Welcome to Gaia! ::

Paul nodded gratefully to Jñan. "I appreciate that you're willing to do this for me. We will be out of your way as quickly as we can." Paul then leaned over toward Juno.

"Once we're out of here, I want to know exactly what you were told to do." Paul was not aggressive; it was not yet time to press it. "I've risked my life here, multiple times, in trying to preserve your life. So if you don't mind, I'd like to have a candid, honest discussion, about exactly what we're doing." Paul accompanied this with a pleasant smile. This had to stop, soon. He needed to know.

Lexi was very glad her team was having better luck than she was. Phoenix was whirling around everyone’s heads grappling with the zubat, tearing at wings and ears with her beak before she decided to drop the poison type off in front of a thick branch as she flew by, hoping momentum would carry the weakened pokemon into the plant limb for a harsh stop. Rex let off a short yelp as the zigzagoon’s sharp claws dug into his hide and turned his head to try and sink teeth into the tiny raccoon. He was saved the effort by Alex yanking the normal type off of his back, which pulled him off of the machop, but left only some scratches from the pokemon’s futile attempt to hang on. Knowing his old friend would take care of the zigzagoon, he quickly rounded on the machop again, this time with a thick stream of poisonous gas issuing from his mouth. Lexi…well Lexi was back to the rock idea and trying to come up with something better. When they had some free time, she was getting some fighting advice from Alex, but for now, she was stuck with random ideas and rocks, and to make things worse, the guards were reaching for their guns. She looked down at the rock she had picked up and knew she needed a better plan, even with Alex looking to intervene. At that point she saw a tree. Well, at least no one can run me over up there, she thought, and quickly scrambled up the far side of the tree, hoping to buy herself some time to think in the protection of the tree’s thick trunk, and if the fight followed her up, she doubted the larger male guards spent much time in trees while she practically lived in them.

Gerard jumped over Guts and the geodude in the time that the thug was struggling to draw his gun, landing and sliding to a halt after having halved the distance between them. The unwavering Gerard aimed steadily even as the thug hastily aimed for him, firing two shots with careful aim.

In the meantime, Guts was struggling to come back after being backhanded by the rock-type. The little poliwag was off-balance, but it managed to get back to its feet and blast more power-water at the geodude before it could get close enough to strike again.

Justice was working on climbing onto the second thug's legs, such that it would be that much harder to get him off. In the midst of clawing his legs and biting at him, the larvitar attempted to belch flame at the man.

Paul twitched a little and raised an eyebrow as Evie rubbed against his leg, then looked back up at Juno, taking the whole brunt of the snappish... snap. Not that there was much to take; he'd had worse lectures from his mother, in shorter amounts of time. Still; it wouldn't do to completely factor her out of the decision-making process. So he made a simple reply.

"I understand; that's why I want to talk about it. After we're out of here, and a decent distance away. Bad... bad things are about to start happening," he whispered. "We don't want to be here." He then straightened up and looked forward, putting on a stoic face that didn't really belong there. He was still jittery, and he was prepared to... start fighting, if he had to. Hopefully he wouldn't have to.

Jñan nodded graciously at the two of them, then gestured to them to follow her, keeping one ear open to their discussion as well as she could. The woman gracefully led them into the honeycombing passageways that comprised the Haven, remaining silent as they spoke; Raj did not follow. They pressed on, past the point of reliable electric lighting, until they were forced to take out flashlights that were stored in a bin where the last overhead light shone.

At that point, Jñan stopped and rolled a pokéball in front of her. When it came to a halt, it released a massive, round, furred form that blocked the entire passage - this was easily recognizable as a snorlax. The Light of the World turned to face them, having swiftly extracted another four pokéballs from her expansive clothing. Wasting no time on monologues, she summoned forth their inhabitants: a quartet of butterfrees, one of each color: orange, green, purple, and white. While Jñan herself slipped behind her snorlax, the butterfrees took up positions at the four corners of the passage in front of their larger companion. On Jñan's command, the three colored ones released quantities of dust from their wings and the white one flapped powerfully, sending the powders in a gale towards Juno and Paul.



"Talia... Talia... oh right." Though the words were simple, Benji's eyes widened tremendously. "Talia Horsely. One of the kids they sent out. She seems okay except for some bruises and scratches." He hefted the girl in his arms and checked her pupils; they were also nonresponsive. "Let's get her to the Oaks. I'm sure they have an opinion."

He led the two men through the city to the Oak labs, where they met Richard and Abe already in conversation with the brothers. Upon their entrance, Edward lost interest with whatever was being said and rushed to examine the girl. Charlesworth winged his way over, made a quick diagnosis from Benji's shoulder, met gazes with Sigmund, and dropped silently to an open area of the floor. Sigmund directed Benji to lay her down, and the xatu immediately closed his eyes in front of her, the red, eye-shaped coloration on his breast beginning to glow. Finally, Sigmund gave an explanation. "She's been dark-bound. It doesn't happen much, but with a strong, precise application of psychic and dark ether, one can practice very efficient mind-control. You must have killed whatever was bound to her, or Charlesworth here wouldn't have the slightest chance of getting through to her. Thank you so much for bringing her back; once she's well, we'll get her pokéball and pokédex, and Ulysses, may I have the flash drive you were given?"

He spoke quickly, clearly quite agitated by the number of people in the room. He addressed both Ulysses and Jeremiah. "I'm sorry, but there's not much more you can do. When the other youths return, we will need bodyguards for their next mission, if that is something that would interest you. For now, I can offer you our cafeteria, and say that you're free to explore the city on your own. I will tell you that there is a tremendous force on its way here, if this man-" he indicated Richard- "refuses to leave, as we asked. But he's withholding information, so he can't yet, and we need it so we know what happened to Elian Joss because something's wrong with her because we let her go to the Exterminant because she's supposed to be some kind of savior because Mom and Edward-!" He swung on his brother after his rage and was met with a cold stare, then swept out of the room in a rage. Benji had quietly made his way back out of the room, and met the young doctor in the main atrium of the building to attempt to calm him.

Paul had grown suspicious, bit by bit, as they'd been led further and further from what seemed the right path. He'd had no choice but to follow, realizing too late he hadn't made any sort of note of where they'd been going. He was lost here now, and furthermore, he was trapped with an almost-exhausted Alakazam, a single Charmander, and an Evie, facing four butterfrees and one snorlax.

Paul decided that it had been too easy. Or at least, Terrian had probably thought it was too easy. The smug b*****d was probably watching this encounter, too. Possibly set it up, or at least saw it coming.

Whatever it was, the Light of the World did not want them to survive. Come to think of it, Willam probably had acted on her orders. It could mean that she didn't want her people to know how she herself thrived on violence; it could mean she just didn't want anyone to know about this place. It could mean nothing at all; this could be a headstrong attack against them. No matter what, though, she was probably pretty confident that she could win, and she was probably not going to answer to them, no matter what they said.

So Paul formulated a plan. It probably wasn't the best one, but it was the only option he had.

"Zoidberg, shield is first priority. You're exhausted, I'm not asking you to take the offensive. Try to disperse that powder." Those orders given, Paul dropped both pokémon available to him. Oddjob, already oriented and prepared for combat, withheld from taking any action - the powder would probably combust, just like the last time he had done it, and he didn't want to tax his alakazam friend's shield. The second pokémon, the unnamed nidoran, dropped to the ground a little confused. It did not attack, as Paul had been afraid it might; indeed, it seemed somewhat receptive, even friendly to him.

It eyed the ones beside it, and it eyed the ones in front of it, and the thing it noticed was that there were definitely more of them than there were of it. Only by one, when it came down to it, but that didn't really matter; he wanted to even the odds.

Raising his head, he let out a surprisingly loud call; it echoed through the tunnels, sending a clear message to any wild nidoran in the area: help! That done, he waited behind Zoidberg's shield, not willing to rush into a cloud of powder whose effect was unknown. It wasn't stupid.

"Juno, let's wait until that powder is out of the picture. Then we can take the offensive," Paul recommended.

[[Sorry for the long wait, I told Siber already, but I’m on a boat this week, so my internet access is more than slightly limited.]]

Rex yelped as the fighting type knocked him square in the chest and he had to struggle to get back on his feet. The blow knocked the breath out of him, so all he could do was stand there panting as he watched the machop advance. Luckily for him, Phoenix no longer had the zubat to worry about, so she rounded on the fighting type, taking full-speed passes to rake it with her talons, but not wanting to hang around the toxic cloud any longer than she had to until she realized it could be an advantage. On one pass, she let the small sparks that had come forth earlier arc from her body through the poisonous gas that was the fuel for the demon-dog’s fire breathing.

By this point, Lexi was failing at keeping up with her team and could only hope their success was continuing. Crap Lexi pulled herself in close to the trunk of the tree, her fingernails digging into the bark as she heard the crack of two more gunshots. It wasn’t until she pulled her head out of the wood and saw one of the guards dripping blood that she realized that the shots had been Gerard’s again. Her eyes matched those of the guard and she almost gagged. Well, what did you expect? some nasty part of her mind shouted at her. Not this! ‘This’ was bad in so many ways she didn’t even want to think about, a point proven when her gutter-minded friend pointed his gun at her and said Cliffshire would hunt Gerard down. She had been doing a good job of using a trick she had picked up from mundane squirrels of inching around a tree trunk to keep your predator on the opposite side, but then the gunfire had made her freeze. Stuck, she stood there staring back at the gun barrel aimed her way, wondering if gravity would be fast enough to get her out of the way of the creep’s bullet, and if she would be able to land the drop. She did not like seeing guns from any angle, but this had to be her least favorite.

Then something hit her. Wait, Cliffshire?! Huh? The kid was supposedly a Woodmount guard, so why was he saying Cliffshire would hunt Gerard? “Hey wait, why would Cliffshire care about a couple of Woodmount guards? They don’t seem to like us very much ” Of course, she barely got that out before two more shots rang out and she scattered for the back side of her tree again.