(A/N: This story takes place in an original setting in the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon universe. Creative liberties are taken with combat and mission structure. My hope is that this story will function as much like a video game as it does a collection of character studies. There will be some experimentation with the text as the story goes on. Updates will happen when they happen. I hope you enjoy. Especially you. Yeah, you. You seem like the nicest person here. How's it going?)

In the ocean was an island, and on that island was a mountain, a volcano long dormant, and surrounding that dormant volcano was a forest rich with all manner of plant life, and beyond that forest was a beach where the island met the ocean, and on that island's crystal blue shore was a little dog, only a pup, wet from the waves and breathing slow under the beating sun glaring along the cloudless sky. And in that dog's breaths were carried the remains of a strange dream, and as those breaths were carried away by the breeze, so was that dream. And then the little thing was poked in the back of the head by a duck's webbed foot.

"Hey, buddy. Y'all look like you stepped out of a hurricane," said the duck with a smoke damaged accent from the American south. "Not too far from what Lea was talkin' 'bout, I suppose."

The dog stirred in its sleep, but did not wake. It turned from its side and onto its stomach, its eyes closed and shielded from the sun by its paws and the warm sand.

"Don't you dare make me carry you back," the duck grumbled to himself, realizing his words weren't going to accomplish much. He furrowed his brow and sighed. "Get ready, bucko," said the duck, raising a lengthy piece of driftwood in his wings. "I'm about to make the worst first impression of your life."

With a pop on his side, and an audible thwack, the dog rolled over and shouted out at the sky in a deep yet nasally tone, "Guess I'm gonna break somebody's neck today!"

That's when the dog turned to see the duck standing over him, the plain expression on the duck's face far from the abject fear now present on the dog's.

Twirling the driftwood with one wing, the duck shook his head and smirked. "Let's do ourselves a favor and get the freaking out taken care of later."

"What are you?!" shouted the dog, shooting back on all fours, only for him to realize he was standing on all fours, looking down at himself and his brown, tan, and white fur with sky blue eyes, going right back to being petrified.

"No clue," said the duck. He pointed with the driftwood between himself and the dog, "But you and I, we were humans, right?"

The dog could only nod.

"That's good. Means Lea ain't a fibber, but it'd be hard to lie about that shit," the duck said, muttering the last part. "Anyway, name's Vic. You gotta name on ya, right?" he asked, stepping toward the little dog with that smirk still in place.

After a long pause, one long enough to have the two young men blink awkwardly at one another, the dog finally said, "Sam. I'm Sam," with another small nod.

"Alright, Sammy," Vic said with a stretch, his wings momentarily shading Sam against the sun. "I found ya while I was gathering supplies for our little place. Ya wanna come with me and meet my roommate? She's a nice lady."

In an instant, as if a button had been pressed, Sam's joints loosened. Following the muscle memory that sent him away from his attacker-turned-rescuer, he took a step forward on his four feet toward Vic.

With a nod, Vic walked backwards, keeping an eye on Sam. "Just making sure you do alright. Goodness knows I fell over about twenty times before I could get used to being this small."

Sam ignored Vic, instead keeping his eyes on his steps, wobbling in the sand, but staying upright as he stumbled along in an unfamiliar body.

Vic whistled. "Man, you're showing off, ain't ya?"

At that, Sam lost concentration, falling forward and getting a wet nose full of beach. "Shut up for a minute," Sam growled as he absentmindedly wiped his nose with a paw.

With a roll of his eyes, Vic turned around and kept walking.

For about five minutes, they stepped along the beach, Vic stopping at one point to wet his feet in the ocean before he started whistling a tune.

Sam balked at the whistling duck. "I'm fucking sorry, are you enjoying this?"

Vic chuckled, picking up his pace when he looked behind him and saw that Sam was starting to keep up. "Small things, Sammy."

"Sam," muttered the dog.

"Lieutenant Tightass," Vic corrected himself. "But way I see it, we're walking on a beach. The sun is shining. The waves are singing. This is heaven, so smile a little."

"No," Sam said without any tone in his voice.

Vic winced, but kept walking. "Fine. Guess we can be bored."

Another five dreadful minutes went by, the sand only getting hotter as the sun beat down. Before Sam could ask if Vic had gotten them lost, they were off the beach. After brushing aside a couple branches, Vic led Sam into a small cavern on the side of a rocky outcrop. The room was small, but livable. In a relative rectangle, four beds of palm leaves lined the sides. A glass container catching dripping rock water sat against the far end, and by that container was a small giraffe, poking at a coconut with its hoof. It sighed, lost in thought.

Then it looked up and saw the two of them, Vic smiling wide as Sam addressed it with a tilted head.

Before it could say anything, Vic spoke first.

"Human delivery service!" Vic decreed. "Like you said, we'd find another one soon."

The giraffe breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped up to the pair. In a surprisingly clear and vivid voice, she said, "So, I'm not crazy!"

"Even if you were, we'd have worse problems anyway," Vic chirped. He used his wing to usher Sam forward.

Sam glared at Vic, but held back the bile as he nodded to the giraffe. "I'm Sam, and I guess you're Lea, and I don't know what's happening right now," he grumbled, looking up along the giraffe''s long neck and up to her face.

He was the smallest one here. That sucked.

"That's right, and yeah. We all are," she said, sitting down on her haunches on one of the leafy beds.

Sam sat down on a bed as well, the one next to Lea, glad to be off the hot sand. Vic leaned on his piece of driftwood across from the pair.

An awkward silence fell over the trio, one Vic was more than happy to tear through.

"Don't suppose those visions showed ya how we'd break the ice around here, huh?" he asked, kicking some stray sand out into the cavern entrance.

"No, but I guess we can get the basics out of the way," Lea began, pausing briefly to write a mental checklist. "We don't know where we are, we don't know what we are. We do know we were human, and that's pretty important."

"No kidding," Vic quipped, sitting down on his bed with a groan.

"We do know we need to gather supplies, which we've been alright with so far. Finding this little hideout was lucky for us."

"And we got some fruit from the trees inland," Vic added, "And we gotta source of water here, but I don't know if that's gonna be enough for four folks."

Lea nodded, her head tilting at an angle against her long neck. "We want to find a stream or a river, but we don't want to leave too soon."

"Because of your vision," Vic clarified.

"Because of my vision," Lea confirmed.

For the first time in as long as he could remember, Sam was listening intently to a conversation between two strangers.

That's when it occurred to him.

"I can't remember anything," he said, gruff and nasally. He looked over the giraffe and the duck, both of them sharing his resentful expression.

"Yeah, that's the other important thing, I guess," Lea mumbled, shifting in her seat.

"But how come I know my name?" Sam asked the wall more than the others.

"If we knew, we'd tell ya," Vic answered, standing up with a grunt, letting his driftwood hit the floor with a knock against the rock. "But we gotta let ourselves get into it all later. Lea said we're gonna have four folks in on this mess, and keeping us all safe is priority number one."

Even though she didn't need it, Lea took the wing offered by Vic, helping herself up with her other hooves.

"Okay, yeah. Visions," Sam said, shaking his fuzzy head with a glare. "Explain those," he added in not the most friendly tone.

"When I was asleep, I saw four of us. I was alone when I woke up," Lea said as she stepped up in front of Sam. "I only knew two things when I got here. I had to survive and I wouldn't be alone for long. I guess that was the motivation I needed to get started on this place."

Vic chuckled. "You were by yourself for 'bout two hours before I found you trying to tear leaves off a tree with your teeth."

Lea laughed back. "And it worked, didn't it?"

"Yeah, thanks for the giraffe spit bed."

"And those berries never touched your beak? How many thumbs do you have?!"

As Vic and Lea laughed, Sam's glare was embedded deeper and deeper into this little face.

"So let me get this fucking straight!" he shouted, pulling the others out of their revelry. "We're dumb little animals stuck on a big dumb island in a dumb little cave waiting for another dumb animal to wash up on the shore like I did, and we're all gonna be okay with that because a talking giraffe had a dream about it?"

"Well, you're here!" Lea shouted back.

Sam shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Only because your duck buddy hit me with his tiny stick."

Lea didn't miss a moment as she got right up in Sam's face, which did strain her neck. "So I guess I'm right and you're angry because you don't know how to express yourself any other way. Is that it?"

Sam pounced up, sending leaves fluttering throughout the cavern, one landing on his back. "Oh, I'm sorry I'm not ready to joke about losing my thumbs!"

"Well, what else you wanna do?!" Vic added to the shouting match, picking up his driftwood and smacking it against the wall, snapping it in half on accident. "Ya wanna sit around and be sorry for yourself? We got better things to do and I'm not gonna let you and your shit attitude get in the way of it."

"I'm just asking the right questions!" Sam spat at Vic, tiny teeth bared.

As Vic raised half his weapon, another, much smaller voice joined in.

"I… have a question too, I think."

All three of them turned their heads to the cavern's entrance.

There stood a zebra taller than both Sam and Vic. She looked between the three of them, who looked back at her with remorse.

Shaking on her hooves, the bashful zebra mumbled, "I heard you guys talking, and I heard the stuff about being human, but I had to be sure, but I am now," she gulped. "Then you started fighting, and if everything you've all said is true, then we have to stop fighting."

The zebra took a few tentative steps into the room as the others watched her intently. "My name is Zoe," she said. "I don't know what kind of animal I am, but you're a giraffe and a dog and a duck, and that's cool. I like animals."

"You're a zebra," Vic said, picking up the remains of his driftwood with both wings. He smirked that same smirk he had on the shore. "Zoe the Zebra, how 'bout that?"

Zoe gave an awkward laugh, which Lea returned in kind, if louder. Sam stayed quiet, but his frown was gone.

"But I guess my question is…" Zoe stopped herself. Water dripped from the back of the room. The breeze made the foliage shake. She continued, "Do you guys know anything about Pokemon?"

I'm not really a gaming person. I've heard of it, Pikachu and stuff, but it was never for me. I missed out on everyone walking around with their phones. I was finishing up my degree.

My little brother was into it. He tried telling me about it. Started talking about fighting type ghost type water type, and I just kinda tuned out and let him gush 'bout it. Sounded like way too much work for a video game.

I dunno, I'm a PC gamer. I know it's popular, but I'd rather play a real fighting game. Or a shooter. I think I saw a challenge run once. Some guy trying to beat it with someone else at the same time. I had no idea what was going on.

Did you know that the Pokemon series as a whole has sold nearly 500 million copies? Sorry I can't remember anything important, but that's pretty cool, right? So many adventures…

A moonless sky meant the stars only shone brighter. A cool night on the beach meant there needed to be a fire. So as the breeze shook the trees and the waves crashed onto the shore, Vic grumbled with a piece of flint he found in the sand.

Lea and Zoe sat on a felled tree pulled from inland, serving as a bench for the occasion. They talked about Pokemon. Well, Zoe did, mostly. Sam took to a stone, sitting with tilted head, watching Vic swear to himself when the flint slipped in his grip.

Finally, with one good strike from the sharp rock in his other wing, sparks fell from the flint and onto the kindling, starting a small fire that grew as the dry wood went aflame with it.

With a sigh, large brows furrowed, Vic rubbed his forehead.

"Where'd you learn to do that?" Sam asked, stepping up to the fire for warmth, flames reflecting in his eyes.

Vic stretched his neck, groaning. "Same way any of us know anything. No dang clue," he grumbled.

"You really think we're in a video game?" Lea asked Zoe for the 327th time that evening.

This pulled Zoe from her story about the failures of the most recent Pokemon games. If she was really annoyed, she didn't show it. "I know so. Vic is a farfetch'd," she said, pointing at the duck tossing the flint in his wing. "That's first generation, first game. And, oh…" Zoe paused for a moment, mouth curled in thought. "Sam evolves into Lycanroc. I can't remember all the names, but I know those."

"And for the whole class, what exactly is evolving?" Sam asked, not looking away from the fire.

"Oh!" Zoe smiled, entering Pokemon Explaining Mode once again. "So if you get strong enough, or meet a certain requirement, a pokemon evolves into a new one. Similar to the last one, but stronger."

Vic turned his gaze to the zebra. With a smirk, he asked, "So if we keep evolving, you think we'll turn back into humans?"

Zoe blinked. "No, it doesn't work like that."

"I was joking, but yeah, I got it."

"Oh! Whoops…"

"It's fine. You're fine."

A hush fell over the group. Lea couldn't pull herself from her thoughts, every aspect of her reality crumbling before her as talking animals told her she was in a video game and dreams actually came true. Vic stared down the flint in his wing, dealing with the fact that having something in grasp gave him a sense of comfort he couldn't quite understand. Sam watched the fire, letting its warmth calm him down as he tore and scratched at every objection he had to this situation in his mind. Zoe looked to the sky. She wanted to see if she recognized any of the constellations. It took her a moment to realize she never really learned the ones back home, either, so that was a bust.

"So, uh, any other questions?" Zoe asked, pulling everyone away from themselves.

Sam sniffed the air, the burning wood filling his nostrils. "Why are we so small?" he wondered aloud.

"Well…" Zoe thought for a moment. "Usually the games start with everyone being weak, but you get stronger as you go on. That's, like, basic video game stuff."

Sam finally looked away from the fire, the color of the flames reflecting upon him. "Okay, but the people in all the games are kids, right? I don't think anyone here is a kid."

"Far cry from it," Vic added, stretching his wings with a cough.

"I guess that's just another mystery," Zoe said with an awkward laugh. "Um, sorry."

Lea shook her head. "That's okay, Zoe. You've been very helpful."

Lea was about to speak again, but she stopped herself. The others shared a glance as an orange glow filled the space.

"But?" Sam asked.

Lea shook her head. "No but."

Vic sat down next to Lea on the log. "You look like you got something on your mind."

Lea sighed. "I'm not ready to ask yet."

"Lea," Vic said, pausing to choose his words carefully. "If we don't keep laying all our cards on the table, it's gonna get real tough real fast."

Lea gave Vic a glare. For the briefest of moments, she could have sworn that she felt his surprise in herself. "I politely request that you respect my position at this time," she declared.

With raised brows and wings, Vic said, "Fair nuff."

"Okay, this is all fucking great then."

Sam's swearing got everyone's attention.

"So where are we gonna go?" he asked, giving everyone pause for thought.

Without a word from anyone, Sam continued.

"All four of us are here. That was what you saw, right?" he asked, pointing at Lea with a paw. "Four of us? So that's done, and you said we have limited supplies," he added, pointing at Vic. "And if we want more answers, we can't stay here forever."

Vic nodded in reply. "We gotta go further inland. See what we can see."

Vic's words, however true, rang hollow among the group. It was Zoe now who was lost in thought, her small smile faded. Sam poked at a loose piece of firewood with his paw, letting the flames rise.

Lea knew there was trepidation among everyone. She couldn't understand why she knew, but if she was going to make use of this new sense, she had to do so now.

"Okay," she said, standing up, her hooves spreading sand in the semicircle they'd all formed. "We can do that tomorrow. Until then, I think we all need our rest."

In agreement, Zoe and Sam went back into the cavern. Vic tended to the fire. Lea took a few steps toward the cavern, but changed her mind, walking out into the dark toward the water, out of sight of everyone.

Sam pondered the coconut on the cavern floor. While he wasn't an expert in the fruit, the fact that something he recognized existed in this strange land provided him with some small source of comfort. As he ran a paw along the coconut's fuzzy surface, it rolled to the side, revealing a dent Lea had made earlier in the day. And so, with a raised eye, it was decided.

The dog had made it his mission, his life's ultimate goal, to crack open this coconut and get the water inside. No more would he rest until the fruit's prize was ready for consumption. The fact that he didn't have thumbs or that the whole thing was bigger than his head would not stop him.

In his mind, the whole world was now but a stage between him and the fruit. As suspenseful music played in his head, he glared the coconut down, teeth bared, eyes halved. There would be justice in this world. No one just turns a guy into an itty bitty video game character and escapes without consequences.

Sam pounced. His claws scraped at the coconut's shell. The fruit pattered against the floor, its dent deeper, but not much more damage beyond that.

He sighed, defeated. He rested his paws on his temples, a headache coming on as he further considered his options. Sleep was number one.

From her bed, Zoe had been watching Sam for some time. How long, she wasn't sure. Watching a yet-to-be lycanroc lose a battle to a coconut seemed to cause an unexplainable temporal phenomenon. Still, she wasn't disappointed. She was, however, reluctant to offer advice.

Zoe decided the best course of action was to act like she saw nothing and go to sleep.

If only it turned out like that.

"I can't even beat a stationary target," Sam grumbled.

Having moved to the bed across from her, the dog was still nursing his headache.

Avoiding eye contact, Zoe sighed, taking a moment to figure out what to say to Sam without angering him anymore.

"It all takes time," she said in her smallest voice, curling up in her bed.

"Yeah, but!" Sam stopped himself, lowering his voice as he continued. "You're supposed to fight champions or bosses or whatever in these games, right? That's how you win? So that means I have a long way to go."

"We all do," Zoe added with a nod.

"Then I guess we're probably not going home anytime soon, are we?" Sam mumbled now, his face against the leaves as he closed his eyes.

Zoe blinked. She opened her mouth to speak, but closed it soon after. She knew there was something she could say, a few easy words that would make this all better. Something that could make just a bit more sense of everything. Unfortunately, she couldn't find it.

So she closed her eyes too, and the dripping of water met with the gentle breathing of the dog and the zebra, and they tried to sleep, however troubled they were. The fire died down in the distance and soon they were in the dark.

"Pebble for your thoughts?"

Lea gasped to find Vic standing behind her, smirk on his face as he offered her a smooth, shiny stone from the shore.

She shook her head. "I'll pass."

Vic stepped next to Lea. "What happened to sleeping?" he asked her.

She idly traced shapes in the sand with her hoof. "I could ask you the same."

Vic shrugged. "I ain't much good at sleep."

They watched the waves pass and the stars shine as the fire behind them died down with the night.

Thank you for believing in me. When we met. My visions.

You gotta believe in something at times like this.

You didn't have to. You could have run off somewhere, far away.

Going out alone on a desert island? You must have a real low opinion of me.

No! I… ugh.

Sorry, sorry. I'll can the jokes for a minute.

It's okay. I'm the one who's too stressed to know when you're kidding.

By the way, I didn't mean to be all pushy earlier. I just don't want y'all to think we can't speak our mind around here. Sam may be an asshole, but we gotta be cool for each other. Ain't a situation I can think of where hiding things is gonna do us any fa-

"I have a face on my tail, Vic," Lea finally interrupted.

A stray wave brushed against Vic's feet. He shook them as he stepped back.

"Pardon?" he asked her with a few blinks.

"You've seen it, right?" she turned around, blocking Vic's view of the situation. "It has eyes and a mouth and it's on my tail and I hate it and I was going to ask Zoe about it, but not with Sam there."

Vic cleared his throat as he walked to Lea's side. He looked at her tail. Sure enough, there was a face there. Down the black fur, at the rounded end. Its wild honey eyes and sharp teeth weren't the most pleasant sight.

Vic scratched his head with the pebble in his wing. "I suppose it's not the sort of thing I'd bring up in polite conversation."

"No," Lea plainly said with a sigh as she turned again, looking away from the shore and down at Vic.

The farfetch'd shrugged. "Could be one of them nature tricks. Like how butterflies got fake faces on 'em to fool predators. It's a prey thing."

Lea closed her eyes and sighed. "I don't want to be prey."

"If it's any consolation," Vic said. "At least you're not something your uncle would shoot at on the weekends."

Vic threw his pebble out to the sea. It skipped three times before sinking to the sand. In all, it was a rather unimpressive throw.

Lea didn't notice. She wasn't watching. She was still tracing shapes in the sand. Stars, circles, letters. She was supposed to be writing something. Exactly what, she couldn't remember.

"We're all freaks," she whispered.

"Yep!" Vic nodded in agreement.

With a start, Lea turned to see Vic smiling at her. "No words of reassurance?"

"Well," Vic started, walking next to her head. "No point in pretending, right? But hey, at least we're freaks together."

With that, Lea smiled. The smallest smile she could, but enough for Vic to notice.

"Look at that," Vic teased. "She's got a sense of humor."

"Let's get some sleep," Lea muttered, making her way to bed.

Vic saluted. "Right away, boss," he said, sticking his tongue out as he followed Lea to their camp.

They used sand to put out the fire and stepped softly into camp, taking to their beds. They fell asleep quickly, exhausted from the day's events.

And in their dreams, events repeated. That's what dreams are, right? A way to take a moment, a day, a year, a life, and make sense of it? Some ways yes, others no. We understand so little.

You're older than ones called upon in realities before. Strange.

Excuse me? What are you talking about?

You're a learner.

Isn't everyone? Well, no, I guess not.

You seek so much in the answers, yet you've never really asked the right questions.

No, I… the questions are always there. The answers will give us the questions. That's the whole point.

You believe that in understanding, there is peace, and love untold. Yet peace is more than knowledge, and knowledge is more than knowing.

No, that's exactly what the word is derived from. Who are you?

You need empathy. Your form shall allow you to learn it.

Okay, I get enough arguing about philosophy with strangers online. How about some context?

You must learn what it means to be in another's mind.

Older still, so the fates have decided.

What, is pushing thirty a death sentence now?

You are close to others. You socialize for comfort. No, more than that. You seek protection.

And you're quick to judge, but I'm not gonna hold that against you.

You want to be a light soul, but you are heavy. Heavier than most. From where does this sadness stem?

I mean... I got antidepressants. No, what am I saying? You ain't my therapist.

Yes, your form must be as light as you seek your soul to be.

I'm pretty fit, I like to think. Maybe I gotta cut some drinking, but what else is new?

From the sky you might see the joy in yourself. You must fly.

Between the last two in age. So the fates make clear, this is not a job for children.

Hold on. Slow down. Job? I already got a job, lady.

Tell me what rage means to you.

What?

There's so much anger in you.

Not really?

Why do you hold onto so much of it?

Okay, better question coming up: Where am I?

So much beauty in the world, in nature and in others, but you cannot see beyond your smallest whims.

Shut up! Like you know everything.

I cannot deviate so much. Yes, you will remain rough, but I can remove these defenses.

There are no defenses. This is what I have to do. It's a hard world out there, and you can't change that either.

You must let others in. I have the perfect form for you.

One more, then, and only slightly older than the first. Yes, a final adult in the prime of their life. Unfortunate, but so shall it be.

Please no nightmares. I just wanna have a nice weekend.

Emptier than those who came before.

I'm okay. I'm gonna be okay.

No expression, no spark. Merely doing what needs to be done. Unfortunate.

Why are you being mean?

Your journey will give you chances to explore the ideas you've set aside.

There's no time. Never enough time.

A purpose beyond fear will find you.

I'm just... trying to be useful.

Still, your form will show your kindness, and your ingenuity. You must have that spark.

I have to let you go now. There's nothing more I can give, nothing else I can change. Do your best. Ask questions. Make mistakes. Learn, grow, and take on foes stronger than awkward conversations and coconuts.