- Family and Flowers -
Chikara Hida arrived in the world of Mystery Dungeons alongside a large crowd of refugee digimon. Not long after he joined the locals to help to calm down a number of his fellow travelers who had not expected, despite the explanation that seemed quite clear to him, that they might end up transformed into pokemon. This included breaking up a sudden fight as one particular group had an argument go too far because of the change.
"Thank you for the help," one of the digital spheres that had come along to help manage the group said when it was all mostly sorted out. A life form from DSS's storage systems if he understood things right. "I'm sorry that we have kept you from your own goals with this issue."
"Not a problem, it is always a good thing to pass along knowledge and experience to those going through an issue," he replied a bit jovially. "Besides, I'm planning on a rather long journey. A bit more time spent on the start of it doesn't impact the overall length too much."
"Nevertheless, thank you," the orb said and Chikara made his way into the town proper in order to get some travel supplies.
He had received some of this world's money to help with that endeavor, which was the main reason he arrived along with this group as they were also getting a basic amount as part of their own trip, and it was easier to simply get a part of that much larger quantity than to get a smaller amount on his own. The local pokemon were more than ready for questions about that kind of thing as well, and it seemed that they had setup something of a carnival for the next couple of days to welcome the digimon. As he was getting food that the locals knew kept well he overheard that they were not planning on doing it for the next trip the other monsters planned to make in a couple of weeks. If things went as he currently planned he would probably be back around that time.
"Ah, Mr. Hida, I am really glad I caught you," Celebi suddenly said just as he reached the edge of town with his collection of supplies. "I wanted to apologize for the whole mess with your family last time."
"You wish to apologize to me?" Chikara questioned in genuine confusion. "I allowed Joe to strike at you after you allowed us to see old relatives."
The Legendary pokemon blinked at that and tilted his head. "To 'strike at' me? With that water spurt? I've had worse hits for worse reasons that were still justified," the god said no less certainly, but with a bit of a thoughtful tone. "I think you're missing something, I'm a tainted forest god, not a normal one. Keeping me in line is an important thing that must be done, and it is very much the proper thing to be clear with me when I do something wrong."
That, made a worrying degree of sense. "Then perhaps I should make sure I understand what you mean by 'wanted to apologize' before I agree to it," he replied slowly. If that sort of reaction was to deal with a known problem then he could see the logic, a powerful spirit might need a sharp hit to realize it was doing something harmful.
"You're here for a long trip right?" Celebi asked as if he already knew how this was going to turn out, which considering what the Legendary could do likely was true. "Well, I happen to be able to make that long trip all happen without you being away from home too long."
The Marowak carefully considered that idea. "We are getting a Lucario to go over this first," he declared strongly.
"Okay, yeah, we probably should do that," the forest god admitted.
Mimi was having a fairly good time so far. Amy had been really excited about helping out with everything, while Ann was honestly better at explaining the specifics. They were still on the road, although apparently the three day trip to the other town was short by local standards. Which, honestly, was actually about what she'd been through in the digital world, actually better as she actually had a destination to reach. They had passed by a couple of other travelers so far in the past two days, but the main thing they had encountered was wild pokemon.
That had gone much better than Mimi had expected. So far all of the pokemon had shown up either angry about them being too close to their homes, or far more commonly they simply and clearly wanted to test how strong they were. The fights themselves were so tame that she honestly could remember Tai and Matt attacking each other more harshly, and because of that she did give in to Palmon and let her partner help keep them entertained.
"Grimer are really good at looking tough," Amy said happily about the latest encounter they had gotten into. The small blob monster arrived more panicked than combative, and after her own past the sight of a bad smelling blob in a panic was something that Mimi could no longer just ignore or run from. "I'm sure you can make it a great contestant."
"Is this really not a normal place for them?" she asked the two girls, carefully inspecting her new purple sludge monster. That kind of question was something she honestly needed to ask, because so far this had not been too much different than travel in the digital world, and she knew for a fact that this kind of monster could just be in forests there.
"From the looks of things he, she?, is probably the result of some trainer not properly cleaning up after their Poison type attacks," Ann answered from a bit further away than they were, although before everything that happened in the digital world Mimi probably would have been just as far, if not already out of sight. "Grimer sometimes happen when moonlight hits toxic sludge." The pokemon nodded uneasily to confirm this statement.
"Huh, so are they common or not?" Palmon asked in a way that sounded like that was actually strange to her.
"Not unless there is a big problem with pollution somewhere," Amy said cheerfully. Mimi and Ann simply sighed at how cheerful the girl always seemed to be. "It honestly is a big problem, because they can be really hostile in large groups. If you clean the place up you also need to resettle them somewhere or..." she trailed off, and Mimi took a moment to realize she meant they died off. It was the first time someone from this world had really mentioned dying to her, and Amy looked half broken just from hinting at it.
"It generally doesn't go that badly," Ann said more to comfort Amy than to explain things to the Digidestined. "Grimer, and their evolved form Muk, are fairly solid pokemon in general. Well, not literally solid, they're kind of the opposite of that, but when it comes to combat generally there are enough trainers willing to take them on." The calmer girl looked over at Mimi with a bit of relief. "I'm glad we had someone like that with us. I, am not exactly up for a Grimer."
"Roselia is fine with my Muk, but it s sick right now so I don't want it to get the wrong idea," Amy said, and the Digidestined was surprised to learn she already had one of the creatures. "I can help you with things a bit though. You probably will want your own style, but they're uncommon pokemon so advice should help."
"I'm not looking forward to when it's back to health," Ann mumbled. Given the monster was named a 'Muk' Mimi could guess that it wasn't very clean. "But you are a Poison type Coordinator after all."
That had been an odd thing to learn, but Mimi found that in the long run Amy's cheer was a bit caustic in nature, and the members of her team the Digidestined had met so far were very friendly. Which given they tended to have poisonous skin or thorns was a bit unnerving, and it seemed that even Ann agreed with that assessment.
Floramon did not expect this to be the way she saw digimon from her homeland again, but that didn't mean she didn't have time to prepare for it. Her stand was fully stocked, more than usual because of the festival to welcome them that the Lucario had organized. A few out of town Grass types had even asked her to sell their produce for them in order to exploit her nature as a digimon herself. Mostly ones she had met before, who had been happy for her now that she was a proper Grass type herself.
The addition of a type she had gone through was the thing that worried her the most about all of this. It had not quite been an admittance that she wasn't going home, but it still meant she wasn't a normal digimon anymore. It wasn't something that these visitors would be able to tell right off, but that didn't stop her from being uneasy about it.
"Floramon?" a broken sounding voice asked from the approaching crowd, and suddenly another one of her species was in front of her stand. "You're alive," her old friend whispered. Floramon quickly made her way out in front of the stand to let the other digimon hug her. "Puppetmon didn't kill you."
"'Puppetmon'?" she asked, and soon had a crowd of digimon all carefully explaining just how bad things had gotten after she had become lost. Each one picked up where the other couldn't continue, or where there was some information missing. It was a terrible story, and she felt really bad that she was so lucky as to have missed all of it. Her now somewhat more combative nature also meant that there was a desire to face these enemies that she noticed quite clearly, and carefully tried to hide.
"You have a building shaped like your head," the other Floramon finally said after they finished the explanation, while the Lucario guiding this group around carefully and silently asked if she needed help getting rid of the crowd.
The Grass typed digimon silently and subtly shook her head to say she was fine. "Yeah, it's only been a few years for me, but that was more than enough time to get a stand set up," she answered, then with just a bit of trepidation asked the key question. "So, do you all want to hear about the local fruits? There are some really good ones, and I've already thought of taking a few back home if I ever got the chance. I have planting guides too."
That got her a bit of an incredulous stare, before the group moved closer and her old friend clearly decided that she needed to explain everything about her new world too.
Two months in one week, he felt that should be more than enough time, and it was also the most the Lucario had said he should risk with Celebi. Chikara had spent the first three days of it in the wilderness between the two towns, facing off against eager to practice travelers and half feral pokemon that lived away from civilization. He was now outside a large cliff face cut with many holes and tunnels, and guarded by a mixture of his own species along with a few other pokemon that had a common set of unusual features. Most notable was the many brown furred Lucario he could see, all with fused metal skulls atop their heads, as if they had also evolved like a Marowak.
"You are the new human traveler of our kind?" one of the local Marowak said walking forward to meet him. "The old Lucario did mention to me that you had shown some interest in learning of our shared kind." There was a serious look in the bone keeper's eyes. "What makes you wish to learn such things?"
"My daughter in law and grandsons are Sandshrew, descendants of pokemon from this world," Chikara answered, prepared somewhat for this event by an older pokemon that had been here before. He had not recognized the species of the large four legged canine, but was grateful for the aid. "They now have the option of being in that form instead of human form, and I need to decide if I wish to use this one the same way."
That gave most of the pokemon in earshot pause, including the elder that had agreed to meet him here. "Who did you lose?" the old Marowak now asked, looking at his ancestral skull grimly. "It isn't unheard of for a human to become one of our kind without that kind of history, but to be a Marowak to start instead of a Cubone, it is typically the case."
"My son gave his life to protect others," he answered honestly, forewarned that they would ask about many of his dead relatives, and harshly aware of what was said to be worn by Cubone in the literature on DSS's world. "I am mostly at peace with that, but I do not know how to best help his son, and the complicated situation that has resulted in him having another son as well."
"You already know what the reason is," the elder said with a tiny hint of relief. "We have records of past transformed, although some did lose most of their memories, and it is a common feature of those who became our species." He sighed with a bit of fondness. "The ancestors have left us with writings on how to help with these situations. Come, let us inspect them. Hopefully no spirits are active within the library chambers to lead us astray."
"I also must check to see if there are any relatives of my family here," Chikara noted as they started moving towards the entryway. "We know that one relative went to your city, but not if there were any descendants still here."
"I do know of a Sandslash that lives here who said he might have relatives with an unusual situation visiting," the elder noted. "We can see if he is willing to come see us as we look at the records, perhaps he meant you."
Mimi looked at the town with quite a bit of excitement. It was far more heavily wooded than Shade Cross, and you could just barely see the docks along the river through the trees back the way they came. The buildings were nicely made, with many small gardens of colorful flowers being tended by plant pokemon of various kinds and their human companions. Large twisting vines made up the local Gym, one of the largest buildings in town, with the nicely made massive wooden cabin like Contest Hall attached to its natural looking mass directly.
"Oh wow, that's even prettier than you made it sound," Palmon told Ann, and Grimer burbled in agreement. Her partner/sister had actually taken quite a liking to the blob monster, which meant she probably wasn't going to use her backup plan of getting someone else to take him now that they were back in a town.
"Yeah, I always like it here," the calmer of her new friends agreed. "I got Carnivine from the new local Gym Leader last year. He wasn't suited for proper combat, didn't have quite the right fighting temperament." It was still odd for Mimi how the people of this world so easily spoke about that sort of thing, and the fact that she could personally see what they meant too was still unnerving.
"So, when exactly is the Contest?" Mimi asked the pair, wondering if she should have done so earlier. She had not wanted to have the knowledge that she had decided on a rather long time away from her world hanging over the trip. "I mean, I think Palmon and I can do some basic things to show off, but I'm still not sure I know what your world is looking for there."
"Honestly, actually honestly?" Amy said more seriously than anything Mimi had heard from her before. "Palmon needs a bit of work on her confidence. The Contests start tomorrow, and goes on until the day after, so we have today to work on things and finish getting ready." The girl did not look happy about what she said next. "I know you just caught him, but Grimer so far hasn't been as easily stage frightened when we've worked with him. I want you to try once with him before we work on Palmon more, if the three of you are up for that."
Palmon sighed at this statement before Mimi could try and argue. "Yeah, I just. I'm not used to people watching me like this. Maybe if we had been around each other more," the plant monster lamented, and Mimi was reminded of how they had been growing apart for years with little chance to bridge the gap.
"We can try both," Ann said thoughtfully. "My routine for this is pretty well setup, and at my level I don't really want to practice any of it in town." She looked over at the Gym unhappily. "Although, I kinda wanted to try and find Leader Reading again, the Gym's Serperior looks kinda like the one that guy you met to go shopping had. I wonder if he is related."
"The Serperior or Ms. Reading? Because I think that's Shawn's last name actually," Mimi noted with a bit of unease. "Also I'm not sure if Shawn and Serperior were actually brothers somehow or not. They seemed almost deliberately unclear about it," she complained.
Floramon blinked at how the crowd was finally gone, save for her old friend. Which was mostly good, as her easy to reach goods had all been sold and she needed some time to get stock out of the back rooms again. She had made some good money, and even managed to recruit some of the digimon turned pokemon to go search the areas outside of the Mystery Dungeons for some wild produce as well with the promise of buying it from them.
"So, what haven't you mentioned yet?" the other Floramon asked. "Because you handled everything better than I thought you would, and." Her friend paused to collect her thoughts. "You're stronger, in a weird way. Your plants are moving with you."
That was the biggest side effect so far. Floramon had underestimated just how much power Grass types had over the plants around them, and she still had what most of them called a bad habit of letting her power go out of control a bit to move things she didn't actually mean to. Supposedly that was a waste of energy that would leave you tired more easily, and while she still felt that personally she had more energy that she knew what to do with now, that still was a thing she had to work on. "I accepted an offer to become a Grass type, like the plant pokemon of this world," she answered with a sigh, and carefully stopped the plants from following her movements. "I did it so that if I ever got a chance to go back to our world I could grow my berries more easily."
Her friend looked at one of the last remaining fruit on the stand. "But it's more than that though, isn't it?" the other Floramon asked sadly. "You, you might not be coming back."
"I'm not that happy that there is another problem stopping me to be honest," she replied strongly. "This world has helped me, and I do have friends here, but I've never given up all of my hope to see my home again."
The other digimon was quiet for far too long, giving Floramon plenty of time to get out enough produce to help with a pair of locals desperate to avoid the crowds while still getting some fresh supplies. This didn't fully distract her from the lack of response, and the easy way the pokemon all interacted with her after she had lived here so long obviously made whatever was wrong worse. The two Zoroark probably could have disguised themselves as something other than different kinds of pokemon to try and help with that, but they were clearly tired from interacting with visiting digimon themselves.
"I wouldn't find the place I left if I went back," she asked when they were alone again. "Would I?" It was something she had feared more than never getting a chance to go back. With how bad just the few things she had heard about so far were, she sort of already knew the answer.
"We, we thought he'd found some new way to kill you, one that didn't work right," her friend said quietly, almost mumbling. "He was so mad he had us-" The other Floramon simply shook her head. "The village has been gone as long as you have. We built something new afterward, something that didn't remind us so much about the Dark Master's evil."
"I want to at least see it," Floramon sharply said, she felt even more upset than her tone implied but did not want to give into it. "And at least setup a nice garden for the rest of you."
The stone tablets were expected, but the carefully carved bones of both ancestors and enemies were definitely not. The Ghost types that in at least two cases had actually previously used those bones for their original purpose did make it clear that this was a normal thing, but Chikara still dreaded what he'd think of all this when he was human again. The many pieces of advice on how to deal with becoming a pokemon had an unfortunate lack of any information on that particular situation, and in general had the implication that the writer did not expect to be human again at all.
"How long do you have?" the elder asked after they had finished spending almost the entire day on just this project.
"Nearly two months," the transformed human replied. "I wanted to learn things properly." What little they had covered so far had proven to him that there was a lot to learn.
The older Marowak nodded, and then turned to one of the entryways. "You called for me, elder?" a new voice asked. It was soon revealed to be a Sandslash, but one that had evolved like a Marowak, like many of the pokemon in the Tomb-City. The pokemon's body was the same tan color as a typical Sandslash, but his spines were the color of dried bone instead of the typical brown, with sharp edges and pockmarks. This matched the thick skull fused with his head, with holes allowing his ears to stick out. The most notable difference, however, was the shape of this Sandslash's hands. Instead of two large claws, the pokemon had three still good sized ones formed into a clearly pronounced hand shape. Which were currently holding a sword of bone and a shield that closely resembled the Tomb-Sandslash's spiked back.
"Yes, you had mentioned that you were expecting some distant relatives?" the elder questioned, directing Chikara to come over.
"I have been told that this is the time period they visited my ancestor from," Sandslash confirmed with a nod. "One of her sons had somehow ended up going to the human world instead of the typical result. Have you heard news about such a group?"
"My daughter in law and grandsons," Chikara replied nodding himself. "I am here to learn more of their world, and the species I have become."
"Great great grandmother is setting things up again I see," the spiky pokemon complained tapping his skull covered head unhappily. "I have some knowledge of the situation, elder, I'm sure I can aid him in finding what he seeks."
"Perhaps, but the skill of reproducing a skull properly is one you cannot teach him," the elder replied with firm amusement, and the Sandslash looked embarrassed by his tone. "I believe that from what I've heard he needs to learn that lesson."
Mimi laughed as Grimer showed off the short routine they had come up with for the entry level competition that her team had entered. It actually looked rather impressive to her, and the blob monster had even figured out a basic way of manipulating the shade of its sludge. In the stands she could see Palmon and their new friends cheering them on.
Soon after the Digidestined of Sincerity found herself walking off the stage holding a third place ribbon for her performance. "Third out of twelve sees a bit high for my first time," she nervously said as Ann and Amy arrived with Palmon.
"Well, you did say you've done fashion shows back in your world right? That means you have a bit more experience than most of the other first timers there," Ann said seriously.
"Also in practice it sounded like you already knew a good amount about working with monster fashion too," Amy said more cheerfully, while still proudly showing off her second place ribbon from the day before. "You were able to spot that problem we were having with Roselia's leaves after all."
Mimi cringed a bit at that one. "I mostly knew that because the point was to hide him," she admitted. "I had some practice figuring out how to find creatures that were hiding from me."
"Ah, the Chosen One stuff," Ann mumbled uncertainly to Amy, and both girls looked at her sympathetically. "Yeah, that probably does help. I've heard stories about how Chosen Ones would always look for normal things to get good at that weren't saving the world."
"Yeah, last year we even had the League Tournament get won by someone who was basically a Chosen One," Amy said a touch unhappily. "Their Elite Four Challenge got interrupted by terrorists that tried to melt the glacier. Last I heard all of the Champions are still trying to clean that up."
"Has there been any word on if that Jane girl won her Elite Four match?" Mimi asked to try and get back to a lighter topic.
"The Charizard girl?" Amy asked conspiratorially. "I bet she does it, she has cool transformation powers! Have you ever seen anything like that before?"
"My uncle works for Starshine," Ann dully replied. "He says that the secret to their films is that all of the actors turn into pokemon too."
"Is it true though?" Amy jokingly replied, and Mimi cringed because she had heard that the local film studio was involved in the transformation magic DSS had been using.
"I visited him once and ended up spending an hour as a Ralts," Ann said unhappily. "It was weird and I was too busy sulking because I wasn't evolved to pay enough attention to what the pokemon around me were saying."
"You've been a pokemon?" Amy asked just as surprised as Mimi. "Wait, that's actually a thing that happened to you?"
"It was only an hour," Ann dodged. "Didn't even get being able to talk to pokemon out of it."
"A bunch of my friends ended up switching species with their partners," the Digidestined of Sincerity cut in to try and help her new friend out. "That was really odd because we had to help their digimon deal with being human too."
Roselia and Carnivine both looked quite intimidated by this idea, and the flower pokemon looked at his trainer nervously as she considered that idea. "Wait, does that mean that Jane might actually be a Charizard that turns into a human?" Amy asked to the relief of her teammate. "Ooh! What if I find a way of doing both and have a routine where me and my pokemon shift back and forth?"
Ann looked as nervous about that one as Mimi felt, and she wondered if the calmer girl also knew of a way to actually do just that.
Three months was longer than he had planned, but it was how long it took for him to know enough to truly make his choice. "I don't think I will spend all my time in this form," Chikara Hida said to his daughter in law's somewhat distant cousin. "Much of it perhaps, but I feel that I am still quite human when it comes to it."
"You do have an interesting outlook on things," the Sandslash agreed a bit jokingly. The transformed human had spent most of the time learning from other Marowak, but the spiky pokemon had been able to give much of his own outlook on living among the tombs. "Is it really so hard to make a proper Tomb in the human world?"
"By your standards yes," Chikara sighed. "However, a big part of that is we do not have such clear ways of contacting the spirits of the dead. If we did I suspect that there would indeed be Tomb-Cities on our world as well."
"It has taken time and tradition to make it that easy," the Sandslash replied with good humor. "My own ancestors are hard to draw forth, as they did not have that background. I believe you understand why my Great Great Grandmother is an exception to that?"
"I see," the transformed human agreed. "I suppose then that I will have to make the attempt when I return home." There was a collection of transcribed tomes and raw materials in another bag he was now carrying out of the settlement. "Perhaps I can at least try and call on my relatives." The locals has said it should be possible, that even without energy there should be some traces of the spirits that could be drawn forth and given energy to manifest. He would be taking any attempts very carefully.
"Will you offer your grandsons reproductions of their father's skull?" the native asked solemnly. "I will admit, I would find that question hard myself, and I at least share their species." The question had been a common one, both for Chikara and other families living in the city. The only species he had not seen asked about such a thing were other Marowak about their Cubone children, with even families of the guardian Lucario who had no members without ancestral metal skulls would still ask and decide instead of just assume.
"I will test to see how well I can make the reproduction first," Chikara said nodding. "Since I am using this form I feel the need to give him one of my new kind's tombs as well as the human method." The thoughts he had on all of these topics were mixed, and after months as just a pokemon he was sure that they had become quite a bit skewed.
Floramon looked up at the Marowak as he approached her stand, and recognized him as the human that had arrived the week before with the crowd of refugees. "Ah, Mr. Hida, good to see you again," she greeted him. "I thought you were planning to visit the Tomb-City for longer."
"Celebi felt that he owed me a favor," the Ground type noted with a typical hint of annoyance for someone who had to deal with the Legendary pokemon's antics. "Actually, I ended up making even more work for him though by staying a bit too long."
"Did he say that he told himself that it would work out?" she asked, and at the transformed human's nod she sighed. "Yeah, he lies to himself about that kind of thing all the time. I think he might have a bit of a problem actually, as he doesn't seem to find it very funny when he does it. No one I've talked to is really sure if it is normal or not though."
The pokemon nodded again at that as he looked over her replenished stock. A number of the digimon, both transformed and not, had stayed in town a few extra days to earn some more Poke. Her old friend was staying now to help her with her gardens, and the odd jobs she had set up to buy produce from travelers were actually working out nicely.
"If you were given the chance to change what you were, would you take it?" he asked her as he inspected some of her handwritten recipe guides. They were actually transcribed by the Lucario she had originally learned them from, who got all the money from them. Travelers tended to pay well for them while also buying ingredients to make some dishes, so both of them got a good value out of that small section of her stand. She had run out three times over the course of the festival, and even now only had a pair of the guides available for sale.
"I did actually," Floramon replied easily. She had her own time to deal with the consequences of that action this week, and was more than willing to help someone else with a problem she had dealt with before. "I'm now a Grass type, technically a pokemon. Even if it does distance me a bit from my original world, I think the benefits are worth it."
"True enough. When the world you are living in changes it is likely time to change yourself," Mr. Hida agrees, clearly having made the same choice sometime recently. "My daughter in law has some recipes from this world, although we have been making them with substitute ingredients. Could you possibly help me identify the originals?"
Floramon nodded at the question, and grabbed her personal plant guidebook to see what he actually knew about what he was after.
