[Fin] Be Prepared

[TawnyAngel]

After his shift and a quick shower so that he wasn't all sweaty and disgusting from having been running trainees through an obstacle course Aulus changed into his favourite old jeans and a slightly faded grey t-shirt. Thus rendered fit for civilized company he headed back into the bathroom and knocked on the door that opened into Tam's room. "Hey, you in?" After the Articuno incident Tam wanted to train more and, well, they couldn't start sooner than now. He still couldn't shake the feeling that he'd failed somehow; no bird, no samples, nothing. The only hope of something useful coming out of it to hang onto was the vague possibility that having got people in the area soon after it vanished they might be able to track it down but Aulus was not all that hopeful that they would.  

[Gwennythe]

"Yeah, I'm in!" Tambrey called, followed by "Come on in, but, uh, prepare for excited greetings!" There was a little bit of laughter in her voice, and on the other side of the door, Aulus might have been able to hear a snuffling sound, followed by something hopping back and forth in front of the dog.

Tambrey was sat on the floor, in black trousers, and a blue tank top, barefoot, her legs curled slightly to her right side. Her stick was close at hand- though she was certainly getting better at balance every day, despite the Articuno setback.
She was adjusting her glasses, smirking as she watched an energetic canine pokémon impatiently wait by the door for Aulus to open it.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Eh?" Aulus paused for a couple of moments to listen and quickly picked up the sounds of something very enthusiastic on the other side of the door; it sounded like Tam had got around to expanding her team already! "Who's this then?" he asked as he opened the door up.  

[Gwennythe]

Pakhet whined, then barked as the door -finally- opened. Then looked back at Tambrey to see whether this was a person who was allowed to be opening doors and entering the room.
Tambrey just smiled and introduced the pair to eachother;
"Aulus, Pakhet; Pakhet, this is Aulus- he's our partner, okay?" Then looking back to Aulus; "I, um, put in the request almost the moment we got back the other day... Y' know, because of the whole... ice thing, and then I saw Tortie sniffing out your camera. Pakhet's got the whole scent-tracking thing, and she's fire type too... It seemed like a good idea."
Said fire type, having been reliably informed, now, that Aulus was perfectly allowed in and was, in fact, their partner, was vying for his attention with puppy-eyes and a very energetic tail.  

[TawnyAngel]

Aulus was not soppy for pokemon, nope, not even a little bit.

He beamed and knelt down on the floor, offering his hand out to the Growlithe for sniffing. "Hello there sweetheart! Hello!" Still grinning Aulus looked up at Tam; "She's lovely, and yeah that's a good idea! They've got just about the best noses out there, them and Poochyena I reckon. If you're looking for a tracker you're probably not going to find better than this. Aaaaargh, so cute! Gah!  

[Gwennythe]

Pakhet's front legs worked in a kind of stompy energetic action as Aulus knelt down with her and offered out his hand.
She snuffled and stuck a wet, but warm, nose forward, committing the scent to memory.

"She's pretty... well trained already. I mean. Obedient. She behaves well. Fairly basic moves, I checked," She gestured to the nearby pokédex, rescued, in good condition (or as could be expected) thanks to Killer "but one of them is Ember, and another's Odor Sleuth; those are pretty good, right?" Tambrey smirked, watching the pair. "So far, she likes Tarana, but I think that's because he, uh... jingles."  

[TawnyAngel]

Who was a cute Growlithe? She was! She was a cute Growlithe! Aulus scratched Pakhet between the ears and nodded to Tam. "Not a bad start at all; Odor Sleuth is one to hang onto certainly if you want her as a tracker, hones the senses and of course it makes ghosts vulnerable to normal and fighting moves which can be useful. Oh, evasion too, so if something's been double teaming all over it's great to have.

"Oh, but yeah," Aulus looked back up at Tam as he remembered why he'd come over in the first place, "Do you want to get some training in? I did a batch of mine this morning but the others could do with getting out too." He didn't like them missing a day's training that hadn't been specifically planned as a rest day, far too easy to slip into being lazy and not progressing them like he should.  

[Gwennythe]

Tambrey listened and nodded a little; okay, so Odor Sleuth did more than she'd actually thought it did- that was good to know... and fairly fascinating. She wondered if Pakhet would mind wearing some monitoring equipment while using the move one day...
"I'm thinking about trying to get my hands on some TMs for some of mine too, including her; any recommendations?"

Tambrey started to get up, using the stick for support, as Aulus asked if she wanted to train.
"Oh, definitely! Well. I want to train Pakhet for one. But, yes, let me grab the pokéballs and some shoes." She knew one little electric bug, and a certain pony she wanted to train... And she suspected, with Pygi out of action for now, giving Lasi a little extra training wouldn't be a bad idea either.

Pakhet, meanwhile, panted happily as she was scratched between the ears, and then decided, as she rather liked Aulus already, she'd push her luck and see if she could get a belly rub out of him too, flopping over rather than rolling.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Uh, humm, well it really depends on what you want her to do," Aulus said as he provided belly scratches to the happy puppy-pokemon. "Given how powerful Arcanine is I would say that making her a complete utility pokemon would be a bit of a waste of her talents so.... Well you could go with Dig, powerful enough and with uses out of battle too. I think they can learn Aerial Ace actually, if I'm remembering right, so you could take that if you want something perfectly accurate. In the end though she'll learn some great moves all by herself, though it'll take her a long time to work up to them she'll get Outrage and Flare Blitz and as an Arcanine she can learn Extremespeed which is pretty nice too." Well that had been a bit of a ramble. Aulus gave Tam a lopsided smile and shrugged. "Err, but in the immediate future I would say maybe look at Dig or Aerial Ace? They're easier to master than some other TM moves you could give her and both could be pretty useful. As you're pretty set up with flying types though maybe the former?"  

[Gwennythe]

Well... Maybe she should be taking physical notes? But, well, she was fairly confident she could remember the advice, and she could, of course, always ask Aulus again if she forgot something.
Mentally, she made a note of things like the fact that, eventually, if she got Pakhet to be an Arcanine, the fire type would learn Extremespeed... Which did sound pretty awesome...
She nodded.
"Pygi's got Fly... Been wondering if it might be worth trying to teach that to Lasi, especially after the other day... Dig, though. That could probably be pretty useful on missions, potentially, as well as in general... I'll make a note of that and see if I can get my hands on the TM for it. Thanks." She spoke, smiling, musing while she slipped into her sandals and clipped pokéballs to her belt.
"Oh, can I pick your brain about Octavia, too? I mean, she's never going to be a Rapidash, like Phaethon is, but you've got experience with the species..."

Pakhet panted and then decided to try and lick Aulus' hand; she decided she definitely did like their partner; he gave good belly rubs.  

[TawnyAngel]

Aulus definitely liked Pakhet too; he let her lick his hand and gave her a last scratch before getting back to his feet, his movements a little more stiff than they usually were. While he hadn't picked up anything he would class as an injury from the incident in the forest his muscles weren't all that happy with him, probably because of the falling out of the tree bit.

"Sure," Aulus replied, nodding at Tam as he rolled his shoulders to loosen them up a bit. "Be happy to offer, well, whatever I've got to offer. Even though she won't evolve she can learn some useful moves." He was very fond of the Ponyta too but then he was of pretty much all of Tam's pokemon and of most pokemon in general to be fair.  

[Gwennythe]

Pakhet gave a small whine of displeasure as the petting stopped, then rolled over and trotted to Tambrey to find out what she was doing. They were clearly going somewhere and she hadn't been put back in a pokéball, so apparently she was going to get to be out and about to go where ever they were going.
She didn't want to stay in the room- not that she disliked Palu (who was, currently, roosting on the bed), but the fire type wanted to follow Tambrey around, and wanted to see more of the base.

"Well. With Octavia, I want to get her a little more... um, combat ready? Well. All of mine really. I've come to realise," Tambrey said, double checking she had everything she wanted before standing ready to go "that I've been treating them as, um, two teams... I have my 'mission' team, and I have my 'domestic' team; I want to try and get them to a point where any of them could be on the 'mission' team should they have to be... Articuno," She winced a little "for all it did to Pygi, might not have been -so- devastating if I could have offered her more backup."  

[TawnyAngel]

"Yeah." Aulus nodded slowly, a frown creasing his brow. "We couldn't have done anything though, not just the two of us." So why did he still feel as though he'd failed? The whole area had been scoured but there had been no sign of even the smallest feather and.... They couldn't have done anything, they'd tried to hold it off and keep it occupied until backup arrived but once it decided to go all out at them the outcome had been inevitable.

Aulus shook himself and flashed Tam a brief smile, or at least an upward curve of the lips. "Anyway, shall we get going? We can go over some ideas for moves while our lot train; I've got my newer ones with me today, trying to get them all mission ready too. I reckon Killer is nearly ready and Thanatos isn't too far off either but the others need more work."  

[Gwennythe]

"No, I know... I just thought, maybe if we had some fire, or if I'd had some my, um, electric types," she suppressed a shudder "trained up better- maybe if Jubilee had access to real fighting power... Or Octavia... We, um, might have held off a little longer; kept Pygi in the sky... Maybe..." Tambrey shrugged a little, and Pakhet snuffed at her, as though in encouragement, or perhaps just upset by the guilt in the tone.

Tambrey shouldered a bag and, stick in hand, gave a nod, moving toward the door.
"Is Thanatos still shy? He's a sweet frog."  

[TawnyAngel]

Aulus sighed and shrugged. "We did out best," he said, but the way he said it said clearly enough that he felt as though he should have been able to do more too. Maybe if they'd paralyzed it at the start, or he'd had Char and Phaethon flaming it, or... something. Yeah.

Aulus turned towards the door.

"He's still shy but he's getting better," he continued after a moment with a nod. "He's better with new people now but he's still not fond of crowds, we need to work on that. Working with Char has been a big help though, he seems to practically worship him. According to Asgard Thanatos thinks he - Char I mean - is a long lost scion of some great destiny; vivid imagination. It's kind of weird actually, I'd never find out these little things if it weren't for Asgard." Actually being able to ask what his pokemon spoke about after so many years of guessing was a little strange actually, he was getting used to it but at first he'd almost felt as though he was invading their privacy by asking what they were talking about.