Archie stood in front the cave his base was at, feeling uneasy... He wasn't quite ready to leave Emi and Lexie, but he wasn't sure how to invite himself without sounding like a creep. He was also irked because Maxie was with them at that moment.
"'I wanna observe Paku a bit more.'" Archie grumbled in a mocking voice as he went into the base, shivering. The snowfall was still going, and picking up speed. "And I had no excuse to stay.." He mumbled.
"Archie?" Shelly glanced up as Archie entered one of the labs. She had heard him grumbling and was curious about what.
"What? Nothing." He looked up at the screen that showed a submarine. "What are you doing."
"Devon Corporation contacted us asking if we could test something for them." She said, turning the screen off and glancing away. "How was the contest?"
"It was okay." Archie mumbled, moving to a machine that would heal his pokemon. "It was... actually really cool." He mumbled more to himself, remembering Emi's performance. "And uh.." He glanced at Shelly to make sure she didn't hear that, then continued to speak. "I battled someone."
"Oh?" Shelly glanced towards the computer she was working on and minimized whatever was on the screen before continuing with her next question. "With who?" Archie frowned at Shelly, feeling a bit suspicious but he just shrugged it off and started to explain the contest and the cute shy girl who turned elegant and powerful in less than an hour.
"Wow. I haven't heard you talk about something so passionately since Kyogre." Shelly muttered, and if Archie was a bit smarter he would've been able to hear the jealousy laced in her voice.
Archie glanced away as his face grew hot. "It's.. not necessarily like that..." He muttered. "It's just... It's just that scamp's full of surprises..." He finally managed to say and then went to one of the teleportation panels. "Is Matt in his room? I'm gonna see if he'll work out with me."
"Yeah.." Shelly muttered, and when Archie left she went back to what she was working on before.
"Thank you.." Maxie refrained from sniffling as he accepted the hot mug from Emi. He was sitting on a beanbag chair in her secret base, which she used as a home, and it was pretty cozy. She had a table, a living area, a bedroom, and she even had a bathroom and kitchen installed... Although he was a tad creeped out by the amount of stuffed pokemon around.
Maxie repositioned himself in the bean bag chair. It was the only form of sitting Emi had. He felt ridiculous sitting in the pink and white thing... Paku sat on the table, handling her own little mug.
"Why didn't Archie wanna come?" Emi muttered as she sat on the bean bag on the other side of the table. Lexie was sitting on the one next to Maxie.
"He probably didn't know how to ask." Maxie muttered and sipped the warm hot tea in the mug. He enjoyed the burn of the liquid as it warmed his body, although the steam had fogged up his glasses.
After setting his mug down and cleaning his glasses, he looked at Paku and then Emi.
"Where did you find it anyway?"
"Her." The sharpness in Emi's voice caught Maxie a bit off guard, but he cleared his voice and corrected his mistake.
"Where did you find... her?" He glanced towards Paku who stuck its tongue out at him.
"Well, it was right before I was about to go on Victory Road." She glanced towards the little pokemon as she began her story. "I had just got off the phone with Lexie and I guess I took the wrong way, and then I ended up tripping and falling into this weird cave... Paku was in there, frozen solid. I was so amazed but the second I stepped in, it's like the cave grew so warm and Paku woke up. After that she kind of just followed me and here we are." She looked embarrassed. She knew her explanation wasn't that good, but she then pulled out a bracelet with a vivid pink crystal on it.
"It was a little weird, but I tried using Paku in battles, but it wasn't working at all. After awhile Paku gave me this and I thought it was pretty so I wore it. After that all of Paku's moves started to work, but I found out I got really weak and tired after we fought in a battle."
"That's strange..." Maxie reached forward and took the bracelet from Emi and wrote down in his notes about it.
"We took it to Steven." Lexie continued the explanation, although her voice wavered into admiration as she spoke about him. "He wasn't able to identify it, sadly, but after a few a few more tests we figured out that the gems sucked away a person's energy."
"Huh..." Maxie continued writing. A pokemon that used a human's energy to battle and attack... That was both fascinating and horrifying. He glanced towards Lexie, then at Emi.
"... So you two knew each other before battling?" He closed his notebook and handed Emi back her bracelet. He was still curious, but it didn't really seem like they knew everything either.
"Mmh!" Emi seemed both relieved and excited at the subject change. "We met in Kalos when I moved there and have been friends ever since~" She smiled brightly.
"You came from Kalos?" Maxie had heard rumors of this region but had never really been interested in going or learning more about it.
"Actually, I came from Kalos." Lexie interrupted Emi. "She came from a smaller region. What was it called.. Almia?"
"Never heard of it." Maxie was almost annoyed at his lack of knowledge about this region.
"It's not too famous." She mumbled. "It's mostly known for having the best Ranger School, but that's about it. My mom and dad are Pokemon Rangers, but I wasn't too interested in that. So I went to live with Uncle Sycamore. Me and Lexie sort of started our pokemon journey together in Kalos. She was faster than me, but I still beat her." Emi gave Lexie a look, to which Lexie just rolled her eyes.
"Anyway." Emi took a sip of her tea. "I heard about contests and thought they sounded fun, so I moved to Hoenn. I don't have any relatives here, so I just slept in inns as I traveled, but as soon as I learned about Secret Bases and could fly I decided to live here." She huffed, leaning back in her chair. Maxie noticed that she lost her breath easily...
"I followed." Lexie mumbled. "Because I uh... was wanting to challenge the champion..."
"Don't lie." Emi grinned at her best friend. "You were just gonna miss me!" Before anyone could react, Lexie tossed a Swablu doll at her friend.
"You wish." Lexie smiled and then stretched. The tv in the background was going on about the weather. Everyone was freaking out about the weather and what it meant for Hoenn. Maxie oculdn't help but look at Paku... If his hypothises was true, he believed that Paku was the reason why the weather had turned cold.. Although he wasn't going to voice it without pure evidence. He wouldn't want to ruin Emi's nice hospitality by blaming her pokemon for weather changes.
"Anyway..." He stood up, pulling his jacket on. "I should be going now. I'm sure everyone is wondering where I've gone."
"Aww.." Emi frowned and stood up. "It was fun talking to you though! You and Archie." She grinned and walked up to Maxie, handing him the diamond bracelet. "You can have this if you want. Paku always gives me them." Maxie frowned, but took the small gift anyway.
"Thank you... I'll be leaving now." He glanced towards Lexie and gave a small nod before leaving the base, into the cold snow.
"You better come to my next contest!" She shouted after him and then went back to her seat. "... He was cute." She smiled at Lexie who just blushed and looked away.
"Not really.." She muttered angrily but Emi just laughed and switched the tv to some cartoon.