they sit up a bit further in their saddle, looking thoughtful. "i see... so rather than relying on vehicles, you use more traditional methods of transportation..." it does sound exciting, but there's some logistical issues they'd have to work out. even having one pokemon was more of an accident than anything-- they'd rescued flammula when he appeared in their path, beaten and exhausted. even after he was healed, he seemed rather overwhelmed by the world around him, so nikola had decided to take him in more permanently. feeding and housing a single cyndaquil is much easier than taking care of ride pokemon, they think.

watching a rolycoly drift across the sands, they turn to josh. "how is it you manage to care for so many large pokemon?" they ask curiously. the rolycoly runs afoul of a klawf hiding in the cliff face nearby, the crab pokemon swinging a claw at the much smaller creature. nikola's watching them, but not making any moves otherwise.

[ Josh Devlin ]

passing over rolycoly and klawf.

it all happens so fast nikola barely has time to react. though their confuse ray hits, they find themself tripping in the muck immediately afterwards. still holding luna tight in their arms, they stumble and try to remain on their feet. they topple, holding the umbreon up above them so she doesn't get stuck in the swamp as well. there's a splorch as they go down. and then, before they can right themself... something is dragging both them and luna down below, through the murky waters. nikola is unable to see what's happening, and holds onto luna, as if trying to shield her with their body.

when they surface, nikola has inhaled some of the grime. they cough it up as the tentacles swarm over them, restricting their movement. their glasses are caked with filth again. they make a mental note that maybe they should switch to contacts...

luna tries to wriggle free, but the nihilego has her trapped as well. all she can offer is a feeble glow, lighting up the area around them. nikola sits there, listening to the screams and the crying. in the midst of all the wailing, it's hard to think, and even harder to see through the swamp water blocking their vision. they poke the tentacles holding them... is this some sort of pokemon? unsure what's going on, they decide the only thing to do is to try and fight back. "luna, use snarl on whatever's holding me," they say. the umbreon snarls nastily in the direction of the nihilego, and to add insult to injury... nikola wriggles until they can get enough leverage to bite the tentacle holding them as hard as they can.

updates this because i can

in terms of actual voice quality, if i throw out the accent and the fact that they don't speak the same language, nikola sounds like mafumafu.

velvet more accurately, while her band sounds like paramore, probably sounds like marceline of adventure time fame.

sterling would sound kind of like the singer of cavetown but with a british accent lol

maki just sounds like her face claim honestly. there isn't any outdoing her.

UPDATE: ignoring the different language thing again, reese sounds like/would be voiced by kobayashi yusuke!

they have little time to examine the leg before activity picks up around them, but it's enough to determine that the leg is rather old. "interesting... there's still meat on it despite being so old. was it saving it for later...?" they ponder out loud, pushing their glasses up on the bridge of their nose. then they hear the huffs of the beast as it realizes it's surrounded, and the splash of murky waters as it plunges in. nikola straightens up and follows after the rest of the group, hurrying along.

the pokemon they see is like nothing they've seen before. massive, bloodied, and resembling an ursaring... but not an ursaring. it's hard to tell under all the muck, but ursaring tend to be bipedal. they're not nearly as big, too.

it's trying to get away. nikola looks at the water, with corpses floating to the top. there's only the tiniest shred of hesitation before they plunge in, heaving their umbreon up into their arms as they wade through. they have to get a closer look! this could be an important scientific discovery... and also, people could get hurt or whatever.

"luna, use confuse ray on it," they command their umbreon, as they get closer to the fleeing bear. the umbreon follows her orders, sending the attack straight at the ursaluna. whether it hits or not depends largely on how sure-footed nikola can be in this muck...

nikola doesn't seem to be paying too much attention to seren right now. instead, they've opened up their bag and are rummaging through it. they pull out a box of latex gloves, an electric lantern, and a magnifying glass. they turn the lantern on, and flammula lets his flames die down. nikola's lantern is bright, illuminating the area more clearly. it seems they came prepared.

now they turn back to seren, smiling. "we investigate, obviously! this place can tell us so much about who buried it, if we're careful enough." they pull on the gloves and offer the box to seren. their quilava wanders the cavern, not quite as fascinated as his trainer. mostly he's just worried about touching anything, so he stays away. "and once we're done, we can report it to the expedition leads."

[ @seren ]

nikola grins listening to this. of course they fully expect this will come to pass, and that the professor will arrive and speak high praises of her valuable assistant. they nod along happily, proud of themself. "we were working on ways to unlock the latent potential of human beings," they explain. "don't you think it's odd that we're surrounded by creatures with such strange powers, yet we ourselves have none? professor thorne wanted to discover why this is, and maybe even change it." as confused and befuddling as their memories were, they could still recall the fervor with which the professor discussed her research. she had been so passionate about it... why does it feel so nostalgic? she still believes in it, right?

they push onward. "unfortunately, we lost a lot of our funding before we could reach a definite conclusion." nikola scratches their head. "i guess the board of directors didn't have much confidence in us."

[ Amor Rose ]

surprisingly, nikola seems to be doing well with the jolteon. they're not really guiding her, though... just holding on tight for dear life and laughing all the way. flammula is tucked away into their coat again, hiding from the sands. as a fire type, he isn't a fan of sandstorms; they remind him too much of being attacked by ground types. as nikola and josh's jolteon zip over the dunes, nikola can hear a roar from their right. without even looking, they announce, "there's an onix!" as they run past. the massive rock type barely has time to react before they're gone again. a weepinbell flopping around in the sand is almost trampled, managing to get out of the way just in time.

the desert itself is vast. nikola looks up finally, calling out a "woah, woah! let's slow down a moment!" to blinky, pulling back, hoping to achieve something closer to a fast trot. they glance over their shoulder at josh. "this is fantastic! i can see why you have so many large pokemon. i could never have made it this deep in on my own." their glasses are caked with sand. oops.

[ Josh Devlin ]

passing over onix and weepinbell.

PURCHASING/REDEEMING

welcome to the poké mart!

2X level tutor (40 PD)

TOTAL

do come again!

80 PD

affirmative!!!

sending lapras to maverick noah ryder in exchange for granbull!

nikola blinks. "oh! thank you." now able to see again, they scan the horizon for any signs of life. not long after, though, they hear a scream not far away. their fall is already forgotten, and they leave genevieve behind. concerned, they follow the sound to the source, finding a small girl there poking something. there's another man they don't recognize as well.

"miss, are you alright--?" they come closer, and see what she's investigating. their breath catches in their throat when they realize what it is she's looking at. they kneel down and touch the leg as well, murmuring under their breath. their umbreon is now on high alert, standing guard beside them. looking it over, nikola tries to figure out how old the remains are and what might have taken that chunk out of them. they glance at eris, wondering if it's safe for such a young girl to be here... it seems the situation might be more dire than they originally thought.

at the compliment, flammula blazes brighter. if he were human, he'd be puffing his chest out right now. "nikola!" nikola says, introducing themself. they peer further into the tunnel, but it's small enough that they have to crouch down just to see through the darkness... the glimmer in there could be anything. it could be precious metals, or jewels, or even a pokemon, hiding away.

they get down on their hands and knees. without further ado, they clamber over the fallen rocks and head into the tunnel. "there's only one way to find out, right?" they call over their shoulder. with a small huff, sounding awfully like a sigh of exasperation, their quilava follows after them. it casts a backwards glance at seren, as if asking, are you coming?

nikola continues to crawl until they come out on the other side. it's a cramped journey, but worth it when flammula's flame lights up what seems to be a cache of small treasures. personal trinkets and toys are glittering there in the dark. they look just as old as everything else in the cave-- maybe even older.

[ @seren ]

as camellia makes her way up, nikola holds out a hand to help steady her when she seems to stumble. they retract it almost immediately, though, at the sound of the metal clang coming from behind them. "oh!" they don't seem concerned. not anywhere near as concerned as their cyndaquil, who's clinging tightly to their pant leg. before the metagross even appears, nikola has identified it based purely on the sound it made. "that'll be a metagross coming up!" looks like they weren't exaggerating their knowledge of pokemon cries.

they turn around, slowly, hands out in front of them. i wonder when the last time is that it saw an organic being... it's eyeing them up, as if trying to decide whether they're a threat or not. flammula hides behind nikola, not wanting the steel type to see him. a fire type could easily be seen as a potential danger, after all.

nikola's brow furrows. "what now...?" they whisper in an aside to camellia.

[ Camellia Lemaitre ]