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The girl pulls herself free of Blizzard's grasp with a last, bemused sort of chuckle until she sees the massive Piloswine face to face with the wounded and clearly agitated Haxorus. "...oh." She says quietly, dropping her cloak down to the ground around her ankles. "I didn't think you lot would jump to fighting so quickly... especially with a wild Pokemon..."

Clair has put away her Pokeball at this point, off to the side behind Blizz. Her normally regal gaze contained a mix of annoyance and... jealousy? It was a facial expression that Darts would have paid money to see. Not that he had a chance to right now, still face-down on the ground.

The girl moves forwards, elegant ribbons trailing from the dress she had been wearing beneath her cloak. She reaches the cleared edge of the path, takes a breath, and then walks forwards, towards the rampaging Haxorus. As she takes her first step into the storm, a field of negative energy seemingly clears the ice away from her body in a radius around herself, keeping her completely warm and dry as she slowly walks over to the enraged Dragon. "Shhhh...." she whispers, and anyone in the immediate vicinity would sense the presence of Dragon-based chi radiating from somewhere on her person. A calming aura spreads outwards from the girl, and the once bloodthirsty beast lets out a moan of confusion, looking around itself. "It's okay..." She says, soothingly, finally close enough to set a single hand onto the dangerous Pokemon's snout. "It's okaaay.... Go back to the wild Haxy, I'm sorry our playtime got interrupted." Letting out a snort, the Dragon turns and then runs full speed off into the blizzard, its tracks being filled as quickly by falling snow as it left. The girl turns and looks back at the group, some of them being covered in wintry ice and some of them looking on from the safety of the path. She beams, giving them all a wide smile. "Greetings!"

"I agree." The girl says with an appreciative nod towards Pryce. "And I don't say that just because I know better than to argue with my elders. Though the way I remember it..."



"...you guys were the ones that jumped in and started attacking. I didn't even know you were there until all of the commotion. I saw the Haxorus lying beneath the surface of the snow and thought that peeving it off a little would be quite fun. But you asked for my name, and I'll give it to ya. I'm Iris." The girl announces, looking back and forth at the various members of the party with a smile stretching from ear to ear. "Unova Champion and Dragon Clan member. Hiya Clair! Long time no see!"

Clair doesn't return her greeting with anywhere near as much enthusiasm, a half-hearted look coming over her features again as she gives a bow of respect to the Champion. "Hello Iris. I see you answered the summons."

"Hmph." Iris huffs, crossing her arms. "I was playing on my own just fine until you lot showed up, I can get around on my own now. Wasn't like I was expecting a whole gaggle of people. Sheesh you guys are as bad as him..."

Clair has followed along behind Pryce, oddly silent and pensieve following the new addition to their merry band of travelers. That left Blizzard and Darts to take up the rear of the group, as well as accompany the Unova Champion. She keeps sneaking glances at the both of them here and there, almost shyly, trying to take in as much of the pair of hybrids as she could without overtly saying something to them. Darts was brushing it off easily at the start but the more the Dragon Clan member examined the two of them, the more he began to worry. It was all in his head right?

"Mmm." The Giratina hybrid says unhelpfully. Iris is looking back and forth between the two of them for a moment still before she finally pipes up.

"So... are there more of your kind out there?" She asks, mildly curious despite herself. "We don't get very many hybrids in Unova even considering our wildly diverse population..." Darts could have breathed a sigh of relief. That was what she was curious about, them being hybrids?

"As far as I'm aware I'm pretty one-of-a-kind." The gambler explains to her, with a proud swish of his jacket. "It's... a bit of a long story."

"And what about you mister... Blizzard?" She asks, youthful eyes shining with curiosity. "Are there more of you out there?"

Up ahead of the group, there was a mountain chain that the path was leading them towards. Nestled at the base of one of the biggest was an enormous wrought iron gate. The path of cleared snow stopped directly outside of it, the entrance to Mymay's gatehouse.

Clair glares at Darts and Iris gives an innocent tilt of her head towards him as soon as he glances in either of their directions, and, inferring the general consensus of his clan-mates to be, the Giratina hybrid strides forwards with a sigh to place gilt mits on either iron door handle. With a tremendous creak from the old hinges, the hybrid pulls open the portcullis to the inner caverns of the mountains. As the group progresses through the tunnel they entered, further down the hallway would be lights dotting the path and lighting it as they went before it opened into a reception area of sorts, complete with a desk. A man in a (freshly pressed) uniform was waiting for them, standing at attention with a salute behind his carven marble desk.

"Hello there!" He hails Pryce as soon as the old master had approached the waiting area. "I, Ronnie, have already received word from my superiors that you are to be allowed entrance into the most sacred Mymay Sanctuary, and are to be treated as a guest of the utmost importance! Welcome!"

"A lot more formal than he ever was with me..." Darts mumbles to the Articuno hybrid next to him in line.

Ronnie's eyes scan across the group of people, pausing again on Blizzard's face. The Articuno hybrid would feel a piercing gaze, as if a person were asking his very soul if it had enough gym badges to proceed. It was an eerie feeling that passed after a moment: "I heard your apprentice was to be coming with you too, Master Pryce. The one that had bested our own in combat. It appears as though everything is in order on that front."

"They say he used to be one of the guards on the original Kanto Victory road..." Darts mutters in Blizzard's ear.

His analysis was almost complete, but upon seeing the diminutive Iris counted among one of the group, he lets out something like a horrified shriek that he was trying his best to contain. "Miss... Mistress Iris... How long have you been gone for...?" Ronnie asks, pale and shaking suddenly.

"Oh probably a couple of hours~" Iris answers innocently, bashfully shifting her weight back and forth from foot to foot as he looks her over. "Come on Ronald, what's the chances he's noticed I've been gone...?"

"Weeeeell...." Iris says, slightly bashful for the first time since the Snagems had met her. "Technically I was supposed to stay inside the Sanctuary, and Ronald here was supposed to...facilitate that."

"The walls surrounding the sanctuary are sheer rock, h-how did you manage to get out of here without my noticing? Oh... when he hears about this..." Ronnie wails, looking all together despondent.

"Oh don'cha' worry about that." Iris says, waving the guard's concerns away with a breezy confidence that gave Darts a very bad feeling."He'll have hardly missed us."

"Are we going to dawdle in the gatehouse all day or were some of you planning on having supper in the New Year?" Clair asks, shooting a very obvious glance at Blizzard and Darts. She has proceeded down the hallway to reveal another ornate metal gate that she has already tugged open with a creaking sound.

Out that door the group would step into the mid-evening air of the Mymay sanctuary. Verdant green grass stretched in all directions outwards from the doorway, despite the raging winter going on outside the valley. Indeed, even the sky was clear, a perfect ring of mountains encircling the brilliantly starred skyline. The rushing sound of water gave a nice calming babble to the place, and everyone would experience a brief sensation of intense inner calm.

"Welcome to Mymay Sanctuary." Darts offers, relishing in the peace and quiet in his head now that they were inside the structure proper.

The group's footsteps would take them out of the entryway, the gate swinging shut behind them with a metallic 'clang' as they make their way down a bit of a grassy incline, following a neatly trimmed path down into what looked like a traditional shinto village of sorts. People moving about as they went about their day, children playing in the cobblestone streets, though Blizzard would notice none of them ever made a move towards the group's intended path, nor would any of them look at him directly, only sidling glances here and there as they passed.

"This is the village." Darts explained to him as their entourage wound their way through the community. "These people are who keep food on the table." The Giratina hybrid inclines his head towards the water wheel spinning in the current of the small river as they pass over it, crossing a bridge. "And the lights on around these parts. As far as I can tell they aren't forced to live here, but the Clan's protection and resources are an attractive asset to them." Another thing Blizz would notice is that while Clair, and to a lesser extent Darts though that might have been from a desire to not scare the daylights out of them, for the most part let the villagers get on with their day, Iris was always mingling amongst them.

"Hiya Mister Pan!" She'd shout, waving her arms at one of the assistants from the town bakery. "Be sure to bring me some good bread later!" Or when a small group of children scampered past, chasing their ball, Iris would pluck it off the ground. "Go long!" she shouts, before launching it back in the other direction to the delight of the kids who run off laughing to pursue it.

Up ahead of them though, the Articuno hybrid would finally see it. At the end of the path, a simple stone wall ran all the way around it but it couldn't shelter it completely from view given its size. The pagoda-like structure rising up behind the crenelations as well as the placard on the front gate announced to all what building this was. The Mymay Dojo.