Is Water Really That Bad?

Mission Details:

Approaching the entrance to a dull gray colored waterfall in the middle of the dull, dark Shadowhue Forest definitely wasn't Sova's idea of a fun time.  But there were missions to be done and he could do two at once here, so that was that.  Though, he'd been to Shadowhue a few times before and never actually checked out the Monochrome Falls....  He didn't even know there were supposedly ruins behind them.  Nearly everything he knew, he'd learned from his parents.  Apparently they hadn't gone to Shadowhue much either.

Perhaps the least desired part of his situation was the dead weight he found himself having to carry.  What was he, a gogoat?  The houndour, whose name he still hadn't gotten, at least wasn't burning him like he was worried of.  "Hey, are you still dead?"  He questioned to the passenger on his back.

As the glaceon emerged from the brush and trees of the forest near the waterfall, having had to go off the path he was on to follow the sound of the water, he immediately spotted someone else already there.  A vaporeon was sitting in front of the waterfall and the pool of water under it, simply looking into the water.  Despite the urge to immediately greet another eevee-lution, he decided to stay back and try to see if it was hostile before approaching it.

Skylar stared into the water, looking at the reflection of her self.  Being a vaporeon was....okay, but when she had evolved, she was apparently turning into water.  WATER.  She'd have to learn WATER TYPE moves too if she wanted to be useful.  What if she drowned her self trying to use Hydro Pump or something!?  Could she even drown any more?  She distinctly remembered being able to breathe under water when she'd evolved.  Or maybe she'd just imagined it.  What if she didn't imagine it?  What if she could, but now that ability was gone?  She wanted to find out so badly, but then she'd have to dive under water....

(Sova - 33 energy)
(Skylar - 11 energy)

The houndour, who had been the passenger upon the glaceon's back, did not respond. He was still out like a light and could only lay limply on across the glaceon's back. If he were awake he would have been following the glaceon still, seeing as the glaceon had not dismissed him. The hound's bruises would have ached, and he probably would have eaten that Oran Berry in his Joy Ribbon to make himself feel better. Zera merely lay there, no response to the glaceon, deathly silent, but still alive.

[Energy: 8]

Seeing as how his current conversation partner wasn't exactly meeting his requirements for a conversation and the vaporeon was just looking at the water, Sova decided to see if the vaporeon would be any better for conversation. Worst case scenario was he got into a fight and had to make sure his Fire-Type companion didn't get drenched. He cautiously approached the lone eevee-lution, still a bit wary. "Hey, what're you doing?" He asked.

Skylar jumped as she was startled by the voice, almost falling into the water. She spun around to see a glaceon carrying something on his back. "O-oh, I uuuh....I was just looking at the water. This place is pretty." She answered. It technically wasn't a lie, she had come here partly because she liked how it looked, though she left out the part about being a vaporeon who was afraid of water and hoping to work up the courage to dive in. "Who or what is that on your back?" She asked, looking at the pokemon the glaceon seemed to be carrying. Was it prey? Was he carnivorous!?

The houndour was laying there. Useless. practicing his being a potato jutsu He had zero energy and if his life were a video game he'd have a grand total of a whopping zero health.
However, he had been dreaming. His mind trying to please itself with the thought of owning the world and everything in it. He was a powerful houndoom that controlled all, being Alpha of the World was luxurious, at least until he had been challenged by a certain electrike, and defeated. He was then cast away into some deep dark abyss, the kingdom he had once owned having turned against him, as he was no longer the strongest.

Sova looked back to his passenger, checking to see if perhaps the houndour was awake and interested in answering. Nope. "This....is a houndour. Honestly, I don't know his name, but he helped me out so there's no way I'm gonna leave him alone while he's unconscious." He explained to the vaporeon.

Skylar sighed in relief. "Oooh, I thought maybe you were gonna eat him." She admitted, honestly.

"....What? No, no. He'd probably taste awful anyways." Sova replied, joking about the second half, though a carnivorous diet didn't really seem appealing. He liked sweet things and as far as he knew, meat wasn't sweet. "Back to the topic of names, I'm Sova." He attempted to move the topic back to something a bit more....pleasant to think about.

"Oh, I'm Skylar. You can call me Sky." Skylar replied, relieved this glaceon wasn't going to attack her.

Zera was still conked out, unable to participate in the conversation or anything.

Not too far off, a certain skiddo had been gleefully hopping around. Aries gave a gleeful bleat, but did not notice the two eeveelutions ahead. He finally looked up, paying attention to where he was going, and gave a startled bleat as he attempted to stop himself before he collided with them. He instead ended up falling into a tumble and crashing into the Glaceon, and forcing the glaceon to shove the vaporeon, both of them ending up in the water while Aries found that a houndour had been dropped on top of him.

The skiddo forced himself up, staring into the water, "OH MY GOODNESS ARE YOU OKAY?" he asked.

"Nice to me-" Sova began, before being abruptly knocked into Skylar, resulting in them both falling into the water. After taking a moment to paddle to the surface, he heard the culprit's voice. A rather innocent looking skiddo. "Ur fkn ded skiddo." Though something more urgent caught his attention. The vaporeon had apparently disappeared, as he saw no sign of her. He swam to the edge and pulled himself back onto the shore. "I'm fine, but where's the vaporeon?" He questioned, not worried about the houndour who he could clearly see had already found another ride.

One moment, Skylar was having a semi-nice, kind of dark at some points, conversation with a glaceon. The next, she was being knocked into the water. In her freak-out, her body faded into the water, blending her in perfectly. When she emerged from under the water, her head and paws looked like simply paw and vaporeon head shapes protruding from the water. Immediately, she screamed in panic as she paddled her way to the edge. Her body faded back to its normal colors as she pulled her self out of the water, panting in fear.

"Uuuh...." Was all Sova could manage to say, surprised by the vaporeon's vanishing act and confused by her apparent terror.

A vine appeared from the skiddo's leafy pelt, holding out his vine to help the terrified vaporeon out, but was completely ignored as Skylar left the water herself. Fear struck through the wide eyes of the grass type, "I-I'm so sorry! I d-didn't mean it!" Tears were developing in his eyes, his regret of his carelessness showing.
"You're not hurt are you?" he asked the two, looking back and forth between the two pokemon and still failing to realize there was a knocked out lump of weight on his back.

Sova gave a reassuring smile to the little skiddo in an attempt to show he was alright and not mad. Water didn't really bother him and he hadn't gotten hurt, after all. "It's fine, it's fine, no harm done....I think." He said rather hesitantly, not able to speak for Skylar. HE was fine, but the vaporeon did not seem fine.

"I-I'm f-f-fine....." Skylar stammered, obviously lying. She was still freaking out over having been knocked into the water. She couldn't be mad though, it was clearly an accident. Still, she couldn't help but shiver. She wasn't cold, just shaken up.

Sova tilted his head at the vaporeon who was clearly scared. "Are....are you scared of water?" Was it even possible for a water type to be afraid of water?

Skylar remained silent for a moment, then proceeded to completely ignore the question. She was far too embarrassed to answer. "W-what's your name?" She asked the skiddo, hoping everyone would just pay no mind to her shaking.

"Aries," the skiddo responded as soon as his name was asked to be revealed, "A-Are you sure?" he asked, glancing more at the vaporeon than the glaceon. He still looked as if he were about to cry, his ears lowered and his eyes watering. He would not blame them if they had suddenly turned on him and yelled at him, ordered him to go away and leave them be. His vines retreated to their proper place and disappeared, his Vine Whip vanishing as it was not needed in the first place to help anybody.

Upon his back, there was a slight groan. Zera was beginning to wake up, his body felt as if he had been smacked with a boulder rolling down a cliff. His eyes opened slightly, but the ground seemed as if it was insanely far away from him when it was really just a few inches. A headache made itself known. He found himself suddenly having no support underneath him, and he collapsed to the ground painfully. The skiddo he had been on top of had realized that there was a houndour on top of him, and threw him off in a panic.

"Oh my goodness i'm so sorry!" came the wail from the skiddo once more.

"Y-yeah, I'm....I'm fine." Skylar managed to say, seeming as if she had calmed down just a bit. "I'm Skylar."

"And I'm Sova." The glaceon chimed in. "And why did you just drop my friend? You're the one who picked him up in the first place...." He questioned, just assuming the houndour hadn't magically gotten onto Aries' back. Too bad the skiddo didn't seem interested in carrying the houndour though, as Sova had hoped to be free of having to carry him around.

Skylar simply remained silent, not knowing how ownership of the living luggage had been transferred, nor why the skiddo had abruptly dropped the houndour. She wasn't even completely clear on whose fault it was that she was knocked into the water.

The skiddo had suddenly realized that the houndour was on his back from the groan, he had given a cry of surprise and fled behind the eeveelutions, when the glaceon had asked why he had dropped his friend, the skiddo began apologizing like a mad man, "I'm so sorry! I didn't realize he was on my back-I got scared I thought it was attacking me I thought it...I'm sorry!" the skiddo laid on the ground and covered his eyes with his fore-legs, trying to keep from crying but failing miserably.

Zera lay limp as a rag doll on the floor, wallowing in self pity about the pain. He forced himself to sit up, trying to stand at first but his hind legs gave up halfway through and he ended up sitting on his haunches instead, "whahapenduh" he tried to speak.

Sova sighed and shook his head at the skiddo's display of sadness. "Relax. He isn't dead, no big deal. At least, he's not any more dead than he used to be." He joked, trying to cheer the kid up. Then he noticed the houndour had woken up....kind of. "Heeey, you're alive!" He said as he approached the hound, suddenly losing interest in the skiddo. "Need some help?" He asked, more than willing to offer a shoulder to lean on, or just flat out become a carrying service again.

Seeing that the glaceon had so rudely taken his attention from the weeping skiddo to check in his friend, Skylar decided to take over in trying to cheer the skiddo up. "Hey, it's alright, no one's mad at you." She assured.

"B-B-But..." the skiddo bawled, unable to speak properly. He sobbed, gasping for air. They hated him. They hated him. They had to have HATED him! He wished the ground would open up and swallow him whole, but alas he lacked that sort of ability. Instead he merely bawled, "W-Why wouldn't y-you be mad?" he finally managed to say.

The houndour attempted to stand once more, testing to see if his body would even allow him to stand. He managed to get on his shaky legs, but it felt as if taking a single step forward would send his entire body tumbling down.
"Urgh...yeicntevnwall" he spoke, before nodding, seeing that speaking was not exactly easy to do at the moment seeing as his jaws hurt to even move.

Skylar, not really knowing what to do, patted the skiddo's head with a paw. "No one got hurt and it was an accident. It's okay, really. Come on, maybe we can tag along with these two for a while and you can make it up to them, if that makes you feel better." She attempted to coax the skiddo out of his depression. This was definitely not her forte.

Sova chuckled as he leaned in next to the houndour to allow him to either lean against him or fall on him. He didn't really care which, but it was kind of hard to tell which the hound wanted since he was apparently having difficulties speaking. "Alright then, come on." He said as he set his sights on the waterfall. Apparently, there was a cavern behind it....but it was hard to tell without actually walking through it.