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"No problem." The Giratina hybrid gives a vague wave of his hand in the direction they were going to be heading, only to give pause as a voice emerges from the doorway of the Blackthorn Gym they were standing outside of.

"My my..." Clair says as she emerges from inside the gym cape trailing behind her. Her azure eyes focus on the gambler first, hitting Darts with the same venomous look of contempt she brewed up daily just for him before turning to Gym Leader Pryce and smiling whole-heartedly. "Pryce, it's been a while. Since the last conference at least. I hear you'll be joining us for dinner this evening, I would like to assure you it's quite an honor..."

Following this bit of pandering she also shoots his apprentice a look that while different held a great deal of resemblance to the one she had given the jacketed hybrid to his right a few seconds earlier. "Blizzard." she says curtly, as though he were a Bug-type just worth noting for the sake of manners.

"Teacher was saying he'd missed your visits as well, but it was a necessary absence to solidify the Dragon Clan's position of power." With Pryce, her smile at least went to her eyes. Not so much the look she shot in Blizz and Darts' direction whenever the Mahogany Gym Leader was looking the other direction. "I've finished up the last of my Gym Challenges a few minutes ago. I had another challenger penned in later today after he made the trek from Mahogany but a little while ago he phoned in to say he canceled... So I am free to escort you..." Her eyes fall on Blizz for a moment. "And your apprentice who defeated our youngest member in a sparring match the last time he was here... a shame to think how low our entry standards have fallen."

Darts silently fumes, arms crossed over his gilt chest as he watches Clair bash him with all the subtlety of an enraged Haxorus in a mud pit. Now wasn't the time to open his mouth and stick his foot in it so to speak, so he settles for glowering in the background, his ruby-red eyes smoldering silently in his midas-esque crest.

The gym leader blushes a little at the tongue-lashing from Pryce, nodding her head deferentially in a bow to the older man, a sign of respect. "Yes sir, I understand." Clair was not even a full-fledged member of the Dragon Clan herself, merely being a probationary member, and Darts thought he often took too much flak from her regarding his status as a ragamuffin off the street besmirching the Clan's name.

"Well now." Darts says cheerfully, smiles on the inside now that someone had verbally pulled on Clair's reigns a little bit. The high horse she was teetering on top of nigh constantly frayed his nerves day in and day out. "As I was telling the honored guests I am escorting to the sanctuary we've got a bit of a walk to go before we make it back to the compound. If you want to tag along you're more than welcome." With a kindly gesture to indicate Pryce and Blizzard should follow him Darts takes off, leaving a fuming Clair to burn two holes in his back as they walk away before grudgingly falling in step with the other three, her cape swishing back and forth irritatedly from her speed, though not in the same fashion as Darts' living jacket.

The foursome would reach the edge of Blackthorn just as snow begins lightly falling from the skies. Out in front of them a clearly defined serpentine path stays miraculously clear, cutting across the snowy countryside hills as an oddity without snow even as the flakes pile up on either side of the even pathway. Despite himself, the Dragon hybrid shivers a little bit from the cold, drawing the edges of his jacket closer to himself even as the garment twists itself around his body to try and shelter itself from the weather.

"During the summer, it's not really an issue..." Darts huffs, breathing out a cloud of moisture as the four-pronged group begins making its way down the pathway cutting its way across the countryside. "I never imagined cold was going to be such an issue, even in a body weak to it but it hurts just to be around..."

"Oh quit your whining." Clair huffs in the background. "It's unbecoming of anyone, especially a Dragon Clan initiate in training."

"Listen, we can have a little competition where both of us stick our hands in fire and that should give you an idea of the difference of the effects of ice on myself and you..." Darts snaps back, testily. The wind howls on the outsides of the path, and the snow picks up the further they move towards the mountain range in the distance. Brings back memories... the harshness of this bleak trail the first time he had gone to walk it hadn't had time to fade from the Giratina hybrid's memory yet. But he had met someone on the path to the Sanctuary last ti-

Up ahead of the group was a diminutive figure struggling through the snow, off to the side of the established pathway they were walking on. Enormous drifts of ice and snow buffeted and tossed the figure back and forth. It was too snowy to see the person clearly, but they were obviously lost wandering this way and that way in an attempt to try and figure out where exactly the path was they had lost.

To make matters worse there's a brief scuffle as a snow pile the person tripped over begins shuddering, and an enormous scaly frame begins digging itself out from underneath the snow that had covered it while it had been resting.

"Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaax!" It cries, letting out a scream to the heavens that cuts even through the billowing wind.

"Haaaaaaaaaax!" The Dragon screams again, towering over the figure, still unnoticed by the group apparently, stumbling through the snow, scythes swiping downwards towards the diminutive cloaked figure that turns its head upwards to face the raging beast advancing murderously.

Well unnoticed by all but one person. In a blaze of blue Dragon energy as Outrage fills his muscles, Darts had grit his teeth at seeing the traveler waylaid by Pokemon at about the same point on the pathway as where he had met Drasna last time. He had plunged in then, and even though every fiber of his body was screaming at him to not repeat that event a second time, remembering the arctic gusts and hail pummeling his frame, but as the blue boost of energy inside his legs would attest the Dragon Clan member to be couldn't just sit still. He rushes off past Blizz and into the wintry cold, a tract of snow flying until he meets the Haxorus' tusks with a screech of metal on metal where the blades bore down on his gilt hands. "I don't know who you are!" he shouts over the wind to be heard, barely glancing over his shoulder at the figure he still couldn't see four feet away from himself. "But you need to get...!" He half-screams, another burst of energy entering his arms as he struggles to keep the tusks off of the person, both limbs shaking violently as he pushes back against the Dragon's assault. "Back to the path!" The ice and wind clutched at every fiber of his being, beating Darts downwards even as he pressed the Dragon backwards, away from its quarry.

Once Blizzard got to the figure, he would notice that its size was rather diminutive as far as he could tell through the rushing ice... probably indicating a kid rather than a full grown adult. He... or she? was wrapped from head to toe in from what Blizz could surmise by touch alone as a pricey velvet robe of some kind, complete with a hood that obscured their face. And oddly of all as the Articuno hybrid checked on the figure it didn't seem to be shivering from cold... but then what else could the shivers be caused by? Clair rushes up to give what aid she can to the Mahogany apprentice, tugging the figure towards the path.

Not that the group didn't have other pressing issues. Darts, seeing the Piloswine incoming because he couldn't hear a damn thing over the roaring sounds of this wintry gale, pivots his center of gravity as he had been taught by so many sparring sessions with Clair and turns the Haxorus' momentum against it, sending the bigger dragon off-balance with a pivot of his waist and a subtle shot of Outrage to his biceps, gilt hands clinging to the twin tusks as he tosses the dragon into the Take Down. And then collapses on the ground both from exertion and constant Ice battering.

There's an enormous crunch as ivory tusks shear through plated draconic armor, the Piloswine's tusks ripping a rend in the Haxorus' armor. A superficial wound, but one enough to piss the dragon off even further. There's a glow as the Haxorus' body suddenly begins accelerating, utilizing the close quarters proximity with the Ice-type to prevent escape as it unleashes a Giga Impact onto the Swine Pokemon, one tusk still caught where it had gashed a hole in the Dragon's armor.

"It's a ways!" Clair shouts back, Ultra Ball at the ready as she looks towards the swirling snow and hail, and the ongoing battle between the Mahogany Gym leader and his quarry.

She doesn't see (or maybe willingly chooses to ignore) Darts' prone form, and he sinks lower and lower in the icy slush as the storm begins to bury him under a solid layer of ice and sleet.

In Blizzard's arms, the hood rolls back from the face of the small girl he was holding and he would be able to see, remarkably, that she wasn't shivering from the cold. She was shaking with laughter. The young girl's tan face was beaming beneath the velvety hood, and she was practically gasping for air as she squeaks with laughter, the jeweled tiara situated on her head bouncing back and forth dangerously as she does so. "Hahaha!!!" She gasps. "Haxy there was thinking he was camouflaged soooo well...."

The Avalanche strikes hard and true and the Haxorus stumbles backwards, steam rising from the Dragon's mouth in the midst of the torrential storm the two heavyweight Pokemon were tussling inside. The Giga Impact was causing the Haxorus to take another few moments to try and regain its strength, and it was fending off the Mamoswine the best it could in the meantime, managing to remove the tusk from the c***k in its armor to back up and let out another threatening screech. "Haaaaaaaaax!!!!"