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He had been preparing to turn back to the map as he answered, continuing his theorizing about where exactly to appear and annoy the world for a moment to screw with SWIPE. Then Reno heard her ask about Rome. And a physical and mental pair of eyes focused in on the hybrid. "....I know that he introduced himself to Sol and Aile, but I don't think he had to assume control since then. So how do you know about Rome?" Reno questioned conspiratorially, attempting to assess what exactly it was that Crystal was hunting for here.

"You can wash mine." Sub said as he immediately began to rip his clothes off, tossing them to the side with his vest first. He would strip all the way down to his boxers and let out a content sigh before looking around to make sure everyone was cool with it. "You know, it's weird how we view underwear such as boxers as scandalous to be seen but we don't have the same reaction for stuff like swimming trunks. Are they not essentially the same thing? I mean it's not like you wear underwear underneath your swimming trunks, right? It's the same thing with bikinis too. Like you know-" Sub would suddenly get on a silly rant about underwear and how it's viewed versus more acceptable clothing that might be even more revealing. He had to talk about something to stop thinking about how hungry he was.

While Sub ranted Lykas would begin to develop a faint ringing in his ear followed by a sort of physical weakness. Was that just from being hungry? The ringing would continue and at some point Lykas would smack his lips and notice just how dry his mouth was, so very very dry, his tongue like chalk. An overwhelming thirst would slowly but surely overcome Lykas, a sensation like he hadn't drank a drop of water in days. The Jellicent hybrid body would noticeably begin to lose mass as well, what could only be described as muscle atrophy in a normal human. He didn't know what was going on but he did know this; he needed water, now.

"The sun?" Sub replied as he turned his head around to look at the hybrid, then proceeding to turn his head around multiple times as if looking for something. "Is Crystal outside? Could have swore she was in here with the rest of us..." He said before giving a shrug. "She's not my type any ways. Besides, what's wrong with my supple ivory skin? Jealous?" The man said with a grin and stuck his tongue out at the hybrid.

Lykas caught the clothes as Sub discarded them. "Anyone else?" He asked as Odd followed suite, stripping out of his own clothing down to his briefs. "I may wear this thing every day but it get washed frequently under normal circumstances." He reminded Lykas regarding his coat. It was a customized trenchcoat made to resemble his order's traditional cassock and he'd had it for years. He had no intention of letting it get ruined by not getting cleaned often enough.

"Guess it's just us, then." Lykas remarked as he grabbed Odd's clothes as well. He'd quickly strip don to his own underclothes, perhaps surprising a few to find he wore a fundoshi of a modern design. He'd begin to make his way toward the door with the armful of clothes when Blizzard arrived and began to fire shots at Sub's expense. "That'd be my fault. I'm gonna see about washing clothes for anybody that wants it. I'm sure at least a few of us need it. We didn't exactly have anything left at HQ after going into an active volcano and have spent the last three days steeping in those same sweat-soaked clothes, after all." He pointed out. "Speaking of..." He paused and dug into his backpack, beginning to notice as he did that his mouth was feeling rather dry this morning. He made a note to get a drink of water from the kitchen before getting started on the laundry as he fished the Red Gem out of his back."Get this thing away from me before I make any more stupid decisions with it." He told Sub as he handed to the Snagem leader.

Turning on his heel after that he'd begin to notice a ringing in his ears. That was unusual. He didn't have tinnitus so where had that come from? The ringing grew louder by the second as he took another few steps and, as he started to ask about it, he noticed it felt like his lips were suddenly drier than they had ever been. He opened his mouth to speak and felt his lip split slightly, also finding his throat was too dry to speak again. "HWa..." He tried to asked, his voice cracking, barely escaping as a whisper as he felt his legs begin to shake under him. What the hell was happening to him?!

"Hwa-! Hw-er!" He begged, now feeling more parched than he ever had in his life. In less than a minute, he felt like he'd been lost in the desert for days. At last, his legs gave out and he collapsed to the floor, his body visibly beginning to shrivel as it lost water.


"Lykas! Are you ok?!" Odd asked, rushing toward him but unable to see what was happening. All he knew was he had heard Lykas fall and he sounded extremely weak ad ill out of nowhere.

Odd would watch as Sub ran off, staying by Lykas' side as he tried to get the hybrid back to consciousness. He was having no luck, however. Lykas was at least still alive but he was too far gone at the moment to wake him up. Whatever had hit him so suddenly had left him completely out. When Sub returned with Doc Stoja, he felt the woman attempting to lift Lykas by his feet and hooked his hands under the Jellicent hybrid's arms, doing what he could to assist and cursing that his own body simply didn't have the strength to do this with ease. If he'd had warning, he could have used Channelig to help far more effectively but short notice meaant doing what he had to.

Once the hybrid was laid on a cot, he stepped back a bit, bumping into another cot and nearly knocking himself over in the process before he turned toward Sub. "What happened?!" He asked. Damn these eyes! Lykas was hurt or sick and he couldn't even see the man to see what was wrong with him.

Reno would take a moment to process exactly....what it was that Crystal was telling him. There was lot in there that he almost felt unable to address. Stuff about Hisui? Rome actively taking his appearance outside of his own head? Okay, maybe he should just call a halt on addressing the truly out there things for right this second and start at the stuff he knew he could answer. "Rome....should be a part of my mind. Formed because of the accidental connection I made to the Ziton when it hunted me in Snowpoint. But....all that other stuff.....even though he is basically separate from me, he shouldn't know things I don't. And the Stellar Lock stuff, I only had just figured out by....happenstance." Staring off for a moment as parts of Reno's mind decided they should be elsewhere, he would ask, "Did he bring anything else up to you while he was still around?"

"I...don't know?" Sub replied to Blizzard, also having that question as he looked from the gem and then to the hybrid. "I thought it got lost in all the chaos back inside the Boyleland volcano. How or why Lykas had the thing I have no idea." Sub said as he looked back down at the gem, now noticing how warm it felt. "And most importantly what it has to do with what just happened to Lykas." He said as he looked over at the hybrid now unconscious in one of the many cots, being tended to by Doc Stoja.

"Hm...yes...I see." Doc Stoja said as he closed her eyes and gestured over Lykas' chest, nodding to herself as she seemingly ignored Odd's question. Once she was satisfied with...whatever she was doing, she would open her eyes and look to the semi-blinded Odd, correctly deducing their relationship despite having recently met them. "Your spouse is suffering from acute elemental energy poisoning." She began, resting a hand on Lykas' forehead and beginning to pump pink healing energy into the man as she used Heal Pulse. This wouldn't heal him but it would at least help stabilize him. "He has absorbed a massive dose of Fire energy, taken it into his system. The energy of course conflicts with his own natural typing, particularly the Water type. Where did he get such exposure from?" She questioned Odd.

"From this? Maybe?" Sub said as he stepped up, holding out the Red Gem. Doc Stoja would look at it for a bit, wave her hand over it a few times, and nod to herself.

"Yes, this object contains tremendous Fire energy, begging to be released. If he held this gem, or worse yet attempted to release its energies, his own physiology would have played against him. Jellicent are very porous creatures, able to not only take in water with ease and incorporate it in their physical form, which is necessary, but also energies, particularly life energies. Ordinarily it should be impossible for him to absorb such Fire energies but this gem is no ordinary source of Fire energy, it's highly concentrated and appears to have an almost...purifying...aspect to it, like it wishes to burn away the unclean. Unfortunately for this man here it deemed him unclean." She said removing her other hand for Lykas, feeling the Heal Pulse was all she could do for now.

"Will he be okay?" Sub asked as he looked from Lykas, to Odd and then back to the doctor.

"I cannot guarantee anything. Hopefully if we keep him hydrated his body will be able to slowly expel the Fire energies in him over the coming days. Forcing the energies from him could harm or even kill him. For now I feel it's all we can do, that and wait." She explained. "I do have some concerns for the long term but for now we focus on ensuring his survival."

Sub would let out a sigh and turned to look at Blizzard with a grimace. "We can't catch a break huh?" He said before looking back to Odd. "You going to be okay, Odd?" Purposely saying his name so the man knew who he was talking to.

It would take a moment for Reno to answer. After all, he was busy processing everything that he had just been told and feeling everything suddenly click into place. Along with all the issues that the image made by those things clicking into place created. "Oh......Oh Arceus. The Ziton came back to Snowpoint. That's why it could be trapped in its cage from before Sub ever knew I existed and still show up to Snowpoint Temple. But....the problem....?" While he could've taken the pause to question Rome on whether or not he was actually part of Reno's mind, he had already blown past that point and was actively working under the assumption it was true. Instead he was immediately focusing in on a different thing. "Crystal, be upfront with me. How many universes that you encountered had a Reno? And what were they like? Because I only got the two to work off of and one of them had Rena." He knew there was no way that Sub was the problem, not with how much Dark One-related stuff the Ziton was attempting to aid. So that left only one reasonable pick for what the problem was.