Down the drain we go

Mission Log

Entry: Three
Location: Rift City border
Mission: Help out!

    After enjoying the quiet activities at the Neuve City the leaders decided it was time to leave. It took us till evening to get back to Rift City but we made it! Honestly I didn't remember it to be that crooked. Seriously! I traveled a lot with my parents before but I never saw a city with buildings built under such angles...

---

'Ok, according to the map the Rift City should be in sight by now.' Sugar looked up from the chart she was holding for a moment. They got left behind after taking a much deserved afternoon nap.'Either that or we're just plain lost.' She was tired. Really tired. Russel kept on insisting that a regular old road is way too boring for two young aspiring adventurers so they had to go through the middle of the forest to get here. Of course, navigating through the woods wasn't easy because of the lack of other landmarks than trees and the fact that they forgot the compass.

'Maybe that's it?' He pointed one of his claws towards abunch of buildings wisible downhill. Most of them looked like they took quite a beating Others seemed like they just didn't want to stand straight.'It looks kind of different than when we got here before. Not in a good way too.'

She closed up her map. Her eyes widened and jaw dropped abruptly. 'WHAT IN BLAZES HAPPENED HERE?!' She screamed.

Russel took off his backpack and tried to find the Iceberg pamphlet they got when they signed up. 'It says here the ground city is is located on sometimes collapses creating sinkholes...' He scratched his head. 'What is a sinkhole anyway? Do they mean something like the drain?'

Sugar looked as confused as he was. 'No idea.' She glanced at the city. 'But I'm guessing you'd love to go and find out, wouldn't you.' When she looked back at the archen he was already moving forward.

'Come on slowpoke! If you won't start moving I'll leave you behind!'

---

    When we entered the city we finally found out what a sinkhole actually was! And let me tell you, it had nothing with a kitchen sink. Did you know it was actually a hole in the ground that could appear suddenly in the ground? I sure haven't! But the most exciting part was...

---

'WE'RE LATE?!' Their unified scream could be heared throughout the whole continent. 'What do you mean we're late to help out?!' They were standing at the Rift City plaza near the Iceberg roundup point where Tiva was managing things from a safe distance.

'Well, everyone's accounted for and we are finishing up with filling up the sinkholes.' The aipom pointed towards Jay pushing a rock almost as big as himself to help secure the nearby affected building. 'So there's really no need for any more help.'

Sugar and Russel frowned. 'I-is there realy nothing we can do?' Yelped archen. His eyes opened wider than ever begged for a chance to get out there and at least try.

Seeing this Sugar rolled here eyes. 'You heard the lady. We need to go back.' She grabbed him by the backpack he was wearing and started pulling him towards the way they came from.

Seeing their dissapointed faces Tiva let out a sigh. 'All right. All right.' She gave in. 'I guess you can do one last sweep of the place.' She reached out towards the nearby table and grabbed two helmets. 'Here.' She offered them to the team. 'They might just help you stay safe.' Tiva tilted back and balanced on her tail. 'We did secure most buildings but better safe than sorry!'

'You mean it?' Russel freed himself from Sugar's grasp and instanly strapped on his helmet.

'Sure, just finish before sundown.' Tiva tilted forward and hanged over archen's head. 'It would be a real problem if we had to look for you guys after dark where you could literally drown in sand.'

Hearing that a chill ran down Sugar's spine. She looked up. By the sun's current position they had maybe an hour and a half tops to get this job done. Running around the neighborhood to check if everything's in place seemed simple enough so she srugged her shoulders and mumbled. 'The things I do for money.' She walked up to Russel and grabbed him by his chest feathers. 'Ready?' She asked.

'Ready!' Said archen with comfidence.

'On three then.' She lowered her stance and tightned her grip. 'One... Two...'

'What are you doing?' Tiva tilted her big round head surprised at the team's weird behaviour.

Too concentrated on the task at hand they both yelled: 'THREE!' Sugar's muscles tightened as she used her Superpower move to launch Russel in the sky.

Tiva's jaw dropped.



The female bidoof looked at her partner who was now wisible as a small spot on the sky. 'Hey, I'm getting better at this.' She said with a certain amout of satisfaction. She turned towards Tiva whose current expression made her let out a snort.

The aipom looked back at her but still couldn't utter a word. She slowly pointed toward the gliding now archen.

'Yes, I should probably go after him. He tends to get himself into trouble.' Sugar rolled her eyes. Her sight landed on the table behind the long tail pokemon. 'Hey, may I borrow that rope?'

Tiva slowly nodded with her mouth still wide open.

'Thanks!' Sugar grabbed the rope and scampered after Russel.

---

    Sugar told me how Tiva's face looked like when she launched me into the sky. I wish I could have seen it. It sounded like we really threw her off. Oh well, untill a device to capture moments like that gets invented I guess I'm out of luck. But it wasn't a total waste. As I was soaring above the city I...

---

'Wohoooooooooo!' Screamed the archen gliding throughout the sky. 'This view is amazing~' He tilted slightly to the right to get a better view of the area affected byt the sinkholes. He noticed that most pokemon must have already left because the roads were practically empty.



'Nothing here.' He mumbled and turned to the other side trying to lift up his beak a little to stay airborn as long as he could. He looked down once more. 'Nothing more than empty streets.' He muttered to himself as he caught a warm upwind which pushed him up a few storeys. He looked again extenting his search area bit by bit. He kept circling around the city until finally he noticed something near the southern border of the city. It was a small wagon pulled by a ponyta. It was located real close to one of the smaller sinkholes just outside the city. Odly enough the cart wasn't moving. Russel decided to take a closer look. 'Finally something!' He chirped closed up his wings and dived right in.

'So what now are we going to do?' William asked his twin salandit brother. They were both sitting on a girder sticking out of a damaged building.

'How many times do I have to repeat myself?' Vincent snapped. They were having this conversation for the third time today. 'I told you, we need to join one of the guilds or we won't have any means to survive!'

The first salandit gave out a dissapointed sigh. 'I know, I know. But the city will need someone to repair this place. I mean it's all in crumbles. Maybe we should re-think...'

That was the last straw. Vincent stood up on the metal beam and bawled. 'I HATE THE IDEA OF WORKING FOR THE GULD!'

'Then... ' William tried to squeeze in a sentence but his furious brother kept on yelling and stomping on the girder.

'THEN WHAT?' He breathed heavily. 'YOU KNOW WE DON'T HAVE A CHOICE! WE'RE HAVE A DEBT TO PAY AND THE GUILDS PAY MORE THAN ANY NORMAL CONSTRUCTION CREW EVER WOULD. AND ANOTHER THING...'

Russel was gaining speed fast. Maybe too fast. He tried to straighten out his wings to slow down a little. 'No good.' He groaned. He was going way too fast. 'Maybe there's a good reason why archen are not able to fly.' He thought to himself as tears started flowing from his eyes because of the intense air pressure around him. His vision became blurry.

The younger salandit looked away from his brother. His attention was drawn towards a certain rapidly approaching object in the sky. 'Bro I think you should see this.' He said calmly but Vincent was still loudly explaining why they need the money. 'Bro...' He tried again with the same result. The falling object was dangerously close now. 'BROTHER WATCH OUT!'

Vincent finally moved around with a loud 'WHAT?' but it was too late. The falling archen swooshed right in between the twins making older one spin on the metal beam. Dizzy, he took two steps back mumbling someting  
incomprehensible. With every step he swayed dangerously to the edge of the girder.

'Brother no!' Vincent took that one wrong step and slipped of the beam. William reacted instantly. He extended his tail and grabbed his older brother by the ancle. He was safe. After letting out a sigh of relief he cursed the unidentified falling object shaking his fist at it but after looking around he realized the object was nowhere to be found.

---

    Yep, that was one heck of a fall. First I almost hit some innocent bystanders and then I almost knocked out the owner of that cart. He came out of the wagon to check out what was wrong and ended up standing right in my path. Luckily he managed to spot me in time and he knew the move Protect. He used it at the last minute too. When I slammed into the barier the move created the helmet Tiva lent me literally shattered into a milion pieces . It probably saved my life. It might have happend to my skull y'know. Anyway, after the protect barier crumbled I ended up knocking us right into the pit...

---

After spitting out the sand out of his mouth the weavile looked at the culprit of the situation he found himself into. It was a rather young archen currently trying to pick himself up only to sink deeper into the sand. He cleared his throat to get bird's attention. With his eyes filled with reproach he tried to ask as calmly as he could. 'Could you explain to me what were you trying to accomplish by pushing us down into this sinkhole?' Despite weavile's efforts his voice was full of irritation.

Hearing the stranger in front of him Russel stopped moving. He smiled nervously. 'I was gliding around trying to spot if anyone was still in need of assistance.' He pointed slightly to the sky and drew a few circles with his claw to picture the movement he was executing just a few moments ago. 'When I spotted your cart standing like thiat I thought maybe...'

'Gliding?!' Weavile's eyes widened in surprise. 'But you're an ARCHEN! You shouldn't even be able to get airborn not to mention glide!'

'Well you see, I had a little help with that from my partner.' Russel said with a hint of pride. 'She launched me into the sky using a move of hers and...'

'A partner you say.' Finally the older pokemon noticed the blue scarf hanging from the bird pokemon's neck. 'You're from a guild aren't you?'When the archen nodded he looked up expecting a pokemon to pop up any momentnear the pit's border. So is this partner of yours should be somewhere nearby, right?'

'Well... I'm sure she'll be looking for me.'Russel's voice shook a little. 'I just don't think how long will it take her.' He spread his arms in a gesture of helplesness.

Weavile tried to kill Russel with his gaze but the target was too distracted to notice. The archen looked up. Sugar was late. 'Maybe I've moved too fast for her to notice.' He thought trying very hard not to panic.



'So? Any alternative ideas on how to get out of this sand death trap?' Asked Weavile trying to point out the sand was slowly sucking them in.

Russel looked around and cursed in his mind. There was no vines or roots they could pull themselves up with and the only thing they were surrounded by was soft small grained sand. The walls of the sinkhole if you could even call them that were high and seemed unstable. There was no visible way of getting out of this place. He reached back and froze. He started to squirm around trying to locate that one thing that might have had the answer to this conundrum.

'What are you doing?' Weavile asked baffled.

'My backpack is gone!' He cried in a state of panic. 'It might have been the only thing to get us out of here but it's gone!' He kept looking around disrupting the sand all around himself. 'Where is it? Where!' He kept shouting. His eyes became watery. His voice cracked.

'Hey...' The sharp claw pokemon noticed if it continued much longer they would sink even faster. He looked up. The sun has almost set. His eyes went back to the archen. 'Hey kid. Try to calm down.' He tried to reason with him. Nothing. 'Stop that!' His throat tightened. As the bird was almost fully covered in sand. 'KID!' He shouted.

'Hey guys.' A familiar face appeared at the edge of the pit and smiled at them from above. 'Need any help?'

For a moment no one said a word. The two stuck pokemon just kept looking up trying to process the dramatic turn of events. 'SUGAR!' Suddenly archen cried out loudly. 'You came! I thought...' He spew some sand that somehow got into his beak. 'Aren't you a sight for sore eyes!' He quickly wiped off the tears. 'You're late!' Russel tried to act tough but his happy voice ruined the whole effect.

'Next time you try running through the whole city in only an hour. Then we'll talk.' Sugar backed away from the edge of the pit and looked around. She needed an anchor point for the rope she was carrying all this way. That's when she noticed the ponyta trying to get out of it's harness.

---

    Tying rope to mister Garrett's friend was really genious. Thanks to him and Sugar we were out of there in no time. We used the remining half an hour to sencirely apologise to mister Garrett and helped out with fixing his cart. It turned out it needed a new wheel. Luckily Sugar's carpenter skills came in real handy and she got a new wheel ready for them in no time. It was really amazing. I really don't know why she needs to prove herself to her mom. She's already plenty awesome.

After the wagon was fixed we parted ways with mister Garrett. He said he needed to go someplace important and he'd rather not waste any more time. In the end he didn't seem to hold any grudge against us. He said he was just happy no real damage was done. It was really cool of him.

Finally after a long walk back we were back at the meeting place for our guild. You can imagine how mad Tiva was at us when we came back all covered in sand. Seriously, I had it in places I didn't know I had. Anyway, she really chewed us out. And no wonder. I mean we returned after sunset, I ended up endangering a pokemon and almost drowned in sand. Only thanks to Sugar we got the tiniest reward for the given effort. She really is a great adventurer. If only she could see that herself...

---

'Hello~' Mister Garret turned around a familiar corner. He let out a sigh of relief seeing not the whole city was destroyed. 'I'm hooome.' He called a little louder. Suddenly a door oppened and a small figure jumped out right at him. He laughed warmly and opened his arms to catch and hug his daughter. 'I'm finaly here.'



'Welcome back dear.' A female figure appeared at the door.

'Yeah.' The weavile straigtened out and let his daughter to jump down. He climbed the few steps that stood between them touched gently her cheek just to give her an affectionate kiss.

The girl made a disgusted face and looked away for a moment while her parents kept throwing their feelings at eachother. That's when she noticed her father had something in his claws. When asked about it he said he'll explain everything after dinner.