The Boulevard
6:21 AM | North up the street
His gaze was fierce as he enacted a particularly severe Mean Look, but he just as quickly dropped it.
Castiel felt it. It was warm, slick, sticky. Whatever it was that struck him, it was a stinging lash that touched the supernatural membrane that could be considered his skin, and after catching, dragged along like soggy sandpaper over his forced-shut eye, up beneath the brim of his brow, and then over its edge before the horrible feeling vanished.
It left the Mismagius stunned. He uttered a gag of absolute disgust when he got over the initial shock of the unforeseeable attack. The slimy trail that was left on him started to tingle, at first as if his cells were absorbing it in molecule by molecule and grazing nerves as they were drawn in, and then it started to feel almost numbing. A racking, involuntary shudder shot through him, right before a deft sensation spread from the course.
In a matter of seconds, Castiel went down, calling out from surprise as he collapsed into an upright heap, having lost his levitation in the moment.
He tried to catch his breath, but whatever it was that swelled with air within his ghostly frame felt a spear of pain, and he groaned out, restricted. Castiel was left stunned, alright. He was fully afflicted with paralysis.
Curses! What are the godforsaken odds…
He tried to twist around, and yet, his own body was giving him great resistance.
No, I can hardly move my body… I'm just a crumpled rag on the street… Maybe, if I...
Castiel did it without any hesitation. Exhaling all his breath to make the motion swift and bearable, he bent himself backwards, back arched as the top of his conical head hit the pavement. His eyes were wide and glimmered with a violet, sinister light before they flashed brightly in a Confuse Ray.
Little did Castiel know, the Confuse Ray affected not only his intended target, but also a small Absol peeking out from behind a trashcan, attempting to be sneaky. The flash and resulting confusion disoriented Silver, causing her to stumble out from behind her cover and giving a small "Oof," in exclamation. Trying to regain her feet on the hard surface of the street, she looked up and saw her boss lying on the ground. Not thinking quite clearly, she lurched forward, sort of stumbling forward as if in a drunken daze.
"Stupid...Kecleon…" she growled under her breath. She tottered about with clunky steps, tying to keep her sight straight until she found her target, or at least what she thought it was. Hovering on the sidewalk in front of an alleyway just a short dozen or so feet from where her boss lay was a jagged blue line--or more accurately three hovering blue lines, according to her fuzzy and swimming vision. She blinked a few times hoping to clear her head to no avail. Well, whatever, she thought, kicking up loose gravel with her hind leg as she charged up for a quick attack. She launched herself at one of the lines, only to pass right through her intended target and slamming face first into a street lamp behind it. She sagged to the ground, even more dazed than before.
Elsewhere, Gabriel was running down the alleyways around Forget-Me-Not as fast as he could. If that Florges ever went round out back of the store, she would start asking questions, and a certain Furret would probably start asking her when a certain Weavile would come back, or what he went off to do. He had to be safely on the other side of the street by then and hidden back round Spirited Away, or else bad things were prone to happen. He made his way to the edge of the alley beside Forget-Me-Not and glanced back and forth. It looked as if Goro was nowhere in sight, which meant it was time to move.
He braced his legs, ready to make an all out rush when he caught sight of something happening on the street itself. He could readily identify the purple ghost that floated in the middle of the street, and what appeared to be a smaller white shape that was moving about erratically. He knew better than to call out, but he made his way over, slowing to a creep as he neared. "Castiel?" He asked, making sure to not be too loud, "What are you doing out here? … Silver?" He raised a brow at the sight of the Absol looking to be, well, drunk.
"... Did you guys already finish the project and start drinking?" He crossed his arms in irritation, "Well… you could have at least told me before I left on my own!"
The eerie light from Castiel's eyes had vanished when the loud sound of a thick skull against metal broke him of his own trance. He was stewing in the fogginess of his mind after so suddenly being brought back out from a dark and bizarre place, when a familiar voice called out to him through the haze, mentioning his name, a precious metal, and then the last part of an accusation.
Castiel… Sil-ver… Gabriel…?
The Ghost blinked a couple times, hoping to bat away the dancing spots in his eyes as his mind and attention returned to the foreground. He gasped for breath despite his position. He wasn't able to fill his spectral lungs fully, as yet again his body was gripped with constrictive pain from the paralysis. He reflexively cried out from the aching, but took the initiative to be efficient and form words as he hollered out what little wind he had drawn in.
"Silver I said stay back at the store and Gabriel come help but there's a blue stri-...!" He blew out in one sitting and reached the end of his shouting before shuddering again.
Blast! This pain! Is paralysis really this strong? I haven't experienced something like this in so long... Quickly, he breathed in. This time, his status didn't hinder him.
"Blue stripe!" Now he could properly convey a solid urgency in his voice. "There's a blue stripe! Get it--it's an intruder! Be careful, it para--Aaargh!" Again with the pain, the back-bent Mismagius tipped over and fell onto his side, cringing.
Gabriel glanced about, getting close to his cringing boss at the same time. His eyes searched for this supposedly dangerous stripe. If it had been an hour earlier the dark blue stripe would have blended into the area, but since light was now starting to peek out over the town he was able to see such a blue line. Strangely enough this blue stripe didn't look to be moving, nor was it attached to anything. It just was placed against the ground. That was it.
"Um… Castiel? I see it, but it's not moving. Are you sure you two aren't drunk?" He glanced back at his boss warily.
"YOU DOLT," the Ghost managed to gasp. He wrapped his wispy limb-like protrusions around his body, clutching himself from the flaring plain from the paralytic restriction. Castiel couldn't believe that he, being in pain and nearly writhing on the ground, that his own employee was doubting him instead of obeying him completely and without question.
"I'M--Augh!--I'm on the ground in pa-a-in… Just… Believe me… Get the damned--"
Just as the coarse word slipped, something tickled down his spine. It wasn't a chill from his affliction or the cool of the pavement beneath him, but being a Pokemon who once floated effortlessly now forced to the ground, he could so intimately feel vibrations. Quick, steady, trodding beats, like the heavy footsteps of something portent.
Peering up past a confused Weavile and flopping Absol, down the street, was the unmistakable stature of a giant bear, barrelling towards them.
Castiel didn't know what to make of it all, not so quickly anyway.
"ARCEUS! OH ARCEUS! HA-GUH!"
Gabriel looked toward the sound as well, his eyes widening at the sight of the Pangoro. He instinctively took one step back and glanced over at the so called dangerous stripe, a look of confusion crossing the Weavile's face as he caught sight of yellow polkadots that suddenly appeared around it. Dots that suddenly bled green and zigzagged into orange hexagons or a pale pink pinstripe. The area around the stripe was morphing into various colors and patterns that shaped around a faint form of a body. Gabriel had to act fast.
"Oh, there's a guard coming!" Gabriel cried out in what could be his best caring tone, now that Goro rapidly approached earshot. "Hold on, Castiel!" The toned Weavile waved for Goro with an urgent flair, putting on a fearfully concerned look that may as well have turned genuine as the enormous sprinting Pangoro, for a moment, looked as if he wouldn't stop his thudding just to trample the whole lot.
But just a few skips away from the scene, and much to Gabriel's and a fretful Castiel's relief, the opposing bear skidded to a heavy halt on his heels before falling forward onto the pads of his feet again, correcting his posture and his slightly askew orange cap.
"KH-WABLUGH," Castiel forcibly wheezed at the bear. Gabriel quickly cut in with a more intelligible appeal.
"Guard! My boss and my co-worker have been attacked!" The dark weasel llunged an accusing claw at the sight of the color changing figure on the ground before him. "This is the culprit! He was invisible before!"
All the ground-shaking and familiar shouting from her boss and coworker lured a nearly knocked-out Silver back to consciousness. The little Absol opened her eyes, glassy for a moment as she shook her head to try and clear her mind. She tried her hardest to focus her eyes on the scene before her, but the sudden sight of Goro had her nearly faint again.
The formidable black and white guard's leer was so potent that making eye contact with it would smother someone with the looming dread of punishment. When those eyes finally set on that familiar blue stripe amidst the shifting patterns, the long arm of the law reached down for the accused. Goro grunted when his massive paw brushed against something he wasn't expecting. It was scaled and sort of spiny, but he nonetheless clutched at it, which seemed to cause an adverse reaction to the invisible figure as color suddenly melted out from Goro's firm grasp and filled out the shape of a Kecleon.
With a flick of the chewing twig crushed between his jaw, Goro locked his gaze with the psychedelically-colored lizard--though it couldn't hold the stare, its eyes instead twitching and rolling all over the place as its mouth couldn't decide whether to keep a smile or sustain a scowl. The Kecleon instead decided to titter when it was lifted by the top of its head several feet off of the ground to face the ursine menace.
"Give me your name," the husky voice thundered between clenched teeth.
The Kecleon answered by jamming its tongue in Goro's eye.
This did not amuse Goro.
"G-Goro!" Castiel called with a shudder and a gasp as he tried to roll over onto his front, bending his back like a bow so as to lift up his head. It was one of the only times his mouth was not obstructed by the collar of his cloak. Unlike other Mismagius, his mouth appeared to be in the admittedly and unexpectedly cute shape of a rounded "w".
"Goro, that's the thing you saw earlier! It… It got into my store! I foll-owed--" He took a break to suck in breath as the paralysis exerted itself over him. Goro peeled the sticky tongue from his eye with a forceful yank by his other paw, appearing unfazed by the action as his attention was now all on the witching owner. "Guh… I followed it… a Lick ambush… Paral-y-z-e-d…"
Goro's head flicked back to the plaid-patterned Kecleon, and in that instant, his face contorted into a chiseled expression of raw and absolute jurisdiction.
With it directed the edict: "Explain yourself."
It took the Kecleon a moment to answer, their eyes nearly focusing to one point this time, its lips pressed together as it hummed for a grasp at a thought. When the lizard finally did come up with something solid, it opened its mouth to preach its defense:
"Arf."
He jammed his tongue in Goro's eye. Again.
Other than Silver's two left feet and the unfortunately inanimate objects in her path, there was a deathly silence that hanged in the air for what felt like much too long. But when it was broken, it was by the crushing voice that couldn't save face any longer.
"You," he bellowed to the Weavile across from him, tearing the sticky tongue from his own face and gripping it at bay. "Take these two back to their store. Now."
He then turned to glower at the paisley-print, limply-squirming Kecleon, and with a snort of his snout, leaned in so close that his nose nearly pressed against the lizard's bridge before he growled the dreaded words, "You're coming with me."
With a groaning Kecleon in one hand and its dripping tongue in the other, the muscular embodiment of the law gave no further hesitation to deal with his capture, proceeding forward, leaving in his wake his hefty footsteps and the assertion that he was an authority beyond volunteership.
Watching the Pangoro stamp past him, Castiel then turned his attention to Gabriel.
"You heard the bear," he strained to quip. "Pick me up; get me out of here. And… get Silver too. Before she hurts herself. Again."
Gabriel scooped his boss up and placed him over one shoulder, then glanced back warily at the Pangoro before making his way toward Silver to scoop her up too. "Let's just get out of here before he gets too mad…" He muttered to her under his breath. He was quick to make his way back along the barren street, often forced to readjust his balance while a foggy Silver squirmed and fatiguedly threatened just what she'd do to those colorful designs if it were left up to her.
Neither she nor Gabriel noticed, but the Ghost draped over the Weavile's shoulder saw from under the wide brim of his brow the orange parasite that stood silently across the street, watching with milky orbs and an indescribably knowing look. They exchanged dead, blank expressions.
With all the luggage, Gabriel managed to make it to the front door of Spirited Away. He shoved it open with his shoulder, nearly stumbling a bit as he only half-expected it to be unlocked.
"We're… back!" He panted out as he dropped the two to the ground and fell onto his rump.
Silver rather unceremoniously rose to her feet and grumbled, "I could have walked back myself ya know…" She seemed to have mostly recovered from her confusion, although she was still a bit shaky on her legs, and her claim convinced next to no one. Her downcast eyes matched her mood, a bit depressed and dour, no doubt with how the battle earlier had played out.
Castiel, on the other hand, did not move. He had to regain his composure after internally screaming the entire trek back to store. When he had sufficiently sated his tortured soul with suppressed shrieking, he finally opened his mouth to speak.
"Put... me..." he hissed, "On... the coun-ter..."
Castiel felt it. It was warm, slick, sticky. Whatever it was that struck him, it was a stinging lash that touched the supernatural membrane that could be considered his skin, and after catching, dragged along like soggy sandpaper over his forced-shut eye, up beneath the brim of his brow, and then over its edge before the horrible feeling vanished.
It left the Mismagius stunned. He uttered a gag of absolute disgust when he got over the initial shock of the unforeseeable attack. The slimy trail that was left on him started to tingle, at first as if his cells were absorbing it in molecule by molecule and grazing nerves as they were drawn in, and then it started to feel almost numbing. A racking, involuntary shudder shot through him, right before a deft sensation spread from the course.
In a matter of seconds, Castiel went down, calling out from surprise as he collapsed into an upright heap, having lost his levitation in the moment.
He tried to catch his breath, but whatever it was that swelled with air within his ghostly frame felt a spear of pain, and he groaned out, restricted. Castiel was left stunned, alright. He was fully afflicted with paralysis.
Curses! What are the godforsaken odds…
He tried to twist around, and yet, his own body was giving him great resistance.
No, I can hardly move my body… I'm just a crumpled rag on the street… Maybe, if I...
Castiel did it without any hesitation. Exhaling all his breath to make the motion swift and bearable, he bent himself backwards, back arched as the top of his conical head hit the pavement. His eyes were wide and glimmered with a violet, sinister light before they flashed brightly in a Confuse Ray.
Little did Castiel know, the Confuse Ray affected not only his intended target, but also a small Absol peeking out from behind a trashcan, attempting to be sneaky. The flash and resulting confusion disoriented Silver, causing her to stumble out from behind her cover and giving a small "Oof," in exclamation. Trying to regain her feet on the hard surface of the street, she looked up and saw her boss lying on the ground. Not thinking quite clearly, she lurched forward, sort of stumbling forward as if in a drunken daze.
"Stupid...Kecleon…" she growled under her breath. She tottered about with clunky steps, tying to keep her sight straight until she found her target, or at least what she thought it was. Hovering on the sidewalk in front of an alleyway just a short dozen or so feet from where her boss lay was a jagged blue line--or more accurately three hovering blue lines, according to her fuzzy and swimming vision. She blinked a few times hoping to clear her head to no avail. Well, whatever, she thought, kicking up loose gravel with her hind leg as she charged up for a quick attack. She launched herself at one of the lines, only to pass right through her intended target and slamming face first into a street lamp behind it. She sagged to the ground, even more dazed than before.
Elsewhere, Gabriel was running down the alleyways around Forget-Me-Not as fast as he could. If that Florges ever went round out back of the store, she would start asking questions, and a certain Furret would probably start asking her when a certain Weavile would come back, or what he went off to do. He had to be safely on the other side of the street by then and hidden back round Spirited Away, or else bad things were prone to happen. He made his way to the edge of the alley beside Forget-Me-Not and glanced back and forth. It looked as if Goro was nowhere in sight, which meant it was time to move.
He braced his legs, ready to make an all out rush when he caught sight of something happening on the street itself. He could readily identify the purple ghost that floated in the middle of the street, and what appeared to be a smaller white shape that was moving about erratically. He knew better than to call out, but he made his way over, slowing to a creep as he neared. "Castiel?" He asked, making sure to not be too loud, "What are you doing out here? … Silver?" He raised a brow at the sight of the Absol looking to be, well, drunk.
"... Did you guys already finish the project and start drinking?" He crossed his arms in irritation, "Well… you could have at least told me before I left on my own!"
The eerie light from Castiel's eyes had vanished when the loud sound of a thick skull against metal broke him of his own trance. He was stewing in the fogginess of his mind after so suddenly being brought back out from a dark and bizarre place, when a familiar voice called out to him through the haze, mentioning his name, a precious metal, and then the last part of an accusation.
Castiel… Sil-ver… Gabriel…?
The Ghost blinked a couple times, hoping to bat away the dancing spots in his eyes as his mind and attention returned to the foreground. He gasped for breath despite his position. He wasn't able to fill his spectral lungs fully, as yet again his body was gripped with constrictive pain from the paralysis. He reflexively cried out from the aching, but took the initiative to be efficient and form words as he hollered out what little wind he had drawn in.
"Silver I said stay back at the store and Gabriel come help but there's a blue stri-...!" He blew out in one sitting and reached the end of his shouting before shuddering again.
Blast! This pain! Is paralysis really this strong? I haven't experienced something like this in so long... Quickly, he breathed in. This time, his status didn't hinder him.
"Blue stripe!" Now he could properly convey a solid urgency in his voice. "There's a blue stripe! Get it--it's an intruder! Be careful, it para--Aaargh!" Again with the pain, the back-bent Mismagius tipped over and fell onto his side, cringing.
Gabriel glanced about, getting close to his cringing boss at the same time. His eyes searched for this supposedly dangerous stripe. If it had been an hour earlier the dark blue stripe would have blended into the area, but since light was now starting to peek out over the town he was able to see such a blue line. Strangely enough this blue stripe didn't look to be moving, nor was it attached to anything. It just was placed against the ground. That was it.
"Um… Castiel? I see it, but it's not moving. Are you sure you two aren't drunk?" He glanced back at his boss warily.
"YOU DOLT," the Ghost managed to gasp. He wrapped his wispy limb-like protrusions around his body, clutching himself from the flaring plain from the paralytic restriction. Castiel couldn't believe that he, being in pain and nearly writhing on the ground, that his own employee was doubting him instead of obeying him completely and without question.
"I'M--Augh!--I'm on the ground in pa-a-in… Just… Believe me… Get the damned--"
Just as the coarse word slipped, something tickled down his spine. It wasn't a chill from his affliction or the cool of the pavement beneath him, but being a Pokemon who once floated effortlessly now forced to the ground, he could so intimately feel vibrations. Quick, steady, trodding beats, like the heavy footsteps of something portent.
Peering up past a confused Weavile and flopping Absol, down the street, was the unmistakable stature of a giant bear, barrelling towards them.
Castiel didn't know what to make of it all, not so quickly anyway.
"ARCEUS! OH ARCEUS! HA-GUH!"
Gabriel looked toward the sound as well, his eyes widening at the sight of the Pangoro. He instinctively took one step back and glanced over at the so called dangerous stripe, a look of confusion crossing the Weavile's face as he caught sight of yellow polkadots that suddenly appeared around it. Dots that suddenly bled green and zigzagged into orange hexagons or a pale pink pinstripe. The area around the stripe was morphing into various colors and patterns that shaped around a faint form of a body. Gabriel had to act fast.
"Oh, there's a guard coming!" Gabriel cried out in what could be his best caring tone, now that Goro rapidly approached earshot. "Hold on, Castiel!" The toned Weavile waved for Goro with an urgent flair, putting on a fearfully concerned look that may as well have turned genuine as the enormous sprinting Pangoro, for a moment, looked as if he wouldn't stop his thudding just to trample the whole lot.
But just a few skips away from the scene, and much to Gabriel's and a fretful Castiel's relief, the opposing bear skidded to a heavy halt on his heels before falling forward onto the pads of his feet again, correcting his posture and his slightly askew orange cap.
"KH-WABLUGH," Castiel forcibly wheezed at the bear. Gabriel quickly cut in with a more intelligible appeal.
"Guard! My boss and my co-worker have been attacked!" The dark weasel llunged an accusing claw at the sight of the color changing figure on the ground before him. "This is the culprit! He was invisible before!"
All the ground-shaking and familiar shouting from her boss and coworker lured a nearly knocked-out Silver back to consciousness. The little Absol opened her eyes, glassy for a moment as she shook her head to try and clear her mind. She tried her hardest to focus her eyes on the scene before her, but the sudden sight of Goro had her nearly faint again.
The formidable black and white guard's leer was so potent that making eye contact with it would smother someone with the looming dread of punishment. When those eyes finally set on that familiar blue stripe amidst the shifting patterns, the long arm of the law reached down for the accused. Goro grunted when his massive paw brushed against something he wasn't expecting. It was scaled and sort of spiny, but he nonetheless clutched at it, which seemed to cause an adverse reaction to the invisible figure as color suddenly melted out from Goro's firm grasp and filled out the shape of a Kecleon.
With a flick of the chewing twig crushed between his jaw, Goro locked his gaze with the psychedelically-colored lizard--though it couldn't hold the stare, its eyes instead twitching and rolling all over the place as its mouth couldn't decide whether to keep a smile or sustain a scowl. The Kecleon instead decided to titter when it was lifted by the top of its head several feet off of the ground to face the ursine menace.
"Give me your name," the husky voice thundered between clenched teeth.
The Kecleon answered by jamming its tongue in Goro's eye.
This did not amuse Goro.
"G-Goro!" Castiel called with a shudder and a gasp as he tried to roll over onto his front, bending his back like a bow so as to lift up his head. It was one of the only times his mouth was not obstructed by the collar of his cloak. Unlike other Mismagius, his mouth appeared to be in the admittedly and unexpectedly cute shape of a rounded "w".
"Goro, that's the thing you saw earlier! It… It got into my store! I foll-owed--" He took a break to suck in breath as the paralysis exerted itself over him. Goro peeled the sticky tongue from his eye with a forceful yank by his other paw, appearing unfazed by the action as his attention was now all on the witching owner. "Guh… I followed it… a Lick ambush… Paral-y-z-e-d…"
Goro's head flicked back to the plaid-patterned Kecleon, and in that instant, his face contorted into a chiseled expression of raw and absolute jurisdiction.
With it directed the edict: "Explain yourself."
It took the Kecleon a moment to answer, their eyes nearly focusing to one point this time, its lips pressed together as it hummed for a grasp at a thought. When the lizard finally did come up with something solid, it opened its mouth to preach its defense:
"Arf."
He jammed his tongue in Goro's eye. Again.
Other than Silver's two left feet and the unfortunately inanimate objects in her path, there was a deathly silence that hanged in the air for what felt like much too long. But when it was broken, it was by the crushing voice that couldn't save face any longer.
"You," he bellowed to the Weavile across from him, tearing the sticky tongue from his own face and gripping it at bay. "Take these two back to their store. Now."
He then turned to glower at the paisley-print, limply-squirming Kecleon, and with a snort of his snout, leaned in so close that his nose nearly pressed against the lizard's bridge before he growled the dreaded words, "You're coming with me."
With a groaning Kecleon in one hand and its dripping tongue in the other, the muscular embodiment of the law gave no further hesitation to deal with his capture, proceeding forward, leaving in his wake his hefty footsteps and the assertion that he was an authority beyond volunteership.
Watching the Pangoro stamp past him, Castiel then turned his attention to Gabriel.
"You heard the bear," he strained to quip. "Pick me up; get me out of here. And… get Silver too. Before she hurts herself. Again."
Gabriel scooped his boss up and placed him over one shoulder, then glanced back warily at the Pangoro before making his way toward Silver to scoop her up too. "Let's just get out of here before he gets too mad…" He muttered to her under his breath. He was quick to make his way back along the barren street, often forced to readjust his balance while a foggy Silver squirmed and fatiguedly threatened just what she'd do to those colorful designs if it were left up to her.
Neither she nor Gabriel noticed, but the Ghost draped over the Weavile's shoulder saw from under the wide brim of his brow the orange parasite that stood silently across the street, watching with milky orbs and an indescribably knowing look. They exchanged dead, blank expressions.
With all the luggage, Gabriel managed to make it to the front door of Spirited Away. He shoved it open with his shoulder, nearly stumbling a bit as he only half-expected it to be unlocked.
"We're… back!" He panted out as he dropped the two to the ground and fell onto his rump.
Silver rather unceremoniously rose to her feet and grumbled, "I could have walked back myself ya know…" She seemed to have mostly recovered from her confusion, although she was still a bit shaky on her legs, and her claim convinced next to no one. Her downcast eyes matched her mood, a bit depressed and dour, no doubt with how the battle earlier had played out.
Castiel, on the other hand, did not move. He had to regain his composure after internally screaming the entire trek back to store. When he had sufficiently sated his tortured soul with suppressed shrieking, he finally opened his mouth to speak.
"Put... me..." he hissed, "On... the coun-ter..."
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