Leo Star
Order of the Sun
Location: En Route to Sendrel (Leo to the north, Gardevoir to the south west)
Affected Rp'ers: N/A

Leo leaned on his elbows and stared out at the landscape flashing by. Only five minutes ago the bus he'd taken had left the stop, but Leo couldn't help but feel impatient. A sense of foreboding had been hanging over him ever since he'd left the valley. Maybe he should have waited for Gardevoir to come back... If he was honest with himself what he'd really wanted was that Gardevoir had taken him with them rather than traveling to Erana alone. And now here he was heading to the big city for supplies that probably could have waited for the psychic pokemon's return. It was as if something or someone had refused to allow him to be able to sit still and wait in the valley while Gardevoir was out in possibly dangerous territory. Rediculous...

Many miles to the south west of Leo's bus, Gardevoir struggled to stay conscious as they and the ninetails headed away from the transformed human. Slowly the pair climbed through the hilly forest, looking for a convenient spot to hide momentarily and recover. The previous episode had left quite the toll on both of them. Gardevoir had been fighting to keep the ninetails' tranq dose back during the confrontation, a difficult task due to its potency. Due to its strength Gardevoir hadn't been able to stop the movement of the drug without slowing the ninetails' blood flow to dangerous levels. Rather the psychic had had to supply replacement energy to combat the tranquilozers effects, essentially resulting in both pokemon being effectively tranq'd once the psychic couldn't sustain the supply.

There...There should be a safe place among those rocks... the ninetails pointed out a rocky slope with several boulders large enough to shelter between and stay mostly hidden. The two pokemon chose the nearest crack in the stones and sat down in the small space. Gardevoir mustered the effort to pull the darts from the fox's side -something the ninetails was quite glad for despite the sharp pain- before collapsing back down in their previous sitting position.

I should be ready to teleport given an hour of rest. Hopefully I'll be able to wake you. Gardevoir told the ninetails, who seemed on the verge of properly fainting. Soon enough the many tailed pokemon was asleep against the rock wall. Gardevoir dearly wanted to sleep as well, but knew that their safety was by no way guaranteed and needed to be awake in case of an emergency. SO the psychic settled for closing their eyes and reflecting on the encounter they'd just walked away from.

If Garveoir was being honest with themselves, they weren't entirely comfortable with what the ninetails had done to the human. Had this been over a year ago before they'd met Leo, Gardevoir probably would have been all for it. Now though... well perhaps it had merely been those old memories and emotions dredged up from her flight from hunters into more hunters. Of course, any pokemon knew never to mess with a ninetails whose tails had been grabbed. Many had had that fury turned on them by accident while attempting to dissuade or stop one, and Gardevoir had no plans to be the next.

Worst though, far worse than any regrets about the fate of the human was the horrible feeling of having picked up the human's weapon and fired at him. They could still feel its weight, its malice, its power in her hands, which were quaking ever so slightly. It was as if they'd crossed some invisible line and given up part of themselves to their anger when they'd picked up the human weapon for revenge. It made their chest hurt just thinking about it.

Drawing themselves together gardevoir wrapped their arms around their legs, placing their head on their knees, trying not to feel a chill that didn't seem to have anythign to do with the day's weather. And not for the first or last time the pokemon wished they hadn't left Leo behind.
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Ezekiel (Zeke, Cardinal North) Star
Northern Claw Headquarters in Sunos, Cardinal's office.
Affected Rp'ers: @Shruikan

Davison's team paused, having just finished securing the third rotom in the ghost-cage, when a USF officer appeared in front of them. Judging by the badge on the uniform they were Commander- no, deputy commander. Most likely they were someone who worked more in the field than behind the scenes, enforcing commander's orders right up to the front lines. Assuming that was the situation it was odd they were on their own, leaving a risk of more back-up coming. Still, judging by the offer they'd made a conflict was something that was going to preferably be avoided.

Davison -who was wearing a special captain's USF uniform- stepped forward toward the deputy commander, not in any kind of threatening fashion but rather with an air of importance and status. From his breast pocket he took a small leather punch, which he unfolded and showed to the USF officer. Two badges glimmered in the forest light. One was the standard USF license of identification that all members carried, it named him as Harrison Frallends. The other however was a badge identifying him as a member of the Special Ops division, A group of USF members who supposedly only worked on orders directly from the top.

"I understand you are following orders but I insist that you do not speak of my team's presence here. These Pokemon assigned for capture are extremely dangerous in our current society and needed to be caught immediately. I suggest you and your group intercept the poachers that captured a reptilian pokemon and fled in that direction. We must see to our mission first." Davison told the USF officer with a tone of authority, pointing off in the direction the other poachers had gone off when fighting over the crocodilian pokemon. Behind him, the other four of the team collected cages and the equipment they'd been using, attaching them to their belts or vests in preparation to move to a different location.

...

Back in his office Zeke prepared to send a message to the Southern division. Several of the Gilded branch had high ranking members embedded into the USF in order to give cover for the fake USF identities many of the other branches often used during their work. Hopefully this officer would merely take note of the faces of each of his poachers and report the strange occurrence later for investigation. That would be best for Zeke, who would merely need one of the southern branch to report back on the investigation with an explanation that the secret ops had in fact been sent their by a confidential order. Given the look of this USF soldier they didn't have proper rank to question higher up investigation results, so the matter would be dropped.