Mach Speed

First topic message reminder :

Spoiler:

Perhaps what he was doing was reckless. Maybe it was even stupid. It's definitely not something he should be doing, but here he was anyways. He should be able to take all these missions on his own...he was supposed to be able to handle these. His team was higher ranked than these missions. Yet, he expected himself to lose.

With a slight twist of his wings, the Archeop swung around into a different direction. His eyes scanned the mountainside in search of either of the two mission targets. One was a breloom, a jerk that stole some innocent cubone's money. The other was a combusken who injured themselves on the mountain. Why they practiced on a mountain of all places, Acro could not understand.

It was kind of a surprise to him that he managed to get through the other two missions relatively unharmed. There was still the scar along his body from the seviper attack last mission, but otherwise fine. The wound was treated back at the guild, the poison was too weak to really get to him from what he was told. He guessed that meant he could go to stronger places.

Energy > 95 -16 > 79

"That's us!!" Osiris crowed, rearing up excitedly before the reality of the situation sunk in. "Or, well, that's him, but I'm helping." Which was probably a good thing because right now Acro didn't look too hot. The dratini peered between the combusken and Acro for a moment, realizing that he was kind of the only uninjured pokemon in the party.

If you discounted the other archeops... who was still here for some reason. Not that Osiris was ungrateful, mind you - the duskull wasn't even a problem any more thanks to it! "Do you think you can still carry someone, Acro?" he asked the unsteady bird, peering up at the archeops. "I can keep you guys safe on the way down!" the dratini went on, pouncing on the chance to be useful. His gaze flickered to the other archeops who had come with him, and he got a little idea. "Even if there's a bunch of pokemon who we're gonna have to fight. It'll be tough, but we can do it!!" he flourished.

Was there a bunch of pokemon waiting around to pounce on an injured combusken and archeops? With their luck, probably, but he didn't know. But this guy seemed to like getting involved and getting his smack on, so maybe he'd chip in for the fun of it.

"Y-Yeah, sure I can," he spoke, "Don't think I should fly though...uh..." His head spun. They needed to get out of here. He resigned to the fact that today wouldn't be the day, even if it very nearly came close. He was still a little unsteady on his feet, but he managed to help the combusken back up. The sharp pain in his leg intensified as the extra weight was added on. He just needed to get out of here. Then, he can go back home and...have to explain himself to Dusk more than likely. This wasn't going to be good...

"I'll help you guys out to the edge of this territory," the Not!Acro spoke up, "There's a nasty Tyrannitar that lives around here and if he shows up...uhh..." The bird looked over the group, scanning each one individually, "It won't be good..."

Osiris nodded with some vigor. Things were coming along! Acro was fine after all, if a little under the weather, they got the money pouch back, they found the combusken, they got some more help... now they just needed to get down the mountain and dodge a tyranitar. "O-kay!!" the dratini chirped, picking up the pouch of poke and stuffing it into his satchel for safekeeping. "Mister, um, Archeops? Do you think you could fly up and scout around a little bit so we know which way to go? That way we don't run into too many obstacles," he requested.

With this group, he felt confident enough in their ability to fend off an attacker or two. But if they came across another large group like the breloom and its flunkies, things had the potential to go sideways real heckin' quick. An airborne scout could help mitigate that chance, though, and with how confident the archeops seemed, he might not even mind the chance of running into a spot of trouble in the air.

This was miserable. It was absolutely miserable He should have been able to handle this mission on his own, but instead, he got messed up and had to burden total strangers with things he said he'd take care of. It was pathetic. Acro remained quiet while the superior Archeops and the kid took charge of the situation.

Not!Acro nodded as he spread his wings, "Yeah, sure thing. I'll guide you all outta here in no time. Odds are that Teeter's asleep at this hour, so you might have a bit of luck on your side.

Oh that Tyrannitar was so going to be awake. Acro couldn't help but know that the world was going to mock him with it too. With his luck, the first friendliest Archeops he'd ever met was going to get killed and eaten by a mini-kaiju. Normally he would have been ecstatic to meet this guy, but right now he just...wanted to stop existing.

"Right! Okay, don't worry, we're gonna have you off this mountain in a jiffy," Osiris chirped up at the combusken on Acro's back. With that, he slithered up in front of the archeops and silently elected to lead the charge, so to speak, slithering along as he kept his eyes peeled for other pokemon.

With him in front able to paralyze whatever tried to get at Acro and the combusken, and the archeops directing them away from the truly great threats, he had a good feeling about their chances here. It wasn't as if Acro was unable to chip in, either, he didn't think - Iris had seen the explorer in dire straits before and still able to smack down some fools. They were going to be able to do this!!

He wondered what Geo and Zircon would say when he told them that he was a crucial part of a rescue mission...

Not!Acro gave a nod to the group before he bolted forward at high speed. The archeops took off just as easily as Acro would have, if he could run. Acro continued to keep quiet and instead focus on getting himself and the others out of here. Osiris seemed keen on leading the way. While he would rather the Dratini stick close to him, the little dragon was probably better off on their own. He'd probably just get Osiris killed.

The combusken seemed absolutely relieved by the dratini's statement, "Oh please!" it started, "it feels like i've been stuck here for months! The big race is probably already over with by now..." It was disappointed, yes, but the fire type knew to just be thankful that it was alive. "I guess mountains aren't exactly the best place to practice running, huh?"

Osiris nodded along with the combusken's words. The mountains were kind of an awful place to practice running in his opinion, but a good explorer wouldn't say something like that to someone they're rescuing. "If you didn't sprain something I bet it would have been good for building endurance and stuff," he said. "All the slopes and hills, and it's so rocky, your feet get real tough so running a whole lot might not even hurt them anymore." he said wisely, nodding his head as if he knew what he was talking about.

Making someone feel better and not afraid was a part of rescuing them too, right? He thought back to the one time he had been rescued from a mystery dungeon before - he would have much preferred if it had been a comfortable experience... socially speaking, anyway. That zoroark had some really comfy and nice-looking hair. By comparison, riding Acro around might have been a little less cool, but at least he could probably fly if push came to shove?

The dratini was interrupted from his internal musing by a little bit of movement in his peripheral, but it didn't seem to be anything to be concerned about. Just a couple of archen gently wrestling for space in a nest tucked far, faaar up the side of the mountain. He had to raise himself up and strain just to get a good look.

"Exactly my thinking!" the combusken gasped, eager to speak more with this little dragon now that they've made some apparent connection, "And like-I'm supposed to be able to watch out for cliffs and all that. Once I evolve, I'll just be able to jump right on down! Blazikens can jump really high oh-and far! But they can also run real fast!" The combusken began to ramble. Osiris did an excellent job at keeping the client comfortable. It made Acro wonder why he was even needed. Surely it would have been better for the other Archeops to fly these two back home, right?

They should have just left him here. Acro kept to his silence, his eyes on the other archeops in the sky. His attention was especially caught, however, as the Archeops suddenly u-turned right on back to them. The archeops cawed down to them, "Left turn and make it sharp, there's an absol down there who's lookin a little rowdy." Acro hated this day.

A left turn it was. Osiris swerved to the side, veering off path sharply as per their scout's instructions. Absols were pretty wicked-looking pokemon, what with the giant horn-scythe thing sticking out of their head. Iris didn't exactly feel like subjecting himself to that particular dark-type. "Thank you!" he chirped up to the archeops.

The combusken, meanwhile, didn't even seem all that annoying or anything. For a pokemon who had gotten stranded and could have died at any moment, they were awfully relaxed. He found himself actually, genuinely interested in what the chicken pokemon had to say. "They get faster the longer they go, right?" he asked. "I've got a teacher back at Grassveil in the Peak Academy, he's got an ability just like that, he calls it Speed Boost. Whenever we practice, he just goes faster and faster and it's so hard to keep up with him!" the dratini vented. He wondered how Lennox would fare in a marathon - were whirlipede allowed to do running competitions if they could just... roll to victory?

The combusken nodded eagerly. "Yeah! I've got that-but it's not really any good if I can't run to begin with. I managed to get about half-way to my max speed before I ended up tripping up." Slowly and steadily, Acro began to tune out the two pokemon as they conversed back and forth. All he focused on was the painful sensation of that coursed through his leg. It was a bad idea to be walking on it, but he shouldn't bother the others with it any more than he should.

He tuned out the outer world in the process. It was almost as if he were alone rather than with two other pokemon. If he didn't latch onto the sensation, then he knew that he would have defaulted back to darker places he wasn't quite up for thinking about just then. Unfortunately for him, this was the absolute wrong move to do. Seemingly out of nowhere, the ground between him and Osiris burst open. A black shape leaped up from the ground with a snarl.

Acro squawked in shock as he instinctively attempted to move away from the dark type. He wasn't the target, however, as the mightyena made a move for the little dratini...

This was kind of easy, actually, what with the archeops up above warning them of all the potential danger. Osiris put a little bit of swagger into his slither, for all intents and purposes enjoying the little hike down the mountain. "I guess that's the trade away, huh? The faster you can go, the more control you need..." he mumbled thoughtfully. The fastest he'd ever gone was always with Extremespeed, and that was more of an aim-and-fire-yourself-like-a-missile type deal. "I'm sure you'll get the hang of it-"

The universe saw fit to give him a big fat middle finger, as up out of the ground burst a whole heckin' mightyena. The dratini's heart leaped up into his throat - was it going to go for the client?! Ah, no, that'd be too fortunate for him. "Not AGAIN!!" he cried out, his eyes clenched shut in pain as yet another mightyena scooped him up like a chicken wing and tore into him appropriately. As per the usual routine, he was sure to set his tail a-cricklin'-and-cracklin' with a thunder wave. And, as per the usual routine, he expected it to amount to a whole lot of nothing.

Maybe it'd slow the big dumb dog long enough for the archeops up above to swoop down and smash it. Or for Acro to get the combusken to safety before saving him.

The dratini was scooped up in a matter of seconds. The electric shock of the dratini caused the Mightyena to yelp and-surprisingly-immediately drop the noodle. It completely didn't expect the dragon type to know anything remotely similar to that, so the jolt to the tongue was an unpleasant experience to say the least.

Acro's decision to move away from the mightyena was immediately regretted as the canine snatched Ast-no, Osiris. His heart pounded as the need to do something began irresistible. The mightyena might have dropped the dragon type, but the sight of the dratini in danger was enough to give Acro the energy to push past the pain in his foot and smack the dog with his tail. Why didn't he keep Iron Tail too? Why couldn't he just be useful?

The combusken clung to Acro with a squawk of terror of his own, but the Mightyena came to realize his grave mistake. The canine yelped as the Archeops' tail connected straight into its jaw. The canine's jaw hung loosely as it immediately took to running the hell away from what it originally thought was easy prey.

Osiris blinked in stupefaction as he heard a yelp and felt himself fall to the ground anticlimactically. Did that actually work? The dratini peeked his eyes open just soon enough to see a colorful tail whip into the side of the dark-type's face hard enough to break its jaw. Iris squeaked in surprise, eyes wide in shock as the dog pokemon immediately took off running as soon as it could, which left him lying there on the ground feeling like a totally useless noodle.

He swallowed nervously, looking down at his snakey body. This was the second time he'd been bitten into by a mightyena, and thankfully, it was by far the less gruesome. There were still gratuitous looking teeth marks that had broken through his scales, and already he was bleeding, but it wasn't like the dark-type had the time to dig in and thrash him around like the last one.

"T-thanks, Acro..." he groaned, raising himself up off the ground. "That was close, huh?" he said, trying and probably failing to be tough judging by the tremulous tone of voice he had.

Yes, that was close-too close. Even though the threat was gone, he didn't stop shaking. He wasn't the one in danger, but the pressure of whether or not the dratini was going to was enough to make him feel like it. The combusken on his back seemed uncertain, seeing as the ride he was relying on was currently...absolutely terrified. "Uhh...are you okay?" the combusken asked.

Acro could hardly control his breathing. Each deep breath quivered. He couldn't bring himself to respond, shaken from the sudden encounter. He should have seen that coming. He should have known. If he weren't so lost in his head he probably could have felt that beneath his feet. Osiris was hurt and it was his fault. Why did this always happen??

Not!Acro, on the other hand, only just arrived from above. He remained in the air, but called down to the group, "You guys alright? I heard some stuff goin on back-OH MY ARCEUS!" the bird squawked as he looked past behind the group. As if to accentuate his point, the screech of a godzilla-esuqe monster sounded as the local tyrannitar the Archeops informed them about seemed to rise from the ground, just like the mightyena.

"Go! Go! Go!" Not!Acro urged to the group, "We gotta get outta here!"

"I'm fiiiooOOOKAY!!" Osiris wailed out, all thoughts of his injuries forgotten as the bone-rattling roar of a monster echoed throughout the mountain.

Flanked by Acro carrying the combusken and hustling below the friendly flying-type soaring above them in the air, Osiris slithered furiously as a freaking tyranitar manifested behind them. He didn't feel bad at all running instinctually; even the two archeops' elected to get the heck out of dodge rather than mess with the psuedo-legendary hulking at their rear. The party raced to safety as the gargantuan rock/dark-type actually started to move, and with every heavy step it took the ground shook beneath them.

It wasn't until a thick, scorching beam of piercing white light lanced above Osiris' head did he realize the tyranitar meant business. The archeops above seemed to evade the hyper beam well enough, and at his side, Acro and the combusken weren't fried chicken, but that served well enough as a warning that they weren't welcome.

The subsequent hyper beams that gouged furrows, craters, and trenches into the mountain as they fled for their lives were just a little bit of healthy reinforcement. None of them hit their mark, but Osiris didn't know if that was because the tyranitar was fresh awake from a nap or just wanted them out of its territory and not strictly dead. It didn't matter to him; right now, he was done with this exploring crud! Forget Everspring Vale, to heck with the Icy Lands, Pricklemist Hill was dumb, and this place was awful!! Osiris wanted to go home, so he ran home with everything he had.

Much later, he'd pass the coin pouch to Acro and thank the explorer for letting him tag along, and thank the native archeops for keeping them safe. But that would be after they made it out with their lives.