Birbs and Foxes

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Mission Details:

The water-drenched flatlands known as the Cattail Marsh certainly weren't much of a spectacle, at least during the day.  Not even the rays of the setting sun could fix that.  It was about as inviting as it looked, too.  One particular glaceon knew from experience that it was annoying to travel through the marsh, if not difficult.  Of course, the two birds with him would have little trouble other than occasionally having to move out of the way of a tree, since they could fly.  He could have frozen the water and just walked or even skated over it if he still had Ice Beam on his side, but he just HAD to go and use another TM, he couldn't just settle for what he already had....

"Frost Breath", what a ripoff.  All it had done to him was take away his ability to use Ice Beam.  There was nothing akin to any "Frost Breath" replacing it from what he could tell, he was just down a move due to some faulty TM.  Surely, this was the case.  It couldn't possibly be that this move in particular was just something that he could not properly use.  So he would have to walk through the marsh, but it wasn't like he hadn't done that before.  Besides.... it would be night soon.  He'd insisted on them coming later in the day for that specific reason.  For the light show.  "So, Linus, do you know why I wanted to come here so late?", he asked as he stopped at the edge of the water, taking a moment to speak to his companions before getting to the "fun" part.

Nearby, in a rather easy to climb tree, a little ball of brown fluff was sitting on a branch over the marsh in the hopes of drying off.  He'd heard this place had a pretty lightshow during the nights, but he hadn't expected it to be so wet.... despite it being a marsh.  He'd decided to sit in a tree, away from the water and hopefully safe from any lurking dangers, as he waited for the promised lights.  The trip here was a pain, he hoped it would at least be worth it.

(Sova's Energy: 38)
(Keith's Energy: 2)

"Mammy...Mammmyyy!" the goomy jumped on the archeops, attempting to wake him up. It soon gave up, watching Cupcake leave the scene and join the strange dark colored bird, "...Cluckoo?" it tilted its head before turning to the glaceon, "Spoooooooop!" he jumped up and down, trying to get the  glaceon's attention.
"Spooop, Mammy no mwove no moore!"

Acro was still knocked out but his body was now shaking up and down in the water as the goomy jumped on him. The frost had finally defrosted itself and the ice that encased certain parts of him were cracking and melting as the ice finally realized that it was warm out.

Linus's head turned to the eevee slowly, his eyes wide, "No...why is a lump of dirt talking to me...since when can dirt walk and talk? What the f*ck is happening, I wanna go home!" he looked around rapidly, as if he were in some cage and looking for an exit he could not seem to find.

The illumise looked to the half dead Archeops, "Yes, I know how to Wish, but I can help you with that problem I think!" it spoke, "I learned this new move recently, i think it's a variation of Torment, if you can't stop using it then maybe it'll help you!" The illumise did not wait for a response, and began to clap its glowing hands together, using Encore in attempt to help the glaceon.

Keith stared blankly at the black bird for the response. Did he just get called a lump of dirt? "Uh.... okay then.... have fun.", he muttered as he swam in the opposite direction, back towards the sane members of the group.
The goomy was bouncing up and down on the unconscious archeops, which seemed to be breaking the ice off. He paddled through the water towards the archeops and began trying to pull pieces of the breaking ice away in the hopes of helping.

Sova watched as the illumise began performing what she thought to be a variation of torment. But this clapping.... definitely wasn't torment. The glaceon felt his icy armor begin to weaken as he was limited to Frost Breath. "N-No, that's Encore!", but it was already too late. He was stuck doing nothing BUT this for a while now.
"Uuuuuhg.... Can you just.... fix my friend....", he pleaded, still covering his mouth with a paw. The goomy was calling for "Spoop", which he had gathered was supposed to be him, so his main priority right now was fixing Acro's problem.

The illumise gasped, "Oh! Sorry...yes I'll go help him!" the bug type flew over the archeops, examining him for a moment, before performing a small dance and a white light fell from the sky and entered the Archeops, a Wish taking effect.

Acro remained still for a moment, before groaning, his eyes opening as he lifted his head. He felt a weight on his stomach, and looked to see that it was the goomy from earlier bouncing up and down and looking at him happily, "Wha happened?" he asked, "Why am I coated in Ice?" he asked as he witnessed the eevee pulling chunks of ice off of him. The archeops stood at last, the goomy still attaching itself to his stomach and making its way up his shoulder as he pulled the rest of the ice off of him.

The goomy giggled with glee, "Mammy!!! the goomy climbed up onto the archeops's shoulder, cuddling up against his neck. He did not seem to notice the archeops's discomfort, and instead continued to gleefully rub the neck with his slimy body. The goomy looked to the illumise, tilting his head as he devised a nickname for it, "Boogy?" he mumbled.

Linus remained where he was, still in the same position he was last time since the effects of the Tiny Mushrooms seemed to prevail over his normal functions. He stared into the sky, looking in horror at things only he could see.

"Thanks.", Sova muttered as he walked along the huge platform of ice he'd created, towards the archeops. Sadly, the weakness garnered from the multiple weakening forces he'd been hit by recently finally overcame him and he slipped on his own ice, falling and knocking his bag open. A few items fell out and slid a few feet away from him on the ice.... an Oran Berry, a Reviver Seed and.... a Thunder Stone. He groaned in his displeasure as he got back to his paws and began collecting the items, starting with the Oran Berry since the Thunder Stone had slid the farthest away.

Keith was relieved to see the archeops get up and not be dead, but his attention turned to the blue jolteon as he heard him fall. The first thing he noticed was a greenish tinted stone with a jagged streak of yellow running through it. He gasped, a Thunder Stone! Surely since this "jolteon" was already fully evolved, he didn't need it, right!? Maybe he would want to give it to a certain eevee.... But of course the eevee couldn't just ask for it outright, that'd be rude. Especially since the blue jolteon had already helped him multiple times and he'd done nothing to repay the favor.

"You.... got knocked out by that guy.", he explained to the archeops and pointed over to the unconscious poliwhirl with a paw. "Um.... D-do you think I could.... join your team, Mr. Acro?", he asked nervously to the bird, completely oblivious to the existence of Aileron guild and just assuming they were all from Grassveil's guild. This was his chance to become an official explorer with an experienced mentor, he couldn't just pass it up.

Acro looked down to the eevee, rather bemused, "I come from Ailreon, unless you evolve into something that can fly, you can't go there...otherwise i'd happily accept you-"

"Don't do it man...." Linus spoke, his eyes wide and his nonsensical thoughts clouded his mind, "The curse...i'm going to die...you'll die too...everyone dies..." the bird had lost touch with logical thought, and had gone back to assuming that the curse he had heard about from that flabebe back in shadowhue was true.

The archeops flinched upon mentioning, giving a shiver at the memories, "Uh...huh..." he spoke, knowing he should say something about that but not knowing what to say.

The illumise looked to the honchkrow, "Oh dear, your friend over there must have eaten a Tiny Mushroom...he's going to be like that for quite a while...It'll wear off eventually though."

The goomy blinked as he felt Mammy shiver beneath him. The goomy looked to the archeops, wondering what was wrong? Was there something bad happening that he didn't understand?
"Mammy?" the goomy asked, poking the archeops with one of his gooey antlers. No response came from the archeops but the lifting of a wing to cease the poking.

Keith didn't have much time to feel disappointed before becoming thoroughly creeped out at the overgrown murkrow's odd comments. "Uuuh.... O....kay then....", was all he could think to say as he swam towards the large platform of ice and put his front paws on the edge of it, the blue jolteon having just finished picking up the last of his items, the Thunder Stone, so he was fairly close to the edge. "....What about y-"

"No.", Sova replied rather harshly, not even giving the eevee a chance to finish talking. He made sure to look away when he spoke, to avoid freezing the little ball of fur.

"B-but-", the eevee attempted to begin begging, but was cut off once more.

"I said no. I don't want you getting hurt, you're better off finding some other team. Trust me, you don't want me.", the glaceon retorted in a seemingly cold and uncaring tone, though he honestly just didn't want to put the eevee into any dangerous situations. He was reckless and often bloodthirsty, he did stupid and dangerous things just to do stupid and dangerous things, he had a lot of mental issues and worst of all, he doubted his ability to protect others. Besides, this eevee seemed fairly weak and would need to be trained extensively, but he already had a fairly weak honchkrow he was training extensively, he didn't need ANOTHER newbie to worry about.

Keith gave a very sad and disappointed look to the "jolteon" as his ears flattened. "Please....", he begged. The blue jolteon had begun walking away on the icy platform, but stopped at the rather pathetic sounding begging, looking down at the ground as if he was contemplating what to say.

"Spoop and Cupcake! Spoop and Cupcake!" the goomy spoke cheerfully, as if cheering the two on as a team. The goomy crawled up the Archeops's neck and onto the top of his head. He looked out at the group, the brown ball of fluff, the strange dark bird, the scary looking glaceon, and the bug type with the glowing behind. Everyone here was just so interesting, Mammy most of all! The goomy hugged the archeops's head as much as he could with no arms, happy that everyone was getting along.

Linus continued staring off into the distance, "How will it happen? Stones? Broken wing? Drowning?" he hardly blinked, and probably would have been nightmare fuel for the young goomy if it was a bit older and understood what the honchkrow was talking about. The honchkrow's sight seemed to be slowly coming back to normal, but that didn't mean his mind was as well.

Acro allowed the goomy to climb onto his head, only beginning to feel more and more worse as the honchkrow kept talking. It was a dysfunctional team, but they had been assigned together. Acro had left it to Linus to break away, but the Honchkrow only remained. Was this some other being's form of punishment? Hadn't he been punished enough? He did not respond much to what was occurring between the Glaceon and Eevee, feeling as if he had no place to say anything at all.

"Well...uhh...thank you all so much for your help, but it's almost that time of day, and I gotta get going before the others start without me, bye bye!" the illumise spoke before flying away.

"Bye, and thanks.  Looking forward to the show.", Sova said as he looked up to the illumise, no longer bothering to hold his paw against his mouth.  He continued to seemingly ignore the eevee for a moment before finally deciding to speak.  The goomy pressuring him to let the little ball of fuzz join his "team" wasn't helping him decline the request, especially since he felt bad about it in the first place.  Without turning around, he finally spoke up.

"Alright....  You wanna be on my team so bad?  How about this....  You can come with us today while we do our missions and take part in the same training Linus is going through; Linus is the honchkrow.  If, after that, you still wanna be on my team.... you can.", he offered to the eevee.

"Okay!", Keith immediately and happily replied.  He didn't even have to consider it.  "O-oh, and you dropped this, here.", he said and bent his head over to allow the blue jolteon to retrieve the ribbon from around his neck.

Sova looked over to the eevee to see one of his two Joy Ribbons.  He assumed it must have fallen out of his bag and shrugged.  "Keep it.  It's a Joy Ribbon, it'll help you get stronger.", he explained and offered for the eevee to keep the ribbon.  "I've already got one.  I don't really need another."

"O-okay!  Thank you, Mr. Jolteon....  Uh.... Sova!", the eevee replied, forgetting the name of the "jolteon" for a moment.

Sova tilted his head to the left at the eevee.  "Uh....  Jolteon?  I'm.... not a jolteon.  I'm a glaceon.", he replied.

"Spoop! Cupcake!" The goomy cheered delightfully from atop the archeops, doing a spin, as it did so, it noticed something in the distanced. He cooed in a strange manner, looking at the scene with curiosity. It spotted what seemed to be two froakie and a frogadier jumping on strange green things in the water, each time exchanging their pads for the other. They seemed to be having fun, while a bardboach and a poliwag watched them, too terrified to speak up.

The illumise flew away, joining another illumise as they flew away to plan out the show that the illumise and the volbeat performed every day around this time.

The honchkrow finally got the nerve to get moving, and took off into the sky in a panic giving fearful squawks as he was chased by strange shapes only he saw. He took off over their heads, in a frenzied panic before eventually crashing into the froakie behind the archeops in the distance...

Acro blinked, watching the honchkrow suddenly take off and crash land. He blinked, "Uh...guys? Isn't that the froakie you were looking for over there Sova?"

Sova watched as the honchkrow took off, flipped out and smacked into what seemed to be his mission objective. "Why yes.... yes it is.", he replied to Acro, more mist leaking out of his mouth before he began blowing along the water in the direction of the froakies and the frogadier. Then he stopped and held his breath once more as he turned back towards the eevee and extended a paw for him to grab onto and pull himself up.

Keith listened to the jolteon's explanation that he wasn't a jolteon at all, that he was in fact a "glaceon." He didn't really know what a glaceon was, but it sounded like another evolution of eevee and that's what the glaceon looked like, so he just assumed that's what a glaceon was. He accepted the offered paw and grabbed onto it with his front paws, pulling himself onto the ice before the glaceon got moving again. He did his best to follow along behind, though he was finding it difficult to walk on the ice. The glaceon seemed to be an Ice-Type, which made all of the ice based attacks make a lot more sense and also explained why he seemed to be having such an easy time walking on the ice.

Sova pulled the eevee up and turned to continue freezing the path in front of him as he walked. "Don't get too close, this mist could hurt you.", he stated to the eevee behind him before continuing to use the Frost Breath to freeze the water in front of him.
"Acro, do me a favor and make sure these two don't get hurt too bad for me. I can't get near this fight if I can avoid having to, I could hurt those lotads and the bystanders.", he requested of the archeops without looking towards him, being careful not to spread the dangerous mist anywhere he didn't have to.

The eevee knew what this meant. He needed to take part in this fight and prove he could do something. By the sounds of it, the glaceon wasn't going to be able to help unless he absolutely had to due to some malfunction with the mist he was exhaling. The giant murkrow seemed to be having some difficulties with the concept of sanity too and he presumed the archeops wasn't going to be much use either since he was just supposed to make sure they didn't get hurt "too bad." So that probably meant he was going to be mostly on his own.... How again was he expected to win a fight in general, let alone like this?

Acro nodded, still a bit hurt by the words of the Honchkrow from earlier. His wings now dry, he launched himself into the air and took to the skies, watching as the foes glared at him and Linus. The frogadier suddenly disappeared under the water, not even a shadow of his shape being spotted. The archeops did not attack, focusing on the Glaceon's instructions rather than attacking the frogadier blindly.

The goomy cried out as they suddenly flew into the air, but was amazed as they suddenly began to leave the ground. His eyes widened with excitement as he watched the ground grow further and further away from him. Mammy could fly! This was amazing! He looked around below, enjoying the sights and being completely oblivious to the dangers that they were in.

Linus stood up, coated in water once more, his vision had returned thanks to a good knock in the head, but he still could not quite think straight. He spotted trio of frogs sitting upon lotads, he looked at them with wide eyes as one of them disappeared under the water while the others seemed to glare at them. Linus squeaked in fear, and fired a dark pulse. One was struck, not having expected the long range attack, while the other dove into the water to avoid it.

"You're up.", Sova stated straightforwardly to the eevee behind him. He heard a splash and sat down on his icy platform as he watched the fight, hoping the others could handle this without his intervention. He REALLY didn't want to hurt anyone on accident.

Keith nodded once he was instructed to join the fight. He would have preferred to continue across the icy path as long as he could, but he didn't want to risk touching any of the remaining icy mist and hurting himself, so he instead decided to jump into the water. He immediately swam towards the froakie which had been hit by the poofy murkrow whose name he'd gathered to be Linus, as he watched the frog get knocked off its living lily pad pedestal and into the water. His plan had been to attack that one while it was distracted, but it seemed the other had plans for him. As he neared the area, he noticed an orange glowing orb appear under the water near him and fly towards him, exploding as it made contact with him and knocking him out of the water for a moment before he fell back down into the marsh, feeling heavier than before. Swimming had suddenly become more difficult.

"Come on....", Sova muttered in frustration as the eevee had immediately begun being knocked around. "He can't fight to save his life.... Come on.... surprise me. Don't be another disappointment.", he quietly muttered, hoping the eevee would change this course of action.

"HAH! That's the best you can do?" a familiar voice rang from around Sova's general direction, "Honestly, if that's the best you can do then you're just going to be a huge disappointment!" the sneer seemed to come from the glaceon.

The honchkrow was too busy being smacked by strange boulder to to respond. He gave a squawk as the attack struck him, the rock move being super effective against the flying type. His head was becoming a bit more clear, and he attempted to take off, but failed. His body was too heavy to fly with for some strange reason! He gave a caw and used Dark Pulse on a moving shape in the water, striking the shape and causing it to resurface quickly on a lotad, who had remained in the scene in order to provide services to the group for helping them.
The froakie gave an angered croak, before dancing around on top of the Lillypad, the sky above them grew dark, as clouds rolled in and began to rain. Lightning shot out occasionally, and thunder rumbled above.
Linus hopped onto an available lotad, "Sorry!" he spoke as he hopped on, having the sense to apologize. He forced himself onto the roots of an overturned tree, away from the water so that any covert attacks could not be performed.

What was that? The scary noises were starting up again, and they were louder than ever! Oh no...what to do? The goomy whimpered in fear, and clung to the archeops, the deep thunder terrifying the young one. The archeops lowered itself, landing on the branch of a tree to watch the battle as flying became rather dangerous. The goomy quickly slid off of the head of the flying type and into his arms, hiding his face into the bird's shoulder as if the thunder would stop if it saw he was not here.

Acro felt the grip of the goomy tighten as the storm rolled in, lightning shot down from the clouds, and he was forced to land so he was not a prime target for the lightning to strike. He was surprised to see the goomy crawl into his arms, he cradled the small pokemon in them as it dug its face into his shoulder, presumably fearing the storm that thundered and roared above them.

Keith's ears flattened as he heard the voice of the glaceon. He looked over to the blue fox to see him looking around, as if he'd lost interest in watching the eevee.... He had bored and disappointed the glaceon.

In reality, Sova was looking around in an attempt to find what had mimicked his voice! He was too preoccupied with that to even think to let the eevee know that it hadn't been him who'd spoken. Then the sounds of thunder caught his attention and he looked up to see storm clouds forming. Suddenly, just as he'd focused his attention back on the ball of fur to let him know it was in fact not him who said this hurtful thing, a bolt of lightning dropped down onto the water near the little eevee, electrocuting him despite not actually hitting him due to the current spreading through the water. The resulting scream made the glaceon cringe.

Keith watched the glaceon look around, as he heard the thunder crackle around him. He didn't think to look up until he heard a very loud sound above him, looking up just enough to barely see a light fall down about ten feet away from him almost instantly. Not even a second later, he was in immense pain as the electricity surged through him. "GAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!", he couldn't help but scream from the pain before collapsing into the water and beginning to sink due to his body being weighed down from the Smack Down still. He barely opened his eyes and looked up to see no sunlight, just something falling down towards him.... It took him a moment to realize what it was.

Sova had acted quickly upon realizing the eevee had been electrocuted, taking the Thunder Stone out of his bag in his jaws and tossing it out of his mouth, into the water near where the eevee had fallen under at. His hope was that the eevee would be able to evolve into Jolteon and overcome the damage from the electricity and his hopes seemed to become reality as a faint glow emitted from under the water, slowly getting brighter....

The goomy heard the crackling sounds grow closer than ever before, he cried out in fear, trying to get as close to the Archeops as he could. The noise of the electricity stabbed into his ears like daggers, and the deep rumbling of the thunder rattled his heart as fear struck through it. He could feel tears welling in his eyes as the lightning faded, this was too much, so scary. He just wanted all of this to be over, and go away!
"T-Taffy..." he managed to mutter, his voice muffled by the archeops's feathers. The goomy's shivering growing worse as a ear splitting scream pierced the air, "T-Taff..."

Acro beheld the scene, hugging the goomy in attempt to comfort it. He gasped in horror as he watched the eevee get fried in a rather unpleasant manner. He had been about to go down and snatch it out of the water, but the glaceon had tossed a strange stone into the water, and the light beneath the water began to glow. Acro blinked in surprise, watching the display of bright light below.

"Uh Sova, that's a terrible idea, you've just f*cked us all over!" Acro's voice seemed to echo from around him, causing the archeops to look around in confusion.

Linus meanwhile had recovered fully from the mushrooms, he blinked, his mind becoming clearer as he watched the light display and the frying froakies. How had he gotten here? Why did he remember nothing but nightmares and horror? He shivered, fluffing his feathers a bit, not quite realizing that the lightning bolt was actually a frying eevee.