Obsessing and Stressing

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Mission Infos:

Shadowhue was known for being dark, hence the name.  So dark that in some of the more densely forested areas it could be difficult to tell the time of day.  It was far darker at night.  It seemed as if this place was now the definition of darkness.  Visibility was little more than a few feet, making for an eerie and dangerous environment.  To top it all off, it was freezing....

Acually, the cold was more of a plus side for a certain glaceon who had decided to venture into the dark woods.  Sova had found that since evolving, he enjoyed the cold.  Likely because of his new ice typing.  One thing was not in a hurry to learn was how he handled something like desert heat now.

"Love what you've done with the place."  The icy fox sarcastically commented to the darkness that was Shadowhue Forest.  It wasn't like he had anyone to talk to.  May as well get used to talking to himself.  At least that would help keep his mind from wandering and playing tricks on him in the darkness.  Or maybe it would do the opposite.  Either way, he was here for the purpose of completing missions and no overly creepy atmosphere was going to stop him.

(37 energy NINJA EDIT)

Linus flinched upon the very thought of him being an outlaw, he couldn't handle that. That wouldn't be what his mother had wanted. He shook his head when the Glaceon spoke of a murkrow outlaw, even though it had already been established that Linus was indeed not the bird this Glaceon was looking for. The small crow looked to their own client, wondering if the bad pokemon would attack it. Since they weren't the one going after the outlaw, it shouldn't bother them right?

"How about we work together?" Acro spoke.

Welp there went that plan.

Acro seemed to be a bit more upbeat now that he had gotten over his anger with Sova for toying with him. He continued, "You can even keep the rewards on your missions and we to our's. I'm not under the apprenticeship of Grassveil anymore, I moved to Ailreon now that I can fly," The archeops seemed rather proud to tell the Glaceon. He couldn't help but roll in the glory of it, when did he ever get to show off such things anyways?

Sova nodded in response to the archeops' suggestion.  "I'm not really doing it for the rewards, but I'd love to team up.  Show you I'm not a side dish any more. I'm the whole menu."  He joked, referencing Acro's past accusations of him being nothing more than free food.

In hindsight, it probably seemed as if when he stated he wasn't doing it for the rewards, he meant he was doing it to help others.  That couldn't be farther from the truth.  His main reason for doing missions was to put his "team" at a high status, so no one could look down on him.  He didn't view the whole saving others thing to be very important any more since if he didn't do it, someone else would.  It didn't really make him feel good about himself either.  It never did.  The only thing he had to gain was reputation.

Acro nodded, "Going after a Murkrow right? My Ancient Power aught to do the trick, and you appear to be an ice type?" The archeops guessed. He used his experience to connect that usually light blue or white pokemon were in the ice typing. The murkrow should be easy as cake with the two of them, he seemed pretty confident, he was practically a new bird compared to his old self, and he was proud of it!

Linus, however, merely remained silent. Having to fight another murkrow? He did not have anything effective against one of his own. The bird gave a sigh, and looked up, noticing a strange purple shape above the two. The wigglytuff was playing with its evolution item, and the Glaceon and Archeops were too busy chatting to notice the figure.
"U-U-Uh...g-g-g-guys?" the murkrow attempted to speak, pointing with his wing up at the figure above them. His stuttering rendered him incapable of finishing the sentence and warning them of the Venomoth above.

"Yep. Looking for some big apples too." Sova added on. In truth, he hated missions involving looking for items, but he also had a soft spot for his own kind. His client happened to be an eevee. The moment he saw that on the mission description, he had already decided to take it. The fact that he wanted to do more than one mission in one outing with few missions in the same places to choose from also helped.

He turned his to the murkrow who was....attempting to speak. He looked in the direction the wing was pointing to see a big purple moth. Instead of attacking or attempting to communicate, he simply stared at it. It stared back, not immediately attacking either. "Hi...." He finally said up to the venomoth. Its response was more staring, which, despite not actually being a threat, was starting to really creep him out.

Linus and Acro stared back at the venomoth, while the wigglytuff still seemed completely oblivious to the current events. It did not seem like it was going to attack, so Acro began to think that maybe it was staring at them out of fear. He continued to stare at the Venomoth, but spoke, "I don't think its going to attack, might just be scared..."

Linus swallowed though, if this thing was scared, why was it not fleeing? If it was paralyzed with fear, how could it remain flying? The bird began to back away slowly, "I-I-I th-th-think we sh-should g-g-g-get out of he-he-here..." the murkrow spoke uneasily, still incapable of completing his sentence. There was too many strangers around, he barely knew Acro, he knew nothing of the client, knew nothing of the venomoth, and knew nothing of the Glaceon. What was he to do in a world where he pretty much knew nobody? Why would his mother do this to him?

Sova nodded at Acro's statement, though he kept his eyes focused on the venomoth. It wasn't attacking, yet he really wanted to just hit it and get this suspenseful event over with. Then the murkrow attempting to use words to speak yet again took the glaceon's attention away from this apparent creeper. "Relax, it has a severe type disadvantage and it's pretty heavily outnumbered. Even if it tried to attack, it wouldn't get very far." He attempted to reassure the murkrow, at the same time making sure he was audible enough for the venomoth to hear as well.

As if in response to him, the purple moth fluttered down closer to them, redirecting its creepy gaze between Sova and Acro all the while. "Dude, you're starting to creep me out." The glaceon replied to this display of....what ever it was, in the hopes of eliciting some reaction other than creepy staring. But to no avail.

Acro seemed to grow more uneasy as well, the creeper stressing him out as he was unsure of whether or not to attack the opponent or not. He was not doing anything, but he was making himself seem threatening. The archeops began to glow a purplish color once more, and the boulders he had dropped earlier raised once more. The boulders hung threateningly over the Archeops's head, ready to crash down onto the Venomoth if it decided to attack.

Linus, meanwhile, had made a strategic retreat into the bushes behind them. He led the client with him, who was still oblivious to the situation surprisingly. Linus figured that if a fight broke out, it would be best to keep the client away from the fight, so that way he would not become harmed. The murkrow peeked out of the bushes, wondering just what would happen, and if he should join in on the combat if one broke out.

The venomoth continued to stare, still not speaking or making a move to attack.  "Hey, do you know how to speak?"  Sova questioned to the moth, to which he received a quiet, "Yeeeeeeees."  This would normally be good news.  It was speaking and the voice actually didn't sound creepy.  The only problem was the sound had come from behind him....

He quickly spun around to see....the venomoth?  He looked back to the original venomoth to make sure he wasn't seeing things.  Sure enough, there seemed to be two of them.  This encounter was just getting weirder and weirder.  Why couldn't it have just been someone wanting to fight?  Even that seemed far better than what ever this was.

"Oh....hi."  The glaceon managed to say through his shock, pretending the venomoth wasn't geting to him.  Of course it was just a facade as he was most definitely creeped out.

(Double Team. That is all.)

Acro's head turned to see that they suddenly had a venomoth on both sides of them. Linus and the client were nowhere to be seen, and he began to feel a growing sense to attack inside. He put on a determined look and spoke, "Look, I don't want any trouble, but please stop this and we'll get on our way. You are not what we are looking for, so you have no reason to pick a fight with us." The archeops's boulders now split, hovering above both of the Venomoths, just waiting for the command to smash down onto them.

Linus watched the situation, he was about to step in and do something, but the client decided it was time to hug him. The wigglytuff's arms wrapped tightly around him, "I'm scarrreed" the wigglytuff cried, practically smothering the poor murkrow. Linus struggled to get free, but the strength of the wigglytuff out did his own. He flailed and tried to squawk or something, but the grip was just too tight...

Sova turned back to the original venomoth to see there were now three there. They'd only turned around for a second, how was this possible? Then it clicked in his head, he realized what was happening. "That's a nice trick. Creepy, but only one of you is actually any threat." He stated to the venomoth, to which it replied by creating a few more duplicates on both sides, which seemed to be forming a circle around the archeops and the glaceon. It seemed that the venomoth was no longer worried about hiding its trick now that it had been called out.

Acro decided that this was enough fooling around, the pokemon was surrounding them in a threatening way, he was going to take action before it set up too much. The boulders split apart and smashed down into some doubles, the doubles disappearing as the boulders lost their power as they destroyed the duplicates. It was not long before the archeops started having doubles of his own, several archeops now covered the feel along with the several venomoths, "I'm just going to take this as he wants to battle," the archeops spoke, "Bad things happen when things try to surround you.."

Linus attempted to reason with the client, but his failure at speaking just made stutters and incomprehensible jabber. He tried to free himself, but everytime he grew close to being free, the wigglytuff would just grab him again and re-adjust his hug to be even more deathly tight than before. The murkrow did not want to attack the client, but he wondered if he was eventually going to have to resort to it. He could not see what was going on, so he could only assume the worst.

Sova watched the archeops attempt to attack, only hitting fake doubles. "Well, it's not really surrounding when they aren't real." He noted, having become bored of the venomoth now that its trick was found out.

What to do, what to do. Attacking the venomoth was an option, sure, but it wasn't attacking or even showing any signs of aggression. At least not to him. He noticed Acro seemingly multiplying as well, had the archeops learned Double Team? He didn't recall Acro ever using that move before, at least. But it seemed the archeops was going to attack regardless. He wasn't about to let his ally have to fight alone, even if he didn't see any particular reason to fight. At the very least, they could just locate the real venomoth and force it to tell them what it was trying to do.

The glaceon fired a few Ice Beams at a few of the venomoths, which all turned out to be duplicates, disappearing as they were hit. A few more took their place, so he sped up his firing in an attempt to get rid of them faster than they could duplicate. Hopefully, Acro would add enough assistance to be able to get rid of all of them and find the real one.

Acro had been busy using Iron Tail on the different duplicates to have heard the Glaceon. Duplicates disappeared one by one, frustrating the Archeops more and more with each failure that seemed to have been replaced by two more each time he made one disappeared. The entire field was filled with the venomoths now, and they all merely taunted the explorers with smug looks, "Can't touch this," the venomoths laughed.

Linus, meanwhile finally freed himself from the client's grasp, and asked the Wigglytuff to just wait there. He promised the client that everything was fine, they just needed to go take care of an enemy real quick. The murkrow flew into the trees above the battle, looking down and watching the fray. He watched the group carefully below, they all did not seem to be attacking, but just levitating there and laughing at the explorer's misery.
He had to do something.
The murkrow took a deep breath, before diving down and attacking the first venomoth he spotted with a Peck attack. He was surprised to find that he had made contact with a physical body! He cried out, "H-Here!" before being blown back by a Silver Wind from the Venomoth.

As he attacked away at the clones, Sova heard the voice of the murkrow. It was definitely the murkrow he was thinking of, due to the stuttering. He quickly directed his attention to where the cry had come from, seeing the murkrow being attacked.... Attacked? He located the source of the Silver Wind, the real venomoth, and darted to it using Quick Attack. He simply ran through any duplicates that tried to get in his way in the process.

As he neared the venomoth, it noticed him and began flapping to get away, only to have a wing be hit by an Ice Beam. This stalled the moth's flight just long enough for the glaceon to leap off the ground into it, having froze his fur into needles to make it just that much more painful. He latched on to the venomoth's back due to being a living cactus, dragging it down to the ground with a loud thud, with him landing on top of it. It made a wonderful cushion.

Acro turned sharply as he heard his partner's cry and watched the Venomoth get assaulted by Sova as the glaceon reacted faster than him in attacking it. While the two fell to the ground and Sova seemed to be resting leisurely on the Venomoth's back, the doubles from Double team disappeared one by one until the real one was the only one left. Acro called off his own doubles, and looked for his partner, desiring to thank him for finding the Venomoth.

Linus yelped as the Silver Wind struck him, the powerful attack having done great damage to the rather weak dark and flying type. The murkrow fell, not being able to see the Glaceon's act of heroism in attacking the Venomoth with his own body. The Client, Wigglytuff, rushed out of the bushes, "Birdiiiiiiiie!" he cried, scooping up the knocked out Murkrow and crushing Linus in a concerned hug.