OOC: I'm REALLY jealous of Nano now... but at least I can get everyone to the town...
IC:
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After everyone introduced themselves, Lupin nodded and spoke again.
"Alright then, now we know our mission. First, head to the cellar. Second, search for water. Third, search for food. By the way, I notice that two of us have water Pokemon, but I don't think you want to drink the water produced by their attacks. However, maybe they can help us find water, perhaps pinpoint the location Laverne was talking about."
"Mis mis mis," Laverne affirmed. She looked at Yamiko, who nodded--and with that, she flew towards the city.
"And now it's time for us to follow her, though we needn't cach up," Yamiko suggested. She and Lupin stood up, and the two proceeded to walk towards the city.
To enter the city, the group passed over the same entryway Mackenzie had used to exit the city. This path seemed to be the easiest, because it was barren. This was a staircase emerging at the side of the hill, through an alleyway surrounded on both sides by walls of stone. These walls were blasted apart in some places--it was likely that various enemy attacks were the cause. Looking left and right, Yamiko saw what looked like they had once been small military camps, but they were littered with rubble, and some had dust clouds hovering around them. In one such camp, a large machine of some sort lay in a useless heap outside. It looked sort of like a fighter plane, but the wings (if they even were wings) were very short and hardly recognisable. Sparks occasionally flew from the bottom of the machine, which looked to be made from some sort of reflective material.
The group turned a corner, and at last they saw it. At the bottom of the staircase, there were two guard towers on either side. Presently they were empty, and one even had a hole in the side, indicating that they were probably both abandoned and unsafe to enter. There were no soldiers about in this part of town, but the scene was awkwardly quiet. No explosions going off anywhere, no shouts or cries, not even the sound of a gun being loaded. Thus the group descended the steps rather slowly, and anyone who had the sense tried to not make any sounds at all, in case the soldiers coud hear them.
Yamiko wanted to say something to Lupin at that point, but she was afraid to speak. In this moment, it seemed that one wrong move, one misplaced step, would welcome a stream of gunfire from behind the towers. That situation was unlikely, of course (why would soldiers be watching the towers when the area around it was barren?), but Yamiko had to consider the worst possible scenario. Her feet trembled a bit, ready to run and hide in one of the camps if such a situation arose.
As Lupin descended the steps, he noticed something like an air of tension about the place, the traces of unfair violence breaking out moments before. (Some of the psychic Pokemon probably felt this presence even more surely than he did--at least Velvet did, and thus kept her ears perked for sounds of movement.) He was suddenly more alert than usual, though a bit more calm than the typical worried person. In fact, he moved his hand over to his upper-left pocket and slipped his Firewand out, hiding the lighter-like device within part of his glove as he did so, ready to slip it out if he came near any soldiers, ready to hopefully dodge any gunshots and slip into a hiding spot if need be. If an opportunity arose, he prepared to run right past the soldiers and down the street leading into the town, a continuation of the stairs he was on.
Artemis sniffed the air and caught the scent of sweat, her most likely indication of a soldier. However, the scent wasn't very close, so the likelihood of soldiers appearing right beyond the towers was very low. Who did appear from behind the towers, though, was Laverne, who had just come out of her near-invisible mode. She nodded and looked back to the towers, indicating the coast was clear. Moments later, the group began to pass beyond the towers, into the city...
