Lightning flashed, slicing through the dark clouds for a fraction of a moment that still seemed to last a lifetime, before flickering out just as quickly. Rain was thundering down around his feet as he ran, the sky repeatedly being torn to pieces by the lighting above his head before mending itself with a colossal booming noise that seemed to rattle his very core. It was powerful, it was chaotic, it was dangerous...it was exhilarating.
So this is a thunderstorm, Grovyle thought, dashing through the forest as best he could with the mud under his feet. Feeling the power of the storm swirling around him, seeing everything moving so quickly, so naturally, bending and swaying under the force of the winds...it was incredible. It was alive.
His thoughts were cut off as his foot slipped in the mud for a moment, threatening to send him sprawling. He recovered, stumbling for a moment before pushing back off again, running for the deepest part of the forest and allowing his mind to drift once again.
Anima would love this, he thought, smiling faintly, sadly. She was always talking about the rain, how incredible it would be to stand in the middle of the storm.
Grovyle definitely had to say that, although Anima's musings were simply wishful thinking...she hadn't been wrong at all. On the contrary, she might not have even been close to describing this.
"It's better than you even imagined, Anima." came the quiet murmur. His heart gave out a small ache at the mention of her name, but...ache or no, he was going to enjoy this, for both her sake and his own.
They'd worked too hard, too long, for anything less.
Another light came into his sight a few rapid footsteps later, and unlike the lightning this one was constant and gentle, blue-green in color and pulsating slowly as if by some invisible heartbeat. A smile found its way on his face as he slowed to first a jog, then a walk, and finally to a standstill. A Time Gear rested before him, a symbol of continuity and consistency and hope. Hope, Grovyle thought, most of all.
"Finally," he said quietly, reverently, as he stepped forward, reaching out for the relic. "A Time Gear!" There was the briefest of hesitations, a sudden feeling of guilt. By removing the Time Gear, he would condemn this entire area to the same gray stillness he'd had to live in his whole life. Even if it was only temporary, he would have to create the very thing he'd set out to change.
He and Anima had talked about this at length, but having the Time Gear actually, physically in front of him really seemed to drive home the points they'd made all that time ago. But it was time to be strong, he couldn't falter, not now. For his sake, for Anima's sake, for the future's sake, he had to carry out this mission, he had to make things right.
Grovyle's hand finally closed the small gap between itself and the Time Gear, and no sooner was the Gear safely tucked away in his bag when he was off again, tearing through the forest ahead of the effects of time coming to a halt behind him. He had to be quick, not just getting out of the forest, but finding the sites where the rest of the Time Gears were hidden.
After all, this was only the first of many.
"Anima? Hey, Anima! Wake up!" Kippy, who had for once got up before Loudred's complimentary wake-up call, nudged at his partner. For all his efforts, he earned little more than a small groan, and a paw swatting at the air in front of him.
"Go 'way." Anima mumbled groggily. Kippy laughed.
"No way, we have to get up! We need to make a good impression if we want to be chosen for the guild's expedition, remember?" Anima said nothing, a thoughtful silence filling their room for a good minute or so. Just when Kippy thought she'd fallen asleep again, Anima finally piped up.
"...Five mo' minutes..."
A good ten minutes later, after morning cheer, Anima's sleepiness still hadn't really gone away. Kippy knew it was more serious than normal when Anima had simply given a bleary-eyed, confused look when Chatot had told the two to go check out the job boards for the day.
"Did you have a bad night's sleep?" Kippy asked quietly, after said parrot Pokemon had walked away with a confused look of his own on his face. Anima rubbed at her face, yawning so hard that tears welled at the corners of her eyes.
"No. I was watching the thunderstorm last night."
"...You what?"
Anima looked a little embarrassed at Kippy's expression, which looked both doubtful and amused.
"There was a huge thunderstorm last night, when you were asleep. I was watching it for a while, I...couldn't really look away. It was incredible. I don't know why, but..." she trailed off, laughing quietly. "It sounds so stupid, but it felt like that was the first time I'd ever really seen a storm like that." Kippy smiled in return, at least understanding why his partner was so uncharacteristically out of it this morning.
"How long were you watching?" Anima shrugged in response.
"I don't know. An hour? Two hours? It was a while, though, and I remember barely making it back to my bed before I crashed out." She seemed more awake at this point, at least, her eyes regaining at least a little bit of their focus. "But hey, if we're going to talk about my bad choices we might be here for a few. Let's go check out some of the job bulletins before all the good ones are taken!"
Kippy nodded happily, trekking off after Anima as she scaled the ladder to the next floor. They hadn't made it too far, though, before Kippy suddenly came to a halt in confusion.
"Hey, wait a minute." Anima also stopped, giving her friend a confused look.
"What's up?"
"Those Pokemon over by that bulletin board. Do they look familiar to you?" Anima followed Kippy's gaze over to the board, where a Zubat and a Koffing were checking out the posted jobs. She furrowed her brow for a minute, before suddenly her eyes went wide.
"Hey, aren't those...?"
"Those Pokemon who stole my Relic Fragment!" Kippy exclaimed, having come to the conclusion at around the same time Anima did. He squared his frame, but couldn't quite keep the surprise out of his voice as he addressed the two would-be thieves.
"Hey! What are you two doing here?!"
The two Pokemon turned to them slowly, before they, too, looked surprised as could be.
"Hey! It's those two wimps from before!" Zubat exclaimed.
"It's those two thieves from before," Anima said after a moment, crossing her arms in front of her. Kippy suspiciously regarded the two, keeping his feet firmly planted.
"Hey, what's with the suspicious looks?" Koffing asked. "We're just here looking at the jobs listed! What's wrong with an exploration team looking for work?"
"You're an exploration team?!" Kippy asked incredulously. Anima didn't say anything this time, but surprise was written all over her face, too.
How did a couple of guys like them wind up as an exploration team?
"Yeah, which leaves the question of what a couple wimps like you are doing here." Zubat added.
"W-we're an exploration team, too," Kippy said, shrinking a little bit under the Pokemon's gaze. "Or, we're training to be an exploration team."
"What, a wimp like you?" Anima glared over at Zubat, but Kippy seemed to regain his stubborn stance at the insult.
"I've gotten stronger already, and so has Anima! Even now we're trying to earn a place on the guild's expedition team! I bet we could wipe the floor with you right here and now, just like last time!" the Mudkip exclaimed.
"Whoa, there, Kippy..." Anima started, but Koffing laughed.
"You guys got lucky last time around. We didn't have the Chief with us."
"...the Chief?" Anima asked, feeling about as confused as Kippy felt.
"Our team, Team Skull, is a three-member exploration team," Zubat said. "And the Chief is definitely stronger than you both."
"Hey, speak of the devil!" Koffing exclaimed, a wicked grin on his face. "I can smell him coming right now!"
"...'Smell'?" Kippy asked. "What do you-" Unfortunately, though, the answer to that question was there even before Kippy could finish asking it. A horrible, indescribable stench wafted from the upper levels and spread throughout the room, earning exclamations of disgust from everyone present. The source of that eye-watering smell swaggered down the ladder a few moments later, and before Anima could quite get her bearings back she found herself face-to-face with a Skuntank that, she assumed, was the Chief Koffing and Zubat had been talking about.
"Hey! Get out of the way!" Was the last thing she really registered before she was hit head-on with another foul-smelling cloud, knocked back a few feet and onto the floor.
"Oh! Anima!" Kippy exclaimed in panic, before he turned and glanced at Skuntank.
"Are you gonna move? Or do you wanna end up like that loser over there?" came the question, and even though Kippy was aching to give him a piece of his mind for attacking his partner like that, he found himself stepping aside.
"S-sorry..." Skuntank didn't spare him a second glance as he sauntered over to where Zubat and Koffing hovered, and the three slipped into a few conspiratory whispers that Kippy couldn't quite make out. Skuntank seemed to perk up at something Zubat had brought up, a nasty gleam in his eye.
"A guild expedition, huh? Oh, that sounds like a good opportunity. Come on, boys, let's go do some plotting!"
Just like that, Team Skull had left, but not before leaving Kippy with a few intimidating glances as the room finally seemed to air out. He paused for a minute, still shaky from the encounter, before turning over to where Anima was just now starting to pick herself up off the floor.
"Anima! Are you okay?" Kippy asked, rushing over to her. She rubbed her head, waving her free paw in front of her nose.
"I really want a bath now, but besides that I'm okay. I'm definitely awake now." Kippy let out a sigh of relief.
"Thank goodness! If...if something happened, I...I-I..." he started shaking again, tears welling up in his eyes.
"Whoa, hey, Kippy!" Anima exclaimed, eyes wide. "Hey, don't cry, what's wrong?"
"I...I couldn't stand up to those bullies. Not even after they hurt you, Anima. I'm so sorry, I'm such a coward..."
"Kippy, hey, it's okay," she said soothingly, reaching out and rubbing his head. "It's okay, those guys were scary and it was three on one, I don't blame you..."
"You're just saying that," Kippy's voice cracked painfully, and Anima frowned.
"No, I'm not. It's okay, Kippy, nobody can be brave all the time, and nobody was expecting them to show up. We'll be ready for those stinkers the next time they show up." Kippy glanced up at this, a small smile on his face.
"Heh, 'stinkers'. I get it." Anima grinned, eyes lighting up as she thought of something else that might turn her partner's frown upside down.
"Hey, they're called Team Skull, right?" Kippy sniffled once or twice before answering.
"Right..."
"Do you think they're called that because they're always skull-king around?" Kippy's bright smile broke through his tears that time, and he even laughed a bit.
"Anima!"
"I'm serious, it was a serious question!" She exclaimed, even though she was laughing too and it was definitely not a serious question. She was aware of some of the other guild members shooting them confused glances, but it was worth it to see Kippy happy again.
"You're right, Anima," Kippy said quietly, nodding with newfound resolve. "I can't let them get me down, we've got an expedition team to get ourselves on!"
"That's the spirit, Kippy!"
A.N.: Sorry if this was all really narrative and dialogue-based; I'm trying to figure out how to balance dialogue with action but it's hard when so much of the plot depends on people talking to each other.
I'd also like to apologize for taking so, so, soooo long to finally get back around to updating after ages of inactivity, and hopefully I'm going to be able to throw myself back into writing on a more-regular basis. I missed this so much.