Ripples of Consequence

Now you've guys have gone and gotten me all blushy. I'm glad so many of you seem to like this little ole story of mine~! It means a lot to get your feedback! But please, do point out if I'm doing something that seems off; if something's broken, I'll want to fix it. If something is flat, I'll want to know so I can pump it up so full of air that it'll blow up in all of our faces! I implore you all for constructive criticism.

Now that my rant is out of the way, a recommendation~! We have a relatively new author here on FanFiction and his name is "Xinsert name hereX." I came across his little gem of a work when zombicidal-maniac sent me a PM(you should really go read his stuff, by the way). Go read "Everyone's a Critic." If you want another well done original PMD fic, go read his. Trust me, you'll want to follow him!

L, disclaimer please~!

L: ArchShadow does not own Pokemon. If he did, he'd use the enormous amounts of money he'd have to create a zoroark. 'Cause he wants one.

(On a slightly different note, all that up there was written a long time ago ^^; Sorry for my laziness!)

Chapter Song: Falldown by Hatsune Miku

~X~

Chapter Two: Of Citadels and Cliffs

She always hated the rain. Not the water droplets, but the dark, gloomy clouds that released them. It made her feel like the world was as bad as other pokemon made it out to be. All dark things made her feel that way. Which was odd, considering she was supposed to have an advantage over the dark. All riolu and lucarios were. Yet she had a special hatred for it, one that boiled down to simple fear.

She snorted at the irony of her situation. Here she was, walking through the burned down forest on the outskirts of the Citadel in the rain. Thunder boomed as a streak of lightning lit up the sky but she didn't care. She stopped and looked over her shoulder at the large, stone tower looming in the distance, her face contorting in a look of indignant sadness as the wet ashes gathered around her feet.

Damn trial, she thought as she glared at the superstructure, If it were anything but that, I would have passed no problem!

She needed to get away from that place. She couldn't deal with her latest failure.

She resumed walking as the lightning flashed again, trying her best to hold back her frustration. She didn't care about the rain at that moment, she just wanted to get to that place. Her place.

After all, a riolu who is terrified of the dark does not live shame down lightly.

~X~

The small mouse pokemon wrinkled his nose as he fiddled with his black scarf, his yellow fur becoming matted in the rain as he and his partner stood in front of the shrouded passage.

The grey mosiac tiles under their feet were warm, seeming to cast off the icy droplets that rained down on them. The equally colored tower stood over them, its great height making the two pokemon feel even smaller than they actually were. Stone pillars stood to either side of them, indistinguishable, worn etchings of different pokemons' faces scrutinizing them.

"Sparky!" The small, fox like pokemon chirped, her voice light and airy even in the grim weather. "Let's do this another day. You'll catch a cold if you stay out here much longer!" Her features were laced with concern as she implored the pikachu to reason.

"Relax Sapphire," he looked down at the eevee with champion's grin, his brown eyes sparkling with glee, "We came here to join and I have no intention of waiting any longer. We're ready for this, I can feel it!"

"Then step forward, dearies!"

Both pokemon jumped in surprise, the rich english voice ringing out from the passage not being expected by either of them. Before either of them could say a word, two purple hands shot out from the abyss, one grabbing Sparky by his scarf, the other grabbing Sapphire by her abundance of neck scruff. The two were yanked into the dark, both their faces set in panic as they disappeared.

They struggled against their bonds, Sparky spamming thundershock in random places while Sapphire tried her best to wriggle out of the claws grasp, biting down hard on one of the slender appendages. However, both of them soon found the tile to be a much more unforgiving opponent as the claws let go, the owner yelping as it was hit with the electicity from Sparky's attacks. Both attempted to stand up, but the darkness combined with the stars floating around in their mind eyes didn't let them get far.

Sparky, having knocked his head on the ground, layed sprawled out, Sapphire not too far away.

A snapping sound resounded through the wide corridor. One by one, bluish-white flames lit themselves on the wicks on the walls. The haunter floating above the two juvenile pokemon smiled to herself as she picked them up, disappearing as the flames once again went out.

"Looks like the Citadel has some new recruits!"

~X~

Ya know, if I had to pick one thing that I hate most in the world, it'd probably be head pain. I'm not talking about those 'Oh, my head hurts,' type of pain. No, I'm talking about the 'HOLY FUCK! MY HEAD'S SPLIT OPEN AND ON FIRE,' type of pain.

I'll tell ya now: it's a real bitch.

Every single sound or movement just made it worse. Move a toe? Pain. Breathing? More pain. Rain pounding your entire body and the world around you?

A living hell.

So I just layed there, cringing in pain as the world laughed at my misfortune. Whatever the crazy cresselia bitch cougar did to me, it was just plain cruel. I don't know what she did, but it must of been pretty damn invasive. Everything just felt...weird. Pain excluded, of course. Nothing weird about pain.

I really didn't want to see how it would feel to open my eyes. If trying to move a toe caused my head to split, I would rather not have it burst into flames from blinking too hard. Maybe the rain would put it out?

"Hey! Get...of...!"

Oh Arceus... And so starts my brain fire.

Wet, fast footsteps quickly approached my spot. Rather than looking or moving, I chose to wallow in my pain some more.

Terrible choice on my part, that was.

A swift kick to my side sent me flying from my spot. My eyes snapped open as a numb feeling spread throughout my body, the world around me flying by while I hurtled through the air. During that time, I got an eye full of what seemed to be a hell of a lot of burned down trees. And also rocks; lots and lots of rocks. I quickly became intimate with said rocks as gravity decided to play matchmaker, giving me a full on shale kiss with the ground. Oddly enough, that kick seemed to have taken away a majority of the head pain I had. Sure it had replaced it with bodily harm, but I could deal with that a whole lot better than an inferno in my brain. Even so, random kicks to helpless people shouldn't go unpunished.

I stood up on...all fours? The hell? I looked down, realizing just how much closer to the ground I actually was. I mean, I wasn't the tallest guy around, but...this? My face was litterally a foot from the shale ground. I don't even know where to begin with the red furry appendages that had taken the place of my hands and feet.

"I said, GET OUT OF HERE!"

"Wha-?" I was cut off as another kick made contact with my face, sending me skidding across the ground in the direction I just came from. I wobbled back onto my feet, spitting blood out of my mouth as I attempted to keep my balance. As the rain let up, I looked over my shoulder (or should I say haunch). The long fall cliff behind me didn't provide much of an exit choice. 'twas a shame too, the sun setting through the clouds at that time was a beautiful sight from there. I looked back to the pissy riolu, not really worrying about the whole 'talking pokmon' factor at that moment. She, from what I could assume from her voice anyway, didn't look very happy at all. The cold glare she was giving me was proof enough of that.

"I don't know what a zorua is doing here," she stood to the side and pointed back toward the burned woods, "but your kind don't deserve to be in this place." Her voice was acutally quite attractive. The hard edge she was forcing and leer she was giving me significantly less so.

I chuckled a little. "Well now, you really-"

"You have five seconds before I force palm your dark type ass."

"...Fair enough." I quickly trotted passed her, not wanting to chance what a force palm felt like. As I approached the boundry between the cliffs and the forest, I looked back, meeting her cold glare with a playful smile. "Good to meet you, Miss~!" Seeing that glare break into a confused blush was all the revenge I needed at that moment. Heh, smiling really does confuse people! I bailed out into the woods, wanting to find a place to sort my mess out without having a bipolar riolu girl beating the crap out of me.

~X~

Ehehe...^^;

I know it's not much, especially after the long ass wait I put you guys through, but bear with me. I said the updates would be erratic after all.

First off, I had to enlist some authors for OC teams for this. Rather than risk a random OC submission, I contacted authors I know who are great. They are as follows:

The Perfect Crime Party- Team Fenrir (You met them this chapter, actually)

Zombicidal-Maniac- Team Shinzu

Romantic-Flights- Team Rock-it

deadaleta- Special OC (You'll find out soon enough ;D )

And since it's uber late that I'm submitting this, I'll bid you all adieu for now. Please give me your feedback on what I can improve on for future chappies. Any piece of criticism would be appreciated~!