A figure stirred.

His first sensation was the slight breeze in the air, bringing an almost imperceptible chill. Next was the feel of rough, knotty bark against the back of his head and coarse dirt beneath his back. He opened eyes slowly to see a thick canopy of leaves above him. No light was permitted through the swaying green blanket, but it seemed to be either dawn or late evening, judging by the dim sunlight streaming at a sharp angle out of the tree's reach.

With a soft groan, he pushed himself up into a sitting position, blinking drearily in his post-slumber stupor. The strangeness of the situation floated into his fuzzy consciousness like a stream of bubbles in water. Odd. What exactly am I doing in a forest? He glanced at the root where his head had previously lain, rubbing his head with a paw. And how did I fall asleep here? Not exactly a prime napping spot. He slowly got to his feet. Might as well figure out… I… have… paws…

He was also apparently a buizel.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?"


Welcome to the world of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon.

Ages ago, a catastrophe shook the world to its very core, tearing at the very strands of reality and bringing all of civilization to its knees.

Time has passed. The world has steadily recovered from the apocalypse; tribes, empires, nations rising to fill in the voids created. Built on the ruins of the dead civilizations, the new flourished. Not as civilizations of humans, but of pokémon.


"Oh dear."

A lombre paced nervously around a covered wagon.

"Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear," he muttered, wringing his hands continuously, fearfully glancing at the towering statuesque trees that washed their surroundings away in deep shadows that contrasted sharply with the golden sunlight sweeping out from under a thick bank of clouds. A rhyhorn harnessed to the wagon ignored him, lying still for the most part except to bend down to sniff and nibble at the sparse blades of grass.


The pokémon were the ones to pick up the reins of the world, having somehow gaining the full measure of the gifts of Uxie, Azelf, and Mespirit like the humans have. With their newfound intelligence, they took the task of repairing the world into their own hands (, paws, appendages), ruling themselves, no longer bound by the actions of humans. They were now their own masters.

Not all of them have actually advanced in this manner. Many still exist in the wilderness as simple beasts, no brighter than the majority that existed before the cataclysm, to the point that civilized pokémon can't recognize any semblance of language from them. Some of these have actually become domesticated – or tamed, as they are called – living as beasts of burden, trained battlers, or even pets. It seems that they aren't wholly devoid of the three gifts, as they have shown themselves to be capable of learning and over time, joining the ranks of society.


"Oh dear, oh dear," he said again. The dull purple cloak he wore rustled as he turned around to continue his pacing. "Oh dear oh dear oh dear oh–"

"Shut up! We're trying to work here!" a voice from the other side of the wagon shouted. The rhyhorn's eyes lazily glanced over to the source for a brief moment.

The lombre jumped, and quickly turned to the source of the outburst. "'Trying to work here'? 'Trying to work here'?" he repeated after moving into the sunlit side of the wagon the others were on. "Your job is to escort me and my cargo safely to Jigsaw! And now look where we are! On the edge of a mystery dungeon!" he shouted, gesturing to the dark, encircling trees.

A forest of tall, massive trees with spreading branches and myriads of needle-leaves; trees of gray and black rather than green, an eerie lifelessness set against the burning sky of sunset.

Trees made of noting but solid stone.


Despite their perseverance, the recovering civilizations are threatened by the phenomena known as mystery dungeons.

The cause of the cataclysm remains a mystery, assumed to be only known by the gods themselves, but the effects of it today are immediate and inescapable. The land is scarred with pools of chaos that spilled from the shattered fragments of reality left behind. Like massive, intangible glaciers, the chaos slowly worms across the world, spanning between settlements and plaguing travelers.

It's not quite as horrifying as it initially sounds. The chaos itself is usually extremely diluted. The most anyone would notice of it would an occasional creek that flows upstream, or one's tendency to easily walk in circles if one was not on a marked pathway. Furthermore, this chaos will stop wherever one sets down and makes a home, a village, a city. However, knots of much more obvious – much more dangerous – chaotic energy may form.

These are mystery dungeons. Places where the very fabric of reality just isn't. It unravels into a system where order breaks down and partially succumbs to the chaos. Trees grown out of stone, active volcanoes frozen over, bottomless ravines, waterfalls climbing out of the sea… They are dangerous – in many ways. They are seemingly malevolent, ever-shifting mazes that snatch at any prey they can get and dooms them to wander hopelessly. If the victim is fortunate, this will be all that happens. If the victim is not so fortunate, the chaos will break into their minds, clawing at their sanity, until they become a nothing more than a drone of the chaos. Mystery dungeons are an omnipresent terror, but there exists a defense.


"And whose fault is that?" another one of them dryly asked. There were several of them gathered around a map and a compass. The ones nearest the wagon were casually leaning back against it. (Casually! Didn't they have any idea what situation they were in?) In the previous town, the lombre had been fortunate enough to stumble on a troupe of them who were travelling in his direction anyways and offered a very cheap price for such a large escort. Of course, he wasn't feeling fortunate at the moment.

"'And whose fault is that?' Yours of course! You are the guides here, aren't you?" he said as he moved in front of the group, so that he casted a shadow onto them.

One of them, a mawile began to mutter something in a foreign babble to the one beside her. The cloaked monferno, looking rather sheepish (he ought to be, he was the one who told the lombre to shut up), chuckled at her words.

"That's hardly a fair argument," another piped up from right by the map. "You kept whining at us about 'wasting time' and 'the profits were wasting' and pretty much forced us to cut the shortest path around as possible."

"Yes, well…"

"We did recommend you play this round safe and stick to the marked path. It's not smart to bet against our advice," a sableye said.

"Well, that…"

"They're right, you know."

"Don't blame us."

"Baka."

"Yup."

"Not our fault."

"The sunset is pretty."

At the non-sequitur comment, all the heads jerked to the drifloon floating above them. He didn't respond to this or add anything at all for a while, so they turned back to looking at the lombre.

He sighed unhappily and cursed his dependency on explorers.


Sometimes, pokémon are somehow "touched" by the chaos of mystery dungeons, making them more or less immune, or at least resistant to their confounding effects. The cause of this condition is completely unknown: some have had it since birth, others find it activating while they're trapped in a mystery dungeon, or even after multiple such trips with no sign of it beforehand.

Regardless, the touched are capable of finding their way wherever they are in any mystery dungeon and are safe from the threat of becoming trapped or corrupted. Some wielders of this talent only use it for their own ends; they commit whatever crimes and thefts they please and flee into mystery dungeons, free from any sort of retribution by authorities.

Others will use their touch for generally more noble purposes. They form crews that will act as peacekeepers of the lands. They will take the jobs that no one else can perform and fulfill them. From guiding merchants through the chaotic fields to hunting down the more dangerous denizens of mystery dungeons, from capturing elusive rouges to rescuing lost victims within the dungeons. These guardians, known as explorers, do what they can to serve, to mend, to protect the world they live in.


"Well, regardless of whom to blame," the larvitar, an odd paper tag over his right eye, suddenly said, standing up and rolling up the map that he had laid out, "We should get moving. The longer we remain in the mystery dungeon, the greater our risk of getting caught by the rule of six. I'm surprised we haven't felt it yet."

"I cannot agree more," the kirlia said, adjusting the denim jacket he was wearing.
"Now with haste, before descends
The glinting curtain of day's end,
We travel forth, sunrays beside,
The golden beacon be our guide," he proclaimed dramatically, pointing to the sunset.

"Came up with that on the spot, did you?" the larvitar muttered, smoothly shouldering the humongous backpack he had been carrying.

"I did, in fact," the kirlia said in a terse reply, offended.

"Well, I liked it," a young dratini told him.

"Ah, what a blessing it is for one to appreciate the artistry of words–"

"Wait a minute!" the lombre cried out, partially to keep the kirlia from talking anymore. "We're heading to the sun? That's in the west! We're in the northeast edge of the mystery dungeon, aren't we? It's common sense that we should be moving away from the sunset, isn't it?"

"Didn't we tell you already?" the sableye grinned at him. "Try not to bet against us. Not even for such a thing as common sense."

The lombre began to reply, but suddenly, the rhyhorn let out a startled cry from in front of the wagon, rattling its contents.

"Huh?"

A loud crash came from one of the trees surrounding the wagon. With audible cracks and a low grumble, one of stone trees began to tilt, lean, and fall ponderously towards the wagon.


Of course, the chaos alone is not the only threat presented by mystery dungeons.

The dungeons are inhabited by pokémon that are even more devoid of the three gifts than natural wild pokémon. These ferals, as they are known, are mere constructs of the mystery dungeons, not even of flesh and blood, but of the chaotic energy. They are artificial copies of real pokémon with no purpose but to destroy and to spread the chaos.

Individually, they are relatively weak: a few relatively mnor blows is enough to dispatch most of them, and even without counting that weakness, any trained fighter could hold their own against a single one. Unfortunately, ferals don't come in single ones. They come in swarms.


The buizel flinched from the vine whip that slapped him across the face. "Damn it," he growled, stumbling back and clutching at his muzzle. "Where did all of you come from?"

The wall of bellsprout didn't respond in any way. Instead, they began throwing more vine whips at him. He grimaced and dropped down to all fours, avoiding the first few, and then sprang to the side as loud snaps hit the ground where he had previously been crouching. When he landed, he suddenly looked backwards, realizing some had snuck up on him. The bellsprout behind him reared their heads back. He took the opportunity to dash right between them. By the time they had released a cloud of noxious purple poison powder, the buizel had managed to get a good distance between himself and the group.

I wake up in the middle of a forest, I'm somehow a buizel, and I'm suddenly assaulted by bellsprout. Don't I at least get the opportunity to contemplate the sheer absurdity of the situation? The bellsprout apparently had no plans to let him do anything, because the half dozen or so of the aggressors suddenly began to dash at him, their tiny roots flying through the air as they sped forwards along the ground.

There was plenty of opportunity to flee at that point. There was still a lot of ground the swarm had to cover to reach him, which would give him enough time to turn and run for it. As a buizel, which were known for their exceptional speed, he certainly was capable of outrunning them any day. On the other hand, as a buizel…

He instinctively flicked a paw, and a globe of water began to form in front of it. I can fight back.

He suddenly dove forward, past the front-runners, right into the middle of the swarm. Before any of them could react, he rolled onto his hind feet, brought his paw up, and gave one of them a mighty punch to the head, slamming the mass of water into it just as it burst. The bellsprout's head then exploded into a mass of static.

What the…?


The stone tree continued to fall over, creating an ominous rumbling from its base. It was a tall, thick one, easily capable of crushing the covered wagon irreparably the moment it hit. The rhyhorn started to cry out unintelligibly and try to move away, seeing the shadowy pillar fall in its direction. Unfortunately, the wagon was parked facing the tree and the best the rhyhorn could do was to maneuver itself out of the way, leaving the wagon vulnerable.

"Oh noooo!" the lombre cried, holding his head in panic as he realized this. "My cargo! It's doomed! We're doomed!"

The tree was now at a 45-degree angle, a massive, growing black slab in the orange sky. Suddenly, it exploded.

A flash of fire and light suddenly burst from the center of the tree, shoving it up slightly with the force, and splitting it into two parts. The surge of pressure hit the ground, ruffling the lombre's leaf-hat in the wave of heat. "Wh– What?" he mumbled weakly as a rain of small rock fragments from the tree branches also fell.

"Nice shot, Haru!"

The monferno's mouth could be seen grinning under the heavy black goggles he had on as he set down some kind of bronze pipe. Yet, the tree, even in two pieces, was still falling, the explosion having only bought them a few scant seconds.

"Clay! Get me up!" the mawile suddenly shouted to the larvitar behind her.

"On it," he grunted, suddenly digging his hands into the ground. With a yell, he suddenly pulled them up. A block of dirt suddenly came up with his hands, forming a tower right underneath the mawile, which sent her flying into the air.

As she sped towards the bottom half of the tree, the giant false jaw hanging off the back of her head suddenly began to gleam. Upon meeting the extending branches of the tree, she crossed her arms in front of herself, guarding against the prodding stones. Her momentum carried her to the trunk easily as the rocky twigs cracked impotently against her armor and iron skin. With a quick shout, she deftly spun her head around, slamming the gleaming, massive jaw through the branches into the dark stone. The blow pulverized the tree where it hit, splitting it into two pieces again, but this time, both pieces were actually flying sideways, finally landing a safe distance from the wagon and everyone else.

Meanwhile, a slight glow was surrounding the upper half of the blown-up tree. The kirlia gritted his teeth, shifting his legs for a better stance as he held his arms out with the same glow. The tree's fall was slowing down as his Psychic tried to push it away. Unfortunately, big stone logs were heavy, and stopping it completely before it crushed the wagon was out of his ability. Fortunately, he didn't have to.

The drifloon suddenly dove underneath the falling tree, instantaneously inflating to ten times his size. The expansion also caused his rubber-like body to slam into the falling stone, bringing it to a stop against the indent it made on the drifloom's body just before he touched the wagon below him. After a moment of stillness, the stone tree, half of its branches crushed against his body, bounced away. The drifloon suddenly deflated into his original miniscule size, releasing all that extra mass in a beam of white energy, which smashed through the tree, obliterating it in midair.

The lombre stood amongst the raining rock shards from all of the incidents, gawking as the remaining fragments of the stone tree crashed into the ground or the other surrounding trees. "They… they actually blew the whole thing up…" He was suddenly feeling very fortunate having hired these explorers.

"Ha hah! Great job, everyone!" the last of the explorers shouted out, as the mawile landed smoothly on her feet, the kirlia bent over panting from the exertion, and the drifloon floated lazily down. The shaymin, flying through the air, circled around all of them. "Ha hah! Yuzuki! That was awesome! You just slammed that thing to bits like it was nothing! Clay, you too! Hah hah, and –"

"Um, Jaden?" the dratini said in a small voice, interrupting him.

"Yeah, Lyn?" the shaymin answered, looking down at her while floating upside-down.

"Over there…" She pointed to the original base of the tree. On top of it stood a tall kabutops, its scythe claws shining in the golden sunset. Around it was an assortment of feral sudowoodo and cranidos, all obviously picking for a fight.


And ferals aren't the only hostiles in mystery dungeons. As mentioned before, civilized pokémon lost within mystery dungeons may become corrupted to the point where their minds are nothing more than hosts for the chaos. This process will also happen to wild pokémon as well. The strongest of these corrupted ones become agents of the mystery dungeons, either striking at any intruders alone, or leading swarms of inferior ferals on raids outside and within mystery dungeons.

The corruption isn't purely mental. Extended exposure to the chaos of mystery dungeons will develop odd … mutations. It isn't unusual to find corrupted with lopsided armor-like plates, gangly limbs where they should be short and stout, claws the size and shape of sickles… The corrupted are horrors to look upon. Yet, as stated, any being that stays in mystery dungeons for too long are also vulnerable. This includes wandering innocents, rouges, and explorers. The mutations they experience aren't usually as extreme, but they exist. Sometimes, the only thing that separates these pokémon from the corrupted is their possession of their own minds.


The corrupted kabutops stood hunched over, the spikes on its back creating ominous clicking noises as they rattled against each other. It raised its pair of wicked serrated scythes threateningly.

"Oh ho," the sableye grinned. "I know this one. Got a nice bounty over its head, it does."

"Ooh, a bounty?" the shaymin said, looking at the corrupted with a grin. "Well, what is it, Hobbes?"

"It's not Hobbes, it's Obsidian," he said gruffly, then quickly returned to his sly tone. "The 'Granite Carpenter,' for eight hundred and fifty coins. A nice find. Seems our coming here was in fact a fortunate turn of events."

"'Granite Carpenter'?" the kirlia repeated with a chuckle, still slightly panting from earlier. "Heh, I can see where the name comes from, seeing as how it cut that stone tree down," he said, gesturing to the remains of the tree they had destroyed, "but it's lacking a certain something in the threat department. Heh heh."

"It could be worse," the monferno said. "Could you imagine something like, the 'Granite Lumberjack'?" This raised a few chuckles.

"Or 'Timber Rock'?" the larvitar suggested with a snicker.

"Try this one!" the sableye shouted, doubling over in laughter. "'Woody the Stoney'!"

"Um," the lombre muttered as the group broke into hysterics. "Aren't you guys forgetting something?"

The ignored kabutops suddenly let out a piercing shriek, interrupting all them. It thrust out a scythe, and the ferals began to run at the group.

"Oh yeah, we didn't we?" the shaymin said, still grinning. "Okay! Everyone! Yuzuki, Clay, and I go for the bounty! Everyone else cover us and the wagon!"

"Okay!" they all responded, dropping everything and rushing into battle.

"Let's do this!"


The buizel panted as the last of the bellsprout fell to the grassy ground, its leafy body vanishing into sparks, jagged lines, and distorted colors. The small clearing was now completely empty except for the buizel himself, all traces of the bellsprout swarm nonexistent, as if they never were.

All of them were like that? Just what were those things? The orbs of water he had spinning on either paw vanished as he bent over, sucking mouthfuls of air into his lungs. He suddenly clutched at his chest in pain. Damn it, I must've accidently breathed in some of that poison powder during the fight. He glanced around the forest. It shouldn't take too long to find pecha berries here. I can count myself lucky for that.

Wait.

He took another look around the forest, realizing something was very wrong. Then it hit him: the tree he had woken up on was gone. None of the surrounding trees had the same bark and roots. It was as if it had simply vanished while he was fighting.

What the hell? What is this place? What am I even doing here? Last night, I…

I…

I can't remember anything.


Many tales exist in this world.


A flareon padded through a darkening forest, a leafeon bouncing happily behind her.

A gabite, a sudowoodo, and a poliwhirl laughed heartily as they bumped frothing mugs in a bar.

A poochyena wearing a blindfold dragged a skull across a dirt road.

A scyther, a glaceon, an ariados, and a gliscor packed up their camp at the edge of a forest.

A cubone and a hoothoot frantically argued, pointing at a small, crude map they held.

A mismagius floated above the edge of a building, watching the sunset.

A charmeleon dunked a glowing red vambrace into a tub of water, releasing a heavy cloud of steam.


Each story is interwoven with those around it.


The air in the room was cold, damp, and stifling. It was completely dark, except for a sliver of light jutting out of a crack near the ceiling, far above. The scarce light only allowed mere outlines of objects to be visible. Most of the objects were chains. Long lengths of chains spread across the room, from the edges of the ceiling and the floor to a central point, where they latched on to a thin malnourished body covered in ragged clumps of fur.

There was a rattle that echoed around the room as the chains briefly clanked with movement. The lucario's eyes opened. "Soon…"


This is the story you will be reading.


The kabutops, unconscious and wrapped up in glowing bands of energy, was tossed into the back of the wagon.

"Well that's taken care of," the shaymin said with satisfaction, as the mawile dusted her hands after the task. Remains of the battle now scarred the clearing: scorched craters left by explosions, blocks of earth that jutted up, and other such happenings. The lombre guided the rhyhorn back to the wagon. It had grown restless during the battle, prompting him to release it so it could join. Being used as a beast of burden hadn't diminished its fighting capabilities much.

"The bounty is really 850?" the mawile asked. "It was very weak for that amount, I think."

"That was just the circumstances," the larvitar told her. "Alone, you're already ridiculously powerful, and then there's the fact that we outnumbered it to consider."

She shrugged after a moment. "Soudesunee."

"Then let's be off, shall we?" the kirlia said. "The bands I put on our 'carpenter' aren't going to hold forever, you know."

"Yeah," the shaymin nodded. "Now, let's–" Suddenly, his body shrank from the reindeer-like shape into a hedgehog, causing him to fall onto the ground from where he was floating. "Ow!"

"Jaden! Are you okay?" the dratini asked, sliding up to him.

"Yeah, ha hah, looks like I run out of sun," he said, getting back on his feet with a smirk.

"It's that late? All the more reason to hurry," the kirlia said.

"Indeed. Everyone, gather around and put your hands in."

As one, all of the explorers moved to do so, forming a circle, and placed whatever hand they could into the center.

This is the story of a lost soul.

No… I do remember something…

My name…

My name is Pace.

This is the story of a guild.

"Let's do this! All together! One! Two! Three!"

"JOUTEI!"

This is a story of a legend.


2percent presents

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Joutei


Yes! Joutei is back and better than ever, people!

Alright, those of you who know this is a (second) rewrite are probably wondering what makes this version so different. Well, if the intro alone hasn't answered that, one, I've spent over a year entertaining that question, for the sole purpose of making this more than Joutei v3.0. Two, and this is a biggie, no. More. Retcons. With the previous versions of the story, I couldn't leave a chapter up for a week without rewriting it into submission. If you were to look at v2, you'd find some segments that hardly make sense anymore. Now, I've decided to set this story in stone, and leave chapters as they are once they are published, except for some trivial fixes. Three, I'm not going to give the rest of the answers. You can just read and think of them yourself.

And I hope you will understand, I picked a bad time to start. You know, this is my senior year of high school, I have college applications that need filling out, that crap, and by next fall, I'll actually have to start going to college. Anyone who's been there knows what that can do to your schedule. But, meh, there's no time like the present. :D

In other news, TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Vocabulary. Google it. Read a few pages if you have an evening to waste. I will be using TV Trope terms a lot in my author notes.

And in more other news I bet none of you have noticed the lack of disclaimer at the top.

And in even more other other news, I bet those of you who didn't immediately scrolled up.

Review!