Doug was already poking at it the moment Zac mentioned the similarity, squinting thoughtfully as he crosschecked the thing. Would they have to take this thing and drop it inside Chimney as well?

"How much would you say this weighs?" He said as he pulled away from the slab, half turning towards Zac, gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb.

He was only half joking.

"I've been lookin' into Katherine Fairburne. Had a long talk with Selena Desmarais over some wine and children's babble." He said after a moment of silence, crossing his arms over his chest. "Haven't seen heads or tails of the God of redheaded step-childs, though."

He grinned at Zac, only barely glancing at his hair after saying that and winking.

"The conversation ended up leanin' more towards Rockets than the thief, though." He said, his brow furrowing slightly as he turned his gaze towards the floor... before snapping back up to Zac. "What's yer headway?"

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TAG: Zac Ramsay

"Sounds 'bout right." Doug said, rolling his arms in preparation for uprooting the massive tomb off the soil. This moment was what he had been hitting the gym every day for. Clearly. "Don't count it out just yet- maybe doin' so will piss of the reject god into popping up."

And Doug was all for anything that pissed off Giratina (and more importantly, Katherine Fairburne) at this point.

"Man, ya can just meet up with FERNANDO SILPH now, huh?" He said with a laugh, though he was rather glad to hear. It spoke of a level of connections.

At least one of them needed to have these if they were to get anywhere.

"I ain't got nothing on her except a Gym Challenge." he said bluntly, shaking his head. "I'm on a waitin' list for now; but..."

He paused, cupping his chin, glancing at Zac.

"She has a non-traditional challenge that basically let's her go all out... or whatever." He said, rolling his eyes at how arrogant (he percieved) that was. "Ya got Tapu Bulu... And yer Heatran, so..."

He smirked, waggling his eyebrows.

"Maybe you can force 'er hand on an official challenge?"

Katherine seemed prideful to a fault. If he challenge her in the format supposedly meant to let her 'go all out', she wouldn't just let Zac stomp her team with his legendary unopposed... with any luck.

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TAG: Zac Ramsay

Doug scoffed at that.

"Who said anythin' 'bout beating sense into her?" He said, punching his hand on his fist. "I just wanna deck 'er one, and both my job n' hers are in the way."

He had to beat her in a way that hurt her pride instead. Couldn't have a soldier punching a gym leader now, could we? Even if she was probably a bloody rat.

It wasn't 100% but Doug was extremely suspicious of Katherine after his chat with Selena, even if the woman had been skeptical. Call it confirmation bias, but after the reveal of Rocket? Just about everything had been re-contextualized for the youth.

Anyone abusing their power, thieving or doing any number of not so upstanding things... were subject to scrutiny, far as he was concerned.

Unless they were from his group of friends anyway. Again, bias.

The fact that cait alfric had told him that Giratina was nothing short of a monster with no place amongst humans, who's avatar should be contained at best and neutralized at worst...

Well, it certainly played to his own inner narrative.

Unfortunately, Zac's words put a stop to that.

"Four?!" He said, brows furrowing. What the heck? "The heck she thinks she is, FERNANDO SILPH?"

He tapped his foot on the floor as he crossed his arms, lip curling. That really did throw a wrench in the plans. It wasn't impossible to beat a legendary or anything... Just extremely hard.

And that was one.

"Maybe you ain't." He interjected jestingly between Zac's words, lip managing to curl up, and then going up further into a full blown grin as Zac finished speaking.

"Oh. Hell yeah."

He was certain chryssa glasgow would love to hear about this.

"Think we can chuck 'em all at the Chimney too?"

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TAG: Zac Ramsay