[Fin] Earthshaking revelations

[BlackFireKitsune]

Isaac said with a pleased smile, but a confused frown replaced it soon enough. he added, his pleased smile returning.

"Oh, yeah, that thing," Abel said with a nod of his head. "Missed a few days of work because of that." Unfortunately. The suggestion that the egg had caused headaches gave him pause, and a confused expression crossed his face for a few moments. "It causes headaches? Huh... How close to the thing d'you have to be for it to give you a headache? Oh," he waved a hand dismissively at his own question, "I'm glad your headache's gone finally. Was that all it gave you - just a headache?"  

[TawnyAngel]

Dith shrugged expressively. "It's the only theory that seems to fit the facts, people who were close to it a lot get them. I don't really know how close you have to be though, I expect there's information out there by now but I haven't really been paying attention I'm afraid; with my time off work when I haven't been up near the egg I've been training with my team." It still didn't feel like enough, or maybe it didn't feel real enough? There really wasn't any adequate way to prepare for people who were actually quite happy to kill you if you tried to stop them doing what they wanted to do.

"Oh, sorry," Dith gave himself a mental shake and smiled down at Abel as he recalled the other question. "I just went off into my own little world there, yes nothing else seems to have happened to me. Ha, I half wonder if I should get my brain scanned but MRI machines freak me out and plus they give you a headache with the dur-dur-dur-dur-dur-dur noise they make!"

Viktor pondered, looking up at the pair of humans speculatively.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Huh..." Abel frowned thoughtfully as he carefully stepped over a rather large rock. "I've had this really obnoxious headache for a while too. Maybe it's related? I dunno, I'll have to look into it later; I haven't been paying attention to it either. If I have the time," he added with another frown. Dith's long pause merely earned a smile. "Nah, no worries - but that's good, I'm glad you just had the headache that's already gone. Can't say I know exactly what an MRI is - or does - but I assume it's got something to do with scanning your head," the blond hazarded. He didn't spend much time in hospitals or thinking much about them.

the colorful Espeon agreed, his voice thoughtful as he hopped over the rock Abel had easily stepped over, then looked up to the pair of humans as well.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Hu, well it could be," Dith replied with a faint frown of concern. "I mean, it could be... spreading? I don't know. But yes, well, you can scan anything with it; MRI is magnetic resonance imaging, it is a scan that uses magnetic fields and radio waves to make very detailed images of whatever body part that can diagnose all sorts of stuff. Very useful, but you have to lie inside a tiny loud tube," Dith pulled a face that clearly illustrated his distaste for the aforementioned. "I've not needed one ever myself, so I've not lain in one when it's on, but I went down when it wasn't being used - this is years ago now - to see what it was like to lie in it. Cramped! But then lots of things are cramped for me."

...Ooooh, had he just rambled about boring stuff? Possibly, but he suspected that Abel would forgive him if he had. Still, other topics of conversation were probably good to shift to unless Abel actually showed interest in the random babble.

Viktor flicked his tail in a shrug.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Spreading? "That sounds, uhh... Disconcerting," Abel finished with yet another frown. Spreading headaches... What else would it spread? Had that Groudon unleashed some sort of toxic disease on them or something? He certainly hoped not. Well, no one had died yet - that he knew of, anyway - so he opted not to worry about it just yet.

He listened with some interest to the explanation of the machine. While he was rather indifferent about machinery like that, it was at least interesting to hear the purpose and how it worked - especially since he hadn't gone into all kinds of fine details. "Yeahh, no, I don't think I'd care for that much either," he said with a brief laugh. "I don't particularly care for small cramped places. Makes you feel kind of trapped." That was an unfortunately all too familiar feeling lately, even if the confines he'd found himself in weren't physical - but he didn't want to think about that now.

Isaac agreed with a nod.  

[TawnyAngel]

"Exactly," Dith agreed with feeling, "I am no fan of small spaces I can't leave. Hehe, still it's good for me to take the stairs right? And, well, I suppose so long as there are no long term side effects it's not a problem? It might hurt the tourist trade around the city though, if visitors find themselves with headaches!" The last thing a small scenic island needed was its tourist trade shooting in the foot but what could you do? Perhaps the egg would be enough of a draw to the right kind of person to balance things out in any case.

As they came to a fork in the path Dith slowed and made a thoughtful noise. "Left or right? Left I think goes towards caverns, right leads upwards. Do you have a preference?" He didn't know if Abel might be afraid of caves or possibly of heights so asking the question would let his companion avoid either if he wanted to but without actually having to admit to any discomfort. Abel didn't really seem like the uptight sort of guy who was so worried about his guyness that he didn't like admitting to fear but still, it felt more tactful.

Viktor agreed,  

[BlackFireKitsune]

"Same here," Abel agreed wholeheartedly with a nod. "It isn't so bad if you can leave them, like elevators, but if you're stuck then that's just awful. No thanks. Tourists?" The blond remained silent a few moments while he mulled it over. Yeah, that did sound it like might deter tourists from staying very long, though it also sounded like it had the potential to bring more to the island, depending on if it was their sort of thing or not. "I dunno, some might be interested in seeing the egg or whatever it is, so there might be more tourists instead of less, maybe," he suggested with a shrug. Tourism really wasn't his business and so wasn't generally something he paid very much attention to.

He slowed to a halt beside the taller man when he stopped as well, and his bright gaze swept across both paths. Unaware of Dith's good intentions that he would've appreciated had he known about them, Abel merely shrugged, appreciating the brief break. "Either one is fine with me," he said simply, not appearing as if one made him more anxious than the other, "it's your adventure, remember? I'm just along for the ride."

the colorful Espeon said, he agreed, a thoughtful look crossing his face as he stopped behind the pair of humans while they deliberated over which path to follow next. He was starting to really wish he knew more about this.. it was quite curious.  

[TawnyAngel]

Viktor replied,

"Up then," Dith said with a nod, turning to the path that led that way. "And yes, I suppose so. It's unique right? A lot of pokemon fanatics would probably put up with a headache in order to see it."

A little further up the path the earth shifted slightly and there was a quiet creaking, groaning sort of a noise like rock moving gently against more rock.

Dith paused, frowned, and looked to Abel. "Hey, did you see that?" It hadn't been his imagination, he was sure, but everything was still again now. "Was that a pokemon?" If so, great! Dith checked his pokeballs just in case whatever it was turned out to be hostile.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Isaac said with a light frown, Hum. As long as it didn't harm anyone, that was all that really mattered.

"All right," the blond agreed easily, only a little disappointed when the break ended and Dith continued walking. Either he was out of shape, or his bad smoking habits were catching up with him, because he was growing tired far quicker than he anticipated he would. "Yeah, as far as I know it's completely unique - I expect there'll be a lot more researchers and the like coming here to check it out."

Man, was he really this out of shape? Or maybe it really was because he'd been smoking more lately... Either way, Abel was too caught up in his thoughts of his poor health - brought on by his own bad habits, of course - to hear the soft noises Dith heard or see whatever it was he saw. He did, however, hear the older man speak and saw him halt once more, so he gratefully complied and stopped as well. "No, I didn't see anything," he said with a shake of his head, sounding only a little out of breath as he moved to lean against a rather large rock - or small boulder, whichever; he didn't care about semantics at the moment - nearby, and exhaled. It was a terrible thing that he wanted to stop for a smoke break in the middle of their excursion. "What did it look like?"

While Isaac had heard the noise, unlike his trainer, he hadn't seen anything, but instead of focusing on the unknown, the Espeon offered a polite to Viktor so he could trot over to Abel and peer up at him with a mixture of concern and reproach. "Prreon?" Abel simply waved away the psychic-type's concern, but didn't miss the displeased look. Smoking habits were hard to break - Isaac should've learned that by now.  

[TawnyAngel]

Viktor paused, ears twitching as his trainer commented on the strange sound. Blast! He had been focused too much on his own conversation, he hadn't noticed anything.

Dith looked around with a frown knitting his brows. "I... I'm not sure," he replied with a shake of his head. "I just saw movement and heard something nearby. It-"

The boulder Abel was leaning against started to move. It lifted upward slowly with a creaking groan, and as it rose the dirt alongside the track began to shift and then fell away as more rocks lifted themselves into the air. A little way ahead of the group what had looked like some kind of rustic sundial sculpture turned out to be a horn, attached to a very large head.

The Onix turned its gaze down onto the humans and their pokemon companions and let out a bass grumble that sounded like boulders tumbling over one another in a landslide.

Dith stared upward and completely failed to think of anything to say other than; "Gah?"  

[BlackFireKitsune]

A frown crossed Abel's face as he considered Dith's words. Movement nearby... Given their current location, it was probably safe to assume it was a pokemon, but what kind? Was it friendly or hostile? Maybe it--

The boulder he'd been leaning on shifted and he suddenly found himself flailing to remain upright, but he failed and flopped backwards onto his back, causing Isaac to tense and cry out in alarm. Sudden unexpected and potentially dangerous movement would normally be cause to pull out his gun, but they were in the middle of nature, and rocks shifting immediately brought to mind rockslides. Guns were very ineffective against those. Was this a rockslide?

This rapid-fire train of thought ended when he realized just what he was staring up at; the same boulder he'd been leaning on, floating above his head. Isaac was there, tugging at his sleeve, as Abel rolled and pushed himself to his feet. On his way up he snatched the little psychic-type off the ground and stumbled backwards to get away from the moving rocks - he wasn't about let himself or his best friend to get crushed - but then logic and reason kicked in, because rocks didn't just suddenly start floating in midair. The wheels in his head started turning and he stared wide-eyed at the anomaly, his colorful eyes following it around up to the end, to the large pointed rock at the top and the eyes and the dark mouth that looked like the deepest parts of a cavern that could swallow them whole.

Similar to Dith, Abel could think of only one thing to say to sum up the situation: "s**t."  

[TawnyAngel]

That was big. That was really big. Dith backed up a few paces, trying to keep all of the rock snake in his field of vision but that was kind of hard given how limited said field was. As he tried to take another step back Dith bumped into something and looked quickly over to see what it had been. It was the end of the Onix's tail, now curled around behind them. If it decided to take a swipe at them.... Dith tried to work out which way it would be best to jump.

Viktor backed up along with his trainer, ears set back and fur standing on end. <> he called up at the distant, enormous rocky head. <> Could he win a fight against the huge pokemon? Probably, but he wasn't sure he could do it before somebody got squashed.

The Onix made another gravelly noise and lowered its head until it was more or less on eye level with the group.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

A giant rock-snake. There was a giant snake made of rock sitting-- standing-- whatever right in front of them, just watching them. Abel suddenly felt quite like a rat cornered by a cat. Trapped between - literally - a rock and a hard place. A snake made of rocks. Seriously?

Something in the back of his mind told him this was just a pokemon and could be dealt with like any other pokemon, but said feeling in the back of his mind was almost entirely smothered by the overwhelming feeling of holy crap we're trapped by a giant rock-snake.

"So uh," the blond started quietly as he licked his suddenly dry lips to wet them, and he leaned a little closer to Dith to better project his whispering voice, "what d'we do?" While he had been learning more about pokemon and battling and training, he had yet to learn how to handle a giant pokemon that might want to eat you. For some reason that important subject hadn't been covered in anything he'd read or learned.  

[TawnyAngel]

What did they do? "Well.... It's not being hostile at the moment," Dith replied in a similar whisper. "Uh.... So let's try not to aggravate it. I'll ask Viktor to try to get its attention and encourage it away from us." With this said he crouched beside his Espeon and whispered urgently to him in Russian.

Viktor nodded, turned, and sprang over the nearest coil of rock. Landing outside the circle of tail trotted quickly around it until he was on the other side of it. <without hitting them I would appreciate it.>> Viktor's tail twitched as he spoke and he started to draw together power, just in case.

<> The Onix gazed down at Viktor and then turned its head to look at Dith and Abel again. <> it gravelled, <>

When the Onix started speaking Dith's eye widened, his face went stark white and he took in a sharp breath of shock. What-? What had-? What-? A voice, speaking! Heart racing and mouth gone dry he turned to look down at Abel. "Did... did you hear that?"  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Abel and Isaac both watched, tense and uncertain, as Viktor hopped around the Onix and went to go speak to it, and the blond winced again at the gravely noises the larger pokemon made. What did it want? It didn't want to eat them, did it? ...did it even eat meat? It'd make more sense for a rocky pokemon to eat, well, more rocks, right?

He didn't have anywhere near the reaction Dith had, but he nodded just the same. "Yeah," he agreed in a whisper, his gaze sweeping slowly across the entirety of the Onix just in case any part of it made any sudden moves. "It sounds like rocks grinding together, almost kind of like a methodical rockslide or something." He was quite used to his pokemon actually sounding like they were trying to speak - in their own ways, of course - but that just sounded like... like unintelligible noise. Hopefully Viktor would reason with it and encourage it to leave them unharmed.