Rubik's.... Tube?

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Taking the lead.... was not something Sova fancied doing. However, most of the group he was with didn't quite seem capable of leading the way and he didn't want to make Mirage have to do it, so he decided to do it himself. No one seemed to complain, so all seemed well.... then they reached the end of the hall they'd gone down, with a fairly normal-looking door. He pushed it open to find what appeared to be the inside of a cylindrical tower, with a stairway spiraling up along the single, circular wall. He looked up to see there were torches lined along the wall in the same pattern as the stairs. The lights clearly continued very far up, but he couldn't seem to see the ceiling. Was it really that far up, or was this just some kind of optical illusion created by the house?

"Uuuh.... I hope no one's afraid of heights," he said to the group as he held the door open for them, still staring up.
None of them could fly, so this place seemed pretty dangerous for everyone in the group. They would likely get to a point where one wrong move could condemn someone to.... death. He wasn't too worried about it being his own death, but some of the members of their merry little group were probably nowhere near as experienced as him.

Krikka followed along, trying to stay in the middle of the group so that if anyone got attacked, it wouldn't be her. She looked in her bag as she walked to see if Plush-Vee was still there, and sure enough, it was. Maybe there'd been a Ghost-type trying to scare her using it before, but it didn't seem interested in moving anymore, so whatever had been going on with it didn't seem to be going on anymore. That didn't matter, though, she was fine with just having the plush doll with her.... it looked nice.

The eevee then turned her attention to her chest, rubbing it with a paw to feel her burn. She could barely feel it, maybe all those Oran berries she'd gotten Sova to give her had helped! The black marks of the burn on her fur had also begun to fade and she no longer felt half-crippled, it was almost like she was as good as new. Of course, she didn't quite feel perfect, but it was at least better than the state she'd been in directly after her fight.

Mirage seemed to keep going, climbing over the stairs with ease due to her height. She turned to watch the spectacle with the falling eevee, as Sova caught the eevee. She kept going,

Victoria stepped through the hole created by the glaceon, unable to climb over with her short height so she decided to follow the Glaceon. However she heard a sudden scream, she looked in the direction of the sound to see Krikka falling! What was she going to do?! She could only watch as the Glaceon moved to save her, she kinda wished that she had those kinds of abilities. It'd certainly be useful to have around especially for situations exactly like this.
"Can I get a little help here please?" she asked.
"Get through it yourself," Mirage huffed.
"Oh..." Victoria silenced herself, what was up with her?

The houndoom gave a yipe as Boss suddenly darted off. He jumped over the hurdle of stairs to see boss save the helpless fluffy. Meat slab made a comment that the fox responded to, but Zera paid little attention to it. Boss was ahead! He needed to catch up with boss in case something happened! Zera picked up the pace, using his new and larger body to jump up and down over the fence like stairs.

Mirage - 3
Victoria - 1
Zera - 1
Mirage

Kat carried out 3 launched of one Ruined Passageway :

, ,

Victoria

Kat carried out 1 launched of one Ruined Passageway :

Zera

Kat carried out 1 launched of one Ruined Passageway :

Sova merely laid there on the stairs for a moment, feeling he deserved a bit of a rest after risking his life for someone he barely knew. It seemed no one else had been interested in helping, or at least, they couldn't, but he knew Mirage had the capabilities to at least try, but apparently, the zoroark didn't feel like doing such a thing today. Why again was he friends with an outlaw? She wasn't even really a nice outlaw.... but when he'd met Mirage, there was just.... something different. Maybe the zoroark was hiding it now, but she'd actually seemed like someone with the potential to be liked back then. What ever could possibly happen to change someone in such a drastic way....? Well, considering he himself was likely much less likable than he used to be, he knew that could happen, but still.

The glaceon looked over to the unconscious eevee and sighed. He couldn't help but wonder how much he'd hurt the little thing, but it was for a good enough reason, at least. Either way, he couldn't really give himself or the eevee time to rest peacefully, they needed to get back up to the rest of the group.... even though down was actually where they would need to be going. As far as he could tell, the tunnel had basically flipped completely upside down from where they'd started, so what used to be up was now down. He wondered if the rest of the group had gotten to this area yet. Either way, he still needed to get back to the rest of the group, as he'd pretty much appointed himself as the defender of all of them. Even Mirage. With that in mind, he bit onto Krikka's scruff, lifted her off the ground and started walking up the stairs back toward the rest of the group.

Krikka was unconscious and thus, did not object to being carried. She couldn't. That's kind of what being unconscious is. She was in a comparable state to her plush-vee at the moment. Seriously, the only real current difference between the two was that the plush-vee was much smaller.

(Sova - 55 energy. Krikka - 1.)

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

, , , ,

Lord E V carried out 1 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

(And now for the grand finale, a Trawl Orb.)

Lord E V carried out 10 launched of one Ruined Chateau :

, , , , , , , , ,

The dark type fox caught up with Sova and the eevee quickly, the houndoom just behind her. The silent outlaw glanced down at the eevee, it was fine. No problem here. However, she paused, a strange feeling overcoming her. She stood up on her two legs, having used all four to land when she jumped off the stars. Something was happening, but what? She felt a pressure on her, as if she was suddenly rather heavy. She heard a chuckle, she whipped her head in the direction of the chuckle to see a blue flame as a Chandelure floated about.

Zera looked up at the chandelure, "Uh...Boss, what is that?" he asked, looking up at the ghostly pokemon. The pokemon was on fire, so he assumed that it was a fire type, which meant he could protect Boss from the dangerous fire attacks. He felt himself get heavier, but he was too busy trying to get closer to Boss to notice that he was getting slower.

Victoria was ignored...of course. She sighed, was she just going to be stuck here then? How the hell was she supposed to-HOLY SHIT RANDOM WHITE BEAM. A beam of white light erupted from beside her. Her jaw dropped, the beam of light destroying the stairs as it traveled and barely missing Sova and Krikka. She looked to the source, to find a purple beast giggling, half buried it seems in the ground. The gengar needed to recharge, but it was still giggling at the face she caused by the sudden powerful attack.

Sova said nothing in the form of greetings as the others reached him, a bit upset that no one but him had even bothered to try helping Krikka.  Specifically, he was upset with Mirage, able to let it go that the houndoom who seemed rather.... on the slow side hadn't thought to help.  Mirage was definitely intelligent, though, and she wasn't heartless, so what was that about!?  He knew the zoroark had some form of kindness in her due to past events, was she trying to suppress it?  He glanced up as a chandelure revealed itself and noticed his body seemed to be getting heavier.  He looked back to the houndoom who'd questioned what it was, dropped the eevee he was holding in his mouth and responded, "A decoration," intending to taunt the thing.
Why?  No real reason, just for fun.

He didn't seem particularly worried about the chandelure, despite the obvious issue in the type disadvantage.  What was the worst that could happen, really?  If it attacked, he'd just hit it with a Shadow Ball.  One would probably be enough to knock it out or scare it off unless it was abnormally strong, he figured.  Besides, he had two fairly capable allies with him too, so there really didn't seem to be any reason at all to worry.  However, as if the house was feeling merciful enough to let them avoid a fight today, a door suddenly arose from lower down, or.... what would have been higher up earlier, conveniently stopping on the wall right by the group, like some kind of spooky elevator.  It seemed good.... too good to be true.

Krikka was picked up, then dropped, still out cold. Heh. Cold. Get it? Because she got knocked out by ice? Fk u that's funny.

Mirage stared at the strange door that suddenly appeared. Should they go in it? Was it dangerous? She looked back, startled as a Hyper Beam suddenly appeared from nowhere. Just a gengar. She huffed, annoying pest. Both the gengar and the chandelure. She turned back to the door, figuring Sova would take care of it if they proved to be a best. Would it be best to go into it or to stay out here? She wondered if it would just lead them back into the main part of the house, with all the confusing rooms rather than this long set of stairs. After all it was a door...

Victoria watched as the gengar sank into the ground as it giggled, she didn't know whether to thank it or to yell at it for scaring her. Instead she decided to simply say nothing and take the chance to catch up with the group. She reached them a bit faster than she expected however, she blinked as she covered half the distance in a few seconds. She decided to think nothing of it, at least for now, and caught up with the group. She was getting the hang of this shifting of gravity, though it confused her to no end.

"Boss!" Zera spoke as he approached the same level boss was on, "Are you okay?" he asked, concerned although he was pretty sure Boss was fine. Zera looked up at the chandelure. It was a decoration Boss had said. Then it probably wasn't going to hurt them. Zera did not quite catch on that it was actual pokemon until the chandelure made an angry cry.
"Boss I don't think that's a decoration," He spoke, blinking in confusion.

Hyper Beams.... angry chandelures.... the eevee waking up.... Mirage being moody.... there were too many things for Sova to have to deal with right now and he was starting to get a bit agitated. Wait, the eevee waking up? He looked down in front of him to see the little ball of fluff groaning and moving. Good, then he didn't need to babysit! "Hey, guard her. Feel free to keep going on without me, I'll catch up. If the decoration gives you any trouble, it can be your chew toy," he responded to the houndoom, clearly completely ignoring the statement that the chandelure was in fact not a decoration.
The chandelure growled once more at continuously being called a decoration, but he merely pointed a paw up at it and stated in a very firm tone, "Shut up, I'm not done talking."

He then turned to Mrs. Moody, Madame Malevolent herself, Mirage, and spoke up toward her next. "You, with me, in here, now," he demanded, before pushing the door open and revealing a rather dimly lit room, then waiting for the zoroark to step inside.
They REALLY needed to talk if he were to continue being friends with Mirage, specifically about why she had somehow figured out how to be MORE of an ass than before.

Krikka groaned as she began to awaken, only to hear things that confused her. Maybe she'd just go back to sleep.... yeah.... then she wouldn't have to deal with this. Her body felt cold, though.... she needed to find something to keep her warm. Wait, where was she again....? Oh, right.... OH RIGHT. She lifted her head up and looked around to see she wasn't dead and it seemed she was back with the group. Maybe it'd just been a bad dream and she'd never been in any danger at all? No, the piercing cold pain she'd recalled feeling was still lingering, she felt freezing, it couldn't possibly have been a dream!

Victoria looked to the eevee, "Krikka!" she spoke as she noticed she was waking up, "Are you okay?" the tyrunt watched as the Glaceon seem to want to speak with the outlaw. She looked back to Krikka, deciding to let those two do whatever they were going to do and deal with the one that's probably actually hurt. She glanced up at the chandelure, it did not seem to be too happy. Great, they had to deal with a Gengar AND a chandelure on their own because Sova decided to go off somewhere with Mirage.

Zera nodded, "Yes Boss!" He spoke before training his eyes on the only apparent threat in the room to make sure it did not get near the sleeping fluffy. He did not really care for the slab of meat since Boss didn't order that he take care of her, just the fluffy. He didn't care for moving on, if Fluffy wanted to move on then she could, he'd just follow until boss came to relieve him of duty.

Mirage was a bit surprised when Sova demanded that he talk to her. She huffed in slight annoyance. The hell did he want with her specifically? Was it because she did not save the useless? She decided to humor him, and followed him into the room. She was silent as she did so, not desiring to make any smart remarks and simply waited for the Glaceon.

Sova kept his eyes trained on Mirage until she was inside the room before stepping away from the door and letting it close, trusting the others to be capable of staying alive on their own for just a few minutes. Due to the dim lighting and the fact that he was focused on Mirage, he failed to notice a chair on the other end of the room, black in color and barely visible in the low lighting. However, what was more noteworthy was the thing IN the chair. "Mind explaining to me what in the he-," he began, but silenced himself abruptly as the door suddenly sank into the crack between the floor and the wall it was on, trapping them in the room without an exit.
It was only then that he really became aware of the thing in the chair, due to a malevolent, feminine laughter.

(This seems fitting.)

"What are we talking about?," the mostly-white creature sat upon the chair spoke up, as if it were a part of the conversation.
The calm tone of the feminine voice toward total strangers coupled with the situation made for quite an eerie atmosphere. If one could see through the low light, they would know the froslass had its sight trained on Mirage in specific, but since a certain glaceon couldn't see well in the darkness, he could barely tell it was there, let alone what it was looking at.

Sova remained silent as the realization of what he was looking at dawned on him.... it just had to be a froslass. Those psychotic snowdemons.... he had no problems with killing one of them.... or at least he wanted to think so. Yet his legs didn't seem to want to follow his instructions and move toward the creature so he could strangle it. Why was this? He wasn't afraid! He wasn't.... right!?

Krikka groaned as her name was called, then she was questioned on if she was okay. Did she look okay!? No, seriously, she wasn't quite sure of her appearance at the moment, so someone filling her in on how she currently looked would have been welcome. "I'm alive," she muttered as she got up, looking around to get a good idea of where they were.
Great, still in the Hallway of Hell. What was more, there seemed to be a new member of the group.... a chandelier? Was that a pokémon? Well, it didn't seem to be attacking, so she could only assume it was friendly....

Mirage looked towards the frosslass, it was staring at her, she huffed as it asked what they had been talking about. She glanced to Sova...was he seriously freezing up at a time like this? Maybe he wasn't as useful as she thought. Well, freezing up as in unable to move, not freezing up as in icy armor thing that he usually does.

She looked back to the frosslass with an unamused stare, "We were talking about how much we'd love to roast a frosslass for dinner," she huffed, not serious about eating the ice and ghost type. Hell if they killed it they probably would not even get any meat from it since it would sink through the ground or something. She did not act surprised at all, as if she had expected something odd or weird to happen.

Zera stared at the decoration that Boss had told could be his chew toy. The decor seemed to glare back at him, but did not make a move to attack. Zera figured that it probably sensed the dangers of attacking, after all he had a type advantage and could probably just consume the flames of the chandelure with nothing to fear. He paid little attention to the slab of meat and the fluffy's conversation.

"Well that's good," Victoria sighed before glancing to the watch dog Sova had assigned to Krikka. The tyrunt was not quite sure what to do, should they wait for Sova and Mirage or keep going without them? They had this strange mutt to accompany them, but the question was whether or not he was strong. The tyrunt thought for a moment before speaking, "Sova and Mirage disappeared behind a door...again..." she told Krikka, unsure of whether or not she had seen or heard in her period of not moving-ness.

The froslass closed its eyes and made an oddly happy face at the remark, even giggling, before it floated up off of the chair it was sat upon and began floating slowly toward the two, still focused on the zoroark. It noticed the other Ice-type in the room didn't seem particularly interested in stopping it.... but that was no matter, it didn't care about the glaceon anyway. "Aah...," it began as if it were going to say something meaningful, then paused before suddenly dashing behind the zoroark at an untraceable speed, leaving behind an afterimage due to the sheer speed.
However, instead of using this to some immediate strategic advantage, the froslass mererly announced its presence behind Mirage by speaking up once more, "You seem fun." It then waited for the zoroark to turn around before doing anything, as opposed to immeditately attacking.

Sova merely watched as the froslass exchanged words with Mirage. He wanted to join into the conversation, but he couldn't seem to force himself to speak either! What was wrong with him? It was as if his entire body had suddenly stopped responding, and for no clear reason! He also had some odd feeling, something he'd only felt a few times in his life.... what was it.... fear? It only grew worse as the froslass neared Mirage, and of course, he could easily keep track of it when it dashed behind the zoroark due to him having an outside view. However, he found himself still unable to speak, incapable of warning his companion of the imminent danger!

Krikka hesitated to respond to the tyrunt, still a bit fuzzy on.... well, everything, since she'd just woken up from what would probably be a rather traumatizing event to most. In fact, she still hadn't quite decided whether it'd bee traumatizing to her or not yet, unsure of it was really bad enough for that. Sure, she'd been terrified, enough so to completely drop her guise, but that didn't necessarily mean she was traumatized. "Uhh.... that's nice," she responded in a groggy tone, reflecting her general feeling of grogginess.... and coldness, she also felt very cold.
Maybe she'd start warming up in a bit, considering the temperature of this place wasn't exactly cold. Well, hopefully she'd warm up, as if she didn't, it probably meant she had hypothermia or something, which definitely wasn't a good thing.

Mirage reacted immediately to the voice suddenly sounding from behind her. She swung her arm around the crash a Night Slash down on the Frosslass. She missed however, as it merely left at an untraceable speed once more before she could hit it. She huffed, "Really now? What makes you say that?" Her paw slammed into the floorboards, causing it to crack and snap at the pressure. She pulled her fist out, shaking off the slight pain that came with missing. It was quite obvious that she was not holding back the attack.

The hell was Sova doing? He was turning from being the only useful thing in this mansion to the most useless. The frosslass seemed to have taken an interest in her, he could just attack while it was distracted with her. Was it because the stupid thing hadn't attacked them yet?

Victoria's comment was seemingly brushed aside. Well fine then, she just wouldn't say anything at all. The tyrunt closed her trap, the eevee either had no sense or was not listening. The two strongest members of the group had disappeared, YET AGAIN. This was the opposite of 'nice'. The tyrunt looked to Zera, but he seemed to be a bit too fixated on having a staring contest with the chandelure to do much of anything.

Meanwhile...well, Zera was having a staring contest with a chandelure. He's not intelligent ok?

Unlike Mirage, the froslass was far from trying her best. In fact, she wasn't even really trying to attack, as she was more interested in getting to know her opponent first. She darted in front of Mirage once more, seeming to completely ignore the glaceon at the moment, not that he was really doing anything to contribute to the battle in the first place. A ball of white, glowing haze formed in one of the creature's hands before being tossed up and spreading over the ceiling, creating a thin cloud layer that almost immediately began to rain down specs of ice. The froslass became much more difficult to see in the hail, the ice near her actually seeming to swirl around her and help shroud her from view.

"Because you're not him," the snow demon finally responded, referencing the glaceon who seemed to be practicing being a statue at the moment.

Sova still stood in place, watching idly as the froslass attacked his friend..... or.... well, maybe none of that observation was true. The froslass didn't seem to be attacking and he wasn't really sure if Mirage was his friend anymore. However, the froslass certainly wasn't being the most hospitable it could be, immediately getting in close to Mirage's personal space and summoning up a hailstorm. Two out of three in this room didn't care about hail, liked it if anything, but Mirage seemed to be the one it'd taken an interest in, and she certainly wouldn't like hail. The glaceon decided not to think much on this, knowing from past experience that froslass tended to be an absolutely unhinged species. Speaking of which, he needed to start moving before that thing decided it was done playing games! But.... he couldn't, his body just wasn't responding at all.

Having sufficiently woken up by now, Krikka decided to try and contribute to.... there was a conversation going on that she could contribute to, right? What had it been about, again? She hadn't been listening! "Uh.... wait, what were you saying?," she questioned, not showing her annoyance at having to ask something like that.
How stupid could she possibly sound, really? She must have seemed like a complete idiot for not paying attention to what was going on around her!

Zera continued to stare at the Chandelure, it was the only visible threat in the room to the fluffy. It was his duty to watch over the fluffy, assigned to him by Boss. If he were to fail this he would fail boss, who had been a much nicer Boss than his previous Boss who had left him in the middle of nowhere. The houndoom needed to protect the fluffy, and he was going to sit here until either they were going to leave or the chandelure left. The chandelure seemed pretty keen on beating Zera at this staring contest however...was he feeling weaker?

Victoria looked back to the eevee and explained the situation, "We're stuck in the middle of some crazy mansion, our two strongest group members left, and the third strongest is stuck staring at a pokemon that isn't even attacking, and there's a Gengar somewhere around here who we still don't know if it is hostile or not." The tyrunt was getting a bit snappy, a bit irritated with all this and most of all herself. She should have brought in Veriq, she should have left that Zorua or whatever in charge of the scraggy back home or something.

Mirage was pelted by Hail, her lips curled into a snarl, she was the only one who wasn't benefiting from this situation, and this did not make her too happy. She gathered energy to fire a Dark Pulse, however a strange red energy crackled at her paws and when she moved to throw the Dark Pulse, a red mist of energy shot towards the Frosslass. This was unexpected, this was Night Daze, she had seen her mother use it a few times when she was much younger. How had she learned this already? Either way, it was still a much better move than Dark Pulse.

The froslass carelessly moved a bit less than needed to dodge the attack, resulting in her being hit in the arm and spiraling onto the ground. To any looking at the creature, she just stay on the ground, with the hail making it near-impossible to tell the difference between the real froslass and an afterimage.... However, this time, she made no effort to stay hidden from view behind Mirage, instead just appearing right in front of the zoroark and.... kissing her. right on the lips. However, the kiss was more than just some odd way of showing infatuation; it came with the burning of Fairy-empowerment - which dark types tended not to like - as well as the ability to sap the victim's health like a vampire of sorts. And this didn't just affect the area in which the kiss was dealt, no no, it affected the entire body. The froslass prepared to dart away at any split second with the help of Double Team, but wanted to stick around and see how long it could stretch the kiss out for.

Sova still watched idly as the battle really started, with Mirage.... doing something he didn't recognize, but it certainly seemed like a serious attack. And here he was standing around enjoying the scenery or something while some froslass messed with his friend. Then the froslass.... counterattacked? It was too fast for him to follow, it truly seemed as if the thing had stayed on the ground until he noticed in his peripheral vision that it was now right in front of Mirage. No, wait, it wasn't just in front of her, it-

The glaceon was first a bit confused as he saw the froslass kiss his friend, but this feeling quickly changed to.... one that he.... didn't recognize. It was like anger, but it didn't quite feel exactly like anger. It was like anger and defensiveness at the same time. Jealousy? No, that would just be absurd. His fur began to bristle and freeze due to his body temperature being subconsciously lowered as he absolutely FLIPPED internally, his eyes widening slightly in shock at such an unexpected turn of events.

Instead of zoning out once more, Krikka actually paid attention to her ally's explanation this time, and she had to admit it was a bit worrisome to know that the two strong members of their group were gone and they'd been left with the newcomer whom she still wasn't completely sure she trusted. However, she figured a houndoom could take both herself and Victoria on easily if it wanted, so if he hadn't already, he probably didn't intend to. "Oh," she replied, not really having any substantial response to give.
"Where'd they go?," she questioned, looking toward the wall next to them and seeing a door.
Was it through there? Had they gone to scout ahead or something?

Zera continued staring at the Chandelure, feeling his muscles ache as he stared at it. He couldn't look away even if he wanted to. The houndoom was trapped in the Chandelure's gaze, unable to look away. The chandelure was slowly sucking away his life force little by little, and the chandelure's eyes began to glow as it picked up the pace.

Victoria pointed towards the door with one of her rather small arms, "In that door, they said they'd catch up," she explained, "But in this house who knows when that would be and who knows if we'll even be alive by the time they 'catch up'" she huffed. The tyrunt wished the two would have stayed. She supposed that they could follow them, but it seemed that the glaceon needed to be alone with the zoroark for some reason.

Mirage froze as the frosslass appeared in front of her. She's about to do something about that, when the frosslass suddenly....kissed her. She was confused for a moment, before the mark where the kiss was placed suddenly glowed. A strange pink energy flowed out of the mark and the electric like energy zapped Mirage and drained her of her strength. She cried out in pain for a moment before her eyes rolled upward and she collapsed to the floor.