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Perking up at the new sounds as the cave apparently lit up with activity, Reno would look over towards where the others were before motioning to the cave entrance. "Well, there appears to be things occurring in the cave. Let's take our pet here and go see what that was." Reno said, carefully placing a hand on the weird piece of floating ectoplasm and pushing it forward with him into the cave. He didn't know exactly how mobile or sentient this piece of slime was, so he did his best to guide it along to these strange noises.

...Others. It felt others. Restless, excited, many sensations emanated from the ones it could sense. The creature kept its grip on the SNAG, letting out a high pitched noise at the touch that was not its similarly energized squirrel companion. The blob pulls away with the now-dead device, lowering itself completely to the floor and staying as close as it can to the other beings without being snatched. Further inside they will go, then. To see the others, perhaps? But why were they so active...? Were they missing it?

"Look eggy." Darts says condescendingly, his hold on his championship belt reflexively tightening as he squares up behind Aile, his posture every bit demonstrating how little he was cowed by their presence. To the untrained eye it might have seemed relaxed and lackadaisical. "It's a clutch of... what do you call them..."

"Eggheads?" he offers to himself in the same mocking high pitched tone, bobbing the egg a couple times as he does so.

"No eggy, that's how we refer to intelligent people." The Giratina hybrid's voice gets a little venom injected into it at the end of that correction, and his ruby-red eyes fix firmly on one of the grunts behind the visored lady. "Really if I had to bet money, and everyone here knows I would, I would really hazard laying my chips on the fact these people have no idea who they are dealing with." His intimidating stare beneath his golden crest turns to look at the woman in the middle of the pack, addressing her now. "Otherwise I don't think they would be walking up to us in the middle of the street like this, and making casual conversation. The last person who managed to do that and get away with it started a region-wide plague and we still shot his best man out of a rocket. And this group doesn't look fit to strap on that one's..." he waves a slight golden finger, balancing the belt on his shoulder as he does so to indicate her odd facial accessory. "...visor."

Looking down to his one side and the small blob they had picked up, Reno would lean towards it and point towards the other blobs. "I can see why you ran outside. Allow me to help your friends there." Looking to his other side to his Wynaut, he found her...slowly rolling towards the grunts in an effort to imitate the blobs on the ground they were chasing. His partner would slowly roll to a stop ahead of the herd of four blobs before attempting to imitate the noise the blob they had found seemed to be humming in an effort to disguise itself as one of them. Popping into existence behind the likely confused grunts with a teleport, Reno said, "Sorry about that. She likes to be a little strange."

"Well," Isaac thought as Reno teleported behind the Flares, "So much for the element of surprise. Or any kind of a plan, for that matter." With a small sigh, he withdrew a Pokeball before tossing it into the air, calling out a command as he did, "Screech." The emerging Noibat let loose with a deafening barrage of sound waves, hammering away at the eardrums of the Flare grunts. Hopefully Reno wouldn't be too effected, and could take advantage of the opportunity.

"Huh, wonder what these buttons do," Cera remarked as she weaved her way towards the containment unit, seeing one of the grunts typing a message. A quick bout of psychokinesis would find the Alt and F4 keys suddenly start coming down with a definitive click, trying to sabotage the message before it could be sent if she wasn't too late. "Yanno, maybe you should've tried harder to find and turn me in while you had a chance. But what am I saying, you lot can't even corral a few little blobs."

Despite her antics and the risk involved, she was hoping to buy the others a few precious seconds to try and get the upper hand. Though, she did seem a little apprehensive about Tesei being let out with what came off as reckless abandon...

-----

"Oh, there's apparently this thing called the internet where some people like to complain about how good things were back then or how only someone born then will get this thing or that thing," Amaranth explained. "Though sometimes you'll end up on some weird site and wish you could stop picturing what you just saw."

"Could ya maybe... close your mouth and ferme-la?" The more frustrated of the two spoke up, apparently the one that figured the less abominable of the two would be much easier to deal with. She didn't bother to wait any longer, siccing a Liepard and Mightyena to try and force Amaranth to flee outright. There was a slight bit of surprise when, despite the menacing looks of both Pokemon, she didn't back down.

"Could you stop acting like I'm some child who doesn't know any better? I'm not weak," remarked a surprisingly deadpan Amaranth as she simply released two of her own to fight back. Namely, her Woobat and Goomy. Compared to their opponents, though, they surely did nothing to assert that Amaranth had a clue of what she was doing.

It takes a lot for a Team Flare grunt to take their glasses off, but this one was so frustrated with what she saw that not only had the glasses come off, but she stomped on them at once. The crunch of the lenses as they shattered beneath her feet rang in the streets before she screamed to her Liepard and Mightyena in a tongue she was much more familiar with. "Léopardus, Grahyèna, Feinte!"

A constant muttering of various words, all in Kalosian dialect, followed. None of them were likely worth repeating, though they largely went over Amaranth's head anyway. She'd soon understand what the command was as both Pokemon suddenly disappeared, appearing behind Woobat and Goomy to hit both of them with a quick Feint Attack before rushing back to the grunt's side. Liepard wouldn't be so happy with the results, however, finding parts of Goomy's body sticking to its fur and slowing it down. It didn't dare try to lick any of it off, no doubt figuring it to be a terrible idea.

Despite this, neither Woobat nor Goomy took the attack well. Being caught off guard was bad enough, but it was easy to tell how vastly they were outclassed by their opponents. Both of them already looked bad off, struggling to at least put on a good show for their trainer. Amaranth paused to think of how to get them through this, or at least deal with what was before her. But it wouldn't take too long before an idea formed.

"Woobat, Endeavor! Goomy, um, here..." She'd hesitate before scooping Goomy off the ground, lobbing him right at a Liepard that would officially deem this the worst day of its life. "Body Slam!" Goomy would use his weight to force himself down faster at the apex of the sudden lob, crashing onto Liepard's back and kinda just sticking in place despite the opponent's attempts to shake the tiny, gooey dragon off posthaste.

Mightyena would find itself experiencing a different flavor of pain, Woobat showing a level of strength she wasn't normally known for. She'd tackle Mightyena hard enough to send it toppling over, taking a moment to get back up out of sheer shock at what just happened. The grunt began to grind her teeth at this point, an angry glare forming at the sudden development.

"Merde...! Représailles! Mégaphone!"

The chances of the grunt losing the Kalosian shouting were looking increasingly slim, with Liepard rolling into its back to give Goomy the Payback it felt he deserved. This would have less than stellar results, what with Goomy just becoming even more stuck to Liepard than he already was. It didn't mean that he was safe from the Hyper Voice to follow, however. Being so close to Mightyena meant whatever counted as ears were ringing afterward, and Woobat wasn't too happy about it either despite doing her best to hang in there the little bit she still could.

Amaranth wouldn't really be able to get Goomy to do too much, the Pokemon just Flailing about after the assault to his hearing and making Liepard really wish he'd just get off already. "Um... Goomy? Brace yourself." She'd speak up, only succeeding in making him Flail slightly less. With a sigh, she'd continue and look to her Woobat. "Woobat, Air Cutter!" This would luckily yield better results as Woobat whipped up a slicing gale in front of her, hitting Liepard and Mightyena without much difficulty.

Unfortunately, Goomy would be caught up in it as well, slowly sliding off Liepard's back as what fight he had left finally ran out. Even more unfortunately for the grunt, her Liepard and Mightyena would end up following suit, unable to keep fighting theirselves. She'd take a good look at the aftermath, recalling her Pokemon before kneeling to the ground to pick up the glasses she had shattered. Or rather, the bent up frame that was still in one piece. And then, in a final act of frustration, she'd throw it right at Amaranth's face before opting to take her chances in helping Celosia instead. Something would be muttered under her breath, but between how low it was and the dialect used, it wasn't understood at all.

"Maybe I just didn't deal with them enough, but are they all like that?" Amaranth asked herself, recalling her fallen Goomy and weakened Woobat before looking around. She really hoped that Aile hadn't gotten too far away, especially with that grunt already giving chase...

The Giratina hybrid squares up against his 'opponent' if you can call them that. The grunt is visibly shaken as he looks towards his opponent, a jacketed monster of a hybrid with a gaudy golden belt slung over his shoulder. "Y-you." he stutters, rubbing one finger underneath his nose as he stares down the gambler. "You think you're hot stuff, don'cha? Insulting us, calling us eggheads or whatever... What does that big dumb belt even say, huh?"

For a moment the Giratina hybrid doesn't even respond, staring down the grunt for a few moments to let the awkward tension stretch out. Just as the grunt holds up a hand to speak again Darts moves. "Come on eggy." he says softly, moving over to set the egg and the championship belt over to the side of the street, balancing the egg gingerly on top of it. "I wouldn't want you being in the way while I scramble this guy and show him just what it means to hold the title of Under King..." his genial voice has transformed into a much more sinister and venomous tone again as he moves across from the grunt. He waves a singular golden hand towards the peon. "Come on now, let's go ahead and get this done with. As Under King and a Dragon Clan initiate in training I am honor bound to accept your challenge... if that's what you want to call what this is going to be."

"Shut it!" The peon shouts, his Flare glasses flashing dramatically in the lights of the nearby buildings as he tosses his first Pokeball. "Come out, Houndour!"

"Hound!" The fiery dog snarls as it lands on the cobblestones of Lumiose, barking its defiance at Darts.

"Alright, Goomy. Let's get this done with!" The gambler hurls his own capsule out to meet the ferocious Pokemon, releasing his Goomy in a burst of light.

"Goom!" it squeaks, a second before erupting with an amazing burst of radiant light, undergoing a genetic metamorphosis before their very eyes. "Slig! Goo!" It croaks after evolving, raising something it hadn't had before in triumph; two slight stumpy hands.

"What are you trying to pull?" The Grunt shouts, raising one forearm to his face to try and block the radiance an instant before the newly-evolved dragon set its sights on his Pokemon.

"I'm not sure..." Darts comments, amazed in spite of the tough exterior he had been projecting. "But boy those sunglasses don't do jack, do they?" he comments, noting the raised arm.

"I've had just about enough of your mouth! Houndour! Crunch!" Sprinting forward, the canine Pokemon brings its jaws to bear towards the gloopy-shaped dragon. The incisors connect in the midriff of the medium-sized Sliggoo. The Pokemon lets out a little yelp of pain at the bite, but not, as Darts noticed, as much of one as Goomy probably would have. But before he can even issue a command, the diminutive dragon swings its tail up and around, bringing the entirety of its shell down onto the dog's head with a ferocious smash of a Body Slam, spiking the Houndour into the street.

"Well... that's great and all..." Darts begins, but the formerly tiny Pokemon isn't finished. Having pried apart the dog's jaws via almost dislocation, the Sliggoo hops astride the Fire-type, opening its mouth an unleashing a vicious barrage of Bubbles into the Pokemon's face, unmercifully pelting the little hound with a super-effective onslaught. Following the combination of attacks, the dragon crosses its stumps and stands atop the downed Pokemon defiantly.

"Sliggoo!" it proclaims happily, looking back and forth at the face of the dismayed Flare Grunt, and its speechless trainer, still holding a singular golden finger aloft for a command that never came.

"Yes... yes!" Darts decides, going with the moment. "Exactly what I was going to... command."

"R-r-return!" the grunt stammers, practically tripping over himself to get his Pokeball out and retract his prone companion from underneath the weight of the Sliggoo.

"Well now." Darts says, calmly crossing his arms as he fixes his fiery gaze on the grunt sweating through his uniform. "That sure didn't go as you expected, did it? This is your reality. You sure you want to keep coming?"

His opponent wasn't retaining the same level of calmness as the jacketed hybrid across from him, spinning a second Pokeball out in an attempt to try and bring some offense towards his target. "Go, Sneasel! Knock it down with Icicle Crash!"

The swift-clawed ninja leaps forth from its Pokeball, its quickness indicating it had a good idea what had happened to the Houndour before it. It streaks in across the Sliggoo, delivering a vicious ice-fueled strike to the diminutive dragon. The screech this time is more pronounced, prompting Darts to reach for his Pokeball to return the little guy... until he sees the vicious fire that has sprung up in the eyes of his companion, and decides against it. He does have something to say though, finally.

"Sliggoo, show them what you're made of! Counter that Sneasel!" needing no further prompting the Dragon-type rotates with the momentum of the movement of its opponent, its counter involved the placing of its mass of shell in the way of the Sneasel's face.

"Sliggoooo!" it screeches in defiance as it brings to bear double the energy of the attack it had barely survived full onto the cranium of the Sneasel driving another Pokemon down into the road with another explosion of cobblestone bricks.

"Sneas..." It groans, x's for eyes as it passes out in the street.

"Sliggoo!" The bigger dragon confirms, panting as it stands in defiance of its opponent, before giving a nod of respect that it couldn't have ten minutes ago, due to the lack of neck.

Darts returns the nod. And his Pokemon, slipping the Pokeball back into the pocket of his jacket. Ignoring the trembling, immobile Flare grunt, Darts calmly paces over to where he had placed his egg and his belt, retrieving both with two different arms. Shrugging the belt back over his right shoulder, the Giratina hybrid saunters back over to his defeated opponent. He leans in, his golden crest nearing the forlorn lackey's ear. "If you got a family to run off to, I'd do it before you get in our way again." He strides off, looking to make contact with the rest of the team again. But not before:

"Boy looks like you got egg on your face!" hefting his egg in one hand, Darts leaves the grunt with those parting words of wisdom from his companion Eggy.