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Jason watched silently as Ulysses and Terrian argued. When Terrian summoned his raichu he had to admit he was surprised, but after seeing what he could do that morning it wasn't too much of a shock. He looked at Mist and nodded as she floated forward. "Ulysses, calm down," he said. "Do you really think he'd do this if he had a choice? I've only met him once, and I believe that he's being forced to do this." He looked back to Terrian. "I'll use Mist. Joy doesn't like to fight."

Ulysses had already calmed down. At this point he was merely emulating emotion, trying to be angry. It seemed he was more prepared for this sort of upset than even he had anticipated. Jason's words provoked an explanation. "Imagine if one of your best friends came back into your life after a decade and said 'Fight me or I'll just kill you all. Oh, by the way, you're worthless, so really I'm doing you a favor.'" Shonevsky shook his head, irritated with Terrian. The man had instigated a fight without explanation, threatened them all, insulted the Doctor, and expected everyone to play along anyways.

Ulysses closed the gap between himself and Terrian. There was no more than three inches between them, but if the a*****e's powers were worth anything, he would know the geezer intended no harm. His words were barely above a whisper, inaudible to the others. "I don't care what you're doing this for, you will answer for all of it- and pay for all of it, if it comes to that. I will play your game, you childish imp, but you've lost all favor and friendship with me. I ask for answers, and you evade. I ask again, and you insult me. 'I can't tell you' would have been better than burning bridges, don't you think? No, you don't have to answer that- I don't need to hear any more of your trash." With all that off his chest, Ulysses was feeling a little better. Walking away he took a deep breath and glanced at Stetson Schraeder.

"Schraeder, keep an eye on him. He can't be trusted."

This history lesson between Ulysses and the man in the hat put Maddy on edge. all hour and a bit she had known of Ulysses so far lead her to believe he was a sturdy, stable, rational man, the kind who through keeping their cool keeps everybody from dieing. This Terrian made him angry, angry almost like a raider, and if ever needed, there wasn't a chance in hell anyone in the group was going to overpower him, there was only one course of action. Somewhere deep in Maddy's mind the Carebear theme song began to play, she shuddered and dispatched mental-godzilla to demolish that place. First things first, they had to win, then survive, then figure out who's leash Ulysses old friend had fallen into, do something about it, profit. Success was all but guaranteed! Mental-godzilla began to laugh maniacally.

Maddy held back, exactly up to the moment the raichu appeared. "Ulysses, this guy must be your friend to bring a spark rat, hell, ye'd probably be half insulted if he'd brought one of those electric rattatats." Back on the long hike Maddy had seen a lot of pikachus and raichus, they had become the vermin infestation of the southwest.

Given their decent potential for intelligence a lot of families out in the plains and desert states would get a pikachu for the kids instead of a dog, you could train it a bit better and it's worth a damn against wild pokemon. Only trouble is that without a trainer the things end up neglecting their electric abilities for mundane animal lifestyles, it's just easier; And they live in packs which makes most of them dumb as chihuahuas. They do tend to be a mighty powerful fire hazard, Maddy and Roger made a half decent living herding them around, the right sort of charge in the right place and they just scamper to and fro. In all her travels she had never seen someone genuinely train one, once or twice in raiding parties but those are half wild mob frenzies.

Maddy waved to Roger and he lifted himself off the eltpach "Remember that time west of Austin?" she asked as he passed, Roger let off a small spark between the 'fingers' on one of his magnets before settling on the ground a little forward of their side. His eye pointed generally in Synapse' direction but until everybody else got their plans figured out he set to collecting as much energy from the environment as possible. Their little gang wasn't built for fighting, but one does not simply walk across America.

(Edited first paragraph for spelling Lease->Leash)

Tavish nodded wordlessly at the suggestion to rotate out who rode Trouble, who, in true form, took to Tsuki in little more than a few minutes. Tavish introduced himself and briefly outlined the events that had led to the group's hasty exit from Riverdale, and the urgent summons by the Oaks as the group continued into the forest. He was notably distracted as the group continued into the forest, obviously lost in thought. Again. Mentally, he was calculating the time it would take for them to reach Riverdale with their reduced speed, as he mentally berated himself for not having planned ahead for the eventuality. Dammit, why didn't I think to get a car?! Traveling at this pace would take too long if they stuck to their original route...The only way to cut time would be to travel east-northeast, and take a more direct route. Tavish's expression narrowed into a deep frown. That route would take them closer to Grove than he'd originally planned. Too close, for his liking. In the few years since the cataclysm, he'd heard nothing but bad about the town...Heard that it was a city of the dead, a place populated with the condemned experiments of the Silph Co building that once stood there...a radioactive hellhole where none survived. most of those rumors were likely false...but the sheer number suggested SOMETHING malign that haunted the place. Tavish sighed, and adjusted their route to pass closer. They had no choice; not if they wanted to reach the Oaks on time. They'd still be passing well north of the town this way; he just worried about something...coming to greet them. Especially with the kids being as vital as the Oaks stated.

Paul, meanwhile, had pushed out his own end of the truck, avoiding the crashing entanglement that was a flying scyther and a bundle of insanity. As he came out, he dropped the empty magazine onto the ground, pushed a fresh magazine in, and pulled the action back. At this point his boots hit the ground and he whirled to the roof. Zoidberg waited again, waited for the foe to come close, and then performed a mini-teleport, dropping to Paul's side; the two fired a series of bullets and psychic darts at the two free scythers.

Oddjob, now sore from being raked across a truck, was becoming rather vicious. With a massive grin on his face, he attempted to pull up plates at the base of the scyther's wings and jam his burning tail into it, then give it a burst of ether, ideally just cooking the thing alive. If that failed, the wing would still go out, and they'd both hit the dirt, probably pretty hard at this speed.

With the air threat dealt with sufficiently and Zoidberg on full alert for survivors, Paul dropped his barrel, aiming down the scope at the biker, focusing the red ^ of the ACOG just above the helmet's visor. "You can kill her, but you'll die," Paul countered. "And you've got more to lose, I don't even really know this girl. And you're wounded and I'm in good condition. There's only two ways this can end: You go away with nothing, or you go away dead. Your choice, really." He kept himself low against the truck's bed, denying her visibility on anything but the rifle and his head. If she could turn her pistol to him faster than he could end this, he would be pretty impressed.

And that was that, it seemed; the bridge was burned, the tie was cut, and so forth.

Ulysses tossed a pokéball into the air like one would idly play with a baseball or other similar round object. It ejected its resident, Djinn, mid-spin, then fell back into the geezer's hand. It was tucked away quickly enough.

"On your mark, Alex."

Hipster-girl smirked and raised a nonplussed eyebrow as Ramsden made his display. The man openly laughed, throwing his head back. Sadly for him, that threw off his reaction time. As anticipated by the red mist surrounding his and his pokémons' vision, the actions proceeding from Ramsden's planning were awesome. Without a hint of fumbling ((-2 AP)) Erin downed the Agility X and sped off, immediately following the shot that grazed the enemy male's knee. Blitz silently ((-1 AP)) gunned the engine and had them off at a blazing eighty miles per hour ((-2 AP)), which they turned around to get behind the road block, nearly throwing Juno from her unsteady seat and coming as close as possible to bouncing Tobias out without actually tossing him ((-1 AP)). The man's head came off in a spray of gore, his fingers clenching on the trigger and sending an arc of bullets swinging across what would have been the motorbike's path, had it moved any slower. Erin danced her way to the woman, who, did manage to get a shot off in Erin's direction, though by that time, the bug was behind her, and the cloud of shot hit the back of one of the onix's reared heads, causing it to buck, even as the one on which she sat twitched in fury at the sudden death of its master. The sudden movement, the girl's shock, and Erin's twitching, hyped-up state resulted in the attempted threat of a bite becoming a gruesome severing of her jugular vein, sending her in a choking, twitching mess to the ground. Her screams were lost in the shrieks of three death-maddened rock snakes, which rounded on the source of their fury like an avalanche itself. Known neither for temperance nor intelligence, the thirty-foot beast pulverized their former masters' body in their rush to attack. One whipped its tail towards them, not aiming to hit, but rather to send an ether-laden wave of stone and earth rising towards the motorcycle. The other two simply threw themselves forward, their cries making both Erin and Sparks shiver, feeling suddenly enfeebled as their defenses fell - even Toby felt a tiny tinge of weakness from the sound.

Up above, Ian Kimball had been quite happily riding the air currents on his dragonite, the orange, bewinged, soft-looking creature gliding easily along as they rode towards Riverdale with a package of goods from Glenville. Ian had heard of the recent attacks, and so was more willing than ever to spend time airborne, especially if it kept him off his bad leg. On his way south, he spotted dust a few miles off - closer inspection, or through binoculars, revealed that an old, forest-green truck had just dropped off a man and a woman, both armed. As he watched, they summoned among them three towering onix, sat down, and waited. Not long after, they were rewarded for their wait by the arrival of a man and a young girl on a motorcycle, with a young boy riding in the sidecar. Words were exchanged, and when it seemed things may have calmed down, the man gunned his motorcycle, a blur beheaded the man with the onix, and the resultant chaos threw up a cloud of dust that began to obscure his vision.

---

The trio from Woodmount, forced to adopt a much slower pace because after a short time, it was revealed that keeping pace with an arcanine was roughly as fruitful as helping a lapras swim by riding it with oars. This meant that, as with the others, it was an easy hour of travel, taking them from the woods and out onto the sun-baked road and dirt, that led them to a truck. This truck was battered and forest-green, and had apparently been happily off-roading before the driver managed the superbly bizarre endeavor of accidentally driving off a small, four- or five-foot mound and landing on another. The vehicle was hilariously and precariously balanced between its four wheels on this mound of earth and clay while two burly-looking men, each with an impressive beard, jostled one another and looked at it teetering. They both turned and looked up at the approach of Tavish and his two charges. Both had the unmistakable thin, black tattoos on their cheeks.

"Oh, hey there!" one called out in a thick, deep voice, as though he was speaking through molasses, "Look't this! Rory just tore up our truck for good, I think - I mean, can you imagine?" He grinned and laughed, and the other man, who may have been his brother from the resemblance, laughed back at him. Rory had short-cropped hair and a shaggy beard, both close to black. The other had brown hair cut the same way, with hints of red in it from the sunlight. They seemed innocent and friendly enough, especially as nonchalantly as they held the hunting rifles that hung from each's hands. "From there, you prob'ly got an even better view! Hey, c'n you lend a hand? We could push the thing, but it'd be a hell of a lot safer if that big boy of yours could push it on down! D'you mind?"

---

"Okay! Battle, start!" Terrian chirped, and turned to Synapse. "Syn! Hit 'em with a thunderbolt! And... and turn it purple!" The raichu perked an ear, got to its feet, grass hanging out of its mouth, and started a charge. It had gotten halfway through its first syllable, sparks hardly even beginning to jump on its cheek spots, when it started choking on the grass. Its face turned a sickly color of green and it opened its mouth wide, trying to wretch. The doctor winced. "Synapse! What the hell did you eat?" A half-strangled sort of noise came out of the rat's throat around the blades of tall grass and it gestured as though trying to explain. Terrian became visibly distressed, and he clutched at the brim of his hat. "Well spit it out and thunderbolt the hell out of them like I told you!" he shouted, more emotionally involved than Ulysses had ever seen him.

---

((Things for Bayer and Jikial tomorrow; brain-dead.))

((Edited for small grammatical errors. Sorry everyone. sweatdrop ))

If there was anything to say about what had just happened, it was simply that Juno was beyond confused. First was the rant. That was fine. She could keep quiet for that and let Ramsden do his thing. She'd been used to his long talks in Riverdale, so she kinda learned to tune them out. The shirt thing was new. He'd never taken it off in front of her before, but she stayed quiet again. Seeing Erin pilfer through the shirt was unusual...huh. I didn't think she could grab pills. Good to know.

Then Ramsden got back on the bike and somehow nudged her into holding on to him. Without words. It seriously annoyed her that he was trying to get her to do anything at all. He just sold her and Toby out, and somehow expected her to forget it? Calling it a bluff is utter bullshit and I hate this. Somehow, against her current mistrust and hurt from Ramsden's stupid bluff, she held on to him.

That was when it all went to hell.

Somehow Ramsden must have had a lot of good karma from a previous life, because what just happened shouldn't have happened. Did physics just-- "AHH!" Because Juno had no idea what he'd been planning, she hadn't held on to him nearly as tightly as she should have. The blonde ended up falling off the bike. She ignored the pain of landing on the ground when she watched how fast he'd killed the two Dreamweavers. What is this?! I don't even

Killing them made no sense to her. And now Ramsden and Toby had gotten stuck in a boulder attack from the enraged onix. She'd gotten lucky enough to fall off while away from the rock pokemon. Even luckier, they'd completely ignored her. Juno knew better than to get in the middle of that crazy mess and stayed away from it. She screamed at the sky, "This is bullshi--"

Oh wait, what's this? A dragonite. Here. And...helping them? Um yay?