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Darts was a little distracted from the conversation the pair of them were having, considering where they were. He was mostly here to try and separate the two should things turn... nasty. He was just happy things didn't seem to be going that route yet.

"Well, best as I can tell we were bein' bankrolled from an outside source of some kind. The council, again if you want to call it that, consisted of a group made of myself, Norman eventually once he joined, and a various clique of 'advisers' and 'specialists'. Never had much use fer such useless titles meself, but it was clear that a few of them had a bit more pull behind the curtain if ye get my meanin'. We didn't know any of their names... Norman and myself knew each other jus' because of havin' done business before but one of these guys had quite an odd accent... Flutey and thick, almost like them blokes from Kalos..." He lets that sink in, looking over Blizz's face again. "O' course, even with my spy network I couldn't get anythin' about most of them, but the one I focused on th' most was that one because it struck me as peculiar. And you'll never guess who he was takin' marchin' orders from..."

"Could well be at the end of this whole chain of tunnels I suspect runs throughout this molehill..." Drake admits with a shrug. "I told you I couldn't dig too deep, but I did find out that who he was taking orders from at the time was a man they say ye know very well... the Elite Four member known as Wikstrom, the indestructible indefensible steel knight. Now... I ain't a private investigator or nothin' like that, but it seems to me like there might be a bit of a disconnect here... We have our very own Kalosian Elite Four member roosting at this nest right now and from what she tells me... the things this guy was saying weren't matching any kind of code of ethics that Wikstrom would have..."

"As for why I went along with them..." Drake gives a nod over towards Darts who snaps back to attention on the conversation as soon as he's given any attention from his flight instructor. "I was testin' ye... the lot of ye. And to be honest, I wasn't likin' what I was seein'... a member to be of the Dragon Clan stickin' his snout in a region that weren't his business... who did the hatchlin and his friends think they were...?" He sighs, dragging his gaze back from the ground and at the Articuno hybrid very very reluctantly, an odd look in his eyes, almost tenderness creeping into them. "But I'm a big enough man and an old enough dragon to know when admitting I was wrong is a good thing. Maybe in the beginnin' y'all didn't have a snowballs chance in hades, if ye'll pardon the expression, but ye've grown. Ye saved my region, the lot of ye." He holds his hand out to Blizzard, his sleeve rolling up to reveal rows and rows of puckered scars from years of serving on ships and training with vicious Dragon Pokemon. "Ye saved us all from the precipice of destruction, you and the hatchling over there. And I wanted to say thank ye, I suppose... And after seeing the two of ye fight, I have no doubt you and yer... particular brand of skills will be needed." His hand hangs in the air, still extended.

"Aye, that we do." Drake agrees, nodding amicably as they shook. "It's what keeps me heart beatin' in me chest day after day knowin' that there's scum in this world what needs dealin' with, and the Dragon Clan has always tried to... but it eases me knowing that there's people like you and yers what wants to put the boots to threats to peace and civ'lization as well."

"Whatchaaa talkin' bout?" A suddenly loud voice interrupts the conversation, causing the Giratina hybrid to about leap out of his jacket and back to the Distortion World. Iris was suddenly... there, and no one from Drake to Darts had taken note of her presence coming around the corner nor getting that close to the two of them. She was within arm's reach. The tanned girl looks back and forth between the Articuno hybrid and the captain's handshake, one that the Hoenn Elite quickly broke off as she did so. "Tsk tsk... Uncle Drake you weren't taking care of matters in your own hands again were you...?" She asks sweetly, a big grin spreading across her face as she looks at the two of them.

"Yeah..." The Giratina hybrid gulps, pulling his composure back together. "Just not used to someone... sneaking up one me so easily..."

Iris flutters a winsome smile at the three of them, especially the suddenly grouchy-looking Drake. "Don't worryyy.... I won't tell anyone. I was just supposed to come get you all for dinner anyhow. Come on guys it's time to eat!" She skips off, back towards the succulent smells spilling forth from the enormous table preparing for its guests.

But before any of them can take a step towards the table, there's suddenly another presence behind them, this one much nearer to Drake. Drayden. His face is furrowed with frown lines, and he grasps the edge of the Hoenn Elite's jacket with surprising strength considering his age. "...May I inquire as to what it was you three were talking about with my dear Iris...?" The old man hisses, a surprisingly concentrated dose of venom in his words as his hawk-like face and beard turns to each of them in turn, a surprisingly harsh glare pushed in Darts' direction.

Drayden's fierce glare turned to meet Blizzard's, his mouth stiff and unmoving behind his beard, no sign of the joviality he had possessed before. "I think I will be the judge of that, duckling." He says venomously, hoisting Drake by his lapel. "If I had wanted your opinion I would have told you what it was."

Darts who had rather had enough of being a passive bystander in the conversations and goings on lets a shot of Outrage flow through his body as he prepares to jump on the guy. Dragon Clan or no Dragon Clan he wasn't going to stand by while-

"Boy." Drake's calm voice cuts through the Giratina hybrid's rage as surely as a razor through butter even as he was being dangled by his jacket. "Remember ye need all the votes ye can get. It ain't worth it."

Drayden's glare of disdain turns towards Darts as the Dragon hybrid, realizing his mentor was right, lets the power go. "Not like a walking circus freak like you or your friend would have a hope of laying a hand on me anyhow." He sure seemed awful confident in that statement, and Darts noted for the first time that despite the man's age his muscles beneath his clothes were chisled like granite. "Riff-raff like the pair of you should have been strung up in the trees like we used to do in the olden days for even daring to walk on our sacred ground. Now get back to the table before I am forced to escort you there. The grown-ups are talking." Darts might have foregone Drake's warning a moment later and jumped the guy had it not been for Iris and Drasna both coming from around the corner. Drayden had dropped Drake before they came into view.

"Come oooon you guys!" Iris whines, stamping her foot petulantly, clearly unaware of what had just transpired. "Are we going to have to drag the table over here or what? Pryce and Teacher won't let us start without yooou!"

"Oh, I am so sorry darling." Drayden says jovially, flashing a wide smile behind his beard as he walks over to her. "I didn't mean to make you wait, I was just telling your friends some old stories." As he follows behind Drasna and Iris back around the house, he turns his gaze on the three of them one last time - two chips of ice colder than even the ones Clair reserved just for Darts boring into the three of them - and then he was gone.

Drake shakes his head, brushing off the front of the jacket from where he had just been held aloft. "I tell ye my boy... if'n ye thought gettin' me to respect ye was a challenge... it'll take more than just tough fighting and fancy flying teh get someone like him to recognize yeh... ye'd be better off talking to a brick wall... that two-faced old git." The sea dog spits on the lawn in front of him, his opinion of Drayden clear.

The trio rounded the corner towards the feast again. It looked like the sheer enormity of the event had required a second dining table be pulled out, laden down with the good china and silver cutlery, etched Dragonairs running up the handles of the fine eatery. Everyone else was seated, and there were three chairs still vacant. Drake sits down in the middle of the table, and Darts sits to his right. Pryce had clearly been guided into sitting at the seat of honor next to Teacher's right hand, and the two were talking and laughing about something or another. The seat to Darts' right was empty too, right next to the Ice Gym Leader.

With the few murmurings of conversation, the dinner began. Darts, for his part, found his appetite only moderately curbed, keeping his eyes downtable for the majority of the meal placed before him, though some of the dishes were downright irresistible... give him some of those Kingler legs in melted butter... even though he didn't need to eat.

At his left Drake was about six goblets (gilt with Gyarados on all four sides) of mead deep before the Giratina hybrid had time to count them, and started in on his fifth with gusto. Clearly the pirate captain was peeved to no end with the Unova Gym Leader but felt it hardly the time to broach the subject particularly in front of Pryce and Teacher.

Teacher kept engaging Pryce in conversation about the good old days and the adventures the two of them had had as younger trainers, entertaining the table with the recollections of their glory days. The battles, the wins and losses, and of course the girls. The old master was an amazing storyteller with the habit of always stopping just before the tale got to the really bawdy good stuff, leaving it to their pupil's imaginations... spoil sports.

Drasna was fussing over each and every diner's experience, tweaking the placements and sauces and such for each and every dish, moving from diner to diner. Had Iris seen the Combusken strips? Was Blizzard's constantly replenishing supply of Coke in glass bottles to an appropriate temperature? Was Darts going to finish that plate of seafood alfredo? She was in her element as a hostess, so much so that Drake barked at her to eat something herself before she collapsed with exhaustion.

Drayden for his part laughed heartily, every bit the pleasant optimist in front of his darling Iris with almost no flicker of the man the three of them had seen earlier until midway through the second round of main courses, when a messenger from the village showed up to inform them that the gatekeeper, Ronnie, had been found with moderate injuries all over his person. It seemed as though they had come from some kind of wild dragon. "Well now..." Drayden commented, sounding sincere to everyone else at the table no doubt except the three his gaze swept over, all sat in a row downtable from the man. "I do hope the poor chap is okay... would do him well to keep a better eye on things from now on though... it probably was some kind of unfortunate accident..." he comments idly, sipping at a mixed drink in a decanter.