Both Tyrone and Alastor nodded in agreement, they’d have to be careful about some of the pokémon native to the highlands as some were pretty territorial and would attack on sight. “That mist thing sounds concerning, if they do that here we might have a hard time completing our mission. Maybe is best if we don’t stray too from each other just in case something happens, even if splitting up would probably give us a better view of it all.” Tyrone suggested to the other two, not sure if it even was a good idea. “We better watch out for any kind of haze then, but for now we should just proceed to the ruins and keep an eye out for the more territorial pokémon like the Bastiodon mentioned.” Alastor then walked off into the highlands. “I really don’t get that guy he kinda acts like he’s alone yet he acknowledges we’re here, is not just me it is?” Tyrone gave his a questioning look; while solo missions were the most common thing he still found it odd Alastor would act like this doing a critical group mission. Alastor called out to Gwyn ans Tyrone signaling for the two to come “You two coming?” his partner pokémon also signaling for them to follow. Tyrone sighed before dashing off; not waiting for Gwyn to reply since he figured the guy would tell him on the road if he felt the same way he did.
Saria had quickly handed off the device to the area ranger and had given him instructions to not give it to anyone else than Vatona or Nage. She didn't really trust any of the other so-called scientists that the union had. Before she could climb back on the Staraptor, she received a message from Zen saying that for some reason the signal in the Chroma Highlands had been disturbed and that they at the headquarters weren't able to contact Alastor or the other two. Saria cursed under her breath and quickly hopped on the bird Pokémon as she typed a quick response to her brother before flying to the highlands, hoping to be able to catch up with the rest of her squad, before they were caught in some kind of ambush. ---------------------------------------------------- Gwyn groaned loudly as he dodged the Skarmory that had been attacking them for the past few minutes. They has barely even stepped into the Chroma highlands, and it had been one disaster after the other. "Can either of you reach Saria? He called out to his partners, as he swung his styler arm around to try and capture the steel bird. "My styler keeps saying that there is no signal."
Tyrone ordered Gruff to use Ember in the hopes of scaring the steel type into leaving only to make it angrier. The Skamory was not letting anyone trespass on its territory and it proved difficult to calm down giving the three rangers a hard time. “I’m on it just try keep it away from me long enough.” Tyrone said as it opened up his styler’s communicator, “Saria, we’re in trouble down here and could use some serious air support. We got a very angry Skarmory on our hands and its keeping us all busy and….OUCH!” The ranger got cutoff as the Skarmory manage to get close enough to land a Metal Claw on his right shoulder making him drop his styler. The Skarmory wasn’t done yet as it continue its barrage of attacks forcing Tyrone to dodge. Gruff started barking at the bird before shooting embers at it forcing the steel type away. The pokémon screeched at the Growlithe not giving up despite the fire attacks. Alastor saw his chance to try capturing the territorial pokémon now that it was focusing on the Growlithe. Sending his capture disc again out he looped around the Skarmory a few times before it used a Wing Attack to break the line, Alastor recalled the disc. “Toto help Gruff keep the Skarmory in check, Water Gun now!” The totodile leapt forward sending a beam of water at it forcing the bird to split its attention between the pokémon.
"... Need help.. Angery Skarmory..." Sounded through the styler that Saria was holding and she cursed loudly enough that Rasa barked at her. "Sorry, Rasa, you will need to hold on tight and prepare to help out, the boys got in a fight with a Skarmory of all things." It didn't take her very long to spot the guys and she spotted the flying type that was causing the trouble for her colleagues. "Rasa, Use Rock Slide!" She shouted to alert them and Rasa jumped from the Staraptor, large boulders sliding down in the air above the brown dog.
The Skarmory screeched in surprised as rock came raining down from above forcing it to remove its attention completely from the totodile and growlithe. Looking up it spotted the female ranger on the staraptor; it expressed its clear annoyance that even more had trespassed on its territory as it went after the new arrival. With the Skarmory taking off towards Saria Tyrone was able to reclaim his styler. He send the capture disc at the steel type hoping to at the very least break its charge towards his colleague, winching as he tried to loop around, his wounded shoulder was painfully reminding him it was still there resulting in the disc going off course and zipping away from the target. “Shit, Gruff use Ember!” Tyrone ordered as recalled his disc while clutching the claw wound, “Why is this Skarmory so hell-bent on taking us on?”
Saria and Staraptor dodged the incoming charge barely. Rasa landed on the ground and immediately turned around to see what was going on, the brown dog jumped back until she was at Alastor's feet. "Rasa, assist them the best you can. I need to focus on not getting thrown off the Staraptor." Saria shouted as the faster Staraptor veered to the left to avoid a nasty looking Steel Wing. Gwyn had called in his Shuppet's Pokémon assists and the two Capture Discs were in the air confusing the hell out of the Skarmory. He managed to get a good chunk of the Capture styler bar to fill and when the attack of Tyrone's Growlithe hit, Gwyn almost cheered. They were so close to capturing the fierce bird. "Just a little more. Al, Tyrone!" He called out as he started spinning the top with renewed interest. They had to quickly end this. Saria was debating on having her Staraptor enter the fight as she couldn't see another way to end it without someone else getting hurt. Then she spotted Rasa creeping closer to get under the steel-type, somehow completely unnoticed, and Saria called out when the dog was in a perfect position. "Rock Slide, end it once and for all!"
“Alright Toto, keep up the pressure we need to calm down this bird before it hurt anyone else.” The totodile obeyed spraying the skamory with water. The rock canine’s attack had taken the steel type completely off guard. They finally captured it, it’d taken a lot to take down just one pokémon, territorial or not it was unusual to need multiple rangers for this sort of thing. Tyrone signed and sat down to catch his breath now that it was finally over, winching as his shoulder once again reminded him of the gashes the skarmory had managed to give him. Pulling off his jacket he tried to take a look at the wounds, not entire easy due to the angle he had to turn his head. “Might be best if one of us takes a look at those.” Alastor said as he went over to Tyrone, kneeling down he examined the wounds. “How bad is it?” Tyrone felt like his shoulder was burning, Gruff came over to lick his partner’s hand giving a small whine of concern. “Stopping the bleeding is all we can really do, it looks a bit deep.” Alastor had started pressing compress against the gashes, making Tyrone winch once again. “Also what was up with that Skarmory, why was it so aggressive, I know they can be territorial but wasn’t that just a bit too much?” Tyrone looked at the other two while Alastor was applying first aid to his shoulder.
Saria had jumped off her flying mount and had quickly gotten the details from Gwyn about what had happened and was now cursing loudly. When she heard Tyrone asking about the reason why the Skarmory had been so pissed off, she forced herself to calm down. “Zen messaged me just before you contacted me to say that the styler signals had been disturbed. I can only guess that there is either another of those devices around here, or what is distrubing the signal also caused the Skarmory to go berserk.” Saria had taken her hair out of her ponytail ans was working on fixing it as she talked. “Both of those situations are going to be causing more problems,” Gwym remarked as he joined the rest of the group. “Are you going to be able to continue, Tyrone?”
“Yeah I think so, doesn’t look like it needs immediate medical attention but damn it still hurt.” Tyrone put his jacket back on and made sure he had everything since he’d been forced to dive out of the Skarmory’s way more than once. “You sure, the gashes are still on the deep side.” Alastor looked at Tyrone with concern while packing away his first-aid kit. “Yeah I’m sure.” With that the four set off once again towards the Chroma Ruins. ---- “According to the map we’re getting pretty close to the ruins now, maybe we should start looking out for suspicious people.” Tyrone said, looking up from the map he’d been studying. Alastor nodded in agreement but didn’t say anything as he followed the others. “So how are we gonna approach the ruins?” Tyrone scratched the back of his neck, not sure what they would find there or if they would even find anyone.
"Maybe we should split up, one team to go ahead and the other to follow like 5 minutes after?" Saria suggested as she looked around. She had freed the Staraptor a while ago as she had scouted ahead to see if the normal way to the ruins had been cleared and had gone on foot with the others. "Are you sure that is a good idea?" Gwyn asked, as he caught Shuppet in the back of its neck to prevent the little ghost from floating off to Arceus knew where. "That would mean that we would be easier to pick off when there are people in there, and both you and Tyrone got injured already." Saria sighed, she knew that. But she couldn't think of something else to do either.
“I’ll be fine, is not that serious just a tad painful.” Tyrone tried to reassure his colleague, Gruff just tilted his head looking like wasn’t believing his human partner completely. “Splitting up will also mean we can cover more and is not like we completely defenseless, we could always split up one injure with one uninjured and just keep communication open in case something happens so we can quickly come and help each other.” Alastor added after giving it some thought, Gwyn was right that splitting could make them easier to pick off in case they ran into something, especially if they met a larger group. “Yeah, and if we do like Saria suggested we’ll be like 5 minutes apart and can easily come to each other aid.” Tyrone wasn’t about to let his shoulder get in the way of the mission. “So we could do either me with Gwyn, Saria with Alastor or Saria with Gwyn and me and Alastor if we go with pairing injured and uninjured together.” “Sounds good to me, what about you two?” Alastor looked over at Saria and Gwyn, in particular Gwyn since he’d been the only showing concern about getting caught.
“Best get it over with. I would feel more comfortable if Saria went with Alastor as the first pair. No offense, Saria, but Alastor is probably stronger than me and would be able to knock a few out no problem.” Gwyn quickly held his hands up in a defensive position, having seen the glare that Saria was throwing his way. She nodded quietly before she whistled once sharply, it being the signal for Rasa to stand at attention and make sure she knew Saria would be using mostly hand signals for a while. “We all ready to go?” Saria asked Alastor, one foot already on the top of the stairs that lead down into the ruins.
“Yup, let’s get going, come Toto.” He snapped his fingers to let the totodile know they were going before following Saria down into the ruins. The water type looked back at the others before going into the ruins. The ruins where cool and darker due to light only in a few cracks and holes coming in, something Alastor didn’t really mind as he could sit for hours in his room if he was working on something in similar lighting despite being told many times it was bad for his eyes. The ruins were fairly quiet, a refreshing change after what had happened in the high lands with the skarmory. Alastor just hoped Tyrone’s injury wouldn’t be a problem later even if it was not a serious one the claw marks was still pretty deep. Outside the ruins Gwyn and Tyrone were waiting for it to be their turn to enter and Gruff was getting impatient. The growlithe had started pacing and making small jumps as they waited. “Geez Gruff calm down will you is just a 5 minutes wait is not like we’re gonna be waiting for hours so try to stay calm okay?” Tyrone said to the fire canine even if he was starting to get impatient himself. He really wanted to get going as well and he was sure that was why Gruff was so jittery his impatience was rubbing off on the pokémon. “Well is been almost 5 minutes now, should we going before Gruff jumps straight into the atmosphere?” He looked up from his watch and looked at Gwyn. The fire canine was already starting at the ruins opening ready to following their colleagues to meet who knows what might be down there. “You’re not wasting any time I see, just be quiet when we go down there okay, Gruff.” The muscular ranger shrug as he watched his partner almost tap dance from eagerness to get going.
Saria shivered as the chill from the ruins crept over her skin, but she kept up with Alastor as best as she could. "It doesn't seem like there are any activities going on here." Saria commented as she surveyed the floor and didn't spot anything. "You would be expecting more marks and traces of human activity. I can't see anything recent here that indicates that people have been here at all." She continued, her brow furrowed. Rasa was next to her, quiet as a Rattata. "We might need to go all the way down to the place where the Shadow Crystal was found. Could they have used that entrance?" She mused. "Yeah, lets go." Gwyn replied to Tyrone before gesturing for Shuppet to make himself invisible and follow the two quietly. "What do you think the worst case scenario will be, Tyrone?" Gwyn asked as he descended the stairs, trying not to disturb the Pokémon that lived in the ruins. He had a fierce dislike of Psychic types and it was well known that there were Kirlia living in the ruins.
“Probably the briefing said shady people had been seen go in and out of the ruins but the front entrance shows no sign unless they’re being careful and using psychic types to levitate them.” Saria could be right that they used a different entrance and it would make sense instead of going in the front door. “We might have to go all the way if they used that way to enter yes. We’ll just have to be careful if is really someone up to no good they’ve probably taken measures to ensure they spot uninvited guests, like traps and guard patrols.” Alastor looked over his shoulder to ensure his partner pokémon was still there, Toto wasn’t always the fastest so he’s made it a habit to check on the totodile. Toto was trailing behind them a few meters walking as fast as he could without it becoming a sprint. “It is rather odd though, if it really is people up to something you’d think there would have been something to stop people from entering the ruins, people, pokémon, blocking the entrance or just something.” Alastor wasn’t sure what think of all this, nothing really made sense right now. “The worse would probably be that it is Team Dim Sun and there’s too many for us to handle, I rather not think about how that could end.” Tyrone shuddered at the thought of it. “Let’s just hope is not that. But what about you, do you have any thoughts on what might be up ahead?”
"I am just hoping it is not one of those admins from Dim Sum. They were nasty pieces of work from what I heard." Gwyn responded as he stretched his arms above his head as he and Tyrone walked through the ruins. It was eerily quiet, and it looked mostly undisturbed from what he could see. ------------------------------------------------- "It really looks like there hasn't been anyone here in ages. Maybe they didn't want to use this area, seeing as it is probably still patrolled every once in a while after the whole spectacle. It could be that they locked the paths further up ahead though." Saria suggested softly. She trailed her hand over the wall in an almost unconscious motion. She crouched at one point to look at the floor a bit more closely, this was the only path from the entrance they used after all and if it was used there should have been trails. Suddenly, Rasa nipped at her heels and Saria fell completely silent, trying to listen for the noise that Rasa had heard. Signaling Alastor, Saria crept further with Rasa right on her heels. She was hearing human voices, and not the ones that she associated with Gwyn and Tyrone, no this was a female voice.
Alastor stopped when Saria signaled to him, he listed. He could hear a female voice, so there really was someone here but whom and why would they even be here? Toto had stopped too when he saw the humans and the other pokémon be absolutely still while the listened. He poked Saria and signaled for her to follow him back the way they’d come, they needed to plan things now that they knew there were someone here. “I think is best to wait for the other since Gwyn’s partner is a shuppet maybe it can scout a bit for us.” Alastor whispered once they’d moved back a little, still listening in case the voice would come closer. “I just hope is really nothing but that’s probably too much to hope for at this point considering they saw the need to send four of us.” Tyrone sighed not really looking forward to what they might find. The rounded a corner and Tyrone was surprised and a bit startled at first to see two people until he realized it were Saria and Alastor. “What the...” Tyrone didn’t get to finish his sentence before his colleagues signaled for him to keep it down. He looked questioning at them not knowing what was going on. “We’re not alone.” Alastor whispered to Gwyn and Tyrone pointing in the direction him and Saria had come from.
"Rasa alerted me that she heard voices up ahead and I could hear a female voice coming from the chamber with the holes in the floor." Saria relayed to the other rangers. She had no clue who it had been that spoke just a little while ago, nor had she been able to hear what they had been saying. "Gwyn, could you have your shuppet take a closer look?" She asked, knowing that Alastor had the perfect idea in order to gain more information. Gwyn nodded and gestured for Shuppet to go off in the direction that Saria and Alastor had come from. Saria bit on her lip As Shuppet approached the bend where Saria and Alastor had stopped, the little ghost type sank into the shadows with the help of his shadow sneak attack. He moved stealthily along the wall until he noticed two figures standing in the darkness. "Hurry up, you klutz. Master Ice wants to be finished today with the investigation. You dropping the equipment doesn't help." A shrill female voice cut across the space and Shuppet shivered. He watched as the two figures gathered things off the ground and placed them into a box. "Not my fault that one of those pesky Kirlia decided to teleport here and scare the crap outta me." The other figure spoke up as they straightened out, looking around conspicuously before they dropped down in one of the holes in the floor. Shuppet decided that he had probably seen enough and hurried back to her partner and the other humans. Gwyn noticed his partner come back first and he gave the ghost a small pat on the head. "Where the figures still there when you arrived?" Gwyn asked and got a nod in return. Saria took over from there. "How many people could you see?" She asked and in response, Shuppet hovered over Gwyn and then Alastor before hovering on the ground. "So two people. Are they still there?" Shuppet shook his head in response. "Can you show us where they went?" Gwyn interjected, and Shuppet nodded his head.
Shuppet lead the rangers to an area with two holes in the ground and just like Shuppet had confirmed from Saria’s questions there was no one there. “Okay only way they could have gotten would have been deeper in, but which hole did they take?” Tyrone looked from one hole to the other before looking at Shuppet, “You know which hole they went through right?” The ghost type nodded and went to hover over one of the holes to indicate which one the figures had taken. “Since there’s just two do we wait a bit so we don’t bump into them or do we just go in?” Tyrone asked his fellow rangers, he didn’t like this situation at all. “I’d say we go but maybe just one first, the one of us that’s best at sneaking and stay. Once they’ve made sure things are clear the rest of us can come down and if there should be trouble down there the rest of us cab quickly come to their aid.” Alastor was worried there could be more than two people below and it could spell trouble for the rangers if they ended up outnumbered. “But who’s good at being stealthy if we go that route? Not me that’s for sure, tracking yeah but stealth not so much, we’d also need to be careful in case there’s more than those two around or it could end badly for us.” Tyrone quickly added the last part sneaking had never been one of his talents. “I’m decent at it but before we think too hard about this, does anyone else have an idea on how to proceed?” Alastor got a look on his face like he was thinking.
Well, Saria here is probably the lightest on foot and with Rasa, she can probably track down those people fairly easily. Not to mention that she is pretty small in comparison to you guys," Gwyn offered, earning himself a soft slap on the arm, courtesy of the female herself. "It is true, you guys would probably make more noise than I do, not to mention that I have been involved in more than one stealth mission," Saria pulled a face as she remembered the missions she was talking about. They weren't the best missions you could be doing as a ranger, that is for sure. "So, I am going down into the hole with Rasa, and can I get Shuppet to go with me?" She asked Gwyn, who nodded figuring out quickly that she wanted Shuppet to be the messenger to told him and the guys that the coast was clear to go down the hole. "I will try to find the main base of operations, but if I get grabbed, Shuppet will immediately go back and lead you guys to my last known position?" She more asked than told the guys, her nerves showing a bit. The chances of getting caught were no unsubstantial this time.
