Maya was a nice, upstanding young 14 year old girl. She did well in school and could recite every Pokemon type by heart. She could spell Alomomola and only have to look it up twice. She had some trouble in math but who cares about math anyway? From all this information maybe one could hopefully gather that Maya is a good person. She didn't deserve to be out in the deepest, darkest part of the woods, ditched by her so-called friends. This was an injustice.
"H-Hey," Maya meekly called out into the darkness, slowly walking forward and looking around. "Hey, Adam! Kyle? Crystal..."
Her voice slowly petered out as fear enveloped her. Where was everyone? Her friends had grabbed her by the arm and told her they had a surprise waiting for her, she just had to follow them. Maya had no reason not to believe them. How was she supposed to know they'd drag her in too deep, let go of her and run? It defied common sense, didn't it? Friends don't abandon each other. Right?
A Honchkrow cawed from above and flew directly over Maya's head, causing her to shriek loudly and duck. The loud noise only brought more noise in the form of disturbed, annoyed pokemon rustling in the trees and bushes, which in turn sent Maya into a fear-induced mini coma. She curled up in a ball on the ground and began to silently sob. Would she be here for the rest of her life? A scary Dark type would probably get her like all those stories described.
The Ranger who cried Mightyena, Little Bo Peep who lost her Mareep to a Houndoom, Spiritomb Spells Your Doom, Drifloon: One Way Ticket to Hell, Maya listed off all the stories and myths she'd heard throughout her life. It was a well known fact that Dark types and Ghosts types were natural born (are ghosts born?) disasters. It was also a well known fact that Phantump and Trevenant were common dark forests which did nothing for Maya's sanity meter.
While thinking about all the ways she was about to be murdered, Maya felt a tug on her hair from behind. She frantically slapped at her head hoping the Caterpie would buzz off. Couldn't it see she was contemplating all of her life's choices up until this point? The tugging soon came again, but absurdly harder than before. Maya yanked her hair away and snapped her head up only to come face to face with huge, floating red and yellow eyes.
The rest of the color that remained in her face drained away in an instant. She shrieked. The eyes shrieked. Maya scrambled backwards and slammed into into a tree confused and insanely frightened because eyes just made loud noises at her and that is not what eyes do. She rocked back and forth , holding her knees to her chest. Obviously she was dreaming. Her friends would never throw her into the woods, eyes can't screech in real life, and this tree was not actually extending it's arms and wrapping them around her because that is also not a thing that trees do. Can you pass out in a dream? Because Maya was passing out now. Her vision grew hazy, darkening at the edges and encroaching towards the middle. Everything was dark... Except for more eyes? Faint yellow and red eyes again. Faint, yet obviously concerned, yellow and red eyes. What pokemon could that have been again?
Maya slowly regained her consciousness, still on the forest floor. She attempted to stand but it seemed she was being held in place by tree roots. How did she end up under a tree? Pondering this, she also slowly came to the realization that someone, someTHING was patting her head over and over again, gently. Maya froze and whipped around only to come face-to-very-close-face with a dark red eyeball.
"TREVENAN-" Maya started to yell but was cutoff by a swift root over the mouth. The trevenant brought a gnarled finger to it's lips(?) and pointed at a nest lodged in it's own branches. The nest seemed to be filled with tiny sleeping Murkrow, possibly newly hatched.
"O-oops..." Maya whispered as the root dislodged itself from her mouth.
"So i'm not dead yet and the sentient tree wasn't a dream," she muttered to herself, "so that means those eyes-"
"'Drea?" A small voice came from behind her.
"Were a... Misdreavus'?" Maya finished.
What did it want? Was it waiting for her to wake up so it could finish consuming her soul? That's pretty polite for a ghost.
"'Drea..." The Misdreavus floated up in down in front of her face
Realization struck as Maya finally noticed the two blue berries hanging half out of the ghost's mouth.
"...For me?" she asked
The Misdreavus forcefully spit them both out at her face and giggled as they both made direct contact with Maya's nose.
"Uh, thanks?" she said, rubbing her sore nose. She figured that if she hadn't been ripped apart limb by limb just yet by the giant tree and ghost then maybe, possibly, hopefully these Pokemon didn't intend to harm her.
She took a bite of the gifted Oran berry and let the sweet juices fill her mouth, savoring the taste as she continued to be pet by an overgrown demonic tree, and be entertained by the tiny ghosts funny facial expressions. This was weird. But not all bad?
"MAYAAA" A young boy's loud call echoed through the forest. Maya's ears perked up and she quickly rose to her feet, looking in all directions.
"Kyle?" She called back.
"MAYAAAA!" came another, this time female, voice. The Trevenant beside Maya groaned in protest to all the new and loud voices and uprooted itself, trudging deeper into the forest.
"CRYSTAL!" Maya called back, frantically running around now, desperate to find her friends.
Spotting the light from 3 flashlights in the distance, Maya made a beeline towards her salvation.
"This is literally your fault, Adam." Kyle elbowed the other boy's arm.
"If she can't withstand the Forest Trial then maybe she has no business in our group anyway!" Adam shot back, elbowing Kyle back. "We all did it and made it back home so why can't she?"
"I swear to gosh if you two Bidoofuses don't shut UP," Crystal snapped at the bickering boys. "This is ALL of our faults. I never should have let myself get talked into this stupid "trial". Crystal angrily slapped a branch in front of her away. "I'M supposed to be the voice of reason in this group and yet I kee-"
"CRYSTAAAAAL!"
74 pounds of blubbering child slammed into Crystal, taking her down instantly.
"I thought I was gonna diiiiieee" Maya continued to wail, burying her face into her dazed friend's neck.
"We kinda thought you were gonna die to-OOF" Adam was delivered another elbow to the ribs by Kyle.
"We thought you were gonna...uh, die of excitement once you, uh..." Kyle stammered, "I have nothing".
But Maya was busy rambling into Crystal's ear about moving trees and screaming eyeballs to pay any attention to anyone else.
"And this ghost pokemon fed me berries and there were these baby murkrow and-"
"Maya did you hit your head on a rock? Any giant living tree would have eaten you by now." Crystal said, "It was probably a dream."
"No really, guys! You gotta meet this Misdreavus, it's around here somewhere..." Maya searched around for her new ghost friend to no avail.
"There ain't no ghosts in the forest, stupid" Adam scoffed.
"And if there was you shouldn't be messing with any of them," Kyle added, "Ghosts will just possess you and make your head do endless 360s. Don't you remember all those horror movies and stories?"
"I hope you aren't getting into occult hobbies, Maya..." said Crystal
"I'm not, I swear, it's jus-" Maya froze midsentence and stared in wide-eyed horror as two large, floating eyes appeared behind her 3 friends.
"Are you okay, MayaaaAAAAAAHHHHHHH" Crystal screamed as the forest became filled with a bloodcurling screech.
Maya fell over backward and covered her ears while her 3 friends took off away from the forest. The large pair of eyes from before shrunk in size and glided over to Maya. This Midreavus uncloaked itself before her and bore a smile that said "I deserve a medal for that performance"
"You can't keep doing that, Misdreavus!" Maya scolded. "You're gonna give someone a heart attack!"
The Pokemon's smile drooped, there would be no congratulations today. Maya glanced at it's crestfallen face and hesitantly extended a hand to pet it's head.
"They did ditch me in the woods though... So thanks for giving me some revenge, I guess" Maya watched the Misdreavus' smile brighten and smirked in response. "I should still probably apologize though" Maya stood up and brushed herself off. "Maybe they wet their pants" she snickered.
Maya picked up one of the dropped flashlights and made her way back to town, grinning ghost pokemon in tow.