Welcome to Gaia! ::

The regular life of the rescue team continued. That is, the bored one. The dull heat of the summer sucked the life out of the team, leaving them listless and apathetic. All four simply lay on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. It was the kind of heat and atmosphere that simply sucked out one's will to live. “I'm bored.”

The announcement came without warning or response. Urist pushed himself up off the ground, looking at the rest of his team. “Let's take a mission.” Dennis righted himself with a heave. “Yeah, alright.” The two men of the team looked at the two girls. Lyn was still lying on her back motionless. Chelsea had curled up against her bag and had, at some point, fallen asleep.

“Hey, wake up.” Urist poked the Teddiursa in the side. She absent-mindedly rolled herself up the bag until she fell off the flattened bottom with a thud. Gwendolyn came up suddenly with a lurch, her body twisting as she tried to locate the source of the sound. Chelsea's hands shot to the back of her head. “Ow...”

“Come on, we're going to take a mission.” Chelsea stood up and yawned loudly, her hands still rubbing the back of her head. “Oh, okay mister Urist.” Lyn walked up beside her, seeming similarly dazed. “Oh...” She paused slightly as she raised one hand to her mouth and yawned. “Okay then.”

And so, the sleepy team left their room for the bulletin board.

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They reached the Bulletin board in short order. Chelsea had already packed her bag with a small assortment of berries and apples along with, of course, a small pot of honey. She had gotten the bag when she went back to her home to get some honey in the first place and she always made a mission of having some on her at all times.

The Teddiursa lightly sucked on her paw as the team approached the board. They were, immediately, assailed by a Farfetch'd. “It's YOU!” Steven the Board Keeper raised one wing to point at the Mankey with his leek. “You're the kid who keeps tearing everything down whenever I leave! Stop that! Get away, you'll ruin my board again!”

“Oh yeah, and what are you going to do about it!?” Steven stomped one of his feet and charged at Urist angrily. The Mankey assumed a defensive posture but realized better with a word from his team. “U... Urist, don't get into a fight with the staff... please...” With a glance back at his Snorunt partner, his arms slackened and he proceeded to run away from the Farfetch'd. Who continued chasing him.

Lyn sighed as Chelsea and Dennis watched the chase. She couldn't exactly attack either of them... If she was caught attacking a staff member, she'd be in big trouble even if he did start it. With another sigh, she turned back to the board. Maybe the best thing to do was just to pick out a mission so they could leave before anything happened.

Her eyes lit up as they settled on one mission. She didn't even read the objective or the location, just the reward. Dawn Stone. They were incredibly rare and valuable in her home. All female Snorunt turned to Froslass eventually and the stones used to do so were exceedingly rare on the mountain. You were considered an adult once you found a Dawn Stone and evolved, and there weren't very many adults. In the few cases someone offered to sell or trade one away, parents would give almost everything they owned to secure one for their eldest daughter.

She tore the mission down from the board and ran over to Urist, waving it in her hand. “Urist! Urist, let's take this one!” She was excited. She was ecstatic about it. Urist grabbed the mission out of her hands and read it as he ran off. He didn't really like the mission. The rewards weren't that great, they'd have to go to some spooky manor and the client's request wasn't anything important.

But... he'd never seen her this excited before. Not about anything. Lyn just did not get excited; it wasn't in her nature. For some reason, she really, really wanted to take this mission. And Urist wasn't about to take that happiness away from her. “Alright, let's go!” Lyn nodded happily, a wide smile spreading across her face. Urist tore out of the hall with his team leaving not far behind.

“Yeah, and don't come back! Never set foot in my hall again you damn Mankey!”

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They reached a small house sitting on the edge of town. It was quiet and a little beat-up looking. It was made of a simple, unpainted wood and was without windows or any real adornment besides a plain door. Urist banged on the door with one fist. “Hey! Anybody in there?”

The door tilted inwards after a few bangs with a Swablu standing on the other side. He took a quick glance at each of the four before smiling. “You're a Rescue Team, right? You came for my ad?” Urist nodded. “Good, good!” The Swablu stepped outside, closing the door behind him. “You see, I left my Red Shard in the Haunted Manor. I was in there when some ghosts ambushed me and took it in the confusion. It was a gift from my mother, you see...” He rubbed the back of his head with slight embarrassment.

“Um... What were you doing in the manor, to begin with?” The Swablu perked up slightly. “Well, I am...” He paused for a moment. “No, I was a member of a Rescue Team. We were in there on a mission.” He said it as a matter-of-fact. Urist started to say something, but the implications of “was” reached him. The Swablu WAS in a team, which means he wasn't anymore. Probably because of what happened in the manor.

Lyn nodded. “We'll get your shard back.” The Swablu dipped his head into a slight bow. “Thank you.”

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The four reached the haunted manor in good time. Although they hadn't the fortune of getting a ride as they had before, Dennis took it upon himself to carry the bag. Although Chelsea was still unwilling to let go of the bag herself, Dennis was short enough that he could fit under it snugly and carry it on his head by simply walking beside her.

They stood at the gates that would lead into the courtyard. An iron fence worked it's way around the manor, no doubt a result of it's original owner's desire for security. Each peg of the fence was capped at the top with a menacing looking spike, although many caps had rusted and either lost their point or disappeared entirely over time. Not that this made it any less menacing; in fact, it was quite the contrary. The rusty, aged appearance of the gate only helped reinforce one's terror.

Well, the two guy's terror. Lyn and Chelsea simply pushed the gate open and walked right in without fear or worry. Urist and Dennis stood at the other side of the gate, staring upwards at the manor. “Um... Are you two coming?” Urist and Dennis glanced at each other. They both knew it. They both knew why their feet were firmly rooted to the spot. That was a haunted mansion. It was full of ghosts and dead people! They didn't want to go in there. Ghosts were scary, after all.

But letting themselves be shown up by two girls was something they could not abide by. They both nodded to each other resolutely as they walked through the gates. “Pah! Not like ghosts exist! There's nothing to be afraid of!” The Mankey loudly proclaimed his intentions. Chelsea nodded to herself up ahead.

“Yep! My momma always told me there's no dead people ghosts. All the things people call 'ghosts' are really just normal pokemon! They're just special. So there's nothing to be afraid of, 'cause everyone in there is just like us!”

Lyn shook her head. “No, ghosts are real.” The two behind her stared at her as if she had said something incredulous. “They exist. They're nothing to be afraid of, but they exist. The spectres of the dead go lots of places.” Urist and Dennis once more glanced at each other, uncertain. But another look back at the two girls who forged ahead of them without fear and then back at each other had them moving forward, if nervously.

The door was pushed open with a heavy, ominous creak. The paint that had once covered it so brilliantly had faded and chipped over time, leaving an ominous testament to the fact that people had once lived there. And once died there, too.

A cloak room was what greeted them. A series of hooks stood on the wall, each one ready to take a hat or a jacket as the situation demanded. A large mat to rub one's feet off on covered the expanse of the area. Although one says mat, it was of course quite nice. Or it used to be. The mat had not been cared for for decades and had since attracted so much dirt and grime that the once brilliant colours had faded to a dull, nasty brown.

The cloak room ended in a pair of glass double doors that were rimmed by a golden curl which sat on the wonderful white door. Or, it was white once. The paint had chipped and blackened over time, leaving only a rough guess as to what it once was. The glass had been smashed probably years ago, for the remains had been cleaned up. The only evidence of the glass was the jagged edges left by what little held on.

The door opened, seemingly on it's own, with a creak. The four entered. Three were scared by the display. Two were driven on by manly confidence and the third clutched her bag tightly as she walked. Only Lyn was unaffected by the spooky atmosphere.

A staircase upwards was to their left. The hallway led off in three directions. The groups went straight forward. They didn't have any idea where they were going, after all; the client had merely said that his Red shard was missing and nothing more. He hadn't said where or what kind of pokemon had taken it; the best they could do was search around aimlessly until they found it or someone willing to help.

The walls and ceiling had been carved away further down the hallway. The wood was charred black, as if some great explosion had happened. The force must have blasted away the ceiling and the walls, because it looked as if some giant had punched through them. The floor was charred and covered in rubble, but fine otherwise. A gray Lopunny with white accents stood there, basked in an eerie light from the floor above.

((Some great explosion actually did happen. This area is from my first mission with Tolin, where about 50 drifloon Self-Destructed.))

“H... Hello there.” Lyn waved at the Lopunny. It was then she first noticed something odd. The Lopunny's head was low, as if it had sunk into it's own shoulders. The head sat just high enough to make it distinct from the body, yet low enough to hide the characteristically stick-thin neck that most Lopunny had.

The Lopunny waved and smiled warmly. “Hello there. How are you?”

“We're pretty good! Miss Lopunny, would you happen to know where a Red Shard is?” The Lopunny pursed her lips and put a finger to them as if deep in thought. Finally, she gave a shrug. “I'm sorry, can't say that I do.”

“Awww.” Chelsea seemed downtrodden that the Lopunny didn't know where the Shard was. “But, you know, the dead don't know much.” The Lopunny cocked her head with a smile as the rest of the team stared at her in surprise and confusion.

Her two hands reached up, grabbing her heard firmly on either side. With a comical pop! her head came off. She held her head in front of her, her two blank lifeless eyes staring straight at the Snorunt. “After all, I've been here for hundreds of years!” The body pulled the head back and threw it as if pitching a baseball. The head flew towards the team, where it stopped just in front of it's leader and let out a wailing scream.

And the team let one out to match. “Ahhhh!” “Ahhhhhhh!” “Ukiiiii!” “Ahh!” All four fled, stumbling over one another and themselves and they scrambled all the way back to the entrance. A deep, foreboding cackling sounded from the Lopunny's direction, though none stopped to look.

All four were gasping for breath as they stood in the cloak room. “Ukikiiii! No way!” Urist started waving his hands frantically. “I'm not going back in there!” Between her heaving breathes, Lyn couldn't put up much of an argument. Chelsea sat beside her, looking as if she were on the verge of tears. “I wanna go home...”

Lyn looked into the mansion and down the hallway where the Lopunny had been. She didn't want to go back there. None of them did, not in the slightest. Demonic ghost Lopunny were not exactly what the team would define as a “good time”. But she wanted to complete the mission; she wanted that reward. “I'm... I'm going back in.”

She looked at her team. “If... If you want to stay, then that's fine. But I'm going back in.” She stepped back through the half-open door. A few glances between the party had Dennis following. “It's not safe if she's in there alone.”

Urist watched as the two went in without him. He lightly pat Chelsea's head with one hand as the Snorunt and Shroomish left. The two bounded up the steps and out of sight right away.

“It'll be alright...” He muttered.

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Lyn turned to look back down the tall staircase. She could see the floor below them in the far-off distance. Dennis, thankfully, had come with her. Not that she had any ideas for finding the Shard besides “walk around and hope we get lucky”. There wasn't really any other way to go about it.

The pair walked down the endless system of hallways, sticking their heads into room after room. Beds and rotten sheets greeted them after every door. The occasional pokemon stayed inside, but through great fortune they managed to avoid any unnecessary conflicts by simply closing the door as fast and as quietly as they could.

Or so they thought. One time, they weren't quite so fortunate. After they closed the door, a slight “fsssh” sound came from behind them as if a gas was being forced through a small crack. They turned to see two large white eyes staring at them, with a floating tongue to match. The gastly wasted no time for talk, no time for courtesies; he merely charged. His tongue hit Dennis with a wet splortch on contact. “H... Hey! Get off of him!”

Lyn started focusing. An attack, an attack... I need an attack! Her thoughts brought her back to the long gone times of staying in her village. Her mother had tried to show her how to use the Snorunt abilities, but she had never succeeded. Her mother had always told her what to do. “Just breathe out, dear. Breathe out your homeland.”

She had never managed to succeed. But, maybe now was the time to try? She pursed her lips and blew at the Gastly as hard as she could. It was somewhat less than effective. That is, it didn't do anything besides draw attention onto herself. The Gastly's tongue retreated, leaving Dennis on the ground and instead advanced upon Lyn. She took another breath in, and this one came out a little more as she had hoped. A small jet of snow shot out of her mouth and began swirling around him. He began to panic as his body slowly began to ice over. The thin sheet of ice began to trap him as it covered his body one inch at a time.

Eventually the Gastly had the good wisdom to flee. He bashed his way through one of the walls, leaving an icy shell behind. It was quick to flee the moment it realized that it was outmatched. “D... Dennis... Are you okay?”

Dennis got back on his feet and just stared off into the distance for a few minutes. Lyn looked at him with concern until he finally spoke. “That was profoundly strange. I never want that to happen again.” He hopped up and continued walking down the hallway.

Their steps once more took them past rooms and doors and through the hallways of the Haunted Manor. It was that, in time, they eventually came upon a door much more luxurious than the rest. Although most of the rooms up until now had been bedrooms with plain, simple doors (or comparatively so for how rich the owners must have been) this one was quite luxurious. It stood wide and tall, sitting as an obvious beacon of significance.

The pair came to the doors, and with a precursory glance at one another pushed it open. It let them into a library. A massive library, one easily large enough to encompass smaller houses. Books were stacked at heights that dwarfed the very small Snorunt and Shroomish, with shelves lining each wall and some standing around the room itself, effectively splitting it apart. A small red glint slipped into the book shelves, hiding itself from view. “D... Dennis! I saw something!” Lyn ran to the bookcase, only to find that the Red Glint—whatever it had been—was already gone.

She jumped back with a start when she heard some strange shifting above her; a heavy-looking bound encyclopedia had fallen where she just was. Her eyes darted upwards to yet another glint of red that retreated into the shadows. “H... Hello? Is someone there?”

Another volume slipped down from the bookcase, crashing to the ground behind her. She could hear small laughter coming from somewhere nearby although she couldn't quite pin it. A small puff could be heard elsewhere, followed by a slight crash. “Hey, I got him.”

Lyn followed the source of the voice until it led her to the other side of the bookcase. A Sableye lay there buried in a small pile of books. His bright, red ruby eyes shone out from under the pile. “It was probably just this guy.”

The slight giggling had ceased. Instead, it turned to whispers. Two ghosts came down from the ceiling; one Shuppet and one Misdreavus. “Hey! You shouldn't have done that to our friend!” “Yeah! He was just playing a joke!”

Dennis stared up at them. “Your joke could have seriously injured my friend. I don't find that funny.” The two ignored it. “It was just a harmless prank! Man, leave it alone!”

Dennis's emotionless face showed little of what he felt. He was quite angry. Angrier than he would have gotten for anyone else, most likely. He didn't take the “joke” lightly; it was an attack on Lyn. He tilted his body forward, shooting two seeds out of his tip. Each one settled inside of the ghost-types, as if suspended there. The two seeds cracked open and began to sprout vines.

“H... Hey!” The Shuppet was the first to realize what was happening. He watched the seed open open in his friend and begin to grow outwards, and he had the feeling the same was happening to him. “What'd you do to us!?”

Dennis just stared up at them. “Relax, it's just a joke. It won't hurt at all, it'll just make you a little tired.” Right on cue, the Misdreavus fell to the ground. The Shuppet started slowly drifting down himself until the seed took what little remained of his energy. “C'mon, let's go.”

Lyn took one last look at the three before following Dennis as he left the Library. “R... Right.”

Their journey down the hallway until it led to a large hole. The lights above them cast an eerie glow that felt familiar. It was the place where they had encountered the Lopunny earlier, although they were a floor up. The hole was far too large for them to travel over, though with the debris below... “Let's go down.”

Lyn then, simply put, hopped off. The drop wasn't that large and the explosion had powdered much of the material around. It left her with a comfortable enough cushion for her fall and oh my what was that. Something small and brown intercepted her fall as she crashed to the earth. Lyn, dazed and confused, tried to regain her sense of balance after the crash. The Shedinja she had crashed into had begun righting itself

It turned around to look at her. A small, black ball formed in front of it and began pulsing, leading Lyn to a panic. However, a quick gust of Powder Snow later and it fell over. The surprise encounter had left her breathing hard with a heart that was moving a mile a minute. She looked up to see Dennis staring down. “It's... It's okay. It's safe.”

Dennis hopped down in response. And so, the two continued onwards down the halls. It wasn't long before they found something significant. More precisely, the kitchen. Although the kitchen itself was empty, a pair of heavy locking doors sat on the other side. Lyn pulled one open (with considerable effort) and poked her head in; it was a massive freezer. Although all the food that likely once hung here was gone, the freezer itself was massive. Dennis merely glanced inside before adopting a look of scepticism. “It's probably a bad idea for me to go in there. I don't deal with the cold well.”

“It's... fine. I'll be alright, just wait for me here.” Lyn went inside, the heavy doors closing behind her. It was nice for her in there. The temperatures reminded her of home. And... something else reminded her of home, too.

“H... Hello there.” A Froslass drifted benignly at the other side of the freezer. She looked familiar, for some reason. Someone friendly. She felt happy to speak with this one, for some reason. The Froslass waved one hand and waved with a smile. A slight, red glint was visible. “You're here for this, right?”

The younger evolution gasped. Was... that the shard? She nodded joyfully. “Y... Yes! I was sent on a mission to find that!” The Froslass merely smiled. She glided over, the hems of her dress floating just above the ground. “Well, then. Congratulations on a completed mission.” She handed the shard to Lyn who took it happily. “T... Thank you! Thank you so much!”

The Froslass smiled as the little Snorunt before her turned to run off to her companions. “Congratulations on your Dawn Stone.”

Lyn turned around with a start. Dawn Stone? How did she know that...?

But, the Froslass had already disappeared.

Lyn stood still, looking into the freezer. She had been there just a moment ago... Well, whatever. She looked down at the broken red plate in her grasp. This was her Dawn Stone, in a way. This was her evolution!

She stepped outside of the freezer with the Shard above her head in both hands. “I found it, Dennis! Some nice Froslass inside gave it to me!” Dennis's face shifted from it's perpetual frown to a flat stare. “Good job. Let's head back.” With a slight nudge of his body, he closed the door behind her and they left the Kitchen. The entrance was not far away; merely a minute or two of walking.

She carried the Shard in her hands the entire way, a huge smile on her face. Urist and Chelsea had settled down in the cloak room, having chosen to pass the time by eating. “Hey Lyn, Mister Dennis! You found the shard?”

Lyn waved the shard overhead in joy. “Yeah! A Froslass gave it to me!”

Urist seemed the happiest of the four. “Good! Let's get out of this place and never come back!” All four were on agreement, at least on the “let's leave” part. The four headed out the front door and through the iron gate, closing it behind them. Lyn paused to look at the Manor as they left, and she swore she could see the faintest bit of blue at the tip. But when she blinked, it was gone.

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The Froslass let on a sly grin as the four left. It's good to see she's doing well. It looks like she's found a good team... Her mother will be pleased.

With that one thought, the Froslass glided off into the distance to make her report.