Welcome to Gaia! ::

Tavish took Casey's outstretched hand, pumping it in a vigorous handshake. "Dirk Tavish. Guid tah meet yae, Mr. Hale. Nae tae much trouble from the lass, but ah did run afoul a someone tryin' tae grab her. Dunno why, but ah'd keep an eye oot, 'specially next few days." Tavish frowned a bit. "Ah told her this already, but ah'd stay inside for a guid while in dae coming days...If yae didna hear, we had a little raid tonight...Tomorrow's gonna bae trouble." Tavish frowned. "Sorry, ah'm gettin' a bit carried away, ah suppose." He turned and began to leave, hobbling back from whence he'd come. Before he got too far, he turned around once more. "Come see mae if yae have any trouble..or if yae need summat fixed, aye? Yae have a guid night, sir." With that, he vanished into the gloom, headed back to his home.

The burial didn't take long; the hole was already dug by the time Tavish returned. He and his pokemon buried it hurriedly, Tavish said a few words, and everyone returned into the house. Tavish plopped down on the armchair in his living room with a bottle of whiskey, after giving the pokemon a small snack of a couple of fish he'd caught a day or two ago. They'd damn sure earned that. Well, maybe not Houdini. He took a deep pull from the whiskey, calming his frayed nerves. Been a long damn time since he'd been in a gunfight. Almost didn't draw quick enough...too much slower, and I might be dead instead of that intruder...curse this bloody aging. Tavish sighed, and took another drink. Before he knew it, he'd drifted off to sleep, the bottle still firmly grasped in his hand.

She only stood up when she reached the threshold and at that point it became incredibly clear as to why she didn't in the minefield. Her head swam, her left leg gave out, and she stumbled forward into the room as she watched the man ramble into his kitchen.

Her full figure was one of a slowly wasting lithe body. Her armor (glinting with scales and tanned patches of "leather") hung loose, but not so loose to say that she had been wasting for a while. Her yellow eyes were dull and sunken, her hair fell in wavy clumps. She probably smelled. Her height met the man at his clavicle; in all a contrast to the man she was faced with.

Her instincts dulled (but simmered) with her current locamotive predicament and she was satisfied (happy would be pushing it) with hearing that the man would offer before he would take. Her answer to his question was simply, "water" said in a cracked voice.

She sheathed her dagger under her stomachplate (the sheath faced upwards and the knife was held by a clasp). And waited in the front room, by the door, should anything unexpected occur.

Ah, thought Paul as he brought a tall plastic cup of ice water back, ah. That explained some. Well, whatever nagging doubts Paul had in the back of his head went away as he realized his guest probably couldn't even drive her little knife home hard enough to kill him. Zoidberg. Our guest appears to be in less than perfect condition.

Zoidberg informed him, their communication silent and limited to their minds.

Gonna put my money on starvation, lookin' at her. I suppose I won't ask you to probe by force, but see if she'll tell you where she's from, what's going on. She doesn't seem Woodmount-affiliated, and even if she is she's about as dangerous as the stairs, but it still wouldn't hurt. Zoidberg gave Paul a silent nod, stowed the sandwich in the refrigerator, filled another cup with water at room temperature that Alyssa might actually be able to drink, then floated into the front room.

As the alakazam delivered the glass, he carefully reached out to Alyssa, treading psychic ground as though upon psychic eggshells. Many people hadn't encountered fully sentient psychics before, and it was somewhat offputting to many of those who had. he told her, indicating a sofa with a touch of dirt and a few bullet holes but otherwise no particular problems, all the while offering her the glass. (The ice water went straight down Paul's throat. No sense wasting perfectly good ice.) Paul waved.

White-knuckling her knife the moment she saw the alakazam float out of the kitchen and toward her, Alyssa instantly sent her mind into a whirlwind of static. The only possible things to have coherently gotten through the static would be that this was training and she had no idea how to combat a psychic pokemon otherwise. Everything else was random images and noises before she settled upon a disturbing numbers station broadcast she had come across in her travels.

The intro of a Gorillaz song played (Rhinestone Eyes-the first ten seconds) followed by a generated female voice in a british accent deadpaning the words, "Alfa, Lima, Lima, Delta, Echo, Alfa, Delta, November, Hotel, Hotel." followed by what sounded like a man crying. "Ping!"

(N-H-H being, "No Hope Here.")

This played over and over in her head like it did for four days on her reciever, why? Because;

Psychic pokemon were someone else's department.

She sat heavily on the couch with her eyes wide and her body trembling, her left hand never leaving the knife. Her other reached out for the glass of water and tried to retrieve it without touching the pokemon. They could strip past a novice's defenses like hers like it was a pleasure.

But she could not avoid its touch in her submissive state and so had to endure, wide-eyed, as her mind met the projected voice of the alakazam, identified as "Zoidberg", and was introduced to Paul, whom she spared only a slight glance before locking back onto Zoidberg.

She spoke, "Ohki." and then again in English. "No."

"Where are others?" and trembling, took a sip from the glass, still staring at Zoidberg.

"Schraeder then." He walked and talked. When asked about the unconscious fellow, he glanced back briefly, then shrugged. "I'm not quite the energetic bull I once was. You handle it as you like." That was mostly true, but it was undeniable that Ulysses was in good shape for a man just two years shy of the big six-oh.

Just inside his door, as expected, was a letter. He strode onto the porch again to read it in the light of the early sun and fire. Djinn bounced anxiously at his left, and about halfway through the letter Gloria reappeared at his right, with a snoozing abra on her back- Junior.

The letter itself was... well, a very personal and phenomenal piece of writing; phenomenal in the sense that it evoked powerful and long-hidden emotions as well as shed light on a number of things that had happened, were happening, and had yet to happen. To be simple, It's overwhelming, Ulysses thought. If this had reached his door step even a year ago, he might have cried, but now with a stranger on his doorstep hauling a second unconscious stranger around, a fire in the town below, and such a task before him...

"We have work to do." This he said to his pokémon. The abra teleported to some place unseen, but Dr. Shonevsky knew where he went. He himself strode for the kitchen, shotgun still in hand, and the letter tucked away in his pocket.

Very little time could be spared on pleasantries for Stetson Schraeder, but let it be known this is not typical behavior for Ulysses Shonevsky.

Paul nodded understanding. Spoke some Greek. Slight accent that he didn't quite recognize. Oh, how he wondered where she came from. Before "South", anyway. Presumably she'd landed somewhere down there, or lived there, some time ago, and had since traveled here. If she wanted to give a one-word answer, though, Paul would not press the matter; he wasn't sure how good for her stability it would be. Woodmount wasn't "south," anyway, and he was inclined to believe her.

"Riverdale's fine. Fresh water, good food, good living conditions, enough people. They'll take you if I tell them to, and they'd probably not object anyhow. The armor's a strange touch, but they get strange people. Don't worry about trade goods, the Minutemen could always use competent troopers, and they'll keep you supported, probably." At her last question, Paul chuckled.

"Eh, well. There's not much need, really. I can and have held this location indefinitely for the last five or six years, and frankly, nobody in Riverdale wants to trek out here to trade off. Plus, it's my house, and frankly I wouldn't trust half the Minutemen with the toys I've got lying around." This partially referred to the one-to-three machine guns, the anti-tank weapon, the arrangement of handguns and submachine guns upstairs, the stockpile of ammunition... more weapons than Paul had any right to actually use alone. When the Minutemen wanted fresh weapons, Paul gave them what they wanted, because Woodmount was, if nothing else, persistent, and that kept a nice little supply of firearms and ammo pouring in.

Truth be told, the one-man deal was quite frankly on account of the lucky discovery he'd made here, the armor plates he'd managed to salvage, and a miracle or ten. Paul was very skilled, but he couldn't destroy an army; he just happened to have all the tools he needed to pretend he had his own. Whatever wasn't the location and its equipment was most certainly a certain psychological effect he had after five years of mowing down offenses. To step within sight of Paul's home was very likely death, and it had to have marked effect on those who attempted it. Paul wasn't sure. No prisoner had lasted long enough to get into psychology.

((I love Smiffy.

This is shorter than anticipated, because I needed to introduce a character and wrap up a few things. Assuming all goes well and there are decently quick responses, dawn should break later tonight ^_^ ))

"You may, in fact, be of great service," the old man said sonorously over the faint noise crash of Maddy's headphones. "There is a young man currently on these tracks who cannot see. He wanders from Riverdale, and I know not by what blessing, but he has survived a trek there from Woodmount. He will require protection, and if you have the time and the skill, a machine that may give him sight despite his blindness. He is, in fact, not more than one hundred meters from the station as we speak. I apologize that I must speak and leave so rudely, but my time is limited, and I must approach him, as well. Fare well, Madelyn." As quietly and unassumingly as he had come, the man left the warehouse and was swallowed by the night.

Not more than one hundred meters to the southwest, Aaron Cummings heard a voice penetrate the sounds of cicadas and the noctowls preying on them, and the strange hums and crashing sounds he seemed to be approaching. It was a thin, melodious voice, issuing from several meters to his front. "Aaron. There is shelter ahead. Continue following these tracks. You will find someone I believe can help you. Her name is Madelyn Cache. Ask her about Dr. Ulysses Shonevsky; perhaps she will direct you to his abode rather than hers. Do not fear. Blindness is not permanent, child." The benevolent voice stopped, then, and any indication that any other human was present vanished. The sporadic, metallic sounds of Maddy's warehouse continued, seeming now to beckon to him.

---

Zoidberg suddenly became alert to a tremendously powerful and completely foreign presence on the roof of Paul's house. Sensibly, he teleported up there, weapons at the ready to fend off the invader.



"Hi, Zoidberg!" Dr. Alex Terrian chirped from his perch on the apex of Paul's attic. "I'm Dr. Alex Terrian, pleased to meet you." He swept his unforgettable, sable hat off his jet-black hair in an odd, crouching bow, and replaced it. "How're you? Man, what I would've done to pick your brain legally while I still had the chance! You're pretty dang amazing." Try as he might, Zoidberg was completely unable to penetrate the defenses surrounding Terrian's thoughts; it was as though this man was the specialist Alyssa so badly wished for. "But no worries! I wouldn't dare, as of the moment. I'm only here to spy a little. Alyssa got here okay? I will never in anything holy know how Bea predicted that. I mean, wow! Really, wow. Make sure she doesn't die before morning. Paul should be getting a call, I dunno, in six or seven hours? asking that she be escorted to Glenville. Cool? Cool. Tell Paul hi for me! Also:" He leaned over, nearly off-balance, until he even seemed to completely defy gravity with a Cheshire grin, blue eyes glimmering just barely more than the starlight should have allowed. He whispered, "You can't trust a word I say! After tonight. Even tonight! It's always so hard to tell whether it's all real..." He proceeded to lose balance, flail, tumble over to one side, roll without making a sound, and vanish as he dropped over the gutter.

Schraeder raised an eyebrow, a look so natural to his features that it must be his default expression. Not the energetic bull he once was? He may not be a bull, but Dr. Shovensky certainly looked strong enough to help Schraeder, who had been nearly unconscious only minutes ago, in moving a body.

But Ulysses was moving on and reading something, so Schraeder shrugged to himself and the matter was dropped. He had an objective for the moment, so holding a pointless grudge like that was not just pointless, it was almost always counterproductive. Schraeder grabbed the man under the arms and pulled him along jerkily, scuffing the bandit up carelessly on the bits of rocks along the way. It took Schraeder about three minutes to pull the man from the yard to the door, given a thirty-second break about halfway through.

Schraeder threw a quick look at the sky above. Didn't look too bad, so there was no reason to bring this scum inside of the doctor's house. Propping him up against one of the posts of the porch, Schraeder slipped inside the house as Ulysses went inside, but as the doctor went to the kitchen, the student went into a nearby closet. He dug around at the bottom and came away with two lengths of extension cord, about 10ft each. These would do fine.

At the porch. Schraeder used one of the extension cords to control the bandit's upper body; the bandit's arms were above his head and the cords bound his wrists, went around the porch post, and around the bandit's throat such that if he moved his arms too much, he would choke himself. The second cord was used to bind the legs: Schraeder pushed the man's feet close to his seat, so that his knees were pointed up and his head could almost rest on them. The cord was wound all through them and tied around the porch post as well, so that his legs would be asleep by the time he woke up.

Schraeder dusted himself off and kicked the bandit once more, out of spite. This situation was unpleasant and it was too late at night for Schraeder to bother acting like a gentleman to this trash. He then headed into the house, aiming for the kitchen just as Ulysses did.