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Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Union of Stars [IC/Not Accepting]

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“C-c-can Staryu use T-t-t-teleport?!”

"How would I know? Do I look like a walking pokedex to you?" Shawn said, looking away from the dazed Cleffa he had just dropped and feeling annoyed. "Maybe? They're psychic or something right?"

He really couldn't remember but it sounded both right and wrong at the same time. Thinking about psychics only reminded Shawn that Cleffa was Fairy type. Meaning if this blob actually started to fight back it could get really annoying given he was a Fighting type.

As if on cue the other Fighting type came up and started to talk to the Cleffa in a way that sounded like he was from a damn kid's cartoon.

"That's the cheesiest thing I've ever heard." Shawn said and shook his head. "You know what, whatever, you can deal with the babysitting. I'm sick of this room already I'm going to get the hell outta here."

He then proceeded to, frustratingly slowly, move away from them all. There was a path up that way so he figured his time would be better spent going that way than standing here trying to lecture a stupid baby Pokemon on why it shouldn't try and fight them all.

He called over his...shoulder? Whatever, called back to Hector. "And don't call me family, that's fuckin weird."

It wasn't a long trip down this pathway before he suddenly had to turn to the right. Without a hesitation he followed the path, not particularly caring what the others were doing behind him, and ended up having to turn and go back in the same direction he started earlier. He began to wonder if he was going to be zig-zagging like this forever when he found a fork in the....dungeon. On the left the path seemed to stay narrow like the ones he had been in but it widened up more on the other side.

With a glance at his suctions Shawn decided it would be for the best to stay out of tight areas if possible for now and continued his journey down the wider path.

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Though Chester had ordered a cease and desist from the Staryu in front of him, the Strayu had seemed to not pay any heed to this. Glaring at him, the starfish pokemon charged him, knocking Chester back a bit as he wasn't sure what to make of a star shaped entity charging him. "Ow! What - why did you- Listen! Just - " As Chester was trying to call this Staryu to order once more, he suddenly saw a swarm of leaves strike the pokemon. Looking to see that it had come from Marv, the Chespin blinked in surprise. "How on Earth - um, well done Marv!" Chester had genuinely no idea how the Treecko had figured out how to do that but he was certainly thinking in the proper way. 

In a similar vein, the Chespin yelped in surprise, astonished as the Rotom had appeared right next to him. Only to be equally surprised as it fired off a thunder shock at the water type. Though, he figured it probably came naturally with Rotom being nothing but lighting...however natural even working a body like that came to begin with. As the Staryu vanished, Chester found no end to his surprises, his head trying to race through all the knowledge of pokemon he had saying, "I believe they do? But that hardly seemed like what I would have expected from a Teleport. That was more like what you would expect from a common random enemy. Well, I suppose that would line up with - Hey!" 

Chester cut himself off as the Clobbopus had started to walk off further down the hall while everyone else was still remaining in their current room. "What did I just say about going off on your own! Why does nobody believe in sticking together, I swear," the Chespin grumbled the second part as he quickly followed after the other pokemon, trying to make sure they wouldn't end up too split off from the rest of the group. 

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It took a hot second for Z. to calm down, but they managed. It helped that everyone else was focused on their own respective fights and not on them. On the other end of the room, the combination of the previous Leafage and Es’ sudden, shocking appearance gave that Staryu the same treatment as the one Z. had just dispatched. The only other thing they might have left to fight was the Cleffa, a task nobody seemed up to accomplish. They had their excuses, Z. was sure of it, but they were still just excuses. 

Z.’s reason was simpler. The ending of the fight was a foregone conclusion. Whoever actually managed to subdue (befriend, whatever) the Cleffa, it didn’t really matter to Z. But they weren’t about to wait around and find out. Besides, waiting around also meant inevitably trying to figure out exactly why they had reacted how they did, and they much rathered, you know, not doing that. They pushed past those that hadn’t already left the room -- including all six Falinks who were doing their best smiling impression for someone who didn’t have a mouth -- and found Chester and the Clobbopus hanging out at a place where the path split.

“Why does nobody believe in sticking together?” Chester said.

An addendum to an earlier thought, one they could vocalize out loud to the question offered: “I dunno, maybe I just want to be left alone, did you think of that? Get out of the way.” The Clobbopus was going right, so Z. went left, taking them on a long stretch of straight hallway that Z. followed even when a branch shot off away from it.

They hit a right turn and dutifully followed it. Okay, so maybe they did want to figure out what was up with themselves also. This was the difficult thing about memory loss without personality death, like, so much of what made a person was memories and experiences, and while Z. wasn’t about to start litigating the concept of tabula rasa, their absence still was noticeable. It was still a lingering question hanging over the whole adventure, even as they moved on to wherever the hallway was taking them. That was their reasoning for not wanting to think about it, on top of all that other stuff Es had said about needing to keep moving forward that they’d reflected on already. 

Another right turn. At the same time, if they were about self-improvement (or a better hyphen word: self-actualization) as their main forum thread seemed to suggest, didn’t they have to wonder? It wasn’t like they were just expecting an easy answer or anything, like, their memories weren’t about to return and just be like “here’s why you reacted that way that one time,” like, they had personality. That was the part that mattered. And maybe it was a good thing anyway. If it was a good thing, then they didn’t need to think about it. It probably was, really. It won them that fight when the calculated borrowing of Leafage hadn’t. They still wanted to think about it, though, if only because there wasn’t much else about themselves to think about. 

Another right turn. They were just thinking themselves in circles, really, and the third turn made it especially obvious that the path they were on was of a similar nature. “Fuck,” Z. said as their corridor rejoined the rest of the hallway. “Who builds a dim maze with a do-nothing loop like this anyway?” “At least we’ll know” still applied, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating.

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Asking the Clobbopus anything was clearly a bad idea, Es almost immediately realized as she winced, his yell of a reply catching her as off guard as she had hoped her attempt at ‘astonish’ may have. Her digital approximation of a mouth had already started to form the words of her reply, a swift ‘no, you look like uncooked calamari, but I was hoping you were more than you seemed!’ would have sufficed, but… Well, the ‘Sonic-Sez’ wannabe answered her question soon enough, and so she quickly shifted her words around before the reply had actually been vocalized by her body. “Makes sense-makes sense. Man, wish someone would de-de-defeat me then, if it’d get me out of here!” She joked, bouncing around as she did her best to push the mean-spirited comment out of her mind.

After all, she was instructed to do better, which meant no comments she had already thought better of, but she was to do them at her own pace. And though that was the only way she’d make it through this, it seemed doing things at her own pace didn’t always mean to do them slower than others. An example of this, came to her as she realized how she had reacted to the realization that her comment was not only uncalled for, but obsolete by the time her mouth had digitized to speak it. 

As it turned out, things that she had thought were natural in this form, such as speaking or moving, seemed more like… Programming, or designing a blueprint in a way. There were protocols for every thing, and commands that had to be parsed by the body, the core, her ‘brain’. Among these, there were macros that, with enough practice, she could likely internalize. Strings of code that had been pre-written, and worked in a way to help her move faster. React quicker. And, if she realized they wouldn’t work, she could always rewrite or edit them before her body carried the actions out. 

It all seemed so simple, she realized now, even if it was anything but simple. The concept was novel, as if it was central to who she was, as if it was something she had talked to others about near constantly for years, and yet… In a way, it was anything but central to her, as well. After all, she understood how it worked, she knew her body was like a machine taking commands, but she didn’t understand the language at all. She only understood it as a programming language because she was proficient in them, or must have been in her previous life. But the language itself was like an arcane text, something she could come to understand with practice, but would take that practice. The language difference would make sense, too, when she took into account her difficulties with moving. After all, the system of her body, her brain, were robust, but they ran on something completely different from what she was used to.. She had been feeding it what may as well have been lines upon lines of G-Code commands, and it was taking time to parse what she meant. It was so simple. She just had to learn the language, and speak to it on its terms. 

But, until then… Instinct it was: the basest of commands, given by a programmer even deeper in her mind than she was, who wrote in terms impossible for her body to misunderstand, even if she couldn’t always parse them herself. Her body buzzed back to life with a burst of energy, plasma growing somehow brighter as she once again returned to full consciousness; loading screens in her eyes disappearing as she began paying attention once again. 

How long had she spent thinking?

The Clobbopus had already moved on, as had ‘that damn hedgehog’. Bringing an electric wing to her fivehead, tapping it idly as if in contemplation, she didn’t even bother to spin as she thought about her next move. They had clearly dealt with any apparent threats if they had left, and so, that left one proper direction: the hallway that was in front of her, where Zed had already began moving down, likely… Following the others. That made sense.

And so, she began following herself, making quiet leaps to do so; first past Marge, then wordlessly closing the distance to come to a stop behind the Chespin, who had just finished something about ‘never sticking with the group’, or something of the matter… But, well, she didn’t intend to start listening now, as she split off to the left as they went right, opting to follow her loner of a friend instead, as that had been her modus operandi so far. As she did so, weaving Something in the back of her mind urged her to speak, to help make the quiet more tolerable, and yet… The words never made it to her digitized mouth, which had turned back to it’s neutral half-smile. She wasn’t sure why, maybe it had something to do with the ‘maybe I want to be left alone’ that their buddy in this buddy-system of a world had spouted off towards the Chespin earlier, but she kept quiet herself, at least for the moment. Instead, she was instead doing her best to focus on how movement worked without trying to move herself, a hard task when that entailed trying simultaneously to give it your highest attention, while trying not to focus on it at all; a doomed venture that resulted in the occasional sudden stop as she idly followed her friend, each one putting more and more distance between them until she was almost the full length of the hallway back.

It was then, that, to her surprise, Es saw Zed make their third right in a row; which would almost definitely lead to them simply walking in a circle. A curious spark ran down the edge of her core, from the very tip of her spike to the bottom of her orange buoy, as she followed them only to the end of that very hallway where they had turned, before… Stopping, suddenly and completely, rather than turning herself. “Now, I’ve been thinking,” she called out, her words processing through a buffer of her own design as she did her best to think her next few words through. “If ‘forward’ is so good, why isn’t there a ‘forward II’?” she asked, before…

Well, moving forwards, again, towards the wall. The floating was slow, deliberate, but it was something. It was a slight drift, like someone in water who had just been given the slightest push, but it was movement. She was ecstatic, to be honest, that she was moving at all, that it was parsing her sloppy G-Code sentences as anything but junk data, and instead as something resembling movement was a miracle. But nothing could have prepared her for what would happen when she came into contact with the wall itself. See, she had intended to bounce off of it comedically, as a way to try and raise spirits again, this time using herself as the target of her jokes. What she hadn’t been expecting, however, was the rush of cold stone that seemed to fill her very being, as she was all but sucked into it by the plasma, which phased into and through the wall without a second thought, as instinct pushed her to phase through the wall. 

“A-”

In an instant, everything went dark, and cold. Her entire body was… Filled, in an instant, with stone. It was as if she was the wall, while still having the outline of a rotom, drifting forwards at a painfully slow rate as her brain raced. She was a ghost, it made sense that she could move through the stone-- But how had she done it before? She had clearly interacted with objects, with people, before, hadn't she? So this meant it was something she could control. A variable. Could she turn it off? She had to be able to. It was the only explanation. But how?

Wait, no--

She couldn’t think too hard about it. She couldn’t afford to think too hard about it, she realized, as she focused her full efforts on pushing her body forwards, every ounce of processing power moving away from the question of what was going on. There was a mix of a scraping sensation where there was nothing, like a phantom pain, or a sensation of rough stone flowing over her entire body where she didn’t have a body, but she couldn’t think like that. She couldn’t afford to think about how she didn’t have a body right now, because if she did, instinct would give control back to her-- And then, she would rematerialize, in the wall. It was the furthest thing from an option that she had, as she continued pushing, edging through the darkness. How long had passed? Seconds? Minutes? Days? Her mind raced. “Keep moving,” her mind repeated to itself, as if it was a mantra that was to be her only thought; vocal actualization set to have her speak with every fiber of her being at the first moment, as even if her voice was silent inside the stone, it roared like a siren in her mind, each word echoing, and bouncing around her mind to crowd out any other thoughts, as she crawled forwards. “Keep moving, keep--”

“-MOVING!” Es yelled out from the top of her spiked head, light crashing through all around her first her head poked from the wall, and the rest of her pulled itself away from the pull of the stone wall with a ‘popping’ motion. Despite the lack of lungs, there was an audible pant from the Rotom as she floated idly above a pond, rotating slightly as her eyes spun dizzily, a wave of slight fatigue overtaking her as she slowly came to meet the eyes of… The Clobbopus and Chespin, eyes settling on them as she continued to catch her breath. Perhaps, she hadn’t been in there for the days her mind had told her she had. “Remind me not to do that… Ag-g-g-gain… Too soon” She murmured towards them between breaths, orb tilting to her left… Towards the stairs, as she chose to give her brain a moment to relax, plasma idly pushing her towards the point of ascent at a leisurely pace.

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The Cleffa gazed blankly at Hector, uncomprehending. It made no reaction to his words, moving forward to attack mindlessly.

Cross was lagging. He was tired and scared, and Hector had gotten ahead of him. He didn't know Hector, didn't know any of the others. But he could rely on them because they were all from the same website. Maybe? He'd read some of Order Shadow's posts and the Treecko's characters always seemed brave and honorable. And NewGamePlus. Hadn't he been into competitive battling? From what Cross had heard, he was a reliable person.

And he also felt comfortable with Hector because… There was something familiar about him. Warmth. Laughter. "Jamie! Come here, you little runt. Look! This is"

"Pokémon Blue," he muttered. "Huh, what? Why was I…?"

“Little help guys?”

Oh. That was Hector. The Falinks was the only one that sounded like six Pokémon talking at once. It was strange and hurt Cross's head to think about. But that also meant that Hector was in trouble!

Scary, was the first thought. Stay away, was the second thought. And then he remembered the voice that was light and warm and happy all at once. Already the sound and the feel of it were fading from his mind. But his feet moved anyway.

The Cleffa jumped toward Hector, fist shooting forward in a Pound. And then—

"Don't you hurt him!" Cross charged out of a nearby corridor. He shoved past Noibat, barely paying attention to Hector or Marv, eyes fixed on the Cleffa. Without thinking, he slammed into the other Pokémon with all the force of a half-baked Iron Head. But it was enough. The fairy Pokémon fell to the ground, eyes closing in unconsciousness. And then it disappeared.

Cross stood there, panting. "I... I did it." His legs trembled, and he sank to the floor. "Uh... Uhuuuh... Waaagh!" The Cubone burst into loud, sniveling tears.

Edited by Sethera

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With everyone taking it upon themselves to leave before the threats in the room were resolved, Noibat could only groan and get ready to play clean up. If someone had to do it she would. Aside from blowing a Staryu off of Hector she hadn't had to contribute much anyway so perhaps it was just fair. But before the bat could move any Cross had pushed past her and stopped the remaining Cleffa from attacking Hector. Like the Staryu before it the Cleffa disappeared after being knocked out meaning the room was clear now. But despite his achievement Cross soon took to the floor and began crying which immediately put Noibat out of her element. Still she had to try something. She may have just been planning how best to knock out an infant Pokemon but letting this former human kid just sit there and cry didn't seem right. Something else to unpack when they weren't in danger maybe.

"Uh.. hey it's okay. You did really good!" Noibat tried to sound positive while approaching the crying Cubone. She tried reaching what passed for hands at the top of wings towards the child then hesitated and retracted unsure how to approach this. After some more awkward fidgeting she did lay a hand on Cross' shoulder. "Look there's enough of us here you don't have to try and keep fighting if it scares you. But you really did do a good job. That Cleffa had no idea what hit it. So let's keep moving and I'll keep a look out for you okay?" She offered before looking around the room some more to be absolutely sure things were safe before going on. She took her wing off the Cubone before turning toward where the others had went. For however unsure she'd been of her attempts Cross had seemed to manage to stifle his tears some, at least enough to better listen to her.

"I'll go make sure the path ahead's clear. Look after him will ya Hector?" Noibat asked of the Falinks as she began flapping her wings to get off down the path. If Cross ended up needing carrying to the exit the six-in-one-package seemed best suited to the task. This time she was sure to ping the path ahead of her with her ears which gave her a better time maneuvering in the air as she knew what was coming ahead of her. This rhythm she quickly found did make it difficult to stop. So passing overhead of Marv and later Chester and the Clobbopus, while uneventful, was difficult to stop and chat any without running into a wall. With a fork presented and Z. coming back towards it Noibat had to assume the direction they had went had proved as unhelpful as the locked room on the first floor. So she instead turned right and entered a mostly empty room except for the stairs and Es. She moved toward the center of the room moving slightly faster than Es' relaxed push to the stairs.

"Huh, more stairs..." Noibat started generally before addressing Es specifically. "Know you left before me but didn't think I was that much slower a flyer. We'll have to swap tips when we get out of this place" the bat tried to joke as she flapped a bit harder and took to going up the stairs herself. She was eager to make sure the first room of the new floor was safe for everyone. She'd basically promised Cross after all.

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"How on Earth - um, well done Marv!"

The Treecko rubbed the back of his head after getting back up from falling from the wall...he was struck at by the Staryu, but he took it as best he could. Marv looked at Chester and gave a shrug. "I dunno what I really did...but...it seemed to just come natural." he said, looking at his own hands. Of course, the others were either continuing to move or still fighting, but for Marv...he couldn't help but feel that this was indeed natural to him.

"Don't you hurt him! I... I did it. Uh... Uhuuuh... Waaagh!"

Marv looked in the direction of Cross, seeing the Cubone take care of the Cleffa. He gave a small smile before making his way towards the now crying Cubone, putting a hand on his head. "Ya did good!" he gave the Cubone praise in this situation. It seemed like he was the type that would cry at the tip of a hat, but it was something he figured would happen...after all, this was a new scenario for all, who wouldn't be scared at this? Still, it was obvious the Cubone was trying his best to be brave... Brave... The Treecko paused in his thoughts, now beginning to dwell on that word a bit. It made him remember posts he had back on NCM...fragments and pieces of characters he portrayed in these posts...they had the whole common thread: being brave...honorable...but...was that truly him?

He held his head slightly, seeming that this was the mental wall he was halted by. Things beyond the site seemed...blurry, fuzzy even. Perhaps some things were better not being forced to remember...

Shaking his head, Marv looked in the direction of the others and cleared his throat. "Anyway, we probably should head on off to see where they went. Better to be the back of the pack rather than losing the pack." he stifled out a laugh before attempting to catch up with Chester.

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"What did I just say about going off on your own! Why does nobody believe in sticking together, I swear,"

"Doesn't look like I went off on my own at all, now does it, since you're here Mister Moderator." Shawn said, grumbling as the Chespin came up behind him. Yeah, maybe he went off when he shouldn't have. Yeah, maybe had they run into trouble he'd had struggled to deal with it. Yeah....maybe he had been wrong to do this. But whatever! Didn't have to be annoying about it!

He was thankful that Z. went off in the other direction. Even if they seemed more annoyed at the Chespin it didn't make Shawn feel any more excited about traveling with them.

So he decided to keep going before they ended up catching up again. If the room was empty he might just wait around in it for a while to get some time away from everything. Hopefully the others would go off and leave him be so he could freak out about all this nonsense in peace.

It looked like the room he was entering was, while a bit larger than the previous, free of enemies. Adding to that was.... "More stairs, my favorite." Well at least that meant he was going the correct way, ri-

"Jeezus!" he called out as the rotom suddenly appeared. Coming through the wall without any warning. "The hell were you in there for?" Soon after the Noibat flew past and ruined Shawn's hopes of not having to deal with much noise. The bat Pokemon went to the stairs first and Shawn figured it would be best to get a move on since everyone was showing up here anyway.

"This better be the last one..." he grumbled and made his way to the staircase.

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Hector was absolutely shocked when Cleffa suddenly vanished. Wh--what? Where did it go? Did… do WE vanish if we get knocked unconscious? He grimaced at the thought. It was bad enough not knowing where he was at the moment, but the idea of experiencing that all over again was somehow worse. Just gonna have to be extra careful until we get more answers. The voice had said they should be safe as long as they stuck together, so all he could do for now was trust that and follow his gut. 

"I... I did it." Hector turned to face Cross. It would have normally been hard to see what was going on in the boy’s head because of the skull that covered his face, but the terror in his voice was thick and suffocating. His knees buckled and he started to cry. "Uh.... Uhuuuh... Waaagh!"

The others had started to leave them behind. Hector waddled the troop over and sat on the floor beside Cross. “Hey,” he said softly. “That was pretty scary huh? I was terrified. But you really saved my bacon back there! If it weren’t for you I woulda been Fa-linked.” The Brass nudged him with his shield. “Get it? Because I’m a Falinks!” All of the troopers erupted in tinkling laughter. “For real though. I got in a fight when I was a kid, too, and it was the most terrifying thing ever. But you did it for a good reason, okay? You protected a friend. That's awesome.” That was a tiny white lie. Hector’s memory was blank, so he had no idea if he had ever been in a fight, but he would gladly lie just a bit if it meant comforting Cross. 

Cross slowly stopped sniffling. Hector clambered back to his feet and extended a shield, which the young Cubone latched onto like a lifeline. “Let’s catch up with the others now. Don’t wanna get left behind, right?” Cross nodded and the two were off. It was easy for them to follow the path and soon they found the stairs and stepped into them, and the world went blank.
 

Edited by Cheshire Toon

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unknown.png

BGM: Tiny Woods | Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Red and Blue Rescue Team

The sensation was much like before. One by one, the Pokémon ascended the stairs. And one by one, when they emerged, the others were already there, spread out like plush toys in a children's playground.

"You made it to the next floor!" The joyful cheer resounded throughout the group's heads. "Congrats! That means you all are one floor closer to the end. Keep up the good work, okay?" There was a pause before it resumed. "Oh, I almost forgot! Be careful... You're not alone."

As if awakened by the voice's parting words, several Pokémon stirred to life. Three Cleffa stepped toward the group in unison, expressions as distant from the previous Cleffa as could be. Their eyes blazed with anger and their mouths pulled back into snarls. Between them nestled a pile of coins. To the side sat a curious tile with a green arrow. A small pool gathered in the corner.

Three more Pokémon stood stiff and still—two Staryu and a newcomer. It looked like a cracked shell or boulder but for the five white spikes poking out from various hollows. Two larger cavities pitted its front like gaping eye sockets. Darker triangles lined each hole.

Cross held his head and curled into himself. "No… More bad guys."


OOC

Spoiler

Yes, I'm once again including a link to the dungeon music. Honestly, I'll probably do this on every new floor just so you guys don't forget.

You're also in a room filled with enemy Pokémon. Uh oh. React and stuff.

Edited by Sethera

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Hector was surprised to find that everyone had waited for them at the top of the stairs… again. It had been made abundantly clear by some of them—mainly the Clobbopus who avoided giving a name and Zee—that they thought sticking together was more of a pain than it was worth. So why did they wait? Weren’t they the front of the pack? The Falinks shook his head, which in reality, was more like bristling the bright red plumage on top of his helmet. Maybe I should take my own advice. Just because they were snappy doesn’t mean they would actually run off. Everyone’s just stressed. 

His ruminations were cut short by a familiar voice cutting through his thoughts. It was a fairly odd thing to say, but he was getting used to how it felt to have someone talking in his head. "Oh, I almost forgot! Be careful... You're not alone."

“What?” Hector jolted to attention, and the troop snapped their shields into place with a synchronized stomp. He had been so caught up in his own thoughts he had failed to see that there were a few too many bodies. Just like before, adrenaline pumped through his veins and his body felt lighter and more responsive, the troopers almost shuddering with anticipation. Guess Falinks are more at home in a fight than they are exploring old ruins. Hector was pretty grateful for the battle instincts his body harbored, because he recalled nothing about fighting or what he was supposed to do, and he doubted it would be very helpful even if he did. 

Six sets of eyes meant that he had a good view of most of the wild Pokémon as well. He was honestly relieved to see how angry the Cleffa in this cave were; it had hurt his heart to see the scared little one from before. “Chester,” he said as he marched past the other moderator. “Will you keep an eye on Cross? He’s really struggling.”

Chester, surprised by the Falinks calling out to him, said, "huh? Oh, uh, absolutely! No harm will come to him if I can help it."

Hector felt a bit of his worry slip away. Chester was nothing if not reliable, in every sense of the word. “Thanks. Knew I could count on you.” 

Then he kept marching toward the trio of Cleffa. Fairy-type was honestly a bit of a blank in his knowledge. He had barely played the game around the time they joined and their stint in the TCG was limited and mostly reserved for a handful of Gardevoir decks. What he did know was that they had been designed entirely to balance Dragon-type Pokémon and that they had a very good match-up against them, meaning Noibat was not the one that should be standing in front of them. Plus he had promised the others he would take as much of the heat as he could since he was wearing armor.

About that time he noticed the small stack of golden coins at his feet. They were weirdly clean for being in such a filthy place, and each one had a large capital ‘P’ carved into the front of it. Hector had the troopers scoop them up and tuck them into the inside of their helmets. He had no idea what it would be used for, but he was sure it would be good for something at some point. As soon as the Cleffa realized what he had done, one of them let out a very angry scream and started towards him.

“And here I thought we could be friends!” he shouted, and two of the troopers leapt forward and slammed themselves into the Cleffa in the center. Cleffa tumbled backwards but jumped back onto their feet, uselessly flailing their arms at the two troopers. The Brass stepped forward to get in the front and the two troopers fell back into formation.

Hector was pumped. He had managed to perfectly control his newfound body with no accidents for basically the first time. His excitement lasted all of two seconds until he realized that all three Cleffa were now bearing down on him. 

“Crap!” Hector moved to block his face with his shield. The troopers all raised their own shield and interlocked them to form a protective wall of metal, but something strange happened when they did. A wave of shimmering red aura rippled across the tiny spartans, seemingly coming out of the them—of him?—and then coalescing into the center of their shields. Hector was on edge. He felt like he imagined an electric wire felt, barely managing to contain all of the power that was channeling through him, like he might explode at any second. 

One of the Cleffa finally made contact and the energy exploded outwards. It shot up into the air a few feet and then hung, like a flare, before it spread out into a translucent red honeycomb dome that surrounded him on all sides. Thin red tethers connected each of his shields to the barrier, with an especially thick rope-like tether anchored to the shield of the Brass. 

Hector was so overwhelmed he nearly fell flat on his back. “..What… What’s going on? his voice was once again six. He barely noticed the Cleffa flailing useless against to try and get into the barrier, or another one erecting a pink-colored copycat of it, and very, very faintly he could hear the soothing singing of the last but it barely had an effect on him. “Is this a move?”

It was leagues above what he had decided was his ‘Tackle’ move if so.

Edited by Cheshire Toon

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Z.’s time in the void-between-worlds was a lot shorter than it had been last time, but that was fine by them. They’d gotten all their self-reflection done early, any more after that would just have been overkill. That led them to consider other things, though, like how Es had been behind them for that whole loop, and yet still when Z. came up on the stairs, Es was already, like, halfway up. They remembered hearing something about forwards and forwards two, but the path had been set in literal stone. There weren’t a lot of explanations remaining.

Well, there was one that was pretty obvious, now that they thought about it more. It contradicted some of the conversation they’d had one and a half floors ago, but it still was better than “went invisible” or “there are actually two Eses and you just haven’t noticed for some reason,” and, like, their vision wasn’t great as a Zorua, but it wasn’t that bad. It was something they had to ask her about as soon as they got the opportunity, though.

The opportunity came pretty quick, as the darkness faded and Z. found themselves right next to the Rotom in question. Ignoring the voice in their head again -- and, indeed, all the other Pokémon in the room -- Z. turned to Es and went right for it. “Two floors ago, you said you couldn’t go through walls.”

“Yeah, but hey! I had t-t-t-to do better! So I d-d-did!” Es said.

Her cheerfulness in response to what Z. might have interpreted as an accusation was off-putting, almost disarming, but they recovered from that part without issue. Even more surprising was her incorporation of a passing remark they’d made. “Just do better,” they had said. And she had. She’d listened.

Most authors featured on Zeta Channel only tended to post the one story that attracted their attention, and many that did throw a second attempt into the raging winds of early 2010s forum culture included some sort of phrase in their introduction like, “I hope Zeta likes this one” (which, for the record, was just as bad as the preemptive apology, and actually worse every time the same problems popped up (and when that didn’t happen, the problems were just replaced with other, similar, problems)), so despite their heart genuinely being in the right place, for as much advice as they’d given over the years, it was difficult to track how much of it actually made it into an author’s own written work. There had been some. One person disappeared for like four years after being featured on an early Zeta Channel post and came back with a banger of a story (and also, apparently, a BA in Creative Writing), but it was still an unfamiliar situation for Z., at least based on the memories they still had.

“Yeah, I meant it as a compliment,” they managed. And they had.

Again, their attention turned inward. Around them, people were already gaining ground on who they were before, while all Z. had to show for themselves, despite figuring out some pretty important things like, well, moving pretty early on, was knowing what was possible, what to work towards in the future. They were pretty confident that if they were to spend a significant amount of time as a Pokémon, their ethic would outpace most everyone else’s, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating in the here and now. Z. consoled themselves with this: At the very least, they still didn’t know the entirety of their Pokébody’s abilities. They were still in the information-gathering stage like everyone else. 

Hector was behind them challenging all the Cleffa in the room to a six-on-three fight, and Z. turned around to focus on the one nearest them. “Got a news flash for you, Cleffuck,” they said. “We’re all made of star stuff. You’re not actually special at all.”

And whether it was having seen the exact same species last fight or just a semblance of renewed confidence, time slowed down for Z., and they were able to track every single movement the thing made with ease. If the Cleffa attacked, Z. was ready for it, ready to dodge in any which direction they chose. If it instead flopped around uselessly like a fish out of water, well, Z. was ready for that too.

Edited by radio414

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“Well, thank ya’! You seemed t-t-to catch on pretty quick too, when it came to b-b-b-battle!” Es shot back a compliment of her own, her voice the same level of excitement that one could come to expect from her, and yet… It was also completely genuine, rather than hollow, as much of her speech towards the others had been. That, in part, was likely because she had found herself hovering on it in the buffer she had created between her mind and mouth, double checking it to make sure it wouldn’t come off as condescending or sarcastic before finally sending the speech patterns through as full-fledged commands to be fully realized, as her plasma-esque body lit up with amusement.

Sp-sp-sp-eaking of battle, though,” she added on just at the end of the sentence as she finally examined the surroundings from outside the darkness, glancing at the others in the group briefly as she rotated to take stock of their complete situation. “It seems we aren’t alone!” She called out, almost in perfect sync with the voice from the sky, plasma glowing with amusement as she rotated to fully take stock of the foes around them. Three of the babies, two of the stars, and a floating rock. There was water, a weird arrow, and an exit behind her.

That’s what she was dealing with.

While they still outnumbered their foes, they did so by much less than they had last time, and so Es found herself putting a bit more thought into her actions. In fact, she had found herself putting a lot more thought into how she put thought into her actions, as she realized she had already begun constructing potential commands, floating them in her buffer rather than sending them to be activated by her body. In the briefest terms, she had arranged them from most viable to least, though she had also begun absentmindedly writing the drawbacks to each one as she had finished the list.

The easiest to rule out, of course, was running away. As soon as she had even registered the fight, she realized that most of the group were liable to run into it, and even though she had no particular attachment to most of the group, it didn’t feel right to leave them to the… What animal was it, again? Poochyenas? maybe that was right. She wasn’t sure. Either way, that was completely ruled out in either way. Which meant she only had one real course of action that she could follow: 

Joining the fray.

Already, Zed and Six-O had jumped into the fight, with Sixpack even jumping into the middle of three different pokemon. That, as she weighed the viability of her next options, had an effect that limited her range of movement options. She would have to join him as Zed had, on the opposite side, and in some way provoke or direct the little pink ball (of death?) away from him. This would put her in front of Quillington the third, but that wasn’t an issue; he’d figure something out with one of the other enemies, she assumed. The true question was…

What did she do after she moved there?

She had constructed the first section of the command as a location and nothing more, but finishing it was difficult as she tried to parse her remaining options, a task that was made all the more difficult by the fact that she was, at the end of the day, on a time-limit. She knew one thing that worked was electricity, but she wasn’t exactly sure that was the right call at the moment, for a key reason: as difficult as it was to get any command to go through her body, she had a mastery over exactly one, being speech. There was no telling if she could raise her energy levels to attack again, without her body accidentally choosing an ally for its target, especially given that she was now cognisant of how her body worked.

Of course, she could let her body move on instinct, giving only the command of where to go and not what might come next, but that also had its issues. There was no real telling what her body would do, and if she didn’t try to force a command into action, there was a good chance she would have another moment where she has to suddenly overcharge herself, and as she had already considered-- that wasn’t an option. So, she was seemingly left only with one option in attempting to use Astonish again, though her failure from before had certainly tanked the viability rating of that move. Sure, were she rating the viabilities against each other, it would definitely rank the highest above anything else. But the problem was that she was rating them in total viability, and so… Not a single option came above ten percent, give or take.

Her stomach shifted as she noticed the honey-comb like apparition forming around the Stupendous Six. She knew she needed to act quickly, but the question of how was a problem. She found herself sending the location command through her buffer to her body, half-baked as it was, as she continued to try and find a solution or ending to append to it; though nothing came to mind even as her plasma began to quickly weave around the others to the designated location. Astonish was her highest viability, and yet her confidence in it was---

“Yeahhhh, that’s the problem with using public printers. Their filaments are generally lower-grade than what a larger company might use, and their calibrations are sometimes off, so there’s bound to be some defects and issues with the print. I’d honestly just suggest trying it a few times, incrementing settings until you got something that printed halfway consistently.”

Bingo.

She wasn’t sure when she had said, typed, or thought those words--- But that was the perfect plan, for now at least.

Her mind raced as she tried to parse everything that had resulted from her command at once, doing what she could to copy down what looked to her like the gibberish that had resulted from her previous command of a location, and… Repeating it. Over and over again, with minute changes. While she knew it would ultimately result in her winding up in the same spot over and over again, she knew her body would still try and carry it out. And the location was no longer her primary concern, as if she could put her speed to the test, and maybe in the process confuse their enemy?

That would be enough, for now. 

The plasma surged as she jumped from spot to spot at ever-increasing speed, steady beats of plasma wings turning to what looked almost like a singular bolt of electricity, always passing through the exact same spot she had designated as she began to loop every-which way-- Until, in a flash of light that she found blinding, she realized… It had failed, rather spectacularly at that. Rather than moving fast enough to confuse or disorient the enemy, all she had really done was throw off her own internal balance as the body and orb was forced to rotate time and time again, until now she was… Well, quite dizzy. But the failure had meant something, in the end. She saw a string of gibberish that mimicked that of the sensation she was given after her failed attempt at ‘astonish’, so either that told her she had just failed to use a move, for one reason or another… Or it meant there was no move associated with what she was doing. In the end she had learned both everything, and… 

Nothing. 

Well, nothing useful in the present at least, as she was quickly reminded by her situation as her vision focused again on the pick mass in front of her. In a flurry, she selected the pre-written command she had created before that she thought had the highest viability of working, hoping to worm her mastery at speech into something ‘astonishing’ by putting her mastery of speech to the test. However, as her digital mouth began to move, even that appeared to be thrown off by her momentary failure, low, harsh static being all that accompanied her moving mouth before stopping abruptly, all the while the attempt produced the same strings of unwarranted junk-code that she had just seen moments before. In a string of frustration, she began to send the same command a multitude of times, just as she had the movement command--

Only for that to exacerbate the problem.

The low, dull static from her body grew louder, for a brief moment, mixing with the crackle of her plasma as she found herself locked out of her buffer, unable to give commands for a short moment. It was as if she had her permissions taken away by instinct itself, as her body attempted to parse the multitude of junk that she had just let spew towards it as a command, looking for any action it could take as error compounded against error. For a brief moment, she realized, as her vision flickered, she had triggered a reboot of sorts, individual senses stopping and starting mere seconds away as her body tried to understand the command of its brain. All the while, leaving her… 

A sitting duck.

Well. I suppose that sometimes, to get better first, one has to accept that they may get worse.

Edited by Tiamat's Circus

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Shawn was getting sick of these god damn Fairy types in this god damn dungeon. Now there were three! Well he wasn't going to just ignore them like the other one after what a train wreck trying to be nice to it had been. He was ticked off and getting really nervous about this weirdo speaking in his head all the time.

He started forward but it seemed some of the others were faster to the punch, though none of them actually punched, and from his perspective didn't do a whole lot of anything. "Okay this is getting embarrassing, move over guess I better do something before you all get piled up on."

He moved his way past the Treecko and Rotom and ended up standing between one of the Cleffa and Staryu. He didn't particularly like turning his back on either of them but just seeing that stupid pink blob moving about was enough to set the Clobbopus off. "If you wanna mess with us then I guess I'll just have to mess you up first, come here you little idiot." He then grabbed onto the Cleffa with both of his...fists, and started to move to toss it away from the Rotom before it could attack.

He felt a power build up inside him. An energy flowing through his tentacles. Suddenly Shawn felt strength build up as he twisted his soft body around. Instead of merely tossing the baby Pokemon he flung it around in a half circle and threw it into the Staryu behind him.

Shawn watched as the Cleffa fell next to it into the water and...vanished. "Uhhh....that thing isn't drowning, right? It's just poofed or something like the others yeah?" He glanced over a the Staryu. Somehow its emotionless face felt like it was judging Shawn and the Clobbopus moved to confront it. "What're you looking at, ya one-eyed...one-gemmed...ya freak!" He then raised one 'fist' and smacked the Staryu right in the center.

The Pokemon made a sound that Shawn assumed meant it had been hurt and then appeared to Harden itself. Which would just make it tougher to take down like this.

How had he done that thing before? That was a move, right?

Whatever, maybe he could just keep punching it till it fell over.

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With some sense of resolve to look out for Cross, Noibat was ready to blaze a trail on the second floor for everyone. Except that as she looked around, just as with the previous set of stairs, she was surrounded by all the other Pokemon who had gone up the stairs after her as if they'd all arrived at the same time. This time it was even more confusing for being in the front of the pack. To alleviate the mental disorientation setting in, her ears fired off a ping to get a feel for the new room. And knowing it was more of the same was sort of relieving. She knew exactly where she sat in the room and that was about the most sure she could be of anything today. Further grounding her was knowing exactly where everyone else was. All fourteen of them exactly where they should be.

"Fourteen? How many Falinks are there again?" Noibat thought as she turned around to see she was practically surrounded by three more Cleffa, with several Staryu and a Minior. That explained the count. Others in the group around her sprung into action engaging in fights with the aggressing Pokemon in the room. "Thanks for the wall....s" Noibat said to the six-fold friend that had immediately taken to the frontlines. "Hate when games pull this crap, ambushing you out of nowhere." She grumbled to no one in particular, not even herself given she couldn't remember the actual gameplay of the games that came to mind, before finally getting airborne to take stock of the battle. Hector was exchanging blows with all of the Cleffa until the Clobbopus threw one away and into the water. Z. was busy with one and Es had been trying to attack the now thrown and defeated Cleffa. With one Cleffa out already Noibat's confidence was soaring to unearned highs given her uncertainty if she could even reproduce another Gust let alone figure out what other moves she had. But for now she took to getting away from the fairies that she was sure would have mugged her had not the others moved so quickly and moved to intercept the only currently open path to Cross who was staying in a corner of the room.

"I'm a bat now what do bats do" Noibat asked herself as her attempts at mustering another Gust only proved to destabilize her flight. Then it clicked. "Right I probably know Bite!" She declared with a smugness that did not fit the obviousness of the statement. As it happened Noibat did not know Bite so she simply latched her mouth onto one of the Staryu's pointy ends and attempted to dig into its hard shell of a body to no effect. Come to think of it this was the worst target to try this on in the room except perhaps the sentient rock. There were nice soft Cleffa in the room her teeth probably could have pierced Bite or no. Her confidence dashed, she almost panicked before remembering vampire bats were a thing so maybe she could suck it's blood out. Kind of gruesome for a kid's game but this was life or death. While completely ignorant of her status as a fruit bat, the idea was not without its merits as Noibat began to feel a strange sensation. Not blood but energy seeping out of the Staryu and into herself. Except it abruptly stopped just as soon as it started. Trying to capture the feeling again while continuing to cling to the target the flow of energy started once more this time really getting going. Rather than think herself some kind of actual vampire, Noibat knew enough about Pokemon games to call this for what it was.

"Gigadrain? Am I part plant?" A confused Noibat asked incorrectly naming her Absorb through a mouthful of starfish. She'd have to try photosynthesizing if they ever got out of the endless caves. She'd get a leg up on the plant theory soon as the Staryu readied and fired a Water Gun at her. She'd definitely never felt water move like that with how it nearly knocked the wind out of her. It wasn't the worst thing she'd ever felt but that wasn't appreciated. It was enough she'd let go of the thing with her mouth and climbed back a bit higher into the air. 

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"You made it to the next floor! Congrats! That means you all are one floor closer to the end. Keep up the good work, okay? Oh, I almost forgot! Be careful... You're not alone."

Part of him wasn't surprised...but part of him was. Another floor, another challenge...

The room Marv and company found themselves in had a total of three Cleffa, two Staryu and a strange looking cracked boulder. Marv racked his brain to figure out what it was for a moment, while the others continued to battle the other Pokémon present. Star shaped...but not a Staryu or Starmie...so what else could it be? he thought, silently groaning before finally thinking of something...


"Did you see the reveal trailer for the new games, Sun and Moon?"

"I did. Honestly, seems like the island region may end up doing well. What was the Pokémon in the reveal you enjoyed seeing?"

"Loved seeing Golisopod...just the general design it has is just too cool. What about yours?"

"Mine? Well...it's definitely Mi-..."


"..-nior..." Marv muttered, trying to figure out where that little conversation even came from. Who was he talking to? Questions for another, perhaps, but now it made sense. Minior...a meteor Pokémon. The Pokémon was identified to his remembrance, but what was it's gimmick...that was something he was still fuzzy on. "Star and space themed Pokémon...honestly, makes sense but this don't look like Mt. Moon to me, so makes even less sense." he muttered, before noticing something on the ground.

Before him and now at this moment the Clobbopus, who moved in front of him, was a plate with a green arrow on it. If Marv was correct, that might've been a sort of stat boosting plate, if this worked like how he remembered those Mystery Dungeon games played. "Worth a shot..." he shrugged, before making a mad dash towards it, swerving around the Clobbopus. "'scuse me for a moment!" With that, his feet landed on the plate and...nothing. Marv waited a few more moments...still nothing.

"...Arceus damnit again..." Marv groaned before calling to the others. "Just a heads up, this plate isn't a stat boosting one..." He glanced over, seeing the Noibat fighting against a Staryu, but he knew this song and dance, especially with himself having the Type Advantage. With it also being distracted by the Flying Type...it would be a back stabbing attack. "Let's get rid of this one real quick...Leafage!!" he said, using Leafage again as the leaves struck at the back of the Staryu before causing the Pokémon to faint and be defeated. "Alright, one down..." Once the attack concluded, he hopped off the plate, still disappointed that nothing happened there. Though another thought lingered: ...why did he shout out the attack name...?

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Chester could only let out groan after groan of frustration dealing with the entirely too familiar feeling of an uncooperative forum user base. All the same, he wasn't one to let such individuals deter him from his course and since everyone else was always advancing towards the stairs, as a group, he felt it prudent to do so too. Walking up the stairs gave him the same strange experience as the last time he moved up there, coupled with the strange sight of everyone all being lined up at the top of the stairs. He wasn't quite sure how it was possible given the penchant for wandering off that some of the people had displayed thus far but at the very least they were back together as a group. For however long that was going to last. 

Unfortunately they were not the only ones grouped here. A group of the same kind of pokemon, and then some, that they had encountered on the previous floor were there with them here yet again. The strange disembodied voice also alerted them to this danger, apparent as it was, and the Chespin got into a fighting stance ready to tussle with the pokemon here yet again. Well, tussle was probably not the most accurate word to use as Chester had yet to figure out how to do any actual move. And so, while he was going through his thoughts on what to test out against these enemy pokemon, he was interrupted by Hector calling out to him. 

"Huh? Oh, uh, absolutely! No harm will come to him if I can help it."

That too was part of his duty, to make sure that no one came to any unnecessary harm. After all, while he was strangely alright with throwing himself head first into danger for reasons he could not place, it was foolish of him to assume that everyone else was as well. Looking back to see Cross in the back corner of the room, Chester saw that he wasn't in any immediate danger but he couldn't discount anything in these strange circumstances. Looking over to the Cleffa that had mimicked Hector's barrier he shouted, "you hear that! You won't be harming any one here. So stop." Letting loose yet another cease and desist order towards the pokemon, Chester ran over to Cross and took up a defensive stance. 

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The Cleffa were still angry. They bounded forward on tiny feet that seemed to skim over the stone flooring of the ruins rather than touch down fully. The one next to Z. used Pound but stopped when it found its small fists had no effect against the shielded Zorua. It Splashed in place, hopping over the fox before coming down.

The Cleffa facing Hector also Pounded against a shield, mouth curling down into a frown when the attack failed. It completely ignored Chester's Growled order and instead rejoined with its own vocals—a pleasant tune that somehow sailed right over Hector's six heads. All three shields failed in that moment.

Reluctant to leave the water, the Staryu instead glided into the space its peer had recently vacated and released a high-pressure Water Gun against Shawn before retreating into the corner.

Finally, the Minior charged forward in a Tackle against Marv. Though it was slow, its solid body dealt out a decent amount of damage.

Cross sniffled in the corner and stared up at Chester with dewy eyes. "Dag you, modawuda Abbadun!" His stuffed nose distorted his words, but their meaning was still clear.

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The Cleffa couldn’t even touch Z. if it tried, though it really felt like it hadn’t been trying all that hard. If it had been, it probably wouldn’t have flopped around all uselessly like Z. had predicted, though maybe that was because of whatever Z. had done to get like this in the first place. It felt like a move, similar to how the Hectors were shielding himself, but with significantly more dodging. The one time the Cleffa did attack, Z. moved faster than it, getting out of the way with what felt like full seconds to spare -- years’ worth of time while in the middle of a fight.

It wasn’t just perceptive, either, like, their body had to be keeping up with their brain somehow, even if Z. still had to put all their focus on just not getting hit and almost none on getting a hit in edgewise. It wasn’t about to win them anything. As time started to speed back up, as their opportunities dwindled, Z. knew they had to act. They jumped.

The move took Z. to their right, up against the wall, and they twisted themselves to press against it with all four paws, much like they had seen Noibat do just a floor ago, before pushing off again and sliding into the ground behind the Cleffa. If one ignored the circumstances, they might have said Z. had ended up part cat. Z. didn’t have time for that, though. They wheeled around and, channelling their best impression of Es, let loose.

What came out was more like whatever sound a censor bar makes, and not in that Z. let out a magical string of obscenities, nor the beep classically heard on TV, but an actual censor bar, and it didn’t do much of anything against the Cleffa. It just turned around perplexed. It wasn’t even impressed by how Z. had managed up behind it!

Again, Copycat had failed them, something Z. thought they would have done better at given they were imitating someone they knew better than barely more-than-a-stranger Marv. They thought they’d been narrowing down the problem, but it only made them more frustrated, like they should be able to do this. They were desperately trying to solve the problem, but that couldn’t happen if they didn’t even know what the problem was.

The Cleffa turned around, still unfazed from whatever the Copycat had actually done. Even worse, it seemed like it had calmed down from its incompetent Splashes and was more focused now than ever. “Let’s see you do better, then,” they said. But it was something Z. felt they had to put a stop to, and quickly. They darted forward with a claw outstretched, raking it across the Cleffa’s face.

Z. felt pretty proud of themself. If the Cleffa seemed like it was doing anything, it was mumbling a word of apology, or even surrender, but it was under its breath, inaudible even to Z.’s new fox ears. “What was that?” Z. said. “Speak up, nobody likes a mumbler.”

It wasn’t mumbling, it was warbling, and as the Cleffa, responding to Z.’s request, got louder, it turned into full-on singing.

No, as Z. realized as their eyelids got heavy, it was Singing with a capital S. Their last thought before they hit the dirt was “Yeah, I probably deserved that.”

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"Let's get rid of this one real quick...Leafage!!"

"Oh look at you with your super effective moves." Shawn grumbled as the Treecko took down the Pokemon he had begun to wail on. Maybe he shouldn't feel so salty with how the Grass type had just swooped in and took out the Staryu like it was nothing but dammit he was!

Unfortunately he paid for his childish musings when another Staryu showed up to blast his face with pressurized water. It hurt a lot more than being sprayed with a hose and he really didn't want to think about where the water was coming from. "Ack! Oh now you're just asking for it!" he started forward only to find out that the Staryu was a big coward and had swam off farther into the water.

Briefly he considered getting into the water and making a swim for it. He was an octopus right? They swam. But he didn't really want to find out that he couldn't swim like this and end up drowning in this place.

So he moved onto the plate and shouted at the Staryu, "You get any closer and you'll regret it!"

The threat didn't feel like much to Shawn and it frustrated him that he couldn't retaliate. Which is when he looked over at the Minior and a thought came to mind.

It was kinda ball shaped.

A plan in mind Clobber reached out for the Minor in the hopes that he could chuck the thing at the Staryu. However even though he had been able to work out the throwing move on the Cleffa he found himself fumbling with it this time and couldn't quite get a good grip on the rocky Pokemon.

"Fine! Be that way!" He shouted as he pulled one fist back. Similarly to when he threw the Cleffa he could feel an energy form in his fist and as he thrust it forward at the Rock-type he recalled one of the more basic Fighting moves, Rock Smash!

Trying to keep the energy going in his fist he slammed it into the Minior and managed to score a direct hit. "And I didn't even have to call out the name like a big dork!" he said, unable to not say a jab at the Treecko who had been rubbing in his face that he could use his moves left and right.

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Chester had taken to sticking to the back, making sure that no danger was going to come to Cross from any of the pokemon here or any that may be coming from above. And while everyone had managed to handle the situation last time without much intervention from himself, this time there more pokemon to deal with. Not only that but to add to things he saw Z. suddenly collapse from something the Cleffa did, filling Chest with more worry then before. However superficial it might've been from where they were Chester did take his duty to maintain peace and, in a sense, the safety of his fellow forum goers quite seriously. Which only served to amplify itself now that he could see them in real life with physical danger. Though he had no doubt that Hector was a capable individual from his own long time as a mod, he was also currently outnumbered - or was he? It was six to two though he wasn't quite sure how the whole collective individual thing worked to begin with - which only spurred Chester to further action. 

Of course, he didn't want to just leave Cross by himself when the boy seemed very fearful of combat, but from his position back here he could do nothing. So he looked back saying, "Cross, I'm going up to help them but if anything should happen be certain to yell or scream and I'll do my utmost to help you." With that, the Chespin ran forward towards the Cleffa. He again, didn't have the faintest idea what moves he knew and was rather unfamiliar with Chespin's - especially at an early level - moveset. Yet it was a starter pokemon, so it had to know something basic. Scratch was out of the question as he didn't have claws which left either pound or tackle. Tackle would involve throwing his whole body at the opponent but he figured that his head was so large he was more likely to headbutt them before actually tackling. Which left pound...He couldn't help but wonder what pound actually was, but figured it had something to do with a body part and Chespin had arms. So a punch was the most likely solution. 

Bringing his arm back the mod shouted, "stay back from them! Hiyah!" Before going to punch the Cleffa. 

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Marv was pretty much knocked on his...tail...when the Minior used Tackle on him. It hurt, though not as much as he was expecting. It was generally just due to the fact it was a slow strike...but that solid body did make some moves and helped out. He groaned, trying to get back up as the Clobbopus attacking the Minior.

"And I didn't even have to call out the name like a big dork!"

He knew that was a jab at him, to which his green face felt a bit flushed with red, making him turn his head slightly. ...I did do that...didn't I? he thought, really hoping no one else noticed that. Turns out, they did. Great, just what he needed right now. However, when the Minior struck him, he had a realization...that one gimmick it had finally was brought back to his remembrance. Better late than never, right?

"That's right..." Marv said, finally getting back up. "Hey, Clobbopus guy...heads up!" he shouted, attempting to assist. "If the Minior gets half it's HP down...or even less, it's going to use it's Shield Down ability! When it does, it'll go into it's Core form and it'll become a bit more aggressive!" Now this wasn't a situation where he knew what to do, but he had to at least warn his allies about it. That said, to his side...there was another Pokémon he could get away with striking.

"A Cleffa...we can figure a plan for the Minior in a moment...best take out them first." Marv said, moving in the direction of the Cleffa. He was planning to use Leafage on it, but something else came to his mind...just like how he first figured out to use Leafage: Pound. "...that makes sense...I'm a Treecko, they generally start with that move...so here goes nothing!" he said, moving towards the Cleffa and immediately turning in time to strike at the Cleffa with his tail.

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She honestly had no idea how long the reboot had taken. Though, perhaps the issue was less that she had no idea how long the reboot had taken, but rather that the reboot was still taking its sweet time to return everything to her as she tried desperately to garner anything from her senses, each one coming back to her in paltry form. The first thing she was even aware of was the plasma taking her core, rolling in a circle around the point it had dropped, and lifting it off the ground back into her natural state with a pitiful sputtering of plasma.

The final sense to come back, however, was vision. It started as a pitiful feed of 120p, a minimum resolution for any respectable video, and didn’t seem like it wanted to speed up its process, despite the situation she found herself in. Blocky grays, blues, and every other color mingled as she tried to parse the information she could gather from it, but the long and short was that… The situation had changed drastically, even if she hadn’t taken any damage. Two Cleffa were gone, a Staryu… Might have been? Her mind was racing to take everything in, she wasn’t sure.

Luckily for her, it seemed she was now mostly in the backlines, so she wasn’t in any danger but-- Well, the same couldn’t be said for the others. As her eyes adjusted again, up to 360p she’d reckon, she noticed the floating rock seemed… Somehow sturdier, though she wasn’t sure if that light was just a quirk of her eyes. Even still, pixels fluttered from the white of her eyes as she began to rotate again, seeing Zed having… Fallen over? Laying down, at least, from over the top of the 6 Poké special that was between them. “Not good,” her voice, slightly distorted, would murmur from the pixelated mouth of white teeth, plastered-on graphic distorting slightly as to indicate speech as she bypassed her buffer entirely for the time-being.

Before her eyes could even adjust again, up to a crisp 480p, she was already moving; plasma sputtering as it returned to a familiar consistency that propelled her with ease - so long as she wasn’t trying to force it to listen to her - over the army-general and his platoon, before unceremoniously dropping her just below her friend. “‘Sc-Sc-Scuse me!” she called out to the army general. “C-c-close your ears, ‘bout to t-t-t-try something!” She explained, before allowing her consciousness to take a quick step back as she reinstated the buffer.

Even as the pixels fell away from her eyes and mouth, and her plasma grew stronger, she couldn’t help but feel slightly thankful for the reboot. She had unknowingly cluttered up her headspace, so the clarity was something she could at least be thankful of as she cracked the metaphorical console open in front of her even more metaphorical eyes, text lingering in the recesses of her mind. So much of the junk-code she had sent was worthless before, G-Code doing nothing to help her in any stretch of the imagination when it came to attacking, so she couldn’t be any happier that it had erased everything she had input before. But the output, or translation of how the console interpreted it… If she could find even the smallest bit from just before she had entered into a reboot, there was a chance that, even as worthless as most of that had turned out, maybe if she increased the parameters rather than simply repeating the command…

Buffer-log… Crash-log… Ah, is this it?

She scanned over the command that she had scrounged from her execution log, one that she assumed to be the one to have produced the loud static earlier due to the similarities it shared with speech commands… And began to hack away at it in the most literal of senses. If she tried to edit it herself, it was liable she would mess something up; so instead she simply began copying pieces of it, a number here, a percentage there. After all, if there was one thing a programmer knew by heart, it was that if your own code and methods failed you, to steal from those who knew better than you.

Only one way to find out!

For a brief moment, she skipped past the buffer, suddenly turning her body from where it had been facing Zed, roughly 45 degrees to face the Cleffa in a rapidly passing instant. As she did so, the mouth on front of the orange orb of her body distorted; pixels clouding the white and black graphic of teeth as the command was sent back through with her modified parameters: speed increased by 700% to change the buzz to a high-pitched squeak, length increased to match so as to make sure the sound didn’t fade, and then volume… Well, that only had three digits added to the end of the original ‘10%’; each extended parameter working together, until finally--

“B-Z-E E E E E E!”

She flashed with a sudden glow of purple, light exploding from her eyes in a moment as she sought to terrify with surprise, the purple glow of her form dashing forwards in half an instant and colliding with the Cleffa, almost being absorbed as the Cleffa staggered back… And disappeared, in the signature flash of ‘nothing’ than signified the defeat of an enemy here. “Haha! I d-d-did it!” she called out, without any regard to lowering her volume as she shouted out in excitement, turning and rotating all the while.

A victory, however, has to be short lived; and so as the last remaining pixels fell from her mouth and eyes, and her vision finally returned to a crisp 1080p, staring at the still-breathing, but… Definitely conked-the-fuck-out Zed. “D-d-d-did’ja see it, Buddy? I did it! I finally bent the code to my will and used Astonish!” she exclaimed excitedly, bouncing from side to side as she leaned forwards at the sleeping fox. “...Buddy? P-p-p-pal? C’mon, I know you’re having a good nap and all, b-b-but you gotta…” She paused, a timer set in her buffer pausing for a moment, before she ticked a parameter up to its max. “W-W-W-AKE UP!” she called out, yelling loudly, to…

No response.

Without even thinking, the Rotom found herself moving again, this time to the west of the fox as she continued to stare, and… Speak. “...Pal, b-b-buddy, I know we like to joke around and all, but we g-g-g-gotta focus on the b-b-b-battle! After all, you gotta show how c-c-c-cool you are!” she chirped, hoping stroking the fox’s ego might help them get up, but… Well, that didn’t work either. “...B-b-buddy? P-Pal? Are you okay?” she started to shoot off, deciding that it would be action and impulse that helped her awaken the sleeping friend rather than thinking.

“P-P-Pal! Your legs, th-th-they’re gone! They got your legs!” she’d cry out dramatically, though no tears came to her eyes as her voice raised in concern and pitch. “P-P-Pal, you’re gonna make it, right? Friend? W-We can stem the blood-loss, I’m sure of it--  Lector! Six-in-one! Get over here, we need a medic!” she continued, voice pained and confused as she briefly turned to the orb-esque grouping of monsters, before turning back to her friend. “I-i-it’s alright, Zed, buddy, pal, we’re-- We’re still gonna be able to get out of here, to open that pizza-place back home like we said we would!” she went even further, tears actively forming at the corner of her eyes, though she wasn’t sure when her acting had turned to real distress. “Z-Zed! You g-g-g-gotta wake up, please! Y-y-your wife, y-your kids! You told me we’d go and see them after this was all over, th-that we’d all go to an amusement park together!”

Edited by Tiamat's Circus

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"Hey, Clobbopus guy...heads up!"

That was him, right? Yeah, probably. That was going to get really annoying really fast. They followed it up with some information about Minior, information that he didn't know what to do with given all he could really do was keep hitting the thing, but Shawn felt that it was time to deal with the octopus in the room.

"It feels real dumb for you to keep calling me that. Just, I dunno, call me Clobber or something." As far as nicknames went it wasn't the most creative but it sounded a lot less goofy than the full name.

"And you!" He shouted over towards the Rotom. "They're asleep not dead, if you can't do anything about that you and the bat over there are the only ones who can stop that sonofabitch," he gestured over towards the Staryu in the corner, "from taking potshots at us."

He shook his head in frustration, he really didn't like getting this involved, having just intended to throw a few punches and get out of there, and looked back at the Minior. "What're you looking at?" He asked though he didn't really know if the Minor was looking at anything. Or even could. Despite his words to the Rotom he really couldn't do much himself so he just did what little he could.

So he wound up another punch to deliver it right to the center of the floating rock.

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BGM: Growing Anxiety - (Pokémon Mystery Dungeon - Explorers of Sky)

The fight was raging, and things were looking grim for the group of Pokémon. Z. had fallen asleep, Clobber was overwhelmed, Es was panicking, Marv was attacking, Noibat was flying higher, Chester was defending Cross, Hector was holding up a barrier, and Cross was curled up into a ball.

And then the wind picked up. In the heat of battle, it had already stirred through the tunnels, bringing with it an ominous scent and a low whistle. Now the wind charged through the mystery dungeon, growing claws and snarling at the Pokémon within. It howled and ravaged the fighters, tearing their meager possessions away and slamming them into the walls. The dungeon Pokémon vanished in flashes of light. All that remained were the humans, tossed around by the eddies like snowflakes in a winter storm.

Cross was the first to leave. Behind him, the group could see a portal, and through it, a bedroom from the human world. The Cubone vanished through the portal and reappeared on the other side as a young boy who stared at his hands in disbelief before bursting into tears.

The others had no time to process this, however. The portal snapped shut, sealing like a mouth. The human-Pokémon glowed much like the dungeon Pokémon had earlier.

And then they, too, vanished.

BGM: Southern Island - Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team DX

The wind woke the group up first. Not the snarling beast from before, but a tamer, softer creature. It brushed over with a cooling hand and stirred the human-turned-Pokémon from their forced unconsciousness. Hot sunlight lanced down on their bodies, contrasting with the cool air of the mystery dungeon from before. No longer were they lying on hard stone, but on soft, sweet-smelling grass. By the fragrant air and the utter lack of urban noise, it was clear that they were nowhere near civilization. A few scattered palm trees stretched up above their heads toward a spotless blue sky. On one side, the ground turned to sand and slid down into a glittering turquoise sea. The two adjacent sides led to grassland, and on the opposite side stood a small copse of trees.

As they inspected their bodies, the Pokémon would find most things about themselves remained the same. Any items or money they found in the dungeon had disappeared, however. And Marv discovered a completely unique transformation in himself. However, the more he or anybody else tried to remember if he had ever been anything but a Froakie, their thoughts would mist over and their eyes would turn blank before snapping out of it, wondering what they had just been thinking about.

After gaining their bearings, each of them would immediately notice one thing. A small white-and-yellow Pokémon floated in place nearby. Its head ended in three points, like the top of a star. From each point hung a single teal-colored tag. Two yellow streamers fluttered behind its back. The most remarkable thing about it was its state of slumber. It somehow floated in the air while fast asleep.


OOC

I'm back! Let me know if you are confused or have any questions about the post.

Edited by Sethera

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