Pokemon EoS ~A fable of Thunder and Light~ Ch.3 p2

Even though I tried my best to sleep, I couldn’t help but feel restless. During my waking hours my thoughts buzzed about imagining what could possibly be happening to Diane during this time. Whenever I drifted off my dreams, or more my nightmares would be haunted by the bodies of my parents, Idan standing over them a triumphant look on his face. Before I knew it morning had come and Raza’s nest was empty…

“Great!” I muttered, scrutinizing the horizon for any signs of the shiny shinx, but all I could make out was a seemingly never-ending desert landscape, “That’s what happens when I trust a strange dungeon pokemon.”

At least she had not killed me in my sleep, but without a clue of which direction where to go I was bound to get lost and die or thirst or hunger out here.
Alas! Before I could make up my mind whether or not to try entering Tentacruel’s Den a voice called out my name. It was faint but I immediately knew it was Raza, what a disappointment!
Keeping a careful gaze on my surroundings I was eventually able to pinpoint a shape in the distance, I couldn’t just stand here. I followed the sound to join the shinx’s side.

“Where were you?” I grumbled, glancing back the way I had come, from here it was hard to tell there was a hole with a passage leading to Murky Groves, for all I knew there could be pits and cliffs scattered all over the desert which took you to various different dungeons. Axel could have easily gotten lost or been taken down one of those mazes.

“I was scouting ahead.” Raza meowed in response, yawning with a nonchalance  expression on her face as she pushed a small object forward, “I found this while I was exploring an underground river.”

Leaning forward I couldn’t help but gasp as I recognized Diane’s heart shaped barrette. “Where exactly did you say you found this?”

The shinx twirled around to point ahead of us, “A straight march in front of us and you’ll come across a canyon with several underground rivers branching into it. One of those rivers may come out of the Tentacruel’s Den.”

I was hopeful, but I couldn’t help but feel suspicious. This was quite a convenient finding for someone who happened to be just scouting in the right direction. It was possible that I was walking right into a trap set by Raza, but I couldn’t just ignore my only lead to finding my partner…

“Show me.” I grumbled, “We’ll begin our search down there.”

We padded a fair distance through the deserted land, not an enemy in sight. It was a great relief when we reached the canyon, not only were we hunger beyond anything I had felt before, but I was now jumping at the slightest movement out of the corner of my eye. Diane had our supply bag and without a berry or apple to satisfy me I could be prone to attacking even the most harmless of stones.

“I was down this passage when I found it.” Raza spoke up, a cheerful tone in her voice as she sauntered over to a small stream that came out of a cave and into the canyon’s large river. “If we just follow her scent it could lead us straight to her!”

“And how do you expect that to work?” I snapped, “She would have been following the stream out of the dungeon. We’d be heading in the opposite direction if we tracked that scent trail.”

Glancing in my direction the shinx raised an eyebrow, “Looks like someone is hungry!” she chuckled, “Of course I meant follow the fresher trail! Out of all the places I wouldn’t want to lead a rescue mission in it would be the Tentacruel’s Den.”

Huffing I turned my back on Raza and began searching for any sign of Diane’s passage. It was hard with all this flowing water to locate the right scent but after a while of crouching around with my nose against the ground I was successful at tracking down what I believed to be the correct scent trail.

“This way!” I grunted, not even waiting for Raza to follow me as I headed down a small passageway.

“Eon!” the shinx called, racing up behind me, “Look what I found for you!”

“Was that necessary!” I snapped, twisting around to face her, “May as well alert every dungeon pokemon of our presence out here.”

“At least if Diane heard me she would know we were coming to find her.” Raza commented as she extended her paw handing me a large juicy blue berry. “You’re hungry right? I always kept this for special measures; if you want you can eat it.”

A single glance at the berry told me what I was, shaking my head I declined Raza’s offer. Either she did not know what she had been trying to give me or she genuinely expected to fool me with it.
My suspicions soon revealed to be a mistake when the shinx shrugged and to quench her own hunger brought the berry to her mouth. Reacting quickly I pushed her aside, batting the fruit out of her grip.

“Why did you do that?!” Raza cried, reaching out in attempt to grab her food.

“Do you know what you were about to eat there?!” I barked, helping her to her paws, “An Oren berry! They bare close resemblance to the Oran berry but don’t heal you. Some even have the reverse effect! You just about to gobble one up.”

Gulping in shock the shinx starred down at the vicious berry, a look of horror filled her gaze. “I’m sorry! I didn’t know there were such berries! I always kept an Oran berry with me just in case.”

“It’s okay…” I replied, letting my fur lie flat as we continued walking, heading down the dark corridor after my partner’s scent, “I’ve done the mistake several times before. Char had to teach me the difference between the two berries.”

Raising an eyebrow Raza trotted beside me, “Who’s Char? Diane didn’t mention him when we met.”

I wished I knew what Diane had and had not told the shinx, smiling I began to explain the past of our team.

“Char was our team leader, he and Chaz founded Team Legend and recruited us into it. I never got the chance to meet Chaz but I heard he was a skilled fighter who disappeared suddenly soon after Diane joined the team. Char suffered the same fate sometime after he invited me. Since then Diane and I work together to make our decisions as a team. We don’t rely on anyone to be the team leader.

“That sounds like an interesting…tale…” Came the odd reply, “But I don’t get why both original members disappeared like that.”

“No clue…” I said, climbing carefully up a row of stairs to the next level of the dungeon.

“Maybe it’s a curse?”

“A curse?” I chuckled, “That’s a stupid idea!”

“But it makes sense! Maybe during one of their trips Char or Chaz got Team Legend cursed to only have two members. That would explain how Chaz disappeared after Diane joined and why Char left after you.”

“Maybe they just wanted to move on?!”

“But is there any other logical explanation to their disappearance? They would have at least said goodbye to the team. Maybe that’s why Diane’s gone! Because she invited me to join the team!!!”

“She WHAT!” I yelled, halting on spot.  I had missed so much while I had been knocked out. Clearly Raza and Diane had spent hours sitting around exchanging information about each other. My partner didn’t usually make major decisions lightly; she must have really trusted Raza before asking her to join without counselling first. She likely knew I would have refused, judging the shinx on spot and asking questions about her only months later.

Pausing I glanced back at Raza wo simply stared at me, “Seems I’ll be stuck with you longer than expected.” I chuckled, forcing a smile as I padded onwards, “Let’s at least prove your hypothesis is false.”

Grinning the shinx raced to catch up, she didn’t need to speak to say thank you, the look on her face was clear enough. If I found Diane I would smack her before anything else, my partner was putting me through a lot by not being here….I admit I missed her presence...

Murky marchland’s dungeon had been pretty hectic, so far every mini dungeon after that seemed empty and boring. We encountered very few enemies…or last few compared to the number we had stated off with. The only thing that kept us moving instead of giving up out of sheer boredom was the fact Diane’s scent trail was getting fresher the further we went on. She couldn’t be that far now!

The stone corridor of this underground passage seemed to get shorter and steeper by the level. Eventually we were practically climbing upwards instead of forwards, but we could see the light. Reaching the exterior I gazed in awe at our surroundings. 

“I know where we are!” Raza exclaimed, “That mountain chain over there is where the Zubat Mines are found!”

“It’s as if there are underground shortcuts leading everywhere…” I murmured, before us to the east lay the large expanse of the Tallwood forest. Compared to the arid desert we’d just gone through this morning the woods seemed plentiful and welcoming.

“There likely are dungeons everywhere. Why else do you think outlaws escape so easily? They’ve learned their way through this passage!”

Glancing down I couldn’t help but gulp at the sight of the drop, underneath us was the beginning of the forest. But the fall down would lead to immediate death.

“This way!” Raza chuckled as she began making her way along a narrow path that seemed to curve down the cliff to the bottom. It was dangerous but luckily there were no enemies to push us off.

“How come you said you knew this place?” I demanded, trailing closely behind Raza, I dared not look over the edge. One wrong step and I’d be dead…or alive with almost every bone in my body shattered.

“This is the crossroad of many paths. It takes us to Seaspray peninsula, Zubat mines, Grassland Plateau and even Boiling Lake…I’m actually surprised we ended up her, those underground passageways around bound to exit on the upper paths too.

The scene of Diane was getting stronger by the meter, making it a constant fight not to jump off and race around the bottom valley calling her name. But instead I took the careful way down, sliding past Raza I scrambled the last stretch of the sloping path. The shinx simply rolled her eyes before hurrying after me.

Part of me imagined the skitty waiting for us at the bottom, another part of me couldn’t help but be pessimistic. However what I had been expecting the last to happen became the sight before me…a vision of horror.

There was no body, but clearly there had been a fight. The grass had been flattened and charred in some places from what likely had been powerful attacks.
Gingerly making my way through the battlefield I crouched down beside a small ripped object, our supply bag. Everything my partner and I had packed inside was scattered all over the place, the berries we’d picked on the way squished into the ground by a strange force.

“No…” I muttered, sudden panic gripping me, threatening to take over my thoughts as I called out at the top of my lungs “DIANE!!”

“Eon…” a soft murmur arose to break me from my thoughts. Raza was standing behind me, a look of pity on her face, “I’m sorry…”

“She’s not dead!”  I snapped, straightening to face the shinx, “There is no body here therefore there is no proof that she was even harmed in this skirmish!!!”

I was yelling, and the way my current companion recoiled she was expecting me to go further than that to express my anger and fear.

Instead I paused, taken aback by her reaction. Glancing downward I starred at my deformed reflection in the remains of a broken escape orb we’d taken along with us. The creature that looked back up at me seemed feral and posed to battle. I couldn’t even recognize myself among the resembling features that reminded me of my brother.

“I’m sorry…” I mumbled, turning around to push my way through the thickets and into the woods.

“Wait!” Raza yelped, scurrying forward in attempt to catch up to me, “Eon you’ve got to listen!!”

I didn’t bother speeding up, but I did not slow down to let the shinx catch up either. As if stuck in a trance I simply made my way through the forest without paying attention to my surroundings. My mind barely even registered the fact the trees around us were thinning before I found myself in a clearing, making it hard to hide if the need arose…sadly while one of us seemed to be aware of what was happening the other was leading us right into a trap.

I did not hear Raza’s cry of warning but next thing I knew she had me pinned to the ground, the grass I’d previously been before she’d saved me was scorched by the power of an attack.
Trying to pull my way free I wiggled around only to be silenced by a “Quiet!” that the shinx hissed, as a loud chuckled suddenly caught our attention. 

“Looking for someone?” a deep voice purred as large creature emerged from the bush, “Ah! I see you’ve brought a friend with you this time!”