The afternoon sun spills in through the Silver Museum of Natural History, lighting up numerous fossils of the region's fauna and flora, among other exhibits. Numerous folks, both citizens of Silver City and visiting foreigners, walk through the high-ceiling exhibit rooms that span for quite a distance. The quite murmur of sparsely gathered folks is a pleasant break from the noise of traffic, clamor of voices, and white nose of sea winds that echo outside. . . . One particular man, gruff as can be, is looking into the section dedicated to Mt. Halberd. Seeking information about the land of his people, Steven was already investigating what he wanted to see. Prominently displayed are numerous Dragon and Ice pokémon. The Salamence, Haxorus, and Rhydon skeletons seem particularly large compared to modern versions of the pokémon. There are also exhibits of an Aerodactyl skeleton, an Aurorus fin, and the imprint of a Snowver, among others. One of the signs nearby reads about how Mt. Halberd was one of the last regions of Atos to have been settled by humans--not even a century ago--and that all the fossils on display are relatively new discoveries... "Damnit, where's Dan." ...Next to him, a pale red-haired woman in a black jacket and matching pants was murmuring to a similarly-dressed man next to her. Both of their faces were partially hidden by their hoods. Either had numerous Poké Balls aligned on their belts. Abruptly, she looked towards you--not showing her face--and began to walk away with her companion. . . . A short distance away, a Museum Guide by the name of Alexandra Blunt was giving a private and relatively informal tour. Her pen pal from Hoenn, Cecilia, made this trip out here in part just to see her. It was the least she could do, after all. Still, both women were likely thinking how different the other one seemed in-person... After giving the normal introduction, Alexandra was abruptly caught off-guard when a man bumped into her from behind. At first she thought it was an accident, but looking up into the blonde man's cold eyes, the sneer on his face down at her suggested nothing but contempt. Turning away, he raised a black hood, so little of his face could be seen other than the shoulder-length blonde hair framing a narrow jaw. . . . (Feel free to do anything--and ask me in the shoutbox or elsewhere if you're unsure about something. Double, feel free to ask any questions in the shoutbox or via PM about the museum. You should know it like the back of your hand, after all.)
Alexandra took a moment to recover from being bumped by whoever the hooded man just was. She wanted to say something, but she stopped herself when he looked at her and she saw the man's eyes. Alexandra wasn't usually a very good judge of character, but something about the look in his eyes stopped her from confronting the man. Instead she stood straight again, and began her tour, starting with a massive shell, the height of a person. "This shell is believed to have come from an extinct ancestor to our own magcargo" Alexandra explained, giving it a wave with her hands "We've found others like it, but this is one of the largest and most intact pieces we've recovered from Crimson Ridge. The shells are highly heat resistant, meant to resist temperatures at thousands of degrees Celsius, and we expect that, were there a way to safely get search, many more shells like this one could be found beneath the volcanic magma itself." Alexandra gave guests a few moments to take in the sight, watching as a few veered off to look at other smaller artifacts from the area, including a large chipped magmar beak and some fossilized darumaka droppings. Once the crowd had taken a few moments to look, Alexandra directed them along to the next sight, a large chunk from what was once a huge orb, a captivating deep red in color. "This orb, found in the Crystal Canyon, comes from a prehistoric tentacruel, at least as large as the largest pokemon in the sea today, wailord. Tentacruel have remained a common sight below the waves, but have, like many other prehistoric pokemon, it has grown considerably smaller in scale. Interestingly enough, it is believed that as tentacruel grew smaller in size, it's sting has grown steadily more potent to make up for the decreased area of tentacles. Today tentacruel hunts by incapacitating it's prey with the poisons of it's sting, but back then, it used it's massive size combined with the more mild sting to overwhelm prey and keep it tangled and in pain within the tentacles as the sustained damage brought it down. The orbs of a tentacruel perform mental functions much as a brain does in most modern species today. The orb looks soft in the pokemon, but it's actually very hard on the surface and easily defended., similar to a skull." Alexandra directed her crowd again to the side. The next exhibit was a fairly new addition to the museum, but it was one of the best. She knew this would put some smiles on their faces. "This" Alexandra explained, "Is a mamoswine, preserved perfectly in the ice of Crystal Canyon, for over 4000 years. It was found in the most recent excursion to the canyon, and brought back for examination and testing before being put on display. Never before have we found a specimen so old and still so perfectly intact. We've already learned a lot about ancient mamoswine from samples taken of it's DNA, and we hope mamoswine here will continue to serve the scientific community to understanding our past for decades to come." Next, Alexandra walked over to an exhibit displaying some miniature mountains in the center of the room. Models of aerodactyl hung from the ceiling above the mountain range. "This is the Falcane Foothills, a well known centerpiece of Atos geography. Today the mountain chain is home to a multitude of mountainous pokemon, but back in prehistoric periods, one monster held the mountains for ransom. Aerodactyl." Alexandra directed a child to hit a button in front of the exhibit. Suddenly the Aerodactyl roared to life, spinning as pre-recorded aerodactyl cries played. That never failed to put a smile on the children watching. She continued "Some scientists believe aerodactyl may have closer resembled it's mega evolution in prehistoric times" she stated, pointing at a larger aerodactyl figure with stones protruding from it's body "why our modern revivals look the way they do and require mega evolution to achieve this original form is still a mystery we are working hard to unravel." Alexandra glanced at Cecilia as she spoke. She looked and carried herself differently than what Alexandra had imagined looking at the pictures. She wasn't bothered though, she was thrilled that the other girl was here listening to her, and was excited to get to know her better in person after the tour. She brought her crowd over to the next exhibit, a collection of oceanic fossils dug from a once underwater desert. "These assorted fossils come from the Bali desert. Today it's dry as can be, but long ago, it was a treasure trove of life." Alexandra gestured at the most impressive of the fossils, a completed Gyarados skeleton in the back of the fossil collection. "Gyarados here is one of the most similar pokemon to it's primitive forms. It has changed very little since it's earliest forms, and it's destructive power is formidable. It's said that gyarados was able to level primitive cities, and sailors to this day are very superstitious and anxious about gyarados." She let guests ooh and ah a little at the many fossils in the Bali desert area before moving on once again. She lead the crowd past a coming soon sign opening up into what would become a room dedicated to the Eequa jungle to reach a display of the Alamasé Ruins. She started again for the crowd to hear "The Alamasé Ruins once housed an ancient city of some sort, and the natives are believed to have worshipped the mysterious, almost alien pokemon lunatone and solrock living in the area. However, millions of years before, the area was underwater, home to countless omanyte and kabuto. The area has one of the longest and richest histories of habitation in the ancient era of Atos, but today it lies mostly abandoned, a shell of it's former bustle. Today though some of the traffic returns to the region, as it has become a favorable tourist destination for many in the Atos region." Finally, Alexandra approached the last exhibit. Almost done. She beckoned the crowd towards the fossils. "Mt. Halberd, one of the largest mountains in the region, houses more dragon type pokemon than any other in the Atos region. As you can see by these skulls, the dragon pokemon living there were once even larger than the dragons are today." The dragonite skull was larger than some guests torsos, the body it belonged to must have been massive. The haxorus skull was about the same size, but it beat the dragonite skull in one way. It's tusks protruded out a good 5 or 6 feet. "The tusks on this skull, when sharpened, can easily cut through a steel beam as if it's nothing" Alexandra explained. She moved on to an aurorus fin in a case. This was her big finish. "This fin belonged to a pokemon called aurorus. Aurorus was a peaceful giant of a pokemon, ice type. It and it's pre-evolution amaura have the ability to instantly cool the air around them." Alexandra pulled her single pokeball off her belt. "Come on Cabot, time to teach!" Alexandra exclaimed, releasing the pokemon from it's pokeball. The amaura looked up at it's trainer and blinked slowly. "Amaura, cool the air around us, but not too much" Alexandra ordered the small dinosaur. Like that, the air temperature around the crowd dropped a good 10 to 15 degrees. "Only the aurorus family, such as my friend Cabot here, possess this ability, called refrigerate. Interestingly enough, mega glalie has been found to possess a similar ability, but the level of control over it remains relatively unstudied, and it's unknown if it works through the same mechanisms." Alexandra put up a hand and began to speak to the crowd one last time. "Thank you all for visiting, I hope you had a wonderful time on your tour. If anyone wants to pet Cabot they can form a line here, and the door is over there. Please remember to check out the rest of our exhibits, and have a great day!" d20 roll: 7
Travelling to the Atos Region had been a scary concept for Cecilia at first, as she had never traveled so far on her own before. Despite that, she was also excited to be seeing and learning about new places, and was learning so much that she could use in her writing. On top of that, she also finally got to meet one of her international friends, as weird as it was. Alexandra wasn't exactly what she had expected after having spent so much time writing with her, but surely that was to be expected when you only share a small part of yourself through writing. When the hooded man bumped into her friend, Cecilia seemed just as ready as Alexandra to tell the guy off, but when she just brushed it off, Cecilia figured it would be better not to make a scene. With the odd hooded man gone, her long-distance guide continued her tour of the museum, Cecilia's first stop in the Atos Region. It was all so very fascinating to the Hoenn native, who had previously not learned much history besides her own regions. The sheer size of Atos' ancient Pokemon was breathtaking, to say the least, but the history of the very land itself seemed ripe with untold tales waiting to be found. She had barely been there for a day, and yet her muses already sang to her of stories waiting to be told. "That was amazing!" Cecilia gushed as Alexandra finished her tour. She couldn't tell if her goosebumps were from the fire that had been lit by her muses, or from the cool air that Cabot had conjured up. Either way, she was so happy she had made the trip to visit her friend. "You handle yourself so well explaining it all, and I can't imagine how long you must of studied all this." She was positively giddy over this, perhaps maybe a bit too overenthusiastic, but she was just enamored by everything today.
As the woman stormed out, Steven looked over his shoulder at her. "Must be her boyfriend," he decided, before beginning to look over the particularly large skull of a Haxorus. "I bet he would love to see this," he said to himself, feeling the Pokeball on his waist containing Achilles. He threw it out as the small Axew appeared before him on the ground. He immediately gestured to the skull before them. "Maybe one day, you'll get this big, Achilles." He laughed at his own comment. There was no way the small pokemon before him would eventually grow to have tusks nearly as long as he was tall. The guide eventually moved the exhibit he was surveying, animating the nearby Aerodactyls and such. Eventually, she came to the Haxorus skull -- which was, thankfully, displayed within a glass case. It would have been dangerous, for both the visitors and the staff, were it to be left out in the open. He was more than sure, as the guide remarked about the tusks being 'sharpened', that they were still more than sharp enough to effortlessly penetrate the glass. When she moved away, onto other things, he returned Achilles to his ball, before approaching the guide and her Amaura. Relatively few people were still around as the line to experience its Refrigerate ability dissipated. He stepped up to the guide almost casually. "Hey, I just thought that I would say that a Haxorus' tusk doesn't actually need to be sharpened. In fact, that's what they spend their time as a Fraxure doing -- sharpening and strengthening their tusks so that, as a Haxorus, they don't chip or dull, because they won't grow back, nor get any sharper. I just thought I'd offer my knowledge, since I know a lot of people aren't particularly knowledgeable about them." With that, he stepped away, content to return to the exhibit about Mt. Halberd.
Around the time the tour was going over the Alamasé Ruins exhibit, Cecilia felt a stare at the back of her head. Glancing behind her, she saw nothing but a pale, buzzcut head disappearing behind a stone pillar. Her first guess was it was probably some scrawny teenage boy--looking at a scantily-clad young woman for obvious reasons. Regardless, he seemed to have darted off before she could be sure... Didn't matter, probably, and Cecilia was more intent on paying attention to the tour, anyway. By the end of it, Alexandra's well-rehearsed tour was, for the most part, well received. There was even some scattered applause at the end, which was a relative rarity on these tours. A handful of people lined up to gently pat Cabot, who of course was accustomed to this, and seemed happy to receive attention from the museum-goers. After a few children pet it, there came a portly mother, who just offered a slight smile and nod both towards the Amaura and her trainer--instead trying to make sure her little ones weren't causing trouble. Behind her, though, three young adults in black hoodies and pants approached. Though hoods hid their faces, it was obviously two men and one woman, all in pretty good shape. One was recognized by both Alex and Cecilia, with the shoulder-length blonde hair giving him away. The other two glanced behind them as if to make sure the coast was clear. All that remained in the Mt. Halberd area was the three hooded strangers, Alex, Cecilia, Steven himself, and of course Cabot. The blonde man pulled down his hood, revealing a icy look in blue eyes, as he stepped uncomfortably close to Alex. Lifting a Great Ball out of his pocket, he growled out, "Take us to the back--towards the fossils from Eequa. I don't want my Quilava to hurt your little Amaura if that can be avoided." He lifted the ball, showing a miniature version of particularly fierce looking fire pokémon glaring up at Alexandra. "And don't play dumb--I know you have them." Plainly visible, the other two had their poké balls at the ready. It was obvious they were trying to avoid making a ruckus--but the sounds barking and growling from those balls made it obvious a scene would be made if necessary. The male one was nearly as large as Steven, and kept an eye on him to make sure the bear of a man wasn't going to try anything funny. Simultaneously, the lass was glaring with intimidation intent towards Cecilia--ball raised in a tight fist, as if warning the woman to back off.
Alexandra stepped back away from the man hogging her space instinctively. She quivered a little, but tried to stand strong. Being the employee of the museum, she was the sole representative of the museum, and it wouldn't look good if she just gave them what they wanted. Besides, she was the only one with a pokemon at the ready. Granted, a pokemon with very little actual battle experience, but it still made her the most prepared for action. At the same time though, Alexandra had never been a victim in a crime scene like this before, she was rightfully terrified of the hooded people and what they could do, or would be willing to do. "W-what do you want with Eequa's fossils?" Alexandra asked the man. She mentally cursed herself for the shaky voice and scared stutter. She couldn't afford to be showing these men any sort of weakness. Cabot made a deep growling sort of noise at the man, a sound that caught Alexandra off guard. She was normally well natured and quiet, this was the first time she had heard the amaura growl. She ran the type matchups through her head and racked her brain to remember the Cabot's battle moves. Amaura was part rock type, not heavily effected by a fire type such as quilava. It would certainly cancel out the ice type weakness. Plus, didn't it know a move that negates fire type attacks altogether? Cabot might have a fair shot in this fight after all. Besides, she wasn't alone, she'd seen the other trainer send out an axew earlier, and she knew from their notes that Cecilia had an Aron, another tough pokemon, and one that could take a huge beating. Alexandra shared a knowing look with Cabot. The small ice dinosaur was loyal to her, she knew that if she gave the order it would willingly charge into battle. Still, she didn't want to make the first move unless it was absolutely necessary, so she held off on the order. Her arm reached for her pokegear, the plan was unlikely to get very far, but she was desperate, and maybe if she could text the emergency number discreetly without one of the criminals noticing, police would arrive to back them up.
(Time to interject right quick.) The man's eyes narrowed at her, quickly losing his patience. A rough grip seized her high on the arm, pulling her hand away before she could reach the PokéGear. His voice was coarse, "I'm trying to be nice about this, girl. Don't question me. Get us in that back room before everyone here regrets it--and believe me, your little 'Cabot' would hardly even survive a proper battle."
The happy atmosphere that had been in the air seemed to vanish when the trio of punks showed up. Cecilia couldn't tell if her blood was running cold from Cabot's natural ability, or the look in the young man's face as he threatened Alexandra. The young woman clenched her fist as she looked at all three of the thugs, but her friend was handling the situation. She stood firm by Alexandra as she spoke, but than the man reached out and started to man-handle the tour guide. Between his threats and now him grabbing her, Cecilia had quite enough with this punk. "Don't touch her!" she barked at the man as she bolted forward. It wasn't even that far, but she wasn't going to waste any time. Once she cleared the small gap between them, her plan was pretty simple. Push him back, than kick him square in the crotch. She wanted to get the bastard away from Alexandra, and than make him feel pain. She did a lot of running, and her legs should be strong enough to punt them at least halfway up his gut, if not straight up his throat. Sending out Quake to battle them hadn't even crossed her mind, really. She just wanted to teach this thug a nice, quick lesson.
As Cecilia launched forward, the woman watching her sprang forward with a shoulder-first tackle--knocking the girl almost clear over, stumbling several feet out of the way. The maneuver threw back the woman's head, revealing a pissed-off face with cold eyes, in its later 20s. Cecilia recognized the buzzcut from earlier... Glaring at them, the blonde man barked, "Enough of this!" His Great Ball shot down, springing forth the Quilava he promised earlier, as he shouted, "Smokescreen!" A quiet roar burst from the pokémon's face as black smoke billowed through the room, practically blinding everyone there in a split-second. An ear-splitting buzzer rang out--the hot, black smoke triggered some kind of fire alarm throughout the museum. Quilava ♂ Lv20 - 100% HP Alexandra felt her wrists restrained as both mean forcefully carried her towards a side-door to the museum, where she knew the Eequa fossils were in storage. While forcing her towards the door, a man grunted, "All you have to do is just tell us where they are!" Cecilia was at odds with the buzzcut bitch. Steven was blindsided by what just happened, but could barely make out the Quilava and Amura left behind by their trainers in the middle of the room. The prior was gushing a continuous stream of black smoke, while the latter seemed at a loss for what to do without her trainer. The ringing of the alarm prevented either Steven or Cecilia from hearing what direction the thieves were headed, the smoke prevented them from seeing, and neither knew the layout of the museum well enough to know exactly where the kidnappers could be headed... (Dat 4 roll. Even with +4 Athletics, it isn't enough.)
Shit, Steven thought to himself. He had to think of something -- and quick -- before they got the fossils, or hurt anyone any further. He took a mental step back from the situation, recalling the details of the environment. In the Mt. Halberd exhibit there was... The Haxorus skull. That was a decent start, but with its size... There wasn't a way to move it, and he wasn't sure if Achilles' tusks were strong enough to cause serious damage yet. It would have to be worth a shot, he decided. But there was the smoke as well -- even if he could see silhouettes, it would probably be best to send Hyperion out as well, in order to see what was going on in more detail. But what about the Amaura? Cabot, or whatever its name was. He had no idea of what it was capable of, nor if it would even respond to any of his instructions. He didn't want any more wounded or, worse, possibly killed than necessary. Really, all they -- the guide, in particular -- had to do was comply, and none of this would have happened. Maybe this was for the best, though. Even as he flung out his two balls, he could only imagine how much more experience the thugs' PKMN had than their own. Even after training in Mt. Halberd for so long, he had spent relatively little time with his own PKMN. Thankfully, he knew exactly what they were capable of. He also, theoretically, had the element of surprise. But so did they -- and they were, likely, far more coordinated than a team of young adults with no prior relation to one another. Steven attempted to yell out over the alarms. They had landed, more or less, exactly where he'd intended. "Achilles, scratch, on the buzzcut chick! Hyperion--" He paused for only a moment, considering his options. "--aerial ace!"
Cecilia was caught off-guard as she was reaching out to push the bastard, as the buzz-cut thug shoulder-checked her out of the way. She stumbled but caught herself just before she fell flat on her face. Next thing she knew, she was coughing a fit in a smokescreen as alarms went off and she lost track of where Alexandra had gone. "Damn it!" she coughed as she squinted through the fog, making out the glow of the leader's Quilava and the skank who had tackled her. Grabbing the Pokeball from her belt, she quickly explained to Quake what to do. "Mud Slap that Quilava to try and get it to stop it's smoke. After you stop the smoke, either Iron Whirl or continue to Mud Slap, whichever you think is best. Be careful." Rushing forward, Cecilia whipped Quake's Pokeball at the buzz-cut whore, hoping to sock her in the gut before Quake pops out to deal with the Quilava. Either way, Quake knew what his job was suppose to be, which just left Cecilia. After throwing the Pokeball, she kept running towards the thug and was planning to try and tackle her, or at least push her back. All she really needed was a good opening to kick the other woman in knock her down. If a good push wouldn't, she could follow up by kicking her in the side of the kneecap, if not the back of it. If she could floor her, she could hopefully restrain her.
"Tch!" Hearing both of the trainers' commands, buzzcut tossed down one the Great Ball she had been grasping. She was just in time to shout, "Harden!" In a flash of light, a thorny violet pokémon burst forth, and in the exact moment it appeared, its hard hard abruptly seemed to glisten and bristle even harder. In that exact moment, the Nidorino took the brunt of Achilles' scratch and Quake's poké ball bounced off its hide. "Attaboy, Tori!" After taking all those hits, the Nidorino even braced itself against Hyperion as the Charmander leaped into the air, diving across the foe's body with a fierce slash. With a shake of its body, the Nidorino shoved the smaller pokémon off its body--though that hardly seemed to do any damage directly, a violet bubble popped out of the impact point. Even through the black fog, Steven could see that his Charmander had just been poisoned! Quake spat a bit of mud on the ground, before turning around and kicking up a huge spray of it with both hind legs--gushing it over the Quilava's face and halting its gush of smoke. It was super-effective, even if the attack itself doesn't do much damage normally... The Fire-type shook its head in frustration, obviously struggling to see through its mud with the smoke still filling the area. "Raptor, trust me!" Buzzcut called out, "Use Aerial Ace on that dragon-wannabe!" The Quilava glanced back towards her, tilted its head as if considering Quake. When the Aron tried to use Iron Whirl, it wasn't able to keep up--as the Quilava turned away and sped towards the Charmander. In a flash, it sped forward with a motion almost identical to the Aerial Ace just used. It dove through the smaller pokémon's body with a sharp noise, striking it so hard it tumbled back from the blow... Hyperion rolled towards Steven's feet, gave him a look that seemed almost son-like. In those eyes, Steve could tell it was trying to say, 'I'm proud that I did my best...!' Hyperion took 2 damage from poison! With that, Hyperion's head fell to the side, and it was clearly out cold. Raptor the Quilava ♂ Lv20 - 90% HP Tori the Nidorino ♂ Lv17 - 31% HP vs. Achilles the Axew ♂ Lv5 - 12 / 12 HP Quake the Aron ♂ Lv5 - 20 / 20 HP Hyperion the Charmander ♂ Lv5 - 0/12 HP - Fainted Cabot the Amaura is chilling there too, avoiding the battle itself from a safe distance.
Alexandra struggled to little avail. She thought, but she couldn't come up with anything. They were both probably bigger than her, and she wouldn't escape easily. She screamed as loud as she could in hopes someone would hear it before they got too far away. Alexandra wasn't sure if her voice would carry, but it was her last option. She wanted to struggle more, but Alexandra knew the men would already be annoyed, and she didn't want to find out what they could do. So instead she broke down. Alexandra had to tell them where to get what they were looking for. This was expected to be a major moneymaker for the museum, and she hated to be the one to give it away, but what else could she do? "Back there." she directed them. "The fossils are in that room, locked up in drawers, the larger ones are in the black boxes." She desperately hoped that the men would drop their guard and give her a chance to try to do something, but it was unlikely. The best case scenario was that they would leave after getting what they want. Alexandra really hoped this would be the case. She shuddered to think what they may do to her and the other two in the museum otherwise.
"You did a good job," Steven whispered as he returned Hyperion to his ball. He knew that the short little oragne thing had given his all, but Steven couldn't exactly say whether or not it would be enough in this scenario. He knew they had at least a Quilava, plus whatever that 'Tori' was. Hyperion had been poisoned, so... He thought for a moment. He hadn't heard any commands for any kind of counter attacks -- which probably meant it was a Pokemon with Poison Point. He didn't think they had the expertise necessary to pull off nonverbal commands, as thuggish as they looked. He considered his options for a short while. A Scratch from Achilles would probably do at least decent damage... But still, one of the Pokemon -- presumably Quilava -- knew at least Aerial Ace. It was difficult for him to come up with a strategy -- maybe if he could coordinate with the other trainers, but as it was... Well, they really had no chance in hell. But he at least wanted a fighting chance. 'Tori' was some Pokemon with Poison Point -- meaning that a move like Scratch would have a chance of poisoning Achilles. Hyperion was already down because of its poison, and he didn't want Achilles to come to the same fate. What was more, though, was that the Quilava had been nearly unharmed. He decided on a course of action. Hopefully -- and this was a long shot -- the other trainer would attack 'Tori', and hopefully finish it off. If that happened, then they might have a chance, but he wasn't counting on it. Maybe, just maybe, they might win. "Achilles-- scratch, on the Quilava!" He hated having to shout out his commands like this. He doubted, though, that they could effectively counter, given the smoke still filling the room.
Cecilia faltered as the other Pokemon hit the field, the ensuring battle blocking her path to the she-thug. Every second they wasted with this skank was another second before she could find Alexandra again. At least she wasn't alone in this fight, as the Axew trainer was also battling the thugs. His initial assault seemed to land a solid fury of blows on the skank's Pokemon, but the Quilava's counter attack mixed with the other Pokemon's poison managed to knock out one of the man's Pokemon. If they were going to do battle properly against these stronger Pokemon, they had think smart about it. It stood to reason that Quake was better suited to finish off the Poison Pokemon. "Quake!" she called out as best she could over the noise, "change focus! Iron Whirl the Purple one!" It was, by far, Quake's strongest move, and she hoped it would be enough to chip away at her foe. At the very least it might better protect him form harm. As she was giving her Aron his orders, she finally noticed that Cabot was still there at the battle. "Cabot!" she shouted to the little ice dinosaur, "if you can fight, fight! Freeze them or something! Just be careful!" She had no idea if the little Amaura would be able to do anything, or even listen to the strange trainer, but she had to get help anyway she could. "We need to beat them to save Alexandra! Please, Cabot, help us!"
(Terribly sorry about the huge delay. I'll do my best not to let one that ridiculously long happen again.) "Finally!" The blonde man unceremoniously dropped Alexandra's squirming legs, "Keep her bound--little bitch could be lying to us, still. I'll go on ahead." With that said, he hustled ahead to the room she pointed out. Though he was not visible, Alex could hear the sound of something breaking--probably him busting the lock on the drawers in question. Though he made no noise, there was a great deal of scuffling... probably shoving the fossils into some kind of bag. Out of nowhere, there came the tell-tell echo of a poké ball opening. His voice roared out, "Flamethrower! Roast everything!" With that, the room begin to glow a bright orange--as some unseen pokémon spat flames all over everything. A sudden, sharp piercing noise emerged from the grunt that was holding Alexandra in place. With that, she was abruptly shoved out of his arms, and back towards the museum proper. He let out a soft grunt, "Go ahead. We're done here..." His hand reached down to his belt, turning off the device that had made the ringing noise. In a dramatic fashion, his hulking form sprinted towards the nearest window, crashing through it with a tackle--presumably landing outside. ... A sudden, sharp piercing noise emerged from the buzzcut girl. She glanced down at her belt, hand quickly moving towards the emitting device to quiet the sound. By the time she glanced up, the three smaller pokémon--including that Amaura--were all launching their own attacks. "Fuck! This isn't how things were supposed to--!" Achilles darted forward, his claws raking across the Quilava as a bark-like sound of pain gushed from it. It snapped at the little dragon with a quick but small blast of fire, which did little to harm the dragon--but at least forced Achilles to retreat before going further with his assault. Just as it did so, however, Amaura charged forward with a mighty leap, spinning in the air dramatically before landing on and crushing the Quilava with a spinning, rolling, dive-bombing tackle that knocked it flat on the ground. "Shit!" As Quake spun across the ground like a top, its target abruptly turned into red light, only to be sucked into its Great Ball--clutched in the fist of the buzzcut girl. In an instant, her other hand dropped a strange poké ball that was red on one half, and blue on the other. Rather than throw it into the battle, she let it fall to the ground behind her. A Voltorb could be seen clearly between her legs. Leaning back, she braced the pokémon with one hand. Giving the trainers a smirk, she laughed cruelly. "Did you think fighting me would actually accomplish anything?!" "Teleport!" In an instant, she and the Voltorb begin to spin wildly in a bizarre fashion. Instead of shooting up into the air, as usual, the pair became a bullet of solid light, and shot at incredible speed out of the nearest window--not breaking it, but passing clean through it. ... Raptor, the Quilava, was still struggling to get up by the time buzzcut vanished. He glanced back at the trainer, as if surprised to see her gone... Raptor the Quilava ♂ Lv20 - 40% HP ...It was difficult to tell in the midst of all this lingering black smoke and that annoying damn alarm, but Steven suddenly swore he hear the sound of sirens blaring in the distance, and growing closer.
"I hear sirens!" Steven yelled over the commotion of everything else that had just gone down. The shattering of glass, and everything that had happened in the short span of time left him somewhat disoriented, but Steven knew he had to overcome it. He had to get to Achilles! The smoke was filtering through the window, he realized now. It was thinning, and he could now clearly see Achilles, who stood before a... Steven didn't know what he saw. A lone Quilava -- the one that had caused the Smokescreen, he realized. His trainer... No, that was the wrong word; whatever they were. Likely one of the villainous teams of the region. They'd been on the rise as of late, too... He approached the two Pokemon very carefully. He didn't know how much more experienced the Quilava was, but... He didn't want to be too close to it in case it was still aggressive. "Achilles," he started, quickly looking around the room, "keep your eye on him. If he tries anything-- Scratch, got it? I'm gonna go check on the others." Steven began moving through the smoke, to the other two trainers that he could see.
