This is Not a Drill

Ooog.....

Oooooff......

Lincoln felt sick. Like he was going to throw up. Everything was a mono-colored blur around him and his vision was fading in and out in weird pulses... his ears were ringing... nothing felt normal. His face clearly displayed his internal strain against all this copious stimulus information that was entering his head far faster than he could ever hope to process it and- oop nope here it comes definitely about to be sick.

He wrenched his head over to the side, trying to at least be curious and contain the inevitable results of his ungodly motion sickness. The motion didn't help his perception of the space at all, and the muddled cloud of blue that everything became nearly cause him to fall over. He clumsily righted himself before that disaster had a chance to happen. ...He also attempted to scoot away a bit, taking the temptation away from fate.

It was at this moment that Lincoln sloooowly tried to open his eyes. ...And then, he realized his eyes had not been open that entire time.

WHAT.

"AAAHHH?!!?" he yelped in a fashion that wasn't especially flattering. He was now flooded with all kinds of other concerns and questions, just to top off that intense motion sickness. "W-what?!! Where am I?!" He reached up to wipe his mouth- and then he nearly stabbed himself oh god was that a spike?!? "Th- There's something sticking out of my paw!!! What- Wh- What is going on?!?!" He looked around frantically. Was he stranded, alone, on top of this?!?

Lincoln the Lucario - 12 Energy

Lincoln was not the only one with a headache. While Kira's was nowhere near as painful and rooted from an entirely different cause, the pounding in her head simply wouldn't stop. She didn't know when she passed out, but she found herself opening her eyes in an entirely new location sprawled out on the floor. The lucario was quick to attempt to pick herself up, but dizziness caused her to not only feel ill, but struggle to find balance.

She eventually resorted to sitting rather than attempting to stand...at least until the room stopped spinning. She could hear a yelp behind her. Immediately her attention was focused on the aura around her. Just off to the side of the dimly lit passageway a good distance ahead of her was another presence. A stronger presence in specific. There was an air of familiarity about it.

"Lincoln?" she called out, her heart beginning to thump in a panic. What happened to the riolu? Something sticking out of his paw? Did something impale him-...wait.

Wait a second.

That wasn't a riolu.

Kira's ear twitched as she became utterly confused, but she knew she could not remain silent. "C-Calm down, everything's fine." At least so she thought. He was panicking. She needed to get him to stop even though she was kind of doing it herself. She prayed to god that he didn't know enough about his senses just yet to figure that out. The last thing she needed was a frightened man-child on her paws.

Everything's fine?? Everything did not seem fine. Everything about the actual, literal metal spike sticking out of the back of Lincoln's paw seemed certifiably not fine, and Lincoln was ready to say so - to anyone but Kira. Memories of the way she had so handily beaten all of those pokemon were definitely making Lincoln think twice about getting unreasonable. But even more than that, she had gotten him through to this point in the first place. He was scared, but he wasn't scared enough to forget that she had been the most competent one out of the two of them thus far. She did this for a career, after all.

"U-um, okay... uh..." Lincoln stammered. He was trying really hard to seem calm, but he was still pretty clearly a wreck. "If you, uh, say so..." Come to think of it... his hand didn't really hurt, per say. It... maybe ached a little? But his whole body was a little sore at the moment so it wasn't exactly out of place. He held his hand up to look at it again, and promptly noticed his fur there was a different color than it had been. It had darkened...

...?!?!?

Lincoln began looking himself over in complete shock. "W-wait, what happened...?! Is this really happening??? Where are we, what happened?!!?"

Annnd he was still panicking. At the very least he was still in some state of shock. She was just annoyed now. Once again with twice as much effort as the last, she would attempt to stand once again. She was more successful this time around. She dusted herself off and steadily made her way closer to Lincoln. She kept her eyes shut, instead opting to rely on aura to see her surroundings since her eyes didn't give her much to begin with.

"We are..." she paused as she processed the information given to her, "Still in the damn house I presume...judging from what the ghastly said, someone sent us further in."

She focused her aura on him to get a better look at him, "Annnnd in the process you apparently decided to level up a little. So chill, it's normal...unless you really wanted to be a little pipsqueak forever-then you should panic."

Though Kira had said relatively little, Lincoln still needed time to process everything she was saying. They were still in the mansion... His spine quivered with distaste. He wasn't ready to hear that, but he had more or less expected it. And then she implied he had "leveled up" a little... well, he wasn't sure how she could tell but that he guessed maybe he looked a little - wait a second.

He looked down at his paws again. They didn't just look weird, they looked like hers. Tilting his head down further, though painful, revealed that his whole chest had changed color too - and now there was a spike sticking out of it. He looked entirely different in his own eyes...

HE HAD EVOLVED!!!

"WOOOOO!!!" he cried happily, jumping up as if the motion sickness wasn't bothering him at all anymore, "WOOHOOHOOHOOHOO!!! Kira, can you believe it?!?! Can you believe it happened to me??!!!" He yelped excitedly, looking at her with eyes filled with unfiltered elation. He had a lot to thank Kira for now, he realized - but mostly he was just marveling at his altered form. He looked stronger! He felt better(ish)!!! He wiggled his limbs around a few times, and then launched himself into a hug with Kira when he realized he just couldn't contain it any longer.

"THANK YOU!! Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!" Lincoln quickly pulled away, as his self-concious side quickly ended his allowance for extended embarrassing acts of affection. "...Sorry if that was weird!! You've just helped me a lot getting here! Maybe now I can actually help you some, too!!"

She looked down the all and tried to concentrate her sense of aura down that way. She needed to figure out which way they should be going exactly. Unfortunately for her, it didn't seem like it was possible. Each way just seemed like an endless hall forward. It boggled her mind just how strange this place was. The lucario started to grow uneasy. If they couldn't find their way out then-

"WOOOOO!!!"

The cheer practically assaulted her ears with the echo that reverberated throughout the hall. She was about to turn and snap at him to quiet himself, but his cheers only drowned out her words further. Just when she was about to raise her voice, she was being hugged. Not only that-but impaled. It was fortunate that the hug was brief, so it felt more like a quick and powerful poke than more of a spear going through her. The newly evolved lucario's chest spike was driven right into her, causing her to cry out herself.

"OW!" she rubbed the spot where she was poked and performed a quick check to see if she bled. While the lucario's display was rather adorable to watch, she couldn't help but feel just a little salty about both the noise and the spike.

"Just calm down already! You're going to alert every pokemon in this house like that-" Wait. Lincoln was standing now. Something seemed off though. She stared at him for a solid second as something dawned on her...

He was taller than her. He just evolved...and he was taller.

...

J e a l o u s y.

"Sorry!! Sorry, you're right!!" He hadn't really been thinking about his volume, or the fact that they were still in the middle of dangerous territory with with dangerous pokemon that had given them at least some trouble back in the other portions of the house. He had only been thinking about the fact that he evolved (eeee)!! He needed to get back on track, though. But it was haaaaaaaaard...

Anyways... they appeared to be in a hallway? He couldn't see an end on either side, so it must have been really long... "This house is... really strange, isn't it? What do you think makes it like this? ...Where did it come from?" he mused. He looked at the wall, and then started to press a paw to it almost whimsically.

He suddenly got a jolt of... feeling? from the wall. Suddenly, when he blinked, it was like he could see the wall's for going on for miles... it was distorted and hard to watch, though. He yelped again and jumped back. "-GYA!! Kira, what's this weird thing that keeps happening?!?! I can see images when I close my eyes sometimes?!" He looked to her fearfully, hoping she could guide him again.

Lincoln the Lucario - 12 Energy

FoxFireAlchemist carried out 10 launched of one Ruined Passageway :

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If it weren't for the fact that they were stuck in the middle of a mad house, she would have been excited right alongside Lincoln. She had to admit though, she didn't think the first time she'd meet another Lucario it would be someone who was...more inexperienced than her. She wasn't quite the master of her newfound abilities just yet, but she wasn't a rookie either. This meant that putting up with a rookie was a little concerning for her.

"I don't know-it just kind of happens around here," she responded to the...other lucario. "The house being weird, not the image thing. The image thing is all the time and that's your aura-senses. Didn't you feel any of it when you were a riolu? Didn't your parents tell you about this?"

Kira - 46 Energy Left

Kat carried out 10 launched of one Ruined Passageway :

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"M-my parents? Um... I probably didn't listen, or... pay attention?" Lincoln chuckled nervously. "I was more interested in becoming an outlaw hunter than learning about that kind of stuff... and we were always working on the farm when I wasn't doing that! Maybe I left before they got a chance. I mean, I guess I felt it... but it wasn't a big deal until now, you know? It was just feelings." He never would have expected that those feelings would have escalated to something this crazy. So this is what Kira saw all the time? He closed his eyes to look again.

For a moment, his surroundings were clear... but they quickly degraded into fuzzy, spinny images that he couldn't control. "Wuh- uh, it's really disorienting..." he mumbled as he took a few uncertain, wobbly steps. He kept trying to get a grip on the things he was seeing, but the hard he tried the more his head throbbed and the further off-balance he felt. He staggered a little bit to one direction, and then he teetered to the other. "...How do you control this? I- I can't!"

He promptly fell over himself and into a nearby decorative table, destroying it and the vase of flowers that had been on it under his weight. "...ooog...." he groaned from the ground, eyes still shut and aura vision still blurry. WHile laying there and staring at the ceiling, though... what were those bright spots? His eyes flew open as his curiosity dictated he switch back to relying on the senses most natural to him. "Wait- Kira look!! Up there!! There were bright things on the ceiling, why are they so bright?!?"

In truth, the lamps that he was pointing to were only casting moderate light down from their hanging place on the ceiling. To someone with Lincoln and Kira's capabilities, however... they did appear to be much more. Burning... alive?!? Filled with feelings of nervousness and bated breath, as if they were holding something back. Trying to appear as mere lanterns.

Lincoln the Lucario - 0 Energy lol

Already Kira was sick of it and annoyed. What kind of riolu wasn't interested in all of the capabilities that came with being a lucario? Especially when ineducation can result in...well, this. She didn't think they had the time to sit around and talk him through, not when anything could pop out of this hell house's walls at any moment. She needed to keep aware of her surroundings, not focus on giving Lincoln a crash course in the basics of aura.

Her bitter thoughts were interrupted, however, as Lincoln snapped out of his confused and pained state to bring attention to the bright lights above. What? She hadn't even noticed! All the more proof that the fighting type was being distracting and totally not a product of her own inexperience with aura. She focused her senses onto the shapes above, capable of identifying the creatures now that she paid attention to it. The presences seemed more nervous than hostile, as if they didn't want a fight as much as she did.

"It's just some locals. I don't think they want a fight, just leave them be." she instructed the lucario. Despite what she told him, she was certain to keep an eye on them herself...just in case.

“Yes, we are lights,” the lamp responded in a quiet voice. “Don’t mind us, please continue.”

Lincoln righted himself and then looked up at the talking lamps. The way they swayed a bit, even when there was no wind... we’re they alive? “ Does... does bright mean alive? Is that it?” That seemed easy enough to understand, in theory anyway. There were a lot of things going on in living creatures that could make them bright, right? “ Do... are you lamps weird or something? Is there a puzzle?” He wasn’t really asking the lamps directly - after the last portion of the house Lincoln did not believe he would get a serious answer to his questions in the slightest.

“We do not talk. We are lamps,” the same quiet voice answered back. A second, even quieter voice also chimes in. “We are not to speak to your type. We just light.”

Lincoln blinked. There were so many questions... but his extra vision wasn’t the only thing that had suddenly “improved” with his evolution. He sensed what he could only describe as a “crackling storm cloud” coming from Kira... and it was only getting worse with every second they were standing there. Impressing her was higher on his priority list than talking to lamps. “Uuuuuh... okay. Well, uh, what do you think about going this way, Kira...?” he asked sheepishly, shrinking up and beginning to walk forward in the hall.

As they were leaving, the voices could be heard speaking.

“How many decades have we been hanging up here...?”

“Ooooh, it’s too late. They definitely heard. There’s going to be trouble....”

Lincoln didn’t think much of it, and kept walking. He had a weird feeling, though... like. A feeling of tension. It wasn’t even coming from inside of him really,it was coming from down the hall in front of him...? It was a familiar sensation to the one he had felt prior to evolving, but now... things were coming from farther out. It was odd, and it made his skin prickle. He felt something like air whizzing, surrounding something.

A rock promptly came flying out of the darkness and smacked him square in the jaw. His progress immediately stopped as he yelped and staggered backwards, gripping the sore spot on his face. “ OW!!! Did I feel that coming- OOOW!!!” He leaned down and picked up the rock, examining it. Then his attention was forcibly dragged back to the hall in front of them as the feeling suddenly kicked up again.

“-AHHH!!! They’re throwing things at us!!!”

Just leave them be, she instructed. So what did the lucario do? Continue to pay attention to them. The crackling sensation would only grow stronger with each passing second. She was in the midst of thinking about exactly what she wanted to say to him when he decided to pick a way to walk. Finally!

She followed him, "At this rate, either way is good since we don't know where anything is." It was entirely possible to ask the locals up top, but clearly they wanted to be left alone. She could hear their whispers, but her interest only piqued when they spoke of trouble. Just as she was about to unsubscribe from her own advice, Lincoln was smacked with a stray pebble.

She felt the sensation coming as well, but it occurred to quickly for her to react. The second pebble pelted him. She turned to focus her attention down the hall just in time to be belted with another object. This one happened to be much larger and far more fragile.

A rudimentary lamp crashed straight into Kira, knocking her off of her feet and back onto the ground. She cried out in surprise as the glass shattered against her, sticking into her fur. She may have been a steel type, but that didn't mean it didn't h u r t.

She forced herself back up and attempted to grab Lincoln's arm and pull him in the opposite direction, "Other way, andale, go!" She didn't know what it was, but she wanted out of there.

With the help of this new predictive feeling and a brainless adrenaline rush, Lincoln switched gears from shocked to reflexively defensive instantaneously. He shoved his paw out into the air and caught the second rock before he even knew what he was doing. The impact would definitely still hurt later- the bones in his paw even made a shifting, cracking sound that told all about how much damage catching the rock had done. It probably would have been better just to let it hit him elsewhere. None of that was on his mind right now, however. What was on his mind was the fact that he was now holding two rocks, and he had only picked up one.

"Woah..." he marveled breathlessly. He had just done that.

He turned to Kira excitedly to share with her- just in time to see her get beaned with a lamp. His excitement morphed into morbid fright as glass shards littered themselves literally everywhere. "Kira!!! Are you okay?!?" As he took time to check on her, a spoon suddenly flew out and struck his temple. "-OW!!!" He had no complaints when she grabbed him and started directing him the other way.

"There's gotta be like- a door or something here!!!" Link exclaimed as they sprinted the other way, still being impacted by a hail of objects. He looked back behind him and realized that he could make out three- maybe four? figures masking themselves against the infinite black at the other end of the hallway. They were likely the culprits of the household hail they were experiencing. Lincoln suddenly felt tempted to close his eyes and check... but then he remembered the remains of the table and decided against it.

"...I see four behind us- they're small! Like the last ones we saw!! Maybe we can take them?!"

They were small huh? She hadn't bothered to actually check on them; she was much more interested in actually getting out of there to think about that. But then again, with Lincoln tagging along and his complete and utter lack of coordination with his Aura abilities, it seems like a much more daunting task. It seemed as if they were pursuing the duo, which meant that they weren't going to give up so easily just by them running away. Sao Kira look up a new plan.

With her paw still tightly around Lincoln's arm, she thrust him forward ahead of her. "In that case, stay here." She instructed him with a commanding tone. Her first mistake was probably to think he would listen, while her second was to not wait for a response. She pivoted around and dashed back the way they came. Her senses focused on the oncoming objects as she ignored the pain of the glass shards as much as she could. As she rushed towards the figures her foot would be set ablaze as she prepared a nice hot kick for whoever was unfortunate enough to be closest to her if she managed to catch up.

"Uuuuh- okay!!?" Lincoln exclaimed in confusion as Kira pushed him to the side of the hall and then rant back in the other direction. Watching her run off, he couldn't help but feel a little pang of sadness run through him as he wished she took him with her. Partially for safety reasons- there was still a lingering fear that this house would suddenly swallow him while her back was to him. But also, he wanted to be there fighting too. He wasn't good at the front lines, but he had useful abilities- like making ghosts solid! He had been struggling earlier, though, and this evolution thing was still new to him. It was probably best he waited.

The four ghosts behind them hadn't been expecting one of the big blue pokemon to suddenly turn around and charge them like this. They were merely children, three duskull led by a shuppet, who had clearly been being trained by their elders to harrass passersbye who came to the area. As soon as they realized what was happening and Kira was upon them, they all gave a collective shriek and blorped through the adjacent walls, some more scared than others but all generally fleeing. Their presences faded as quickly as they arrived, and the hail of projectiles in the hall ceased.

Linc was not surprised. He would have ran if Kira charged him, too. "You did it!" he exclaimed, relieved that the hallway had been made safe. Ish.

A stringy hand suddenly appeared on his shoulder, making him shudder. Apparently his extra senses had somehow missed this thing approaching directly behind him.

It was a gourgeist. She seemed much older and less hostile than the other ghosts, as if harrassing people wasn't her goal. Her smile was still eerie and strange, however- she seemed like the type with ulterior motives. With her hand on Lincoln's shoulder, she leaned in a little closer and offered out her other palm. "Wanna buy some seed, young lad?" She rasped with an odd smile on her face.

"....EEK!" was all Lincoln could really say in response to this old lady offering him a fistful of seeds.