[Incoming Transmission]

I apologize! Please don't come hurt me! The plot bunnies have been having a party in my head! A college frat house party!

Anyway, I'm actually writing this story in two directions at once, and even though it gets confusing, at least I know where I'm going! And when the two pieces meet up, I get to give you one gigantic upload straight through to the end!

And yes, as the name (and my writing style) implies, this will draw on other stories of mine, most notably The Pendulum Effect with the character names. IT IS NOT RELATED TO THE PENDULUM EFFECT IN ANY WAY OTHER THAN THAT. However, other stories will be referenced, and the actual resolution-end-of-story-ness for another story is in the end of this one, so be on the lookout for that.

Anywho, here it is:

Chapter 1: On the Beach at Dusk

Pain. Excruciating, impossible-to-describe pain. That was all I could feel. Then… nothing.

At a beach, somewhere

'Ugh… Where am I?' I opened my eyes, before quickly shutting them due to brightness. Instead, I listened.

Water.

I was somewhere near water that was really bright. 'Well, that's something, I guess.' Then, I felt the ground around me.

Sand.

Alright, somewhere really bright with sand. But since there was water, it couldn't be a desert, so it must be a beach. Or maybe an oasis in the desert. 'I'm going to need to open my eyes again…' Before I could follow through with that course of action, I heard a voice.

"Oh my goodness! Are you okay?"

Something touched me, and I opened my eyes with a groan to see a vulpine face hanging over me. Predictably, I acted with shock, and sat up, unintentionally smashing our heads together in the process. The unanimous consensus on that particular action was "Ow…"

Recovering quickly, the strange six-tailed fox in front of me then proceeded to question me relentlessly, without any pauses in between for me to answer.

"What's your name? Where did you come from? What's your favorite color? How many siblings do you have? What was your seventh-cousin-thrice-removed's college roommate's best friend's mother's stepbrother's great-aunt's maiden name? How—"

"Wait, what was that last one?"

"Never mind. How did you end up unconscious out here?"

"Um… I don't know, actually. I just remember being in a lot of pain before waking up with your face in front of me."

We both chuckled nervously as we recalled that particular incident, before the Vulpix reiterated one of… her… that seems right, they smell female… before she reiterated one of her questions. "So, what's your name?"

"It is often considered common courtesy to introduce oneself before inquiring into the identity of others." I paused, realizing the way I had said that. "Well, not to sound rude or anything."

"Oh yeah! I forgot about that! I'm Kurama, nice to meet you! I'm going to become the greatest exploration team leader ever, and I'm also going to save the world at some point along the line, too." The now-identified Kurama held out her paw to me; inquiring for a third time now, "What's your name?"

I took the paw in my own and shook it as I introduced myself. "I'm Xi, and I can't remember a thing from before today, and have no idea what I want to do in my life. Nice to meet you as well."

Kurama then proceeded to spout off at high speeds while jumping with joy, "Great! Now I've got a new friend! Do you want to join me and make an exploration team? I couldn't make one before because there was no one else I knew to team up with, but now I've met you and I'm so happy because I've always wanted to have my very own exploration team and please, please, please say yes so that—"

I slapped my paw over her mouth before she could continue. "You're really hyperactive; I get that, but at least ask questions at a speed I can understand, okay?" A nod. "Okay, go." I presently took my hand off of the vulpine muzzle, before Kurama began speaking again, albeit at a slower, more serious, and controlled pace.

"I'm glad that you can be my friend, and I was wondering if you would be willing to form an exploration team with me. Due to the current number of people willing to join me, I have not been able to form a team, though it has been my dream for quite some time now. Now that you are here, I was hoping that, with your help, I might be able to form a team."

I pondered the proposition for a minute, before nodding slowly to Kurama, causing her to start jumping around in childish joy, which in turn caused me to facepaw. Five seconds later, I lifted my paw saw a strange blue bat and a floating purple ball flying away into a nearby cave as Kurama looked on in horror. Obviously, I'd missed something big.

"What just happened?"

Kurama just stood there for a second, unmoving, before breaking into tears and collapsing on the sand. "My treasure! They stole my personal treasure!"

I glanced between my new friend and the cave that the thieves had disappeared into, and resisted the urge to facepaw again. "So, they came up, took away this personal treasure, and ran—erm, flew off, and you did nothing? What happened to the hyperactive kit that I knew who was jumping with joy at my willingness to be her friend a few seconds ago?" I somehow found myself doing a strange pose while delivering my pep talk. "We're an exploration team now! We stop bad people, protect the innocent, and save the world! So let's go in there, stop the bad people, and get back your stolen item!" I picked up the sniveling vulpine and slung her onto my back, before marching off into the cave to find two certain undesirable characters and beat them up.

Beach Cave, B5F

I had finally managed to carry Kurama down to the bottom floor of this stupid maze, and I plopped her down on the ground, all the while glaring at the two flying weirdoes at the other end of the room.

"Alright, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. The easy way is that you give us back the item, and then we give you a nice pummeling for stealing. The hard way is we give you a nice pummeling for stealing, and then keep beating you up until you give back the item, to the point of prying it out of your cold, dead fingers if necessary. Understood?"

Despite my own being really short and the two troublemakers not having any fingers to speak of in the first place, I still managed to intimidate them quite well, and they quickly dropped the item and fled towards the exit. As they left, I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Well, I'm glad that worked out! I don't think I'd have been able to beat them up that easily, seeing as I can't remember a thing."

I looked around the room I was in, and saw that there was nobody else in the room other than my unconscious compatriot.

"…And I'm talking to nobody."

Beach Cave, B4F

Kurama managed to rouse herself from her catatonic state as I was carrying her out of the cave, and suddenly started squirming to free herself.

Her protests grew louder rapidly. "Wait! Why are we leaving? What about my treasure?"

I silently held up said treasure, and her struggling died down instantly.

"Oh… Okay…"

The Beach,

At dusk

I plopped Kurama back down on the sand in front of me, along with her Personal Treasure (for all it had just put us through, and all it would later, it deserved to be a proper noun). "Alright, now, where were we? Ah, yes, exploration team formation, right?"

"Hai," Kurama nodded, "I think so."

"Hai?"

"Sorry, dialect differences from where I was born. It means yes."

"Got it. So…" I scratched my head in thought. I knew I was forgetting something… "Ah! Of course! What should we name our team?"

"…"

"…"

"…I got nothing."

I sighed, "Yeah, same here. I'm sure we'll figure something out. Anyway, where can we go to get registered as a team?"

"Well… we could go to the Wigglytuff Guild… but most of them don't like me…"

"Then screw them! We don't need to register to be awesome! We can do this on our own!" I found myself doing the same pose as I had when I gave my motivational speech a mere hour earlier in the same exact spot. 'I hope this doesn't become habit…'

I shook myself out of those disturbing thoughts, and turned back towards Kurama. "So! First off, shelter! Do we have somewhere to stay? After we figure that out, how about food and water? Do we have those?"

She blinked at me slowly, as if not comprehending what I'd said. "Wait, make a unaffiliated rescue team? Can we do that?"

"No idea! But it sounds like a great idea to me! For some reason, I get the feeling that the guild takes a lot of the money that you earn on jobs for itself, so this way, we get more money to do stuff!"

Another slow blink, before a huge grin spread across her face. "That sounds like a great idea! I've got shelter and water in my house on the far side of the town, and food shouldn't be too hard to get… maybe…" She hung her head in a dismayed fashion.

"It's not just the guild that doesn't like you, is it?"

'Ooh, a cringe. There are definitely a lot of people that don't like her. The whole town, maybe, excluding a couple people, I'd guess.'

"I'll take that as a yes. So what level of widespread dislike are we talking here? Basic ignoring, shunning, getting thrown out of shops, open hatred, open violence, organized mobs―"

'Another cringe. That is definitely an extremely bad level of dislike.'

"Okay, so it's really bad. Alright, show me the way to the house, and tomorrow I'll get a few supplies and find a job for us to work on."

"H-hai. Follow me."

As we took off from the beach, I saw small drops of water intermittently hitting the ground near Kurama. 'She's crying…'

Eight minutes later,

Sharpedo Bluff

By the time we reached town, Kurama had stopped crying. Instead, she plastered on a mask of indifference to her features. However, having seen her without it, I saw the pain in her eyes. It was the pain not of deep longing, but of fear. It wasn't just any normal fear, either, but pure, unadulterated fear that something unspeakably horrible was going to happen to her. It brought a shadow over my heart that anyone would try to harm someone as pure as her. Then and there, as we walked through the town, I vowed to protect her from that fear.

After leaving the town, she relaxed quite a bit, eventually dropping the mask when we reached a large bluff. She gave a small, sad smile to me as we reached the edge, then turned to a large rock.

"It may not be much," she sighed, "but it's the home that I have."

With that, she pressed her paw to a small indent in the rock, and I heard a soft click. The rock slowly and silently moved upwards on hidden hinges, revealing a stairway going down into the bluff. I let out a low whistle.

"That… is some impressive technology there."

Kurama smiled slightly―a real, genuine, happy smile―at the praise. "It's been here for longer than I've lived here. I actually found the place by accident one day when…" Her head drooped again as she trailed off, and I placed a comforting paw on her shoulder.

"It's okay; you don't need to talk about it until you want to."

She gave a small shake, before leading the way down the stairs. "I'm sorry," she called back over her shoulder, "it's just that it brought back some bad memories that I'd rather nobody knew about, that's all."

As soon as I had stepped down the stairs, the rock started to slowly move back into place, settling over the top of the stairs with barely a whisper of noise. The stairs were perfectly carved angles at one point, but they sagged slightly in the middle where countless feet had worn them through the ages. 'For something to have been worn down by walking… how long has this been here?'

I was brought out of my musings about that stairs by the stairs, or rather by the huge room they opened onto. The view over the ocean visible between the jagged spires lining the rim of the cave was nothing short of spectacular, even with the setting sun shining right in your face. In fact, that probably enhanced the effect of it even more, with the bright reflection on the water looking like a pathway to your dreams… or… something… equally sentimental.

Speaking of water, a beautiful spring of clear water bubbled up from the rocks at the back of the cavern, making a small pool, before draining out over the edge into the ocean below. I stood back and marveled at the room. "It's beautiful…" I breathed.

She smiled again, this time a huge, meowth-in-the-larder kind of grin. "Well, like I said," she giggled, "it may not be much, but it's home."

...And there you have it! I hope you all like it, and R&R and all that jazz and stuff.

[Transmission Terminated]

(P.S. Worship Log-sama, for he is the almighty savior of the ninja!)