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Hector felt a rush of adrenaline and confidence, a welcomed change from the cocktail of confusion and frustration he had been dealing with since opening his eyes to find himself in the body of a chibi-sized spartan troop. It coursed through his veins like the first sip of hot chocolate on a chilly day, making him feel tingly and warm all over, and causing such a massive surge of energy that the troopers practically vibrated. “You don’t even have to fight us. We’re just trying to pass through here. Don’t make us—blarghwwwhfg!” The rest of what was surely a grand speech was lost when Staryu threw itself forward to latch onto the face of the Brass. Hector was completely disoriented. His vision became a blinding glow of red light, and dull pain exploded across his body in strips, like someone had lashed him with a fistful of belts. “Rgmhgh!” The voice of the Brass was muffled by something. The troopers spoke in a de-synced cacophony that made what he was trying to say incomprehensible. Another wave of pain came, this time much weaker, but still in five segments. The red light that consumed his vision flashed again. Hector tried to paw at his face with his shields to no avail. The troopers all started to move toward the Brass but bumped into each other and stumbled backwards. Calm down. I gotta calm down or I’m gonna end up knocking myself out at this rate. He was surprised to find how adept he was at calming himself. Hector H (the Brass) stopped squirming, and then the troopers climbed back to their feet and snapped their shields up into place, their eyes narrowed into thin little ice chips all locked onto the Brass. Hector’s vision suddenly shifted; everything he saw was like looking through a red lens, but now, he could look through the eyes of the troopers to see that Staryu had latched itself onto the Brass’ face. Guess that explains that. Still… The Staryu squeezed again. It was more annoying than it was painful. Hector H tried to peel one of the limbs off again to no avail. “Lgmg hmlp gr?” The Brass remained incomprehensible—the troopers, however, were once again synced. “Little help guys?” they chimed. About that time Noibat launched a strong gust of wind at him. It threatened to lift all of them off the ground… but it was also peeling the Staryu’s tentacles off him. “Keep going!” he shouted. He rushed the troopers forward and dogpiled them onto the Brass, anchoring it to the ground, and finally Staryu was sent flying away. Hector sighed in relief. His senses cleared and the feeling of being squeezed and seeing an eerie red light stopped almost instantly. All these guys must be synced up somehow. Makes sense I guess. So one sprained ankle is actually six sprained ankles. The thought made him shudder. Sprained ankles were his arch-enemy. “Thanks Noibat. I owe you one. I was about to lose my mind,” Hector shouted up to the Flying-type as he untangled the pile of Falinks. He hurried and got ready to join the battle again, but found that it ended almost as fast as it started once the rest arrived. All that was left was the Cleffa that was engaging the Clobbopus. Hector waddled up to them. His face (the face of the Brass) was scratched up and dirty, but he tried to offer what passed for a Falinks smile. “Hey. We really don’t wanna fight you Cleffa,” he said. “You are a Cleffa, right? That means you must still be pretty young. Way too young to be fighting people. Fighting,” he gestured to his face with one of his shields, “sucks. And it hurts. So why don’t we just get along instead?” Cleffa shrank back in fear and let out a warbling cry. It looked terrified, and Hector was unsure if it even understood him. His heart broke for the little Pokémon. He took a step back and had the rest of the troop put some distance between them. “You,” he gestured at the Cleffa with one shield very slowly. “Us,” he swept his other shield towards the rest of the group. “Ohana.” Then he once again tried to smile in a comforting manner. “It means family." He really wished there was more he could do than reference Lilo & Stitch. Why did he so vividly remember that movie?

Raki's attention was quickly yanked away by the sudden scream coming from the house, and the noise. He hurried to the entrance, half of whose occupants were swiftly going up the stairs, while the knight was aiding a man on the ground, presumably the source of the commotion. Besides the broken door, that is. As he made his way into the building, Raki recognized the corpulent individual. Hard not to notice, once from an angle not covered by Gunther. Unlike the name, his aspect was hardly one hard to remember, after all. He made to reach the stairs, then stopped, looking up where the other two had disappeared to, then towards the man, busy in thanks. They seemed to be keeping him busy, so he probably should have followed the other up the stairs... Then again, the priority of the rest of this group, as he understood it, wasn't the same as his... Then again, he had offered his aid to them... "Huh, did I miss the others? Oh no oh no oh no, that's no good!" Oh, right He was overthinking it Raki interrupted his train of thought. Why had he come here? He moved between the man and the stairs, determined to not let the man pass if it came to that. Right Just focus on what's in front of you, things may well work out "I'm Raki, pleased to meet you. Hanikap, right?" Well, he was quite sure. But it would have been embarrassing if the the man had had a twin or something. "I'd like to ask you a couple of questions."