Birbs and Foxes

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Mission Details:

The water-drenched flatlands known as the Cattail Marsh certainly weren't much of a spectacle, at least during the day.  Not even the rays of the setting sun could fix that.  It was about as inviting as it looked, too.  One particular glaceon knew from experience that it was annoying to travel through the marsh, if not difficult.  Of course, the two birds with him would have little trouble other than occasionally having to move out of the way of a tree, since they could fly.  He could have frozen the water and just walked or even skated over it if he still had Ice Beam on his side, but he just HAD to go and use another TM, he couldn't just settle for what he already had....

"Frost Breath", what a ripoff.  All it had done to him was take away his ability to use Ice Beam.  There was nothing akin to any "Frost Breath" replacing it from what he could tell, he was just down a move due to some faulty TM.  Surely, this was the case.  It couldn't possibly be that this move in particular was just something that he could not properly use.  So he would have to walk through the marsh, but it wasn't like he hadn't done that before.  Besides.... it would be night soon.  He'd insisted on them coming later in the day for that specific reason.  For the light show.  "So, Linus, do you know why I wanted to come here so late?", he asked as he stopped at the edge of the water, taking a moment to speak to his companions before getting to the "fun" part.

Nearby, in a rather easy to climb tree, a little ball of brown fluff was sitting on a branch over the marsh in the hopes of drying off.  He'd heard this place had a pretty lightshow during the nights, but he hadn't expected it to be so wet.... despite it being a marsh.  He'd decided to sit in a tree, away from the water and hopefully safe from any lurking dangers, as he waited for the promised lights.  The trip here was a pain, he hoped it would at least be worth it.

(Sova's Energy: 38)
(Keith's Energy: 2)

"That's too bad.  Good thing I don't care.", Sova stated rather bluntly, not caring whether the voice was the same one that'd mimicked him or the real Acro.  He wasn't going to just let this eevee die, regardless of the consequences.  He continued to watch as the light grew brighter, some streaks of yellow, zigzagging light occasionally shooting off into the water around it before disappearing.

Keith had realized a Thunder Stone was falling towards him and though his mind was busy being fried by electricity, he still managed to reach out enough to touch it as it fell down near him.  The stone began to glow as he allowed its energy to react to him.  The glow spread to his body and grew brighter, soon after which the tingling sensation of the electricity in his body seemed to.... change.  He was still tingling, but the shocking pain was fading away.  On top of that, the feeling seemed to especially gather in his fur, like static.

Finally, the glow stopped and he noticed that electricity seemed to be coming from him and shooting around through the water.  Something touched his back, which made him reflexively jump in the water.  As he spun around, he saw an unconscious froakie with yellow lines of electricity running around it and a few patches of needle-like yellow hairs stuck in its arm, side and stomach.  The "eevee" gasped in surprise.... or tried to, but he simply ended up inhaling water.  His first instinct was to cough, but that only used up more of his remaining energy.  He quickly swam to the surface and began immediately coughing and gasping.  At least he was alive, though.  Then he noticed his paws were yellow and he could still feel his fur standing spiked outwards.

"I-It worked!  I'm a jolteon, right!?", he exclaimed happily as he looked around, immediately noticing his voice sounded different.  Deeper, though not by as much as he would have liked.  Actually, that wasn't the only new sound he was hearing.  He could also hear faint crackling sounds coming from.... him!  Before he could further think about these new sounds, he jumped back in fear as the froakie floated up in front of him, discharging electricity into the water around him and shocking the little frog even further in the process.  After he realized it was already knocked out, he sighed and calmed down.

Sova sighed as the eevee emerged from the water as a jolteon, followed by a very unconscious-looking froakie.  "Good job!", he shouted over to the newly evolved jolteon, letting some of the icy mist slip out of his mouth in the process.  He couldn't help but smile slightly from the now very spiky electric type's happiness.  Though something seemed.... off about his personality.

GUESS WHO DOESN'T LOOK LIKE A WUSS ANY MORE?



THIS GUY!  ^

He's still a wuss but I mean at least he looks cool now.

The screaming had gone away, and now crackling and popping sounds pierced what little courage the goomy had. He began to sob into the Archeops's chest, wishing everything would stop and go back to the way things had been several minutes ago when he was enjoying the heights and visibility of seeing for what seemed like miles. He felt the Archeops's grip tighten, and felt a bit more comforted, but continued to cry.

Acro tightened his hold on the goomy, feeling a bit bad for it. The popping noises of the jolteon probably was not helping the situation. He looked to see that the two froakies had been knocked out, and the one that was wanted just needed to be whisked away by the magical explorer badge and turned in for the the authorities to handle.

Linus watched the yellow eeveelution pop out of the water, wondering what had happened to that brown eevee from earlier and who the new guy was. He was about to ask, when a voice screamed into his ears. He cried out in pain as his wings flew up to cover his ears, only to have something seemingly invisible kick him and send him into the waters. The honchkrow struggled back onto the roots, a bit paranoid about the water considering he saw two unconscious froakies within.
"The hell was that?!"

Both of the eeveelutions directed their gaze over to Linus as a sudden screech echoed through the area.  Sova immediately began creating a path in front of him by blowing the icy mist over the water and freezing it, but he stopped as his lungs began to burn and restrict the flow of the mist.  He coughed a bit before hoarsely questioning what was happening, "W-what?"  It seemed his body was beginning to.... over.... cool?  He wasn't even aware that was possible, but apparently it was.  The flow of the Frost Breath completely stopped and for a moment he was relieved, then he realized that it'd been cut off at pretty much the worst possible time, right when he needed it!

Keith turned to the glaceon and noticed that he was having difficulties with his ice path thing and decided he would have to figure out what'd attacked Linus in the glaceon's place.  He found that he could now stand in the water and.... felt a bit silly for having almost drowned in it, but at least he could move faster now.  "What happened!?  Are you alright?", he questioned as he approached the bird. His fur crackled more as he got to shallower water and less of his electricity was being drained away by the water.

Meanwhile, Sova was diving back into the water, holding his Explorer Badge in a paw as he approached one of the unconscious froakies now that the jolteon had moved away from it and cleared the risk of electrocution.  He wasn't sure which one was his mission goal, but he figured all of these frogs were guilty of the same offense, so they all deserved to be arrested.

"Ye-yes, I don't know...who are you!?" Linus spoke, as he looked around, confused. What had happened? What hit him? He eyed the area carefully, looking for strange movements or some kind of unfamiliar pokemon other than the one that was yellow and talking to him.

The archeops placed the goomy back onto his back, spreading his wings and gliding back towards the ground. He landed on a lower branch not too far from the group, "The bigger Froakie thing...where is it?" he asked before cradling the shivering and crying goomy once more as it crawled back into his arms. He found it to be a bit of a nuisance, but he couldn't just throw it off and ignore it, it was too young to know better most likely.

The goomy felt himself be lifted away from his mothers chest. He squeaked in protest, and they began to move. He clung to the archeops, moving back to the safe and comforting place as soon as he could. The small ball of slime shivered and looked at the jolteon with fearful eyes before returning to burying his face into the archeops's chest.

"Soo Acro, I see you got a replacement since you killed me..." a voice rang through the area. The archeops's eyes went wide, as he recognized the voice.

"N-No..." he stuttered.

Keith gave the bird a confused and slightly worried look. "Uuuh.... I'm Keith. O-oh, I haven't told any of you my name yet, have I? I'm Keith.... I mean.... I just said that already but....", he trailed off and fell silent as he felt stupid for not only assuming the large murkrow knew his name already, but also repeating his name right after saying it. His fur began to crackle much more loudly with static in response to his frustration. "I'm.... I mean I WAS the eevee.", he explained after clearing his head, the static sounds dying down a bit afterwards.
Then a voice caught his attention. He'd gathered on his own at this point that something was mimicking voices on his own, since no one was interested in stating this fact for him. The only thing left to do now was figure out where the overgrown and extra-edgy froakie was and take it down.

Sova had managed to catch the newly evolved jolteon's name.... Keith.... but his attention was suddenly caught by a voice that seemed to bother the archeops. Then a piercing scream sounded from directly behind him, but instead of jumping back or recoiling like the source of the noise had hoped, he spun around and froze the fur on his tail into icy needles, smacking the frogadier in the face in the process. It recoiled and held a paw against its face from what he could tell and it looked like its cheek was bleeding from the scratches. It seemed like it had trouble cloaking the scratch marks for a moment, an advantage the glaceon took as he opened his mouth and created a dark purple and black ball in front of him, snapping his jaws shut and firing it at the frog while he could still somewhat see it. Sadly, it jumped away and avoided the attack, leaping into the water with a splash.

He looked around to locate the frog once again, spotting ripples in the water near Acro a few seconds later. "Look out!", he shouted before freezing his fur into spikes of ice and moving around on his intricate path that was now covering a large amount of the water's surface in this area, ending up just a few feet away from the archeops in moments thanks to Ice Shard. However, this was as close as his path could get him.

Acro snapped to attention as he realized he was being shouted at to watch out for something, he gasped as he spotted floating scars near him, as the frog was about to attack him.

The goomy felt his mother shiver along with him, he blinked, confused, why was Mammy upset? He looked away from the shoulder of the archeops as a voice echoed around them, causing the archeops to shudder even more. He then felt a bit of a rage, as something was disturbing Mammy. The goomy's cheeks puffed in a angry facial expression, spying three scars floating in front of them and releasing an Absorb attack in their direction, a ball of energy shooting forward and striking the scars, before returning back to the goomy and replenishing health.

The colorful bird blinked in surprise as the goomy suddenly lashed out at something that had seemed invisible. He was surprised to watch as the over-sized frog's camoflauge disappeared and the pokemon was as visible as a purple dot on white paper.

Linus was the first to make a move, quickly firing a Dark Pulse to move ahead of him and strike the water type, and follow up quickly with a Peck attack, hoping to keep it in place as it dealt with the dark pulse and give time for him to use Peck. His beak glowed and grew as he neated the water type, pecking at the water type harshly after it was struck with a dark pulse. The pokemon broke free from the wrath of the flying type, and disappeared into the waters once more.

"Hey! Stop hurting my NEW friend! You know, since you KILLED me! Why did you let me die Acro? Why?!" the voice rang out once more, causing the archeops to freeze up in fear along with it.

Sova watched as the others dealt with the invisi-frog nicely, all but Acro who seemed to be busy being a derp. Then the voice started speaking again and the archeops seemed to be effected even more by it. From what he could gather, this voice seemed to be one Acro recognized, probably one of the past friends who he'd thought he'd failed. "Acro, it's not real, wake up!", he shouted at the archeops in the hopes of snapping him out of it.

Keith kept his eyes peeled as he backed out of the water, onto the same root the murkrow was on. He looked over the area for any signs of the rather intimidating and large looking froakie, but saw no signs of it. Then the piercing scream that'd been attacking them sounded behind him, he turned to see the marks the others had already seen, behind Linus, positioned so that it could hit both of them with the attack. He immediately pulled his ears down with his paws in an attempt to block out the sound, instinctively - and accidentally - sending electrically charged fur needles flying in the direction of the "murkrow" and the "froakie" behind him.

Acro's shivering ceased as the glaceon's words reached him, he snapped out of his petrified state, and quickly took off into the air after setting the goomy on his back once more. The slimy goop clung to him, but he ignored it as he rose higher and higher, waiting for the opportunity to crash down on the voice mimicker with his talons.

Linus was unable to move out of the way in time, and screamed in pain as the needles stuck his wings, he had attempted to shield his chest with them since an electrical jolt to the heart was not exactly a good thing to have when not needed. His body fell onto a knocked-out floating lotad, shivering and twitching with electricity as the attack was not exactly one his typing resisted very well.

The frog was struck with the attack as well, the honchrkow having taken most of the needles, but the camoflauge being thrown off as the frog was electrocuted and now had neon yello needles sticking out of its chest. The frog gingerly plucked the needles out, only to have an Archeops crash down onto him in a Fly attack and carry him into the air before launching it into a tree.

The goomy's antlers lowered once more, growing fearful as yet another scream pierced the air. He tightened his grip on Mammy, as the bird performed some more serious aerial maneuvers. He wished he could just hide in Mammy's chest more, and wait for him to take him someplace away from this, but Mammy was too busy taking care of things for the little Goomy so that he would not have to worry, at least in his eyes.

"Ah! S-sorry, sorry!", Keith exclaimed as he ran over to the black bird on the less-living-than-normal lotad. "A-are you okay!?", he frantically questioned as he reached out a paw to touch the large murkrow, still not used to the fact that he was now a living generator.... He just wanted to help, to fix what he'd accidentally done. Though he'd gotten completely sidetracked from the enemy due to this.

Sova watched from his icy path as the frog was tossed around and Linus was tranquilized. He then got a running start before leaping off into the shallow water and charging towards the frogadier as it was slammed into a tree. With the help of Ice Shard, he managed to get behind it as it fell and spun around, slamming his spiked tail into its back and dragging it down onto a tree root. He then had to cease freezing his body as the water around him was beginning to catch up to him and freeze. He was in a shallow area, but he didn't want to get his legs stuck in the water.

He bit onto one of the frog's arms and pulled it up onto its knees, giving Acro a clear shot for another attack and ensuring the enemy couldn't avoid it. He figured he'd give the archeops the honors of finishing it off, since it'd tried to toy with the poor guy's emotions.

The archeops gave a sharp caw, turning towards the foe, ready to deliver the final blow. His talons were outstretched, ready to smash into the frog once more. The water type struggled in the grip of the glaceon, looking to see the archeops coming right for him. The water type opened its mouth and the voice from earlier emitted from its throat, "Acro stop, I don't want to die again!" came what seemed to be a terrified sobbing voice. The voice caused the archeops to waver, a shock being sent through him, causing his eyes to grow wide and go off course, threatening to fly into Sova.

The goomy squeaked in fear as Mammy's movements suddenly became clumsier and unable to fly straight and sound. The goomy was flung off of the archeops, and into the face of the frogadier. The water type made muffled screams as it attempted to claw off the goomy, its fingers slipping off of his gooey surface. The goomy gave a terrified squeak, using Absorb and draining the last of the pokemon's energy. The annoyance collapsed backwards in the water, unable to stand as its head held the goomy above water.

Linus received a fresh wave of shocks as the paw of the jolteon touched him, he gave another scream, before blacking out, his body unable to take more of this and instead deciding to shut down and focus on fixing what was wrong. The honchkrow fell silent, as he ceased to move save for the breathing that signaled that he was still alive.

Sova sighed in frustration as the voice emitted from the frog once more and the archeops veered off course, threatening to run into him. But instead of releasing the frog from his grip and avoiding the oncoming bird like someone sensible, he stood his ground. "Fine, lets go down together!", he growled under the grip of the frogadier's arm, pulling it in front of him just as the archeops collided with them. He was flung back by the impact, into the shallow water, closing his eyes for a moment from the pain.

As he opened his eyes, he saw the goomy on the face of the frog, who seemed to still have enough energy to get up and struggle to get the little ball of goop off of it despite the impact it'd shared with the glaceon. But it collapsed soon after, presumably from an attack by the goomy. He sighed and lifted himself back to his paws, looking for a certain bird to chew out. Then he noticed there were some interesting sounds going on in the direction of a certain jolteon and honchkrow.... Perhaps they needed the attention more.

Keith yipped in surprise as the bird he'd hoped to help screamed before fainting. "N-no, I'm sorry I'm sorry!!", he exclaimed as he pulled his paw away.
Now he'd remembered once more that he was a jolteon, full of electricity. He couldn't touch others! He was a living torture device! This was horrible!! He felt like crying and tears began welling up in his eyes as he whined, "I'M SOOOOOOOOOOORRYYYY!!!!"

The archeops was once again coated in water as he tumbled into the marsh, giving a cry as he performed a roll before splashing into the water once more. He remained submerged in the shallow water, being on his stomach, for a moment before slowly dragging himself up and out of the water, realizing that he had messed up over something stupid AGAIN. His head hung a bit, ashamed of himself for messing up something so easy and over something so stupid.

Linus remained where he was, knocked out and unable to move. The honchkrow was not going to go anywhere anytime soon probably.

The goomy blinked, crawling off of the frogadier and making its way back onto the Archeops, "Mammy! Mammy!" he spoke, crawling onto the archeops's head. However it got the vibe that Mammy was sad, why was Mammy sad? Why was his head hanging like that? Did something happen? The goomy proceeded to grow worried for the archeops, "Mammy?" she asked, sounding as if he was going to cry is Mammy did not cheer up soon.

Sova sighed as he gathered what was happening. So many problems that needed fixing and it seemed like everyone was too emotional, young or dead to assist but him. Acro seemed very upset, presumably as what'd just happened. The goomy seemed like it was going to spiral into depression along with him. Linus was.... unconscious and Keith was next to him looking like he was about to cry. There were also the innocent bystanders who'd been shocked into unconsciousness and the two K.O.d frogs who still needed to be apprehended.

He decided to focus on what seemed like the most urgent issue first; making sure Linus wasn't dead. He noticed the needle-like yellow hairs stuck into the honchkrow and was able to at least somewhat gather what had happened, but why was the jolteon taking it so severely? Then he remembered.... jolteons inherently gained emotional instability, which he assumed to be from their cells adjusting to having so much electricity constantly surging through them. "Oh.... f*ck.", he muttered to himself as he realized that perhaps the Thunder Stone hadn't been the gift he'd intended it to be.

"Acro, it's fine, you're fine.... Can you help me with these two?", he requested to the archeops before looking back to the pathetic looking jolteon and the unconscious honchkrow.

Keith reached out a paw once more as he wanted so desperately to help fix what he'd done, but he pulled it back as he remembered once more that he couldn't even touch the bird. "I'm s-sorry....", he whined as he stared at the unconscious bird with sad eyes. "I-I think I killed the murkrow! I'm sorry!!", he cried out in his panic.

Acro heard the Glaceon's cries, but he did not seem to believe them. He spotted the honchkrow, who was belly-up on the top of a downed lotad, and flinched. Was it because of him? Was it because the Honchkrow was around him? Was he REALLY cursed? If the honchkrow had not been with him, this would not have happened. The archeops remained silent, regrets plaguing his mind.

The goomy crawled onto the nose of the archeops, looking into his eyes, "Mammy?" the youngster questioned. The archeops reached up with his wings, and placed it on a stone that jutted out of the waters. The confused and disheartened goomy seemed to be even more depressed than the archeops.

Linus remained unmoving, unable to move as he was paralyzed and knocked out.

((Brain Ded))

Sova sighed and decided he'd fix Acro's problem last. He approached the honchkrow and the panicked jolteon, feeling a bit guilty that he'd likely warped the poor innocent eevee's mind without warning him of the side effects on the emotions of a jolteon. "Keith, right?"

Keith had taken to staring at the ground in his guilt, with his ears lowered to signal how horrible he felt for hurting the large murkrow so badly. He looked up upon being addressed. "I-I'm sorry.... I didn't mean to, I-I'll leave, just please don't attack me o-or report me please please-", he was once again cut off by the glaceon. This seemed to be a trend.

"Calm. Down. He isn't dead and you didn't mean to hurt him.", he explained in a straightforward manner, leaving out the part about how he was likely going to have emotional issues for a while now, if not for ever. He figured at the moment, the jolteon would only be hurt even worse by learning this.

Keith was relieved to hear the glaceon's words. He cheered up so quickly, one could have come to the false conclusion that he had been faking it. He truly had felt so sad, yet it was as if the problem had completely gone away as he saw no one really seemed mad at him and the "murkrow" wasn't even dead! "H-he's alive? Oh, I'm so relieved, p-please wake him up so I can apologize.", he requested as his own touch was clearly rather unhealthy for the bird.

Sova shrugged, "Alright." He tucked his front paws between the lotad and Linus, then proceeded to lift the honchkrow off the living lily pad, into the shallow water. If there was any way to wake him up outside of stuffing a rejuvenating item down his throat, this was it.