"A mystery- you mean- the place you described as having constantly shifting floor plans and loaded with Pokémon who would like nothing more than to maim me?"

Absol made no effort to hide the incredulity in his voice.

Riolu titled his head. "Yeah, but I went in one the other day, and it was fine." Mostly. "Plus, they almost always have some Poké in them, could pay for an inn room tonight."

"That's- err..." Alex recoiled, abruptly bringing up a paw to his head. "Gah, this... migraine..."

Riolu took a few steps forward, holding out a paw. "Are you... alright?"

"I..." Alex struggled to get his words out through clenched teeth. "Okay… it's mostly passed... I think."

"What caused that? Did you... did you get those when you were a human?"

"No- err, not normally. Certainly not out of nowhere like that. Granted these are exceptional circumstances."

Riolu looked between Alex and the shape of the mystery dungeon entrance a few times. Whatever that was about couldn't have possibly been a good omen of what was to come, but they still needed to crash somewhere. And this looked to be a fairly well traveled road, so if it was an actually dangerous mystery dungeon, there would've been signs around it.

Probably.

"Let's go, the faster we get through it the sooner we can get you a place to rest."

Alex looked at Riolu in a combination of pain and confusion, but the fighting type had already started walking. Not willing to let his one contact in this world vanish, Alex trotted after him.

They both came to a stop in front of the flickering mass of trees and bushes. Riolu stuck a tentative paw in, causing it to vanish into the mirage of the greenery.

"Definitely a dungeon," he commented, withdrawing his paw and turning back to Alex. "Just stick by me, alright?"

"I doubt I have any other choice."

"Let's get it then." With a deep breath, Riolu fully stepped into the distortion, with Alex following close behind.

The first thing that struck Riolu was that the dungeon seemed much more pleasant than Flashscrape Cave. Rather than harsh cave walls, the chambers of the dungeon were lined with thick trees, and the floor was a much more comfortable combination of grass and dirt.

The second thing that struck Riolu was how absolutely wrong his first assumption was, as it was his turn to double over with a migraine.

"Agh- Hck!"

Riolu fell over, immediately prompting a concerned look from Alex.

"Riolu? Are you well? Is this a byproduct of the dungeon?"

Despite Alex's questioning, the voice could barely reach Riolu. He rolled over to look at the dungeon floor— The entire world seemed to be spinning as he started seeing double, then triple, then...

Why was it only Pokémon he was seeing double of?

There were countless Absols, most of them accompanied either by a Riolu or Lucario, plus the occasional other Pokémon that he could only see as blobs of green, red, and black. With how dizzy he was it was near impossible to figure out the details.

Then as soon as the migraine came on, it vanished, leaving behind himself and a single Absol in an empty room.

"Riolu? Please speak to me!"

"I'm... fine." Riolu got back to his feet, looking over himself. He'd never taken an X-eye seed before, was that what it was like? Or maybe he just got hit by a stray Supersonic as he wandered in.

That was just... a weird vision.

"Would it be too late to leave the dungeon? If both of us were afflicted by odd migraines, I doubt we could-"

"It'll be alright," Riolu assured. "I really am fine now." It wasn't even a lie, it felt like he was never hit by whatever that was in the first place.

"…Very well, if you're confident then." He stepped to the side, letting Riolu take over navigation.

With a shake of his head, Riolu started the same process he did in Flashscrape Cave— pick a random direction and follow it to the staircase. A Varin dungeon couldn't be that different from an Ingen dungeon anyways, right?

"FORCE PALM!"

"Are you… absolutely certain that is considered a 'Force Palm'?" Alex was carefully studying the way Riolu was dispatching the feral Caterpie around them, and while he didn't understand much about this world, it really didn't look like Riolu was Force Palming anything.

"It... has to be a Force Palm, right?" Riolu looked between his hand and the knocked out Metapod ahead of him.

"I- well, it would be remiss of me to suggest anything about this world, but as I see it, your palm itself is doing very little. The caterpillars appear to be in pain several seconds after the impact."

"But if it's not Force Palm then... what is it?" How many other fighting moves did Riolu even learn that worked like that?

"I wouldn't- Hgh!" Alex's response was cut off by being rammed in the back by yet another Caterpie. As was to be expected from the former-human, his legs immediately gave out and he collapsed to the floor.

Riolu ran over to his aid, preparing a not-Force Palm to take the beast down. Yet the beast was being tricky, and opted for a strategic move rather than another mindless attack. It fired a String Shot at Riolu, slowing him down and causing his Counter to fail— as a result, the best Riolu could do was shove him slightly.

"Ugh, just gotta..."

As Riolu was trying to claw off the strands of silk, Alex tried craning his neck towards his aggressor. There had to be something he could do, right? Riolu said Pokémon had all sorts of moves of different types, certainly something like a tackle couldn't be too difficult.

He tried rising to his feet, but was interrupted by another Tackle from Caterpie cratering him back to the floor.

It was at that point that Alex decided he had enough.

Pushing his rear legs against the ground as hard as he could, he didn't quite get to his feet. It was, however, enough to get some airtime. This airtime was accelerated by a gray streak of light appearing behind him, propelling him further and faster.

Perhaps if Caterpie had anything on its mind other than murder, it would have easily been able to dodge the poorly-aimed ballistic Absol. But for Caterpie, this was a golden opportunity— its prey was flying right towards it.

Caterpie failed to predict that the velocity of Absol would be a problem though, and as a result Alex's first ever Quick Attack connected.

The impact launched Caterpie back a few meters, unconscious. For his part, Alex was dealing with his collision to the ground, rubbing the dirt and pain away from his head with a paw.

"Did I... get him?"

"You did!" Riolu confirmed, finally freeing himself from his cocoon. "That was a Quick Attack!… I think."

"A quick... wonderful. And you do these types of attacks often?"

"Well, some Pokémon do- and they usually finish the attack on their feet. But for a first move that was good!"

Alex wasn't quite sure how he should take that. "...Splendid."

With both Alex and Riolu theoretically capable of fighting, they started progressing through the floors faster. The fact that neither of them were good at it proved to be irrelevant with the average strength and intelligence of a feral in Overgrowth Woods.

And while it was scarce, they did manage to find the occasional piece of loot. Oran berries, a couple apples, and exactly 140 Poké.

As Alex led the way up the sixth flight of stairs, he stopped.

"Uh... Riolu? This room looks slightly different than the others."

Riolu climbed up right after, popping his head over the stairwell to see what Alex was talking about.

The room was just that- a single room. No hallways branched out from here, and there didn't appear to be any ferals around. The only things noteworthy in it at all was a wooden crate up against the right wall, and a weird-looking tile at the back end.

Alex started walking towards the crate, while Riolu gravitated towards the tile.

"This is... are these badges?" Alex lifted one up to examine it. It was metal, forged into the shape of a circle with wings on both ends. Notably, there was a hole missing right in the center.

Alex's question pulled Riolu from his deep inspection of the oddly colored tile, before freezing as he actually saw the badge.

"That's a guild badge! Er... they usually have a crystal in the center, but still that's definitely a Federation thing."

"Right, the... Federation, as you explained. But why would there be a random box of badges here then?"

"I'm… not sure." Sure, mystery dungeons had a tendency for all sorts of random trinkets to pop up in them, but an entire crate? Someone was either carrying it through this place and dropped it, or left it intentionally.

"...Would there be any harm in taking one then?" Alex asked. "If these are some type of identifier for being associated with the Federation, then it couldn't hurt… right?"

Riolu walked over, and took out a badge for himself. Looking at it was... odd. All his experience with the Explorer's Federation came second hand through his mother, and despite how much he didn't want to relive those memories, something about holding the badge felt right. Maybe it was the way it reflected the setting sun, or just weighing the perfect amount to be sturdy without being cumbersome- something was screaming that he should hold onto it.

"It should be fine," Riolu finally assured, lowering his badge to his side.

"Good to know." Alex took one for himself, before looking back to the rest of the room. "...Do you find it odd that we haven't encountered any other of those ferals yet?"

"I- kinda- not really? I think this is the last floor." To prove his point, Riolu walked back towards the weird tile. "And if I'm right-"

Riolu's sentence was cut off by him stepping on the tile, causing him to be enveloped in a golden pillar of light. When it dissipated, he was no longer there.

Alex had a perfectly reasonable reaction to this chain of events.

"Riolu! Where did you go? Are you alright?" The shock caused him to stumble over his feet a few times, as he nervously approached the tile that took his only friend away.

It didn't appear to show any signs of the Riolu, and as Alex leaned in to examine it closer, he lost his balance yet again. His face proceeded to plant itself onto the tile, and in the same pillar of light, Alex vanished from the dungeon.

After a brief period of lightheadedness and not being able to see anything but white, terrain suddenly came back into sight. At first it looked like the same dense tree line that made up the walls of the mystery dungeon, causing Alex's fight or flight to kick in. This did not synergize very well with the lightheadedness, and Alex lost balance for the fourth time in the past two minutes.

His anxiety was quickly relieved though as he saw Riolu, and realized that he was not, in fact, in a mystery dungeon. No longer worried about the prospect of being defenseless against a feral attacker, he was able to take his time rising back to his feet.

"Riolu... what just happened?"

"I think that was a warp tile, it's how you get out of those one-way dungeons," Riolu explained, in substantially better shape than his partner since he actually had a few moments to recover. "...Never actually used one before, though."

"...I... sincerely hope we do not have to use such devices again any time soon."

With 140 Poké between the two of them and exactly zero intention of going back in even on the off chance that it wasn't enough, they continued on towards Nova Town.

The final stretch down the hill should've been the fastest, but the exhaustion slowed them down more than either cared to admit. Still, they trekked along, slowly approaching the collection of buildings in what was probably the town center.

While the duo got a few odd stares from the random Pokémon on the street— a Riolu no one's seen before and an Absol with half perfect, half completely messed up fur coming out this far was an oddity— no one stopped them, which Riolu took as a sign he was on the right track.

They continued up to the building that had "INN" plastered over the front in giant footprint runes, causing Alex to stop.

"That is… footprints?"

"They don't use footprint runes in the human world?" Riolu cocked his head towards Alex.

"No, not at- is that the standard language here?"

"I mean, yeah?" Riolu seemed to be just as confused about this as Alex was. "Everyone knows footprint runes. You come out of the egg sorta getting the idea of them."

Alex squinted his eyes, knowing full well that whatever he was about to ask would lead to more questions than answers. "If… footprint runes are the primary written language here, what language are we speaking?"

"Umm… Pokémon? What else would we be speaking?"

"…I am reasonably confident that I am speaking English- wait." Absol shut his eyes again, trying to rack his brain to remember bits and pieces from secondary school. "Romani ite domum?"

Riolu looked at Alex blankly. "That… just sounded like gibberish."

"Romans go home, that's… okay so we are speaking English then." That was a minor relief added to the growing pile of questions that Alex really needed to stop adding to. "Just, wanted to verify that."

"Okay, um… do you want to go get the room now then?" Riolu gestured back towards the inn.

"R-right, yes please."

After talking to a very polite older Raichu, the two were able to get a room for the night. Unfortunately, it was 125 for a single bed or 150 for a double, which meant they had to settle.

"I can just… sleep on the floor," Riolu offered as soon as they shut the door behind them. "Having a pillow and blanket is way better than what I've had the last few nights."

"No, I-" Alex cut himself off mid-sentence. While arguing otherwise would've been the polite thing to do, this was easily the weirdest and most exhausting 24 hours of his life so far. He was now some cat-dog-fox thing, walked several hours with someone he just met into the middle of the boonies, took on one of those dungeon things, and now paid a giant yellow mouse almost all of their savings thus far so they'd have a place to rest for a single night.

He didn't want to be selfish, but this was a great time to have a good bed.

"Thank you very much."

He awkwardly fumbled to swing his front right leg on top of the mattress, then made a few hops with his back legs until he was able to get the other front leg up, then performed a wiggle-shuffle maneuver to pull the rest of his body over.

"You're… really not an Absol, huh?" Riolu asked, watching the attempt as he walked over to the lamp to shut it off.

"Yes, I've been saying that." Absol flailed around for a while, not really sure what the ideal sleeping position for a quadruped with a giant horn was. "It's equally bizarre to me."

"Yeah, I can… yeah. How did you end up here though? Since the human world is so different."

Alex lowered his head. "I'm… not entirely sure. My memories from before getting tangled up in that vine are hazy. I was on the bus, and… some hazy colors, then I was there."

"…Crazy…" Riolu's voice was already starting to trail off though, having the same amount of exhaustion as his friend but none of the existential dread.

That left Alex trying to will his body to sleep. There was still so much about this that completely confused him, and even after everything he couldn't shake the thought that it could've just been an extremely vivid dream.

In the end, those worries were only silenced by the fact that none of them would be resolved without going to sleep first. So Alex finally settled in on a position sprawled out on his left side, before drifting off.

A/N: A bit late, sorry about that. Been in a kinda big slump lately, so unfortunately I'm gonna have to put this story on a hiatus. I'll come back to it eventually, but for the time being I think the best thing I can do is just take a break from forcing myself to work on it. Apologies to anyone who was looking forward to consistent updates here.

Merry Christmas to everyone though!