Rubik's Cube

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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!

"Huh....," Krikka muttered as Victoria explained.
It did indeed seem odd that there were identical scratch marks showing up on the walls.  She glanced up at the painting in question, feeling that she could indeed knock it down if it was on a hook, but she was unsure if it was even attached to the wall with a hook.  "Sure, but what if it's glued there or something?," she questioned just before jumping up and pawing at it.
The first time, she only managed to move the painting, not knock it down.  However, the second time proved to be the charm, with her jumping up once more and managing to knock the painting off its hook and.... right on top of her, breaking over her head and becoming a neck brace of sorts.  "Aah!," she yelled as the painting became an accessory, knocking her back down onto the floor off balance and resulting in her just falling.
"Never mind, then....," she stated with the revelation that the painting was not glued to the wall in mind.
"....Wanna help get this off me?"

S.S. stared blankly at the sableye as it completely misunderstood his name and seemed to want him to.... help make.... whatever monstrosity Grim would dare call "food."  He wasn't really sure how to respond, given he wasn't much of a conversationalist.  "N-no, my name is.... never mind, look, I'm not a chef.  I can't help with your food and I've got to find help for some idiot who got in my way," he explained, his tone unintentionally falling malevolent as his agitation at the situation grew.
Soon, it was very likely that there would be malevolence in more than just his tone of voice....

Victoria looked at Krikka sympathetically as she gained a nice new collar. She lowered her jaw and bit into the wooden frame of the painting. She lifted it off of the eevee with ease before tossing it to the side, "Are you okay?" she asked.
She figured that with this painting they'd be able to tell if they really were trapped in an endless loop. She feared what could possibly happen if they were. Were they doomed to walk these walls until they died? Perhaps she could smash down a wall if she tried enough? The tyrunt waited for the Eevee's response, before turning to where they were originally heading, "If we really are going in a circle, then we should encounter this painting again," she concluded aloud before walking onward.

The sableye paused, then looked down to the glaceon with a frown. It thought for a moment, before Grim's smile returned, "Access! You get Ingredis! Not Food, not food! Grim Chef, but Grim not chef now! Grim make trap, trap for HER," he seemed to recoil at the word "her", as if merely saying it put a bad taste in his mouth.
"You help Grim? You help? Help?" The sableye begged.

Mirage was stuck, her body felt heavy. She still could not move, but she could hear voices not too far off from where she lay. She wondered if it was the group, or perhaps wild pokemon trying to decide what to do with her? She struggled to move, but her body still refused to respond. She was beginning to worry, this was becoming quite a problem...

Mirage

Kat carried out 1 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

Victoria

Kat carried out 1 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

Krikka shook her head as she was relieved of the painting around her neck, feeling grateful that her fur collar wasn't anywhere near as heavy as what she'd just experienced. "Yeah, I'm fine," she replied, although her neck was hurting now and she felt a bit dizzy.
Victoria didn't need to know that, though, and she was trying to prove she could hold her own. She looked down at the painting, wondering if they really would encounter it again.... and she could just barely make out that the hole was right where the head of whatever was on the painting had been. Maybe some would have found this a bit creepy, but she only found it funny. "Sounds like a plan," she agreed as she moved along.

S.S.' ears perked up slightly as his mind struggled slightly to translate what'd been said to him, revealing something that actually interested him. Grim was not actually making food, which was a relief. The sableye was actually setting a trap for someone. This was something he could definitely get behind, because he assumed it involved hurting someone. "Oh, well now you've got my attention. What do you need?," he questioned, a rather insane smile slowly creeping over his face.

(Energy - 11.... just trust me on this, I'm a wizard.)

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

, , , ,

Mirage could feel something sniffing her arm, it was annoying. She was able to growl at it, but it did not seem to react, had she growled in the first place? She felt herself be able to move, and slammed her other paw into the floorboards. She missed the creature, but soon found that it was a small puppish pokemon that had a scar across is nozzle as if he were straight out of some kind of legend or story. She curled her lips at it, but it only curled its lips in return.

Zera snarled at the beast he seemed to have awakened. Who was she? Why was she on his self-proclaimed turf? Well technically this wasn't his turf, he had entered the house in attempt to find some new territory, claimed a strange garden like area, only to enter through a door and never be able to find it again. He had given up and claimed this entire house as his turf at this point. The houndour growled, and the giant fox seemed to look down on him, as if he was weak!

"Grim need more silver, silver for beast!" He held up a fork to show the glaceon from atop the counter before dropping it into the pot. "Her no like silver, make her sick! Sick, pain, die."
The gremlin flinched upon hearing the snarls in the other side of the room, "Who there?" it demanded.

Victoria continued onward, the two eventually coming across the same painting once again.
"Well crap."
She sighed, staring at the painting. What could they do? She wondered if she'd be able to bash down a wall. She had never tried to do anything of the sort, but maybe with the help of Earthquake or Stomp she could muster the strength to take down a wall. Could the eevee do anything like that? Something like Helping Hand? The tyrunt was lost in thought, trying to come up with a plan other than "oh well let's keep walking maybe it'll stop"

Zera: 9

Kat carried out 5 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

, , , ,

S.S.' attention had been fully set on the sableye's mission at the word "die," with him being more than willing to assist in anything that involved killing. Socializing was not one of his strong points, but killing, now that was something he knew how to do and even enjoyed! Come to think of it.... violence was the only thing he really enjoyed. Sova was lucky.... able to like things other than violence, to be satisfied without having blood in the equation.... sometimes. When that wasn't enough, though, S.S. was always there to "help" his weaker half out. "Alright," he agreed with a nod, before turning around to look for some silverware....
Then he heard the noise.

The glaceon walked in an almost robotic rhythm back towards the thing that was supposed to be his friend or something, curious as to what the commotion was. There he saw the zoroark.... Mirage, if he recalled correctly, and.... a houndour who looked.... familiar. He didn't know the houndour, of course, as he didn't know anyone, but he vaguely recalled from Sova's perception that he was supposed to know this hound. "Ahem.... if you two start fighting, you know I'll have to break it up, right?," he questioned, keeping his emotional zombie tone as he looked at the other two who seemed to be having a staring contest.
Maybe his words were a bit more.... threatening than what was necessary, but threatening was the only thing he knew how to be. Besides, Mirage was an outlaw, this much he knew, so she probably wouldn't care.... right?

"...." Krikka fell unresponsive as the two came back upon the painting that'd fallen on her, confirming that they were indeed going in circles, trapped in an endless loop.
Now.... she was starting to get a little worried. Suddenly, her mind kicked into overdrive, trying to think of ways out of this situation as the realization of the danger of their situation hit her. Did Victoria have the strength to break the walls? Probably not, but maybe they could try to find a weak point somewhere. Other possibilities.... maybe there was some kind of secret passageway? Like a switch behind a painting or something! They'd have to completely wreck the place to find something like that, but they didn't exactly have any better options. Another possibility, maybe it was some mystical trap that only worked one way and if they turned around and walked the other way, they would free themselves.

"Okay, I have a few ideas. I thought the rumors surrounding this chateau were bogus, but I guess I was wrong, so this is probably some kind of trap. Meaning there might be a way out.... Maybe it's somehow taking us back to this place when we walk forward, so it we go the other way instead, it might let us go. If that doesn't work, there could be some kind of secret passage, a switch or lever or something," she spoke up, seeing Victoria wasn't going to.
Her tone was calm despite the building mix of panic and frustration in her, acting was a talent that she found herself to be quite good at. While she would have pretended to be calm regardless, she really didn't want to risk sending her only ally into a panic, so she was extra careful about being calm.

The gremlin had abandoned the pot and followed S/S, wondering who was invading his kitchen.

Zera's ears perked at a familiar tone, his head snapped towards the source, and his eyes widened with glee.
"BAAAAAAWS!" the hound cried out happily, launching himself towards Sova. The glaceon had side-stepped however, and left the hound to fly past him and crash through a cabinet, breaking the weak board. There was a clang of pots and pans as a pot's lid rolled out from within the cabinet before settling near the glaceon's feet.
Despite the obvious rejection, the houndour hopped out of the cupboard with an old skimmer around his neck, broken and rusted already.
"Boss!" he cried out happily again, his stub tail wagging joyfully.

Mirage watched the spectacle unfold before her, "Hmph.." she huffed, sitting down before bringing her hair around her shoulder and wringing the water out.
"Annoying pest," she grumbled before speaking aloud, "Care to explain why i'm completely soaked and it feels like I took a Hydro Pump head on?"
The zoroark shook her self, sending water flying everywhere and causing her earring to tingle. She looked around, observing that they were in a kitchen. There was a sableye as well, but it seemed to be friendly with Sova.

Victoria looked to the walls, "Got anything like helping hand?" she asked the eevee. If the eevee had something assisting like that then they could easily blast through the wall to the next room. She was getting tired of walking, she wanted a sure-fire way of getting to the next area and perhaps finding their friends. She looked to the eevee hopefully, eevees usually knew Helping Hand right?

S.S. merely stepped out of the way as the houndour attempted to.... tackle-hug him? He wasn't going to attack, considering this houndour was clearly an ally, but that certainly didn't mean he was going to allow himself to be given such affections. He gave a dull gaze in the direction of the houndour, who seemed set on calling him Boss, which he wasn't going to complain about. Then the voice of the zoroark snapped his attention back over to her. Too much speaking.... too little fighting. "I gave you a bath," he replied inconsiderately, not even bothering to explain his reasoning as to why.
Mirage could be mad at him for all he cared, it wasn't like he would have to be the one fixing it. That would be Sova's problem, not his.

Krikka's agitation only grew as Victoria asked if she had Helping Hand. HELPING. HAND. What did the tyrunt take her for, some pathetic support-coward!? No, she was a full-fledged fighter, she was no one's support machine! However, she still kept herself calm and restrained, not wanting to lash out at what could possibly be her only way out of here. "No, I don't "help," I fight," she explained, wanting to make it evident that she was not so cowardly as to play a support-role.
She raised a paw, the pad of which began to glow a light purple as she demonstrated her offensive presence by showing Toxic. Granted, what one was given in terms of moves only allowed for so much choice in the matter, but she actually didn't have Helping Hand.

Mirage listened as she was told that she was given a bath. She stared at the glaceon suspiciously, he was acting quite different. Was this perhaps not actually the glaceon? Where did her love-slave go? It was annoying, but it seemed that whatever this was wasn't hostile, so she decided to go with it for now. If it proved to be a problem later on then she could just rid herself of it. She looked to the houndour, who had approached the glaceon once more, behind in the air with his front half bowed down in a playful pose.

"BawsBawsBaws!" the hound chimed, "Where have you been?? What's up? Why do you smell weird?" the hound asked the glaceon, not noticing the differences in how the glaceon presented itself. To him, boss was boss, there was no other boss within boss. The hound was too dim to realize it, and instead just assumed that perhaps boss was in a bad mood. Maybe they could go kill some things together and he could prove his worth and be freed from Boss? The hound's tail wagged back and forth, not paying any attention to the Zoroark or the Sableye.

Victoria was unsure of why the pokemon felt the need to present the toxic paw to her, but had an idea, "Do you think it could somehow melt through the wall? Is it like acid?" she asked, pointing to her toxic paw. The tyrunt figured the toxic might be able to at least weaken the wall, and allow her to smash through it a bit easier if need be.

S.S. was more confused than anything at the houndour's sudden barrage of questions.... and this led to agitation. He'd gathered that he was apparently this thing's boss, but he wasn't really sure how to answer any of the questions. He smelled weird? Why? What had Sova gotten into!? He began to feel lightheaded at the prolonged exposure to such confusing situations. He could win seemingly impossible fights for Sova with ease, yet he was on the verge of passing out from a mere conversation!? "I don't know," he growled, not able to think of any better response.
Honestly, it was true, he really didn't know the answers to any of these questions. That didn't change the fact that he didn't want to answer either, though.

Krikka tilted her head to the left and gave a confused look, then directed her gaze to her still-glowing paw. "I.... don't know," she admitted, then fell silent for a moment.
It was worth a try, she supposed. With that in mind, the eevee placed her paw on the wall to see if anything would happen. After a moment of nothing, she took her paw off the wall, leaving a purple mark that faded shortly after to reveal it'd left a slight mark of corrosion on the wall. "Huh....," she muttered, then lit both of her front paws up in preparation to do it again.
This time, she lifted herself onto only her back paws, placing the front ones against the wall before pulling them downwards in an X-fashion, ending up cross-pawed from it as her paws landed on the ground. The glow persisted this time, accompanied by a quiet sizzling noise as the purple X began to burn into the wall.

"I guess so," she said as she watched, the glow fading not too long after.
Maybe that would be enough for Victoria to break through? If not, she supposed she would just have to do it more.

The tyrunt took a step back as the eevee went to work in weakening the wall, once she was finished and in the clear the tyrunt began her assault right in the center of the markings. She charged forth before leaping into the air and jump-kicking the wall, enforcing her strength with Stomp and slammed into the wall. It was times like these that she wished she knew something like Head Smash. The wall cracked and some pictures dropped from their spot as she fell to the ground, but did not cave in. She tried again, stepping back before performing a run-jump-kick into the wall. This time she crashed through it and into a strange room filled to the brim...with dolls.

The hound did not seem to mind that the glaceon would not share where he had been recently, instead he decided to smell him. He reached forward with his nose and took a good whiff, smelled like some kind of strange food, dust, more dust, bones? Flesh? Had boss been hunting or something? Either way, he had the smell of sea-food on him as well...

Mirage looked to the gremlin like creature, it seemed to be looking around worridly. It occasionally glanced back at them though, she huffed before getting up.
"We're not going to find dumb and dumber if we stick around here I suppose," she spoke. She wanted to find that tyrunt and eevee now, the meat shields might be able to snap Sova back to himself if that was Sova. They would also be able to keep an eye on him to show for signs that something had replaced Sova and he wasn't actually lose somewhere in this arceus forsaken house.

"....Who?," S.S. muttered faintly as his dizzy spell worsened, causing him to fall against the wall to his left.
A mere few moments later, the glaceon's eyelids fell shut and he slid down to the ground, his consciousness suddenly switching with the effects of the room with the painting wearing off. Of course, given Sova hadn't been prepared for sudden dizziness, he immediately collapsed. "Uuuuh....," he moaned in displeasure as he tried to gather what was happening, where he was, what the last thing he remembered was.
"Switching" was always a very unpleasant and confusing experience for him, but this time, it was especially confusing. As he opened his eyes, he saw no presumably deceased bodies in the area, nor any mass destruction.

Krikka stepped back to give her ally more room to bash down the wall and watched, surprised to see it actually work. She didn't actually know prior to this experience that Toxic could do any damage to solid objects. It made sense, though, she supposed, considering the damage it could inflict on someone affected by it. As the tyrunt finally broke through the wall, the eevee peeked through behind her, looking around at all of the.... dolls. "Oooh, creepy," she commented rather excitedly, taking interest in the doll room.
She wondered who would want to keep this many dolls, though. Like, really, who needed this many dolls!?

"Boooooooooooossssssssssss" Zera cried out as the glaceon collapsed, "Are you okay? What happened? Why did you collapse?" the hound spouted questions back to back to the glaceon, getting near him. He wondered if he should offer to help the boss up, but decided against it seeing as how his body would probably burn Sova's. His ears were flat against his skull with worry, his boss was hurt? How had he not noticed? The Boss was ill, and it was his fault because he had not been there to take whatever hit he had received.

Mirage looked to Sova as he collapsed, however he got up almost immediately. She stared at him for a moment as Zera already asked all the questions she had. Her ears perked, a sudden sound catching her attention. A door had appeared briefly behind them, and a sableye and duskull had appeared from it, closing the door behind them with rather angry looks on their faces. The door seemed to melt into the floor, and Grim growled at the sableye, "Her! Her! She is her!"

Victoria looked around, the dolls all seemed to be looking at them. She stepped further into the room, before it began to rumble. She looked back to the eevee to check to see if she was okay, luckily she was, but the way they had come in had completely reformed as if there was never any hole to begin with. She sighed, and turned to look back ahead of her, to find a large plush ursaring standing right in front of her, that had not been there before.

Sova groaned at the sudden onslaught of questions, his head still not having quite cleared. However, it seemed no one knew what'd happened to him.... though he was pretty sure of what'd happened. This meant he didn't have to explain, though, he could spare them all the confusion! As he pulled himself up and off the wall, he merely replied, "I just got a headache. No big-"
Then he stopped as a door suddenly appeared, opening to reveal another sableye and a duskull. He had no clue why, but the sableye he'd confirmed was friendly apparently really wanted them to know that the other sableye was a female. Not what he considered to be the most important piece of information, but what he did notice that seemed important was the fact that this "her" looked agitated at something.

Krikka looked around the room, interested in the many dolls. She wasn't too interested to notice their entrance to the room repairing itself, but that didn't seem like something they needed to worry about immediately. She looked to her left at some of the dolls, admiring how well-made they were, then to her right. Apparently, someone had a lot of talent for crafting and even more spare time.... "Well, this place is pretty neat," she stated, accidentally letting herself be honest about her opinion for a moment.
Then she noticed the large ursaring doll in front of Victoria and almost gasped at how big it was. Not from terror, but from astonishment.

Mirage snarled at the foes, watching as the Sableye crossed its arms and tapped its foot impatiently. It seemed to be glaring at Grim, who seemed to be half hiding himself behind the edge of the counter. Mirage did not know who this gremlin was, but they did not look friendly. A dark aura began to surround her, preparing a Dark Pulse for the group and take them down as soon as she could. However the sableye held out a finger and shook it as if to say "naughty naughty" before it glowed brilliantly.

Zera watched the sableye, unsure of what it was doing. He stood protectively in front of Boss, who did not seem to be feeling well. He released a low growl as the sableye raised the hand and a small fire ball appeared in it. A fire move! Ice was weak against fire. The hound turned and quickly headbutted the glaceon out of harm's way as the Sableye pitched the fire ball at the hound. The ball landed at the hound's feet, he did not flee, desiring to consume the attack with his ability. However the unexpected happened, as a pillar of flames shot up and engulfed his entire body. There was a pitched yelp, before the cackling of the sableye sounded as it waggled its finger, preparing another attack.

Victoria stared at the ursaring doll. It wasn't moving, so it was fine right? Perhaps there was some ghost type lurking about and moving the dolls? She stepped around it cautiously, being sure to give it a wide radius. There were dolls all over the room, all of various pokemon. There was a ninetales plushie that seemed to be off by itself in a corner. It gave her an eerie feeling, so she decided to stay away from it.
"See any other doors?" she asked the eevee.

Sova, still in his dazed state, merely watched as the newcomers revealed themselves to be hostile.  Before he even got a chance to register an attack was coming his way, Zera knocked him out of the way, resulting in him stumbling back into the wall he'd just managed to get off of.  He remained silent, attempting to snap out of his dazed state and focus.  Before long, though, a battle had started that he was finding it fairly difficult to follow along with.  A Fire-type attack had.... seemingly hurt Zera, and it looked like quite a powerful attack, too.  He found himself confused as to how a sableye was using a Fire attack, though, especially such a powerful one.

Before he could think much about it, the duskull joined in on attacking, making its body glow an eerie black color, before pointing at the group and sending portions of the eerie aura towards everyone except for the sableye it was with. Sova instantly felt weaker as a portion of the aura transferred to him, filling him with a feeling of physical weakness.  It suddenly seemed as if the duskull was going to fall to the ground, a sudden weakness apparent in it.  Then it locked eyes with Sova and suddenly, his body was filled with a horrible pain.  Just as he'd begun to pull himself off the wall once more, he found himself yet again leaning on it.  However, he didn't make any sounds to signal his pain.... instead, he merely glared angrily at the duskull who suddenly seemed rejuvenated.  Memento.... then Pain Split.  He was not pleased at this thing's idea of an attack, but on the bright side, it'd certainly snapped him back to reality.  However, instead of immediately attacking, he waited for the two threats to completely lose focus of him for even a second.

"I see lots of things, but none of them look like doors," Krikka responded to the tyrunt's question as she looked around the room.
She didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave, and that was because she wasn't.  She couldn't help but notice one plush that stuck out among the rest, despite being in a pile with a bunch of others and being of about average if not less-than-average size.  An eevee.... but not just any eevee, no no.... an eevee of the same silvery-gray color as her!  For some reason, she felt beckoned to it, taking a few pawsteps towards it before stopping and deciding to move along.  The odd desire to take it with her kind of made her want to stay away from it.... but when she turned around, there was an identical plush toy on the floor in front of her.  She quickly spun back around to see there was no longer a familiar eevee doll in the pile of toys she'd previously been looking at, then looked back to the one on the floor.  Was it the same one....?  Was that even possible!?  Her calm demeanor just flew out the nonexistent window and her jaw dropped in astonishment, surprise, and perhaps a bit of fear at this strange teleporting doll.