Back for the next chunk of that review exchange of
Do Psychic-Type Pokemon Dream of Electric Sheep? Featuring Chapters 2 and 3 since 2's short enough to merit making this a double-feature:
Chapter 2
"I'm happy to inform you all that I have safely made it to the boundaries of Serenity Village," the tall, yellow pokemon announced as he walked down the mountain path. In the distance, the lights of Serenity Village glimmered amongst plains of darkness. "And in record time, too! Only two days."
Okay, so I'm really slow, but I now realize why this story is called "
Do Psychic-Type Pokémon Dream of Electric Sheep?" It's a story built around the relationship between Espurr and Ampharos. Possibly. Maybe. But it definitely seems to be building in that direction
"Well, that's a record for you, Chief." A voice beeped itself out of the gadget, distorted by distance. "For us… we'd be getting nothing done if we were that slow."
"Buizel!"
"What? Just stating the facts."
"How's it been going? Did you use the map Jirachi gave you?" The second voice continued, then faltered for a moment in doubt. "Oh, no, never mind. Of course you used it. What was I thinking?"
Probably makes sense to add some sort of tag or whatnot to the bold part, since it's not clear that the second voice isn't Ampharos' until 2 paragraphs later.
"Actually, I was more interested in hearing about you," the yellow pokemon replied, expertly deflecting the question.
There was no need to reveal that he had lost the map to a nasty gust of wind early on in the trip, and had spent the rest of the time taking shifty side-routes and bumping into dead ends and mystery dungeons.
"What's the report back at the Society?"
Would suggest one of "Ampharos" or "Electric-type", since you've used this epithet twice with no others for Ampharos thus far. Though his character is pretty on-point with what I remember of him.
"Of course I do it better!" The second voice piped back up indignantly. "Who do you think arranges that report every morning?!"
IMO this dialogue might work better if there's an exclamation point added like so. Since it better sells the sense that the speaker is being testy.
"Jirachi's… still sleeping." The third voice interjected. There was a heavy pause, as everymon tried to figure out what to make of that. "What? He was extra tired today. Would you have woken him up?"
Ampharos: "But if you just allow him to sleep uninterrupted, he could keep going for a thousand years! We'll be
dead before he wakes up!" .-.
Dedenne: "You can just say 'yes', you know." -_-;
"Anywaaay…" Dedenne spoke up again. "Archen stepped out and picked up that report you were looking for. Turns out, you were right: no-mon's gone in or out of Pokemon Plaza for an entire week. No food or item shipments, no Pelipper Post, no electrical transmissions… nothing. It's like the entire population all up and vanished overnight without telling anymon. Mawile and Archen are heading out to look it over tonight."
Archen: "Wait, we
what?! When on earth did we agree to that?!"
Mawile: "Yeah! You can't just send
two Pokémon to investigate an entire town abruptly going dark! That has 'bad news' written all over it!"
Dedenne: "In case if you two didn't notice, but we're kinda low on headcount as an Exploration Society. A party of two will have to do."
And then, just like that, the gadget cut out completely. Ampharos shook it a little, but nothing happened. The fur on his back bristled in unease. For all Jirachi's hubris, his gadgets rarely failed like that.
Unless…
A strange hum floated through the air, and suddenly the area all around him took an ominous tone to it. Ampharos stopped. He discreetly planted his walking stick in the ground, stuffing the expedition gadget back into his exploration bag.
"You're best off going back to the woods from whence you came," he addressed the trio of pokemon standing right behind him. "That, or…"
I think that there's some description missing from the third paragraph of Ampharos noticing something that tips him off to the presence of three Pokémon and hints at who they are (I
assume they're Beeheeyem from the presentation), since the 'trio of pokemon' bit kinda comes out of nowhere right now.
He didn't hear the pokemon move a muscle. As much as he disapproved, Ampharos had the nasty feeling they had been looking for a fight in the first place. He shed his cloak without warning, grabbing the walking stick and posing flamboyantly. "…Face the wrath of the Dashing Wanderer!"
Ampharos came face-to-face not with the wild animals he'd been expecting, but instead with a trio of beheeyem, all standing still as stone. Confused but alert all the same, Ampharos kept his fighting position. Why weren't they moving?
Aaand called it, but yeah. Still think that Ampharos should notice shadows or figures he can't clearly see or something at first.
Blinded, Ampharos barely jumped out of the way of a large shadowy ball that suddenly flew straight out of thin air. Black sparks dissipated in its wake. He landed on his feet, only just managing to keep his bearings. That wasn't a Shadow Ball, and Ampharos doubted beheeyem could perform that move naturally anyway. Whatever that was… it was new.
The attack exploded across a grove of trees, shaking several branches but otherwise leaving the trees untouched. That too made Ampharos flinch, and he barely avoided another one.
Ampharos: "Wait, what on earth
was that?" ._.;
Quickly generating a Dragon Pulse in his mouth, he aimed it directly at the beheeyem. This wasn't a battle he could afford to prolong, if he was correct in his line of thinking. It shot through the air, narrowly avoiding the trio of attackers as it went on to shred the forest for another twelve good feet. The sheer force of the move sent Ampharos stumbling back from recoil, but he caught himself with his walking stick, ready to dodge the next attack.
However, it never came. Ampharos hurried back onto the mountain path just in time to see the tips of the beheeyems' cone-like heads as they fled into the forest. He picked his cloak back up, and draped it over himself. It seemed in the end, they were cowards at heart.
Ampharos: "Ha ha! Foolish of them to not come along with reinforcements against the Dashing Wanderer!"
- Beat moment -
Ampharos: "Er... Or at least I
assume they didn't. Though I should get moving along from here just to be on the safe side." ._.;
Letting the orb at the end of his tail glow brightly as a source of light, Ampharos approached the site where the beheeyems' unidentified attacks had landed. Just as he suspected, there seemed to be no physical damage to the tree itself…
But when he put his paw on the trunk of the tree, it met not with the rugged texture of earthy bark but instead with the smooth surface of cold, hard stone. Ampharos knocked against the tree for good measure. For all intents and purposes, that section of the tree may as well have been a stone statue. Ampharos pulled out his expedition gadget. This was something he needed to record. He had the feeling it was going to be of great importance in the future.
Whelp, I think I have an idea of why Pokémon Square mysteriously went dark. Though that's actually a fun integration of why you just flatly never hear of it again in Super in spite of its continent being in-game.
The entire class of Serenity Village immediately stopped horseaing around and assumed their seats at the speed of light as Farfetch'd marched into the outdoor classroom. Watchog followed, eyeing the class suspiciously from the sentry spot he took in the background. Farfetched walked up to the teacher's desk, twirling his leak like a baton before stomping it to the ground like a cane. Everyone jumped to attention at the abrupt noise it made, and Farfetch'd cleared his throat, now sure he had everyone's attention.
>dat pun
I mean, it fits the setting, but boy is that a groaner. :V
"Espurr, please introduce yourself." Farfetch'd gracefully cleared the way with his stalk.
"Good morning," Espurr began, reciting the well-rehearsed speech she had mentally practice for the occasion this morning. "My name is Espurr. I wish to become a student here at the Serenity Village School, and I hope that we can all become good friends and classmates in the near future."
A few quiet snickers (and one loud 'pffffffffffffft') emerged from Pancham's side of the classroom, but apart from that, she was received with warm curiosity and mild interest.
Espurr: "(Well that's
one way to learn who to avoid like the plague in class. Not that the episode with Goomy yesterday wasn't already a giant tip-off.)" >_>;
"Isn't this so cool?" Tricky whispered to her the moment she sat down. "Not only do we get to attend the same school and detentions, but we get to sit right next to each other, too!" she immediately straightened up once she noticed that Watchog was watching her.
Espurr: "(So much for getting away from Tricky after the week of medical observation winds down.) Er... yeah, 'cool'." -_-;
"Now that we have that out of the way…" Farfetch'd began to write on the blackboard with the chalk in his wing. "As I'm sure I don't need to remind you, we are entering the last school week before Summer Vacation. And since we all know you're going to spend Summer Vacation letting your brains rot…"
He finally finished jotting down whatever he was writing on the chalkboard, letting the class see just what he had written down. "We will spend this last week reviewing our current curriculum!"
There was a collective groan from the class at the idea of reviewing old material, save for Espurr (who had no idea what the class curriculum was) and Deerling, who was more pre-occupied with scratching at her bright pink coat than much else.
Espurr: "I mean, it could be worse. We could be going through exams-"
Tricky: "Espurr, don't give Farfetch'd
ideas here!" >.<
He took a leaf through the fat history book on the teacher's desk.
"…Ah! Yes. Here it is. The Human Age. The earliest scrap of recorded history we have in our current possession dates back to over 10,000 years ago. In fact, it's even where we get our current time system from. It's said 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 even—Deerling?"
Time system meaning the way datekeeping is handled? Calendar epoch? Or something different? Whatever the story, I see we're getting into the setting's post-human roots pretty fast.
"Yes, Mr. Farfetch'd?" she asked, trying her best not to sound irritated.
"Would you like to be excused?" Farfetch'd asked. "I'm sure Nurse Audino can do something for your molting."
Deerling immediately stood up from her desk and made a beeline for Audino's office.
Espurr: "Uh... Deerling
molt?"
Tricky: "Aw, it's just shedding! Perfectly normal, Espurr! I do it all the time!"
Espurr: "Tricky. Stop. Talking." >.<
"…Due to various relics and ancient texts we've pieced together over history, we pokemon have been able to get a pretty good idea of what happened to the Humans," Farfetch'd continued.
Without warning, he suddenly leapt on the desk and slammed his leek into the chalkboard, jolting the rest of the bored-to-death class to attention. Watchog, who had fallen asleep in the corner, jolted awake with a high-pitched scream.
"Bam! Wiped out! Just like that." Farfetched paused for a moment, stepping off the teacher's desk he had jumped on. "By what? We don't know, only that the pokemon were left to pick up the pieces, and no-mon's even seen what a true Human looks like since."
Espurr listened intently, absorbing the information with an interest unrivaled by anyone in her class. The ghostly concept of a Human continued to float around in the back of her mind for the rest of the class.
I see that Farfetch'd's a fan of jump scares.
Though that's making me curious as to what sort of wibbly-wobbly drew Espurr here given that the indigenous humans have been extinct for almost as long as human civilization has existed in reality.
School wasn't so bad, Espurr decided. At least, it wasn't the dread-fest Tricky seemed to be anticipating. Farfetch'd held the first class, and proved himself a very motivational speaker when he wanted to be. Then, there was Audino's session on medicinal herbs, berries, and health, which seemed extra boring following Farfetch'd's class. But the class wasn't that dull, and Audino was nice enough; Espurr didn't think too badly of it.
Espurr: "Wait, being taught medicine while we're in grade school? What
is standard curriculum here anyways, Tricky?"
Tricky: -shrugs- "I dunno, do you really expect me to pay attention to this sort of stuff?" ^^;
Espurr: "... Right. Fair point." -_-;
Watchog taught the dungeon class, and it was safe to say he was not a very encouraging teacher at all. It wasn't like he could go five minutes without warning his students about what would happen if they were ever caught doing the things he taught unsupervised under his watch. Watchog's class was the only one the students of Serenity Village made an effort to at least pretend they were paying full attention to.
Probably a good thing there doesn't seem to be standardized testing for Serenity Village, since somehow I doubt there'd be a lot of high marks with an educational ethic like
that.
"Mr. Watchog?" Espurr annoyedly brushed away the dust Watchog had unwittingly kicked into her fur.
"Vice Principal Watchog," Watchog muttered. "What is it?"
"Why are we the ones leading?" Espurr asked. "You seem to have all the directions, yet you're making us lead the way, when 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.
"Sharp right!" he yelled a second later. Everymon perplexedly took a sharp right.
Espurr: "Wait. 'Deserters'? But this is just detention, not the military. Shouldn't you be using something more innocuous like 'truants'?" ._.
Tricky: "Considering how gung ho he's getting about barking orders, it wouldn't really shock me if he used these detentions to live out his fantasies-"
Watchog: "I
heard that! Keep up that smarmy mouth, and you'll talk yourself into an extension of your detention period!" >:|
"Now we're just back on the path," Tricky observed in an obnoxious tone. "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. Fight me. All straights from here."
I presume that 'Fight me' in this setting is used in a sense akin to 'Bite me'? Though this 'mon really can't help himself, can he? :V
"Here we are," Watchog drawled. "The three of you will be spending detention picking tomorrow's lunch. Here's a list from Princip[al] Simipour, outlining what you need to pick and where." He handed out a trio of lists to Espurr, Tricky, and Goomy, who took it with his slimy paws. Espurr looked over the list, her eyes scanning through the squiggle-like text in confusion. She couldn't read this!
Minor typo in the text there.
Espurr: "... Also, how is this not violating a whole bunch of ethical standards to force kids to go out and pick berries as punishment?" .-.
Tricky: "That's what
I said last time! Everyone just ignored me and called me a troublemaker!" >_>;
Espurr: "(Gee, I wonder
why?)"
"I can't read this. Are there any in English?"
Watchog's face fell as fast as his prospects of a well-behaved student.
"…What's English?" he asked suspiciously. "Is this another prank?"
"Of course not, Vice Principal," Espurr started quickly before Watchog could continue his paranoid train of thought. "English is…"
She stopped short when she realized she didn't actually know what English was. It was another one of those memories that had appeared on the tip of her tongue, and then slipped away without a second thought.
"…A dead language," she carefully finished. "It's all I was taught to read."
That actually makes me curious as to whether or not Espurr would
recognize English writing given that she knows it's a thing, but not
what it is from her dialogue.
Tricky didn't like the sound of that. She began to physically drag Espurr into the Oran Berry 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 off on a sudden gust of wind.
"That Watchog is evil!" Tricky gasped once 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 otter loitering about stiffly in the distance.
Espurr: "... Isn't he more of a meerkat?"
- Espurr looks down at her still-broken arm -
Espurr: "Though, yeah. I kinda have to admit that Tricky's making kind of a compelling argument here." >_>;
Tricky: "See! I
told you! When am I
ever wrong?"
Goomy: "Er... all the time?"
- Beat moment -
Tricky: "Well I'm not wrong
here!"
"Exactly 50 orans… ten apples…" Watchog searched through the students' baskets, his own copy of the list in his hands. "10 carrots, fresh 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…"
Given that one throwaway mention of the incident involving Tricky and Pop's Oran Field, I'm half-expecting it to turn out that they just stole them from someone's field instead of picking them properly. :V
"It was only the oran section that took longer." Tricky happily stated, licking the oran berry 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!"
"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?"
Oh, so they
did steal some of those berries and things they were picking. Just not in the way I was expecting.
A gust of sudden wind ruffled Espurr's fur. She looked eastward to the forest from which it had come. A large sheet of paper flipped and fluttered through the air, slowly soaring lower and lower as it continued to surf the wind. By the time it reached Espurr, it was flying low enough for her to leap up and grab, and she plucked it out of the air with her one good arm.
"Ooh—what's that?"
Espurr jumped, startled by the sudden exclamation from behind her. Tricky ran up, Goomy doing his best to keep up with her.
"Oh." Espurr tried to keep the paper out of the dry dirt the best she could with only one hand at her disposal. "I don't know. It blew in on the wind."
"Hey! Troublemakers!" Watchog yelled a distance away, apparently recovered from his near-fainting spell. "The forests are off-limits! You'd better stay clear!"
Espurr: "Well so much for being able to get to the bottom of
that mystery." >_>;
Tricky: "Hrmph, I'm not just rolling over that easy. There's gotta be a way to get this past Mr. Watchog."
"We'll hide it under the baskets," Tricky chirped, happily trotting off. "Watchog will never find it."
As Tricky and Goomy headed off, Espurr cast a quick glance up towards the sun before following, which was already beginning to dip into an early sunset.
It was hot.
Tricky: "See! Piece of cake!" ^^
Espurr: "Why do I suspect that this is going to go horribly wrong somehow?" >_>;
Tricky: "Espurr, it's a
piece of paper. What's the worst it could possibly do?"
Chapter 3
"I never understood how you manage to sleep on Lapras' backs," Archen said, ruffling his feathers in exhaustion as he stepped onto the dock after Mawile. "Don't you ever worry about falling off?"
- Mawile makes biting motions with her horns -
Mawile: "Got a leg up for staying on, remember?"
Archen: "... Hrmph. You'd think that it'd be standard issue to equip Lapras with the likes of a howdah or something."
Mawile, whose time management ran in the same vein as the Chief's (or, as Archen sorely referred to it, 'Drop-Dead Organization'), wanted to be back in Baram Town before dark, which required chartering a lapras in the dead of night and setting out only moments after. They had arrived in Baram Town at the crack of dawn, and Lapras promised to return for them the next day.
Mawile marked off the second box on a page in her travel journal, which Archen saw was marked 'Arrive in Baram Town' (the first was 'Charter Lapras').
Archen: "Mawile, what exactly would we have done if we
didn't successfully charter that Lapras again?" >v>;
Mawile: "... We'd need to just revise the plan slightly to get back to Baram Town before the next dawn. No biggie."
Archen: "...
Of course." >v<
"Trial and error," she replied, stowing the journal away in her exploration bag. "You learn quickly where the best spots to sleep on a lapras' back are once you've tried it a couple of times."
... Or you could learn that way, that works too.
"Ah—just a minute!" he called out with a sense of manufactured cheer, hurriedly straightening things on all their shelves. "I'll be ready for you in just a minute~! Bit of a late day today…"
Archen had a bit of a hard time fathoming how anymon could consider this late, but he wasn't given the time to think on it. Mawile handed him her exploration bag for the items, which Archen reluctantly took in his wings.
That's nocturnal life for ya, sonny.
"Actually…" he began, wringing his hands together uncomfortably, "My shipments come from the Rescuer's Guild in Pokemon Plaza. I haven't had a delivery in over two weeks, I'm afraid…" He fiddled with his fingers in stress.
Mawile took a minute to study the list.
"I think we can make a few exceptions, then," she conceded, pulling an inked quill out of the bag Archen was holding and deftly crossing several things off. Kecleon's face relaxed considerably at the large number of crossed-out items when Mawile handed it back. "We happen to be on our way to Pokemon Plaza ourselves," she said.
Actually, I
just realized. But the name of the town is slightly different from canon of 'Pokémon Square'. As is
Serenity Village. Are those deliberate to this setting to hint that it's different, or are those goofs?
"Actually…" he began, wringing his hands together uncomfortably, "My shipments come from the Rescuer's Guild in Pokemon Plaza. I haven't had a delivery in over two weeks, I'm afraid…" He fiddled with his fingers in stress.
Mawile took a minute to study the list.
"I think we can make a few exceptions, then," she conceded, pulling an inked quill out of the bag Archen was holding and deftly crossing several things off. Kecleon's face relaxed considerably at the large number of crossed-out items when Mawile handed it back. "We happen to be on our way to Pokemon Plaza ourselves," she said.
"R-really?" Kecleon's face lit up as he removed items from the shelves. "What for?"
"HAPPI business," Archen grumpily chimed in before Mawile could answer. Grunt work, more like. "We're investigating the sudden cut-off of communications in the area."
Archen: "Mawile, I
still say that it's a terrible idea for just the
two of us to go there. Like doesn't this feel the
least bit ominous to you?" >v>
Mawile: "I mean, yeah. But orders are orders. Plus it's probably just something like a cut-off pass."
Archen: "A cut-off pass that stopped
air traffic?"
- Beat moment -
Mawile: "A cut-off pass and some weird weather. Look, the point is, I'm sure there's some reasonable explanations for this! (... I hope.)"
Kecleon dived under the counter, emerging with a quill and paper. He tallied the prices of all the ingredients up in his head so fast Archen was surprised they hadn't established a shopkeeper's monopoly yet (until his tired mind reminded him that they had), writing the final bill at the bottom of the paper and sliding it to Mawile.
So is
all retail in this setting just done through the Kecleon? Or else have they cornered a specific retail segment? If the former, who'd they need to reach out to to set up
that sort of cushy arrangement? o3o;;
Archen took it reluctantly, watching Mawile pull out a chesto berry of her own and take a large bite of it. It seemed she was more tired than she let on. All those nights of sleepless rune research must have taken their toll on her after all.
"It'll take us approximately seven hours to arrive at Pokemon Plaza," Mawile stated, taking another bite of the bitter berry. "In other words, high noon. We both need to be at our best for this."
She downed the rest of it like it was a rare delicacy. Archen grimaced through his beak at the sight. He grumbled quietly before taking a bite. This was going to give him indigestion later.
Somehow, I suspect indigestion will be the least of your problems, Archen.
"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 centimeter 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 towards Kecleon's stall, leaving the three students 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 quite a toll on all three of them, Watchog's detention in particular. It was taking most of Espurr's willpower to keep herself from napping in the street.
Whelp, have fun in summer detention, kids.
"I hope 'Vice Principal' Watchog hasn't been too hard on you," she said, trying to keep a straight face at the sight of Tricky's acting. "He has a penchant for working the detention students to the brink of exhaustion sometimes." Audino's sentence ended with a bit of an edge to her voice. Even without it, Espurr could sense she didn't have a very good opinion of him.
"W-we know…" Goomy sighed dejectedly.
Espurr: "Wait, what
is the story between Audino and Watchog anyways? How come she doesn't seem to like him much?"
Tricky: "Because Watchog's a power-tripper with an overinflated sense of importance who tries to bully around anyone under him?" >_>;
Espurr: "... Okay yeah, that's a pretty good reason not to like him."
>this argument between Audino and Watchog Yeah, I stand by that read earlier.
Espurr happily tuned out what was obviously about to devolve into a petty argument, in favor of watching the cloaked pokemon who was clumsily wandering through the square. He was yellow from head to toe; for what little the earth-green cloak concealed, it did nothing to hide the pokemon underneath. Espurr briefly wondered why he had it. She stepped out from behind the arguing Audino and Watchog, heading over towards the Kecleon Stall to get a better look.
"Pardon me—coming through, I'm afraid—" He stumbled through a group of conversing pokemon after tripping on a rock, the orangeish orb on his tail glowing dimly in what Espurr assumed must have been embarrassment. Was this normal? she thought. He seemed so… clumsy.
Tricky yawned loudly, walking over to stick her nose into the second most interesting thing happening in the square at that moment. Her eyes widened once she saw the pokemon.
"What's[ ]his problem?" she quizzically asked, for once too tired to set off another domino stack of mischief. Espurr looked at her briefly, no longer surprised by her abrupt interruptions anymore.
Missing a space there.
Espurr: "... Is he
drunk? He sure seems to be having trouble staying upright."
Tricky: "Sounds plenty sober to me! Maybe he's just balance-challenged! It could be a personality quirk!"
"—My sincerest apologies, madame," the tall yellow pokemon apologized to a passing lotad as he picked himself up from the ground. "I think it's this way," he confidently stated, pointing straight in Tricky's direction. Only seconds later, he tripped over the exact same rock that had sent him sprawling to the ground in the first place. Both Espurr and Tricky barely managed to clear the way before the pokemon went barreling through and stopped just short of Hawlucha's Slam School (An otherwise unremarkable tent near the southwest end of the square).
Espurr blinked twice in shock at the sight, watching Tricky stare at the crashed pokemon, eyes wide and mouth agape.
The pokemon twitched, raising himself from the ground clumsily.
Tricky: "... Okay, I'll admit. If he'd sounded a little slurred and I'd smelled berry juice on his breath, I probably
would have thought he was drunk there."
"I'm Tricky. That's Espurr." Tricky's introduction was swift and brash. "We're going to join the Expedition Society when we get older!"
It was Espurr's turn to let her mouth hang open in shock. She caught it before it could become embarrassing, staring at Tricky in surprise. When had she agreed to that?!
"You're a travelling pokemon, right?" Tricky promptly began to bombard Ampharos with her usual truckload of questions, all tiredness forgotten for the time being. "Have you been to the Expedition Society? Have you? Huh?"
Oh lol. I see that really
is tradition on Tricky's part. :V
"Why, I came to see the sights, of course!" Ampharos replied cheerfully. "Serenity Village is known for its stunning scenery, after all." Ampharos glanced at Tricky's face for a minute to see if she had bought it or not. He was making this all up on the spot, of course. He couldn't reveal his true reasons for travelling to the Village.
"But now, unfortunately, I must now bid you all adieu, goodbye, tally-ho!" he exclaimed, stumbling up towards the Café Connection. "I have some important errands to tend to."
Tricky: "... Yeah, I'm not buying that
at all."
Espurr: "He
did seem to be rather evasive earlier. (Not that I blame him for not wanting to answer 50 questions.) Though why
would he want to come here?"
In other words, Ampharos had an important pokemon to find. And after an hour of walking around the village, he was none the closer to finding the mon he was looking for. He stopped at the door of the café, feigning a loss of breath to buy himself some time to think. In just about an hour, he had discreetly 'tested' every single adult pokemon who happened to live in the village (The place was rather secluded. Newcomers wouldn't get far without knowing the lay of the land, he theorized, which all-but ruled out the pokemon he was looking for). His questions were mere history trivia, the sort of things anymon would know provided they'd grown up here all their lives. But, so far every single adult pokemon in the village had answered his questions correctly, and therefore incorrectly, which allowed Ampharos to quickly narrow the possibilities down to three on the spot: they were A. dead/lost in the wilderness (Ampharos very much hoped it wasn't this one.), B. extremely clever and a good liar, or…
…C. They weren't an adult pokemon. Ampharos suddenly realized that last option made much more sense than it should have. But his actions today had already earned him the title of travelling madmon, he was sure; he couldn't simply go around asking about the village children! Not unless he planned to blow his cover, or spend a night in the local jail (Thereby blowing his cover in the most undignified way possible). If only there was another way…
Unless if this is stylistically specific to Ampharos' thought process I think that the top paragraph can probably stand to be broken in two, since that's a
lot of words in a single block.
He glanced back at the pair of children he had just met. The fennekin had asked about the Expedition Society… Perhaps there was a silver lining to his sudden dizzy spell after all. Disguising it as a quick bump against the doors of the café, he discreetly let his own spare Connection Orb fall from his bag. (Ampharos was a minimalist packer, but he had found it was always wise to keep a spare connection orb on him.) It rolled out in the middle of the square, over to where he knew they would see it.
Sure enough, a moment later, he saw the espurr and fennekin walk over, picking it up and chattering to themselves amongst it. A few times he got the creeping feeling the espurr could see him through the window, but he was pretending to stare at a menu, so he doubted the young pokemon suspected anything. This way… He'd have his answer in no time flat. If the newly arrived Human was among the village children, he'd roll with it. If not… He'd just ask for the orb back a few days later. Win-win. Ampharos began to truthfully study the menu for the first time.
Espurr and Tricky took a good long look at the Café Connection as the kooky ampharos chatted with Kangaskhan.
"That… was mega weird," Tricky concluded, after a long, quiet pause.
Ampharos:
"Now that I think of it… you never told me where you came from, did you?" Tricky asked, slowing to a trot beside Espurr. "That's like, question number #2 on the list of things friends should know about each other!"
Espurr mentally froze. She still didn't have an alibi of any kind to cover for her lack of memory past the last couple of days!
Espurr: "(Would Tricky
really find it unreasonable to believe that I hit my head falling out of that tree and got amnesia?)"
Tricky: "Well, aren't ya gonna answer?"
Espurr: "Uhh..."
"It's like I said," she replied, staring at Tricky. "I… Got lost in the woods, and Nurse Audino found me and took me here."
"Yeah, but where did you come from?" Tricky dashed in front of Espurr, walking backwards up the path. 'Come on—I want the juicy bits!"
Espurr panicked inside. There were no 'juicy bits' to give! Aside from the trio of beheeyem that apparently wanted her hide, but she had a nagging feeling that was best kept to herself. And with six days of Watchog's taxing detentions ahead of them, she'd barely given any thought to the issue at all.
"I… don't want to talk about it," she finally said.
"Spoilsport." Tricky spun around, scurrying up the road and heading towards a house decorated like a large blue shell.
Espurr: "(Wait, she just
accepted that explanation? Or was that her impulsiveness that saved me again?)" ._.
Tricky: "Oi! Hurry it up, Espurr!"
Espurr: "(Okay, it was
definitely her impulsiveness that carried me there.)"
"So…" The immense blue turtle grunted out, one of his flippers curled around a large spoon. A massive spread of different dishes lay in front of them, Tricky's plates piled high with choice selections from every dish. Espurr sat next to her with a small piece of fish on her plate.
Espurr: "Wait, so is that
fish fish? Or do wild Pokémon get cut up for food in this story?"
- Tricky shrugs back -
Tricky: "Meh, don't question it. I'm sure the story will give you an answer sooner or later."
"You brought a friend." The turtle took a deliberate sip from the spoon, eyeing Espurr suspiciously.
"Yep." Tricky took a large bite of a stuffed bell pepper lying on a plate to her left.
"On leftover night."
"Yep." Crumbs went flying everywhere as she scarfed down half of a piece of peach cake on the plate to her right.
"Use your table manners!" he shouted, jarring her out of the cake she was currently driving her snout into. "We don't eat like dungeon wildlings in front of our guests!"
Espurr: "Uh... Tricky, not that I'm not grateful for the food, but shouldn't you have gotten Carracosta's
approval before bringing me here?"
Tricky: "I-It's approval enough!" >_>;
"What is Dungeon Eating." The big blue turtle asked, only half incredulously. He had seen too much of this.
Immediately Tricky perked up again, her eyes gleaming with that mischievous glint Espurr was beginning to know too well.
"Weeeeell…" she began. "You know how you're in a mystery dungeon, and you don't have the time to sit down and prepare great big meals?"
"No." Tricky's father replied, his tone as flat as the one-word sentence he spoke.
Oh lol, I can already tell this conversation's going to
go places.
"And how does this 'Dungeon Eating' work?"
"Easy!" Tricky declared. "You just eat everything on your plate as fast as you can! Like this…"
Carracosta stopped Tricky with another one of his outbursts before she could begin messily scarfing her food down again.
"NO! I won't hear of it! You'll eat your food like a respectable 'mon, or not at all!"
Carracosta has a
lot of restraint to not just go "show's over, go to your room" and bid goodnight to Espurr there. And Tricky's
really obviously a glutton for punishment. :V
Espurr: "Tricky,
why would you do this when it was very obviously just going to antagonize your 'Pop'?" >_>;
Tricky: "... I was hoping he'd find it endearing?"
Carracosta: "Well, I
don't. So now either eat
normally or this visitation's getting cut short." >:|
"Fine…"
Tricky sat down, taking smaller bites of her cake. Crumbs still flew, to Carracosta's dismay, but not nearly as many.
Silently deciding that trying to interpret what had just happened in front of her wasn't worth the brainpower, Espurr took a polite bite of the fish on her plate.
Lol, Tricky just doesn't give up, huh?
Tricky scoffed. "Well, lucky you, sleeping in Nurse Audino's office. We kids just don't have the privilege! Besides, the thing I really wanna show you is hidden on purpose."
She began to scurry towards the corner of the room where her bed was (An actual bed; Espurr realized, not a mass of straw. Tricky's father must have been generous).
"You've hidden things by accident?" Espurr asked, curious. Coming from Tricky, that sounded worryingly plausible.
Espurr: "Because most people would just call that 'losing' whatever was 'hidden' that way." >_>;
Tricky: "No, no. There's still a difference! Trust me, I've
lost some things before, and it
wasn't things I hid without trying."
Espurr waited a few minutes, then decided to peek under the bed as Tricky dug. A yellow paw slapped her away amongst the digging.
"No spoilers!" A muffled Tricky yelled from under the bed. A few dusty books with the picture of what looked like a turtle pokemon on the cover inadvertently slid out on the floor from all Tricky's digging.
A moment later, Tricky herself emerged from under the bed, releasing both a cloud of dust that shot out into both their faces, and a box.
"Ready?" she asked. Espurr didn't feel that question particularly needed to be answered.
Espurr: "... Do I even have a
choice here?" -_-;
Tricky: "Nope!" ^^
"Huh." Tricky shook the scarves to expel all the dust. "They are a little dusty, aren't they? I haven't used them in so long…"
She slipped one around her neck, trying to get a feel of the material again.
"Like 'em?" she joyfully asked Espurr, trotting circles around the room. "I totally forgot about them until now! I used to wear these both to school every day."
Espurr carefully picked the spare scarf up with her good paw, admiring the way the fabric shimmered bright blue and bright green at the same time. Just the fabric itself seemed lofty- as if the scarf was not of this world at all. She turned it around in her hand, noticing what looked like the tiniest nick just above the tie of the neck.
Espurr: "Tricky, how long have you
had these in here? If I didn't know any better, I'd say there was enough dust in here to look like these had been sitting here from the human era!"
Tricky: "Oh come on, I might be a bit slow in school, but I'm not
that old. This is probably a year's worth, tops. Maybe two."
"I know, right?" Tricky was practically beaming with excitement. "I don't remember why I stopped wearing them—"
She suddenly froze mid-sentence, her ears lowering just a little. Espurr caught the motion before it disappeared, and she felt a sudden wave of negativity pierce through her head. It had been the same as back outside the Foreboding Forest, and it blotted out Espurr's thoughts until she moved back a bit.
"Tricky?" she asked. The fennekin didn't even glance at at her. "Is something wrong?"
Tricky removed the scarf, putting it back in the case. She dejectedly took the scarf Espurr was holding, putting it on top of the other one and shutting the lid of the case.
"Never mind that…" she said, shoving the case back under her bed, and all of the sudden she was back to her normal, perky self. The negative cloud disappeared in an instant, hitting Espurr like a truck.
Wait, is Espurr picking up emotional states from Tricky? Otherwise what's with the 'wave of negativity' she's sensing there? Espurr: "(Did something bad happen to Tricky while wearing these scarves in the past ? Otherwise what was with
that reaction?)" ._.
Tricky: "Well, no need to worry about those. Why don't we go find something else to do?" ^^
- Espurr casts a glance back at the drawer under the bed -
Espurr: "If you
say so, Tricky..."
Between the two of them and Tricky's bottomless stomach, the table was cleared in only ten minutes, and the empty dishes set aside for Carracosta to Water Gun to cleanliness later. Afterwards, Espurr bid both Tricky and Carracosta good night, and set off on her way to the school. She almost remembered to pick up the strange blue orb on her way out.
Almost.
Uh-oh. That surely can't bode well.
"How close are we?" he asked grumpily, a tiny bit of edge creeping back into his normally scratchy voice. Chesto berries didn't agree well with his stomach.
Mawile looked up from the map she was reading.
"Very worrying," she spoke up a moment later, seemingly ignoring Archen's question.
"What's worrying?" Archen asked bluntly.
"If I'm reading this map correctly," Mawile calmly began, shaking her maw free of yet another low-jutting stick, "Then we should be getting close to Pokemon Plaza. And yet, the underbrush remains just as untamed as it's been this whole trip."
Archen: "So... we've been going the wrong way all this time?"
Mawile: "No. Everything about our route's been proper so far."
- Mawile looks around at the overgrown surroundings -
Mawile: "This... is something else."
"Pokemon Plaza is a frequented area," Mawile continued. "Therefore, the land around it should be maintained weekly, unlike the anomaly we see here." She gestured briefly to the overgrown flora around her, recording the present discoveries on her clipboard.
Archen shrugged the best he could with a considerably light sack of dungeon supplies around his back. "Maybe Air Continentals just don't like tidiness," he said.
"I think not," Mawile replied. "We're on the main traveling route. Pokemon from all continents frequent this path. But these shrubs have been growing for a couple of weeks unchecked, minimum."
"Then maybe you read the map wrong," Archen proposed.
Wow. And I wrote that bit on a lark. I wasn't expecting the text to almost immediately mirror it. Though that would line up with Pokémon Plaza going completely dark as of two weeks ago. The unsettled question right now is
why though.
He didn't notice Mawile had stopped until he bumped straight into her. A moment later, he saw why. Just ten feet down the path, a tarped wagon sat on its side. The most putrid of smells wafted from under the tarp, making Archen want to puke up the chesto berry he had consumed earlier.
Then again, his stomach argued. Maybe that would be a good thing.
Hitched to the wagon sat a perfect stone statue of a lucario, staring up at the sky in horror at something that was no longer there.
I mean, I was kinda expecting this when
literally nobody came from Pokémon Plaza for two weeks, but it's still a chilling delivery there.
Archen:
Mawile: "What- What
is this?"
Ignoring Archen's incessant feather-ruffling, Mawile strode over to the tarped wagon, holding her breath when the smell became too putrid to bear. She whipped off the tarp with her maw, spinning full circle and casting the tarp away to see what the wagon held.
" I knew it…" Mawile muttered, taking out her journal and recording the finding as Archen gagged in the distance.
Setting the journal aside, Mawile leaned in towards the mishmash of rotting berries and other ingredients, picking up an oran by the stem in her hand. It had molded over and bruised in several places, and felt more like a miniature sack of water than anything else.
"Ugh…" Archen muttered in the background, his voice now hoarse. "Sleep deprivation and vomiting in one day… sucks."
Though that's surprisingly vivid for a scene without any viscera. Really sets a mood there.
"He was attacked from behind," Mawile stated, stepping back. "And if this example is anything to go by, we can assume all of Pokemon Plaza looks like this as well."
The findings were recorded in Mawile's journal, and then they pressed forward. Mawile' deductions held true as they went. The underbrush only seemed to get worse the further in they treaded, and eventually they happened upon the statue of a scyther wildly slashing at something from the underbrush.
"The hedgekeeper, I assume." Mawile marked it all down on her journal. Archen fearfully glanced at the statue as they went.
Archen: "Mawile, if we already know what to expect,
why are we still going forward? This place gives me the creeps!"
Mawile: "Look, Archen, we need to submit a report about what happened. Let's just hurry up, get this over with, and
get out."
They could see the short buildings of the great city of Pokemon Plaza through the trees as they walked. The area around them was eerily quiet. Soon after that, Mawile and Archen entered the main square of the city, which was filled with the statues of countless pokemon running in terror. Some were frozen in place, permanently going about their day in a fossilized shard of time, while others had apparently been caught running about in terror. From the looks on their faces, none of them had seen it coming.
"Okay…" Archen nervously ruffled his feathers. "We've seen what we need to. Let's go back now. We'll declare the place off-limits, done."
"We can't declare the place off-limits until we have solid grounds to do so on," Mawile told him, pulling both their expedition gadgets from her bag and handing one to Archen. "I'll need a little help photographing everything. Starting…"
No, seriously Mawile. Listen to the little bird. This
entire setup is just screaming "bad news" right now.
Archen: "'We can't declare the place off-limits until we have solid grounds to do so on'.
Oh my gods, Mawile, are you even listening to yourself right now?! Just
look around!"
- Beat moment as Mawile sighs -
Mawile: "Look, if we go back
without solid proof, we're going to get written off as having gotten plastered at a Juice Bar. Let's get it, and
then we can bail, okay?"
She walked over to the Plaza's secondary entrance, where a collection of the five largest statues stood. Mawile only needed to lay her eyes on them once to recognize them immediately: Teams Go-Getters and A.C.T., reduced to nothing but stone statues. Like almost every statue the pair had encountered so far, they were standing in battle position, ready to fight something that had obviously overpowered them all in seconds. Mawile barely restrained her panic to a muted gasp. She was shaken, but she couldn't let it get the best of her. The best thing to do right now was to take photos and report back to the Expedition Society. Lest whatever had done this come back again.
Archen photographed the various statues on the opposite side of the square, working in tandem with Mawile until they had amassed through pictures a decent reconstruction of the scene. Looking through the evidence, Mawile didn't notice the dark figure slinking along the rooftop until it accidentally kicked a roof tile to the ground. She spun around just in time to see it conjure what seemed like a shadow ball with its claws, aiming at Archen.
"Look out—"
Mawile dropped her expedition gadget, pulling Archen out of the way before the attack could land. It exploded against the wall of a house, turning the doorway to stone.
Both Mawile and Archen assumed a battle stance, looking straight at the blurred figure that stood on the roof. It was muscular, quadrupedal, and pitch-black; it looked like somemon had cut a hole in the fabric of reality.
Archen: "
I wanted to bail from this place, but
no, we needed to stay and get your stupid pictures!" >v>;
Mawile: "Look, how was
I supposed to know a monster would abruptly show up! Just brace yourself here!"
The charging figure that emerged from the wreckage a split second later tried to snap them up in its claws as it went, but Mawile pulled herself and Archen down low. The monster skidded over them, ramping up against the houses on the other end and charging back at them.
Mawile was swift. As Archen charged a Dragon Breath in retaliation, she pulled a blast seed from her exploration bag, and hurled it at the creature in time with Archen's attack—
The purple-colored explosion created by both the blast seed and the dragon breath would have brought the world's strongest pokemon to the brink of fainting, and both Mawile and Archen had to quickly scramble back to avoid being damaged by the resulting explosion as well. But, when the explosion cleared, the shadowy figure was still standing all the same. Mawile almost lost her bearings in shock. What creature was it, to survive a blast as powerful as that?
Clever combo there, even if it didn't quite pan out.
Archen caught his breath heavily, picking up his fallen gadget from the ground.
"Are those good enough grounds for you?" he asked, trying to keep his voice down to a reasonable level. Mawile could still hear the fear in it.
She gathered her bag and gadget silently, recovering from the event. In all her years of exploration, she had never seen, heard, or read about anything like that before.
Unbeknownst to the two explorers, a single flake of blackness blew off in the wind, off in the direction of Baram Town.
Finished gathering their supplies, Mawile and Archen began the return trip to Baram Town. It would prove one of their most bicker-free trips to date.
Oh yeah,
that's not ominous at all. Though I have to wonder whether Archen and Mawile or the dark flake will beat the other back to Baram Town, since I'm not sure which of those scenarios would turn out
worse for those two.
"That was mighty irresponsible of him," Audino grumbled as she removed Espurr's cast. Espurr sat on one of the straw beds, watching her carefully cut it away. It was made of a hardened block of paste, one that curled around Espurr's arm and kept it from healing bent. It was soiled and dirty from the day's activities, and some dirt had even wormed its way through the cast and onto her arm.
"I tried to advocate to the Principal in favor of your injury," Audino continued, cutting through the cast and removing it, "But he insisted nothing would happen! That it wouldn't get dirtied or wet or torn off…" she scoffed, setting the cast aside. "Sometimes I think he's just as ignorant as his Vice Principal is."
She got up to retrieve another cast from her medicine cabinet, leaving Espurr to look over her broken arm. It throbbed dully, the pain centering where the fracture must have been. The cast had kept Espurr from moving it too much, and over the course of the past two days, the pain had become little more than background noise in her mind. She tried to move it, suddenly feeling it return tenfold. Espurr let out a sudden gasp as the white-hot pain shot up her arm.
Yeah, I
knew that that berry-picking montage felt more than a little dodgy. I wasn't expecting
this to happen, but it's a logical outcome for making a kid in a cast do field work.
"Now, you don't move that under any circumstances," Audino told Espurr, standing up. "Understand? If Watchog tells you to do anything of the sort, you tell him it's the nurse's orders." She put the medical supplies back inside the cupboard, closing the door with just a hint of repressed anger.
"Sleep well, you two." She set her exploration bag near the side, draping cloths over the luminous moss and heading into the clinic's back room for the night.
Espurr: "What
is the story with Audino and Watchog? She seems like she's at odds with him at times... and yet she doesn't seem to have much sway with Principal Simipour to rein him in."
- Espurr looks down at cast and sighs -
Espurr: "I suppose it can wait for a better hour. Though I have to wonder what I'm going to get stuck with as a surrogate task for detention. Watchog doesn't seem like the type to just let students slip away thanks to doctor's orders."
"Don't look at me." Deerling's dejected voice drifted out from the bed behind Espurr.
Espurr tried to turn herself around the best she could without disturbing her arm.
"I don't think we've properly met," she said, preparing to introduce herself. "I'm—"
"Save it," Deerling hissed. "I'm not in the mood. Go to sleep."
Espurr: "... I don't think I want to know. I'm just gonna go ahead and conk out here."
And made it to the end
@SparklingEspeon . Things are still on a bit of a slow boil at the moment, but it was neat to see what I presume is the core plot rear its head, and
boy did it leave an impression. Kudos on the work, and hope you had fun with this review. Since I know I'll be looking forward to where you take things from here, especially when/where things go firmly off the rails from canon.
