[IC] Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of the Void

[Anlu]

Poor Favlev; Thassa wasn't fair to him.
Certainly, if he hadn't brought fish, it would have been a considerable challenge to keep her eyes off the little chikorita. As it stood, she sampled the air with tongue, flickering, savoring the scent, and the taste in the air, of fish. The serpent takes her time though, and she makes him wait, sliding up around the smaller creature and pressing her nose under his neck with a sanguine hiss. Because... she appreciates the gesture, she does, that a pokèmon whom she had earlier considered a potential meal was then willing to go out and find fish just for her. Could he even eat fish? ...Her head disappears into the bag; one fish and another, she swallows whole, but her feeding is not a swift process. She can't just... grab one and take bites out of it as she goes, after all. It was during this time that the rain would have started in earnest, while she leans against her rather unlikely companion. Favlev would, likely as not, feel each of the fishes as it slid down her neck.

Finally, knowing full well what an ordeal she was making of simple food, she hooked her teeth through a third fish and turned to unwind; she let Fava go and swallowed her last fish before she turned to the road ahead - and, briefly, her eyes to the sky. "...I suppose I'll keep you around after all." She says, a somewhat playful jab after their first conversation. "...Now, you know how all this works, yeah? I don't really know who to talk to or how to form a team or how to... anything... in a guild. You can help with that?"

Delays aside, the trip to Treasure Town was not an excessively long one; she didn't mind the rain, and by the time they arrived she had taken herself quite happily to slipping through the mud, submersing herself in the odd roadside puddle... she'd be filthy, except it was raining, and scales don't really stain!

[Pearion_Rehtyer]

Falvev squirmed a bit as she devours the fish while coiled around him. Feeling them on her neck was obviously unsettling and he tumbled away as soon as it was possible before frowning, "It's not a preformance. I just got them because I thought you'd like them, you said you put off eating earlier and couldn't catch fish. Obvious solution was to get fish." He blinks and tucks himself up nervously at the comment that she was going to keep him around after all, "Thanks?...umm, you weren't. I thought you said we were making a team."

Falvev was much more comfortable with talking about the guild. "Oh well first we have to get entry. Which is fairly simple. The guild in Treasure Town has a footprint sentry, which wow....must be not having the best time in the rain..." He flicked his leaf about. Personally he liked the sun a bit better than the rain, being a grass-type, but the rain was not a bad thing for him either.

They arrived shortly after Dexter and Falvev peered into the grate before calling down, "Hope you're doing okay down there with the rain and everything!" Before sitting on the grate. A similar yell to Dexter's approach sounded throughout the area, though Falvev didn't appear as startled by it. He blinked and looked over at Thassa, "Umm...you need to stand on here too or they won't let you in, Thassa." He curled his leaf around her tail and started dragging her out of the puddle. He leds her to the grate, though with two pokemon on at once they are confused with how to react, so he moves off for her. Unfortunately Ekans' footprint is a bit nondistinct. That is to say Thassa didn't exactly have a footprint. The comment, "Whose footprint!?" Was called out....then silence as they tried to figure it out. They would have to decide between pokemon that had no footprint, as there were a few, and her other features would be hard to make out because of the rain. Eventually Falvev walked over and nudged her head down to the grate.

It would be very apparent that it was an Ekans then, and she would be cleared to enter. "See, simple." He stated before heading into the open guild ahead of her. Inside he shook off the rain from his leaf before descending the ladder inside. Which he did by leaping down the hole and tumbling. He figured that Thassa would have similar trouble descending so he kneeled at the bottom to catch her. Her body was soft enough, right?

[KaBling]

I regained my focus, and for good reason. "You what now?" Sure enough, that odd Hitmonlee was pretty intent on joining us now. +5 to speech anyone? I didn't really want more Pokemon to join our group, but in the end we WERE going to some horribly grueling mountain. I didn't think much of that, since the cold wouldn't exactly hurt me. My teammates on the other hand... thank goodness we didn't have a dragon or something like that on our team.

"Urgh, alright." I agreed, somewhat begrudgingly as this new Pokemon was essentially Kamina in another body. This was actually gonna get interesting though. I mean, we then had two other-

Wait. Where did they come from? I suppose more the merrier, but at that rate, if we were to split up a reward (i.e. a cake), we'd likely end up getting a bite each or something. "Well, only an army can stop us now. This isn't foreshadowing anything by the way." And, er... they left. Was it a good or bad thing? "Hm. Onwards then."

[Riddles]

[Dexter]
Dexter took a few seconds to take in his surroundings. There was a bulletin board on each side of the room, one of which was covered with requests to find a certain item, or find a Pokemon that got lost. The other board was the one that one caught Dexter's eye, though. It was covered in Wanted posters. He scanned the board, checking to see if one of his old bandit pals was still out there. Unfortunately, though, none of the Pokemon on the board seemed remotely familiar.

By now, he'd figured out that he was in the Treasure Town guild. From what he heard, this guild had a fierce rivalry with the guild in Allure. As much as he would love to work against the guild that threw him in prison, he was still on the fence about joining. He did have a chance of finding a few of his old friends while exploring, and maybe even find some new Pokemon to recruit into his gang of bandits. The latter was highly unlikely, though, and his former friends might not trust him after finding out he'd joined the guild.

[Anlu]

Thassa hadn't the slightest idea what a footpad sentry was, but the ekans followed Favlev to the guild without asking any of the rather inane questions bobbing for attention in her head. It wasn't until they arrived at the Guild that things started to get weird. She... went with it, deciding these queer city pokèmon had bizarre customs in the first place and it wasn't worth trying to understand; she even followed Favlev's directions and put her nose to the grate so that the bizarre figure down below could see. She flicked her tongue through the grate, curious, trying to catch a scent of a voice who she could not properly distinguish in the gloom. But... all she could taste was rain and mud and a confusing medley of aromas.

The serpent followed her companion rather nervously, already a little spooked by the process, and encountered her first ladder - and a deep hole down which Favlev would soon vanish! She peers down worriedly, naught but her dark purple snout and her glimmering red eyes visible when the chikorita looked up at her from the bottom of the hole. "...That looked painful." She says, furrowing her brow - and expressing something of a desire not to copy him. It took some exploration of the ladder - she'd never seen one after all - but eventually Thassa is able to negotiate her way down the rungs as though it were a tree. She descends, twisting her neck around the first step and looping in and out of the bars...

Gingerly, she joins Favlev at the bottom and offers him a rather weak and nervous smile. Though she was admittedly more comfortable underground, she'd never been anywhere quite like this. Was it a cavern? ...It was so much bigger than her own burrow; and beyond, there were vibrations coming through the earth and... a riot of scents, tastes in the air... more pokemon, more KINDS of pokemon, than she'd ever seen in one place before. It was somewhat intimidating, really...

[Pearion_Rehtyer]

Falvev waits for her to descend and grins, "It might've, I'm pretty tough though. My body's weight is pretty well made for riding too, and thus I can distribute my weight pretty well for falls when I need to. By the way, I was down here to catch you you know." He turns to the large cast of pokemon in the guild and calls out, "We would like to speak to the guildmaster to start a team!"

His voice, though loud, seemed to be drowned out by the other pokemon there, there were a lot of them. Though he seemed to notice that they were all staring at the Growlithe that had just sprinkled them all with rainwater. It only took a glance to tell the growlithe was a recent arrival like them, his coat was speckled with water drops still and muddied from the rain. OR he could very easily be the footprint sentries, after all they only had a grate protecting them from the rain, but that seemed a bit unlikely.

Whatever the case was, Falvev didn't really appreciate everyone giving them annoyed looks like that so he clicked his teeth to signal to Thassa and headed towards Dexter, offering his leaf to the growlithe to help clean off the water. Falvev liked water anyways, win-win.

[Lugia]

[Bonnie]

Almost immediately after we stopped talking via badge, Tini raced down here, and somehow evolved as he did so. He slithered past Eralion and I, who were ready make the bookcases fall as per the plan. I was on the eastern wall, and as soon as Tini passed time seemed to slow down for me as I awaited my exact cue, which, in this case was simple enough, wait for my father to pass by. As soon as that happened, I pushed the bookcase, making it fall on top of him. He was immobilized. Angry, and struggling to get out from under at least one bookcase, however, he couldn't attack, he couldn't move, at least for now. "I... we... did it! I can't believe it, I thought he was invincible, and yet, here he is, my father, Artemis the murderer, trapped, and helpless," I think out loud. This moment right here has given me hope that he can, like any other pokemon, be defeated. I then hear him shout "RELEASE ME AT ONCE OR I WILL KILL YOU ALL!" as if he had some sort of power over any of us, and that was thankfully no longer true with me. I then turn towards Tini, and say "Thank you... you have no idea how much you've done for me right here, and right now," I then turn back towards my father, and say to him "And if you think you can scare me anymore, threaten ME anymore, well, who's the one who got the other stuck under a bookcase?" he, as predicted, hissed, and continued to struggle to get out of his predicament. It didn't work, and honestly, I felt relieved, as if a giant weight has been lifted. I... didn't feel quite as afraid of my father as I used to, just because of this moment, this little bit of hope, and maybe, just maybe, I can get strong enough to defeat, and arrest my father once and for all for what he's done.

---

[Anthony]

I simply stayed on Kamina's head, and noticed an odd marshtomp who was running towards us. "Hey, do you want to follow us?" I ask him, just sort of out of habit. I then add "As long as you're not as much of a jerk as that Spruce guy, you can come," Spruce didn't seem to like that very much, but I was just surprised he heard it at all, considering the fact that he shouldn't even have ears. The chikorita and the ekans both left after Spruce explained why Josh was bound to the bucket, leaving me to just sit on top of Kamina's head like a bump on a log. The weather changed from sunny to rainy as we stayed here, well, okay, we DID eventually start moving, but it just seems like we were coming across obstacle after obstacle stopping us in our tracks. This was going to be a long journey to the area that was described to me in the psychic message, and it wouldn't get any shorter if we kept stopping like this. "So, are we going to keep going?" I ask the group, with Spruce replying by just heading forwards, past Kamina and I for a bit, though, he looked annoyed, for some reason.

---

[Nina]

I continued to chase the mystery pokemon who had one of the papers, and Levita just started staring off into space for some reason. I eventually catch up to the perpetrator, and use flash tackle on him, and, with that being a light move, it lit up the area, revealing him as a nidoran... and an explorer. "GAH!" he exclaimed, later adding "Get away you wild pokemon, this paper's a part of the mission," I stammer for a moment, and eventually add "We're on the same mission, and we already have two of them, so... give us the paper," the nidoran didn't want to cooperate, and added "We have two of them, and WE need the rest, so... give us YOUR paper!" that seemed to be the rest of his team's cue, as an aron, a shroomish, and an abra then appear, and look at me angrily. I think about the situation for a bit, and, while it seemed like the opposite team was already ready to fight, I said "Wait, we don't have to fight, we're just trying to help the same guy. Can't we just help the guy?" They didn't listen to me, unfortunately, and the nidoran used a move similar to my own flash tackle, however, it was a more shadowy version, as he cloaked himself in a shadowy aura before tackling me. It didn't hurt much, but it did make me drop my 'Desia' badge, which I was trying to hold onto as a memento from the time before I became an explorer. The nidoran looked at the badge, and said "Desia...?" he then asked "What do you know about Desia!?" I shook my head, and said "Nothing, I just found that badge lying on the ground, somewhere... is she a famous explorer, or something?" the nidoran looked back at his team, and said "Obviously, she's lying, and we're dealing with another of Desia's minions. NO MERCY!" That last bit shocked me, and, just as well, I end up taking a headbutt from the aron, and a hidden power from the abra. I don't know why they were focusing on me, other than the fact that they think I work for this 'Desia' lady, who I still had no idea about.

[Evanist]

Eralion smiles as he looked at the persian, and looked at Bonnie, who seemed really confident right now. He smiles as he looks at Bonnie.
"We best move and free that bidoof we were looking for before he gets out of those bookcases..." he says to her, confident right now, and happy for her to not feel scared of her father. That idea of the bookcases... it worked perfectly... It was surprising that it actually worked.
"If only we could add some weight to this..." he then says, before looking around. They didn't really have time to add anything right now...
"Lets just go!" he says, before getting ready to move quickly. Before he walked away he looked at Bonnie's father.
"And your one sick freak.... doing all that to your own daughter... you should die in a pit of spikes!" he adds before moving away quickly.
-------------------------------------------------------

Celina moved forwards, staying near Spruce as she breath deeply, looking at him worried a bit, as well as saddened a bit right now.
"I know you don't really like him Spruce... I can see it just by how you act... I just want to know what is wrong..." she says calmly, quietly, and as sweetly as she could. She didn't want to get Spruce even more mad. The last thing she wanted was to have him against her also... She still loved him, but she hated to see him like that.... Maybe they shouldn't have went to fallow on this mission... but here they are... and it was best to try and fallow for now. Maybe they could go and find one of those void crystal on the way.

[Card Captor]

Kamina

Kamina being Kamina, didn't take his friend being insulted very well. "Hey there, Spruce is my very close friend. I won't just let other people insult him like that" he said while putting on his very best upset face, which since he was a Gyarados looked far more hostile then he intended it to. Then, lowering his head so that it was next to Spruce "hey buddy, cheer up. I'll let you ride on my head. That way I can get my hat-hat-hat, and you get a free ride"

---
Tini

There were a lot of ways this could have gone wrong. So many times when just a single slip up could have led to the death of each and every one of them. Tini however, didn't think about any one of them. Or rather, they never even occurred to him. So while he did feel like celebrating a mission completed, it wasn't because they had just narrowly avoided death. Truly, ignorance is bliss. "Aww, you're welcome Bonnie" he said as he wrapped his entire body around her in a big super hug, which is when something occurred to him "wait a second; I just evolved. That means...I can give even bigger cuddles!!!"

[Sumable]

-William-
I looked around in confusion as I was now upstairs in the mansion, but not in the guild. I saw the owner of the mansion trapped under a bookcase, and I transform back into a smeargle, grinning as I said to myself "How pathetic." I look at the other members of the team leaving and I run and inform them of the Gallade and how there are more captives in the basement. "The sight is... not for the faint of heart, to say the least." I grabbed the bag of quick seeds and handed them to Bonnie before walking down the stairs and taking another glance at the basement door. I rub my chin for a moment. "We can't block it because he has Teleport, and if he does get out... who knows what'll happen?" I ask myself as I leave the mansion.

-Chip-
I made a mighty screech as I heard the new guild member get attacked. I scuttled over and used Leech Life on the abra which was quite effective considering the abra seemed to be in a lot of pain. After I stopped I jumped back and got in a fighting stance. "Chip not respect meanies like you!" I said as I sustained a headbutt from the aron. "You disgust Chip!" I say as I jump towards him, using Fury Swipes.

[Kamen Evie]

It eventually gets kind of hard to keep track of where the heck that pokemon was supposed to be going. I hadn’t really trained with my powers all that much, so trying to track him or her that way isn’t going to work. Just when I resort to trying to think of a way to maybe burn down all the tall grass without burning the papers, I see a flash of light from where Nina ran off to before… Could she be…? Probably not; I mean, that was already gone by Part Four. Hearing the sounds of battle, I teleport to where I saw it coming from, falling to the ground. My legs feel a little wobbly, but I’m not going to admit that at the moment. I try to tell what’s going on until the other pokemon start ganging up on Nina and trying to beat her into submission.

“Hey!” I say to the other team indignantly. “I don’t really know what this whole “Desia” thing is all about, and it’s probably super-important, but that's not what's important to me right now. What’s important to me right now is that you’re hurting my friend with the characteristic zeal of someone who has no idea what they’re talking about!” Since Chip seems to have the Aron and the Abra covered, I use Confusion on the Shroomish, picking him up and throwing him at the enemy Nidoran, ending in a collision that they found more surprising than confusing. Normally, I wouldn’t try and escalate things this quickly, but I think this is the kind of situation where you just have to beat the crap out of them and hope that they’ll be more open to suggestion once they’re barely conscious. It actually makes a lot of sense, now that I think about it.

[Riddles]

[Josh]
There were a lot of distractions slowing them down. It would take them a long time to get to wherever Kiera was at this rate. On top of that, Spruce and Anthony kept insulting each other, which wasn't helping.
"Matt, bring me up to Anthony." Josh said. "I need to talk to him for a second."

Matt floated over to Kamina's head, where Anthony was sitting.
"Hey, Anthony." Josh said. "I know you aren't really fond of Spruce, but could you at least try to get along with him? He'll only be with us for one day, if everything goes according to plan."

---

[Dexter]
Dexter looked around, and noticed that a bunch of people nearby were staring at him. "The hell are you looking at?" He growled. Most of them turned away at that point, but there were a few that continued staring. For a moment, he considered spewing flames at them, but then decided against it.

A Chikorita then walked up to him, and offered his leaf to him to help clean off some of the rainwater. "Thanks." He said, using the leaf to dry himself off a little.

[Anlu]

With a quiet hiss, Thassa presses her nose into Fava's slim green chest. Yes, he's sturdy, but she won't admit that to him. She likes his warmth, but she won't admit that either. She only holds this position a few long moments. "...I do not need catching; I have no need for feet. ...I do not like it down here, though; there are too many pokemon." She draws herself back now, lifting her head so that she can see - and so that she doesn't seem like she's trying to hide, even though she stays behind Favlev for the moment. "I can taste each and every one of them and I have an unpleasant suspicion that there is a grimer nearby." She pulls a face to express her distaste, and follows after the chikorita after he offers his help to this growlithe.

"...It's not very big." Says the serpent rather skeptically, leaning up over Favlev to examine the hound. The pungent scent of wet dog is a heavy one, sticking to the back of her throat and the roof of her mouth now that she's close, and... as a predator, the odor is simply intoxicating. Her gaze reflects this, and those dark red eyes rest on his. Her gaze doesn't waver, and she doesn't blink. It's the look of a creature that has never blinked.
...She doesn't even have eyelids.

At long length, without breaking that long gaze and certainly without relaxing her looming posture, the larger serpent addresses him directly. "...What is your name?"

[Pearion_Rehtyer]

Falvev is very much unaware she is using him to hide from all the pokemon and simply responds with, "Well...it would have been faster to catch, anyways, there probably is a grimer around here. It's a guild, there's a big variety." He had wandered over to Dexter by this point.

After letting the Growlithe dry and clean off a bit with his leaf he stated, "Umm are you upset? You sound like it. I'm Falvev." He noticed Thassa peering over his shoulder and blinked before tilting his head back a bit to nudge her slightly away, "This pokemon is not big?" He asked, wondering if that's what she meant. He looks over and notices her gaze before reaching up and tipping her head down a little with his paw, giving her a worried look. "Yes, not as big as you are Thassa. How about you help dry him off?" He offered, hoping that would both distract Thassa and help the Growlithe.

[Lugia]

[Bonnie]

William somehow made it to the top of the building, and came down here just to call my father pathetic... which he was. He then explained everything about what he's seen in the basement, including our now-rescued captive bidoof, but, from the sound of things, there was more than one pokemon being held in the basement. "Well, we can't just leave them there to rot, can we? They're probably just as important to their families as the bidoof was... and I'd rather not leave any more victims for my father," I say with an unusually high amount of confidence. I ran down into the dark basement, and somehow keep my head clear, already knowing just from the stench alone that there were dead pokemon down here, as well as rotten food. Of course, I couldn't see a single thing, but I could hear someone off in some other room shouting something about this and that, about how he let a lampent get away with the bidoof he captured, or something. I wasn't about to let that pokemon, probably the gallade that William told me about, do whatever it was he did around here, but... it would be stupid to do this alone, so I shout back at my team "Hey, are we doing this, or what? Come on, we're wasting time!" I then wait for whomever wanted to join me down here, most likely Tini, and possibly William and Eralion. I then get an idea on how we can escape... "William... I think I've got an idea. The quick seeds, we'll feed these to the prisoners, and ourselves, and we'll make a break for the entrance. We'll teleport everyone out of this place as soon as we can," I explain to William, excited about this, which was a little strange for me.

---

[Nina]

Most of the rest of my team came into help, with Rebecca using her psychic powers to throw the shroomish at the other nidoran, and Chip using leech life on the abra. The nidoran accidentally poisoned the shroomish that was thrown at him, and the shroomish accidentally put him to sleep with some sort of weird spores. "Look, let me explain-" I start to say, only to get cut off by the aron, given that the other nidoran was currently asleep "SAVE your words, minion, they'll do you no good against us!" it seemed as though the aron's head was about as thick as the rest of his team's... but who was this 'Desia', and why was she so important? What could she have possibly done to provoke such feelings of anger in these random explorers? The aron then headbutted me, breaking my thought process, and making me flinch, which the rhydon saw as an opportunity to use tackle on me. I was already nearly finished, and this was only round two. "Agh... why'd they... have to focus on me?" I ask the rest of the team, who could probably guess just from my speech patterns that I was having trouble breathing. I dug around in my bag, searching for an oran berry, however, I couldn't find a single one... I was certain that it was in there, I just couldn't find it due to panic. The abra tried another hidden power ((Fire, but it's in the rain)), this time on Chip, thankfully. The shroomish then used leech seed, aiming for Rebecca, and, he seemed to smile as he did so, as if he enjoyed the thought of draining her life. Come on... I need that berry, now! I think as I continue digging around in my bag in some vain attempt at trying to find the oran berry, despite the fact that my vision was too blurry at the moment to even make it out among the other berries in the bag.

---

[Spruce]

I notice Celes getting close to me, and she asks me what's wrong. I answer with "Well... I mean... look, I don't believe this whole 'psychic SOS message' thing... I think he's just trying to drag us into some mission with him that he can't pull off on his own," I then continue walking along the path with not much else happening until a familiar trio consisting of a koffing, a zubat, and a sneasel appeared right in front of us. "AHA! We've got you now! Team Zan is going to destroy you, and we're going to take EVERYTHING you've got!" I facepalm right then and there, and ask "So, you couldn't take four of us down, but you think you can take down..." I then count everyone else who's here, including the silent murkrow, and the hitmonlee who suddenly seems to have calmed down continuing with "...nine of us? Do you three have any brains left, or did we accidentally beat that out of you the last time you challenged us?" they then start talking amongst themselves, and the koffing shouts "Yeah! This time we've got a... er... what'd you call it boss?" the sneasel then answers "An ace up our sleeve," the koffing then asks "What's that mean?" of course, I didn't waste any more time on their speech, and just vine whip the sneasel, which seemed to hurt him quite a bit... however... either my eyes were playing tricks on me, or there was a second sneasel for a moment. I was then attacked by an ice shard from behind. "Gah! What the!? How did you even?" I frantically ask the duplicate, who disappeared mere seconds after I turned around to face the mysterious backstabber.

---

[Anthony]

Kamina looks up and almost seems to threaten me, and Josh has Matt float him up to my level so he could talk to me about the whole situation. I end up responding with "Sorry, I just don't think he's actually serious about this whole thing. I mean, he laughed when I told him about the SOS message... look, I'll try to get along, but no guarantees," the walk become just that much more silent after that, with Celes apparently confronting Spruce about the exact same problem. Well, okay, the walk WAS silent, until a group of thugs appeared out of nowhere, called themselves 'Team Zan', and stupidly challenged us, even though we outnumbered them three to one. "Well, I guess something could be said about their bravery..." I mumble to myself as I watch Spruce try to attack the sneasel who was in the middle of it all. A second sneasel appeared from behind the first one, and quickly darted behind Spruce to attack him with Ice Shard... as well as some confusion, I'm guessing, as Spruce couldn't make heads or tails of it all. I jumped off of Kamina and onto the zubat, weighing it down enough for it to drop, and, after I get off, I look squarely at the sneasel, and challenge "Come on, attack me, go for it, I'm weak, and I'm slow, what are you waiting for?" he... didn't seem to take the bait, however, I still prepared to counter attack. The zubat then used wing attack on me, which I countered immediately afterwards, commenting "Well, this wasn't exactly the attack I was hoping for, but I'll take it!" oddly enough, the same thing happened to me that happened to Spruce... after I attacked, I got attacked from behind... by another zubat. Unfortunately, I wasn't prepared to counter the other zubat's attack, so it was just extra damage.

[Evanist]

Celes sighed at what Spruce said, before breathing deeply, and looking down.
"We don't know where we are going to find any of those... things... and we never know... maybe helping him out might give us a clue on where the next one is..." she says, before a familiar trio arrive. Team Zan... again... Seriously...
"Didn't you get sent into jail or something" she then says, before seeing the attacks that happened. This... was strange... and bad... She looked at Spruce and then though a bit. So they could attack like that in 2 sides... Dual strikes and such... as if... they had clones somewhere.
"What is this, is it me or am I seeing double constantly..." she says, looking at how the Sneazle disappeared. There must be reason for how they were able to do that. No matter... She then made rush at the sneasle, and was about to use draining kiss at it.... only to feel strange. She looked up in the sky before having energy gather up around her. A bright orb started to form. Suddenly she used moon blast on the sneasle, doing heavy damage to it. She smiles as it seemed like the sneasle was KO, only for a bright light to come and then make her blind. Soon after she looked as the sneasle got back up, as if nothing happened.
"What in the world..." she says, backing away a bit from this. This was definately wrong.

--------------------------------------------

Eralion fallowed the group quickly, hoping to just get to the prisoners and escape this unholy place. He then though about it and looked at Bonnie.
"Bonnie, maybe it would be good to block off and barricade the fastest route for your father to get here. If he gets out of that trap, then he will probably head directly towards us... if we barricade the way with bookshakes and possible traps, then he will be slowed down and we will have a better chance of escaping...." he then suggested, moving forwards quickly. Strategies.... that is one thing he had always though about when fighting. How to use the battlefield to your advantage. That is what his father though him for a long time. That how he survived so long against big creatures... Eralion was happy his father worked with him to get his mind sharper to details and strategies.

[Card Captor]

Kamina

Kamina recognized these guys right away; they were the ones who attacked the home of Celles' family...and that was unacceptable. Sure it was in the fight with them that he finally evolved, but that wasn't going to help them at all. "How dare you show your faces in front of us again!!!" Kamina roared "this time, I will be sure to engrave my vengeance on your bodies!!" Because Anthony had already gotten off, it was safe for Kamina's body to flare up as he charged at one of the Sneasel. This sent the much smaller Pokemon into it's double as the second was getting back up

---
Tini

Tini was confused. Now while this might not be anything new or surprising, it was still worth mentioning. "Um...aren't you guy's putting too much thought into this? Can't we just put more heavy things on him...like more bookcases? I mean, he's a super bad guy, so it's okay if we have to break most of his bones to keep him trapped. He looks more fast then strong, so I think that if we get enough heavy things on him, he'll be stuck until someone get's him out" something that Tini didn't register, was that he was saying all of this right where Bonnie's dad could hear him

[KaBling]

I wasn't thinking about much when we left for the mountain. There wasn't much to talk about, though I was slightly annoyed at the sudden growth of the size of our group. If there was a small reward, it would probably cause serious division within our group. Though, Anthony didn't say whether there was a reward with this at all; let alone if we could verify the fact we were trying to save someone. I still felt somewhat distrustful of him, even though I had no actual reason to do so. Then again, I've never felt secure since having to confront Davis, and then the... well, events after and before that. All within 3 days. That's a lot for someone who's barely gone outside to take in. So much so that I almost slept-walk all the way throughout the journey.

Sure enough, while on the rocky path towards the mountain, we were suddenly stopped by a blockade. Well, by that, I mean some Pokemon were the literal blockade. "Oh come on, I wanted a holiday trip to the mountain." I blathered out, still half-asleep before coming to my senses. "Never-mind that, we've got company. You guys all know those try-hards, yes?" Yes I was shocked at the fact they were willing to challenge us again, I just decided against either laughing at their insanity or feeling depressed at earlier memories: I was more willing to break another skull, this time with thunder.

I DID notice the fact there were... clones, duplicates, doppelgangers, whatever you want to call them. We all knew two of those guys was trouble, and something definitely needed to be done about that. In true Celes overpower x10 fashion, she had summoned some giant orbital laser from the moon. Well, as if said super-weapons still exist; it was probably just Celes being herself. Spruce took a bad cut in the back while Anthony just kinda squashed someone. Everyone else was waiting for their turn - to avoid cross-fire, of course.

As for me, I didn't know who to really target. That Zubat who was harassing Anthony definitely needed to be put down for now, and if it can survive a beating it can survive this; spinning my magnets, I went up to the Zubat (with an obvious dent and bandage on its head) in mid-air with both magnets pointed at it, poking its wing to get his attention. "IF ARCEUS WANTED YOU TO LIVE, HE WOULD NOT HAVE CREATED ME!" Sure enough, what followed afterwards was forcing the Zubat to the ground in convulsions. That was one down, five more to go.

What I didn't notice with Celes' orbital strike was feeling burnt afterwards. I thought I was just extremely intolerable to the sun until I realised some bright orb appeared out of nowhere, apparently used to... well, I couldn't tell. I felt like I was on fire after all, at least until that thing broke apart on its own accord. When I went back to face the Zubat, he was ready to exact revenge on me. I he looked both pissed and scared, something which was reflected by me.

[Flood]

Cobalt

Cobalt Bullet Punched directly into the Koffing and watched it the Koffing eat dirt as the attack landed. He immediately turned away from the Koffing and looked at the team he was now joining. "Did somebody order backup!?" He yelled as he did his best to strike a heroic pose. You could practically hear the Kriketune's chirping in the back ground as he felt an stream of Sludge impact with his body. "Hey! Come on man I was in the middle of my heroic pose!" It didn't hurt but it still ruined his big moment! He turned around and saw that his opponent whom he had believed to have knocked out was getting right back up. "That's is so not fair!" He yelled as he dodged a thrown rock from the Sneasel. " Also, hi! I'm Cobalt! I just joined uh... The team with the Goomy and the Skrelp. Them." He explained as he used Bullet Punch on the Sneasel he saw. He hit once again but the Sneasel just got right back up. " How does that even work!?"

[Riddles]

[Josh]
Right after they finally began to head north, their progress was halted once again. A group that apparently called themselves 'Team Zan' appeared, and it seemed like Spruce's group had fought them before. It seemed like there was more than just the Sneasel, Koffing, and Zubat. At certain times, a copy of one of them would appear. Also, they seemed to be getting back up as soon as they were knocked out.
"I suspect that Zorua trickery may be at work here." Matt said. "They may have reviver seeds, as well." His explanation seemed likely, but at the moment, there was no way to really tell if he was right or not.

Out of nowhere, a Beldum appeared and began attacking Team Zan. Apparently, he had joined the Scarabs, but Josh had never seen him before.
"Do you know this guy, Anthony?" Josh asked, thinking that Anthony may have recruited him at some point while they were all at the guild. He seemed to be on their side, so Josh didn't mind if he joined them.

As Matt began putting up Reflect, Josh turned his focus back to Team Zan. He knew that they would just get right back up if he knocked one of them out, but it couldn't hurt to try. He knocked out the Koffing with Confusion, only to have him get back up, like he expected. At this point, attacking one of the clones seemed to be the best option. He waited patiently for one of them to appear, ready to strike.

---

[Dexter]
The Ekans stared at Dexter as she asked for his name, raising her head so she was looking down at him. He knew exactly what she was trying to do. She was trying to intimidate him, and he wasn't going to let that happen.
"I'm Dexter." He said, staring right back at her. "So, now that I've given you my name, I think it's your turn to give me yours."

Favlev seemed to notice that Dexter was a little irritable. "Well, I'm a Fire-type that just got out of the rain." He said. "My fur's soaked, and I smell bad. If it seems like I'm a little moody, that's why."

Almost on cue, a Chatot flew over to them. "Oh! Hello there. Are you three new recruits, or are you only here to take shelter from the rain?"
"I'm here to join your guild." Dexter said. "Not sure about these two, though."
He hadn't yet decided whether or not he was going to join, but he had a feeling that he would have gotten thrown out if he'd chosen the latter option.