Welcome to Gaia! ::

Xander didn't bother mentioning that he didn't drink as he saw something caught his current teammates attention. While the Growlithe was rather pretty, he felt that Zack was more then enough. He looked at Mau and saw he had a rather peculiar look on his face but when he blinked it was gone. "Plants and I have never gotten along well enough for me to have any sort of garden." Just then he saw some one pull out a pokeball and summon forth an Eevee. Normally that wouldn't catch his eyes so easily but the Eevee's colorization and markings had him mesmerized.

"Right. A prize or two would make this trip worth the ladies." he agreed, eyes still locked on the dark colored Eevee. "Have a plan?" he asked. If need be he knew he could pickpocket the guys pokeball and return the Eevee to it but he had to wait to see what his temp. partner had in mind.

"Hmm, sounds like we need a distraction of some kind." Xander said then looked around the room as discreetly as he could. "Lets see... guy on the left by the wall is having trouble with a Bidoof trying to get at a plant, woman by the glass window on the right seems to be flirting with an older gentleman, a waiter in the back just coming out of the house is holding a platter of what looks like wine..." the blond said quietly, half to Mau and half to his self. "There is a Caterpie trying to sneak it's way into the garden, heading towards the so called rare plants, a hungry looking Pidgey is staring at said bug type fro a tree..." he continued.

As a field agent he knew that some of the best distractions came not from carefully planned ones but from improvised ones. "Ah ha! Look over at the right corner of the garden, there are a couple of very bored looking young boys. They appear to be ten at the most, likely being the children of someone here, maybe even the host." He gave Mau a mischievous look. "A few words with them and I bet they would be willing to make this party fun."

Xander laughed quietly and looked from Mau to the boys. "I think if we walk by them talking about the Caterpie and the Pidgy while conveniently dropping an empty ball would do the trick just fine." his eyes sparkled with mischief as a Cheshire grin grew briefly before he could temper it down to a smaller grin. "I bet they will not only fight over who gets the 'ball, but also who gets to capture the pokemon and which pokemon would be captured." Especially if while walking by, Mau and him discuss both of the pokemon strengths and weaknesses.

It was truly amazing how well Mau blended in with the crowd. Xander kept an eye on how the older man acted as he played his role, learning from him even as he made his outward appearance seem like he had a slight hero worship of his 'brother-in-law' in case anyone wondered. He gave the gossiping woman that stopped them a polite smile and a conspiratorial wink to confirm what 'Marcus' had told her before they moved on again.

"But Marcus! Surely you know that type advantages aside, certain bug types aren't that strong in the first place. I admit that some like Scyther are strong but that Caterpie there? No way." He said while gesturing to the pokemon as well. "Not only would it find it hard to take down the Pidgy because of being at a disadvantage being only able to stay on the ground, but it's attacks aren't strong enough anyway even if the Pidgy stayed in close enough for the aerial advantage to not matter." He then took a sip of his glass of water. "Whats more, the Caterpie is about to get a surprise attack on it by the Pidgy and that will lessen it's chances even more but I would take that wager just to prove you wrong."