video;

[shiro2hero]

[It's the Indigo Plateau. Still cold, still looking as chilly and mountainous as ever. With a notable exception - namely, a bedraggled-looking Shiro and his equally bedraggled team of pokemon. They're all crowding around him, trying to get a look at the camera.]

[Shiro is... grinning? Widely. He looks happier than he's looked in a long time, with one arm slung around his Aggron's broad neck, the other holding the camera out as far as possible.]

- Okay, okay! Come on. It's recording, guys, get in here.

[Umbreon hops up onto his shoulder, fur a little singed, sticking up in weird places. Marowak peers up from the bottom of the screen - helmet dinged and nicked in places. Gallade wiggles in, Gengar waving delightedly - lifting its hand up over the top of Gallade's head. Which... means Incineroar just flat out picks up Gallade to get in on this too, all of them squishing in with their Trainer like it's a big class photo.]

Hi everyone. Long time no chat. We've been busy up here... had a bad run first off, but the team pulled it together. They pulled it together really well.

[With a chorus of Pokemon agreement.]

And that means?

You're looking at the 13th Champions of the League.

[More loud, boistrous Pokemon cheering. Incineroar ends up dropping Gallade to scoop Shiro up instead. There's not much else he can do - and ends up fumbling the 'gear. It lands face-up, thankfully, for more shots of celebrating Pokemon.]

[Celebrating pokemon and Shiro's bemused, final statement - ]

... guys, we need to go back and apologize to Bruno again. Calm - calm down a minute! You didn't let me say it on the recording - !

[/END FEED.]




[Except for a final text.]

Formal apology goes to Bruno. Again. I swear I can count to four.

Comments

[fingersandteeth]

Oh nice. Does that mean you'll have an astronomy gym?

[shiro2hero]

Space, actually, I think.

Haven't thought much beyond location yet! We were focused on just getting to this point.

[fingersandteeth]

That's completely fair.

Honestly, it's not like I'm completely sure what I'll do after I challenge the Elite Four either.

[shiro2hero]

I hear people like to take vacations afterward. The payoff is definitely enough for it.

[fingersandteeth]

We do still have our boat tickets from Blue's Elite battle...

[shiro2hero]

Ah... yeah.

There you go then. There's an option.

[fingersandteeth]

Yeah. Though I probably should wait a while, really. We'll already have left the girls to run Fight Club alone for three weeks at that point.

[shiro2hero]

Fight... Club?

[You know, somehow, in all the Elite Four planning and all the disappearances on Team Voltron, he'd sort of forgotten about that. Give him a second -]

Ah, yeah. I remember now.

Well - the ticket doesn't expire, right?

[fingersandteeth]

Right. So I'll wait a bit. I mean, I won't be headed down Victory Road until late April, probably. After what happened to you, I definitely don't want to make the trip until it's warmer.

[shiro2hero]

... In Victory Road's defense, I wasn't really prepared for how cold.

But, yeah. Probably a good plan.

[fingersandteeth]

And I'm from Southern California, Shiro. I do badly enough with winter snow when I have nice warm buildings to stay inside.

That said, I am glad you're better.

[shiro2hero]

In that case, I'm surprised you know what snow is.

[Shiro that's not funny. Don't tease people about California.]

Yeah, me too. And for what it's worth, if Armin warns you about weather, listen to Armin.

[fingersandteeth]

I mean, we do have snow. It just stays where it's supposed to: in the mountains. Winter's supposed to be the rainy season, not... whatever this is. The snowy season?

... but yeah. Listening to Armin is probably a good idea on general.

[shiro2hero]

Oh yeah? And here I thought California was just one big beach. [He's hilarious.] It's just winter. Regular winter.

It definitely is. More often than not.

[fingersandteeth]

Only on the coast. The sand doesn't extend that far inland.

[shiro2hero]

Well. Shows you how often I got to Southern California.

[Not at all, in other words.]

[fingersandteeth]

Or California at all. [But it's said gently, almost teasingly.]

[shiro2hero]

Nope.

We were way more Southwest than west coast.

[fingersandteeth]

[Well, Arizona is one of those places people go when California is too expensive for them.]

And I haven't been out in the southwest all that often. I've seen some pictures, though—there's some amazing geography out there.

[shiro2hero]

Probably -

I've got to admit, I didn't pay much attention to the ground while I was out there.

[fingersandteeth]

Ah, well. Mostly it's just crazy rock formations. They look a lot like alien planets from Calvin & Hobbes comics.

[shiro2hero]

Ah yeah, those. I remember those.

They definitely made for some big obstacles to race around.

[fingersandteeth]

You ran foot races around them? Or drag races?

[shiro2hero]

Kind of like drag races?

Hoverbike races.

not here

[schachmeister]

[What would Armin Do?]