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Paul hesitated. Priority one was himself and Zoidberg and Oddjob. Priorities could change, though, and right now... One chance, and one chance only. If this failed, then at least he would be alright.

"I attacked Willam because he attacked me. He was armed; the pistol I was found with was his. Anyone else who is hurt was not hurt by me. Now listen to me, Jñan," Paul said, his voice shaking. "Right now, your people are about to die. Look at them, you'll see the nosebleeds, it won't be long now. You don't want a repeat of anything we've seen before. Spread these people out. Get them out of here. If you will not listen to me, then at least let me take the girl, and my equipment. I've done nothing to you or your people but in self defense."

Paul paused; he couldn't make much more of his case; there wasn't anything more to say, so he stood and watched, watched while time wasted.

What Elian saw was, at first glance, nothing terribly unusual. The landscape was bland, yes, but that was to be expected. What was not expected was how… blurred it appeared to be. Her vision was kind of there, and kind of absent. It was hard to focus, both visually and mentally. For whatever reason, her mind could settle on no particular thing; it shifted between intense clarity and a kind of flickering, half-desire to seek shelter, food, and entertainment.

Ahead of her, towards the compound from which she had come, she could sense an intense negative pressure, like the shift in the air before a storm, but multiplied a thousand-fold. From the dusk of the falling night, a darker force approached, slowly but surely making its way towards Glenville. Solomon heard Elian’s cry, but made no move to help her save to continue facing the source of this new threat. Instead, he said two words: ”the Oblivion.” And then he fell silent.



Back in the labs, Sigmund was tight-lipped and pale with worry while his brother, meeting Richard’s hard gaze, calmly took the proffered pokéballs, and placed them in a machine composed of a grid of semi-spherical dips in the metal and a lid with metal studs. He closed the lid, touched a few buttons at one of his consoles, and turned back to Richard with a gaze that in no way matched the happy blings and bloops the machine started generating.

“Now then,” he began, “can you please tell us…”

”HAU” came a loud cry from another console. Grimstrip didn’t even allow Edward to reprimand him; he obnoxiously grunted and indicated one of the radars in the small room, where a positive blip of energy had suddenly appeared.

“Sig. What do you think?” Ed asked in clipped tones. Their two guests were ignored.

The younger brother hurried to the screen and took a mere moment to read it. “Three signatures. One stronger than the rest, one fluctuating…”

“Fluctuating?” Ed asked icily.

“Yes. This isn’t like Terrian; this is something else. It’s directly in the path of whatever that… thing is, that Charlesworth mentioned.”

“Sir,” Ed asked in a dark tone, his full attention on Richard, “I’m not too stupid to miss what you were implying. Please explain what my brother just observed so we can act to protect the woman-" here he indicated the fluctuating area of color on the radar "-who may be key to the survival of the human race.”



((To explain to the others, I need to play with time here to make up for something Jokerman and Shaula should’ve been up to; I will post such things in grey))

Upon approaching the bunker, Gerard and Lexi immediately noticed that three motorcycles had been quite blatantly parked outside it. Lexi recognized them easily – these were from her home town, for sure. The bunker was situated a few dozen meters off the side of the road, and luckily had a small path leading to it from there. The building itself was run down and clearly abandoned. Vines grew up side of crumbling concrete, arching up to a height of no more than twenty feet. It had once been used in practice with paintball guns, but the paint had long since been washed away. A heavy, metal door hung off rusted hinges, showing a glimpse of the mostly-dark interior. There was a single row of small, empty windows to shoot out of, and a single other door on the other end of the thirty-foot-long building.

Alex glanced around observantly, then clambered out of the sidecar she had yet again opted for. After a precursory sniff, she dropped a pokéball she had drawn, releasing the creature within and revealing it to be roughly circular, with a long, fluffy, striped tail… which it immediately stood up on. “Giddy, check things out.”

The sentret nodded with a little chirrup, wrinkled its nose at some unpleasant smell, and scurried quickly into the bunker. “Wherever you are,” Alex called out casually to the air, her eyes devoid of concern, “come out now. I’d hate to waste TNT on you punks.” If it weren’t for the nervous tic in her fingers and the tiniest waver to her voice, she might have sounded like a whole new person.

Gary Froster’s panicked voice answered; Lexi knew this was the one who had attacked her outside her own city. “Hey, hey, let’s be reasonable,” it said as he made himself visible from around the far side of the bunker, hands raised over his head. He looked genuinely frightened, and licked his lips nervously. “Hey there,” he greeted.



Jeremiah’s shot hit home, but the kick from firing a shotgun one-handed while driving a motorcycle knocked him off balance, sending him and his vehicle skidding to the ground. The sneasel, hardly recognizable, failed to move. Ulysses’ gun did not fare well in the exchange; the barrel was badly chipped by Talia’s “blade” when he used it to block her. She was again tossed to the side, though, and this time, she lost her grip on it and fell to the dirt, eyes wide, her body unmoving.


((o-Angilis-o: -17 AP, second-stage pokémon capture))

((For future reference, Jeremiah's shotgun is only a .44, I'm not sure if it would have the kind of recoil to knock him off-balance enough to know him off a motorcycle, but I've also never fired one whilst riding a motorcycle. But I'm not going to argue with it now.))

When Jeremiah stopped skidding, he gathered his shotgun and pushed himself to his feet. He began dusting himself off and inspecting the extent of his injuries. He more or less only got past dusting himself off before drawing his .44 magnum and approached Ulysses, pointing the gun at Talia's unmoving body.

"Did you kill her?" he asked.

((NF – duly noted))

Talia was of course not dead – she was still breathing and her heart was beating, although both of those were slowing down quickly – but she was also entirely unresponsive. She seemed to be in a sort of coma.



Juno’s disappearance was not in any way hindered by Jñan, who was far too busy sizing up Paul to try to hold back the young girl. She was allowed to visit the young boy, but not to administer to him. “Creepy Stalker Dude?” the body before her murmured. “Maaaan tha’s a good name for him.” He stretched, but the stretch almost seemed to make him shrink in on himself, rather than expand like most people. Clearly, Zoidberg’s knockout had worn off quickly in the high-density psychic environment. “You gotta get away from him; I ‘unno if he’s gonna rape you, kidnap you, or sell you out, but I’d be pr’pare for all three, if I’re you.” He blinked a few times and felt himself over, then sighed. “That f***ing b*****d took my weapons. He’ll just get them stolen from him. I mean, they took him again, right?”

Back in the cavern, Jñan was smirking at the waver in Paul’s voice. He clearly didn’t understand. Which was simultaneously very frustrating and slightly amusing. “Mr. McCulloch, my people have lived here for a very long time – look at them.” She gestured broadly at the masses. “They are spaced perfectly to avoid the density effect. They may have made a misguided mistake, following you, but that has been averted. I appreciate your concern. As for the girl…” She trailed off and shook her head sadly. “She will also have to be exiled. I will accompany you both.” Jñan directed the woman who had earlier addressed Paul to retrieve Juno. “I am extremely disappointed that you will not be able to join our cause.” Members of the Haven were shifting about, somewhat confused, but willing to accept the word of their Light. Jñan waited for an answer.

“Juno Galledeigh? You are requested by the Light.” The woman courier turned her attention to Willam. “Willam McFadden, if you are well, may it please you to exit the premises; we have more dire injuries to tend to.” As she spoke, those injured during the ill-advised rush on McCulloch were being brought in. The woman waited on Juno.

"I am sorry as well," Paul lied, still tense, still obviously nervous. "I'm sorry that you won't listen to me, but it is your choice in the end." He and Juno were leaving. He would get them out safely. That was priority one, but he felt he could press his request a little further.

"My weapons and equipment - the motorcycles we were riding, but particularly the weapons - you have no desire nor need for them. Would it be reasonable of me to request the return of these - to ask you to send someone for them while we leave?" Without these, there was a decent chance he'd die. Well, actually, that was a silly idea. There was a decent chance he'd be seriously inconvenienced in his project to get... wherever the hell Juno was going. The damn second they got out of this mess, he was strong-arming exactly what she was doing out of her. He'd try Terrian on her; maybe that'd elicit some sort of response. It didn't matter what it would take; he had to get it out of her. He was risking too much to not know the end goal.

But the equipment was his priority. Guns and ammo would not be impossible to replace, but it wouldn't be easy. Transportation would be much harder to replace, and while Paul could march, he didn't know if Juno would be capable of the sort of thing that needed doing. In fact, it was unlikely. That was something to ponder.

[[Sorry this took me a while. Stinking finals ate my time, but now they are gone for the summer!]]

They had followed the Howards’ directions to their old stash, but the place wasn’t as secure as the scientists had remembered. Uh-oh… she thought as she parked her Mr. Thatcher’s bike (Alex had preferred riding in the sidecar and needed a driver, so Lexi had ended up riding Thatcher’s bike). On one hand, avoiding a conflict would be good, on the other, motorbikes were noisy and their luck was lousy, so trouble might come anyways, if not here, then later, and they could use supplies. She didn’t like the look of the bikes parked outside however. She felt like she had seen them before, and one in particular in a less than pleasing context, but whatever her thoughts, Alex had already moved toward the bunker. She released Rex and dismounted as Alex called out. To the girl’s disappointment, the invaders weren’t strangers. One all-to-familiar voice called out and she groaned. Not again! She thought she had seen the last of that gutter-minded twerp on her way out of Woodmount that morning. So much for that…

Despite her hosting a strong desire to kick him in the balls, she couldn’t think of anything to say to the man who had tried to rape her last night, so she stayed silent, glaring at him and trying to match the dangerous aura her two partners projected. Rex helped a lot in that respect: a growling demon-dog doesn’t have to try very hard to look dangerous. Phoenix leered from her perch on Lexi’s shoulder, her feathers looking as spiky as possible as she remembered the fight she had gotten into last time. Lexi felt a small spark jump to her neck and wondered if maybe the bird was coming into her electric-type abilities.

Gerard released his poliwag from the ground, allowing it to pop out of its pokeball and spray its ether-infused water at the rock-type geodude, blasting it off and dealing a high amount of damage. Guts would keep the geodude pinned while Gerard and Justice dealt with other matters.

The young man jumped to his feet and drew his gun, firing twice at the thug without the bag as Justice charged the one that carried the sack, clawing his leg before slamming into it and (hopefully) knocking him to the ground.