To the Monochrome Ruins! The Bookworm Ralts meets the Prankster Aipom and Outlaw Zorua!?

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Akuroma peered up at the tall dark trees of Shadowhue. Though he's explored them before, he shivered a bit in fear. This would be his first time exploring the forest alone, and he had trouble exploring them with other pokemon before. The Ralts took in a deep breath and sighed it out before hefting up his bag.
"No use in fretting over it, so long as I'm quick and quiet I should avoid the wild pokemon here," he told himself before he began trudging into the dark forest. After an hour or so of exploring he stopped and dumped his bag beside him before sitting down against a tree. He gently touched the small scars across his cheek before grimacing.
"Can't believe I let a little Patrat do this to me..." he complained as he looked up at the trees above him, "I shouldn't be far now, but if I don't reach the falls soon, I may run out of luck and run into a wild pokemon."

The rustling in the bushes continued for only a moment longer before a sizeable twig broke free and flew with intent towards the distraught Aipom. Jumping back, he stared at it. That must be a psychic attack, he thought.

“Azu?” In response the twig gave him a sound thrashing on the noggin, making him squeal and swat the offending branch away.

Just when he thought it couldn’t get weirder, Akuroma’s voice echoed loudly and irritably in his head. That had to be the most disturbing thing he’d ever experienced, the sound of another entity other than himself. Cracker shook his head uncomfortably, clapping his arms over his ears in a useless effort to eject the voice.

“I forgot, okay—Oh?” Suddenly the long-tailed Pokemon was lifted off the branch he’d been perched on and steadily floated through the air, directly to where Azuroma and Mirage were waiting.

As the Aipom awkwardly travelled through the empty space between the trees, he rolled upside-down. Eventually he was lowered down into a small clearing where his two companions resided. Looking uncomfortable and feeling sheepish, Cracker held up a paw, grinning.

“Hey guys,” he greeted. “Long time no see?”

The confusion attack abruptly wore off and Cracker plopped onto the ground. Almost immediately after being dropped on his face he was back on his feet again, throwing his short arms around the Ralts.

“Thank-you-thank-you-thank-you!” he squealed, promptly releasing the psychic Pokemon in favor of forcing a hug on the Zorua as well. “I don’t know what I’d do without you guys!”

Of course that wasn’t entirely true. If he weren’t with these two and wasn’t trapped in this forest, he’d probably have gone right back to pranking every Pokemon he came across. As it stood right now, the back-order of pranking plots was stacking up, but he was keeping it off the table in favor of survival.

"Not easy to run in, especially when trying to carry your fat furry butt."

Mirage's ears flattened harshly, her look of annoyance turned into a look of sheer hatred. Her earrings clanged against each other loudly as they fell to her side. Her lips curled as she snarled, "Fat?" she said softly with a harsh ending, "You have the audacity to grab at me like that and then call me fat?" The questions were rhetorical of course, since the answer was obvious.

The zorua picked herself up on all four legs, ignoring the Aipom's hugs and the seemingly cheerful reunion. The zorua began to wonder what she was even doing with these two, she was an outlaw! She was a dark type! She was supposed to have gotten them out of her hair long ago, Cracker she did not mind as much, but this ralts was rubbing her fur the wrong way too much! The zorua circled around the aipom, getting it out of range as a dark sphere charged around her. This one seemed more fueled with anger and charged a bit faster that what she normally did.

The zorua unleashed a beast like snarl before shooting the pulse of dark energy horizontally towards the Ralts, there was no way it would be able to jump very high, so vertical wouldn't have been a very intelligent move. She was sick of it, she was sick of her acting strange, this ralts thinking he could do whatever he wanted, and most of all, flat out sick of the good thoughts coming to her mind. The zorua felt the need to vent, and the Ralts seemed to be the unlucky target today.

Akuroma watched as the Zorua began to charge her Dark Pulse, his eyes as uncaring as ever. When she fired it he flattened himself to the ground. Though it flew over most of his body, the red horn that protruded from his head was still too high to avoid getting hit. As the wave of dark energy passed him he stood up, 'Idiot, she's wasting her energy against me,' he thought to himself as he grimaced at Mirage.
"Satisfied?" he asked, rubbing his horn a bit before he began to walk deeper into the forest, "If you're done acting like a child and attacking one, I suggest you follow. Cracker, go back onto look out, we'll need you more than ever because my sensing capability's impaired now until I get healed," Akuroma saying calmly, his voice betraying none of the actual pain or anger he felt from his injured horn.

Cracker was in the midst of hugging the irate Zorua when she moved away sharply and cut around him to launch an attack on Akuroma. Startled, he dropped flat on his face, looking up with a frown just in time to see the Dark Pulse detonate at the base of a tree several feet behind the Ralts, who’d only managed to dodge it by the horn on his head, which was now scorched and looking quite sore.

Jumping back to his feet, the Aipom came between the two warring parties, looking rather concerned. He’d only gotten the jist of what caused the altercation—an  insult by Akuroma regarding Mirage’s weight—but the backlash seemed a bit uncalled for. Not to mention the ensuing destruction as the wounded tree creaked and slumped into an awkward angle.

And the Aipom thought he was loud enough to draw unwanted attention. That explosion would’ve been heard for miles, even in this dense forest. Having lived his entire life in one, he would know. A tree falling may or may not make a sound, but one blowing up surely would.

Worse still, Mirage still looked quite angry, possibly even more so with the Ralts trying very hard to outwardly shrug off the attack despite the painful looking wound on his red horn.

Making panicked little noises, Cracker hopped from one foot to the other, waving his arms at Mirage who didn’t look ready to end the fight.

“Uuuh-uh, Aku’s right, Mirage. I mean—not about you acting like a child or anything, but-but—that uh—” He gestured towards the totaled tree. “If we don’t get outta here quickly, we’re gonna be up to our necks in danger!”

Although acknowledging Akuroma’s instruction to return to the trees as the group’s lookout, he was hesitant to leave the two until he was sure Mirage wasn’t going to take another shot at the psychic Pokemon.

The calm response only seemed to irritate the Zorua more. Mirage had not meant to make a tree explode, but would have been much more satisfied if the ralts had been the one to explode instead. She huffed in irritation, "fine, I'll just settle this on a later date, but hell if I follow you now. I'm going this way!"

The zorua stopped for a moment, her ears twitching about as she listened for anything that could be important. Her ears stopped when she heard the faint sound of rushing water. It was perhaps a river, or a creek, or even the falls and they were just a great distance from it. Mirage did not mind, she just wanted to get away from the ralts at that moment. She had felt as if she was about to kill him. She did not want to take the coward's way out in dealing with an opponent or nuisance.

She believed that killing was only for the fearful, since by killing the opponent they will definitely no longer return to bother them. Killing an opponent is just showing that the murderer is fearful of the victim coming back stronger, and defeating the murderer later.

Mirage huffed and walked off in the direction of the running water, if it was not the waterfall, then surely it was a creek or small river that stemmed from it. She would just have to walk the opposite way the current was flowing and they would surely be there. The Zorua had decided that she'll teach the ralts a lesson once they're farther away from the leavanny and company.

This dice is not existing.

Akuroma watched the Zorua for a moment as she left the small group, "Hope she doesn't get herself killed," the Ralts said to himself as he continued down the trail.
"Come on, Cracker, she can handle herself in these woods," he said to reassure the Aipom as he walked down the trail. It wasn't long before a river began to flow opposite the trail as they went along it.
'We should be at the falls in just a few more minutes,' the Ralts said in the Aipom's head, the rushing water being too loud to hear anything.

At first Cracker thought the issue was resolved, at least for now, when Mirage spoke. Unfortunately however, her bitterness towards the Ralts fueled a rash decision to take her own path. Frowning as the Zorua walked off in the opposite direction, the Aipom turned to Akuroma, looking quite unhappy about this break-up. He knew he couldn’t handle himself alone in this forest, but he didn’t know if Zorua could either, despite the psychic Pokemon’s reassurance.

There wasn’t much of a choice in who to follow since Akuroma had already taken charge. He knew where he was going, which took priority for Cracker because he was eager to get out of this creepy forest. But he still couldn’t help worrying about Mirage.

Quickly ascending back into the trees, the Aipom continued to keep an eye on the Zorua’s movements through the forest, hoping he’d be able to keep an eye on her from a distance since all of them were still effectively moving towards the same goal; so he hoped anyway. However, following Ralts along the path, it wasn’t long until he lost sight of Mirage. With a mighty big frown, the long-tailed Pokemon dropped down to the lowest row of branches as he trailed Akuroma.

By now he and the Ralts had arrived at a noisy river, the sound of water crashing over a maze of boulders drowning out everything but Akuroma’s voice as it echoed in his head. Crackers was never going to get used to that.

“I hope she’s okay!” he called, trying to speak over the racket of the rushing water. “Do you think she’ll come back?”

Mirage looked at the river she had come to, it was different from the one the aipom and the ralts came to, it was smaller and quieter, it didn't roar like the one the others had found. The zorua examined the river, and looked up the river, against the flow, to see the river break into a wider body of water. There seemed to be a natural dam of some sort in progress. Logs of fallen trees were being caught on a boulder in the river, and the crashing water slowed to a calm stream.

The vixen merely huffed and began to follow the stream up. This stream definitely connected to the Waterfall, the Zorua had seen the waterfall several times due to her living in this area. She had never had a reason to go in through. While the Zorua walked along the stream, she began to think about the past day.

The ralts was a nuisance, and surely needed to be taught a lesson in respecting those stronger. The ralts probably would have died in just that one hit if it had taken it full on. She had not quite expected the pulse to have made the tree tip like that though. She felt pleasure bloom within her as she realized that she must have been getting stronger. She smirked and held her head high, now proud of the destruction she had caused.

Although...the zorua then began to wonder what she was to do about the ralts. She would surely be able to take on both Crackers and the Ralts, especially since the ralts could not do anything against her, should Crackers decide to fight her in alliance of the ralts. Even if she DID have trouble, maybe she could go find her old friend Ko the spiritomb to somewhere to come help her, or even that Sentret, Zack, which had helped her settle a score with that ludicolo...no...Zack was too goody-two-shoes for such a job. He may have been a thief, but he wasn't a pure thief like her. The zorua huffed, well, there was that nuisance, Kuro, she had managed to convince that she was an explorer. She could surely convince the dim Sneasel that the ralts was an outlaw tricking Crackers.

"Bah...the last time I saw Kuro was a month ago...it'd be rude to suddenly show up and ask for a favor..." The zorua huffed. For such a famous outlaw, she had few friends. Most of which seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Mirage huffed and stared at her reflection of the water, was she supposed to have friends in the first place? She was an outlaw! A Dark type! If she continued down this path she would surely only become unable to steal, and nobody would give her a job, and she would starve on the side of the streets!

The zorua growled in frustration, 'What do I DO!?' she thought.

Akuroma shrugged at the Aipom's question, only able to hear it because of the mind link he had with the monkey pokemon. Soon the scenery around the two pokemon changed slightly. Glowing blue mushrooms grew around them, and the earth in front of them stood tens of feet above them. However the two pokemon weren't alone, as an enemy stood in their way.
'Gah, and it's been so easy to get here after we split from Mirage,' Akuroma said.

(*prays to the dice gods to give him an Extremely rare roll*)

This dice is not existing.

Mightyena's attacks - Fire Fang/Tackle/Bite/Howl

Continuing to frown, the Aipom followed along quietly. Even though he’d only just met these two earlier today, he was already missing Mirage. Not just because she was a force to be reckoned with and thus an able protector for a coward like Cracker, but because he actually liked her. Perhaps it was because she wasn’t as rude as Akuroma, or maybe he was just smitten by her lone-ranger act.

At any rate, far as he knew she was long gone, so he had to rely on the Ralts to get out of this place. Luckily the psychic Pokemon required his services as a scout, so there was a mutual benefit to be gained. And he was about to earn his keep as a pair of eyes and ears because a ways up the river they arrived at a deep, wide waterfall, just as Akuroma had promised.

There was one small problem though; and it was a big one. Standing at the edge of the river was a Mightyena, lapping at the water. He’d spotted it just before the Ralts’ voice entered his mind, sounding terribly displeased by this sudden development.

“What do we do?” the Aipom squeaked from his roost in the tree, trying to hide behind a bit of foliage. “It’s looks so scary!”

Whether it heard Cracker’s voice or just sensed their presence, the Mightyena raised its head and turned to face them, a snarl quickly spreading across its face. It didn’t look happy at all, and to further cement that it planned to defend its territory, the dark-type Pokemon unleashed a sharp Howl, raising its own attack power in preparation. Next, it turned to face its opponents, identifying the Ralts and the Aipom in the tree before locking onto the psychic-type.

Digging its claws into the earth, Mightyena prepared for what looked to be a powerful Tackle attack.

Mirage huffed, nobody could answer her question...even if someone could, their opinion would be biased based on what side they were aligned with. The zorua tore her gaze away from the river, and continued down, turning as the river turned and connected to the lake. She stopped when she heard a loud howl of a mightyena. Mightyena were dangerous in this forest, they often carried the elemental fangs that usually messed many explorers up.

"I wonder..." said Mirage aloud, wondering if the aipom was safe. The zorua sat down by the river bank for a moment, before becoming cloaked in the red haze that disguised her. She stood up and took a step forward, her appearance changing and shimmering with each step until her form changed completely. She was unsure of what she appeared to be, since she did not concentrate enough to give particular details.

The zorua made her way through the foliage, towards the sound of the howl. Her earrings tinkling slightly as her ears moved and her paws moved her forward. She was curious, and surely just being curious as to what the mightyena was fighting didn't mean she was concerned for the unfortunate victims' safety!

((She's a cacturne |D))

Akuroma gave a loud "Oof!" when the Mightyena tackled him, causing him to skid backwards. He gave a small growl to counteract the dark type's increased attack before using Confusion on the stones along the banks of the river to shoot at the Mightyena.
'Cracker, try to attack it, but make sure not to get between me and it or I might accidentally hit you,' the Ralts said to the Aipom before glancing over towards his direction and seeing a Caturne, 'Below you!'
He then began firing rocks at both of the dark type pokemon, not realizing the Caturne to be Mirage in disguise.

(not very smart, would've been better to just hide and watch)

When the Mightyena lurched into an attack on the Ralts, Cracker yelped as though it’d been him that were struck instead. This was all too much; that dark-type Pokemon looked way too strong to take on alone, and with a psychic-type Pokemon’s attacks like Akuroma’s having minimal effect, the Aipom was the only one that could do any real damage.

After taking the attacker’s hit like a champ, Ralts was already attempting to use his Confusion attack in an unconventional manner, but the hail of stones from the river-bed was doing little to deter the large canine. Already rearing up for another attack, it took a few hard hits but kept on moving, the stones smashing to pieces around it.

Once again Akuroma’s voice echoed in the Aipom’s head, ordering him to attack the ferocious Pokemon charging towards them.

“Are you nuts?!” he squeaked in terror. “That thing’s way too—”

The Ralts cut him short with a warning, causing him to take his eyes off the Mightyena for just a moment to spy the Cacturne below him peering out from behind the tree. At that moment, the biting Pokemon, who looked like he was aiming his next attack at Akuroma, shifted at the last second and leapt sharply to the side, planting all four feet on the truck of a nearby tree in order to launch itself at Cracker.

The Aipom refocused on the Mightyena just in time to see it inbound, bearing its teeth for a Bite attack. Wailing in surprise, the long-tailed Pokemon leapt off the branch, narrowly avoiding the assault and causing the dark-type Pokemon to latch onto and bite right through the branch instead.

Without his perch, Cracker tumbled through the air, barely catching himself on his tail as he skidded to a stop on the ground below. Stones were still hailing down around him as the Mightyena leapt down from the tree, spitting out bits of bark and preparing to strike again.

Cracker stood poised on his tail and frozen with fear as the Mightyena locked eyes with him, suddenly unable to move forward thanks to the downpour of stones. Maybe this is my chance! he thought. Ralts had told him to attack after all, but up until now he was petrified of being attacked. With the dark-type unable to move, he might be able to get a swing in.

There was only one direct attack that Cracker knew, but he had to give it a shot. So, in one fell swoop, the Aipom sprang off his tail towards the Mightyena, raising one arm to charge his strongest Scratch attack. He swung down at the Pokemon’s face as hard as he could and…

The Mightyena caught him cleanly, and painfully, in its mouth. Which wasn’t even the worst of it. The bite hurt a lot, but then the dark-type bit down even harder and a searing hot blaze of fire erupted from its mouth. Cracker’s screeched in agony as the Fire Fang attack took effect. He was trapped in the Mightyena’s mouth for only a few seconds as it shook him around like a rag-doll before tossing him into the river.

The rocks flew straight through the cacturne, since Mirage was shorter than what she appeared to be, and left the Zorua gazing at the scene of soaring rocks that pelted through the air like bullets, and the aipom-turned-rag doll. The zorua snarled at the mightyena, trying to get its attention, and had the illusion put on an intimidating front. The mightyena seemed to flinch for a moment due to this new opponent being bigger than it.

"Its me you moron!" Mirage growled to the ralts as the "cacturne's" arms swung back and forth and stepped closer to the mightyena. The zorua began to have a sphere of dark matter begin to surround her once, for the third or fourth time that day she was going to use Dark Pulse. It would not do much damage to the mightyena due to the similar typing, but it would help in further convincing it that she was a bigger and badder opponent that was not to be messed with.

The mightyena seemed to have some sort of confidence though, thanks to its fire fang, and leaped at the "Cacturne" only to fly straight through it like the stones of earlier died. The mightyena landed on the other side of the illusion disguised fox, confused as to why the attack did not connect. It turned around just in time to be stuck across the snout by the pulse of dark energy. The Mightyena howled in pain, and backed away, trying to determine just what was amiss here.

The canine decided to try attacking the feet of the large dark and grass type, and through a stroke of luck it managed to connect to Mirage. The grey fox yelped as she was tackled through a red haze, which was her disguise being forcefully removed, and it seemed like she was falling out of a cacturne shaped cloud.

Mirage looked around, "Where's the long tail?" she shouted to Aku for the second time that day, as the Mightyena howled in victory of discovering the strange reason behind the cacturne's ability to be invincible to an attack. The mightyena licked its lips sadistically, it did not seem to mind adding a third opponent to the mix.

Akuroma watched as the Mightyena got a hit on Cracker before throwing the monkey past him and into the river. He didn't let the Aipom get far, using his Confusion attack to grab a hold of the Monkey and pull him out of the river.
He looked back at the Caturne's direction, hearing Mirage's voice, "You idiot! Don't go disguising yourself like that or we'll attack you!" he yelled out, momentarily losing his concentration on the confusion attack and dropping the Aipom it was holding back into the river. However, he focused back and brought the monkey safely to shore before looking at the Mightyena.