x
"Every end opens the door to a new beginning."
When I'm done, you won't remember anything about this conversation, or who you were before. Maybe that's for the best. I need a pure soul, a blank slate. Something untarnished by It.
Other things happened but you can't see them feel them hear them. The distant fleeting whispers of the memory are covered up, erased, crumbled to pieces and stolen away like everything else. Only a pleasant light fills your senses, blotting out what happened next, making you feel euphoric. You distantly register it's all you can feel.
You deserve an explanation. The world you must save has lived in peace for ten thousand years. But the end is coming once more. Something from behind the barriers of reality seeks to destroy this world and everything in it. It has planted its seed in every living being, able to control them with just their flimsy consent.
Images flash through your head. Not your own. Planted there. A mighty airship, floating over looming clouds. A sylveon in a brilliant blue cape, looking down upon an empire below. The red sands and dust of an otherworld, framed under a crimson sky. Darkness, disrupted by flickers of gold and something blacker than black underneath.
The great guilds of the world are compromised, under Its control. It is poised to strike soon; there is nowhere else to turn. Even as we speak, It is tracking us down, seeking to destroy you and me.
You try to talk, but you don't have a mouth. Did you open it to scream? You don't remember. This happened before, not now. A vision you're forgetting as you remember, that's being eaten away by the light.
My paws are now tied. I cannot bring any more saviors from beyond. You are the last.
You won't remember anything I say, but I know you are up to the task. I've made you into exactly what the world needs from you. You'll be the last of Mew's Heroes, the one to save us all. You have to be. There's no-mon else.
Go calmly and bravely, dear Espurr, into the new world…
~\({O})/~
PROLOGUE
Those That Live in this World, and Those That Have Come to It
~\({O})/~
~Espurr~
Slowly coming to. Espurr blinked her eyes open wearily. It felt like waking from a slumber that had lasted longer than any number she could count to. Her blurry eyes met sunlight, filtered heavily through the canopies of several intertwined treetops. What was beyond looked fuzzy.
The first thing she noticed was that she was lying flat on her back in the middle of the woods, and the dirt and twigs underneath were bristling against her back in a way that didn't feel right. The second thing she noticed was that there was a scent in the air she didn't like. It smelled distinctly like something had died long ago, and the stench was now floating in on the wind. The third thing she noticed was the rushing of the river nearby. She had to have been close to it judging by how loudly it churned, blotting out the softer noises in the woods. And that realization brought on a fourth one: She felt terrible.
Absolutely terrible. Her head ached and swam with fog, her limbs tired, her throat scratchy. She might pass out again if she didn't get herself a drink.
The river was closer than she thought, only a few feet away. It churned by quickly, far too fast to see anything reflected on the surface—No wonder it was so loud. Espurr fell to her knees, attempting to cup up water in her hands, but it just wasn't working how she wanted it to. Her fingers were clumsy, and it all fell through her much smaller palms before she could hoist it to her mouth. It took Espurr a minute to recognize that her fingers were much smaller than they should have been. That didn't look right, but another pang from her aching head reminded her water was more important.
She looked down at the river. If she couldn't get the water with her hands, would she have to drink from the river with her tongue? Espurr lolled it around in her mouth uncomfortably. It felt wrong, flatter than it was supposed to be. She decided to tear a largish leaf from the bush right next to her and try scooping up water in that.
After a few drinks from her makeshift forest ladle, Espurr's headache began to ebb, and the ripples spreading through the water in her leaf had finally calmed enough for her to see her reflection. That looked wrong too.
From head to toe, grey-purple fur enveloped her body; the only standout features were the white tips of her hands, feet, and floppy ears, and the oversized, pinkish pair of eyes on her face. A fluffy, catlike tail swished behind her silently, unnoticed until now. She stared at it blankly, trying to decide what to make of it. The sight gave her the oddly distant feel that something was wrong, but it felt like it was trapped behind a wall of glass. Whatever was happening… it felt distant, suppressed. Maybe she'd remember more as it came back to her.
But as she sat there, trying to remember, she found she was drawing blanks. Everything felt so distant, so foggy. She tried to recall her name. 'Espurr' kept coming up when she asked herself what she was. It was like the name had been drilled into her head, no matter how she pushed it aside. But… that wasn't her name. She knew it wasn't. And now that she was on the track, the void in her head seemed to expand. Where was she from? Blank. How did she get here? Blank. Who were her parents, blank, who were her friends, blank, what had she been doing yesterday, blank, blank, all of it was blank…
Espurr felt her breathing speed up as she got up and took a shaky step away from the lake, dropping the leaf of water to the ground and letting the water splash on her feet. She curled up on the ground and began to shiver uncontrollably, repressing the urge to release a loud yowl of terror. This wasn't happening, this couldn't be happening, how was this happening, what was happening?
Swish.
The sound caught Espurr's ears, jarring her out of her panic. She quieted down and came to her senses, listening for more noise. Something was deftly moving through the woods behind her, making only the slightest sounds as it went. Sounds that her sensitive ears caught—did they always hear that much? Espurr turned around on the ground, quickly scanning the forest for any intruding p… pokemon, her mind helpfully substituted. Because now it was giving her information. Of course.
Over her shoulder, she saw a trio of pokemon slowly approaching from behind in the shadowy part of the woods. The shade of the canopy cast a foreboding darkness over them, leaving them silhouettes. Espurr could barely make out more than the broadest of details on their cone-like heads. She carefully stood up and backed herself against the bush, keeping her eyes on them just in case they moved.
They didn't.
A heavy moment passed, all four pokemon staring directly at each other but none daring to make a move. The three others were still, stiller than any living thing should be. Then, the cone-headed pokemon slowly turned to each other in sync, rigidly raising their arms up in the air. Espurr watched the rapidly blinking lights flash between them, illuminating the strange markings on their heads and the ragged, cloak-like folds of their limbs and lower bodies. And then the lights stopped, and in a blink they were all staring at her again.
Black sparks began to collect around the strange pokemon's blinkers, and suddenly a large, shadowy ball flew straight at her—
She barely dove out of the way in time, hitting the ground sideways. She didn't see what became of the bush. The crack of branches being blown apart and the sound of roots being torn from the ground told her it wasn't good.
The strange pokemon started moving towards Espurr, and as they pushed apart foliage and ferns on their path towards her, she saw how they floated. That was it, she was too spooked to stick around any longer. She picked herself up as fast as she could, and ran for her life.
She didn't know how far she ran or for how long, but she didn't stop. No matter how many times she tripped on her new, shorter legs, or how her lungs burned, her heart pounding in her chest like it might break out, she didn't stop moving until she couldn't hear the distant beeping and the swish of brushed apart foliage behind her.
Espurr collapsed to her hands and knees, wildly panting as the surge of adrenaline that encompassed her body slowly wore off. Her chest burned, she couldn't take in enough air, and her arms and legs were weak and sore from tripping onto the forest ground more times than she could count. She glanced around the forest, taking in the setting sun in the distance that seemed to be coming from both everywhere and nowhere at once. The canopy above looked more like a painting than anything, and no matter where she looked she couldn't tell where the light was coming from.
It seemed she was more lost than ever now. A distant trickling surfaced in her head—following the river always led home. She tried to follow the thought, but the stream was gone before she could grasp it. It left nothing behind, just an empty, cold blankness.
The air had turned colder. Her breath came out in cloudy puffs. Espurr felt the first tendril of chilly mist swirl around her paw. She looked behind herself, and saw a large, thick mass of mist approaching from behind her. It was almost like a solid wall, and Espurr felt an unnerving air approach with its presence, an air that felt unsafe. She didn't know how she knew that. But more than anything, she could feel it. It wasn't safe to travel in this fog.
Espurr glanced up at the great oak tree that stood before her, studying all the little grooves and branches that ran up its trunk. Those pokemon had no legs, and their arms weren't much better, she concluded. And up there, she'd be safe from the evil mist below. They'd never be able to climb a tree without waking her first… right?
~\({O})/~
Curled up in a tree branch just large enough to not risk falling from in her sleep, Espurr dreamt horrible dreams. She dreamt of an In Between of nothing but horribly impossible black, a void that was empty. Because there was nothing for her to dream of. Nothing to remember, nothing to fill her head. In her addled state, with her mind blank and black as her in between, Espurr understood both that and nothing at all. And briefly, in the absence of her mind, something else came.
She woke to the sound of rustling below. Groaning and stretching uncomfortably in the branch—she hadn't slept well, and everything still ached—she looked up at the black sky and saw it was still nighttime. Fog shrouded the forest ground, hiding it from view. It looked cold and damp, and Espurr was very glad she'd made the decision to sleep in a tree. From her perch on the branch, she took a look around. When it was invaded by fog and all the trees looked like twisted mimics of themselves, the forest looked a lot more ominous than it had before.
Unsure as to what had woken her up, she focused her hearing. She could hear quiet rustles from below the fog…
…And saw the flicker of a yellow light. Espurr snapped fully awake in horror. She stood up in the tree, quickly catching her balance before she could fall off. Were they back? Had the strange pokemon caught up with her? She cautiously peered over the tree branch in fear.
Flickering lights of the red, green, and yellow variety lit up the fog right below her tree.
Swish.
That was the sound of foliage being brushed aside. Espurr quickly scrambled back onto the branch, hiding herself from view. How had they found her? What did they want with her? Were they going to climb the tree?
Swish.
More foliage. Espurr hesitantly stole another glance, hoping she hadn't been spotted already. They were here, but… maybe they were just looking. The grounds down below had gone quiet, and the lights had disappeared. She waited a single moment, her heart beating loudly over her breath. Maybe they were looking. Maybe they'd gone away. She just needed to check again, and everything would be fine…
Espurr glanced over the branch a third time. Three cone-shaped heads poking out of the fog, staring up directly at her tree. With a squeak of fear she quickly hid again, backing up against the tree trunk. She knew it was too good to be true. They weren't just staring at the branches. They were staring at her. They knew where she was. Her heart dropped down into her stomach.
But they hadn't moved at all. She stole another glance at them; they were still just staring up at her, stone still like before. It looked like they were waiting for something. But, for what? If they expected her to come out of the tree, she was not moving.
A sudden wind ruffled Espurr's fur, coming out of nowhere and leaving as quickly as it had arrived. The rancid scent of something that was dead blasted her in the face as it passed, causing her to retch. It smelled evil, just like everything else in this place was. She watched it blow off as she recovered, seeing it violently rattle the branches and canopies of a few trees as it went.
That wasn't natural. Nothing like that could be natural. The strange pokemon were waiting for something… was it that? Espurr wasn't waiting around to find out.
She looked around, performing a quick survey of the woods from atop her lofty perch. Escaping on the ground was a bad idea. Even if she somehow managed to make it to the ground safely and outrun the strange pokemon, she'd still have to travel through the fog afterwards. And there was no way of knowing what other evil things were waiting in there for her. The idea of staying in the tree until the strange pokemon left occurred to her, but she didn't know if that was even a safe option anymore. That left one final idea.
She could escape through the trees. If she walked all the way to the end of this branch, thin as it got, there was a jumpable gap between this tree and the next. And from that tree to the next. It was risky, but the best other option she could see was to sprout wings and fly, and she didn't anticipate that happening anytime soon.
No matter what, she didn't want to think about escaping on the ground.
Espurr felt the beginnings of another wind begin to ripple through her fur. It was stronger than the last, ranker, and it was just beginning. That was it. Time to go.
She looked down at the strange pokemon, who hadn't moved an inch from their previous spots. They just had to stay that way a little longer…
Bracing herself, Espurr began to dash for the edge of the branch, attempting to get a running start. Halfway across, she lost her footing, and for one horrifying second she fell—
—Her foot barely caught the branch, but she used it, regaining her footing with the desperation and accuracy only someone whose life was in peril could manage. She leapt off the branch as soon as her feet touched the very end, reaching out as far as she could in order to catch the next one. She would make it!
The wind that appeared out of nowhere suddenly enveloped her like a twig in a storm. She only had enough time to look in its general direction before she was blasted with a strong of the foul-smelling gust. It knocked Espurr far off-course, her outstretched paws barely missing the branch by a hair's breadth. There was a single, terrifying drop in her stomach as she realized she'd missed, and then she was falling. Falling a long way.
Crack.
Espurr let out a loud yowl of pain as she hit the ground, tumbling to her side. Several things ached, but she forced herself up before anything else could take her by surprise. Her right arm was fine, but her left arm, the one she had landed on, hurt like nothing she had ever felt before. It was at a strange, contorted angle—it didn't bend that way! Flashes of dark maroon cut through her vision. Somehow she knew what the color meant: pain.
And just the immense pain was taking a lot out of her. Gritting her teeth in hurt that made her want to vomit, she spared a half-second's worth glance at the mighty oak she had just fallen out of. The rancid wind whirled around her and buffeted her with a howl that sounded almost like a laugh, like it was taking some kind of twisted delight in her misery.
She wanted to curl up and cry. But she didn't have time to cry, or think, or the pain. The appearance of a trio of coned heads hovering through the fog cut away anything except the desire to run away, to get far away from here. Like a switch had been flipped, Espurr forgot all about the mighty oak and the blinding pain in her arm, and began to run for her life.
~\({O})/~
~Audino~
An audino quietly picked the herbs and weeds from around a small bush in the forest, slipping them into her exploration bag. It was the full moon, and her herb stores were running low again.
Fresh-picked herbs were always available on the Air and Grass Continents, but rarely grew anywhere on the Water Continent. They were vital to Audino's medical practices, but somehow they were always the hardest thing to get ahold of. She could always get them from Kecleon, but Kecleon overcharged for them and everymon knew it. She had been lucky to find this clutch of them sitting around the nearby mystery dungeon. Mystery dungeons being what they were, Audino had returned once every month at the full moon—she was superstitious—and found the exact same bush with the exact same clutches of herbs growing around it awaiting her.
Of course, finding the bush was a different beast entirely—every time Audino came looking for it, it was always in a different place. But that was to be expected of a mystery dungeon. The places were always re-arranging themselves however they saw fit. Audino was just grateful she'd found the bush fairly quickly tonight. Something was different in the air this time, and she could sense it. It was like the dungeon itself had grown darker, and the surroundings around her somehow put her on guard.
The lack of dungeon pokemon around at this time of night made her ears bristle with uneasiness as well. The dungeon's natural apparitions mostly came out when it was dark, and the ones here were weak enough for a child to easily defeat, but all the same they were never pokemon to shy away from a fight. Audino had been in enough dungeons to know… if there were no dungeon apparitions, then there was usually something worse.
And whatever it was, Audino didn't want to meet it tonight. She kept the escape orb she had bought from Kecleon's specifically for this occasion in one of the bag's looser pockets, just in case she'd need to make an impromptu escape all the sudden.
She looked up from her herb picking in confusion as an unnatural wind blew past her, shaking the trees with visible anger as it went. In the distance, she could see what looked like a thick wall of mist. Audino clutched her escape orb tightly. This dungeon wasn't supposed to do that... this dungeon was too weak for that. Something was very wrong here.
There was suddenly a loud thump in the distance, accompanied by a sickening crack. Audino had half a mind to just smash the orb right now and forget her herbs. But that notion disappeared once she heard the yowl of pain that followed. Whatever pokemon had made it sounded rather young… But a dungeon apparition, even a weaker one, could spell trouble for her at this point.
Suddenly, Audino saw the silhouette of a small pokemon running straight in her direction through the fog. Was it a dungeon apparition? Her grip on the escape orb became tight enough for her to whip it out on command. She watched as within seconds, an espurr stumbled out of the distant mist and into the immediate area, running frantically through the woods. For a split second, Audino hesitated. Espurr weren't native to this dungeon. So why was one here?
Audino only had to see the look in the espurr's eyes once to understand completely. Their eyes glimmered in the moonlight with a look of fear, an intelligent look. This wasn't one of the dungeon's false projections; this was a very real pokemon!
By now, the espurr had seemed to realize Audino wasn't yet another hostile apparition, and changed their course directly towards her.
"Please help me!" the pokemon cried out in terror, clutching her left arm to her chest as she dashed up to Audino. Audino studied the arm with a nurse's precision, identifying the fracture in a matter of seconds. It wasn't easy to break a pokemon's bones. That thump, that yowl… had somemon done this to her?
Something was approaching from the fog at this very moment. Hints of the strongest wind yet began to blow through Audino's fur as she hurriedly beckoned the espurr towards her. Behind the terrified child, she could see a trio of silhouettes approaching, accompanied by flickering lights. Red, yellow, green…
The espurr reached Audino, violently shivering from intense cold and sheer terror. Audino hugged her close, keeping an eye on both the wind and the approaching pokemon.
As the wind grew stronger, the stranger pokemon approached, and Audino finally got her first good look at them: a trio of beheeyem, ghostly lights flickering in the fog. Their crooked cones stood tall into the night; their eyes gleamed brighter than lights and sent chills down Audino's spine. Those weren't feral looks either; they were too shrewd, too calculated. Whatever they were… they weren't dungeon apparitions either.
"Stay close, and whatever you do, don't let go. Understand?" Audino whispered to her new charge. The espurr nodded, staring in fear at the exact same thing Audino was.
There was no more time to waste. The howling of the wind was picking up, turning into a rancid gale, and it brought the creeping wall of fog with it. Any longer, Audino knew, and the approaching pokemon would be the least of their worries. In one swift motion, she hugged Espurr tight and whipped out the escape orb.
"Shut your eyes!" she yelled to Espurr, hurling the orb at her feet. It shattered and exploded into a plume of brilliant, blue-white smoke, and when the smoke cleared, Audino and Espurr were nowhere to be found.
~\({O})/~
Sparkling Espeon Presents
Based upon the character of Espurr from Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon
A tribute to the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Series
~DO PSYCHIC CATS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?~
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the beginning of my much labored upon longfic project! Just "Psychic Sheep" for short, since I've gotten complaints over how long the name and acronym are. This is a heavy alternate universe adaptation of Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, starring the game's side character Espurr in the protagonist spot. If you ever played the game and were simultaneously disappointed and in awe with how many good ideas it THREW AWAY, and how it always seemed to choose the worst narrative option to approach its story, then this fic is for you. If you liked the game's characters but thought they were paper-thin, this fic is for you. If you just wanted to see more of Espurr (you aren't alone, otherwise this wouldn't exist), then this fic is for you! If you haven't played any of the games and just clicked on this out of curiosity... this fic could be for you. If you like slow burns, school-aged characters, fantasy, horror, angst, and globe-spanning political plots, you'll probably like this.
You should not need any prior knowledge of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon franchise to understand this story; if you can tell your pikachu from your charmander (or google the difference), you're good. Because of the vagueness of the canon and the amount of details I've changed, my hope is that anyone can pick this up and treat it similar to an original fantasy with pokemon in it. If something's confusing you or you don't think the story explained something well enough, send me a DM! It might be something I missed, or something that hasn't been unveiled yet.
Before you go any further, you should be informed that this fic contains instances of:
- Bullying
- Death (mostly by implication)
- Violence & Blood
- Fantasy Discrimination
- Heavy Themes
- Suicidal Thought Trains (Uncommon, and only in a couple sections)
And is rated Hard T as a result. I'll stick a content warning in spoilers at the top of any chapters I deem graphic and can be messaged to provide summaries for anything you don't feel comfortable reading. However, some of these are more omnipresent than contained to specific instances. So if any of these bug you, read ahead at your own risk.
Much like a longform television show, this story is at its best when viewed by arc and not necessarily by episode. The first two arcs are a slow burn, and things don't pick up from the get-go! I'll accept criticism on any part/chunk of the story, but humbly request that you factor this fic's long-term storytelling nature in when judging it. If you want rest breaks for the later, longer arcs, either reading in batches of three or stopping at the Special Episodes is a safe bet narratively.
This story has several illustrations which cannot be implemented on FFN, but can be seen on other websites that it is posted to. If you want to read the illustrated version, try hopping over to the versions on Thousand Roads or Ao3!
Thanks to Windskull and ShadowVulpi for beta reading, and to Chibi Pika for the wonderful cover image.
Music of The Week!
Counterattack — Richard Gibbs