Chapter 8: Tri~bulation Part 1

Note: I felt the concept of this chapter was a little sketchy. There were a lot of ways to begin the bridge to many answers, and I picked a strange way to start building. The sneak peek turned out to be no short of garbage when a few things got tweaked. I'll try not to do that again. Anyway, this got separated into two different parts because it's disgustingly long for one of my chapters. I think part 1 will only raise more questions, especially in regards to Shaymin. It's a "wtf" probably on parallel with Grovyle's appearance.

Disclaimer: I don't claim possession over characters originating from the franchises of Square Enix, Disney, Game Freak, and The Pokémon Company, Chun Soft, or Nintendo. They belong to their rightful owners. Few characters are original.

The storm refused to relent.

Just as well, Sora, Riolu, and Chimecho proved not to be pushovers in their quest together. Having left Treasure Town in search of anyone they might have known, they have faced a few of the dreaded Heartless in three unfamiliar forms: a balloon-shaped Heartless with demon-like horns, a small teardrop-shaped Heartless with black wings that double as legs, and a strange, small four-legged beast of a Heartless with four serrated spikes atop its head and a trail of spikes that form into a spiny tail. In this order, the technical names of these Heartless were the Darkball, Bit Sniper, and the newest Pureblood called the Spinerush. Ironically, one of each of these dark creatures were fought about half of a mile from the crossroads...

"Look out!" Chimecho rang out as she was able to identify an unpleasant presence. That presence shown itself as the Darkball, rocketing into plain view. It would have made impact with Riolu if it were not for Chimecho's hasty instruction. Instinctively, Riolu dived to the side, allowing his aura to flow upward to his head upon rolling and sitting up on one knee. Aura vision. He was capable of defining shapes much more efficiently in this darkness. Thus, he discovered another Heartless lurked nearby. This tear-shaped entity emitted a sort of dark heat that distorted its photon appearance in Riolu's vision; appearing as sort of a dark gray blob. Nonetheless, he was more than capable of seeing it, ergo he leaped into battle with it.

Just as well, Sora found himself facing a Heartless he, in the past, has not yet seen. It encroached from behind, suggesting that it might have been stalking the trio. Upon hearing its footsteps, Sora's large ears twitched as he spun around to face this Heartless abomination, Keyblade in mouth. Both were on all fours, though it was simple to see which of the two was the larger: the Spinerush, although the weaker. Immediately, Sora sprang forward, ready to slice the dark creature in two. His efforts showed to be reckless as his opponent decided to lurch forward at the same moment he had. Unfortunately, the Eevee had just noticed the fowl creature was practically covered in dark spines. He attempted to swerve out of the way in midair, only half successful as he felt a spine tear into his side. Upon landing, he bit down on the blade's hilt, the enhanced pain of corruption entering his body, though doing no internal harm before escaping. He faced his foe, snarling. It growled menacingly in return, ready to pounce Sora, effectively impaling him at the same time. It lurched once again, yet this time it played into a quickly thought trap. Sora remained still, tilting his head downward, then bringing it up quickly as the Heartless leaped above him. His Keyblade halved the creature, following its complete dissipation.

Chimecho had dealt with the Darkball with far less difficulty than Sora had done the Spinerush. The foe maneuvered as she did, albeit it a sort of contorted manner. Occasionally, it jolted for her, converting briefly into a cloud of purple mist before re-solidifying accompanied with a small, circular shock wave. It was easily avoided, and never was there a moment where this enemy was untouchable to Chimecho's psychic abilities. Each time the creature was in her sight, Chimecho let loose a multicolored stream of light which penetrated the Darkball. Repeating this routine of dodging and countering twice, she did away with the creature.

Riolu had the least trouble fending off his Heartless. By far. All that was required of him was a sudden, aura-empowered hammer punch to the foe's head. It managed an attack before its defeated, however, which was a minuscule ball of black energy, partially absorbed by Riolu's own aura, though not thoroughly nullified, thus ensuing in a quiet grunt of pain as it impacted with Riolu's chest.

...Thunder cracked...

Following this was the sound of the pattering of heavy rain...

The three backed into each other, prepared to face any further foes... When they realized this would not come to pass at this second, they faced each other with expressions that brightened the darkness. All but Sora, and Chimecho noticed this effective immediately.

"Sora, you're hurt..." She spoke, referring to the large gash in Sora's side. He was not necessarily losing blood at a fast rate, although it was very possible that the wound could become infected, among other things in the haunted wild.

"Ugh, yeah. Whatever that thing was, it got me good... I don't ever remember fighting something like that." The now bladeless Eevee spoke, one eye shut in pain as the raindrops trickled down his side and dragged across his gash, reddening as they reached the ground.

"I don't think I can use my heal bell... I... drained all of my energy using it during the shadow Pokémon attack at Treasure Town." Chimecho admitted, frowning as she came to realize how low on energy she truly was.

"I wish I had been prepared, but I'm pretty sure Jovany had a lot of our supplies." Riolu scratched at the back of his head as he glanced forward into what seemed to be a darkening. "It's pitch black over there. We've been going east for some time, and I think we've come pretty far. I wasn't expecting to run into a mystery dungeon so soon though."

"Me neither. Riolu, I don't think that one was there." Chimecho agreed, referring to the earlier encounter with a small, troublesome mystery dungeon they had trekked across not too far beyond the crossroads. "It was so unexpected."

"It was, but..." Riolu paused, returning his attention to Sora. "We can't stay here any longer. Sora's injured, and I think we're going to be heading into the Oran Forest. If we're lucky, we'll find an abundance of oran berries."

"Oran berries...?" Sora questioned, breathing a bit heavily.

"They're pretty small berries with work wonders on your recovery rate. I'll explain more when we see them." Riolu clarified as he began heading into the woods. Assured the others were following, he continued speaking, albeit doing so while facing forward should any Heartless decide to arrange an ambuscade. "Although I said I'd do that for mystery dungeons. Seeing as how we already crossed one, I think you get the idea. But, if you were to go back to the mystery dungeon we just cleared, you'll be surprised to see the geography of it completely change." Riolu explained, crossing the treeline. In courtesy of the others, he focused his aura to his paws, each paw emanating a feeble radiance which was adequate enough to light the surroundings to a certain extent. It was unnerving, as the thought of piercing golden eyes in the darkness frightened Chimecho...

"The land itself can change?" Sora asked, feeling the need to limp, though walking casually.

"It can! Not only that, but if you are bested in a mystery dungeon, hostile Pokémon are sure to steal a lot of valuables you're carrying. Some of these places are scarier than others. The one we crossed was... odd... The only Pokémon I saw were those shadowy things. Are they a whole new breed of Pokémon...?" Riolu spoke, although not expecting to hear that last bit from himself out loud. It was a thought expressed aloud, and he stopped these thoughts with the fear that he might have gone off on a tangent. He was fairly good at that.

"I'm not sure, but these mystery dungeons sound like pretty strange places..." Sora responded, intrigued at this concept. He wished that he could simply sit down with Riolu and Chimecho, listening about the tales of these places. It would have distracted him from his wound, although it wouldn't have eliminated its existence.

"You'd better brace yourself then." Riolu stated, raising an brow as something seemed to dawn on him. "We're about to enter one."

…

Finally, the rain came to a temporary halt. Drops fell to the Heartless-trodden grounds from the thick leaves of the trees. Shaymin, Bidoof, and Sunflora have discovered a vile mystery dungeon, though quite small in size. Upon entering this terrible wilderness, Bidoof and Sunflora recognized the area as Apple Woods, though the trunks of the trees were blackened with odd, green veins reaching the branches and polluting the fruits, which were mainly apples. The grass, just as well, was darkened, frequent symbolic streaks of gleaming green spread across the ground...

"Golly, what happened to this place...?" Bidoof asked,glancing in both directions as he walked by Sunflora's side, Shaymin still leading the group. He was only willing to do so if the two provided him with proper instructions and directions.

"I don't know, but it's spooky here. Did those dark Pokémon do this...?" Sunflora questioned, a petal at her chin.

Shaymin refused to speak. The look in his eyes would have caused anyone else to believe he had seen an apparition. He felt he was treading upon hollowed ground in a hollow body. With every step he took, his mind pulsed. It lacked pain, which was a positive aspect. It was bothersome, however. It was as if his brain was attempting to recall something dramatically imperative to the fate of a very world, and he knew naught about it. His own mind was working against him. He wished he could have screamed at it to stop, but how could this have been possible? How could his mind stop his mind...?

"Shaymin? Are you doing okay?" Sunflora noticed the troubled Pokémon.

"I guess I'm alright, but... This place isn't. There's something about it that I think my body recognizes. It's strange, but..." Shaymin shook his head, his long ears nearly slapping him in the face. "...It's so annoying!" He pouted, frustrated once again.

"We'll get to the bottom of it, yup yup." Bidoof spoke. When Shaymin stopped directly in front of them, he feared he might have said something that insulted the other. This was not the case. He and Sunflora came to a stop in unison, pondered. "Oof, Shaymin? We almost bumped into you there!"

"Sorry..." He apologized quietly, his wing-shaped ears raising a tad. The sensation of goosebumps appearing under his fur triggered a shiver...

Empathy, or perhaps the lingerer itself, triggered the very same shiver for Sunflora and Bidoof. So, what was this mutual feeling? It was the cliché feeling of being watched over. Very much so "over".

"G-gee... Is s-something out there...?" Bidoof mustered the courage to speak.

As he did so, Shaymin watched the ground carefully. He rubbed the dirt back and forth with a fore paw, brows furrowed. A trail of luminous green appeared to be flowing backwards. Shaymin had paid special attention to the landscape that was most likely causing him to feel demented. The glowing streams did not show this behavior regularly. In fact, this was the first time he had seen it... Was it? ...Was it the first time he had ever seen it?

Impossible.

A disturbingly eerie moaning sounded from somewhere. The moaning reverberated with a pitch that rose, than fell, than rose again. There was an ear-piercing quality about it, yet it was deep. Either way, it was an awful sound to hear in the midst of a woods blackened to a point of horror beyond words. The more the three idled, the more time they were given to be mentally tortured by the thoughts of the trees coming alive with banshees...

...Corruption...

Two long, black tendrils hovered above Bidoof and Sunflora. These tendrils, tipped with three-pronged neon green-edged vines, seemed to "sniff" at Shaymin's sides. They hovered close, Shaymin unsuspecting of them. The same was not true for the other two. They were petrified with horror. If one of them spoke out, surely the origin of the dark vines would react. The moaning continued. Both dared not look back to see the Pokémon which controlled these tendrils.

It was too late to scream out at any rate. As quickly as Shaymin came to a stop in front of his partners, the three-prongded vines impaled his sides in a symmetrical fashion. With his head raised, he howled in pain. The two horrified Pokémon finally came to their senses and faced the opposite direction. They had almost wished they hadn't. The culprit of this action was, in fact, not a Pokémon at all. A blackened tree with a single, large orb of green on its upper trunk, simulating an eye, watched over the three Pokémon, moaning from each of its many, randomly located jagged mouths. The tree was devoid of leaves, and rather had an additional eight of these black tendrils, which acted as branches. Of a sort.

Thinking as quickly as she could, Sunflora spun around and, with a flap of one of her petals, unleashed a flurry of serrated leaves through one of the tendrils impaling Shaymin. It managed to slice through the thing. The monstrous tree sensed resistance... though not from Sunflora. It retrieved the unscathed tendril, a few of its distorted mouths now growling... Neither Bidoof nor Sunflora were very certain how to handle a nightmarish foe such as this, and the fact that Shaymin was... laughing... was not aiding them in any way.

"Heheh... Heheheh... Ahahahaha!" At first, the crazed Pokémon's head was lowered. His hysterical laughter shifted, causing him to raise his head. Now, his two frightened friends appeared torn between Scylla and Charybdis. Shaymin turned around, a terrible grin upon his face. This look was extremely unnecessary at the moment, though... It was directed not at the innocents, but the enemy. "That's right..." Shaymin spoke darkly. Vehemently, tendrils of a similar property lurched from the six openings in his body cause none other than by the monster itself. His own black vines shot forth, spiraling into each other before piercing through the monstrous tree's eye, emitting from the other end, which happened to be through one of the thing's mouths. "Steer clear!" Shaymin yelled, ordering the two to move aside. Without any second thoughts, confusion aside, they dashed under the protagonist's vines and behind him, watching carefully for his next move. "Goodbye." Shaymin spoke softly before commanding his tendrils to fan out violently, effectively uncurling the spiral they had created. This attack occurred within the body of the beast, yet was powerful enough to tear outward in six different directions, a deafening shriek following this mutilation. Within seconds, the creature was vaporized in a fog of radiant green and pulsing black...

...The shriek was carried on the storm's winds...

...Tremulous were the two who witnessed...

"Guys, I remember a bit now..." The "mutated" Pokémon turned his body entirely, now facing the appalled allies of his, his vines curved upward above him. He apprehended their fear, and he tried his very best to eliminate it. Fear was a tactic he recalled that he learned to use instinctively against his enemies. He knew not why he did this... He would have to adjust to toning this down quite a bit for the others. And he had to be honest with himself. He was none too terrifying in this form. Evidently, he was in these parts: a tiny Pokémon with large, expanding tentacles rising from holes in his body. "Don't be scared, I just get a little crazy sometimes. You see, I'm... I'm a weapon. And I came here from a different world..." He forced his mind not to trail off. There were many things we was still trying to remember. "That thing you saw was called a Nightmare. It attacked me because..." Shaymin paused, his head lowered. "I think it knew who I was..."

"Eek! J-just who are you?" Sunflora inquired, petals near her mouth once again. She knew Bidoof was probably getting indigestion at the... complicated fact that this Pokémon before their very eyes was, in a sense, a mutant and a weapon.

"...Yeah." Shaymin nodded once, giving the two a chagrined smile. He was ashamed that he was incapable of even remembering his name up to this point. "Yeah, I can tell you my real name. It's Cruce. Some just call me a freak 'cause of what I'm able to do... Feel free to..." The one called Cruce looked away sheepishly, ears splayed, and tendrils lowering all the way to the ground. This image of him revealed to Sunflora and Bidoof a certain innocence that sparked enough courage within both of them to speak out.

"By golly, Cruce! You sure are different, but neither one of us want to call you a freak. You saved us back there from that monster of a tree, yup yup!" Bidoof encouraged, nodding to himself happily.

"And you remembered a little bit about yourself! You took a big step forward already!" Sunflora added, clapping her petals together a few times.

"Hm, I guess..." Cruce started, facing ahead once more. "I'll tell you what else I know a little bit later. For now, we have to scram. I trust Chatot and Lopunny and all, but I doubt any Pokémon in their right mind would be staying in this forest."

"Yup!" Bidoof agreed. "I sure don't want to come back this way... Maybe there's a detour around?

"Chin up Bidoof! Cruce really can handle those no good Nightmares should it come to that!" Sunflora encouraged, or at least attempted to.

"Oof. They're still a mighty lot scarier than those other shadow Pokémon we saw. You wouldn't happen to know a thing or two about those, would you Cruce?" Bidoof asked, probably bound to receive an answer far too complicated for his mind to process. Perhaps the question itself was a bit complex. Cruce did not answer right away, shown by his decision to walk passed his partners, also refusing to withdraw his tendrils. They gave off a gentle illumination, which was practical for more than a couple reasons. When he kept moving forward, the two fell under the assumption that it was time to keep up. He spoke as they caught up with him. "Shadow Pokémon, shadow Pokémon. I keep hearing this. Based on Wigglytuff's description, I wouldn't say I know 'em. They don't sound scary enough to be Nightmares, but they don't really sound weak or anything." He replied to Bidoof's question, feeling he hadn't answered much.

"Aw, shoot. Thought you might have known a thing or two." Bidoof responded, a tad disappointed.

"Sorry. Though, as you ask this, I feel like I'm missing something that's, again, on the tip of my tongue." Cruce rolled his eyes, beyond bothered at this repetitive sensation. He wished the subject to change...

"Oh, the plants, they..." Sunflora started, running forward and placing a petal against a brown, solid surface which was enough to enlighten Bidoof. It was a regular tree, untouched by the strange corruption! "They're back to normal!" Beyond this tree, the grass was green, the streaks of neon unseen, and the world potentially clean. Bidoof joined his fellow apprentice. It would have been an uplifting sight for Cruce had he known that the Nightmares, which remained cloaked in mystery to all others, did not reside so close. He simply chuckled as he approached the two elated Pokémon.

"We're making progress." Cruce affirmed, hoping not to jinx this fact. In truth, the trio had only seen a few foes, most of which were the aforementioned "shadow Pokémon". His teammates were excellent fighters, although Bidoof needed a helping of confidence, and Sunflora's overcautious nature was easily revealed in battle. He didn't want to blame her. Based on from what he has heard at the refuge, she had every right to be cautious around the dark interlopers, despite her earlier actions in regard to the Nightmare tree...

The three kept a fair pace through the woods, brightened by the glowing tips of Cruce's seemingly ever present tendrils. How he could have summoned these, let alone maintained them for so long with radiance, was undoubtedly bizarre to the guild members. Both desired to ask how Cruce was capable of mimicking the Nightmare's ability, though they reminded themselves the answers would come soon...

The rainfall had already subsided. The clouds had recently parted, revealing a crescent moon smiling eyelessly in the cosmos... The three reached what they assumed to be a clearing in the woods, although far from it. The place they entered was unique: a circular area with but one massive tree in the center, providing cover from the rain, as well as food for those who took shelter beneath it... Pokémon indeed called this a sanctuary: the Woodland Refuge. This little-known area was the threshold between Oran Forest and Apple Woods, the enormous hybrid tree at its center providing the Pokémon with both oran berries and perfect apples. Torches surrounded the shockingly populated area, providing more light than Cruce could have done. As the rescue team arrived, they received a variety of looks, most of which were focused on Cruce.

In return, Bidoof and Sunflora found that they knew more than a few of those in the area. They saw one of the Kecleon from the market, Chansey from the daycare, Xatu from the appraisal stand, Zubat and Koffing from Team Skull, Weavile from Team AWD, a Vulpix near... Corphish and Loudred from the guild! Next to them was Grovyle from... the future...?

Another three layers of complexity were added...

To be Continued...

Honestly, most of these chapters flow into one another already. So, technically, all of them follow this "to be continued" rule. Granted, there's a different idea with all of them. Following chapter 8, the "adventure" will commence, and the answers will be more spread across the story, rather than introducing a thousand concepts at once while trying to answer about half immediately after.

Another note: Sora and Riolu are portrayed as the main characters because of their positions in their actual games. When I was given the option to list two characters, I felt I needed to complete, in essence, the stats of the story. Sora and Riolu are already a duo in the story, but they will almost always be joined by a third or fourth or even fifth character in their adventure.

Part 2 is on the way! Shouldn't be long now.