Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Challenger," her voice echoed across the arena. The battle room was wide, massive. And basically an arena in the middle of a library; asphalt with paint lines and the walls were covered with bookshelves and paintings and stuff. Lenora stood tall at the far end, turning to look over her shoulder as Takamaru descended into her domain.

She, a black woman standing six feet tall, turned around fully and tore away her apron, casting it aside where it caught the air and fluttered to the ground. She was deceptively slender and rather tired that trainers thought she was a big fat lady cause of her apron. Stupid apron.

"Welcome to the Nacrene City Pokémon Gym. I am Lenora, the Gym Leader," she tilted her head back and smirked, leaning against her desk and crossing her legs. "You must be..." she glanced down at the small display built into the desktop, which displayed the trainer data of anyone who entered the gym, and looked back up without missing a beat, "Takamaru Takashi."

Lenora's eyes narrowed quickly, "We'll be battling two on two. I want to see the teamwork you have with your pokémon. Fail my expectations and you don't get the badge."

The gym leader stood up, arms folded. A machine ejected a pair of pokéballs from the ceiling, the monsters inside selected for Takamaru's level. They materialised mid-fall, spinning and flipping before landing hard on the ground, heads bowed. Lenora snatched out to the left and right, catching the balls without looking and then retracting them into her folded arms.

Herdier and Watchog stepped forward, taking their positions on their end of the arena.

"Challengers get the first move," Lenora said, "Choose your pokémon wisely, Takamaru. Let's hope you get a passing grade."


***

Wayne heard his name being called and turned around to see where it was coming from. Henrietta almost tripped up when he did and he found himself blinking. His thoughts put into speech, "Henrietta? What are you doing here?"

And then panic. Aww crap, he was supposed to meet her after the gym battle. That was like a million hours ago! Great. She was probably here to moan. Probably.

((According to the update it was a dream. I don't see how a giant Torchic would even be possible, even with Cipher's science.))

((Artemis knows it was real, she put it there because no confirmation posts existed.

Also, cipher's science is nothing in comparison to a certain someone's that the oldbies will know and love to hate. You'll meet him eventually. To put it simply, he's a genetic engineer.

Robby is played by my brother IRL. I told him he should write the post so it comes off as a dream, to trick people.

Either way, putting it simply, it happened. And that is the least weird thing you're going to find.

Welcome to Pokemon Legends.))

Blackbeard narrowed his eyes as he continued to peer over. "Well, I'm sure they're probably on their way already. Still though, doesn't mean we shouldn't join in on all this crazy music." He looked back to his Whimsicott. "Blacksheep, can I get lift?"

His Whimsicott nodded, then spun around. In an instant, there was a sphere of cotton floating around her, loose enough that it almost looked natural. Her Prankster ability made the move more or less happen in the blink of an eye.

And then the cotton spores all flew to her like she was a magnet attracting nails, clinging to her body in a second to form a dense ball of cotton the size of a small truck. The cotton molded in shape, looked more like a fluid cloud.

Blacksheep reappeared in a Pop! right above the cloud. It had looked like she had teleported there, although any trainer savvy enough about the Whimsicott species may have drawn a different conclusion. Their ability to make their bodies so compact that they could slip through any crack, combined with their speed, made their sudden appearances and reappearances look like magic. It helped give their reputation for being whimsical pranksters.

The musician grinned. "That was groovy,' he told his pokemon while taking a step up onto the cloud of cotton while giving a high five to Blacksheep. Interestingly enough, it still remained afloat even after Blackbird stepped on, molding it's shape to his weight like a pillow with every press onto the spores.

He looked down at Bill, appearing as if he was actually standing on a cloud. "Blacksheep will be able to hold your weight too, if you wanna tag along for the ride. The next stop on our tour is...uh..."

The musician pointed over to where the Torchic had been. "Over there, I guess."

(Edit: Whoops, called it Mischievous Heart. Way better name though))

Glass was broken from every source possible at one end of Nacrene City. The windows were shattered, glasses left on the tables at the cafe all broke. The bottles in the garbage were shards that pierced through the things that contained them. Basically, there was a s**t ton of glass everywhere.

The cotton cloud propelled forward through the air, blessed with a Tailwind from Blacksheep. The Whimsicott sat at the front of the cotton cloud, dancing around with spinning and windmilling her arms forward as if she knew kung fu or something. The motions controlled the cloud, moving it through the air as if she was bending it's will. It was gliding low to the ground, a cottony magic carpet for the two sitting atop it with Blacksheep.

"Gee, I'm pretty glad we're floating up here and not walking down there," Blackbird commented as he looked down at the street through a hole he poked through in the cloud with his walking stick. Police and medics were already on the scene, helping out people who were shot with the shrapnel. The ones who were hurt the most had been already taken away. Those with minor wounds were all that remained.

In the distance, on the very edge of town where the street stopped and the walk to Pinwheel Forest began, was a large crater. It's indent in the ground was almost pokemon shaped.

"Alright, here's our stop!" Blackbird announced as they floated above an area where there was almost no glass, and the Whimsicott stopped doing the dance. The cotton cloud dispersed almost instantly, and the robed Santa man landed on the ground. His feet touched lightly to the street, and the walking stick, flimsy as it looked, helped brace the landing.

"Blacksheep, gimme a glass sweeping riff?" Blacksheep asked of his pokemon who floated above him on a tiny whirlwind.
"Cott cott!"

More cotton was produced with Cotton Spore, floating away from Blachsheep and forming into another, smaller dense sphere of cotton. It floated to the ground and then became bigger. The cotton was spreading out it's mass, rolling around the ground while picking up the stray pieces of glass in it's blob like form. The Whimsicott controlling it whistled as she floated behind the cotton blob, pushing forward with her arms to bend the spores around like a puppeteer while cleaning up the streets.

Blackbird turned to Bill. "We should probably start checking on the injured people, right?"

((I remember when he genetically altered his daughter. And his other daughter. And his two sons.))

"Oh, no, I feel great!" It was true, her skin was all tingly and sensitive feeling and the lightheadedness she felt was good! She took a step closer to Wayne and pouted. "Unless you don't wanna train?"

Henrietta giggled. Drink? "Two," she said. The drinks had made her feel funny, but it was good, right? For a change she wasn't totally lame and awkward. She felt good and free, like she could say or do anything with no consequences.

She grabbed Wayne's hands. "Hum, I'm okay, I'm okay~ Look, no stuttering at all!"

((Each guy represented a letter. So he had to go spelling out sentences by launching a lot of them. The homeless population went down, I hear))

"Yeah that's great," Wayne pushed the girl's arms down by her side, "but we gotta get you back to- where are you staying? You need to go there."

Wayne looked over to Hitmonlee and called his name, the Fight Type launched a Blitzle into a tree with a well placed Rolling Kick, snapping the tree in half, and turned back to his trainer.

"We're taking Henrietta back. You coming?"

Hitmonlee surveyed the sheer destruction he'd caused. Pokémon homes destroyed, entire families erased, cripples made. Then he shrugged.

[Yeah, I'm done here.]