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It was suicide. No matter how Avis looked at the events unfolding before her, she had no plan for this. She had no concept of the rest of the group, but Nyx stood out, radiant in her darkness. She was capable of so much that even Avis would have trouble handling her... How did Nyx get here? Why was she not still down there? Did this lot of zealots free her? Last she had known, Nyx was not an issue. And if Nyx was here, did that mean... Thump. Thump. thum... Avis snapped back to reality as Tsurumi's shuriken unfolded into Sita's moonlight. While it failed to completely scatter the darkness, it did cause the shadows to falter a bit. And there it was. Rushing over at the first chance she found, without using her own abilities, she stumbled behind Sita, panting for effect. "Keep it up! I don't think we have a chance of winning against these... assailants. We don't know enough about the rest, so our best bet is to push through the darkness and run. Do you think that's something you can do!?" "Copy that," May nodded, turning her arms as if commanding the clay golem before her on puppet strings only she could see. On her command, the golem pressed its full weight against the wall of solid darkness behind the team, stopping its advance. "And once we're inside? Any suggestions?" "An indoor location would be more easily fortified if they pursue us," Austin proposed, fishing into his suit and procuring a pistol from within. With not a moment's hesitation, and free of such distractions as cheesy one-liners or asking about MIRROR's plans, he immediately took aim at Aki and fired three shots. Only for the woman among MIRROR's twins to raise her hands, creating a sheet of black metal between the back line and Austin that effortlessly deflected the bullets. "Damn." "Our best bet... is to back up the bursts of light. If she... Nyx... gets her darkness on you... you are likely done for. I can't do much, but I can inform and direct you as best I can! Just work on getting there!"

With excitement in her step, Jacklyn made her way over to the house that seemed just so out of place. Striding with confidence in her step, Jacklyn had made it to the door of the, as she believed it to be, hermit's house before knocking. There was no response. The adventurous girl had thought of several reasons this might be. For one, the house itself could just be abandoned, which would only further add to the mysterious out of placeness it had to it. Secondarily it could just be that her knocking didn't have enough spirit behind it and so the person that was in there didn't hear them. After all, they could be busy doing whatever it was hermits did or maybe even asleep, in which case of course just knocking once wouldn't be enough to get their attention. So she knocked again. Harder. She waited once more, pausing to see if the hermit would answer her knocks this time. The girl was getting ready to go for a third round when the door finally did open. With an older looking woman who said something about food, as she asked Jacklyn who she was the girl gave a big smile. "We're- " before Jacklyn could finish her statement Anima had answered for the group. While it was certainly true that they were "new trainers" Jacklyn couldn't help but feel that there was a lack of passion and zest in that, as opposed to of course proudly proclaiming they were adventures. This disappointment in her teammate's word choice didn't last very long as instead it was replaced with excitement at the discovery of who this woman actually was. "You're the professor!?" Jacklyn didn't seem bothered by either the professor or Anima's attitude towards one another, before stepping up excitedly. "As if I would complain, I couldn't ask for a better partner then Rus. Isn't that ri- oh, right." The girl pulled out her pokeball before sending out the Lepash. "Isn't that right Rus?" The Lepash had no context for what the girl was asking and was inclined to disagree with her immediately before seeing that the professor was there. The typically proud pokemon looked both embarrassed about the situation it was in and apologetic about his trainer's exuberance. The professor's eyes moved down to the Pokemon. She crouched down and lifted Rus up. Examining him all over before looking at Jacklyn. "He's stressed." "Eh? Really?" The girl looked in disbelief as she said, "well adventures can be stressful, I've heard about it, but we're only just started! Besides we already won our first battle and even got a new teammate. Oh! Are you jealous Rus?" The Lepash turned towards the girl, clearly annoyed with her, and let loose a small puff of smoke into her face. Coughing, waving her hand to get the smoke out of her face, the girl locked eyes with the pokemon. "Why you..." Looking back to the professor she said, "was he always like this?" "I can't say I've ever gotten that kind of treatment." She says, holding Rus and idly petting between his ears. "Sometimes with some of the other Pokemon...Perhaps he thinks of you as a Pokemon." She stared at Jacklyn. "You aren't, are you?" Rus seems a bit embarrassed to be pet but also doesn't do anything to stop it. Jacklyn looked confused by the statement saying, "no? I mean, I have this cool bunny decal on my hat. But I'm definitely a human and definitely his trainer." "Hm." She sighed and set Rus down. As she straightens back up she let let out a groan of discomfort. "Well what does that even mean, 'his trainer', do you think?" "That he's my...pokemon? Adventuring buddy?" The girl seemed confused by the question. She frowned and looked down at Rus and spoke directly to him. "You might have to be less subtle with this one." Rus let out a resigned sigh but nodded at the professor's words. Jacklyn, meanwhile was only more confused at the subject though couldn't help but feel like she was being insulted. With another pout she retorted, "well, uh, what's a 'professor' then?"

“Mmfm mrfumemer!!” Sita flinched upon hearing the voice come from her pocket, but only for a moment before she was able to both put two and two together, and consider that someone small enough to fit inside her pocket wouldn't have been much of a threat in the current situation. At first she'd figured Tsurumi would just hop out of the pocket whenever, but now she had to wonder if the other girl was incapable of that. But that kind of question could be asked later. For now, Sita reached into her pocket and pulled out the little piece of paper that was Tsurumi. "You can talk like that?" Sita asked, setting Paper Tsurumi down next to her. "You've got all sorts of tricks up your sleeve!" “Of course I can! I wouldn’t be much good otherwise!” Tsurumi flapped her paper wings rapidly, fluttering up to nestle in Sita's hair, just above her ear. "Keep me close, and we can throw off their count on how many of us there are. We're in the thick of it this time, we can't afford to slip up," she whispered. "Don't have to tell me twice." Sita reached behind her back to grab her bow... and in so doing, realized that in the rush the twins had thrown upon her, she left it back inside. With a shrug and sigh of mild annoyance, the girl got up to her feet for a better posture, and held out her hand. Above her palm, the night's moonlight gathered around in one spot, becoming a small sphere of condensed light about the size of a tennis ball. In a manner not at all unlike a pitch aimed at a target on the wall, Sita put her arm back - with a distinct upward angle this time, to account for her targets being beneath her - then lobbed the ball straight down into the fray. "How's your pitching hand?" she asked, glancing over in Paper Tsurumi's direction. Tsurumi could practically feel the sweat drip from her forehead, wherever it may be represented in her current form, remembering her embarrassing showing at the carnival game minutes before her and Sita’s fateful meeting. “I’ll admit, it could be better. But I have an idea.” One of the two wings that made up the majority of Tsurumi’s diminutive form unfolded back into an arm as she hopped down to rest back on Tsurumi’s shoulder. Taking hold of one of the shining spheres Sita created, she manipulated it quickly within her fingers until it was in the shape of a flatted ninja star, still glowing like the moon, small enough to fit within her palm. “Here’s how I see things,” Tsurumi whispered, her voice suddenly much more serious than usual. “We have five enemies. Two are already engaging with our forces, and appear to be a head-on attacker, and a support caster. We have to trust our units on the ground to handle them, otherwise we will get too mixed up in the chaos.” Tsurumi’s remaining wing unfolded slightly to reveal a single silver eye peeking from within, a rare sight from one whose eyes are usually concealed. The eye’s gaze was stone cold as it focused down on the one called Shouhi Aki. “Their team can be expected to be more coordinated than our own, since this is our first real fight all together. This means our only shot is to disrupt the chain of command, and take out their leader!” With a sharp motion, Tsurumi let loose the light-paper shuriken. It took a wide arcing path as it cut through the air, curving around the square to come at the one called Aki from an unexpected direction. When it reached a distance of only a few meters from its target, it unfolded back into the orb of moonlight that Sita had created it as, hoping to maximize damage to the enemy leader.