Hisui Catch-all

[nightyorb]

Who: Riz Gukgak and others
Where: Hisui!
When: July
Summary: Event catch-all. Will be adding more prompts as time goes on.
Rating: Hopefully rated for nothing worse than Riz's cursing.

Comments

Arrival - closed to Mando

[nightyorb]

Riz wakes to the chirp of creatures and the rustle of leaves and for a moment, just a moment, he thinks it might be Sylvaire, that he has done it, that he is back, and all he has to do is find the rest of the Bad Kids and go on with everything.

That moment passes quickly though when Riz realises that the creatures he can hear are Pokemon, and that the skin of his hands is still that muted pink rather than its normal green.

Sitting up, he takes inventory of himself. His clothes are torn and soot covered. Like he got close to an explosion, but he can't remember anything like that. In fact, the last thing he can remember is just being in one of the towns with Mando, trying to decide where to go next. So what has happened to him? And to Mando, for that matter.

Looking around, Riz quickly locates his briefcase laying next to him. It too is covered with soot, but luckily, Fabian has gotten him a sturdy one. A quick look inside reveals that his pokeballs are missing. Stolen?

Wait, had this been a Team Rocket thing? Had he hit his head or something and forgotten the attack? Though, Riz can't feel any tender, sore spots on his skull.

And also. Again. Where is Mando?

Collecting his briefcase, Riz rises to his feet and ducks behind some plant cover. He could yell, but he doesn't want to do anything like that until he is sure whatever (whoever?) happened to him isn't still in the area. He'll just have to find Mando the old-fashioned way -- successful investigation checks!

[singlespacedad]

There is a certain art to sleeping while wearing a helmet. It's not necessarily comfortable, but it can be done. Since he's been bunking with Riz, Mando has taken to wearing his helmet at night. It's not that he doesn't trust Riz, but more that he'd rather not take any chances.

The addition of Noodle to the team has helped. She likes to sleep behind Mando's head and under his neck, which props things up and helps. In any case, Mando has trained himself to sleep on his back, and rarely moves while he sleeps.

And so in this new world, he's still crashed out. The move here must have been very smooth, or it would have woken him. Rather than Noodle, though, he's got one arm tossed over his face. It's covering his eyes and forehead, but his jaw and mouth are very much visible. As is his hair, which looks like absolute dogshit compared to Riz's very nice 'do.

[nightyorb]

Not everybody can have really hot hair.

Riz creeps through the bushes, trying his best to keep his steps as quiet as he can. It's tough though. He might be a rogue, but he is used to cityscapes and building; not twigs and dirt under his feet. What he wouldn't give for someone to cast pass without trace on him now.

Still, he is a pretty good rogue, and even without, he manages to move stealthily enough. Up until he sees a leg that is. A familiar leg! Riz pokes his face out of the bushes and behold, it is Mando. Dead? No, sleeping.

Casting a quick look around to make sure nobody else is near, Riz creeps closer to Mando, jabbing sharp, boney fingers at his calf, his voice a low hiss. "Mando. Mando, wake up."

[singlespacedad]

That poke is all it takes to jolt Mando back to consciousness.

He lurches into a sitting position, his leg drawing back to kick whoever's prodding him away. His hands go for gun holsters that aren't there, and shit, why is everything so bright?

Mando has a split second of recognising Riz--and pulling back that kick--before he realises what's happened.

Someone took his helmet.

"Damn!" As quickly as he sat up, Mando is back on the ground, his arms curled in front of his face and his legs drawing him up into a ball. It's bad enough that someone saw his face, again; it's even worse to imagine that someone was able to get his helmet off him without his noticing.

[nightyorb]

Riz catches a flash of skin and the line of Mando's nose, messy hair and scraggly facial hair before he drops back again, covering his face with his arms. Which confirms that (slightly disappointingly) Mando does not have any cool scars under his helmet. He just has a face. Like people have.

"Are you hurt? I got my briefcase. I can patch you up if you are."

[singlespacedad]

No cool scars, sorry. If Riz is interested in scars, Mando has plenty on his arms, legs, and torso to show off, but very few on his head or face. Wearing a helmet constantly has its advantages, even if no one ever gets to see it.

"No, I'm not hurt." Mando doesn't uncurl from his shrimp-like position. "Do you have a shirt or something I can use?"

Riz is a good kid and all, but Mando isn't going to further disgrace himself by showing another person his face.

[nightyorb]

"Uh. I have my shirt. You know, the one I am wearing?"

Does Riz look like the kind of guy who has a lot of extra shirts on him?

Well... normally, yes, kinda, cause he can just shove them all into his briefcase. Here, where his briefcase has been nerfed by the uncool pokegods? It's a true struggle to fit everything he wants into his briefcase and spare clothes are not high on the list.

"Are you asking me to take my shirt off?"

[singlespacedad]

... right. In all fairness, Mando doesn't carry much in spare clothes either.

"No, you keep your shirt. Do you have anything I can use to cover my face?"

Towels, bandages, anything like that? If it comes down to it, Mando will use his own shirt, but he'll have to shoo Riz away first.

Withdrawal - open

[nightyorb]

Fun fact: Riz Gukgak has been consuming truly startling amounts of coffee since age four.

Less fun fact (for Riz, at least): there is no coffee in Hisui.

While it's true there has been some supply of instant coffee in Riz's briefcase, that can only stretch so long before it's all out. Especially with the aforementioned startling rate at which Riz consumed coffee.

Which means that a couple of days after their arrival here, Riz can be found laying face down on the ground in his tent. This isn't a comfortable 'sleeping face down' pose. This is a 'please kill me now' pose. A wooden Voltorb, about the size of a beach ball, sits on his back, slowly rocking back and forth and humming a cheery, buzzing kind of hum.

Despite the fact that his new owner is dying, Loggy is still absolutely happy to be here.

[instrumentally]

Rei patrols the camp to keep it safe from wild pokemon, but the distinction between wild and tamed seems blurry here. Danger in the grass, the sky, the land. It is familiar, having a mission, something that must be protected, but she is not certain how long this will last. How many pieces of the machine must be gathered so they may return home. What will become of this place once they are gone.

She hears a voltorb buzzing in one of the tents. Sees it rolling back and forth atop its trainer. She does not want to intrude.

"Perhaps I may be of assistance?"

She is not certain what assistance she can provide. And it is possible she may be dismissed. But she will ask, all the same.

[nightyorb]

The Voltorb chirps a very cheery greeting when Rei appears, even bouncing slightly on top of his dying trainer.

Riz, for his part, doesn't lift his face off the sweet embrace of the earth, merely groaning, and flopping one hand at Rei. Or the direction he presumes Rei is in, he is, again, not lifting his head to check. "Unless you got a magic way of obtaining coffee, nope."

[instrumentally]

"Could there be an equivalent available among the foods here?" She is thinking out loud, more than she is expecting an answer.

[nightyorb]

"Doubt it. Coffee is coffee. There's nothing else like it."

Oh, there are things with caffeine in them, but tea barely counts. That's like... barely any caffeine at all! And if they don't have coffee here, Riz strongly doubts they'd have Fantasy Monster Energy.

[tempredmental]

The Voltorb would eventually be approached by a Sneasel, which was watching the way the human was strangely lying in his tent. Humans didn't normally do that, did they?

Gingerly, the violet creature reached out to tap the human and see if it was still alive.

[nightyorb]

Riz is still alive. Unfortunately. He wishes he was dead. His head feels like it's splitting, and his body feels heavy, utterly lacking in any sort of energy to move. And you might think that would create the perfect recipe for Riz to actually get some sleep, but you'd think wrong on account of the aforementioned headache.

So all Riz does is give a grumbly groan at the poke, but otherwise, he doesn't move.

Loggy, on the other hand, happily chirps a greeting to this new pokemon. He couldn't tell you if this is normal behaviour for humans at all, but also, he doesn't care!! He likes this new short friend he has made and he will support him in any and all endeavours!! Even if that endavour is just laying face down and groaning.

[tempredmental]

The Sneasel considered Loggy for a moment, and then reached out to poke Riz again.

By now, Keith had taken notice that the Sneasel had wandered off and he went looking for him. Oh, hey... it's that kid who threatened his life on Allura's behalf. Also, the one who said he was a goblin and had a mom who was a badass. Keith remembered both talks, and had actually kind of liked Riz until he took things too far with the life threatening thing. Now, it was kind of this grudging respect and frustration.

Still, seeing him laying there like that being poked by a Sneasel made him feel a little bad. Was he sick or something? He walked over.

"Hey... you feelin' okay?"

[nightyorb]

Riz has just offered to shoot him! That doesn't need to be life-threatening! He could totally have shot Keith in a fleshy non-vital part of him. Like the dick. Or his fingers. You can survive losing a few fingers to a gun. Ask Riz how he knows.

(Biz, for the record, totally deserved those lost fingers, and looking back on it, Riz wishes he would've taken off a couple more)

"Yeah, dude. I'm just hunky fucking dory." Riz even lifts a hand to give Keith the universal OK sign.

Of course, one doesn't need to be a genius to figure out between the laying face down and the fact that he sounds like death warmed over, Riz is not being exactly truthful here.

[tempredmental]

Fine. It might not have been specifically fatal, but still pretty unnecessary in the circumstances, as far as Keith was concerned........

Either way, this posture was still rather concerning whether Riz was claiming he was okay or not.

"Right. Sure." He frowned a bit. The Sneasel poked again, right in Riz's side. "Are you sick or something?" Keith wasn't used to massive caffeine withdrawal like that. He tended to not like coffee himself. But Shiro was a caffeine hound, and Keith was beginning to think this might be the case.

Late with... very strong black tea?

[heartofalioness]

What's worse: being one person undergoing caffeine withdrawal, or a person with at least five friends undergoing caffeine withdrawal at once? Princess Allura of Burying Herself in Work is... trying to help at least, bringing over a steaming teapot and a cup to wherever Riz is currently flopped over.

"Here... I was able to barter some black tea from the guild. Apparently Jubilife Village's Security Corps swears by this blend."

[nightyorb]

Because it is Allura, and only because it is Allura, Riz actually put effort into the herculean task of flopping over, immediately wishing he didn't. The sun is so bright to his aching head, something which he tries to remedy by pulling his cap as low over his eyes as it can go. He's like, half an inch away from just putting it straight on top of his face like the world's worst mask.

The tea is... not going to do a thing. No matter how strong, it's still tea. It doesn't come close to the black coffee Riz drinks normally.

"Please just kill me."

[heartofalioness]

Yup, this has been a mantra among the caffeine addicts. He gets a nonplussed look for his suffering.

"Even if it was possible, I wouldn't want to." She likes you too much, Riz. Besides, you used the "f" word with her. "You'll be fine soon enough; have you eaten yet?"

[nightyorb]

"No." Riz's face scrunches in distaste at the thought of eating. "M'not hungry."

Which is as much a sign of a coming apocalypse as anything can be. Riz is always ready to eat. He might not be a goblin anymore, but he is still a teenage boy. But right now? Nah, his stomach just protests and cramps slightly.

[heartofalioness]

... Yeah no, that's not good.

"Are you sure? When was the last time you ate?"

[nightyorb]

Riz shrugs with a little 'dunno' noise because really, he don't know. What day is it even? When you are as much of an insomniac as Riz is, days are a very vague concept. Is it today? Is it yesterday? Who knows?

[heartofalioness]

A soft sigh.

"Let's at least get a little food in you. Maybe some rice or a little broth? It doesn't have to be a lot, but we need all the calories we can get out here."