Welcome to Gaia! ::

Koorie watched the entire spectacle of the Raikou silently, resting a hand on Miu's back to keep the vulpix from making any noise or movement towards the very large Legendary. Once the pokemon had layed his head down, she glanced at Shina as the woman started to lay out a trail of food, and she almost made a noise against it.

Thinking better of it, Koorie got up and, after giving a stern glance to Miu to tell the pokemon to stay there, went over to help Shina with the food trail. Although she was worried about attracting other pokemon, she was a bit more concerned over the fact that a seemingly wild Raikou just made it's home in the camp.

When Anise saw the Raikou starts to go after the trail of food, she motioned to Felix to stop singing. He obediently did, leaving the Legendary to eat its way out of camp in peace. They watched the pokemon's progress and Anise breathed a sigh of relief when it had passed out of sight. Oki didn't relax for several minutes more, however, and as he followed his trainer around the camp he kept casting glances in the direction the Raikou had gone.

Anise brought her empty bowl to someone who was washing dishes and went to check on the Zebstrika that had been following her. She found the pokemon grazing near a bowl that, judging by the remaining flecks stuck inside, had held food suitable for her. She greeted the pokemon with, "Hi, Gypsy," since that was what she'd taken to calling her hanger-on, and the pokemon had started to answer to the name. "Has someone gotten you some food already?" she asked the pokemon, who looked up at her and nodded. "Great! I should probably find who it is and thank them." Not that she had any idea how to do this, but she made a mental note to try. "Do you need anything?" She got a head-shake in return this time. "OK. I'll stay here tonight, I think, so just find me if you need me." Gypsy gave another nod to show she understood. Anise was not going to order around the Zebstika or even make suggestions as to what she should do, since she was still wild, after all. An offer of help would do.

And with that, Anise went off to find a place to pitch her small tent for the night. It was early enough that she wouldn't go to sleep yet, but having her place set up know meant she wouldn't have to do it when it was later and she was more tired.

Keria watched as the Raiko wandered fallowing the tail of food, she had been shocked when the legendary arrived in the camp and spent much of the time making sure her emolga wouldn't overreact and attack it. "I wonder if it will come back once it hits the end the trail." She mused aloud before gathering her things and heading to her tent.

Doyle was hanging out in the valley with his two pokemon. It had only been a few days since the mission with Genesis to discover the source of attacks in Howling Woods and already he had received a call from the base. Seems an escaped experiment had been sighted some where nearby and he was to keep his eyes open. They didn't say what the experiment was, only that he would know it upon seeing it. What he didn't know was that the Caravan was nearby and that they were the ones who had spotted the experiment first and that there was someone else there who was after it.

Packing up his small camping stuff, he shouldered his back-bag and began to walk. He released Ark and Archie and watched them for a moment as they bickered at each other. Ark was again scolding Archie and Archie was again cowering at her. Soon the Archen was dashing towards Doyle and climbing up his body to rest on his shoulder. "Guess you're hitching a ride again. Can't wait for this relationship to turn around and I can hitch rides off of you."

((Feel free to have the Caravan run into Doyle, just remember no one knows he's a Rocket grunt.... save for Genesis.))

Anise trotted along amiably with the caravan. Since coming to Zatao she'd be accustomed to simply walking or occasionally hitching a ride on a cart or rented pokemon. Yet now, unexpectedly, she was riding on her own pokemon for the first time. She looked down at the Zebstrika she was mounted on, still slightly surprised at what had happened.


When the group around the unnamed lake had started packing up camp the next morning, Anise had decided it might be nice to tag along with them, for a while at least. Healers were always useful after all, and even though there were some here already, with such a large group it would be advantageous to have several in case of emergency.

Anise noticed that most everyone had a mount of some sort, though a few had bicycles. When she asked someone what that was, she was told that the caravan moved faster than a person on foot, so everyone was required to have some sort of ride. Anise had no pokemon suitable as a mount; Oki might be large enough but wouldn't permit it. He was too busy being her self-appointed body guard, and made it clear he needed to be able to move freely to do so. Halcyon might work, but the distractible Altaria was off doing his own thing a short distance down the lake, and wouldn't be rounded up any time soon. He'd probably have a tendency to fly in entirely different directions, anyway. Felix was perfectly willing, but far too small. Anise didn't even consider Gypsy, since the Zebstrika wasn't even hers, just a wild pokemon that had decided to follow her for her own reasons.

Fortunately, the caravan leader had extra bikes in case they were needed. Anise had never ridden a bike before, but surely it couldn't be that hard. Could it? She went to borrow a bike to find out. The bike was kept in a storage capsule and quickly released. It promptly fell over on its side. Anise picked it up and held it upright, but as soon as she let go it fell over again. Someone, although laughing at her confused expression, showed her how to flip down the "kick stand" that would prop the thing upright when not in use. Anise felt a bit silly. Such a simple thing that she hadn't noticed.

A couple trainers took pity on her and gave her a quick bike lesson. Getting on the bike was easy. So was sitting on it, tucking her bag in the basket and holding the handlebars. But as soon as she tried to peddle the bike fell over again, this time on one of her legs. She tried a couple more times, then without her bag in the basket to make it lighter. she never got more than a few wobbling inches before falling over. "At this rate it'd be faster if I walked," she commented to nobody. Nevertheless, she picked herself up to try again.

Gypsy had been watching this whole fiasco from nearby, and plainly considered the whole operation to be absurd. Finally she had enough. The next time Anise fell over and stood up to right the bike, Gypsy walked right up, pushed the bike away with one hoof and looked Anise face to face. Then she stood between the healer and her borrowed bike and pointedly looked at her back.

Anise understood quite readily what the pokemon meant, but didn't quite believe it. "You want me to ride you?" she asked incredulously. Gypsy snorted and bobbed her head briskly, as if impatient at the girl's delaying to ask the obvious. "Well, thank you," she said, still sounding surprised. She quickly collected her bag (which had been waiting on the ground a couple feet away) and wasted no time in going to mount the pokemon, in case delaying longer might change the zebra's mind.

But the surprises weren't done. As she stepped up to Gypsy, the pokemon nudged her nose against Anise to stop her. Then she nudged the pocket of Anise's back where she kept her pokeballs, and looked pointedly at the trainer. Anise could hardly believe this, either. "And you want to be my pokemon, too?" she couldn't help asking. She received a flat look and a snort, a very obvious 'I'm not going to repeat myself.' So she pulled out a pokeball and, wanting the pokemon to have complete control over the decision, held it in her outstretched palm, with the button facing Gypsy. The zebra firmly pressed her nose to the button and was swiftly sucked in. Almost immediately there was the "ping" that indicated a successful capture.

The bike was returned, Anise released and mounted her new pokemon, and they had rode on. Like all of Anise's other pokemon, Gypsy was allowed to stay out of her pokeball at all times, unless circumstances prevented it.

"Oh y-yes," Cetus said, droning the fact she had to take up her Mrs. Pearls guise again and that awful gesture of putting her hand to her cheek. "Decided to travel on my own for a bit, but it didn't pan out." And than she did it, cuffing her right hand under the bridge of chin and sliding her fingers against her cheek bone. "I got a bit lost, hehe . . . But it's wonderful to see everyone again! I've been alright -- fairing a bit well from my journey. I can't lie, though. I am thankful to see the group again. It was rough traversing Zatao by my lonesome . . . "

"Well, we're thrilled to have you back!" Shina said warmly. "I'll have to catch you up on all the gossip! You'll never guess what showed up one night to steal dinner! A shiny Raikou!" Shina gushed.