Fandom Pokemon: Vera Valle

[AllHailDago]

Damon Arwell
Lacuno Observatory​

Damon was immediately angered when he heard that this team Blackleaf not only attacked the lab, but kidnapped Castform in the process. What kind of sick people did that? Based on the indignant shaking from atop his head Ren was as displeased as he was. She did have a rather protective nature underneath all her constant lighthearted pranks after all.

His pondering on how to help was interrupted by the spontaneous arrival of Professor Joshua and his partner, Machamp. As always his appearance filled Damon with a sense of awe at his sheer size. Damon was himself on the tall end of the spectrum compared to most any other person, but the professor towered slightly more than a foot over him. Not to mention his physique was comparable to his Machamp's. He could only imagine what he must've been like in his youth.

But of course his size wasn't even the most impressive thing. The man waltzed right up and began talking about observing legendary pokemon and losing fights to them like it was getting milk from the store. Damon was once again reminded that if he truly wanted to explore, observe, and protect the environment like the professor he'd need to train hard as well. Not to mention find partner pokemon whom with he could traverse the country or world. Though he still couldn't accept forcing any non willing pokemon to accompany him...

As he was assigned his team and goal he eyed the two girls he was assigned to work with. It was another reminder that Damon was rather older than most trainers.... Well, nothing for it but to make sure his age didn't define his abilities. The professor was a fantastic example of that after all. Damon offered Ianthe, Akira, and their pokemon a smile and introduced himself. "My name is Damon. Recently transferred protege to the professor, and as a result a fledgling trainer. Regardless, I'll give my all to save that Castform!" Following the energy of her trainer, Ren struck a mighty pose on his head! They were ready!

izayoiix cinnabuns

Agent Hall
Cumulus City Outskirts​

"Nobody's surrendering today criminal scum!" Shouted an enthusiastic voice from the river Dr, Ackerman was fleeing towards, as a small, metal motor boat appeared from behind a bend in the river. The boat was piloted by a stern woman in a plain, grey suit and dark sunglasses, her black hair pulled back in a tight bun that gave a severe edge to her expression.

"Dr Ackerman!" the woman shouted, as she pulled the boat up alongside him. "My name is Agent Hall from the international police!" she said, taking one hand off the rudder of her little boat to quickly flash a golden badge at the Doctor. "Professor Joshua became concerned when he wasn't able to contact you so he alerted us, I was sent ahead to extract you! I had to commandeer this boat from a civilian but it looks like I arrived just in time! Hop aboard and we'll get you to safety!

Agent Hall extended a hand towards the Doctor, glancing anxiously over him at the villainous Team Blackleaf grunt nearby. It hadn't been easy getting into position here on such short notice, hopefully she'd arrived soon enough to pull this off.

Ganryu Misuteeku

 

[Misuteeku]

Dr. Hazel Ackerman
​

The poor doctor turned his head towards his rescuer's voice. It was rather oddly convenient that his rescuers just so happened to come get him by the river. Either way, this was a fine opportunity to escape from these wretched delinquents. He would have to thank Professor Joshua profusely for this. No amount of words could express his gratitude for the professor. With Argent Halls providing an escape route, he would get out of here in no time. He would have to hope that the boat that she was on was quicker than a Dragonite using Agility.

Ackerman gritted his teeth as he doubled his efforts in getting over to the boat. His injuries were making it hard for him to hurry to the boat. He was tempted to hurl Porygon's Pokeball to Agent Hall, but he wanted to get out of this mess as well. Hopefully, Agent Hall also had a Pokemon on her to help him. While Klang was able to do substantial damage to the black mammal menace, it was only going to work one time. Sneasel was unprepared when Klang unleashed his gear grind attack, but after suffering a super effective attack like that he doubted that it would work again. After all, Sneasel could manage itself fine without evolving into Weavile. Klang was still in its first stage and was most likely inferior to Sneasel despite the type advantage.

His injuries screamed at him. The boat was only a little farther away. He turned around to Klang. "Klang! Use Gear Grind one more time! Don't let that Sneasel nearby us!" He screeched out towards the Gear Pokemon. The floating gears made a mechanical sword as it opened its mouth. It shot two gears again at their furry pursuer. That would had to at least slow down Sneasel from getting closer for a few seconds. Ackerman limped towards the boat. He gripped Porygon's Pokeball hard as he painfully slowly made his way to the boat.

Ganryu AllHailDago Misuteeku

 

[Ganryu]

~Pannus Team~
cinnabuns izayoiix AllHailDago​

As the Pannus team made there way north across North Regi, mist continued around them for quite the distance, rumblings around them, along with the occasional sight of the pokemon that made their home in the mist, large shadows flying over head, Salamence and Dragonite roaring for territory. In the distance, a Tyrannitar stood over the mountain pass, watching the visitors pass through, before nodding and returning to its mountain.

The rest of the pokemon seemed similarly uninterested, even letting any up close who wanted to. The only problem would be a particularly large scale fight between Kommo-o and Garchomp, leaving scars in the road for the trainers to work past, the two dragon tackling eachother infront of the trainers several times, coming close to squashing Damon once as Kommo-o choke slammed Garchomp into a rock right behind Damon, Garchomp's tail flashing by and likely hitting him. It wasn't that the two were aiming for the trainers, they just didn't care.

Once they were finally free of the mountain roads and the heavy mist of Mt. Regi, the road finally opened up. Endless plains of grass infront of them, the air seemed to crackle, and everyone's hair would stand on edge. Infront of them now, the endless thunderstorm that was the Pannus Plains arrived. The air pressure was low, causing an uneasy feeling and probably excitement. Occasionally it would downpour, but only for a few minutes, before disappearing, but the clouds and lightning were constantly there. Infront of them between the grasslands, a few strands of tall grass moved as several pikachu darted between the weeds, running from something. Behind them, a large bark was heard as a Luxray roared, running past them.

As it did, it turned slightly for a moment, looking down at Luc, and nodding approvingly. A moment later, a slight growl could be heard as the lion like pokemon walked past the group again, no intention apparently of battle. Carrying something in its jaws, it dropped a pile of yellow and red infront of Luc, and continued walking off magnificantly like a lion.

Also during the trip, a mareep friendly walked up to the group, its wool barely sticking out from the grass, walking straight up to Ianthe, and nuzzling against her leg. The hair on her neck would stand further on end though, giving away what was about to happen before lightning from the sky struck the mareep, making it cry out as electricity crackled through its wool.

With conditions like these... it probably wouldn't be far that the blackleaf grunt could have gotten with Castform.

 

[Ganryu]

~Nacreous Glacier Team~
V viska RoninN7​

Before the group could head up, Maria walked up to Laren holding the phone. "Uh, Laren, you might want to stay behind. It seems your father had a bit of an... accident in his lab. He should be fine, but he's hurt. Your families asked me to get you back home. He'll be fine. Just seems like a bit of a chemical spill."

She bit her lip, turning to Iris and Micah. "I'm sorry to have to be so candid, but would you mind continuing just the two of you? I don't mean to be heartless, but time really is of the essence."
---------------------

The trip north was equally covered in mist for the duo sent to Nacreous Glaciers. In the distance, they could see the shadows of dragons fly. Suddenly they would see large sections of the road missing, literally like it had been burned away with acid, a large gash left where they could have cross, several feet of rock in the way, and pitfalls where they could have crossed anyways.

It was one hell of an obstacle, not even an Onix could get past it. Next to them a rock blinked watching them. Then several more eyes blinked.

0'''''0
0 0 0
0___0

A deep guttural cry sounded that was almost alien as the rocks next to them burst out of the ground, lumbering forward to the broken road infront of the two trainers. It looked at the two for a moment, then pointed across the road like it was asking a question. Slowly, it lumbered over to a large boulder, and dug its earthen hands into the boulder. With surprising strength, it lifted the boulder, twice its size, over its head, and walked towards the chasm. Slamming it into the gap, it made another cry, and started to smash its arms across it, flattening it, and making a new road.

As it worked on the road, the two could see burns on its back, dug in by acid. Finishing, it made an odd bow, and motioned for them to continue. If the two looked back, it smashed another small rock... into a ♥ shape, and held it up for the lovely couple.

Exitting Mt. Regi's fog, the two would see the outskirts of the Pannus Grasslands on the left and feel heat from the Fire Chasm on the right. It wouldn't take long for the heat to drop from it though on their travels to the Nacreous Glaciers. Sheets of white awaited them, bone chilling winds shooting through the area. A town was ahead if they wanted to stop, buy warmer clothing, or ask for more information. Otuside of the town though, and further down the glacier, a large crack in the rock led hundreds of feet down in a drop in the Nacreous Glacier Chasm, a thick, thick mist not letting them see the bottom of it... or more than 10 feet down the hole. Chittering and chanting could be heard below in it. Nearby a horde of Swinubs made their way towards the chasm, seemingly leaping off like lemmings. Or off a secret trail. Their snorting reverberated around as they scuttled along, and they didn't seem to be screaming though.

 

[Ganryu]

Fliathri && Himiko
​

Sneasel growled, slowly approaching. Fliathri nodded his head approvingly, knowing she was waiting. It was a good plan. As the order's were given for Klang to fire another gear grind at her, Fliathri held his hand out as Sneasel already moved.

"My queen, Taunt!"

She made an odd chittering sound, perfectly imitating a crab, despite the gear flying towards her, clanging her hands together as well. Suddenly, out of the mud, a Krabby arose, flailing its pincers at Himiko to rush her. Two gears hit it perfectly in the back of the head, with two cracks forming across its shell, mud cushioning most of the impact. Turning towards the pair, Krabby foamed, charging the river as it disappeared underneath the boat. It wouldn't catch them, but it had made for a nice shield. Purring, Sneasel lowered her claws, ready to charge. Fliathri placed his cane in her way.

"It is enough my queen." She shoved the cane out her way, and he slammed it down. "Himiko. Enough." She looked at him threatening. But at the use of her actual name, she didn't pursue. To both Fliathri and Himiko, he wasn't the master, he was her partner. They were equals in crime. And that meant occasionally, occasionally, she'd let him get his way. She did continue to glare at him, and he laughed.

"Come on my dear. Sniff the air. Now, I believe we've got some pay coming. What would you like for dinner. And yes, if you so desire, you may pilfer the forks."

She jumped laughing, and the two began to walk away to the town. They passed by a fainted Pineco, and Fliathri sighed. "This won't do." Picking it up, he continued, hefting it the entire way to the pokemon center in town, and dropped it on the front desk, the nurse looking a him. Himiko was snickering the entire way. Her partner wasn't often as cruel as she was, but when he was, it was hilarious.

"Is this your pokemon?"

"Inconcievable. It was, however, wounded. Would you mind healing it perchance? Infact, once you are done with him, mind sending him to a Dr. Ackerman? I believe he is the rightful owner."

Tipping his hat, he was out the building before the nurse could ask questions, and Fliathri went to buy him and Himiko lunch. And Himiko, of course, pilfered the forks.

 

[cinnabuns]

IANTHE KEKOA

Location: Lacuno Observatory -> Pannus Grasslands

Team: Akira, Damon, Ianthe

Interactions: izayoiix , AllHailDago

"Don't you feel tired?"

Ianthe's eyes were kind when she heard Akira's words.

"I'll be tired when we're done, trust me. After Castform is safe I'll treat you to that picnic and you can get all the rest you want."

She understood where Akira's mind was at. After all, she'd been wanting to nap since they had first gotten to the Cirriform Ruins. She couldn't blame her for being snippy; that's what happened when sleep was the main priority. But for Ianthe, Pokémon were of the utmost importance. Especially an innocent Pokémon that was being used for evil.

Ianthe could feel Damon's eyes on her and she turned her look to his Pokémon first, then to him, returning the smile he offered her.

"My name is Damon. Recently transferred protege to the professor, and as a result a fledgling trainer. Regardless, I'll give my all to save that Castform!"

His Pokémon made a mighty pose, and Ianthe's eyes brightened. How sweet.

"What a sweetheart."

Was she talking about Damon or his Pokémon? They'd never know.

"My name is Ianthe, and my Bounsweet here is named Nymph."

Nymph let out a soft noise at the mention of her name, still enjoying her spot on top of Ianthe's head. The Bounsweet was probably tired as well, and she couldn't blame her. The last few hours had been a lot of excitement. Of course, Ianthe was used to wild behavior; it made her miss her pals back in Alola at the daycare, honestly. Running around after Pokémon was like second nature.

"Alright, good! Let's get going. We can treat our babes to some Poffins as we make our way to the Grasslands. I still have a bunch left."

Nymph seemed to chirp up at the mention of treats, and Ianthe laughed in response.

"I should have known you were food motivated, silly girl!" She mused as she began heading out of the laboratory, pulling out the Poffin case from her bag. Nymph immediately floated off of her head and opened her mouth, knowing Ianthe would toss a sweet Poffin into the air for her to grab with her teeth.

So cute.

 

[Ganryu]

~Nacreous Glacier Team~​

(Micah)
As Micah and Iris continued the walk by the chasm, the earth began to rumble next to them before they could even make it further down where the swinub were. A crack formed between the two, before a sheet of ice fell, taking Iris with it down the cliff. A little 'eep' was heard before an explosion of snow shot up out of the canyon, raining down on Micah. A quick "I'm okay" could be heard from below. Looking below, Micah would see snorunts surrounding Iris below on an outcropping, where the girl had managed to land. They didn't seem to mean her any harm, infact, they were dancing in a circle around her, looking oddly excited. From a cave, a white figure followed out, in rhythm to the dance. A froslass, her bow prominent against the all white and blue around them. She beaconed for Iris inside the cave where it was warmer.

"Hey, Micah, I think I'm going to find my own way up."


----------
(Benjamin and Nova)
Both Benjamin and Nova's phones went off, with a very tired assistant to the professor calling. Maria, who tended to be the common sense in the lab, and who was often the liason with the trainers... and ran the web... and handed out money at the end of jobs. She was normally a frantic mess, but the last few days had left her tired.

"Hey, this is Maria, Professor Joshua's assistant, can we ask you for some help? We recently had a castform stolen from the lab by blackleaf, and, well the lab got wrecked. We sent a few trainers to get it back. We also want to cut Blackleaf off of where we think they are planning on going in the Nacreous Glaciers Chasms. We sent Micah and Iris there, but I just got a call saying Iris seems to have fallen down a chasm. She's fine... apparently, but is out of the mission. Can you and -insert other- go and help him? We're trying to chase off Blackleaf out the area, and more importantly, get them to stop spying on the Kyurem inside the Chasm. Also, beware, there's an Articuno there that's... pretty territorial. The chasm's pretty cold, deep, and foggy, but if you don't mind that, we really need your help.

Micah's now in Nacreousville, go meet him at the local pokemon center before you head down."


-----------
(Micah)
Inside the pokemon center, it was rather lively. Nacreousville was cold, even in the middle of summer ice could be found in the fields. In winter? There was no fields. So the pokemon center wasn't only open to the injured, but any pokemon trainer resting or trying to warm up. It was nearly twice the size of normal, and the nurse spent as much time breaking up fights as she did healing pokemon. Rather butch, she looked like she might be able to just arm wrestle Professor Joshua. Whenever she spoke, it was deep, with a thick accent. And she had a penchant for throwing empty pokeballs at any trainers causing a fuss. There were alot of empty pokeballs on the ground. And more than a few concussions.

Seeing Micah, she left the desk, and spoke with her thick accent.

"New face. I know most of Nacreousville. Are you here to conquer the Glacier too? Perhaps catch some Ice pokemon? I grew up here, I help. What is it you hunt for? Do your pokemon need treatment? Do you need bandaid, or are you big strong boy?"

She was hardly older than him despite calling him boy. She wore the regular nurse's outfit, granted with a comically large cap ontop, the + sign on it larger than Micah's head, and a pin on the right. Several empty pokeballs were around her like weapons. In the cold north, one had to always be ready.

Spoiler: pin, couldn't find a hat damnit.

 

[AllHailDago]

Damon Arwell
Pannus Team
Northern Mt. Regi​

Damon looked about in silent awe as their team traversed the fringes of Mt. Regi. So many rare and powerful pokemon seemed to be around every corner and behind every tree he couldn't believe it! As they traveled he made note of the varying species he saw in his field journal. Surely he would at one point have to return for more in depth study....though based on the strength and possible territoriality of the pokemon there he set that as a long-term goal.

As he looked about in wonder a fight between two pokemon seemed to make it's way towards their group. Damon attempted to back a safe distance away, but it was futile. The enraged pokemon simply moved too swiftly, and most discomforting was the fact they seemed to draw towards Damon specifically. He reached up to his head swiftly and grabbed Ren, who awoke with a bleary-eyed yawn from her nap. Turning away from the pair of rampaging dragons, he shielded his pokemon while attempting to avoid them.

He failed. As the Kommo-o soundly slammed the Garchomp into a patch of bare stone, the latter's tail whipped out and slammed into Damon's shoulder. The impact spun him and he fell to the ground with a flash of pain shooting through the injured arm. He was almost immediately sure the arm was dislocated, an injury he'd suffered....a number of times before. Yet he still made an effort to roll away from the the pokemon fighting each other.

He finally laid still a muddling distance away from the noise as the pokemon's fight led them elsewhere. Damon looked to make sure Ren was alright, but found she was simply startled and tearing up over his injury. He let out a relieved sigh and looked around for the other two. It seemed they'd been separated somewhat, though he was sure not by much.

With a pained grunt Damon stood back up, setting Ren down softly beside him. Attempting to rotate his shoulder once he realized it wasn't dislocated after all. However, he also learned that it still hurt severely. He probably should avoid using that arm for a while. Thankfully it wasn't his dominant one. He glanced down at the concerned face of his partner and gave her a stiff thumbs up. "Everything's fine, Ren. Let's go find the others, they should be nearby!"
cinnabuns Ganryu izayoiix

 

[KageYuuki]

Maya Kauffman
It was amazing how easy it was tearing a tent down compared to setting it up. Loosen some ropes, tip one of the poles, and the whole thing comes tumbling down. There was probably a way that made things easier to actually pack up, but it was the asscrack of dawn and Maya really didn’t care.

Until the canvas began to wiggle and yip.

The trainer quirked an eyebrow at the bump trying to navigate the fallen tent before sighing, “Kurama, if you burn another tent you’re going in the river.”

The lump stopped, letting out a low growl as if to say ”you wouldn't dare.”

She knelt, lifting the fallen tent to see her vulpix. ”Try me,” her tone was deadpan, the threat anything but empty. Freed from his fabric prison, Kurama scampered over to the firepit and flopped over with an exasperated sigh. ”Brat.” Maya called before turning back to the mess of a former tent.

After considerable folding, rolling, cursing, jumping on, wrestling, and tying, the unwieldy mass was finally ready to be strapped back on her backpack. Bundle in hand, Maya turned around to find her Vulpix had vanished from his spot and her bag was wiggling. Grey hues narrowed at the shifting backpack. “I swear if you’re after your brush again…” she muttered, setting the tent on the ground and stalking over to her suspected brush thief.

As Maya came to the bag, it stopped for a moment, and then went limp, something Kurama wouldn’t do. It was much larger than the fox too. Despite the stillness, munching could be heard inside, and juice dripped out the bottom of the bag, some contents no doubt ruined.

“What the…?” She shot a quick glance around the campsite, Kenneth wasn’t anywhere in sight. Though even if it had somehow been Mandrawl, the small pokemon would’ve just panicked and screamed instead. She frowned at the dark red juice seeping into the ground, great, getting the stains out of her clothes was gonna be a pain. Maya snatched the bag and opened it, “I don’t know what you are, but get out!”

In hindsight, probably not her best decision without her pokemon nearby.

What little was left of Maya’s hearing was soon punished as a small bat was startled inside, giant ears turning towards her as it rolled out the bag. In a startled yelp, it decided the best move to use was…. Screech. Near rivaling Whismur, the yelling bat echoed throughout the cave.

“Gah!” Maya fell back, holding her freshly ringing ears. As if they hadn’t gotten enough abuse from Mandrawl yesterday. “Whhhyyy?”

The Noibat would easily hear the sound of paws running across the rocky ground before several small fireballs streaked toward its back.

Will-O-Wisp

The noibat screeched this time in triumph, before holding up Maya’s bag to the incoming fireballs…. Before realizing the berries were inside. The noibat began to cry as Maya’s bag was on flame, and started it swinging it dangerously around the area trying to snuff it out, being very close to hitting Maya more than a few times in its efforts to put out the fire.

She could only stare at the scene in stupefied silence for a few moments. Was this really happening right now? Kurama barked, looking between her and the now panicking Noibat. His surprise attack had not gone to plan in the slightest. Maya snapped out of her trance in time to narrowly avoid getting smacked in the face.

Her pokedex was the first thing to get thrown out of the bag, clattering to the ground and popping open. Cracks spiderwebbed across the screen, though its familiar computerized voice still crackled through the speakers.

“Noibat, the Sound Wave Pokemon. Average height: 0.5 meters, average weight: 8 kilograms. Fruits are its favorite foods. This gourmet carefully picks out just the ripe ones using its sonar.”

Looking at the damaged pokedex, Maya ground her teeth. “That was a gift you little shit!” Snatching up a small rock, she hurled it at the Noibat. “Kurama, forget about the bag, use firespin!”

The kit hesitated, all of those poffins they’d picked up on the way to Fogma were still in there. Though finally, he spewed a stream of fire that formed a ring on the ground.

Noibat had the bright idea of stuffing her head back into the bag, the sound of munching heard as both the rock fell off of it, and the fire didn’t touch the inside… yet. The bag had set fire, Noibat just hadn’t noticed. Laughing like a maniac from inside, it started to charge at Vulpix, Maya’s bag bouncing up and down as it attacked her prized fox.

Had it not been for the fact her Pokedex was broken and her bag and everything inside ruined, this whole situation would've been hilarious. The bizarre series of events wouldn't have been out of place in a cartoon. But right now? Maya wasn't all that amused.

Something hard and hollow fell out of her bag, the red and white of a Pokeball unmistakeable. As both trainer and vulpix spied the potential solution to this mess, Kurama charged forward without waiting for a command. He bit a spot that hadn't yet ignited in a bid to flush the noibat out.

Noibat cried and squirmed as its new home was bitten onto. The shuffling continued for a few seconds until suddenly it burst out the back of the bag, carrying literally every berry that had been left in the bag between its two wings, using them like baskets. It made a series of gremlin-like sounds as it chowed down, skipping over rocks in the cave like they were nothing.

The berries were now roasted to perfection.

His job done, Kurama started rifling through the burning backpack, withdrawing a now misshapen plastic container. His poffins had been saved and his enemy the hairbrush was now too burned up to use. It was a good morning.

Maya gave an exasperated groan as she snatched up the dropped pokeball. There were more in her bag, sure, but getting to them without getting burned wasn’t exactly doable. So she really only had one shot at this. But between the torched backpack, stolen berries, and broken Pokédex, vindictiveness won out. She aimed for the back of its head and threw the ball as hard as she could.

Noibat rejoiced as opened wide to bite into the roasted berries, only for something very hard to conk it hard in the back of the head, making it roll forward, dropping the berries. It panicked, crying as it reached out, trying to quickly gather them again as a red light enveloped the bat, it shrieking desperately as its hand reached out for a final berry before fading to red as well and being sunk backward.

1...2...3…

The ball stopped moving, dinging with success.

Scooping up the pokeball, Maya flopped back on the ground and stared at her prize. “...maybe I should’ve just slept in today.”

 

[Ganryu]

The Con Team
Fliathri && Verity​

Fliathri looked out the 2nd floor of the floating Blackleaf offices, waiting for Mansel to show up, Himiko passed on his lap like a cat. Fliathri may or may not have snuck benedril into his bag knowing she'd steal whatever she could. And it was a better alternative than her looting the bosses office.

The chair infront of him swivelled, making Fliathri jump out of his skin, Himiko slightly waking up with a groan, before drooling on his lap again.

Mansel looked at Fliathri with eyes that could pierce stone, and the clock seemed to stop. Finally he spoke.

""Do you have it."

Nodding his head, he reached into his queen's bag, and produced a purple ball, with two pink orbs on the side, and an M on the side.

""Verily, Verity had a masterful plan. We lured the good doctor upon a barge, and she had.... well, to be fair, she told me 'trade secrets' when I asked. She also told me to start running as fast as I could. But verily, we have results. "

Mansel appraised the ball in his fingers gently, rubbing his chin.
"Very well. This is satisfactory. You are dismissed. You'll find the reward in your paychecks."

Tossing it up and down in his hands several time, he was carefully measuring the weight of the ball, thinking of the throw he'd have to make with it.

Fliathri nodded, getting up with Himiko now drooling on his shoulder.

"Might I ask what you intend to do with such a device. Such a method seems... against your usual modus operandi?"

Mansel gripped his hand into a fist, but remained silent. Fliathri took that as meaning 'get out faster'. So he did so, twirling his cane as he did, grabbing the door knob and opening it without so much as a touch of his hand. "I could use some new clothes. But first things fist. Bath bombs for the queen for when she wakes. Tis been a harsh few days."

 

[KageYuuki]

Seize and Possess
”Ever hear of the legend of King Bradley? Before becoming king, he was nothing more than a peasant, a member of a resistance trying to reclaim their conquered homeland. One day he found a sword left lying in the middle of the woods, it called out to him, said if he gave it his life it would make him king. I won't go into detail, basically, he accepted, reconquered his homeland, and was made king. But wielding the sword came at a cost with him dying young, looking like a man more than twice his age. The blade then attempted to barter with the prince. But having seen how it sapped his father’s life the prince ordered the sword hidden away.

Why am I telling you this? One of our archeological friends discovered ruins covered in depictions of a sword in the Foehn Tunnels.”

Mansel sat in his office chair, listening to one of his admins giving him some fairy tale. He scowled as he looked out the window.

“You know I’m no lover of myth. But I do want power. If that sword can help us in any way, I want it. I would sacrifice the world for my ambitions, a few years of life is nothing. Go send someone to go find it. But low priority. Level 1. Find a grunt.”

He swiveled around, looking out the window towards the lake operations were based on. Rather a pain to move to, but rather secure too.


”Okay, new mission,” Maya paced slightly after the admin left with the new job. She'd managed to wriggle permission to take a couple of teammates along. The area near Clasm Outpost was known for its aggressive Fire and Dark type Pokemon. Getting there in one piece would be beneficial to the mission. Just one minor problem…

”Who the hell do I take?”

Jack was away on a job of his own or something. ”I worked pretty well with Kenneth… But would Mandrawl be okay?” It was worth asking. Kurama yipped and snarled. Maya groaned, turning to find him on top of Ren, ”enough.” She grabbed the Vulpix by the scruff, pulling him off the Ralts. Ren had probably pulled his tails. Again. ”Attacking your teammate when she can't even fight yet, ” Maya lifted the kit to eye level with a scowl. ”Honestly, what would you do if Byakko did that to you, hm?”

Kurama kissed her on the nose.

”Brat.”

Dropping him back to the floor she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. A newer member of Blackleaf was passing by. What was her name? ”Hey, uh… Verity!” Maya fired off a quick text to Kenneth to meet her.

“Heeey… I wanna say Mary? Manna?” Verity spun on her heels when she heard her name, transferring the stack of paper she had been carrying to her back. “Great to see you! How are you? Me? I’m good, definitely not altering the base’s requisition orders to go through a supplier I know who gives me a kickback AND even if I was doing that, this strictly hypothetical acquaintance of mine would be super reliable and would deal in only the highest quality goods available…” Verity coughed slightly and then smiled innocently. “Hey is that a ralts? What a cutie,”

Maya blinked a few times at the sudden barrage. Shaking her head, she tried to answer everything in order. “It’s Maya. Can’t say I really care about, uh, requisitions or whatever you’d said. And yeah that’s Ren, she hatched just a few days ago actually and is definitely adorable.” The small Ralts seemed more entranced by bright pink spoon in her hands. “She’s… also obsessed with that spoon we found at a store.”

“Haha, great- I mean, irrelevant because I definitely wasn’t doing that anyway,” Verity said, looking relieved and crouching down to pet Ren. “Anyway enjoy this while it lasts, before you know it, she'll be all grown up and in her rebellious, kirlia stage; listening to punk music, telekinetically slamming doors, the works,”

Ren cooed at the affection, leaning into her touch. “Long as she doesn’t get an attitude like Kurama I guess…” Maya shifted, how was she going to ask her to come along? Was Verity even that good of a choice? Didn’t exactly seem like much for fighting… “Hey, so, uh… are you free for a mission? I have a job out near Clasm Outpost and need a few extra hands.”

“Oh, that’s what this is about? Sure I’m always up for a business opportunity, I have to sneak these forms back into Mansel’s office first but I’m free after that,” Verity stood up and reclaimed her ill-gotten forms. “Probably be good for Ponzi too, the little slacker could use the exercise,”

“May wanna wait on that one, I heard his Dragalge not too long ago so he might be in there.”

Kenneth appeared as he turned the corner. “Hey, Maya, I got your message, you needed help or somethin?” He wasn’t really doing much except fiddling around with his phone. Mandrawl was sleeping inside his pokeball and trying to communicate with Milutin was like talking to a brick wall. Spotting Verity, he smiled. “Hey there, Veronica, how’s your day.” Besides getting her name wrong, he wanted to see how would she react.

“Hmm and it’s probably too soon to try the fire alarm trick again…” Verity frowned and then tilted her head inquiringly at the sound of a new voice. “Ve..?” suddenly her eyes lit up and she smiled. “Yup that’s me, listen could you do me a favor real quick? Take these forms,” Verity extended her arms to try and hand the papers to Kenneth. “And take ‘em to the boss? Just tell him Veronica sent you and to ask her if he has any issues with them, thanks!”

Maya rolled her eyes, “I have a mission out near Clasm Outpost and need some extra help. Was wondering if you would be free or not.”

“I see I see.” Kenneth nodded as he took the documents from Veronica. “Give me a sec to turn in these documents, kay.” With that, he left to turn in the documents to Mansel. Putting up his serious act, he looked down at the documents. “I wonder why Verity wanted me to turn them in, couldn’t she have done it herself?”

As he entered, Mansel was holding an icepack to his head. He took the form without complaint, glanced at them, and his eyes narrowed.

A moment later, a fierce roar was heard, a blast of energy flying through the wall, bringing Kenneth with it.

Dragon Pulse

Dragalge hissed at him through the hole in the wall, then turned back into the office.

Much to Kenneth’s credit, he dusted himself off and proceed to leave the office as if nothing had happened. When he turned the corner he pulled out his phone.

Maya

them

Can you meet me back near Mansel's office? Trying to find people for a job.

me

Hey Maya. It may take me a bit longer. I kinda got hit by a Dragon Pulse from Mansel’s Dragalge, and I’m feeling a little unwell. I need to pay the infirmary a quick visit before I get back to you.

There was a slight pause before Kenneth lost all of his composure and the intensity of his eyes intensified. He angrily typed...

Maya

me

AND TELL VERITY I HOPE SHE FUCKING STEPS ON A 1X4 LEGO. I WILL MAKE IT MY FUCKING DUTY TO RUIN HER DAY LIKE SHE HAS DONE TO ME. WHY THE FUCK DID NOBODY TOLD ME THAT MANSEL WAS GOING TO DRAGONBLAST ME THROUGH A FUCKING WALL. HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW? I THOUGHT HE WAS A LITTLE CHILL AT FIRST, BUT NOW THAT THIS HAPPENED, I’M GOING TO AVOID HIM LIKE THE FUCKING PLAGUE.

With that, he lowered down his phone and proceeded to calmly walked to the infirmary. His body ached from the Dragon Pulse that Mansel’s Dragalge dealt. Letting out a long sigh, he dug his nails into his palm in order to vent out his frustration.

Maya sucked a sharp breath over her teeth at Dragalge’s roar and the following crash. “Shit…” before she could yell at Verity, her phone buzzed. She visibly relaxed at Kenneth’s message. He was alive and coherent enough to send that, good.

Kenneth

them

THROUGH A FUCKING WALL. HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW? I THOUGHT HE WAS A LITTLE CHILL AT FIRST, BUT NOW THAT THIS HAPPENED, I’M GOING TO AVOID HIM LIKE THE FUCKING PLAGUE.

me

Shit… at least you’re in one piece? We don’t need to leave immediately so… an hour?

Putting her phone down she sighed and leveled a harsh look at Verity. “Your little ‘favor’ probably just cost us a teammate,” Maya hissed. Picking up on his trainer’s mood, Kurama moved to stand beside her. He didn’t growl or show his teeth, but he never took his eyes off Verity.

Verity managed to very convincingly look hurt.

“Wh- Look I didn’t know Mansel was gonna do that? Am I really responsible for our deranged, dragalge wielding employer? I believe we are all, equally victims of abusive workplace practices here and to point fingers at each other and cast blame is EXACTLY what the Man wants!”

Verity turned and shouted towards the infirmary “You hear that, Kenneth!? THAT’S WHAT HE WANTS! FOR YOU TO FOCUS ON REVENGE INSTEAD OF REVOLUTION! IT’S SOCIETY THAT NEEDS TO STEP ON LEGO!”

Suddenly there was another menacing hiss from Mansel’s office and Verity abandoned her righteous indignation to nervously clear her throat “So uhh Clasm Outpost right? Well hey, what are we wasting daylight here for! Let’s get this show on the road, am I right?”

“Riiiight,” Maya shook her head. “Look, just get your stuff together and I’ll meet you at the door in an hour alright?” Grey eyes scanned the ceiling, “now where did Asuka go…?”

As if to answer Maya’s question, a loud crash sounded from the kitchen followed by an angry shout. “Get out of the fruit you little shit!” A Noibat’s angry shrieking answered.

“Arceus why…?” Maya groaned into her hand before returning Ren to her ball and sprinting towards the kitchen.

“Door, one hour, gotcha!” Verity said, snapping off a mock salute and making herself scarce. Whatever was going on in the kitchen sounded eerily similar to the sound of “not Verity’s problem” so she decided to let Maya handle it. Verity didn’t necessarily have a lot of gear or equipment and Ponzi was already lazily snoring away in his Pokeball, so getting her stuff together was mostly a matter of grabbing her briefcase and avoiding anyone she had pissed off recently. An hour later she was waiting outside the base, a squat, little sandile by her feet complaining with chirps and croaks about being evicted from his Pokeball.

“You come from a desert dude, why is the sun such a problem for you?” Verity asked exasperatedly, as she tried to gently nudge the stubborn pokemon forwards.

It was about another five minutes before Maya finally emerged, her hair mussed and a streak of flour across her shirt. “Let’s get out of here before something else goes wrong.” She strode off without waiting for a reply, “Supposed to be an Onix Exodus station back in town.”

 

[izayoiix]

ᴀᴋɪʀᴀ ᴛᴀɪᴅᴀɴᴀ​

At Ianthe's mention of the picnic she'd mentioned hours before, Akira's stomach rumbled quietly, causing the raven-haired trainer to groan. It had been a while since she'd eaten. She huffed to herself as Luc looked up at her curiously from where he walked beside her as they traveled across the Pannus Grasslands. She was so tired and all she wanted was to grab something to eat and then take a few days to nap her cares away. Why was that such a hard thing to get? She wasn't asking for a lot, she truly wasn't.

As the sound of crashing thunder and roaring pokemon grew loader in her ears, Akira hid a smile. The sound was like music to her ears. The sound of electric types. Such a perfect sound. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear as she turned her head from side to side, scanning the area around them and the skies above, looking in almost awe at the sight of the fighting pokemon above them. At her feet, Luc let out a small awed chirp, causing her golden eyes to drift down to him. "One day...one day you'll get that strong. I promise." she whispered in his ear, crouching down so she could scratch him behind the ears.

Suddenly a group of Pikachu ran through the grass, darting in front of them, followed immediately by the familiar roar of a Luxray. Akira tensed slightly, knowing nothing good could be happening here. As the large evolved form of her partner came to a stop in front of her Luc, she watched carefully, ready to drop and grab her partner and run, no matter what would happen to her.

What she wasn't expecting, however, was for the Luxray to drop the carcass of one of the Pikachu they'd just seen.

Akira's mouth that had dropped open slightly in shock, shut with a click of her teeth and her expression froze, her eyes tight with conflicting emotions. She took her hands out of her pockets and pulled her sweatshirt tighter around her shoulders, hiding the sleeping Pichu that was balanced on her shoulder against her neck, using her hair as a pillow.

Luc on the other hand, was in the middle of having a crisis. His head was bowed slightly as he stared at the dead pokemon at his feet, his eyes wide with shock. His eyes flicked up to the Luxray that had deposited the body and then back down to the poor Pikachu. The Luxray had nodded at him! It had given him acknowledgement! Something Luc had always wanted ever since he was run out of his home in Sinnoh as a babe due to his status as the runt of the litter. For someone to notice that he was strong as he was and would get stronger, and this older pokemon had given it to him!

At first he'd been filled with awe at the Luxray and now all he could see was the limp corpse at his feet. A choked sound escaped his mouth once the older pokemon had left and he shrunk closer to the ground, pressing as much of his side against his trainer as he could, wanting her to comfort him like she had all those years ago when they'd first met.

"The fuck..." Akira mumbled, her voice somewhat hoarse as she crouched down so she was kneeling on the ground next to the small Shinx. With the hand that wasn't gently holding the Pichu in place, she burried her fingers into Luc's fur, scratching along his head and back to try and calm him. "It'll...it'll be okay." she mumbled to him.

After a moment of hesitation, she scooped up to depressed Shinx and held him close to her chest as she stood and sent a glance to the other two trainers with her. "We should keep moving." she grumbled before striding forward, forcing herself not to look back.
cinnabuns AllHailDago

 

[Theo713]

Vera Valle. Ben wasn't as big a fan of Vera Valle as he had initially thought he was going to be. He knew the climates of the region were going to be a wide range of hot to cool to cold. What he hadn't planned on was how extreme those ranges were going to be, and how close together they were. He went from comfy khakis and a tee in Nimbos Town to functional fabrics and a heavy winter coat in Nacreousville. Even so he was able to be picked out of a crowd. The locals could tell because his attire wasn't exactly what was considered normal around these parts. The other visiting trainers because his attire was fresh off the latest edition of Vague. Currently seated on a bench with his right ankle resting on his left knee and a map in his lap, Ben would rub his temples. “Ice. Ice. More Ice. The next time I want to see ice, it's going to be in a cold glass of soda....on a beach. Like Porta Vista. Arceus I miss Porta Vista.” Ben would mutter as he rested his head in his hands, his Nidoran nudging him in an attempt to comfort her trainer. With a smile he would tell her “Thanks.” as he reached to her and rubbed her head. Despite not being a fan of the region, Ben had a job to do. He had to spread the name of Spencer's Shorts from here to Cumulus City and back again.

It was while he was contemplating his next move that his phone began to buzz, Ben answering the phone function on his watch. “Ben.” he would speak in to his ear piece once he had the device in his ear, listening and watching as Maria explained the situation. “Arceus' balls Zubatman. We'll do what we can. Keep yourself safe over there Maria.” With the call hung up Ben would gather his few things up and make his way initially away from the pokemon center, but after asking locals if he was going the right way Ben would find himself heading in to the Pokemon Center. And now came the fun part.....Who was Micah he had been sent to find? Hmm. Well, if anyone knew for sure, it would be the Nurse Joy, right? Joys were the face of the pokemon centers. If they didn't know who one was looking for, they knew how to find them. Almost like spies. Imagining Nurse Joy as a spy, Ben would head forward and step next to the male she was talking to, waiting for a moment to intervene. “Excuse me, Nurse Joy. I'm looking for a friend of mine, Micah? Know where I might find him?” Or her, now that he thought about it.

 

[cinnabuns]

IANTHE KEKOA

Location: Pannus Grasslands -> Mt. Regi

Team: Akira, Damon, Ianthe

Interactions: izayoiix , AllHailDago

Ianthe wasn't prepared for the mist, but she loved it, anyway.

She unwrapped the hoodie from her waist, sliding it on as the trainers continued along the path through the Grasslands. Thank goodness it was lined with fleece, she thought with a smile, watching her footing. Thankfully, she was, in a way, still prepared for almost anything. Even if she didn't feel like it sometimes, she had the right materials. Well, most of them. She would have been more ready if it wasn't so short notice, but it was for a good cause, after all. That Castform needed their help, and she didn't have the time to go shop for better pants or an umbrella. She didn't mind it, anyway; Pokémon would always be more important to her than keeping up with the weather.

Even if she did love her aesthetics.

She looked up at the sky, wondering when the rain would come down with all of the activity. From what she remembered, there would be a lot of electric type Pokémon in the area, which meant storms might be in the team's near future. Ianthe hated the idea of her hair possibly getting wet for the second time in the day, but it felt like now she had no choice. At least back then, the Kabutops could have been beaten. Unfortunately, any Pokémon Ianthe had with Sunny Day was in a PC, nowhere near them now.

She paused as she watched the Tyrannitar look them over, and she smiled in return. Mt. Regi had its guardians beside the Regis themselves, she noted. She loved seeing Pokémon thriving in their own habitat, and her eyes lit up as the dragon Pokémon, Kommo-o and Garchomp, began to fight in front of them. Her heart leaped when they almost hurt Damon in the process, however, watching as the older trainer hit the ground with a crack when they knocked into him and Ren.

She called over to him with worry in her eyes. "Are you alright??"

That hadn't sounded like an okay fall; something might have been broken. If only she had more skills with human health than just Pokémon health, she thought with a bit of bitterness.

Ianthe's eyes turned to Akira and Luc, momentarily distracted from Damon's probable pain with the nest of Pikachu that ran past them. It was so interesting, seeing how much Pikachu had evolved since she was younger; now that their tails showed the difference in gender, it made it easier to catch the type she wanted. She wondered if some of them were Alolan, definitely wanting an Alolan Raichu in the future....

However, that interest waned quite quickly as she watched the Luxray that appeared before Luc drop a Pikachu's carcass in front of Akira and Luc. She could hear Nymph let out a pained squeal at the sight of the Pokémon. Oh dear. She...hadn't seen a lot of that in her adventures, surprisingly. It was natural, but still something no one purposefully wanted to see.

"We should keep moving."

Akira was already walking forward after seeing such a thing, and Ianthe couldn't help but notice the ears on her Pikachu hoodie. What a thing for an electric-type trainer to see, she thought with a frown.

"Y-Yes, of cou--"

Ianthe was once again distracted as she felt a nuzzle along her leg, looking down at the Mareep that had decided to give her attention. "Oh!" Her voice turned soft as she spoke to the Pokémon, until she felt the hair on the back of her neck begin to stand. She grimly remembered Mareep's ability too late.

Oh Arceus, not Static--

The lightning came fast, shocking her, Nymph, and the Mareep, and Ianthe's teeth chattered as her hair poofed up in response to the electricity. Nymph fell off her head and to the ground, definitely paralyzed from the accidental attack.

"...Hello, sweet Mareep." Ianthe managed to say after she'd recovered enough from the lightning, digging in her bag for a Paralyze Heal for Nymph. "Have you...have you seen a disheveled looking grunt with a Castform out here recently?"

Talking to the Pokémon distracted her from how bad she knew her hair must have looked in that moment, and of course, she was more focused on healing Nymph than worrying about her looks. She deserved a spa day after all of this, though. She counted on it.

 

[Ganryu]

​

Walking down the Blackleaf base in Laketown, a rather odd combination in conversation could be heard. Several “Nya’s” and butchered English continued down the hall. The meowing might be easier to understand.

“Yes my queen, I understand to ask of others is difficult, one wouldn’t want to impose afterall, but methinks thou has untapped potential, and laying all day in a pile of hoarded gold is rather unproductive.”

*Nyyyyaah.*

“Well, yes, and it was quite an effort how you managed to steal ALL of Jack’s extension cords, and array them into a hammock before attracting the gaze of any, tis still unproductive to slumber in said hammock for 16 hours straight.”

Himiko shrugged.

“So… we’re going to acquire some battle tips from the honorable admin over the Northeast. They happen to be reporting to headquarters, and I’ve harried/bribed them into generous sharing of some tips and a lesson.”

Himiko rolled her eyes.

“Think of the possibilities my queen! You are an Ice type I recently found out. Imagine in trail of your escape an ice slip for your foes?”

Himiko laughed.

“Or of finally clawing that Aipom that keeps stealing from your horde.”

Himiko’s eyes went dead serious, and she picked up the pace, with Fliathri having to practically run after her. He’d hit a soft spot he knew. They quickly found themselves on the dock, where the meeting was supposed to take place.

It wasn’t hard to find the admin. Not only was he one of the only people out on the docks, his nearly white hair, and fur-lined jacket stood out from the grunts scurrying about. The admin paced slightly, clearly trying not to yell at the person on the phone. ”What do you mean ’missing’? I gave you strict orders not to go anywhere near its lair until we were ready.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, ”you have twenty-four hours, though I doubt he’ll last that long before freezing.”

Shoving his phone back in his jacket pocket, the admin turned towards the approaching duo. ”You actually came.”

Fliathri bowed politely. Himiko tapped her elbow with her claw, and rolled her head with a rather rude ‘nyah’. Fliathri then grabbed the back of her head, and made her bow as well. He gulped slightly. He’d pay for that later, but, for the moment, more important things were afoot.

“Don’t be rude, my queen.”

“We did, sir Wolfe. I have heard of your expertise in battling, and have convinced my partner here to take part in training. She’s very talented, but sadly, a little less so for direct combat.”

He then leaned in to whisper. “And she’s likely to be a bit difficult, so I’ve included a little something extra.”

He passed a note of bills quickly into the admin’s hands.

“So, instructor, why don’t you show us how to dance?”

Wolfe gave a low hum, glancing to the envelope before pocketing it and reaching for a pokeball. Since it wasn't an actual battle, she’d get more facing a fellow ice type. ”Come out, Anda.” In a flash, a frosslass floated before Fliathri and Himiko, giving the pair a graceful sweeping bow. ”Let’s see what you've got. Open with shadow ball.”

Anda gave a singsong cry and held up a hand. A purple orb formed in front of it before firing at Himiko.

Himiko pointed at the Froslass and began to laugh, saying something to the pokemon. That was before getting slammed in the face with shadowball, and flying into the lake behind them. Growling could be heard before Himiko leapt out the water, sailing towards Anda, aiming a swipe at its bow.

A low growl could be heard from the ghost pokemon, even as her attack sent the sneasel flying back. It soon turned into a furious yell as her bow was snatched from her head. Holding both hands in front of her, a blast of frost erupted out towards the thieving pokemon.

Icy Wind

“Your Sneasel’s certainly light on her feet, I’ll give you that.” Wolfe’s hands remained in his pockets as he watched the fight play out.

Fliathri gulped.

“Oh, no, no, no. It’s not my sneasel. I never even caught her. We’ve decided ‘partners’ is the best term. I fancy respect, she fancies finer things, and for some grunts, I dare say we’ve made some scuttlebutt of the two of us. She’s… special. A bit bright, and a bit ruthless. To be honest, though, sloth is her vice. I was hoping this might motivate her a bit.”

Sneasel shivered as cold slowed it down slightly. It was an ice type itself, but this chill made it hard to move. Anger welled in its eyes, darting into cruelty as it held up the bow, and giggled. She tried to turn to move and jump back in the water, but in the cold gale was definitely hampering her movements, causing shivering.

“Maybe that’s why you have so much trouble with her. Pokemon won’t respect a trainer that just cows before them.”

Anda’s eyes narrowed at the sneasel’s threat. The wind suddenly stopped, gathering and coalescing into between her hands as a brilliant orb. A beam fired from it, threatening to freeze anything it touched.

Ice Beam

Fliathri nodded, tapping his cane on the ground. “Perhaps. I believe if we go down, we’ll go down together.” He pulled his hat down and began to walk down. “Himiko.”

She looked up, trembling slightly at the beating she was getting.

“Icy wind. What you saw Froslass do earlier, do that, aim it at the ground.”

Himiko growled, raising one finger at Fliathri that could only represent one thing, but then began to mimic his stance, breathe in deeply, and thought carefully about what it had seen Froslass doing. It took a minute, then her eyes opened excitedly as she breathed out frosty air infront of her, leaving puddles of ice.

Fliathri waited for icebeam to finish, then screamed.

“Now, into it!”

Himiko leapt forward, sliding on the ice at rather high speeds under where she had been moments ago.

“Hmm, clever,” Wolfe gave a short nod as Anda slid back from the swift blow. Her eyes flashed violet before shadowy beams fired back at the sneasel. Payback for both striking her and stealing the bow. “Enough, Anda.”

The Froslass growled, but obeyed, allowing herself to be drawn back into her pokeball.

Himiko flew back, the ribbon flying from her claws. She grunted for a minute trying to get back up before collapsing back down. Flaithri nodded.

“Thank you, sir Wolfe. I believe that was informative. I do believe my dear Himiko just learned two moves in one go, Icy Wind and Quick Attack. Hopefully she becomes twice as powerful. I do look forward to her mischief with these tools.”

Fliathri walked towards his partner, before picking her up in his hands, walking away from the docks.

“How are operations on your end anyways?”

The admin shook his head and clipped the pokeball back on his belt. “Kyurem has barely stirred since the incident with Sherri. Though there’s an Articuno that won’t let anyone or anything near the area. Only a matter of time before its behavior draws that professor back.”

Fliathri’s eyebrow raised. “I see. I take it I likely may see orders to head out north to the crater soon. It sounds like a real furor. I’m from Nacreousville actually, where I stumbled upon Himiko here. I did hear about Admin Sherri. My condolences to her family.”

Fliathri looked down at Himiko. “Ready for a trip back, m’queen?”

She moaned and rolled her eyes, before settling on a shrug.

“If you’re intent on heading back there, may as well take this.” Wolfe held out a small disk, “When you get in over your head - like everyone here seems intent on doing - you’ll at least take your attacker down with you.”

“Oooh. Destiny Bond. Spiteful. Perfect.”

 

[Ganryu]

~Pannus Grasslands~​

In Akira's jacket, the pichu began to mumble in its sleep, holding the jacket tighter. It looked peaceful, like it was having a pleasant dream.

The luxray's bark in the distance shook the grasslands, and testified of the king of the grasslands, proud and magnificent.

Next to Ianthe, the mareep giggled, giggled at the massive lightning bolt that had struck it, and had come dangerously close to striking Ianthe and Nymph. Its expression turned to confusion as Ianthe stood there, but it managed to shrug, and began to walk away before Ianthe asked questions. It shrugged, whipping its tail... then stopped in its tracks, a devilish smile on its lips as it thought. It turned back to Ianthe and bayed, its sweet voice echoing.

It nodded its head towards a path in the grasslands, beckoning others to follow it, giggling like mad. Yet down the path, signs could be seen of someone who had recently walked through. Broken grass, a scarf left on the grass, a shattered pokeball further down, and a pin on the ground.

Spoiler: pin

Deeper in the grasslands, the rain died out, but the pressure dropped and dropped. The sky was black, it was only marginally able to be told that it was infact day. Large lines of blackened grass marked frequent lightning. If anyone looked to the ground, or was short and walked under it, black leylines scattered out from impacts. The grass also occasionally seemed to be sticky, making it extremely hard for any small pokemon to make it through this part. They would get stuck in no time. Mareep, the guide, was struggling throughout it. It then shrieked as orbs condensed around it, and blasted out, setting some grass on fire nearby, and it walked normal again.

The earth became softer and softer, occassionally someone would find themselves ankle high in it. It was an annoying area to go through. A nearby black sock revealed it was the right direction though.

Mareep let out another beautiful bay, as if to say 'we're here'. No more hints could be seen of the blackleaf grunt. Mareep then started giggling again, waggling its tail back and forth. A "HMMPH" then sounded in the area, and grunting could be heard from... right in front of them. Nothing out of the ordinary could be seen though, other than Mareep looked like it had just won the lottery.

 

[RoninN7]

Micah Reed
Location: Nacreousville | Interactions: Theo713 Ganryu | Mentions: None​

Micah looked around, feeling amazed at the sight of all the Swinub running around them. It was then that a strange rumbling accompanied by robotic sounds rang out near the duo. He turned to see something incredible: Regirock was standing right there making signs toward them. Micah felt so dumbstruck he could barely understand what the massive Pokemon was trying to show them, though it was unclear if it even was doing that. He'd heard about the fact that the Regis were what made Vera Valle famous and he'd even studied them a little with Professor Sycamore; seeing one up close was an entirely different ball game, though, and Micah didn't know how to react. Luckily for the boy, the massive rock-type simply walked away and joyously pranced along, even sending a heart their way. As they continued, Micah couldn't help but feel a little underdressed for the cold, and a little giddy after the encounter they'd just had. Micah was pulled out of his thoughts when suddenly, a massive crack formed and Iris fell into a cliff below. Despite being covered in snow, Micah managed to rush to the edge to make sure she was okay, which she was. After an oddly friendly display from the Pokemon below and Iris' reassuring comment, Micah nodded and turned around, shaking the snow off and feeling considerably colder.

Back in Nacreousville, Micah easily found his way to the Pokemon Center and sighed deeply as soon as he walked inside; the warmth was very much welcome after the biting cold of the outside world. Inside, the scene he found was quite amusing; there was a woman (who Micah realized was Nurse Joy) with a thick accent who looked like Professor Joshua's sister. Micah looked around and saw a couple of trainers with welts on their heads and black eyes, which he didn't think he wanted to ask Nurse Joy about. Before the boy could do much, Nurse Joy moved from behind her desk and approached him. She was asking so many questions in quick succession that Micah had a hard time keeping up with her words, her size also aiding in how overwhelmed he was. "Um, hi there! My name's Micah." The boy spoke once he'd finally regained his bearings, keeping his upbeat tone while doing his best not to show how her powerful voice and thick accent affected him. "Yep, I'm new here. I'm actually on an assignment from Professor Joshua! It would be cool to conquer the glacier, and I definitely would like to meet new Pokemon!" Despite the strangeness of the situation, Micah felt a little more comfortable and let himself go, the nerves vanishing. "Oh, my Pokemon are actually fine and so am I. But thanks for offering the help! I would say I'm a strong boy, though I don't think I'm quite as strong as you are." Micah laughed a little at his own comment.

He then pulled out his Pokeballs and let out Redgie and Gemma, who immediately stretched out and let out excited cries. "These are my Pokemon: Gemma and Redgie!" He motioned toward each of them as he introduced them; both the Honedge and the Sableye took a moment to stare at Nurse Joy, clearly impressed with her size and presence, but they became friendly quickly enough. "I think we're just gonna rest here to avoid the cold for a bit since I'm expecting some people to come soon. We promise not to cause trouble!" With that, Micah walked away and took a seat on a nearby bench, watching Redgie run around excitedly and Gemma polishing her gemstones while looking in a mirror. A smile curled across his lips as he rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes. It wasn't until some time later that Micah woke up from a nap he didn't even mean to take; when he did, he found Redgie and Gemma bickering angrily with each other about something Micah didn't even try to comprehend. He simply stood up and got between them to diffuse the situation. "Remember we promised not to cause trouble so behave!" It was then that a voice said his name nearby, which caught Micah's attention. He turned to see a slender boy talking to Nurse Joy and asking for Micah. Quickly, Micah walked toward the boy with his two Pokemon following close behind him with angry looks on their faces. "Hey, I'm Micah! I'm guessing Professor Joshua sent you."

 

[KageYuuki]

Seize and Posses
It had been a long trip from Laketown to near the entrance to Foehn Tunnels. Why Onix Exodus had become the most prominent transportation company in Vera Vale, Maya will never know. “As much as they charge, the seat shouldn’t be that uncomfortable.” The trainer said as she tried to stretch.

“You should have let me keep talking to the ticket seller!” Verity said indignantly, as she lifted her arms over her head and stretched the kinks out of her back. “He was about to crack and bump us up to first class I could feel it!” By her feet, Ponzi waddled along unhurriedly. The sandile had slept through most of the trip in his pokeball, but he’d woken up and forced his way out when he caught a whiff of Verity’s in transit meal.

“No, he was about to kick us out.” Maya massaged the bridge of her nose.

Being inside a train, for the first time, was a nice experience. Looking around, he spotted Maya and the wench in the distance. He let out a sigh when he saw her and took a deep breath before approaching. “Sorry about that, I had to take a different train.”

“Heeeey you made it!” cheered Verity. “See Maya, everything worked out! I dunno what you guys were worried about in the first place,”

Maya shook her head before turning to Kenneth, “Glad you still made it, was worried Dragalge hit you harder than we thought. We only just got here anyway,” she turned back to the direction she had been looking, “I saw the entrance to the tunnels as we flew by,” The redhead pointed off in the distance, “the fence shouldn’t be much of an issue to get past.” She rubbed the back of her neck, “wish we had more to go on than ‘mythic sword that may or may not be a pokemon’.”

“It wasn’t like I was blasted through a wall or anything,” Kenneth muttered to himself as he listened in. He wasn’t informed about what the mission was due to his little incident.

“Well on the bright side having such vague criteria makes it easier to fudge the results,” Verity said brightly. “If we don’t find the exact thing we can just pick up whatever vaguely ancient sword happens to be lying around and say the myth was BS. I mean it sounds like the kind of thing that was a scam in the first place. You sell a collector a cursed sword are they really going to risk sacrificing their life force to see if you were telling the truth?”

Maya hummed in agreement, “Yeah, I’m sure this story is just that; a story.” She looked over at Kenneth, “To catch you up, there’s this legend of a sword that made a man a king in exchange for his life force. King died young, prince didn’t want to have the same fate and had the sword hidden. People think it’s in these tunnels that just showed up.” Maya shrugged, it was a brief explanation, but it at least hit all the important parts. Hopefully.

“Ah, I see.” Nodding along to Maya’s explanation, he was mainly focusing on her rather than the wench that was right beside her. Every now and again, he would send glares at Verity’s back whenever he thought she wasn’t looking.

The trio stopped at the fence. Hastily erected, it was a simple chainlink fence surrounding the tunnel’s entrance. Without any razor wire along the top, it would be simple enough for them to climb. “Well, guess we can pick the lock, climb over, or just melt things and go through.”

“Ahh man, I’m not really one for gymnastics,” Verity said, sighing as she looked the fence up and down, “But I think its best if we don’t make it obvious we were here, which a melted lock is likely to do and picking it will take a while. Gimme a boost?”

“Yeah, sure,” Maya knelt, while she wasn’t the strongest, she should at least be able to make a solid enough base for the other two. “I should be able to climb the fence after you two.”

“Okay,” Kenneth said nodding to Maya. He looked over to the wench and glared at her. “Ladies first?” It was a pretty poor attempt to be polite. He was even trying to force a smile.

“You know if you’re not up to climbing we could always get Mansel to push you through it,” Verity said with a wink, returning Ponzi to his ball temporarily and throwing her briefcase over the fence then boosting herself up on Maya. When she had mounted the top of the fence Verity leaned down to offer a hand to whoever was going next.

If there was ever a moment that Kenneth wanted to commit homicide, it would be right now. “Fair enough,” Boosting himself on Maya, he grabbed Verity’s offered hand and pulled himself up. While he could have climbed it himself, he wasn’t going to reject help. Even if it came from the wench.

Once the pair had made it over, Maya jumped up and hauled herself over the fence. “Here’s hoping this place isn’t full of hostile pokemon or going to collapse on our heads?”

“Knowing that we’re ransacking some sort of ancient tomb, I think the Pokemon aren’t going to be friendly,” Kenneth said with a sigh. He was getting tired already. While his wounds were healed, the energy he spent getting blasted into a wall wasn’t. It was only made a little better with that first-class ticket he found on the ground.

“It’s been standing for however many hundreds of years or whatever right?” Verity said, brushing some dust from the fence off her jacket. “I’m sure it can handle another few hours while we poke around. I dunno much about ghosts but Ponzi here is dark type, so his teeth have ghostbusting capabilities,” Verity picked up her sandile with both hands to display him to Kenneth and Maya and the little crocodile obligingly opened his jaws to reveal two rows of gleaming, pointed teeth. “So, you know, if there’s something strange in your neighborhood and all,”

“It’ll definitely help,” Maya fished Kurama’s pokeball from her pocket and another from her bag, double-checking it before releasing the Pokémon inside. Kurama shook out his coat as Asuka flew around chirping angrily for a moment. The trainer sighed before tossing a berry in the air for the Noibat who snagged it and clung to her bag. “Mandrawl gonna be okay in there?”

“I’m pretty sure he’ll have a heart attack.” Kenneth sighed. This place wasn’t good for Mandrawl at all. His timid nature would be bad for a mission like this. Luckily, he had the perfect Pokemon for this place. “Thankfully, Milutin has the personality of a brick wall. I’ll use him during the duration of the mission.” With Milutin’s seemingly non-existent personality, he should be fine under the circumstances.

“Well it sounds like we’re pretty much set,” said Verity chirpily. “As long as we have umm… a map or at least some general idea of where to go? I don’t loooove the idea of wandering around blindly through dark tunnels. With ghosts in them.,”

Maya shook her head, clipping a light on the strap of her backpack, “Of course not, would’ve been too easy.” She paused a few steps from the entrance, “You guys have flashlights, right?”

“Yea, I have one.” Taking out his cellphone, he switched on flashlight mode. A small cone of light emitted from the cellular device.

Descending into the inky darkness of the cave, the temperature quickly dropped to a more comfortable range. The light on Maya’s bag cut a paltry beam through the dark, they could see if only barely. “Asuka, use flash,” the Noibat gave a few grumpy chirps before letting go of her backpack and flying near her trainer’s shoulder. A small orb of light formed above her, better illuminating the path.

The walls in the first tunnel were smooth, quartz shimmering in the light made by the pokemon. “Wonder if these were carved out by pokemon?” Maya mused.

Looking at the walls, Kenneth observed the walls. “I wouldn’t be surprised if these tunnels were carved out by Pokemon.” The quartz was rather pretty, his younger sister would probably enjoy one of them. “Regardless, even if this was man-made, Pokemon would assist them regardless so they were involved either way.” Lowering down his phone, he looked down towards the tunnel. He wondered when they’ll reach the end and how far did the tunnel go for.

“Oh man the healing crystals crowd would go nuts over these,” Verity muttered gleefully, her eyes lighting up with avarice as she ran an appreciative hand over some of the quartz, stopping to study them as Kenneth and Maya moved on. “Crystals harvested from an ancient temple? I could spin them so much BS about the ‘positive vibrations’ and ‘healing auras’ they’ve absorbed, do either of you have like a pickaxe? Or maybe...hmm?” Verity squinted at the walls, for some reason the light reflected in the crystals from Maya’s Noibat and Kenneth’s phone seemed to rapidly dim and then was snuffed out as the other two grunts turned a corner further up.

Verity straightened up and glanced around, now alone in the inky darkness. “HMM!? Guys?” she called, quickening her pace in the direction she assumed they had gone.

“Can we focus on finding this sword before trying to sell crystals from a haunted cave?” Maya called, glancing back at Verity as they walked. She was already getting harder to see in the darkness, but it’d be easy enough to catch up. The trainer had scarcely turned back to the uneven path in front of her when Verity called out again.

Maya gave an exasperated groan, “for the love of- I’ll go get her.” Spinning on her heel, she strode back down the path they’d taken. “You gotta stay with us if you don’t have a light.” Had it gotten colder since they entered? Her brow furrowed as the entrance came back into view, “where is she?” Asuka chirped, pivoting her large ears to try and hear the missing teammate. There was only the one path, right? “Verity?”

Kenneth let out a sigh when Maya mentioned the wench. While he was annoyed by her antics, they should probably find her before she gets lost in the caves. “I blame the wench if we get yelled at by Mansel,” Kenneth muttered to himself. He stayed where he was as Maya left to fetch the wench.

Examining the walls to pass time, Kenneth flashed his phone at the crystals. How should he take the crystal out of the wall? Mandrawl was probably having a heart attack in his Pokeball and Milutin didn’t have any effective means to take the crystal out. He could, begrudgingly, ask Verity to use her Sandile to dig out the crystals.

Humming himself, Kenneth patiently waited for the girls to get back to him.


“Haha, hoo boy,” Verity chuckled nervously to herself as she peered into the pitch-black tunnel ahead of her. “This might be really bad huh?” Verity had no idea where her teammates had gotten to, her only saving grace was that Ponzi was still trailing along by her feet. “In fact why don’t you come up here bud? Before you end up wandering away as well,” Verity said, scooping up the sandile and holding him under one arm, as much to comfort herself as to stop Ponzi getting lost. “Come to think of it are you like? Good with this?” she asked the uncomprehending pokemon as he squirmed slightly to make himself comfortable in her grip. “Can you like, see in the dark or maybe hear real good? I guess I have no idea,”

Ponzi chirped noncommittedly in response and Verity sighed. “I guess even if you could see I doubt you’d be able to figure out where we should go… what is it you’re supposed to do when you’re lost? You keep one of your hands on a wall? I think that might be for hedge mazes not haunted ruins but it’s basically the same principle right?”

Verity planted her left hand on the closest cave wall and then reluctantly started walking forwards, hopefully, she’d run into the other two fairly soon, or an exit. Verity would feel bad leaving the other two to their fate but on the other hand, she wanted to see the sun again! It would just be a matter of inventing the right story to tell Mansel after the fact, maybe a cave in? Or an attack by government agents?

Verity was debating whether the story should include Kenneth asking her to deliver his last words to his fiance when her progress was suddenly halted as she collided with something rock solid in front of her.

“Ooof!” Verity stumbled backward and landed on her butt, and then gasped as she looked up at the imposing figure in front of her However when the figure remained immobile Verity sighed in relief, it was just a statue.

“I guess I’m getting a little paranoid down here,” Verity said, laughing nervously as she stood up to take a closer look at her would-be assailant. The statue was old but finely crafted and oddly familiar to Verity. It was roughly humanoid, with metal bracers around its arms and legs and armor-like plates on its body. A wide and jagged crack ran down the statue's body like a scar, but it was partially covered by a patch of metal with odd symbols carved into it.

“Creepy,” Verity muttered then, more enthusiastically, “I wonder if it would be worth anything?” while she was trying to estimate its value Ponzi leaned forward to give the statue an experimental sniff then, without warning tried to bite down on the metal patch, its natural shine perhaps reminding him of a bug.

“Hey no! Bad!” Verity scolded him. “How are we going to sell it if you-” Verity broke off her sentence as she noticed an eerie, glowing energy starting to leak out of the crack in the statue’s body. The energy seemed to spread out from the statue’s center, gradually lighting up a network of glowing lines and symbols until it reached the head and its eyes lit up and then seemed to swivel down to glare at Verity.

“Ahh..haha…” Verity giggled nervously and then, as if in a trance, bent down to pick up the fallen metal patch. “Lemme just..get that..for you,” she whispered, trying to reattach the patch to its original spot with shaking hands. Unfortunately, the nails that had held the patch in place had long since rusted away and shattered when Ponzi disturbed them, so the patch immediately fell to the ground.

There was a deep, alien rumbling sound that unmistakably came from the statue itself and then a fierce roar as what was actually a pokemon of some kind pulled back a huge stone fist and then swung it towards Verity.

A wailing, high pitched scream echoed through the lonely network of tunnels.


“Verity!” Maya listened to her voice echoed off the crystal filled walls with no response. “Did she seriously leave?” What was it with her and Kenneth losing teammates? This was the second time now that one just up and left during a mission. She pursed her lips and exhaled sharply through her nose. “Let’s just catch back up with Kenneth…”

Kurama sniffed the air for a moment before following a few steps away from her. Both his and Asuka’s ears rotated, picking up noises their trainer couldn’t hope to hear. Aside from the occasional, tentative chirp from the noibat to get a better feel for the path ahead the trio traveled in silence.

And walk they did, for several uneventful minutes until Maya stopped abruptly. She really hadn’t gone that far from Kenneth when they broke off to find Verity, they should have found him by now. “Kenneth? Anyone?” Silence.

“Leave…” A discordant whisper grated against her ear.

Maya whipped around, nearly dislodging Asuka from her backpack and earning a disgruntled chirp. Even with the pokemon’s light, she strained to see in the oppressive darkness. Something shifted on the edge of her vision, but refused to come into focus. “I swear to Arceus, Kenneth, if this is another one of your pranks…”


The screeching echo of the wench sent a chill down his spine. Maybe raiding the haunted crypts was a bad idea after all. Not only the wench had vanished, so did Maya as well. He suspected something was at play after all. If Maya didn’t come back as quickly as she had left, then there was something going on within these caves.

Not only that, he felt something bad over his shoulders. It felt oddly similar to that one time when his sister came back home from her travels. His parents and her older brother were celebrating her victory in the tournament she had participated in. That left him to taking care of his younger siblings. One of them being three and five.

Every now and again he felt something watching him and he constantly turned around to find the source. No matter how many times he looked, he could never find the source of the noise. That was until he turned around to find a huge, gray, ghost type pokemon right in front of him. Enough to say, he fainted right then and there.

“I can’t deal with ghosts…” Kenneth sighed. Shining his phone over his belt, he took Milutin’s Pokeball out. “Come on out, Milutin.” With a flash of red light, the magnet Pokemon appeared. It let off some electrical sparks that lit up the area a little. “If you see anything suspicious, I want you to electrocute the hell out of it, okay.” As usual, Milutin didn’t give Kenneth a response. It grated on Kenneth’s nerves. First getting blasted through a wall, then having to deal with the wench and now this.

So much for relaxing a little.


“WAAAAA IMSORRYIMSORRYIMSORRIMSORRY-” Verity wailed, although her plaintive cries were mostly drowned out by the earth-shaking footsteps of the heavy pokemon chasing her down. On the bright side, Verity remembered why the “statue” was so familiar, it was actually a golurk, a pokemon she vaguely recalled from a safety PSA she’d been forced to watch in high school. Unfortunately that PSA had been all about how dangerous it was to remove the seal on a golurk’s chest because it tended to send them on murderous rampages, something Verity really wished she’d remembered before the hulking pokemon had begun chasing her down like an ancient, stone terminator.

Verity had managed to avoid the golurk’s first attack when Ponzi had snapped his jaws down on its arm and distracted it, but the stone giant had been chasing them ever since Verity was fast enough to stay ahead of it, but not fast enough to lose it completely so, for now, they were caught in a running stalemate. As she ran, Verity strained her eyes to try and peer into the darkness ahead of her, praying that she would run into help of some kind and not a dead end.


Silence was the only answer to Maya’s call, the trainer shifting uncomfortably as she strained to see anything beyond the light. Finally, a dark cloak rustled at the edge of the light. Who or whatever was wearing it impossible to see beyond a single, glowing eye. “Leave…” it rasped again before raising a cloaked arm to point at her. A dark purple orb formed and fired at the trainer prompting her to dive to the ground with a startled cry. The orb spattered harmlessly against the wall.

Shadow Ball

“Okay, it’s just a Pokémon. No big deal...” Maya slowly pushed herself up, ignoring her complaining arms. “Please just be a Pokémon…” Taking a breath, she called out, “Asuka, use screech. Kurama, follow it up with a bite!” She barely had time to cover her ears before her Noibat cried out. The tunnel walls reverberated with the sound of her shriek as Asuka challenged Mandrawl for the title of Blackleaf’s loudest.

Their attacker flinched but otherwise seemed unharmed before Kurama lunged and sank his fangs into it. The robed figure gave a pained cry as its disguise fell away, revealing the smaller Pokémon beneath. Decorated in bones, it was a Pokémon Maya hadn’t seen before.

She didn’t have long to study it as her light source fizzled and died. Asuka wasn’t much of a multitasker.

“Uh… crap. Need some light he- gah!” The Duskull had wasted no time in firing another shadow ball, this one striking her square in the chest. Maya gritted her teeth, pushing herself to her feet once more. “Will-o-wisp, firespin, something to get us some light!”

Everything had gone still. No chirps from her Pokémon, no saving illumination, no more attacks. “...Guys?”


There was nothing but the chill that slowly crept up Kenneth’s back. He shined his f phone all over the cavern. From corner to corner, Kenneth grip on his phone tightened. Ghost types were his least favorite type out of them all. Ever since his sister brought home that blasted ghost, he had a phobia towards ghosts.

“Heheheheh…” Kenneth shot up and frantically looked around. “Milutin, did you hear that?” If the Magnemite did hear the sound, it didn’t care enough to respond to Kenneth. They kept on walking forward with the echoing laughter faded. With a sigh of relief, Kenneth sighed.
“Thank god that’s over, hopefully, that ghost won’t-”

Nothing came out of Kenneth’s voice as he stared at the Gastly, that was smiling ‘innocently’ at him, that was hovering right next to him. Kenneth stood frozen as he was comprehending what was right next to him. The Gastly started to float him and licked him.

“...”

“FUCK THIS SHIT I’M OUT!” Kenneth yelled at the top of his lungs. There was no way that he was going to be with this ghost any longer! “Milutin use electric shock, or whatever!. JUST GET RID OF THIS GHOST!” Wherever Milutin was, it unleashed a flash of lighting at the Gastly.

If the attack connected, Kenneth didn’t see it because he was too busy running away from the Ghost.

He wouldn’t have gotten far before a large bat latched onto his face, Asuka giving several confused chirps and cries. The sound of paws pattering beside him soon joined in.


Maya was left to stumble blindly down the tunnel, “Kurama? Asuka? Hello?” How could her pokemon have just vanished like that? This entire mission had turned into one giant headache within minutes of starting. “Maybe I should see about taking a break after this…” the trainer grumbled, before tripping and nearly falling flat on her face.

A few curses were muttered under her breath as she stood back up. Pausing, she saw a light flicker in the distance. Sickly green in color, it flickered like a flame. Will-O-Wisp was blue, so it couldn’t have been anything of Kurama’s…

Maya didn’t have to go far to find the source of the light. The tunnel opened into a large chamber, old runes covered the walls and a pair of swords floated about. Large braziers had been the source of the light, an unnatural fire burning in them. In the center of this chamber was a third sword, its blade a deep crimson.

“Now we’re onto something,” she whispered.

An eye on the sword opened.


“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH,” Kenneth stumbled as some weird, furry thing was attached to his face. Immediately ripping it off of his face, and chucking somewhere in the cave, he noticed that his phone was gone. “Arceusdamn ghosts!” He saw a faint light on the ground. Grabbing off the ground, he shined it in front of him.

It was just Maya’s Pokemon. Kurama and Asuka were the ones he bumped into. After a sigh of relief, Kenneth paused. Didn’t Maya have a third Pokemon on her?

Peeling herself off the wall, Asuka got nearly nose to nose with Kenneth and went into a long tirade of chirps.

Kenneth held his hands up. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that was you, Asuka.” Hopefully, Maya would forgive him for throwing Asuka into a rocky wall. Speaking of Maya, where is she? “Hey, where’s Maya? Aren’t you guys supposed to be with her” It was odd to see them without Maya nearby. Did they get separated somehow?

The noibat rolled her eyes before opting to use Kenneth’s head as a perch. Meanwhile, Kurama gave a low whine and paced at the trainer’s feet.

“I’ll buy you something later, okay?” Sighing at the bat’s understandable spite, he turned to Kurama. “Let’s go. Maya can’t be that far.” Shining the flashlight forward, Kenneth ran deeper into the tunnel.

It didn’t take that long to reach the end of the tunnel. After taking a quick breather, Kenneth shined his flash around. There was the altar but no sword. Frowning, he shined it around the room. There had to be something-

“Maya!” He yelled as he found her unconscious on the ground. A strange Marowak was waving around what seemed to be a broken sword. “Can you two distract that strange Marowak? I’ll get Maya out.” Kenneth said as he kept his eyes on Marowak.

The dark-skinned Marowak gave a low growl, in one hand was its signature bone club, both ends ablaze with the same sickly green flame as the braziers. The sword it swung around was heavily rusted, small flecks being scattered about the room. It gave a loud cry, calling down a pair of honedge that had been mindlessly floating near the ceiling.

The redhead groaned as she came to, bleary eyes trying to take in everything. “Kenneth?” Maya winced, slowly sitting up. “Ugh… that thing’s friends must’ve hit me…” Weirdest Marowak she’d ever seen, in all honesty.

With the new arrivals coming, it was starting to be annoying. Gritting his teeth, he jumped when he heard sparking right behind him. Turning around, he found Milutin just floating right next to him.

“Perfect timing! Milutin use Electric Shock on that Marowak!” From what little he knew of Kalosian Pokemon, Honedge was a steel, ghost type. Electricity wouldn’t be effective against the Honedge, so targeting Marowak with the attack should yield the best results. Plus, if the Marowak was stunned for at least five seconds it would be good.

“Kurama use Fire Spin on the one of the Honedges! Asuka… Do Asuka things!” He remembered some of the commands Maya gave to Kurama, but he didn’t remember anything for Asuka.

Marowak seemed to laugh at the group. Until the floor rumbled with thunderous footsteps. All of the pokemon in the room paused, looking towards the hall the Blackleaf grunts had come from. Smashing its way into the chamber was a hulking creature of stone and metal, light seeping from runes carved on its body and poured from a crack in its chest.

Marowak paled, its sword and club clattering to the ground. It took a few hesitant steps back before promptly fleeing. The pair of Honedge fled after it.

“I don’t like this…” Maya murmured, struggling back to her feet.

Golurk roared, slamming its fists into the ground, sending mud at everyone.

Mud Slap

Kenneth immediately went over to Maya once the obstruction entourage left. “Welp at least we know the sword does exist, even if it is a broken hunk of junk, anyways let’s get out of here!” Slinging Maya’s arm around the back of his neck, he raised his arm at Golurk’s mud slap. Mud splashed onto him as he partially shielded Maya from the attack.

Milutin wasn’t so lucky. He immediately went down as the mud splashed onto him. Kenneth gritted his teeth as he returned the magnet Pokémon to its ball.

“Maya, if you can, recall your Pokémon. We need to get out of here now!”

Maya nodded, wiping some of the mud from her face she unclipped Kurama’s pokeball from her belt. “Asuka! Grab that sword!” The Noibat gave a few panicked chirps before swooping after the sword and dragging it back towards the duo.

Kurama, meanwhile, wasn’t looking too great from the earthen pokemon’s strike. Before being enveloped by a red beam, a barrage of ghostly fireballs was fired at the Golurk. It roared again, charging at the pair.

“Shit, shit, shit! I fucking HATE ghosts.” Screaming as he made a mad dash towards the exit, he had to fumble his phone around, so he can see what was in front of him.

“I blame everything on the fucking wench! When I see her I’ll-“ Kenneth made an abrupt turn as he saw two tunnels. They weren’t there before. Deciding to take the left one, he shifted his shoulders around so he didn’t accidentally drop Maya.

It would have been helpful to send out Mandrawl and have him use smokescreen. The only problem was that he wasn’t sure if he could give the command before Mandrawl goes ballistic. It also didn’t help that Asuka might have trouble locating them if he did end up releasing Mandrawl.

His hands were tied as he stumbled around when he stepped on a rock. He could only hope that the exit was near.

A loud crash reverberated through the tunnels as Golurk’s fist slammed into the chamber wall. Asuka’s frantic chirping soon followed, the noibat flying for dear life, the sword clutched in her claws. “We need light!” Maya called, pulling away from Kenneth. Her gait was unsteady, but if she tripped, the last thing she wanted was to pull him down.

The noibat flung the sword between the grunts, the old weapon clattered to the ground between them. After a second, an orb of light formed above her, illuminating the tunnel better than Kenneth’s phone had.

Maya scooped up the rusty weapon and continued running, attempting to break into a sprint at Golurk’s roar. “I am so done with today!”

When Kenneth’s vision had brightened up, he realized something. His glasses were no longer on his face and he could feel a few scratches oozing out blood from his face. The debris must have taken them off when Golurk punched the wall.

Though that was the last thing Kenneth had in mind. With Asuka now providing light, he now had an idea in mind. Stowing away his phone, he took out an empty pokeball. Now he wasn’t intending to catch the fucking giant, but distract it for at least a second. A second was all they needed at this point to get away from it.

Clicking the button, the pokeball expanded into his palm. Giving a silent prayer to the origin pokemon, he took a deep breath. “CHEW ON THIS, YOU FUCKING GHOST!” Doing a full three-sixty rotation, Kenneth tossed the ball at the Golurk. As long as the automaton pokemon didn’t punch it in mid-air, it would be okay. As long as he didn’t miss, it would also be okay. All they needed to do was get the fuck out.

The ball bounced off the Golurk before drawing it inside.

It wiggled once.

Twice.

Before shattering with another roar. Luckily for the duo, they were out of sight by the time it escaped. Unluckily for the nearby wall, the raging golem took out its rage on it instead.

Maya and Kenneth didn’t have to run far before the exit came into view. Frankly, daylight had never looked so good. Bursting from the tunnels, the redhead flopped on her back and tried to catch her breath. “We made it…” she gasped, “holy shit…”

A new wave of pain hit Kenneth as the adrenaline started to fade. The bruises that he had sustained from Mansel’s Dragalge were making their point. “Fuck me…” Kenneth let out a huge huff as he dropped onto the floor.

It was a bad idea at first since it only made the pain a lot worse, though it subsided when he took several deep breaths. Reaching out into his pocket, he took out his phone.

It had several cracks from the mission, but it was still functional. Looking over to Maya, while still reeling in pain, he groaned out, “Can you call Mansel for me? I feel like I’m going to pass out at any second now…” His eyelids felt heavy as he tried to stay awake, “His number is in my contacts list…”

Maya sat back up with a groan, the world really needed to stop spinning. “He can wait until we get back to Laketown… This wasn’t a high priority job.” She gave up and laid back down, Asuka falling limply on her chest. “Maybe a little nap before walking to town wouldn’t hurt…”

Kenneth nodded. “Yea, you’re right…” A nap sounded really good right now. Before completely passing out, Kenneth decided to make a rather questionable comment. “Mansel… can go… fuck himself.” With that, he was out like a light.

 

[KageYuuki]

Eric Wolfe
"25... 26..." In one of the rooms Nacreousville Pokemon Center offered to trainers, one such trainer worked through a set of pushups. "29.. 30... Hey Freja, should we double it today? Stupid Nurse Joy made us miss yesterday." Eric glanced back towards the Riolu attempting to meditate atop his back. She only gave a noncommital hum in response. He groaned, "Sure, you got your meditation in, but I was stuck in bed all day! Pfft, not like the cold ever killed anyon- Ow!" A sharp smack to the back of his head prevented him from finishing his thought.

Before he could protest his pokemon's attack, his phone buzzed against the nightstand. Freja used his back for a springboard, snatching the phone and padding back with it. "Maybe a little warning next time?" Eric winced as he sat up, taking the phone and frowning at the name displayed. "Yeah? Wait, what happened?" He gritted his teeth at the news of the attack on the lab and the stolen pokemon. Someone needed to teach those Blackleaf punks a lesson. "Where are they headed? Do you know? I'll hunt those bastards down myse-!"

Eric visibly deflated at the news of a different assignment. Then why bother telling him about a job that was totally suited for him? "Yeah, I'm still in Nacreousville. N-no reason. Maybe I like it here." He perked back up, already feeling Freja's wary gaze on the back of his head. "Really? You can count on me! No one's getting near Kyurem while I'm around!" Eric hung up before the professor's assistant had a chance to protest, jumping up to his feet. "Y' hear that, Freja? We've got a legendary to defend!"

Freja facepalmed as he strode out the door, scampering back to grab his coat and bag from a nearby chair.

"Yo, which of you is Ben and Michah?" Eric called as he walked into the main lobby. He held his hands behind his head as he waited for a response.

RoninN7 Theo713 Ganryu

 

[izayoiix]

ᴀᴋɪʀᴀ ᴛᴀɪᴅᴀɴᴀ​

At the easily recognizable sound of someone being effected by static electricity, Akira paused in her march forward and turned slightly so she could see what had happened. At the sight of Ianthe's hair frizzing up in every direction, she snorted, pressing a hand gently over her mouth in a weak effort to stop a laugh from escaping. "Your hair doesn't seem to get a break, huh?" she asked after a moment, her tone conveying her amusement quite obviously.

The little Pichu shifting on her shoulder caught her attention again and her raised hand moved to hover over her jacket where the small body was resting, ready to steady the pokemon if needed. The last thing she wanted was for the baby to fall and hurt itself.

She glanced back at the Mareep, who seemed quite pleased with itself, and watched as it trotted forward then went back to Ianthe. It seemed as if it wanted them to follow. She tilted her head, considering it. Other than following the path, they had no other leads, especially since none of them had been to this area yet, although Akira knew that after this, she'd probably be spending a lot of time in this particular part of the region.

"Well, might as well follow it." she grumbled, shoving her hands back into her pockets as the Mareep started forward again, expecting them to follow behind it. She shrugged her unoccupied shoulder at Ianthe and Damon before turning on her heel and wandered after the pokemon.

As they made it further down the path and the signs of someone having came through earlier became more obvious, Akira frowned at the sight of the pin on the ground. Luc leaped forward and sniffed it, his nose wrinkling at the scent before he nudged it and gently grabbed it in his mouth before running back towards the group where he dropped it in front of the others, his tail flicking anxiously behind him.

Akira barely glanced at it, catching sight of its shape before she kept moving, wanting to hurry up and get this over with. Although, she did find some amusement watching the Mareep shriek and blast through the worst part of the grass. When they came to a stop, she blinked, not sure what she was looking for. The Mareep was looking mighty proud of itself but Akira wasn't feeling up to playing any more games.

"Well we're here, now what." she huffed, scanning the area after hearing the muffled grunt echo around them.
cinnabuns AllHailDago

 

[KageYuuki]

Reclined in a borrowed office was Admin Isabelle Schaeffer, her Pyroar stretched out on the floor beside her. She regarded the pair of grunts with her good eye, “Well one of you has been getting some field experience at least.” It wasn’t ideal, sending two relatively green members on such an important job but Mansel left her with little choice in the matter. She had to make do with what she had.

Admin Schaeffer pushed a pair of maps across the desk, one was of the region, the other a more detailed layout of the Cirriform Ruins. “Ever since the Professor had some trainers check out the ruins, he’s had researchers in there almost nonstop. From what I’ve gathered, they’re trying to find what’s reanimating all of the fossil pokemon inside to no avail.”

A dark brown eye looked up at the pair to make sure they were following. “The newest batch he’s sent have a gene splicer on them. With that, we’ll be able to unlock Kyurem’s full power. You two are to get it by any means necessary.”

Inside, Kenneth wanted to scream out loud. Just thirty minutes earlier, he was fast asleep as a Snorlax - or whatever Maya called it - when he was called up to Admin Schaeffer.

He had nothing against the Admin, in fact, he never knew she existed, but he was still extremely sore from his last mission. Not to mention that he didn’t have a second pair of glasses, even though he could see fine without them.

With his serious grunt persona, he nodded. “Understood.” It was not his place to question how they were even going to capture Kyurem in the first place. One of their own admins died to it, establishing the power gap between them and it.

Regardless, he was assigned this mission, so he had to do it. His thoughts wandered onto his teammate. She wasn’t experienced as Maya though he was fine with that. What he had hoped for was that she wasn’t troublesome as the wench. He still cursed the wench for causing so much trouble.

In all honesty, she couldn’t have cared less for the reason she was called in today. Being a relatively new member of a criminal organization, a profession she had never thought would ever be on her resume, outside of the pay and free use of the lab, Reese had no interest in their goals and ambitions. However, she couldn’t quite tell that to the woman before her, an admin who held quite a bit of pull within Blackleaf. Regardless of the woman’s rank, this was still a job for Reese, and she’d like to at least earn her pay.

Listening to Admin Schaeffer’s debriefing of the current mission, Reese’s eyes began to sparkle when she was informed about the mysterious reanimation of fossil pokemon in the Cirriform Ruins. Unconsciously, she found herself staring at the detailed map of the Ruins, making a mental note of all the places where these fossil pokemon were to be found. How fascinating a phenomenon for these prehistoric creatures to return from the grave without human intervention. Scientists have been working on this for years only having recent making leaps to actual reanimation, but to see something that took man centuries to do was astonishing. Amid the Admin’s droning about gene splicers and a legendary key thing, or what she assumed was a key thing, she quietly muttered to herself possible answers to the question at hand.

“If the fossil works as a catalyst in which prehistoric cells and DNA is safely contained and stored, then there must be an outside agent that is reacting to the DNA strands and forcefully causing the cell to ‘wake up’ simultaneously. However, you’d also have to factor in …” she droned on for a minute or two before realizing Schaeffer had finished her debrief. The man next to her responded almost immediately as if it was a conditioned response. Adjusting her cap, she guessed she’d say the same.

“Understood ma'am.”

Schaeffer’s eye narrowed at Reese, “you can form theories and collect specimens after you recover the splicer. Now assuming you don’t have any questions, you’re dismissed.”


The duo’s trip along Route Six was fairly uneventful. As they drew near Cirirform Ruins, Kenneth would spot the familiar mist of Fogma Falls off in the distance. Unlike when the team of trainers had been sent to perform a cursory search, equipment was scattered just outside of the entrance. Generators powered by snoozing Voltorbs hummed, sending power along the numerous heavy cables stretched out inside.

Lights were spaced out inside, illuminating what would otherwise be treacherous footing without something to light the way. It would be easy to lose your footing on the uneven ground. Before long, the pathway opened up into a massive open cavern, the lights no longer able to chase all of the shadows away.

The path wound down a pillar in a circular motion. If either of them paid the pillar more than a cursory glance, it was covered in ancient drawings, and several drawings seem to giggle as they passed. However, no pokemon attacked them, and the drawings stood still. Reach the pillar’s bottom, the path became a bridge across a clear underground lake, too dark to see the bottom of.

The stone bridge led past a large stone engraving.

Older than we are
We found them, much like our ancestors
Older than Legend
They do not change
We do not change
May we battle like they of old
Ancients knew these pokemon well,
and so we come here to catch the -

The rest of the stone slab was cut to ribbons, deep gashes leaving anything anywhere near the same level as the bridge unreadable. The slashes continued onto the bridge itself. From here they would be able to hear voices drifting up from the researcher’s small camp. The words would be impossible to make out, but two distinct voices would currently be heard.

Misuteeku Bum Bear

 

[AllHailDago]

Damon Arwell
Pannus Team
Pannus Grasslands​

Damon grimaced as he rotated his shoulder a few times. The hours that passed during their travels had much reduced the aching of his injury. However he had never been particularly good about leaving his own injuries alone, and continued to irritate it in hopes it'd be useable sooner.

Damon eyed the Mareep that was leading them further into the Grasslands. Something about it seemed off to him, but he couldn't say what. He scratched at his chin thoughtfully for a second, before wincing as his ears popped. It was then he realized the change in the air and the smell of burnt ozone. The sky gradually darkened as they continued, and finally reached the edge of lightning charred grasslands. In the distance Damon saw a few spots where fires burned from ignited brush.

He sighed momentarily over the fact the fires seemed distant. Their team was ill prepared for such conditions in his eyes. No sooner had he thought that then the waddling Mareep used some sort of move he was unfamiliar. Spheres of energy spiraled out and suddenly the grass around it was scorched away. To his relief it didn't ignite, but it surprised him nonetheless. He wasn't aware Mareep could use a fire type move!

Curious, he edged closer and passed Akira as he followed the Mareep. To his surprise the grass was mildly annoying to push through, even to his larger frame. Why the Mareep would blast it away was apparently clear now at least. He couldn't imagine poor Ren trying to get through this.

As the Mareep stopped, Damon did as well. He had sunk up to almost ankle high in the soft earth to his surprise. He threw a concerned glance at the girls behind him, both of a shorter stature. Hopefully progressing past this didn't get too much deeper, or they'd struggle to do so at this rate. He supposed he should check first, just in case. But first ....

Damon handed off the snoozing Ren to Akira, by promptly putting the sleeping Pokemon on her head. Then in a hushed tone he said, "It's a bit dangerous seeming ahead. The ground becomes pliable and you sink into it. I'm going to try a little further ahead in case since I'm the tallest." He gave a smile and a thumbs up to Ren, then turned back to head towards where the Mareep had indicated.

As he forged ahead somewhat he began to realize the oddity of the grumbles he could hear, and the out of place sock on the ground. The groans were so close, why couldn't he see the person. A step or two more and suddenly Damon plummeted into an unseen pit. He attempted to grab the edge as he fell, but was unable to grab on with only the one hand. All he managed to do was scrap his good hand some before falling down and landing in something rather..... sticky.

He blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted to the somewhat reduced light. His stomach dropped as he realized he was in a web. The groans came from a tangled Blackleaf member, and nearby a Swablu struggled uselessly against the webbing. Damon was both extremely happy he'd left Ren with Akira, and terrified at this predicament. He scanned the area but couldn't immediately see the Pokemon who'd made this. Hopefully they were full already and wouldn't return for a short time at least.

Damon decided to yell up to Akira and Ianthe. "Hey, there's a pit shortly in front of where that Mareep stopped! There's a person and a Pokemon trapped down here too! A little help would be appreciated, before this thing comes back!" There was a sound of baying that sounded almost .....laughter like in response. Damon didn't like this one bit.

izayoiix cinnabuns Ganryu

 

[cinnabuns]

IANTHE KEKOA

Location: Pannus Grasslands -> Mt. Regi


Team: Akira, Damon, Ianthe


Interactions: izayoiix , AllHailDago Ganryu

"Your hair doesn't seem to get a break, huh?"

Truth be told, Ianthe was happy she'd gotten a reaction out of Akira that wasn't annoyance.

"I guuuuess," she whined in response, spraying Nymph with the Paralyze Heal she'd been digging for. She'd been shocked before. Many times, in fact; baby and recently hatched electric Pokémon like Pichu, Plusle, and Minun couldn't control their electricity, so this wasn't new to her. Waking up those Pokémon for food had resulted in many a jolt. So while it had stunned her, definitely, it was easy for her to bounce back from a full shock from a grown up Pokémon like Mareep.

Ianthe noted that the Mareep seemed to be filled with glee from releasing its lightning on her and Nymph; so they had a little troublemaker on their hands, hmm? Hopefully it wouldn't be too much of a handful, since they still had to fight the Blackleaf grunt for Castform.

"Nymphie? You alright, sweetheart?"

Nymph let out a soft noise in response, much more responsive when she was cured of her paralysis. She shook herself and began to float once more, landing on top of Ianthe's head to enjoy the cushion that Ianthe's shocked hair gave her. Ianthe's eyes went back to Mareep, who was walking off, but looked back at them and called out. Did it want them to follow it?

Ianthe had a feeling it was a bad idea.

"Well, might as well follow it."

...But, if this Mareep had been playing games with them, it was likely it had met the grunt and treated it to the same "fun" it liked so much. Maybe it would inadvertently make their hunt easier?

Ianthe hummed in agreement with Akira. Moving forward was the best bet. So, she followed after Akira and Damon, making sure to spray Nymph with a Potion, just in case that shock from earlier had taken some of the Pokémon's health away.

She noticed how the sky got even darker the further they went into the Grasslands. She watched, slightly amused, as the Mareep itself was irritated with the grass around it and chose to disintegrate it as soon as possible. And then her eyes caught Luc's tail moving, and she let out a soft "a-ha!" at the Shinx's finding.

"So we are on the right path. Thank you Luc."

She'd have to remind herself to treat him to some more Poffins when they finally had that picnic.

Nymph chirped, bringing Ianthe's attention to the grass. It seemed...off? Ianthe kneeled down and reached her fingers out, giving the grass a slight touch. It felt sticky, for some reason. She rubbed her fingers together, turning back to Akira and Damon, noticing that the Mareep had brought them to the end of its line. Damon looked concerned when he looked at the two girls, and Ianthe returned the favor of amusement to Akira when Damon chose to place Ren on her head. It was only then that Ianthe noticed the smaller black and yellow ears slightly sticking out of Akira's hoodie. Was that a Pichu? She'd have to ask later.

"It's a bit dangerous seeming ahead. The ground becomes pliable and you sink into it. I'm going to try a little further ahead in case since I'm the tallest."

Ianthe nodded as thanks, as she went over the evidence in her head. Electric, but sticky?

Before she could do more, Damon had fallen into a trap of sorts, something the Mareep was baying happily about. Ianthe winced, listening to the older trainer continue to the bottom. So this was just a part of Mareep's tricks. She could hear grunting from below, but she waited to hear from Damon before saying anything else.

"You okay, Damon?"

"Hey, there's a pit shortly in front of where that Mareep stopped! There's a person and a Pokémon trapped down here too! A little help would be appreciated, before this thing comes back!"

A Pokémon and another person? Ianthe peered down at where Damon fell, and saw some kind of webbing? Like a spider's web. She then saw the Blackleaf grunt, obviously tired out from his own fall down here, and...a Swablu? The poor Pokémon. Flying types wouldn't have the best day out here, she mused.

Wait. Electric spider? That could only mean one thing.

"Er, Damon? I think you found yourself a Galvantula web." She spoke as soft as she could while the Mareep continued baying, looking around for the Pokémon in question, or at least some Joltik. It would be nice if all they had to deal with was its unevolved form, but from how big the web was, it didn't seem like that was going to be the case.

Did she have any rope? She didn't think so. But her mind was more focused on how they would be able to beat an electric-type with the Pokémon they currently had. In good news, it wouldn't effect Nymph too badly if she was prepared for the attack. Ren, either. But Akira was electric type personified...well. Somewhat. She was much more tuned down. They didn't have a ground type for this.

"Oh wait, hang on!" Ianthe perked up, looking through her bag. She didn't have rope, but she did have a Super Rod, she thought, pulling the item out of her bag with a grin. Those things barely broke and were reinforced for stronger Pokémon after all, so it should definitely hold a human, at least one at a time.

"Let's try this, maybe?"

 

[KageYuuki]

Three grunts stood in front of an Admin inside the Blackleaf base: Fliathri, Jack, and Maya. Admin Jones, he was a rather shady person, thin, tall yet hunched over, but always scheming, always with information. It was said he knew everything about Vera Valle, even of things that didn’t exist. He was over the southwest of the region, and since Blackleaf had been forced to leave Cumulo recently, rather disgraced. He’d been trying to earn back Mansel’s good graces for quite some time according to rumors.

“Hehehe. Good, good, three of you free? I called you 'cause that’s what I heard. Well, think the boss used the term ‘expendable’, but close enough, and good skills to boot for grunts. I heard one of you has a hand for everything not battles, one of you can… er, get things, and one of you has had a lot of field experience lately. Hehehe. Now, who here know the rumors ‘bout Moonmist glade? I want a tree branch.”

Everything not battles? Sure, still highest-paid grunt here jackass. Is what Jack wanted to say, hell he’d say he was higher than a grunt; Henchman? Honcho? Muchacho? Foreman might be best. Wielder of the silver wing!

Yeah…

Nah.

“Well, uh, I may have heard about Moon-d-ist glade. What's so special about it?” Jack asked, feeling uninformed about the possible new suicide mission. “...besides probably dealing with the moon and mist…” Moon related shit tended to be troublesome, the man stood in his nice new coat, looking clean for once… Though a keen eye would spot the cuffs already ruined slightly by motor oil.

“I’ve heard the fog there never seems to go away, but that’s about all I know.” For once, Maya had managed to corral all of her Pokémon into their respective balls. Granted Ren was napping, so she wasn’t that hard to catch. A pair of headphones hung around her neck, white noise quietly seeping from them.

Fliathri was attending to Himiko, who was now breathing through a brown lunch bag, a pile of trinkets to the side, with wide eyes. “We… perchance possibly have gone to Moonmist Glade before on account of my queen hearing tale of a gem-laden arboreous object of great interest. It was a rather terrible time.” He shook his head and twirled his cane. “And yet I know nothing save there be many fairy types there.”

The admin watched the three, with interest dancing in his eyes, one eyebrow raising farther than should have been possible.

“I see, I see! Well then. You’ve never heard that there’s apparently eternal life as a prize there? Isn’t it always legendary pokemon here? That’s what drew me here in the first place. I knew Vera Valle was great! Hahahaha. Now, I want you to go there, and find this ‘tree’ of life. Try and get a branch from it. I don’t care how. They say it’s unbreakable. I say we don’t know that til we try! Either way, you’re getting paid. Aaaaand, if you do well….”

He held up a TM disk. “I happen to have rewards. Might even help you whelps train. I do… have a training area. Money, TM, and training from the prestigious admin Jones! What more could you want!? Hahahaha. So…. on with it!”

Jack really didn’t have much to say, was this guy offering a reward when he was already on a paycheque? Wasn’t it their JOBS to do this? Fuck it, this guy wants to be stupid, let him. Though a technical machine sounds cool…

It would also be noted that the man seemed to shuffle slightly backward towards Himiko, a hand sneakily drifting a rage candy bar in her general direction. What was the best way to prevent a thief from stealing your shit? Bribe them. Plus it was a cute sneasel what could he say.

“Right… So…. Anybody got an idea of how to… find this place?”

“Well, sounds like… uhhh…” Maya’s brow furrowed in Fliathri’s direction. She’d seen his name written on more than one occasion, but she’d never heard anyone actually say it. Giving up she gestured to the pair, “they’ve at least been there before. But it’s somewhere in Nimbos Forest I think.” She shrugged, not exactly brimming over with confidence there.

Fliathri missed Maya not knowing his name. Not like he cared. He twirled his cane. “That we have, twas a tremendous occasion… we were lost for a week… fairies… fairies everywhere with their fey wiles….”

Himiko still stood wide-eyed, breathing faster in the bag.

“And what was worse… their false treasures…. Several of our… acquisitions exploded. Including a bag full of items my queen was quite fond of. She’s rather worried of treasure exploding thanks to that. Anyways, hip hip, and tally-ho!”

Fliathri didn’t look that disturbed, despite the synopsis. Almost like it didn’t affect him at all beyond annoying his pokemon.

-------------------

He led the group through the thick forests of Nimbos, the chirping all around them as they went. The forest floor was dark from the canopy, with columns of green light breaking through occasionally, Fliathri near waltzing as he walked. He near froze up as they approached the river, roaring to their side. On the other side, a flood of mist came gently trickling across. He sighed.

“And behold. The first of many trials. Crossing this river is a rather nefarious affair. Last time we got lucky and managed to be flung across the river by a rather helpful Pangoro. I wonder if he’s still around…. Then again, he was trying to hammer arm us, so perhaps not that friendly… and we did crash into a tree and needed to take five to recover.”

He said, rubbing his chin.

Jack sighed heavily.

“Well… not like we can just hang onto Pecha and flap our way across.” The fact he couldn’t bring his bike into the woods was a sad one, and one that made his feet hurt… but the mentioned pokemon seemed right as rain atop of its trainer’s head.

“You sure there's no other way…?”

Even from the riverbank, the grove radiated an almost ethereal beauty. The traces of mist shimmered faintly as it came into view. Maya pulled off her headphones, “Can Himiko freeze things enough for us to cross?” Asuka gave a few excited chips before suddenly kicking off her trainer’s backpack and diving into some bushes. The noibat wasted no time snatching up the berries she’d dislodged.

Fliathri sat thinking about it with his cane on the riverbank. “Possibly, but a rather strong current.” He tapped his fingers to his chin rather frequently.

“How well do you two jump?” He asked ominously, then shrugged. “My queen.”

Himiko rolled her eyes, walking forward chattering, before letting out an icy wind that after a bit began to froze a small amount of water, with Fliathri immediately leaping on it with surprising agility. “Tally-ho!”

The ice immediately started to break apart in the current, and more importantly, drifted south pretty fast. Himiko began on another raft immediately, the pair trying to leap to it, motioning to be followed.

“Pretty well considering. I’m better at long-distance sprinting mind…” Running away was chief amongst jack’s talents. “Here’s hoping we don’t die.” the dour man sighed, wondering just where does he begin to draw the line these days.

He's on a hastily created ice raft with a dandy, his roguish sneasel and soon to be… Actually, he had nothing for Maya in truth.

Thus it was time to put that running to the test.

Hoofing it like no tomorrow he leaped to the first raft, nearly slipping immediately, leaping to the other and following the pair.

An angry shriek could be heard as Asuka frantically beat her wings in an attempt to wrest herself free from Maya’s grip. The redhead looked only mildly annoyed at her pokemon’s outburst. “There’ll be plenty of berries on the other side.” The flailing Noibat managed to snag a few more precious berries before being dragged too far away.

“Can’t say I’m the greatest jumper but…” With a running start, she still barely managed to land on the crumbling platforms. Pausing for only a second to watch Fliathri’s shockingly agile movements. Never pegged him as someone that could move like that.

Grabbing the other side, Fliathri held his cane up, hoisting himself up, and turning around slightly afraid someone would have fallen in the river. Could you imagine, having to report back a missing teammate? The thought of it! People already thought ill of Himiko. He didn’t need his innocent queen being accused of murder too.

“I believe the youth call it, Yolo?” as he helped anyone who needed it.

“Never say that again!” Jack replied.

“Well, what would you have me say. Tally ho is a bit old after a while, and I don’t know who this ‘Leeroy’ is. What ought to be my carpe diem here then?” Fliathri said exacerbated.

“Oh I’m sorry, tad bit ruffled, bewildered, bemuddled, and non-fucking-plussed from the DAMNED RAFTS BREAKING UNDERFOOT!” This was extended into a long train of curses better off not typed by the author.

“Gonna be honest, never heard that one before,” Maya scrambled up the side of the bank, the last jump more of a near-miss than she cared for.

Jack looked back, Pecha fluttering frantically nearby. “Careful or a pokemon will bite yo-” he would have finished those words if a Magikarp didn’t jump up and smack him directly in the gut with a headbutt.

He clutched his stomach, held his ground, but one’s pride does not easily recover after a Magikarp sucker-punch.

However, as the mist started to envelop the trees around the trio, an odd feeling would envelop them. The mist felt… mischievous. Like a hundred eyes were watching them from every direction, but when one turned, nothing could be seen. The forest continued far inside, with odd scratches and ticks heard around.

Himiko was freaking out, for once climbing up Fliathri’s leg and shoulder, and looking wide-eyed around. Fliathri didn’t seem to care. “Hope you don’t mind being lost. I already am of that point. But tis but the tricks of the witch of Moonmist. Or a bunch of rather gobshite fairies.”

The first sign of life they would come across was a small furry monster dancing as it hummed in a small clearing. It was rather graceful, moving like a lady, small and petite, with brown fur, two feet high, and black hair that was nearly larger than it was trailing behind it. Its hair had teeth. As soon as it saw the group, it froze. Then it let out a scream, and started scuttling away, planting its head against a tree, and not looking at them.

“...Uhh… You mean like that one?” Jack motioned to the currently failing to hide pokemon. Fil… Filanthri? Whatever his name is didn’t seem fond of faeries. Jack didn’t really have an opinion on that type himself.. But…

…

IT WAS SO CUTE~!

Well, it was cowering in fear, but it was just so cute~!

Poor thing, he couldn’t just leave it like this… he had to do SOMETHING! But… Wait. Fishing around in his pockets he plucked out a ragecandy bar, he planned to give one to Himiko since she was, while mischievously devious, a pokemon and just plain adorable. He undid the wrapper and let the chocolate smells waft into the area.

“Hey there, sorry to scare you.” He spoke with softness and sincerity, one that many a human would never truly believe possible from him, or at least never would be directed at a human being.

“Come on, don’t be shy. This is for you.”

Mawile shook like a leaf the entire time Jack walked up to it. As he offered it a ragebar, it yelped, its yell shrill and much higher than normal than a normal mawile’s… a female. It then fell over, foaming at the mouth, and completely unconscious.

Fliathri lowered his hat. “It seems like you have defeated it in combat. Well done!”

As the victory music played in Jack’s ears, he couldn’t help but feel even worse… he… honestly felt terrible for this… But what should he do now? Just leave her?

Well… Guess it wouldn’t hurt to make certain it’d be safe…

Kneeling he put his hands underneath the mawile and stood up. “Well… Not the worst idea I've had. But.. yea know, better than leaving the poor thing to be eaten… Surprisingly light for a steel fairy type, to be honest.” he looked to the others, not even certain his own idea is right, and looking quite bewildered.

Maya blinked a few times at the scene playing out, it was certainly one of the stranger looking pokemon she’d seen in a while. She’d honestly found it cute before noticing the teeth sticking out of what she’d thought to be hair. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out her dex and opened it, wincing slightly at the still ruined screen.

“Mawile, the Deceiver Pokemon. Average height: 0.6 meters, average weight: 11.5 kilograms. Don't be taken by this Pokémon's cute face - it's very dangerous. Mawile fools the foe into letting down its guard then chomps down with its massive jaws. The steel jaws are really horns that have been transformed. It can chew through iron beams.”

“...lovely.”

As the Pokedex went off Mawile nudged, slowly walking up to find itself being carried by Jack. An ear-piercing scream went off as it flailed for a moment, then passed back out foaming. It did this twice more before finally accepting its lot in life, folding its arms in its hand, and its eyes looking everywhere but Jack’s face. It did look at his arm, and poke where his bicep was once, before ‘eeping’ and pulling its hand away. Eventually, it was content to slowly nibble at its ragebar, using its small mouth.

As they reached deeper inside the forest, trees were growing more scarce, but Mawile began to struggle a bit, and was pointing upwards with its finger.

“Hmm? What's up?” Jack raised an eyebrow at his own pun, was he gonna devolve into dad jokes now?

Above them, chanting could be heard. In the tree, three Togepi were singing back and forth while moving their fingers back and forth. A ‘tick’ could be heard.

Metronome.

Three moves went off completely at random.

Fury cutter: A Togepi leaped at Maya, with scythe-like movements.

Origin pulse: A deluge of water exploded at Fliathri

Draco Meteor: Shadows began to appear over Jack, even in the mist.

“Togepi!? I thought they were just easily spooked little thi- Hh-h-ey what's going on up there…” Jack stared straight up as the shadow started to come closer… and become more firey…

….

It was Pecha who ran first, followed by a frantically yelling Jack, holding his new precious friend close to his chest. “HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK HOLY FUCK HOLY FU-” Again, not the worst move he's had sent his way.

Maya dove to the side, feeling the pokemon cut through the air beside her. “Starting to see why you hate fairy types…” She’d barely got back up and unclipped a Pokeball when a jet of water flew past.

“Glgh, glgh, glgh.” Gurgling was heard as Fliathri was blasted back… and back…. And back, disappearing into the tree line as an ungodly amount of water flooded the area, though mostly in a line. The Togepi that had cast it looked dumbfounded with its mouth open and staring in the distance. It waved dumbly to the retreating form of the dandy man and his weasel.

Explosions and craters, several times bigger than Jack were left where each meteor from Draco Meteor hit, leaving blackened scars in the earth, following a line to his retreated position. That togepi cackled.

The third that had missed Maya started to cry.

“SHITSHITHSHITSHITSHITSHIT-” jack continued to run, but remembered something he had seen in movies often. How the heroes, when always chased by something.

Never just… turn.

…

He understood fully now, but nonetheless, he stretched out an arm and grabbed a tree to swiftly swing around and send him sailing off a small ledge into possible safety… And a rather large thorn bush.

Cursing again, he slowly pulled himself out, watching the rest of the meteors absolutely DECIMATE a tree in its path.

“...At least that wasn’t us eh missy?” He asked the mawile, ignoring the new cuts over his body. Or trying to. “... missy?” he looked around and spotted her, completely unharmed, in a nearby crater.

It appears he accidentally dropped her, and completely forgot that whole thing about fairy types being immune to dragon-type moves….

Somehow.

Regardless, he plucked her back up again, with a quick kiss on the top of the head, as Pecha returned once more.

All was well once aga- Okay where the hell was he?

Still eating the chocolate bar, she stiffened as he kissed her head. Burying her face in her hand, she shuffled back and forth. It then looked up, ‘eeped’ again, and did the same thing. The mist, however, had another problem. Where was Maya?

“...Come on let's find Maya-”
-------

Meanwhile, three angry Togepi stood in front of Maya. Well, 2 and one crying one still at her feet. The other two began to chant again….

“Ah, hell…” Maya took a step back, warily eyeing the now chanting Togepi. “Kurama, fire spin, Asuka, screech.” Her Vulpix barked before loosing a stream of fire at one of their attackers. It didn’t do much to dissipate any mist as it surrounded a togepi, but the glow would be easily visible. Noibat took a breath before letting out an ear-splitting shriek, sending a few nearby pidgey fleeing their perches.

The ‘tick’ signaling Metronoming succeeding went off as the orders were barked. The Togepi surrounded by fire leaped in surprise, but couldn’t leave its branch.

The other Togepi?...

A torrent of water shot out, the exact same as what had hit earlier, slamming into Asuka with a literal wall in the torrent, blasting her away the exact same way, the flood wall flying so far in the distance, it was unknown when it would end. Meanwhile, a force began to overcome Kurama… and tickle it from every conceivable direction.

Maya could only watch in stupefied silence as Asuka and another torrent of water blew past her. She looked between the offending Togepi.

Kurama yipped, whipping around this way and that in an attempt to find the source of the infernal tickling.

---------


At the mention of finding Maya, the Mawile pointed towards where they had come from… only for a tsunami of water to blast by, a “Nooooooiiiiii” heard as a bat was blasted in a wave of water. It looked kinda like a Kamehameha blast. Well… where Maya was was easy to find.

"...Smart little cookie ainchyea?" Jack tried his best to distract himself from the waves of terror, but nonetheless, he pressed forward(ie: back) towards the fray… Knowing he had little clue what to do when he got there…

Heard from the center of the fire, and from her feet now, as well as from the tree, the three Togepi began their metronome again on Maya and her vulpix, trying to dissuade her any further in.

The Togepi in the flames was not having a good time as cotton sprung up around it… then promptly caught fire, a shrill voice heard as the cooked egg fell down, and ran towards the river, its shrill cry resounding. It did not seem to be the happiness pokemon today.

Meanwhile, beneath vulpix, a black cloud of hazardous gas began to form towards it, and money scattered like coins as two attacks went from two directions at it.

Kurama and Maya both blinked, watching the unlucky Togepi in dumbstruck silence. Granted, the distraction was short-lived once the ominous cloud started creeping towards the Vulpix. With a bark, he ran to the side only to be pelted with coins. He snarled before running to take a bite from the offending Togepi.

Maya felt her heart racing in her chest, they’d barely crossed into the Grove and things had gone to hell in a handbasket. Three of the members of their team had been launched to Arceus knows where and Jack had run out of sight once Drago Meteor started coming after him. She raked her fingers through her hair, We’re not even gonna find the tree at this rate.

“FFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU- PECHA USE LEECH LIFE!!!” a screech came from the trees nearby, it was Jack, a man holding a Mawile like a child holds a teddy bear and the other hand tossing a blue ball of equally screeching zubat at the Togepi currently tossing coins everywhere, the zubat flying like a crude missile of confusion and nibbling.

At the bite, the Togepi let out a cry before passing out in Vulpix’s jaws, despite being resistant to it. Above the last Togepi let out a squeak as it waved its hands desperately, before a bat flew out of nowhere, biting into its neck. With another squeal, it fell backward, unconscious atop the branch, leaving 3 fainted Togepi for the 2 pokemon. Despite two moves they resisted, they had nothing invested in defense. But considering Asuka, Himiko, and Fliathri were all still missing, their offense was nothing to scoff at.

Past the tree was a clearing, the mist finally starting to clear as gems sparkled in the distance.

Recollecting his yote zubat, adding another cuddled baby to his arms, Jack looked to Maya. "This never happened." He spoke quickly and with certainty. "Nobody must know."

He put one foot after the other, moving forward.

“I’m a little more worried about our missing teammates than that,” Maya muttered as she shrugged off her backpack and rummaged for a potion. She paused before reaching in, finally catching sight of the scarlet painting her arm. “Oh now it hurts,” a quick examination proved the cut wasn’t all that deep, but it made sure she wasn’t going to ignore it any longer. ”Guess I wasn’t fast enough back there.”

A potion for her vulpix, some bandages for her arm, and Maya was good to go once more. She glanced between the path through the trees the water had cut and Jack’s nearly out of sight form before groaning and running after him. If that last fight was going to be any indication, she and Kurama weren’t really going to be able to search the woods alone.

Dialing Fliathri’s number as she jogged to catch up, it didn’t even ring before switching to his voicemail.

Why, salutations, you’ve reached Fliathri & Himiko. Please present your express, and we will give respondence as soon as possible. Fliathri Voicemail

“Dammit, water must’ve ruined it…” With any luck, it’d be all that hit had ruined. Before the redhead got the chance to ask if Jack had any way to get a hold of their missing teammate, the mist started to let up. “Could… that be what we’re looking for?” Or was it what had tricked Himiko her last time through?

"Maybe? Honestly, if this proved useless and not worth our time, i wouldn't be surprised either." The man sighed and looked down at the mawile who stopped struggling. "...Well, not really… Do have a new friend eh sweetie?"

Maya only rubbed the bridge of her nose and continued onward. Sooner they wrapped this mission up, sooner she could go look for her missing pokemon and teammate.

Like hell was she going three for three on lost partners.

In the middle of the clearing, the sparkling came to be brighter and brighter. Around them, orbs seemed to glow like Christmas, and the mist was now completely gone, letting them have a few view of the sparkling tree, the wood similar to a yew tree, and the seven colors of the rainbow dancing around it. Its branches reached far.

In Jack’s hands, Mawile looked open-mouthed at the tree, kicking to get free, and walking up to hold its hand against the bark.

Ren from Maya would appear from her Pokeball, pointing at the tree in similar awe.

“Whoa…” Maya breathed, unable to tear her own gaze away as she knelt beside her small pokemon. There was no way this wasn’t what they were looking for, and it was… downright mesmerizing. Ren didn’t stay under her trainer’s hand for long before running up beside the Mawile.

Jack almost called after the Mawile before gasping at the sight… So beautiful… "Maya...I think this is it… Do… Do you think the everlasting life thing is true?

I don't know the story but…" he paused as he walked closer to the tree. "...Wouldn't mind living forever myself. A dream of mine actually."

As Jack approached the tree, the branches wiggled, once, twice, then an explosion of color like the aurora borealis filled the clearing, raining every color of the rainbow down upon the two. Standing in the clearing, with the tree shown to be its antlers, a magnificent deer kicked in the air, and bleated. Next to him, Mawile and Raltz were still in shock. It didn’t attack the trainers though, standing proudly before the two, walking towards them with haughty eyes appraising them.

Murmurs could be heard all around them, dozens of cowardly but curious eyes now making themselves known. Maya and Jack had been surrounded in the mist by the little creatures.

As the deer appraised them for a few minutes, it gave a single nod. Behind it, Mawile stood trembling. It nodded again and glanced at her. She gulped.

Walking forward before Jack and Maya, it gave a curtsy, and then held its hands out, kung fu style. It looked more cute than threatening. Then behind its head, a giant mouth opened and roared, shaking the trees, and slobbering from razor-sharp teeth onto the ground. Mawile looked back at the deer, and cried, as if asking it something. It shook its head no.

Then color’s sprayed around it, and her eyes opened wide. (Geomancy.)

Mawile would like to battle.

Maya could only stare, wide-eyed at the legendary that appeared before them. That had been the tree? She slowly pushed herself to her feet, even then the pokemon towered over her. Frankly, it was hard not to reach out and try to touch it. Sure, it hadn’t acted violent, but the look in its eye advised against it.

Instead, she slowly reached into her pocket and withdrew her beat-up Pokedex. Wonder if Jack could fix the screen on this…? With a press of a button, the computerized voice intoned, “Xerneas, the Life Pokemon. Average height: 3 meters, average weight: 215 kilograms. It is said the horns on this pokemon grant it the power to share eternal life. It can sleep for years at a time in the form of a great tree. If many fairy pokemon congregate near a single tree, it may just be a Xerneas.”

Jack did what only he could think of at this moment.

Take a video on his phone.

It was strange, full of color, but he caught the creature on camera, both mawile and the deer pokemon. Cause if he was gonna get his ass kicked, best catch it on video.

"Umm… well…" jack hesitated beyond his videotaping. "Maya what do we do?!?"

“Don’t think we’re being given much of a choice here,” grey eyes shifted between Mawile, Xerneas, and Ren behind it. That spray of colors clearly did something to their guide turned opponent, but she couldn’t see past the legendary well enough to tell if it had affected Ren.

“Kurama, Will-O-Wisp.” Her Vulpix barked in reply before sending a wave of ghostly fireballs at Mawile.

Jack gasped, they, they were gonna FIGHT it?!? "Come on please we can talk this out!" He shouted, waving his arms as Pecha fluttered nearby in an equal panic.

The ghostly orbs ran into Mawile and made it cry out. At Jack’s request, she looked back at Xerneas, as if asking permission. It shook its head, and bleated challenge again.

Mawile sighed, looking at the ground, even as ghostly flames flickered off her body. Taking a deep breath, she changed stances, holding her arm forward sharply, and flicking it to the side, her entire body moving in dance like motions so fast a slice of air could be heard, dancing slower and slower towards Kurama, its muscles coiling like a spring with every step. Mawile did like to dance, but was blushing red at being seen.

Maya’s pokedex crackled to life once more, ”Swords Dance: The user performs a quick and frantic dance to loosen their muscles, increasing their power with each use. It is a high end technique, and leaves a pokemon extremely powerful afterward, though research has shown it also tires them out due to muscle fatigue. Multiple dances in succession can bring out full muscle use with no limitation. However, it takes time to set up, leaving a pokemon vulnerable"

"Oi oi! Come on! Why the heck are yea…" he looked towards the big deer pokemon and became angry. "You!! Yea you! Shitty glowing deer thing. Acting like tough shit when you force people into fighting! Ever since we got here there's been pokemon all chaotic and hurting folks!" He was shaking his fist at this point.

"Fuck you and fuck your battle!" Jack began to approach the majestic pokemon, picked up a rock and tossed it at its shiny head. "So tired of legendary level bullshit!"

In a flash, a small ralts appeared between Jack and Xerneas, catching the rock. Ren scowled at the grunt before dropping to the ground. Maya blinked, ”Ren, what are you…?”

”Bwah!”

”No, but I don't think it's giving her a choice…”

The Ralts shook her head, looking up at Xerneas as she moved over to her trainer. Meanwhile, Kurama barked, warily watching the Mawile dance. He lunged with a bite.

Mawile cried as Kurama bit into it, the burn compounding this, yet she kept dancing. A sharp air could be felt in the air though as Mawile’s hair trembled. Mawile was panting, but her muscles twitched, slightly visible even through her thick fur.

Xerneas looked confused as the rock was thrown at it, glancing down and nodding thankfully to Ren. Legendary or not, a rock to the face hurt. Inquisitively, it began to walk towards Jack, tilting its head slightly, as if asking a question. All around the area, the colors shifted, following it.

"What? Want to be friends now? Seriously, making a poor thing like her fight is just plain horrible. Look! Battles bring nothing but pain, poor thing…" Jack watched the two pokemon struggle, that bite must've hurt… Steel and fire don't mix… Though he wasn't sure about fairies and fire…

"So knock it off eh? You're no better than those bratty togepi ain'tchyea you big glowing christmas tree?" He didn't stop filming the pokemon, the thing was...Bigger… Than he first thought… Oh boy… Maybe this was a bad idea.

But something had to come from distracting it right?!?

Maya blinked, looking over at Jack with a look of bemusement. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a pokemon that didn’t enjoy battling.” Not counting when one knew it was completely outmatched. Having turned her attention towards her teammate meant she was no longer watching Kurama. The kit eyed the Mawile for a moment before taking a breath, looking to trap her with fire spin.

Ren, meanwhile, was positively beaming at the brief attention from Xerneas. Even spinning like a Kirlia.

One moment, Mawile was still whimpering from Kurama. The next, as soon as everyone had turned away from it, it took a calm breath, its eyes calmly reflecting the area like glass. Kurama didn’t get to breathe the fire with Mawile appearing as a blur next to it, its back maw opening like a demon’s. Crunching was heard before the large mouth spat out the fox to the side, with Mawile jumping up and down victoriously.

Midjump it realized might be attracting attention, and was gone behind a nearby tree, its head barely looking back at the fight, its muscle still tense and glowing with energy, Kurama covered in saliva laid out on the floor next to where it had been.

Xerneas continued to approach Jack, still trying to figure out what the strange creature that hated fighting was doing here.

A cry broke Maya’s attention, her gaze snapping over to the unconscious Vulpix. “Crap, Kurama!” Skirting past the towering legendary, she knelt and scooped him up. Her nose wrinkled at how slobbery his coat had gotten. A bath was definitely in order when they got home.

"Okay sure they do that a lot but not EVERYTHING has to be a battle. I mean a lot of things ARE battles, hell things fight to eat, and yeah I'm stupid but I hate battling pokemon god damn it and every time I'm sucked into it!!" Jack, in rising anxiety and hysteria from having XERNEAS itself walking towards him, yelled.

In fact he was gripped such by a fear that he could not move. Pecha, being his most trusted friend and compatriot… Was currently hiding away in a tree nearby.

Good friends indeed, but one might suppose this was minor revenge for being tossed so many times.

Xerneas continued to move forward, stopping feet away from Jack, its gaze completely following him. It had no intentions of fighting, silently judging. If one didn’t want to be challenged, what did he want? Minutes passed before Xerneas’s gaze finally broke, and it began to retreat to the point it had originally been, its body beginning to meld back into the ground.

…

……

………

And he was alive!!! Jack was alive and lived to tell the tale of it!! His heart finally began to slow and return to a normal pace when he realized… just what they were supposed to be doing. Well, the tree being Xerneas' horns was a surprise, but now they had wounded pokemon…

The man came closer to Maya first and plucked out a potion, thing was handy for when Pecha got hurt. "Sorry, I'm not much of a fighter." He admitted to the younger girl, not fully looking her way as the Mawile was still on his list of hurt pokemon.

Maya didn’t reply, focusing instead on the unconscious Vulpix in her arms. His injuries weren’t anything serious, but he’d likely be out for a good while. As long as they didn’t run into any more Togepi on the way out, it’d be fine.

Returning Kurama to his ball, Maya spotted the legendary already returning to the ground. “X-Xerneas, wait,” she scrambled to her feet and held out a hesitant hand. “Could… could I…?” She wasn’t sure why, maybe it was how enamored Ren was with him.

The tree sparkled various colors for a moment, but didn’t seem to object. A soft sigh, she’d been too late. The tree shimmered again as Maya pressed her palm against the trunk, but nothing else happened.

Jack, however, went to the Mawile, it didn't seem to be running… "Hey sweetie, you're a pretty good dancer. Do you want to come with me? Must be pretty lonely dancing alone." He held out a hand towards the little pokemon, which seemed to invoke a flinch at first… But slowly it came out from behind the tree, perhaps the second candy bar being in the other hand helped in the decision.

Nonetheless, the Mawile was being safely cuddled by the man once more, its large fang-filled hair draped over his shoulder as he held her.

 

[Bum Bear]

Player Info

Player Status: Discussing a course of action

Player Location : Cirriform Ruins;; Cave

Pokemon Out: n/a

Tagged: Misuteeku

✮ Reese Williams ✮

Reese kept mostly to herself as she walked with her literal "partner-in-crime", the two tasked with retrieving a contraption known as the "DNA splicer". From reading some of the files concerning their task, she understood the general function of the device: a golden rhombohedron in it's base form, it was created to merged together a pokemon named Kyurem with two other pokemon that she didn't remember the name of. It seemed like irrelevant information to her if the goal was to steal it. Besides, she held no interest in legendary pokemon outside of the initial "awe" reaction that most people have to seeing something rare. With that in mind, she didn't seem like the right kind of person to be associated with Black Leaf, let alone being working for them. However, one road led to another and here she was, stuck wearing a black pin while dressed in a track suit that made for easy mobility. Although, she could do with the wearing the pin seeing as they didn't have any formal dress code other than having to wear this thing on them. Seemed quite lazy if you asked her, but it beat having to wear all black with the logo printed on the shirt.

Returning back to the task at hand, she couldn't help but notice that her partner looked rather young to be in organized crime, but then again, did crime really have an age. Maybe he had a traumatic past that led him to lead a life of criminal. Perhaps his father was a criminal and this was just part of the family business, which seemed a bit boring but made sense logistically speaking. Oh! Maybe it was something more severe like he had a sick family member and he desperately needed money to pay for their medical expenses and the only way to get it was by joining a criminal ring. However, the kid then learned that he had a penchant for villainy and found a sudden joy in stealing, and eventually he couldn't stop and it became and addiction that he just ... Reese caught herself trailing off, she was sure the kid wasn't the main character of a soap opera. Whatever the case, he was to be her partner which lifted some of the responsibility on her shoulders. If push comes to shove and they were going to get caught, she could probably use him as bait and make a getaway. Reese apologized in her head beforehand, but she couldn't have this going on her permanent record. Of course she'd feel bad if it actually happened, but sacrifice must be made for the future of science she supposed.

As they continued their journey in silence, they began to come up to the entrance of the cave. The took no time in entering it, the lights powered by the Voltorb illuminating their way down the path. Continuing on Reese noticed exquisite engravings left on a large pillar, or so she thought as it was quite hard to make out some of the images with the limited light source. Fiddling with the backpack that swung haphazardly down her arm, she started to pull out of her camera, but decided against that idea seeing as the she was here on a mission. It was regrettable, but she would just have to come another day and take pictures of it. Regardless of what she missed today, she was sure this would be a place she'd visit on the daily, especially after hearing about the living fossils that roamed the area. She could feel her heart pumping as they edged closer down the spiral pathway, the two of them surrounding by these ancient bad bois who didn't seem to be weary of their presence at all. "Just one detour couldn't hurt, right?", she thought to herself before forcefully pushing it back down. Reese was on a mission, not to catch pokemon, but oh how much did she want to. The pink haired geologist nearly lost composure when a Cranidos cross their paths. It was a miracle she didn't just pounce on it right then and there, no pokeball or battling necessary! However, she just continued to walk, leaving the beauty alone. Another sigh escaped her rosy lips, if the kid's reason had been for money then hers was for rocks, which didn't sound like a worthwhile venture but to her, they were everything. Now that they were alive and moving without the help of a machine, it intrigued her curiosity even more so. Reese could feel her nerves jump as the two of them passed a bridge that featured a large stone carving, another thing she'd have to get pictures of on her next visit. It was hard for her to remain composed with so many fascinating things surrounding her, but her mission wasn't to sight see. That was for later. Now was a time for a good ol' game of cops and robbers, hopefully without the cops.

Finally they made it near the research facility, the sound of voices could be heard from where they, but not the words that were spoken. Well, she guessed it was time to for the games to begin. Digging in her bag, she pulled out a black cotton surgical mask that kept her mouth and nose hidden, leaving nothing but the eyes showing. Again, she'd commit the crime, but she'd be damned if she pay the time. Pink didn't look good behind bars.

"Yo, Kenneth was it? You know what the plan is right?" she inquired, her voice slightly muffled by the mask.

She thought about it for a moment before realizing an important tidbit that she'd fell to catch earlier. They hadn't discussed a plan. Shit! If her memory served her right then the Admin's had left the means of obtaining the item fully up to them.

"Nevermind. Sorry I asked that." she said, of course he didn't know the damn plan. Hell, she didn't know it either!

Maybe she should have paid more attention when they were discussing those tidbits instead of trying to understand how natural reanimation worked. Furrowing her brow, she took a deep breath. Reese, this is fine. You're a grown woman, you can make it through this., she repeated to herself, almost like it was her mantra or something. Two deep breathing sessions later and she returned to the task at hand.

"Wait, here. I'm going to take a quick survey of the area." she told the kid. Without waiting for a response, she edged closer to the clearing where the research facility was erected.

The building itself wasn't very aesthetically please, in fact, it looked kind of run down and dull as the white walls were covered with dirt while bits of rock decorated the buildings roof. The windows were scratched and the walls were riddled with cracks and scratches. Overall, she found the place to be quite decent if she took into account where the thing was located. Out in the front were a man and woman, researched she assumed, talking the words still hard to make out from where she stood. So going through the front wouldn't be a very viable option, unless she wanted to be spotted immediately. She'd prefer a method that didn't cause too much of a commotion, especially in a geographical paradise such as this. Looking beyond the two researchers she could see a few entrances spawn from cracks within the ruin itself that seemingly provided safe entrance to the back of the facility. Maybe they could take a chance and sneak in through the back door ... assuming there was a back door to get into. Returning back to Kenneth, she relayed the information she found concerning two researcher and where the research facility stood in comparison with the map.

"The building is smack dab in the middle of the cave, so there are many places that we could use to hide if we're trying to get in from the back. However, the problem with that is, I'm not sure if there is a back to this place, so if we try this plan then there isn't a guarantee that we can get in. There could possibly be an air duct back there as well, but I'm not much of a architect nor do I work in installation, so I'm not entirely sure how that works. However, I think it's worth a shot if we aren't trying to raise alarms immediately. There's also the option of sneaking in through the front, but I don't think that would be a soundless course of action. if you have another plan, I am open to suggestions." she stated, leaving the floor open to ideas. Yea, he may have been a kid to her, but the dude was still a person capable of thought. Besides, if this plan failed, she could always resort to using him as a scapegoat.

The Party

HP

name;; tourmaline
gender;; male
species;; stufful
ability;; fluffy
nature;; adamant
status;; inside pokeball
moves;;
- brutal swing
- flail