Before you Read

This is a story I'm writing for fun, and I'm aware that there will be grammatical mistakes, but I'm working hard to fix them as I catch them, so if you see them, please don't leave a review to simply point them out, just PM me the chapter(s) and paragraph(s) the mistake(s) you find, and I will try to get to them as fast as possible. That said, criticism of the contents of the story are welcome.

Update for 2023

Release schedule after January 2023 is supposed to be 1 chapter a week approximately, but that is truly yet to be determined seeing as I have some real-life things going on until then that may persist after for a while. For now, chapters 7 and 8 will not be released until January 2023, and chapter 9 may not be released until February, but we shall see.

*Warning*

This story is rated T and will contain mild to intense language, blood, serious injury and death, and have an overall darker tone than the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series games. This is your first and last warning of this that I will give you, the reader.

With all that said, I hope you enjoy as I spin the tale of our fateful protagonist in this alternate Mystery Dungeon world.

I find myself in a strange place, where everything is just fuzzy shapes and loud noises. I don't have a body, I'm just kind of...here. Wherever here is. The noises start to distinguish themselves from one another, but the location is still a blurry mess.

I can hear the blaring of an alarm in the distance, along with occasional loud booming noises. Explosions from the sound of it, I imagine to myself. Suddenly I hear voices. It's hard to make out what they're saying, but they eventually clear up enough to hear.

"...and we won't be able to hold this position for much longer," one voice says.

"Boss, we're taking casualties and our right flank is collapsing," another says, as you hear another explosion far away, alarms blaring louder now.

"Boss, come on buddy, I need your help, what do you want me to do? We're about to be overrun if we don't do something fast," the second voice says, followed by multiple explosions, each one closer than the last.

Someone says something , but I can't make out what it is.

"I've got you boss. You three, follow me, this way, we have to evacuate the civilians first. Come on move it!" The second voice follows up again. I hear a really loud explosion from directly above.

"Shit! Boss! Look out!" the first voice shouts, followed shortly by sounds of falling debris and a sudden deafening crash.

I wake up suddenly in a dimly lit cave, laying on my side, breathing heavily, and sweating slightly. I cannot remember where I am, much less who I am, as much as I try. I don't even remember what I was dreaming about just a moment ago. All I can remember in the haze that is my head right now is that I was once human, and that my name is Steven.

I realize I'm not in a human body as I get up shakily, unsure of what I am. I now have four legs instead of two, and my body is covered in black fur, a relatively thick mane of it making a ring around my neck, with red fur at the tips of my four paws and a pendant hanging from a string around my neck, a shining clear crystal embedded in a strange symbol made of some kind of gold-colored metal. It is just now that I notice that there is a pool of dried blood where I just got up from, along with a trail of dried blood leading out of the cave chamber and into a tunnel, in the direction of the breeze. A slight chill goes down my spine as I look around to get a clearer picture of what's around me.

I find myself in a large, open chamber of the cave, at what is approximately the center. The chamber has a few tunnels leading out of it, but I cannot see where they lead, as they quickly turn in another direction. Sounds of water dripping from the ceiling and trickling down the walls can be heard, and a very slight breeze can be felt. It is dark, but not to the point where I couldn't find my way around the cave, with the dim light seemingly coming from the walls themselves, which are bare and slick. A few stalagmites and stalactites are poking out from the floor and ceiling here and there around the edges. I don't see anyone else in the chamber with me, but I can't shake a strange feeling of being watched.

Not wanting to stick around the pool of blood, and feeling that uneasy sense of being watched, I decide to follow the trail of blood cautiously in hopes that I will run into someone who can tell me where I'm at, and maybe what I'm doing here. My first few steps are shaky and awkward, as I'm not used to walking on four legs, but I slowly get used to it as I wobble and shake on my four paws, making my way towards the tunnel that the blood trail and breeze come from.

As I'm walking upwards through the tunnel, which twists and turns, following the trail of blood, I notice that there don't seem to be any signs of life here other than myself, but I still cannot shake that feeling of eyes watching me from somewhere. No sooner than I think that, I hear voices and footsteps coming from the direction I'm headed, making me unconsciously stop in place.

"Surely he's dead, boss," one voice said loudly, echoing in the cave. "I smacked him pretty hard and you cut him pretty deep. He was bleeding really badly when he ran in there."

A chill runs down my spine. Were they talking about me? I had woken up in a pool of blood afterall, but I certainly didn't see any visible wounds on my body. Which then begs the question of who's blood this is if it isn't mine? Where did they go? What did they do to deserve getting attacked by whomever these voices belong to? These thoughts don't last long before they're interrupted by another voice.

"I want to make sure," the new voice grunted assertively, the footsteps getting closer to my location. "Just because he was bleeding doesn't mean it was enough to kill him. He could have healed himself while he was down there."

I instinctively dive behind the largest object close to the wall, which happened to be a stalactite, just large enough to hide my new small body as best as possible, as I see shadows appear on the wall ahead of me.

"I mean, I guess boss," said a third voice. "But he didn't have any items on him, or a bag. Where would he have gotten berries to heal himself from? This isn't a mystery dungeon afterall. It's been three days too. He surely would have tried to escape if he did have some berries."

"Hmm," said the second voice, the footsteps stopping. "You make a good point. Well, I'll tell you what, if we don't see him come out for another hour, we'll leave."

"Sounds fair boss," the first voice chimed in.

"But," the second voice continued, "I'm not going to be held responsible if this comes back to bite us later. Big boss won't be happy if he finds out for some reason that this one isn't dead."

Some grumbling can be heard from the other two, followed by some whispering between them. A few moments later, the whispering stopped and one of them grunted.

"I'll take that risk," the third voice said. "Better big boss than a legendary." You hear a grunt of agreement from the other two, followed by footsteps going away from me.

Confused and scared slightly, I slowly creep along the walls, keeping the blood trail in sight, when I see a cave wall lit up better than the rest. As I get closer I listen carefully for any hint of the three people I heard earlier. I don't hear anything, so I poke my head around the corner to take a peek at what lies ahead.

A bright light blinds me for a moment as i see what looks to be the exit to the cave. As my eyes adjust to the light, I blink hard and look around, not seeing anything or anyone. I creep around the corner slowly and start heading towards the exit when about halfway there three pokemon jump out, blocking the it.

"There you are!" The middle one shouted, pointing at me with a brown and gray blade-like appendage. I don't know how, but I knew that he was a Kabutops.

"I don't know how you managed to heal yourself down there, but it doesn't matter now!" The one on the left exclaimed, dropping into a combat stance. She was an Armaldo.

"Prepare to die!" The third one added, hopping on the ground excitedly. "For good this time!" A male Archeops.

They began creeping towards me menacingly, and I prepared to turn around and run deeper into the cave when all the fur on my body stands on end as I feel a static run through the cave, passing over my body. I get that feeling from before that someone is watching me from behind me again as I slowly turn my head to look, only to see a bolt of lightning blast past me and into the Archeops, sending him flying and blinding me momentarily.

I turn away from whatever it was that shot the lighting and shake my head, eyes shut, in order to get my sight back. I hear another lightning bolt whiz by and a cry from the female Armaldo. I open my eyes just in time to see the Kabutops rushing at me, arms raised and poised to attack, only to also get blasted by lightning and sent flying back out of the cave.

Not wanting to also get blasted with lightning, and seeing an opportunity to leave now that the trio of hostile pokemon were down for the moment, I rush out of the cave headlong, exiting into a forest. I look around quickly, then dash off to the right side as it has a slight downhill slope. Behind me I hear the trio of enemies roaring as they finally get up, looking for me, but I don't look back and keep running through the brush and foliage.

I keep running until I feel so tired that I need to stop. Breathing heavily, I lean against a nearby tree for support and sit down, listening to see if they're chasing after me still. I can hear something crashing through the forest far in the distance, and what sounds like fighting, but I'm not quite sure. Once my breath has calmed down some I get up and start walking in the opposite direction of the noise, not really concerned with the destination as much as putting as much space between myself and those people.

As I was walking I heard what sounded like running water, and I immediately got thirsty. I don't think I'd had water put in my body in while, and while it wasn't unbearable, it was like an itch I just couldn't help but want to scratch. And so I decided that I probably had enough space between myself and my pursuers and started heading in the direction of the sound.

As I was walking I suddenly heard a rustling in the foliage and stopped, preparing myself to either run or fight, staring in the direction it came from. Then, suddenly, a Caterpie comes out from the bushes in front of me and jumps when it sees me, crawling away from me quickly. I breath a sigh of relief, but just as I'm about to start off again, I catch a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye and jump backwards in terror as Kabutops comes flying from my left side swinging his sharp blade-like arms, narrowly missing me.

Scrambling to my feet I start dashing off in the direction of the water source I heard earlier as Kabutops overshoots me. I hear him roar in anger behind me as he gives chase and we both barrel downhill through the woods. Suddenly I trip on an exposed root and start rolling headfirst down the hill, unable to stop myself. I curl up into a tight ball and shut my eyes as I just pray that I don't smash into anything large like a rock or tree and just let gravity take me, my body get poked, prodded, and scratched by all the clutter on the forest floor.

I keep rolling for what feels like an eternity, expecting at any moment to slam hard into a rock or tree, when suddenly I don't feel anything beneath me and I begin to fall. I open my eyes to see that I've gone over a wide cliff maybe ten or fifteen feet tall on either side with a fast-flowing river at the bottom. I barely have time to register what's happening before I hit the water, swallowing a mouthful in my surprise.

I desperately try to swim to the surface while being swept away by the current, swinging my new legs as hard as I can, to no avail. Then, out of nowhere, I feel the riverbed and launch myself from it and paddle to the surface. I finally break through spitting out water from my lungs and gasping for air, struggling to stay afloat. As I sputter out the last of the water in my lungs, coughing as my body desperately consumes air, I finally notice that the Kabutops jumped in after me, and wasn't all that far behind.

It was all that I could do to stay afloat, so I just let current take me as Kabutops slowly starts catching up. I notice that even he is having trouble staying above the surface to chase me, slowing his approach some. Then, when he was maybe only ten feet from me, he peels off from the pursuit and starts swimming towards the cliff walls, away from me.

I watch in confusion when suddenly I feel the water go calm, with current under the surface dragging me along. I turn around, looking in horror as I see what Kabutops fled from. No more than fifty feet in front of me was the edge of a waterfall, but it was too late now. All I could do was try to stay above the water and hope that no rocks were waiting at the bottom to pummel my poor body to a pulp.

Quickly approaching the edge I took a few deep breaths to prepare myself. But it didn't help, I was absolutely terrified. Here I was, in a strange new body, in a strange new world, and it was all about to come to an end because I fell in a river. As I got about five feet from the edge I finally saw the horrifying drop before me, about six hundred feet to the bottom.

'There's no way I'm going to survive this,' I thought to myself as I shut my eyes and took a deep breath as I went over the edge. As I went over the edge I just thought that it was such a waste that I never got the chance to truly experience this brand new world all that much. I would never get to try new foods, meet new friends, explore new places, all because of bad luck and poor decision making.

I suddenly feel something grab me and my descent is slowed. I open my eyes and see a large bird-pokemon carrying me, but I can't make out what kind it is in the light. Taking a quick glance at the ground, I see that I am currently only about fourty or so feet above the river below, which is both wider and slower than the one from before.

Not wanting to become this Pokémon's next meal, I squirm, trying to break free, only to have the claw grabbing me grip me tighter. I stop struggling, and the grip loosens slightly. Noticing this, I relax even more and the grip does indeed loosen more. I wait until it feels loose enough and seeing that I'm still over the river below quickly twist and curl, biting the appendage grabbing me.

I hear a startled squak, and then I'm falling again, but this time I'm only about thirty feet above the water, instead of six hundred. I hit the water with a loud splash, but this time I knew it was coming, so I held my breath, but I underestimated how shallow it was and hit the riverbed hard, injuring all four of my legs. Unconsciously I let out the breath that I had been holding in in pain.

Realizing this I quickly tried to push off the bottom, but my legs were in too much pain. I looked at the surface and realized I really might not make it, but I wasn't going to give up yet. I touched the bottom of the river with my whole body and gave it one massive push, my legs screaming out in horrific pain, but I managed to break through the the surface.

I quickly took a deep breath of air as I began to sink again almost immediately. As I went under I noticed a log just big enough for me to hang off of floating in the river not even ten feet in front of me. Quickly, I began paddling under the water towards it, sinking back to the shallow bottom as I go. I get closer, six feet, three feet, one foot.

As I get almost right beneath it I launch myself one last time off the bottom, my legs screaming in pain, breaching the surface, and I quickly scramble the upper half of my body over the log and just hang from it limply, breathing heavily, worn out and in excruciating pain.

I start to fade out of consciousness when I hear someone shouting to me from one of the riverbanks. Too exhausted to do anything I just lay there. I hear a spash nearby just before I fade out of consciousness some more, followed by a tugging sensation. Then I fade out completely.

"..."

I can hear someone say something, but I can't make out what.

"he..."

I'm starting to wake up, but I still can't make it out what it is. I can now tell I'm laying on my right side, on top of something hard, which must mean I'm no longer in the river. Well that's a plus I guess.

"HELP! I need help! Anyone! Someone almost drowned in the river and is injured!" I hear the voice say. Opening my eyes some, I try looking in the direction of the voice, still weak.

"OH! You're not dead! Thank Arceus," the voice exclaimed. "I was so worried for a moment, I thought you might not make it. You weren't responding after I pulled you out of the river."

I try turning my head to look at the person the voice came from again, more awake now. In my blurry vision I can see a loose outline of something cat-like, with yellow, blue and black coloring. I groan in pain, struggling to focus, blinking fast to try to speed up the process.

"No! Don't move! You're injured and it's best if you just stay still until help arrives," he said, walking over to me. "I've got help on the way, just hang tight."

As my vision clears, I look around and see that we're in a clearing of a small forest. Then I see that my friend here has two large ears with yellow star shapes on them, and his fur is mostly blue in the front half, black in the rear, with a ring of black around his neck, and yellow accents. 'He's a Shinx,' I realized in my head. He saw me looking at him and smiled.

"My name is Vincent. Everything is going to be ok now," he told me. "I'm good friends with the Guild, and I'm pretty sure we have a team not too far away headed here right now." He looked around nervously, then shook his head. "They should be here any minute now."

I hear a rustling from the bushes nearby, both of us looking over, and a familiar face steps out from the woodline around us. "I heard you calling for help," Kabutops said, slinking out of the shadows. "You mind if I help out? I could carry your injured friend here to town."

"That would be a huge help!" Vincent exclaimed as I watch in horror, unable to do anything. Vincent turns his back on Kabutops to address me for a moment. "Come here, we can meet up with the Rescue Team that's on their way here!"

I see Kabutops raise his arms silently behind my new friend, unable to call out to Vincent to warn him. 'Please, give me strength, just this one time,' I pray as I try to gather enough strength to stand up. 'Just this one time...'

As Kabutops' arms come swinging down towards Vincent's neck, I feel a sudden burst of strength and I bolt to my feet and barrel directly into Vincent, knocking both of us out of harm's way for the moment. My legs cry out in pain, and Vincent in surprise, as we both tumble between Kabutops' legs and land behind him, relatively unscathed.

"What was that for?!" Vincent shouted at me, before seeing the two gouges in the ground where his head used to be, Kabutops standing menacingly over them, arms crossed from the attack. His eyes went wide from realization, looking at me, then back to Kabutops.

"run..." I said weakly with the last of my energy, collapsing to the ground with a thud.

Vincent must have heard me because he started to turn away, then shook his head and looked at me. "No! I'm not leaving you!" he exclaimed, standing beside me firmly, but I could see he was shaking, and so could Kabutops.

"Then you shall perish as well," Kabutops rasped, raising his arms to attack again. "Right here where you stand." He charges at us arms raised, ready to swing them down for a killing blow.

"move..." I mumble to Vincent. He doesn't, legs shaking in fear as he trembles before the attacking Kabutops. "MOVE!" I shout this time, snapping him out of his shocked state.

"Leave us alone!" Vincent shouts, his body suddenly glowing brightly, blinding both myself and Kabutops. But it wouldn't be enough, we were still easy prey for Kabutops, since we hadn't moved. I need to get him to safety, I needed to do something.

I mustered all the strength I had and, half on my side, knocked the shining Shinx out of Kabutops path with another tackle, collapsing to the ground where he had stood on my right side. Then came a flashing pain as one of Kabutops' blade-arms found their mark, cutting deep into my belly. I cried out, somehow not passing out completely as I lay on the ground, limp and bleeding from my gut.

As I struggle to stay conscious, I see through my blurry vision that Kabutops has shaken off the affects of the Flash Vincent just used and raised an arm to finish the job. Just as he was about to kill me he suddenly turns his head, then runs off into the woods.

"Here they are!" I hear someone say.

"Quick, Storm, chase the Kabutops with Barry! Audrey, help the Zorua, he's in critical condition!" I hear another voice say, my conscieness fading quickly. I see a shadowy figure approach me from the side. I try to raise my head to face them, but I'm unable to move much. "Hey kid, stay still you're gonna be alright. We've got you..."

That was the last thing I heard before I lost consciousness and everything faded to black...