Meditation in the morning [Open (:]

[solem]

The grass was green, the chatot were chirping... various small pokemon skittered joyfully through the newly mowed grass. And beneath a solitary tree, gazing blankly out at the grounds, sat a lucario. Or at least it seemed a lucario... same shape, head, legs, arms, hand spikes... but there was something odd about the female, something besides her dazed expression. Perhaps it was the ringed tail, or the fluffy body... perhaps it was the speckled eyes. Or it might have been the color- oh it was always the color! 'Born a freak' as that human used to say... the pokemon rubbed her forearms as if chilled by the morning air, and she shuddered to remember that boy. He was after money. Money a little 'freak' like her could get for him, parading around for profit. It had been fun at first. Then it simply stopped being enjoyable.

Twitching and shaking her head as if awakening from a bad dream, RJ frowned and slumped back against the tree, stretching her legs out in front of her. Black. Long slender appendages, but strong if you knew what such legs could do. What she could do. But no one would know, no, not anytime soon. RJ had turned pacifist. The mere sight of fighting would send her running for the hills, and if others fighting did that kind of damage to her mind, well her fighting.... No. Best not to think of such a thing.

Pushing away from the ground to stand and scan the earth, she took a moment to glance cautiously around before lightly touching a few stems of grass on the ground before her. They blossomed quite quickly- she knew they would, it always worked fast- great soft flowers that stretched lazily on the ends of tined vines. They spread like wildfire until stopping at the fourth corner of the shape Jive had been picturing... a rhombus. The curled thorny vines seemed to attach to each other to make an unbroken shape, as if for some sort of ritual. Stepping delicately over the protective pieces of the plant, Ringtail paced silently to the middle of the four-pointed parallelogram and sat with her legs crossed. Closing her eyes and letting out a deep breath, the Lucario merely froze and let the world go by as she slipped into a lapse of quiet meditation. She may not know calm mind, but she could meditate if not in the actual move sense.

[honey]

Pure silence. That was exactly what surrounded the peaceful area until of course, Nyx, the pikachu, came bursting through, a bag of poke-food in her mouth and a whole entourage of fuming humans raging after her. run. Run Nyx, run. was all that was going through her mind as she sped across the area, hurtling through people and pokemon, which was no concern to her as long as this poke food was safely in her mouth. She could nearly taste it, sweet and delectable, even if it was just ordinary poke food. It was a whole buffet in Nyx’s eyes- or lack there of. It was a symphony for her senses, as long as she could get away from angry mob that followed her.

”it’s just a stinkin’ bag of food!” she growled through clenched teeth as she scrambled into a tree. ”humph. Can’t get me here.” Nyx mused to herself as she grabbed the bag of food and popped a handful into her hungry mouth. Wagging her tail, she stepped onto the edge of a branch, holding the bag out as the humans leaped one by one for it. Unfortunately, Nyx was too high and she definitely wasn’t going to give it up. Soon, they simmered down, leaving Nyx to feed upon her free meal. ”hah.” laughing triumphantly, the pikachu gracefully leaped onto a second tree, munching hungrily on her bag of poke food.

But her joy was short lived for with a snap, the branch broke into two, sending Nyxie plummeting to the ground, only to land on top of what seemed like a pokemon’s head. What pokemon exactly, Nyx did not know. She definitely underestimated the shape and size of the branch she expected to land on. Shaking the leaves from her fur, she leaped down, horrified to find her food crushed from the weight of her very paws. ”nooooooooooo!” she screamed falling over onto her back. ”whyyyy!” her wail could be heard throughout the grounds, accompanied by her unsatisfied stomach.

Slowly getting up, Nyx shook her head and focused her blind eyes back into the distance, her back turned from the stranger she had just fallen upon. If Nyx had been any other pokemon, whatever the stranger was would’ve been crushed. Thankfully, Nyx was a pikachu, and a tiny one at that. ”uhh, sorry about that.” she apologized, completely faced away from whoever she would’ve just squished.

[Ex]

// Nyx is the name of my shiny Crobat on HG~ //

"Ah, great job, Pikachu!" One bodiless voice applauded, "However, you might want to learn to keep your balance in trees. Had the humans not left, you would have been majorly screwed."

Chewing on a bit of candy she had stolen from the central market minutes ago, the leader of the Fireworks Gang cheerily watched the pile of two Pokémon. A devious smile crossed the Blaziken's face. She was standing on the same tree Nyx had been on, in a branch slightly thicker than the one that had snapped, "You've also got your back facing that Lucario over there."

Fire-Bird jumped down from the tree, landing oddly gracefully just beyond the border of the sun coloured roses. She carefully stepped over them, approaching Jive and Nyx slowly. A soft laughter escaped the fire-type's beak as she offered to help the two up.

// Sleepy, tired, no effort to make a good post. Ohwell. //

[insert pretentious name here]

One moment, there was nothing but air in the shade of the tree, and before anyone could blink, a pair of Eevees has materialized - if that was the right word, for it suggested a more gradual appearance. The twins were odd little Eevees, no matter how you looked at it, going by their thick, luxurious, and multicolored pelts, not to mention the chain that linked them together.

Castor promptly looked beyond the Pikachu and her... victim? Cushion? Instead, he was much more interested in the neatly confined roses that surrounded them. Pausing at the edge, the Eevee examined the vines and blossoms with curiosity, humming brightly a little song to himself that sounded like the manic chants children sang in time to their games. It probably was. Pollux, on the other hand, eyed the Lucario and Pikachu as if they were the strange ones, not him and his twin. Possibly wisely, neither said a word.

[[Edited because I forgot to make it all white and it was bugging me. D<]]

[toreana]

((Seriously, I feel bad for joining in since there's so many of you here already. u.u))

As if there weren't enough strange Pokemon mucking about near the Festival grounds, once the human mob was well out of sight, another small creature poked his head out from behind the tree, a small bag clutched in his dark paws. The Pikachu had proven to be a nice distraction - with all their attention on the tiny Electric-type, it had been easy enough for the Sneasel to extend one sickle-shaped claw to cut free any shiny-looking objects he could as they dangled freely from the jumping humans. Now, his small satchel - also stolen, but less recently - was full of all the junk he had managed to fit in there. 'Junk', because as Leon examined his winnings, he came to the conclusion that shiny did not necessarily equal valuable. Ah well, he could probably use it for jewellery, or maybe a peace offering for his guild leader.

Glancing over at the Pikachu and Lucario, Leon contemplated thanking the rodent for her help. After all, he was nothing if not a gentleman, or so he often said. Still, she seemed busy - and that Blaziken looked familiar in a way that made the Sneasel think twice about approaching her. Yes, she seemed friendly enough, but at the same time, she made him think of a certain Misdreavus who had the uncanny ability to cause destruction and chaos wherever she went. Ah, yes, that was it - Makako had spoken of an odd-coloured Blaziken and her fiery faction, with whom their tiny guild had formed an alliance; no doubt this was her. After all, just how many shiny Blaziken lived in Sootopolis anyway?

As fascinating as a conversation with Fire-Bird would probably be - to get Makako so excited about forming an alliance, she must be quite the interesting Pokemon - Leon did have semi-valuable trinkets to return to his guild's current headquarters. And he probably would have proceeded to do so, if he hadn't spotted the pair of oddly-coloured Eevees examining the nearby roses. The ones that had just appeared out of thin air, that is. Leon was not a Ghost-type, and his only affinity to the undead was through his comrades, but he knew a supernatural phenomenon when he saw it and those Eevees were definitely a supernatural phenomenon. The kind Makako would probably want to know about - she was a curious girl, perhaps too much so, and if she found out that Leon had observed something like this without reporting it - Leon shuddered to think.

Leon glanced at his trinkets. Looked up at the strange Eevees. Looked back at the trinkets. They were mostly useless anyway - and besides, meeting new Pokemon was always interesting. The Sneasel nodded to himself, before sneaking out from the cover of the tree - quietly, so as not to bother the small group now formed where the Pikachu had fallen - and sidled up to the pair of Eevees. "Whatcha humming?" he asked, giving Castor a casual smile. "Sounds kinda familiar."

((edit: fffff did not mean to be so longwinded. Sorry!))

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[solem]

She had been calm. Silent. Searching through the files of her mind for things she didn't need, and disposing of them. All had been quiet, in her rhombus of roses... that is until something fell out of the sky and bonked her unceremoniously on the head. Her first reaction was to yelp, but RJ refrained, for it hadn't hurt that much... the pikachu, as she now recognized it to be, was tiny, after all. She listened to the apology quietly, as was her way. Pushing herself up from the ground to lean on the support of her hands, the pokemons head turned to stare at the creature who had fallen atop her head. Smiling shyly she tapped the pikachus shoulder. "I'm in this direction, sightless one. I'm... sorry about your... food." She didn't miss a trick, that Lucario.

And neither did the newest arrival to the fairgrounds, as she heard and watched as a shiny blaziken leaped down from the tree, telling the pikachu that its back was to Ringtail before laughing and offering assistance. That was very kind, but RJ was still wary of strangers, so she waved away the offer and sprung up herself. Had the blaziken mentioned something about humans before....? Ah! That must have been the ruckus. She was too focused to open her eyes, but the pulsing auras and loud voices were hard to miss. Hm. So they had been chasing this pikachu, who had been carrying a bag of food which got... squished. Ah. A little thief.

It seemed today was one of those kinds of days, the kind that involved lots of others, for two eevees seemed to materialize out of thin air. They looked odd in every sense of the word, with their odd pelts and... chains. They seemed harmless enough, at least at the moment, but she watched cautiously the one who was studying her roses. If he was thinking about eating them or something... well, she'd make them disappear before anyone could do that kind of thing. Roses were not for eating, and certainly not her yellow ones. They were special.

So it was four to one when a fifth creature appeared, a sneasel by the looks of him whose first action was to slide up to the odd eevees. He seemed to say something about the two little creatures humming, which Ringtail-Jive had barely listened to. The more she looked at those twins, the more she thought they seemed kind of... transparent. Their auras, though faint, resembled a ghost pokemons' and though barely there, it gave her a feeling that those two were apparitions. Which meant... they couldn't eat her roses. She wasn't quite sure whether to be happy or sad at that but there was one thing the Lucario surely was feeling.

Trapped. Five strangers was enough to make and shy pokemon feel lost, which is just the feeling that prickled at her skin. One of the eevees was glancing at her and the pikachu, the blaziken was speaking, the pikachu as well, and this sudden change in activity was scary for the Lucario. Usually in such a situation, the roses would wilt and disappear, but she had noted the one eevee glancing at them and held them up as her heart beat at all the activity. She was antisocial, not rude.

[Ex]

ooc:// ... Honey? .____.;;

bic:// In stark contrast to Jive's antisocial qualities, Fire-Bird beamed at the collection of Pokémon. While it was not common knowledge, the Blaziken absolutely thrived in a crowd. She did a quick headcount, pointing at the odd little group one at a time with her chalk coloured claws. There was Fire-Bird herself and the Eevee she had been talking to at the central market. Beside them was a scrawny Sneasel. There was also the Lucario and Pikachu. Six.

Nearly overjoyed at all the friends she was making, Fire-Bird mused about what she would do with these Pokémon. They were at a mostly abandoned festival, which wasn't ghost town creepy, and it was still early enough to get in a few rounds of, 'let's nearly kill ourselves while we try to have a super fun blast!' and still be able to run around the lake like a nutcase. However, Fire-Bird always had one problem with the festival: the rides were powered down and she didn't know how to start them up. Then she remembered the Pikachu. Perhaps it could work... Fire-Bird grinned, and she looked quite cunning as she did so.

Before she began to address the Pokémon, all crowded around a pretty looking tree, the Blaziken turned to Jive. Fire-Bird, while eager to begin her day of fun, had some things to say, "Why hallo thar, Lucario. I believe I've seen you before. A Gardener, right? The roses say it all. Psy's been looking for some of you. Something about tea. But before you run off, Lucario, would you like to stay with us? I promise we'll have a super super happy happy fun time!"

Somehow, it seemed that Fire-Bird wasn't going to give Ringtail-Jive a choice. 'Super super happy happy fun time,' didn't sound very safe either.

[insert pretentious name here]

Castor did not seem surprised by the newcomer Sneasel. The Eevee simply looked up from his inspection of the roses, blue-red eyes bright. "Two Dead Boys," he told the Sneasel brightly, apparently seeing nothing odd at all in the title. Probably because he and Pollux were.

Pollux gave Castor a "what-the-hell?" look and the Sneasel a "okay-I-don't-trust-you" look. "Castor, don't talk to him," he said bluntly. "He's probably just a stalker or something."

Castor ignored his twin, beginning the song sweetly. "One bright day in the middle of the night - "

Pollux rolled his eyes but joined in seamlessly " - two dead boys got up to fight."

"Back to back, facing the other - "
" - Drew their swords and shot each other."
"The deaf policeman heard the noise - "
" - He came and killed those two dead boys."
"If you don't believe my lie is true - "
" - Ask the blind man, he saw it too."

Pollux sighed. Well. Might as well. Castor beamed, which was pretty adorable, and Pollux thanked whatever higher powers there were that he hadn't heard the Blaziken's "super super happy happy fun time" proposal. He probably would have started squealing in joy.

[]

[toreana]

((Guess Honey isn't coming back...?))

Leon frowned slightly, trying to place the name. He'd heard a lot of that kind of rhyme back home, but the melodies and titles all started to sound familiar after a while. The Sneasel blinked, vaguely confused, at Pollux - did he really seem like a stalker? - before giving Castor cheerful smile. That one, at least, didn't seem too bad, although the two of them sent a shiver up Leon's spine. He knew ghosts when he saw them, after all, and recognised the irony of the song. The thing was, as nice as they could seem, the appearance of ghosts never seemed to bode well for anyone.

"Hn. Dunno...Like I said, it sounds familiar, but I can't quite place it. You've got good voices," the Sneasel noted, returning Castor's beaming smile. "I'm Leon, by the way."

For a moment, the Sneasel glanced over at the proceedings where the Blaziken was. Yes, she certainly sounded like a certain Misdreavus he knew, if he had heard the phrase 'super super happy happy fun time' correctly. If anything, she sounded more hyper, which was something Leon didn't think would be too good for his health. Still, might as well see what happened next.

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