Chilling Heights - [ Red & Steven ]
Crimson eyes watched Steven carefully, analyzing his actions as Ferrous fell. Before the bird could crash into the ground, his opponent had recalled him into his pokeball; though Red made no reaction, he found himself approving of Steven more and more. Subtle actions like that were telling of kindness, and though there was always a chance he was wrong, the ravenet still believed that Steven was a good person.
As soon as Steven’s next pokemon appeared on the field, though, Red’s eyes glittered with curiosity. He’d never seen that pokemon before, so he assumed it was safe to guess that it- and most likely Steven, too- was foreign. Either way, it dwarfed Pika size-wise, but moved slowly, like something ancient, and the gears in the phantom champion’s head began to grind. Based on its looks as well as the fact that Pika was its opponent, Red guessed that it was at least partially a ground type.
The hail was beginning to become a bother- even more so that usual- and the Kanto trainer cast a quick glance at the sky. Though it always looked stormy, every once in a long while, it looked just a bit grayer- like this- and the weather would become bad fast.
Before Steven even called out his command, Red had exchanged looks with Pika, and the electrical mouse nodded back at him. With one swift jump, he landed on the rocks that floated dangerously in the air; when Quartz began his attack, Pika launched himself backwards in an attempt to avoid a majority of the damage. With the nature of the attack, though, it was near impossible, and the mouse grimaced before pushing forward. He returned to Red’s shoulder, tired, then nuzzled him. Red patted his partner affectionately before returning his gaze to Steven.
After a moment, the phantom champion bowed his head in apology, pointed up at the sky, then turned to walk towards his cave. He took a few steps, light and graceful, used to the snowy terrain, then glanced over his shoulder. Gloved hands beckoned once for the steel-type champion to follow, then Red continued forward.
Steven felt something was off. While he was not entirely used to hail as a matter of location, being from Hoenn, it felt like it was getting a bit too harsh, visibility a bit too low.
Pika and Red shared a look, that he saw fairly easily, and as the phantom champion pointed at the sky, the steel-type specialist soon realized why. His Claydol spun in place, turning its various eyes at him from where it could, and he gave his partner a smile. "Spin these out, we're going inside." He said, quietly.
The Claydol spun, tossing the rocks his Skarmory had helped set earlier away, and was soon returned to its Pokeball before the hail could do more damage to it.
As best as he could, Steven followed after Red, fumbling a little on the way. He was definitely not used to snow itself, but harsh conditions was something any trainer would eventually grow used to, all things considered.
Mountains had finicky weather, especially those as big as this one, it made him smile fondly in spite of the hazardous weather. Once inside, he sighed and swept off some snow and hail off his shoulders. Ah well, he liked it inside the caverns best.
"Good call, that was definitely weather we didn't want to be in." Carefully, he checked his Pokeballs for damage, relieved to find none had been hit too harshly by the falling ice chunks.
