New Happenings

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Cracker awoke to the chirping of nearby Pokemon nesting in the hollowed tree he called home. Some sort of flying-type Pokemon. Pidgeys, or maybe Pidove. Whatever the case they were harmless these days. It had taken a while for the wilder inhabitants of this forest to accept his presence, but he was finally on good enough terms to coexist with them. Of course there were still the occasional scuffles, usually regarding those he'd pranked previously; somewhere out there that flock of Pidove and Tranquill still had it out for him too, so he had to keep his head down near the border of Pecha and Shadowhue.

Sitting up, the Aipom yawned and stretched his arms before worming out of his bedding made of leaves and grass. He'd been used his Golden Ribbon as a makeshift blanket, which he promptly and very carefully folded up to put away. Quickly stuffing it into his new backpack, made of fabric instead of the cruddy old bits of plant matter that had since fallen to pieces, he shouldered the burden and sprung into the air, hoisting himself up to the closest hole in the large, old, hollow tree he'd taken up residence in. Poking his head outside, he climbed out onto a branch extending from the hole and took a long, deep breath of the forest's fresh air.

With a content sigh, the purple monkey let out one more yawn, shook himself awake and took off into the forest. He didn't really know where he was going, or what he was looking for. Really he just wanted to get away from his house for a while, maybe explore more of this vast forest. Possibly even meet new Pokemon. Actually, meeting a new face would be just the thing to brighten this already sunny day. As he swung through the trees, the Aipom sung a joyful tune. Unfortunately it was completely off key and painful to the ears; he was a terrible singer, but that never stopped him.

((Energy: 23))

Cracker was far too panicked by the slow descent into the dark unknown to really grasp what Sky was trying to tell him. Being calm when death loomed as a very real threat was impossible; the Aipom was losing his mind. He fought and he struggled against the increasingly slippery slope as he was drawn closer to the open maw of blackness. It only got worse for him when the Eevee allowed the earth to swallow her up.

"Sky!" he shrieked, thrashing violently. His fear of the dark was temporarily overridden by the need to save his friend.

Giving up his futile attempt to crawl away from the hole, he turned towards it and allowed it to swallow him, his heart thumping painfully in his chest as the darkness and terror consumed him. The instant he reached the center, he fell, down and down into a deep darkness. He thought for sure this was it. A day that had started out so nice was going to end in a terrible death in the place he feared above all else.

Then he hit the water. The Aipom plunged deep into the cold black sea, kicking his legs frantically until he breached the surface again. He heard Sky's panicked cries nearby before she disappeared beneath the rippling water. "Sky!" he called, swimming in the direction of the sound, reaching out with his arms in search of her. "Where are you? Sky!"

As Skylar regained her grasp on reality and began to paddle, she heard the familiar voice of the aipom. But she couldn't use up precious breath on trying to reply. She paddled as quickly as she could with her legs, in a random direction. Actually, she could have been going in circles for all she knew. At the very least, her splashing around was surely making enough noise to alert Cracker to her location.

As if fate had just decided to toy with the eevee today, she bumped into a wall and recoiled into the water from the pain on her forehead. She hadn't swam the right way to land....Then a scary thought crossed her mind. What if there was no land!? What if it was just a big bark pit of water? Suddenly this whole "dark" thing was starting to seem a lot scarier. She had no clue what was around her.

Doing her best to remain focused on swimming and keeping her self from drowning, she swam along the wall in the hopes it would lead to land. After what seemed like an eternity but was in reality less than a minute, she bumped into the edge....only this time it wasn't a wall. it was land! Maybe just a small island of land, but it didn't matter, she wasn't going to drown!

As she climbed onto the land, she called out for Cracker. "Hey! Over here! Follow my voice! I found land!"

By the time Sky called out to him from her little spit of land, Cracker had lost all sense of direction. He couldn't find any walls to get his bearing and the pool of water seemed bottomless. For all he knew he was lost in a miniature ocean underground. With no light to guide him, he was blinded by more than just the darkness. Fear gripped his heart tightly, causing it to thump painfully in his chest. There was no escape. He was forever trapped in darkness. Even if he managed to crawl onto land, he still wouldn't be able to see.

Sky's voice reverberated off the walls of the cavern, making it hard to distinguish at first where it was coming from, but tuning his ears to the sound he eventually had a good estimate and swam frantically in her direction. The few moments in took to reach her felt like forever, but then he was finally climbing to shore, panting breathlessly. He collapsed on the smooth stone island she had found, still trembling with fear.

"I can't see, Sky," he babbled. "I can't see anything. No light, nothing. We're gonna die down here. In the dark. Anything could be out there, anything at all." He was starting to hyperventilate at the fear-driven thoughts that flooded his mind.

As Skylar heard something lift out of the water onto the land, she began to panic. What if it wasn't Cracker? What if it was something else in the water? What if-

The familiar sound of the aipom's voice reassured and relieved her, But they still had a huge problem. First, they both needed to calm down. "W-we're....w-w-we're f-fine...." She muttered, barely able to speak through her panting and terrified shivering. "W-we're not gonna di-die. There's gotta....g-gotta be a way out." She squinted her eyes in the hopes she could see SOMETHING, but no luck. If there was any light at all in the cave to adjust to, she had definitely not adjusted yet.

"C-can you see....at all? D-do you have anything we could use as a l-l-light?" She asked to the darkness, knowing her friend was somewhere in it.

Cracker groaned and covered his eyes with his paws. He kicked the ground miserably with his feet. His heart was still racing and his thoughts kept coming back to the darkness and what might lurk within it. At any moment he expected the black world he was trapped in to come alive and engulf him in nightmares. The longer he spent down here the worse he felt. He couldn't even see an inch in front of his face.

Dragging his paws down his face, the Aipom opened his eyes and stared at what he imagined was the ceiling of the cavern as he listened to Sky stammer. She asked if he could see anything, or if he had anything to use as a light. He opened his mouth to say no, but before he could utter a sound, the blackness overhead shifted. At first he thought it was his imagination, but slowly a sky full of stars emerged in the darkness.

"That's... not possible," Cracker said slowly, sitting up as he stared at the cavern above him. The stars twinkled with a dim light that grew brighter the more his eyes adapted to the darkness. "Can... can you see that?" he asked pointing to the sky. "It's like... the night sky, but... it's still daytime. What is it?" The light wasn't very bright, but there were so many points of it, that it cast a very dim glow throughout the cavern, just enough for the monkey's night-adjusted eyes to pick out the form of Sky nearby.

Just as Skylar began to consider weeping as a valid option, she heard Cracker's voice again. Assuming this "night sky" was located above them, she looked up and saw....nothing for a moment, then her eyes focused to reveal the lights. "I-it's not just day time....we're in a cave. A-a cave UNDER a cave....there's no way that can be the sky." Her stuttering and shivering slowly faded for the moment, the lights entrancing her and taking her attention off the impending doom. "Maybe....the ceiling has something fluorescent on it?" She theorized.

His fear forgotten momentarily, Cracker stood up and squinted in the dark, trying to make out the shapes of the glowing spots. He heard Sky suggest that perhaps it was something glowing on the cavern walls, and his natural inclination was to take a closer look. He wouldn't be getting up there easily though.

The Aipom coiled his tail beneath him into a spring formation, using it to launch himself into the air. It didn't get him very far but he kept trying, landing and launching himself again and again until he'd gained enough height to snatch one of the glowing dots off the ceiling of the cave. Catching himself again on the way down, he examined the glowing thing in his paw. He poked it, sniffed it and licked it before coming to a conclusion.

"It's a slug!" he declared, before immediately popping it into his mouth. "And it's delicious! Heehee!"

((Energy: 21 + 1 (new page) = 22))

(Are there even things like normal slugs in the pokemon world? ....Guess there are now. xD)

Skylar heard the sounds of Cracker bouncing, but still her eyes had not yet adjusted quite enough to see him at all. However, when he reached the ceiling, she was able to see a bit of his silhouette covering the glowing dots. As he lowered to the ground, the eevee found a bit of relief in being able to see him slightly with the natural nightlight....Then he ate it. He ate the light. The slug. What ever.

"Well, good to know you found a snack, but those things could save us! They're lights. We can see with them, even if only a little bit. How many do you think you can get!?" She said frantically.

(Well, let's just say for the sake of this particular RP, slugs and bugs exist. Just hope I'm not breaking any rules. X3)

"Oh, um..." Cracker replied, thinking for a moment. "I dunno, I'll find out!" Bouncing up onto his tail again, the Aipom threw himself up into the air over and over until he was high enough to snatch the little glowing lights one by one, gathering them into his arms before dumping them onto the ground. He kept going until there was a significant void in the starry landscape overhead. Once he was finished, he came back down to the ground and dumped the last of the slugs onto the cold stone floor. Most had started crawling away but they hadn't gotten very far.

"Whew..." he sighed, wiping his brow. "That's all I think. Now what do we do?" As he asked, he couldn't help but pick up one of the slugs and pop it into his mouth. "Mmmm, so good." By now there was a bright glowing spot on the floor, making the Aipom clearly visible, and helping him to manage his fear of the dark.

(Artistic freedom I suppose. :D)

Skylar watched as the aipom slowly came into view as he collected the glow worms. He'd fade out of view as he dropped them and hopped back up, then come into view again as he collected more. Then finally he landed one last time, clearly visible with all of the little nightlights around. Now they had more than enough light to find a way out if the cave wasn't too long, as long as they did it right.

"Well, if you don't eat them all, the plan is to use them to light the way. Looks like they're gonna do the hard part for us, actually." She watched as more and more of the slugs began to crawl away from them, slowly, lighting more and more of the ground.

Scratching his head, the Aipom followed Sky's gaze to the floor, where the little slugs had begun dispersing, almost exclusively in a single direction. "Oh. Oh... Ooooooh! I get it!" Reaching into his backpack, Cracker pulled out his Golden Ribbon. He quickly scooped up all the bugs and deposited them on the fabric, then folded it up and hoisted it over his shoulder. They were headed in that direction, so it's a good a place to start as any, right?"

Reaching into his makeshift pouch, he tossed several slugs along the ground, lighting it up enough to see the start of as downward slope. Approaching the downward grade, the Aipom peered off into the darkness, still unnerved by what may be laying in wait. He paused to swallow a rising lump in his throat before waving to the Eevee somewhere behind him. "C-c'mon," he squeaked unnaturally. "This way."

Skylar nodded and followed along, keeping a close eye on what the slugs had revealed. "Well, I guess there's no use in waiting. Not like it's gonna get any less dark or wet in here...." She said in an attempt to raise morale a bit and convince both her self and her companion that moving forward would be the best option. It wasn't like staying in the same place was going to magically fix their problems, anyways.

She then noticed the water, revealed in a small area by one of the slugs. It didn't seem to be still, she could clearly see it was moving. "Hey, look at the water....It's....It's flowing! There's a way out somewhere!" She exclaimed.

"I couldn't agree more. Let's say good-bye to this awful place!" In complete opposition of his fear of the dark, Cracker happily lead the way, tossing slugs ahead of him occasionally to light the way. If it weren't for the glowing bundle over his shoulder, he wouldn't have been nearly so calm. For now he had hope that they could get out of this terrible place. And that was enough to raise his spirits. Being here with Sky helped immensely though. If he'd been alone, he probably would've lost his mind by now.

As they were walking down the slight grade, Sky suddenly noted something about the water. Coming to a stop, Cracker turned to observe as she spoke. The water was indeed moving. And all water had to lead somewhere. The Aipom's face lit up with joy. "Oh boy! What're we waiting for!? C'mon!" he shouted, running onwards. He tossed slugs left and right, excitedly. The possibility of escape from this dark dungeon had him throwing caution to the wind.

((Energy: 22))

Lumin carried out 5 launched of one Pecha Forest :

, , , ,

(16 energy.)

Skylar happily followed along, feeling assured that they were going to make it out of the cave without problems. The fact that they now knew there was a way out in its self was enough to calm her down. "Guess this place isn't so deadly after all!" She said excitedly as she ran along the path, checking every now and then to make sure the water was still the same. She didn't think it was going to change, obviously, she just needed....proof. She found her self focusing more on the water than on what was ahead of her when ever the water was visible.

Lord E V carried out 4 launched of one Pecha Forest :

, , ,

(Time to make things a little interesting, heehee. =) ))

Bouncing along, Cracker took great solice in the glowing bag of slugs. His fear was still ever looming should the lights suddenly go out, but for the moment it was forgotten. Even the tiniest bit of light helped to sway him from his darkest nightmares. Still leading the way, he was even happy enough to begin humming a crooked tune, his awkward notes reverberating off the cavern walls as they followed this stoney corridor downwards.

As he lit up the ground around him, he started finding small items. Nothing special, just a few seeds and some gummies. Though it made him wonder how they got down here. They were laid out like the path they were following right up until it veered sharply to the right. The Aipom followed it down a divergent path for a few feet when something suddenly loomed out of the dark. It appeared too quickly and the monkey unfortunately knocked headed with the Pokemon. And not just any Pokemon, it was his own species, an Aipom. A female.

Both Pokemon yelped in surprise and fell backwards, Cracker losing his cargo of slugs all over the floor. Sitting up, he rubbed his head and jumped to his feet, suddenly afraid. He hadn't expected to encounter anyone down here, let alone another Aipom. "What--What're you...?" Cracker squeaked, rubbing his forhead.

Groaning, the second Aipom sat up, rubbing her forehead as well before glancing at Cracker. She cocked her head for a moment, noticing the backpack he was wearing. "What... What do you mean 'what am I'? I'm like you dummy. That is... to say... trapped down here like you. Fell asleep in some cave and next thing I know, I'm down here all wet and cold!"

"T-trapped? What do you mean trapped? There has to be a way out, we're following the water--"

"Nope sorry, it's a dead end. Already been down there. This place is a big ol' catacomb of tunnels. Easy to get lost. Especially in the dark. Sorry, bub. You're doomed."

At the mention of the dark, Cracker's fears suddenly returned. Stepping backwards he tripped over the pile of slug and fell. "No... No, we can't be trapped, we just cant be..."