Part Three: Indigo Meadow

"Lay your hands on my chest girl.
You've been a problem
Since the moment I met you.
You always cause unreal friction
Put your pale hands
On my face, my love."

—"Indigo Meadow" from Indigo Meadow by The Black Angels

"All right," Max announced, intentionally loud to wake Cori and herself up. "I got breakfast ready!" It was a modest offering since she'd not restocked to make moving simpler, but it was enough. An apple for each of them, then whatever berries she could scrounge together. Meal prep had to be one of her most favorite perks of being a pokémon—it was so easy.

"C'mon," she cooed. After dropping their serving in front of them, she started nudging at Cori with a hindpaw. They tolerated a few prods before grumbling incomprehensibly and batting her hindpaw away. "Cori, get up." She bent down to start shaking them out of their slumber.

Cori growled at her and barely bat at her paws once before wrestling out of her hold and sitting up. "Okay, okay!" they grumbled. "I'm up!" Sitting up was the extent of their efforts, though, their eyes still unable to stay half open.

For Max's purposes, though, it was enough. "Good morning," she said, giving them a short pat on the shoulder. She trusted them to stay upright and headed off to her portion. Waking up always left her so hungry, especially after having to assemble two meals, and doubly so after her recent issues with instincts. To say she inhaled the food was, somehow, still an understatement.

"Max?" Cori mumbled. The message didn't quite go through, though, since Max had too much attention going to scarfing down half an apple in half a second. "Max?" they asked again, but still to no avail. They sighed deep and shook their head.

Without much of a choice anymore, they shouted, "Max!" It finally got her attention, yet she still looked dazed with half her attention remaining on the fruits in her paws. "Where's…," as Cori looked at her, a horrifying realization dawned on their expression, "that's breakfast?" They looked down at her pile, then found the similar one in front of them.

Max tried to speak, then remembered she still had a good mouthful of fruit and worked on swallowing it first (most of it, at least). "Yeah, why?" she asked. Based on their expression, Cori was obviously displeased, but she couldn't figure out why. "Is it not enough?"

Cori stared at her in confusion before turning to rub more sleep out of their eyes. "Max, this is… it's just a bunch of fruit," they said.

"Right, sorry," Max said, looking away a bit. "I, uh, ran out of vegetables earlier." That was because she barely picked them up in comparison, but fruit were always a healthy choice!

"No, Max," Cori said. They had trouble taking their eyes off the piles of fruit she called breakfast. "Is this how you always eat?" Max stared blankly back at them. Based on their tone, she wasn't willing to answer that question out loud, but she figured they got the message once they held their head in their paws. "Do. Do you know how to cook?"

"Sure," Max sputtered, immediately throwing a paw over her mouth to stop spewing juice out. Speaking with her mouth full was bad, of course, but asking her to realize she had a mouth full and then stop eating long enough to fix the issue was a bit much. So, she kept her paw over her mouth as she continued.

"Of course I do," she said. Cori stared at her, half bored and wholly unconvinced. Regardless of whether or not she was telling the truth, Max had no idea why they didn't believe her. "What?"

"With what?" Cori asked. They glanced around the place, mostly for show, then looked back at her. "Do you have your own stove or something?"

"Well, so," Max mumbled, turning to avoid their gaze. Her paw went to scratch at the back of her neck. "I, well, Neb… needed it when she came. I guess she never gave it… back?" She didn't need to look at Cori to know they didn't buy that. She didn't buy it, either, and she was the one selling it. Maybe her favorite perk of being a pokémon wasn't so universal as she thought.

Cori started grumbling her name again when a knock came at the door. Shoving the last berry in her mouth, Max hopped up and went to answer it, calling, "Coming!" It was awfully early for a visit, though, and it's not like she really had anyone who'd visit anyway. She made sure she'd swallowed the last of her food and opened the door.

"Special deliveries!" some Delibird announced before Max had a chance to ask. Delibird had a letter in one wing and a flat, white box about as wide as Max was tall in the other. "Here you go," he said as he lowered the massively unwieldy box to Max with little warning and no alternative.

Once Max grabbed hold of it, she instantly recognized the smell. So savory and salty it was almost sweet, with a warm, invisible cloud of greasy steam and garlic and oregano, the scent was unmistakable. "Oh, uh, I didn't order a pizza," Max said.

"That's all right," Delibird explained. "It's from one…," he tugged a ticket out of the satchel he held at his side to review, "Goon—oh right!" He dove a wing back into the satchel and came out with another letter. "He sent this to go with it." He looked down to see which paw to present the letter to and realized both of Max's were already occupied. "Here, I'll put these on the box. Is that all right?"

He'd already done so by the time Max said, "Sure?" After, he hurriedly saluted before rushing down the path to her mailbox and lifting off like a plane in a runway. "Bye?" Max said long after he'd left the ground. With her eyes stuck in a baffled squint, she backed up into her house.

"Is that pizza?" Cori asked with a mix of excitement and relief. They didn't wait for her answer before running up to snatch the box out of her paws. They plopped the box down and shuffled through the letters in one motion, giving Max one while keeping the other to open themself. "Addressed to me?"

"Really?" Max mumbled, still eyeing the pizza. Not really a breakfast food. "What'd Goon-"

Cori interrupted her with a laugh. They quickly covered their muzzle with one paw, holding the open letter. Max grabbed it and read the fairly short message.

Hey Cori,

In case she still hasn't learned to cook. You're welcome.

—Goon

Max crumpled up the paper and tossed it behind her, grumbling, "Whatever." It was still a free pizza, at least (even if it wasn't remotely a breakfast food). Goon really knew her well, though, to a frustrating degree. She went over and pulled the box open to reveal an almost standard pizza. It was an entirely average pepperoni pizza with additional mushrooms on one half.

"Really?" Max grumbled, stomach dropping out from under her. She knew from sight alone she couldn't bear to eat those, so Goon probably knew that, too. Her ears and tail drooped down, her tail sliding along the floor. He'd only added mushrooms to half as insurance for Cori's half as if she couldn't help herself (or was too selfish).

Cori had just recovered from their giggles enough to sit back up, so Max nudged the box their way. She could have some later. The sight of food might have her instincts buzzing in the back of her mind, but she'd just eaten. She knew she'd be fine, even if her instincts didn't.

"The mushroom half is yours," Max said. "He knows I can't eat them." She couldn't help a bit of spite creeping into her voice. Although, 'couldn't' made her wonder if it was a preference or an allergy. The wording came from the same negative space as the rest of the memories that came when she wasn't trying too hard. Surely she'd remember an allergy, right?

Her stomach cramped a bit, instincts taking advantage of her lingering on the pizza. She shook her head and pulled out the other letter to distract herself. "Oh, the Rescue society?" she mumbled. It was probably another reminder that she needed to move. Just in case, though, she sliced the top with her tail and dumped the letter out.

EMERGENCY ASSIGNMENT
Reports of a NEW DUNGEON in the area.
Please investigate ASAP
(potential)IMMEDIATE DANGER to public health!
Please postpone your move until this is resolved.
Directions on the reverse side.

Well. It was a good thing she actually bothered to open it, then. Cori asked, "What is it? Something wrong?"

Max shook her head, and turned it over to find the directions. As she did, though, she felt another pit in her stomach. She knew the way to it. She recognized the location.

It was the Dungeon Goon found her in yesterday.

"Be strong! I wish that you were.
You stand up, act like you love it.
Keep your hands on my chest, girl."

As it turned out, Max didn't know the way quite as well as she thought. The Rescue Society was barely any help, either. She'd followed their directions pretty exactly, yet she hadn't noticed so much as a shimmer. The map was crude, sure, but it couldn't be that far off.

"It's a Dungeon, right?" Cori asked as they looked around. Max wasn't sure they knew what to look for, but it was a worthwhile effort. "Don't they move?"

"Not the borders," Max said, shaking her head. "They're hard to spot, but the outsides don't move." That was why this mission was so important. A rogue Mystery Dungeon was hard enough for an untrained eye to spot, and it got significantly worse when people didn't even know one was there. She couldn't even remember the last time a new Dungeon popped up.

Of course, she couldn't remember a lot of things, but that was besides the point. She shoved the sketchy map back in her bag and started looking around, the assignment's classification stuck in the back of her head. 'Recon' was usually reserved for high ranks. Gold was the minimum, and recon teams were almost always higher.

Not to mention, there were only two of them. Team Size wasn't a strict requirement, but it was definitely expected for recon. They didn't know about Eleos' absence yet, but even that only brought them up to three. There wasn't any way to predict a Dungeon's threat level, so new ones were always treated as the highest possible.

Then why were they letting a Rookie Team of two do one?

Max looked around one last time while taking in a deep, resigned breath. They needed to find this. She had a pretty decent way to sniff it out. Unfortunately, it was the same thing that brought her there yesterday.

"Cori, I'm gonna try something," she said. "I'll need some quiet." Before she closed her eyes, she saw Cori's eyes grow worried. They did as she asked despite their concerns, which she appreciated. With a deep breath, she reached out with her awareness to feel her surroundings.

The grass she'd just stepped on was still righting itself while the near imperceptible wind buffeted every blade of grass and strand of her fur. The trees, the bugs, the grass, Cori, all of it flooded her perception at once. She didn't bother trying to shut them out, instead working extra hard to pay attention to a certain chill. A particular pull that always came with her instincts.

Dungeons had a certain safety, comfort, once someone had gone feral. The pull was usually negligible, going away even before speech returned. She'd never lost those speech issues, though, and this pull had stayed with her, too.

There, on the edge of her perception, she felt a tingle of a tug. It called out to her, isolation's warm embrace. She turned to face it and felt the pull growing as she did until she was facing it. She almost couldn't believe where she faced when she opened her eyes to find herself looking in the exact direction they'd come.

"What?" she mumbled. "It's, it can't be, though." Looking this time, though, she saw the exact shimmer of a Dungeon. The clear splotch that eyes didn't want to notice, as if resistant to perception itself. There, but hard to notice.

"Where is it?" Cori asked. They looked in the same direction as her without managing to recognize what she saw. Not that she could blame them, since she'd only started consistently seeing them after going feral for over a year. Dungeons were hard to spot.

"Behind us," Max said. She had to have gotten turned around, though. After all, it's hard to go straight in a forest, and she'd had her eyes closed while she turned. Cori would probably tell her she was mistaken.

"Where we came from?" Cori asked. They looked where Max pointed as if completely in agreement they were looking behind. "I thought you said they don't move."

"They don't," Max said, shaking her head in disbelief. She did know of a kind of Dungeon that moved, but that was a thousand years removed from the current moment. "I don't know, gimme a second." She took a breath and a few steps back to try and relax. "Need to clear my head before we go in."

Cori nodded with a familiar look of worry. She tried to put it out of her mind to calm down. However the Dungeon ended up behind them, it was still just a Dungeon. She'd made it out yesterday, even.

She had surprisingly little trouble getting Cori out of her mind. Usually, even while repressing her awareness, she could somewhat sense them near. Now, though it felt like they weren't even… there. Just to calm herself before she freaked out, she looked over.

The shimmer of a Dungeon sat between her and where Cori stood. She couldn't even balk at the sight before she felt it draw closer. Its sick comfort in the pit of her stomach pulled her harder and harder from her left—where she'd first seen the shimmer—as it grew. Even with its supernatural soothing, she flinched back as it lurched towards her. An instant later, she felt her tail brush against its border.

She tried to yank it back only to see the shimmer stretching with her motion as it continued to creep up the length of her tail. It was just like that mystery floor. It pulled so much stronger, though. She didn't get to put up a fight before loosing her balance as it yanked her in.

Flipping in the air made the twisting of her stomach while she went in much worse. Even once she'd hit the ground, she had trouble figuring out the direction of up thanks to rolling for a bit. She at least managed to hold tight to her bag the whole time. For the first time she could remember, she'd actually filled it up more than enough, and she didn't want to lose that prep-work.

More importantly, though, it had her badge. She reached into her bag to feel for it and pulled it out. Holding it reminded her of a conversation with Mandy. To put it gently, Mandy had made her promise not to 'lose' her badge. Putting it less gently, she'd said something more like, "toss it away in some brain dead display of pretend-heroic suicide like a four day old hatchling that just heard of the word cool."

Mandy was a convincing charmander.

Max had to use her badge for grounding first, though. Somehow, even the first floor already had her instincts vying for control. She wanted to believe it was just the shock, but it felt like more than that. It felt more like a fifth floor than a first. Cori was lucky they—Cori!

"Cori!" Max shouted. Her eyes shot open to look around for them, but she found nothing but more forest. "Cori! Are you there?" Deciding she was grounded enough for now, she tucked her badge back in her bag and started to head off.

That immediately turned harder than she'd expected. The usually empty path instead had a significant sprinkling of trees. They grew denser in certain directions, but the usual clearing was all but absent. It was barely distinguishable from the forest she'd just left and nothing like yesterday. It didn't make any sense, but she had to hurry. No time to waste on analysis when she had a Cori to find.

"Cori!" she shouted again, knowing it was in vain. She hopped down to all fours and started running. Even that proved a bit difficult, though, since the walls of this Dungeon didn't have a distinct start and end. The best she managed was following the path of least resistance.

A root clipped her left hindpaw and made her stumble a bit before losing her balance and hitting the grass. At least Cori hadn't seen that. Max still wasn't used to all fours, but at least she'd bettered her speed.

When she tried to push back up, another root tugged her left forepaw out from under her. She'd just realized she was dealing with something more than a root when it yanked her back. It sent her hurdling towards not quite bark, but she didn't hit that before a blast came down from above and slammed her back to the ground.

Her back smacked into the grass, knocking the wind out of her, but at least this position gave her a read on her attacker. Stumpy, root-like legs curved up to a rotund belly of bark that supported a bouquet of eggs with eyes. An exeggutor.

A pulse of purplish pink started coalescing in front of the most terrified looking egg until it swirled into itself and shot a beam towards Max. Max threw herself to the side, dodging the attack by a hair and smacking right into a tree. While jarring, it still didn't daze her as much as an attack. She hopped up and darted behind the tree just in time to see another attack rip through the air she'd just vacated.

She knew for absolute certain she could handle this thing, yet felt an extra bit of hesitation in the back of her mind. Her instincts almost always demanded she run, so she tried to ignore it, but she recognized the feeling. It was almost the same fear she felt from Sam's mom.

She wracked her mind to try and figure it out when a barrage of leaves came to answer for her. "Grass, shit," she hissed while the attack dissipated. The vine attack hadn't hit her as hard as a ground-type would, but her electricity would do a lot less. Of all the ways her instincts could help, it was a surprise they came in handy for strategies. She'd never quite gotten typings, but now, it was basically ingrained.

Max waited for the last of the leaves to dissipate and dashed out from her hiding place. As expected, another attack came right for her, so she dodged right behind another tree, this time without stopping behind it. Finally, she could use her speed like a proper pikachu.

She felt the trees around her with precision that told her instincts had snuck up while she'd been distracted. They couldn't have had more than a second of broken focus to take advantage of, and yet, they had. It was getting harder and harder to believe she was only on the first floor of a Dungeon. Usually, she'd have no trouble so soon. This was something else.

As she took a hard-right to get entirely out of range, a peppering of hard, sharp shells nailed her all along the length of her right side. It wasn't strong enough to stop her, just to sting as she dashed behind the nearest tree.

The exeggutor was far enough back that she could afford to take a moment to walk upright and check her wounds. None had pierced the skin, only leaving behind tender spots that only hurt if she poked them. The one spot that remained entirely unharmed was her neck, thanks to her scarf. She tugged it out to see one drop out of its folds.

Out of curiosity, she tried to find the hole it must have made to watch the scarf mend itself again, but she couldn't see any such damage. It must have already mended, then, or simply didn't have enough force to pierce the fabric. Just like it hadn't pierced her skin.

Tucking the scarf back into place, Max dropped back to all fours and got to running. She didn't rush much since she couldn't hear the exeggutor pursuing her, but she kept a quick pace anyway. Retreating wasn't her main focus, after all. She still needed to find Cori, and she could tell they weren't on this floor.

She took a hard left this time, and finally found the trees dwindling to a clearing. It felt like a breath of fresh air, despite the miasma of decay present in any Dungeon (which wasn't supposed to be so strong already). When she stepped past the last tree, it was easy to see the barrier just a few yards away. The shimmer to the next floor.

As much as she needed to hurry, she took a second to ground herself first. Her right paw went to clutch the bracelet on her left while the left clutched her scarf. This Dungeon was unpredictable so far. She needed to have as clear a mind as possible before going deeper.

Her instincts didn't put up much of a fight, which was promising. Maybe they'd only caught her off guard. They felt perfectly manageable after taking a minute to focus. She couldn't help worrying it was because of her episode yesterday, but she didn't have time to worry about that. Her head felt clear enough that she carefully went through the barrier.

The instant she'd crossed the threshold, she lost her balance, dropping to all fours. Her head spun with the jabbering of instincts as well as every intricate detail of the room around her. Her surroundings and endless demands to run, to eat, hide all flooded her mind at once.

She couldn't bring herself to stand up, so she brought her right paw to her bracelet while her other three paws supported her. That rush of instincts couldn't have been a single floor. It almost felt like ten.

Her stomach ached with desperate hunger. She pushed herself back to sit so she could pull out an oran. It was something to quell her hunger, and she'd taken some damage from that exeggutor, anyways. Chewing it down seemed to satiate the instincts demanding she eat, and that cleared her mind enough to pull herself out of the haze.

"Jesus," Max muttered, pleasantly surprised that it came out as English. Just like before, regaining her composure was relatively easy after the initial shock. Why the rush kept coming remained a mystery, but not one she had time to solve.

"Cori!" she shouted, cupping her paws around her muzzle. It didn't seem to help the sound carry, but she couldn't imagine people did that for no reason. Unfortunately, she still heard no answer back. They hadn't entered more than a minute apart. There wasn't any way Cori could be an entire floor ahead, especially when Max could fall back on her awareness.

If worst came to worst, though, Cori had their badge. Max reached into her bag just to triple check, and exhaled when she felt it. It wasn't easy to lose on accident, but the worry wouldn't leave her alone.

Calling their name one last time, Max fell forward and got to running. The very beginnings of protest started from her forepaws, making her grit her teeth. She still wasn't used to running like this, and her forepaws were the first to complain. All her practice walking around like that hadn't prepared them for the high impacts of running.

She had worse worries, though, as trees peppered the landscape on this floor, too. They barely looked alive. For every healthy branch with leaves, another looked sickly and barren. Dungeons decayed in the deeper floors, but not this soon.

Max felt a chill in her spine. All of this felt sickeningly wrong. At every turn, she found another reason Recon missions had a high level requirement, making her more and more confused about their assignment. Even if they knew the truth of her history, that didn't apply to Cori! Her teeth dug into her cheek as she realized this was only their fourth mission.

Grass crunched underpaw to her left. She dove behind the nearest tree and put her ears up to listen only to hear it already drawing closer. Right as she hopped away, she watched a massive set of blue and yellow jaws snap around the last place she stood.

A jagged crown of fins sat atop the croconaw's head, similar pockets to Cori's surrounding its eyes. "Croconaw?" Max mumbled. It would've been hard to believe the sheer variety of pokémon if a single other part of this Dungeon made any sense. Still, one aspect of the croconaw gave her pause while she hopped away from another attempted bite.

It's eyes, hollow like any feral's, looked familiar. More than the superficial structural similarity, they reminded her of Cori's. It shot a stream of water out at her with sheer rage she couldn't take her eyes off while leaping away. She saw that same look yesterday. At Cori's house.

Their brother.

She shook her head out of the thought and started drawing charge into her cheeks as she backed up against a tree. The croconaw came in for another attempted chomp just like she'd hoped. Muscle memory guided her when, at the last second, she hopped up and kicked off the tree and shot electricity down on the croconaw when it smacked into the bark.

The motion surprised her, significantly more acrobatic than she usually fought, yet undeniably familiar. Like early on in her fight with the garchomp, an old memory seemed to be unearthing itself for her. She could almost even hear the same voice despite not recognizing it in the least.

That could wait, though, since the croconaw wasn't dissipating. Strangely, it wasn't getting up, either. It looked dazed. Yet again, this Dungeon had some sick trick—Dungeon illusions had two modes: attacking, or dead. If they fell on conscious, they disappeared. Max had never seen one with what looked like a concussion. This place didn't make any sense, but she shook the thought out of her head.

Exception or not, it wanted to attack her. Even while it was dazed, it tried to get up. She reeled back and launched another burst of electricity right into it. The attack made contact for a second when suddenly, another charge pulled it right back to her.

The sudden feedback loop blasted her back while a whole bunch of electricity shot through her system. A good chunk of the new charge crackled out of her when she slammed into a tree behind her. Gravity scraped her back down the bark until she hit the ground. One forepaw went down to hold her up while the other went to hold her head.

"Kachu," she swore, shaking her head clear. She really wished she'd come to the world as a pichu. Then, she might've had more time to figure out how to manage her electricity. This was an especially egregious example that she hadn't expected.

A straightforward explanation came in the way of some feral slamming into her side and tackling her to the grass. Several rolls later, she had her back to the ground while a bolt of lightning crashed over them both. She couldn't tell which of them had called it, though. The charge felt like hers, but she would've had to call lightning on instinct which wasn't an easy feat.

The flash subsided and she finally got a look at her attacker—a pikachu. A heavyset pikachu. It hopped up to smack a tail with a torn off end across her face, launching her several feet away. She righted herself onto all fours mid-roll and looked up to see it running mindlessly for her again.

Its eyes—barely blue like hers—had soulless, black enmity that made her stomach turn. It ran right for her, made it trivial to read, but Max couldn't move. Every time she'd slipped, felt instincts wrest control from her, she'd imagined the mindless beast she'd become. The hollow eyes without thought or feeling beside survival while she ran, or the rage she hid behind to hurt her friends.

She was looking at those eyes, now.

After clearing half the distance between them, it sprinted the next half in an instant, throwing its claws into her over and over and growling before wrapping its muzzle around her cheek. The bite did the work of counterattacking for her. Squishing her cheek like that forced enough electricity out of her cheek at once that it stung the cheek that let it loose more than the bite did.

The sudden shock did little damage to the other pikachu but dazed it enough that Max managed to throw it off. Her heart beat out of her chest while she watched it get up and glare at her. Instead of coming in for another attack, it started stalking around her.

It was watching her, but showed no thought behind its soulless eyes. Max couldn't pull her own eyes off it, either. From the scars on its face down to the spot of brown on the left under its lips, it was her face.

It was her. She flinched back to pull her tail in front in an attempt to block her eyes, but she couldn't bring herself to take her eyes off it. It mirrored her movement, pulling its own tail up front for defense while it continued to stalk around her. Despite hiding behind its tail, the posture gave Max a better view of its body. The reflection she never let herself linger on, now, had her complete attention.

She couldn't take her eyes off its chest, the sharp edges of its face, the way its extra chub hung from its hips in a sickeningly masculine way. Any part that she looked at, she felt the twin part of herself burning. As she looked, she could almost see its appearance shift further.

It had to be the light, but then the blunt end of its tail grew back. Its eyes grew more fierce and empty while its features grew sharper, harsher. Healing the scar sucked life out of it, making it look gaunt, skin and bones. Even in the hospital, she hadn't gotten that thin, the lost pounds only making more obvious the bone structure her fat obscured.

A perverse glee grew in its eyes while painful horror filled hers. Worse than when Eleos had taken her form, this thing was a physical embodiment and exaggeration of every part of her body she hated—and it knew it. It reveled in her horrified gaze, shifting before her very eyes to torture her more.

"I can tell why you avoid your reflection," it hissed with its demented grin.

Max fell back in surprise. It—that wasn't worthless jabber. It spoke. It knew what it was saying to her—it was alive.

It was right on top of her. It ripped her tail out of the way and started tearing its claws and maw into her. That bit of sapience left its eyes in favor of sheer, vicious, feral rage. She was too lost in the memory of attacking Mandy and Eleos to throw it off this time. This is what they'd seen. It had to be. It was her at her worst.

For one brief instant, its eyes shifted to terror. It held onto her for dear life, ripping out the skin it held while something else tore it off her. The croconaw had recovered. It had the pikachu in its jaws by the scruff of its neck.

The pikachu screamed for its life. Max understood every word while the croconaw flung it into the air and caught its prey with a sickening crunch that silenced the screams.

Max tried to flee from the sight into instincts, but they didn't—wouldn't—come. She needed to run, but her paws wouldn't let her. Without looking down, she could feel the tendrils ripping out of her paws while her own horror fed itself until she had no thought, no emotion, no feeling in her but fear. Her heart hit her chest so hard that both ached.

She looked away for a second. Hard to say what happened when she did. Hard for her, at least.

All the while, she couldn't stop screaming, tears streaming down her face in desperate misery. She didn't scream in English or feral, but pure agony. All to save that pikachu; All for nothing. After lightning struck a second time, the croconaw evaporated into nothing like any other Dungeon illusion.

Max couldn't breathe. Even as she scrambled back, she felt the movement of her hindpaws stiffen. Her back slammed into a tree. She looked down and saw lifeless stone taking over her paws as they flashed from yellow to lifeless gray. Her lungs hollowed out as she sank into hopeless horror. Her forepaws rushed to her scarf for some kind of comfort.

She could feel the tendrils rip holes through the fabric. She ripped her paws away, the tendrils tearing an end off her scarf. It drifted lifelessly to the ground while she whimpered. The hollowness of her lungs spread deeper, taking over the horror that froze her in place.

She sank. She couldn't breathe as she faded into hollow demise. All the energy left her while she suffocated—drowned. Her paws, arms, chest, mouth, eyes wouldn't respond to her movements. She was petrified, trapped at the bottom of the ocean. Even as her lungs hyperventilated, she couldn't breath. Stone covered every inch of her. The tendrils evaporated into smoke and sucked out what little life she had left.

Exhaustion took hold of her, and she collapsed further. Muscles she didn't know she had lost strength and relaxed. She couldn't even lean against the tree and fell down to the grass instead. Her vision grew hazy, distant as she struggled to keep her eyes open. Even blinking took more energy than she had.

Sick, decaying air blew against her fur and made her shiver. A root she'd landed on jabbed into her back. She couldn't tell if she was awake, asleep, or dead.

She wasn't sure if she cared.

"Always indigo, always indigo.
Always indigo, always indigo.
Everybody knows
You like a hell of a show."

The soft crunch of paws on grass barely pulled her back from unconsciousness while she drifted hopelessly in and out. A timid gait of four scurried over to her, but slowed in its approach for the last yard. In the very top of her vision, she started to see a blur of yellow.

After what was too long to be a blink, the yellow was right in front of her, filling her vision. Even this close, she couldn't make it out. It had to be a feral, but she couldn't move. She couldn't bring herself to fight it.

It would take her, and she would let it.

It sent an energizing jolt through her cheek with its own. Max jerked in place a bit, blinking several times as fresh energy revitalized her. As her vision cleared, she managed to make out the blur of yellow better.

Her own face stood over her with a look of confused concern. Its own eyes were hers, blue with the slightest hints of gold in the very center. It was her. It was the same pikachu. It was the pikachu she'd seen fall into the croconaw's maw, the same one she'd heard have the life crunched out of it.

She hopped up into it, throwing her arms around it with energy she didn't have, vision fading to stars so fast she couldn't see by the time her arms hit its back. Whatever the hell was going on, she couldn't contain herself. It… somehow, it was safe. The sudden embrace made it squirm for a moment before it started to… laugh. It let out a giggling, "Pii-i-i kaaa-a-a-a," while shaking its head and hugging her back.

Suddenly, it started shaking her off. Max didn't want to let go, but she didn't have the strength to resist. Rather than throw her off, it rolled her onto her side before helping her sit up. It kept a paw on her a moment to make sure she could support herself, then dropped back down to all fours.

Its nose twitched as it started sniffing around her, then tilted its head. One ear stuck up, and it squeaked, "Apple?" Another series of sniffs, and it started nosing into her bag. Max watched in slack-jaw curiosity while she watched its head sifting through her bag until it hopped out with an apple in its jaws. With a self-satisfied chirp, it jumped up and pressed the apple against her mouth.

It watched her, waiting, and Max got another look into its eyes. They still had no thought behind them, nothing but deep, inky black, yet a cheerful glint came as it started trying to rub the apple between her teeth. Max finally accepted it by chomping into it herself, and it let her have it by chomping down on the chunk in its mouth.

Max pulled her paws up to start eating the apple while the other pikachu giggled at its little, inconsequential thievery. Those eyes, empty, feral, still had some mischief hidden there. It hopped up to rub its cheek into hers, then flopped back down to stretch.

Max struggled to find the energy to take her first few bites, but she desperately wanted that juicy goodness. Even such a precious delight couldn't take all her attention away from this pikachu, though. Not while she was still recovering her energy, at least. After the first two swallows, though, she couldn't help herself. The apple was an almost perfect balance of sweet and tart and crunch that she so desperately loved.

She started to lose herself in its delightful cocktail when she started feeling a batting at her tail. Pulling her apple aside, her lips pulled into a bemused smile when she looked down to see the pikachu cheerily smacking her tail side to side with its paws.

It pulled itself up and grabbed hold of her tail to carefully pull it for closer inspection. It took particular interest in its jagged bite-mark of an end, studying it intently with wide eyed glee. Joy overwhelmed it as it yanked the end into a hug, rubbing its cheek against it with a joyous, "Chaaaaaa!"

Max couldn't help giggling, which snapped the other pikachu out of its reverie. She wished she'd kept quiet while it quickly released her tail and scooted back. Its own tail flicked around behind it a few times. It started almost looking behind it before jerking its attention away. With every flick of its tail, it cringed away from the sensation of its own making.

Eventually, it pulled its own tail in front of it with a mournful whimper. Max's heart ached as she watched it stare with familiar disgust at the blunted end. Her heart broke when she watched its melancholy eyes turn to frustration as it yanked its tail to its mouth and started gnawing on it.

"N-no! Stop!" Max shouted, hopping forward to yank its tail away. It started trying to yank its tail back, but she wouldn't let it go. Instead, she forced it to watch her wrap her arms around it just like it had hers. This pikachu was nothing but a Dungeon illusion, had to be, but she couldn't bear to watch it go through the same pain she had. It felt wrong. It hurt.

She hugged the tail tighter as the other pikachu started resisting less. The other pikachu tilted its head in confusion until Max nuzzled her cheek into its tail and planted a kiss on the blunt edge. Sparks bounced down the other pikachu's cheeks, and it looked away to hide its growing smile.

Max squeezed it tight one last time, then released her grip to move to the other pikachu. Before it had any say in the matter, she'd wrapped her arms around it in another hug. It didn't resist past the initial surprise, quickly reciprocating. They nuzzled their cheeks together in uncanny unison, and Max felt it practically quivering in joy. She squeezed it a little bit tighter to draw her mouth closer to its ear.

"You're pretty, okay?" Max whispered. She had to stifle a chuckle when she felt a fountain of sparks bounce from its cheeks. When it started squeezing her tighter, her lips smiled so wide that they fought her cheeks.

Well. This was one way to practice self-love.

Max squeezed Pikachu tight one last time and waited for it to release its own grip. It lingered on her for a bit longer, so she rubbed at its back while it did. She found herself already feeling it to compare to herself. In every way, this pikachu was her. Even the way it squeezed her before letting go was the same.

"There, better?" Max asked. She pat at its shoulder while she smiled. It had just started to smile a bit itself, but it seemed reticent to actually voice how it felt. Hearing her own voice humming in thought was so, so strange.

"I'm okay," it squeaked. Just like her. The pikachu had been able to talk before, so she'd expected this, but it was still so, so strange.

That strangeness would have to do. She had to get going. After all, she and Cori had a miss—Cori!

"Kachu!" Max swore. She hopped up and threw her bag over her shoulder. Her vision spotted a bit from the sudden verticality, but not enough that she needed to stop. She couldn't have waited, anyway—she needed to find Cori! "C'mon!" She called, waving Pikachu on to follow her.

Pikachu squeaked in affirmation behind her, and she hesitantly dropped to all fours. It was still awkward, but it was faster than staying upright. She just wished her bag had another strap to keep it on her back so she didn't have to balance it. It fit on fine enough, though. She'd bother with it later, but it did pester her a bit with every bound.

Pikachu sailed right past her in an instant before doubling back to run alongside her. Of course it ran faster like this. Maybe she could send it to find Cori. It was watching her run.

"Hey, look!" Pikachu said. She kinda had a path to focus on ahead of her, so the best she could manage were quick glances. Unfortunately, she had no idea what it was telling her to look at. After a second, though, it ran a bit ahead so she could watch it and the path at the same time.

Finally, she noticed its gait was much, much smoother. Right, it knew how to run faster like this! How a Dungeon Illusion knew anything was mortifying to imagine, but it did. Apparently.

It took her a second to figure out just what made it run much smoother. When she did, though, she felt like a complete idiot. Instead of catching itself on its forepaws and waiting for its hindpaws to catch up, it just kicked its forepaws under itself. Of course. Forelegs were still legs, after all. She just hoped she wouldn't trip over herself trying.

Was now really the time to learn new things? She was in a hurry. Of course, this would help her hurry.

Max shook her head and went for it. She leapt forward, then pushed off her forepaws—wait do her hindpaws go around or through?! Her indecision smacked them right into her arms—forelegs, this was hard to rewire—and sent her stumbling for a few steps.

"Shit," she hissed. The pain wasn't gonna help her run, but at least it was fading fast. Pikachu slowed down to let her catch up, but didn't change its gait. It let her watch and get an even better sense of it.

Apparently, the hindlegs go out, the forelegs go in. She really wished that instincts made this easier if they were going to make every other feral impulse damn-near impossible to resist. Shaking her head, she tried to get her head back on track and give this another go.

As much as it pained her, she slowed down just a bit to make it easier at the start. It was a lot easier to pick up than the asymmetric hell that came from walking. Front back, front back, easy.

The first few steps, she struggled to get her forepaws to cooperate. She kept stumbling into them, struggling to really get them into the right motion. At least every attempt told her various things not to do. It was especially hard to resist the temptation to look down and 'check her work'. 'Look down, fall down' was a really hard mantra to follow when she really wanted to see what was going on down there.

Right, awareness. It was already chomping at the bit to tell her about her surroundings.

That wasn't good, then. That really, really wasn't good. In fact, she just realized that she'd been speaking in pika-speak this whole time. She'd fallen asleep in this place, even. She was in bad shape.

When the air started to reek of death, she realized she was in much worse shape than she thought. To this point, it had been a pretty bog-standard forest smell. They weren't deep enough that a Dungeon's rot would be this noticeable. Then again, nothing about this Dungeon made sense, so that lack of sense made its own kind of sense.

The trees she had to weave through still looked healthy enough, but the ground started getting a good bit wetter. It wasn't quite squishy, but it felt closer. The grass was getting a bit taller around them as she went. The Dungeon wasn't shifting, but the terrain was. She thought she even felt a pond nearby.

A spine-chilling snort was her only warning before a splash confirmed her suspicions about a pond. Blue jaws baring down on her kept her from appreciating the right call, though.

"Pika kachu!" Max squealed as she leapt up. The feraligatr slid along the ground right under her with its mouth open. She was really glad she went up instead of to the side. Her cheeks sparked, and she loosed a quick shock with what electricity she had on standby as her descent began. The shock was enough to halt the feraligatr's whipping around, giving her just enough time to land before it did.

The more familiar vantage point confirmed her suspicions. This feraligatr looked just like Cori's dad. This place was a nightmare.

Considering what their family put them through, it was probably Cori's nightmare.

Her attack ran its course through the feraligatr. It got up, primed and ready to attack already. Max felt the pond behind her as if she'd already fallen in. It wasn't close, but that might not stop Feraligatr tossing her in.

It prowled to the side to watch her from the ground. It wrapped around just enough to make her feel trapped. Her instincts latched onto that fear in an instant, and she didn't have a chance at resisting it. A grin stretched out under Feraligatr's starving eyes while they looked right into hers. She flinched, and it already had its jaws primed to snap around her.

She threw herself back in an instant, her fear shutting out all of the world around her except for the threat ready to wrap its jaws around her. She tried to hold on, but the image of that croconaw dropping the pikachu into its mouth tormented her. She could hear the snapping of bones with every snap of the feraligatr's maw.

A charge shot through Feraligatr before it could snap at her again. Pikachu barreled in to leap up and cleave at its skull with an iron tail. Immediately, Max's horror switched tact.

She couldn't let that happen to Pikachu again.

Max dashed forward at full tilt to join Pikachu in the fight. Feraligatr was still seizing from the first attack, so Max engulfed herself in her own charge. She ran as fast as she could to slam into it, discharging the electricity into it alongside a mighty wallop with her fist.

The buzz of her instincts wasn't done with its influence, though. She was already clawing and biting at it while the charge coursed through it. The left over electricity from Pikachu's attack went right in with her own.

Pikachu had her charge, too.

Her heart was racing already. She was terrified. She absolutely needed to get away from this thing, but the thought of leaving Pikachu to suffer it alone made her more terrified than even imagining her own end. She couldn't let that happen again. She wouldn't. She'd rather take it's place than watch someone die in front of her.

A sudden torrent of ice stabbed into her fur. The scales she'd sunk her teeth into froze with the air around her when a blue paw came to smack her off. Once it had, Feraligatr reeled back, ice pouring from its maw as it looked to the sky before loosing the attack at her.

Max hopped back to try and hide behind her tail and flashed it into iron just in time. It blocked most of her chest, but the Blizzard was all encompassing. She felt her ears burn while they went numb.

Feraligatr's thick, scaled tail swung around to smash her into the air. It sent her flying, too disoriented to find up or down until she slammed back first into a tree. The force was enough to leave her hanging long enough that she wondered if it had skewered her to hold her up. Eventually, she reluctantly lost the fight against gravity and flopped face down.

Within seconds, she felt jaws close around the nape of her neck. She already knew what was happening when it flung her into the air. That image had burned itself into her mind since the first time she saw it. It was only fair, then, considering she'd failed to save pikachu earlier. She didn't know Dungeon illusions could be so vicious.

It was her turn.

At least Pikachu was safe.

"Be gone I wish that you were.
You stand up, don't act so defeated.
Swing hard! You think that you could.
Beat your bare hands
On my chest, my love."