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Shout out to @Tormented for paying for this site which doesn't do much of anything for him. Given a certain other site is being filled with bots I'm even more appreciative than before. Even if not many people are around it's still nice to have this place.

Once Z. and Hector got back, it was time to distribute. This was trickier than Z. expected, though. Not everyone wanted or in fact deserved some fruit. The former category was taken up by everyone surrounding Clobber the Clobbopus and his newfound coconut-cracking abilities and the latter category, well… Jirachi was busy producing fruit of his own, so he didn’t need any fruit either. Whatever. There were still a few people/Pokémon milling about, so Z. stopped pretending to be Hector and picked one of them. Chester seemed especially aimless, having just walked up to the stream and then just back again, so Z. zeroed in on him. “Catch,” Z. tossed an apple at Chester’s head, though with a bit of underthrow, the apple landed just short of the Chespin. “Eat up,” they said. “Need all the calories you can get if we’re gonna be saving the world.” They looked past Chester to the rushing stream. “Were you trying to catch a look at your reflection in there? Water’s kind of fast for that. I tried to be a Froakie earlier and just ended up looking like a Treeko.” They frowned. “Other way around.” Why was it so hard to get that right? Hadn’t Marv always been a Froakie? “Whatever.” Chester picked up the apple from the ground and looked at it. “I was, and well, it is. Sadly, I am not too accustomed to this body yet, familiar as it may be in a general sense.” The Chespin waved his stubby arms at his side as if to convey this feeling. Then he let out a small, if not begrudging, “Thanks,” gesturing to the apple. “Sure,” Z. said. “Hey, though, hold still.” Z. did the same thing they did with Hector, pacing around their target, trying to get a good idea of exactly how they looked from every angle, and, when they were ready, did another sick backflip and came down as a copied Chespin. “There’s a better look, I hope,” they said. They imitated Chester’s stubby arm wave and pensive face. “I guess it’s more like this right now, though.” Like, Hector, Chester was suitably impressed. “That is quite the amazing skill, Z. I suppose it would make sense being a Zorua you’d be able to pull off illusions like that, just as my own head is harder than steel. And it’s a better mirror than the river, I suppose. Though, uh,” his mood shifted back to concerned as he studied the finer details of Z.’s illusion “do I really look like that?” Z. tried a few more different poses. “Close, anyway. I don’t think it's perfect perfect yet. I can feel certain things just not working right. I can’t do stuff I think that I should, but I already promised myself those were- Oh, you mean the face? Yeah, my guy. You look so fucking lost right now, I’d be surprised if you knew which way was up.” “Ugh, how mortifying.” The (real) Chespin brought a stub to his face. “I suppose I have had a lot on my mind with all the recent developments. Though!” Chester pointed skyward. “I am very much aware which way is up right now, thank you.” Z. resisted the urge to roll their eyes, if only because they couldn’t imagine Chester doing anything of the sort, and they were still mimicking him as best they could. They focused on the second of those sentences instead. “Yeah?” they said. “Which one’s more shocking to you, waking up one morning from a night of uneasy dreams and finding yourself transformed into a Pokémon, or being conscripted by a demigod to save a world you know nothing about?” Continuing their mimic, they also brought a stub to their head, jamming it right under their chin. “Or is it a secret third thing?” They needn’t have bothered with the mimicking. Chester wasn’t paying attention to the physical mockery at all. He earnestly answered the question. “I feel like I have taken to being in a new body surprisingly well actually. Jirachi’s proposition is also exciting, if not a bit daunting, especially with how little we have to go on.” His voice got low, but the next question was still clearly directed at Z. “How exactly does someone help another in a situation they’re both wildly unfamiliar with?” “Oh god, teamwork questions.” Now it was Z.’s turn to bury their head in their stumps for real this time. “You moderated me enough on the forum, so you know I'm not the person to ask for that stuff, especially when someone else is already a one-person team.” They did another sick backflip, but their memory of what Hector looked like all joined together was already fuzzy, so their impression came out the same. Z. dismissed it quickly. “Fucking… Okay. But you did ask me. I think, then, the best thing someone who's lost can do for another lost person is just be there with them. Nobody wants to be lost alone.” “Right, I should have kept in mind who I was asking,” Chester joked. “But if that’s all it takes…” He looked past Z. over to Hector. “But you would expect someone to be spearheading the rest, correct? Showing them which way to go?” Z. couldn’t help but stare. “You’re really hung up on this, huh?” they said. “I mean, you could fight him on it. Six on one doesn't seem like a fair fight but I've got a feeling in my gut that says I’ve taken worse bets. Maybe you haven’t. I dunno. But okay, just between you and me, but when I jumped into the water all the way back at the bottom of that dungeon, I absolutely wanted people to follow me, even if I didn’t say it. That sort of teamwork, if it does need a set leader at all, is a two-way street all the same. Of course, who did end up following me…” Z. left an empty space. They didn’t even want to think the name. “well, that’s what I mean about two-way streets, I guess. “Oh, but if you tell anyone I said any of that, I’ll peel your little green shell off of your little brown head and drag it through the mud.” Chester nodded along. “I see…” Then he started to laugh. “You’re more of a team player than I gave you credit for, Z. And if that’s the case, don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me. I may not be perfect, but I always respect another’s wishes. Now,” and this is where the laughter really got going, “let us be lost together!” And they wandered back off to the rest of the group for real this time. Z. shook their head. Part of them felt like a suck-up, going right after both moderators and getting back in their good graces. It was just part of the dance, of course. Act out, lie low, accrue social capital, and spend it all. But then again, Chester and Hector weren’t moderators anymore. They were people, and like Z. had just said, they were all lost. Before they could get too lost, they noticed something still on the ground. “Hey!” they called out. “Actually take your fucking apple!” They threw it at Chester’s head again -- harder this time.Z. balanced their new badge on both of their front paws, observing it as it glinted in the sunlight. It was just the right size to fit at the base of their new Zorua neck, but there were other ramifications to consider. Would it work while they had an illusion up, or did they have to illusion up a fake badge too to use the real one? It seemed like such an easy thing to test out, but they didn’t want to get sidetracked. They were playing good right now. That would probably change once they got where they were going, of course, and they’d otherwise have to force themself to listen to everyone’s yammering, but sure they could play nice for now. They put the badge down for a moment and took a drink of water. Were they supposed to set a home point now? Was this home? They hadn’t been lying about that Hierarchy of Needs snark. As frivolous as that chart was, shelter was still the next step. Was the night sky going to be their blanket? Z. scratched behind their ear and consciously felt the Zorua fur in the way. That would help in that case. Maybe they were supposed to make a bunch of lean-tos. Whatever. It didn’t matter. Not right now, anyway. “Alright,” Z. said, finally putting the badge on. “Let’s go get lost.”

Fixed width variants of each theme have been added, you can change it at the usual place. This is previous design with the width remaining as it was.

"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.

Chigusa watched as the next girl who declared their stay here walked up to the door. It had seemed that her suggestion to break down the door had been taken into consideration as the girl began shoving on it to try and get it open. Though, there was definitely something off about how she was shoving it. The rain and wind had obscured her vision but even then she was confident enough to say that the girl wasn't actually touching the door. In fact, she wasn't even moving towards it to preform such a shove. The girl wondered what was going on here and curiously leaned forward, only to immediately feel the ramifications of her actions as she took a slight step forward, losing her balance from the lean. Chigusa seemed to be frozen in place in her half stepped pose, a small wobble in her legs, and let out a heavy grunt as the original three to talk had begun to discuss leaving. Chigusa looked to the girl who advised against breaking an entering. Nodding she said, "gracias," thankful as if the advice had never occurred to her in the first place. Then as each of them began to introduce themselves Chigusa parroted, "Isaac, Reina, Qadir," before the trio left. With a soft spoken, "bye bye," she watched them disappear into the rain. Now it was only the five of them left, to which Chigusa could still only stare in curiosity at the girl attempting to force the door open by putting her hands up to it. However, Chigusa found her attention caught by something else. A strange foreboding sense of being watched and eerie noise coming from the sea behind her. Turning her head to look at it, making out nothing but the darkness and flashes of white from the occasional bout of lightning, the girl didn't end up wandering towards the eerie noise only because a secondary noise had come to distract her instead. In fact her attention was split two ways, the first with the sound of running and the second with the sound of the door being forced open. Chigusa didn't know how the girl did it, wondering if she was magic, and just let out a somehow both awed and flat sounding, "ooooooh," her expression barely changing at all as she slowly brought up her arms and managed only a single clap. She then looked down at the pink girl, who had crashed into one of the two remaining boys, and greeted her. "Alola." Chigusa attempted to make an arch with her arms, but they too seemed to wobble at attempting this action only to eventually fall back down to her side. The girl blinked up at her, eyes still glazed over from the pain. "Alo-what? Huh?" She made no attempt to get up. "Hm." Chigusa stared at the pink haired girl for a moment before saying, "hi." "Oh, hi!" the girl's expression cleared and she smiled brightly, though the side of her mouth twitched in a wince. "Sorry to uh... crash in like this. But I'm here now!" She looked around. "Not a lot of you here though, huh? Did the others not see the poster?" Chigusa blinked a few times, processing the things she had just said before saying, "ooh. The assistant." She looked over to the collapsed boy and with a near impossible to read tone said, "nice find."

The boy in the beanie said nothing while the others spoke their piece, but the darkening expression on his face said it all. He was annoyed at their disagreement. "Sure, you can't get anymore wet, but you can get sick. And it's not stupid at all!" By the end, his voice rose into a shout. "What's stupid is staying here! Why wait around like this when it's obvious that nobody's coming? That poster was probably just a prank or something! And you!" He whirled on the girl currently trying to break the warehouse door down with her mind. "What are you doing?! What if the cops show up?" His voice rose in dismay. The girl in an orange shirt, who until now had seemed willing enough to stay, looked to have changed her mind as she listened to both him and Dahlia. She leaned away from the latter, as if further distance would prevent her from getting either condition the woman spoke of. "I think…" she started. "I think I'm going to leave now. Even if I can't start my journey now, I'd rather not start off on the wrong trench foot—er, foot. And it's probably best not to begin our journey with breaking and entering either," she drawled out with a look toward Chigusa and Selini. The boy in the headband shook his head. "I doubt anybody will notice right now. Still," he glanced at the sky. "The weather's not getting any better. And I don't know if it's the storm or something else, but I can't get any signal here with my phone." He took out his phone and showed the screen to the gathered people, but especially Shawn. "I tried to call my brother an hour ago, but wasn't able to. Honestly? Kind of spooky." Despite his words, his voice itself came out flat. "I hate to agree with him," he nodded at the beanie boy, "but I think we all might be better off finding some shelter before we get electrocuted. And not in the warehouse," he added. "Yes, there's a low chance anybody notices, but I'm not risking getting my trainer's license revoked over this." "Argh! Why did everything turn to shit?!" the boy in the beanie scrubbed at his hair through his hat. "What if we got the wrong place? Or what if something happened to the assistant? Or maybe it really is a prank? Crap, I don't know, and that makes everything worse!" He shook his head. "It doesn't help that the longer we stay here, the more likely we all are to come down with something later!" The boy seemed to realize he was spiraling. "Listen," he took a deep breath. "I can't stick around any longer or I'll go crazy. You're all free to do what you want. I'm not your boss. Just… be careful. And don't get arrested. I'd hate to hear of anything happening to you all later on. Would make me feel bad." He took another breath. "The name's Isaac, by the way." "I'm Reina," the girl chimed in. She leaned toward Dahlia briefly before darting away. "Good luck with your trench foot. I'm leaving before I catch that." "She was obviously joking," the last boy muttered. Then, even quieter, he said his name. "… Qadir." Isaac adjusted his beanie one last time. "Well, hope I see you all later on our journeys." Then he turned around and walked away from the pier, toward a hazy building in the distance. For those who had already booked a stay, they would recognize it as Hotel Atlantica. Through the rain, they could only make out bright points of golden light and the vague outline of pointed spires. But even that seemed like a beacon of warmth and safety in the storm. "Stay frosty, but not too frosty, you hear?" Reina waved and followed Isaac toward the hotel, Qadir trailing behind with one last nod. And then they were five. Qadir's words proved true. The storm was not getting any better. In fact, it seemed to worsen, as if determined to make the group of five change their mind about staying behind. The clouds had covered the sun and cast the land below into an early night. Soon enough, everybody was treated to the sight of rain falling sideways. In the distance, a small potted plant hurtled through the skies before crashing onto the deck of the cruise ship S.S. Lemu, still docked at the port. The warehouse door was giving way with each psychic shove. Perhaps it was because of the ruckus Selini was making, or the ambience of the storm, but Chigusa was the only person to hear what came next. A low, mournful howl that came not from the land, but from the sea. One could have mistaken it for the wind itself, but for the deeper, almost yawning cries. The sound blended with the crashing of the waves like the notes of a song. Chigusa and the others would get the unmistakable sensation of being watched. It was an eerie feeling, made even more so for the girl by the deep singing that only grew louder as time passed. Try as she might to look out over the sea, though, she would spot nothing capable of making that sound. Though it was difficult to see much of anything. The scenery would go from pitch black to a blinding white whenever the lightning flashed. There was not enough time for one's eyes to adjust to either the light or the darkness. And then suddenly, the singing stopped. Soon after, Chigusa heard the patter of frantic footsteps from the opposite side. A few seconds later, a young woman who looked about the same age as everybody else whipped around the corner, hands clutching at her duffle bag. Though far more bedraggled, her distinct cotton candy locks identified her as the same girl that Nikolaos had traveled with for part of the route to Khalk Harbor. "I'm here! Sorry I'm late! I got lost on the road of life!" she shouted. The girl skidded to a stop, but her feet gave out on the slippery path. For a second she stood there, arms spread wide like a bird's in an attempt to right herself, and then she crashed forward, headbutting Shawn in the stomach. The two fell to the ground, splattering mud and rain everywhere. "Ow…" the girl groaned, rubbing at her skinned knees as she sat up. "That really hurt..." Distracted by her pain, she hadn't yet realized she was half sitting on the boy. At that same moment, Selini finally broke the warehouse door down. It fell to the ground with an even louder crash, revealing the shadowy interior of the warehouse. A few pinpricks of light winked at the group from the darkness. OOC: A lot happened in this post! Feel free to react and respond. You can also post more than once this round if you feel like it, though that's of course, entirely optional.

Clobbering time

Quinn flinched the moment when Route One Oh Two became the smallest bit wet. It was not enough to keep from carrying on, but she kept thinking about it as it took further and further steps. Quinn was intimately familiar with mud, for reasons they rather kept to hirself. As Route One Oh Two became a full-on bog, Quinn spent more time looking for the safest places to step than zir stated goal of hunting for Pokémon. Cassiopeia had to help with a few of those jumps, putting all her effort into pulling upwards, giving Quinn just a few extra moments of airtime to navigate safely. It did not always work, and every piece of clothing below Quinn’s knee suffered the consequences, but there was still entertainment in the process, so Quinn did not mind. There were wild Pokémon to encounter, of course, and for those, Quinn did faer best to stay in place. Normandie did not seem to mind the environment fighting with her trademark ferocity, and Cassiopeia was unaffected by most terrain in general. The Pokémon that truly caught Quinn’s eye, however, was a Bearble standing stock still and facing away from her as it approached. Quinn recognized it immediately. “Peat? Where is your friend Nathaniel?” Quinn asked. But the Bearble did not respond, still looking ahead and growling under his breath. “Ahead, then? What is he doing without you?” Quinn made a move to continue, but Cassiopeia suddenly jerked its hand back, pulling the rest of the young ghost back with her. “Oh!” Quinn said, in more of shock than actual pain. “What is with you, you silly balloon?” That was when xe heard the whispers. In all likelihood, they had always been there since first stepping into the marsh, but it had taken breaking focus to notice them, and now they were impossible to ignore. The whispers in the back of Quinn’s mind were incomprehensible, but in the sort of way that promised comprehension if one only listened harder. Quinn tried again to approach the statue -- the whispers had to be coming from there, right? -- but Cassiopeia once again refused. “Do you want to go back into your Pokéball?” Quinn asked. That seemed to be an acceptable compromise for Cassiopeia, who practically opened her ball for Quinn as ze took it out. Approaching the statue alone made staying clean a practically impossible task, but Quinn no longer cared. The statue’s aura was awesome in the literal sense, with all the terrifying implications that that implied. It was no wonder that both Cassiopeia and Peat were not interested in such a place. Nathaniel was also there, hesitating just before placing his hand on the edifice. Quinn did likewise but overcame that final mental barrier to find out what the statue felt like. The statue was warm, but not in a way where the rock had absorbed sunlight all morning and was now radiating excess heat, nor was it warm because Quinn’s skin, as a ghost, was naturally cooler. No, it felt warm because it felt like it was alive, an impossibility in itself, but that was what it felt like. Even more, it felt like it was breathing, too. There was a pulse of energy in the statue. Its rhythm was slow, but it was there and it was consistent. Quinn could tap along with it if they didn’t feel compelled to keep his hand on the rock. “Material or Astral, I have never encountered anything like this,” Quinn said, Quinn’s voice soft. The voices in her head got louder, and faster too. And yet, Quinn still could not understand it. “What secrets do you hold?” Quinn mused. Still keeping faer hand touching the rock, Quinn began walking clockwise around the base, searching for more phenomena to experience -- an irregularity in the rock, perhaps, or a change in the statue’s beat.

The most surprising thing about YCMaker embracing the AI art thing is that he was actually around long enough to implement an art theft button. Also hi everyone, I know I have been dead for like 2 years now

Penelope and Alois "Oh, go an' blow a flabby one, ye pinprick-pinteled wandought," the maid spat crudely. If looks could kill, she'd have speared him through already. Fortunately for Alois, he remained intact and whole. Unfortunately for him, the maid found her second wind shortly after. Fueled by frustration and anger, she used Alois's momentary lapse of attention to her advantage. The woman heaved the fighter off of her and regained her feet. "I ain't 'ave time fer ye two, so I'll jest be on me way. Ye gots yer answers, so leave me be, an' I'll do ye the same." The maid hared out the door, swerving around Penelope, the sudden motion causing a flurry of activity from the pigeons in the dovecote. It would be difficult to follow her through the hail of birds. Gunther, Citron, Raki, and Peaches Luckily for Peaches, with Citron leading the way, and Gunther, Raki, and the villagers helping, the operation went without a hitch. The arrow was out, and the biggest danger had passed. Despite the wyvern's body still being injured, sore, and weak, the sharp pain that had wracked her chest had lessened slightly. All that remained was to wait for recovery. The bandages would need to be changed out for fresh ones every so often, and the wound checked in case infection set in. But that was, at least, familiar territory for most of them. When Citron expressed her gratitude, Thile grinned. "Oh, t'was no problem a'all. Us Phar folks, we git things done." "Right glad I am t'see the wyvern's doin' all right. Wouldn't be right t'see one o'em go. T'would be a bad omen, 'em being so alike to—" Achos wiped his brow. "Aye," Pheodea spoke over him. "I'm sure it would. But for now, we should focus on cleaning up the area." The older woman turned to Raki. "I don't know how you got here, and I don't know what your purpose is, but anybody who would help a creature in need like that is somebody I'm willing to trust. If you do no harm to Phar, then no harm will come to you here neither." The weaver smiled momentarily at him before purposefully turning her back to the Isaurian and barking out orders to the other villagers. "Clean up the area. Any sharp pieces need to be cleaned up, sharpish. Make sure all the blood is gone, or it'll attract flies. Gather up all the cloths." When one of them gave her a sullen look, she shook her head. "Don't look at me! I'm just an old woman! You're lucky my old bones even made it over here." Link, Tsetseg, Cora, and Garinphasia Tsetseg's arrow struck true, and Gaston staggered with a cry like a wounded beast. "Oh, woe is me! Lackaday, for I have been besieged most aggressively by these foul ruffians." A mad glint came into his eyes then. "But ho, there is yet promise." He stumbled forward, angling toward his horse. Were Link or Cora to approach him, he would ignore both. Meanwhile, his horse, still galloping, veered to the side to avoid Garinphasia, running over her tail. Spittle flew from the horse's mouth as it turned, aiming away from the trees and toward open land. Where Gaston stood, arms outstretched, though one of them was bent at an odd angle. "You will cessate now! For your master! You are but a mere beast, and I, a hunter of beasts. I, Lord Pylauses Gaston, commendate you!" When it became apparent the horse would not stop, his brow furrowed, and with his good hand, he grabbed hold of the animal by the neck, forcing it to a stop in front of him. The man laughed wildly. "Yes! Yes! If you shall not acquiesce, then I must bring you to heel. Now, let us go!" Once more, he attempted to get back astride the horse.

“...You should all be able to approach as far as you need to help walk me through this,” Citron spoke, her voice catching in her throat as she knelt by the wyvern’s side. She knew Peaches; she could tell the Wyvern was in pain, and as much as the wyvern would do anything to protect her… As long as she acknowledged them, and didn’t seem worried - and as long as they remained unthreatening - they would be fine. “...But I think I’m the only one she’ll trust to actually do this,” she reaffirmed, doing her best to smile. “After all we wouldn’t want you squandering that good grace you’ve garnered with her, would we, Gunther?” she did her best to smile briefly as she nodded towards him. “...And you’re on thin ice enough with her as well, Raki; so you shouldn't push it,” she turned to nod towards him as well, before returning her attention to the Wyvern in front of her. Her hands were shaky as she knelt down, and began examining the arrow in more detail. Her own chest hurt in a sympathetic fashion, but she pushed the guilt aside as she cleared her throat, and raised the knife. “...Peaches,” she began, speaking softly. “...Grandpa must have done this for you at some point, alright? So I’m going to need you to trust me, when I say; this is going to hurt, but it will save your life. Do you hear me?” she’d ask, using her free hand to lightly pat the Wyvern’s scales. She waited then, for a moment, for a low rumble of ascent to escape the wyvern’s throat; it wasn’t that of a screech, but it was still an acknowledgement. So there was nothing to do, but begin. “...I’m counting on you all,” she’d murmur; using one hand to steady the Wyvern’s scales around the wound, while she held the knife as steadily as she could in the other; Peaches, for her part, staying as still as she could whilst still breathing. Citron listened then, as Raki described the process. Her hands shook, but she was… Careful; slowly tracing a steady line from the side of the bolt, enlarging the entry-wound slightly, and removing a couple of scales in the process. “...We need to enlarge the surface of the wound, slightly, so that we can try to pull the arrow out as safely as possible; for that, we also need to hold it open,” Citron parroted; in her own words as she spoke through each step, taking a small line of fishing-line and a hook from the supplies they had brought, and very carefully holding the hide away from the arrow. “This will allow us to get a better hold on the bolt, and also make sure nothing gets left behind.” As she did so, she carefully swapped from her free hand holding the bandages against the scales, to carefully remove the damaged scales; holding a bandage to the wyvern’s hide with the elbow of her bad-arm as she placed the knife down, and took a pair of sticks brought by the villagers in her good hand. “...Then, prepare the implements by disinfecting them, right? Does, er… Anyone have some honey?” she’d ask, glancing around. To her surprise, while no one did - someone was able to fetch some quickly enough; her heartbeat as an ever-present reminder in her mind that they didn’t have much time. But they were fast enough, and so she continued; taking the jar and carefully coating the two, straight sticks of wood. Her stomach shifted uncomfortably as she hesitated for a moment, before… Slowly, and carefully, inserting the sticks on opposite sides of the arrow, now a possibility due to the hide being pulled apart, and pinch them together against the shaft of the bolt. “And then, with a steady hand, we have to feel for the barbs with the implements, so that you can match the entry-wound,” she explained, trying her best to keep her lunch down as she felt a mixture of blood and wound press in around her fingers as she pressed the sticks further in, until they were interrupted as she felt the sticks pressed something hard; halting their progress. “...And then, you pinch them together, and… have to pull it out,” she swallowed uncomfortably, hesitating for a moment. Peaches, for her part, had been gentle; shaking in the way that any might should they be in pain, but… Never so much as screeching in Citron’s ear-- Even as she pulled the arrow free; sweat beading on her forehead as she took careful measure to match the entry-wound to the best of her capability. It was only as she threw the bolt, now free of its victim, to the ground; that Citron felt as if she could focus, or even hear, again. “...Then, comes dressing the wound!” she yelled; parroting their words, though by this point, she knew what she was doing. Her heartbeat thumped, loudly, in her chest as she balled the bandages up, pressing them as tightly as she could, and made to stuffing them into the wound; blood rising, and mixing with the honey she had already begun applying to the bandages as she stuffed the wound as well as she could with her good hand. it wasn't long until she had lost count of the number of bandages pressed within the wound, the experience of pressing them in until they were soaked with blood becoming an almost endless cycle, but... She found herself focused again whence she had finished that work, and could instead focus on applying vulneraries to the edge of the wound. The hooks were the last to be removed, as she began to bandage the surface of the wound, taking careful care to press the scales back together as well as she could, bandaging the lizard, until… Blood-soaked as her hands, both the good and the bad, were; she was… Done. All that was left was to… Hope it worked. Taking in a deep breath, Citron stood up as she did so, glancing around as she held her hands awkwardly in front of her, still-dripping with a mixture of blood and honey as she did so. “...I… Will have to change her bandages fairly regularly, for a while; and then once a day until it heals,” she’d explain, swallowing nervously, as she did her best to recall the off-handed first-aid she had learned back on the orchard. “But I think, we’re… Past the worst of it,” she explained, hope steady in her voice as she gave a slight bow to not only Raki, Gunther, and Erdick; but also the villagers. “Thank you, for your help, all of you,” she did her best to force a smile to her face as she spoke; even as she scrubbed idly at her bad hand with the good, as if doing so might remove the blood from both of them, rather than smear it further.

There's so much wrong with this post that I don't know where to start. So let's start from the top of the post! So, right out the gate, there's a problem with your proposal. A very serious one. Torm owns the website, and he lives in the UK. So if the website was to cease operations in the UK, its operations as a whole would not be far behind unless he passed ownership to Yemachu and just continued footing the bill himself or something? Seems like a lot of hoop-jumping over what will likely amount to nothing. Furthermore, you flat-out admit you haven't done your own reading and research (you're basing your post off information from YouTube, ffs), and I hate to sound like I'm gatekeeping, but one should never present an issue as prevalent as you're making this one sound without doing their own research first. This sort of thing is exactly how misinformation gets spread around. So I took the time to read the Online Safety Bill's exact wording myself. Neither you nor the YouTube video linked back to anything showing the actual papers, by the by, so I had to do that myself, too. For shame. I'm pretty sure I legally need to clarify at this point that I'm not a lawyer, I've never been to law school, etc, and I've also never set foot in the UK, so someone who meets at least one of those criteria would be a better authority on what all I'm about to say. Not to mention a lot of this referenced other laws/documents but didn't say what was actually written in those. Anyway, assuming I've read all this right, the act does exactly what's written on the tin: Looks over the web and tries to make it less harmful toward children and animals. A noble goal, but that assumes that's all they do with it. Now, being American myself, I live in a country where there's no shortage of laws that also look over the web and what everyone posts on it. That being the case, I can say with full confidence that unless you've been posting content that involves the abuse of children or animals and live in the UK, you shouldn't have anything to worry about. Your belief that this will have a profound impact on NCM is, however, frankly ridiculous. Not only do you need to be thirteen or older to register for this website, with most if not all of its userbase being fairly past twenty already, but NCM is such a small middle-of-nowhere site that's only tangentially related to Yu-Gi-Oh at this point, that anyone looking to make a move on/against this site would have to go out of their way to even know about it in the first place. You basically illustrated in great detail for us the amount of mental gymnastics you had to do to turn this particular molehill into the mountain you did. How, pray tell, would this internet equivalent of a middle-of-nowhere gas station town with exactly five buildings, come to the attention of the UK government, and why would they care if it did? Are you gonna tell them yourself? Have you been posting content that would get their attention? To summarize, your information sounds unreliable, the situation you've outlined is absurd, and your solution would mean shutting down the website as a whole since it's owned, run, and paid for by an Englishman (not Yemachu, who is a coder that does work on the cardmaker and possibly some behind-the-scenes stuff I don't know about). Now, I must again clarify at the end of my post that I'm not in the UK, and have only read the Online Safety Bill in a vacuum. If there's further context or information that I'm missing, I'm very open to that possibility, but based on what I've read both here and there, I could not disagree more with your entire proposal for so many reasons.

Belle walked down the path, step by step. Her feet, clad in orange Running Shoes now, pounded on the dirt road. How long had it been since she had trodden the ground outside like this? She couldn't remember. But she was in no state to dwell on it. Her mind whirled with plans of revenge. Her cousin was powerful, but overconfident. If Belle could get the drop on her, then she might have a chance. She would show Sabrina not to mess with her. If she could just get ahold of pink hair dye… But of course, she would have to get through the Korova region first. Which would be difficult. Each step caused Belle's stomach to lurch and her lungs to heave. If I had known I'd have to walk so much, I'd have tried to get in shape before this. Oh, who am I kidding? I would have just made plans to avoid this situation altogether. It was then that she realized something. The sound of twin footfalls, one energetic, the other feather-light, had disappeared. The girl looked up, only for her eyes to confirm what her ears had picked up for a while now. Belle closed her eyes. Opened them. No, everything was still the same. She was… "Alone," she muttered. Why was that? Did those two tire of her and run ahead? They must have decided that they didn't want her around anymore. She was slow, after all. Gloomy too. Really, it was no wonder nobody liked her. At this moment, Belle forgot her earlier complaint about being stuck with normies. Now she realized that there was something even worse than that. Solitude. Belle clenched her hands in her recently purchased shorts. No, she was being stupid. She was not unfamiliar with loneliness. Hadn't she been alone for most of her life? But this time, her parents weren't here. She didn't have the few friends she had made in Pokémon Unite either. She would even welcome her stuck-up cousin at this point. "Hello?" she called out. "Nate?" she paused, "Quinn? Are you there?" No answer. "H-Hey, I'm sorry I…" slowed you down, "No, whatever. Just come back." No answer. She hadn't known either of those two for very long. Just as long as they had been on that cruise. So why did she care if they left or not? She clenched her fists. "No. I don't care. I don't need them." She took a breath. "I'm fine." And then she looked up, locking eyes with a youngster around her age in the tall grass. Like a pointer dog, he straightened in place, and then bounded across the field. "I'm trying to find more Pokémon. Wait! You look weak! Come on, let's battle!" The blue-haired girl glared at him. "What are you talking about?" Despite herself, the pinched feeling in her chest melted away. "Huh? Don't you know the rules? You lock eyes, and you battle!" The boy bounced back to stand about ten yards away, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. "Come on! Let's go!" "I—Fine. Yeah. Let's fight." The boy released a Rattata, pumping a fist. "Great! Let's go!" Belle took out her own Poké Ball and twisted the top. With a flash of light, a tiny cow with a grassy hide appeared. It turned to look at its trainer, giving a soft low. "How do I do this again?" the girl muttered to herself. "Whoa, cool Pokémon, but we won't let that stop us. Rattata, use Tackle!" "Oh right. It's like a turn-based role-playing game." Belle pointed at the cow. "You," she moved her hand to aim at the charging Rattata. "Use, uh…" She paused. "Crap. I don't know." The cow looked over its shoulder and gave a plaintive moo. In the next second, the Rattata reached its front, lowering its head and slamming into the grass type. The cow flailed its hooves helplessly and fell backward onto the dirt road. "Hey, why aren't you doing anything?" the youngster demanded. "You don't want to fight after all? Belle sighed. "That's not it. I just don't know which moves to use." The boy stared. "You're kidding, right?" He leaned over, holding his sides as he laughed. "What the heck, you're serious?! Okay, look," he pointed a finger. "That red thing sticking out of your backpack. Isn't that a Pokédex?" "This?" the blue-haired girl leaned her arm back to grab what he was talking about. "I think so. A sailor gave it to me when I got this Pokémon." The boy nodded. "Yeah, that's it. I've got one of my own." He dug into his shorts and retrieved a red gadget shaped like an old-fashioned handheld gaming device. "This is mine. Got it all the way from Johto. Yours looks like a Korova-style one. Anyway, point it at your Pokémon. You'll find out what its moves are that way." "Got it." Belle followed his directions. "Huh, it says…" ♂ Poamoo Grazing Pokémon Type: Grass Height: 2'6" Weight: 20 lbs A gentle Pokémon which takes grass in its mouth only to absorb the moisture and is careful to leave the grass unharmed. Name: Poamoo Lv. 5 Original Trainer: Belladonna Morgane ID No. 235536 Current Moves: Tackle, Tail Whip Ability: Overgrow This Pokémon is pretty Docile by nature. You first met one another on the SS Rising Sun. It's capable of taking hits! "Yeah, so whatever moves it lists, those are the moves it knows." The youngster nodded sagely. "You ready then?" "Huh." Belle studied the Pokédex for a second longer and then stashed it away in her pack. "Yeah." "All right, it's time to go! Rattata, use Quick Attack!" "Use Tackle, Poamoo." The cow attempted to move, but before he could, the Rattata had knocked him off his feet again. "Too slow! You have to do better than that. Rattata, use Quick Attack again!" "Huh, looks like Pokémon battles are tougher than I thought. Poamoo, turn around and use Tail Whip." "Moo," the cow lowed and slowly turned around, tail swishing in the air. When the Rattata arrived, it received a face full of bristles. "Now, use Tackle backward!" Belle shouted. In her excitement, she completely forgot her exhaustion. The cow dug his front hooves into the ground, lifting his haunches and slamming backward into his opponent. "What?! I've never seen a Tackle used that way before…" the youngster muttered. Belle smirked. "Guess I'm just full of surprises." "But that won't be enough to take us down. Rattata, use Hyper Fang!" "What?!" The rat nodded and raised its head, incisors glowing white over the Poamoo's behind. And then it bit down. "Moo-OO!" The cow let out a pained cry and collapsed on its side. "Yes!" Belle's opponent grinned and held up two fingers in a peace sign. "We win! Go Rattata! I knew you were top percentage." "I… lost," the blue-haired girl blinked. At that moment, all of her fatigue came flooding back. She yawned. "Oh well. Win some, lose some. Return—" "Hey, wait," the boy interrupted. "I'll patch up your Pokémon. Got some Revives on hand in case Rattata goes down during training. It's a bit of a walk back to New Point Landing, and you don't want to miss your friends, right?" He crouched down next to the Poamoo. "… Okay. And what are you talking about?" Belle approached the boy and collapsed on her butt beside him, leaning her head into her arms and yawning. The boy's Rattata nosed into her side, sniffing inquisitively. "Your friends. The ones you came with. They went off into the grass. One of them said something about exploring, and the other got ambushed by a Rattata and then walked into the grass. You didn't know?" He took out a small diamond-shaped medicine that he placed into the Poamoo's mouth. "… No. I did not," the girl grumbled, waving off the rat. Nate and Quinn didn't leave after all. They just went to catch Pokémon. I should've known. Guess I just lost my head back there. Good thing they weren't around for that, or that would have been really embarrassing. She breathed a sigh of relief. Not that I'm happy to have those normies around. I'm just glad that I didn't make a fool of myself. That's all. The boy massaged the cow's throat, causing him to swallow. "That makes sense. I was wondering why you were calling out like that earlier. Turns out you had your head in the clouds!" He laughed, but continued before she could say anything. "Well, you weren't too bad for a cloudy Swablu. You surprised me once you actually started battling." "Really? Huh," In her distraction, Belle did not guard her pocket, and the Rattata scooted forward and bit off a chunk of granola bar. The Poamoo twitched and rose to its hooves weakly. "Yeah, you'll do okay." the boy spritzed a Potion and rubbed it into the cow's coat before climbing back on his feet as well. "Look. Good as new. Hey," he turned to Belle and held out a hand. "My name's Joey. What's yours?" Belle did not take the hand, placing her own hands over her pocket defensively. "Belle. And get your rat off of me!" Joey laughed. "Sure, sure. Rattata, come on." He whistled. The rat turned to Joey, munching on granola happily. "Return!" The Rattata never lost its smug look, even as it glowed red and returned to its Poké Ball. "Hey, do you have a Pokégear? If you do, let's exchange phone numbers." With the rodent menace gone, the girl relaxed. "Nope." "Too bad," the boy sighed. "Well, maybe I'll see you around. I'm training here in the Korova region, too." "Maybe," Belle said. Then, when the other turned to leave, she cleared her throat. "Hey. For earlier. Uh, thanks," she mumbled out the last word awkwardly. "No problem! That was a great battle." With a wave, Joey ran back into the tall grass. Belle fell onto her back on the dirt road. "What a weirdo." Her mouth twitched into a smile. "He didn't take my money, either. Guess he really did just want to battle." She flopped onto her side, facing her Pokémon. "Hey, you. Go stand right there," she gestured weakly. With a low moo, the cow obliged, blocking the sun from hitting his trainer's face. "Thanks'a bunch," the girl's words slurred from exhaustion. "Should name y'something too. Maybe Moo. You sure moo a lot." "Moo." "Yeah. Like that." "Moo." "Exactly." Belle closed her eyes. "Wake me up… when… s'time to go home." OOC: This time, I didn't post a couple hundred words while low on sleep. Woo! Go me.

Clobber was acting weird, which was in-character for him, sure, but that didn’t make it any less stare-worthy, the way he shuffled around and turned away like he was embarrassed to do a perfectly normal task. He had some weird jab about fruit farming that Z. didn’t quite follow -- even if they had been a farmer, what would be the problem with that? -- but maybe that was his plan to get Z. to move on to something more interesting. It didn’t work, or rather, it did work in that Z. moved on, but not for that reason. No, even before Ears the Noibat lunged forward at the broken coconut, Z. was already cringing and moving away. It was the shrill scream she’d let out that did it. It was basically a dog whistle, and not the online kind Z. could seize upon and call out, so they could only be miserable about it the usual way. They dropped their coconut piece and said, “Hey, warn people maybe next time you want to do that, huh? I was just getting used to having voices in my head that aren’t mine, don’t gotta exacerbate the headache by throwing in a tornado siren.” Thankfully, other people were breaking away from Jirachi at this point, leaving more people to go bother instead. Hector first went over to the river to look at himself more than he already could with six sets of eyes lying about, then to get a drink of water, before finally coming over to offer to do something with the coconut water instead, but it was the wrong thing. Like, it hit an off-key note in Z.’s brain even if they couldn’t place the whole tune, just component parts. It wasn’t like they weren’t going to call Hector out on it, though, even with the little information they could scrounge up. “Yeah? You got an emulsifier on you? Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” Maybe they had mentioned cooking on the forum, then. Well, they remembered that information, at least, so a cooking topic seemed most likely. If there was a cooking topic, Z. felt like Hector would have been on it, so they refrained from further calling Hector a cooking poser. Instead, they said, “If you want to cook something, we’ll need a fire, and maybe an oven if we can find some stone or clay or something. Walk with me and help me carry the stuff for that.” Hector turned to face Z. when they spoke. It took a moment for the troop to rotate for all of them to be facing the right direction, but when they all had, six sets of eyes settled on them. “I didn’t promise to make chicken curry. I just said that I could,” he said through the Brass. All six of the little orbs swelled up when Z. suggested gathering the supplies. “I would love to help gather the stuff to build an oven. It would be great to cook for everyone,” he said. Then he paused and glanced toward Jirachi. “Probably shouldn't be running off yet though. He sent me a weird… mind… message thing while he was answering questions. Think he wants us all to gather up before he tells us something important.” Again with the mind stuff. But Z. couldn’t help but look quizzical, tilting their head to the side as Hector explained his reluctance. “He literally said we have half a day though? And yeah, building an oven's hard but we don't need to finish it until after we get back. If it’s so important, he can tell us whenever he wants.” They flexed their front paws. “If there's one thing these things are good for, I bet it’s digging pits.” One of the troopers turned back to stare at the mist approaching the shore. “Well, he said the Mist would be here in half a day. But I thought there was more he wanted to tell us before that, right?” Hector said through the Brass, who was still staring at Z. “I figured it was a quick break to grab a drink and a bite to eat before we got down to business.” Z. felt their eyes nearly bulge out of their skull. Leave it to a moderator to make up their own personal rules and try and get everyone else to follow them. It was enough to get them to slip up a little bit and reveal some ulterior motives. “Then help me carry food for most of these people then,” Z. snapped. “God, do you want me to give you a proper ‘you’re welcome’ or not?” Hector laughed. It tinny noise that rippled from trooper to trooper and caused their heads to bobble out of sync. It was almost bad, like, Ears’ ear noise, if it weren’t also on the softer end. “Sorry, sorry. You're right,” he said (reiterating what Z. already knew). “I’m sure he can wait a few minutes while we grab some things. We deserve the break.” The troop formed into a single file line with the Brass at the front. “Lead the way, Captain.” “God,” Z. said again, again containing themself first at the laughter at their expense and then the absolutely comical conga line performance this was becoming. The “Captain” thing didn't help much. Stifling it all still meant it came out as a light cough, though. “Okay.” They went further inland a little ways, just going upstream. Despite the outburst, the “You’re welcome” was not entirely forthcoming. Every so often, they would point out a fruit tree that could be interesting, some of them even fruits unrecognizable to both of them, and both Z. and Hector would shake and/or physically attack the tree to get at its precious bounty. Hector handled most of the carrying, what with technically being six Hectors and all, but Z. did nestle some of the smaller fruit into their fur similar to how they had the Oran Berry back in the Mystery Dungeon. Eventually, though… “You’re welcome,” Z. said. “I didn’t do it for you specifically, so you didn’t even need to thank me, but you’re welcome. I also didn’t thank you for correcting that actual child about me, so there you go, you get one of those for free too.” They stopped in their tracks, looking at the latest flora discovery directly in front of them. “Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me,” they said. “It’s a date palm.” Hector did what looked like a shrug but the gesture was not very clear when all six members of the troop were ladened with fruit and supplies. “Thanks anyways. I appreciate it. And don’t sweat it about Cross, I think he just didn’t understand. Patience goes a long way in my experience,” he said. The troop stopped marching when Z. did, managing to stop before walking into them this time. “Oh, man,” Hector said, the troop shaking with laughter again. It was a much deeper belly sort of laugh this time. “Lucky day for Clobber, huh?” he managed after a moment. “We got him a date.” Z. didn't fight the laugh this time. It was practically a cackle. “He’s a little dingus, isn’t he? One thing I’ll give him is he has the decency to chew with his mouth closed, but imagine being embarrassed to eat in front of people. Any idea who he's supposed to be in real life?” “Not really,” Hector said, quieting down a little bit. “You probably noticed but I wasn’t exactly active the last few years. Might not want us to know considering he hasn't mentioned his username at all.” “Mm,” Z. said, nodding. “I guess. I can think of some really embarrassing people for him to be, and I will absolutely give him shit for it if it turns out he was indeed as much a goober then as he is now. But Ears has been like that too, and she seems cooler than that.” Hector walked over and used his shield-hand to scoop a date up and toss it up onto the shield of one of the troopers. “Plenty of people are cool now that weren’t fifteen years ago,” he said. “I was a pretty cringy twelve-year-old when I first joined, but I like to think I’m an alright twenty-seven-year-old.” Z. laughed again, but didn’t correct him. “That’s true,” they said. “I have some baggage myself, don’t I? And that's even ignoring what Zeta Channel eventually became. Naw, my problem is it’s a cringy thing to do now. I don't know. I don’t want to say it’s a matter of trust or anything stupid like that because you don't need to know someone’s entire life story to know they have your back, and I certainly have bigger trust issues right now, but it still feels like they're withholding something, and that’s not not meaningful, you know? We’ll see.” Hector tried to shrug again. “I get that. I don't mind so much, mostly because I don't think any of the real weirdos from the site got plucked up, but it would be nice to know who they are.” “Oh, that’s true,” Z. said. “The real weirdos. God, could you imagine? I think I would strangle Summer if I saw him in real life.” They tried to get a few more dates but found themself running out of available space. They looked at Hector going around scooping things up with his shields. “Actually, hold still,” they said. Hector did so, and Z. made a quick loop around the six Falinks, checking and double-checking each of them in turn. “Now just, like, walk? Move around a bit?” After that was done too, Z. un-nestled their fruit, concentrated as hard as they could on what they had just seen, and threw themselves into the air in a sick backflip. What came back down was a pretty decent copy of Hector, all things considered. The troopers weren’t going to move from their spot behind the brass, Z. knew that even before trying it, but still. “There,” they said, scooping up the fruit again. “Now it at least looks like I’m carrying more than I am. Should be enough to head back now, huh?” Hector shook one of his heads. “You’re getting the hang of that whole copycat thing pretty fast,” he said. “I’m only just now starting to get the hang of this whole six-in-one thing I've got going on.” He hefted the weight he was carrying, hoisted as they were atop his shields like little platters. “Should be good to go. Think we've got a pretty decent haul.” “Cool,” Z. said. “And hey, at least you get to practice just by, you know, being. And I’ve still got a long way to go too. But I’m not going to stop until I get there. Imperfection I can fix like that is just not something I can abide by.” One final laugh. “I guess if you can’t sort yourself out alone, I’ll be there to make sure you do. For now, let’s go back.”

Hector's eyes met Jirachi's, and it felt like looking into the dizzying expanse of space. The legendary said nothing, but the Falinks heard a voice going, "not yet," inside his head. It was the sort of voice that is not actually a voice at all, but a feeling hatched in the head. A thought not quite put into words. So when the psychic type answered Es instead, it was with none of the usual awkwardness that comes with being ignored. Instead, it was as if Hector were back home waiting his turn in line at the gas station. "By special, do you mean, uh, special attackers? Or do you mean Special special? I can't say for sure on the first, but for the second, no, they're normal Pokémon like you and me. Except none of us are really normal, huh?" The mythical thought for a moment. "Since I'm a genius, and you all are actually human beings (or so my intuition tells me). So you could say they're more normal than any of us! ♪" He waved his arms in emphasis. Jirachi then turned to Chester. "Well, I actually cleansed that place earlier, and the Pokémon there were all normal mystery dungeon Pokémon. So maybe you're immune, but maybe you aren't. I wouldn't risk it, myself. But speaking of cleansing, that's what happened! I wished to restore the world back to the way it used to be. But I'm too weak." He smiled with a touch of self-deprecation. "My power could only cleanse this small island and the edges of the mainland where you originally arrived. It took a lot out of me, too. If I use too much of my powers, I fall asleep, just like what happened while you all were in the mystery dungeon." He giggled with some embarrassment before addressing Marv. "But I'm a lot better than I used to be. It's true that in the past I only stayed awake for one week every thousand years, but stuff happened, and I've gotten better at that. Even after using all my wishes, I can stay up for a looong time now." Jirachi floated higher into the air until he rose above the trees. When he spoke next, it was in their heads. "On the subject of time, there isn't a lot left. My power originally covered a wider expanse. But every second, the Endless Mist gains ground, and now only this island is protected. If you look out at the sea, you can see it approaching even now." He pointed with a pale arm toward the shoreline. — The three at the edge of the island found that the coconut pieces were rich and filling, but not as crunchy or sweet as they remembered. After all, most processed coconut from our world is grated, toasted, and mixed with sugar. And, contrary to popular belief, coconuts do not contain milk inside, only water. But this being a mature coconut, there was very little of that either. Still, it had a nutty and refreshing flavor. More coconuts hung from the surrounding trees—young green ones and mature brown ones. And the island had more than just coconuts. Bushes and trees laden with ripe fruit and berries suffused the green inland areas with a fragrant perfume. But the wind blowing off the ocean waves carried a distinct aroma. If you have seen the sea before, you would recognize it immediately. But if you have not, then imagine a heady cocktail of greenery, salt, and tangy sulfur, all with a fishy overtone. Separate, they are ordinary, but together they produce a briny scent that is unforgettable. The sea itself I won't describe, having already gone over that earlier. What was important was the edge of the sea. The boundary where the ripples and waves blended into one thin line meeting the sky. There, a grayish smudge stained the horizon, as if an amateur had taken a dirty eraser to a sketch and made it worse off for it. If any of the three glanced at the blemish more than once, they would find that each time, it grew bigger than before. But it was so gradual that it was hard to tell, and it looked as if their eyes were playing tricks on them. — Jirachi fluttered back down to the ground. "The Mist won't be here for a while, at least. By my calculations, it'll be… about half a day. Enough time to rest and grab food. Some of you have found out already, but this island is full of goodies! And the stream over there has a lot of cool, clean water, too." The Pokémon twirled in the air. "There's more I want to say, and I haven't answered all the questions either, but I want you all together for that, so I'll hold off for now. Let's meet up back here when you're ready! ♪" He paused, voice growing serious again. "And... for those of you who have decided to help... Thank you. I mean it." After that, Jirachi would grab an apple and eat it while waiting for the others to finish, cheeks bulging like a Morpeko's. OOC: All right! Got a lot of questions answered, and now you all have time to do whatever on this island for a bit before we get back to plot stuff. Let me know if you need information for your posts. Your characters are free to bum around, get a drink, grab food, whatever. I won't worry about "rounds" so much for this part, so feel free to post multiple times (or not) depending on what your character is doing. I might not post at all during this part since Jirachi will just be chilling in one spot for the most part. Exceptions are if you need me to write out a short post with description or if your character chooses to interact with Jirachi. Also tried out a new style of writing for this post. I'm thinking I might do more like it for this RP, specifically, since it seems to fit the genre. Let me know if it's jarring in any way, though.

Penelope and Alois At the end of the hall, there stood a door much like the other doors in the house—sturdy elm of a paler hue than the stout oak so often used for doors in Galtea. Here at least was something very Histian in a house decorated in the style of Penelope's home country. Through the door, the girl would hear the flapping of wings and the cry of birds. Were she to open it, the sight that greeted her, while certainly exciting, was not at all surprising for the tactician. With the feathers swirling in the air, it almost looked like a scene from a play. Alois and a familiar brunette woman faced each other on opposite sides of the room, chests heaving for breath. Both bore reddened marks on their body, the fighter on his neck and the woman on her forehead. Penelope would recognize the other as Dille, the maid from before. She appeared to have transformed into an entirely different person. In the kitchen, she had stared at the floor, shoes tucked underneath the apron on her maid's dress, and her hair wrapped in a prim net. Now she leaned forward with both legs wide apart in an upside-down U shape, apron and dress tied up with the hairnet on one side for ease of movement. Dille glanced at Penelope. "Tsk, another uninvited guest. It's obvious y'all ain't ne'er learned yer manners, barging into m'lord's house like this." The maid rushed toward the tactician like a wildcat. "But I'll escort ye out!" Gunther, Edrick, Citron, and Raki When Gunther arrived at the stable, he saw no horses, but a familiar wyvern on the ground, Edrick, Citron, and Raki surrounding her. An arrow stuck out of her chest. Most people would realize the seriousness of the situation right away. If not because of the blood seeping from the wound, then at least from everything else. Peaches lay still with closed eyes. Citron shook her head, teardrops flying from her face. Raki held a knife in his hand, explaining something in a low voice. Edrick, who appeared significantly more disoriented and scuffed up than Gunther had seen him last, held up multiple knives of his own. Things were looking grim. At this moment, multiple villagers leaned out of their windows or opened their doors, alerted by the noise. One of them, Thile, the woman whose stall Citron had repaired earlier that day, gasped in fright. "Shit. Tha' winged lizard looks bad. I'm gonna grab some bandages. Be right back!" She hopped back down the road toward her house. Her actions broke the others back from their daze. A fat shopkeeper with long curly hair and clothes covered in rooster feathers brought several vulneraries and a couple of concoctions. "I don't know if this'll help, but here," he held them out to the group. "I run a shop selling medicines like this. That wyvern… it looks scary, but it's an animal all the same." He fidgeted. "I was an animal recently myself, so I'd like to help." "Same here," Thile muttered, arms laden with bandages. "An', er, ye helped me repair mah stall, so's this is just makin' things square, is all." Achos, the bulky lumberjack that had assisted with the rebuilding, stared at the arrow. "Aye, ah'm sure I 'cognize tha' arrer too. It's from that bastard, Gaston," he growled. "I knew 'twas bad all along. Let us know if'n ye need help wiv anythin'. I can do any heavy liftin'." He flexed his muscles. The other villagers murmured their agreement, rolling up their sleeves with expressions of determination. Link, Tsetseg, Cora, and Garinphasia Ahead of Link, the road split into a T-intersection. Gaston had gone left, but from the right came the clip-clop of hoofbeats. The horse heard them, too, pricking his ears and veering left to avoid crashing into them. Soon enough, the mercenary would see three cavaliers, two of them he recognized—Cora and Acantha. Cora carried a familiar-looking archer with her. The two-toned girl pointed at the intersection with excitement, keeping her balance even with one hand. For Tsetseg and Cora, they could see a side road approaching, and from it emerged a magnificent-looking silver bay destrier. Atop it rode a familiar figure in green, looking far more comfortable atop a horse than he had on two feet. His face was wild and a fierce light shone in his eyes, much like the warriors of Locris when the wrath of battle was upon them. With Tsetseg's warning and the horse's hearing, the group avoided an accident, now racing alongside each other. It became apparent that Link would outstrip the rest in no time. While the militia had fine horses compared to most villagers, they had still repurposed them from farm horses. They were not pedigreed equines bred for riding into battle like the one Link took from Gaston. "Didn't take you for a horseman. So you finally decided to join the party, huh? Took you long enough," Acantha quipped, returning to her formal speech from before. Behind her, Phai bit her lip, directing her horse to the right to avoid drawing near to the ferocious-looking mercenary. The group, with Link at the front, arrived at Phar's back gate. Gaston had already gone through, plowing through the fields and stirring up the sheep in his haste. The nobleman's destination was clear: the forest at the edge of the village. The forest that many had already gone through: Licorice, Gunther, Sienna, Tsetseg, Phai, Raki, and Timmy. There, Garinphasia rested, awaiting orders from Raki. The wyvern would hear hoofbeats, and see a large man on horseback carrying a bow in one hand headed straight for her. Behind him, he had strapped a large sack to the back of the horse. The man hadn't noticed Garinphasia yet, but he would soon enough if he continued.

I legit haven't played the game in years and when I did I was bad; anyway I had an idea so here have a card NCM. This card can only be activated on the opponent's turn. For every 1000 damage you have taken this turn you may Special Summon 1 "Slime Token" (Aqua-Type/Water/Level 1/ATK 500/DEF 500) in Attack Position.

With Ryia still holding Lucas in place after her devastating combination attack with Keres, Lindow intended to take full advantage of the situation. Appearing at the Lycan’s flank with the Cleaver raised high above his head, the Thunder Chosen tore into the back of his foe’s legs with a brutal two-handed slash. Lucas snarled in pain, erupting to life once again and furiously shaking Ryia off before turning to lash out at his new attacker in feral rage. But Keres was ready. She quickly blasted him with another powerful jet of water, causing the hulking figure to stumble and leaving him vulnerable to Lindow’s follow-up. “Ha! Atta girl…” Lindow sneered through his fatigue. Pushing his speed to the limit, he quickly closed the gap again, this time slashing at the Lycan’s stomach. The plan was simple, requiring no communication between the Water and Thunder Chosen despite their lack of affinity. With Lucas’s wounds clearly fatal, all they had to do was overwhelm him until his body realized he was dead. “Tsk,” Lindow muttered. Even at death’s doorstep, the Lycan managed to avoid the brunt of his attack. Lindow’s eyes narrowed in begrudging admiration as Lucas countered with his claws immediately. The shriek of scraping metal rang through the clearing as Lindow turned the Bandit Cleaver flat in a desperate parry that sent him skidding backward. Panting, Lindow retook his stance as Lucas charged forward. He could tell his foe’s strength was finally waning, noting that the follow-up attack seemed sluggish and sloppy compared to earlier in the battle. Growling with effort, Lindow ducked and weaved under another series of swipes from Lucas before darting under his arm and slicing at his ribs with the Bandit Cleaver yet again. The wound wasn’t deep enough to end the fight but enough to keep Lucas’s attention away from the spectacle happening behind him... Meanwhile, Keres swirled the water above her, moving it faster and faster into a spinning vortex. With all her might, she shot it up into the air and curved it above the wounded Lycan just as he turned to attack Lindow again. The water crashed into him between the shoulder blades. At first, the beast stayed standing even as the water tried to crush him. But his wounds soon caught up to him, and his legs gave out. He came crashing to his knees and then, as the rest of the water rushed over him, fell forward, catching himself with the palms of his claws. Seeing the opportunity he had been waiting for right in front of him, Lindow dashed forward one last time. With his own primal roar, he swung the Bandit Cleaver in a deadly arc, aiming for Lucas's neck. The blade bit deep, severing the Lycan’s head from his body, and seemingly causing the entire woods to grow silent. The beast’s lifeless form slumped to the ground, finally still. The Thunder Chosen stood over the fallen Lycan, panting heavily but victorious nonethless. “It's over,” he muttered, wiping the blood from his blade with a wide swipe to the side. "let's have a rematch in the underworld someday, kay?"

Chigusa's ears perked up as her face continued to be pressed against the ground. While she could barely see anything going on, save for the area illuminated by the flashlight, the girl could definitely hear something coming. It wasn't just the various introductions of everyone else, but the introductions being made by some things else. She wasn't really sure what it was at first, simply hearing the high pitched squeaking but before long a pack of something called a crowdent was rushing them. Chigusa, of course, could not see them. She also lacked the strength in any of her limbs to get herself up, let alone run. So, naturally, she was pretty sure that meant she was simply going to be eaten by the whole swarm. What a bummer of a way to both start and end the journey. It seemed, however, that she was not first on the menu to be eaten. She could hear the struggle of the others as they started fighting the crowdants, and specifically two more of the people here had fallen to the ground as she had. Chigusa had never experienced so many kindred spirits in one day and if the situation were different she would've found it heartwarming to know there were others who had problems standing on their feet as she had. Unfortunately her imminent demise dampened this. It was then that someone had walked over to her, telling her to get up. While this was a task that was impossible for her, she looked to see the boy reaching out his hand to her and so decided to try with some assistance. Reaching up and weakly grabbing onto his hand, the girl managed to get to her feet, shakily as it may have been and said, "merci," as he told her he didn't want to see her get eaten. She was glad to receive such a compliment, and stood behind him as she decided to confirm his suggestion from earlier. "Oh, I am useless in a fight." Though thinking back on her life Chigusa was starting to wonder if she were perhaps less than useless in one. With no special abilities to speak of and the ability to lose to a first grader in a foot race quite convincingly, she was certain that she was more likely to drag the boy down with her than anything else. But she reciprocated his feelings in not wanting to see someone get eaten, broad or otherwise, and so she had a thought. If she couldn't fight, maybe there was someone else who could? "Ooooh...Selini." the girl called out, still in a very unconcerned tone at a normal volume to the pyschic. "Can you shove them?"

"My nom is Chigusa Akihara." Was this girl broken in the head as well as the body? She had basically crumpled to the ground and now she was talking about eating while introducing herself? "Aki Desu? What's that supposed to mean?" While he was still worried about the girl's physical and mental state he was growing even more antsy as the older girl, apparently some kind of weird magician, kept hinting that something was wrong. What did she know? Was this some kind of trick? Were her buddies about to come out and mug them when they were paying attention to her? He nudged Chomper in the hopes that the Pokemon would get up to no avail. "You know I don't think any of us has much money on us right?" Shawn said. Then glanced at the bright and fancy flashlight. "Well maybe he does." "I'm Selini, but please just call me Lini. As pointed out, I'm a psychic. I'm generally not awake and alert like this, but for all intents and purposes, please just treat me like anyone else. And this here is Pinky, my partner. He's a service pokemon meant to help me with my powers." Shawn was about to make a snarky comment about psychics but stopped himself at the latter part of her introduction. Service Pokemon? So some sort of disability right? Maybe he shouldn't be so harsh...at least not right away. That's when the other weirdo, the one that had run into him, started once again to talk to the darkness. At first he tried to ignore her but then he noticed something concerning. Chomper wasn't just up. He was alert. Something like that almost never happened and it immediately put Shawn on guard. "Uh, I think..." He wasn't able to get his full sentence out when suddenly a swarm of....not Ratatta came out of the darkness towards them. "Blimey!" he called out. "Be careful, everybody! These are Crowdent! They're pretty weak, but don't underestimate them, especially in these numbers." "Weak for a Pokemon you mean right? Ever get Tackled by a Zigzagoon before? I'd rather you run into me again than that!" He didn't have much time for more than that as everyone surged to action. The magician girl looked like she had armed herself and the other guy was trying to go grab the Pokemon that the assistant had brought. Which brought to mind his own Pokemon. "Alright Chomper lets show em what you're made of, Aqua Jet!" He called out and water surrounded Chomper as he surged forward and crashed into the nearest Crowdent. "That's right mate, keep it up!" He shouted for Chomper to continue like that. As he did this he took a few steps back towards the Aki Desu girl. She had fallen to the ground and he imagined she would have trouble standing up. Especially if she got swarmed by those Pokemon. He thrust his hand towards her "Get up, and stay behind me if you can't protect yourself." His blush was hidden by the darkness but he still snapped defensively at her, "I just don't feel like seeing some broad get eaten by Pokemon okay, that's all!"

Nikolaos had decided that he was the stupidest person in Lemu. He was a complete and utter dunce. His spirit Pokémon was a Dunsparce—no, Dudunsparce—and even amongst his dopey kindred, he was particularly empty-headed. Stupid. Stupid. How could I miss a thing as obvious as that? What am I gonna tell Vasia? Sorry I couldn’t come and find you, I was dumb and failed my journey on my very first day. How? Oh I just ignored all of the stuff you ever taught me. A little kid would have done better. To understand what had caused such a revelation, though, one would have to turn the clock back a few minutes. “Chomper is awesome!” Nik crowed. He swooped in and leaned as close as he dared to the Totodile. “He looks tough. Is he native to Galar? Have you ever battled together before?” His amber eyes were alight with awe and, to a lesser degree, envy. “I hope my starter is half as cool as Chomper.” He had wanted to ask more questions about Chomper when one of the girls collapsed. She treated the whole ordeal like it was totally normal for her, not even bothering to roll over so that her face wasn’t smooshed against the floor. “Hey. Uh, Chi, Aki, uhh… is the desu part of your nickname? Or was that separate? Because you kinda paused between the two.” Nik used his flashlight to start rummaging in his backpack for some pre-packaged snacks he had tucked away. “Are you okay? Do you need help? Is it a blood sugar thing or something? I have some snacks with sugar in them. You can have them if you want.” His hand was still shoved into his backpack when Dahlia approached. Nik frowned. That was the girl that had jumped to blaming him for abandoning Anna. “I’m not causing her any trouble,” he said defensively. Even to his own ears it sounded petulant. “I’m being careful not to point it where it will blind anyone. The dark is a danger too, you know. Someone could trip and break an arm or a leg. But if it bothers you I can turn it down. It’s adjustable,” Nik twisted the cap near the end of the metal flashlight counter-clockwise and the light dimmed considerably. “Happy?” Dahlia gave him a thumbs-down and walked away. Nik rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and muttered something rude in Greek under his breath before he went back to rummaging through his bag, triumphantly pulling out a package of peanut butter crackers just as Dahlia started to introduce herself. She was apparently a performer. A street magician. Nik had questions he wanted to ask, but he was too stung by her attitude and repeated attempts to make him look bad to put voice to them. He was a performer too. He had made some of the money he used to put towards his journey by playing on street corners and singing popular songs. That was exactly where the money for his flashlight had come from. He would have assumed they had a lot in common, but she was more than happy to throw him to the Woofes. Did I do something to her? Was it some kind of cultural boundary I overstepped? Am I just being too sensitive? Nik was glad when Linni the psychic released a munna that she called Pinky. It was a welcome distraction. “A service Pokémon to help you master your powers?” He wasn’t a very learned person. School was hardly his favorite subject, and the feeling was mutual if his test scores were anything to go by, but even he knew that service Pokémon were hard to get. There was a whole process that involved proving to the government that one was needed and also that they were properly trained. Once the process was done, that Pokémon had a lot of privileges that a normal one lacked. Access to Pokémon resisted areas. A pass to travel through most international borders. Nik shook his head. “Being psychic must be a lot harder than I thought. I always figured it was just cool powers and no drawbacks. Glad to know the secret of my underwear is safe at least, I guess.” Chomper and Pinky tensed and moved in front of Shawn and Linni. Nik blinked, shocked. He recognized a danger response when he saw one. “What’s going o-” Anna sucked in a deep breath and then cut him off. Her tone was even, but he could still see how tense she was. Nik watched her leave and walk into the darkness. She started to talk to nothing. Again. She had done that several times on the trip to the city. Nik was beginning to wonder if she was crazy. She was saying something about not hurting… someone? It was hard to hear. Then something about the light. His irritation flared again, unsure why his flashlight of all things was such a contentious subject. The moment that made him realize he was such a dunce struck. He heard something the moment after Anna stopped talking. Faint, easy to miss, but when he really strained his ears he could make it out. Squeaking. Chittering. Nik gasped. He knew that noise. Crowdent. It was just a pest. They got into houses and had to be removed by traps or by being caught, but they weren’t a threat. They were scaredy-rats on their own. The only time Crowdent would pose a problem was if they had formed a swarm. Which never happened domestically. It only happened in… in… "Come on, listen to me. Wait, no, hey, turn off the light—" Something slammed into Anna and knocked her into the ground. That was the moment Nik decided he was a total dunce. Of course this warehouse has a Crowdent infestation. Anna tried to warn me. Even Dahlia realized something was wrong and she isn’t even from here. I’m supposed to be the one that knows this area, but all I did was make everything worse. Nik was frozen. His flashlight hung limply at his side, still casting a dim beam of light forward toward where Anna had fallen. The pack of crackers slipped from his grip. This is my fault. I have to fix this. I can’t let everyone else get hurt because I’m stupid. What would Vasia do? Dahlia tried to bludgeon a few Crowdent away with an umbrella. Several more leapt onto her and pulled her to the ground. Come on! Think! Vasia would say that all the best trainers would make the best of a bad situation. Know your environment so that you can avoid danger. Not like that helps now. I shoulda been paying attention. Nik growled and slammed the heel of his hand into his forehead hard enough that it broke skin. What else did she say? Improvise. Use what you have. All I have is this dumb flashlight. I don’t even have a Pokémon yet. Getting a Pokémon is why I came here. Gah! Why did Anna not hand them out yet?! Nik jolted like he had been hit by a super-effective Thunderbolt attack. “I’m so stupid! Anna, where are the Pokémon the professor promised to hand out? Please tell me you brought them!” “Oh! Yeah, they’re right here in my bag!” She shouted from somewhere in the darkness. “We have to get to them! Crowdent are cowards! They’ll run if you have enough Pokémon out!” Nik hadn’t wanted to admit before that part of the reason he had been so quick to pull out his flashlight was that the dark scared him. It wasn’t a phobia, but it made him uncomfortable. A lot of the Pokémon that dwelled in the dark did too. They were just so… different. Unlike any of the daytime Pokémon. They scurried and scavenged and hid. They were attracted to messes and superstition said they carried all kinds of diseases. He knew that had been disproved, but the connotation was still there. No time like the present to suck it up. I need to get over it anyways. Vasia always said that there were plenty of awesome nocturnal Pokémon. Nik shucked his bouzouki case off his back and put it on the ground between the two people with Pokémon. “Hey. Watch this please. It’s really important to me.” Nik said loud enough for Shawn and Linni to hear. He didn’t wait for a response. He turned and cranked his flashlight all the way up to max. The beam of light tripled in intensity, shining all the way to the other wall of the warehouse. It revealed a swarm of Crowdent rushing toward him. His hand shook, but he pointed it directly at the group. The bright light caused them to hiss and spit and stumble, freezing. “Cover me, if you can!” Nik shouted. His stomach churned. His skin prickled up into goosebumps. You caused this. Fix it. A good trainer cleans up his messes. He summoned all of his courage and rushed forward, toward the Crowdent swarm. At the last possible second he jumped and soared completely over the swarm he had stunned. A second later they recovered and turned to chase after him. One of them jumped for him and Nik swatted it away with his flashlight, sending it sailing across the warehouse. He kept moving toward Anna without stopping. He knew that if he stopped his legs would quit working.

"Non. There was no bangou on the ad." "The heck is a bangou? Is that some kind of fruit? Did you suddenly break halfway into your sentence?" Shawn's disbelief was wasted on the girl who immediately shifted to asking if they could break down the warehouse door. Even if it was that easy to do he doubted the law would be very happy with them if they started busting up what was likely the city's property. "And I thought I'd be the 'delinquent' here." He muttered. The trio from before seemed none too happy about the various suggestions, and Shawn shared the sentiment that the phones suddenly not working was somewhat eerie, but he still didn't feel like up and leaving was the way to go. Or to be exact he didn't want to get lumped in with that Issac guy. Shawn couldn't really put any reason for it but perhaps he simply didn't like his face. Still he almost immediately began to doubt his decision again as the storm only increased in intensity. So intense was it that he could swear he heard the door to the warehouse being battered by it. "Wouldn't it be funny if the storm we're stuck in broke the thing down anyway..." Distracted as he was he didn't notice the person approaching until it was too late. "I'm here! Sorry I'm late! I got lost on the road of life!" Shawn turned just in time to get struck by something hard, though perhaps empty as well, in the stomach and was knocked off his feet. Landing with a splash and getting himself somehow even more wet. His instinct was to hit whatever was on top of him but he soon noticed it was just some weirdo girl with pink hair and stopped himself just before swinging. He lay there confused for a moment as he waited for the girl to realize she was on top of him when suddenly the warehouse door came crashing down. "Bloody hell..." he groaned at the surprising turn of events. "Not a lot of you here though, huh? Did the others not see the poster?" And now they were just having a chat while she sat on top of him. Did she not realize still that he was there? Should he shove her off? But if he did she'd probably end up getting hurt and Shawn would feel guilty and everyone would target him as the jerk in the situation despite having been crashed into. "nice find." "Oh, yeah, totally meant to do that. I always try and draw people to me by making them tackle me into the ground its kinda my thing." Shawn responded with heavy sarcastic bite. And then this other weird bird came up and started to chat with the girl too. Was she ever going to stand up? "Oh, and thanks to you too! Sorry I sat on you," Finally he was freed from the awkward situation but he wasn't any happier about it. Still the girl just seemed so....chipper that he couldn't respond with all the snark he had been saving up. "Whatever just...don't do it again I guess," he grumbled. “Here, take my hand. That was a nasty fall.” He glared at the other boy's hand and found that the snark had simply skipped a few moments, or maybe he just didn't want to look so pathetic to be needing help after being knocked over by some girl, as he immediately refused to take the offered hand and stood up on his own, saying "a fall, sure, that's what I call it when someone gets body slammed into the ground." Now that he was standing instead of focusing on the girl, apparently who they were waiting on all this time, Shawn turned his attention to the Cufant in the room. He gestured over at the broke down door and shouted, "Nobody else finds it weird that the bloody door was just ripped off the warehouse!?"

Nikolaos ran after the departing trio before they could get very far. “Hey! Wait up!” He stopped when he caught up to them and smiled. “You guys said you’re staying at Hotel Atlantica, right?” “Yeah,” Isaac replied with a smile. “What’s up?” "I'll try to send a message to the front desk for you when the professor finally gets here. Just in case you want to come back. It's only like an 8 minute trip if you hurry. The professor is a good guy. He wouldn't stand us up, I promise." Isaac cast him a look. “Man, I’ll be real with you. At this point, I don’t want anything to do with the professor. He can keep his reward. Thanks anyway, though.” The others nodded their agreement. “Ah, yeah,” Nik pushed his soaking hair back out of his face. “I don’t blame you. This rain really is something else, and, uh…” he looked back at the girl from Borya Town who was currently trying to bash the door down with her freaking mind. “Things are starting to get kind of crazy here.” Nik gave a farewell salute. “Was nice meeting you all! Order some avgolemono soup from the kitchen when you get back to your room. It’ll chase the chill out of your bones faster than a Fire-type.” “Yeeeah,” Isaac drawled the word out. “Not sure I want to stick around for that. I’ll try it though, thanks for the recommendation. Hope I see you around!” He waved before continuing to walk back. Reina gave one last glance at Selini and shook her head before leaving as well. Qadir just turned and left. Nikolaos shouldered his carrying case and walked back toward the waiting group. Most of his attention was on the girl from Borya Town he had spoken with before, who had not mentioned in their conversation she was apparently a PSYCHIC. Which to be honest he thought was fair. It wasn’t exactly something he would tell just anyone if he had been born a psychic. A lot of superstition surrounded the whole thing and people tended to treat psychics differently once they learned about them. Hey. Heeyyyyy. HEY! Can you hear this? Are you reading my mind? Helloooo! I’m wearing pink boxers with moons and little howling Woofes on them right now! Nikolaos watched the girl closely to see if she reacted, but if she had been reading his mind, she was a great actor. She continued to mentally rail against the warehouse door. The frame was giving way though. It was bending, and then, just as it was about to give way, Nik heard a familiar voice shouting. “Anna?” Nik spun around just in time to see the cotton-candy haired girl slam into the boy from Galar he had been talking with earlier, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Behind him he distantly heard the sound of the warehouse door slamming into the ground. The whole situation was rapidly devolving into chaos. It only got worse once the street magician from Kalos helped the girl up and the two quickly came to the conclusion that—”You’re gonna blame me?!” Flabbergasted was not a word that Nik used lightly. Mostly because he thought it was a very silly word, and he couldn’t say it with a straight face, but also because it was not an emotional state that came over him with any frequency. His day-to-day life was usually a very predictable thing. Nik was utterly flabbergasted. He was so shocked that when his hair fell past his bandana into his face and became a soggy red curtain that blocked his vision, he barely noticed. “What did I do?” His experience traveling with Anna had been confusing from start to finish. She had stopped them both to chat with wild Pokémon no less than three separate times. “I started running when the rain started and then when I looked back, you had disappeared! I thought—” Nikolaos shook his head like a wet dog and sent tiny drops of water scattering in every direction. “That isn’t important right now. Are you okay man?” Nik walked over and crouched down to offer Shawn his hand, his expression kind and concerned. “Here, take my hand. That was a nasty fall.”

Shawn wasn't a stranger to getting caught in the rain. This didn't mean he enjoyed it in the slightest. He wasn't exactly dressed for it but at least he didn't have much with him to get soaked anyway. Something something clouds something silver lining right? "Whatta stupid saying what does it matter what a cloud is lined with not like you can get to it anyway." Shawn grumbled to himself and flinched as he looked around. He didn't like being in a crowd and the last thing he wanted was to draw attention as the weirdo who was talking to himself. Thankfully most people seemed to be either more concerned about the rain or being distracted by someone who was way too excited in this weather. That guy had come up to him earlier with the biggest smile and the dumbest questions. When Shawn had mentioned he came from Galar, no way he was going to talk about his even more disastrous first home, the guy's immediate response had been, “Galar? Is it true that the Pokemon there are 100 feet tall?” "Yeah sure and our Pokeballs are the size of cars. No of course they ain't that big that's just when they Dynamax." Thankfully the guy went off to talk to someone else not long after that and Shawn was left to his own thoughts. Okay, maybe that wasn't so thankful. It wasn't long before Shawn began to wonder if they were being tricked. Maybe this was some sort of TV show and there were thousands of people right now laughing at the dumb kids who decided to stand around outside a warehouse in the rain because a piece of paper told them to. What even were they there for? Why the heck did Shawn care about some task some professor in some weird region wanted them to do? He had half a mind to just up and leave. "We've been standing around for almost two hours, and the assistant still hasn't arrived. So I vote we just leave and start our journey now." Until someone suggested just that. The moment that the guy voiced the thought that Shawn had only internalized he could only respond in one way. "That's really stupid." It had come out so naturally despite that he himself had the thought seconds ago that Shawn wondered if there was some sort of deep seated psychological issue at play there. ...Yeah maybe the rain was making him even more negative than usual. His casual remark was drowned out by both the rain and by the much more...noticeable woman who had responded to the suggestion. The heck is trench-foot? Sounded like some obscure Poison Pokemon ability or something. Whatever the case the things she was saying was just making him even more paranoid. The more he thought about it the more this seemed like one big prank. Maybe this was some kind of special event that this region held to mess with people for their entertainment. After all this place was locked down most of the time right? The more this thought solidified itself the more on edge Shawn got. Until finally he blurted out, "This professor's gotta have a number right? Or an office or lab with one? Anyone got a phone? If you don't want to call em give it to me and I'll give them an earful for ya."

Jukebox Hero

Yapper

Heart Is Where The Home Is

Jacklyn had a proud smile on her face as Anima went off to learn more about fishing supplies, and even getting them fishing rods. After all, to go wholly into something like this and get that excited about it was too part of an adventure, so she was glad to see that spirit in her companions. And she would do well to match that spirit. As Anima called to them, Jacklyn shouted back, "of course! We'll become fishing legends in no time!" It was then that Jacklyn heard a splash come from the side to her, looking over to see that Anneliese had vanished from where she was previously. Walking over, bending down to look into the water and see Anneliese surfacing there, the girl smiled saying, "I like your enthusiasm Anneliese, but we got fishing rods to fish with! Maybe we can try using our bare hands later though, I haven't tried that before either." Were Anneliese to need help Jacklyn would either help pull her out or simply go into the water herself to help the girl. Finding a spot to go fish, the girl took out her rod and got ready. "Alright, let's see if I got this down. First all you do is take this little thing off and then go," pulling back her rod the girl shouted, "hiyah!" before swinging it as hard as she could, sending the line into the water. Standing there for a few moments the girl said, "alright and now we wait..." Jacklyn continued to stand motionless for a few moments more before saying, "hm...nothing's biting. Maybe if I do a little," the girl started to move her arms about, trying to shift the line's position, which was difficult in of itself due to how far away from her it was, before starting to essentially flail her arms as it trying to find the "perfect position" where fish or pokemon might be. Tiring herself after a bit of movement, the girl stopped for a bit grumbling. Then, after keeping her posture still as she tried to recover her stamina she suddenly felt a tug on her line. Excited for her catch the girl immediately pulled back her rod almost immediately, sending it out of the water to show that nothing was on the end of it. Giving a small glare at the hook before it plunged back into the water the girl sighed. "This is a lot harder than I was expecting."

“Does being an aspiring professor mean you know a lot about caring for Pokemon? Is there any advice you could give me with Peat? I make sure to brush and oil his fur every night, and I help him pick his teeth and claws clean too." "Weeeell..." Not really... Now that he'd mentioned it, it was probably best to double-check Arthur. He'd just been recovered from a kidnapping, after all, and Bridget wouldn't forgive herself if she was so caught up in having him back that she overlooked some sort of injury on the Trapinch's part. Thus, as the team continued along Route 102, did Bridget pop open Arthur's poke ball and give the creature a good, thorough inspection. And, like the impudent toddler it could very well pass for when not playing, Arthur resisted her every step of the way. "What kinda stuff do you have to do for Artur?” "'E's real fussy about 'is care, actually," Bridet answered, as she tried to part-coax Arthur into opening his mouth, part-pry it open herself. "Won't let me do anyfin' for 'im, 'side from feedin' and playin' wiv 'im. C'mon Arfur, open up, I'm makin' sure you're not hurt!" After several defiant chirps and chitters, and no small amount of trying to wriggle out of Bridget's grip, the Trapinch finally relented, and opened his maw of a mouth for Bridget to investigate. As she confirmed there was nothing of concern inside his mouth, and continued checking the rest of his body for anything that could be a possible concern, she remarked "See what I mean? Best I can do is force 'im to take a bath when he's dirty, and that should be its own category of battle." As if to prove her point, the mere mention of the word "bath" elicited a growl of obvious protest from Arthur, and further attempts to escape Bridget's grasp. The Trapinch only settled down once it seemed to process Bridget was just talking about baths, and not saying it was time to take one. "Pokemon care isn't really somefin' I know much about though. And I 'aven't seen that species until gettin' to Korova, either. Sorry. Peat looks healfy 'n' happy though. I'm sure anyone who knows more about care stuff would say you're doin' a good job." The bog up ahead was, as bogs went, certainly a bog. Nate and Quinn went on ahead into the marshy wetness with varying degrees of effectiveness. Bridget followed suit, taking to the marsh with a sense of familiarity gained from some field research back in certain parts of Galar. Which isn't to say she was just at home in a marsh as on dry land, but between having put up with this sort of terrain before, and having the appropriate footwear for the job, it was safe to say Bridget was faring better than her peers right now. Of bigger concern to her was the statue in the middle of it all. People could be fickle creatures sometimes, but Bridget was always willing to trust a pokemon. And as she eyed the statue's surroundings, she couldn't help but notice almost all of them were avoiding the statue. Peat even refused to follow Nate right up to it, which was an immediate red flag to her. She wasn't an art history major, or a geologist, or anything else that could potentially pertain to identifying a statue, but if all the local wildlife was avoiding that thing, it couldn't be anything but bad news, as far as Bridget was concerned. As much as she wanted to get up close and inspect the statue for herself - really wanted to, more than usual - Bridget made a point to keep her distance, and to keep an eye on the other two in case some sort of timely intervention was needed. Plus, somebody had to make sure Arthur wouldn't get into trouble. Bridget looked down to Arthur... only to find that while she was keeping a watchful eye on Quinn & Nate, her pokemon had slipped away, and was now proudly trotting about in the bog. Gonna have to give him a bath later. Might as well make something of this! Not keeping her attention away from her teammates for too long at any point, Bridget followed her Trapinch companion through the water and mud, then pointed at the first pokemon to cross Arthur's path. A Solosis that was otherwise minding its own business. "Let's blow off some steam, Arfur! Give it a good Bite!" Arthur, for one, seemed all too happy to oblige, charging up to the stray Solosis as best it could, jaws wide open and ready to snap shut on its new quarry.

Dear YCM Community Members, Destitution does not arrive at our doorstep without warning. It is the culmination of a slowly beaten drum. Today, we on these very forums count the days that YCMaker has dared to abstain from implementing updates; tomorrow, we will live in a constant state of wait, never truly enjoying the fruits of his coding because of the anticipation we let to consume us. When I was a passionate card creator, I awoke each day overflowing with excitement, not about what new feature, what new interface, what new shiny effects might be unveiled— what pulled me out of bed each day was envisioning the cards I would create. The captions, the artwork, the attack-to-defense ratios and wondrous titles were so dreamy that when I awoke I often had to change my sheets. Today we count the days. In my day, we got lost in the hours. Tyranny does not just arrive at our doorstep without our complacency. Neither does the yugiohcardmaker disappear without our complicity. If we continue down the currently trodden path, we risk everything. I ask the yugiohcardmaker community— what is it that we value: facile novelty, or our fundamental craft? I already know in my heart that our community knows the answer to this question. Your deputy, Falling pizza

When will these bozos take the L

Migrated over from cardmaker.net, so I'm working on getting my stuff from there moved over here as well. I have a Silver Fang archetype that's totally finished (except for lacking artwork of any kind) and I'm working on a very ambitious Mega Man Battle Network project at the moment as well.

um acktually all speedruns are tool-assisted the tool is called the GAME CONTROLLER can't beat a video game without that go trim a hedge or something NERD

good news after trying some half-hearted fixes, giving up, procrastinating for half a year, building a new computer, and installing but not checking the game, my copy of darkest dungeon works again so failing a massive technical failure on my end the blag will return next week

“Hmm... Yeah, definitely not in Neo York anymore, this place is wild…!” Jon “Webster” mused to himself as he quickly slung line after glowing line of webbing between the walls of the city’s stone, steel, and mortar buildings. “All of these building styles went out of date ages ago! I’ve only ever seen them in games! So either this place is really into retro displays, or I’m in for some wild stuff.” Jon exclaimed, the digital SPIDER eyes on his mask snapping into a quizzical squint. “Could I be trapped in a game? Electro’s meddling maybe? But nah, she should be contained and getting treatment right now, and Minny isn’t into historical games like these…” As Jon continued his meditations on the nature of the world mid swing, the spider clad motorcyclist sped up as he swerved around a corner, catching sight of this, Jon hastily sped up with his swings, web supplies dwindling at an even higher rate. Swinging past two city blocks, he turned the corner and refocused his eyes on catching the spider rider… Only to discover a two ton ball of metal, glass, and plastic screaming through the air towards him Hastily whipping a line to the side of the nearby building with his free non-swinging hand, Webster yanked with superhuman force to throw himself against the building’s walls, narrowly avoiding being splattered like a bug. “Haka, Shui! Go grab that-” Webster shouted out the rapid command before pulling himself back in check. His friends aren’t here to help him now, he’s got to do this on his own. Pushing the melancholic thought into the back of his mind, Webster leapt off the building, diving in after the falling ball of automotive debris and took action. Grabbing a holo-web grenade from his virtual pocketspace, he chucked the device that promptly cracked open in midair, wrapping its brightly colored net around the ball of metal and plastic. Slinging out a compound line to the two steel supports of the skyscrapers on both sides he leaned forward to gain more speed as he thwipped a final web towards the now balled up debris. Tugging on the line with all his might, Webster linked the three web lines together, making a makeshift restraint for the car. As the car continues its trajectory downwards, the lines begin to pull taut and stretch, arresting the car’s momentum, stopping it from landing on the ground and crushing the pedestrians beneath. “Whew” Jon thought as he spun a final few lines to secure the now immobile car, hanging four stories above the ground. “Much harder doing it solo… But where did this hunk of junk come from?” The answer came to him almost immediately in the form of the screaming roars coming from a gargantuan man clad in rhinoceros themed garb, whose contribution to noise pollution is currently only matched by the air pollution he’s causing by throwing up more cars into the city airspace. Internal lenses behind the SPIDER mask auto zoomed in on the man, revealing his appearance in great clarity to Jon, obviously showing his status as a new costumed menace of some kind. Turning his glance towards the spider clad man on a motorcycle, and calculating for his own internal web supplies, Jon knew he could only either chase the man… or have just about enough webbing to approach the maddened mechanical mammal mimicking menace. With one last turn towards the now dubbed “Rhino-man” and the rider each, Jon sighed as he made up his mind. “I can’t involve some bystander in that... It’s gonna be one of those days huh.” Webster reached out for the web line still attached to the car, fully stretched. “Well, here goes nothing.” with one last big sigh, Webster cut the thread. The two lines binded to the skyscrapers, currently pulled tight and stretching under the pressure immediately contracted, releasing the great elastic force. The energy yanked the thread that Webster was holding, catapulting him upwards into the air, flying past a crowd of flocking pigeons. “Ah, crud! Birds!” Webster said with a little grin on his face even as the pigeon feathers still strewn across his facemask. Casting a line of holo-web to the building ahead, he launches himself with abandon towards the direction of the Rhino-man. “The SPIDER is swinging into action, baby!! Whoo!!”

Ryia had stood silent, barely able to watch what had happened. She felt that there was something wrong with the whole situation. Monstrous as the lycans may have been in legend, speaking with them now she could tell that they weren't just mindless beasts. That they had some form of rational thinking capability and that maybe, somehow, there would be a way to reason with them. If at all possible she would have wanted to find out what that reason was, why things between the wolves and elves the way they were and why the wolves were as violent as they were. Perhaps it was just in their nature to be violent or to hunt whatever was in this forest. Perhaps they did just have some kind of thin veneer sensibility to cover up the monster that was truly inside. The old adage of a wolf in sheep's clothing, though they were hardly sheep when not dressed as wolves. If that were the case it was perhaps wrong for the girl to try and speak with them in the first place and naive to think a peaceful solution could've been found to start with. And, if they were just monsters what was the harm in actually killing them? It wasn't like she hadn't fought beast's with no regards to their feelings before. But she also didn't just kill the dragon because it was a monster, one that could very well cause a lot of harm in the future. Her mind was whirring with what ifs and trying to sort through her own feelings, as Reinaan stepped up to challenge the leader. And her thoughts came to a halt as she saw the sheer gulf in strength between the Draken boy and the Lycan man. She had enough sense to respect the duel to begin with, restraining herself with each hit that was delivered to to either side and only growing more uncomfortable with each time Reinaan was bested until he was finally laying as a heap on the ground. As the man began to undergo some kind of feral transformation, Ryia felt herself step forward no longer to hold back before that too was interrupted. Damien had appeared to save Reinaan though he had also seemed worse for wear himself. It was also clear that he had been in some kind of struggle before actually interrupting Lucas, as she learned the leader's name to be, and started conversing with him. The situation was slowly deteriorating though, as the lycans had begun to emerge from the forest and as Keres had mentioned there was no running from this fight. Ryia was getting ready to enter combat, reluctant as she had been, only to pause as Lucas had referred to himself as Damien's uncle. The girl's head was already whirring with a bunch of questions that were likely not to be answered any time soon but all of those had come to a halt at this revelation. She looked at him, eyes wide with surprise. "Uncle?" The girl questioned, half muttering. She couldn't really piece together what her feelings were at this very moment. She wasn't sure what to make of Damien either. He had always been mysterious with little to be known about him. Ever since they had met, ever since he had pointed a sword to her throat, every time he seemed to get distant or simply vanish there was something off to her in all of his actions. And now it was revealed to her that he had some kind of monstrous blood flowing through him. As such it was only natural that her eyes had some kind of fear of him. But, beyond that, there was something else. A different kind of fear. A fear for him. She didn't really understand it herself, she didn't really understand anything about the whole situation they had found themselves in, but she had found herself at something of a breaking point. The bandits. The gnolls. The minotaurs. The sharks. The bird. The scorpions. The reptilian beast. The giant crab. The elves. The ghosts. The dragon. The lycans. The bloodstained blade he carried. All of it came rushing through her all at once, only for all of it to just as suddenly blank out and pause. She broke her gaze from Damien. Her fear and confusion faded from her face as she did. She locked eyes with the Lycan behind Lucas, her expression becoming one of frustration and anger. Her grip tightening on her weapons as she banged her mace against her shield shouting, "fine!" The werewolf took to this challenge immediately, bounding forward and on all fours towards Ryia. Though she had certainly lost her patience, the Earth Chosen hadn't lost her sense, instead stepping forward to meet with the wolf head on. "Ackrin." The spirit, at her call, merged with her body providing an increase to her durability. As the distance closed, the wolf brought its claw up and went for a quick swipe at Ryia. Stepping into the attack, the girl brought up her shield, blocking the attack and holding her ground if only barely against the weight of the beast's claw. She could tell already how powerful a foe each of them were, and could tell that she was already fairly ill suited to fight them but didn't back down regardless, swinging her mace into the creature's ribs. The Lycan, surprised by the girl's strength, took the hit though continued to go on the offensive, opening its mouth to take a bite of her. While Ryia herself was unable to act against the lycan's attack it didn't matter. A wall of light was erected between the two, keeping the werewolf's mouth forced open as it tried to simply chomp through the wall itself. Taking a step back, Ryia reeled her arm back and as the wall of light shattered the creature's efforts were soon met with a mace striking its face. The beast's head was forced downward, blood trickling from its nose, before it raised it back up and went to pounce at Ryia. Rather than trying to artfully dodge or defend against the attack, she instead met it head on, smashing the creature's face yet again as it grabbed her arms and threw its body weight against her. Pinned to the ground, though the situation looked bleak, Ryia continued to angrily and defiantly stare at the creature head on as it opened its maw to attempt yet another bite. However, this time it was thwarted as its head was suddenly encased in water. Trying to push through it quite like it had the wall. Ryia could hear the sounds of effort coming from Keres and knew this wouldn't last forever, so she attempted to force her arm out of the grip of the lycan and smash her mace against its mouth and teeth.

Quinn was happy to hear that Billy tacitly approved of his Pokémon-raising habits, almost as much as thon was Billy did not even blink at the startling revelation that his hostel was now, technically, haunted. From the mention of Ghost-type Pokémon, though, perhaps that was because it already was. Quinn wondered how a Haunter or a Spiritomb could even wear a collar, but the thought was as ephemeral as the Pokémon themselves, and there was still business to attend to that evening. Another visit to a Pokémon Center was required, and speaking of care, Quinn needed to figure out how Normandie would prefer to be treated. Fae had known and been tethered to Cassiopeia for over a year now. The Drifloon’s habits and eccentricities were well-trod territory, and Quinn had become used to them and incorporated them into itself. Normandie, meanwhile, was unfamiliar territory. Their relationship was much more transactional. Who knew what would happen should the berries run out? There had to be other ways to dote on Normandie besides just feeding her, Quinn thought. Would a bath work? Quinn had read somewhere that rats were actually one of the cleaner animals in the wild with how often they groomed themselves. Would a bath even be necessary? Cassiopeia did not take baths, but she did enjoy being in a bathroom’s steamy atmosphere when the water was nice and hot. She would also enjoy a good polish when Quinn felt she was deserving of a reward. Their first day of adventure and their first new Pokémon companion probably qualified. Quinn took their two Pokéballs back from the center and examined them both. “Tomorrow we shall figure this all out,” xe said to zirself. “Perhaps Bobby will be in a more sociable mood at breakfast time and we can present him with our questions. Either that or rely on our own intuition. Surely someone with experiences such as ours, who has faced such trials, can manage the responsibility foisted upon them here.” They ended up in room L, which seemed auspicious even if Quinn had no understanding of why. The room was relatively spartan, with a bunk bed (Quinn took the top bunk) and a desk with a hard chair accompanying it. There was not an attached bathroom; they would have to share the unisex one (it was Billy and Bobby’s house, after all) just across the hall. Quinn did try to call first dibs on that. Cassiopeia was not the only ghost who enjoyed hot water. It soothed the soul just as much as the form that their material essence had taken. After that and a few other standard nighttime rituals (Quinn had never been the most devoted tooth-brusher even when alive, but he had promised its mother to try their best), Quinn was ready to enter that meditative trance that enabled fae to explore a dreamscape at eir leisure. The only thing left to do was wish the others the same luck. “Good night,” Quinn said as they knocked on each of zir friends’ doors. “Let us try to find each other in the Astral Plane, hm?”

Belle didn't like the sound of that "nowhere near the worst thing a Pokémon has done," but she also didn't care enough to ask what Quinn meant. "If you say so," she said instead and turned away. She was tired and ready to go home. But she couldn't do that, so she did the next best thing—return to the Pokémon Center. The way back was quiet except for the occasional wild Pokémon. Remembering her earlier loss, Belle bit her lip and sent out Moo to get some training in. The cow seemed to handle most of the Pokémon just fine, which was good, at least. Nate seemed to take their shared interest in the Hoenn Rangers as a sign that they were friends now. Or that she was open to chatting. With a put-upon sigh, the girl replied in short sentences: "Yes," and "fascinating" and "uh-huh," though her irritation subsided eventually as she was drawn into the conversation despite herself. "You mean Littleroot Crimson," she corrected. "And he's not bad. I preferred Pacifidlog Cobalt, myself. She was the coolest, but she was also hyper-aware of how the world saw her. She felt the most realistic out of all the Rangers." Moo didn't have to rest much compared to the others (having done the least amount of battling) but he still benefited from a rest in the center. When everybody was done, Belle approached the other two, agreeing with Nate as she glanced over Quinn's stomach. "It did. I wouldn't overdo it if I were you." She didn't push the subject, however, instead grunting at Nate's last words. She didn't enjoy training (it sounded too much like work), but she also didn't enjoy losing. Which is why she got good at League and Unite. But if she didn't want to lose in actual battles, she had to train. Sabrina had told her that enough times.

Hector watched everyone else vanish in a beam of light until only he and Jirachi remained. The Mist was what felt like only inches away from them then. Long, wispy coils stretched out from the bulk of it, and for a split second Hector thought they were forming into something more solid as they got closer. Frayed tendrils became fingers first, then hands, reaching out for the two of them languidly. He blinked and they were just tendrils again. All six of Hector shifted uncomfortably, and without any of his companions around, he was honest with himself. He was scared. He envied the ones to be teleported initially. Hearing about the Mist had been unnerving—Hector had been unsure how they were supposed to help even then—but experiencing it so closely was another thing entirely. How are we supposed to fight against… this? Hector felt an inclination in the back of his mind to form up into a shield wall, but his instinct was cowed by how awestruck he was by what he saw in front of him. The Legends had failed to prevent this. Card games and video games had taught him those legends were supposed to be god-like; forces of nature unto themselves. Yet all of them had failed. All of them except… Hector looked at Jirachi. A tiny blip of a figure against the endless wall of Mist. The final bastion of the once mighty legendaries that had created the world. Hector had thought of him as inspiring so far, occasionally childish, but in that moment he saw him in a new light. The Wish Pokémon seemed lonely. Small. Tired. Hector saw a shining light appear in the corner of his vision. His stomach churned in anticipation of being teleported away. He spared Jirachi one final glance. I can’t imagine how he feels right now. It was rough waking up as a Pokémon, but that probably has nothing on waking up to learn that while you were asleep the world ended and all your friends and family are dead or turned insane by some freaky Mist. The light became blinding. Hector vanished a split second later, still staring sadly at Jirachi. Don’t worry, you aren’t alone now. We’ll help. I promise. ----------- Hector stumbled when his feet found solid ground. They were in some kind of clearing now. He didn’t have to wonder where for long, because Jirachi appeared only a moment after he did. Then he explained what they needed to do to prevent the Mist. Hector was surprised by how easy the request was. His memory of life past his teenage years had been missing since he woke up as a Falinks, but he knew that he had no need of those memories to conjure up a happy moment. NCM had been his escape from a miserable home life. The friends he had made discussing the Pokémon TCG had been his substitute for any real connection with his mother and father. The in-jokes, the late night troll posting, the club shenanigans and all of the theory-crafting in group private messages for local tournaments. He picked one that stuck out to him. The day he told the group PM that he had qualified to go to the 2014 Pokémon TCG World Tournament. It was hosted in Washington, not far from his home state, so he would even be able to afford the trip. They had stayed up until the sun had come up working on his deck for the tournament. Discussing tech choices and the meta. There had been talks of some of them showing up to support him and hang out in person. It was one of his favorite memories. He met Jirachi's eyes, scooped the badge off of his chest, and wished with all his might.

"Yay! It sounds like everyone's ready. ♪ And don't worry. This shouldn't hurt if we all do it right. Just make sure not to move too much. Let's go!" "...that doesn't sound good..." Marv muttered to himself, swallowing hard a bit. "This is the very center of this island. It is from here that we will either make our last stand, or begin our first steps toward saving this world. Please. On my count, lift your badges into the air. When you do, please focus on happy thoughts. On hopeful thoughts. What brings you happiness? What brings you hope? These will provide you with the strength you need to stand against the Endless Mist. And lastly, make a wish! Wish to clear away the Mist! ♪ All right. On my count: One, two, three, wish!" A happy thought? A bunch of hopeful thoughts? Something that brings happiness and hope? Marv had to ponder this for a few moments. What actually made the Froakie...no...what made the former young man happy? Thing was, he couldn't remember much of anything...nothing except for his time on Yanma's and Nincada's Custom Monsters...those forums, his time has Order Shadow. It was a time in his life that...he recalled giving him the most peace and tranquility in life...least as far as he could remember. But the first few years of him being on the YCM forum was a rocky one...not until he found his stride in... ...the Role-playing section... Marv thought, taking a deep introspective look at what really made him happy. His mind recalled his time in the RP Section on YCM starting out...and it was cringey at best. His first few delves into RP were...very...not worth writing home about. It wasn't until the moments that YCM began to adopt an Advanced RP format...which meant it was 100+ words per post. Now that, that was something that actually assisted him with really breaking into his stride. Bits of moments and memories of these began to be brought up to his mind. There were countless RPs he ended up dipping his toes into, many died after a few months...hell, a few weeks if anything! But a few actually ended properly...and two of them were brought up immediately. On NCM, there was an RP known as "Twilight of the Gods", which he joined in with four others...and it ended with only two people. He was excited that it finally ended and things were wrapped up nicely enough, despite that he felt fatigued with that RP...he found joy and ideas coming from different things he remembered. The second...was from YCM...an RP he did that was known as "Generations", which was an Assassin's Creed based one. He had that working and it took forever to finish, due to some things...he was fuzzy on the specific details...but he knew there was a reason. At the very end though, he knew this was the only RP of his that he finished. Funnily enough...this did bring a smile to his face. There was also the moment he was labeled as the "Typecast Shonen Protagonist", just because of his character creation...they all were shonen specific and he always made em, cause he used himself as a basis for most. It brought another smile to his face. It wasn't just that, but quite a few other memories came to his mind, namely the people and friends he met through the RP Section. Marv remembered their usernames almost immediately: DukeMiltank, Civ, Manetric, Setora, the list went on... Hell, there was a moment that Civ and another friend of his made Order Shadow a living meme after his one RP failed and he was planning to revitalize it and remake it. For the longest time...the question was always the same: "WHERE'S GRIMM NIGHT'S, SHADOW??". This little memory caused him to smile from ear to ear and even start to snicker a bit as he thought long and hard on it. He remembered Civ and the others in the RP section really being there for him...namely Civ and another specific one...they were like his inner circle, he remembered that vividly now.. It brought a smile to his face... With these memories in mind...he W I S H E D.

In truth, being told that it ‘shouldn’t hurt’ wasn’t the most comforting thing Es could have heard when the most damage she had sustained thus-far had been at the hands of the Jirachi’s rolling-over-in-sleep; but she still did her best to stay put. Of course, that took a good few moments of adjusting plasma-output and dialing the optimal drift down to a null-status, something which made her body feel… Antsy, and as if the slightest provocation would prompt her to jump from the core she inhabited, but if her staying-put was that necessary, it would have to do. Of course, as the light enveloped the others, the lack of any obvious screams of pain was a bit more comforting; and the endless torrent of light which soon followed didn’t hurt either. In a lot of ways, it was… The polar-opposite of traveling through a solid-wall, she realized. Whereas in the wall, she had been hyper-aware of her core’s every movement, of her intangible self’s every inch traveled, and all her senses were overcome with sheer nothing this was… The opposite. It was bright, and she couldn’t tell where she was going; just that she was. It was disorienting in all the opposite ways, sure-- But at least it was familiar enough that, as she was spat out on the other side, she had little trouble righting herself. Plasma sputtered momentarily as her wings flared back into motion, the telltale circular drift returned to her movement; a simple drift which kept afloat as she idly watched the others appear one by one. Their own entrances were hit or miss, as could be expected, but she was admittedly relieved when Jirachi followed the rest of the group with little trouble. On some level, after all, she had been afraid they had been sent here to die. That, luckily, was not the case; for even if wishing seemed a rather… Novel solution, something deep within her told her that, should any Pokémon be an authority on wishing, it was the ‘genius’ in front of them. Of course, that whole, ‘remember happy memories’ notion was… A bit more difficult a request to complete. Even as she bent a wing unnaturally backwards, pushing it into the badge ever-so-slightly before increasing the density of the plasma, so as to ‘grab’ it and pull it off… She still hesitated for a moment, lucky the count hadn’t begun; after all. What should she think about? What could she think about? That was a difficult question to answer, she realized, as she drifted idly out of consciousness, and into the back of her mind. Even as, there was no analogue within the digital-landscape that would aid her in this, it seemed… A bit more comfortable to her, as she tried to think. The others had spoken much of the forum-- Likely because that was all that they could remember. It was the same for her as well; but whereas the others had interacted, and talked, and spoken… Well, she had done very little of any of those things. It was her fault, really, but she had mostly just… Read, the forum, as a means to let time pass her by while she… Waited. For what, she wasn’t sure, but it was always while she was waiting. But that meant there were no strong emotional connections to the memory. Similarly, she could remember messaging some people with advice from some of the hobby-sub-forums, but… Well, that hadn’t been out of happiness, so much as it was something she knew, and knew she could at least help with. It was more an obligation than out of happiness, really. Which left the only place to look for happy-memories, happy-thoughts… This existence. Of course, in this confusing, terrifying experience, there had been few truly ‘happy’ moments, but… Well, the choice of what to think about was an easy one. Even if for a brief, scant few moments, she had found someone she could consider a friend; a prospect she felt was… Likely rare, in her past, even if she couldn’t remember too well. Someone she felt like she could bounce off of in conversations, with whom she could joke around with for the most part... And even if that ended suddenly, and explosively, as all good things are want to do-- It was still a happy memory, and a good locus for her to focus her mind on as she raised the badge high; as the count began, and she was once again manipulating her wing-directly, as she held the badge to the sky, and made a single, bold, wish.

When all was said and done Chester was filled with renewed zeal and an inner strength that allowed him to stride to Jirachi and the others, ready to take on and tackle any problem that may have come their way. Of course he stood resolutely and fearless towards the coming light that encroached upon them, no matter the half assurances that Jirachi had given them and the rather ominous way the light had moved towards them. He knew that he was here to save the world and with everyone else at his side, even if he didn't know all of them fully, he could most certainly do it. Of course this unshakable confidence was briefly shaken by the disorienting sensation of being teleported but the metaphorical fall was only brief before he metaphorically rose through such discomfort in an equally short amount of time. With the blinding light having faded and his eyes and sense of balance having adjusted to the new environment, Chester could tell definitely feel the ominous presence of the woods that they were in, made only more ominous by the encroaching mist coming upon them. Jirachi had mentioned that their goal would either be a success of failure here, but Chester had not gotten to where he was today by simply believing he would fail at every turn. No, he was here to save the world, work alongside his comrades and help them all return home safely and no obstacle of madness or violence would stop him. Of course such gusto would get him nowhere if he simply charged forward, only more evident as Jirachi had made their advice known about what to do. Chester looked at the badge he was given, clenching onto it in stubby hand as he directed his mind to happier thoughts. Chester could only remember his time on the forums. He had no memory of what his life was outside of that, what his world was like. He didn't know who he associated with, what he did for a living was or even what his current goals were. He knew that he was going to school and working feverishly towards a degree of some kind, but he didn't ever really mention what major, why he wanted it or even how close he was to attaining it. But he didn't need what he couldn't remember to give him satisfaction. In fact, he was already satisfied, perhaps already living his best life on the forum. Sure his job as a moderator was stress inducing; bots continually appearing to spam the thread with who knew what, the populace constantly going at each other's throats for one reason or another, making sure rules were followed and requests were listened to and even having to pester other moderators about things that were currently non-functional with the site. He didn't mind any hate or jeering he got from the crowd because at the end of the day he was doing his job and he liked his job. But that was abstract and while it evoked a feeling of pride in him it was hardly the all encompassing joy that was probably needed for such a wish. So he only needed to go back further. He had always loved this community, from the very first day he joined in it. As cheesy as it may have been it was the truth. He loved the vast wealth of knowledge that everyone had collaborated together and making, he enjoyed the in depths discussions about games and pastimes that he actually loved. Sure there was times where it was stressful, there were times where he didn't get along with others and an innumerable times he was heckled for being an "ass kisser" or "mini mod," but those didn't bother him too much. After all he was the one following the rules and he was the one typically being civil. But, if that's how they wanted to view him than so be it. He always felt that he was working towards the communities best interest, and if people were mad at him for working with the mods and already "doing a mod's job," then there was only one thing to do about that. Chester was starting to realize that he perhaps was more of a competitive person then he first gave himself credit for. After all, he wanted to be a mod for altruistic means but he certainly couldn't deny the catharsis that came with proving the naysayers either wrong or right, depending on how you looked at it, and gaining his mod ship. He felt ecstatic that day the position was crowned onto him, though. And beyond the feeling of competitive triumph there was an overwhelming sense of pride and bliss as he had been the one chosen by the mods to become the next mod and he was similarly accepted by the people. Sure there was jokes and jeers about it, but the idea that it was an "obvious choice" made the validation granted from even the negative comments all the better. And so, pouring that joy and sense of accomplishment into his badge, into the vision of a clearer, brighter forest and WISHED.

"This shouldn't hurt" followed by "don't move" was not a good sign. Clobber felt himself immediately begin to tense up, the exact opposite of what you're supposed to do in those situations, and his fight or flight response nearly kicked in. Only stopped by the sight of the mist coming in. He knew that Pokemon could get pretty spooky at times, in fact he always liked seeing creepy ghost art when Halloween came around, but this felt like a step too far. It did allow him to stop himself from taking off. Thankfully he was one of the first to go and so he didn't have to wait long. "Urgh, I don't think I could ever get used to that." Nor did he want to have it happen enough times for it to become normal. He had enough time as everyone began popping up to look around and all he saw was....trees. A lot of trees. A forest of trees one could say. At first Jirachi didn't appear and Clobber began to feel on edge. "Hey what do we do if he never..." and then he popped up, cutting Clobber's hesitantly voiced concern short. "On my count, lift your badges into the air. When you do, please focus on happy thoughts. On hopeful thoughts. What brings you happiness? What brings you hope? These will provide you with the strength you need to stand against the Endless Mist." Well that sounded....cheesy. Surprisingly so with how dire everything had looked. Happiness and hope, in this economy? Well, guess he had to get to work then. Happy thoughts....happy memories....but wait, all he could remember was the forum. And that...well. All that came to mind was not what he'd call happy. Even when he felt good about the art he posted it would just take one negative comment to turn the memory sad. Even pushing past that part of his forum life most of the rest was him arguing about topics that he only had enough knowledge to know that the other side was wrong. Not the most hopeful of endeavors. There was that time he checked out polls, drawn in by the rather cringy but tempting topic of "best girl" only to discover that somehow Giratina had taken the crown. Which at least was somewhat funny if not frustrating but he doubted those kind of thoughts would help much. He was starting to think that this was pointless, that maybe they shouldn't have brought in a downer like him if they wanted hope and happy feelings, when something came to mind. A memory that had struggled its way through the rest of the mire. It wasn't anything special. If he overthought it he'd realize it was pretty lame for this to be what he latched onto. But latch onto it he did. One day, after a rather hectic spree of deleting a bunch of old artwork, he saw a PM pop up. Usually this meant that someone had complained about him again but this time it was something different. "Hey." it began. "I like your art! I checked your profile and didn't see anything but do you accept commissions?" This small interaction reminded Clobber of a small bubble of hope, a surprisingly potent feeling of joy coming from out of nowhere. And so when Jirachi counted down he held up his badge, trying his best to keep the feeling in his heart, and WISHED.

Penelope and Alois The maid spat crossly. "I throw whatever I want." She stopped struggling, though, as if realizing the futility of it. "Didn't expect that kind o' strength outta a twig like you," she mocked instead. "Needed a girl to save yer butt, too. What a joke." Gunther, Edrick, Citron, and Raki The villagers gave what help they could, following directions and working together with an ease found only in those used to such things. Villages are formed when people come together for the sake of living. They work together and put their skills to use. In times of crisis, they gather with a readiness only found in trained servants or soldiers. A few glanced sideways at Raki, but most paid him no mind. Their usual xenophobia put aside in favor of helping an injured creature. "We'll provide what help we can," the shopkeeper said. "I've got a bowl of water here," Pheodea, the village weaver, stepped forward. She placed it on the ground next to Citron, keeping the girl between her and the wyvern. "Bandages 'ere," Thile plopped down a basket of bandages. "An' I can lift the wyvern if'n ya need," Achos bragged. "I'm very strong. Only fer a bit, though. 'M not that strong. It'd take a beast t'lift it o'erhead or summat," he joked. Everything was in place. Citron had the tools. She had the supplies. She had the help. Now, all she had to do was start. Link, Tsetseg, Cora, and Garinphasia Link jumped, but whether it was because of the wind, the timing, or the speed of his horse, he fell short. Thankfully, the meadows outside Phar were carpeted with a rich layer of grass, fertilized with sheep's dung, and as Timmy would say, "perfect fer lyin' doon on." And so the mercenary's landing was soft and springy. Even the earth was soft, churned up like butter by sheep hooves. Considering what happened next, one could even say he had the most fortunate result. Tsetseg's arrow flew straight, finding its mark on the horse's flank. With a piercing neigh, the horse stopped and reared. While the bundle stayed strapped on, Gaston was flung off of its back. It stamped its hooves down, tossed its head, and then galloped in a frenzy toward Garinphasia, rolling its eyes till the milky whites showed. In its panic, it didn't care how large or dangerous the wyvern was. All it knew was the pain in its leg. Meanwhile, Gaston slammed onto the ground, rolling to the side and clutching his arm with a piteous moan. He rose, staggering after the horse, with an expression as wild as the beast's. "No! I must… for His Lordiness…"

Anima grit her teeth as the Astonish went wide, a spec of horror, if not defeatism rooting itself in her chest as she brought a hand to her chin. Though his comment that followed the poison sting was annoying, it was the pained, and… Annoyed cry of her Pokémon that kept her grounded. “You’re right, you’re right,” she murmured, closing her eyes as Confi once again began to gallop towards the opposing Pokémon. “You wanna step it up too, right, Confi?” she’d smile, throwing a hand forwards. “Use tackle to close the distance; and regardless of if it hits or not, follow it up with an Astonish!” she’d call out, as the Pokémon began to suit the actions to the words. There was no time for second-guessing, no time to think-- Just feel. As the Corsola closed the distance, her tiny legs buckled for half a second, and she threw her entire Bulk at the Nidoran; eyes already beginning to glow with a bright pink as a sound like radio-static began to build around her! "I know you can take it Nidoran, Leer! Then Peck!" As Confi ran forward the Nidoran braced itself and leered to lower their defense once more before they struck Nidoran with Tackle. Despite their trainer's confidence this blow seemed to cause some damage, and the Astonish that followed managed to make it flinch. "Grr, of course that'd happen at this moment...its fine Nidoran, shake it off, their defense is down get that Peck off and we got this!" Anima nodded as the attack landed, a small smile coming to her face. They… May have had a shot at this! Even as Confi found herself having to get back to her feet post tackle, even as the Corsola was visibly panting from the strain of the fight-- They still had a shot. “You heard that right? I know you’re tired, Confi, but meet that Peck with a tackle-- Put everything you’ve got into it, and we can end this!” she’d call out, bringing both hands up in front of her. Confi, for her part, steadied herself for a moment, pink eyes trailing until she had locked onto the Nidoran, legs wobbling a bit, before she bounded off into a gallop! Preparing to throw her full weight into her opponent one last time, as soon as she was in range! Unfortunately, Nidoran had already gotten to his feet too; bristling with anger. With another roar of defiance, the small poison-type Pokémon moved to meet Confi’s tackle; horn first! White keratin slammed against the shell-like Exterior of the ghost type Pokémon, both Pokémon letting out a cry of pain as they bounced back, and yet… While Nidoran got back up-- Confi, did not. She tried to, for a moment, small nub-like feet scratching against the dirt for purchase, before… Going limp, pink-light fading from her eyes as she grumbled a quiet ‘Sola’ in annoyance. Anima had thought to say something-- Anything, but found herself speechless as she brought a hand up to cover the frown already forming on her face. The source, of course, was obvious; she had lost, but with that loss, several different emotions had all made themselves known. Annoyance, failure, that of a wounded pride, even… Guilt, for letting her partner get hurt. And yet every single one was connected, by a single thread, into a tight ball which felt like it was boring a hole through her chest; one which took her full attention, even as she slowly, and listlessly walked up and approached her Pokémon. It was like she was blanking, on the spot; mind racing with overwhelming emotion, as she knelt down and scooped Confi up into her arms. The entire failure had made it hard to process the battle itself; let alone anything that happened after. She was fairly certain Chad had said something in the aftermath; something to the effect of, “Ha, looks like being old doesn’t mean much when it comes to Pokémon!”, but… she wasn’t even sure what she was supposed to do now. It felt like she needed to do everything. The first word to leave her mouth, however, was… a quiet, hushed, “sorry”, which rang out only for her partner Pokemon to hear as she ran a thumb over the Ghost-type’s forehead. She had fought valiantly; bravely, and… Had mirrored some of the spirit Anima felt as if she should have had from the beginning. That was one thing to focus on. One thing to ground herself on, as she began to look up, and glance around. The others were all still in battles; though they appeared to be reaching their climaxes themselves, each one in a better position than she had been in hers. The pit seemed to grow larger as she tried to force a smile to her face, only to fail as she shifted her Partner in her arms, and glanced around. “...Sorry, but, I’ll be right back,” she’d murmur to the others as she began to back up; neither towards Anneliese, nor Jacklyn in particular, as she took another step back. “And… Sorry, but I’m flat broke; I’ll… Give you your winnings the next time I see you,” she’d murmur, albeit a bit louder, as she looked up towards Chad, before turning on her heels and walking away, off towards the nearest signpost and then Pokémon Center. The polite thing, of course, would have been to wait for the others to be done, but… Well, she could assume that they would understand the urgency of getting her partner healed; and more than that… She wanted to be alone, for a moment or two. That would be nice.

Getting into a fighting stance, still ready to brawl with this sham of a maid, the boy briefly looked over to see that the door had opened to reveal yet another combatant into this mayhem. On the one hand, Alois was relieved that it was help for his side rather than some other lethal housekeeper come to kill him. On the downside it was Penelope. He had every bit of confidence in her ability to give orders but her ability to stop a trained assassin in a melee was something he was certainly skeptical about. The maid also seemed to take this as an opening to escape, bolting away from him almost immediately, prompting the boy to shout, "hey! Get back here!" Thankfully the maid had little interest in actually fighting Penelope, first charging through her wind spell and then literally jumping over her head - "what the -" recovering from the surprise of the acrobatic stunt Alois shouted, "already on it!" Alois began running towards the exit of the room as Penelope attempted to stop the maid herself. The maid twisted herself away from the sword swing, only being shallowly cut by the attack. Before the woman could continue to run or attack back, though, she was met immediately with the full force of Alois's charge. The woman was knocked back by the attack, with Alois continuing to charge going to ram into her again. The woman brought up her arms, as if attempting some kind of maneuver against the boy, but the raw brute strength of his tackle had completely ignored whatever it was she was trying knocking her off her feat and onto the ground. Moving to pin her arms to the ground to keep her from running Alois shouted, "got you! Wow that was way easier then I thought it'd be. Do you just throw knives, is that your only job here?" With the duo having veered away from imminent collision, Tsetseg brightened up as she shouted, "green man!" seeing the other rider that had come with them. It didn't take long for the rest of the militia that she had talked to come as well, the whole group all chasing after Gaston now. With everyone reaching the back gate, Tsetseg continued to hold onto Cora as they hastily galloped towards him but looking past her could see that they weren't gaining on him any. If anything Link had already continued to move past them and Tsetseg was concerned that she wouldn't be able to do much of her patrol duties, so to speak, to stop the dastardly man from getting away. Then, as Cora spoke her eyes brightened and she nodded, "right right!" Letting go of the girl and balancing on the horse more freely, the girl pulled her bow off her back. She herself wasn't exactly an accomplished horseback riding archer, not like some of the people she knew from back home. She had barely known how to ride a horse and the one time she tried to free fire from horseback on her own was something of a miserable failure. After the others saw her flop on the ground, though, she had received some help from the village people in an attempt to cheer her up, riding being nothing more than an archer with an actually seasoned rider to help her. The results still weren't nearly as good as when her own two feet were planted on the ground but they weren't nothing either. And here, with the wind rushing past her, she once again had to trust all the technical work of riding the horse to Cora with her simply having to aim and shoot. Gaston was still riding away on a remarkably fast horse. And to make matters worse Link had already begun to converge on him, making his back more obscured. And to make matters even more worse there a wyvern - another wyvern! - that attacked the horse as well. While Tsetseg had half a mind to take the flying thing out of the air she had a job as a self appointed temporary member of the Phar Patrol. To take down the villain that was running away! Tsetseg wasn't exactly skilled with one shot kills and her shot was fairly obscured but with her task only being to stop or inhibit the man it made it a lot easier. After all, he wasn't just a man, he was a man and a horse! So, pulling back her arrow, the girl fired it towards both Gaston's leg and the horse's flank, trying to find its mark there to slow the rider down at least.

Penelope wondered, briefly, if there was a reason this door was different than the others. Did it serve a different purpose, was it something that had to be replaced for some reason, or was it just an eccentric design choice in a house filled with eccentric design choices? The mystery would have to remain a mystery for now as she was certain now she could hear some sort of scuffle beyond the door. So she opened it as soon as she got close enough. "It seems you've been having some fun." Penelope said, though she was relieved to see Alois still in one piece. As she had suspected the maid looked to be more than meets the eye. The way she stood it made it clear that she had training of some sort. The woman ran towards her immediately after. Despite the maid's words Penelope suspected she wasn't intending to simply throw her from the house. She would have liked to speak to the woman before engaging in combat but that didn't seem an option. Moving faster than she thought she could Penelope brought forth her quickest magic. A simple Wind spell that she sent at the maid. The crescent shape struck the woman dead on but, being also the weakest magic, didn't do much to slow the woman down. Evidentially she had some amount of magical resistance. "Cease this! You are outnumbered and my knights will be here shortly. You cannot hope to make it out in time! Surrender now and I will be lenient." With some reluctance Penelope drew her blade. The maid was getting too close now to try and attack with magic. Penelope had seen some close range magic fighters before but she was not practiced in such things. Dille snorted. "And let meself get 'terrogated here? Not likely. Sorry, princess." Still running, she took out a dagger and threw it toward Penelope. "But the only one who should surrender 'ere is you." Penelope narrowed her eyes and brought the sword up, blocking the dagger and knocking it aside. While this happened the woman JUMPED up into the air and over Penelope, able to clear her thanks to the high ceiling in this room, and landed behind her. Penelope turned and stepped forward, "Stop her!" she said, perhaps redundantly, to Alois. She wasn't sure why but it felt like this woman would have important knowledge. Penelope may not be the fighter that her sister was but she wasn't about to let herself be bested so easily. She gripped her blade. She felt that she still was somewhat leery about using the weapon. Slicing into another, causing grievous wounds from up close, wasn't something that she wished to have to experience again. But there was no time to think about that now. If she hesitated the woman would be able to get away. So Penelope stepped forward and swung her sword at the woman's back. Instead of horses Gunther encountered a wyvern. Not only a wyvern but also several others. The newcomers and Edrick. There was a brief moment Gunther wondered what Edrick was doing with those two specifically but this thought was overridden as he saw the state of Peaches. Gunther began forward, thinking that he had to help somehow, before he paused. He didn't know how to treat a wyvern. He had taken care of horses and the like now and then but wyverns were a different beast all together. Not to mention he didn't believe he had enough of a rapport with this one in particular yet to even be allowed to help. Just as he stood there hesitating reinforcements came in the form of the village people. They all seemed to want to help. Even if this wyvern wasn't something any of them were used to treating surely together they would be able to figure something out. His eyes fell on Citron, who was, while not injured, also in a sorry state. He approached the girl and spoke in a low voice. "Citron? I know this must be...frightening, but she still has plenty of strength in her, I do not think it's a fatal wound. Everything will be alright. But...and perhaps it is insensitive to say when you are struggling yourself, you need to remain calm so that Peaches can stay calm as well." "Oh! Oh! Oh! Other horse that way!" "Right!" Cora said and managed to avoid running into....that was one of Tsetseg's friends yeah? It seemed he was chasing Gaston. One might normally think that she should be more worried about the practical stranger who had taken a horse and was chasing someone through the village. But that someone was Gaston so.... "Alright, let's catch em 'fore he gets into the forest! T'will be easier for 'im to get away if he gets there!" Despite saying this it was obvious that Gaston's horse was faster than hers, loathe as she was to admit it. But she did have one advantage yet. "C'mon Abel, give it all you got..." She didn't think she would be able to catch up faster than Link but... "Tsetseg....I dunno if you have any trainin' shooting from a horse but...I'll try and get ya as close as possible so you can take a shot!"

Nate inhaled as deep as his lungs would allow the second they stepped foot out of the town. The air was different; lighter, cleaner, carrying the smell of grass and dirt and a dozen others that he couldn’t yet identify. “This is it,” he announced, looking over at his companions. “The first real step in our journey. Isn’t this awesome? I’ve been dreaming about this since I was a kid.” The voice of his parents sprang unbidden to the forefront of his mind. You’re still a kid, his Mom would say. How can you expect to take care of a Pokémon when you can’t even clean your room without being told? Nate fought off a frown. That had never been a fair comparison. His room was organized in the way that made sense to him, his Mom had just never liked it. But telling her that always just caused his Dad to join in on the conversation. You’ll get all the experience in battling you need from the dojo, if you would actually pay attention during your lessons. Now stop talking back to your mother and go clean your room. Always quick to try and force him to be something that he would never be, that was his Dad. Nate had learned not to argue with them; the topic of him going on a Pokémon journey just left him and his parents tense and awkward and never went anywhere productive. That was why he had to run away. They hadn’t left him any choice. At least that was what he had to tell himself, even if he regretted it the first few nights on the boat. All of his self-doubt dissipated when he looked out at the first route. Trainers scouring every inch of tall grass for Pokémon, the tiny little creatures darting back and forth, and more than anything the atmosphere of the area. Wild. Untamed. Full of unpredictability and life and Pokémon and people alike just chasing their dreams. It was so different from the droning monotony of his life in Saffron City, and Nate knew he would never get sick of it. He smiled even wider than he had the moment he stepped off the ship. “C’mon! Let’s go explore!” He whipped out his notebook and flipped it open. “I wanna see if I can find every one of the Pokémon I heard about. Plus I wanna look into this rat-king stuff!” A sudden idea struck the boy. Nate took Peat’s Poké Ball from his belt and clicked the button to release the bear inside. Peat appeared with a yawn, then looked around in confusion until he spotted his trainer. Nate waved at him. “Have a good nap bud?” he asked. The little bear made a noise somewhere between a growl and a bark, then waddled over to bump into his trainer’s leg. Nate reached down to pat him on the head. “Good to see you’re feeling better. We’re out on the first route now bud. I’m gonna explore a bit and maybe start looking for us some new friends. I thought we could get some training in while I do that? How does that sound?” Nate crouched down so the two were at eye level. Peat slapped his fins against the ground and rumbled happily. “Hehe. I knew you’d be up to it. Awesome! Let’s start with that patch of grass over there! I bet there’s some awesome Pokémon hiding in that bush!” Boy and Bearble ran off into the tall grass without another warning. Anyone that followed or looked their way would see Nate and Peat carefully looking through each patch of grass, turning over every single rock they encountered (before carefully returning it to its spot), and at one point Nate even shimmied up the trunk of a tree to check for birds. A Rookidee squawked at him and pecked his hand when he got too close, causing him to fall out of a tree, and Peat roared at the little bird and accidentally blasted it with a swarm of watery-bubbles that pelted its feathery belly. Trainer and Pokémon alike broke into a celebratory happy dance after that. Nate could be heard from at least twenty feet away shouting something about “bubble” and “the strongest” and also "didn't see ratking up there".

With her and Anneliese left to the shopping of other assorted items, Jacklyn was smiling looking at all of the wares that the store had to offer. There was any numbers of medicine around, but Jacklyn hardly any idea what they would need a burn heal or antidote for. And she loosely knew what potions were for but all that mattered was not getting injured to have to use them in the first place! As such, the only thing that mattered to Jacklyn at present was getting another member for her team. After all, a pokemon journey was only a real journey when you had a full team to go explore with! And as such, she was sure that she knew just what it was that she had to buy. Walking back to her team members as well, a bag in hand, the girl said, "I'm back! And look what I got!" Anneliese had already shown of her own findings to the other two, as she said, "I also bought a bunch of pokeballs. In fact, lookie here!" Showing the bag to everyone else it was clear that there was a large amount in there. "Ten of them to be exact. But, fufufu, if you think that this is it then you're in for a surprise. Because you see," the girl rifled through the bag before pulling out a white pokeball. "It came with this! An eleventh! They're called Premiere balls I think. I don't really know what's all that special about them and like sure it cost me everything to get one of these but it looks different! Which means it has to be special right?" The girl proudly presented her Premiere ball again, before putting it back in her bag. "So, how'd shopping go for you Anima?"