Alain gingerly stepped out into the living room, hands clenched tightly on the baseball bat, poised to strike at any intruder who may be attempting to trick them. Slowly but surely, the familiar silhouette of Slim appeared in front of the main door. After squinting at Slim's puzzled face for a minute to ascertain his identity, Alain finally relaxed his grip on the baseball bat and led him to the dining area. Alain explained the situation as best he could to Slim's increasingly horrified expression, with his explanation interspersed with JJ's sniffling.
"With all that has taken place here, I think this is definitely not the best place to discuss our next move. I say we move to my house for further discussion." Slim finally uttered after a period of silence to digest Alain's explanation.
"Yeah, I guess you're right. It would be better for me to avoid this place as much as possible." Serena muttered softly while glancing pointedly towards the living room.
As if in unanimous silent agreement, all four of them stood up and briskly walked out the main door. Serena locked the door, and Slim solemnly led the group to his house.
After Slim unlocked the door to his house, the three of them shuffled wordlessly into the living room and sat on the big sofa. Slim eyed their morose expressions and decided to lighten the mood.
"Uh, do you guys wanna have something to drink? I got soda and juice." Slim forced himself to speak cheerfully to dissolve the morose atmosphere.
"N-no thanks. I don't really want anything other than..." Serena's voice trailed off, her tear-stricken face and clenched fists betraying her true desires at the time.
"I really regret deciding to sleep at the time when all of that happened! If only I didn't…" JJ finally spoke, recovering somewhat from his crying fit.
"Well, if we want to get to the bottom of this, mere crying and regretting won't get us anywhere. Let's lay out the facts of the case and see what we can deduce." Alain took charge of the conversation to instil some hope into the group.
"Well well well, the despair that they must be feeling after all that. What wouldn't I give to see the look on their faces… Hehehe…" Prizmaniac rubbed his hands gleefully, contrasting the malevolent expression on his face.
"Yeah. Alain must have been shocked out of his mind to see his Charizard not obeying him. I wanted to see his face at that moment too. Haha!" Anwar added onto his companion's foul statements with his own brand of sadistic commentary, tinged with a dash of vindictiveness.
Suddenly, a heavy voice cuts into the conversation between the pair.
"Stop messing around like immature brats. We have just started our plans and have a lot more work to do. It would behove us to get some work done, rather than standing around like a bunch of jackasses gossiping." An unknown trainer appeared between the two of them, who scrambled to hide their identities by lifting their hoods over their heads.
"Oh, Adarsh. It's just you! We thought someone was eavesdropping on our conversation..." Anwar said with a sigh of relief, lowering his hood.
"Yeah. It probably is dangerous to talk so openly. Sorry about that." Prizmaniac spoke to Adarsh, unable to keep the relief out of his voice as well.
" This is a secure location after all. Only a few of us know this place. All things considered, we could not have asked for a better launch of our plans than what happened today. I can only hope our subsequent ideas will be executed this successfully in the future." Now it was Adarsh who could not keep the excitement out of his voice.
"Now it's time to show what we have wanted all this time!" They proclaimed in unison.
