Consciousness slowly drifted into relevance. Mmm… How long had that been there…? She had no idea, but it felt strange and unwelcome. She didn't want anything to do with it—returning to sleep felt beyond attractive, and she could already feel herself drifting off. Conditions were perfect: the grass underneath her served as soft bedding, and the gentle breeze against her face was perfectly calming.
Just before she let herself back down into sweet unconsciousness, a thought occurred to her. Where was she…? Did she fall asleep outside? She couldn't recall falling asleep, let alone doing so outside. Suddenly, adrenaline was coursing through her system as she sat up and opened her eyes.
Directly in front of her on the lush forest floor was a completely unfamiliar creature. It seemed reptilian, but it was massive—as tall as a person—and bipedal. It had unnaturally vivid orange skin and a large canvas satchel slung over its shoulder which it clutched with strangely human-like hands—though its clawed fingers were much shorter. What was most notable about this creature, however, was its tail. The tip of its long, sturdy reptilian tail was on fire. The tip itself wasn't melting or charring… it just held a steady flame.
The lizard-creature stood motionless on clawed feet, wide eyes staring her down. What could she do in this situation? This thing could kill her—it didn't even seem to care that its tail was on fire—and she was still sitting, unable to move. She readied herself to scramble to her feet and run if the creature made a move towards her. She flinched as it opened its maw, but her own jaw dropped when it began to speak.
"A-are you alright?" said the creature in a distinctly male voice.
"You can talk?" she said, thoroughly dumbfounded.
"Ahh Arceus," it sighed, voice full of relief as its posture relaxed. "I thought you might have been a feral. W-what are you doing here?"
The lizard-creature was stuttering. Furthermore, she didn't realize until it shifted, but it had been in a defensive posture since she woke up. Was this thing… scared of her?
She risked taking a moment to break eye contact to survey her surroundings. She was in a normal forest at about midday, though something about the scale was bothering her. More immediately concerning, however, was the thick plant matter creating a wall that boxed the both of them in. It looked unnatural, as if it was simply floating where it wanted to be.
She finally looked down, holding up her hands. Her hands had only three thick digits with no opposable thumb. They grew a fine blue fur that seemed to cover her entire body—though there seemed to be portions of black fur as well. Protruding from the top of her wrist was an oblong bump of bone. In trying to move her wrist, she found that the bone restricted its flexibility to a large degree. She's not human…? No, no. She remembers being human. She knows she's human. So, what the hell was going on?
Nothing made sense, so this had to be a dream, but… it felt far too real. She could still feel the gentle breeze against her fur, as well as the soft bed of grass she found herself in. She could even feel a tail sticking out from behind her. Everything around her was clear and defined—even the lizard-creature felt thoroughly real, complete with a subtle smokey scent beneath the smell of fresh forest in the air. But she had to be dreaming because nothing else remotely made sense.
Still—even if it was a dream, going along with it and treating it seriously wouldn't have consequences. She took a moment to calm herself before asking a bit of a risky question.
"What are you?"
The lizard-creature must have taken the pause in the conversation to calm down, because its response came calm and measured. "I'm a Charmander. Have you never seen one before?"
Charmander, huh? A species? She had been concerned about offending it—or him?—but her next question was going to come across a whole lot stranger. "And… what am I?"
The Charmander's eyes narrowed before he responded. Was that suspicion on his face? Confusion? "You're a Riolu," he said slowly, as if speaking to a child. "How do you not know your own species?"
She was right—a species, then. "I'm not supposed to be here," she explained, her voice beginning to crack. "I don't know what's happening, or where I am, or how a creature like either of us can exist—let alone be talking. I'm a normal human… or I was."
The Charmander went quiet as his brow furrowed. He stayed silent for a long few moments, as if he had descended deep into thought. Then, suddenly, his eyes went wide. "I don't know what a human is, but if we stand out to you as strange, you are definitely not from here. Listen," the Charmander said hurriedly, as he glanced at the plant-matter walls surrounding them. "We're inside a dimensional anomaly right now. It's possible that you're from another dimension, but I have no idea how we would even begin to send you back. It's dangerous in here, so I think it'd be best if we got out of the anomaly and figured things out from there. OK?"
She finally stood up, stumbling a bit. This body was unfamiliar to her, but balancing with her strange canine-like backwards knees was a lot easier than she would have thought. As she swayed, she felt strange weights swinging on either side of her head. She used her paws—for they were paws—to feel at the weights. She had two massive fleshy teardrop-shaped appendages hanging from her temples. Fantastic.
"OK. But dangerous how?" she asked absentmindedly, still fondling the strange attachments.
"Well… we're trapped in here until we can find the exit. We may come across uh… others like you and me, but their minds will be gone. If they see us, they will attack us without hesitation, so try to stay quiet and follow me. Do you understand?" He was very clearly trying to keep his fear down to not scare her, but she could tell from his voice: this Charmander was terrified of this place. It was difficult not to let it get to her.
"I understand. Let's go."
The Charmander nodded and moved to one of the few breaks in the plant-matter wall. Beyond it, there was a wide hallway, similarly consisting of plant-matter walls. "Good," he said, stopping at the entrance to the hallway to turn back to her. "What's your name?"
She opened her mouth, fully intending to respond, but found she had nothing to say. What was her name…? She closed her mouth, frustrated, and racked her memory. She found that not only could she not remember her name, but she couldn't find the single faintest memory from before she woke up. She knew she was a human, and she could picture the human world—from sprawling metropolises to the rustic countrysides—but she couldn't find her place in it. Before she could grow too concerned about this, she gave up.
"I don't know," she finally admitted. "I can't remember."
"You can't remember?" the Charmander asked. "…How much can you remember?"
"Not much, since you asked."
The Charmander gave her a look. It was very difficult to read his face, given his non-human nature, but if she had to guess it was probably sympathy. "I'll just call you Riolu for now, then. You can call me Dante."
Hmm. Dante was a human name, she thought. Strange. "Riolu it is," she confirmed, doing her best to memorize the strange word.
Dante started down the hallway, and Riolu followed as close behind as she dared: she was concerned about getting too close to his still-flaming tail. She wondered if it was somehow part of his biology, given that it wasn't harming him and he seemed content to allow it to burn. Dante would be a fitting name then, she supposed, but she couldn't imagine Dante's Inferno existed in this world. Maybe she would ask him about his tail once they were out of this.
Soon, the hallway opened into another wide room. Dante stopped at the entrance and peeked his head out to check the room—first to the right, then to the left. He paused, still looking at the left, then finally turned back to Riolu and motioned for her to move up alongside him. Once she had, he dropped his voice to a low whisper, giving Riolu a face full of smokey, hot air. "There's a Scatterbug on the left. We need to get through this room, but I think I can probably knock it out. Stay here."
Riolu nodded, and he rushed into the room. Riolu poked her head around the corner to watch him, and saw what Dante called a Scatterbug. It was a massive larva, with an even larger head, currently bent down to forage on the messy forest floor. It noticed Dante as he approached, and an unmistakable expression of rage distorted its face. It shuddered, then released a cloud of yellow powder from its fuzzy neck that drifted towards Dante. The Charmander responded by drawing a massive breath before blowing a small burst of fire towards the bug.
The fire spread over the Scatterbug's midsection, causing it to fill the forest with an inhuman shriek. Meanwhile, Dante sidestepped the yellow powder and wasted no time in sending a second helping of flame. No shriek followed this burst of fire, as the Scatterbug had fallen on its side, motionless. Its chest continued to smolder, and the small clearing quickly began smelling of burnt bug.
Riolu was still watching from the hallway, thoroughly shocked. She had expected Dante to sneak up and hit it on the head or something, not literally breathe fire onto it. She was more convinced than ever that the flame on his tail was a natural part of his anatomy. Dante stood over the smoking Scatterbug and waved for Riolu to join him in the room.
"Did you kill it?" Riolu whispered as she approached.
"What? No, it's just knocked out. It'll be fine."
"Really? I think that would have probably killed anything in my dimension. Or, at least seriously injured it."
Dante huffed, releasing a bit of smoke. "Interesting. Maybe you can tell me more about your world later. In the meantime, though, I should mention this on the off chance that we get separated: we're looking for a staircase. Climbing the staircase will put you on the next floor. If you keep doing that, you'll eventually be out and back in the real world. OK? Got it?"
"Look for stairs to continue, keep doing that until I'm out. Got it."
"Good. Next, I was here with a group of other Pokémon. We got separated, and protocol is for both separated groups to attempt to exit the mystery dungeon on their own. So, our priority is to get out of here, but if we lose each other and you happen to come across three Pokémon, try talking to them first. If they don't immediately try to kill you, it's probably them."
"Mmm," Riolu hummed. "Pokémon is what you and I are? And the 'dimensional anomaly' we're in is called a mystery dungeon? Is that right?"
"Oh," Dante said, sounding embarrassed. "That's right, sorry."
"OK, got it, then. Is that all?"
"Yes," Dante said as he moved towards another hallway. "Let's go."
As before, Riolu followed Dante's tail flame as the two crept through the forest maze. While she walked, Riolu inspected her surroundings more carefully. Although the plant-matter walls surrounding them seemed to be far too thick for her to see through, the massive trees looming above her implied a typical forest environment. The overgrown forest floor beneath her only supported that theory, but Riolu had yet to see a tree within the wide borders of the walls. Dante had called this a dimensional anomaly…Riolu wondered if the space beyond the walls even existed.
Riolu was brought back to reality by their approach of another opening into a room. Dante slowed down and dropped into a stealthy saunter. He peered right, then left past the corners of the doorway.
"Stairs to the right," he whispered. "Otherwise empty. Let's go."
Riolu followed him into the room. The stairs stood in a forest clearing, just an overgrown stone staircase leading up to nowhere. It looked thoroughly old, as if it had been built centuries ago. "I don't know what I was expecting when you said a staircase considering our environment, but it wasn't this."
Dante smiled—Riolu could interpret that expression at least. "It's probably about as weird in our world than it is in yours," he said. "We have to go up it at the same time, so let's hold hands."
He offered her his small, orange hand, but Riolu just stared at it. She felt uncomfortable taking the Charmander's hand, though she wasn't exactly sure why. He seemed content to wait patiently, however, and eventually Riolu relented and let him grasp her hand. Side by side, they climbed the stone stairs together.
The instant her foot touched the top stair, and Riolu began wondering if they were going to simply stand at the top, dizziness blindsided her. She shut her eyes and focused all her might on balancing at the top of the stairs: falling either way would be less than ideal, especially since she might drag Dante down with her. However, without even being aware of falling, Riolu felt herself slam face-first against the ground before the blinding dizziness began to subside. Not quickly enough, unfortunately, as Riolu couldn't take it anymore and vomited on the forest floor in front of her.
"Right," she said sourly. "Dimensional anomaly."
"Hahh," Dante sighed as he let himself down to sit on the forest floor, fully ignoring Riolu. "We're out," he said disbelievingly. "Thank Arceus it only had four floors."
Riolu took a moment to survey her new surroundings as she sat down aside Dante. She was in a forest, as before, but the oppressive plant-matter walls were absent. It also seemed to be late evening, unlike the midday time inside the dungeon. Just a normal forest—though now that she was out of the maze she felt certain: these trees were much larger than they should be. Maybe Dante wasn't quite as big as she thought—maybe she was just much smaller than a human.
Dante himself seemed content to sit where he was and enjoy the evening: exiting the dungeon seemed to have lifted a massive weight of stress off of his shoulders, and he was simply basking in the relief. Riolu, however, couldn't feel the same. Now that they had escaped the dungeon, and her mind wasn't distracted by the second-hand tension instilled in her by Dante's warnings, Riolu's thoughts drifted back towards her larger situation. She still wasn't convinced she wasn't trapped in some super-elaborate dream, but considering the alternative—that all of this was perfectly real—was far too overwhelming. Fortunately, she wasn't left to ruminate for much longer.
"Dante!" A call sounded from the nearby tree branches. Riolu's head swiveled to look at who was calling for him, and she saw… a white and yellow flying squirrel? It looked positively elated, perched on a tree branch. "You made it!"
"Light, yo!" Dante said, holding up his right hand in greeting.
"Uhh, who's this?" Light said, his eyes flitting over to Riolu and his elated expression wavering.
"Long story, nothing to worry about," Dante said as he rose to his feet. "Can you lead us to camp? We could talk there."
"Yup, follow me." Light didn't seem entirely convinced that Riolu was nothing to worry about, but he deftly glided from tree branch to tree branch, making sure to stay within view as Riolu and Dante followed on the forest floor. As the trio traveled, the darkness of night quickly set upon the forest. Over time, Riolu was becoming more and more thankful for the soft glow of Dante's tail, and by the time they finally arrived at the small camp, night had properly fallen.
The camp really only consisted of an unlit campfire and a small deer-like Pokémon sitting daintily beside it. It had exaggerated baby-like features, as well as pink coloring and a flower on top of its head. It was sickeningly cute, and the effect was only enhanced by the gentle smile it gave in the direction of the approaching light.
"You made it," the deer said, her voice soft. "Did you run into much trouble?"
"Only one feral," Dante said. He made his way to the cold campfire and paused to breathe a burst of fire onto it. The fire caught, and the small camp was lit by warm, flickering light. Satisfied, Dante continued: "We got very lucky."
"We, you say? Did you two meet in the dungeon?" the deer asked, inclining her head towards Riolu.
"That's right," Dante said as he set himself down at the fire. Light glided down from the tree branches and perched on a nearby fallen log. "I think it's possible she may be from another dimension."
Riolu had found a tree at the edge of the campfire's light to lean against. When Light and the deer Pokémon both gaped at her with wide eyes, however, she shifted uncomfortably upon suddenly became the center of attention. They kept staring, and Dante wasn't stepping in to save her, so Riolu did her best to give an awkward smile and wave.
Finally, Dante continued. "From what she can remember, it seems her world is very different from ours, so she's out of her element. My plan is to take her back to base camp and figure things out. For now, though, let's start with everyone introducing themselves and sharing their species. OK?"
"Ahh," the deer said, shaking her head. "Sorry for staring. As far as I know, nothing like this has happened with the dungeons. It's a difficult thing to wrap my head around. I'm Violet, and I'm a Deerling."
"I'm Light, and I'm an Emolga. And that," Light said, gesturing far above Riolu's head, "Is Darly."
Riolu jumped. Far above her, perched on a low branch, was a massive white and green owl. Its eyes stayed closed, but it gave her a subtle nod to acknowledge the attention.
"Darly's a Dartrix," Light continued. "She's also mute."
"Ahha," Riolu laughed nervously. "Has she been there the whole time?"
Light smiled. "That's right."
Riolu took a deep breath, then exhaled. "Fantastic," she said, doing her best to move on from the scare. "Well, it's nice to meet you all. I guess you can call me Riolu."
Violet nodded. "Well, as much as I want to ask you a slew of questions, we need to start the journey back to base camp starting at first light tomorrow. You're safe with us, Riolu—Darly's on watch tonight, so get some good sleep."
As Violet, Light, and Dante settled down on the forest floor, Riolu frowned to herself. There was something in the Deerling's voice during that last sentence. Was that a subtle threat? It felt like 'Don't try to run, little Riolu—Darly is watching.' She had no reason to run, but that last sentence still weighed on her mind. As she sank down to sit with her back to the tree, she glanced above her. The branch that Darly had been perched on moments before was vacant—and Riolu didn't even hear movement.
Riolu stretched, letting herself settle. Regardless of any possible threats, Violet was right: if they were traveling to a base camp tomorrow, Riolu would need the rest. As she began to fall asleep, a thought occurred to her: if this was truly a dream all along, going to sleep like this would probably cause her to wake up in her real life. Deep inside, she felt sad about this—though her brain didn't dwell: it was already asleep.
Riolu opened her eyes… or at least she thought she did. Even as she rapidly blinked, all she could ever see was pure black. Sight wasn't the only sense Riolu seemed to be lacking, however: save for the subtle scent of ozone, all five of her senses were coming back empty. This included touch: no matter how much she stretched, Riolu never felt any resistance. Near as she could tell, she was blind and deaf, floating in a void. Thankfully, she was at least able to feel her own body, confirming that she was still a Pokémon.
"HELLO?" Riolu shouted into the void. It offered her no echo, making Riolu feel as if she had made no sound at all. She felt small, insignificant, and alone. Even worse, the complete lack of stimuli was, for reasons she didn't understand, beginning to make Riolu increasingly dizzy.
Obviously, this was a dream. This time, she at least remembered falling asleep in the camp just before. So, a dream within a dream—though she was still unsure if her experience with Dante and the others was truly a dream. All she wanted was to wake up, wherever that would put her, but her brain refused to comply.
"HELLO? ANYONE?" Riolu shouted again in desperation. "WHERE AM I? PLEA—" she cut herself off. Quick motion in her peripherals had startled her. "Who's there?" she asked into the void, twisting towards the motion. "C-can you help me?"
Nothing. Nothing happened for long enough that Riolu's heart rate settled down. Could she have imagined it? No, she was sure she saw something—she even cut herself off. Something was in here with her, she was sure of tha—there! She had seen it just on the edge of her peripherals again. It was… serpentine? She had seen a massive, spiked tail, moving as if it was swimming through the surrounding void—but only for a split second. Riolu had wanted some sort of stimulation, but the deep fear setting in was not what she had in mind.
For an indeterminable amount of time, she huddled alone, floating helplessly in the darkness, while some dark snake-thing appeared in her peripherals at irregular intervals. All she could do was stay quiet and pray whatever it was would stay away.
