Starfall Street [Paldea Arc]

[MoniqueBrie]

If someone were looking, they might see a cute chick, dark skin, flowing hair with flame-red tips. Classic Schedar Squad. Miss Ka‘ana‘ana, but a la paldeana.

But that was the last thing on her mind on the road down from Cascarrafa. She had no idea how they were going to be received. She knew Giacomo was a Dark-type specialist. Would she be spotted, a source of Dark-type energy distinct from Cera or Amber? Was her costume accurate, based on what she'd seen yesterday? Did they have another one of those Starmobile things? How would—

A tan-colored Pokémon ambled across the path. Monique stared at it, taking little time before she recognized it. Rockruff. Rock. The Puppy Pokémon. This Pokémon is very friendly when it's young. Its disposition becomes vicious once it matures, but it never forgets the kindness of its master.

Did she ever recognize it. What is a Rockruff doing out here in the middle of Paldea? Aren't they, like... rare? She had heard of Rockruff and seen maybe two or three in her lifetime. They were native to Alola and pets for some of the royal circle, so one in Paldea seemed way out of place. Is this some sort of sign?

She grabbed the first Poké Ball she felt in her bag and summoned Poloka, her Croagunk. It hopped, eager for a fight against any foe.

"Low Kick!" After initially lunging in the sheriff's direction, it finally found its foe and kicked it low, in the legs, toppling it to the ground. The Rockruff barked and jumped to its feet, visibly enraged at Poloka. It kicked at a nearby stone but missed the target with its Rock Throw technique. Now both fighters were in it, and Poloka unprompted responded with a second Low Kick, trying to strike hard. Rockruff wasn't all that heavy, so the Pokémon was still able to get up and use Tackle.

"Sucker Punch!" Monique called out to Poloka. The still-enraged Rockruff, charging, was caught off guard by the sudden blow to its right side and fell over, this time unmoving, clearly winded. Monique grabbed an empty Poké Ball and chucked it at the small Pokémon. The ball shook a bit in the grass before making that satisfying click.

The Rockruff was going to be a project for another day. She already had her team set up, and she needed her Kleavor now, not later. Besides, she thought as she made her way to the gate, why bring a royal pet to a fight?

This camp looked much like the last, a random assortment of objects and structural material, just with a different accent color. The crew probably had been seen from some distance, judging by the lookouts wearing binoculars. The taunts were predictable. If she weren't being watched, Monique would have shaken her head.

"We came bearing a gift," Monique explained. She couldn't quite transform or disguise her voice, of course, but she could give it extra sauce and make it a little higher-pitched.  

[DragonFang099]

A slight sigh left the Froslass hybrid as they started out. She knew they needed to get inside the base, but at the same time, that didn't mean she had to like how it was done. Normally, she wasn't one for just marching in the front door unless she knew she had a clear advantage, but she knew this particular situation called for a delicate touch. They needed every advantage they could get here.

As they traversed the path to Segin Squad's base, Amber looked around, wanting to see what kinds of Pokemon were local to the area. There were quite a few that she recognized, but one in particular, a small Pokemon that hopped on rather large back legs, caught her attention. This was one she'd never seen before, and she wondered what it was. Opening her SNAG, she activated the Pokedex function and pointed it at the unknown Pokemon. "Nymble, the Grasshopper Pokemon. A Bug-type. It has its third set of legs folded up. When it's in a tough spot, this Pokemon jumps over 30 feet using the power of its legs."

A Bug-type, huh? Amber thought, looking at the now-identified Nymble with interest. That will come in handy if--no, when we have to fight Segin Squad. She wasn't going to fool herself into thinking there would be no battling; thinking like that was how one was caught off guard. Breaking off from Monique and Cera momentarily, she approached the Bug-type, who had spotted her and looked ready to run at any moment. Even so, she could see a spark in the small Pokemon's eyes, and she knew she had to add it to her team. Seeing the stance the Nymble was in, Amber stopped, not wanting to spook it any more than it likely already was.

"Easy now, I won't hurt you," she said, her voice uncharacteristically gentle. "You've got a drive to get stronger, right? I can help you with that, but it'll take a lot of hard work to reach it." The Bug-type looked this newcomer over with a surprisingly scrutinizing look, and Amber got the distinct feeling it was searching for any untruth in her words. Apparently finding none, the Nymble gave a single nod, then fell into a position that told her it was waiting for something. Realizing what it was, she gave a nod and a slight grin, then tossed a Pokeball into the air. Gary materialized, waving his tentacles in the air in a manner indicating that he was ready to battle.

"Rollout, Gary!" Amber said, and the Omanyte 'leaped' into action, curling himself into his shell and rolling at high speed toward the Nymble. The Bug-type, seeing the incoming rolling missile, jumped into the air, surprising Amber with the height the little Pokemon could attain. Oh, she was definitely adding this Pokemon to her team. Speaking of which, Nymble came back down, and as Amber watched, she could see the Nymble's back legs starting to glow as it tried to land a Double Kick attack on Gary. Luckily, the Omanyte saw it coming and rolled out of the way, but the Nymble wasn't done. Watching as Gary came back around, it waited until the Omanyte was nearly upon it, it let loose a Bug Bite attack.

When the attack hit, Amber noticed something; while this attack normally wouldn't do all that much damage because of both Gary and the Nymble's typing, it appeared to do more than normal, and Amber wondered how that was possible. That shouldn't have done much, and from the expression on Gary's face, she could see that he, too, was surprised by this turn of events. Unbidden, he used Rock Blast, and this time, Nymble wasn't quite able to leap out of the way before it was blasted backward from the rock, taking quite a lot of damage. Either it didn't have very high defense, or Gary had just landed a critical hit. Either way, Amber knew the Nymble wouldn't recover quickly from an attack like that, and she threw an empty Pokeball, hitting the Bug-type in the belly. The small Pokemon was sucked inside, and Amber and Gary both watched as the ball shook several times before finally clicking shut to signify the capture.

Picking up the ball containing her newly-captured Nymble, Amber scanned it with her SNAG, and found something interesting. Ah, so that's how it was able to do so much damage with a move that shouldn't have been very effective. Hmm, that could come in very handy in the future. For now, however, she recalled Gary and let her new Nymble out, giving it a Sitrus berry she'd picked up before they left Mesagoza. "Let's get stronger together, hmm?" she said, as Nymble finished off the berry. "I think I'm gonna name you Loki." The newly-dubbed Loki gave a chirp in response, indicating that he liked the new name. Recalling him back to his ball, she caught up with Monique and Cera again.

When they finally reached Segin Squad, Amber allowed Monique and Cera to loosely bind her wrists, if they so chose. In keeping with the captive she was supposed to be playing, she gave Monique a sour look when the Zoroark hybrid called her a 'gift.' She had to keep up the charade as long as possible, but she was hoping they wouldn't have to act for very long. The sooner they either got Giacomo to surrender or defeated him, the better. She didn't like being in a compound that housed one of the two worst types for her own typing.  

[DeoLux]

This area was strange and bizarre for Deo. The trees are painted in graffiti. Though this graffiti is more creative art than anything. It didn’t help the fact that he was still hurting from the burns. Not to the point of crying bloody murder, but enough to make him feel uncomfortable. It wasn’t activating his guts yet, but enough could do it. He kept quiet, as the presence of Abby, a young punk of a kid, was with him and he knew that they were not at good odds. She was a punk kid, he was a Pig.

However, he was more amazed by the art style of the trees and the flowers. “Impressive artwork!” he noticed “I would call it more creative art than what they call graffiti.” He would continue to say as he approached a tree and was going to look it over. That was when he heard a sobbing pokemon. This pokemon near a pond, was covered head to toe in the paint and 4 paint covered monkey pokemon throwing paint all over it. “Get outta here! Shoo!” Deo said as he approached the sobbing, paint covered, pokemon. It was a psyduck. Those 4 paint monkeys saw a big hybrid and ran. The Psyduck was crying. “Here now, let's get you cleaned off.” Deo would calmly speak to this bullied creature as he took water from the pond and cleaned off the pokemon to reveal a nice, yellow, fur. “Psyduck!” it exclaimed in excitement when it was cleaned and hugged Deo. “I gotta go now, have a good day!” Deo said as he walked away to rejoin the group. “Ready Sub, also, where are your glasses?”

All this, not knowing, the psyduck has decided to follow Deo.  

[Darksol88]

Segin Squad

"Right, I can handle the knot if you'll put your hands behind you, Amber," Cera remarked as her transformation finished, dropping the telepathy to warm her voice up. She looked reasonably close to how she did at the last base, her outfit hopefully passing for Segin Squad's version at a glance. It still felt weird to transform into a human fully rather than the hybrid state she preferred, though. "Monique, do you have any... rope..." As she thought about it, tying anything on anyone hadn't been in the plans before maybe two minutes ago.

"...new idea. Amber, take your tie off from the uniform. We'll use that to lightly bound your hands when we get close." She'd travel along with the other two along the province afterward, keeping an eye out just in case. To the group's good fortune, the worst of it was just some wild Pokemon; nothing unusual overall, minus the part where the sighting of a Drifloon floating about causing one of the Pokeballs on Cera to suddenly open up, revealing the one she'd decided to bring along.

"Huh- wait, no, we're almost there, this isn't the time!" She called out, getting a confused look from her Drifloon before he turned towards the wild one and gave a defiant cry. "Seriously, you can prove yourself later, they're not part of- oh Arceus he's planning to recruit them... Can we please do this later!? When we're not on a job and trying to not get compromised?"

After seeing the other Drifloon respond by using Stockpile to expand themself, trying to threaten Cera's, she'd run over to try and physically disengage. "Come! On! Let's leave!" She pleaded, but as she was about to grab one of her Drifloon's arms, he'd let out a cloud of Haze that served a bunch of purposes. The first, and most obvious, was obscuring nearby vision for a moment. The other, more apparent to the other Drifloon, was the defenses afforded by stockpiling betraying them almost as suddenly. The last wouldn't be apparent until the haze cleared to reveal there was only one Drifloon now instead of two.

"Swear I need to remember to just recall with the ball- wait. Wisp? Where'd you go?" She'd look around, trying to get a mental read on him alongside a visual one, but nothing had turned up. The wild Drifloon was equally confused in the situation, barely catching their assailant phasing through the ground below in time to be struck hard with Phantom Force before quickly moving out of reach.

"I- when did you even learn those!?" Cera asked. "I doubt you got into that TM case..." She'd start rummaging through it just in case, but a cursory look revealed nothing visually changed from the last time she bothered to open it. The wild Drifloon, now agitated by earlier, was beginning to gather a flurry of Shadow Balls to fling in retaliation at Wisp, leading the Mew to panic and rush forward. "Hey, watch it!"

Though her Drifloon had braced himself to take the attack, he'd see Cera slide in front and brace herself for the same thing to take it instead. A light glow surrounded her as she took the hit, wincing and finding that just because she looked human in the moment, it didn't mean the attack wouldn't be any less effective. But, a moment later, she'd manage to regain her composure enough to Mimic the attack and suddenly form a flurry of them on her side.

"...you okay?" She asked, seeing Wisp bounce in the air before adding a couple more Shadow Balls to the set. "Good. Then, you," she spoke up, directing her gaze towards the wild Drifloon and flinging several of the shadowy orbs around them as a series of warning shots. "I don't know why, but my Drifloon here seems to want you to join his ranks. My ranks. And I'd really like to just be on my way, so you can either humor him and see what he wants later, or we can do this the hard way and conveniently leave out the part where I'm sure he'd arrange for several more where he came from. And probably get dragged into the whole thing by him anyway. So?"

Despite the intimidation, the wild Drifloon's response would come in the form of a few more Shadow Balls forming and prompting Cera to let the last one she made fly and send them to the ground. "Fiiiine, hard way it is then," she remarked, giving a frustrated noise as she resumed walking. "Take them, leave them, whatever. Let's go before we get too far behind."

---

Finally, once the trio had gotten close to Segin Squad's base and seen to Amber's wrists being loosely tied, she'd give a defiant huff in response to the girls before them and leaned against Amber's shoulder in a show of pride- and to put on a show besides. "Grovel? Pfft. We got out of there while the getting's good, and found this straggler trying to save face for Schedar Squad. Thought Giacomo might appreciate getting some answers from one of them, maybe even get them on his side! So you gonna let us in or keep gawking?" If there was one thing Cera had learned with Schedar Squad, it was that if anything, maybe more sass was recommended.  

[MoniqueBrie]

The Schedar "delegation" was paraded like a prize kill through the base. Music was thumping, gradually getting louder. It was distracting, something she hadn't been used to since her performing days at Sub Rosa, but it was also resonating with Monique somehow, like it made her wanna be fiercer, more evil, more...Dark-type. She glared at the grunts as the group passed by, trying to match their insults while not actually insulting anyone.

It got much louder as they approached the back of the base, where a man was spinning records at a turntable. It took him a few minutes to realize he had company. Suddenly, the music stopped, and he turned around, asking what exactly had gone down.

"Oh! Oh...looks like our friends finally showed up then. Like the music? Thought I'd set the mood for your arrival."

"Yeaaaahh... It was cool," Monique added in her saucy voice, just a little amped up from the music. She wondered how much they'd seen. Clearly, they had been expected. But how? Were they scouting them from the route? Hopefully, she had not been spotted pre-Illusion... At some point, she needed to find a gap in the crowd to make her reappearance, Illusion dropped. She hoped her plan would work.