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Novelux Realgar Springs

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"I sure didn't mean to!" Spritzee squeaked in reply to Koa, "I'm Gigi and no, I'm just your humble recruiter."

Her eyes widened when she heard Mhynt and Gladion. "No, not you," she said quickly. "My offer extends to the fine battlers over there," she said, gesturing to the downed Miror B. A quick check over them would reveal that all of them were conscious but all the fight in them had been well drained. "but I wouldn't mind the extra if you were interested," she added with a small hum.
 
"Wh-what?" Koa spluttered. "Them? They're criminals and thugs! And they lost."

His lip curled in disgust. Was this the kind of riffraff that fought at the Dome place he kept hearing about?

"Maybe you should run back to the Dome and tell them they're too busy being arrested to accept right now," he said stiffly, keeping half his attention still on Miror and his gang.
 
Seriously? A... Duel Dome recruiter, just happening to wander by. And wanting to recruit a bunch of shadow-creating kidnappers. Had Novelux advanced far enough to invent hidden camera television? It felt like this was hidden camera television. Way to kill the mood of a job well done.

"Mr. Dunsmuir already knows we're good enough for the Dome, thanks," Leaf said, snorting irritably. They'd found Brisa, stopped that Matthias guy. Koa'd even gone on that Rustworks delve with him, right? They didn't need this weirdo's approval, let alone the fact that this was... weird.

"Why don't you ask the guy they abducted how he'd feel about seeing them in the ring?" She looked toward the ninetales, hoping maybe he was recovering off where Mhynt had deposited him, but then glared back at the little fairy.
 
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Gladion’s eyes widened. “Oh HELL fucking no. They’re dangerous offworlders with ties to the Blaguerro incident, who are being arrested and then sent back to their worlds. If you have an issue with that, you’ll have to go through us.”
 
Gigi giggled like Koa had just made a funny joke. "Minor inconvenience," she said. Obviously this was something that she was aware of there were wanted posters from the group everywhere and she could see the results of the battle right before her. It looked as if she just didn't care.

"I'm sure the local law enforcement will understand that a spot of community service with their abilities is more productive than sitting and rotting in a cell." She turned to Gladion, tilting her body with a small hum. "And unless you want to end up on a wanted poster yourselves, I would recommend keeping out of Novalux's legal proceedings," she added to Gladion. "It's their problem now, not yours, this isn't Frontier Town."

Leaf's quick glance would reveal that Ninetales had vanished but would soon spot him lying down on a low-hanging branch watching the Wayfarers with great curiosity, trying to hide amongst the foliage. A few murkrow had settled down in branches nearby, looking ever-so-slightly aimless.
 
Mhynt sighed irritably. "Maybe this is why Shadows so easily claimed this land," she muttered. "Pick your battles, Mhynt."

"Only make sure they can't escape and coordinate with their greater syndicate. You do realize they're part of a group that kidnaps and corrupts Pokemon into mindless beasts, yes?" She crossed her arms, tapping her feet on the ground. "Or are you so devoid of morals in the name of entertainment that you'd overlook that, too? Perhaps you're already mindless."
 
Koa shifted his stance, glancing between Mhynt and Gladion and the rest of the team. They weren't really going to let them go, were they?

"They don't belong here," he said tersely. "You don't need a bunch of thugs in your Dome, giving you a bad name."

Who did this pokemon think she was? She must have backup or something else was going on...
 
Gladion waved one of his talons in his best approximation of a dismissive shrug. "Should've figured something like this was gonna happen to me at one point here." Heh. So soon after joking with Brisa that he was lucky not to be an outlaw, too.

"And the Rangers will not understand turning over Cipher agents— who they've been handling thusfar— over to some jackass who wants to use them for entertainment while the finite window wherein they can even be sent back dwindles." (Please could an actual ranger back him up on that.) "Threaten me all you please. My point stands."
 
Gigi once again started giggling. "Silly boy," she said, "I already told you, you're in Novalux, Taleska not Sojaveña, what happens here is none of the Ranger's business. What are they going to do if the local law refuses them? They're already spread super thin on their usual stomping grounds too..."

At Mhynt she said, "Not all all! And it's not as if they're getting off scot free, as I said, view this as a form of community service. After all, what can they do when all eyes have turned towards them? Doesn't seem like they can do this whole 'turn people into mindless beasts thing' on a dime, otherwise it would have happened by now!"

Something itched at the back of the Wayfarers' minds, telling them that this was a losing battle. The spritzee was harmless and ultimately, she did not have the final say on what would happen to the group.

Ninetales was watching all of them intently.
 
"I think," Leaf said, making precious little effort to hide her annoyance and negative effort to hide the badge pinned to her poncho, "you should let the actual Rangers worry about what is and isn't in their jurisdiction. You don't get to decide what happens to them either. Doesn't matter anyway—bottom line is, there's a bounty on them, and we found them, so we're bringing them in. Save your pitch for after they've been dealt with."

Did Dunsmuir know about this? He had final say in who got to compete in the Dome, right? Had to try and find him later, see if he could put a leash on this lady...

Whatever. Just get her off their backs for now and they could figure it out later. They would figure it out. Team Miror wasn't getting away with this.
 
"Correct," Mhynt said flatly. "We have a bounty. If you want them after they're turned in, then you'll be speaking to who gave the bounty to have them afterward. How does that sound?" Mhynt flashed her blade. "Don't interrupt the process. You don't realize the people we just took down and what they're capable of. They aren't normal Pokemon."
 
Gigi raised her tiny wings defensively at the Leaf Blade pointed right her way. "Fine, that sounds fine, you deserve the bounty anyway," she said, taking this decision as a win. "Best of luck saving the world or whatever you're doing." With that, the spritzee flew off into the forest, back in Novalux's general direction, leaving the Wayfarers alone to turn Team Miror into the local authorities.

With her gone, the Wayfarers were now able to watch Ninetales hop down from his branch and approach the group.

"Pardon me, but I do believe that I owe you my thanks, heroes from other worlds."

His voice was hoarse, his realgar-stained appearance was ragged, and he walked with a slight limp yet the Wayfarers could tell, in his pale eyes, that he held a strong air of sophistication and elegance – like he was some kind of aristocrat. "It is a shame we couldn't meet in more ideal circumstances but I will be content with this meeting for now."

The murkrow eyed him curiously, sitting still with anticipation. Were they sizing him up? Spying on him? Or was there something more there?
 
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Mhynt nodded formally. "Hello," she greeted. "You can refer to us as the Wayfarers... assuming you don't already know that." She eyed the Murkrow with slight curiosity. "...Are those your... companions, or something?" Now that she thought about it, were Murkrow native here?
 
Leaf let the tension fall out of her shoulders a little now that the spritzee was gone. ("Scary zoroark", huh... pity Bellatrix couldn't've just scared her off outright.) Yeah, technically they did have to tow the crashed clown car back to the local cops, but there had to be something they could do to be sure they were dealt with. See if they could get them... what was the word? Extracted? Extraported? Extradined? Whatever the ship-them-back-to-the-place-they'd-originally-done-crimes one was.

At least the ninetales was doing better. He'd got down from the tree by now (and left a whole mess of murkrow perching there in his wake, sure, but whatever), still looking like crap but well enough to stand and talk and be a generally reasonable person, hopefully. Leaf pulled a sitrus berry out of her bag and floated it over to him if he wanted it. "Glad we could help. Just sorry we couldn't've caught them before they got to you." Loooong frickin' overdue. "Do you know why they grabbed you?" Ransom money? He did sound kinda fancy.
 
Team Miror in the Duel Dome? Overtly threatening them when they didn’t immediately give in? Just what kind of help was that Weezing hiring? Over-the-top performance or not, hardened criminals were hardened criminals. Showing off for a crowd wasn’t community service, and it sure as hell wouldn’t bring about any reform in the gang. Hell no, the Quaquavel and his friends were being hauled back to the Rangers, and let’s see what that Spritzee and her city cops would say to that. He’d seen the local cops, they couldn’t even get off their ass long enough to look into a local kidnapping, no way they’d bother coming out to collect a few ruffians, no matter how much they were being bribed. As far as Archie was concerned, she was damned lucky he was too busy cuffing the goons to lay into her himself.

Well, with the annoying little fairy gone and the gang manacled, there wasn’t much else to do than check in on their kidnapped kitsune. The Dewott tipped his hat in greeting.

“Or, you could call us by name,” he said, pleasantly, “I’m Archie, these are Leaf, Mhynt, Koa, and Gladion.”

He paused to gesture to each of his companions in turn.

“How about you, what do you call yourself?”
 
"So I have heard," Ninetales said in reply to Mhynt. He looked towards the murkrow behind him and shook his head slightly. "In a sense," he said, "but not quite as I only observe their movements and odd behaviour closely. I'm sure their presence here is ...atypical." Though he kept his voice level and composed (despite its scratchiness), the final word felt nearly forced. Was there more than he was letting on? No... it was probably nothing, likely just an idiosyncrasy or attempting to place emphasis on a word with his strained voice. Further thought would confirm it as Mhynt would realise – like with all prior sightings – that they were beyond the murkrow's native range within Tyrrier. "Perhaps you could alert me to any further activity that you deem to be notable, hm?"

Ninetales accepted Leaf's sitrus berry graciously, politely bowing his head. "I had been lucky and managed to escape unscathed from what I believe to have been an attempt to rob me for my supplies while I was enroute to Novelux." He looked between the Wayfarers, his gaze falling onto Archie in particular. "You have the air of a bounty hunter so you must have seen their posters. That was my doing and the ruffians did not seem to appreciate that so they ambushed me to 'teach me a lesson'."

He looked back at the murkrow and sat down on the grass, taking particular care to remain in the shade. He wrapped his tails around his paws, revealing his tail-tips to be the colour of vivid, blue flames. "But once they realised that I hailed from Tyrrier," he continued. "they demanded passage from me there to reach some place called 'Terminal One'. Naturally, I refused."

With a careful bite of the sitrus berry, he acknowledged Archie's introduction with a nod. "Well met," he said. "And please, call me Seir."
 
It was only now that Archie took note of the Murkrow. Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. He’d seen them, but hadn’t paid them attention before. Now that this Ninetales – Seir – was pointing out how odd it was to find them here, that the old Pokemon Ranger part of his brain jogged back to life.

“Well, there’s a number of things that might cause a Wild Pokemon to move its home range. They could’ve been forced out of their old turf by urban development, or out-competed by an introduced species, or increasing resource scarcity could’ve forced them to seek richer territory… Or some combination of multiple things,” the Dewott shrugged. This had been a frequent refrain during the development of Route 4, as humans paved roads and built homes, disturbing long standing wild Pokemon territories. Spats between Scraggy and Sandile were especially common, contests that often ended poorly for the crocodiles. In fact, he’d once… He’d once…

The Dewott shook his head, lifting a paw to rub his temple. No, now he was just giving himself a headache. Better to focus on the situation at hand.

“It was thanks to your posters that we were alerted to Team Miror’s resurfacing, so for that, I thank you,” he said, “Though, I’m sorry you ended up getting captured by them. As you may have heard, these five are wanted back in the frontier. It’s my hope that they’ll see justice for their crimes both there, and here.”

“Proper justice,” he added, “Not a cushy gig in the local coliseum.”
 
"Terminal One, hm? What do you know about that?" She asked, arms crossed. "We also have an interest in that sort of thing, but it's more to counterattack the group those idiots are from." She pointed a claw at the restrained goons.
 
Good riddance, he thought as he watched the Spritzee leave. The thought that Miror and his goons might get away with what they'd done and end up with some comfy job at the dome annoyed him. Maybe he could persuade Dunsmuir it'd be a bad idea...

Koa's brow furrowed as he listened to the peculiar Ninetales. Seir. He glanced briefly at Archie, wondering if he was okay. Maybe he'd check on him later.

"Glad we could help, Seir," he murmured. "Tyrrier... What brought you all the way out here? That's pretty far, isn't it?"
 
Seir listened to Archie, his expression unreadable. "It is entirely possible, yes," he said when the dewott had finished talking. "A mundane explanation is far more comforting than an otherworldly one."

It was difficult to notice but particularly eagle-eyed Wayfarers would have seen Seir's tails relax ever so slightly, likely relieved about something despite not looking outwardly the part. His eyes appeared to flash in the morning light.

"The sentiment is appreciated," he then said, "but I am not concerned about the legal affairs of this region nor of the fate of these five. As this electrike, Koa you said? Has pointed out, Tyrrier is a fair distance from here. They wouldn't be able to do anything more to me even if they continued to walk free. Although, if you ever do decide to battle them again, it would help to be less reckless," he added, looking at Koa and sounding just a little amused. "A more competent foe would have done far worse.

"As for why I am here, I grew interested after hearing of this city's technological advancements, particularly those at Sparkwright Polytechnic, and wanted to see them for myself. These inventions are fascinating to me and I wish to see how they work."

But realising that he was getting sidetracked, Seir turned to acknowledge Mhynt's question with a tilt of his head. "Very little beyond its location and the fact that it apparently holds a portal to another dimension, unfortunately. Information that I believe you would already be privy to if you are planning an attack on the facility."
 
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