Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Adventurers of Dawn and Dusk

Chapter 12: Separation


Hope's POV

"69 BOTTLES OF JUICE ON THE WALL, 69 BOTTLES OF JUICE! TAKE ONE DOWN, PASS IT AROUND-"

"SHUT IT!"

"-68 BOTTLES OF JUICE ON THE WALL! 68 BOTTLES OF JUICE ON THE WALL, 68 BOTTLES OF-"

"HOPE, I'M SERIOUS! SHUT UP!"

I wanted to go on, but at the rate she was going, Satou would explode – both figuratively and literally. She was already steaming away the icy water she had slipped and fallen into earlier with the orangey flames that apparently started on her fur when she was irritated. So I shut my mouth and stopped singing, though I did smirk annoyingly at her for a bit. I hadn't even tried to sing good anyway; I thought yowling away off-key and waaaaay too loudly would entertain me for a bit. Turned out it only ticked off Satou.

I sighed and flicked my stub of a tail in boredom, letting my head droop down to below my shoulders. I hardly thought trudging away through a labyrinth like Rhyme Caves was entertaining, since we had been in here for ages and still hadn't found our way out. Sure, it was kind of beautiful, like a sparkly combination of ice and crystal that was varying shades of blue (from teal to indigo), but it was SO CONFUSING! I actually suspected that Satou had gotten us lost again, since I swore I remembered seeing the rock we had just walked past before. There were hardly any Pokémon in here either; I couldn't blame them. My pessimistic mind told me that we would probably die of starvation in here, or else die of maybe exhaustion or even boredom.

My brain suddenly clicked with an idea. "I was singing so badly because I wanted someone to hear me and come to shut me up and then they'll show us how to get out of here." I grumbled at Satou, who rolled her chocolaty eyes and flicked an ear toward me.

"Uh-huh," she mumbled sarcastically. "You were just singing because you were bored."

Shoot. Was I that predictable? Maybe I was; I hadn't been able to tell. I harrumphed silently, resolving to be less predictable (was that even possible?) in the future.

Something seemed to be off with Satou, though. She tried to act like nothing was wrong, but maybe when Shade had left on her little solo expedition, it had affected Satou's peace of mind worse than I had realised. That's when I got to thinking: Was Shade's trip particularly dangerous? Most likely. If it wasn't, why would Satou be so worried? But if it was so perilous, why did Shade go alone? And why was I the only one who wasn't allowed to know? Was it because I wouldn't like it or something? I trudged along, trying to find plausible answers to each of these questions.

"Stop," Satou told me suddenly. I paused, wondering why...

The sound of a Pokémon racing quickly through the caves reached my ears. It was probably a medium-sized quadruped, judging by the sound of the paws, but until we saw them, I couldn't be sure. It grew louder and louder, and a Luxio eventually dashed around the corner in front of us, skidding to a stop with front paws frantically backpedalling while sitting on their hindquarters. A glance at the markings and a quick informational memory check revealed they were a male. He sat there, panting for a few seconds, and I noticed there was a golden scarf slung around his neck (Satou later told me it was an Energy scarf).

When he had caught his breath, he asked us, "Have you seen my friend, Misty? She's a-"

"Hold on." I stared at Satou in confusion, who was slowly advancing on the Luxio. "You're friends with that monster?" Her voice was low and menacing.

The Luxio was also puzzled, as he tilted his fuzzy blue head to one side. "I wouldn't go so far as to call her a monster, but yeah. Where'd she go?"

"So, she's in here as well?" Satou stopped inches from his face, the Luxio having leaned back quite a bit to get away from her.

"...Yeah...?" he replied, frowning slightly.

"What. Did. You. Do. With. Her?" Satou growled.

"...Misty?" The Luxio was completely bewildered now, poor dude.

"You know who I mean!" Satou shrieked suddenly, vanishing in a puff of black smoke. The Luxio looked around nervously, trying to figure out where she would reappear from. I cleared my throat loudly, and stared purposefully at the spot of air above his head. He looked up just as Satou tried to use a Faint Attack on him from above, and dodged out of the way as she fully resurfaced from the shadows and landed on the rocky floor.

Satou wasted no time in firing a bunch of Embers at him, which peppered the ground behind the Luxio as he bolted away from them. She aimed at the space in front of him and fired another round of Embers, which he couldn't stop fast enough to dodge and skidded through them, burning his ankles.

He growled in pain then leapt into the air and let loose a Thunderbolt at Satou, who almost succeeded at dodging. Note the word 'almost'. It connected with one of her tails, and spread throughout her body, making her shriek in pain. Satou dropped to the ground, smoking slightly.

She climbed shakily to her paws, then lunged weakly at the Luxio, who easily sidestepped. His fangs then shone a light blue, and he bit Satou with Fangs of Ice on her right forepaw, which she had been trying to injure him with.

She disappeared in a cloud of darkness again, and the Luxio perked up his ears, listening for Satou. It was longer than usual when she finally re-emerged from below, attacking the Luxio with presumably all of her strength. He hadn't been expecting that angle of approach, so she hit him with a direct attack in the stomach. He leapt away, wincing in pain.

His fangs glowed red as he charged at her and chomped on one of her tails. But the ability of Vulpi was Flash Fire, which absorbed the power of Fire-type moves and made their own Fire attacks stronger.

Satou merely grinned and shook the Luxio away, then surrounded herself with purple flames tinged with white and fired a ball of Will-o-Wisp flames at him. He dodged swiftly and started charging up another Thunderbolt, cheeks sparking with electricity.

"STOP!" I yelled, catching them both by surprise. The Luxio stopped charging energy and looked at me, while Satou just collapsed, panting. I wrapped Satou up in my vines and set her gently on my back, trying not to let her tip over. I shot a questioning look at the Luxio, who merely shrugged. He didn't seem like he was evil, so why did Satou...?

I heard another set of paws, these ones scampering quickly, approach from where we had come from. A Buizel skittered around the corner, nearly slamming into the wall, and slid to a stop in front of the Luxio. She was sporting a dark, sleeveless jacket with five black diamonds forming an X on the front, and from what I could tell there existed a dark heart on the back as well. She looked from the Luxio to the burns on his feet to Satou, who was extremely battered from the fight.

"What happened here?" she asked quizzically.

"I don't even know," The Luxio answered between licks to one of his forelegs, which was burned more severely than the others.

"Hey, is your name, by any chance, Misty?" I asked the Buizel. "'Cause this guy asked about a Misty and Satou almost asploded."

"Uh, yeah," she answered, glancing at the Luxio with an unreadable expression. "That's a weird reaction."

"Not so weird from my point of view, but still more extreme than I expected," I replied calmly. "What's your name, Luxio?"

"It's A- uh, Shadowbolt," he mumbled as Misty stared at him pointedly. She seemed to be giving him a lot of weird looks...

"You two need a way out of here?" Misty asked me.

"Sure, please," I answered happily. Looks like we weren't going to rot away in this blasted maze after all! "I'm Leafbud, and this is Satou."

She pulled a brown, folded up piece of parchment out of her pocket and unfolded it. She walked down the passage ahead and Shadowbolt and I followed suit. I peeked over Misty's shoulder and saw the parchment had a map of Rhyme Caves drawn onto it. Rhyme Caves wasn't as confusing as I had thought it was, though it did have a lot of twists and turns.

I turned and grinned at Satou, whose head was slumped over my right shoulder. "Another score for your navigating skills, methinks," I snickered slightly. Satou growled slightly and rolled off my back onto the ground, stopping smoothly on her paws, and started padding along the tunnel.

I recalled Satou's accusation earlier, of Shadowbolt 'Doing. Something. With. Her'. Was 'her'... Shade? And if she'd accused a supposed friend of the Misdreavus of that, then. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Had she legit gone to confront them?! That was either extremely brave or extremely reckless... I hoped she had known what she was doing...


We followed Misty to the mouth of the cave. Outside, I could see the sun setting, dyeing the clouds bright, fiery hues. Another day spent on this icy wasteland, it seemed like. I felt a slight ache in my chest for Shade. Where was she? Was she safe? And would she come back?

"Hey, Hope..." I looked at Satou, who was sitting dejectedly beside the wall. "We should stay here for the night."

I nodded in agreement. "You guys want to stay with us?" I inquired of Misty and Shadowbolt. They, however, were staring at me like I had a large number of brightly coloured heads.

"Are you... a human?" Misty finally asked.

Wow, so there was a difference between human and Pokémon names! For some reason I thought Shade had just convinced Satou to help her feed me a load of crap so she could give me an alias. Heh.

"Congrats, Mis, you won the prize!" I answered with fake cheeriness. "The prize of... NOTHING! Isn't that wonderful?!"

"...Excuse us for a sec." Misty dragged Shadowbolt out of the cave by his tail, to which he loudly protested. A hastily whispered conversation ensued outside, one which I caught no words of. What will they do? I thought anxiously. I hope they don't tell anyone... that would be weird, random people knowing this isn't my original form...

They ventured back inside the cave wearing strained expressions and sat on the rocky floor. Shadowbolt cleared his throat.

"My name's Alan," he finally announced.

I blinked. My first thought was, So Misty's obsessed with fake names, too? She and Shade should get together sometime. There were other humans? I thought I was the only one, except for maybe Satou. What if he still had all of his memories? Maybe he knew how he was turned into a Pokémon. Even better, maybe he knew how to go back to being a human!

But... what if he didn't? What if he was an amnesiac as well? He probably was, knowing my luck. Was being a Pokémon so bad, though? I had Satou and Shade, and we had fun adventures together. I couldn't fully appreciate any humans until I had my memories back, anyway, which I didn't know how to achieve.

"Misty's a human, too." I was broken out of my reverie by Alan's voice. I looked at Misty, who waved akwardly.

They were both humans? Misty didn't seem like a human name.

"So, we were thinking..." Misty started.

That's a surprise, I joked.

"Do you know how to transform back into a human?" Misty inquired, leaning forward slightly.

My face fell, becoming slightly depressed. "I was about to ask you two the same thing," I responded unhappily. Their expressions darkened to match mine.

"Well, what can you remember? Maybe we can figure it out from there," Alan queried hopefully.

"Nothing significant," I muttered. "My name and species. I'm guessing you two are the same?"

"Not... exactly," Misty said in return. "We can remember some things, like, I remember my whole family. My father was an archaeologist. He brought my vest and Alan's scarf home from a trip somewhere. We were sitting in his living room, investigating them, when there was this sudden burst of light. Next thing I knew we were dropped from the sky into Magma Town on Ishara island with these." She fingered her dark jacket.

"Misty's my cousin," Alan added. "I could only remember mine and Misty's names, as well as, for some reason, my eighth birthday party. Someone pulled a prank involving banana pudding on me. * We both lived in a place called Kanto. I was 13 and she was 15 when we were dumped into Magma Town. It's been 10 months since then, meaning we are now 14 and 16."

"Hold on," Satou interrupted. "Pokémon ages work differently than human ages. We mature twice as fast, but we have half the lifespan. You'd be 7 and Misty 8 as Pokémon. Your levels, however, can be from double to triple your age, depending on how much you train. Anyway, how was the birthday party?" I guess she was feeling better.

"Um, it was pretty good. The cake was made of ice cream," he replied, apparently caught off-guard by the sudden lesson and random question.

"Hold it, Satou. I know that's not a human name, but... were you a human too?" I inquired of her.

Satou shook her head. "Nope. Remember, the names of my parents were Ember and Violin. What human in their right mind would name their kid Violin?"

"You have a point," I admitted. "Still, you showed up on Ishara with no memory, too. I can't help but think there's a reason we're here."

I neglected to tell them about the red Chikorita made of mist I had seen in my sleep. She had said I had a mission to find the 'Dawn Jewel', whatever that was. If I ever saw her again, I would ask her to elaborate.

"We should sleep now..." Misty muttered while looking out the entrance at the now dark sky. "Storytelling won't help us much at this point."

Satou lit up a pile of dead leaves on the ground. She then pulled out a bunch of Aspear berries and shared them amongst our small group.

As I chewed on my Aspear berry, I resolved to search my dreams thoroughly for the red Chikorita. I hoped she would give me some answers and not be so cryptic.


Shade's POV

My head felt like it had been chopped to bits, then stitched back together by an amateur. My shoulder and leg felt like they were being toasted with a campfire. There lingered an odd smell in the air, like Satou's tea, only it smelled more like fruit than Taro root. Was this what Arceus' realm smelled like? If so, she had nice taste. Or a nice sense of smell, choose your pick.

There was a soft, wide strip of fabric wrapped around my neck, like a scarf. It had the smell of a Pecha berry. A Pecha scarf, maybe? Maybe they were trying to get rid of the poison. But... if I was dead, why would I still be poisoned?

Slowly, I eased my eyes open. The first thing I noticed was an Emolga stirring a pot full of a nice smelling stew. It was a sandy burrow we were in, but it was roughly the same size as the cave inside Joy Hill. I looked down at my neck and noticed that it was a light pink scarf trimmed with a vibrant green, which meant that it was indeed a Pecha scarf. There was also a bandage wrapped around my right shoulder. I was apparently lying on a bed of hay.

"Hi." The Emolga had stopped stirring the stew and was looking at me with an interested look in his eyes. "My name's Wires."

"I'm Shade," I replied hoarsely. A sudden thought sprung to my mind. "How long was I out for?"

"Well, I found you yesterday before lunch," Wires mused. "You were passed out in a puddle of blood, I took you back here."

I sighed in relief. "That's good." Hopefully Satou won't be freaking out too badly...

He pulled out a tin bowl and filled it full of the nice smelling stew, then handed it to me along with another spoon. It looked like it was made entirely of berries and berry juice. I picked up a piece of berry with my spoon and nommed on it. I think it was an Oran berry.

"There are Oran berries for healing and Pecha berries for the poison in there, by the way," Wires told me as I munched on my Oran berry. It was, legit, probably the best thing I had ever eaten. Had this Emolga taken lessons from a master or something?

I think I finished the stew in record time, it was so good. My shoulder and leg didn't feel like they were filled with fire anymore, and my head no longer felt like it had had a dozen knives put through it. I snuggled back into the bed as Wires pulled off the bandages to reveal that the poisonous cuts were history (well, almost).

"Hey, can I have that scarf back?" he inquired politely. I untied it and handed it over. He retied it around his own neck, sighing softly.

Wires then turned to me with seriousness clear in his eyes. "What happened there, anyway?"

My face took on a worried expression. "Well..." I began to tell the story.

-End of Chapter 12-


* That banana pudding thing is gonna be like a meme for me from now on. :P

A/N: Happy New Year and stuff, everypony! ...and Merry Christmas... I got White 2! And, liek, 250-ish Pokémon cards. And a bunch of Pokémon stuffies. And I resolved to finish this fanfic by the end of the year, at most. Yaaaay.

Well, that was fun. Satou goes crazy, there are more humans, and my li'l Shadie-chan isn't dead! *mentally hugs Shade* I love my li'l Shade~

I hope everyone enjoys this extra-long chapter… 3000+ WORDS ASDFGH

PMD: GTI comes out March 23! SO EXCITED ERMAGERD

Huge news for Pokemon coming TOMORROW! I can't wait lkjhgfdsa

Hope, Shade, and Wires are owned by me, Esper1213 (yes, I am now Esper13.)

Satou is owned by NewYearJirachi (srsly, where'd ya go?)

Alan and Misty are owned by allen5.

May your sails stay full and your socks stay dry!