[PKMN FULL] "Past of the Past": A Beta Johto Journey (IC)

[Junier]

** prettiness in process, this is jp

Once the saved data is deleted, there is no way to recover it.
Is it really okay to to delete all saved data?
>Yes ------------No

She faced them, the woman in the woods. A little thing wrapped in fleece in a lawn chair, framed by the dying fire in front and the gaping hole behind: a burrow left by some monumental creature. The same's very stature raised and ruined the earth discerning this clearing. Roots from a felled tree streaked throughout the covet in the woods, all raised and fantastically bloated. Acrid Repel sat trapped on placid wind. And all except the fire was still.

This woman in the woods, her hair popped pink in the dark. The flames before her cracked violently, clawing for life; she reveled in their faintness. Her posture was crouched. The contours of the woman's face were unrecognizable. She had no impression to give except a gaze, wide and intense like a Noctowl's glower. And she glowered.

"Sorry to disturb you…"

Her stare spelled an inclination to agree.

"No, you're fine," she uttered finally, weightlessly. "You look young. Ya'll lost?"

"No, just trying to find a campsite. We thought about this area, but since you're already here..."

A sharply-dressed brunette at the head of the pack. Lanky and big-nosed. Albeit, the leader, inevitably—
fortitude amidst all his sharp angles.

"Yes." Staring, still, but a touch of hope further softened the voice of the woman in the woods: "I'm sure there are other places. Maybe if y'all stay a little closer to the road, might find someplace safe." And she gave a smile without earnest, eyes dry like those ebbing, licking flames.

The boy persisted. "Would it be alright if we rested here for a short time? We've been walking for... maybe eight hours now and I think Daisy-May isn't doing so well..." He tugged the girl beside him further into the sheltered site.

The woman couldn't refuse. Her smile fell. But she caught herself quickly with the somber inquiry, "'Daisy-May?'"

The pretty teen, being hauled forward, looked bound to teeter into that piddling campfire, shatter like porcelain. There was sallow skin and heaving breathing; otherwise, the girl evinced nothing, staring down at her feet as if they alone she could trust, like she'd been walking eight days.

So, finally, the woman in the woods responded, heaving the fleece off of her, heaving herself

With the downy sheet in hand, a uniform emerged newly-unobscured. Something pure white and form-fitting, a dress that ended mid-thigh where stockings were intended to almost reach, not quite. Something that paired well with heels and anonymous whistling, cries of "Hello, Nurse!" But the woman planted herself before the party in her hiking boots and unraveled hair.

"Sit her by the fire," ordered Nurse Joy, arms crossed against her chest in the cold.

With the gentle hand of the brunette boy at her back, a shuddering Daisy-May found seating on a gnarled root closest to the campfire. The young man himself followed her stead, putting himself next to her with what little warmth he could provide.

Nurse Joy sent something of a curious look at him. She bent over as if to pass the blanket, in hand, to his companion.

"Nurse Joy… why are you all the way out here?" the young man asked.

Evading him, the nurse realized a third traveling companion, so distanced that in the wintry darkness, she could barely make out the brim of his hat (one unsuited for this weather, at that.)

"Huh? And just what is this princessy-looking woman doing in the wilds?" this stranger thus pronounced.

With little expressed, Joy decided to ignore him.

To her acquaintance, she remarked, with a touch of reprimanding, "I should ask so much yourself. Should know the dangers of going out in the woods, alone or not." With a pause: "How old are you?" And under her breath: "Look a lil' too old for this." Then, aloud: "You takin' care of this 'Daisy-May'?"

She spoke quickly, this one.

"I'm twenty-six. Does that matter?"

The brunette reached out, unsure if the blanket was being proffered.

"We're just trying to get to Violet. I guess I'm taking care of her. Them. For now."

An inferencing look dared to surface in what little light there was. The dark eyes of Nurse Joy watched. There was no follow-up.

She relinquished the blanket, moving to drape it over Daisy-May's shoulders.

Joy muttered something akin to 'older than…', then with heightened poise, "Of course. I understand. Violet is a safe city."

Her focus lifted as she motioned in some hypothetical direction, saying, "If you hug the road a little and take a left, you can avoid that stretch of grass there. Can use that cave up north as, uh— "

The hat-wearer in the shadows — the oblivious other half of "them" — was also speaking around her. "Surely, it won't… did you come…?"

Nurse Joy snapped at him, "Do you need something?"

"Is Violet City just ahead of us or is it still that faraway?" he rephrased.

"You're gonna have to come forward, sweetheart, I can't make you out."

He started onward into the flame-cast light. A bright-eyed man with the same straight-laced style of his partner persisted, "Where is the path leading to Violet City and how far is it from here?"

"Not that far," she lied with the quick follow-up that "The walk won't feel like Hell if you can find somewhere to camp."

"A cave?" The other stranger piped up, less concerned with the remaining journey than finding a place to sleep. "Uninhabited, I hope."

Nurse Joy flashed a somber grin of knowing, of I hope so, too.

Then: a bring-bring-bring from the woman's breast pocket snatched her attention as she rushed to attain and answer her little flip phone. "Hello?" And then she was silent. Turning her back to the group, stalking away towards her tent, slightly hunched in concentration as the voice buzzed on and on, climbing with indiscernible hysterics. Nurse Joy went pallid, and a wind began to build.

...

"Huh? Huh? Hello?" The connection lapses. Carrie lifts her eyes, she scans the clearing for those few strangers. They're gone, now. They're really going there.

What has she done?​

 

[Jauntier]

ROUTE 30-31​

After briskly walking for what felt like hours on end in bitter cold, a shivering and teeth-gnashing Elm suddenly stopped in the middle of the track. He looked over his shoulder. Tyson was lagging behind, staring into what would have been direct sunlight were it not for the thick overcast, barely keeping his balance or watching where he was going. His Pokemon, the Honoguma, looked especially vicious at no discernable thing, growling back at his Trainer in order to keep the boy's attention.

Elm reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small notebook and pen. Opening up to a page, he scratched something down. Then he took a deep breath, and shouted back with a bit more clarity in his syntax, "Hurry up to me or else this will take too long for just one walk to Violet."

"Ugh… fine," he groaned, closing his eyes as he approached. "I don't know why you are soooooo weird." His pacing did not change at all. In fact, it seemed he made a show to drag his feet. The Honoguma growled as it darted its eyes about, on edge despite luckily little happening in the silent wood thus far.

Elm gripped his pen in his hand as he turned on his heel to face the ungrateful boy, and as his heavy steps made it apparent he was going to meet the boy halfway for a choice word, Tyson suddenly lurched forward. The Pokemon scuttled away from under him as he fell flat on the frosty ground. Elm put aside his anger for now for genuine concern as he shouted, "Hey! Hey!" and rushed to the collapsed boy's side. He went to kneel down beside the body to inspect it, but as soon as he reached for the boy's neck to check for a pulse, the Honoguma darted right up to its Trainer and snapped its teeth at the Professor's fingers. Elm quickly drew back as he made an incredulous face, watching as the Honoguma started viciously biting at the collar of Tyson's shirt.

"OK," Tyson muttered into the packed earth. Elm didn't know to whom, as no one said anything to warrant that answer.

"Get up! Stop jokes!" The Professor's terse manner of phrasing returned in his vexation, as he shot back up to his feet. "Difficult! No time! Could attack in wild! You lay like wet seaweed! Why?!"

"No sweat, my Honoguma can beat everyone and anyone…" Tyson rolled over. He then held his head as if he were suffering a headache, if not from the fall, then from his own sense. "... Woah.…" He looked over at the Honoguma, who was now gnawing at its own leg for an itch. "Can we… stop? I'm sleepy." He pat at his pockets and loud crinkling sounds were heard as he pulled out empty water bottles. He let them roll out of his limp hands when he realized there was nothing in them, and he sighed. "I need water..."

Elm pushed up his frames and pinched the bridge of his nose, his face beginning to blush. After a big sigh from himself, pointed his pen at Tyson.

"Bad. Stinky. Weak. Lay there like dying dog. Let fire rat watch. I go, find shelter. I come back, let you join. You sleepy? I sleepy of this big, ugly joke."

"... He's a bear."

Elm was already trodding through the bushes at the woodline, muttering incoherently to himself.

***​

The canopy of cedar trees was thick. There was hardly any strong sunlight to begin with, but nothing would be pouring through the few spotted gaps overhead. It took a battle-battered Elm some time, as the faint shadows on the ground seemed to have shift since last he sketched a reference in his notebook, but he finally came upon a small clearing. There was nothing he could easily find as a naturally-formed shelter—no burrow, no slab of rocks, no cloister of shrubs and low trees—so he figured he had to scavenge for thick, sturdy branches and loose foliage to craft one. Yet were he to do it himself, he knew it'd tax him too greatly. As much as he didn't want to admit it, he did need the boy's help, but whether or not Tyson would be cooperative was a bothersome thought for the Professor.

In his notebook, he hastily sketched out some field markers around the area so as not to forget, and began to make his way back through the forest, keeping an eye out for the markers he placed along the way to retrace his steps. With his pen and pad away, he kept a thumb on a compressed PokeBall clipped to his belt. He had already fought off a cluster of Spinarak that had woven a web over a pit, and fended off a stalking Heracross whose territory he crossed. The woods was anything but safe—and neither was the beaten path of the route itself. But he knew it would be out of place for the ferals to attack a quiet, motionless human in the clearing. If poisonous, scavenging Weedle found their way to Tyson's body and thought to gnaw on his clothes, Elm at least relied on the neurotic Honoguma to assail them.

***​

With numb fingers, he shoved aside the few remaining branches between himself and the road.

"Up, up, up! Lazy boy!" He started, looking behind him to make sure nothing had followed him. "I find place for which to—"

Elm froze. For a second, his mind went blank as he tried to register the sight before him.

Massive footprints that seemed to start from nowhere but the middle of the road impacted the earth, crumbling the topsoil. There was a huge swatch of grass, torn up from the roots, with part of its edges singed. From there, the five-toed prints lumbered over to the woodline on the opposite side, alongside it was a track in the dirt, like something heavy dragged. The prints fade out into the thicket, where shrubs are entirely crushed and the trunks of the towering cedar trees are bashed to the point of stripped bark and splintered wood. Whatever it was, evidence of its presence led deeper into the forest.

When the man came to, he reacted immediately. Yanking the PokeBall off of his clip, he pressed the button to expand it to its full size, and then once more for the top to pop open. A crackling arc of white energy sought the ground, and its form materialized into a two-headed, wingless bird, a head and shoulders shorter than he. The Doduo bobbed their heads as they curiously glanced about, but they snapped into position when their owner shouted, "One!"

The Doduo crouched down and craned their necks as Elm scampered over and jumped onto their back, wrapping his legs around their body and grabbing at the very base of their necks. When he was in a safe position, he commanded "Go!" and they darted off into the direction he subtly yet skillfully steered them.

Weaving under, over, and around sharply-broken branches, the Doduo picked up considerable speed. Elm kept his head low as he peered out from between them, following the brute-forced tunnel as the chilling air cut like wind across his face. Elm didn't know how long ago this track had been made, as he was surely gone for some hours in his hunt for shelter, but he soon received his answer when his short sight caught something up ahead.

It was a big hulking something, taller than Elm even while it was slouched, and covered in matted black fur. It quickly lifted its head at the sound of something approaching, and when it turned to look on with its red face, one could see a battered, beaten hat atop its head. The design was unmistakably familiar to Tyson's. The vacant look on its face instinctively contorted into an indescribably wild emotion. As the creature turned to brandish a fallen tree trunk in its grip, a glimpse of something was strewn about behind it. Like shredded clothes.

As Elm braced himself in fast approaching, he was terrified of what the Gorillamo had done.

 

[Iceshadow3317]

Name: Sora Asai and Kazuko Himura
Location: Somewhere on Route 31

Invetory: Notebooks x10, unspecified number of pens and pencils, List of Known Ice Type Pokemon, and a picture is sister drew. 10,000 Poke Dollars on his person.
Pokemon: Kurusu (Koru)

"Within The Hollowed Tree"
​

---

Sora tore another piece of bark from inside the hollowed out, rotten, tree and threw it on the fire. He had been slowly opening a larger venting hole so that they wouldn't suffocate from smoke and other toxins. He to was starting to shiver, but not nearly as much as he had seen Kazuko shiver when she did. He noticed his pokemon was starting to get tired and the ice was felting faster, so he order his pokemon to stop. He knocked on the ice, finding a thin spot. He then leaned back and kicked with all his might, shattering most of the weakened ice.

He was blasted by a gust of cold air. He hadn't realized just how warm it was in the tree and how cold it was out side. He needed to find a new door and some better wood to burn. He took in a deep breath and the exhaled, causing a large fog the bellow out, easily showing his breath. He looked at the sky. the sun was going down. He knew now would be the best time to look, knowing, at least to his knowledge, that there were no nocturnal pokemon other than Hoothoot around.. He gathered up some large fallen branches and put them across the entrance to the hollowed out tree, blocking most air flow.

He quickly walked away from the tree, gathering up some wood that was already on the ground. After a few minutes of gathering, he returned and dropped the wood through the make shift venting system on the side of the tree that slowly grew as he tore bark away. He left again and returned to the woods. He found some larger logs that he could manage to pick up and stack to form a door.

He spent about 30 more minutes looking and finally found what he was looking for. He had found a small frozen pond, and on the rocks grew large beds of green moss. He knew that moss could grow in cold weather from his father before he had left. Most think moss stopped growing, but he had seen it around the Lake of Rage before during winter. He found a sharp rock, taking a knee and slowly cut the moss away from the rocks, some tore, but he just needed it to cover holes in the logs. He returned with a bundle of moss, placing it on the logs and picked up the logs and slowly carried them back, 2 logs at a time. He enter the hole and pulled the moss in, then started to stack the logs to form a door. He then hung the moss over the door thanks to some other rotten bark that was jagged, making easy hooks for something like moss. After he had gotten everything in place, he put of of the new wood on the fire, and it roared back to life.

He rubbed his hands together, warming them, and slowly got closer to Kazuko. He put a hand on her head. He hadn't gotten too much better, but it was at least maintaining the temperature and not getting worse. He didn't get too close, but he was close enough to the side so that some of his body heat would at least go toward her.

Sora was already deep in his own thoughts when she spoke. He almost didn't hear her because of it. The flames had hypnotized him, as if he wasn't currently in the world. Kazuko's voice returned Sora to reality.

"You.....you didn't have....to..." Kazuko managed to say. She wasn't improving much, but her being able to speak was a start. "But...thanks." She sighed a bit, fumbling around in her pack to get some more food to eat. Her appetite was mostly gone, but she couldn't afford to skip a meal.

"Oh Kazu,,, I didn't know you were awake." Sora said, looking over at the girl. Sora shifted his position.

"I...I guess you must...be wondering about...earlier....when we were...leaving Cherrygrove...." Her movements still seemed sluggish and uncoordinated. Her free hand rested by Honoguma, who was curled up asleep by the fire.

"Yeah kinda. But it can wait till tomorrow. Get some rest. I want to try to get us to Violet tomorrow. We need to get you there." Sora said.

Sora's pokemon Koru, slithered up beside him, taking a place on the opposite side that Kazuko was on, knowing that it may not be best to be near her with its slimy body when she need the warmth.

"No...I'm up now....I want to....explain..." she replied, finally managing to get herself some food, munching on it.

"My...my mother....ever since I was diagnosed with my condition....she's been overprotective." Kazuko took a deep, shaky breath. "Only times I was allowed to leave home...was for school...and doctor's appointments. Never left Fuchsia City unless...I needed to go to either of the hospitals in Celedon...or Saffron....I...I snuck out just to go on this journey.....and...and now.....I.....I....."

Sora listened as she tried to explain. It made sense now why she didn't want the woman at the gate to call her mother. He had to wonder why there wasn't a missing person case for her. Even though they were in Johto, Kanto and Johto should be able to communicate fairly quickly with phones and other technology that was starting to get invented. However, that wasn't really any of his business, so he didn't bring it up.

"Your condition? Forgive me for asking, but what do you have?" Sora asked after a few silent moments with only the fire cracking and popping.

"It...it's still in debate...what it's to be named...Both of the doctors literally...discovered it 13 years ago..." she trailed off. "It's...why I eat so much....so...frequently.....I'll faint if I don't get something in time..." Kazuko paused in her explanation to catch her breath. Talking was currently wearing her out. She didn't feel cold, at all, but she was still exhausted, mostly from the journey.

"That would explain a few things." Sora said, giving his full attention to Kazuko now.

He didn't say anything else right away, he was trying to pick out his words, "It sucks being in one town. I have lived in mine all my life. Even though it isn't under the best circumstances, at least you have left your town. I was only able to explore the areas around Mahogany Town, but I wasn't stuck in the house. Even though she didn't let you leave, I can understand why. You have something that was only just discovered recently, not even having a name yet, I would probably be the same way with my sister, although it would be her being the overly protective one." He trailed off for a moment after remember his sister, "She was so mad the night I fell into the Lake of Rage, even angrier than my mother. It is a scary thing really. She made me stay in bed for 2 weeks after that... That is my sister for you." Sora smiled a little bit, not realizing he had gotten of track.

Kazuko was concerned. "You...you fell into a lake?" she asked, confused. She didn't know the area, so she obviously didn't know the lake of rage, but she continued to explain, "In..contrast...my dad....wanted me to go on a journey myself....alongside my only friend....he was sure that I could handle it....but...mom didn't let me....My friend went without me, and she's now a very powerful trainer...."

"Sorry. A few years back I fell in to the Lake of Rage which is almost directly north, far north, from where we are now. I know the feeling of not being able to travel with your friend too well." He said, looking away."To me, it seems like your mother just cares a lot for you. Maybe a little too much. But who am I to judge? I don't even know her and I just met you like a day ago.... well.... two months ago." Sora finished.

"I can see....where you're coming from....I know she cares for me, and...she was there every time I was in the hospital...but...I just wanted to be...like everyone else my age...a Trainer...."

Sora listed, her father reminded him of his own father. Sora had always wanted to be like his father, Becoming a trainer and one day becoming better than him. Her tale about her friend even reminded him of his promise with his friend, but Sora's friend was never able to become a trainer.

"I was supposed to travel with one of my best and only friends aside from my sister as well, but....." Sora's voice cracked ever so slightly and he stopped for a few moments and then continued, "Times change." He finished.

Sora thought he was over his friend, but every time it came up now, he was reminded that he still cared for his friend. It had only worsened since he got the news that he was to become a trainer.

"I..I'm so sorry you had to go through all of this...." Kazuko apologized. "I wish...I had more to say...especially since me and Yuu have kept in contact through letters....I saved each and every one...I saved all my money just for this.....and despite these circumstances...I'm glad. I'm glad I got to come on this journey....I'm glad I got to meet you....you just might be....another friend...." A small smile formed on her face. "I just wish I could do more....but this cold....has done this to me....I never could tolerate even a slightly chilly winter....this....just......"

Sora smiled. He was happy for what she said. Even though she was cold and so far away from home, she remained strong even now. He put a hand on her shoulder, "Try to get some sleep. We will need it tomorrow. Especially if we want to get to Violet. I may push you harder tomorrow. I know you will be fine, but you still need a doctor to look at you. We won't be in this cold tomorrow night." Sora said. "I will make sure of that." He said to himself.

"I'll try..... " she trailed off. "Was going to have a small snack beforehand...." she remarked, managing to unwrap another food item. She munched on it before drifting off to sleep.