Pokemon United

Chris made an excited fist, smiling, "Yes! Thank you so much. I can't wait to find those...guys. If they're in the woods, they can't hide from me!" Jutting her thumb to herself. Turning her attention to Phoenix, "He's even happier out in the wild, makes these funny sounds." Kitty started to rub up against Chris's leg, to which she busied herself with petting his head. Her energy was likely eccentric, but she was also likely the eldest of the bunch.

As soon as Chris's petting stopped, Kitty melted into a puddle with fins, meowing for more attention. Cats develop their meows so that their owner can better understand them, as all their dialogue between each other are body movements and hisses. Pushing off of the countertop, she heads for the door and waits by it, her Kitty slowing reforming to sit next to her. To Phoenix, "Sure, I'll tell you all about us on our trip. It's the least I can do for letting me come along." Looking over to Ruby, she shook her head and said something about looking out for the brothers and sisters of her newly caught pokemon.

Titania would laugh a little at the antics of ranger and Zorua a bit before saying. "Well let's hope we never find a Jirachi or a "real" ranger then as you two belong together."

Then crouching down to Zephyr she would offer the little bird a choice. "Do you want to go back to your pokeball or do you want to fly alongside us?" She would then hold out the tailow's pokeball so he could return to it if he wanted to. She hoped by treating it kindly and giving it choices like this would help Zephyr to warm up to her.

Regardless of Zephyr's decsion, Oberon would wrap one of his feelers around Titania's left hand and the pair of them would lead the way to the forest. While they walked, the teen would gently squeeze the slvyeon's feeler and briefly a look of concern would be directed to the eeveelution. This silent communication was more then enough for Oberon to know what Titania wanted; she wanted him to try searching for the Rufflet again when they got there. So in turn Oberon would respond to the silent requesting by wrapping his feeler a little more tightly around her hand to reassure her.

As soon as they entered the forest, Titania would start scanning forest canopy while Oberon sniffed the air trying to pick up the Rufflet's scent.

(Btw Oberon has a perception stat of 5, so would that give him a buff on perception rolls? If so, just add it to his results and I'll use it next time.)

[Yes, it would!]

The Taillow chirped quietly and pecked at the ball, returning himself to its confines. The entrance to the woods soon led Titania to the spot where she had first spotted the Rufflet. The black mark of the explosion was still on the ground, but the cages were gone. Oberon kept his large eyes open for any sign of the Rufflet, but it was Titania who spotted the trail of darkly glowing feathers along the ground that led into the woods.

Chris was rather busy talking as the trio walked, gesturing as she spoke to Phoenix, "I was a young girl and, don't laugh, but I wanted to dress up like Pokemon and pretend to be them. My mother, I guess, didn't really like that, but anyway. Um, we met when I left town to fish, but I wasn't fishing for Vaporeons. He was just there and he...he beat up my guide with his friends, so I was left alone. I suppose fighting seven at once is a bad deal, right?" Chris smiled a bit, "I visited that same spot for years, while we ate cooked magikarp..." She added in quickly with a warding of her hands, "I don't eat magikarp anymore, this was just when I was young and hungry. Now I'm just old and hungry, haha.."

Clearing her throat, she continued, "After a while, he started following me into town. We used to hang out with the alleycats and listen to them sing into the night. Then he started to meow at me when I wasn't in town, so naturally, I called him Kitty." Smiling and embarrassed, "I was young, okay? Woah, what's this?" Chris bent low, once they arrived at the scene, testing the black grass and dirt with her fingers.

Phoenix laughed at the story Chris told, "That is sweet, I figured you two had met in a far beyond usual manner. Your relationship seemed too close to be otherwise." The feeling he got from them was the same he got from being around veteran rangers and their partners, a bond that could stand the test of time and possibly even the eternity of the world after this one.

Coming upon the scene he would inspect the scene to try and decipher what exactly had happened. To him it seemed like an explosion had gone off, though the feathers left more questions than answers as he could think of now avian pokemon capable of such a scene. "Looks like someone had a rather explosive time here."

Titania was a little bit disappointed when Zephyr returned to his ball, but it was understandable. Befriending a pokemon always took time after all.

As she led their small group back to the forest, she would half listen to Chris's story. The lack of her full attention wasn't out of disrespect, but due to the fact that she was concentrating on retracing her steps to where she had fought the Rocket grunts such a short time ago. In fact she wouldn't speak a word until Phoenix mentioned someone having an explosive time. "That 'someone' would be me. I fought some Rocket grunts here and now I'm looking for the pokemon I rescued from them. It might need medical attention as I wasn't able to get much of a look at him during the fight." The word rocket was said pure and absolute venom which might surprise Chris since she didn't know Titania's history.

Noticing the trail of darkly glowing feathers, she would follow them and call Oberon to her. Then using hand signals would give her beloved partner a secret order: if she found the Rufflet, Oberon was to make sure that the others didn't approach it. The eaglet pokemon was bound to be extremely wary of humans for obvious reasons and Titania was the only one who had a chance to get close to it. She was also likely to only get one chance which meant that she didn't need either Chris or Phoenix unintentionally scaring it off.

Chris wasn't too surprised by Titania's words. Team Rocket is a group of bad men and she enjoys trouncing bad men. She was surprised, however, as she looked about, "Wow, you fought them off all by yourself? It looks like a big scuffle went down." Kicking at the loose dirt and grass chunks, she smiled as Kitty rolled a chunk around in his paws, "Well he's much more adventurous than #43. We have a lot in common."

Upon inspecting the feathers, Phoenix's fingers rubbed off some of the dust the feathers were covered in. A soft, black soot coated his skin, which held the same consistency of refined moonstone. And if there was one thing that his memory served him, it was the moonstone-rich mountain north-east from here, The Diamond Shelter. His pokedex also has a map function, given to many Rangers, which is almost always up-to-date and displays real-time alerts on misdeeds that are reported in.

Titania's Pokedex has the general locations of where she has already visited, to make exploration and adventuring all the more rewarding.

Chris's Pokedex is lucky if it can identify a fifth of the Pokemon that exist.

Phoenix also recalls, after he had chased a hiker up the other side of the mountain, that the hiker had said something about the mine and that it was his grand mission to do something there. Of course, he was reported as bothering other trainers along the path and heavy littering. He had stolen samples of the moondust from the mine too, and was probably going to sell it. But his samples were like many moondust products, and were a pearly pink and white.

Phoenix flipped open his pokedex which was comprised of two parts, the top being a screen and the bottom a touch pad, the casing was red with the Rangers emblem on both sides.

"Moonstone." He looked over the recent criminal investigations and scanned through any other incidents that had been recorded, as his memory of that hiker dawned upon him Phoenix located the mine on his map. "These feathers are covered in moonstone dust, the only place near here with this quality will be up in the mountains north east of our position. I think we might find your criminals up in those mountains." Phoenix suspected this would either be a bust and nothing would happen or they were heading towards the largest fight of his life.

He quickly dispatched a call for back up from local law enforcement, "Hades, take point." The small fox pokemon did as ordered and stood in front of the group as Phoenix kept at the ready his taser, being new on the job he was not qualified for anything lethal and therefore on his belt had pepper spray, a collapsible baton, and his taser. There was a trail leading them up to the mining area, the great thing about Zorua being able to actually speak is that Hades did not have to bark to notify Phoenix of suspects and could instead say so and leave out all the guess work.

"I am going to continue on up the trail and towards that mining area, if you stay to look for that pokemon I will catch up with you later, if you follow me stay at a safe distance. I've called in support but they will likely take time to respond and may not send out a response." Until he got up that mountain trail and near the actual scene of suspicion he had nothing to report aside from possible criminal activity on an possibly large scale.

Titania shook her head at what Chris said before shedding some more light on the topic. "It wasn't that big as there were only two grunts. The only reason it looks as bad as it does was because their voltorb decided to use Self-Destruct. After that I briefly tried to look for the pokemon I freed, but I couldn't look for long. Lagi had taken a lot of damage during the fight and Zephyr was still hurt when I caught him so I had to take care of them first."

Then when Phoenix mentioned heading to the mines in search of the criminals, she would say. "I'm staying to look for that Rufflet, there is no telling what those creeps did to him and he doesn't look normal either." Then addressing Chris she would add. "Why don't you go with him, you are the only one who can identify this smuggler after all. Besides, the fewer people with me if I find that poor pokemon, the better. It probably has a massive distrust of humans by now and even I doubt my chances of getting close to it despite helping it."

With that said, she would move off to continue following the feather trail.

Chris stood taller with Phoenix's proclamation, "We can? Then we'll have to show them what for." She clenched her fist towards the mountains, "No one messes with Pokemon when I'm around." She takes the time to settle down and look towards Titania, "Okay. Just, don't get lost in the woods. There's probably more of these creeps in there." Kitty wets her toes with a sprinkling of water from his mouth and she scrunches them up, "Ahaa! Kitty..."She bends down and pets around his head fins, "We'll get them, you don't need to worry about that."

Chris stood up and waved at Titania, "Good luck in finding your Pokemon." To Phoenix, "Let's get going. I know of a shortcut so we can get there faster, it's just through here.." And she started walking through the woods in a sorta-North-East direction. Though she carved a path through the woods quite brazenly, stepping over fallen logs and swatting aside spider webs and tree branches without losing her stride. Kitty followed in her footsteps, but was much more cautious, gaining his balance before every jump and ducking fluidly under very low branches. However, Chris leads the adventurers to a stream where some wild Pokemon were gathered at.

A few Totodiles were splashing about in the stream, while a pile of Sentrets snoozed upon one another nearby, one of the Sentrets standing guard. Chris stops for a moment, "Woah...this is not a mountain. And what are those.." She pulls out her run-down Pokedex, "Totodile, a water-type Pokemon. Sentret, a normal-type Pokemon." And that is all it says, after a few minutes of calculations.

Meanwhile, Titania's trail of dark feathers leads her to a tree with gnarled branches, its roots visible as they had speared themselves along the topsoil. The leaves were all in their own piles around the trunk of the tree, and several dead trees lay upon their sides, creating an eerie clearing. And within the tree, with its wings spreading and folding, sat the sharply cawing Rufflet. As soon as Titania spotted it, the bird Pokemon gave a hateful cry, it's eyes gleaming red and hazy. There was also this suspicious, purple spike sticking out from one of the piles of leaves, but the Ruffle was taking flight, looking for a fight.

Titania was happy that she had managed to find the Rufflet from before, but wasn't surprised to see that it was so hostile. The poor bird had probably gone through hell so it was very easy to see why it would be so aggressive. However maybe she could help it? After all she too had been very badly hurt by Team Rocket, albeit not in the same way.

However she was also concerned by her surroundings, particularly the tree and that strange purple spike like thing sticking out from a pile of leaves. So she could first use a hand signal to ask Oberon to check out that purple spike while she attempted to calm the Rufflet.

Now turning her attention to the Rufflet, she would stand still to avoid provoking it any further. Then she would start to talk to him in the same exact way that she had when she freed him from the cage. Her hope was that the eaglet pokemon would recognize her voice and thus might be slightly less hostile to her as a result. "It's ok Rufflet, remember me? I'm the one who helped you escape those guys from earlier. I understand that must those guys, in fact I hate them too. It was people like them that killed my parents so they have hurt me too. However I am not like them, I won't hurt you, I just want to make sure that you will be all right."

Oberon meanwhile would approach within a foot of the spike and look at it carefully before sniffing the air. If it seemed safe he would move closer to it.

Oberon became aware of the very hasty cover that someone was using as camouflage. As he came closer, he could see their eyes, watching his. In the Rufflet's blind rage, it may have overlooked such a shoddy cover that the surprised other was using.

Though the Rufflet seemed to stop its screeching for a moment, eyeing Titania. Her knowledge of Pokemon behavior was offering the feeling that something wasn't quite right with this one, because it shivered and shook and finally was consumed with rage with a very unnatural cry of pain and anguish; which sounded nothing like a normal Rufflet.

It took flight, suddenly, and lifted its talons to rake down upon Titania! Oberon was just out of position to rush to her aid, and the hidden Pokemon brushed off its leaf-disguise and fled the scene in the confusion.

For a brief moment it looked like the Rufflet, might recognize her, but then the poor thing fell into it's rage once again. Something was clearly wrong with this pokemon and as much as Titania didn't want to, it looks like the only way to help it, was to catch it.

Tears in her eyes she would attempt to defend herself from the Rufflet's sharp talons. Then while attempting to move to a more advantageous spot, she would with the greatest of regret, order Oberon to attack.

Oberon use fairy wind on the Rufflet, we have to catch it so we can find out what is wrong with him!"

Titania's intention was to catch him and then treat him for whatever problem he had. Then once it was back to normal, offer it the chance to be a wild pokemon again. There was no way she would force it to stay with her, perhaps it's wounds ran too deep to ever want to be with humans after all.

(Opps...I accidental rolled a d20 for the defense...I'll mail you a proper d10.)

Phoenix saw the Pokemon and advanced towards them, to keep himself from seeming intimidating he would crouch near the water and pull out a plastic bag from a pouch in his belt.

To show the water type Pokemon there was no need to be suspicious Phoenix fed a berry to Hades who sat beside him contently. "I don't wanna hurt ya, I'd like to be your friend though." He did his best to figure out how the Pokemon felt. A water type Pokemon would come in handy for putting out fires, though he had no desire to fight and catch them, Phoenix had never heard of someone convincing a Pokemon to enter a pokeball however. Always one for a challenge he was up for the task.

(Edit: Apperently I got left in the dust xD)

Titania would feel some of her clothes being torn and the sting of some new cuts opening on her skin. Oberon would also feel especially stinging cuts on him as well. Not only was this Rufflet different in looks and temperment, it also possesed strange abilities. She was turly placing herself in danger by trying to capture the eaglet pokemon, but she didn't care. This pokemon was a victim of team rocket just as much as she was and she wasn't about abandon it.

Luckily the injuries that both her and Oberon had just recieved were minor, but the same could not be said of the rufflet as Oberon had dealt it a solid blow. Attacking it again was far too dangerous so now she had to try to catch it. She would retrieve a pokeball, take careful aim and then throw it. The ball would connect and the Rufflet would be sucked in. It would then shake once...and then break apart, a clear failure.

She would have to try again, but in the mean time she would order Oberon to protect her. However should Slvyeon take too much damage, she was prepared to recall him for his own protection.

Chris looked around and smiled sheepishly to herself, "Well, since we're here." She walked up to the riverbank and scooped some water into her hands and drank fully, "Yep, nothing like freshening up before kicking butt." Kitty walked up and laid himself flatly along the river bank, dipping his front paws into the water. But he was watching the totodiles and Phoenix.

The water pokemon were busy playing, and Phoenix picked up their playfulness a little after he approached them. A few of them, though, became curious as to Phoenix feeding his pokemon. One approached and made a sound, and after a moment water erupted out of his mouth, covering Phoenix's face. The water didn't hurt anything but Phoenix's pride, if anything at all. The Totodile returned to the water, diving into the river to escape retribution.

Chris had finished her drinking and looked over, stifling her laughter, "He probably likes you already. You're really good at this, you know?" She stood up and stretched upward, then bending down to pet Kitty, "They're really funny, aren't they?" Kitty looked up and meowed, but slowly rose to his feet, Chris's attention on the Totodile again. She didn't notice Kitty slinking into the water, like some kinda water cat stalking prey.

"Maybe, but I'll have to try harder if I want to catch him without a fight." Samuel took his red jacket off and wiped his face with it, which would seem rather pointless after his next action.

Pulling his white t shirt off he would follow it with his boots, socks, and then pants. To avoid any case of discomfort and possible rash he would get directly near the water's edge and ditch his boxers before jumping in. If he wanted to obtain the friendship of a pokemon it was best he enter its comfort zone and show it he meant no harm and had only pure intentions.

He would tread water in the middle of the river, "Hey," he called out to the blue alligator that had splashed him only minutes before, "I'll race you." It seemed rather playful, much as one would play catch with a Growlithe he figured one should swim with any water time Pokemon, after all that seemed to be the one thing they would enjoy most.

The Totodile popped his head out of the water and looked at the human that he had splashed. Seeing him come into the water caused him to squawk a little, swimming further away. But upon watching Phoenix starting to swim away, the small Totodile sped off into the water after him. The Totodile, even though he was behind, slowly overtook Phoenix's swimming, though both were very close in the race. At the rocks that led up to the mountainous area, where the river ran off from, the two swimmers quickly approaching it but who was to win?

Kitty, meanwhile, had his own goal to achieve. Springing from the water, he tackled one of the Totodiles. The two spun over and over each other in a bundle of blue. Eventually, the Totodile was tossed into the woods at the end of the tumbling. The Totodile thought it was all games though, but was willing to entertain, because it wasn't hurt at all, the tumbling reducing the damage that would have been. Chris had just rolled up her pant legs and kicked off her sandals to bathe in the water when the tussle began. She went to call Kitty to her, but ended up shaking her head as she waded along the water's edge, "That guy.."

Even with his head start Samuel could feel the Pokemon easily gaining on him.

Lengthening his strides he would attempt to stretch his arms forward further and further as he rolled his shoulders. He did not figure he would beat the creature in its natural habitat, but at the least he hoped it would trust him more for having attempted.

The goal was the shoreline, he had it in his sights, the current however was more than he had expected, whether it was helping him or harming him he had yet to tell.