by such little snowfall but equally unable to gain any leverage against its constant presence, and both pokemon take their leave to wait ioff to the side for their next cue.
Next out is Duel, who, at Leon’s nod, begins his Swords Dance. He weaves and bobs, each swing of his blade forcing the Blizzard to dissipate and the (now fully charred) plants to crumble into ash. His natural grace certainly adds to the beauty of this move muse, Leon has to admit. Without the need for speed or opponent intimidation, he can really appreciate how effortlessly Duel slices through the air, using the force of his own self-created gusts to remove his previous teammates’ attacks. It takes no time at all before the terrain is truly barren, all remnants of its past removed and lost to the wind.
Duel floats upwards at the same time as the telltale waves of Surf come lapping inwards, led by the ever-cheery Trebuchet. Though this is a move he’d only recently learned (and one Leon had spent countless hours practicing with him), the dragon guides the waves like he’d been born to do it, skimming his claws against the ground and letting the water soak into every inch. He leads the water around several times, filling every crack and clawing lines through the dirt to expose more of the cracked mud below, and only lets it sink in once he’s satisfied with his work.
The earth is clumped closer together now, no longer separated by the huge cracks that’d been scattered across its surface, and the dry sandy colour has transformed into a rich, dark brown. It’s already a magnificent change from before, and Leon beams up at Trebuchet, meeting the pokemon’s delighted hiss with an overjoyed laugh of his own. This is all going so well!
Trebuchet shoots his Dreepy out of his head like tiny Dragon Darts, letting the babies push holes into the soil with the same one-two pattern Char had been using. The Dreepy, for their part, seem rather happy with this change of scenery, and quickly return to Trebuchet each time, their tiny cries a demand for more of this treatment.
One-two.
One-two.
One-two.
Trebuchet continues his Dragon Darts until the entire terrain is covered in neatly spaced holes, each one made courtesy of the Dreepy hanging out of his head. With that settled, he floats off to hover somewhere behind the performance, content with having completed his work for the day.
Pebble is next up, the Rhyperior Digging into the dirt with a care most wouldn’t associate with a beast of a battler like her. She’d been ruthless in Leon’s Champion days, a steamroller of high attack and higher defense that even the most seasoned battler would find themselves struggling against, and yet here she is gently widening the holes the Dreepy had made with the most serene expression a Rhyperior could make. She was so entranced in her work, in fact, that she didn’t even notice the Space-Time Distortion opening up mid-performance.
Out pour a whole parade of Sudowoodo, no doubt confused and looking for a place to hide. Sensing an opportunity, Leon steps close to the parade leader and guides them, carefully, towards one of the holes Pebble had dutifully widened. This isn’t what he’d been anticipating, but… What better use for this new, freshly-prepared soil, than to provide a home for some pokemon in need? The Sudowoodo seemed to agree, if their hasty leap into the hole was any indication, and the rest of their parade soon followed. The few stragglers trail Pebble as she worked, even letting her pat down the soil around them and secure their new guests in the ground, and soon every unexpected Sudowoodo has found a place to settle and become part of a living forest on the performance floor.
Undeterred by this change of plans, Char flies in to join Duel above the terrain, moving into the next phase of his performance. His tail flame flares brighter once again as he launches into a beautiful Sunny Day, the ball of sunlight resting behind his head like a halo and spreading its rays across the stage. Some of the Sudowoodo jostle at the feeling of the warmth, twitching in their holes to stretch closer towards it, and the radiant light soon attracts a whole new plethora of unexpected guests: Cherrim.
A flurry of them comes rushing out of the Distortion, their petals flipping open to reveal the bright, excited faces of their Sunshine form as they bask in the rays. Some decide to climb up onto the scattered Sudowoodo, turning the normal tree-like appearances into something more akin to cherry-blossom trees. Others, less adventurous than their climbing peers, are happy to simply dance about in the sunshine, gathering underneath Char and bouncing from leg to leg as they smiled up at him. It’s… pretty cute, Leon had to admit. These Cherrim even have the kindness to keep their dance in time with the music playing, their stubby little bodies unaccustomed to waltzing but trying their best regardless.
Duel, apparently learning from Char’s example, takes it upon himself to coat both blade and shield in an elegant sheen of Iron Defense, the new reflectivity catching the sun rays and bouncing them around. His Stance Change ability activated with this, his shield snapping up into position and moving around the sunbeams even more. This delighted the Cherrim, who (attempted to) waltz their way over to these new spots of light, their petals fluttering excitedly as they did so.
Perhaps it’s their excited cheering that entices in their third and final guest: Hisuian Lilligant, stepping onto the floor with the most elegant movements Leon’s ever seen in a pokemon. She seems to almost float with every step she takes, never needing to correct her stance or second-guess a step.
It’s an honour to share his stage with her.
Duke taps his way through the Sudowoodo and Cherrim to meet her, bowing low with an extra added hint of Charm. He offers out his hand, which the Lilligant takes, and pulls her into a waltz that (unlike the Cherrim’s sweet attempts) is perfectly executed. Though a tap-dancer by nature, Duke is a gentleman of many talents, and he has no problems steering them around and through the dappled sunlight. Petals burst from the floor wherever Lilligant steps, tiny explosions of colour blooming all across the soil and covering the dirt below as she releases Petal Dance after Petal Dance, and Duke matches her enthusiasm with a Dazzling Gleam. The flash of light envelops them both, glittering with every colour imaginable and sparkling downwards to draw people’s attention to the steadily-growing petal carpet spreading across the terrainand impressively coordinated footwork of the waltzing pair.
Just as rehearsed, Pebble ends the performance with a Rain Dance as the music reaches its final stretch, the light drizzle mixing with the Sunny Day to create a rainbow, stretching across the width of the terrain as Duke and Lilligant’s dance comes to an end.
This was not what Leon had prepared for, and yet… It all feels right.
A barren, dried up landscape, transformed by his pokemon’s efforts and now blossoming into a pokemon-filled flower forest, complete with the illusion of some cherry-blossom Sudowoodo. It’s beyond anything he could have achieved on his own, even with his beloved pokemon here to assist, and yet he imagines such an outcome couldn’t have existed without his team first helping to lay the groundwork. Sudowoodo couldn’t take root in dried, withered ground, after all!
This had been a team effort, for sure. A perfect, if accidental, collaboration between Galar and Hisui.
His smile is brilliant as he bows, all of his pokemon following suit and doing the same. Even the Lilligant joins in, one of her leaf arms resting delicately in Duke’s hand.
❝ Excellently done, everyone, ❞ Leon says, glancing over towards the Space-Time Distortion as he does.
