Welcome to Gaia! ::

((AP will be updated shortly after this post appears. Happy Saturday, everyone! Also, please welcome _darkened_sword_, who is stepping in to take over Talia and Pita, and Xitemo, a new young-un. Welcome, welcome!))

Evening of the first day, in Woodmount...

The man lowered his gun slowly when he saw Alexis really was going to stop. He tried to put on an officious attitude. "Huh. You have to get that thing registered, you know." By now, he was within a few feet of her. A sick smile spread across his face as he finally holstered the gun, and the zigzagoon almost seemed to snicker. "And there's a penalty for breaking curfew. But, you know, I could probably let that slide." His eyes shifted back and forth one more time to check for observers.

They were completely alone. And his fingers were getting more jittery by the second.

---

Nearing afternoon of the second day, in Glenville...

The raticate flew back against the wall from the force of the blow and landed in a crumpled, bloody heap, its steel-like tail clanging against the floor. Further inspection would show that with the expulsion of its ether in death, the tail was back to normal, even though its appearance had been quite ordinary the whole time.

The children, their pokémon, and Aislin had a breather of a few minutes while the next round of rattata got riled up; they had been fairly efficient for that attack. However, sounds of the primape hidden behind stacks of cages could be heard as it began screeching and beating its fists together.

"Elian!" the veteran heard in her mind as an almost alto, male voice, "This is Charlesworth! We're almost done - tell the kids. We'll be in there soon." She could feel his distress as he fought to speak to her and concentrate on combatting the virus at the same time, and then his presence was gone.

It would be a few minutes before the next wave. There was time to prepare.

---

"The f*** you talking about?" screamed one of those who had initially backed off from behind Paul. He was advancing quickly, though his target did not seem to be the sniper. "The f*** do you think you're doing? We have limited supplies!" He shook his med kit furiously, the ledian at his side hissing angrily and buzzing over to start examining the wounds on his fallen comrades. "Can't just ****ing leave these poor ***wipes lying here and f***ing bleeding to death, though, you God-damned ****head, but we have to conserve ****!" Ignoring anything Paul had to say, he knelt down by one of those with bullets in his waist and started tearing open clothing while the ledian deftly worked through the medkit.

"F***ing ****head, do you even know what radiation does to metal? Even if this motherf***** lives, he'll get cancer and bleed out in six months or so, GOD DAMN IT I HAVE FAMILY IN GLENVILLE!!" Tears formed at the edge of his thin face as he started applying a local anesthetic so he could pull out the bullets. He continued raging as he worked on the man, the information Paul had asked for coming out slowly amidst curse words the military man had never even heard before.

"F***ing Vivian gets her b**** head up her a** 'cuz a God-damned pack the size of God-damned Woodmount ****** started ***** to Glenville and she can't ******* handle ***** 'cuz she's a ****** woman and my God-damned s***head sister moved to f***ing Glenville to f***ing DON'T SCREAM YOU P****!" he barked as his patient let out a pained cry and the second bullet landed on the ground in a pool of blood. The ledian came behind, patching up the wounds as best as possible.

"We're thirty miles east ****** of Glenville; take a f***ing motorcycle. God knows that c********* Dart can't use it now, stupid motherf***** just wanted to find a place where he could sleep for a night with something other than that f***ing gun to hold on to!" He had moved on to the other one by now; even while he swore, he had clearly judged each of the four wounded for who needed saving first.

"You want pokémon?" he said, reaching suddenly over to Dart's body and withdrawing a pokéball. "Here's a pokémon." He opened the ball and let out a starmie. The ten-pointed creature spun slowly to orient itself as it floated, knowing as pokémon do that something was wrong with its master. Its purple and blue body, with a jet stone set in the center, was scarred in multiple places, and its center had also seen its fair share of damage. It somehow saw Dart's body, and what happened next was difficult to describe.

A shrieking howl of loss echoed through the minds of those present as the thing seemed to seize up, shrinking itself further than it could possibly have been able to normally, and then, in a flash of pinkish-white light, it and its master evaporated. Zoidberg could feel the tremendous expulsion of ether almost push him backwards.

The medic, who had stopped to impassively observe, went back to his work and slapped his patient a few times to make sure he was still awake. "Been happening a lot with the psychic ones recently. Go bat**** crazy when their masters die and vanish like that. F***ing world at least pretended to make sense, once."

Juno had run to Evie's side when she flew across the floor. She'd prevented Evie from hitting the wall by getting between the metal wall and her pokemon. As bad as the tail attack had been, that didn't stop Evie from wanting to get payback.

Juno kept a hold on Evie; she saw Aislin's attack and didn't want Evie to get caught in that. Once the raticate was done for, Juno let go of Evie. Evie huffed; Juno suspected that her friend wanted payback. We're not out of the woods yet. The next round of rattata were getting worked up.

And oh look, there was a primeape among the rodent-like pokemon. Crap! Evie saw it as well, and growled. "Take it easy, girl." Whatever was in the raticate's tail hit Evie hard; Juno didn't want her friend to get killed over assuming that these rabid pokemon were normal. I need to figure out how special this primeape is.

Rattata, Evie could fight. If the primeape was too strong, Juno would just tell Evie to be the espeon's back up.

((Hello new poeple!))

Lexi breathed a sigh of relief when the guard lowered his gun, glad to have him back in a position where he would have to think before he shot. Still, the guy’s smile seemed more…hungry…than pleasant, and why was his zigzagoon laughing? Her head followed his eyes and she came to the same conclusion: there was no one else around if this got ugly. Her spearow flew up and landed on her shoulder to glare at the zigzagoon, feathers raised to look as spiky as possible. Lexi wished she could do something similar, but the best she could do was look like like a pipsqueak with a ‘fro, so she just had to pick her words and watch closely. Getting out of here soon sounded like a good plan.

Lexi put on her best acting, smiled, and facepalmed, her hand smacking the Plexiglas visor of the helmet. “Oh! Oops, sorry about that. I’ll register her first thing in the morning.” It was something to consider anyways. “And thanks for being nice and not telling anyone, it saves both you and me a lot of hassle.” She revved her bike, trying to hint at her desire to leave. “Anyways, I better get out of here. If another guard shows up, we’ll both get stuck explaining, and just because you will let me off the hook doesn’t mean my dad will. He’s probably getting antsy waiting for me and is going to ground me for a month for being late.” There, give the guy some appreciation, remind him it’s less work on his end too, and let him know why he shouldn’t hold you up more…hopefully that will work.

"Sigmund! Edward! How close are we?!" Elian called back as she heard the next wave of cages opening. She knew that whatever Pokemon was giving off such a vicious aura was now free and wild, and the children and Aislin were stuck in that room with it.
~
The most concerning target was easy to spot as it came screaming out of the cages, pounding Ratatta into the ground with little effort. With the next wave released, it was nice to see half of the problem already eliminated, but that only meant that the culprit that took care of part of the problem was stronger than anything that had previously been thrown at the group. Wasting no time, regardless of energy, Aislin's fur shimmered and her ears flattened, lowering her head as she let loose a psychic wave towards the Primeape, one that would have impact, but felt shaky in overall strength. If she could at least get the attention of the Primeape away from the children (or at the very least, throw his kick off course), then the other Pokemon might have a chance to focus a gathered attack while she kept it busy.

((Sorry about the length of my posts. I just don't know what else to write T.T I blame school tomorrow))

Gerard was not one to be intimidated; certainly not by screaming and stamping. As the fighting-type pokemon came flying at him, he prepared himself to receive the blow in order to pin the pokemon and hopefully beat it to death.

However, the espeon intervened in such a way that the primape's kick was thrown out of whack. In all honesty, the mildly superstitious Gerard was more afraid of the espeon's psychic assault several inches in front of his face, but it was over before he could flinch anyway.

The primape hit him, but not as hard or intentionally as it had wanted. Quickly grabbing onto it, Gerard spun to the floor, pinning it beneath him, and began to slam his fists into it.

After dispatching yet another rattata, Justice wiped its bloodied claws on the purple fur of its fallen opponent and joined Gerard in a savage assault of the pinned primape, biting and slashing in the openings left by Gerard's assault.

Scarily enough, neither Gerard nor Justice screamed or made any kind of warcry as they beat the pokemon to death with their hands.

((You're right xp I just felt bad))

Aislin looked a little shaky, her ears drooped slightly as the Pokemon panted lightly. The Espeon was now visibly tired, and could only watch as the human Gerard pounced on what was a notoriously violent Pokemon. Now that there was someone so close to it, Aislin knew she couldn't effectively attack the Primeape. As Justice was thrown back, Aislin bounded over to it, careful to avoid the violent scene Gerard and the Primeape were thrown into. Aislin cooed softly as she looked over Justice, as if asking if it were alright.

~

Outside, Elian raised a hand to her head, feeling heavier than she had a minute ago. As if she hadn't slept all night, Elian felt ready to fall asleep, but knew that there was no time for such a thing. Hearing Charlesworth's voice, and hearing the piercing, cackling laugh of Grimstrip, Elian effecitvely woke up and pushed herself to her feet. Deciding it safer to gain some distance, Elian stepped out of the way of the door, but remained close by, counting down each second in her head.

"Twenty five... Twenty four..."

Right before the primeape could deliver its knock out punch, Evie came to Gerard's rescue. She attacked the primeape from it's blind spot and bit into its back. Juno assumed that Evie had grabbed onto its neck (or it could have been the shoulder, it was hard to tell under all the fur). Where ever it was that Evie had chomped, it made the primeape screech.

This sudden attack on the primeape distracted it from landing his final punch on Gerard. While Evie dealt with the primeape, Juno came into the fray and dragged Gerard away from the fighting pokemon. Dang, that's gotta hurt him...

The primeape got up by this point and was trying to swing around to force Evie off of it. Evie wouldn't let go of her hold on him, so the primeape did the next best thing - it jumped and landed on its back. Evie whimpered, which told the primeape that it'd succeeded in getting the eevee off of it. It backhanded Evie all the way back to the rest of the group.

Evie was having trouble getting up, and Juno was about ready to snap. I won't let that thing get away with hurting Evie.

Evening of the first day, in Woodmount...

Though Lexi's shouts were muffled by the inside of her helmet, the outside of it, as her attacker learned, was by no means similarly padded. The heavy plastic slammed into his jaw and sent him stumbling backwards, clutching at his face and roaring in pain. "B****!" he screamed. He leaned over and spat out a few bloody teeth. His hand fumbled in his pocket before he brought out a pokéball and released a zubat in a flash of red light. "Suck her dry, Leech!" The blue, eyeless bat began hurling its sonar around the place to orient itself while it flapped its ungainly wings about ten feet in the air, then dove for Lexi's neck from behind her.

Meanwhile, the zigzagoon was quite effectively distracted by the spearow. It leapt and yipped, occasionally managing to snatch a feather or two, but it simply was not quite fast enough to actually catch its intended prey.

---

Approaching afternoon of the second day, in Glenville...

"We can spare Grimstrip now; he's coming!" Charlesworth's voice echoed into Elian's mind. It was a little late, as Grimstrip had already reached the door. He casually shifted through it, wailed a little at the power drain, shook himself, and went to work.

Ignoring Evie's broken legs and Gerard's possibly broken ribs, the haunter shot his hands forward, totally detached from his body, and grasped the primeape's balled fists somehow, despite his generally intangible form. The wild animal's attention successfully gotten, Grimstrip fired a beam of un-light at it from his eyes; everything it touched appeared to have its colors inverted, and the beam quickly enveloped to the crazed monkey. Eyes wide, it released a horrible shriek before falling to the ground and bouncing; rigor mortis had already set in.

Talia and Pita had successfully taken care of the final rattata, and the door opened with a happy ding! and Dr. Beatrice Oak's voice saying across the intercom, "I'm so proud of all of you! Wonderful job! Really excellent! Unless any one of you is dead, that is, which I sincerely, sincerely hope is not the case. I knew you were the right ones to choose, Gerard, Talia, Juno; this is proof of your validity as the hopes of your generation! Oh, how I wish I could see you all in person again. But it's not to be. Sigmund, Edward, you be good, and I hope you aren't fighting too much. Well. Good luck on your missions, all of you!" The voice cut off. As it did, an envelope fell from behind the plaque that labelled the room with the cages. It was of ancient, pressed paper and was sealed with a stamp. There was no address.

The two Drs. Oak that still lived rushed into the room, carrying small vials of a clear, slightly viscous liquid. Taking stock of the situation, they poured the whole contents of one down Evie's throat and split the other between Gerard and Justice. Within moments, bones were knitting back together and a general numb feeling set over the three who had been treated.

"Thank God you're still alive," Sigmund said, inspecting the others for wounds without asking for permission and without acknowledging the bloody mess around them. Beyond minor cuts, they seemed to be fine.

"I don't know what Mom was thinking," Edward added, looking with scientific distaste at the two larger corpses in the room and holding his nose against the noisome odor of death. "Well, I do. But it's my opinion that this was a colossal waste of time. Go on out into the main lab and take a breather; we'll clean up in here eventually."

Sigmund made his way over to Aislin and knelt down next to her, putting a gentle hand on her head. "Thanks, Aislin," he said gratefully. "It couldn't have been easy going through the ether shield, but I'm glad you did. Looks like they probably needed you in here. Go on out to Elian; Charlesworth, would you mind leading everyone to the dining hall? See if they have some food left from breakfast." The xatu landed itself outside the doorway, and perfunctorily pointed a wing towards the dining hall, waiting for them. He glanced briefly at the envelope that had fallen, but didn't seem concerned by it.

The battle had been harsh, but it had been won, all the same. Hopefully, they could breathe for a while.

---

North of Cliffshire...

"Right..." the man trailed off. He wasn't quite willing to trust McCulloch. Sounded like a thin plan, and more likely to get him killed for trying to join a city. No one was let in the cities. Everyone was afraid the population density would cause something like... Dallas. Again. The biker shivered in the heat. Tens of thousands of lives, seeking refuge, and lost in the blink of an eye...

This was why they were out here in the first place. Everyone was paranoid. But maybe... maybe they could just camp out at McCulloch's. Hell, they'd hardly even have to defend the place. It had seemed to defend itself.

And then he remembered seeing the card vanish. It made him a bit nervous. "Who exactly... is your friend?"

Abruptly, a noctowl could be seen flying overhead. Where its shadow touched the ground, Zoidberg could feel a positive ether flux; he transmitted the information to Paul seconds before the shadow reached them, blacker than seemed possible in the heat of the day, especially from a creature so high above the earth.

From the shadow arose Reverend Beati, with a cheerful smile on his face. Even in the sun, he was wearing his black robes, and only his pale face, hair, and hands could be seen. "Ah, Mr. McCulloch!" he said as he oriented himself. Suddenly, he frowned. "There don't appear to be any children here, Mr. McCulloch. May I ask why you chose to dispense with an item of considerable labor value before such time as I could be of proper use?" A second, closer survey of his surroundings prompted him to start with concern. "Additionally... why are there so many wounded here?" He took a moment to examine the doctoring that had been done, calming the suspicious bikers with his kind touch, then looked briefly at the place Dart had been. He closed his eyes in prayer.

The noctowl sailed calmly on the plentiful thermals, its watchful eye making the bikers flinch when they chose to look away from Beati's wraith-like form.