The ICIRRUS Team

"Listen drama queen," Nevan's ears flinched at the words. Her body still shuttered, and the sound of this new voice was unfamiliar and definitely not a kind one. "You can't just lay there. Get up and show some spine. It's not the end of the world unless you let it be." If the Espeon was one with a short fuse, she definitely would have jumped the gun. However, she was much calmer and sweeter, and as her eyes looked around her at the droplets of scarlet that were scattered across the earth her body couldn't help but to cringe. The damn memories... they just wouldn't leave her alone! She hated death, and seeing someone die only seemed to send her into the darkness of her mind. Her lungs felt constricted, but she knew she had to stop her quivering. Her body had gone numb out in the open from a few memories, and if it wasn't for this new Pokemon the Ratatta would have easily been able to take them out.

Slowly, she lifted her upper body with her front paws. Sitting up with her ears drooped to the side as her eyes burned holes into the meteor that had crushed the Umbreon.

"Um, Nevan, are you alright?" Paladin's voice pulled her from her thoughts and she immediately looked up and nodded her head.

"I'm fine... y-you evolved!" Her eyes looked the new creature over. Just what this new form of his was though, she wasn't sure. With a quick glance around her, as if expecting the Hydreigon to return, the Espeon hesitantly lifted her body up and took a single step forward. "How are you feeling Paladin? We still have that Potion if you need it," she staggered over to where she had left the vile and thankfully it was still there. Her own back still ached from the encounter with the Stantler, however she would easily be able to sleep that off.

"What's your name? I-I'm Paladin." Her eyes soon drifted to the new face. It was another species of Pokemon that she had never seen. Nevan still seemed fairly out of it. After what had happened to Blade. Her eyes were constantly moving around the skies, while her tail swished from one side to the next. Maybe it was just her, but it was nerve wrecking to have a shower of blood rain down from someone she had been talking to only a few short minutes ago. It was hard letting the thought go, so she tried expelling it with more pleasant memories. Particularly one revolving around her trainer taking both her and her brother to a lake to fish. At least this way she could find a bit of solace.

Draol left the burt tower after so long, and began to follow the tracks of his comrades to the streets where he saw a battle going on. Draol quickly went for cover to situate hisself and find out what was going on. Thats when to his surprise he noticed the bloody armor of the guardian Blade on the ground because of the Hydeigon that had consumed him.

Whispering to himself with tears he said "This is all my fault, if I had followed this might have been avoided." Quickly he switched sorrow to anger, for it was his duty to not let the uninfected die and needed to avenge Blade and save everyone else.

Draol stood up and knew there was only one way to save them which could cost his sacrifice. Draol ripped of his shell bell and without hesitation threw it towards Nevan. He knew she would do what was right to either kill Draol to stop his madness or put the shell bell back on him. Either way some infected where going to die.

Draol stepped out of hiding and began with a tremendous earthquake that was headed staight towards the battle that was fueled by the anger of all of his trauma (read his history). The move caused massive damage to the Eeveelutions which was followed by a burst of speed towards the monsters and a spamming of dragon claw on the undead beasts.

"What are you looking at?"

Kinah couldn't help it, she started to chuckle at the words of the new head the Zweilous said to her as he passed by to help his friend. It reminded her so much of her training partner Tarik. His second head had such an attitude they would get into screaming matches with each other, with his true head laughing at the pair of them. Tarik, herself, and Selenia, her former master's Serperior, made up a trio of best friends. They would always work together, play together, train together, and in triple battles they were undefeated. They never even felt pity for her not yet evolving like the rest of them, they just helped her train harder in hopes that she would.

"What's your name? I-I'm Paladin."

Kinah was snapped out of her reverie by the Zweilous's words. She smiled warmly at him, such a sweet second half he had. Just like Tarik. She bowed politely and was just about to reply when she caught the movement of the purple cat in her peripheral. Suddenly her smile dropped and a deep-seeded pain made her eyes gloss over. Suddenly all of her pleasant thoughts turned dark as she once again was forced to recall the day her beloved trainer, the only human she ever trusted, cruelly traded her away to some unknown person in Johto so that he could get an Espeon. That act of betrayal cut her deep and made her despise her new owner. Refusing to obey his orders got her locked up in storage when the epidemic hit, and when she was released she ran and left him to his fate. These bitter memories churned in her heart as a single tear made its way down her cheek.

Quickly turning away, in hopes the cat wouldn't see her weakness, she replied solemnly, "Kinah. My name is...Kinah..." Sighing deeply and trying to collect herself she spotted one of their friends, who earlier had gone off after the massive Hydreigon, going into an absolute fit and tearing up what remained of the surrounding town. Schooling her face back into a mask of impassivity, she turned back to the pair. "I think your friend needs you..." nodding in the direction of the Fraxure.

[OOC: By the way, the Hydreigon has already left. ;; Harbringers leave after killing.]

"I'm fine... y-you evolved!" Paladin nodded, a warm smile plastered on his face. "Y-Yeah, I am. I'm a Zweilous now." he replied, sounding rather happy.

"Kinah. My name is...Kinah..." Paladin watched as her smile faded away into a sad look. "Nice to meet you Kinah- is there something wrong?" he asked, curious. Suddenly he saw a shell bell being thrown towards the three. He looked towards whoever threw the item to find a Fraxure.

"What the hell does he think he's doing?!" Paladin's other head asked, trying to take control of the body. "He's going to get himself killed!"

One of the Eeveelutions charged towards Draol with high speed and power. It pushed Droal back which left behind a trail of shattered earth. Draol withstood this and had the beast's head in is hands. Draol's eyes widened and yelled as he used all his might to crush its head into pieces. The body fell down as Draol started to stomp towards his friends to attack, in his eyes and mind of chaos anything that moved was infected....Would they prevent that from happening.

((OOC: Machunine, you know the Vaporeon and the Umbreon were already killed by Paladin, right?))

"Nice to meet you Kinah- is there something wrong?" Kinah cringed, so he had seen. Well, she supposed he didn't mind if the Zweilous noticed her momentary weakness as long as the purple cat didn't. Turning back to Paladin she nodded in affirmation. She was fine, as fine as she could be anyway, she was just still pretty raw when it came to her recent past.

"What the hell does he think he's doing?! He's going to get himself killed!" At Paladin's words Kinah's vision went back to the Fraxure, still in his tantrum. It was attracting all sorts of infected who were trying to challenge him and she for one was itching for a good fight. The closer she came to evolving the more sure she was of escaping this hellhole and getting back to Unova.

She, too, had noticed the glimmer of something thrown their way. Stepping towards it cautiously she peered down to find...a Shell Bell. Really? That Johto trainer had tried to make her wear one once, when she first came over in the trade. He had some silly notion that it would make her more friendly towards him. She grinned at the memory of her throwing back at his head so hard it left a lump that lasted for over a week. She really hated that guy. Shrugging she bent down to pick it up and look it over. Dented and a little worn, obviously it didn't leave his neck very often, if at all. Looking back at the Fraxure she shook her head. "What the hell does he think we are supposed to do with this?" she asked Paladin. "Play him a song? Ugh, I don't have time for this." Tossing it back at Paladin Kinah took off towards the commotion, jumping into the fray.

Kinah got off a few Force Palms, taking out a few Growlithe's and one Raticate, before she was surrounded. Smirking, she settled into a defensive stance, waiting. When she was completely blocked on all sides she let out a Hidden Power. The ring of fire that surrounded her completely devastated the closest pokemon, turning them to twitching lumps of scorched flesh. The ones a little further out jumped back, but not without injury. She hollared out in triumph. "So Paladin," she cried out. "Going to come join the party? I've got a lot of levels I need to make!"

"HELL YEAH!" Paladin's other head answered as he heard the Mienfoo's question. Immediately the duo jumped into action. True Paladin using Dragon Rush with his head to stop a infected Raticate.

"More coming! Watch out, Kinah, you too, Draol!" The head yelled, remembering the time before he evolved, someone by the name of Draol came in the tower. He assumed the Fraxure was Draol, after all, they carried the same scent.

True Paladin caught movement on the edge of his sight. There was something there. He ignored it, if it was dangerous he would have to deal with it later, to busy now to suddenly move his body to kill something that was probably hiding by what he could see. But both Paladins failed to notice Draol acting rather strange.

"What the hell does he think we are supposed to do with this?" as Kinah tossed the shell bell away. As the item landed on the ground it made the tone that would make Draol come to.

Draol snapped out of it and started to run towards the shell bell. "Wait no!" The effects of the bell wore off as he was just about to grab it. Draol's hands went to his head as he yelled in anger wanting his maddness to stop, when all of a sudden he stopped. Dropping the hands from his head Draol turned around swinging his arms like a ragdoll and charged straight towards a group of raticate and growlithe with his tusks low. Body parts were flying as he cut through all the undead with such ease. Draol stoped in his tracks as he turned his head at his friends with an evil smile and bloody tusks as if they were next.

Kinah was busying herself with the infected attracted by the Fraxure's rampage. Her ears perked at the sound of her new ally's readying shout and she felt a smirk creep upon her face. It was good to fight alongside others again. A shadow of something caught her eye off in the distance but there were more pressing matters at hand, like the skull of the Raticate she was crushing.

"More coming! Watch out, Kinah, you too, Draol!"

Kinah turned to look as an angry swarm of Growlithe descended on the crowd, adding to the chaos. 'Draol?' She thought. 'What the hell is a...oh,' she realized that must be the Fraxure's name, odd as it was. She was trying to cut a path to get aid to Paladin when Draol ran right past her, going for that stupid bell crying, "Wait no!"

When she saw his demeanor suddenly change she was concerned. He was dead calm as he tore through a group of infected like they were tissue paper, and then turned his sights on Paladin and herself. She kept glancing between him and the bell.

"Oh Shit..." The pieces fell together like a twisted puzzle in her mind and she realized she needed to get to that bell, and fast. But now Draol was between her and the artifact. She would have to rely on Paladin's help on this one. "Paladin I hope you got my back! I need a diversion!" She took off from an angle, coming in from the left before performing an Acrobatics so as to try and get behind Draol. If she could just reach that bell...

"Paladin I hope you got my back! I need a diversion!" The head with the red scarf nodded, smiling. "hey, don't worry- I got your back, K." he smiled, eyeing Draol. There was definitely something wrong, and he knew Kinah understood what it was that was making the Fraxure go a little... Crazy. He Immediately charged up a Dragon Rush, as his body glowed blue. He rushed towards Draol, but instead of hitting him, he hit the ground right before him, sending up rocks and the ground beneath them.

Paladin's other head, while in the air from the Dragon Rush attacked noticed something move. It was a Deerling. Maybe infected, but he didn't really know. Something seemed awfully familiar about the Deerling. As if she... She knew him and he knew her. Faint memories of the past drifted in his head. "Hey... She seems familiar...?" the head said to the other. The one with the scarf shook his head. "Don't worry about that now! We need to clear this hoard!"

During Draols mid-air rock storm, he decided to counteract the move with his rollout move towards Paladin through the rocks. He kept ramming and ramming, one after another when he started developing more trauma in his head that caused him to go from crazy to insane. Laughing at everything as if he was the more powerful, his eye caught sight of a nearby Derling. "You think you can hide from me? All of you will pay for what you have done!" He ran towards the Deerling along with roar and started beating and killing it. Little did Draol know that this insanity also cause him to make up things that he sees and was actually beating the ground, while the actually Deerling was safely next to him. Who knows how much further he could go before he starts to shut down?

It worked! Kinah felt like whooping for joy. With Paladin keeping the raging Fraxure occupied she was able to land behind him and keep running. In its current state of mind it had never even noticed her. Now...to get that bell.

As she ran for her goal couple of stray infected vulpix came from behind a building and attempted to attack. Kinah wasted no time and continued her trek while dispelling them with a Force Palm. With the Fraxure still going nuts she didn't have a minute to spare. She would hate for Paladin to get hurt because she wasn't fast enough. "Just hold on," she whispered.

In just a few moments she was where the bell had dropped and she scooped it up quickly. She whirled around and was about to head back when she noticed Draol pounding the ground next to a scared Deerling. Those creatures were from her home in Unova, strange that she was running into so many pokemon from home in this region. All the remaining infected were dead, and the only sound to be heard was his furious hollering. Kinah figured it wouldn't be long before Draol realized he was attacking the dirt and not a pokemon, but she wouldn't make it that far over to him before he did. So she did the only thing she could think of.

"HEY YOU NUTTER!" She screamed for the Fraxure's attention, tossing his bell high into the air. "You want it so badly? TAKE IT!" With her last words she jumped up, performing a mid-air spin kick to the bell, sending it rocketing at Draol. The bell let out a pure, resonant sound that echoed through the now empty streets as it sailed towards its target.

'Please,' she thought. 'Let this work.'

"You want it so badly? TAKE IT!" With those words, Paladin, now landed on the ground, saw Kinah throw the bell towards Draol. He watched as it flied by and the Deerling escape.

Paladin turned around to where the Deerling had ran to and hid. "F-f-f-friend?" He heard her speak as she poked her head, then her body out of her hiding place. Paladin examined her. She looked droopy and sad, her color was faded, and he tail was bitten off.

Paladin knew the voice was familiar, but he couldn't put his claw on it. He shrugged it off as he approached the Deerling. She smelled like an infected. "Y-You're infected." he boldly stated. "How can you speak?"

With the shell bell headed straight towards him, Draol's true self came back and stopped hitting the ground. "Ugh my head." *BING* "Ow my head!" He turned to see what hit him and saw the shell bell accompanied by an open smile. "Yes I have you back! I hope that--" Draol turned and noticed the destruction of the battle and his tired friend Paladin, along with a new uninfected that seemed to be the one that saved Draol.

Draol then looked at the nearby Deerling and went towards it. The sick animal backed away in fear, Draol stopped, then looked at the giant hole that he was punching punching and knew why she was scared. The Deerling stopped being afraid knowing Draol was in control of himself and spoke to him. "F-f-f-friend?"

Draol started to cry and replied, "Yes, friend."

It was strange, watching Draol go from insane to normal in just a few seconds. Kinah gave a little wince when she saw the bell bean him in the head. She hadn't meant for it to hit him that hard. Well, at least he wasn't trying to kill anyone anymore. But now they were all so far away!

"Just can't seem to catch a break, can you?" Kinah muttered to herself. From were she had landed, Kinah could see the timid Deerling come out of hiding and the group trying to talk to it. Something seemed a little...off. As though something about it just gave her a little chill. She shook her head. No sense in jumping to conclusions from such a far vantage point, might as well get over there and see what was going on. She waved to Paladin to let him know she was on her way over.

It took her a fair few minutes to reach rest of the group, of course making sure to keep an eye out for any infected that hadn't been killed during the slaughter. She watched them talking, and since no one seemed to be trying to kill each other, she figured it must be alright to approach. "What a lark!" Kinah sighed, nudging Paladin playfully. "All in all it was a good scrap but I barely gained any levels. I'm still a ways off from evolving! So who's the doe?"

"All in all it was a good scrap but I barely gained any levels. I'm still a ways off from evolving! So who's the doe?" Paladin laughed heartily and nudged back. "Hey- at least you got something out of it, yes?" He said as both his heads turned to the Deerling expectantly.

"P-P-Pure....Name... Pure." Paladin's other head looked shocked. "P-Pure?! As in, that shiny Deerling I used to know?!" The head asked in a bewildered voice. "I-Impossible! I thought you were dead...?" He sighed, then smiled. "Glad you're okay." he gave a relieved sigh. True Paladin nodded. "Yeah."

"So your the one that saved me. As my regular self I like to introduce myself. The name is Draol and you must be from Unova being a Mienfoo and all." Draol went up to Kinah with a hand to shake, to show that he has a new ally on his side.

"I guess you two know each other from somewhere Paladin." Draol looked at him and the Deerling for an answer. Could we trust her long enough before she turns?

Kinah smiled broadly when Paladin gave her a nudge back. To her, it felt like being back with her old friend Tarik. She rather liked the Zweilous, he was probably the first person she didn't hate in this region. She let out a light chuckle at his question. "Indeed," she replied, still smiling.

"So your the one that saved me." Kinah turned her attention to the Fraxure as he introduced himself. So, his name really was Draol. She flinched a little at the hand he offered, staring at it for a moment. He was, after all, completely off his rocker not just a few minutes ago. But she shrugged and clasped his forearm, a warriors greeting she learned long ago. "I am, on both counts. I came from Unova not long before this...whatever the hell it is you lot have going on in this region. As for helping you, well it was you or me, and I rather like me."

Kinah tried to give Draol a smile, just to show that there weren't any bad feelings from his earlier actions. She wanted to feel like part of a team again, purple cat or no purple cat. She looked back at the Deerling when the others attention went to it. She cringed, with that pallor and that tail, or what was left of it, there was no way it wasn't infected. Her left foot slid back a little as she readied herself for a defensive position. "Is it dangerous?" She asked Paladin. Kinah couldn't understand why the others weren't attacking it. If it was infected, even if it was still lucid, it could turn on them any second. Couldn't it?

"Is it dangerous?" Angry paladin thought for a moment, before he opened his mouth to speak. "She's not attacking us. But it's obvious she's infected. Too be honest, I can't answer your question, she was a good friend of mine- I mean our's- before the infection..." He replied, looking at Pure. True Paladin nodded his agreement, both not too sure. "But I'd like to trust her. We knew her before and it's hard to think that someone we knew would've become a bloodthirsty killer." True paladin said, watching Pure's tail wiggle with happiness.

"I'm obviously smaller than these guys... So I won't attack them... Mmm..." Angry paladin perked up. "Hey! If she can talk like that- it means she's not fully infected yet! We can trust her, right, right?!" he yelped happily, completely ignoring the fact that Pure had said that she might not attack and eat them.

"If you ask me, I'd trust her but only by a certain distance." Draol turned to her with a smile of trust. Trust was the only thing he had left and knew he could see it in everyone in this world because, what's to lie for in a forsaken land anyway? Anyone was a friend in Draol's eyes as long as there was no indication of life, somthing he looked like and Pure was starting.

"What's the matter anyway if you can talk? If anything you should be happy you that much further away from one of them." Draol bobbed his head back in the direction of the infected corpses from thier battle. "Aromatherapy seems to keep it from spread anywhere else. Now if you excuse me I must prepare for any possible battles in the future so please ignore this." Draol walked away to let the rest of them talk and started performing his sword dance to increase his power for anything that came.