House of Hallways

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Varda was quite exhausted! The trip through the odd house had been very taxing already, but when he had to make a quick trip back to the little town with a Glaceon on his back... Well, it certainly had been something, alright! Luckily he didn't have to carry his friend back, as they had been lucky and there was a Pokémon who could deal with their injuries for a small compensation, so they could just rush to the spooky weird house as soon as their legs – and wings – allowed them to! They had lost some valuable time doing this, but the bird believed he had done the right decision on his own, without Sova's help...

The house felt strange this time. They had been through such strange rooms on their first visit, but now the door they took sent them to an odd, extremely long hallway. It was rather narrow compared to many rooms they had seen before, but the hallway was wide enough to let a couple of Pokémon to walk side by side. There were no doors the bird could see, there hadn't been any doors for a while since the last one they took. As usual, there were various candles on the walls lighting up the gloomy house, some dark spots left behind by the dim lighting. The floorboards creaked under the pair of Pokémon and the old wallpaper was ripped in many places, revealing old wooden panels.


Current Energy: 38 (57 -19 from entering)

Varda didn't hear a reply, even though he waited for it. As his eyes scanned their surroundings while he tried to see the source of the singing, he realized why that might have been – he was covering his ears, so it would be really hard to hear anything! The bird had to ease up on the noise blocking, his wings parting his head so he could hear... But all he heard was the humming sound. If the Pokémon had replied, he had missed it completely! Still, following Nevi's advice, the Altaria didn't keep his ears uncovered for long, the fluffy feathers soon returning to save him from the curse of the song. He almost repeated his question just in case he missed the answer the first time, but the icy mist Sova blew from his mouth suddenly caused a Pokémon to drop out of thin air!

It was another one of those pumpkin-like Pokémon, but this one was huge! It was so shocking that Varda couldn't help but gasp, his wings brought to cover his beak. The humming stopped, but he didn't really notice that. All he noticed was how the Pokémon got up, its movements sluggish in a way, but it didn't seem to be in pain. And then, another Pokémon just like the other one – though this one much, much smaller -  appeared on top of Sova, hitting the Glaceon with one of its tendril-like arms!
"Sova! Varda cried out, taking a step closer.

The Pokémon that had attacked disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared, while the other one... Caught on fire? That didn't seem like a very good thing, considering that it looked like a plant-like Pokémon... But fire would also be bad for Sova! The Altaria fluffed up his feathers, preparing to take up any hits he might have to suffer and trying to avoid as much damage as he could by giving himself a soft, thick armor. Once done, he spread his wings and leaped at the larger ghostly gourd, trying to stop it from attacking Sova...


((I hope they're spooky moves.))

Just as the bird sprang into action, the smaller gourgeist reappeared once more, though it was a fair distance from the action. an orange glowing orb of energy appeared in one of its hands before being tossed into the air, making contact with the ceiling and exploding. Within moments, a long stretch of the ceiling was enveloped in light, which completely negated a certain glaceon's temperature adjustment and made the area uncomfortably hot. It then dropped its arm-like appendages to its sides and began to glow white, attempting to put a Light Screen around itself and its ally.

Seeing that the others were fighting, Nevi cautiously lowered her arms to hear the tune had stopped. It seemed like the two she was with were in a rather bad situation and while she didn't like the glaceon, she definitely didn't want this for him. She looked for an opportunity to help and spotted the smaller gourgeist appearing and doing.... something. An orange glowing orb, then.... oh. She put a hand up to cover her eyes, flinching a bit at the sudden light and heat, but she still managed to catch the little pumpkin trying to do even more. With what it'd just done, she didn't want to find out what else it had in store. A dark purple orb appeared in the other hand of the froslass and was tossed in the direction of the smaller gourgeist, enveloping it in a similarly colored explosion and sending it flying back into a wall before it could set up a Light Screen.

Meanwhile, the larger gourgeist merely responded to Varda trying to intervene by vanishing from view just as the sunlight appeared, making it difficult to see the fact that it'd even vanished through the sudden burst of light. It then waited for a moment to let the fact that it'd disappeared startle the bird before appearing right in front of him and trying to wrap its hair-like arms around his neck.

Sova laid on the ground, letting the fact that he'd been both caught off guard and hurt by something he was supposed to have an advantage over sink in. His armor began to repair as he heard Varda call his name, followed by some commotion, with no response from him. It took him a moment to even start getting up, but just as soon as he tried, a sudden heat hit him and made him want to lay back down. This heat not only discomforted him, but it immediately started making it hard for him to keep his armor in tact. The ice around his body almost instantly began to melt, he could feel his body heating up.... and it didn't feel good. However, he still forced himself up to his paws just in time to see the larger gourgeist appear in front of Varda, having completely missed everything else.

(The most spooky.)

As Varda jumped forward, the hall suddenly turned... Very bright and very hot. Just a moment ago, it had been very chilly, even before that there had been a certain cool air in the eerie mansion. But now, that was a history. It was even difficult to see, as if the sun was pouring right into the bird's eyes, forcing them to squint. But that was impossible, wasn't it? There were no windows in the hallway, and the sun had disappeared under a layer of thick, dark clouds... In a way, this was actually a pleasant surprise, the sun had been something the Altaria had missed, the warmth felt good. But this was no time to enjoy it.

He jumped in front of the pumpkin Pokémon, blocking it from getting to Sova – maybe. A ghost might be able to go through him, but he didn't really think about it much. Actually, then he realized that maybe it had already gone through him? He no longer saw the floating Pokémon in front of him, so he quickly glanced over his shoulder to see if it was trying to pester Sova. The Glaceon was still there, on the ground... But there was no ghost in sight.

When he looked back, the ghost was there right in front of him! Its arm-like tendrils wrapped around his slender neck, causing Varda to gasp. A familiar burning appeared in his throat – indeed oddly familiar even though he had not experienced it all that many times in his life. The bird opened his beak slightly, a glow of energy appearing for a split second before a beam shot out of his mouth.


((Excellent.))

The mini-Gourgeist was having trouble getting up after the Shadow Ball, but managed to get its ally in its line of sight just as the altaria was preparing an attack. It began to glow white once more and this time, managed to pull off the Light Screen in time. The glow spread to the much larger gourgeist just before the beam made contact with it, resulting in the beam seemingly doing nothing. It quite literally just ignored the attack entirely, taking it head on and continuing to wrap its arms around the bird's neck, constricting more and more by the second. To make the attack worse, its body began to light up with fire again, burning hotter in the now increasingly hot room and spreading to its arms.

Nevi's attention was completely taken off her target as she heard her new friend gasp and was prompted to turn to see.... oh no, the other gourgeist! It was attacking Varda! She watched the bird try to counterattack with a light glow surrounding the gourd-like thing just before the attack made contact, only to see that it didn't seem fazed in the slightest by the attack. She quickly pitched in, forming yet another shadowy orb in one of her hands and tossing it at the gourgeist.

Direct hit to the side, though the gourgiest's own large body seemed to absorb most of the impact and stop there from being much of an explosion, which meant Varda probably wouldn't be hurt. Worse, though, it didn't seem to care about the froslass' attack! She began to panic, but instead of letting the panic get to her, she just tried harder, this time throwing both of her arms out at her sides and forming a Shadow Ball in each hand before throwing both. Again, two direct hits and AGAIN, the creature seemed unfazed!

The heat.... it was quickly becoming unbearable, Sova was having trouble focusing in such an environment, but then he noticed the gourgeist wrap its ugly arm-things around Varda. Suddenly, the environment that was heating up to the point of beginning to melt his armor didn't seem like a problem. He watched both Varda and the froslass.... Nevi attempt to get the creature to let go, but none of the attacks seemed to be doing anything at all! He'd also recognized a glow moments earlier, which his racing and slightly confused mind managed to gather had to be a Light Screen.

He prepared to dash at the massive ghost, failing to notice that the smaller one had disappeared again.... until it was too late. Once more, the smaller gourgeist appeared in front of him - this time mid sprint - and swiped his face with its purple-glowing hand, which was surprisingly sharp. He nearly fell to the ground again, with the armor being torn off his face again and three red gashes being left across his face, from his right cheek up to his right eye. Luckily, his armor had stopped any damage too serious from being inflicted, but that by no means meant it didn't hurt. He was certain his eye hadn't been permanently damaged, but he was forced to keep it shut tight in pain. The enemy didn't let up, though, disappearing yet again before reappearing right in front of his face with both of its arms glowing the familiar purple hue.

(IS IT SPOOKY ENOUGH FOR YOU YET?)

Varda fired his beam, hitting his target – it was quite impossible to miss what was right in front of you, after all. However, even though he had hit... Nothing happened! Well, something happened, but not what he had hoped, an odd light flashing as if something was covering the ghost Pokémon's body. The large pumpkin-like Pokémon was still there, unfazed as if nothing had happened. Its tendrils did twist around the bird's neck, causing him to jerk his body backwards, but to no avail. He wasn't getting rid of the hands like this, their grasp much too strong. And... Considering that it was his neck, there was another problem: the inability to breathe while his throat was being squeezed.

The Altaria coughed, trying to pull back again. A quick glance around him showed that he wasn't the only one in a pinch, the smaller of the two pumpkins being really bad towards his friends! But he couldn't really... Do much, much less speak out when he only managed to get some kind of odd little coughy sounds out of his throat. It wasn't very good. It was getting hot too, the bird first thinking that it was the odd indoor sun that was heating up the hallway... But it actually came from closer! In fact, it was – right around his neck!

The arm-like tendrils were starting to heat up, getting quite unbearably hot. Varda spread his wings, flapping them a couple of times, but there was no way he could get up into the air with his extra weight. But the odd light sheen on his attacker, the heat... Only thing he could think of doing in this situation was to start spreading the misty haze from his wings, perhaps hoping that the icy particles would cool them down a bit!


((Spooped.))


Current Energy: 37 (36 +1 from the new page)

Bird carried out 5 launched of one Ruined Passageway :

, , , ,

Sova immediately jumped back from the small gourgeist as it swiped at him with one of its arm-like appendages. Another swipe, then another, and another kept him constantly moving to avoid the painful hits, which was something he didn't like having to do. Playing on the defensive.... that meant he was weaker than the enemy, but everything suggested that he should be stronger than this thing! He was bigger than it and he had a type advantage! It suddenly stopped slashing away and disappeared yet again, causing the glaceon to pause for a moment and start looking around for when it would appear next. Then something unexpected happened, it showed back up.... still right in front of him. Once more, it managed to catch him off guard, doing something completely unexpected.

He stepped back to just barely avoid a jab from one of the little pumpkin-creature's dangerous hands, but it was proving to be too fast for him to keep up with, throwing out another jab from the other arm before he was ready to move again. There was no way he was going to be able to keep up with avoiding the attacks, it was too fast.... but that by no means meant he was going to let himself get hit. Instead of trying to dodge the attack, he stood still until the very last second.... then quickly moved out of the way of the arm and bit onto it as it passed by him. His teeth were surely enough to hurt it, but to make it even worse, he began to breathe burning frost onto the arm as he held it, eliciting a pained squeal. This gourgeist was definitely faster than the other one, but it was also far less durable.

Sova quickly pinned the gourgeist to the ground on its chest with his uninjured paw, still holding its odd excuse for an arm in his mouth as he did so. It cried out once more as he pulled on its arm, which was exactly what he wanted. Sure enough, this got the attention of the much larger gourgeist, with it redirecting its gaze over to him. He just looked back, currently holding something in his mouth and thus being unable to speak, but he suspected it knew what he wanted. If it let his friend go, he'd let its friend go.

The larger gourgeist kept its arms wrapped about its target, a happy smile creeping onto its face as it attempted to strangle the life out of the bird. As a strange mist began to spread from the altaria, it began to feel its increased agility from running around on fire like a madman just.... fade away, but that didn't really matter now! Most of the mist near it heated and faded away due to its flaming body, but some did get spread around, not that there was much it could do. Then something that actually mattered to the gourgeist happened.... it heard the cry of its comrade.... then another. Its gaze slowly turned away from the bird it was holding toward the glaceon, its current target suddenly seeming much less.... appealing. Its grip around Varda's neck began to loosen due to being so suddenly and heavily distracted, which would give the altaria a chance to escape if he pulled away hard enough....

Nevi prepared yet another Shadow Ball in one of her arms, not knowing what else to do in the situation, but stopped as she saw Varda creating a mist.... that didn't seem to do much. Then a rather pathetic cry rung out, then another, momentarily drawing her attention away from her friend in need. It seemed Sova had managed to catch the smaller gourgeist, though he didn't look to be in particularly good shape with a nasty looking set of cuts over his eye and his armor being visibly weaker from the heat. Still, catching the smaller gourgeist seemed to at the very least momentarily stop the larger one, which was good.

The mist Varda created... Didn't seem to be cooling anything down, at least! The hallway was still awfully bright and hot, especially with the flaming body of the pumpkin-like Pokémon right next to him, squeezing his neck. Or maybe it was the lack of air that was making everything feel so hot and weird. Could be either way, really, but it didn't help him right now! He still tried to squirm, but the arm-like appendages weren't easing their grip at all no matter what he did! That wasn't good...

A cry made its way to his ears, causing the bird to look over his shoulder to see what was happening – or at least try to, as he currently was rather limited in his movements as a dry cough forced its way out of his beak. It didn't sound like Sova, and he didn't know if it was Nevi... But at least this time he felt how the hands wrapped around his neck started to lessen their grip, giving him the perfect opportunity to slip away!

The Altaria spread his wings and used them to generate some extra push as he flapped them and jumped backwards, trying to get away from the ghost-like Pokémon. At the same time, now that his throat was free, he shot out a fast beam of energy out of his mouth right in front of him.

Sova sighed in relief at his on-the-spot plan seeming to work, with the larger gourgeist loosening its grip on his friend enough for the bird to escape. However, he failed to notice his tiny captive beginning to glow an eerie purple and.... spreading the glow to him. That was, of course, until he began to feel a familiar eerie coldness. It wasn't really like his normal cold body temperature - it didn't feel good - but it at least felt better than being whacked in the face with the surprisingly sharp claws of the evil little pumpkin. It was then that he noticed the larger gourgeist was still focusing on his friend.... and so he decided to change that. He spun around, carrying the lightweight gourgeist with him before releasing and tossing it into a wall with a very audible thud. Before it could even fall to the ground, he breathed in and blew out a quick shot of Frost Breath, knocking the creature back into the wall again and knocking it unconscious.

The massive gourgeist seemed surprised at losing its grip on its target, becoming torn between focusing on its ally and its chosen target. Then came another of the tingly beams, making its decision for it. The constant pelting with attacks was starting to hurt, so it put up one of its hair-like arms to block the beam with as it sluggishly made its way toward the altaria, though it only managed to cut the beam off halfway through due to the speed of the attack. Either way, it didn't exactly seem particularly fazed by the attack, displeased if anything. However, its attention was suddenly taken away from Varda as it heard the sound of something slamming against a wall. It turned to see its much smaller companion being horribly treated.... which instantly made up its mind. It disappeared from view, completely losing interest in the large bird all at once.

Sova hesitated as the dark glow around him began to seemingly be absorbed into his body, shading him a bit darker than normal. He didn't spend any time dwelling on this, though, knowing there was still an enemy that needed dealt with. He directed his attention back to said enemy to see it was.... no longer there. At least, for a moment it wasn't there, before suddenly reappearing right in front of his face with an eerie purple glow covering its body. It almost immediately spun around, trying to slam one of its giant arms into him, but he managed to duck just low enough to avoid being hit. It continued spinning, this time swinging lower with the other arm, so he had to jump this time to avoid the attack.

The glaceon then took in a deep breath and began blowing freezing air at it as his paws touched back down on the ground, but his attack seemed to have about as much effect as all previous attempts at attacking this thing. It stopped spinning and raised an arm before bringing it down over him, about to slam it into him.... and considering his newly gained Ghost typing from that horrible Trick-or-Treat, it was going to hurt. To make things worse, the gourgeist was beginning to catch on fire again, and judging by the speed of the fire's spread.... it was going to reach the arm before hitting him. The heat was weakening him and he had just been through two close evasions, he knew he wasn't going to avoid it, so he just continued blowing Frost Breath in the gourgeist's face in the hopes of stopping it.

Nevi's Shadow Ball faded away as the gourgeist released Varda, as she was just so relieved, her focus was completely taken away from sustaining the attack. However, another attack from the altaria reminded her she was supposed to be helping. Still.... what could she really do to help against this thing? It seemed pretty much invincible, how long would they have to beat at it before actually hurting it? Right now it seemed like it would take them all out long before then. Then she realized.... perhaps it wasn't quite as strong as it seemed. Sova's attacks were surely being weakened by the heat, the smaller gourgeist had given its very large friend a Light Screen, and the big guy's offenses were also being essentially boosted by the smaller one.... which all came together to mean this thing was looking a lot stronger than it actually was, all due to its ally, which was now unconscious.

All they had to do was get rid of its advantages, and this particular froslass actually had multiple ways to level the playing field. First.... the gourgeist wasn't the only one who could abuse sunlight. She lifted her hands above her head and began to form what seemed to be a ball of clouds in them.... but it quickly absorbed the glow of the light and lit on fire, changing drastically due to the weather because froslass is castform in a kimono. However, her preparation of the attack wasn't going fast enough to even try to stop the gourgeist from hitting Sova.

A thus from behind caused Varda to look over his shoulder when he landed from his jump and attack, his wings still spread. It was... The other, smaller ghost-like Pokémon they were dealing with! It had been pushed hard by Sova's attack, the coolness of his breath still lingering in the air as the pumpkin slid down the wall, not seeming like it was going to get back up anytime soon. There was another thing the bird noticed, too. The Glaceon's fur was taking on a much darker shade, kind of like before...

But when the Altaria looked back at the larger pumpkin, it had disappeared! Even though it had been just there. Looking around him, it didn't seem to be floating near him – instead having dashed over to Sova! That was bad, a chirp escaping Varda's beak. But, he didn't have time to be shocked like that now! The large gourd-like Pokémon was actually faster than one might have expected from a creature its size, but its movements were still sluggish enough for Sova to avoid. But his friend wasn't looking too hot – or maybe, he was looking too hot indeed! Because of the weather. It was very hot.

Taking in a good deep breath, the bird spread his cloud-like wings and flapped, pushing himself into the air. Flapping his wings as hard as he could, he built some speed so he could hopefully reach their enemy before it was too late! However, he hadn't really figured out what to do when he got close, even forgetting to slow down as he was heading straight to the pumpkin...

Sova continued his attempt at fazing the gourgeist with Frost Breath right up until the point it brought its arm down on him. Actually, despite how seemingly invincible this thing was.... it surprisingly hurt less than he'd thought it would. Yes, it hurt, a great deal in fact.... but considering all of the apparent advantages this thing had against him - a double super-effective combo move, a clear raw power advantage and sunlight making the fire hotter and his ice armor weaker - well.... he had been expecting to be knocked out cold. Sure, he was immediately slammed to the ground by the hit, with most of his armor shattering and scattering on the floor around him, but he didn't feel like-threateningly injured. Actually, if not for the damned heat exhausting him, he probably would have been able to get right back up....

Then it hit him. This gourgeist had trained itself defensively. The other one had the offensive power, clearly, as it actually hit harder! It was odd that the one apparently filling a support-role was also the stronger attacker of the two, but he supposed he couldn't really judge considering how well it was working. Despite the raw offensive power of the large gourd being lackluster, he was finding it difficult to get up from the attack just due to the drastically boosted power of the attack.... and the artificial sun. Oh, the heat.... he had not yet gone to any overly heated areas since evolving, he had absolutely no clue.... that heat would do this to him.... His eyes shut as he struggled not to let his consciousness slip away, knowing that would make bad things happen.

The large gourgeist completely ignored Sova's attempt at attacking it and swatted him into the ground with one of its large arms, icy residue being left on its body from the Frost Breath. However, its attention had been completely taken by him, resulting in it failing to notice the approaching altaria until it was hit with the Varda-bomb. This.... attack didn't really hurt it much, but it did manage to knock the large creature off its feet. Then, before it knew it, there was a fireball in its face, and unlike the fire around its arms, this fire burned. It fell to the ground as the fire spread over its face, but the flames quickly dissipated along with the fire it'd created around its body. It laid there for a moment, seemingly unconscious, before beginning to glow the same color as the artificial sunlight shining down and getting back up as if it hadn't just sustained a very elongated beating from three separate individuals. It'd absorbed the sunlight to replenish its energy and regenerate its body to virtually as good as new.

Nevi finished preparing her fire ball, but stopper herself from throwing it as she realized the glaceon had already been hit and the altaria was growing dangerously close to the target. She couldn't very well throw a fireball at the gourgeist with Varda so close to it, as she wasn't nearly confident enough in her aim to do that! So instead of throwing it, she moved closer as well, close enough to confidently throw the fireball without hitting her friend. Varda's being around certainly helped, stopping the gourgeist from being able to move or turn invisible again. She was relieved to see it finally fall to the ground - and for a moment, stay there - but then it began to glow and get back up.... When the glow faded, its body seemed.... good as new! Any scratches, scrapes or other marks it'd sustained, all gone!

The froslass was confused for a moment, before she put the pieces together and realized it'd synthesized to heal itself. She had a way she could fix this, but hesitated.... as it would hurt Varda. "Varda, can you handle a hailstorm!?," she frantically questioned.
The best way to take this thing down seemed like playing its own game and manipulating the arena to their favor, but she knew hail would hurt Varda. She didn't want to do it without his permission.

(Why can gourgeist even learn flame charge? Like who decided "A plant can catch itself on fire and not die"?)

At this point Varda was committed, unable to really change his flightpath even if he wanted to. He was heading straight for the large pumpkin – and that was when he wondered if his own weight could even affect that thing. It was... Huge, and heavy too! He was now bigger himself, his wings stronger and able to propel his much faster, but he was still a bird and quite light for someone his size. But, what was the use of pondering about that? He would hit the Pokémon no matter what. All the Altaria could do was brace himself for the impact.

He hit the ghost Pokémon – which funnily enough felt very much like hitting something solid and hard. It was a hit that forced the air out of his lungs, but luckily he wasn't the only one affected. The pumpkin was also pushed, its balance now gone as it had been forced off one of its little feet, and then, as the bird continued his way through... Finally knocking it off its feet! It felt like a great victory, but Varda couldn't stop to celebrate as he zoomed past and hit the floor himself, an explosion sounding behind him and even causing his tail feathers to heat up!

The Altaria coughed, and then drew in a good mouthful of air. It seemed like he wasn't very hurt, just aching a bit here and there. Squirming in a better position, he used his wings to push himself off the ground and on his feet, looking behind him to see what was happening. The pumpkin was on the ground, not moving. His friends... Well, Sova was injured, but didn't seem to be too hurt yet. A sigh of relief escaped the bird's beak. That sure was something...

And then the Pokémon on the ground started to glow! Varda blinked, unsure what was going on – but the effects were soon apparent. The pumpkin got back up! Oh, that wasn't good at all! The blue bird fluffed up his feathers again as he prepared to guard some hits, jumping in front of Sova so that the hostile Pokémon wouldn't go after his friend again while he was down! But the question about the hailstorm caused the Altaria to blink in confusion, his focus gone as he was distracted.
"Oh, ah, ah, maybe?" He chirped, unsure.


((The surprise tweest is that it's already dead! Because it's a ghost.))

Upon being given an answer, Nevi was.... hesitant to continue with her plan, to say the least. The bird didn't really seem confident in his ability to manage in a hailstorm, but they needed to get rid of the sun! Sova especially seemed to be having difficulties with the heat, and while she didn't care much for him as company, they would clearly need to all be able to fight to deal with this giant gourgeist. "I know it's gonna hurt you, b-but there's not much other choice, sorry!," she responded as she put her hands near each other, beginning to create a swirling ball of freezing cold wind and snow.
She quickly tossed it up toward the ceiling, resulting in an explosion of color above similar to the one earlier that created the sunlight, yet very different. The light was quickly completely shrouded in dark clouds which immediately began to rain down small hailstones. Of course, the temperature also rapidly spiked from extremely hot to extremely cold.

Sova laid on the ground, trying and failing to get up despite not having any injuries that were too severe. It was the heat.... his energy was quite literally being melted away, his body was getting too hot for him to handle! He knew there were things happening around him, but he currently had his eyes shut, unable to see them and he wasn't really too worried about listening in. However, shortly after, the heat just.... went away. In fact, it was starting to get VERY cold - which wasn't at all a bad thing to him - and he could even feel.... hail! Every hailstone that hit him was absorbed into his body to repair it, rather than harming him. He opened his eyes.... or.... the eye that he actually COULD open, to see it was indeed hailing, and of course his first thought was Varda.... but then his second thought was the gourgeist, which still needed dealt with.

The scratch marks on the glaceon's face began to heal noticeably fast as he got up, clearly in a much better condition already thanks to the change in weather. Actually.... he could feel his injured paw beginning to hurt less as well from the hail. It would take a while for his injuries to completely heal from the hailstones, but this was a nice start. His icy armor had by this point melted away, but considering the weather conditions, it was quite easy to flash-freeze more of it around himself. He noticed the gourgeist was now looking at Varda again, but he wanted it to keep its attention on him, so he spoke up, "Hey ugly, over here."

The gourgeist only looked up for a moment as the sunlight disappeared before setting its sights back on its original target. For some reason, it still wanted Varda, apparently being very determined to get to its intended target. However, a voice speaking up from behind it made it turn around, showing it could probably understand speech. It growled at the glaceon's taunt, taking the bait and focusing solely on him. Its body began to light on fire once more, melting the hail that dared try to land on it as it walked toward Sova.

(What a tweest! And fk it, I can't keep up with text color, I'm too much of a scrublord.)

"Hurt?" Varda chirped, rather oblivious to what Nevi was trying to get at. He blinked a couple of times slowly, a smile on his face as he watched the Pokémon create some kind of ball with swirling snow, tilting his head slightly. His eyes followed as the ball was thrown up into the air, exploding to cover the fake sun... With heavy clouds. Who knew there could be clouds in the ceiling! The bird's awe and happiness was soon replaced by the feeling of extreme cold as the temperatures plummeted, small icy particles starting to fall down. It would have been a pretty sight, like a bunch of little crystals dancing in the air as the candlelight reflected their light off of them...

But it hurt! Not only did the cold cause the Altaria to shiver and try to fight the cold by fluffing up his feathers as much as he could, the hail raining down actually felt like he was being pelleted by small rocks! Small, fast rocks. With sharp edges. He didn't like the feeling at all, grimacing due to how uncomfortable it was feeling. Varda took a step backwards, but it didn't really help. There was no way for him to avoid the hail, his body being way too big and the hail falling down way too fast!

Sova's voice caused him to snap out of his thoughts and raise his neck, looking around. The pumpkin-like Pokémon had been staring at him the whole time, probably having been ready to attack – and he hadn't been paying attention at all! Varda swore to be more attentive from now on, again taking a more prepared stance. But when the ghost Pokémon turned to face Sova instead... The Altaria used this moment to his advantage, letting out another fast beam at it.


((What a scrub.))

Sova prepared to avoid whatever attack the gourgeist would throw at him next, feeling far more confident in his ability to avoid it now that he wasn't being exhausted by intense heat, but Varda's attack seemed to shift the enemy's attention once more. It turned back to the altaria and glared, but only got a moment before he blew a freezing breath at it, forcing its attention back over to him. Oh, joy, this thing was a big idiot! Maybe they could just keep it from focusing on any of them until they could drop it! However, one more attack, this time from Nevi, apparently tipped the gourgeist over the edge. It suddenly disappeared from view, which meant he couldn't really keep hitting it now.

Nevi saw that the other two were beginning to attack the gourgeist and decided to pitch in as much as she could, wanting to end the battle quickly so she could get her new fluffy friend out of the hail. It didn't bother her, but it surely bothered an altaria! She held her hands above her head and another ball of clouds began to swirl in them, but this time, the clouds changed into a swirling ball of snow. She then separated her arms and brought them down to her sides, splitting the single Weather Ball into two before throwing one at the gourgeist, then the other. It turned to face her, then disappeared before any more attacks could be thrown at it. Oh.... that was bad.

The froslass looked around frantically, knowing this meant the enemy had decided on her being its new target. Sadly, it managed to appear at her left side just as she looked to the right, giving it more than enough time to slam a dark-glowing hand into her face and knock her to the ground. She didn't have any time to recover from the attack before the other arm of the giant creature came down at her. However, the hail around the two seemed to all suddenly home in on the gourgeist, actually seeming to physically faze it enough to slow its attack and knock it off course enough for her to move out of the way. Some of the hail whizzed by her and actually scraped against her, hurting a bit, but she presumed the attack wasn't meant for her as it seemed the gourgeist got most of it.

Sova's mind had been racing for a way to help the froslass, despite having made it very evident that he hated her. For some reason, he just couldn't stand by and let an innocent be hurt, and he knew the gourgeist was going after her! Then he remembered.... someone in the past had showed him a way to wield blizzards that specifically tailored to being in hailstorms.... or.... well, it could probably work with snowstorms too. The irony in this was that it was actually someone trying to kill him who'd shown him this; by attacking him with it! At that, it was a FROSLASS! But oh, it got better.... it was the froslass that made him hate the whole species.

Having never done this before, he had no clue if he could perform it right, but he had to try anyway. He already knew how to control the cold air currents associated with blizzards, so when the gourgeist appeared, he immediately focused on blowing all of the hail in the general area around it toward it. This was proving to be hard, as he wasn't used to controlling ice that he hadn't created, but he finally managed to make the hail move and for once, the gourgeist actually seemed hurt enough to care! Nevi hadn't taken too bad of a beating, so that was good too. However, the ghost clearly wasn't quite done yet, still seeming more than capable of fighting as it looked around to figure out who had just hit it and with what.

(I'm the best scrub though.)

Varda had managed to distract the pumpkin from Sova, forcing the thing to turn around to face him after the fast beam he fired. He stared back at the ghost, standing his ground as he tried to see what the Pokémon would do next. He had gotten its attention, so it made sense that he would be the next target... Until a blast of freezing air hit the pumpkin, clearly causing a reaction. Now the Pokémon turned around again, glaring daggers at Sova! The Altaria blinked. There was no attack towards them, and every time they attacked, the ghost would turn around to face the attacker... Could they use this to their advantage somehow and distract it?

A ball of swirling snow was hurled over from Nevi's side followed by another identical one, hitting the ghost with a big puff of snow – and causing it to disappear! The Altaria blinked, confused. It seemed like whatever little plan was starting to form in his head poofed away in a split second, no longer belonging in there. Before the bird even managed to realize what was happening, the pumpkin again appeared in the air – but this time right next to Nevi! There was nothing he – or she – could have done before one of the arm-like tendrils slapped her hard, forcing her out of the air and into the ground.

Varda chirped, spreading his wings as he prepared to glide over and do... Something, anything, as long as the ghost would stop hitting their friend! It felt so helpless, as there just wasn't enough time as another arm prepared to attack, coming dangerously close to the feminine Pokémon... And it missed? The bird had already tried to hop closer, but he had to stop to actually observe what was happening. The hail has gone through the Pokémon, just like how it kept pelleting him, but... Harder?

That was no time to keep wondering about it, though! The Altaria shook his head, taking a few steps closer as if trying to get the pumpkin's attention back to himself. He opened his beak, starting to sing his lullaby. He realized that he hadn't actually done this after his evolution, finding his voice... Different. High, but strong, but... Lullaby-ish.



((Is being the best scrub good, though.))