Outskirts of Pyrite Town

Velis stared at the town that had once been a home of rouges and scoundrels, it had been a town full of rough and ready trainers but a few of it citizen's had kept order so that no one had gotten too far out of line. She remembered what the police station had looked like before Cipher had torched it during the initial takeover. Overall, it had been a nice place to visit but she wouldn't have wanted to live there.

Now it was a place where hope went to die. It was a place where people went to join Cipher when they had nothing left. No hope and no chances left to fight. As far as Velis was concerned, it was a home of either people who had no will to fight against Cipher and traitors to the people of Orre who had joined Cipher. She looked down at the town from her hiding spot above the town and reached down towards the two Pokemon that were sitting next to her.

Her only two friends in this world after Cipher had taken everything else from her.

Quilava's fur felt warm to the touch which was to be expected as it was a fire type Pokemon and Croconaw was looking down at the town with an almost eager anticipation. They both knew who had hurt them and they knew who had hurt Velis. They knew what Cipher had done to the other Pokemon at her home and they knew what had happened to Velis's family.

Cipher had hurt them all.

And they knew that Velis wanted payback. To keep others from being hurt as badly as she had been. And Velis knew that her Pokemon wanted to make sure Cipher didn't hurt any other Pokemon as long as they were around. Velis studied the group of Peons guarding the entrance to the town. There were four of them. They're were supposed to be more but it looked as if a few of them were taking a break.

They were getting overconfident.

And that was a mistake they would regret.

As they reached the outskirts of Pyrite Town, Staraptor did her very best to perform a safe landing. There was something eerie about this place. Kjolmar and Roselia jumped off their travel companion and Kjolmar patted her at the side of her head. "Thank you for the ride, Staraptor. You should best fly back home before Lily starts to worry what is taking so long. Have a safe journey, my friend." While she flew off in the distance, Kjolmar and Roselia stared at Pyrite Town. "Well, I guess we should find ourselves some allies. It won't be easy to get in the Under, though." Roselia responded by pointing at Abra's pokéball. "Hmh.." Kjolmar mumbled. "I really think we should go for the subtle method first. At least until we now what we are up against."

Suddenly a snag ball hit Roselia straight on and captured it. Kjolmar gasped at the situation. "Roselia!" he shouted and ran for the snag ball but he missed as it returned to a mysterious person standing near them. The stranger hopped on a hovercycle and blasted off in the distance. "Noooo!" Kjolmar shouted while running after the hovercycle but ofcourse it was pointless. He fell in some dusty area and punched the ground for not being able to prevent Roselia being taken. It didn't even occur to him that he should check if the egg in his backpack was still intact.

While being on the ground, he spotted a girl in a hiding spot above the nearby town. Either she was with Cipher or she could help him get Roselia back. Either way, he had to make contact with her. Kjolmar wondered if she had seen the whole thing. "Hey! You, with the Croconaw and Quilava. Friend or foe?"

Hidden in one of Pyrite's many shadowy corners, Janus was leaned up against a wall. He observed what he considered home in the past, and narrowed his eyes in disgust. The place was absolutely pathetic from what he remembered, though he knew that the rebellious nature of it's inhabitants was probably killed off by cipher for the most part, but still found it quite sad that there weren't any peons getting shivved at times. How much of a fight did they truly put up is what Janus wondered; as he had been far-off in the desert when the assault on Pyrite happened.

'Perhaps Cipher hadn't allowed them to put up much of a fight.' He thought to himself, kicking off the wall and slowly walking along, watching the movements of those around him. Trainers that forfeited everything and joined the organization, trainers who wanted power, but didn't know that they were simply being used as tools. Pawns. "The people of Pyrite were smarter than this. Could they really have been blinded by lies so easily? And to think I considered Pyrite a place of criminal brilliance. Now it's just a hellish pit for the higher-ups in Cipher to collect troops for an army so they can further scale their assaults. Cipher used to be considered just a criminal organization, but now? They're warlords. Someone to be feared if you are the common man..."

He stopped, sighing. "Dammit. I want Pyrite to be it's old self again, but that's so far from reach." He muttered, shaking his head shamefully. His words were just loud enough to catch the attention of a peon, who noted his appearance as he momentarily stepped into the sunlight. The pink hair, the jacket with a ripped sleeve, the eyepatch... The man fit the description of a man wanted by some Cipher operatives for screwing around with their work over the years. The few attempts to catch him have ended with nothing more than empty hands. He was a criminal in Cipher's eyes, and the reward for bringing him in was worth most risks.

After gathering a few peons together, the group of thugs began approaching Janus with the intent to capture him alive, but severely injured. "Hey, you!" One peon called out, catching his attention. Janus quickly retreated into an alleyway, and the goons gave chase. Janus was a runner at heart; quick, able to get himself out of a situation. Though speed wasn't always of importance. A good head on your shoulders mattered as well. You had to know your hunter to outsmart him.

'They think I'm scared; don't want to fight. They'll think I kept running, making sure to escape. Simply hiding in the darkness will give me an easy way out.' Janus concluded, as he ducked himself down behind some old, rusted barrels. As the peons followed after him, they stopped for a moment, glancing about. "Where'd he go?!" One yelled, and became quiet soon after as the group glanced at the surrounding area. It was silent.

"That bastard would be shaking in his boots if he was hiding here! He probably kept runnin' to see if we'd stop!" Another Peon yelled irritably. "You're probably right. Who'd want to fight a group like Cipher? He's probably just a coward. C'mon, let's find 'em and take 'em in."

As the peons began running once more, Janus popped out and let out a sigh of relief, before straitening his jacket. "Now that I've got that out of the way... Might as well get a good view of the area, see what's going on aside from a group of idiots chasing an assumption." He chuckled, climbing up onto a nearby garbage can that was rather large. "Gotta be something of interest..." He grumbled, climbing up onto the window sills of the nearest building. He continued to climb up slowly, until managing to make his way over to a roof of a smaller building than the one he was climbing. He was breathing mildly heavy, finding a good position on the roof and sitting there to take a break and look over the area.

Not much caught his attention, though he saw a minor scene outside of town. Some blonde guy seemed to have his Pokemon snagged by a man on a hovercycle. "That's life, nowadays. Wonder if I could get some forward payment if I told him I'd get it back? Heh." He joked with himself, though after a moment he actually considered it. His eyes narrowed as he watched on, noticing the guy seemed to be staring either into space, or at something he considered interesting.

"Maybe he's one of those idiots who likes staring at the sun." Janus commented to himself, grinning as he watched on. He noted the peons guarding the entrance to town, and wondered if any trouble would break out for the guy. He assumed so, and figured it might be worthwhile to keep an eye on the newcomer for the moment. "He made a mistake coming here, that's for sure. The Peon's will eat 'em alive."

"Hey! You, with the Croconaw and Quilava. Friend or foe?"

Velis turned around quickly as she heard the sound of a snag ball activating and a hover-bike's engines activating. Her Croconaw let out a growl and the flames on Quilava's back shot out in surprise as the two Pokemon turned around in surprise. She narrowed her eyes in suspicion. "You don't appear to be a member of Cipher. What are you doing here?" She asked quietly as she saw the Cipher bike fade away in the distance. Her eyes went to the backpack.

She remembered hearing the sound of the snag ball activating and the pieces of what had most likely happened finally fell into place in her mind. "They stole one of your Pokemon didn't they?" She asked in a voice that had a tinge of sympathy which was more emotion than she usually had in her voice. "You might want to stay down or they might find you and make you disappear. Please keep your voice down or they'll hear and send someone to investigate."

As far as I know they might already be sending someone. It might not be a good idea to stick around here much longer. She thought as she saw a few of the Peon's looking around in confusion.

"Time to move." She said to her Quilava and Croconaw and the two Pokemon nodded. Velis turned towards the one who had interrupted her reconnaissance of Pyrite. "You might want to leave now. They know someone's out here."

Kjolmar held on to his defense stance while talking to the girl. He had his hand ready on Abra's pokéball in case things would get messy. But as she analyzed him as a non-Cipher member, he figured neither was she. Despite her stare at his backpack, Kjolmar let go of the pokéball. And that was a good thing to, considering Abra wasn't exactly easy to be around. The second the girl put one and one together, a certain sadness overwhelmed Kjolmar. "They took Roselia." he explained with a french accent.

Things were worse than he first thought, here in Orre. The girl asked him to keep his voice down and merely a few seconds later she said they had to move. He wasn't sure if they should split up or team up but one thing was for sure: this girl could prove to be an ally. "Where have they most likely taken him?" he asked, referring to his Roselia. "Could you help me get there?" He realized it was a bold request so he added the reason of his arrival. "I am not from around here, rumors reached my homeland that Cipher is dominating Orre so I came here to stop them. And now they took my precious Roselia." Clueless on the fact that they were being watched (by Janus), Kjolmar focused on the girl in front of him. "Name's Kjolmar by the way." he stated in an attempt to discover hers.

"I am not from around here, rumors reached my homeland that Cipher is dominating Orre so I came here to stop them. And now they took my precious Roselia."

"Cipher has had control over Orre for nearly five years now." Velis said quietly as she watched as the Peons began to head in their direction, leaving the gate of Pyrite pretty much unguarded. "Unfortunately, I don't know where they take the Pokemon they capture. There are rumors that there are labs in the desert and Pokemon being stolen from Colosseum matches when they're at their weakest. If I knew exactly where they take the Pokemon they capture I'd be there now instead of here."

She looked down at the town as the stranger introduced himself as Kjolmar. She turned to look at him. "My name is Velis. And since Cipher is already looking for me I suggest we get out of here before they find us."

"Hey! You up there!" Velis let out a low curse as two of the Peons looked up and saw her and Kjolmar. "Time to go." She called out to her Pokemon and she began running towards her hover-bike which she had hidden. She held two Pokeballs and Quilava and Croconaw vanished in flashes of red light into the Pokeballs. She turned to Kjolmar. "You can come with me. But you have to hurry."

Jason was treading carefully over the numerous tires and rusty gears among other junk laying in the middle of what used to be a road, constantly looking over his shoulder for the first sign of danger. He'd never been to Pyrite before; as far as he was concerned it had always been a rough city full of dangerous people, the type of stuff his parents had told him about in bed time stories to scare him away from traveling far beyond his home city. If it had been a city of thieves before though, it wasn't much more then a trash heap now, and while he was certainly concerned for his safety he also thought it was a pitiful site to behold. Occasionally among the odd piece of machinery and scorched scrap metal he'd see an abandoned item of intrigue and wonder exactly what the story behind it was. He wondered how many people even still lived here, and how on earth they did it.

He looked ahead to his traveling companion, who seemed to be having no such concerns. Gyle was working with his Sandshrew to move larger obstacles out of the way, making it somewhat easier for them to navigate. He was happily working along, ridiculously cheerful as always, which despite the help just made Jason feel tired and annoyed and even more concerned for their safety. Gyle didn't seem to think it was important to watch out for rouges or wild Pokemon even in a place like this, absentmindedly working on the goal at hand.

Five years. He knew. It brought up a sort of guilty feeling with Kjolmar for not coming here sooner. Then again, there was no way he could leave his sister behind before she was old enough to have her own pokémon.

When a peon spotted them, Veil suggested to flee. Kjolmar figured she knew this place better than he did and he didn't question her actions for even a second. While Veil withdrew her pokémon, Kjolmar jumped in her hover-bike without saying a word. He just nodded thankfully in agreement.

Velis jumped on the hover-bike and immediately switched the engines from idle to drive. She gunned the engines to full just in time to see two of the Peons grab onto the back of the hover-bike and hold on despite the fact that Velis was gunning the engine at maximum power. "You can't escape us!" One of them shouted angrily. Velis was forced to free up one of her hands and grabbed a wrench from the bottom of the sidecar and brought it down on the Cipher Peon's finger, causing him to shout out in pain and let go as the other one began randomly pulling out wires before Velis brought the wrench down on his fingers, forcing him to let go as she turned the hover-bike away from Pyrite and gunned the engine again.

She could see the power readings on the hover-bike fluctuating. The Peon that had pulled the wires loose had done more damage than she thought he had.

"Hang on. We need to find somewhere to make repairs." She shouted over the sound of the wind as the hover-bike tore across ground.

Kjolmar had to admit to himself that he was impressed by how Veil managed to get rid of the peons while still driving the hover-bike. He was a bit worried about the damage that the last peon had made on the vehicle though. Not without reason apparently, they needed repairs. Kjolmar realized it would take them some time before he'd get Roselia back. He hoped Roselia was fine...

"How about a near city or town for those repairs? I found some device earlier and I need to check its market value."