[FIN] Call To Aid

[Gwennythe]

"Well, see... if we need to get in there and minimize how many people we want to be up against... I have pokémon that, uh... Well, he knows 'Sing'."
The boy explained, wondering if it was a stupid idea; he wish he knew more about caves.
He smiled, as heard Sera have her say, and then blinked, seeing the other man in Ray's camp once they got there.
"Huh. Not sure about the furnishing; I would have gone for a lamp or a nice rug, personally."  

[Suudonym]

His question about Tymiko went completely disregarded in favor of reacting to the map, to his disappointment, but he kept it close to the surface of his thoughts, intent on asking again. This place wasn't too far out from Sandalwood; she certainly could have gotten here within a day's time and might have been taken hostage or something…

Luke's response to Rosie was less immediate than his earlier response to Nicolette, in direct proportion to the gradual decline in his condition. "I'll be okay," he eventually answered with a dismissive shrug. He stubbornly maintained his resolve to keep up with the group.

At the question she posed, he frowned thoughtfully. "We should probably get a message to them somehow…" How was the question. "I could try sending Leste? I'm not sure she's going to be much help with the trees as thick as they are, or in caves…"  

[Blood_Goddess]

For the time it seemed that Ray was completely absorbed in the map, the large paper unfolded to its full length as she paced the camp in search for something, a finger tapping lightly on the marked section with a loud snort of amusement.
But whatever her thoughts it seemed to help.

For now the group was left with Ray's small camp, and the person already bound within it.

"okay..." She said, though cautiously. She knew he would keep pushing himself, "I'm here to help if you need."
It was really all she could offer at this point, and just keep an eye on him.

"I was thinking that sending someone of a Pidgeot might be a good idea... I'm sure we won't have to go too far."

Rosie's eyes drifted from the man sitting hunched over, a look of concern on her face. "Who is this?"
with a start the man lifted his head off of his chest, just as the other man they dragged in yelled out at him "Colin you ********' rat!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A burst of laughter broke through the conversation, Ray reeled backwards, slamming the map down on the ground and pointing with an enthusiastic gesture to a spot on the map "I Knew there would be another entrance!"
To anyone not used to reading these kinds of map, it would look like just another line on the map. "Good ol' George. I love his attention to detail sometimes."
This comment was joined with an arched eyebrow. "Except when it gets me in trouble."
"If we can make it to this entrance, then we should be able to find our way through, by passing any cave ins and find a long way around to where those thugs are keeping the pokemon."

Ray looked to the man that Double Stripe had, then over to Colin "Hey he's a coward! what did you expect."
She signed, looking to the man with a sigh, she walked over to him, kneeling down and picking up a torn strip of fabric from a canteen of water.
ringing it out she moved to press the cloth to the man's side, that appeared to be bleeding.
"And an idiot."

She turned to her friends. "According to Colin we have till tonight to get the pokemon out. right now we have an advantage, so we have to figure out what we want to do, and how we're going to do it."
a slight jerk of her head lead to Lin. "You've got the right idea, it'll at least catch a few of them off guard, and I can already tell you these guys are not used to dealing with pokemon."  

[BlackFireKitsune]

At the mention of their opponents not used to dealing with pokemon, Ray would suddenly find an eager-looking Sneasel in her vicinity as the dark-type suddenly hung down from one of the branches overhead. She extended the claws on one paw, looking to the woman with an eager and predatory gleam in her eyes. "Snea?"

The comment seemed to be of interest to Sera as well. "Sounds like it's time to mess with some people," the brunette said, quite amused with the prospect. Luke could send his Pidgeot with a message; the only ones she had who could do so, she kind of figured they'd do better in the caves than out trying to deliver a message as quickly as possible. With that thought in mind, her hand lowered to another ball on her belt, this time releasing her Mismagius, and the ghost-type glanced around silently. It was quite easy to see that she would be needed for something - she didn't need to be told anything to know that.


The two strange men - one of them injured and bleeding - as well as the idea of finding more of them in a potentially dangerous situation didn't sit well at all with Nicolette, and she found herself nervously fidgeting with her fingers as she stood near Luke and Rosie, the former more than the latter. Despite going along to help find this woman, she didn't know her in the slightest, nor did she feel at all prepared or comfortable with the idea of going anywhere dangerous - but at least she wouldn't be alone, and that counted for something.  

[Suudonym]

"I know," he said mildly. "Don't worry; I'll be careful." He was trying to subdue his reckless disregard for himself, after all.

He nodded his understanding of her suggestion, "Send a rider far enough to get a signal, that's probably best." He was somewhat wary about riding a Pidgeot at the moment, though… Certainly not before the painkiller began to have an affect, at least.

The presence of an obviously injured individual was uncomfortable for Luke, especially since he was feeling the effects of an injury himself, but he forced himself to accept that the person in question had likely been injured in an act of self-defense and focused on what Ray had to say, picking up especially on the fact that they held an advantage through pokemon. "Rem-- My Jolteon knows Flash," he contributed. "If it's dark enough and we catch them off guard, we can pretty much blind them." The fact that he knew that information firsthand was actually the only reason the electric-type knew the move.

However, that aside, "Ray, do you know Tymiko? She met up with Yuri, apparently, and the next thing anyone knew, Yuri had been stabbed and Tymiko was missing. You said that Yuri had a legendary, so we thought it might be connected…" Finding Ray was a relief, but the fact that the younger trainer was still unaccounted for was worrying.  

[Gwennythe]

Lin nodded and called out, perhaps for the first time with a purpose, Gregson.
The little orange-ish Igglybuff blinked large green eyes up at the boy, then smiled delightedly and waved a stubby black arm.

Jeeves rolled his eyes and turned up his snout, but used his vines to set the little pokémon on Lin's shoulder; he would take the ground, for now...

"Thanks Jeeves." The boy turned to the Igglybuff. "Just hang tight for now. We're going to need you to do something important soon."

This caused Gregson to go wide-eyed with surprise and then throw up a stubby little salute, puffing his cheeks out for a moment.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Should we perhaps talk more away from these two? Unless we are leaving somebody to guard them, how do we know they might not get loose?" Dith suggested, moving forward from where he had been lurking at the back with a deep frown on his face - a look of concern.

Swinging his battered backpack off his shoulders he knelt down beside the one had just been cussed out by his apparent associate. "Your name is Colin?" he asked, taking a green box marked with a white cross out of the bag. "You can call me Dima. Let me see your side, okay? I'm a doctor, I will help you." Regardless of what illegal or immoral things the man might be up to he was a person and walking past a person who was injured was something he just couldn't do.

"Don't think I will let you go," he continued fixing Colin with a scowl and a sharp one-eyed golden gaze, his scarred face up quite close to the other man's. "No, you will be staying here for now I think but I will do what I can here and when we are finished I will make sure you get proper treatment."  

[Blood_Goddess]

It was hard to sort through her own thoughts, looking between the men that were tied up, feeling their anger, mostly from the one that they had chased down before, she was sure that if he was free, he would hurt someone. While the other one... felt more like he just didn't want to exist at all.

She didn't understand, what was Ray talking about, certainly there couldn't be a connection between herself and these men, and this talk about other pokemon was starting to scare her.

the Jirachi looked between the humans, Ray, who felt excited and relived, tended to the injured man almost absently as she spoke to the other trainers.
Most of seemed ready and eager.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Need any help?" Rosie said, walking over to Dith as she pulled her bag off of her shoulder as she knelt down next to the large man.
She could tell that Ray didn't have any supplies to help treat the injury.
And the look of pain the man was in brought out a greater sympathy for him.

Clean gauze and disinfectant would be much better then a dirty cloth that seemed to be the only thing Ray could offered in any kind of first aid.
The man's side was cut open, the bleeding seemed to have stopped a while ago, but there were still bits of wood and dirt in the wound.
"He tried to get out of one of my traps." Ray explained with a gesture as see stood up, letting the large man move in to work "didn't think about what might happen if he actually fell. Unlucky for him there wasn't a clear patch that he fell on. He never did have good foresight."

With the responsibilities of Colin out of her hand for now, Ray turned instead to regard Luke when she was asked about Tymiko, not really recalling the name, but an eyebrow arched at the mention of someone missing and Yuri getting stabbed.

"Yuri got stabbed? Well someone was off their game it seemed, Thats a bit unlike him" she said in surprise. "No, I didn't notice anything about a girl," she looked to the injured man.
"You guys take a girl? Huh?"

The man opened his mouth to say something, but an outburst and threat from the other man shut him up before he could form any words.
"DS." Ray sighed looking to her partner as he flattened his body over the captive man, before dragging him off again at Dith's good suggestion.
"I wouldn't be surprised, last I heard they're rounding up escaped Legendary, they lost a lot of money that they're intending to get back. I was wondering about the people Yuri might have gotten his from." she said with a huff. "Damn it."

In answer to Dith's question Ray nodded. "I want them to be looked after, I've already lost track of two of their buddies, but I would much rather they not get away. "I'm not worried though, I tie a mean knot."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A wide grin spread over the dirty women's lips, holding her hand up toward the Sneasel that appeared over her.
"Ah yeah Agatha, you're ready."

Sera and Lin's eagerness to get ready made her grin as well.
"Alright, well then lets get started." she said "So, whats the plan?"

Plan time:
Whats the plan guys?
The mines are occupied with dangerous people, possibly with weapons, and somewhere in there is a store of pokemon who need help.
The League is unaware of anything happening.
With Ray who knows how to read the maps, and two men who seem to know whats going on inside. Whats the next step?  

[Suudonym]

So Tymiko was still unaccounted for, but not necessarily uninvolved. If they were collecting pokemon, it didn't make much sense to keep a hostage, however, unless they planned to use her as a bargaining chip with Ray… If that were the case, though, he imagined Ray would probably already be aware of it.

He frowned in consideration. When all was said in done, what they knew for sure was that there were a lot of pokemon being held captive somewhere within the caves, apparently to be used to collect profit illicitly, and they couldn't very well walk away from that kind of situation.

"I think we should prioritize the pokemon they're hoarding," he said, his tone uncertain. "The League asked us to contact them if we found any solid evidence that something was happening here, so I don't think we should disregard that, but I don't think we should just sit around and wait for them to take care of things either. Could we focus on getting the pokemon out of there without instigating a fight?" They had paralysis- and sleep-inducing moves at their disposal, among other things, so non-aggressive confrontation seemed like an option.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

At Luke's words about avoiding a fight, Agatha seemed completely astonished. He didn't want to fight? Seriously? With a very displeased grumble, the Sneasel disappeared back into the treetops.

Sera wasn't as displeased with the suggestion as her pokemon was, and instead she raised her hand to indicate Jacques, "He can probably mess with them too, with illusions and stuff." And if all else failed, they could take a more direct approach.


"I agree with the not fighting part," Nicolette piped in, finally adding to the conversation - though that didn't last long, as she didn't say anything else except that. The idea of fighting, the idea of this whole situation, was frightening, and it scared her to think about it.  

[Gwennythe]

Lin was rather assuming they'd end up doing both.
When you had to steal to survive, you learned to run and to fight with any advantage you might discover.
As far as he was concerned, sleep moves, paralysis and illusions were just the 'dirty' tactics they needed before getting in and knocking any lasting resistance out with a good whack...
Though Nicolette's interjection gave him pause.
Not everyone was like him, he remembered, for a moment.

"As long as we don't get caught up in them, I think it makes sense to lead with the moves that will give us an initial advantage," He nodded, adding his thoughts to Luke's, Sera's and Nicolettes "but, I think that should be our initial move. There isn't a guarantee we can take everyone down for long enough with just that... So anyone with real strength in their team should, perhaps, form an immediate second wave?" His brain twigged something after a moment. "Hey, along with that illusion thingy... Anyone have a pokémon that knows Smokescreen? Or Confuse Ray? They must have some kind of lighting in there already, right? Take out the lighting first, confuse them... and then let forth with the singing and the flashing and the spooky mirages... Then hit them." That was the plan Lin liked; neutralise the bad guys and then get the pokémon and stuff.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Mis!" Giselle didn't hesitate to raise and wave - or rather, wiggle - an ethereal tendril at Lin's words. She knew one of those!

"Yeah, Giselle knows Confuse Ray," Sera affirmed, refraining from gesturing to the Mismagius since she had brought attention to herself of her own accord. "None of mine know Smokescreen, though, but Agatha knows Icy Wind if that helps."

A pleased, cackling hiss-like sound suddenly floated down from the boughs above their heads; Agatha did indeed know that attack, and didn't sound averse to using it against their enemies.  

[Suudonym]

Luke nodded in thought, "I've got an Umbreon with Confuse Ray too. No Smokescreen, but if there's enough loose dirt on the ground a Whirlwind could do some good." Not that it sounded like it would be entirely necessary, with the rest of the arsenal they had at their disposal. "Cut their main electricity line, disable them physically, restraints would probably be a good idea too…" He was mostly thinking aloud at this point. "I've got an Aggron with Protect if things start turning violent, but I'd prefer to avoid it coming to that."  

[Gwennythe]

Lin smiled as the ghost type called attention to herself; cute.
On his shoulder, Gregson was mostly mimicking his trainer's expressions, particularly whenever the boy seemed to be adopting a thoughtful one.

Jeeves watched and resisted another urge to roll his eyes.
As Luke mentioned restraints, though, the Snivy stood a little taller; he couldn't quite do what Double Stripe could, but he brought some vines out to illustrate his suggestion, with a little 'cough'.

"Oh, right. Uh. Jeeves can use Vine Whip and Wrap."  

[TawnyAngel]

Dith did what he could for Colin first, cleaning the wound out and getting a proper dressing over it. With a firmly rumbled; "Stay," the scarred man put his first aid kit back into his bag and moved to join the conversation.

"Teazer has Sand Attack," he offered, "that could be a help. Luna also has Flash and Viktor Yawn. Mmh, if we are going in we need an exit strategy too in case things don't go our way. Does anyone have a pokemon that can tunnel us out if it comes to that?"