The Dewpider looked at the strange Froakie in confusion after it's little statement, creating an awkward silence until York nonchalantly interrupted. While Dewpider was in confusion, Froakie none too happy about it's theft, York was completely oblivious as he was busy reading Dewpider's pokedex entry.

Breaking it's little staring contest with the Froakie, the water bubble pokemon blinked in surpise at York's gesture, clearly not expecting to just be given food, being the one who ususally takes it. After staring at York for a moment to inspect him, it looked at the plate of food before moving in a little closer to begin eating it.

Or at least it tried to until Red turned around and said something else. For a moment, it seemed as if it was going to go back to being a staring contest but after a long pause, the Dewpider moved a little towards Ren before smashing it's water-bubbled head into his own causing the froakie to tumble backwards and fall to the ground. Whether it thought Ren's food was better, or was just simply picking a fight, The Dewpider then went back to eating off Froakie's plate, but not before flashing Ren a smug like look.

With the Dewpider seemingly intent on taking what is Ren's, it doesn't seem like these two will be getting along anytime soon.

---

The Sandshrew tried to make a break for it but Talonite and Gastly were ready for it and trapped it with a quick Mean Look. With the Sandshrew trapped and the Gastly moving in for a follow up, the sandshrew went on the defensive and curled into a ball, raising it's defense, minimizing the damage. Once the Gastly's attack let up, the mouse pokemon countered with Poison Sting, only for it to do hardly any damage. Suffice to say, the little sandshrew wasn't snickering anymore.

As soon as the ball Danilo had thrown was about to impact into his target, another Eevee swept in front and swatted the ball back to him. There were too many Pokemon present to get a clean throw, with the Fairy Wind coming out from Ruby's Sylveon, which ended up aiding the Eevees as they made their getaway, as this also buffeted the Ursaring while billowing the Eevees along. Luckily it did prevent the bench from doing more damage than it could have, softening it's impact. As soon as that had transpired, they watched as the Eevees disappeared into the bushes with Lucy went after them. It looks like they can relax for a moment now because the Ursaring was suddenly no longer preoccupied with them as Pokemon Rangers had shown up.

"You kids are the ones who fought the Ursaring. Awfully brave, but we'll take it from here", and with that they went to work.

They can continue their journey, but it seems Lucy had run off after the Eevees, while Danilo seemed intent and getting one of them, and was likely going to go after them.

On Lucy's end, she managed to follow the Eevees a fair while, but if not for her Elekid, they would not have tracked them to a tiny cave. It was more like a crack in the side of a small cliff, but according to Zap, the Eevees lived in there. They would step out to investigate, but a rowdy looking Eevee stepped out to confront them, like they were intruding on a country's border. It made a few grunts and growls, which Zap understood roughly as,

"Leave, let us live here in peace"

---

"Hmmmm, now let's see... How did I check it's cry again?", he wasn't paying attention to the scene between his Froakie and the Dewpider. As soon as he managed to find the option and hit the audio queue, at the very same time the Dewpider made a cry and struck Ren. Ren would immediately after recovering return the favor with a Quick Attack, and the two with York not noticing, would get into a full-blown battle.

It was really less a battle, and more a childish scuffle as both in their language would presumeably be spouting profanities as they beat each other up over a plate of food.

"Hmmm, now let's see... OOoh there's a habitat thing too. Yes, of course it'd already have Zirconium Lake listed", eventually the scuffle should end with them both tired, or the Dewpider does something drastic.

At Danilos words about the his hat Francis pecked Dan on the head in a way that clearly said.Idiot dont joke right now. The redhead winced rubbing his head. It was understandable the pokemon he raised was worried about him. But it appeared he didnt worry only his pokemon partner who landed on his shoulder as if to make sure nothing else would happen to him.
"Are you okay Danny? This is too dangerous, Ruby thinks we should retreat until the Pokemon Rangers arrive!"

"Quite a beautiful idea. We should definitely have some rest soon as well." Danilo nodded stepping away from the scene and noticing how shaken Ruby appeared to be. He placed a conforming hand on the girl's shoulder trying to help her calm a bit down as they moved further away from the Ursaring. The rangers appearing on the scene and ensuring them they had the situation under control that was great news to Danilos ears. Who felt like a weight dropped off him, realizing how truly lucky he was. His father did warn him that journeying was full of danger and how he should always be careful and with his pokemon.

Now he understood how dangerous his father meant. On top this was his first day on the road! How lovely the stories will be that he tells about his journey when the first day was this full of energy. Looking around the people he only then noticed someone missing.

"Where did our Lucy go?" Francis chipped for his trainer attention and pointed his wing towards the misty therain that was starting to vanish and the road from which the eevees came from. "Ah, she followed the entertaining trouble maker eevees didnt she?" Francis chipped with a nod. Danilo was leaning on his staff, finger slightly tapping against the metal, he was forgetting something...

"OH!" After a few silent moments where he just stood, he exclaimed. "I have thrown a pokeball at one of them, did I not?" Francis once more chipped and pointed his wing towards a pokeball in the dirt that got broken. Ah, that didnt work. How unfortunate. He looked at Ven and Ruby.

"Would you Ven consider to stay with Ruby, maybe set a place to rest after the excitement of the now? I would like to go and see how our Lucy is doing." He bowed slightly as he finished his words and started to stride away, picking his top hat and placing it on his head. Going down the part, he quite soon strayed off it and went deeper into the woods. Danilo simple strode in one direction he picked admiring the nature around him, wondering if he will see the eevees again. It would be quite lucky if he actually ended up where he intended to go, more likely he would end up somewhere.

---

The scientist Stephen had recently finished his initial inspection of the rocks he had been looking at before the trio had so hastily interrupted him, calling over several of his associates to take them away for additional examinations. After all, you couldn't take chances when it came to fossils or the like. Though, he was a tad saddened by how his bag had suddenly gone missing. It contained valuable stones that he had dug up, along with his lunch! He bet it was those pesky pokemon who had been pestering the excavation camp, not to mention this wasn't the first time those thieving pokemon stole from the workers. And whenever we would give chase, they'd just dig a new hole in the ground or in the walls to escape.

Stephen's thought processes, however, were soon interrupted when a large gust of sand and dirt came flooding out of the tunnels, showing the excavation camp in it briefly before it was sent upward from the wind. He assumed it was probably one of the pokemon causing more havoc, at least until he remembered that he had sent 3 trainers to deal with the problem. He assumed it was most likely something from their battle, and was at the very least excited to have those pests rid of. Then, when it was resolved, he could finally explore the caves for his missing items in peace.

So when the dust settled from outside the cave, Stephen began to venture inward, assuming it was safe.

"Are you fine in here, trainers? Or should I let another group in to find them?" He began shouting as he entered, rather curious to the outcome of their battle. Though, his reaction may vary depending on what he finds out.

---

Roxy seemed particularly excited about the discovery of the Fire Stones, even agreeing with the notion of just keeping them for themselves. Of course, they then both looked at Aiden for a final answer; it wasn't going to work out if Aiden was gonna go rat them out about finding some rare stones. As expected though, he wasn't too excited about the prospect of technically stealing, but let them decide what to actually do.

With that discussion over, the prescribed mission was probably over, so the team called it a day and headed back out of the cave. Walking out was a much nicer experience, the glow of the outside world beckoning them from the depths of the earth. As they took their first step back into the sun, Novis had to squint his eyes for a few seconds before he could even look at anything, though Nier was already bounding around with glee about getting out of the tunnels, the small dog nearly taking out Nov in the process. The team headed over to the excavator they had talked to, and on the way their, Nov quietly shoved the stones into his backpack while keeping the bag they found in the tunnel on hand.

Aiden gave one final look to him as if to ask if he really wanted to go about it this way, and Nov gave him a subtle nod just before the scientist turned to the group of teens. The team relayed the information about the mission to the man. The Pokemon they found, and the bag they found. Nov handed it over, giving a slightly disgusted look as he smelled the mess of spoiled food one last time. "If you were gonna eat that today... don't do it, man."

"So," Nov started, leaning back a bit with his hands behind his head. He looked to the side with a bit of a smirk. "Now that we dealt with those wild Pokemon of yours, is that it? What's our big reward?"

---

With that matter settled, the trio headed out of the cave, satisfaction ringing in the air. Roxy chewed the inside of her cheek as she thought about how she'd make it up to the Rockruff she just caught; surely, she wouldn't be in the greatest of moods. And in fact, she felt some training was in order for the little thing, too. But all that could be settled later, seeing as they were approaching the scientist they'd met earlier. Roxy had to cover her eyes as they adjusted to the bright light outside, with Lucina following suit shortly after. She let out a soft chuckle at the sight of Nier almost barreling Novis over, quietly petting the top of Lucina's head as the group made their way over to Stephen.

She noticed the look Aiden gave Nov, confirming that their little heist was a go. She felt sort of bad, seeing as Fire Stones were a pretty great find for any archaeologist. But they deserved some sort of reward, right? The scientist guy was asking them about how it went, drawing a small smile to Roxy's face. "It was fun! We took care of all three of them, so they won't be bothering you anymore." 'Fun' was definitely an understatement; Roxy had a blast. The whole thing gave her a renewed sense of confidence in the three of them...if they could handle getting jumped like that, then they could handle anything!

"If you were gonna eat that today... don't do it, man." Roxy's smile widened into a grin at that remark. Poor guy...his lunch was completely ruined. Roxy glanced at Novis, noticing the small, laid-back smirk on his face. She found that it suited him, somehow. "Now that we dealt with those wild Pokemon of yours, is that it? What's our big reward?" Her grin melded into an expression of surprise; he was asking for a reward even after they'd taken Fire Stones? That was something she hadn't expected.

---

Sage stopped suddenly as he was accosted by an arrogant-sounding voice. He turned to look at the source of the voice, raising an eyebrow as he did so. Clearly the two of them had been schooled in the Saturday Morning Cartoon variety of etiquette, with a side of, "How to be an Obnoxious Human Being." He resisted the urge to roll his eyes- that might just provoke another snide comment from the pair- and turned to Morgana.

"Hmm... what do you think, Morgana? Should we oblige their sad little demands and give them a show? I, for one, can see it being quite entertaining."

He didn't really want to fight these two losers, if he was being honest- he had Pokemon to catch, after all. But something inside him was cheering at the idea of knocking them down the ladder a few rungs, if only because they might be more humble to whoever came after them. He waited for Morgana's answer patiently.

@Brose

@Sho Minazuki@I-Am-X

---

Necro was stuck by a minor Poison Sting which he quickly brushed off as it barely did anything. The Gastly smiled ominously as his eyes glowed blue, attempting to use Hypnosis on the Sandshrew for an easy beating. Talonite caught up and decided to stay silent and observe Necro's actions. He also pulled out a Pokeball so he could capitalize if the Sandshrew actually fell asleep.

Aiden had been the first to make contact with the scientist, but before long Novis took over and he was fine with that,, it meant he could take a back seat and leave the negotiations to him. However, when he asked for a reward Aiden couldn't help but chime up to say, "We don't need a reward, we were glad to help and it was fun to do right guys?" He said looking around to guage his friends reactions. Zorex was certainly in agreement as he leaped and chimed up with his usual energetic and cheery growls. Thankfully though Zorex had remained quiet unharmed during the fight being a sort of hard support from the background or just a cannon to fight.

Regardless Aiden was ready to see what else the place had to offer and with his new friend by his side he was eager to find a nearby Pokemon Center to revive and revitalize him so that they could have a proper introduction. But of course they would have to make a hike to get that and now was business. So breaking out of his trance he remembered that he'd have to try and talk out the deal. Of course he'd want a reward, but given that he had a new friend and Novis and Roxy had kept the firestones it didn't seem right to take more.

As the Pokemon Rangers arrived, the Ursaring was finally contained much to everyone's relief. Glancing at the rangers who had arrived, Ruby showed little disappointment that none of them was her father. Due to being distracted for a moment, her blue gaze lost sight of Lucy and the fancy boy Danilo called over as he ran into the woods, "Would you Ven consider to stay with Ruby, maybe set a place to rest after the excitement of the now? I would like to go and see how our Lucy is doing."

As soon as the feeling of safety sank in, Ruby had no hesitation in following them to the forest despite the other's wishes. I mean, how dare they leave Ruby to the dust and focus their attention on those trouble making monsters! Despite staying barely obedient after the whole bold declaration scene, Ruby's true colors was that of an ambitious, attention seeking star-to-be. Whereever her fans the people will go, Ruby will go. "There's no way Ruby will let them get away-- I mean let them go by themselves! Bye bye for now Venny, we're gonna follow them in~!" With a wink, she and Berry were gone.

"Come on Berry, can you track those little trouble makers' scent? They'll pay for making a fool out of you and grabbing all the attention I rightfully deserve!" A sinister aura engulfed the creepily huge smiling Ruby as Berry made a "Uh oh, master's mad. This is not going to be pretty." expression. While Ruby was alone to herself or with her partner, the teen would expose her toxic, yandere side with no worry. The Sylveon would instead worry for the poor Eevees and the fate they will meet upon encountering the little girl.

Finally picking up a scent among tracks that seemed to be left by small sized Pokemon, Berry would make a barking noise to inform Ruby of her discovery before running deeper into the forest. "Good girl, Berry~! Come on, let's catch up to them!"

While she doesn't like to admit it, it remains clear that if it wasn't for Zap, they wouldn't have tracked the Eevees as far as they have. They managed to track them down to a small cave, which seems to be where the Eevees live, if she was to understand Zap correctly. Just as they were about to get closer to investigate, a rowdy looking Eevee, presumably their leader, came out instead to confront them. It made few grunts and growls, that Lucy wasn't able to understand but from the tone, it was clear that they weren't wanted their. Probably a threat.

Though, she was partially correct, while it wasn't exactly a threat, they did want them to leave, if what she understood from Zap was accurate. After following them this far, Lucy had no intention of turning back now. There was still something she didn't get, the Ursaring. Crossing her arms, she looked right at the rowdy looking Eevee. "Tell me what happened with that Ursaring and we'll leave." as well as the berry, the 'race' was still on. Of course, Lucy and Zap didn't tell them that. Now it was up to Zap to translate, she was hoping that it wouldn't lead to a fight, after all, Zap was still hurt.

The Eevee leading them was ready to attack to get them to leave, he was a hardy one, but before he could, another one jumped out from their little cave and made some yelps, the leader stood down. The leader took a deep breath, then he began to respond to the Elekid translating for Lucy.

After that was done, Zap tried to speak to Lucy but came under the realization that she could not understand Pokemon, which Zap had understood too, so the Elekid proceeded to tell a story charades style.

From what Lucy can gather, the Eevees here were out gathering food one day like always, and two of the youngest ones didn't understand not to take from trees that had claw slashes on them, no matter how plentiful. These trees were marked by Ursaring, and so they had to as a group lead the Ursaring away from the nest. Although this translation can be taken to liberty... Based on the faces of some of the Eevee peeking in back, they were simply mischievous and wanted to mess with the Ursaring.

Sounded like trouble, but basically the trouble should be past for now. Though as that concluded, the rest of Lucy's group showed up in time for her to explain. Ursarings weren't known for grudges too, but while their backs were turned and just as Lucy finished her explanation, two little Eevees sprinted off and the leader they were speaking to chased after the two.

It seemed something was up.

With York remaining oblivious to the mortal struggle going on nearby, the two pokemon started trading off attacks, Ren with quick attack and Dewpider with Bubble. While to them it may appear to be a serious fight, if looked upon through other peoples eyes, it probably looked like a silly fight between children and would simply laugh at them.

After slapping each other around and cursing each other out, they both collapsed on the ground out of exhaustion. Though, even then, they laid on their backs exchanging slow, tired slaps before it slowly came to a stop, leaving both defenseless.

---

Cursing it's luck, the Sandshrew tried to close it's eyes only to find that it couldn't move. Soon it found itself closing it's eyes for an entirely different matter. As it started feeling drowsy, the Sandshrew made one last desperate attempt to stop it with a Sand-Attack, but alas, it soon found itself falling prey to the Gastly's Hypnosis. With the little mouse pokemon now asleep, it was now wide open.

After some time of having fun browsing the Pokedex he remembered that Ren was still with said Dewpider. He turned back to them, and both of them were exhausted and collapsed.

"Wow, you two certainly were busy", the Froakie tiredly raised it's hand into the air while laying down, saying something along the lines of,

"The Arcane Master... Is no mere mortal... It seems", must be talking about the Dewpider. He turned over to the Dewpider.

"Ahahaha, hey Tal you seein' thi- Oh", he spotted Talonite just not too far off from the cafe, and he was locked in battle with a Sandshrew.

"I guess I'll ask him later. Well I think you two earned seconds", he said. After not long and heading over to the cafe counter he came back with two bowls of Pokemon food, and placed them in front of the Dewpider and Ren, before sitting back down. As soon as they were comfortable, he asked the Dewpider,

"Hmmm... Say, you wanna join me?"

@Sho Minazuki@I-Am-X

---

Necro staggered backwards as it blinked rapidly to get the sand out of its eyes. He certainly did not appreciate that and it gave Sandshrew another mean look, this one unrelated to battling. Talonite threw the Pokeball at the Sandshrew and waited for the capture to be confirmed, in the mean time he needed to take care of a few minor annoyances. He grabbed his headphones off the floor and clipped them to his belt, they had fallen onto the ground rather than into the water, so that was good.

He then proceeded to take off his sweater to wring out the water that was bugging him so much. He absolutely hated wearing wet clothes, his biggest pet peeve overall. Underneath the sweater was a black long sleeve shirt which clung tightly to his skinny body. If one were to look at Talonite's body they could tell that he was definitely not very athletic, but he wasn't overweight either. He was just really skinny, probably because of things like this happening when he tried to eat. "Good job Necro, really earned your food today." He said without looking at Necro, instead focusing on wringing all the water out of his clothes. Necro looked at Talonite with a proud smile and cackled.

York called out to him and Talonite sighed in frustration. "I thought I said to both call me Tal!"

---

Stephen shifted in place slightly at the thought of a reward, his usual calm and arrogant being replaced with something less so. Luckily, it did seem as if one of them didn't wish for one, to which Stephen hastily readjusted his glasses, taking the bag Novis had given him and looking in it with disappointment. His lunch was ruined, and now it seemed the stones he was trying to protect from the thieves was now missing. With a solemn look, he turned to face the adventurers.

"Unfortunately, our abundant supply of what we normally dig up has... more or less been stolen by those you so recently apprehended. I'll have to send in some of my colleagues to comb the caves in order to find the missing stones and fossils they stole... Sadly not even my bag was safe from them, I had put in some of the stones there in hopes that they would only see the lunch and leave it be, but alas, they stole the bag and the fire stones..." He paused for a bit, snapping out of his regret to look at them more direct.

"The short answer is, we can't spare any of our resources to give to you, but perhaps that, since you're trainers, the experience and thrill of the hunt was reward enough. Good luck in your travels. Now, if you excuse me."

And with that, Stephen turned his back to them, starting to walk away towards a group of excavators. It would appear their business here was done.

---

Novis gave Aiden a "what the hell dude" kinda look when he shot down Nov's request for a(nother) reward, but Nov quickly bit his tongue when the scientist looked disappointed after rummaging through the bag Nov had handed him. With an uncomfortably stern stare, the man explained that because of the constant thievery they had been experiencing, they had no resources to spare for a prize and that the experience would be satisfactory for any trainer. Novis opened his mouth to say something, but before he could voice a single syllable, the man had already integrated with a small crowd of other excavators, leaving them literally in the dust.

Apparently that was all there was to it, though. The group of three trainers stood in a semi circle, and Nov just looked over at the other two with eyebrows high. He dug the Fire Stones out of his bag and tossed one to each of them. "Think the stones would've been the reward? ... Eh, whatever." The sun glinted off of the red stone brilliantly, the colors inside lit like fire. Either way, he was glad to have one for Nier... one day.

He surveyed the whole of the excavation site again; there wasn't much to do here besides bother the excavators, so Nov shoved his hands in his pockets and took a few steps back towards the main path, intent on ditching the site ASAP. But, when he couldn't hear Nier following, he flipped around to see the red dog head-butting Aiden and Roxy's shoes all while giving a few little barks and whimpers. He knelt down and held his hand out, to which Nier came running to quickly.

"You hungry, bud?" The dog yapped happily and did a spin. Nov was plenty familiar enough to know it was the meal dance, so the teen stood again and pointed over towards the small rest station a little ways down the route. "Let's take a break, guys. After that whole lil' adventure, we all could probably use a quick rest, yeah?"

---

Roxy let out a bit of nervous laughter as Aiden jumped in, talking about how they were happy to help and didn't need a reward. He looked at her, almost expectantly, as if he was trying to see her reaction. "Um, well, I mean..." She trailed off as Stephen began to speak again, listening closely as he explained the circumstances behind his bag being stolen. Roxy almost felt guilty when he expressed his disappointment in the Fire Stones being gone.

Almost.

He left shortly after, a dismissive tone in his voice that made Roxy pout a bit. "Well, he was kinda uptight, wasn't he?" Roxy shrugged it off, though; a lot of people in his field were like that. She would know, anyway. Her pout was quickly replaced with a grin as Novis tossed her one of the Fire Stones, a gleam in her eyes at the sight of the stone in her hands. It would most certainly come in handy one day, if she ever caught a Pokemon that evolved with the use of a Fire Stone. Roxy had a feeling she would.

As Roxy turned to follow Nov out of the excavation site, she felt something nudge her feet. She glanced down to see Nier butting his head against her shoes, which made Roxy laugh because he looked ridiculously cute. She knelt down and petted the Growlithe's head, earning a semi-jealous glance from Lucina. "Aww, what's up, buddy?" Roxy glanced up at the sound of Nov's voice, not noticing just how hungry she was until now.

Roxy stood back up, stretching out her arms. "Mmmm, a break sounds like a good idea," she said, looking down at Lucina for her opinion. The Riolu nodded rapidly, meaning she was probably starving too. "We've got a long trip through the Zamak Ruins, so a quick rest is probably in order. What do you think, Aiden?" she asked, looking at her friend as she waited for an answer.

As Ven watched everything unfold he wondered why the hell everything was happening, why was their flying benches now? It seemed as if Ven went back to his state of confusion until the poke rangers finally turned up and got a handle on things.

With a sigh of relief Ven relaxed for a moment only to be distracted by his name being used, but before he could say anything everyone already hurried off to what seemed to be the direction the eevees ran off to.
Looking down at his partner Ven sighed again, “ya know what buddy I think we should just rest up and make something to eat, bein dragged everywhere kinda started to make me tummy rumble”
Agreeing with the idea of food the blue sylveon nodded and sat down.

Setting up wasn’t too much of a hassle so Ven got distracted by thought as he pulled out his pokedex, “how does this even work?” it seemed Ven wasn’t that great with technology leveled with the fact he was dragged out here without an explanation of how it works properly or a map.

All this being thrown into everything was draining.

Danilo didnt get too far in the woods, enjoying the silence that quickly settled. Francis slowly relaxing as he petted the bird. Francis chipped and nuzzled Danilos petting finger when both heard some rustling not too far of their side. It was a sylveon, and right behind her Ruby. It was quite a surprise to Danilo to see them as he awaited them to rest a bit up after the encounter. Apparently his travel companions were all full of energy. Danilo hoped Ven who stayed behind would not get bored without them.

Then again Danilo could tell the other boy all about what happens that he missed. A ear to listen to a wonderful tale. It would be perfect. As Berry was following the trail of the eevees leading them onwards, Danilo followed them. Soon enough they reached the front of the cave and spotted Lucy and Zap.

The explanation of events followed and Danilo was leaning on his staff carefully listening to it, Francis on the other hand decided to fly under his hat and take a nap. Hoping this one last longer.

"Quite interesting indeed." He responded and then two Eevee run off and the oldest looking Eevee followed up. With all that happened, Danilo assumed that some more trouble was going down. They could just leave and allow the group of eevee to resolve their problems on their own... but... The potential story was making Danilo quite interesting in seeing what will happen next.

"Hm... More running." He mumbled to himself and started going after the rascals to see what upset the eevees.