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The shade's appearance would slowly fade from Sub's scrutiny and the dark power now overcoming it for his vision. The priest clothed man within the shadow growled at Sub as he felt the disguise slipping away. "I hate when I have to exert myself beyond the usual capacity of full on mental invasion in the passive fashion. Then I end up having to use force over finesse. Alas, it is certainly worth a try." The almost inhuman growling voice echoed out from man's mouth before a pink wave of energy was sent flying out with a swing of his arm. The wave would be flying wide from Sub automatically, the wave flying to the sky rather than the ground born target. At least until the wave hit the ceiling above Sub and detonated, sending rubble flying at Sub and his Spiritomb.

Kaya jumped slightly when the stockade holding the would-be-robber was shattered. The wood must have been beyond rotten to break apart so easily. That or this guy simply had herculean levels of strength. Regardless, when a Houndoom appeared and greeted him with a stream of live fire, he released his little water-ball. "Nigel, Bubblebeam!" He ordered, quickly. The Aqua Mouse nodded and spewed a stream of explosive bubbles at the incoming flames. With each bubble that popped, a shower of water sprayed everywhere, helping to push back the blaze. Once the assault was ended, he glared at the Rocket goon. "So tell me why you were trying to rob Professor Oak?" He asked in his best attempt to warrant a conversation. He knew he wasn't the strongest person ever and that was likely going to make this guy think he wouldn't be able to use the information for anything. Team Rocket grunts didn't seem very bright, after all.

Lykas, with the women in Vermillion City, would attempt to read the mind of the woman who'd been singled out. His incomplete Hex, he hoped would stir up some memories and get her to tell him something useful.

Odd, swamped by the sudden transformation of Vittorio into a swarm of illusory squirrels, freaked out for a few seconds and froze up, giving the possessed man plenty of time to escape from him. However, Cadenza had seen where he went a followed one of Sub's cues.

Employing a little trick he'd learned watching the Dark Channeler, he swallowed Odd up in a haze of spiritual energy and vanished into a grayish, shadowy mist. The Shadow Sneak allowed them to catch up fairly quickly and, instead of Odd attacking like Sub, Cadenza hurled his unconscious body out of the shadow he'd become towards the possessed Vittorio in an attempt to create an impromptu pincer attack on him.

Kaya ordered a quick counter attack from his partner before Houndoom could reach them. "Slam!" The Marill nodded and jumped straight up, performing a graceful flip and hurling his buoy-like tail down on Houndoom's head. With Huge Power behind him, Nigel's attack should be plenty enough to deflect the electrified bite. "You tell me what you know, I'll let you get away but if I think you're lieing to me I'm going to make your eardrums implode so start talking and every word that comes out of your mouth had better be true for your sake." Kaya threatened, Anael's Pokeball in his hand. The little Togepi might not be powerful in direct combat but her Hyper Voice could be deadly to a human unprepared for it.

Lykas did indeed find that flash of "R"s to be familiar. "Rocket...." He murmured as he let his chi ebb out of the woman's mind. "Thank you ladies. I'm afraid you'll have to face the authorities but I'll send something their way that should keep you from getting too harsh a punishment for this." He told the women as he stood up and started to go back towards those shops. He wanted to ask the shop owners about those herbs he'd seen. Did those have any significance?

Too bad for Vittorio that Cadenza's will was too strong to be influenced by an outside force. It had to be in order for him to exist at all. His soul had forced it's way into a shell that should have vanished into nothingness before it had the chance and freed it from it's destined fate. Such willpower cannot be swayed easily. He did form a ball of silver powder pushed around in an endless current by the unseen wind within and released it, though it was aimed at Vittorio, himself.

Wake up! I need you to be conscious, here!

Odd groaned and opened his eyes to see Cadenza firing an attack at Vittorio. "Wait! Don't be too rough with him!" The channeler called as he stood up. He could see a mass of soul threads connected to Vittorio but one in particular stood out. It didn't look like it belonged for some reason. It looked like he was possessed by something and, perhaps, by the man's connection with others, whatever was possessing him might be able to possess others using his connection with them.

Kaya remembered another Rocket, on who could likely be called a traitorous witch. Weren't they on the heels of a woman who was in league was them back in Celadon that escaped thanks to a little trickery? If the Rockets had someone among them spreading dissent, could it possibly be her? She didn't seem pleased with the others that were with her during the raid... He gave that some thought as he let the Rocket run off, giving a signal to the team's Claydol to take him to Vermillion City to help Lykas before the people of Pallet could notice what happened and turn their anger on him.

Lykas listened quietly while he drew nearer to the shopkeepers. They spoke of psychic power-enhancing herbs and other items. Wasn't there someone in Celadon City not long ago that had some kind of Psychic barrier up during the raid on the Rocket base? He'd only arrived to try and find the source after hearing about it from GRAY so he knew nothing else about the mission. But maybe Rocket had something to do with this?

Odd opened his eyes only after crashing into Vittorio and knocking him out. From where he laid, he was trying to figure out what, exactly, had happened. He remembered getting swarmed by squirrel Pokemon and then nothing until now. "What's this?" He asked about Vittorio's last semi-conscious words.

Something about failing an errand in Vermillion. Cadenza repeated. Perhaps we should hold him until he comes to and see what we can find out?

Odd nodded as he stood up, rubbing his head. "Ya. I bet Lykas and Mykel could find something in that head of his even if he can't remember it. Someone looking in might find something out of place in his memories faster than him...." He said as he picked Vittorio up. As he did, he noticed Sub nearby. "Hey! Where's everyone else?"

Sub kind of zoned out for awhile, once the weird guy tried to take control of Odd's Pokemon but apparently failed. After that he just watched for a bit, that was until Odd said his name, snapping the Snagem leader back to reality. "Hm? Everyone else? You mean you don't know? I just got here myself when all this went down so I have no idea where the others are. I could find them, that is if you don't need me here for anything else." He said to the Ghost trainer.

A fuzzy image would appear in the SNAG before some mumbling would sound out from the device. Two sharp bangs would ring out before it cleared up to reveal a bedraggled Reno, breathing a little heavy for some reason. "Hey guys. Sorry I haven't been communicating well, but I ended up sidetracked by some work I needed to do and then this stupid machine decided to quit on me. But, since I heard your question Odd......I dunno, but it is gettin' weird. I was gone for only 20 minutes and even less people are here now. Actually, the active members who disappeared were all on that mission to Celadon if I think right. Maybe that has something to do with it?" Reno's random interruption would likely not offer much to the group's interactions beyond showing that at least someone was alive at HQ.

Mykel, knee deep in Vittorio's thoughts of the last few moments where 'he' attempted to control the Pokemon and their trainers, the Gardevoir would find an odd trace of energy in these memories. Tracing back the energy through his further memories would reveal each possession having the same signature and one other strange memory where before it, he was prepared to hunt down some strange charms for protection against possession and after, he was simply walking always despondent over it, passing by a familiar woman.

"We'll need to look into it when we get back...." Odd noted before turning back to Lykas, Kaya and Sub. "What did you two find out?" He asked of his boyfriend and his old friend.

"There are a few women in custody in Vermillion charged with petty theft. They basically ran into the various shops, grabbed a few things and bolted out. Other than the fact that everything stolen related to the enhancement of psychic powers, they had nothing physically in common that I could find. One of them did have a fairly strong memory of a big red 'R', though." Lykas offered what little he had found.

"And There was a guy from Rocket in Pallet Town. He said he didn't remember anythign except running headlong into Oak's lab and snapping to his senses just before he got caught. He was blaming some 'traitorous witch', as he called her, for leading him into the mess he was in." Kaya rattled off. "And....there was this strange man in a mask guarding Oak's lab. He was the one to catch the thief and it seemed like he was fairly trusted by Oak to be left guarding the lab by himself." It was only now that he realized something important. Not once had he seen or heard a single sound come from inside the lab to say there were even still people in it. Was it possible that the crowd around him had simply distracted him from the muffle sounds coming from inside the building or had there simply not been any at all?

"Ok....So it sounds like everything's leading us back to Rocket...." Odd announced, only to have his suspicions verified when Mykel removed himself from Vittorio's memories.

"You all need to see this...." The Gardevoir said before sharing a fragment of memory with those gathered.

"That's the woman we were trying to catch in Celadon city!" Kaya declared as the image of the still nameless woman filtered into his mind. "I think she was some kind of channeler but I can't really be sure. I never saw her do anything but then....I also never saw her do anything." That statement confused him. While he had to admit he hadn't seen the woman do anything to indicate she was a channeler, the fact that she had seemed so utterly calm and hadn't really done anything in retaliation to them suggested there was far more to her than what met the eye.