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Richard Evans
Route 5


Given how he was still getting paid for every Pokémon he scanned, Richard wasted no time in readying his Pokédex as he ventured into the tall grass. Compared to the caverns he had been traveling through prior, though, this environment felt a lot less... Claustrophobic, to say the least.

Before he could get too lost in his thoughts, though, the young Trainer soon felt Luna's hand tugging at the leg of his pants. A brief glance over showed that the Grass Snake Pokémon was pointing at something in the distance—something purple that most definitely stood out against the verdant colors of the plains—and Richard quickly moved to scan it in turn.

When the professor AI noted something being 'different' about the now-identified Nidoran-M, though, it was hard for Richard to not be curious. And so, when the Poison Point Pokémon bolted off...

Well, what else could he do but chase after it?

@Rune_Alchemist
Kochiya Sanae
Aventon — Forest Outskirts

In her adrenaline-fueled panic, Sanae had been able to think of little more than firing off enough projectiles and trying to dodge whatever centipedes were falling around her—this, of course, included any that were attempting to fall on top of her head as they had Remilia's. Regardless of how dangerous they might have been (which her instincts judged to be "fairly so"), the fact that they were both aggressive and falling from the treetops made this whole ordeal far more nerve-wracking than it had any right to be.

Eventually, though, the rain of bugs began to peter out, and with that came enough time for the young woman to finally take a moment to breathe and reassess the situation. Naturally, the others had been clearing through the horde of centipedes at their own pace (some moreso than others), and the floor had by this point been stained a sickly blue color that was wholly unpleasant to look at. The scattered pieces of their bodies lying around on the floor didn't exactly make it look any prettier, but the bugs being dead was them trying to bite her, if anything.

"Haah... What the heck was that?!" Sanae cried out, her left hand clutching at her chest as she held her gohei out with her right just in case that wasn't the end of them. "In what world is a centipede allowed to get that big?"

The threat hadn't abated yet—far from it—but at the very least the young woman had regained enough of her wits to start firing at the centipedes in particular rather than get the others with her too involved.

Though most of the group's efforts would continue to be placed upon trying to clear the still-oncoming waves of centipedes, anyone with the leisure to not have to worry about dying after being bitten might notice that the bugs as a whole seemed to be an opaque grey-black color, and that their bodies seemed to be softer than one might have expected of anything with an exoskeleton.

But between all of the sounds of battle, something else seemed to be lurking about. Though somewhat covered up by the sounds of the centipedes as they were moving about or being struck down, there was another noise—the sounds of chitin tapping against bark, against the underbrush—slowly increasing in volume as the fight dragged on.

@VitaVitaAR@EchoWolff@Izurich@Lugubrious@Raineh Daze

Aventon — Hunter's Lodge

Millie's eyes shone with admiration at Anne's affirmation of strength, and a small 'ooh' escaped her lips at what she said. The pure faith that she had in the woman's words could have been seen as concerning in a sense, but that could just have easily been construed as childlike naivete at play.

"Okay, Miss Anne," the girl nodded in response to the woman's comments before pushing herself into a more comfortable seated position. "Uh... Do you mind if I ask you another question, miss?"

There was a bit of a pause as Millie hesitated for a moment, and provided Anne gave her okay, the young girl would continue speaking.

"R-right... Um... have you ever had, like... Weird dreams about people you've never met or seen before? There was a really pretty lady speaking to me in my dream talking about a bunch of really scary stuff, but I'm not really sure what she meant by all of it... Or if it means anything at all?"

@Drifting Pollen
@MrCellophane: Hm. Okay, well, I guess I should try to break things down as best I can here.
Re: characters: I personally don't believe that any of these three would fit in with the cast at large. Marius is, as far as I can tell, just a normal dude, and given the type of things being thrown around, I don't think he'd last long at all. The other two...
Well, from my limited knowledge of Warhammer stuff, I don't think those characters would play ball very well with the team when we have a vampire on hand (among other things). When you have very dedicated ideologues being told to play nice with races or people that go against their ideals and those people are in the camp of "strike first ask questions later", I think we have a bigger problem at hand.

But more problematic than that, I'd say, is that you're liable to just disappear off the face of the earth with no warning whatsoever. Though the honesty is appreciated, I don't think it's quite fair to anyone if we have to constantly be concerned about whether or not we can have a character be pivotal to a scene without knowing for sure if they'll even be present to allow that scene to move forward. With our weekly posting schedule in place here, I don't think you'd be a great fit for the long-term.
Tachibana Masaru
Nagano Prefecture — Abandoned Mansion

With most of the (comparatively) less threatening goo-soldiers kept down by the team's efforts, Masaru took a moment to take a breath and examine the battlefield as a whole. By some miracle or another, everyone else around him had pulled the attention of their enemies, which gave the young man ample room for threat reassessment. At present, there were only two main threats—the samurai that Zhao had tagged in to deal with and the sohei that the massive centipede was now trying to overpower. The ashigaru and ninja were effectively pinned and ability to respawn cut off at the source, which meant that all they really had to do was maintain the situation as it was now and things were as good as done.

...As if things would ever be that easy.

As though on cue, a rather familiar face (if it could even be called that) sprang up through the clouds of dust and ooze thrown around every which way—the very same figure that had blocked the rear team's advance earlier. While he could hear Agent Yuuma's shouts to engage anything flanking them, Masaru's attention had refocused towards keeping their new "friend" off of their healer.

"Don't need to tell me twice!" Masaru shouted back before firing a few volleys towards the massive monster charging towards Agent Mae and attempting to move in closer for a more "lethal" shot. Regardless of if the first few arrows actually left any meaningful damage, the young man's goal now was to try and land a shot—electrified, preferably—through somewhere soft enough for an arrow to stick. Failing that, though, it'd mean that he'd pull attention away from the medic, and at that point it'd be time to see how well he could dodge and roll through attacks to keep the thing occupied.

Hopefully, the answer to that question would be "well enough", else his first mission could well be his last.
Aventon — Town Streets

With the assent of the two girls now well in hand, the young man wasted no time in leading them towards the eastern gate. Given how the chaos had panned out in the rest of the town, the fact that it had escaped much of the destruction that the Heralds had wrought was a small solace, if any.

The walk back towards said gate didn't take particularly long, at least—not with it being a straight shot through from the center of town—and before long the trio had exited into the fields nearby. Needless to say, though, that the area had seen... Better days.

There weren't very many bodies of the deceased present, if at all, but there were signs of the farmland being thrown into disarray from the number of people who had so callously passed through to begin with. A look into the distance would show that the fields further away from the town seemed to be no worse for wear, though, but that was more of a secondary concern.

No, what was really the issue right now was that there was indeed no small number of livestock running around, and next to nobody running around trying to catch them at the moment. Not like it would really stick for anything beyond the cows, maybe, given the apparent destruction of the fences surrounding the pastures off in the distance.

"Ah... I figured the situation wouldn't have improved a bit," the young man sighed before glancing at the two who had volunteered to help. "...Would it be too much to ask if you also had any idea on how to stop anything we got back in from getting out again?"

@DracoLunaris@Rezod92
Kochiya Sanae
Aventon — Forest Outskirts

"Fujiwara no Mokou..."

Sanae mulled over the name that Remilia had provided for a few moments, eyes closed as she dug through her memories, before something fianlly clicked for her.

"Oh! You're the one that, uh... What was it that the rabbit said again? 'Snuck out with the princess for a night on the town' or something?" she said, clapping her hands together at what had to be correct. After all, why would a resident of Eientei lie to her about something like that, especially when they had been so helpful during that whole lunar invasion incident?

Never mind what the truth was, though, more help was more help, even if she hadn't been part of any sort of team to pick them up and bring them back home.

It didn't take long for the group to begin to move again, though, and the smell of that decaying corpse hit the young woman's nose well before she saw it. To say it was nauseating to her was a bit of an understatement, and seeing the thing was far worse for her psyche.

"That's wretched," she choked out as she held her nose and mustered up the courage to look at the thing again. "In what world would someone even think of trying to eat that?"

This was, of course, no time for being grossed out—not when Remilia had brought up the possiblity that whatever had poisoned the boar she and Lewa had encountered could have encountered whatever this unfortunate one had.

"...It's not unlikely, though. I'm no expert in stuff like that, but if whatever ate this thing carved through it's stomach, it couldn't have been that strong. The boar we met was pretty durable if a bunch of danmaku didn't leave much of a dent in it's hide."

At this point, though, there was little else to gain from staring at the decaying corpse beyond a growing sense of disgust and physical revulsion. If anything, though, the fact that it was still fresh enough to be rotting meant that they were probably on the right track...

And that probably explained why the other boars had showed up in the area. Fun.

Moving further into the forest would come with the loss of a lot of the ambient noise they had been dealing with prior. While the leaves still rustled in the wind and plants still crunched beneath their feet, no longer were there any of the bird cries that had come in every so often. It was almost as if anything that could move away already had, which was not exactly the most encouraging of things to notice.

It was then, though, that Remilia would feel something somewhat sizable fall onto her head from the branches above. The sound of the impact was enough to cause Sanae to turn to look at what had caused that, and seeing what that was...

Well, it was enough to elicit a rather heartfelt scream.

A massive centipede, at least as long and as thick as her lower arm, had fallen onto the vampire's hat. While that was immediately concerning, of course, it didn't take long for her scream to alert... More of them.

From the underbrush, more centipedes—some twice as long as the one that Remilia had encountered, began to appear from every nook and cranny of the forest at her accidental provocation.

With a bunch of prey right in front of them, it would have been difficult not to expect the swarm to lash out at them.

Naturally, Sanae's first reaction was to fly upwards, only for more centipedes to reveal themselves in the trees above. That only resulted in the secondary response in her arsenal: fire ofuda at anything and everything in the vicinity to get those massive bugs away from her as they attempted to attack the group.

Momoyo had been one thing, but she at least looked mostly human!

@VitaVitaAR@EchoWolff@Izurich@Lugubrious@Raineh Daze

Aventon — Hunter's Lodge

With Kendrick having left the pair to go and find Alvin, the uncertainty and confusion that was already peeking through Millie's voice was beginning to show on her face. That much might have been expected, given the situation; the last thing she had remembered was Alvin running away with her in his arms, and everything hurting all over before things went black. Waking up back in town was... Confusing, to say the least.

Hopefully, though, "Uncle Ken" would bring her brother back—and maybe with Papa too, if he was at home.

"Thank you, Miss Anne," Millie said as the unfamiliar woman brought her some water to drink. A small sip would leave her coughing, however, and the young girl would take a few moments to recover before putting the mug to the side for a bit.

Maybe she would try again later.

"Um... Miss Anne?" Millie asked, turning towards Anne with wide eyes, "Uncle Ken said you saved a lot of people. Does that mean you're super strong, like those heroes in the stories Papa told us?"

@Drifting Pollen

Aventon — Town Streets

As the pair continued their conversation in the middle of the street, a young man—one lucky enough to have survived the chaos with only a few bruises and scrapes to his name—quickly scrambled into the area. There was cause for concern written plainly on his face, and given how out of breath he was it seemed as if he was in more than a bit of a rush.

"S-sorry to bother you, miss!" he said towards Rayne, taking a moment to catch his breath as he held a hand up for a moment, "But there's been a bit of a situation out in the fields, and I heard that you might be able to help? A bunch of livestock got loose and with everyone busy trying to help clean the town up, I've been running around like a headless chicken all morning trying to catch them. Some of the people working near the gates said that you were helping clear the rubble out, and I don't want to impose, but it'd be a real help if you could... Well, help."

Given the state of repairs and what could be done, though, maybe this situation was something worth looking into...?

@DracoLunaris@Rezod92
Richard Evans
Route 2

With some spare time to kill as he waited on Laurel's reply, Richard knelt down next to Luna and checked over her wounds from their brief excursion into the cave. As far as he could see, the damage from her scuffles with the Nacli were fairly superficial—a few bruises here and there from the stones thrown and a bit of mud stuck on her, but nothing too bad beyond that.

After flicking the latter off of her body, though, Richard soon found his Pokedex firing off with a notification. A quick glance over to it confirmed that Laurel had indeed stuck around; all the better for him, really.

"C'mon, let's not keep her waiting too long," the young Trainer spoke as he beckoned the Snivy to follow him to the beach.

Upon seeing Laurel, though, Richard responded in kind with a brief wave as he and Luna made their way over.

"The caverns could have been worse, honestly," he remarked before pulling out the newly-filled Pokeball at his waist and tossing it's resident—the somewhat roughed up Nacli he had caught earlier—out onto the warm beachside sand. "Found a new team member in there, though. Meet... Sara. Yeah, that feels about right."

Instead of having any reaction one way or another though, the newly-christened Sara seemed to be content burrowing halfway into the sand and relaxing there to heal off her wounds. Luna, too, seemed to be taking the time they had now to sunbathe a little and relax.

"Going to take that as an 'okay'. Right, well, I think these two need some time to shake off the damage they've taken, but once they're done with that we should be good to head out."

Route 5

Once Luna and Sara were rested and ready to go, Richard returned the latter to it's Pokeball before following Laurel's lead. When beaches gave way to rolling plain and hills, though, the young man was more than happy to take a deep breath of air.

Salty sea breeze had lost it's novelty a good two weeks ago, after all.

At Laurel's declaration that she would break away and continue training on her own—coupled with a little reminder to keep training—Richard gave a nod and waved to her.

"Catch you in a bit, then," he said as Luna followed soon thereafter, giving the young woman a wave goodbye of her own. "Well, Dark-type... We've got options, but let's scope the place out a bit first."

Hopefully the place would have something his team could square up against well enough...

@Rune_Alchemist
Kochiya Sanae
Aventon — Forest Outskirts

With how fast Youmu had dispatched the boar earlier, Sanae found Remilia's and Lewa's swift return somewhat surprising. There wasn't anything inherently wrong Lewa's inclination towards trying to nonviolently pacify the boar when they had first split up, but given how the one the three of them ended up staring down was more than ready to send them flying, the shrine maiden had expected them to at least take a while longer in their efforts.

...

Or maybe they had come to a similar resolution to theirs?

Remilia's recounting of the events that had proceeded on their end, however, proved counter to her beliefs—a fact that did leave Sanae at least a bit surprised. What was concerning here, however, was the mention of venom. Putting aside the possibility of the boars themselves being venomous (which didn't exactly seem likely due to their prodigious size), the fact that the injured boar the other pair had encountered was left debilitated from something that wasn't physical exhaustion or injury was worrisome at best.

Any immediate desire to see what it was that Remilia had found, though, was quickly overtaken by the arrival of yet another somewhat-familiar face. Though she wasn't exactly any sort of acquaintance towards the white-haired woman who began proceeding by immediately pointing fingers, that immediate reaction towards both Youmu and Remilia meant that she had to have been a resident of Gensokyo, too. The half-ghost's reaction only further cemented that fact, though absolutely nothing in this situation gave her any indication of who the person in question was.

"Well... That makes four now?" she asked, slowly landing on the ground before giving the newcomer a brief once-over. "Either way, I guess quick introductions are in order, just so we're all on the same page. Kochiya Sanae, resident of the Moriya Shrine. I'm going to guess you're not part of some rescue force to try and get us back home, right?"

It wasn't as if she had expected such a quip to result in anything meaningful, nor did she really want to head back quite yet—not with so many unknowns and so many more threats looming overhead. As long as Kanako-sama and Suwako-sama knew she was safe, she could work without worry.

While all of that was playing out, however, anyone wishing to examine the area further would find that there were more than simply traces of something being simply present. Sifting around in the nearby underbrush would eventually reveal a rather strange cluster of shallow ruts carved into the earth. Further into the forest than that, though, would only further emphasize what it was that had driven the boars out.

After all, the sight of the corpse of an earthmane boar that was no more than skin and bones lying among the underbrush, body hollow and eyes empty, would be more than enough reason for most things to flee. A very notable, roughly-shorn hole in the center of where the boar's stomach had been was front-and-center for all to see, but beyond that...

@VitaVitaAR@EchoWolff@Izurich@Lugubrious@Raineh Daze

Aventon — Hunter's Lodge

While displeasure was evident on Kendrick's face as Anne mentioned the possibility of the contents of the box being a peace offering, any further considerations of what deeper meaning they held was promptly thrown out the window as Millie began to stir for the first time since she had arrived. In the same instant that his eyes met Anne's, the guard gave a quick nod before rushing over to the young girl's side.

Millie herself seemed to be in stable condition despite being left in a comatose state for the better half of the last sixteen hours, though that might have been more due to how miraculously everything up until now had lined up. Regardless of that fact, though, the young girl shifted ever so slightly where she lay as Anne tested for her pulse. The woman's words, however, seemed to have a bit more of a profound effect. Hearing her name called, Millie unconsciously pulled her arm back before her eyes opened for the first time in what felt like ages.

"Who...?" she asked, voice weak and raspy as her eyes panned from Anne towards Kendrick. "...Uncle Ken? What happened...? Where's Al?"

"Alvin's... At home right now. He went to go pick something up," Kendrick responded, lying as best he could to cover up what had transpired the night before. "But he'll be back soon enough. Are you okay? Nothing feeling too out of place?"

"Mmgh... My arms and legs hurt, and I'm really thirsty..." she responded, to which Kendrick responded with a nod.

"Well, sleeping on the floor'll definitely do that," he spoke simply, nodding his head before turning towards Anne, then back towards Millie. "This person here—Miss Anne—helped you and your brother out yesterday."

"She saved us from the bad guys?"

"Yeah, she and her friends saved... A lot of people yesterday," he said, slowly rising back to his feet. "...Sorry, but do you mind looking after Millie a bit longer? I want to make sure Alvin... Didn't get distracted."

@Drifting Pollen
Tachibana Masaru
Abandoned Mansion — Nagano Prefecture


With how much they were being stonewalled by that eternally-regenerating group of soldiers, Masaru couldn't help but feel the slightest bit annoyed when Sakura simply teleported them past everything and right to what could only have been described as a boss arena... With an actual boss to boot. The fact that said 'boss' came complete with a dramatic cinematic entrance only pushed that feeling towards the forefront of his mind, and as he readied himself for combat the young man couldn't hold back the smallest of smirks that crossed his face.

Not that it would last long, granted—not with the giant centipede—who he could only assume to be A-188—barreling down upon it. Had the scale been a bit larger, the standoff could have easily passed for something out of a tokusatsu show; that mattered little, though, as it meant that he was far from any sort of position to make any aggressive moves.

Getting between a fight between Anomalies was just asking for trouble. As things were, it seemed more efficient to just let them fight.

Unfortunate, of course, but at least he could take a crack at a solo whenever the simulators updated. First kills were great and all, but sacrificing clears for his ego would've gotten him crucified long ago.

To that end, the Agent wasted no time in following in Zhao's lead, clearing out whatever trash seemed to be popping up to make sure that the others could continue their fight unimpeded. In between shots aimed at the soldiers' heads, however, Masaru began to fire arrows towards both the ground and the walls in a deliberate attempt to leave them lodged within.

Once he had landed enough to feel "sufficient", though, the archer's bow began to spark and crackle as small bolts of electricity began to fly out.

"Well, if I'm on crowd control duty, might as well make it count," Masaru remarked offhandedly before firing an electricity-laden arrow towards the floor behind him. As he took a step forward, the lightning bound within quickly began to cascade outwards, forming a net of electricity that covered most of the area where the ashigaru were constantly forming and reforming. "Giant electric bug zapper seems like it'll do for now, no?"
Richard Evans
Seasalt Caverns — Entrance


Marzana's cryptic ramblings gave Richard little peace of mind as they continued back on their path out of the cavern, but that seemed to be balanced out well enough by the fact that the other wild Pokemon weren't anywhere near as inclined to attack a group of people as they were just one.

In the end, though, that did mean that the group had left the area with no further interruptions, and that meant that regardless of if he actually chose to help his two odd saviors out with whatever it was that was troubling them, he had essentially done what he had set out to do in the first place.

"Aah...I'll think about it. Thanks for the escort," he responded, waving his hand in in farewell before realizing something distinctly more unsetting as the pair of women left.

"...Wait, how did she know my name? I don't think I ever said it..." he muttered to himself before the beeping of his Pokedex pulled his attention away from that for the moment. In a single fluid motion, the young man pulled the device out of his pocket to see what had caused it to go off.

The message he had received from Laurel wasn't one that seemed particularly concerning beyond the fact that she was more or less ready to move on from the area, and that some of the others were in need of aid. Given how far they were from the town by this point and how much longer it'd take to go back, heal, and head over to wherever the problem was (and how likely it was that other people were to go and help anyways, given how quickly the groups had broken up), though, it didn't seem like a great idea. Wasting the rest of the day to find that everything was already solved would also feel pretty bad no matter how he cut it, which really only meant one thing.

"I think the others probably have it handled, so I'll probably continue following after you if you don't mind. Still in the area, or am I too late replying?"
Richard


If Laurel was already long gone, though, then there wasn't much else to be done except head back anyways.

@Rune_Alchemist
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