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Chapter 14 – Foam Abattoir
by acti_nerdington“-aaaAAAAAHHHH!”
It’s like something that happens in an instant, a moment where if you blink, you miss it. The transition into the dimensional rift was as though Rickety had been torn from one reality and had been harshly, abrutply thrusted into another. He found himself falling through an abyss, plunging through darkness. For how long, he had no idea, but a few seconds felt like an eternity.
Just as suddenly, he’s thrust into an entirely new environment. He’s thrown into a room covered in some sort of soft, padded material. They’re very spongy, as he bounces off of them as he lands. being tossed around for a few brief moments before coming to a standstill, laying there for a few moments, trying to recollect himself.
“Uurghhh…” He groans as he picks himself back up, head throbbing slightly as his eyes glance around the room. To be more accurate, it was less of a room and more along the lines of some kind of… Dizzying tunnel. All of the walls and the entire ceiling was covered in that soft, spongy padded stuff, their colors alternating between green and yellow, a tunnel that seemed to stretch on longer than it comfortably should.
Rickety’s breaths were heavy and shaky, and they seemed to echo slightly in the room. There were a few lights hanging from the ceiling, placed inbetween the padding, all of them emitting a faint, low buzzing sound. There’s a giant mirror on the wall next to him, briefly startling him as he sees his own reflection.
He could feel his heart beating faster in his chest, the completely unfamiliar surroundings immediately putting him on edge. At least the empty Treasure Town, as awful as it may have been, it had at least held a touch of familiarity, a familiarity that at had at least provided him with a sense of mild comfort despite it all.
This place held no such familiarity and no such comfort. It was cold, alien.
“Rickety!”
A voice.
Lexxi’s voice.
His eyes quickly turn towards the source. There was one part of the wall that wasn’t covered in that spongy padding. A solid wall with a ladder that led up to a platform, down a hallway. Lexxi was standing atop it, looking down at Rickety. “Are you okay?”
Rickety breathes a sigh of relief, sinking back against the cushions as he rubs at his head while he stares up at Lexxi. “I’m alright, I think… Where’s Xero and Zorora?”
Lexxi glances at an open corridor to her side, expression worried and nervous as she glances back down at Rickety. “I don’t know, I haven’t seen them anywhere since I woke up. I have no idea if they made it out, or…” Her ears droop, expression becoming grim.
Rickety winces, pressing himself back against the spongy padding some more. “Not good, really, really not good.” He turns to look at himself in the mirror. He sees how scared he is, how frightened he looks. His body is shaking and trembling and his eyes are wide in fear. Seeing himself like this… Sets something off within him.
That can’t be him, can it?
No. No, he’s better than this. This isn’t the time to be scared. He needs to pull himself together. “You’re an explorer.” He tells himself, staring his reflection dead in the eye. “Explorers know what to do, explorers don’t let problems get the better of them like this. Everyone is counting on you, you can’t let them down…”
He takes a slow, deep breath and tries to recompose himself, gradually calming himself down as his scared demeanor shifts into one of determination, eyebrows furrowing as he turns back to face Lexxi. “We’ll find them and figure our way out of here.” He says, smling a bit as he walks over to climb the ladder.
First things first… Where the heck were they? Rickety’s eyes glance over at the corridor Lexxi had come from. It was much brighter lit, unlike the tunnel, the walls painted white and the floor adorned with a myriad of patterns, most of them resembling puzzle pieces. Hmm, brightly lit corridor, or dark, dimly lit tunnel?
Yeah, this decision should be easy enough to make.
“Come on.” Rickety gestures for Lexxi to follow. She nods, giving a nervous smile as she follows along.
The walk through the corridor is silent, barring their footsteps against the smooth floor tiles. It wasn’t exactly cramped, but it was clear that the corridor wasn’t built with more than a few Pokemon in place at a time.
The walls also seemed to have been decorated, though very sparsely. Bright yellow stars seemed to be slapped on at random, some of them even reaching below the floor itself. Lexxi keeps occasionally glancing behind her, feeling a pair of eyes constantly boring into the back of her head.
“Well… At least the place is colorful?” Lexxi says, trying to stay at least a little bit optimistic.
“Yeah, but looks can be deceiving.” Rickety sighs, glancing back at her. “I think Drowzee proved it really well.” Rickety’s eyes slowly sweep over the hallway as they continue walking forward. The lights continue to get darker and darker, until eventually, the corridor comes to a complete stop.
The only thing at the end of the hall is a single door with a smiley face crudely drawn onto it in bright yellow crayon. Rickety’s body tenses for a second. The corridor isn’t as quiet as it was before. He could hear… Something. “Gimme a sec.” He whispers to Lexxi, placing the side of his head against the door.
The sound is coming from behind there. It sounds like… Chimes, musical chimes being played very slowly. There’s a long pause inbetween each note, and it seems to be echoing faintly. Rickety’s eyes squint and his muzzle scrunches up as he tries to listen closer, pressing against the door some more.
Lexxi looks up at him curiously, tilting her head to the side as her tail idly swishes back and forth behind her. “What is it?”
Rickety’s expression goes from focused to confused as he slowly begins to recognize the melody that the chimes are playing. He turns to Lexxi, a look of bewilderment on his face. “I think I hear ‘happy birthday’ playing in there.” He turns back to face the door, his paw slowly reaching for the knob, turning it slowly.
The door quietly creaks as it’s pulled open. The chimes are louder now that they’re not being blocked, but there’s another rather unnerving sight. The room is small, and there’s a giant hole right in the middle of the wall with the opening of a big, plastic cone built into it that seems to slope downward. Written above the hole in big, bold, rainbow colored letters is the word “PARADISE” along with two arrows on either side of the text pointing at the hole.
“Certainly welcoming, I’ll give it that.” Rickety says sarcastically, though there is a touch of shakiness in his voice as he peers inside, though stays careful not to lean too far. Lexxi steps up to him and peers inside as well. The echoing chimes are much louder and they seem to be coming all the way up this slide.
He glances at her. “I think you might’ve had a point about the whole “we always end up going into the darkest places” thing.” He huffs, his voice slightly muffled as it echoes against the plastic. “Eesh, I might’ve preferred Treasure Town to this place. As least we knew where we were going.”
Lexxi’s brows furrow as she sighs, ears drooping. “I don’t trust this at all.” She glances back uneasily, shivering. “I feel like I’m being watched no matter where I go.”
Rickety hums, reaching back into the backpack and pulling out a Max Elixir. He places it on its side and rolls it down the slide. It echoes around a bit, but eventually the two of them are able to hear it clattering and skittering against a floor from all the way down the slide. “Might be safe, emphasis on might.” He breathes deeply slowly climbing onto the slide. “We’ll go together. On three, okay?”
The Skitty blinks a few times, gazing down the slide, then back to Rickety. Given their options, it could always be worse. She nods and climbs up next to Rickety. “Alright… One…”
“Two…”
“Three!”
“GRRAAHH!”
Zorora swipes at a faceless Surskit that had swam right up to her in the water at a frighteningly fast speed, knocking it back at it skids across the water and slams back against a tiled wall, where it promptly goes limp, its body disintegrating. “Yeah! And you freaking stay down, you hear?!”
“Lovely, draw more attention to us, why don’t you?” Xero remarks sarcastically as she wades through the water, up to her waists.
A flooded labrynth covered in blue tile from top to bottom, the sound of water lapping at the walls and rippling all around echoing and bouncing everywhere. The only light source to be found were windows perched high on the walls, though they seemed to lead to nowhere, nothing so be seen but a blinding void of bright white.
“What? Not like anyone’s gonna care that we’re here? Especially not these things.” Zorora points to the disintegrating Surskit, its ashes floating and dispersing through the water. “See? Already gone, nothing to worry about.”
Xero lets out a sigh of frustration as she peers around the corner. “I’m talking about whatever else might be lurking in here. Who knows of that’s all there is?”
The Zoroark scoffs to herself, puffing her chest out proudly. “Then we clobber ’em until they’re down, duh. Might’ve been freaky but it held up like tissue paper.”
Xero rolls her eyes, gesturing for Zorora to follow her. “Yes, of course, because they’ll all be just as easy to take down.”
“You act like we’re gonna see a Gyrados in here. The water’s way too freaking shallow for that, Xero. We’ll just fight our way out!”
Xero keeps treading through the water, winding down the confusing twists and turns of the watery maze. “Mmm, I think exhausting ourselves to the point where we’re unable to fight isn’t as preferential as you might think. We need to focus more on navigating our way out of here.” She peers around another corner, eyes sweeping the area for any water Pokemon lurking about. “And reunite with Rickety and Lexxi if at all possible.”
The slide is full of more twists and turns than either Rickety and Lexxi would’ve liked, sending them swirling and spiraling all over the place, not helped by the fact that the inside of the slide was completely shrouded in total darkness.
Suddenly, there’s a light right at the bottom. The two of them brace themselves as they’re spat out from the slide, immediately beginning to head down yet another slide, before eventually, they finally come to a stop.
Gone were the pristine clean walls of the hallway they had walked down just a few moments ago, now it was as if they had entered an entirely different realm altogether. Not that they hadn’t already, but the environment was absolutely wondrous.
The floor was matted and soft, a solid black complimented by a myriad of bright colors and patterns adorning it, giving it an almost neon sort of look. The walls were tall, bright and colorful, a mixing swirl of colors blended together with no rhyme or reason. The musical chimes seemed to play on repeat, never changing song, never changing to a different melody, just ‘happy birthday’ on repeat, forever.
Colorful decorations of all kinds hung from the ceiling on string. Stars, hearts, every kind of shape imaginable seemed to be there. Some had fallen from the ceiling, and were laying down on the ground, some entirely deflated while others still had the air left within them.
They weren’t entirely alone, however.
Spread all throughout the room seemed to be various playsets, colorful structures with no semblance of shape, some of which led to nowhere, others leading to slides. Coupled with this, a number of decorated tables were spread throughout the play area, countless chairs of various hues knocked down. A number of faceless Pokemon could be seen playing around these sets, namely Wigglybuff, Mime Jr and Pichu. Couldn’t be more than a dozen.
One Mime Jr had wandered over to the Max Elixir Rickety had dropped down the slide, picking it up, seeming to look over it and examine it with its faceless gaze. It turns in the direction of the two.
Rickety and Lexxi do their best to keep perfectly still, perfectly silent, breaths shaky as they both scoot back a bit, only to be met with resistance from the slide.
The Mime Jr walks away, heading over to one of the many small tables spread throughout the play area, sitting down and placing it on the table. Its head idly sways back and forth as it just seems to… Admire the Elixir. Not gonna drink it, just staring at it.
“T-That’s fine, guess we didn’t need that anyway…” Rickety mutters, gulping audibly as he gets back up onto his feet. He glances behind them, seeing the giant slide they’d come down, a giant tube coming through the wall, leading onto another set of rainbow slides.
Lexxi’s heart pounded in her chest as she slowly sweeped around the area with her eyes. This whole place, it felt… Wrong. Almost like a violating feeling. Her ears droop down against her head and her tail begins to instinctively puff out as a series of intense fight or flight responses rack her mind.
“Rickety? Can we get moving?” She whispers, as to not disturb the faceless Pokemon in the room. “I don’t wanna stay here longer than we should. I don’t know if any memories are surfacing up but I feel this… Overwhelming sense of dread and I need to get out of here.”
“Y-Yeah, let’s move.” Rickety nods, offering to help Lexxi back up. The two of them begin to silently make their way through the room. It was wide and spacious, so thankfully, they were able to put plenty of space between themselves and the wandering Pokemon that seemed to roam around here. Rickety glances back at Lexxi with a worried expression as they walk, keeping his voice down. “What do you mean, memories surfacing up? You starting to remember things?”
“I have no idea.” Lexxi responds in a hushed voice as she sidesteps around a Pichu walking towards her. “I feel a really strong sense of deja vu. I swear, I feel like I’ve been here before, but…” Her eyebrows furrow, glancing around the scattered tables and fallen chairs. “It feels really distant. If it’s a memory, I don’t even know if it’s real. But it’s bad, whatever it is.”
Rickety’s expression darkens a little, sighing. “Sorry that the first memory you had to remember was a bad one. Sucks that this is the place to trigger it of all things.”
“Feels like something straight out of a dream.” Lexxi shivers. “Or some kind of horrible nightmare…”
“Well, you don’t need to try and remember more of it if it makes you feel-“
SQUEEE-
The two of them freeze as a high pitched noise cries out from right underneath them. Rickety glances down, realizing his paw was stepping down on some sort of plush toy. Looked like a little star with a happy face drawn onto it, just smiling up at them. Mockingly.
-EEEEEEAK!
Rickety slowly lifts his foot up to try and minimize the sound, but all that does it only make it worse. The two glance at each other worryingly, already hearing the frantic footsteps of a Pokemon quickly approaching them. They immediately go to make a break for it, but then they pause when the single Pichu that had been running up to them suddenly stops in front of the plush toy.
Its faceless gaze stares down at the toy as it stands perfectly still. Then, in a sudden, jerky movement, it reaches down and grabs the toy, clutching at it tightly.
Squeak!
Its little tail wags back and forth behind it, and just as quickly as it arrived, it turns around and skitters back over to the play area.
Rickety and Lexxi both let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, all things considered, that was the best outcome we could’ve had.” Lexxi says, slowly backing up and continuing on.
“Hmm…” Rickety hums, turning back around. “They don’t seem as aggressive as the ones in Treasure Town. Seems like they’re just… Doing their own thing here.”
“Yeah, for now.” Lexxi shivers again, glancing back at the Pokemon all climbing on the playsets and sliding down. “Maybe they have something different that makes them tick and we just got really lucky. They could still be dangerous.”
“Yeah, but…” Rickety glances back as well. “It seems like they’ve all got the mindset of kids. Give a kid something to explore or something to play with, they practically won’t care about anything else as long as they’re occupied. He lets out an uneasy chuckle. “As creepy as this place might be, I would’ve loved to come to a place like this as a kid. Act like everything is some kind of castle or part of a cave waiting to be discovered…”
Lexxi gazes up at him, tilting her head to the side a tad. “You miss being a kid, Rickety?”
“Kinda?” Rickety shrugs. “It’s probably more I just didn’t have to think as much. As a kid, there’s all this wonder, all this whimsy, the whole world is yours to explore as far as your imagination can take you. And now it’s, well,” Rickety gestures to the wider room. “Being sucked into mysterious vortexes and getting thrown into life or death situations. You know, usual adult stuff.”
Lexxi chuckles softly, tail swishing back and forth a little. “Yeah, this is what adults do all the time.” She scoots herself around one of the tables. “It’s weird, not having any memory of a childhood to look back on… I feel things but I can’t quite think of anything up around in there.”
“Least the place seems to be jogging something in you.” Rickety shrugs. “Might not be good but, it’s a start, at least?”
“Yeah… I suppose so.”
“Ugh, there has to be a plug somewhere, right?”
“Plug?” Xero glances back at Zorora, arching an eyebrow, water rippling as she leans around the corner.
“Yeah, you know! Like a bath tub! You can’t just have all this water with no way to drain it out, right? Like come on, that’d be lousy.”
Xero rolls her eyes in amusement, shaking her head with a sigh. “That’s rather hopeful of you, Zorora, but I doubt we’ll find any such thing in this place.”
“Oh come on! There’s an unspoken rule that if there’s anything that contains a large body of water, there’s gotta be something to drrraaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIINNNN-“
Splash!
“Zorora?” Xero quickly turns behind her, able to see the aftermath of the giant splash she’d heard, but Zorora was nowhere to be seen. Taking a closer look though, underneath the water, part of the tile floor seemed a little… Fuzzy, blurry.
Furrowing her eyebrows, Xero curiously reaches out to touch that fuzzy floor, but her hand phases right through it. Curious. Taking a quick, deep breath, Xero jumps forward and allows herself to fall down into the water, phasing straight through the fuzzy floor and into somewhere else.
The sight was rather odd, to say the least. No longer in an endless maze of winding corridors of pool tiles, she was in a room with painted walls that detailed a beautiful, lustrous hillside, with lush, green grass, trees sparsely decorated throughout the landscape,
The room seemed to be a play area of sorts, with toys laying around scattered across the floor, themed with objects mirroring the painted walls, like a small ‘pond’ with water painted at the bottom, little tree stumps acting as stepping stones and a hollowed log one could crawl through, which Zorora was painfully slumped over.
“Uuuuugggghhh… What kind of jerk just puts a log in the middle of the floor like this…”
“You’ll live.” Xero remarks, eyes sweeping the area. “Not quite sure what just happened, but we’ve made progress, at least.”
Zorora painfully scoffs, weakly glancing over at Xero. “I dunno if I’d really call it ‘progress,’ but sure thing, I guess.” Her eyes glance at something behind Xero, brows furrowing. “…Is that a sign?”
Xero turns around, seeing that there was indeed a fairly large sign pinned against one of the walls, one with writing on it, lots of it too. As Zorora slides off the log, she and Xero walk up close to get a better look at it. Each sentence is in an entirely different color from the last, all of them coming together to form the colors of a rainbow.
PARADISE FUNHOUSE RULES
- Be polite to each other!
- No roughhousing! Naughty children and Pokemon alike will be placed in the time-out center.
- Please throw any and all trash or recyclables in their respective bins!
- Remember to keep your FUN ID on you at all times!
- No wandering off on your own! Ask a staff member if you need any assistance!
- No sneaking food into the play areas!
- Remember to have fun and enjoy your stay!
Zorora squints at the sign, brows furrowing in confusion. “Wh- You’re telling me humans built this place? There’s no way, that can’t be right.”
Xero hums curiously to herself. It definitely can’t be as simple as that, there’s a lot more going on here than meets the eye… But then again now’s not really the time to dwell on this and figure it out. “We’ll share it with the others when we get out of here. Let’s just focus on trying to meet back up with Lexxi and Rickety.”
She heads over to one of the doors, slowly opening it and peering through. It leads to a large, open hallway, full of padded floors that all perfectly connected to each other like puzzle pieces, all different colors, all different patterns and symbols. The walls were almost completely white, only broken up by a rainbow trail that seemed to stretch across all of them,
Zorora peers out of the door from behind Xero, muzzle scrunching up. “Whole place makes me feel like I’m on a bad Allure Seed trip. Let’s find a way out of here before all the colors make me lose my lunch.”
The double doors quietly squeak open as Lexxi and Rickety push them open. Lexxi briefly glances back at the play area, watching the small, faceless Pokemon play about just to make sure they’re not noticed, before they make their way inside.
Tables! Plentiful plentiful tables. There’s more music playing in here, a different tune than the happy birthday song playing in the play area, though neither of them can recognize its tune. Every now and again, the music stops, the voice of somebody saying “Hello!” can be heard, and then the music begins to loop once again.
The tables were all decorated with sparkly cloths draped over them, a number of seats all lined up, each seat having an empty plate sitting on the table, complete with fork and spoon, as well as a napkin. Much like the play area, there were a few balloons floating against the ceiling, some completely deflated and laying on the floor.
But perhaps the strangest thing and what put them off the most was the illustrations covering the walls. They all seemed to be very… Questionable drawings of Pokemon engaging in various party activities, but they were all drawn in a way that just seemed off.
Pikachus with big faces and more back stripes than they normally have, Ursarings with unnaturally long muzzles and completely wrong markings on their bodies, Mr. Mimes with floating limbs detached from their bodies, the list of oddities goes on.
“Can’t there just be one normal room in this place?” Lexxi mutters to herself as she starts weaving her way through the tables, Rickety following behind. “It’s like if… If you described a Pokemon to someone who doesn’t know what Pokemon even are.”
“At least neither of us seem to be butchered, that’s a plus at least.” Rickety scoots along through the maze of tables and chairs. “If I were a Pikachu I really wouldn’t be happy right about now.” While he’s scooting through, he notices something on one of the tables, sitting right on top of a plate.
It seems to be a paper card, a mess of colors scribbled onto it. No crayon shavings seem to come off, though. It appears to be intentionally designed that way. “FUN ID” is written in big, bold text on the card, a picture ID and name both scratched out and covered up with marker.
BEEP-BEEP
Rickety glances back at Lexxi, who seems to be trying to open a door on the other side of the room. There’s a slot in the wall and a light, glowing red and blinking before it turns off. “Hmm… Lemme try something.” Lexxi glances over to Rickety, nodding as she takes a step back from the door. Head over, Rickety takes a look at the slot, then the card.
Worth a shot. Slowly, Rickety pushes the card into the slot, holding it there for a few seconds.
BEEP! Click!
The light turns on again, flashing green. Rickety tries for the door and it pushes open without any issues. He smiles softly to himself as he glances down at Lexxi, shrugging. “Explorer’s intuition pays off.”
…
This room isn’t quite as busy as the last few have been. It’s such a stark contrast from everything else that neither of them would’ve guessed they were all in the same place. It’s a cozy little library. No sound, no music playing, just complete silence. Plain walls, cartpeted floors, seemingly dozens upon dozens of books lined up on bookshelves, a few toys here and there, and a giant box with a screen tucked away in the corner, with another smaller, more rectangular box sitting underneath it.
For such a place to be a complete and total contrast to everything they’d seen so far, it threw Lexxi for a bit of a loop, eyebrows furrowing as she walks over to the bookshelves, looking the selection over. “The further we go, the less sense this place makes. Not that it made any sense to begin with, but…”
She begins to notice something as her eyes sweep over the books. None of them have any titles on their spines. She notices that none of them seem to have anything on their covers either as she pulls a few out. Flipping through their pages, none of them are filled with anything either. Every page is completely blank.
“Lexxi, look at this.” Rickety says, Lexxi’s ears flicking as she hears his voice. She puts the book back on the shelf and turns to face him, holding a small, black little rectangular box in his paws. “What do you think this is?” He holds it out to her a bit. There two little glass panes on either side, showing some kind of thin, black paper-like material wrapped up into two circles. There’s a big empty space in the center.
As Lexxi gazes upon it, she’s overcome with a strange sense of nostalgia. “I dunno… I feel like I’ve seen it somewhere before, but I don’t know what it could possibly be.” She reaches out for it, holding it with her little stubs. “Much more positive memories than that playroom, I can tell that much, but it’s hazy, fuzzy.”
“Hmm…” Rickety hums, looking it over. “Maybe it’s just because I haven’t eaten, but there’s a part of me deep down that thinks it’s some kind of weird food.”
Lexxi glances up at Rickety and looks him dead in the eyes. “You’re not putting this thing in your mouth.”
“Look I mean we at least gotta try, right?” Okay, probably a bad way to put that. “…Lemme just lick it, nothing more, okay?”
“You’re the one who told me not to eat allure seeds and you’re suggesting that you lick… Whatever this thing is.”
Rickety shrugs. “We don’t know what it is. If it’s not food, then it’s not dangerous! At least, I’m sure that’s how it works.”
Lexxi narrows her gaze a bit. “I’m not gonna be able to stop you from licking this thing, am I?”
“Nope.”
Lexxi sighs, handing it back over to Rickety. “Alright, knock yourself out.”
Rickety looks over the little black box again, giving it a sniff first off. “…Doesn’t smell like anything, and it tastes,” He gives the empty space on the front a slow lick. “…Like plastic. Definitely not food.”
Lexxi rolls her eyes, glancing back at the bigger black box in the corner, and the smaller box beneath it. Hmm… There’s an opening in the smaller box, rectangular opening. Seems to be about the size of that thing Rickety is holding. “Maybe it goes to that thing?”
Rickety glances back at the boxes in the corner, then stares down at what he’s holding. “…Okay yeah, that’s probably a much better idea than trying to eat it.” Heading on over, he kneels down to the smaller box, looking at the object in his hands as he slowly pushes it in-
Whhrrrrrrrr-
Rickety gasps softly as it’s suddenly pulled forward into the device, as it makes a number of mechanical whirring noises.
Click! Bbbrrzzzzzzzzzzz…
The bigger box clicks on and seems to come to life. Rickety beckons Lexxi to quickly come over and sit down with him.
The two gaze up at the magical box, the rest of the world slowly becoming irrelevant.
…
A video begins to play.
Footage of a beach with slow, serene music begins to show, with waves lapping at the shoreline.
A voiceover can be heard. A soft, gentle voice of a woman.
“The future of the world is growing more and more ambitious and uncertain with each passing day. Parents who have been aiding in the Global Reconstruction Project often worry about their children back home, wondering if they’re safe with them spending so much time away from home.”
The footage transitions. Lexxi immediately recognizes the figures in the footage as humans. Nothing like the ones from the visions she’s seen, though. They all look relatively normal. Smaller, probably kids. Some are shown playing with Pokemon, such as Munchlax and Charmander.
“They have their Pokemon to protect them, but that can only do so much for what often feels like isolation and loneliness. Our children need to connect, our children need to socialize, especially in these trying times. But thankfully, with the hard work of over two hundred and fifty volunteer workers, we have a solution.”
The video swipes with a transition, the scene changing to the middle of some big, large city area, with a tall, TALL colorful building right in the center. “That’s why we’re happy to introduce Paradise Funhouse! A haven for children in a world that is rapidly changing!”
The video transitions once again, the camera panning down a long hallways with doors on either side. “If you’re gone for prolonged work periods and spend several days away from home at a time, worry no longer! We have special housing and accommodations for up to twenty five thousand children!”
There’s another transition. Rickety and Lexxi freeze in their spots as they recognize the same play area they were just in moments ago being showcased. “With our large and expansive play palaces, your children will never get bored! Hours, even days of entertainment, allowing your kids to get the exercise they need as well as all the socialization aspects of a playground! We have a large number of staff dedicated to these areas to watch over our children at all times, we’re all very watchful eyes!”
Another transition, another familiar room. The room they’d been in just before this one. “With such a large housing of kids, that also means lots of birthdays to be had! We’d anticipated this, so Paradise Funhouse has dozens upon dozens of designated birthday party rooms, all decorated with beautiful pictures of the Pokemon we’ve all come to know and love!”
“Debatable.” Rickety mutters under his breath.
Another screen transition, now showcasing a strange, surreal place that they hadn’t been to yet. “And of course, those with water Pokemon who feel they need a place to swim around are covered too! If they wish, they can take a trip to our wondrous, expansive poolrooms, where they can freely swim around with their Pokemon to their heart’s content! Twelve lifeguards are on standby at all times, because with a pool this big, you really need that many!”
The video goes back to a shot of the building, staring up at it from the ground floor. “All this and many, many more amenities that your children are sure to love, you can ensure the safety and happiness of your child at Paradise Funhouse, with housing at only $1,000 a month per child!”
Lexxi blinks a few times, glancing over to Rickety. “What’s a dollar?”
Rickety shrugs. “Beats me. Some form of currency other than P, if I had to guess?”
“Reservations open in just a few weeks. Save the date! Paradise Funhouse is opening on-“
The power shuts off. The whole room goes completely dark. Lexxi and Rickety both yelp in surprise, unable to see anything.
“What’s going on?!”
“I-I dunno, I-“
The lights suddenly turn back on, but nothing is the same. The comforting light is now replaced with a dreary orange light. They’re no longer in the library, they’re in a completely empty room. No doors, no windows, no entrances, nothing.
“Hello!”
The music from the party room starts playing again. The floor, the floor is moving, opening up and slanting downward. Rickety and Lexxi clamor for dear life, but there’s nothing to grab onto. They scream as they begin to plummet down, down, down until finally landing in a pit of…
Balls?
It’s a ballpit!
Lexxi pops her head up, a little rubber ball resting on her head. Her muzzle scrunches up as she grumbles slightly, bopping it away with her tail. “Hoooo, okay… Too much just happened in too little time and I have way too many questions. Did you see all that, Rickety?”
“Bwuh!” Rickety juts his head out from the ballpit, a few balls bouncing away as he surfaces. “The heck just happened?! One minute we were sitting down and watching that video, and then the power went out and we were in an entirely different room altogether, i-it’s like… None of this happened in Treasure Town, why is it happening here?”
Lexxi’s brows furrow as she tries to shuffle into a more comfortable position in the ballpit. “I’ve felt really off about this place since the moment we got here… Maybe it has a different energy than Treasure Town had? I dunno if-“
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Lexxi and Rickety immediately duck their heads back down into the ballpit. They hadn’t even notice just how huge the room they’d fallen into really is. More mesmerizing swirls and colors painted across the walls, lots of purples and reds, the ceiling painted to resemble a starry night sky.
Thump. Thump.
The two of them hush themselves, trying to keep themselves hidden as best as they possibly can. Pillars, giant pillars stretching all the way to the ceiling, the stomping is coming from there.
There’s some kind of figure over there, tall and lumbering. It’s hefty, every stomp makes the whole room practically rumble from the force of it. Out from the pillars comes a giant, tall, lumbering, faceless Snorlax. It wanders around aimlessly, without direction.
Lexxi and Rickety share a silent glance with each other, nodding, ducking deeper into the ballpit. They’d find their way out of this, somehow.
The rainbow-painted hallways seemed to stretch on for an eternity. Every turn of a corner just led deeper and deeper into the seemingly never-ending labyrinth with no end in sight. Occasionally, there would be a larger square, a small play area with a few toys and tables placed sporadically, all accompanied by those strange illustrations of Pokemon painted on the walls.
Zorora quietly groans as she turns another corner, her gaze lingering on one such illustration of a Pikachu. “Aren’t humans supposed to be like… Around Pokemon all the time? How in the world do they get them wrong this badly?”
Xero lets out a mildly irritated sigh as she glances back at the Zoroark. “You’re running out of things to complain about, aren’t you? We have more pressing matters to deal with than a couple of crude drawings.”
“They’re freaking creepy! I got every right to complain about them! Like look at this thing!” She gestures to the Pikachu drawing on the wall. “Those big eyes, the miscolored stripes on its back, its tail isn’t even the right shape! Thing’s a freak of nature!”
Click.
The lights flicker briefly, the power to the entire hallway shutting off, leaving the two of them in complete darkness.
Zorora lets out another frustrated groan. “Oh, for the love of-“
Click.
The lights suddenly snap back on, but something immediately seems wrong.
Xero takes a few uneasy steps to the side, glancing behind her. “…Is it just me, or did the layout just change?” One of the hallways seems to be gone, one less corner to round than before.
“I dunno, maybe we’re just losing our minds ‘cus we’ve been stuck in here for so long-” Zorora notices something else. The Pikachu drawing that she’d been pointing at was gone. She feels a strong sense of unease welling up within her as she slowly backs up from the wall. “Maybe we just got disoriented? I mean-” She turns around and lets out a gasp in surprise as her eyes go wide.
The Pikachu drawing she’d been pointing at had moved to the opposite wall. And not only that, but it seemed to be in a different pose than before. Whereas it was looking idly to the side, now it was facing entirely forward, as if its eyes were gazing directly upon Zorora. “O-Okay, no, there’s definitely something weird going on here.”
Even Xero could feel a sense of dread creeping up on her, her body tensing up a bit as she tries to focus a little bit more on her surroundings. “Alright… Let’s try not to get distract-“
Click.
The lights go off again, though they’re off for a much shorter period of time than the last.
Click.
The hallway they’d just come from was gone, replaced by a wall. A wall that had another one of those Pikachu drawings painted onto it, its arms spread out wide, the other drawing in another different position with its head tilted ever so slightly.
Zorora quickly backs away from both walls, her breathing growing more shaky. “…Nope! We’re out, we’re freaking OUT.” She turns around and begins to make a break for it, trying to get away from the drawings as fast as she can.
“Wh- Hey! Zorora don’t run off from me!” Xero starts running after her, the lights seeming to flicker more and more. Each time they dim dark enough, the layout seems to change again. The walls seem to become more cramped and claustrophobic than before, the Pikachu drawings appearing as if they’re moving every time they flicker across the walls.
The two of them manage to spot a door at the end of a hall, so the two start running as fast as they can. Xero peers behind them, seeing both of the Pikachu drawings catching up to them as the lights keep flickering on and off.
Squeak!
The door opens! The two quickly run inside and Zorora slams the door shut, pushing her back against it, panting heavily, chest heaving with heavy breaths. “Okay, okay, I think it’s gone now… I think-“
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The ground rumbles, vibrating in a series of heavy footsteps that seem to echo throughout the room. The room, right they- They hadn’t taken it in yet.
Giant pillars, giant pit full of rubber balls and-
Wait a minute.
Rickety and Lexxi poke their heads out of the ballpit slightly, gazing back in wide-eyed astonishment at the other duo.
Normally, there’d be a sense of relief, but there’s more pressing matters to deal with. Such as, well, the giant faceless Snorlax wandering around the room.
Rickety shushes silently to Xero and Zorora, who both give an understanding nod as they stay in their spot, trying to keep as silent as they can, while the Snorlax keeps wandering without direction.
Rickety picks up one of the rubber balls, looking at it for a moment, then back to the Snorlax. “If they’re attracted to sound, then maybe…” Rickety stands up out of the ballpit a bit more, winding his arm back before tossing the ball to the opposite side of the room. It makes a few thudding sounds at it bounces along the floor.
This seems to capture the Snorlax’s attention, its heavy footsteps thumping against the floor as it starts heading towards the source of the noise.
There’s another door right by the pillars, the only other way out of the room.
Xero and Zorora silently, but quickly gesture Rickety and Lexxi to come over, and the two quickly clamber their way out of the ballpit, rushing over to their side, and through the door.
“You guys alright?” Rickety asks, breaths a bit shaky.
“We’re alright, got soaked but we’re okay.” Zorora says, glancing back at the door. Place is freaking alive, we gotta get out of here, fa-“
“Look at the wall, over there!” Lexxi exclaims, pointing at the opposite end of the room. They paid little attention to the room itself, some kind of big playroom with smooth, stone walls and floors decorated to look like a town. The wall at the opposite end was blurry, rippling. “A way out! Let’s move!”
With no hesitation, all four of them begin to rush towards the wall. There’s something that shifts in the room, though. A scraping noise can be heard, like concrete scraping against concrete. The walls on both sides of the room were starting to close in.
This just prompts them to run even faster, and faster, just trying to go as fast as they can, just go, just run, run and you’ll be fine, run and you’ll be perfectly safe, just run, and then jump!
…And that jump sent them all rolling right into a tree.
Not the best landing they could’ve had.
The four of them all lay on the ground, panting and exhausted.
“Ghhhhuuhhh…” Zorora groans, rolling onto her back, chest rising and falling. “Worst freaking road trip of my life.”
“Did we make it?” Lexxi mumbles out, getting herself back up onto all fours.
They were somewhere foggy, very foggy. A thick mist covered the entire ground, barely able to see too far ahead.
Certainly didn’t impede their hearing in any way, at least.
“Friends are here!~ Friends are here!~” Wigglytuff’s cheerful voice can be heard as he skitters his way on over to the ground, happily bouncing and hopping around with joy. “Friends have arrived!”
Chatot isn’t much further behind, peering around the guildmaster with an arched eyebrow. “You’ve arrived! But… In a rather peculiar position. Something happen? Are the four of you alright?”
Rickety chuckles weakly, slumping forward a bit. “I never thought I’d be happier to see you guys, heh… Y’know how we told you about how we got sucked into one of those rift things a while back? It happened again.”
Xero glances up at Wigglytuff and Chatot, nodding. “We can vouch for them, happened to all of us.”
While Wigglytuff keeps bouncing and hopping around, Chatot’s expression grows a little more grim. “Mmm… I see.” He huffs. “I knew something like this would happen, I just knew it! I told him it wasn’t safe to bring the whole guild because of this, but, uurgh.” He ruffles his feathers, letting out a sigh as he glances back at the group. “Well, you’ve arrived rather early. You’re the first group to have arrived. You’ve made good time in your survival, at the very least.”
“Hah, cool, didn’t know it was a race.” Zorora remarks sarcastically, still laying on her back. “Real nice, do we get a reward?”
“If you’ll consider resting up until the other teams get here as a reward, yes.” He nods, gesturing back to the campsite with a wing. “Come along, you four look like you need it.”
They all nod, picking themselves back up off the ground, some stumbling a bit before they start dragging themselves over to the campsite.
“We’ve a lot to discuss, don’t we?” Xero asks, sharing a glance with Lexxi and Rickety.
Rickety nods in response, expression tired. “I think ‘a lot’ would be underselling it.”
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