Stopped Cold
by MalwareBirb404Early that morning, Char, Thorn, and Mist were in their house getting ready to leave. Each of the three were going over some of the items they’d be bringing with them. Char stared down at the silver dagger-like spike in front of him, contemplating if he should take it.
“You know the two of you being so tense is kinda bringing down the mood.” Thorn said, putting his bag’s strap over his shoulder. “Besides, I’m pretty sure that hunched position you’ve got isn’t good for your back.”
“ Sorry… ” Char said, as he looked at his friend. “ I just have a lot on my mind right now… ”
“I get’cha… But I’m really not kidding about your back though.”
“Wonder how the other teams feel about this…?” Asked Mist. “I mean yeah, we’re gold rank teams and all… But this is probably one of the most important potential takedowns the guild has ever done.”
“All the more reason to get these guys.” Char said, as his several tails whipped around. “I can’t mess this up again…” The fox thought, remembering his encounter with Bella.
On their way to the guild, Char stopped and began to walk in a different direction. “Hey, where are you- right… ” Thorn said, watching the ninetales.
“I’ll try to keep it quick, alright.” The fox said, turning his head back.
As Char walked up to his sister’s treehouse, he saw that she was already up and seemed to be having a talk with Crash. If he could really call it that. “Cin? You’re up?” The silver ninetales asked, walking up to her.
Thorn and Mist stood back, and watched as the two siblings talked. However the vaporeon soon noticed a few teams passing by, recognizing them as other gold rank teams who were selected to go with them. “Hey Char! Let’s go!” The water type called out to her friend.
“Hold on!” Char yelled back.
They two soon saw the ninetales get hugged by Cinder before he made his way back to them. “Sorry about that, but the other teams are showing up. We gotta go.” Char nodded, and the three continued their walk to the guild.
In a wide training area behind the guild, Char, Mist, and Thorn stood amongst a gathering of about thirty other pokemon. All of which standing before their guildmaster Vernal, and assistant guildmaster Beacon. The decidueye and ampharos began to speak to them all about the plan of attack, as well as a pep talk of sorts before sending them off.
As Vernal watched them all leave, he was half tempted to follow them. “ You have that look in your eyes Vernal… ” Beacon said, leaning closer to the owl. Vernal shut his eyes and sighed, before he nodded and turned back towards the ampharos.
“ I know what you’re gonna say… And besides… It would show I don’t trust them if I did… ”
As the teams left the boundaries of Timberglade, and were all walking down a dirt road. “The air sure feels nice today.” Thorn said as they continued their trek towards the woods. “I have a good feeling about this.”
“ Just try not to jinx it there buddy. ” Mist retorted, in a somewhat joking manner.
“See, that… right there. That’s the attitude that’ll kill this whole thing.” Thorn retorted.
Char rolled his eyes as the two went back and forth. Sure, a few other teams were watching. But the silver Ninetales was too lost in his own thoughts to care. As he couldn’t help but think back to his first job alongside Thorn and Mist.
…
“ Alright, our first job… I’ve got a good feeling about this.” Thorn said, putting his arms behind his head. He watched as the Vulpix in front of him led the charge into the woods. “I’m actually kinda excited.”
“Well this is still a rescue mission. So try and cool it a bit.” Mist said, the Eevee looking up at the lizard.
“ Here we are… Windswept Plateau… ” Char said, as the forest began to clear up. The three looked up and stared at the flat topped terrain that rose above them. As the vulpix continued to stare, he then started to think about Cinder. He took a deep breath, and stepped forwards.
“Let’s go.”
Windswept Plateau: Floor 1
As the three entered the dungeon, they looked around the stony forest for any sign of the stairs leading to the next area of Windswept Plateau. “ So we’re a… Ah, a mudkip.” Thorn said, reading the job description.
“This shouldn’t be too hard right?” The grovyle said, folding up the paper and putting it in his bag.
“I guess you want to jinx this, don’t you…” Mist thought, as she glanced at the grass type.
“Oh I’m sorry. Is there something you want to say… ” Thorn jokingly remarked, as he noticed the look on the eevee’s face.
“ Oh… No, it’s nothing… ”
“ Nah… It’s something… ”
“ This is gonna be a regular thing isn’t it… ” Char said mostly to himself, with a tired smile.
“You bet.” Thorn said, catching up to the vulpix. “ And don’t think I’ll forget about you either… ”
“ Arceus, what have I done…? ”
Windswept Plateau: Floor 5
“Just hurry and try to get him out of here! I’ll keep them busy!” Char yelled. as he continuously used Flamethrower. Each stream of fire being used to keep back the group of heracross that were closing in on them.
That was until the Vulpix felt himself get lifted off the ground, and quickly taken away. “You’re heavier than you look, you know that.” Thorn said, with the fire type over his shoulder.
“What are you doing?!” Char yelled.
“Getting us outta here!”
“I could’ve hit you!”
“We can talk about that later!” The grovyle said as he kept running. “Mist is at the stairs, and she’s with the mudkip. We can use our badges then!”
Once they all made it back to Timberglade, the trio of explorers had seen off their first client and were ready to call it a day. That was until they saw Cinder, who had fallen asleep in the lobby waiting for them. But as Char and Mist walked toward her, Thorn had clutched his hand and turned to go towards the back.
“Where’re you going?” Char asked.
“I’ll just be with you in a bit, I just… forgot something… ” The grovyle said with a forced smile.
“ Thorn… ”
The grass type sighed, realizing he wasn’t getting out of this. “ Fine… I was just gonna get this looked at…” He said, showing the small burn on his hand.
“ Oh crap, Thorn I- ”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s not… that… bad… ” Thorn said, still trying to hold in the pain. “Besides, we all made it out together right…?”
…
Char was then snapped out of his thoughts when he felt something tap his side. “Are they always like that?” An Umbreon walking next to him asked, gesturing to the Sceptile and Vaporoen.
The Ninetales then glanced at his teammates and sighed. “ You get used to it… ” He said, giving a slight smile.
Over the next few hours, the teams navigated their way through the woods as they worked around the many winding paths. “ I get this place isn’t a dungeon, but it may as well be one… ” Thorn said under his breath.
“Well Vernal only had what Crash said to go off of…” Char said with a hint of frustration in his voice.
“So you’re really fine trusting what comes out of that mouth?” Asked Mist.
“Of course not… But Vernal seems to… And he hasn’t done us wrong yet.”
“Looks like we should be near the general area.” A Pangoro said, holding up a map.
Thorn sighed and walked up to the fighting type. “ You know what, let me see that thing. ” He handed Thorn the map and watched as the sceptile climbed up into the trees.
“What do you see up there?!” Char asked.
Thorn took the map out of his mouth and unrolled it, before scanning over the forest. The sceptile looked down at the map, and back at the surrounding area. Turning his head, Thorn could see an opening amongst the trees. “ The hell is that…? ” He said to himself before climbing back down.
“What did you see…?” Char Asked, noticing the look on the grass type’s face.
“ Oh we’re near the general area alright … All I can say is something definitely happened over there…”
The teams of explorers later arrived at the clearing. But to their surprise, the first thing they noticed was that the area that was supposed to be crawling with bandits was instead a half destroyed and abandoned piece of land. Craters were strewn across the ground, and most of the surrounding trees were either knocked down or burnt to a crisp.
“ Guess we weren’t the only ones looking for Team Raiders… ” Mist said, as they all began to search the area.
Brine silently watched from above as the teams split up to try and cover more ground. “They’re all gold rank…” The inteleon thought before something got his attention.
“A Sceptile, Vaporeon, and silver Ninetales…”
He remembered how after getting chewed out by Scorch, Bella was complaining about a team of explorers “fucking up” her empowerment seed raid. And the team that happened to match this description was heading off in the direction that he was told to keep others away from.
“Draw them away, kill them, I don’t care. Just do what you have to…” The instructions Scorch had given Brine were playing over in the inteleon’s head, following the team of explorers as he quietly leapt through the trees. Soon feeling he was in a good spot, Brine held out his arm and made a finger gun with his hand. Patiently waiting for a shot at his next targets.
“Find anything?” Char asked as the three continued to search the area.
“Nothing on my end.” Mist answered.
“ Same… By the looks of things they’re long gone by now.” Thorn said, glancing around. “What do you think?”
“…”
“ Char? ” The Sceptile asked, turning around. But when he did, Thorn found the Ninetails laying on the ground, struggling to move.
“Char! Hey, what the hell happened to-” Thorn frantically asked as he and Mist rushed over to the fox’s side, but were cut off as two blasts of water hit the ground in front of them. The grass type looked up the source of the attack, seeing a cloaked figure dart through the trees above. Thorn growled before looking back at his two teammates.
“Go, I got this.” Mist assured. The sceptile then nodded and leapt into the tree closest to him, chasing after their attacker.
Brine stopped and slowly scanned the surrounding forest. “There you are…” He thought, eyeing the scarf wearing sceptile as he clung to a taller nearby tree. The inteleon made a finger gun with his hand, and with one swift motion Brine raised his arm and fired a jet of water from his finger.
Thorn didn’t even get a chance to react before being blasted in the face. Brine stood up and watched as the other lizard fell out of the tree. But on the way down, the sceptile managed to catch himself on a branch.
“It’s times like this I’m glad I was born a climber…” He thought, before looking up at the inteleon that had attacked him. “ Is that Brine…? The hell’s he doing here…? ”
Climbing back up the tree, the leaves on the sceptile’s arm lengthened and grew sharper before he lunged towards the inteleon. Brine quickly jumped, grabbing onto a branch above him. The water type then swung himself up and forwards, kicking Thorn in the face. However, as the sceptile fell, a large flurry of leaves whipped around his tail. Noticing what Thorn was doing, Brine leapt out of the tree. But as the two descended the sceptile twisted his body, the sudden shift causing the leaf storm attack to change direction.
Brine went on to use Substitute, attempting to use the duplicate of himself as a shield. While it worked for the most part, there were still a few cuts and up and down his body by the time the two pokemon landed.
“I need to end this quickly before the other two catch up…” Brine thought, as the two lizards slowly got up and stared at each other. However, what felt like warm liquid trickled down his face soon got his attention. The inteleon placed his finger just above his eye before staring at it.
“What’s wrong? I can add a few more to your face if you want.” Thorn said, as the leaves on his arms sharpened.
“ No more games, sceptile… ” Brine menacingly said before the two then charged towards each other.
Thorn swiped at the inteleon with Leaf Blade, but only hit another one of Brine’s duplicates as the water type leapt over him. While in mid-air, Brine once again used Snipe Shot, firing another jet of water from his fingers. Thorn quickly turned around, using Leaf blade to block it. But this was exactly what the inteleon wanted. As he landed, Brine held out his hand and fired a beam of cold energy. The Ice Beam attack was a direct hit, and pushed the sceptile down.
As Thorn hit the forest floor, Brine wouldn’t let up as the Ice Beam continued to push down on him. Thorn’s breathing became frantic as he could feel everything around him growing colder and colder as a numbing sensation crept over his body. Say for his head, his entire body was soon encased in ice.
Cold. A painful, stinging cold was all the Sceptile could feel as he watched Brine calmly walk up to him. The blue lizard then bent down and pressed two fingers to the grass type’s forehead. It was at this moment that he got a good look at the Inteleon’s eyes. They were the eyes of someone who had done this countless times before, the act becoming nothing more than routine for them.
“ P-Please… P-Please d-don’t… ”
Brine said nothing, continuing to stare at the sceptile. But just as he was about to end the grass type’s life, a dagger-like item flew past and cut the inteleon’s arm. Brine staggered back and turned in the direction the weapon came from. And there, a vaporeon, and a silver ninetales wearing dark green scarfs stood. The ladder sporting a death glare as sharp as the spike he just tossed.
Behind the two, more explorers began to arrive. Not all of the ones Brine had seen earlier were there, but there were enough for him to know he couldn’t take them all at once. The blue lizard hissed to himself as he ran away, cradling his bleeding arm. Some of the other explorers chased after him, while the rest stayed behind as Char and Mist rushed over to their friend.
“ Thorn! Thorn! Can you-… please tell me you can hear me… ” Char frantically said, heating up his body to try and melt the ice. “ Thorn… ”
“ Ch… char… ” The sceptile slurred, slowly turning his head. “ You’re… you’re okay… ” Thorn murmured before drifting off.
As much as she hated it, there was a part of Cinder that had grown somewhat used to Crash’s constant quips and remarks. Annoying as they were, they did fill up some of the time spent walking around on the past few jobs. Instead the scraggy hadn’t said a word since they left that morning, and had been acting oddly compliant. Not that the vulpix was complaining. Especially since they seemed to have a reversal of fortune, with their mission actually staying on track for once.
Meanwhile Crash was still feeling a bit off, and couldn’t get his mind off of last night. He was used to others yelling at him, even threatening him from time to time. But something about how Cinder acted was new to him.
“Why is this messing with me so damn much…?” The fighting type thought, as he trailed behind Cinder.
“ Come on, get a grip Crash… This isn’t like you…” The scraggy thought. “That’s it- ”
Cinder stopped and glanced back at Crash after noticing he wasn’t walking anymore. The fox looked back at the scraggy dead in the eye, before motioning her head to follow her.
“Not until you stop… this !” Crash said, waving out his arms.
“Look, I know you hate me, but I can’t take this silent crap anymore! It’s-”
“ Making you feel bad…? ”
“…”
“Well maybe you should feel bad. And maybe-… You know what, no. We’re not having this conversation… ” Cinder huffed as she started walking down the dirt path again.
“ I guess we could call that a start… ” Crash said to himself.
By the time the two got back to the guild, Cinder went inside to collect her reward and wait for Char to come back. While Crash instead sat in front of the entrance. He waited around for a while, occasionally glancing back at Cinder. He was getting bored, and thought about just going to the treehouse and staying there.
However, Crash getting up to leave didn’t go unnoticed by Cinder. As she saw the scraggy walk towards the job board, and remove a pin holding up a request. “What are you-”
“Going to your place. Hope that’s not too much of a problem… Wouldn’t wanna make you feel- ”
“You know it’s locked, right?”
“ Yeah, keep pretending that’ll stop me. ” Crash said as he walked off.
Crash did as he said he would, arriving at Cinder’s treehouse before picking the lock with the pin he took, and stepping inside like he owned the place. The first thing the scraggy did was collapse on his straw bed out of boredom. He then reached into his pouch and took out some berries had picked up on the way there.
“ Out of tamato berries my ass… ” He quietly said to himself, staring at the small cheri berry in his hand.
“I mean I get the dirty looks and all, this isn’t exactly a “huge town…” Crash thought as he dangled the small red berry above his face, dropping it into his mouth.
“But hiding the tamato berries… that’s just bad customer service…” The dark type sucked on the cheri berry for a bit before spitting out the stem. “Then again I did take one or two…” Crash thought as he repeated his berry eating process.
“Or was that a different stand…?”
Later that evening, Crash was jolted up by a loud banging at the door. The fighting type almost tripped over himself as he scrambled towards the door. However when he opened it, the color drained from his face as an angry Vernal was standing before him.
“ We need to talk. ”
“What do you mean they weren’t there!” Crash yelled. He and Vernal were alone in the decidueye’s office, where the scraggy was in a near full on panic.
“Crash.”
“Look, I’m not lying! I never even heard anything about them moving!”
“ Crash. ”
“I didn’t even know Brine even knew any ice moves!”
“Crash!” Vernal yelled, getting the scraggy’s attention. But this didn’t stop the fighting type from quickly pacing throughout the room.
“ Where do you think they could have gone? ” The owl asked, trying to stay calm.
“I don’t know! I’m not even sure why Scorch would want to leave right now! He said that where we were was a good spot!”
“Then what about Brin-”
“Don’t even ask me about Brine! You’d be better off searching for someone around here who doesn’t hate me!”
Vernal groaned, and buried his face in his wings. “ I don’t… have to go back down right now do I…? ” Crash hesitantly asked, shrinking down a bit.
“ Cause I’m pretty sure everyone down there might want me dead… ”
“ I’m gonna kill that scraggy… ” Cinder angrily mumbled, as her eyes started to well up. But soon found herself being draped in her brother’s tails.
She looked up at the silver ninetales, and then at the bandages wrapped around his side. “ We’re… we’re gonna be okay Cin… Thorn’s gonna be fine… ”
“ Char…? ” The vulpix asked, noticing the hint of uncertainty in his voice.
“It’s nothing.” Char affirmed. “You should probably head home, it’s pretty late… ” He said with a slight, albeit forced smile.
For a while after Cinder left, Char continued to sit outside the guild’s infirmary. Staring down at his paws, he didn’t notice Mist slowly approaching him.
“ Hey… How’re you feeling…? ” The vaporeon asked.
“ How am I supposed to feel…? Thorn has frostbite, and he almost got killed today… ” Char started to visibly shake as his tails violently whipped around, before they fell still on the ground. “ And I let it happen… ”
“ Look… Char we’ll-”
“We’ll what? You heard the others, they lost Brine… …and after what Vernal and Beacon told us, we can’t even blame Crash for this one either…” The fire type said as he began to choke up.
“ What am I supposed to say to him…? ”
“ Well… this probably won’t mean as much coming from me… But he told me to tell you that he’s not mad at you… that he got kinda careles… ” Char didn’t respond, but instead slowly started to stand up. Mist watched as the ninetales slinked into the wooden building behind the guild.
“ Damn it… still can’t feel much… ” Thorn thought, staring at his feet as he laid in one of the infirmary’s straw beds. The Sceptile was still unable to feel them or his hands, contrary to the rest of his body which had a lingering stinging sensation that was ever present throughout his chest and stomach. Thorn then looked over the sharp leaves on his tail and arms were either chipped or outright missing.
“Can’t wait to see how long it’ll take for those to grow back…” The Sceptile thought, as he surveyed the parts of his body that were immediately visible to him. That was before an orange and black flame patterned wing got his attention. A Talonflame was standing by Thorn’s side slowly waving their wing over the grass type’s body, using the heat emitting from their own to try and aid the Sceptile’s recovery.
“Yeah, this would probably go by a lot faster if we had aspear berries on hand… damn things are pretty hard to come by around here… ” The Talonflame said. Earlier, Thorn had spoken to Mist. Recalling the Vaporeon had said something along those lines, before their conversation inevitably turned to the situation at hand.
…
“ … … We’re lucky we showed up when we did, huh… ” Mist awkwardly said.
“ Yeah… ”
There was a moment of silence between the two before Thorn spoke up. “ How’s Char taking it…? ” He asked, a saddened tone present in his voice.
The Vaporeon slowly shook her head. “But he’s with Cinder right now… so he’s trying his best to hide it… ”
…
Thorn was then taken out of his thoughts when he noticed Char slowly enter the wooden room. The Ninetales locked eyes with the grass type before quickly looking away.
“ Hey… do you think we could get a moment…? ” Thorn quietly asked the bird, who nodded and walked past Char on the way out.
“Just not too long, okay. I’d be in your best interest to resume this soon.” The Talonflame said as they left. Once the two were alone, the fox and lizard once again stared at each other.
“ You know… none of us saw Brine until after he hit you… ” Thorn weakly said.
“ And last I checked… you can’t climb trees… ” The Sceptile said in a somewhat joking manner.
“ I still should’ve done something… ”
“I don’t wanna hear you say that crap…” Thorn replied, sounding more serious. “If you really didn’t do anything… I don’t think we’d be having this conversation…”
“…”
“ Mist told me what you did… ”
“…”
“ I don’t ever want to hear you call that nothing… Mist and I don’t think less of you, and Cinder won’t think less of you… ”
Char looked as if he was about to cry. “ Cause we all made it out together… right…? ”
“ Right. ”
“Sorry if I’m interrupting anything…” An orange and grey falcon said as they poked their head inside the room. “But I think-”
“ Yeah, I get’cha… ” Thorn responded.
“ I’ll-… I’ll see you tomorrow… okay… ”
The sceptile nodded, as he watched his friend leave. “Hey Char…” He called out to the Ninetales.
“ If you don’t ask out that ‘cario, then I will .” Thorn teased, with his usual smirk.
Cinder hadn’t quite gone home yet, and was instead pacing around in circles outside the entrance of the guild, until she eventually stopped and sat on the ground. She needed to cool down before she went home, as the thought of accidently burning down her house in anger was the last thing the fire type wanted.
“We can’t keep letting them do this…” Cinder thought, getting up and continuing to pace again. But despite her attempt to calm down, Cinder just felt herself getting angrier and angrier.
“I’m never losing anything else to Team Raiders… not again…” The vulpix thought.
“Everything was fine until he showed up… Why did I think I could handle him…? I swear when I get my-…” Cinder’s thoughts and body then stopped in their tracks as she stared into the guild’s lobby.
As Crash made his way down from Vernal’s office, the Scraggy was praying that no one saw him. The tree housing the guild was relatively empty, but he wasn’t in the mood to deal with any potential angry guild members.
“Let’s try hiding at a guild… great idea Crash… great idea…” The dark type thought, continuing to walk down the stairs.
“Doesn’t look like anyone’s around…” Crash thought, scanning the lobby.
“ Alright… So now it’s just a straight shot to-… right… ” The scraggy said to himself. “Then again, maybe taking my chances out there wouldn’t be the worst thing…” Crash said somewhat jokingly, with a slightly uneasy look on his face.
“ I mean… it’s not like what happened is my fault… ” The scraggy said, as he started to pace around. But would soon stop, and start rubbing his temples.
“Yeah… it’s not… I wonder if all the guilds play mind games like thi- ” Without thinking, Crash looked up and froze. His eyes widened as he instinctively took a step back. Standing in the guild’s entrance was Cinder, who was giving him the coldest death glare he had seen the vulpix give. If he was being honest with himself, it almost reminded him of Scorch.
“ Not your fault… ” The fox angrily said, as she started to visibly shake. “ You don’t think that any of this is your fault… ”
As Cinder walked closer, Crash took a few more steps back before stopping himself. “You really wanna do this here…? That’s not very professiona- …”
“Shut it.” She cut him, to which he said, “Look, I already feel like shit.” The dark type argued, crossing his arms. “What else do you want from me?”
“ What do I want?! What I want is to not have ‘mons like you ruining my damn life! What I want is for you to get though that thick fucking head of yours, that the things you do hurt others!” Cinder yelled as she walked closer.
“ You know my brother and Thorn could’ve been killed today because of what you did! ” Crash wasn’t sure why, but something about the fire type’s stament had set something off in him.
“Okay that’s not fair! I had nothin-”
” Not fair! You wanna know what’s not fair! Not fair is having your- ”
“Cinder!” A voice interrupted, as the vulpix stomped closer to Crash. The two of them froze and looked to the side to see Char quickly walking towards them.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Char! I-”
“Cinder, we need to talk.”
“But-”
“Cinder! Now!” The Ninetales said, raising his voice. Cinder angrily glanced at Crash before lowering her head and walking towards the side of the lobby.
Crash slowly backed away as he watched as the two foxes sat on the other side of the other side of the room. “You know, part of me wonders if fire types are just prone to anger problems…” The scraggy thought as he snuck out of the guild.
“I swear… that glare was just like his…”
Cinder and Char sat in silence for a while before the ninetales finally spoke up. “You shouldn’t act like that here… Vernal or Beacon could’ve-”
“ I know… … I’m sorry… ” Cinder murmured with her head down. The two continued to sit quietly until Char spoke up again.
“As much as I share some of your feelings about Crash… It-… It isn’t fair to blame him for this… ” The silver ninetails said, but in such a way that it almost sounded like he was also trying to tell himself something.
“ We’re pretty sure Team Raiders had left a good amount of time before… And there’s no way Crash could’ve known that…”
Cinder took a few minutes to think about what Char had said. “ …So what should I do…? ” She asked, slowly looking up at the ninetails.
“ Just… keep trying your best… You can do that for me right…?” Char said with a slight smile. Cinder slowly nodded before leaning up against him. The silver Ninetails glanced down at his little sister and sighed.
“If anything, I blame myself for letting this happen in the first place…”
However the Ninetales was soon snapped back to reality when he caught a glimpse of Vernal descending down towards him. “Glad to see you’re up and about…” The decidueye said tiredly.
“Thanks… I’ll be fine, but it left a pretty nasty bruise… ”
“Just wanted to make sure you and Thorn were alright…” Vernal said, his sincere tone being interrupted by a yawn.
“ …We woke you up earlier didn’t we? ”
“Not the point… But I just want to tell you, that I think we can start narrowing places down now.” The decidueye said before making his leave.
“ That’s good… ”
“Try not to be too hard on yourself Char.” Vernal brought up as he left.
“ It’s surprising how much things echo around there… ”
Later that night, Crash was occasionally glancing over at Cinder as the vulpix slept. “That glare was just like his…” The scraggy thought as he continued to stare.
“Almost like this means something…” He gritted his teeth and laid back in his bed.
“What am I saying, that’s stupid…” Crash thought, looking back at the sleeping fire type. “Still, it’s kinda scary…”
Crash couldn’t sleep, instead opting to stare out the window. As he watched over whatever parts of Timberglade he could see, the scraggy began to think about the guild. “I guess what I’ve been telling them isn’t exactly useful anymore, is it…” He thought as his realization sent a chill down his spine.
“Maybe you should just leave.”
Crash jumped, thinking he’d heard a voice. The dark type looked around the treehouse and saw nothing out of the ordinary. That is until thought he saw a faint glow under the cabinet. However after blinking a few times, the glow disappeared.
“I don’t need this right now…” The Scraggy thought, looking out the window again. That is until the sound of the door got his attention. He watched the door close before noticing Cinder was gone.
Crash slowly stepped outside and saw Cinder sitting at the bottom of the steps. “What are you doing out here?” Cinder bluntly asked, her back to the scraggy.
“I could ask you the same thing…” Crash responded, sitting on the deck. The two pokemon sat in silence for a while before Crash spoke up.
“ Can’t sleep either huh…? ”
“Don’t talk to me.”
As Cinder as Crash sat under the night sky, Crash found himself falling asleep on the deck. Cinder soon turned back, and glanced up at the sleeping scraggy. She then sighed and began to think more about what Char had told her.
“Keep trying my best, huh…?” Cinder thought before once again looking back at Crash.
“Not fair to blame him… Fine Char… I’ll try for you…”
Over the next few days, a negative mood lingered over the guild. Word had naturally spread about the guild’s failed mission to find Team Raiders. As well as Crash’s less than ideal information having been used for said mission. Everywhere he went within the massive tree, all eyes were on the scraggy. And he could feel it.
“It’s even worse than when I first showed up here…” Crash thought, feeling the amount of animosity coming from the surrounding guild members.
As Crash and Cinder continued to walk inside, the Scraggy picked up on some murmurs amongst the pokemon around him.
“ Why the hell is he even still here? ”
“ I mean does Vernal really still need him for something? ”
The dark type rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake you guys I get you’re pissed at me, but at least all the assholes I’ve dealt with were straight with me about it…” Crash thought, gritting his teeth.
He then glanced over at Cinder, who was walking with a somewhat shrunken posture.
“ Hey, that team Brine got to… that’s their leader’s sister right…? ”
“ Yeah… you think we should say something…? ”
“ Kinda feel bad for her… wonder why Vernal even placed that scraggy with her… ” Have been among the things that the vulpix had from her fellow guild members in the past few days since the incident.
There were those who expressed their sympathies, and while Cinder was thankful. Pity was the last thing she wanted at the moment. As the longer this had gone on, the more uncomfortable the guild’s atmosphere became.
All eyes seemed to be on her as “the Vulpix whose brother’s team got hurt”. And the fire type’s immediate thoughts went to Crash before she remembered what Char had told her. Cinder glanced back at the Scraggy, noticing he also felt the extra attention. Slowing down and briefly staring at each other, the two pokemon lightly groaned in agreement before quickly walking to the job board.
As Cinder looked over the available jobs on the board, Crash couldn’t help but ponder about what some of the guild members were saying. This, along with his lingering thoughts from last night dug a pit in the dark type’s stomach.
“Vernal said until they found them… right…?” Crash thought. “Or was it that I help them-”
“Cinder. I’d like to speak to you for a moment.” Beacon said, interrupting Crash’s thoughts.
As the assistant guildmaster approached them, they saw he was being followed by a somewhat familiar looking bayleef. Cinder and Crash both recognized him from the time they’d gone after the Basin Hounds. The only difference was now he was wearing a dark green guild scarf around his neck.
“Oh, hey Beacon… What’s going on?” Cinder answered, turning around
“Well to spare you the details. Hickory here is new to the guild, and we need someone to pair him with. And of the open teams, his skill level was the closest to yours.”
“ And I had this whole introduction line planned in my head too… ” Hickory said half to himself.
“But yeah… I thought you two seemed familiar…” The bayleef said with a friendly, but curious look on his face. “Last time we met, I don’t think you ever got my name… But as he said, I’m Hickory. You’re Cinder and Crash right?”
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