November 5, 2020 - Central Park Ruins
Narrator
"it should be around here somewhere…" Evie pondered to herself as she wandered around what seemed to be a large park, the area was feral territory now, but she infrenced that it was a major place that humans visited before, indicated by the concrete pathways and (barely recognisable) benches.
The guild got an anonymous tip that a mystery dungeon appeared around the area. She was sent in to find and catalogue it into the guild's database as per government protocol.
Despite the boringness of the task, and the fact that she was here for a couple of hours already, she felt quite calm roaming around the deserted park.
"It's getting late," she mumbled as she saw the sun setting. Evie put her satchel down and rummaged through it, pulling out a flashlight attached to a small lightweight harness.
She put the harness over her back and tightened it, the flashlight resting on the right side of the eevee's mane.
Flipping a switch on the flashlight, a large area in front of her was illuminated. She looked around the area, her flashlight following her vision.
She suddenly heard something rustling, she turned around towards the source of the noise and saw a shadowy figure just beyond her flashlight's reach.
"Hello? Are you a feral?" she asked the figure nervously.
Evie's ears twitched, a wave of dread washed over her.
"Y-you're one of DIO's guys aren't you?" Evie slowly and discreetly put her mouth into her mane, grabbing a hold of something sharp hidden in it.
"I should be able to hit him, he's in point blank range," the eevee thought to herself.
The figure nodded and walked into the flashlight's light, revealing himself to be a mega-mawile, a short pale yellow and black bipedal pokemon. He had long magenta fur on his legs resembling a hakama and small tufts of magenta fur on his forearms. He had two long strands of black fur extending from his head. The mega-mawile's most notable feature was two giant black jaws extending out of the back of his head.
"Oh merde, this'll be tough," Evie gripped the sharp object in her mane.
Mega-Mawile outstretched both of his arms, "come on then, hit me, or do you think you'll miss?". A dark blue aura surrounded Mega-Mawile.
Evie jerked her head upwards away from her mane, holding a throwing knife previously hidden in her mane in her mouth. She quickly tossed the knife blade-first at Mega-Mawile, in her eyes it was a guaranteed hit.
Evie's Perspective
Except it wasn't.
Something altered the knife's trajectory mid-air, a force comparable to a breeze of wind slightly pushed the knife's sharp end to the side, causing it to barely even graze Mega-Mawile's face. The knife flew past him and landed in the ground.
I stumbled back in shock, "I-Impossible! It should've hit him square in the face, this has to be the work of an enemy stand!".
"You noticed it didn't you. The gust of wind blowing your knife away? That was my stand", Mega-Mawile then posed menacingly.
"I am Dan! Wielder of the stand power known as「Country Roads」,."
"Who asked?" I retorted, thankfully in my mind.
"Any action that you take, no matter how likely the outcome, will not be in your favor," Dan explained, the dark blue aura manifesting into a large grey cube with glowing blue patterns, the now fully manifested 「Country Roads」hovered besides Dan.
I grit my teeth, I guess there's no running from this one…
"Quit monologuing!" I pulled another knife from my mane, the blade facing towards Dan.
"En garde!".
Stand User: Dan
Stand Name: 「Country Roads」
Stats:
Destructive Power: C
Speed: E
Range: A
Persistence: A
Precision: D
Development Potential: B
Ability: Can negate attacks.
Meanwhile, in a different area…
Raymond's Perspective
"Ey Ray? Do you know what people ask me the most?" Oliver asked me.
"'This is a restricted area'?".
"'Why are you so obsessed with aliens?', well it all started when-,".
I put a vine up, "I'm gonna stop you right there, no offense but… who the heck asked?".
He pouted, "fine… it's not like patrol duty would be any less boring,".
We were on patrol duty, it may sound cool to outsiders but it mostly consists of walking around doing nothing, we don't even patrol in the dangerous areas, just in the places where nothing happens.
We were walking down the street in one of Jericho's less populated areas, not many people live here, but it isn't overrun by ferals either.
I kicked a small pebble in the way, "this is so boring! Why is it always the normal parts we're told to pat-,".
Oliver suddenly put a paw over my mouth, "wait! I hear something…".
…
A low rumbling was heard in the sky above us, we both looked up to see a strange light in the sky. It was different from the rest of the stars, and it was clearly getting closer to us
"Oh sweet Xerneas, it's a…" Oliver was at a loss for words.
The light got closer and closer, we could barely make out the details of it, but it was clearly some kind of sphere-shaped vehicle.
It landed on a nearby street, fairly close to us. Me and Oliver both looked at each other in wonder, and back at the ship.
"Holy shit… I guess you were right about the whole alien thing after a-,".
"WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR! LET'S GO!" Oliver grabbed my leafy arm and we both ran towards the ship.
Once we got close enough, we dove behind a rock. "Be quiet" Oliver put a paw over his mouth to emphasise.
The ship was ovoid-shaped, the thicker part having a window and the thinner part having a cargo-hatch-like door on the bottom. It had three landing gears, two on the front and one on the back. There were three aerofoils on it, two on each side and one on top. The whole ship was bright red, the window was cyan.
The cargo hatch opened, fog emanated from the inside of the ship while the door made its way to the ground, when it fully opened, a figure emerged from the interior.
The figure was mostly red, with a blue face. It had three blue dots on its back forming the shape of a triangle. There was a purple stripe running down its face and a big purple gemstone was present on its chest. It had white circular eyes inside black rectangular eye sockets. It was bipedal, with red tapering legs with a blue vertical stripe running up both. Its arms consisted of two tentacles coiled together, one of them blue and the other red. It had two red protrusions on either side of its head. The alien was about 170cm tall.
The alien walked down the cargo door, when it reached the end it cautiously put one of it's legs down on the ground. Seeing that it was safe, it stepped off the cargo door and took a few steps forward.
The alien slowly turned its head around, scanning the environment.
"We gotta make contact with it," Oliver whispered to me.
"Are you crazy!?" I whisper-yelled at him, "we have no clue if it's evil or not,".
Too bad I didn't warn him in time, he got up and slowly walked towards the alien, it was looking away from him. It probably didn't know we were here yet.
I grumbled to myself, "screw it".
I got up and slowly approached the alien with Oliver.
The alien turned its body fully to face the both of us when it saw Oliver and me.
…
All three of us were dead-silent, Oliver and I not even daring to move. The alien tilted its head in interest.
I decided to break the ice by slowly raising my leafy hand, "hellllooooo," I spoke slowly, "welcome to Eaaarrth," I awkwardly gestured to the environment around us.
"This is so dumb…".
"I, Raymond," I put one of my leafy hands on my chest, "he, Oliver," I pointed at the oshawott.
I slowly pointed at him, "you?".
The alien nodded, "I am Nu Mikitakazo Nshi, I am a deoxys. My planet resides within the Magellanic clouds beyond this solar system. Are you one of the inhabitants of planet Earth?".
…
Me and Oliver stood there, utterly gobsmacked.
Mikitakazo stood there confused at our expression, until he realised what was wrong. "Oh! I apologize for any earlier conceptions about me being illiterate in the ways of your language. Contrary to your earlier beliefs I am actually quite well versed in english. And, returning to my previous question, are you one of the inhabitants of this planet?" the deoxys asked us.
"Uh… yeah, we are…" I answered nervously, still a bit embarrassed at what happened before.
"YOU'RE A REAL ALIEN!" Oliver exclaimed in excitement, "where'syourlasergun?howdoesyourshipwork?wheredi-,".
I jabbed him in the arm, then turned back to Mikitakazo, "so… why are you here?" I asked the alien.
"Several days ago my people lost contact with one of our vessels here, that ship was carrying a prototype zero-point-energy manipulator, the pilot was one of my close friends,".
"So you're on a rescue mission?" Oliver tilted his head.
"No, we are certain that the pilot is dead, otherwise he would have contacted us. I was sent here to retrieve the prototype stolen from us, and my friend's remains. You wouldn't happen to know anything about this right, Raymond?"
My mind flashed back to our train ride to Jericho.
"really dude, it's true! This UFO just crashed near my house and suddenly a bunch of government agents told me to piss off! It's aliens dude!" Oliver was making a bunch of frantic motions with his paws
"oh wow… how interesting," Tom sarcastically groaned, he was tinkering with a gadget and was visually annoyed with Oliver's exclamations, Oliver didn't pick up his sarcasm.
After the incident, JoJo told me that Sigma was trying to get some alien device from the armored car. Since the train was going to Jericho, it might be at…
"I think I have a good idea where it is, well… where we can find out...".
Stand User: Nu Mikitakazo Nshi
Stand Name: Unknown
Stats:
Unknown
Ability: Unknown
Back in Central Park…
Evie's Perspective
I collapsed onto the ground, blood spurted out of my mouth.
"This guy… he's too good,".
A large cut was present on my back.
"Every attack I do…".
I fired a hyper-voice at Dan, he simply stood there as the soundwaves literally did a 180 halfway through, hitting me instead, sending me flying away.
"Just backfires…"
I got up and shambled towards Dan, he charged towards me with one of his jaws primed.
He leapt forwards, his first jaw open, the other one closed, possibly for a blunt attack.
By instinct I jumped out of the way of the first jaw, it missed me entirely. He raised the other one and swung it at me.
At this point I stopped thinking about my attacks, I ducked under the jaw and used body-slam on him.
He stumbled backwards, jolts of yellow energy coursing around the surface of his body, he was paralysed.
I leapt at his neck and bit him, pulling my head upwards, I was able to lift him up by the neck. I let myself fall backwards, slamming him into the ground head-first.
"That's it! I keep thinking about how my attacks could fail, all I need to do is stop thinking! That's his stand power!".
The paralysis wore off, he used his jaws to push himself off the ground and onto his feet, he glared at me, jaws wide open.
"Eh Danny? You really think you can hit me, right after getting hit that hard?" I taunted.
He leapt forward, both jaws coming at me.
Expectedly, both jaws were pushed away by an unseen force, leaving Dan completely defenseless.
"So that's how his stand works,".
I headbutted him in the face, sending him flying backwards.
"D'accord, let's do this," I grinned cheekily.
Raymond's Perspective
"First, we gotta hack into the guild's database, they have access to all kinds of government stuff," I explained, "Once we know where the prototype is being held, we break into it and steal it back,".
Me, Oliver and Mikitakazo were sneaking over to HQ, once we got near the front gate, we all hid behind a building.
"I'm not sure they allow visitors, especially any non-pokemon, so we have to sneak you in," I told Mikitakazo.
"That'll be hard, you're not exactly portable," Oliver scratched his chin.
"Yeah… you got any ideas… where did he go?", seriously!? I turn away from the alien for one second and he's already gone!
"I am down here," said Mikitakazo, his voice emanating from under us.
Me and Ollie both looked down and saw a small grey marble on the ground.
"Yo alien dude, is that you?" Oliver bent down and poked the marble.
"Yes, I am able to shapeshift into any object, as long as it is not too complex," Mikitakazo explained.
"Cool!" I picked up the marble and stored it in my bag, "now we just need to get inside,".
We both walked over to the front gate, the gligar in the watchtower saw us and opened it. Me and Oliver both walked through nervously.
"Come on Ray… it's just treason" I mumbled to myself. When we got to the guild's town square, I turned right towards our dorm.
"Ray? Why aren't we going towards the Bastion? Isn't that where the database is?" Oliver pestered me.
"We just need to borrow something from Tom, something that can disable their security systems,".
"They have those?".
"I… think?".
We crept up to our dorm's door and opened it, going inside, we tiptoed down the hall and towards Tom's room. Thankfully the pikachu was doing work in the R&D department right now.
"Oi Raymond!" a very familiar voice called out from the end of the hall, Oliver quickly looked away and pretended to be busy on his guild device.
The voice belonged to JoJo, who looked a little less sick then the last time I saw him. He sauntered over to me and roughly patted me on the back, "how's my favorite salad snake doing?".
"G-good… yeah…", as you can see, I'm not good under pressure.
It turns out JoJo is one of the worst pokemon to bump into if you're going to commit a crime, other than Charlotte. His aura sensing immediately caught on to something as soon as I spoke.
"Hmm..." he leaned in closer to me, both of his aura glowing blue.
"Uh…" I took a small step back.
"HMM…" JoJo leaned in even closer, his snout just barely touching my face.
Small beads of sweat ran down my face, "we're done for…".
"You're hiding something, aren't you?" he glared while leaning forward, I had to tilt my torso backwards so his snout wasn't in my face.
"I…", come on Ray, I just need an excuse.
I took a glance behind JoJo, seeing Oliver waving his arms around frantically, I noticed that he had a device in his hands, probably one of Tom's.
By the way he's flailing his paws around, he's either telling me to hurry up, or…
"helllooooo?" JoJo rapped my head repeatedly, "anyone in there? Spit it out already!".
"I… need a wingmon!" I blurted out, I could see Oliver facepalm.
"You… want me to help you pick up chicks?".
"Y-yes!" I nodded my head in fake desperation.
…
He chuckled, "You picked the right pokemon for the job!".
Oh no…
"We'll meet up tomorrow, sharp!" a goofy grin spread across his face as he walked away, rubbing his paws.
Well that… could've ended much better.
"There were… so many better lies you could've told, and it had to be that one!" Oliver laughed, "ooooh mon, *wheeze* I feel so bad for you right now,".
I growled, "did you get the thingamajig?".
Ollie held up a gadget, it was similar in shape to a remote, a thin rectangular box with an assortment of buttons with no labels. A small, plug-like protrusion extended out of the end of the doodad.
"It's right here," Oliver handed it to me, I stuffed the device in my satchel.
"Did you get the device?" Mikitakazo asked, I opened the satchel and looked into it, seeing that he was still a marble, " yeah, we did, now we just need to get into the Bastion and into their database".
"Are you sure that they'll have it there? It's not really the first place I would look if I wanted to know government secrets," Oliver asked.
"Where would you look? And I swear if you say 'alien enthusiast clubs'...".
"...".
I pinched the end of my face, "whatever, lets go,".
Stand User: Nu Mikitakazo Nshi
Stand Name: 「Earth, Wind and Fire」
Stats:
Destructive Power: C
Speed: C
Range: N/A
Persistence: A
Precision: C
Developmental Potential: D
Ability: Shapeshifting
Back in Central Park…
Evie's Perspective
Dan's face met the ground for the fifth time. When he got back up, I could see that he was almost ready to drop dead.
"Wait wait! I submit!" Dan put his paws up in front of me, his jaws clamping shut and cowering behind him. His stand dissipated..
The mega-mawile collapsed, streams of blood were running down his body.
"Where is DIO?" I interrogated.
"Lord DIO is in the distortion realm," a small smile appeared on his face at the thought of him, "he commanded us to annihilate the Joestars and all of their allies,".
The distortion realm? How can he communicate beyond dimensions?.
I lunged forward and headbutted the enemy stand user, knocking him out.
Pulling a device out of my satchel, I pressed a few buttons. Beeps and clicks emanated from the device. But then, instead of a popup on it's screen saying that agents are arriving, it said that there was a problem at HQ.
"What… I gotta get there!" I quickly turned to Dan, who was on the verge of a coma, "you! Stay here!". I ran off into the direction of the guild's headquarters.
Dan collapsed unconscious.
Dan, User of 「Country Roads」
Retired
Meanwhile, in the Peacekeeper Agency HQ…
Raymond's Perspective
"Well, let's get this over with," I sighed quietly.
Two magnezone guards were in front of the main gateway into the Bastion, so going through that way is a no-go.
"I have scanned the area and have found several underground shafts leading into the tower," one of Mikitakazo's tentacles extended out of my bag and pointed towards a seemingly decorative rock.
We walked over to the rock, I tapped on it with one of my vines. "It's hollow,". Feeling around the rock, I found a small hidden slit on its surface.
Putting my vine inbetween the slit, I pushed it to the side, the rock slid open like a sliding door, revealing a dark maintenance shaft, with a dark green ladder running down the shaft.
I extended one of my vines and grabbed one of the ladder bars, pulling myself forward, I grabbed ahold of another bar to steady myself. I climbed down by carefully grabbing one bar under me with a vine.
"Uhh dude, I can't go down there," Oliver called from the top of the shaft. Oh right, his paws are too stubby for ladders.
Mikitakazo jumped out of my satchel while still in marble form, transforming into his regular alien self he climbed up the shaft with surprising agility.
Mikitakazo wrapped two tentacles around Oliver's waist and hoisted him over his back. He then proceeded to climb down the shaft with me.
After a while, we finally got to the bottom of the shaft. We were in some sort of cave.
"Look! There's an opening over there!" Oliver pointed at a large hole on the wall of the cave. We climbed through it and into some kind of… I didn't know what to call it.
The place was an enormous cavern, with giant steel pillars extending from the ground to the ceiling.
I saw something in the distance, squinting my eyes, I realised that it was a service elevator leading up into the Bastion.
'Over there, an elevator," we all went towards the elevator and stepped inside. There was a keypad with two arrow-shaped buttons, up or down. The up button was lit up, while the down button wasn't.
I extended a vine and pressed the up button. The elevator shook as it lifted us up after a few seconds, I was worried that we would suddenly be sent plummeting to the ground.
Thankfully we didn't, the elevator doors opened, greeting us with the sight of a large generator room spanning about 90 metres. The floor and walls were made out of bland concrete. Inactive yellow emergency lights lined the top of the walls. Electric type pokemon of varying species worked diligently, either on using control boards or on powering the generators themselves.
Mikitakazo shapeshifted into a small circular badge, he jumped up and attached himself to my scarf.
The workers didn't pay much attention to us as we navigated the power plant sector, the most me and Oliver got were a couple of curious glances our way.
At the end of the room was a door labeled "exit", which we quickly went through.
The door led into an impossibly large cylindrical shaped hub. Running along the perimeter of the hub were four large doors, one of them being the one we exited through. In the middle of the room was a big transparent tube-shaped elevator, with decorative trees surrounding it. The walls were made out of white marble, while the floor was black marble, with red and yellow carpets.
The hub was bustling with activity, pokemon of all shapes and sizes paced around.
I turned my head to Oliver, "we gotta find their data center quick, before someone recognises u-".
THUD!
My sentence was interrupted by a train ramming into me, and by "train" I mean some small clumsy pokemon carrying a stack of papers in his mouth, all of them flying everywhere.
"Crap!" the pokemon exclaimed in a voice I vaguely remember, "sorry 'mon, you okay?".
"Y-yeah," I immediately got down and picked up some of the papers that he dropped.
I turned my head upwards towards the pokemon and immediately realised who it was. My face (and Oliver's) turned pale at the sight of who it was.
"Wait a minute… Raymond!?" Vance stumbled back in shock, "what are you doing here!?".
"Uhh… what are… YOU doing here!?" I pointed at him, dropping the papers that I picked up.
"How the hell did you get in here? You kids ain't-,".
"Okbyenow!" I grabbed Oliver by the paw and ran towards one of the perimeter doors, leaving Vance standing there.
Looking up, I could see that the sign above the door was labeled "Sector A", I have no clue what that means but I'm running through it anyways!
"Mikitakazo!" I ripped the pin out of my scarf and tossed it at the door.
"On it!" the badge shapeshifted into a battering ram in mid-air, smashing through the door. Emergency lights activated and klaxons blared as we ran through the door. Mikitakazo reverted back to his normal form and followed along.
"Alert," a monotone, feminine robotic voice spoke through the Bastion's (and all of HQ's) PA system, "all Bastion operators, invasive operation of traitorous origin detected. Sector A under lockdown,".
Welp… this sucks.
Beyond the door to Sector A was a rectangular room with an elevator, obviously we ran through the elevator and promptly activated it. We could see several guards running after us as the elevator door closed.
"Attention please," the robotic voice spoke through a speaker on the ceiling of the elevator, "access to this Sector is not permitted for low ranking agents. Bastion security deployed and designated to prosecute, to receive this message is to be in guild oath violation," the robotic voice finished.
"We are in so much trouble," Oliver whimpered.
The elevator door opened. Walking though it, we seemed to be in some kind of server room, with hundreds of server racks lined up. At the end of the room was a large screen, with a control console under it. Thankfully nobody seemed to be inside at the time.
I pulled Tom's thingamajig out of my bag and stabbed the plug into the elevator panel. Sparks of electricity flew as a "ding" was heard inside of the closed elevator. After a few seconds, we could hear the elevator plummeting down the shaft, a loud explosion emanated from dozens of metres down.
"Individuals," the robotic voice spoke again, "you are now charged with multiple level five violations, including: theft, multiple counts of trespassing, multiple counts of destruction of guild property-,".
"Oh come on! that was only two times!" I blurted out
"-resisting arrest, treason against the guild oath, assault-,"
"Seriously!? We just bumped into each other!"
"-and conspiracy, cooperation with security teams is encouraged,".
Huh… now that I think about it, maybe breaking into the heart of the Peacekeeper Agency wasn't the best idea.
I ran towards the control console at the end of the room. Turning it on, the guild's symbol appeared on the giant screen. After a few seconds, the interface showed up.
"Alright… let's see…", I extended both of my vines out of my neck. I typed "alien" into the console.
No results, how about…
I typed "Train" into the console.
Several files showed up, nothing about that alien pilot though.
I tried a couple more times with different keywords, finally I found the right file after 6 tries.
I pressed a vine against the console's touchscreen, opening the file. Suddenly loud alarms started blasting
"Unauthorized access detected, remote security units engaged," the PA robot spoke.
Circular holes in the ceiling opened up, four heavily armored drones floated through the holes and faced us.
"Congratulations Raymond," Guildmaster Alakazam's voice spoke through a speaker in one of the riot drones. "You pissed me off. Now you better listen veeeery fucking carefully to the next 119 words I am about to say right now. If you open that file, from now until the day you die, your ass is mine. Once you bend over to the security forces climbing up that elevator shaft this very moment you better get ready to call mom on the phone because you're gonna need a good fucking lawyer for this shitshow you wrote, directed and starred the main role in. I will personally turn you into caesar salad and feed you to the construction teams fixing 20,000 poke worth of damages, better yet, I will slice you up and turn you into lettuce for my lunchtime submarine sandwich. You penetrated the Bastion, so guess what I'm gonna penetrate, your mom! That's right! I. Will. Fuck. Your. Mo-,".
SLASH!
Mikitakazo morphed his right arm into a long rectangular blade and sliced Alakazam's drone in half.
"You are being very rude," said Mikitakazo.
Guildmaster Alakazam audibly growled through one of the other drone's speakers. Small turrets extended out from the bottom of the riot drones.
"Command, shoot on sight!" all three of the drones turned to us and unleashed a hail of gunfire in our direction. Mikitakazo morphed his right arm into a wide shield, covering us.
Mikitakazo grunted in pain as the bullets hit his shield. He charged forward and slammed the shield into all three of the drones, smashing them into bits.
"Raymond! G- -et th-" al the sounds around me started getting muffled by… something.
Lightheadedness struck me, clutching my head with a vine, I stumbled around trying to not fall over.
Next came the tinnitus, quite possibly the worst I've ever had.
After a few more seconds of… whatever this was, everything turned black as my face met the ground.
The Distortion Realm
The feeling quickly went away, but when my vision returned, I kinda wanted to go back to just having lightheadedness.
I was definitely not in the Bastion anymore, probably not even on the same planet. The ground was brown, similar to how rust looks. The sky was a mixture of purple and grey. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention…
I was on an Arceus-damn floating island. I could see several more floating land masses nearby with the same color scheme as mine, but the bigger ones had plants and grass growing.
The island I was on was several meters away from the largest landmass, which extended towards the horizon. Only just beyond my personal long-jump record, which was just under a meter.
"That rules out jumping…" I stepped forward and kicked a rock over the edge, but I noticed that the rock's flight through the air was slower than normal. It seems like gravity is lower here.
Well… I have no other options so I guess I'll just…
I ran towards the edge of the island and jumped off it, as expected, I started to float in the air. Extending two vines out of my neck, I had them shoot forward and grip onto some tufts of grass on the other island. I retracted the vines while still holding onto the grass, causing me to be pulled forward onto the floating island.
I gracefully landed on the ground and looked behind me, I was only a few inches away from the edge. I hastily walked away from the circumference of the floating island
"W-where the heck am I?" I muttered to myself.
All of a sudden, a large beam of light shot into the sky in the distance.
"There's nowhere else I can go," I made my way towards the beam of light.
Some time later…
I was close to the giant beam of light now, looking up, it seems to be making some kind of "hole" in the sky, it's hard to explain.
Climbing on top of a rust-colored hill, I could finally see what was happening.
Surrounding the beam of light was an entire army of pokemon, all of them varying in species, but they all looked really mean. They were arranged in a circular formation encircling the beam.
For a brief moment, a green flaming energy engulfs Raymond, but he doesn't notice.
I cautiously made my way over to the mob, careful not to draw attention to myself. I got near one of the pokemon, I was hiding behind a rock only a few meters away from it.
The pokemon was a kabutops. But it wasn't a normal one. It's usually brown shell was a dull grey. It's eyes were bloodshot, and I'm pretty sure that it's arm blades were serrated too. It was almost as if it was a… walking… corpse…
My eyes darted over to the pokemon surrounding it. They were all decomposing too!
"They're… zombies?", that shouldn't be possible, only a vampire like Straizo could make zombies! That would mean that a vampire is actually nearby. They all seemed to be "hibernating" as well, not even moving an inch.
Suddenly a wave of goosebumps washed over me, the tips of my vines extending out of my neck.
"W-what is t-this?" I frantically looked around.
I felt another presence nearby, like there was a connection between me and the mysterious pokemon. Ignoring the zombies, I ran through the crowd, curiosity overwhelming my fear. Thankfully they didn't care at all.
I reached the end of the crowd, now I could see what exactly they were encircling.
It was a stairway leading underground, similar to the stairs in a mystery dungeon. In front of the stairway was a hole where the beam of light was coming from.
Gathering all of my courage (which, by the way, is almost nonexistent right now), I walked down the stairway.
It was extremely dark, the only thing illuminating the stairway was the occasional torch hung on the wall. The walls were made out of large cobblestone, same thing for the floor, giving the place an eerie, cold atmosphere.
Reaching the end of the stairway, I ended up in an interior similar to a mansion, similar to Lucario's, but with a more Victorian feel to it. Just like the stairway, almost all of the rooms were shrouded in darkness, save for a few lit candles.
Taking a deep breath in and out, I noticed that the underground mansion was so cold that my breath was visible.
I could feel the bizarre presence from before even more now, and it seemed to be coming from a nearby room…
I slowly slithered over into the room, being careful not to make a sound. When I got to the center of the room, I realised that I couldn't see anything at all. I looked around to see if there was some kind of light switch.
The presence felt even stronger now, causing me to breathe heavily out of stress, what is this thing!?
Suddenly the entire room was lit up instantly by previously unlit candles scattered around, the flames were an unnatural blue. I could now see that I was in a large library. Cobwebs covered about a quarter of empty space.
"W-who's there!?" I blurted out of fear. Both vines extending fully out of my neck.
I could feel the presence moving around me. Deciding that enough was enough, I shot a razor leaf at the presence's estimated position.
The sharp leaf made contact with something, I heard flesh being sliced, and I could see some blood flying in the air.
At the sight of whoever's blood this was, all the fear I had before disappeared, I readied another razor leaf. If it can bleed, it can die…
"You're a clever boy, aren't you? Predicting where I was going to be next," a deep voice with a british accent spoke out, absolutely annihilating any bit of fortitude I had before. The razor leaf in my hand withered away.
"Oh come on, what happened to all that bravado before? All that confidence?" the mysterious stranger sneered despite the giant cut on his torso.
"s-stop hiding in the shadows y-you… you…" the words got stuck in my mouth. This intense fear… it's like nothing I've ever experienced!
"Ah, what is it you were going to call me? actually, don't bother telling me. I'll oblige," the figure stepped into the range of the candles.
He was absolutely massive, over 195cm tall. His gaze sent chills down my entire body, causing my internal temperature to get low enough to the point of lethality. Golden yellow fur covered most of his body, with the fur on his head being long and messy, but at the same time being oddly… attractive. The large spike on his chest and on the back of his paws were visibly razor-sharp, even from the distance I was standing. Even more terrifying was that the large cut on his chest before was reduced to a faint white line.
"Hmm, now that I am standing here, I feel a certain… connection towards you, snivy. Could it be? That you were sent to the Distortion World because of me?" the shiny lucario spoke in a condescending tone. Every word he said triggered every single neuron in my brain to tell me to run, to hightail it out of there and never look back, but I didn't.
Eerily enough, his words were like a soft blanket on a cold night. Similar to how a caring parent would speak to a toddler, making me feel like I was safe.
But I wasn't, obviously. How can someone be so tempting, so charming, yet obviously dangerous?
I gotta get out of here, before I do something really dumb, like becoming this vampire's minion.
Actually, you know… maybe I should… NO! Why am I thinking like this!?
"What's wrong? Has the cat taken your tongue?".
I tried to run away, but my legs just couldn't move!
A flash of green engulfs Raymond for a split second
"Hmm… I know that we're connected in some way, but I just can't put my finger on it," he rubbed his chin. After a few seconds, his eyes suddenly widened. "Oh! Your grandmother wouldn't happen to be a Lilligant, right?".
HOW DOES HE KNOW GRANDMA!?
"Seeing the look on your face, I shall assume that is a 'yes', you see, a long time ago, me and your grandmother had… 'the birds and the bees,'" he grinned smugly.
"YOU DID WHAT!?" I blurted out in surprise.
"Oh finally the fearless hero speaks!" the menacing lucario threw his head back.
I grit my teeth, every ounce of fear I had before drained out of my body, you cheeky fuck…
I lunged at him, both vines extended out of my neck, the ends turning into green blades. I stabbed both blades forward in the lucario's general direction.
Time seemed to slow down in my perspective, I watched the blades inch closer and closer to him.
"Hmf, useless useless useless…" he smiled, shaking his head. The lucario suddenly threw both of his arms to the side, his entire body became engulfed in a yellow flame.
"BEHOLD! THE POWER OF 「THE WORLD」!"
The lucario vanished out of thin-air!
I spun around in a 180*, only to see a giant golden fist coming straight for my face!
I put both of my arms and my vines in front of my face in a vain attempt to block his stand's attack.
Two spectral green arms emerge out of thin air behind Raymond, but quickly disappear.
"MUDA!"
As expected, my block didn't help at all in actually blocking the attack. 「The World」's fist sent me flying through a bookshelf.
My body burst through the other side of the bookshelf. I landed a few meters behind it.
"Really? That was hardly a jab!" the shiny lucario jeered.
I slowly got up, clutching my chest where the fist landed.
I could've sworn I saw some kind of green flaming energy on my hand, but it was probably just my imagination.
"Curious… you aren't summoning your stand. Are you suicidal, or has it just begun to manifest?" the yellow energy around him disappeared.
"S-stand?", I don't have a stand though!
"You were covered in stand energy multiple times, and you just barely summoned it. Hmm, it would be wasteful to kill you here right now…", he scratched his chin, contemplating.
The tip's of my vines protruded out of my neck out of fear. I gotta find a way out of here…
"Ah, I know. Perhaps you can join me~," he put on a more softer tone.
"Wha?" was all that could come out of my mouth.
"Even if you couldn't summon it, I could just feel it. The strength of your dormant stand, you just need someone to teach you how to use it. I, DIO, can help you with that,".
His menacing yet alluring aura got stronger. He continued
"Join me Snivy, help us open the breach between the Distortion World and Earth. Cast away your feeble mortality,".
I started feeling lightheaded again, DIO noticed this.
"Giratina is already suspecting that you don't belong here, you should decide quickly, Snivy,".
My entire body was trembling. The answer is obvious, don't join him! So why… WHY DO I WANT TO!?
But suddenly, a rush of calmness swept over me, DIO was kneeling down to my level, which seems like a hard thing to do for someone of his height but he somehow did it anyway.
Alright…
When I answered, it was like my vocal cords, mouth, and tongue started moving on their own.
Yes… this is the right path.
Everything went dark…
Narrator
Jericho Underground
Deep underneath the cityscape, resides DIO's cult. Situated in a network of abandoned railway tunnels.
Even deeper than the railway tunnels was an entire underground fortress. Where the top dignitaries of DIO's legion plot a mass breakout from the distortion realm and the oncoming takeover of the world.
Today was a special day for the followers, as their acting leader, Elise, called for a mass meeting in the fortress.
Dozens of vampires crowded into a large meeting room, at the end was a tall podium, requiring stairs to climb up to.
Murmurs spread around the room, but were all immediately silenced at the entrance of a certain red-cloaked delphox. Elise walked over to the podium and climbed up behind it.
"My fellow followers of DIO, 2 hours ago, the breach was opened,".
The entire crowd of DIO's army instantly started cheering, but were silenced by Elise blowing someone's head off with her Space-Ripper-Stingy-Eyes.
"Any other objections?" she asked plainly, everyone hastily shook their heads.
"Good, as I was saying. In just 24 hours, the breach will become large enough for DIO and the army he gathered to travel through. I am declaring a call-to-arms to take place 20 hours from now to secure the city," DIO's followers listened intently.
Elise leaned forward on the podium, becoming engulfed in a red aura.
"Jericho will come to know the true ultimate being, the world shall follow suit...".
Raymond's Perspective
Peacekeeper Agency HQ
My head… I feel so dizzy.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
That noise… is that a heartbeat monitor?
I slowly opened my eyes and got blinded by a ceiling lamp. I waited a while for my eyes to adjust. When I could finally see properly, I saw that I was facing the plain white ceiling.
I turned my head to the side, resting it on the oddly comfortable off-green hospital bed. I could see a tall IV stand with a strange device attached on it's tube.
Squinting my eyes, I could see that it was cube-shaped, with a vial of some kind of liquid protruding out the back.
A remote anesthesia injector, that's messed up.
I tried to sit up, but something felt like it was tugging at my waist. I looked down and saw a giant handcuff-like restraint strapped to the hospital bed around my lower body.
"Crap, I'm still in trouble,".
I tugged at the restraint, it was sturdy as hell. Looking around, I noticed that the room I was in seemed a bit, "maximum security"-ish. The walls were reinforced, and I'm pretty sure that loose tile on the floor is a hidden turret, and I'm not even going to start on the four security cameras watching me.
I sighed and laid back down. I opened and closed my hand repeatedly, trying to draw out my stand. If what DIO said was true, then I just need a little push, something… or someone to help trigger it.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, considering I'm being watched like a locust on a cornstalk right now) my stand wasn't appearing.
I continued to stare at the ceiling for a few minutes, letting my thoughts roam free, no matter how DIO-related they were.
Did I really pick the right choice? What am I saying!? Of course I did!
Suddenly, a click emanated from my hospital room's blast door. The giant door slowly opened, the complex locking mechanisms shifting around visibly. When the door finished opening, I saw that behind it was a very familiar (and terrified) eevee.
"Evie?" I tilted my head.
"R-ray…" she slowly approached me.
I decided not to move at all, judging from her beyond apprehensive demeanor.
Seeing that I wasn't about to disintegrate her or anything, Evie climbed up onto the hospital bed.
"So, what did they say about me?" I asked.
She looked down, trying to find the best way to word her next sentence, when she was ready, she raised her head back up and stared me straight in the eyes.
"Well, I have good news, and bad news, and badder news, and really badder news,".
"Tell me the good news,".
"Well, the guild has bigger problems to deal with right now, so you're kinda off the hook," Evie smiled.
I smiled as well, "that's good, what's the bad news?".
"JoJo's in… a coma,".
…
"What?".
Evie sighed, "he was completely fine for one moment, but then he got a fever and fainted. His condition is getting worse,".
We both stayed silent for a minute.
"The badder news?" I asked.
"Guildmaster Alakazam is still mad at you, like… REALLY mad, Vance told me that he was rehearsing an enormous lecture in his room, he's been at it for an hour already,".
That's understandable, wait… what about…
"What happened to Oliver? And Mikitakazo?"
"Mikitakazo? Oh! You mean that alien guy! He escaped, and Oliver's in the holding cells for a while,".
I frowned, someone like him doesn't deserve being put on trial for what I dragged him into.
"Then… why aren't I in one?".
Evie took a small cautious step backwards, "y-you don't remember? What you did to those guards?".
I shook my head.
"They're… on life support, you almost killed them with your stand,".
My eyes widened, there's no way I did that! I was in the Distortion Realm!
She noticed my surprised expression, "you were moving around like you were sleepwalking, and your stand was pummeling everyone in sight, it even took out some of our best stand users,".
"No… I couldn't,".
"Alakazam probed your mind while it was all happening, he said that DIO tried to… recruit you,".
I stayed silent.
"Y-you said n-no, didn't you?"
"What!? Of course I didn't!" I yelled at her defensively. Oops, that came out not the way I wanted it to be.
A squeak escaped from the eevee's lips, her fur stood on end.
A menacing aura surrounds Raymond
The loose tile on the floor raised a little, the very tip of a gun barrel pointing out.
"Listen Evie, Lord DIO is opening a breach between our world and the Distortion World, we have to close it," I explained.
"That's what the really badder news was, an-... d-did you just call him 'Lord DIO'?" her eyes widened.
Oh crap.
"Wait I didn't mean it like-,".
Evie jumped away from the bed and dashed through the blast door. The giant reinforced door slowly closing behind her.
I took a quick glance at the hidden turret, the gun barrel still peeked out, but it wasn't aimed at me… yet.
All four security cameras were staring right at me, despite their lack of faces, or any discernible emotion, they all radiated hostility.
In response, I stared straight into one of the camera's lenses, raised my leafy right hand in a fist, and flipped it off.
Under the guild's headquarters
Narrator
Vampire thralls hastily ran down the makeshift tunnels dug under HQ. Each tunnel led to an opening to the surface.
The one leading this force was the zombified corviknight known as Jack The Ripper.
Jack pointed at a primeape with a radio backpack, "you! Come here right now and open the channel,".
The primeape ran up to him and pulled the radio off of the clunky backpack, he turned it on and raised it to Jack's beak.
The corviknight leaned his head into the radio. "The trojan horse is in, at this rate we can take over the area in just under 30 minutes,".
"Excellent," Elise's voice crackled through, "wait for the signal,".
"Affirmative, Jack out,".
Chapter 21 End
To Be Continued