@Neon - I'm glad you liked the music! >v< And Chiffon is bets butterball.

@Pillow - Am I not allowed to even try at humor Pillowcase? </3

@Aurea - I already did words about all the uguu I want to shower on you. ;v; And I need to finish catching up with Impulse flaskjdflskdjflsdkjfsfd

@Bullet - I still want those notes off your friends' forehead man. :V

@Erzz - You commented intelligently beforehand? :U Jk thanks again Erzz.

The grass was wet and scratched at her ankles and her knees, and it was tall enough to press against her dress. A bit annoying, if she actually paid attention to it after all this time.

She was lost, thinking about nothing, the noise in the woods making up for her silence two fold. It’d been drilled into her head to ignore the odd yips or hoots, to ignore the shaking bushes if you ever happened across one. Just some backwood Johtonian ambience, a little bit of night music. No time for it though, and no desire for it anyways.

No, she still had to keep walking, point A to point B. Good question on where point B was though.

Who knows how long she’d been walking through these weeds, but as long as she didn’t try to go swimming across the river on the east edge or go breaking into the school or something, she wouldn’t get in too much trouble with her mother. Probably.

Although the girl might have made that null and void the moment she slipped through the hole in the chain-link fence, having pretended not to have seen the large white sign with a yellow triangle and the words “NO TRESPASSING” in black letters big enough for a blind man to see.

Insignificant details, really.

---

When you’ve created a formula to estimate how much it costs to make a statue dedicated to a five-foot-tall stick figure with a large deformed head that probably should make it physically impossible to stand upright and a face only a mother could love, you tend to feel a bit more supported in your arguments against them.

If Loli’s estimations were correct, every single bronze statue in this swaying pillar of motion sickness and oh-god-that-better-be-a-rat was worth at least half a house. And there had to be at least eighty of them on the first two floors. And from the outside itself you could easily see almost eight rows of windows, one to a floor.

Smarmy rich bastards and their ability to afford this all.

With bated breath, the young woman grimaced as she slowly, slowly put her foot down on the piece of wooden floor in front of her. The moonlight poured in from the left of the hall, the square shaped patterns on the bars offering an odd sort of camouflage pattern all over her body. She had to wonder how it got to the point where she was breaking into a sacred area made from a Bellsprout for an area catch that chances are could be a common attic rat.

Morty had to be the devil; probably did this for sick kicks. (Honestly so would she in that position but besides the point.) But worse, Loli - what was wrong with her - went along with it.

Maybe because that freaky-eyed demon never told her that the tower was closed to the public at night. It was only through some tip-toeing and clandestine maneuvers last brought up during her escape act that she managed to sneak through the monks ambling about with their lanterns swinging as they patrolled. However even they became more sparse the more stairs she crawled...

’Gently... Gently...’

Silence resulted, and the air in her lungs burst out all at once in relief and oh hey okay so maybe it was just a faulty few steps near the entrance and-

CRRRRRRRRACK!

Oh, Suicune’s balls-

The trainer could only feel air under her foot and not the solid wood flooring she so desperately desired, and it was all Loli could do to spring forward in a last ditch attempt and throw herself against one of the statues and try not to fall through the floor.

She was now very grateful that the ability to be quick on her feet was punched into her skull (and her arms and her legs and her everything) at this time. So very, very grateful.

’How can these things even support the weight of all these statues...?!’ If she could have, Loli would have forced down the bewildered express. But since her arms were currently occupied clinging onto a metal beansprout like a sloth on a branch, the girl could do no such thing.

’Well hey... what you are in the dark and all that...’

Getting a vice grip on the statue, and with her cheek smooshed against the Bellsprout head, the metal cool to the touch in the breezy night, the trainer had to admit that these statues were pretty well crafted, all things considered. Hollow, yet sturdy. Pip-pip a Hoppip for the good sir who designed them, you better have been paid per statue.

Giving a slow countdown from ten, the teen slowly loosened her grip warily on the statue and automatically flinched the second her foot touched the wooden floor again.

As she forced her body to calm down again, taking deep drawn out breaths, the blue-eyed trainer couldn’t help but feel how ridiculous the whole situation really was. All she wanted was a catch, darn it. ’Was that too much to ask for?’ She scowled, brushing the bangs out of her eyes.

Face drawn, she shuffled back over to the spot she lost her footing, waving a toe over the solid and intact ground. She wasn’t sure what the cause of it was, and frankly, she was starting to not care. She just needed her catch so she could just get out and visit in daylight hours. Alive.

Finding the stairs to go up seemed to be easy enough, but no matter which way she walked she could never seem to find them again to go down. There couldn’t be that many twists and corners in such a place, it just couldn’t be possible. Probably. Should it be...?

’Morty, you could work at soup kitchens and rescue Meowth kits on a regular basis and I still would not have any regrets for what I would do when this is over...’

So obviously, the tip-toe method to get through this place wasn’t going work. And if that didn’t work...

’Charge through and don’t look back!’ rung through her head, a man’s rough voice calling out the familiar phrase and she could hear the smirk he would have while he said it.

Absolutely stupid, but well... she had nothing left to lose. (Except her life. And Chiffon. And Gerard. And Valentine and oh for Pidgey’s sake-)

Loli licked her lips one last time, bent her knees only slightly awkwardly as she was still perched on the edges of the statue, and jumped and don’t look back and don’t look back-

She was actually doing pretty fine and the floor wasn’t collapsing on her, and there was no reason to complain as long as her sneakers made noise on the wood. That was, until she hit a snag when she turned the corner-

“WATCH IT!”

All the air was knocked out of her in one fell swoop as she hit the ground, and the only thought gracing her mind was that she better not have tackled one of the monks.

“Watch where you’re going you stupid- Oh for Fearow’s sake, not you again.”

Thankfully it wasn’t one of the monks. Sadly, she wasn’t that much better off.

Stars swimming behind her eyes, Loli blinked and couldn’t believe she could still see how red his hair was even in the moonlight.

“Likewise,” she replied after a moment, her words flat but her pitch normal. The Totodile thief knew her deal, and unless she ended up screaming to heavens, there was no point in coughing up blood for it. “Don’t tell me you’re here to steal some more Pokemon now, I already covered your ass for the cops today.”

They both hadn’t moved off the floor, but rather shifted into sitting positions as Silver rubbed his jaw and “Loki” tried to force his headache away with a massage to the temples. The moonlight was still being poured from the windows that covered all four sides of the tower, and the small moment of rest allowed her to appreciate the small details poured into the monument.

From the small leaves etched on the crowning to the little enclaves on the inner walls containing painted figures of various grass types, from the Hoppip to the Bellsprout to even Celebi. (The brunette was pretty sure she even saw Landorus, even though that was more Cherrygrove and Ecruteak’s deal.) Things to keep her focused on something that wasn’t just bouncing around in her head, something she could touch, essentially.

“What I am doing is none of you concern,” he ground out, tone as lovely as ever. (Stay peachy, kid.) “The hell are you doing here at this time of night, actually?”

With raised eyebrows, she merely repeated him. “What I am doing is none of your concern.”

This only resulted in a staring match between the two, before Loli realized that hey- they weren’t supposed to be here and they could be caught at any moment if they didn’t drop the pleasantries.

Breaking off the glaring contest, she began to stand up and tried her hardest to ignore the swaying as she did. “Whatever. I don’t care anymore, I’m tired, I’m filthy even though I just took a shower just before left, and I just want to get out of here.” A cough was muffled by her gloves. “Forget the catch for this place.”

“If it were that easy I wouldn’t have crashed into you again. Our meeting this morning was more than enough contact for a lifetime.” With a grunt, Silver also pushed himself up and placed a hand on the inner wall. “I’ve been circling these floors for who knows how long.”

The little weight in her stomach began to gather itself again. “...What?” The trainer asked dumbly, limbs loose and her stance lagging.

“What do you think I do, walk around a Bellsprout carcass for shits and giggles?” The tower jerked a bit to the left and he leaned with it. “No, of course not. Hah - that’s what stealing Totodiles is for.”

Somehow the crossdresser scraped up enough pieces of her former self to just give a stare that could only possibly give the message “are you fucking serious.” Silver ignored it.

“I... actually managed to catch one,” he said after the swaying turned back to normal, and pulled out a Pokeball for proof. “But it hardly put a dent in things at all. You can see the purple can't you?” And it was true, little bits of indigo danced in the corner of her eyes, no matter where she looked. The lost trespasser had just passed it off as the lighting.

His words sunk in like a poison fang to the gut, and it was all she could do to not grab him by the collar and send them both tumbling down to knock some good old fashioned sense into the both of them.

“...What do you mean catch one? Pokemon?!” Loli hissed, eyes narrowed so much you could have cast her off as backwoods Kantonian. “What the hell is going on, Silver?!”

“I assume you can speak basic Johtonian, bitch!” Silver snapped. “Friggin’ Gastly of all things, the place is infested!” Apparently he was the kind of guy who used exaggerated gestures when he talked. Go figure.

“Gas...tly?” the girl echoed, hollow, before firing up again lickety-split and shouting, “What are Gastly doing in a religious tower?!”

“How should I know?!” the other cried, arms held up in front of him. “I couldn’t even see it until my Totodile hit one with his last Water Gun!”

At this point in time Loli was almost hysterical enough to point out that it really wasn’t “his.” Almost.

Man, she really wanted her shower right about now.

“Ghosts in the tower explains so much but I can’t use a Cyndaquil in a tower made out of Bellsprout innards and...” The trainer ran her hands down her face.

The pale boy stared. “...And? Wouldn’t you have caught more Pokemon by now?” His voice grew astonished. “You don’t suck that bad do you?”

She peeked through the gaps in her fingers and whispered. “...They only know Normal or Bug moves.” At the words, the redhead looked like he was ready to curse up another storm and Loli wouldn’t have blamed him. Hell, she’d throw in some too for good measure.

But then the gods must have wiped the tears of laughter from their eyes and decided to drop her a crumb of pity, since the little lightbulb in her head decided to flicker on for once this night, and she was suddenly very aware of the weight of the little red machine in her pocket.

The girl tuned out Silver’s mutterings, staying silent as she took the machine out, flipped it open, and pressing the camera button.

“...What are you doing.” The ginger mumbled quietly, his tirade rolling to a stop and his eyes frozen on the object in the trainer’s hands.

She held the Pokedex up, to the left and down the hall. Nothing odd seemed to be on the screen but...

“...Gastly are Pokemon aren’t they?” she whispered, hoping she wasn’t stuck with someone dumb enough to answer a rhetorical question.

“We have nothing to lose.” Loli clicked the shutter, and when something actually loaded even Silver's eyes were glued to the screen in awe. The screen shone on both of their faces, blues and whites from both sides of the spectrum overlaying the two. The only noise surrounding them was the trees rustling outside and the creaking of the tower as it swayed from side to side. It was simply too high up to hear any Pokemon cries from the woods outside though, and the girl couldn’t tell if that made things better or worse to help her with this headache. (And that odd high-pitched laugh she could hear from time to time? She’d just chalk it up to hysterical anger.)

The dark blue bar finally filled up all the way, and it showed a goofy thing that looked like it belonged in a picture book, what with the exaggerated eyes and mouth.

“With its gas-like body, it can sneak into any place it desires. However, it can be blown away by wind.”

And then the girl snorted because seriously, that's the thing that was messing with her the whole time? How silly, she’d gotten soft.

It seemed to do the trick however, for when the last syllable was uttered, the purple sneaked around the edges of Loli's vision, more intense than ever before - it’s time to play come out come out - and it was twisting and swirling right in front of the two into something that probably shouldn’t exist.

The small opening of laughter and relief she had was sucked in by the blob in a matter of seconds.