Clay - Solo RP & Special Missions

Oh, great, he has to have decided to go ask a branch that tests you just to walk in. Clay sighs and concentrates on the rumble. That sound is familiar... it's a hard one to forget, when you hear it drumming up from under your feet. It shocked him like nobody's business the first time; his Infernape 'mom' had just laughed, and told him about the massive Pokémon that burrowed underground, eating up dirt and rocks and hollowing out the mountain. "It's a big rock snake thing. Uh... what was the human name... oh. Onix! It's Onix!"

Well, it's a good thing Clay's used to this. He thinks a lot of humans would find it a little claustrophobic, even as big as the place is - but then again, you probably have to be pretty hardy to make it in the Rock Branch. Now, the question is where the heck to find somebody he can talk to... The problem with picking Rock Branch is that Rock-type Pokémon are liable to have different priorities for survival than squishy organics like him. So, time to try and find a human.

First of all he'd probably have to see them. He calls out Fan to let the flame on the end of her tail illuminate the cavernous room as he strikes out toward the nearest human. "Hey there! Name's Clay. I was thinking about making a trip out to the mountains soon, and I was wondering if I could find anybody who knew the area out there."

"Okay, okay... douse it a little, huh, sis?" Fan's flame dims as Clay shakes his head. "Sorry, I didn't wanna step on somebody. I know it ticks off Geodude and I don't really want to test it with everybody else."

His brow furrows as the guy he's found asks for specifics. "That's... a good question. Uh. Which one's the Indigo Range?"

"Ohh, those mountains. I didn't know any humans lived out there at all." Clay remembers seeing them off in the distance, when he was high enough to see over the Moon range peaks. "Honestly, what I'm actually looking to find is Fighting-types. It's surprisingly hard to find 'em around here, for some reason. But I figured it'd be good to find somebody who knew the lay of the land before I, like, mounted an expedition. I know the Moon range pretty well, I was looking to go somewhere new... maybe southeast would be better, though. How far is it to get to the mountains that way? Do you just have to follow the beach?"

Clay doesn't remember having seen mountains southeast of here, but then he's really only gone as far east as the swamp (and good luck seeing anything from there) and straight south to the coast. He has to admit he's not wild about riding on birds, either. "... There are birds big enough to ride on? That's kinda scary enough on its own."

"Geez, all the mountains I haven't been to are so far away... I can't be running out of new places to see already," Clay murmurs to himself. But the mention of the canyons to the northeast perks him up. "Now there's an idea. I think I've seen it, even, off on the horizon. My attention was kinda on Cerulean at the time, but that sounds like exactly what I'm looking for, thanks!"

He cocks an eyebrow at the rumor about giant Pokémon in the canyon. But, well, that was why he'd gone looking for someone who might know the territory. "Thanks for the tip. Guess I'll have to try and stay under their radar. I'm probably too scrawny to make a good meal for something that big, anyway." At least he can joke about his own height. "Anything else around that area I should look out for?"

Clay chuckles. "Those I have some experience with. Like I said, I've been around Mt. Moon before, I know not to step on the Geodude." Plus, y'know, the martial arts, but bragging about breaking rocks in the Rock Branch is probably not exactly polite. "I've gotten a couple of crash courses in knowing when I'm in over my head, since I joined the Guild. If I run into something too big to deal with, I can scram."

"Yeah, well... I learned it the hard way, a couple of times. Got out of it with my hide intact, at least." Though he rubs a patch on his arm that might still have a scar from where Ashley burned him last week. "Unless there's anything else special you think I oughta know about the canyon, I think that's it. You've been a big help, thanks. Sorry about the light thing. If you ever need a favor, the name's Clay. I'm over next door in Fighting Branch."

Oh, right. The whole Aura vision thing. Maybe Clay ought to remember his instructor is empathic, in both the sense of being able to read his emotions and actually caring what said emotions are. "... That bad, huh? A couple of my friends are having problems, so that's probably some of it. And there was the nightmare that woke me up this morning. I did talk to somebody about that. It's, uh..."

He rubs his neck as he searches for a way to put this that doesn't sound like he's either overreacting or outright delusional. He lowers his voice. "Okay. I'm not gonna say the dream thing isn't serious, because I'm pretty sure it is. My friends and I have been getting these nightmares. All of us get the same one. We talked to the Psychic Branch boss about it this morning - Rei's idea, I didn't just bother her out of the blue - and she thinks we're being sent some sort of messages. I dunno if that would mess with my Aura on its own or if it's just because they're really nasty dreams."

Clay fidgets with the hem of his tunic, debating with himself whether to go into the details. Instructor Mason seems like a pretty level-headed guy, at least as far as Clay's known him, but spreading around things like this seems like a good way to cause trouble, and he's a little more conscious of that after Rei's breakdown yesterday, even just getting it secondhand. And the more people they tell, the higher the chances it will get to someone with less discretion. For a start, he's sure that if Instructor Mason takes this seriously the Master's going to hear about it, too. "I don't think I should get detailed about it right now. Like I said, we told Miss Velaross the whole story, I guess if you want to know you can ask her. She wants to set up a psychic link thingy that will let her know the next time it happens and... track it back to its den, I guess? To be honest I'm not real keen on having somebody riding along in my head all the time, either, but I think being kinda weirded out is better than... well, than if what happened in the dreams happened for real."

He takes a deep breath. "So yeah. It's some of all of those, I guess. That's it unless you really want to hear about how bad my friends are at this dating thing."

"Sounds like a plan to me!" He's already a little relieved that Instructor Mason seems to trust his and his friends' judgment so far. And also that the psychic link plan doesn't seem to have met with a horrified reaction; he figures that means it's probably not a terrible mistake. And sparring always does help him relax, and gives him something better to focus on than worrying about the mess of yesterday and last night. He wants to give things a little more thought, but being stuck dwelling on them isn't the best thing, so for now, at least, he'll concentrate on training.