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Serena chuckled, more to herself than at Kyn, slinking in after him and verifying that Royce was indeed very much awake, though she did have to pull him up off of his face, and sat him up against the wall for the moment, careful not to let her claws tear the rope that bound him, or to weaken the chains. <Well then, in that case, there's something else he needs to know as well...> As she spoke she walked back over to Kyn and nearly curled around him completely, looking down at him. <Something that I probably should have put into words, rather than just claiming you as being my human...but that was long before my mind was even open enough to accept the idea of being able to love more than one being...Will you give me a kiss, Kyn?>

<That depends, can you like, not suffocate me with your tongue? Of course I will.> Kyn did catch that part about 'loving more than one being' but at this point in time he didn't pay it as much attention as he might have, had he not been so focused on Royce.

<I'm not exactly a novice, give me more credit than that.> She lowered her muzzle to his lips, and gently kissed him, a soft thrum in her chest, to her credit, the only length she used with him was the typical length for a human, not that Royce would know that, and while Serena would have given almost anything to see the look on the Slowking's face, the noises he made in disbelief were enough--the message should have been clear though, no more would it be tolerated, the bad mouthing of Kyn before her, nor the slurs that he used about Serena to him. When she felt that she had made her point, she pulled back ever so slightly. <Thank you.>

<You are welcome. I suppose you did that in front of Royce for one of the reasons I am thinking.> "Anyway, Hiiiii Roycie!~~ I'm gonna cut some more of your tail off now okay?~"

Serena slipped off to the side, laying down to watch with her claws crossed in front of her appraisingly. <More than likely, my train of thought isn't too hard to follow when dealing with Royce in one of these moods.> There was a slight amount of amusement in her voice. <Even I have to admit that tone was a little disturbing for what you plan to do though, Kyn.>

Royce just stared wide eyed at the two of them for a moment, and then finally when the amount of shock wore off, he looked up at Kyn. "Oh sorry, you were talking to me now? I thought you were enjoying snogging with Serena too much to notice that I was watching. What's next, you going to fuck her in front of me too?" He spat. "Would only prove that she is the slut that I've been calling her all this time if you did--bet all of you have had a turn with her by now." He slipped, he knew he slipped, but it didn't really matter to him, if it made the bastard in front of him angry, there was more of a chance that HE would slip, and send him off to the sweet oblivion of death.

"Ah Royce, I never really did answer you question from all those years ago. I suppose I'll tell you. Your tail is actually quite delicious raw or cooked!~ I can see why Humans like to eat Slowpoke tails now." He walked over to him and then started rubbing his back, followed by giving him a shoulder massage.

"Haa...humans aren't the only ones that like to eat my tail, but all of what you've done is child's play in comparison to what Serena's done to me." He grunted at the touch of the fingers, the wounds that were now scars on his body still sensitive to the touch, to the point that his shoulders tensed instead of relaxing as he rubbed his back and shoulders. "Get your filthy hands off me, who -knows- where they've been." he snarled.

"Ah... so tense... I think you need a hug..." Of course, he then took his time and gave Royce an embrace, being careful to avoid what he could visibly see as scars the best he could, but if it happened it happened.

"Fuck...off." He growled, he could smell Serena, Tensa, and even Heji on this human's body, and of course, being as Serena had essentially ran him through a cheese grater, it would be impossible to miss any of the scars.

"There there Royce... just let it all out. I'm sorry that I wasn't here with you for so long... it must have been hell for you... her version of torture compared to my watered down version." He wasn't faking this, and it was actually true sympathy, and Serena would be able to tell, and of course it would more than likely conflict with everything that he'd established earlier.

Serena chortled a little in Kyn's head, but never actually said anything aloud, the only sign that she hadn't zoned out on them was that her earfin twitched occasionally to his words.

"I said, get off me you fag! I don't want your sympathy, your pity, you want to do something for me? KILL ME you bastard!" Royce tried to shrug him away.

"Royce... I forgive you... I completely forgive you for trying to kill me. You have so many scars Royce... and yet, all I have are the ones from your knife. It's rather unfair." Kyn said, not paying the least bit of attention to Royce's insults and demand.

"Oh bite me you fucking asshole. You know damn good and well you don't care how many scars I have; but if you'd prefer to even the odds, you can always give me my knives back and we'll SEE who the better bladesmen is."

"I do care, Royce. I don't like to leave scars. Haven't you noticed that yet? Obviously Serena doesn't care." <Of course, there's also the literal matter that I have just as much ability to open up every single one of his scars as you do.> He sighed. "Giving a butcher back their knives is like giving a Psychic type with Disable back their hands."

"Yet we've still done one of each between us." Serena mused. "Of course, if I was still in my Shelgon stage, you could see the nasty scar that was residual from the gash that he got in on me before I took him back down." <Mmm, true, and then you wouldn't be leaving scars at all, just reopening old wounds that had already scarred.>

"You don't like leaving evidence for others to see, Serena on the other hand is proud of what she's doing here. Each time I walk out with more scars on my hide, the rumors start about Serena and her 'visits' to my humble abode. I wonder what they'll say again when you're gone this time." He snorted.

"I'll address the first part of what you said later. Royce, if you could do anything to Serena right now... Anything at all, what would it be?" Now his mind slightly drifted to his conversation with Mago, but once again he didn't dwell on specifics since Serena was so close to him right now.

"To Serena? Ha...I'd finish her training the way it was intended, I'd get rid of that heart of hers, figuratively speaking of course. She would never have befriended you, I'm sure _I _would be dead right now, just like my predecessor before me, and his before him. I would have made her better than me at this--she had already learned so much." The way he spoke of it was like a parent speaking about a child's accomplishments.

"Always seem to be focused on Serena. Ah yes, everyone has told me, that she would have been the perfect successor. Royce there is one last thing I'm gong to ask you. Do you know why I kill things here?" He had asked many of the 'mon he'd encountered this exact same question, and he wondered how Royce would take his answer.

"You enjoy it." He said simply, the words were liquid off his tongue. "Just like me, you do it because you enjoy killing, it's a hobby of yours that you don't want to stop, and so you 'can't help yourself'." He threw Kyn's words back at him.

"You are right about a few things. Yes, I do enjoy killing. However, it is not a hobby of mine. But... there's... something I think I might need your help with. I think... I'm starting to develop... one of those things, that like, gives something a sense of right and wrong." The three of them, so similar, yet so different, it was such a contrast.

"A conscience? Ha, Serena would be proud, it's the one thing that keeps her from going off on rampages, I would think." He snarked at the response he was allowed.

"Oh dammit, I misspoke. Royce... supposing you met a version of Serena who _HAD _become your successor. If I'm to understand this properly... you have to be dead in that world, right? What would you do if you could replace yourself...?" He knew damn well that this world already _DID _exist but, he'd already asked Serena a variation of this question. Now it was Royce's turn.

"If I could replace myself? What kind of half-wit question is that? You can't replace yourself with someone in another world, if two time lines converged like that the other self would have to be in a position where it too could move from world to world. Such a place would not exist."

"You... apparently, don't know anything about dimensional travel. I suppose the reason why Serena does is because of that Celebi. The place I was describing was not fiction. It exists alongside this world. If you replaced that version of Royce... you'd be a stranger in your own world, and a living ghost, to her." Kyn explained, figuring that if anything, practicing his explanation of how the universe worked sometimes would be beneficial to himself at least.

"Who would want that? To be unknown by everyone, to be a ghost among the crowd? I'm not an assassin, none of what I've ever done not being made public? No, they should know who to fear, who to be wary of, I'm not a creature of the shadows."

"Well, if anything, it'd be fitting for you, remember? All that hard work you did, not ever known by anyone, or recognized by anyone, since you were dead. But I digress. It seems that _BOTH _of you want to stay away from that world, that's one thing you two have in common." He admitted. <Boy Serena... he just keeps digging himself alive, doesn't he? The more he says, the longer he's gonna stay alive.>

<He knows I'll catch him in a lie one way or another, he'd rather just be honest with you.> She flicked out her tongue, then laid her head down against the cool tiles. <You're also going to tell me what Mago said eventually, I trust.>

"Feh, she doesn't want to meet her other self because she knows that that version of herself will be better at everything than she is, she's afraid to see my masterpiece in action I'll bet."

"What exactly... are you defining as better? One thing I've never understood about you two... is why you even W_ANT _someone to take your place with all the things you do." He still hadn't even make a single cut into Royce's tail, but it wasn't fair! Despite everything he was just so interesting to listen to... the connection between the two of them... what Serena would have been like had she never met him... never met Heji... never been saved by Anana... <There is a possibility that I might...>

<I do NOT WANT someone to take my place, but if you think I'm going to fill his shoes so to speak you're out of your-- Oh you know what I mean...and I do hope that you do, otherwise I'm going to have to have a talk with her myself, and she's been known to stretch things out of proportion without lying.>

"Why wouldn't I want someone to carry on my legacy? This is the King's Rock Casino, if you own this place, you own everything in town, people would _KILL _to be in my place, some have tried."

"I see, so then, if this place were to disappear, then... that legacy is only a memory. Unless of course, another one is built." Kyn said, not necessarily hinting at anything directly, but if Royce or Serena were looking at him, they would have seen his inner Pyromaniac glow.

Serena chuckled, her eyes hadn't actually left the two of them for a long time, she adjusted and laid on her side, rolling to cool that side. <There's one thing both you and I have in common, Kyn...that fire.>

"If this place were to disappear, nothing could be erected upon this spot, Dusk stone poisoning." He snorted. "Bet you didn't know that....If a dusk stone gets cracked then it contaminates the area around it in a ten foot radius....Now _YOU _do the math, we have over two thousand Dusk stones embedded in these walls. The entire city would be contaminated if this place were to fall to the ground."

"Ah, Royce.... but I did know about it. You seem to be forgetting something. Something very important. There is a way to destroy this place, Dusk stones and all, without contaminating the city. Do you have any idea how...?" Dusk stone poisoning? That was something he'd never even considered. Of course... he did just lie... but this was Royce he was lying to... hopefully that wouldn't exactly count as a mark against him.

"You think so eh? You think there's _REALLY _a way to get rid of this place on your own, without destroying a SINGLE one of those dark crystals? You're delusional. Even If I decided to bulldoze this place it would be impossible to keep things from breaking, I knew it when I had this place built too, I did it very much on purpose."

"Serena... perhaps you would have some idea as to how I would do exactly what I just suggested...?" His tone of voice indicated that she would probably able to guess what he had in mind. Although technically he was right, he couldn't do it on _HIS _own.+-

"Well, honestly...the process of creating a Dusk stone is to crystallize the negative thoughts of Pokémon with some other chemicals, as you well know it's those other chemicals that make the Dusk stone energy poisonous. In the mixture's gaseous form, it is toxic, yes, but it does have a very high freezing point in comparison to other gasses. So long as it was COLD enough, you could do it safely; Instead of spreading the gas would just re condense in the crystallized state. Although, I suppose if you sent a ghost on a sweep, you could remove all of them safely that way too, and then of course there is our lovely friend, who could remove them with little more than a blink of one of his eyes." Checkmate. Her face clearly said it. She had given Kyn not only ONE way that he could do it, but THREE ways that he could have safely taken care of the stones.

Royce's eye twitched at the information that had just spilled from her mouth. "You've....done your research....You must really want this place gone......"

"If anything, Serena may have wanted this place gone, even more so than I did. Which is why I keep asking you... what would happen to you if you didn't have this Casino. Because it more than likely will not be here in the next two years. Maybe even sooner." He then gave Serena a look that one would have given someone who had just spouted out something prize worthy. <I don't exactly want to kill Hugh and Dee, Serena... but you did say that ALL of them have to be gone.>

<Hugh and Dee actually, are against the whole Royce thing, they're in the entertainment section, if you can find somewhere else for them to do their show, they'll leave willingly. without two members on the council, it would just be the three of them. Nina is really into hardcore blood and blade play, she was the one I got that ring from the first night...Riiko...he just likes bondage, I'm sure that we could find him a place under Merlot and he'd be happy to leave it behind.> "What can I say Royce? I think that might be part of the problem with me, actually. I was exposed to Dusk stones in close proximity....for five years. It would be a miracle if I managed to have gotten out of here unscathed by the poison...I don't believe in miracles Royce."

Royce twitched at the idea of having his Casino torn down, every thing that he had worked for, everything that he had done...torn away from him in two years or less. "I wont let you..." That was the old Royce's voice, the one that wasn't going to give in, the one that wanted to keep living.

"You don't have a say in the matter, Royce. Serena... how exactly would one close the Casino for an extended period beyond two days?" His voice was back to regular curiosity again, as he'd wondered how he'd be able to do the things he needed to do in order to actually physically make it crumble to pieces or whatever. <In regards to a certain lustrous pink deity... I believe that if there were any place to move this Casino to the point in which I would still be able to watch it burn to the ground... would be in the version of my world that has no humans in it. Also the idea of the Casino being destroyed really seems to have gotten to Royce.>

<It did, yes.> "The easiest way? The Irony of it all...an Immediate evacuation started by our very own lovely Vendetta, due to a Dusk stone that has cracked under the pressure. That would close this place down for a month, just like it has in the past. Patrons and workers alike would be scrambling for the exits."

Shit, shit shit....she had this _ALL _planned out, she knew it's weak spots, how did he ever let her _LEARN _all these things?! She was a stupid Bagon, she couldn't do _ANYTHING _back then, but now it was coming back to bite him in the ass. "I should have _NEVER _let you down in the basement." he hissed through clenched teeth.

"Ooh, that's right, I remember now... Vendetta, that Porygon... Hm. Serena... I've got the perfect little bit of technology from my world... that will put on a nice show... after it's been moved that is. You have had this planned for a while. Serena you weren't _WAITING _for me to suggest this were you...?"

"I believe we'll chalk that down as mistake forty-seven, Royce. Letting me in the basement to make friends with the creature that controls all of your electronic games, security systems, cameras and everything else that runs off of electricity, including the lights overhead now..." She paused at Kyn's words. "Waiting for you? Yes, Waiting for you to suggest it? No. I gave Royce an ultimatum when I evolved, 25 years from when I evolved, or when you got back, that's how much time he had to find a successor before I tore this place to the ground, brick by brick...9 years passed since I evolved, and you showed up, I suppose he always thought I was bluffing. The fact that you wanted to tear it to the ground as well was a pleasant surprise."

He struggled in his bonds, fuck her, fuck him too! They couldn't do this, they COULDN'T.

"Well, my method won't exactly tear it down brick by brick... but, I think he'll be able to appreciate it once he watches." Kyn looked over at Royce and then said, "Oh, dear... Serena's he's going to hurt himself over there... Well, I suppose now is as good a time as any to start up again." He moved over to Royce and then stepped on his tail, before taking out one of his swords.

Serena pulled herself to her claws and walked over to Royce, wrapping her tail around him three times, the last had the tip across his neck. "Cease." She growled at Royce, squeezing him so that he would have no choice but to hold still. Of course he leaned down to bite it, to which she just snorted. "You'll lose teeth that way." As Kyn pulled his sword out, she held Royce tighter, not even giving him room to squirm anymore.

Kyn then started from where he left off, adding two more inches to the mix. This time he didn't even bother slicing all the way around, and instead, just used the pure weight of his body to stand on the sword to sever that part of the tail. He had a lot more to go, and this was only just the beginning.

"Nnnn." Royce gritted his teeth, trying to keep from screaming, as the one single cut finished he had shed tears instead, and tasted the hint of iron of his blood on his tongue, he wasn't sure where he hat bitten it, but he knew that he had indeed. "Fuck you." He spit at Serena's scales, only to add yet another stain onto her scarf.

"Hah...no, I don't think you will, in fact, you'll be lucky if you ever even know what my slit _LOOKS _like at this stage of my life. It's funny, but even in your aroused state, it wasn't you that made me wet as a Shelgon, I do hope you know that." She taunted. "You couldn't even do that on your own when I was a Bagon, and easily aroused, no, you needed your drugs to even make that spark of lust appear. You were right though, what I was doing to Kyn....was as much an attempt to get my own comfort, as much as it was to comfort him."

Kyn kicked the small chunk of tail away for a bit, and then he made four small one inch cuts, and instead of going all the way through, he make it so that the loose pieces of tail would essentially look like someone had put it through a rather large egg slicer, but stopped before the egg was completely cut.

Whatever that Royce had been about to say died on his lips as he tried to hold back more audible yelps of pain, though it seemed as if Serena was growing tired of his brave face, for she pushed her claw straight back to force his jaws open, rewarded with a scream of not only pain, but terror as the tip of the tail took it's time against his tongue. Oh, of course he tried to pull it back as far away from her tail as he could, making it almost impossible to swallow, he intended to keep his tongue in one piece, and knowing what that tail could do should he anger her...he trembled in her grip.

"Ah, well doesn't that look painful? Oh come now Royce, this _HAS _to be worse than cooking your tail while it was still on your body." She commented offhandedly.

"Dammit Serena, stop messing around with Royce that way! If you're gonna put something in his mouth, use something other than your tail!" He said, knowing full well what her tail could do, being inside Royce's mouth.

She removed her tail tip from him, wiping it clean against his frill, and her clawed 'thumb' soon followed suit. "Mmm~ but terror is more exquisite than fear, surely you're merged enough with me to be able to smell them, and the difference between the two...not to mention...he knows better than to bite these days--at least I would hope so...it's a pity Slowking teeth don't grow back though...speaking of teeth though, I don't think he's had anything to eat in a while...not since this began anyway. It's a shame...I think perhaps we should remedy that, don't you, Royce m'boy?"

"I....no, I don't want anything to eat." He sputtered out, making the connection quickly. "I would rather starve."

"Starving would lead to death, and you know she can't allow that. Well Serena, I suppose... I could give you THIS, as a snack... Serena." He said, and then he violently_TORE _the piece of unsevered tail by the first fourth.

The scream that issued from him was not unwarranted, not unsound, of course, he knew that it was not she who was going to be eating it, as much as he had said it would be a snack. He trembled with the residual pain, even as he watched Serena take the slab of meat from the human's hands, his tail...

She watched Royce through his scream. "Well, there we go~ that took a bit of dirty work to get, didn't it?" She slit the meat down the middle, and broke it as easily as if it were a wafer crisp, flicking half of it up into a short burst of flame, cooking the meat and sealing the juices in, and then catching it on one hooked claw. "Thinking about becoming an herbivore yet, Royce?"

<Wait... are you saying Royce has eaten meat before...?> "Does this mean that you've eaten his tail cooked before...?" He was a bit surprised at the thought of ROYCE as a carnivore.

"I have not, nor will I EVER be a complete herbivore, Anana was crazy to thi--" He was cut off by the old, and rather disgusting tail being quite almost stuffed down his throat. He choked, and gagged, eventually working it back to where he could spit it out, and retched again.

"You do _NOT _get to say her name." She growled at Royce. "In fact, you're not even fit to THINK about her." She sighed as he retched, and shook her head. "Well, I've had worse things coating my tail..Hmm? Oh, yes, I left the skeleton intact on his rump, but I most definitely _DID _eat his tail cooked." <He's an Omnivore, he answered that honestly when he was still Roy, you do remember that, don't you?> She bit into the cooked portion of his tail, holding it in her mouth under her tongue, making him think she had swallowed, just to watch the look on the Slowking's face.

<I tended to leave everything about Roy behind.> "Well, eating it raw doesn't make that much difference, just sort of changes the texture a bit. In fact... I think I'll demonstrate now." He went back and pulled off another piece of tail, leaving two sliced bits remaining. <Mm, do you see why I didn't completely sever the tail at those four parts?> Afterward he waited for Royce to acknowledge the pain, before continuing.

Another screech of pain, this time Serena interrupted it with her claw, and her tongue, and forced him to swallow the piece of cooked meat, he wanted to retch again, but on some level, his brain knew he needed to eat, and he refrained. "What...the...fuck...did I just...swallow?" He spoke between heaving breaths, his body trying to catch back up with all the air that had been forced from his lungs.

Serena blew a short quip of flame over her own tongue as Royce's response made her chuckle, then again, so did Kyn's. <You just want an excuse to eat his tail in front of him too. Oh yes, I see~ not the same song, but music none the less. I think I'm going to miss this the most when it comes down to things about this world.> She actually did swallow the next bite that she took of the cooked half. "You know what you just swallowed." she taunted.

After Royce'd gotten over the jolt of pain, he did, and actually took a human sized bite of the tail, which obviously would be a lot smaller looking, and of course, would be... juicy. He savored the taste for a while and then swallowed.

Royce looked a bit green, being forced to watch both of them eating his tail in front of him. "You two...are sick." He growled out.

Serena merely chuckled. "Says the Slowking that has been torturing and killing Pokémon for pleasure since the casino was founded--we're not even going to go into the rape aspect of it. I don't know Royce, with you being so old, can you even get it up anymore?" She took bites of the raw half of her piece, and licked her lips. "But then it IS true that you've never eaten someone who was still ALIVE, that you know of."

Kyn took another route with what Royce was saying and used the literal meaning. "If we ARE sick then... we must have caught the infection from SOMEONE, right?" <Hopefully he DOES remember, that _HE _was literally the one who unlocked this particular aspect of my being here.>

Royce snarled at the idea that he was the one who 'made them sick'. "Oh, so all this is my fault is it? Just like Serena killing the kids so that I have to recruit more of them to take their places?" He watched them carefully for signs of aggression, to be able to react properly should they try to hit him. Instead Serena unwrapped her tail from his body and let him fall to the ground, flexing it out behind her.

"Like you wouldn't do that anyway." There was little amusement in her voice as he brought up that aspect of her visits. She all but popped the last of the two halves into her mouth, and swallowed. <Oh yes, he definitely does realize that he made both of us...killing him would be accepting that we would eventually take his place though. It's very tempting to take him with us...when this place burns to the ground.>

"Actually Serena, Mago _DID _mention your visits to Royce. Now then... I'm going to give you a choice that Serena never would. You can die... if this Casino is destroyed. However if you want to keep the Casino here, you have to stay alive." He didn't say it in a tormenting voice, it was totally serious. He of course thought about Mago but... at that point partially severing the link it wouldn't transfer to Serena. <No... we have to take him with us Serena. Let him live out the rest of his days in that human world. Though he might try to take his life in there. Maybe.... there's a way to make it so that he always gets healed in that place. All aspects. That way he cannot even starve himself to death, though can still experience the hunger or something radical like that.> He conveyed, after reconnecting the other part.

Annoyance, that was the look that she gave Kyn as he snipped the link, then reconnected it. <It can _NOT _be that bad to the point that you have to keep it from me. Really, it can't be as bad as you're making it out to be, and I have the right to know if I've been fucking someone that doesn't deserve the time I've put into her.> Were the first things out of her mind. <Hm...Shell bell? Restores enough health to keep you from death, just on the other side of the brink.> Eventually she answered, laying down on the floor just a little ways from them both.

Kyn did recount to Serena the parts that he focused on the most, including the aspects involving Royce and her, in reference to the children. He even through in the thing about closure as well. <I suppose, I might have to resist my urge to decapitate her, and visit her one last time before severing all ties with her other than the shop.>

<I...> the thought fizzled, and she put her head in her claws. <Yeah...I think we're both going to have to sever our ties with her...I think it's about to the point where if I shit in front of her, she'd say that it didn't stink...how did friends with benefits carry on to THAT?> She sighed, then looked at Royce's tail. <You still have work to finish, at least unless you're going to leave the last two inches that you have yet to cut to make it an even half, completely intact.>

<It'll be even. I'll finish it now. However, I'm still going to do my best to deal with the Mago situation. YOU are not going to killing anymore children, and ROYCE is not going to be recruiting anymore children. My plan is going to be put into action NOW, as in, with Vendetta and the evacuation. I don't think we want to leave Mago with such a sour state. Oh also. She still wants to be a doctor, and taking ten years away from her life to raise the children has in a way crushed her dream of that, just for the record.> "Alright Royce, your tail is going to be half gone, then I'll be finished for a while. Hopefully it won't take TOO long to regrow." He said, and waited.

Serena snorted mentally at him. <They were already damaged, you know...had there been any way to save some of them, I would have...which reminds me, I need to contact the boys before you put anything in action, see that the others that are still viable are sent home to their parents after they've been bathed, fed and otherwise taken care of...I'll also take the time to get Royce's ball while I'm out.>

"You make it sound as if you don't already know how long it will regrow." He growled, clearly he wasn't _HAPPY _about losing his tail, but there was a relief that he would be done after losing half of it, and that he wasn't going to take to the limit like Serena often did. He did make the mistake of looking at Serena though, and swallowed at the look in her eye, it was clear that although Kyn might have been done with him...well, he wasn't sure what the look in her eye was, it was dominance, that was for sure, but he wasn't sure what it was about exactly.

"Well, I don't really. I've never cut off this much of it before, and I don't want to completely cut off your tail." He said, feeling the relief from Royce. He couldn't see the looking in Serena's eye, but could SEE the change in Royce. "Also, I would hope that Serena won't do anything of the sort either." <So then... perhaps you'd like to leave me alone with Royce for a while for once. He's always been rather privy to the fact that he supposedly thinks that what I would do to him... would not compare to what you have done to him. There is nothing left for Royce to feed upon with me, therefore he cannot anger me into killing him.>

Serena chuckled. "I have taken the limit from his tail, down to the last point where it would not regrow...I _KNOW _how long it takes for half to regrow, the same way I know how long it takes for the full viable length to regrow...six months for half, and double it for the full length." She answered, sitting up and stretching. <Don't do anything stupid.> She teased, and then was satisfied by the gasp that came as she ripped a hole in the wall with the spacial energy. "Oh yes, Royce, I can do this too...in fact, anything you've ever thrown at me...and we actually have your poison to blame, isn't it wondrous?" She laughed, and stepped through, though she did stick her head back through. "Oh, Kyn, you'll need to close that door before I come back, I don't want the boys to see Royce in that state, m'kay? Good, be back soon--promise." Then her head was pulled back through, and the portal closed behind her.

Royce grunted, and then once more relaxed as Serena was gone, he couldn't worry about what she was going to do when she got back, better to focus on the first problem that was to come to pass, but perhaps he could stall him. ".....So...You and Serena, eh? Never saw that coming."

Kyn rather sighed at Royce. "I suppose I should have seen it coming myself, what with the connection we have an' all. Really now Royce... I'm not surprised that you didn't see it coming. Considering that you were the one who once said that _SHE _would never have any family." He then looked that the two inches that were left, and started to make a line around the mark at which he saw the... literal cut off point, after which he went and then closed and locked the door.

"Tch...I still stand by that. She has friends, but who besides _YOU _and that Lion of yours has she declared as family? She's not comfortable around most of them, not even your lizard, not really I don't think, I saw her guard herself when she stepped away from you--when your eyes were blue, she tried to get as far away from him as possible without seeming like she was trying to do just that." He snarled against the pain of the cuts, the chain on the cuffs tinking as he shifted.

Serena wasn't slow in bringing the boys back, even though they hadn't dealt with this on their _OWN _before, they had assisted Mago. They ushered the children out quickly enough, and once everything was said and done there, Serena came back through via portal, observing the scene but not saying a word. The portal obviously opened to her hoard room, and in her claws, there sat Royce's ball.

"You could be a little right about that Royce... I'll have to work on that. Anyway..." He said before taking the literal final steps in taking off that remainder of Royce's tail. He sighed as it looked rather odd, what with the two egg sliced pieces attached to two more inches of an intact tail. "This would actually make a rather gruesome noisemaker," he commented.

Royce growled against the pain, unwilling to scream while the Kec brothers were nearby, even if they couldn't hear him, he wasn't going to give them the pleasure. He hissed as the last bit of his tail came off...and snorted as Serena stepped back through, before his eyes widened in shock at what she had in her claws. "You...can't be serious..."

"As a heart attack." She answered. "Any final words for him, Kyn?" she questioned. "Before he goes where he wont be annoying for a while, at least until we get things set up for him all nice and proper." she growled a little.

"Yes. My final words are... So long and thanks for all the fish." Of course, there was no way in hell that Royce would get the reference, and Serena would more than likely have to dig around for quite a while to find out where it came from.

Royce ...'ed at the phrase, but he didn't have time to contemplate it before Serena pushed the button, and he was sucked into the ball.

Serena minimized the ball, and set it in a bag that hung from the base of her left wing--Her scarf had disappeared as well, and she clicked her tongue, stepping away from the portal to her room, and letting that close behind her. "So, down to Vendetta now...we'll need the pass card from Royce's office...Do pick up your meat too Kyn." It seemed that she wasn't even stopping to contemplate his words.

"Uh.... luckily my mind isn't in the gutter. Guess I'll just sorta store it then. Also, as for Vendetta, when you do wish to move her, I believe that she'd be able to integrate herself into the systems of one of my older Pokédexes actually." He took out a storage Poké Ball, marked it with some of the still fresh blood, stacked them all together, and the stored them.

"Yes...well, she still has a bigger part to play in all this other than being...transferred into a computer from the computer she's in, but we'll see, that will be her choice after all." she flicked her nose, and snerked. "Ah...well, you can tell by how long that took me to catch what you said, that my head isn't there either." She clicked her tongue with a chuckle, and walked to the door. "Come along then Kyn, we'll see if I can't start the evacuation process.~"

"Whatever part she has... I'll find out later. I'll be comin' along then eh?" He said. When Serena had mentioned that she still had Royce's ball did surprise him a bit.

"...We're doing this _NOW _Kyn, not later." She answered, unlocking the door and entering out into the hall. "So yes, you'll find out...because I don't want you upstairs when Vendetta gives the word through the speakers that there's a leak." She answered, then stopped to rinse off her tail where Royce had thrown up on it, but didn't dally. In fact, she was in his office and nosing around his drawers for the passkey before her tail had dried. "I'm sure that she would be ecstatic to be given to the person you know as 'Bill' by the way." She proved just how much she had rummaged in his head when she had been fixing the layout.

"You don't want me upstairs...? Well I'm not sure why but... like I said, I'm still in 'follow the leader'. Damn Serena... I was just about to ask you about Bill. But like you said, that comes later." He took a while to look around in the drawers that Serena was looking in, just because he hadn't really done it before, and figured that it would probably be one of the last times that he was in this specific area.

Serena laughed a little. "I did a little rummaging when you mentioned that toy of yours...and yes, I'm aware of the different connotations." She finally found the drawer with the pass card in it, and hooked it in her tongue. "There, now then...down to the elevator we go." The hall she took was connected to the others, but she turned a corner, and flashed the card at the camera. "Oh Vendetta~ can we come down to visit you sweety?~" In response, the elevator doors opened, and she stepped inside, waiting for Kyn to step into the box with her before she slid the card through the slot, and the doors closed behind them.

Kyn quickly stepped into the elevator, not sure why he rushed in so fast. Perhaps he was thinking that the doors would close in a hurry or something.

Serena licked Kyn's cheek with a chuckle, and leaned back against the wall a little. "Royce has a big mouth." She said out of no where.

"What makes you say that?" He said, not expecting that statement at all. "Oh god, Serena, being in this elevator reminds me... back in my world where they have what we designate 'elevator music'.

"Every time I leave you alone with him, he tells you something that changes how you see me, even if it's only slightly." She put the card in the bag. "Well, as you know, we don't torture our patrons with boring, overused music."

"Serena, you can't deny part of what he said there. I have the ability to judge whether or not what he says is worth my time to take into consideration," he countered. Then he latched onto a specific word. "Hold on a minute. 'OUR' patrons...?"

"Our as in this world's, not as in this casino, and remember that I served as a merchant there for a while..." She trailed off. "It's not worth your time to listen to him." she growled a little.

"The I suppose it's not worth your time that both Mago _AND _Royce made the exact same point about you regarding the children?" Kyn countered, noticing the growl, not wanting to really go any further than that unless she gave him a compelling response back.

"No, it's not worth my time that they believe that I don't take any credit for what I've done, it's not my fault that most of the parents see me as a hero, try to put me up on that stupid pedestal. I don't want it anymore than _YOU _would for doing what you do to Royce. I do it out of sympathy for the child... sometimes I wish that someone had done the same for me."

"So Serena... what types of rumors start to happen from your visits with Royce? I know you don't tend to listen to rumors but surely with so many happening, a few have managed to catch your ear?" He really didn't _WANT _to make a judgment about Serena from that, but of course, he always wanted to hear both sides of the story, and then he'd make his judgment. For the most part he wanted the side that even Serena said was not worth his time; he knew Serena well enough to determine which parts didn't line up.

"Feh...they praise how clever I must be to be able to get into his private quarters, some claim that I must be either justice hungry or vengeful. Some call me cruel for what I've done to him...Some call me no better than him, for ending the children's suffering, I've had some ask me if I was sure that they couldn't be saved, and how I knew, because I wasn't a Psychic type...Typing means so much to some people...I may as well be a Kecleon, I can learn anything they throw at me." She slipped from the elevator as the doors opened, and gave a sharp whistle to keep the two workers from trying to cover up what they had been doing. "Just me and a friend guys, I know, Royce's pass card~ Save your work and take a copy if you must. Hell, take the originals, this place isn't going to be here much longer."

"Of course, the thing about ending their suffering... Mago mentioned too. She, like many others, think that you have no right to judge that. I'm a bit neutral on the matter really. 'S'pose if I they knew about that thing you do it would make a bit of difference, but if you're like me, their opinions shouldn't really matter much since you apparently have a clear conscience by returning the children... even if in some cases _YOU _killed them because of the reason of them being 'too far gone'."

"You're right, I couldn't care any less of what they think of me, if they hunt me, try to kill me, it doesn't matter; it's just fodder, just training to make me stronger. If they kill me, good for them, let them try to take my place, or let him go unchecked." She flicked her ear at him. "A clear conscience? I return the bodies of the children as a favor to the parents and nothing more, if they want to say goodbye, let them say goodbye...all the bodies are sent to the boneyard anyway eventually, only a name is carved into rock for those who have died--unless you were loved by the entire community and had the money to spend--Anana is among one of those. Her body was...is...set at the center of this 'graveyard'. They poured molten steel into a steel box and evened it out." She had paused in her walking, turning her head to look at him. "Kyn...you yourself are a product of my work, your mind was illogical when I began my work on it...when I say that they're too far gone...I mean that their mind is shattered, when it's not even a spiderweb...more like a triangle or square, two or three possible responses, and a central command...other times the crystal was shattered into dust, and still other times it was missing entirely."

"Serena, there's no way for them to know that you know those things unless you tell them. Now then, I'm getting a feeling... that a Dusk stone cracking has in essence similar effects what a uranium leak has in one of our power plants. I'd hate to think of what would happen if someone actually destroyed an entire power plant though..."

She sighed, her voice was very tired. "My word...doesn't count for much to them...and I wouldn't know, do you think I'd be able to withstand such a thing from maybe five hundred feet away...? I told you that I survived being exposed to it for the month that everyone else but his toys were evacuated..." She started walking again, this time stopping in front of a machine. "Vendetta dear, care to talk to me for a bit~?"

"...Uranium damages things on the cellular level. You may be a Dragon... but I don't think that changes the fact that your cells are still cells." He paused after Serena started talking again.

"Then no, you can't equate it to that." she poked him with her tail, then addressed the screen, tapping it when the Porygon didn't appear the first time she requested her appearance. "...Hey, Vendetta~" There was a little more force in the name, and this time the Porygon appeared moments later.

"Impatient dragon! I'm here, I'm here. Geez...did you need something or were you interrupting my work for no reason at all?" She huffed in her quite digitized voice. "Busy busy...so many playing today."

Kyn decided to wait before continuing his comparisons. Though it did make him wonder how many rads Serena would be able to take before succumbing to radiation poisoning.

"I don't mean to be a bother, darling, but would you possibly be willing to put our work into action, beginning with the code 63? Building wide...and shut off all activity to the electronic games while we're at it?" she paused for an answer, then said. "We also have an interesting proposition for you as well, if you're interested...rather than you having to be retrieved from your computer, which is a bit more than a minor annoyance, would you like to see what lies on the other side of that gate that I've told you about? My human friend here has a friend who'd love you to bytes."

"Oh, you were serious about that? Well, haa, I suppose that Royce has bit it big this time~ I'll get right on that." The screen flashed black, text flew on the screen and then a bright red screen was displayed on every other monitor downstairs as well as upstairs, upstairs Vendetta's voice rang out asking everyone to calmly and quietly exit the building and that for their safety all elevators had been disabled. While that replayed on a loop, the Porygon reappeared. "The...other side? No joke...? My thirst for knowledge does still exist...yes, I would like to go, of course~ Even if I did have to...emerge from the data ways for such a feat, and yet you say I wouldn't have to do that!"

"Serena, is this the point in which I take out my 'Dex? Or... when will I be doing that?" Despite the digitized voice, he could tell by the words that there was some level of excitement there.

"Need to put this place into lockdown before she gets to leave the computer, can't be rushed. Oi! You idiots still here? Get to work!" There was a tongue of flame with the words, and those who were standing around and started making their way to the stairs. "I swear, they act like they weren't being given any direction at all..." She tsked, leaving Vendetta to her work and going to browse through the videos and machine parts. "Now, you were trying to compare something in your world to a Dusk stone cracking?"

"Let's see... what's the worst thing that could happen to someone that is exposed to the dusk-stony...stuff?" He could really think of a specific word for it, and he didn't think that radiation would be a good word for it.

"Death." She said simply. "If you're lucky, you die from it...most have adverse reactions to it, some will lose a limb...just, have it dissolve into the shadows and start bleeding, others start spiraling down into the darker thoughts and can't escape until they've exhausted themselves...they turn into...what is your equivalent of mass murderers...they just go on a rampage until they either are killed or those emotions stop...and then they're plagued with the guilt. Some of course kill themselves regardless of this... sometimes it reflects on their mind in other ways...ninety-nine point nine percent of the time the effects of the poisoning are bad."

"Alright, not very many things. Though radiation poisoning can be very bad as well, though some of those effects, I think might have been observed from it as well. Depending on the location of the exposer, and the dosage of radiation, either instant death, or a whole variety of effects can occur."

She waited for him to catch the point one percent of the time that things weren't always THAT bad, occupying her mind with movie titles in the meantime. "I only listed a small fraction of the things that could happen, but if you wish for me to continue until I've exhausted the list...It would be easier to get you a copy of the book."

"Yes. The book would definitely be helpful. I feel like making a scientific assessment of this."

She flicked her tongue out. "There's only a handful of...moderately good effects that it can have...and even some that I consider to be good effects, others would see as bad. One...is that I can't lie, instead of it expanding upon that section of dark thoughts, it erased the capability to the point of hurting me if I do--granted that it has lessened as I've aged, but it is still there. Another...is the memory, I can remember almost anything with utter perfection...and lastly...is the fact that I can learn things as quickly and easily as I do, even things that my species can not normally do. There are two other items that I could have had happen to me that would have been considered 'OK'...One would have been a permanent typing change, to make me a Dragon dark type, and the other is that I would have evolved. Obviously since I am not among the species that evolve by exposure to dusk stone energy, the latter wouldn't have been possible." She paused. "However...I was also plagued with three negative effects as well. Guilt is the major one, and that's why I have a reason for nearly everything I do--I can not just kill for FUN...the second...is the darkness that took on a personification in my mind--that's not on the list of adverse effects, for the record--and third..." She trailed off for a moment. "....is only speculation."

"Hm. Well, I sometimes like to speculate about speculation." He said, going over the effects in his head. A Dragon-dark type would definitely be the first recorded. However, he figured... it'd be more proper to think of it as a mix between Dragon, Dark, and Flying... a tri-typed Pokémon, that doesn't exactly have the specific weaknesses of each individual one or the combination of two of the attributes.

She stared at him, then closed her eyes, looking back towards the reels of film. "The Psychic that looked me over when Anana took me in, thought that I might be infertile as well, or at least that something might have happened to them to where...the child might be deformed...obviously they wanted to deflower me right then and there and find out...but neither I, nor Anana were having that...and while I might like to have a little Bagon running around sometime in the future, I'm in no hurry to find out for myself if it's true or not."

"It would be rather interesting... to see a black head-plated Bagon side by side your Bagon stage, I think." Kyn said, picturing it specifically in his head, and not suppressing it.

Serena all but dropped the reel on the floor at the picture, raising a ridge at his imagery. He couldn't POSSIBLY _POSSIBLY _have known...there was no way, she brushed it off after a moment. "You have an odd idea of interesting sometimes...anyway...mutations can include a changing of type of the child...for instance...adding the typing of the father where it shouldn't be."

"Heh... knowing me, I'd probably give you a name like Black Gold or something, for a team." He said, and then began thinking of what he remembered being able to be bred with Salamence besides Sceptile.

CLANG! That time she did drop it. "What?!" Her mind reeled away from his, he'd never asked, she'd never told, and he hadn't seen the hoard room yet, there was no way he could have seen the badges, and even then they didn't have the name of the team on them. "You haven't been DIGGING in my mind while I've been asleep, have you?" She rumbled.

"What? What are you talking about? No, I haven't been in your mind recently at all." He said, wondering why she was so surprised that she dropped the thing.

"...." She sighed, picking back up the reel and winding it back up before she spoke again. "The name was taken about 73 years ago, the team is now retired...split up in fact, but...the name was taken. I don't know if people have forgotten the name...if it has been, then it can be used again."

"Split up...? Did one of the members die or something...? 73 years? Isn't that..." He trailed off but was still interested in finding more about it, because it seemed like Serena might know who the members of that team were.

"One of the members was already dead. See, that's the rather unique thing about this world...Pokémon have the ability to come back...as ghosts." She thought about it for a moment. "Mmmph...sorry, not seventy three, this age difference is playing tricks on my head...I'm 74.5 now, you remember...this team formed when I was seven years old...back when I thought I was still two, of course."

Kyn tried to think back to the two and a half years ago for him, when he had met her... and really began digging through his memories. "You... you couldn't mean... Marlow...?" If that _WAS _the case... then that would explain why she reacted to the words Black and Gold together like that.

"I do mean Marlow." She answered. "We were team BlackGold. Thieves, knaves, robbers; whatever you needed of us, we could nab it...for a price, and if we saw something we liked for our own...well...something that was worth a lot is golden, obtained by less than honest means? Pitch black...BlackGold."

"No wonder you dropped that, and asked me if I'd been in your mind. By the way... have you used that ball on Royce before now?" Kyn asked, changing the subject rather rapidly... as he didn't want to be reminded of the fact that he knew Marlow even less time than he knew Anana.

"Once." She answered the question without blinking. "When I was giving him his 'fair' shot, I gave Heji permission to use it on him should things look bleak." She picked up her right forelimb out of reflex as she remembered, looking at the area that would have been scarred should she have still been a Shelgon. "Things weren't exactly...destitute, but they were bad, I'll admit...I was stupid to have let him into an area far enough away from the dusk stones that he could use his psychic abilities."

"Serena... knowing you... I don't think Royce would try to force himself out of the ball, knowing that it was you that put him in it. Now, where ARE you going with that reel thing...?" Kyn asked, not really having seen anything of that size in quite a while, and definitely not expecting to see it here.

"Huh? Oh, nothing. I'm just killing time while I wait for Vendetta to put--" The lights went out, and came back up in the typical red of emergency lights. "--the casino into lockdown mode, like that." Of course, she could see in the dark, but to take pity on his eyes she brought four orbs of the dragon energy and set them out along her wings. "Lockdown means everyone has left but us, obviously."

"Serena, please, put that light out. It's a bit too bright." He said.

She churred, unsure if she should be HAPPY that he was adapting more to her senses, or worried, still, the energy was reabsorbed into her, and she walked back over to the console with Vendetta. "Alright...you can pull out your 'dex' now, I do hope that it's got a USB port, or she wont be able to move in."

"Ooh... hmm, not sure if the older models DO have it... eeeeh, if not then we might be able to do it by connecting a machine to the motherboard via good old fashioned soldering." He said, taking out the signature male red Hoenn Pokédex.

Vendetta was the one who came up with a better answer. "I can probably enter through the scanning lens, assuming that that's what I'm seeing...I'll reroute the power over to the materialization machine, it's simple enough to work...just follow the menu." She answered, and then the bright blue light of the screen a little ways down lit up, and the red low lights flickered off.

"Well...that should tell you how much she wants to go...she once described the process of materializing as being set on fire and stitched together." Serena said quietly, wincing against the light as her eyes adapted.

"We may not have to do that... I'd just.. well I'd have to part with another faithful companion of mine... my Sinnoh Pokédex... and then the transfer could be made to the other one. The Sinnoh Dex _DOES _have a USB port, all the ones after the last version of that Hoenn model do."

"Yeah, too late to be mentioning that now." Serena flicked her tail and quickly brought the menu up and started the materialization process. "Once Vendetta has made her decision on something, she doesn't flick back and forth with ideas. It's in her programming, of course." She ticked her head off to the side at the loading bar. "Besides, you need two, and you would prefer not to, so this works."

"Ah fuck. Too late did it occur to me that I could probably nick an Isshu Dex from Juniper. That way I'd still have two." He sighed, and then waited.

"Yeah, again, plans and non-deviation from them." She ticked off the seconds by tapping her claws on the keyboard, and finally when the bar reached 100% a zap similar to electricity occurred and Vendetta floated out of the datastream. "So, you have it out I hope? Less time she spends out in the air the easier it is for her to shift back."

"Yes, I do have it out." He held it in FRONT of him this time so that she'd better be able to see it and... so whatever had to be done could be done.

"Right, you might want to...well, not hold it for this....remember that zap? It happens when she goes in too." Serena said warningly, and hopefully he would have set it down before Vendetta, or the energy streak that became Vendetta, would zap into the 'dex, otherwise he'd get quite the shock. She blinked to adjust back to the darkness from the blinding light, and then shut the machine down completely. "So, all ready for anything."

Almost immediately after the warning came he evacuated the 'dex from his personage as soon as possible. After the transfer was done he said, "Hm, wonder what she'll think of it."

"Give her 2.5 seconds...she's probably filling in all the missing data of OUR known Pokemon...or until she runs out of memory space." Serena walked away from the technology and headed for the stairs. "There is one thing that I'd like to get before we leave though, and I'm sure you can guess, at least, if you still remember what I said about being filled--there's no way in hell that I'm going to let it get destroyed with the rest of this place."

"Well, there isn't really much missing... it was built to hold approximately 390 Pokémon worth plus a bunch of other information. Very outdated compared to the prototype I have? That many seconds have passed now, by the way. Does... the amount of storage space affect anything...?" Kyn said, having counted exactly.

"You're asking the dragon that REALLY _despises technology whether or not storage space affects something that she has no concept of." She reminded him. "Just come along~...unless you'd rather stay here in the dark and waiting for Vendetta to talk to you? She's making herself at home--you do remember how grumpy _I was when my homemaking was disturbed I would hope. Clair is very lucky that I like her."

"Ha... I do remember how grumpy you were, but I think Heji could have fixed your grumpiness..." Kyn said with a grin, and then he picked up the 'Dex and followed Serena.

"...He was already 'fixing my grumpiness' when we were interrupted; that was what the grumpiness was about." She snorted back at him. "Rather sure you could smell that...and I wasn't...going to continue on the gym floor."

"Ha, woulda given the Gym-goers a good show. Though it might not have been so good for the worshipers.... eh... I shudder thinking about that. Yes, I was able to smell it. Very much so. Time has flown by so fast with us though. Serena, do you think it would be disrespectful of me... to ask if I could pleasure Tenshi... in the other way?"

"Would it be disrespectful to ask any of your other Pokémon to do such a thing? I told you once, Kyn, don't make me repeat myself." the stairs ended, and they found themselves just outside the club, to which Serena just walked through the doors.

"The worst thing he can do is decline...so long as you do it politely...but DO _make that request after you've spent some time with your Sceptile, unless you _WANT more than one punishment session in a row." She knew the layout well enough to find the rental booth, and jumped over the counter.

"Spending time with Tensa....? What... haven't I been doing that recently...?" He didn't really understand Serena's whole 'the worst he can do is decline' thing very much.

She looked back over the counter incredulously. "Kyn, do you even remember the walk over here, where I stood up for you and saved your ass, quite literally, from a punishment session with him? Think back maybe 3 minutes earlier when you_PROMISED HIM that you would have a romp the moment we got into the hotel room, which is still rented by the way, and the fact that he told you that if you left him out of anymore sexual events in the near future that he _WOULD be punishing you for them. You put your want of torturing Royce ahead of what you wanted to do with your mate, that's a little twisted, even for you; but he accepted it, I accepted it...and really, when I REMINDED _you when we were coming here...you're very lucky that it wasn't me that you had broken a promise to. _TWICE."

"I guess my mind was too clouded in the idea of torturing Royce... Oh... now I feel so bad about it. I don't usually break promises and am very reliable..." He said, rather downtrodden.

Serena twitched. "You've been focused on MY world...I can't tell you how to fix it, Kyn, but you need to." She pulled her head back around and pulled out a rather long box, not bothering to open it as she set it on the counter and leaned on it. "We're at a point where we can wait."

"Serena, I don't want to imagine what would have happened had it been you but... I think I'll have to work extra hard to overcome his annoyance and anger. I know he's angry about it, and didn't say anything... I just, well you can probably tell."

She sighed. "Kyn...give me everyone else's ball but Tensa's, take the room keys, which you still have, and go up to that room 100% alone, and fix this before you break your promise for a third time, and wont have the chance for a fourth. Oh, and for the record, I realize that I haven't collected upon anything that I said I would, but as I said. Tensa is more important than that. I spent a bit of time in _HIS _head while you were asleep."

Kyn took off his belt, and then also set the Hoenn 'Dex near Serena. The next step was taking Tensa's Ball and then going into the room with him.