After confronting Ambition, Dylan hadn't done much. He'd pivoted his body while still crouched, taken a step back, and settled himself beside Ambition. While neither of them looked at each other, Sage turned to resume watching the crowd. No one had seemed to notice their activity. That may be a useful trait to invest in.
It seemed the others hadn't done much either. The well-dressed-wurmple-carrier was eating something, that seemed like it came from the bag her Alexis-nemesis was offering, which confused Dylan slightly. Passing it by, Dylan observed the rest of the group. Medic-Daniella was taking the skinny-hungry-one up on her offer of berries, before asking if anyone knew anything about Houndoom, thereby frightening her Oddish, and then comforting it. While this was going on, the walks-with-women man of about Dylan's age put forward a thought on the Situation Proper. Namely, he'd proposed someone use a flying pokemon for reconnaissance, and for finding the people they were supposed to help.
While Dylan was relieved someone else was proposing things rather than himself, an idea about the people they were meant to help occurred to him which he did not share.
In response to the Alexis-follower, the followed-Alexis in question put forth that her Emolga could do the job. A couple of problems presented themselves to Dylan with some immediacy. Namely, Emolga was (a) rather like a squirrel, rather than a large bird, and (b) incapable of human speech. Her nemesis expressed the essentials of his thoughts as well.
When Alexis asked the group who had a flying pokemon, Dylan, with the growing assumption that no one was paying him any attention, simply looked around the rest of the group for their responses. The answer was no, it seemed. In fact, the medic pointed out that this was "The one time I go on a trip without Pidgeot." After this she released her pokemon, one of which was another Glaceon, and explained the situation to them.
Another few moments of this and Alexis sighed with obvious irritation at the group. Her expression made Dylan smirk and breath a small jet of air from his nose: his variant of the snorting laugh had the advantage of not actually snorting. The only sound it made was a quiet, fast hiss. She didn't seem to notice before she spoke.
"Well, I think it's getting dark soon, so I'll head back to the pond I found and... somehow find some shelter there. You can sleep on the beach or follow me, whatever."
I don't know that we'll be seeing a lot of people stay on the beach, now you've offered yourself as leader. Such were Dylan's thoughts. His smirk faded when he came to a realization. Oh, I'm getting comfortable enough to fully regain my personality. That will be less embarrassing, at least.
Dylan made a point to wait until everyone heading into the forest had done so, in order to be behind them all. He had little fondness for being in front of others, and no longer had any reason to put himself in such a situation. Aside from working on his issues with it, which was... unlikely.
From his distance he could see the tail end of the party heading in, which was about to his liking. The trip was well within the distance that Lin's message had implied, the group being able to see the clearing in the trees somewhere between ten and fifteen minutes away. Still, Dylan had never much cared for the forest. The amount of cover that he neither know how to, nor much wanted to put effort into taking advantage of, had disquieted him on his trip through Petalburg, and was having the same effect here.
He had one of those peculiar moments where one thinks they hear a sound behind them before dismissing it as imagination. Except that this time he didn't get a chance to dismiss it, before Ambition started growling. Dylan stopped with one foot in the air, just over halfway to its destination. He found a backpack slightly detrimental to the cause of dramatic footing, though he'd enough practice to work it for long enough to turn his body towards where he'd heard the noise and place the hovering foot facing an appropriate direction. He stared into the forest, his expression blank rather than sleepy.
After ten or so seconds of this, Dylan checked with Sage, who was looking into the forest as well. He cursed in his mind. Legitimate, then.
"Come on," he mumbled. Hoping to get this business over with minimal effort, Dylan did something he was not overly fond of. He spoke loudly, towards something he couldn't see, in a forest.
"Show yourself!" There were positives to his speaking loudly, one being that his voice came out deeper when doing so, the other that his voice took on a slight Hoenn accent, which he rather liked.
But after he'd said it, he remembered his idea from a quarter-hour prior. The one regarding Lin's friends; that Lin, being presumably not human and therefore, in all probability a pokemon, would likely have friends that were other pokemon. These being the friends that were "acting strangely" and "too dangerous to be around".
Well, at least he didn't have to walk over there. He cursed in his mind again.
