"Adventure awaits us towards the rising sun!" Emizella announced with an excited zeal that chimed like youthful bells.
How she could have so much energy before the sun could even peek above the horizon was beyond Crystal but she was starting to suspect that she might have been sapping it from the fennekin's body through the night. After all, Crystal didn't have much to work with in terms of volume to begin with. But she put on a brave smile, she'd get it back through the commute.
"Before we set off, let's do one final check." she said with an affirmative nod.
"Didn't we check three times before we went to bed?"
"That was then! This is now!" the riolu declared, "We'll only run through it once, so just humor me here."
Crystal gave a short sigh before nodding her head. She pulled their bags together, setting them side by side and flipping their pouches open. "Okay, go."
"Emergency rope."
"Check."
"Potions and full heals?"
"Both are a check."
"Packed lunches, berries and power seeds."
"Check. Check. And check."
"Oh! And let's not forget the most important thing: lil' travel buddies!" Emizella wrapped an arm around Crystal's neck, pulling her in and pointing a digit towards her body.
She took a second to register that spontaneously added item to their checklist but, once it sunk in that she was talking about her, she couldn't keep the soft, sheepish laugh from bubbling free. "Check."
"And I'm here too so it's a check for me." she pointed back towards herself and chuckled before loosening her grip and moving to fasten their bags closed. "Great, looks like we got everything." she said with a soft hum, her tail wagging happily behind her.
Crystal giggled softly, "With your excitement, I would think this was your first time."
"Well, it's my first time going with a friend, so I can't help myself." she laughed along with her, but a little quieter. Was there a twinge of sadness too? "Everyone is usually too busy, so I've always had to go by myself. That's why…" she pulled her bag over her shoulders, flashing a big, toothy grin that concealed any hints of loneliness that her words might have conveyed, "I'm really happy you said you wanted to come with me."
Her figure against the rising day, body silhouetted against the dawning light, shined with a radiance unlike any mortal being. It honestly felt unfair how she could leave Crystal so speechless, as if she were choking on her own tongue, and still be oblivious to her super-effective smile.
"Alright," Crystal jumped a little at Emizella's booming voice, "That's enough with the mush. Let's get on with the mush!"
She pointed towards the light on the horizon, her usual zeal swinging at full force once more. She marched herself forward, leading the way with the only indication that her companion was following behind being the soft sounds her paws made when hitting the ground.
Making their way through the forest, lazily waking to meet the new day with sluggish bodies and heavy heads, Crystal could see why Emizella always preferred to start her day so early in the morning…besides hiding her sleep habits. There was a certain peace in the air special to this kind of time, not quite awake but not quite asleep either. A soft in-between with its gentle hues and tender colors.
Every so often, she'd look up to see where the sun had moved to. It was the best estimate she had for gauging how far they'd traveled and how long they'd walk. It'd always be a little higher than the last, inching higher and higher into the sky until she could see the full circumference of the blazing sphere.
Where were they going anyway? A question she probably should have asked before they took their first steps, but she didn't feel it right to weigh down the new experience with too many details. She trusted Emizella enough to believe she wouldn't take her anywhere too dangerous or too far out of her level. Besides, it felt good to enjoy the ride for what it was rather than concerning herself about the destination. A carefree sentiment for the young fennekin's day off.
Crystal looked up again, the sun was even further away from the tree line.
"Not much further now," Emizella told her, pausing at a stream and eyeing the steppingstones protruding out of its surface. "You see that cliffside over there?"
Crystal followed the digit Emizella had pointed outward into the distance. Her eyes landed on the elevated plane and its rocky edge, "Yeah?"
"Well, there's an old miner's cave there, just past this stream. It's pretty much dug up at this point but that doesn't stop some ambitious few from trying their luck in the tunnels. It can be easy to get yourself lost in there so we oughta stick close together."
"Have you gotten lost in there before?"
Emizella laughed, "It's not getting lost if you're exploring. It's call discovering new, uncharted land." How many times did she get lost to come up with that one? "Anyways, I know the tunnels pretty well so as long as we don't get separated, we should be good."
She at least sounded like she knew what she was talking about, her confidence rolling off her body and keeping Crystal grounded. She gave a quick nod and Emizella was happy to take it as her consent to follow her advice.
A hop across the stones and a skip through the woods and the two found themselves staring into the gaping maw of the old cave. There was a sign by its entrance, a warning.
"CAUTION: Due to old age and a lack of regular maintenance, parts of Diggersby Mine's infrastructure have weakened and become unstable. Proceed at your own risk."
"Huh… that wasn't there before…" Emizella muttered, leaning in closer to read the new addition.
"Should we turn back?"
Emizella looked back over her shoulder at Crystal before waving off the concern. "Nah. I know rock smash so if we run into any trouble I can get us out no problem."
Crystal raised a weary brow. "You're sure about that?"
"Positive." Emizella smiled with a nod of her head, "Trust me, if I thought we couldn't handle it, I'd be the first to say we try someplace else. We've got this."
Her words echoed once more in Crystal's head, a warm reverberating sound that pulsed against her heart and filled her stomach with the riolu's shared courage. For a moment, despite her lack of experience, despite her lack of training to match, she felt strong. Strong enough to push past her nagging worries and strong enough to continue on by Emizella's side.
"Alright." she nodded her head, "I'll be counting on you then."
"Awesome!" Emizella cheered, "Let's get inside before we lose the daylight." she said, pointing into the cave and proceeding to lead them inside.
As they ventured further and further into the tunneling cavern, beyond where the sun's rays could reach them, Crystal noticed clusters of glittering stones that reflected a spectrum of colors when hit by the hanging lanterns that illuminated their path. A rainbow of colors danced in the light, pressing their warm glow against the dull stone and adding a bit of flashy fun to the otherwise plain cave walls.
"Hey, Emi." Crystal called her, trotting up to her side when she noticed her staring had caused her to lag behind.
"Yep?"
"You said this place had been dug up a while ago, didn't you?"
"Mmhm."
"What's up with all the shiny rocks, then? Why'd the miners leave these behind?"
Instantly, a burst of laughter exploded from Emizella's mouth, the sound echoing far into the distance and lingering long after her voice had died down to a chuckle. "Sorry," she apologized, her sudden outburst putting the fennekin into a startled state, "it's just you asked the same thing I did when I first came here. I thought they were jewels so I took up as much as I could carry just to be told that they're all practically worthless. Just a bunch of glorified rocks." she said with a shrug of her shoulders.
Crystal's eyes looked up to the walls again, staring at the stones and watching their lights twinkle and shimmer against the walls. "But they're still so pretty…" she said, her voice a soft, whispering dream.
"Yeah, can't argue with you there… Hey Crystal, what's your favorite color?"
"My favorite color?" she repeated the question, taking the second to consider her answer, "Purple, I guess."
"Purple, huh?" Emizella echoed, her voice trailing into silence as her eyes concentrated on the stones, searching between their colors.
She locked her gaze on a small cluster that held a couple of cool hues in its bundle, approaching it while cracking at her knuckles. She reared her fist back, a collection of red, hot energy pooling in her clenched hand. A single swing into the cluster, sharp and fast, and the collection of glittering stones was reduced to a pile of twinkling pebbles. She looked proud of her demonstration while Crystal stared at her with a perplexed knot in her brow.
Emizella shook away the small bits that dusted her paw before kneeling down and shifting through the pile. A particular piece was pulled out, reminiscent of an amethyst jewel, and carried over to the waiting fox.
"Here you go." Emizella handed over the stone, letting Crystal take it into her paws.
"For me?" she asked, staring into its shimmering surface with twinkling eyes to match.
"Yeah. They might not hold any marketplace value, but they make an awesome souvenir for our first adventure together, don't they?" she asked, a soft, delighted chuckle rolling up from her chest.
Crystal stared up at Emizella's plastered smile. A natural, radiant thing that just begged her to keep its bright streak going. "Yeah, it really does. Thank you, Emi. I'll treasure this." she said, putting the stone away before she could have a chance to lose it.
Emizella's smile widened, looking just about ready to burst at the seams. "Aw man! Now I've gone and talked myself into it too. I'm gunna go grab myself one real quick."
Crystal watched the riolu busy herself with finding a cluster of her own favorites, gravitating towards the warming shades and their sunny dispositions. She couldn't imagine that Emizella felt this excited about these glittering stones since the first time she dived into these tunnels. They might not be "treasures" by a genuine appraiser's definition, but one little change to her norm and suddenly the childish whimsy was back in her eyes.
If she could make her adventures feel like new again, if she could make them special and even more exciting than the first… that didn't seem like such a bad way to spend her time.
Then, there was a distant buzzing that came into Crystal's ears like static, distracting her train of thought. She listened to it closely, hearing it steadily get louder and closer. Claws breaking through stone. A body swimming through rubble. Is it passing? No, this way, it's coming this way. Towards-
"Emi, look out!" she shouted just before the crumbling sounds could burst free from the walls.
Immediately, Emizella's body jumped back from the cluster of glittering stones, narrowly avoiding a set of large, metallic claws drilling mere inches from her face. The new body spun itself out of the hole left by his digging, his arms spreading apart to reveal the drilbur hiding behind the formation.
"Nice save there." Emizella breathed a short sigh of relief, nearly losing her nose had she stepped back a second too late. "Hey buddy! You mind watching where you're drilling? Nearly lobbed my head off."
The mole paid her no mind, simply busying himself with shifting through the broken pieces and searching through them for the biggest and shiniest ones.
"Geez," Emizella grumbled, rolling her eyes at the blatant rudeness on display before blowing it off. Some pokemon just be like that sometimes. However, when she tried to move past it and grab for one of the shattered fragments lying by his feet, his large claws intercepted her hand, forcing her back as he dug into the cave floor.
"Beat it, kid. There's nothing here for you." he said with a glaring gleam in his eyes.
Crystal felt her heart leap into her throat, choking her for the second it took to swallow it back down. Did he seriously try taking a hand for rocks? "Excuse me, sir… but isn't that a bit of an over-reaction?" she asked, the drilbur regarding her with a shift of his glaring eyes. She felt her body shiver, her words faltering and stumbling over her tongue, "I mean… there's plenty to go around, right? We can be civil, can't we?"
"Hmph, spoken like a true, naïve brat." he huffed, "You can't fool these eyes, I know a good gem when I see it. Punks like you who don't know what they're talking about shouldn't be wasting the air in here. Beat it." he waved a claw at them dismissively before turning back to his horde of "treasure."
Crystal watched him silently, unable to decide if she should feel disheartened by his rude comments or concerned that he was so certain that he was shifting through valuable jewels. Should she bother saying something to him? Would he even listen? But she had to try, right?
"Um, sir-"
But, before she could begin to try and straight this drilbur's assumptions, a hand raised in front of her, stopping her with its sudden appearance.
"Don't bother, Crystal." Emizella told her, glancing back at her while something soft whispered in her eyes. "Guess there's no fooling a pro, huh?"
He huffed again.
"Forget him. C'mon, I know where there are nicer ones deeper down." she told her, his shifting gaze not going unnoticed as she led Crystal further down.
Crystal's eyes didn't dare move from his stilled figure, a weary feeling welling up in her head with each hesitant step that followed Emizella's easy swagger. This wouldn't be so easy; Crystal knew that for certain and knew Emizella was counting on it.
The moment he was pushed into her blind spot, the moment where they had moved too far ahead to keep him in sight, a metallic whirring sound charged at them from behind, fast and deadly. Crystal's body reacted faster than her mind, tiny paws leaping her close to the rocky ceiling just before the drill's tip could touch her tail furs. She felt the breeze tickle her stomach, a chilling sensation that made her blood buzz with adrenaline.
Emizella turned to face him, catching the attack with her hands and gritting her teeth under the burning friction that grinded against her palms. Despite the discomfort, she still found it in herself to smile at his slowing rotation. "Really? You're going to make it that easy?" she asked, rearing a hand back and letting it glow with a vengeful fury before sending the fist into his softened body.
He flew back into the small rubble pile, sliding his head back into the wall. For all his talk and poisonous tongue lashings, Crystal was surprised to find him knocked out in a scattered heap of his own "treasures."
"Hmph, what an ass…" Emizella stated, looking towards him with an annoyed scowl pushing down on her brows.
Crystal caught her rubbing at her hands, noticing the bit of red seeping into her blue fur. "Emi, you're bleeding!" she exclaimed, trotting closer to get a better look at the injury.
She waved her off, "Yeah, that's what happens when you catch a drill run like that with your bare hands." she said as casually as anyone who'd experienced this on more than one occasion. "I'll bandage it up in a second, I'm just going to grab one first." she pointed towards the sparkling pebbles, walking closer to the downed drilbur and picking out a nice, glossy orange piece that shined like it held the setting sun deep beneath its smooth surface.
She held it up with pride, smiling at the small prize. "There, now we both have a piece to take home." she chuckled, dropping it into her own bag before proceeding onward.
"Wait," Crystal came up to her side, "let me help bandage you up first."
"Huh? It's just a couple of scratches, though. I can take care of it myself."
She pouted, that simply just would not do. "What's the point of having a travel buddy if I can't even do this much?" she asked, a stubborn furrow squeezing her face.
It honestly did little to make her intimidating but Emizella would never tell her that. "Guess you got a point there." she shrugged, "Let's get a little further from that guy, though. Just in case he wakes up."
Crystal's face relaxed, her eyes brightening and her breath catching with an ecstatic hitch. She nodded her head, tail waving happily as she stepped with a hurried pace to reach a suitable place for the pair to settle down.