World Tree MUSH

    A pleasant nightin Alola! The weather is not unreasonably hot, wild pokemon are calm, the local mall is celebrating it's seasonal sales, so most of the locals and visitors seem to congregate there, leaving the streets mostly empty and peaceful!. Even team skull activity is at an all time low, with most of them just partying in their 'base' and doing part time jobs for more funds, rather than attempting to steal things!. It has come to a point that the local police has relaxed a bit. 

    Of course, a lack of 'local' activity usually means someone will come in to pick up the slack, and there were rumours of weird people in black outfits lurking around some of the fancier shops of the town. 

    For now, Luke is simply hanging around with Serrah, glad to be able to relax at his home turf, enjoying some icecream, and simply spending time with a friend, "So, how have you been?, I'm glad you decided to come around for some peace and quiet." he replies, even as he brings down his icecream cone to let one of his pokemon, Meowsey (or Konya, either name works) to sample it, the creami kitten purring loudly.

Serrah is looking much more relaxed than she did when she and Luke first met, even if she still has the spooky aura and general undead appearance of the vampires of her world. "Better than I have been in months," she says. "I wish I could head back to my home, but, y'know." She runs a hand through her hair and briefly reveals the black heart-shaped mark on her forehead. "Anyway, D is treating me well. Even if she isn't a hundred percent on the differences between the vampires of our respective worlds, but, eh. She's got, mmm, her own problems to deal with." A slight pause to lick at her own ice cream, and she shoots Luke a grin that shows her fangs, before she quickly closes her mouth again. "Uh, anyway, things are just ... more-or-less cool, I guess."

    Weiss is a little confused at how much time passed while she was in her homeworld, but had it explained to her somewhat that these things happen. It worries her, but right now finding an alternate route to Atlas is an important thing to do. Also, she can find interesting allies.

    Speaking of allies...

    "Huh, is that Luke?" Weiss pauses on her way through the 'quiet' town, but she doesn't sound THAT surprised, what with the creatures here. It diverts her to walk over that way, giving Serrah a quick and curious look as well.

Did someone say seasonal sales? Holly's dressed for the season, if that season is Halloween. The witch sees several familar faces including Weiss, "I still thinks she looks like a woman in white," She looks to her two ghostly companions. "Too bad she isn't I would ask how she has arms and legs still." Now she wonders what determines how much of a ghost can manifest in the physical realm. Her attention then turns Serrah, "Hi! Vincent hasn't been giving you trouble has he?"

    Luke is not that easily unnerved as of late, and thankfully, being night and with most people busy, it makes the spookier appearance of his friend less of an issue, at least, as long as she doesn't jump in front of people's faces shouting 'boo' or 'blah!'. He nods and reaches one hand to pat her shoulder, letting a sigh, "I can't even think how awful it might be, to be stuck away from home, but I am sure we can find out a way to help you." The fangs don't worry the boy either, he is surrounded by things with sharp teeth most of the time!. He pulls back his icecream from the kitten and takes a few licks of his own, eww... quite hungry. "I'm just glad to be in a safe place, no crazy wizards, or robots, no monsters or anything." 

    Holly gets a happy wave, "Hi Holly!, enjoying the town?" recognizing the friendly, and slightly chaotic spellcaster, smiling and leaving Serrah's side to approach her, only to bump into another familiar face!. "Huh, so many familiar people!." 

    While he is distracted, his evil kitten enacts an evil scheme to get more icecream, producing a small token it had stolen from a nearby store, and throws it at Luke's hand, causing him to drop the treat!, it then proceeds to furiously lick and eat it away. "Konya! what are you..." he kneels to chastise and stop the hungry cat, when he looks over to an alley, and spots a rather shady figure, dressed in a full black uniform, grey boots, grey gloves, a black hat, and... a rainbow colored R on his chest, it was not exactly subtle, but at least suited for dark time. ( https://images.wikidexcdn.net/mwuploads/wikidex/e/ea/latest/20180114002718/Reclutas_del_Team_Rainbow_Rocket_USUL.png ) "Wait... is that one of the guys from the news?" he muses outloud.

Serrah gives Weiss a cool glance, and notices her attention. "That someone you know?" she murmurs evenly. At Holly's arrival, though, she actually perks up somewhat. "Hey, Holly!" she says. "Nah, I haven't sensed him anywhere near me. If I was gonna guess, I'd say he's dealing with the fallout of getting an entire Imperial squad mostly wiped out again."

She sighs, and shakes her head, glancing between her and Luke. "One downside is, I'm starting to feel like I'm kinda running low on my essence of humanity," she adds. "We might want to start thinking about taking the fight to him. But ..." She shrugs. "Yeah."

She glances over at the uniformed guy. "... Uh-oh," she mutters, visibly tensing up. "Why do I feel like our ice cream social is about to get cut short?"

    Holly is someone Weiss knows, though the memories aren't good. Holly herself was great, just the events weren't. She gives a cool nod, which is pretty friendly for her, but then she has Serrah commenting. The frosty blue eyes appraise the young vampire, but don't immediately put together that Serrah is a creature of the night. "We've met, a couple times... hmm?"

    Luke pointing out the guy has her glancing that way. "Looks pretty suspicious," she admits. She isn't going to asssume he's a bad guy, but she is going to keep her eyes on him... just trying to look like she isn't.

"I like the black, but I think an orange R would look better than a rainbow one," Holly is kind of missing the point here. "I haven't heard anything guys dressed with rainbow R's on their chest. Have they been causing trouble?" She wonders why Luke's so concerned. "Wait, so you're feeling more like a vampire now? That's bad! I mean there's nothing wrong with being a vampire, but I know you want to be human again! If only I knew the Undo Undeath spell!" That kind of goes against her magic's purview.

    Luke blinks and glances back at Holly, but nods, "Yeah, it looks kind of weird." he agrees, before turning to casually look at the potential burglar. The goon slowly moves to the back door of a large store, and makes the choice to look around to make sure he wasn't looked, spotting Luke and Holly looking his way, since Weiss at least was trying to be subtle about it, and seems surprised, glancing towards somewhere out of view, gesticulating, before reaching for his belt and releasing a pokemon!. 

     What appears is a floating purple 'orb' of some kind, several geyser-like protusions all over it's form, two eyes, a big mouth and a somewhat unnerving marking on it's front, that looks like a skull and crossbones, not a good sign. "Smokescreen!" can be heard, as the creature begins producinga thick curtain of black smoke from all over, obscuring the view. 

     "Crap, he is getting away, Konya, get here, we need to catch up with that guy!". Even as he speaks, the young trainer reaches to release one of his more... offensive pokemon, a large, round 'tiger', "Dynamo! we have a suspect running away that way!" he quickly explains as the pair take off in that direction.

Serrah sighs softly, nodding to Holly. "I mean ... uh ..." She shakes her head and shrugs. "Yeah. You're definitely right ... about ..." And then the man makes his move.

Serrah jumps to her feet, glaring towards the runner. And then she vanishes.

At the same instant, a Serrah-shaped path appears in the smokescreen as if she ran through fast enough that it didn't have time to reform, and she appears in front of the man, hovering in midair and reaching for the baseball bag at her hip. The change is as abrupt as a video skipping ahead. "Hi there," she growls, shooting him her spookiest fangy grin. "How's it goin'?"

"That's a Pokemon? It looks like what comes out of my cauldron when something goes wrong..." Holly does her best not breathe in the smoke as it fills the air. It would be best to try and go above the Koffing so she climbs onto her broom and takes off into the sky. She's kind of a thief herself but Luke and Serrah are friends and going after the member of Team Rainbow Rocket.

    Vampire? That's something Weiss does know, though it isn't as well known a legend in her world. She opens her mouth to inquire about it, but the man she's watching... kinda proves he's up to no good right away. "Huh?!"

    A smokescreen? Weiss isn't the tactician so she pauses for a breath, hesitating for a split second before she does something... not all that smart. "No he isn't!" Calling that out, a glyph forms under her, accelerating her to dart forward... which, given she can't see clearly, was maybe not the best idea.

    The 'grunt' seems positively scared as someone manages to rush through that much terrain, and be in front of him, "Another visitor?!" comes from the guy, while the pokemon, apparently well trained, was already rushing to help, without a direct command, it does it's default attack, opening it's mouth to lunch a glob of brown sludge at the vampire. There is a flash of light, and a 'click' noise from outside fo view, another group of people in the same uniform, one of them apparently snapping a picture from Serrah, while the other reach for their pokeballs. 

    Of course, Luke has no clue what is going on, simply rushing ahead with his pokemon, maybe a bit ahead of Weiss, but otherwise, following the same plan, "Remember they are normal humans!, but do smash their pokemon some!" Luke calls. 

     The only one that might see the group of other grunts approaching is Holly, but for now, they seem caught by surprise rather so they are only now releasing their own beasts!. A large cream kitsune, what looks like a four armed rock golem, and a tall looking blue, bipedal turtle. All emerging from bright rainbow beams in front of the group of grunts.

Serrah appears in the digital photo just fine. It's silver-nitrate-based film that would have a problem catching her.

The Koffing catches her in Stop the World's cooldown, and she lets out a squawk, hurriedly dodging to the side. "Beat down the pokemon, not the trainers, got it!" she calls back to Luke. Okay, only one of them has attacked so far. In one swift motion, she grabs one baseball in each hand, and launches both of them at the Koffing at the speed of a car on a highway!

    If it's a show they want, well... Weiss is putting on such a show. "Normal humans? Like without Aura even?" Her voice sounds sour, as that does make it much harder to keep from killing them... which she assumes is the point of telling her!

    So what can she do? That blue turtle is charging out, and she would rather not let it interfere. It does succeed in getting her attention, the heiress whipping her sword out, spinning the canister, and then summoning a glyph to function as a barrier, shimmering right in front to block the turtle.

"Oh neat! A mage fox, it looks like it can use fire magic!" Holly sounds rather excited as she sees the Delphox. "Sorry, about this! It's nothing personal!" The witch summons a boiling cauldron of punch before spilling it down on the Pokemon feeling a bit bad as she does so. After all it was basically just a familiar and doing what it was instructed to do so.

    Luke has to pause, "No aura! as far as I know they are from here... I mean.. they have pokemon!" he mumbles. Finally, he pushes past the thick smoke, emerging to see what was going on. The Koffing is valiantly trying to stop the vampire, shooting those brown sludge balls, while the grunt was on his ass, trying to recover from the surprise of the vampire!. The guy reaches for his belt, "No you don't!, Thunder Wave!" calls Luke, which causes Dynamo to basically taze the human, a shock strong enough to force him to fall down and remain disabled for a while. That causes enough of a distraction for Serrah's baseballs to smash into the floating toxic pokemon, which is sent flying back from the strength of the projectiles, smacks into a wall and collapses on the ground, seemingly out as well!.

     The other trainers seem to be caught by surprise as the poor Fire fox is attacked, the big turtle pushing it aside of the hot punch, hissing loudly from the temperature of the drink, "Where did that one come from?!" the guy with the phone exclaims, "Take her down!". "Delphox, Psybeam!". The magician fox raises its 'wand', pressing it against it's forehead, eyes fixed on Holly, a rainbow gathering into the tip of the wand, before it exclaims "Phox!" and wields the wand forward, launching a rainbow beam towards the witch. "Hydro pump at the others!". The annoyed, sweet covered turtle tries to follow through, but hits the wall in front of it and is distracted by the glyph. "Golem, brick break that wall!". Between the two pokemon, the protective barrier is gone, but it bought time!.

Well, the rainbow is fitting giving her opponent is a member of Team Rainbow Rocket. Despite being a witch, Holly doesn't have much defense against magic which would likely extend to mental attacks. She has quite a headache now and she didn't even eat any ice cream. She normally has enough trouble staying in the air and goes spiraling downwards at the Golem. Given her physical strength, this could be more dangerous for the Pokemon than one might think.

Serrah smirks, and gives a thumbs-up to the fallen Koffing. And then she blinks as she realizes she's being flippant about committing acts of violence, and she sinks down slightly and grimaces. "Ugghhhh ..."

Now much more dour, she looks around at the attacking pokemon. Another brief time-stop, and three baseballs are flying, one towards each of the enemy pokemon!

... And Serrah herself is behind the guy with the phone, striding up to him. "So, buddy," she says in his ear, probably setting off all kinds of 'there's a predator right behind you' instincts. "Who's in charge here?"

    You know what makes it harder to dodge? Gravity. Because Weiss hasn't been idle while her barrier was assaulted, the fencer quickly shifting tactics the moment that glyph is brought down. "And for my final trick...!" Her sword comes down, not to attack but to summon ANOTHER glyph. This one is different, though, with crackling black energy that charges it beneath the incoming pokemon.

    This isn't designed to stop them, it's just an increased gravity trap, meant to make them slower all around. Either getting to the others... or dodging baseballs.

     The Golem is distracted with the falling girl, despite the orders to attack, there is something about the instinct about catching the falling girl, with the grunt busy dealing with vampire to the face, unable to give a proper order!. The Delphox, having taking down the target, turns to face Luke and Weiss, they look dangerous!. There is a surprised yelp as the gravity pulls at it, causing the tall mage fox to kneel, snarling at Weiss and, with some struggling, raising it's wand to flick a stream of flame at the tricky human!. Of course, this means it gets hit squarely in the back with the speedy baseball, causing it to fall forward for a moment, the Golem receiving the hit far more easily, even if caught distracted by trying to 'save' Holly, and the gravity trap. 

     The Blastoise was already looking at Luke, and the trainer manages to bark a command, "Electric type!, stop it, Blastoise!". The big turtle roars, and slams the ground with both 'hands', causing the earth to shake, before pillars of rock raise around Dynamo and luke, trapping and threatening to crush them. 

    "Dynamo!, break these walls, Iron Tail!". There are a few loud noises from the rock pillars, the turtle also caught with a baseball to it's back, but it is far more defensive than the poor Koffing, so it is not TOO affected, even if still well disrupted by the gravity field. 

    Finally, the trainer is in a panic attack, vampire?, magic humans?. The photos were transmited already, and they might serve better alive and out of there, rather than being killed, or in prison!. "Let's get out of here!" calls one of them, seeing things going south, and attempts to flee.

Thankfully, Holly can take physical hits much better than mental ones and is mostly unscathed by making impact with the Golem. In fact it might hurt the Pokemon more than it expected. She's not going to go after the trainers, but is a bit disappointed that she won't get talk about magic with the Delphox. Even if she can't understand Pokemon-speak.

Serrah allows herself a faint smirk. It's just because things are going their way! She's not smug about hurting people for its own sake! "'Scuse me a minute," she says, shoving the camera-grunt aside. She charges forward up to the rocks trapping Luke, and starts tugging at them with her superhuman strength, trying to pull them to the ground and helping free Luke from outside!

    Weiss stumbles a little as rocks erupt around... Luke? That's not good! At least the thugs are taking off now, and Weiss isn't attached to this world enough to give chase to them except to get rid of the problem. Unfortunately, she has no easy tricks to haul rocks off in a hurry... but with Serrah doing that, she can cover for the vampire.

    "Get those things off them, hurry!" she says, needlessly, before lunging forward with her rapier toward the turtle! Which... is actually just the classic feint, because the tip ducks down at the last minute instead of trying to penetrate the shell, then flicks upward, a sudden blast from beneath attempting to hurl the turtle toward the trainers!

    The three trainers begint to take off, leavin the pokemon behind, even as the Delphox slowly gets up, looking rather grumbly and damaged, glaring around in search of what to do, only to see the Golem struggling with the kid on top of it!. The Turtle is very heavy, it is tossed around, but before it can actually land somewhere, the trainer recalls it back. No damage to the trio, but at least the turtle is away!. Luke at least stopped one of the guys!. Between Dynamo and Serrah they manage to clean the rocks, letting him out!. The kid looks upset the grunts ran, but at least they won't cause trouble.

Serrah exhales with relief. Then she hesitates. "I keep doing that even though I don't breathe," she mutters, and shakes her head. "So, uh ... Luke," she says awkwardly. "Who were those guys, anyway? Some sort of ..." She shrugs, and shakes her head. "I don't even know what. It feels like my frame of reference is, like, too different from my own familiarities and stuff."

Holly pulls herself up a little dazed but not hurt too badly, "Yeah, that's a good question. Why did that guy take off running when all we were doing was looking at him? I mean scaring people is part of being a witch, but I wasn't even trying to do that." Maybe she was more frightening than she thought.

    "They were probably doing something bad and didn't want to be caught," Weiss says as she returns to the group. "And they were taking pictures, I think. That's kind of worrying and a little creepy, don't you think?"

    Luke is quite graeful to Serrah, dusting himself, petting Dynamo and checking on the stunned crook and pokemon. "They kinda look like this group called Team rocket, but those don't tend to be in this region, and hte uniforms are a bit different... I can only think they were taking informatino on us..." he muses. 

    The fox was abandned there, if Holly wanted to ask somethign, it looks a bit resigned, once it becomes clear the fight was over, just sitting down, next to the rock pokemon!, they just give up, with Luke ofering them some minor first aid. 

     "He likely didn't mean to get caught." comes a voice, answering to Holly, a police lady with a cute orange dog appears, followed by other cops. "We will take him into custody, ask questions, will be happy to give you all information too, it's clear you know how to handle these things." the police lady tells the others, before taking the Rocket, and pokemon, around with them. 

    Luke sighs, "Would oyu like to have more icecream?" he finally asks, "You two are welcome as well, I pay!".