Hello, reader! I am Starry's Light, but it seems I can't avoid being referred to as Starry. Which is shorter. So I get it. If you have no idea who the heck I am, that's cool. If you do, that's cool too. I'm just here to work on the skill of writing, learn s'more about myself, and lead up to my goal of learning how to write well and thus, learn about author life.
Now let me actually tell you something toward the story:
this is A Deaf Flame's Flicker. Picture the most filthy-mouthed person you know, multiply them by a high number, set their bum on fire, cut off their ears, and you have Ashley. Who is Ashley, exactly? Well, I mean, you'll have to read to figure that out. Also we have Munchie. If you want to picture Munchie, think of someone with no self-esteem that's living in the back of their head.
If you really want to know their actual characterization, read on. If you don't, read on anyways~ And welcome to a world where the present can change the future.
A Deaf Flame's Flicker
Chapter One: I Swear it's not Suicide
He basically considered himself a noteworthy disease—it just felt that way, how everyone would raise their eyes to look at him and it's like they're totally scowling at him because he's a disease. It's just how he was. That scruffy, dusk-blue creature, painfully skinny with his teeth sticking up weirdly, with the long fur nearly covering his feet, and his ears—oh, his horrid ears—pointing like fangs: him. That was him. Remorse burned his cheeks as he lie on the ground, staring aimlessly up at a cloud-borne sky. His fingers rose and fell without rhythm. His eyes, dull and dark—gently lined in a skyline blue of light hopes he actually didn't find—blinked aimlessly. He was aimless, always aimless.
The munchlax didn't have much else to do but look on up. It still felt weird, the remembrance that his skinniness happened to be wrong for his type of pokemon, he was supposed to be meaty and strong and huge but turns out he's not, so therefore he has to, has to be a disease. He didn't know what else to do sometimes but flop over and look somewhere that didn't have worries, which ended up looping to the sky. And there he lie then. Staring.
"Pretty." He spoke in a soft whisper, a slight husk capturing over it. Without much else to do or say, he continued his staring, shifting his arms irregularly and sometimes letting out a soft sigh. Why?—just because. It, well, felt pretty right, first off. Also he was pretty sadistic as it was. Staring at the clouds provided his single reason to look up at all when the ground was so much more softer and lighter and brown and didn't frown at him, he felt confident. The ground, now the ground liked him. No one else did, though, and that was okay.
At least, it felt like no one else liked him. His jawline sprung into a spiral of doubt fraying at the edges with those sharp, white, pointy teeth as Munchie gnawed on his lip and debated, then stopped debating and called it a day. If he stopped worrying about it and just went back through town again, maybe someone would look at him and smile this time. Sometimes it happened. Those were practical miracles—but hey, sometimes it happened. The puffy, white clouds dipped in eggshell blue sky frayed at their own edges and displayed rather shocking changes in color that the munchlax knew would roll over and reveal an astounding sunset.
Sunsets, in the least, always happened to be astounding. At the end of the day, Munchie had a reason to go on: the symphony, the preciseness, the master in the sky with the paintbrush, the guy who turned off the sun, patted a powder-white crystalline moon into the scene, and ended each day with stellar recollection of bright colors, from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to purple and all the weirdos in between. Reason. There, the blue mammal found reason to go on. Sunsets kept him waiting; he was their only audience, and it at least felt like they appreciated his coming. That alone felt satisfying in his tittering heart, shut off and awkward, all limp and flubbed up, in his chest.
Unlike all of the busybodies roaming back at Treasure Town's entrance, Munchie found those little secret niches that held special things the others missed because they had other entities to rely on. He... mostly relied on those little things, like, of course, the sunset. But this, obviously, was not the best place to watch for a sunset as astounding as the ones he was trying so hard to describe; Sharpedo Bluff didn't offer much. Sure, the place left off on a gritty cliff and offered the best place to watch clouds, but you had to crane your neck if you wanted to see far down and you had to turn your face at an awkward angle to watch the sun meet sea and call it a day.
That time was coming, the air around the thin munchlax buzzed with it. His cone-shaped ears twitched, fondled the notion. He could never miss one of those sunsets: ever. That was his sole purpose in life, to be the one audience member of that sunset out on the beach shorelines that pokemon tended to avoid—if he listened more to said passerby, maybe he'd sympathize with their slight disgust or fear of the trashy creatures that lived in the area. Also, a Mystery Dungeon sat like a fat, ugly wart, just on the edge of town, just right there, on the beach.
Those kinds of things were messed up. There was that one guild on that one road that supposedly helped keep such disgusting things at bay, but... they were disgusting, was all. Nobody liked Mystery Dungeons all that much. Munchie did his best to void that part of town entirely; sometimes he did catch gleans of words from the teams in the guild, all those buddy-buddy nincompoops, and admittedly longing set a fire in his heart, to be buddy-buddy with the nincompoops and fit in. He yearned for fitting in, ironic since he didn't.
Brusquely Munchie shook his head and stood on his somewhat-plump cream feet, dusting miniscule dirt molecules from his shaggy coat. Skkksh, and with a skid he trotted off, back staring out at the lovely baby cumulonimbus clouds as his eggshell-blue-lined hopeless orbs drilled into tree after tree stuffed by lavish leaves glistening with the song and color of nature. Zundentun had never looked finer. Aimless stories lost track in the munchlax's wandering mind as his head swayed side to side, of how there once a long time ago existed a baby Zundentun and the world was all connected as one and there were other islands out there, but it was all one big thing of land, and the first pokemon—legends—created artificial things like seasons to keep the world in check. Then, as every child knew, the artificial things mostly stopped working and the magic happened, like mutations, that started gluing things together.
Magic was a loose term that fitted the sun, a strange ball in the light, the moon, a strange ball in the dark, and Mystery Dungeons, disgusting things that took up space and were too complicated to bother explanation. Other things, he'd heard, fit that loose term as well, but the sun and the moon and ugly Mystery Dungeons were basic understandings of magic. Apparently they were all connected somehow.
He didn't really care that much, honestly. Attaining to knowing every problem inside and out didn't suit Munchie. Watching sunsets by himself did, though. And also lonesomely yearning for a friend. He didn't like to talk about that last one very often, not even to the sunset.
Here it came, he inwardly groaned, where the pathway of dull browns and oranges and tangelos, fettered so powerfully to the earth beside walls of short-cut, fuzzy grasses, droned on and dropped the trees, which spilled and splintered off to the farther lefts and rights as the constant jubilee and banter and music of Treasure Town sprung. If anyone wanted to be where Mystery Dungeons and other crazy magics weren't, they'd better hope they were in Treasure Town. Munchie had heard from the scraps of other conversations that the other islands of the world, so spread out no one hoped to venture into other territories, also pertained to Mystery Dungeons but that none of them were so consumed at its filth like Zundentun. Of course, everyone had heard of the other large bodies of land, as elders had passed from elder to elder to elder, swapping stories of time until the very oldest elders who were there when the lands split, had heard what the other islands began to name themselves.
Apparently, if his logic was well in-tune—he felt guilty about not feeling guilty about eavesdropping so freely for his entire life—the other islands were calling themselves... Truught, Uytee, Venturus, Warldo, Xendrandentus, Yoctta, and... Zundentun. Guiltily, in the guise that he recalled the other island names so well, Munchie decided he'd better hold off of eavesdropping tonight. That was sad. That was really sad. Being able to label those huge and complicated names so easily—yeah, let's not do that again.
So with his sadistic, darkly sunken eyes lurking and darting and blinking and holding back emotion, or at least trying to, the cloudy-blue and dusty-pale munchlax hopped to his usual routine. Slink, shadowy, pretend to be nonexistent, he would tumble and attempt to be as fake as possible, so no one had to see him and scowl at him. Though he didn't truly know if anyone actually did scowl at him, because he didn't look at faces, but he felt reasonably assured he got them. A munchlax like him didn't belong, which was why he fit in through the shadows of Treasure Town, where no one would notice him. He had no reason to be noticed in this place, so bright and colorful and happy and he didn't feel like he could belong here. Well, anywhere, really, but mostly here.
Alas, it was the only town that offered a place to hide in refuge from the rest of the world, the rest of the Mystery-Dungeon-ridden world: so he took what he got and tried to make his smile less crooked when he did for it. Oh well. Shaking his loaf-sized head, Munchie's dusty body spied a creature staring right through him and he squeaked and his eyes leaked and suddenly life's burdens all crashed down on him and he was stuck, locked in a stare with another creature.
To be exact, this thing must have been female. He'd spied it strutting around the place with the baby in its warm, brown pouch. A pretty brown. Plunging in with the assumption, he went on: the creature's massive, cream face and chest jutted out to look down at him, a shell-like black husk over her head with spines—spines!—sticking out of it in the sameness of his teeth if they weren't so crooked. Spines darted down her long, thick, browner back and he knew he didn't like the girl. Her thick, dark tail stuck out, her shoulders squared, and he knew he was in for it the moment those lips curled into a grin. He knew he was in for it. He'd screwed up. After all his time alive and this was it, this was the day: he was screwed, screwed, so hopelessly screwed.
Here, also, hung a chance, like life, tittering off in his stubby little fuzzy fingers. He could go up to the kangaskhan. He could uphold her welcoming, grin back, nod, introduce himself, hi, I'm Munchie, how are you, and he could be a part of life and finally succeed in finding a place.
This was it.
This was his time, the moment he'd been waiting for, when he'd finally become a somebody.
This never happened before, from all he saw, with his head facing the ground.
And with his head shaking fearfully, standing there like a goofball without moving for way too many moments to be acceptable, surely, the kangaskhan still welcoming him and smiling and waving past pokemon that would be able to use her wares: customers, she was voiding customers for him: it all stuck in.
He didn't know if she'd smiled at him before, but this was his moment.
One foot awkwardly shuffled, come on, go forward, this is it, this is it. It skished. A bright pink puffball of a creature breezed past him and the faint, sweet scent of strawberries tangled in his nose, in his fur too. Good impression; good impression. Another foot, a little bit closer, he got this under control, he'll finally be recognized.
Though he was far too off, a hand extended, ready to shake her thorny paw.
Then suddenly the intensity of the situation caught up with him and lights went off in his brain and this was the worst idea in the entire universe that had even been created at all, what are you doing stupid Munchie this is bad everyone hates you, and he fled like a shadow into the sunny morning. It was opposite, the sunny morning was fleeting now, but that mattered not. Munchie never looked back to find out if the nice lady waved after him or kept smiling or tried anything at all to help him out. He wasn't... that slow. Though his fur tripped him up and he skidded to a halt, the musty tang of dirt meeting his mouth as he crashed into a stumbling somersault and with a groan, spat pebbles freely.
"I can't do this," he whispered numbly, a squeaking, childish fear much more dominant than the manly husk this time around. "I'm terrible." Like it was the most obvious thing ever, Munchie nodded to it and let out a long, shaky breath, his heart still somersaulting into what must be his spleen like the freak show it had to be.
Then he realized he had stumbled into the midst of town, the most boisterous and persiflage-infected place in all of Treasure Town, and his heart rate spiked again. Legs aching beneath layers of dusky, shaggy blue furs, pale little feet scrambling back, shoving amongst the tidal wave of a crowd coming in for high tide, Munchie pulled past the merry creatures on their way as his teeth sawed through his lip in pure agony because this always was the worst part: flanked by all of the other creatures and then staring at them and seeing the light catch their eyes. Because of safety, of happiness, of thank-goodness-magic-doesn't-hurt-us-here, for all those things and maybe more too.
Whether or not other creatures glimpsed at him in hopes of striking conversation, the thin, unbearably disease-labeled-unbearably thin munchlax stuttered, and ambled, and tripped, onward, head attempted to be held high with a somewhat success rate stirring in his aching skull. His ears sat straight up like mountains peaked on his head, and they twitched at times, especially if someone taller—and there was always someone taller—brushed by. Finally the suffocation of other pokemon that would hate him for being different and hate him for everything else too: gone. Munchie stumbled on past the final crossroads and took off from the road releasing fettered control, tossing away manacles, and he stretched out fluffy, fluffy arms hooked with wind streaming and setting open air to catch upon as he stumbled, more stumbling, down the rough edges of bright yellow and husky brown blocks of sand that were weathered and always threatening to cross downward until the pouf of literal soft sands buffeted him.
His head stuck up like a rock. "Yes!" A fist protruded. "I made it! Just like I said I would! Just like I always do! I made it." Shaking a shaggy head now studded with granular bits of sand the color of sunlight particles, Munchie licked his sandy lips and smiled again, not even caring about those stupid, crooked teeth, because no one would hate them here. "The sunset, as usual, is mine. I made it." The husk of a tone, filled to the brim by that softer voice, somewhat velvety, again mixed to the sky as Munchie, sucking in deep breaths, trying to lose the permeating aftermath, a stain in his mind, of the day's escapade. He still had time to spare until the actual sunset began, as he hadn't stopped to eavesdrop this time around, and scrounged about the sand-dusted area, staring up to his left at times to observe the overhang of sandstone and other studded rocks, perhaps a bit of quartz or so, just every so often. Some areas, clogged with more the rocks, less the weathered evidence, held stronger, but also were smoother, harder to climb. The vast majority of the rest of those rocks contained crumbly substances that somehow had to work as a way to climb back up.
Of course, for all of his life he'd spent at the sunset, always catching a glimpse of it since birth, as it was his life purpose, his necessity, Munchie knew of the other dirt paths eased into corners, edges, easier to climb. He always found himself mixed into an untidy rush when he waltzed into his safety haven though and tended to tumble as he just had, a tumult of emotional and physical cries of help me, because his self-esteem was just as rocky. Obviously. A bit painfully obviously. Eyes smoldering, he scrounged not much longer and chanced upon the smaller trail, sticking into the sandstone walls of half-smooth half-weathered to find that unruly pathway, stuck with coral and other reds and pinks of sea things, to the Mystery Dungeon just on the brink of touching the last patch of non-Mystery-Dungeon-infested land: Beach Cave.
Swarms of pokemon apparently summoned by the Dungeon itself—so he's heard—tangle into the vents of pathways littered about in such labyrinthine fashion, even though that first trail didn't technically mix into Mystery Dungeon just yet, and drop goodies. This, this simple method of scrounging about in those chambers whenever he chanced upon them—he knew where the safe ones were, and which ones to avoid—and could easily pull out a small pile of loot to use in life.
He got on. It was how life went, and with an acceptable weight of multicolored berries and even the occasional sparkly oval of golden-yellow treasure, Munchie existed not long after. A munchlax, even the rather skinny one here, has to eat quite the significant pile of food to keep them going without piling into a pathetic pile of sleepiness and just wearing the day away in a snoozing haze. Therefore, sweet juice after spicy pulp after sour tang splattered into the munchlax's face and snout and mouth and filled him with energy until the significant berry pile began to dwindle and his belly sat satisfied in its master's work.
Every body eats. Even Munchie took a staggering amount of extra delights. He—embarrassed—sort of kind of had to. Another reason why everyone must hate him, he deliberated smoothly, rubbing the different flavors of berry juice from him. Some of the morsels, as always, would be bruised or slightly smudged by poison or rotting, but he didn't have to worry about such nonsense when he was a munchlax and he ate all. Even Munchie wasn't picky, making him feel, with a twinkle in his stomach, just the slightest more normal.
Resting his back against a particular edge of sandstone, scratchy enough to comfort his back but smooth enough to cause the same pleasantries, and with a final wipe of his maw with a paw dipped in water, the fluffy mammal lost his heart to the melding of colors in front of him: this: his purpose. It had come, as it always did. Bubbles of gentle cyan sprung from the ocean, combined with the mixture of hot, steamy reds sifting in the sky, melding into a creamy orange that took over most of the clouds as bright lime sprayed into the mix and catapulted further only a jutting smidgen of colored splashes into the eggshell blue above that began to churn with turquoise. Then the turquoise found yellow and became lighter, lemony, twisted with ringlets of golden sparkles. Munchie lost his breath to the slow and gentle fade of colors as it seemed to pat him on the head, comfort him, we'll be back again, and patches of the sky above dimmed.
He wouldn't have stopped his aimed, purposeful, needy watch had it been for the sudden burst of bright, white-hot light that splattered over the sand, sucking in some particles while bits of ocean from the other side swiiishshhhhed and swaaaaasshshhhhed into the fluid mixture until it all crumpled. A lodge in Munchie's throat, and he could feel in his scattering heart with a stab something was amok. Also the crumpled, orange figure with slick fur meant something was amok. Although he quite didn't like it, he also understood he could do nothing else but pull back from the staining colors above burning into him forever like always and check out that poor, limp thing.
First, he called out. "Hey! H-hey, you!" Because of his continuous bouts of talking to himself, his voice held strong without wavering quite yet. It was a creature, he recognized, but also it didn't recognize him. And it looked like it needed help; someone less fortunate than even swine like him, oh did they deserve a chance. And he could help. Looks like he'd have to.
The figure didn't stir after his calling. "Hey! Are you okay?" His husk caught beneath the softer question. No reply. No movement. "A-ah! Don't die! Get up!" When this as well didn't knock the being in the water upright, Munchie, with a groaning chime of a cry, flopped up on the ground, shook out his sandy back, and trotted over to the ocean. The sunset had unintentionally become the least of his worries, with this strange thing from the light slapping into the waves of glittering blue. His darker, duskier, huskier, very much fluffier paws swamped the creature's entire orange arm which he detected to be coated thinly in fur. No other choice swimming in mind, more so flopping like this thing, Munchie extended his single arm and a flick of the wrist sent the creature from half-submerged and half-drowned to covered in spots like a sugar cookie, its body wet and sopping and cold and... sandy. A little cute.
Taking a closer look, Munchie confirmed this was good to be cute because the creature had to be female. No other way. There are some things that a creature, no matter what, can always tell. It was painfully obvious. With a cough rattling in his throat, Munchie stared with wide, blue-rimmed eyes as the thing unraveled herself and stood on hunched, not-even-standing legs that bent easily: they were tiny orange nubs so he couldn't judge that much.
After the small, a-little-cute orange limbs came fingers and toes, each long and angular and thin and pale, with no hair. Her face, angular and rather tiny, was the same pale and it traveled up from an orange-furred neck. Her fiery red-orange eyes burned like a flame. And she had... hair. On her head. All wavy and short like a cute bob except for one point where a lot of knots connected and spouted long, glittering orange waves. The tiny thing with the... mostly tiny pale chest stretched out her lungs, yawned loudly, squeezed her eyes shut, and said in a harsh, jutting, to-the-point slap of a tone: "Well that was one fucking ride I hope I never have to get shitted into again. Wooooo, heeeellll!"
Then the flame of a tail spouted, and she snorted with a flicker of its motion. "I think my ass just started burning again. That's bound to be a good sign." Such shock of the momentum, that this tiny thing with large hands and feet and a cute face just suddenly burst like that sent the munchlax loudly squeaking and flopping and reeling, his ears and face submerged into salty blue waters and a cough and his fluffy, incredibly fluffy layered furs all dry but for his dripping head, and somehow he fell onto sand again, rolled up and dripping droplets and flailing and upset, and she didn't react whatsoever, like she didn't notice him.
Chimchar. It struck him. That girl was a chimchar. Then she suddenly slipped from view and suddenly a weight slammed into his skull and he was on the ground, the sunset pouring into his gaze again and he wanted to pour into it, to lose himself into the colors, but then the choppy scrawl came and flung itself at him. "Who the fuck are you? This damn bitch boy! What's he doing here! What the hell are you doing here, damn bitch—filthy, yes!—filthy bitch boy what are you doing here!"
An awkward pule fell from his lips. "I am deaf, smartass. Talk so I can read your damned sand-stuffed lips or I won't be able to understand you."
The first words in a long time came into his head. "What are you doing here?" It struck him afterwords that was rude to ask a lady—even this... thing. Of a lady. Still, she was better off than him, as all were, and it was rude to ask a lady such a personal question. He didn't apologize though.
"I think your fucking eyes are flashing with apology. Eh, what the hell. I'm here because of reasons I'm not going to tell you. How's that, Sir Apology?"
"M-my name is Munchie, for your information!" His face was burning and his stomach crawled and her face swooned up into his sight, upside-down over him, orange locks of bangs spilling upon his thicker, wetter self. Her long, angular hands strapped to his ears. He didn't like this very much. At the same time, no one ever paid this much attention to him and the girl actually didn't look so scary so in the end it turned out he didn't mind all too much. He... didn't really mind. Not really. Maybe a smidgen. He was so terrible.
Finally the pause smashed open. "Well hello there Munchie. My name is Ashley, and I think this is quite a fuckpit I've stumbled into. Buuuuut it also looks like the right place."
"D-do you know where you are? What's going on now?"
"I know enough, dammit. Don't question me."
He squeaked. "Wh-why not?"
"I don't very well damn like it." She paused, as if deliberating over a heavy topic that required her fiery self to stop spouting flames like attention upon him. "I didn't think you guys would be so... mmm... what fucking word am I looking for... shit... come on..."
Munchie didn't say anything. His ears ached. Blood must be rushing for that point because he could feel the buildup of pressure, and Ashley's long fingers weren't helping the matter: in fact, he swore they must have been the source of it. It stung, it did—but he liked being noticed by her. He liked Ashley, strange as it was. She was rough and cursed a lot more than a creature should.
Maybe she was a little broken like him. She seemed a bit like it. From that point on, the munchlax immediately decided he wanted to stick with Ashley for some strange stupid ugly reason. But he did, and that would be his plan. "AHA! QUAINT! Or... mm... nice or something. I don't fucking know. It's weird. Buuuut that was to be expected, so what the hell."
"Expected?" he peeped in an echo.
"Expected," she assured him. "Ohhhh was it fuu-cking expected." As an afterthought, Munchie curiously wondered why he took the fact that this chimchar was deaf so easily. Perhaps because he liked her and wanted to befriend her. It seemed that Ashley might like him as well, and that made Munchie smile. "Wow, you have some twisted teeth." He paused. He didn't know whether to smile or not, face paling. "Nonono, keep smiling—dammit, I'm so fucking clueless, keep smiling." So... without further ado, he did. "Aaaah. That's not a bad smile ya got there. Mine's pretty fucking ugly as it is. Anyway, you're not deaf, so my words prolly sting you some—let's try not to let that get to you. We'll see." He blinked. "Good answer, Jojo."
"Munchie."
She smirked slightly, little teeth curling under a lip. "Jojo's an inside joke thing. Sorry. Forgot where I was. In the moment. All that. Dammit, Ashley, you're so fucking clueless." And because he didn't know how else he should respond, Munchie blinked. Thankfully, Ashley had more to say. Her hot breath—from the fiery spirit in her—continued to wash over his blue-and-pale face. It was a little nice, but also a little stifling. "So... where the hell are the Mystery Dungeons in this place?"
That was the first moment Munchie suddenly realized with a cold strike to his heart that he had been conversing with a complete stranger who came from a freaky dip of light and this could be really really bad and dangerous and what was he doing he was going to die. Though quickly most of the icy waves receded, Munchie had had his wake up call. Should he help the strange girl that first, didn't know Zundentun was overflowing with Mystery Dungeons and magic and she was in the single place without it, and also, had come from a strange patch of glowing light and seemed to be slightly crazy, and finally, didn't fear or feel disgusted, disturbed, annoyed, by pesky Mystery Dungeons, pesky magic, pesky mutations, and that could be a potentially hazardous combination. She was strange, putting it lightly.
"They're everywhere, actually! All over Zundentun! You... didn't... know that?" Actually, those words dislodged must faster and easier than the shaggy munchlax thought. He blinked, amazed at himself, at the starry sky above. Somehow he didn't feel disappointed at missing the grand finale for this day of his purpose in life. He should have been, Munchie could tell. Yet... simply, like a barren patch of ice: he didn't. Didn't didn't didn't.
"Oh uh..." She peered at him. "Nah, I won't lie with you I guess. You look more than a little shitty and hopeless. Like me I guess. But don't let anyone else know, or I'll fucking hurt you." He felt like she wasn't lying, and the burning truth in those words singed him. He felt it, Munchie felt it. Ashley wouldn't joke. "But that also means you're stuck with me—whatever; shitty and hopeless. I just need to explore those Mystery Dungeons. There's... fucking twisted mutated magic in those crapholes."
He blinked again. "You're... like... into science?"
"OH HELL NO! I AM NOT! DAMNED FUCKING NO." She cooled off rather quickly. He supposed Ashley wanted to make that a point. Or perhaps it was usual to use that tone of voice from wherever she came from. "That shit's just weird. I feel like there should be pokemon doing something about it and not staying holed up like ugly hermits. I know enough that your entire town is like that. And... well it's a little fucking weak. So, any way I can do that without severely fucking myself off?"
"We have this thing called a guild, Ashle—"
"AW HOW CUTE YOU SAID MY NAME—OH PLEASE CONTINUE sorry."
"S-so... you need at least one partner or else they won't let you in, because it's dangerous to go alone in there... y-you know, as you'd said sometime earlier. But they have members so... well... It's dangerous, and mutated, and crazy." Her head bobbled a monsoon of bobbles at such statement, displaying her agreement eagerly. These... mutations, magics, whatever, held a strong part of her heart. He didn't ask why, felt a little afraid to. "But they give you a place to stay... and they're all nice and buddy-buddy with you... so it sounds cool. Also... it's, um... easier to be friends with pokemon when you're with them, but you also have to look out because talking about Mystery Dungeons with other pokemon makes them... really nervous..."
Those fiery orbs, their upsides down as they hovered, suspended in her pale face before him as it breathed hot breath over his own face, lit up. "That makes absolutely no fucking sense whatsoever." She spat as if in anger, but her aim shook and a glob of Ashley's saliva landed on Munchie's chest. "Aw, dammit.
She didn't apologize. He didn't ask. "So... I need a partner to get into that dump. I am not going somewhere that sounds that fucking confusing and that fucking scary on my own. Weeeelllll, it seems I only have one option." Munchie didn't mean for it, but hearing those words—only one option—sprung up in him because he actually had a real-life purpose with another entity at all and it wasn't the creators in the sky that orchestrated the crafting of sunsets for him and they didn't even exist. It felt a little nice, a little warm, in his chest—no his heart—to be the only one option. Even if Ashley spoke sharply and cursed a lot. He didn't mind... too much.
He fretted one day he would forget about this first moment with her and grow angry. He knew it was possible, especially with this salty chimchar. But gone with the wind, a sudden tentacle snagged against his skin and a blast of oozing water mushed against him and suddenly Ashley wasn't holding him by the ears with those long fingers and she strung a long line of curse words as the water-typed duo nabbed Munchie and he soon found himself tumbling into that hole in the wall stuffed with bright pink and lower magenta and rough red coral, threading through a mess of hallways until he eventually realized he was lulling into near slumber, and the walls of where he was shimmered erratically with an air of impossibility shone possible.
Beach Cave—that Mystery Dungeon. That accursed, disgusting bit of magic. He'd been pulled right in by that duo of pokemon, the one with the tentacles and the other with the water gun that made him quite sure he had been nabbed by some water types, either way. Taking a glance at those bright tangelo curls with knobby, orange bumps on them, Munchie decided an octillery had to be one of his captors. That sly monster. He tried a threatening snarl and the other buddy shot back its scaled face and pressed down another beam of waters into Munchie's sopping wet blue cheeks. He burbled, "Blub!" but nothing else of interest happened. Water awkwardly snorted from his tiny nose hidden in layers of more of the blue fur. Like the jagged blocks at the end of the bluff with the best cloud-watching position, Munchie's teeth jutted out of the stream. He coughed a little awkwardly and was met with another blast of cold water.
Though he wanted to and the situation desperately called for it, he didn't dare say ow. These pokemon looked like they ate ows for breakfast. And everything else. Just his attempt at conversation from prior, and then his cough, had been enough to attain glances, and those were freaky enough. It began to dawn on the poor, thin munchlax that he had been pokenapped and now he was being rather forcibly dragged throughout Beach Cave, which was a Mystery Dungeon, and danger crawled under his skin and he choked. Also, pokemon—they must hate him, he recalled daintily, taking the thought as he would a frail flower—did not like Munchie, thus these pokemon... whatever they were doing, they didn't like him. Thus something bad was about to ensue upon the munchlax.
"Fucking damned bitches! Get the FUCK back here! YOU LISTENING, ASSHOLES?" He wanted to stop and contemplate on what sort of angelic, amazing, beautiful heroine would be saving him, but he couldn't imagine because he knew only one pokemon who would try to save him at all and he already recognized the curse-bitten, fiery, steamy tone, all harsh and broken-up like his teeth. Ashley, of course, had come to help save his hide. Munchie didn't know how to feel about that, but it felt nice to be remembered by her, even for a little while. Though he'd probably be remembered more often the more they... hung out.
Munchie, with a blink, saw that he would be hanging out with another creature for a time now and would thus meet others and would thus become a real pokemon and others would know him and he wouldn't be a shadow that eavesdropped all the time but again that cold stab in his heart made him want to run, until Ashley's cannibalistic screech cut his thoughts off: "FUCKING STOP MOVING YOU FAST BITCHES I HAVE SHORT DAMN LIMBS AND GET THE FUCK OVER HERE! UGH! SHIT!" She stumbled and fell. "SHITSHITSHITSHIT." She got up and kept moving, her funny-bent orange legs pattering with their large toes and her large hands pelting on the ground like she had become quadrupled. But it helped; Ashley's speed gained.
"Argh, did you hear that?" whispered the tangelo octillery, tentacles angrily squeezing Munchie's lanky body. "She ain't givin' up, ain't she."
His partner scowled with black teeth poking from those fishy limbs. What was—lumineon. A girl. His face reddened when he realized that the entire time this had been a blue-and-black-finned girl pelting by his head, not another dude. Munchie, stifling a whimper, shook his head. No one reacted to that, and the female mumbled in a rasp, "She ain't."
"Wh-whatdoyouwantfromme?" squeaked the munchlax in hopes of an answer. Thankfully, he got exactly that.
The duo's orbs traced over him. "Well," said the octillery, "my mate and I see you've been lonely for a long time, so we figured we'd toss you in here and see what happened."
"Wh-WHAT?"
"Like..." The lumineon dully blinked. "You don't do anything. At all. And all you have done is eavesdropped and listened to conversations I'd rather keep from those pointy ears of yours." A scoff. Whoops. "We figured we could wake something up in you. And... well, naaah, we didn't really think that. We just figured we could watch you prove to us that Mystery Dungeons are lethal bits of crap. So we're gonna drop you down here somewhere, and we're gonna get that stupid chimchar out of here"—though the deaf girl couldn't hear them, Ashley violently cursed just then—"aaaaaand be done with you."
He was useless. A bright warmth floated in his heart. He was useless. They understood him. But—"Wait! You're going to kill me?!"
Another dull blink from the lumineon. "Uh. Yeah. Mystery Dungeons are pretty useless. You're pretty useless. It all works out in the end." She didn't even smile at the end. It made Munchie's heart a little sadder. He would have at least liked a grin of approval. When his head darted back a ways, he didn't see Ashley any longer. Heart dropping, he supposed this was supposed to be, like, the time he'd say his prayers to arceus for the last time and lose his life or something? Because everyone but the guild understood Mystery Dungeons had to be magical and vile and dumb, he more or less accepted the fate presented in front of him: Munchie would be lost and be killed.
"You think this is far enough?" The octillery again, dull eyes—why so dull?—rounded and faced the lumineon. Probably they were the mates. Yuck. His heart clenched like teeth plowed over it and Munchie wanted to especially escape and get the heck away already by then. And... he hated to admit it, but worry curdled in his blood: where had Ashley disappeared to? Why did she just stop like that?
Maybe even she didn't like him. Munchie was used to the idea already as the lumineon's fishy blue lips turned and she blinked—again. "Sure, why not. That'll keep him out, finally." Her purple—easier to see with them so close—orbs, though dull, descended upon him. "And if you'd said one word about that affair my sister had that you heard about"—his face blushed; yes, that was one of the things he'd heard from that girl, family, really—"then I swear this is why we're putting you here now. So you don—"
"Did I just hear the word affair? Wow, I thought you fuckers were all dainty little dandelions or something." Ashley casually strolled into the small corridor, soon met by a flurry of bubbles and water and a torrent of waves. When the blue debris sifted, the chimchar sat in a bruised lump that told the munchlax she wouldn't get up soon. Unconscious. He'd be like that too, then they both would die. A lump socked him in the throat and his eyes welled: guilt.
He basically just killed an innocent chimchar who actually liked him. Well, maybe not innocent, judging by the profusely used swearwords, but good enough for him. He didn't care. He wasn't picky, now that someone cared—really cared. And what did he do with that life? Right, he stopped it. That last thought really did him in, and without he help of anyone, the munchlax sunk to the ground and his head hit the coral floor with a donk-! It didn't hurt, though, especially with the layers of blue and pale fur watching over him: his heart ached. What did he do? Why did he do it? Wave upon wave upon tidal wave of shame, roiling inside of him, crashing down on him, everywhere. Leaking into him from the water oozing off of Ashley's doused figure.
"Is he gonna do anything else at all?" He bet that stupid lumineon dully blinked as she questioned it.
And that stupid mate probably tensed his tentacles as usual. He knew their aspects. He was a little scary like that—but Ashley... she didn't find him scary and didn't mind talking to him and it was nice. "I... I don't think he's gonna do anything else. Well whatever. Now you can stop worrying about him telling someone about your sister's affair." The first thing he was gonna do if he escaped would be tell Ashley the affair. Just to show them. Just to show them. His heart kept throbbing, aching, churning, like something had socked him just... just right there. It hurt, alright. It hurt bad, like he was a disease but the disease came from inside of him. "Okay, let's just get out of here. This is incredibly boring, watching other pokemon die. Come on, babe." Yep, they were the mates.
He didn't listen for their water tentacles and fins and whatnot as they flitted off, but his ears caught them of course. Sometimes Munchie felt like he heard too much—like just then the duo had kissed and now he felt even more sick. He... should do something, instead of sitting here and letting those pokemon take off: Munchie always knew he didn't fit in, but letting him be plopped out here to plain die felt... wrong. In a way. Though what did he know about wrong—Munchie did happen to be that disease with no friends and no wanting to talk to a soul, until his accidental affliction with the chimchar hunched in a corner, her orange-smudged silhouette shivering in subconsciousness. She wasn't dead, not yet. The genius thought suddenly struck Munchie that he should try to take Ashley, warm her with his fur, and then he could carry her out of the Mystery Dungeon and they could live: more importantly, she could live and she could do that guild thing she wanted to do and he'd help her. He could see that little body shaking, and it reminded him of the curse words that casually flew out of her mouth. Anyone could tell that Ashley was different, but not even he saw how. Only that fact glistened alone. He'd like to let Ashley trust him, in the least.
A hand reached out for the orange smudge, dark and fluffy and blue. Come on, he consoled himself mentally in preparation for the moment, do this. "It's easy," he whispered, "to reach out to her. So why don't you?" The words echoed, the slight husk in his gentler tone bouncing and thus cracked by the end. "C-come on..." The hand didn't inch onward with pride; the hand didn't inch onward at all. "M-mun—Munchie! Pull yourself together and help this girl! You can do this!" Slowly, as his voice rose, that helpful fact that Ashley was deaf and therefore wouldn't be disturbed by his shouting revealed itself. "Help her already, you idiot! She's right—right—there!" This had to be the most pathetic thing Munchie had ever done in his entire life, even trumping the fact of his birth, being a skinny munchlax. This—here: he couldn't even assist the shivering little girl. It mattered not if he wanted to help her at all: this fact that he couldn't bring himself to.
The hand, lying there, felt slogged and heavy and dull and stupid and why should he help Ashley he can't help anyone he's just a stupid disease! The will didn't muster in Munchie's soul like it should have. The will to... anything. So there his hand lay, unmoving, as much as his heart yearned to inch it closer and touch Ashley's face and try to warm her. As much as he wanted to, he didn't. And more, because he absolutely positively didn't. Simple word. Socked him in the gut. He'd been hit there by emotions a lot that evening. Made him wonder if anything else would sock him as well, or just the feelings. Probably someone else, just his luck, would step on him in the Mystery Dun—
A pokemon.
The shadow spilled across his lone self lying there so pathetically and weakly. Protect Ashley, his mind screamed, protect Ashley. Yet stupid Munchie couldn't get himself to move anymore than he could his hand: less, since the rest of him didn't move at all. It was a small, coral-like thing—corsola—and it stepped closer, somewhat floated, moved was all: moved. Closer. To kill him. To kill Ashley—more emotion flooded him. This here... was this murder? Was he not killing Ashley right then as well? It didn't matter if he died, he was pretty useless; but this here? Wasn't he killing the poor little chimchar with the big hands and feet? Wasn't he killing her by not helping? H-he tried! He tried and tried and tried to muster it in him, but he ultimately fell. He'd given. He'd caved. He couldn't. He failed. Ashley would die because of him, right now. The pink thing lumbered onward, its dizzying mess of green eyes staring down upon him as if disapproving him. Though who could blame the corsola—he disapproved himself, honestly. His eyes, still drowning in tears yet to be shed, stiffly blinked. Nothing had come out yet. It hurt in his heart, what he had done, what was going to be done. Why couldn't he just reach over there and help her? Why?
Squirming in his heart, doing nothing but being still like a statue in the flesh, Munchie felt those tears strike down on him as the corsola hastily wobbled over him to peer at the chimchar from behind. From that moment, time began to skip and he dizzily lost sight of his surroundings but saw more pink lights flashing in front of him. Time passed, definitely, but he didn't know how long it had been or what was going on or anything, and he and Ashley just sat there. However time passed in those forsaken Mystery Dungeons, he still didn't feel hunger gnawing at them—but would Ashley? She still sat in a deformed, orange blob of unconscious chimchar. He should reach out to her—did he?—he didn't. The tears wanted to overflow again. With nothing else, the munchlax stuffed them. Hid them away.
The thought casually leaked unto his brain: what would Ashley think of this situation? Would she be... angry at him? He choked at the thought. Probably. He wouldn't get angry the other way around, and he hated that emotion—hated it, feared it—but he knew he deserved it.
As Munchie began to regain his bearings, the pink lights stopped flashing and he noticed that the area wrapped about him was swarmed with little water pokemon... and they didn't attack, but stared with identically complex green orbs. And they sniffed. One had his arm and its nose was stuffed into that arm and it really seemed to find the smell of his arm rather enticing. A small clump of them waddled around Ashley's orange smudge, cautiously, then casually, one by one, sniffing her and growing attached to some bit of her or another. Guilt wedged into his gut. Here they were, being sniffed by what had to be Mystery Dungeon pokemon, with those glowing green eyes and inability to do anything—turns out they didn't fight whatsoever. Still Munchie couldn't find it in him to do anything: pathetic munchlax. He felt if she had been tossed further in the Beach Cave he would have gone over and assisted her, but the majority of him hastily argued the same would be going on as now. And now involved corsolas sniffing their fur and him failing. The dusky-furred boy sighed angrily.
Another shadow.
Another pokemon.
His eyes darted for the brown creature stepping back and his beady eyes, which widened, upon sight. "See, I tried to tell the others that Spirit was smart when he made this guild!" the male chortled, seeming relieved and prideful, with his caramel brown chest puffed out proudly. The rest of his body was coated in a slightly darker shade of the caramel, except for his big, black-brown tail with the weird patterns and a small area coating his face, his buck-toothed mouth in the middle. "Why, spangle my lucky stars! Who the foo are you guys?" A little jovial, with a deep, laughable tone. Munchie immediately liked this guy. A bibarel, by the looks of it. "Well... mm. You're not respondin'. Prolly do us more good if I just scooped the both of you up and took you back to the guild, see what Spirit thinks of you. He's good with anomalies. This has to be an anomaly, if I've ever seen one—and I've seen more than I'd like to thanks to that nutcase." Casually, excessively casually, the bibarel used his massive, brown-furred arms to shoo off the corsola cluster and scoop the wet and shivering Munchie and Ashley with each arm. "You guys look like a mess! Geeee—eeez!
"I think you're listening, munchlax, so I'll let you know my name is Byrender, and I'm one of the members of something called Spirit Bright, which is a pretty cheesy name for Spirit's guild, but he likes it, so we put up with it. He's kinda funky, and that's okay I guess. I don't know how long you poor things've been stuck here, but I'll surely get you out right now." And that he did, feet pattering slowly and methodically—casually, Munchie commented—through the winding corridors that shined like stars, the magic coral of the magic Mystery Dungeon evident.
Byrender the bibarel, carrying the thin munchlax and chubby chimchar, which he found quite easy since neither were that big for their size, though the chimchar did have that pudgy thing, continued casually talking at the munchlax, and he didn't respond much, just awkwardly stared at the ground. Munchie's face burned with the thoughts locked in his skull, especially the ones about how he should have done something to help Ashley. Guilt felt awful, putrid, disgusting, lodged up in there, and it had no way to be removed and he kept feeling dumb and lousy and like a disease. But it... wasn't too bad, he supposed. Byrender seemed cool and Ashley liked him at least a little.
Well this day had sprung out of orbit: already he had Ashley and he had Byrender. Said head began to ache. Then he recalled that those stupid Mystery Dungeons, like the sun and the moon, were magic, and therefore they may have been in there for longer than one single little measly day. His eyes darted over and, surprisingly, landed on open, fiery eyes. Munchie didn't know what to say. Ashley had awoken and she still had sopping fur that he should have helped her with and she'll be mad at him for it, won't she. "Aaaaaaahhh... I'm fucking tired. What the hell happened aga—oohh. Oh yeah. Munchie, you got tossed in here by those bitch pokemon and I came after you—duh—and we were GONNA go and become part of that one fucking guild but then THE STUPID-ASS POKEMON CAPTURED YOU DAMMIT. Oh it looks like we're both safe now, okay. That's new. Interesting." She sighted the caramel paw uplifting her body and growled suddenly. "Why the fuck is this hand on my—"
"A-Ashley! Be nice! Byrender's helping us! He's part of the guild!"
"Wait what the fuck Byrender."
"Heelooooooo, tiny child~"
"I am NOT A FUCKING CHILD YOU LEARN YOUR MANNERS MISTER!"
"Okay someone needs to douse the attitude."
Ashley smirked. "I am doused. I am covered, in fucking, water."
"Yes I see missy." Her face bunched together and her fiery orbs found delight in glancing at Munchie momentarily after she stopped reading Byrender's lips for a quick flash of a second. Then the flaming orbs darted back up and her own lips moved slightly as she read and translated the bibarel's bucked speak for her own deaf ears to hear on their own. "Okay then. I dunno what the heck to think of this duo, but you both have matching wet fur and smell like the magic in those Mystery Dungeon pokemon, so I guess it's a little cute."
Ashley spat at that, pelting Byrender's toe. "Oh whoops sorry dammit."
He just... shrugged. Munchie sighed at the sudden airy attitude the bibarel had adapted to. "Eh. It's fine. I got real used to a lot of things when I came onto Spirit Bright—that's the guild I guess I'll be taking you to, then. Spirit himself is pretty interesting of a guy. You get used to it, if you'll be with us. But not if you're Jordan. Oh, not Jordan. Sometimes I really hope she doesn't slice off that guy's head, though I don't think she has it in her. Not—no, she does. She can get angry sometimes." Ashley nodded delightfully at that. Munchie liked watching her expression morph as Byrender continued talking in his pattered and deep tone, laughable and warm in its own way. "But I think between me and Drynt and even Mystic sometimes, between all of us—and Chindu too, right—we keep Jordan from attacking Spirit."
"Is there anyone else in your guild thingy?" Those fiery orbs really lit up just imagining all the possibilities.
"Nope!" returned Byrender cheerily. "Spirit's our leader, and Chindu's kind of like the next-in-command, but sometimes it's hard to tell since..." His voice dropped to a whisper. "Y'know, he's Spirit's boyfriend..." Then it returned to cheery banter. "But anyways! After that, there's me. I've been here the longest. And Jordan showed up some time ago too... Mystic's kind of young and new, and Drynt's gotta be our newest though. He's cool. I like him. Drrriiiiiiiinnnnt~"
Munchie wanted to ask a question about these friends of Byrender's, though at the same time he didn't think he could cope beneath their full attention... a-all for him... but suddenly Ashley's fire orbs were by his side so he had to take a chance. "Um... what kind of pokemon are your friends?" Somehow, even though he expected this possibility least: his question... worked. It worked. Like, how questions work, and Byrender—he even responded to it.
"Weeell... Spirit's a weirdly-colored wigglytuff. He's... white, but his ears and tail are orange. So there's that. And Jordan, she's a gallade—long, long, painful parent-hater story—and Mystic's a mudkip, princess of one of the kingdoms out there with all the Mystery Dungeons, and... Drynt's an elgyem. And, oh! Chindu's a chatot. How's that work for you?"
He blinked slowly. How would this information sit well..? Those pokemon... all... he shook himself. "U-h... th-tha..that's... n-n-n...nice..." From then on, Munchie decided to never ask Byrender an embarrassing personal question for this guy had no shame and would gallantly explain everything without thinking about it and Munchie feared that idea profusely. He did like Byrender, but embarrassing questions have those parts that must be carefully cut around so that nothing gets too... uncomfortable, with lack of easier wording. He squeaked at the thought. Already, he's admitted it: he liked Byrender and he liked Ashley.
Ashley, his apparent new partner to be stuck with him as they would wander into other Mystery Dungeons, just like this one, and he would have to find his will, and his courage, and other important, abstract ideas that he doubted he could pull off—glimpsed over at him just a little warmly other than the flames already in her eye. Munchie felt slightly confident she liked him. A great first step in comparison to no one whatsoever in his brain at all. Then there was Byrender, whose huge, fluffy, caramel arms held him and her. Byrender seemed chill and cozy enough, and there was also that tiny little miniscule unimportant detail that you know he didn't hate Munchie. Already a duo. Ashley and Byrender. He kept repeating that single notion because he felt like he would randomly wake up to nobody again. Ashley, though, seemed like a character his poor, innocent mind wouldn't be able to make up on its own. He'd never heard a soul curse as many times in its life as her in one sentence. Freaky, but... she seemed to... keep to herself, yet she liked Munchie. It meant something to him, either way. And meaning something to someone whose sole purpose was staring at the sunset meant something—a big something.
Eventually the munchlax with the dull-but-ringed-in-frail-hope eyes stared up around him and found that the Mystery Dungeon had faded as it had come, and after a shorter line in a matter of navigation and momentum, the bibarel with the humungous, chocolate-brown feet led his new friends—he had to be Byrender's friend after what he had been rescued from, him and Ashley, shivering at the memory and the guilt—by arm to the light again, the light of midday that meant he and Ashley had been there for at least a day, probably more, if he guessed correctly enough. The wear of that fated night when the waterlogged chimchar slapped upon him in the sand had already faded to nothing. He couldn't stick an estimate into how much time had passed, but it had been enough. Too much. Already his original sole purpose in life, to watch the sunset every night, had been broken.
Then Ashley's gaze fell upon him and he shrugged. Yeah, but Ashley already tore in there. He may as well roll with it. It seemed there was no other direction to go as it was, and it... honestly, felt like a ray of sunshine had revealed him now that the crazy chimchar had popped out of nowhere and claimed him to be her partner for the guild—the guild. He was going back into those Mystery Dungeons now, over and over again. Munchie shook himself because any other path didn't exist. Washed away like Ashley's chubby and long-fingered and -footed impressions in the sands, as what could have possibly been her first encounter with Zundentun at all. He only knew for sure with strong confidence that the ray of light zapping her into his world had to be surreal. Freaky. Different. New. Bad?
Well, it couldn't really be bad since it did gift him a character that would actually enjoy his presence in the universe and not pitch him into the dreaded Beach Cave of all places—which turned out much nicer than predicted—just because he eavesdropped constantly since he had no friends and no self-esteem. The thoughts rattled like a storm in his head as Byrender continued his enjoyable stroll, whistling through his buck teeth jovially and swinging his arms like a chimchar and a thin munchlax didn't collapse in there currently with their not-so-wet bodies still slightly shaking and shivering. His thick feet calmly stomped, stomped, stomped until crawling unto the presence of that final turn of Treasure Town, where it looped a hard left and eventually rose up a stacking, rising, massive slope to a hill with a massive view that stretched to the middle of Treasure Town—then all of it, as it rose a hill in the back of the midst of its clustered joys—and beyond, until the world hazed and one couldn't see the sun very well and some areas filled the sky with colors that weren't blue. And Mystery Dungeons, they dominated. He then focused his eyes through the foggy haze, hoping to gain a glimpse of that kingdom Mystic lived in and of course gaining no such view.
Byrender's pouf of a head turned and, with his body, faced that entrance to the pitifully small tent with admittedly pretty, white flaps and flowery orange edges, the top with a cap huge enough to swallow that tent by its head, white with cloudy green eyes and pointy floppy ears and a silly grin that stretched to the edges of the face. Spirit, had to be. Those ears were tinged in orange, and the face a powdery white, not like a too-lazy-to-paint because that paint job shined giddily in midday lighting, the sun casually looping from above, showering yellow where Mystery Dungeons didn't permeate and destruct its yellow or its sky's eggshell blue. Not many splotches, but not a tiny number either. These Mystery Dungeons in question, of course, the sly houndooms, stretched as far as the eye could see, and certainly farther than that as well. Zundentun wasn't small by any means. He'd heard Warldo happened to be a tiny chink of island in the least: this huge thing, not so much. Plus the Mystery Dungeons eroded to the water, so no one could really even tell where Zundentun ended anymore. Too much Mystery Dungeons. No way to hide. Only that hermit hole of Treasure Town where most pokemon—or was it most, if an entire kingdom actually did lie in those murky depths?—spent their days. Then again; or did most pokemon?
With gentle ease, Byrender bent his head and entered the tent easily, as if he'd done this multiple times—probably had—over a netting wire of brown sticks in a hole in front of the tent and traipsing down a creaky old ladder that swayed with every step, and it didn't help that both of his arms were tied with little pokemon he carried easily even if they did happen to be just half his size apiece, and that chimchar didn't have a small belly. An unruly THUNK echoed in the now-vast chambers of real grass on the ground and real windows with sunshine as he entered the first—first bottom?—floor where a mess of map-work and green colors lied. Like... green marking utensils. Munchie blinked blearily at the designs and maps, then Byrender had already ducked down another ladder and with another unruly THUNK landed on his feet on another floor with grass and windows cut into the sides of the hill.
"I'm hoooooommeee!" he cried merrily. Munchie deliberated it actually was the pouf of a pokemon's home so that must be casual enough. Sure and fast, a flurry of creatures spilled out into the small clearing of grasses from a variety of different rooms, the final doors just behind their crew—a white with orange highlights—pouring open and allowing a fluffy, white-furred with orange-tips creature to waltz in, a red-faced bird, his black feathers blushing angrily and back ranged with other rainbow feather colors, stuttered behind.
"Hey guys, check out these newbies I found! They wanna join!"
Ashley angrily scrabbled out of Byrender's caramel arm and dropped to the side, not before latching onto one of Munchie's pale feet and forcing him down as well. The duo sat in a hodgepodge of a heap at the bottom of their savior's feet. "Damn. What the fuck do we got here, my friend?" One of her feet slipped over an ear and he squeaked "ow" which she accompanied with "dammit sorry."
"So now we have more pokemon joining us?" A long-stretched line of elegant words filled by dark edges leaped out. The girl with the wispy white face and tall, bipedal stance had spoken. Jordan—right? The... female gallade? Admittedly easy to tell—as it had been with Ashley. Munchie's face burned already.
A squeakier though definitely also female tone rang out after: "Oh, joy, Jordan, they're so cute and small like me! Even if the chimchar iiiiis kinda pudgy. And the munchlax iiiiiiis kinda skinny." Mystic. Yeah. The mudkip princess thingy.
"Drriiiii-iiiiinnt! Whaddaya think!" Byrender again.
A sniff. This new voice, a little cold, a little stoic, a little emotional, rattled. "They'll be okay, I suppose. Time we got some new blood in this dump."
"MIND WHAT YOU'RE CALLING A DUMP PLEASE THANKS." A puffy bundle of large—though not as large as Byrender—white fur slammed into the green thing floating in the air beside him. Drynt. Spirit. But the attack seemed more... playful. Somewhat. These pokemon knew each other. Munchie could feel it in the air circulating about him. "So anyways, what do we haave here. Chimpy chimchar, what's your name?"
Ashley's face, currently shoved into Munchie's chest in their awkward position, knew nothing of the fact that she had been called. "U-um, sorry, sir, she's deaf... she didn't hear you..." Ashley, though, did read the words her new partner spoke and jumped out of his rumpled figure, leaving him on the ground and her large feet piled unto the grass, knees... still bent. Still shaggy and all funky. Weird chimchar, he decided slightly.
"I'm Ashley. The best fucker you'll ever meet, duh. My sole purpose is to drag myself and Munchie into this lively crew and do cool shit that you do because it's all I can!" Still he felt like Ashley covered hidden words, though she didn't and if she did hit it perfectly, just sounding happy and excited. The munchlax had regrettably eavesdropped way too many times in his life. Using a finger, she gestured at the sadistic lump on the ground still. "Munchie, get the hell up please."
So he did, skinny, shaggy blue pelt up for all to see. Jordan stood slightly taller than Byrender, he saw, who had taken a place beside her. She had long, long turquoise hair—straight and long—waving in a slight breeze about her, and these bangs that practically covered her eyes so he could hardly even tell what color they could be. Her upper-body was green, and scythe-like limbs crossed over her stomach, and above that was the spike protruding through her chest, like a normal dude gallade, but not quite. And she had the white legs. Looked... nearly normal. Sort of. "So you're Munchie," she stated calmly, quietly.
Beside her were the chatot and the mudkip, each a bit riled and the black-feathered chatot with the line of a fan flowing from his head and rainbow feathers, downed by white, the fluttery red toes and pinched beak—he kept on pacing and muttering something until he shook himself and blinked, speaking in a melodic and stuttered tone. "I-I wasn't doing what you bozos are thinking," were the first words Munchie ever heard in that pretty voice. He blinked. "A-anyways! I'm Chindu, next-in-command after Spirit."
"And you love him verrrrrry much~" said the mudkip next to him, her blue-finned face twitching with a grin.
"Mystic!" he squabbled. "Do you have to?"
"Yes, of course! You always say 'Honesty is the best policy~!'"
"But they don't need to outright know tha—"
"Ohhhhh, I get it, so they're like fucking gay. Huh."
"ASHLEY!" Munchie cried.
In the midst of the arguments, Drynt's gem-like green eyes silently slid shut and he floated in such position with his multicolored fingers poised and stubby green toes crossed in such way to suggest... meditation. As all of his friends argued. He didn't know what to think any longer and his head started aching a little. As well, the wigglytuff leader guy—Spirit—has flounced up to Ashley, and with his thick, fluffy white hand on her orange-haired head, stated calmly, "Yep, I'm gay."
That shut everyone up quite easily.
"Soooo. Yeah. We're all pretty cranky and tired and done with right now, as you can tell~ My name... is Spirit, don't forget it—kinda rhymes, eh? So you guys look tired, and I know us guys are tired, after our little expedition prior and Byrender got all lost and it was funny, so why don't we all start getting situated after everyone takes a very long nap?"
That was quite the opening. Munchie didn't know what to say, the names and looks of pokemon rattling and shifting and simply—losing—in his head. "We have different tunnels for everyone made so they can get all their rest, and then I've got mine and Chindu's room"—the chatot blushed angrily and stuttered more at that—"and... we have one guest room. We're not used to guests. So... uh... if you don't mind staying in there together until we can sort junk out—then that's be all fine and dandy. Anyone disagree?"
Blinking slowly, tiredness descending upon the duo like a wave, Munchie didn't really intake the words splayed on top of them that he'd be in the same room as Ashley for a night, but the chimchar, who was forced to decipher every word or would lose it, didn't care and shrugged idly. Munchie seemed like her only friend as it was, and he didn't seem to be a bad guy. By the end of the saunter for sleep, the others had already dispersed and Munchie was left in a cool, dirt-smoothed tunnel with the chimchar he'd struggled to give warmth to in the Mystery Dungeon and failed.
Of course, sleeping beside her ailed him so he grasped a small bundle of hay and stuffed it to another edge of the tunnel, quickly avoiding her entire warm fiery soul.
Guilt edged Munchie as he passed into a dark void of sleep, drool already trickling down a corner of his lip.
YES I FINISHED I AM TIRED
Ashley: just curious why the hell are you always complaining about being tired in your author notes.
Me: …I seem to usually end up doing something busy and tiring in my life right before finishing a chapter. Which will proollly be what my Thursday is like too, gwah. So... I am going on this trip to another place for like two weeks and plan to have chapter two done before then and two chapters done on each of the two days it takes to get to the place then from, so you won't hear from me but you can promise Ashley is digesting brain cells.
Munchie: A-ah... Ashleeyyy...
Me: And Munchie is trying to chastise her.
Anyway, without further adooooo~ Thank you reader for making it through this gigantic first chapter, and be aware all chapters are this gigantic. :3 But you got this bruh. Also Ashley curses a lot. Just pointing that out there.
Ashley: If you're so fucking blind you couldn't tell. Or deaf. Like me. DEAF BUDDIES OH FUCK YES