Skaia

Lana was sure talking to Anna was to be nothing more than a repeated exercise in confusion. The girl titled her head with such an emotion present as she seemed to insist that there was someone else not just here, but someone who lived here. Lana didn't really know what to make of the girl's question, but she was pretty sure that she heard laughter come from before it. Laughter that was definitely not her own, too close to be from elsewhere and she wasn't quite sure if Anna was actually able to emote to the point of laughter. Looking at her more closely though, Lana started to wonder why it was that Anna seemed to be looking at her with increasingly dull eyes? Dull? No, probably not the best word to describe it. The girl gulped nervously as she had concluded that "dead" would probably be a better descriptor. Hearing the laughter again, from very close by, Lana froze in place for a moment. Though it was morning and daylight was spreading throughout the whole of the city, Lana couldn't help but feel a similar emotion to walking on top of creaky wooden floor boards in the pitch dark of night. Feeling both panic and, naturally, curiosity from her situation Lana slowly turned to face behind her, seeing a blurry figure start to enter her view. Startled by the sudden sight of another person, Lana reflexively blinked and then was only left dumbfounded by the sight that was there. Or rather, that wasn't. There didn't seem to be anyone at all near her, and she could no longer hear any laughter. Looking around the graveyard once more, it was only herself and Anna that were still here. Mostly herself. Lana now questioning exactly what had happened this entire conversation and still on nerves jumped a bit in place as the priest called from the door behind her though at the same time felt immense relief for having an out. Looking at Anna, not really concealing her nerves any bit, the girl simply said, "ah well. Would you look at that. Duty calls and all. Was nice meeting you, uh, Anna. Hope we can...talk again or, yeah. Bye." With a hasty goodbye, Lana made her way out of the graveyard and back inside. Looking at the priest, Lana simply said, "right, sorry to keep you waiting. Your daughter was certainly...a girl." Nailed it. "But uh yeah, here to help now and all."

Getting up slowly, Nine grimaced as the sight of the hideous aura that was forming into a bolt. Getting ready to brace himself, the boy suddenly felt himself swept off his feet as his arm was pulled behind him. Looking to see that it was Kayla, and not some freaky appendage from the beast of a legend, Nine was relieved as she did her best to draw him away from the attack. It was, unfortunately, all for naught as the bolt did not let up in following them. As Kayla let go of him, apologizing he simply said, "I got this." He most certainly did not have this. With the fight against Raphael having not been that long ago, he couldn't really use his usual defensive aura to guard against the attack. And he wasn't entirely sure trying to intercept an unerring attack that was as strong as this would do much of anything. So, instead, he sharpened his own aura up to get ready to strike at Giratina, putting his arms up to brace against the attack. With the aura slamming into him, Nine's face clearly showed the extreme pain he was suddenly struck with, being forced off his feet again and tumbling backwards across the ground. Still up and ready to continue fighting, Nine slowly brought himself up, though his arms was were clearly quivering still from the attack he had just taken. Still, he didn't have much time to dally, as Shaymin had made her move against the legend. As she did, Girtaina's head began to turn towards Shaymin, though, Nine knew that she wouldn't match up to the bizarre legend in a head on confrontation. Neither would he, for that matter, but he couldn't simply stand by and wait. So, sending out an empowered dark pulse Nine struck the legend saying, "hey!" Nine paused for in the face of this foe that was without much in way of reason and far exceeding his strength, he simply didn't know what to say nor how to taunt them. He in fact had felt like he had made a poor decision as his attack still managed to catch the attention of the legend. As its head turned to face Shaymin, it simply kept turning without stopping, rotating at least one hundred eighty degrees before looking at Nine. Letting out a low growl and hiss, the creature then blasted yet another stream of draconic flame at him. Using his dark pulse to attempt to block the attack, moving out of the way of the attack himself, Nine looked to see that Giratina's eyes didn't seem to stop looking at him. And in a moment later, the eyes were all that was left. This being the third time Nine was seeing this attack now, had formed an understanding of the otherwise otherworldly attack. He simply had to look forward and keep his wits about him. As he heard the shriek Nine flared up with a dark aura around him and went to punch forward, as the legend had appeared in front of him and brought down its ghastly claw. That he had countered and punched forward towards the legend didn't seem to perturb it much this time, and it still managed to get in a heavy blow of its own, knocking Nine away and knocking the breath out of him. Stumbling back Nine attempted to fire back at the legend, though by the time he had righted himself a claw from the whip like arm of Giratina shot out and struck his face. Disoriented by the attack, Nine was forced back off his feet and onto the ground.

I'll chuckle a bit at the sight and say, "sorry about that. We can go get another if you'd like." After that, I suppose I'll go and observe the rich looking car from afar and the people around it.

As the duo made their way into the crowd, what the commotion was about soon became apparent. With the the people seeming to think that there was a girl involved in either a chase or an escape, Stella quickly became concerned and such concerns were swiftly voiced by her friend. Sighing, Stella couldn't help but feel two emotions. One, that her friends in general seemed to be a magnet for trouble. The second was a sense of dread and guilt for having left Vivian by herself and something potentially dangerous happening to her. So, in a bit of a panic at the thought, the girl said, "well, no. Not now. We have to trouble to get involved in." Though, the girl was not exactly sure how she would deal with any trouble that they did run into. Thankfully, at least for Stella, there was no trouble to be seen. Instead Vivian seemed to be alone by an alley. Definitely a concerning sight in of itself, but that her roommate didn't seem any worse than when she left her, it was definitely a relieving sight. "Sorry for - well," the girl stopped herself, not really sure what she was apologizing at first but then just simply asked, "there was some commotion and well, was that you? Are you alright?"

Lana looked at the girl, still unsure if she was actually listening to most of what she said. However as Anna seemed to ramble what was amazing about adventuring, albeit to the sky, Lana did indeed think that some of those things sounded cool, but were neither what she was going for nor did she think that what they were going to accomplish. After all, she didn't really know how "evil" the monsters in the dungeon were, or the dungeon itself, and she didn't really think there were any princesses in there that needed saving. Though, if there were, that would probably help her in her financial stability, as well as the treasure that they would likely find as well. Unless they were an evil princess. Then she supposed Anna would be right on at least one account? Lana was confusing herself and thus was simply mulling in her own thoughts, which seemed to be perfectly fine as Anna seemed to constantly be in hers. As the girl looked back to Anna, to resume the conversation about adventuring, she paused as she wasn't quite sure if she would be interrupting Anna in doing whatever it was she was doing. Or thinking about. And so she awkwardly stood there, just looking at the girl. Again. She then felt some kind of breeze brush against her face, accompanied with a deeply unsettling feeling. Startled by this, the girl looked around the graveyard but saw that there was no one else around. Aside from Anna of course. But the feeling of someone else being there was still there, and she was certain there was a pair of eyes trained on her, having the creeped out feeling of being carefully watched. And she knew it couldn't be Anna because the girl was clearly not looking at her. Seeming to be clearly spooked by this feeling, Lana turned around a few more times, checking to make sure if she was just imagining things or not. Though there was no one she could see, it wasn't as if the feeling disappeared, so nervously Lana looked over to the red haired girl. "Hey uh, Anna. There wouldn't happen to uh, be anyone else here right?"

While Nine was glad to see that his attack had managed to land, he was still on guard and awaiting what the legend would do next, Giratina seeming none too slowed down by either his or Shaymin's assault. Nine could only look warily and unsettled as Giratina snapped from looking to each of the people here, before vanishing from his view. Nine wasn't quite sure what had just happened, unsure if the legend was hiding or had turned invisible or what. However, as a shriek resounded throughout the cave, Nine went wide eyed as he saw the beast appear from behind Shaymin. As it brought down a dark energy claw down at the legend, Nine couldn't move to react, both due to the suddenness and strangeness of the attack, as well as the pressure that came from standing right near a legend. Thankfully, Kayla had been quick to the draw striking into the legend but not without being retaliated against. "Kayla!" Shouting as he watched the Accelgor get smashed into the ground, Nine fired off a dark pulse against the legend. As it was paying attention to Kayla, they were struck without much resistance, wincing at the attack. As the attack was registered, they dropped Kayla and snapped to look towards Nine. With a fierce and hungry look in its eyes, the legend let out a coarse breath before a gout of draconic flame erupted from its mouth. Surprised by the suddeness of it, Nine backpedaled away, using his own flames in an attempted to parry the dragon breath away. As he stumbled, managing to only be singed in the shoulder by the fire, the wind was suddenly knocked out of him as the forearm of Giratina whipped into him. Continuing to close the distance between the two of them, Giratina stepped forward and grabbed at Nine's arm. As the legend yanked Nine forward, beginning to get ready for yet another breath attack, Nine had to think fast and off his feet. Charging with a dark aura of his own, Nine punched at Giratina, striking them with a force much greater than his own body was capable of making. Catching the legend by surprise, they let go of him and let their breath out far quicker than before as they tossed Nine away as a result. Bracing himself, being turned into a projectile Nine was hit by the flames less than he would've been were he just standing there, but still winced in pain as then stumbled forward and landed on the ground with a thud. Letting out a grunt, Nine slowly picked himself up from the ground as he looked back to the legend, still on guard for what it would do next.

As the fighting had broken out, Leon watched as the Falcons had drawn the first blood, charging at the forces of Rastarn. With Rona felling one of the pegasus knights almost immediately and Raynor taking a good stab into one of them, the front line of their foes seemed to be injured but still standing strong in the face of the mercenary company. This didn't last long, however, as Ada first stepped up. Wielding what little remained of her dark tome the girl fired off two dark, smoky blasts of magic towards the lance wielding cavalier in front of her. With each blast of dark smoke landing with great impact, the horseman was easily disposed of. With the opening created by Ada's attack, Leon soon stepped in and with a swift slash of his blade the boy brought it into the unsuspecting pegasus knight. Blindsided by the strike, Leon was able to not only get a good cut in, but he had managed to sweep his whole blade through the body of the rider, felling them. With the goading of the one pegasus knight to the side, the one with the steel lance looked to the others. He figured that while not much of a threat on her own, he shouldn't just leave the rider unattended, either in a position to flank or to retreat. But, not wanting to devote too much to just one person, the knight looked to two of the pegasus knights and said, "you two, handle it." With two of them flying towards her, one lagging behind, the first pegasus knight charged right at Alexis and managed get a good stab into her. He was, likewise, stabbed by an equally painful strike from her lance. Meanwhile, the paladin amidst them glared towards Ada as she had preformed her magic. "A traitor and heretic all in one. Very well. Men, you know what you must do to fell the menace that has found its root in our homeland!" As the man spoke, the rest of the soldiers seemed to steel themselves as they began to maneuver around the party. In spite of each member of the falcon having a mark, they would soon find their opponent was not quite as easy to read. With both the pegasus knights moving around the two mounted riders, they both moved to strike at both Leon and Ada with their lances. Both of them were not fortunate enough to avoid this attack, and they both felt the sting of spears go through them. Leon, however, had it much worse as the pegasus with the steel lance charged him from the side, blindsiding and stabbing into his side. Being shoved by the momentum of the attack, Leon was knocked off balance momentarily, though managed to regain his footing, breath ragged but still able to fight. Meanwhile, the two cavaliers had elected to not attack the lance wielding Draytter. So instead, the two struck at the axe wielding wyvern rider instead, both of their swords finding purchase against their foe. Though it didn't amount to too much, Rona would still feel the stinging of both blades, especially the steel blade as she was struck by it. Raynor wasn't entirely safe either, as one of the other cavalier that had been off to the side had charged at him as well, slashing at him and meeting similar success to the ones that had attacked Rona. Though the group was likely able to hold off their current foes, things seemed to be taking a turn for the worst as the infantry was slowly making their way up and yet another group of cavaliers seemed to be circling around, waiting for their opening.

Through her efforts, Ryia had once again managed to grab the large bird's attention. This was met with the same mix of reactions she had had the other time she had done so, though she was more thankful it didn't just dive at her right from the get go. Instead, seeing the tell tale motion of the bird flapping its wings, Ryia knew that she would have to go and take cover, and so she ran to a nearby pillar. With the blades of air striking against the rock of the pillar, the girl let out a sigh of relief as she had managed to evade the attack, but she quickly went back to concerned as she surveyed the situation. Seeing Reinaan leap from pillar to pillar, the girl knew that she couldn't really let the bird take notice of the draken before the time was right or things were likely to end in disaster for him. Looking further down the line of pillars, she also saw that Geoff was still down, so she couldn't just lead it down as well without risking the bird just charging at him. So, attempting to just hold her position and keep the bird in place, Ryia ran out in front of the pillar she had just moved behind, sheathing her weapons and drawing her crossbow. Firing yet another bolt at the creature, the girl wasn't really expecting it to hurt so much as she just wanted to keep it in place for longer.

Lana awkwardly stood there as the girl she was talking to as there was a clear moment of silence after she spoke. The white haired girl looked at the girl, and looked around her to see if there was something else that was taking up her attention at the time. However, as there was nothing of note happening around them, she just blinked a few times and waited. Lana wasn't sure of what to make of the girl - Anna as it were- though couldn't help but be creeped out by her comment on what to do here. She also couldn't help but feel like the girl was already bored and maybe annoyed with talking to Lana already, which showed on the latter's face in the confusion she was displaying. With Anna perking up at the last part, Lana looked away and said, "well, sort of. I just got here so I haven't really done anything yet. But I do have a few - " friends was definitely not the right word for them yet. "Other people, that I'm going to adventure with. See, we're going to go into the dungeon and beat it, and then get super rich! Or, well, I am at least." While she had hyped herself up a bit, she could only imagine that Anna wasn't actually interested and so cleared her throat before asking, "so uh, do you like adventuring or something?"

Stella was still unsure what to make of the man's method of repair, but was all the same thankful for his demonstration. Thinking there was still much for her to learn as well, the girl couldn't help but smile as Kelsey seemed to be in overall higher spirits as the duo made their way out of the shop. Unfortunately for the both of them, Vivian was nowhere to be seen as the two left. She couldn't help but feel a bit guilty about just leaving her roommate by herself, but she was also curious as to where the girl had wandered off to. So, Stella sent the girl a quick text. Hey Vivian, just left the mechanic shop. With that out of the way, she turned her attention to where Kelsey had been pointing. While Stella was more partial to just waiting around so that her roommate would know where to look for them, she could tell that Kelsey was curious about it. So, figuring it would be easy to just text where they were when Vivian responded, Stella smiled to Kelsey saying, "sure. Though, let's try to stay on the edge of it." With that, Stella made her way to where the commotion was to check out what was going on.

Kiyoko was still somewhat confused by the custom that seemed to go on in Hearthome, but didn't really question it beyond that. She figured that Octavia and Natsumi probably knew more about her in these matters, so she just went along with them. Picking up a few bottles of water before making her way out of the store, the girl eyed the blue haired man and the young girl with him, curious about the two of them but not saying anything as she made her way out of the building. Trusting Octavia's intuition and know how on the matter as to where to go next, the girl followed them along as they made their way to some place known as "the arena." The actual place itself was something of a stark contrast to the streets that they had just passed through. Looking around, the girl felt some strange sense of structure in this building that was missing from the rest of the Hearthome so far, though it wasn't as if it made any more sense to her. Her attention was briefly taken by the duels that were going on, more so curious as to why they were dueling then anything else. However, the girl's attention was snapped back to the rest of the surrounding area, as she most assuredly felt as though all eyes were on them. Feeling innately cautious by the gaze, the girl simply stood her ground and looked to observe what the rest of the occupants of the arena were doing. This didn't last long, however, as Octavia had gone off to do reconnaissance of her own and came back with a lead. The girl nodded at Ocatvia's suggestion saying, "I will accompany you. If this is the most direct way to get where we need to, then I see no reason to not."

With the priest giving her the okay, Lana made her way outside the door with curiosity abound only to be stopped almost immediately. Right. It was a graveyard. Though Lana had to admit that the scenery of a graveyard near a hill and a river was breath taking in its own way, it was still a graveyard. No matter where it was, Lana figured that all graveyards would creep her out - just something about seeing all the gravestones around that made her simply tread more carefully where she was. All the same, the girl noticed the person she presumed to be the priest's daughter trailing around. Looking at the girl, Lana walked over but soon realized that she seemed to be talking to someone and was likely in the middle of something. So, while she was thinking of simply saying hello to the girl, she awkwardly stared from the side until she was sure the girl was done with whatever it was she was doing. As the young girl had suddenly taken note of Lana being there, the white haired girl couldn't help but feel more awkward, clearing her throat before giving a short wave to the red haired girl. "Oh, no, nothing like - well, no one I know would be buried here anyway. I just heard there was someone here and was curious so uh, yeah. Right, hi. Name's Lana. I just kind of help around here." At this point, the girl looked around as if looking for something - or rather someone else in this case - but upon not finding anything figured she was just imagining things. "So uh, were you in the middle of something?"

Nine was relieved to see that Shaymin was able to help them recover up before their showdown with the legend, nodding in thanks to her as he took the berries she created to heal up. With that out of the way and the party ready to go, Nine began to walk into the cave proper alongside everyone else. Once in there, the Houndoom looked around the rather perplexing walls of the cave. With a curious and concerned look on his face, Nine examined the strange shifting of the walls, cautiously running his hand along it only to realize that they were just regular old walls. Pulling it away as he saw that there was no actual difference between the strange shifting walls he was seeing and a regular stone wall, Nine simply continued walking forward curious about just what kind of legend Giratina was. As soon as they got into the main chamber, though, Houndoom looked behind him wide eyed to see Gwen apologizing before vanishing behind a wall of darkness. Reaching a hand out towards the darkness, but stopping short, the man's face was simply expressionless as he looked towards it. There was no shock, or fear, or anger or anything on his face. Simply a sort of acceptance. With his hand returning to his side, he sighed and simply muttered, "destiny calls, I guess." Turning around, Nine then saw the truly bizarre room he had found himself in. Though he was certain that everything he was seeing was real, there was a bizarre clash of what should be physically possible and what he was actually seeing that he was simply left perplexed by the whole thing. However, this feeling was soon replaced by a sudden weight and intensity as the legend they were looking for appeared. Though the room and cave before hand were clear signs of it, looking at the bestial body of the legend before him allowed him to fully grasp just what kind of legend he was dealing with. If there was a single word he could use to describe them, it was simply "twisted." Raphael had been a good indicator that he was most likely mentally twisted, as was the legend's opening comments to them, but it was far beyond that. It was simply like they just didn't belong - that everything they represented and could do were a complete perversion of the rest of the world they inhabited. That they were their at the world's creation was of no surprise to Nine, as the legend itself seemed to have been living in a world that was completely divorced from their own. And yet they, the sole being of a twisted world, was here in their world. All the same, as the legend croaked out its greetings to them, Nine couldn't help but think the apple didn't fall from the tree from legend to disciple. The same sense of fear and dread that had been present with Raphael was certainly present yet again - in fact more so with the added weight of its sheer presence. While there was a slight tremble at the sight of the legend, all that had escaped his mouth was, "well, you don't really seem like the talking type, nor do I think there's anything to gain from speaking with you. So let's just get this over with." Nine was surprised by his own dismissive attitude towards perhaps one of the oldest legends, though there was only one thing he could think of as to how that happened. He was in awe. He was afraid. But more than anything, he had finally been able to parse his feelings as the wall behind him at separated him from his fellow companion. He was annoyed. Though he was able to sort his feelings out, it didn't change his admittedly dire situation any more and so, Nine assumed a fighting stance, launching a dark pulse towards the legend.

As the group had come to the decision as to where to go next, which was unfortunately not the desert, they began to walk down the route proper. The route itself wasn't much to talk about, though Jacklyn could feel the adventurous energy brimming from all of the trainers that seemed to be occupying it as well. It wasn't until they were halfway through that they were stopped by a new figure on the road. The girl, seeming agitated and willing to fight, set the spirit of combat alight in Jacklyn. Which is to say, the girl pointed at Dinah as she sent out her Ponyta saying, "I'll have you know that we're on a quest to become champions ourselves! So, if we meet like this there's no choice but to battle here! Right gang?" The girl shouted back, but didn't really await their response as she started rifling through her own pokeballs. Sending out Cherry, the Buneary started hopping in place, seeming to instantly affected by the energy of combat that seemed to be in the air. "Alright Cherry let's - wait," the girl back tracked a bit before looking back to her opponent. Seeming to have forgotten something, the girl simply declared, "I'm Jacklyn!" Nodding to herself, pleased with this outcome, she then looked back to her Buneary saying, "alright Cherry, knock 'em out!" The Buneary nodded, looking ready to go as it jumped towards the Ponyta, going to pound at it.

Ryia was more or less dumbfounded by the sight that had played out in front of her. Her mouth was agape as she watched Geoff plummet from the sky not once but twice in his effort to fight against the bird. While she was glad that Keres had managed to make the fall, at least the first one, much less harmful then it otherwise would have been, the girl had still just witnessed a man fall from a great height twice in rapid succession. Naturally, her first instinct was to go over to check if he was alright and also attempt to run interference between him and the Roc if it wanted to go in for a third round. However, as Reinaan had called out to her, she knew that she was more or less in the perfect position to go run interference to help him on his climb up. Of course, the girl was also worried that the fire chosen was attempting to do the exact same thing that had just seemed to fail spectacularly, but she figured that he must have had more faith in his climbing and jumping skills than he did for Geoff. This did little to ease her thoughts on the matter. All the same, the girl began to walk west towards the pillar formation to help get her into cover if her distraction did end up working a bit well. Calling for her spirit to come galloping over to her side. Nodding at her spirit, the tall goat seemed to have a general idea of what to do as it summoned up yet another flurry of rocks. Banging on her shield, Ryia shouted, "hey! Um, Bird!? Over here!" The girl didn't really know how to taunt a giant flying, but she figured that continual pelting of rocks and loud noises was the way to go. So, as Ackrin fired yet another volley at the Roc, Ryia begant to bang her shield to grab its attention.

Lana let out a sigh as she woke up. More specifically, this came from when she had looked out the window of her rather small room. The sky was still dark, though not so much that the stars were visible at present. Looking at the river, the girl simply saw buildings stretch on beyond it and so her view of beyond them was obstructed. But, were she to hazard a guess, she would assume that the sun was beginning to crest over the horizon. It was more than likely dawn, the first light of it no less. There was no fields or crops that needed her care at the moment. In fact, there hadn't been in the past few days. And more than that she was now living it big, having actually made it to the big city itself. So, naturally, she had no reason to be up at such an early hour. The girl frowned at the sight, figuring that once she had made it here things would start to turn around and she would be able to start her quest towards leaving behind her old responsibilities and habits. Sure, she hadn't actually done anything in the city yet, nor had she actually been here for that long. But it was the principle and atmosphere of the matter. Thankfully, there was something that her newfound independence did afford her. Getting underneath the covers of her room once again, the girl closed her eyes as she went back into resting position. She had no nagging parents who would ask her to get back out and work, nor did she share the room with anyone else. Of course, her blissful moment of realization was ruined by the sudden creaking she heard. The girl jolted back awake, curious as to what it was. Houses creaked all the time, or at least hers did. But this wasn't the random type of creaking she heard from her home every now and then. It sounded more weighty. Which probably meant the Priest was here to give her some early task. As he was letting her stay here for free, she couldn't really complain about him putting her to work, but she wish he had picked a later time to do so. As such, the girl got out of her bed and started walking out of her little cupboard of a room. As she peaked her head around, the girl looked to notice on thing strange. The building was empty. That was certainly strange in of itself, but now that she thought of it she realized that the priest probably had to get up even earlier than her if he was already here to give her work. So, who was in here? The girl began to tip toe around the building, though she was pretty sure the creaking was louder then ever as she walked across the wooden floors. Looking to the ground, giving it a shushing motion, the girl eventually looked to see that a door out to the back had been opened. As she started to peer through the back of the door, the girl suddenly leaped in place, startled by the sound of the main door opening. With the priest coming to greet her, Lana cleared her throat saying, "um, hello there - er, good morning. Mr. Priest." As the man mentioned his daughter, Lana had figured she hadn't met anyone else here yet, though was relieved that it wasn't some kind of dangerous stranger. Or a ghost or something. As the man mentioned helping set up for the sermon, the girl gave an earnest nod to the man saying, "of course! When you're ready to get set up just give the word! In the mean time I'll just uh," the girl curiously looked to the door, then back to the priest. Giving him a thumbs up, the girl then simply walked out into the back, curious about how this other person was.

Well, the only horse worth beating is a dead one, so sign me up.

Alois continued to flip through the pages of the stargazing book, looking back to the mayor's note as he referenced each of the constellations he saw. Nodding to himself as he stopped at one page, the boy suddenly felt something looming over. Looking behind him, the boy realized that the frog of the group was there and raised an eyebrow at him. "Interested in stars - " The boy then suddenly jolted forward, accidentally slamming the book closed in the process, before taking a deep breath. Looking at the princess, stepping a bit back as she was quite close to him, cleared his throat. "Well, you know. Everyone's up here being angry or something, so someone's gotta." Opening the book back up again, going to where he was, the boy showed the two a picture of the constellation he had been looking at earlier. Showing the note that Adel had found earlier to Penelope, he said, "mayor seems to be quite the stargazer or something." The boy shrugged, pivoting and starting to walk towards the basement. However, after a few steps, he stopped and realized something. "Oh right. The five A's you guys found in that totally not suspicious and entirely fitting of a mayor's basement room wasn't five A's. It was like, some kind of letter ball sliding thing. Anyway, I'm pretty sure I got it so come along if you want to see some magic happen." The boy added some mock emphasis on the second to last word, before turning back and beginning to make his way downstairs. Once down there, he simply got a torch, walked back down the ladder and made his way over to the magic puzzle machine. Looking at the rat he said, "I see you haven't had much luck." Looking at the letters, the boy started to fiddle around with the puzzle again, sliding each and every letter into place. When he was done, the letters spelled out D - R - A - K - O. Clicking into place, the boy waited for a moment. And then heard another click. "Ta da."

Jun couldn't help but smile a bit as Kyouko went over her failings at attempting to join the other clubs, but then simply hand waved the last thing the girl said. "Well, you still should've come along to the duel team, skilled or otherwise. After all, Shiro sucked and look at him now!" The girl gave a hearty laugh as she said this, seeming to have quite amused herself, only to then to settle after a bit. "Well, hope you have fun with all of them. I don't think I ever really got what it was Souji's whole "Rider" thing was all about, but hey, if you're gonna do it might as well have fun with it right?" Looking back down towards the rest of the campus from where they were, Jun then noticed, "oh, looks like things are dying down. Well, guess we should get going if the party's over. Not like I can dance with these sleeves anyway," the girl held her sleeve covered hands out as she joked, but then began to walk back towards her dorm room.

I'll look to the dog and keep my ice cream away from it but say, "well, what're you doing out here all on your own you little pupper?" I'll then look to Assassin and ask, "were you good with dogs?"

Probably whatever Smogon tells me is good. I'm not very good at pokemon so I trust in the opinion of those who are. I also don't know how different Gen VIII is from others in terms of available moves and just other stuff but the ol Choice Spec, Timid, Psychic, Moonblast, Bug Buzz, U turn, Shield dust, 252 SpA and SpDe 4 SpD seems to still be fine.

Nine slowly brought himself up to a sitting position, though his concern towards Gwen still hadn't faded. As Shaymin spoke up, Nine both smiled and gave her a bit of a skeptical look, wondering if a barrier of this scale was actually that easy to put up to begin with. Regardless, he nodded alongside Gwen and Kayla's sentiments. "Right. This is probably the best chance we have. I can't imagine losing Raphael wouldn't spook them a bit, but if they're all half as crazy as him I don't know if it matters." Going from a sit to a standing position, Nine looked to Shaymin and said, "well, we can take care of him no issue. After all, this wouldn't be my first double header like this, and how much stronger than Raphael could the legend possibly be." With a humorless look on his face he followed with, "please don't answer that." Looking at Lok the Houndoom said, "alright, power nap time is over. We got a legend to confront Lok." With that, once their recovery process was finished up, Nine took a deep breath and readied himself for whatever they were about to face. He had his concerns and he had his doubts. But at the end of the day, he was a Chaser and all that really mattered was that there was a legend waiting for him ahead. Well, there was one thing perhaps more important than that, but Nine figured that it would come up on its own regardless.

Leon was put both more on edge and calmed by the posture his fellow company members, Alexis included, took up against the Sky Knights. And, while Rona seemed keen to keep herself as a diversion, like all the rest of his company members he was not about to let her just act as bait. He knew that she was strong, and Leon had always had faith in Rona's ability to dive in and come back out, yet this time it was different. These were neither bandits nor mindless beasts. They were men with the ferocity and knowledge to ensure that once they caught her they'd never let go. And though she seemed to be fine with that ending, there was no way Leon could agree with it. So, rather than repeating the sentiments of everyone before, Leon simply walked up and took a ready stance for the enemies as they came forward. The Paladin, meanwhile, had simply stayed his ground. Nodding his head, he said, "so it is death you have chosen. Very well. Men, forward!" As the man shouted this, the cavaliers and pegasus began to move forward, though despite the gravitas of the way he spoke, did not seem to directly engage. Instead, one group seemed keep to move further along their flank, while another simply closed the distance without actually engaging the group. As some of the other cavaliers began to move forward, the paladin simply raised his hand, the lot stopped as if waiting for something.

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Alois continued to fiddle around with the lock, but wasn't really making much headway in figuring it out. The boy scratched his head, not really having much to go on in how he was supposed to figure out the arrangement of the letters. And so, he figured it would be pointless to simply keep trying until he figured it out and go do some more investigating himself. Looking at the rat he said, "feel free to solve it if you figure it out." With that, he left the hole and began to make his way back to the first floor where he heard some manner of discussion going on. Though, upon looking at everyone and the air being weirdly tense Alois couldn't help but feel that they had done nothing in regards to actually figuring out this problem. Deciding the best place to look was the mayor's room itself, the boy simply said, "hey everyone what's going on - oh wait. I don't care." And with that, he passed by everyone else and simply walked his way upstairs. As he got up, he saw Adel looking around underneath a bed, clearly the woman having the same idea as him. "Hey, Adel. Fancy seeing you here." He called out to the woman, "you doing some sleuthing up here yourself?" "Oh, Alois. Not much, although I did stumble upon this journal by the mayor, as well as this torn piece of it." "Oh?" The boy raises an intrigued eyebrow. The last two stacks of paper the mayor had kept around that Alois had found, while not particularly pertinent to the puzzle, had been revealing about both the town and the mayor. "Any dark secrets inside? Crimes? Embarrassing stories?" "It's just, well, something strange. I wonder if you recognizes these names." Grabbing the paper as Adel handed it to him, Alois scanned over the first part of the page. As read the names of the two mentioned, the boy's face visibly soured as he said, "oh yeah. Contenders for second and third worst people in town. They're a couple of weirdos who - well, they're not really friends with anyone. Guess the mayor fits that too." The boy continued to look at the paper until he noticed another name on it. Alois didn't quite know what it was, or what it was about, but there was something about it that struck him as odd. Looking around, Alois didn't see anything to help him out with, but did remember that the mayor had a bookcase downstairs and there was almost definitely something useful there. "Hmm..." the boy mused aloud for a moment before saying, "alright. This'll come in handy. I'm going to take this with me." As the boy began to leave the room, papers in tow, Adel called out, "wait, what do you have in mind?" "It's a surprise!" He called back to her. Making his way back downstairs, still not at all paying attention to the commotion that was going on, the boy made his way over to the bookcase. Finding a book on stargazing, the boy opened it up and began looking into it. Tsetseg had simply sat there, not at all sure what to do about the current commotion at hand. She didn't know Edrick that much, but from what she did know he seemed to be a nice enough person. She wasn't particularly fond of his worship or where he was from, and now that it was brought to her attention again it certainly bothered her once more. Not to mention that Citron had vouched for him only made the girl knee jerk wish to disagree. Though still, the girl didn't think he was actually a problem or going to be a problem with all of the fluffy animal people and helping them out. Though he also tried to kill the beavers earlier. But so did she...did that make her also a bad person? The girl's expression was in great and serious thought as she tried to figure out what to feel about this whole thing. So deep in thought was she that she hardly noticed the Alois's rude pass by of them, before her brain somehow wrapped around to one conclusion. "Being on lookout is pretty cool." And that was all the girl had to say on the matter.