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((This crew is like, the worst set of heroes ever. Except for the old crew. The old crew were more like villains than anything mrgreen ))

Wayne

"Err..."

Wayne stared at the ground, a weak smile on his face. He remembered the glare Zack gave him outside of Kero's house. Did he really blame Wayne for what happened? Part of him wanted to know, but the mostly?

"My dad already taught me a bunch of stuff when I was being a trainer the first time. And my Aunt Jackie can be like... yeah, I don't think she'd be very good at training anybody."

---

Jackie

"Keep your guard up!" Jackie shouted as she bowed below Zack's open explosion. He'd punched forwards, throwing his weight into the swing without bothering to defend himself. The flames erupted some distance away from Zack's fist, extending into a trail of roaring fire that blasted the ground away.

The black and white Arcanine, Ferox, sat watching from the sidelines. As the flame shot past her, it died down as if hitting an invisible wall. The air shimmered orange, the fire feeding into it and vanishing. Ferox had long since evolved her Flash Fire ability into a wide range barrier technique, which she was using to keep Zack's training hidden. As she was allowed to sit still and concentrate, she could even mask the noise and flash of the blasts. It'd be enough to stop people from investigating, it wasn't like mild tremors were really that rare with pokémon about.

Jackie pushed Zack's arm upwards as she stood up from her crouch, making the explosion arc into the sky, continually striking the dome of Ferox's barrier until he ceased. Zack grit his teeth, preparing to punch or kick or knee, or anything, but he knew what to expect by now.

His cousin angled her fingers up, and a hair-thin tether of Aura shot from her fingertips and glued to his forehead. She made a quick wrist movement and Zack was pulled forward, head-first, and she drove a knee into his gut.

"Have you been listening to a word I said?" Jackie folded her arms as Zack hit the floor, catching himself with a hand, "Every time you throw yourself into an attack like that, you leave yourself open. Do you like eating dirt?"

Zack, still on his knees, swept one arm across, releasing another fiery explosion that Jackie avoided with ease. She landed on the other side of him, driving a kick into Zack's head that put him down fully.

"I think that's enough for today," she said, taking off her headband. It was a length of tight black cloth that wrapped around her head, covering her forehead mainly. She wore it to keep hair out of her eyes when fighting, but also, she just liked the way it looked.

Her bangs held together with sweat, and Jackie ran her fingers back through them, leaving one or two to dangle past her bright green eyes. She checked her Xtransceiver and frowned. A missed call?

She decided to return it and find out what Jump wanted.

Wayne watched with a wide expression. He was surprised about the Aura, but not as much as he was to hear Tess being mentioned. Henrietta being her cousin was a little fact he'd almost managed to forget about. He'd run into Tess in Castelia City, and she'd decided to freeze him to a wall. It wasn't that far-fetched that Henrietta had met her as well. But still...

He swallowed, and looked around the room. What did people make of Henrietta's display? And maybe more importantly, how the heck was a C-Gear supposed to help? Was it another social networking site? Wayne had stopped using those when people started thinking his every update was some kind of frape.

"You can basically see other people within a certain distance that are also using it and send short pre-written messages like 'hello'." Henrietta looked from Wayne to Luka. "If we privatize ours so only we can see each other we'll be able to coordinate a lot better."

Salieri

So Luka not only met Jump before, but he also had a scanner ability? Turned out he was more interesting than Salieri had originally thought. Although Wayne and Henrietta were right about not getting training. Jump had told her first hand that he had no interest in training her.

Not that she felt she needed it. Salieri had been discovering what her ability could do since yesterday. So far, it seemed very versatile, if it worked the way she thought it did. This was something she thought she had to learn on her own. Still though, now was the time to show it off.

"C-Gear, sure, whatever," she remarked offhandedly as she jumped off the bed. "I can do something too." The Battle Girl lifted up part of her shirt, displaying the washboard abs she trained for. "This is just the tip of the iceberg."

The skin on the center of her stomach became tougher, getting thicker until a small circular patch formed around her bellybutton. The patch was of a slightly darker shade than Sal's already tan skin, which was the only visual difference.

"Okay, somebody punch me as hard as you can," she told them, tapping on the tough patch of skin with her fingernail. It made an quiet clicking noise. "C'mon, right here. Hard as you can." Looking around, Salieri assumed the was physically the strongest person in the room. So the challenge was mostly directed at who she assumed to be the next strongest: Wayne, since he was the biggest. Of course, she'd accept any one of them punching her in the stomach right now, just so she could display the amor she was working on.

****

Jump

"Ha-CHOO!" Jump sniffled, looking up at the ceiling. He could have sworn someone just said his name. And that he was crazy?

Whatever. Jump turned back to Bill, who was still blindfolded and tied to the chair. In the Interpol Agent's arms were a durian, a bicycle pump and an angry Basculin being held by the tail at an arm's length.

"Now look," he said loudly over the terrible music being played and the Basculin's snapping jaws, "I'm gonna start asking questions, and if you don't do this the easy way, then you'll find out firsthand why durians are outlawed in several different countries across the-"

Oh. His xtransceiver was ringing. 'Hold on." Jump spun around and placed the durian and bike pump onto the table so he could answer the call. Jackie's face appeared on his xtransceiver.

"Well finally! Did you guys get my message or what? Come back to the warehouse, I got us a friend!"

He moved his wrist so the tiny camera would pick up an image of Bill before returning it to his face. "Happy early birthday!"

"Hum," Henrietta raised her hand to protest, "I probably shouldn't tear my stitches again. I don't think I can make any more of this today if I do." She'd pretty much been keeping wary of things, even during training previously.

She eyed Luka and Takamaru. They were probably better candidates.

Wayne

"Dude, people aren't wimps just because they don't wanna hit girls." Wayne lay back on the bed, propped up by his elbows, "What's your nearly-black belly supposed to do anyway? Strike matches?"

---

Jackie

"Yes, very impressive," Jackie avoided rolling her eyes. "I'm going to scrape Zack off the floor and head back your way. Your car's still safe, don't worry. We left it in the forest somewhere."

Salieri

Salieri looked down at the patch. "Did you ever hear of biofeedback? It's like, being aware of your body and controlling it. I think that's my ability. So yeah, I made my skin super tough." She paused. "I wonder if I can strike matches on it, too."

Shifting back and forth between normal and powered forms was taxing on her Aura. Maybe I can try to make it passive later...

"Seriously, nobody? You guys want to fight psycho activists and you can't even hit a little girl?" She grinned at Takamaru. "TK, show these boys that a real man's not scared."

***

Jump

The car. Jump had forgotten about the car. He was almost scared that it somehow got blown up, because that kind of thing happen more than you would believe. But when it was safe, he was content. For now.

"Not a scratch, Jackie. Not a scratch. I'll see you soon." He lowered his wrist, but failed to turn off the camera as he walked back to Bill. The video feed just showed the wall of the warehouse, but in the audio was the sound of air being drawn into something rapidly.

"Alright buddy, I'm gonna see how far this can go up your nostril, so just sit tight and try not to swallow that durian-oh s**t, hold on."

CLICK! Jump ended the call.

"Now where were we?