Welcome to Gaia! ::

I didn't pay attention to either Rein's antics or Lykas's lecture. Keiko was more important. Part of me wanted to tell them to keep their voices down in case we were being watched, but I didn't know what we were walking into, so I wasn't sure that silence was necessary. At least for now.

Fortunately, it didn't take long for us to get to the place. I was the first to enter, and I expected Rein and Lykas to follow suit behind me It didn't look like much from the outside, but it definitely looked different on the inside - sterile white floors and off-white walls and ceiling, far removed from the gray steel... well, everything of the Under. It was heavily illuminated, as well - contrasting with the dark atmosphere outside. It was also empty, which had me feeling that something was off.

Now that I mention it, the place felt weird. Any attempts to extend my consciousness to sense the emotions of people around me either failed outright or... didn't make sense. Though I was knocked out of my thoughts when I heard the door open behind me. Fortunately, it was just Rala. "I tried to teleport to your side from my Pokeball, but somehow ended up outside," she explained telepathically, louder than I expected given how dysfunctional my sixth sense was at the moment.

"Teleport scramblers," I huffed. Of course. They were probably messing with my head whenever I tried to put my training in Mossdeep to use. But Rala was a Pokemon, so of course her telepathy could power through it. So no thinking to Rala.

Meanwhile, further in the complex, Keiko sat in a barred cell by herself, trying not to cry. She had no idea who took her, and how. She couldn't remember anything between telling Natalia to teleport her out of Virbank and waking up in that cell, alone. But she didn't feel safe. Especially since she didn't have any of her Pokemon or items with her.

~*~

As she sat there wondering what was going to happen to her, she felt something small beside her. Looking down, she saw a Happiny smiling up at her.

"Hello," she said quietly, not recognizing the tiny Pokemon. It didn't look different from any other Happiny, anyway.

The Happiny looked up at her and cheered, wrapping her waist in a hug with its tiny arms. "Aww, it's nice to meet you too," she said softly, rubbing its back.

Suddenly, the door to her cell opened, and she stood up quickly, trying to conceal the Happiny from her captor. A man in what looked like a white tuxedo stood behind the opened cell doorway, staring at her with scorn in his eyes. "It's time," was all he said.

Keiko tried to resist, but was pulled out of the door. The Happiny tried to follow her, but the man she assumed to be her captor slammed the door in its face. "Hey!" she protested, struggling to escape his grasp.

"You're the only one she's after," he said grimly, half leading, half dragging her out of the room the cells were in.

When Lykas entered the building right after Terashi, he paused for a moment. "We're gonna be in for a fight if we go any deeper and get caught. Is everyone ready for this?" He asked after hearing Terashi's comment regarding the teleportation scramblers. "There's probably Ebonite in the walls too if they have teleportation scramblers in effect..." He realized. "Not like I'm any good at the Ghost powers anyway..." Heaving a small sigh, he recalled Mykel to his ball for safety's sake, as well as to make traversing the building easier. Smaller party size meant they were less noticeable. Not like his own hybrid presence wasn't going to end up making them stand out if the people here had access to energy scanners like they did. He'd light one of those up like a christmas tree compared to his comrades, after all.

"Well..." He finally said, a breathy, sigh-like tone to his voice. "If we're going in, we may as well go in now. Better to rip the band-aid off all at once, after all." With that said, he gestured for Terashi to lead them onward. It was his mistress they were here to save, after all so shouldn't he be the gallant knight-in-shining-armor leading the cavalry?

"Right," I sighed. Even if we did have time to stand around, the sooner we got Keiko out of here, the better.

The door in front of us took us to a long cooridor that led to another door. Through that was a torn-up lobby by the looks of it. Maybe a meeting room. Whatever it was, the place had been trashed by a lone Pokemon - an Absol. Maybe it was abandoned or ran from its trainer, but it wasn't wild- there were none of those in this region.

Nevertheless, the Absol, which had been lounging on a bed of torn papers atop a table, stood up at the sight of us. "Soooooooool," it howled, as if to alert others to our attention.

"We're going to have to silence it before we can proceed," I sighed again, grabbing a pokeball from my belt.

Sub perked up as he saw the Absol. It had been forever since he had seen one, and while it did bring back some bad memories concerning this species of Pokemon he was actually a little excited to see one in person again. When Rein stepped out to engage the Absol in battle he scowled a little bit, rolling an empty Dusk Ball around in his pocket as he watched the Golbat and Absol battle. All he had to do was wait for the right opportunity.

Part of me wanted to ask why Sub and Lykas weren't attacking the random Absol, but I didn't want to seem ungrateful. I was lucky enough that they came along. That said, however, I didn't feel like waiting around for Rein to take it down without using a type advantage.

"Let's just get this over with," I sighed, letting Angeal out of his ball. "Sky Uppercut."

"Alrighty," The Combusken cooed, running up to the Absol as it was being latched on to by Venom and swung at it, leaping into the air as his fist connected.

Absol, lost as it was, didn't appreciate the attention, and used Feint Attack to gain some distance from its attackers. It took both attacks though, and was not only poisoned, but was significantly damaged as well. It wasn't about to stop defending itself, but it didn't have much strength left with which to avoid getting caught in a ball.

Lykas watched Terashi attack Absol as well and shook his head. "Attacking it with more Pokemon is just going to create more of a disturbance. If we're trying to be stealthy here, we should be trying to make as little sound as possible." He told Terashi, though when he did, he also realized something. "Then again... If we attract a little attention, maybe we can get some answers from whoever comes to investigate?" He suggested, conjuring up a glowing ball of boiling water via his Will-o-Wisp. "A little poltergeist activity just might get us a little attention if you want it?" He offered, grabbing the ball of burning water like it was a baseball and preparing to throw it.With enough force and the right angle, he should be able to bounce it off a few walls and produce some more sound that might echo farther into this weird building.

That's fair," I responded to Odd. His logic was sound, but I was too worried about Keiko to tackle this place strategically. That didnn't give me the right to ignore my teammates, though. I congratulated Sub on his catch and patted Rein on the back before walking ahead of both of them, hoping to find Keiko before something terrible happened. I couldn't shake the feeling that she was in danger.

~*~

Despite all of her struggling, Keiko was lead to a machine on the far end of the room she was brought to. More men in white tuxedos were in this room, smilng at her. Standing beside the machine was a woman in a white dress covered mostly in a stained white labcoat.

"Don't worry, sweetie," the woman said, sounding calm despite the barely concealed look of excitement on her face. "You're going to save the world!"

Despite the woman's soothing words and voice, Keiko couldn't help but feel like she is was in danger. Bu no matter how much she struggled, she couldn't escape her captors, nor the machine she was strapped to.

~*~

The hallway we took lead us to what looked like a kennel, but the cages were big enough to hold humans. There were boxes and a desk with a bunch of papers on it, as well. I immediately started looking through the cages, hoping to find Keiko in one of them.