Rubik's Cube

It was an oddly cloudy day today, even for Venen Gulch and the surrounding areas. Come to think of it, it'd been pretty cloudy in.... well, everywhere lately. It didn't exactly make for very appealing scenery, but honestly, this area wasn't very visually appealing in the first place, so that didn't really matter. Sova, for one, was here for two reasons. The Grima Outpost had helped him with one of his two goals; Finding a familiar zoroark. Now he just needed one more thing.... To get back to the forest. "Trust me, you'll love this place," he assured Mirage as they neared a large, old chateau.

Following the two from just barely close enough to see them was a little silver fox-like creature, a "shiny" eevee. While this body coloration made her fairly easy to spot in.... nearly any setting, she was being careful to stay behind what little cover she could find. However, cover was rather difficult to find in a barren place like this, so she didn't get many chances to move, having to wait for the other two to get very far away. She had a black bandanna over the lower half of her face in the hopes of not being identified if she was seen as well as to help with breathing the awful air in this area.... and because she wanted to look intimidating. Not that anything could help with that last one. Honestly, how was she supposed to look intimidating as a silvery-colored eevee?

Krikka, the eevee was called, had been following not so much the glaceon as the zoroark. She knew who the zoroark was and really wanted to talk to her! Oh, the things she could learn from an avid outlaw! She was also curious to see where Mirage could possibly be going with some random guy and from what she could tell, it was that supposedly haunted house that was in the area. But why with the random guy!? He certainly wasn't an outlaw Krikka had ever heard of. Were the two.... together, or something? Impossible, surely such a high-class outlaw had standards!

Mirage walked along side the Glaceon, seemingly a bit bored. She had gotten much more used to this two legged walking thing, it was much more convenient for looking taller and more intimidating, and it also allowed her to see farther and above things. She was growing to like this, but she still preferred four legs for running. The zoroark had been walking alongside the glaceon, not that she wanted to but more of he was likely purposely keeping pace with her. He had promised some place amusing, she joined the journey out of curiosity. It had grown rather boring as of late, her days of laying low had ended and she had began making a name for herself once again and was widely recognized in the Grima Outpost.

It almost felt...accomplishing. Pokemon cowered away from her while an idiot solosis had challenged her to a battle only for her to stuff it into a barrel and sit a sleeping munchlax on top of it after it kept pestering and taunting her when she denied the fight. Soon after she had come across a specific Glaceon that she had last encountered during her moment of shining where she evolved and rose to power in the outlaw realm.

However, she did not seem to be listening too much to the glaceon. At least it didn't seem like it. She grunted acknowledgements when he spoke though was still actually listening. She looked up at the haunted house, measuring the worthiness of her time by the appearance. She paused, not speaking for a moment before finally saying, "Uhuh...you do realize we were being followed this entire time correct?" with a rather deadpan tone.

--

Where was she now? Victoria gave a sigh as she looked left and right, she had wandered into this strange house of horrors and now she couldn't seem to find a way out of here! She had come here hoping searching for a strange amulet that someone had told her looked rather similar to her the one she wore upon her neck, but there was no such luck so far.

Instead she was stuck here. Without Veriq. Without Firsier. Without even any of her knights she had managed to recruit! Why her? Why? She sighed once more, before putting on a determined face, that was enough woe-is-me attitude. It was time to buck up and do what her father would tell her to do, take the situation into her own talons and fix things herself!

She went through door after door, charging forth at top speed, preparing to burst through every door until she ended up outside! However, with each room she charged through, she noticed something similar to the last. She finally came to a stop, and realized that she had somehow gone through the end of one room, only to come out on the other end into the same room once more. How was that even possible!? Unless, these were all just copies of the same room! She turned around, getting ready to go check, but the door behind her that she had just come through disappeared! A growl rumbled within the princess's throat. She looked to the remaining door, to find that it too had disappeared! Just when she found something out, the house had to go and change the stupid rules again!

Just what even was this dungeon!? She wondered if it was illegal to wreck it from the outside, no she shouldn't. Her mother would simply never return, while her father would reduce the house to rubble with all he could. She needed to take things peacefully if her subjects were to appreciate and enjoy her ruling. She took a deep breath, suppressing the urge to roar in frustration, before a trap door suddenly opened wide beneath her and swallowed her whole into darkness. She screamed in terror, before she landed on a soft mattress.

"A bedroom?" she wondered aloud, searching the room from atop the matress after recovering from the terrifying near-death experience.

Sova paid no mind to the fact that he was the only one really making much effort to contribute to the conversation. He also paid no mind to his surroundings, too focused on Mirage. Honestly, why hadn't he thought to check the Grima Outpost sooner? It was outlaw-land, after all; The best place to look if one was searching for an outlaw. Honestly, the majority of the reason was that he's gotten sidetracked enough making friends for once that he'd managed to.... forget about Mirage for a while. Thinking about her only really made him sad anyways, so he'd tried to stay away from thoughts of the zoroark for quite some time. However, one horrible encounter in the Purified Forest and a few depressing cloudy days later, he couldn't help but want to see one of his oldest friends.

For a moment, Mirage's voice merely distracted him even further from his surroundings. He hadn't gotten much chance to hear it, after all, since she hadn't exactly been talking much. Then his mind managed to process the words being said and his ears perked up. "W-what?," he questioned as he fought the instinctive urge to immediately look back.
While he may have been metaphorically and literally blinded to all else by the presence of Mirage, he still knew that if someone was following them, turning around wasn't something that he wanted to do. That'd just let them know, after all.

"....Never mind that. They won't be able to follow us in here, trust me," he replied as he quickly moved towards the door of the large chateau and leaned into it, pushing it open so that his friend didn't have to make the effort to do it herself.
He knew for a fact that no one was going to be able to track them through here, even the most skilled of trackers surely would fail. It simply wasn't possible in such a labyrinth. A normal maze, maybe, but not one that actively changed.

Taking a look inside, the glaceon could see that the house seemed to be feeling merciful today. The entrance room was currently what appeared to be a living room with a couch that seemed to be made of wool and two wooden chairs around a table in the center. At the other end, there was a door and the room was dimly lit by four candles attached to the middles of the walls by holders, as well as a candle on the table. He wondered if Mirage would be interested in this, considering furniture this fancy was fairly rare, or if she would just be disappointed that it wasn't dangerous and spooky right off the bat.

Or maybe furniture oddly positioned in the center of a very dimly fire-lit room would be eerie enough to spark the zoroark's interest. She liked areas with dim light after all, right? Why did he even remember that? Such a small detail, why?


Krikka, staying as far back as she could without completely losing sight of the other two, watched as they stopped at the entrance to the large chateau. Had they come to search the place for goodies, perhaps? Actually, that didn't seem like a bad idea. Maybe while she was lurking, she could see if she could find any material objects to steal, too. However, the two simply pausing at the entrance instead of just hurrying inside agitated her. She was kind of hoping to get out of the heat and more importantly, out of the open as soon as possible, not sit and wait for Mirage to finish talking to the random guy the eevee didn't recognize from anywhere.

Before making her wait too long, though, the glaceon finally opened the door. Why did it seem like he was leading the way? Perhaps that was why Mirage had taken him with her, as a guide! After all, even the best couldn't be psychics.... unless they were actually Psychic-typed. She would have gone so far to assume the glaceon wasn't even an outlaw, just some underwhelming traveler the zoroark had picked up, but that seemed ridiculous considering he had previously been at the Grima Outpost. Only outlaws ever really went around there, after all.

(Sova's energy - 1337. Okay, fine, 73.)
(Krikka's energy - 3. Slightly underwhelming.)

Mirage: 54 - 16 = 38
Victoria: 20-16 = 4 (You're not alone)

Mirage entered the door, the smell of old furniture and dust filled her nostrils and hit her like a tidal wave as she recoiled at the smell. Her paws flung to her nose to hold it as she recoiled from the smell, sure Grima Outpost did not smell so great, but this was a whole new level. It smelled like something died in here! Her fur on the back of her neck rose, sensing danger afoot. A small grin cracked, as the seemingly adrenaline junky entered the room further to take a look.

The furniture was old and dusty, plenty of random writing utensils littered the desk and old books collected dust on the table. There were candles that were lit, she picked up one of the portable ones, so that she could light even the darkest areas for at least a little while. She held it up to the chair, fancy carvings were embedded into the woodwork, giving it a fancy and classy appearance, though the years of age had worn it down to barely recognizable shapes. The woolen couch also had fancy framework around it, but it was nothing that she'd be willing to tote around and take with her.

Even if she were to desire furniture, she at least wanted something newer and less...decrepit. The zoroark lifted the candle to the door. She spotted a hole in the handle that reminded her of a keyhole. She tried to open the door, twisting and turning it but it refused to open. There must have been a hidden key around here or perhaps those candles on the wall led to some secret passageway or something. The vixen curled her claws into a fist, pulling her arm back before bashing her paw into the door with extreme force, causing a hole to rupture in the door and allow her to unlock and open the door from the other side.

"Seems like an interesting place," she concluded, allowing the door to swing open as an eerie creak sounded as the candle light lit up the mischievous smirking face of a criminal who knew of a certain path paved with blood. She looked back into the room she had just looked over, making sure that there was not anything of importance that she missed. Well, she was momentarily forgetting a certain Glaceon, but she figured that he would stick close enough to her that they would not get separated.

"Smells like something up and died though," she huffed, the smile fading as a fresh new smell of death struck her from the next room she had opened the door to.

--

This room was strange, the bed was rather comfortable though. It almost detracted from the creepy air this house gave. The tyrunt stood up on the bed, it looked like it was large enough for a gardevoir to sleep comfortably in. She wondered if she should get this kind of bed installed into her kingdom once it was built? At the very least something made of similar material!

She bounced off the bed, there was a single door here she noted. She moved up to the door, and tried to open it, to her despair the barrier's lock was too far up for her to reach. She could destroy it, but she decided to simply take a look around the room first. There was a bed-dresser next to the bed. It held a rather large compartment beneath a small drawer. She opened the compartment, there was nothing but dust and cobwebs inside. She struggled back onto the bed, and opened the drawer to find nothing.

Disappointed, she checked the wardrobe, nothing. Wardrobe drawers? Nothing. There was a tall mirror in the corner, but she paid no mind to it. Instead, she took a look at the rug in the center of the room. She tried to lift it with her tiny claws, but failed to lift it efficiently for her to see underneath it. She decided to try biting it and dragging it, perhaps listening for the sound of anything scraping. Maybe there would be a trap door underneath here? She closed her jaws on the carpet, and her entire body froze as there was the sound of murmuring coming from behind the door.

Terrified of the possibility the murmuring could be in such a place, the princess fled. Where did she flee? Into the bed stand's compartment of course! It was just big enough for her to fit in luckily, so she managed to close the door just enough for there to be an ever so tiny crack for her to see through. There was a loud crashing sound of wood being snapped, as the door was punched through. She spotted a large gray paw with red claws reach towards the lock, feeling it for a moment before unlocking it. What was that beast? Would it kill her if she were to be found?

The princess could only remain quiet, trying to keep her breath as quiet as she could so that she would not be heard as a large gray beast with a red back entered the room...

Sova watched hopefully as his friend surveyed the room. Did she like it, was she pleased? It was impossible to tell at first, as the zoroark merely inspected the area, as if still deciding. For a moment, he began to worry that Mirage wasn't going to like this place, then she proceeded to bash a hole in the door and reveal that she was indeed interested. The extent of interest was yet to be determined, but there was at least SOME interest, which was more than he'd managed to get out of Mirage so far! Maybe he could go so far as to get joy out of her! ....He could hope, at least.

Following Mirage into the next room and allowing her to lead the way since he'd already been through here and it was no longer interesting to him, the glaceon spoke up. "I remember why I like you now," he joked, referencing the aggressive behavior towards the poor door.
Of course, Mirage was someone he didn't have to constantly worry about getting hurt or judging him. Nearly every Guild member was team-reliant and obsessed with righteous morality.... but an outlaw, they could take care of themselves and most of them had little to no moral compass.

Stepping into the room, Sova immediately realized one thing. He didn't recognize this room.... or the one they'd come from. Were these just rooms that the house hadn't allowed him to see yet? Maybe some of the native inhabitants of the chateau had rearranged some furniture to make some rooms look different? Then again, he hadn't exactly seen any furniture in rooms before now that he could remember. Perhaps the house had just completely changed, since it seemed like there were too many rooms for them to all logically fit into the house. Some of the rooms even appeared to just be outright larger than the house itself.

As soon as the other two entered the large chateau, Krikka came out into the open and slowly made her way to the door. She would have sprinted if not for the fact that the heat had made the idea of running distasteful and of course, she didn't want to get there too quickly, before the ones she was following left the entrance room. What would the entrance room be, anyways? Maybe a fancy foyer? She'd heard guilds had really fancy interiors with foyers right off the bat. This place looked way fancier than what she knew the guilds to look like, so maybe it'd look even better!

Or maybe it'd be really old and run-down. It was supposed to be old, after all and it didn't exactly have a constant flood of tourists, so there was no way it was TOO interesting. Plus, it was probably full of weird feral pokemon, like pretty much everywhere else. That meant that there would be a lot of enemies, probably too much for one little eevee to handle. While she liked to like herself, she was no idiot; She knew fighting was something to be avoided. Maybe it would be possible to catch up to the other two, stronger-looking pokemon and convince them to let her tag along? She did want to talk to Mirage, after all, as well as to know what was up with the tag-along.

As the little spec of silver in the landscape picked up her pace towards the door, she began reconsidering her plan. Mirage was well-known as an outlaw, which, while being the reason she'd wanted to talk to Mirage, also meant she had to be careful. To get well known as an outlaw, one had to do a lot of.... outlaw.... things. That meant Mirage was obviously dangerous, even to a fellow outlaw. It wasn't like they had some kind of unspoken "honor" between each other or anything like that. She slowed down as she considered her options here, which she found herself to have quite a few of.

Perhaps just leaving was the best option? Avoiding two fairly dangerous situations seemed like a pretty good decision. However, the allures of knowledge and more importantly, STUFF drew her closer and closer to the door. She struggled to push the door open, for a bit before finally managing to open it up enough to slip through.... It seemed heavier than the glaceon had made it look. Like, a LOT heavier. Was he really that strong? He certainly hadn't seemed muscular. The eevee just shrugged the thought off for now as she entered the house, expecting to immediately be greeted in some manner by the two she'd been following.

However, there was nothing.... Quite literally, the entire room was dark, she couldn't see anything outside of what the door's light allowed! She quickly put a paw in front of the door before it could close and struggled to pull it back open, fearing she would get lost in the dark otherwise and never be able to get out. After a bit of a struggle to push the door all the way open, she looked about the room. It was completely empty, aside from a few candles scattered around the floor, none of which were lit.... and a door. Given it was the only door she could see, it had to be the right one! The other two surely hadn't gone too far and she would be able to catch up quickly!

She released the door and bolted across the room, managing to reach the next door before the light from outside managed to completely go out. Just as the light was just about to completely disappear, it seemed to flee from her, suddenly moving all the way towards the right before completely disappearing. She just assumed this was due to the way the door closed and opened the next one up, unaware the way out of this dungeon had just moved. Not that she would have easily been able to get out that way, anyways. At least this door was lighter than the last, though, making it much easier to open.

The point at which things began getting confusing for Krikka was when she entered the next room, which to her relief was dimly lit by candles on the walls. Well, it wasn't really a room so much as a hallway, with one door at the end of it. However, the odd part was that there was no familiar duo! She ran down the hallway and rushed to push open the next door, but again, there was nothing! Well, nothing that was alive, anyways. This room actually had quite a few non-living things in it. Specifically, a fancy black and white spiral-patterned square carpet, which covered almost the entire floor of the room. There were candles placed along the spiral pattern that sufficed to light the room, allowing her to see multiple doors. One to her left, and one to the right.

"Where are they....?," she muttered to herself in confusion.

Spoiler:

Victoria

Kat carried out 4 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

, , ,

Mirage

Kat carried out 10 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

, , , , , , , , ,

The zoroark froze as the glaceon suddenly seemed to be ordering her around. A rather annoyed look was shot at the glaceon, that held for a moment as she studied him. What happened to the love-struck yes man?  Her claws still held the amulet in her hand, the tyrunt looking at the amulet like a lost hungry puppy that hadn't eaten in days. She COULD keep it, but it seemed that Sova was not too pleased about this.

Wait, this thing had known him. So that was why, he needed to keep his image perhaps? Whatever. Mirage's claws suddenly released the amulet, allowing it to fall as the chain hooked around the protrusion on the tyrunt's nose. Now, where was another door? She looked around, wondering just where the next room could be.

She turned around, and suddenly there was a dark ghost making a silly yet terrifying face. This however did not faze Mirage. Instead, the duskull merely floated there awkwardly with Mirage staring at him with a straight face. She lifted a paw, the duskull flinched, still holding his spooky face in confusion as to why she wasn't scared. The claw glowed with darkness before Mirage gave a growl and used Night Slash on the Duskull. The ghost shrieked as it was sent flying into the floor from the attack, and Mirage gave an annoyed huff, "Annoying Pest..."

Victoria struggled to get her amulet off of the protrusion of her nose. She reached with her tiny arms, but could not reach it. She shook her nose in attempt to unhook it but failed, the amulet was stuck dangling off of her nose like a nose ring until she got some help.

"Erm, can someone lend me a hand or a paw or something here?" Victoria asked uneasily, still trying to some how reach it with her puny arms. She squeaked in fear as the overgrown mightyena suddenly attacked something, watching something disappear into the ground.

She was about to turn and thank the glaceon for getting her amulet back, but suddenly the floor beneath her started bulging upwards. The rug underneath her seemed to be swelling and growing, as a drifloon underneath it decided to play a game of lift-the-rug or something.

((I messed up and rolled 10 times so ignore everything past the yamask in the last roll))

Sova began to worry as Mirage showed agitation in her look, but he remained stoic. He knew Mirage well enough to know that if he gave her an inch, she'd take a mile, so showing any submissive emotions could end badly. As much as he liked the zoroark, she was still an outlaw, after all.... and he knew she didn't return these feelings, anyways. Still, he didn't want to get into a fight with his friend, so he was really hoping she'd just give back the amulet. To his relief, she did just that, dropping the item of value onto Victoria.

As much as he wanted to sigh in relief, he resisted the desire to, worrying Mirage would then pick up on his conflicted emotional state and immediately take the medallion back to test him. Instead, he watched as Mirage turned to face an "enemy" and he himself focused his attention on the tyrunt requesting aid with her.... problem. Mirage, of course, took care of the thing bothering her with ease just as another came to take its place. As the rug began to rise into the air, Sova simply walked by it, pushing the thing under it out of his way with a paw as he did so.

Why hurt some random thing if it wasn't attacking? While the glaceon wasn't too against hurting someone just for being an annoyance, but this seemed.... a little easier to handle than force was required for, at least for now. He raised a paw to assist Victoria and put the amulet back in its proper place around her neck, figuring she would allow it considering she didn't have many options. Besides, he needed to make sure to make this princess like him as much as he could to avoid making her want to rat him out.

Krikka laid her head on the comfy rug and closed her eyes for a minute in the hopes that resting would help with the pain and perhaps refresh her exhausted body. When the burn's continuous pain made it evident that that wasn't going to happen, she forced herself to get up. At first, upon opening her eyes, her vision was very blurry. Then it quickly readjusted and she got moving towards the other door.

She stopped at the door and carefully put a paw on it, pushing it open very slowly. Luckily, it wasn't a noisy door, or else she would have stopped out of fear of disturbing something. She peeked in when the door was open just enough to see inside the room, seeing nothing at first but a room with a table, a fancy-looking sofa and a few chairs. Then she noticed an eerie purple glow and opened the door just a bit more to be able to see more of the room. To the left of the furniture, there was a rather large candle with a purple flame.... which seemed to have eyes. This revealed the candle was alive and in fact a pokemon, so the eevee just slowly closed the door and turned back around.

"Okay, bad idea....," she muttered as she made her way over to the other door.
As she reached it, she slowly opened it like the other one, despite already being pretty sure there was nothing behind it; After all, the thing that had previously been behind it was now on the floor, unconscious. To her confusion, however, the room was not what she'd remembered it being. As she slowly opened the door, instead of an empty room, there was a room that was longer than it was wide with a chandelier full of candles hanging from the center of the ceiling and a fancy red carpet on the floor.

The eevee hesitated for a moment before stepping through the door, a bit worried at this point as she realized the rumors surrounding this place were true. "Oh no," she whispered to herself as the realization hit her.
She'd thought she was surely close behind Mirage, but if the rooms in this place really did change, there was no way she was going to find them! "Oh, no, no, no, no no no no no," she muttered in rising panic as she ran across the room, just barely stopping herself at the other end instead of bursting through.

As she slowly opened the door, sure enough, there was a Ghostly-looking pokemon with a white mask or something for a face in the next room. The room itself appeared to be.... the room she'd just come from, complete with the swirly-patterned carpet and even the unconscious thing she'd fought. The duskull appeared to be surveying the area, probably having been just passing through when it noticed a random unconscious yamask on the floor. She slowly and quietly shut the door, then moved to the side of it to rest and wait. Maybe the room would change again and she wouldn't have to deal with this! Or maybe the duskull would just leave, yeah!

Sova's roll-

Lord E V carried out 5 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

, , , ,

Krikka's roll-

Lord E V carried out 3 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

, ,

Victoria allowed the glaceon to fix her amulet, "Thanks again, er, Sova is it? I heard of you from my subject Veriq, that you assisted him out of a cave and that you seemed to be a fairly strong warrior of Grassveil." The tyrunt wanted to confirm this Glaceon's identity, if he was the glaceon, then she was likely not going to die this day, if not then she'd rather not thing about that possibility.

Victoria looked to the zoroark, perhaps it'd be better to fake ignorance towards Mirage's identity? At least for now, "She a friend of yours?" the tyrunt asked, gesturing to Mirage as the zoroark seemed to be moving furniture around with ease and checking for hidden doors.

Mirage spotted a door behind the wardrobe, grinning with satisfaction, she shoved the furniture out of the way. She tried the knob, luckily this one was unlocked. She opened the door slowly, her eyes widening at the sight of something on the other side as light poured from the other room into the current one. There was a loud and rather large explosion, sending the Zoroark flying back and crashing into the wall across the room.

She struggled up, rubbing her skull, that attack had actually kind of hurt...how dare whoever did that! A lip curled as her head whipped back to the direction of the door, but a sudden purple light shot into her. She blinked, wondering just what the hell that was. Little did she know, it was a Destiny Bond. She then spotted the culprit of her annoyance, a pumpkaboo. She snarled and attempted to make a move for it, but a sudden aura surrounded her and the pumpkaboo before she dropped to the ground in agony.

The pumpkaboo seemed to be glaring, at well everything. Its eyes seemed almost vacant, and it looked as if it was looking into the faces of those that had tormented it it's entire life. The pumpkaboo had been effected by the plague spreading across the lands, and it was looking for a little fun with its new hostage as health was sapped away from her and restored to him.

Sova nodded in response to to the tyrunt, showing that he was indeed him. He figured by Victoria's words that Veriq must have managed to find her, since it seemed the tropius had told her things she couldn't possibly have known beforehand. Great, because of that, he had to worry about getting in trouble. However, he was confident Victoria wasn't going to try to rat him out, since she was a third party and he'd just bailed her out of trouble and gotten her important thing back. Surely, a respectable princess wouldn't turn around and stab someone in the back after that. If she did, though, he could always just lie his way out of it.

"Yeah, you don't get to choose who you like. Sorry, though, I know she's-," he began, hoping to smooth things over with Victoria, but a sudden explosion cut him off.
He turned around just in time to see what appeared to be a Destiny Bond attaching itself to Mirage in the aftermath of an attack. He gasped as he remembered what'd happened with a certain archeops involving Destiny Bond, something that he couldn't just forget. It was kind of hard to forget what Destiny Bond looked like after something like that, too.

"Mirage, don't move, stay there. If you hit it, you'll hurt yourself!," he exclaimed as he began searching through his bag.
He already knew what Destiny Bond was and what it did, so he knew that attacking the thing causing it wasn't exactly a very good strategy. But how was someone supposed to beat it, then? By incapacitating it through other means, of course! He'd recalled bringing a Sleep seed with him, so if he could just find that, he could put the pumpkaboo to sleep without any trouble and Mirage wouldn't have to get hurt any worse.

Krikka waited a few minutes by the door before finally checking again. To her relief, the duskull seemed to now be gone. She opened the door and stepped through, realizing that she'd just stepped through a third door that hadn't even been available in this room before. Before moving on, she glanced back for only a moment to see a familiar shadowy figure behind her. She quickly spun around to reveal that the skull-ghost was now somehow behind her! Of course, her first instinct in her current condition was to run, so that was what she did. Into the room, past the unconscious yamask and through the door.

Once again, she found herself right back in the hall-like room she'd just come from. She stopped for a moment and looked behind her just to see the duskull following, prompting her to keep running. After another full-circle trip through the pointless and impossible path, she finally stopped at the black and white swirled carpet in the room she seemed to keep being pushed towards. As the duskull neared her, she bolted for the other door, the one she had avoided due to there being a weird candle-thing on the other side. Sure enough, upon opening the door, it was the same room with the same candle-thing roaming around it.

The weird pokemon did not hesitate to attack, blowing Embers of fire in the eevee's direction. She ran through the embers and straight towards the litwick despite the burning sensation then leaped over it, allowing her less prepared tag-along to crash into it. The two hostiles both fell to the ground, staying dazed for just long enough for the eevee to spot a door on the other side of the room and flee through it. The first thing she noticed in the next room was a pink and brown colored thing standing in front of a hole in one of the walls. Her first instinct was to go right back out the way she'd come in, but she didn't exactly have that option at the moment. So instead, she just stayed by the door for the time-being, waiting for the thing to go away.

Mirage seemed to be a bit too busy to quite notice anything, writhing in pain in all. The effects of the Pain Split taking effect still in reducing her energy despite the pumpkaboo being in top shape. The pain finally ceased for a moment, allowing her a moment of reprive and easy breathing.

The pumpkaboo seemed to grin from ear to ear before launching itself towards Sova and Victoria, glowing as it exploded yet again. Mirage was blasted into the wall again, and the wave of pain started up again was the pumpkaboo restored its health with another Pain Split. However this time Mirage had expected the pain her lips curled, her eyes wide with rage as a dark aura surrounded her.

Her intense anger was obvious on her face, she did not heed Sova's warning. If this thing was going to toy with her and try to use HER of all pokemon as a hostage, it was going to have hell on this earth for as long as she could help it. She threw her fist in front of her, hitting the air it seemed but a Dark Pulse of energy charged towards the Pumpkaboo with Mirage right behind it with Night Slash.

This was when Victoria took action as the pumpkaboo dodged the shadow ball. Her mouth opened as wide as it could as she took the deepest breath she could. She screamed at the top of her lungs, the scream forming into a Roar and blasting the pumpkaboo out of Mirage's reach and pinning it against a corner of the room. She looked to Sova expectantly, the little tyrunt trying to keep up the roar as much as she could. This was a golden opportunity to use the seed!

Sova put a paw up to block his face from the explosion, but other than that, it had no visible effects on him. It was too bad, this thing would have been easy to deal with if not for the fact that it was threatening Mirage. He sighed as Mirage completely ignored his instructions, which was what he figured would happen. No one ever seemed to want to listen to him, let alone a loner outlaw. Luckily, her attempt at attacking failed, preventing her from hurting herself for the time being. The glaceon finally found the seed he was looking for, just in time to see Victoria prove useful, pinning the pumpkaboo to a wall without hurting it too much.

He tossed the seed up and grabbed with his teeth since holding it in a paw while running would be extremely difficult, then bolted towards the pumpkaboo. While he wasn't using Ice Shard, he still managed to get to it fast enough, tossing the seed into the air near its face as he stopped. He then quickly lifted a paw and caught the seed against it as he thrust forward, forcing the item down the evil fat pumpkin-thing's throat.

Krikka watched the pumpkaboo go through the hole in the wall, seemingly blow itself up, then be flung out of her view. Of course, she was a bit confused as to what was happening since she couldn't see much of what was going on on the other side of the hole, so she decided to try and get a closer look.... safely. She slowly and quietly made her way over to the hole and leaned against the wall near it, peeking inside.

First thing the eevee saw was a familiar zoroark, which prompted her to quickly move back around to the side of the wall, out of sight. Sure, that was who she was looking for, but she was hoping not to find Mirage IN THE MIDDLE OF A FIGHT. What if she was taken as an enemy and attacked!? There was no way she could handle an attack from Mirage, even in peak condition!

The seed was eaten by the pumpkaboo, however the pumpkaboo only continued to grin as the roar faded and it was freed from its captivity. The pumpkaboo gave a happy flip in the air before landing on the ground. It shot itself towards Sova and Victoria, glowing as it used Explosion yet again and another pained cry from Mirage as the Pain split cured the pumpkin pokemon once more.

Mirage's eyes were snapped wide open, in a rage as the pumkaboo damaged itself only to regain its health using her. The zoroark gave a roar before rushing forth, using Night Slash, the pumpkaboo gave a squeak of fear as he zoroark rushed mercilessly towards it. This only fueled her attack as she grinned, rearing her claw back before slashing at the pumpkin. The pumpkaboo was struck by the attack, giving a small cry of fear. However just before the claw struck the pumpkaboo, what looked to be a small line of thread between the two suddenly appeared before it looked as if it were disconnected from Mirage.

Victoria coughed, her throat burning and his sides heaving for breath. That had to be the longest she had ever forced herself to roar in her life. She looked up in hopes to see that the pumpkaboo had been disabled, but it seemed to be perfectly fine! It must have had an ability that prevented sleep! The tyrunt's hopes dropped as the outlaw rushed towards the pumpkaboo, looking fine and ready to attack it!

Sova fell silent and stared at the pumpkaboo as he waited for the fast-acting effects of the Sleep seed to become apparent. However, he soon realized this thing must have had Insomnia, as the seed wasn't effecting it at all! His fur flash-froze into icy armor just before the annoying creature exploded once more, and while he was extremely close this time, the attack didn't manage to do anything more than crack his armor in a few places, which quickly regenerated. He was about ready to just knock it out, figuring it would be mercy to Mirage at this point, when the zoroark decided to attack it. He then spotted the Destiny Bond doing what he could only assume was wearing off and decided to instead just let Mirage have her fun with this thing.

Figuring he would try to do something productive while Mirage mauled the pumpkin-creature to death, the glaceon decided to check on Victoria. "Hey, are you-," he began to ask, but paused as he noticed something peeking through the hole in the wall that was once a doorway.
"....One moment," he commented before walking away from Victoria to go investigate the room on the other side of the hole, being careful to avoid Mirage. On the other side of the wall, he found.... an eevee. Specifically, a SHINY eevee. His ears immediately perked up in intrigue at this find.

Krikka listened to what was happening, hearing an explosion, then more commotion. At that point, her curiosity got the best of her and she peeked around the corner once more for just a moment.... only to spot the glaceon she'd seen earlier, who also seemed to spot her. She quickly recoiled back behind her cover and hoped that it hadn't actually noticed her, but moments later, the thing walked right through the hole, ending up inches away from her. "....Hi," she greeted, trying to seem as friendly as possible.

Sova waited to see what the eevee would do before reacting, figuring it was very possible that it was friendly.... and he really didn't want to hurt an eevee. Sure enough, it could speak, and it sounded very female. "Hi. You look hurt, what happened?," he questioned as he stared at the silvery fur ball in front of him, noticing the burn marks on her chest.
What could an eevee possibly be doing here? He hadn't looked back at what had been following them, so he wasn't aware that this was it.

A sense of relief filled the eevee as she got a verbal reply from the glaceon. Maybe she would live, after all! In fact.... maybe she could benefit from this! "I got into a fight.... Do you have anything that could help by any chance? ....Please?," she replied, hoping that just telling the truth and being a major suck-up would get her something to help with this burn.

Sova sighed as this eevee requested his aid. He was willing to help, but he didn't want to just give away all of his stuff. He dug through his bag with a paw before taking out an Oran berry and tossing it to the eevee. "Here," he replied, figuring that would be enough since the burn would likely heal soon anyways.
He then immediately turned away to go back in the room, wanting to make sure Mirage was handling herself okay.

Krikka managed to catch the berry in her front paws and balance on her back paws with a bit of difficulty, feeling the glaceon could have handed it to her instead of tossing it. He also could have given her something to help with the burn! Still, an Oran berry was more than nothing, so she wasn't going to turn it down. She ate the berry as fast as she could to get some energy back ASAP, beginning to feel the effects almost immediately.

(Still got two rolls left for Krikka, who now has 10 energy to roll with. Or something. Enough for 2 rolls.)

Lord E V carried out 2 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

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