Clay - Solo RP & Special Missions

Ashley rolls her eyes as she calls her Pokemon back. "Clearly. I think we're done here." She turns on her heel and strolls back into the "advanced" dorms.

While Rei goes to talk to Tiki, Clay heads off to train. He's still worried about the whole romantic emotional mess, though, so after all the group training stuff is done he pauses to ask Instructor Mason if he has a minute to talk.

Mostly because he's got about four people outside his immediate little group that he feels comfortable confiding in, and of the other three, Kalani lives in Cerulean, and his Infernape family are on Mt. Moon and he's not sure whether to expect them to really get the situation. The fourth is Master Nob, and he's just on the other side of town, but Clay hasn't really seen him in almost a month and this would be an awkward thing to talk about the first time they see each other again. He needs to make some more reasonably close friends, probably.

Clay sighs. "Remember I mentioned a while back my friends were kinda having a drama thing? Well... basically two of my friends liked another one, and she finally made a choice between 'em, and the one who didn't get picked... took it kinda hard. I mean, yeah, it's painful for everybody involved, but she took it really bad even for that. I tried to talk to her about it and... I dunno now whether I made it worse or not, honestly. It sure felt like I did at the time. Miss G went to talk to her and I'm hoping that helped more. And the friend who made the decision was gonna try today to, y'know, at least they aren't gonna just go on hating each other or anything."

He shakes his head and for a moment contemplates just flopping on the ground in a sort of physical demonstration of his emotional state. That would make it hard to have a conversation, though. "I'm just worried, is all. Normally Tiki bounces back really fast. I mean, it's not like she never gets sad, but she doesn't usually stay depressed. Especially not 'hide in her room and have her Pokémon keep everybody out' depressed. I just... I feel like I'm gonna come out of this losing at least one friend and I really don't wanna see that happen."

Clay breathes out a sigh. "Yeah, I guess they would be the ones to know about that stuff. Rei knows somebody in there - I've only met her the one time, but I'll ask her to talk to her. Like I said, she let Miss G in and I'm hoping she did better than I did." That sentence got kind of confusing.

Though hearing about depression getting nasty doesn't exactly fill Clay with confidence. Especially as big a U-turn as it is from Tiki's normal demeanor. "I guess knowing what to do in a situation like this might help eventually. Lady Ashandra said something weird about somebody I had a rivalry with back when I was in the Fire Branch having a fixation on me. I'm hoping she was just messing with my head. But that's not exactly as important right now. I just wanna get through this mess and still have Rei and Tiki speaking to me and each other by the end of it."

Well, that's... a surprise. Normally people don't address Clay out of nowhere just in the middle of the street in Saffron unless he knows them already. He's not sure if this guy is being nice or just kind of weird. Humans are hard to understand.

Now may be the sort of time that Clay is especially disposed to think of humans as being hard to understand.

Well, even if there's more than just being friendly, Clay is pretty sure he can handle himself. He wouldn't mind having to hit something right now. He runs a hand through his hair with a sigh. "Eh. Friends having weird relationship drama. Probably wouldn't be interesting to go through it all."

Clay lets out a reluctant sigh. Weird he may be, but the man is probably right about letting things work themselves out from here. That doesn't mean Clay has to like it, though.

"Four to four, winner gets double the prize. Okay, sure. You got a bet." Clay takes just a second too long to react to the outstretched hand - right, handshakes. Some humans do that instead of bowing. Right. He shakes the man's hand and manages a small, challenging grin in reply. "You got a name? Mine's Clay."

He wouldn't have minded a chance to push somebody's face in personally, but this guy doesn't look like a personal fighter, and he's too friendly to want to punch him regardless, so Clay will settle for the Pokémon battle.

After his parting from Tiki - he's sure he could have handled that better, but he doesn't exactly have a good track record comforting Tiki or trying to get her to act in what he thinks is a reasonable way - Clay makes his way back to the Fighting branch. Shoot, he was going to try and get to training on time today, but this morning's whole mess derailed that pretty solidly. If he's lucky the whole guild is running late after the impromptu nap, or else a lot of people are going to wonder why a lot of other people took that extra time at breakfast.

He steps into the branch with a sigh and lets Instructor Mason know that he wants to talk to him - not so urgently that he needs to interrupt training, especially because it's going to take a while, but soon. Then he throws himself into whatever is left of training, focusing on leaping up to strike high targets.

Clay blinks in surprise when Instructor Mason turns up accompanied by the branch leader. Well, he'd known what he had to say was probably going to make its way to her ears eventually, one way or another. He looks embarrassed for a moment, then takes a deep breath and bows, trying to go for composed. He needs to practice meditating more, he knows.

He needs to do a lot of things. Even if he's trying to keep composed on the surface, Instructor Mason at least can probably see him radiating anger and suppressed grief.

"Um, yes. This is... gonna get complicated. I've told Instructor Mason some of it, because he's nice enough to have worried about me. I should have told him more, but this is meant to be a secret. It's just that things have, uh, escalated, and I think making sure people I trust know what is happening is more important now."

Clay is liable to begin pacing as he talks. He's agitated enough that he's not even trying to be still, even if it might be disrespectful. "Since I joined the guild, I've had these nightmares. Four - no, sorry, three times. Bad enough that I wake up screaming; I dunno if Instructor Mason told you about that, but I know he was worried about it at the time. Someone attacking Celadon City." He sketches out the dream - Yveltal turning into a woman, the army with Adventurer's Guild insignia, the Queen falling, the voice begging them to stop the Usurper - and of course, the soulless, empty eyes of the people who died.

"I'm not the only one. There's... usually four of us. At first it was me, Tiki from the Normal Branch, Divini from Psychic, and Sano from Poison. The second time, Divini had left, and the third time, I thought Sano was doing something independent for Poison so I couldn't ask him, but it included Rei from Steel Branch and her... friend, Holly. She's, uh, a special case, I think, her dream was a little different from ours? I dunno. Anyway. I guess at the time Sano might already..." He trails off, shaking his head, and starts again.

"At first we thought it was just nightmares, but - Instructor Mason, you know this part, I was worried about it and I talked to you. After the third one, we went to see Lady Anya. She thought it might be some kind of message, and put some kind of... psychic tracker thing? I dunno how it works, I'm not good at that stuff. It was supposed to go off if we felt really strong emotions and try and track down the source. It, uh, never quite worked out. The last dream was... different, and it turned out not to be from the same place."

Fan is following Clay as he paces now, looking concerned. He reaches down to squeeze her hand absentmindedly. "This whole time, Rei and Tiki and Holly had been doing this... weird romance thing. I dunno how much of it was normal. Instructor Mason more or less knows about this part, too. It didn't wind up going well. Tiki's decided she doesn't want anything to do with this whole mess with the dreams... she's planning on leaving the Guild soon, she says."

He sounds a little choked up about that. He swallows around the lump in his throat and keeps going. "And after Lady Anya suggested a legendary Pokémon might be behind the dreams, Rei was looking into that. The romance thing is kind of... off to the side, the emotions are all tangled up in this but apart from the way Tiki's splitting off I dunno if the stuff that actually happened was important. That's where I was all day yesterday. Tiki challenged Rei to a battle over the whole mess and we kinda had this four-way screaming match in the infirmary afterward. I went off to find a battle to blow off steam, Tiki calmed down and went to take care of her stuff, and Rei and Holly went off somewhere else." He flushes a little when it occurs to him what they might have been doing, but that part's really not important except that the two of them were gone.

"Anyway, this morning I met Tiki at breakfast. Then everybody fell asleep except us and this lady who said she worked for Darkrai came in to ask why we hadn't done more about the Usurper thing he was sending us nightmares about. She was... kind of a jerk to start with, but I guess we didn't help - Tiki's so burnt out that the whole thing just annoys her and she doesn't want to be involved, and I was ticked off because... there was a fourth nightmare, about some personal stuff, and it came at a really bad time. I got over mine pretty quick but it was just the right time and about just the right stuff to make Rei and Tiki even worse. She said that one wasn't Darkrai's. She was surprised enough that I think I believe her."

Now Sandy's flanking Clay on the other side as he paces. "But she says we're the only ones who can handle it? And that we need to find something called Xerneas. Supposed to be Yveltal's opposite number. And when Rei and Holly got back, Rei was in worse shape than ever, because she'd had a messenger person show up too. And hers told her... that Sano and Divini are dead." He stops dead for a moment, looking like he's going to cry. Then he looks like he wants to punch something. Then he takes another deep breath. "Apparently the Usurper, or somebody working for her, got to them. I didn't even know if the Usurper was already around. It's this weird future prophecy thingy? There's some person called a 'Time Traveler' involved, but that's why it gets more detailed every time, apparently. I guess it gets clearer as it gets closer? I dunno."

He finally leans against the wall, rubbing his forehead. "So Rei's a mess and Tiki's a mess and two of my friends are dead. And Tiki's leaving off on her own. I'm gonna visit her as much as I can, but... I'm afraid if something's gonna happen it's gonna be to her next. Rei's got Holly, and she and I are still gonna be here at the Guild, so we can run back here if we really have to, but... I don't know what to do. They're all stronger than me but they're all completely wrecked over the mating thing already and I can't protect all of them at once. I'm tired. Just keeping up with the romance thing is exhausting, and I feel like crap about it because it's so much worse for them, but now…"

He slumps to the floor with his head on his knees. His voice chokes up again, but at least Instructor Mason and Ming-Na can't see him tearing up. "So secrets can go jump off the mountain. I'm telling you guys because… b-because if we screw up somebody has to know what's going on. And somebody should tell Lady Anya and the Poison Branch boss about Divini and Sano. And m-maybe tell Lady Anya that she was right about Darkrai. And I dunno if the Usurper would go after our other friends or if she's just going after us… what'd the jerk lady call us, 'Dreamers'. There's too many things going on for one monkey to keep track of, but I can't stop or it's really gonna hit me. If it's my friends are dead I'm gonna break like Rei, but if it's somebody killed my friends i can keep going, if only so I can make them pay."

He finally trails off, half-curled up in a ball with his Pokémon on either side. "Oh, and tell D'mara I'm sorry about the noise. I kinda made a scene when I found out and it was right by her branch, and I don't really wanna deal with her and her scary aura right now. It gives me this awful headache."

Clay was... not expecting a hug, but it helps, a lot. He hasn't gotten as many hugs as would have helped once he came to the guild - he's been wary about initiating them with his friends, because he knows humans like more personal space than Infernape and might think it was weird. He leans back against her for a moment and nods slowly when she suggests why the whole thing is meant to be a secret. "Yeah, that... that makes sense. She might know who we are, but if she doesn't know we're doing anything... yeah."

He raises his head to look back at her, eyes widening. Yeah, he can see why that would be a very dangerous secret. "Yeah... yeah, I promise. I won't breathe a word. On the honor of the Blazing Tree troop." He glances toward Fan and Sandy (who are now both on the opposite side of him from Ming-Na) and gives a low, monkey-like hoot. "Wait for a minute. This is important."

He returns them to their balls and looks back up at her. Not that he really expects Fan or Sandy to spill this - or even understand it in the first place - but just in case they do hang onto it and someone has a way of reading their minds. "Okay."