Mew had taken up temporary residence in his hair, curled up in the short tangles much like in a nest, dozing in a state approximating a nap. He didn't know what to make of that living omen. Terrible things happened while she watched, and she seemed all too eager about Kzye City. It meshed uncomfortably with his memories of his gym battle - dragging himself in quivering intervals along the warm stone, muscles refusing to execute his instructions, hot air swimming around him, pulse throbbing in his skull, breath struggling against the circumstance.

Simply put, he should not be here. The evidence was overwhelming, really. And yet… paradoxically, did that not make it all the more reason to be here? He'd done Keith's pokémon no particular injustice but it was clear he couldn't use normal templates to try and gauge how the Pyre gym leader would react to his appearance.

“Any idea where Keith is now?” he asks, addressing Mew with hesitance in his voice. He could waste some time trying to find him manually, of course, but she was likely to be able to lead him directly to him, and he'd rather cut this shapeless anticipation short. He could allow himself to freak out when it turned out that Keith was going to carve his innards out of his body and claim accident - and not a moment sooner.

Mew's form stirs lightly at the prompt, pawing at the tangles of Dakarai's hair as she pulls herself slowly back to lucidity. Her head peeks up over the tangle of hair she's claimed as a pillow, glancing around for a moment to get her bearings - and then a soft, bubbly purr spills from her. They're in Kzye, not far from Keith's house nestled against the mountain's slope. She stretches out her limbs, forepaws batting against his forehead; then she closes her eyes, focusing her thoughts for the few moments it takes for her to find where Keith is. “Mew,” she confirms, nodding her head once, then lets herself slide off the back of Dakarai's head, floating around to tug on the sleeve of his shirt, pulling it in the direction of Keith's house. It won't be long now, she thinks to herself.

The sky is coloured in streaks, and there's a chill bleeding in from the top of the mountains as a lazy breeze. An unusually warm day notwithstanding, the night stayed true to the season, and he was wholly tempted to put on his jacket, but that required poking around for it in within the confines of his bag. An uneasy glance briefly wound itself through the landscape, looking for his long-term companion tailing him sceptically in the distance, but Iris has made himself scarce. For a moment of paranoia, a knot forms in Dakarai's gut, corporeal manifestation of his worry that perhaps something had happened to the Venomoth.

One foot misses even ground for a moment, nearly tipping Dakarai into an embarrassing stumble, but he catches himself in time. “Sorry,” he whispers to Mew, given the lurch would have disturbed her, too, with how she's attached to his arm. “I was looking for Iris,” he explains, keeping his voice down.

They don't seem to be heading for any one place of residence in particular. Instead, she seems to be leading him past the house closest to the Magma Chamber and out into the wilderness - at least that's his impression for as long as it takes them to cross the side of the building far enough to reveal a verandah out the back, and the beginnings of what sounds like conversation filter through to Dakarai.

“…not honestly surprised, are you?” It takes a moment for the flimsy fragments of sound to find themselves associated with Keith. “I try to be transparent, I really do. And you really shouldn't worry, I'm not going to hurt you much, I mean-”

As luck would have it, they spot each other roughly simultaneously. Keith is stood with what looks like an all too pleased sort of exaggerated pride beside a delicate looking table, his left hand raised as if he'd been gesturing along with his speech and felt abruptly self-conscious, right resting three fingers against the rim of a glass set down on said table. Silence. A metre away from him, slumped awkwardly but very much alive on one of the chairs, looking pitifully like an accident waiting to happen, is another person that Dakarai doesn't recognise.

Keith's gaze jumps from Dakarai's face to Mew and then back to Dakarai. His left hand springs back into motion index and middle finger aligning as if to form a gun pointing to the sky to fire a bullet, a gesture that lasts only an instant. “You're a day early,” he says, tone a bizarre mixture of apologetic and scolding, coming out almost deadpan neutral. What follows, however, is not: A broad, manic grin, and a gushing, enamoured: “It's so good to see you again.”

The sudden lurch of gravity prompts a shocked “Mew!” from Dakarai's current companion, claws clinging tighter to his arm for the moment in unpleasant surprise. Once he's steadied himself, she releases her grip, choosing to float a few feet ahead of him instead of attached to his sleeve. It's fine with her if Dakarai wants to stumble and hurt himself, so long as she's not attached to him when he does it.

As they round the corner, Mew's eyes widen as they find Keith, ears perking up and tail twitching excitedly. Keith has a guest! What a pleasant surprise - they get to share two sources of entertainment! “Mew-mew-mew-mew!” she calls out, flinging herself through the air to impact lightly with Keith's chest, scrambling about to perch on his shoulder, peering down curiously at the young man slumped on the chair. His expression's just turned from fear and anticipation to confusion, eyes darting between Keith and the bundle of pink fuzz, unsure what to make of this. Has help miraculously shown up?

Mew nuzzles against Keith's cheek, then turns her gaze up to look at him. “Mewww,” she says, full of deep admiration despite the light scornful tone in her voice and the mock-glare in her expression. Oh Keith, why didn't you say you were having a guest over? He knows how much she likes his particular form of entertainment. Her gaze drifts down to the young man in the chair again, then returns to linger on Keith expectantly. Is he going to introduce his friend?

Said friend, meanwhile, has managed to, with enough effort, turn his head enough to make out Dakarai in the gloom. With a bit of effort, he manages to vocalize a sound, but his tongue and lips don't quite cooperate enough to turn it into a meaningful word.

For that very first instant, the surreality of the situation bypasses instinctive fear altogether, though as his gaze falls on Keith's unfortunate victim, even past the numb shock, his skin transforms, happy to take the chill of the approaching night as an excuse to ripple into gooseflesh. The pleased response does nothing to soothe him as he might have expected. Anger was preferable to this. Contempt was preferable to this. Instead, Keith is so clearly wholly unconcerned that Dakarai has just discovered him with a poisoned victim that he's effortlessly categorised himself as metaphysical danger more than any human being made of flesh possibly could. It knits into his memory of his gym battle, forming a disconcerting picture. Dakarai's left hand finds itself clasped against the elbow of his right arm, clutching at it lightly, as what might as well have been a narrowly missed fate plays out in his mind: Dangling by bound wrists off the precipice leading down into that lazy golden glitter of molten rock, with Keith smiling contently as he sways.

He forces himself to close his eyes, struggling with the overwhelming but useless emotion of fear that's spiked in his gut. He's not here on vacation. Whatever's going to happen is unlikely to compare to anything Jagdish did to him. It's unlikely to compare to the lucid moments of what Vendetta put him through. But at the end of the day, neither of them had this predatory radiance about them, this sheer delight, and that's what disturbs him. He's equally sure it has no right to, but his instinct is difficult to quell.

Mew's chittering and enthused greeting helps dispels the feeling - causelessly, of course, but given that it had no right to exist in the first place, he had no trouble fighting irrationality with more irrationality. Let such nonsense annihalate itself. His eyes open again, discovering the distressed look of the stranger and lingering there.

Calm. Just… remain calm.

“Mike, I'm really sorry,” Keith's turned his attention to the guest, even as both his hands lavish Mew with affectionate attention. “I'm going to have to pay attention to my guest here. You're not upset about that, are you? We can get to know each other some other time. My friend here isn't staying very long, you know, I don't want to keep him waiting.” His right hand reaches out and slides in a gentle grip against the hapless victim's jaw, cautiously twisting his head to make him look back at Keith. “And stop being scared of me, you silly goose,” he adds, scolding him with a light grin. “You don't honestly think I'd do anything that might genuinely jeopardise our friendship, do you?” Apparently, paralysing your neighbour was a forgivable sin?

Exhale. Inhale. Keith glances across at Dakarai again for a moment, then at Mew to give her a significantly more lucid scritch against the back of her neck. “I don't like splitting my attention, sweetheart, don't take it the wrong way,” he apologises softly. “You can visit me any time, though, you know that, right?”

A shudder grasps Mike's spine briefly, and one hand manages to find itself gripping the arm of the chair in some attempt to get away that was, unsurprisingly, ultimately futile. His eyes dart back and forth between Keith's face and the purring bundle of pink fuzz draped across the gymleader's left hand. 'Getting to know each other' didn't usually involve drugging your neighbor and threatening to poke some knives into them for fun. Well. Maybe it did for Keith. Still, not exactly reassuring.

Mew seems momentarily dismayed by this turn of events - twice as many humans is twice as entertaining, after all! - but she quickly forgives him. She'll still get to watch him with Dakarai. And maybe the next time he has a guest over, she'll come and pay him a visit. She stares down at Mike for a long moment, cherishing the image while she can, before her gaze swivels around to Dakarai instead.

Maybe Mike's died and gone to hell. That ought to explain the surreal, horrifying situation he finds himself in, surely? No human being could leer down at a paralysed victim with so much relish, but a demon conceivably could. Maybe this is just a particularly vivid nightmare he's having. He fell asleep and now his dreams are taunting him. The fingers at his jaw linger a moment longer, then drift down across his throat as if indecisive whether he should truly let him go - then his gaze wrenches away from the unfortunate man and across to the one standing immobile beside the verandah.

“Come on, don't be shy,” Keith says, glowing with a deceptively warm, welcoming air. His right hand gestures for Dakarai to come closer in a rapid, near-impatient motion. Then he's glancing to his home for a moment. “Raichu? Raichu, we have a guest,” he calls across, peering with some uncertainty into the opaque band of shadow flanked by the reflective transparency of the sliding doors leading out into the night.

Dakarai's approach is steady but slow. He can't judge Keith's motives. For all he knows, he's a loose cannon just waiting to scatter his component parts through the martian landscape around Kzye. On the other hand, he might be infinitely more stable than he appears and hard to provoke into anything that might - as he put it - 'jeopardise' his position of prestige. The fact he's clearly playing with fire is hardly a soothing realisation, of course. Whatever side of the line Keith is on, he's happy to teeter near it.

Raichu's compact yet graceful body warily steps from the confines of the house - only to spot Dakarai, abruptly narrow its eyes, nose wrinkling, tail coiling in recognition, visceral hiss coming to be accompanied by a similar hiss of static as the wire of its whip-like tail glows with charge.

“Oh no, no, stop that,” Keith comments, not quite frantic or alarmed, not quite scolding, sounding more surprised than anything. Raichu had a habit of reacting to resurfacing trainers with a paranoid scepticism, especially those it knew had the misfortune of suffering through some paralysis of their own - the chance they might do Keith harm seemed high enough that the default behaviour felt justified to it. Nonetheless, it simmers down almost immediately. Keith, after all, is an adult and can mostly take care of himself, and if he says it's all right then it probably is. The clarification that follows helps smooth down Raichu's worry, replacing it with a light form of resignation: “He's a special guest who's just a bit early for his appointment, that's all.”

Reluctantly, Raichu sits down just outside the house, tilting its head in some curiosity, taking in Dakarai's appearance, then glancing across at Mike, at Keith, at Mew, back to Mike, across to Dakarai again… with a light scowl it hunches itself forward, waiting to hear what it's been summoned for while glaring idle daggers into Dakarai, uncertain what damage he could do now that he's seen Keith indulge in his questionable hobby, even keeping in mind that he's likely to be tied up in something similar soon enough. Blegh.

Keith, meanwhile, is torn on whether to introduce his guest by name or not, instead simply wearing an expression awkwardly suspended between a happy grin and a concerned frown. Finally, he opts for something else entirely: “…oh, come on.” An exasperated sigh spills from him. “Be happy for me, just this once?”

A discontent 'fsss,' spills from Raichu, scowl deepening as it glances across disapprovingly at Keith. Keith could do whatever he pleased, but that didn't mean Raichu was going to enjoy seeing him indulge in such reckless behaviour. Its tail flicks restlessly for a few moments, nose twitching slightly as if it might be tempted to add something more eloquent - then it opts to stare at the doorframe instead.

Keith frowns lightly. “…could you at least get Mike some paralyse-heal and make sure he gets home safely?” he asks, the concern in his voice seeming surprisingly unmistakably meant for the paralysed human he's still partly looming across.

Raichu pauses for a moment, gaze sliding across to Mike again, as if to consider whether the request was beyond contempt and Mike was acceptable collateral damage to make that point… then caves. “Rrrr,” it rumbles, tail whipping around and up as it rises to its feet, walking with a posture full of stubborn pride back into the house.

Both to keep himself still and to, in a more compact posture, find a sense of safety, Dakarai crouches into half a kneel, left knee on the ground, right raised, rest of his posture one of tense attentiveness, expression one of enforced neutrality. “Your Raichu's not a fan?” he asks.

Keith glances down at Dakarai. For a moment, he's staring down at him in silence. Then, in a tone entirely devoid of the earlier cheer, making a line entirely apparent to the visitor by sheer blunt contrast: “I don't believe it's any of your business.”

Mike's expression is suspended somewhere between disbelief and terror. Abstractly, on some level, he knew Keith had a prankster side to him, and that it was really only a matter of time before something like this would happen to him; but the situation is so surreal, between his paralysis, Keith's impossibly bright grin, and now his sudden decision to just let him go, part of him has difficulty believing it's not some twisted nightmare. If he woke up tomorrow morning and discovered it had, in fact, been a dream, he wouldn't be terribly surprised.

The Raichu's appearance evokes a chilly reaction from Mew, her gaze landing on it for a long moment in an indecipherable expression - before turning back to Keith and giving him an affectionate nuzzle, ignoring the other pokémon for now. She's well aware of Raichu's opinion of her, but she's certainly not going to let something like that ruin her fun tonight. Not when she's been looking forward to this for so long. She bats lightly at Keith's hair impatiently.

Rather than let himself be goaded into rapid action, Keith merely maintains his mustering stare of his new visitor in the slowly morphing evening light, right hand stroking its thumb along Mew's spine, waiting out the silence and Raichu's absence. When the pokémon returns with a small, flask-like container trapped between its teeth, then hops in a single powerful but graceful motion onto the table, only to bound onto Mike's left shoulder, Keith finally thaws out of his posture, exhaling audibly. “It's getting a bit chilly out here,” he observes. “Let's continue our staggeringly lively conversation inside, shall we?” He tips his head to the side once, indicating to the door.

There was, technically, nothing stopping Dakarai from walking away after rising to his feet. No one was holding a gun to his head to comply - not even metaphorically. He was to report to the gym leaders, but the order in which he did this was arbitrary as long as he didn't vanish from the face of the earth for longer than forty-eight approximate hours.

The barest sound of disapproval can be heard from Raichu, but it's clearly put no effort into making itself heard - it's not an attempt to communicate. It seems to be dealing quite well with its assigned task, generally giving more of an appearance of a human trapped in a pokémon's body by circumstance than anything else, with how it's sorting some strands of hair back out of Mike's face and cautiously balancing itself on its perch. With its displeasure expressed, it instead focusses on 'talking' to Mike - a series of soft, soothing, bordering apologetic sounds. 'Sorry, I know Keith isn't the most well-behaved,' perhaps.

For a moment, Dakarai's stood where he is, regarding Raichu's polite behaviour, running his - really, all equally unpleasant - options through his mind. The pause seems to cause no impatience, at the very least, and his gaze lingers on the heartening scene for a while; then he peels himself out of the mental circles he's running about himself and lets a glance graze Keith as he finally follows the invitation.

Keith's expression softens at the motions, then glances upwards as if trying to catch enough sight of Mew to be sure she's there. He knows she's not the most patient, but if she's had any foresight at all, she would have anticipated this for a while, and what were a few more minutes wait compared to a few days of the same? Still, he didn't like her being upset any more than he liked Raichu being upset, precious friend that she was, so concern snuck into his air.

A few quiet moments later, Keith's paused in the doorway, peering back out at Raichu and Mike, allowing himself a moment of worry for the both of them - then steps inside after his visitor.

Dakarai is stood barely a metre into the room, a bit to the side as not to prove an obstacle for anyone entering or leaving, eyes closed. They don't open as Keith pauses beside him and only a subtle twitch travels through his visitor as he grasps his left hand, turning it first one way then the other, inspecting it in the dim light. Then he lets go, letting the limb as a whole drop back to Dakarai's side, and walks in further, meandering casually across to the nearest light switch. It's as he's taken a few steps away from Dakarai that the same dares open his eyes again, cautiously glancing after Keith.

The light flicks on, dim at first and not able to compete even with the dying light outside, but gradually warming to brighter illumination. Keith glances across at Dakarai, a sudden caution in his body language. “So, let me just make sure I haven't misunderstood anything,” Keith says, idly kneading at his left hand with the fingers of his right in a way that looks deceptively purpose-driven while being entirely absent-minded. “You are Dakarai N'Sehla, born in Togi, resident of Njoty until recently, notoriously ex-criminal in the eyes of our beloved Arbiter,” he narrates, casually. “…and now… you're the circuit's prized and loyal pet.” A pause, staring across at the aforementioned. “As such, you are here chiefly because… you intend to do exactly what I tell you to do? Is that right? Forgive me for spelling it out so blandly, it's just… I don't usually get gifts like this dropped in my lap and I'd like to be very… very sure of my good fortune before I do anything Jagdish might want to hold against me. …or you, for that matter - I'm always ever so crestfallen if people start giving me the wide berth.” The casual smile betrays just how far 'ever so crestfallen' goes… not very far.

At the precise moment Keith catches sight of the pink fuzzball, her attention is directed towards Mike and Raichu with an idle curiosity, tail twitching randomly. As long as she's waiting, she might as well derive what entertainment she can from observing the human in his current terrified state. She notices a concerned look from Keith, and reaches down to pat his forehead lightly, uttering a reassuring: “Mew.”

When the pair are finally on their way inside, Mew peels loose from Keith, pausing in a hover several feet above Mike, peering down at him. A shame that she wouldn't get to know him today, but she'd have her chance in the future, surely. She waves to him, a bubbly: “Mew!” spilling from her, and then floats quickly after Keith and Dakarai, soon settling on the former's shoulder with her gaze firmly fixed on the latter, purring incessantly.

The narrative seemed to have trouble deciding where to slot itself emotionally, suspended between evoking a deep unease and soothing the worst of Dakarai's worries. He was given the chance to walk away with a single, simple, hypothetical word if he so pleased. As a lie it formed no genuine option, but the underlying question made a sincere impression and firmly as if - despite transparently expecting and prefering one answer over another - it could accept either response. Objectively, he had little to fear if Keith was this concerned about his opinion and that of Jagdish.

Subjectively, the meticulous obsession with details and the unapologetic and unashamed way he carried himself was enough to replace the chill outside and leave his hair where they were: Standing on end. He had to find a different way of looking at this or he'd never be able to keep still.

“Yes.” Despite all reservations, the syllable betrays no hesitance. He straightens his posture, glancing at Keith with all resolution he can muster.

The change in Keith is fairly subtle, creasing his lips into a fonder smile - and an edge of pity that he can't quite resist applying, given that as much as he's used to people constructing their own bad fortune… this certainly takes the cake.

“Thank you,” he says, softly, meaning it. The slight tension that had crept into him peels away as if someone were stripping invisible, puppeteering wires from him, leaving him to act entirely on his own volition. One hand of his rises to trace the tip of a digit along Mew's spine in almost absent-minded fondness. A misplaced warmth creeps into his tone as he addressed Dakarai again: “In that case… I'd like to get a better look at my temporary possession, if you don't mind. Step forward.”

Easy enough. Dakarai's gaze slides to his bag, shrugged off a moment later as an unnecessary obstacle and unlikely to be in danger of getting stolen or damaged, its owner tipping to the side briefly to set it down in a spot closer to the corner of the room than even he'd nestled himself in. Then he takes two steps forward, encircling himself with free space, striding back into the darkness of closed eyes, grappling with it as a source of calm.

When he's next aware of Keith as more than a shadow at the edge of his perception, fingertips have unravelled the edge of his shirt and slid up beneath it to drag the backs of nails along the curves of his ribs, pushing a minimal motion into him that gathered at the outline of his body as tension. The pause that follows lasts only a moment; then a toneless whisper beside him instructs: “Up with your arms.”

In a cautious motion, deliberately blind as he currently was, his arms swept up and lingered above him. Fabric crept up along copper skin a moment later, peeled up and off him, until the ring of it paused at height of his elbows, collar caught against his chin, Keith's wrists touched against the skin of his upper arms. “That'll do; down again, please.” A saccharine, mocking tinge weaves through the words. Obediently, the arms finally escaped their sleeves, falling back to Dakarai's sides.

Briefly and abruptly, the motion of the shirt reverses in the grip of Keith's right hand, twisting against the back of his neck, pulling fabric taut against his throat, free fingers slid into his hair, palm of that left hand pressing against the back of his skull, keeping him from simply falling back. The spiral contorts itself into more of a knot, trapping his pulse against his skin as a strained rhythm of warmth, crowding weak fireflies into the darkness behind his eyelids - then relents before it allows itself to morph into anything too alarming, letting blood and breath move freely once more. The fingers against his scalp let go of the strands trapped between them; a moment later, his shirt simply flutters down to the ground in the vicinity of his discarded bag.

Not a sound of protest so far. Palms set down against his shoulders, fingers curled against his skin, briefly travelling as if to tap indecisively against a surface, but without ever lifting. Then nails drag themselves along his left arm, light at the beginning of their descent, borderline punishing at height of his wrist, each point of pressure nested in a prominent, shadowed indentation, leaving a dusty scratch in its wake.

Then the imagined threshold to his hand is crossed by a lighter touch, before the nails of ring, index and middle finger curve themselves against his palm and press against it. For a moment, their bite is only uncomfortable, pinpricks of warning firing almost at random up along his nerves - then the pressure mounts and morphs the sensation into that of a blunt, cutting edge, throbbing through the whole palm and all of his fingers, creeping a few nauseating inches up along his wrist. Dakarai shivers, teeth gritted, eyes squeezed shut, resisting the urge to cry out - and then does as those foreign fingers adopt the tremble of strain and pour what feels like all their strength into that punishing grip. Instinct curls his fingers into claw-like shapes, arm and shoulders tense, curve of his spine keeping his body slightly skew in an arrested flight. The sharp pain burns up along the tendons of his arm and draws the glittering sheen of a hint of tears from the edge of his eyes from its flavour alone; something he had no control over.

A soft purr spills from Mew as Keith grips Dakarai's scalp and fashions the shirt into a temporary noose. Ahh, what a pleasant surprise! Keith's decided to start having fun right away, rather than waiting to paralyze Dakarai first. No need for additional pleasantries, no wasted time, just skipping straight to the best part. She licks approvingly at Keith's cheek, then nestles herself against Keith's neck, watching his obedient victim while listening to his pulse.

Her gaze follows Keith's fingers in silent fascination as they drag across copper skin, tail occasionally thumping lightly against his back as it curls and uncurls excitedly. Ears perk up as Dakarai cries out in pain, attention shooting up to his face, partially obstructed from view as it is. She purrs and nuzzles against Keith's chin, then lazily peels herself away from him, floating to land on Dakarai's right shoulder instead, tail curling around his arm. Oh, look! Keith's already managed to elicit tears. This is going to be so much fun.

With his heartbeat creeping away from his torso where it was needed and residing primarily in the mangled hand, Dakarai's breath is shallow and tense. For a subjective eternity, he stays as he is, a barely animated copper sculpture shaped in part by the fingers digging into him. A stray twitch travels through him, briefly distorting his skin as it passes, as Mew sets down on his shoulder, the subdued urge to pull away.

Then the grip on his hand relents, converting the pain into a cascade of tingles alternating between that sharp flavour and soothing signals, skin of the palm of his hand - miraculously, it feels to him - unbroken, tentatively smoothing itself back out now that the attempted intrusion has ceased. Dakarai ungrits his teeth, then grits them again, guiding his conscious focus into the subtle motion to keep the instinctive urge to cradle his arm at bay. Stubbornly, his eyes stay closed, despite the parts of him nervously wanting a better assessment of the situation.

Fingertips touch back against his skin, travelling lightly down in a curve from his shoulderblades to join up in a descent along his spine, skin flowing with the motions, little creases of light and shadow betraying a fairly exact measure of how tough or delicate it is - a pleasant midway consistency, resisting attempts to shape it without outright denying Keith the pleasure - and a moment later, digits sneak in past the edge of his trousers, hooking against it. With no particular reaction given to a pause of his hands there, Keith lets them travel around until they reach the opposite point, thumbs curved against Dakarai's belly. A motion of his fingers later and he's pushing the edge of it down right along with the thin layer immediately beneath, revealing even more coppery canvas for any assortment of blades to dance across. When the fabric falls to his ankles, Keith quips, bemused by his own thought processes and the patterns his mind's eye is drawing on his 'temporary posession': “Well, congratulations, it looks like you have the regular human amount of skin - you weren't cheated out of any.” An audible breath transitions the deliberately absurd statement to: “Can you wiggle out of your shoes and kick that to the side? Or promise me you won't trip comically.”

Dakarai had no idea what instinct would do to his ankles further down the line - so after a moment's trapping one sole of one shoe with the sole of the other and tugging his feet free without reaching down with his hands, his left foot steps out of the loose coils and his right sorts it off to the side with what amounts to two abrupt motions, eyes briefly open to coordinate as much.

And then… he stares. That's it, isn't it? He has exactly nothing shielding him from Keith any more, even if that had always been an illusion at best… but even that's gone now. Here he is - just Dakarai, (almost) no additives. His toes move slightly for a moment, making themselves individually known under the thin socks. Then, in a bizarre, purist fit, the large toe of his right foot curves to dip in between the two innermost of his left foot, trapping the fabric against the ground, and he pulls out of that as well. It's only fair. A moment later, both socks end up discarded at the side as well and the slight slouch of his spine straightens itself back out, pleased. For a moment, he glances at Mew as if looking for approval from a friend - then he remembers that he'd closed his eyes before and why, and first glances forward to adopt a neutral posture, then closes his eyes again.

Keith… is resting the edge of his left hand's index finger against his lips in an absent-minded, contemplative gesture, lips creased in amusement. Then the hand drops. “You're not easily fazed, are you?” he asks, softly and jovially, a bit of disbelief in his voice. It prompts Dakarai to look back in confusion for a moment - but he quickly sobers up from that and returns to his dark silence, the faux-solitude behind closed eyelids.

Keith waits a moment longer, as if imagining an answer to his rhetorical question might be forthcoming (since Dakarai didn't seem to deem it rhetorical) - then brings up his hand again and slides his fingers to lock against the back of Dakarai's neck, grabbing a hold of him as if in allusion to a kitten, maintaining his smile. “…Mew, be a darling and fetch me something,” he addresses the Legendary. “Anything at all, really,” he clarifies after a moment's awkward-seeming pause. “Just… pick something nice and I'll see what I can do with it.”

Mew watches in idle curiosity as the last few garments of clothing are removed, gaze alternating between following the revealed skin and Dakarai's face. Humans had such a strange attachment to their clothing, didn't they? (Clearly, their lack of fur is to blame, she reasons. Such a shame, as they're such lovely creatures, after all.) It's interesting that Dakarai doesn't seem to be terribly bothered by it, though he's still looking at her as if seeking praise after taking his socks off as well. She returns the glance with a curious tilt of her head, followed a few moments later by gently nudging her nose against his cheek. After all, he's only making what's to come all the more enjoyable.

The mention of her name drags her attention back to Keith, ears perking up at his request. A moment later, her eyes widen, mouth forming a small 'o' as she connects the implications. He's letting her decide on what he's going to use! “Mewww,” she bubbles back, unable to contain her delight. She bounces onto Keith's shoulder, giving his face a few moments of warm, affectionate nuzzling, then peels back, hovering a short distance above him. “Mew mew mew mew,” she adds, shaking one forepaw in a manner suggestive of a parent warning a child not to do anything naughty while they're gone, aiming for a stern tone despite being thoroughly infected with glee. An instant later, she vanishes with a soft 'pop', off in search of some instrument to entertain her.

The kitchen is a good place to start, she decides. The utensils drawer is an obvious choice, there's a few nice serrated knives in there. But that seems almost too easy, she'd much rather get something creative. Besides, she's not sure Keith would want to use one of his eating-knives when he has plenty of other knives perfectly suited for this. Pots and pans, boring… - she digs around a bit more, and finds a nice pair of metal tongs that could be interesting if they were heated up first, and… ooh, wait, is that a corkscrew? That could be interesting. She doesn't take it yet; instead she bounces around between a few more rooms, looking for other interesting options.

After a couple minutes of searching Keith's house for fun toys, she settles on a few things. She reappears to the right of Keith, forepaws clinging to the corkscrew and a pair of needlenose pliers she'd run across, tail and hindlegs trying to awkwardly juggle five pokéballs, to extremely limited success. “Mew!” she announces cheerfully, several of the pokéballs falling to the ground.

While Mew is gone, the fingertips of Keith's right hand trace idle patterns across Dakarai's back for a while - then he leaves him standing where he is and walks to the door, casting a quiet, patient gaze outside. Mike is gone, as is Raichu. Chances are Raichu won't be coming back until the morning - it did care about Keith's friends from the bottom of its heart, so chances were it would try to patch things up by staying over night, transitioning from nursing Mike back to health to simply being adorable at the foot of his bed or the likes. He stands there for a moment longer, taking in the empty arrangement of sturdy, weather-proof furniture, then, nodding quietly to himself, steps back inside and slides the door closed, preventing any more cold from creeping in to sap at the stored warmth from the day.

As he returns his attention to Dakarai, he takes the opportunity to circle him and actually do what he'd asked for earlier, inspecting him in his entirety as if perhaps hoping to discover some detail that would prove that he's not actually a human being, but finding nothing. Really, it seems he has a perfectly healthy fellow at his command here. Perfectly healthy, perfectly naked, perfectly unfazed. Maybe he could try scratching at that last attribute, nearly unbearably curious as it makes him, if he-

Mew's enthused greeting pops the thought bubble and prompts a reflexive twitch to touch Dakarai, simply in reaction to the sudden noise. As three of the pokéballs clatter to the ground, Keith's gaze follows them down, expression drooping slightly. “You really ought to treat my friends with more care,” he chides, but the tone of his voice is light and imbued with fondness, even as he crouches down to collect them. Then his gaze rushes back up to Mew, pre-empting his rise back to a stand, and he looks at the collection of items with curiosity. “…delightful,” Keith purrs, hugging the three pokéballs to his chest as he eyes the corkscrew contemplatively. “Certainly extraordinary,” he muses. Then, softly and slightly perplexed: “What's with the pokémon, though?” Sure, he could think of some things, but if she had something specific in mind, which she no doubt did, the question might prove enlightening.

The tiny Legendary offers a sheepish look and an exaggeratedly apologetic “Mewwww.” It's just as quick to pass as the chiding tone from Keith, though, and she's soon lightly deposited the remaining pokéballs in Keith's arms before perching on his shoulder again. The question prompts a curious look from Mew. She manoeuvers the corkscrew into her tail, gesturing with the pliers for a moment before lightly pinching Keith's earlobe with them, making a soft hissing sound. “Mew,” she concludes, releasing Keith's ear and holding the pliers out for him.

Even with her attempt at explaining the matter to him, it takes Keith a moment to catch on - then his expression brightens. “Oh, right, I see,” he comments, cheerfully. “I can do that,” he nods his approval, then peers down at the collection of pokéballs cradled in his arms. He shifts them so they're held against his chest purely by his left arm, using his right hand to turn a few of them around a little, before nodding to himself, identifying them by the wear characteristic of them. Picking out his Flareon and holding the pokéball between his right hand's fingers, he glances at Mew. “Trade you the utensils for bringing these back where they belong?” he asks, peering down at the remaining four pokéballs indicatively for only a moment.

Dakarai, meanwhile, decides he's has about enough flimsy shelter from his environment, and with an alien calm opens his eyes to look across at Keith, more curious than anything else. His gaze leaps to Mew in a single saccade; then down to the corkscrew and pliers. His left hand, still layered with a strained, pulsing, distant ache, flexes nervously. It's their relative surreality that helps make them bearable, of course - he can't immediately think of three different ways to use either, so to instinct and emotion they're not a great threat. Nonetheless, he forgets to breathe for a long moment; enough that when he resumes, the sound of it is audible, attracting Keith's attention - and promptly morphing that perpetual smile into something a little sunnier.

A soft, approving purr spills from Mew as Keith finally understands her meaning. He's not nearly as familiar with her as Jagdish is, and so communicating anything concrete is more of a guessing game than anything else… but he more than makes up for it in other ways, of course. “Mew!” she replies cheerfully to his proposed 'trade', dumping the utensils in his arms and gathering the four remaining pokéballs, vanishing with a light 'pop'. Some ten or fifteen seconds later, she's reappeared above Dakarai's head, reclaiming her nest from earlier.

Time for the fun to start.

Nudging Flareon's pokéball into his left pocket for the time being and wedging the pliers in beside it, handle jutting out to only slight inconvenience, Keith regards the metal helix currently balanced between his fingers. For a moment, he simply ponders his options, evidently having no care in the world on whether Dakarai might choose to escape him - but then, why would he? He's used to paralysed prey. Prey obedient to a fault was similar enough that he'd be forgiven the casual oversight.

Then, finally, he returns to his prior position behind Dakarai in three silent steps, curving his arms around him for a moment, corkscrew in his left hand, glancing more at Mew than at his unfortunate victim curiously, bemused by her content snuggle against Dakarai's hair. The tip of the corkscrew rests - more side-on than not - against his belly; not as a threat, but simply because Keith's hands are there. Then his right hand rises and its fingertips touch against Dakarai's arm at height of the elbow, only to drag down the length of it with the backs of his nails, this time without outright punishing pressure to accompany them. Fingers knit themselves into Dakarai's, palm of his hand pressing against the back of his victim's, and he twists it so the palm faces inward, raising it slightly, until it's about at height of his belly button, and hovering near the same. The sharp tip of his unusual weapon nuzzles itself against the point of his palm a centimetre down from the base of his index finger, and the rest of the item rolls itself idly against the rest of it.

That's still not a threat, of course - it's a promise.

It doesn't take long at all for it to be kept, either; the angle abruptly changes, and with a sudden, powerful lurch, the item twists against Dakarai's palm, driving that vicious tip in under his skin and curving in under it, flashing a horrid, distorted pain up his senses.

A palpable tension weaves its way into Dakarai's breathing, his gaze briefly flitting down to the implement in Keith's left hand. He's not entirely sure what he's expecting from it, but the gymleader has already made it clear that it's going to be far from pleasant. A light twitch touches the fingers of his right hand as Keith's fingers drag along said arm, but otherwise he manages to hold himself still.

Then the tip of the corkscrew is nestled against the palm of his hand, clear indication of what's soon to follow. His eyes squeeze shut briefly, then instead choose to focus their gaze straight ahead, struggling for some abstract source of distance. Moments later, the corkscrew abruptly turns and twists, carving into his skin. A sharp intake of breath hisses through clenched teeth, followed shortly by a guttural cry. Fingers of his right hand tense and clench tightly around Keith's, his arm trembling lightly from strain. Somewhere above him, a small, pink, psychotic fuzzball purrs, enjoying the show.

The pain has the flavour of iron and poison, dragging itself far too smoothly up the lines of his hand even as the motion causing it ceases, allowing him to catch his breath, lungs trembling much as the rest of his body. An aching knot of phantom perception buries itself in the muscle near his elbow, born in part of strain, in part of necessarily imprecise signals struggling for a coherent explanation. Keith chuckles. “Not inoculated against pain, are you?” he asks, voice soft, tone undecided whether to be predatory or soothing, instead simply mischievously suspended between the two. Rather than let Dakarai comment, however, a fresh motion twists the helix a little further into the wound, causing an unfiltered, curt but no less frantic yowl, and shoulders and spine of his victim straining against his chest. It was a simple pain, but Dakarai was convinced that if someone were driving a wedge between his knuckles, he'd be unlikely to suffer much more. Miraculously, he was still standing, resisting the urge to fight, but it seemed like such a fragile construct, an aging cobweb of imagined obligations waiting to flutter away uselessly in the next breeze.

The yowl elicits another purr from the Legendary snuggling Dakarai's hair. For the moment, her eyes are closed, simply enjoying the lovely sounds Keith's victim is making, forepaws playing idly with locks of hair, tail thumping lightly and rhythmically against the back of his skull. Of course, there isn't much point in having Keith cater to her request if she's just going to lie on Dakarai's head and listen. Her eyes peel open, and a moment later she decides that this isn't a great vantage point and instead hops down to his right shoulder, nuzzling his cheek and curling her tail around the back of his neck, eyes lazily drifting down to the corkscrew embedded in his flesh.

A single twitch in Keith's left arm betrays that he's feeling any emotion, direct facial expression invisible to his prey as it is. Beyond that subtle motion, he holds still, observing the boy's struggle to subdue his instinctual fight. Then, voice soft in volume, conversationally delivered as an understatement, he addresses Dakarai: “Move your fingers.”

For a moment, a different instinct flares up in Dakarai, venomous, wanting to comply by wiggling those of his less mangled hand, just to cling to the letter of the law out of spite - but it extinguishes in an instant. The tension dissipates as a tense pant, his gaze flitting about in the room. His right shoulder twitches, perhaps out of some misguided instinct to knock the Legendary pokémon off, for the moment not quite able to bring himself to look at her. There's a crushing, nauseating sensation of being backed into a corner enveloping him, disconcertingly at odds with that he's free to move forward if he pleases.

The first digit he dares to move is in his pinky finger, as far away from the point of pain as he can get away with - and even that stings lightly. His eyes squeeze shut tightly and he grits his teeth, clutching his free hand into a fist. Then the three other fingers cautiously move, to the degree his body permits, throwing up a strong veto to anything that isn't a subtle motion, barking alarm at his senses. The motion of index and middle finger stops practically at the same instant it's begun, a laboured sound of distress escaping him, distantly like a hum, through clenched teeth. It takes nearly all of his strength to repeat the motion - but he does, silencing a whimper by pressing his lips together to form a thin, barely visible line.

✘ IN PROGRESS