The sound of footsteps racing up towards the ranch could be heard as a familiar pink headed girl and her Rotomphone were racing towards the porch of the ranch. Just as they were coming into view, a familiar voice would shriek out. "Thomas! I need your help!" She was panting by the time she had gotten close, Vanilla trying to catch her breath to explain what had happened although no words came out. This wasn't helped either by the tears streaming down her eyes, the absolute fear of losing a Pokémon that was ultimately on her alone.

Thankfully Proxii was present to go and translate.

"We were training our new Skeledirge when we ran into a super tough poison type. It poisoned it with something and the stores are all out of antidotes nearby. Can you help her?"

Vanilla threw out the pokeball containing the poisoned fire croc, its warm form faltering as it let out a pained, lethargic cry. Even the small fire bird resting atop its head would seem restless, drooped over the side of the croc's body. The young trainer had caught her breath, looking up at the man with pleading eyes, her voice nearly screaming. "Th-This is all my fault! I'm sorry, I messed up! Please save Cayenne!"

Thomas Benoit

The Eevee's soft fur was at least some sort of consolation to the girl's previous dire cries. Another rub of her eyes on her jacket came, drying her eyes while she looked over at the resting Skeledirge with the other two Audinos. Relieved to see it in much better shape, she'd let out a sigh of relief. "Maybe she's not ready just yet. Cayenne is still recovering from when I caught her on Mt. Pyre." she said to herself in thought.

"I mean, yeah, technically it's still out there." Proxii said, the Rotomphone looked to the older male with a quizzical expression. "How are we supposed to find one specific Pokémon out of who knows how many in this forest?"

Vanilla frowned at Thomas, hesitant on answering his question. "What will you do when you find it? I-I don't want you to hurt it." She said, furrowing her brows. "This is my fault anyway…"

Thomas Benoit

She continued to pet Gene's fur, trying to stifle some laughter as some snickering came every now and again. How come she ever stay sad or upset at such a cute face? Even the Audino she was hugging could feel that she was doing better. Cayenne, currently resting on her side, would finally open her eyes to glance at the two healers. The Skeledirge rolled back over onto its flat stomach before letting out a soothed yet restless cry. While not as spirited as it usually was, the sound of its singing voice did provide some relief to those around it.

"Ah, that makes sense." Vanilla repeated from Thomas, finally releasing her grip on the Audino by her to focus exclusively on showering Gene with head pats, hugs and more! "I guess it's one way to let everyone know that something dangerous is in the area."

The Rotom flipped his screen open at the question, pulling up scan data of the Pokémon that had been catalogued before Cayenne had become fully poisoned. "It was this one, a Drapion. But this one was huge! I couldn't measure it since I was busy running to catch up with Vanilla, but he was easily at least six foot. I didn't even know they could get that tall."

A bit relieved to hear that he wouldn't be turning the Drapion into mushed stew, Vanilla would frown, hesitating to say something as she looked down at Gene for a bit. Her fingers gently massaged his fluffy cheeks, her glasses sliding down to the tip of her nose before being pushed back up. "T-Thomas..." the teen said, frowning. "I wanna take it down myself. To make sure I won't repeat this same mistake."

Thomas Benoit

"You're so fluffy~" Vanilla said in a baby voice, cooing at Gene as he'd continued to receive the entire suite of what her hands would fluff and pet against him. She continued for a while, looking back up at Thomas as she'd stand back up onto two feet once more. Proxii showed him the Pokémon that had been responsible for poisoning Cayenne, as the younger trainer walked up to her Rotom with a frown. But then came that term she hadn't heard before. "An Alpha Drapion? So it's the leader of them or something?" she asked curiously before then letting him continued. "And Cayenne did put up a good fight. That's why it used Toxic, since it couldn't overpower it."

Her hand fell onto the Skeledirge, who had been happily accepting the cheek brushing from Pulse. The fire type spewed out a warm fire, the chick sitting atop its beak flittering around. It seemed to try and return the gesture to the Audino by using its tail and brush against it was well.

In his abundance of knowledge, Thomas would at least give her some pointers on what she could do to make battling the Drapion easier. Unfortunately, it was a solid typing and Cayenne or most of her Pokémon wouldn't be too much help in exploiting a weakness like that. Proxii returned to his trainer's side and hovered beside the girl. He wore a contemplating expression while thinking of a strategy. "So if we wanna take this thing down, we're gunna have to be strategic about it. I don't think we have any Ground-type moves on us." Vanilla began to pace around in thought about what they could do. She lit up as Thomas offered to help her with potions and such, looking at her available Pokémon.

"I'd appreciate it." she said, looking back down at Gene while nuzzling her head against his. "I'm going to need everyone I can for this fight. I think I can buy some Antidotes and things, but what kind of Pokémon should I not take with me?"

Thomas Benoit

An oversized Drapion that was her barrier to growth?! This would be quite the challenge for her. Vanilla was confident that they could find some kind of way to overcome this gigantic scorpion that had hurt her fire croc Pokémon! Thomas did have more deets on the strategy, which looked pretty dire. No grass Pokemon was easy enough to follow as she had almost none, but Fairy typings being at a disadvantage meant that Ribbon would be nose use against this beast. The trainer huffed in thought, mulling inside of her mind for one of her team that could solve this little disparity.

"That's not a good sign. I'm not sure I have anybody on my team that can use a Ground Type move." Vailla said as she looked over towards Cayenne. Her hands continued to stroke Gene's fur in the meantime. It was strange, having probably every type of move but ground types. And sadly, most of her team was physical attackers. Maybe Cauli could help? "What about Dragon-types? Would they help? They're supposed to be super strong against everything."

Oh, the naiviety of a newbie!

"I don't have Aromatherapy or anything like that besides potions, but I can at least try and figure out what to do with that dirty Drapion. Do you have any other advice that could help me?" she asked. Proxii let out a chirping noise as he'd quickly float in front of his trainer.

"Oh, we almost forgot." Proxii said, showing a picture of the recently caught Koffing they had caught in the Safari Zone. But if Thomas were to look at it, the color of the Pokémon would be different entirely. "Vanilla went to the Safari Zone a week ago and caught this Koffing there, but it's not the right color compared to the others we saw. Is it sick or something?"

Thomas Benoit