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It was good that Carmen took the lead on something. Technically, she had taken the lead on actually going outside too, but she’d been waylaid there by a fucking deer of all things, so at least she knew how to get back on track. He dutifully followed behind, checking up above in the treeline for any suspicious omens while Carmen checked the ground. Of course, that meant when Carmen did find something and stop, Brian nearly barreled into her. “Say something next time,” he said, ignoring the fact that she was saying something, and, in fact, was pointing at some turned-over dirt that she’d deemed worth investigating. Brian looked at the ground, then back at Carmen, then back at the ground, then back at Carmen. “You don’t look like the sort of girl who’d complain about getting her hands dirty,” he said. It wasn’t entirely true -- Carmen seemed like the sort not to want to do any work at all -- but he hoped the meaning of it came across alright. At the same time, he couldn’t deny a certain appeal at being asked to do “a man’s work.” “Alright, fine, I’ll be right back with a shovel.” He trudged back out of the woods, across the field, past the house of the guy whose name he’d already forgotten (Keith?), and back to Shiki’s van. Shiki was gone, of course, but the van had been left behind with all the miscellaneous stuff. Thankfully, a shovel counted as miscellaneous. He passed the house again, hoping Kenneth didn’t spot all that wasted movement, but also not willing to check if the man was standing by the window watching them, then went across the field, and back into the woods. There was a small fear of getting lost, of not being able to find Carmen again and making one wrong turn too many until the whole forest was alien to him and he couldn’t get out, left to the mercy of whatever was out here, but he found Carmen pretty quickly, it turned out. She didn’t notice him come back, though, because she’d found herself in another fucking staring contest with another fucking deer. “Hey!” Brian said, rapping his knuckles against the shovel head to scare the deer off and bring Carmen back down to earth. “We got work to do!” Brian had work to do, anyway, and he plunged the shovel into the patch of dirt. He hoped there weren’t any power lines or anything that a utility company might get mad about, but he dug in anyway, scooping dirt aside into a pile. It did not take long to find something, and Brian knelt beside the little hole he was creating to pull out a bone. It was too small to be a human bone, Brian thought, and he showed it to Carmen and placed it opposite the dirt pile. Pretty soon, he’d found another, and another after that. All of this, Brian showed and put aside until he hit the piece de resistance of the whole mystery: he put the shovel aside, got down, and pulled out a dog skull. “Well, that’s something,” Brian said, getting close to telling Carmen good job, but not quite. He grabbed a seal from Carmen’s box and stuck it on the skull. “Probably should put that back before it gets mad at us.”

The ripples in the waves made by not only the bob, but by Confi as she swam lightly around were… Soothing to watch, Anima would have to admit. There was something so… Simple about it all, that made it relaxing. As if this could soothe any turmoil, as if this could smoothe over any problem that arose, merely by letting the waves crash into it, chipping away her stress bit by bit, until it had eroded completely. That was a thought that, admittedly, was… Comforting to Anima, as she stared at the little lost soul, which swam about in the water chittering quietly herself, occasionally glancing upwards towards Anima to make sure she was still there, before returning back to the waves. So it was, that she had focused upon Confi so much, that Anima hardly noticed the pale woman as she approached; only really reacting to her a moment later, when the woman spoke to her, though, even then, for a moment… Anima did not reply. Her expression shifted, slightly, as after a moment, she realized that she was even being spoken too, noticing the woman’s shadow first, and then glancing up towards her. She examined the woman for a moment, nerves still softened by the waves, so that she did not scream, panic, or even flinch at the prospect of meeting and talking to someone new-- And instead smiled, and nodded. “It’s, um… No bother at all,” Anima spoke softer now, the bombasticity of getting to fish having worn off by now, as she brought a hand away from her fishing rod to rub idly at her neck. “Are you, um… here to fish too?” she asked; though, she doubted that fact as she did so. The woman sat down, letting out a sigh of relief as she was no longer standing. Looking at Anima the woman shook her head and said, “I’m here for a break until I have to start walking again.” Then looking down at Confi she asked, “you aren’t from around here, right?” “Ah, just here to relax then?” Anima nodded. “I’m not much of the outdoorsy-type either, to be honest,” she laughed a little, before nodding. “...But, er… You’d be right. I’m from Galar,” she confirmed. “My partner here, Confi, is a type of Corsola that you can find there.” The woman nodded slowly, a small flash of pride going across her face for a moment and muttered, “Galar, I thought so…” returning to a more neutral expression she looked back and, rather than answer asked, “are you looking to become champion then?” Anima’s expression shifted, then, as she contemplated the question she had just been given. The natural answer, would be to say… Yes. that she wanted to become the Champion… And yet the answer didn’t come right away. Perhaps, it was because of the doubts which had set root back from her first battle. Perhaps, it was because she didn’t want to seem conceited. Perhaps… It was simply because she wasn’t sure if she would be capable, and yet… She had to put all of those reasons behind, as she nodded, after a moment, and closed her eyes. “I hope to, one day, yes. I…” her hand shifted then, from her throat, to one of her sleeves, twisting the fabric into a knot as she spoke. “I know it won’t be easy, especially for a trainer as inexperienced and impulsive in battle as I am, but… I’d like to do it, or to at least try. To... prove to myself that I can do it.” “I see…” the woman faintly smiled as Anima gave her answer. “That’s commendable for an indoorsy type. Or maybe it’s because...” The woman trailed off before looking past her and muttered, “right they come in…” looking back to Anima she asked, “are those your partners?” “Hm…?” Anima cocked her head to the side at the ‘maybe its because’, before following her gaze at the question that came next, to see… Jacklyn and Anneliese, working together to fight against a tug on their line. “Ah… Yes, I suppose they are,” she nodded, laughing a bit. “They’re a bit of a… Um… Handful, as you can imagine,” she winced slightly. “But so far we’ve been managing alright, I think.” The woman looked at Jacklyn and said, “my condolences.” Sighing, the woman joked, “but I can barely handle myself on a journey so maybe that too is commendable.” “It’s… Not easy,” Anima admitted, her tone dropping a little. “We’ve only just begun, and yet I find myself wondering at every junction... If I’ll be able to take care of myself; let alone both of them,” she muttered, hand balling the edge of her sleeve further into a fist as she spoke. “But… They’re good kids. They’ve probably got more of what they’ll need to become champion than I do--” she chuckled a little, her expression softening. “But… I won’t let that stop me from trying. Even if they’re way ahead of me in the actual catching department when it comes to Pokémon-- I’ll work as many times harder as I have to, to keep up, and… Even surpass them, should I have to.”

"Feel free to thank me later," What was that supposed to mean? Thank her for what exactly? Shawn stared at the girl for a good few moments, more like glared, trying to work out if she was pulling his chain or not when the excitable boy from earlier chimed in. “Huh? Of course it didn’t come off on its own. That sleepy-eyed girl from Borya Town used her psychic powers to knock it down.” "Oh is THAT all?" Shawn said. "Just your casual every day occurrence right?" Shawn said then muttered under her breath, "this place is loony." “She isn’t reading our minds though. At least as far as I can tell. She didn’t react when I thought about my underwear.” "Wha...why're you trying to get her to react to your underwear in the first place?" Shawn couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was this kind of thing normal for people of this region? He supposed it could make sense. After all they didn't really have contact with the outside world so there was no telling what kind of strange behaviors are normal here. ...Which made him even more leery about going into the warehouse. Who knew what kind of mad things they might find inside it. As more of the remaining people began to make their way inside Shawn found himself at an impasse. Sure he didn't know what was in the warehouse, he wasn't afraid of the dark or anything of course just logically it made sense to be worried about something so unknown, but realistically he also didn't know much about the city itself. For all he knew there could be people who roamed these parts and kidnapped people in the middle of storms. Ultimately he decided to follow the majority and went into the darkness and for the first time in hours out of the rain. Which of course only made him more aware of how wet he was. "Bloody cold innit..." He groaned. He paused as the girl who had crash landed on him began to talk to the darkness. What....exactly did she expect to respond? Was this place haunted? Or maybe they had just stumbled into the hideout of some Rocket-like gang? The moment passed pretty quickly but it was enough to make Shawn feel even more nervous about standing around there. "That's not important right now, though. It's time for introductions! I'll go first. My name is Anna, and I'm Professor Appel's assistant. I volunteered to substitute for him today to meet you all and ask you for a favor on his behalf. He's been pretty busy at the lab, so it worked out okay, I think. Weeded out some of the less worthy."  Shawn groaned again and rolled his eyes. "Yeah I can really feel the worthiness of this group." It sounded like they were expected to introduce themselves. Which, okay, sure, if they were going to be stuck in this place it'd be good to have names he supposed. That Nikolaos guy started to brag about his flashlight and Shawn held himself back from telling him a lantern would have helped a lot better if they wanted to actually see what was in the warehouse more than a straight line. The only reason he didn't was....he might need Nikolaos and that flashlight later. Still it didn't really make him any more comfortable standing around in the dark surrounded by strangers. "I'm Shawn." He said simply. "And don't think just cause little miss assistant got the drop on me that I'm some pushover, got it?" A thought came to mind and he decided to let out his Pokemon. Chomper came out and seemed quite confused at having been let out in such a dark place. "This is Chomper, toughest Totodile around....I'm just letting him out because it's been a while, not cause I think I'll need him or anything." Even though his thought process was in fact "If something's gonna attack me I better have someone I can trust ready." Though as Chomper's first action was to sit down and nod off between his feet perhaps he wasn't much better off anyway. "He, uh, likes to conserve his energy for when he's battling."