Welcome to Gaia! ::

"R-Rita! You shouldn't trick people like that!" Keiko scolded the Gothitelle, her tone a bit harsher than she intended. She was genuinely worried about her, and the fact that the tears were a ruse upset Keiko more than she was aware of, despite being relieved that Rita wasn't actually as weak as the crying made her seem.

Rita was far too consumed by the battle to listen to her mistress, however. Watching Beat closely as he aimed Iron Head at her, she waited until he was close to reaching her before fading into her own shadow - execution of her Faint Attack move.

Once she reach safety, however, she didn't follow up with the attack part of the move. Instead, she spat out a black orb that expanded on its path to Beat. Should the orb make contact with the Cubone, any and all restorative moves in his moveset would become disabled.



Chaos wanted to argue that watching your favorite building fall down around you before slowly burning to death - all the while unable to do anything about it - was plenty of suffering, but not only did Lykas have a better idea, but he was impressed by the amount of emotion Lykas put into the presentation of said concept.

Instead, Chaos let himself chuckle silently. "Fair enough. So, when are we filling out the paperwork?"

Rita took the Fling attack head-on, as it traveled along the room far too quickly. The pain was so intense that she couldn't even process it. Her body went limp and fell to the floor.

Keiko recalled her immediately. "I should have trained her more before putting her in a battle..." she said, more to herself than to Odd.

Cerberus was out of his ball in short order. "This is the last pokemon I have that can fight. Do your best, Cerberus!"



Chaos didn't miss a beat. "The adoption paperwork." It didn't register in his head that it might have been a joke.

"O-okay, Cerberus. No more games. Tri-Attack!" Keiko said with a frown. She was apparently somewhat distraught at how easily Rita fainted.

Cerberus began charging energy with his three beaks, then looped his heads around so they could be closer to each other before firing off the triple-type attack at the miniscule feline target.



Chaos scoffed. "Like I got ~/~ to do." He shifted his weight again, as though trying to sit up, but started hunching over, placing a hand over the spot of his stomach that Warbringer punched him. "Gotta give that girl some credit. She never was good with pulling her punches."

"A-Are you done?" Keiko asked, unsure if Odd still wanted to battle since he hadn't sent out another pokemon yet.

Chaos laughed darkly. "I can take a hi-aaaagh... ~/~"

Chaos flinched from accidentally bumping his hand against the bottom of his ribcage. "So much for that. I'm getting too old for this ~/~. Tomorrow, then. I'mma go sleep this off."

Chaos stood up and started walking toward the staircases, waving at Lykas as he walked.

"There are tons of berries in the kitchen, check the fridge, we keep a large variety for all the Pokemon that come through here." Sub said to Arthur as he exited the lab. "By the way, how did it go for you guys?" He asked any of those who went on the trip.

Lykas happened to witness Sub and Arthur's currently short exchange and walked over. "The lab has people in it." He announced as he approached. "And they had more Pokemon like the ones in Pyrite. Looks like that weird chi they have can cause mutations beyond abnormal levels of strength." He went on, recalling the Dunsparce the 'leader' of the thugs had been using.

"Hm?" Lykas looked around at Chaos' voice, spotting the man shortly thereafter. "Same here." He responded with a smirk. Why not?

Odd had headed to bed the night before, after Keiko's Dodrio had defeated A'Capella in their battle. He'd been tired by then and, after thanking Keiko for her time, had headed off for a good night's rest. Now he was in his room, grooming A'Capella once more.