Shrouded in Evils

“When the Pokémon world is in mortal danger, what usually happens?

“A human is summoned. Every time! It’s quite spectacular how reliable they are! No wonder we keep depending on them.

“How come that big, stuck up, ring wearing ‘god’ gets to summon humans? But no one else?” 

“Cool down, keep it together…”

*There was a brief moment of silence, only interrupted by deep, rigid and almost forced breathing.

“My human will be the best! Screw keeping it together! My. Human. Will. Be. The. Best, by any means! I swear on it!”

A cacophony of coughs and gasps for air followed the loud demand before it spoke again: “It has to be, for mine… and the universe’s sake…” 

---

The light was blinding, burning, the awakening human’s eyes, dragging him from his slumber, if that is if one could call it that.

For some reason, despite the rest, he was still exhausted, unable to think straight as the light regarded him like a prized possession or with deep anger and hatred. 

As the world swayed around him, it felt as though he was falling, he couldn’t tell the speed, nor how long he had been falling, but with the rate of the moving gold and multicolored world around him, it might’ve been for a while.

”A-Am I dead? Was this the road to hell? Why was it so colorful? Was it supposed to give him hope?” He gave it a few moments of thought as he regarded the area around him, *”… No it’s too colorful, I would think it’d be a little ominous,”* The human managed to think, unable to make out anything for certain, *”Unless that’s the point, and it was meant to be deceiving.”* A mental shudder followed as he forcibly stopped that train of thought.

The human expected to hit something, anything to stop his free fall, no end ever came.

 He waited, watching the world around him fade from color to color behind old, ancient hole filled curtains of gold.

Suddenly, he heard the sound of someone clearing their throat, but the voice was not his; It was high-pitched and grating/nasally. But he was in the sky, with nobody around him— instead, there was a floating sphere of brilliant, pulsing light

“Child, do you hear me?” it spoke, “Oh and this isn’t the road to hell, it’d look a lot more black and red.”

“What are you?” The human responded, trying his best to look around despite not having a body to move. As he maneuvered around, he’d be able to see swirling world around him better. It was full of color, the majority of the world around him was a golden yellow, everywhere else flickered from color to color. Red to blue to green to orange to yellow to purple. There were small bits of black particles, almost like stars. It was beautiful, like the ocean as the sun sets or the sky on a cloudless night. If he had a mouth, it would be agape in awe.

“So you do hear me,” the light hummed instead of answering either question, “Good.”

“Why is that good?” The human responded in confusion, “Why am I here? Where is… here?”

“Curious by nature, I see!” The orb responded gleefully, as if jotting down his personality. A light couldn’t do that, right?

“Well, I’ll go over the rundown, for you,” The sphere continued in its peppy, rather erratic sounding voice, “I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions, answer them with utmost honesty.” 

If the sphere was trying to come off as concise or serious, he failed miserably. The only things the human could pick apart, figure out and define their personality was his giddy and impatient, tone, paired with the burst of peppiness it showed earlier, did not do well in the “mysterious voice” role well.

It kinda ruined the immersion, making the human think this was more of a prank than a transition to another world or something. He tried to think about what happened before all this, but after a minute of pondering… he drew a blank. His memory was a collection of fuzzy ideas and images. They weren’t all there, like the pieces of a puzzle still in the box but there were several pieces still missing, they were a jumbled mess, incoherent to the human.

“Right.” He muttered hesitantly.

“Pick apart my entire personality, why don’t ya?” The light joked. The human pictured it waving a hand carelessly as it floated around. They quickly got back on track, “What do you see yourself doing in a few years?” 

“Erm… sitting in an unknown world?” The human responded flatly.

“Hehehe, dumb question,” the light spoke sheepishly, a hint of worry seeping in through its normal giddy tone, “Why are these even questions!? Shouldn’t some be cool?” 

“Are ya… alright?” He asked, confused as the light berated itself.

“Oh yes, quite great actually. My apologies I was reading over my potently *overrated* questions list,” It replied, sounding peppy again, “Your nagging comments have only made my job easier!”

The human didn’t get what this light thing was saying. Was he doing what it told him to do correctly? Or was he bending the rules a little bit?

*”Maybe this ‘light’ is clueless,”* the human thought, *”Maybe it’s their first time, because this has gone… very poorly…”*

“Aaannnyyyywhhhoooo,” the light went glowing slightly brighter, interrupting his thoughts, as the world shifted to vibrant green around the duo, “What is your favorite color?”

“B-Blue, preferably light blue or turquoise.” The human replied. As the words left his “mouth,” the world shifted to that exact aqua he had thought of. 

*”Okay… getting better…“*

“Goooood!” It cheered enthusiastically, his glowing even brighter, “What kinds of music do you like?”

“What kinda question is that?” muttered to himself before thinking on it. “Metal or rock.” 

“Took you long enough,” The Light huffed in response, glowing brighter, its lack of patience quite literally shining, “If you found a treasure chest, what would you do with it?”

“What kind of questions are these? “And I only took like five seconds to answer that last one!” He demanded sourly with a bored tone. The world around him shifted to red again, 

“Five seconds *I* may not have!” The Light shot back in annoyance before quickly composing themselves.

“What do you mean by that?” The human asked, taken aback. 

As the light remained silent, the human released an annoyed hum before muttering, “Open it, I guess.”

“Amazing answer!” The light enthused, before a loud applause played throughout the strange vortex of light in color we were in, “Quite Splendid! I see why the other guys loved doing this.”

He couldn’t tell whether that was sarcasm or not, the light was too… uplifting even after that small angry burst.

As if thrown, what the light had said struck the human, “Other guys?” 

“Oh yes, I am not the only summoner, there are many ways for a human to be brought here.” The Light replied.

“Back to the questions! Where would you prefer to be, by a beach or river, in a field, in your own home, by a mountain, in a forest! Or if you have another answer, say it! This is my favorite question! There are so many answers! All of them are interesting!”  It bobbed up and down as it circled him, as though it was riding an ocean wave during a storm.

“I guess anywhere my friends are,” He sighed looking down, “I never had a lot of friends, so whoever I had, I would try to be with. So… anywhere, someone cares for me.” He didn’t know where that came from, with his memories in a mess. Maybe it was just something he was used to saying?

“Veeerrryyyy Intricate!” the light excitedly shouted, toughe giddiness sounded forced, everything sounded forced once again.

“Now that I’m conscious enough to think about it, everything he says sounds weirdly… exaggerated, like an actor reading a script for the first time,” the human realized.

“That was our last question! So, remember aaalllll those other questions?” The Light the orb asked as if  though they had been here hours

“Yeah…?”

“Throw ALL of that away! I just wanted to ask you some questions, they didn’t matter!” It proclaimed. The human’s jaw would’ve dropped if he had one, “The suspense is killing me, and I know what you are! So you aaarrrreeee…” The Light went glowing even brighter, “Drrrrrruuuummmrrooolllll pleeeeaaasssee!” An actual drumroll sound effect played, adding to the suspense, at least for the Light.

it glowed brighter in excitement, and the sound of an actual drumroll resounded, adding to the suspense, or at least for the orb.

*“Just be something cool and not… gross. Something functional…”* The Human muttered as the drumroll finally ended.

Light began to burst and bubble around the shapeless human, draining the light from the surrounding vortex, bursting with energy. A mold of a snout formed in the front of his essence, as well as some sort of a crop of hair on his head. Four paws were sculpted below. A large fluffy tail appeared behind him, it was wider than the rest of his body. 

Finally, the budding Light receded, revealing the human’s new body.

“Vulpix!!” the light declared proudly

The human- turned- fox glared at himself, disappointment oozing from every fiber of his being. He had bright golden fur, though his paws were brown, as were his six long and fluffy tails. His underbelly was more of a cream color. 

“Oooh you have very bright blue eyes!” the light chirped, floating in front of him. A mirror appeared in front of the former human, “Looookiiin gooooood.”

It… wasn’t lying, He did have blue eyes, so bright it almost seemed as though his eyes were glowing. Though it didn’t make him feel any better about his new body. He looked… cute, but that wasn’t what he had in mind nor what he would’ve hoped for.

“Can I be… something cooler?” he asked 

“You wanna be an ice Vulpix?” the orb asked, floating slightly closer.

The Vulpix hummed, remembering the added fairy type, “Not what I meant.” He muttered.

*”Why a Vulpix!? Why am I this stupid fox?”* he sighed and tried to think of the positives.  At least he wasn’t gonna be a fairy type and be considered “girly”. He would’ve preferred something dangerous and menacing, but at least fire could fill the menacing role.

“Great!” The Light called out triumphantly, “greatgreatgreatgreatgreat.” The light only seemed to descend further and further into madness. First starting polite and giddy, turned to terrifyingly forced enthusiasm and ensuing craziness. If the light had eyes, he was sure they’d be twitching.

“What now?” The former human asked, staring up at the light before glimpsing his body once more. He was still upset about his new form, but hey, it was better than some light ball.

“W-Wee-e-e-ellll–” 

The world around them shifted, all the colors disappearing, the already faint gold faded away, leaving only a null, blank, black void surrounding the small golden fox. The Light had also disappeared, almost within the blink of the fox’s new eyes. Was this what it meant by lacking

Almost as suddenly as the light had disappeared, the fox struck something solid, smacking head-first into the dark surface.The human groaned, before standing, a pounding headache already forming. He had hit it hard enough to cause his head to spin. Everything felt wrong from the moment he landed, like he was standing on a vertical wall, and not a horizontal flat ground. 

“What in the-” the Vulpix groaned as a mild headache brewed in the back of his head. Was he really falling that fast? He expected to splat like a bug hit with a swatter. He must’ve overestimated his velocity.

As the former human finally gained his balance on four legs, he glanced around  to gain his bearings. There was a bit of light, pouring down the back wall behind him like a waterfall, falling down into a pool below. It became a golden liquid bubbled and churned as if it was being boiled. He gulped as the level of the golden light fell a few inches.

The Vulpix raised a paw to walk up the wall, in hopes of escape. As he set his paw back down, a screech, like a wet shoe on a dry floor came from his paw as his paw slipped underneath his belly. He shuddered, realizing his ability to stick to the wall disappeared. 

“How in the-” He yelped, trying to latch onto with his newfound claws to no avail.

Rather than raising any of his other paws, he bent down, keeping his loose paw on the wall to help in any way it could. Before pushing outwards and jumping away from the wall, he had landed on.

*”Oh fuck. Oh fuck. I don’t want to die yet!”* The Vulpix prayed as he began to fall down. Keeping his eyes closed tightly as he fell, he waited. The rush of water caused them to jolt open. He either expected to land in the pool of gold or splat onto the darkened floor.

He felt himself float just under the surface of the pool before, watching the bubbles from his entry dissipate in the liquid. He readied himself and released a burst of air from his nose, creating another stream of more bubbles.

The Vulpix began to kick his legs, trying to make it back to the surface. He could see the top, he was so close, *”Just a little more.”* His thoughts encouraged, as the fox reached above the surface with a paw, pulling himself up above the liquid.

The human panted as he swam, maybe diving into some sort of liquid as a fire type was not a good idea. A shiver made its way up his body as he looked around.

He couldn’t tell what was going on, nor understand what this place was. The Darkness laid out ahead of him looked like it either stretched on forever, or stopped directly in front of his face. Despite the faint glow the light pool gave off, everything was still unnervingly dark.

The pool once again lowered, this time much more than before, and Vulpix’s view of the world above him shifted as he fell. This time the liquid light fell much more than before.

“W-Wait!” He cried out gasping as he desperately tried to latch onto the side of the pool. His paw, much like what it did on the wall earlier, slid off, rendering him stuck in the ocean of gold.

“No-no-nooo!” the human yelled, smacking the side of the tank to no avail. He looked down, feeling his rear legs kicking tiredly to keep himself afloat. 

As he stared up at the edge of the pool, clambering, trying to get out. After failing again and falling below the surface again, he huffed and resurfaced. The former human groaned and smacked the liquid angrily.

“Hey! Lemme ooouuuutttt!” The Vulpix whined, clawing at the side of the pool again. 

A loud rush of water interrupted his clawing, as something surfaced behind him. Vulpix noted the droplets dripping off of whatever surfaced and landing back into the pool, a large shadow cast over him like he was someone on a beach, and it was a threatening storm cloud showing up to ruin his day.

He froze where he was, still kicking to stay afloat, slowly turning around to face whatever had surfaced. With terrifying slowness, Vulpix looked up at the large being.

This being was like a dragon with a glowing golden body, much like the liquid below them, with large scaly wings connected to its body by its hips. Its arms had wings as well, with claws at the end. A gold rocky looking chest, and large boot like feet made of the same rock like material. Its eyes were two different colors, light blue on the right and red on the left.

The human screamed and continued his desperate attempts to clamber out of the well of golden liquid.

The Dragon released a loud roar, shaking the room and spewing some sort of saliva from its maw. The Vulpix unfortunately was right in the firing range.

He was immediately covered in the dragon’s saliva, he released a shaky and annoyed sigh. As he wiped the goo off his face, he realized the danger of his situation.

The human released a louder scream than he did before and continued swimming in desperation. The human glanced back, hoping the dragon was simply watching. It had opened its mouth, charging up a beam of sorts, aimed directly at the defenseless Vulpix.

The human covered his head with his paws, sliding back down the side and into the golden water and bracing for whatever attack it was charging. He held his breath, hoping it wouldn’t be his last.

But the dragon instead screamed, and roared as if in agony, and the attack was sent skyward into the darkness. There was a loud crash above as the dragon writhed in pain.

The human didn’t understand why it was screeching but when he felt his paws touch solid ground he realized why the dragon was in agony. The liquid was draining, as was the source of the being. He was now on solid ground as the liquid was sucked away, he peered up at the head of the dragon.

The dragon stared at the human in desperation as it was sucked away. With scary, unrealistic quickness, a tendril shot out from it and grabbed the Vulpix by the leg.

“No, No!” Vulpix yipped, kicking the tendril, as he realized what the Dragon was doing, “D-Don’t drag me down with you, you fuck!”

It didn’t humor his pleas and cries, plunging the Vulpix into the drain after him. Vulpix scratched and clawed at the smooth, black surface, just trying to find something to hang on to.

He struggled, but it was to no avail. The Dragon screeched once more before it suddenly dimmed and began to dissipate, causing the Vulpix’s after the liquid.

The liquid neared empty, not stopping or seizing like it had previous. The dragon, almost as if it was linked to the light, fell down the drain with it.

Vulpix shuddered against the wall as he fell, his screams echoed down the slide-like tunnel. He could see a faint bit of the light as he fell. The dragon’s screams fell silent, another loud roar, cut off instantly.

He was flung out, and turned around to watch the liquid turn to golden specks as they hit the ground and dissolved, floating into the air and fading away.

He closed his eyes, fearing the worst, before landing with a hard thud on the rough surface of the darkness.

“This… isn’t cool.” he grumbled, studying himself for any injuries. The former human closed his eyes and managed to pull himself up onto his fours.

“What happened? Where’d all the life go?” 

The human frowned,  though he was finally able to ask the questions he’d wanted, as he walked, Or at least he tried to do so as he stumbled back to the floor. Something was holding him down.

Glaring back, the human saw what was preventing him from moving, and it made his heart skip a beat. The ebony black floor beneath him, had grabbed him, a tendril from the darkness below wrapping around one of his back legs.

“H-Hey!” he yelped, flailing his back leg to no avail, the tendril on wrapped tighter. The tendril then pulled his leg down, into the floor His leg plunged through the now slimy surface, much like the golden liquid from earlier.

In a now panicked state, the human pulled and cried, trying to get free and call for help. 

He screamed and cried into the darkness. “Help! HELP!”

Nobody came.

The tendrils encircled their prey, ensuring the fox’s captivity, by ensnaring his other legs. 

They felt slimy and gross like a water snake as they slithered up his torso and neck. He could feel them dripping with the black gunk they had been hiding in.

The fox released a cry of anguish as tears welled in his eyes. The floor seemed to give out on him as his legs were dragged down. The rest of his body shook in resistance, causing his tails to flail until they were forcibly held in place.

“Pleeaassee! he pleaded, tears springing from his eyes, “Help!! Anyone please!!” The bottom half of his body dipped underneath the floor and into the abyssal liquid below.

Once his chest fell under there was a hissing as if something was burning on his chest. The pain was subtle and faded with the numbness. The Vulpix hardly noticed it as he panicked trying to clamber free.

To his surprise, a very small ball of light slowly fluttered over to him, as though answering his pleas. It hung around his head, as the rest of his body was dragged down. He couldn’t feel his legs, tails or torso, it was as if he was being absorbed into something larger. His only hope was this small surviving star of light.

“H-Help m-me.” the Vulpix uttered, trying to lift one of his submerged paws from the gunk. He could barely feel them.

Mustering a growl, the fox lurched his head, to bite down on the light. It released a blinding burst of golden energy, blinding the human. He felt the light’s power burst through his being. A gentle glow and pressure was forced on his chest as the light’s power seemed to do as he wished.

The fox fell back into the darkness, closing his eyes he could barely muster a whine from his throat. He could feel a small gust of wind against his face, before the fox passed out.

---

*Meanwhile…*

Today was the day. Today things would be different. Today, she would actually be able to do something useful.

And the young Rockruff knew the exact plan to get what she wanted.

“Oh come ooonnnn pleeeaaassseee Guildmaster!?” begged the dog Pokémon, a badge loosely hung onto a tattered orange scarf around her neck. The orange was faded, as if washed a thousand times, and pieces were hanging on by threads.

“Once again, Amber, you need a partner,” the Gallade retorted, looking down at her from behind his desk. He was the guildmaster of Arcadian city’s guild, The Onyx guild. Well, one of the Arcadian guilds.

While Strife’s guild was the biggest, it did have some competition in the Jade and Lapis guilds, then several, smaller other guilds posted in other districts within Arcadian city. Small Guilds like the Quartz and Azure guilds struggling to stay afloat with the larger guild’s influence being so potent.

The Onyx guild lied almost at the core of the Onyx district, the centerpiece of that district. It was what this area was known for. As the Jade guild rested on the other side of the centerpiece of Arcadian, The Lapis guild lied right in the center, though to Amber it was more of a police force than a guild Amber thought.

“Listen Amber, I can’t be sending you off on missions alone,and if even if I have you train under a team you’ll just be in the way, and that would lead to confusion during payment.” Strife added, poking the jar at the end of his desk, filled with knick-knacks.

 He raised a bag and shook it causing it to jingle, “I’m not going to make a team split their money with you,” Strife set the bag down inside a drawer, before looking up at Amber, “If you wish, take the guild members letters and distribute them about, and when you are done, you can get cleaning.” 

“Guildmaster, I’m sick of cleaning,” Amber whined as she looked down, her eyes swelling, “I’ve been training, l-like my mom and dad! I can do this!” She stood up tall and raised her head high.

Strife sighed and shook his head, “Amber, you can either go clean, be on gate duty or wait for someone else to join the guild alone.”

Amber released frustrated huff and clenched her paws, “Come on Strife, there’s gotta be easy missions around that I can do!?” she begged.

“That’s Guildmaster to you.” He snapped with narrowed eyes.

“You were never ‘Guildmaster’ when my parents were around.” Amber muttered, looking away.

The Gallade finally sighed before glaring at her, “Okay Amber, The Blaring Woods, has been infested with bug types stopping travelers and merchants from getting through. Your mission is to find out why. Do not engage in a fight and, if some are peaceful, maintain that peace.” 

Amber could tell he wanted nothing more to do with her, and her complaining. She was good at annoying her parents’ old friend, she knew how to get under his skin and make him reminisce about their time together. She hated doing it, but if it was to help others. It was necessary.

“Ayeye Guildmaster!” Amber chirped, as she put a paw to her forehead, before turning away and rushing from his room.

“Finally! Some action!!” she cried out triumphantly, before setting out for Blaring woods.

The Guildmaster just sighed and refocused on his “work”.