Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring.
“Well,” Says the caller, half resigned sigh, half terse apprehension, “That’s that, then. Irida has signed off on the Professor’s proposed track-- on the condition that Basagiri’s actual quelling is handled within the clan itself. It’s not surprising; I always knew it was a matter that would run strictly along the clan lines. Lian will be involved, of course, helping with the balms we’re still preparing, but I’ll be handling the conflict itself.”
The sounds of the Heartwood around him are muted; it’s still teeming with sound, but those inhabitants are hushed and nervous as their protector rages in the woods’ depths. In the middle-distance, Lord Kleavor screams in rage and, for a moment, any ambient noise falls silent. The same holds true for the one-sided phone call.
Eventually, as life creeps back into the environment, Ingo continues.
“For all my complaints of missing a good battle, I’m actually very nervous. Even though modern battle etiquette hasn’t been established here, there are still courtesies you can expect from another trainer, and they simply don’t exist when your opponent is a wild Pokemon.” He hesitates, and then quietly adds, “There’s a portion of me that wishes it hadn’t been Basagiri first. While the wound isn’t threatening to tear open any longer, I still can’t lay comfortably on my back, and an alpha Scyther… as much damage as it can and has done, Basagiri can undoubtedly do worse.”
There’s a pause and then a small, almost helpless, laugh, “Although, compared to Crebase, perhaps this is the kindest angle of approach.”
He takes a deep breath, “The only thing for it is to keep to schedule; the less time wasted, the less there is to fret. If it really is the next stop on the route home, then I have no choice but to see this matter through.”
“...Wish me luck?”
Click.
---
A picture is snapped and then referenced many, many times over.
It’s of a diagram that details how to fold a broad, round leaf into some form of sachet. One of those very leaves can be seen poking into the frame, overlapping the instructions’ corner. It’s not the most intricate project-- the folds are simple and the end product will be held together with a measure of string-- but the construction matters since they seem to be meant for throwing and, more specifically, to break apart, releasing their contents upon impact.
There’s only a picture of the end result-- several dozen sachets, their quality widely ranging-- but Rotom does sneak in a quick snippet of how production went. It involves a lot of muttering under the breath, folding and refolding. At one point, a child in a wide-brimmed hat walks over, laughs, and then offers a hand. The help is appreciated, particularly in regards to tying the parcels off.
Rotom doesn’t risk much longer, lest they notice. It lays back down on the ground, ending the recording.
---
The Arc Phone shivers back to life, clearly without its operator’s knowledge, as the man sets foot in the arena it surveyed the previous afternoon. A stripe of light brown breaks up his usual dark color scheme, spanning from one shoulder to the opposite hip, where a woven basket hangs. From the angle Rotom has, the viewer can pick out the leaf parcels he’d been helping to craft earlier that day.
Though he steps carefully, there’s a stiffness to the way he holds himself, be it nerves or pain, and his hand tightens around the pokeball in his grasp. His head is constantly moving, on the lookout for the Pokemon that dwells here, and it doesn’t take much to find it.
Lord Kleavor drops from the Grandtree’s canopy, axes embedding themselves brutally into the ground before him.
The man is instantly in motion, defaulting not to the balms on hand, but the pokeball, using the secondary presence as a distraction to cover for his awkward movement. Alakazam blips from one side of the Lord to the other, holding its attention while its human changes track, and the first of the balms finds its mark against Kleavor.
The strategy holds until Kleavor changes its stance, engaging fully in battle, and while Alakazam gets a heavy Psychic in, the combined weight of Kleavor’s type advantage and overwhelming might quickly brings it to its knees.
Basculegion takes up the fight after it, hitting home with two Water Pulses back to back, and it’s enough to put Kleavor on the defensive; the glow encompassing his body wards off any attack for the time being.
While the two Pokemon engage, Ingo carefully angles toward the arena’s edge. It gives him the room to step out of Kleavor’s path when it charges him, and then he goads it directly into the wall on its next attempt. The time the Lord of the Woods spends in recoil gives him an opportunity to pelt it again-- aim precise even as he urgently backs away-- and Basculegion gleefully interposes herself between the two when given the chance.
As Kleavor’s rage ebbs just enough for him to become vulnerable to attack, he’s immediately hit with another Water Pulse. The barrage is almost comical.
With Basculegion covering him, Ingo begins to find a new angle of attack, trying to set the trick up once more. There’s fear in his eyes, but rather than darting around, he moves with a slow deliberateness, careful not to draw attention to himself while the Pokemon are exchanging blows.
Unfortunately, when Kleavor breaks away, shining with its fury, it doesn’t fall for the feint again, forcing him to turn his back and sprint in the opposite direction. It swings one of its mighty axes, but only catches a bit of fabric before abandoning its stance to give chase.
Across the arena, Basculegion-- wearing down, but still ready and eager to fight-- turns the other way to head the both of them off. There’s a flash of blue and green scales as she uses her very body as a shield, her species no stranger to powering through damage in the pursuit of victory. It means she goes down before she can attack again, but it also gives her trainer plenty of time to go on the offense, himself.
Magneton is up next, carrying the baton for Basculegion, and while it lacks the fortitude of an alpha Pokemon or the firepower of its full evolution, it’s able to accomplish a surprising amount while it’s active. The first of the two blows it takes makes it clear that it has a limited amount of time to make a difference, and it follows its trainer’s command without hesitation: an agile Thunder Wave promptly followed with Flash Cannon, and it’s enough to stun Kleavor for the moment. With the opening, it sneaks in another, stronger Flash Cannon before being struck down.
This time, Kleavor doesn’t waste a moment, swiping both axes through the air furiously and, rightfully wary, Ingo continues to keep the distance between them until it makes to close the gap, arms at the ready. When it does, he makes a sharp left hand turn, putting himself directly between Kleavor and the Grandtree, and stays there. Both hands go to the basket at his side.
In one fluid move, Kleavor follows the turn and uses that momentum to lean into its attack. Ingo lets himself drop beneath the axes, hard to the ground. It costs him time to get back up to his knees, but it’s time he’s bought himself: Kleavor’s rage combined with its velocity would have made for a lethal blow, but only to a human or Pokemon. What the Lord of the Woods has actually struck is the arena’s namesake.
With Kleavor’s axes safely sheathed deep into the Grandtree, Ingo uses his position to rip the basket from his side and shove it directly into the noble’s face. Unable to free itself and retreat, Kleavor has no other option but to breathe the balms in.
The glow encompassing his body begins to recede. It would be possible to attack him, but Ingo makes no move to send out another Pokemon, focused instead on his current strategy, and sure enough, the desperation to break away slowly calms. As the golden energy fades and its natural brown exoskeleton begins to peek back through, he takes the chance to lay a hand on one of its impossibly-thin arms, muttering quietly to it. The Arc Phone can’t pick the specifics up until Rotom draws closer, and by then, all it catches is, “--better than throwing an ultra ball at you, now isn’t it?”
When Kleavor’s struggling ceases entirely, he lets the basket drop and ducks beneath its arm so he’s no longer trapped between the noble’s body and the tree.
“Will you let me help you?” He asks, gesturing to its axes.
Kleavor snorts, and he seems to take it as some kind of confirmation, because he reaches out in full to assist in working the blade free. Even with the both of them focused on their task, it takes several minutes, giving those few spectators time to rush in.
The Lord of the Woods huffs and, before it breaks off to greet its warden, nudges the basket toward Ingo. He glances at it briefly, a brow twitching up, but quickly moves his attention to Lian and Kleavor. As the latter nudges the former in apology, his form relaxes and he lets himself lean a shoulder against the Grandtree.
Irida also watches the pair for a moment before walking over to join him. “It works.”
“Seems that it does.” Ingo says mildly, giving himself the moment to breathe.
“Can we calm Crebase using the same methods? I know it’s not fair for me to ask you to repeat such a dangerous task, but…”
“I will.”
Irida spends a moment looking at him, then her gaze strays to the side, where she reaches out to touch the deep gouges left in the tree’s trunk. “I’ve never seen battling quite like that before. It was incredibly intense.”
Unseen by the clan leader, the corners of Ingo’s mouth lift, briefly and involuntarily.
“It was.” He says, a note of inexplicable amusement shining through in his tone, “One might say it was a very, very serious battle.”
Unable to contain it any longer, he hides amused eyes behind the brim of his hat, and tries to stifle the laughter that begins to overtake him.
“Those are the best kind, you know.”
---
The Frenzy of the Lord of the Woods: Kleavor, the Lord of the Woods, seems to have been driven into a frenzy by a strange lightning strike. You must search for a way to quell his frenzy. COMPLETE
---
A snapshot is taken, displaying a slab of verdant stone nestled at the top of a basket. Beneath it lies a bed of caster fern pouches. In meticulously carved Hisuian characters, its face reads: Where all creation was born, that is the being's place of origin.