Welcome to Gaia! ::

((Sorry about the absence; work and partying picked up ^^ ))

Benji overrode what surely would have been an unintelligible rebuke from Sigmund. “We don’t have a ton to spare, but there’s always a stash kept in the dining hall.” The medic jerked his thumb in that direction. “I understand you need it, though. Francis can show you. Francis?” The ledian nodded and flitted off Benji’s shoulders, beckoning the older gentleman after him, and Jeremiah, if he so wished. The path took them through the area with the door to the rattata cages, above which it appeared as though the ornate roses on the plaque had tarnished and smeared, losing their shape entirely.

In the kitchens, Francis showed Ulysses to a little trapdoor inside a cabinet that led to a cache of ammo and weaponry. The little bug-type crossed its arms and watched carefully to ensure Ulysses took only what he needed before closing the trapdoor and sealing it with an old-fashioned combination lock, then flitted off back to Benji. Ulysses was left in the dining hall with a very few people. One of these was Nayana, Juno’s nanny/stepmother, who was starting up the kitchens. The big woman was serious and efficient, but every now and then would slow her movements as her features took on a nearly imperceptibly more somber cast.

----

Back down in the tunnels of the Haven, somewhere approaching Riverdale (if there had been any compass to go by), Jñan was desperately rationalizing her choice of action. She knew that Paul’s escape from the Haven would almost certainly lead to an attempt to have the place emptied out and… and that couldn’t happen. It was her Haven. She kept them all happy. She kept them all safe. A tear formed at the corner of her frustrated eyes, that something would happen to threaten her vision. She was the Light of the World; she could preserve the future, for everyone. Jñan knew she could. It was something she believed was the truth, and a formidable one.

And she could spread that happiness. She fingered the vial hidden among her robes. But she had been told to wait… she had been ready to do it, and then commanded to wait, and make the child safe but now this child wanted to help McCulloch tear down her Haven. What she had to do was unpleasant, and had certainly not been in her original plans, especially because there was no reason for them to have no succumbed to the opiates in their food. Which meant… Raj. Her heart jumped as she realized she had been betrayed by the little drunkard.

But there wasn’t time to think about it. Juno’s marbles had easily taken out the orange butterfree and sent it thwacking into the snorlax’s ample belly, then to the ground. Any marbles that missed and hit said snorlax bounced harmlessly off and rolled a short ways, seeming to almost make the corpulent creature care. One struck the purple butterfly-morph, but by the time the white one had adjusted its wind powers to divert their paths somewhat, and though it struggled, Purple kept itself up, still flooding the air with its powders. With a slow, ponderous motion, the snorlax raised its fist and slammed it into its own belly, making a soundwave that echoed throughout the tunnels. The mammoth creature grimaced as a black bruise almost immediately formed, but its features quickly molded into an angry scowl as it hunched forward.

As much of an echo as there was, unfortunately, the nidoran’s call was too far from the outside to reach any other, sensitive ears.

((SirBayer: +1 AP – “card games are serious business”))



((I… actually didn’t notice that I had put down the wrong city name until just now, but we are professionals and we are going to run with it biggrin ))

First things first: Phoenix’s ignition of Rex’s smog worked perfectly. The billowing clouds erupted in flames, blasting the machop backwards and leaving it charred, smoking, and stunned on its back on top of the zubat, neither getting up any time soon. Rex only barely felt the blast from his position. Those two foes were soundly defeated.

Gary’s eyes widened as he saw Gerard bring his gun to bear, and he immediately swung his around, the world moving in slow motion to him as he watched the trigger being pulled. The first bullet grazed his side, and then he let off his first shot, which sent Guts flying backwards, an ugly, gaping wound in its side; the bullet was lodged deep within. Gerard’s second shot, still fired from a strange angle, entered around the position of Gary’s lowest ribs and punctured his lung. He was so stunned that he couldn’t seem to make his fingers press the trigger again. Choking on his own blood, he fell to the ground, dead, his eyes wide and staring.

The geodude kind of rolled to a halt after Guts’ spray, and, though it rocked back and forth, did not have the strength for another attack. Alex watched Justice cave in his victim’s cranium with a sick crunch, then walked back to the middle of the battleground, cuddling her sentret to her chest. The fight seemed to be over, and Lexi’s question hung in the air, unanswered amidst the blood and fire of the aftermath.

((Shaula Al Nair: +2 AP Combustibles 201))

One (1) profile has been submitted for Alexandra Tourmaline. One week until judgment is passed.

Paul grimaced. Okay... two of four eliminated. Half of the Mothra crew to go. They could handle that. They had to start, though, by attacking. The question was, how? How could they make the snorlax get out of the way, was even more important. It wouldn't chase them, but they were lost, and their only set of directions was behind that snorlax. It would have to go. They'd all have to go. And they'd enabled that themselves. The powder trick that had worked on the meganium should work on these guys, too.

"Alright, Zoidberg. Hold that shield up, things are about to get hot, I hope. Oddjob, flamethrower, aim at the white one," Paul ordered. Zoidberg showed signs of fatigue, but nodded in agreement, and Oddjob understood his orders. He twisted his tail to point toward the enemy, then used his ether to launch a short stream of fire at the white butterfree. If that didn't drop them all, it would at least get the white one, and the burn might extend to the snorlax.

((More to come later - let us all congratulate Isa-sama on her acquisition of Alexandra Tourmaline as a part-time character! I will update her AP when I update it, and no later ^^ ))

As anticipated, the tunnel erupted in flame. Just as Oddjob started his maneuver, the white butterfree managed to put up the beginnings of its own shield, but it was only enough to keep it and its brethren alive - they fell to the ground, scorched as much as the hide of the snorlax behind them. Said creature made use of the wind that rushed to fill the sudden vacuum to charge forward, totally uncaring of the lack of oxygen in the vicinity that began to asphyxiate the closest creatures to the blast - Paul and his pokémon. All of them were burned on the fronts of their bodies save Oddjob, who merely began to grow slightly weak as the new atmosphere dimmed his tail flame. The snorlax, losing balance as it went, slammed itself into Zoidberg, whom it perceived as the greatest threat, the sound of their collision echoing in the tunnel despite the ringing in the ears of all those present. Jñan was desperately recalling her butterfrees and starting to scramble away through the tunnels with part of her dresses singed.

Paul found himself on the ground, feeling sunburned and coughing. The others, too, were choking, and Zoidberg was motionless on the ground. Out cold, Paul could see - he was breathing, not dead, just not conscious any more. He noted that Jñan was trying to make an escape as he rolled over, breathing fresh air and scrambling to his feet. He reached to his beltline, where he found the knife he had grabbed from Willam, as well as a pokéball - the latter he used to recollect Zoidberg from the ground, the former he prepared in his hand to do damage to whatever he had to. He began to move after her

"Oddjob, put 'im down!" Paul ordered, pointing to the snorlax. Oddjob nodded, understanding well enough to do what he needed to. Paul gestured to the nidoran to follow, and miraculously it understood, taking off into a series of leaps reminiscent of a rabbit. Sprinting, Paul hoped to close the distance between himself and Jñan before she could pull any tricks by going out of view.

Oddjob turned to face the snorlax. Instinct told him that getting too close could be bad - the snorlax was hurt, and it was slow, but it was big, and it wouldn't pay off to just throw himself into it. So instead he decided to tease the creature into making a mistake - primarily to draw it away from his master, which was what in his little brain he suspected Paul had wanted him to do. Bending his tail around his body, Oddjob launched another flamethrower attack at the snorlax, then backed up opposite of the way Paul had run. If the snorlax turned its back to Oddjob, he was going to jump right on and start doing some real damage.

Juno wanted to hiss in sympathy for Paul's - although he brought it upon himself the stupid man - costly consequences. Thankfully, it didn't affect her or Evie. Well, maybe not. It got pretty hot here, and I will probably have a tiny sunburn 'cause of it. Once she had the time to check, she'd notice that her skin was a slight bit pink.

But now was not the time to worry about her skin. Now was the time to keep Jñan from escaping. "Catch her," she murmured to her pokemon. We can breath again! Evie yipped and leaped out of her owner's arms. Because Jñan was distracted by Paul and the butterfrees, the little pokemon easily caught up to the older lady and went to angrily tear at the woman's ankle. Evie would make sure that Jñan could not run away.

Juno was not sure how to get past the giant snorlax. At least I'm not alone here. She had the fire pokemon there to face the fat cat. She took out her slingshot and prepped it with one of the fallen marbles on the floor. I'll catch up to Paul and Jñan the minute I get a chance to run. Until she was able to slip past the huge pokemon, she would just have to help Oddjob defeat the snorlax.

Gerard remained characteristically stoic throughout Lexi's brief tirade, keeping his eyes on her and waiting for her to regain sense. As her pokemon gathered around, he took a step towards her.

"Trust me, I know," he said, his voice somewhat more consoling than before. He knelt down, just within arm's reach of Lexi, and tentatively put a hand on her shoulder. "It's not something that anyone wants. But the question is this: if you want to fix it, if you want to find an end to all this...this madness; will that be accomplished by breaking down here, behind a bush on the battlefield? Or will it be done by standing with your friends there, and your friends over here," he gestured at himself and back towards where Justice was waiting, "by being strong and doing what we were tasked with doing?"

He stood and offered her a hand. "I know it's cliche, but that's because it's something that's always been true." He looked through the trees in the direction of Glenville, briefly. "We're not too far from home, you know. Come on, we'll all get there soon."

((I am quite sadly unsure, Shaula :/ there are several that aren't responding to PM's; feel free to bombard Caleidah, Xitemo, Admiral Squish, and o-Angilis-o. I heard KaosHavok dropped without telling me, but feel free to bombard him, too.))

While Gerard and Lexi talked, Alex had been in the bunker, exploring the small, enclosed space with Giddy in her hands. She met Lexi at the door bearing a pair of small, metal boxes that they all immediately recognized as TMs - she shyly and somewhat awkwardly handed one with a stylized number twenty to Gerard and the other, with a stylized number thirty-two, to Lexi. More than that, the Lexi could see over her shoulder a pair of green, stylized roses painted on a cabinet, in addition to a pair of pokéballs and some very old rations among the spent bullet casings and random scientific implements that seemed to have been there for at least a decade.
Finally, on the floor at the very back of the bunker, she could see a tiny movement - it was a pokéball that must have fallen off during the struggle.

Both players: +2 AP for winning
Jokerman-EXE: -2 AP, Guts survives
Jokerman-EXE: -8 AP - first stage, third gen pokémon capture
((Yes, third generation pokémon are now allowed; this is mostly because I totally forgot until just recently that zigzagoon is from the third generation of games. My bad! Also 'cuz ralts is pretty dang cool. These pokémon will of course go by the third-gen move sets. Other pokémon will still go by second-gen, except for the case of TMs. For more on this, see the Technical Machines and GEOGRAPHY sections on the first page.))

---

A pink color covered Paul's features and the tops of his arms and his eyebrows were singed after the blast. The snorlax swung and bit at Oddjob, attempting to fend off the smaller, faster creature and largely unable to. Jñan, meanwhile, was kicking at Evie, trying to get the creature off her, her calm mien broken by the dispatch of her pokémon. "Raj?" she screamed as loudly as she could, "Raj! Help me!" She didn't know if there was any hope that the little drowzee would come to her aid, but she needed a way out; they were going to stop her! They where going to both make it out! She looked at Paul with an almost animal fear. He might kill her... Immediately, she curled into the fetal position and begged Evie to stop biting her, the dresses and cloths of the Light of the World dirtied and splayed around her in a pool of fabric.

---

The woman gave Ulysses a slow, calculating look before taking his hand. Even her grip seemed as though she was testing him. "Nayana Douglass." A moment of judgment later, she went back to bustling about in the kitchen, seeming a little irritated. "You knew the woman who sent my Juno off to get her little self killed? Did she seem like a crazy b***h when she was alive? 'Cuz she sho'nuff got some stupid-as-hell ideas in her haid now she's gone." She flicked her eyes at Ulysses. "Well, you heah now; get them hands clean an' help me with this casserole; gotta feed some thousand hungry people and everyone else makin' the rest."

Ulysses's smile never wavered; if anything it built resolve in hearing Nayana speak. Shonevsky liked her: she was an old-fashioned gal. As he washed, he answered, "Her ideas may seem crazy, Miss Douglass, but it takes some seemingly crazy ideas to overcome the insanity that has come to plague the world. I know you won't think much of it, but I appreciate you letting Juno contribute to the effort and Mrs. Oak would do the same, were she here."

His hands were dry. "Now what do you need of me?" Some home-style cooking would be just the thing to ease Ulysses's mind, at least until the Oak boys were ready for Phase 2 of their mother's plan.