Welcome to Thousand Roads! You're welcome to view discussions or read our stories without registering, but you'll need an account to join in our events, interact with other members, or post one of your own fics. Why not become a member of our community? We'd love to have you!
Hello, everyone! This is a rewrite of my older fic of the same name, which can be found here. I've decided to restart for a lot of reasons, chiefly that when I wrote the last version, it was my first time writing something that long ever, and what four-years-ago-me wrote no longer Produces Joy. So I started writing from scratch at the beginning of 2023, and the fruits of those labours are finally beginning to bloom! This fic is divided into six books, each with around 20 - 30ish chapters, which I will try to post one of weekly.
So, what is it? This is a rewrite fic for the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series, specifically the last game (Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon). For those who aren't familiar with PMD, don't worry! you can treat this like a normal fantasy story, just with Oops All Pokemon. For the mystery dungeon-savvy, this is a fic that puts Espurr into the place of the main player character, and in general tightens a lot of the screws that the original game had loose (and loosens some others... ).
It's part me wanting to write Espurr more than she was shown in the game, part me wanting to fix the narrative atrocity that was PSMD, and part me just wanting to have fun with a plot and cast that hits dozens of buttons. It's also. not very faithful to the original PSMD at all, except for the broad strokes, and there are some things floating around that weren't in the game at all. So be prepared for that; I don't make any secret of it. The vibe is meant to be intensely 'Harry Potter/Lemony Snicket/Stranger Things middle-to-high-school fiction', with a distinctive splash of the original PMD flavour, if you want an idea of what to expect in general.
A massive thanks to my beta readers, @Namohysip, @Inkedust, @windskull, and ShadowVulpi (you should check their fics out too if you haven't already!), and without further ado, welcome to my fucked up brainchild monstrosity about How I Want To Write A Weirdo Nerd Child Under The Guise Of Fixing A Bad Game please enjoy and don't forget to like subscribe and hit the notification bell for more
~ * Do Psychic Cats Dream of Electric Sheep? * ~
In Espurr's book, kidnapping her and putting her in charge of saving the world was a well-founded idea that could never go wrong. Which is to say, the fate of the world now lies with seven grade-schoolers, and this is absolutely awful and everything is doomed and people should start writing their final testaments now. A PSMD rewrite starring Espurr.
Rating: K+ - T Genres: Fantasy | Mystery | Horror Content Warnings: Death, Bullying, Heavy Themes
Beta read by Windskull, ShadowVulpi, Namohysip, and Inkedust
Dedicated to the weird kids, the troublemakers, the nerds,
The eccentrics, and the bookworms of the world,
And to anyone who ever felt they were different.
~\({O})/~
Book One: A Darkling Horizon
00. Prologue: A Visit
01. Traveller From Afar
02. The Village Troublemaker
03. The Foreboding Forest
04. Serenity Village School
05. Crossings
06. Strange Creatures and Magic Teachers
07. Detention
08. The Village Bullies
09. Into The Mines
10. Friends
11. Passing Schooldays
12. The Dark Magicks
13. Dinner With Tricky
14. The Field Trip
15. Night-Light Cove
16. A Change in Fortune
17. Trapped
18. A Tantalising Offer
19. Falling Apart
20. A Terrible Feeling
21. Encounter at The Crooked House
22. What's Wrong With Me?
23. Breaking Up
24. The Disappearance
25. When I Was Nine
26. The End-of-Semester Test
27. Masks Off
28. A Good Day For Exploring
29. Interlude the First: The Rescuer's Guild
. . .. . .The airship, Cloud Nine, floated silently above the city of windmills below. It was far too chilly tonight, bordering on snow—a very good example of why Baram Town was the worst possible city to park the Government of Nebyllin over. Or, so thought Grovyle Rufus. At least there was only a year until Cloud Nine moved. And a year until he was out of a job. Given his age, and Prime Ministers' proclivity for dying around the ends of their terms, he didn't expect his colleagues were going to nominate him Party Leader a third time. Frankly, he was lucky he'd landed a second one.
He sat in a cozy office near the stern of the craft, looking through a bunch of documents that had been submitted to him earlier that evening. But try as he might, his eyes kept slipping off the page. How many times had he read that blasted report about diminished berry crops from the South?
Truth be told, his mind was barely following along—not with the berry crops, not with the weather service, and certainly not with the Rescuer's Guild. It was with the horrible chill in his office, and a stray feeling he just couldn't kick. Ever since he'd woken up a few days ago, something had felt different—he couldn't put his claw on it, and neither his secretary nor his very close and trusted friend in Cape Noe noticed a thing, but it occupied his mind so thoroughly he'd spaced out several times in parliament that day. Which the opposition had gleefully used as fodder for their narrative of an ailing leader well out of his prime.
Well, his knees weren't what they used to be, but his mind was still very much there. He knew what he felt, and whatever it was, he knew it was far more important than anything on those papers.
"Hi."
Rufus jolted with a gasp and spun around, falling out of his chair and hitting the rose-petal carpet.
"Guards!" he called, flailing as he hit the floor. "Guards!"
With the little power that remained in him, he summoned energy to the leafblades in his arms, prepared to fight the intruders. This wasn't how he'd die.
"Oh, sorry, the guards forgot to be here tonight."
Floating behind Rufus, with the most nonchalant expression on her face, was a pink, catlike creature with a tail too long for her own good. Behind her lay an open window, the curtains softly blowing sideways—the source of the chill.
"And your secretary, before you ask." Rufus' blood went colder. That vaporeon hadn't been a day late in her life.
"And the orb line—" Rufus' other arm, silently reaching out of sight for the connection orb under the table, halted. "Everymon in this wing of the building, actually. They've all gone down for drinks at Spinda's.
"They'll be back tomorrow, before you worry," said the pink cat. "Just wanted to avoid any awkward situations, y'know?"
Rufus set down the papers shakily, staring up at the cat.
"I'm already worried," he muttered with annoyance. "And thisis awkward. And who areyou? It's a crime to break into the Prime Minister's office—"
"I'm Mew!" said Mew, gleefully cutting him off. "And you're Grovyle Rufus the Third. Born in Sawsbury, likes fermented radishes, Prime Minister twice because you cheated in—"
"Alright, alright, enough!" said Rufus, lowering his leafblades, flustered. Was she trying to scare him? Blackmail him? Where was she from? What was she?
But he couldn't see malice written on her face.
"Enough. Just… what do you want?"
"I'm here to talk to you about something important," said Mew. She teleported behind him with a 'pop!' almost faster than he could blink, and when he spun around, she was cheerfully gesturing to his chair. "Have a seat?"
"You break into my office," said Rufus, his tone flabbergasted, "and offer me a seat?"
"Sit."
Suddenly, Rufus was in his seat. Mew appeared on the other side of his desk with another 'pop!', lounging in the air above his visitor's chair.
"It's been a while since I've visited one of your leaders," she yawned. "I'm surprised they didn't tell you about me; although, it has been a century or two…"
If Rufus had any cares to give, he'd long run out of them. He was just along for the ride now.
"Anyway," said Mew. "I'm here to tell you we've brought in another Human."
"Another what?"
"Another Human," said Mew. "Don't you know them?"
"I know them," said Rufus. There were two of them alive today. He sat back in his chair, and let out a resigned sigh. "Then I was right. Something's changed, hasn't it?"
"You sensed my death," said Mew, like it was no big deal.
If that wasn't the biggest shock of the evening, then nothing was. Mew just shrugged, reading the unwritten words in the air. "Without me, the evil in the world has nothing holding it back from doing whatever it wants. It's only a matter of time now."
"But if you're dead, then… how are you here before me?" asked Rufus.
"It's… complicated," said Mew. "And we're short on time. But you need to know that we've brought in a Human. And right now, she's unprotected. I need you to find her and keep her safe before it's too late. She's the last one you're going to get."
Rufus just lay back in his chair, trying his best to process everything he'd been told. How was he supposed to start, let alone find the girl?
"Where do I start searching?" asked Rufus tiredly, resigned to his fate. Selfish as it was, he could feel his leaves wilting at the field day the opposition was going to have with this… he could see the headlines already: "Ailing Prime Minister declares random runaway "next human" in latest loony fantasy!"
There was a large, detailed map on Rufus' desk, portraying every knot of a massive coastline. Mew pointed at the very bottom, towards the long, thin peninsula that was known for having nothing but mountains, farmland, and a few scattered villages. He noticed her paw was already translucent.
"There," said Mew. "I don't know the exact location anymore. I lost it when I… died. But she's somewhere there. You must go at once! Do everything in your power to keep her safe. Promise me?"
Rufus just nodded. What else could he do? "You have my word."
And then the already fading Mew slowly dissolved into light. And Rufus was left alone to contemplate what he had just seen.
But the feeling, the one that had kept him awake in bed each night, no longer felt strange or present. Instead, it was filled with a drive. He knew she spoke the truth. Wherever this girl was, or whatever she was, there was perhaps no other pokemon in the world that was more important. He had to track her down.
In the back of his head, something tickled. Something dark and twisted, that swiftly retreated to the deep, dark depths as if scorched by the light.
It began scheming.
~\({O})/~
Hold up! I finally found you!
I came here just to find you, you know?
Please come and lend us your strength!
You are the next chosen one, the only one who can help us now.
Your burden will be heavier than the ones that came before you. I'm sorry for that; they had somemon to help guide them. But we'll find a way to make do, hmm? Or, you will. You have to!
There's one thing I can do to aid you in your quest… allow me to bestow you with a form fitting for this world. Just answer my questions…
…
…
…
I see now. Yes… We're here. We've arrived at the Pokemon World. But…
I'm afraid I can't stay any longer. But I promise you'll do fine on your own. I chose you for a reason.
You will… If you answered my questions with an honest and open heart, you should have nothing to fear. You'll be the last of Mew's Heroes; the one to save us all. You have to be.
And now we must part, dear Espurr. My heart goes out to you, in the new world…
. . .. . .As far as Espurr was concerned, and she figured she was rather smart for a kid, unusual things just didn't happen to people like her. They happened to people who were completely ordinary and turned their homework in an hour before the due date; or to people who were completely unordinary and did squats at the bus stop while wearing a snorkel mask. But they just didn't happen to people caught in the middle. Those were the rules.
Espurr was only sixty-three percent ordinary, which was about as in the middle as you could be. She lived in a normal house in a normal neighbourhood in a normal city that had won an award for being the most boring city in the entire world. Her parents wore identical pairs of spectacles, and both were accountants for a company that sold luxury lightbulbs. Espurr read her favourite book about insects in a corner during recess, thought Wednesday was a deep purple colour, and had been kicked off the girls' football team for not showing up to practise. She never had the same answers as anyone else in class, wasn't allowed to wear her hair or clothing in any of the popular styles, and hadn't had friends since the third grade.
Her life was the same, day in, day out. Unlike those around her, nothing strange or exciting ever happened, and the world seemed to pass her by. There were no sudden wrenches in her plans, no camping or trips out with friends during summer vacation, no ghosts or plays or sleepovers. No secret texts under a blanket to boyfriends at night, no long-distance phone calls to close friends far away. There was just the bus to school, the walk home, and hours and hours of books and stupid cat videos.
Credit where it was due; the neighbour's tabby cat, a lazy, roaming, ill-tempered beast, often kept her company as long as she fed him. But her life was solitary and uneventful because, as far as she could tell, she was already unusual enough to be a few buns short a batch, and the universe needed to set the scales straight.
So when she finished recording her day in her old, battered notebook, like she had all the days before, when her old, chewed pencil left the yellowed paper, she shut it and the lamp off and fell backwards into bed. She laid there, waiting for the icy blue covers to warm up, and stared at the spiderlike shadows of branches reaching across her ceiling. Quietly, she reflected on how empty her day was, just like the page she'd been writing on.
She drifted away slowly listening to the wind blow softly against her windowsill, the branches swinging back and forth as if waving their hands to a crowd she couldn't see. It never occurred to her how much of an ordinary thing it was to wake up the next day where she'd gone to sleep.
~\({O})/~
Espurr stirred, groaning and shifting in something that didn't quite feel like her mattress. Her bedcovers were missing. Had they fallen off? Her eyes felt glued shut. Her head ached and swam with fog, her legs tired, her throat scratchy, like she was sick with a fever. A pounding headache knocked between her eyes.
She took a breath, and her nose wrinkled up. There was a scent in the air that was revolting. It smelled like something had died long ago, and the stench was now floating on the wind, mingling with the other plant smells, poisoning the air.
Plant smells? Was she outside?
Her eyes shot open, then quickly squeezed shut, blinded by sunlight she wasn't expecting to see. It was filtered through the branches of dense, intertwining treetops, the canopies blending and swirling together into a strange painting.
Fright rushed through her. Her eyes went wide open, and she shot up into a sitting position, scrambling on the ground and looking around frantically. Where was she? Had she been kidnapped? How did she get all the way out here?
But there was no-one around to answer her questions. And if there were kidnappers, they must have left. She was in the middle of an empty forest clearing, overcast by shadows, covered in dead leaves, mossy tree roots, and low ferns. The place was silent, barren of even wildlife. Not even the crickets chirped here. The sound of the wind left as quickly as it came, leaving only the eerie rustling of dead leaves in its wake. As the complete, total silence set in, Espurr's heavy breathing slowed, and her fear was replaced with quiet, tense unease.
Her throat screamed for water, so she crawled through the forest ground until she came to the edge of a slowly-flowing river – the only thing that made any sound here. Her body didn't seem to move right on the way there, but she found the source of water quickly. Something she couldn't put into words told her to lower her head and drink rather than cup the water in her hands.
Drinking felt weird. Her tongue acted differently, scooping the cool drink up backwards into her mouth. She was too thirsty to care.
It was only when her hand passed in front of her for the first time that she sharply gasped. It didn't look like her hand. She was missing a finger, and the ones she still had were much shorter and chubbier than before. They were completely covered from tip to palm in fur. And that caused her to snap awake and look at herself for the first time.
Her reflection in the river's cool, slowly-moving water betrayed her: from head to toe she was coated in bushy lavender fur, extending into white on her arms and legs. Her ears were large and floppy, hugging her head. A fluffy, catlike tail swished behind her, unnoticed before. Now she could feel it swish, every motion alien and unwanted.
She stared at the purple tail in disbelief, her mind racing to find any solution that made sense. That tail couldn't be a part of her, humans didn't grow tails. It wasn't possible. Which meant… something was on her back? The tail swished, lowering, and she felt it lower, which meant it couldn't be something on her back, it had to be her tail, which meant… which meant…
She felt lightheaded staring at it, stumbling to keep her balance, every part of her body feeling unfamiliar, unnatural, wrong. Her breathing sped up into gasps and a terrible pit formed in her stomach as her mind raced and she tried to understand what was happening, what was happening? She'd become some kind of monster, she wasn't even human anymore, no-one would recognize her as a furry, tailed freak! Where was this? Who had done this to her?
Swish.
The sound of long grass and low ferns parting from behind Espurr snapped her out of her panic. A spike of fear cut clean through the shock, her senses returning to her crystal clear. Were there kidnappers after all? She went still and silent, her tail puffing up, twisting her head towards where the sound had come from.
In the darkness of the woods, where the trees leaned inwards and the light didn't dare venture, her new, sharp eyes made out the outlines of three figures watching her. They stood three times her height, their posture like full-grown men, but they were thin and bony, crooked at the shoulder, and out of their heads extended tall, pointy hats. They didn't move a millimetre, and they didn't make a sound. Unsure of what to make of them, Espurr took a step back on shaky, unfamiliar feet for the first time.
"Hello?" she asked with a trembling, scratchy voice.
There was no response from the three figures in the shadows. They simply remained fixated on her, their heads and pointy cones following every miniscule movement she made. Then, after a long, uncomfortable silence, they turned to themselves, and held up their arms.
Lights flickered from bulbs on their palms, alternating and blinking in strength quickly—red, green, yellow—almost like they were speaking. And as the lights illuminated them, Espurr saw them clearly: shrivelled faces shrouded behind gleaming, pinprick eyes, thick and angular cloaks, limbs long and bulky, and each with a crooked skin-cone that stretched far above their heads.
Her eyes widened, and in her fright she made a terrible mistake: she screamed into her paws, scrambled back, and tripped on a stick.
Crunch. Thud. The loud sound brought the Coneheads' attention right back to her. Espurr froze on the ground, eyes wide, breathing violently. The lights in the darkness vanished, nightshade swooping back in, and all the sudden the Coneheads were shrouded by the shadows, impossible to see. A whistle was her only warning: a ball of darkness flew out of the shadows, headed straight for her—
If there was one good blessing about any of this, all cats had good instincts. Espurr's new body kicked into gear, and before she knew what was happening, she threw herself out of the way just in time, hitting the ground and covering her ears. She didn't see what happened to the bush behind her. The sound of roots twisting and branches snapping told her it wasn't good.
Swish. The Coneheads glided out of the shadows, moving swift and silent and uniform, like they were one. As they brushed up against the shrubbery, Espurr saw how they floated—shrunken, underused legs dangling beneath sleek cloaks as they loomed—and nearly fainted with terror. Time seemed to slow. She watched her life flash before her eyes: her earliest memory of her parents, her eleventh birthday cake, the day she took a train through the woods and pretended it would transport her into a fairytale.
Her body snapped into action, and she broke off into a run.
On unfamiliar legs, she stumbled to her feet and took off into the woods. Her legs failed her. She tripped several times. Her body hit the ground, painfully. Sticks and pebbles and leaves scraped her over and over and over with each fall and still she ran. But she continued to pick herself up, running desperately until she could no longer hear the swish of parting ferns behind her, no longer see the gleam of a light from behind a tree trunk.
When she stopped, it was in the middle of another, narrower, darker clearing. Espurr collapsed to her paws and knees, panting wildly as the fear wore off. Her chest hurt, her lungs couldn't take in enough air, and the aches and pains in her body were complaining loudly.
But even though her legs were sore, and her arms and sides hurt from where she fell, she had to keep walking. She just felt more lost than ever now. The next clearing looked like the last two, dead leaves, thick foliage, and tall, mossy tree trunks decorating every inch of the eerily silent forest. The light was slowly seeping away, the trees looming further and further with each lost beam. Espurr's stomach rumbled, and she felt her tail and ears flop down miserably with the hunger pangs. She'd been walking for hours now, wasn't there anything to eat?
Nothing she could tolerate. A ginger nibble off the nearest fern leaf made her scrunch her face up in disgust. Gross. The neighbour's cat used to eat beetles, but she didn't even want to think about eating those. Just because she was a cat didn't mean she had to act like one.
Soon the air turned colder. The sky became darker, faster and faster. Her breaths came out in cloudy puffs. It was like a sudden icy freeze had descended over the woods. She looked up to the forest roof, where the sun was now orange and setting through the abstract treetops. It was going to be night soon, and she wasn't any closer to getting out of here. Those Coneheads could find her out in the night, in all this cold… she hadn't realised she was shivering until now. Was it fear or chill?
A tendril of wispy mist swirled around her angular, unfamiliar feet. Espurr looked behind her. From behind approached a massive wall of fog, stretching from the ground all the way up to the branches of the treetops. It was so thick she couldn't see anything through it, and from its direction she caught that scent again – rot. The smell of something dead.
The wind that moved the fog ruffled her fur, battering her face with the smell. Espurr retched, stumbling back and desperately trying to cover her nose with her paws. It was so strong! That was enough to convince her the fog was bad. This was evil fog, and she couldn't get caught in it. She had to get away. But where could she go? It was approaching fast, too fast.
She looked up. The trees around her, stretching higher than the fog, had branches large enough to hold her. If the treetops could hide the sun, could they conceal her too?
Anything to get to safety. She didn't know if she could climb with her shorter arms and strange, tip-toe feet, but she had to try. So Espurr scurried over to the nearest tree, a great twisted oak, and put her first foot on the trunk's mossy roots.
~\({O})/~
Night fell in minutes. Curled up in a tree branch just large enough to hold her, silence hung around Espurr, with only her thoughts to keep it at bay.
It was finally sinking in that she might not get to go back home. She didn't even know where she was right now, let alone how to get there from here, and even if she did… A look at her paws and dirty lavender tail was all she needed. How would she even convince people that she was human, let alone her?
How was she going to get home to begin with?
With sickly ruminations swimming around in her head, it wasn't long before the exhaustion of her trek took over and she slowly drifted off to sleep.
Her dreams were made of impossible things. She dreamt of an In Between, a horrible, darkened place where only void and suffering dared to venture. It was a nightmare that terrified her, one she madly clawed to escape from but couldn't leave on her own. Not until something woke her.
The sound of rustling below wrestled Espurr out of her nightmares. Her eyes opened blearily to abstract moonlight, blurred and scattered by the branches above. Her heart sunk as reality set in. The canopies seemed dark and twisted now, and so too was the whole forest. The ground was blanketed by a sea of thick, white fog, snaking insidiously through the trees as if searching for something.
But what had woken her? She focused her hearing and her vision, looking over the branch…
Swish.
A faint yellow light blinked and lit up the fog below. Other lights followed, flickering away as quick as they'd appeared. Espurr's heart fluttered and dropped and skipped a beat. Quiet horror flooded through her body. She quickly scrambled away from the edge, her heart pounding in fear, paws clasped against her face, vision spinning. She didn't dare to breathe. The Coneheads! They had found her! How?
Swish.
More dead leaves and ferns rattling against the tattered cloaks of slender floating bodies. She could see the image as clear as day. All three of them were standing at the bottom of the tree. A strange psychic sense told her. Their dark auras fuzzed at the edges of her sight.
But they weren't doing anything. Peeking carefully over the branches as far as she could muster the bravery for, she could see their crooked, dark, pointy cones poking out of the fog, still as shadows. They were just standing there. Were they waiting for something? What for?
The wind picked up again. It blew against Espurr, bringing with it that rotting scent, and this time it didn't stop. She looked in its direction as the wind got stronger, and with the horrid smell came a horrid feeling, like something was coming with the wind. When the branches began to bend against the gale and a roar rose with the wind, Espurr started to realise: she couldn't stay here.
She surveyed the ground from her cage of branches. The fog still blanketed it completely, and she didn't want to get any closer to the Coneheads. And though she really would have liked them, she hadn't grown any wings yet. Why couldn't she have become something with wings?
That only left her one option, which made her tail bush up: the branches of the trees were just close enough to each other that she could hop across, if she was careful. But if it was that or escape on the ground, where the Coneheads were…
Getting onto her paws and knees, Espurr tightly clutched onto the branch for dear life as she edged her way along it towards the limb of the next tree. The rotting scent of the wind had stopped torturing her nose after a bit, but the gale was getting stronger, her fur ruffling wildly, a loud howling rising louder in the distance like a demented roar. Reaching the end of the branch, Espurr realised she wasn't going to be able to clear it with a single stride. She'd need to jump. And fast.
Fear seemed to reverse polarity. Before Espurr knew what she was doing, she was balancing unsteadily on the branch, preparing to jump to the next. Her muscles tensed, but fright froze them before she could jump. What was she doing? If she didn't make it, if she lost balance… she began to wobble, her heart picking up speed—
A howl of the wind blasted through the trees, and all of the sudden Espurr jolted and her new, springlike legs launched off the branch and threw her into the air.
She jumped entire feet higher than she was expecting. The leap propelled her far into the sky, and taken by surprise, she lost her control on the way down. Catlike reflexes kicked in, and in the final seconds she twisted and thrust her paws out and grasped for the branch—
A gust of wind, as if summoned out of nowhere, slammed into her with the force of a truck. Her outstretched paws missed the other branch by a hair's length. And with a flipping feeling in her stomach and the horrifying, gut-wrenching realisation she'd missed, Espurr whimpered and began the long, heart-wrenching trip towards the ground.
Crack.
A loud yowl pierced the abstract night canopies.
Pain. It was white hot, racing through her and concentrating in her arm—her arm. It was at a funny angle. It wasn't supposed to bend like that! Crimson flashed across her vision, and somehow she knew what it meant. Pain.
Fighting back tears and sobs, Espurr staggered to her aching feet. The pain made it hard to think, see, feel. It hurt so much. Why was this happening? The pain. Red. It hurt. It hurt! She clutched her arm, but that just made it feel worse. How could that make it feel worse? Thick fog was all around her. The rotten wind swooped down and swirled around her, letting out a ghostly laugh like it was taking delight in her suffering. And then she heard it: Swish.
Espurr didn't have to see it; just the image of it in her head was enough to overload her mind and send her into flight mode. She bolted, fleeing through the woods wherever her legs would take her. The gnarled root of a tree sent her tumbling to the ground. She landed on her bad arm. Crimson flashed across her eyes like splattered blood. She grunted and bit back her yowl of pain, crying quietly and letting her tears flow. It hurt so bad.
She heard it again: Swish. She looked back. Her tear-blurred vision framed an image that burned into her mind: an emerald cape attached to a large, lean, dark figure, striding towards her through the ghostly fog. She felt the evil flow out from them. Their overwhelming aura of darkness singed the ends of their cloak, searing itself into her vision.
Espurr, barely lucid, hanging on by the barest of grips, shut her eyes tight and stumbled into a run again, only able to flee for her life.
~\({O})/~
An audino quietly picked the herbs and weeds from around a small bush in the forest, slipping them into her exploration bag. It was the full moon, and her herb stores were running low again.
Fresh-picked herbs were always available east of the Lively Mountain Range, but rarely grew anywhere west of it. They were so vital to Audino's medical practices, but somehow they were the hardest thing to get a hold of. She could always get them from Kecleon, but the miser overcharged for them and everymon knew it. She had been lucky to find this clutch of them sitting around the nearby mystery dungeon. Mystery dungeons being what they were, Audino had returned once every month at the full moon—she was superstitious—and found the exact same bush with the exact same clutches of herbs awaiting her.
Of course, finding the bush was a different beast entirely—every time Audino came looking for it, it was always in a different place. But that was to be expected of a dungeon. The places were always rearranging themselves however they saw fit. Audino was just grateful she'd found the bush quickly this time. Something was different tonight, and she could smell it in the air. It was like the dungeon had grown darker, making her fur bristle, and her surroundings put her on guard.
The lack of apparitions around at this time of night made her ears twitch with uneasiness too. The dungeon's natural defence apparitions mostly came out when it was dark. The ones here were weak enough for a child to defeat and they knew their limits, but all the same they were never beings to shy away from a fight they thought they could pick. Audino had been in enough dungeons to know… if there were no dungeon apparitions, there was usually something worse around.
And whatever it was, Audino didn't want to meet it tonight. She kept the escape orb she had bought from Kecleon's specifically for this occasion in one of the bag's looser pockets, just in case she'd need to make an impromptu escape.
She looked up from her herb picking in confusion as an unnatural wind blew past her, shaking the trees with visible anger as it went. It stank of vicious rot. In the distance, she could see what looked like a thick wall of mist. Worry flooded through Audino, her paw slipping into her weathered explorer's bag and clutching her escape orb tightly. This dungeon wasn't supposed to do that... this dungeon was too weak for that. Something was very wrong here.
There was suddenly a loud thump in the distance, accompanied by a sickening crack. Audino had half a mind to just smash the orb right now and forget her herbs. But that notion disappeared once she heard the yowl of pain that followed. Whatever pokemon had made it sounded rather young… But a dungeon apparition, even a weaker one, could spell trouble for her at this point.
Suddenly, Audino saw the silhouette of a small pokemon running straight in her direction through the fog. Was it a dungeon apparition? Her grip on the escape orb became tight enough to whip out on command. She watched as within seconds, an espurr stumbled out of the distant mist and into the immediate area, running frantically through the woods. For a split second, Audino hesitated. Espurr weren't apparitions native to this dungeon. So why was one here?
She only had to see the look in the espurr's eyes to understand completely. Their eyes glimmered in the moonlight with a look of terror, an intelligent look. By now, the espurr had seemed to realise Audino wasn't a hostile apparition, and changed their course directly towards her.
"Help!" the pokemon hoarsely cried out in terror that wrenched Audino's heart, clutching their left arm to their chest as they stumbled up to her. Audino studied the arm with a nurse's precision, identifying the fracture in a matter of seconds. It wasn't easy to break a pokemon's bones. That thump, that yowl… had something done this to her?
Something that was approaching from the fog at this very moment. Hints of the strongest wind yet began to blow through Audino's fur as she hurriedly beckoned the espurr towards her. Behind the terrified child, she could see a trio of silhouettes approaching, framed by flickering lights. Red, yellow, green…
The espurr reached Audino, violently shivering from cold and terror. Audino hugged her close, keeping an eye on both the wind and the approaching pokemon.
As the wind grew stronger, the pokemon approached, and Audino got her first good look at them: a trio of beheeyem, ghostly lights flickering in the fog. Their crooked cones stood tall into the night; their eyes gleamed brighter than lights and sent chills down Audino's spine. Those weren't wild looks either; they were too shrewd, too calculated. Whatever they were… they knew what they were doing. Audino's eyes narrowed. Her arm around Espurr tightened.
"Stay close, and whatever you do, don't let go. Understand?" Audino instructed loudly. The espurr nodded, staring at the beheeyem and holding back tears.
There was no more time to waste. The howling of the wind was picking up, turning into a rancid gale, and it brought the creeping, looming wall of fog with it. Any longer, Audino knew, and the approaching pokemon would be the least of their worries. In one swift motion, she hugged Espurr tight and whipped out the escape orb.
"Shut your eyes!" she yelled to Espurr, hurling the orb at her feet. It shattered and exploded into a plume of brilliant, blue-white smoke, and when the smoke cleared, Audino and Espurr were nowhere to be found.
Hey, Espy! Glad to see you bringing out your big revision. Didn't realize I missed the first installment, but I'm glad I got in before you got too far along. Congrats on finishing your revisions and getting to the posting phase! I know it was a big project, so it's great to see the fruits of your labors. I'm liking the updated artwork as well!
I certainly remember the first chapter, although I can't recall whether there used to be a prologue or whether it was the same one if so. The prologue sets up some of what's going to be moving around in the background while Espurr is dealing with her transformation. I didn't get far enough into the previous revision to know when Rufus showed up there, but I'm interested in how his efforts will play out this time. He's going to be looking to help her out and keep her safe (or at least, that's his intent at this stage), but I wonder whether Espurr will take that at face value or distrust him instead. Lots of potential for future conflict here.
One thing that interested me in the prologue in particular was the fact that Rufus didn't recognize Mew, which suggests that at least she, if not all legends, don't have a very big presence in the world of everyday pokémon. But iirc basically every legend shows up to do something in SMD, so I'm wondering how they'll play into this story here. Also of course there's the small detail that Mew's dead, lol, which seems to be something of a trend with mews in PMD fic I've read recently...
The first chapter is familiar, like I said, although I don't recall the previous version well enough to comment on specific changes. I enjoyed the whimsical tone of the opening section that goes over Espurr's human life. I haven't actually read any of the Series of Unfortunate Events novels, but this sort of prose is at least how I've always imagined they would read, heh.
Once we get into the dungeon with the beheeyem, the tone shifts quite a bit. I think you do a really good job of bringing out the visceral feel of what it's like to be in that mystery dungeon, with a strong focus on sensory details and the feelings Espurr experiences as she tries to evade the beheeyem. And possibly Dark Matter? That seems like the most likely candidate for the rot-smelling mist, at least. If so then I definitely enjoy that detail; I don't think I've seen DM described as having a smell before, and that detail immediately puts it more concretely into the scene with Espurr. All in all I think the dungeon section here is a nicely tense and well-described scene that establishes the sort of danger Espurr's going to face.
And how hard a time you're going to give her in this story, lol. Arrives in a mystery dungeon only to be attacked by enemies who way outclass her, breaking an arm in the process? Her career as a savior's starting out strong!
Congrats again on getting this published! I'll look forward to more chapters. Also, I'm curious whether you had any particular goals for this revision or areas you were especially focused on making changes. I remember you talking about the work you were doing here, but not the specifics!
Espurr was only sixty-three percent ordinary, which was about as in the middle as you could be.
I love how you can tell from this line alone that she's not ordinary at all, heh.
So when she finished recording her day in her old, battered notebook, like she had all the days before; when her old chewed pencil left the yellowed paper and she shut it and the lamp off and fell backwards into bed, and she laid there waiting for the icy blue covers to warm up and stared at the spiderlike shadows of branches reaching across her ceiling, she reflected on how empty her day was, just like the page she'd been writing on.
This is a real chunky paragraph-long sentence! There are a couple places you could break this up into multiple sentences, and I think it might be a good idea to do so. The semicolon looks rather awkward to me at the beginning of the paragraph, considering how much uninterrupted text comes after.
Espurr stirred, groaning and shifting in something that didn't quite feel like her mattress.
Did you mean to stick a scene break in front of this?
[quote[She was in the middle of an empty forest clearing, overcast by shadows, covered in dead leaves, mossy tree roots, and low ferns.[/quote]
The way this sentence is structured, Espurr is the one covered in dead leaves and ferns, etc. The easiest way to fix that would be to slap "which was" in front of "overcast."
If there was one good blessing about any of this, all cats had good instincts.
Here "silence" is the one curled up on a tree branch. A very quick and dirty example of how you could rewrite this to get the modifiers in the right place is "Curled up in a tree branch just large enough to hold her, Espurr found herself wreathed round by silence, with only her thoughts to keep it at bay."
- You use "abstract" several times as an adjective in the first chapter. I think when you're talking about the treetops, you mean they're kind of blobby-looking and without clear form, but I'm not so sure what you're going for when you apply it to moonlight (diffuse, maybe?). I don't know that it's the best word to use for those things, and you hit it at least three times in Chapter One, which seems like a lot.
Heya, dropping in for the first review of my Review Tag from Union. I admittedly wasn’t really sure what reviewing a rewrite of a story I’d already read once before would be like, but just from the preamble’s notes, it looks like a surprising amount of stuff has been shaken up, so let’s jump right in:
Chapter 1-0
>that Mew chapter art
Huh. That one’s definitely different from what I remembered of the v1 of this story, and definitely has the nicer art. Let’s see where this goes.
The airship, Cloud Nine, floated silently above the city of windmills below. It was far too chilly tonight, bordering on snow—a very good example of why Baram Town was the worst possible city to park the Government of Nebyllin over. Or, so thought Grovyle Rufus. At least there was only a year until Cloud Nine moved. And a year until he was out of a job. Given his age, and Prime Ministers' proclivity for dying around the ends of their terms, he didn't expect his colleagues were going to nominate him Party Leader a third time. Frankly, he was lucky he'd landed a second one.
Oh, so we’re already seeing Cloud Nine right off the bat in this version of events. That’s definitely a change, but it’s definitely pulling the political conspiracy portions of the plot forward a bit.
I don’t recognize ‘Rufus’ from my readings of v1 of Psychic Sheep though. Wonder if he’s one and the same as Grovyle the Thief in this continuity, or if he’s different.
He sat in a cozy office near the stern of the craft, looking through a bunch of documents that had been submitted to him earlier that evening. But try as he might, his eyes kept slipping off the page. How many times had he read that blasted report about diminished berry crops from the South?
Yeeeeeah, that report is totally not just a background thing, I can already tell.
Truth be told, his mind was barely following along—not with the berry crops, not with the weather service, and certainly not with the Rescuer's Guild. It was with the horrible chill in his office, and a stray feeling he just couldn't kick. Ever since he'd woken up a few days ago, something had felt different—he couldn't put his claw on it, and neither his secretary nor his very close and trusted friend in Cape Noe noticed a thing, but it occupied his mind so thoroughly he'd spaced out several times in parliament that day. Which the opposition had gleefully used as fodder for their narrative of an ailing leader well out of his prime.
I mean, the cold in general isn’t kind to reptiles. I can’t imagine that Grass-type reptiles would fare much better. Though based off the ‘leader well out of his prime’ comment, I’m starting to think that Rufus really is Grovyle the Thief. Just quite a bit after the events of Explorers.
Well, his knees weren't what they used to be, but his mind was still very much there. He knew what he felt, and whatever it was, he knew it was far more important than anything on those papers.
Yeah, I figured. Though he really is out of his prime given that he’s automatically crying for guards to come and bail him out. Though I suppose age catches up with everyone at some point.
With the little power that remained in him, he summoned energy to the leafblades in his arms, prepared to fight the intruders. This wasn't how he'd die.
Well, nevermind then. Guess Rufus is going down swinging here.
"Oh, sorry, the guards forgot to be here tonight."
Floating behind Rufus, with the most nonchalant expression on her face, was a pink, catlike creature with a tail too long for her own good. Behind her lay an open window, the curtains softly blowing sideways—the source of the chill.
"And the orb line—" Rufus' other arm, silently reaching out of sight for the connection orb under the table, halted. "Everymon in this wing of the building, actually. They've all gone down for drinks at Spinda's.
Can’t tell if this is Tricky or not, since while Mew’s definitely got the ‘troublemaker’ part down pat, something about this vibe feels a lot more foreboding.
Rufus set down the papers shakily, staring up at the cat.
"I'm already worried," he muttered with annoyance. "And thisis awkward. And who areyou? It's a crime to break into the Prime Minister's office—"
"I'm Mew!" said Mew, gleefully cutting him off. "And you're Grovyle Rufus the Third. Born in Sawsbury, likes fermented radishes, Prime Minister twice because you cheated in—"
I mean, I knew that politics got dirty in Psychic Sheep’s world, but this is definitely getting into the political thriller side of the story nice and fast.
"Alright, alright, enough!" said Rufus, lowering his leafblades, flustered. Was she trying to scare him? Blackmail him? Where was she from? What was she?
Rufus: “And seriously, couldn’t you have sent a letter?”
Mew: “I tried, but I never got a response.”
"I'm here to talk to you about something important," said Mew. She teleported behind him with a 'pop!' almost faster than he could blink, and when he spun around, she was cheerfully gesturing to his chair. "Have a seat?"
"You break into my office," said Rufus, his tone flabbergasted, "and offer me a seat?"
Pretty sure that that’s not a suggestion there, Rufus…
Suddenly, Rufus was in his seat. Mew appeared on the other side of his desk with another 'pop!', lounging in the air above his visitor's chair.
"It's been a while since I've visited one of your leaders," she yawned. "I'm surprised they didn't tell you about me; although, it has been a century or two…"
I actually wonder if Mew was ever meant to be part of the original Psychic Sheep narrative, or if this is a new feature of the rewrite’s plot. Either way, it’s definitely keeping things fresh relative to the original story.
If Rufus had any cares to give, he'd long run out of them. He was just along for the ride now.
"Anyway," said Mew. "I'm here to tell you we've brought in another Human."
Mew: “Er… ‘Rufus’, is it? Are you alright?”
Rufus: “Obviously not when you just went and sprang news on me that there’s a harbinger of the apocalypse that just appeared!”
"Another Human," said Mew. "Don't you know them?"
"I know them," said Rufus. There were two of them alive today. He sat back in his chair, and let out a resigned sigh. "Then I was right. Something's changed, hasn't it?"
… Actually, I just realized that there’s another potential explanation for what ‘Mew’ is doing here, and it potentially involves this speaker very much not being Mew.
"It's… complicated," said Mew. "And we're short on time. But you need to know that we've brought in a Human. And right now, she's unprotected. I need you to find her and keep her safe before it's too late. She's the last one you're going to get."
I… am not convinced that Rufus is going to pull this one off successfully.
"Where do I start searching?" asked Rufus tiredly, resigned to his fate.
Selfish as it was, he could feel his leaves wilting at the field day the opposition was going to have with this… he could see the headlines already: "Ailing Prime Minister declares random runaway "next human" in latest loony fantasy!"
… Has Rufus unironically managed to get an ‘Old Man Yells at Cloud’ headline written about him or something? :V
There was a large, detailed map on Rufus' desk, portraying every knot of a massive coastline. Mew pointed at the very bottom, towards the long, thin peninsula that was known for having nothing but mountains, farmland, and a few scattered villages. He noticed her paw was already translucent.
Ah yes, the same North America expy from the preamble. It’s admittedly a bit of a trip to see the setting so different from the canonical baseline, but I suppose it leans in better with the established backstory of Psychic Sheep than the canon PMD world’s geography did.
"There," said Mew. "I don't know the exact location anymore. I lost it when I… died. But she's somewhere there. You must go at once! Do everything in your power to keep her safe. Promise me?"
I guess we might not be doing a Mew reincarnation plot angle after all.
Rufus just nodded. What else could he do? "You have my word."
And then the already fading Mew slowly dissolved into light. And Rufus was left alone to contemplate what he had just seen.
But the feeling, the one that had kept him awake in bed each night, no longer felt strange or present. Instead, it was filled with a drive. He knew she spoke the truth. Wherever this girl was, or whatever she was, there was perhaps no other pokemon in the world that was more important. He had to track her down.
… Okay, yeah. I’m starting to get that worry again that that wasn’t really Mew. Since I remember the sorts of occasions in the v1 of this story where characters suddenly felt overwhelming impulses to do things. All that’s missing is the explicit instructions from a voice in Rufus’ head.
In the back of his head, something tickled. Something dark and twisted, that swiftly retreated to the deep, dark depths as if scorched by the light.
Wonder if this is going to have the same twist as the v1 of the story where this technically isn’t being directed at Espurr at the moment.
Your burden will be heavier than the ones that came before you. I'm sorry for that; they had somemon to help guide them. But we'll find a way to make do, hmm? Or, you will. You have to!
There's one thing I can do to aid you in your quest… allow me to bestow you with a form fitting for this world. Just answer my questions…
You will… If you answered my questions with an honest and open heart, you should have nothing to fear. You'll be the last of Mew's Heroes; the one to save us all. You have to be.
And now we must part, dear Espurr. My heart goes out to you, in the new world…
Oh, it’s that song again. Well, you can’t say that it’s not fitting for the introduction to a PMD story. :V
Well that was definitely a different experience from what I remembered of the v1 of Psychic Sheep, not that that’s a bad thing, per se. Even in the span of about 1400 words, you did a pretty good job at giving readers a taste of the overall tone of the story and gave them glimpses of the future to look forward to as a world that they would likely find familiar, and yet very different.
I actually don’t have a whole lot to complain about regarding this prologue since it was largely put together very well. There were a couple of paragraphs where I felt that they were a bit overly long and dense, but that’s ultimately a stylistic quibble and there weren’t too many that I noticed.
While I’ve always been a bit leery of rewrites given that they have a checkered history of actually succeeding, what’s there is definitely really promising, @SparklingEspeon . I’ll be back for your first chapter over the course of the next couple days, and if this is how you’re re-opening your story, I can tell I’m going to be in for a treat. ^^
I certainly remember the first chapter, although I can't recall whether there used to be a prologue or whether it was the same one if so. The prologue sets up some of what's going to be moving around in the background while Espurr is dealing with her transformation. I didn't get far enough into the previous revision to know when Rufus showed up there
Rufus is a new character, actually! What's now the first chapter used to be the prologue, but I decided to make that chapter one and add in a new prologue so I could frontload some stuff that should have been out in the open the first time, tbf.
The first chapter is familiar, like I said, although I don't recall the previous version well enough to comment on specific changes. I enjoyed the whimsical tone of the opening section that goes over Espurr's human life. I haven't actually read any of the Series of Unfortunate Events novels, but this sort of prose is at least how I've always imagined they would read, heh.
Ooh, yes! Lemony Snicket Prose (though his narrator is more vocabulary centred) was such a large influence on my prose writing - I love his ironic, whimsical tones a lot, and it changed how I wrote ever since. This is a really nice compliment to receive, especially from someone who's never read ASoUE before...
And possibly Dark Matter? That seems like the most likely candidate for the rot-smelling mist, at least. If so then I definitely enjoy that detail; I don't think I've seen DM described as having a smell before, and that detail immediately puts it more concretely into the scene with Espurr. All in all I think the dungeon section here is a nicely tense and well-described scene that establishes the sort of danger Espurr's going to face.
Fun fact for non-hardcore MD players: in the games, if you stay alone in a dungeon for long enough, eventually a mysterious, unexplained wind will blow you off the dungeon floor and, iirc, eject whatever's in your bag before booting you out. It's the game's version of a timer, but when I started writing I based the winds and smell entirely off that mechanic. You're v right to assume it's connected to Dark Matter here, though...
Congrats again on getting this published! I'll look forward to more chapters. Also, I'm curious whether you had any particular goals for this revision or areas you were especially focused on making changes. I remember you talking about the work you were doing here, but not the specifics!
Thanks! I think the biggest thing I had in mind when rewriting was just, improving things a lot. 2019!me had some capital-W Weird ideas about writing, like Every Chapter Must Be As Long As Possible (I wanted to be one of those cool authors who wrote an ultra-popular MILLION WORD PMD EPIC like Guiding Light, wow sparkles), or Structure Everything Like It's An Eight-Episode TV Show (??). It led to meandering, clunky chapters with a lot of interactions that never came to anything because I was both trying to fluff the wordcount as much as possible and hold back every single little answer to have a thousand twists later. I also felt I'd kind of flunked a lot of character interactions/beats, one of which came back to cause trouble later, and nothing about the internal structures of the world made much sense. So after a year or two of noodling on trying to edit those things out, I sort of realised it would take less energy to just. do it over. And as you can see from the new prologue, this version frontloads a lot! And I'm also working a lot on character development/interaction and making sure the world makes sense this time.
(re: line edits - thanks so much for these! Grammar/syntax/redundant words is my achilles' heel, so it helps a lot to have these things pointed out so I can go back and edit)
Oh, so we’re already seeing Cloud Nine right off the bat in this version of events. That’s definitely a change, but it’s definitely pulling the political conspiracy portions of the plot forward a bit.
I don’t recognize ‘Rufus’ from my readings of v1 of Psychic Sheep though. Wonder if he’s one and the same as Grovyle the Thief in this continuity, or if he’s different.
Yup, a lot more is getting frontloaded in this version! I figured it would do to just be up-front that Cloud Nine/the government is going to be involved from the start, instead of pulling a 'gotcha!' later. I didn't expressly think Rufus could be PMD2!Grovyle, but explorers doesn't super get high billing here, so maybe I'll run with that... pockets the idea
Can’t tell if this is Tricky or not, since while Mew’s definitely got the ‘troublemaker’ part down pat, something about this vibe feels a lot more foreboding.
Lol I will be flat-out open and admit that Partner Was Mew was hands-down one of the most infuriating things about Super to me (so unearned/out of left field??), and I took particular glee writing every single bit of that out :evil:
Ah yes, the same North America expy from the preamble. It’s admittedly a bit of a trip to see the setting so different from the canonical baseline, but I suppose it leans in better with the established backstory of Psychic Sheep than the canon PMD world’s geography did.
Yeah, it was A Decision to make, but the geography of the PMD map was never really going to work here, I think. It was sort of a 'have your cake and eat it too' situation - I had all these locations that needed to inform each other and be easily reachable in a way that they can't if they aren't part of the same continent/administration, so ultimately it had to be all in one place, and I didn't like any of the PMD continents, so I decided to steal some RL land and work based off of that. Some areas I passed up before settling on West-coast North America were the Great Lakes (cool idea but idk the vibes/climate/terrain), the Mediterranean Sea (trite), the island of Great Britain (overused), the US eastcoast (overused), and the Gulf of Mexico+SA-North Coast (too far into the tropics). Also a lot of complicated climate/geographic things that do in fact feed into the plot favoured WCNA. I also stole Nova Scotia bc why not.
Well that was definitely a different experience from what I remembered of the v1 of Psychic Sheep, not that that’s a bad thing, per se. Even in the span of about 1400 words, you did a pretty good job at giving readers a taste of the overall tone of the story and gave them glimpses of the future to look forward to as a world that they would likely find familiar, and yet very different.
I actually don’t have a whole lot to complain about regarding this prologue since it was largely put together very well. There were a couple of paragraphs where I felt that they were a bit overly long and dense, but that’s ultimately a stylistic quibble and there weren’t too many that I noticed.
While I’ve always been a bit leery of rewrites given that they have a checkered history of actually succeeding, what’s there is definitely really promising, @/SparklingEspeon . I’ll be back for your first chapter over the course of the next couple days, and if this is how you’re re-opening your story, I can tell I’m going to be in for a treat. ^^
Really glad you liked it! I've been working very hard on this and have a lot of contingencies in place to make sure this one doesn't flop, so hoping very much it's going to succeed - I guess this is more like a... final draft than it is a rewrite. Thanks so much for dropping by, and hope you enjoy future chapters just as much as this one! (and do let me know where you thought the wordy sentences were - grammar/syntax is my weakness so I'll be happy to do maintenance edits)
It's me again. Writing in books that weren't made for that feels wrong, but here I am.
The house is bright and loud, and dad's in a bad mood. I think he found my report for maths, so I'm hiding under the bed right now with a torch and a pen. They'll go to sleep in a bit, and then I'll feed it to the neighbour's cat. The good news is mum and dad are taking a work trip to another city, so tomorrow it's just going to be me on my own. And the day after. And the weekend.
You wouldn't know, because I've only written in you once, but this happens a lot. I think they like working too much. As for me, I'm looking forward to the quiet, and being able to do whatever I want while they're gone. They're leaving money for pizza, but I'm going to buy chinese instead.
The homeroom teacher asked if I was going to the start of summer break party with the rest of the school. My parents won't be home to force me. They wouldn't need to know. I told him I didn't know, but… I don't. The library just got a new book in, and it's one I've been waiting forever to come out. I think books make better friends than people do, anyway. I've written in more books than I've talked to people at school, and I don't like writing in books.
Just between you and me, I think I'm not going. I'm going to stuff my hair in a baseball hat at school and pretend I cut it short, check out all the books I want to get that take at least three days to read, and go walk around on the roof at night. I'll have a really nice holiday all on my own. And all I need around me is books and the TV.
I'm feeling quite tired, so I'm going to go to bed soon. I have to get up early for some assembly event at school tomorrow anyway. Good night.
~Sincerely, #-*- - -
~\({O})/~
"Oh! You're up now. Good."
Espurr's blurry eyes sliced through her fuzzy dreams and gave way to bright sunshine, gleaming through a window, making her shut them again. She was in a straw bed that rustled softly, settled in a large, airy room with rustic, apricot-covered walls and dark brown floorboards. A wide-brimmed, floral hat hung from a hook in the wall, above a couple brown bags crumpled against the floor. She remembered that bag, how the rough brown surface had felt against her fur…
Her fur. Suddenly she felt it again, suffocating her! Her heart dropped, everything flooding back to her in an instant. Her holiday! She had to get back home!
She tried moving off the bed, to get somewhere, anywhere! But her left arm just wasn't cooperating; it felt dull and stiff, and when she tried to move it, a sharp red pain rang out and made her gasp.
"Oh! Don't do that please." Someone jotted over, the floorboards creaking under them, and she felt unfamiliar paws grab her and settle her back into bed. "You still need rest!"
The voice and sudden jostling jarred Espurr from her panic, and she looked up. Helping her back on the bed was the strange creature from before, who was pink and yellow from head to foot and stood on two legs. She stared Espurr down with her brilliant blue eyes, making sure she was settled properly.
"Alright now?"
Espurr just nodded, shell-shocked.
"Let me know if you need anything else, okay?" She stood up, towering over Espurr, and returned to the cabinet she was rifling through—it was ornate, the white paint peeling, and full of all sorts of strong-smelling things—and pulled something leaflike out of it.
"Where are we?" Espurr dared to ask, biting down the consistent thrum of pain from her arm. She really hoped it wasn't far away…
"None other than Serenity Village," said the pink creature with her back to Espurr, folding something on the counter. "You collapsed the moment we arrived–half delirious, I suspect. Just before our end-of-week shopping trip, too. You're lucky Kecleon's stays open late Saturday nights. Not that I'd buy from him on a good day, but…"
Another dull throb from Espurr's arm. It wasn't a wonder she was delirious. Serenity Village wasn't anywhere on the map—at least, not anywhere Espurr knew about.
"Where's that?" she asked, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice. Even her location was completely unknown - maybe it was just a town she hadn't heard of? Surrounded by… a lot of things she hadn't heard of.
The pink creature looked back from whatever she was doing on the counter and gave her an odd look.
"Serenity Village?" she asked. Espurr nodded.
The pink creature thought for a second, like she was trying to figure out what to say. Espurr could glean that from the edges of her speech, an unsure, wavering pink. That was strange...
"I'll see if I can get a map from the principal's office later," she decided on, "but it's in the south. You know where that is, right?"
A confused shake. Espurr was sure she looked silly.
That made the pink creature really think.
"Well, I'm sure it's not too far from home," she finally said, trying to sound reassuring. "Do you know where you came from?"
A second shake. Espurr only remembered foggy details about her home right now, addled and shaken, but she was growing more and more certain that it wasn't anywhere near here.
"Nothing?" the creature asked. "A name, some houses, who you live with?"
A third shake.
"I don't remember right now," she said, wilting at how exhausted she sounded. Her voice barely carried across the room.
The pink creature 'hmm'd, pulled out a sheet of paper, and turned her back to Espurr as she started writing on it. Espurr could just about make out the words "possibly abandoned", and "send out notice to surrounding villages" in whispers to herself as the creature wrote, and bit down some queasiness. She felt her heart slowly dropping into her stomach, filling her chest with dread.
Finished writing, the pink creature set down her pen, closed the cupboard, and looked again towards the open doorway.
"What are you still waiting out there for? You need treatment!" she called loudly to an unseen person who seemed to be waiting outside the round doorway. Espurr could feel their presence now, fuzzing peach hues around the edges of her mind.
Had she always been able to see colours like that? No, she hadn't, but concentrating hard and trying to shut it off felt like plugging her nose.
"Sorry, Ms. Audino," a high-pitched, childlike voice muttered from outside. "I don't like the school clinic…"
"Well, you wouldn't have to spend time in the school clinic if you didn't go jumping out of trees," Audino said, pouring something into a pair of leaf-made pouches. "Now come in and sit on the bed so I can treat you."
Jumping out of trees… Well, that made two of them, Espurr guessed. At least she wasn't the craziest one around anymore.
"Not to worry," Ms. Audino continued. "You'll have company."
"Really?!"
The voice perked up with the excitement of a toddler at a candy stall, and a bright yellow fox with fiery ear fluff and blue, ghostlike whisps curling near her tail dragged herself in on one paw and flopped down on another straw bed. She looked at Espurr with wide red eyes, almost like she was plotting murder.
Audino supplied her with a few of the leafy green bags, setting them over the fox's paws.
"IF you rest, you'll be better in a few hours," she said, then got up.
"Doing alright?" Audino asked Espurr, walking by.
Espurr was very much not doing alright and could only nod unsurely that yes, she was. Then she grabbed her bag and walked briskly towards the door.
"I'll be back shortly; I've scheduled another appointment for today. I don't want either of you to move a muscle while I'm gone, do you understand me?" Audino directed the last sentence squarely at the fox.
"Yes ma'am! Absolutely understood!" the fox chirped in a tone that Espurr gathered meant it was not understood at all. Audino kept her wary eyes on her for a few seconds longer.
"I expect to see you both sitting on those beds when I return," she said, and then she walked out the door without another word.
A thousand questions flew across Espurr's mind the second it swung shut and they were left alone:
How far away was this from a town? Could she phone home? Were there phones here? Where could she go to find one? What was her mum's number again? What could she do about… a look down at her purplish fur, which wasn't looking any more human than it did yesterday… she didn't really want to look at that. Nevermind that. Phone. She was stirring from her bed again, ignoring the complaining of her arm. She needed to find a ph—
"Soooo-o-o-o-o-o-o…" began the fox loudly, crashing a train through Espurr's thoughts and causing her to freeze where she was.
Espurr looked over, wide-eyed, at the creature who shared the room with her. The fox drew her single word out until she was out of breath, then gasped for more.
"What are you in for?" asked the fox, sputtering.
"Wait, you're new here," she piped up just a second late when Espurr was about to respond, leaping onto the side of the bed. Words tumbled out of her mouth like water from a waterfall.
"Are you…
"Hah! There's no way you're miss Audino's kid, are you?
"…Wait. Are you?
"Huh? Are you? Pleeeaaase tell me!
"Hey, what're you in for? Wait, I feel like I asked that one already…"
"Do you want your questions answered?"
The fox, mid-prattle, froze and went silent as a board. She stared at Espurr in confusion.
"Well, duh," she said.
"Then, can you ask them a bit slower, please?" said Espurr tiredly, who was extremely not ready for this and felt more than a little befuddled by the constant onslaught of everything so soon after she'd woken up.
"Oh." The fox didn't seem very phased. She settled back in the bed. "Okay, what are you in for?"
"I fell out of a tree," answered Espurr plainly, rubbing her eyes with her good paw.
That left the energetic fox's mouth hanging wide open.
"Woah," she mouthed in amazement, her eyes brightening. "Well guess what? I'm in here for the same thing! Twisted my tail, sprained three of my paws, and my ear hurts" – she wiggled her left ear and nearly wilted in pain – "but it was all for a noble cause!"
"What… noble cause?"
"I couldn't let a fellow child suffer in the clutches of the evil Nurse Audino for a whole week!" the fox moaned dramatically, clutching a paw to her swooning head before groaning in pain and quickly collapsing backwards onto the bed.
"I'm Fennekin Tricky, by the way," she chirped, popping back up. "My actual name's a secret but I chose this one and that's what everymon else calls me. Do you have a name?"
Espurr huddled a little closer, studying the floorboards like varnished wood had suddenly become wildly interesting. Wouldn't it be nice if she could remember it?
"Just Espurr," she said.
"Aww," said Tricky. Her ears drooped. "I thought you were one of the cool 'mon."
"What does that mean?"
"Like…" Tricky trailed off, searching for the words. "Like, the 'mon with names! From up north!"
"'Mon aren't cool if they're not from up north?" asked Espurr, curiosity overtaking her for a second.
"Well duh!" exclaimed Tricky, like this was obvious. "Here they're all boring and think that names should be for like, old people or something. I'm from up north. My mum and dad were born there. Where are you from?"
The big question. Espurr felt positively unsafe spilling her secrets to someone who looked like they gossiped with the whole town.
"I don't remember right now," she settled for. If her city's name wasn't coming back to her just yet, did it count as a lie?
"Boooring." Tricky yawned, blowing out an orange wisp of flame that danced dangerously close to the ceiling. She stretched in the bed with her paws under the ice. Pausing for just a second and snapping her jaw shut, she pulled her paw out from under the leaves and twisted it just to be sure.
"Oh wow! I'm healed! I'm finally healed!" she screeched.
Excitedly, she pranced out of the bed and did a few victory twirls. Espurr cringed as she watched Tricky's tail painfully cramp up, sending the fox crashing to the floor headfirst.
Thump.
"Ow…" she muttered from the floor. "Work in progress."
And then she was back up again, walking stiffly to avoid wagging her tail.
"Hey, wanna go do a village tour?"
"Didn't Nurse Audino tell us to stay here?" Espurr pointed out. "Besides," she said, tilting her head. "I don't think you can go many places with that tail."
"Eh," Tricky dismissed it with a flick of her ears and a paw-wave. "It'll heal in a few minutes. Besides, if you listen to the adults your whole life, life stays boring! C'mon, have some fun!"
"But can't we have fun right h–"
Not that she had a choice. Tricky quickly sprung from her spot, pranced behind her, and nudged her off the bed completely with a shove.
"Hey!" Espurr yelped, taken aback. But the yellow fox had already chomped down on her good arm and was tugging her along towards the door. "I didn't say–"
"Dif' way!" she yipped excitedly, hopping towards the door with Espurr like a dog toy, and pulling her through it.
The building was located on a steep, grassy hill. Tricky impatiently pulled Espurr down the steps, tugging her by her good arm. Espurr protested, but not wanting to lose a second arm, followed along where she was pulled. Tricky led her down the stone steps and towards a flat, downhill clearing with several wooden stump-desks and a blackboard hanging from the branch of a low tree.
"That's the school – school's out today – " Tricky said in between breaths as they passed.
"Tricky!"
Both Espurr and Tricky's heads whipped around, where what looked like a very angry weasel wearing a safety vest was marching towards them.
"Berry crackers…" Tricky mumbled through Espurr's arm. "Bye Watchog! See you tomorrow!"
"Is this another one of your shenanigans?" Watchog angrily asked as he continued marching towards the pair. "Put that poor student back where you found them right now!"
But Tricky was already shoving Espurr off.
"No can do, Watchog! Audino's orders! Espurr needs me to show her around town!"
"No I don't–"
"That's VICE PRINCIPAL Watchog to you!" Watchog yelled after Tricky, drowning out Espurr's meek response entirely. Already, she didn't like him. "And those don't sound like Audino's orders!"
"They are! Trust me!" Tricky yelled as they continued down the downwards path, Watchog and the classroom getting further and further away.
"Trust… you?" Espurr could hear Watchog's stupefied sputtering in the distance. It wasn't hard to see why.
"C'mon!" Tricky said, once they'd reached the base of the hill. Ahead of them was a winding path overshadowed by a forest of tall pine trees.
"The town's this way. Coming?" she looked back at Espurr with large, scarlet, expectant eyes.
Espurr could have gone back to the clinic right then. She was sure Watchog, as huffy and puffy as he was, would've taken her. But the thought had already evaporated, barely worth the half-second it would have taken to think. Gears were turning in her head—a town? If she wanted to figure out where she was, and maybe find a way to get home, this was the perfect opportunity to do it. And if Tricky was so eager to roll out the red carpet for her…
"Sure," she said, putting on a cheery front and taking a few bold steps forward, until she was under the shade of the pine tree path. "If it's a short trip. Do you think we could be back before Nurse Audino?"
Tricky's ears perked up mischievously.
"Yup!" she said. "You're really coming?"
Espurr nodded.
The fox suddenly looked very excited and like she was going to say something else, but thought better of it and instead made to prance down the path, beckoning Espurr on with her tail. "Follow me!"
Ignoring the dull ache in her bandaged arm, Espurr began to hurry after Tricky on unsteady feet, doing her best to keep up.
~\({O})/~
"This is the village square!" Tricky announced loudly.
Espurr, exiting after her, took a look around: The pine tree path had let out after a few minutes, and as the trees gave way they'd entered a large, round plaza with colourfully-roofed houses and tents set up on all sides. The transition from dirt to cobblestone felt odd against her feet. The houses all had domed, acorn roofs, and the paved stones of the square were arranged in colours like a spiral mosaic, trailing in spirals from green into purple into orange. Long, black poles extended above the square, topped with bluish glassy orbs that caught the light. A few pedestrians were going about their business, doing what Espurr had to assume was pointedly avoiding Tricky from the large berth they were given.
The shock made her dizzy where she stood. It all looked so… so different… she felt like crumpling to the ground. This was nothing like home. She was far away from home. Too far.
She was never going home.
Desperate gears started turning in her head, trying to find some straw to grasp: there seemed to be streetlights, so was there a phone box around anywhere? She couldn't see one. What about that big, two-story building with the lights? Lights had to mean power, so–
"That's the Café Connection," said Tricky helpfully, seeing where she was staring. Café… Espurr's eyes lit up. A familiar word!
"Does it ha—" she began hopefully.
"The village is larger," Tricky prattled on obliviously, cutting Espurr off. "But this is where everything happens! You've got your Café Connection, your perfume tent—no-mon talks about the perfume tent—and your Kecleon's stall!" She excitedly pointed them out as she mentioned them; the large, two-storey building with a sloped roof, a striking red teepee-like tent that resembled a bird in decoration, and a green-and-white tent with enough crates and shade behind it that it might as well have been a building on its own.
"Don't steal from Kecleon," Tricky added in a hush, leaning too close to Espurr's ears for comfort. Espurr leaned back a bit. "Trust me."
"And so, you see…"
Stray voices slipped into her ear, momentarily drawing her attention away towards the other side of the square, where what looked like a pink deer and something in a metal shell were arguing. Espurr couldn't help it; once she picked up on a conversation in the background, she was listening in and that was that.
"He's nine! We both know he wouldn't walk into one of those places like that! Not unless somemon prompted him first…"
"Well, I'm getting to that…"
"What's so interesting?" Tricky's head curiously slid over to the side of Espurr's. Upon seeing them, her eyes lit up, and suddenly Espurr was being pushed against her will towards the pair by the world's most energetic fox.
"Deerling! Shelmet! Guysguysguysguysguys—"
Deerling, the elder one, looked up in annoyance, her face twisting into tiredness as Tricky pushed the hapless Espurr towards her.
"Um… hi?" Deerling raised a hoof in perplexed greeting. "Tricky, what are you up to now?" she asked with a much sterner tone. "I thought you were still in Nurse Audino's office for jumping out of that tree."
Espurr was suddenly dumped backwards onto the ground. She fell with a yelp. It hurt! Tricky pranced in front of her stiffly. "Guys—you are never gonna believe this—I found Nurse Audino's kid! Really! See?"
"Loser alert…" Shelmet, the younger one, rolled his eyes.
"Tricky…" Deerling whacked her hoof against her face, then shook her head. She was clearly annoyed now. "Nurse Audino doesn't have kids. Plus, she isn't married, and she isn't a psychic-type. How could this be her kid?" she stuck an irked hoof in Espurr's direction.
"Well…" Tricky's tail drooped. She bit back the pain. "She's… adopted! Nurse Audino saved her life last night!" She nodded very quickly, like the speed would prove her point more. Then she looked at Espurr. "Right?"
Espurr was still uncrumpling herself from the ground, feeling quite nettled—from a broken arm to this?—but she figured out almost immediately that Tricky had just come up with the perfect cover story for her.
"Um, that's right," Espurr added, nodding.
The words felt like putty on her mouth, tumbling onto the ground in ways she couldn't control. Ugh, talking to people just didn't agree with her. Deerling looked surprised; Espurr figured she wasn't very used to being wrong. She quickly stuck out her one good paw, trying to move along. "Hi. I'm Espurr."
Her paw wasn't taken. Deerling looked somewhat confused at the gesture. Espurr, wilting inside, retracted it. Looking down at Deerling's hooves, maybe she should have realised that wasn't normal here. Extremely smart of her.
Deerling shook off the confusion, and then she was all business again.
"Great," she said, bowing her head quickly towards Espurr. "Deerling. See you in class tomorrow." She ignored Tricky, who scowled and then turned her nose up with a 'hmmph', fixing her piercing glare on Shelmet again.
"And you…"
Shelmet, who had been trying to inch away, froze in terrified silence.
"Show me exactly where Goomy went in," Deerling growled. "We need to get him out of there before his parents come looking!"
Without another word, a hopping Shelmet led Deerling off towards the large town archways ahead of them. In the distance, a path forking off towards dark-looking woods lay ahead.
"So-o-o-o-o…." came Tricky's voice, making Espurr's heart skip. "Are we following them, or are we following them?"
Espurr did not want to follow them.
"I wanted to look around the town a bit more," said Espurr. She'd come here to get her bearings, not to take a detour. "Besides, I thought we were getting back quickly? Going after them would take a while…"
"Yeah, but…" Tricky's tail swished between her legs. "C"mon, it'll be fun!"
"Well, you can follow them," Espurr offered. "I can look around a bit until you get back."
And splitting here would give her an opportunity to explore the place and get back before they wound up in trouble.
"But I thought…" Tricky trailed off, disappointment ringing clear in her voice. "I thought you were gonna…"
"I don't want to get into trouble," Espurr admitted. Nor do I want all this to be for nothing.
"Hah!" Tricky laughed. It sounded fake. "I laugh in the face of trouble!"
She forced out a few laughs to make it sound more real. Espurr wasn't buying it.
"You sound constipated," she said.
"Pbht." Tricky blew a raspberry. "Rude."
"Don't you worry about what Nurse Audino would say if she came back and we weren't there?" Espurr said, a bit more assertively. "You promised it would be a quick trip."
Tricky deflated. Even she couldn't refute that was true. Assuming she'd made her point, Espurr turned around and started searching around the square, her pace quickening as she went. She just wanted to find a phone box. Maybe the Café Connection had one…
"Wait, c'mon!" Tricky cried dejectedly, running back and forth and orbiting Espurr as she walked away from the square. "It won't even take that long! It'll just be in and out! It's probably nothing anyway!"
"Tricky, don't you have other friends to play with?" Espurr pleaded tiredly. "Why can't you go help those two who went ahead? Why do you need me?"
She was injured anyway. It wasn't like she'd be much help at all.
"Because..." Tricky trailed off, her tail swooshing erratically. It cramped up and she shuddered in pain. "They don't... you don't... just, c'mon! Pleeeaaase?"
Espurr did her best to march forward and ignore her. Phone box. Just keep calm… Yesterday was beginning to flash through her head again—her harrowing trip through the woods, the strange pokemon that had chased her… She couldn't go back into another spooky forest. She just couldn't. What if it was the forest? What if they were still out there, looking for her? What if they… What if they found Deerling and Shelmet? And Goomy, whoever they were?
Espurr hadn't realised she'd stopped walking until Tricky stopped too, her head tilting in confusion.
"…Does this mean you changed your mind?" she asked hopefully.
Espurr's eyes widened with a gasp, and she suddenly tugged Tricky by her ear-fluff into a narrow alleyway without warning.
"Hide!"
"Hey, what gives—" Tricky started to fuss, but Espurr quickly put her good paw up against Tricky's snout in a shushing motion.
"Shh," she said. "Look. Nurse Audino's coming back!"
Sure enough, the pink-and-yellow pokemon was leisurely hiking into the woods towards the school, unaware that the two kids she'd left at the school were watching her at this very moment. Espurr's tail sunk a bit, curling around her. Oh, they were so done for. Could they even get back before Audino did?
"No biggie!" Tricky, unexpectedly, leapt up with new life. "We'll just take the loooong way around. If we're quick, she won't even know we were missing! Follow me!"
She began to dash down the thin alleyway, stopping and turning back some twelve feet away from Espurr.
"C'mon, slowpoke! She yelled back from across the alley. "At this rate, taking the long way around won't be a shortcut!"
Espurr just couldn't move as fast as Tricky could, and that was a fact. She kept stumbling over her still-unsteady legs and needing to lean against the wall for balance every several strides. How was she even going to keep up, at this rate?
Heya, back for the next review of my review tag. This technically is what was asked for to satisfy it, which is a bit ironic since you bumped things on the day that I wrapped this review up. ^^;
But I suppose that’s a reason to come back to this story sometime soon. Let’s check up and see how Espurr’s doing, hm?
As far as Espurr was concerned, and she figured she was rather smart for a kid, unusual things just didn't happen to people like her. They happened to people who were completely ordinary and turned their homework in an hour before the due date; or to people who were completely unordinary and did squats at the bus stop while wearing a snorkel mask. But they just didn't happen to people caught in the middle. Those were the rules.
Espurr was only sixty-three percent ordinary, which was about as in the middle as you could be. She lived in a normal house in a normal neighbourhood in a normal city that had won an award for being the most boring city in the entire world. Her parents wore identical pairs of spectacles, and both were accountants for a company that sold luxury lightbulbs. Espurr read her favourite book about insects in a corner during recess, thought Wednesday was a deep purple colour, and had been kicked off the girls' football team for not showing up to practise. She never had the same answers as anyone else in class, wasn't allowed to wear her hair or clothing in any of the popular styles, and hadn't had friends since the third grade.
Oh, so Espurr has more of her human memories this go-around, huh? Interesting tweak, and I wonder how it’ll affect the early plot given that in the v1, she has a much more complete memory wipe than this.
Though I wonder if the use of British English spelling is meant to imply anything about her background, or if I’m reading into things a bit too much.
Her life was the same, day in, day out. Unlike those around her, nothing strange or exciting ever happened, and the world seemed to pass her by. There were no sudden wrenches in her plans, no camping or trips out with friends during summer vacation, no ghosts or plays or sleepovers. No secret texts under a blanket to boyfriends at night, no long-distance phone calls to close friends far away. There was just the bus to school, the walk home, and hours and hours of books and stupid cat videos.
Credit where it was due; the neighbour's tabby cat, a lazy, roaming, ill-tempered beast, often kept her company as long as she fed him. But her life was solitary and uneventful because, as far as she could tell, she was already unusual enough to be a few buns short a batch, and the universe needed to set the scales straight.
Yeeeeeeah, assuming that Espurr’s character direction is about the same as it was in v1, I can understand why she takes a shine to recklessly seeking out adventure.
Though I suppose the cat videos and the neighbor cat would explain a thing or two about why the Voice of Life or whoever gave that interview to her chose to cat-ify her.
So when she finished recording her day in her old, battered notebook, like she had all the days before. When her old chewed pencil left the yellowed paper and she shut it and the lamp off and fell backwards into bed, and she laid there waiting for the icy blue covers to warm up and stared at the spiderlike shadows of branches reaching across her ceiling. She reflected on how empty her day was, just like the page she'd been writing on.
I kinda wonder if this sentence ought to be broken up into at least two or three. Like I get that the semicolon is there to conjoin two distinct thoughts, but that is a long singular sentence there. .-.
She drifted away slowly listening to the wind blow softly against her windowsill, the branches swinging back and forth as if waving their hands to a crowd she couldn't see. It never occurred to her how much of an ordinary thing it was to wake up the next day where she'd gone to sleep.
<><><>
Espurr stirred, groaning and shifting in something that didn't quite feel like her mattress. Her bedcovers were missing. Had they fallen off? Her eyes felt glued shut. Her head ached and swam with fog, her legs tired, her throat scratchy, like she was sick with a fever. A pounding headache knocked between her eyes.
I kinda wonder if the paragraph where we go from normalcy to the start of Espurr as a Pokémon works a bit better if it’s separated by a hard scene break. Especially if those memories we saw her having earlier for whatever reason don’t carry on past this point.
She took a breath, and her nose wrinkled up. There was a scent in the air that was revolting. It smelled like something had died long ago, and the stench was now floating on the wind, mingling with the other plant smells, poisoning the air.
Her eyes shot open, then quickly squeezed shut, blinded by sunlight she wasn't expecting to see. It was filtered through the branches of dense, intertwining treetops, the canopies blending and swirling together into a strange painting.
Fright rushed through her. Her eyes went wide open, and she shot up into a sitting position, scrambling on the ground and looking around frantically. Where was she? Had she been kidnapped? How did she get all the way out here?
But there was no-one around to answer her questions. And if there were kidnappers, they must have left. She was in the middle of an empty forest clearing, overcast by shadows, covered in dead leaves, mossy tree roots, and low ferns. The place was silent, barren of even wildlife. Not even the crickets chirped here. The sound of the wind left as quickly as it came, leaving only the eerie rustling of dead leaves in its wake. As the complete, total silence set in, Espurr's heavy breathing slowed, and her fear was replaced with quiet, tense unease.
Yeah, just this description is making things sound like there’s something obviously wrong with it. Which there kinda is since it’s a Mystery Dungeon. So good job painting an image for the readers there.
Her throat screamed for water, so she crawled through the forest ground until she came to the edge of a slowly-flowing river – the only thing that made any sound here. Her body didn't seem to move right on the way there, but she found the source of water quickly. Something she couldn't put into words told her to lower her head and drink rather than cup the water in her hands.
Drinking felt weird. Her tongue acted differently, scooping the cool drink up backwards into her mouth. She was too thirsty to care.
Espurr: “Wait, is it me, or is my tongue constantly going in and out of my mouth? Do I really drink like that?” .-.
It was only when her hand passed in front of her for the first time that she sharply gasped. It didn't look like her hand. She was missing a finger, and the ones she still had were much shorter and chubbier than before. They were completely covered from tip to palm in fur. And that caused her to snap awake and look at herself for the first time.
Her reflection in the river's cool, slowly-moving water betrayed her: from head to toe she was coated in bushy lavender fur, extending into white on her arms and legs. Her ears were large and floppy, hugging her head. A fluffy, catlike tail swished behind her, unnoticed before. Now she could feel it swish, every motion alien and unwanted.
Ah yes, now she is officially ‘Espurr’ now. Let’s go have a live look at how she’s doing, hm?:
She stared at the purple tail in disbelief, her mind racing to find any solution that made sense. That tail couldn't be a part of her, humans didn't grow tails. It wasn't possible. Which meant… something was on her back? The tail swished, lowering, and she felt it lower, which meant it couldn't be something on her back, it had to be her tail, which meant… which meant…
She felt lightheaded staring at it, stumbling to keep her balance. Every part of her body felt unfamiliar, unnatural, wrong. Her breathing sped up into gasps and a terrible pit formed in her stomach as her mind raced and she tried to understand what was happening, what was happening? She'd become some kind of monster, she wasn't even human anymore, no-one would recognize her as a furry, tailed freak! Where was this? Who had done this to her?
Ah yes, so Espurr did get memory-wiped after all given that she has no recollection of her conversation in the prologue. Though I made a couple of suggestions for minor structure and phrasing tweaks.
Swish.
The sound of long grass and low ferns parting from behind Espurr snapped her out of her panic. A spike of fear cut clean through the shock, her senses returning to her crystal clear. Were there kidnappers after all? She went still and silent, her tail puffing up, twisting her head towards where the sound had come from.
You’d think that, but no. It’s something much, much worse.
In the darkness of the woods, where the trees leaned inwards and the light didn't dare venture, her new, sharp eyes made out the outlines of three figures watching her. They stood three times her height, their posture like full-grown men, but they were thin and bony, crooked at the shoulder, and out of their heads extended tall, pointy hats. They didn't move a millimetre, and they didn't make a sound. Unsure of what to make of them, Espurr took a step back on shaky, unfamiliar feet for the first time.
"Hello?" she asked with a trembling, scratchy voice.
Espurr: “Um.. are you aliens? Since you three really, really look like aliens.”
There was no response from the three figures in the shadows. They simply remained fixated on her, their heads and pointy cones following every miniscule movement she made. Then, after a long, uncomfortable silence, they turned to themselves, and held up their arms.
Lights flickered from bulbs on their palms, alternating and blinking in strength quickly—red, green, yellow—almost like they were speaking. And as the lights illuminated them, Espurr saw them clearly: shrivelled faces shrouded behind gleaming, pinprick eyes, thick and angular cloaks, limbs long and bulky, and each with a crooked skin-cone that stretched far above their heads.
Crunch. Thud. The loud sound brought the Coneheads' attention right back to her. Espurr froze on the ground, eyes wide, breathing violently. The lights in the darkness vanished, nightshade swooping back in, and all the sudden the Coneheads were shrouded by the shadows, impossible to see. A whistle was her only warning: a ball of darkness flew out of the shadows, headed straight for her—
If there was one good blessing about any of this, all cats had good instincts. Espurr's new body kicked into gear, and before she knew what was happening, she threw herself out of the way just in time, hitting the ground and covering her ears. She didn't see what happened to the bush behind her. The sound of roots twisting and branches snapping told her it wasn't good.
Espurr: “Nope nope nope nope… I’ve seen enough aliens for one day.”
Swish.
The Coneheads glided out of the shadows, moving swift and silent and uniform, like they were one. As they brushed up against the shrubbery, Espurr saw how they floated—shrunken, underused legs dangling beneath sleek cloaks as they loomed—and nearly fainted with terror. Time seemed to slow. She watched her life flash before her eyes: her earliest memory of her parents, her eleventh birthday cake, the day she took a train through the woods and pretended it would transport her into a fairytale.
I mean, it helps that they are effectively one as puppets of Dark Matter. Though I see that Espurr’s memories really are more intact this time around, even if she obviously doesn’t remember her name yet.
Her body snapped into action, and she broke off into a run.
On unfamiliar legs, she stumbled to her feet and took off into the woods. Her legs failed her. She tripped several times. Her body hit the ground, painfully. Sticks and pebbles and leaves scraped her over and over and over with each fall and still she ran. But she continued to pick herself up, running desperately until she could no longer hear the swish of parting ferns behind her, no longer see the gleam of a light from behind a tree trunk.
When she stopped, it was in the middle of another, narrower, darker clearing. Espurr collapsed to her paws and knees, panting wildly as the fear wore off. Her chest hurt, her lungs couldn't take in enough air, and the aches and pains in her body were complaining loudly.
But even though her legs were sore, and her arms and sides hurt from where she fell, she had to keep walking. She just felt more lost than ever now. The next clearing looked like the last two, dead leaves, thick foliage, and tall, mossy tree trunks decorating every inch of the eerily silent forest. The light was slowly seeping away, the trees looming further and further with each lost beam. Espurr's stomach rumbled, and she felt her tail and ears flop down miserably with the hunger pangs. She'd been walking for hours now, wasn't there anything to eat?
Wait, she has? Or has it felt like Espurr has been walking for hours and that’s Mystery Dungeon weirdness affecting her? Since everything from when Espurr woke up felt like it could’ve fit into less than five minutes. .-.
Nothing she could tolerate. A ginger nibble off the nearest fern leaf made her scrunch her face up in disgust. Gross. The neighbour's cat used to eat beetles, but she didn't even want to think about eating those. Just because she was a cat didn't mean she had to act like one.
I’m actually curious as to if that’s going to wind up happening anyways to some extent as a whole “mind is a plaything of the body” thing later on in this version of this story.
Soon the air turned colder. The sky became darker, faster and faster. Her breaths came out in cloudy puffs. It was like a sudden icy freeze had descended over the woods. She looked up to the forest roof, where the sun was now orange and setting through the abstract treetops. It was going to be night soon, and she wasn't any closer to getting out of here. Those Coneheads could find her out in the night, in all this cold… she hadn't realised she was shivering until now. Was it fear or chill?
I mean, if you can see your breaths coming out in cloudy puffs, it’s not just you, Espurr.
A tendril of wispy mist swirled around her angular, unfamiliar feet. Espurr looked behind her. From behind approached a massive wall of fog, stretching from the ground all the way up to the branches of the treetops. It was so thick she couldn't see anything through it, and from its direction she caught that scent again – rot. The smell of something dead.
I mean, considering what we saw of some Dungeon ‘mon in the v1 of this story…
The wind that moved the fog ruffled her fur, battering her face with the smell. Espurr retched, stumbling back and desperately trying to cover her nose with her paws. It was so strong! That was enough to convince her the fog was bad. This was evil fog, and she couldn't get caught in it. She had to get away. But where could she go? It was approaching fast, too fast.
She looked up. The trees around her, stretching higher than the fog, had branches large enough to hold her. If the treetops could hide the sun, could they conceal her too?
Oh, so she’s going to break her arm in this go-around too, huh?
Anything to get to safety. She didn't know if she could climb with her shorter arms and strange, tip-toe feet, but she had to try. So Espurr scurried over to the nearest tree, a great twisted oak, and put her first foot on the trunk's mossy roots.
Huh. Maybe Espurr really has been walking for hours. Since I remember that time dilation was a thing in some Mystery Dungeons in the v1 of this story and that description certainly felt a lot like it.
It was finally sinking in that she might not get to go back home. She didn't even know where she was right now, let alone how to get there from here, and even if she did… A look at her paws and dirty lavender tail was all she needed. How would she even convince people that she was human, let alone her?
Hrm. Something about the “How was she even going to get home to begin with?” feels a bit repetitive with the opening of the prior paragraph. Maybe it’d make sense to change the nuance of the second one to focus a bit more on a “where would I even start?” sort of tack? Dunno what to suggest there.
With sickly ruminations swimming around in her head, it wasn't long before the exhaustion of her trek took over and she slowly drifted off to sleep.
Ah yes, while the Beheeyem are still out there. Only good things™ can possibly come from this.
<><><>
Her dreams were made of impossible things. She dreamt of an In Between, a horrible, darkened place where only void and suffering dared to venture. It was a nightmare that terrified her, one she madly clawed to escape from but couldn't leave on her own. Not until something woke her.
The sound of rustling below wrestled Espurr out of her nightmares. Her eyes opened blearily to abstract moonlight, blurred and scattered by the branches above. Her heart sunk as reality set in. The canopies seemed dark and twisted now, and so too was the whole forest. The ground was blanketed by a sea of thick, white fog, snaking insidiously through the trees as if searching for something.
I mean, if Mystery Dungeons are still sentient entities in this rewrite, that might be a bit more than just ‘as if’ there.
Though I do wonder if this would’ve made sense to split off as a hard scene break, since we’re skipping ahead quite a bit from the last paragraph with Espurr dreaming and an indeterminate amount of time having passed since then.
But what had woken her? She focused her hearing and her vision, looking over the branch…
A faint yellow light blinked and lit up the fog below. Other lights followed, flickering away as quick as they'd appeared. Espurr's heart fluttered and dropped and skipped a beat. Quiet horror flooded through her body. She quickly scrambled away from the edge, her heart pounding in fear, paws clasped against her face, vision spinning. She didn't dare to breathe. The Coneheads! They had found her! How?
I mean, you kinda feel asleep for an unknown period of time that could’ve been hours, so…
Swish.
More dead leaves and ferns rattling against the tattered cloaks of slender floating bodies. She could see the image as clear as day. All three of them were standing at the bottom of the tree. A strange psychic sense told her. Their dark auras fuzzed at the edges of her sight.
Ah yes, so Espurr already has her psychic powers at her disposal, even if she’s obviously quite unversed at it. I do wonder if it’d make sense for her to think of it as something less definitive than a psychic sense, though. Since Espurr’s in an alien body and experiencing alien senses, would she even reflexively know that that sensation is a psychic sense?
But they weren't doing anything. Peeking carefully over the branches as far as she could muster the bravery for, she could see their crooked, dark, pointy cones poking out of the fog, still as shadows. They were just standing there. Were they waiting for something? What for?
For you to come down so they can finish you off, Espurr. Never seen a wildlife documentary of a predator animal running prey up into a tree?
The wind picked up again. It blew against Espurr, bringing with it that rotting scent, and this time it didn't stop. She looked in its direction as the wind got stronger, and with the horrid smell came a horrid feeling, like something was coming with the wind. When the branches began to bend against the gale and a roar rose with the wind, Espurr started to realise: she couldn't stay here.
Oh, so the floor wiping wind is a thing in this setting here, too. I actually don’t remember whether or not that was a part of the v1 of this story, but it’s definitely a very
mood. It does make me wonder what would happen if a ‘mon got sucked up in it since bad things were established as happening to Pokémon that got lost in Mystery Dungeons in the v1 of this story.
She surveyed the ground from her cage of branches. The fog still blanketed it completely, and she didn't want to get any closer to the Coneheads. And though she really would have liked them, she hadn't grown any wings yet. Why couldn't she have become something with wings?
Because you liked cats as a human and the voice that recruited you here thought that you’d appreciate the morphic resonance? :V
That only left her one option, which made her tail bush up: the branches of the trees were just close enough to each other that she could hop across, if she was careful. But if it was that or escape on the ground, where the Coneheads were…
Getting onto her paws and knees, Espurr tightly clutched onto the branch for dear life as she edged her way along it towards the limb of the next tree. The rotting scent of the wind had stopped torturing her nose after a bit, but the gale was getting stronger, her fur ruffling wildly, a loud howling rising louder in the distance like a demented roar. Reaching the end of the branch, Espurr realised she wasn't going to be able to clear it with a single stride. She'd need to jump. And fast.
Oh, so she is going to break her arm again in this version of the story.
Fear seemed to reverse polarity. Before Espurr knew what she was doing, she was balancing unsteadily on the branch, preparing to jump to the next. Her muscles tensed, but fright froze them before she could jump. What was she doing? If she didn't make it, if she lost balance… she began to wobble, her heart picking up speed—
A howl of the wind blasted through the trees, and all of the sudden Espurr jolted and her new, springlike legs launched off the branch and threw her into the air.
She jumped entire feet higher than she was expecting. The leap propelled her far into the sky, and taken by surprise, she lost her control on the way down. Catlike reflexes kicked in, and in the final seconds she twisted and thrust her paws out and grasped for the branch—
A gust of wind, as if summoned out of nowhere, slammed into her with the force of a truck. Her outstretched paws missed the other branch by a hair's length. And with a flipping feeling in her stomach and the horrifying, gut-wrenching realisation she'd missed, Espurr whimpered and began the long, heart-wrenching trip towards the ground.
Aaaaaand there it is. Though knowing what I know about how Mystery Dungeons worked in the v1 of the story, I have to wonder if the gust of wind was the MD deliberately sabotaging Espurr there.
A loud yowl pierced the abstract night canopies.
Pain. It was white hot, racing through her and concentrating in her arm—her arm. It was at a funny angle. It wasn't supposed to bend like that! Crimson flashed across her vision, and somehow she knew what it meant. Pain.
Espurr: “Um… how loud was I screaming there again?”
Fighting back tears and sobs, Espurr staggered to her aching feet. The pain made it hard to think, see, feel. It hurt so much. Why was this happening? The pain. Red. It hurt. It hurt! She clutched her arm, but that just made it feel worse. How could that make it feel worse? Thick fog was all around her. The rotten wind swooped down and swirled around her, letting out a ghostly laugh like it was taking delight in her suffering. And then she heard it:
Espurr didn't have to see it; just the image of it in her head was enough to overload her mind and send her into flight mode. She bolted, fleeing through the woods wherever her legs would take her. The gnarled root of a tree sent her tumbling to the ground. She landed on her bad arm. Crimson flashed across her eyes like splattered blood. She grunted and bit back her yowl of pain, crying quietly and letting her tears flow. It hurt so bad.
Huh. I didn’t remember this synthesia thing being a part of the analogue to this chapter back in v1, but I do remember it popping up on occasion later on. Interesting dynamic there, and it helps sell the sense of frantic desperation quite well.
She heard it again: Swish. She looked back. Her tear-blurred vision framed an image that burned into her mind: an emerald cape attached to a large, lean, dark figure, striding towards her through the ghostly fog. She felt the evil flow out from them. Their overwhelming aura of darkness singed the ends of their cloak, searing itself into her vision.
Espurr, barely lucid, hanging on by the barest of grips, shut her eyes tight and stumbled into a run again, only able to flee for her life.
An audino quietly picked the herbs and weeds from around a small bush in the forest, slipping them into her exploration bag. It was the full moon, and her herb stores were running low again.
Fresh-picked herbs were always available east of the Lively Mountain Range, but rarely grew anywhere west of it. They were so vital to Audino's medical practices, but somehow they were the hardest thing to get a hold of. She could always get them from Kecleon, but the miser overcharged for them and everymon knew it. She had been lucky to find this clutch of them sitting around the nearby mystery dungeon. Mystery dungeons being what they were, Audino had returned once every month at the full moon—she was superstitious—and found the exact same bush with the exact same clutches of herbs awaiting her.
I mean, if Kecleon in this story gets them the same way he canonically does in Rescue Team… yeah, he’s definitely overcharging. ^^;
Of course, finding the bush was a different beast entirely—every time Audino came looking for it, it was always in a different place. But that was to be expected of a dungeon. The places were always rearranging themselves however they saw fit. Audino was just grateful she'd found the bush quickly this time. Something was different tonight, and she could smell it in the air. It was like the dungeon had grown darker, making her fur bristle, and her surroundings put her on guard.
Oh, so the “evil smell” of the Mystery Dungeon is something that Pokémon in general can pick up on.
The lack of apparitions around at this time of night made her ears twitch with uneasiness too. The dungeon's natural defence apparitions mostly came out when it was dark. The ones here were weak enough for a child to defeat and they knew their limits, but all the same, they were never beings to shy away from a fight they thought they could pick. Audino had been in enough dungeons to know… if there were no dungeon apparitions, there was usually something worse around.
I mean, I suppose ‘puppets of Dark Matter that may or may not be Void Shadows’ would be quite a bit worse, yes.
And whatever it was, Audino didn't want to meet it tonight. She kept the escape orb she had bought from Kecleon's specifically for this occasion in one of the bag's looser pockets, just in case she'd need to make an impromptu escape.
Which considering Espurr’s pursuers… yeah, probably for the best, really.
She looked up from her herb picking in confusion as an unnatural wind blew past her, shaking the trees with visible anger as it went. It stank of vicious rot. In the distance, she could see what looked like a thick wall of mist. Worry flooded through Audino, her paw slipping into her weathered explorer's bag and clutching her escape orb tightly. This dungeon wasn't supposed to do that... this dungeon was too weak for that. Something was very wrong here.
I actually wonder if Mystery Dungeons are also extensions of Dark Matter in this setting. Since its behavior has been eerily coordinated along with the Beheeyem’s there.
There was suddenly a loud thump in the distance, accompanied by a sickening crack. Audino had half a mind to just smash the orb right now and forget her herbs. But that notion disappeared once she heard the yowl of pain that followed. Whatever pokemon had made it sounded rather young… But a dungeon apparition, even a weaker one, could spell trouble for her at this point.
Suddenly, Audino saw the silhouette of a small pokemon running straight in her direction through the fog. Was it a dungeon apparition? Her grip on the escape orb became tight enough to whip out on command. She watched as within seconds, an espurr stumbled out of the distant mist and into the immediate area, running frantically through the woods. For a split second, Audino hesitated. Espurr weren't apparitions native to this dungeon. So why was one here?
Wait, I just realized that dungeonmons are being called ‘dungeon apparitions’. Implying that they’re more on the ghostly side of things this time around?
Espurr: “Help! Help! These weird coneheaded… things are after me!” O.O
Audino: “I beg your pardon-?” ._.;
She only had to see the look in the espurr's eyes to understand completely. Their eyes glimmered in the moonlight with a look of terror, an intelligent look. By now, the espurr had seemed to realise Audino wasn't a hostile apparition, and changed their course directly towards her.
"Help!" the pokemon hoarsely cried out in terror.
that wrenched Audino's heart wrenched at the espurr’s terrified cries, and watched how they clutched their left arm to their chest as they stumbled up to her. Audino studied the arm with a nurse's precision, identifying the fracture in a matter of seconds. It wasn't easy to break a pokemon's bones. That thump, that yowl… had something done this to her?
IMO, Espurr’s line works a bit better if it’s separated from the following paragraph, with the first sentence in particular of the second paragraph feeling like it loses its impact a bit from its length and the multiple things going on in it.
Something that was approaching from the fog at this very moment. Hints of the strongest wind yet began to blow through Audino's fur as she hurriedly beckoned the espurr towards her. Behind the terrified child, she could see a trio of silhouettes approaching, framed by flickering lights. Red, yellow, green…
The espurr reached Audino, violently shivering from cold and terror. Audino hugged her close, keeping an eye on both the wind and the approaching pokemon.
Audino: “Okay, yeah. I think I’ll skip the herbs today!” O_O;
As the wind grew stronger, the pokemon approached, and Audino got her first good look at them: a trio of beheeyem, ghostly lights flickering in the fog. Their crooked cones stood tall into the night; their eyes gleamed brighter than lights and sent chills down Audino's spine. Those weren't wild looks either; they were too shrewd, too calculated. Whatever they were… they knew what they were doing. Audino's eyes narrowed. Her arm around Espurr tightened.
"Stay close, and whatever you do, don't let go. Understand?" Audino instructed loudly. The espurr nodded, staring at the beheeyem and holding back tears.
Ah yes, time to pop that Escape Orb, since… yeah. If these three still have their party trick from the v1 version of the story, attempting to outrun them is a really, really bad idea.
There was no more time to waste. The howling of the wind was picking up, turning into a rancid gale, and it brought the creeping, looming wall of fog with it. Any longer, Audino knew, and the approaching pokemon would be the least of their worries. In one swift motion, she hugged Espurr tight and whipped out the escape orb.
"Shut your eyes!" she yelled to Espurr, hurling the orb at her feet. It shattered and exploded into a plume of brilliant, blue-white smoke, and when the smoke cleared, Audino and Espurr were nowhere to be found.
I actually am a bit surprised that the Beheeyem didn’t make more of an effort to get at Espurr here. Though if Dark Matter still has a mole in Serenity Village in this go around, I suppose that could explain a thing or two about the seeming lack of fight here. And it’d be a decent hint that Espurr’s not as safe as she really thinks she is.
Huh. Nice track, and it works pretty well with this chapter. I really should get around to watching PiB 2 sometime.
Okay, so full disclosure, I read the analogue to this chapter in the original version of the story, so quite a bit of it felt familiar to me… except for the parts that didn’t. Especially the opening showing us glimpses of Espurr’s life as a human. I had to look back to sanity-check it, but yup. It definitely wasn’t there. So kudos on managing to make things feel fresh for your repeat readers. It doesn’t hurt that the sequence of events was fun to read, since it does a good job of selling a sense of suspense and getting into the heads of the characters.
I don’t have a whole lot to complain about regarding this chapter beyond a couple of quibbles I had about phrasing or some paragraphs that I felt worked better broken up into smaller ones. The one kinda biggish complaint that I have is that there were two points where it honestly felt like you could’ve dropped in a hard scene break to better sell a sense of ‘change in time and/or place’, but even then, it still worked decently enough, and it could just be a difference of authorial style speaking.
But all-in-all, it and the Prologue felt like a really solid opening, @SparklingEspeon . It does a good job standing on its own merits, and even for people who’ve read the original version of the story, it still felt refreshing to come back to things and see the things that changed here and there.
My plate is admittedly a bit full with reading targets for the foreseeable future, but I’ll be keeping an eye on this one. Since just from what I’ve read thus far of it, I can tell that it’s going to be quite the ride. ^^
Kudos, and best of luck with the v2 of your story.
. . .. . .This wasn't the way back at all, Espurr was quickly realising. The buildings of the village had long since turned to dense trees that blotted out the sun and cast everything into various shades of blue and purple. It was darker than the foggy green forest she'd woken up in before, more ominous and looming.
"Are you sure this is the way back to school?" she asked Tricky, who was sniffing something out on the ground as they walked through and brushed aside blue and purple ferns and underbrush.
"Yep! Toootally. We're taking the loooooong way around," the fox remarked, her eyes and nose glued to the trail ahead. Espurr could see her mental smirk. She drilled holes into the back of Tricky's head with her suspicious gaze.
"What sort of shortcut takes us further awa—"
"Stop!"
Tricky suddenly perked up straight, sticking out a paw and her tail to stop Espurr from heading any further.
"I'm going in after him!" the sound of voices through the underbrush up ahead caught Espurr's ears.
"No! You c-can't! We… we're not gonna let anything bad happen to you!"
"Like you didn't let anything bad happen to Goomy?"
There was a scoff, followed by the clip-clop of someone backing away.
"Save it. You two go in after him if you're so chivalrous."
"W-why do we need to do that? I'm sure he's fiiiine, he's just late."
"You eejit, he should have been back hours ago!"
"You brought us here?" Espurr snapped under her breath at Tricky. The corners of her vision were tinted with magenta annoyance, and rightly so! Now they were certain to get in trouble, and if those strange creatures happened to be lurking around… "I thought we were going back to the school!"
"Well, yoouu weren't going to come on your own…" Tricky said. "Soo I had to improvise!"
"But…" Espurr stopped, at a loss for words. She glared daggers at Tricky, stomping the ground. "If I wanted to come,don't you think I would have said so the first time? You can't just—"
"But this is way more fun than sitting around in the school!" Tricky pleaded, almost like she was trying to convince herself. "You wanna have fun, don't you?"
Cold anger laced Espurr's face, lashing across her eyes as ice blue. She made sure as much of it pierced through as possible. If she'd had laser eyes, Tricky would have been a pile of dust.
"I guess we have very different ideas of f—"
"Who's that?" Deerling yelled loudly towards the brushes, stealing the voice out of Espurr's mouth. "Show yourselves!"
Tricky bounded forward, throwing apart the blue-purple leaves of the foliage. Espurr brushed past them, following her out into a small, overcast clearing.
"Oh…" Deerling, standing in the middle, relaxed as Espurr gingerly picked some twigs out of her fur. "It's you two."
"You guys left without meeee…" Tricky pranced forward and whined, her voice theatrically sad.
"Well, I didn't see you signing up to help," Deerling pointed out, staring daggers at Tricky.
"Well, no-mon told me!" Tricky whined.
"There is a good reason for that," Deering snapped, turning around. She nodded her head down at Tricky's silently cramping tail, which she was walking stiffly to avoid provoking. "Besides, you're injured. Just go back to the school clinic."
"Yeah! We don't need a loser like you taking up precious space when we're short on time," a third voice interjected. The words had come from a pancham who leaned against one of the trees, his arms folded. He was chewing a twig in his mouth like he thought it made him look cool. One look and Espurr could tell they weren't going to be friends.
"Who's the new kid?" Pancham asked, twirling the twig around in his teeth.
"Nurse Audino's child," everyone but Espurr replied in unison.
"Hmm," said Pancham, spitting his stick on the ground. Espurr looked at the wad of spit and suppressed a shiver of disgust. They definitely weren't going to be friends.
"Look, we're on a clock here!" Deerling stepped up. "Goomy should have been back hours ago. He could be in serious trouble! You know what happens when pokemon stay in mystery dungeons too long. And if you don't want to get grounded for life by your parents…" she glared pointedly at Pancham and Shelmet. "Then it's our responsibility to help him!"
"Hey," Pancham said, raising his arms. "Dad's outta town, he ain't gonna do jack squat. Besides, it's not a big deal. You're freakin' out over nothing."
"I am not freaking out over nothing, Pancham!" Deerling growled at him. "You know that! You all know that! We can't leave him in there, we can't have a repeat!"
Tricky's ears quickly flattened, and out of nowhere Espurr was blindsided by a cloud of haze that coloured her vision blue and blotted out her thoughts. She realised that it was coming from Tricky, who looked distressed. Desperate to get free of the mind-fog, she moved away from Tricky, and it lifted just enough for Espurr to think again. Soon after, it was gone, and Tricky had settled back into her normal peppy self. Espurr looked at Tricky with concern: what was that?
But Tricky was trying to ignore her.
All the overlapping voices and arguing that had been going on in the meantime were making Espurr's head hurt in more ways than one. All she wanted more than anything was to be back safe somewhere quiet at the school. She hadn't signed up for this! But at the same time… Espurr looked towards the forest ahead of her, and saw the dark, tangled mass of trees that lay ahead. Even from here, she could tell something was wrong with it. There were little things off; how it hit the light and seemed to shimmer, how it smelled, musty with a hint of black rot fuzzing around the corner. And there was another kid just like her stuck in there…
What if the Coneheads got him?
The thought of going in after him made her stomach flip. She didn't even have both of her arms right now. But the thought of going back to the school knowing there was someone stuck in there just like her made it flip more. She couldn't just leave him alone in there, could she? She'd never forgive herself.
"He's gonna be fine!" Pancham shouted dismissively over the rest of the yelling. "All of this because—"
"We'll go."
The clearing fell silent. Everyone looked in surprise at where the voice came from. Tricky's mouth fell open in awe and stayed that way. Espurr looked around to make sure everyone's attention was on her, then put her good paw down.
"…Are you sure?" Deerling asked, eyeing Espurr's cast. "You don't look too good."
Espurr's attention was drawn back to her cast, and the dull maroon throbbing of her bone that was slowly beginning to become sharper. She had a feeling she was going to regret this. A lot.
"Well, you need a volunteer, don't you?" she pressed. "I don't see anyone else… unless you want to get an adult involved?"
Now that she thought about it, that was a very good idea, why didn't they run with that?
"No," said Tricky, Pancham, and Shelmet all at once. Espurr wilted inside. There went that. And she didn't quite want to go back to Audino empty-handed anyway.
"Then I guess it's settled," she said.
"Hey, we won't stop you." Pancham said, gladly stepping aside. Shelmet quickly followed suit, bobbing his shell with a wide grin.
Deerling sent them a quick glare, then cleared a path for Espurr and—reluctantly—Tricky.
"Have fun getting killed!" Shelmet yelled after them.
"Shelmet!" hissed Deerling back with vitriol. Shelmet disappeared into his shell with a squeak. "All of you, back to the town. We're getting some more help."
As they walked in, the bushes began to close up the way back. Espurr looked back as they curled up around each other, creating a dark wall of blue leaves behind them. From here on out, the forest looked like it wanted to tear them limb from limb.
Maybe it did.
~\({O})/~
Foreboding Forest – Area I
"I'm gonna be honest with you…" Tricky excitedly scampered all around Espurr and Deerling as the three of them made their way through the shadowy forest. "That was amazing! I didn't think you were the exploring type! Now we can be fellow explorers together, and brave mystery dungeons together, and even join the Expedition Society together! When we grow up, of course. The Expedition Society doesn't accept children."
Espurr was still cross with Tricky, and it was written on her face. She stumbled over her own feet with a squeak again, for the seventeenth time that day. Sure, the ground was littered with all manner of trip-friendly objects, but she could tell that wasn't the problem. How she wanted her old feet back…
"We're just here for Goomy," she said firmly. They were only here for Goomy. She didn't know if Tricky heard her or not. "It's not exploring."
If Tricky had heard her, she didn't show it.
Espurr looked up at the woods, noticing the utter lack of wind, how the forest seemed to stare down upon them with a thousand evil eyes, the rancid scent of decay that once again filled the air… Something was wrong here.
"This place doesn't want us here," she finally said aloud, shuddering. Her tail dipped low, just above the ground. "Can you feel it?"
"Well, duuuh." Tricky was blasé, trotting cheerfully. "We're in a mystery dungeon." She dismissed it with a flick of her ears. "I should know, I've been through, like, 30 of these and come out just fine! You'll always know you're in a mystery dungeon when the wind stops blowing, and everything smells bad, and you get that kinda creepy feeling, like somemon's watching you…"
Tricky's word vomit blended in with the background noise as Espurr walked. How far in was Goomy from here? And what did he look like, for that matter? She just hoped he wasn't too far from the entrance…
"…And you know it's time to leave once this really thick fog starts creeping in…" Words finally stopped sprinting out of Tricky's mouth, the fennekin falling silent as she saw the same thing Espurr did: A thick mass of fog slowly crept between the trees, thick and dense, obscuring all it touched.
"…Exactly like that," Tricky quietly finished. She suddenly looked a lot more frantic. "Already?" she yelled to all the trees around them. Her voice echoed up into the hollow, painted canopy. "We were only here for five minutes! How come there's already fog?!"
Espurr watched the treetops above crackle violently, blown by a strong wind that had come out of nowhere. The hackles on her tail rose.
"Tricky?"
"Yeah?" The normally hyperactive fox glanced back at Espurr.
"What happens if you stay in a mystery dungeon for too long?" Espurr asked, her voice wavering with just a hint of fear.
"Well, first, this really freaky wind starts to blow out of nowhere," Tricky started, her tail stiffly curling behind her. "And it just gets stronger every time it comes back. And then if you don't leave after that, then the dungeon starts lashing out at you itSELF—"
Both Espurr and Tricky, jumped a combined total of six feet apart as the trunk of a giant tree suddenly splintered apart, falling to the ground with a deafening crash and flattening the area of ground they had previously been on.
Shaken, Espurr quickly made her way around the tree trunk to where Tricky was still picking herself up.
"Maybe I should just stop talking…" Tricky finally conceded, still catching her breath from the sudden incident.
"Good idea." Espurr readily agreed.
~\({O})/~
This had all been such a bad idea. He'd only wanted to prove himself to the other kids. He was nine! That was… a big kid's age for sure! But no-mon ever seemed to realise that. Deerling only coddled him, and Pancham and Shelmet bullied him more than the others, and Tricky… No-mon liked to talk about or to Tricky. Not that Goomy hadn't tried. Three months ago—the first and only time he'd attempted making friends with her—she had roped him into stealing unripe strawberries from her Pop's berry patch. That didn't end well for either of them.
But this was just as bad, if not even worse! Pancham and Shelmet had told him to do it. If he could find the paper they had left in this dungeon from the last school field trip, write his name on it, and bring it back to them before nightfall, they said, then they would finally recognise him as one of the Big Kids and stop teasing him! It was too good to be a dream, so he'd taken the dare.
And he'd found the paper too, on the first floor of the dungeon, no less! Watchog had taught him that dungeons always kept anything you dropped in there until somemon picked it up, and he was proud for remembering it. But then this really creepy fog began to roll in, and suddenly everything felt scarier than it should have, and he couldn't bring himself to move! He was too scared to.
And it just got worse the longer he sat there. The fog, the drafts of wind, the scary feeling coming from everywhere… He had heard that there were wild pokemon who lived in mystery dungeons, wild pokemon that would eat you all up for breakfast if they caught you, wild pokemon that had been brainwashed by the Dungeon Wraith and set out as its personal hunting slaves…
No matter how confidently Deerling told him the Dungeon Wraith was just a story made up to frighten little kids into staying in the towns, Goomy couldn't help but wonder if the off-kilter howls he heard travelling through the woods really were just apparitions. They didn't sound like the howls of any pokemon he knew, off-pitch roars and screeches that rustled through the trees like the moans of ghosts.
Goomy didn't like ghosts. He trembled again, keeping the paper close just in case a sudden wind came up and blew it away. Was he going to die here?
"GOO-MY!"
Off in the distance, to Goomy's left. He looked in that direction, but couldn't see anymon through the thick, prowling fog.
"GOO-MY! WHERE ARE YOU?"
His heart leaping with sudden joy, Goomy realised where he had heard that voice before. It was Tricky!
"I- I—" Goomy's voice stuttered and died in his throat. No! He couldn't be too scared to call for help, not when it was so close! Too scared to move, too scared to talk… Pancham had been right. He really was just a little kid after all. Maybe he deserved to be teased and coddled. He'd take that over sitting alone in this dark and scary dungeon any day.
"GOO-MY!"
With a sudden pang of fear, Goomy realised the shouts were coming from his right now. They were passing him!
"I- I… I—I'm HERE! I-I'M OVER HERE!" he yelled out, his voice returning to him with a hoarse crack. His stutter, the one he just couldn't ever kick, returned with it. His antennae, already flopped down against his head, sunk down a little further in response.
An excruciating ten seconds passed. Goomy didn't hear a response. The colour was draining out of his slime. Had he not been loud enough? Did they not hear him?
But all his fears were dashed when two shadows approached through the clouds, the fog parting to reveal—
A pair of furfrou. They leapt out of the clouds in sync, their eyes vacant and their mouths dripping with drool, both aligned in permanent snarls. Goomy couldn't stand it anymore. He broke down in tears, collapsing into a puddle. He was going to become some wild apparition's lunch!
"Begone, foul beasts!"
Tricky's voice whistled through the air again, and the furfrou were suddenly sent running off once a pair of twin embers blasted through the fog and set both their scruffy heads alight. They howled and snarled, tendrils of fog seeming to snuff the fire out as they scurried off. Tricky pounced out of the mist, followed by an espurr Goomy didn't know but was just as glad to see.
"T-Tricky!" Goomy happily slimed over to Tricky, giving her his best attempt at a non-slimy hug. Despite the warmth from Tricky's fur, he couldn't stop himself from shivering, his slime trembling from the echoes of fear. He'd never get over his cowardness, would he…
Happiness was short-lived, however. The mystery dungeon let out a bellowing screech that blew through the trees and nearly knocked the three of them off their feet.
"Uh-oh…" Tricky looked up at the trees, rattled. "It's getting mad. We should go."
~\({O})/~
"In my two years of service as the esteemed Vice Principal of this school…"
The luminous orbs were uncovered in the Principal's Office, one of the rooms in the back of the School Clinic. They shone with a warm yellow glow, illuminating the coat of Watchog as he paced the office like a military madmon. All three of the other teachers in the room tiredly sat in front of him as he did it. "In my two flipping years of service… one student has been the very bane of my existence."
Espurr, Tricky, and Goomy were all seated in front of Principal Simipour, the head faculty member of Serenity Village's school. He watched Watchog pace back and forth through the office through sleep-worn eyes, the same tired smile adorning his face as he did it. A short stack of papers decorated his desk, blank sides up.
Watchog suddenly spun on his feet, pointing a paw directly at Tricky.
"Thievery, trespassing, cutting school… And now she's corrupting the newcomers! She's making them think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want…" Watchog let out a hysterical chuckle. "Just think, the next generation: A bunch of scummy layabouts who steal and pillage and trespass to their heart's content! Are you all just going to sit back and let this be the future?" he questioned the teachers, gesturing broadly to the trio of students in front of him. "This needs to be nipped in the bud, right here, right now—"
"I'm terribly sorry to interrupt your… maniacal rant," Farfetch'd started carefully, clutching his stalk in his wings. "But is there a reason you've summoned us teachers and these three poor students here after nightfall, when they should be sleeping safely in their beds right about now?"
"Ha!" Watchog squeaked out a sudden laugh, cutting Farfetch'd off with manic eyes. "Oh, I assure you, Farfetch'd, sleep is the last thing on these little devils' minds…"
"Wanna remind me why you made him Vice Principal again?" Espurr heard Audino mutter to Principal Simipour. She sounded quite irritated.
"As it happens," Watchog continued, "I didn't have these students dragged from their beds. Rather, I got a tip-off from our very good student Deerling and ran into them on their way back…" he paused for dramatic effect, "…From the Foreboding Forest."
Silence fell over the room, as the other three teachers tried to digest that. Espurr held in a scowl. So Deerling had gone and gotten help… why hadn't they done that first?
"But what were they doing in the Foreboding Forest, I hear you ask?" Watchog continued. "Why, none other than… a dare!"
He whipped out the paper with Goomy's slimy paw-writing on it, making sure the other teachers could see it.
"And here's the proof!" Watchog crowed triumphantly. "A sheet of paper, straight from the school's stores! And there's only one pokemon who would propose a dare as stupid as this…"
Watchog cast his narrowing eyes down towards Tricky, who immediately looked appalled.
"I-it wasn't me this time! I swear!" Tricky cried out in her defence, but found herself breaking under Watchog's intense glare.
"You said you found all three of them exiting the dungeon together;" Principal Simipour spoke, his expression as infuriatingly cheerful as ever. "Yet only one has written their name on the sheet of paper?"
Watchog suddenly looked a lot less confident. "…Yes," he conceded, suddenly losing a good portion of his bravado.
"And assuming the point of this dare was to write one's name on this sheet of paper and bring it back to the village…" Simipour turned to Goomy for confirmation, which Goomy readily provided with a nod. "Then I think it's safe to say these two were not part of the dare in the first place, wouldn't you agree?"
"And knowing that," Simipour continued, "What would you then say they were doing in the dungeon?"
Tricky piped up before Watchog could.
"We were saving Goomy! Pancham and Shelmet dared him to go in and he didn't come back out, so me and Espurr volunteered to go in after him, and we saved him from getting eaten by dungeon 'mon!"
A wave of uneasiness passed through the teachers at the mention of dungeon 'mon.
"See?" Tricky told Watchog indignantly. "The dungeon was only one floor anyway…"
"Then, I think it's settled," Simipour concluded.
Watchog caught his jaw just in time to stop it from falling open in shock. "You aren't seriously going to let them go unpunished, Principal?!" he asked in shock.
"Oh, certainly not," Simipour replied, clasping his hands. "Children going into mystery dungeons unsupervised is grave misbehaviour indeed. But…"
He glanced towards Tricky, Espurr, and Goomy.
"…The cause was noble, and I have a hunch little Goomy here won't be venturing outside the bounds of the village on his own anytime soon. Therefore, excessive punishment is unnecessary. A week's worth of detention will do."
"Detention for a week?!" both Tricky and Watchog cried out.
"But we went in to save someone," Espurr said. She figured she might as well plead her case. "How come we're being punished?"
"For leaving the school without permission while you were injured," interjected Audino sternly.
"Dungeons are incredibly dangerous places. You should have come to an adult instead," Simipour replied.
"Like the adults would ever set foot into a dungeon…" Tricky huffed out of the corner of her mouth.
"One week is final. And unless you'd like me to make it two, I highly suggest leaving it there," Simipour finished, pointing his half-closed eyes towards Tricky.
With little more than a squeak of fear, Tricky disappeared out the door, only stopping once to groan in pain as her tail cramped halfway down the hall.
"Wait!" Audino called out after her, grabbing her exploration bag and dashing out after Tricky. "You still need healing! I'm ordering you back to the clinic!"
The door slammed shut behind them, leaving only three teachers and two students in a silent office.
"I-I think I s-should be going," Goomy finally stuttered out, his antennae slightly floppy. The excitement of the day's events must have been finally beginning to get to him.
"I agree," Simipour replied. "If I remember, you live in the same area as Farfetch'd, correct?"
Goomy thought about it for a second, then nodded. His antennae bounced back and forth. Simipour turned to Farfetch'd.
"If you would do the honours…" he asked. Farfetch'd nodded and left without another word. Goomy slimed off in his wake.
"W-what about Pancham?" Watchog sputtered as the door closed. "Aren't we gonna punish him too? I say two weeks' detention."
"Now now, Watchog," Simipour said. "Pancham and Shelmet's family has been historically difficult when it comes to punishments."
"W—" Watchog began. "W-well we can't just not do anything!"
"You know his father," Simipour yawned. "The Kecleon merchant folk are a hassle to deal with, and that's from a distance. Lecture him, tell him to clean the school clinic tomorrow, and leave it at that."
Espurr looked at Watchog as he silently mulled over his orders. A moment later, he stormed out, letting the door swing shut behind him.
"Espurr, was it?"
Espurr glanced up at Simipour, who still wore the same, lethargic expression on his face. His eyes were shut like he was an inch from sleep. She nodded. "Yes, sir."
"I heard about your predicament last night," he told her, still seated. "I must say, it was rather reckless of you to charge into yet another mystery dungeon only the day you got here, especially with that arm."
He opened a drawer below his desk and put the stack of papers in front of him into it.
"The pokemon who chased you have been sighted several times in the past several days searching the area. Highly dangerous, do not approach." Simipour's voice lost its airiness. "That is why, for the time being, I strongly implore you to stay within the bounds of this village. For your own safety, of course."
Espurr suddenly felt jittery, almost like she wanted to puke. She barely kept it together.
"You mean… they're lurking around here?" she asked.
"Quite possibly." Simipour closed the drawer and leaned back in his seat. "But, for now, I think it best that you stop allowing such thoughts to clog up your mind, and take kind Nurse Audino up on her offer to let you stay at the School Clinic."
Left to mull over the very frightening prospect of potential boogeymon murderers lurking around the town limits, Espurr nodded silently, and politely bid Principal Simipour good night. She looked back once on the way out, but Simipour was already snoozing with his head on his desk.
~\({O})/~
"And I mean it this time." Audino stopped at Tricky's straw bed on her way into one of the clinic's other rooms. "Stay in your beds, or I'll see what I can do about extending that weeks' detention to a month."
Satisfied at the suitably frightened look on Tricky's face, Audino draped a thick tarp over each of the high-up baskets containing luminescent moss that lit the room with a bright blue glow, then continued into the clinic's other room, leaving the door open just a crack behind her.
"It's so unfaaiiir," Tricky whined once they were alone, flopping down on the bed. "We save Goomy once and we get thrown in detention. The adults never do anything right!"
Espurr carefully helped herself to one of the berries on the plate between them, and took a bite as she tuned Tricky's whining out. She felt very calm while eating, which was odd considering the past few days. It seemed like she should feel more of anything, really. Fear, fright, desperation? Instead, she felt untethered, detached, weirdly floaty, like her mind was still sorting through it all.
"What's wrong?" Tricky asked. Espurr realised rather than eating, she was staring down at her half-eaten berry with a stricken stare.
"Nothing," Espurr said. Another thing she couldn't say aloud. "Just the dungeon."
"I know what you meeeaan," Tricky groaned, flopping herself backwards on her bed of straw. She really didn't. "That dungeon was so cool, though. I've only been in it twice before. Usually it has more floors than that…"
What replaced the emptiness, and Tricky's endless droning, was a hollow feeling Espurr slowly realised was homesickness. The more she learned about this place, the further away everything she did know seemed. How would she ever be able to make her way back home from all of this?
A little while later, Espurr glanced at Tricky, who had drifted off to sleep through her rambling. She was still muttering gibberish in her slumber, the half-eaten celery stalk resting idly at the foot of her dangling paws. Espurr just lay awake in bed, watching nighttime branches grasp along the wooden ceiling that was so unfamiliar compared to the one she knew. What a strange place she'd ended up in, and how she wished for the comfort of her room again…
Dear diary,
I'm writing to you in my head because I don't have a diary right now. I don't know if I'll ever have a diary again. Or if I'll see another book. I don't think they read books here, I didn't see a single one. That's awful and horrifying! I think I would die if I never saw books again. Or a library.
I never thought I would say it, but I miss home. Everything's strange here. I miss my house, I miss the library, I miss all the buildings in my town and the stupid cornflakes for breakfast that I hate. I even wish my maths teacher was there to scream at me. I don't… I don't know. I don't know what's going on. I wish someone would just tell me what was going on!
I'm keeping where I come from secret because I don't know how the people who live here would take it., I don't know if there's anyone else like me. Maybe there isn't. Maybe I'm stuck here forever. I'd give anything to go back. I'd do anything if I could just be human again, and if there weren't any mystery dungeons, and if I wasn't in a strange room with a talking fox that no-one else even likes.
Maybe it's a dream. Maybe it's a dream? Please god, please let it all be a dream. I just want it to be… be a… dream…
Heya, I picked up your chapter for offsite review tag, and figured that it’d make for a good Daylight Savings Time special before I get my time and energy too eaten up by NaNoWriMo this month. So let’s jump right in where I left off last time with…
Wait, what’s the reason behind the ispoiler'ed ellipses? Is that intentional? Or were you attempting to have an effect akin to an [ indent ][ /indent ] (sans spaces) block there?
The house is bright and loud again, and dad's in a bad mood. I think he found my report card for maths, so I'm hiding under the bed right now with a flashlight and a pen. They'll go to sleep in a bit, and then I'll feed it to the neighbour's cat. The good news is mum and dad are taking a work trip to another city, so tomorrow it's just going to be me on my own. And the day after. And the weekend.
Ah yes, seeing more snippets of who Espurr was as a human, though I can see the very deliberate use of British English there. I wonder if the world of Psychic Sheep used to be a mainline setting, or one that was flatly like our own without Pokémon this go-around. I suppose we might get to see hints more one way or another through sequences like these.
You wouldn't know, because I've only written in you once, but this happens a lot. I think they like working too much. As for me, I'm looking forward to the quiet, and being able to do whatever I want while they're gone. They're leaving money for pizza, but I'm going to buy chinese instead.
The homeroom teacher asked if I was going to the start of summer vacation party with the rest of the school. My parents won't be home to force me. They wouldn't need to know. I told him I didn't know, but… I don't. The library just got a new book in, and it's one I've been waiting forever to come out. I think books make better friends than people do, anyway. I've written in more books than I've talked to people at school, and I don't like writing in books.
Huh, it’s an interesting dichotomy here for Espurr since you get the sense that she definitely wants to be adventurous, but at the same time just kept closing herself off to other people.
I wonder if this was always how you envisioned Espurr being as a character, since if so, it definitely makes some moments of the earlier parts of v1 read a bit differently.
Just between you and me, I think I'm not going. I'm going to stuff my hair in a baseball hat at school and pretend I cut it short, check out all the books I want to get that take at least three days to read, and go walk around on the roof at night. I'll have a really nice holiday all on my own. And all I need around me is books and the TV.
I'm feeling quite tired, so I'm going to go to bed soon. I have to get up early for some assembly event at school tomorrow anyway. Good night.
… This was the last thing Espurr wrote to herself before getting flung into the far future, wasn’t it?
Though I see shades of that “risk-taking, even if it gets a bit dumb”-ness that Espurr wound up growing into in v1. Wonder if that’ll come along faster in this go-around.
"Oh! You're up now. Good."
Espurr's blurry eyes sliced through her fuzzy dreams and gave way to bright sunshine, gleaming through a window, making her shut them again. She was in a straw bed that rustled softly, settled in a large, airy room with rustic, apricot-covered walls and dark brown floorboards. A wide-brimmed, floral hat hung from a hook in the wall, above a couple brown bags crumpled against the floor. She remembered that bag, how the rough brown surface had felt against her fur…
Espurr: “... So that whole forest thing with the coneheads really wasn’t just a nightmare.”
Her fur. Suddenly she felt it again, suffocating her! Her heart dropped, everything flooding back to her in an instant. Her holiday! She had to get back home!
Yeeeeeeah, looks like I was onto something with that read of the diary entry. Though that now makes me curious as to if Espurr carries some analogue to her British accent as a Pokémon, and if so, how the locals interpret it for where they think she’s from.
She tried moving off the bed, to get somewhere, anywhere! But her left arm just wasn't cooperating; it felt dull and stiff, and when she tried to move it, a sharp red pain rang out and made her gasp.
Ah yes, the psychic synthenesia is back in action.
Espurr: “... Right, I fell out of a tree and broke my arm. Almost forgot about that part.”
"Oh! Don't do that please." Someone jotted over, the floorboards creaking under them, and she felt unfamiliar paws grab her and settle her back into bed. "You still need rest!"
The voice and sudden jostling jarred Espurr from her panic, and she looked up. Helping her back on the bed was the strange creature from before, who was pink and yellow from head to foot and stood on two legs. She stared Espurr down with her brilliant blue eyes, making sure she was settled properly.
She stood up, towering over Espurr, and returned to the cabinet she was rifling through—it was ornate, the white paint peeling, and full of all sorts of strong-smelling things—and pulled something leaflike out of it.
"None other than Serenity Village," said the pink creature with her back to Espurr, folding something on the counter. "You collapsed the moment we arrived–half delirious, I suspect. Just before our end-of-week shopping trip, too. You're lucky Kecleon's stays open late Saturday nights. Not that I'd buy from him on a good day, but…"
Audino: “Again, you were half-delirious. There’s not all that much interesting outside Serenity Village at night anyways.”
Another dull throb from Espurr's arm. It wasn't a wonder she was delirious. Serenity Village wasn't anywhere on the map—at least, not anywhere Espurr knew about.
Espurr: “Considering that I’m a cat at the moment, how sure am I that that weird song from earlier isn’t an accurate description of where I am right now?”
"Where's that?" she asked, trying to keep the quiver out of her voice. Maybe it was just a town she hadn't heard of? Surrounded by… a lot of things she hadn't heard of.
I’m a little surprised that Espurr is considering this train of thought when she’s a cat right now, but I suppose that “I woke up in a functionally different world” sounds crazy saying it out loud even without getting the magical portal wardrobes involved.
Audino looked back from whatever she was doing on the counter and gave her an odd look.
I actually wonder if there will be other PSMD-derived locations that will get slight place renames this go-around to emphasize that this is an AU. Something to keep an eye out for, I guess.
Though waaaaaait, if this narration is meant to be from Espurr’s perspective specifically, does she know that Audino is ‘Audino’ here?
The pink creature thought for a second, like she was trying to figure out what to say. Espurr could glean that from the edges of her speech, an unsure, wavering pink.
Waaaaaait, how is Espurr not reacting more to this “seeing color associated with differing moods” things right now, since I’d assume that she couldn’t do that as a human. Just feels like one of those things that she’d notice, even if it’s one of those “maybe it’s a cat thing” things that she’d not question too hard.
"I'll see if I can get a map from the principal's office later," she decided on, "but it's in the south. You know where that is, right?"
A confused shake. Espurr was sure she looked silly.
A second shake. Espurr only remembered foggy details about her home right now, addled and shaken, but she was growing more and more certain that it wasn't anywhere near here.
Audino: “... How hard did you hit your head falling out of that tree? And here I was worried about your arm...” .-.
The pink creature 'hmm'd, pulled out a sheet of paper, and turned her back to Espurr as she started writing on it. Espurr could just about make out the words "possibly abandoned", and "send out notice to surrounding villages" in whispers to herself as the creature wrote, and bit down some queasiness. She felt her heart slowly dropping into her stomach, filling her chest with dread.
Espurr: “My parents wouldn’t have just abandoned me to get turned into a cat! … Would they?”
Finished writing, the pink creature set down her pen, closed the cupboard, and looked again towards the open doorway.
"What are you still waiting out there for? You need treatment!" she called loudly to an unseen person who seemed to be waiting outside the round doorway. Espurr could feel their presence now, fuzzing peach hues around the edges of her mind.
... Had she always been able to see colours like that? No, she hadn't, but concentrating hard and trying to shut it off felt like plugging her nose.
Oh, so Espurr does notice the synthesia stuff going on after all. Guess she just had to see it a few times for that “... wait”-ness to sink in.
"Sorry, Ms. Audino," a high-pitched, childlike voice muttered from outside. "I don't like the school clinic…"
"Well, you wouldn't have to spend time in the school clinic if you didn't go jumping out of trees," Audino said, pouring something into a pair of leaf-made pouches. "Now come in and sit on the bed so I can treat you."
Let’s… revisit that assessment in about 20 chapters, Espurr.
"Not to worry," Ms. Audino continued. "You'll have company."
"Really?!"
The voice perked up with the excitement of a toddler at a candy stall, and a bright yellow fox with fiery ear fluff and blue, ghostlike whisps curling near her tail dragged herself in on one paw and flopped down on another straw bed. She looked at Espurr with wide red eyes, almost like she was plotting murder.
Yuuuuup, though this is another one of those paragraphs where IMO the dialogue and description components would probably work a bit better separated out from each other.
Audino supplied her with a few of the leafy green bags, setting them over the fox's paws.
"IF you rest, you'll be better in a few hours," she told the fox.
Espurrwho was very much not doing alright and could only nod unsurely that yes, she was. Then Audino grabbed her bag and walked briskly towards the door.
“she” as a pronoun is ambiguous between Espurr and Audino in the original paragraph. I’d suggest a reshuffling along the lines of the above to help clear things up a bit.
"I'll be back shortly; I've scheduled another appointment for today. I don't want either of you to move a muscle while I'm gone, do you understand me?" Audino directed the last sentence squarely at the fox.
Espurr: “(Psst! Do you come here often or something? Since, uh… she kinda had a reaction to you there.)”
"Yes ma'am! Absolutely understood!" the fox chirped in a tone that Espurr gathered meant it was not understood at all. Audino kept her wary eyes on her for a few seconds longer.
"I expect to see you both sitting on those beds when I return," she said, and then she walked out the door without another word.
Ah yes, that’ll keep her safely put in your clinic. Not.
A thousand questions flew across Espurr's mind the second it swung shut and they were left alone:
How far away was this from a town? Could she phone home? Were there phones here? Where could she go to find one? What was her mum's number again? What could she do about… a look down at her purplish fur, which wasn't looking any more human than it did yesterday… she didn't really want to look at that. Nevermind that.
Phone. She was stirring from her bed again, ignoring the complaining of her arm. She needed to find a ph—
I find it hilarious that there technically are phones of a sort lying around in this setting, even if nobody would think to refer to them as a ‘phone’.
"Soooo-o-o-o-o-o-o…" began the fox began loudly, crashing a train through Espurr's thoughts and causing her to freeze where she was.
The fox looked over, wide-eyed, at the creature who shared the room with her. The fox drew her single word out until she was out of breath, then gasped for more.
This paragraph might work better as two smaller ones. Also, you’ve got an ambiguous “she” going on in the original again, this time between Espurr and Tricky
"What are you in for?" asked the fox, sputtering.
"Wait, you're new here," she piped up just when Espurr was about to respond, leaping onto the side of the bed.
"Are you…
"Hah! There's no way you're miss Audino's kid, are you?
"…Wait. Are you?
"Huh? Are you? Pleeeaaase tell me!
"Hey, what're you in for? Wait, I feel like I asked that one already…"
"Do you want your questions answered?"
The fox, mid-prattle, froze and went silent as a board. She stared at Espurr in confusion.
Hrm… I actually wonder how rapid-fire Tricky’s peppering with questions is meant to be. If it’s meant to be rapid-fire, it might make sense to explicitly state that in passing before the torrent of dialogue. Otherwise, if this is meant to be an on-and-off thing, it might make sense to interleave some thoughts and internal reactions from Espurr during all of this to sell more of a sense of time passing.
"Well, duh,"she said.
"Then can you ask them a bit slower, please?" said Espurr tiredly, who was extremely not ready for this and felt more than a little befuddled by the constant onslaught of everything so soon after she'd woken up.
Tricky: “Oh hey, small world! I’m here because of that, too!”
Espurr: “No, you jumped out of yours. There’s a differe-” >_>;
- Beat moment -
Espurr: “... Actually, now that I think of it, I suppose I did jump out of mine, too.” .-.
"Woah," she mouthed in amazement, her eyes brightening. "Well guess what? I'm in here for the same thing! Twisted my tail, sprained three of my paws, and my ear hurts" – she wiggled her left ear and nearly wilted in pain – "but it was all for a noble cause!"
"What… noble cause?"
"I couldn't let a fellow child suffer in the clutches of the evil Nurse Audino for a whole week!" the fox moaned dramatically, clutching a paw to her swooning head before groaning in pain and quickly collapsing backwards onto the bed.
for those coming into this story off the heels of the v1. Since if Tricky’s backstory in this story is remotely close to what it was there…
"I'm Fennekin Tricky, by the way," she chirped, popping back up. "My actual name's a secret but I chose this one and that's what everymon else calls me. Do you have a name?"
Ah yes, I see we’ve got HoC/PoV-style naming this go around. Even if I’m still curious as to what the backstory of the original naming scheme in the v1 of this story was.
Espurr huddled a little closer, studying the floorboards like varnished wood had suddenly become wildly interesting. Wouldn't it be nice if she could remember it?
"Just Espurr," she said.
"Aww," said Tricky. Her ears drooped. "I thought you were one of the cool 'mon."
So ‘cool ‘mon’ have names in this setting, huh? That now makes me wonder what the rules are for who gets a name and who sticks with their species name.
"What does that mean?"
"Like…" Tricky trailed off, searching for the words. "Like, the 'mon with names! From up north!"
Oh, so it’s a cultural thing in this world. Though that makes me wonder how in Serenity Village one would disambiguate between two individuals of the same species.
"'Mon aren't cool if they're not from up north?" asked Espurr, curiosity overtaking her for a second.
"Well duh!" exclaimed Tricky, like this was obvious. "Here they're all boring and think that names should be for like, old people or something. I'm from up north. My mum and dad were born there. Where are you from?"
Lotsa little differences from the OG version of this story popping up, since I don’t think that it was ever delved into as to what Tricky’s (self-claimed) background was back then. Though that makes me wonder what is the convention for naming and how and when one gets them in Serenity Village?
The million dollar question. Espurr felt positively unsafe spilling her secrets to someone who looked like they gossiped with the whole town.
That’s less “gossiping” and more “eavesdrop and then turn around and loudly blurt it out for the whole world to hear” >:V
"I don't remember right now," she settled for. If her city's name wasn't coming back to her just yet, did it count as a lie?
"Boooring." Tricky yawned, blowing out an orange wisp of flame that danced dangerously close to the ceiling. She stretched in the bed with her paws under the ice. Pausing for just a second and snapping her jaw shut, she pulled her paw out from under the leaves and twisted it just to be sure.
"Oh wow! I'm healed! I'm finally healed!" she screeched.
She pranced out of the bed and doing a few victory twirls. Espurr cringed as she watched Tricky's tail painfully cramp up, sending the fox crashing to the floor headfirst.
Espurr: “Didn’t you literally just freeze up in pain five seconds ago?”
Tricky: “Yes, and? That doesn’t mean that I can’t walk...”
"Didn't Nurse Audino tell us to stay here?" Espurr pointed out. "Besides," she said, tilting her head. "I don't think you can go many places with that tail."
"Eh," Tricky dismissed it with a flick of her ears and a paw-wave. "It'll heal in a few minutes. Besides, if you listen to the adults your whole life, life stays boring! C'mon, have some fun!"
"Dif' way!" she yipped excitedly, hopping towards the door with Espurr like a dog toy.
<><><>
The building was located on a steep, grassy hill. Tricky impatiently pulled Espurr down the steps, tugging her by her good arm. Espurr protested, but not wanting to lose a second arm, followed along where she was pulled. Tricky led her down the stone steps and towards a flat, downhill clearing with several wooden stump-desks and a blackboard hanging from the branch of a low tree.
IMO, it probably makes sense to either add more transition describing Espurr and Tricky going through the door, or else if you’re going to keep the transition this sharp, to add a hard scene break between these two paragraphs.
"That's the school—school's out today—" Tricky said in between breaths as they passed.
"Tricky!"
Both Espurr and Tricky's heads whipped around, where what looked like a very angry weasel wearing a safety vest was marching towards them.
As is that in-setting curse. I know that it’s a childish-vibing stand-in for “crap” in this in this story, but I actually don’t remember if you ever explained what the development process behind it was, since it honestly feels like it’d be right at home from the proper games.
"Is this another one of your shenanigans?" Watchog angrily asked as he continued marching towards the pair. "Put that poor student back where you found them right now!"
I actually just realized, but what is Espurr thinking about everything going on right now. Both getting dragged along and of Watchog. Since we get some surface description, but you’d think that she’d have more of an opinion of things. Especially if Watchog subconsciously reminds her of anyone from her life as a human that she didn’t like.
Tricky: “Amended orders! Close enough!”
Espurr: “(This girl is going to get me into shenanigans, I can already tell.)” .-.
"They are! Trust me!" Tricky yelled as they continued down the downwards path, Watchog and the classroom getting further and further away.
"Trust… you?" Espurr could hear Watchog's stupefied sputtering in the distance. It wasn't hard to see why.
Something about this paragraph feels like it’d work better as at least two different ones. There’s potentially other ways of dividing it up, but this felt like the low-hanging fruit solution.
Espurr could have gone back to the clinic right then. She was sure Watchog would've taken her. But the thought had already evaporated, barely worth the half-second it would have taken to think. Gears were turning in her head—a town? If she wanted to figure out where she was, and maybe find a way to get home, this was the perfect opportunity to do it. And if Tricky was so eager to roll out the red carpet for her…
"Sure," she said, putting on a cheery front and taking a few bold steps forward, until she was under the shade of the pine tree path. "If it's a short trip. Do you think we could be back before Nurse Audino?"
Espurr: “Yes…? Though we are going to be able to get back before Audino, right?” ^^;
The fox suddenly looked very excited and like she was going to say something else, but thought better of it and instead made to prance down the path, beckoning Espurr on with her tail.
"Follow me!"
Ignoring the dull ache in her bandaged arm, Espurr began to hurry after Tricky on unsteady feet, doing her best to keep up.
inb4 it was something like “Wait, do you really mean that?” considering what I remember of Tricky’s depiction and backstory from v1.
"This is the village square!" Tricky announced loudly.
Espurr, exiting after her, took a look around: The pine tree path had let out after a few minutes, and as the trees gave way they'd entered a large, round plaza with colourfully-roofed houses and tents set up on all sides. The transition from dirt to cobblestone felt odd against her feet. The houses all had domed, acorn roofs, and the paved stones of the square were arranged in colours like a spiral mosaic, trailing in spirals from green into purple into orange. Long, black poles extended above the square, topped with bluish glassy orbs that caught the light. A few pedestrians were going about their business, doing what Espurr had to assume was pointedly avoiding Tricky from the large berth they were given.
The shock made her dizzy where she stood. It all looked so… so different… she felt like crumpling to the ground. This was nothing like home. She was far away from home. Too far.
I actually wonder if that’s going to wind up being a lingering source of emotional turmoil for Espurr this go-around, or if the amnesia helps insulate her from the worst of its effects.
Desperate gears started turning in her head, trying to find some straw to grasp: there seemed to be streetlights, so was there a phone box around anywhere? She couldn't see one. What about that big, two-story building with the lights? Lights had to mean power, so–
Huh. I actually didn’t remember there being technology this dispersed into Serenity Village in v1 beyond some appliances in villagers’ homes. It’s a nice little touch, and definitely going to hit very differently once the story of how they’re kept on eventually comes out.
"That's the Café Connection," said Tricky helpfully, seeing where she was staring. Café… Espurr's eyes lit up. A familiar word!
"Does it ha—" she began hopefully.
"The village is larger," Tricky prattled on obliviously, cutting Espurr off. "But this is where everything happens! You've got your Café Connection, your perfume tent—no-mon talks about the perfume tent—and your Kecleon's stall!" She excitedly pointed them out as she mentioned them; the large, two-storey building with a sloped roof, a striking red teepee-like tent that resembled a bird in decoration, and a green-and-white tent with enough crates and shade behind it that it might as well have been a building on its own.
I went and double-checked Serene Village’s BP page since it’s been a while since I played PSMD, but nope, this looks like it was created specifically for this world. Though just how musky do the locals get at times if there’s a market for perfumes in a little village like this?
"Don't steal from Kecleon," Tricky added in a hush, leaning too close to Espurr's ears for comfort. Espurr leaned back a bit. "Trust me."
Tricky is giving this advice from personal experience, isn’t she?
"And so, you see…"
Stray voices slipped into her ear, momentarily drawing her attention away towards the other side of the square, where what looked like a pink deer and something in a metal shell were arguing. Espurr couldn't help it; once she picked up on a conversation in the background, she was listening in and that was that.
"He's nine! We both know he wouldn't walk into one of those places like that! Not unless somemon prompted him first…"
Ah yes, so Goomy getting lost one of the local Mystery Dungeons is a thing in this go-around as well.
"Well, I'm getting to that…"
"What's so interesting?" Tricky's head curiously slid over to the side of Espurr's. Upon seeing them, her eyes lit up, and suddenly Espurr was being ploughedpushed against her will towards the pair by the world's most energetic fox.
Okay, I’m assuming that “ploughed” is meant to be something like “pushed” or “shoved”. If so, you might find it handier to use those words unless “ploughed” is a Britishism I’m not aware of.
Deerling, the elder one, looked up in annoyance, her face twisting into tiredness as Tricky pushed the hapless Espurr towards her.
"Um… hi?" Deerling raised a hoof in perplexed greeting. "Tricky, what are you up to now?" she asked with a much sterner tone. "I thought you were still in Nurse Audino's office for jumping out of that tree."
Ah yes, Deerling’s still got that passive-agressive complex from the v1. I do wonder if it’ll be played in a more sympathetic light this go around or if she’s going to be as cruel as v1 Deerling could be at times.
Espurr was suddenly dumped backwards onto the ground. She fell with a yelp. It hurt! Tricky pranced in front of her stiffly.
"Guys—you are never gonna believe this—I found Nurse Audino's kid! Really! See?"
"Loser alert…" Shelmet, the younger one, rolled his eyes.
"Tricky…" Deerling whacked her hoof against her face, then shook her head. She was clearly annoyed now. "Nurse Audino doesn't have kids. Plus, she isn't married, and she isn't a psychic-type. How could this be her kid?" she stuck an irked hoof in Espurr's direction.
Espurr was still uncrumpling herself from the ground, feeling quite nettled—from a broken arm to this?—but she figured out almost immediately that Tricky had just come up with the perfect cover story for her.
"Um, that's right," Espurr added, nodding.
The words felt like putty on her mouth, tumbling onto the ground in ways she couldn't control. Ugh, talking to people just didn't agree with her. Deerling looked surprised; Espurr figured she wasn't very used to being wrong. She quickly stuck out her one good paw, trying to move along.
Deerling: “... Has Tricky been putting you up to anything? You can just say so if that’s the case.”
Espurr: “No, no! I’m totally her adopted daughter! She’s uh… very motherly?” ^^
Her paw wasn't taken. Deerling looked somewhat confused at the gesture. Espurr, wilting inside, retracted it. Looking down at Deerling's hooves, maybe she should have realised that wasn't normal here. Extremely smart of her.
Oh boy, that’s a good omen for what Deerling’s going to be like this time. Just like she was last time.
Though, IMO, this paragraph should be broken up, and you probably would find it worthwhile to explicitly note that Deerling is turning her attention away from Tricky and back to Shelmet with that hint of murder that I’m assuming’s in her voice rn.
Shelmet, who had been trying to inch away, froze in terrified silence.
"Show me exactly where he went in," Deerling growled. "We need to get him out of there before nightfall!"
I think that you had a bit accidentally cut after the bit about the “archways”, since it cuts off very abruptly and reads as if more was originally meant to be there, but was accidentally cut from drafting or something like that.
"I wanted to look around the town a bit more," said Espurr. She'd come here to get her bearings, not to take a detour. "Besides, I thought we were getting back quickly? Going after them would take a while…"
"Yeah, but…" Tricky's tail swished between her legs. "C"mon, it'll be fun!"
I actually wonder if it’d have made sense to draw more attention to Tricky’s mood here. e.x. if it’s taking a definitively annoyed turn or something like that.
"Don't you worry about what Nurse Audino would say if she came back and we weren't there?" Espurr said, a bit more assertively. "You promised it would be a quick trip."
Tricky deflated. Even she couldn't refute that was true. Assuming she'd made her point, Espurr turned around and started searching around the square, her pace quickening as she went. She just wanted to find a phone box. Maybe the Café Connection had one…
"Wait, c'mon!" Tricky cried dejectedly, running back and forth and orbiting Espurr as she walked away from the square. "It won't even take that long! It'll just be in and out! It's probably nothing anyway!"
Espurr: “Tricky, don’t you have those others who went ahead of you? Why not play with them?”
Tricky: “Y-You don’t understand, I was looking forward to this, and…”
Espurr: “(This girl has some serious issues that she’s not telling me about, doesn’t she?)” .-.
Espurr did her best to march forward and ignore her. Phone box. Just keep calm… Yesterday was beginning to flash through her head again—her harrowing trip through the woods, the strange pokemon that had chased her… She couldn't go back there. She couldn't. What if they were still out there looking for her? What if they… What if they found Deerling and Shelmet? And Goomy, whoever they were?
Actually, wait. Did Espurr hear enough to deduce that Deerling was going to the same Mystery Dungeon she woke up in yesterday? Or for that matter that those two are rescuing someone named ‘Goomy’ when a text search shows that there was literally zero instances of ‘Goomy’ as a term prior to this point?
It kinda feels like Espurr knows information here that’s informing her thought process that she logically shouldn’t. Enough to the point that it makes me wonder if a couple paragraphs were accidentally cut during drafting.
Espurr hadn't realised she'd stopped walking until Tricky stopped too, her head tilting in confusion.
"…Does this mean you changed your mind?" she asked hopefully.
Sure enough, the pink-and-yellow pokemon was leisurely hiking into the woods towards the school, unaware that the two kids she'd left at the school were watching her at this very moment. Espurr's tail sunk a bit, curling around her. Could they even get back before Audino did?
"No biggie!" Tricky, unexpectedly, leapt up with new life. "We'll just take the long way around. If we're quick, she won't even know we were missing! Follow me!"
She began to dash down the thin alleyway, stopping some twelve feet away from Espurr.
"C'mon, slowpoke! She yelled back from across the alley. "At this rate, taking the long way around won't be a shortcut!"
Espurr just couldn't move as fast as Tricky could, and that was a fact. She kept stumbling over her still-unsteady legs and needing to lean against the wall for balance every several strides. How was she even going to keep up, at this rate?
Huh, well that’s definitely different in presentation from what I recall of this chapter’s analogue in the original version, though I think the decision to cut things down into more digestible chunks was warranted, since it did a lot to help ease the audience into getting to know Tricky and Serenity Village a bit more before we get into the thick of bailing Goomy out from the local Mystery Dungeon. By and large, I thought that the prose and characterization was smooth, though it’s definitely a different experience coming into this story as a repeat reader versus totally blind, even if there’s still enough to keep it fresh either way. I do wonder if that was all consciously planned, or if it just kinda happened, but regardless, I thought it turned out well.
I had a couple of quibbles with this chapter. Not huge ones, but still ones that I noticed. There were a couple parts where it felt like information somehow was missing, with the biggest offender I could see being the bit where Espurr changes her mind on blowing off the rescue party for Goomy, which… honestly feels like it was written in mind for a couple paragraphs that somehow missed the final draft given that Espurr is suddenly privy to names and location information that weren’t explicitly introduced in the story. Like “something something, psychic powers” can be a valid workaround, but even if so, one would ideally need to show off more of the process of discovery to learn those bits of information.
Other smaller quibbles that I had mostly pertained to a couple spots where I didn’t quite see eye-to-eye on paragraph formatting and that one section that felt to me like it could’ve been a good place for a scene cut. There might have been more issues that I overlooked, but I was honestly too busy being engrossed in the chapter to really notice them, which I suppose is a testament to the strength of your writing.
Kudos, @SparklingEspeon , and I hope the feedback was helpful for this chapter. You’ve definitely been doing a good job thus far of ironing out those kinks and glitches that bugged you so much with the v1, and I’ll be looking forward to seeing more of where the rewrite goes and what new territory it winds up covering.
Hi Espy, I’m here for a little review trade on Do Psychic Cats Dream of Electric Sheep! Again!
Im covering, Prologue 1- A Visit, Chapter 1 A Traveler From Afar,
This rewrite feels just like it should. It made me remember the tension and fun of the original opening and then a new bit of mystery.
Even though it’s been a few years since I read your fic's opening chapters (alas I wished I got further than the old Chapter 6) I remember the way set things up for the most part.
This time we start with your original characters that I've seen hints of before, the Mew, separate from the partner as it seems. And we start off with someone interesting, Rufus the Groyvle. He's requested by Mew to make sure that the young Pokémon who will save the world be protected because, well, Mew is dead.
I really love these descriptions, which is something you excelled at, and you are really dialing it up here. At times perhaps maybe make sure it doesn't drag on a bit, to help with pacing, which I'll get into in a bit.
This style you used to explain characters' situations was definitely familiar to me, as you did say you based it off books. I will admit I particularly don't favor it, but the funny way you used it to showcase certain scenes and to really intensify others softened me up.
I'd prefer if you interchange Pokémon character name and species more often. It really enhances the reading experience and allows for some dynamism. And helps ground either the visualization or the writing in places it might feel a tad weak.
Like I understand that you choose not to give Espurr a name at all, which is fine, but not using Rufus's species after his introduction and waiting to say characters species name did drag things out a bit. Especially the scene with the Beheeyem, as Espurr is introduced as Espurr even when she's a human, but we can't get a translation of Pokémon names for quite a few paragraphs.
The tension from the moment Espurr first encounters the Beheeyem was definitely more pronounced. The monster like description of them and the haunting vibe and fog of the forest later on just before Espurr breaks her arm again were truly great.
The way you’ve morphed the world of PSMD into your own was showcased much stronger this time around.
I can't wait to be back for another review and to keep reading your freshened rewrite!
Though that now makes me curious as to if Espurr carries some analogue to her British accent as a Pokémon, and if so, how the locals interpret it for where they think she’s from.
I left her location ambiguous, but envision her speaking vanilla english probably either in Estuary or some causal/blended form of RP. However as with the latin above I am running everything on "TV animals are speaking human talk for convenience's sake" logic, so you can imagine her with whatever accent you want really. In-universe she would probably sound slightly funky to locals, but this is largely endemic of her being an outsider at all, and they'd most likely assume she's from a neighbouring region/province.
The one kinda biggish complaint that I have is that there were two points where it honestly felt like you could’ve dropped in a hard scene break to better sell a sense of ‘change in time and/or place’, but even then, it still worked decently enough, and it could just be a difference of authorial style speaking.
I'll have to think on these I think... I'm trying to minimise the amount of scene breaks I do per chapter because I don't want eleven-scene monstrosities for sub-4k word pieces, but maybe these can be softer transitions or I might just have to suck it up and do them anyway.
Regarding chapter two - the things you pointed out were much appreciated! I've since gone and fixed all of them. You were right that some things were left out that shouldn't have been... I think after staring at the draft so much I sort of. forgot about those. I also worked in a couple of the flavour bits bc those were really perfect, so thanks for those also
Glad you enjoyed these overall! As I said before, general, in-text blips are not my strong suite on my own writing, so that's definitely bound to be the weakest part, but it's good to know that you enjoyed the chapters all the same.
This style you used to explain characters' situations was definitely familiar to me, as you did say you based it off books. I will admit I particularly don't favor it, but the funny way you used it to showcase certain scenes and to really intensify others softened me up.
Like I understand that you choose not to give Espurr a name at all, which is fine, but not using Rufus's species after his introduction and waiting to say characters species name did drag things out a bit. Especially the scene with the Beheeyem, as Espurr is introduced as Espurr even when she's a human, but we can't get a translation of Pokémon names for quite a few paragraphs.
This can definitely be a bit clunky... it's possible I might just write it out later, though in some cases (the beheeyem specifically) the mysteriosity is what I was going for, so it'll most likely vary by scene.
The tension from the moment Espurr first encounters the Beheeyem was definitely more pronounced. The monster like description of them and the haunting vibe and fog of the forest later on just before Espurr breaks her arm again were truly great.
The way you’ve morphed the world of PSMD into your own was showcased much stronger this time around.
The Daily Pelipper – Your one reliable source of news
BREAKING: Current Prime Minister to tour country, ending in South Ophria
Baram Town – After a successful two terms in office, Prime Minister Grovyle Rufus, coalition leader of the Conservative Pact, will be capping off his time as head of government with a celebratory tour of the country – ending in its southernmost province, South Ophria. Late this May, the grovyle will tour its largest city, Crossings, before announcing the winner of South Ophria's Regional Cup competition in Serenity Village, this year's host town.
A successful two terms in government is an unusual feat in recent memory for a Prime Minister – rarely has one been able to fully complete a term without meeting some ill fate before the end. Many of the superstitious believe that the position is cursed, ever since the radical candidate Ninetales Winslow suffered a crippling defeat over twenty years ago.
The administration is reported to have made this decision as a ceremonial passing of the torch, as the government will leave Baram Town, Luftand, in the summer of next year and settle in Crossings, South Ophria for its next term and next Prime Minister.
CHAPTER FOUR: SERENITY VILLAGE SCHOOL
~\({O})/~
Slowly coming to, Espurr felt dizzy.
She tried to sit up, yawning and rubbing her eyes with both paws.
Wait, her broken arm was healed?
She twisted her left arm in curious surprise, watching it move around just like new. The shock was cold and slow-moving. It was then that she snapped awake, and realised that she wasn't in her bed. She yelped and jumped in fright.
Darkness cast its cloak upon her from all sides, blotting out the walls and the roof and anything that was laying around in the background. Even the straw bed she'd drifted off on was gone; instead, she was laying on the ground in the middle of a pool of shallow water that didn't feel wet. She scooped her paw into it out of curiosity, marvelling at how it came out completely dry. Despite how dark it was, she could see her reflection perfectly, as if the sun was illuminating her fur coat. Where was she?
And why was she out of her bed, again? She was quite sure this was setting a new record for supernatural kidnappings somewhere, and it was starting to get on her nerves. If someone was going to kidnap her, the least they could do was show themse—
Sudden light from behind lit up the not-wet-water with a warm blue glow. Startled, Espurr quickly stood up and whirled around, immediately shielding her eyes from what was a sphere of too-bright light floating above her. She took a few steps back, squinting, preparing herself to run if she had to.
"Hello?" she asked, her voice wavering.
"Hello," said a voice pleasantly. The sphere of light descended towards the water, forming into something more solid. It took the form of a glowing, three-headed dragon, which Espurr briefly recognized from an old mythology book she'd read.
"Who… are you?" she asked, too taken aback to ask anything else.
"Me?" asked the dragon -thing, cocking its middle head. "Well, I'm usually called the Voice of Life. Most call me Hydreigon. You may also call me that. Your name?"
One of the few blank spaces in her head. She still couldn't remember her name…
"People call me Espurr," she settled on, eyeing the ripples in the water.
"Hmm…"
The large, three headed dragon seemed to hum out of one head, then the next, idly floating around Espurr in the black expanse almost like he was a balloon. He settled in front of her with a splash, the large draught of air blowing her back a little.
"I'm wondering a lot of things," said Espurr, folding her arms. Was this the person who'd brought her here? "We could start with why I'm not in my bed. Either of them."
"You are in your bed, actually," said Hydreigon with a three-headed grin that almost looked like he thought she'd make a tasty snack. "You're dreaming quite deep! It's the only time I could reach you." All three heads suddenly looked sheepish.
"I was hoping you'd ask why you're here," admitted the left one.
"Can you answer that too?" said Espurr.
This looked like it was going to be a while. Her eyes still on the softly-glowing hydreigon, Espurr sat down in the water, her tail perking up behind her. She might as well get comfy.
The hydreigon cleared all three of his throats loudly, then the middle one began to speak in a regal voice: "Every so often, this world faces a catastrophe, which threatens to swallow it up whole. You are hope. An outsider, brought from far away to save everyone from the destruction of the world. If you succeed, your name will be written and sung in the pages of history for eons to come!"
"What if I don't succeed?" asked Espurr.
"Well, none of you have failed so far," said Hydreigon. "Those are good odds!"
"Well, what if I just want to go home?"
Hydreigon looked a bit taken aback.
"Come again?" he asked.
"What if I just want to go home?" Espurr repeated, some tiredness from the past few days cracking through her voice. "I have an maths exam next week, and the material wasn't easy to memorise, and I really want to finish the book I was reading."
As Espurr talked, words and letters seemed to materialise above their heads, foggy, crisscrossing in streams. None of them made sense, but among the nonsense she did recognise the equation from Problem Four on the practise exam.
It was wrong. Again.
"Um, it was bookmarked in a really good place and I don't want to lose it," she continued. "And I have three more books to read after that. One of them is supposed to arrive at the library next week and I've been waiting for it a year, and…"
She tapered off when the Hydreigon didn't seem particularly receptive. In fact, he looked rather guilty.
That wasn't a good sign.
"I'm trying to say, you can get someone else, right?" she finished carefully, then looked up at him in hope.
Silence. Hydreigon looked even more guilty.
"Right?"
"I'm afraid…" Hydreigon's right head tapered off. He gazed into the deep, dark blackness beyond. "I'm afraid we don't have that luxury this time around."
The world seemed to stop turning. The streams of numbers and letters crumbled away into dust.
"Wait," said Espurr, her mind suddenly scrambling. Her tail bristled and curled into the fake water behind her. "Wait. What do you mean?" she asked, her voice rising in worry and desperation. "If you could bring someone in, why can't you take them out again? Can't you find someone else? Please?"
"I'm afraid I didn't do the bringing in," said Hydreigon's middle head, bowing towards the water below. "And time is running out. By now, the powers hunting us will have figured out how to track and intercept journeys between worlds. How do you think They were able to get to you before we could?"
The meaning of They registered in Espurr's mind immediately. Suddenly she could see them, ghostly, blurry images shrouded by the fog of the dream, hunched shadows with pinprick eyes and cones for heads.
"You mean the Coneheads?" she asked, leaning forward.
Hydreigon looked pensive for a moment, then nodded.
"They have many instruments to carry out their dark bidding," he said darkly. "These… 'coneheads' may be one of them, yes."
It was… a lot to think on. Espurr didn't know how she felt right now. Except annoyed. Very vividly annoyed. If nothing else, that shone through. She could have personally picked out three students in her class who would have been better for this! The least they could have done was ask first—would you like to go off to the spooky fantasy world and maybe be a hero but probably die?
Somehow, a lot of students in her class would have leapt at that one.
"So," said Hydreigon, breaking the silence. "I'm quite sympathetic to your plight. If, by the end of this, you wish to be taken back to your own world, then so be it. But as it is, we're in quite the sticky pickle, you see, and while you're here it affects you more than most…"
He trailed off, looking slightly desperate. Espurr had to wonder just how in-control he was right now. Probably not very much. If someone looked a little desperate, they were usually very desperate.
But then, how much sway did she really have? She wanted so much to be back in her bed, her real bed, right now, but she also didn't want to be hunted down by weird conehead things. And if that meant playing hero for a little while…
"So if I help you get rid of 'Them', you promise you'll put me back afterwards?" said Espurr, settling for what sounded like the best deal she was going to get.
Hydreigon, relieved, nodded with all three of his heads. "That's the ticket!" he said.
"Shake on it." Espurr held out a paw. Hydreigon looked unsure of how to handle that, before Espurr remembered that didn't seem to be a gesture here again and she should stop doing that. She took it back awkwardly. Hydreigon simply nodded his heads instead.
"You have my word."
"Then it's a deal," said Espurr.
And just like that, she felt a bit better. There was something she had the power to fix and change now. It sounded daunting… but in honesty, she'd take that over having no idea or direction at all.
"So, what do you know about 'Them'?"
~\({O})/~
Not very much, it turned out. There was 'something something ancient', 'something something evil', but Hydreigon was apparently just as much in the dark as she was. Which made her feel really wonderful about the deal she'd just made. With a three-headed, floating dream dragon. Had he really pointed her in the direction of nowhere and hoped it'd work out? What had she just been roped into?
Oh well. Maybe there was still some leeway for her to hope this was all a bad, very elaborate dream. Maybe she'd read a bit too much fantasy before bed. Maybe, if all else came to nothing, she'd find a way to get out of here on her own. How far away could she possibly be?
If there were clocks here, they probably would have struck nine in the morning. The sun had already risen, the chilly morning breeze had scattered, and the local birds and squirrels had long stopped squabbling over the branches and tree-nuts. Large, impressive clouds rolled over the sky, turning into fog as they met the slopes of the faraway mountains. If she was home right now, school would have long since been in session.
"Look sharp, class!"
The fifteen other students lounging around and talking with each other in the classroom quickly took their seats when loud, portly Farfetch'd walked in and took his place at the teacher's desk. Behind him, a blackboard swung gently in the breeze from the branch of a low-hanging tree. He picked up a leek half his height, then stomped it into the ground like a cane.
"We have a new student joining us today," he began, clearing his throat. "I'm told some of you met her yesterday, but just for formalities, she'll introduce herself now."
He looked over at Espurr expectantly. Until now, she'd been standing off to the left, where the others couldn't see her, and frankly she'd have liked to keep it that way. She wasn't a spotlight person.
She moved over to the blackboard, stiffening up and facing the rest of the class. Fourteen sets of eyes stared back at her. She wanted to die.
"Good morning," said Espurr, the words sounding unnatural and stale. She hated public speaking so much. "My name is," – a pause to stomach the inertia – "Espurr. I wish to become a student at the Serenity Village School, and I hope that we can all become good friends and classmates in the future."
Silence swept over the classroom so harshly an already-fidgety Espurr could hear the thirty bugs in the immediate vicinity going about their business. A single "pfffft" emerged from Pancham's side of the classroom. Her tail and ears flattened. The entire affair felt so awkward she wished she could zap away into the creepy woods and live there forever.
"Very well done!" Farfetch'd broke the silence and clapped his wings together in feathery applause.
He was the only one.
Trying to move on, he crossed the final name on the board out with a leek. "There's an empty seat next to Tricky right there. Why don't you take that one?"
Of course she got the seat next to Tricky. And Tricky couldn't have looked happier.
"Isn't this so cool?!" she whispered excitedly the moment Espurr sat down, her tail wagging furiously. "Not only do we get to attend the same school and detentions, but we get to sit right next to each other too!"
Espurr thought she heard Watchog mutter something like "Of course, put the troublemakers together, not like I care, I'M just the Vice Principal…"
Farfetch'd cleared his throat again, thumping his leek into the ground.
"Now… is the class ready?"
The class was not ready by any means, but Farfetch'd continued anyway.
"History! So far, we've covered…"
He leafed through the fat history book that sat on the teacher's desk.
"…Ah! Yes. Here it is. The Human Age. The earliest scrap of recorded history we have in our possession dates back to over 10,000 years ago. Legend says that many of the things the Humans left behind have been passed down and become deeply integrated parts of our culture, from spoons to sundials to…"
The world seemed to fade out for Espurr. They knew about humans! So…
Before she fully knew what she was doing, her good paw was sticking high up into the air.
"Yes?" asked Farfetch'd.
"What happened to the Humans?" asked Espurr, trying to keep the anticipation out of her voice. This was her chance to finally learn something about this place, and if she had any actual chance of getting home on her own. With any luck, this would be some strange, forgotten island in the middle of nowhere, and she could pitch herself a boat and sail back without a problem.
"Well, I was getting to that," Farfetch'd replied, looking a little flustered as he leafed through the pages of the book. "If you all would pipe down and let me tell the story." He cleared his throat and began again.
"Due to various ancient relics and texts, we pokemon have been able to get a very good idea of what happened to the Humans."
Without warning, he suddenly leapt onto the desk and slammed his leek against the blackboard, creating a loud 'thwack' that jolted the rest of the class to attention. Watchog, who had been dozing off in the corner, awoke with a high-pitched shriek.
"Bam! Wiped out. Just like that." Farfetched paused for a moment, climbing down from the desk and surveying the class. "By what? We don't know, only that the pokemon were left to pick up the pieces, and no-mon's ever seen what a true Human looks like ever since."
Farfetch'd went on to talk about other things, but it all seemed to fade into static that bounced through Espurr's ears like whistling wind. The humans were… gone? But what about her… if there were no humans left, then…
It couldn't all be gone, it just couldn't! There had to be something to go back to. Someone she could find and ask for help. There just… there just had to. And hadn't that dragon said she could go back 'to her own world'? That must have meant whatever had happened in the past… it wasn't her past. He wouldn't send her back to a desolate wasteland, right?
No, surely he wouldn't. He wouldn't do that. Whatever happened, this must have been another place.
That thought helped calm her down, her breathing slowing, the sickening feeling that pierced her heart slowly draining away. Maybe things would turn out okay. They'd be fine.
They had to be.
~\({O})/~
School passed quickly. It was shorter than Espurr's old school, and almost none of the classes were objectionable enough to be miserable. Farfetch'd had a sense of timing and humour, and Audino was patient and kind throughout her own class, which was about identifying and using the native types of fruit. Watchog's teaching style, however, was akin to an angry, snarling great dane who was somehow qualified to teach outdoor safety.
"Sit straight!" he barked at Pancham, who had been relaxing in his seat with his feet on the desk.
"Any more of that and it's detention," Watchog growled back. "Don't think your dad will save you forever."
Espurr saw Pancham sit up and make a surly, rude gesture under his seat. She urgently nudged Tricky, who had been playing dead as a form of class protest, so that Watchog's punishing eye didn't wander towards them.
School let out during the highest point of the afternoon, when the sun was at its hottest. If the heat was overbearing, a full coat of fur only made it worse. And it was hot like Espurr had never experienced it before: a baking, humid warmth, scorching like the sun itself had veered down to earth. It was in this soup-like heat that Vice Principal Watchog declared it was time to serve detention.
"Now, Principal Simipour doesn't hold the same high standard to punishment that I do…"
Watchog marched down the beaten dirt pathway behind Espurr and Tricky through the village's eastern archways and towards mountains, forest, and vast fields of farmland. Goomy, unable to properly keep up, slimed behind them as fast as he could.
"But your detentions for the following week will be personally overseen by the law-upholding gaze of yours truly, Vice Principal Watchog," Watchog announced, his voice bursting with self-absorbed pompous flair. "And I assure you, I. Will. Be. Vigilant. In my—Sharp left!"
The three students wearily stopped trudging down the path at Watchog's command, instead taking a left off the path.
"Mr. Watchog?" Espurr panted, annoyedly brushing away the dust Watchog had unwittingly kicked into her fur from behind. Not that it did much; her tail dragging on the ground was picking up twice as much dirt.
"Vice Principal Watchog," Watchog muttered. "What is it?"
"Why are we the ones leading?" Espurr asked between heat-strained breaths. "You seem to have all the directions, and we clearly have no idea where we're going."
Vice Principal Watchog sputtered. "I… I have to make sure you don't run off while I'm not looking! Wouldn't be the first time we've had deserters…" he growled, staring at Tricky, who was suddenly very interested in the flowers.
"Sharp right!" he yelled a second later. Everyone perplexedly took a sharp right.
"Now we're just back on the path," Tricky observed obnoxiously, her tone gleeful. "Do you even know where you're going, Mr. Watchog?" she asked cheerfully.
"For the last time…" Watchog sputtered, his face red, "It's Vice Principal Watchog! And yes, I took a wrong turn. All straights from here."
After a few more minutes of silent endurance in the sun as Watchog danced around them frantically, they finally arrived at the berry fields: long, open rows of bushes stretched far into the distance, ending at the neatly-clipped trees that marked the beginning of the forest. Mountains, swathed in rolling fog, loomed in the distance.
"Here we are," Watchog sighed with the enthusiasm of a grumpy swadloon. "The three of you will be spending detention picking this week's lunch. Here's a list from Principal Simipour, it has what you need to pick and where." He handed out a list each to Espurr and Goomy, who took it with his slimy paws. Espurr looked over at Tricky, who was distracted by a large, hovering insect.
"I expect hard work from all three of you!" Watchog continued. "If I catch any of you slacking, I have permission to extend your detention periods… into Summer Vacation," he finished with a grin and a sharp glare intended just for Tricky.
Tricky, who had been doing something Espurr couldn't make heads or tails of up to that point, didn't like the sound of that. She gulped, and began to physically drag Espurr off to the Strawberry Section by her good arm.
Goomy accidentally dropped his copy of the list as he slimed after them. He watched it blow off into the fields helplessly, carried away by a sudden gust of wind.
"That Watchog is evil!" Tricky gasped once they were at the gate of the fields, and Watchog was out of earshot. "He wouldn't cancel Summer Vacation, would he?"
"I-I think he would," Goomy stuttered as he slimed up, his eyes peeled to the paranoid weasel loitering about stiffly in the distance.
Tricky grabbed one of the wicker baskets resting next to the large gate in her mouth, entering the fields with a hop and a bound. "Epferr! You're on reading dudie!" she yelled back through the fields, oblivious to any of her classmates' plights. "Goomy, help me pfick berrpfies!"
Then once again, she left Espurr in the dust. Magenta annoyance tinged her vision once again as she glared—could Tricky be any more carefree? Both Espurr and Goomy traded looks. Goomy looked at his slimy paws that weren't fit for picking berries in any way, shape or form.
"Want to trade?"
Espurr handed her list out to Goomy with her one good arm, heading over to the remaining wicker baskets.
Goomy gave Espurr a grateful nod, bobbing his head readily and taking the sheet.
"Okay… I- It says we need 200 strawberries from t-the orchard…" Goomy began, following Espurr through the gate and into the field, where Tricky was already busy several rows down shoving countless berries into her basket without rhyme or reason.
He panted as he went, drooping, his antennae floppy. It looked like he was suffering from the heat far more than Espurr was. Which made sense, she guessed, looking at him. He was slimy…
"I-I remember when it use-used to rain most of these days," panted Goomy as they picked. "It-it wasn't so hot the-then…"
"It used to rain in the summer?" asked Espurr, filling the basket at a faster rate than he was.
"A-all the t-time," said Goomy, using his paws to pluck a berry from the bush. "Now it's ju-just s-s-sun. I d-don't like the su-sun."
"That makes two of us," said Espurr, putting the basket where it was easier for Goomy to reach. "It never rains in the summer where my family moved."
"W-where d—"
"I'm Espurr," interrupted Espurr quickly before Goomy could finish. "You?"
"G-goomy," said Goomy. "Tha-thanks for g-going in after me yesterday," he awkwardly added.
"What were you doing in there?" Espurr asked.
"A d-dare," Goomy said. He deflated a little. "I-I thought that if-if I brought the paper b-back, then they'd…" he shook his head. "Ne-nevermind."
"No, go on," said Espurr.
"They said they'd stop treating me like a little kid," said Goomy. "But I didn't bring it back alone, so…"
"Well, I think it takes guts to take on the dare in the first place," Espurr replied. "A little kid wouldn't have gotten as far as you did."
Goomy brightened up a bit after that, picking the strawberries faster. They moved on to a new bush.
"H-hey," he said. Espurr, concentrating on holding the now rather heavy basket up with her one good arm, looked at him.
"W-wanna be friends?"
The question made Espurr stop in her tracks. No-one had asked her that before… well, except for…
But Tricky wasn't here. Visible shaking and the squawking of some distant crows in the bushes several rows over told her they were out of earshot.
Well, she did like Goomy, quite a bit more than Tricky...
"Sure," she said. She made to extend her paw out to shake on it, but stopped herself at the last second. Goomy gave her a friendly nudge instead.
She was getting the hang of this.
~\({O})/~
"Exactly 200 strawberries… ten apples…" Watchog searched through the students' baskets, his own copy of the list in his paws. "50 carrots, freshly dug…"
A moment later, he put both the list and the baskets down, a look of complete and utter shock on his face.
"I don't believe it…" he muttered in disbelief. "You actually got everything. And without any problems, too…" He just caught himself from swooning. "I think I need to sit down…"
As Watchog stumbled off to find a seat, Espurr, Tricky, and Goomy all took a well-deserved break in the shade. After working for an hour in the harsh sun, they all needed to cool off a bit. Espurr wished she'd been able to do more of it, but without the help of both arms she could do little more than hold the basket.
"T-that took l-longer than it s-should have," Goomy stammered, still panting from the heat. He looked overly dry.
"It was only the strawberry section that took longer." Tricky happily stated, licking the strawberry juice off her paws before it could stain her fur.
"Y-you ate some of the berries?" Goomy just stopped himself from crying out in shock. "We could get g-grounded for that! Especially after l-last time!"
"Eh." Tricky finished licking the last of the juice off her snout, causally falling back on her haunches. "What Watchog doesn't know won't hurt him. Right, Espurr?"
"I'm not testing it," said Espurr. Watchog wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was fierce. She didn't exactly want to play with fire, especially not when she was so new…
Swish
In the distance, they could hear something creeping its way through the trees, brushing up against tree trucks as it went. It was coming from the dark, twisted woods that lay just beyond the fields, where the canopies were thick and intertwined and little light broke through to the underbrush below.
"What's that?" asked Tricky, her head tilting as she looked towards the sound. But Espurr froze in place, eyes wide, breathing hard like a bolt of ice had been shot straight through her heart. It couldn't be… Principal Simipour's words still hung fresh in her mind: "I say this out of concern for your own safety. We don't need yet another disappearance on our paws."
A gust of sudden wind ruffled her fur, snapping her out of her trance. The sounds had stopped; the distant woods had gone silent. A large sheet of paper flipped and fluttered through the air above them, slowly soaring lower and lower as it continued to surf the wind. It was flying low enough for Espurr to leap up and grab, and she hopped and plucked it out of the air with her good arm.
"W-what is it?" asked Goomy.
Espurr laid it flat on the grass and brushed it out flat in front of them.
"It looks like a map," she said. Tricky looked like she was going to say something, but the moment she opened her snout—
"Hey! Troublemakers!" Watchog yelled a distance away, apparently recovered from his near-fainting spell. "The forests are off-limits! You'd better stay clear!"
"OKAY, MR. WATCHOG!" Tricky yelled, immediately standing in front of Espurr and hollering at the top of her lungs. Espurr cringed from the volume and did her best to cover her floppy ears with one paw. "WE'RE COMING BACK NOW!"
The words "It's Vice Principal Watchog!" could be heard floating over the breeze towards them.
"We'll hide it under the baskets," Tricky chirped, happily trotting off. "Watchog will never find it."
As Tricky pranced off, Espurr and Goomy did their best to carry the baskets and the map after them. Espurr cast a quick glance up towards the sun before following, which was already beginning to dip into an early sunset.
~\({O})/~
Dear Diary,
Wrote Espurr in her head while she lay on her belly in the straw bed. Spread out on the floorboards in front of her was the map from earlier. She could see its contents within the dim light from the covered luminous orbs, a long, vertical coastline that split off into a peninsula at the bottom. A path in red marker had been drawn from halfway up the coast down to the western slope of the peninsula, where in small black letters she could just barely read "Serenity Village".
I think I'm starting to get the hang of things here. It's not that different from home, really. Everyone's still animals, and I guess me too for now, but there's still school and days and nights and crabby teachers. Just like back home.
A pause. Espurr rolled onto her back, ignoring the dull pain in her arm, staring up at the bare wooden ceiling. She felt like sighing.
I will get back home. I have to. I promise I will. If what Hydreigon said is true, then I shouldn't be here much longer anyway.
I don't know what I'm supposed to stop yet, but there have to be leads somewhere. I'll start looking tomorrow. The sooner I find it, the sooner I can leave. And this can all go back to being a strange, awful dream.
Her mind, ever contrarian, chose that moment to greet her with a flash of Goomy. Did she want it to be a dream?
Of course she did! She had a life to get back to. Her brain was just being stupid. With those last dying thoughts, she barely had the good sense to stuff the map under the straw of the bed before she drifted off to a pleasant, deep sleep.
~\({O})/~
Knock-knock.
The wind of a spring gale howled outside, rustling the leaves in the trees and cloaking the pitter-patter of the endless rain. The sound was comforting to old 'mon Abernathy, who had been there to witness many spring seasons over his long life and intended to stick around for at least a good twenty or thirty more. There hadn't been as many storms in recent years as there were in his youth, which only made this one a welcome sight. Hopefully the grass and flowers, which had grown yellow and sickly over the years, would brighten up now.
Knock-knock.
It came to Old 'Mon Abernathy's attention right about then that the banging he heard from the door downstairs wasn't the wind rattling his doorstopper.
It came again.
Knock-knock.
Somemon persistent enough to knock three times must want something. He was expecting important visitors in the next few days, but he didn't think they'd come so quickly. And certainly not in the middle of the night… If that was them, he'd best get up and fetch the door. So the elderly raichu pulled himself out of his warm bed, and hopped down the wooden steps of his house to see who was knocking.
"Who is it?" he asked as he swung the door open. The face he expected was one of an audino from Serenity Village, the one that was about to be connected by ferry.
But instead, the figure that greeted him was of somemon tall and lean, dressed in a shadowy, green cloak, hidden by a veil of darkness. They were silent. Abernathy couldn't see their face.
"Hello?" he prompted, trying to get an answer out of the strange figure. Silence. The silence was beginning to unnerve him, making him think that perhaps this spring shower wasn't a sign of good fortune after all.
Still, the figure remained silent.
"I'm going to shut this door now," said old Abernathy, his voice laced with caution. "If this is some kind of prank—"
The figure suddenly stepped to the side deftly, and the last thing old 'mon Abernathy saw before the blast hit him were multitude flashing lights of red, yellow, and green.
South Ophria is the most southerly province of Nebyllin, comprising the southernmost part of the Nebyllish mainland and the Firland Peninsula to the west. Crossings is its capital and largest city, formerly a major garrison of the Rescue Federation and sitting at the intersection of two major rivers. Agriculture is South Ophria's largest industry, comprising over 80% of its yearly output. The main methods of travel throughout South Ophria are by ferry and road.
South Ophria is bordered by Terrabondace to the north, and North Ophria to the northeast. The Province is home to a rugged subtropic biome, housing everything from foggy coastal mountains to low-lying marshes to sunny farmland. Its coastal barrier islands, forming the Wet Banks, are some of the most diverse and notable in all of Nebyllin, ranging from sandy beach deposits to tangled mangrove marshes.
While the Eastern Mainland is well-travelled and populated, the western Firland Peninsula has relatively little connection or population density due to its mountainous terrain, lack of development, and isolation from the rest of the province. Towns in this region are small and undeveloped, but the peninsula is renowned for its untouched natural splendour. Numerous abandoned forts and castles can be found along Firland's coastline and barrier islands, relics of its time as an Annex of the Rescue Federation.
ⓘIt is advised to take heightened caution around Mystery Dungeons in Firland, due to an uptick in rapidly strengthening Dungeons throughout the region.
CHAPTER FIVE: CROSSINGS
~\({O})/~
. . .. . .The morning breeze rustled Espurr awake. After a long day yesterday, she'd fallen asleep not long after hitting the straw in her bed, and had pleasant dreams. She felt the wind touch her nose, calmly bringing her out of dreamland and into the real world. She yawned and stretched, for perhaps the first time in the past few days feeling truly rested. Her sleep had been peaceful, and not filled with talking hydras or strange dark places, and that was a blessing.
Blinking her eyes open, she noticed the door of the school clinic was ajar, the source of the breeze that was coming in and disturbing her cosiness. Next to it, moving a few bins around, was Audino.
"Oh," said Audino. "You're up. Good. I was just about to wake you."
The pink pokemon moved a bunch of bins to the table near the medicine cabinet as Espurr stretched.
"How come?" Espurr asked groggily, still rubbing the sleepiness out of her eyes.
"We're taking you out to town to get you registered," said Audino. "Get you some school supplies too, if you're going to be hanging around."
Hanging around… Espurr didn't expect she was going to be hanging around for too long. She was just here until she found out what was lurking around the village limits. But more importantly…
"What town?" she asked, reluctantly stepping off the bed at Audino's behest as the nurse packed one of the bags that hung from the wall next to the door, and put her bright, wide, flowered hat on her head. "Aren't we already in one?"
"This one's a proper town," said Audino, adjusting her hat and rifling through the bag. She grabbed a pouch that jingled, stuffing it inside before closing the flap. "You'll see when we get there. Oh, and we'll be going by water, so make sure you strap in for a long haul."
By water…
~\({O})/~
It took Espurr a couple minutes to make sure her lavender fur was all brushed straight, the fluffy curls atop her head somewhat tamed and the leaf-green sleeve around her bad arm tucked tight. Audino gave her a small blue ribbon that went in a bow neatly atop her head. She had a bright orange apple and a strange blue fruit to eat for breakfast, which tasted like a strawberry and had the texture of a grape. Then it was time to venture into the outdoors, the chilly morning breeze nipping at her fur as she followed Audino down the pine tree path and towards the town. It was still pleasantly cloudy, the morning fog glowing blue and orange in the light of the rising ocean sun.
The town square, deserted in the early morning, was near a beach, bordering a still bay that widened up into the sea beyond. Audino led Espurr down past the acorn-houses and onto the bay, towards a wooden pole that was sticking out of the sand. Espurr jumped back as the water in front of her suddenly began to bubble, parting around a wide blue head with orange fins.
"You rang?" asked the amphibian pokemon, head poking above the waves.
"One trip to and back from Crossings, please," said Audino, rummaging in her bag. She produced a few shiny golden coins from her pouch, handing them out to the pokemon. "This should cover the fares."
Espurr vaguely remembered Crossings from… the map! She remembered Serenity Village, etched in small black words halfway up, on the other side. They were going inland?
"This is Swampert," said Audino to Espurr. "He'll be ferrying us to and from the town."
"Hi," said Espurr with an awkward wave of her arm that wasn't broken. Marshtomp didn't respond with anything but a grunt. It made her want to shrivel up. Clearly, she hadn't gotten the hang of talking to others yet.
Swampert took the coins in a large slimy webbed paw, looking them over before nodding. "Alright, then." He dipped underneath the water, resurfacing with his back in plain view. A saddle sat atop it, with a few adjustable harnesses. "Hop on."
Swampert's back was slimy, but he was fast. Espurr, frightened, with only a couple straps around her chest and waist protecting her from certain death, clung on for dear life as the pokemon sped across the ocean with the speed of a dolphin, slicing clean through waves and weaving through currents. They made a wide bow around, heading into a wide, murky river that snaked deeper inland. Audino seemed much more relaxed than she was, only making sure the bag was safe and that Espurr hadn't lost hold. Espurr was terrified—how had no-one slipped off and fallen into the ocean before? She tried to ask Audino, yelling over the wind, but between the rippling breeze and the crashing of the waves, her words were lost to the wind.
"What?" asked Audino over the sound of the rippling sea. Espurr could barely hear her either.
It was only about 30 minutes before the water pokemon began to slow, however, and then Espurr saw it – in the distance, quickly getting closer, the bank of a large bay was coming into view. She could see in the distance tall, colourful buildings, rising far above anything in Serenity Village.
They stopped at a pier, atop an enclosed beach near the bank of a river. The water seemed to bend and part gracefully for Swampert, letting him skid onto the shallow waves before sliding to a stop on the beach and lowering his broad back, allowing the two of them to disembark.
"We'll be heading back in a couple hours," said Audino to Swampert once the straps had been undone and they were safely on the beach. Espurr felt dizzy on her feet and like she could hug the beach, if it wasn't too large and sandy. She never wanted to do that again!
"Take your time," said the water pokemon, who'd already gone back to lazily floating in the shallow beach water. "I'm not going anywhere."
And silently, he slipped back underneath the ripples of the river bank without another word.
"Where is this place?" asked Espurr as they climbed the uneven stone steps from the beach up towards the rocky hill above. It didn't seem far away from the village at all, but it looked like a whole different world…
"Crossings," said Audino, adjusting the bright, floral, wide-brimmed hat she was wearing. "The largest city in the province. And it just so happens to be where all the good shops are."
As they walked up the steps, the rock giving way to clean white cobblestone, Espurr's eyes widened, struggling to take in the view. Crooked, three-storey shops selling shiny blue orbs and polished sticks with runes stocked their wares out front, while others were advertising fresh berries and fruits, as well as large gummy-like things the size of loafs of bread piled up in wooden containers. Pokemon of all shapes and sizes were heading to and fro in droves, looking over all the wares and haggling with market vendors, and some were holding up fliers for their own stores. The smell of baked goods teased Espurr's nose, and she noticed a cosy-looking bakery decked out in lovely shades of orange, foods all displayed in the fancy windows out front. It was filled with glowing, diamond-shaped pastries and massive loaves of bread and little cookies iced to seem like white and purple butterflies. She'd barely finished taking in one sight before another caught her eyes and ears, turning her head another way. She'd never seen something so lively and bright before!
Walking through the streets with colours and wonders and smells that never seemed to end, they soon came upon a building that seemed to dwarf all the others, built like a large, domed castle with vibrant cobalt roofs and a ridged clock tower at the top of the building's highest spire. It sat in the middle of town, buildings parting ways for it, and at the top of the massive, studded archway, in large, engraved text, read:
SOUTH OPHRIA DEPARTMENT OF REGISTRY
As they approached the building, they stopped near the giant entrance archways. Espurr got sudden dubious vibes off Audino, like she was hesitant to enter.
"Here's our first stop," she said after a pause, adjusting her hat again and leading Espurr onwards towards the building.
The atmosphere changed immediately once they were inside, the white cobblestone of the town shifting to clean marble floors. The hall was built like a massive cathedral, the arched windows of domed roof sending light into the pristine pillars and corridors below and stretching so much higher than Espurr could have ever imagined. Just the height made her head spin! She felt the urge to stand in the centre and spin around while looking at the top until she got dizzy. But Audino pulled her along, heading for the desk.
The only sounds bouncing around the acoustic halls were the clacking of mechanical keyboards, the closest one 'monned by what Espurr inferred was a slakoth from the card on the counter reading 'assistant Slakoth'.
"Can I help you?" he asked tiredly, lethargically clicking buttons on the keyboard with his long claws. The keyboard was hooked into a strange blue orb, which projected an image onto a translucent panel in front of him.
"We're here to get this one—" Audino tugged on Espurr's arm "—registered."
"Name, town?"
"Espurr," said Espurr, prompted by Audino. "Serenity Village."
"She'll be with the school," Audino added helpfully.
The slakoth nodded, then yawned.
"This way," he said lazily, scooting back his stool and hopping down, heading further into the building. "We take the photos over there."
The photo stall was in the back, surrounded by the massive hall on all sides, and it consisted of a bunch of white panels, a lightbulb, and another blue crystal orb attached to a stick. Espurr was made to face the bulb and the orb as the slakoth struggled to snap it down to an appropriate height.
"Brace for the light," he said, and with a high-pitched whine and a few clicks, the orb apparently took her photo. Bright light flashed her. She gasped and turned her head away, squinting.
"No!" cried the slakoth. "We'll have to take it again now!"
Espurr felt annoyed as the pokemon repositioned her like a floppy rag doll. What a strange camera…
Someone very loudly cleared their throat. Espurr, who hadn't been expecting it, looked over curiously. Approaching them was a very large, dusk-coloured, striped crocodile that stood on two legs. He wore an official-looking white scarf, and there were cuffs attached to his wrists. On his nametag: Krookodile.
"Audino, of Serenity Village, yes?"
Audino suddenly stiffened up, adjusting her bright floral hat again. Espurr couldn't help but try to listen in, even as Slakoth dragged her by her good arm to get a shot of her from the side, adjusting her annoyedly. Was this what Audino had been fretting about?
"Yes, sir," said Audino hurriedly.
Krookodile sighed. His form was shrouded in lime tiredness and annoyance. The colours still messed with Espurr's head. "Funny coincidence. I was just about to have your presence sent for in the mail."
Audino stayed composed; Espurr could tell it was taking effort on her part. The negative aura reeking off of her was singed a deep blue.
"That's just as well," she said. "I thought it would be a decent time to pay a visit."
"Signing on another student?" asked Krookodile, his eyes landing on Espurr. Espurr tried to look like she hadn't noticed, and like they weren't boring holes into her. "Your establishment is under scrutiny right now. Do you really want to change the variables so close to your inspection date?"
"Last I checked we were within our rights to take up to twenty students with our current staff," said Audino. "This makes fifteen."
Espurr heard Krookodile 'hmm' affirmatively.
"Yes, technically you are," he said. "But now to business: in light of your school's recent performance and your hosting of the regional cup, we're going to be increasing surveillance at Serenity Village."
"How come? I don't believe there were problems with our initial signup," said Audino, nervous. "No-mon came to check then. What changed?"
Krookodile sighed.
"The board, after reviewing your merits and student roster, doesn't think your school is qualified in spirit to host the cup… or for the status of state school. Did you know you take the minimum amount of students to qualify? And frankly, given the previous trouble that was reported to us before, along with the relative lack of discipline you have handled the students involved with since then…"
Students involved with… The gears in Espurr's head were beginning to turn. She tried her best to at least keep one ear on their discussion, as Slakoth forcefully adjusted her into a position where she could see them and checked to make sure she wasn't turning back around. Did that mean… Tricky?
"…You'll understand why the province board has begun discussing whether your school should continue to receive state funding," Krookodile finished. He was staring Audino into the ground, but she was doing her best not to succumb to it. She was cracking a bit. "As the intendent assigned to your district, I am mandating extra supervision for the duration of your hosting up to and including the inspection." He somehow found a way to lean in closer. "And I should hope you'll be keeping things running spick and span. Just the way a government-funded school should be."
Audino couldn't do much more than nod quickly.
"Yes, sir," she said. "Everything will be done on time just as planned."
"Excellent," said Krookodile. "Don't disappoint me."
He looked over at Espurr.
"And I do hope your…" he trailed off, twirling a set of claws around as he searched for the word. "New student blends in soon enough."
"She will," said Audino quickly and hurriedly.
Krookodile snorted, doing his tie up with his claws.
"Then I will leave you to it. Expect authorities to get in touch a month before the competition."
And then he walked off. Audino was clearly shaken. Espurr could see the dark, deep green. She looked like she wanted to faint, but was restraining herself for the sake of not causing a scene in public.
"Who was that?" asked Espurr, once he was gone. Audino, though she had nerves of steel, looked quite agitated, but even though it might have not been the best time, Espurr had to ask.
"That was Krookodile," said Audino. "He's the superintendent for the district Serenity Village is in. Don't pay him any mind; he's never seen the right side of the bed before."
Flash. Another photo out of nowhere, making Espurr groan and jam her eyes shut from the unexpected flash.
"No-no-no!" exclaimed the irritated slakoth. "We'll have to take it again now!"
All Espurr could do was sigh apologetically. She just didn't like camera flashes!
As the vigoroth turned her around and took her picture from behind – flash – Espurr's eyes peered through the cracks in the panels, and fixated on a large statue that was being wheeled in on the other side of the building. It was surrounded by official-looking pokemon, all wearing pristine white scarves, as well as Krookodile, so it had to be important… The statue was of a large, rodentlike creature with a long, thin thunderbolt tail, ornately detailed and built to scale. If Espurr didn't know better, she would have said it could have come to life at any moment. Was it possible to sculpt that level of detail? It looked beyond what handiwork was capable of, almost… alive.
And why would they be carrying some statue in like it was some big secret?
There was another thing she noticed too. Lurking in the building, watching them go and trying to pretend like he wasn't, was a large, yellow, sheeplike creature in an emerald-green cape.
Flash. The picture was taken.
A green cape. Striding towards her through the ghostly fog.
Flash.
She remembered.
"What were you looking at?" asked Audino, as the slakoth ushered her off the platform.
Espurr, her heart still pounding, turned back to look at the place she'd been peering now that she was in a clear place.
"There was—"
But the statue was gone.
They must have really wanted to get it out of there, hadn't they…
"Hmm?" asked Audino, looking where Espurr was.
"It's gone now," said Espurr.
And so was the 'mon in the green cloak.
All in all, it took about ten minutes to get the photos and the papers written. Espurr had to sign a few papers and stamp a paw-print in black ink. She'd get a paper in the mail deeming her as with a school in a few weeks.
Their next stop, a few streets away and back into the languid mess of colours and noise and light, was a small, two-storey bookshop named the Crooked Book Nook that seemed to lean ever-so-slightly against the buildings on either side of it. It was almost claustrophobic from the ground floor, bookcases leaning over them like they were sagging from the weight of all the different tomes. Despite that, the shop was well-lit, the first storey an overlook decked out with windows that illuminated the many shelves and tables below. Audino read the signs hanging from each aisle, looking for the correct section.
"You'll need one for dungeoneering class, and one for botany…" Audino trailed off, leaving Espurr to her own devices as she searched. Espurr's eyes widened, glimmering with excitement. Finally, a library! Books being her past time, she couldn't help herself from going through the shelves with glee, eventually gazing at some of the ones on display at a table off to the side.
The books here weren't like the books she had back home, she quickly realised. Many of them seemed almost alive, or enchanted – one book, How to Enchant Things, was covered in runes that seemed to glow with energy, while another, A Light in The Dark, shone bright light off its pages when she opened it. Half blinded and looking away, Espurr groaned and quickly snapped it shut. How were you supposed to read a book like that?
After the last two, she didn't really want to mess with the one titled Teleporting for Dummies.
"Need help?"
Startled, Espurr nearly dropped the book as she looked up. There was a 'mon in front of her that was hot pink from head to toe, except for their light-pink arms and the giant, poofy bangs that hung from their head. Was it hair?
"No, I think I have it sorted," she said nicely, setting the book down on the table. The creature looked down at it.
"Hey, I'd advise you be careful in this section," the pink 'mon said causally, leaning against a bookcase and folding their arms. "One time we stocked a book called The Disappearing Act, which actually disappeared after you sat down and read it. Another time it was The Explosive Guide to Explosives, which… well, needless to say, those weren't exactly bestsellers."
"Why would anymon... make books like that?" asked Espurr, somewhat shocked. Weren't books supposed to be for reading?
"Beats me," the 'mon shrugged. "I just help sell 'em. But if it's worth anything, Campfire for A Rainy Day actually makes for a pretty good campfire. It's waterproof, too. Anyway, acquaintances can call me Tinkaton. You?"
"Espurr," said Espurr. "I'm from Serenity Village."
"Ahh, right," said Tinkaton. "Then you must be here for schoolbooks. They're all the way on the other side of the bookstore—"
"Got them," said Audino from behind, cutting into their conversation. She had three large books in her arms, which Espurr read the titles of: Do's and Don'ts of Mystery Dungeons, The Book of Berries, and An Abridged History of The World. "Let's go ahead and pay for these." She looked at Tinkaton. "Mind ringing us up?"
"Sure thing," said Tinkaton, hopping behind the counter. "You're here for the afternoon?"
"Just another hour, actually," said Audino. "We have to get some more dungeon supplies for exams later."
"Well, see ya in a few months at the competition," said Tinkaton. "Our school's been training."
They left the bookstore through the same crooked doorway they'd entered through, emerging back into the bustling, sunny marketplace.
"I'm just going to make one more stop," Audino explained, turning around the corridor and off the main street, into a more residential sector of town. She stopped Espurr there. "You wait for me here; I'll just be a minute."
And then she was off, leaving Espurr to her own devices off to the side in the large, crowded main street.
All of a sudden, the city seemed so much noisier. The currents of the crowd moved against her, threatening to sweep her away, and before long she was moving along with them, just at her own pace. She took in the sights as she went – what looked like a large, walking sunflower was pushing around a cart with colourful bundles of normal flowers, and a dog made entirely of… bread? Was selling various pastries to whoever would buy one.
Her stomach grumbled a bit. Oh, how she wished she had some pocket change…
There was one 'mon who caught her eye, just from how much he stood out from the rest of the crowd. He was yellow from head to toe, with a neck almost like a short giraffe, but on his back lay an earth-green cloak, and he seemed to be loitering around quite suspiciously, almost like he was on the lookout for someone.
Wait, he was the sheeplike 'mon at the government building… It wasn't Espurr's business to get involved in anything shady, but she wondered exactly what his deal was. He seemed so out of place…
And he was looking straight at her.
Immediately, she switched into 'walk away and look inconspicuous' mode. He must have seen her back in the building. There was no other likely explanation.
There was one wall that two blue monkeys with sponges were cleaning off. It was sectioned off from the public with tape and made of brick, and covered in some kind of drawing that stretched up two stories tall – a black flag with diagonal red stripes converging near the bottom like crossed swords. Above it, etched in dripping white paint, were the words "For Nebyllin!"
"Ugh," said one of the townsmon, who had stopped with a few others to look at it just the same as Espurr had. "Can't believe that's here." There were several 'yea's and mutters of agreement from all around him.
"It's a shame, really," muttered another, a large, rotund, purple 'mon with a massive mouth and a top hat. "All that nonsense ought to stay up North."
Espurr looked in their direction.
"What does it mean?" she asked.
"Best children don't concern themselves with things like that," said a third, a large, orange, boar-like 'mon who wore a belt of construction tools around his torso. "They're a bunch of frauds and loonies, that's what."
The rest of the murals from there didn't seem to grab as much attention from the locals. It seemed like Espurr couldn't pass a building on any of the streets ahead that wasn't covered in some sort of art. One of them, in what she assumed was one of the lesser city squares, was grander than the rest. It stood out from the others, weathered and nearly two storeys high. The oils on brick immortalised the image of a blue otter and a yellow mouse standing at the edge of a cliff, combining beams of light from their paws that were aimed at a colossal snowflake in front of them. She had no idea what it meant. Only a golden plaque on the front gave her any clue.
"The Heroes of Paradise"
"There you are!" came Audino's voice out of nowhere, and Espurr looked back to see her running up, her flowered hat almost lopsided. "I thought I told you to stay in one place!" she admonished Espurr.
"It was only a street…" said Espurr.
"One street too many," said Audino. "Stay in one spot next time!"
Espurr pointed up at Audino's hat, which was beginning to slip off. Audino looked up, and adjusted it. She pulled something out of her bag, and lumped a pastry into Espurr's paws. It was one of the ones that bread-dog was selling.
"Thought you'd be hungry," she said.
~\({O})/~
School was nothing remarkable that day. Espurr was more tired than usual – getting up to go to Crossings had meant she'd gotten up a couple hours earlier than she normally would – and was thankful when it finally ended. She felt like faceplanting into bed the moment the sun went down.
For detention, Watchog made them clean the classroom after school. Which meant plucking weeds, polishing the teacher's desk, dusting the blackboard, and finally – putting away the supplies that had been left out during class.
"Hey," she said to Goomy as the two of them were packing up. Goomy looked at her, helping jam some of the school supplies back into a bucket.
"Y-yes?" he asked.
"Do you know who the "Heroes of Paradise" are?"
Goomy looked like he was thinking hard for a couple seconds.
"I-I heard a-b-bout them, b-but I don't know wh—"
"I know!"
Tricky seemed to pop out of nowhere, practically shrieking the words with excitement. She also knocked over the school supplies Goomy had been stacking. Goomy melted a bit with a sigh. Espurr felt bad for him. Tricky was a bit like an annoying rubber chicken – endlessly annoying, and never where you wanted her to appear.
"Where did you hear that?" the fennekin asked, panting obliviously. "Huh? Huh?"
"I saw it today," Espurr said with a hint of annoyance, helping Goomy restack the supplies. "And since you're here, can you help us restack these?"
Tricky carelessly lopped one thing back into the nearby bin with her tail – not at all where it was even supposed to go! – and then began spewing word vomit.
"The Heroes of Paradise are only like, the most famous heroes in the modern day!" she began. "They said for years and years, there were all these wars, like, between the North and South. And then seventy years ago, the most dangerous blizzard ever engulfed the world. It was caused by the Bittercold! The Bittercold was the amalgamation of everymon's mean thoughts, it just all created a storm and that storm threatened to wipe everymon else out. The Heroes of Paradise were the ones who defeated the Bittercold and stopped the storm from lashing out and destroying everything!"
"Huh…" Espurr's mind was already turning gears. A Bittercold… was that what she was looking for? Could that be the monster she'd been sent here to defeat?
"Where are they now?" she asked. Dead, she assumed.
"Oh, they're up North," said Tricky, spreading out her paws. "In a big city named Pokemon Paradise! They say it's so big that you can walk for hours and never see the end of town!
"They built it," she added sagely.
"A-anyways, I have to go h-home now," interjected Goomy, who had cleanly put everything back in the bucket while they were talking. It was the last thing to put away. Yawning, he bid them goodbye and began to slime off. Tricky yawned.
"Yeah, me toooo…" she whined. "See you later, Espurr!" she waved as she pranced off, leaving Espurr completely alone to put the bucket away in its proper place. At least there wasn't that much inside it, so she could lug it along with one arm. And she could think as she worked.
The entire exchange simply left Espurr with more thoughts than brainpower to dissect them. She didn't see anything like a Bittercold these days. And since the Heroes of Paradise were still alive… why couldn't they handle it? Why had she been brought here in their place?
Disappearance, Suspected Murder in Crossings – the statue killer strikes again
Crossings city police are inspecting the disappearance of Raichu Abernathy after he was reported missing, authorities announced.
The 91 year old 'mon's residence was found wide open, with a strange statue resembling him placed just beyond the doorway. The incident was reported at 4:00, with police arriving fifteen minutes later, the Daily Pelipper confirmed in a news release. This is the latest in a series of similar disappearances plaguing the region.
"The search for Raichu Abernathy and the other victims is ongoing," the West Crossings Police Department responded when asked for a comment. "We ask all citizens to submit a report immediately if he is spotted or if any suspicious activity in your area occurs. Murder cannot be ruled out just yet, but for now we're investigating it as a possibility. It's looking greater by the moment."
No arrests have been made in connection with Abernathy's disappearance or presumed murder, or any of the other disappearances. Concerns have been raised over the murder in such a wealthy portion of the city, along with the statue, which appears to be a perfect replica of the 'mon.
The city did not respond immediately to further requests to comment.
CHAPTER SIX: STRANGE CREATURES AND MAGIC TEACHERS
~\({O})/~
. . .. . .Even though she was an open book, it still took Tricky an entire day and a half to ask Espurr what was on her mind.
"Doywncomtdinrwfme?"
The hurried mash of syllables slammed into Espurr's ear at a volume that made her wince and pull back. She looked across their desk at Tricky, bewildered.
"…What?" she asked, keeping her voice in a hush to stay undetected. The class was currently copying down notes from the blackboard about ancient Human society—most of which were just horribly wrong and made Espurr want to correct them all. Lawn flamingos were not idols.
"Doyouwanttocometodinnerwithme?"
The voice was loud enough to get the attention of Farfetch'd, who looked up from his papers to survey the classroom. Espurr immediately looked very busy in her notes, which were next to Tricky's notes, which were doodled animals. Once his head had gone down again, Tricky opened her snout and took a deep, dramatic breath, like she was going to blow dragon-fire on something.
"Dyuwunna—"
"Speak slower!" pleaded Espurr in a hush. "And please whisper."
"Do. You wanna. Come. To dinner. With me?" Tricky forced out in the loudest whisper possible.
Espurr stole another look at Farfetch'd, just to make sure he hadn't noticed. If he had, he didn't seem to mind. His face was still firmly down in his schedule book, a quill from his wing feathers scribbling intently.
Did she want to? Espurr wasn't sure. The truth was, she didn't like Tricky very much. And that Tricky hadn't seemed to pick up on that just made her more and more sure they weren't going to be friends. And worst of all, she still hadn't apologised for—or even mentioned—tricking her into entering the woods that day when they were supposed to be going back to the clinic! That alone soured her on Tricky.
"I need a bit to think on it," she said nicely.
"Aww, but what's there to think about?" Tricky whispered back, eyes bright and tail lashing. "My Pop's a chef. He makes really good food. Nothing like what the school serves! You really should come."
"Give me some time to decide?" asked Espurr.
She should have turned Tricky down there, she really should have. It wasn't like she wanted to go. But somehow, she just didn't have the heart to.
Tricky didn't look particularly happy about that, but she perked up nonetheless and was particularly sing-songy for the rest of class.
~\({O})/~
"Today I have a couple of special announcements to make," said Simipour, walking up to the blackboard. Following him was a pokemon that none of the other kids had seen before, as far as Espurr could tell. His body was covered in smooth, knobbly bark, and he was stout and humanlike. A large leaf hung from his head, but the smile underneath was warm enough to catch her off-guard. He draped his green cloak and his bag in the currently-empty sentry spot, and hung around near the blackboard, leaning against the fence.
"The first one," said Simipour, eyes glancing down to a notecard in his paws, "is that after many, many years, Serenity Village—and this school—will be hosting this year's Regional Cup."
A wave of orange excitement passed through the classroom, which was lost on Espurr.
"What's that?" asked Espurr, looking back at Deerling, who sat behind her.
"Ooh! Me!" said Tricky, practically vibrating in her seat. "It's a competition between all the schools in the province. One school hosts, and everymon else competes in a test of that school's choice!"
"Except, we haven't placed well in years," added Deerling pointedly.
"Yeah…" Tricky flopped down on the seat, deflating. "We never win."
"…and I expect you all to be on your best behaviour," finished Simipour, deliberately speaking over the rest of the class's hushed whispers. "And now for our second announcement."
He beckoned for the pokemon near the blackboard to come forward.
"This is Nuzleaf," Simipour said. Nuzleaf gave a wave. "He'll be filling in a very important part of your curriculum that you haven't yet covered: elemental power."
"Elemental power?"
The voice had left Espurr's voice before she could even think about it. She looked both ways, then awkwardly rose her good paw, realising she'd asked without. A couple snickers rolled through the classroom behind her, making her feel very embarrassed. Could anyone see the red in her face through her fur?
"Yup," said Nuzleaf, sounding like he hadn't skipped a beat. He didn't sound anything like Espurr had expected, something like a thick ranch drawl escaping his lips. He kicked off the fence, walked forward and clasped his hands together. "The innate energy shared between each an' every one of ya. The one definin' power an' trait that links all of us together. Our species' hallmark."
Simipour gracefully let Nuzleaf take centre stage as he walked behind the teacher's desk.
"Now, I dunno how much y'all have learned over the past few years," began Nuzleaf, leaning forward. "The other teachers will probably fill me in later, but do any of y'all want to give me a leg up? Can anymon tell me wha' elemental powers are?"
Immediately Tricky was jumping up and down in her seat, her tail lashing furiously. Espurr could hear the 'ooh! Me! Me!'s even though her mouth was closed. Nuzleaf tossed one of Farfetch'd's stalks in the air, caught it, and pointed her out.
"It's like these really cool fighting moves you can do, like blowing fire or blowing water or making plants grow and stuff!" Tricky blurted out, riding up against the limit of how fast you could talk while sounding intelligible.
Deerling, who sat behind Espurr, yawned and snorted. Espurr thought it sounded like scoffing.
"Ahh…" Nuzleaf looked sheepish. "Sorta. But tha's only half the story. Anymon else?"
"Elemental powers are the manifestation of the energy that powers all energy-based beings," Deerling spoke up behind Espurr in a stately, controlled voice. "It's the one common link between all pokemon and affords us the power to defend ourselves like no other animal can."
"Correct!" said Nuzleaf. "Somemon's been studyin'."
Deerling tried, unsuccessfully, to hide that she was proud of herself.
"Elemental powers are the lifeblood of everythin' that ticks in our world," continued Nuzleaf. "As bein's capable of harnessin' that energy, we can not only influence our surroundin's, but also use that energy to create somethin' entirely new. Like so!"
He suddenly pirouetted, sharply raised his hands up into the air, and clapped. The clap sounded thunderous, and a black bolt of energy arched up into the sky before exploding into fizzling fireworks above the classroom. Little specks of shining glitter spread throughout the air, raining down on everyone, before blinking away into nothingness.
"Woah," said Shelmet, before Pancham gave him an annoyed look. Shelmet immediately looked like he wasn't impressed.
Satisfied that he'd impressed the class, Nuzleaf put his hands down and dusted them off.
"Tha' was a move of my own makin'," he said. "I call it 'fizzling fireworks from a night long past'. And by the en' of this week, if you all pay attention, each and every single one of you will be able to do it yourselves. How does tha' sound?"
Espurr, bedazzled, thought it sounded utterly magnificent.
~\({O})/~
Recess was awash with nothing but praise for the new teacher and the cool things he taught.
"Who even is that?" asked a pachirisu through two large cheekfuls of food.
"Swallow your food first," said a pawmo who sat next to her.
"If's for lapher!"
Goomy, in the corner, was trying and succeeding in producing a few stuttering purple sparkles. They'd vanish once they left the tips of his slimy paws, but it was more than most of the other students could muster. He had a small crowd surrounding him.
"Very cool!" said Deerling.
Deerling and Goomy seemed to be close. Even though they sat rather far apart in class, Deerling followed him around nearly the entire day when he wasn't in detention.
"Well, I'm already ahead in class," bragged Tricky in another corner. "See what I can do?" She opened her mouth and blew out a small stream of fire into the air, which became a flaming ribbon that contorted into a rude word. Audino gave her a mean look and quickly swatted her away from the windowsill she was in danger of burning.
Espurr, in her own little nook and cranny with her lunch, mostly just had to agree. The subjects here were so… different to back home. She could get on-board with these. Especially with a teacher as kind and fun as Nuzleaf was.
But as kind as Nuzleaf was, his class was the last in the school, which meant right after lunch, Vice Principal Watchog shoved them out the door for detention. And Watchog was not a very nice teacher.
"Come on!" he crowed from the fence, like he was an irritable banker short on time. "That soil won't turn itself. You've got three more gardens to plough after this."
Tricky, who was tugging the plough while Espurr and Goomy tugged weeds, grumbled through the reigns, smoke curling from her ears. Espurr, trying her best to work with an arm in a cast, could only sympathise. She'd long since decided Watchog was the new bane of her life.
There was a newcomer in town that day. Espurr heard about him long before she saw anything. A tall, lean, yellow 'mon in an earth-green cloak, who seemed to be rather nosy for an outsider passing through. Almost no-mon knew anything about him, and bad news had followed in his wake—a 'mon was found missing in a nearby town, a strange statue presumed to be a calling card left on his doorstep. That rang bells immediately. It was a bad omen, the village said. He was not to be trusted until proven otherwise. And given what she'd seen in Crossings that other day, Espurr was more than happy to follow that advice. In fact, he got a special spot at the top of her suspect list. Involved in probably a murder… if that wasn't a lead to finding whatever she was supposed to get rid of, she didn't know what was.
Now that school was out and Watchog was dragging them back to town, Tricky was getting ready to ask Espurr out to dinner again.
"Hey, have you thought about it?" she asked, bright-eyed. Espurr really hadn't. Between Nuzleaf, the Regional Cup, and the newcomer, she'd been swept away in other things. And truth be told, she didn't really want to go. Everything about Tricky's inconsiderateness gave her bad vibes.
"I'm a bit tired," she replied, hoping Tricky would take the hint.
"That's okay!" Tricky yipped, the hint flying far over her bushy ears. "I can walk you back to the school afterwards!"
Espurr yawned. Inside, she felt herself shrivelling up. She'd just have to be blunt then. "I'm really not interested, Tricky."
"Oh…" Tricky seemed to droop a little. Her tail was definitely less lively. "Okay, then… Let me know if you change your mind."
She was droopy all the way back to the town square.
~\({O})/~
It wasn't until the next day that the both of them met the newcomer.
He was loitering around the town square just before sunset. Watchog had made them pick berries again for detention that day, and it had somehow managed to be hotter today than it was the first time. Goomy was looking tuckered out, his slime congealing more than it usually did, and Espurr, silently dying, was really considering doing some research into whether 'hairless cat' was a style or not. Only Tricky, who seemed to thrive in the heat, was energetic.
"Are you sure you don't wanna go tonight?" she whined, prancing forward to follow Espurr around desperately as they walked back to town behind Watchog. "Pleeeaase?"
"I'm sure," said Espurr.
"But it's leftover night!" Tricky pleaded. "I made sure to leave some of all the best stuff!"
"I'm not hungry," Espurr responded, swallowing her irritation.
"But everymon gets hungry," Tricky pointed out.
"Tricky," Espurr started, turning around. How many times could she say no? "I don't know how else to tell you I'm not interested."
Tricky, who had been practically right behind her, recoiled a little. Espurr backed down.
"Sorry," the fox said, drooping over a bit.
"Maybe some other time," offered Espurr limply, hoping not to be rude.
Tricky said nothing afterwards, just sitting back on the ground and swishing her tail back and forth as she studied the pebbles on the pavement below her.
"Wait right here," Watchog ordered them as they approached Kecleon's stall. "I have to purchase the non-pickables. I don't want to see you standing one centimetre out of place when I return, or I'll assign summer detention for all three of you. Got it?"
"Got it…" All three students recited wearily.
Satisfied enough, Watchog started off towards Kecleon's stall, leaving them on their own. Espurr took a seat on the ground the moment he had turned his back, almost drooping with sleep just like her classmates. The day had taken a toll on then, and as someone who had woken up early that day, it was taking most of Espurr's willpower to keep herself awake.
"Good evening."
All three students glanced up wearily at the pokemon who had greeted them, suddenly straightening up and leaping to their feet when they saw who it was. Audino adjusted her exploration bag over her shoulder, her floral hat on her head and a smallish purse in her other paw.
"N-Nurse Audino!" Tricky immediately made an effort to look awake, only succeeding in making herself look constipated instead. "We totally weren't sleeping on you right now. Trust us!"
"I hope 'Vice Principal' Watchog hasn't been too hard on you," she said.
"Only a little," said Espurr.
"I think m-my sl-slime is hardening," said Goomy weakly. Audino, concerned, gave him something to drink.
"You all behaved yourselves?" A brash voice suddenly rang out behind them. Everymon turned around to face Watchog, who lugged back a week's worth of nuts in his paws. He glowered at all three of the students as he approached. "Did anymon move?"
"Oh, put a wooper in it, Watchog," Audino retorted, suddenly less cheery. "They were with me the entire time, and I haven't seen them move once."
Espurr, Tricky, and Goomy were treated to the rare sight of Watchog's face suddenly growing spooked as he noticed who was with them.
"A-Audino!" he exclaimed nervously, tightly gripping the sack the nuts were held in. "Fancy seeing you here…"
"Happened to be in the area; thought I'd lend a helping paw," Audino replied. "Hope you haven't worked them to death."
"And just what are you insinuating by that?" retorted Watchog.
"Oh, nothing," said Audino. "But one makes observations from previous times."
"Really?" Watchog folded his arms defensively. "This again? They're just as happy to cause trouble on any other day. The way I see it, this is a useful waste of their energy."
Clearly, they had beef.
"Oh, you did not just go there…"
On the other side of the square, a 'mon Espurr had only seen once before was stumbling through the square, having just knocked over a vendor's apples.
"Hey!" yelled Kecleon, who managed the tent. "Those are fresh apples! I just had them carried in from up north! You'd better hope none of them are bruised!"
"My apologies," said the stranger with an apologetic bow. He helped to pick them up, but Kecleon swatted them away.
"Just go. You've done enough," the lizard irritably muttered. The stranger backed away and moved on.
Espurr realised quickly that something was off about the way he was interacting with people. It seemed to be from one thing to the other; if he wasn't knocking over supplies, he was hitting it up with some of the pokemon on the street. No pokemon who was up to normal things behaved like that; it looked like he was trying to hit as many pokemon as possible on purpose… it took her a second to register that he seemed to be heading this way.
"Ah, two new faces!" said the stranger jovially as he approached. Now that he was up-close, Espurr got a better look at him – tall, bright yellow with black stripes, built almost like a giraffe with a neck just as long, but with a large, faintly glowing orb on his tail. Big, long ears that belonged on a rabbit extended up into the sky. He wore a cloak that was just as earthy green and slender as the stories had described. He must have been four times her height.
"Oh, apologies," he said. His voice was light and airy. "Where are my manners? We haven't even introduced ourselves!"
He stuck out a flipper-like paw.
"My name is Ampharos," he said, like he was announcing it to a crowd. "Also known as the dashing wanderer!"
He did a flamboyant flap of his cape, but the breeze just blew it back on him. He shook it off. "And you two?"
"I'm Tricky," Tricky started loudly before Espurr could say they were just some neighbourhood kids. "And this is Espurr! We're training to join the Expedition Society when we grow up!"
Espurr's jaw nearly dropped. When had she said that? That was Tricky's goal, not hers!
But before she could refute it, Ampharos had already finished musing and opened his mouth.
"Hmm… Expedition Society, you say," he said. "Very intriguing."
"What are you doing here, anyway?" asked Tricky. "There's, like, nothing here. We're just a loo stop on your way to the mountains."
"That… is classified," said Ampharos. "But I can tell you the sights here are nothing short of spectacular. You must get all sorts of tourists in the spring and summer."
"We don't! We haven't had a newcomer since… since…" Tricky stopped to think for a second, and that second was enough for it to click in Espurr's own head. She was just a nanosecond away from opening her own mouth to tell Tricky no, please don't, but it was too late. By the time the command had reached her mouth, Tricky was already spilling the beans.
"…Since Espurr here! Yeah!"
Espurr wilted. That was her biggest secret, and Tricky had just spilled it to a… to a complete…
Ampharos hmm'd.
"Well, that's very interesting indeed," he said. "I should like to make your acquaintance further at a later time. For now, I have many important things that need attending to. So good day!"
And with one more swish of his cape, like he was some kind of campy superhero, he began to walk towards the Café Connection.
That was it. Espurr was peeved, her ears as pinned as they could go. If cats could turn red with anger, she'd be crimson. How could Tricky just…
"Tricky!" she snapped annoyedly. Tricky looked back at her.
"What?"
"How could you just tell him everything? You know we're not supposed to trust him!"
"But he seemed nice," said Tricky.
"But he's a stranger!" puffed Espurr.
"Sorry…" muttered Tricky. "I forgot."
"How could you forget about something like that?" asked Espurr.
"I just… did!"
Espurr stormed away, making sure that she left before Tricky noticed and she outpaced Tricky before the fox could keep up.
"Have a good night," called out Audino from the distance as she passed them.
Espurr's walk took her to the outskirts of town, along the vast lake that flowed out to the sea and from the mountains in the distance. It took her until the houses had started to dwindle and disappear, leaving only a few shabby huts with dirty walls and muddy front yards, and until the path let up from cobbled bricks into straight dirt. She walked until she reached the house.
The house was out on a small island, with only a rickety wooden bridge leading to it from the mainland. It was dilapidated, run down like it hadn't been lived in for centuries, its walls blackened from mud and some of its roof missing. The architecture looked victorian, like some of the older, crumbling houses back in her city, a complete break away from the airy villas of Serenity Village. The ground it stood on was soggy, marshlike, sand, and the house had begun to lean ever so slightly into the ground. It was crooked. It was a crooked house.
But the most unsettling thing about it was the aura it gave off. Just like when the fog had descended upon her back in those woods, Espurr could feel the evil emanating off of it. Her ears flattened down, her tail bunched up, and she took a few steps back. It was an evil house, all alone on that island. Maybe it had been banished there because the people who built it realised what they'd made.
"Heeey! Wait for me!"
The sound came from far behind, a distant voice punctured with a twang Espurr recognized even from far away. She only had to turn around to see the distant form of Tricky running towards her from the direction of the village and the mountains dotting the horizon.
"Wait… up…" breathed Tricky hoarsely as she finally caught up, panting and out of breath as she came to a stop on the path next to Espurr.
"Why'd you just run off?" she asked, recovering.
"Because I needed a walk," Espurr said, preparing to walk further down the trail even though she didn't know where it would take her. Anything to get away from Tricky and the house. "Alone."
"But… But I thought…" Tricky stammered from behind her. Espurr wasn't looking or listening. "I thought you were my friend?"
"Friend?"
That struck a pang within Espurr. Before she knew what she was doing, she turned around and walked right back over to where Tricky was sitting.
"No. We're not friends. Friends don't hound other friends so they'll go to some dinner party. Friends don't wrap other friends up into insane quests they get week long detentions over. Friends don't spill everything about other friends' backstories to random strangers they don't even know! And friends don't speak for other friends!"
Tricky, still on the ground, was left speechless by Espurr's words.
"So no," Espurr said, pulling back. "We're not friends. And we're never going to be friends unless you grow. Up."
And with that, she walked right past Tricky, ignoring the looming shadow of the house as it reached out for her in passing, and started heading back towards the town without another word. She could hear Tricky sniffling in the background, and the smallest tug on her conscience appeared, asking her to turn around. But she didn't care. She was over it.
~\({O})/~
The sun had already set by the time Espurr made it back up to the school clinic. Her feet hurt from all the walking she'd been doing today, and the trip up the hill to the clinic building was doing her no favours. So she was happy to get a light, simple dinner, and climb into bed. Audino covered the luminous moss on the houses with simple cloths, and then retired to the backroom office. Espurr flopped on her straw bed, blotting out the dull orange throbbing of her broken arm, staring up at the ceiling as she danced with slumber.
Dear diary,—
Muffled, urgent voices from the room over jarred her out of her thought train. Her hearing was sharp enough to tell that there were people speaking, but not so good to get an idea of what they were saying. When she looked over, she saw that the lights had been uncovered in that backroom where Audino had gone. The warm yellow light shone luminously from under the crack of the door.
Against her better judgement, Espurr let her curiosity get the better of her. She found herself creeping off her bed, and over towards the door. Once she was there, she lowered her ear against it the best she could without letting anyone know she was there. Only then did the muffled voices start making sense.
"Gone? What do you mean done?"
That was Farfetch'd.
"I mean gone," said Audino. "The news came in from Crossings. The victim was him. The police have no body, suspects, or motive for the disappearance, just that an unusual souvenir was left in his place."
"What kind of souvenir?" Watchog. "And what kind of criminal leaves one behind?"
"The kind who strikes more than once," said Farfetch'd anxiously. She could hear him clutching his leek.
"That's what has everymon worried," said Simipour. "The criminal left behind a full-sized statue of the 'mon who was who was abducted. They seem to have been planning their target for a while, and dumped it there once the deed was done."
A wave of silence passed through all the teachers. It was an uneasy silence, the kind filled with tension.
"Well, perhaps we just got unlucky," a new voice proposed. Espurr recognised the thick ranch drawl—that was Nuzleaf! "The 'mon was old. He could'a had an enemy. Tha' would explain the statue too; ya don' throw somethin' like tha' together in one day."
There was uneasy agreement from the other three teachers on the matter.
"And what of the newcomer?" spoke Farfetch'd.
"This… Ampharos?" Simipour said.
"That's him," said Farfetch'd. "Do we think he's responsible? He came out west from Crossings just yesterday."
"Hmm…" Simipour mused. "Innocent until proven guilty is our policy. We must keep a wary eye out, but not be too quick to take action. You never know what the true story may be."
More uneasy agreements from all the teachers.
"Until further notice, we proceed as usual," said Simipour. "We find another guardian for the girl, perhaps somemon with less history. Meeting is adjourned."
It took Espurr a few seconds, and the shuffling of footsteps, to realise they were leaving! She scurried back to her bed, and appeared to be fast asleep as the other three teachers filed out and then left.
But when they were gone, the information stuck with Espurr regardless. The murdered 'mon… was meant to be her guardian? Her mind flashed back to the Coneheads. Could they have been responsible? She hadn't seen them after she'd been saved that night, and that dungeon must have been far away… but that didn't mean they were gone. And that city, Crossings, it was close. From now on, she had to be on her guard. Because a supernatural killing and a strange newcomer showing up around the same time could not bode well.
It was early, even for mornings. The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon, and the grass was still wet with dew from the night. Tricky barely ever got up this early, except for when she was upset.
She braced for a pounce and then jumped through the open window in her room like her pops had told her never to do. Then she pranced around a bit outside, and flopped down belly-first into the grass and rolled around. The dew and grass normally felt good against her fur. It was too bad she just didn't feel like it today.
She let out a sigh, her ears and tail flopping in the grass around her.
Another attempt to make a friend, and she'd botched it. She didn't understand. Why didn't things ever work out for her? Why did it always end with everymon walking away? Who would turn down a dinner party?
And yeah, they'd got off on the wrong foot, and maybe it was her fault, but… how else was she supposed to talk to anymon? And how was she supposed to know what not to tell strangers? Why did she always do everything wrong?
Her tail lashed behind her in silent distress, the brilliant rising sun over the hills and distant beaches joyless and glaring. She rested her head in her paws and puffed out an ember-tinged sigh, stealing daring glances at the rims of the sun like her pops told her never to. Maybe she could say sorry… but that would require Espurr wanting to talk to her. Why apologise to somemon who didn't like her?
It wasn't just Espurr, anyway. The whole town didn't like her. So Espurr was just normal. What was wrong with her?
~\({O})/~
The next day at school was dominated by news of the spreading out ferry service.
Ferries were the main method of mass transportation throughout Nebyllin. If a town was worth anything, then a ferry had a route going to it, and though Serenity Village was right up near the sea, it didn't have a single one. The peninsula they were on was long, mountainous, and at the very bottom of everything, and there wasn't any other town with a line except Crossings, which already had more ferries than it could count.
Getting a ferry line meant getting more traffic, and more life to come to this sleepy little town. Espurr figured it was one of the reasons why the administration in Crossings wanted to increase security here. But it also meant prospects of a field trip.
"Don't get your hopes very far up," Watchog grumbled, as he picked up some of the leeks in the classroom that had been strewn around by the windy day. "We're not doing anything too extreme while I'm Vice Principal."
That dampened the mood a bit. Another gust of wind blew through, rattling the blackboard.
While all the other students chattered excitedly, Espurr was left alone in her own world. Everything seemed to take on a darker tone today. The breeze was ominous, the sky overbearing, and the students who weren't talking were shifty and furtive. The conversation she'd overheard last night had shattered her sense of security completely, made her wonder who the killer was, where they could be hiding… and what they'd do next.
If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that investigating Ampharos had to be a priority. It just had to. He already knew she was the only other newcomer to the village, thanks to a certain fox, so that meant he had the advantage. Which narrowed the list of pokemon he'd be looking for immensely. If he really was the killer, then it was only a matter of time before he'd act. It could be as soon as today. It could be this afternoon. She needed to get a leg up on the game before that happened.
Tricky, next to her, was slumped over on their desk, head in her paws and ears down. It was a far cry from her normally perky self. But Espurr had… ugh, no, she wasn't going to have sympathy for her. They weren't friends. She was holding the line.
~\({O})/~
"Today's lesson is about medicinal berries, and their many applications," said Audino. Unlike Farfetch'd and Watchog, she brandished a pristine wooden teaching rod instead of a leek, pointing to a blackboard she'd spent five minutes meticulously marking up during the break.
"Come here!" she said, letting everymon huddle around. "Come closer."
On a table she'd set up right in front of the desk, she had two baskets. One was filled with the fruits Espurr knew and recognized, like strawberries, blueberries, and apples, while the other one was filled with things she'd never seen before. One of them looked like a giant, light blueberry, while another seemed a lot like an oversized plum and yet another looked like a mango gone wrong.
"Today, we're going to talk about medicinal berries versus normal fruits," she began. "In one of these baskets, you see everyday cooking food. But in the other…" her paw waved over to the basket of unusual fruits. "You see something much different. These are medicinal berries. They are very different from normal fruits."
She picked the large, blueberry one up out of the basket and held it up for the class to see. "We call this an oran. It's the most special of the medicinal berries because it can harness any kind of power and amplify it. We use it often in first aid for this reason. But if you mix it with any other sort of berry, for instance, say…" some rummaging in the basket. "A tamato berry, the results could be very explosive."
The berries went out on the counter in front of the whole class.
"In this way, by mixing an oran with another, you can create all sorts of chemical reactions," Audino continued. "If I mix an oran berry with a bluk berry, I have a nice, soothing lotion. But if I mix an oran berry with a mago berry, I have an alcoholic drink. For this reason, medicinal berries are very hard to get ahold of without a doctor's qualification or a rescue team badge. But all of you will be learning more about them in the semester to come. On the test, you should be able to put together three different mixes, using more than just two berries, in order to make three different solutions…"
With the exception of Watchog's class, school was just as breezy as it had been for the last two days. But before Espurr's eyes, it mostly blurred together. She was really excited for Nuzleaf's class.
Something about the way Nuzleaf taught seemed to captivate the whole school. His classes were the highlight of most students' day. Yesterday, he'd taught them the correct warmup poses to bring out their energy so they could focus it on something, and even Goomy managed to control his errant sparks. In his off-time, he seemed to enjoy reading, and Espurr was hoping she could catch him some day, even though he seemed to be always busy when he wasn't in class.
He was a returning native after a while abroad, Audino had told them. He'd travelled the world for years after he'd graduated school, only coming back every now and then to pay a few close friends a visit. But this year, he was stopping for good. The school had offered him a position as a teacher in the wake of his return, and he'd taken it up. But details about his far past were foggy. He didn't seem to have any family here that she could see – he apparently lived alone on the far side of town.
Today, he was teaching the first stage of the special move that he'd promised they'd all learn in a few weeks.
"Now everymon take those warmup poses I taught y'all!" he said, taking up his own. It looked like a marionette about to pirouette, his hands up in the air, his legs together, and standing on his very toes. Everymon assumed similar positions, Tricky bracing as if to pounce, Goomy stiffening up, and Espurr straightening up. Her arm, recently freed from its cast, felt stiff from days of disuse, causing her discomfort. She had never felt more aware of it than she did now. Nuzleaf had told her it didn't matter, but she sure felt like it did.
"And now…" Nuzleaf began. "We… spin!"
He pirouetted, and everymon followed him directly. Tricky leapt up and spun in the air. Goomy twisted around. Espurr tried to spin—
But she found herself crashing into the desk instead. Everymon else spun, a few errant sparks erupting up in their air from their twirls. Espurr was taken aback with shock. She picked herself up from where she'd fallen, rubbing her side as she got up. How had she failed when everymon else… ?
Everymon else was looking at her. She suddenly felt very embarrassed, again.
"Now, now," said Nuzleaf, drawing everymon's attention. "No-mon's perfect. Y'all should see all the times I fell over in class. I didn't even spin, I was so bad. Was enough to get the nurse to take me off the lesson plan, she was worried I'd crack my head. Now let's try again…"
In the end, Espurr came out soured on the lesson. Everymon else had managed to at least create some sparks, and every time she'd just managed to lose her balance and fall over. Tricky seemed to be a natural, spitting fire into the air that fizzled like a firework and contorted into several ribbonlike streams. But even with Nuzelaf's attempts to downplay it, it was becoming increasingly clear that she just wasn't as good as the rest of her class.
During recess, when everymon was eating lunch up in the school clinic, Espurr happened to look out the window and notice Nuzleaf down in the classroom outside. Taking her lunch, she scurried out the door and fought against the wind, battering her with her lunch of nuts and berries on her way to the seats.
Nuzleaf was reading an old, dusty book he'd pulled from his bag. The wind kept tossing the pages, and he'd flatten them persistently. Espurr crept into the classroom, and stood, trying to hide her fidgeting, right behind him.
"Hello."
Nuzleaf jolted, spooked. He nearly dropped the book he'd been intensely studying, his face a dark shadow, before he relaxed and pulled it back into something kinder.
"Ah," he said. "Ya scared me. Espurr, was it?"
Espurr nodded.
"Yes, that's me."
"Splendid." Nuzleaf gestured to the seat next to the desk he was sitting on. "By all means, have a seat. Anythin' on your mind?"
Espurr did as she was directed, sitting on the seat where Goomy usually was. Her dull arm pressed up against the stool, reminding her of how stiff it still was.
"Well it's just that…" she began, then trailed off. "I want to learn, but I think maybe I'm not cut out for this."
"Nonsense," Nuzleaf said, waving it off. "Anymon's cut out for it. You've just gotta keep tryin'."
"But I didn't manage to do it correctly even once," Espurr said. "Everymon else did."
"Tha' doesn't mean anythin'," said Nuzleaf. "Everymon learns at their own pace. Maybe you jus' need some practice. Here's a thought—why don't you find a friend that can help ya? I thought you were tight with that fox, Tricky, was it?"
Espurr repressed an air of displeasure. She was sure it showed up in her tail, though.
"Not Tricky," she said.
"Well, maybe somemon else, then," said Nuzleaf. "But that doesn' mean you should just give up. A partner can make even the smallest amount of practice perfect."
Espurr fidgeted some more. Nuzleaf's words sounded right, but…
"Could I… practise with you?" she ventured.
She expected a no. Nuzleaf did seem like a very busy 'mon, after all. But Nuzleaf's face just warmed.
"Sure," he said. "You'll have ta get an early mornin', though. Gotta start before the birds sing and the kids show up to school."
Espurr was elated. She thanked Nuzleaf graciously, before heading back on up to the school.
Lunch was almost over, and it would be time for detention afterwards.
~\({O})/~
When Espurr was young, there was only one place to go to get true natural greenery: the park.
The park wasn't in the city. It was on the outskirts of town, a forest unspoiled by any kind of human building or structure. It was a national park, they called it—just miles and miles of untouched forest. Her city had buses going to and from it, so sometimes after school she'd take walks around the perimeter, until her parents found out and insisted she stop going. But sometimes, on the weekend or on holidays, she'd go with her parents, to have a picnic or to watch the fireworks from a distance.
And oh, were there fireworks! They'd blaze above the city in the summer and on holidays, lighting up the sky with countless colours and glimmering explosions. It was as if the stars were celebrating too, each one adding in their own colour and light.
The fireworks were the most special part of Espurr's year. They were the times when her parents, usually too busy to spend much time with her, finally got to take breaks. And when that happened they'd go out together, usually at the park after packing a picnic or picking up a dinner. Sometimes they'd go hiking after that, or spend a few nights alone upstate. She didn't care what they did, one way or another, as long as she was able to spend time with them.
But as they got busier, the camping visits vanished, and they weren't driving up there on weekends anymore. It was only when the holidays came, and the fireworks would glimmer above the skyscrapers of the city again, that her parents would take her down to that park anymore.
And then one year they didn't. It was a business trip, they said, and if they took it they'd get a hefty bonus. So they flew down south for the weekend, to the big city of concrete and pavements, and Espurr was left all alone for the holidays with only some pocket change for takeout. It was a good thing she was a resourceful kid. She bought herself a tin of Chinese food from a hole-in-the-wall place, then took the bus out of the city like her parents had told her never to do and plopped herself down on the grassy fields with the faded picnic mat they always used. And that new years' eve, surrounded by thousands yet all alone, she watched the fireworks sparkle across the night sky, and felt the hollow loneliness entwine with the pride of being a big kid.
Somewhere deep down, neither of those things really left. Espurr couldn't remember feeling any differently since that year… until she met Nuzleaf.
Maybe, even if she had to stay a while, things here could turn out fine after all.
~\({O})/~
"For your detention today…" began Watchog pompously, as he marched Espurr, Tricky, and Goomy along the sun-beaten path. "You're going to be raking leaves in the Foreboding Forest."
"Ooh! Me!" exclaimed Tricky, who had taken the lead with zeal. "It's the forest we went to the day yo—" noticing Watchog was there, she quickly shut up.
"Yes," said Watchog with a hint of disdain. "It's the forest you criminals so eagerly eloped into when you earned yourself this punishment. And you're going to be in charge of cleaning up the entire area. Ironic, isn't it?"
"I don't think that's the right usage of 'elope'," said Espurr.
"Of course it is!" barked Watchog. "I'm the adult, I know my vocabulary better than a bunch of middle schoolers."
Espurr was sure giving him the actual meaning wouldn't be worth it. He clearly had it all figured out.
As they walked, the sun was quickly snatched away by the shade of thousands and thousands of thick branches and leaves, which cast the ground down below into a blue-purplish darkness. Watchog stopped them when they were in the thick of it, making sure that Tricky wasn't going to bolt off in excitement. He dropped the sack he was carrying on the ground, the metal 'clanks' it made catching Espurr off-guard.
From out of the sack he pulled out three rakes, designed to be held both by paws and by mouths, and handed one to each of them.
"Get raking," he said, then crossed his paws behind his head and relaxed against a tree. "And don't leave my sight. I'll be watching you very closely from here."
"B-but, sir," said Goomy.
"Vice principal."
"V-vice principal," said Goomy.
"What."
"The area's t-too big to rake if we just stay here…"
"I have good eyesight," snapped Watchog. "I'll see you. Now get to work."
Goomy just nodded and started raking.
It wasn't long before they had raked their way far out of his ear and probably eyeshot, and Watchog had fallen asleep anyways. If Espurr listened hard, she could hear the faint sound of his snores.
"Are we done yet?" Tricky whined, looking at the area around them. It mostly looked clean, the leaves scraped into tons of small little piles they just needed to merge into one big one, but outside their immediate vicinity the forest was still covered in tons of leaves.
"Well, he can't mean we're to clean the entire forest," Espurr pointed out.
"A-and he w-wouldn't want us near-near the dungeon," stammered Goomy.
Tricky suddenly perked up.
"The dungeon!" she exclaimed, prancing around and wagging her bushy tail like a little dog. "Hey—I wonder how close the dungeon is! Wanna go look?"
"No," said both Espurr and Goomy.
"Aww," drooped Tricky. "I mean… I guess I can just go look on my own then. I'll just be a second!"
Espurr gave her a stern look. "Tricky, you can't just—"
But Tricky had already taken off. And she was taking her rake with her! Espurr and Goomy looked at each other in exasperation.
"S-she's g-gonna get us in-in trouble," Goomy whined.
"What's new?" sighed Espurr.
At this point Espurr was more than happy to let her take the fall. Let her suffer for once. But at the same time… she looked into the woods, which seemed to open up with its darkness, threatening to swallow them in the closer they dared to go. The thought nagged at her. What if those creatures were still around? What would she say if Tricky ran into them and she'd decided to ignore it instead of going after her?
A look back at Watchog.
Still snoozing. He'd just be useless anyway.
Oh, alright…
They had little choice but to follow. Espurr threw down her rake also, and wordlessly began to trudge on the path that Tricky had taken.
"W-wait," said Goomy. "Wh-where are you g-going?"
Espurr looked back.
"Going after her," she said.
Then she continued onwards.
"W-what about y-your arm?" asked Goomy.
"It'll be fine," Espurr said.
"But I th-thought w-we weren't s-supposed to follow her," Goomy said, struggling to keep up.
"She could run into trouble out there," said Espurr. "We have to find her before that happens – it's for her own safety."
"W-what kind of trouble?" asked Goomy, his voice quaking a bit. Espurr deigned not to answer. She knew how skittish Goomy was.
They were slower, but they took off after her the best they could, lugging along their own rakes. If Watchog found them later, at least they could say they were just raking further out in the woods.
And they'd make for good weapons.
As Espurr stumbled over the roots, she and Goomy managed to lose Tricky in the mess. Or maybe they'd just taken a wrong turn somewhere. The roots had quickly become more twisted, the trunks mossier, the leaves piling the ground so thick Espurr's feet sunk into the mess. The light had dimmed so much it was almost like being in a room with the lights shut off.
They only stopped when Espurr could hear Goomy softly vibrating.
"Are you okay?" she asked, clutching her rake to her chest and protecting her stiff arm instinctively.
"J-just scared," Goomy said, the vibrating lessening. "Did we t-take a wrong turn?"
They might have. The leg of the woods they were walking through looked more like a forest from a horror story. And there was no sign of Tricky.
"I think so," said Espurr. "Maybe we should turn back."
"W-we just came in a straight line, right?" said Goomy. "I'm not g-good with directions."
"I remember a few turns," said Espurr, looking behind her. She'd never been the best with directions either, but she wasn't telling Goomy that.
Swish.
The sound was silent, in the very distant woods off to the side. It wouldn't have even been caught if Espurr's hearing wasn't sharp as a cat's. But she heard it. It was a very distinctive sound. And she'd heard it before.
All of the sudden the woods seemed darker. Every glimmer of sunlight of the tree trunks could have been the flicker of a yellow light. Every shadow could be the tip of a dark cone. The crackle of the dead leaves on the ground could be the sound of a brittle, mottled hand reaching out of the darkness for them. Espurr suddenly felt so dizzy from fright she could barely keep her bearings.
But she needed to. She turned to Goomy.
"We should go," she said in a hush. "Now."
Goomy caught on almost immediately that something was wrong.
"What?" he asked. "W-what's happening?"
"Shh!" whispered Espurr as she carefully walked back the way they'd come. "There's no time to explain right now. Just march."
Goomy looked unsure, but she could see him nod.
They walked back, through the darkness of the forest ground. Espurr kept her rake close to her, in case she needed to use it as a weapon.
Swish.
It was closer now. It was definitely closer, and it came from the other side. Espurr's breath hitched, her heart nearly stopped in her chest. Were they circling her?
She could see tiny pieces and glimmers of things now, signs that they were here, that they knew she was here, that they were getting closer. That glimmer on the tree was definitely a flickering yellow light. That shadow that was too dark to be a shadow was definitely moving. And the shrubbery had clearly been disturbed, and not just by them. It had been killed where it stood, wilted and dead, grey and stiff like stone. It hadn't been like that when they'd walked through it.
Swish.
That was right behind them. It was too close for comfort. Espurr didn't want to think about what she'd see if she turned around. She just knew they couldn't stay here anymore.
"Run!" she yelled to Goomy. Then they both took off as fast as they could. The hum of charging power came from behind them as they dashed through the woods for dear life, then the explosion against a nearby tree. Espurr tripped on a root and fell flat to her face, and as she lost the rake and rolled over she saw it, the massive, shadowy cone attached to two glowing pinprick eyes, and it took everything in her not to scream. She just picked herself up, and ran as fast as she could.
Somehow, by miracle, she and Goomy managed to stumble into the lighter part of the woods again. Espurr stumbled through the trees, unsure if this was the part of the woods they'd been in previously, or if everymon else was okay—what about Watchog? What about Tricky?
But soon she came upon a familiar grove of trees, and saw the ground quickly begin to look a lot neater and tidy. She wanted to jump for joy. They'd made it back!
"Where were you guys?"
The sound, coming from behind, made Espurr jump in fright. She turned around to see Tricky standing there, looking completely unaware. She was covered in dirt, and had a big grin on her muzzle.
Espurr really didn't want to tell her about the coneheads.
"We got lost," she hissed with a glare, making sure to sound as angry as possible, "following you."
"Oh," said Tricky. Her tail lashed the ground in shame. "Sorry… I thought you guys were going to stay here. I came back and was looking for you."
"What were you thinking, running o–"
"What are you three doing? I didn't say breaktime!"
The sound made all three of them jump out of their skin. They turned around to see a clearly groggy Watchog, who'd just woken up from his nap and stormed over.
"We weren't taking a break," said Espurr quickly. "We just finished."
Watchog's face immediately contorted in disbelief, but then he looked around the clearing. Espurr watched his face turn into a slight shock as he saw the clearing around him completely clean.
"Well…" he trailed off. "Fine. I guess you can't clean the whole forest. Where's the rakes?"
It was at that point that Espurr realised she and Goomy had lost their rakes back in the forest.
She cast the forest a big glance. Already she was feeling antsy, her ears listening intently for any sounds of a 'swish' or something similar. She just wanted to get out of here.
"The wind carried them," said Tricky suddenly, breaking the silence. "It got like really strong and just took them away. It messed up the whole place and then we had to clean it again, so that's why it took so long!"
It looked like Watchog wasn't going to believe it, but just then a big gust of wind ruffled him from behind. Espurr hadn't noticed it before, but she guessed it was a bit windy.
Watchog looked like he really didn't want to believe it. But what could he say?
"…Alright," he sighed, giving Tricky the largest 'I know you're lying and just can't prove it' stink eye he could muster. "Let's just go home."
Espurr couldn't have been any more happy to leave these woods than she was then.
~\({O})/~
Watchog abandoned them at the city limits, like the good and diligent vice principal he was. Just this once Espurr would have liked it if he'd obsessively walked them into the town square like he did every other day. Tricky lived on the other side of town, so she left soon after once they entered the main square. Goomy lived in the northeast side, while Espurr was staying at the school clinic, so they both walked north to the square before they had to split.
"H-hey," Goomy said before they did. Espurr stopped to look at him. She hoped it wasn't going to be—
"D-do you know w-what that was back in the woods?" Goomy asked.
Espurr deflated. It was.
Could she lie and say she didn't know? Would that be endangering him?
Would telling the truth be endangering herself?
Well, if there was anymon who deserved to know—and could keep it secret—it was Goomy.
"I've seen them before," said Espurr, settling for a compromise. "Can we talk about it tomorrow?"
She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Goomy nod his jelly-like head.
"Y-yeah."
Espurr nodded affirmatively. "Great. I'm tired, so I'll see you tomorrow."
"N-night."
Then they went their separate ways.
As Espurr lay in bed that night, the pieces of the last few days zoomed around in her head. The dead guardian, the coneheads… were they connected?
). 
