Kuro

I moved in a calm jog-like motions, heading in the direction I was directed to by Core. Hopefully I was going the right way, as my sense of direction could be… better. I wasn't that bad at navigation though, so I told myself that the journey wouldn't be too difficult. On the way there though, my thoughts were sort of… all over the place. Namely, I was contacted a second time by Core, and he told me that Vero was having trouble over there. My mind immediately jumped to the worst possibility, but soon after, Core was quick to assure that this had nothing to do with any Void members, it was actually the locals there. I really wasn't expecting to hear that, but in my eyes, that was much better than Void intervention. Hopefully.

As the conversation continued, I was enlightened on Vero's situation there, and while it wasn't exactly life-threatening, the locals there were not very accepting of us. By "us" I actually mean dark types. As soon as I heard that, I immediately wished that Naru and I switched places, as sending another dark type to a place that hates dark types probably wasn't a good idea. Core told me that it gives Vero and I a chance to further explain ourselves, showing the locals there that we were not a threat of any kind. I wasn't too on board with it, but it was too late now, I gave my affirmation to Core after all. Kind of regret that.

I continued moving at a brisque place through the landscape I was in, which looked as if it was changing ever so slightly. The trees became more and more plentiful and defined. Each one towered high above what I was used to by the Nest, which did make a bit of sense, as I was travelling passed the usual ten miles we would go without someone to transport us. The grass was a decent bit taller, and the trees began to host some rather long looking vines, each one slightly hanging low at the top of the trunks of each tree. The branches of each one began to thicken as I moved, and I started to get some odd feelings in my head, as if I've been around this area before, which was surely impossible, but how could I feel different? The area around me was slowly turning into a forest, and I spent an unhealthy amount of time in one of those prior, so it makes sense that I would feel familiar with these environmental changes.

After pushing on for a little longer, The trees began to group together more, and I had entered a forest, similar but different from the one I spent roughly eight years wandering. I am going the right way… right? The powerful smell of natural plants began to flow through my nostrils. I was fond of this, even if I wasn't in that forest on good terms, it still gave me the adoration to nature that I have today. It was just so… relaxing in almost every way, save the poison and aggressive ferals. I really felt in my element here, nothing but trees and plants to run through, nothing but life to be surrounded by.

I took a deep breath, salvaging what I assumed to be the short time I would be here. I continued walking in the same direction, observing everything around me, loving the sight before my eyes. As enigmatic as everything was, not looking where I was going probably wasn't the best idea, as I tripped on a rough, rocky part of the terrain, and fell flat on my face.

I gave a small sigh, a little disappointed in myself for doing something that idiotic. I pushed myself off the ground with my four legs, but once I looked up again, I noticed something unique. Not too far ahead of me was what looked like a rocky hill, still surrounded by trees. The sturdy mass of solid rock was light brown in color, and seemed to stretch upwards above all of the trees. Around the massive pile of earth, there seemed to be a very small path rotating around it, leading upwards. The path was nearly invisible though, I nearly missed it even while gazing up and down what I assumed to be a mountain of sorts.

Despite being endlessly curious, I continued walking passed the newly found cliff, still focusing on my destination. Or where I thought my destination was at least, still not totally sure that I was going in the right direction. Maybe I really should have let Naru go instead of me… I shook the thought out of my head, as I didn't want her to be in any possible danger, even if I had to walk into a place that apparently had a strong distaste for dark types. Hopefully they don't try and attack us… That would not be very good.

After walking in the same direction for another decent bit of time, still taking in the scenery, which was slowly turning more and more rocky as I kept going, I spotted an abnormality in the rough-grounded forest. I saw the back side of another large rock, not near the size of the mountain I jogged by earlier, but still rather large. Passed this rock, I saw another of the same size, and adjacent to that, I saw yet another. They looked almost as if they were in a formation of some kind, which I tilted my head to, feeling my curiosity rise up again.

I trekked through the rocky ground some more, reaching the rock that I spotted from afar. I glanced around it, getting a better look at the area. It seemed to be a small clearing in this forest, with large rocks placed an even distance from each other, forming a rectangular shape overall. In the middle of this formation of sorts, a group of pokemon were located, all eating… something that I couldn't decipher from a distance. I honestly didn't like the way it looked though… as I wasn't the biggest fan of eating much other than berries and various plants. That being said, watching other pokemon eat meat made me just a little uncomfortable. The idea of eating another pokemon, even if it was considered normal just… bothered me.

A kabuto at the end of the group that was eating backed up from their food a little, and went off into the forest without a word to the others. Odd… I didn't know what to make of this group… so I observed for a little longer. One by one, the rest of the pokemon finished eating and walked off into the forest, leaving behind a pile of blodied bones and small parts of pokemon flesh. Luckily, this wasn't anything compared to some other things I've seen in the past, so I wasn't too grossed out. Nothing compared to… that. I shook my head and slowly walked into the center of whatever this area was.

Each of the rocks looked virtually the same, I closely investigated each one to check for differences, and found none whatsoever. The spacing of the rocks seemed to be exactly the same as well, forming the closest thing possible to a perfect rectangle. I wonder what this is… I glanced around the surrounding area a bit more, which consisted of nothing but more of the same thick forest. I did take note of where I came from so I wouldn't get lost, but this landmark unnerved me, but I wasn't sure why. After making sure that I had my bearings, I continued in the original direction I was heading in, calming myself down a little. That made me way too uneasy…

It only took another minute of walking before I found another unorthodox group of large rocks, but these looked a bit bigger, and besides the rocks, I heard what sounded like very quiet talking. Intrigued, I began to walk closer, and peeked around one of the rocks, watching as a bunch of pokemon casually walked around the forest. There wasn't a clearing like before, but this place had significantly less trees than the rest of the forest, as if they had been cut down to make room. Other than the lack of trees, there laid a lot of pokemon, resting on the likes of small cloths with no real shelter other than the trees that hadn't been cut down yet. Some of the pokemon were conversing, others just seemingly slept. What is this place..? I'm not even too far away from Charm's town, so why is it so much different here..?

Beyond the single rock and the rather odd-looking group of pokemon, I saw what looked like another mountain, but this one seemed to be even larger than the previous one, and had a huge, cave-like entrance to it. Now I was even more interested, so I decided to observe the area more than I had previously, making sure it wasn't dangerous before I decided to investigate. It looked like a huge amount of the forest in front of me had many pokemon just laying down and relaxing, or quietly conversing with one another. Seeing the large amount of pokemon here inspired an idea in my head, thought if I was right, this was certainly unexpected. In order to confirm my thoughts, I observed every possible pokemon that I could see from my position, taking note of their species. No dark types at all… Is this the place Vero is located right now..? Or did I overshoot…

I sighed to myself, hoping that I wasn't in the wrong area. The fact that I didn't see a single dark type that wasn't me hiding in the background made me more confident that I was in the right place, but I still couldn't be sure. For all I know, I was just missing a random dark type in the shadows of one of these trees. I just hope I'm right…

I was about to take the biggest risk of my life and walk further into the area, but I heard a lot of uneven rustling behind me, which got my attention. There was a group of about six pokemon walking to the larger group, and I was directly in their path. I very quickly dimmed the color of my rings, making myself look like a black mass of fur. I rolled myself to the nearest bit of shade from the many trees that towered overhead. There were less of them in this area, but they were still plentiful, and provided plenty of cover for me to seep into. It was still easy to get caught if anyone ended up walking around the area I was hiding. Sadly, as near invisible as I looked while blending in like this, I still had a body, so anyone in the area who may walk by can make contact, and that usually isn't good. I wasn't quite in the direct path of the group, so I figured that I would be okay. Getting caught in a place that most likely despised dark types wasn't exactly… good. I hope that, if Vero is here, she's doing okay…

The group that was heading to this new area was now quite a bit closer to me, but paid me no mind, which most likely meant that I wasn't visible to them, which was good. I did notice as they got closer though, they walked in a very odd formation, almost in a circular one. I tilted my head at it, but didn't give it too much thought. For all I knew, this could be completely normal, just a certain way that this group enjoyed walking in. I tried my best not to make a sound, waiting for the group to peacefully pass by. As they became on even ground with me, one of them stopped moving suddenly, a linoone, and just gazed ahead of themselves. I kept my eyes on them, feeling the slightest bit worried. I don't even know if this is the right place and my anxiety is through the roof…

The linoone that had stopped was left behind by the rest of the group, as they looked towards the ground and closed their eyes, mumbling something that I couldn't decipher. They did this for about three or four minutes, and then they walked off to the same area the rest of the group was in. All of them entered the opening in the mountain right behind the rest of the area, and I began to get even more curious as to what was in there. From the outside, I couldn't tell, the only constant I noticed is that pokemon came in and left at a rather slow rate, as if not many were able to be in there at once. Either that, or only certain pokemon wanted to be in there, or only certain ones were allowed in there, many possibilities presented themselves as soon as I started to think about it. I couldn't be certain of any of them though, as I still had no idea what this place even was, or if I was in the right area or not. Let's hope…

I stayed hidden in the shade of the trees for a bit longer, still trying to grasp what exactly the area before me was used for. For all I knew, it was just an odd place of residence, but it could potentially be more too. I had no way of really knowing that, but there were still two things that I knew. I still hadn't seen any dark types, and I still had no sight of Vero at all. These sort of… contradict each other. After all, no dark types implies that I'm in the right place, but not seeing Vero at all does the complete opposite for me, implies that I'm not in the right place. I was going to have to confirm this myself eventually, but-

I felt a huge shock seemingly come from behind me, and now my body was numb, and I couldn't move a muscle. I couldn't even turn my neck to see where the paralysis came from. I heard leaves and branches crack and snap louder and louder with each passing second. I tried to open my mouth to say something, but that didn't work either. I couldn't even open my mouth, make my tail or my ears twitch, lift a digit on my paw, nothing. I was frozen, unable to move or act.

And after the paralysis came a crushing force on my head, and then darkness.

Vero

I wonder how long I'll be here…

I had been laying on my back, relaxing my mind with my eyes closed for a long time now, in what felt like, and essentially was a prison cell. Well, a prison cell made out of some kind of really hard rock, nothing like normal. If it was normal rock, I would be able to easily break it, but on my way here, it was pretty easy to see that this type of rock was not easily crumbled. I suppose that it did look a little different than normal, being lighter than most other rocky structures I've seen, but It's on a whole other level when it comes to durability. I could scratch and chip away at it, but never break it. Aaaaaannnd now I'm stuck in a room surrounded by it… nice….

I sighed to myself and tried to redirect my thoughts away from what seemed like invincible rock. I arrived at this place a while ago, happy that I made it to my destination in order to investigate the possible Void intervention that can take place here, but I had no idea that the pokemon living here were a bunch of lunatics who are racist against two types, being dark and fairy. I barely had any idea why, but after I was snuck up on me and knocked out, I was called a 'demon' just as I woke up in this rocky… wherever I was. Just an empty room, surrounded by rocky floors, walls, and a single door-like entrance, which, surprise, was also made of the same rock. It's like these pokemon discovered a new resource and decided to coat every little thing they made with the stuff. Granted, it was effective, but lacked creativity in any way and why was I ever thinking about how the place looked in the first place..?

I sighed to myself once more. I think of weird things when I'm alone like this… I tried to humble my thoughts so I wouldn't knock this place anymore for its interior design. That's not what I should be thinking about… I need to find a way to get out of here… I couldn't break my way out, so I supposed that I would just need to wait and see if I get an opportunity to leave somewhat soon. If not, then… well, I'm not sure. I'll find a way, it'll just take some doing.

I looked at the entrance to the room again, which was somehow locked by some force, despite being, you know, a rock. I imagined that there was just a random pokemon behind the scenes using their element to keep the thing in place, but if not, then I was up against some really talented magicians. It's not like I can just run out if they open it again… there's no way they don't have this guarded in some way shape or form. So how am I going to do this..?

Just as I was scheming a litte, the rocky door shifted and roughly moved around, slowly opening outwards. I glared daggers at the door, and saw a golem, but it wasn't a tradition golem, it was one that seemed to have an electrical pulse within it… The thing was able to catch me off guard by paralyzing me from a distance and then knocking me out. I had no idea that this place had such a stupid vendetta against dark types… and by the looks of it, all of the pokemon here looked like they were in some kind of religious cult… that's the impression I got. And I thought that this place couldn't get any more creepy…

The golem took one step forward, closer into the room I was stuck in, and I had a very strong temptation to jet out of the rocky door, but I knew that it was way too risky. Plus, I would just be running into a bunch of other pokemon who also had a hate against my born typing, and I don't want to have a need to defend myself when I was here to help in the first place. If only they knew that…

I saw one of the golem's arms rear back, and I thought they were about to attack me, so I crouched, but instead of attacking me, they threw what looked like a messed up ball of black fur into the room with me. The fur was awkwardly spread out in a few places, and the rest of it was perfectly smooth. On the side of whatever this was, there was something white, looking almost like… a… talon… "Kuro!?" I instinctively shouted out.

The golem ignored my shout and re-sealed the room, leaving me alone with a passed out Kuro. I immediately walked to him and turned him over so he was laying on his back. None of his rings were visible, and his fur was still messed up in a few places, despite it always being smooth at all other times. His eyes were closed, but after checking his pulse, I was happy to realize that the umbreon wasn't dead. I took a deep breath. That caught me off-guard…

I began to nudge him a few times, trying to get him to regain consciousness. So they got you too… I sighed again. When I arrived here, I walked in like I would any other civilization, but as soon as I did, I was forcefully grabbed and locked into place by a bunch of the locals. The smaller pokemon looked terrified, and I heard a lot of random words get spouted, and it was pretty difficult to coherently put them together. But, a few words stuck out to me. Hate… Scared… Die… and my favorite, Demon.

On my way here, I also ran into a few groups that walked in a bunch of different formations, and muttered some incomprehensible phrases that I didn't give too much thought. It was creepy though… really creepy. I tried to pay it no mind, but I had no idea that they were connected with to where my destination is… or that my destination would lock me up like this, but if Kuro was here too, then we could definitely get out. The problem lies with leaving here without fighting anyone… I continued nudging Kuro, until I saw his body begin to sway a little bit. I then tapped a claw against his forehead a few times.

Without opening his eyes, Kuro jumped up and launched himself to the other side of the room, his rings flaring into a bright light. His eyes darted around the room, and he spun in a circle, observing his surroundings. Eventually his eyes landed on me, and if I could describe the confusion on his face, I would be a literary genius. I even had to suppress a smirk, he looked incredibly clueless, and seeing as he wasn't exactly a dumb pokemon, this was a rare sight indeed. He shook his head and his rings stopped brightly glowing, going back to just an attachment to his fur.

"Calm down a little there." I told him. "I don't really know where we are either, but no use in panicking. They haven't killed me or anything, so I doubt we're in much danger. At least, not yet." I backed up and leaned against the rocky wall behind me, which wasn't very comfortable, but I was sick of laying on something similar.

Kuro closed his eyes for a second, probably calming himself down. "Glad to see you're alright, and that I'm in the right place." He then sighed. "Looks like I got caught off-guard though…"

"Don't worry about it too much. The same happened to me, and it wasn't very preventable." I went on and explained to Kuro how I entered this place, and then got held down.

Kuro nodded after I finished, and then sighed again. "You got farther than I did… I didn't even make it into the place. I thought I was hidden and got knocked out from behind." He went on and explained to me exactly what happened, and I was intrigued, not from him getting knocked out, but form what he found on the way here.

"That's… creepy." I replied, becoming more and more uncomfortable with this place as time went on. I mean, weird groups muttering nonsense was one thing, a small group eating what looked like corpses was… a lot more weird. I mean, meat from ferals wasn't exactly frowned upon to eat, I enjoyed it quite a bit, but the whole situation around that is just… odd.

"You're telling me… To think that we're here to look out for the Void and we get locked up… wherever this is." Kuro sat down in the center of the room and took a breath. "Never thought a task like this would be blocked by the pokemon we're trying to help out…" He sighed. He sounded… odd though. Like he was annoyed, which was understandable, but also like he was worried about something.

I smirked to myself. "You sound anxious." I simply said. "What's bringing that on?"

"Just… a little worried is all. Not only is… whatever this is happening, but Naru had to take Shiro back to the Nest by herself because of the position we were in, and right before she left, we ran into an unfriendly face." Kuro explained to me that the same pokemon that initially tried to take Shiro ran into them again, which shook me a little bit, but seeing as he apparently had other plans in mind, I didn't think that I needed to worry about it too much. The Void didn't seem to care about hiding their agenda much, as Aven pretty much blabbed exactly what was meant to happen to Kuro and Naru while they were away from the Nest, so they weren't so secretive. Because of this, I don't think that a member of theirs would lie about what they were doing for whatever reason, so I wasn't too worried. But Kuro has more of a reason to be worried than I do, doesn't he? I chuckled to myself.

Kuro tilted his head while observing my mannerism. "I get your concern, but I know that if you think about this logically, you know there isn't much to worry about." I told him. Looking at Kuro again, I also noticed that his bag was absent, probably taken by the golem that presumably threw us in here.

"You're not wrong… I just can't help myself. Not sure what it is, but I can't stop thinking of all the possible ways that the short trip they have back can go wrong…" Kuro closed his eyes and shook his head. I tried very hard not to burst into laughter at this umbreon's density.

I calmed myself down a little. "Kuro, mind if I ask you something?"

"What is it?" He replied, looking at me. This might be fun.

"What do you think of Naru?" I'm curious~

Kuro tilted his head after I asked. "What do you mean..?" I once more, had to resist the urge to burst into laughter. Granted, thinking about his life before the Nest, it wasn't really surprising that he didn't pick up the signs of what I was asking. I may have not known all of the details, but I knew that he had little to no interaction with anyone for an extended period of time, which meant that he probably didn't have much experience with the feelings he had for Naru. It was a pretty safe assumption that he liked her a lot, so I had no issue pushing this on him despite him seeming ignorant to the concept overall. This is gonna be fun~

I smirked at Kuro. "How much do you like her? I'm curious."

"How much..?" Kuro had a clueless stare. How can I approach this..?

"Well… tell me your impressions of her. Like… what is she like in your mind?"

Kuro looked up to the rocky ceiling above and looked as if he was thinking for a second. "Well… there's a lot to say. Initially, I kind of saw her as a klutzy glaceon, seeing as she rammed heads with me and then nearly got herself killed." Kuro closed his eyes for a second. "I was drawn to her for some reason though. Maybe it was because she was the first one outside of my family who I didn't see as… terrifying." He shuddered a little, so I didn't really want to push it.

"How about how you feel about her now?"

"Now? A lot has happened… Rather than a klutz, I see her as… a pillar." I tilted my head.

"What do you mean?" I very curiously asked.

"A supporter for me. Like… she kept me up a lot in the past when I needed it. Honestly, without her, I probably would have gone insane a while ago." A supporter, eh?

"So she's been talking you out of all the negative thoughts you have?"

"Not even that. She has in the past, and while that's a big part of it, just being around her is enough to make me forget about whatever I have on my mind. Like, even though I am well aware of the possibility of Aven killing us all overnight, talking to her always gets my mind away from all that. Not even talking… just being in the same room as her has that effect."

I let out a quiet sigh, but smiled to myself. And that confirms my thoughts. I kind of wished Kuro was aware of his own affection, because I've observed both of them a ton, and I wouldn't be surprised if Naru gave me a total mirror of what Kuro just said if I asked her the same question. If he was aware, then maybe they could become a lot closer. Perhaps I can make him aware..?

"What's up with these questions..?" Kuro asked with somewhere between a suspicious and curious tone.

I suppressed another chuckle. "Oh nothing, just a bit curious is all." I stretched my limbs a little. "By the way, anything new you have to teach me while we're here? We may be stuck for a little bit." Kuro had been teaching me quite a few of the various techniques that he learned from Kai for a decent while. Granted, we have very different ways of using most of them, but we essentially share a moveset in that regard.

"Kind of. It's something you already know how to do, so I don't really need to teach you. Just something that I need to work on." Kuro closed his eyes and took a breath. "May as well do that now… seeing as we're kind of stuck here for the time being." It didn't take too much of me thinking to know what he was working on. There was really only one thing I knew how to do that he didn't, and that was properly control the energy inside of me. It wasn't really his specialty, as apparently he had no experience with it whatsoever when he arrived at the Nest. I don't blame him too much, as I may have used it a lot more than him, but I had no idea what I was actually doing.

If there was one thing that I knew for a fact that Kuro didn't have the hang of, it was launching attacks from his body, without using his mouth. A pokemon's mouth was definitely the easiest exit for using an attack, and though I've seen Kuro shoot a dark pulse from his paw in the applicants' tournament, that's the one and only time he's done it to my knowledge. Well, he also has his tendrils and that one attack that looks like an arrow rain or something, but it's pretty clear he doesn't have the most control over either one of those attacks. Nowhere near as much as I do at least, but that made sense, considering our different strengths and weaknesses. If only I can learn how to run for as long as he can…

I tried to think about how we would get out of here if need be, but since Kuro and I were both here, I can see us being able to break our way out of this rock if we both gave it our all. The problem after that would be dealing with the racist civilillians here. We could always run away for a bit and try to sneak back, but it was really risky, especially considering that we both got caught fairly easily the first time. We couldn't just leave either, as there was a strong possibility this place could be attacked, and we needed to be here for that purpose. Geez… Why did the two Ravens who happen to be dark types get stuck here..? I sighed quietly. Well… I guess there's a chance that we won't even-

The ground beneath us suddenly shook, and Kuro's eyes shot open immediately, and he rose to his paws. The two of us both looked around the rocky interior of the room we were in, taken off-guard from what seemed like a minor earthquake. So much for getting out peacefully…

"Do you think they're attacking?" Kuro asked, still moving his eyes all around the room.

"Not sure, but we need to find out." I responded, getting a nod from Kuro. "Do you want to try and break out of here?"

"Yeah, I think we can break ourselves out if we try hard enough. Be prepared for whatever might be out there." I nodded in response.

The two of us both began to take deep breaths, ready to launch whatever strong attacks we could muster to break the rocky area around us, mainly the door-like rock, so we can have an easy out, hopefully without this place collapsing on us. That would be… less than good. After some times of readying up, I put both of my arms in front of me, and prepared to launch an attack at the seemingly psychic-controlled rock. Kuro closed his eyes and then did the same, the ring on his forehead beginning to simply glow.

"Okay, on three?" He asked me, ready to blast down the 'door.'

"Yep. Let's do it." I was ready to face whatever was out there, well, assuming it was something in the first place. "One… Two…" Before I can utter the last number we needed to launch our attack, the rock we were aiming at shattered into many small rocky bits, flying at the two of us. I braced myself and felt as the bits made contact with my arms, which I had crossed, blocking my head. The impacts stung a little, but it wasn't anything worse than whatever I took in any battle. I was blocking my vision with my arms, so I slowly moved them away to see what may have smashed this rock before we could.

Before me, was an unusually colored mawile.

Hello readers!

So… slow update once more, for the same reasons as last time. I want to apologize once more, but… I'll be sure to try my best going forward! It's still been kinda hard for a while now, but I hope everything will get better soon! Hopefully… Pray for me! :p Also, I know this entire chapter is just padding out a setting, but I swear that it'll get much better soon! I hope :p

I want to give my thanks for the normal reviews and PMs and whatnot, they all mean a ton to me, especially with how everything is now, so thank you all for every bit of it! And of course, thank you to my beta reader for cleaning these chapters up as much as possible, despite my many, many typos! (8-Bit-Umbreon)

See You Next Chapter!