Chapter 10: Training Troubles
by poper466Apologies if that last chapter was a little weird, it was just a dumb idea I had that turned into spontaneous chaos by the end, this should be more normal.
January 28th, 7:00 am
Team Echoes’ Base – Yumi’s room
Coast Continent
Yumi woke up not on her bed, but on Flint’s lap, freaking her out, “AAAAAH!”
“Who- what- where-” Flint sputtered as he shot awake.
“Why am I not on my bed!?”
“O-oh, I just wanted to keep you safe while you slept!” Flint explained, “I thought you’d be ok with that.”
“I don’t like it when people mess with me while I’m sleeping!”
“R-right sorry, I should’ve known that, it’s kinda a common decency thing.”
“It’s ok, just warn me next time you want to cuddle.”
“Excuse me!? I wasn’t cuddling you, I was protecting you!”
“I get it, you think I’m cute now that I’m a Zorua, you don’t have to hide it.”
“Ok fine, you got me, but please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not in love with you or anything, it’s just-“
“I get it, you don’t have to be all like that.”
Flint sighed in relief, “Phew, thank you for understanding.”
“You’re welcome.” Yumi said, “Now shall we get going?”
“Of course.”
Yumi and Flint opened the door and left their room, they walked into the lounge where Vulcan had already begun preparing breakfast, “What’s he doing?” Yumi asked.
“He seems to be cooking something.” Flint said.
“What, have you never seen a Pokémon cook food before?” Vulcan asked.
“Uh, no, the closest thing I’ve seen to this is Beni using a fire type Pokémon to start a fire.” Yumi answered.
“Heheheh, well you’re probably gonna see a lot more stuff like this, so I would recommend getting used to it.”
“Wait, if fire type Pokémon can cook, then why isn’t that Cyndaquil helping you?”
“Oh, you mean Cinder? She’s a terrible cook! Our mom tried to teach her how to make something simple, and she managed to flub it up entirely, even with her guidance.”
“So she’s your sister?”
“Yup, we were separated for about 20 years before the two of us ended up getting sent here, I’m honestly surprised we were reunited after all that time.”
“How were you separated?”
“Ask her, I’m tired of explaining it.”
“O-oh, I’m sorry.”
“You’re fine, it’s just I don’t like reexplaining things every five seconds.”
“So where’s everyone else?”
“They’re discussing the groups for today in case Nail can’t handle training all of us at once.”
“Should we be… Joining them?”
“You can if you want to, or you can just keep watching me cook.”
“I guess I’ll go join the discussion.”
“Ok, just be warned, they’re currently being big babies about a spider cave.”
Yumi and Flint walked into Specter’s room, which has basically become the planning room at this point due to the big table in the middle, once they entered the room their ears were assaulted by all the shouting going on.
“I’m NOT going!” Rory declared.
“Yes, you are!” Specter shot back, “You resist bug type attacks, you’re the most well-suited for this dungeon.”
“But they also resist my fighting moves!”
“Well you have other moves!”
“But what about Cinder!? She’s a fire type so she’s got the advantage!”
“I’d pass out if I got ambushed by a bunch of spiders!” Cinder squeaked.
“Yeah, she’s not going, she’s deathly afraid of spiders.” Specter said.
“What about you, then?” Joseph asked, “Why aren’t you going?”
“Because I’d be dead weight if I managed to evolve into an Espeon while we were in there.”
“Fair point, but what if that doesn’t happen?”
“I’d rather not risk it, besides you’ve got Stumpy, you’ll be fine.”
“I’m not even sure if Stumpy knows what a spider is, considering he’s from the past.”
“No I don’t actually,” Stumpy stated, “You guys mind filling me in?”
Slippy hastily drew a picture of a Galvantula with his crayons and showed it to Stumpy, “This is what a spider looks like.” Slippy said.
“EEEK!” Stumpy shrieked, “I’m not going anywhere near one of those!”
“Great… that leaves the four of us.” Joseph sighed.
“Three, I’m opting out as well.” Slippy said.
“Oh just great! You’re trying to send the three of us into a labyrinth that’s infested with spiders without a full team!?” Rory exclaimed.
Yumi finally decided to speak up, “I’ll go.”
Everybody turned their attention toward her, “N-no you don’t have to.” Cinder assured her.
“I want to though, if it means that I’ll be able to help you all get stronger, then I want to go, plus spiders don’t scare me.”
“I see no reason to argue with her any further.” Sammy said, desperately trying to end this conversation.
“Fine, then the team that will be going to the spider cave is going to consist of, Joseph, Rory, Sammy, Slippy, Yumi, and Flint.” Cinder announced.
“I’m good, I’m not trying to get spider webs in my feathers.” Flint stated.
“Fine, you’ll be stuck going to Amethyst Fields with Stumpy and me.”
“Come on, I really have to go with him?”
“I won’t bite, I promise.” Stumpy promised, “You don’t have to be afraid of me, in fact, I’ll let you keep calling me tacky!”
“You will!?”
“Yeah, as long as you aren’t a meanie from now on.”
“It’s a deal!” Flint exulted as he raised a wing into the air.
“Alright, welcome to our team then!”
“But wait, what if Nail can train all of us at once?” Yumi asked.
“Don’t count on it girl, there are 11 of us here, that’s probably way too many even for someone as scary as Nail.” Specter said.
“Isn’t it his job to train Pokémon though?”
“Yeah, but there’s still 11 of us, that’s still a pretty big number.”
“Fair point…”
“Hey guys!” Vulcan called as he entered the room with a stack of plates, “Breakfast is ready!”
The team ate and enjoyed breakfast, as per usual, but this time there was less chatting and more eating, one thing was clear, the team needed to train, or the whole world would come to an end, so the team scarfed down their food and headed out the door.
January 28th, 8:00 am
SurfSpark Guild
Coast Continent
Joseph led the small arm- I mean team into the guild where Litwick greeted them, “Oh there you guys are!” He said, “What took you all so long?”
“Oh, I made us breakfast.” Vulcan said, “It took a bit, but I think that I proved that I’m the best chef in this part of the world.”
“Oh really!? Well clearly you haven’t met my mother, she’s the chef here, and she’s the chief officer of the police force here.”
“Oh, so she was the one who made those Slowpoke tails last night?”
“Yup, they were good weren’t they?”
“Yeah, they were fine, but not all that special…”
“EXCUSE ME!?”
“Yeah, they weren’t all that special, they were lacking a bit of spice, oh yeah and the fries weren’t all that salty.”
“I am OFFENDED!” Litwick bellowed, “So offended in fact that I’m gonna tell my mom!”
“Pardon?”
“You heard me! I’m gonna tell my mom, and you’re gonna be in for the worst experience of your life!”
“Pfft, ok, well I’ll be looking for Nail while you tattle on me.”
“Oh he’s out by the beach, he said he was waiting for a certain team.”
“Oh, that would be us.” Joseph interjected, “We’re gonna try to see if he can train all of us at once, and if he can’t, we’re gonna go to some dungeons.”
“Oh, well then, don’t keep him waiting or he might think you ditched him.”
“Yeah, we got it, thanks Litwick!”
January 28th, 8:15 am
Beachy Outskirts
Coast Continent
The team approached the beach to find that Nail had drawn a weird shape into the sand, “What’s with the sand drawings?” Sammy asked.
“Oh, it’s an arena!” Joseph pointed out, “Back in his world, they have arenas with Pokéballs drawn in the center of them to signify they were for Pokémon battles.”
“Correctamundo!” Nail called out, “I figured that I’d try to face you all one-on-one and give you pointers afterward.”
“And if that doesn’t work?” Rory asked.
“Refer to plan b.”
Rory shivered, “I’d rather not refer to plan b, I’m not really looking forward to getting all webbed up by spiders.”
“Well then, you better hope this works.”
“So, whose going first?” Cinder asked.
“I choose Flint!” Nail declared as he pointed a claw at Flint.
“Huh? Me!? Why me!?” Flint sputtered.
“Because I’ve been feeling a bit homesick lately, and I think fighting a fellow Hisuian will help me fix that.”
“How would that fix anything?”
“It’ll remind me of home.”
“Ok, I’ll face you, but only if Master Yumi can guide me in battle.”
“Deal!” Nail chirped, “Get into position you two!”
“O-ok.” Yumi quavered as she walked over to the end of the arena.
Flint and Nail got into position on the battlefield, “Alright, on your mark, get set, go!” Nail shouted before rushing at his opponent.
“Flint! Use Triple Arrows!” Yumi directed.
Just before Nail slashed Flint with his claws, Flint dove forward and hit him with an axe kick, he then jumped back and fired three arrows at him, hitting him in the chest.
“Heh, not bad.” Nail remarked, “Although you’re gonna have to do a lot more than that if you want to beat me!”
“Hmph, I came here to fight, not to blab on about the strength of our attacks.” Flint huffed.
“Fine then, I’ll shut up.”
Nail got back to his feet and rushed at Flint once again, this time slashing him across the chest with a Dire Claw, drawing a bit of blood and causing Flint to get a little drowsy.
“Come on Flint, shake it off!” Yumi cheered.
Flint was on the brink of passing out, but he managed to pull through, “I… I won’t let you down, Master Yumi.”
“Alright! Flint, use Shadow Sneak!” Yumi commanded.
Nail prepared to be rushed down by Flint only to be kicked in the back of the head a few seconds later, “Huh!?” Nail blurted as he got back up.
“Pay attention to my shadow.” Flint directed.
Nail watched as Flint’s shadow moved out from under him and crept behind him, this time however, Nail was ready for the attack, he quickly moved out of his spot and kicked Flint in the back as he reappeared.
Flint toppled over and didn’t try to get up, freaking Yumi out, “Flint! Get up buddy! Please!”
“Shoot, I think he’s out!” Nail shouted.
“Flint get back!” Yumi said as she returned Flint to his Pokéball.
“Is he gonna be ok!?” Cinder blurted.
“Just let him rest in the Pokéball for a bit, then I’ll give him a Full Restore and he’ll be as good as new.” Nail said.
“A-actually, I think I have a Revive in here, I think I should try using that.” Yumi suggested.
“Go ahead, it’ll probably make things a bit easier.”
Yumi produced a Revive out of her bag, she then sent Flint back out of his Pokéball and fed the Revive to him, after he had fully consumed the Revive his eyes shot open, once he had awoken he immediately grabbed his chest which was still bleeding from Nail’s first attack, afterward, Nail gave Flint the Full Restore to get rid of the wound.
“Well, the good news is I don’t feel homesick anymore!” Nail chirped, “The bad news, however, is that I can’t risk hurting anyone else, so you’re all on your own for your training.”
“Drat!” Sammy exclaimed, “I guess we have to go to that spider-infested hellscape after all.”
“Oh, my condolences.” Nail said as he lowered his head, “I didn’t mean to do this to you.”
“It’s fine, as long as we’re getting our training in, it’ll be well worth it.”
“Oh, well I guess there’s that.”
“EXCUSE ME!” A voice shouted from a distance.
“Is that Chandelure?” Nail asked, “What’s she doing out here?”
Chandelure appeared before the group, seething with rage, “WHICH ONE OF YOU INSULTED MY COOKING!?”
The group proceeded to point at Vulcan, who pulled out a frying pan from his bag to cover his face.
“Ohohohohoho, I simply cannot have this, you, you’re coming with me!”
Chandelure proceeded to grab Vulcan and pull him into the shadows.
“Well so much for Vulcan getting in on our training day.” Cinder lamented.
“I have a feeling those two are going to be going through a bit of training, just not combat training.” Nail said, “I’ve heard that anyone who insults Chandelure’s cooking is subject to a cook-off against her.”
“There’s not a penalty for losing, is there!?” Cinder blurted, “Not that I doubt his abilities, it’s just that I’m a little afraid that I might lose him again.”
“I’ve heard rumors that the paintings in Chandelure’s house are all the cook-off losers, but it’s just a rumor.”
“SO SHE’S GONNA TURN HIM INTO A PAINTING!?”
“Maybe.”
“Oh Arceus…”
“Aren’t we supposed to be discussing plan b now?” Joseph asked.
“We already did! You and your group are gonna take the ferry to the Crystal Continent and go into that spider cave.”
“Does this cave have a name?” Yumi asked.
“It’s called Stringy Hollow, it’s around where we found the Tempest Cave yesterday.”
“I have no idea where that is.”
“Just stick with us and you’ll be just fine.” Joseph said.
January 28th, 10:30 am
Crystal Capital – Docks
Crystal Continent
The Stringy Hollow expedition team arrived in Crystal Capital or Crystal City, whichever you prefer, and immediately Yumi was blown away by the scenery, “Woah! This place is amazing!” She admired, “There are giant crystals everywhere!”
“Yeah, it’s pretty sick, right?” Joseph asked.
“Pretty sick!? That’s the understatement of the century!”
“Yeah, what she said, this place is nothing short of breathtaking!” Slippy bubbled.
“I think Joseph’s still upset about what happened here yesterday.” Rory interjected.
“What? Are you upset that you met me?” Yumi asked.
“What!? No! No! It’s just some girl tried to flirt with me and then Cinder made her joke about us going on a date or whatever and now we’re back here where I’m probably gonna get hit on by that girl again.” Joseph explained.
“Just don’t worry about it, dude, you’ll be fine!” Sammy said.
“Will I though?”
“Actually, that raises a bit of a question,” Rory added, “What if you don’t get the choice to go home, will you be willing to accept your new life as a Pokémon and thus fall in love with one or-“
“We’re not having this discussion right now!”
“Oh, hey! Look who it is!” A familiar voice called out.
Moments later, Fang walked up to the group along with a new friend of his, “Turns out this guy wasn’t a thief after all, he just thought that my Razor Claw was his Razor Fang so he took it from me thinking I stole it.”
“But then we found the actual thief, so we beat ’em up and we’re best friends now!” The Gligar finished.
“Oh, that’s cool!” Joseph chirped, “Sorry we couldn’t help you with that, we just had our hands tied.”
“Nah, I get it, you had to carry whiteout here to safety!” Fang laughed.
“Are you talking about me?” Yumi asked.
“Yeah, I saw Mr. Hero Man over here carry you to safety yesterday, that’s when I realized that it probably wasn’t the best time to be asking them for help.”
“Oh, well thank you for understanding.” Joseph responded.
“No prob, I told you I wasn’t a bad guy, I’m just misunderstood because of the stigma around my species.”
“Yeah, and that thief took advantage of that!” The Gligar added, “She was all like ‘Oh I’m just a little Togetic, I wouldn’t hurt a soul!’ come to find out that she was some criminal mastermind who was trying to bust Scovillain outta prison.”
“Wow, that’s surprising! Thank Arceus somebody stopped them!” Rory exclaimed.
“Yeah, who knows what woulda happened if she woulda got him outta the slammer!” Fang agreed.
“That’s what inspired us to form our team, actually.” The Gligar said, “We wanted to stop crime from spreading around the world.”
“Wait, you guys are a team!?” Sammy blurted.
“Yep! Team Snipers at your service!” Fang bubbled, “I’m Fang!”
“And I’m Stinger!” Stinger followed up.
“And we’re gonna keep these streets safe!” Team Snipers chanted in unison.
This left the members of Team Echoes feeling a little awkward, especially Yumi, who still didn’t fully understand the whole guild team thing, but before Team Snipers could follow up, a shady character walked by, “Should we go check that guy out?” Stinger asked.
“Yeah, I’m getting massive bad guy vibes from that guy.”
The two chased after the shady character, leaving Team Echoes on their own, “What just happened?” Yumi asked.
“I don’t know, but I’d rather not dwell on it.” Rory said.
The group continued on into the city, where they once again passed through the shopping district, this time however instead of being stopped by a passerby the team was stopped by a Drakloak sales-mon, “Ah, greetings travelers, could I interest you in some interesting items I’ve collected?”
“No, because that sounds incredibly vague and uninteresting.” Joseph answered.
“W-wait! Just take a look I swear you won’t be disappointed!”
“Ugh, fiiiine I’ll humor you, but I better be amazed.”
Joseph took a look in the Drakloak’s bag only to find more evidence of Space Time Distortions occurring in the area, only this Drakloak seemed to have much better luck than Joseph did yesterday, among the Drakloak’s wares there were, a few Max Revives, a couple of type gems (including the ever illusive Fairy Gem), a pair of Choice Specs, and finally a Shiny Charm, which would be a really good find if it weren’t for the fact that it’s basically useless in this world.
‘Why can’t I take my eyes off the Shiny Charm?’ Joseph thought, ‘Could it be that the charm is affecting me?’
“You seem to be interested in that weird star thingie.” The Drakloak noted, “Would you like to buy it?”
‘My brain is telling me not to, but I can’t resist it! Eh, screw it, maybe after this is all over I can ask Christian if he can send me on a normal Pokémon journey.’ Joseph decided, “How much is it?”
“8500 Poké.”
“That sounds like a very bad deal.” Rory said.
“That’s a steal! What are you talking about!?” Joseph said as he took the charm and handed Drakloak the Poké in return.
“Pleasure doing business with you!” The Dreepy on the Drakloak’s head chirped.
The Drakloak floated away, making out like a bandit after taking advantage of Joseph’s inability to resist the charm’s strange aura, “Great, we let Cinder do her own thing for a day and we end up getting scammed!” Rory growled.
“Do you even know what that thing is?” Sammy asked.
“It’s a Shiny Charm, a charm with a strange power that attracts shiny Pokémon.” Joseph explained, “Which we just experienced firsthand because I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.”
“What’s a shiny Pokémon?” Yumi asked, “I’ve never heard the professor mention them.”
“They’re just Pokémon that for some reason are a different color than normal.”
“Oh, so that’s why you’re a yellow Shinx.”
“Yeah, I was lucky or something.”
“Well none of that matters right now, what does matter is that you got scammed.” Rory said, “That charm is effectively useless.”
“Yeah, but it’s super rare, and it would look fabulous in my room.”
“It’s just a dinky old charm! How is it rare!?”
“Well in the games I played back home, you only got one of these if you filled out your Pokédex by researching every Pokémon in existence, so getting one for around the price of a Gummi is a steal and a half!”
“Whatever… Let’s just go find the stupid spider cave already.”
The group kept walking through the shopping district until a certain blue-furred dingus bumped into the group again, “Hey! It’s you guys again!” The Shinx from yesterday bubbled.
‘Not again…’ Joseph thought.
The Shinx gasped, “I forgot! Yesterday I didn’t give you my name!”
“Yeah, mainly because nobody asked.” Rory snarked.
“Wow, sassy much?”
“I was just being honest!”
“Well that doesn’t matter, my name is Comet, nice to meet you all!” Comet chirped, “By the way, who are these two?” She asked as she pointed at Yumi and Slippy simultaneously.
“Oh, the Spheal is Slippy, he’s been our friend for a bit, and the Zorua is Yumi, she’s a Pokémon from another world that we met yesterday.” Joseph explained.
“Woah! She’s from another world!?” Comet blurted, “Is she like an alien or something!?”
“U-um, no I’m just not from here, that’s all.” Yumi quavered.
“Oh, so it’s kinda like those books I like reading then, you got taken from your world and you gotta try to make it home, that’s so cool!”
“Y-yeah something like that.”
“You’re even shy like the protagonist from those books!” Comet gushed, “Maybe if we ever finish that invention we were working on, you could pretend to be in that story and become FAMOUS!”
“I-I don’t know if I could handle being famous…”
“Nonsense! You’d be perfect!”
“O-ok, then, I won’t argue with you.”
“Heh if things don’t work out with her, I’m always available, I’m a bit of an actress myself.” Rory butted in.
Comet then proceeded to shoot Rory down with no remorse, “Eh, I’ll believe it when I see it.”
Rory was DEVASTATED, but before she could retort, Comet’s watch beeped, “Oh! My break’s over! I gotta get back to da- I mean Mr. Lumen before he gets all grumpy, See you!”
“Bye!” The group chorused, well except for Rory, who was still recovering from what Comet had to say to her.
As Comet walked off, however, something lingered in her mind, ‘A Pokémon from another world… Didn’t Dad want me to look out for something like that?’
Joseph felt a little less awkward this time, I mean, Comet seemed to be stepping back a little bit, which is good because Joseph was worried that he’d be taking care of eggs before the end of his time here with how things went yesterday, not that he’d actually fall in love with her or anything it’s just a little fear he had in the back of his head.
“I can’t believe she just said that to me!” Rory growled.
“It’s ok, she’s probably not easily convinced, is all.” Sammy said in an attempt to comfort Rory.
“What’s that supposed to mean!?”
“It means, since she hasn’t seen your work, she doesn’t know what to expect.”
“Oh, well I guess that makes sense then…” Rory sighed before changing the topic, “So what do you think that invention she was talking about is?”
“Well if I had to guess, it’s probably a projector or something.” Joseph said, “I mean from what she was saying I feel like she wanted Yumi to star in a movie.”
“What’s a movie?” The group asked in unison.
“Wait, you guys don’t have movies here?” Joseph asked, “Then how were you planning on being an actress, Rory?”
“Uh, we have plays here, they’re not exactly the greatest form of entertainment, but they’re still my favorite, I just wish there was a way to replay a play perfectly.” Rory explained.
“Oh, well that’s kinda what a movie is, it’s kinda like a play that’s saved on a video, and a projector is usually what a movie is played on, a projector is something that shines a light at a wall or something to display a picture or video.”
“Oh, so it kinda makes walls into screens.”
“Sort of.”
“That’s pretty cool, actually! I wonder if I’ll get to pioneer the movie industry.”
“Well if you do, you’ll be able to watch the premiere of your magnum opus with all your friends, just make sure to save me a seat.”
“But wait, what if the premiere happens after you leave?”
“I’ll find a way to come back for the premiere or something, mark my words I will be there!”
“Really!?”
“Mark my words.” Joseph reiterated.
“Alright! I’ll make sure it’s worth your time!” Rory bubbled as she jumped with all the joy in the world.
“Weren’t we supposed to be going to a spider-infested cave or something?” Sammy asked.
“Aren’t you gonna come up with new ways to address the fact we’ve been standing in the same spot for like 12 minutes?” Slippy returned.
“Shoot, got me there…”
“We should get going.” Joseph and Rory agreed.
January 28th, 12:12 pm
Stringy Hollow – Outside
Crystal Continent
The group hesitantly arrived at their destination, once they arrived, they peered into the cave entrance and all (except Yumi) collectively shuttered, “We still sure we wanna do this?” Rory whimpered.
“We have to.” Joseph affirmed.
“I mean we don’t have to we could just tell Cinder that we cleared the place with zero issues whatsoever and that it wasn’t worth our time so we’re looking for a new dungeon to explore.”
“I’M NOT GONNA LET MY FEARS CONTAIN ME FOREVER!” Sammy shouted.
Sammy pulled the scallop shell off of his belly and held it up high as he ran into the dungeon, “Dawww…” Rory whined, “Wait up!”
The rest of the team ran in after Sammy, at first there was absolutely nothing to be afraid of, no spiders, no webs, no nothing, it was just Hollow at this point, the Stringy part of the title was just false advertising, well that was until the group found the stairs which just so happened to be right on top of a giant spider web, oh yeah, and they went down, so the team would be forced to enter the web.
… Or so it seemed.
“Oh, great, we have to enter the web…” Slippy groaned.
“We do?” Yumi asked.
“Yeah, those stairs are our ticket to the next floor of the dungeon.” Joseph explained, “Do be warned though, they’re a bit trippy.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“They like to mess with your head, it’s a little hard to explain, but you’ll know what I mean once we go down them.”
“W-what do you mean, they mess with your head!?”
“Just keep walking down the stairs and you’ll be fine.” Rory assured her.
“O-ok.”
The group began to walk toward the big spider web when Sammy began to feel a bit uneasy, “Uh guys, I’m not sure you should walk on that web.”
“Well, what other options do we have?” Slippy asked.
“You could walk around.”
“But what if there’s a Selfdestruct Trap? Wouldn’t the cave go up in flames?”
“Well maybe but-“
“I think it’s safe, I mean, why would there be a web here if it wasn’t?” Yumi added.
“Because it could be a-“
The team walked forward, disregarding what Sammy was trying to say, this proved to be a grave error as when they stepped on the web it collapsed from underneath them, causing everybody, barring Yumi, to fall much deeper into the dungeon.
“AAAAAAAAAAH!” They all screamed, including Yumi as she expected to fall with the rest of the team.
Once the dust settled, it was just Yumi and Sammy left on the upper floor, “H-huh!?” Yumi squeaked as she looked down, “Why didn’t I fall!?” She asked as she remained floating in the air where the web once was.
Sammy rolled his eyes, “You’re a ghost, remember?”
“O-oh, r-right, I guess that’s another silver lining to this whole thing, I didn’t just fall into a giant pit.”
“Yeah, let’s take advantage of that, get over here and lend me a hand!”
Yumi looked down at her feet, “Uh, I’m not sure how.”
“Well, it can’t be too hard considering you just accidentally started floating.”
Yumi tried taking a step forward, which didn’t go so well, “EEP!” She squealed as she almost toppled over, “N-nope, can’t do it!”
“Crud,” Sammy grunted, “there’s gotta be some way I can get you to safety!”
“Wait, I have an idea!” Yumi shouted, “Just gotta picture it again.”
Yumi pictured the Porygon that had attacked her yesterday, she then shut her eyes and used her illusions to turn into it.
“I don’t think that’s helping you!” Sammy voiced.
“I’m working on it!”
Yumi tried moving her new form, but it wasn’t working, so she dropped it in favor of trying to find a way to float back to safety in her normal form, “Wait, what if I…” She muttered as she leaned forward, this proved to be the right move as she began floating over to Sammy, “I DID IT!”
“Great! Now let’s get going before Rory and the others get eaten by creepy crawlers.”
“Right, but first…” Yumi uttered before trying to lean forward and float again, sure enough, she still floated forward despite the fact that her feet were firmly on the ground, “I can still float, cool! I never want to use my legs again!”
“Congrats? I’m not sure that’s a good thing, though…”
“It is! It means my legs are never gonna get tired again!”
“Yeah, but if you float everywhere, then when it comes time to actually use your legs they’ll be all weak and noodly.”
“Oh, right, I guess I should keep walking then.”
“Good, then let’s get walking down those stairs!”
The pair walked down the stairs so they could chase after their friends, “but how did they survive the fall?” You may be wondering, well…
Meanwhile…
January 28th, 12:20 pm
Stringy Hollow – Spider Pit Depths
Crystal Continent
Joseph, Rory, and Slippy fell for a while before breaking their fall on a web at the bottom of the Spider Pit, “Oh, god are we dead!?” Joseph blurted.
“Nope!” Rory bubbled, “This bouncy spider web saved our lives!”
“THANK YOU SPIDERS!” Slippy shouted at the top of his lungs.
The shout echoed throughout the area for a moment with no response, but then there was a distant cackle, a few moments later, a Galvantula crawled into view, “No sweetie, thank you!” She said.
“Me? But what did I do?”
“You’ve provided our colony with food for months.”
“We have?”
“Yes, fufufufufu you have.”
“But I don’t see the food, is it under us?”
“Fufufufufufufu.” The Galvantula giggled ominously, “No you insolent child, YOU ARE OUR FOOD!”
“We gotta get out of here!” Joseph shouted.
“Not so fast dearie!” The Galvantula screeched as she shot a string stream at the group, tying them up in the most awkward way possible.
“Ugh, Joseph, your tail is in my face!” Rory complained.
“Well, Slippy is currently tied around my leg!” Joseph squealed.
Sure enough, Slippy had been encased in a cocoon around Joseph’s right hind leg, “Mph!” He cried out from within his prison.
“EHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHHEHEHEHEHEH!” The Galvantula cackled once more, “You all look so cute when you’re trapped in my webs.”
“YOU COULDN’T HAVE AT LEAST MADE THIS A LITTLE LESS AWKWARD!?” Rory roared.
“Well my mom always told me not to play with my food, buuuuut she’s dead now so what does it matter? Besides, you’re all going to the same place anyway, that place being our bellies.”
“Our bellies?” Rory challenged, “I only see one of you freaks.”
“Oh, you’re a feisty one, aren’t you? Well, I guess now would be a good time to bring out the rest of the colony.”
Galvantula whistled somehow, alerting the horde, a few moments later the cavern was flooded with spider Pokémon, “Oh, crud…” Joseph muttered.
“You were saying?” Galvantula jeered.
“Whatever, we’re still gonna find a way out of here!” Rory declared.
“Oh right, I forgot to completely remove your chance of doing that, sorry everybody!”
Galvantula walked up to the webbed-up ball of arachnophobes and shot a Thunder Wave at them, paralyzing Rory and Slippy.
“HA! I can’t be paralyzed, idiot!”
That line made Galvantula’s eyes twitch and her blood boil, “What did you just call me!?”
“An idiot, which is what you are!”
“And to think I was going to go easy on you… Oh well, let’s season this one a little early, shall we?”
The group of spiders closed in on Joseph and began spraying him relentlessly with their Toxic attack, poisoning him so badly that he almost passed out on the spot, “Who’s the idiot now?” An Ariados quipped, “Now even if you do make it out of here, you’re not gonna survive to tell the tale, not that you will escape, idiot.”
‘Never have I been more thankful that I’m paralyzed.’ Rory thought to herself, ‘I hope Joseph’s able to tough it out long enough to get treatment, otherwise he might… N-no he’ll be fine, I know he will!’
Joseph was beginning to regret waking up that morning when a little Spinarak descended from the ceiling and landed on his head, “One more for good measure.” He said as he went in for a sting with the horn on his head.
Joseph summoned enough strength to shoot a really pathetic Tera Blast at the Spinarak, knocking him away, “If I survive this whole thing, I’m gonna shove you into my bag and let my friend torch you like the little stain you are…” Joseph rasped as he struggled to keep his eyes open.
“Fine, I’ll hold you to it, but if you don’t make it, I’m gonna eat out your little green eyes.”
January 28th, 12:25 pm
Stringy Hollow – Basement Floor 2
Crystal Continent
Yumi and Sammy continued down the stairs and to the next floor, “You alright Yumi?” Sammy asked as she appeared next to him.
“Y-yeah I’m alright.” Yumi said.
“You don’t sound alright, was it really that scary?”
“I-it’s not that, it’s just, no offense but you still freak me out.”
“I understand.” Sammy said as he nodded his head, “If I’m being honest, I feel the same about you.”
“You do?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, for one thing, you’re a human, which regardless of your intentions still puts us all in danger, but you’re also a ghost which is just a little freaky.”
“Oh… I didn’t realize that I was scaring you too…”
“It’s alright, don’t beat yourself up over it, I can handle it.”
“Uh ok? Do you at least know why you’re afraid of ghosts?”
“Nope, it’s probably a relic of my old life…”
“Your old life?”
“Yeah, I forgot to tell you, but I’m an amnesiac, I can’t remember much about my past…”
“T-that’s terrible!”
“I know… I’ve been trying to move past it, but there are still things I can’t explain, like I’m afraid of ghosts for example.”
“Is there anything else?”
“Well…”
But before Sammy could finish his thoughts, an Ariados dropped down and blocked the path, “Ooooooh more food!” The Ariados said as it licked its lips.
“Crud, time to fight!” Sammy yelled.
“B-but I’m not able to fight!” Yumi whimpered.
“Well you better learn quick snowy, otherwise you’ll become part of our feast!” The Ariados snickered.
Sammy pulled the scallop shell off of his stomach once more and drew an Aqua Cutter blade in his other hand for good measure, “If you hurt her I’ll murder you and all of your freaky, string-spitting friends!” He threatened.
“Oh, will you now? Well, I’d like to see you try!”
The Ariados lunged at Sammy with, well, Lunge, only to be met by his Aqua Cutter, “En garde, you freak.”
And so the battle started properly, Yumi hung back and tried desperately to figure out how to use her attacks, while Sammy and the Ariados clashed attacks until eventually Ariados ended up on top of Sammy.
“Hmph, ’tis a shame.” Ariados scoffed, “You were all talk, and now what, you’re about to die by my stinger, maybe you should’ve left your hero act as just that, an act.”
“Urgh, I’m not gonna lose to you!” Sammy roared as he desperately tried to free himself from Ariados’ grasp.
“Oh, but you are… In fact, I might make that girlie over there watch as I rip, your, head, off!”
“NO, YOU, WON’T!” Yumi shouted as ghostly energy formed around her.
Ariados was overwhelmed by the bitter energy that was overtaking her, the next thing she knew she was toppled over on the floor.
“Sammy NOW!”
“Right!” Sammy nodded, he then ran over to Ariados and slashed her relentlessly with his shell until she passed out.
“Phew…” Yumi sighed before suddenly she felt a sharp pain in her wrist (ankle?), “Ouch! What the-” She whimpered in pain as she looked at her injury, “H-how’d this get here? She didn’t even hit me!”
“Are you hurt!?” Sammy cried out as he ran to Yumi’s side.
“I-I’m fine, it’s just I got a little injury somehow…”
“Here, take this, it should make you feel a bit better.” Sammy said as he passed an Oran Berry to Yumi.
“Thanks!” Yumi bubbled before chowing down on the Oran Berry, she then watched as her wound sealed itself back up.
“By the way, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the move you used before, do you happen to know what it is?”
Yumi thought for a moment, she began to have a flashback to a time when she came face to face with a Zoroark back home, it used the same move and even suffered the same injury afterward, she then realized what had happened, she pulled out her Pokédex and flipped to Zoroark’s page, “Bitter Malice…” She muttered, “I must’ve hurt myself with all my anger…”
“What?”
“I used Bitter Malice, it’s a move only Zorua and Zoroark can learn, it’s a nasty attack that often hurts the user if they put too much hatred into it.”
“Wait, that move… We saw it for sale on a TM yesterday, Porygon2 said it wasn’t supposed to be there, so you know that move?”
“Apparently… I think when I saw you get pinned by that Pokémon it made me angry and that attack just kinda… Came out…”
“Well we shouldn’t dwell on it for too long, let’s just keep moving.”
The pair kept trekking until they found the next set of stairs, which they hastily ran down in order to regroup with the rest of the team.
Speaking of the rest of the team…
Meanwhile…
January 28th, 12:40 pm
Stringy Hollow – Spider Pit Depths
Crystal Continent
Most of the spiders that were holding the prisoners hostage were gone, probably preparing something, meanwhile, Galvantula was mocking them by sprinkling salt and pepper onto Rory’s head like they were in a cartoon, “Hm, hm, hm, just further seasoning my dinner for tonight.” She hummed, “It’s gonna be so tasty!”
‘Oh how I wish I could shoot a Vacuum Wave right at her smarmy little face right now…’ Rory thought to herself.
“Ugh… This is worse than that time I ran a really high fever…” Joseph gagged, “I feel like I’m gonna throw up for like an hour straight…”
Galvantula turned the ball of string over and slapped Joseph in the face with one of her legs, “Shut up, or I’ll glue your mouth shut with my string!” She demanded.
“Gross…”
January 28th, 12:40 pm
Stringy Hollow – Basement Floor 3
Crystal Continent
Yumi and Sammy continued down the stairs and arrived at the third basement floor, “So what were you going to say before that Pokémon ambushed us?” Yumi asked.
“It’s nothing…”
“It isn’t nothing! You said it was something about how after you got amnesia, there were things you just couldn’t explain.”
“I can’t explain why I said that.”
“Come on there has to be more to it than that!”
Sammy sighed, “If I tell you this, do you promise to keep it a secret?”
“Oh, it’s like that, uh, ok, I won’t tell anyone.”
“Ok, then, but just know if you tell anyone, I’ll never forgive you, you understand?”
“Y-yeah, I understand.”
“Alright then, ever since I became an amnesiac I’ve been sticking with my friends and one of those friends was my friend before I lost my memory, but something I can’t explain is… Why do I have this massive crush on her?”
“Excuse me!?”
“Ever since this all started, I haven’t been able to keep Rory off my mind, she said that we’ve been friends for so long, but why do I feel like there’s more to it than that? Why do I feel like I love her?”
Yumi was caught off guard, “I have no clue how to even answer that…”
“S-sorry, I probably shouldn’t be asking you about this, I mean, you literally just showed up yesterday and now you’re hearing an amnesiac Oshawott go on about his love life…”
“W-wait, maybe… Maybe it’s because you didn’t fully lose your memory.”
“Huh?”
“What I mean is maybe your brain is still holding on to your memories with her, it’s just you can’t see them.”
“That’s… Maybe you’re right… But then what do I do? Do I confess my feelings? Or do I just wait for a better opportunity?”
Yumi racked her brain for an answer to that question when suddenly she remembered an old book she read, ‘That guy… He loved that girl with all his heart… But he was too shy to say it… And then…’ Her answer was clear, “Don’t let the opportunity slip, there’s no guarantee you’ll have another shot, just confess, see how things go, and go from there.”
“But what if she rejects me?”
“Then either she’s just like you, scared of confessing her love, or things just weren’t meant to be, but no matter what, I think you should confess to her while you still have the chance, I mean the world is ending after all, so you might not get another shot.”
“I-I just don’t know though… It’s only been a week since we formed this whole team and whatnot-“
“None of that matters, if your brain is still holding on to your love for Rory, then I think that means your love goes further back than that.”
“R-right, I think… I think once we’re all done here, I’ll confess.”
“Alright, just know that if things don’t go so well, I’m there for you, ok?”
“Ok.”
The pair continued walking through the spider-infested wastes that this cave had to offer until they reached another set of stairs that was being guarded by a lone Joltik who was currently bawling all four (yes four) of his eyes out, “I just want to go on an adventure… Is that too much to ask for?” The Joltik wept.
“Is something wrong?” Yumi asked.
“EEP!” The Joltik shrieked as he jumped up high, “W-who are you!?”
“Relax, we’re not gonna hurt you as long as you don’t hurt us.” Sammy assured him.
“Phew… I thought you were gonna hurt me…”
“I wouldn’t do that to a crying Pokémon, it would only make things worse for them.”
“Aw… That’s sweet.”
“What’s wrong, little guy?” Yumi asked.
“Well I finally told my mom I wanted to go out on an adventure, but she shot me down… She was all like, ‘You need to wait here and help us trap foolish ground dwellers.’ which is so stupid, like can’t we just eat normal food!?”
“Wait, so you guys eat Pokémon from the surface!?” Sammy blurted.
“Well, we would if anyone actually fell into the pit.”
“Crap…” Yumi and Sammy groaned in unison.
“Wait, don’t tell me one of your friends fell into the pit!”
“It was more like three friends, but yeah they did.” Sammy explained.
“It would’ve been four if I wasn’t a ghost.” Yumi added.
“W-wait, you’re a ghost!?” The Joltik quavered.
“Yes I am, but don’t worry I won’t possess you or anything, I don’t even know how to yet.”
“Oh, well just promise me you won’t use me as a test dummy to try and learn how to possess other Pokémon ok?”
“Oh, don’t sweat it, I already have someone in mind for that.”
“You do!?” Sammy blurted.
“Yeah, and her name is Cinder, I’m gonna get back at her for making that joke about me and Joseph going on a date.”
“Oh, I see, well try not to make her look too stupid, ok?”
“Ok.”
“So, do you two want me to help you get your friends back?” The Joltik asked
“That would be amazing- uh, what’s your name?”
“I wasn’t given one… that’s just how much my mom cares about me…”
“Can I call you Watt, then?” Sammy asked.
“Absolutely! That’s the perfect name for a Joltik like me!”
“Well alright Watt, let’s get going, we need to save our friends!”
“Right!” Watt shouted with a salute, “Let’s go save those poor souls!”
January 28th, 12:55 pm
Stringy Hollow – Spider Pit Depths
Crystal Continent
The duo-turned-trio continued down the stairs to the final floor of the dungeon, only to catch a glimpse of Galvantula who was holding the rest of their teammates above a pot of boiling liquid.
“HEY! YOU LET OUR FRIENDS GO!” Sammy shouted.
“What’s this now?” Galvantula asked, “Is that the sound of more ingredients walking into our stew?”
“Sammy…” Joseph rasped, “H-help…”
“Good Arceus! Joseph, you look horrible!”
“I know… Just… Help… Us…” Joseph said before finally passing out.
“Hold on! We’re coming!”
The trio ran forward and faced Galvantula, “MOM! STOP THIS AT ONCE!” Watt shouted.
“Oh, it’s you.” Galvantula mocked, “You finally decided to make yourself useful, huh?”
“No, I’m not helping you, this is sadistic and against the law and I’m here to put an end to it!”
“Oh, how unfortunate, and to think I’d finally love you for something…”
“That’s messed up!” Yumi shouted, “Why would you say something like that to your own son!?”
“Because I mean it, he’s the worst mistake I’ve made in my life.”
Watt started to lose control until finally, he let out a barbaric scream, “AAAAAAAARRGH!” He boomed as he lunged at his mother and latched onto her face.
“AUGH!” Galvantula growled as she tried to swipe him off of her face, “Get off of me you useless twerp!”
Eventually, Galvantula managed to fling Watt off of her face, only to have Sammy’s scallop in her face immediately after, “You’re not gonna get away with that!” Sammy roared as he slashed her right between the eyes.
“ENOUGH!” Galvantula shouted as she smacked Sammy aside.
“You’re gonna regret that!” Yumi growled as ghostly energy enveloped her.
Just like Ariados before her, Galvantula was bombarded by an explosion of bitter energy, “ARGH! What the hell was that!?”
This time, Yumi didn’t hurt herself with her attack so she was able to deliver a quip, “It’s what everybody feels when they look at your ugly face, hatred.”
Galvantula shivered, “W-why is it so cold?”
“You of all Pokémon should know that negative emotions are the coldest ones!” Sammy shot back.
“Shut up moron! I’ll kill you and wear your little scallop shell as a hat!”
Yumi went to use Bitter Malice again when she felt a strange energy, she decided to unleash this energy instead, creating stars around her, she proceeded to shoot the stars at Galvantula, knocking her back a bit, “Huh, that’s a new one.” She remarked after hitting her target dead on.
Galvantula turned her attention to Yumi, “Oh you must think you’re so smart, don’t you, well I’m gonna prove you wrong!”
Galvantula swiped at Yumi with the claw on one of her legs, “EEP!” Yumi squealed as she braced for impact.
“Huh!?” Galvantula blurted as her claw went straight through Yumi without causing any harm, “Why didn’t that do anything to you!?”
“Because she’s a ghost!” Sammy shouted, “Normal and Fighting moves don’t affect her, so your Slash had no effect!”
“ERGH, I’m gonna make you pay for being dead!” Galvantula shouted as she turned back toward Yumi.
“How does that even work?” Yumi asked.
“It doesn’t matter!” Galvantula roared, “Take thi-” She said before getting clocked on the head by Sammy’s shell, causing her to collapse.
“We did it!” Yumi celebrated.
“We can’t celebrate just yet.” Sammy said, “We still gotta save our friends and get out of here!”
“Right!”
Sammy and Yumi ran over to where their friends were being held and knocked over the pot of liquid, after that was dealt with, Watt cut the string that was holding the trio up in the air, dropping them down to safety, once they were safely on the ground, Sammy slashed the string that was binding them together, freeing them, but something was still wrong.
Joseph hit the floor like a spaghetti noodle, while Rory tried her best to break through her paralysis to break her fall but she couldn’t so she face-planted, oh yeah and Slippy kinda just bounced off his belly, but he would’ve done that even if he wasn’t paralyzed.
“Crud, Joseph’s out cold and Rory and Slippy are paralyzed.” Sammy said with a frown.
Yumi pulled out two Cheri Berries, “I’ve got them covered, you help out Joseph!” She commanded.
“Right!”
Sammy ran over to Joseph and fed him a Reviver Seed, the seed took a few seconds to kick in, but once it did Joseph slowly opened his eyes, “Ugh… I feel like trash… Am I dead yet?”
“You’re fine.” Sammy said, “It might be from all the Venom Drench attacks you took from all of those Ariados.”
“I thought they were all using Toxic…”
“One of them probably did while the rest used Venom Drench, don’t worry though, you’ll feel much better once we get out of here.”
“I don’t know if I’ll make it considering how I feel right now…”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got you!” Watt said as he hopped on top of Joseph’s head.
“Get it off! GET IT OFF!” Joseph squealed.
“He’s fine, he won’t hurt you.” Sammy explained, “Poor guy’s a victim of child abuse.”
“Oh… Never mind then… You can stay up there as long as you want little guy.”
“Thanks, that makes things a little easier for me.” Watt said.
“So what are you doing up there anyway?”
“This!” Watt chirped before dropping a White Herb on Joseph’s head.
The herb hit Joseph like a shot of adrenaline, instantly revitalizing him fully, “Woah! How’d you do that?”
“It’s a White Herb, I stole it from my mom’s collection of cooking ingredients.”
“Oh, maybe Specter was wrong then, maybe crime is a little cool!”
“Eh, it also almost got you killed, so I guess that evens things out.”
The other tortured souls ate their Cheri Berries and recovered from their paralysis, after eating her Cheri Berry, Rory immediately curled up into a ball on the floor, “I never want to see a spider Pokémon ever again in my entire life.”
Unfortunately, as if on cue, all of the spider Pokémon from earlier began creeping back into view, “OUR DINNER IS ESCAPING!” A Spidops called out.
So there the group was, surrounded by an army of spiders with no feasible way out, that is until Slippy had an idea, “I’m gonna use Powder Snow to try and freeze as many of them as I can, you guys take out whatever’s left after that, got it?”
“Got it!” The group chorused.
“Good, now LET’S DO THIS!”
Slippy took a deep breath before letting out a flurry of Powder Snow all around the group, he ended up freezing a little over half of the spider Pokémon, the rest of the team began taking out spider Pokémon left and right while Slippy recovered from his attack, the group was doing pretty well until eventually, “Did you fools really think you were finished with me!?” Galvantula shouted.
“She’s awake!?” Yumi blurted.
“Not for long, she’s not!” Slippy shouted.
Slippy covered himself in ice and rolled toward Galvantula, striking her head on a few times before getting knocked away by one of her swipes, she then followed up by shooting a web of electrically charged string at Slippy, shocking him and holding him in place, “There, now STAY PUT!” Galvantula shouted.
Rory hit Galvantula with a Vacuum Wave in retaliation, “Keep your gross string off of me and my friends!”
“How about no?” Galvantula said as she shot more string at Rory.
Sammy knocked the string away from Rory with his Water Gun, “How about yes.”
“I hate you and your ugly freckles!” Galvantula jeered.
This ticked Sammy off beyond belief, “What did you just say about my freckles?”
“They’re ugly and out of place!”
Sammy shot a Water Gun directly into Galvantula’s eyes, he then used this to close the gap, as he approached Galvantula he drew an Aqua Cutter blade in his left hand and his shell in his right, “YOU’RE UGLY AND OUT OF PLACE!” He roared before slashing Galvantula until she fainted, for real this time.
“Well that takes care of that!” Rory bubbled, “Let’s get out of this place!”
But before the group could leave, all of the previously frozen spiders thawed out and began moving toward the group, “Aw great, it never ends!” Joseph raged.
Just as the spiders crawled close to the group, something peculiar started happening, a bright light enveloped Sammy, blinding everyone for a moment, once the light had dispersed a Dewott stood where Sammy once stood, “GO AWAY!” Sammy roared as his evolution finished.
“EEK!” A Tarountula screamed.
“He’s evolved!” A Dewpider exclaimed.
“Let’s get out of here!” The other spiders cried out.
The spiders all ran for their lives, leaving Team Echoes in peace at the bottom of the pit, the members of Team Echoes all ran over to Sammy as quickly as they could, “Sammy!” Rory yelled.
“W-what!? Is something on my face!?” Sammy blurted.
“You’ve got a whole new face now bud!” Joseph added.
“Wait I do!? How’d that happen!?”
“You evolved!” Slippy bubbled.
“Wait I did!?” Sammy burst before checking out his new body, “Holy crap, I did!”
“You’re not upset, are you?” Rory asked.
“Of course not, I have two shells now!” Sammy chirped as he lifted both of his shells up into the air, “Plus, I think I’m taller than you now.”
“Are you?”
“Let’s find out!”
Sammy sheathed his shells and walked over to Rory, the two of them put their backs up against each other and Joseph judged their height, “Sammy’s like half a foot taller than you Rory.”
“He is!? That’s awesome!” Rory burst.
“You’re not mad about it?” Sammy asked.
“Why would I be!? You’re like my closest friend! I’m happy for you!” Rory said as she hugged Sammy.
Sammy blushed a little bit under his fur, “Thank you.” He said as he returned the hug.
Yumi cleared her throat, “Not to ruin the moment, but shouldn’t we be getting out of here?”
“R-right.” The two little lovebirds said as they broke their hug.
The group went to leave the cave when suddenly they heard a tiny scream, “REVENGE!” A Spinarak said as it stung Yumi in the back.
“Ouch!” Yumi said as a tear came to her eye, “Something pinched my back!”
“AHAHAHHAHA, you FOOL, you’re gonna succumb to my venom!” The Spinarak cackled before getting grabbed by Joseph.
“Well a deal’s a deal little buddy, prepare to catch the smoke, literally.” Joseph quipped.
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-” The Spinarak screamed as Joseph stuffed it into his bag.
“Sucker.”
“You ok Yumi?” Sammy asked.
“I’m fine.” She assured him, “It was more like a tiny pinch than anything.”
“Good, it shouldn’t really be anything more than that with that Pecha Scarf you’ve got there.”
“Right, it couldn’t have poisoned me.”
Joseph peered into the bag, “You hear that little guy? You’re pathetic and your attempt to get revenge was in vain.”
Watt jumped down from Joseph’s head and landed on the top of the bag before blowing a raspberry at the Spinarak, “I’ll sting you pipsqueak!” The Spinarak shouted.
“Oh, will you now?” Watt challenged before shooting a Thunder Wave at the Spinarak, “Well good luck with that!”
‘Drat, I was gonna try to eat all this guy’s stuff, but now I can’t!’ The Spinarak lamented, ‘Curses!’
“Alright, let’s get out of here so Cinder can torch this little guy.” Joseph said.
And so the team left the Stringy Hollow having conquered their fear of spiders while also being given enough nightmare fuel to last them the next 23748278462378462786473267248364782 years.
January 28th, 2:30 pm
Crystal Capital – Shopping District
Crystal Continent
The team walked back into town peacefully before Joseph noticed something, “Wait Yumi, how didn’t you fall down into the pit with us?” He asked.
“Oh, I uh, learned how to float.” Yumi answered, “See look.”
Yumi stopped walking and started floating forward to demonstrate, “Woah! That’s cool!” Joseph exclaimed.
“It is! And if it weren’t for the fact that my legs would get all weak I’d just never walk again, floating is so much better.”
“So how’d you learn how to do it?” Rory asked.
“Well when the web gave out I was just left floating in the air, then I tried leaning forward to get back to Sammy, which worked!”
“Cool!”
Midway through the conversation, Joseph’s watch began vibrating, “Cinder’s calling us.” He announced.
“She’s what?” Yumi asked, not knowing about modern technology.
“Here just watch.” Joseph said as he lifted his watch up and picked up the call, “What’s up Cinder?”
“Nothing much, we just got done with our training session.” Cinder explained, “It went pretty well as far as I’m concerned.”
“Oh really?” Sammy asked, “Well it couldn’t have gone better than ours.”
“Why did something happen?”
“You’ll see when we get back.”
“Uh, ok?”
“Anyway, we were just heading back now, is that alright or do you want us to get a bit more training in?” Joseph asked.
“It’s fine, I mean I feel like Yumi should definitely try to learn how to be a ghost but it’s not like we can speed up the process at all.”
“Oh, well you’ll be pleasantly surprised when we get back.”
“Wait really!? She was able to learn something!?”
“Yeah, at our expense…” Slippy sighed.
“Did she possess one of you!?”
“No.” Joseph clarified, “She just… Made all of us a bit jealous, that’s all.”
“Oh, that’s strange… How’d she do that?”
“You’ll see when we get back.”
“Ok then, well hurry back so we can share what we’ve accomplished I guess.”
“Alright! We’ll see you later!”
“Bye!”
Joseph hung up the call and looked back at his friends, “Well I guess we should get going then.”
“Alright, but first can we check out that Dracloak’s wares again?” Slippy asked, “I wanna see if he has anything rare.”
“Alright, but promise not to get scammed, ok?”
“Ok.”
So the group went on a search for Drakloak, they searched all around the shopping district for them to no avail, that is until they found a strange store in a back ally, the weird part though was that the whole back ally was filled with stores, so either there were a lot of shady individuals who just so happened to be shopkeepers in Crystal Capital, or this alley was a hidden shopping district within a shopping district, “Oh hey it’s you fellows.” Drakloak greeted, “You’ve come to check out my other wares I see.”
“Yup! I wanna see if there’s anything rare in your inventory!” Slippy bubbled.
“Oh it’s all rare, some of these items I’ve never even seen before, which makes them a little hard to sell given the fact I don’t know what to call them nor what they do.” Drakloak said with a frown, “I often have a hard time pricing any of this stuff because of that.”
“Where do you get all of this?” Joseph asked.
“I just kinda find it lying around, which sounds sketchy, I know, but usually I find it just lying around in the strangest of places.”
“There’s a set of books here!” Slippy mentioned as he pointed at a couple of books that had brown leather covers over them to keep them safe.
“Yeah, they’re a bit strange, so strange in fact that nobody seems to be able to read them, and the drawings in the book are equally strange.”
“How much are the books?”
“Uh… I think 200 Poké sounds reasonable, normal books only sell for around 500, but these two are illegible so they might as well be a collection of strange pictures.”
“I’ll take them!” Slippy bubbled once more as he pulled out 200 Poké.
“Thanks!” The Dreepy on Drakloak’s head cheered, “Those books were really creeping me out, so I’m glad someone finally took them off our hands.”
“You’re welcome! I’ll make sure to keep them safe in case they are actually super important or something.”
“Is there anything else you lot find interesting?” Drakloak asked.
The group scanned the items, almost nobody knew what anything was except for Joseph and Yumi, Joseph recognized almost every item in the shop while Yumi only recognized the items that she had seen in Hisui, in the shop there was, A Dynamax Band (Which was utterly useless due to the lack of power spots in this world), a few Seeds of Mastery (Which were also useless due to there being nobody capable of training Pokémon to master their moves), a piece of Fightinium Z (Which was useless because there was not Z-Power Ring to power them), and Some Dynamax Candy (Which was useless because… I think you’re starting to see the point).
The group was about to leave when they noticed something actually interesting, it seemed to be some strange device that was designed to be worn over the user’s hand, shoulder, and arm, “What’s that?” Sammy asked.
“I don’t know but I need it!” Rory exclaimed.
“Uh, I’m not sure it’s any use to us.” Joseph said.
“I don’t care! It looks so cool!”
“Fair point.”
“So, how much is it?”
“10000 Poké.” Drakloak disclosed, “Do we have a deal?”
“Hm… Let me think about it…”
Rory thought about buying the machine for a moment before Joseph butted in, “Deal!” He exclaimed before handing over the Poké.
“Hey! I was gonna get that!”
“I’m buying it for you.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Because for one thing if that’s what I think it is it’s probably better off with us, but also it’s super sick and I can’t stand the thought of leaving it here.”
“Uh, ok? You care to explain?”
Joseph looked at Drakloak and the little Dreepy on his head before saying, “Later.”
“Oh, I got you.”
“Thank you all so much for your patronage!” Drakloak bubbled as he handed over the device.
Rory immediately slipped the device onto her arm and stared at it for a moment, “Dang, this thing makes it look like I got my arm chopped off and replaced with a robot one doesn’t it?”
“Yeah it really does!” Sammy exclaimed, “I’m surprised that thing even fits you though.”
“Are you trying to say I’ve got big arms or something?”
“Uh, well no but…”
“I get it, I have muscles, you don’t gotta tell me that.”
“It’s not that it’s just that thing looks a little big, so I thought it wouldn’t fit.”
“Oh, well it does, so I guess you were just fretting over nothing.”
“Can we save this conversation for later?” Slippy asked, “I wanna crack these books open!”
“Alright, let’s get going then.” Joseph said.
“Where are we going?” Watt asked.
“We have a base in the Coast Continent where we live together and work together on our guild work.”
“That sounds cool, but I think I want to find my own place.”
“I understand.” Rory said, “It’s getting a bit cramped in there anyway.”
“Do you still want to go to the Coast Continent with us?” Joseph asked.
“Yeah, I mean, I would love to be as far away from this place as possible in case my mom tries to come repossess me or something.” Watt replied.
“Alright, let’s go catch the ferry and go back then.”
January 28th, 4:15 pm
Team Echoes’ Base
Coast Continent
The group rode the ferry back home and after waving goodbye to Watt they ran to their base, once they entered the base they were met by Flint and Stumpy who were laughing and having a good time, “Y’know I think I was a bit too hard on you at first, I think you’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” Flint said.
“You aren’t too bad either, I mean you’re pretty funny when you’re not all stressed out.” Stumpy replied.
“You really liked my jokes!?”
“Yeah! I don’t understand why Cinder was making a big stink about them the whole time.”
“I guess she just doesn’t like puns.”
“Guess not…” Stumpy said as he turned his attention to Joseph and the gang, “Oh Joseph, you’re back!”
“Yup!” Joseph chirped, “I’m in one piece too!”
“Well that’s great! How’d the training go?”
“It could’ve gone a bit better… Rory, Slippy, and I got trapped by a whole bunch of spiders, who tried to eat us, while Sammy and Yumi had to come and bail us out.”
“Oh, that’s not great…” Stumpy sighed, “Well at least you’re ok.”
“Pfft, speak for yourself Joseph, I evolved!” Sammy interjected.
Stumpy looked at Sammy and immediately realized something was off, he then ran over to Sammy and picked him up by the torso, “WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DID YOU DO WITH SAMMY!?” He burst.
“I just told you, I evolved! It’s me, Sammy!” Sammy shouted as Stumpy shook him violently.
“No you’re not! I mean you look kinda like him with those shells you have but you definitely are not him!”
Sammy was desperately thinking of a way to get out of this situation alive when Cinder walked into the room and bailed him out, “SAMMY!? IS THAT YOU!?” She blurted.
“Yeah, it’s me I evolved during our training today!” Sammy responded.
“Don’t believe his lies!” Stumpy exclaimed, “He’s only pretending to be Sammy!”
“Stumpy calm down, it’s him.” Joseph said, “The guy nearly blinded me earlier with his evolution light show.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard the evolution glow can be a bit much.” Cinder added.
“So wait, you mean to tell me you watched Sammy become this… Thing?”
“Yes! I’m a Dewott now!” Sammy bubbled.
“Is that a good thing?”
“Yeah! I’m a bit stronger now!”
“Oh, cool!”
“So, can you put me down now?”
“O-oh, uh yeah sorry man…”
Stumpy placed Sammy down and awkwardly rubbed the back of his head with a hand, Cinder then cleared her throat, “So you said something about Yumi learning about being a ghost?”
“Yeah! I did!” Yumi chirped, “We tried to walk over a huge spider web when it collapsed out from underneath us.”
“Yeah all of us fell except for Sammy and Yumi.” Rory explained, “Sammy was smart and stayed back while Yumi discovered that she could float.”
“Really!?” Cinder blurted, “Can you replicate it!?”
“Yeah, just watch!” Yumi chirped before floating in circles, “My legs are useless! Well sort of anyway…”
“That’s so cool!” Stumpy exclaimed, “Maybe if you float toward a wall, something will happen.”
“Huh? Toward a wall?”
“Yeah! Just try floating into the wall, trust me!”
“Uh ok…”
Yumi floated over to one of the walls in the base before pausing, ‘I hope I don’t just smack my face into the wall, that would be painful.’ She thought to herself, ‘Enough stalling! If it hurts, it hurts, but if it doesn’t and I go through this wall, then I’m basically set for life! Or death rather, I’m still not even sure if I’m technically alive right now…’
Yumi shook her head to shut off her thoughts, she then floated closer to the wall, “NO REGRETS!” She shouted as she sped up and floated into the wall.
To Yumi’s surprise, she didn’t feel a massive head pain after bashing straight into the wall, instead, all she felt was a bit of dizziness and disorientation, when she recovered from those feelings she noticed what could only be described as cult activities going on in the room that she had entered, Tiny was telling her underlings about how strong they would be if they all merged when they all suddenly looked back at Yumi, catching Tiny’s attention as well, “Oh, hello stranger!” Tiny chirped, “I swear this isn’t what it looks like.”
“Uh, did I hit my head too hard?” Yumi asked in confusion.
“I think you just phased through the wall.” One of Tiny’s Meltan underlings said.
“O-oh, uh, sorry about that… I guess I’ll just leave you to do… Whatever you’re doing here…”
“Cool, thanks for stopping by I guess!” Tiny bubbled as she gave a tiny™ wave.
Yumi went back through the wall with an awkward expression on her face, “You just phased through a wall!” Cinder chirped before noticing the expression on Yumi’s face, “Uh, are you ok?”
“Are you guys aware of any cult activity going on around here?” Yumi asked.
The members of Team Echoes all looked at each other and said, “Yep, that was Tiny.” In unison.
“Tiny?”
“Yeah, Tiny is a bit of a weirdo.” Stumpy said.
“Look who’s talking.” Flint interjected.
“Right, back at you bud.” Stumpy shot back.
“Touché, I guess that’s why we became such good friends so quickly.”
“Wait, you two are already friends!?” Yumi blurted.
“Yup! It’s like I said, friendship spreads fast around here.” Stumpy said with a smile.
“Well that’s great, at least Flint isn’t going to try to kill everyone here…” Yumi said as she rolled her eyes.
“Hey, he doesn’t want to kill me anymore either!” Cinder interjected, “Mainly because I taught Stumpy something today.”
“Oh right! I completely forgot about that!” Stumpy exclaimed, “Joseph, do you have anything flammable?”
“Oh do I!” Joseph laughed.
January 28th, 4:21 pm
Team Echoes’ Base – Outside
Coast Continent
Stumpy, Cinder, and Joseph stepped outside for a moment, Joseph then set the captured Spinarak down in the grass, “Alright, that little stain is your target, BURN HIM TO A CRISP!” Joseph shouted.
“Hold on, I have a few questions.” Cinder voiced, “Did this guy hurt you or something?”
“Yes, er, well, he tried to anyway.”
“Second, how did you get that little thing to stay in your bag?”
“I had help from a friend.”
“Ok…? Next question-“
“No more questions!” Stumpy shouted as he let out a massive Flamethrower right at the Spinarak causing it to squeal a little, once the smoke cleared, the Spinarak was out cold.
Joseph walked over to the Spinarak and kicked it as far as he could, “I think that takes care of things.”
“What is your deal with that Spinarak!?” Cinder blurted.
“His family tried to eat us, they also poisoned me so badly that I passed out.”
“Oh, he kinda deserves it then.”
“I would mock him further, but he’s out cold, so there’s no point.”
“Isn’t that a bit harsh?”
“I mean, if a spider mocked you and tried stinging you while you were really badly poisoned and bound by spider string web crap, wouldn’t you want to make its life hell?”
“True, I’m sorry I sent you guys there, I didn’t think things would go so badly for you…”
“It’s fine, I mean it might’ve been pretty bad at first, but Sammy evolved and Yumi learned how to float, so was it really that bad in the end?”
“But what about you?” Stumpy asked, “Aren’t you gonna have nightmares for weeks because of that?”
“I’ll be fine, besides we were bound to have some sort of hardship at some point, I mean we’re trying to save the world here!”
“True… I just hope that I’m not stuck in a situation like that going forward…”
“Well speaking from experience, you’re probably going to.” Cinder interjected, “The only thing you can really do about it is prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”
“That stinks, I don’t want to become spider food.”
Joseph tried to put a paw on Stumpy’s shoulder but realized it was too high up so he settled for his knee instead, “You’ll be fine, we probably won’t have a run-in with carnivorous spiders again.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that considering you kidnapped one of their children so that we could torch them.” Cinder pointed out.
“Well, technically we kidnapped two of their kids, but one of them was being abused by his mother, so it’s more like we repossessed one and kidnapped the other.”
“That makes things worse! What if they come here and try to kill you again!?”
“Eh, we’ll be fine, we have the home-field advantage here, so even if they try to kill us we’ll still probably come out on top.”
“Good point, I guess that’s why they were able to pin you guys like that, they just had the home-field advantage.”
“Can we go back inside now?” Stumpy asked, “I’m a bit tired from all the walking we did today.”
“Alright, let’s get going.” Cinder said.
The trio walked back inside but on their way back in, Rory and Sammy passed by them, the pair were heading on a walk together, ‘Ok Sammy, it’s now or never.’ Sammy told himself as he walked beside Rory.
“It’s a pretty beautiful day out, I’m glad we had time to appreciate it.” Rory said, “It certainly beats that dank, ugly cave we were in earlier.”
Sammy laughed awkwardly, “Yeah, you can say that again.”
Rory turned to face Sammy and began to walk backward, “Is something up?”
“O-oh, it’s nothing, I was just thinking about how you hugged me earlier.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I should’ve asked first…”
“It’s fine…” Sammy said before blanking on what to say next, ‘Crud, how do I not make it obvious that I have a crush on her?’ He asked himself before coming up with an excuse, “I was a bit chilly anyway.”
“Oh, well you’re welcome then.”
“Thanks Rory.”
“So, what do you want to talk about?”
“I’m uh, not entirely sure…”
“Really!? I thought you said you had something you really wanted to tell me!”
“Well it’s a little… Complicated to say the least…”
“Well, I’ll probably understand what you’re saying as long as it’s not anything super weird.”
“Well, I’m not exactly sure if you’re exactly the best Pokémon to be telling this…”
“Then why did you want to tell me specifically about it?”
Sammy was beginning to sweat bullets, this was clearly not going as smoothly as he had planned and it was mostly his fault for not just going for broke, “Uh… Well in hindsight it sounded like a good idea but the more I thought about it-“
Thankfully for Sammy’s nerves, the pair were greeted by an odd, yet familiar face who was out on a walk, “Oh hey you two!” Gimmighoul called out as he ran over to the duo.
“Oh hey, Gimmighoul!” Sammy returned, “Where’s your chest?”
“Oh, I left it in my room, I usually do that while I’m looking for coins.”
“So that chest isn’t attached to your body?” Rory asked.
“Nope, I’m free to ditch it and enter my roaming form at any time, although I do have to make sure I carry a coin with me at all times.”
“Why’s that?”
“No idea, all I know is that I have to.”
“So what’s so special about those coins anyway?” Sammy asked, “And what’s in it for us if we find some for you?”
“The coins are literally the most important thing to ever exist, like ever.”
“Ok…? That doesn’t answer my question.”
“I NEED to collect enough coins to fill the chest, I can’t explain why, but if I can, it’ll make me the happiest Pokémon alive.”
“Ok, but why do we need to collect these coins?” Rory asked, “What’s in it for us?”
“Well as I told you, I have some pretty good stuff if you can manage to bring me some coins, as for what that stuff is, I found some weird stuff in that attic that I can give away, I mean Lanturn said he doesn’t mind.”
“Could you like… Show us what you’re talking about?”
“Sure, just follow me!”
January 28th, 4:40 pm
SurfSpark Guild – Attic
Coast Continent
Rory and Sammy entered the attic with Gimmighoul, once in the attic Gimmighoul started rummaging around until eventually he pulled out a chest that looked like the one he stores all his coins only it was like twenty times bigger, “Alright, everything in there is up for grabs, you just gotta give me the coins for them.” Gimmighoul clarified, “If you find something you want just show it to me and we can begin negotiating the price.”
Rory and Sammy began digging through the chest, it was mostly filled with Poké, but there were a few interesting items in the chest, “What’s this marble-looking thingie?” Sammy asked.
“I feel like I’ve seen one of those somewhere before.” Rory commented, “Maybe it was in a dream or something?”
Sammy showed the marble to Gimmighoul, it was bright yellow with a bit of blue and red in the center, “Ah, that thing, yeah Lanturn said he picked those up when he visited the Mega Crater one time, there’s a whole bunch of them in there, I don’t exactly know what they are, but considering where they come from, they might have something to do with Mega Evolution.”
“Wait, that’s where I’ve seen these!” Rory exclaimed, “They’re Mega Stones!”
“So you’re saying you’ve seen a Mega Stone before!?” Sammy blurted.
“Yeah! My parents showed me one when I was a baby, only theirs was orange with dark blue and blood-red in the center.”
“I think I have one of those in there.” Gimmighoul said, “You might have to dig for it though.”
“Wait really!?” Rory blurted before rummaging through the chest urgently, sure enough, she managed to find a stone with that description in the chest, “How many coins do you want for this?”
“Woah, calm down, it’s just a stone.”
“You don’t understand, we kinda need this stone, well if it’s what we think it is anyway…”
“Oh, I get it, well for the low, low price of 15 Gimmighoul coins it’s yours.”
“15!?” Sammy gasped, “That’s a lot!”
“We haven’t even found one yet!” Rory added.
“Well you better start looking or else this stone’s gonna end up in someone else’s hands.” Gimmighoul said.
“Crud… Well, at least we know where one is…” Sammy sighed.
“Could you like hold onto it for us?” Rory asked, “I’d rather not have to dig for it again.”
“Alright.” Gimmighoul said, “But if someone else buys it, it’s not my problem.”
“Thanks Gimmighoul!” Sammy and Rory chirped in unison.
“You’re welcome.” Gimmighoul returned, “Good luck finding those coins.”
Rory and Sammy exited the attic, but while they were going down the stairs, a certain Vulpix kit ran past them, moments later Cloak was running up the stairs after him, “Blair! You’re not allowed up here!” She shouted.
Sammy looked over at Rory, “What do you think that was about?”
“No clue.” Rory replied, “But considering it’s Blair, he’s probably just up to his usual mischief.”
“Well I think we should head back now.”
“Aw… You don’t want to keep walking?”
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot we were on a walk, uh yeah let’s go back to that…”
Rory and Sammy left the guild and returned to their walk, however, Sammy was still beating himself up about missing his opportunity to confess to Rory, ‘Yumi’s probably going to be disappointed when she hears that I fumbled my chance…’ He lamented.
January 28th, 4:40 pm
Team Echoes’ Base – Specter’s room
Coast Continent
Yumi and Flint followed Joseph into Specter’s room, Joseph was in the process of properly introducing them to the rest of the team so things would be less awkward going forward, “Hey Specter, you mind greeting our new friends?” Joseph asked.
“Oh, uh sure, how about you gather around the table?” Specter responded.
“Oh, is it fortune-telling time!?”
“You know it!”
“Alright, hopefully this doesn’t backfire.” Joseph said as he took a seat by the table, “You two coming?” He asked as he looked back at Yumi and Flint.
“O-oh, yeah s-sorry.” Yumi quavered as she walked over to the table.
“I won’t bite, I swear!” Specter assured her.
“I’m not afraid of you biting me, I’m just a little afraid that you might do something else…”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know exactly, it’s just Eevee are usually quick to run away where I’m from, so they have to be kinda strong, right?”
“Well… I wouldn’t say that… They’re not weak, don’t get me wrong, but our evolutions make us special.”
“Eevee’s evolutions?”
“Yeah, there’s eight of them.” Joseph interjected, “That makes Eevee one of the most unique Pokémon out there.”
“Why do you need to evolve eight times!?”
“We don’t, we just have eight choices.” Specter clarified.
“Oh, well what’s the point in that then?”
“Each of our evolutions is a different type, making them all very different.”
“Oh… I get it now…”
“Now that that’s been cleared up, who wants to have their fortune told first?”
“Ooh! Can I get a turn!?” Joseph asked as he raised his paw into the air.
“Sure, just don’t freak out if something disastrous happens.” Specter said as he began his whole fortune-teller ritual with his crystal ball.
After a few minutes of Specter moving his paws around the crystal ball, Joseph got impatient as per usual, “Do you see anything?” He asked.
“Hold on… I think I see… You… In your room…?” Specter said with a hint of uncertainty, “Oh, you’re saying something!”
“What am I saying?” Joseph asked.
“You’re saying… Huh? You’re saying, ‘I can’t believe she would betray me like that.’ but who are you talking about!? It doesn’t make sense!” Specter blurted, “Aaaand the vision ended…”
“That was weird… Well I doubt that means anything considering Slippy’s fortune hasn’t come true yet.”
“Alright, who’s next?”
“I suppose I’ll go next.” Flint said.
“Alrighty bow bird, let’s see what your future looks like.” Specter said as he began his whole ritual again, “I see… A field of flowers…? And you seem to be lying down in a bed of the flowers… Yeah, that’s about it… It’s pretty peaceful though.”
“I’ll take that, it’s better than seeing something super scary.”
“Oh, ok then, you want a turn ghost girl?”
“U-uh sure, what’s the worst that could happen?” Yumi shakily replied.
“Well, you could hear about how you die or something.”
“I know, I was being sarcastic.”
“Oh, well I’m only messing with you, so far none of my fortunes have shown anything bad, well except for Joseph’s I guess, but who knows we might be missing key context for that one.”
“I don’t think that anything good will come of that fortune.” Flint interjected.
“Well Cinder had an even more concerning one, yet she turned out fine.”
“What was hers about?” Yumi asked.
“It showed her reuniting with Vulcan after the two had been separated for 20 years, but all I saw at first was Cinder getting jumped by a beat-up-looking Quilava because the vision ended abruptly.”
“Did Vulcan attack her or something?”
“No, he just hugged her abruptly.” Joseph answered, “It was kinda heartwarming seeing the two reunite.”
“Yeah, especially after hearing about her past…” Specter added with a frown.
“Wait, she told you about her past?”
“No, I read about it in her diary.”
“Have you never heard of privacy!?” Yumi blurted.
“I have! She actually asked me to!”
“She did!?”
“Yeah, she asked me to proofread it for her, she said something about publishing it once she gets back home.”
“But why would she choose you?” Flint asked, “No offense but I personally wouldn’t ask a little kid to proofread something for me.”
“Because I’m not just a little kid, I’m actually probably the smartest one here besides Cinder herself.”
“Eh, I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Fine, I’ll prove it to you once I’m done telling Yumi’s fortune.”
“Can we get that going already!?” Yumi shouted impatiently.
“Alright! Alright! I’m on it!” Specter squeaked before beginning his whole ritual again, “Hm… I see… Yumi in the lounge… Oh…? It seems there was a loud sound that startled her… HUH!? She just vanished!”
“Cool!” Yumi exclaimed, “I must’ve found out how to go invisible!”
“Or you just vanished in general!”
“Specter, you’re blowing this out of proportion, she’s probably fine in the vision.” Joseph said.
“Aw… You’re no fun, I was trying to see if she’d flip out again, because y’know, seeing a ghost squeal is ironic.” Specter replied.
“It won’t be funny when I kill you and make your ghost squeal.” Flint threatened.
Specter gulped, “Noted…”
“Relax Flint, he was only trying to be funny.” Yumi interjected.
“Funny!? He was trying to scare you!”
Yumi started laughing, “You really think he’s scary after waving his paws around a glass ball and spouting a bunch of nonsense!?”
“He tried saying that something bad was going to happen to you!”
“Come on, you really think a cute little guy could foretell a calamity!?”
Everybody stared at Yumi for a moment after she said that, eventually Specter broke the silence by saying, “I’m already taken.”
“That’s not what I meant by that.” Yumi clarified.
Everybody let out a sigh of relief, “Phew, I thought for a moment you were hitting on him.” Flint said, “That would have been awkward…”
“I would NEVER hit on a Pokémon, much less a young Pokémon!”
“Good, because I’m not babysitting for you!”
“I already told you I never wanted to have kids!”
“Well, I don’t believe you!”
“Can you two stop arguing?” Joseph asked, “I would love to introduce you to everyone else, but I can’t do that if you’re bickering with each other!”
“R-right sorry…” Yumi sputtered, “Let’s get going then.”
The trio left Specter’s room, once they were gone, Specter let out a sigh of relief, “Thank Arceus Flint didn’t call my buff… I don’t even want to begin to think of the implications of that fortune…”
Yumi, Joseph, and Flint entered the lounge only to be met by a very exhausted-looking Vulcan, “Oh hey Vulcan!” Joseph bubbled, “How was your day?”
“Exhausting…” Vulcan groaned listlessly.
“Well that much is obvious.”
Vulcan sat up from his slouched position, “Chandelure and I had a cook-off for like 5 hours straight with no breaks, I felt like I was about to pass out by the end of it…”
“Did you at least win?”
“Oh I won alright, and then she threatened to make me eat all the food that we made, luckily Litwick was there to bail me out, otherwise I think I’d have a heart attack or something.”
“You couldn’t have made that much food, right?”
“Let’s just say that the guild members are eating good tonight, literally.”
“Oh god, you really did make a lot of food, didn’t you?”
“Yep, it still wouldn’t be enough for Cinder though, I’m still surprised she’s only a little chubby considering how much she actually eats.”
“I’M STILL HERE Y’KNOW!” Cinder shouted from the other room.
“I WASN’T SAYING THAT AS AN INSULT!” Vulcan shouted back.
“OH, WELL THANKS FOR CLARIFYING THEN!”
“YOU’RE WELCOME!”
“WHY ARE WE STILL YELLING LIKE THIS!?”
“I DON’T KNOW!”
The yelling stopped and Vulcan turned back to Joseph and the others, “So did you guys want to talk about anything else or are you just gonna keep staring?”
“O-oh, uh, Joseph was supposed to be introducing us to you.” Yumi quavered.
“Oh, right.” Joseph interjected, “This is Vulcan, he’s Cinder’s brother, they were separated for 20 years before finally reuniting in this world, apparently Vulcan was sent here by someone while chasing leads on Cinder’s whereabouts.”
“You forgot the part about me being the best chef in the Coast Continent.” Vulcan ribbed.
“Oh yeah, that too.” Joseph added quickly, “Already letting it get to your head, huh?”
“You know it! I’ll wear my title with pride for the rest of my days!”
Yumi and Flint got a bit of second-hand embarrassment from Vulcan’s enthusiasm, “Is it really that impressive?” Yumi asked.
“Uh, yeah! I’m finally being recognized for my awesomeness!” Vulcan boasted, “And there’s no way Cinder can show me up!”
“Congrats man!” Joseph bubbled, “I’m happy for you.”
“Thanks, I was worried nobody would care…”
“I bet Cinder will be super happy to hear about your achievement.”
“Eh, I doubt it… I mean she’s like, a prodigy, compared to her, I’m nothing…”
“That’s not true! Just because you’re not as good at battling as her doesn’t mean you’re worthless compared to her, in fact, that’s why she would probably be proud of you, because you went out and achieved something on your own!”
“You really think so?”
“Yep, I’m 100 and 10 percent confident that she’ll be happy for you.”
Vulcan walked over and gave Joseph a fist bump, “Thanks little bud, I guess I’ll go tell her about it.”
“Alright, well while you do that I’m gonna introduce these two to everyone else.”
“Alright, good luck with that!”
Vulcan ran off toward Cinder’s room eagerly, while Joseph and the others entered Tiny’s room, “Oh hey you guys!” Tiny chirped as she approached the trio, “I’m done with that weird thing I was doing!”
“What were you doing!? And why was there like 30 of you!?” Yumi blurted.
“Oh, I was rounding up weaker Meltan so that we could merge, if I can merge with enough Meltan then I can evolve.”
“Oh, that’s strange…” Flint remarked, “You can’t just evolve by leveling up?”
“That’s not how it works, some Pokémon need to meet certain other conditions.” Tiny explained, “I have to merge with enough Meltan to form a Melmetal before I can evolve into one.”
“Oh, that’s a bit of a foreign concept.”
“Yeah, that is a bit strange.” Yumi agreed, “I mean, I’ve heard of Pokémon evolving with stones and stuff but I think this takes the cake for the weirdest evolution method.”
“I fear the day that we meet a Galarian Yamask.” Joseph muttered.
“What was that?” Yumi asked.
“N-nothing!”
“So what are you exactly?” Flint asked.
“I’m Tiny the Meltan!” Tiny exclaimed, “I’m kinda weak on my own, but if I band together with enough of my Meltan friends, I can grow into a massive metal alloy titan!”
“Ah, I see, so the name’s supposed to be ironic.”
“Yup!”
“I’m sorry if this comes off as a bit rude, but when I look at you all I see is noise.” Yumi said.
“What do you mean by that?”
“You just look so… How do I put this…? Unintelligible…?”
“I’m still a little confused…”
“What she means is she can’t tell which end is your head and which end is your tail.” Flint interjected, “Your anatomy is very confusing.”
“Oh, yeah I get that a lot.” Tiny admitted, “I don’t really know how to explain it without seeming weird.”
“Tiny you’re a mythical Pokémon, you’re literally the definition of weird!” Joseph said as he rolled his eyes.
“Tell that to Zeraora or Marshadow.”
“Touché.” Joseph replied, “But you’re forgetting that Phione exists.”
“You mean that weird Pokémon that looks like Manaphy?”
“Yup that one.”
“Honestly yeah I did forget about that one, I see your point now.”
“This is getting off-topic.” Yumi said, “Where is your mouth?”
“I don’t have one, I just use my eye as one instead.”
Flint started laughing hysterically, “What do you see the flavor of your food or something?”
“No, I absorb metal through my eye and it gives me energy.”
“That… Doesn’t make any sense…” Yumi sighed.
“Well, do you want to see something that makes even less sense?”
“Not really…”
“Well too bad!” Tiny said as she pulled her head off, “I just decapitated myself!”
“WHAT!?”
“Yup! My head can come right off at any time, although it’s annoying because sometimes it just falls off on its own.”
“U-uh, w-well, it’s been nice meeting you, but I think I want to leave, this is starting to weird me out.”
“Oh, sorry, I can tone down my weirdness a bit if you’d like.”
“I’m good, I’m starting to get tired anyway.”
“Oh alright then, sleep well.”
Yumi yawned and left the room, leaving Flint and Joseph to greet everyone else on their own, “What’s with her?” Joseph asked, “We still haven’t eaten dinner yet and she’s already tired.”
“Social interactions tire her easily.” Flint explained, “It was like that before she became a Zorua.”
“Wait, I thought Zorua was the first Pokémon in their evolution line.” Tiny butted in.
“They are, Yumi is a human just like me.” Joseph explained.
“DUDE!” Flint roared.
“It’s fine!” Tiny shouted back, “I’m not going to hurt her! I mostly just sit in Cinder’s bag anyway.”
“That’s not the point! He still told you all nonchalantly!”
“It’s because she’s part of the team!” Joseph yelled out, “Everybody on this team is already aware that I’m a human and that humans aren’t all evil, it’s just everybody else we gotta worry about!”
“Then you better not tell anyone else or else I’ll show you that your head’s removable too!”
“Jeez dude, calm down!” Tiny squeaked, “Her secret’s safe with us!”
“Yeah, what she said.” Joseph followed up, “You do realize that if I were to rat her out, I’d be in trouble too, right?”
“Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that…” Flint said awkwardly, “I guess my brain just sees you as a normal Pokémon.”
“I don’t blame you, I mean considering he’s still alive, I think it’s safe to say everybody else sees him the same way.” Tiny said.
“I think I’m starting to see myself that way too, I mean I already know how to use most of my moves and I can walk properly, so as far as I’m concerned I’m already a normal Pokémon.” Joseph admitted.
“I hope Yumi doesn’t forget how to be a human while she’s here.” Flint said, “I would hate to go back home only to find out that Yumi can’t walk on two legs anymore.”
“I think you have bigger things to worry about.” Tiny chuckled.
“Like what?”
“Like Joseph and Yumi falling in love.”
“That’s never happening.” Joseph and Flint chorused in a stern tone before looking at each other.
“Glad we agree on that.” Flint said.
“Yeah, I’m on the same page as Yumi, I’m never gonna hit on a Pokémon, if I’m stuck here then my love life dies with my human identity.”
“Heheheheh.” Tiny chuckled again, “Sure buddy.”
“I’m being serious, I’m not falling in love with a Pokémon!”
“You absolutely sure about that?”
“I think this is our cue to leave.” Flint said as he put a wing on Joseph’s shoulder.
“Yeah, let’s just go see what Slippy’s up to.” Joseph said as he turned around and left the room.
“Wait, I was only kidding!” Tiny screamed, but it was no use, her guests had left the room, “Darn, oh well… I guess I’ll just get some rest too, I need to see what that dream was about.”
Joseph led Flint toward Slippy’s door, only to watch as it flew open, “I NEED TO TAKE A WALK TO PROCESS WHAT I JUST SAW!” Slippy burst, “NOBODY GO INTO MY ROOM UNTIL I’M BACK!”
Slippy proceeded to roll out of the base as fast as he could, leaving Joseph and Flint standing there awkwardly, “Uh, is he always like this?” Flint asked.
“Not always, but he does occasionally have his moments where he’s really loud and excited.” Joseph answered
“I’m gonna go out on a limb and say he’s not exactly excited about what he just saw.”
“Well, he might be? It’s hard to know for sure, last I heard he was reading some mysterious books he bought today.”
“Mysterious books? What do you mean by that?”
“The Pokémon who sold them to him said that they seemed to be written in some sort of illegible script and that there were strange pictures that vaguely looked like Pokémon.”
“Oh, that sounds… Well, mysterious…”
“Yeah, we didn’t get to see what was in the books until Slippy got home and started reading them, and even then he’s still the only one who’s read them so far.”
“Well, do you want to go take a look?”
“He told us to stay out of his room!”
“Come on dude, live a little, you can’t listen to everything you’re told.”
“Well, I’d rather not impede on my friend’s privacy just to peek into a book that might scar us for life!”
“Whatever, I yield, if we were meant to know what’s in the book, we would.”
“Exactly! Now let’s just go talk to Cinder or something.”
“Actually, I think I’m good on the whole introduction thing, I think I’m gonna go make sure Yumi sleeps well.”
“Alright… I guess I’ll go chill out in my room then…”
Joseph walked off into his room and Flint went to check on Yumi but they were both thinking the same thing, ‘What was in that book?’
January 28th, 6:00 pm
Sunset Square
Coast Continent
Slippy was on a walk to process what he had just seen when he tripped and dropped his treasure bag, “Oof.” He groaned as he hit the ground.
“O-oh! Are you ok!?” An unfamiliar voice cried out.
“I’m fine, I just dropped my stuff.” Slippy assured them as he got back up, once he was firmly back on his flippers he found the source of the voice, it was another Spheal only they had a bandage on their head, they were also holding out his treasure bag to return it to him.
“Here, I got your bag for you!” The Spheal said.
“Thank you!”
“You’re welcome friend!”
“So, what’s your name?” Slippy asked.
“My name is Blublin!” Blublin bubbled, “And yours?”
“I’m Slippy!”
“Well, nice to meet you Slippy!”
“Nice to meet you too!” Slippy said before realizing something, “Wait your name it’s… Really strange…”
“I know.” Blublin agreed, “It was given to me by a friend, he says it means ‘blubber goblin’ which I think is pretty cute.”
“Oh I get it now… Well in that case yeah I think it’s pretty cute too.”
“Thanks, I think that’s the first time anyone’s complimented my name, everybody else thinks it’s stupid.”
“Well I think they’re stupid!”
“That’s what I’m saying!”
“So, what’s with that bandage?” Slippy asked.
“Oh that?” Blublin said as he adjusted it a bit, “I have a minor case of a major concussion, hence why I’m not rolling around right now.”
“R-really!? How’d that happen!?”
“I was with some friends and we were attacked by a monster that appeared from a rip in the sky!”
“Woah! That sounds scary!” Slippy gasped, “A friend of mine went through something similar not too long ago.”
“Really!? What was their name?”
“Her name is Cinder, Cinder the Cyndaquil.”
“I-it- IT CAN’T BE!” Blublin screamed.
“Can’t be what!?” Slippy asked in a panic.
“N-no I- it- this has to be a coincidence!” Blublin sputtered.
“You’re confusing and scaring me!” Slippy squeaked.
“Now where did that little scamp go?” A shady character said to themselves.
“Crud! He’s onto me!” Blublin shouted, “H-here take this and don’t ask any questions or else we’re all gonna die!”
Blublin handed Slippy a strange red-orange plate, Slippy immediately put it in his bag and put his bag back on, “B-but wait-“
“I don’t have time to explain! Just take it!”
“Don’t you want it back at some point!?”
“I’ll come back for it when I can, just keep it safe, ok?”
“Ok! I’ll keep it safe until you’re safe!”
“Great! I’ll meet you then, maybe you can show me your house or something!”
“Can we go down the slide in my room!?”
“Yeah, yeah, once I get this heat off me, we can slide all you want!” Blublin said as he ran off into the distance.
“Bye!” Slippy said as he waved to Blublin.
Slippy turned back toward the path and was immediately jump-scared by a Togepi, “Boo!”
“AAAH!” Slippy squealed as he jumped back, “What was that for!?”
“Haven’t you heard that sneaking up on a Pokémon is the best way to catch them off guard?” The Togepi asked, “It’s called the Super Secret Back Strike Technique.”
Slippy sat in silence for a moment before rolling his eyes, “Whatever weirdo, what do you want?”
“Well I was looking for a certain Pokémon and I was wondering if you’d seen him.”
“How am I supposed to help you if I don’t know who you’re looking for!?” Slippy huffed.
“Oh right, I forgot to describe the little vermin- I mean guy.” The Togepi said, “He’s a Spheal just like you except he’s got a big ol’ bandage on his head and a big reddish-orange plate in his possession.”
Slippy thought about telling the truth but then he realized that if he did so he might get Blublin hurt or worse, “Nope, haven’t seen them!” Slippy lied.
“Then who was that Spheal you were just talking to?”
‘Crud! I was caught red-handed, uh what do I do!?’ Slippy thought before it hit him, ‘More lies, MORE LIES!’ He told himself, “Oh you mean her?” He replied, “Yeah she was going to go get her head checked, she just had surgery and all, and she just wanted to make sure things were healing alright.”
“Oh, I see, must’ve been a mix-up then.” The Togepi said, “Well if you do end up finding them, you come and get me alright?”
“Why?”
“Because that rat stole my plate!” The Togepi roared.
Slippy gulped out of fear, “O-ok I’ll be sure to keep an eye out Mr.”
“Cut the formalities, the name’s Volo.”
“O-ok, Volo.”
“Good, I’ll see you later, friend.”
Volo walked off, leaving Slippy in the middle of the path, “I’m not sure if this walk helped at all.” Slippy said to himself, “I paused to take a walk, so I could comprehend what I was looking at, only to be bombarded with more information that I can’t comprehend.”
Slippy sat confuzzled for a moment before being met by Rory and Sammy, “Oh hey Slippy, wanna go get dinner?” Sammy asked.
“Y-yeah that sounds fine.” Slippy responded.
“Is something up?”
Oh boy, this chapter took a while… I was kinda busy getting distracted again but I managed to pull through, oh yeah I should probably address the whole thing with Volo just kinda showing up, uh, I’ll save that for the next chapter.
Anyway, on to the boss bio for this chapter.
Boss data downloaded successfully!
Galvantula the Arachnid Fiend
Galvantula is the leader of a massive tribe of spiders that have created their own underground society that runs on its own rules, most of these rules are pretty similar to the above-ground society’s, but the key difference is that Galvantula and her underlings have acquired a taste for blood, so the spiders set up traps for unassuming travelers to fall into so that they can eat them, unfortunately, Joseph, Rory, and Slippy fell right into one of these traps, but thankfully Yumi, Sammy, and their new friend Watt came to the rescue, Sammy even went and evolved while they were at it, causing the remaining spiders to high tail it out of there.
Last but not least reviews and the next chapter hint (Even though I kinda already gave one).
To KirgizovVlad: You’re welcome, it’s been a lot of fun working on this story! I’m glad you found that chapter interesting because I had a lot of fun writing it, it was fun to kinda deviate from the path a bit and make a short one-off for fun.
Anyway, that’s all for this time, next time: We find out what Blublin was up to after he was separated from his friends, see ya then!
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