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)

"Woo!", Sova shouted with a hop before darting back over to the opponents. The two bug warriors glowed for a moment as the flabebe healed them once again. To the glaceon's surprise, the glow enveloped the honchkrow and himself soon after, without them even asking. He felt rejuvenated though, he wasn't going to object to free healing.

Then the heracross spoke up. "Wanna make this interesting? Lets make a bet. I'll bet a Cacnea Spike and a Blast Seed on us.", he suggested.

"I like the sounds of that. I'll put up a Reviver Seed. Our stuff's over by that tree.", the pincir agreed and pointed to a tree with a few items setting under it, out of the way of the fight. "So what do you say?"

Sova didn't even need to think about it. They were saying "bet", but all he was hearing was "free stuff." There was no need to consider. "Alright, I'll offer up a Lum Berry. That is, if Linus here wants to have some fun.", he replied and looked over to the bird in the hopes he wouldn't wuss out. They could surely win, this was basically just an offer for free supplies.

"All I really have is this Joy Ribbon Cloak thing..." Linus spoke, pointing at his Joy Cloak. The honchkrow took a deep breath, the Wish taking effect and rejuvenating him. The honchkrow flared out his wings, ready to take off into the air as soon as one of them dashed for him, waiting for the attack so he could counter. He was prepared to simply stand there and wait if need be, though his impatience might just be his downfall in this fight, as he felt the time ticking by, and the desire to go looking for the phantump increasing with every minute.

Acro's jaw fell as the Honchkrow offered the Joy Cloak up for the bet. He had given him that to help him out! Why was he offering it up so easily? He sighed, figuring that it was because of the recent events. This only harmed the Archeops's feelings more, and more depressed. He looked on to the battle, his eyes a bit dull with sadness.

Sova looked over the cloak. It looked like it was probably worth a lot.... then they'd just have to win and make sure the overgrown murkrow kept his cloak thing. "We goin' all out ooor?", he asked, curious of the ground rules.

"Well, we plan to. Hopefully you'll do the same. It'd be boring if you didn't....", the heracross replied and slammed his bug-fists together.

The glaceon's fur immediately began freezing over upon hearing that he didn't have to hold back. He'd noticed his fur seemed to be not only freezing, but coating over with a layer of ice to make his defense even stronger as of late. Perhaps he was just getting stronger. He spread his legs into a battle-ready position in preparation for the fight and smirked as he waited, the anticipation getting to him.

The flabebe floated above them, waiting to make sure they were all done talking before shouting, "Begin!"

The honchkrow took off into the air, deciding against merely waiting and rushing in with a Peck attack. The honchkrow gained some height before diving towards the Pinsir, his beak growing longer as he neared the enemy. His thoughts were clouded as he focused on the fight, paying attention to the attacks he was giving, but he was rather nervous about the fight. If they were going all out, what if something on him broke? What if his wings got clipped? He would never be able to fly! The hesitation got to him, and ended up giving the opponent enough time to dodge.

Acro watched as Linus made the first move, ultimately failing as the pinsir sidestepped the bird. He felt a bit bad, the bird was rather inexperienced in combat from what he knew, he was probably going to get beaten pretty badly in the fight. Should he allow them to continue? He thought for a moment, and decided that if things got a bit too ugly for his liking he would intervene, even if it meant getting harmed in the process.

Sova watched as Linus made the first move, only to be disappointed by a sad performance. He sighed and shook his head before jumping into the fight himself. Though he was doing this for the honchkrow, not himself, so he wasn't going to try to end this battle quickly. He wanted to see what Linus could do first. As the pinsir slammed its arms onto the ground, Sova was cut off by the heracross. He moved to get around it, but it simply moved with him and blocked his path.

Improvising a quick way to get out of this and make sure Linus wasn't hit, he fired an Ice Beam at the ground to the left of the heracross and darted in that direction, halting abruptly before darting to the right. The bipedal bug followed him as he'd expected, slipping on the icy patch left on the ground by the Ice Beam as it tried to stop and turn. By this time, large rocks were being blasted out of the ground around the pinsir in the direction of the airborne bird. The glaceon took a moment to aim before focusing his energy into a more potent Ice Beam and firing it at the pinsir, hitting it in the face and at least making it more difficult to aim as more boulders flew out of the ground from the Rock Tomb. He looked in the direction of Linus to see if the bird had managed to successfully avoid them all.

The honchkrow flapped his wings, avoiding the boulders just barely. He gave a caw before gathering his courage and charging straight for the pinsir, keeping low to the ground as he flew before finally smashing into the brown pokemon with his large shining beak. The pinsir cried out, but closed the pincers on the Honckrow as he attempted to fly through them to get away from the Pinsir's arm and not get grabbed. The plan failed as the pincers snapped onto the honchkrow, the thorns of the horn digging into the honchkrow and causing him to cry out and struggle to free himself. The talons of his feet raked against the bug's head, but failed to force him to release.

Acro watched, the fight getting a bit nasty for the honchkrow as he was grabbed.
'Stupid move, should have swerved to the side,' he thought, judging the honchkrow's battle abilities. He had never really seen the honchkrow fight, especially as a honchkrow. All he had seen was Linus as a murkrow get knocked out by a silver wind, that wasn't much of a battle to judge strength off of.

Sova sighed at yet another poor display by the bird. He was a honchkrow on the outside, but he seemed to still have the fighting instincts and skill of a murkrow. As he focused on aiming again, one of his ears twitched in response to a sound from behind. He spun around and fired an Ice Beam at the heracross who was charging him, stopping it in its tracks before charging straight into it. It responded by opening its palms and forcefully outstretching an arm towards the glaceon, only to be smacked away by Sova's ice-covered tail with a spin. Before he could block again, however, a second Arm Thrust slammed right into the glaceon's chest. However, instead of recoiling, he took the pain and bit onto the heracross' wrist as it attempted to pull its arm away, keeping it right where it was.

He spun yet again, still holding the bug warrior's arm and pulling it forward, before releasing and swatting his tail under its legs, tripping it onto its back. He quickly spun back around and fired another Ice Beam in the direction of the pinsir. Both protecting himself and protecting Linus at the same time was proving difficult.... His attention was currently so caught up in precisely aiming to not hit the honchkrow that he didn't notice the heracross getting back up and charging towards him with its head bowed down and its horn in front of it.

The ice beam struck the pinsir, forcing it to release the Honchkrow. Linus looked in the direction of the glaceon to see that the Heracross was charging straight towards the Glaceon with its horn. He reacted quickly, repaying the favor the Glaceon had done by swerving around with his talons extended and colliding with the Heracross's horn with his feet. The impact was painful, but it swerved the direction of the attack in a completely different direction as Linus dragged him away from the glaceon. The heracross struggled to free itself and slam Linus about, but the Honchkrow held on, determined to not let go.

Acro watched from the sidelines, flinching at the impacts and resisting the urge to warn Sova. This was a fair match, he was not to intrude. Besides, Linus would probably lose his cloak if he interjected. The archeops was forced to remain, the shroomish near him standing watch in both amazement and amusement.

Sova turned his head to follow as the bird flew by him, halting an oncoming attack. He smirked, THIS was good. Maybe Linus had some hope after all. Seeing that the crow still seemed like he could use some assistance, the glaceon darted into the heracross with Quick Attack, his icy spike armor making contact with its shell and breaking for the most part, a few jagged edges making their way through and causing wounds. The horned bug stumbled back in recoil, giving a moment for Linus to safely get away from it.

"That was good, but you can do better. Focus, plan out your attacks.", he explained to the honchkrow, in the middle of the battle as if it was nothing more than a tutorial.
He turned just in time to se a faint white glow surround the pinsir. "Oh, that looks fun.", he sarcastically commented before darting towards the other bug with Quick Attack. He had yet to get face to face with this one, it seemed about time that changed.

(Pinsir used Focus Energy. Pinsir is now 100% more badass, money back guarantee!)

The honchkrow released the heracross from his grip, not quite listening to the glaceon but more busy focusing on not getting smashed by the horn that was now flailing in the air attempting to strike him. Lucky for the flying type, these things didn't seem to have any ranged attacks. Linus flapped his wings just out of the heracross's reach. Linus, deciding that it wasn't much of a threat seeing as he could not reach the bird, turned to the Pinsir to assist sova, still flying in the air but charging a dark pulse to fire directly at the pinsir.

Acro watched the battle, the frustrated heracross attempting to reach Linus, but ultimately failing. The bird's back was turned, and the heracross finally ceased his attempts and formed a different plan. He watched as the bug type quickly moved to the shroomishes, plucking one from the audience and rushing back towards the fray. It threw the shroomish ahead of it, and used the grass type as a launch pad as it jumped onto it, and then launched off of it and right into Linus. Acro blinked in surprised, a bit appalled that the bug type would do that, as Linus screeched and was grounded.

Sova's attention was taken to the heracross as it used a spectator as a springboard.... ROOD. He once again found himself having to save Linus' ass. He darted into the heracross, his icy armor having repaired its self by now just to be smashed into the bipedal beetle again. He tumbled onto the ground with it, ending up on top. As he prepared an Ice Beam, however, he felt the sharp pain of lots and lots of pointy rocks strike him in the side, in a very specific area as if they were precisely funneled to hit his ribs.

He screamed in pain as he was knocked off the heracross, surprisingly able to stay conscious, but no longer able to watch out for the honchkrow.... He watched as he struggled to get up, the pinsir sending another flurry of the rocks heading right out of the ground towards the bird. It looked like Stone Edge, but it was a bit more precise than what he knew the move to usually be. It was as if the pinsir was targeting specific spots.... He could only hope Linus could dodge this, as he could barely manage to stand after being hit by it and he was currently in no position to save the bird.

Linus had barely been able to stand up, he turned his head and his eyes widened as he spotted sharp stones rocketing straight towards him. He did not even have time to cry out, let alone avoid it. The stones smashed into the bird, hitting rather important parts of the body and sending him into the shrubbery. A fresh wave of pain, worse than the one of the silver wind from earlier, washed over him and drowned him. He remained awake, but limp. He could hardly think straight, he heard voices and saw shapes, but he knew not what they belonged to.

Acro squawked in fear as he saw his partner get struck by such a dangerous attack. The archeops rushed towards the spot the honchkrow had landed, "Linus? Linus!" he spoke, dragging the body out of the bushes so he layed out on the floor. He heard a groan, signaling that the bird was still alive, but obviously incapable of fighting. The archeops sighed, and wondered what they were going to do about this now? Was the flabebe going to heal the honchkrow or were they on their own?

Sova sighed once again and shrugged.  "Ah, well, that's too bad....  Hopefully he at least learned something.", he said as he stretched his front legs out in front of him.  Now he had no reason to hold back, as Linus clearly wasn't going to be of any more use; he didn't need to stall the fight out for the bird to learn more.  He noticed the flabebe fluttering down to the downed bird who had Acro already looking after him, probably to heal him if he was hurt badly enough.

The glaceon's head almost mechanically clicked around to the direction of the heracross as he heard it get up, his focus suddenly completely set on the fight.  It charged towards him with its horn out in front of it, to which he responded by lifting himself onto his front paws and slamming them down on the horn, knocking the heracross' head into the ground.  A wave of pain shot through his body at the sudden movements aggravating his recent injuries.  His vision began to blur and his hearing faded slightly, as if the sounds inside of his head were being amplified to blare over everything else.  For a moment, it was nothing, then it was a familiar voice.  "Let me handle this...."

He suppressed the weakening urge to let this demonic cheat code take over and ducked as he noticed the familiar stones coming at him, narrowly avoiding them.  Before another set of stones could be shot at him, he was in the pinsir's face with the help of Quick Attack.  There was ABSOLUTELY no way he was going to not only lose to these two, but be dictated by some insane asshat living in his head.  The pinsir's arms began to glow purple in preparation for an X-Scissor, but this was ceased by an Ice Beam to the chest, followed by a tail slap right in the face.  But it didn't end there, the glaceon then swiped his tail under the living set of pincers' legs and spun around quickly enough to slam his tail into its chest before it could hit the ground, knocking it back and tumbling into unconsciousness.

The sounds of the approaching heracross were made clear to the glaceon's ears once again and he spun around to see the bug's horn glowing green, one arm glowing a faint rusty red color and the other arm glowing dark purple.  He raised his head and lifted his chin as he took a step back, avoiding an uppercut from the bug's horn before swiftly dropping his body low to the ground to dodge an outward thrust of the heracross' rusty-glowing arm.  When it was the purple-hued arm's turn, instead of trying to dodge more, the glaceon used the position he was in to his advantage and spun, slamming his tail into the heracross' arm.  Its arm was knocked back and its body seemed to be dragged with it, causing it to stumble backwards before being hit in the chest by an Ice Beam.

Before it could even grab hold of its pained chest with its other arm, the glaceon was in its face, lifting himself up on his front legs and spinning so his tail could reach the bug's head.  It recoiled, but refused to fall, both of its arms taking on the faint rusty glow as it slammed both of its arms forward.  Sova ducked under the Arm Thrusts before leaping up and ramming himself into the heracross' chest, knocking it to the ground.  Before it could get back up yet again, he propped himself completely upright on his front paws, spinning idly for a moment like some kind of really weird spinning top before tipping himself towards the heracross, letting gravity do the rest.

Much of the ice on his tail broke against the heracross' face from the impact, knocking it unconscious.  The glaceon couldn't help but fall to the ground before even placing his back legs on the ground, extremely dizzy due to all the spinning he'd been doing.  Like, REALLY dizzy.  The injuries and exhaustion probably weren't helping either....

(Heracross' three moves used were Megahorn, Arm Thrust and Night Slash.)

The flabebe cast a wish onto the Honchkrow, trying to heal the bird. The honchkrow felt the rejuvenating effects once more, but there was more for the wish to fix than last time, and took longer. Linus managed to get to his feet however, a bit wobbly and having to flare his wings out and flap them in order to keep his balance and prevent him from falling over. The large crow shook his head, trying to clear it from the dazed status it was currently in.

Once Linus was found to be fine, the Archeops turned towards the Glaceon, to see that he had knocked out both of the combatants, but with difficulty.
"S-Sova?" he asked, wondering if the glaceon was okay. He approached the glaceon, "D-do you need the flabebe to help out?"
There was a clapping sound from the left of Acro, towards the shroomish crowd that had gathered to stop and stare at the fight. He blinked, spotting a small, stumpy, and ghostly pokemon sitting on one of the heads of the shroomish, clapping its ghostly hands and giggling cheerfully.
"That was fun! That was fun!" it cried.

A sound.  Linus' voice.  Good, that meant neither the bird nor Sova himself were dead.  He lifted his head and looked in the direction of the voice, to see three blurry and unfocused tan splotches approaching.  "Ohaaaaaaiy....  Why.... why's there three of you?  Didju learn double team!?", he questioned, slurring his words a bit in the daze he was in.  "Waaait....  Did you.... say something?"

He may or not have spun around just a LIIIIIIIIIITTLE too much.  If there was one thing he'd learned from this fight; it was that he definitely wasn't cut out for being a ballerina....