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"Yeah, I've seen it in one of those RKS simulations I've done-" Cass replies to Knight after Thea's been tackled. She thinks back on the memories she's made with this creature back then, and ... she just couldn't believe it. She throws herself in harm's way, wishing for them not to harm any more, but it's only her who ends up motionless, knocked out.

Something stirs Cass, as she lays motionless after the beating. She's not sure if it's other prisoners or her friends, as she slowly comes to herself, bloddied now and with the numbing pain moving in waves from certain points - her stomach, her shoulder, some more that she can't pinpoint right now. She takes in a sharp breath, before being reminded of the task at hand - clean, clean. Standing cautiously, she turns around, finally snapping back into place.

(Something does, at least.)

"Thea- are you alright? Knight?" she asks, hurrying over to them, before also turning to Andrea Vaneau- "Andrea- Andrea, are you ok-? That was- That was them from the simulation, right? What's-?" she continues her questioning, but ... she really isn't sure what kind of answers she would want. Part of her resigns itself to the clean-up duty again, her movements slow as she's unable to nurse her wounds. Now she's noticing, it's not only mochi remains that they're cleaning up. But, it's ... she finds herself squeezing, and doesn't meet any resistance.

There should be bones.

Are they dissolved- or taken? Turned to dust, and then? She stops the thought there.

It's when the creature is pulled away by chains that she rouses again, alarmed- "WAIT! No- don't!" she shouts, trying to grab the Ogerpon- but of course, she's way too far away, and her own Toxic Chain restricts her movements too much to do anything. She only watches in horror as they're pulled away to arceus-knows-where. (Or maybe Arceus doesn't.)

Her mind's then immediately caught in the icy bath, focusing everything back to her, but there's no escape from the water. She shivers uncontrollably, but she feels the piercing water clean her wounds, her general body from some grime by sheer force. After getting used to it even just a little bit, her now cleaned hands rise to grab her hair. She obviously doesn't have shampoo, but she massages it, gets out loose bits and oozes that's been caught in her hair over the course of the past hours.

"It'll take ages to have it recover from all that ..." she murmurs, finding a piece of herself amongst nothing. A thought for another day that's normal; that's not here, imprisioned. But for now, she taps her friends to get their attention, rubbing their shoulders a bit for some warmth to be immediately taken by the freezing water. "Do you want me to help wash your hair, too?" she asks, disregarding the fact that there's no shampoo here - she'd just be sorting it out a bit, removing the dirt that's clinging to it. But better than nothing, and it's just ... a moment to breathe in icy mist.

The prison routine continues on as they're herded back. She can't help but look back - then shudder.

The creature is back. They've released it again, and it feasts on the things they've cleaned up. She winces, not because of the grotesque scene - she is once more reminded of the absence of her Trubbish, and averts her gaze again. At least the creature won't starve, for better or worse.

The grotesque continues on as they walk through seemingly endless hallways. She'd lean on Thea or Knight for support, and also to support - she eyes Thea worryingly, knowing that she's been dealt a really hard blow as well. Her gaze wanders from her companions to ... everything else. Pulsating, fleshy tubes. As if giving birth. Something below here ... something's going on, but she can't tell what it might be. She finds her eyes fixed on some of the tubes, trying to discern what's moving inside - or maybe, she's better off not knowing ...

tl;dr dummy ward
- (callback, answers knight's question, then is hit)
- is knocked "out" for a bit before recovering a bit
- asks knight and thea if they're alright; turns to andrea to ask about ogerpon
- gets to clean-up work, avoids more major injuries, notices the lack of bones or anything solid
- shouts after opgerpon as it's pulled away, tries to follow but her toxic chains restrains her
- gets cleaned up by the icy shower, takes extra effort to clean up her hair
- walking through the hallway back; leans on thea or knight
- stares at the fleshy tubes, wondering, tries to figure out what they might contain

[attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"][attr="class","emapkmn"]

Upon entering the sweltering, pre-historic (pre-written-historic-anyway) heat, Xuan immediately returns to her pokéball despite being the one most curious about this RKS simulation. "And we've lost one," she smiles faintly, calling out her Glimmora Glimmer instead who looks at their surroundings with curiosity.

"I'm Cass, by the way - nice to meet you!" She wonders for a moment if that's a different scenario to before- ah, yeah, no, yep, that scream's still lowkey haunting her, or more the scenario that followed the last time she's been there. She turns to the younger kid, holding her ears closed to mute the sounds just a little bit. "WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO?" she screams, trying to be heard over the not-Jigglypuff's screaming.

Eris Halla

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Pic welcomes the congratulations with a content expression on his face, and then also joins in the compliments for Zeus, nodding vehemently in agreement. He wouldn't let Zeus downtalk himself like that, he has been a major inspiration after all !!

Cass smiles at Belle inviting the Pawmo to watch how she'd be taken care of, and laughs fondly while shampooing her, "They really get along quite well, hmm? I wonder if Hammy might even be more shy than Belle at the beginning~" She then turns her focus more onto Belle, since she could not be distracted while taking care of such a precious pokémon!

Pic also is fully focused now, almost entirely unmoving except for his hand and the tail within it. He decided to only do one colour for this, and carefully is assembling differents kind of strokes - first, he fills in a bit of the environment, before placing Gominha. But oh! Ah! She's moving! She's posing! Suddenly hit by a vision, he seems to become even more focused on the drawing and Gominha, composing this absolute master piece ... !!!!!

Martin takes a peak, but honestly seems rather unimpressed. However, he's ... he's just not an art guy, so he doesn't say anything and simply keeps the Smeargle afloat in his drawing position. (He really hopes he finishes soon ... but he'd stay like that for as long as needed.)

Thea Naito

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Cass seems quite content with the reply and grins satisfied - if she were a cat pokémon, she'd probably start purring now. However, that's quickly turned upside down as Pic sketched for the first time and she hasn't been around. She notices Thea's discomfort with her shaking Pic and stops, but still pouts, "Yeah, I suppose. That's very cool, Pic, you did great." Her voice is a flatlining monotone, but she sighs exasperatedly and fondly quickly after. "Don't worry, Pic's very resilient - I've barely stopped him from climbing into the washing machine once." Despite his most frequent shapes being angular with really straight lines, he seems to favour circles and roundness generally.

She also cheers up at the prospect of more soft fur and cooes and beckons Belle to come over as Thea says it's her turn now. "That sounds good to me! Belle darling, come up here please." She'd get the water and shampoo starting gently again, and seems to have mostly gotten over Pic's missed moment now.

Pic, also, is now fully focusing on Gominha now, being in awe of her beauty and cuteness! Even if it's a ... choice to have Gominha settle in-between the vanity care products and teeth brushes on the sink, there's probably some eccentric thought behind it. Pic also is gesturing to Martin then, asking if he could use the flower garland as a swing ... Martin seems a bit uncertain at first, but eventually nods and lets Pic get onto it, before lifting him up so he could get a better view of Gominha. Actually, since he's floating now, he could even! Consider so many angles! But Martin's warning look reminds him of the fairy type's possible wrath, and he simply nods, getting to work the most carefully he's been today.

Thea Naito

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For Cass, there could be worse and better punishments. Clean-up duty and trash inevitably reminds her of her beloved Trubbish again, whose fate is uncertain, but apart from that, she doesn't really have any hesitations about picking up what's on the ground ... ... she better not think too much on it.

The words don't fully register, but unlike some around her, she isn't super surprised that there's been a choice asking one ward to pick one over the other - she barely holds back a snort (muffled by the mask anyway) that this is actually something that makes sense in these messed up mind games. And it quickly also becomes that clean-up isn't even actually the punishment.

The restricted movement is dumb when it comes to efficient clean-up, but as it turns out, this truly isn't the goal here. A creature's set loose, indiscriminately attacking with those chained to the floor having lesser chances of escaping. Cass isn't rooted to the floor because of the Toxic Chains, however - she's just staring at the fleeting shadows with confused recognition, only intensified by Andrea Vaneau's words - and now she also recognises the other inmate as the one who's done the simulation with her before.

So it is this sweet child or pokémon from the festival- and her heart aches as she sees it reduced to feral agression, sending Andrea flying. Her stomach then joins in the whirlwind, but she still couldn't move despite Thea Naito's warnings. Her voice calling for Knight Naito pierces her ears, seeing as the creature tackles him, but she manages to dive in just in the nick of time.

But this means, indeed, that the creature is nearby, attacking mindlessly. "Hey..." she whispers, "What happened-" The creature appears beside her in a flash, and she couldn't- there's no room to move, for one, and she ... "Why-"

The air is knocked out of her lungs as it tackles her, pain flooding her system in an instant. It spreads, blocking out other sensory information, fills her with dread as she struggles to keep her mind afloat in an opening-up darkness.

What happens now?

She knows she can't give up, but it's tempting.

tl;dr dummy ward
- briefly goes to work on the clean-up
- is quickly distracted by ogerpon (recognises andrea and the ogerpon), confused why it is here and like this
- gets hit by it regardless of roll, suffering

- SINCE SHE SUCCEEDED, i'm up for her covering someone who failed! just @ me in the server :3

spYWW3uS

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Cass grins at Gominha's extensive display that everything's right with her hair tuft, and takes the squishy hug and returns it manifold. Soft fur is just the best ...!! (She really needs to figure out feathers for her Fletchinder Effie's sake, even if she's of the opposite opinion.) "I'm happy when you're happy~" she singsongs, then also takes out her phone if Gominha would allow to take a quick selfie of the two of them.

"I think personally, you can't love me ever enough," she replies to Thea's words with a grin and a wink as she goes to prepare the bath again for the next pokémon. Before it could be fully decided who's next, Belle and Zeus reappear with Pic quickly following behind them. Pic raises a hand dramatically, as if asking for a timeout while he's recovering from the fullsprint.

Zeus in the meanwhile recounts something and. So, Cass is fairly new to battling, but she does recognise the mimicked Cross Chop. The shampoo bar she's been holding falls to the ground. Leaping over, she grabs Pic, shaking him a little. "Did you- did you sketch an attack and I wasn't there for it?!" she pouts, but Pic is blissfully unaware of her inner turmoil and just happily nods, gesturing with his tail at Zeus. "Pic........" Cass shakes him a little bit more, but he really has no idea what she's on about.

Eventually, Cass would let go of him, however, leaving him room finally to see Gominha's beauty in full. He seems struck by the lightning of muse, gesturing for Gominha to take a seat somewhere in a good location (on the sink) before he'd start drawing.

Thea Naito

Cass halfway lifts her arms in helpless defiance at her mother's amusement, but there's really nothing she can do to come back from that, is there ... "Thanks ..." she decides to drop it, which is probably the best course of action now. Well, apart from a little unintended jab regarding the holiday season, which is always a stressful time for Kelpie especially and by extension the kids also.

Cass does seem to be a bit triumphant about irritating her mother despite every sane braincell in her body telling her that's a bad idea, generally speaking. "Guess capitalism's been the bad guy all along," she murmurs, but it's also probably exactly that why she's living so well in the first place ... truly, she's just a teenager with too many ideals and not many ideas at times. "But hey, factually, it's still some time off!"

Her naiveté also shows with the furfrou, though that one topic she might vehemently defend herself on. "Noo, look, there's this little curve here around the edges, and even if it's mostly black, you can see that they're very quick on the uptake, even if maybe a bit silly ... but definitely the makings of someone trustworthy," Cass cooes while bathing the dog who, frankly, has no idea what's going on, but looks seemingly happily from Cass to Kelpie.

At the discovery of an actual collar, Cass focuses on the neck area, and sure enough ... "Oh! There is an adress, it's here in Petalburg, and ... a phone number! Can you call the owner to tell them their Furfrou is safe?" Her own hands are a bit too ... soapy. After telling her mother the phone number, she goes back to washing off the dirt from the rest of the pokémon's body. "The adress kind of reminds me of something ... it seems familiar ..."

Calpurnia Kubrick

(gacha alolan diglett)

"YIEEEEEE!" Cass shouts, quickly taking a step backward and trying not to put any weight on her left foot that's just been lowkey pierced by something. Thank goodness she's wearing shoes despite having considered not to ... She stares at the ground, but there doesn't seem to be anything unusual ... she doesn't see the three hairs sticking out of it. "Okay, that's ... not normal," she says, before moving onto her garden patch. She only wanted to check how Peter's doing quickly, but.

So that's. Interesting.

It's been full of weed just yesterday, and now ... well, she's half heartbroken about the missing weed, but then again, it actually looks like someone's been working the soil now, which ... "Peter, did you notice anything happening here?" she asks, but the Flapple just flaps a bit questioningly. "Okay, seems like ... OUCH what the fuck," she screams again, this time with her right foot being the victim. Now, the cause actually shows itself too with a guilty look on their face. "You're ... You're an Alolan Diglett, aren't you?" she asks, looking at the Ground type with a squint and a sigh.

"Did you take care of the garden?" The Diglett nods, seemingly anxious to hear what she thinks. "It's ... thank you. Didn't really ... got myself to do it, so yeah, thanks for that. Still, I'd appreciate if you-" The Diglett starts pointing towards Peter, who seems unfazed by the new pokémon. Which generally doesn't seem odd, but ... "So, you know each other?"

Peter flaps in confirmation, and Cass sighs. "Alright, fine ... wanna join the team, little one? We could ... use someone who's actually ... knowing how to garden ..."

answered icly and anonymously

"What is your go to karaoke song?"
Lower One's Eyes by Lanndo if anything goes. ... else, whatever movie soundtrack's trending right now. I'm not super picky.

"Is the person you are now, the person you wanted to be when you were younger?"
... no.

"Have you told your loved ones that you care about them recently? If not, why?"
If we don't take "telling" literally, yeah.

"Do you have a suggestion for a future survey question? Please submit it below."
- Do you have a quote/proverb/lyrics that changed your life? If yes, what is it?
- What's your least favourite fashion style?