#they're building it up to this mega spectacular

[pb-dot]

This latest Adventuring Party really drove home my favorite aspect of Brennan's DMing style. He genuinely loves seeing his players succeed, even against odds he considered to be nigh insurmountable.

Let's take the Last Stand as an example. Now, Brennan made no secret out of the Last Stand encounter being very hard, and for people who do not play D&D it may even seem like he overhyped it, but from a mechanics standpoint, the CR, functionally the difficulty rating of this battle royale was sky-high. Yeah, none of the Bad Kids went down, but that is entirely thanks to a combination of excellent strategic play from the Intrepid Heroes and some choice luck.

To mention some of the game changer moves, the Scatter spell really re-defined the battlefield more favorably for the Bad Kids, the disguise self was a value proposition because it split the flying monsters, which was the greatest threat to the proctor by far, in two, functionally halving the threat to the squishy normie, not to mention dealing with the mega-mosquitos in combo with Spirit Guardians. Those little flying bastards would have been such a pain in the ass if Fig didn't bug zapper them to kingdom come. And the bless. Dear god, the Bless saved so many asses in this encounter.

This isn't to say magic was the only thing that defined the battlefield. The single-target damage dealers did some truly astounding numbers and managed their attention and abilities shockingly well. Yeah, Gorgug crit like a madman, but he also tanked like three or four non-barb PCs worth of effective HP damage without going down even once. If he had failed his saves and gotten eaten by the Purple Worm things would have gotten nasty for him, but again, the touch of luck (and bless) saw him through.

So, this is all to say that this was an encounter meant to kick the players' ass. Not an unwinnable one, evidently, but this was supposed to be a considerably worse experience even without getting into the non dice-roll exam questions. And how does Brennan react when the Intrepid Heroes put their game face all the way on, get really smart with their level 1 spell slots, and dismantle the whole thing? He's overjoyed, he's cheering for his strange adventure children, and we're cheering with him because frankly it's rad as hell.

This illustrates one nuance I feel sometimes gets glossed over about the DM-player relationship. A lot of people have talked about how Junior Year is the "Revenge of Brennan" or what have you, and I feel that kind of misses the central appeal of DMing and Brennan's style in D20 in particular. Yes, Mr Mulligan enjoys playing the heel on occasion. It's good fun to play the personification of everything going wrong and the inherent shittiness of the world, but like the wrestler heels, all that wicked charisma is meant to do one thing, and that is build up the faces, or the players in this case.

Now, the ghost of Gary Gygax may come after me for this, but I firmly believe it's not the DMs job to kill the player characters, or even to inconvenience or torment them. A good DM's job is to make it seem like they're going to kill the player characters, as to provide an environment for the players to succeed, a challenge for them to overcome. It's all one big improv exercise (or kink scene if you prefer to view it that way), where the DM derives their (near)absolute authority over the world the PCs inhabit from the shared understanding that they're going to show the players a spectacular, if not on occasion harrowing, time.

This is Brennan's biggest strength as a DM I think. He genuinely wants to make a spectacular time for his friends, and he understands that to do that he must on occasion be the monster they oppose, and on occasion he must be their breathless cheerleader. On occasion, one imagines, he must also be both.

[spirals-within-spirals]

[Video Transcription Begins]

A clip from SBN 1, Sinnoh's main broadcasting channel. In Lily of the Valley Stadium, the largest and grandest battling arena in the region, two trainers face off. On one side of the field of packed earth stands Spiral, clad in their signature red and cream with pokétch at the ready. Opposite them stands a young woman in a gorgeous flowing silver ballgown, wide grin on her face and locks of dirty-blonde hair trailing down her back.

The crowd is cheering already as the announcers introduce the match. "It's time for the second quarter-final of the Lily of the Valley Conference, good folks, and this is shaping up to be a big one!" a deep male voice says enthusiastically. "On one side of the field we have Spiral Uxon from Ten'i Village! Sinnoh's least normal Normal-type specialist has thoroughly demonstrated over these past weeks that if anything their misadventure on Coronet has only made them stronger!"

A tinnier female voice takes over after the cheers die down a little. "They may have made quite a stir in the Top 16 with the spectacular unveiling of an unexpected Mega Evolution, but will that be enough to defeat their opponent today? Because on the other side we have Sally Starward from Oreburgh City!"

"That's right!" The male voice takes over again. "She's Sinnoh's own Queen of Steel, and a favourite to win this year - her skill with her type rivals Steven Stone! Will Uxon be able to match up to her, or will they be only a stepping stone on Starward's rise to the top?"

"And it's not an unfamiliar matchup to either of them - we have a real clash of rivals here today, these two go back years! Since the very start of their careers they've been going head to head, and we have the pleasure of hosting their latest showdown, here at Lily! Of the! Valley!"

The crowd erupts again with cheers as the referee talks to both trainers, and the announcers list the rules - a 6v6 single battle, all standard league rulings in place. A hush comes over the crowd as both battlers signal their readiness, and they each heft a pokéball - Spiral one that looks indistinguishable from a standard-grade pokéball apart from a thick spiraling groove carved into it, Sally one that seems to be made of fine silver.

They look into each other's eyes with a strange intensity as everything but them, their opponent, and the battlefield between them fades out of existence - to their minds, at least.

The referee signals to an Alakazam stationed next to the battlefield, and within moments a bright blue barrier flickers into life around the arena, fading into transparency after a few seconds but still present and capable of stopping anything on the inside from affecting the outside. The referee nods, signals the battlers, and blows his whistle.

---

A view from above makes the field look like an orrery - dozens of miniature planetoids the size of buildings, ripped from the ground and levitated by raw magnetic strength, thousands upon thousands of tons of rock hovering around a Magnezone whose mirror-clear surface shines like the sun. It seems to have stolen the light of the rest of the arena, which is covered in a strange darkness.

A Clefable giggles as she prances upside down and sideways from planetoid to planetoid, gravity a mere suggestion as she dodges Magnezone's attacks with milliseconds to spare, beams of blinding light and bolts of lightning that tear through her psychic shields like paper, planetoids that crash into each other and rend one another to gravel. She moves at impossible angles, throws up substitutes and illusions, teleports like mad, calling on all the tricks of the fae to survive, though the cloying darkness of the battlefield seems to inhibit her.

She retaliates with light of her own, tongues of strange fire, aura and darkness made manifest, but they're visibly far weaker than the Magnezone's attacks, and most are absorbed by hastily erected Light Screens.

In the trainer zones, Spiral's mouth is a constant stream of nonsense, coded phrases Clefable seems to interpret as commands. Sally, meanwhile, barely speaks at all, using only the occasional gesture or single word.

Clefable lands on one of the planetoids and shoves her hand inside the solid rock with little resistance, and it begins to glow with a pale pink light, drifting toward Magnezone. It faces itself toward it, but the rock seems to be beyond its control, flowing and reshaping itself into a pointed star shape shooting for the magnet pokémon.

So Magnezone glows for a moment, and then the screen goes completely white. When the cameras regain functionality, Clefable's shooting star is gone, though Magnezone looks to be shining a little dimmer than before.

Clefable seems unphased, touching down on another planetoid to fire off more attacks, but as she moves to infuse it with her starlight, iron shackles shoot out of it and wrap themselves around her feet.

Her immediate surroundings are instantly enveloped in an impenetrable Darkness as Magnezone devours all light and begins to radiate like a second sun. She disappears before the attack goes off, called back into her pokéball by Spiral. They seem unaffected, but their expression never changes from a giddy grin the entire video, so it's hard to tell. They grip another identical pokéball, and a massive Snorlax materializes on the field.

The screen goes white again as Magnezone unleashes its blinding attack on the newcomer instead.

---

A volume warning comes up as the video jumps to show an Aggron riding a tidal wave of stone - the remains of Magnezone's planetoids can briefly be spotted within it, fallen to the earth and devoured to build a throne for the titan of steel, over twenty feet from horns to tail. The rocks move like water, holding the titan high aloft as it crashes across the battlefield like a horizontal landslide and leaves the ground behind it a shattered ruin.

Aggron's quarry is a strange sight - the Snorlax from earlier somehow leaps over a hundred feet into the air, harnessing the wind to move herself through the sky fast enough to outrun the cataclysm behind her and for long enough she has time to sleep in mid-air before waking up to take another leap.

But the arena is only so large. Just as Aggron is about to catch up, Snorlax lands hard enough to open up a massive fissure ahead of her and stops dead. Aggron crashes into her harder than a freight train, only to find itself with the remains of a substitute hanging off its horns.

Aggron's earthen throne turns on a dime, and Aggron glances down into the massive fissure Snorlax dug up. Then it looks down at its own feet, just in time to see the earth erupt below it as Snorlax comes raging from below, landing a devastating Superpower that... leaves a small dent.

And in return, Aggron wraps its tail around Snorlax's arm before she can disappear back into the earth.

The reason why Snorlax has been evading Aggron becomes terrifyingly obvious - Snorlax is a titan in her own right, intensely strong and with monumental bulk, but in close quarters Aggron treats her like a chew toy. The sheer difference in strength is clear as day, and although Snorlax manages to dent Aggron's armour with several Fighting-type moves as she fails to escape the steel titan's grasp, the Head Smash Aggron delivers in return sends her flying and almost knocks her out in a single blow.

Spiral recalls her before she hits the opposite wall.

"C'mon Spiry, you can do better than that!" Sally chirps, her partner roaring its victory at a deafening volume. "A little rusty?"

Spiral flips her off, seemingly more for the pun than for the ass-kicking she's giving them, and sends out a massive Drampa with white fur and turquoise scales who roars his dominance as he rises into the sky. Aggron's roar is louder, yes, but there is nothing quite like the roar of a true Dragon.

---

The video changes again. The same Aggron now stands at the heart of a horrid storm. The surface of the battlefield, torn to gravel by it and Magnezone before it, has been swept up by a veritable draconic hurricane, thousands upon thousands of rocks infused with bluish-purple light. Cracks in the ground spew that same light, and the sky glows blood-red with draconic energies above the eye of the storm where Aggron stands its ground.

Drampa can be vaguely seen within the storm, acting as its beating heart. Its claim has been made and the battlefield is its domain, its moves empowered to the high heavens. Against a lesser opponent, this might even count as a win condition.

But Spiral isn't facing a lesser opponent. They're facing Sally Starward.

Aggron roars with defiance as countless rocks break off from the storm and rain down on it like draconically empowered meteors - they are outside its control, infused as they are with Drampa's power, but the earth below is still up for grabs. Spikes larger than Aggron shoot out of the ground, Drampa's meteor shower countered with one in reverse, but Drampa is prepared, taking the distraction to dive at Aggron like a draconic javelin and getting off a Dragon Pulse that looks more like a purplish-blue Hyper Beam than anything else, strong enough to visibly hurt Aggron despite the resistance. Drampa barely dodges a horrifyingly strong Dragon Breath in return.

It's a war of attrition from there. Earth Power and Flash Cannons and great gouts of fire are exchanged, and the sky seems almost more rock than air by volume. By the time Aggron finally falls, marking the first actual knockout of the battle, Drampa looks absolutely exhausted, though the storm still goes strong.

Spiral's technically in the lead, for now. But what did it cost?

---

A Lucario leaps through the storm with a martial artist's grace, jumping off the countless thousands of rocks that hum with draconic power, or creating solid platforms of aura when one isn't available. The fact that it's hundreds of feet in the air doesn't seem to bother it in the slightest, nor does the fact that the storm seems to be centering on it, blasting it with stone and fire and wind to blow away mountains.

It merely punches it away, its aura-laden fists allowing it to strike the storm itself, parting the fire and wind like a dike before a raging river even as it flips and pushes off one of the now quite few rocks not yet reduced to gravel to propel itself toward the Dragon at the storm's heart.

Spiral signals their partner and fire gathers in Drampa's throat, putting all his boosted might into a fivefold Fire Blast to intercept the leaping Lucario, who tries to pivot but can't quite avoid it in time. The resultant airburst explosion shakes the arena.

And Lucario comes bursting out of it a moment later behind a shield of aura, bruised but nowhere near broken, slamming Drampa in the back hard enough to knock him out of the sky.

Spiral's dragon may dwarf Sally's pokémon in size, but not in strength. Never in strength.

The storm begins to die down as the referee declares Drampa unable to battle a few moments later, equalizing the score, and Spiral's grin wavers as they sends out a Staraptor in his place.

---

A gnarled Ferrothorn stands its ground against winds to make a hurricane look like a mild breeze, anchoring itself into the ground with its limbs even as the winds turn hotter and hotter, gravel still imbued with Drampa's lingering power. The windmaker, a Staraptor barely visible as anything more than a blur, circles high above.

The air is thick with pollen, but it's starting to burn, and Sally frowns. Then she grins, and then she speaks.

"Ingrain!"

Spiral immediately changes tack at the word, and Staraptor quickly shoots upward, peppering the ground below with blades of wind. The commentators ooh and aah cryptically.

Ferrothorn, meanwhile sticks its vines deeper into the ground, and the battlefield is surprisingly silent for a moment.

And then the earth erupts. Countless thorny vines thicker than tree trunks burst from beneath the ground, and within seconds it's difficult to tell where the arena stops and Ferrothorn stops. Staraptor's blades cut through a few, but there are too many, far too many, and at Sally's direction they converge at the center of the field, burying ferrothorn completely as they wrap around each other and begin to climb into the sky.

The commentators call the technique "World Tree," though that is an incredibly charitable name - it resembles little as much as a demented beanstalk, or perhaps an inverted rope woven from thorns, reaching from the Earth up to the heavens to strangle the life out of its kings.

Staraptor attacks it, slashes at it, tries to burn it, but the thorns are tough as rock, and the damage he deals is repaired in an instant. It doesn't take long before the 'World Tree' reaches hundreds of feet in height, branching up and out and leaving Staraptor little choice but to rise even higher or to be caught in its grasp. The heat from its wings makes the air shimmer, but the tree refuses to catch alight.

Staraptor looks to the sky, and a beam of light shoots out of his beak, taking a few seconds to condense and solidify into an orb of warmth hovering high above the battlefield. The effects are immediate - the tree's growth accelerates from the source of energy, reaches ever higher, vines reaching toward Staraptor like a thousand thousand fingers, and it's all he can do to avoid them.

Then it catches fire.

The response comes just as fast, the flames instantly put out as water begins to leak from every pore of the tree, though it evaporates just as fast.

Staraptor dives, burning wings cutting through smaller vines like paper. His eyes flash with Detects as he performs impossible maneuvers to dodge the larger ones, and a pass through the burning bough lets him cut through the trunk itself, sending the top third of the tree crashing to the earth.

Then a vine catches him, and it's all over.

---

The commentators are laughing at the absurdity of the current situation - a Spinda runs along Ferrothorn's vines, somehow missing every single thorn. The tree still stands, vaguely, but it's clear Ferrothorn isn't focusing on it - rather, the roots of the tree are tearing themselves up, writhing like a nest of Ekans, trying to attack the little creature running along their length, and missing. By millimeters, yes, but missing nonetheless, which is deeply strange considering there are hundreds of them lashing at the thing, thick as tree trunks and circling like thorny whips, trying to hit the tumbling little creature that looks almost unable to stand up. Roots branch and branch again, trying to trip, trying to grab.

And yet Spinda is yet to be hit.

"This sorta situation isn't all that uncommon with rival starters," the female commentator says. "These two have probably battled dozens of times, trained with each other. They know each other too well."

"You've got to admit though," her counterpart says, "I don't think we were expecting a Ferrothorn-Spinda Weather War when we came in today!"

It's true - Spinda seems to have somehow taken control of the Heat Waves Staraptor picked up, reinforcing them, and each step in his wake, every spot he brushes by Ferrothorn's vines, leaves a trail of fire. Staraptor's sun still burns hot above, occasionally reinforced by Spinda. And in return Ferrothorn tries to drown the battlefield, every fire being put out within moments, and dark clouds look to be leaking out of the tree itself, rising toward the sky and threatening to blot out the sun. The 'World Tree' weeps.

Yet Spinda stands fast. Somehow. And he's winning. Slowly but sure, the 'World Tree' runs out of tears to cry as Spinda continues his dance around it, blocking every vine he can't avoid with quick shields or Substitutes, and flames begin to creep across its branches, burning out the roots. Smoke rises high.

A crashing sound is heard from beneath the rootbed and the vines fall still as Ferrothorn, metal scorched and badly hurt, tears itself out of its own creation, cutting its losses and flinging itself at Spinda.

And its own former vines reach for it, usurped by Spinda the moment it let go. Not enough to do much, Ferrothorn is far, far too strong for that, but enough to hinder it before it takes control again. Enough for Spinda to close the distance, striking with a series of flaming strikes hitting perfectly between its thorns. Ferrothorn thrashes and flails with terrifying precision, but Spinda puffs out of existence, another Substitute taking the hit.

Sally lifts Ferrothorn's pokéball and makes to recall it, but it makes a loud noise of protest. She seems to think for a moment before loweing her hand again, letting Ferrothorn duke it out with its old rival.

The video starts to skip through the next part of the battle, which seems to take a while - it's a battle of attrition, Ferrothorn attacking and attacking, but Spinda avoids whipping thorny vines, weaves between storms of spikes, stumbles out of the way of desperate rolls that would knock it out in a single hit. A stray vine hits him on the back of the head and knocks him clean across the arena, smashing into the barrier with a loud crash, though he recovers just in time to dodge a dozen broken branches of the 'World Tree' tossed like javelins.

When the view shifts to show the trainers, Spiral is visibly sweating rivers.

Gambit after gambit by Ferrothorn fails. It takes time, but eventually Ferrothorn begins to glow with an overpowering light, and Spinda reacts in an instant, burying beneath the ground as the screen goes white, Ferrothorn's finishing explosion briefly turning the arena barrier opaque from the strain.

When the smoke clears, all that's left of Ferrothorn's grand tree is ash. A burned and bruised and bare conscious Spinda surfaces as the referee declares Ferrothorn unable to battle, evening the scores again at two KOs each.

For how long?

---

Clefable and Magnezone are again facing one another on a darkened battlefield, though it's a far cry from their first clash. Both look worn down - Clefable's fur is scorched, and Magnezone's surface has lost much of its luster, and it has a large dent on its top side. It's not only the battlers who are hurt, either - what was once a standard-regulation battlefield of packed earth on stone is now little more than half-melted uneven piles of gravel and ash, and their strategies have adjusted to match.

Clefable tosses up clouds of ash to hide herself as Magnezone's one giant eye tries to get a lock on her, metallic cylindrical rods being magnetically flung at her at hypersonic speeds the moment she dares to stand still. A teleport and a gout of wild faefire lets Clefable distract it for a moment - long enough to do something incredibly strange.

Clefable glances up at false sun still hanging heavy in the sky above the two, created by Staraptor and empowered by Spinda, and reaches out. What happens next is disorienting - Clefable's arm doesn't extend in any way, yet she reaches far enough, hundreds of feet up, to grab the false sun out of the heavens. And then she swallows it.

Sally grips her head as her eyes fail to comprehend what just happened, and Spiral's grin widens. Clefable begins to glow brighter than the false sun, and Spiral shouts,

"Doris! SUPERNOVA!"

Clefable teleports right on top of Magnezone, receiving a hypersonic railgun shot to the stomach for her troubles, but it's too late - Clefable grins wider than her face as a conflagration of beautiful, deadly light tears itself out of her, and the arena is consumed by a glorious conflagration of fire and fae. When it finally clears both pokémon are unconscious on the ground, the entire area around them melted into slag. Three-to-three.

"Stupid Fairy taurosshit!" Sally yells, calling back her partner.

"Badass stupid Fairy taurosshit!" Spiral counters, doing the same.

They both take new pokéballs from their belts, and when the referee whistles they both release their new battlers.

On Spiral's side, Snorlax materializes, still hurt from her bout with Aggron but still standing strong, almost fifteen feet tall from head to toe, all rippling fat hiding muscle.

The crowd goes completely silent as Sally's pokémon appears, though. It would be hard not to, with the sheer *weight* of the pokémon that materializes on the battlefield - a giant of molten metal and exactly eleven metal hex nuts, towering over even the titanic Snorlax. The broken, gravelly ground deforms beneath its bulk. Spiral pales a little, and Sally grins wildly.

"She's breaking out the big one here, folks!" one of the commentators says with a cheer that doesn't fit the relative silence of the arena. "Laniakea, Sinnoh's only Melmetal and Sally Starward's undisputed Ace, has taken the field for the first time this year! Uxon's in for the match of their life!"

Spiral wastes no time, and Snorlax stomps the ground hard, causing the earth to begin to shake, plumes of raw power beginning to shoot out of the ground within moments, bringing literal tons of gravel and slag with them.

One shoots up beneath Melmetal, who doesn't show any reaction to the super-effective attack. It simply begins to walk toward Snorlax, deforming its liquid body to make each step longer. Snorlax flees from it without a moment of hesitation, shifting the ground beneath her to fling herself into the air, but Melmetal isn't as helpless as Aggron at a distance. Its body warps and deforms, swinging its multi-ton weight to fling itself into the air. Snorlax tries to dodge, but Melmetal stretches itself out as it spins in the air. It looks... incredibly silly.

Less so when a glancing blow is enough to send Snorlax crashing into the ground, and the arena barrier strains as it impacts it with a gigantic crash. The molten giant sinks several feet into the ground as it lands, and turns to find a five-pointed Fire Blast headed its way. It lifts one arm to intercept it, unphased, and the blast doesn't visibly move it even as the rock below melts.

Snorlax looks hurt from even the glancing blow, though she looks somewhat better after chowing down on a berry. She makes to jump back into the sky, but a sharp command from her trainer stops her.

There's a shift in the air, and Sally grins as Melmetal rearranges itself. the six hex nuts making up its arms drawing themselves into its torso and rearranging themselves, hollowing out the center until the pokémon resembles a living tube more than a humanoid.

There's a glow within the hollow, and the screen goes white as an iridescent beam, something like a Hyper Beam but a hundred times as blinding and crackling with electricity, shoots out of it. It's not a tube. It's a cannon.

"I've seen the thing named as the single strongest 'mon in the tournament circuit, you know," says the female commentator as the light renders the cameras useless.

"What, worse than Armand's Altaria?"

A hasty Protect does little to protect Snorlax from the blast - when the dust clears, she lies in a crater, fur scorched and barely conscious, though another berry helps take the edge off. Not fast enough to avoid Melmetal, back in humanoid form, getting in close range.

It easily lifts her up by the foot, its sheer strength making Aggron look gentle. Spiral yells something and Snorlax begins to glow with unbridled power, but a single punch ends it, slamming her unconscious into the earth.

"Depends on how you classify 'strongest,' I guess. Can't deny the raw strength of it at least."

"That you can not."

Sally's back in the lead - an inlay at the bottom of the screen shows her to still have Lucario and an unrevealed pokémon in the back, as well as the Melmetal on the field. Spiral only has two - a badly hurt Spinda, and, as is revealed when they call her onto the field, Lopunny.

A cheer picks up in the crowd as the bunny pokémon comes out. They all know what's about to happen. Spiral plays it up, lifting their Pokétch into the air as the swirling, warping energy of Mega Evolution grips Lopunny.

The sound barrier breaks the moment the transformation finishes, and Lopunny flings itself toward Melmetal with a snarl. Spiral screams out their commands, desperately trying to keep control, because if they don't... it's already over.

Melmetal lifts a fist to intercept, but Lopunny is so much faster it's not even funny, blurring around it and landing a sixfold strike on Melmetal's head, each blow strong enough to send out a shockwave, for all the good it does - Melmetal looks unperturbed, responding with a surprisingly fast punch Lopunny barely has to wherewithal to avoid. It instead slams its fist into the ground, passing into it like air and kicking up enough gravel to inhibit visibility.

"It's Ace versus Ace here, folks! That Lopunny's something nasty, but she'll need more than the element to surprise to come out on top! One good hit from Melmetal and it's over, I reckon."

Melmetal uses the momentum from its missed blow to start spinning, turning its torso into an axle with its arms out like a spinning top. Lopunny lands a few more hits, though she looks to be carefully only striking the hex nuts, avoiding the liquid body, but it takes only seconds before Melmetal becomes a blur, too dangerous to approach.

Lopunny backpedals, summoning fire into her palms and blowing it like a kiss to envelop her opponent in a gout of flame, but Melmetal's blurring arms bat it aside.

Spiral's eyes narrow, and Lopunny leaps high into the air - just in time for Melmetal's arms to erupt with twin beams of blinding raw electrical power, each weaker than the one leveled at Snorlax but still easily enough to melt the surface of the battlefield into slag as they sweep across the battlefield at speeds beyond what the camera can properly capture, leaving the molten surface somehow crackling with electricity.

Lopunny's ears glow as she flies high above the devastation, bursting with aura that breaks off and flies at Melmetal, impacting with explosions that don't seem to phase it. She dives as Melmetal shifts its rotation to sweep its twin beams of power into the air at her, fur scorching and burning as she barely avoids them to land a heavy strike on Melmetal's head, perfectly hitting its eye and pushing it back for the first time in the fight.

The impact causes the metal titan to sweep one of its arms through the ground like it isn't there, spurting molten slag hundreds of feet into the sky, and Lopunny quickly coats its six limbs with ice to protect herself as she comes in to land halfway across the battlefield. She looks tired, as does Spiral, panting heavily with a rivulet of blood running from their nose. Mega evolution is something to behold, but they can't keep it up very long.

Lopunny continues to pepper Melmetal with Aura Spheres as she blurs around it, dodging devastating beams as she tries to get closer. Spiral grits their teeth and screams something, and Lopunny snarls as she rolls herself into a ball, hurtling toward her opponent fast enough to cause a sonic boom, fast enough Melmetal can't react before she unfurls and lands a devastating blow right to its eye...

Only to get caught on the rebound.

The punch catches her from above at a dead angle and sends her crashing through the ground with a deafening boom, hard enough to leave a deep crater. When she becomes visible again, Melmetal lifting its arm for another swing, she looks barely conscious, and one of her legs is twisted at an angle that just looks wrong.

And yet, before Melmetal can strike again, Spiral yells something, and Lopunny's eyes glow before she falls unconscious, the Mega Evolution falling off her like it was never there.

But the energy remains, rising out of the crater and spreading across the arena. Spiral looks dazed, their eyes bloodshot, but their grin doesn't fade. One final pokémon remains.

The crowd goes wild as a barely conscious Spinda once again materalizes on the field, and Lopunny's lingering power rushes toward him, healing his wounds and rejuvenating his energy. He looks at his opponent, that titan of metal, and then back at his trainer, then back to the battle with a look of utter determination on his face. No words are needed. It's showtime.

Sally just sighs, gritting her teeth.

Melmetal's first beam impacts an instant later, utterly annihilating a Substitute, but Spinda is already gone. He emerges from the ground a moment later, glowing with Psychic power, and blasts his opponent with invisible force that does nothing visible but disturb the slag at its feet. In response, Melmetal punches the earth and shatters it, opening up fissures across the arena centering on Spinda, who uses his psychic power to briefly hover above the devastation even as the earth tries to swallow him whole.

Switch it up.

Spinda's eyes glow with a strange light, ripping away Melmetal's control of the earth with Disable and disappearing into it. The ground beneath Melmetal's feet turns soft, and it sinks down to its navel before freezing the ground solid and smashing its way out like swatting away a Spinarak's web.

Switch it up.

Spinda surfaces, fists wreathed ice, and dodges a beam as the arena begins to freeze over. He slides around it like an Eiscue toward his opponent as the frost begins to creep up Melmetal's legs, solidifying its liquid body.

The fire that bursts off the metal titan melts it in an instant.

Switch it up.

A beam of burning light shoots up into the sky, recreating the false sun from before, and Melmetal's flames begin to turn in on itself, usurped from the titan's control, scorching its hex nuts black until it rearranges itself into a cannon and blasts the false sun out of the sky.

Switch it up.

Spinda uses the opening to close the distance, tumbling around Melmetal's reconstituted fists and perfectly landing powerful blows on each of its eleven hex nuts in turn, and even as Melmetal begins to spin like a top he seems to almost accidentally duck beneath each spin, several times a second as the strikes continue, before Melmetal explodes with electricity, a hasty protect eating the bulk of the blast but still sending Spinda flying into the arena wall.

Switch it up.

Before Spinda even lands, he spits up enough water to act as a cushion and uses it to slide across the arena, leaping off to use it as a shield when a mighty bolt of electricity arcs toward him.

Switch it up.

Spinda's ears slam into the solidifying ground, slamming up a swarm of rocks that each impact Melmetal in turn.

Switch it up.

Space warps and twists in that signature way of Trick Room, but it doesn't stop, the twisted space winking in and out of existence to disorient Spinda's opponent while it moves as if nothing is off, closing the distance to land more hits.

Switch it up.

Spinda sets himself on fire, only for the flames to spread to Melmetal a moment later.

Switch it up.

Every time Melmetal tries to adapt to Spinda attacks, he changes them.

Switch it up.

Every move answered in kind.

Switch it up.

And little by little,

Switch it up.

The bird grinds down the mountain.

It's a small mistake that does them in. The ground shifts in a way Spinda wasn't expecting, and in the single moment of variance, Melmetal lands a glancing punch that knocks him out in an instant, crashing against the barriers with a crack. Spiral winces and recalls him.

"Spiral Uxon has no remaining Pokémon!" the referee announces as the crowd explodes. "Sally Starward is the-"

Spiral raises their hand, catching the referee's attention. Their gaze is fully fixed on Melmetal, still standing stock still after its final strike.

And then, slowly, like a skyscraper falling in slow motion... it collapses to the ground. Sally sighs, but her grin only grows wider. She's soaked in sweat just as much as Spiral is, albeit less bloody.

Spiral cheers wildly even as the referee continues to declare them the loser, the crowd cheering with them. And then their knees finally buckle under them and they fall to the ground, out like a light.

[Transcription ends.]

[citnamora]

The end goal of Miraculous really is just to convince you that any ship involving our heros is ultimately more interesting than the canon endgame couple

[newjaxxcity]

Seeing lots of great discussions about CatC on my dash and I wanted to interject my 2 cents without derailing anyone's posts.

I think Roman should lose. Honestly. I don't want him to, he could be champ until I die and I'd be cool with it, but I think for storyline purposes, he should lose. He says it in his promos all the time, he done run through the whole company. He ran through all the homies, no one can touch him. So he needs to get touched. WWE needs a MEGA babyface right now. Injecting Drew into that role elevates him and he'll get a built in rivalry with the Greatest Heel of All Time, super galactic mega boss bitch Sephiroph Roman Thee Reigns as his nemesis - rivalry for the history books. Drew has worked his ass off to get to the position he's at and WWE wants us to know that he's deserving of the mantle. If he takes the spot, Roman has such a VALID reason to go after him and the best heels are always the ones that are right.

I love Roman, he's SO GOOD at this and I would prefer a new guy come in and take the titles to get skyrocketed straight to the top unexpectedly on some Brock Lesnar shit fr. I think Johnny Gargano would be a great choice for that, but im thinking they're gonna build him up a different way. But yes, Roman losing the titles, going ballistic, fucking up his family dynamics so that they gotta beat the babyface back into him as a unit - the Usos, Solo, the Rock, Tamina, any other cousins - I think that would be spectacular.

Storyline wise, Roman has done everything with these titles, all great things come to an end, so it's best to end it in a good place.

But if tribal daddy don't lose, I won't be mad - ayeeeeee 😜😜😜

[host-shitposts]

hosts in fifteen years

red: cryptid

aj: lives on a farm in the middle of nowhere with his husband, Joey. his champion team is very good at harvesting berries/scaring off trespassers

girl A: joined the rangers because the recruitment poster promised 'adventure and excitement all over the world!' then stuff... happened... and now she's in control of the whole organisation

alice: globe-trotting adventure biologist. her life's ambition is to comprehensively survey every single pokemon in the world

napoleon: ALL HAIL THE SUN KING, LORD OF ALL SINNOH (EXCEPT SNOWPOINT CITY, THEY'RE REBELLING (AGAIN))

aoooo: would probably be a cryptid if she hadn't befriended the entire population of johto

jimmy: dropped out of the pro gamer circuit after an incident involving twenty litres of coffee. now training up his team to make another try for the championship

cly: last year, she left the spotlight at the height of her popularity, leaving behind some of the best music of the genre and legions of adoring fans for the third time in her life. the unova tabloids think she's building a cult

d: runs their own detective agency from one of their family's less ostentatious mansions

arty: regular on the pokemon contest spectacular circuit. is on friendly terms with a lot of evil team leaders for someone who claims to have left the underworld behind

abe: the public thinks he's an eccentric billionaire philanthropist. the international police thinks he's a dangerous potential future villain team leader of uncertain motive and ability. about eight different religions think he's a divine messenger or lesser god. he thinks he's a guy who makes maps

amber: HAIL SANAE! when not proselytising for her deity/younger sister, she works as a professional shouter-at-people-until-they-get-things-done for hire

athena: runs a dojo dedicated to normal-type moe. fully expects to someday train a pair of rivals who turn into enemies when one of them strays from the path of good

nina: brings sweet jams and sick beats to the people of hoenn from the top of the sky pillar. she's aware that the party has to stop at some point, but she's going to delay that for as long as she can

a7: took over team snagem and turned it into a police force/militia dedicated to protecting orre. his dream is to see his homeland bloom again, and while he lost the chance to make it a reality long ago, he can certainly protect the people who will

alpha: spent a good part of a decade travelling around the world on a journey of self-discovery. when he returned to orre he joined a7's team as a researcher to put everything he'd learned to good use

baba: de facto warlord of chengdu. first moe ever to mega evolve solo. acquired a pair of kamina shades at some point and never takes them off

original!evan: lives in a tiny village in kalos, where the pace of life is slow and the worst thing that ever happens is a bad harvest. keeps a flower garden

clone!evan: joined interpol to 'fix the world' and has made a name for himself as a dedicated if insubordinate agent

paul: mid-ranking engineer at an altru-esque energy company. it's not the most exciting job in the world, but it pays the bills

philippe: gave up on ghost hunting, because how do you top meeting giratina? draws a salary of stay-out-of-trouble money as a low-ranking civil servant, which he supplements with impressionist-style paintings

cyan: heir apparent to the thrones of kanto, johto, rijon, naljo, tunod, and whatever other regions her dad's conquered since she last checked. honestly she'd rather be a miner, but someone needs to keep the imperial trains running on time while lance is out antagonising napoleon

nigel: just got made top ranger! he's already off to pokeafrica to assist the local rangers in combatting smugglers

devin: was a flying-type trial captain until he aged out. nowadays he travels alola, helping trainers with their bird pokemon

x-man: last sighted three years ago in a region that makes orre look like a bastion of civilisation, still wearing that cardboard box