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"What work...?" Artemis asked, then remembered. Oh right. You have a job.

"It's not too bad," she said, leaning back. "There is a petition going on among staff members in Hoenn and Kanto to try and get Audino on their staff, but really, it's difficult to tell if it would make a difference. Not enough, anyhow, to fund for the change in Pokemon."

She glance herself over, arms first, trying to see how Elizabeth had noticed she was still painting. She hadn't realized that there were paint marks on her pants - even more if you looked at her sides were she had inevitably wiped the paint.

"They want an upgrade to the healing machines," Artemis said, holding her cup out. "Because apparently they should be able to heal broken limbs and severe injuries in a matter of seconds. Let's be real here." The woman rolled her eyes.

"But enough about that," she grumbled, sounding like her job annoyed her. "How's everything with you...?"

Artemis was oblivious to the fact - despite getting invitations to the baby shower - that Elizabeth even had a daughter.

* * * * *

Eunmi's xtransciever text tone went off, and Eunmi acknowledged that Henrietta was safe. Of course, if she wasn't, and someone found the texts on her xtransceiver after incapacitating her, they could have easily just sent the reply so that no one would go looking for her mangled body in the middle of the woods. Even so, Eunmi didn't think that much about it and continued on her merry way to train Dali.

What happened in Striation? Artemis' eyes widened slightly, her cup raised to her lips.

Zack didn't have a job? Charity...? Who was Katelyn?

"Y-yeah?" Artemis said, feigning a smile. Which for her was already weird. She took a sip from her cup and set it down, quickly trying to piece together what was going on. Was Katelyn one of Elizabeth's Pokemon...? No, wait, school. So...

The lights seemed to click on as Artemis realized who Katelyn must be.

"Ah, that... time goes... quickly," Artemis frowned, looking stupidly at her cup. When did Elizabeth have a child? "There are a lot of good schools in Kanto."

Mostly because Kanto had a very well established system that had stood the test of time. Or was that the region itself? Artemis pretended to know what she was talking about.

"So you are still doing that Charity thing," Artemis nodded, acting like this wasn't the first time she'd heard of it.

"Artemis, it's okay," Elizabeth said through a laugh, "We didn't even tell many people we were having Katelyn until, well, after she was born. It would've been nice if you could've made it to the baby shower though...

"At least you can look to me for tips when you finally have a baby," she said brightly.

Elizabeth laughed heartily, "Oh god, Artemis you are so easy to tease. Relax, I was only kidding."

She shifted forward, head still in her palm; she bit the tip of her pinky a little to mask a smile.

"Then again... you are about the right age." She only moved her eyes, sizing Artemis up, "Maybe you should start thinking about settling down. What about Jump? He's about the right... specs," 'if you know what I mean' "And I'm serious when I say you'd make a cute couple. Don't you think so?"

"Hm, well if you say so..." Elizabeth leaned back, legs switching places, one crossed over the other. She took a sip of her, still piping hot, beverage and winced. "Ew, this latte is horrible..."

With a quick glance about, Elizabeth sneakily held the wide mug out of the open window and tipped the steaming contents into the bushes.

"AHHHHHH"

Elizabeth's eyes opened wide and in a swift motion she put the mug back on the table and rushed to the window, peering out. Her look of concern switched to confusion and with a tip of her head she went, "Wayne?"

Wayne was on his knees, hunched over as he tried getting the stinging hot latte out of his hair. He flinched when he heard his name and slowly peered around.

"He-Hi."
"What're you- were you eavesdropping?!" she said with alarm and Wayne's face drained of blood. She woman sighed and shook her head, "Are you alright?"

The trainer nodded and stood up, his top half visible (drenched with coffee) through the window. Elizabeth leaned against the windowsill with her elbow and said:

"Artemis, this is Wayne."
"Hi."
"He's my son. I adopted him a few years back."

Eunmi lifted her bag, sifting through it. Her parents had got her a Trainer's Essential Kit - maybe there was one in there? She quickly found it.

"This?" she held up a similar device. An underwater breathing apparatus.

D-Vee's quick attack was fast, but his ability to punch (or block) wasn't as fast as his feet. He took the blow to the face, but quickly tucked in his arms, stepping back quickly to get out of the way. He needed to paint for his own Mach Punch to work. Useless, it seemed, considering the circumstances. He kicked back, Quick Attacking again once his foot landed, to punch again at Wukong's stomach, this time with a Mega Punch.

* * * * *

"Oh?" Artemis looked confused for a moment until Elizabeth mentioned adoption. It made more sense, but she couldn't help but feel for the kid.

"Wasn't that hot...?" Artemis said, pointing to the empty cup. She looked back to Wayne. She wondered why he'd been in the bushes, but didn't really know how to ask without sounding rude.

Sal nodded as she put on her own. "Yep, that's the one." Her breathing started to sound a little like Darth Vader through the machine.

"...hey, I just got an idea."

Wukong decided that now would be a good time to test out his Mach Speed.

The power of the punch moved to his legs, letting him kick off of the ground in an instant in order to propel his body to the side. The Monferno disappeared and then reappeared right next to the punch: he had barely missed it hitting his gut, as his movement had been relatively minimum.

The previous training had paid off. Monferno's vision during Mach Speed was just fine now. Maybe she knows what she's doing after all.

With D-Vee still lunging forward, Wukong rose his leg up to catch the Smeargle with a Blaze Kick to the stomach. His whole leg ignited in flame as soon as it started, going straight for the ribcage. He acknowledged that D-Vee had decent technique, but he hoped his opponents momentum would be his downfall.

Kijin continues to move through the winding path of the forest moving past fallen trees even climbing through one of the fallen hallow trees to get to a higher area of the forest. He softly plops down on the raised plateau catching his breath a little,"Man...this forest is so weird." He says looking around at the area from his vantage spot he notices some rustling and noises from some grass below him. He smiles a little leaning over a bit more to get a good view of the grass as he tries to see what was down there but as he moves over to get a good view part of the edge crumbles under his weight and he tumbles down into the grassy area.

He lands in the grassy area laying there between a Venipede and a Petilil, slowly he raises up and looks at two,"Now what do we have here?" As he stands up the Peilil seems to take the opportunity to run off into the woods but the Venipede didn't seem to run."Uh ok well might as well see what you are at least."

He pulls his pokedex out and points it towards the creature, the screen lights up as the eye looks at the creature then text pops up and words come out of the machine saying,"Its bite injects a potent poison, enough to paralyze large bird Pokémon that try to prey on it and It discovers what is going on around it by using the feelers on its head and tail. It is brutally aggressive."

It would become more apparent that the pokedex was right as the Venipede seemed to be ready to fight as it seemed to wait for him to do something,"Well then...this should be interesting." He grabs one of his pokeballs looking around at the area and seeing the way the forest and trees were all around them he threw the pokeball letting out Steelix. The pokemon let out a loud cry as it was out,"ok this would do just fine lets do this Steelix." Steelix gets ready for battle as Venipede starts to rush at them.

"Ok Steelix go use iron defense." Steelix would lout a cry as it curls itself up and takes the attack from the pokemon it seems the attack would do nothing at all to Steelix. Soon the creature uncurls from it's defensive posture looking just fine."Alright then Steelix go use iron tail." he orders out to the pokemon and soon it follows through by slamming its tail against the ground near the Venipede it gets sent flying into the air a bit. In which Kijin grabs a pokeball out of his pocket and throws it at the pokemon. The ball would hit the creature turning it into light pulling back into the ball and closing. As the ruble lands so does the pokeball it would wiggle and jostle back and forth showing signs of fighting. The ball would continue to wiggle and wiggle then stops making a ding noise signaling a capture,"Hmm that was a little easier then the Blitzle I caught a few days ago."

He shrugs lightly before putting his new pokemon onto his belt and starts back on walking through the woods.