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Although he'd prefer not having to set foot in the Giant Chasm for some time after the events of the previous month, Rhys had to acknowledge the fact that his last foray into Area Zero had left him with precious little data to go on, given that his observations had been enthusiastically derailed by tavish rose.
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This excursion's efforts had been considerably more successful, and Rhys made his way leisurely toward the mouth of the chasm, even humming to himself slightly, so proud he was of today's results.
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As though to spite him, the skies began to darken, and as he felt the first drops of rain, he cursed, running for the cover of the trees. No, he couldn't have one moment to himself to be happy without something else screwing it up, but that was his lot in life. He shouldn't have expected more.
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The thunder sounded distorted, almost as if it were coming through some kind of pipe system, and he chanced a glance out from his arboreal refuge to look skyward. The darkness of the thunderclouds was overlaid with a rippling sort of energy that expanded outward in a dome, and Rhys's luck being what it was, Rhys was square in the middle of it.
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The air crackled, and he blinked, suddenly soaked from the rain; the tree he'd been standing under was abruptly no more than a sapling that barely reached his knee. Drawing back in alarm, he moved to progress through the thicket. The crackling pierced the air once more, and the next tree he passed was a centenarian mammoth, covering the entire enclosure in its broad leaves.
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He gaped, fumbling for his phone, but when the next sound pierced the air, he abandoned all thought of investigating and turned instead to run for the mouth of the chasm - he couldn't gather reliable scientific data if he was dead.
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As he dashed through the foliage, a gnarled root arrested his progress, catching his foot and causing him to crash to the earth with a cry and a snap of bone. "Fuck!" he howled, and without even looking he knew he'd just broken his ankle. Gritting his teeth, he dug into his hip satchel and released his Clefairy. "Come on, Callie, fast," he urged, pointing a finger at the mangled ankle that currently sent fiery lances of pain up his entire leg.
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The Clefairy chirped in worry, toddling around him to focus on his ankle and holding her hands out, a glowing LIFE DEW beginning to coalesce. As Rhys breathed a sigh of relief, feeling his bones mend, a sharper light cast its radiance on the area, and this time the crackle of the distortion sounded right next to him.
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Briefly, the world went white.
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He blinked, fumbling to stand, damn his sore ankle, and almost tumbled to the ground. Clearly his Clefairy hadn't done the trick, for now it wasn't just his ankle that hurt, it was his EVERYTHING. Every joint, every muscle felt as sore as if he'd been put through a taffy puller, and he turned to reprimand her, only to find a Clefable standing in her place.
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"...What?" he spoke aloud, his voice coming as a growling rasp. He patted his hands down his own torso, feeling for wounds, then up to his head - had he been concussed? No, but the hem of his trousers hit just above his ankles, his shirt tighter in places and looser in others than it should be. His fingers skated along his jawline, his cheeks, his nose, and none of this was right. It was him, but it wasn't the him of a moment ago.
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"No....no, no, no," he chanted, glancing skyward once more. The storm had yet to abate, nor had the periodic crackles of dimensional energy, and the sounds of riotous wild pokemon echoed from deeper within the Chasm. He turned to stare at the Clefable once more, uttering, "Callie?"
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The Clefable nodded, chirping happily, and tottered over to him, extending an arm to pat him reassuringly. Feeling faint, he returned the pat absently before recalling her, willing his aches and pains to subside long enough for him to make it out of this triple-cursed place alive.
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If he could make it out alive, he thought helpfully, as he began to run.

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God, this sucked.
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Rhys rested his chin on his fist, staring out the window as the SUV trundled away from Petalburg, jostling over the dirt road. His positioning resulted in him inadvertently punching himself in the chin as the vehicle shook and juddered, and he grumbled, lowering his arm and instead crossing them in front of his chest petulantly as he watched the trees slide by.
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He didn't understand the obsession with secrecy - the car had valid plates, so the odds of them getting pulled over on the main roads en route to Lilycove would be as negligible as any other vehicle, provided the driver could...drive. Then again, if he was going to complain, he didn't understand why he was here in the first place.
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Well, he did, he supposed, because when Naomi Sato told him to do something, he did it, no matter the time it took away from his own research. Still, this mission hadn't even remotely been in his wheelhouse - a pair of grunts, currently occupying the front seats of the vehicle, were part of a smuggling chain funneling illicit pokemon across Hoenn, and his boss needed them for her experiments. His job had been to validate the health and condition of the subjects, and having done that, he was left to twiddle his thumbs in the back seat like a kid, by himself, on the interminably circuitous drive to their destination.
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He debated starting a rousing round of 'Are We There Yet', but reasoned that irritating the ones responsible for commuting them to the checkpoint would only delay their progress, so he settled for a sigh and resumed staring out the window.
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The SUV made a turn in the dirt road, juddering once more, and Rhys had a split second to hear the tires trundling over not dirt but metal before the world erupted around him.
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The mine was enough to devastate the front half of the SUV entirely, shards of glass and metal, licks of flame, and a powerful concussive force ripping through the point of impact. The vehicle flipped off the road, tumbling over and over to come to rest at the bottom of the embankment off the side of the path.
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Rhys's eardrums immediately burst, and a pervasive ringing was all he could hear as he tumbled, his seat belt the only thing keeping him from slamming into the roof or doors of his position at the back. Something lacerated him, he couldn't tell what, but when the vehicle came to a final stop in the matter of a few seconds, he couldn't orient himself.
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Fighting to loosen his seatbelt, he finally unbuckled the thing and clambered toward the front of the vehicle, reaching blindly for his partners. Both the driver and the front passenger lay still, unmoving, with far too much blood and black ash painting their surroundings. The floorboard of the SUV was gone, and the mechanics mangled beyond that - they'd taken the brunt of the explosion directly over the IED.
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What the fuck was he supposed to do? He tried to gather his wits. If this was an attack and he got out of the vehicle, he'd be a sitting duck for anyone observing. If he didn't get out, and there was a fire - which he couldn't even verify yet - he'd be no better off than the other two. Fumbling for his phone, he fired off a distress signal and sank low. He turned his head, looking through the shattered windows of the vehicle to determine whether anyone was, in fact, watching the attack.

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Rhys let out an indignant grunt as he was grabbed and dragged led back the way they'd come, scowling miserably but complying as his Salazzle, Raina, offered a larger jet of flame that made leaving a sight easier than entering had been.
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As Yumi set to work sorting through the robotic dolls and moving them to the door, Rhys folded his arms and watched the display unfold, puzzled. These things all looked the same to him, from one to the next, but with the care the woman was putting into arranging them, he had a sneaking suspicion that saying as much could result in him being robotic-Tsareena fodder at the end of all of this.
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"I agree, fourth from the left looks the best to me." He hoped his opinion was conveyed with more conviction than he actually felt. Agreeing did, after all, reduce the likelihood of conflict.
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Deciding that contributing something to the endeavor was better than nothing, he elected to pick up the doll and carry it back to the Volcanion as Raina illuminated the way ahead of them, the darkness only briefly snapping back into place as she paused to gather breath for the next plume of fire.
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Finding the energy-silhouetted Volcanion was no chore at all, and Rhys carefully deposited the motionless doll before it, masterfully fighting every instinct screaming at him to get away from the giant possibly-insane robot pokemon.
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"Full well thou hast done in selecting that of great beauty," the Volcanion rumbled. "I shall forgive the this transgression, pale one, for only those of fairer caste may lay hand upon mine liege-lady."
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Rhys blanched, only too glad to step back, and the Volcanion slowly, ponderously lowered its arm, offering the pulsing Soul-Heart to Yumi. "Undo the latch upon her chest, and restore her heart to her. Do this, and I shall allow thee egress."

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Rhys gaped in disbelief as Yumi, in lieu of running, hiding, or even pretending as though she hadn't seen the thing, addressed the Volcanion directly. Great, so she had no sense of self-preservation, better keep that one in his mental notes.
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He cast around, taking in the area to see what his options were. He didn't have any pokemon who could take on the Volcanion directly, and he wasn't enough of a machinist to pick up how even a fraction of this debris worked, but maybe if push came to shove he could bring down some of the scaffolding and give them a chance to escape, if the ensuing fallout didn't get them along with the Volcanion.
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Half-delirious from the shock of moving directly from one near-death episode to the next, he was reminded of a story his mother used to read him as a kid, and as the Volcanion's voice reverberated through the damned floor under his feet, he wondered if he ought to be looking for a man behind the curtain while he was at it.
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"Mine liege-lady lies heartless, and needs must I resuscitate her. Such was the oath we spoke, and now I am the only one who yet may complete it." The chamber shook and juddered as the Volcanion moved for what might have been the first time in...well, a long time, carefully picking up one of the delicate items. A touch of sadness entered its tone. "Her shell lies without, among the bodies of countless pretenders, and the Soul-Hearts lie dormant. Even were I able to breathe life into the hearts, we no longer perceive which is she."
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Rhys swallowed, moving forward to tug on Yumi's elbow surreptitiously. "Come on," he hissed. "Let this thing play with his dolls and let's get moving, he's insane."
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The glow around the Volcanion intensified, the crimson light tinged with electric blue as the creature roared in indignation upon Rhys's comment. "THOU DAREST MOCK THE SACRED COVENANT?!"
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What surely would have resulted in an unpleasant scenario for both humans was curtailed as a lance of blue energy diverted from the Volcanion's frame into the Soul-Heart it held. The creature let out a surprised exclamation, even as a sound like gears struggling to operate began emanating from within him.
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"The heart...it pulses," it marveled. "Humans," it bellowed, turning its attention back to Yumi and Rhys, "I shall grant thee succour from this place should thou deliver one of the shells without to me. Choose the finest, the most magnificent, for only such must be my lady."
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Blinking, Rhys turned his head to Yumi. "Uh...what?"

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If he was asked later on what exactly had transpired between the elevator beginning free-fall and arriving more or less safe and sound on the floor below, Rhys wouldn't be able to recount it with any level of accuracy.
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What he did know was that something violet materialized in the cramped confines of the elevator, and then he, Yumi, and their pokemon were somehow on solid ground once more, only a little worse for the wear.
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The disorientation suddenly made the world spin around him, and he lurched to a corner of the chamber and promptly emptied the contents of his stomach. Alright, maybe a little more than little.
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Scrubbing at his mouth with his sleeve, he stood unsteadily and looked around. The numerous doll-like creations were not lost on him, and each time he turned his eyes away from one disturbingly vacant gaze, he found another. Shuddering, he beckoned to his Tinkaton and set off down the passage. "Come on," he muttered, his tone surer than the steps he took, "We're lost, now, and I for one won't be able to live with myself if we stay that way for long."
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The utility passage widened as they went along, eventually opening onto an enormous chamber shrouded in darkness. Whatever used to provide illumination had long since fallen into disrepair, and Rhys had no intention of proceeding into the darkness when they'd only just escaped a cadre of killer robots themselves.
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Digging into his hip satchel, he released his Salazzle, who obligingly exhaled a small tongue of flame that stayed alight, illuminating the surroundings in a flickering orange glow. Empty conveyors, storage shelves, and twisted metal implements whose use was no longer apparent characterized the chamber, and as Rhys and his pokemon advanced, the space seemed to advance with them, as though the walls were fleeing from the group.
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He paused as the firelight caught something smooth, sloping, and rust-red. A sudden juddering shook the floor, and Rhys scrambled back reflexively as power glowed within the shape - a leg - spreading upward and around until the form of a great Volcanion was outlined in the darkness.
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"Darest thou intrude upon this armoury? Fie, humans, flee, lest thou desire to perish for thy folly. The Royal Guard doth be diminished, yet no less strong for it."
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The creature spoke, and spoke with a reverberating, booming cadence that drove Rhys back a further step. Looking around wildly, he sought Yumi and jerked his head backward. "We need to go. Now," he urged.

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He felt like he was going to have a heart attack, the way anxiety lanced through his chest. In fact, it felt an awful lot like the elevator door must, sliding shut around one of the mechanical pokemons' blades before it was at last able to descend.
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He let out a groan of relief, leaning against one of the elevator walls and sliding slowly to the floor. After a moment, he realized he was literally gasping for breath and, with some conscious effort, brought his breathing back to a more moderate sense. Damn, he had to quit smoking.
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"No kidding," he panted, glancing up to Yumi with the strange, instant camaraderie of a pair who have narrowly escaped certain doom. "Are they manufacturing those things?" He eyed Kaoru speculatively.
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"Is it because you brought one?"
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Further investigation was halted by the sudden jerk of the elevator as one, then two and three heavy objects fell on the car from above, the telltale sounds of blade on metal echoing through the small chamber once again.
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Rhys jolted up in alarm, eyes wide as he stared at the ceiling. No razor-tipped legs were jabbing through the metal, so perhaps it was thick enough, but -
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With an ungodly shriek, something above the car snapped, and suddenly they were descending much, much faster.

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Relief drained some of the tension from Rhys's shoulders as he turned around. "It is," he affirmed. Finally, finally this insufferably debonair man was going to listen to him and-
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Caden's next comment took the wind out of Rhys's sails almost immediately, and he flushed from neck to hairline. He never invited this kind of attention, hadn't had this kind of attention since before - well, before. And to top it off, he found his usual analytical mind absolutely unable to differentiate between the man genuinely commenting to him or simply addressing him knowing it'd get a rise out of him.
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He weighed his options. If he continued to vent his frustration with Caden, they'd get nowhere, and the mission would be a wash. Surely he could stick it out for the mission.
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Surely.
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Rhys's indignation did not, in fact, fade with the passing moments, but he reasoned that allowing the Hypno to remove the remaining detritus from his shoes would outweigh the complexity of having to come up with a way to modify the memories of anyone who saw him trudging back with Arceus-knew-what on his shoe.
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Hissing an exhale through his nose - audibly venting his frustration so that his next words would be spoken rather than shouted - he turned to Caden with an unimpressed frown. The red in his cheeks was striking against his pale complexion and hair, and one would be hard-pressed to guess whether it was from anger or embarrassment at the other man's comments.
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"Nobody's perfect," he retorts with a low hiss, "And I'm not-"
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He cut off the rest of his sentence with a clench of his jaw, turning to recall his exhausted Crobat and speaking his next words facing away from his companion.
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"Can we pretend none of this happened? I don't think I'll survive it otherwise."
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"Fair," Rhys offered in return, as he was no expert on either of the subjects himself. "Still keeps the gears going to speculate, though, don't you think?"
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He thought so, at any rate. Granted, speculation without evidence was baseless, but it was something, at least. If he left his mind to go too long without some kind of focus or rumination, he could find himself almost drifting, simply existing and - if left long enough to his own devices - essentially 'spaced out' for hours on end. He needed a focus, or he'd focus too much on things that didn't deserve it.
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"Johto, huh? I'm not too familiar, if I'm honest, but I hear it's...interesting," he hedges, rolling his shoulders in a shrug. This was conversation, right? Better than walking in silence and snapping photos.
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Her warning brings him up short, and as soon as he sees the robotic Tsareena stagger into motion, he nearly drops his phone in his haste to turn and run before she's even given the directive. "Ooooooh shit," he spat, barreling down the hallway as the distinctive ting-ting-ting of sharpened blades on metal flooring echoed behind him at a frequency that froze his spine.
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Nearing a corner, he waited only an instant for Yumi and her own Tsareena to pass before he snapped a command at his Tinkaton, who swung her GIGATON HAMMER at the floor, causing a rippling wave of sheet metal to surge out and trip up their assailants.
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No time to survey the results, though, as he took right off in hot pursuit of Yumi. "Bought us a couple of seconds," he panted, pointing ahead of them.
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"Elevator. Think we can make it?"

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"No souls?" Rhys inquired, trailing only a step or two behind Yumi as they make their traversal, his own phone raised to capture photographs of the surrounding environment and the strange mechanical apparati that are dotted throughout.
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"Near Area Zero, I noted several Paradox Pokemon that seemed to be more robotic than biological, even for Steel-types. Do you think this could be where they originated?" He canted his head curiously, his Tinkaton trailing behind him with a vacant, wide-eyed expression.
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He considered her question before offering a noncommittal shrug. "Curiosity," he allowed. "This is my second tour through one of these places, and it's every bit as strange in its own way as the first. I feel that's worth researching, because I hear there could be some serious threats to us in these places." He paused to consider. "Or weapons."

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At the other man's suggestion, Rhys lowered his gaze, toying with the idea. He wasn't a researcher - not of that kind - and didn't want to create more of a presence in that neck of the laboratories than he had to, lest he be roped in as some kind of assistant or other. Yet, his desire to keep arm's length came into direct conflict with his basic desire to know about everything.
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When he thought about it like that, the choice was clear.
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"I will," he nodded. "The proliferation of these things is something we don't want to be caught wrong-footed on." He moved to continue as Zev finished, beckoning to the Walking Wake. The beast growled, a rippling, dangerous sound, but fell into step behind Rhys without further complaint.
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"Of course," Rhys returned brightly as their path drew them further through the rainforest. "I'll be happy to provide you with that data." Well. Not strictly happy undergoing whatever test Zev had in mind, but confident, at the least, that he could show the man he had indeed progressed.
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He smirked as they continued, a thing full of pride. Confident, yes.
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"I was hoping for something a little less involved," Rhys sighed as he stood, waiting patiently for Zev to finish gathering photographs of the damage. "Still, you're right, it might wander back or it might not. Some of them are just such a nuisance to subdue," he grumbled.
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As they advanced forward, Rhys kept an eye out both for additional tracks and any pokemon that might happen to take issue with their presence in the area. He had quickly gotten a handle on appearing outwardly composed, but his insides were coiled like a spring, his constant low-grade anxiety prepared to power swift action should the need arise.
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Fortunately, the need had not yet arisen, and all he found himself facing were more of Zev's questions. These, at least, seemed more informational than pointed, in contrast to some of his last dealings with the man, though, and so he was glad to field them.
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"Not strictly my department, so not quite as much as I'd like, but they are fascinating," he replied. "Aurelie and I managed to capture the beast I mentioned beforehand, and as a result of that they're allowing us to monitor their progress, but no direct involvement, unfortunately." His lip curled - frustration, perhaps. "However, on my last outing, I happened to capture another specimen for myself, and that's provided its own benefits, if unofficial."
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He recalled his Tinkaton and tossed another pokeball, revealing a saurian in cool hues, regarding the pair with barely-contained anger.
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"It listens quite well, for looking so angry," Rhys offered with a small grin, "But it's terribly useful having one to monitor and biopsy so close to hand."
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