For those who don't know these guys;
Hilda: wiki/Hilda_(game)
Rosa: wiki/Rosa_(game)
Looker: wiki/Looker
Prologue
Cheren leaned laboriously against the rock-strewn wall and sighed. Bianca had finally cried herself to sleep amidst a couple of towering boulders with the aid of Masharna's dream mist, her burette placed tenderly beneath her golden hair as a, unpredictably relaxing, cushion. Rosa kneeled a few feet away, struggling with much desperation to initiate a bonfire with little achievement. Her hair had fallen chaotically down her back and she dared not mess with it, tying it into a tawdry pony-tail. She had long since discarded her yellow shorts and visor. Instead, she wore velvety black pants and let her bangs hang as they wanted, faintly skirting her dark eyelashes.
She cried out stridently in aggravation and threw the sticks she had been rubbing together across the cave with all her force. "Why can't I get this?!" She scolded herself. "It shouldn't be this hard!"
Cheren rolled his eyes and laughed. "Have you ever practiced?"
Rosa blinked and stared down at her knees. "Well…I usually relied on Emboar to start my fires…" She grew quiet, and Cheren noticed a pale glimmer of agony in her eyes.
He frowned. "But that luxury is gone now. You are a champion, and you have to start acting like one!"
Rosa seemed taken aback at his unsympathetic attitude. "You have no room to talk! I beat you on your first day as gym leader!" She snapped. "If anyone should start acting the way their status says, it's you Cheren!"
Bianca began to rouse and flipped herself over with a soft thunk. Musharna gave a mellifluous chuff and descended to where her trainer lay, letting a bottomless growl sound in her throat as she opened her eyes and glowered at the two locked in their futile power struggle.
Cheren quieted Rosa and pushed himself up. Moving ached, but he forced himself over to where Rosa sat in her intense cloud of vehemence. For a few moments she refused to look his way and crossed her arms irately.
"I hadn't forgotten about that," Cheren whispered, "but it's my job to push you. We had a promise."
Rosa glanced over at him then got up. She recovered the sticks from a mound of soil and plopped down in a sulk back in front of her companion.
"I know, I know. I'm just frustrated…" She paused. "Are you alright? I mean, after that Ferroseed—"
Cheren stopped her with a hand, and swiftly pulled down his sleeve. "I'm fine." He lied obviously.
Rosa raised an eyebrow. "Really? Let me see then!" She reached out and grabbed Cheren by the arm, but he yelped and pulled away.
"I said I was fine!" He growled.
Rosa narrowed her eyes. "You want me to act like a champion? Then let me take charge!"
She inched forward, winching as she crawled over her own hair, and kneeled in front of her friend. She held out a hand and threw the other one on her hip, eyebrows raised in a rather challenging way, as if to dare him to protest once more.
Cheren showed his reluctance clearly before holding out his wrist to Rosa. He squeezed his eyes shut as she took him tenderly by the wrist and gradually rolled up his blood stained sleeve. She blinked and held a blank appearance. The strike Ferroseed's iron barb had issured wasn't any better. She swallowed her panic and examined his arm closer, trying to push all of the unpleasant thoughts flying around in her head away. The betraying purple streaks running the length of his arm made her heart sink. He was as far from recuperation as possible.
"You've been bleeding again…" She shook her head. "That's it. We have to get out of here and find you help. I don't care about that stupid reporter anymore!"
Cheren's shoulders slumped down. He knew Rosa was correct, but he couldn't desert Hilda or N. They were somewhere down there and he wasn't even sure they were still alive.
"Please Rosa," He begged delicately, "let's keep going. I know Hilda and N are close."
Rosa rummaged around in her backpack for a roll of binding. "You still can't move your wrist can you?" She asked wholly disregarding him on purpose. "My mother was attacked by a Ferroseed once and she broke three bones. She still has the scars to prove it."
Cheren gripped her shoulder forcefully with his good hand. "Will you listen to me?! You're more hopeless than Bianca!"
Rosa sighed, but sustained the search through her bag. "I was listening ok? I just don't think you should be down here…It's danger—" She stopped and spun around to the first of the three mouths of the abyss and remained still.
Cheren leaned forward. "Rosa? What's wrong?"
The trainer eyed the dark tunnel, frozen and entirely rigid. "Did you hear that?"
Cheren held his breath. All he heard was the diffused trickle of water falling from the ceiling and into the abundant pools below. Then, as muffled as a Pidove's wing beat, a tiny tapping came. It echoed through the shaft, like an ghostly heartbeat.
He cocked his head. "They almost sound like footsteps…That could be Hilda and N!" Cheren flew up from the floor and grinned. "Hilda? N? We're in here!" He called.
Rosa gasped and shot up, knocking Cheren back to the ground. She pinned him down with her arms spread wide over him and dug her heels into the earth, locking him resolutely in place. She clamped her hand over his mouth in horror.
"Please, please, for the love of all Pokémon," she whimpered, "don't let your emotions get in the way of our safety. Not now…"
Cheren nodded from under her bodyweight. He had to confess, his enthusiasm for finding Hilda and N was tremendously consuming. He reached up and removed Rosa's hand from his mouth and sat up. Rosa slid down into his lap and shivered faintly in a fusion of cold and terror. No matter how hard she tried to mask it, she was just as tough as the rest of them. She let out a soft cry, threw her arms around his chest, and nuzzled into him. Somehow she felt protected. Cheren, on the other hand, felt embarrassed as Rosa pressed her forehead into him. He wasn't even sure what part of her body to rest his hand on. Afraid of sending the wrong message, he allowed his fingertips to hover only a few centimeters above her shoulders.
Bianca stretched and yawned groggily from the corner of the cave. "What?" She rubbed her eyes and caught a peep of Rosa with her arms wrapped around Cheren's chest, turning his face bright crimson. She pouted and scrunched up her face.
"Geez, wait until I go to sleep why don't we! If you wanted privacy you could have asked! And since when are you two so intimate? We're in a cave for goodness sake!" She nagged at full volume.
Cheren drew a finger to his lips crossly. The footsteps were louder now, and at a quicker pace. Suddenly a lone figure stumbled through the mouth and into the cave. Rosa peeked over her shoulder.
"That's not Hilda or N!" She pushed away from Cheren and ran to the person's side as they doubled over and collapsed. "Quickly! He needs our help!"
Cheren forced himself up and limped swiftly to her side. The man had toppled face first into a thin puddle and shattered his glasses, causing slender shards of glass to slice the bridge of his nose. Mud was caked in his hair, but Rosa could make out a faint glimmer of gold, a blue tint to it.
Cheren gasped. "Wait a minute…"
Bianca peeked up from where she had been cowering behind Musharna. "W-Who is it?" She called.
Rosa blinked and let her jaw drop. "Th-that's Colress!"
