Hey there peeps! Sorry for the delay, I had a graduation to attend, a wedding that was in another state, and of course a vacation to DISNEY WORLD! Whoop! (Jealous? I thought so. I got my picture taken with Merida, the new ginger princess. Love love love me some ginger princesses) And onward! Mush!
Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon, but maybe someday...
Team Light: Chasing Away the Darkness
Chupi and Blaze quickly made their way out of the bathroom, eager to finally get to work on their next dungeon mission. But just as they were bee lining to the job board, Chatot stopped the duo in their tracks.
"What gives Chatot? I thought you said it was time for work." Blaze growled at the interruption.
"Why I never! Brats these days...although yesterday's capture of Drowzee was impressive, you two shall be working sentry duty today!"
"Sentry duty? What's that?" Chupi asked.
"It is Diglett's job normally but he is filling in for his father, so you have to fill in for him." Chatot explained slowly, like he was talking to five year olds.
"What? But we wanted to go a dungeon today!" the charmander complained.
"No buts, your partner is still injured or have you forgotten? Sentry duty! Now go find Loudred so he can explain it to you, I don't have any more time for your pestering." Chatot huffed and flew off.
"Ugh, sentry duty does not sound fun." Blaze grumbled.
"I'm sorry. If I wasn't injured you could-" Chupi began apologizing.
"Don't worry about it Chupi, just get better soon and we'll be able to explore again in no time!" He patted her head softly.
"If you keep that up, my hair won't like you very much." She swatted his hand away, but couldn't deny that she kind of liked the tingly sensation that lingered.
"Okay, okay! Hey Loudred!" Blaze called out for his friend. "Could you teach us about Sentry Duty?"
"Sure, it's easy! You go down this little hole here-" Loudred indicated thus giant chasm by his feet " -and walk until you find a bright light above you."
"Sounds kinda sketchy" Chupi murmured.
"Don't interrupt! Anyways, pokemon will walk on top of the crate above you and you'll need to identify them by their footprint before we can let visitors in. Just yell who you think is there and I'll check to make sure they aren't a bad pokemon, 'k?"
"Sounds easy enough. Let's go Chupi!" Blaze hoisted the girl over his shoulder and leaped down the hole.
"Wha-Hey! Eeek!" Chupi squeaked as they fell into darkness and with an 'oomph' Blaze (somehow) landed on his feet.
"You okay Chupi? You didn't hurt your wound again, did you?" He set her down as gently as possible and went to examining the pikachu.
"Yes it's fine, but you almost gave me a heart attack! Give a girl fair warning when she's about to be thrust down a hole." She lightly smacked his dimly illuminated shoulder.
"Sorry, but you know if I did, you would have protested getting picked up."
"Shush." She hated it when he was right. "Let's just try to find this 'light' Loudred was talking about." As she stepped forward she accidentally slipped on a puddle in the dank tunnel, falling backwards into Blaze's chest where he caught her by her arms.
"Whoa! You okay? Did you hurt yourself?" Blaze gazed over her half tumbled body that was leaning against him.
"No, I'm fine. I'm tougher than I look so quit worrying about me." She grinned up at him. It also helps that she's a natural born klutz and is used to getting scrapes and cuts from tripping over her own shoelace. (Thankfully Blaze got her boots so maybe that won't happen again, but it was only a matter of time before her clumsiness transcended the norm and found a way to do that too.) She was suddenly struck with how odd it was that she could know things about herself but still have no memory of her past.
"Haha, okay then come on." He pushed her back to her feet. "But first let's get a little more light in here. We don't need you tripping again." Inhaling a large lungful of air, his chest puffing out as he did so, Blaze intensified the flame on his tail to illuminate the cave walls. Chupi stared in awe as the fire crackled and roared to life in front of her, the warmth immediately rushed to her cheeks and she felt herself relax under its caress.
"Wow." She was speechless at the display of power he exerted.
"We need to hurry, I can't hold this for very long." Blaze briskly grabbed Chupi's hand and guided her down the tunnel until they came across a dead end with a skylight above them.
"This must be it. Well, let's get this over with." Chupi slipped her hand from her partner's to lie down on the ground and stare up at the light above her. Upon further inspection Chupi noticed the telltale crisscross pattern of the crate that was placed above the hole above.
"What 'cha you doing there, Chupi?" Blaze questioned the girl.
"Laying down so I don't have to crane my neck to see." Chupi said matter of factly and placed her hands on her tummy.
"Oh, I'll join you then." Blaze got to his knees and shifted himself so that he was spread out on his back next to the pikachu. Carelessly folding his arms behind his head for a pillow, he slowly let the fire on his tail dim to its original strength.
"Do we just wait around for someone to come?" Chupi asked sleepily and yawned. "This is kind of boring, I wish we were exploring a dungeon or something."
"Yeah, but until Chatot stops being a jackas- hey! Someone's there!" Blaze excitedly pointed at the large set of footprints above them. "Who do you think it is?"
"Hmm...I think it's a Swampert. They're very large and webbed with three flat toes so..." Chupi guessed.
"Oh yeah, I see it! That's a lot better than my guess; I thought it was a Kangaskhan." Blaze rubbed the back of his head embarrassed. "Hey Loudred!"
"WHAT?" Loudred called back. His abnormally loud voice was amplified by the tunnels and echoed horribly in team light's ears.
"There's a Swampert outside!" Blaze gritted out as he blocked his ears.
"OK!" The two could hear Loudred running up the ladder to reach outside and check the visitor out. "Hey you were right! C'mon in Swampert!"
"Alright! Good job Chupi!" Blaze high-fived his blonde partner.
"Thanks." Chupi returned. The feet left the crate and Loudred scurried back down the ladder to return to his post. "Wait, let me get this straight; we identify the pokemon just so Loudred can run up and confirm who it is, let them in, and run back down? That's stupid! Why doesn't Loudred just sit at the top and do his post from there? We wouldn't have to sit in a hole and Loudred wouldn't have to climb the ladder ten times!" Chupi was beyond confused by the messed up system.
"I don't know Chupi, ask Wigglytuff." Blaze shrugged his shoulders.
"...Never mind, I don't need to know." Chupi mumbled and dropped the subject, a shiver running down her back at the idea of confronting the pink guildmaster.
It turned out that they only had one visitor for that whole day, and although they had technically maintained a perfect score of correct identifications, Chatot was not impressed. He announced that they would have sentry duty for an entire week and only if they perform perfectly for that entire week would they receive their award. Needless to say Team Light went to bed that night rather ticked at the turn of events.
Work was rather slow for that week. With only a few visitors per day and nothing to contain their boredom, the pair was growing restless with the need to go outside. (Especially since Chupi's wounds healed by the third day.) All their spare time they devoted to secretly sneaking out to Marowak's recently reopened gym and training until they were too tired to move. Fortunately this allowed them to steadily increase their levels and harness their moves; unfortunately this means they itched to try them out in the dungeons even more.
But finally as time would allow, the week ended and Chatot was forced to evaluate their work for the week.
"Chatot! We finished, we finished, we finished, we finished!" Chupi excitedly explained, shaking the flying type's shoulders violently.
"What nonsense are you spouting, I don't have time for your games! I'm a very busy pokemon." Chatot shrugged her off but before he could walk away, Blaze grabbed his shoulder.
"No way! You said if we did sentry duty for a week we could get our reward."
"Ah yes, I see. But you'll only get the reward if you correctly identified all the visitors, which I highly doubt." Chatot thrust his snooty nose into the air with confidence.
"Here's Loudred's log!" Chupi forced the clipboard into his hands." You'll see here that we have a perfect score!" she beamed.
"Well...There were only ten visitors for the week so it's not too impressive..." Chatot skimmed his eyes over the sheet.
Team light's faces immediately fell in despair. He wasn't going to assign another week of sentry was he-
"...But it will do. You will find your rewards in your bed quarters after dinner tonight." He handed the log back to Chupi. "That is all."
As soon as Chatot was out of earshot the duo yelled out a triumphant 'yahoo'.
"Blaze, it-it's a miracle! No more sentry duty!" Chupi gripped Blaze's jacket as she faked some tears of joy. "Life is so beautiful."
"I-I feel like I have a reason to live again!" Blaze mocked cried back and hugged her close. Pulling apart, the two glanced at each other only to burst out in laughter. "Hey Chupi, we still have an hour until dinner tonight, you up for a quick mission?"
"Eh? Now?"
"Yeah! I promise it will be super fast! We'll do an easy one in the Beach Cave. Pleeease?" the charmander whined and folded his hands as he assumed the begging position.
"I don't know Blaze. It's getting late and we might miss dinner if we're out too late-" she protested.
"Then it's settled. We're going!" Blaze announced as he grabbed his partner's arm.
"Blaaaaaze!" Chupi screeched as she was helplessly tugged behind her fire type friend. Blaze ignored her cries and continued to dash to the bulletin board, ripping the first mission he saw before practically flying up the ladder. Soon enough they were puddle littered cave, marching on to do who knows what.
"Really Blaze? Really? Whhy? I don't want to walk around a muddy cave at night! I could be taking a relaxing bath right now." Chupi moaned as she walked behind him. Blaze simply crackled at her misery.
"It'll be fun! Trust me. Besides, didn't you say just yesterday that you were sick of sentry duty and wanted some real action?" He grinned teasingly back at her.
"Well, um, yes, but I don't want to do a job today! We already trained in the gym this morning..."
"Aw, c'mon Chupi! Please? Besides we're already here. And the job I grabbed says we only have to find some oddish and lead her out." Blaze said as he scanned the paper in his hand.
"...Fine." Chupi gave in to which Blaze hissed out none too subtle 'yesss', complete with clenched fist and victory pose. "Hey, watch it! A shelder is coming!"
Without missing a beat, Blaze gracefully spun around to metal claw his opposer, downing the shelder in one stroke of his hand.
"Uh...whoa. That was weird." He mumbled and stared at his hand in wonder.
"Jeez Blaze, talk about overkill! He fainted so quickly. Why? It would normally take two or three hits to win." Chupi analyzed. "Maybe it's all that training we did in the gym! We're a lot stronger than we were a week ago."
"Yeah, I guess I just didn't expect it to be so...intense?" Blaze dropped his hand. "But this is so cool! I never dreamed I could ever be this strong!"
He was right. When they first met he was timid and unsure of everything, but now he was dragging her to dungeons and uncomfortable with doing sedentary task such as sentry duty. He had changed so much in such little time, it seemed as if she had just blinked and he was a whole new person. He was more confident of himself, more outgoing, and it was hard to believe that the scaredy cat she had met not too long ago was now this powerful, bold charmander in front of her.
"Maybe you just had it in you all along." Chupi smiled.
"Aw, Chupi..." He looked at her with bubbly eyes before smirking. "That was so cheesy!"
"What? Here I am trying to be sentimental and you call me cheesy!" The pikachu was indignant.
"But thanks." Blaze's smile left her knees weak again, but the feeling was short lived as a corsola caught sight of them.
"Hyah!" Chupi cried as she tackled herself into the pokemon. The corsola too was down in one hit.
"Whoa Chupi! I didn't even see that corsola! You were so fast." Blaze cheered.
"I guess we're even faster too. This seems so strange. Even our basic tackle attack was able to OHKO." Chupi gazed down at the fainted pokemon at her feet with pity. She felt bad for having to hurt them. "Hey Blaze?"
"Yeah?" Blaze was checking the area for the lost oddish.
"Do you want to try a job at Mt. Bristle tomorrow?" Chupi lowered her head.
"Are...are you sure? The last time we were there was when Drowzee..." Blaze trailed off not wanting to relive the day she was kidnapped.
"It's okay. I have to face it eventually. Best get it out of the way." Chupi mumbled and tried not to think of the torture she had been put through in that dungeon.
"If you say so...Don't worry Chupi! I'm with you this time!" Blaze put on a determined face, thrusting his fist in the air and wrapping his arm around her shoulder. "There'll be no psychotic fatasses to hurt you while I'm around!" Chupi laughed at his insult to Drowzee.
He was glad she was cheering up; she looked best with a smile on her face. He made a promise he would protect her, and he'd be damned he broke it. Whether it's her inner conflicts, dungeon pokemon, or Bidoof's raging hormones, Blaze would be sure to be there to keep her safe. He vowed to it.
"But you know, we'll only be able to go to Mt. Bristle if Chatot doesn't have any other plans for us." Chupi joked remember how last time they had tried to pick up a job Chatot had somehow roped them into sentry duty.
"Ugh, Chatot frustrates me, it's like he takes pleasure in our misfortune- oh hey is that the oddish we're supposed to rescue?" Blaze pointed ahead to a small, docile looking girl with green hair trying to run away from a glaring shellos. "Chupi, you go to the girl and I'll take care of the shellos!" Blaze took off in a run.
"Got it!" Chupi picked up her pace and followed him to the scene. Kneeling down to the little girl on the ground, Chupi wrapped her arms around her to shield her from any more damage. Blaze rose to the action and quickly made work of the shellos before turning his attention to the two girls on the ground behind him.
"You guys okay?" He held out his hands for them to take and pulled them to their feet.
"Yeah, we're fine Blaze. We may have overreacted to the Shellos..." She glanced down at the passed out pokemon before looking back at the oddish. "Did he hurt you? Any injuries?"
"No, I'm fine." the oddish replied completely ignoring Chupi and putting her full attention to Blaze. "But I might need to be carried back. " She batted her eyes flirtatiously at the charmander and Chupi had to hold in her gag reflex. "Do you know any big, strong pokemon that could help a girl out?" She leaned into him.
"Um no. None of that is necessary because our exploration badge will automatically send you back to our guild." Chupi interrupted the girl's advances onto her partner. Seriously? This girl has to be at least five years younger than us and she's trying to hit on Blaze! What the heck? What's this girl's problem? Chupi felt anger stew in the back of her throat.
"Well, here we go. I set the badge to take us back." Blaze had stopped fiddling with his badge and held it out to the oddish. Upon touching it she immediately transported away. Good, now Chupi could take that bath she was looking forward to and-wait.
"Why weren't we transported too?" Chupi slowly turned to her partner with a deadly glare.
"Well, I thought maybe, since we're so much stronger, we could just go ahead and...go all the way...to the end of the dungeon?" Blaze quivered out as Chupi's death glare grew in intensity with each word.
"Blaaaze!" She whined. "You said it would just be a quick mission! Not an entire dungeon!"
"It will be! The other pokemon won't take as long to knock out so it'll be super fast. Let's go!" Blaze called out and quickly turned around in search of the next set of stairs.
"Fine." Chupi smiled. She couldn't resist his excitement. 'But something's wrong here...Normally Blaze just does what I say, what's different?' Chupi thought. She shrugged and jogged to reach her retreating partner.
'Good thing she didn't use 'the face'.' Blaze thought. 'That's my one weakness. Well that and water and ground types but that doesn't count.'
"So...that oddish girl?" Chupi tried to casually bring up a conversation.
"What about her?" Blaze looked at her curiously.
"What did you think about her?"
"Hmm? I don't know what you mean."
"Just what did you think?" Chupi muttered looking away.
"Ah, I see." Blaze adopted a sly smirk onto his face. "You're jealous."
"What?" Chupi snapped her head up in shock. "Am not!"
"You totally are!" He poked her cheek a little.
"...Am not." She glared at the ground. Aw, who the hell was she kidding? The green monster had bitten her, and bitten her bad. She didn't understand why though. Why should she be jealous of some obnoxious elementary schooler?
"She's not my type any way. She seemed too fake." He took his finger off her cheek to pat her head affectionately. "Besides, I like you a whole lot more than some ten year old."
She blushed at that and couldn't help the smile that reached her face or the happiness that bubbled around in her stomach. But then she couldn't help wondering what 'his type' was then.
"Hey, I think we reached the top!" Blaze ran forward to step into the clearing that marked the end of the dungeon.
"Remember when we beat Koffing and Zubat here? The looks on their faces when we kicked their butts!" Chupi giggled.
"Yeah!" Blaze laughed. "And we got back my treasure." He pulled his necklace out with the stone on the end out of his shirt to admire it in his hand. "You know, I don't think we've gotten any closer to figuring out what this pattern means or getting your memories back..."
"That's okay. We'll find it someday." She reassured. "You know what this place reminds me the most of?"
"What?"
"What a wimp you used to be!" She grinned at him.
"What?" Blaze choked out astonished. "Hey!"
"You're not that way anymore." She squeezed his hand with hers. "You used to over think things and worry constantly, but now you're more confident and brave."
"Really?" Blaze looked into her eyes.
"Of course! Like today; instead of over thinking taking a mission you just grabbed me and ran! You didn't think through that one at all!" She laughed.
"Hey! Is that supposed to be a compliment?"
"Yep!" She smiled. "You let loose a lot and opened up."
"I guess I did." Blaze looked up thoughtfully. "Hey, let's go home now."
"Yes! Bath time!"
Hey there! Sorry for the rushed writing but I didn't want to write about sentry duty... Although fun in the games it's probably boring to read about. :)
Yay I finally got a user pic! Huzzah!