On the Road to Rainfront Town

First topic message reminder :

[Energy: 17 - 10 (Entry Cost) = 7]
[Exclusive Item: White Silk (Reduces cost of every other Pokemon rolled by 1)]

Pilot looked up at the large hill before him, panting heavily. After traveling on foot for hours without rest, he had finally reached the toughest part of his journey to Rainfront Town: Pricklemist Hill. The huge mound of dirt was the only thing separating the exhausted bird from his destination. If he could hurry things up, perhaps he could finish up his business with the DreamCatcher's Service by nightfall... It was a hopeful thought, considering that it was already mid-day, but if anyone could do it, it was him. I wish I could've just flown there, Pilot anxiously thought to himself, twitching his damaged wing. It still hurt from when he had crashed into a tree in Shadowhue Forest. It was beginning to heal, but flying for long distances was simply out of the question.

A dense cloud of mist surrounded the hill, giving it an ominous appearance. The area had a bit of a spooky reputation, but Pilot wasn't scared. There was no evidence of ghost types living there, so why would he be? Besides, as long as he didn't dawdle around, he wouldn't even be in the dungeon for long. Quietly whistling a tune to himself, Pilot began going upslope, starting the exhausting process of scaling the hill. I should've brought that Mim girl with me... He thought to himself, not exactly thrilled that he was traveling alone...

Pilot sighed, knowing that Horochi would eventually ask why he was heading to Rainfront Town. "Listen, I don't want to talk about it, 'kay?" He shot, sounding uncharacteristically irritated. The prospect of explaining his claustrophobia to the chick Pokemon made him nervous. How would Horochi think of him when he knew that enclosed spaces freaked the bird out? It was embarrassing, and he didn't plan on sharing that fact with him (or anyone else, for that matter). His visit with the DreamCatchers was to be completely confidential; Arceus forbid Hidon managed to find out about his phobia. He just hoped that Horochi didn't choose to ask more questions...

Pilot's expression suddenly changed once he saw Rainfront Town come into view. He grinned, knowing that he wasn't too far away... Of course, he also knew that he wouldn't get to the gloomy village until long after sundown. He wondered to himself if the DreamCatchers' Service would even be open late in the night... If they weren't, he would have to sleep through the night in the pouring rain. Heck, for all he knew, they could be out of business. After all, the last time he had been to Rainfall was over a year ago, and he wasn't even there for very long.

Interestingly enough, there was no fog at the top of the hill. Pilot could see everything clearly: the town in the distance, the starry night sky, and... A building? Turning his attention to a small wooden structure nearby, Pilot seriously considered going inside. It would waste time, sure, but... Look at how creepy that place is! Maybe there's something interesting inside! What if there's treasure in there? The Taillow excitedly thought to himself. He gave Horochi an inquisitive look, as if asking whether or not to go investigate.

[Energy: 7 + 1(New Page) - 2(Feral Pokemon) = 6]

Horochi noticed Pilot looking at him curiously. He was clearly wondering about the small wood shack that was in between them and their destination. "What, ya wanna explore that shack down there?" he asked. Horochi did feel like heading into there and staying the night away until the rain cleared up, but he couldn't drive the thought of Pilot needing to get to Rainfront Town ASAP out of his head. Which was more important; drying himself off or making sure that his companion got to where he was going in one piece? Did he want to dry off too, or did he not have enough time to waste on just some random structure on a random hill? Plus Horochi felt that the crippled swallow was his responsibility now, and if he wound up dead because he left him prematurely, then he'd never forgive himself, so he decided to let Pilot choose where they went. "Well, I'm alright either way, so where d' you wanna go?"

I'm sorry, this took me WAY too long... In the future, I will try to post at least once every 1-2 days.

As impatient as he was, Pilot couldn't restrain himself from the mysterious allure of the abandoned house. "Yeah, let's go check out the shack," The swallow Pokemon chirped, heading towards the shoddy structure's entrance. As he went up the stairs to the deck, the entire building creaked loudly, startling him a bit. Still, the bird Pokemon continued, and pressed on the door. It opened, revealing... Nothing out the the ordinary. The first room was just a sparsely furnished living room of sorts. Pilot sighed. No treasure here, I guess... He thought to himself, quite disappointed that the house didn't seem to have anything of interest in it.

This thought was immediately met with a response, however. Pilot heard some noise coming from another room... Clearly, they weren't alone. The Taillow looked back at his travel companion. "Hey, didja hear that?" He asked, not entirely sure whether or not his senses were deceiving him.

[Energy: 6 + 1(Level Up) = 7]

As they approached the rickety house, Horochi couldn't help but feel somewhat excited about exploring something like this. As they walked up the creaky steps, the young torchic couldn't help but feel a bit uneasy about what they could potentially find within the sad excuse for a building, and upon noticing nothing out of the ordinary, he felt a bit disappointed, but also a bit relieved that he was faced with something familiar to him, though when Pilot asked Horochi if he heard something, he replied with "Hear what?", unsure of what was about to happen...

Pilot paused for a moment, listening intently to his surroundings. Another faint sound came from the other room... It sounded like a voice. Was there somebody else inside of the house? "I think there's somebody in there!" The songbird whispered, nodding his head in the direction of the noise. After giving Horochi a long, nervous look, he proceeded to the doorway. The Taillow pressed his head up against the door, trying to eavesdrop on whoever was there. It was rather quiet, but he heard a familiar chuckling. "It's a Gastly," He murmured, turning to his travel companion.

Pilot backed up a bit, getting ready to breach the door open. It probably wasn't locked, but what was the fun in just opening it? Besides, breaking it down would take the wild Gastly by surprise. "Alright, we're gonna breach the door on three," He whispered, looking at Horochi. "One... Two... THREE!" The bird shouted, lowering his shoulder and charging at the door.

"IS THE FOOD READY YET DEAR?!" Horochi shouted for his battle cry as he and Pilot broke open the door to see the flabbergasted gastly inside the rickety wooden structure. The gastly responded with a lick attack, proceeding to slowly lick Horochi upon him stopping. Afterwards, Horochi just stood there, looking mentally disturbed by the unorthodox attack the gastly had just used on him. "...so that's why that move paralyzes." he said, still looking very uncomfortable.

Upon bursting through the door, Pilot located the Gastly, and charged at it with a Quick Attack. Just after Horochi was licked, the Taillow jumped at the ghost Pokemon. To his surprise, he phased right through its gaseous body. What the..? Pilot thought as he fell to the ground. He then remembered that his normal type moves would not have any affect on it. Alright, how about a Peck attack? The sparrow jumped up at the apparition again, jabbing the Pokemon's black core with his beak. It had certainly hit the foe, but it didn't appear to have done very much damage. I wish I knew some special moves...

Pilot looked over at Horochi, knowing that the chick Pokemon was much more capable of taking on the ghost type foe than he was. As much as he would've liked to take on the feral by himself, it didn't seem that it would be possible for him to do that.

Horochi was broken out of his mentally disturbed trance when Pilot made eye contact with him, signalling him to join the fray, and he did so by applying a night slash directly to the gastly's face, causing it to howl in pain. However, this gastly, unlike the other, had the misfortune to be fighting both avian pokemon at once instead of just fighting them one after another, so he figured that by using one of them as a meat shield, then he could gain the advantage over the other one, so the gastly tried using lick to wrap its tongue around Pilot, only for the attack to phase right through it. Now was Pilot's chance for a counterattack.

[Energy: 0 + 1 (Natural Regeneration) = 1]
(Whoops, forgot about that)

Pilot was face-to-face with the apparition as it attempted to wrap its tongue around him... Only for the sticky appendage to phase through his body. Grinning, the Taillow took a deep breath, focusing his inner energy, and unleashed the strongest peck attack that he could muster on the Gastly's dark core. This time, the strike seemed to do much more damage, causing the ghost Pokemon to cry out in distress, and recoil away from the bird Pokemon. It hadn't knocked the opponent out, but it certainly did hurt it.

Afterwards, the Gastly's eyes glowed a familiar shade of pink, but Pilot knew better than to look directly at them. After all, he had been put to sleep by Hypnosis just minutes prior... But was Horochi able to look away in time?

As Horochi saw Pilot's peck attack hit its mark, he also noticed the gastly's eyes glow pink for whatever reason, but before he could look away, he found it hard to stand up, or even keep his eyes open for that matter. In fact, he wanted to finish off the ghost and poison-type with another night slash and tried to run forward, but was only able to wobble back and forth as he slowly approached it. "Ah'm gunna beat yer suree fanee int' nex' week! Is ON, is on liek-" Horochi sputtered as he tried to hit the gastly with a night slash from the ground, but only managed to cause himself to fall backwards onto his back as he (no pun intended) fell into a deep sleep on the floor.

OOC: Since this thread is going pretty slowly, do you want to end it soon? I'm really going to need all the thread slots I can get for missions.

Pilot watched as Horochi stumbled towards the apparition, spouting nonsense about he was going to beat it up, until he finally fell unconcious. The bird couldn't help but chuckle at his fallen partner. While it was pretty funny, he still had to deal with the persistent foe. Turning around to face the Gastly, Pilot utilized Quick Attack to gain momentum, and then forced his beak into the foe's dark core yet again. It cried in protest, and finally appeared to faint. The ghost Pokemon slowly fell to the ground, and then phased through the floor, going out of sight.

The tiny Taillow hopped over to his traveling buddy, and prodded him with his wing. “Yo Horochi, you awake?” While he waited for a response, Pilot remembered what the Torchic had done to him while he was asleep. “Heh, maybe I could mess with him a little,” He thought to himself, smirking.

OOC: Sure, I just wanna see where this thing with Pilot and a sleeping Horochi goes.

The ground was orange, the clouds were pink, the sky would make any epileptic pokemon drop dead on the spot, and Horochi was frolicking through a vast field of executed outlaws while light-hearted and upbeat music could be heard in the background. Horochi then lept into the air and began breaking the laws of physics by flying over the trippy landscape as a chesnaught could be seen selling questionable berries to a little togepi as an arcanine ran through the sky while a foongus yelled up at it "GET THE CRAP DOWN FROM THERE!" as Horochi flew by. When he landed, the music abruptly stopped as a horrific monster roared fiercely and looked down at the little chick pokemon, but a few quiet seconds later, they were dancing together as the background music started back up where it left off.

Okay, we can do that. I'm just curious, what drugs are Horochi on? I want some! XD

Pilot looked down at his unconscious partner, trying to gauge what kind of dreams he was having by reading his facial expressions. Unfortunately, the Taillow couldn't get any information; Horochi had a vaguely cheeky smirk on his face, but that could have meant just about anything. He couldn't tell whether the Torchic was dreaming about a girl, or something else. If he wanted to mess with him, he would have to try something a little more original.

I guess I'll have to think of something else... The bird thought to himself, looking through his exploration bag for anything that could be of use. Upon eyeing a certain explosive item, Pilot got a hilarious idea. Wasting no time, he stuffed a Blast Seed in his mouth, getting close to his companion's ear (or at least, where he thought it might be).