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[Aranea Serket]

- - - - - -

Finally Viridian City.

She had been overwhelmed by the trip to the city, from Johto or something the trip would have been nothing, Unova however was another subject. Aranea stepped out of the taxi, stretching before opening her eyes, the sun wasn't as bright around here, too many trees, and just the way she liked it. As she paid the taxi the bit of money she had gotten before hand for the trip she watched him drive away, leaving her in the quiet little forest town. Taking a deep breath she turned to look at the buildings, there was barely anything here- especially when compared to Castelia.

It was a nice change of pace, a wonderful experience was ahead of her- so for now she would try to find her friends home, hoping maybe she hadn't left yet. Wandering around she looked to the few homes unsure where to start, she couldn't just go around knocking on people's doors, that was rude- though she was a tourist so maybe they wouldn't mind...

No! She was not going to go around knocking on people's doors, that was one thing Aranea Serket didn't do. Instead she settled with approaching an older man, smiling as she did so.

"Good afternoon Sir, I was wondering if you might be able to help me find someone who lives here. You see I'm from the Unova region- Castelia City- and I'm a bit far away-"

She couldn't even finish before the older gentleman began to speak, his voice a bit dry and monotone, his eyes closed as he leaned on his cane and sat on one of the benches in the center of town. Not the best of her ideas to talk to someone who more than likely didn't remember where they were- No, no thinking bad thoughts of people, She was better than that.

"A tourist eh? Then you've come to learn my secrets right?"

The old man laughed and got to his feet, his legs wobbly as Aranea quickly reached out to help the shaking man only to be swatted away with a hand.

"I'm fine young lady- Now I'm going to teach you how to catch Pokemon!"

The old man said louder than before as he raised his cane, threw himself off balance, and collapsed back onto the bench in the previous sitting position. Aranea sighed lightly and shook her head before folding her hands in front of her.

"I'm sorry but I'm in a bit of a hurry, Maybe I could come back later-"

Aranea started to speak but was interrupted by loud snoring from the older gentleman as she sighed and left him be, giving him a small curtsy before walking away. After awhile she found no one in her search but continued to wander the town in hopes of seeing someone- anyone- a child an animal- nope every time she saw someone they disappeared from sight before she could say one word. Maybe they didn't like tourists? Whatever the case was- Sighing heavily- She wasn't sure what to do. Bowing her head she began to just wander around town aimlessly hoping maybe she'd have a bit of sudden luck.

[Gamzee Makara]

Gamzee: Commute

Well, commute isn't quite the word most people would use, though it wasn't necessarily inaccurate. More correctly speaking, Gamzee was doing something along the lines of getting his bearings in the city. He'd never been particularly far out of his hometown, much less as far as Viridian, and as such, everything was rather new. Fresh. Interesting.

But there was the question to consider of how he'd gotten there in the first place. Unfortunately, the story wasn't as interesting as you might think, and would have to be abridged should anyone ask. It'd started out easy enough, reaching Vermillion with Aradia's help and exploring about. Diglett's Cave had seemed like a good idea, because everything seems like a good idea at first glance. It was a straightforward, simple path. You really couldn't get lost on it, right? Wrong. Getting lost was one of the things Gamzee did best, and before he knew it he'd lost both his travelling companion and his way, and popped out near town.

The flitting around of his own shuppet had gotten him as far as the pokemon center, where he got Buddy Rich rested up and... Promptly fell asleep on the waiting couch to the tune of an inexplicable jigglypuff. Unfortunately his facepaint made writing on his face a tad redundant, and the poor thing had to jiggle away unsatisfied.

Several hours later, Gamzee had been kicked off the couch by a couple of angry locals (he still couldn't for the life of him figure out why, though there is a distinct possibility it could have been the snoring) and had made his way to the local pokemart instead, with the intention of stocking up on supplies and the results of winding up with a load of shit he didn't actually need (how exactly he had the money for 420 potions and where the hell he was keeping them would boggle the mind of the shopkeeper for years to come).

Which brings us to where he is now-- leaving the pokemart with an armful of Paralyz-heals and a somewhat annoyed looking shuppet at his shoulder. He proceeded to keep walking , humming something or other as he did. Where to next? Maybe he'd check out the gym or something-- Oh hey, who's that?

Gamzee: Greet other troll

He really shouldn't, because it isn't his business, but Gamzee can't help but think that this chica might be the slightest bit lost (or at least new) and, despite the fact that Gamzee doesn't know any more about the town than she probably does (actually, he probably knows less), he does at least know where the pokemart and center are, and regardless, two's company. He grins, making his way over to the troll girl in a slightly hasty fashion, which isn't the best idea for someone carrying an unreasonable amount of shit. As everyone probably expected, he drops one of the little yellow spraybottles and promptly trips over it, falling at the Cerulean Lady's feet with a loud honk from him and an exasparated peep from Buddy Rich, who is probably tired of his trainer tripping all the time. He can't necessarily help it, either, and he's back on his feet in moments way. He doesn't even wipe the dirt off his face before he's talking again, and anyone who knows Gamzee surely expects that this oughta be good. "Hey there, signora," Shut up, Gamzee. You don't speak italian. "You all lost or somethin'?"

[Aranea Serket]

Aranea: Make sure the other troll is alright

At first Aranea was a bit surprised at the other troll approaching her but then the surprise suddenly turned to worry as he tripped. Before she could say a word though he was already on his feet and talking once more. Wait was that supposed to be Italian- No couldn't be it was just too, wrong. Blinking a few times she fought the urge to wipe the dirt off of him as her eyes glanced from the dirt to the things in his arms back to his face.

"Hello, are you alright? That looked like it might have hurt a bit. Of course that could be because of my glasses factoring into my equation."

Smiling Aranea placed her hands behind her back, watching the other troll with interest a moment.

"Actually I am a bit lost, you see I'm looking for someone who used to live in this town but they seem to have left and no one will give me an answer as to where. I'm quite a ways from home and it's not helping my frustration from my search at all."

Shrugging a moment she looks back down to all the supplies.

"Can't you put those in your bag so you don't have to carry them? I mean it would be much easier for you if you stored them in such a container."

[Meulin Leijon]

A small blue-and-black feline comes bounding up toward the two trolls with an excited look in his big yellow eyes. Though he doesn't actually target either troll, instead interested in the fellow quadruped standing near Aranea. With a leap, the Shinx pounces on Serket's Eevee - but within moments, it's revealed that the intentions were purely playful, and this Shinx isn't seeking out a spar.

Shortly thereafter, a girl dressed in green runs up, coming from the direction of the Pokécenter. She's got the same excited look in her eyes, and her arm lifted high. "Aranea! Aranea! EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeee!" she squeals all the way until she's reached her.

"It's great to see you! Ah you have no idea!! How was your trip? Have you been here long? Did you do any exciting things here yet?" Stooping down to a kneel, Meulin offers a scritching pet to Xinli, in addition to the nuzzles which the Shinx is trying to give her. "EEEEEE, your Eevee is supurr purretty and cute!! Atom, don't smother the purr girl, alright? Hehe."

Atom doesn't really want to, but he climbs off of Xinli. But he still gives her an occasional nuzzle, until something else captures his attention or curiosity, at least.

"You look great too!" Meulin declares as she stands up. "So what are you up to right now? Can I tag along? Hope I'm not inpurrupting. Hey, who's this guy? You sure look familiar, mister."
Meulin, Meulin, settle down. Not so many questions at once, no one's gonna be able to answer all those.

[Gamzee Makara]

((AHHH FUCK IM SORRY THIS TOOK fOREVER i was busy graduating))

Gamzee: Be the terrible listener.

As much as he hates to admit it, he /is/ the terrible listener. Sure, he tries, he really does, but he simply doesn't process things quickly enough to comprehend a word coming out of this chick's mouth. He does manage to pick up on one comment, though, and that is what he sticks to. He glances down at his assortment of pokemon health products as if he'd forgotten he was carrying them and smile. He'd actually forgotten why he was carrying them in the first place, and takes her suggestion as a wonderful, miraculous idea. He haphazardly shoves the objects into the somehow neverending expance of his bag and grins like a lunatic.

"Shit, sis, that wasn't a bad idea. Thanks," Gamzee says, and before he can move on to helping her with /her/ problems, there's suddenly another troll in the mix. Not that Gamzee minds, no, two's company and three's a party. It's just now occurring to him now, though, with this loud girl, that there's something awfully familiar about these two. Alas, Gamzee dismisses it. It probably isn't important.

Gamzee: Greet the newcomer.

Gamzee proceeds to do just that, offering an even bigger grin and a matching honk to the loud oliveblood. "I don't think we ever motherfuckin' met, sis. Gamzee Makara, nice to meetcha?"

[Aranea Serket]

Aranea: Feel a bit overwhelmed

It's nice that this boy- this 'Gamzee Makara' thought her little info was useful no matter how trivial it had been. Thinking a long moment Aranea smiled and nodded her head only to hear someone calling her name. Not recognizing the voice at first she turned and noticed the girl in green, preparing herself for the onslaught of excited hyper-activeness that was sure to follow. Without being able to say a word her Eevee was suddenly tackled and nuzzled, causing the small brown fox like pokemon to whine lightly- a bit unhappy about how she was now on the ground- let alone getting her bow all dirty. Not that Xinli was big into not getting dirty- just any gifts she had received. Sighing lightly Aranea shook her head before giving Meulin a small smile.

"Good day Meulin. It is quite good to see you now could you please calm down for a brief moment and lower your voice- I can hear you perfectly fine." Aranea says softly before looking back to Gamzee. "As you can probably already guess my name is Aranea, Aranea Serket." She says not introducing Meulin and allowing her to have the honor. Sighing heavily this time Aranea looks to Meulin as Xinli is now curling around Aranea's legs, watching the Shinx with weariness from the travel. "As far as for what I am doing as of right know I was asking Mister Makara here for directions as I'm a bit lost. I'm trying to find... Someone." She says softly before looking to Gamzee once more.

[Meulin Leijon]

At Meulin's behest (and Xinli's reluctance), Atom leaves the Eevee alone for a moment. Perhaps that greeting was a little overenthusiastic. At least he matches up with his mistress in that aspect.

Instead, Atom becomes interested in the male troll. The lion cub sniffs at Gamzee curiously, nudging his nose into Gamzee's cargo pants and purple sneakers. What is that smell...? Is it those things he stuffed into his bag? Is it something he ate?


Oh is Meulin being too loud? She didn't realize. She can't hear her own voice after all. That, plus being excitable, does tend to make the girl loud. "Sorry!! Sorry." Despite her apology, Meulin hardly loses any energy.

She turns to Gamzee as he introduces himself, just in time to read his facepainted lips. "Ooh did you say Makara?? No wondpurr you looked familiar! My old matespurrit is a Makara!" Judging by her smile and tone of voice, that implied breakup hasn't left Meulin with a grudge. A little disheartened maybe. "I'm Meulin Leijon! Oh and this guy down here -" Meulin crouches to scoop her Shinx up in her arms, her blue tail giving a sway as she bends down. "- is Atom!" she finishes, standing up and holding him in her arms to bring him into better view and better petting range. Atom happily sits in her arms.

Meulin looks back over to Aranea in time to catch most of her message about directions. "Oh! Well, I don't wanna take Mistpurr Makara's job away or anything, but I could help you with directnyans too, if you want."

[Gamzee Makara]

Gamzee: Process information

He does. It takes him a moment, but finally everything sinks in and he manages to get a good grip on what exactly is going on. Leijon... Oh, so she must have some relation to Nepeta. Serket? Oh, then she must be one of Vriska's friends (although, he noted, Aranea wasn't nearly as terrifying as her counterpart, who Gamzee could hardly stand to be around). That wasn't a hard leap. The hard leap was the fact that she knew another Makara. Gamzee hadn't been aware that there was more than one, but then, Gamzee wasn't really up to date on matters involving people he didn't know. Gears turn in his head for another moment as he thinks how to respond to these two girls (group conversations have never been his strong point), and finally, he comes up with it.

"Nice to meet both of ya. Thought you looked motherfuckin' familiar. You all knowing Vriska or my fine kittysis Nepeta?" he asked.

"This here's Buddy Rich, by the by," he replied, pointing to the shuppet floating around nearby. He really did need to find that pokeball.

"And that, Miss Serket, would be all meaning different things dependin' on where you're going to," he added, furrowing his brow. He thought on it a moment, but of course, it wasn't his business to be prying any further than he already had, so he chose instead to just give a base. He raised a hand, pointing in the direction he'd come from, and in turn, towards the pokemon center, museum, and gym.

"There's the shop, and that there's where you get your healin' all done up and situated, over there's the place with the rocks, and that place is where you go all trainer-serious and get your badge on," he listed, giving a faint pause between each for it to sink in. Gamzee went over the list again once he'd said it, wondering if he'd left anything out.

"Unless you lookin' for anything else in particular? Your friend didn't tell you where you was supposed to motherfuckin' find 'em, did they?"

[Aranea Serket]

Aranea: Explain Things

"Oh no- I know the general layout of the town of course. Though I do thank you for the kind gesture in trying to share such information." Aranea says quietly, waving her hands in front of her. It happened quite often where people tried to help her and she ended up already knowing the information- she was used to being a bit more, knowledgeable. "You see I'm looking for my friend, she lived here for a little while and the most recent letter I had received from her mentioned that she was heading out on a journey to become a 'pokemon master' of course." Aranea said as she placed her hands behind her, looking off to the side. "Among other words she used-" She murmured before looking back to Gamzee once more. "So I'm unsure as to which direction I'm supposed to move in to follow her since I don't know this region."

Aranea stopped speaking at that moment, waiting for a reply a moment before hearing the small 'mewl' like noise from her own Pokemon. "Oh yes-" She glances down to the Eevee then looks up at Gamzee once more. "This is my Eevee, Xinli. It's only fair that I introduce my traveling companion." She then looks back up to Gamzee and Meulin, all the while Xinli rubs against her leg as she watches the new people, making sure to keep her eyes on that of the Shinx of Meulin's, worried about being pounced on once more.

[Meulin Leijon]

Meulin also finds group conversations pretty hard, don't sweat it Gamzee. Mostly because she doesn't know whose lips to look at at any given time - she doesn't wanna miss a thing!

Her ears perk up when she lipreads the name Nepeta. "Nepeta?? No! Well, not really - I've heard about her furom a furend or two, but I haven't met her yet - I really hope to! It sounds like we have a ton in common!! Hey, you know her? Maybe you could set us up together??" Oops, overeager catgirl again. "Then again, you seem fun to hang around, yourself!" Gamzee reminds her a lot of Kurloz - not just the face paint and lankiness, but the lax nature.

"Hi there, Buddy!" Meulin chirps to the Shuppet after she introduced. She gives him a light poke to his lack-of-nose. "You're sure cute fur a ghostie!" Paying attention to Buddy Rich (trying to figure out how to pet a ghost, not to mention a ghost with a horn), Meulin misses lipreading the other two for a while, and effectively 'hears' nothing they say until she looks back their direction. "Or is it rude to call a ghost cute?"

Atom would probably be quite interested in Buddy Rich, if he were floating low enough for Atom to reach him. Instead, the Shinx further investigates the smell clinging to Gamzee's pant legs. Gamzee may or may not notice the nose poking about his ankles.

Meulin does look back to the conversation soon enough to catch the Eevee's name. But a word that foreign is hard to lipread. She squints and frowns. "Is she shy with new pawple? Or did Atom just come on a little strong? Pawrry about that~"

[Gamzee Makara]

Gamzee: Speculate

Given that he hadn't bothered to do any of the research, Gamzee cannot give Aranea an honest answer on where most people choose to start their pokemon journey. After all, he himself had kind of gone in a roundabout way, and intended to challenge the Viridian gym at some point during his visit, which anyone familiar with the area knew was a bad idea. However, he had at least glanced at a map, so he could give her an answer that was geographically accurate, if not so much for a pokemon journey.

"I'm thinkin' the easiest place to get to from here is Vermillion. There's this sweet-ass motherfuckin' tunnel that way," he says, pointing in the direction of Pewter.

"I ain't all knowing where it came from, but that's how I got here,"

He turns back to Meulin, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Aw, man, that'd be sweet. You two's like two motherfuckin' cats to a litter," he laughs, grinning again.

"I ain't seen her around though. Got her trolltag if you'd drop her a motherfuckin' line,"

Come to think of it, Gamzee hasn't seen anyone he knows since he left Lavender, which probably explains a lot of things. It's a little disheartening, but he isn't particularly upset about it. Maybe he'll run into someone in Cerulean, his next destination after he challenges that gym. That squared away, Gamzee glances down at the little Shinx sniffing at his legs, watching it for a moment before leaning down to pet the creature. His hands are covered with small scratches where he's attempted to pet wild pokemon before; in fact, most species of pokemon don't seem to care for him much. Eerily enough, the ones that do tend to be ghost types. He isn't sure why this is.

Meanwhile...

Buddy Rich: Bask in the attention

Oh hell yes. The little shuppet does adore getting attention, and ladies do love the cutsie face. He doesn't mind that this means not being particularly scary, due to the fact that it's easier to obtain his food source when people are attracted to him. Mind you, he gets plenty from his trainer. But that doesn't mean he doesn't enjoy being fawned over anyway. He chirps happily, doing a small twirl to show off and bunping against Meulin's hand in clear approval.

At least he's behaving for once.

[Aranea Serket]

Aranea: Be thankful

Aranea was glad for the information as she ruffled the Eevee's fur a top her head. "Well then, thanks for the information, I'm sure if I don't start heading out now I might not be able to find her before I get side tracked by something or someone." Placing her hands on her hips now she looks to Meulin before looking to Gamzee and then back to Buddy Rich. "He sure likes attention doesn't he?" She asks and looks to Meulin before looking down to Xinli. "Quite different compared to Xinli, she's quite reserved around people she doesn't know."

[Meulin Leijon]

For a few moments, Gamzee and Meulin enjoy each other's animal companions.
Atom doesn't seem to share the aggressions of the wild Pokémon who have scratched Gamzee in the past. He rubs up into the petting for a moment, then starts to nibble upon one of Gamzee's fingers relatively harmlessly.

Meulin pets over whatever she can find on the floating ghostcloth - his head, the back of his horn, and even those wavy, billowing ends of the cloth on the bottom. She thinks about feeding Buddy, but doesn't know what to feed a ghost. Little does she know she's already doing it - the Shuppet can feed off of the envy Meulin's feeling - envy about wishing she had a ghost cutie like Gamzee does!


Then Gamzee makes an offer. "Really?? What's her trolltag?" Good thing Gamzee doesn't seem to mind her loud excitableness. "Eeeeee what would I say to her!" Meulin pauses and sobers somewhat, her lifted shoulders sagging and fists unclenching. "Wait - what WOULD I say to her? Would it be weird to just get a mewssage furom a kittycat stranger?"

In time, she looks up to Aranea. "So, which way are you gonna go to find your furiend?" Gamzee and Meulin can give her all the directions she wants, but in the end they can't tell her where to find an individual they haven't seen.