"I'll do so quick as I can, Prof. For now though, I should head out." Waving to her on his way out, Jason felt his Pokedex buzz and took a look at it. "Vastille City..." He pulled up the map on his Pokedex and mapped out the route he'd end up taking to get there, humming as he did so. It's definitely along the way and I definitely need to hit more areas up, find more Pokemon and raise the team up...Also should look at challenging a gym soon myself... Nodding to himself about the route, he typed out a response.

I'll probably be able to make it in three days, but I'm gonna suggest four just in case. Got another person who might be joining me and they're still in the woods right now, but yeah, I'll see what I can do.@Sanguine Rose

"And send." With his response sent, he decided to go check out the gym here in Starbor, get a feel for if he was ready to face it.

@Joshua Tamashii@Remram
"Quih' yoah wohry-wahtin, if any ol mawnstah wahnts t' troy us, Oy'll myke em the firhst victim hahh!" If Steph was on edge, then unlike Freya she didn't show it. If anything, such a prospect seemed to make the girls grin wider? Truly, no one could comprehend the eldritch abomination that was her mind. On that thought, would anyone even want to? A great question. Though for now, such a question of important had to be shelved as sounds could be heard from inside.

Clinking? And clanking? It was like metal grinding on wood, most annoying as Steph showed with her current expression like someone had just started dragging their nails across a chalkboard. She still looked less than impressed when the door opened, but she quickly shifted to gawking upwards as she felt like she was staring up beyond the clouds.

Were old people normally this tall in this region? Upon reflection, was everyone from here tall? Freya seemed pretty tall, but like...this was ridiculous right? However, despite the menacing build and attire of the woman, and the seemingly blood dripping from their knife and apron, Steph still reached forward with a hand and toothy grin.

"Noice t' meetcha, nymes Steph! Whahtcha mayn boy moah of yah though? We ain't sayn nao one else round here buh' yah?" She looked round as she said that, almost as if expecting to see another dozen or so people just...pop out of the woodwork. But alas, no one else appeared and she shrugged. "So is this the paht yah stab us oooooor is Freya here gawnna be disappointed we ain't in a horror muvay roigh' naow?"

4 days sounds good. Anything changes, lmk. Will do same for you. @zarkun

"I know I don't have to travel with him, but Sage and Tilia connected with his Riolu and Murkrow. It would be rude to them to ditch him - even if I texted him - to go traveling with someone else. They all deserve a chance to say goodbye. And besides that, Tristan and I..." She looked up at the sky as if Arceus might tell her how to phrase it, and scratched the back of her head. "Well, we're kinda working out the secret to being able to enter the Illusive Forest without, ya know, disappearing."
She looked at Rosa and laughed a bit sheepishly. "So a little bit is about not giving him the satisfaction of being the only one to get in there if I ditch him."

She lost the sheepish smile to a more thoughtful look. It occurred to her that the forest could colloquially be called Forest of Fae. Which was where she assumed the tinkatinks that stole the engine were supposed to be living. That farm seemed a bit out of the way for pokemon that might live in the forest, but it was reasonable they'd hid somewhere abandoned that was near their original home if something chased them out. What if there was something dangerous in the forest that chased them out? "Plus, I think there's something wrong in there. Didn't it seem odd to you that some tinkatinks were causing issues so far from where they might be typically found? Route 1 is not their natural habitat, as far as I know, right?"

Thankfully for both of them, those thoughts kept her distracted from the cacophony of distracting potential that is the town of Florasong. Before she realized it, they were in the park. Just in time for a different type of distracting noise to catch her attention. A pokemon battle in the park? Wait, was that Tristan?...battling - is that a gardener? Well that was worth a watch, but it also probably wasn't a bad time to take a bit and get another member for her team, or even perhaps just train up one or two of them.

"Hey, Rosa, how many 'mon do you have? I think I'm going to head over to that section to see what I can catch and-or maybe just train up my 'mon battling." It might have been good to watch how Tristan handled whatever was left of the battle, she couldn't keep ignoring the needs of training up her own team just to observe how her first traveling companion handled a battle. She could do that first hand by just challenging him.

Much as she suggested she would, Faye headed off to another section of the park no far away to see if she could find a rare pokemon, or at least uncommon pokemon, to capture. In lieu of that, she planned to just get her existing team members some battling experience.

Amelia smiled as the Pumpkaboo turned towards her and began circling her. Even as others approached her, she remained calm and if anything, she felt a little excited. She has the possibility of making a new friend here. Once all the ones who wanted to see her had come over, she took a moment to look over all of the ghostly pumpkins, trying to see if there were any that where different from the others or possibly being excluded for some reason. If there was one such Pumpkaboo among the group, she would want to take that one, since she would feel bad if she left a Pokémon in an environment where it was not welcome. Regardless of whether there was such a Pumpkaboo, she would take a moment to address the group as a whole.
"Hello there. How're you all doing?" She said to them, giving them another small wave. "I was wondering if any of you would e willing to join me on a journey? I won't try to force any of you to come with me and I would prefer to avoid a battle if possible. But if any of you would be willing to come with me, I would be happy to take you with me."

At her feet, Gollett and Mimikyu watched the possible threats closely while Yamask and Phantump floated over either of her shoulders, both f them on guard as well. While Amelia did not expect or want a battle, her Pokémon where ready to defend her if need be. But how things played out remained to be seen.

Amelia also noted the presence of a ghost back in the cabin and wondered if it was of a different species of Pokémon. But she could check that out later, first she had to see if she could capture a Pumpkaboo first.

@Zarkun

Once again, Jason would take the cable car up to the Entertainment District. The cart shook slowly against the breeze as it ascended higher and higher, pass the canopies. Once it came to a halt, the sliding doors opened, and people rushed out to the wooden streets.

---

@Lunarlord34@Joshua Tamashii

The tall behemoth of a woman stared in silence; her face completely unreadable. She turned to look at Freya and said, "What the fuck did this gremlin just say?" She pointed at Steph like she was referring to some ill-begotten beast that had lurked out of its hole, speaking in tongues to drive those who listened to it mad like some being foreign to their sense of reality. She wasn't that far off.

"Uh... she said her name is Steph and she asked if you're going to kill us." Freya said, her eyes not pulling away from that suspiciously red covered knife.

The woman arched a stern, yet confused brow at the strange, very unreasonable "Why in the world would I want to murder two teens who wander to my cabin in the middle of the woods?" Clearly, she was not an expert in horror movie tropes. Freya hesitantly pointed towards the knife and the apron covered in the red stains. The woman glanced down and then squinted at them. "It's tomato soup. I'm doing my dishes. I just had another kid here like five minutes ago and I made him food."

Her eyes fell upon another figure that hung further back on her property. "Did you seriously bring a kid here?"

Meanwhile...

In response to her proposition the pumpkin ghosts huddled each other and whispered, glancing back to look at Amelia. Eventually, they broke up and a representative came forward to her.

It said to her with a surprisingly formal tone, "Pumpka, pumpka pump. Pumpka pump pump pumpka. Pumpka pump pumpka!" ... That would have actually meant something to her if she could actually understand what these haunted gourds were saying. However, her ghost-type Pokemon caught the gist. Amelia needed to play hide and seek with them. She needed to five representatives in the woods and then she could be able to choose a partner.

---

@Sanguine Rose

Rosa looked at Faye as if she had Claunchers crawling out of her ears. "I'm sorry, but did you say the Illusive Woods? The woods where people go in and are never seen again? Those same woods? Are you high?" Her reaction was understandable. She lived in close proximity to those woods for her entire life. She knew the stories, heck, she knew people that entered those woods and never came out. However, she seemed to relax when Faye brought up the incident with the Tinkatink.

"Well, you're not wrong. We know that they live there because they sometimes wander out of the forest, but I've never heard of them trying to turn an engine into clubs," she conceded. That was definitely out of the ordinary. That thought had to be put on hold when they saw Tristan's Pokemon throwing hands with a gardener's own in battle. "Huh, you know I know he battles but it's actually weird to see him do it."

The farmgirl shrugged and turned her attention to her companion. "Just the two. I think I'll take a page out of your book and find a new team member."

With that, the hunt was on. However, finding a Rare Pokemon was not something someone could do by walking around. A Rare Pokemon could only be found if you either were specifically looking for it after obtaining the correct information, delving deep into territories, or sometimes blind luck. Faye however had no such luck, but she did find some uncommon Pokemon while wandering around. She found some plucky blue birds in the trees and at first she though she saw a piece of fruit on the ground, except it started to walk on its stubby legs.





What does Faye do?

Yup, that was the exact reaction Faye expected from Rosa. Right down to the dumbfounded stare. The farmgirl lived closer to the forest than the borderline-incapable-of-staying-on-task-for-more-than-a-few-moments trainer did and likely heard a lot more of the stories around the woods. At least, as reasons not to go in. Maybe it was morbid curiosity to venture into such a mysterious place (because you can't seriously call something the Illusive Woods and not expect people to want to go in there to see what made that all possible) and perhaps be the first in a century to get pictures within the forest. If she could get those - she'd certainly make a name for herself as pokemon photographer. So long as she could prove she didn't fake them - which was the whole point of getting a second person to go into the cursed place with her. And perhaps why she told Rosa. By Arceus! If she could get Rosa to corroborate the story it might help the claim even more.

Faye stifled a laugh at Rosa's comment regarding Tristan's battle. "Yeah, but if we stay to watch how it goes, he'll get a bigger head knowing he had an audience watching him."

The young trainer hoped she would find something rare, but she knew it was a bit too much to ask. Still, she did a mental roster of her current pokemon and which ones might help make her team a bit stronger. There were a few options here that made sense. A Taillow would give her another flying type. A Bounsweet would give her another grass type, as would a Gossifleur. A Combee would give her a bug type which she didn't currently have, as would a Sewaddle. Decisions, decisions... At the end of the day, it didn't matter - more pokemon was more pokemon. She'd need to catch more and train them all to build a stronger team anyways. For now, she wanted to focus on Tilia as her flying pokemon she supposed, and another normal type pokemon wouldn't be helpful. She already had Sage that was going to need evolving sooner rather than later; once she finally caved into making up her mind about that conversation.

So for now, she set her sights on catching a Bounsweet, with plans to go after a Sewaddle afterward.

Stella Lumite

“I’ll give you more in a bit. Keep sharp.” Stella nodded to her Ghastly, putting the snacks away for now as she assessed her surroundings. “In fact.. Niblet.” She called her latest favorite little bug out to sit on her head. “The more the merrier, right? Help Gastly keep an eye out.”

The young lady took a careful breath, examining her surroundings. Well.. the polite thing to do would be to try to find the s-p-i-r-i-t first. She remembered the way she was taken previously, so that was where she’d look, first. She had little else to go on.

"Mr..” it was gonna be really embarrassing if this was wrong, “Osman? I left the flowers for your wife, Ellanore. I thought I’d let you know it was done.” She poked her head through the door to where she’d had tea with him before. “_{C’mon, you old goat. You were the one who insisted on repaying me..}” She glanced back at Gastly, “unless.. you’re my repayment? That- mmn. I’d accept that, but, somehow, that doesn’t seem like what happened.. You don’t know anything, do you?”

Spoops shook his hea-.. face, no.

"Right." Stella nodded to herself and pressed further into the room. She tried the lights briefly as she entered the room she'd been led to last time, not really believing that they would come on but thinking it was worth a shot. "How do you feel about lights, Spoops? The superstition goes that ghosts dislike bright lights.. do you think I should just leave them off?"

The knowledge that the Gym was closed and that its leader was late returning made Jason pause and think. Late getting back, huh? Especially when they've got another match scheduled? Hmmmm....something isn't right. He nods to the fellow and turns to head back towards the lift. "Appreciate the heads up, I'll...give some thought as to my way forwards." Admittedly, he wanted to take off into the swamp to see if the gym leader was alright, but he remembered Adriane's warnings about it. Not to mention if I go in there, who knows how long I'd be looking for that gym leader...shit... He decided that instead of rushing ahead, he'd at least get some food and take in the sights some, attempt to enjoy himself some, even with the pall of existential dread hanging over him.

---

Tristan could be seen visably sweating, the grovyle's intimating presence and that insane speed was proving difficult for him to keep up with. A small relieving gasp left him upon witnessing king somehow narrowly dodging the attack, his flight certainly coming in clutch.

Not that things became any easier; now racking his mind what to do as he saw the balls of green energy." Tsk. Q-quick! Fly up to create distance and dodge." He shouted out, gritting his teeth, biting back a bout of panic threatening to overtake him.

The distance should make dodging easier and give him a moment to try and think up something, but they had barely fought a proper opponent before and now this?!

A frustrated groan, hand clenched as moved to speak with a nervous gulp." W-wait for an opening and..and try go for a peck!" Tristan called out, unable to think up anything better and his frustration clear to see as the silver haired teen barely held himself together, for King's sake as the memory of Freya burned a vivid painful reminder.

Amelia watched and listened to the Pumpkaboos spoke to her after hearing her offer. She didn't understand what was being said but at the very least, the Pumpkaboo didn't seem to be hostile, which was definitely a good sign, as it meant that they were less likely to harm her. It didn't mean she was completely safe, but she was less likely to be harmed out of malicious intent at the very least. Still, she knew she had to be careful.

Her pokemon did understand the words being said and quickly huddled together to try and figure out how to convey this information to their trainer. After a few seconds of deliberation, they still weren't sure how to convey it to their trainer in a way that might make sense until Phantump had an idea. The little stump let out a cry before moving over to Amelia, covering its face with her shirt while the other three maved away. Amelia watched in confusion as they took positions to hide while Phantump clearly counted down with ten loud cries before moving away and clearly finding it's companions in repid succession. Amelia was confused by the impromptu game of Hide and Seek for a minute or two before it finally dawned on her what was going on. Smiling, she gave each of her pokemon a pat on the head before turning to the Pumpkaboos.
"A game of hide and seek then? Alright, let's play!" She said.

@Sanguine Rose

So, after a brief look around for her one of her desired catches Faye found one of the bouncing sentient things of fruit. "Boun boun!" It bounced along with not a single care in the world. Faye approached the Bounsweet and it looked up at her curiously, but then that changed into panic when Tilla came into the picture. Then as discussed in Discord, Faye ordered the leafy owl to attack with a combination of Tackle and Leafage, however, Bounsweet as species were notoriously weak Pokemon and the first two attacks easily nearly knocked it out. The only reason that it wasn't knocked out was because it used Play Nice to use its cuteness to somehow appeal to the Rowlet, which lowered its attack somehow.

With a thrown Pokeball, it was absorbed into it.

It rolled once... it rolled twice...it rolled thrice!



Frankly speaking, the Sewaddle didn't put up that much of a fight either though at least it did attack back. Tilla suffered from the bug-type attacking back with its own Tackle, hitting the grass/flying type for neutral damage. However, Tilla could deal with enough damage that she could attempt to capture it with a Pokeball.



So, now what?

---

@CitrusArms

As Stella pressed into the room where she once sat with Ms. Osman. There were paintings that needed be restored and old sepia photos, images that showed of the family. They told a story. At first it was that of a young couple, young and happy with a baby girl in a house that once showed its glory and overtime they matured, the child grew, and a second baby girl was born into the happy family. As Stella looked around she noticed that all of the subsequent images moving forward only had one child, the eldest daughter. However, there was something odd; there were parts of paintings where certain parts were slashed off.

Turning the lights did not do anything. It was actually a miracle that the lights actually still worked at all and did not set the entire place ablaze with old electrical wiring. "Gas." The Gastly stared at her with a deadpan expression on its face. Spoops had been following her in broad daylight through the streets, the actual sun had filtered through the toxic gas cloud that was his body and now she decided that this was the perfect time to ask?

While conversing with the gassy ghost, Stella would hear footsteps above her, but they were strange. There was a slight clacking, as if claws were hitting the ground.

---

@Zarkun

So, Jason decided that his next course of action would be to eat his feelings away. Well, mainly his hunger, but sometimes in the face of existential dread you just had to eat your problems away. Of course, there were any number of options, but Jason is what could be described as poor. If he opened his wallet, metaphorical Venomoth would flutter out to show just how dirt poor he was. Fine dining was out of the question, or really anything below that too for that matter where civilized people ate.

However, it was not like there were places outside of his price range. There was a restaurant that served curry that ranged from spicy to spicy. The sign outside was a red neon sign of a Munchlax breathing fire with beads of sweat running down its head with the word Masaledaar flashing underneath it. Then there was a burger place that had a Trubbish eating a burger winking at the viewer with Junk Burger wrapping around it in a circle.

Both places seemed to be pretty popular with the college crowd, which was to be expected. So, what does Jason feel like?

---

@samreaper

Lucky for King, he was just far enough to be able to dodge the crackling sphere of natural energy hurtling his way. Flying high up did give some room to breathe for the shiny crow, but now it was in a problematic position; the Murkrow had no long ranged attacks unlike the Grovyle. If King were to land an attack, he would have to close in the distance and pray to whatever god that felt like listening that the attack would do some damage. However, if Tristan was smart then he would know that he had an out, but he was panicking too much to see it.

"Don't let up the pressure. Keep using Energy Ball," Ramos ordered calmly. The Grovyle would keep throwing those destructive green orbs of energy at King. It definitely seemed a bit too eager to shoot that bird out of the ground.

King would duck and weave, looking for an opening as it tried to get closer. However, the pressure was too much, and it just did not notice a stray Energy Ball flying towards it. With a bang, King collided with the green sphere for not super effective damage.

What does Tristan do?

---

How frustrating it was for Tristan to see King struggling to barely avoid just getting blasted out of the sky by green spheres. The bird had no long range moves and both too slow and inexperienced to get to Grovyle fast enough. The stressed teen was grasping for a route or plan out of this, but each second made his scope narrower.

Tristan had always struggled at making decisions alone; quick and on the fly decisions tended to throw him into a panic fit typical of a spoiled rich brat. And that urge was bubbling as thoughts of how unfair this was throwing such an overpowered opponent this early. His mouth twitched with the urge to complain. (another lifetime he may have done so and worse)

But for King's sake, he bit it down, Freya, a hovering chilling reminder. Not to mention the fact he achieved such a huge advantage and like hell he'd ruin it.

Then King took a hit; nothing too hard, but showed that King wasn't gonna make any headway, especially all out of breath and frantic. His hands clenched, appearing as if ready to shout and instead exhaled slowly and loudly for those nearest to hear. As if his way of letting out the hot air instead of shouting." Quick, King! Throw up a haze to obscure! Use that time to catch your breath and get a shot to land your hardest peck!" Ordered Tristan as he turned to Ramos with a fierce glare, showing he wasn't stepping down.

Finding the food hub wasn't too hard, especially in an entertainment district, but as Jason checked his wallet, he realized he really didn't have as much as he would have liked. Looks like a steak is out of the question for me...damn. Gonna need to step up getting some money coming in. Appraising the various eateries, he decides to try out the Junk Burger, maneuvering his way inside and getting in line to place an order for a burger and fries while listening to the students around him. Maybe someone's seen a rarer Pokemon running around...

Stella Lumite

She shared an expression with her Gastly before frowning, “hey, look, you're more ghost than I am. Yeah, you're a ghost-type Pokèmon, but that's more ghost than me. Besides, I know you can at least tolerate sunlight.” That, however, didn't answer the question she'd asked as it would pertain to him, either. “Well, how do you-”

Stella’s eyes lifted to the ceiling. They weren't alone. She spoke softly, “I'll interview you later. Let's go.” She left the tea room, flicking the switch back off as she left, closing the door behind her and being very careful to do so quietly, before she found her way to the stairs and crept on up. If she stayed near the edge of the steps, maybe they wouldn't make noise. She kept the position of the noise, she'd heard in her mind, following that position as she navigated the upstairs. She would have to guess that she'd heard a set of claws, but she couldn't say what that meant. She'd ask Gastly for directions, in case of hallways.

At the I'm going to assume it's a closed door, she'd take a careful, slow, quiet breath to steady herself. What could possibly be within this old mansion? It seemed presumptuous and rather dangerous to assume it was some reward from the old man’s ghost. Though, honestly, she had zero inclination of what to expect for that. So, maybe. But, ghosts seemed finicky and weird, so even if it was her reward, there was no guarantee it would be easy to get. Whatever it was, it wasn't in a pokeball.

Even if she asked one of her Pokemon to look, what were they gonna do, learn English suddenly?

She opened the door and entered the room, ready to order an electroweb. What could be in here?

So, now what? Faye had caught two more Pokemon, and that put her at a full roster. Not even including the egg that would eventually hatch and need consideration for her team. At least for now, she had a decent spread - okay, well, sort of. She could replace Puck or Titania, but that felt wrong after she had just promised to take care of both of them. No, both of them would stay until she figured out what made them leave their home. Then, maybe, she'd just set one, or both, free. Or not. Puck did decide to stay after all.

But the point still was, what now? After tapping her finger on her chin a few times, she decided to go off in search of Rosa. Mostly so she didn't just disappear on her friend after convincing the girl to travel with her. There had to be something a bit more rare in these gardens than the Pokemon she had found so far, and she figured the best place to find out about that would be going into the manor to ask.

When she finds Rosa, that was the plan: to let her friend know she was headed into the manor to find out more about the park - in hopes of finding out if there were any rare pokemon to be found in it. And perhaps even investigate the forest and what might be going on in there if the Manor had a library involving the forest.

@Joshua Tamashii

"Pumpka!" They cheered happily. Let the games begin!

Five of the Pumpkaboo split off in five separate directions. One went north, one went east, one went south, one went west, and one went north-west. Their natural bioluminescence faded very quickly once they entered the thick woods and soon even their ghostly presence faded away. Now, she had a choice. She could throw all caution into the wind and go and venture into the woods immediately to go find the Pumpkaboo or she could go tell her companions what she was up to. They were standing at the cabin talking to an... to an eight-foot-tall woman with more muscle packed on her than a juiced up Machamp with an apron covered in suspiciously red liquid. A massive skeleton dog stood by its owner's side, wagging its boney tail.

If she for some very understandable reason she felt compelled to not inform her companions she could always just leave and search in the five directions that the Pumpkaboo went all by herself. However, they were so far away that she could not reliably pinpoint their exact locations with her powers, so this was not going to be an easy task for her to do all on her own if she chose to do so. Then again, ten-year-olds in this world have done riskier things than this, so go crazy kid.
 

---

@samreaper

A cloud of haze poured out of the Murkrow's mouth because where else was it going to come from?

"Grovyle, use Detect," Ramos ordered calmly. The bipedal green gecko's eyes glowed with a faint blue as the field was obscured with rolling haze to prevent its boosted stats from being nullified. It stood there, waiting for the pink bird to get in range.

King meanwhile rested to regain some composure from the onslaught and saw its path to take the Grovyle head on. With renewed vigor and determination, the Murkrow swooped down to its opponent who was trapped in the haze. The Grovyle was looking at all possible directions that the bird could attack from, the blue light in its eyes began to flicker as the Detect began to fail it. That is when King came from its left and smashed its face with its beak for a Super Luck boosted critical hit, bypassing its defense boost.

The Grovyle tumbled out from the haze from the blow, showing Tristan that it had sustained heavy damage from King's attack. This overpowered lizard could indeed be hurt though it certainly was not going to give up without making Tristan's stress levels rise just a bit higher. It got back up to its feet and held its clawed hands up, balling into a fist as the leaves protruding from its arm began to glow with a sharp green energy.

Ramos' grip tightened around his oversized garden clippers, and he ordered, "Grovyle, charge at it with Leaf Blade and don't let up the pressure." With overwhelming speed, it dashed towards King with the intent to bring those leafy sickles on its arms down upon the Murkrow with indiscriminate force.

---

@Zarkun

The first thing he noticed was that he was hit with the smell of burger grease as soon as he walked through the door. The second thing that he would notice was that the interior looked like a burger joint that could be found somewhere like Unova back in the world's equivalent to the 1950s. The floors were checkered black and white with pastel pink walls and powdery blue stools with aluminum legs and booths of white chairs with cushions of that same blue. Walls and even the ceiling were littered with nicknacks from that time period. However, it was a relaxed atmosphere. People around his age and maybe older hung around the counters and tables eating, some socializing and some getting burger grease on their homework. Some hung around with their Pokemon chomping on a burger. Overall, just a chill place.

Jason stood in line and decided that now was a good time to eavesdrop on the crowd to learn about any rare Pokemon that anyone would know about.

"Those sleepy looking things. Seriously?"

"Yeah man I'm telling you. The Dunsparce in the marsh are weird man. They're bigger and much more violent than anywhere else."

"I'll take your word for it. Can't pay me to go into that no man's land."

"Yo, you heard how they're some ancient breed of Voltorb bred in the village right?"

"Yeah, apparently it's like they're made of wood. Weird right?"

"Hey, you know about Thora's Pidgeot right?"

"Yeah what about it?"

"How can she use one if it's a normal and flying type?"

"...You're a special kind of dumb I hope you know that."

Eventually Jason would reach the front of the line and was greeted by an overweight middle-aged man wearing a greasy apron standing next to... a Chansey? "Welcome to Junk Burger home of the Junk Burger how can I help ya?" He asked with a gravelly voice.

---

@CitrusArms

So, she crept through the manor until she found a door upstairs which she opened and... nothing? To be more accurate, it was just a master bedroom that was filled with luxurious and beautiful furniture that had been eaten away by time though no one was inside. The old, faded curtains let the morning light peek through the windows as Stella would most likely walk in to examine the room.

Again, there were some pictures that were hung on the walls of the family. They showed how that little girl had grown up into a young woman and her parents had aged as time spared no one. However, in other photos the mother was nowhere left to be seen. The photos were once again torn to omit a subject, but strangely enough there was a hint as to what caused it. In one of the frames of the picture, there were tuff of graying black fur just stuck between the cracks.

There was only one other point of interest. There was a vanity against the wall and on it was a book. With fine penmanship, Diary of Ellanore Osman was written on the cover, the same name that she had seen the night before at the graveyard and next to it was an... egg? For some reason there was just an egg on the vanity and to Spoops he could clearly tell that whatever in that egg was still alive.

What does Stella do?

---

@Sanguine Rose

So, Faye would go off to go find Rosa somewhere in the garden. Well, she did and apparently Rosa was beefing really hard to with one of those plucky blue birds and was throwing any number of Pokeballs at it to no success. When told that she was going to head off into the manor, Rosa said as if she was not entirely paying attention, "Yeah sure I'll meet you there later. Now get in the ball you little shi-!" Faye could hear her roar from rage as she headed towards the manor. Once inside she was greeted by a beautiful sight.

The foyer of the manor was grand and spacious, filled with lovingly maintained, pristine late Victorian styled furniture to what could be described as Art Nouveau styled furnishings and art. Paintings and prints marked the walls, each of varying styles and subject matter though all tasteful. Even the interior was designed with an Art Nouveau mindset; organic shapes could be found on the tiled floors with intricate colored patterns that were abstract and yet reminded one of nature. There was a grand stairway, and the metal guard rails looked like artist depictions of swirling wind and leaves. Of course, there were also all manner of flowers decorating in whatever fine pottery and vases that were available. It was almost like a looking glass into the past and life of the estate owner.

By the entrance of the foyer there was an impressively large oil portrait painting of a beautiful, yet pale woman in her late twenties with fiery red hair done up in a bun and equally red eyes. Her lips were curled up in a gentle smile with a kind gaze as if to say that everything was alright. Underneath it was a plaque that held the name Aria Eberg.

...Why did she feel so familiar?

Faye would stare at the painting as if locked in a trance, her feet locked into place. She couldn't take a step; not like she even noticed her inability to. It was as if something shut her body off. Almost off the in distance she could hear static, like television static and yet there was something there. There was meaning in it, and it was maddening enough to fill her the urge to claw her own ears out.

H̴̳̓͛͊é̷̼̱̇͆l̶̘̮̐̽l̷̘̖̯̊ȯ̶͓̎̕?̸̝̬̋̅͠

H̴̳̓͛͊é̷̼̱̇͆l̶̘̮̐̽lo?

H̴̳̓͛͊é̷̼̱̇͆llo?

"Hello miss?" A concerned receptionist laid a concerned hand on Faye's shoulder. "Are you alright? You looked a bit out of it."

---

What Tristan witnessed left the teen stunned momentarily at the wild maneuver King had managed to pull off. How that small bird pulled it off with that onslaught. A breath of relief followed.

Brief as a snowflake landing on one's palm, then his stress spiked back up as he saw the Grovyle still standing strong, even if looking damaged. Only to be betrayed by it's crazy speed which left Tristan little time to think up something.

It was clear that King could never hope to deliver an attack that could overpower the lizard barreling at a bird less than half its size. Attacking now would be foolish." Damn it all! Just take the deepest breath you can and focus on dodging! Wait for a chance to slip past to deliver a peck!" Tristan called out, frustrated at being constantly forced on the defensive, but against such an opponent, little else he could think to do. The silver-haired teen no longer took his eyes off the Grovyle, fearing losing sight of it could throw King off.

Having formally accepted the game of hide and seek, Amelia watched as five of the Pumpkabo took off towards the woods in five different directions. She frowned as she noticed their presences vanish, but figured it was better that way. What good was a game of hide and seek if she knew where they were all hiding. The question was, would they be able to keep hidden once she got closer to them? Well, only trying would let her know of that.

Before she set off though, she turned towards where Steph and Freya were talking to a... well, rather giant looking woman. From this distance, Amelia failed to make out the suspicious red splatters in the darker woods, even with the light from the cabin.
"Miss Freya, Miss Steph! I'll be in the woods fa bit! I should be back soon!" She shouted to them before entering the tree line once again, her pokemon following close behind her to provide what protection they could as well as help her find her targets. Amelia set off after the Pumpkaboo who had set off to the North, wondering how well she would do in the end.

Stella Lumite

Stella gave a soft sigh as she found nothing obvious within the room. Gastly noted the egg quickly as they entered, and the bookish girl nodded about it but wanted to check out the whole room first. ”Huh. It's like being at home.” It was about as abandoned of people as she expected, but there wasn't anything in here to have made that noise. Did it leave the egg and, what, just left?

Then there were the pictures. Someone bothered to tear out all the depictions of.. someone. The mother died first? Tragically, perhaps. Who was the missing figure? Her finger brushed the fur on the one picture frame, “what, a Pokèmon tore the pictures..? It was probably the Pokèmon that was torn out, anyway. Don’t you think?” The girl looked back at Gastly.

“Gas?”

”Hm.” She nodded softly, considering possibilities, then shook her head. Not enough information. She carefully gathered the egg and diary before having a seat on the couch to go through the diary.

She sat with the egg in her lap, her arms around it as she held the diary in front of her. She brushed her fingers over it for a moment, ”it's just a book now, isn't it..” another moment, and she opened the diary.

@samreaper

"Ho ho, don't panic when you're in the lead," Ramos called out with that amused elderly grin though his Grovyle did not share its trainer's sense of levity. It viciously kept swinging its blades at the Murkrow and with a held breath and a dream the little bird kept dodging and dodging though King was cutting it closer and closer with each swing. Taking a chance, the bird dashed and threw its weight forward to just barely land a peck! The Grovyle recoiled in pain and for maybe a second there was a sense that victory was on the horizon.

And then a blade came down on King and smashed him straight down into the ground with vicious force. The sound that King made as if all the air was forcibly pushed out of his small body while the sound his body made as it made contact with the ground was a resounding boom.

Critical hit. King for all of his valiant efforts was knocked out.

Louis held up a handkerchief towards Ramos and his Grovyle and shouted out, "Murkrow is unable to battle! Grovyle wins!"

"Your Murkrow put up a great battle. What do you do now?" Ramos asked, standing patiently waiting for the younger trainer to make his move. The Grovyle, strong as it was, had taken damage and Tristan was up two more Pokemon. King did what he needed to do. All that was left was for Tristan to seize the win.

---

@Joshua Tamashii

And back into the spooky woods she went with no supervision! This could only end well.

---

@CitrusArms

It was a strange egg, one that Stella had never seen before. It was a white egg with a metallic sheen and dark pink bands around it and a lighter pink sphere in the middle of it. To her fingers it was cool to the touch like when someone would run their fingers through sea water and yet she could feel something pulse gently from inside.

With the egg on her lap and a diary in tow, she began to read.

















"What are you doing in here?" At the doorway was Mr. Osman in his wheelchair. He looked too shocked to even be angry at her for reading Elanore's diary. "Please, put that down."