[PTU, IC] IL 6: Time for swimming lessons!

[Haluesen]

Kara watched in surprise and confusion as Maria left. "Ah...well good luck out there then." She gave a little wave as she departed.

At Darkrai's request for a 'playmate', Kara had a look of nervousness. She knew Darkrai could pretty much pick who she wanted, and she wanted to avoid being partner. So as soon as Niko scurried down to her she called out to the room. "Oh hey found a volunteer! Thanks kitten!" And she practically threw Niko over to Jerry.

[passinglurker]

Everyone
"huh? wha? nyah!" goes niko in confusion as she is pushed stumbling into darkrai's arms "w-wait I never agreed-!" niko attempts to protest as darkrai wraps a strong arm around the feline girl's skimpily clad hips and licks her lips as the goddess makes a knowing smile "Oh please you know you actually like being messed with why hide it?" Darkrai says as she presses a finger against the tip of niko's nose making the cat girl's ears go back and her tail go straight as she tries to lean back and away from the goddess's finger "wh-what are you doing!? s-stop it!" She says squirming to shake the finger off to no avail.

"yes you'll do just fine kitten" darkrai says with a nod not letting up with her finger "So who has a question for me first?" She then says to the group ignoring the cat girls protests.

"hey don't just ignore me! stop! I am the darkness! staaaahp!" Niko says flailing her arms in an cute tantrum that belies her infamous nature as darkrai continues to simply poke the tip of her nose.

[Major]

"I just want to know about the dream vision things. You said would say in front of others to avoid having to repeat. Sooo...whatever those were. Especially since something involves me. Not sure why couldn't tell me that privately...but shoot." She couldn't say she enjoyed someone being just thrown at Darkrai, but as long as just innocent nose poking didn't seem like worth it to interfere...yet.

[Haluesen]

Kara looked to Claire as she spoke, then she nodded. "Yeah there was something about visions and things, I wanted to hear about that too. I want to hear private details about people and vision things. I mean I would guess it wasn't great...but secret details, so yay! Go on please." She chuckled a bit as she watched Niko being messed with.

[Regalus]

Uriel for his part stayed quiet, avoiding meeting Niko with his gaze. While it certainly solved one issue, and his gut told him the huntress was protesting more for appearances than anything else, it still left the young man feeling improper to watch too closely as the goddess played with her new toy.

[passinglurker]

Everyone
"Secret details huh? hmm... well not that any of them would say it out loud but of the people in this room claire, amber, z, and wispy all have big crushes on uriel! there's more but how about we meter it out with the other questions so these simpletons don't get too distracted" Jerry says to kara loud and clear for all to hear with a wink causing some surprise among those mentioned (z and amber in particular have slowly hidden themselves under the table out of embarrassment)

Jerry then turns her attention to claire "hmm... how's the best way to put this..." She then takes a deep breath and begins to exposition at great speed "basically due to a rare supernatural trait in the royal families genetics royal infants suffer a terribly high mortality rate you would have been part of that statistic if your parents hadn't cut a deal with a crime boss where the boss would use thier organization's illegal sciences and unethical researched treatments to save your life at any cost to your mundaness and in exchange your parents would allow them limited access to use you in thier research and lend thier personal talents to the organization. As a result the organization used a combination of royal genetics, gene splicing, and good old fashioned cloning technology to make batches of half rate girls with higher odds of developing elemental powers in order to better study how the powers developed so that they come up with better ways to give powers to thier agents or make elemental clone soldiers or something conspiracy-esque like that. Your father was was depicted the way he was in the dream because his role was keeping these super powered girls in line as an enforcer the greatest obstacle against most of them revolting or escaping with rare exception and as a result he bares these girls fear and ire. The shadowy appearance of your father and the girls was because the rare genetic trait they have in common is seen as a black shadow or void like aura by seers. Where as your appearance was alluding to the experimental tricks they used to save you that result in your elementalism and your ability to switch types, and how you'd also likely deny everything I just told you. If you want proof just ask spooks she's been investigating you, kuro, and your family at least ever since your dad was murdered so she probably has plenty she hasn't had a chance to tell you yet cause you keep running off doing your own thing. if you are feeling mad right now feel free to take it out on niko she's a masochist she loves being beaten, and I don't have a problem with using her as a shield to block any attacks." Darkrai rabbles out all at once as she twists Niko's arms behind her back and hides behind the cat girl like she was a tall shield.

"huh? what!? w-wait!" cries niko in alarm and quickly turning red as her breath picks up. its hard to tell if she scared of getting hurt by a world class combat trained princess or if she is just scared she won't be able to hide her masochistic nature...

[Jacior]

Drew reaches over with his free hand and flicks Jerry on the ear. Between bites of food he makes the comment. "That's so mean. You got everyone worked up about the cuddling for a human shield?" He refuses to look at anyone else after the revealing comment about Uriel, his face sloely turning red.

[Major]

At the crush comment, Claire raises an eyebrow. Z wouldn't have a crush on Uriel, she liked cars and robots and things. However, it wasn't worth arguing. Before she could comment, Z was hiding and Claire frowned. That didn't make any sense, why was she hiding?

When Darkrai went into her long ramble, however, Claire's frown got a lot more serious. "I thought you weren't going to lie." She said annoyed. "That's all clearly a lie. Everyone would have heard about a high mortality rate and royal babies dying." She said.

"And my parents wouldn't work for some criminal! And my genes are perfectly normal! And dad wasn't an enforcer for some gang of criminals!" Claire was getting more annoyed and could fear her temper heating up. "The lying is annoying enough, but don't talk bad about my family or make up things like that. And of course I would deny it! It is blatantly stupid and fake!"

She clenched her fist annoyed, but wasn't going to just punch the goddess for talking bad about her father. Regardless of how enticing that might seem, Claire knew better than to attack for an insult so she resisted despite her annoyance and temper.

She ignored the cat girl and her weirdness. "Regardless, if I wanted to hit you I could get around her...I'm not some untrained idiot who just swings blindly..." She mumbled.

[passinglurker]

Everyone
"eh-heh sorry I'm just saying what comes naturally... and not trying to think to hard about about all those poor girls that were killed so far in thier experiments among other things..." Says Jerry to drew as her tone slides from happy to depressed "great there goes my mood... I need to recharge... with... Oppai!" She then says as she spins niko around and buries her face into the catgirl's chest "Hey! w-what do you think you are doing!? stop squeezing me! what is oppai!? if you are going to torment me do it in plain unovan!" Niko complains flailing to keep her balance.

"*sigh* actually what she is saying does line up with the evidence. I'd love for her to be wrong or lying too believe me, but we are at the point where until proof is found to the contrary we can't make that assumption." wisp says stepping between claire and darkrai "to start with the part about the infant mortality rate is true I've known that much for a very very long time the royal family hides it by concealing any pregnancies and not announcing births until a child is proven to be healthy. the public doesn't notice and the royal families influence keeps everyone else who may know quite about the matter. Also you've changed elemental typing 3 times in less than 2 days. Even without your complete medical records verified by a second medical professional I can say with certainty your genes are far from normal. And finally as for your parents themselves... take a deep breath and ask yourself this... if your child needed a doctor you couldn't find legally what would you do?" Wisp says

[Major]

"Its not natural because nobody died!" Claire snapped. "You are making it up!" Before she could comment further Wisp stepped in.

"We don't need proof! I know my family and I know that its silly and I refuse to believe that! She's clearly lying and you have no proof anybody died or hiding deaths!" Claire said angrily. Why was Wisp helping with Darkrai's lies?

"The genes and elementalism is just because of that Banette or the relic or something. My family didn't do anything!" She denied.

At Wisp's comment she frowned, "I'd do whatever, but I'd find a legal way or a way that people wouldn't die or be hurt." Claire said after a moment of pause. "But that didn't happen here. The only proof we have is her."

[Haluesen]

Kara looked between the set of 4 girls as all this talking went on, mildly curious but still pretty confused. But she knew she was getting some pretty juicy info so she tried to commit as much of this as she could to memory. But at that last comment Kara couldn't help giving her two cents. "A little naive really...sometimes things just can't be done legally. Not that I really know any things like that, but the world really isn't so wonderful that there is always a nice, clean, easy way to do things."

She paced a bit as she thought over her own words. "Looks like there's gonna be more talking about this right now though...does anyone have some soda? Maybe lemonade? All this conversing is making me thirsty. Niko, got anything?" She directed the question to the whole group, only ending with a direct request at Niko to poke fun at her uncomfortable situation.

[passinglurker]

Everyone
"I'm with Claire on this one we can't trust what this pokemon Opal tried trusting it and look what happened to her." Violet says taking a supporting position next to claire. The words seem to sting jerry who shrinks behind her "hostage" "I... didn't mean for that to..."

"Indeed you can't just go accusing the royal family of such atrocities without proof." Adds Delila also flanking to support claire.

"*sigh* Saying you'll find a way is the same as saying it just won't happen to you. Unfortunately unlike questions you can't run from reality so easily. Your medical records have already showed me you are more than a naive hot headed girl who plays with explosive zippers. While most of the action and treatment records come up very clean and routine looking the logistics entries of the records show that there are chemicals, materials, and equipment that don't line up with anything they would do in a routine check up, but are instead known to be used in genetic therapy. In addition the logistics entries show a trend of genetic tampering that dates back to your infancy. Your reckless encounters with banettes and relics frankly should have killed you but something else has been saving you." Wisp says to claire standing her ground against the three taller kalosian women. "As for proof of the royal family hiding its infant mortality rate I have my own personal experience from 300 hundred years ago of kalosian queen begging me to save thier child where I learned of these circumstances. Basically what is going on is the "shadow aura" trait manifests in varying degrees of strength only those with a weak alignment to it live to see adulthood... I was able to help them learn that much but in the end I wasn't able to save thier child, and well... I'm an occultist not a wetnurse the death of a baby isn't something I wanted to see ever again so I told them not to bother me with this business in the future..."

Kara
The catgirl groans at your request for a beverage "You already took even the shirt off my back when we first met..." She says prompting curious looks from Gwen and Flu "Ack! metaphorically metaphorically! I n-never consented to nor engaged in any nudity at any point!" Niko then nervously lies trying to cover for her slip of the tongue about how "agreeable" She got after a bit of your "snuggling" "warmed her up". Of course the funnest part was making her say different things in order to beg for her clothes back before you left the estate with her earlier today. "s-s-still w-where would you even expect me to keep something to drink!" She then tries to say as if her lack of beverages should be obvious to anyone smart enough... then her eyes wander and glance down at her ample perky bust and her face almost immediately goes red in alarm as if she had just fantasized a worst case lewd scenario "D-don't get any weird ideas!" She says twisting and squirming helplessly stuck where she was and trying desperately to just turn her vulnerable front to point away from you with no avail and instead just manages to make her chest shake entertainingly.

[Major]

"I'm not running from reality! I'm denying dreams and lies as reality! I know my family and I know myself better than anybody here!" She snapped glaring at Wisp. She knew she should suppress her temperature, but she didn't like the idea that for some reason Wisp was making up some lie just to slander her family.

"You probably are just reading that file wrong. Or the weird thing made it look weird. Or the chemicals or something are like wrong in the file or for something innocent or something! My parents wouldn't randomly do weird stuff. And if they did something it was for a reason and was innocent and not evil!" She insisted. She had thought Wisp was on her side, but now she was making stuff up.

"And that's not a funny joke. That is seriously insulting and not humorous. Stop lying!" She said getting even more annoyed at the story about personal experience. "They would have told me if something wrong, especially if had to do with infant death! Making something up like this just because of your shadow obsession is insulting and stupid and I won't take it." She said serioisly. "We are discussing serious stuff not making up things for whatever agenda you have. And I especially don't appreciate bad mouth lies about my mom and dad."

[passinglurker]

Claire
"I'm not darkrai, I'm a professional I don't lie or joke about my work" Wisp says in a dead serious tone as she steps closer "Your parents certainly can be believed to have a reason for what they did, and saving your kids life seems like a pretty innocent and non-evil reason to me, but I asked you what would you have done in thier place. What would you do if your child needed an illegal doctor. Would you let your child die or would you do what it would whatever it would take to get that doctor? no saying you'll find a legal way by some power of friendship BS not pretending it just won't happen to you cause claire your father very well could have been murdered over this! You are the person these sort of things happen to!" Wisp asserts waving for slippers to keep out of this, and daring to insinuate that kuro may have killed your dad cause he was a bad guy.

[Major]

"This has nothing to do with him being murdered! And even if they did do something to me that's not wrong. They would help me, but that doesn't mean they did anything wrong. Just doing weird genetic stuff to save me isn't wrong. They wouldn't do anything bad!" She said annoyed. "That doesn't mean they covered up dead babies, or helped criminals, or were enforcers, or did experiments on people, or anything like that. Plus I don't see what any of that would have to do with him being killed. Just because Kuro killed him doesn't prove dad did anything. Mom is alive. And he didn't say anything to me. Plus I thought you had that whole legend theory."

[passinglurker]

Claire
"First the infant mortality rate and its concealment are real. Hereditary supernatural traits of the royal family lead to a heightened risk of medical complications in birth and early childhood. I've studied and witnessed it for myself, and I will not be called a liar or allow you to go on about things you know nothing about so drop it. As for your parents as they say the path to the Void is paved with good intentions. Though practically speaking trying to call thier actions good or bad is a waste of time. Moral alignment is often a purely subjective matter anyway. My point is you need to be open to the possibility that these things may have happened and decide what you are going to do if it's so. We can't have you turning on us in the middle of saving melody because we discover we are going against your parents interests or something." Wisp says

hmm... the path to the Void is paved with good intentions... I wonder if that is what happened to your kuro to turn him into your nemesis... his actions suggest he was trying to create a narrative. Though that's probably just in pursuit of this region's legends it is a staple of stories to have a sufficient villain that could potentially justify anything the hero does to save the day. it would seem rather ridiculous though of betraying some one to save them from feeling betrayed by some one else though that stone he had on him. Wisp said it alters the mind right? who knows how long he had it warping his thoughts inflating his ambition and emotions... Victini suggests in your head breaking his long silence Sorry I'm rambling I should just keep my mouth shut. The only one here sick and useless enough to think in terms of storybook tropes is me. so yeah just shutting up now pretend I didn't say anything...

[Haluesen]

Kara giggled a bit at Niko's flustered state and was glad for some bit of distraction, but as sides were taken, words were thrown, and voices raised she got noticeably uncomfortable. She only gave a little nod at Niko, effectively letting her off the hook for now. After a bit of time listening to them (most of it went above her head but she tried), she moved to stand by Wisp. "Look this is probably all really distressing...I mean it doesn't sound like good news...and I can get not believing in Darkrai. But Wisp...she knows what's she's talking about. That's clear. It's one of the only things I'm really sure about with her, that she takes these things seriously and focused-ly. I don't know what it all means for you or this whole mission thing...but you should at least not completely dismiss it just because you don't like it."

In situations like this it helped to have something to focus on, and what Violet said was the easiest thing for that if not necessarily the best. "And hey babe, none of us were around for whatever happened to her. I mean unless you were and you're saying you were involved in her kicking the bucket...I hope not. But since we don't really know, how about you just keep that little event out of this? As a favor sweetie?" She smiled a bit and stood open with her hands behind her head seeming relaxed, but her canine teeth showed. It still sucked to consider how that young girl had died.

[Major]

"I am NOT just going to drop it!" Claire snapped annoyed, "And things I know nothing about? I'm a member of the family you are slandering for whatever reason!" She said with a glare, "You don't think maybe when I started dating my parents might have felt the need to warn me if that was the case?" She asked. She knew her fiery temper was getting hotter and hotter as she argued and that she should probably walk away for a moment or change the subject, but she couldn't just walk away from someone spreading lies about her mother and dead father.

"If you weren't being a liar you wouldn't be called one. You are expecting me to believe that for over three-hundred years the royal family has been having children die over and over and they have covered it up even from the Crown Princess of Kalos." She stressed, "And that despite our worship of Lady Xerneas, the goddess of LIFE, that we somehow have constant deaths over some silly nonsense shadowy dark energy crap?" Claire asked. The fact that it didn't even cross her mind to change the "crap" to a "errr---nonsense" was definitely a result of her annoyance. "My dad was NOT a bad person, my mom is NOT a bad person! And they weren't doing bad things for right reasons or whatever! If you had just said that they did weird stuff to me to save my life, that would be annoying, but fine. I could maybe accept that. But you were trying to claim enforcers and experimental soldiers and all that!" Claire argued, "How stupid is it to claim there are a bunch of clone soldiers of the princess of Kalos? And what those clones have just been hiding and never shown up anywhere? Those clones aren't real, because my parents didn't do anything like that!" Claire insisted, angrily.

"And it wouldn't BE against my parents wishes because my parents would never work for Poffins and wouldn't be kidnapping and brainwashing people!" Claire said slamming her hand on the table. "I trust them far more than I trust some mysterious mask lady who wanted to cram me in a box and ship me off to Orre. Or who feels she knows best about everything. Or who didn't care about anybody unless they had weird powers that were beneficial to her! Especially when this mysterious witch is trying to make up royal scandals for whatever agenda. You think I'm not used to people trying to make us sound bad for some political agenda?" Had she not been so upset, she probably would have felt extremely bad about the 'witch' remark, but with her temper burning like an inferno she barely even noticed.

When Victini made his comments, Claire frowned and thought harshly, This is a bogus story and not worth justifying. Shush. That doesn't even make any sense and indulging their line of thought is stupid.

When the furry Kara girl spoke, Claire sighed annoyed. Was everybody going to jump in against her and side with the goddess of lies and the mysterious witch? If Violet and Delila hadn't been here she suspected everybody would have just jumped on the 'bash Claire's family bandwagon'. She looked over at Kara annoyed, "Everybody in this world has an agenda. I am pretty sure I know my family better than some Unovian witch does." Claire snapped harshly. "She can claim she knows what she is talking about all she wants, but she's either lying or crazy." She said. "I'm not dismissing it because I don't like it. I'm dismissing it because I know my family and trust them and its clearly lies!" Claire stressed, though whether she was being honest or not, even she didn't know. It wasn't allowed to be true and she couldn't even consider the possibility it could be. Her dad wasn't the type to help criminals experiment on people to make soldiers. I mean, she didn't know what 'type' that was, but still. Not Kami-typed. "And just for your information, Violet WAS there. Its how she got injured trying to help Opal."

Annoyed at feeling ganged up on by Darkrai, Wisp, and now the furry one, Claire looked over at Uriel. "What about you? Do you also believe this obvious crap story?" She asked. "Or does SOMEBODY here trust that maybe I know my family more than a few strangers?"

[Regalus]

Uriel burns with emberrassment at Darkri's "revelation", placing a hand over his face as a slight groan worms it's ways from his lips. It was certainly an ice breaker, and Darkri Jerry could've gone for something else, so he was thankful for that much at least. It certainly proved that she was on her best behavior at the moment, and he took some solace from the fact the group didn't dwell on the 'secret' for long; the last thing he needed after today was to ponder what geometric shape his love life was currently simulating.

Sadly, that had been the peak fo the conversation as soon it all went down hill quickly. Uriel knew this wouldn't be easy for Claire to accept, and he couldn't begrudge her for resisting it; from their first outing it was clear the girl had idolized her father greatly. He couldn't help but feel that her late father would have been touched by the passioned defense, and then Claire crossed the line.

He looked at the red head briefly in shock, doubting for a moment that the Rose of Kalos has been that callouse.... but no. A brief flicker of his gaze to Amelia comfirmed that it hadn't been a trick; the realization turning the young man's blood to ice as he locked a steeled gaze on the woman.

"Claire... calm down, and answer me this..." Uriel said cooly; the very picture of calm and progesionalism, "When were you going to mention that you were handing Z over to your Aunt after this meeting?"

[Major]

Claire's upset paused as confusion filled her at Uriel's remark. She had been planning to throw the remark at Uriel then go back to focusing on Wisp, however his words confused her. She frowned as she looked at him and blinked, "What?" She asked shocked. "What are you talking about?" She asked surprised at his remark. "I am not!" She couldn't believe Uriel's remark. Did he also doubt her? She felt a mix of hurt, betrayal, and surprise filling her heart as she stepped back.

First she had Darkrai bashing her father, then Wisp had tried to say it was true. The weird furry girl had a connection to Darkrai so her defense hadn't been that much of a surprise. But Uriel was the one she thought she could have relied on the most, other than Delila and Violet. Her hot anger felt like ice cold water had been hurled on it but the cool words. So even he felt that she wasn't able to be trusted? She wasn't sure how she should react to that other than shock. Her temper was wanting to yell and argue with Wisp, but Uriel's words made her extremely upset and hurt.

"I wouldn't do that to Z..." She said softly. "Why would you think that?" She was having a hard time focusing on arguing with Wisp with the pain in her heart.

I...I can't focus on this, I need to focus on Wisp... A part of her thought, but at the same time making such an accusation in front of Z, especially, she couldn't ignore that. She quickly looked at Z, "Z, I promise I am not doing that!" She quickly insisted. Having to defend herself to her cousin in addition to having to defend her father from almost everyone in the room made her feel extremely attacked and pressured. She clenched her fist as she looked over everyone present. Why was suddenly everybody attacking her? Uriel had been someone she trusted and had liked. She had called for his opinion because he was always so good with words and she figured he would help her. But instead he had ignored her comment as if he believed all these attacks on her family and then made his own attack on her. Clearly, the reason he was asking about the Z thing was because he believed her family was awful and did experiments and thought she felt the same way and was handing Z over to be experimented on.

She quickly ran a hand against her eyes to clear out any water as the hurt was pushed aside by the return of the angry glare. So Uriel was also her enemy. Great, she had Violet and Delila as the only people in the room who didn't think badly of her or her family. Everyone else suddenly decided to start throwing attacks and accusations and ganging up on her. "Fine. If none of you believe me I can leave." She said angrily. "I've been trying my best to help and do what I can and I met a lot of you because of trying to help another kidnap victim. But fine! I'm a bad guy and so is my family and all of you think I'm a part of it!" She tried to push aside any of the hurt she felt as she snapped back. "I thought you knew me better than that, Uriel. But I guess you'd rather know her!" Claire said pointing at Wisp aggressively. "She didn't even want to help you until I pretty much offered to work for her and do a bunch of jobs! And I was willing to do it because I thought I could trust you and I thought you trusted me and I thought maybe you were...nevermind forget it." She mumbled stopping herself and getting quite for a second. Finally when she spoke her voice wasn't filled with the hot passion it had been before, instead she spoke with a cold quiet tone, "Clearly every guy but dad just likes to betray me." She pushed away from the table and glanced at the door debating for a moment if she wanted to just leave or let the cruel liars and betrayers respond. She wasn't the type to just run away and retreat, she fought to win. So while a part of her wanted to not give them the satisfaction of her 'retreating', another part wanted to just leave.

[Regalus]

"Maldicion..." he sighed in in good natured frustration; leave it to CLaire to blow his aesop out of the water. It honestly made him wonder wheher or not her original elementalism might've been fire. He'd certainly expected her to get flustered and defensive, but he'd thought it would've taken more than that to push her this far. It seemd like he wasn't the only one putting out a strong front after the day's events; leaving the ice in his veins to thaw just as quickly as it had frozen. There was no place for tough love at the moment.


Slowly, but surely, the seviian slipped out of his seat so he can meet Claire eye-to eye; meeting her indignation and hurt with his own melancholic gaze. "Claire, of course you aren't going to hand over Z. It's absurd, if it came down to it you'd fight off every person in this room if it meant giving her a fighting chance. No one's questioning your love for her," he began with a sad smile, "And you should know me well enough to know I wouldn't actually throw you under the bus Claire like that. I said what I said, to remind you of your own words,"

" When I first told you about what your Aunt was doing you didn't believe me, not even when Z told you we had proof; you refused to believe it could even be possible, and were deadset on getting her side of the story... even after we told you not to trust her. All because your Aunt was family, and you felt you know her well enough to say there was no way it could be true; or if it was she had to have a good reason for doing it...but in the end it turned out we were right, and she ended up chasing you through town with a flying cyborg," he explained sadly as he reflected over the evening's events.

"You asked Jerry about the visions she gave me, and she told you about the first one; and so far all the other parts have been true Claire. Moreover it lines up with things I found out from Amber, and with Wisp's own research. The fact is your family is in the middle of all this, but that's the reason why we need you here; and why we need you to keep a cool head on your shoulders, because as it stands we're still missing a lot of pieces to the puzzle,'

"You're father was a great man and an honorable warrior; not a single person of asked about him has given his name anything less then praise. So you know he wouldn't be invovled in this if he had a choice... but we don't know why he had no other choice Claire,"

"Maybe there were other options and Poffin's got in the way, you know exactly what kind of manipulative witch she is; she was willing to threaten Sevii just to get to us last time, do you really think she would've been above using baby you against him? Or maybe your aunt had something to do with it; keeping his trust while not telling him the whole truth... or maybe they did something to him. Or it could've been that they planted one of those mind screw stones on him that we've run into, or even some psyker screwing with his head to mix up the details. This whole situation is so insane already that anything could be possible,"

"There's just so much we don't know Claire, that anything might be true. That's the reason why we need to consider every possibilit. That way if Poffin tries to use some big reveal, or use that same trick even, agaisnt us we'll at least have considered how to handle it; or maybe we can find some way to stop her from getting back at us once it's over," he states, running a palm corsely through hsi hair as he considered his words.

"I-I was just trying to remind you that ever since we started this mess just about everythinlg we believed has been turned on it's head. Kuro and his men turned out to have mindscrew stones messing with their heads, Poffins turned out to be the Giovani, and my sister's penpal turned out to be a brainwashed goddess; hell, we're on speaking terms with what? Four divinities at last count?" he contineud with no shortage of exasperation, before finally sagging.

"It's just... it's been a long day for everyone here; the three of us especially... and patience is running thin for all of us, and things are being said without thinking... I shouldn't have been so blunt with how I said this but... I just, didn't want you to take a step back when it looked like things were turning from a discussion to a fight. We all need cool heads to make since of this convaluted mess,and I tried to help clear the air; but I just ended up pushing you too hard, and shoving my foot in my mouth," he admitted ruefully, feeling every hour of the day's fatigue falling over him again.

"I'm sorry Claire, really I am; can you forgive me?"

[Major]

When Uriel first started talking, Claire just covered her arms. She doubted he could just explain things away as usual. When he stood up, she raised an eyebrow and waited as he spoke. As he spoke, she shifted a few times uncomfortably.

"I..." She hesitated at the comment about the Aunt. "That...that's different..." She mumbled, "I didn't know my Aunt as well and...it just didn't make sense...I mean a mother and a daughter shouldn't be like that its just...a mother is supposed to protect her daughter so it just...I mean it wasn't just because of family. I couldn't believe any mother would do that and I wanted to assume it was just a mix up..." Claire mumbled.

She paused for a moment, "I...I still don't get it and it makes no sense and I don't understand my aunt. It does make things confusing and weird and I guess I can see why you guys might think that but..." Claire took a deep breath. "But dad and mom aren't like that!" She insisted, though at least this time it wasn't with anger or anything so much as a mix of pleading and insistence. "I...I can't accept that. Not with...I mean...we have one person's claim." She said motioning toward Darkrai, "And somebody else's theory. You can't expect me to assume my mom and dad were...were complicit in something like this. Forced or not..." Claire stressed. "I...I wouldn't even know how to handle that. It would mean...it would mean lots of bad stuff happened because of me. And it would mean dad and mom hurt people. It would mean everything dad told me was a lie. And I can't believe one person, not even a goddess, over twenty years."

"Plus surely if she had clones of me we would have seen one or something. Or Poffins would have tried replacing me or something..." Claire said, "I...if anything bad happened it would just be without dad and mom knowing or something...I could maybe accept that my genetics were messed with if a doctor or someone said it instead of just some supernatural investigator. I could maybe accept that unknowingly someone like Poffins snuck something for bad stuff...but its the part about dad and mom helping that is just...I can't."

She sighed and bent down to pick up the chair she had knocked over when she had stood up quickly and set it back up. Then she sat down and rubbed her head. "I...I get wanting to consider possibilities...but I trust my parents... And while I can believe maybe they were tricked...or maybe Poffins snuck something...I can't accept or believe this full story." Claire mumbled looking at the table instead of Uriel. "I need more proof than just people claiming things...especially people skilled at deception." Claire mumbled.

As she sat there she put her hand over her stomach. The very idea that maybe Poffins had tricked her family or somehow used her to do weird things to people made her feel sick. She trusted her parents hadn't actually done anything bad and she trusted anything done was without their permission, but the idea still made her ill. As she sat there quietly for a moment her mind flooded with all the different things that she knew or had heard.

Most of what her Aunt told her could be dismissed as lies, but at the same time who knows what was true? Her Aunt had first claimed a dragon war and that Kuro killed her dad because of her parents trying to stop the bad guys. At the same time she had also referenced 'Daughter Sapphire' which tied in with the whole brainwash phrase that Darkrai had claimed existed.


Her Aunt had made all sorts of differing conflicting claims including no command word. That was really the big thing. Her Aunt had claimed Uriel was lying and as such would claim Darkrai was lying. Uriel was good with his words which meant he could have tricked Z. She wanted to trust him. She really did, but was it wrong to test it? If she tested she could confirm for sure that her Aunt was the problem. And once confirmed she could ignore anything her Aunt had claimed. But even still it was too much. She hadn't actually proven for sure her Aunt was bad. She had wanted to talk more with Z and Uriel. She rested her head on the table and tried to think. A part of Claire wanted to test it to actually confirm, but she didn't want to hurt Z in that way. She disliked the idea of just trusting whatever people told her, but this wasn't something she could respectfully test. "I...I still don't know for 100% sure about my Aunt to be fair..." She mumbled.

However, the most damning evidence was the medical file. Her parents had insisted she didn't look at it and yet something in her file had caused Wisp to make her theory.

"F...Flu...what's in my file?" Claire asks, "You...you do medical stuff right? Do you ummm...have any like qualifications or like...should I talk to T...Terra..." She finally asked. She didn't like the idea, but the woman worked at the center and had treated her before. "Uhh...actually does she have qualifications? Like she did medical stuff, but I thought she was security and...whatever, I want like...someone that I know can tell me for sure...is...Is Wisp's comments about my file at all accurate. What's in there?"

Then she looked back to Uriel. "I...I also lost my temper. That...that's not fitting of a princess. So...its not your fault you don't need to apologize. I just...I took things badly and I'm the one who should apologize...so..." She shifted a bit. "I'm sorry...I still don't believe all of this, but I have acted rudely and insulted people so...I'm sorry to those I insulted as well." She said. Apologizing to Uriel hadn't been too hard, but she didn't like the other apology even if it was owed. She still felt they were insulting her family and father which made apologizing annoy her, but it wasn't proper for someone of her stature to throw out insults back.

[Haluesen]

" *whistle* Wow you people can really talk a lot." Kara spoke after a moment of silence. "Well then, it sounds like things are a little calmer. Good! Probably shouldn't have the team break up more before the team is even made. Anyway, excuse me please? All of you keep up...whatever. I'm gonna step out for a minute, with a couple of our friends here. Okay? Okay." So with that she turned to go to the door and grabbed Jerry to pull along (hopefully with her keeping Niko along too).

As she opened the door, she turned to the others and added a little more to things. "Oh, and princess? If Flu holds out on you, steal her clothes and offer them back for that file. It really works! Or if you can't or won't someone else can do that. I would but I'm stepping out. Have fun!" And with that and a chuckle she left with them in tow.

Once out in the hall or room or wherever they were Kara sighed and shook her head. "Damn things got aggressive way too quick in there! Quite a mixed bag, huh? And that's not even knowing everyone there yet."

[passinglurker]

Drew
This whole aggressive argument seems to have upset your busty dragon friend considering how Gwen has been holding and squeezing you like you're her teddy bear or something for the past 5 minutes

Claire
Z like amber was already under the table out of embarrassment when uriel suggested you might turn her over to her mother. now she's probably staying under the table out of fear...

Flu jumps and blushes in alarm when kara suggests you take her clothes to get her to talk "sh-she's jokeing sh-she's jokeing! a-and I'll talk! s-so there is no need for that..." Flu flusters you get the feeling that really would have worked though if you had to... "*deep breath* d-due to my work at the florence estate I have experience in both medical and supernatural fields. What The Wisp just told you about your file was a conclusion we came to together after examining your file and sharing other information" flu then says meekly supporting wisps "nonsense and lies" instead of "talking like a normal person" like you

Violet meanwhile looks like she is seething with rage at kara over her remarks about opal and moves as if she is going to aura shpere the mightyena girl while her back was turned. Thankfully Delila was already all over it before any shots were fired. Violet's still extremely upset but not so upset that she'll shoot through her girlfriend to hit her mark. Delila could probably use some help calming the burned girl...

Everyone but Kara
-Excuse me but I'd just like to clear something up about the "clone soldiers" theory first it's unlikely that any are exact duplicates of claire or any member of the royal family. Aside from the technical hurdles and infeasibilities from generation degradation if claire's parents made a deal with the devil for claire's sake then they wouldn't agree to something that could threaten claire's future as heir to the throne, and under the current kalosian laws of succession a direct clone unexpectedly would be just as qualified as the original to become the heir so a plot like that would be a non-starter. What's more likely is that they used the cloning technology like a sort of artificial womb to combine two dna sources into a child that would likely develop powers by thier calculations giving them a steady supply of test subjects to better understand elemental science. Unlike direct duplicates of claire if their cover was blown the worst that would happen is that the test subjects would be considered next in line after claire.-

"I still think that's an optimistic outlook parents in that position would value an alive child over a queen child if it came down to it. You're basically assuming that poffins would hold back to keep the parents appeased"

-yes but like I said if they were willing to make that sort of compromise they would have avoided the whole situation through adoption-

"which doesn't solve that kalos would still need an hier *sigh* lets not get into this debate again in front of everyone since we can't know one way or another until we learn more or uncover amber's genealogy to confirm the conspiracies are related..."

-agreed. Though what about amber's fear of someone matching the crown prince's description?-

"Its strong evidence we should act on, but not technically a confirmation that amber is claire's mad science daughter or something like that"

-true... we should probably stop speculating out loud in front of everyone...-

"yeah..." says wisp as amber pokes her head out from under the table in surprise to what was just said.

Kara
Jerry indeed pulls Niko along though she doesn't pin her outside the meeting room just holds her hand leaving the catgirl very confused as to what is going on and why she's here. "And this is why I play around when talking serious stuff if they get mad at anyone its me and not each other, but of course since I'm hanging around I can't have everyone hate me to much *sigh*..." Says Jerry seeming to be exhausted and dejected "Maybe if claire would loosen up and not be so dang stubborn about everything ever..." She then pouts "Though I can't say I didn't see this coming I wouldn't have put her denial in that dream if it wasn't going to be an issue..."

[Haluesen]

[COLOR="#808080"]"Yeah well here not wanting to believe things kinda makes a lot of sense. She seems the believe-in-good-in-others-first sort, of course she wouldn't want to think her parents betrayed her somehow."/COLOR] Kara shrugged in neutral acceptance. "Though I understand even more about your...thing. However you phrase it. Easier to deal with all this drama when you have someone to play with." She chuckled and did the same poke on the nose thing that Darkrai had been doing to Niko right to the poor catgirl again.

"But it seems she wasn't just angry at you. She had a lot of aggressiveness with spooky in there as well as the talkative lover boy in there." That brought a chuckle and tail wag back to her. "Not even actually a couple it seems and yet she's getting defensive and jealous about him, and their having married couple-like arguments. If there was a reason to stick around for all this, it would be to just watch how hilarious and zany all that would go."

[passinglurker]

Kara
"Heh Well is her jealousy really so surprising? You've met her evil yandere mostly opposite after all" jerry says snatching nikos free hand and pinning her wrists behind her back again so she can't swat away your poking

"Oh come on! What is with you two and poking my nose!? Cut it out!" Niko complains trying to bob and weave but with Darkrai holding her you can effortlessly match her maneuvers

[Haluesen]

Kara rolled her eyes and nodded. "Ugh yeah I remember that *insert Russian-sounding insult here* well enough. That was just today after all. Though really it feels a lot longer somehow." She gave it a second of thought before shrugging it away and continuing to mess with Niko. "I'm glad someone explained that to me. All I needed to get from it is that princess in there isn't the one I met before. Which is good, I'd probably have tried whupping her ass and have like 5 people on me, which in this case wouldn't be fun. Oh, and Drew would have seen me in a light I wouldn't have liked...oh dear." She blushed a bit at that, and then went to trying to tickle Niko.

[Major]

"Great you scared her..." Claire mumbled at Uriel. "Z, if I had wanted to hand you over to your mom why would I have waited till this meeting? Or told anyone?" She asked trying to assure her cousin. "I promise I won't force you to do anything against your will. Just because I'm not completely convinced about your mother yet doesn't mean I would risk it. Until you are comfortable with them I will keep you safe." She promised.

When Flu spoke Claire glanced over at her. "And you are saying that based on just what you know and not just because of Wisp theories?" She asked not quite believing. "And regardless all that would prove is that maybe for some reason someone did elementalist stuff to me. Maybe to save my life, maybe parents knew, maybe not. That is something I need to talk to mom about." Claire said crossing her arm. "It doesn't mean criminal gang or clones or anything weird like that." Claire insisted. "We have no proof of clones or parents helping criminals!"

Claire looked over at Wisp and Monitor and Amber. "It's a silly theory with no evidence. Can we drop the helping bad guys and clones just because some weird elementalist theory?" Claire said annoyed. "It's a weak assumption with no evidence other than a desperate hope to try and prove negative things about my dad and I don't appreciate that."

[passinglurker]

Claire
"well from what I know the tampering was definitely happening for a very long time so I would find it hard to believe the parents wouldn't know" Flu admits

"Well we have amber's testimony which lines up to an extent with elements of uriel's dream which we aren't inclined to discredit just yet as it's proven accurate in other matters so far. Either way it may all sound ridiculous to you but this is pretty par for the course when you work in this field for long enough" Wisp says defending her and monitors speculative actions

-if our theory about how they are operating in correct then we'd be able to run a dna test on amber and determine 100% whether or not she is derived from your genes the key is figuring out who the other half of the dna is otherwise the peices don't line up and there is margin for doubt.- monitor adds.

"though the margin is pretty thin already seeing as how we already had an aura user confirm amber has the same sort of shadow aura like someone with royal blood would" Wisp comments

"of that's bouffalant [censored]!" interjects violet venting her anger on this conversation "I can see aura's too and I can say it proves nothing about them being related like that. after all you have it and you're no royal, that zoroark has it and he isn't even human and.. and.. opal had it..." Violet says growing sad as she brings up opal. her words seem to have surprised wisp though.

"wait what?..." wisp says stunned no doubt her theory has been irrevocably shattered by violets words

-... are you thinking what I'm thinking?-

"... lets not jump too fast yes her mother does work for poffins, but it could just be an independent case we know nothing of her father after all not to mention what would possess poffins to put one of her artificial test subjects in the open like that?" or maybe not maybe she'd rather just dig a deeper hole for herself

-maybe its a research regimen we can't assume they are all subject to abusive testing like amber, and certain upbringings would be impossible to simulate in captivity, or maybe its just that ms. helios was having fertility problems and poffins was getting cocky about not getting caught so the two women cut a deal.-

"hmm... still sounds like too much of a stretch to me... can you even get the data?"

-morgues and hospitals aren't known for thier cyber security even when it comes to celebrity clients just give me 5 minutes-

Kara
Niko cries out in laughter and tries to thrash and pull away but fails to receive any respite from your devious fingers "oh there are times when being jumped by 5 people is fun? could it be you like the occasional taste of failure and/or being messed with yourself?" you hear darkrai say as you feel a pair of arms wrap around you from behind and and run hands over the surface of your jacket vest just over your sweet spot. There is a slight tingle but with the material in the way it's easy to ignore. looking behind you see that darkrai's "got you" but then who's got niko? "ack! where did my top go! why can't I move my arms!? hey! when did she tie my top around my wrists like that!?" Niko then exclaims in alarm trying to look at her limbs that have been bound behind her back as you get a view of her big, bouncy unprotected fun bags.

[Major]

"What testimony? I missed the part where she said 'I am a clone'." Claire said with a sigh. "She has like nothing in common with me." Claire pointed out. "How do we do this DNA proof thing so we can drop these silly clone ideas?" Claire asked. "I am not even that special so why would anyone clone me if they weren't even going to try and claim the throne?"

"Violet, do I really have some weird aura thing?" Claire asked before looking back at Wisp. "I don't get why we are debating this to be honest. It is silly, unlikely, and the evidence for it is super weak. Had it not been something you really wanted to be real and you were unbiased you would be the first to dismiss this as a weak claim and silly."

"I will ask mom when she calls me back and make her explain whatever. It is probably completely reasonable explanation."