:D That didn't take very long. It must be a new record or something! I need to try and keep up that updating speed. Or writing speed, more like.


Chapter 7 ~ Mysteries


"Alright, everyone understand the plan?"

Several nods were exchanged throughout the reasonably large group. They had just spent the past while going over an in-depth plan of action relating to how to deal with the Dusclops and the other Ghost-types who had possessed their friends. Somewhat surprisingly, however, to those paying the most attention to what was happening around them, such as Levinia, no other Pokémon, Ghost or not had tried to ambush them. She would've thought they'd see them gathered and pick off them as 'easy targets.' Apparently, that was not quite the case.

Unfortunately, with each passing minute the group spent talking, planning or whatever else, the distance between them and their friends slowly grew. For all they knew, it could be the ghosts had assumed they didn't care anymore and had given up on tracking them. If that was the case, however, they would be sure to hit them for a surprise attack.

Levinia didn't know what time it was, as the thick canopy of leaves blocked any sunlight from reaching the soft earth, free from grass. Little light was even available for them to see with. Yumi's rings provided most of it, but Saffi and Kitsune had made a few torches out of broken sticks for this reason, burying the bottom halves into the ground to keep them standing.

It was just that that surrounded their current situation. With little knowledge of exactly what was going on, they had all just done what they could.

The plan was relatively simple. Split up, scout the area, and ask local Pokémon if they had noticed anything out of the ordinary. That was pretty much it. Aki and Levinia had agreed to go together, sticking to the most used paths in the forest to try and avoid any stray Ghost-Pokémon if they could, aware of their own limits when it came to fighting. However, they were confident they'd do fine if it came down to it due to their shared immunity to the offending type.

Saffi would go with Kitsune and Elysia while Yumi decided he'd be fine on his own. With a resistance to almost everything the ghosts could attempt to use in combat along with naturally high defenses and skills at sneaking around unnoticed he was likely to be their best bet if they were to do anything.

And that's exactly what they did.


"What exactly do you think we should be looking for?" Aki asked. The two of them had been wandering around for several minutes, sticking to those most worn-out paths like they'd agreed to do. Fortunately for them, they had yet to run into or discover anything at all out of the ordinary. Each tree seemed the same by this point, each wide-leaved bush of undergrowth appearing no different from the next.

Levinia shrugged, or at least did the best a lizard could do. "I'm not sure. Maybe we should look and see if we can find any of the local Pokémon..?" She trailed off, thinking.

"Yeah, probably." Aki agreed, pausing to look around for a moment. To her left she noticed a small upwards slope in the ground, before it appeared to climb more steeply just beyond the trees. Nothing else around them seemed interesting enough. "Okay. Let's go."

The two small Pokémon made their way in that general direction. Squeezing underneath a particularly large fern, they clambered up onto the root of a very large tree. Looking up from their height of no more than two feet for each of them, the top was almost out of sight, towering out of their sight.

"I wanna try! I wanna try! I'll be the best at it!"

"No. Me. I shall always be superior. I'll be Serperior to everyone!"

"You'd never manage something like that. Just admit I'm the best."

Aki and Levinia were looking around from their root perch when they heard voices coming from the direction of the large ledge they were heading towards. They seemed to be competing in something, based off the limited amount they overheard.

"What was that? Should we go look?" Aki wondered aloud, glancing at the helioptile beside her for her opinion.

Levinia stayed silent for a brief moment, before she nodded in agreement. "Yeah. I don't think it could be anything too bad, hopefully."

"Yeah. Come on." Aki leapt down from the root, Levinia right behind her as they slunk down to the brown ground again. Being smaller than many of the surrounding plants, they blocked their vision somewhat but they managed to find their way.

They soon found themselves amongst a somewhat small clearing next to previously mentioned ledge, which rose a couple meters up with bunch of trees lining the top. Along with protecting the area from too much wind, they could actually see a spot of the sky above them for once.

"Hmm? Who are you little Pokémon?" A voice asked them. They looked up, and saw a Breloom walking over to them. Behind the tall fighting-mushroom were two more mushroom-like Pokémon that Levinia managed to recognize as Shroomish.

"We heard voices, so we came over to see what it was. We came from a meadow further north." Aki explained to the tall mushroom politely.

"Oh, I see. You must've heard these two. I was helping them train," Breloom turned to point at the two shroomish, who were busy jumping at each other, practicing Tackle or Headbutt, Levinia guessed.

One of the two then stopped, noticing their instructor talking to the two newcomers. It rushed over, jumping up and down enthusiastically. "Hi! I'm Onion! Negi! Negi desu!"

"Hi. My name's Levinia." the Helioptile greeted. "Have you been training here?" She asked.

The overly-enthusiastic Shroomish - Onion, or Negi (Levinia didn't know which, from his strange introduction) nodded. "Yup! I'm gonna be super strong! A Machamp-ion of fighting!"

Levinia didn't really understand the Pokémon's strange way of speaking, nor did she have any idea as to why they spoke in that way, but she nodded anyway. "I see."

The Breloom noticed the two of them talking, and spoke up. "I apologize. Onion can be quite... strange sometimes."

"It's fine." Levinia shook her head.

"Anyway, have either of you noticed anything unusual lately? We think some ghost Pokémon have hypnotized our friends, so we've been looking to try and defeat them." Aki asked, changing the topic. "We were just passing through when it happened." She explained.

Breloom stopped to think for moment, before nodding. "Now that I think about it, I do recall noticing some Dusclops passing by up at the top of the ledge," he turned and pointed to the trees on the ledge, "a little while ago."

"I don't remember anything. I would've noticed if anything Misdreav-ius happened." Onion added.

"No you wouldn't have." The other Shroomish put in from their spot on the other end of the clearing.

Aki nodded to the Breloom, ignoring Onion. "Do you think you could help us? We're on a little quest, I suppose you could say."

Breloom shock his head. "I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline that request. I need to stay here to look after the local Shroomish."

"Oh, that's fine. We were lucky to have run into you anyway. Thanks for the information, though." Aki said. The Eevee was about to turn away when Onion suddenly started jumping up and down again to get their attention.

"Ooh! Ooh! Let me come! I'm a fungi, I won't take up mushroom!" He exclaimed happily, bouncing over to the two normal-types. Why he couldn't just walk normally, Levinia once again didn't know. It was arms he was missing, not legs. Well, feet actually. He was also missing proper legs, after all.

"Umm, I guess you can come." Aki said, clearly surprised by the strange mushroom's offer, but also somewhat grateful to the fact that they'd be getting additional help.

"Yay! Bye bye Breloom!" Onion said, still bouncing up and down repetitively. Was he ever going to stop doing that? Levinia decided to not question it.

Breloom, who hadn't said a word half that time, then nodded, unfazed by the mushroom's sudden offer. "Bye, Onion. Look after yourself out there. And keep training." he said, waving goodbye with a quite small arm.

With that the two of them - plus a random-mushroom-onion-thing, started to walk back to the main path Levinia and Aki had been following before they had taken that detour. Said detour seemed to only be to pick up the mushroom, but hopefully he'd be helpful later on. The Breloom seemed to be quite trustworthy, so at the moment they could only hope that some of that had been passed onto the Shroomish, and just currently lay hidden.

Onion spoke up again when they reached the path. "Are you thinking I'm a Tiny Mushroom you happened to find? I'm not! I promise! I'll be useful! I'll be a Big Mushroom! So I'm worth a lot!"

"No, no," Aki insisted, "not at all."

"Good."


Meanwhile, Yumi was stalking around alone, trekking up the same ledge a lot further down, far from any well-used path. Jumping up onto a tree that appeared to be growing sideways out of the near-vertical slope, he stood on the rough bark and took the chance to look around a bit with the better view.

With still nothing noteworthy, he climbed further upwards, checking each footing was stable as he did so. Finally reaching the top, he continued once more. However, he soon began to feel the presence of someone else in the nearby area.

With no voices to be heard, he stayed on his guard, slowing down and watching his surroundings carefully as he passed by. Something moved in a nearby bush, catching the umbreon's attention. A large shadow, darker than the rest, seemed to hang over that area. It was clear to Yumi the ghost-Pokémon sat there, hidden and likely attempting to stalk him. Waiting for him to turn away, to decide that there was nothing.

However, the dark Pokémon knew better than that, and lit up the yellow rings on his body in warning. Tensing his muscles, he prepared to leap. At any moment, the ghost could attack, but Yumi was ready.

Suddenly, a dark shadowy fist emerged from the ground, speeding towards him at an unavoidable rate. He tried to leap out of the way, but he was well aware of the guaranteed hit ratio of Shadow Punch, and took the hit. Fortunately, thanks to his high defense stat and general type resistance it didn't even make a scratch.

"If you want to fight, then just come out. I know you're there." Yumi taunted, sharp red eyes glaring at the moving shadow in and around the bush.

Having heard his taunt, the ghost Pokémon rose up from the ground in a similar manner to Darkrai, but taking the shape of a Dusclops. Just as he expected.

Noticing the lack of attacks from the Umbreon, the Dusclops took the chance to attack again, this time sending a few small bluish purple embers in his direction. Will-O-Wisp. Yumi leapt out of the way with ease, successfully this time and leaving the attack to fade away within seconds.

The next moment, before the ghost could try again, the dark-type seemed to vanish from thin air. With a now confused Dusclops searching for where he could've gone, he took this time to strike from behind with Feint Attack, landing a super-effective hit before jumping back to his place. However, Dusclops didn't stumble, its high defenses stats really becoming apparent now as it once again tried a Will-O-Wisp.

Noticing his attacker's attempt to stall, possibly in wait of reinforcements, Yumi avoided the fire attack without much trouble once again, following up with Screech in attempt to soften its defenses a little.

Getting annoyed by the repeated misses of Will-O-Wisp, the Dusclops began to prepare another attack, going for raw power this time as it gathered cold energy into its fist. Moments later, an Ice Punch was slammed right into Yumi's side, sending him flying against a nearby tree.

Falling back down to the ground, temporarily winded due to the sudden critical hit, he climbed back onto his feet, his rings glowing once again as he used Moonlight, healing himself of most of the damage.

Seeing his weakness, the Dusclops had tried yet another Ice Punch, but Yumi was more prepared this time and barely managed to roll out of the way, grateful that he took the time to heal as he swiftly fired a Shadow Ball at the Beckon Pokémon, who had no time to dodge due to having such a low speed.

Getting back up to his feet once again, he repeated his Screech attack from earlier, surprising the Dusclops slightly, who then quickly reverted back to the original stalling strategy by using Will-O-Wisp for a third time.

Beginning to tire out slightly from his repeated jumping about, Yumi barely managed to get out of the way in time, taking a small amount of damage from the flame, but not enough to burn him permanently. Clearly the Dusclops was aware of its own near-frail defense now and was trying to burn him in order to lower his attack.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to keep it all up for too much longer, even after healing himself, Yumi went straight for another Shadow Ball. He knew it wouldn't be taking advantage of the low defense, but instead the still high special defense, but he tried it anyway.

However, the Dusclops was quick enough this time and used Protect to avoid the damage, a large semi-sphere appearing around it, stopping his attack in its tracks.

Unfortunately for the Dusclops, Yumi took this chance and vanished for a second and a final time, attacking the ghost type from behind with Feint Attack just as the Protect disappeared. With the guaranteed hit, similar to the Dusclops' Shadow Punch, alongside super-effective damage and low defense due to Screech, Yumi's opponent went down, falling over onto its front and fainting with a thump as the somewhat heavy weight hit the ground.

Tired from the battle and breathing heavily, Yumi listened carefully for anything else, well aware that he needed to rest at least for a short amount of time if he wanted to be of any use in taking out the other Dusclops.

Deciding the best thing for him to do would be to join up with one of the other groups, he made his way back to the ledge, looking down at the ground as it sloped somewhat steeply downwards for a meter or two before flattening out.

Aki and Levinia would be the best group for him to find, as Saffi was already with Elysia and Kitsune. With that in mind, he carefully slid down to the horizontal tree, as he mentally decided to call it, standing there and resting for a few seconds before leaping the rest of the way down, landing on a cluster of moss and softening the impact.

He kept low as he snuck back to find the main path, hoping to disrupt as few Pokémon that had made their home in the area as possible, as well as possibly stay out of sight of any other Dusclops that might be lying waiting to ambush him or anyone else.

After doing so for a little while, he started to hear an unfamiliar voice not far ahead of him. What he wasn't expecting was to then smell the familiar scent of both Aki and Levinia, who seemed to be accompanying the owner of the voice.

He would've jumped out to make sure it wasn't any sort of 'evil' Pokémon in disguise or something, but he trusted the duo's senses. Along with that, what the mysterious Pokémon was saying seemed more... random than anything else.

"So what is it we're Seaking anyway?"

As you may be able to see. Or sea, as the Pokémon would most likely put it, if that one sentence meant anything.

Not wanting to surprise them, Yumi stood up fully, the bush in front of him rustling as they tend to do, alerting the three other Pokémon that he was there.

"Yumi! What happened?" Aki asked as the umbreon walked over to them. Said mysterious Pokémon from earlier appeared to be a Shroomish, of all Pokémon, he noted. He'd have to ask who it was.

"Ran into another of those Dusclops. I managed to defeat it, but it was tiring avoiding all of those Will-O-Wisp attacks it kept using." He explained to the smaller Pokémon.

"It's good you haven't been Slakoth, mister." Shroomish grinned. It was clear this mushroom Pokémon wasn't a shy one, taking the chance to speak even before Aki or Levinia got the chance to do so.

"I decided I'd come find you two, just to be safe." he continued.

Levinia nodded in understanding as Aki answered, "We haven't run into anything unusual. Only this Shroomish who decided he wanted to come with us, if that counts." She pointed at the shroomish with her paw, and as she did so said mushroom started jumping up and down as if happy for the attention. Surprisingly, he didn't say anything and instead let Aki continue. "His name's Onion, I hear. He always call himself 'Negi' though."

"Hai!" the shroomish - Onion - exclaimed, still jumping up and down on the spot. Yumi guessed it was normal.


At around that same time, quite the distance away in that same forest, not that it was even that easy to tell with how dark, damp and generally thick it was, the third group had been working to fend off some Duskull who had been trying to get in their way. It wasn't that difficult, and they seemed to be of quite low strength but there was a lot of them.

Elysia and Kitsune decided they'd call it training, or practicing for tougher fights they might need to take part in later on. Saffi saw the duo's teamwork with defeating the hordes, and decided to leave the work to them, sticking to the back and defeating any that try to sneak up from behind before they get the chance to attack.

"This is actually quite fun!" Elysia exclaimed, leaping towards an incoming duskull.

"Yup!" Kitsune agreed as she attacked with Fire Spin, sending the loosely conical vortex of fire towards a different duskull, who got trapped and began struggling as the flames leeched away its health. She went to follow up with a different attack, but instead had Confuse Ray appear, the sinister ray confusing the ghost-type even more.

"Nice, Kitsune, you learnt Confuse Ray!" Saffi cheered, before quickly turning around and firing a Flame Burst at an additional pair of duskull who had been attempting to sneak up behind her as the fight continuing around them.

However, with those four duskull down, suddenly they stopped coming, an ominous silence falling into the air around them. A final Will-O-Wisp attack came Kitsune's direction, her Flash Fire ability taking effect, but after that all was silent.

"What's going on?" Elysia asked, walking closer to her two fox Pokémon companions. "Why have they suddenly stopped coming?"

"I don't know." Saffi admitted.

"Why did they attack us in the first place? Some commander ordered them to do so or something?" Kitsune wondered, glancing around a little. She didn't notice anything out of the ordinary - or at least whatever was the ordinary for their current location. Shadows dropped onto the bushes and undergrowth from the trees, tall and towering and blocking the sun. The sky remained hidden completely hidden from sight, as it seemed to always do in that forest.

Elysia was looking around when she suddenly noticed something hiding amongst the shadows between several trees, a pair of very familiar glowing red eyes. They were the same ones. The same ones that attacked them earlier that day (or night, they couldn't tell which).

"Look! Over there." She whispered to the other two, her gaze not leaving that of the cofagrigus, as Yumi had guessed it was. She didn't yet have the incredible eyesight of a Luxray, but her above average sight would do for now.

Suddenly, a deep, unfamiliar voice sounded around the trio. Whether it was speaking straight into their minds, out loud and normally, or what, they couldn't tell. "If you're planning to attack us, then do so. But it is up to you to find our base. Risk your lives to save your friends, or give up and go live peacefully like any normal Pokémon should."

The voice stopped coming for a few moments, leaving the three of them in shock, eyes wide as the mysterious voice continued speaking. "But allow me to tell you this: No matter your choice, don't expect to leave unharmed. Our base is guarded, by the mountains it lies, and maybe there you may find your friends."

With that it stopped, and suddenly the air felt lighter. The eyes disappeared as quickly as they came, and all around them it seemed almost if nothing had ever happened. No ghost Pokémon lingered still, every trace vanished. But what hadn't vanished, was what the three of them had just heard. The words hung fresh in their minds as they tried to figure out the meaning of it all. Nobody spoke.

The silence broke soon after that, however, when Kitsune's voice was heard. "Should we go tell the others?" Her voice shook slightly with fear, but she looked on bravely.

"Yes. Let's go." Saffi nodded, and with all in agreement the trio bounded off, leaving the sight of it all behind them as they left to find their others. They needed to do something. And now.


It's fun writing battles. I need to put more in. Like, actual battles like the one in this chapter.

Oh, and for those wondering when it comes to movesets and stuff like that I'm more of following the game's system with levels and stuff. The Pokémon can know no more than four moves at once, but can learn TM, HM and Move Tutor moves as well as level up moves by having another Pokémon that knows said move teach them. The Pokémon can re-learn any forgotten moves at will, as well as any starting moves on the evolved Pokémon (like the Dusclops and Ice Punch). I thought it'd be good to explain in case anyone was curious.

And yes, that is indeed a shroomish addicted to puns and referencing things that they shouldn't even know of.