confusedkangaroo

Motochika nodded his head to the warriors directing the Panpour and Piplup. I couldn’t hear what he said to his Pokémon, but then the little monkey ran to the closest switch and the penguin to the switch in front of it. As they stepped on it, the two gates suddenly opened and the water resting behind them flooded through. The two stepped back to their former positions, the warriors coming up to them to give them a high five. All my warriors turned to look at me. This was completely unexpected. My first thought was conveyed to Oichi in a high-pitched whisper. “Is that legal?” Oichi nodded. “There’s nothing to stop the warriors of the Kingdom that’s being attacked in changing the battlefield before the attacking team makes their move. If they had done it after any of our Pokémon moved and before the rest had their go, then it mean restarting. Why did they do it?” I could see why. “It creates a barrier between us and them. They can easily traverse the water, but we have no water types

As with last year, I started this before Christmas and then returned to it once I finished Lonely Castle in the Mirror. The lure of Christmas books was too great once more! However, a close friend of mine had read this trilogy before me and highly recommended this particular book. She considered it the best. I trust my friend’s judgement a lot, but would my tastes be too different, especially given that the first book didn’t quite win me over? Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo is the last in her Shadow and Bone trilogy following on a couple of months after the end of the previous book. After the big battle at the end of Siege and Storm, Alina, having used merzost (or magic that brings life from death) for the first time is in a weakened condition. It has taken a lot of time for her to recover from her injuries, although she is still exhausted and the light barely comes to her. This is in part because she is now in the White Cathedral run by the Apparat, who seeks to make her Sankta aka

Shadow stared in horror, first at Michael who had not left her side, then at the two who had betrayed her all those years ago. If she was still a shadow Lugia she could have defeated them easily, but here she was a pathetic human with only the power to change other humans by giving objects energy… somehow… and it would take too long to transform Michael. She was certain using her power on either Zeena or Azad wouldn’t work: Shadow had transformed Zeena long ago into a Mawille as part of her experiments and Azad had formerly been one of her assistants, a Sableye, who upon learning that she kept her experiments after transformation for her ‘studies’, had released everyone alongside Zeena. She had learnt of a greater force that had then accepted Zeena and Azad into transforming others for some purpose, decided to undermine them by fighting Legendries with her powers, which also got their attention. Shadow had once thought that defeating them would result in learning and confronting the

(Obviously this summary contains spoilers! This is for those who wish to jump into the sequel without having to read over 100 chapters.) Runa awakens with no memory in the rain but is found by Barry. In order to discover her origins, Runa leaves her caretaker Dawn and becomes a Pokémon trainer alongside Barry in the Sinnoh region. She gets her starter, Raguna the Turtwig, and agree to help Professor Rowan with his research into evolution, by seeing if changing each action each turn in battle results in any evolution changes (thus making the run a Tormentlocke). Runa managed to get her first catches, with the most notable being Aden the Starly, Julia the Magikarp and Bismark the Shinx. The group are asked by Runa what their dreams are, so that she can help them achieve it alongside her own. Raguna wants to be a farmer, Aden a cool leader, Julia a beauty idol and Bismark a champion. This last dream goes unfulfilled: Runa’s first battle with Barry sees Bismark lose his life to his own