Six days ago - Pokemon HQ Lab - 6:00 AM

"Professor Krane!" Yelled out one of the scientists as he approached the Pokemon Professor. Krane turned around to face the scientist. "Yes? What's all this racket about?" Professor Krane was an averagely tall man, apparently around his thirties, pale, his messy brown hair covered his brow and his ears. He wore square glasses and the average white lab jacket with a green shirt and brown pants below. "Well?" Krane asked again, the scientist finished panting and then looked up at Krane. "The pokemon we were keeping for the new trainers, they're all gone!" Krana staggered backwards in suprise. "What?! How? When?!"

The scientist pointed back to the laboratory. "Just now! I came back from the laboratory and there was nothing there!" Krane panicked and rushed towards the laboratory, the scientist following him close behind. Krane arrived at the laboratory's door and started typing in the security console. "What i don't understand is how they got past our securities. Urgh, i swear, just hiring guards would be easier and way more efficient." The scientist simply nodded in response, watching as Krane typed in the password.

Krane finally opened the door and looked around the laboratory frantically, only to realise all of the pokeballs were still in there. The last piece of the puzzle clicked in place as Krane felt a sudden pain in his head, following by his vision darkening. The scientist, after having knocked out Professor Krane, proceeded to take out his cell phone and quickly dialed. "Boss, i got the laboratory open." Within seconds, several armed soldiers started breaking through the windows of the Pokemon Lab. The scientists who weren't hurt during the soldier's entrance quickly went to find somewhere to hide.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Professor Krane was slowly recovering consciousness, while remaining on the ground he tried to look around only to see several people looting all of the pokeballs in the laboratory and stuffing them into sacks. He also managed to see four people talking not too far away from him, he could only see their feet, however. One of them was wearing heels, two of them were wearing heavy black boots and the other seemed to be wearing normal shoes. Before he managed to get his vision up, however, someone noticed he was awake and promptly knocked him out again.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

About an hour later...

The police finally arrived at the scene, only to find a bunch of wounded or scared scientists and that all the pokemon in the laboratory had been taken away, also, all of the laboratory's computers had been cleaned up, probably after having all useful information downloaded from them. Professor Krane was being escorted out of the laboratory by one of the police force's Machamps and was taken to an ambulance.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Two days go - Mt. Battle - 2:00 PM

"I think they must've hit you a bit too hard on the head, haven't they Krane?" Said the Director of Mt. Battle as he looked at Krane from the other side of his table. Krane shook his head. "Definetly not, i thought this over and am completely sure. The police on their own were never able to do anything against Cipher. And since Michael left to continue his journey on Kanto, we need new trainers here to deal with this threat." The Director sighed heavily. "How do you even know this is Cipher? Weren't you knocked out during the whole thing?" Professor Krane slammed his hand against the desk. "I am sure it was them, only Cipher would do something so vile as this."

The director sighed heavily again. "And what do you intend to do? Host a tournament just to attract people to rally against Cipher? That's not going to attract anyone but Cipher themselves." Krane crossed his arms and responded. "Please Mr. Director, don't mistake me for a fool. We will host this tournament as any other, we won't reveal the real reasons behind it. We'll make the proposition to join us to the winners of the tournament and if they accept, good, if they don't, they don't. You don't even have to admit aknowledging anything."

The Director gave one more serious stare at Professor Krane before he started typing in his computer. "Very well, when will we be hosting this?" Krane nodded. "Thank you, and as soon as possible."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Today - Mt. Battle - 10:00 AM

Howard approached the entrance to Mt. Battle. V tightly grappled to his shoulder as she looked around at everyone, never before had she seen so much commotion. Several trainers and pokemon were spread all around the rooms of Mt. Battle, all waiting for the big tournament to start. Howard lightly patted V's head. "Hey now, pay attention or you might fall off my shoulder." Howard walked into the reception and started registering for the tournament. The woman by the reception stared at him awkwardly. "Are you sure you'll be entering the tournament just with that Eevee? Even though the rules of this tournament would allow you to do so, doesn't that give you quite a technical disadvantage over the others...?"

Howard smiled innocently. "Don't worry about me, miss. Me and V here are ready for anything that the others may throw at us. Plus, we're here just for fun, mostly." V shook her head in agreement with her trainer, letting out a short growl. The receptionist shrugged and finished up the registration. Howard smiled to the receptionist and walked away.

As Howard walked around Mt. Battle, he grabbed V in his hands and asked her. "Well, are you feeling hungry?" As V nodded cheerfully, Howard responded and headed to Mt. Battle's cafeteria. There, he bought tea for himself and a few chocolate cookies, wich he started feeding V with.

Igor hastened the pace of his steps as he saw the silhouette of Mt. Battle grow in the distance. "It couldn't be farther than a few kilometres now", he thought. He checked the flyer of the tournament again, just to be sure, than turned his eyes to the mountain in the distance once more. "I wouldn't lose. Not now.", he spoke to himself, remembering that ominous battle two years ago. His obliterated ego was somewhat healed, however, by the white pokeball in his pocket, hosting a pokemon of extreme rarity. He knew he would never use it unless his life would be on the line, but still, just having it was an electrifying feeling.

It was around 11 AM when he reached the set of stairs leading up the mountain. After climbing them, he headed for the registration building. He walked to the counter, and presented his trainer card to the lady by the reception. "May I ask for the IDs of your pokemon?", she asked. "Of course.", Igor replied, as he took out his PDA in which he stored data about his pokemon. "Male Swampert, ID 1260-OIC-44". A small pause followed as the woman typed in the ID. "Security measures", Igor thought, "as if someone was so stupid to enter a tournament with a stolen pokemon...". "Female Houndoom, ID 2229-FLT-17". Another small pause. "Male Salamence, ID 1373-ASL-35". "Thank you! I hope you'll enjoy the tournament!", the receptionist said. "Thanks. Goodbye", Igor said, as he left the reception. He went to look around the stadium. He was confident in his skills and hoped his pokemon would give their best as well...

Hei made it to Mt. Battle after a day's travel in a small car that he managed to obtain... well, small enough to fit all his food in the trunk, anyway. He had an appetite from before he gained his electricity control, and by appetite, I mean he could eat a weeks' supply of food in a single sitting.

Anyway, enough on that subject, Hei decided to open his car door and get out. When he moved to the passenger side, he opened the door for a young girl of about 14 with white hair put behind her head at an upward diagonal to come out, her name being Yin. Out from the back seat and through the open door, a black miniature Persian (as a cover story) without the ruby in the forehead came out, the bell on his collar ringing out for him. The cat (as he really is) was actually a man that could body jump animals but couldn't return to his own body, due to a tragic accident, named Mao.

"So, Hei, what are we supposed to do now? We aren't here for much, are we? Just get to the tournament and find out what Krane wants us for, right?" Mao had asked in irritation.

"That's right, Mao, but it may not be that simple," replied Hei, knowing that whenever he became involved something weird happened. "Yin," he turned his head to her, "you make sure that nobody tries anything funny, okay?"

"Understood, Hei," Yin replied, emotion being anywhere but her voice.

As the three went to the registration desk, Hei suddenly felt a pressure over his right eye, noticing a man that had three darkened Pokeballs on his belt.

"Mao, did you see that?"

"See what?"

"The Pokeballs, Mao."

"What about them?"

"...Never mind," Hei replied, feeling as if Mao couldn't tell what that was about.

Soon enough, they made it to the registration desk, waiting behind the man, who was waiting behind a boy with just an Eevee who had been the eighth to get there... and Hei was wondering how the tournament was supposed to work.

"Next!!"

The man went forward, Hei right behind him. He was wondering what name he was going to use, but then recalled that almost everyone back home knew him as Li Shengshun the Chinese exchange student.

"Your name, sir?"

"I'll go by October if you don't mind."

Hei, who only knew three people that went by calendar dates through the databases of the Syndicate, was surprised that there was someone else, but he quickly felt weird about this particular man, this... October, as he called himself.

"Your name is a little weird, but OK!! Now, would you please hand over your Pokeballs to let me scan them?"

"Sure," replied October, taking them off his belt. The scanner produced the images of a Treecko, a Torchick, and a Mudkip that had been from the Pokeballs, before the balls were returned to him.

"Okay, nothing out of the ordinary, so you're free to go in and participate!! Enjoy your time!!" The receptionist was rather glad when he did move out of the way with his Pokemon, because she told Hei when he came up, "look out for that man, he could be working for Cipher."

"Cipher?"

"You never heard of them? They're a criminal organization that's worse than any of the others, and he was unaware that I scouted his Pokeballs and saw the corruption on them. I just hope that you beat him should you encounter him, he's not someone to trust."

"I see... Oh, my name's Li Shengshun, and here are my Pokemon!"

Hei took off his Pokeballs and handed them to the receptionist, who was glad that they were free of corruption, and scanned them to check to see what they were. She showed shock to know that they were weaker starters, but let it go, knowing he had some good reason to be there, and away from Cipher's hands, anyway.

"Okay, you're all set! Just be careful, Li. I don't want you hurt in all this."

Embarrassed, Hei said, "Oh, okay! By the way, this guy here is a companion of my human friend here, named Mao." As he said that, he motioned to Mao, who looked at him like he was crazy.

The receptionist looked over and saw how "cute" the cat was, but then ushered them to the inside, because there was a line.

(OOC) I hope that worked out. Also, this was before Igor, okay? (/OOC)

Aya walked into the Mt. Battle arena reception area and twirled her hair nervously. Why did I have to come here? she thought to herself. The lower half of her face was covered by a scarf to avoid being recognized. She hated always being approached by some fan calling her "the daughter of the legendary Daisuke Hasegawa" and ask her a million questions about herself and her father.
She approached the front desk to register. "I-I'd like to register, please," she said quietly.
"Excuse me?" the receptionist asked and leaned forward. "I can't hear you, honey. Could you take off that scarf?"
Aya did as she was told and immediately regretted it. "Ohmigod!" the receptionist squealed. "You're Aya Hasegawa! You're a celebrity!"
Aya flushed and panicked. "K-Keep it d-d-down, please!" she hissed frantically and pulled her scarf back over her face. But it was too late. A small crowd had formed around her, speaking amongst themselves.
"I'd like to register, please!" Aya yelled, louder than she meant too. She blushed again. "Here are my Pokeballs," she said and handed them over.
The receptionist scanned them and handed them back after finding nothing wrong. "All set. I can't wait to see your match."
Aya took them and walked hurriedly to a nearby bench and sat down. She sighed and hung her head. "Why can't they leave me alone?"

As Andrew Kirk walked casually to the entrance of Mt. Battle and thought It's a step down from gyms but, it's enough to make 'em proud. He saw a large amount of trainers and thought With this many people this could be a town. Then looking at the pokemon he thought There's no way I can win this all these trainers probably have 10 times the badges I have! Things got even worse when he saw his famous father on a picture and Andrew hid his face. Andrew's Absol sensed his despair and nudged him giving him the message to "knock it off."

Andrew approached the front desk and said "I w-would like to r-register for the tournament." in a nervous way. The receptionist replied "Is that your only pokemon, dear"
"No here are my other two pokemon" and gave her his pokeballs she scanned them after, seeing a screen containing pictures of his Charmeleon and Beldum and returned them to him.
"Name please"
"Andrew Kirk"
"By any chance are you related to Matt Kirk "
"Yes he's my father" Andrew's face slightly reddened
"I bet you're just like him and you're going to win this tournament but, anyways I'll be watching you during the tournament"
Andrew's face reddened even more "Well I hope I win" he changed the subject quickly "Well nice meeting you."
"Well nice meeting you too!"
Well, what am I supposed to do now?

"..." They'd been walking for a while, Hearth and Atlas, and the thankfully silent Umbreon was starting to throw curious stares up at his partner. "..." Hearth sighed. He knew that they were supposed to be at Mt. Battle for the tournament, but well... "Umbre-" "Yes I know we're lost!" The exclamation silenced the little black dog, but caused the Ninetail's who'd been meandering behind them to snicker. "Oh yea, like you could do any better Snow! Just... just let me take a look at the map, okay?" Hearth reached back, sliding the map in question from a pocket on the side of his bag, then unfolding it to begin the hopeless task of deciphering the thing. It was undoable, he decided after a short time- this map was a construct of sheet madness, there was no rationality, no sense to be made of it. They'd be out in the wilderness forever- how could they escape with only this monstrosity to lead them, how could they- "Ri- riolu." The sound came from the small Riolu perched on Hearth's shoulders, and it leaned forward slightly to point out their location with small furry fingers. There was a moment of stunned silence, then Hearth turned his head to ask how the baby pokemon had known that. It gave a cute little laugh, then grabbed his head with both paws and turned it... toward the mountain that jutted out above the treeline to their right. ... "Oh." This time the laughter was unrestrained.

Turns out that, even if you can see a mountain, that doesn't mean it's close. And so Hearth and his team spent a good two hours trekking through the woods before popping out onto a road which, thankfully enough, led straight up to the mountain (then up said mountain in a considerably more curvy manner). Finally, and I mean finally they arrived. Despite the dramatics, they'd actually arrived fairly early on in the day, and as they approached the entrance, they could only pick out a few people meandering about the registration area, and a couple more around the cafeteria. So, without ever slowing his pace, Hearth recalled the two pokemon at his feet to their pokeballs, which he then deposited into their holders on his belt. Steel... well, he had never been in a pokeball before, and it wasn't like he was going to be fighting, so the small pokemon was left perched on it's trainer's shoulders, humming happily and looking around at all the people.

The first stop the pair made was the Cafeteria. It wasn't a very big deal to Hearth but Steel squealed in joy at the wonderful smells and herded his partner over to the large selection of cookies. Oh god I should have stayed away from here... Hearth thought, but he let the little Riolu down so it could run up and paw at the glass counter. It was cute- heck, it was adorable when Steel acted like that, but they really did need to go register... So, after a moment's deliberation, Hearth walked up to the counter, which immediately attracted the attention of the lady running it. "Excuse me, miss? My Riolu here has a bit of a sweet tooth..." he sat some money down on the counter- considerably more than the cost of the cookies themselves- and continued, "could you do me a favor and get him whichever cookies he wants? I have to go register for the tournament." Fortunately, she didn't seem to mind serving Steel- she seemed more amused than anything and replied with a nod. "Great- thanks!" Hearth said as he turned on his heels to run off towards registration.

Unfortunately, Hearth was forced to slow down on his way over to register, as more and more people seemed to be spread out in front of him. Eventually, he stopped entirely, just feet from the registration desk. A crowd had gathered for some reason, and his very polite requests to move aside were ignored entirely as they raved over some... celebrity or something. Ugh... He released Snow from her pokeball as he himself gave off a sigh. The fire-fox looked up at him with a curious glint in her eyes, and in nodded towards the crowd of people who were still mulling before him. "Roar." Snow gave him a disbelieving look, but then seemed... amused at his attitude. She knew what this was about- he was jealous. Still, she followed then command and gave off a fierce roar- effectively scattering the crowd before him. Then she walked along at his side as he made his way up to the desk. Weird... he thought, looking around curiously, the person they'd been ranting about must have left already. ... Ah well, more reason to get them moving. "Yes," he began, returning the lady at the desk's smile, "I'm here to register for the tournament." She gave a nod, typed a bit on her computer, then looked back up at him, "Alright, I'm going to need to see your pokeballs so I can register your team." Hearth reached down and drew Atlas and Snow's balls from his belt, recalled the Ninetails at his side, then handed her both. He let his attention trail off, looking around at the various people- but was soon interrupted by the receptionist, "Sir?" she asked, looking pointedly down at the third ball, which still remained attached to his belt. "Oh, right, sorry. He's a non-contestant." "Ah, alright then, just give me a couple of seconds..." ... A couple of seconds later... "Alright, here you are," she handed Hearth his pokeballs, "and thank you for registering." He gave an idle nod, released Snow from her ball (Atlas was probably asleep), and started back.

Snow just stared up at her partner, laughing occasionally, much to his dismay. "Okay, okay, I get it. But come on, after all the stuff we've done, why don't we have crowds of people gathering around us?" "Nine," she replied, thinking of the time back at the docks, when that kid had all but attacked them. "... Okay, yea, good point." He reached down to scratch the soft fur behind Snow's ears, then gave a small laugh, "Well... go ahead and run around a bit, we have a while before the tournament starts. You can meet me back at the cafeteria when you're ready." She nodded, giving a smile before turning off and walking in some apparently random direction. And Hearth himself set off towards the cafeteria, hoping to subvert whatever trouble Steel managed to get himself into.

Meanwhile, back at the Cafeteria...

"Ri, ri, ri, ri, ri... Riolu!" Steel said, happily pointing out a half dozen large cookies of various flavors. And, to his delight, the lady behind the counter reached to to get them for him, before putting them into a paper bag and leaning over the counter to hand it to the little Riolu. He took it happily, then turned to show Hearth... But Hearth had disappeared. Steel looked around a bit, wondering where his master... no, his partner had gotten off to, but couldn't find him. Oh well, he did this sort of thing all the time, he'd be back soon enough. And in the meantime... "Riolu!" the little pokemon exclaimed before running off to find somewhere to eat his cookies.

There were plenty of tables in the cafeteria, but most of them had a bunch of people sitting at them, talking loudly at each other, or seemed like they needed to be wiped down first. So, while Steel couldn't find any tables that he could use for himself... he did manage to find one that was almost empty. The only patrons were a boy who looked a bit younger than Hearth, and an Eevee who seemed to be enjoying some cookies. So... the Riolu scurried over, hoisting himself up onto a chair opposite the boy. Then, he threw his bag of cookies up onto the table and, after a couple of tries, managed to pull himself up as well. On padded feet, Steel walked over, dragging his bag behind him. Then, he sat down in front of the boy and pulled out a cookie and introduced himself to his new friends. "Riolu. Ri, rio, ri, riolu!" he began, continuing on in that manner as he explained that he was waiting for Hearth and decided to eat there since the other tables were occupied (or dirty). Then, he took a big bite of the large chocolate chip cookie and smiled at pair in front of him.

And as for what Snow was doing...

Snow looked around, bored. "So many people, yet nothing to do..." she said to herself, drawing the startled attention of a few people nearby. She ignored them, of course, fanning her tails up to cut their vision short. She wandered a bit, then found herself prancing around, drawing some attention from people, mostly girls, who looked at her and cooed about how cute she was. That was fun, for a time. But it got old fairly quickly. She wasn't paying much attention while she walked, then, and nearly bumped into a Persian who... Hm... A black Persian, smaller than most she'd seen (not that she'd seen many), and looking a bit less... snobby as well. She stared at him for a minute, then shrugged, turning as she fanned her tails over the cat (hey, it was a habit), and kept walking.

Now, believe it or not, walking aimlessly about wasn't really what Snow was made for. It was boring, tiring, and she was always distracting people. So, she decided that she'd just relax, lay down for a while, maybe take a nap, and then go meet up with Hearth. But there were so many people around, it wasn't exactly easy to find a place to sit. It was after a little bit of searching that she managed to find a bench- not as nice as some warm grass, but it was certainly a step up from the hard rock beneath her. Of course, said bench was, in fact, occupied... but come on, like that would stop her? She approached, quietly, from the side, appraising the person in question. There on the bench, looking like she wanted to avoid any attention as thoroughly as possible, was a girl. She looked vaguely familiar... but, it was the strangest thing, she seemed kind of down. Snow gave a slight sniff, then hopped up onto the bench. For a moment, she considered ignoring the girl, but ah, she was nicer than that. So, she walked along the wooden seat and laid down right beside her, resting her head on the girl's lap. "What's wrong?" she asked- though of course, it came off as more of a "Nine, nine?" to the human.

Sneasle took a deep breath. He was born and raised for one purpose, and that was to win tournaments. This would be the first trail. He would be evaluated to see whether or not he was champion material. Even pokemon get nervous, and Sneasle was paticularly so.
Regardless, he began his warm up. He swiftly moved his limbs, swiping and kicking at the empty air in form. In a way, it was comparable to martial arts. He could feel his master's gaze inspecting every move. Master never missed a detail, no matter how minor.
There was always pressure to these things. Sneasle had seen many pokemon come and go. Those who didn't meet master's expectations were never heard from again. Sneasle didn't want to be amoung them.
Sneasle finished up his warmup with a finishing swipe, before turning to his master. It was difficult to tell how well one performed from the master's lack of expression. Finally master spoke a word neither positive or negative. "Acceptable."
Sneasle couldn't tell whether or not he should feel pleased. But before he knew it, master was removing the weighted bands and anklets from his limbs.
"Next time you're out in the air is in the first round Sneasle. Sit tight until then," his master said before returning him to the pokeball.

---

Grey got up from the bench he was sitting as he tucked his pokeball away. A crowed was gathering outside the registration building. "Well, it was great that I registered early," he said to himself. "Imagine the hustle I would have had to go through now."
He looked at his watch. Still some time before the pairings. "Well, I suppose that's one downside to showing up early. Guess I'll scout out the competetion."
Grey wandered over to the building. He had to squeeze by a crowd or two to get inside. He overhearda remark about Matt Kirk from the receptionist.
"Matt Kirk? That legendary trainer here? Nah, must have misheard."
He looked around some more, only seeing trainers he didn't recognize. "Must be a low profile tournament," Grey thought before he spotted Aya Hasegawa by a bench, being harrassed by fans. "Well, at least that's one trainer out of hundreds. Should see if I can get any trainer tips from her... maybe when the crowd dies down..."

Hei decided to keep an eye out for October, not only for the fake name that usually belonged to a Contractor, but for what he noticed about his pokemon. It was odd, really... did he somehow get a strange ability with his sister's Contract that let him see that sort of stuff, or did it come some other way?

Speaking of the Contract, he needed a chance to see if it still worked, as he never had a chance to find out what happened to cause it to have less effect on humans when he tested it out on criminals that the Syndicate here wanted taken down.

"You know, Hei, there's a good chance for you to do assassination work under my employ."

Hei turned his head slowly to see someone that looked like Krane leaning against a wall. Currently he was trying to hide from the general public due to his part in what was going to be one of the greatest Pokemon Tournaments, and he was wearing a heavy coat that went down to his feet, along with a hat that covered his face and hair.

"So, you're Professor Krane?"

"No, I'm not. I'm just a guy that's meant to look like him to fool the assassin, hired out by the Syndicate, and hopefully I'm going to live after this one mission. Don't worry, I won't tell anyone of your role in all this, but I have a favor to ask of you."

"What favor is that?" Hei was currently trying to figure out if he needed to go into mission mode... he didn't need to worry.

"I'm sure you're aware of the man going by October? His real name is Arnold Kline, a Contractor in employ of Cipher. I want you to end his existence and clean out his Pokemon's corruption, in whatever order you want. I'm sure we have a deal, Hei, but I want you to tell me, okay?"

Hei thought it over for a bit, and then said, "Yes, good sir, we do. You do, however, owe me for this one."

Mao, who was silent during all this, asked, "What's his Messier Number? I'm sure we need to know that one, so we can tell his power."

The agent thought back to his records on the subject, and then replied, "Now that you mention it, his number is BT-805, and I'm sure you know who-"

"WAIT!! BT-805 is his Contract?!" Hei demanded due to how serious it was, and wanted to stop the idiocy of a man that was a deadly Contractor in this tournament, wether he was with Cipher or not.

"BT-805... he has the power to freeze time for his opponent's heart, causing a heart attack once it comes back to the right time, though his price is unknown."

Everyone that was aware of the existence of Contractors looked at Yin with an amazed look in their eyes. Yin, despite being supposedly blind, looked at them and asked, with genuine confusion in her voice, "What?"

"You know what... forget it," Mao said, due to not knowing where she got that info, and not caring at the moment. "We need to come up with a plan... ah, got it, turn me into a means of you keeping your heart in motion by distracting him. Is that a good idea?"

Hei shrugged, then said, "Simple works for me... and that was simple." He then turned to the agent and said, "Well, see you later."

The man nodded his head and said, "Yeah, see you later." Then he walked away from the area and Hei headed for the waiting area for trainers, while Mao and Yin went to the stands to root him on, waiting for the time when they would root out BT-805... also known as October and Arnold Kline.

"Hei, I have a question," Mao asked all of a sudden over the radio installed in his bell.

Hei, not sure what to do other than reply, seeing he was alone, answered, "Sure, Mao, what is it?"

"Do Ninetails actually have a sort of sixth sense or something?"

Hei was confused. A Ninetails actually knowing the difference between a Pokemon and a cat-bodied Contractor from another world that had already paid his price? Highly unlikely, but it was a start to knowing the intricacies of Pokemon, as Saito, Chiaki, and Pai were not much to go by in the mystical sort of stuff.

With a sigh, he replied, "I don't really know. However, don't run into any Pokemon on purpose, okay? I hope that you understand what to worry about."

"Sure, Hei, I understand." With that, Mao cut the connection, and continued to the stands with Yin.

Aya was sulking on the bench, ignoring the commotion around her. She briefly looked up when she heard a loud Roar, then instantly went back to looking at her feet. A couple minutes later, a Ninetails jumped up next to her on the bench and laid its head on Aya's lap. Aya was really surprised at first. Whose Pokemon was this? Then the Ninetails started talking to her. Of course, she couldn't understand it. It seemed like it was worried about her though.
"Oh, uh, hello," Aya said and stroked the Ninetails's fur. She always instantly warms up to Pokemon, but not so much to humans. "Are you here for the tournament with your trainer?" Aya smiled. "Me too. I'm here with my friends. We're gonna do our best so watch out!" Aya laughed and continued to pet the Ninetails. She was having fun for the first time since arriving.

(OOC: Collaaaaab post...!)

Howard knelt down to V's level, slowly moving the cookie into the Eevee's mouth, who chomped it down happily
Howard then got another cookie and opened his mouth, mimicking to V to open hers again.

Myra circled around the waiting room looking for anyone she knew. Unforunitaly no luck.
Myra got bored of looking for people and decidedt get a drink from cafeteria. So she walked walked there with her Delcatty in hand.
She went up to the stand and oredered small a small pepsi.

Howard lifted up another one of the chocolate cookies for V. "Here you go, V, enjo-" Just then, Howard noticed Myra in the cafeteria's counter, he stood up and walked in her direction. "Hey! Myra!" As he walked away, V stared murderously at him, as he took all of the cookies with him.

"Howard!" she said excitedly and gave him a HUg "I think you forgot someone" She giggled and looked at Eevee

Howard staggered backward slightly with the hug. "Uhm...Hello to you too...So...How's Delcatty been doing? Oh and don't mind V, she can wait." V let out a short growl and then tackled Howard to the ground. "H-Woah!" Once Howard was on the ground, V grabbed the pack of cookies with her mouth and walked away.

Myra looked at Howard on the ground. "need a hand?" she giggled. she held out ah and for him to get up. "And i've been well, you?"

Howard clumsily took her hand and got up. "Thanks...I've been fine. I take it you've signed up for the tournament as well, yes?" Howard looked from one side to the other, not really sure of what to say. He knew what to "say" when around pokemon, but not around people. "So uhm...How has your journey been going?"

"Actually...My journey has been kinda slow and loney. No one but me and Jelli here. . .How about you" she said nervously scratched her arm.
She giggled. "It sound's great. I bet your lookin' forward to havin a Mrs.Taylor too!Haha. Even though your not meant to be a trainer...doesnt mean you cant have an adventure. You never know, You might change your mind."

Howard rolled his eyes when he heard her idea of him having a Mrs. Taylor. "Bah...I doubt i know my around people well enough to ever even get a girlfriend...And i suppose you're right, still a long way ahead, who knows what might happen..." Howard chuckled but then continued. "You know, we'll probably end up fighting each another in this tournament."

She smiled slyly "Nothin' wrong with that, is there? What pokemon do you have with you today?"

Howard sighed. "Just V. I don't think i'll need any other pokemon, though, we'll be having just separate single battles. Or at least, that's what the flier for this tournament said." Howard looked around to notice the cafeteria was pretty much empty except for them, he slowly turned to Myra. "Well...What about you?"

Myra looked aback at him again."Uhmmm...I have Jelli here and my pollywag...If we can ahve team battles...Be my partner?" She smiled

Howard blinked a few times. "I'd be glad but i don't think there really will be any. Well, we could always travel together for a bit after the tournament, where are you headed?"

"Well..Im going from gym to gym,Just tryin toget my badges...I'll probably go to the closest one form here once im elimnated outta the competition..."

Howard smiled slightly and gently bonked her head. "Hey. Don't be so pessimistic. We both have good chances of winning, unless of course we end up against one another in the finals, in wich case, i'll be taking the gold home."

Myra raised an eye brow. "Really now? Because...Evee is unevolved...And is your ONLY pokemon...Where of...Jelli is evolved...And i sitll have polywag...Good luck wit htaht one!" she said patting him on teh shoulder playfully

Howard rolled his eyes. "V is unevolved because she didn't want to evolve yet. And besides, V is as a strong pokemon as there ever was!" Howard had a fire in his eyes and looked completely determined, he turned to the direction where V had walked away to. "Isn't that- V. . ." He stared at the V, unconscious and sleeping right next to a bunch of cookie remains. Howard facepalmed.

"Yeaaaaaaaaah. . . .About V. . . " she nudged her with her foot... "She is like...Dead...Good luck"

Howard picked up V, waking her up, she looked slighlty nauseated. "Don't you dare throw up on my coat now." Howard sighed and then looked back at Myra. "I'm taking her to the pokecenter before the tournament begins, see if they can give V some kind of medicine against stomach ache." V let out a short burp. Howard looked down at the Eeevee. "I thought you were female?"

"Oh..Well..Alrighty..I'll see you at the match" She said winking at him and walked away.

Howard just stood there, frozen in place. ". . .Did she just wink at me. . .?" Howard's face had gotten slightly red. V burped again. Howard yelled down at her. "Stop doing that!"

Myra herd V burp again and giggled as she walked away.

While it had slipped her mind that Human's couldn't understand her, Snow was happy to see that the girl seemed to get where she was coming from. She talked for a bit, Snow nodding her head at all the correct junctures to show that she understood. Then, the girl mentioned that she was in the tournament too. It surprised the fox, to an extent. The girl didn't really seem like the battling type to her- but in retrospect, she should have figured it out by the way she seemed so at ease with a large, fire breathing fox appearing out of nowhere to talk to her. Mm, maybe I'm getting slow... "Nine, nine. Nine- tails." she said, meaning to ask the girl her name. That didn't play out so well, however, as the question seemed to be lost in the translation. Instead, she just gave a slight shrug and leaned into the petting, letting a few of her tails trail up to wrap lightly around the girl. Pesky... self aware... Snow thought in regards to her tails, which moved with little thought on her part- but her thoughts trailed off pretty quickly, "Mm, you're better at this than Hearth..."

Hei was certain that there was going to be trouble, he just needed to know what sort of trouble, then he'd take care of the situation the good old fashioned way: pure assassination.

Which led to one problem in this place: How the hell was he supposed to do that with all the cameras?

He figured that something was wrong, but decided against a course of action that would permanently eliminate the Contractor, instead opting to let the enemy make his move.

With a sigh he moved to the waiting room, and not a moment too soon, as he was about to be run over where he previously stood.

Hei looked around, but couldn't see who did it, just a trail of dust... odd. He decided to enter the room and wait for his turn.

(OOC: This was edited way later than when it was originally posted. I was asked to fix things up and I did. I took away the killing part and the part with Krane involved with Hei, though I thought it was cool that Krane knew about Hei, but wasn't going to tell anyone.... Oh, well, beggars can't be choosers.)

(OOC: I'm sorry, but until further notice i'm gonna have to ask everyone to ignore Xamusel's posts.)

(OOC: I'm sorry for my posts being the wrong way, and I'm going to fix the last one I did in this thread, so don't worry about it. I promise to talk things out with Nicsp before something like this comes about again.

Thank you for your time.)

"Just a little farther buddie! You can do it! And if not, please fly over something less sharp!" It must of looked funny to anyone or anything that saw it. An average young man with flowing blue hair, being carried over forests and mountains by a Murkrow.

Lloyd was holding on tightly to Raven's leg as it strained itself flying. "I can see enterance! haha, I guess you were right, we did come from the wrong side of the mountain."

Raven groaned as it flapped its wings as hard as it could.

"Well, we can go down now, nice and gently thou-" He was interupt as Raven could no longer maintain such an overburdensome flight, "Or you could just let us fall and die, you know thats always fun..." Raven moaned again.

"Dancer! A little help!" Lloyd quickly released the little Ralts, who looked around, nodded, and then they were in psychic bubble, which gracefully drifted to the enterance, "This is much better, thank you little miss." Llyod smiled and kicked back as he floated, Dancer jumping on his stomache seconds latter, Strange how she can control such a thing, and still tackle me, he winced.

When the great hassel of getting to the place had ended, it seemed the greater challenge was still at hand. Getting to the registration booth.

With Dancer back in her pokeball, and an overly tired Raven on his head, he slowly pushed his way to the counter, "Scuuuuze me, Parrrrddoooon me, Do you smell that? Hey that guy was giving you the look!" After tricking most people to move, he managed to get there. "Sign me up please!" He smiled at the lady behind the counter, she looked back, rather displeased looking.

"You are aware that we need..." She began to list all the things that they had to go over, and for the most part it was all going over Lloyds head. Jeeze what happened to the good old days when I could walk into a building, say my name, get told I would be the next champ, and then battle? He gave a puzzled expression, but after taking twice as long as they should have, Lloyd and his crew finally got signed up.

"Thank you so much, and I am sorry for talking so much time, and...can I get yo-" He was inturupted by Raven, who was done resting appearantly and started laughing hysterically at what its owner was doing. "Never mind..." He scowled and left.

"Well...now what..." His murkrow started pulling his blue hair, almost guiding him in the direction it wanted to go, "Ouch, okay, ouch, okay! Stop pulling!" Lloyd ran over to the cafeteria.

Steel sighed. He'd been ignored by the boy and his Eevee... Oh well though, they ran off, so it was time to find someone else to entertain him. He stood, finishing the rest of the comparatively large cookie before brushing his hands on his leg-fur, grabbing hold of his still almost full bag of cookies, and jumping from the table to the chair, then the ground below. The little Riolu looked around, trying to find something interesting, when he took note of a young man shouting... something. ... Good enough. Steel moved to position himself on a nearby table, then plopped down and pulled another cookie from his bag, oatmeal with raisins this time, and watched as the blue haired guy was herded along by a big black... bird. "Bird!" He shouted, throwing his hands up and giggling until he realized that his cookie had flew from his hands during exclamation. He spotted it, flying towards the boy and his Murkrow, and without a second thought he stood and ran, jumping from the table with his hands outstretched in a desperate bid to save his delicious treat.

(OOC: I hope the changes I made were appropriate enough. I'll wait for a while before posting more story to this, because I don't trust myself trying to tell my guy's story at the moment, so I'll just wait until I know what I can and can't do for the moment.)

Having spent so much time with Pokemon, a lot more than with humans, Aya recognized their behavioral patterns. That's not to say she could understand what they were saying when they talked, but she usually got the general idea. "Oh, I haven't introduced myself, have I? My name is Aya Hasegawa, but just Aya is fine." She said that as if she expected the Ninetails to actually say her name. "I'm pretty well-known actually." She started to sulk a bit more. "I wish they would just leave me alone though. I don't know why they're all going crazy about me following my dad's footsteps," she said in a quieter tone before perking up a little. "Well, I've already made a new friend so I guess coming here was worth it after all!" She smiled down at Snow and continued to pet her.

Mao decided to lighten things up for Yin. He dragged her back to the cafeteria to get them some good food, and then head back to the stands, waiting for the first match.

While there, he noticed that there was some horse-playing that was amusing... though he decided against laughing, he couldn't help but smirk. A Murkrow that was going to catch the cookie was about to be outdone by a boy that didn't know the trajectory of the cookie's path... 'wait a minute,' Mao thought, 'that gives me an idea!'

He decided to knock the cookie over to Yin, by jumping into the air after the cookie, passed the cookie, and used his tail to push it towards her, while scaring the boy in the process. With a cat-like laugh, he walked over to Yin, dragged her to the counter, and let her order.

"Hello, miss, what can I get you?" the woman behind the counter asked.

After some thought, Yin said, "I would like some kibble for my feline friend and ice cream for myself."

"Right away, miss!!" the woman said. After a while, she returned with the items, and said, "Here you go! That'll be 100, please."

"Okay," Yin said, then she reached into her purse, and pulled out the money.

"Thank you!!" the woman said, quite pleased with Yin.

"No problem," Yin replied. With that she took her stuff and returned to her seat with Mao in tow.

Suddenly they passed a Ninetails, which was odd enough, but it was the same one that Mao was brushed by... though it seemed to be with someone other than it's master. Yin, having started getting her emotions back, asked the girl, "Excuse me, but may I ask you what your name is?"

Snow listened intently to what the girl, Aya, had to say. Apparently her dad was famous, or she was famous... Um... Okay, so maybe the petting was drawing her attention off a bit. She felt like she go the gist of it though, the girl had unwanted fame. Nothing to be done about it, really, but she seemed to snap her self out of the downward mood swing that the fox had feared was impending. It was nice seeing Aya happy, and, though she was loath to move from her very relaxed position, Snow leaned up to lick the girls cheek before falling back down into her lap and rolling happily over onto her side. "I don't get enough attention, you know. It takes a lot of effort to keep my fur so soft and silky, and then people go and... and... Don't pet me!" she sighed, "But- Mm- it's not like I need the attention. I don't crave it or anything." ... "Behind my ear again, please." The pokemon finished up, her rant cut short as she pushed her head up into Aya's palm, shifting until she'd achieved the desired positioning. Snow was, in fact, so distracted by the luxurious petting that she didn't even notice the other girl's approach until she asked Aya's name. And even then, she only opened one eye to look at her, allowing a tail to whisk out towards her as they were opt to do, even without Snow's permission.

What Aya (and Yin) heard...

"Nine nine nine, nine- taiiiils. Nine tails, nine. Nine nine- Tails! Niiiine nine. Nine tails." ... "Nine."

The Ninetails on her lap seemed to be enjoying herself and that made Aya happy. She laughed when Snow thrust her head into Aya's hand. "I get it, I get it. You want it here right?" She scratched behind Snow's ears. She always lost track of where she was and who was around when she was having fun with Pokemon and she didn't notice the other girl approach until she asked her name.
"Oh, uh, m-my name is," the smile disappeared from her face and she pulled up her scarf again. "I'm Aya Hasegawa. Pleased to meet you." She gave a slight bow, well to the best of her ability with Snow on her lap, and went back to fawning over Snow.

Grey let out a sigh. In truth, he was eavesdropping on Aya's "conversation" with the ninetails.
"Guess she wasn't the trainer I wanted to exchange words with afterall. Well, there goes that plan," he said to himself as he pushed himself off of the wall he was leaning on.
Eventually he saw a trainer with a Murkrow. The black bird pokemon was yanking the kid down the hall to the cafeteria. Grey stifled a laugh before deciding he should make a trip to the cafeteria himself.

OOC: Sorry Kratour but I'm going to soft-RP steel for a bit.

After about a minute-long walk, he made it to the cafeteria. The trainer with the Murkrow was still dragged against his will.
He didn't have time to laugh about that some more as he heard the distinct call of "Riolu!"
He turned his head to see the pokemon leep from the table to save a fallen cookie.
"Fool!" thought grey as he took action. He dived forward catching the Riolu, preventing it from falling flat on it's face. The cookie, on the other hand had no rescuer and crumbled as it made contact with the floor.
Grey stood up, putting the Riolu down before dusting himself off.
"Geez. You shouldn't just jump off tables like that. What would your trainer do if you got hurt?"
The Riolu looked at it's crumbled cookie before looking back up at Grey with it's beady eyes.
"Aw man. Don't look at me like that... Okay fine, I'll replace your cookie. How does that sound?"

(OoC: Sniped x.x lol)

Lloyd's Driver stopped, giving him a chance to breathe and look around, only to see and hear why Raven had let go. They both saw a little Riolu that seemed to have gotten excited due to their antics. Raven started to laugh at this, and then they noticed it about dive for a cookie, and then somone dived and caught the little one. Lloyd rushed over, Raven still laughing like mad, "Are you both okay?"

(No worries.)

Steel gave a little sniffle, a single tear rolling down his furry cheek as he dropped to his knees before the crumbled cookie. He stared at it for a moment, looking like he was about to burst out crying- then he giggled and threw out a loud, "Riolu!" before jumping back up to his feet. He looked up at the humans around him, smiling at them, then hopped up onto a chair and used it to help him make his way up to the table- no mean feat, mind you. Once there, he turned back to the little group and smiled once more, happy to find that they were still there. "Ri- Riolu!" he said, padding over to his bag and looking in to see how many cookies were left. Four. He turned to look at the two humans and the Murkrow, then turned back to the bag, subconsciously matching them each up to a cookie. He laughed, happy to find that he had enough, and pulled the back over to the edge of the table, holding one side open towards the small group as he waited expectantly. "Ri, ri." he chimed, looking from them to the bag and back in an almost-exaggerated manner.

~~~

Aya hesitated once as her name was asked- then stopped petting Snow altogether, which was more than enough to draw the fox's attention. She turned her he to look up at her newly found friend to find that the girl in question had pulled up her scarf and, though she'd returned to delivering Snow her much needed attention, she still seemed a bit off, not as careless as she had been. Still, she was getting behind Snow's ears, so really, there was no need to rock the boat, right? Wrong- or so her tails thought. One drifted upwards, brushing up against Aya's cheek as a few others moved to cover the fox and, by extension, the girl she was sitting on in a slightly defensive manner.

"I'm fine," replied Grey to the Murkrow trainer. "But you have any idea what this Riolu wants?"
Riolu was frantically trying to communicate something.
"This is a strange one. Sad about it's cookie one moment, and suddenly happy the next."
"You want us to look in your bag?" he asked, stepping forward and doing so. Unsuprisingly, Riolu's bag contained cookies. "So... you don't need me to get you another cookie?"
Grey turned to the other trainer and shrugged.

The Riolu in question gave a slight huff, "Ri- Riolu!" he said, like it was completely obvious was he was trying to say. Evidently, though, it wasn't. So, his very limited patience giving out, Steel stepped around to the front of the bag and reached in to pull out a cookie. He turned, holding it out towards the closest human- but found that he'd turned around. "Ri, ri, ri..." he said, jabbing the cookie towards him to punctuate each syllable. Unfortunately, the comparatively large cookie threw Steel off balance, and after a panicked moment, he fell backwards in a heap, shouting his name in surprise.

"Riolu!" Grey heard the pokemon cry. Expecting another problem, he swiftly turned around. He only found Riolu laying back on the table clutching a cookie.
"Oh. The cookies are a little large for you so you need some help. No wonder you've been acting all clumsy and stuff," remarked as he grabbed the cookie before helping Riolu back up to his feet. He held the cookie up to Riolu's face, expecting him to eat it with less difficulty.
"What an irresponsible trainer you have little guy. Seriously, just leaving you here with cookies you can barely handle."

(OOC: I'll start the tournament, as you'll see when you read the post this won't be done like an usual tournament, and you'll also be free to PM other players and discuss your own matches. Mt. Battle has several stadiums so there can be several battles happening at the same time, once everyone's done with their battles we'll be moving this forward.)

The several television screens spread out around Mt. Battle suddenly turned on, on the screen was being filmed a Nurse Joy, who had been apparently called out to be the tournament's narrator. "Hello everyone! This is Joy. I have two good news for you, the first one, is that the tournament will start in moments!" Several of the trainers spread out all around Mt. Battle yelled out in happiness. "And the other good news is that, first, we'll be revising this tournament's rules via this video." The yells of happiness turned into a moan of depression wich echoed through all of Mt. Battle.

Nurse Joy's left eye twitched slightly when she heard the moans, but she kept her face happy and cheerful, she then started.

"This tournament will not be organized by trainers, rather, it will be organized by individual pokemon. Since there are many trainers in here who do not carry a full group of six pokemon, we thought that it would be best if we sticked to these rules. We will sort out two random pokemon from the registered databank and then these two pokemon will battle. Depending if the battle is a victory, loss or tie, each player will be awarded a certain number of points. A victory means 2 points for the winning pokemon, a tie means both pokemon get 1 point. And, obviously, defeat awards you with no points at all. The ten trainers with the most points by the end of the tournament will receive a special badge from the renowned, Professor Krane!" An image of Professor Krane, looking incredibly beautiful and sparkly, clearly edited in some image editing software, was displayed behind Nurse Joy.

Nurse Joy then continued. "Well then! Let's get on with our first contestants! The first pokemon who will be fighting each other are..." Two slots appeared on the screen, and the image inside of them started changing very quickly as the system randomed out two pokemon. The image stopped on the image of an Eevee and, as the opponent a Delcatty. "The Eevee, V, owned by Howard Taylor, against Jelli, the Delcatty, owned by Myra Raloy!" Howard stared at the screen and sighed. "So much for keeping the best for last..." V hopped cheerfully, having alredy recovered from her food poisoning. Howard patted the Eevee's head. "Yes, yes, i know, i'm excited about it too, well, let's get on with it then, right?" With that said, Howard walked out towards his assigned arena number, wich was showing in the screen.

Nurse joy then got the slots rolling again. "And the next contestants will be..."

(OOC: If anyone wants to know what I'm doing, read the last post I made in the OOC thread, then you'll get the idea.)

Yin nodded, saying, "My name is Yin Shengshun. My adopted brother is participating in the tournament." With a worried look, she said, "please be careful against him."

With that, she went to the stands with Mao, who thought as he passed the Ninetails, "okay, now I know something's off with that Ninetails... it's been ogling me all the while when it was being petted!!"

(OOC: I hope that last sentence was appropriate... I don't want to god-mod or anything.)

Myra herd her name and looked at the screen "Oh...Great...I kinda didn't want to fight him yet..." Jelli looked up at Myra and squeaked in excitement. "Okay...Ready Jelli?

Myra picked up Jelli and headed to the arena she was assigned to. She stood in place and looked at Howard. "Have a good match'" she said smiling.

(OoC: Do we decide who we fight or are you gonna assign it to us?)

"Huh, that was kinda weird," Aya said to Snow. "Wonder what that was all about." She looked toward this spinning roulette on the screen intently. This is it...! If I win, what will happen? Or worse, what if I lose? She shook her head to clear her negative thoughts. No time to think of that now! I just have to focus on the match!

(OOC: Yeah, guess it wasn't very clear, sorry >_> You're free to decide amongst yourselves who you're gonna fight, or if you prefer i can just assign the remaining people randomly.)

(OOC: I made it clear that the NPC October was going to be Hei's target, but I fixed some stuff up in my notes for the RP, so now Hei is going to act more normal for the situation... but, if you want, his take-down of October to neutralize him can be one of three things: 1) October is arrested, 2) October gets killed by Hei using his swords (not going to happen unless it's approved), or 3) October is a recurring bad guy like Team Rocket in the anime... for a short time. Up to Nicsp for sure, not going to do anything else with the idea until I know what s/he has to say, okay?)

Hei was waiting for his match to start when he noticed that October was smoking in the waiting room. Now, he normally never had much thought into what others did, but he didn't want to have people kicked out for mistakes like that... except when they're criminals, but that's not important... still, he decided to get the man to quit.

"Hey, October, what about smoking outside the area?"

October looked at him, then said, "okay, I guess... besides, I don't have a nicotine rush."

After getting rid of the cigarettes October decided to pace around... no questions asked.

(OOC: I just posted that for place-holder purposes... not sure what I'm really going to do.)

You're probably better off assigning people here Niscp. Everyone's too passive to just choose.

(OoC: I can take you all on! RAWR! *confidence went up by 5* ! )

Llyod smirked and chuckled at the little Riolu, he couldn't understand a thing it was saying, but damn, it was alll so cute. His Murkrow on the other hand, understood very clearly, Free Cookie. So it hopped off of Llyods head and snatched a cookie for itself, made squak, and flew onto a lamp post.

"Err...I don't speak pokemon very well, and I know Raven's no theif...did you just offer everyone cookies little guy?" Llyod leaned towards Steel and rubbed his head.

Then He finally realized why the area was calming down, the matches where going to start soon, and tha pairings had allready started!

Raven, with crums around its feathers and beak, landed on Lloyd and started to drive him away again, appearantly one of his pokemon was up. Which one he had no clue, against who, he had no clue, all he knew was that Raven knew what was going on, and Lloyd could feel it.

(OoC: I'm fighting Satou >=D ).

Mao was mad... no, mad wouldn't describe it. Instead, he was pissed. How come, you ask? Simple. He didn't get the right kind of cat food, it was meant for Meowths!!

(OOC: In Darker Than BLACK, Mao likes eating kibble, and I'm just playing on that one.)

Yin noticed that Mao wanted the Persian food, but couldn't do a thing to fix it, instead opting to deal with this later. She noticed that October was going to fight Hei soon, and motioned to Mao to pay attention, or else no Persian kibble.

(OOC: More placeholder goodness... I hope.)

Aya's Blaziken appeared on the screen. "Looks like I'm up," she said to Snow. "Sorry, but I have to go now." She tried her best to gently move Snow to disturb her as little as possible. She succeeded for the most part. "Maybe we'll meet again. See ya!" She gave a quick wave and trotted off to her assigned stadium.
Stadium 9, huh? Wonder who's gonna show up. She assumed a battle stance. Bring it on...!

"Well, who would have thought?" mummbled Grey, as he picked up the Riolu. "Well little guy, let's see if you can find your trainer for ya."
Grey started making his way out of the cafeteria, occasionally looking at the screens to see if he was paired up yet. None of the numbers were his yet so he kept walking, making his way to the waiting area. All the while he made sure he paid attention to the Riolu sitting on his shoulder. He'd give him a signal if he spotted his trainer right?

"Ri- Riolu!" Steel shouted, directly into Grey's ear. He'd moved to stand on the boy's shoulders, bracing his arm's into Grey's hair as looked around for Hearth. Well, as fortune would have it, the trainer in question just so happened to be on his way back to the cafeteria when Riolu picked him out. Funniest thing, he walked right by Grey (and Steel, by extension) without noticing the two- something that Steel simply wouldn't stand for. So, without further ado, he spun around, thankfully releasing Grey's hair from his paws as he did so, and launched himself- through the air- right into his trainer's back.

The loud "Riolu!" that sounded out behind him tipped Hearth off... but he still wasn't fast enough to avoid collision. And within moments, the Riolu had barreled into him, catching hold of his hair and dragging him to the ground to break it's fall. There was a loud commotion, and in the end Hearth found himself laying in a heap on the ground with a fuzzy paw poking the side of his head. "Steel!" he shouted, then reached out, catching hold of the startled pokemon before lifting him up high and laughing. It wasn't how he'd expected to find his friend, but... it was better than the time the little Riolu had managed to get stuck in a public trash can, so he couldn't really complain. "Hehe... good to see you too buddy!" he said, pulling himself up to his feet despite the creature clinging to his neck in a sort of choking hug. "Oh man, I was half expecting you to be in trouble or something... So what've you been up to, Steel? Anything interesting?" "Ri, ri- Olu!" Steel shouted, happily responding to the question as he leaned out to point at Grey.

OOC: Grey is bald.

IC:
To Grey's suprise, the Riolu jumped from his shoulder right at a trainer he just passed by. It grabbed ahold of the trainer's hair and dragged him to the ground, causing a bit of a commotion.
"That Riolu..." he mummbled, ready to help the trainer before he heard "Steel!" from the other trainer, who proceeded to hold the Riolu up.
"Well, I suppose, everything worked out," thought Grey as he continued his merry way. By the time Riolu had tried to pointed him out, Grey was gone.
By then the monitors on the screen had gotten around to posting Grey's pairings. Sneasle was the selected pokemon against the trainer Hearth.
"Stadium 4 huh?" Grey said outloud as to give himself a mental note. And with that, he was off to stadium 4 for business.

Finally, it was Hei's turn to go up at stadium 5, October following right behind him into the arena. The pokemon to be used were two of the same element, Charmander and Torchick, and it was a contest of skill and power on both their parts.

Hei decided to drop the fooling around act. Ever since arriving here, the Syndicate had him working with the police as a special officer to fight off crime, and then assassinate those with too high a risk to be captured alive... his Contract was useless for some reason, and he had no idea why. Knowing October, there was something that he could easily hide, but was currently not sure how it was supposed to go, though he had some idea.

Once they made it to the center of the arena, October turned to Hei, and said, "You know, Li, you really ought to learn to stay away from me in the future, to save yourself the shame."

Hei, deciding to test something out, said in sign language, "You seem confident in yourself, Arnold Kline. Are you holding darkened pokemon?"

October, shocked that he had an opponent that knew sign language, forgot to sign back and yelled, "How did you know that?! Are you a Contractor?!"

Hei decided to end this, and said, "It's time we started, so I'll call out Chiaki!" Holding out his Pokeball, he yelled, "CHIAKI!! Time to show your stuff!!" When he finished yelling out the name, he threw the Pokeball out, and caused Chiaki, his Charmander, to appear.

"Huh. You have a Charmander? I see it's female by the name you gave it," October said, getting cocky. Grabbing "his" Pokeball, he threw it out while yelling, "ALRIGHT, TORCHICK, COME OUT!!"

As the Torchick came out, Hei noticed the same corruption that he saw earlier and thought, "What the hell is up with that corruption?!" He then remembered the clue that he was given, and thought, "Of COURSE!! He's using Dark Pokemon! That would explain the corruption. Now to defeat his Dark Pokemon."

After the referee explained the rules, the battle commenced. It was obvious that the Dark Pokemon had little training, so Hei yelled, "Let's end this with a BANG!! IRON TAIL!!"

The declaration of a Pokemon with Iron Tail was close to unheard of, let alone a Charmander... then again, a Kanto region kid had a Pikachu that could do it, but still, that was supposed to be an urban legend. Soon enough, Chiaki's tail glowed a bright white and smashed at the enemy Torchick, knocking it unconscious.

"Torchick is unable to battle! Victory goes to Charmander!!"

October was speechless... how could he have known that his first opponent would have a pokemon that knew Iron Tail? Cipher wasn't going to be happy about this. All that thievery was going to go down the drain. He then realized that his next match was going to be later, and he might have a chance soon to get back at Hei, so he decided to leave for now.

Hei simply recalled Chiaki, knowing that he needed to conserve energy for his pokemon, simple as that. With that done, he walked to the waiting room, and decided to wait for his turn again.

Hearth looked out over the area that Steel had pointed out, but didn't find anything in particular. So, he just shrugged it off and lifted the little Riolu up onto his shoulders. "Now then, that's three of us, but..." he looked around, wondering where the fourth leg of their party was, "Where's Snow gotten off to? She was supposed to meet me at the Cafeteria but..." he turned wholly around to glance over the mentioned eatery, "Yea, still empty." He gave a sigh, then looked up at the electronic sign. It seemed that his battle was already scheduled... "Stadium four... Hm? Hey, it says I have to use..." Hearth reached down to place a hand on the only occupied ball at his waist, then gave a bit of a grin. "Well then, Atlas old buddy, it looks like you're up." That said, he gave a sort of relieved laugh and started off towards the aforementioned stadium, looking up with a slight grin towards Steel, "It's a good thing too, 'cause I have no clue where Snow is!"

~~~
Where Snow is...
~~~

Aya had somehow managed to stop petting Snow, her attention too focused on the electronic screen above. She mumbled something, and the Ninetails finally opened her eyes to see what was so interesting. An electronic board with a spinning wheel and some names... but what were they choosing? "Hey, I'm supposed to go to Stadium nine to battle some kid named uh... Steven. What about -" the voice came from some random by-passer, and normally Snow would have ignored something like that. But it managed to jog her memory, this time, and she looked up at the board with renewed interest. "Their picking match ups... Oh yea, this was a tournament huh?" the fire fox stretched, then pulled herself up into a sitting position by Aya, "Hm... I'd sort of forgotten..." She shrugged, or pulled the fox equivalent of shrugging at least, then turned her attention toward the cafeteria just across the way. "No Hearth... so he must have already gone on ahead." For a moment, Snow was concerned that Hearth might be worried about her. Then she remembered that it was Hearth she was thinking of, and banished the thought. "Well then... I'll just stick with you." she said, looking pointedly up at Aya. After all, Aya was participating with in the tournament too, so it was reasonable to assume that Hearth would appear sooner or later, just so long as she stuck near the action. ... And yea, the girl was way better at petting than Hearth.

(OOC: Guys, for sake of continuity, please forget about my guy having anything to do with the Syndicate and the Contractor business. Just Mao is from another universe in this game, though I'm not sure how it's supposed to go here, okay?)

Grey stoop patiently in the ring waiting for his opponent. The match was starting soon, which made Grey consider the possibility that his opponent would not show up at all. He was so used to getting places early, that the rest of the world seemed late.
But, man was the stadium packed. hundreds people would be watching the match, not counting the ones who watched over the monitors.
He thought back to the battle in stadium 5, he watched over the monitor while waiting for his name to be called. The guy had a iron-tail using Charmander. A bad match up for Sneasle. He was glad he wasn't paired with that guy this round.
Eventually a trainer emerged from the other end, and suprise suprise, it was the trainer from before, with the Riolu from before.
"Well, what a coincidence..."

Hearth emerged from the wide open doors that led into the stadium to find that his opponent was already in place, and waiting patiently for his arrival, too. The man opposite the stadium seemed somewhat surprised to see him, though it was sort of hard to say why. Suddenly, he felt a tug on the back of his head as steel stood up to point out across the arena towards their opponent, shouting "Riolu!" as though he himself were shocked. Hearth leaned back slightly and looked up at Steel, "Wait, do we know this guy?" he asked. Steel gave a quick nod and smiled, "Ri, ri!" ... "Ohh, okay. Back to business then." Their quiet exchange done and forgotten, Steel threw his arm out, pointing at Grey and shouting "Riolu!" once more- only this time, he did it in unison with his trainer. "You!" Hearth shouted, shock evident in his voice despite the fact that he still had no clue who it was he was pointing at, "How ironic that we should face each other here! This shall be our grandest battle!"

Hei was lounging about, wondering what was going to happen, when his radio suddenly went off. It was Mao.

"Nice battle there, Hei," he said. "October was trying to make a break for it, but the security detail is stopping him, and forced him to stay here to fight in the challenges."

"that's good, Mao," Hei replied. "Anything else?"

"No, not really, though Yin wishes you good luck."

"Ah. Tell her I said thanks."

"On it."

With that, the conversation ended, and Hei returned to waiting.

Grey raised an eyebrow at the trainer's remark. He had to agree, it was ironic that the two would battle, consider the time he shared with his opponents Riolu.

"Welcome to another round 1!" boomed the announcer. " In the blue corner: Grey Richardson! And in the red corner: Hearth Lorenson!"
The referee standing in the middle cleared his throat before speaking. "This will be a one-on-one pokemon battle. No special rules." The ref raised his flag, "Begin!"

Grey pulled out a Pokeball. "Well, I hope you're not planning to use the Riolu Mr. Lorenson," said Grey as he tossed the pokeball and caught it. "You could say we've become buddies while you left him unsupervised."
With small talk finished, Grey threw his pokeball. It landed on the ground before bursting open. A bright light gushed out and materialized to form a Sneasle.

"Eh? What are you doing here?" Aya asked once she realized Snow was following her. "Don't you have to find your trainer?" Oh well, it was lucky for her. Aya was happy that Snow was with her. She felt it gave her an extra boost of confidence that she was in dire need of. "Well since you're here, I better at least give you a good battle to watch. Now if only my opponent would show up."

"Ri..." Steel cooed, leaning over Hearth's head to get a better look at the the Sneasle. It wasn't often that the little guy got to see such a reclusive pokemon, so of course he was curious enough for both him and his trainer. "I hear that buddy, we haven't fought a Sneasle before, huh? Well..." he gave an open grin, then pulled the only occupied ball from his waist. With a click, it expanded into his palm, "Use Steel? Nah, he's a little young for fighting. But don't you worry, we'll give you a good fight." Rather suddenly, he threw the ball threw the air, shouting "Go, Atlas!" just before it hit the ground and, in a burst of light, released the Umbreon in question onto the field. "Let's get this thing started!" Hearth shouted, jumping up to catch the now vacant pokeball as it bounced back to him. Atlas didn't wait for orders- he didn't need to, he knew what he was doing. And before it was even clear what he was, he'd shot off across the field, a stringy white vapor trailing behind him as he launched himself into a quick attack, hoping to catch his opponent off guard.

(OOC: You guys know that I'd take on a different person, but there's nobody here for me to fight, right? I just hope that someone is ready to fight me.)

Hei was starting to get curious as to what he was seeing at stadium 9. Was that an Umbreon fighting a Sneasle? He saw that it was starting to get interesting based on what he saw, and he hoped that he didn't have Saito face it, that would be overkill towards Saito.

Suddenly, "Atlas", as it went by, went on it's own accord, seemingly knowing what his master wanted him to do.

He hoped that the Umbreon would be alright... though he didn't know what to expect out of this battle.