I've spent most of my life
Riding waves, playing acrobat
Shadowboxing the other half

Sarah came running up to Sam with her backpack freshly stocked with supplies and the gems she’d gathered so far secured in a safety deposit box back in town. She was ready to find some more and get down to business investigating this...business. He’d managed to get at least one Pokemon since they’d parted ways it seemed. She wondered if this was his starter!

Her own starter was nestled into a scarf in her backpack which she wore the same way as before, with the Foongus chilling in his pokeball instead. The pokemon she’d let out this time was a shiny Budew who thought he was hot shit, named Plandaí. Which...now that she was closer - that was a shiny pokemon too! Ha! That would chill her budew out some, she figured.

”Speck for your thoughts?” she chirped with a smile, waving a pinky finger at the cutiefly perched on Sam’s head. She saw the way he was looking through all the gems he’d found and stooped to pick a few up herself, dipping her hand into a pocket in her bag. Plandai didn’t take well to the gentle jostling and humphed at her, < Hey! Watch it! > Sarah tsked, sucking her teeth at him, ”Oh shush, you silly boy! Would you rather be handed the gems and have to do manual labor to put them away yourself?” That shut him up quick and she smirked. She liked that she was finally getting the hang of how to talk to him. She was usually very sweet and gentle but he needed a firm hand to keep him from walking all over her.

Hearing them approach, Sam gave a small smile at Sarah. He then laughed, because he couldn't help but do so at the way that shiny looking Budew reacted. "Looks like you've got your hands fully as well-- owe." He winced at feeling Cutie pull at his hair, because he knew good and well that Sam was talking about him and he decided to punish the human for assuming he could point out his flaws. How, dare, he.

Once he was done getting his hair pulled, he gave Cutie a pat to let him know he meant it in all good fun, before looking to Sarah. As far as his thoughts went... "I haven't figured anything new out, pretty much the same things. They're apparently putting the gems on the pedestals? I haven't seen it with my own eyes, but I've heard it here and there from different trainers." He admitted before leaning up off the tree and putting his bag for the gems into his messenger bag and shifting it to rest on his butt.

Just in time to hear Bailey approach. He smiled warmly and waved his hand when he heard him a bit away, arm falling once Bailey got closer. "Huh... I didn't think to ask the Pokemon in the area." He glanced around the forest and smirked. "They'll know if the gems just sort of surfaced or if they had been here beforehand, wouldn't they?" He wouldn't know for sure, because he wasn't a local.

I've spent most of my life
Riding waves, playing acrobat
Shadowboxing the other half

Sarah could’ve just died at the way Plandai was acting, and it didn’t help that the cotton candy fluff in Sam’s hair seemed to only encourage the antics. Ugh, how did she end up with such a bully for a pokemon? She would really have to have a talk with him after this. And she didn’t know how to make it up to that beautiful and strong Makuhita without just making it worse. She just shot Plandai a mean mugging look, or as mean as she could manage to pull off, before breathing a tiny sigh of relief that Citrine at least seemed able to hold her own.

Sarah herself had never had body image issues of that kind but she was used to people making snap judgements about her based on how petite and young she looked. They didn’t take her seriously or were condescending or patronizing or both. So she had some sympathy for Citrine taking on other people’s judgements for something as unimportant as how her body was made. She couldn’t help but to admire the pokemon for taking it in stride, though and brushing off the butthead boys snickers, simply replying in kind with normal decent manners and making them look like the immature brats they were. She offered her a silent smile, then, as the best common ground she could think of between nothing at all and falling to her knees and apologizing like a lunatic and just putting her foot in her mouth.

More than anything she hoped her new friends didn’t judge her too harshly for her pokemon or think she had raised him to act that way or treat women as objects, judging their worth on how likely he was to want to do….whatever it was pokemon did! She focused that much harder on the task at hand, trying not to get caught up in pokedrama. If the guys weren’t going to let it hamper their efforts then she wouldn’t either. And again, Citrine had handled herself well enough. Plandai scrunched up his baby face at how nobody had acknowledged him or cooed over how pretty he was. What the hell, guys?? Was the look on his minimal features. Sarah of course continued to ignore him. He didn’t know how he’d ended up with a trainer who didn’t seem to care about him as much as he even cared about himself. Wasn’t that the whole point of having a trainer? To have someone to dote on you and love on you and tell you what a beautiful perfect boy you were??

”Is it some kind of offering?” Sarah said suddenly at the idea of them being just piled on, ”Maybe the pedestals are altars? Like...sacrificial? Oh dear…” her heart raced at the thought, ”Are we in a cult now??”

There was no way of denying the fact that his Cutiefly was being a jerk. He snorted and snickered and did pretty much everything he could to be a small jerk. It probably stemmed from the type difference, since Sam had noticed Cutiefly often got ahead of himself and cocky if his type was a definite advantage. Fighting versus fairy? It was a win for Cutie, if he didn't get cocky. But in the world of Pokemon and battling, honestly, anything was possible. Sam had seen it himself whenever the Elite Four had their Championship open. It was a massive event and the trainers and their small techniques and odd advantages against all odds- it was inspiring.

But more importantly, Cutie was being a jackass. Sam pulled out Cutie's Pokeball and withdrew him. Cutie was a more reclusive Pokemon anyway. Sam didn't care one way or the other about having a Pokemon at his side like the others did. Not if it meant that the Pokemon couldn't keep his negative attitude to himself. At least he wasn't obsessing over the Makuhita... because Cutie had a bad habit of being obsessive over the strangest of things and Sam wouldn't put it past him to have gotten obsessed over the cute Makuhita.

"Sorry about him." Sam admitted, deciding that ignoring his Cutiefly's actions was wrong. "He's used to living in a forest where he's the only shiny around." Sam admitted, though it wasn't an excuse, he was just trying to get Bailey to see that Cutiefly was a jerk because he didn't have the experience of not being one... okay so it definitely was an excuse, but still.

"As far as the gems go, I agree. Getting a move on is probably our best bet..." Sam glanced forward at the forest ahead of them, huffing a small sigh. "Alright, let's get this party started.. did you guys want to split up or stick together? I mean, we're here to observe and seek out Pokemon of the area to ask questions to... I don't know if it would be better if we were separated or not..." They sort of did go through the effort of meeting back up so that they were together again. Huh... Was that counterproductive?