Mission: Don't Get Lost

[Okamoto Kaida]

Mission Objectives
- Capture or steal a pokemon for Coryn
- Talk to Chihiro about what happened
- Don't get lost

She stared down at the egg in her arms as she walked. It was blue, with a darker blue patch on the top. There hadn't been any movement since she received it, and she didn't hear any noise whenever she put it to her ear. Maybe it wasn't an egg after all. Maybe it was just a rock painted to look like an egg - that would be just her luck. All this time, carrying around a rock thinking it would hatch. People could probably tell the difference too. They probably hid their laughter until she passed. That girl painted a rock? Hohohoo! For a brief moment she considered throwing it, smashing it against the nearest tree. Then she'd know if it was a rock or an egg.

She stopped, dead in her tracks. What was she thinking? Almost as if the smol pokemon inside could hear her thoughts, she hugged it tighter to her chest as a sort of apology. She couldn't protect this egg from others, but she could at least protect it from herself. She remembered the man who gave it to her. He seemed desperate to give it to her, on the brink of tears when she said she'd take it. She supposed it was contraband, though. She just hoped it was that that he was worried about, and not that there might be some sort of terrible monster that hatches from it.

She put her head up and continued walking. She had been walking for what seemed like forever. Coryn's lab was on the far side of Hyo, and she wanted to get as far away as possible before she caught her pokemon. Or stole one. She had considered staying in Hyo, but there were so many people and thus so many opportunities to seem suspcious, or worse to get caught. So, she decided to leave the city, and head for the hills. Or, the forest that is. She had considered the cavern, but she didn't like the thought of being boxed in. Plus, at least out here she'd be able to hear if anyone was following her. Although... Now that she thought of it, it was just her and Chihiro out here (unless this egg decided to do something besides just sit there), and the horsea would have an easier time against a bunch of cavern pokemon than the pokemon she'd meet here, probably.

Chihiro.

She hadn't let the pokemon out of her pokeball since the mauling. She wondered how she was doing, but she was too afraid to find out. She told herself everyday that "today will be the day," but she still hadn't talked to her about what happened. And if she stumbled on a pokemon, there wouldn't be time to talk it out. It would just be release, attack, and go. Hopefully. If the horsea even still wanted to be her partner.

She let her thoughts drift away as she walked, focusing more on the physical act of walking. The path was growing not only thinner, but weedier too. Every now and then, she had to step over a branch or a big rock, and there were even occasional times when she had to stop and look for where the trail continued, only to find it a few feet away in a completely different direction. Noises came from the surrounding bushes and trees, pokemon grunts and calls. Plus, the sun was going down. All in all, it was starting to get a little creepy.

deino egg 7/15

[Deleted]

As you continue on, you can see plenty of signs of pokemon in the forest, though few seem to actually be visible; spinarak webs, the regular hum of bug type wings, and a few eyes peeking at you from in the trees. The forest is certainly lively with pokemon and life. Two sounds, however, seem to be able to stand out against the rest.

The first is a regular chopping sound. It doesn't sounds like it's very far away, but chopping in Fie Forest? Was it a pokemon or a human? Why was someone or something chopping at one of the trees that most likely housed small pokemon? It would be hard to build a house out here, and it was doubtful that either Plasma or the Resistance would be trying to build some sort of tower or building out here. It might be worth it to check out what's going on. You might also be able to notice that the direction it heads seems to have some kind of path. It could've easily been made by a person, but also a large pokemon or multiple smaller ones.

The second sound is a distressing sound of a younger pokemon. You can hear its cries somewhere to your right, and its clearly in danger. Although, its cries are also loud and seem to be able to travel far. It could have the entire forest coming for whatever was endangered, so you might need to be able to defend yourself if you decide to try and protect what's in danger.

[Okamoto Kaida]

The path that Kaida was traveling was beginning to get a little too rough for her taste. Pausing, she adjusted the egg in her arms and looked around her. There were mini paths spreading out in every different direction, although they all looked as difficult to traverse as her own. None of them showed any specific signs of pokemon. Noises buzzed around her, so she knew they were around, she just didn't know where. She sighed deeply, wishing that someone had warned her about the difficulty of navigating this place. Maybe then she would have chosen the cavern.

She looked behind her, a nervousness tugging at her. She had stayed on this path for the entire trip so far, but this path split off into so many other different paths. A feeling of dread dawned on her as she realized that she should have thought ahead and marked her path. Theoretically all she had to do was follow it back out if she wanted to leave, but what if she got to a v or something, and wasn't sure which way to go? Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath trying to calm herself.

It was then that she heard the chopping noise. Opening her eyes, her eyebrows moved together in a confused expression. The noise sounded like someone was splitting wood, or maybe chopping down a tree. Did people... live in this forest? Turning her head in the direction that the noise was coming from, she made a move to head in that direction before another sound stopped her: screaming. Although it wasn't the sound of a human screaming, but instead a pokemon. Moving her foot back to where it had been, she stood, listening to the sound. She clenched her eyes shut, desperately trying to push the sight of her dratini out of her mind.

Suddenly, she burst forward, heading in the direction of the chopping sound, trying to get as far away from the screaming as quickly as she could.

deino egg 8/15

[Deleted]

is the chopping sound really that much better? the hacking grows louder and louder as kaida breaks forward but she may want to slow her roll a bit. she might just run into a web, slowing her down on this mission. after some time though, she comes to see someone in the distance, talking can be heard up ahead here and there is no telling what this man is doing. maybe he's a murderer, hiding a body!!

but that wasn't very likely, right?

as you get closer, you can start to make out what he is saying and boy, does he sound like someone on drugs. "here, definitely here right? heheheh, i've definitely struck something now!" you can hear more chopping as he raises his arm and hacks away at an object you can't see before suddenly pulling something out from it. "AHA!!! this is great! so great, so much greatness! i wonder if i can sell it for a good buck. hell yeah!"

he seems to be drooling over whatever it is that he found and his voice was suddenly so high pitched that it was ... a little creepy. he doesn't seem to pay much attention to his surroundings, too focused on what he was doing. i also wouldn't touch him, his seems to be sweating quite profusely.

[Okamoto Kaida]

She ran. She ran hard, she ran fast, she ran recklessly until she couldn't hear the screaming over the sound of her own feet beating against the ground. It was a miracle that she didn't trip, as she hadn't thought about where she was going or which path was the smoothest. She just needed to get away from that sound, from those memories.

She didn't know how long it took her to reach the point where she could see the man. She was panting heavily, sweat beading on her forehead. Her entire body feeling exhausted, she bent down and set down the egg so that she could prop her hands on her knees and catch her breath.

It was then that she heard his voice. It was creepy, and something about it sent a chill up her spine. Slowly, she picked her egg back up, careful not to make any noise, and stood up straight. She tried to calm her breathing as quickly as possible so that he wouldn't hear her. From where she was, she couldn't see what he was hacking away at or what he had seemed to find inside whatever it was.

She needed to leave. This man was not someone who she wanted to meet, she knew that for sure. He was taller than her, and probably stronger. Not to mention, to be comfortable in this Forest, you had to be at least a little wild. Who knew how strong he was, and now she only had Chihiro to defend her.

Plus he had an axe.

Once she had recovered her breath, she decided it was safe to go back the way she came. Slowly, she lifted her foot and carefully placed if where she thought she wouldn't make any noise. Only, of course with her luck, she placed it incorrectly, and a stick snapped underneath. Cringing, she looked back at the man, hoping he hadn't heard her.

deino egg 9/15

[Deleted]

Weeeeeeeelp. Good Job.

You're alone in the woods with some strange asshole chopping away at something you can't see and you just drew attention to yourself because you couldn't see a stick. On the Ground.

He turns around slowly, his hands out from his sides. "Ain't done nothin' illegal!" he protests before he even sees you. Hm. That doesn't sound suspicious or anything. He speaks with a drawl reserved only for the deepest of back woods, and the high pitch that you thought was maniacal before sounds like a whine now.

He probably isn't too terribly intelligent, but...who's stereotyping?

He turns towards you slowly, hands still out from his sides. "Ain't done' nothin' wrong!" he repeats, in case you misheard him the first time. Of course he could be debating the philosophical moral quandry between what's wrong and what's illegal but as you take in the gap in his teeth where he's lost a tooth somewhere down the road and the fact that his face is covered in stubble, body in sweat and dirt - swud? Mud that is made out of sweat? Ew, the possibilities of that - you think that probably, he's just trying to convince you of something that is more than likely questionably truthful at best. At worst...well, some things are better left unmentioned.

When he catches sight of you, his baby blues grow wide - and that, at least, he has going for him. Hound dog sad eyes staring out of his face in the color that's so perfect pale blue that comes only once in a great while. As he stares at you they widen and he opens the hand that was closed around the handle of...a shovel?...and promptly drops it on his foot.

Howling with pain, he jerks his foot up and hops around, holding onto the injured one.

"What'd'ja do that for?!" he complains to no-one in particular. "That hurt!"

Then, as if realizing that he's probably not appearing the most machismo-laden of creatures, he drops his foot an turns towards you, taking another look. His eyes widen again.

"Hi Lady," he says in reverent awe. "Is you an angel?"

[Okamoto Kaida]

"No." The word escaped her mouth faster than even she could think. There was absolutely no way that she was going to let this.... hillbilly believe that she was some sort of angel sent to him. As the word was said, she felt her stomach clench with nervousness beyond the anxiety she was feeling earlier. She felt some movement in her arms - something in the egg was moving - and she hugged it closer to her. She would celebrate that it was an egg and not a rock later.

"I'm not an angel. I'm just a person passing through. Can you-" she stopped herself. She was about to ask the man if he could point her back in the direction of Hyo City, but something about him made her question the idea. He was rough and disgusting, and by the way he looked and sounded, he probably wasn't very bright. Not to mention, what he was doing was probably illegal, despite his best efforts to convince her otherwise. Every instinct in her body was telling her not to inform this man that she was lost. "Can you-" she said again, trying to think of something to replace it with.

"Can you tell me what kind of pokemon are in this forest?" Shit, pokemon were illegal, so she probably shouldn't have asked that. Biting her lip, she resisted the urge to look down at the egg. Double shit, she had an egg. That was illegal too, but oh wait she was technically the police, so shouldn't she be investigating this guy?

Good Arceus, this was confusing.

"I'm in a hurry, and don't want to be caught off guard," she added quickly. There, that sounded... sort of true.

deino egg 10/15

[SOPHI]

Though you've explained that you are not, in fact, an angel, the man does not seem entirely convinced. His eyes remain wide and strangely naive, not suspicious of you in the slightest. He doesn't even take notice of the egg in your arms. At least, it seems like he doesn't, for it's a little hard to get a read on someone who doesn't seem entirely there.

"Pok'mon?" he asks, repeating the word and scratching his head. "Sure, there's Pok'mon here," he says, as if he does not quite understand the question. Then it clicks, and his eyes brighten up. This is something he knows about. "We got a buncha bugs in these parts, some... Beedrill an' Butterfree. Think I saw a Scyther once but m'old lady says that's not right. There's a snake, too, keeps comin' round and hissin' and starin' at me. Lotsa grass types. Firebirds fly around sometimes. Almost tripped on an Oddish once." He seems to know his grass and bug types better than the others.

He laughs nervously. "Yer not gonna tell anyone you saw me here, right, Miss Not-An-Angel?" His eyes fly back to the tree he'd been chopping. "M'not doin' anythin' bad..."

[Okamoto Kaida]

As he rambled on about the pokemon of the forest, her nervousness began to recede and her eyes began to glaze over as she tried to choose her next course of action. Now that he wasn't acting as... physical... or as murderous as she originally thought he would, she began to actually wonder what he was doing out here. He had mentioned selling whatever he had found for a "good buck," and as she remembered his voice, her stomach growled. When was the last time she had a good meal? Living on your own in a foreign city with a shit job proved it difficult to find the time or the money to eat decent food...

His question pulled her out of her reverie. She shook her head just slightly and blinked as he reminded her once again that what he was doing was, in fact, not bad or illegal. Keeping her eyes on him, she shuffled the egg around in her arms, feeling movement inside as she did so. She resisted the urge to glance down at the heavy object in her arms, and instead took a step towards the man. "No, of course I won't tell anyone. Why should I, if you aren't doing anything bad?" Immediately she could feel herself regretting what she was about to say, but it was as if a different Kaida - a more curious, or perhaps hungry, than scared Kaida - was controlling her mouth. "What are you doing, anyway?"

deino egg 13/15

[SOPHI]

The man stares for a while at your face, perhaps trying to determine whether you can be trusted with the knowledge you've asked him to impart. Then you notice the glazed look in his eye as he scratches at the caked mud around his face, and it seems far more likely that his mind has wandered off somewhere else for the moment. Luckily, though, he returns to the present and even seems to remember the question you presented him with.

He already dropped his shovel, so he places his axe on the ground next to it. Behind him, you can see a couple buckets. "I'm choppin' at the trees for their sap," he says. Now that he's explained himself, the oozing of the trees is a little more evident. "When they starts to leak I git my shovel and put the sap in the buckets. Some people like the tree sap. Iduno why." He shrugs. "But I kin make money off it, so I keep doin' it. Sometimes it attracts wild Pokemon, though."

As he says it, the undergrowth rustles. A Paras emerges from within the shrubbery. At first it seems as if the sap is too high up for it to reach, but it crawls up the tree trunk with ease and begins to suck away at the sticky stuff.

"Like that 'un," the man tells you. "Sometimes I get Beedrill and they chase me off. It's real mean. But Paras are nice."

The Paras seems oblivious.

A wild Paras has appeared!
Looks like it's lunchtime.