Epidemic Bloodwraith (tragic game; PG-13)

[Ysavvryl]

Epidemic Bloodwraith​

SU thread. Still open for new players, if you are interested.

CAST

Ysavvryl
Lucien- Elite 4 member of Sinnoh and leader of the League's security group.
Darla- A leader in Team Galactic.
Jacen- The programmer of the Wraith virus.
Grim Reaper of Pokemon.

Flame Mistress
Jessica- One of the top Co-ordinators of Kanto and a rising star in Sinnoh.

Mon1010
Aaron- Elite 4 member of Sinnoh visiting the festival.
Lucas- The young Champion of Sinnoh, part of the security group

Slipomatic
Sabrieon- A breeder from Johto promoting his Eevee ranch.

Kiruria
Yamiko- A traveler from Unova participating in the festival. Girlfriend to following.
'Mr. D'- A traveler from Unova participating in the festival. Boyfriend to previous.

-+-

Lucien, Pokecenter
March 20, 8 PM

A Pokecenter always seemed to be a place of activity, whether it was a young Trainer checking over local guides or a group that had come in to recover their Pokémon from a series of battles. Tonight was no different: the nurse on duty was gossiping happily with a florist, someone was trying to convince the manager to let them put up a poster, a small group of Trainers chatted about where they were staying and what they’d been up to. A Happiny on the counter was warbling and dancing about while a few other Pokémon were observing the building or showing off to one another.

In the midst of all this noise and activity, Lucien seemed like a calm island. He was standing in line near the counter, still and quiet. His eyes moved rapidly, reading through a thick paperback book in his hands. While he seemed absorbed fully in the book, he was aware of what was going on around him. It was a matter of splitting the mind, allowing conscious part to read while letting the unconscious observe for anything out of place.

Like his own words coming through the air. “The Flower Festival looks to be setting up a wonderful experience. The display gardens aren’t finished off yet, but what I’m seeing is beautiful designs and great flowers.”

Lucien flicked his eyes to the source of the sound: a television. Ah, that was his interview earlier with one of the news reporters. His voice in recording always sounded so different than what he heard when he spoke. It was something he had been meaning to read about at some point. He turned his eyes back to the book.

The news report continued on, the reporter saying, “I agree. But a lot of people have been talking about Galactic again lately and they’re worried about the safety of the event. What do you think about that?”

“It is a possibility,” he had said. “But we’re not going to stand by doing nothing if they do show up again. There will be several League members and strong Trainers at the event helping to keep the peace. We’ll be keeping our senses peeled for trouble and deal with it quickly. But I think the important thing to know is that this is a time to celebrate new life and new beginnings. The battle has already been won, so there should be no reason to fear what will happen.”

The florist said goodbye to the nurse and took the Pokeballs to her Pokémon back. Lucien finished off the last sentence of the page, flicked it with his thumb, then shifted his bookmark’s cord to the right place before closing the book. “Good evening,” he said, undoing the lock on his Pokeball holder to pass it over to her.

“Good evening, Lucien,” she said, smiling. “Good book?”

He shrugged. “It’s a murder mystery and I already recognize the formula. I’m hoping for a surprise, but that may not be.”

“Yes, that’s always disappointing. How may I help you?”

“These three just need healing, thanks,” he said, passing over the holder. He had someone request an informal battle while he was finishing up his observations on the town of Hearthome. The battle had been like the book; once he recognized the formula, it had been something of a disappointment.

“All right, I’ll get them taken care of,” she said cheerily as she took the three balls and gave their status screens a glance. It was something he’d done thousands of times and Lucien was already giving thought to finishing another page while the healing was done. But then there was a pause longer than normal; the nurse’s smile faltered for a look of puzzlement. “Oh, your Gallade…”

“What about him?” Lucien asked, keeping his voice calm. It didn’t seem like trouble. If it was trouble, she’d have a more worried look.

“I don’t really know,” she admitted, leaning on the counter and showing the screen to him. “See? He has this status of ‘Wraith’ on him.”

Wraith… even with as much experience with Pokémon as he had, that was unfamiliar as a status. “What does that mean?”

“Beats me,” she said. “I mean, this is only the second time I’ve seen it, and the other time was just a couple of minutes ago.” She pointed out one of the Trainers in the lounge area up front, a young man wearing an artificially tattered jean jacket. A Ponyta with blue hair flames was near him. “Both of his had the same thing.”

Lucien glanced at him. “I battled him not that long ago.”

“May I run a deep analysis on this one?” the nurse asked. “He wouldn’t let me try with his.”

He nodded, then glanced at his watch. “Of course. I have a meeting to attend, but it shouldn’t make me too late.”

A few minutes later, the nurse handed back his Pokémon; the analysis didn’t find anything out of the ordinary other than the strange status. It’d be another thing to bring up at the meeting. Lucien thanked the nurse then headed out of the Pokecenter. The young man and his friends had left not that long before.

Outside the center, Lucien pulled out the Gallade’s Pokeball and called him out. “Have you noticed anything odd about yourself or other Pokémon this evening?” he asked.

Gallade blinked at him, puzzled. Then he shook his head. “Neh.”

“Are you feeling all right?” he asked, although he expected an emphatic positive answer. Which he got in form of a puffed up chest and a salute. “Right, but I need to keep an eye on you for a little while. Let’s get going.”

And the two of them hurried across town to reach the Gym. In a few minutes, the security group he’d called together on behalf of the League would be meeting there. Fatina said she’d make sure the lights were on.


Data Log

All

Start posts in a similar format to mine: Trainer name, location, date, the hour (minutes not necessary). All I plan to happen in this evening are introducing the characters and getting the virus started. It is not necessary to chance an infection on the 20th. In fact, I’d almost recommend against it as any Pokemon that get infected this evening won’t have a chance to do much before they start showing signs in the morning.

At this point, there are five infected Pokémon: Lucien’s Gallade, a shiny Ponyta, a Luxio, and two NPCs which I will leave undetermined. Lucien is walking from the Pokecenter to the Gym with his Gallade out, but he won’t stick around for much more than a greeting.

The target is an NPC, a 22 year old man who has spiky brown hair and a roughed up jean jacket. He’s a loud and boastful character who is looking to challenge Fatina’s Gym; he’s annoyed tonight because the Gym is closed. He has the shiny Ponyta and the Luxio and they will be looking for battles. He’s clueless about the threat or his ‘rival’, and he’s self-centered; not a good Trainer. Free for use.

The other two NPCs currently have one infected Pokémon each. They have gone off on their own and are wandering around town. Nothing else is determined about them and any NPC you come up with could be one of them. Free for use.

 

[Monster Guy]

Aaron - Sitting on a bench by the fountain
March 20, 8PM

With the Spring Flower Festival approaching, Hearthome city was abuzz with activity. There were many out people out helping to prepare, or just there to look at the preparations being made. Some were setting up booths, and planting gardens filled with colorful flowers. There were also Beautiflies, Dustoxes, and a few Combees there to polinate those flowers, and wherever there were Bug types, usually Aaron could be found.

Aaron sat by the fountain, and watched the preperations take place. He had all three of the Pokemon he brought with him. Yanmega speedily flew around, looking for something to do; the sound of his wings flapping rapidly made a high pitched buzzing noise. Vespiquen was commanding her hive (The Combees.) as they pollinated the flowers, and brought back their nectar. While Drapion, stood by his trainer's side, as Aaron stroked his head. Aaron was in town to take a break from his league duties, and just enjoy the festival like everyone else was.

In general it was a happy time, but there was still a hint of worry in the air. Although Team Galactic had since been defeated, some were concerned that they weren't completely gone yet. For Aaron, this wasn't the time to be concerned about such things.

Aaron was suddenly interupted from his thoughts when a young woman with a Yanmega of her own flying next to her, approached him. "Ohmigosh it's you!" She squealed while pulling out a Safari Ball from her pocket. "I love watching your battles. I caught a Yanma and evolved her because of you. Will you sign her Pokeball?"

Aaron smiled, and pulled out a marker from his pocket. He always kept one handy in case he was ever approached by fans for an autograph. He liked that part of his Elite Four title. "Of course." He took the ball from her hands, and scribbled his name on her Safari ball before giving it back to her. "I'm glad I inspired you to give Yanmega a try." He glanced over at the Dragonfly, who seemed to find a playmate in Aaron's Yanmega. "How's it working out for you?"

"She's awesome! You won't believe how many battles she's won." She looked at her signed Pokeball, and smiled a big toothy a grin. "Thank you so much!" Then, in a bold move, the girl kissed the Elite Four member on the cheek. "Hehe, see you around. Come on Anya." She giggled before gesturing to her Pokemon, and taking off. Her Yanmega trailing behind her.

Aaron put his hand over the spot where she kissed him, and laughed. He was surprised that happened, but it was nothing new to him, things like that were a part of being in the public eye; and she meant no harm by it anyway. Then he stood up from his seat, streched his arms for a second, then began to walk around the city looking for something to do. He was never good at staying in one place for very long.

 

[Ysavvryl]

Darla, booth south of cathedral
3/20, 8 PM

The street that ran between the route gates was lined with booths, some for organizations, many for sellers, some for clubs, and some for displays and demonstrations. Many there were testing out arrangements, or locking goods away to be placed out tomorrow morning. At one booth, nothing had been put out yet, even for seeing how things looked. There had been a few people there to set up, arranging tables, setting up stands to have varying display levels, and making sure the electricity worked. But there was no sign of who this group was, or what the booth was meant for.

Smoothing out a wrinkle of the dark blue tablecloth, the woman in charge of this booth’s activity looked over things. While most of the other booth workers seemed to be normal people, she had striking metallic blue hair, kept in a braid that went down to her waist. She could see in her mind where things would go, and she’d be out here early to get them up before the festival events kicked off. But she didn’t want to have them seen too early. She wanted to make a big impact, but not until the moment was right.

“This is going to get everyone talking,” she said. “None of them have ever seen anything like it. And if things go well, they won’t even realize what they’re doing until too late.”

On the table, a Glameow was sitting and observing people who passed by. When she petted him, he twirled his corkscrew tail, but didn’t face her. There were too many interesting people to watch.

So she picked him up. “And they’ll be helping us along,” she said, lowering her voice. When she got down to a whisper, she said, “I hope this does lead Cyrus to the way back.”

“Darla?” One of the men helping her came in through the back of the booth. He had short blond hair, although it too had been blue a few months back. “Are you sure about this? The rules were…”

“I know,” she said, waving to him with a free hand to keep it down. Thankfully, no one seemed to notice. “But that was then and this is now. We don’t want to stand out; we want to blend in. We’ll let our display stand out for us.”

Being in uniform at this time was a bad idea. It was only the handful of them that seemed to believe in Team Galactic anymore; nearly everyone else out there would have liked to see them caught and punished, no matter what their role had been. At least she was the only one of their group that had the blue hair. Other than that, they all looked to be like ordinary people now. And Darla meant to keep it looking like that.

“Do you think he’ll recognize them?” the man asked.

Darla frowned. “Maybe; we’ll have to see. I just hope I’m not here if Lucas comes by. He’s the only one that would know.”

Not only that, but Darla wasn’t sure if she’d be able to keep her cool if he came by. The new young Champion of Sinnoh, the boy who had managed to quell the anger of Dialga and Palkia… and a mysterious third that may or may not have been a fabrication the boy made up to bolster his story. Most people in the region admired and adored him, but Darla hated him. He was the most likely reason why Cyrus could not return.

But no matter; she had a plan for getting Galactic’s leader back.

 

[Slipomatic]

Sabrieon Evo – Booth near contest hall
March 20, 8 PM

The booths near the contest hall was always jammed full of merchandise. He was probably the only booth in the entire section that didn’t off merchandise, at least not in trinkets. He was currently setting up his booth to publicize his breeding ranch. Eevees were hard to find and it was much easier to raise one rather than looking for one so he hoped to draw in some customers by showcasing his pride and joy. He had brought three eevee evolutions of the same litter with him and would be having them playing with each other while he would try to interest people into buying eevees from him. Although he didn’t like selling his eevees, he knew that his ranch wouldn’t survive without some advertising as a lot of people in Johto didn’t really prefer eevees, although occasionally he had visits from the theater girls who gushed over the eevees. He had a special monitor set up so that he could monitor his ranch as his helpers were great, but he wanted to keep an eye.

He looked over at the play pen to see Crescent staring at him, his eyes telling him that he didn’t agree to play with his sisters, causing Sabrieon to smirk slightly. He beckoned Crescent over and petted him softly on the head and said, “Come now Crescent, it’s only while we’re here. Perhaps you might get a battle or two depending on who decides to show up.”

Crescent’s eyes lit up at the prospect of getting to battle and he purred his satisfaction before glaring at Sabreion when he realized that he was purring. Sabrieon just chuckled and let Crescent go as he turned to finish up setting up his booth, which had an eevee face at the top with his ranches logo underneath it. He had lots of forms that interested trainers could fill out if they were interested in buying one. His pokemon were there purely to show how well groomed and well kept they were. They were also for kids to play with as long as it was in the pen, which was set up to look like a grass land. He just hoped his booth would attract some interested buyers, specifically coordinators as they usually loved cute pokemon.

 

[Flame Mistress]

Jessica Winton - Inside Pokémon Centre
March 20th, 8:15PM

"Wraith? What on earth?"

"What's wrong, Miss Jessica?" Nurse Joy asked, peering at Fluttershy the Togekiss's status screen. In the corner where the status problems ahold be displayed, there was instead a box with the word "WRAITH" in it - something Jessica had never seen before. Jessica was basically a walking encyclopaedia whose slender legs supported an IQ of 155 (coincidentally, her rather pitiful also happened to be 155cm) and a ton of information about Pokémon in general - if she didn't know about something, that something was bound to be suspicious.

"Wraith? How curious," Nurse Joy replied, once she had caught sight of the word. "Odd. The Pokémon of the trainers who visited in the past fifteen minutes also had that sign... I wonder what it means.

"Can't you, I dunno, get rid of it?" Jessica scowled. She had a bad feeling about this; and besides, wraith sounded like some kind of virus or something. She didn't want it on her Pokémon for long. Nurse Joy shook her head sadly. "If it doesn't get healed through the Healing Machine, it can't be healed easily," she said.

[Jessica silently nodded, frowning. Alarm bells were going off inside her head; what did all this mean? What on earth was wraith? What was it going to do to Fluttershy? Would it harm her? Could it be transmitted to her other Pokémon? Would they be safe? She didn't like it. She wanted this wraith thing gone. But just willing it to be gone wasn't going to help anything, she decided. "Well, I guess we can only hope that nothing happens from now on, then," Jessica sighed.

Pushing the thoughts and questions aside, Jessica logged off, smiled politely at Nurse Joy who bowed slightly in return, and headed outside for the grand and luxurious hotel she was staying in. She decided that she was just being paranoid. After all, she often overreacted to small issues like this. It was all just probably nothing.

She hoped.

 

[Kiruria]

OOC: I probably shouldn't be posting because I have finals and homework coming up, but here I am posting anyway... Oh, and I think I'll be introducing two NPC's you might recognise from an RPG you used to run...
IC:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yamiko and Mr. D
Magnolia Stage, next to Fantina's gym
20 March, 8PM

It couldn't have been a more beautiful night. The sun had set just recently, and the moon was already out, the stars starting to peep into view as well. Currently Yamiko and Mr. D were gathered with some other people behind this stage, right next to a patch of trees that marked the southern border of Amity Square. Everyone who was scheduled to perform on this stage throughout the entire festival was supposed to meet here at 8 o'clock, which amounted to a fair number of people. Besides Yamiko and Mr. D, there were a few other acts as well. This stage was dedicated mostly to musical performances of some sort, so three bands were part of this meeting, all of them rock or jazz bands that Yamiko didn't care about much. Then there was a juggler who juggled all sorts of Pokemon, not just Voltorb--he had really muscular arms due to some of the Pokemon he juggled being a little on the heavy side.

The conductor of this meeting, a very ordinary-looking man in a bowler hat, stood there with a clipboard in his hand, checking off a list of names.

"Okay, so we have the Freddie Springs band. And the Runaway Five. And Bluegrass Folks and Fiddlesticks." He was checking off the names of the musical groups--Fiddlesticks sounded interesting at least, since Mr. D rather liked fiddle music. "And Candy and Andy... are they not here? Hmm. And then we have Sam the Juggler, check. And finally, the opening and closing act, Once There Was A Flower." Yamiko and Mr. D nodded in response. "Well, if Candy and Andy don't get here by the time we..."

Just then, the group could hear a revving noise coming from near the stage. A young couple, probably about as old as Yamiko and Mr. D, rode their motorcycle right up to where the group was. Besides the motorcycle, they definitely stood out among everyone else. The girl had hot pink highlights in her hair, wearing a spunky outfit with pink ribbons and a Jigglypuff on her shirt. The guy had his hair in a spiked mohawk, and otherwise gave off a very motorcycle punk-ish sort of vibe.

"Ah, Candy and Andy," the conductor greeted. "You're... a minute and a half late. Ah well, no worries, we haven't really discussed much yet."

"Oh, so sorry, so sorry!" Candy exclaimed, in a bubbly, high-pitched voice. "We were just taking an unusually long time at the Pokemon Centre, due to an error that came up!"

"Well I, uh, certainly hope your Pokemon are all right," the conductor said. "Anyway, all I wanted to do with you all is explain the schedule and all. So tomorrow, we get a rather late start, opening at noon with Once There Was A Flower. Yamiko and Remy, that means you'll be up first. We'll be doing a couple of sound checks before then, but this is the first time we use this stage in the festival, so be aware that the stage may be prone to some unexpected malfunctions."

"Knowing my luck, the stage will collapse right below us while we're dancing," Yamiko muttered to herself. Mr. D gave her a reassuring pat on the back.

"The Runaway Five will be next, and... you have to leave immediately afterwards for the continuation of your tour, right? Yamiko and Remy, that leaves you two responsible for clearing the stage of any petals and powders your Pokemon may leave behind." Mr. D nodded in response, indicating that he would attend to those things with a trusty, hopefully supplied broom. "Don't make them start late. Let's see, and then we have the Bluegrass Folks at 3, the juggler at 4, the Bluegrass Folks again at 6, and finally Candy and Andy at 8. You two have a 2-hour time slot, as you'll only be performing tonight and two nights from now. All of you, be sure to arrive about an hour before your scheduled performance time, so that we can get everything all set up for you guys, okay? Well, now that we have the schedule set up, let's organise you guys's stuff in the trailer, shall we?"

The trailer was pretty full, of musical instruments and sound equipment, of costumes and boxes filled with stuff... Yamiko and Mr. D only had their two costumes used for their performance in here, making up a very small percentage of all the stuff in here.

"I wonder who owns all the costumes on this rack here?" Mr. D commented, noting the variety of goofy costumes on that rack. Probably belonged to the juggler, for all he knew. There was a bunny suit, a large straw hat, mushroom caps to be worn as hats, pink cat ears, a dress decorated with hearts... okay, maybe it didn't belong to the juggler. His next guess was the quirky Eurodance duo that barged in on their motorcycle earlier. He and Yamiko had made a note to watch at least one of their performances in the festival--Yamiko was surprised they even got a spot in the festival, given their music style. She was already quite a fan of theirs. In fact, she wanted to go talk to the two at that point, but they had already left, having mentioned something about restrooms.

Come to think of it, Yamiko and Mr. D didn't want to spend a whole lot of time in the trailer either, especially with everyone from three bands being present inside the trailer, hauling musical instruments around, all at once. Instead the two wandered onto the stage itself. The lights crew was currently testing out the lights on the stage--currently the stage was filled with a beautiful blue light, making Yamiko's and Mr. D's hair look purplish.

"Oh, it's Yamiko and Mr. D, our opening act," one of the crew members greeted. "Why don't you stand right there while we test out the lights? We can see how it shines on such a lovely couple as yourselves."

Yamiko giggled in response. For extra fun, the two decided to let their Pokemon out as well. A Purrloin, Lilligant, Butterfree, and Chandelure joined the couple out of the swirling red energy of their Pokeballs, a little bit confused as to why they were on stage. Mr. D briefly explained to them that they were not performing yet, just testing out the lights. Meanwhile, one of the crew told everyone to line up and stand still. Nico sat upright in front of Yamiko and Mr. D, who stood side by side holding hands. To their right, Puck rested on top of Mayflower's head, stretching his wings. To their left, Venifica hovered in the air, a safe distance away from Mr. D, her flames burning a neutral purple.

First they switched the setup to red light. Mayflower didn't like this one bit, complaining to Puck about how it made her petals look ugly. In turn, Puck reassured her that she was beautiful in any light, and that made her blush. Venifica, on the other hand, liked it a lot. Probably because it made it look like everyone on stage was covered in blood. Especially Yamiko with her already blood-red hair. Looking back ahead, she made a mental note to prey upon the crew a bit afterwards.

And then they switched the setup to green light. This time it was Venifica's turn to feel ugly, as the light made her flames appear the colour of something typically seen in unflushed toilets. But she adjusted, namely by thinking of Fantina and all the publicity she and that darn Mismagius of hers received, and all those cool-sounding incantations the Mismagius muttered in contests. The resulting jealousy turned her flames green to match the lights. Ah, that was better.

"Okay, we got the primaries down," the crew person announced. "Keep still while we tested the other features..."

They tried pink light, teal light, black light (which made Mayflower look like a ghost), yellow light, lights off, piercing white light (Yamiko and Venifica flinched), strobe lights (it was Puck's turn to flinch), flashing lights... Their tests made it seem like some sort of disco party was going on. At least they had a very creative light manager... Not that any of this would really matter, because neither of the couple's performances required any of the lights. It was mainly Candy and Andy who needed those, for it seems they were the only ones performing at night on this stage. But for now Yamiko and Mr. D were just enjoying the moment, looking at each other and smiling.

 

[Ysavvryl]

March 20, 8-10 PM

As the evening wore on, the activity in Hearthome's streets slowed. Most everything had been done, so people were heading in to get plenty of rest for tomorrow's activities, including several Contest runs, some exhibition battles at the Gym, and the start of everything. The cathedral bells tolled the hour at 9 o’clock, then went silent for the night.

But there were some quiet concerns as the strange Pokemon status of Wraith kept appearing.


Jacen, apartment in central Hearthome
March 21, 8 AM

After working hard on a large project, Jacen always found it nice to sleep in. Not that it was easy; those bells always starting ringing at 7 in the morning and would ring every hour in throughout the day. Just before they started in at eight, he decided to get up anyhow and prepare for the day. The bells came as he was eating breakfast.

“Now what to do,” he said, sitting at the kitchen table. When he looked around, his apartment was messy. A clean-up would be good. When he looked at his even messier computer area, he smiled. Wraith ought to be starting in on that jerk's Pokemon. It might be worth it to go see his reaction to it. But that would require being around the jerk, and Jacen didn't want to deal with that.

Paws patting on the linoleum floor caused him to look over to where his Biberel was coming. She had his shoes in her mouth, the ones he wore when they went on walks outside. She placed them down neatly near his chair and gave him a hopeful look.

“Fresh air is overrated,” he said jokingly, rubbing her head. “Okay Bobbie. I suppose it wouldn't hurt me too much to get out there.” He finished up his breakfast, then went to clean up and get dressed. The Biberel followed him around until it was apparent that he was going to take her out on a walk. Then she rubbed her head against his leg and followed him out of the apartment and down the stairs.

They got as far as the entrance before Jacen noticed that something was up. There were so many people out on the streets, far more than there were on most Contest days. Caught frozen in indecision, he looked over all the new signs, the strings of flags, the large pots of flowers, and all the people, some dressed casually, others done up all fancy and flowery. Strands of music could be heard over the hubbub of chatter and walking, different songs in different directions. It was a very joyful atmosphere, but one that still intimidated him.

“The Spring Flower Festival,” he murmured, taking a few steps back. “I thought I'd managed to skip it. Ugh, I wonder how much longer this is going to be.”

“Huu?” Bobbie asked, staying in the doorway and keeping it open. She had been all excited for the walk, and now Jacen was backing out on it again.

Seeing her disappointed face changed his mind again. He sighed, then went through the doorway. “You stay close to me. Maybe we can find ways to avoid these crowds.”

Bobbie gave him an encouraging pat, then walked close by his side as they tried to find quieter streets to walk on.


Data Log

All

Curse my compulsive world-building, but... exhibition battles. They're exactly what they sound like: Pokemon battles meant to show off the skills of the Trainer and team, done in front of an audience. Can consist of unusual battle rules and formats, such as Rotation or Doubles/Triples. An exhibition battle does not count towards a Gym Badge or Battle Frontier points, and the win rewards are a flat rate 1000 Poke unless the competitors put something up for bid (not a badge, though). Any canon Sinnoh character is available as an opponent (which means if you want Diamond or another canon, you might want to grab them quick).

Amity Square is open to any companion Pokemon, but the staff is controlling how many people are in the park at once.

Remember that if it says timeskip, it is not needed right away, just when you're ready to move on with the infection plot.

Ysavvryl

Spoiler: data

As of 8 AM 3/21
Lucien
Gallade- achy and in a bad mood, 2nd stage
Bronzong- infected, 1st stage
Girafarig- infected, 1st stage
Timeskip 4 hours

FlameMistress

Spoiler: data

I didn't want you to start the infection yourself... but given where you were, infected anyhow.
As of 8 AM, 3/21
Fluttershy- has a mild fever, 2nd stage
Twilight- infected, 1st stage
Rainbow- infected, 1st stage
Timeskip 4 hours

Kiruria

Spoiler: data

Yup, I remember them! So far, no infections, but now I know more Pokemon that are carriers.

 

[Slipomatic]

Sabrieon Evo
Booth near contest hall
March 21, 6 AM – 8 AM

Sabrieon yawned as he ran his booth. He woke up at 6 AM to add some final touches to his booth, which was mostly finding his papers and putting some decoration, mostly just plushy dolls of eevee and their evolutions. Secretly, he was ashamed to even have them. He knew it was a girl’s thing, but he had gotten the whole set when he was younger as they looked extremely cute and he loved eevees and their evolution line. It was his personal set, but they looked pristine, despite being over eight years old. He was also secretly ashamed that he had named each doll, but it put him at ease, knowing that it would draw in some attention. He had let his pokemon sleep in their pokeball since he had started working at 6 AM, not wanting to wake them up till opening time which was around 8 AM. He had looked at his pokegear to see that he had an hour before opening time and he decided to whip up his deluxe meal for his pokemon. Although he had recipes for most of his meals for pokemon, his deluxe recipe had no written recipe and was his own secret recipe, not that it wouldn’t be hard to figure it out since it was all natural.

His secret recipe consisted of grounding up oran berries and sitrus berries first to make the base of the food. Next was to ground a lum berry and leppa berry together and then mix it with the oran and sitrus mix. He would then add the nutritious kibble that pokemon centers made and the flavor would be exquisite to the pokemon as it would get a full flavor of the berries and none of the attributes of the berries would be overpowering. The pokemon would experience a full taste of sweet, sour, bitter, and dry would be virtually equal. None of his pokemon had voiced a complaint over his deluxe meal and they seemed to enjoy it, always perking up when they heard the two words deluxe meal. He looked at the time and saw that it was close to 8 AM, he quickly finished up the meal and filled three bowls for his pokemon and released them in the pen near their bowls, which he had to have sadly label them as his pokemon liked to bicker over which one was theirs. As his pokemon ate their breakfast meal, he had some left over and decided to put it in a small food can so any breeder that came by that was interested in what he prepared for the pokemon, they would have a small sample to see.

He was quite surprised to see a lot of people strolling around, some walking with their pokemon and others with lots of bags on them already. For once, he was grateful he was working and not out enjoying himself. He probably would have bought every single thing that was related to eevee if he had gone out there. That was another shameful fact that he kept hidden from everyone, including his pokemon. He secretly had costumes of eevee and their evolutions and would sometimes wear them because he was just that obsessed with them. He thought that he may have been caught once by a passing person, but no one else knew of it, he hoped. He shook his head and focused on the task at hand which was to attract attention to his booth, which was finally getting some attention, thanks to his addition of the plushies. He still remembered getting them from the Goldenrod City department store at a hefty price of 7000 pokedollars. It had cost him every penny he had earned while he was in the gym circuit, but he thought it was money well spent. He smiled and greeted people who stopped by that were interested. He briefly looked at his small TV to see how his ranch was doing without his supervision, letting an inward sigh of relief that all looked well so far over there.

OOC: I don't know how long the next time skip will be so I'm waiting on next update post.

 

[Ysavvryl]

Lucien, Fountain Street
March 21, 8 AM

He stood between a booth selling soft drinks, water, and lemonade, and a booth from the Underground Explorers Club. His Bronzong hovered behind him mostly, excited in all the activity but having been warned to stay out of the path or someone would walk into her (she had a bad habit of not paying attention to her full surroundings). By his side, his Gallade sat cross-legged on the ground, fiddling with his blades and scowling; he seemed to be having a bad day but still needed to be watched. In the actual walkways, his Girafarig wandered around, greeting people and generally being friendly; she already had an orange pansy tied around one of her stalks, a gift from a young girl. As for Lucien, he has his arms crossed over his chest, his head lowered slightly forward, and his eyes closed.

Some people might mistake him for being asleep, but those who knew him would realize that he was being alert. For one thing, his books and reading tablet were still in his bag. Lucien simply found using his vision too distracting when he really needed to pay attention. Especially under circumstances like this. There was just so much going on that there was a risk of information overload. People naturally had mental filters to keep that from happening, but Lucien knew how to tone some of those down. In exchange, he needed to cut off one of his senses to be functional. Sight was the easiest.

Conversations gave him insight into what was going on over the whole festival. There was already some competition heating up with the rose gardens. One of the best crafters of silk flowers was rumored to have special fifteen minute sales that were great deals if you could catch them in time. There were some Pokemon breeders scattered throughout, including one for Eevees and another for rare birds. And then there was Wraith.

That, he always paid attention to. This morning when he'd woken up, he'd found that all of his Pokemon were under that Wraith status. Nothing came of it yet, unless Gallade's current grouchiness was related somehow. But it seemed like a number of Pokemon were coming up with it. Perhaps he needed to check into the Pokecenter again.

The cry of a child took hold of his attention. Lucien opened his eyes slowly and looked over at the source. It was a young boy who had tripped and scraped his knee. However, his mother was there and she was taking care of it already.

Fairly peaceful so far. Lucien closed his eyes again and kept alert, waiting for a chance when another one of the security group might come by. Or someone else he knew.



Darla, Gate Street (south of church)
March 21, 8 AM

Persim the Glameow slipped under the curtain covering the booth. Once out there, he stretched, the glanced around. The next door booth had a fenced in area, where five Pokemon were staying. Twirling his corkscrew tail and holding it high, he came closer to and around the fence until he got close to a Chatot. He gave a smug little smirk, glad that he was allowed to roam around instead of being fenced in. He even poked his paw through the fence, tauntingly.

“Persim!” a woman's voice came from behind the curtain. She started pulling the curtain aside, opening up her booth. “Don't be causing trouble.”

Sniffing, the Glameow pulled his paw back and began a brief bit of grooming. Of course he wasn't causing trouble. Only other people would think he was causing trouble.

Darla and one of her assistance kept pulling the curtains around to the back, finally revealing their booth for the morning. They were later than other booths, as they had to set up nearly everything. But what they had on display was strange and unique. It was a mix of tulips and lilies, a small group as cut flowers in vases but most as potted plants. They were quite large blossoms, but the unique thing about them was their color. These flowers were unreal: some black, some brilliant blue streaked with white, and some with a silver tone to their blue. The black lilies and tulips were occasionally seen as rare hybrids. But the blue ones, they were in a color that had never been seen before. A sign on the front table didn't identify who they were, but it did give a pricing list to buy bulbs or pots. Quite high prices for flowers, but almost reasonable for such strange flowers.

The blue haired woman went over to the small table that had the cash register on it. Glancing over, she noticed the woman with the bird Pokemon; she was watching Persim near her birds warily. “Howdy, neighbor,” Darla said with a smile and a wave.

 

[Monster Guy]

Aaron, Fountain Street
March 21st, 8AM

Aaron made his way through the crowded streets of Hearthome, sitting on top of his Drapion. He found that riding on his Pokemon was a good way to traverse through crowds like this. People tend to get out of the way when they see a large purple scorpion thing approaching. Not that Aaron understood why, his Drapion wouldn't hurt anyone outside of a battle.

The atmosphere was upbeat and cheerful, which was to be expected during a time like this, and it matched the green haired trainer's current mood. Booths were set up all over selling various things, and of course, many of those booths were decorated with many different kinds of flowers. It was a flower festival after all.

As he roamed around, looking for something to do, occasionally waving hello to some people that had greeted him, he happened to spot one of his colleagues among the crowd. Lucian stood there, with his arms crossed and his eyes shut. Aaron knew very well though that he was still aware of his surroundings, and was likely deep in thought. Aaron never understood how he could just stand there for so long without being driven mad from boredom. Of course, Aaron could barely sit still sometimes. Maybe that's why they asked the blue haired one to lead the security group and not him. It wasn't a loss for Aaron though, this meant he could actually enjoy the festival without the added resoponsiblity.

Aaron stepped off Drapion, and walked on his own, his Pokemon following behind. He walked up to his fellow Elite Four member, and lightly tapped him on the shoulder. "Hi, have ya found any trouble yet?" Aaron said with a friendly grin on his face. Then, his attention turned to his angry looking Gallade who was sitting nearby. Sharpening his blades like he was getting ready to kill someone. "Wow, what happened to him?" He asked while pointing to Gallade with his thumb.

(OOC: I'm not sure where to place Lucas yet. I'll do something with him later.)

 

[Ysavvryl]

Lucien, Fountain Street
3/21, 8 AM

He noticed the footsteps of a Drapion on the streets. It was Aaron, probably out riding his Pokemon. Not worried about him, Lucien continued his observations. There was some talk of some odd flowers, like a set of roses that smelled more like apple blossoms or someone selling only blue and black colored flowers. No violence or major political demonstrations, which was promising. It was still early, though.

Aaron noticed him, then got off his Pokemon and came up to tap him on the shoulder. “Hi, have ya found any troubles yet?”

“Nothing concrete,” Lucien said, shifting his focus so he could open his eyes and properly converse.

“Wow, what happened to him?” Aaron asked, indicating Gallade.

The Psychic Pokemon growled softly, clenching his fists. In the meantime, Bronzong came over to Drapion and cheerily began chatting with him. And possibly confusing him with something.

“Gallade,” Lucien said in warning. Then he shook his head. “I'm not certain, but he's been like that all morning. I need to keep an eye on him, which is the main reason I have him out. The only thing that seems to be different is that he's under a strange status, 'Wraith'. Nobody seems to know anything about it.”

Gallade snorted at something the other two Pokemon were saying, then got up and walked off towards one of the fountains that lined this street. Girafarig came back over and tried to cheer him up. From the way she stopped suddenly when he put one of his blades down, it hadn't worked.

Lucien patted Girafarig and glanced after his Gallade. “But all three of mine are under this status, and he's the only one being cranky. Speaking of that, could I get you to do something for me? I'm assigned to this street for the morning, but would you go to the Pokecenter and ask the nurse on duty if they've found out anything more about Wraith? Especially how many Pokemon have been afflicted; a lot of people are talking about it. I'm sure they'll be asking me about it and I need to know.”


Jacen, outside Amity Square's west entrance
3/21, 8 AM

They had the turnstile in front of the entrance again. For a moment, Jacen wondered if they had brought out the restrictions back as well. That had raised quite a furor when Amity Square was first opened, that only cute Pokemon were allowed in. And only those that the management considered cute. People had pushed for other Pokemon to be considered cute, but more importantly to get the restriction taken away entirely so long as the Trainer only brought in one Pokemon and did nothing to ruin the park or disturb other visitors.

But by the sign on the wall, it was one Pokemon at a time, no restrictions on what it was. There were still the restrictions on time, and a new restriction on how many visitors could be in at one time. That did not look promising. Around the room, he could see that the ladies who worked here were dressed up even fancier than usual, with their blue sun hats and blue dresses, but now with flowers as decorations. Some had just a simple floral pin, while others went all out with flowers on their hats, dress, wristbands, necklaces, even as earrings. Such a bit fuss over something that doesn't last long.

Finding an attendant who was familiar, Jacen went up to her and asked, “What's with the new rule?”

She smiled. “Oh, hi Jacen! It's because there's so many people here and we want to keep our park clean and relaxed. Too many people and Pokemon would get stressful and we don't want that in the park.”

“I see.” Then he probably wouldn't get to take Bobbie for a walk here. Maybe outside the city. But then, the wild Pokemon would always come up for a fight and he'd spend half his time trying to shoo them away instead.

“We're full now, but I can get you scheduled in,” she said. “How about at 11:30?”

“11:30? That long?”

“Sorry,” she said, bowing her head. “All the reservation slots are filled up until then, and the line to get another slot is, well,” she gestured over to the line of people and Pokemon against the wall and out the door.

“Buuuu,” the Bibarel said, smiling up at him.

He took a deep breath. “I suppose we could wait for then.”

“Great, I'll sign you up,” she said cheerfully. “You can look around the festival until then. Oh, but I haven't seen you or Bobbie in weeks. Have you two been traveling?”

Go out into that crowd? He usually took Bobbie into Amity Square to be less crowded. But then, his Pokemon was there with him, and he knew the town better than all the visitors. They could find a quiet place if need be. “No, I've just been working,” he told the receptionist. “You must have been off duty at the times we've come. Thank you for helping.”

“No problem, and you shouldn't work yourself so hard. You seem pale.” Then she laughed. “But I suppose everyone is, after that winter. I'll see you two later then.”


Data Log

Mon1010

Spoiler: data

Aaron
Drapion- infected, no change

 

[Kiruria]

Yamiko and Mr. D
Streets of Hearthome, 8AM
"Suspicion, Theft, and Bird-Calling"

Ahh, what a beautiful morning it was. Both Yamiko and Mr. D were used to waking up rather early, for there was just something magical about being out in the relatively quiet morning, before the bustle of the noontime crowds, which were especially inevitable during the Spring Flower Festival. Currently the two dancers were strolling through the streets of Hearthome, deciding that now was a good time to browse around the different booths, while they weren't blocked with crowds of potential customers. Holding hands, they tried to walk in unison, but Yamiko had to take more steps than Mr. D due to her legs being shorter than his. Nico the Purrloin followed close behind, enjoying this morning stroll so far.

As they walked around, Yamiko kept a keen eye on what was displayed in the booths. Some of them had not yet opened for the day, but she kept an eye out for the few that had. As she eyed the merchandise, she kept a special eye out for small things, especially small and narrow things, that struck her fancy. Once in a while she glanced at Mr. D, who was surverying the merchandise as well, but in his case merely admiring the beauty of some of the flowers, especially, that were on display.

In fact, one such flower booth stood out from the others, one almost directly opposite the church. This one featured flowers in unusual colours: black and various shades and patterns of blue. Curious, Mr. D approached this booth, wanting to investigate this further. His eyes narrowed a slight bit as he walked up to the flowers on display. When he reached the booth, he examined the flowers closely, looking for whether they had been painted, or if they were somehow naturally that way. For such unusual colours, they seemed to be surprisingly natural, no paint or anything. Curious, curious indeed...

While Mr. D was busy eyeing the flowers, Yamiko gently freed her hand from his own and sneaked her way over to the adjacent booth (not the one with the birds; the other one). This booth had just barely opened, and featured lots of flower-inspired jewelry. Some of the necklaces seemed rather interesting, especially. After some visual browsing, her eyes stopped on one particular necklace that stood out to her. It was just a pendant on a black cord, but the pendant featured a circle of black and silver twigs that looked very wreath-like. On top of that was a ring of purple roses. Wow. Yamiko had never come across a piece of jewelry as uniquely interesting as this. She turned over the set to look at the price... and nearly jumped back in shock. Why did jewelry pieces sold at festivals have to be so darn expensive?

Quickly recovering from her shock, she spotted the booth owner, a lady who was currently occupied with hanging a boxful of earrings up on a stand. Looking back to the necklaces, she rummaged around them, holding them in her hand just for amusement. Amidst all the playing around, she removed the purple-rose necklace from the stand and slipped it into her sleeve. Moments later, the booth owner turned to look at her.

"Good morning miss, how are you?" she greeted. "Many of those necklaces are my favourite, and some of them would look quite good on you."

"Erm, thanks," Yamiko replied, a little bit flattered by the compliment. While doing so, she cutely clasped her hands together, her alterior motive for doing this being to avoid having the hidden necklace fall out of her sleeve. "You got some really nice ones here... but I have yet to get to the ATM today, so maybe I'll come back later."

The two exchanged silent farewells, and Yamiko walked back over to Mr. D was. Once there (and out of sight of the jewelry seller), she opened her shoulder bag and dropped the stolen necklace into a small pocket inside of it. Satisfied with her thieving skills, she innocently turned to Mr. D, joining him in his inspection of the flowers.

"Did you see these unusual coloured flowers, cherie?" Mr. D said to her, holding a bright blue lily by the petal. He pronounced the "flow" in "flowers" like the word "flow", making the word sound much more similar to "fleurs". "It's possible these are their natural colour."

"Hmm, that's interesting," Yamiko remarked.

By that time, Mr. D's attention was on the owner of this booth: a pretty young woman in a skirt... though her braided hair was just as odd a colour as the flowers: a metallic blue.

"Bonjour, mademoiselle," he greeted. Even though it sounded rather cheesy, he still liked it as one of his favourite greetings. "What lovely flowers you have." He pronounced "flowers" the exact same way as before. "How do they become such unusual colours?"

Meanwhile, Nico had spotted the Glameow at the booth, one who was presently teasing a Chatot in the next booth over. He trotted over to the Glameow's side, not because of the Glameow himself, but because of the Starly flying around behind the Chatot. He made a series of clicking noises at it, hoping to attract its attention, while wagging his tail expectantly. The Glameow nearby glared at him, but Nico just ignored it for now, resuming his bird-calling, which wasn't doing anything at the moment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OOC: I know I kinda bunnied Darla's Glameow at the end, but hopefully it isn't anything too major. But yeah, you can usually expect the daughter of a stage magician to be naturally light-fingered. ^_^

 

[Monster Guy]

Aaron, Fountain Street
3/21, 8 AM

As the Elite Two were talking, Bronzing happily chatted up Drapion. No one could understand what those two were talking about, but whatever it was, must have been a very interesting subject.

“I'm not certain, but he's been like that all morning. I need to keep an eye on him, which is the main reason I have him out. The only thing that seems to be different is that he's under a strange status, 'Wraith'. Nobody seems to know anything about it.”

Gallade snorted at something the other two Pokemon were saying, then got up and walked off towards one of the fountains. This prompted Drapion to snort back. A battle may have ensued, but Girafarig intervened, she tried to cheer Gallade up, but whatever she did, didn't work.

Lucien patted Girafarig and glanced after his Gallade. “But all three of mine are under this status, and he's the only one being cranky. Speaking of that, could I get you to do something for me? I'm assigned to this street for the morning, but would you go to the Pokecenter and ask the nurse on duty if they've found out anything more about Wraith? Especially how many Pokemon have been afflicted; a lot of people are talking about it. I'm sure they'll be asking me about it and I need to know.”

Aaron smiled politely. "Sure. I'll see what I can find out." He gestured to Drapion. "Come on buddy."

Drapion said good bye to his new playmate, and scurried over to his trainer. Then Aaron hopped on, and the two went off to the Pokemon Center.

Lucas - Exhibition battle stage
March 21st 8AM

"Lila, use Ice Fang!" The young champion commanded.

His Luxray purred with approval as she charged foward at an opposing Gliscor. She bared her teeth, which were glowing Icy blue.

"Glider get out of there quick!" The Gliscors owner, another young trainer around the same age as Lucas, warned his Pokemon, his eyes were wide with shock. But was too late, the Luxray had chomped her icy fangs into the Gliscors wing. The poor screamed in pain from the cold, and fainted.

"Aaaand the winner of this battle is, Lucas! Isn't he amazing folks?!" Said an overly enthusiastic announcer, standing on the sidelines, into a microphone.

The audience burst into applause as both trainers recalled their respective Pokemon, and got off the stage. Lucas then went over to the other boy, and stuck out his hand for him to shake it. "Hey, you weren't bad yourself. If it weren't for Ice Fang, you could've won."

He accepted the gesture. "Thanks. I did not know Luxray could learn Ice Fang. You were great, It's not hard to see how you beat Cynthia."

The praise made Lucas blush. He still wasn't used to it. He grinned, and put his hands behind his head. "She was still tough though. Heh, I'm still surprised I managed to win. I never expected to get that far, let alone become Champion. You can do it too with some more."

After a breif conversation, Lucas said his goodbyes, and made his way to the Pokemon Center. Everybody and their mother had wanted to challenge him since he became champion. He didn't mind, his Pokemon enjoyed the battles, and it was good practice. But right now they needed a break.

Aaron - Pokemon Center
March 21 8AM

"What was the last thing your Pokemon did?" The nurse asked the green haired trainer

"Besides riding me here, they were playing with Lucien's Pokemon." After arriving to the center, he recalled his Pokemon, and written on the status screen was the word 'Wraith.' He immediately went to question the nurse about it. "You don't suppose this could be contagious?"

"All signs point to that." The nurse said somberly. "We still have no knowledge about this condition, but you are not the first person with this. I'm going to have to keep your Drapion for a bit for study. I hope that isn't a problem."

"If that's what must be done." Aaron sighed as the nurse took his pokeball to a room in the back.

At the moment, a familiar young champion wearing a red hat walked in. He had pretty much heard the conversation that had just taken place. "Sorry, I couldn't help overhearing. What's happening?"

"Hey Luke." Aaron said to the boy as he took a seats in one of the chairs that were there for trainers to wait for their Pokemon. He wasn't quite as cheerful as he was earlier. "You'll want to have a talk with Lucien about this. There's some weird status going around. Hey, could you do me a favor and give him a message for me?"

The younger boy nodded. "Sure, what do you want me to tell him?"
---

OOC: Ysa, you can bunny Lucas and fill in any blanks I didn't include.

 

[Ysavvryl]

Darla, Gate Street in front of cathedral
3/21, 8 AM

Darla was happy, humming to herself. There were some people who just thought the flowers were pretty, but there were some that stared and poked at them for a while, trying to figure out if they were real. Quite a few wondered if they were dyed. Although she hadn't had any buying customers yet, surely all the serious growers were at their own displays. They'd come looking soon enough.

Like this one man who was wearing an impressive green longcoat, to even greater effect because he was on the tall side. He even made a rather nice attempt at sounding French. "Bonjour, mademoiselle," he greeted. "What lovely flowers you have. How do they become such unusual colours?"

“Hi there!” she said cheerily, with a bright smile. “Aren't they just precious? I've been breeding them for several years now.” Actually only a few months, but that was her story. “I had a few strands of the tulips mutate to the solid blue at first, and then the lilies came up that fall. Can't say why exactly those mutations started, but I knew they were special, so I've been secretly breeding them with just a few people. They were surprisingly sturdy, though, and easy to take care of, so I decided to reveal them this year.”

And the reason that they were special was because they weren't even from this world.

“Would you like some?” Darla asked, hopeful to make a first sale. “You're not going to find any others like these for a...”

All of a sudden, there was a loud commotion from the next booth over. Some prankster Houndor decided to rush right at the two feline Pokemon, barking excitedly. The bird Pokemon there flew off to the other side of their pen in a fright, while Persim rushed back to Darla's booth, hiding himself under the tablecloth.

“Oh dear,” Darla said, going over and lifting up the tablecloth a bit. “You okay, sweetie?”

The Glameow was all puffed up, giving a wide-eyed look at getting startled like that.


Lucien, Fountain Street
3/21, 8 AM

He had recalled Gallade for the time being, as there were people walking and sitting near the fountains. The other two were still in good moods, so Lucien left them to their own devices while he went back onto his watch. As he was beginning to wonder if Aaron had gotten distracted in something, he noticed another familiar person approach him.

It was Lucas and he had a message from Aaron. “He got held up at the Pokecenter as his Drapion turned out to be anther one with the Wraith status. The staff suspects strongly that it's contagious.”

“Is it?” And here he'd had his three out for much of this past hour. Reluctantly, he whistled to get Girafarig's attention. “I'd have liked to known that sooner. Sorry you two, but you shouldn't be out for now.”

Bronzong made a disappointed tolling while Girafarig nuzzled Lucien's hand and recalled herself.

Once he had all three away, he turned back to Lucas. “And what about the number of cases they have?”

“Six hundred and fifty Pokemon so far,” the boy said.

That was alarming. Lucien clasped his bag. “That many? And here I had the third known occurrence of this last night.” At that point, he noticed his nervous reaction and shifted to grabbing his phone instead. He'd need to alert the other members of the security team as well as the people running the festival. “People aren't going to like this, but we'd better recommend that all Pokemon be kept to their Pokeballs for now.”


Jacen, near contest hall
3/21, 8 AM

Now if this was a computer convention, then Jacen would know exactly what to do. He'd like that kind of event, but the major ones never seemed to happen near here. But no, it was about flowers and he didn't know much of anything about flowers. They never seemed important or interesting. Sure, they were pretty, but that never seemed like enough.

As for Bobbie, she thought flowers were for eating and would be more interested in sticks to build something out of. But the Biberel did spot something interesting: a booth that had some Pokemon fenced in a display area. There were a couple of people and their Pokemon over there visiting already. Were the Pokemon nice? She pawed at Jacen's knee.

He had been thinking of traffic algorithms and how it might apply to these crowded streets when she did. “What is it?” he asked, looking down at her. When she indicated that she was interested in meeting those Pokemon, he shrugged and walked over to see what the big deal was.

It was a few rare Pokemon: an Espeon, and Umbreon, and one he had to watch for a bit before figuring out it was a Glaceon. They were rather popular, he thought, but he didn't see them around too often. As the other people had moved on, Bobbie was able to go up to the fence and greet the other Pokemon, in hopes of getting to talk or play or something.

“Did you want another friend around?” Jacen asked, seeing as she seemed happy about it. “It's always just been you and me.” He watched the Pokemon, thinking.

There was a click overhead as the loudspeaker system came on. “Attention everyone, please,” a woman's voice said. Jacen glanced up at the pole with the speakers while the noise level of the streets went down some. “Due to unusual circumstances, the festival organizers are now recommending that people do not keep their Pokemon out in the streets for today. This is for the well-being of your Pokemon. We are investigating the problems. I repeat, we do not recommend that people have their Pokemon released outside for today. Thank you.”

That was weird. However, Jacen didn't bother with the instructions immediately. There didn't seem to be anything that dangerous around; they might be trying to cut down on the crowds, but he and Bobbie weren't in the way.


Data Log

All: Timeskip to noon is to happen soon; can be your next post or you can finish morning events.

Ysavvryl/Darla
Persim- infected, no change

Kiruria
Nico- infected, no change

Slipomatic
Serene- infected, no change

 

[Slipomatic]

Sabrieon Evo
Booth near Contest hall
March 21, 8 AM

Sabrieon was secretly pleased with the amount of attention his booth was receiving. He had already gotten several contest coordinators who wanted to raise an eevee. He had several baby eevees at his ranch that would no longer be dependent on their mother after a few more weeks. He had a decent pile of forms already filled out. He did have one policy that he had almost forgotten to put up. He would be only giving eevees and none of their evolutions. He reckoned that more often than not, the evolved forms were more mature and often found a partner to be with and thus separating them would do a lot of harm. He watched as a group of people left his booth and a guy with a bibarel approached the booth. He greeted the guy courteously, although he reckoned that he was slightly distracted about something. He looked down curiously and saw Serene chatting away with the bibarel. He let out a soft chuckle as his pokemon was chatting like it was the end of the world. An announcement did make him become irritated as the announcement said that they recommended people to not have their pokemon out for the day. He couldn’t really afford to waste a day with his booth closed since his pokemon were essentially the attention grabbers and he was their simply to answer questions and interest people into thinking about owning an eevee.

He winced as he weighed the options of ignoring the announcement and returning his pokemon. On one hand, he could get in trouble with the event organizers for not following the announcement and thus could get removed if the case was serious. On the other hand, he would lose a lot of interest if he returned his pokemon, but would still be able to run his booth sort of. He sighed as he caved in and said to the guy observing his pokemon, “I don’t know what the event organizers are worried about. The only thing I can think of that would make them worried is an outbreak of pokerus. It’s okay for pokemon, but there is a time period of where they’re capable of transmitting it to humans via fluid contact, like saliva or blood. It also makes them delirious for a period of time so they may confuse you as an enemy and attack you. I guess I’m returning my pokemon. I’m going to have to be slightly more creative to attract people here now since my pokemon was the main attraction. I should have thought of a backup plan…”

He sighed as he returned all of his pokemon getting a disappointed cry from Serene and bibarel as their conversation was cut short. He smiled apologetically at the man and said, “I hope your day goes well, I’m sure that I’ll think of something.”

 

[Kiruria]

OOC: We're timeskipping to noon? Why, that's when Yamiko and Mr. D are performing! And hmm, I guess I can conclude that random Houndour infected both cats with Bloodwraith. Stupid dogs... And since it is a random Houndour, I guess that makes it a controllable NPC?
IC:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yamiko and Mr. D
Darla's Unusual Flower Shop, 8AM

While Mr. D was talking to the blue-haired flower lady, a Houndour came along and barked at the two cats. The Glameow immediately went and hid under a table; Nico jumped onto all fours and took a few steps backward, but kept his ground. He and the Houndour locked eyes, Nico's alluring blue ones with the Houndour's menacing white ones. Taking on a timid and submissive stance, Nico uttered a questioning meow. In response, the Houndour stepped forward towards Nico, growling, locked onto the foreign cat's scent.

As this was going on, Mr. D was taking another look at the flowers. He was unphazed by the incident with the Houndour, knowing that those silly dogs have a rivalry with cat Pokemon and a tendency to be aggressive. And if one was out and about in the daytime, that probably meant it had a trainer, so there was nothing to be afraid of. Instead he returned his attention to the owner of this shop.

"I am sorry, but I largely prefer flowers that look more natural." He still pronounced "flowers" like the word "flow" with "ers" just added on, his French accent still fairly prominent as usual. "And besides, those daisies cannot be natural. My own father is a gardener, you see, and has breeded daisies for long times. He's never had a blue one, and the literature has no reports on blue daisies either. Clearly you are using a dye to water the flowers, no? I do believe roses are among the few flowers that can be breeded blue, but the tulips, no. You watch out--you say these flowers are of natural colours, but when you lie you can get into big trouble. Do not be shamed to say ze flowers are dyed. People appreciate their beauty no matter how they form, but lying about them gets you nowhere."

Yamiko had nothing to say in response to Mr. D's comment about the flowers. Instead she turned her attention to Nico, who was now face-to-face with an angry Houndour.

"Nico, watch out!" she warned. "Houndours have nasty bites. If he wants to fight you, be sure to keep your distance!" Yes, one look near Houndour's tail and she could see that it was a male. It would be awkward for a female to get this aggressive anyway. "If you need to, use Sand-Attack on it first!"

Sand-Attack sounded like a good idea. Or Dirt-Attack, as it should be called in this case. Not wanting to be attacked, Nico brushed some dirt into Houndour's face using his front paws. Irritated, the Houndour shut his eyes tight and shook his head, trying to get the dust out of his eyes. He leapt foward and tried to bite Nico, but Nico jumped out of the way to dodge.

"Now use Double Team!" Yamiko instructed. Perfect, Nico happened to be thinking the same thing. With a sly look on his face, he dashed around Houndour in a circle, several blurry images of him appearing in his wake. Houndour tried to blow a fireball at him, but the fireball ended up going through a blurry Nico image instead of the real cat. It did set the bottom of a tablecloth on fire though.

"Yikes!" Yamiko jumped to the sides, narrowly avoiding burning her own jeans on the flames that suddenly appeared. In response, she took off her hat and waved it around in front of the fire, hoping to use it as a fan to put it out. The flames died down a little bit, but weren't gone completely.
"Uhh... we have a problem here? Some Houndour set fire to your table..."

In the lack of a battle command, Nico was left to decide what to do next all by himself. He certainly didn't feel like using any physical attacks, thinking the Houndour would stop him in his tracks with a Bite if he tried anything like that. So he used the only moved that could produce a longe-range attack: Assist. Waving his paws around a bit, he kept his teammates--Venifica, Mayflower, and Puck--in mind, leaving it up to fate to decide which of their attacks he would use.

When he was done with the attack, glowing purple flames glided along towards Houndour. They touched him, but didn't seem to do anything. In fact, Houndour seemed to grow more angry.
"That was Venifica's Will-O-Wisp..." Yamiko muttered, accompanied by a face-palm. "And apparently that Houndour has Flash Fire. Great."

Panicking, Nico tried using Assist one more time. After a frantic wave of his front paws, he sprinkled a yellow powder over Houndour. But before the powder could touch the dog, Houndour blew fire at it, burning it and rendering it useless. Some of the fiery powder did land on him, but didn't seem to do anything. The powder that fell on Nico, by contrast, produced an irritating sensation in his fur. His Double Team had been broken; he meandered about sluggishly, unable to move as fast as he could before.

"Puck's Stun Spore..." Yamiko grumbled, cursing her bad luck. "Nico, since you're paralyzed, try using Thunder Wave on him so that he's paralyzed as well!"

By this time, Mr. D had taken notice of the battle going on in front of the booth, and was presently stomping out the fire that was spreading across the tablecloth. He thought about sending out his own Pokemon for backup, but both of them were weak against fire, so they certainly wouldn't fare very well. Mayflower could put Houndour to sleep with Sleep Powder, but even that was risky, given how Houndour had burnt up the Assisted Stun Spore Nico used.

Before Nico could use Thunder Wave (a move that surprised many other trainers, since most of them didn't know Purrloin can learn it via TM), though, Houndour pounced in for the kill. Okay, maybe that was exaggerating it a bit. But that bully dog clamped its jaws around Nico's little body, shaking him savagely about. The little cat in his mouth gave a shrill high-pitched meow, flailing his claws about but never sinking them in.

Without hesitation, Yamiko rushed over to where Nico was, taking his Pokeball out and pointing it at the trapped cat.
"Nico, return!"
The beam coming out of the Pokeball missed, due to Houndour shaking Nico about.
"Dammit... return!"
It missed again. And the Houndour didn't cease its biting. Turning around, Yamiko called out to her boyfriend.

"Hey Mr. D! I need help with this Houndour... it's trying to kill Nico!" Well, maybe not, but that's what she thought at the time.

Mr. D didn't know what to do with this situation. The scene with the Houndour threatening Nico took him by surprise, and he had a knack of becoming confused and disoriented when surprised. He stood there with his hands fumbling around at his sides, looking about in a panic, unsure of what to do. His Pokemon weren't going to be of any help, so...

Yamiko briefly thought about having Venifica help get the Houndour off of Nico, but since Houndour was Dark-type, it wouldn't be too affected by Venifica's psychic powers. Plus, Venifica hated sunlight, and this was quite a sunny morning. So in a daring move of her own, she ran over to the Houndour and kicked it as hard as she could in its ribcage area.

"Stop it!" she growled. The Houndour gave a little yelp, but then growled and started using Nico as a chew toy again. But before he could sink his teeth into Nico again, Nico's body turned into a mass of red energy, which escaped into the Pokeball in Yamiko's outstretched hand.

"Cherie!" Mr. D called to her. "You shouldn't be attacking a Pokemon like that..."

"SHUT UP!" Yamiko snapped, standing up and watching the Houndour. The Houndour uttered a low growl, then turned around and walked away. "Look, let's just get to a Pokemon Centre before Nico suffers much longer..." As she was saying this, a tear ran down her cheek. She refused to look at Mr. D, or the retreating Houndour, or Nico's Pokeball, or really anyone for that matter. Without waiting to see if Mr. D followed, she started walking in the direction of the Pokemon Centre.

"Cherie..." Mr. D muttered, looking at her, then Darla... "Sorry, but I'll have to be back later..." And he jogged his way after Yamiko.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hearthome Pokemon Centre

Once Yamiko and Mr. D were in the Pokemon Centre, they were met with a familiar sight. Well, maybe not too familiar, but it was a face they had at least seen on TV a few times. It was Aaron of Sinnoh's Elite Four, a trainer who specialised in bug Pokemon. A trainer Yamiko overlooked in comparison to a very interesting Unova gym leader named Burgh, who also specialised in the Bug-type. In fact, Yamiko didn't seem to care much whether he was famous or not. She rushed up anxiously to the counter with Nico's Pokeball in hand, panting as she handed it to Nuse Joy.

"It's my Purrloin... he got bitten by a Houndour and... pretty badly I think..." She couldn't really talk well when she was out of breath like that.

"Purrloin, that's a Pokemon we don't see everyday," Nuse Joy remarked. "Okay, lemme have a look..." she said to Yamiko, taking the Pokeball and heading back to the Pokemon Centre's special healing machine. Yamiko could see a Chansey in a nurse's hat hurrying around in the background.

Minutes later, Mr. D finally arrived, almost as out of breath as Yamiko originally was. He nearly jumped back in surprise when he saw who was also in the Pokemon Centre...

"Why, if it isn't Sir Aaron!" Mr. D greeted the bug trainer. "I thought you'd be here at ze Spring Flower Festival, given how important insects are for flower pollination. In fact..."
He dropped a Pokeball by his side, and a somewhat shabby-looking Butterfree emerged from it, landing on Mr. D's outstretched elbow.

"Puck, this is Aaron, an expert on bug Pokemon," Mr. D explained to the Butterfree.

"Free fereeee," Puck greeted to Aaron. He knew about Aaron as well, but didn't hold him in quite as high a regard as his trainer did.

"And most people call me Mr. D," the tall and handsome guy in the green coat continued. "My girlfriend and I are scheduled to perform a ballet number at noon, over at the Magnolia Stage by the gym. If you are not busy at that time, I'd be honoured to have your opinion of it. Puck here will be performing in it as well. In fact, after we're done here, we should probably be getting ready for it. So, what are your plans in this festival?"

Yamiko watched with disdain as Mr. D and Aaron had their conversation. After a minute or so of it, she turned her thoughts to the upcoming ballet number she and Mr. D were to perform. When she thought of the music that was to play during it, she smiled. Mr. D himself had picked out that song, and Yamiko loved it. Serene and beautiful, it not only uplifted her feelings whenever she heard it, but it told a story of youthful love, and evoked the exact feelings she had experienced when she met Mr. D for the first time, and for all the times thereafter when she rested in his arms while sitting on a park bench and watching the sunset, or sat watching the busy bustle of the city through the bus window while sitting next to him. Such simple things made her so happy inside... such simple things made everything momentarily better, like stopping to smell a rose along the path of life. How romantic indeed.

And then she thought of Celia, her great-grandmother who had afflicted her with that life-long curse, and who haunted her in too many dreams to count. It seemed nowadays that she couldn't so much as close her eyes without catching a glimpse of her. Especially at night, when the veil between the worlds was thin. Even now, gazing upon the spot where Nico was being healed, she could swear she saw her pale, laughing face hovering above the Pokeball, taunting her, mocking her, determined to put a miserable twist in anything she tried to do. Why must it be like this? Her head grew steadily heavier, and she propped herself up with her forearms on the counter, a few more tears landing on them.

After a little while, she felt a hand rubbing her shoulder.
"It was only an unlucky accident," Mr. D assured her. "And it certainly, certainly wasn't your fault. Nico will feel just fine, just fine very shortly. The good thing is he's not participating in our dance, so he can rest today."

"Oh, that's right!" Nurse Joy chimed in. "You two are performing that opening dance, right? I wish I could watch, but I'm busy busy busy, as ever..."
She handed over Nico's Pokeball.
"Your Purrloin is all better. But check on its status, just in case..."

Yamiko seemed a bit relieved, but needed to let Nico out of his Pokeball again to confirm this. The Purrloin emerged pretty as ever, though there were a couple of little scars on his back from where the Houndour had bitten him. He uttered a soft meow, walking close to Yamiko and brushing up against her leg. By that time, Mr. D was standing next to Aaron again, Puck riding on top of his head now. Yamiko was walking towards him as well, checking Nico's status on her Pokedex like Nurse Joy advised. By the time she arrived at Aaron's side, she had a confused look on her face. After a long pause, she pointed to the screen.

"What is this?"

Her finger was pointing at what was listed for Nico's status. Usually when he was healed at the Pokemon Centre his status said "OK", meaning he was no longer paralyzed or anything. But this time the status said "Wraith".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OOC: I hope I'm not bunnying people too much with my post... especially Nurse Joy and the Houndour.

 

[Monster Guy]

Aaron
Pokemon Center 8AM

Aaron sat in the chairs and waited while the nurse held his Pokemon for study. He was concerned what this 'Wraith' status would do to his Drapion. Though it wasn't the first Pokemon he caught (His Beautifly gets that honor.) he's had it for a long time, and was concerned for his well being nonetheless. Even if he wasn't technically a Bug type, it was still a vital member of the team. An announcement was soon made for all trainers to be kept in their Pokeballs, which meant Lucas gave Lucien the message. Hopefully the cause of this mysterious condition would be figured out soon enough. Aaron was soon interupted from his thoughts when a tall gentleman wearing a green overcoat, and spoke with an accent that reminded him of Fantina's. Judging by the way he was dressed, he could have been just as eccentric as she is.

"Why, if it isn't Sir Aaron!" the man greeted the Bug trainer. "I thought you'd be here at ze Spring Flower Festival, given how important insects are for pollination. In fact..." he dropped a poke ball by his side, and a somewhat shabby looking Butterfree emerged from it. Landing on the man's elbow. A small smile appeared on Aaron's face from seeing the Butterfree. Those weren't exactly common in Sinnoh.

He introduced his Butterfree named Puck. The guy called him an expert on Bug Pokemon which made the green haired young man blush a little. He loved Bug types sure, but he didn't consider himself an expert. He still had much to learn. Still, he appreciated the compliment.

"And most people call me Mr. D." The gentleman continued. "My girlfriend and I are scheduled to perform a ballet number at noon, over at the Magnolia Stage by the gym. If you are not busy, I'd be honoured to have your opinion of it. Puck here will be performing in it as well. In fact, after we're done here, we should probably be getting ready for it. So, what are your plans for the festival?"

"Honestly, I don't have any plans for the festival right now. I'm just here to see what there is to see. Oh, and help with the pollination." He stifiled a giggle, as he took out a Safari Ball to let out one of the Pokemon who was most likely restless and raring to come out, and released the Pokemon inside. In a flash of light, the newest additions to his team, Yanmega, emerged. The Mega Darner Pokemon seemed very interested in Puck, he'd never seen anything like him before. He zoomed over, and started darting around his head. His wings making a low buzzing noise as he flew. "This is Yanmega, I caught him as a Yanma not too long ago, and he evolved rather quicly. You'll have to excuse him, he's a bit...energetic. Interesting Butterfree you have here. You don't really see those around here too much. I'll go see your performance, sure. Though I'm probably not the best person to be giving critiques on ballet, I'll definitely want to see this guy perform." He said with a smile, as he went over to pat Puck's head. The Butterfly Pokemon took that opportunity to fly off Puck's shoulder, and take a seat on Aaron's head. Yanmega followed closely behind, and continued pestering the Butterfree."

Mr. D went over to have a word with a red haired girl, who was probably that girlfriend he was talking about. After she recieved a pokeball from the nurse, she let out another non Sinnoh Pokemon from it, a Purrlion. Aaron had only knew what it was from reading a magazine article about Unovan Pokemon a while ago. He was more interested in reading about the Bug types.

As the group returned to Aaron's side, the girl looked at the Pokeball with a confused face. After a long pause, she pointed at the screen. "What is this?"

She was pointing at the status screen of her pokeball. In familiar digital letters was the word "Wraith."

Aaron frowned after seeing that word again reminded Aaron of Drapion. Talking to Mr. D gave him a bit of reprieve, but seeing another Pokemon with the Wraith status brought him back down. He sighed, "I don't know what "Wraith" is, but my Drapion has it. It's the reason I'm at the Pokemon Center right now; they're running some tests on him. They don't know anything about this, other than it's contagious, and that there apparently have been 650 cases of it so far. I think Drapion caught it from one of Lucien's Pokemon. Who was the last Pokemon your Purrlion was with?" He asked as he returned Yanmega to his Safari Ball.

 

[Kiruria]

OOC: Huh, I just realised that this RPG has trainers from every main region except Hoenn. Hoenn must feel left out.
IC:

Yamiko and Mr. D
Hearthome Pokemon Centre, 8AM

All the excited conversation seemed to come to a stop when Yamiko asked about Nico's Wraith status. Immediately Yamiko shied away from the conversation, wondering if she had done something wrong. (Perhaps it was bad karma for stealing that necklace? Or another act of Celia's curse?) She took a look at Nurse Joy, who seemed to be busy analyzing something. Probably that Drapion Aaron mentioned. Eventually she looked back at Aaron, and after taking another couple of steps backward, finally decided to speak.

"...We went to one of the booths and he was near a Glameow and a couple of bird Pokemon," she spoke in a small voice. "A-and then a Houndour came out of nowhere and attacked him. Pretty ruthlessly, in fact. But... did you say it's contagious?" Then she looked at the little cat burying his nose in her jeans, and knelt down by his side.

Nico looked clearly confused, but Yamiko could tell he suspected something was up. Aaron made it sound like the Houndour had given him the disease when he got bitten. But even he couldn't tell. He gave a nervous little meow, and Yamiko patted him on the head--more gingerly than normal.

"Um, Nico? Would you mind going back in your Pokeball for a while?"

Yamiko didn't even need to ask. Nico tapped the Pokeball she was holding and went right back in. At about the same time, Aaron returned his Yanmega to his Pokeball. Puck was relieved--all that buzzing around his head was getting annoying after a while. But he remained on Aaron's head, finding his green hair fun to play with.

"That's Nico," Mr. D introduced, indicating the infected Purrloin. "Fortunately he won't be in our performance, as he's..." and here he lowered his voice to more of a whisper, while Yamiko was walking back to Nurse Joy, "...not that good of a performer."
He thought back to the time when he first met Yamiko, at the famous Musical Theater in Unova. Mayflower, who was still a Petilil back then, had won a modest second place in the musical number she and a bunch of other Pokemon performed. The Purrloin next to her, on the other hand, made her look bad. All he did was nod his head back and forth like a bobblehead, thinking his naturally cute looks alone could win him first place. And the way he waved his paws around toward the end was both uncoordinated and awkward. He even accidentally bumped into Mayflower once. If that talentless Purrloin hadn't been next to Mayflower, she might have won first place. Mr. D had to wonder why Yamiko still liked him anyway--he was very strange and really not that good at anything besides stealing stuff. Oh well, at least he was at least okay to be around compared to the Chandelier from Hell that Yamiko also had.

Thankfully it was still daytime, so darkness-loving and light-hating Venifica had been hiding in her Pokeball all this time.

"Anyways, zis Wraith condition..." Mr. D continued, "...you don't suppose it could be contagious to humans, right? Some sort of disease or something? And do the other Elite Four know about this? Or are you the only one here?"

Meanwhile, Yamiko was handing Nico's Pokeball over to Nurse Joy and asking her about the Wraith status.

"You say he could have caught it from a wild Houndour?" Nurse Joy asked her. "So far I haven't found anything conclusive with Aaron's Drapion, but perhaps signs of this 'disease' could be more obvious in a mammal-type Pokemon..."

Putting a face mask and gloves on, she opened Nico's Pokeball and took him back to the exam room, warning her Chansey (who at this point also had a face mask on) to stay away from him.

 

[Monster Guy]

(OOC: I don't have anything I want to do with Lucas at present, so I'll just have him hang out with Lucian untill noon. Yay!)

Aaron
Pokemon Center
The longest 8AM in history

When the girl was asked about what other Pokemon her Purrlion had been with, she looked a nervous. She looked at Nurse Joy for a second, then back at Aaron. After taking a couple of steps backward, she explained that her Purrlion had been attacked by a Houndour while looking at some of the booths. After hearing that it was contagious, she returned her Pokemon back into it's pokeball, then went to give her Pokemon the nurse. Aaron figured she was probably feeling the same way he did when he discovered Drapion had Wraith.

"That's Nico." Explained Mr. D." "Fortunately, he won't be in our performance as he's..." he lowered his voice to a whisper, probably so his girlfriend wouldn't hear. "...not that good of a performer." Which made the Bug type trainer raise an eybrow. The remark seemed a bit insensitive considering the situation, still he held his tongue.

Then he spoke at normal tone again. "Anyway, zis wraith condition, you don't suppose it could be contagious to humans right? Some sort of disease or something? And do the other Elite Four know about this? Or are you the only one here?"

Aaron shrugged his shoulders. "I don't really know if it affects humans. And the only other Elite Four member I've seen today is Lucian, who was put in charge of the festival's security. He probably knows as much I do. I just sent Lucas off to give him a message. I haven't seen the others though..."

 

[Ysavvryl]

Lucien, walking around town
3/21, 12 PM

Through most of the morning, Lucas had stayed with Lucien, talking and working to keep things secure. But really, there weren't many disturbances. Someone had to be warned about having an aggressive Houndour out, and there had been an argument between some people. Really it was nothing more than would happen any other day. Around ten, there had been a report that there was a man who might be associated with Galactic, but he turned out to be handing out political pamphlets for another group and doing nothing wrong. It was only the first day, so the quiet might be expected.

However, that Wraith status remained a high concern. Lucien folded his phone shut at the end of the conversation with the on-duty doctor at the Pokecenter. “It's still spreading and hasn't been removed from any Pokemon,” he told Lucas. “Even have a few incidents of it over in Eterna now, at least five of which haven't been in Hearthome in the past week. A couple of Pokemon have been reported to have a fever, but still not enough to be anything conclusive. Might even be something else.”

And an illness striking at this time wasn't going to help matters much. The Sinnoh Pokecenters had even issued a halt to moving Pokemon from one location to another electronically, trying to halt progress of the spread. But if Wraith had already moved to Eterna when it wasn't a neighboring city, that was going to be hard to control. Hopefully the potential illness wasn't the same way.

“They've got people studying it now, so we can focus on our job here,” Lucien said. “By the way, have you spotted anywhere interesting for lunch?”


Darla, Gate Street
3/21, 12 PM

There were fewer Pokemon in the crowds. However, Darla still had her Glameow out; he was sitting on one of the display tables, watching the crowds again. “Now why are you a little Wraith, sweetie?” she asked, ruffling his violet fur. “I can still touch you and you've never been a ghost before.”

Persim twirled his tail and rubbed against her hand. Whatever she was talking about wasn't important to him, just that she was paying him attention.

“You should return that feline,” a man said, coming into her booth. A woman followed after her, carrying a clipboard. “There's supposedly some sickness or condition floating around getting to Pokemon.”

“He's all right, but if everybody's going to keep insisting,” Darla replied, reluctantly giving Persim one last pat before recalling him. “Were you interested in our flowers?”

“We've heard multiple claims that your blooms are dyed,” the woman said, starting to examine one of the blue tulips.

“Well they're not,” she said, smiling. “It was a few natural mutations that occurred, and I developed them. Besides, I'm not in any of the contests so nobody should worry about some false claim of dyes.”

“We don't want dyed flowers on sale unless they are noted as such,” the woman said. The two of them discussed something, then offered to buy a sample of the cut flowers and one of the potted blue tulips. But only if she would cut the price for the staff running the festival. Darla didn't like that, especially since they'd probably cut the flowers up for proof.

However, she also knew that she was right and sales might go up if the staff approved. Also, Master Cyrus approved of scientific endeavors. So she agreed to the discount and let them leave with a dozen flowers.


DATA LOG

All PC Pokemon are now infected; however, all save for the few noted below have no visible signs. And won't until around 8 PM of the 21st, and so that will be the next time we'll skip to. I do have a few things I want to do with Lucien and Jacen at noon at least.

Flame Mistress

Spoiler: data

I can't give you any info until you post again....

Ysavvryl/Lucien

Spoiler: data

Girafarig- fatigued and has a mild headache
Bronzong- severe fever