Event - Confrontation with the Enhanced

[bravenewmods]

With the revelation of the presence of the Enhanced, Union was able to quickly mobilize. As the strange conditions continued to worsen, the Trainers of Union once again set out to bring order to the chaos.

This time however, they do not walk entirely alone. A small, dedicated team remains behind in Union, sorting through the dossiers and information that Crystal and Rory have collected. Connected to those in the field via Warp Band network, hopefully they can identify the Enhanced and find a way to calm them before a tragedy occurs.

[OOC: There will be a thread for each active team based on the sign-ups. Any areas that did not have any sign-ups will not be present and will be addressed later. As per our usual standards, moderators and NPC helpers will progress the log at least once every 24 hours. The Union log will work somewhat differently from the battle logs in that the participants will be collecting information concerning the Enhanced; when enough information has been accumulated, they will be asked to tag into the battle threads to provide guidance and support to those out in the field.

Characters participating in the Union log will function as support staff for this event. They will have their own log interacting with Rory and Crystal and as characters in other logs encounter the Enhanced, they can use the observations made to try to find out more about the Enhanced in the field and help the people in the field determine an appropriate situation. Because of this, players in the Union thread may threadjack any ongoing log to relay information as needed.

The outcome of this event will depend very much on player decisions and the ability of the characters to respond to the threats at hand, so we would highly encourage you all to tag as regularly as possible. Thanks!]

Comments

[realmenknitplushies]

Kanji doesn't intend to be dead weight around here. He's calling up his own crew as soon as the word "Heracross" is even mentioned; three more join the fray. "Sora, Rust, Tetsu, you guys are up front-" The Altaria, Houndoom and Lucario start to move out. "Kuro, gimme some distance backup," and the shiny Carbink bobs up into position. The last, his own Golurk, gets a nod. "You're on rear guard, Roku."

As for Kanji himself, he pulls a thunderbolt blade ready - and as soon as there's a Heracross in striking distance, he's about to use it.

[bnw_wighty_npcs]

((Just as a reminder, we're asking people to limit themselves to two actions a tag, still!))

Crsss!

The group of Bugs acts swiftly, falling straight down from the sky to divebomb the humans rather than the Pokemon. They're certainly more intelligent than the average Pokemon; the intent appears to be to drive these intruders away.

The front line smashes with Megahorn into Asemu, Melaka, and Kanji; behind them, a line of Bugs provides covering fire with a hail of Bullet Seeds aimed across the whole group.

The confrontation isn't going unnoticed by the rest of the insects, either, and they begin to change formation, watching to see if these intruders will leave quietly.

[second_destiny]

"Acrobatics!"

The Talonflame dove down at the Heracross nearest to Asemu at high speed, further accented by its lack of a held item. Asemu, meanwhile, extends his palms out. A pair of beams fly out of his hands toward two other Heracross that are close, albeit flying at the other group members.

[realmenknitplushies]

"Gah, shi-!"

Kanji goes in with an electrified slashing attack, a rather intense roar behind it.

"Kuro, hang in there 'n Moonblast it!" he yells: the Carbink's hurting from the Bullet Seed rampage, but bobs, weaves, manages to let off a pulse of light to back its trainer's onslaught up.

[celebrity_commentator]

At psychic direction from Rise - who's very grateful for the cover, especially since she can keep better track of things with her eyes closed - Inari runs out into the thick of the bugs, away from the group, and with a loud VUL! engulfs herself in a Flame Burst, trying to hit as many enemies as possible and leaving the others out of the blast radius.

Alright, hang on, I'm going to bring in some healing, Rise telepaths, calling Toyo out of her Warp Band. She should have led with her, really, but she was slightly vulnerable to the Heracross's fighting moves...

[makeitquick]

For Melaka's part, being megahorned hurts. Just to put that on the record. All the same, she grabs the bug by the horn (quite literally) and regardless of what damage it'll do to her, she's going to lift the thing up over her head and toss it wide. take that bug! After all, she can heal pretty well by herself and-

"Whirlwind it!"

They don't need to knock everything out, not necessarily. Kettie and use his wings to clear out some of the people bullet seeding them. Or at least blow a range the sea out of the way.

[toxicrevenger]

As for her part, Pamela had already grown several massive plants with a deep rumble. She could use them to attack and defend, but she also had her Pokemon team with her, who were all ready to do their part.

"Hibiscus! Use Inferno! Athyrium! Use Psychic!"

[bnw_wighty_npcs]

The Heracross valiantly dive and swoop to roll out of the way of some of the attacks - Acrobatics moves too swiftly to be avoided and brings one of the swarm down quickly; Psychic and Whirlwind are nearly impossible to avoid, but a few of the other shots go wide. They respond in turn with Close Combat now that they're up in their faces, or otherwise continue with Megahorn, depending on the preferred typing. And here, now, more angry Bugs begin to come into the picture... Volbeat and Illumise, darting in with Protect to defend their allies, Butterfree and Vivillon swooping overhead to scatter Stun Spore and Sleep Powder...

It's a ridiculous mess. There's far too many insects for this group to even think of defeating them all.

But as they're occupied with this, the only person who might notice anything else amiss is Rise, she of the psychic typing and the Analytical nature who sees with her mind's eye... Which is precisely why Rise will be the one who finds herself the target of the actual attack from behind.

"Stop."

If she doesn't react in time, she will find a blade to her throat.

"Leave this place at once."

At some point, the others will probably turn around to notice the man who has stepped out from the swarm - clad in green all over with two metallic looking wings and deadly looking blades strapped to his wrists.

[celebrity_commentator]

The same trick doesn't work twice. Or at least, it shouldn't on a Psychic.

Rise notices the strong presence behind her with just enough time to duck and roll away from his grip - it's not graceful, but like hell she was going to get held up in the field again.

She comes up to a knee looking at the Enhanced, Toyo interposing herself between them.

Everybody hold it! she shouts mentally to the Union group.

And after a second of composing herself, she says, "Call off yours and we'll call off ours. W-we just want to talk."

[second_destiny]

Asemu immediately leaped into the air to avoid a Heracross attack, then turned in Rise's direction when he heard her telepathic shout. Seeing her face-to-face with what looked to be the enemy they were after caused his protectiveness to swell, and he immediately dropped back down to the ground.

"Yeah. Let's negotiate. It'd be nice to avoid fighting."

[realmenknitplushies]

Wait? That's - yeah, pretty obvious that that guy's the one causing the problems.
While Kanji's still holding onto his blade tightly, he gives a curt, sharp nod, eyeing the swarms in case any of them start anything else. As much as he'd be quite happy to see that asshole eating sparks for starting this mess, he's not going to go out of his way to wreck their chance at answers.

"Right," he says, calmly as he can in this situation, biting his tongue. "We just wanna know what's goin' on here." And why, exactly, it had to take the form of raging hordes of bugs. "Is that okay?"

[makeitquick]

Slugger... were you seriously put to sleep? She glances at the Donphan and frowns, and then looks over to her Staraptor and-

No, he's asleep too. And she herself was hit by a Stun Spore, and it's with creaking body motion that she tries to turn her head to see the new arrival, fails, and then resolves to just be the one to try to keep her eyes on the bugs. Not that this is a hard thing to ask, because there simply are so many. So he grits her teeth, willing her healing to kick in a little faster to get her out of this stupid paralysis. Or maybe she should warp in-

No, she can't afford to warp in now.

So she just doesn't say anything, Let them talk for now.

[toxicrevenger]

"We're very sorry if we caused any alarm," said Pamela to the Enhanced who'd revealed himself to them. "We're from the city of Union and we're here on a peacekeeping mission. We'd like to resolve problems without anyone getting hurt."

She took a slow and careful step forward, showing no intent to attack. "My name is Pamela Isley. What's yours?"

[bnw_wighty_npcs]

"I know what you want."

He doesn't seem particularly bothered that his sneak attack on Rise had failed, his eyes flickering back and forth amongst the members of the party.

"You don't want to talk. You want to take away our freedom. You want to drag us back and shut the cage and drug us until we're just mindless puppets. Don't even deny it."

His voice is loud, rising above the hum of the insects surrounding them on all sides with an edge of grandiosity.

"I am not spending my life like a bug in a jar for you to shake and prod and see what happens. Leave this place at once."

[toxicrevenger]

"I think there's been a misunderstanding here," said Pamela calmly and evenly. She annunciated each word, speaking clearly so she could be heard even over the sound of all the collected Bug types.

"The people of Union have no connection to the Gigas Empire. In fact, we're quite against things they've done. When they sought to invade and take over Caldera, we intervened on Caldera's behalf and broke their siege over Caldera. We have no interest in taking you back to the Gigas Empire, or making mindless puppets out of you."

She motioned to the group with her, gesturing to the green of her skin and other not entirely human looking features in the group in particular. "Take a good look at us. Enlightened aren't so different from an Enhanced like yourself. We have elemental typing just like you do."

[celebrity_commentator]

Speaking of which, as she stands up again, Rise is going to try and get a good read on his typing and abilities...aside from the obvious.

"Honestly, I hate Gigas on principle," she says frankly and softtly. "For exactly what they've done to you, and Team Evolution for standing by and helping them. That's why we want to help you."

[realmenknitplushies]

Yeah, Kanji knows he's not going to be the best talker, here. He knows that what he says might end up as shouting at this guy just to try and get it through that thick skull - and if he's going to take 'we want to talk' in that way? Tch.
He smiles at Pamela's remark - after all, he fits right in with the 'not quite human' features she's pointing out - but he's just going to make sure the Pokémon are okay, getting out a couple of healing items to pass around to those who've been hit worst.

[second_destiny]

Asemu nodded. "You saw what we did, right? Or me, with the beams? We're told the people of Gigas can't do stuff like that. But the people from Union have been doing it so long it's no big deal.

"And you also saw us call our Pokémon, right? We don't use Poké Balls. They're banned."

He was trying to argue by example. He wanted to show that the people of Union have lines they will not cross.

[bnw_wighty_npcs]

((24 hours!
NOTE: Hey, guys! Since I don't have any idea where this thread will go right now, I might just need to ramp this up to twice a day! Sorry for any inconvenience; tag if you have a chance, but no pressure!))

The man facing them does not seem any less agitated. He seems to actually flit - darting from one position to another with the speed of a dragonfly, pacing and panting, overcome by his own paranoia.

"Hah! You lie or you don't know and you just speak and that's the same as a lie. You'd let me be. You'd let us be. What's the harm to let us be where we need where we can be? But you're here, so you want us, but you can't keep us."

The Bugs swarm down concernedly now and he idly turns to stroke a Ledyba.

"The Team helps us, but they can't keep us. And you're the same! What are you here for if not to keep us? I won't be kept."

[toxicrevenger]

"We're here to keep the peace," said Pamela. "We don't want to harm you or keep you captive...but your powers are causing a disturbance for all of the Pokemon who call the rolling plains their home. You deserve a peaceful and happy life. So do the inhabitants of this region - Pokemon and human alike."

To punctuate her point about Unionites having more in common with him than with Gigas, she crouched down, planted a seed, and let her powers do their work until a generous berry bush grew and sprouted berries. To show that it was safe, she popped one of the berries in her mouth.

"If Union was the sort of place to keep people with special abilities captive, do you really think they'd continue to let me roam free?"

[realmenknitplushies]

Okay, Kanji's having a hard time even following what the bug-master's saying here. One thing does stand out, though, as he keeps up the healing work -

"No-one wants to be stuck in a box," he says, before handing out another Awakening to a Pokémon that needs it. "We know."

[celebrity_commentator]

Kanji's summary makes Rise smile a bit. She was starting to understand this guy a little, even if her sympathy about boxes was more metaphorical.

"All we want to do is make sure the Pokémon out here are safe," she adds, "We're not going to arrest you or something, your bugs were just getting a little out of hand, and we wanted to ask them to move on."

Meanwhile, Toyo helps Kanji out with a quick Heal Bell. Nothing offensive, just making sure everyone's ready to go.

[second_destiny]

"I'm a Ranger, and a Ranger's duty is to protect both the land and the people." Asemu stood where he was, not having anything else to contribute otherwise. "I don't want nature to come to harm, and I don't want people to come to harm, either. That goes for all.

"We need this land to be safe for travel. And you need a place where you can be free and happy. We just want to find a way where we can both get what we want."

[bnw_wighty_npcs]

"This is where I am happy. Where we are happy."

Above him, the swarm falls ominously silent at the suggestion that they 'move on'. Their attention shifts slightly towards their leader, as if waiting for a command. The Enhanced man continues to flit back and forth with agitated, incredible speed.

"There is a place for us! A place where we will not skulk in the trees or hide in the shadows, where we will go as we please and do as we wish... Do not pretend to understand; do not smile and condescend as if you 'know' what it is to be used and hated and trapped! You disdain me; you speak words you cannot keep; you think you offer hope but you will contain me in your own way..."

In the blink of an eye, he is two inches in front of Asemu, eyes wide and manic.

"How will you keep us free?"

The words are whispered.

...He expects an answer.

[bnw_sheepy_npcs]

[ Something seems to be watching them from a distance, surreptitiously. The more perceptive might catch a glimmer of something from the corner of their eye, only to find it gone when they try to take a look. ]