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 Posted: Sat Nov 07, 2009 11:07 pm
Gerard patted Thatcher on the shoulder before walking back over the Justice. The touching scene unfolding between Rex and the girls made Gerard think about his little larvitar. Though they hadn't exactly known each other for long, they already shared the strong bond that came when one met another that was very similar to them. Though they hadn't shared much experience, it was already clear to them both that they were going to be strong friends in the future.
They watched Rex together as he tried to free his previous master, the dancing flames throwing interesting patterns of light on the ice. As they watched, Gerard suddenly remembered something that the Drs. Oak had said. He looked at the pokemon next to him, who, sharing that emphatic connection, was already looking at him and thinking the same thing.
This was as good a chance as any to try out Justice's third-type abilities. Gerard led the little pokemon around to the other side of the ice, where they couldn't be seen by the others. He looked down at the pokemon, who nodded and turned to face the ice. Gerard had faith Justice; Justice had all of his focus and willpower zeroed in. Justice concentrated his ether, shaped it, directed it out at the ice, and they both waited to see what happened.
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Posted: Sun Nov 08, 2009 4:35 pm
Abe felt a bit warmer at her touch. Calmer, too. Maybe it was just the blanket and getting to sit.
An Espeon and a Mime...great.
"So...you got me out of this? Thanks...I don't know if I coulda lived through that last one. Was a close call."
He shifted uncomfortably and stared at the door. Why wasn't she curious about what they were waiting for?
But she did have a point. The oracle was there now. So was a Mime and some guards. And Abe didn't have his pokemon, not that they'd be fighting fit even if he did. Escape seemed more and more meek by the second.
"Thanks again...Elian." He put emphasis on her name. In situations like this, petty defiance of tradition and law was all that he could do to satisfy himself.
Already, the gears were turning though. He kept alert, ready to log anything that could help him escape while they waited.
He turned to the Mime. "I don't suppose I could distract you by pointing and shouting 'hey, look over there!' could I?"
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Posted: Mon Nov 09, 2009 9:53 am
Jeremiah brought his bike to a stop, just in time to witness a ninetails about to be crushed by a graveler. He stepped off of his motorcycle and took his shotgun in hand. He adjusted the brim of his hat before calmly approaching.
He brought his shotgun level to the rapidly approaching biker's chest, compensated for movement, and pulled the trigger. Then another time for good measure.
He turned his attention to the scyther and houndoom and brought his shotgun around to meet them. Without hesitation, he fired once, then twice, then a third time, in as rapid succession as he could manage.
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Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 2:07 pm
Paul was taking a while to answer her question. This made Juno very very uneasy. Okay. Let's pretend we don't want to run. She'd turned to grab her bag (making sure Paul was in her eyesight). She could easily get all her fallen items back in the bag, so that was good. Once done, she hoisted it on her back and started walking towards her bike. Evie followed Juno towards the bike.
Even now, the man had said nothing. DangitdangitdangitdangitIdon'twannadie! "Evie, jump," she muttered. Evie responded and jumped in Juno's arms. She hastily got Evie in the jacket before zipping it up and jumped on her bike. In less than 5 seconds, Juno started speeding down the road getting away from the stranger. A cloud of dust was left as she ran off. Mmkay. He's likely going to chase me. Dunno what'll happen from there. The gun was left in Juno's bag. Should be some other roads to get to Riverdale. I shouldn't stay on the main road. True, she had a likelier chance of running into wild pokemon, but at least she'd escape from the creepy man.
Her hands tightened on the handles. Straight shot to Riverdale and hopefully get help or detour and hopefully lose him? It was a lose/lose situation; so she'd go with the one that would give her the best cover. There we go. She took a right - it was the second detour path available to her (she'd passed the first while thinking about what to do). "We're in a bit of trouble, aren't we?" Evie barked and wiggled a little uncomfortably. OW. That was was a bad spot to step, Evie.
So there they were, an injured girl and tiny eevee, speeding on the road like hell-hounds were after them, and praying to God they would A) find help fast or B) get to Riverdale/safety fast. She looked behind to see if the man had followed them - she did not see him there. Oh good. We got a big head start.
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Posted: Wed Nov 11, 2009 8:43 pm
The girl jumped onto the motorcycle, and Paul's rifle jumped to his shoulder, the scope lined up with his eye. The sights shifted, leading the girl by just the right amount. Paul's finger tightened on the trigger. He tensed up, preparing for the recoil, the trigger traveling back.
He hesitated.
No.
The gun fell, and Paul knew he had wasted his opportunity to follow. s**t. "If you die, girl, you die with your blood washed from my hands." There went his one hope for deciding what he was going to do. The Reverend would not be pleased... but Terrian would be overjoyed. Now Paul just had to play his allies.
s**t, girl. With logic like that, you're going to get yourself killed. How easy it would've been... Paul shook his head to clear the thought. A sickness welled up. He had almost been hungry to see it. How long had he been hungry for death?
Now, however, Paul was lost. He had only a few options. Go forward, go back, or wait. And waiting was foolish. Paul marched over to his bike, and with flashes of red light stored away his pokémon. It was time to follow. Well, after ammo-collecting. He moved over to the corpses, reclaiming the G3 ammo available to him from them, as well as a mildly damaged ammo-carrying vest. Once he felt he actually had some supplies to work with, he stepped onto his bike.
His own bike kicked up a tail of dust as he set off a good thirty seconds after she departed. If she made it ten miles without running into trouble, Paul would be highly impressed.
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Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:17 pm
((What'd I tell you, eh? Eh? Okay. *whew* hope that absence never happens again ^^"))
As Jacob started to shove himself to his feet, he heard Lexi's comment about pinning the woman Bella had encased. Eyes wide, he dropped back to his butt. "You pinned that devil-spawn? Fuggin' b***h broke my ribs and young ladies are takin' 'er down," he mumbled to himself before finally standing, dusting himself off and looking at his jynx. "Welp, that was fun, wasn't it?" Bella harrumphed imperiously, and she must have said something, because his carefree grin turned sheepish.
He watched the next few moments with a raised eyebrow. "Well, must've done somethin' right. Bella, let 'er out, I guess." The jynx had already begun straining once the houndour started melting her construct and suppressed a sigh when she finally let the ice melt. Justice's efforts yielded a tiny cough of a flame, but no more; it seemed the pokémon wasn't quite mature enough for the third-type to manifest. "Boy, what is that... oh." Jacob rolled his eyes at Justice and mumbled something about crazy scientist kooks before saying, "That ain't how you'd do it, anyway; take advantage of the type, Gerry. Can I call you Gerry? Larvitar's a rock-type by nature. Let that do its work. Wha's it's name? Rock types're good at breakin' stuff, and ice got lots a' structure to it to get broken. Just have 'im ether-punch it."
Once Alexandria was free, she greeted Rex with a smile and knelt down to hug and pet the animal with a helpless, smile. When she tried to get back up, it looked like the weight of the gun she had just been swinging like a baseball bat almost buckled her knees. With a struggling step, she offered the butt of the gun to Jacob, who took it cautiously. "All righ', Miss," he said gently, holding her shaking gaze, "you gonna be less crazy now?"
Alexandria nodded quickly, caught by his eyes like a deer in headlights. "Y-yeah."
"That's good." He strapped the heavy weapon to his back and extended a hand in greeting. "My name's Jacob Thatcher. Some goes to you, young lady," he nodded at Lexi, his gaze asking her to understand that at the moment, he was far more worried about the insane girl who's bony hand was easily lost in his. "I'm here to protect Miss Lexi, here, and I don't know that I can trust you to let me do that."
Alexandria's eyes shot open at his last words in fear. "No! No, you can trust me, you can, Mr. Thatcher, you can trust me." She became agitated again, her body shivering. Apparently, the drugs hadn't quite run out, yet. "I-I-I know I just tried to kill you but I wouldn't do it again I swear Mr. Thatcher all I want to do is get back to the Exterminant I wanna kill 'em all Mr. Thatcher wanna show 'em what it's like to be an animal." She bared her teeth in a happy little grin at those last words, one that made Jacob flinch, and then come back with a twisted little grin.
"All right, Miss, all right. I think I b'lieve you, crazy 's that sounds. Now what's your name?" He didn't fully understand the situation, but after roving around in the post-Calamity world for as long as he had, he knew when to trust a nut job and when not to.
"M-my name?" she said, a little confused. With a jerking movement, she brushed her wild hair back over her shoulder in a shy motion and said, "I-I'm Alexandria Tourmaline." The name came out smoothly once it started, and then her attention flashed to Gerard. She looked him right in the eyes and asked, "Who's he?" Jacob looked over his shoulder and motioned with his head for Gerard to answer.
---
The mr. mime in attendance slapped Abe across the cheek hard enough to leave a bright, angry mark on his skin and was by no means amused by his attempts at petty distraction. David glowered up at Abe. "The Oracle will be addressed by her title. Stand now - we wait upon the Reverend." Invisible hands bodily lifted Abe out of his chair and left him on his feet. "She has dictated that you shall live, but I cannot guarantee that in our zealous piety, we will not collapse your airways to silence your blasphemy."
With a bow to the Oracle, David reached up a hand to the simple wooden door before which the small party stood and opened it inward. The two humans were ushered inside and followed by the goldenrod colored pokémon while the mime stood watch outside, his ugly, silent gaze guarding against any who would interrupt this meeting.
The room itself was nearly barren. A gray, metallic file cabinet was sequestered in a corner; the floor was beige linoleum; an unadorned desk dominated the room, but itself was a rather humble work; and two chairs, one with a violet cushion, sat on the visitors' side of the desk. The cushioned one was directly across, while the one clearly meant for Abe was behind that one and to the right. Solomon "led" Abe to his seat while David guided Elian.
As they had entered, a figure dressed only in a black, cowled robe had been sitting at the desk, calmly reading a thick, red-bound tome. Once Elian and Aislin had entered, seemingly the only points of bright color in the place besides the pillow, the figure stood and bowed to her. His gray, wispy hair was tied back in a ponytail of sorts, and his gaunt, weathered, thin face was set in a warm grin. He walked from behind the desk, took her hand, and kissed the knuckles of it before releasing it and saying, "Greeting, Oracle. It is an honor to finally meet you. David, Solomon - you may leave us." The two psychics bowed their obeisance and left silently. "Don't get any ideas, Abe," the engineer heard in his mind once they were gone, "I may still crush your windpipe from here."
"Now then," the Reverend said, moving back behind his desk and gesturing for the two to sit down, "my name is Reverend Beatitude, or Beati, Leader of the Exterminant. Before I begin explaining our goals, Oracle - why is this man with us?" His grin was nothing but cordial and curious. He had yet to even look in Abe's direction.
---
Jeremiah's coming rather effectively ended the assault. His smooth action brought a swift end to the remaining biker's life, sending the motorcycle spinning to Jacob's feet; luckily, the young boy was nimble enough to avoid injury. His second shot gave the scyther enough time to dart towards him, but that only gave Jeremiah a better shot: his final blows blasted the light bug-type to the ground with a dying shriek and threw the houndoom off Djinn with hardly a whimper. The ghost-type was injured, but he'd certainly be fine.
They were safe, but Glenville was still thirty miles away, and there had been no sign of Talia.
((NativeForeigner: +2 AP shooting at ghosts))
---
Maybe it was just Paul. Or maybe it was just Sarah. But it seemed like, somehow... the girl had moved awfully fast. It had been almost an unconscious kind of speed; there was no grace involved, no consolidation or minimization of movement; it just seemed as though she had gone... too fast.
The Bishop watched the other two prepare to go; watched Paul level his gun at a sixteen-year-old girl. Sarah was now in a decidedly interesting position. Either, she could go wage war on the Exterminant, although now that her most powerful pokémon had been compromised, that would be a problem; or, she could follow those two suicidal jerks, who had by the grace of well, by Sarah's own grace, she supposed - they had opted not to shoot her in the back.
She had almost been hoping for that. A little thread of hope that the Mew was still her answer had been left behind, just as everything had always left a tendril of hope - for YHWH, for Allah, for Christ, for Nirvana, for Amaterasu, for Thanatos. No matter, though; just something else that had failed. She wasn't going to die just yet, though, it seemed. No, she had been given a chance. What was she supposed to do with that chance, though? She could take it away herself, she mused, but that was stupid. Maybe...
Suddenly, she knew what to do. Her ears perked, and she hurled a pokéball without a thought at a stand of bushes that had dared to quiver. The nidoran♂ hiding there found itself trapped, and the ball, bouncing from Amlund's expert spin, got back in her hand, but only briefly. "Hey! Clodhopper! This is for you!" she shouted at Paul. When he turned, the pokéball was already flying at him. "Not much, but I figured you deserve somethin' for not killing me. Thing in there won't be happy, but he's yours." She tossed him a salute, and in her eyes, there was the most subtle hint of real gratitude. Yeah, she knew what to do. She stared hard at him and said before he drove off, "I'll see you again."
For a few moments, she just watched them go. And then, while she was looking, a dull, rumbling crash rolled across the landscape from Juno's direction. "... the Hell?" Her binoculars were out in an instant. Juno was out of sight, or lost in the cloud of dust that had been thrown up. Paul was already on his way and out of earshot; whether he could see the sudden burst was up to question. Sarah was caught. Investigate, or not? There was no easy answer.
SirBayer: -5 AP (first-level pokémon capture)
---
Juno felt as though she were flying. It was mostly because her forward momentum had not ceased, while her downward momentum had begun in earnest. Falling debris surrounded her, and there was nothing to see. When she landed, the bike took her with it for a while, but there was no way to keep her balance like this. She was thrown free and found herself, oddly, in total darkness. There should have been light filtering down through the dust trying to clog her lungs, but there wasn't.
A single point of light made itself known; a dim, orange glow. It seemed to swing back and forth a little, but other than that, there was no sound and no movement in the entire, cavernous area.
---
(Sarah Amlund, veteran extra. Pokémon: Dionys the chikorita; Athena the machoke. Obsessed with finding religion; musically talented; extremely knowledgeable of pokémon habits and abilities. Short, red hair; scarred face; 5' 8"; 136 lbs, 38 yrs old. Bishop of the Exterminant.)
(Talia Horsely, young-un. See char profile on first page. Pokémon: Pita the pikachu w/ ghost third-type. On her way from Glenville to Cliffshire.)
((That second one is ONLY for people experiencing frequent freezes or can send me an EPIC, EPIC char profile. _darkened_sword_, who was playing Talia, is unfortunately unable to continue with us, though we thank him (her? I've learned avatars are not end-all-beat-all for gender) for hir for hir time. Farewell!))
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Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 1:32 pm
Jeremiah smirked, delighting in the bug's shriek. He took a few moments to reach into a vest pocket, pull out several shells, and reload his gun, his back turned to Jacob.
As he reloaded, a murkrow came soaring down from above and landed at Jeremiah's feet. He finished reloading and cocked his weapon. Taking the gun in his right hand, Jeremiah promptly turned, pointed the gun towards Jacob, and held it steady.
"Ulysses Shonevsky?" he asked, his expression cold but blank as he held unfaltering eye-contact with Jacob. Jeremiah seemed to suddenly remember that there was another person with them as, without removing his eyes from Jacob's, Jeremiah reached down with his left hand and drew his scoped .44 magnum from it's holster.
He rotated so he instead held the .44 to Jacob and the shotgun, with a spread requiring less aim, towards Ulysses in the general vicinity behind him.
Jacob, not daring to speak out against the robust man who had just helped them now holding a gun towards him, quickly nodded and pointed past Jeremiah towards Ulysses.
Jeremiah hardened his glare before quickly returning his weapons to their holsters and turning towards Ulysses, "I'll be joining you two, now."
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Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 2:25 pm
Later down the line, Juno would look back and wonder how in the world she managed to escape two older people with guns. It might have been adrenaline, it might have been God, it might have been their shock at Juno's rather stupid run. Whatever it was, she was happily far away from the two. "Great. Now let's just pray we don't run into any more--"
The ground collapsed beneath them.
Right before she screamed, she had one last sane thought: Maybe I shouldn't have taken that detour.
Juno wrapped her arms around Evie while they fell. Even when Juno should have been paralyzed by fear, she remembered to protect her precious friend. Evie yelped as they fell. OhdearGoddon'tletmedieI'llbegoodandwhy'dIhavetobetheonegoingthroughthis. Curiously, she didn't have her life flash before her eyes. In fact, nothing flashed before her eyes - she was going straight into darkness. She unconsciously squeezed Evie closer to her.
Then came the landing. "...ow..." Great. Now she was in even more pain. The meganium wasn't enough. Falling out of the tree wasn't enough. Now she fell into a freakin' cave (landing on the bruised shoulder - what a lovely coincidence). She wondered whether the other kids were going through the same kind of troubles she was. "Evie, you okay?" Her arms were still wrapped around the fox-like creature; she did her best to protect the young pokemon from the fall. Evie barked, and Juno felt Evie lick her face. Juno chuckled but didn't stop the pup; she was more worried about how to get out of there. Dang. I hate this.
She sat up slowly. Feeling around, she found that her bike wasn't far away from her body at all. This is weird...there should be light. I did fall through the ground, didn't I? The only thing she could see was a little orange glow--wait a minute. What's that light? What did I get myself into now? She decided she'd wait to see if it would move, and if it did, whether it would be friendly or hostile. It could be a lanturn. Wait, don't they stay at the sea? I hope it's a friendly animal.
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Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 7:47 pm
As Ulysses obtained a larger view of what was occurring, he realized he had made a possibly fatal mistake: he'd sent his ghost companion to confront the dark-type canine. As his gun came up, another man arrived on the scene and solved the problem for him. Ulysses lowered his gun, despite the shotgun pointed in his direction. If this young man were here to kill him, things would be moving much faster.
When their eyes locked, Shonevsky nodded. "Thank you, young man, for your assistance. Saved my dear friend." He gestured to Djinn. The gengar grinned a slightly less malevolent grin for Jeremiah and cackled in the friendliest fashion possible. The retired doctor smiled. "That was a thank you."
At that time, Gloria and Djinn made their way toward Ulysses, preferring to keep a close proximity. The aging fellow knelt with a small wince and ran his hand along Gloria's mane with an even greater smile at seeing his pokémon compatriots in good health. Then he took time to look Djinn's injuries over. They were minor, but Ulysses would prefer it if he didn't fight from now on and said as much. Djinn glared and gave his most threatening growl he could without fearing retribution from Dr. Shonevsky. Still, the geezer shook his head. "No, Djinn. Only if you must. SO behave." The gengar turned his back to Ulysses, but had every intention of obeying despite his more primal urges to engage in combat at the first sign of trouble.
"To Glenville, then. Oh, young man, what might your name be?" Mentally he prayed that he wouldn't forget within the first five minutes of hearing it.
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Posted: Thu Nov 12, 2009 9:18 pm
Gerard stepped forward, bowing his head and introducing himself. Justice waddled up as well, shoving past Gerard to stand triumphantly in front of the woman. "Lar!" he said imperiously. Gerard introduced Justice with a laugh.
Introductions complete, Gerard observed silently as he waited for whatever came next.
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Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:40 am
The wall of ice didn’t exactly go down easily, but Lexi didn’t expect Rex to take it down completely in his condition anyways. She was glad she had thought to bring extra food. When the wall finally melted and crumbled--after Mr. Thatcher told Bella to quit trying to keep it up--Lexi joined the woman in rewarding the fire dog, sitting on the ground to give him another berry and a good rub as well, and her best to support the other woman as she struggled to get up.
Lexi nodded her understanding at Mr. Thatcher’s glance, but couldn’t help the annoyed grimace that crossed her face when he said he was here to protect her…she wasn’t a little kid!...But then she realized, no she wasn’t a little kid, she was a grown-up who attracted way too much trouble instead, which was probably worse than a little kid. The grimace faded and would have becomes a sarcastic grin except for how the conversation continued. Seeing the crazed expression rise on the woman’s face still made the hair on Lexi’s neck stand up, and she could tell the man still wasn’t convinced the woman was okay to keep around. She rubbed Rex’s bony sides in an effort both to calm him down, as he tensed again at the sound of fear in his old master’s voice, and keep herself from tensing as well. When both sides finally relaxed a little, Lexi let off a sigh of relief. As usual, hanging around people under the influence was being a lesson in riding emotional roller coasters.
She waited first for Gerard to give his introduction, then passed the berry she had been holding to Alexandria before standing up and giving her own intro. “For those who didn’t come knowing me, my name’s Alexis Hale,” she shrugged, “or Lexi, whichever you like.” She reached down and scooped up her spearow, who had been trying to get a few pecks of Rex’s berry, and gave the bird a few peanuts from her pocket stash. (She had figured chocolate was a little hard to come by to keep using) “And this is Phoenix.”
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Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 1:57 pm
Paul had accepted the pokéball, preferring not to make any reply, but rather to give her a nod and a salute before taking off after Juno.
Though Paul was well behind the girl, he had put to the pedal down hard, perhaps wasting some gas but closing the distance rather quickly, especially for dirt roads. As he approached this new hole in the ground, he was infinitely glad he had. Nope. Not even five, by my count. Paul deployed both trust-worthy pokémon at once. "We'll bother training our new compatriot soon enough. Which reminds me, we need a name for him."
Oddjob likewise more or less shrugged before moving over to the hole and sniffing around it. Zoidberg likewise used the abilities at his disposal to determine what, if anything, was down there.
"Hello?" Paul called down. "Anyone alive or well in there?" No flashlight attachment to either of his weapons, but there might be one in the motorcycle's pack. He moved back to it to check, and discovered one even as he had hoped - one of the magnetically enabled LED ones, too, so it wouldn't be dying on him any time soon. He shook it for a moment before attempting to light up the pit.
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Posted: Fri Nov 13, 2009 8:07 pm
Opening his good eye just enough to look around, Rikes realized that his little mantra had not waorked. Cursing once, he took a deep breath and look around to begin sizing up the situation. The mini dynamo named Vuk gave him a fresh round of shivers, but he calmed himself by reminding himself that the creature was on his side. The next thing he noticed was the enemy charging towards him...no, at the bird!
"Oi! Featherything! I reccomend movin!" he shouted, shooing the bird while trying to get out of his seat and into the back seat. Wether or not the avian listened to him, Rikes would position himself between the front and back seats and begin to look for an escape route. It was one of his survival rules:
Always know how to get out of any situation before you really got involved.
Depending on what he was able to figure out would determine his next actions.
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