he already knows his contribution will be minimal. dominic leans against the barre, arms crossed, gaze sliding from his former underling to the stranger. dominic tries - and fails - to not sneer, one eyebrow arched.

dominic had little love for CODENAMES, and using his faux ID felt almost farcical at the best of times - even more so with iris right here in the room. in short, dominic offers no name to identify him by.

"morning," he says, in lieu of introduction. "our given theme is..." dominic interrupts himself to sigh. "it's... cute."

@iris Billi Marsh

Billi Didn't think anything of it. It was going to be a cute activity for his pokemon right? He wouldn't have to dance or anything like that! Well this again! Turns out he'd have to help in some way. Lucky enough for him he had a pokemon that could dance. Of course Yamper, Rotom wouldn't be able to dance. He did have a sassy, somewhat hateful Mawile that had the energy to do it, even if she hated it. Iapapa gave the best Tsudere vibes.

Looking at the two strangers, particularly the girl, he smiled, "Oh! I'm Billi! Nice to meet you! Fair warning I can't dance, I'm trash at it but I'm looking forward to having SOOO much FUN with everyone." a thumbs up to the strangers. "Oh cute?! That's the theme? I have... my Mawile she's kinda cute but like my others can't really dance without doing doggo things."

@iris dominic sinclair

[/blockqoute]

a ghost of what could be read as a smile flickers across dominic’s features. "i like your energy, keep that up," he comments. "mawile is a good pick."

dominic uncrosses his arms from his chest to reach for his own set of pokeballs. he had a handful of pokemon that could be “cute”, it’s just the majority of them weren’t able to dance either.

he sighs again and releases a gengar as an answer to iris’s question. "this is the best i can do," he admits. "i think he’s… he’s cute right?" dominic asks slowly, glancing between his two partners for reassurance.

the gengar grins, twirls on the spot and snaps to a halt with its stubby arms spread as though it were striking a pose.

"hey, show us what your pokemon can do. blue, right?"

@iris Billi Marsh

“Yes lots of energy!” he nodded and flexed his arms as Iapapa gave a rather annoyed eye roll that twisted into the aura around them. The blond only nudged his little pokemon who clearly didn’t want to dance, but Billi thought she’d be the world's prettiest dancer, better than him that was for sure. “ OI WHAT A PRINCE!” he cheered on the Gengar that was just a prince, queen even.

“Oh a cool blue pokemon! Iapapa! Go say hi” he nudged the little pokemon towards the marshstomp, and she whipped Billi’s foot. “owowoow” he looked at the others, “So we gotta make a super cute dance or something right?” he asked, “So why not like ICE ICE BABY!” and does an awkward shuffle.

@iris dominic sinclair

the gengar responds to billi's praise with a wide, toothy grin. it claps its hands together and watches the man carefully and then joins iris's marshtomp is attempting to mirror the choreography.

dominic gives billi the ghost of smile and rubs his nose with the back of his hand, as though embarrassed by it.

"yeah? how long does it have to be?" dominic frowns and pulls out his phone to search for examples of other performances in the cute category. "they can probably do that for 2-3 minutes."

@iris Billi Marsh

Iapapa hated it, she hated this side stepping garbage. It was so boring and so not cute to her. Even more so she appeared to be the only fabulous girl, and wouldn’t want to be upstaged by boys. A Gengar to her left and a Marshstomp to her right, giving her annoyance as they copied her trainer. “Mawile...wile” she face palmed.

“See it’s easy! But like I can’t dance! OH OH” he jumped in his spot, getting pumped, looking at the others, “What about fortnite dances?! Like do a youtube video and get them to copy it,” he started pulling out his phone, “I don’t know if we can do the same move over and over! But they could do a mix of these,” he held out his phone to show everyone as a compilation of fortnite dances played.

@iris dominic sinclair

dominic arches an eyebrow at billi and his eyes drop to stare blankly at the outstretched phone screen. "wow," he says flatly, blinking at the choreography. "just wow."

maybe he really is just getting old. then again, a brief glance at iris tells him she doesn’t quite track any of this either.

"looks great," dominic says eventually. he jerks his chin at his gengar, prompting the pokemon to hop into his arms so that it could watch the video on billi’s phone too.

@iris Billi Marsh

Pokemon naturally had a cute factor to them, it was true. Any child that saw a pokemon usually loved them and would call them cute unless they were massive. Heck if that massive pokemon did some kind of dorky dance with the child, the child would love them, and it’s the same with adults. When people and pokemon were granted freedom to be who they are with each other, it leads to a rainbow of possibilities.

It had come to Billi that the other two were letting him kinda take the lead! That was okay and all but the man couldn’t dance for a nickel. He looks like a spooky scary skeleton with broken shins. Iapapa on the other hand was quite the opposite of Billi, and she had some form of rhythm because she could whip her hair back and forth. Holding the rotomphone lower for the pokemon to see, he couldn’t help but get it to take a picture of them, because pokemon were cute.

“We could figure out how to do these dances. I don’t move well, but like we can figure it out.” he nodded putting the phone on the ground that had a small playlist of all the moves. Iapapa walked over to the phone, sitting down scrolling through it asking the other pokemon if there was any they liked. “We’ll also have to find a song tooo!” he jumped and cheer to himself. “Oh oh oh oh oh” the giant jumped with joy and a twinkle in his eyes, “What about “Just My Type” because get pokemon and types. And their all different types!”

@iris dominic sinclair

dominic’s concept of ‘dance’ doesn’t quite line up with billie’s but that’s fine too; it may not necessarily show in the harsh angles of his frown, but dominic is used to working with all types of people. they’re a united front as long as they have a common goal in front of them, and in this instance, billie is more qualified to lead than him or, it looks like, iris.

placing the gengar on the floor, dominic watches as it eagerly joins the mawile and marshtomp. the gengar watches the screen intently, bopping along to the music and following some of the moves with the other two. dominic blinks slowly and crosses his arms across his chest, nodding very slowly.

"nice," dominic says. "just loop it and let them figure out the timing themselves," he adds, jerking his chin toward the trio of pokemon.

@iris Billi Marsh