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Beau would stare bleary-eyed towards the now-surfaced Tatsugiri before limply raising a fist in triumph. "Take that, you overgrown Karp. Blew up your living room and helped take you out." Beau muttered, giving a nod towards his Snorunt as she ran back over to where he was and helped with his struggle to get back into a sitting position. Finally taking a moment to assess his own condition, he would look downwards and find himself looking at the top of a plant poking out of his shirt. Slowly pulling the thing out, he would find himself staring at an interesting-colored herb and saying the first thing that came to mind, "Correction. Blew up his kitchen. And this is either the spice of life or I got all my luck back from being blown up and this is the Herba Mystica."

Staring at the herb for a few more moments, he would add, "So how do we check and confirm? I'm still a little ear-ringy from the enclosed detonation but I'm pretty sure the answer isn't taste test."

“Oh thank god.” Tsuki croaked, bringing his hands behind his head and looking upwards so he could just catch his breath. He returned Coffee back to his Pokeball and looked around when Freth spoke up about Professor Raifort still being gone. Well, gone or replaced by a Zoroark of all things which did not bode well for the other Titan group. He decided that the best thing to do in that moment was pull out his phone and send a group text to the others- maybe they had faced a similar problem?



Once that was done, Tsuki sent out his Blastoise again. “Do me a favor and check the bottom of the lake for anything interesting, particularly a whole lady? Just to double check.” He asked. There was no way he was getting back in that lake right now, not after nearly drowning his fair share in the last few minutes. Baja nodded and turned into the water, disappearing under the depths to check out for anything that stood out to him. Tsuki meanwhile, took the opportunity to walk towards the other Snagems and see if they had a clue of what that was.

“So, if Ms. Raifort isn’t literally dead in the water that means one of two things is possible: that Zoroark is hers and she’s trying to sneak off with the Herba Mystica OR someone kidnapped her and is trying to do that.” Tsuki said, his mind wandering over the possible options for if the latter happened to be the case. And if so, how would they find them before they did something dangerous with access to Herba Mystica samples?

[Asado Desert: Hunt for the Last Herba]

Aile would detect an opening in the side of the rock wall of the Eye of Asado, where a cave entrance should be but their eyes said there was nothing there. As Reno teleported down he might turn his attention to where Aile said the opening was and were he to focus his own Psychic senses he would detect another psychic presence right there in that spot. If Reno or someone else figure out a way to dispel what was cloaking them, or even just attacked, they would reveal the source of the psychic presence.

"Arma..." Growled the Armarouge that was guarding the entrance, the Fire and Psychic chi that had cloaked the cave entrance flickering away. If Reno had to deduce what all that was somehow the Armarouge was utilizing its power over heat and fire combined with its psychic powers to create the mirage of just a rocky surface to hide the cave entrance. Looking to the state of its damaged armor, with many chinks in it and pieces missing, this Armarouge appeared old, very old, its species not one known to actually age. Who knows how long it had been standing guard and why. And how Barbara got passed it for that matter.

"ROUGE!" It shouted, revealing it was charging up energy as it brought its cannon up and fired off an Armor Cannon right at the group. It was going to defend this entrance no matter what.

Just when Sol thought he was out, the forces that be kept pulling him back in. He'd meant to move away so he wouldn't be teleported, but an inopportune brush of his arm against Reno was enough of a physical link to teleport him out of the Academy for the second time today, and he'd found himself on the mesa apparently known as the Eye of Asado followed by unceremoniously tripping and falling for it. The change in scenery from the nurse's office to the Asado Desert practically jumpscared him as he got up and looked around to confirm where he was now. "¿por qué? Verdaderamente estoy maldito..."

A part of him would admit it was neat to finally lay eyes on the- he assumed- Eye of Asado though, especially with the added reaction from Reno over someone well beating him to the punch of making a pun out of a pun. "...beat you and I both..." After his remark, Reno and Aile had already teleported away again, likely to the ground below and prompting him to join them posthaste. A quick jump and a few flaps of his wings later saw him safely land on the sands near them, just in time for a glimpse at the gourd Reno was dumping water out of.

"Hola, I'm here to provide the second wing to the airline apparently- er. That the gourd you got from the port? Surprised you've kept it around," he remarked, lamenting how much he was going to be feeling the effects of today later. There wouldn't be much time to lament that when his senses tripped for a second and he saw the old Armarogue before them.

"An Armarogue? Not the most unusual thing in the desert-" He'd stop himself to dive away from the Armor Cannon shot, sand kicking up as he got back to his feet. "...surely Barbara would've seen this already?" He asked, curious if they beat her here thanks to Reno. He contemplated for a second, lamenting having a sudden teleport limit the Pokemon at his side yet again. He wouldn't make any sudden moves with Reno talking and extending an olive branch, instead slowly revealing his own empty hands.

"What he said, we're not here to fight unless we must," he added. He ceretainly wasn't going along with the idea because he was ill-equipped to fight an Armarogue at a time like this, not at all.

After its Armor Cannon missed the Armarouge would immediately go about charging up for another attack, adamant in dispatching of these trespassers. The Pokemon would only pause its attack when Reno spoke to its mind, the Armarouge's eyes locked with Reno's own as it instantly clocked who was speaking to him, the Psychic Pokemon clearly experienced. "Save your lies! I have stood guard for a millennia have trespassed upon The Eye under my watch!" The Pokemon spoke to Reno, resuming its charge up just for a second before Aile spoke, the Pokemon pausing again out of surprise as its eyes darted towards her. "The Herba Mystica..." It thought, Reno picking up said thoughts, noticing the Pokemon was now focused on Aile.

Ceasing its build up all together and dropping its arms the Pokemon would turn its body towards Aile's direction, stared at her for a second more, and then closed its eyes and focused its mind on her as, to Reno, it was clearly taking a mental dive into Aile. It was evident the mention of the Herba Mystica got its attention and at least convinced it to stop attacking for a moment and verify their intentions but there was something else that made it interested in Aile.

"It has been over a hundred years since one of you have shown. I expected you have forgotten your duty." The Armarouge spoke to Aile telepathically but no doubt Reno could tap into the transmission and hear himself. "You will find the inner chamber completely intact, the Herba Mystica safe, and our occupant secured. You may pass, Custodian. As well as the halfling warrior and your slave." The Armarouge said before stepping to the side to allow Aile to pass through.

What was this all about? Clearly it was mistaking Aile for someone, or something, else. It called her 'Custodian', did it mistake her for an individual tasked with maintaining this place, The Eye? And it confirmed there was indeed a Herba Mystica inside as well as a 'occupant', whatever or whoever that was. It was probably best not to ask it too many questions and risk having it figure out she was not who it thought she was and go back to attacking them. They could find out the answer to some of their questions for themselves.

Oh and, apparently it thinks Reno is her slave. Reno would pick up the reasoning from some of its stray thoughts, it figured that he had prosthetic limbs because his original limbs were lopped off as punishment. This Armarouge definitely had the mindset of a millennia ago.

They better get inside before the guard changes its mind.

Reno would stare with bewilderment at the absolute cascade of bizarre statements he was being thrown just by hanging out in the thing's mind. Halfling? Custodian? And what was that slave bit? Oh boy, he would be having words with that little psychic lighter if time wasn't a major concern right now. "Sure. Lets go see this....occupant." Reno muttered through gritted teeth, slowly following along behind Aile with his Alakazam following along quickly. "Had both of my arms right now, would slap the hell out of you. Don't care that you look like you saw the dinosaurs. still knock the dust off you."

The Armarouge ignored Reno's comment as the three of them passed through the cave entrance, the Psychic type remaining vigilante as they entered and was quick to step back in the entryway once they were inside and raised its mirage once again. It would say nothing more to Aile as it no doubt assumed she knew where she knew what to do here. Again any further questions would be strange to the guardian Pokemon.

As they walked into the cave it looked like a normal cave, completely black except for the light cast by Armarouge, the group needing a light source of their own to continue deeper into the cave.

After several minutes of walking in what was a typical cave the natural ground would give way to stone carved out of the Earth, clearly marking where the original cave had ended over a thousand years ago. Now walking on a completely flat surface the tunnel would become a completely square on, no other additions to come for several more minutes as metal sconces appeared along the walls of the tunnel, the Elemental Gems affixed to them flickering to life and casting yellowish light as they neared. Reno could sense the mechanism for them, the mix of chi very familiar as it was reminiscent to his Raichu's energy signature. These ancient people somehow used a mix of Elemental Gems to make motion sensor lights. Now with provided light the path would become a spiral staircase as they descended into the Earth, their destination unknown other than down.

Eventually they'd make it to the bottom of the staircase which was nothing but a small room, a simple landing with only one way forward through a single doorless opening. Walking through this doorway they would step into a giant dome shaped chamber, rings of Elemental Gem lights flickering to life to illuminate the entire chamber. Immediately they would note the long skinny walls made of some sort of shiny rainbow colored metal, not connected to anything, extending from just in front of the chamber's wall and stretching out to a giant dome of sand in the middle of the chamber. The dome of sand had a series of black angular spirals all over it, similar markings on the dome walls. The location of the Herba Mystica and the 'occupant' was not immediately apparent.

There was however a tremendous mix of energy coming from the apparently metal walls, as if someone had threw their entire spice cabinet into a bucket. This mix was apparent to all three of them, especially with the types they were attuned to. As for the dome they would all sense a tremendous energy coming from it, however anything more than that they could not discern, just that something was in there, the sand or something blocked out any identifying markers, and it was an immense amount of energy. Was a big bush of Herba in there?