Welcome to Gaia! ::

Josey laughs along with her. "Looks like you and I are ganna be good friends." She holds her rootbeer up as a toast. "To friends, to team snagem and to good health!", and she takes another sip. Josey then puts her hand to her mouth to cover a yawn. "It's been one heck of a day, I think I'll retire to my room for the night. Hoping a good nights sleep with heal the wounds I got today. See you in the am Katina." She then chugged down the rest of the drink and tossed the can into the recycle as she headed up the stairs.

Katina raises her rootbeer in response to the toast before drinking. "See you later Josey," she says as the girl leaves.




Katina looks over at Sub. "Do you know where I can find a Squirtle?"

"I can try," Katina replies. "How do I get there?"

Katina stands, pocketing her SNAG and recalling Raticate before approaching the Claydol. She looks up at the rotating Pokemon as she puts her backpack on. "Uh... I'm ready whenever you are," she says.

Katina feels a little dizzy as she appears in Goldenrod City. Once she gets her bearings, she looks around. "Alright... so it was some artist dude... I better find him."

She wanders around the city until she finds a man with a Pokemon whose tail looks like a paintbrush, painting the wall of a building near the train station. The man is wearing a beret and speaks with a very stereotypical french accent to his Pokemon. "Smeargle! A leetle more paint over zere, s'il vous plait!"

"Smear!" the Pokemon cries out happily as he wipes the end of his tail against the wall, leaving a paint trail.

Katina smiles. "That's gotta be him," she says to herself as she walks up to the man.

Suddenly a group of thugs come out of an alleyway, accompanied by water Pokemon. The man who seems to be the leader yells to the artist. "You call that art? That's pathetic!"

"Non!" cries the artist. "Do not ruin zee art again!"

The artist's Smeargle stands defensively in front of his trainer and the wall, as though ready to fight.

"Bwahaha!" laughs the leader. "Let's clean up that mess! Get 'em Squirtle!"

The leader's Squirtle hesitates, looking at the art on the wall. "Squir...?" he says. It's almost like he doesn't want to mess up the picture.

"You heard me, numbskull! Clean it up!" The leader yells at his Squirtle again.

"Squirtle..." the Pokemon sighs before letting loose with a water gun attack. The combined efforts of him and the other thugs' Pokemon knock both Smeargle and the artist up against the wall, wiping out the paint as well.

Katina moves in closer to the scene. "Hey!" she yells. "Leave them alone!"

The leader calls a halt to the water gunning and turns to face Katina. "What have we here?" he laughs, eyeing Katina. "Is this your girlfriend?" he asks the artist.

The artist looks confused, and Katina looks angry. "I'm not his girlfriend! I don't even know him! But you guys need to leave him alone, he's not bugging anyone!"

"He's bugging us by putting up his ugly art near our alley!" The leader replies. "And whatcha gonna do about it?"

Katina pulls out the Pokeball containing the Raticate. "Leave them alone or else!" she yells.

"Bwahaha! This little lady's got guts!" the leader laughs. "Come on Squirtle let's teach her a lesson!"

The Squirtle sighs again, looking unhappy with his trainer's commands, and reluctantly moves forwards into a battle pose. "Squirtle!"

"Go Raticate!" Katina yells, tossing the Pokeball. Raticate appears with a flash and a cry. "RATICATE!!!"

"Squirtle, use Tackle!" the leader commands. Squirtle charges forwards and slams into Raticate, who recoils a bit in pain but shakes it off.

Katina goes through the list of moves she read up on and remembers one she thought would be very useful in quickly weakening a foe. "Raticate! Use Super Fang!"

"RATICATE!" the Pokemon yells and leaps on the Squirtle, biting him hard. Squirtle looks badly hurt by the attack.

"Hit him with a water gun, Squirtle!" the leader yells. Squirtle gets back up and blasts Raticate, but it doesn't seem to hurt as bad as the tackle did.

"Another Super Fang, Raticate!" Katina orders. Raticate bites Squirtle once more, the move half as strong as last time, but it weakens the Squirtle to a good level. Katina smirks a little. She didn't want to take down this Squirtle outright... just weaken him enough for a snag. One more should do it, she thinks.

Squirtle recovers from the attack and at his trainer's command uses Tackle once more. Raticate cries out in pain from the Tackle.

"Hang in there Raticate!" Katina yells, "Super Fang one more time!"

Raticate gets up and bites Squirtle again. This time Squirtle almost looks like he's gonna faint, but still seems to have a little fight left in him.

"Water gun again, Squirtle! Soak that rat!" the leader yells.

Squirtle looks very reluctant to attack, but squirts again, drenching the Raticate but not doing much damage.

Katina looks at the leader. "Your Squirtle doesn't want to fight anymore, why do you push him?"

"He's my Pokemon and he'll do as I say! Get your act together you pathetic turtle!" the leader yells at his Pokemon.

Katina growls and pulls out a Pokeball. "I'll be doing him a favor by doing this!" she says as she places the Pokeball in the Snag Machine. She feels the Pokeball vibrate a bit and when the process is done she hurls it at the Squirtle.

"What are you doing?" shouts the leader.

Squirtle disappears inside the ball with a flash of red light. The ball shakes once... twice... three times....

*Ding!*

It stops shaking and remains still.

Katina grins. "Your Squirtle has a better trainer now!" she says as she holds up the Pokeball.

"You stole my Pokemon! That's not fair!" the leader shouts.

"Fair?" Katina growls. "What's not fair is how you've treated him! I'll make sure he's very well taken care of... now beat it!"

The leader roars in anger. "Guys! Take her down!" he calls out to his gang.

The gang stays back. "No way man," says one of them. "We don't want her to take our Pokemon either!"

"Yeah! I stole mine fair and square!" another member chimes in.

"Let's get outta here!" says a third. The gang all runs off, leaving the leader behind.

"Oh come on you pansies!" shouts the leader as he turns around to chase after his team.

Katina watches the gang run off with a satisfied grin, and recalls the Raticate. "You did awesome, come back now," she says as she sends it back into it's ball.

The artist and the Smeargle approach Katina. "Merci mademoiselle! You must be from zee Team Snagem?"

"That's right," Katina says. "I was sent here by them."

"Please give zem my regards and my thanks, now I can finally finish my masterpiece!" the artist says cheerfully.

"Sure thing!" Katina says. "I'll let them know when I get back."

After saying her goodbyes to the artist and the Smeargle she pulls out the Pokeball with the Squirtle, releasing him.

"Hey buddy, you ok?" she asks.

"Squirtle squirt," the Pokemon replies with a nod. He seems much happier to be away from the gang.

Katina pulls out her SNAG device and opens it, pointing at Squirtle.

GRAY speaks up. "You have caught this Squirtle, do you wish to nickname it?"

"Nicknames? I didn't know people could do that. I guess it's a good idea, since you won't be a Squirtle forever... You'll evolve someday. But what should I name you?" Katina asks, looking at the Squirtle.

After a moment of contemplation she thinks of something. "Hey, you're a boy, right?" she asks.

"Squirt," the Pokemon nods.

"And a water type... hmm. You remind me of this story I heard in my hometown, about a guy who was the waterboy of his football team, but he was actually a really good tackler and learned how to play, then became one of the best players ever. So... how about I name you Waterboy? How's that sound?"

"Squirtle!" the Pokemon jumps up and down happily, nodding his approval.

Katina laughs. "Alright, Waterboy it is then. Come on, I won't make you stay in that ball all the time. Let's go home... uh... if I can find out how to get back."

GRAY speaks through the SNAG. "One moment please, Claydol will be with you soon." A few seconds later, Claydol reappears and teleports Katina and Waterboy back to the base.

"Urgh..." Katina groans as the room stops spinning. "I don't know if I'll get used to that."

"Ah! You're back Katina! How did it go?" Sub asked the girl as he noticed her sudden appearance, he was sitting on the couch in the main area, feeding his Murkrow Colbur Berries, her favorite treat, other than that he wasn't doing much of nothing else.

Josey was sitting at the table having some yogurt looking through GRAY and making some plans. "Spock, I'm going to want to head into town today. Are there any events that you can pull up so that I can earn some cash?"

"Well there is the pokemon beauty contest you could go for, though you just caught your Chinchou so you best start bonding with it so you can stand a chance." Josey smiled, "oh that won't be an issue at all."

She finished up her yogurt and headed outside.

Dan waved back at Sub before closing his eyes for a quick spell. Nova looked at all the people in the room. For him, three people was easily a crowd at a concert. "Tepiii..." he whined.