[Event] If You're Not First, You're Last

Goro dutifully followed Chiyako through the mountain shortcut, listening to her talk all the while. Most people who chattered on and on tended to wear on his nerves, but coming from Chi it was less of an annoyance and more like comfy background noise. "A kingdom in the mountains inviting you up to play music," he echoed quietly, a befuddled expression on his face. "I've never heard of nothin' like that either." It sounded like the start of a fairy-tale to Goro, but coming from Chi it was probably just another day at the bar. The invitation likely came from some drunk loon who lived up here and figured he was a king.

The two of them came out the other side of the tunnel no worse for the wear, but something immediately struck Goro as odd. "... I'm pretty sure it was morning a minute ago." he said aloud, staring up at the suddenly pitch-black sky. The croagunk gripped his bindle tightly and glanced around, a little rattled. The skies had been cloudy for weeks and weeks on end—were they just high up enough that they could see through the clouds? Or did something finally happen?

dumpity dump:

Izumi was still thinking on her earlier question as the break in the staircase leading to Dark Void Peak became visible to the small troupe. She could already see the black haze bleeding in from the outside. It was thin here, but the dark substance promised to get thicker outside. "Well... I guess I'm about to find out, huh?" Izumi mused as she led them up. "This is it... this is the peak. Nobody should be here, especially not at this time of day." She stepped out onto the rock and immediately narrowed her eyes at the onset of the mist's effects. She spied the box that her perish torc had previously been in... so it was still here after all.

"I assume they hold festivals or something," Chiyako shrugged, "Or maybe they just need some kind of attraction to get off the ground with. I'm not sure, since I haven't gone yet." She saw the end of the tunnel as Goro did, but she had already been expecting the ill effects that they would run into. "Ah... it looks like the mist that Izumi told me about," she explained as the two crossed the threshold together. "I should probably tell you that it's hallucinogenic, if you didn't already know. Izumi told me it can make you see things, so be cafeful." All the while, she had an eye out for Izumi, the others, and whatever they were supposed to be finding.

Dusk wasn't too dreadfully worried about the threat of someone else being at the peak, mostly because she trusted Acro and was pretty sure she could at least avoid dying long enough for him to handle things. And since this absol hung out with the likes of Acro and Sova, it seemed safe to assume she could hold her own as well. Dusk doubted she would be able to keep up well with either of them if a fight did break out, but she still wasn't concerned that they would lose. "If anything happens, we're all ready. Don't worry," she spoke mostly to Acro, hoping to relax him a bit.

However, despite her words, she was beginning to grow uneasy at the sight of... darkness? Except, as an umbreon, she had fantastic night vision... and it wasn't dark out. The names of the mountain and the peak now made sense; this must have been some kind of mist. She had assumed the names weren't so literal, as she had never seen black mist before, but there was definitely something black obscuring her vision. She remembered that she would supposedly also have to deal with hallucinations here, presumably from whatever was in the mist that made it black in the first place... and everyone else would be dealing with the same thing. Perhaps a fight wouldn't be so easy up here after all, she began to think.

"We're all ready" that...he wasn't sure if he agreed with that. He didn't want to fight anything just about then. Acro wanted nothing more than to turn around, go home, and sulk. He remained quiet. The dark mist made it as if it were black as night. He could hardly see in front of him. He was hesitant to even breathe, seeing as the very air was polluted with some unknown substance. He didn't quite have a choice in the matter.

His steps were made with caution. The last time he was here, he got tossed off a cliff side. Then again, last time he was here, he was also an Archen. Being tossed off a cliff didn't sound that bad anymore...in more ways than one. He took the liberty of placing the collected items into a neat little pile. He stepped back from the pile and proceeded to wait.


The top of the mountain was silent. The present party could likely hear the snickering and wails of the resident ghosts in the distance, but otherwise, it seemed entirely silent. Once the items remained in place for a minute, the air around them began to stir.

The fog around parties began seemed to almost disperse, not completely, but just in their vicinity. A small pocket of clean air was provided to them by some unknown force. A quick glance around would show nothing different. However, if one were to look down, they would notice something odd. Their collective shadows seemed to somehow appear despite the lack of a light to cast them. Each of their shadows folded under them and combined into one before it stretched towards the pile of items.

The dark color on the ground encircled the pile, before they seemed to reach up from the ground in spires until a wall of pitch darkness was created before them. Even though it took so long to appear, it vanished in an instant. There was something new where the wall was.

It was a strange looking creature, very small and fragile looking. The pokemon stood on the ground and almost seemed to hide behind the pile of items that was much bigger than it was tall. The pokemon peeked around the items at the other pokemon with an uncertain gaze. If not for its glowing eyes, it would have been completely invisible against the dark color of the mountain.

"H-Hi...I-I'm Marshadow..." it stuttered and tripped over its words, as if the pokemon that stood before it were far more intimidating than they seemed. It gave a nervous glance to the items it hid behind and gave a small little point with its stubby mitten fingers "Th-These are f-for me....right?"

Goro nodded at Chi's words, grateful that she at least knew what the heck she was getting into up here. Mist that could make you see things... what a freaky concept. Come to think of it, it was pretty misty where he tangled with that umbreon last time. So maybe he was hallucinating earlier when he thought he spotted her? "You reckon it can make you hear things, too?" he asked the purrloin. That would explain the voice, as well. Hopefully, he wouldn't have to tangle with that bitch before he knew how to beat her for sure.

The croagunk blinked when the mist started to scatter around him and Chiyako, and he turned to look around them. It... sort of just flew away, and the air immediately around them was clear. Clear enough, in fact, that he spotted the very same pokemon he had followed up here just a few yards away - a big fat fuckin' bird and the freak he had just been thinking about. And the horny dog thing, but he was less interested in that one.

Goro wasn't sure what he would have done if not for the phenomenon that interrupted them—from the ground rose up a pillar of shadows, which then turned into... a pokemon? Hiding behind a pile of items? The croagunk turned back to look at Chi to see if she was seeing the same thing. He wasn't entirely sure if any of this shit was real, given what she just told him.

Izumi was confused by the mist shifting - she had never seen such a thing happen in her life. Then again, she hadn't seen anyone try to do such a thing, either... she looked and it seemed to be doing the same thing around everyone else - Dusk, Acro... oh, was that Chiyako that had found them? Awesome. She was getting a bubble too. Wait- what was Chiyako's shadow doing? Existing? Not on this mountain, in these shadows- aaaaand now it was peeling itself up and out from under her. Okay. Understood, these were shenanigans.

Izumi couldn't be mad when she saw the perpetrator of these shenanigans. Adorable. Was this the pokemon that Tsuki had seen? She never mentioned it being anything that was this cute. Izumi had been expecting some ungodly horror like the one she had caught a glimpse of in the cave- some pokemon with an insatiable bloodlust- or maybe just one that wanted to eat items? This was a very pleasent surprise compared to most of the other options.

"Hi Marshadow," Izumi greeted with a smile. She figured it was best to be courteous since the situation seemed a little tense, and Marshadow seemed nervous at least. At the same time, it seemed the Absol was capable of being nothing but casual. "If you need items, they are definitely for you. I hear talk that you might have a use for them."

Chiyako, unlike Izumi, had absolutely no involvement in the breakdown of society that had led to legendary pokemon flooding in from practically every corner of the known universe, and so she was completely shocked when suddenly she had air and a shadow and then that shadow was up and dancing towards the pile of items that everyone had created and something wicked this way comes- oh. That pokemon was only, like, what- a foot taller than her? Not exactly what she had been expecting, to be sure. She had staggered back from her shadow a bit when the spectacle began, but now she took a few steps back into place.

"What is- I've never seen anything like this before..." she murmured quietly, waiting tensely for whatever was supposed to happen next. She looked to Goro, trying to scope out his reaction. "...Do you know anything about this...?" She reasoned that maybe, as a traveler, he had run into something strange like this and thus would know what exactly to do.

Dusk's immediate reaction when the mist began to clear around everyone was to prepare for some kind of danger. She tensed up and recoiled from the invisible force dispersing the mist, but it only seemed to follow her. Seeing as it wasn't hurting anyone, she began to calm down, but her panic was renewed as dark shadows appeared under everyone and stretched out toward the pile of items. Was this kind of insanity normal for guild members? It seemed both Acro and Sova liked to get involved in absurd things. Was it just them?

The shadows all pooling together began to form a figure, and Dusk felt certain they were going to have to fight whatever it was. Fortunately, she soon realized she was wrong; as the form of the creature became more defined, it quickly became apparent that it was not hostile. It introduced itself as... "Marshadow," and its whole demeanor screamed innocence to the point of managing to ease the umbreon's mind. It looked kind of cute, not at all like she would have expected from... whatever it was they were doing. She still wasn't entirely sure on the details, but from what she understood, they were probably here to recruit Marshadow? So did that mean it was some kind of... god... thing? It was hard to imagine with how innocent and unthreatening it appeared.

Dusk was considering asking about all this and figuring out what they needed out of this innocent shadow-thing, when she noticed something else: Chiyako, the purrloin they had come here with... and a croagunk. The fur on her back bristled once more and it was all she could do to stop from instinctively rushing what could have been just some random croagunk. All she could think about was the one who had attacked her, but surely this wasn't the same one. Still, she couldn't help but give him an absent glare, unaware that she was even doing it. Suddenly she had forgotten all about the enigmatic Marshadow.

-- Acro --
He's never seen a pokemon like this. When he came here, he also semi-expected a fight of some sort. He also expected some sort of eldritch being to emerge from the shadows, but no, it was a small marshmallow boy that looked like he was straight out of a campfire cook-out.

He blinked in surprise and said nothing as Izumi would do the speaking for him. His attention was focused on the weird and strange pokemon before him, that he didn't exactly notice the subtle shift in Dusk. Then again, it would have been difficult to notice even if he wasn't given how the umbreon seemed to vanish into the mountain's dark colors.

These were indeed for him, the absol confirmed. "O-Oh" he spoke with a small scratch to the side of his head. The marshadow very cautiously stepped around the pile and braved the idea of facing these pokemon head on. He turned around to look at the pile, assessing it with a cautious and knowing eye. He turned back to the group with a bit of a forced smile on his face, "I-I don't really know what I'm going to do with some of this stuff to be honest?"

He stepped closer and rummaged through it, pulling out a Destiny Knot, "L-Like this...uhhh...maybe it could be uh...a ball?" The marshadow tossed the knot into the air. When it fell, he gave it a few kicks as he began to juggle it for a moment. After one or two kicks, the third kick seemed to have a lot more force suddenly driven into it. A light green glow flashed through the little guy before the ball seemed to...evaporate? Fly off into the distance? Where the heck did it go????

"Oh...oops..." he mumbled. He looked back to the pile, "Well at least there's more there..."

Now that he was watching the thing—Marshadow, it said?—mess with the pile, Goro realized this was familiar. Eerily familiar. The last time he saw a scene like this unfold was in the depths of the Ruined Chateau, when he went on his first outing with his boss and watched her bargain with a god. The situations were almost exactly similar, he realized. A dark, dreary place, a creepy summoning, a sacrifice of items, equipment, and trinkets in general, and a strange creature at the center of it. This was important. This pokemon, this meeting, this... ritual?

"Yeah," Goro whispered to the purrloin at his side. "I think it's... an offering. To an evil god, or something... maybe not evil," he amended after a moment, studying it. It seemed awful docile and friendly, and it wasn't Krikka summoning it, so it couldn't be that bad. Goro wanted to just back up and pray nobody noticed him so he could climb back down the mountain and report what he saw, but then he caught the eye of his original target.

The umbreon was staring at him. It was quite the glower, actually - was it the same umbreon after all, or was the mist playing tricks on him? Goro didn't feel like he was hallucinating. He found himself automatically glaring back at her, a scowl on his face. "Are you real?" he mouthed to her silently, not willing to interrupt the scene with the shadow-creature.

Izumi had become a bit consumed with the new arrival, since she was now apparently serving as the mouthpiece for the group following a wake of resounding silence. She wasn't taking the roll all that seriously, honestly. She watched in amusement as Marshadow explored the pile, picked out an item, juggled it... and then kicked it into oblivion. Literally, the whole ball just erupted into green fire right in front of her eyes. This was... not exactly how Izumi had been expecting this encounter to go down- assuming she had been expecting anything at all- but at least the only thing blowing up was items.

"You're not sure what they're for, or they don't really suit your needs?" Izumi asked curiously. She had half-expected the figure of this prophecy to, well, know what prophetic thing they had to do with the prophetic assload of items that had been requested for them by... prophecy. It was a bit humbling to see that Marshadow was equally clueless in all this. "Either way, that's understandable; we don't know what to do with some of them, either... besides bringing them to you. They might have some basic worth for bartering, maybe?" she offered, despite the fact that she could clearly tell Marshadow wasn't much of a bartering pokemon.

Chiyako stumbled back once more as an item went sailing into the air while also catching on fire. Had that... had that been the effect of one of the pokemon's moves, or was that just- was that just the friction caused by the ball's velocity setting it alight?! If it was the latter, Chiyako was going to stay as far from that pokemon's god limbs as possible. In fact, she was probably going to do that either way.

"Jeez... I was going to question you on the god thing, but I can see now that would be a mistake," Chiyako sighed back to Goro. An offering to an evil-but-maybe-not-evil god... she could barely comprehend what was going on here, but she dared not speak up out of line. She wanted to go home today- she wasn't that tired of her managing duties at Steamrise. She would happily wait patiently for more elaboration.

At this moment, however, Chiyako started to notice that Goro seemed... distracted by something? Distracted. From the actual god in front of them. That... was enough to worry Chiyako. There were currently two options justifying his distractions: either he's seen enough gods that this thing somehow outranks a god's actual presence, or he hasn't seen any gods and this thing is somehow more noteworthy (and more dangerous?) than an actual breathing god. The situation was self-explanatory.

"Uh... Goro? What's up? You're staring..." Chi asked, following his line of sight to... Dusk? Who was staring back?

...Oh Marshadow, there was something to this wasn't there.

Any doubts in Dusk's mind were erased when she locked eyes with the croagunk. He recognized her too, she could see it. He mouthed something she gathered to be "Are you real?" and seemed just as surprised by the encounter as she was. It was definitely him. The fur on the unbreon's back bristled under the cloak, while the red markings on the garment began to glow intensely. She gave no response, but her demeanor spoke volumes. She didn't need to ask if he was real; Chiyako was talking to him, so clearly he was... and she was apparently friends with him. Well, there was one potential new friendship ruined for Dusk, but the purrloin wasn't what she was worried about at the moment.

Somehow, this seemed more pressing than the literal god they had just summoned. The absol seemed to be handling talking to Marshadow just fine anyway, and it wasn't like Dusk could offer much assistance there. Her time would be better spent figuring out what to do about the blemish on this whole scene. Besides, she didn't have much say in the matter; she couldn't bring herself to look away from the frogman no matter how hard she tried. With every breath she took, she felt the impulse to lunge for him. She could still vividly remember how he had attacked her, with her begging him to simply walk away... and she could remember his friend, too. There didn't seem to be another umbreon here though, which meant he was on his own this time, unless Chiyako decided to try to defend him.

"Acro..." she growled quietly, unable to form a coherent sentence in her head to explain what she needed from him. She didn't want to simply attack the croagunk and risk startling Marshadow, but she wasn't sure if she would be able to restrain herself much longer. The rings adorning her body began to glow a bright yellow hue before fading to a dull grey aura, mixing with the red light from her cloak to create an eerie display. Cursed, one could say. She had already decided violence was the only solution here, and she was preparing. This time, she wouldn't let him get the first strike.

-- Acro --

Despite how much of a big dumb bird he believed himself to be, the archeops was in fact not a total big dumb bird. The mere tone and voice of Dusk was enough to alert him that something wasn't right. His glance ripped away from the legendary pokemon and to the umbreon next to him. Oooooh she looked mad. His gaze quickly followed her's to a croagunk he didn't even notice was there to begin with. He was...confused as to why this was happening, but could understand what was going on...at least he hoped so.

The archeops' mood quickly jumped into a more panicked state. He needed to stop her from doing something. However, all of his item were currently in that pile. A pile that was now sinking into the ground. Quick Acro, think! ...

He picked her up and sort of just...held onto her...not too far from a child and their stuffed animal. If she wanted to do anything, she'd have to get out of his grip. He figured he'd see how this went before trying anything a bit more drastic like say, latching onto her with his talons and flying off with her in tow. He wasn't sure what else he could do at this moment but he was gonna try.

"No, I know what they're for...just...not how they're particularly useful to me..." the marshadow picked up a Thunder Stone from the pile and presented it to them. The marshadow sort of waved the rock around a bit, dinked it against the ground once or twice, before tossing it back into the pile. As he did, a dark shadow seemed to open up beneath the pile. Slowly, but surely, the items began to sink into the ground.

Marshadow gave a nervous laugh, "I'm sure I'll find something to do with them though! I just...gotta get a little creative is all!" his smile faltered a little. He wasn't too sure of himself. The ghost type straightened their back, clasped their hands in front of them, and performed a very steep bow to the pokemon. "Thank you for helping me." he spoke in a much more confident, refined, and perhaps even practiced tone. The confidence only lasted for a second before he switched right back into uncertainty.

That was the one thing he rehearsed. That was it. He didn't know what to do from here on. "Uhh...so...yeah...haha..." The fighting type scratched the back of his head as he waited for the items to sink. "I-Is there anything anyone wants to say or...am i free to go?"

Yeah, it was the same freak. The way she stared at him was all the confirmation Goro needed; no hallucination could give him a look like that. If that wasn't proof enough, her freaky cloak was doing the flashing thing that it did last time. And the pulsing thing, too, that Krikka warned him about. She was beefing up; either through her own move or the garment around her shoulders, it didn't matter. He smiled with a lot of teeth and not a lot of humor, rolling his shoulders. She wanted to get started already, did she? Even with all their company?

Well, far be it from him to rain on her parade. He'd made it a point to go around the block a few times since their last encounter; now was a good of a time as any to see how much progress he'd made. His smile turned into an amused grin when the big bird he followed earlier saw fit to restrain her preemptively - did she have a babysitter? Someone to hold her down when she got the urge to take bites out of other pokemon? How cute.

"We go back," Goro quietly confirmed to the purrloin next to him. "Hope she ain't the friend you were lookin' for." If it was, Chiyako probably wouldn't like him anymore once he beat the shit out of her, and that would really suck. Both his hands tightened, his broken left fist creaking painfully, but he ignored the feeling. He wanted this just as much as she did, and at this point was just waiting for the starting signal.

"Well, no, I don't think so. Maybe the others do, though. I mostly came to deliver the items and make sure everything on the Peak is okay." This whole time... Izumi's disaster sense had been screaming up a storm in her gut, but she had mostly been attributing it to the fact that she was currently standing in front of what could realistically be called a god that could kick things into hyperspace damn near effortlessly.

As she turned around, however... pandemonium.

Acro was god damn near enclosing Dusk in a full nelson. Dusk was suddenly... all lit up, glowing and angry and Izumi was pretty sure she had seen that somewhere on a certain Glaceon meaning some absolute demon voodoo shit was involved- and this was about to get real bad, real fast. Opposite of that whole scene, there was Chiyako generally not knowing what the hell was going on, standing next to an- wait. She had definitely seen that Croagunk at the shop before. Goro, right? Goro was there, also looking about ready to smack a bitch. Guessing by the context clues, Dusk was that bitch. For whatever reason.

In summation: Izumi had absolutely jack-all to do with this, once again: only this time? She was all out of mega juice. So generally she had even less to contribute.

".....Oooon second thought, I might need you after all. Just to get through this. Not really with my sanity or anything, but there's about to be not a lot I can do for a good long while. Unless you have any tips on how to prevent a fight you know nothing about?"

Chiyako threw a questioning look at Goro, but shock aside she really wasn't too shocked or anything by his demeanor. She wasn't really shying away or acting the least bit afraid, as if she were for some reason very used to violent physical nonsense and fights breaking out at the tip of a hat- oh, wait.

"You know Dusk? We, uh, just met." Chi's look shifted from confusion to a tired leer that asked, is this really necessary? It quickly vanished as she realized she already knew the answer- though as a professional, it was her job to at least try and de-escalate things without violence. "I'm gathering you two are pretty wild about each other," she remarked with dry sarcasm. "......I'm also guessing there's no chance we can talk this one out." She prayed for that sentence to wither trigger either some kind of reverse-psychology or, if it was even absent in the first place, self-awareness in one of the two of them.

....Yeah, shit was about to get bad.