1323/Who Is Logan Trieste

Who Is Logan Trieste
Date of Scene:	12 January 2015
Location:	Pokemon-2
Synopsis:	Lute, Souji, and Princess Paladin in her Miko identity head to Orre to look into a clue to the Unown.
Cast of Characters:	188, 589, 627

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Lute (188) has posed:
     The Orre region is not a place that most people would want to live. Even in the winter, the heat here can be blisteringly warm. Much of the land is desert, with only a handful of places which have enough water to be habitable. It's also a rare land that has almost no wild Pokemon who live in it. Instead, trainers usually have to get their Pokemon from other regions, or use lines of Pokemon bred alongside the family for generations. The land in general also has a lot of problems with Pokemon theft and criminal organizations. It's not a pleasant place to be.

     Luckily, though, a warp gate is relatively close to the city the Confederacy intends to look for. Phenac City, one of the few spots in Orre that isn't crawling with criminals. A city built near an underground oasis, it is a city with some of the wealthier people in it. The buildings, constructed mostly of marble, stone, or clay, are quite beautiful and sometimes extravagent. The city also somewhat flaunts its wealth with its open air aquaducts surrounding the city. These serve to help cool the city a bit, the flowing water creating a misting effect around.

     And, the group finds themselves outside of one of the homes. It is a home of a fairly decent size. Not a mansion, but large enough that one can tell the owner is well off. It's even close to the outer wall of the city, but not close enough that the mist from the aquaduct is too much. The front yard is fairly decently sized, but there is no grass, due to the climate. Instead, tightly packed desert soil, with a few desert plants growing in front. There is no address, nameplate, or anything on this building, though. So, who knows who this house belongs to. It could be anyone.

     Lute is there, already, standing. He's waiting for the others before the investigation continues. They have no idea what will be in here, so, it is better if he waits for the rest of the group. Some Unown are present as well, the letters Q, L, and R. For some reason. Probably just random choices.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Souji has no personal interest in Pokemon, but he does have, for some reason, an interest in the changes that are happening to Logan Trieste, AKA Lute. Something has changed in him fundamentally and it is something he finds to be worth pursuing, both for Lute's own sake as well as the potential enrichment of both the Zaibatsu and the Confederacy.

Souji does not speak much, simply observing the environment and standing before Lute. His eyes flick between Lute himself and the Unown hanging around him, and then back to Lute himself. "I am present to assist you in your investigation." He says, simply. His presence is clean-cut, in a well-tailored business suit and high quality grooming. Were he here from one of the corporations he might fit right in.

Princess Paladin (589) has posed:
In attendance: Lute, Souji Murasame, a teenage girl named Miko Fujimoto, and the letters Q, L, and R. It's like Sesame Street except not really at all! Miko is dressed for the weather in a light yellow sundress, and a big straw sunhat. The dress is slightly transparent, but she has a loose white shirt and shorts on underneath it. The Japanese girl has a hand fan she is waving in her face. Even with the cooling effect of the aqueducts, this is a bit more warmth than she is used to. With her only other items of clothing being some rabbit-sandals, and a tote bag with an assortment of cute animal badges on it, she does not look much like a Confederate Elite.

Miko has no SPECIFIC interest in Pokemon herself, but she also isn't apathetic towards them. She is always interested in learning new things. And Mister Lute needs help, so of course she is going to come help him! He is her senior, after all! "Aah... Do we know whose house this is?" Miko asks as she looks around at the yard upon her approach. This is the first time she has actually MET Lute, she thinks, so she takes the time to lower her fan and introduce herself. "Oh! I'm Miko Fujimoto! A pleasure to meet you all!" She bows to Lute, Souji, and the Unown.

Lute (188) has posed:
     As Souji arrives, Lute waves. He tries to remain calmer than he actually is. Who wouldn't be worried in his situation? His mind seems to be splintering /more/.

     Still, though, he puts a fist up. For a fistbump with Souji. Most likely, this will go unreciprocated. And Lute will be incredibly dissapointed. Alas, such is life, though.

     "...Well. Thanks for coming. The more investigators, the better."

     And then, Miko's arrival. Yeah, she's cute. He even whistles a little bit as he arrives. Because even when his brain is breaking down, he is a bit of a jerk.

     "Yo, Miko! Nice to meet you in person. And no clue who the house belongs to. The Unown just lead us here. I don't even really know their /motive/ yet, so who knows what we're going to find here."

     He looks at the house. It's a /bit/ dirty looking. Not run down, but on closer inspection, it's... not been lived in for at least a /bit/. Lute ponders.

     "...Either of you know how to pick a lock, though? The door is locked. I tried it earlier. And... Urgh. I've picked locks before, but I'm just having trouble doing it now for some reason. My brain isn't working clearly at remembering some minor things like little tricks I've learned like lockpicking."

     ...At the least, though, they could always brute force it, he guesses.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Souji gives Miko a short bow shen she arrives. "Indeed. It is always a fortuitous time to meet new people." He replies.

Lute, however, foes unfistbumped. Souji has limits on his reciprocation. "You could not look up the address in any kind of a directory?" He asks Lute when he confesses not knowing who owns the place. He pauses whe Lute asks if they know how to pick locks. "I am not a Thief." Souji says simply. He does, however, look at the windows. "Perhaps there are other entrances, if simply forcing the door open is not an option." He turns and heads over to a window, sliding it open easily. "They were not locked." He says, and then reaches in with his sheathed katana to push aside the curtain so they can get a look inside.

Princess Paladin (589) has posed:
Miko blushes a bit at being whistled at, but keeps her attention on the matter at hand. Miko gets a face like =_= as she goess, 'hmmmmm' thoughtfully. She resumes fanning her face, and considers her options. If she turned into Princess Paladin, she could force her way inside. But she's not sure she's ready to reveal her Secret Identity. Still, she will if she has to. She hasn't kept up to date on what's been going on, but from what Lute just said, it sounds like he's having serious health issues. Honestly, if she had to transform she'd do it for the purpose of healing Lute. She has some pretty hefty healing magic. She can even heal buildings and places and stuff. Healing a person should be as easy as peas, as the westerners say. But the fact that with all the Confederacy's resources, they've been unable to do anything for Lute, indicates maybe it is a problem beyond conventional magical healing - even strong magical healing.

"I've never had a need to pick locks before, so I do not think I would be very good at it, unfortunately," she admits. But it seems Souji has more insight into trespassing on private property than she does. "O-oh. The window was unlocked?" Well... Good! That way they are at least not guilty of breaking and entering! ...Just entering! ...But hey, Confederate business. What do they care for local laws, right? "So you have had your brain, um... Looked at?" Miko asks of Lute as she advances towards the window and stands up on tip-toes to peek through the opening in the curtains Souji provides.

She turns her attention on the Unown and wonders momentarily if they are trustworthy. Didn't they just suddenly show up? How do they know they are leading them somewhere good instead of into a trap? The teenager frowns slightly but then focuses back on the house's interior.

"Unless there are any objections, um, I will go first." Time to make herself useful finally! Unless there ARE any objections, Miko pushes her bag through the window ahead of her, removes her hat so it doesn't get knocked off, and then with a 'hup!' pushes herself up onto the windowsill. She tries to slide through on her belly, but winds up falling through onto the floor with a loud THUMP. "Owww!" she lets out as quietly as she can as she tries to scoot out of the way for any who follow her, while at the same time taking stock of the room she finds herself in.

She fights the urge to call out, 'Pardon my intrusion!' It looks like no one has lived here in a while, but who knows what ELSE might be around!?

Lute (188) has posed:
     Lute just smiles at Miko, "Oh, it's fine if you want in first. And... Yes, my brain has been looked at, but as far as they can tell, nothing too strange is being detected by the machines. So it /seems/ I'm fine at the moment, but at the same time I'm obviously not."

     And, to Souji, "...Well. I guess I should of tried the windows. Weird they aren't locked. But... With how dirty it looks, it's not likely /anyone/ has been here for a while, even if they left through the windows..."

     As the window opens, and the inside is revealed, it proves to be... a fairly normal house inside, albeit a bit dusty and messy in places. A living room with a faux fireplace. There are a number of decent pieces of furniture put around. A couple of couches, a nice chair, and a little coffee table in the middle. A HD TV is on the wall, mounted. Some various papers and books are spread across the coffee tables.

     Adjacent to the living area is a dining room and a kitchen. The dining area is straight ahead from the entrance, and the kitchen is to the left. To the right, a hallway leading further down, it seems.

     The dining area and kitchen both have various papers spread across them as well. There is also a plate of food on the table, but calling it 'food' in its current state is being far to kind to it. Who knows how long it has been molding there, and the smell to it is... Incredibly undesirable.

     Lute will follow in /slightly/ after Princess Paladin, probably just before Souji. He's obviously nervous about going in here.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Souji enters last, quickly slipping through the window. He steps through the room with the others, looking at the room. His nose wrinbkles at the smell. "Someone should clean up this place." He comments with some asperity, quickly stepping away from the rotten food. Not that eht smell improves all that much from w area. He looks over at the papers and books on the coffee table, seeing if any of them might shed some light on the owner or nature of this house.

Princess Paladin (589) has posed:
Carrying her hat in one hand and her bag in the other doesn't leave many hands to defend herself with if something goes wrong. It's an empty house. Why is she so worried about being attacked? Because she feels extremely vulnerable when she's not juiced up with magical girl transformation power, and she is on the look-out for things that could potentially hurt her. But honestly, if she were attacked, she would have no real way of doing anything to protect herself except maybe running away or hiding. Maybe improvise a weapon with a stick or a fire poker or something. Her nose scrunches a bit at some smell as she stands off to the side, so that Lute doesn't fall on her when HE enters, though he probably has more grace than Miko does.

Once the source of that smell is identified, she covers her mouth and nose with her sunhat. "U-ugh... And we don't know what we're looking for here? These... 'Unown' haven't explained at all?" She assumes they can talk like other pokemon seem to be able to. But so far they've been fairly quiet. Miko shifts her bag's strap to go over her shoulder, freeing up at least ONE hand as she steels herself to investigate the papers near the rotten food.

She does take note, however, of Lute's apparent nervousness. She doesn't blame him. She's plenty nervous being here as well! "Don't worry, Mister Lute. We'll get what we came for, whatever it is, and get out before anything bad happens." She has no basis for saying that. But trying to keep someone else's spirits up might help keep her own up. She pokes through the papers, hoping no cockroaches or anything come out suddenly. She can't handle cockroaches.

She turns her attention on Souji after she has had an opportunity to examine the documents available, and asks, "Would it be better to, um, just put all these papers in my bag so we can look at them somewhere less..." She almost looks at the rotten food but thinks better of it. "...Odious?"

Lute (188) has posed:
     The books are mostly books about Pokemon, but all with a specific trend. The titles include things such as 'Legendary Pokemon of Sinnoh', 'Mewtwo: Fact or Fiction?', 'The Arceus Creation Myth', and things along those lines. The papers seem to be notes on the various books and whatnot. Amongst them are also somewhat crude sketches of Pokemon, with notes on anatomy, habitat, and whatnot.

     The notes and books in the dining area are a bit different. Where as most of the books in the living room were about Legendary Pokemon, these are simply about the different regions, their architecture, their landmarks, and whatnot. In depth historical analysis. Also, near the plate of rotten food, there is a leather-bound book with 'Diary' written upon the cover.

     Lute ponders a bit, "...If we leave with these notes, we might be noticed and thought as thieves. Which... We kind of are, right? We could probably just toss the food under the sink, or into another room, or something. It'd be less suspicious then us leaving with a ton of books... Unless that's our plan."

     He glances at Souji, "...And yeah, this place needs to be cleaned. I'd do it, but like, seriously. We're not going to break into someone's house /just/ to clean it up."

     And, a glance back to Miko. His train of thought seems to be going all over the place. "And the Unown haven't told me anything... They just... Told us to come here? They don't know anything else as far as I've been able to figure out."

     Oh, and the Unown? Q and L are both moving to take the rotten food to the garbage. R, meanwhile, floats over to Lute. And Lute considers for a moment.

     "...If someone /does/ come in to check out after we broke in, we better make sure of it."

     And so, glancing up at the ceiling for a second, he grabs ahold of R. And then places it on the ceiling. With some strange method, Lute is sealing the Unown into the ceiling, where it just shifts to looking like a carving of the creature upon the ceiling itself.

     "...I can see through it if I concentrate, and it'll alarm me to any presence coming in here."

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Souji is perfectly prepared to defend those present should it be necessary. But perhaps it will not. He looks over the papers and books and frowns. "This information..." There is a tap at the side of his glasses, and there is the faint reflection of a HUD in one lens as starts crossreferencing the information with Confederate databases. "... They are all related. The person who lived here was looking for something."

He pauses, looking over to Lute and Miko. "Your idea is good, Fujimoto." Oh god, he's one of those types. "But Lute raises an excellent point. We do not know who these belong to, and the owner would undoubtedly be missing this information if they returned."

He looks over ot Lute again speculatively, watching him as he seals the Unown into the ceiling like a makeshift spy camera. "... Fascinating." He says, simply. "So the Unown helped lead us to this place, Aee the others indicating anything we should be focusing our attentions on? I am still quite curious as to who might own this place..."

Princess Paladin (589) has posed:
Well, Miko does not generally consider herself a thief, and wouldn't ordinarily have suggested stealing stuff, but... Whether it's abandoned or not, she places the safety and well-being of Lute over some stranger who can't even take care of their own house and might very well be dead already. Also see: Confederate business. Local laws don't matter that much.

Even so, both Lute and Souji are correct in that it might not be the best course of action to make off with the papers. She can't argue with that! Instead, nodding to Souji, she pulls one of the most amazing of all teenage girl spy techniques. She pulls out a pink cellphone and starts taking pictures of the papers with her phone's camera. "Well, we should at least make sure we leave with SOMETHING, right?" she says, once the food has been cleared enough to set down her hat where the mulch-on-a-plate once was. After hearing what the other papers are about, Miko explains what the ones she found contain. "These papers seem to be notes on historical sites in the various regions. Landmarks, architecture, and things of that nature." When she is setting down her hat, it bumps into something, though. For a moment she worries it is a roach, but it was a bit too big and heavy to be an insect.

...Unless it's some huge gross poke-roach! Ughhh! Her stomach does flip-flops just thinking about it as she pulls her sunhat away to reluctantly see what's on the table. "-Oh!" Miko lets out in surprise. She does not see what Lute is doing with the Unown - at least not at first - as she picks up a leather book. "I found a diary. It might take a while to copy all of what's in here, if there is a lot!" She holds up the book, examining it from different angles, and then - looking back and forth suspiciously as though there are police waiting to jump out of the everywhere the moment she sneaks a peek - opens it to see what exactly might be contained within it. Unless it's locked or something.

Lute (188) has posed:
     To Souji, Lute just ponders a bit. "...Hrm. They /might/ know something, but... Let's see. Hey, Q, L. Do either of you know where we should check out?"

     Yeah, Lute didn't even to think of asking his Unown once they got here. Either way, though, the two Unown who aren't sealed in walls as Glyphs start flying towards the hallway on the right side of the house.

     The hallway is rather large, and has a few doors. A few of them are ajar, and even from the kitchen, can be seen in, at least a little. One is obviously the bathroom, another seems to be some sort of study, and a third door seems to lead to some stairs to a basement of some kind. The fourth and final door, at the end of the hallway, is closed. The Unown float happily near that door, for some reason.

     As for the diary, there are a number of entries, but it seems the owner only started it and stopped writing in it in fairly short order. The entries take a bit to read, but to summarize:

     They talk about a new research project being taken upon. The details inside are kept vague, with the idea of avoiding criminalizing themselves. A note is made of 'part of the artifact is in my possession now.' Near the back, there are notes and layouts about Pewter City's Museum, listing locations of a 'target' there. But, otherwise, most of the diary is daily life. Boring notes about what meals were, what they did, some cute women the person writing it saw, things like that. Stuff that is exceedingly unimportant but written about in such an excited way. Kind of like a facebook page, in diary form.

     Also, if Miko flips through the blank pages to the back of the book, she'll find a sketch that is hard to make out. It is incredibly vague, gaseous shapes. It is some sort of long but bulky body, with multiple legs and wings. It's hard to tell exactly what it is meant to be.

     Also a cockroach crawls onto the table, and a mouse is crawling across the floor now.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
"Indeed. Good work." Souji replies to Miko, standing. He looks over in the direction of the kitchen, nodding in appreciation to the Unown as they appear to have at least reduced the stench level. "Get what you can, I will investigate further inside."

He does not waste time. They did, after all, just pop right in the front. Souji moves down the hall there the Unown fly, and he glances at the rooms as he passes. He paises at the study, but quickly dismisses the urge to look inside.

He follows the Unown's lead. He heaves over to the door and simply tries to open it and look inside. Whatever the Unown are interested in, it should be in here. "Are you prepared?" He asks Lute before he opens the door.

Even if Lute answers in the negative, he's opening it anyway.

Princess Paladin (589) has posed:
Hmm hmm hmmm~. All very interesting. Except for the boring parts, but those need to be examined as well, just incase something is hidden there! Eventually, Miko determines, however, that if there's anything hidden, she isn't going to be decyphering it on her own. The sketch at the back is peered at - the book turned one direction, then the other - before she eventually just takes a picture and sets the book back do-

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!" Miko screams, though she tries to muffle her mouth towards the end. Ugh! A roach! She isn't too bothered by mice, but roaches are just THE WORST. She backpedals out of the dining area and stands behind Lute, her hands on his back as she ducks down behind him and tries to use him as a shield against the malevolence that is a (very gross) bug. "U-u-um, I think I got everything valuable from the, uh... Over there." Shivering in disgust she turns her attention anywhere except back in that insect's direction, and finds Souji is headed down the hall and also they seem to be down one pokemon. Lute may have explained what he was doing with the sealing, but the teenager was not paying attention.

"U-um... Mister Murasame, was it? Do you see anything back there?" Another shiver. She briefly imagines Souji walking in on some dessicated corpse, crawling with roaches. Her stomach lurches, but she focuses on putting her hat back on her head and keeping her cool.

Hopefully they'll be out of here soon.

Lute (188) has posed:
     As Souji walks down the halls, he at least gets a glance of the other rooms. The bathroom is fairly mundane aside the fact it has a fairly large jacuzzi tub. The study, despite being a study, is probably the most trashed room in the house. There are papers in there, but all of them look destroyed beyond recognition. There is a computer in there, but its busted apart.

     But, at a guess to why: There are a /large/ number of Pokeballs in there, empty. And there are some Unown-shaped dents in the wall. Unlike the glyphs, these are just places where it looks like they slammed into the wall a bit. Perhaps this is where the Unown came from?

     Lute pauses on his answer. He doesn't really confirm one way or the other. But, either way, Shouji opens the doorway. And, for some reason, the lights come on in the room. Perhaps it is triggered to the door, or something?

     The room is obviously a bedroom, and a fairly large one at that. There is a large heart-shaped bed in the middle of the room. And, after a little bit of machine starting up noises, it begins to spin. A disco ball drops from the ceiling. The room is /fairly/ lavish.

     Also, for some reason, on the middle of the bed, there is what appears to be the frame for a mirror. While large, and made of some fine dark metal, it looks like a human could hold it fairly easily.

     Lute, meanwhile, ignores the metal frame, at least for now, and instead elects to comment on the room design.

     "...Whoever designed this room has /style/."

     Also, he hears Miko's scream, and so glances back as she uses him as a shield. A pause.

     "...Maybe you should wrap your arms around me. That way, if something in here tries to get you, it won't be able to pull you away."

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Each of the other rooms contineus to build up to a conclusion in Souji's mind. The study was definately of particular interest. The mass of open Pokeballs, and the damage to the room are something worth noting, hut he does not take very long to do so.

Souji looks over his shoulder in the middle of opening the door as Miko screams. He frowns as she comes scurrying up.

He waits three seconds. He sees nothing giving chase. "You are a human. It is an insect." He says, simply. He turns back to the door and opens it.

Finally, it's when he sees this room that his stoic exterior cracks a little bit, casuing him to blink in surprise, then give a slight slump to his features. He looks over to Lute, and then to the bed. "I am fairly sure you are the one who designed it." Souji says, bringing up all of the deadpan he can muster.

He walks further into the room, looking over the accoutrements in more detail until his gaze rests upon the dark mirror frame. "Lute, look at this." He says, heading to the frame and examining it. "I do not know this metal. Why would a mirror frame be lying on a bed?"

Princess Paladin (589) has posed:
Miko thinks about what might happen if there are some weird giant pokemon roaches or worse that could grab her, and is ALMOST starting to grab hold of Lute in fear when the disco ball drops down. She moves out from behind him instead to see it. "...." She tilts her head to the side as she examines the room. "...Um." The weird mirror frame without a mirror in it seems awfully strange, and Souji's proposition that it might be related to Lute's condition is an unusual one. But maybe it's true. Lute DOES seem to be suffering from more pain now based on what he is saying on the radio.

"I suppose we can not take this with us either?" she asks. Her first impulse is to just destroy it and see if that releases the 'curse' or whatever this is. But she is smart enough to not take such rash action. Examining it while it's intact will possibly give more information.

She huffs a bit and crosses her arms over her chest as she blushes and stands in a corner. "I know it's a bug. But it's a really gross one, Mister Murasame." She peers back down the hall, wondering if she should check out one of the other rooms, or maybe investigate the basement.

Her mind conjures up even more terrible images of what might be underneath the house's ground floor, but though she shudders, she is determined to show that sarcastic Souji Murasame jerk that she isn't some totally useless girl who gets scared by random small creatures! "I'll... Go see what's downstairs." She then starts heading for the door to the basement.

Lute (188) has posed:
     Lute is, of course, dissapointed as Miko lets go of him to investigate things a bit further. But, still, he walks forward himself, to get a closer look at the mirror. And the room.

     He keeps clutching at his head. It hurts. It is /incredibly/ painful at the moment. He's wincing constantly. But he's still trying to remain focused.

     "This... /can't/ be my room. I was born in Kanto, in a different Pokemon World. This could be an alternate version of me, though. Their house..."

     And, without thinking, he moves forward, grabbing the mirror frame, lifting it up.

     "...The... The Griseous Mirror. ...We're missing the glass itself, but... Oh /man/. With this, we could... Oh /wow./ This is from the Reverse World! The realm of... Oh /man/. Do you guys have /any/ idea how valuable this is? Like, even its price aside, we could use this for /catching a Legendary Pokemon/. We just need to find the glass. I think I saw it at the Pewter Museum?"

     And then Lute drops the mirror on the bed, crashing to the ground, grabbing at his head in an /intense/ pain.

     As for downstairs... It seems to be a family room downstairs. Another TV, some exercise equipment, a pool table. There are some other connecting rooms downstairs as well, with the doors open. A downstairs bathroom, smaller than the upstairs one. A /very/ well stocked library room. And a room that basically looks like a lab, with tons of science equipment in it.

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
Souji does not comment at Miko's response, simply letting her go without further incident. The matter of the frame and Lute's condition are far more important. He listens intently to Lute's response, and nods. "A mirror is useless without the glass." He agrees.

But then he frowns as Lute grabs his head. He is no White Mage, he does not have healing magics, and this looks too intense for a mere Potion to resolve. "Fujimoto!" Souji calls. "Help Lute exit the house. I will retrieve the frame. We know what our next move will be." He reaches out to pick up the frame and turns to smoothly remove it from the premeses, heading out of the house with the frame along with Lute and Miko.

Princess Paladin (589) has posed:
Miko takes a quick look around, but this mostly seems to be living space, fully-furnished, and also a laboratory. She may be smart, and well-studied, but she is not a scientist. And 'science equipment' is about as much as she'd probably be able to determine at a casual inspection. And it needs to be casual, because she hears a loud thump from upstairs and then Lute in pain over the radio! "Mister Lute!" she calls out as she turns and runs, going back up the stairs, until she gets to the ground floor. She doesn't know much about pokemon. Giratina and Grizzly Mirrors and whatever else. She just knows that one of her comrades is suffering when he doesn't have to be.

She arrives in the bedroom and attempts to help Lute up to his feet. "I'm on it, Mister Murasame!" she affirms. Then, to Lute, she says, "Here, put you arm around my shoulders!" Not that she's particularly athletic, but she'll do her best to act as a support, and try to guide the pokemon trainer out of the house. ...And through the front door, because she's not sure she's up to hauling him through a window without injuring one or both of them. Along the way, she says, "You don't need to push yourself so hard. You have friends you can rely on. We'll find out what's making you suffer, and we'll find the solution. You can just sit back and rest."

Assuming Lute comes along with her, she'll eventually make it to the front door, unlock it, and try to get him outside. "Mister Murasame will take care of the rest. Let's trust in him!"

Lute (188) has posed:
     With Miko's help, Lute gets back on his feet. He is obviously still in a lot of pain. As he stumbles along, listening to Miko, he ponders on her words a bit. 'Friends who he can rely on'. He actually knows his own reputation. It's weird that anyone would consider him a friend. And yet, he does have many friends in the Confederacy.

     Outside, though, he finally just collapses again, sitting on the ground. He obviously is a bit frustrated at this turn of events. And so, he punches the ground.

     And barely makes a dent in it.

     "...Wait... what? My... my strength. I'm usually ridiculously strong. But I can't even make a decent dent in the ground?"

     He opens his palm to the ground, concentrating. A flicker of ki appears. And then, it vanishes. It reappears again, and he shoots a ki blast at the ground.

     "...What... What's happening to my powers? Ki is innate to people of my world. And I've... I've got a /lot/ of physical strength, but it... isn't working?"

     He sighs. It isn't just his mind he's losing. Is his body becoming destroyed as well?

     He looks at Souji, and the frame, as Souji makes his way out of the house. He speaks, a bit calmer again...

     "..That mirror... We can't lose it. We need to keep it safe. I don't know /how/ I know this, but. If we /can/ use it to open a pathway to a Legendary Pokemon, it is /incredibly/ vital."

     Lute has an incredibly serious look on his face, for a moment. His personalities just switched.

     "...And. I will be the one who captures it. Giratina will be /mine./"

Souji Murasame (627) has posed:
The door is closed behind him as he stands outside, holding the frame firmly in his grasp. He watches as Lute hits the ground and comes to startling conclusions. "This is a very curious phenomenon. You remember things from other times and places. You are gaining some things and losing others. I wonder."

He steps forward and offers Lute a hand up, and nods, his voice taking on an odd intensity. "If this is your heart's desire, it will be so. I will stand with you and assist you in your goal."

He looks between Lute and Miko, the nturns, his voice returning to its normal businesslike nature. "Lute. Fujimoto. We should go. We will take this to a safe place and plan our next move."

Princess Paladin (589) has posed:
Miko isn't familiar with Ki outside of manga and anime. She can sort of understand what Lute might be going through even so, though. Every time she goes from being powerful - physically and magically - as Princess Paladin, able to perform superhuman feats she could normally only dream of, right back to weak, pathetic, vulnerable Miko Fujimoto, she feels a huge sense of loss. Going from feeling like a god to feeling like a mere mortal is a devastating experience. But she can always take those powers back if she has the right motivation to transform. Lute, however... If they can't help him, she doesn't think these powers of his are going to come back.

She crouches down next to him and rubs his back in circles with one hand while she watches him worriedly. One Souji emerges with the mirror frame, she looks up at him. He offers a hand up to Lute, and Miko smiles and rises to her feet as well. "Mm~!" she offers affirmatively. "You can rely on us!" Then Souji is back to being all-business... Even if Miko is starting to understand him a bit better. "Let's go, everyone! We'll definitely succeed!"

If this pokemon is that important to Lute, then of course she'll help! But even more importantly, she hopes this 'Giratina' is the key to helping Lute keep his health.

Miko doesn't have many friends. She'd have to be real scum not to do everything she can to save the ones she DOES have.

Lute (188) has posed:
     Lute looks at the two. He's honestly still surprised at the level of support he's receiving. It's... incredibly touching. And heartwarming. Even his serious, somewhat sadistic side is being touched by this.

     "...Well, then. Let's head back. Both I and my other self will need to think on this some. I thank you for your help. If this /is/ somehow my home, though, even if it is an alternate me.... Well."

     He glances at the house.

     "...I'll probably make claim to it and the notes inside soon. But... For now, let's get me to medical."

     And so, the group now likely heads back, with much to think on and plan.