Friede:

— He's 33 when the series starts, and was 23 when he met Cap and ended up forming the Rising Volt Tacklers.

— He's claustrophobic, though it's not severe; he can handle being in average sized rooms with the door closed, and in tents. But if it was something the size of, say, a closet, his phobia would be triggered.

— He knows how to, and enjoys playing, the acoustic guitar. It's not uncommon for him to play for the crew at night when they're all relaxing and having a good time, letting the others make up words to whatever random melodies he plays.

— He's a thrill-seeker / adrenaline junkie, naturally drawn to things like skydiving or spelunking in caves specifically noted to be dangerous. However, he toned down this behavior a lot when the kids came on board, since he didn't want to negatively influence them.

— He has a tattoo of the Rising Volt Tacklers' symbol, on his chest above his heart. This is both because he feels that traveling the world on the Brave Asagi is his one true calling in life, and also because he considers the crew to be his family.

— He insisted that Cap be on the title of the Brave Asagi as the primary owner. Cap signed the title with a paw print. Landau is the secondary owner (since it was originally his ship), Orio is third (since she built it), and Friede himself is fourth.

Orio:

— She's 33 when the series starts, and was 23 when she first built the Brave Asagi.

— She can drink every other adult crew member of the Rising Volt Tacklers under the table and has before, on several occasions.

— She has an excellent singing voice, though she doesn't think very much of it. She often sings while she's working on the ship or her other projects, or when Friede is playing his guitar and the rest of the crew is singing along.

— She's decent at styling hair, and helps the crew with haircuts and the like when they're far from any actual salon. When they were kids, she would dye hers and Friede's hair with kool-aid; with Friede's hair being white, they were able to color it any color of the rainbow, and one time tried all the colors of the rainbow at once. Orio's verdict: "He looked like we'd glued a clown wig to his head." She uses box dye to maintain her orange tips nowadays.

— She is the worst when it comes to resting, including and perhaps especially when she is sick. Mollie has had to threaten to strap her to her bed to force her to rest on multiple occasions, and Murdock threatened to drug her soup with drowsiness-inducing cold medication.

Mollie:

— She is 29 when the series starts, and was 20 when she joined the Rising Volt Tacklers.

— She is an excellent, nigh-unbeatable, poker player. Usually the other members of the crew are her victims, but when times have been tight financially and they had difficulty finding legitimate jobs, she has won the money they needed to get by through betting on cards.

— She started studying human medicine after joining the Rising Volt Tacklers, so that she could look after the other members of the crew in case anything happened. (Particularly Friede, given the risks he was prone to taking.) She's not as skilled at human medicine as she is at pokémon medicine, but she works hard to stay on top of her studies of both.

— Orio is the one who pierced her ears, at her request.

— Like Friede, she has genius level intelligence. Unlike Friede, she doesn't know this because she never took any tests to have it confirmed or denied.

Murdock:

— He's 36 when the series starts, and was in his late twenties when he joined the Rising Volt Tacklers.

— He and Blanca were raised by their grandmother, and he learned how to cook from her. He took on more and more of the cooking responsibilities as he got older, both to lift the burden from his grandmother, and also because he legitimately came to love it.

— He has studied dietary science in addition to the culinary arts, and this is something that he and Mollie often nerd out about together.

— While he can and will battle if need-be, he has never cared very much for it, because he doesn't like it when his pokémon get hurt. This is largely the reason why his rockruff is still a rockruff.

“You’re not too old for this, right?”

—

Reference and WIP under the cut

And how, for the past decade or so, Murdock would make Friede's favorite meal for dinner and, of course, bake him a birthday cake in his favorite flavor. (Along with a bunch of pokémon safe cupcakes, because it was important to Friede that all the pokémon on board get to join in the celebration, too.) Friede was never one to need a fuss over himself, but all birthdays were properly celebrated on the Brave Asagi and his was no exception. Murdock would make the food, Orio would handle the fireworks, and Mollie would make sure all pokémon were in tip top condition to celebrate with them. And Friede, of course, would make sure everyone was having a good time during the celebration, maybe by playing his guitar for them or having planned them landing somewhere fun for the day.

But when they were escaping Rakua, Friede was taken from them. He's lost, presumably dead. Some would say that dead people can't have birthdays, but for those who loved them, that doesn't stop the date on the calendar from being significant, or erase the feeling of missing something when decade long traditions aren't fulfilled.

Summary: Or, "Five Times Friede Could Have Died, and the One Time He . . ."

Adventuring around the world comes with its fair share of danger, particularly when one is prone to reckless, and sometimes self-sacrificing, behavior. Fortunately, Friede always comes out on top. That is, until he doesn't.

Word Count: 7,566 Characters: Friede, Orio, Cap, Landau, Murdock, Mollie Additional Tags: Five Times + 1, Pre-Series (until the +1), Canon Compliant, Near Death Experiences

Snippet:

It was their maiden voyage, the first time the Brave Asagi had ever taken to and successfully sailed the skies, and yet Orio already knew that she would never tire of what it brought her. The furnace in the engine room had enough fuel to last them at least through the night, if not well into the next morning. So with Metagross keeping an eye on things by the broiler (and its psychic powers allowing it to alert her if any changes came to pass), Orio took the time to step away and make her way up onto the deck. If not for the fresh breeze that brushed her cheeks when she stepped outside, she would hardly believe they were moving at all; the ship suffered no turbulence, at least not on a day as clear as this one, and her own mechanical prowess hadn’t failed them. Though she would never admit this to Friede or anyone, part of her had wondered if the Brave Asagi would truly make it safely off the ground after she’d built it. It was only now that they were thousands of feet in the air that she could breathe easy, relishing in the freshest of air and bluest of skies. At least, until she made it to the deck of the bow and saw her childhood friend standing on the railing. “Friede—!” Orio clapped her hands over her mouth the second his name left her lips, not wanting to startle him into falling. His head turned in her direction regardless, just enough so she could see the devil-may-care grin playing across his cheeks. “Hey, Orio,” he called over his shoulder. “Did you need some fresh air, too?” “Fresh air I can get by standing on the deck, yes,” Orio said, lowering her hands from her mouth to over her rapidly beating heart. “Do you want to fall? Get down from there.” “Nah, I’m fine.” Friede spread his arms wide, the wind blowing his jacket back as though it were a cape. In his defense, she supposed, he wasn’t standing on the topmost rung of the railing; instead, he was on the secondary rung, so that the topmost rung hugged the top of his boots. All the same— “By the way, we’re headed for Cinnabar Island in Kanto. Apparently there have been strange sightings of bizarre, dangerous pokémon along the shore there. Sounds interesting, right?” “Sure,” Orio said, scanning the deck for someone—anyone—to back her up. Her search came up empty. “Where’s Captain Pikachu? He didn’t already fall off the railing himself, did he?” Friede snorted. “Do you think I’d have just let him fall if he did? Nah, he’s in the cockpit making sure we stay on course. And you can just call him Cap, you know. We’re all part of the same crew.” “Well, I think Cap would prefer it if our crew stayed in one piece. We’re small enough as it is, you know,” Orio said. She didn’t need Friede to look back at her to know that he was rolling his eyes. “Come on, get down before you fall over.”

Summary: Captain Pikachu watched his partner fall from the sky at 30,000 feet. Now he's watching as the rest of his crew splinters and breaks apart, none of them but him realizing just how much worse they're all making this.

Word Count: 4,270

Characters: Captain Pikachu, RVT Crew, brief Liko, brief Dot, Roy

Genre: Angst, Grief

Snippet:

All he could do was watch. Watch, as Friede—his partner, his best friend—tumbled feet over head through the clouds, careening down to the earth—sea? they were too high up to tell—below. Watch, amidst the roaring winds and bloodcurdling scream of the girl holding him to her chest. Watch, as every muscle in his body thrashed against her hold, his own throat raw and cheeks sparking as he scrabbled for purchase against the side of the Brave Asagi. Watch, despite how when he had tumbled from the sky in that very same way, a strong hand had caught him just before he hit the ground. All Cap could do was watch. It was over in seconds. Friede and Char both disappeared from view, and Cap’s voice shattered as he discharged all the electricity he had in him in one burst. Liko’s scream broke with pain as she released him; Cap hit the floor of the ship and immediately jumped up to the edge again, yet just before he could throw himself over (he had to catch Friede, he had to), Liko’s arms snapped around his middle again. “Cap, no—Ca—!” Liko’s words splintered into a high pitched yelp as he sank his fangs into her wrist. Once more she dropped him, and this time it was a vine from Meowscarada that held him back from the edge of the ship. Cap whipped around, claws sinking into the vine as he prepared to send a Thunderbolt through it— “Is he . . . wild?” Dot. Barely audible over the pounding winds. Cap stiffened, body rigid, as he looked up at her—her eyes terrified under her fringe, lips trembling at the implication of her question.