No, I don't want TM Solar Beam!

Acro looked at the giant crevice with a bit of grief. He had been here before, this was were George left his team for some reason. Cheh....the reason was me...he left because I was so weak... he thought. He looked down into the dark pits that seemed to want him to hop in so it could swallow him whole. He huffed and shook his head, no way was he going to jump in! Only an insane person would jump in. He walked along the edge, which was a bit dangerous, but he wasn't thinking about anything that could happen just then. He instead looked at the seemingly gloomy sky, he was alone yet again. He had sent Astrid back to the guild once more, fearing that the little Dratini would get hurt in such a dungeon.

William was floating through the Obsidian Crevice, the rugged stone walls to both sides.
They weren't constraining him, but rather giving him a welcome sense of direction and guidance.
He had come here today for a reason. Having only recently been introduced into society again, its problems now followed him as well. First and foremost: Money. It was money he needed, so the Gastly decided to pay the Obsidian Crevice a visit. From some books he had come to know, that there seemed to be a few items of possible value in this deep darkness, that existed for no known reason.
Yet, his search hadn't brought up anything yet, save for dust, mountains and annoyance.
But he wouldn't leave now. He had already invested too much time into this to leave now.
He would only leave with some items of value.

The prehistoric bird's wandering had brought him a little too close to the edge, he was startled when he heard the sound of rocks falling and felt his foot slip. He gave a loud caw when the rest of his body followed his foot. He managed to hug a small rock that was embedded into the ground before he fell completely. He swallowed and looked down, the worst idea, but the best in this case, for he saw William. "WILLIAM!" he yelled, he had thought the pokemon could help. He cursed when he finally remembered that the friend was a ghost pokemon, there was no way to help him. He looked at the rock and whimpered when he saw cracks forming around it. He scrambled with his hind legs and managed to find a grip and hoist himself up.

Startled by the sudden scream, William accidentally floated into the crevice wall. Or rather through it.
As he reemerged again, he saw a strangely familiar Archen half standing, half lying on the ground right next to the gaping abyss. Was that...no...it couldn't be...
"Acro?!"
Immediately William rose up to ground level, staring in disbelief, as he would never have expected to see this old friend of his again. And especially not here.
"What are you doing here? It's far too dangerous! Have you gotten as careless as Astrid now?"
Why was Acro here? He couldn't fly, so what in the name of a variety of things had motivated him to visit this canyon of all places? The last time William checked, there weren't any missions sending a team here...

"I'm fine!" Acro huffed in relief, "I'm pretty sure I'm capable of being here, I've been here before actually. I was just a bit...er....lost in my own memories" The Archen looked back down into the abyss and then back up to the ghastly. "Th-thanks for your concern th-though..." there he went again, stuttering. He decided to shut his beak. He could not believe he was stuttering once again, he knew William, why would he be nervous? He then wondered if it was because of the near death experience he had just had. Even though he had decided he would shut his beak, it rambled on for him, "I came here with an old partner named George. He was my first partner. I came here to look for some items to sell, the guild doesn't really give out that much because of guild funding and all of that."

"Yeah...I have to agree on that. In fact, that's the reason I'm here for as well. Oh, you might want to stop remembering that much. You've seen in which kind of situations it can get you. I haven't even seen the bottom of this thing."
 Why was William running into Acro this often? Not that the Gastly would mind, but journeys witht he Archen had usually proven themselves to be rather...troublesome. One would only have to think of Astrid or the Joy Ribbon debacle for example.
"So...want to continue the time-honored tradition of us running around these mountains and not finding anything of remote interest?", he grinned. They were probably having to stay here for a long time, so they might as well make the most out of it.

"Why not?" Acro laughed nervously, nervous about making a fool of himself. He got onto his feet and looked out over the canyon. "I haven't been down there either, me and George only went this far before he erm...never mind. Let's go shall we?" he walked ahead without waiting for the ghastly, not want to talk about how he was so useless that his partner had left the team.
He stopped soon though, for he heard something, a rock moving. It was probably a natural thing, but something just didn't feel right to him. He kind of half hoped it was something dangerous, maybe it would keep the ghastly from asking about his old partner.

This dice is not existing.

This dice is not existing.

William himself wasn't interested in the Archen's past anyways, being too busy with getting his own life organized to have time for something like that. His past wasn't something he liked, but it had taught him things. It had taught him, how to survive and gave him valuable lessons.
"Very well...I've been in that direction already, there doesn't seem to be anything of value in it. Thus I would like to suggest for us to move in the opposite direction. When faced with a challenge, one should continue forward with everything one has got as long as one is sure, that they can brave the challenge in question. That is a mixture of a quote from a wise Pokémon and my own experience. And if you're so sure you can do this, let's go!"

Acro had stopped to ask the ghastly just what the heck he was talking about, but was interrupted as something erupted from the ground next to him in a sort of spiral. When it landed, its blue body shook as it gave an enraged roar at the duo. It was a gabite, "MY TERRITORY!" it roared before taking a dive back into the ground. The ground rumbled and its fin popped up near Acro, smashing into him and knocking him forward before the fin disappeared back under the earth.
"Is that thing digging!?" Acro asked.

After recovering from the initial shock, William immediately responded:
"No, it's dancing...of course it's digging! The question is, what are we going to do about it? I can't reach it if it's underground and I don't think you can either. You don't know Earthquake, do you? Or maybe...I might just have an idea..."
Floating up to the hole, the Gabite had left as it disappeared into the ground, William used his Smog attack to try to force it to emerge.
"It might not be effective, but it could get that thing out of the ground..."
 

The gabite was about to come up for an attack again, its fin coming up from the ground and towards Acro once more. The fin wavered though and the attack went around the Archen. The fin disappeared and the ground erupted as the pokemon fled from the tunnels back into the over world. It gave a cry in pain and glared at the ghastly before giving a another roar, except this time at the loose dirt that had been made from his dig attack. The pokemon felt itself grow faster as the Sandstorm boosted his speed.

Acro also felt slightly empowered by the sandstorm, since he was a rock type. He gave a screech and created copies of himself to surround the gabite as his tail glowed to prepare a iron tail attack. He felt his tail grow heavier and sturdier, then leaped up and struck one of its fins with his tail.

While the Smog might have had its intended effect, the Sandstorm was a major problem for William.
He wouldn't be able to keep his eyes open for long enough to use Hypnosis and the constant pain of the dirt wasn't helping either. And then he had an idea.
Using the pain from the sand constantly hitting him, the Gastly conjured up a Shadow Ball, which he quickly shot at the Gabite. At least he hoped he did, since the weather wasn't making it easier to see clearly.
And once again William envied other Pokémon for their typing. Not only would being a Rock type for example not have scared other Pokémon in his past, it would have protected him from this Sandstorm as well.
Hopefully the Gabite would fall soon.

While their adversary managed to dodge most of the Archen's attack, it still grazed it, causing the Dragon type to cry out in a mixture of pain and anger. Screeching, it tried to charge into the Archen at full speed, using a Take Down attack.

Acro rose his wings as a purple aura enveloped him and the boulders around him. The boulders smashed together to form a shield to protect the archen. The garchomp smashed into the wall and screeched as the boulder wall collapsed on top of him. Acro had used Ancient Power to do this. He gave another caw and more boulders were flung into the air and top of the Gabite. The Gabite managed to dodge in time with its heightened speed, and dove into the ground in a dig attack once more. It seemed to have been avoiding the ghastly since it didn't seem to have any effective moves against the ghost type pokemon.

While the Shadow Ball had missed the Gabite by quite a distance, Acro didn't seem to have too much of a problem dealing with the enraged Gabite. Thus William decided not to fight for now, but rather seek protection from the harsh weather to avoid accidentally hurting Acro. Since a variety of boulders had been thrown around already, the Gastly floated behind one, finding at least partial protection from the tiny stones the wind was carrying with it.
Acro could do it. William was sure.

That was until the Gabite decided that he had had the last straw with this prehistoric pest. The land shark smashed his fin into Acro once again, Acro had managed to hit the fin with his iron tail. The attack smashed into the fin before it collided into Arco, sending him flying forwards and towards the edge of the cliff. The dust particles in the air began to subside and Acro and the Gabite felt their powers drain a bit with the sandstorm gone. The gabite lost his speed boost and Acro lost his defense boost, and triggered his ability as his attacks came more sluggish and lazy as he began to think that this was impossible.