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)

Sova gasped for breath as the vice grip around his neck was released. As he no longer had to focus on keeping his little icy shield up, the cracks all over it caused it to fall apart, not that he needed it now. As the venomoth got back up and scattered powder at Arco, the glaceon darted into it with Quick Attack, knocking it to the ground before freezing the fur on his tail into needles and swatting the moth in the head as it attempted to get back up, knocking it out.

He thought he'd noticed a light, as if from something evolving, but it was gone before he could verify what it had been from. Then, mist seemed to suddenly begin showing up out of nowhere as if oozing from the ground, making it harder and harder to see by the second. In moments, he'd lost visibility of Linus.

The glaceon heard an echoey feminine giggle, which he found to be impossible to trace the source of even with his big ears. The giggle was followed up by somewhat of an introduction. "Hi! Looks like you've already met my friends.... So now it's my turn!" The voice was actually painful to his ears at times, when the echoes were loudest.

Through the mist, he saw something terrifying. The venomoth he'd just knocked out glowed for a moment and with a flap of its wings, raised its self back into the air.... He was certain he had at the very least hit it hard for it to not get back up so easily. This whole situation was getting eerie and hard to comprehend.

Acro looked around, unable to see much through the mist.

"Astrid...Rusty...George...and little Tallulah," a voice spoke to him. Acro turned, the voice seemed to be coming from everywhere. Practically everyone could hear it, the archeops looked around, trying to find the source only to get struck by the Venomoth. He attempted to strike back, but the creature disappeared into the mist before he could even think.

"So young Astrid was, so strong George was, so thoughtful Rusty was, and so terrified Tallulah was..."

Where was it? How could he get it to shut up?

"The voices, the voices, how they would not shut up. How they taunted, how they jeered, and how they would torture. All because of you, all because you were not strong enough, not confident enough, all because you could barely even take care of yourself!"

"Shut up!" Acro cried, looking frantically for the source of the voice.

"You were not worthy of George, he got out of there, he KNEW. What he told you back at serene cave? It was all because he pitied you. He wasn't being honest, Rusty could not stand being with you a second longer! Oh, wait, he probably died."

"Shut Up Shut Up!" Acro cried in rage, his body beginning to glow purple as rocks and boulders collected themselves around the archeops in almost a whirlwind. The venomoth attempted to attack the bird once more, but a rock had smashed into it and sent it flying. A light disappeared within the Venomoth, before it was brought back to full health yet again.

"Astrid wouldn't have died if not for your own stupidity. You could have prevented it, but no. You stood around like a little baby, crying for his mummy, and what about Tallulah? That look of fear as you failed her. Why, you haven't seen her since that day have you? She's been avoiding you hasn't she? Doesn't want to get caught up in your little curse hmmm? Even your little girlfriend couldn't love you after that now could she?"

The rocks around Acro flung themselves in different directions, getting weaker as the Archeops grew more and more exhausted. Tears were welling within his eyes, 'it's right..' he thought, 'everything is true...it's all because of me..'

Linus listened on as the voice spoke, hearing Acro cry for the voice to silence itself. The honchkrow continued to struggle free, wishing to help his distressed leader. However he paused, learning of Acro's previous teammates, the stuff Acro never told him about. Linus was still pinned by the Forretress, unable to move much.

A deep pit was felt in his stomach, were all those pokemon named off previous friends of the Archeops's that had perished or suffered some kind of horrible fate? Was that going to happen to him? The honchkrow was frozen, having stopped struggling to listen to the voice.

Should he give up on being an explorer after all? Perhaps find a different team? He didn't want to die, he was too young to do so! The honchkrow swallowed, wondering what kind of curse had been placed on the archeops to give those around him this kind of trouble. What should he do? Just what should he do?!

Sova listened, due to the fact that he couldn't really do much else.  He didn't even know what was going on, but the voice seemed to be talking about Acro, who was spazzing out and recklessly flailing rocks around everywhere.  The glaceon backed away and narrowly avoided a stray rock, listening to the voice the whole time.  "Acro, calm down, it's alright!  It's lying!  Those things couldn't possibly be your-" he stopped dead as the voice spoks his name next.

"Sova....  Everyone's out to get you, right?  The whole world hates you, no one will ever respect you.  Everyone thinks you're weak....because you are.  Just look at you, constantly having to be saved by others.  You've never managed to accomplish ANYTHING on your own.  Maybe that's why you surround your self with the weak; because it makes you feel better about your self."  He began frantically looking around for the source of the voice, but to no avail.

"You don't know anything about me!" he retorted.

"Too weak to accomplish anything.  Too weak to even help your own parents.  Too stupid to make a logical decision if your life depended on it.  Willing to do ANYTHING to make your self look better than someone else.  And it's only gotten worse with time.  Just look at you now, you can barely sleep because your dreams show you the TRUTH."

The glaceon gritted his teeth in an attempt to remain calm, but let the stressful situation get the better of him and fired an Ice Beam in a random direction which the most recent echo had bounced off of.  Nothing.

"Because you can't stand on your own paws without the help of others, someone else had to step in.  Does he have a name?  Or do you just refuse to acknowledge his existence?  He's a part of you, you know.  When ever you can't do something; which is often, he's there to make all your problems go away....  You should just let him take over for good, he's better than you in every way.  He's everything you want to be, a confident, strong, psychopathic killer."

As if being forced to face what he could only view as reality wasn't enough, one of the few friends he had left in the world was hearing all of it....  He couldn't bear it any more.  For the first time in a very long time, he ran out of fear.  The direction didn't matter, he just had to get away.  Away from this mist, away from the voice, away from the friends who were surely judging him now.  But sadly, it seemed these enemies had other plans.  Mere moments after he began running, he was knocked off his feet by the venomoth.

"The best part is that zoroark...."  Sova's eyes shot wide open and his pupils shrank in shock and fear.  This thing was going to start talking about Mirage!?  NO NO NO NO, if Acro and Linus found out he was even socializing with an outlaw, his life would be pretty much over.

"STOP, PLEASE!!" he pleaded to the voice, but it just kept on talking....

"To think you could love someone so self-centered, so rude.  The best part is that she doesn't even like you.  But that doesn't matter, because you'll do anything for her."  He could feel tears welling up in his eyes.  His life was officially ending.  He could feel himself losing consciousness, the situation was legitimately that stressful for him.

"Don't worry.  I'll take care of this." echoed in his head.  The voice seemed to completely stop for a moment, as if it had suddenly become unable to recite all of his downfalls.  Or perhaps unwilling.  The silence simply added to the eerie atmosphere created.

In case its asked how this is done, this is in a spoiler so those who wish for it to remain mysterious can keep it that way:

Linus began struggling again, trying to free himself from under the weight of the forretress. It was futile, he was not strong enough to just shove the heavy steel type off of his back. The forretress was not really doing anything else to hurt him, just keeping him in place and punishing him whenever he tried to move. He lay still, the eerie silence as the voice suddenly stopped talking, as did Acro and Sova. What happened to them?

Acro stared at the ground in front of him, tears welling in his eyes, 'it's my fault...it's my fault, it's my fault, it's my fault, it's all because of me!' He had heard Sova's shouting, but he had shook his head slowly as if the Glaceon could see him, "No...it's right" he whispered.

"Y-Your own mother knew as well! Nobody counts on you, not even Sova counted on you! You-" the voice had faltered at first, as if something unexpected happened, and then was abruptly cut off.

The First Bird pokemon looked down at the ground, noticing a few dark spots forming on the dirt. His tears had begun to fall. The archeops's breathing began to grow difficult, as his vision became more and more blurred. The wall of confidence that had been built to protect him from the pressuring past had been destroyed, and he had been blasted right back to square one. The archeops began to shiver, before collapsing onto the ground and curling into a ball, shivering as tears leaked from his eyes as he was left to be further condemned by the hands of his own thoughts.

The tears in Sova's eyes finally streamed down his face as a big, insane smile slowly showed its self.  His eyes widened and his teeth gritted.  To make this appearance even worse, he began giggling, as if uncontrollably.  As the mysterious voice began talking again, the glaceon slowly turned his head to the left.  "There you are...." he commented in a low and emotionless tone.  Moments later, he was right in front of a little flower with a tiny creature on it, which was placed beside a tree, presumably for extra cover.

He giggled again in anticipation for all of the fun that was about to happen, his fur freezing into the familiar spikes, thicker than usual to the point that he looked almost like a blue jolteon.  He tilted his head to the right, his neverending psychotic smile instantly making the flabebe regret its decision.  From behind, a stub of a fist attempted to punch the glaceon, only to be smacked away by his tail as he turned his head just enough to get a view of the breloom.  It recoiled from the fresh cuts on its little arm thing, but didn't get much time to regret its decision as the glaceon's tail hooked around the back of the breloom's head.  Before it could react, he spun and slammed the enemy into the ground, face first, then fired a nonstop Ice Beam until its head was thoroughly frozen.

The flabebe screamed, letting loose a sonic wave of sound with Echoed Voice, but the glaceon seemed relatively uneffected.  He slowly approached the little creature, stepping on the frozen head of the breloom in the process and shattering the ice encasing it with his paw in the process.  The little fairy didn't even get a chance to flee before it was slammed into the tree by the glaceon's tail, damaging its flower as well as its body.  "Yes, I do have a name.  S.S."

The faint sound of something gliding through the air behind the glaceon made his ears perk.  He quickly spun around and smacked his tail into the face of the venomoth, causing it to flutter through the air to the side before firing a precision-accurate Ice Beam directly at its chest, not letting up until it was collapsed on the ground.  The next thing in his sights was the big lumpy rock thing laying on the ground.  He darted into it with Quick Attack, knocking it off what ever it was on, then leaped over it and stopped it from rolling or floating away with his front paws.  In less than a second, he had created a pitch black ball of pure evil and sent it directly into the forretress' face, completely ignoring the recoil damage he'd taken from the dark explosion due to him being so close.

He looked back through the mist to see the silhouettes of the venomoth and breloom slowly getting back up with a faint glow enveloping them, if his smile could physically get any bigger it would have.  He slowly strolled by Linus on his way back to the enemies who clearly wanted more.  He looked down to the honchcrow on his left.

"Coming?"

Oooooooooooooooh mother of everything holy in this universe that had created Linus what in the ever loving arceus's name was wrong with Sova? Linus's eyes were wide, terrified of the glaceon. It seemed that he was not attacking him however, but the opponents. Linus swallowed and forced himself up as much as he just wanted to stay down and out to avoid having to be with that strange glaceon. The honchkrow picked himself up, flapping his wings to help balance himself on his two legs. The crow spread his wings and took to the skies, away from the glaceon and into the much safer air.
The honchkrow collided with the Venomoth, Pecking at the bug type and knocking it out of the air and closer to the ground.

Meanwhile, Acro was still curled into a small ball on the edge of the field. His wings covered his head as he merely shivered and sobbed. It was his fault. He was the cause of Astrid's death, Tallulah was terrified of him, Rusty was probably off lying dead in some ditch because of him. It was all HIS fault! Maybe he should...just stop. Stop everything. Just stay here and do nothing. He couldn't possibly hurt someone that way, he couldn't possibly ruin anything for anyone. He would just be here, not eating, not drinking, just...staying, here.

"That's the spirit." "S.S." muttered in amusement that the honchkrow was actually willing to fight with him.  And here he was worried the bird was going to be dull and boring like usual.

In a matter of moments, he was in the breloom's face.  It attempted to throw a quick Mach Punch in its own defense, which was a direct hit....but the glaceon didn't even flinch.  As if it wasn't already obvious, his pain sensors had been dulled to the point that they might as well have just completely been turned off.  The breloom gave a fearful look and backed away before being put back to sleep with an Ice Beam to the chest.

Taking note of the venomoth that was now back in melee range, S.S. darted over to it with the help of Quick Attack and leaped onto it.  It spun in the air in an attempt to knock him off, but that was stopped by the glaceon's entire body freezing into one big spike ball and the air around him chilling to the point that it would be hard for anything other than an Ice Type to move at full capacity in it.  The moth dropped to the ground within moments.

The glaceon pulled himself off the downed enemy, knowing it was too badly injured to go anywhere.  He looked up to the bird in the sky.  "Hey, you want this one or the little flabebe?  That way if you want it. he pointed a paw in the direction the flabebe was in.  It was behind a tree which made it difficult to see, but he knew it was still there.  He awaited the honchkrow's response, wondering which Linus would choose.

The honchkrow flapped his wings as he stayed in the air, thinking about it and hesitating as the voice was rather creepy. It was as if the glaceon was asking him what he wanted to eat, except with real pokemon rather than food. Linus was saved the trouble of answering as the flabebe used Echoed Voice, the attack that had been building up from so much use piling up the damage onto the Honchkrow. Linus squawked as he was knocked out of the air, catching himself just before he struck the ground, "I-I don't c-c-care..." he spoke at last.

His fault...his fault...everything was his fault...the rampardos, the venomoths, Rusty's disappearance...all of it. It was all Acro's fault.

S.S. sighed.  "Take the venomoth.  Better hurry, it's getting up." he said in his dull, hollow tone.  The moth was indeed getting up, or at least trying to, though the many needle-wounds in it from the glaceon were proving difficult to deal with.  The Ice-type made his way casually over to the tree, behind which there was still a flabebe, now leaning against the trunk due to its injuries.  Of course, it had chosen to use Wish for its allies before its self, hoping they would protect it.

The glaceon crept up on the flabebe, who responded by letting loose another of its echoey sound waves.  Perhaps it would have hit Sova.  Sadly, Sova was not here.  S.S. avoided it with ease, then proceeded to create a radiant blue orb of energy in front of him, out of which came not the usual blue cylindrical beam, but instead a multitude of zigzagging blue lines of energy, all homing in on the flabebe as if it was an electric type attack and knocking it into the tree.  It almost immediately collapsed to the ground.

It would be lucky if it could ever get back up, the energy in the beam had been far higher than usual which had caused the unusual looking Ice Beam.  In reality, it was extremely dangerous to do this, the beam could have just blown up in his face due to being unstable....but it didn't.

Suddenly, the pupils of the glaceon's eyes returned to normal size and his big, crazy smile began to slowly fade away. However, his eyes remained wide as the rightful owner of the body came back into consciousness. Sova stared at the flabebe for a moment before turning around to see.... a fading mist, Linus, a half-dead venomoth, an unconscious breloom and a weeping Acro who seemed to be having a mental breakdown. What in the HELL happened!?

He took a few steps forward, his face rather blank as he was in shock. He had no clue what had happened and worse yet, his allies had clearly seen what ever he may have done. Was Acro all broken down because of him!?

The honchkrow got to work, attacking the Venomoth with a multitude of Peck attacks. The glaceon had weakened the Venomoth enough for him to finish it. The honckrow gave a final peck, and the venomoth had decided that it had enough after landing on the ground, half dead. The wish took effect and it got up, turned, and fled, realizing that it wasn't going to win. It abandoned its Flabebe friend, using the energy gained from the Wish to flee. Linus was panting, and the Misty Terrain was dispersing. He finally spotted his team leader, curled into a small ball and seemed to be shivering and crying. Nope. He wasn't going to help him, nooo waaay buddy! These people were crazy!

He noticed that the glaceon seemed to have regained his sanity, but kept quite a distance from him. The honchkrow was scared, his team leader was on the ground having a mental breakdown, and the friend that they had encountered was so blood thirsty. What did Acro see in this guy? Linus kept near the roots of a tree, keeping a good distance away from the weeping archeops and from the glaceon that had gone psycho-bonkers and back in a manner of seconds.

His fault....his fault....that was all that echoed through Acro's mind, "my fault..." the archeops moaned, "All mine..."

As the initial shock and the adrenaline brought on by his much more capable counterpart both wore off, Sova began to feel lots of things. First came the effects of the battle. Very tired. Headache. Chest pain. Then came emotions. Panic, mostly. As he began to realize what had happened, the one thing going through his head was that he'd completely ruined his friendship with Acro and his possible future friendship with Linus.

Last, came the loss of consciousness. The physical and mental strain on him, as usual, was simply far too much. "I'm....sorry...." he barely managed to mutter as his legs gave out and he collapsed to the ground. He didn't really know why he was apologizing; he didn't even know if he'd done anything to deserve apologizing for, after all.... but for some reason, it made him feel just a little bit better. Before he'd even hit the ground, his consciousness level was reduced to about that of a brick. It wouldn't last long this time since he hadn't been too severely strained, but the little bit of rest was welcome.

The honchrow noticed that the glaceon collapsed, and that the archeops seemed rather immobile at the moment with his shivering and crying. He should really do something...but what could he do? Give them advice? As if! He had gone through nothing similar to this, there was absolutely nothing he could do about this!
...
Okay yeah there was something.
The honchkrow took to the skies, spotting a Sitris berry not too far away. He snatched the berry from the ground along with a cheri berry nearby. Would the cheri berry work with the archeops's paralysis or was it only for paralysis induced by pokemon? The honchkrow was uncertain, but picked up the berry anyways before quickly pivoting back. Linus dropped the sitris berry in front of the glaceon and the Cheri berry near the archeops. He retreated quickly into the trees where he could not be seen. He landed on a branch that obscured their view of him, but not him of them. He was too scared to actually feed it to them, so he decided to just wait for them to wake up and eat it themselves.

There was a soft thud near the archeops...he didn't care. Nothing mattered, everything bad that had happened was because of him. If it was some kind of treat he didn't deserve it, if it was some kind of ticking time bomb then he deserved it. He just laid there, chanting the same words over and over again, "It's my fault...It's my fault..." while his eyes watered and squinted themselves shut.

After a few minutes, the glaceon finally came to. He'd considered just going back to sleep, but he quickly remembered what happened....at least, what he COULD remember of it. This was enough to jolt him awake. However, he instantly regretted deciding to wake up. The second he lifted his head, his chest throbbed and his headache showed its self. To make matters worse, he got to see a glimpse of the pouting archeops. Acro was still upset?

Then a large yellow berry caught his attention. Where had this come from? Linus? He looked around, but saw no sign of the honchkrow. But still, he didn't want to refuse Linus' offer. Especially since he could really use the energy boost. So he inched his body over to the berry and bit away at it, taking his time eating it. There really wasn't any rush. It tasted normal enough, so he ruled out the berry being poisoned. Even if it was, he still had a Lum berry with him for emergencies. "Linus, you there?" he called out to the air and continued eating as he waited for a response.

(49 energy)

Linus flinched as he heard the glaceon call out his name. He hesitated, but leaped down to a lower branch, "Y-yeah..." he spoke, not daring to look into the glaceon's eyes directly in case he was still in that psychotic monster mode. He shivered upon remembering the wide wide grin that the monster held, he wondered if he would have nightmares for the next few weeks.
His eyes trailed back to Acro, who had appeared to stop sobbing but still had irregular breathing. He could not see the leader's face, for his wings prevented any sight of the face. Linus remained silent, not daring to speak unless spoken to.

Acro had stopped crying, the tears had run dry and he felt as if he were about to pass out due to not having breathed correctly in a rather large amount of time. Deep breaths kept him from passing out, and he still made no move to get up, eat the berry, or even do anything except curl into an even tighter ball and attempt to just stop existing.

Sova tilted his head at the honchkrow as he finally revealed himself. "What are you doing way up there? We don't bite." he joked, not at all knowing that Linus was terrified of him.
He finished off the Sitrus berry and got back to his feet, at least feeling refreshed now. It seemed like Acro could use some company, but he didn't really want to know what to say. He decided to just talk to Linus for now and try to figure out what had happened since his memory was a bit hazy, even on the things he should have been able to remember. He wanted to know what had happened to Acro before trying to comfort him.