-o-O-0-O-o-O-0-O-o-
"So you two actually came?" Lere speaks, laying down on a log while Smeargle paints a painting off to the side and Azumarill happily lays rocks in a circle to put wood in for a fire later. Three white leaf tents are propped up just behind them. Upon closer inspection, the leaves are painted white, the inside of the tent has the leaves unpainted and left in their natural green state.
Me and Marble are still outfitted from the stuff we bought three hours ago. My white cloak with the completely wooden padlock at my neck and Marbles bright teal bandana scuffing up the fur on his head.
"You two certainly look different than you did before." Smeargle notes while briefly turning her head around from her art to look at me and my friend. I try to get a glance at the artwork on the canvas and it looks like the town. Aurial town, with the giant abyss below it. Maybe it's a personal project or just something to bring back to the guild.
I notice one thing about Smeargle, she has a green aura around her. Lere does as well, a fiery orange. Azumarill doesn't, though. This power is pretty useful I guess, but it still doesn't give me much info other than color, you can only tell so much from color.
"S-so? What did Azumarill say?" Marble asks Lere, who just simply licks her paw while looking bored and tired.
"You'd better hear it from Azumarill herself. Azumarill!"
Azumarill twirls around, dropping some wood onto the ground.
"Tell the kids your final decision. Remember, no one else was interested here."
Marble waits eagerly and I do too, leaning forward slightly with my eyes wide trying to guess what response we're gonna get. Azumarill ponders, scratching at her noggin.
"Hmm… I have not yet reached a decision but I know a test that'll prove they can handle it!"
"Oh my god Azumarill, you do this every time we have anyone willing to join, and you always end up scaring them off… Can't you just not for once?"
"No! No, it's okay!" Marble pipes up, stepping forward confidently.
"Whatever this trial is, me and Walker can handle it!"
Azumarill chuckles. Lere and Smeargle sigh.
"Are you two sure? The trials Azumarill come up with can be simple or stupid and ridiculous." Smeargle says, still continuing the paint.
"Yep."
"Yes!"
Azumarill rubs her hands together like some supervillain.
"Hohoho… Well these ones are promising then. Come on now you four, we have work to do! This won't just be a test for you two new recruits, it'll be for these two as well." Lere and Smeargle sigh again, Lere rolls off of the log limply before standing up and following. Smeargle cleans off the paint from her tail by sinking it in a wooden bucket of water and she grabs her palette of color along with a blank canvas to bring with her into the forest, Azumarill starts to follow them. Lere and Smeargle must know where they're going. Both of them chat ahead. Azumarill walks in the middle of all of us with me and Marble trailing behind.
Me and Marble follow along wondering what Azumarill wants us to do. Could it be an obstacle trial? It is something like a race to see which of our teams can get to the finish line first? Could it be some balancing game where we each get a log to stand on while we try to knock the opposing team off balance with our moves? I look to Marble and he's spacing out. He's probably thinking too. But our thinking is interrupted when Azumarill suddenly stops in place and we bump into her. She's starting to remind me a lot of Frit, Glass. Similar vibes just not bad like Frit was. And we haven't even walked that far, Lere and Smeargle are at the edge of the forest while the rest of us three are still at the tents.
Lere and Smeargle stop once they realize Azumarill did.
"Azumarill, what's the hold up?" Lere asks.
"Rude… I realized I should stop so I could talk to these two for a moment, you two go on ahead."
Lere turns to Smeargle and she shrugs. Then they both head off. Leaning past Azumarill I can see where they're headed, it's a large open area, no trees above, no greenery whatsoever. Just the solid smooth dry dirt blasted by the sun above.
Then Azumarill turns to face us.
"Here, come back the tents for a bit. I should make you aware of some things."
"Uh… Ok!" Marble says. We go into one of the white tents and there are small little rugs and a leaf bed at the back of the tent. There's a little table with small cups. I sit down on one of the rugs and Marble sits down on his while Azumarill takes a seat on the leaf bed.
"Please, get some tea if you will."
"It's ok, thank you. I don't really like tea." Marble says. I grab a cup and begin to sip. Brief silence. I start to drink from the cup again and Azumarill says this-
"Are you two aware of gifts, the things that give Pokémon superpowers?" I start to choke on my tea a little.
"Whwa- Ack- excuse me?" I say, recovering from my brief choke.
"Ok, so you have some knowledge of it, then! Gifts, the things legendaries bestow upon Pokémon who worship them or demonstrated enough faith. Some Pokémon have been born with them or had them appear as they grew up randomly though, but the most common case is that they get them from the legendaries. It is not something I have, I don't have any gift, but Lere and Smeargle do and they're the ones who made me even aware of it in the first place, I thought I should warn you about that since most Pokémon don't exactly know about these things, it's mostly hidden and if Pokémon go out into the public eye with them, they use aliases."
Gotta sit for a bit to process that. I knew they had those kinda powers due to my power telling me just by looking at them. I wonder why I didn't realize it before when I was at the center of town while they were there. Maybe it was just sensory overload and I just didn't notice.
"Turns out when legendary Pokémon are the ones handing out superpowers they try to cover it up and cover it up very successfully they do when you have Uxie on your side. So only Pokémon at the guild know about it and also play our part in keeping it a secret so that legendaries don't come after us."
"Those two have powers, don't they?" I ask, Azumarill nods.
"Welp, do you have them as well?"
"Yup yup! I think we do! Do you want us to tell you about them, since you know these powers exist?" Marble beams.
"No, I don't actually." Huh? "I'd rather wait to see whatever you two have in store in action, first! Huhu… But enough about that, you need a team name, have you thought of one?"
"Team Starstruck!"
"-Team Starstruck!" Marble starts to say right after I started.
"Good! Well, on we go now, that's all I wanted to ask, keeping it brief!"
We all get out of the tent and to the area where Lere and Smeargle are. It's huge, the entire area. A giant rock protrudes from the center, a massive pillar of grey that jags. It's like an arena, Lere and Smeargle, Smeargle is painting black text onto the ground that I can make out as 'Smear was here', she has her canvas propped up against a tree behind her. Lere is just sitting on a tree stump watching us come into the area.
"Now, you stay here, Team Starstruck. You need to be on the opposite side of your opposing team for this." Azumarill goes to the center of the area, climbing the rock up while me and Marble stand at one side while the other side, Lere and Smeargle, sit staring at us.
I look up at Azumarill standing on top of the rock and she raises a paw.
"ON THE COUNT OF THREE, TEAM STARSTRUCK WILL BATTLE TEAM TEMPER!"
"Wait, we're fighting?" I say aloud.
"Yep!" Lere says from across the battlefield. Smeargle dips her tail into her palette of colors. Marble tightens his head bandana.
"I will intervene when one team is close to winning to prevent anyone fainting from overexertion!"
I ready myself, preparing to take a running stance. This is the trial they mentioned, if we fail, then we risk not being able to join, right? Marble looks as determined as ever, he's completely ready for this. Smeargle looks stoic, stone faced, she could have done this so many times before, she dips her tail into her pallette to get it covered red. Lere looks like she's about to have the ride of her life with a grin like a jack-o-lantern. For my safety I hope it's Marble that deals with Lere, I wouldn't be able to fight her. She looks reckless and ruthless, covered with that smile, that orange aura flaring up like a growing fire.
I take a deep breath. Even still with the battles me and Marble have been able to weasel through whether that be the two physical fights we got in or the verbal ones, I'm still no battler. Marble is but he suffers from being so confident in his ability. I suffer because I don't have much of any arsenal to help me, I'm just a normal Pokémon with no power.
"Team Temper has been able to use their gifts without being overconfident and cocky, they will not underestimate you! The opposite is true, Team Starstruck won't underestimate you two, Lere and Smeargle!"
Azumarill raises her paw higher into the air.
"Three! Two! One!"
This is it!
"GO!"
Lere's entire body lights ablaze, they are now just a moving fire in the shape of a cat but where their eyes and mouth should be glow with a white hot fire. They lunge forwards leaving a small trail of ember as they bound towards me and Marble.
"Focus on Lere, Marble! I'll take care of the other one!" I say, running forwards. Lere goes to try and cut me off by changing her course more towards me and I stop in my tracks to try and dodge one way or the other out of her way. But she stops just about three meters away from me. The heat even from here is unbearable. She stares. I get ready to dodge to the left or to the right, she starts walking towards me slowly. She's coming to my left so I get ready to dodge that way.
With a lunge, she charges forwards at me at my right side, so I dodge left but that was my mistake as she quickly changes her course, bounding off of the dirt to charge me again with a face burning with that same jack-o-lantern grin. I made a rookie mistake, I tried to dodge before she had actually committed to anything! The heat blazes just inches from my face and my whole vision is just red, orange, yellow.
Thankfully, Marble's here again to save me from failure. Jetting in with a stream of water, a Buizel tackles Lere which shatters her fiery grin into a blazing frown of pain and shock.
Even when transformed, Marble maintains that teal bandana. He stands tall, being a blockade between me and Lere.
"Fool! Illusions won't work, I already know you're a Zorua underneath that veil!" Lere says.
"Go! Go Walker! Now's your chance!" I start to run, behind me I hear a flame whirr and a stream of water make steam when coming into contact with Lere. I see Smeargle just waiting patiently with her red paintbrush tail ready.
"H-hey! You can't learn that move! How- WHARBRHBFLLAAAAAAA-" Lere's words are cut off by another water gun directly to her face.
"But I can!" Marble says. Marble boosts into the air with an aqua jet.
"Ahah! I get it now!" Lere's face goes back to that 1000C grin. "You don't just illusion, you completely transform!"
"Bingo! Bingo! You got it!" Marble says, still keeping himself propelled up in the air with his twirling Buizel tails before transforming into an Emolga to glide around. Lere stands her ground, her head swells up, charging a fireball.
"You won the lottery! You got the magic answer to the problem!" Marble discharges some electricity and then transforms into Buizel again mid-glide to shoot out a water gun into the electricity, electrifying himself somewhat in the process but more importantly electrifying the stream of water aimed at Lere. Then he transforms back into Emolga for a peaceful landing. Lere simply moves aside, she reels back her swollen head and out of the mouth of fire comes a massive orange fireball. Marble transforms back to Buizel, alternating his form once again just to brace for impact… Except the fireball wasn't meant to be a projectile to hit. The large fireball lands on the ground and it starts billowing out to make the large surrounding area ablaze. Thankfully, any foliage caught in the fire isn't close enough to the forest, so there will be no forest fire today.
Marble starts to back away but the spread of the fire is too fast for him to outrun. He flickers to Emolga then to Noibat to fly up into the air to escape the fire. Looking down, he can no longer see Lere. The billowing flames and the smoke help to conceal her already fiery form. Marble finds himself flying above a giant flaming circle.
"Once I find you, your victory will be extinguished!" Marble says. The fire almost chuckles back at him.
-o-O-0-O-o-O-0-O-o-
Smeargle waits patiently. She's just painting red on her canvas, in the middle of this fight where we're supposed to be battling.
"Are you seriously painting now? Of all times?" I ask.
She continues painting with no response. Curious, I lean around to try and see what she's making, but she turns her head to see me and moves into the way so I can't see.
No, there's something off about this. Why would she just be painting in the middle of battle? Distantly I can hear Azumarill coo.
"Huhu, brawn versus brawn, brains versus brains! This is interesting and I get a front row seat!" She says on top of the central stone pillar.
"Ugh," Smeargle says. "Next time get food to snack on so we don't have to hear you talk, you're breaking my concentration here." She says loudly.
Well, nothing else to do now but to charge something up, but what should I use? Old reliable psybeam should do the trick. I start to charge it up, but stop. Shouldn't I try to use other moves? Agh, why now of all times am I trying to think of how I can be improving my battle style when I should be beating my opponent?
What moves can I use? I scan around for a rock, any rock would do. One sits by the massive stone pillar in the center of this area. I focus my mind to try and pick it up. I try to focus so hard that I'm on the verge of getting a headache, but when the headache finally hits me, the rock starts to levitate!
The power of a psychic Pokémon. I guess this would be considered telekinesis. The headache is ever present but bearable for now, but it gets more intense the more rocks I pick up, five total seems to be my limit as when I try to pick up any more than that, a different rock I'm holding falls down back to the ground.
I lift all them up into the air to strike down on Smeargle and her art but I stop and freeze the rocks in the air when she asks, "So you wanted to know why I'm painting in the middle of a battle?"
It gives me pause, but I reply, "Sure."
"Well… This painting will fill you with anger. Look on in rage!" She lifts the canvas up and twirls around. Spattered with red paint, chaotic splotches with an angry substitute doll in the middle of the painting. The only color here is red, just various shades of it to give it depth. I lose focus, and two of the rocks I have hanging overhead fall down to the ground and I clench my fist. She seriously had all that time to make an entire art piece in the middle of a fight? For the first time in a while, I'm angry.
"Makes you mad, dont it?" She smirks, and smudges the paint with her tail brush making it just an ambiguous red smear across the canvas and she dips her tail into the canvas. Purple and yellow.
This is so unlike me, I almost never lose my temper. I raise my paw and send the psychic stones above my head towards Smeargle at full force. My aim is horrible, I miss all my shots as the stones slam themselves into the ground just around Smeargle as I was too eager to just chuck the stones as soon as possible.
I need to breathe, one deep breath. In. And out. In. And out.
If I stay angry, then I'll keep losing. Why the heck did I get so angry? I find myself being confused. What was that all about? How did I lose my cool so easily?
I focus again, I raise more rocks into the air, one, three, five. I rush forward. Smeargle reacts, running off to the right, leaving me chasing in circles. All the while she paints even during the run. Even as I throw a rock or two in her direction. One hits, the others miss and one she moves out of the way just before it hits. Some bits of the purple and yellow paint fly back at me while she keeps just enough ways away from me that I can't get close enough for a hit. The paint gets on my white hooded cloak, ugh. I'll have to wash it later in a river or something.
"Stop running away!" I shoot a psybeam out when I run out of rocks, it hits a corner of her canvas and she accidentally drags her tail brush across the entire painting as it moves from the impact of the psychic shot. I can hear her say under her breath, "Damnit!"
"Nope! Can't stop running! Because then I'd lose! Now look at my newest piece!" She tosses the canvas up in the air and I get a clear view of it. Spiraling purple and yellow intertwined, with red smears lurking behind the spiral down into the mess of color in the center. However, the whole spiral is messed up, the accidental smear from a second ago nearly ruining what the painting was gonna be.
Suddenly I'm stopped in my tracks, my legs stop moving, not out of my will but out of a sudden pang of fear. "Wh-what the heck is your power?"
Smeargle stands confidently, the canvas falls in between us, laying face down on the ground with paint getting smushed into the dry dirt and spreading out. I shudder.
"My power is that my art is just so incredibly moving, isn't it? Quite gifted in my skill~" She twirls her tail paint brush around. How do I beat this? If I can't even know her power, then what do I do? It's a huge mystery, the purple. How can I piece this together? Something, something with the paintings, but what?
-o-O-0-O-o-O-0-O-o-
Marble scans the fire for movement to no success, every flame moves and dances. Lere peeks up from the fire for a moment with a mischievous grin. Marble shoots out a dragon pulse into the flames, Lere seems to completely dissipate and melt back into the circle of fire. Flickering about in the flames, completely hidden.
"You have to come out eventually, you know!"
"You'll never win if you don't find me, too~" Lere's voice booms out. It's like every fire there is saying it. There's no direct point where the sound came from as far as Marble can tell, even with enhanced hearing from being a Noibat. How do you discern living fire from regular fire? Marble thinks to transform into a Pokémon with heat vision but quickly realizes there's too much blazing heat to discern anything.
"Behind you!"
Marble quickly turns around to see nothing, he turns back forwards and is caught by a fiery slash to his fluffy chest as Lere leaps out from the fire, saying "Whee!"
Marble is dazzled, he regains flight after being knocked back. Now, he flies up higher. Lere simply falls back down into the fire and disappears yet again. Marble has to think of a new strategy. What Pokémon can counter this fire? He thinks, and thinks.
Down in the fire, a wet splat signifies something fell into it. Lere gasps, startled. "H-huh? What was that sound?" Marble, now Slugma, traverses the fire unharmed, simply sliding around at a fast pace. He still can't make out where Lere is, but he has a plan to get equal footing.
"Where the heck did you go?" Lere says. This is how Marble can win. All Marble has to do is roam until he finds Lere, and then push her out of the circle of fire!
Swish… Swish…
"No! You couldn't have! You can't just brute force through fire you idiot!" Marble sees some movement and a tail flicker up to the surface of the fire and he charges towards it, pushing and pushing with resistance until Lere is flung out of the circle of fire with a big final push. She slides along the dirt for a little ways, leaving a trail of embers.
-o-O-0-O-o-O-0-O-o-
I think that I just have to do what I do best. Or the best I can do. I feel my brain getting scrambled like a soup, I'm confused, conflicted in a daze. I hold my arms out and charge up a psybeam.
"Really? You think that's going to work?" Smeargle walks towards me, stupidly confident. It's honestly terrifying. You know someone has a superpower, but you don't know what. All you know is the color of their power, the aura they give off. For Smeargle, it's green.
"Not a step closer, any closer and I'll fire this!" I say, still charging up. She shrugs and keeps walking towards me.
"The fear I give you is intense, I can tell, if you shoot me with that beam, what could happen? Think of everything I could do. I'd just surrender now if- Wh- HEY! WHAT!?" Smeargle is pulled up into the air by a wide rock she tries to step over to get to me.
"N-no fair! You can't just-" I fling the rock away from me and it takes Smeargle with it for a ways before they break apart and she tumbles to the ground while the rock flies into the bushes and trees.
At the same time, Marble transforms into a Buizel and begins to jet towards Lere while she scrambles for a way to evade it in a panic with white hot fire eyes darting every which way, but before Marble can get anywhere near close, Azumarill speaks up.
"STOP! This battle is over!" Marble stops and looks at Azumarill with eyes wide, transforming back into his normal Zorua form after finally processing that the battle was over. Lere's fire form flickers and extinguishes and she lets out a hoarse cough, coughing up a black smog.
I stop, still shivering a little from that experience, still terrified, but my fear is starting to wear off quickly, almost as quick as my anger wore off. I can maybe start to piece together what Smeargle's power is, or maybe I just ask her what it is later.
"That… Was awesome." Smeargle says, lying down on her back on the dirt. She raises a thumbs up.
"The battle between Team Starstruck and Team Temper has ended! Team Starstruck is the victor!" Azumarill says, hopping off the pillar down to the ground, hitting the ground and kicking up a little dirt as she rolls.
"I'll be honest- I should have intervened a little bit earlier, but the fight was so intense, you're all good fighters it looks like! Marble, will you help me put out that fire?"
"Sure thing!"
Marble transforms into a Buizel, yet again. Both Azumarill and Marble work together to put out the giant circle of fire. Azumarill stops mid-water gun to say, "You three can head back to the tents! There should be some oran berries there, other stuff, things to mash them together and make some good meal. Marble will be there with you shortly!"
"Got it Ms. Azumarill!" I say, I tighten my hood around my head. I go over to hold a paw to help Smeargle back on their feet again after I ended up flinging them away.
"Oof… Thanks." She says. Lere strolls over, and we all begin our walk back to the tents.
"Your partner is nuts! He can transform all around! He was like- Whizzam! Whazoom- Like- He can just become anything!" Lere exclaims.
"Yeah, he's pretty cool." I say.
By now the sun is starting to set and the sky is that kinda yellow orange, sign of the evening coming around as the sun sits behind some clouds. We get to the tents.
"Everything's in here, I'll get it all ready, you guys tell stories by the campfire or something, I don't care." Smeargle disappears into a tent and I can hear the clink of plates and the slicing of some kind of fruit.
I help put wood in the firepit to light it up. Lere pubs her front paws together, scratching one off the other like a matchstick and then laying the on fire paw on the wood to set it on fire.
"Hey guys! I'm back!" Marble says running towards us from the forest.
"Where's Azumarill?" Lere asks.
"She said she wanted to stay at the arena for the night, but she asked me if me and Walker would stay the night here at the tents."
A plate falls on the ground and shatters, "Arceus dammit! That was my favorite plate..." I hear Smeargle say from their tent.
"But there's… Only three tents here. One for me, one for Smeargle and one for Azumarill." Lere points out.
"I can sleep out here by the fire, it's pretty warm." I offer.
"No way! You can have the tent, I can sleep out here!" Marble interjects.
"No! I'd rather you have a more comfortable place to sleep." I argue.
"No you!"
"No! You! I didn't even get hit while fighting today!"
"N-"
"Ugh, why don't you both just sleep out here by the fire? For crying out loud..." Lere finally stops us.
"Ok we'll do that." I say.
"Food's ready." Smeargle comes out of the tent with one plate in each hand, one on her head and one on her tail. A balancing act of food I guess. On each plate are some sliced apples surrounded by a ring of oran berries with a persim berry in the middle of it all.
"Come and get it y'all." Marble and Lere get up to go get their plates handed to them meanwhile I decide impulsively to try and bring a plate to me using the same psychic power I used to pick up those rocks. I try to lift the plate off of Smeargle's head by focusing my head. The plate wobbles, and it feels like my head's giving out slightly as I drag the plate off and into the air. An oran berry slides off and rolls into the fire.
"Ok, you don't have to be a show-off and practice, bro." Lere says, munching on an apple slice.
"I'm just… Trying to practice. Moving stuff with my head in that fight was my first time." I keep the plate held in place so I can go and grab it with my paws instead of trying to bring it all the way to me.
"You're a huge liar. That was your first time using any kind of telekinesis?" Smeargle questions.
"Yeah. Seriously, it was."
"Enough chatting, let's all dig in and celebrate!" Marble says, stuffing his face into his plate. Lere follows up by doing the same with her plate, just less messy. Instinctively I back away to prevent my cloak getting any more stained than it already is with the paint even though they aren't savage enough to have chunks of food flying off in every direction. Smeargle backs away too. Me and Smeargle sit on the opposite side of the campfire while Marble and Lere are on the other side munching away.
"So, what the heck is your deal? Like, your power?" Smeargle asks.
"Only if you tell me yours." I say smugly, pulling off the leaf bits of the persim berry.
"My power is essentially that I'm really good at art, and I can do it really fast, too. That's basically my entire power, my art is so moving that it will drastically affect a person's emotions. Studies that say certain colors bring out certain emotions have rung pretty true in my experience. All I need is the paint, something to paint on, and a little bit of time."
…
"That's actually pretty crazy. I thought you were hiding your power the entire time. Like- I was thinking you could paint certain moves into the air and use them, but you just hadn't done it yet so you'd save showing your hand too early." Smeargle nods.
"Well, any Smeargle can do that. We just need to have a Pokémon do the move in front of them first, then we Sketch it. But anyways, now I've told you mine, you better tell me yours." She eats an oran berry and wipes her cheek with her tail like it's a napkin.
"My power is basically useless, all it let's me do is be able to tell if any given Pokémon has a super power like yours. I can tell based on a colored aura around them. No special abilities that Pokémon don't already have, just that I can have at least some foresight on Pokémon with those extra powers."
"Wow, so what was my color?"
"Bright green."
"How bright?"
"Neon bright green, it kinda hurts to look at for too long."
"Ow."
-o-O-0-O-o-O-0-O-o-
We all kept talking for a while after finishing our food, complimenting each other on how we did during that fight, what we did right, where we misstepped, intricacies of how our powers worked. Apparently when Lere lights herself on fire she can briefly become amorphous in shape like a blob to slip through things but most of the time she's stuck in her regular shape of a Litten and most of the time she forgets she can even do it. Then we just idly chit chat for a while, just kinda hanging out. For a small moment the abyss was brought up but the conversation didn't go anywhere since none of us knew what was in it, all we knew was that it was really dark.
"Ooh, you know what we should do?" Smeargle asks everyone.
"What?"
"It's starting to get dark out! Someone should tell a horror story!"
"OH MY GOD! I know one!" Lere jumps up excitedly. "Marble, can you dim the fire a little bit?"
Marble turns into a Squirtle to shoot out some water into the burning fire pit. It sizzles and only the area just around us is darkened to just a faint orange glow. Lere let's the moment sit and Marble transforms back.
"... Down in a deep dark forest a Pokémon named Helioptile wanders around, taking turns around the path and ducking over and under obstacles in the forest itself. Fallen and rotting wood, fragile everything and so many cobwebs up high in the tree branches made by Spinarak and Ariados. The wind howls with agony of the lost souls led into here never to be seen again. Helioptile was completely lost, he had wandered into this place by accident. For hours he walked, the forest seemed to loop. He would always pass by this same carved statue every twenty minutes or so. A statue of a Froslass. The air got colder as time went on and he kept going along the path, eventually there was dead leaves on the ground and then there was faint snow beginning to collect onto the path. He was finally beginning to realize that following this path wasn't getting him anywhere since it always somehow led back to the same spot no matter which branching paths he took, and it kept getting colder and colder. Finally, Helioptile decided it was time to go off of the path once he finally reached the Froslass statue again."
"So off the path he went. The now snow covered forest extended on for a while as he trudged through the snow. The trees began to get more sparse, the cobwebs began to deteriorate into only fragments of a full web. As the trees got more sparse, they got more twisted and distorted. Helioptile began to see things in the trees themselves. Wood turned into Pokémon's faces, figures. When he got close to a tree, it whispered something incomprehensible. He stayed far away from every tree from then on out, being fearful that these trees were sentient, that maybe they'd grow a branch and try to grab him. Was he going insane from being lost and cold? Finally, there were no more trees. No more cobwebs. It was just snow and fog with almost nothing to be seen. Was it hours? Days? Months that he had been out here? He wasn't sure, his entire sense of time had been broken and every time he shouted for help his voice echoed back at him and there was never any response from anyone other than himself. A lone sprouting tree sits in the middle of a vast expanse of white and nothing with a piece of paper hanging from it. Helioptile has to think about it, was this tree like the rest he had just encountered or was it different because it was just a sprouting one? Wearily, he approached and read the note."
"Dear whoever finds this, it's been so long, so cold. The sun hasn't ever shown but neither has the moon, it's as if they no longer exist. The statue haunts me. It put me off so much, and I never figured out why. I felt a sense of upcoming dread crawl up my chilled spine every time I saw it and I ran, I ran so far away and out into the vast expanse of wherever I am. I'm writing this so if anyone finds it that they'll know what might've happened to me, they'll know to be wary if anything even worse shows up. There's nothing around me but a raging blizzard. If you can escape whatever it is please take this note with you, even if no one believes you, thinks you're crazy, please take back some proof, some memory that I existed, that I, Servine, was here."
All of us are listening intently. A bush in the forest rustles from a sudden gust of cold wind and Marble jumps while turning his head to look into the dark forest. Faint moonlight and the small burning orange glow from the fire is all we have. Marble looks back at Lere and gulps. She continues her story.
"Helioptile takes the note and holds it close to his chest. The sound of scraping stone dragging across the ground in the distance echoes out. Each scrape against the snow covered dirt sounds closer than the last. Helioptile turns around to find the Froslass statue sliding along towards him. It takes him a bit to register that he should probably be running as far as he can from this, he breaks out of being frozen from fear but even still he can't move from his spot where he now stands."
Lere leans her face closer towards me.
"His feet were frozen in ice, every bit of his body except for his head was chained frozen to the ground and try as he might to shatter it to break free, he couldn't. The statue grew ever closer, the scraping of smooth stone against the ground deafening until finally it stopped right in front of Helioptile. The statue cracked, it began to move. It raised a hand to reach out. Helioptile screamed and wailed as the Froslass's hand came closer and closer but stopped just shy of his face, and he stopped screaming. The statue's mouth shattered open, stone crumbled down to the ground."
"'You did not give up easily,' it said, 'You are a worthy one. Most would not come this far, most would have given up, doomed to forever roam that forest for the rest of eternity without realizing how long it's been and never realize they've reached far past their life span. But you… You're the first one in a long time to try to leave.'"
Lere leans in closer to me again.
"'You will make a fine addition to my collection.' It said. It's mouth cracked open wider as a voice welled up inside them." Lere leans in even closer to me, uncomfortably so. I scoot back a little.
Lere opens her mouth, taking in a mouthful of air and holding it. Then, she jumps into the fire and comes out the other end with a face blazing with her signature jack-o-lantern grin suddenly appearing in Marbles face.
"RRRAAAAAGGGHHHHGGHH!" She screams and shakes her head wildly with a freaking shriek.
"AAHHHH!" Marble jolts back, flailing around wildly, even swinging a punch but missing. Marble hyperventilates a bit, all the while Lere is laughing and losing it.
"HAH! Scared you good!"
"You're a jerk!" Marble says, a bit angry he was caught so off guard. He tightens his bandana on more while Lere laughs still, walking over to a tent and extinguishing her fiery form.
"You guys have fun, I'm going to bed, hehe. Don't worry though, that story isn't real." She disappears into the tent.
Marble regains his composure by taking a long deep breath. He gets up and walks back to the fire.
Smeargle holds a hand behind her head with a small nervous laugh. "Sorry about Lere, she gets a bit too in character sometimes… Haha… She doesn't mean any harm by it."
"Yeah, no kidding!" Marble stomps a paw down angrily. "Man… Right before it's time to sleep too." Now that marble mentions it, it is pretty darn late. How much time has passed? I involuntarily yawn which causes Smeargle to yawn too.
"Yeah-" Smeargle says during her yawn. "We should rest up for tomorrow, that would be the day you two go down into the abyss assuming Azumarill has decided that you two are fit enough for it which, assuming your performance, I'm sure she's got no problems with you two heading down there." Smeargle gets up and heads for her tent.
"Night, y'all." Smeargle pushes away some leaves and enters her tent.
"You okay, Marble?"
"Yeah, I'm cool, just a bit startled after that is all. That story was scary. I'll shiver for a bit while trying to sleep, but I'll be fine."
…
"Can you make the fire brighter?"
"Uh, yeah, sure. I'll try to feel around for some wood." I get up and look around the area. It's too dark to see anything so I went to the tents and I trip on something. Feeling around to touch what I tripped on I find the fire wood I was looking for and I come back to toss it into the fire. The fire springs back to life and it crackles, embers get kicked out as the wood impacts the already charred wood below.
"There, fire brighter. Warmer too."
"Alright…" Marble yawns. "Cool."
"I'm gonna try to get to sleep, k? I'll be right on the other side of the fire." I say, lying down.
"Alrighty. Big day tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah. So let's get some good rest."
"It's gonna be…" Marble yawns again. "Be really cool."
For once, I feel like I'm more tired than Marble, my eyelids feel heavier than ever, and it's not long before I'm out. It wasn't that much different from sleeping at Marble's place, except now I had something kinda like a blanket now almost because of my cloak. The wind is cold just like it was at Marble's place, but the fire is warmer.
Tomorrow is the day we'll know if we actually got our place in this guild or whatever.
I'm sure we got it, there's no way we didn't with how we did. There's no room for doubt in that statement. We got this in the bag!
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