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"There is no way you were two hours late because of me! You probably ran off after another Pokémon!" That… was not wrong. Anna had, in fact, gotten distracted by a Pokémon. A Rattata who had alerted her to some unrest going on at the harbor. Not that she had seen any sign of that herself. Still, she hadn't been in the city for very long, what with hurrying to make it to the meeting spot on time. She was sure that Professor Appel had meant for this to be some grand meeting with at least a couple dozen young trainers. The sun would be shining overhead, like it usually was in the Zeia Fields. The professor would arrive, right on time as usual, where Lytos Pier met the main harbor. As he would call it, "the junction between land and sea." There would be a speech, since it was expected, but it would be short, because it was him, after all. And everybody would smile and laugh and even the most nervous of them all would relax. Because that was who the professor was. And they would depart with more smiles and waves, and then Anna would return to the lab with the professor to continue his research. But that was not what happened. Instead, Anna had volunteered to do this for him, and now she and the five remaining trainers huddled in a circle to dry off in a dark warehouse. Outside, a veritable hurricane lashed its fury against the walls, rattling the rafters and blowing rain into the open doorway. None of them were far enough inside to avoid the rain entirely, but none of them dared to venture further in where they couldn't see, either. At least, not until Nikolaos brought out his flashlight. The rest of them seemed to ease up at the light and named themselves, but Anna tensed. Not even the introduction of two of their Pokémon was enough to drop her shoulders. Because she could hear something. Something that the others seemed unaware of, though those with sensitive ears would hear what sounded like high-pitched squeaking. Dahlia had hit the nail on the head with her comment. They were not alone, and the others did not like the light. "Light." "Bright." "Sun?" "Lightning?" "Bad." "Twofeet." "Two others. Bigmouth and dreamflower." "Dangerous?" "Dangerous." The Totodile and Munna, called Chomper and Pinky, both tensed and moved forward to stand between the group and the inner part of the warehouse. Anybody paying attention to the two Pokémon would be able to tell that something was wrong. Anna sucked in a breath. "It's nice meeting you all," she said, keeping her tone steady. "But, uh, I need to bow out for a moment. I'll be… right back." The girl walked past the two Pokémon to face the darkness. Small pinpricks of red light broke up the blackness, which from up close could be identified as glowing eyes. "It's fine, it's fine," the two-toned girl reassured. "We won't hurt you. We just came in to get out of the storm. The light's for us to see by." "Hurt us?" "Storm." "Bad light." "Hate light." "Bad twofeet." "Run?" "Bighouse no escape." "Attack?" "Attack." BGM: Pokémon Anime Sound Collection - Raid! "Come on, listen to me. Wait, no, hey, turn off the light—" Anna turned around to shout at Nikolaos, but she wasn't able to finish her sentence. Something small and heavy crashed against her back, and then several more followed suit. The girl fell to the ground on her stomach again. "Ouch," she groaned. "I did not need another crash landing today. And this time, I don't have somebody to break the fall for me." She glanced up at Shawn and the others, who were all a good several feet away now. Closer to her, Chomper and Pinky faced off against the darkness. Tiny claws dug into the back of her raincoat as several creatures ran forward at the group. One of them jumped into the beam of the flashlight, revealing itself as a tiny brown rat Pokémon with black extremities and red eyes. Anna struggled to rise, but found herself unable to when several rats stood on her, their weight keeping her down. She lifted her head instead to shout out a warning. "Be careful, everybody! These are Crowdent! They're pretty weak, but don't underestimate them, especially in these numbers." OOC: Our first fakemon appearance! I will be including a picture of Crowdent and any future fakemon in the Discord chat. Also, we have our first battle! However, only two of you have Pokémon. Guess the rest of you should've decided to bring your own, too bad so sad. :P However, there might just be a way for those of you without a Pokémon to join in as well... And yes, the Crowdent are attacking all of you, not just Chomper and Pinky. Fortunately, those two Pokémon are also between all of you and the rats.

Dahlia liked meeting people more than most; it was a good way to get familiar with a new area, and generally it meant she’d have lots of opportunities to get a good gauge of who she would be working with. Unfortunately, as Anna backed her up, and as she pocketed her coin and looked towards Nikolaos’ still-lit light, it seemed she’d be working with… Well, idiots wasn’t the right word, but extremely short-sighted people. Or unobservant people? She didn’t hear anything to tip her off to what was actually going on, of course; the rain was too thick, too loud... But she did notice as Anna’s posture was significantly less relaxed than they were outside, and that had been in the rain. No, something was off and Dahlia would bet money to that; perhaps that’s why, as the sleepy-dile and the pink-dreamer moved between their group and the darkness-- Dahlia herself moved back towards the entrance... Dahlia knew she would feel safer with something solid in her hands, after all; and she had left something by the entrance that fit the bill just right. She paused for a moment as she picked up the umbrella that she had left to dry by the door, and ran a hand across it to slide the majority of the rain that was on it off of it. It wasn’t that sturdy, she had bought it from a small shop in Virbank city, but it was at least sturdy and heavy enough to clobber someone in the head and make them wish they hadn’t crossed her; or at least to give her a few more seconds of triumph before being stabbed in the chest by a mugger. Really, though, it was to combat rain, nothing else. To ask more of it was insanity, and to ask it to fend off something that wasn't human even more so. Yes, rain was really all it was good for-- Which is why Dahlia winced as Anna yelled for Nikolaos to turn the light off, and cut herself off. For a second, of cousre, Dahlia considered once again strolling out into the rain; given that would be much, much easier than whatever was about to transpire… And shunned the notion in a heartbeat, as she slid her umbrella over her shoulder like one might a cane, and walked back to stand by the others, as if she had never left, as the torrent of… Crowdent, Anna had said? Surged forwards, even jumping in some cases. This was, after all, to be the beginning of their journey; what kind of trainer would she be if she ran away right at the start? She could save the running away for after she had become a trainer, after all. “Iiiiiiiiiiiinteresting,” Dahlia spoke up, slinging her umbrella forth-- And keeping her eyes trained on the several eyes in the darkness, waiting for any figure to actually make a jump, or anything towards her, as her finger hovered over the button to unfurl the umbrella… And as they jumped, she pressed the button, prompting the umbrella to unfurl, and open rapidly. To her great surprise, a couple of them were actually caught off guard by this; the extending umbrella sending them backwards onto the floor, where their claws skittered against the concrete. “I expected them to be smarter, Ratata-like as they are… Or to go right through... Ah, but maybe their thing is numbers, righ-” She was cut off, as, something much more in line with what she was expecting to happen, happened. A heavy impact first met her left foot, then another hit her right leg; followed by another as she was shoved backwards, claws digging into her clothes-- An almost defeated expression coming to her face as she was knocked to the ground by a heavy impact to the chest. “Agh-- there it is-- I thought that had worked too well for a moment,” she grumbled, wincing as more surged forth to weigh her down like they had Anna. "Hell of a first test for us, Assistant Professor!" she called out, tone somewhere between joking and completely serious.

“Do not allow a sorceress to live.” -Exodus 22:18 (NIV)“Powers beyond mortal comprehension” felt blasphemous somehow. Melissa couldn’t put a finger on exactly what it was. She supposed part of it was how her current companions took forms she might have thought beyond the ken of most mortal minds, yet, here everyone was, herself included, comprehending them just fine. Melissa had rationalized these away as facsimiles. She had no presumptions that whatever was inside of her was in any way divine, at least any more so than a human form, and humans could perceive each other just fine, despite her occasional wishes otherwise. It felt weird being the skeptic for once, but then again, Melissa supposed even Moses had to deal with court magicians. If she were particularly fervent, she could imagine Zadkiel and Sandalphon in much the same way as Moses’ staff-serpent, overwhelming and consuming anything “Morgan Reaperson” could throw at her, but no, she was here on Mauvache’s behalf, not God’s. She had Sandalphon follow up Fen’s pummeling with another beam, but she dismissed the ophan when one of Morgan’s skulls exploded into it. Morgan seemed like the sort of person who would mock her for the perceived instability of a summon, and it seemed reasonable to let her hold on to that assumption for as long as possible. Melissa realized it was a similar strategy to when she had been training with Rei. A good portion of that spar had been both of them just trying to suss out what the other was capable of, and Melissa had most succeeded when she’d had the element of surprise on her side -- when she’d found some new tactic that Rei hadn’t been expecting. “Of course it’s nice to meet someone as great as I,” Morgan said, finally recovering from her laughing fit. “If only you lot were half as exciting for me.” Melissa wondered if Morgan could possibly be negotiated with, if even to move the fight to somewhere that was less likely to desecrate a grave or twelve, but given what little she had seen of Morgan’s ability, they probably wouldn’t be so lucky. She also recalled that woman she and Devin and Morgan (zombie Morgan (two Morgans with undead connections had to be a coincidence)) had fought, how that woman had refused to listen to any sort of reason despite her best interest. There was a temptation to assume a pattern. This Morgan certainly didn’t make it easy to think otherwise. But no, Melissa thought. She wasn’t going to think like that. If there was an opportunity to resolve this amicably, she would take it. At the same time, they weren’t exactly working from a position of strength here. They had a numbers advantage in theory, but if Morgan was responsible for one skeleton, surely she could make another. They had to find something, though. For now, Melissa just tried to get their footing a little more equal. Morgan could fly? Well, so could Zadkiel. She brought out the cherub and fell into its arms as it took to the air.