[Fin] Adventure at the Eastern Center!

[TawnyAngel]

The single story building squatted just a little inland from the beach, it looked pretty small but he'd already gathered that most of the facility was underground so that was hardly a surprise. It was still a departure from what he was used to, but this was a 'League Trainers' Center' not a Pokemon Centre. There was nothing else like it in any other region, once again Kodo proved itself unique.

Taavi tapped Valour between the shoulders, the signal to land, and the Braviary started to spiral gently downward in response. The landscape rose up towards them, details growing clearer to him with every moment. There were people and pokemon on the road going to and coming from the centre and they hardly had the sky to themselves which was one reason for the lazy descent, he could do without a collision or a near miss.

A few feet from the ground Taavi jumped from Valour's back, landing with a practised roll and then straightening up to take his huge rucksack from the Braviary's talons so that he could touch down. With the bag shouldered he pulled his flying goggles down around his neck gave his companion's ruff a ruffle. "Thanks Valour, let's go check it out, shall we?"

Valour squawked, lent over to give Taavi a brief preen, and then set off beside him at a ridiculous bird waddle.  

[Gwennythe]

A spurt of dust kicked up as a high-speed human/Totodile totem pole (Gummy was situated on Henrietta's shoulders) made an oft' interrupted bee-line, hopping over obstacles and dodging people, toward where the large bird had just been descending.

An excited "Eeeeeeeeeee!" noise acted almost like a siren, announcing the strange girl's approach, before she skidded not far from the pair, and then began circling them, always keeping so she was facing Taavi and Valour.
Henrietta's eyes shone with excitement, and her steps around the pair were all bouncy. The Totodile on her shoulders seemed less enthused.

She pointed after a few seconds of breathlessness; clearly she'd been running since seeing them descend.
"You have a Braviary! What's his name? Do they really carry cars? Can yours carry a car? He's so cool! Are you from Unova?" There didn't seem to be a breath in there... "Did you hatch him as a Rufflet? Can I touch him? Is he a him?"  

[TawnyAngel]

Taavi hadn't expected to be approached by anyone and if he had he wouldn't have expected it to happen in quite this manner. After a few moments of confused blinking surprise however he started to smile broadly, it seemed he had a pokemon fan on his hands! The Totodile accompanying her was very strange, he'd have questions of his own on the subject when he'd finished answering her's.

"I do!" he replied enthusiastically, pulling the tie out of the end of the plait he'd put into his hair for the flight and starting to undo it. "His name is Valour, and they don't carry cars regularly or anything but he could if he wanted to! He carried a tree off a road once after a storm, to be fair it was quite a small tree but it must still have been about car weight."

At the recounting of his past deeds Valour roused his feathers and started to preen, he was quite happy to stay here all day if they were going to talk about things like that.

Taavi chuckled and reached up to give him a scratch just above the eyes. "You can pet him if you like - he is a he, all Braviary are. He likes having his ruff scratched or his chest stroked." What had the other questions been? As he tried to remember Taavi lowered his hand and went back to preening himself, that is to say picking some of the tangles out of his hair. "Uuuuh, oh, right! I am from Unova, originally but I didn't hatch him myself. He was given to me as a Rufflet for my tenth birthday, the rangers had caught him because he was a strange colour and not knowing how it had come about they wanted to keep him out of the breeding pool. Did you know Braviary are called the soldiers of the sky? It's because they're renowned for their tenacity in battle when they're defending their friends."

Valour made another alto piping, squeaky squawk and regarded the strange girl with avian satisfaction.  

[Gwennythe]

"That's so cool! Hi Valour!" The girl reached out to stroke the bird's chest. "They're /all/ boys?! How do they make Rufflets? Is it like with Nidorans?! Is there a girl version?! That's really cool! What's your name?" She beamed, apparently enjoying herself by just being in the presence of Valour, but remembering introductions.

"Oh! I'm Henrietta and this is Gummy! I have a bird too but she's a Swablu not a Braviary!"

Gummy opened his mouth, then closed it again a few moments later.  

[TawnyAngel]

Valour fluffed his feathers a little again and half closed his eyes, apparently enjoying the attention.

Taavi meanwhile had just been reminded about introductions. "Oh! Hi, I'm Taavi, nice to meet you both. But yes, they're all male! There is a... sort of female equivalent? I suppose but not quite like the Nidorans. In Unova we do also have an all female species of flying type called Mandibuzz which evolves from Vullaby but it's dark and flying not normal and flying. The two species sometimes interbreed, but sometimes breed with anything else in the Flying egg group though most often things of around their own size like Pidgeot, Unfezant, and the like.... If they don't eat the Unfezant, but anyway. From a Mandibuzz and Braviary breeding all female chicks will be Vullby and all male will be Rufflet, but when they breed with others - let's say a female Pidgeot and a Braviary - then all female chicks would be Pidgey, but males would have about a fifty fifty chance of being Pidgey and fifty fifty Rufflet.

"But Swablu are pretty great!" Once on the subject of pokemon Taavi would probably quite happily talk for hours unless he was stopped. "Altaria is just beautiful, and I'd love to see a Mega Altaria one day! Fairy types are pretty cool, I've not met many yet though. Maybe that'll change here! Kodo seems to have a really diverse range of pokemon...."

What was Gummy doing? Taavi gave the green pokemon a look of mild concern. "Um, is he okay? Is he hot?" It was a pretty hot day but the Totodile didn't really look distressed? He wasn't sure what that expression was saying, but it didn't look like distress.  

[Gwennythe]

"Nice to meet you Taavi!" She listened and widened her eyes excitedly "I've seen pictures of that one! Mandibuzz looks /really/ different! They're pretty cool too though! Have you seen many? Have you ever seen an Unfezant? Do you have an Unfezant?! That's really awesome!"

Henrietta adopted a wider grin if it was possible and looked proud.
"Yeah! I came all the way here from Johto! There's a lot of totally awesome pokémon here! And now there's the egg thingy too! There are totally a few fairy types around! I don't have any mega stones yet but I really really want some! I bet Bistra would be an /awesome/ Mega Altaria!"

She shook her head slightly at the question, the Totodile now resting his chin on top of it.
"Hm? He's okay, I don't think he's too hot... Are you too hot Gummy?"

She was answered by a stream of water trickling through her hair.

"Aw! Gummy! No buddy, I'm not too hot! We were asking if /you/ were..." She giggled.  

[TawnyAngel]

Well that was a little odd. The Totodile looked healthy, that was good, but Taavi found himself wondering what the breeding process needed to create a pokemon like that had done to its brain.... Or it could just be an oddball.

"Oh, um, yes I've seen quite a lot of both," he replied with a nod, turning his mind back to what they'd been talking about before. "Valour is my only partner but we've been all over Unova together, and some of Hoenn too. This is our first time in Kodo though! We came because of the Egg actually." The capital letter on the word 'egg' was audible, and Taavi's expression became one of awe. "It's almost unbelievable to think Arceus touched somewhere like It has Kodo, I've been saving up to come here ever since the news broke!" Oh... oh he probably shouldn't talk about that too much; the other rangers had thought it was ridiculous and Hen probably would too, he didn't want a friendly conversation to turn into ridicule.

Taavi smoothed a hand back over his hair, internally panicking as he tried to think of something else to say. "But um, what's Johto like? I've never been." He really hoped she didn't pick up on his earlier comment, or at least that if she did she didn't make too much of it.  

[Gwennythe]

"Oh man! You should totally try and make more friends who wanna come with you!"

It was a rather forlorn hope that Henrietta might not make much of something when she seemed to put the same enthusiasm into everything.
It was, at least, not a negative response though, and was totally free of ridicule.

"Oh! Awesome! I'd probably totally do exactly the same if I wasn't already here when it appeared! Isn't it so cool?! And now people can /talk/ to pokémon! It's /totally/ awesome!" She was happy enough to move onto his other topic as well, however.

"It's cool! I mean, I'm from Goldenrod and that totally gets boring sometimes but I went to other places and my grandparents lived up near Violet and I used to get to see the ruins sometimes! I haven't been all over Johto but yeah! It's pretty cool! Not as cool as this place though, or Hoen! Or the Orange Islands! Have you been to the Orange Islands?!"  

[TawnyAngel]

Was it okay? It seemed like it was okay. Taavi relaxed again and nodded enthusiastically. "It's amazing! Can you? What type can you speak to, if you can?" He had been trying not to wonder what type he might end up able to communicate with, if the gift even came to him. What if it didn't? What if he was unworthy of it? He'd always done his best, done what he thought was right, but he knew he'd made some terrible mistakes. Perhaps he wouldn't be forgiven.

"I've not though, I've never been anywhere but Unova, Hoenn, and now here in Kodo.... Are you living here yourself?" Alone? Taavi tried to guess at Hen's age and put her somewhere in her mid teens, not unreasonable to be off on a pokemon journey far from home. She certainly didn't seem to be lacking in confidence.

"I would like to make more friends," Taavi added as an afterthought, glancing at Valour and quietly wondering if he would mind. He generally got on well with other people's pokemon partners, and wild pokemon, but would it be different to have other pokemon around permanently?  

[Gwennythe]

"Yeah it totally is! I can talk to fire types! I don't own any fire types yet but I know one of my Eevees totally wants to be a Flareon so I'll be able to talk to her when I finally get her a fire stone! I'm saving up for one! Aw! You should totally visit Johto one day! I bet you'd get to see all the awesome things!"

"Yeah!" She nodded, answering the question "I came here a while back after my birthday and I go home or to other regions sometimes but it's so totally awesome here that I always come back! It's a really awesome place to meet new friends too! I met Winglet- she was the first to let me use a pokéball on her- and Bistra both here! And my two Eevees came from different people breeding them! Plus, I totally have a Snowlax I met here! He's called Bub!"  

[TawnyAngel]

"Fire types? That's cool, or hot even!" Taavi grinned apologetically and shrugged. "Bad pun, sorry." He secretly hoped that he became able to speak to either normal or flying types so that he could talk to Valour but from all he'd read there was no way to tell how things might turn out so there was no point in getting his hopes up, the majority of people in Kodo hadn't even developed the ability at all. What made you worthy or able to hear pokemon? Did the Egg choose somehow, could it see into the hearts and minds of humans with a vestige of Arceus' power?

...Wait, what?

"What's a Snowlax?" Taavi asked looking faintly confused, did she mean a Snorlax? "Oh, and who's Winglet?"  

[Gwennythe]

"Puns are awesome! You can't have bad puns! They're totally hot and cool and awesome!" Henrietta replied happily, before grinning, her eyes quite wide.

"Snowlax! I made a Snorlax outta snow and we went to check out a noise we heard cuz it sounded like a big pokémon was in the area but my Snowlax must o' scared it off because when we came back, he was totally alive sitting in the big pile of snow! It's totally awesome! He's not even an ice type! And Winglet's my Zubat! She's so cool!"  

[TawnyAngel]

Err.... Well that was some interesting thinking. Taavi wanted to correct her, he really did, but it would be way too awkward. "Wow, um, it sounds like you've got a great team with you," Taavi managed to say after a moment.

Valour chose that moment to intervene with a clack of his beak and another squawk, just to remind them he was still there.

"Oh, right!" Taavi smoothed his friend's chest feathers. "We came here to see the Trainer's Center, they don't have them anywhere else. Um, I'm guessing you've been here before Hen? What's it like inside?"  

[Gwennythe]

"Yeah! They're totally awesome! Some of my team can't always come with me now cuz I have more than six but they're /all/ still awesome anyway!"

She reached out to try and stroke Valour's feathers again, while Gummy decided to snap his jaws twice, as if in response to Valour's noise.

"Yeah! There's nowhere else like it! It's really really cool! There are usually Growlithes around when I come here, which is super fun now because I can totally talk with them! There's shopping and training rooms and all sorts!"  

[TawnyAngel]

"And um... there's a hostel type bit, isn't there?" Taavi looked hopeful. "It's just, well, I've just got here and I haven't really got a place to stay yet and it's forecast to rain tonight." They'd flown over a little woodland on the way here so they could make a shelter there but a proper bed sounded preferable, provided it was free anyway.

Had Hen being heading this way before she spotted Valour, or had she been leaving? If she'd been going to the center then maybe she wouldn't mind showing him around? Well, he could ask in a minute maybe.

...Gummy really was quite strange.