In the last chapter, we were introduced to Clefable's underwater guild, and we found out that Clefable knows Team Rapture. We left off, I believe, where Szac asked: How in the hell did you guys evolve? And I left with the phrase 'If you're paying attention, you know the answer.'
I'd like to thank Jac, Joker, PhantoM, Honey, and Diablo125 for their contributions. Team BlackBelt, Team Aces, and Vindico will be making their appearances in this chapter. And for later, I thank PhantoM and Honey for their villains, who will begin forming more pieces to the puzzle that is this story.
Also, I have a poll on my profile. What should Kahrik's Charizard form be? I have four options up, one vote only.
You know the drill. I own next to nothing.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: The Eternal Nightmare
Chapter 5: Paragon Village
Kahrik's POV
I didn't have an answer. How the hell did you guys evolve? Szac got in trouble with the Guildmaster for his language, and we took our opportunity to leave. Once we were out, Spirit tried to console me.
"It's not our fault. It just happened. We know we're not liars," he said, patting my shoulder with his tail.
"We know, but Szac practically accused of us shirking work. You know, that's a punishable crime in Wigglytuff's Guild, and it's worse here," I grumbled in response. "Rule number 1: Don't shirk work!" I waved my hands for emphasis.
Victor joined in. "What about Rule number 3: Smiles go for miles?" He flew in front of me. "Turn that frown upside down! You never smile!"
I batted him away. "Wouldn't want to break my record now, would I?" I scored a laugh out of both of them. They often ended up laughing when I made comments like that. It's not like it hurt my feelings, but it did make me a little mad. We continued on until we reached Paragon Village.
A paragon is a perfect diamond of 100 carats or more. The town was a gem in itself. It had this natural quality, a quality you could only find in a small town, that cheered you up from the outside in. The streets were just smooth rocks arranged so they wouldn't hurt your feet, and every block or so had a crystal hanging from a tree that shone when the sun went down. As usual, the place was bustling with excitement, with Pokemon from the surrounding area converging there to do their shopping. It was big enough to hold scores upon scores of Pokemon, but small enough to feel like home.
I loved the place.
Our first stop was the bank, to deposit the Poke we gathered on our quest for Team Omega. Herdier's Hoard. The dog-like Pokemon sat faithfully, waiting for anyone to walk up and talk to him. When he saw us, he got excited, even though he had a customer in front of him.
"Team Alpha!" he woofed, emphasizing the first A with a casual bark. "I was wondering when you guys would come back! I missed you!"
"Hello, Herdier," I replied, looking at his customer. It was a Lairon, but his armor was darker than normal. "Who's this?"
The Lairon looked at me through half-lidded eyes, almost uninterested in my presence. "Vindico," he replied stiffly before finishing his business and walking away.
I stood in silence, then looked at the dog. "What's with him?"
"Vindico? He's always like that. Something on his mind, I guess." Herdier got to his feet, small tail wagging. "So, did you bring me anything?"
I smirked and removed 5739 Poke from our bag. "Just more money for you to keep track of," I replied.
"Of course! I'll guard it adamantly!"
On that note, we left for the next stop: Dugtrio's Item Shop. The Ground Pokemon built most of his store underground, for the sake of his items not being stolen. He was a nice, generous guy, but he didn't talk much.
We strode up as I pulled the Gold Ribbon out. "Dugtrio, here's that Gold Ribbon I owe you." When we first started our exploration team, Dugtrio (back then, he was still a Diglett) loaned us 5000 Poke in items for our first mission. Since then, we hadn't been in town very often, so I never had the chance to pay him back.
He stared at it in silence, then shook his head. "You guys have sold me enough goods to make my money back ten-fold. As far as I'm concerned, we're square. Keep it. Gold looks good on you," he offered.
Taking the hint, I tied it around my head so two long strips of it were hanging loose. "Thank you, Dugtrio."
As we walked away, Victor started complaining. "How come I don't get an awesome headband?"
"Because you're not the leader." Spirit replied, smacking him in the back of the head with his tail.
Our last stop was Rhydon's Storage. We actually had to wait in line. There were two teams ahead of us who apparently had a lot to do. First was Team Aces, which consisted of leader Avrey the Sceptile, Ken the Infernape, and Luke the Lucario. They joined up in Avrey's home forest, I think. They were depositing the spoils from their last exploration and picking up some more items for the next. Behind them was Team BlackBelt, which was leader Spinner the Hitmontop, Li the Medicham, and Venom the Croagunk. They were picking up some items for their next mission as well.
Venom was the first to notice us walk up. "Oh, hey. It's Team Alpha," he said evenly, slouching a bit more than usual.
Spinner turned around and nodded to me. "Hey there, Kahrik. What took you so long to get back your trip? Did you get lost on the way back?"
"Heh, heh," I replied, lowering my eyelids. "Funny." The Hitmontop was excessively annoying, and he was always making fun of me for some reason. Maybe because he knew it riled me up. "Couldn't cut it at the circus, so you came to bother us here?" I replied spitefully.
"HEY!" He snapped, glaring at me. "Take that back!"
I won. "Jeez, I'm the Fire Pokemon here and you're the one getting hot under the collar?" I jeered, crossing my arms.
Li touched his shoulder. "Spinner, mind your temper. There's no reason to get upset." She was always ruining my fun.
Finally, Ken looked over his shoulder to see what the ruckus was. "Hey! Shorty!" That's what he always calls me. I frowned. When he saw that, he laughed and walked over, holding a hand over my head. "You got taller! Found some stilts, huh?"
"Good to see you too," I replied through clenched teeth.
He patted me on the head and laughed. "Don't worry. Maybe someday you'll be as tall as me."
Spirit defended me before I punched him in the face. "He's close now. When he evolves into Charizard, he'll be a lot taller than you. Now, he's only four inches shorter."
Ken stared at me for a moment. "Heh, guess you're right. You'll all be taller than me. Especially Spirit. He's bigger than me now. How long are you, twelve, thirteen feet? Good thing you don't need to find clothes. It'd be hard to find a thirteen-foot sock."
"And I'm sure it'd be hard to find you a flame-retardant swim-cap," Spirit replied with a grin.
The older Infernape held his belly and laughed. "Right again!"
As the two teams left, I found myself thinking. When did Spirit get so damn quick? When he was a Dratini, he never could have come up with a jab that fast. I guess evolving made him faster with his tongue. That would also explain why he doesn't stutter anymore.
Rhydon brought me out of my ponderous gaze. "Hey, Kahrik! You gonna do something? I got customers waiting!"
I shook my head and ran over, dumping our treasures onto the counter. "I need to put all this into storage for later." He nodded, then put it in the back. "Can we buy some straw?"
As he walked back out, he handed me three bundles of straw. "On the house, friend."
I nodded quickly, leaning back to balance myself as we left Paragon Village from the west exit, headed straight for the waterfall. It didn't take long to get there, or to set up our base in the cave hidden behind it. What did take long was setting up the entrance so I didn't have to hover over my tail every time I walked in or out. We took some fallen pine boughs from the nearby forest and Spirit dug into the rock wall with a small Dragon Rush, creating a perfect spot to insert the branches. Then, we took extra ferns and layered them across the top and to the side, creating a doorway. To strengthen it up more, I carved open one of the trees and took some sap, spreading it across the top and edge to make a water-tight seal. Next, instead of wasting it, I fastened the loose bark on top to form the roof of the doorway. It looked good and smelled great, and we made it big enough for a Snorlax to fit through standing up, complete with two feet of overhead space.
The cave was made up of two rooms: a large entry room that we would use for meetings with guests, and a back room that we would use for the bedroom. In the bedroom, I used the straw bundles to create our three beds, forming a semi-circle around the entry door, big enough so even when we hit our final forms, we wouldn't have to adjust them much. Then, Spirit helped me dig a deep trench in the stone floor surrounding the main room, and fill it with water from the pool formed by the falls. He liked that. Next, Victor helped me carry enough wood to build a simple bridge across the trench so I wouldn't have to do any jumping to get to bed at night. We tested it's strength by all climbing onto the middle and jumping up and down. It held quite nicely, actually. Not bad for a team of Pokemon with only one member who has something close to thumbs, eh?
While Victor was busy using ferns to make a door between the main room and the bedroom, Spirit and I went out and got a large stump to use for a table. We carried it back and carved it to the right size outside with Slash and Dragon Rush, until he could curl around it twice. We rolled it into the main room and set it down in the center. Victor was done with the door by then, so we all went out and found what we saw as suitable chairs. For me, a large rock was enough. To make it somewhat comfortable, I used ferns to make a cushion. Spirit made his chair out of some extra straw, piling it up so it would be big enough for when he evolved. Until then, he didn't really need one. Victor flew out and came back with a chunk of the stump, carved it into a chair, and landed on top of it.
Now came the hard part. We went outside and climbed to the top of the waterfall in search of a boulder. It didn't take long to find. We rolled it off the edge of the falls, and it fell into the pool below. Then, Spirit, being the only one of us who could swim, dove in and retrieved it, rolling it onto shore. Together, we split it in two and smashed away at it until we had two troughs. We carried those in and filled one with fresh water, the other with apples and berries gathered from the surrounding forest.
Our base was complete. Food, water, sleeping area. Now we just needed décor. For that, we needed to talk to the local Smeargle.
^..^ ^..^ ^..^
"So, this is the place you want decorated?" Michelangelo asked, scratching his chin. He had an Italian accent, and instead of green, the tip of his tail was blue. "I could perhaps paint a mural dedicated to your final forms, or maybe devise a team logo for you?" The Smeargle always aimed to please. "A giant Charizard, Dragonite, and Flygon, all bursting from behind a three-dimensional A. Ooh, with an explosion behind them!"
I blinked. "What are we, the A-team?" I thought for a second. "Well, I suppose we are, but I think that's a bit much. I was thinking something less egotistical, like a nice painting of the mountains at sunrise, when the sky is just starting to turn red, and a few light, fluffy clouds. Maybe a small forest in front of them, and a stream flowing between two of the mountains and connecting to a lake in front."
Victor shook his head. "No, I think we should have a desert scene, nice and dry and airy with sand dunes and a bright, blue sky, the sun standing out clear as day."
"I'd prefer an ocean scene, water as far as the eye can see, crystal clear and calm under a darkening sky, with the sun just going to bed, the moon within sight, and stars starting to show up." Spirit's eyes sparkled as he imagined it.
It was easy to see it wouldn't be easy to agree on decorations. I liked morning mountains, Victor liked daytime desert, and Spirit liked sunset sea. If there were three rooms, we could compromise, but that wasn't the case. I thought for a long time. "Well, this room already has water around the edge. How about we decorate this room like an oasis under a sunset sky? That way, I get my trees, Victor gets his sand, and Spirit gets his water and sunset."
We agreed, and Michelangelo immediately got to work with painting the walls. "Okay, we have the main room figured out. What about the bedroom?" Victor asked, landing on his chair.
Spirit spoke before I even had the chance to open my mouth. "How about we decorate the bedroom with ferns and such from the forest around us, to give it an outdoors-y feel? We're already having Michelangelo do all the decorating in here except for the moat."
I nodded. "I like that idea." Then, I glared at Victor. "And before you open your yap, we can spread sand across the floor so you still have your desert feel to it. We can have Michelangelo paint a night sky on the ceiling, and while he does that we can use tree sap to glue ferns to the walls."
By the end of the day, the base was completely decorated, and we were tired. I gave Michelangelo the rest of the Poke from our bag as payment, and we went to bed, completely forgetting about dinner.
^..^ ^..^ ^..^
It was dark. Horribly dark. Suffocatingly dark. The flame of my tail only lit so far, just enough to see the floor for a foot away from me, and then... darkness. Too quiet... not a sound. The only disturbance to the silence was my own breathing. I was alone, or so it seemed. Where were Victor and Spirit? Were they okay? Were they... dead?
I took a step back, straining my eyes to catch any sign of movement. Nothing. Nothing. My fiery-hot blood, chilled to the core. For the first time in a long time, I was scared. Dead scared, like every fiber of my being was screaming of impending doom.
So cold. Why am I cold? I'm a Fire Pokemon. I shouldn't be cold. I should be hot, if nothing else. How could I be cold?
Finally, a light. It's far away, but it's light. I ran toward it, eager to escape this. Anything but this. I'll give the flame at the end of my tail to get away from this cold, this dark, this sense of foreboding. Anything to get as far as I could from this.
But the light didn't lead to freedom, to sanctuary. I didn't see anything good there. I saw a monster, a great, dark Pokemon, bruised purple with wide wings, a cold azure underbelly, six sails of the same color on his back in rows of three, two more on the tip of its tail, and eye ridges, also that same, chilling blue. It's eyes were stricken with bloodlust, glittering bright red. But it wasn't the only Pokemon there. Moltres, Zapdos, and Articuno lay in bloodied, messy heaps on the ground, none of them conscious. There was another Pokemon, almost exactly like the dark one, only instead of the more demonic coloration, it was snow white, with warm black ridges instead of icy cerulean, and an ocean blue underbelly.
Shadow Lugia and Lugia.
But how could they exist in different bodies? From what I'd heard, Shadow Lugia was just a corrupt version of Lugia. Then I figured it out; what I saw wasn't Lugia. It couldn't be. The voice, so familiar, but it couldn't be the legendary psychic Pokemon.
"DAD!" I shouted. Why would I shout that? Was I not in control of my own body? And which one was I talking to, anyway?
They both looked at me. The normal Lugia looked worried, but the Shadow Lugia looked murderous. "Let's see how well you fight when I take away your reason for challenging me." Then, it turned it's head toward me and opened its mouth, a golden orb forming in it's throat.
The regular one was screaming at me to move, but for some reason I couldn't. I was frozen in place. That Shadow Lugia was going to kill me, and I just couldn't get my legs to move. It fired its attack, a Hyper Beam. The pure energy flare grew closer and closer, so close I could feel the heat of it on my face-
^..^ ^..^ ^..^
I woke with a start, jerking to an upright position, covered in sweat. For a while, I sat without moving, my chest heaving as I panted to catch my breath. I wiped my face, then looked at the adjacent beds. Victor was stretched out on his bed, using his wings as a blanket. Spirit was curled up, using his belly as a pillow, snoring peacefully.
After a while, I got up, and walked outside to cool myself down. I may be a Fire Pokemon, but even I needed to keep a little cool. The air was crisp and clear, and smelled of fresh water and pine trees. I sat down at the edge of the pool, dangling my feet just a few inches above the surface of the water. What was that dream all about? Why couldn't I get myself to move? Why did I call that Lugia my father? Where were my friends? It was so confusing...
I looked up at the sky, my eyes locking on the moon. A flock of Ledian and Ledyba flew overhead, their wings beating ultra fast. One of the small ladybug Pokemon took notice of me and fluttered down, staring at me. Then, it giggled, splashed me a little, and shot away before I could use Flamethrower. To tell the truth, I didn't care. None of the water got on my flame, so I was fine. It was kind of cute, anyway.
That nightmare woke me up too early. I got up again, deciding it was too early to stay up the rest of the night and expect a productive way tomorrow, and went back inside to sleep with a silent prayer.
Please, someone tell me what it all means.
End Chapter 5
Phew! That wasn't easy either.
So we leave with more questions than answers. Actually, I don't think that answered any questions except 'When is my OC going to make an appearance?'.
Our newest questions: What was that dream all about? Why did Kahrik call that Lugia his dad? Why couldn't he move? Most importantly, where was everyone else? These questions will be answered later. If I told you the answers now, you wouldn't need to wait for the rest of the story and you wouldn't keep reading. I hate spoilers.
I'm still accepting OC's for the story. I'd like Outlaws at this point, and possible recruits for the evil teams. Again, submit them in your reviews!
Name: (What's your Pokemon's nickname?)
Gender: (Are you a boy or a girl? lol)
Species: (What kind of Pokemon is it?)
Level: (How experienced is your Pokemon?)
Personality: (What is your Pokemon like?)
Goal: (A vendetta is a prolonged, bitter quarrel with someone. Does your Pokemon have a vendetta against another, or maybe a grudge against a Pokemon who wronged them? Or are they just out to explore or have fun?)
Appearance: (Do they have any interesting attributes abnormal to their species? If not, just leave this out)
History: (What's so special about this Pokemon's past that sets them apart from every other Pokemon of its species?)
Moves: (What moves does your Pokemon have?)
Alignment: (Outlaw, Shopkeeper, Team member, Team leader, Solo explorer Guild member, or other)
Team: (Only if they are on a team. If they are, you need to submit at least 1 other Pokemon on the same team or I can't use them)
^..^ ^..^ ^..^
Name: Shadow Lugia
Gender: not applicable
Species: corrupt Lugia
Level: 80
Personality: Shadow Lugia is a creature bent completely on the destruction of the world. It feeds off of suffering and despair, and feels nothing but hatred and malice. Once, it was a normal Lugia, existing only to protect the seas. But now, thanks to humans from a far away land, it is evil.
Goal: Destroy the world, and take every other Pokemon with it.
Appearance: bruised purple with wide wings, a cold azure underbelly, six sails of the same color on his back in rows of three, two more on the tip of its tail, and eye ridges, also that same, chilling blue. Glittering bright red eyes.
History: A normal Lugia was captured by humans and experimented on with various machines and poisons until its mind was corrupted completely with darkness and loathe for any creature alive.
Moves: Hyper Beam, Aeroblast, Psyshock, Punishment
Alignment: Villain