Authors Note: Heya people! Welcome to the new start of Paradox after the Prologue's deletion. I do also have plans to update and rewrite this first chapter so keep an eye out for that. For now I hope you enjoy okay byeeeeee :)


Chapter 1: Turning Gears

The air? Clean. The sounds of Pidgey chirping? Pleasant. The breeze? Oh so lovely. No other place on this somewhat dull continent would be nearly as enticing as Drizzle Village. A funny name for the place considering it doesn't have any more precipitation than any other standard village would. No, the place is instead named after its founders, Vivian and Kyle Drizzle. The former being a Swanna and the latter being a Pangoro. The pair of them were explorers working for a guild and part time carpenters. One day, they were sent on a mission to explore the Mystery Dungeon that goes by the name Gloomy Woods, a dungeon that had yet to be documented. earning that name for the abundance of dark and ghost types lurking around and for it's overall dull atmosphere.

The mission was going as the two expected for the most part. The only issue the two came across was the absolutely insane time it took to reach the end. The pair camped there for two weeks straight, surviving off of any natural resources they could get their paws and wings once their rations ran out. Their endurance was paid off ten fold on day fifteen when they breached the last wall of trees and laid eyes onto a beautiful and massive meadow, with a crystal clear lake nearby if you go through another small patch of trees.

The two of them were so entranced with the area that after some time had passed, they built a home smack dab in the center of the meadow. Word quickly got around about the new pretty environment and Pokémon were flocking from all over the world to get a house built there. Years had passed and that single house had bloomed into a little oasis. An Explorers Guild headquarters was even set up, allowing for easier communication with Vivian and Kyle as well as making it easier for kids to sign up for their learning course without leaving the village.

However, things haven't been so peachy nowadays. It all started with the passing of Kyle. He died from a mysterious disease that no one was able to put a finger on which left Vivian in shambles. Afterwards, a spree of "delusional crazy Pokémon," as they are now labeled, have been rioting across the streets predicting the end of the world. While most write them off as lunatics, rightfully so, there are a handful of others joining their cause and building bunkers and dens to hide in, causing mass panic in some unfortunate cities.

Although, this story isn't about a widowed Swanna, deranged harbingers of doom, or panicked Pokémon hiding in bunkers. This story is about an exceptional Espurr that simply expected to wake up, get some work done, and go to bed. Unfortunately...or, fortunately, depending on how events play out, things don't go quite as planned on this fateful day.

"Throw the ball!" A petite Totodile called out to his nearby friend. The Cydnaquil, the current owner of the ball, obliged and tossed the colorful sphere. The water type caught it and returned with an equally strong throw.

"Go long!" Is what the Cydanquil ordered after catching it for what seemed like the twentieth time. The Totodile nodded and backed up until he bumped into the walls of a house. The fire type reared back and threw the ball as hard as he could. Instead of meeting with a pair of hands, it instead got a face full of glass as it crashed into the house's window. "...Oops."

The boys sat awkwardly and waited as the voice from within the building very audibly spit out several curse words and kicked open the front door. It was an Espurr, about their size though, walking around with an heir of maturity the other two lacked.

"You two chose a terrible day to do this. My chest feels like it's on fire and I don't feel like walking all the way to your parent's houses again to report the damages." She told them after plopping their play toy back in the Totodile's hands.

"We're reeeeaally sorry, Lillia!" He started. "We won't do it again! Promise!"

"That's what you said the last seven times." The cat deadpanned.

"We really mean it this time!"

"Don't care." She then turned around, entered her house, and slammed the door.

Inside, she looked around for a few things. The first, was a few oran berries. After that, she aimed for a textbook, the cover reading "Explorer Essentials." It was one out of many scattered across her house. Finally, she grabbed a satchel and wrapped it around her. Sitting down at a nearby table, she began skimming through the words, somewhat robotically and gnawing through the berries. the minutes ticked by and soon enough she scooted the chair back, hopped up, and left the house with a smaller book in hand. Her eyes still glued to the contents inside, she trotted down the dirt path.

"I don't care! This place is going downhill anyway!" Not even a minute passed before an argument caught Lillia's attention. A Rapidash and an Ambipom were currently butting heads. "I'm going to make sure my children are safe!"

"What about your friends? We'll all miss you when you leave." The Ambipom countered.

"I told you. I. Don't. CARE! If my friends were smart they would do the same!"

"But there is no-

"Bah! Bah! Bah!" She interrupted. "This conversation is over. Goodbye." The horse walked away, leaving the Ambipom to cross his arms in annoyance, his arm-like tails copying the movement.

Lillia shook her head and returned to her book. She had been far too used to these sorts of arguments bursting out of nowhere. Tension had been increasing amongst the villagers the past few years so this argument didn't surprise her. A couple of minutes passed until she heard the familiar chuckling of someone she didn't want to meet at the moment. Looking up from her book, Lillia spotted a certain Rhydon chatting with a Croagunk. Before she even had a chance to react, he looked directly at her and waved her over.

"Well, well, well. Look who's here." He grinned.

"Hello, Flint."

"What's shakin' with you?"

"Going to school."

"Cool, cool. Ready for that test today?" Smirking, Lillia proudly, and somewhat dramatically, closed her book.

"As a matter of fact, I am." The Ryhdon chuckled. "...Anything else or can I get on my way now?"

"You know what else there is." His grin was quickly replaced with an angry stare. Any steadfast Lillia could have had, left here. Though, she still remained resolute.

"What...could you mean?" She started sweating.

"Well, since your tiny brain can't seem to remember," His hand suddenly grabbed her by the neck and pinned her to the ground, choking her. "I recall a certain someone thinking they were really funny by releasing a flock of wild Starley into my house a few days ago. Not soon after I left the building, I saw a certain someone's rear end that looked vaguely familiar."

Lillia attempted to regain some of her confidence by responding with a quip.

"...Are you saying cough you know what my ass looks like?" She choked out with the smallest of smirks. Flint responded by tightening his grip around her neck.

"Don't play games with me, fuzzball! I think it's time I teach you a thing or two about screwing with me!"

"...Nice...wording."

"SHUT IT!" He raised a claw and began snarling.

"What's going on here?" Flint released his glare on the Espurr and sent it towards the two who arrived. His grip on Lillia was instantly released once he locked eyes with them. The one on the left was a Flygon while the other was an Altaria. Both were adorned with golden badges. The Fylgon started talking first. "Flint, we know you're still mad about what happened but, you can't go around assaulting random Pokémon."

"Oh come on! I already told you it was her!"

"You have no proof." The Altaria continued. "Until we receive actual evidence instead of clearly biased claims, we can't lock anyone up."

The Rhydon let out a grunt and turned tail to leave, flashing his teeth at Lillia before leaving. Lillia released a few more coughs and reached for her throat afterwards.

"Thanks for that." She told them.

"It was you wasn't it?" The Flygon asked her.

"...Yep." He responded with a chuckle.

"We figured. I told him we can't arrest anyone for a prank like that. No one was hurt and no property was damaged. Though I will fine you one hundred Poké for it."

"Ugh...fine. I'll mail it to you guys when I get back home from the Explorers Guild."

"Oh! That's right, you have that final test today, We'll leave it to you then. Let's go, Amber."

"Good luck." The Altaria smiled and followed her partner.

"Thanks." Lillia picked up her dropped book and continued on the same trail she was on. Though, keeping a noticeable distance between her and the rock type.

The psychic type eventually arrived at a large stone building. Knocking at the door, she waited a moment before an Audino opened the door. She smiled at the Espurr before speaking.

"License please." Lillia shuffled through a satchel for a second and whipped out a badge with her picture." The normal type examined it for a moment and opened the door for her. "Welcome back Lillia. Good luck on the test today."

"Thanks." Lillia returned with a smile of her own to the polite Pokémon before walking once more. She went through a series of hallways and corridors, clearly by heart, until she finally arrived at her destination. Grabbing the knob meant for smaller Pokémon, she opened the door and was greeted to a room full of mostly occupied desks and a larger one facing the class was at the front, currently unoccupied. The name "Mr. Aurora" was written across the face of it. The cat walked to her seat and hopped onto the chair. She skimmed the remains of her book until all seats were filled and the door opened for the last time.

In walked a Delphox. Age was written all across his features. His glorious golden and crimson fur had streaks of gray and white and any exposed skin showing wrinkles.

"Apologies for my tardiness. I got held up by another one of those arguments." He waved a paw. "You've heard it from me a million times by now." Setting his things on his desk, he let out a huff and clapped his paws together. "Now, onto more important matters. You all should know that today is the day of the graduation test. I hope you've all studied last night, last week, last month, and last year." He chuckled. "You're going to need it. Let me just get a few things set up and we'll get started right away.

Taking some deep breaths, Lillia took a pencil out of her satchel and waited.

"This is going to be a breeze. You've studied every single night since you joined this dang class, surely you can ace this test with ease." Lillia thought to herself.

Eventually, Mr. Aurora went around the room giving everyone piles of paper. Once done, he returned to his desk and gave everyone a smile.

"Good luck. You have three hours to complete it. Go."

Lillia quickly looked through the sheets and counted up the problems.

"One hundred and twenty. Not nearly as bad as I was expecting. I got this."

Without hesitation, the cat filled in question after question and bubbled in every problem, only stopping to think for a few moments when the occasional written problem appeared. Two hours seemingly turned into two minutes as Lillia let out a sigh and set her pencil down. She examined her work and once considered perfect, she walked up to Mr. Aurora and placed the paper on his desk. He returned with a smile and the click of his pen before reviewing her paper.

"Easy as a breeze." She repeated.

The other students slowly started to follow suit and put their papers on the desk. Lillia watched them to pass the time. First Flaffy, then Ralts, Arcanine, and Octillery were the first batch to finish. Yamask, Chansey, Groagunk had pulled Mr. Aurora aside to ask a question, Flint, and Shelgon trailed after the first batch. Lillia made note of everything that was happening to pass the time.

Once the last few papers were turned in and Mr. Aurora was given a few minutes to finish grading, he stood up and the class went silent.

"Fantastic work everyone. Amongst the twenty seven of you, we only had one failure." Amongst the mostly happy cheering coming from everyone, there was some bitter silence within. Obviously concerned if they were the one who failed. "I'll have you all wait outside the room and I'll call you in one by one to tell you your grade. We'll start with you, Lillia." The students followed his orders by exiting the classroom and once they were all gone, a pit in Lillia's stomach began to form once Mr. Aurora's face shifted to one of happy contentment, to sadness.

"...I'll be blunt right away. You failed...terribly." He looked down and balanced his reading glasses. "You only managed to score an eighteen percent. I'm sorry, Lillia. You failed."

Feeling dizzy, she shook her head and replaced the fear in her eyes with anger.

"That's...that's impossible!" She jumped onto his desk. "I did all my assignments, I passed every other test, I did all the extra credit, I did best in our dungeon trips!"

"I'm just as surprised as you are. I reviewed this thing three times and they all came out the same. I don't know how to tell you this but, try signing up again next semester and seeing how you fair that time. Hmm?" He was startled by the sudden slam of her paws on his desk once again, dropping her papers.

"No, no, no! Review it again. You had to have made a mistake." Starting to get irritated, he responded.

"Lillia...I told you, I checked over it multiple times. I didn't make a mistake."

"I am NOT spending another four years of my life on learning the same stuff over again! I demand you look at it again!" Now, thoroughly annoyed, Mr. Aroura lowered his brows.

"Watch it missy! Give me any more attitude and I will ban you from the guild! Now please, exit my class." Waving her off with a look of disappointment, Lillia hopped down.

"B-But...you can't just..." She sprinted straight out of the door and through the crowd of curious students listening into all the screaming. Sighs of relief could be here throughout.

"I guess we know who failed." Flint joked to the Croagunk next to him who promptly chuckled.


Pushing past anyone one, with moderate size, Lillia blindly ran in the first direction she chose. Quickly reaching a batch of trees and running past it, scraping her body across loose branches from all sorts of plants. She didn't care of course, her one thought at the moment was to get as far away as possible and scream. And that's what she did. One sufficiently far enough, she took a deep breath...

"Stupid. Piece. Of. SHIIIT!" Taking the nearest rock she could find, she picked it up with Psychic and hurled it at a small tree, destroying it in seconds. She repeated this with another rock, and another, and another until the small patch of land around her was completely obliterated. Still breathing rapidly, Lillia glanced around. First eyeing the lake and then a nearby tree. Without much thought, she began scaling the piece of nature until she reached a significant height. There, the cat placed her rump on a branch and let out a sigh.

She stared blankly out into the lake and rubbed any tears that dared tried to pass her eye sockets. Eventually, she looked down at the cold and unforgiving soil beneath her. Though not with a look of fear, rather one filled with lust.

"Do it."

She sat her petite body on the branch and continued to stare downwards. The wind began picking up, something she saw as nothing but welcoming.

"Do it."

Her breathing had essentially come to a halt and her thoughts mostly sat at a standstill.

"Do it."

Her feet began to slip from the branch."

"Do it."

Lillia quickly spotted a flash of yellow and pink, catching her attention as well as making her flail her arms and wrap them around the tree trunk. Completely ignoring the matter at hand, she turned her full attention to the creature. It was a Mienfoo laying on the ground close to the lake.

"Oh Arceus...did they...? Finally, paying attention to her predicament. "What the hell am I doing?" Lillia moved down the trunk at the speed of a Jolteon and ran for the potential corps. She arrived in a matter of seconds and was quickly able to deduce, with a grateful sigh, that they were still breathing. "Hey..." She placed her paws along his torso and began to gently shake them. "...Are you alright?" Not long after, they let out a light hiss, leaned up, and moved a paw to their head.

"Ugh...my head." He glanced around his surroundings and was startled by a big pair of cat eyes staring straight back at him. "GAH!" He wildly flailed his arms and fell to his back. "...Ow."

"Oops. Sorry about that. Here." She offered a paw to help him up. He took it, not without some brief hesitation. "What were you doing all the way out here? Are you hurt?"

"...U-Uh, I was just..." Pausing, he stared blankly at Lillia until she snapped in his face. "I-I don't remember." Panic took over his features.

"What?"

"I don't remember anything! My name! Where I'm from! How I got here! Anything!" Pacing back and forth, he continued. "W-What do I do?!"

"Hey, hey. Calm down. Panicking isn't going to get anywhere. Deep breaths. He followed her instructions and soon managed to tone down his hyperventilating. She could still tell, just by looking at his eyes, that he was still having a panic attack. "Look, why don't we go back to my village. Maybe you're from there and just bumped your head while out here. Looking at everything should bring back something, right?" The Mienfoo nodded in return.

"Y-Yeah. I guess."

"Great, I can teleport us back since it's a little ways away from here. It'll just take a moment to-

Crack

Twisting her body around as fast as possible, she looked to wear the sound had come from. Slight rustling from a bush caught her attention as she put a paw in front of her insomniac cohort.

"Stay back...I think there's a wild Pokémon watching us."

"W-Wild? How is that any different than what we are right now?"

"Just...I'll explain it later. Focus on the matter at hand right now."

Glancing around the area, she picked up the first semi large rock she could find with Psychic and threw it with massive force over to the bush. The figure dodged the rock and revealed itself to be a Sabeleye. The grin it shot at the pair with its spiked teeth sent a chill down the Mienfoo's spine.

"Shit." Lillia cursed under her breath.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't have any moves to hit this thing."

"You what?!"

The ghost suddenly darted for the pair and barely missed a shadow claw as Lillia dragged the insomniac out of the way. It didn't give the pair much time to prepare after it skidded across the ground and began charging at them once more. By the time Lillia had turned her focus back to the creature, it was already mere feet away from them. Not having any time to dodge it herself, she shoved the Mienfoo out of the way and attempted to sidestep the move. She was unsuccessful and ended up getting a chunk of flesh ripped off her arm. A grunt escaped her mouth and she gripped the place she was struck. The creature cackled, clearly happy from the critical blow. Now, having no other options, Lillia turned and ran to where the only place the creature wasn't cutting her off at and joined the side of the insomniac at the edge of the lake's pier.

"We got to teleport out of here. Buy me some time while I get the move ready."

"B-Buy you some time?! I don't even know how to use moves!"

"Well you have to do something or else we're both dead." Without even hearing what she had to say, she closed her eyes and began charging some psychic power within her paws.

"...O-Okay." He hesitantly put a decent sized gap between him and the cat. Looking at his aggressor, now slowly stalking towards them with a wide grin plastered on its face showing off its pure happiness of the situation, he attempted to look resolute despite the slight quivering in his legs.

With one last cackle, it reared its arm back and dashed at them once more. He panicked and rolled under the ghost as he jumped up to tear at him. Once the two faced each other again, he waited for it to charge at him again but it never came. They remained in the stalemate for a good while until a dark figure manifested from the pier's wood behind the insomniac and struck his back, knocking him forward and causing him to let out a grunt of pain. The shadow then returned back into the wood and returned to its proper place, behind the Sabeleye.

Now on his stomach, the ghost took advantage of his vulnerable state to once again charge at him. Not knowing what to do, the Mienfoo rolled onto his back and tried to kick the Sabeleye straight in the torso as he jumped at him. To his surprise, his feet phased right the the Sabeleye's chest sending a ghastly chill all through his lower body and was struck across the chest with another Shadow Claw.

Looking at its handiwork with a pleased expression, it turned it's attention to the still distracted feline. A purple glow was now surrounding her, seemingly almost done with the move. Taking its opportunity, the ghost stalked its unaware prey with steady content and reared up its arm one last time and got ready to slice her throat open.

A grunt was faintly heard from behind it, causing it to whip its head around and meet the cold and hard surface of a rock crushing not only the pier it landed on, but the creature's entire body as well. A screech of pain roared from its mouth but it was quickly silenced by any essence of life escaping its body, causing all limbs still intact to go limp.

The Mienfoo, a few feet away, let out a sigh of relief and collapsed onto his back to catch his breath.

"Alright I'm finished! Let's get-

Lillia glanced down to the mangled corpse crushed under the large rock.

"...Oh." She looked over to the exhausted fighting type and gave him a thumbs up. "Good job."

"...I...never...want to fight again." The cat chuckled.

"Well I say for what may be your first fight, you did pretty good."

"...A-Are you kidding? I did terribly! That thing beat the shit out of me! Literally the only reason I won was because it thought it killed me and got distracted and went for you. I then did the only thing I could think of and ran over to the biggest rock I could find, picked it up, then threw it." She examined the amount of cuts across his body. A feeling of disappointment rocked her to her core as she realized that she had just sent an insomniac to fight a creature he had a blatant disadvantage to. Even more disappointment weighed her down as she realized that she couldn't even fight the damn thing herself.

"This is what you get for having one normal type move and three freaking psychic type moves."

She sighed and looked back at the fighting type.

"We take what we can get I guess." Lillia shrugged and attempted to smile to raise the mood but he wasn't having any of it.

"J-Just teleport me out of here." He avoided her gaze and she complied to his wishes.

"...Alright. Here, grab my paw." The Mienfoo followed her orders, while still looking away, and they were both quickly zipped away from where they were with a flash of purple energy.