Whirlipede - Entoma
Dwebble - Gargantua
Wimpod - Cocytus
Heracross - Kyouhukou
Ribombee - Leinas
Larvesta - Demiurge
Joltik - Yuri
"I have no clue where we are."
"It's the Lostlorn Forest, Rox. We're going to get lost once or twice. We lined ourselves up just south of the Entralink, we just have to keep going north."
"I know, but we've been walking forever. There's nothing even here, just trees. Normally you'd see some Sewaddle, at least."
I looked around. She was right. The forest was dark and gloomy, without a Pokemon to be seen. We should have broken into the central Unovan forest by now, but we never saw a definite border. I looked back to Roxie, riding on her Scolipede.
"Maybe the Sewaddle got lost, too?"
Roxie tried to slug me, but Entoma moved to the side and placed me out of reach.
"Hey! It's just a forest, no need to get worked up!"
"Ah, just shut up. There's plenty of trees around here, and I've definitely seen some berry trees and bushes, so why isn't there a thriving population here?" Roxie glared into the shade, waiting for something.
"You think there's a predator? Look, even if there is, we're riding on toxic steamrollers right now. But I doubt there's a predator. As you've pointed out, there's not a damn thing out here—"
Our Scolipede stepped forward and a wall of pink mist appeared as if from nowhere. Roxie and I jumped, and then the mist washed over us.
No longer were we in a dense, dark forest. An open, circular plain spread out before us, split in the middle by a river with a stone bridge connecting the two halves together.
"Not a damn thing, my ass," Roxie grumbled. "Now look where we are…" She paused. "Where are we?"
"The Entralink, I think…"
"That doesn't help narrow it down. It's noon!" Roxie pointed into the sky, at the sun. "We entered the forest in the afternoon."
"Fucking daylight savings time."
"That's not—whatever, look. There's some buildings over there." Roxie pointed to the edge of the clearing, where the river moved back into a dark forest.
"There's some on that end too," I pointed at the other end of the river, where it flowed from. "Only a few, though."
"Split up and meet back at the bridge?" Roxie offered.
"Deal. If we finish early or run into trouble, we'll meet up early."
I got off of Entoma at the buildings, investigating. Only two buildings stood on this side of the river, and one of them was a shed. I looked over to the other two buildings and paused, looking at a reflection of myself in the eyes.
I didn't dwell on it for long. The magical mirror river reduced the number of buildings to investigate to two, which gave me an easy job. First, I'll see what's in the main building.
"Entoma, kick this door down."
BANG!
Ah, property damage. My favorite kind of damage. Peering through the doorway, I didn't see much. The simple structure had no windows and let in no light. I called out Demiurge.
"Hey, shoot an Ember in there. I want to see what's inside."
Demiurge shot the flame into the building, where it hit a brick wall and fizzled out. The brief orange flash illuminated the room, revealing it to be emptied aside from some pipes.
"Hm… Looks safe enough. Any way you could light up and keep everything visible?"
Demiurge focused for a moment, and then the tip of his central horn caught fire. The flame flickered in the wind but stayed lit.
"Huh. Nice."
Demiurge scuttled in first and I followed behind. Entoma couldn't fit through the doorway, so she looked in from outside. Demiurge flames exposed the room clearly, lit in a flickering orange glow.
"What the hell were they doing here?"
The building definitely has some sort of mechanical use. Pipes wound their way through the walls and floor, arranged around a central platform. Whatever was once on that platform was long gone, leaving pipes and hoses uselessly detached around it.
I searched through the room a little more and found nothing of value, aside from a generator that refused to function. They didn't leave anything behind to indicate what exactly they worked on, at least not here. Maybe Roxie is having better luck?
"Ah, well. Let's see if they've got any shit left in the shed."
Demiurge and I left the room, my Larvesta snuffing out the flame on his horn. Regrouping with Entoma, we walked around the building and over to the small, wooden shed.
"Bust off this padlock for me, won't you?"
Entoma leaned down and snagged one of her horns between the bars of the padlock, and then flicked her head to the side. The lock's catch snapped from the force, popping open and breaking the lock. I took the non-functional lock off of the door and popped it open.
"HISS!"
"SON OF A BITCH!"
I leaped back as a small, purple scorpion leaped from the darkness, lashing out and snapping its pinchers at me. Entoma reacted first, sliding her horns under my arms and lifting me away. Demiurge rolled his eyes, then set Skorupi on fire.
"SCREE!" Skorupi writhed on the ground, desperately trying to extinguish the flames.
My Larvesta sat on his ass and spewed Embers from his five horns, blasting the scorpion with a barrage of small fireballs. Skorupi got fried, taking a surprising amount of punishment before the fire burnt it enough to knock it out.
"Good shit, Demiurge," I complimented as Entoma set me back down. "You've definitely got the 'kill it with fire' strategy figured out. That's usually pretty effective."
I poked the cooked Skorupi with my foot. It groaned, but it did not get up. Skorupi is something I can catch, though it isn't very appealing to me. Not only did my weakest Pokemon casually roast it, it would eventually evolve into a non-Bug-Type. Sounds like blasphemy to me.
Roxie might like it, though. She'd be all about a Poison and Dark type. I grabbed an empty Pokeball and dropped it on Skorupi. The ball shook once, twice, and then clicked.
"Just grabbing this for Roxie," I told my two Pokemon. They didn't really care. "Alright, let's meet back up with her. Didn't find anything useful here."
Roxie wasn't at the bridge, so I continued on toward her set of buildings. There are more than two over here, closer to a dozen. One of them is identical to the main building of my group, but the rest are new to me.
"Roxie!" I called out.
"Here!" came the response.
I walked into the building the voice came from. It was filled with empty file cabinets, stacked chairs, and tables. Roxie was digging through a file cabinet she'd taken the cabinets out of, retrieving a few papers from the bottom.
"I've been scrounging for whatever documents people missed," Roxie informed me. "Find anything good on your end?"
"Just a building of unspecified purpose and a new Pokemon for you, if you want him." I tossed her the Pokeball. "Meet Skorupi. Fair warning: I did burn the fuck out of him earlier."
"That's it? What took you so long?"
"I wasn't that slow."
"Dude, you took two hours."
"I was over there for fifteen minutes, at most."
She rolled her eyes. "I literally kept a timer. See?" She showed me her X-transceiver, an hour and a half rolling.
I blinked. "I'm not fucking with you, I was gone for fifteen minutes at most. Two hours?"
"Let me see your X-transceiver."
I offered it up, and she grabbed it. "Huh. Shit. Your clock is an hour and forty-eight minutes behind mine."
We shared a confused look.
"What the hell does that mean?" I asked.
"Don't know, but I think we should avoid splitting up again. Something's definitely off about this place."
"Oh? You've found something?"
"Allusions at best. There's one line here about 'dream mist shipments' with no explanation. Some mentions of testing. I'm still looking for more."
"Hm. I want to see what's going on in that building," I pointed at the structure identical to the one I just investigated.
"Worth a shot. Haven't checked it yet."
We walked to the building and knocked the door down, and I once again released Demiurge to light the place. Again, it was empty aside from pipes and a central dias.
"Is this the 'building of unspecified purpose' you were talking about?"
"Yeah. Almost exactly the same, though there isn't a generator in this one."
"Must've run off the main grid…" Roxie thought. "They were definitely doing something here. All these pipes and power lines are proof of that. Let me scrounge around a bit."
She didn't find anything.
"Damn!" she cursed. "They leave a map to this place but then leave nothing here! Everything's abandoned, but not in complete disrepair. Alright Roxie, put the pieces together."
Roxie sat down on the central platform, crossed her legs, and glared at nothing.
"Dream Mist is probably the common ground for all of this. We got the location from the Dreamyard, this place has been receiving Dream MIst shipments, and everything is weird as distortion here. There's testing and two identical locations, both on each end of the reflection…"
Roxie stood up. "We're going over that bridge."
I blinked. "Huh? Weren't we going to finish searching here?"
"I doubt there's anything here," she shook her head. "The only place we've found anything in back at the Dreamyard was in a hidden room, and they wouldn't need a hidden room in a place that's already hidden."
"And you think going across the mysterious reflection bridge is a good idea?"
"Oh, grow some balls. You got a better idea?"
I was silent.
"Yeah. We're looking for things that people don't want to be found. You've got to be lost to find something hidden, otherwise everyone would know where it is."
"Fine, we'll cross the bridge."
We recalled our Pokemon and stepped onto the stone bridge. It was a short walk to the center of the bridge, where we stared our reflections in the face. Roxie reached out and touched the reflective surface, only for her hand to slip through and then pass back out unharmed.
"Alright, let's go," Roxie decided.
We stepped forward, passing the threshold. Day shifted to night, and the noon sun shining above us became a full moon. A gentle, cool breeze passed through the clearing, rustling the grass lit in the pale moonlight.
"That's it?" I asked. "It's just the same place but at night."
"I guess…" Roxie deflated. "I was hoping for something more exciting."
"I'm fine with this," I shrugged. "Let's see if anything else has changed. Start with my half, it's quicker."
"Looks the same," I commented. "It's not been busted yet, so that's a good sign."
We hopped off of our Scolipede and walked over to the building. Entoma reared up and horse-kicked the door open at my gesture, allowing us into the building.
"Same structure as the other one…" Roxie considered. "Plus a generator. How does it compare to the original?"
"Same as I remember it."
"I think these rooms have something to do with this place," Roxie said. "Well, not the rooms themselves. Whatever machinery they had hooked up here is probably the cause. I can't explain their existence otherwise."
"It's a good theory," I admitted. "But why is it abandoned?"
"The Dreamyard was probably set up for an old government weapons program, and I think this place is a result of that. The Dreamyard research was shut down and relocated here, and then whatever was done here was shut down as well," Roxie thought deeply. "My best guess is that whatever they managed to do here wasn't viable as a weapon. No point in the Unova military funding this place if it doesn't have an active combat or security function."
"I could see it. How's Unova's track record on Pokemon experimentation? I know Dream Mist comes from Muuna and Musharna, and if this whole place is Dream Mist-adjacent, then I doubt they'd want that coming out."
"Oh, yeah," Roxie snorted. "Team Plasma would have a field day here. They like to go around digging up old experiments from the war and using them to fuel their anti-pokeball rhetoric. Unova would despise anyone learning about this place."
"Let's not go around talking about it, then. I don't want any unwanted attention."
"Obviously not," she rolled her eyes. "Was there anything in the shed?"
"Just that Skorupi I caught for you. We can check it out again, though."
We busted through another lock and got into the shed, finding nothing of note.
"Damn. Back to the other buildings, then. Hopefully we'll find something there."
"HAH! I found something!" Roxie yelled, drawing my attention.
"What is it?"
"Another map! Get over here."
I walked over to her and peeked over her shoulder, eying the torn piece of paper. "What exactly are we working with here? That's… southeast Unova?"
"Found it in a trash pile by a paper shredder. Think someone accidentally tore this chunk off a larger document and forgot to shred it. That's not important, though. We've got two new locations, coordinates and everything!"
"Let's see… Route 15 and Route 17…" I noted the two places in my mind.
"Both in the opposite direction to where we plan to go," Roxie sighed. "Unless we want to make a quick detour to Route 15."
"Fuck Marvellous Bridge," I made my feelings clear. "We could wrap around the continent and see it on our way back. We'll need water travel for Route 17, too."
"Mark them down for future exploration, then," Roxie nodded.
"Oh, I found something interesting too. Not a map, just a Pokeball."
"Lemme see?"
I pulled the Pokeball from my pocket and expanded it to full size. It was half pink and half purple, with a red dot on the pink half. I tapped the release button and it clicked open, empty.
"A Dream Ball?" Roxie hummed. "That's… fitting, but a little odd. Those are pretty hard to come by."
"Really? How hard?"
"Not sure. It's not a standard Pokeball type. Not even a normal variant. More of a limited run or custom Pokeball thing. It's a neat find, a collector might pay a bit for it."
"Nice. You've got a new Pokemon, I've got a new Pokeball, and we've got some more leads on whatever shady shit they were running. I think that's a successful exploration trip."
"You're ready to go?"
"Yeah." I yawned. "The nighttime aesthetic is making me tired."
"That's fair," she chuckled. "We've been here for long enough."
"I think we can get out by just coming back the way we came," I theorized as we approached the bridge, once again riding our Scolipede. "We end up lost in the woods again and just have to go South until we encounter civilization."
"And if we can't get out like that?" Roxie asked.
"I don't know. We're trapped here forever, we starve, and we die? I doubt that'll happen. I think if it was hard to leave this place, they wouldn't have had people coming and going like they used to."
Our Scolipede turned. Their feet clacked against the stone of the bridge, walking toward the reflective barrier. After a moment of hesitation, our Pokemon carried us over.
I yawned as I woke up.
Woke up?
My eyes shot open. We weren't in a clearing anymore. Roxie and I were back in the dense forest. Roxie was still asleep, laying on the back of her sleeping Scolipede.
"Roxie!" I called out. She stirred, slowly waking up and then taking in her surroundings.
I looked down, finally noticing I was also still on my mount. I reached up and knocked on Entoma's head, waking her up.
"Where are we?" Roxie asked.
"No clue," I admitted. "I think we're fucking lost again."
"Damn it!"
"For what it's worth, I think we're back in a normal forest."
"Hey… Nico?"
"Yeah?"
"X-tranciever just got back in range. Either some Porygon are messing with the date-time sync systems or we've been gone for a week and a half."
I checked my own. "Same here."
"That's weird. That whole place was weird. What do you think was going on in there?"
"My guess?" I shrugged. "World of dreams or something. I think you're looking at this the wrong way, Rox. When you encounter an unexplainable horror, don't try to comprehend it. That's how you go insane. Let the incomprehensible horrors stay uncomprehended."
"Bor-ing! I think none of it was real in the first place and it was all in our heads!"
"You still have that Skorupi, right?"
Roxie retrieved the Pokeball and released the still-unconscious and crispy Skorupi, then quickly recalled it. "Damn. You did a number on her."
"She tried to pinch me. I think it was deserved. Anyway, I caught that there. That's at least one point into the 'real' category."
"Hmm. Well, I've got nothing," Roxie sighed.
"No, you've got a burnt Skorupi. You should really be focused on getting her to a Pokemon center."
Roxie glared at me. "You burned her!"
"And then I handed the problem off to you," I shrugged. "And yet here you are, avoiding the problem. Really, I expected better from you."
Roxie reached up, snapped off a tree branch, and threw it at me.
I love reviews! Turned 21 today so I wanted to put something out, even if it's a bit short. I think I'm better at fights than plot, trying to work on that.
I'm a broke college student so I started a ko fi. Don't feel obligated to tip, but if you're feeling generous I appreciate it: ko- fi justspaced
