Route 4; There's always a light. [Prussia+Open]

[South Italy]

Holy crap, he actually made it past that creepy lake?!

Romano had traveled for a while now and recently passed Miina city. The lake they had there was the creepiest lake he had ever seen and the biggest mindfuck ever. The Italian couldn't push past that, because it was! Even his stupid charmander saw it, and that thing wasn't all to bright, Romano was sure of the fact the little creature wasn't.

But whatever, he and Lucciola made it past the city and were well on their way going down route 4. He realized how strange it was that he hadn't run into anyone anymore after a brief encounter with his brother and two others...who were they again? And what the hell had they done? Romano's memory failed him on that so it couldn't have been important.

And then the Pokemon, he hadn't even managed to catch one of those forsaken bastards, aside from Lucciola, and he wasn't sure how much of a achievement that was. (He didn't really catch it either, the thing had saved him and stalked the boy ever since. And yes, he did claim the only poke-ball Romano had been carrying at that time.) His displeasure was clear on his face as the Italian stomped down the forest path, his chamander happily following.

They did had some battles with wild Pokemon, because Romano was eager to gather a few, yet every encounter either ended with Lucciola being to strong or to distracted to carry on. So here he was, stomping down a path expression his anger with a, now rather scared, charmander as slow as a slowpoke following and with no other Pokemon on his team as of yet.

The Italian failed at this, his idiot little brother probably would have caught at least 1 Pokemon by now, hell, even that dense Spaniard would have. These thoughts made the Italian rather upset, if anything.

"I'll proof these jerks I can do this," he muttered to himself, completely lost in thought, that was until Lucciola bumped into him. Nothing unusual, Romano had learned to ignore it, but that did not make him any less annoyed. "Dammit, why can't you look out for a moment?!" Romano snapped at the orange creature, who, before he knew it suddenly ran off.

Shit, did he upset him?

There was a brief moment of panic that came over him when he saw the lizard like creature run into a cave. (just around Narbey) That moronic Pokemon wasn't smart enough to stay on it's own, and Romano was just a bit to paranoid to stay on his own as well.

"God dammit Lucciola, get back here!" there was panic in his voice as he screamed, quickly running into the cave, following the light of the flame. He didn't like admitting it but he did not want Lucciola to get lost. It might be a stupid Pokemon, but he was still Romano's Pokemon!

[prussia]

Gilbert was sitting in a cave. Yes…dark, dull and really, really labyrinth-like cave. He hated the cave. So much! There had been nothing but trouble from it from the very start. He had been perfectly fine before entering it, but little did he know how awful cave it was. This kind of cave didn’t deserve the fabulous awesome that he and his little Torchic, Fritz, were.

Everything had started well and fabulously. He had many great and grand encounters with other pokémons after he had ‘adopted’ little Fritz. Too bad that he had mostly been encountering water-type pokémons and well, Fritz was too good for them anyway. Not like he would want any of those puny little not-good things in his team anyway. He and Fritz were unbeatable! Unwinnable! Nothing would break their way towards becoming the greatest Pokémon-trainer, and his Pokémon, ever!

Well…the cave they currently were into….well, it was just a minor setback. Nothing that would get him to stop fighting his way to the top. It was just a test of courage and patience. Of course he had those! Absolutely! He just wanted out of this freaking bastard cave so he could actually do something! And no, he didn’t want any ugly Geodudes or anything in his group either. He had…let those go. Yes, not his interest.

So, after running away from….meaning, letting one of those rock-guys go, Gilbert had finally reached the point when he was only sitting and waiting for something to happen. He had walk way too long and having Fritz sitting on his head half of the time, was surprisingly tiring after a while. The bird-like Pokémon wasn’t made of air, definitely not, and was so heavy after a while. But Gilbert would carry it, no problem. He was an awesome Pokémon after all and was worthy of travelling on a great spot. Besides, the small fire Pokémon brought a nice light to the dark cave.

Sitting there, who knows for how long already, while the little Torchic was running around him energetically, he was pondering his options. Gilbert was leaning his head to his hand and looking at the little creature hop around.

“We’re too great for this, Fritz….you know, from now on we should just…” he started his determined prep-talk to the little Torchic, but he fell silent as something caught his eye. Something…like a flame..from the distance.

Fritz stopped hopping and was now looking at his owner all confused. Gilbert then looked at it fast, took it in his arms and looked at the direction of the little fire in the distance.
“There! That’s where we’re going, Fritz!” he pointed to the flame as epically as he could as he then started to run towards the little light.
He actually didn’t have to run for long as he encountered it. It seemed like it also saw their little flame that Fritz produced, to see in the cave. Gilbert stared at it. What the hell was that? A lizard…fire-kind? Cool! He then let his Torchic jump to the ground as he pointed to the orange lizard, which looked really tame actually now that he looked at it. Hmm..well, nevermind.

“Get ready for battle you little thing! You shall be mine!” he yelled as he made his well-rehearsed battle-pose, ready to catch that lizard. Weird! He hadn’t seen any other fire-kind around here and it was cool to actually see one of them in a cave! Well..whatever..this one would be his!

[South Italy]

The small charmander was running deeper and deeper into the cave. His tail swung from left to right rather violently. Why the hell was that creature so fast?! Romano gave chase, not nearly as fast that Pokemon that ran ahead of him. His eyes followed the flame swing from left to right. It was such a mesmerizing motion, it caught all of Romano's attention. He forgot his annoyance for a moment, even his fear of getting (and being) lost where forgotten for the time being while he simply kept following.

He noticed the flame suddenly stopped, it was held higher up than it was but a few seconds ago. Lucciola seemed to be alert of...something. Romano couldn't possibly know what but he knew his Pokemon well enough to know he had spotted something, something that could pose either as food or a possible thread. Romano did know it sure as hell wasn't food, that seemed way to damn strange in a cave like this.

The Italian slowed down to catch his breath, walking instead of running or jogging. Once you stop running you really lose your energy. His eyes were focused on the flame, it kept still, flickering in the darkness. The closer the Italian came the more visible the silhouette of Lucciola was, mainly due to that same flicker of the brightly burning flame. But it remained dark and Romano was unable to see the expression his Pokemon's face.

Suddenly Lucciola jumped, a roar escaping his tensed body. The charmander continued to growl when he regained his composure. "Lucciola! Get back here da-" Hearing the Pokemon growl had Romano on edge, getting to feel a little paranoid. He couldn't see what the hell it was that was angering his Pokemon after all, there was still some distance to close as well.

A second flame caught his eye, to Romano it seemed like it appeared out of nowhere. Oh hell no, was Lucciola about to get attacked?! Why didn't the damn thing run?! He couldn't fight on his own dammit! Followed by the flame a voice then caught his attention. There was only one voice with such an accent that was so God fucking damn full of himself that it was more than easy to figure out who the hell it was. Romano was pissed, especially by what this certain Albino said.

"LIKE HELL YOU'RE GETTING MY DAMN POKEMON!" Romano shouted as loud as he could, causing for a few zubat to wake up, startled by his loud voice. The began to fly about, confused and angered by the voice that disrupted their sleep.

Romano yelped, scared by one of the zubat when it flew straight to his head. The Italian ducked in time however, allowing the Pokemon to fly away from him without either suffering. "Lucciola, do something!" he was distressed by the equally distressed zubat, forgetting Prussia for a moment while he cowered, crouched down, hands protectively over his head. No, Romano didn't cope well with big-ass bats flying over his head in such a way.

Lucciola sensed the boy's distress and found enough concentration to appear by the brunette's side, leaving the odd man and his chick alone while he attempted to get rid of any remaining zubat. Most of which had fled already. There were some last squeaks of them hovering behind the pair and their Pokemon before the cave fell silent again. Romano dared to lower his hands and look back up. Lucciola had attacked himself to the boy's leg, in a rather protective manner while he glared at the chick that stood with the Albino. "w-WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU JERK?!" The Italian covered up the fear he just felt while he jumped up, face flushed with embarrassment, no way did that guy just see him cower like that.