//Had a dumb idea and decided to write it down. This was the result.
//A/N: This is loosely...
//A/N: This is loosely...
Huntresses, Monsters, and Mystery Dungeons (RWBY x Pokemon, PMD-esque)
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Chapter 1
- Location
- Yes
//Had a dumb idea and decided to write it down. This was the result.
//A/N: This is loosely based on PMD. While some concepts and elements from PMD will be present, there are many things about this story that stop it from being true PMD (for instance, the setting is a completely different world from the canon PMD one.), hence why it's "PMD-esque"
//This will probably update sporadically, sometimes frequent, sometimes infrequent, as I'm also doing a few quests at the moment as well as college related stuff. That being said, I'll try to do at least one chapter per week at a minimum if life permits.
//Also, I admit that I'm not a good writer but I aim to improve, so expect the story to be rough in spots occasionally. Also on that note, I'm sorry if the story's title sucks. I literally spent hours unable to come up with a good title for this thing to save my life.
//Is it considered bad form to change the title somewhere down the line if I'm too dissatisfied with it...? *shot*
----------------------------------------------------
"Uuugh…" Ruby Rose groaned as she propped herself up. She seemed to be in a forest, surrounded by trees.
Really tall trees...
In fact, have trees always been this tall...?
She blinked as she glanced around for Crescent Rose, trying to remember what happened… All she could remember before she blacked out was an eerie looking hole opening up underneath her team as they were practicing for the upcoming Vytal Festival Tournament…
She would need to find out where her teammates were soon, but first she would need to retrieve her weapon. Spotting it nailed into the ground by its blade some distance away, she stood up…
...and promptly wobbled and fell over.
"Ow..." she groaned, before trying it again. She was met with the same result, but this time she managed to catch herself. It was then that she noticed something was wrong…
Very wrong…
Since when did she have paws!?
"W-What the!?" Ruby looked herself over as best as she could. She had a small body, covered in dark grey fur, with what seemed to be a black mane. Her paws, on the other hand, were covered in a red fur. Panicking, she quickly located a nearby puddle of water and found herself staring face to face with a fox-like visage.
"Oh my god I'm adorable!" she thought aloud, "Also this is bad… very bad… what happened to me!?" she paced around the puddle, examining her reflection. "Am I dreaming? This has gotta be a dream, right? Yeah. I'll just close my eyes and wake up!"
She shut her eyes, slowly opening them to reveal that she was still in the forest.
"...O-Or I could pinch myself…" she says as she brings one of her forepaws to her "arm"... "Oh, right…"
Ruby deflated.
"Okay I don't think this is a dream..."
"This has got to be a dream..." Weiss Schnee blinked, staring at the reflection of her now conical body in the pond in front of her. She honestly couldn't believe this was happening to her.
She stood there for several minutes, slowly convincing herself of the reality of her situation, before finally coming to a decision. Waddling her transformed body over to where Myrtenaster laid on the ground, she took her multi-action Dust rapier in one her stubby disembodied hands… How she even managed to hold onto it is beyond her, but at least she didn't have to abandon her weapon.
"Okay, Weiss, your body has changed, you're in the middle of nowhere, and you have no idea where your teammates are… Ugh, would my teammates even recognize me if I found them?" she wondered aloud as she began trudging down the mountainside where she ended up, "Ruby…? Yang…? Hello…? Blake…? Anyone…?" she began to call out, frowning when she received no reply.
This was going to be a long day…
Blake Belladonna stared blankly as a purple cat reflected in the water's surface stared back at her.
"Am I dreaming…?" she blinked, moving her arms and watching the purple cat do the same.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of rustling in the bushes. Ears twitching, she immediately readied Gambol Shroud, nearly falling over as the weapon was a bit unwieldy in her current situation. Moments later, she watched as a black creature with what looked like a pink feather growing out of its head, with three more on its tail, burst through the bush. A brown sack is flung over its shoulder.
"You. Purrloin." It speaks in a feminine voice, "Do me a favor, will ya? If anyone asks, I went that way!" she points one of her clawed hands off to the right, before running past Blake as quickly as possible.
'Did that creature just talk…?' Blake thought to herself, before another figure enters the clearing: Something that looked like a large, green, bipedal lizard with a curled tail and yellow highlights.
"Did you see a Sneasel pass through here not long ago?" the lizard asks.
"Uh, I think so…?" Blake blinks in slight confusion, "It went that way." she points to where the odd creature from earlier pointed earlier.
"Thanks." the lizard nods, before taking off in the indicated direction.
The rustling of bushes causes Blake to turn around immediately, coming face to face with the creature from earlier.
"Oh, thanks a ton. You're a lifesaver!" the creature smiled, "I know it isn't much but please, take this as thanks..." she took an apple out of her shoulder sack and handed it to her, "So what are you doing out here in the wilderness anyway?"
"Well, I'm simply lost and trying to figure out both where I am, and where my teammates are..."
"Oh, I can help with tha..." the creature paled as she trailed off, "...er… did you say team… as in one of those Exploration Teams…?"
"Exploration teams...?" Blake raised an eyebrow
The creature breathed a sigh of relief, "Oh thank The Four. I thought I was going to be in trouble there for a second… so… let me guess, you're a gang of thieves?"
"No… We're huntresses, actually… ...What gave you that idea?"
"Well… Because, you're... you know..." the creature winces, "...a Purrloin... and your kind sorta has a… er… reputation… for that kind of stuff… You know…? Ehehe…"
Blake frowned deeply at that.
"...A-Anyway," the creature hastily changes the subject "Huntresses, huh? What are you hunting...?"
"Huntresses don't actually hunt anything, per say." Blake explained, "What we do is protect people against the Creatures of Grimm."
"Creatures of Grimm…? ...What kind of pokemon are those?"
"...Pokemon…?" Blake questioned, "What's a pokemon…?"
"Eh? What do you mean 'What's a pokemon'? Don't you know what you are…?"
"Not anymore, to be honest… I'm pretty sure I was a Faunus before I blacked out, though."
The creature simply stood there in confusion.
"...What the hell is a Faunus?"
"Helllooooooo…? Sis…? ...Blake? ...Weiss Cream?" Yang Xiao-Long called as she plodded along on all fours, one gauntlet of Ember Cecilia loosely hanging around one of her forelegs and the other somehow fitting around the prominent yellow scale at the end of her new reptilian tail.
It took her a little bit to come to terms that she was apparently a lizard now, but she decided that rather than spend a long time worrying about it, she would see if she could try to find her teammates first. So she equipped her weapon as best as she could and set out searching for them.
"Where are they..." Yang frowned as she once again received no response, "Is anybody out there?"
Hearing nothing, she simply continued plodding along. Eventually, however, she found a road, and on it she witnessed a scene unfolding ahead of her...
A puppy-like creature was crumpled in a heap on the ground, while an imposing mole-like creature with metallic claws stood over it.
"I… I can still beat you..." the puppy-like creature winced as it tried to stand.
"Oh, please. I pretty sure we both know that you'll never win this." the mole creature replied with a cold voice, "Now hold still… This will all be over in a second. This will teach your mangy pack to stay out of my affairs."
The puppy braced itself at the mole splayed its claws in preparation to strike.
Thankfully for it, Yang couldn't stand by and do nothing any longer.
"Hey moley! Why don't you pick on someone your own size." Yang stood firmly on top of a hill, glaring downwards at the metal-clawed mole.
The mole stared at her for several moment, before bursting out into laughter.
"Oh, this is just perfect. What's a puny little Jangmo-o gonna do to me? Growl until I go away?"
"No. This!" Yang leaps into the air, readying her Ember Cecilia-wrapped foot in preparation for a punch. The mole-creature brings up its arms to block, coating itself in a metallic sheen as it does so.
The mole smirks as the punch connects, only to by surprised when Ember Cecilia fires, breaking his guard and sending him tumbling back several feet.
"Sweet. It still works!" Yang grins as she narrowly prevents her weapon from sliding off her forelimb. "I should probably get it resized though..."
"Grrrgh… You'll pay dearly for that." the mole snarls, before leaping into the air and folding up in such a manner that his legs were tucked close to his body and his claws lock into place with the steel covering on his head. Hitting the ground metal-side first, the mole begins to spin rapidly like a drill, disappearing under the road.
Yang narrowly dodges as the creature bursts forth from the ground below her, before rapidly reorienting itself in the air and launching towards her like a spinning missile. Thinking quickly, she swings her tail into the ground, triggering the other Ember Cecilia gauntlet to fire and propel her into the air with the recoil. Doing a front flip, she proceeds to slam her tail down on the mole creature as he impacts with the ground, firing Ember Cecilia once more.
The creature skids along the earth, gritting his teeth in annoyance, before spreading his claws wide and angrily charging at her. Only to be hit in the face by a cloud of sand.
"Take that...!" the puppy-like creature winces as it limps to Yang's side. The mole creature covering its eyes.
"What are you doing?!" Yang glares at him.
"This was my fight before you showed up… I felt like I should help."
"You're hurt. Just let me handle this."
"But I can still… stand..." it frowns defiantly
"Look, this isn't the time to argue."
"The lizard is right, you know." The mole creature says a he proceeds to barrel through both of them with a Drill Run attack.
The puppy skids along the ground with a whimper as the mole turns to it with a murderous gaze. Slowly, it begins to walk towards the incapacitated pup, ready to rake its claws down and finish things. However, Yang had other ideas, and as soon as she recovered from the blow she quickly placed herself between them.
"Tch. After that strike you're still standing..."
"I'm tougher than I look."
"Yes, I can see that. Not that it matters. I'll deal with you soon en--"
His words were cut off by a howling noise before a large, brown, wolf-like creature slams into his side at high speed, stumbling him slightly.
"...Ha! Foolish mutt…" the mole grinned sadistically, "Your rock-type moves are-AAAAAAAAGH!"
He screams in agony as the wolf-like creature suddenly clamps onto his arm with flaming jaws, before thrashing around violently and not letting go. In a panic the mole attempts to swipe with his free claws, only for the wolf to let go and clamp onto his other arm in retaliation. Screaming, the mole eventually manages to shake the wolf off, before quickly fleeing as the wolf lets out a mighty roar.
Huffing, the wolf looks over at Yang, eyes narrowing as it studied her…
"You came to my child's aid..." it speaks in a feminine voice, "For that, I must thank you."
"Hey, it's no problem. He just looked like he needed help and I couldn't just leave him there." Yang replied.
"Well, either way, I am truly in your debt. Is there anything I can do to repay you?"
"Hmm… Maybe you could tell me where I am? I sorta woke up at the edge of this field with my friends and little sister nowhere to be found. Actually, have you seen any of them?"
"I am uncertain. Could you describe them for me?"
"Well, my sister Ruby wears a red cloak, and carries a giant scythe, it's hard to miss her… Blake has long, black hair, yellow eyes, and a little bow on her head. Weiss wears a white dress and carries a rapier… Does that seem familiar at all."
"Unfortunately, no. I have not seen any pokemon in the area with that description… Do you have anything that they may have touched? If I could pick up a scent, perhaps I could point you in the right direction."
"Pokemon…?" Yang blinked.
"...Yes. Pokemon. ...Is there a problem?"
"Well, I've never heard that word before to be honest, my friends are all…" she pauses for a moment, considering Blake, "...humans… I was too, before I woke up as this… lizard thing…"
"I see…" the wolf takes a deep breath, "Perhaps you should come with me, then. It would probably be best to explain this to you sitting down in a safer area, and the pack provides no better protection out here."
Yang shrugged, "Alright then… So what's your name anyway? Do you have one?"
"My name is Alana."
"Nice to meet you, Alana. I'm Yang."
"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Now come." Alana says, as she picks her unconscious pup up by the scruff of its neck.
Yang began to follow moments later, idly wondering just what kind of wacky talking animal world she ended up in...
//A/N: This is loosely based on PMD. While some concepts and elements from PMD will be present, there are many things about this story that stop it from being true PMD (for instance, the setting is a completely different world from the canon PMD one.), hence why it's "PMD-esque"
//This will probably update sporadically, sometimes frequent, sometimes infrequent, as I'm also doing a few quests at the moment as well as college related stuff. That being said, I'll try to do at least one chapter per week at a minimum if life permits.
//Also, I admit that I'm not a good writer but I aim to improve, so expect the story to be rough in spots occasionally. Also on that note, I'm sorry if the story's title sucks. I literally spent hours unable to come up with a good title for this thing to save my life.
//Is it considered bad form to change the title somewhere down the line if I'm too dissatisfied with it...? *shot*
----------------------------------------------------
"Uuugh…" Ruby Rose groaned as she propped herself up. She seemed to be in a forest, surrounded by trees.
Really tall trees...
In fact, have trees always been this tall...?
She blinked as she glanced around for Crescent Rose, trying to remember what happened… All she could remember before she blacked out was an eerie looking hole opening up underneath her team as they were practicing for the upcoming Vytal Festival Tournament…
She would need to find out where her teammates were soon, but first she would need to retrieve her weapon. Spotting it nailed into the ground by its blade some distance away, she stood up…
...and promptly wobbled and fell over.
"Ow..." she groaned, before trying it again. She was met with the same result, but this time she managed to catch herself. It was then that she noticed something was wrong…
Very wrong…
Since when did she have paws!?
"W-What the!?" Ruby looked herself over as best as she could. She had a small body, covered in dark grey fur, with what seemed to be a black mane. Her paws, on the other hand, were covered in a red fur. Panicking, she quickly located a nearby puddle of water and found herself staring face to face with a fox-like visage.
"Oh my god I'm adorable!" she thought aloud, "Also this is bad… very bad… what happened to me!?" she paced around the puddle, examining her reflection. "Am I dreaming? This has gotta be a dream, right? Yeah. I'll just close my eyes and wake up!"
She shut her eyes, slowly opening them to reveal that she was still in the forest.
"...O-Or I could pinch myself…" she says as she brings one of her forepaws to her "arm"... "Oh, right…"
Ruby deflated.
"Okay I don't think this is a dream..."
***
"This has got to be a dream..." Weiss Schnee blinked, staring at the reflection of her now conical body in the pond in front of her. She honestly couldn't believe this was happening to her.
She stood there for several minutes, slowly convincing herself of the reality of her situation, before finally coming to a decision. Waddling her transformed body over to where Myrtenaster laid on the ground, she took her multi-action Dust rapier in one her stubby disembodied hands… How she even managed to hold onto it is beyond her, but at least she didn't have to abandon her weapon.
"Okay, Weiss, your body has changed, you're in the middle of nowhere, and you have no idea where your teammates are… Ugh, would my teammates even recognize me if I found them?" she wondered aloud as she began trudging down the mountainside where she ended up, "Ruby…? Yang…? Hello…? Blake…? Anyone…?" she began to call out, frowning when she received no reply.
This was going to be a long day…
***
Blake Belladonna stared blankly as a purple cat reflected in the water's surface stared back at her.
"Am I dreaming…?" she blinked, moving her arms and watching the purple cat do the same.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of rustling in the bushes. Ears twitching, she immediately readied Gambol Shroud, nearly falling over as the weapon was a bit unwieldy in her current situation. Moments later, she watched as a black creature with what looked like a pink feather growing out of its head, with three more on its tail, burst through the bush. A brown sack is flung over its shoulder.
"You. Purrloin." It speaks in a feminine voice, "Do me a favor, will ya? If anyone asks, I went that way!" she points one of her clawed hands off to the right, before running past Blake as quickly as possible.
'Did that creature just talk…?' Blake thought to herself, before another figure enters the clearing: Something that looked like a large, green, bipedal lizard with a curled tail and yellow highlights.
"Did you see a Sneasel pass through here not long ago?" the lizard asks.
"Uh, I think so…?" Blake blinks in slight confusion, "It went that way." she points to where the odd creature from earlier pointed earlier.
"Thanks." the lizard nods, before taking off in the indicated direction.
The rustling of bushes causes Blake to turn around immediately, coming face to face with the creature from earlier.
"Oh, thanks a ton. You're a lifesaver!" the creature smiled, "I know it isn't much but please, take this as thanks..." she took an apple out of her shoulder sack and handed it to her, "So what are you doing out here in the wilderness anyway?"
"Well, I'm simply lost and trying to figure out both where I am, and where my teammates are..."
"Oh, I can help with tha..." the creature paled as she trailed off, "...er… did you say team… as in one of those Exploration Teams…?"
"Exploration teams...?" Blake raised an eyebrow
The creature breathed a sigh of relief, "Oh thank The Four. I thought I was going to be in trouble there for a second… so… let me guess, you're a gang of thieves?"
"No… We're huntresses, actually… ...What gave you that idea?"
"Well… Because, you're... you know..." the creature winces, "...a Purrloin... and your kind sorta has a… er… reputation… for that kind of stuff… You know…? Ehehe…"
Blake frowned deeply at that.
"...A-Anyway," the creature hastily changes the subject "Huntresses, huh? What are you hunting...?"
"Huntresses don't actually hunt anything, per say." Blake explained, "What we do is protect people against the Creatures of Grimm."
"Creatures of Grimm…? ...What kind of pokemon are those?"
"...Pokemon…?" Blake questioned, "What's a pokemon…?"
"Eh? What do you mean 'What's a pokemon'? Don't you know what you are…?"
"Not anymore, to be honest… I'm pretty sure I was a Faunus before I blacked out, though."
The creature simply stood there in confusion.
"...What the hell is a Faunus?"
***
"Helllooooooo…? Sis…? ...Blake? ...Weiss Cream?" Yang Xiao-Long called as she plodded along on all fours, one gauntlet of Ember Cecilia loosely hanging around one of her forelegs and the other somehow fitting around the prominent yellow scale at the end of her new reptilian tail.
It took her a little bit to come to terms that she was apparently a lizard now, but she decided that rather than spend a long time worrying about it, she would see if she could try to find her teammates first. So she equipped her weapon as best as she could and set out searching for them.
"Where are they..." Yang frowned as she once again received no response, "Is anybody out there?"
Hearing nothing, she simply continued plodding along. Eventually, however, she found a road, and on it she witnessed a scene unfolding ahead of her...
A puppy-like creature was crumpled in a heap on the ground, while an imposing mole-like creature with metallic claws stood over it.
"I… I can still beat you..." the puppy-like creature winced as it tried to stand.
"Oh, please. I pretty sure we both know that you'll never win this." the mole creature replied with a cold voice, "Now hold still… This will all be over in a second. This will teach your mangy pack to stay out of my affairs."
The puppy braced itself at the mole splayed its claws in preparation to strike.
Thankfully for it, Yang couldn't stand by and do nothing any longer.
"Hey moley! Why don't you pick on someone your own size." Yang stood firmly on top of a hill, glaring downwards at the metal-clawed mole.
The mole stared at her for several moment, before bursting out into laughter.
"Oh, this is just perfect. What's a puny little Jangmo-o gonna do to me? Growl until I go away?"
"No. This!" Yang leaps into the air, readying her Ember Cecilia-wrapped foot in preparation for a punch. The mole-creature brings up its arms to block, coating itself in a metallic sheen as it does so.
The mole smirks as the punch connects, only to by surprised when Ember Cecilia fires, breaking his guard and sending him tumbling back several feet.
"Sweet. It still works!" Yang grins as she narrowly prevents her weapon from sliding off her forelimb. "I should probably get it resized though..."
"Grrrgh… You'll pay dearly for that." the mole snarls, before leaping into the air and folding up in such a manner that his legs were tucked close to his body and his claws lock into place with the steel covering on his head. Hitting the ground metal-side first, the mole begins to spin rapidly like a drill, disappearing under the road.
Yang narrowly dodges as the creature bursts forth from the ground below her, before rapidly reorienting itself in the air and launching towards her like a spinning missile. Thinking quickly, she swings her tail into the ground, triggering the other Ember Cecilia gauntlet to fire and propel her into the air with the recoil. Doing a front flip, she proceeds to slam her tail down on the mole creature as he impacts with the ground, firing Ember Cecilia once more.
The creature skids along the earth, gritting his teeth in annoyance, before spreading his claws wide and angrily charging at her. Only to be hit in the face by a cloud of sand.
"Take that...!" the puppy-like creature winces as it limps to Yang's side. The mole creature covering its eyes.
"What are you doing?!" Yang glares at him.
"This was my fight before you showed up… I felt like I should help."
"You're hurt. Just let me handle this."
"But I can still… stand..." it frowns defiantly
"Look, this isn't the time to argue."
"The lizard is right, you know." The mole creature says a he proceeds to barrel through both of them with a Drill Run attack.
The puppy skids along the ground with a whimper as the mole turns to it with a murderous gaze. Slowly, it begins to walk towards the incapacitated pup, ready to rake its claws down and finish things. However, Yang had other ideas, and as soon as she recovered from the blow she quickly placed herself between them.
"Tch. After that strike you're still standing..."
"I'm tougher than I look."
"Yes, I can see that. Not that it matters. I'll deal with you soon en--"
His words were cut off by a howling noise before a large, brown, wolf-like creature slams into his side at high speed, stumbling him slightly.
"...Ha! Foolish mutt…" the mole grinned sadistically, "Your rock-type moves are-AAAAAAAAGH!"
He screams in agony as the wolf-like creature suddenly clamps onto his arm with flaming jaws, before thrashing around violently and not letting go. In a panic the mole attempts to swipe with his free claws, only for the wolf to let go and clamp onto his other arm in retaliation. Screaming, the mole eventually manages to shake the wolf off, before quickly fleeing as the wolf lets out a mighty roar.
Huffing, the wolf looks over at Yang, eyes narrowing as it studied her…
"You came to my child's aid..." it speaks in a feminine voice, "For that, I must thank you."
"Hey, it's no problem. He just looked like he needed help and I couldn't just leave him there." Yang replied.
"Well, either way, I am truly in your debt. Is there anything I can do to repay you?"
"Hmm… Maybe you could tell me where I am? I sorta woke up at the edge of this field with my friends and little sister nowhere to be found. Actually, have you seen any of them?"
"I am uncertain. Could you describe them for me?"
"Well, my sister Ruby wears a red cloak, and carries a giant scythe, it's hard to miss her… Blake has long, black hair, yellow eyes, and a little bow on her head. Weiss wears a white dress and carries a rapier… Does that seem familiar at all."
"Unfortunately, no. I have not seen any pokemon in the area with that description… Do you have anything that they may have touched? If I could pick up a scent, perhaps I could point you in the right direction."
"Pokemon…?" Yang blinked.
"...Yes. Pokemon. ...Is there a problem?"
"Well, I've never heard that word before to be honest, my friends are all…" she pauses for a moment, considering Blake, "...humans… I was too, before I woke up as this… lizard thing…"
"I see…" the wolf takes a deep breath, "Perhaps you should come with me, then. It would probably be best to explain this to you sitting down in a safer area, and the pack provides no better protection out here."
Yang shrugged, "Alright then… So what's your name anyway? Do you have one?"
"My name is Alana."
"Nice to meet you, Alana. I'm Yang."
"It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. Now come." Alana says, as she picks her unconscious pup up by the scruff of its neck.
Yang began to follow moments later, idly wondering just what kind of wacky talking animal world she ended up in...
- Location
- Castle Drakenhof
I like this. Quite a bit, actually. PMD doesn't get enough love. Though, I would request something. Could we get a character index? I haven't been following the games since Alola came out, due to my 3DS having broken. So my formerly encyclopedic knowledge of all current Pokémon is not only out of date, but degraded by time. So having a resource so that I, and everyone else who can't determine a Pokémon based on a quick description can get a mental image of what everyone looks like.
- Location
- Yes
//Sure.
- Location
- Castle Drakenhof
I, personally, thought of Snivy. The personality of that line matches Weiss better than any I can think of.
- Location
- Somewhere
Huh.
I wonder where their journeys shall take these four.
I shall keep watch on this story to find out.
I wonder where their journeys shall take these four.
I shall keep watch on this story to find out.
Chapter 2
- Location
- Yes
//The setting of this story is a separate world from the canon PMD one.
----------------------------------------------------
"So… Let me get this straight..." the creature, the one that lizard from before called a Sneasel, paced in front of Blake, rubbing her temples, "According to you. You used to be something called a Faunus, which is a creature that's like a human, but with bestial traits... And you're also a huntress, which fights against these 'Grimm' things, which are drawn to negativity and are so dangerous and widespread that most of civilization forced to live in four 'kingdoms' and small, scattered villages."
"That's correct." Blake nodded.
"You do realize that what you're spouting sounds completely crazy. Like… off the wall bonkers, right?" the Sneasel frowned as she spread her arms, "I mean, look around us. I don't see any Grimm or Faunus thingies anywhere, do you...? Plus, mentioning humans alone would tend to get you some funny looks heading your way."
"Why is that?"
"Because Humans are creatures of myth! They're said to have completely disappeared a really long time ago… I mean, there's some common rumors circulating around saying that a very select few still remain today, but nobody has ever seen them or found any evidence of them."
"I see…" Blake frowned, still trying to wrap her head around whether or not this was a vivid dream of if this was really happening to her, "So why listen to me if you think I'm crazy?"
"Because I've seen some pretty crazy shit out here in the wilderness. Plus you helped me with that Kecleon so I might as well give you the benefit of the doubt..." the Sneasel shrugged.
"Well thank you for at least hearing me out… So could you tell me a bit about these… pokemon… you mentioned, and how I'm apparently one?"
The Sneasel stared for a moment, "...Jeez, I guess you really are clueless, huh… I don't really even know where to begin with that, so maybe I'll just start with the obvious: Pokemon are… uh… basically everyone. This is our world. We come in many different kinds -- I can't really tell you exactly how many other than that there's a lot of them -- and we come in 18 types too… uh… please tell me you at least understand types..."
The look on Blake's face said it all.
"Great… uh…" the Sneasel rubbed her head, "Think of them like elements in a way, and the types of ourselves and our moves plays a huge factor in combat advantages and the like. For example, I'm both a Dark type and an Ice type, so a Fighting type attack would absolutely slaughter me because both Dark and Ice are weak to Fighting… You, as a Purrloin, are a pure Dark type, so Fighting type attacks will hurt you a lot too… but not as much as they would hurt me… Are you following?"
"Yes. I think I understand so far..."
"Good, because this is all kinda complicated to explain to someone else… Actually, maybe I can fill you in on the road?"
"The road?"
"You had friends to find, right? I think the best way to find them would to get in touch with IMDER. If anybody can find people, it would be them."
"IMDER?"
"The Institute for Mystery Dungeon Exploration and Research. Basically they're an organization that, among other things, rescues lost people from dungeons, apprehends criminals, and does general science things… The town that they're based in is a couple days walk from here. I was heading in that direction anyway, so I might as well take you there."
"You will? Well, thank you, but... you barely know me."
"Well, yeah, but would you be able to say with confidence that you'd be able to find your way there on your own, considering this place is apparently alien to you?" the Sneasel raised an eyebrow, "I thought so. Besides, after learning how clueless you are, I kinda feel bad about leaving you alone in the wilderness… er… no offense."
"None taken… so what's your name anyway? If we're going to be traveling together, we might as well introduce ourselves."
"I'm Kiara. You?"
"Blake."
"Nice to meet you. Anyway, we should get moving, we have a lot of ground to cover and..." Kiara sighed, "...a lot of things to explain..."
***
"Grr… come on…" Ruby whined as she dragged Crescent Rose along the ground with her teeth. It was difficult enough to trigger it to collapse into storage mode with the current state of her body, and, left with no hands to carry it or to clip it onto her waist, she was forced to either slowly scrape it along the ground or, worse, abandon her sweetheart. The choice was obvious.
'I'm so going to polish and repaint you as soon as I can...' she thought as she continued moving, wondering how on Remnant she was going to fight without being able to wield it… She could use her semblance still, at least, she learned that when she was trying to reach the button on Crescent Rose's shaft, but otherwise she wasn't capable of doing much in combat without her weapon.
'Maybe I could pull a Zwei?' she continued to think, 'I mean, I think I'm more of a fox than a corgi with aura, but that's close enough, right?'
"What are you doing…?" Ruby yelped as a sudden voice snapped her out of her thoughts. Quickly turning to the source, she spotted a tall, feminine, white-skinned, humanoid figure with what appears to be leaves for arms, clothes, and hair, and sporting a large flower on their head, giving her a curious look.
"...Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you." the plant person fidgeted, "I just noticed you dragging that thing around and was curious about it..."
"D-Did you just talk to me…?" Ruby asked in disbelief.
"...Why yes, I did…" she awkwardly swayed in place, "Er… are you alright?"
"I don't know..." Ruby deflated, "I'm either having a really weird dream I can't wake up from or this is all actually happening…"
"Oh..."
"So… you wouldn't have happened to see my friends around here, have you, Miss..."
"Ellen." the plant lady replied, "Or Eleanor if you want to be formal… or Elly for short… And I'm not sure. I haven't run into many other pokemon out here before I saw you."
"Pokemon…?" Ruby blinked, "What's a... pokemon…?"
Ellen tilts her head, "I'm not quite sure what you mean by that..."
"Well, what I'm saying is that I really don't know what that is… Besides, my friends and I were humans last time I checked… Well, before I turned into this cute fox thing..."
"Humans…?" Ellen lit up, "Like the creatures in the fairy tales and legends? You mean they really exist!?"
"...Did you just say fairy tales and legends…?" Ruby blinked, suddenly growing concerned.
"Well, yes… Humans are mythical creatures. If the legends are true, then they supposedly disappeared a long, long time ago. So you mean to tell me you used to be a human…?"
"...Y-Yes..." Ruby replied.
"Oh my, then this is amazing!" Ellen did an excited twirl, "I loved those stories so much and I can't believe I'm talking to a real life human…" she froze, "Y-You're not messing with me, right…?"
"What? No. Believe me, I'm telling the truth…" Ruby frowned, "So… h-humans are extinct…?"
"Supposedly… Nobody really knows. There's even rumors that select pockets still exist, hidden from the rest of the world. I'd love to be the one to find solid proof of one of those pockets existing one day... hopefully..."
Ruby let out a sigh in relief, "Well, that's a good sign at least… It still doesn't tell me where my teammates are though..."
"Have you tried calling for them…?"
"Yeah, I didn't get any answers, so I decided to just look for them myself..."
"I see… So why drag… whatever that thing is around?"
"First of all, it's not a thing. It's Crescent Rose: A high-caliber customizable high-impact sniper scythe, and it's my baby. I built it myself when I was still human." Ruby sagged a bit, "but it's kinda hard to carry now that I'm like this..."
"...Would you like me to help you carry it while you look for you friends…?" Ellen asks, mentally trying to comprehend Ruby's description of her weapon, "I-If it's okay for me to touch it, of course..."
"You'd really do that…? But why? Don't you have your on things to do…?"
"Not really." Ellen shrugged, "You look like you could use the help, and to be fair I didn't really have much planned rather than travel… I didn't really have a destination in mind either..." she sweats.
"Ah, well, thanks, I guess. Oh! I'm Ruby by the way."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ruby." Ellen replied as she gently scooped up Ruby's weapon in her arms, "Now could you tell me more about these friends? If we're going to be searching for them, it would be better to know what they look like."
"Well, let's see..."
***
"Everyone at attention! The alpha has returned!" a Lycanroc announces to the rest of his pack, "And she has brought an outsider!"
The pack members erupted into murmuring as their alpha, Alana, walked towards the cliffs with her injured pup in tow, followed by a Jangmo-o wearing peculiar yellow items on its tail and one of its forelimbs. The Rockruffs among the pack regarded them with curiosity and wonder, while their parents watched the outsider cautiously.
"This Jangmo-o came to my child's aid." Alana announced after she set her still unconscious child down, "For that, she is welcome here for the moment."
The pack relaxed a bit at her words, as a different Lycanroc, one with orange fur, stepped forward.
"So, what sort of trouble did he get into this time…?" the Dusk Lycanroc frowned.
"He tried to take on Earl, alone, from what I understand."
"Of course he did… He really takes after that misguided brother of yours too much..." he shakes his head before turning to Yang, "So, I hear you defended our son...?"
"Yep. I got there just in the nick of time too. That mole guy was about to slash him before I jumped in."
"She held off that bandit long enough for me to catch up and drive him off. Our son's injuries would've been much more serious had she not intervened." Alana explained.
"Hmm… Well then you have my gratitude, Jangmo-o. Tell me, what is your name."
"I'm Yang."
"I will be sure to remember that. I suppose it's only fair to introduce myself in turn: My name is Raul. I am the beta of this pack, and, if you could not already tell, Alana's mate."
"It's nice to meet you." Yang turned to Alana, "So... you were going to explain some things to me?"
"Of course." Alana looked to her mate, "I trust that you will oversee our son's recovery?"
Raul nodded.
Alana looked back, "Then follow me to my cave, we will speak there."
***
"This day just keeps getting worse, doesn't it..." Weiss muttered to herself as she took shelter from a snowstorm inside of a shallow alcove. The skies had been clear not even ten minutes before while she was descending the mountain, before the weather rapidly changed to blistering winds and snowflakes.
However, despite this, Weiss noted that she barely felt any cold from this at all. To be fair, it was a bit concerning that she didn't…
'I better not be getting hypothermia…' she frowned, before the sounds of something trudging through the snow caught her attention. Peering out into the whiteout, she could make out a faint, animalistic silhouette braving the cold and struggling against the wind as it made its way towards her alcove.
It looked too small to be a Grimm, but just in case, Weiss reflexively tightened her grip on Myrtenaster as best as her disembodied hands were able to. Soon, the silhouette finally broke through the veil of snow, and Weiss found herself staring into the sky-blue eyes of a small, snowy-white, fox-like creature with what appeared to be six tails and a small sack slung over its side.
"Hi there." the fox spoke. It actually spoke. "Didn't mean to disturb you. The cold doesn't bother me, but wind is a little too much for me to handle, so I thought this looked like a good place to wait out the storm… mind if I squeeze in here?"
Weiss simply rubbed her eyes and blinked. Not believing what she was seeing.
"...Hello..? Is anyone home…?" the fox tilted her head, waving a paw, "Well, you didn't object so..." she proceeded to walk further into the alcove and sit near Weiss.
"A talking animal..." Weiss spoke.
"Hey, I'm nothing like those feral pokemon!" the fox frowned, "Don't lump me in with them!"
"Sorry… I suppose I'm just… perplexed… very perplexed… by everything that's happening right now..."
"...Oh, I think I get it… You've never seen a white Vulpix before!" the fox smiled, "Yeah, we're kinda uncommon… So what brings you to Mt. Flurry? Are you looking for stones too?"
"...to be honest, I don't know… One minute I was with my team, the next I woke up on this mountainside, looking like this," Weiss gestured at herself, "with my friends nowhere to be found, and now I'm stuck in an alcove talking to a talking fox with six tails…"
"Vulpix." the fox corrected.
"...a Vul… pix… Anyway, at this point I'm mostly convinced that I'm either trapped in a dream, or hallucinating and going completely insane… but this all feels too real to be either of those..."
"...Yikes… Well, I can tell you right now that this isn't a dream."
"Oh yes, that's very reassuring..." Weiss frowned, "So hallucination it is."
"Uh… no, I don't think so…" the Vulpix looked around, "This all feels real to me too… ...So you said you have some friends?"
"I do." Weiss nodded, "I have no idea where there are right now though…"
"Well, there is a Mystery Dungeon somewhere on this mountain. Maybe they got lost in there?"
"A Mystery Dungeon…?"
"Yep."
"And what, exactly, is a Mystery Dungeon."
"They're weird places. Think of them as natural labyrinths with constantly changing layouts. If you entered one twice, there's a chance that it won't be the same as when you entered it the first time. Pokemon get lost in them all the time, and the more feral ones practically live in them."
"...So you're saying that if my teammates are in this place, there's a good chance that they're trapped inside it..."
"Probably." the Vulpix nodded, "Luckily the one on this mountain is supposed to be relatively small, so it wouldn't be too hard to escape. In fact, I was planning on going there anyway. You can totally tag along if you want!"
"…Why would anyone willingly go to a place like that…?" Weiss blinked.
"Treasure and adventure, mostly. Or rescuing others who got lost in one." she explained, "I'm going because I heard rumors that there's a chamber full of evolution stones somewhere in there."
"Evolution stones…?"
"Yep. You could have a cut of the loot if we find it! I'm just looking for an Ice Stone. ...That's assuming you want to tag along, of course..."
Weiss sighed, "Well… I suppose this Dungeon place is worth investigating… Do you have a contingency plan in case we get lost?"
"Mhm! I have an Escape Orb in my bag here. If we break it it'll warp everyone near it out of the dungeon… or at least that's what I was told it'll do..."
"You're not even sure how it works…?" Weiss frowned
"Well, truth be told I've never been in a dungeon before... so I've never had to use one… Ehehe..."
"Great..." Weiss rolled her eyes before shifting her attention back to the storm, which was showing no sign of stopping anytime soon.
"So…" the Vulpix spoke after a minute, "...I'm Yuki, by the way."
"Weiss."
"It's nice to meet you, Weiss! ...So what's with the metal stick?"
"It's a multi-action dust rapier."
"...and…?"
"And what…?" Weiss looked at Yuki with slight irritation, "There's nothing more to say."
"You didn't say what it did or what it was for."
"It's a weapon..."
"...Why do you need a weapon? Couldn't you just use your moves…?"
"My moves…?"
"Well yeah… Your moves… you know… the things you use to fight…?"
"Like my Semblance…?"
"What's a Semblance?"
"...Nevermind..."
Silence fell over the alcove once more.
"You're pretty weird, you know that, right?" Yuki spoke after a moment, "N-Not that that's a bad thing, of course!"
Weiss sighed. This day just kept getting longer...
- Location
- Somewhere
Interesting.
Weiss seems to have glossed over the mention of 'pokemon'. Wonder how that'll play out.
I can't help but feel that it's too early for her to evolve-she's a Snorunt heading into an area with evolution stones, there's definitely going to be a Dawn Stone there. Or was that even your intention?
Weiss seems to have glossed over the mention of 'pokemon'. Wonder how that'll play out.
I can't help but feel that it's too early for her to evolve-she's a Snorunt heading into an area with evolution stones, there's definitely going to be a Dawn Stone there. Or was that even your intention?
Curious Whimsy
(Verified Poet) (Verified Insane)
- Location
- Georgia
I honestly want her to evolve into a glalie, just for the shear wtf value it would get from everybody. But yeah froslass is more likely. Still be bleeping hilarious though. Just go through the ruby series and replace wiess with this 
Chapter 3
- Location
- Yes
"Please, sit wherever is comfortable." Alana spoke as she led Yang into her cave, which was more of a small alcove if anything, "You will probably want to be sitting down for this."
Yang obliged, and awkwardly sat on the floor, trying her best to find a comfortable position.
"Zwei makes this look so easy..." she muttered to herself as she finally finds an ideal way to sit.
"Who is Zwei…?" Alana questioned.
"Our corgi." Yang replied.
"What is a corgi?"
"...Nevermind. So, what did you want to explain to me?"
The lycanroc takes a deep breath, "So you claimed you used to be human. Are you aware that those are creatures of legend that have been believed to be extinct for ages?"
Yang blinked, "...What…"
"That was about the answer I expected… Now, you said that you were unfamiliar with the term 'pokemon'. Is that correct?"
"Wait, hold on. Go back. You're telling me humans are extinct!?" Yang sprang to her feet,
"Yes." Alana deadpanned, "If it makes you feel any better, there are rumors that they're actually still around, but there's been no evidence to prove it… So in all likelihood there could be a chance that there's still some out there…"
Yang calmed down a bit, "...S-So what happened to humans then? Is this some kind of weird future where the Grimm won or something?"
" I have absolutely no idea what a Grimm is… And, simply put, nobody knows for sure. According to the ancient tales, they were already in decline during the Age of Darkness, and simply vanished some years after it ended."
"...The Age of Darkness?" Yang asked.
"It was a time when the world's light was fading by the day, threatening to plunge the planet into eternal darkness… That you don't know of it is surprising, even if you claim to be a human..." Alana paced.
"What do you mean?" Yang tilted her head.
"Humans supposedly co-existed with pokemon at the time. I would have expected some human version of the tale to have been passed down if they still existed today..." Alana sat there in thought.
"We don't really have any tales like that…" Yang paused for a moment, "Unless 'covering the world in darkness' was a metaphor for the Grimm or something… But considering you don't know what they are I doubt it… Unless you have tales of black and white monsters drawn to negative emotions that try to kill everything..."
"I'm afraid I know of no such tales..."
"Figures..." Yang frowns, "Well, I guess I can worry about the apparent human extinction later... I still need to find my sister, Weiss, and Blake..."
"Ah yes, your friends… You said that they were apparently also humans, correct."
"Yeah." Yang confirms, "Do you think they got turned into lizards like me…?"
"Possibly. Though I wouldn't rule out the possibility that they could have been turned into different pokemon as well..."
"Oh yeah, what's a pokemon anyway? You keep using that word."
"Practically every creature in the world is a pokemon. Though there are many different kinds. I am what is known as a Lycanroc, and you are a Jangmo-o."
"Actually, I think I'm technically more of a Yangmo-o..."
Alana gave Yang a look. "...I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that…"
"...So anyway, how am I going to find my teammates…? If you think they changed too, then how am I supposed to recognize them…? I mean, my voice is the same at least, so maybe I can recognize them by voice alone… But I'll still have to find them first..."
"If I could have a scent to go off of, perhaps I could point you in the right direction. Though there's no guarantee their scent will remain the same either… Do you recall any circumstances leading to your apparent transformation? Perhaps that could offer some clues."
"I don't really know." Yang shrugged, "The last thing I remember was that this weird hole that looked like a web of lines leading into a shining center opened up beneath all four of us while we were training. When I next woke up I looked like this."
Alana blinked, "...Did you just say a shining hole brought you here…?"
"Yeah. Is it a clue?"
Alana stared for a moment, "...In the tale of the end of the Age of Darkness, it is said that The Four, and the Great Sun Beast, the saviors of our world, came from a world beyond ours through a shining hole in the sky. If what you say is true, then it is likely that you and your friends are not of this world... and… that would actually explain your lack of knowledge quite a bit..."
"Wait… so you're saying this is like another dimension or something…?" Yang blinked, "That... actually kinda makes sense when I think about it… So how is that going to help me find my teammates?"
"...It honestly won't help me locate them at all…" Alana frowned, "However, it's possible that the Great Sun Beast himself might be able to help you. He would know the most about the subject, and perhaps could shed some light on what happened to your friends."
"That's great. Where can I find him?"
"You would need to make a pilgrimage to the Temple of Light and bring your case to the clergy to see if they'll grant you an audience. The journey will take roughly one week…"
"One week…? I mean, I know my friends can probably handle themselves wherever they are, but I'd still like to find them sooner than later… Is there a faster way to get there?"
"...Well…" Alana hesitated, "...There is a chain of three Mystery Dungeons to the west of here. If you passed through them it would cut the journey to three or four days, provided you don't get lost... Unfortunately, due to the nature of Mystery Dungeons in general, getting lost is rather easy... Not to mention that Dungeons are dangerous places infested with feral, hostile, or mad pokemon... among other hazards..."
"I'll risk it, then." Yang nods, "If it means finding everyone sooner."
"Then you are either very brave, or very foolish..." Alana shook her head, sighing, "I won't stop you from trying, though once again, I must warn you that the journey will be treacherous… Are you even aware of how to fight beyond using those strange tools you're wearing? Do you know how to use any moves…?"
"Of course. My weapon just makes me pack an extra punch anyway, I'm perfectly fine with punching things without it. I can maneuver pretty well too."
"...That's not exactly what I meant by moves..." Alana sighed again, "If you're truly set on this path, then I suppose I could at least prepare you for the journey ahead… My pack will escort you to the entrance of the first Dungeon, but no further. Along the way, I will show you some basics on how to fight and survive as a pokemon."
"Well, thanks. But I can take care of myself, you know…" Yang frowned slightly, "You don't really have to do that."
"You defended my son, it's the least I can do." Alana smiled, "And trust me, you will need to know how to use your moves if you're going to have a chance of getting through those Dungeons on your own…"
"...Fine."
"Anyway, now that that's settled, I recommend you get some rest for now, while I break the news to my pack, or otherwise do something productive for the rest of the day. We will be departing at dawn."
"So, do you have a pretty good understanding of types now?" Kiara asked as she and her newfound companion trekked through the forest.
"I believe so..." Blake nodded.
"Good, because I'm not going through that again." the Sneasel stretched, "So what's with the big bulky thing you're carrying around, anyway?"
"This?" Blake held up Gambol Shroud, which was still too big for her to wield effectively, "It's a Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe. It's the weapon I used when I was still a faunus… It was quite effective, but it's admittedly a bit unwieldy now..."
"Why don't you ditch it and use your moves then?"
"I literally just became a pokemon today. I don't even know how to use these moves I apparently have."
"Really…? They should be instinctual… My first moves were for me, at least..." Kiara stopped, "Why don't you try hitting that tree over there?" she pointed to an old looking oak up ahead, "You might as well test what moves you can do. You never know when you might need them..."
"I suppose it would be worth a try." Blake said as she set her weapon down, before walking to the tree, "...So, instinctual, right?"
"Yep, just do the first thing that comes to mind, like, extend your claws or something..."
"Extend my claws…?" Blake blinked.
"Well yeah. Purrloins have retractable claws."
"Oh..." Blake looked at her paws in contemplation.
"...You have no idea how to extend them, do you?"
"It's not a sensation I'm familiar with..." Blake shifted slightly in embarrassment, "My father had retractable claws, I only had cat ears, so I honestly wouldn't know what having retractable claws feels like..."
"Well uh… try just willing your claws to come out or something…? I don't know."
Blake looked at her paws in thought, could it really be that simple…? With a shrug, she began to simply think about extending her claws, focusing a bit on one of her paws while doing so. Nothing happened for several minutes, so she decided to start thinking of different approaches. Unfortunately, none of them bore fruit…
Sighing a bit, she eventually thought of wanting to strike at the tree with something...
...And jumped a bit in surprise as three long claws rapidly extended from both of her paws.
Blinking a bit, she began to move them around to get a feel for them. They looked thin, like they could be easily damaged, or even break, if bent the wrong way... Glancing at the tree, she hesitantly pulled one of her arms back and made a slashing motion at it. She could feel the bark resisting, but those fragile looking claws actually held firm as three small scratches appeared on the surface of the tree.
"Cool. That was Scratch!" Kiara walked up to the tree, "It's a basic move most clawed pokemon can use before they can do better things... It's not that strong, but never fear! Because I have a much better move that I'm pretty sure you can pick up earlier than you would naturally learn it with a bit of training."
She confidently smirked as one of her claws began to glow white, before she quickly turned and carved a very deep gash into the side of the tree, intersecting Blake's claw marks.
Blake stared at the fresh wound in the tree's bark, "So what move was that…?"
"Slash. It's essentially Scratch's better brother. It hits much harder, and sometimes does more damage than normal, so you can use it to put a dent into tougher pokemon. Unfortunately, it's only a normal type move, so you won't be hitting anything super effectively with it, and ghosts will laugh at you… Honestly if I could learn Night Slash, the Dark type version of it, I would, but apparently only Weaviles can pick that up for some stupid reason..."
"So... you think I can learn that Slash move...?"
"Oh, I'm pretty sure you can. I'm think most pokemon with claws or blades can learn it… Though you probably won't naturally pick it up until you had a fair share of fights under your belt. However, if someone who already knows it can teach it to you, it'll speed up the process by a lot. That's how I learned Slash, at least... So, what do you say, want to abandon that lame Scratch for something better?"
"Not right now… Perhaps I should check what other moves I have first..."
"Eh, suit yourself… we're going to be together for a while anyway, so you have a lot of time to change your mind… Your claws are still showing, by the way."
"Yeah, about that…" Blake looked away, "I… don't really know how to retract them..."
"You're kidding me… Can't you just do what you did in reverse?!"
"...I'm trying..."
Kiara sighed as she facepalmed.
"I think this is it!" Yuki wagged her tails as she stood in front of a cave entrance.
"How can you be so sure…?" Weiss questioned. They had been walking for some time since the brief snowstorm ended, having run into more than one false positives that turned out to be nothing more than dead end alcoves.
"Well, it looks like someone tried to board it up once." Yuki noted as she pawed a fragment of a wooden board on the ground.
"That's reassuring..." Weiss frowned, "So what do we do once we're inside."
"We just keep going deeper until we find the stone room. We can look for your buddies on the way!"
"Very well." Weiss readied her rapier, "Let's get this over with then..."
With those words, the two of them stepped forward and entered the dungeon...
The interior of the dungeon was reminiscent of an abandoned mine. With many wooden supports holding up the roof. What worried Weiss was how old some of these supports looked, as if they were going to give away at a moment's notice.
Ahead of her, Yuki happily scampered along, on the lookout for anything interesting.
"Yang? Blake? Ruby?" Weiss called out, "Are any of you in here…? Hello...?"
The only reply was a chorus of squeaking as a small group of blue, batlike creatures swooped down from above, startled by the noise. They all began to descend on the duo with their fangs bared. Instinctively, Weiss pressed the trigger for her current dust chamber, summoning a couple glyphs to launch some fireballs at the bats, only to realize at the last moment that nothing was happening. A quick glance at Myrtenaster's chambers revealed that the dust was not glowing, and seemed to be inert…
Changing her strategy, she instead summoned a large glyph in front of her, in an attempt to block the bat swarm. However, this turned out to be unnecessary, as Yuki what appeared to be a gust of snow out of her mouth, which quickly drove the bats off, freezing a few of them in the process.
"Whoa, that looked cool! What move was that?!" the vulpix asked.
"It's my Semblance." Weiss replied.
"Oh, so that's what you meant earlier? Why didn't you say it was a move, then? Anyway, what does it do?"
"Well… It runs in my family and has versatile applications, though most of my personal uses for it rely on Dust, which doesn't seem to work here…"
"Dust…? Like… dirt?"
"Not that kind of Dust..." Weiss frowned, "I'm talking about crystalized elemental energy."
"...Like Z crystals?"
"Z crystals…?"
"Yeah. They're these weird stones you can find across he world that can give you super powerful attacks when you tap into their energy. You need specialized equipment to use one though, because most pokemon aren't strong enough to unleash their energy on their own…"
"...Interesting." Weiss blinked, filing that information away for later, "Well Dust is different, and it loses its function when it leaves Remnant's atmosphere… I guess that means that… wherever this is... isn't Remnant… If I wasn't convinced enough of that already..."
"What's Remnant?"
"...Where I'm from."
"Huh, never heard of a settlement called Remnant. What's it like there?"
"Well, it's not a settlement..."
"A lost continent, then?"
Weiss stared at her for a moment, "...No."
"Then what is it?"
"...I'll explain later." Weiss replied, "...Speaking of explaining things, would you care to tell me what the word 'pokemon' means? You've used it several times already."
"Is this a trick question?" Yuki gave her a puzzled look for a moment before smiling, "Oh, I get it! This is a test of knowledge, or character, or something!"
Weiss stared at her for a moment, "...Sure. Let's go with that..."
"Cool! Well, a pokemon is basically anyone and everyone, like you and me. That's what everyone knows, I guess. And we come in so many different kinds that it would probably take forever to count them all… We come in a whole bunch of types too..."
"...I see..." Weiss filed that information with the Z Crystal tidbit, noting that apparently Yuki thought she was one of these 'pokemon', "...So do you know what kind of 'pokemon' I am?"
"Of course! You're a Snorunt!" Yuki wagged her tails, "So did I pass...?"
"For now..." Weiss replied, "Anyway, we should keep moving."
"Yeah, we really should." the vulpix agreed, "We don't want to get attacked by the so-called Mysterious Wind, after all!"
Weiss blinked as her companion began bounding off deeper into the dungeon.
"...What do you mean by Mysterious Wind?!"
"Weiss?! Yang!?" Ruby called out as she walked along.
"Yang!? Er… who was the other one again?" Ellen questioned.
"Blake."
"Ah, right…" she nodded, before joining in the calling once more, "Blake!? Weiss!? Ruby's friends?! Hello…?"
"Where are you guys?!" Ruby yelled, deflating a bit when she received no reply.
"...We'll find them, I'm sure of it." the Lilligant gave her a reassuring pat.
"I just hope they're all okay..."
"...So what's it like being human?" Ellen asked, hoping to lighten the mood a bit.
"It feels… uh… normal... I guess…? It's kinda hard to describe..."
"That's understandable…"
"So what's a pokemon anyway…? You mentioned it before when we met."
"Ah, well, pokemon are basically every creature on the planet… I'd explain more, but it would be a rather lengthy discussion…"
"Right… So does that mean I'm a pokemon then?"
"You are." Ellen nodded, "A Zorua, to be exact."
"Huh… so what kind are you?"
"I'm what's known as a Lilligant."
"Oh."
A moment of awkward silence passes.
"...So what is it like to use illusions?" Ellen asked.
"Illusions?" Ruby tilted her head.
"Mhm. Zorua and their evolved form are known to have natural illusion abilities that let them disguise themselves as others… Did you ever experiment with you ability since you became a pokemon…?"
"No… I didn't even know I could do that… plus I had other things on my mind... So how does it work? It actually sounds pretty cool."
"I'm not sure. No other pokemon can use illusions like Zorua and Zoroark can. It might be something instinctual to you, perhaps…?"
"Maybe…?" Ruby fidgeted, "I don't know… I haven't even tried to do it yet… So do Lilligants have anything special they can do."
"Well, Lilligants can one of multiple abilities depending on the individual. For instance, I'm unable to be confused, while my mother, meanwhile, is able to move faster under strong sunlight."
"Cool. So wait, you really can't be confused?"
"Mhm." Ellen nodded.
"So, if someone talked really fast and you could only understand a few fragments of it, would it confuse you at all? What if you saw a really hard math problem?"
"...Well, I still wouldn't understand in those cases, but I wouldn't be disoriented or dizzy from it at all."
"What if someone told you a paradox and said to think long and hard on it?" Ruby tilted her head.
"It wouldn't faze me."
"What about confusing optical illusions on paper?"
"I'm not sure. I've never tried it with one, to be honest..." Ellen shrugged, "Usually the most common sources of confusion in the world are the ones caused by pokemon moves anyway, rather than mundane things such as those..."
"Oh..."
They continued walking for a while, looking for any sign of Ruby's friends, before entering an ominous looking clearing with spider webs scattered everywhere. Ellen stiffened as soon as she noticed the silk.
"Ew… that's a lot of webs..." Ruby remarked as she glanced around the clearing.
"Indeed… Perhaps we should turn back. I doubt your friends went this way..."
"Huh, why?" Ruby asked, "What makes you so sure…?"
"I'll explain later. Right now we should really leave this place before something notices us."
"Oh, I'm afraid it is way too late for that now, dearie..." A deceptively soothing voice from above caught their attention. Glancing upwards, Ruby felt her jaw drops as a massive four-legged red and black spider descended from the treetops on a line of silk and landed next to them. With a yelp, Ellen jumped back, only for a few more of the spiders to drop down from their hiding places.
Backing away, the two of them realized that they were surrounded by at least fifteen of the large spiders, with a few groups of smaller, green ones, mixed in.
"E-Ellen, what are those…?" Ruby questioned.
"The smaller ones are Spinarak. The big ones are their evolved form, Ariados…" the lilligant explained, "We seem to have stumbled into their nest, and we are also at a type disadvantage against them..."
"Type disadvantage… What do you mean…?"
"Long story short, they can probably hurt us a lot more than we can hurt them..."
"Oh..." Ruby frowned, looking at the first ariados to speak, "So what do you want with us…?"
The oversized spider chuckled, "Why, to devour you of course… You did walk right into the middle of our nest, after all, my dear… It's really convenient, by the way, you're saving the majority of us from having to make a hunting trip tonight, so I really must thank you."
"...I have an idea." Ellen whispered, "When I say 'now', follow my lead. Whatever you do, don't breathe in until we're clear of the cloud."
"O-Okay..." Ruby nodded, trying to process what Ellen meant by 'cloud'.
They backed up slowly as the bug type pokemon slowly crept closer. Taking Ruby's collapsed weapon in one arm, Ellen curled the tip of her other leaf in preparation for what she was about to do.
"NOW!" Ellen exclaimed as she tossed a cloud of Sleep Powder at a cluster of spinaraks, putting them to sleep as the narcoleptic spores began to disperse, Ruby held her breath as the two of them began to run through the gap that was created.
The spinaraks and ariados that weren't affected by the powder began to give chase, firing streams of purple-white needles from their mouths at the two as they fled...
Yang obliged, and awkwardly sat on the floor, trying her best to find a comfortable position.
"Zwei makes this look so easy..." she muttered to herself as she finally finds an ideal way to sit.
"Who is Zwei…?" Alana questioned.
"Our corgi." Yang replied.
"What is a corgi?"
"...Nevermind. So, what did you want to explain to me?"
The lycanroc takes a deep breath, "So you claimed you used to be human. Are you aware that those are creatures of legend that have been believed to be extinct for ages?"
Yang blinked, "...What…"
"That was about the answer I expected… Now, you said that you were unfamiliar with the term 'pokemon'. Is that correct?"
"Wait, hold on. Go back. You're telling me humans are extinct!?" Yang sprang to her feet,
"Yes." Alana deadpanned, "If it makes you feel any better, there are rumors that they're actually still around, but there's been no evidence to prove it… So in all likelihood there could be a chance that there's still some out there…"
Yang calmed down a bit, "...S-So what happened to humans then? Is this some kind of weird future where the Grimm won or something?"
" I have absolutely no idea what a Grimm is… And, simply put, nobody knows for sure. According to the ancient tales, they were already in decline during the Age of Darkness, and simply vanished some years after it ended."
"...The Age of Darkness?" Yang asked.
"It was a time when the world's light was fading by the day, threatening to plunge the planet into eternal darkness… That you don't know of it is surprising, even if you claim to be a human..." Alana paced.
"What do you mean?" Yang tilted her head.
"Humans supposedly co-existed with pokemon at the time. I would have expected some human version of the tale to have been passed down if they still existed today..." Alana sat there in thought.
"We don't really have any tales like that…" Yang paused for a moment, "Unless 'covering the world in darkness' was a metaphor for the Grimm or something… But considering you don't know what they are I doubt it… Unless you have tales of black and white monsters drawn to negative emotions that try to kill everything..."
"I'm afraid I know of no such tales..."
"Figures..." Yang frowns, "Well, I guess I can worry about the apparent human extinction later... I still need to find my sister, Weiss, and Blake..."
"Ah yes, your friends… You said that they were apparently also humans, correct."
"Yeah." Yang confirms, "Do you think they got turned into lizards like me…?"
"Possibly. Though I wouldn't rule out the possibility that they could have been turned into different pokemon as well..."
"Oh yeah, what's a pokemon anyway? You keep using that word."
"Practically every creature in the world is a pokemon. Though there are many different kinds. I am what is known as a Lycanroc, and you are a Jangmo-o."
"Actually, I think I'm technically more of a Yangmo-o..."
Alana gave Yang a look. "...I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that…"
"...So anyway, how am I going to find my teammates…? If you think they changed too, then how am I supposed to recognize them…? I mean, my voice is the same at least, so maybe I can recognize them by voice alone… But I'll still have to find them first..."
"If I could have a scent to go off of, perhaps I could point you in the right direction. Though there's no guarantee their scent will remain the same either… Do you recall any circumstances leading to your apparent transformation? Perhaps that could offer some clues."
"I don't really know." Yang shrugged, "The last thing I remember was that this weird hole that looked like a web of lines leading into a shining center opened up beneath all four of us while we were training. When I next woke up I looked like this."
Alana blinked, "...Did you just say a shining hole brought you here…?"
"Yeah. Is it a clue?"
Alana stared for a moment, "...In the tale of the end of the Age of Darkness, it is said that The Four, and the Great Sun Beast, the saviors of our world, came from a world beyond ours through a shining hole in the sky. If what you say is true, then it is likely that you and your friends are not of this world... and… that would actually explain your lack of knowledge quite a bit..."
"Wait… so you're saying this is like another dimension or something…?" Yang blinked, "That... actually kinda makes sense when I think about it… So how is that going to help me find my teammates?"
"...It honestly won't help me locate them at all…" Alana frowned, "However, it's possible that the Great Sun Beast himself might be able to help you. He would know the most about the subject, and perhaps could shed some light on what happened to your friends."
"That's great. Where can I find him?"
"You would need to make a pilgrimage to the Temple of Light and bring your case to the clergy to see if they'll grant you an audience. The journey will take roughly one week…"
"One week…? I mean, I know my friends can probably handle themselves wherever they are, but I'd still like to find them sooner than later… Is there a faster way to get there?"
"...Well…" Alana hesitated, "...There is a chain of three Mystery Dungeons to the west of here. If you passed through them it would cut the journey to three or four days, provided you don't get lost... Unfortunately, due to the nature of Mystery Dungeons in general, getting lost is rather easy... Not to mention that Dungeons are dangerous places infested with feral, hostile, or mad pokemon... among other hazards..."
"I'll risk it, then." Yang nods, "If it means finding everyone sooner."
"Then you are either very brave, or very foolish..." Alana shook her head, sighing, "I won't stop you from trying, though once again, I must warn you that the journey will be treacherous… Are you even aware of how to fight beyond using those strange tools you're wearing? Do you know how to use any moves…?"
"Of course. My weapon just makes me pack an extra punch anyway, I'm perfectly fine with punching things without it. I can maneuver pretty well too."
"...That's not exactly what I meant by moves..." Alana sighed again, "If you're truly set on this path, then I suppose I could at least prepare you for the journey ahead… My pack will escort you to the entrance of the first Dungeon, but no further. Along the way, I will show you some basics on how to fight and survive as a pokemon."
"Well, thanks. But I can take care of myself, you know…" Yang frowned slightly, "You don't really have to do that."
"You defended my son, it's the least I can do." Alana smiled, "And trust me, you will need to know how to use your moves if you're going to have a chance of getting through those Dungeons on your own…"
"...Fine."
"Anyway, now that that's settled, I recommend you get some rest for now, while I break the news to my pack, or otherwise do something productive for the rest of the day. We will be departing at dawn."
***
"So, do you have a pretty good understanding of types now?" Kiara asked as she and her newfound companion trekked through the forest.
"I believe so..." Blake nodded.
"Good, because I'm not going through that again." the Sneasel stretched, "So what's with the big bulky thing you're carrying around, anyway?"
"This?" Blake held up Gambol Shroud, which was still too big for her to wield effectively, "It's a Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe. It's the weapon I used when I was still a faunus… It was quite effective, but it's admittedly a bit unwieldy now..."
"Why don't you ditch it and use your moves then?"
"I literally just became a pokemon today. I don't even know how to use these moves I apparently have."
"Really…? They should be instinctual… My first moves were for me, at least..." Kiara stopped, "Why don't you try hitting that tree over there?" she pointed to an old looking oak up ahead, "You might as well test what moves you can do. You never know when you might need them..."
"I suppose it would be worth a try." Blake said as she set her weapon down, before walking to the tree, "...So, instinctual, right?"
"Yep, just do the first thing that comes to mind, like, extend your claws or something..."
"Extend my claws…?" Blake blinked.
"Well yeah. Purrloins have retractable claws."
"Oh..." Blake looked at her paws in contemplation.
"...You have no idea how to extend them, do you?"
"It's not a sensation I'm familiar with..." Blake shifted slightly in embarrassment, "My father had retractable claws, I only had cat ears, so I honestly wouldn't know what having retractable claws feels like..."
"Well uh… try just willing your claws to come out or something…? I don't know."
Blake looked at her paws in thought, could it really be that simple…? With a shrug, she began to simply think about extending her claws, focusing a bit on one of her paws while doing so. Nothing happened for several minutes, so she decided to start thinking of different approaches. Unfortunately, none of them bore fruit…
Sighing a bit, she eventually thought of wanting to strike at the tree with something...
...And jumped a bit in surprise as three long claws rapidly extended from both of her paws.
Blinking a bit, she began to move them around to get a feel for them. They looked thin, like they could be easily damaged, or even break, if bent the wrong way... Glancing at the tree, she hesitantly pulled one of her arms back and made a slashing motion at it. She could feel the bark resisting, but those fragile looking claws actually held firm as three small scratches appeared on the surface of the tree.
"Cool. That was Scratch!" Kiara walked up to the tree, "It's a basic move most clawed pokemon can use before they can do better things... It's not that strong, but never fear! Because I have a much better move that I'm pretty sure you can pick up earlier than you would naturally learn it with a bit of training."
She confidently smirked as one of her claws began to glow white, before she quickly turned and carved a very deep gash into the side of the tree, intersecting Blake's claw marks.
Blake stared at the fresh wound in the tree's bark, "So what move was that…?"
"Slash. It's essentially Scratch's better brother. It hits much harder, and sometimes does more damage than normal, so you can use it to put a dent into tougher pokemon. Unfortunately, it's only a normal type move, so you won't be hitting anything super effectively with it, and ghosts will laugh at you… Honestly if I could learn Night Slash, the Dark type version of it, I would, but apparently only Weaviles can pick that up for some stupid reason..."
"So... you think I can learn that Slash move...?"
"Oh, I'm pretty sure you can. I'm think most pokemon with claws or blades can learn it… Though you probably won't naturally pick it up until you had a fair share of fights under your belt. However, if someone who already knows it can teach it to you, it'll speed up the process by a lot. That's how I learned Slash, at least... So, what do you say, want to abandon that lame Scratch for something better?"
"Not right now… Perhaps I should check what other moves I have first..."
"Eh, suit yourself… we're going to be together for a while anyway, so you have a lot of time to change your mind… Your claws are still showing, by the way."
"Yeah, about that…" Blake looked away, "I… don't really know how to retract them..."
"You're kidding me… Can't you just do what you did in reverse?!"
"...I'm trying..."
Kiara sighed as she facepalmed.
***
"I think this is it!" Yuki wagged her tails as she stood in front of a cave entrance.
"How can you be so sure…?" Weiss questioned. They had been walking for some time since the brief snowstorm ended, having run into more than one false positives that turned out to be nothing more than dead end alcoves.
"Well, it looks like someone tried to board it up once." Yuki noted as she pawed a fragment of a wooden board on the ground.
"That's reassuring..." Weiss frowned, "So what do we do once we're inside."
"We just keep going deeper until we find the stone room. We can look for your buddies on the way!"
"Very well." Weiss readied her rapier, "Let's get this over with then..."
With those words, the two of them stepped forward and entered the dungeon...
The interior of the dungeon was reminiscent of an abandoned mine. With many wooden supports holding up the roof. What worried Weiss was how old some of these supports looked, as if they were going to give away at a moment's notice.
Ahead of her, Yuki happily scampered along, on the lookout for anything interesting.
"Yang? Blake? Ruby?" Weiss called out, "Are any of you in here…? Hello...?"
The only reply was a chorus of squeaking as a small group of blue, batlike creatures swooped down from above, startled by the noise. They all began to descend on the duo with their fangs bared. Instinctively, Weiss pressed the trigger for her current dust chamber, summoning a couple glyphs to launch some fireballs at the bats, only to realize at the last moment that nothing was happening. A quick glance at Myrtenaster's chambers revealed that the dust was not glowing, and seemed to be inert…
Changing her strategy, she instead summoned a large glyph in front of her, in an attempt to block the bat swarm. However, this turned out to be unnecessary, as Yuki what appeared to be a gust of snow out of her mouth, which quickly drove the bats off, freezing a few of them in the process.
"Whoa, that looked cool! What move was that?!" the vulpix asked.
"It's my Semblance." Weiss replied.
"Oh, so that's what you meant earlier? Why didn't you say it was a move, then? Anyway, what does it do?"
"Well… It runs in my family and has versatile applications, though most of my personal uses for it rely on Dust, which doesn't seem to work here…"
"Dust…? Like… dirt?"
"Not that kind of Dust..." Weiss frowned, "I'm talking about crystalized elemental energy."
"...Like Z crystals?"
"Z crystals…?"
"Yeah. They're these weird stones you can find across he world that can give you super powerful attacks when you tap into their energy. You need specialized equipment to use one though, because most pokemon aren't strong enough to unleash their energy on their own…"
"...Interesting." Weiss blinked, filing that information away for later, "Well Dust is different, and it loses its function when it leaves Remnant's atmosphere… I guess that means that… wherever this is... isn't Remnant… If I wasn't convinced enough of that already..."
"What's Remnant?"
"...Where I'm from."
"Huh, never heard of a settlement called Remnant. What's it like there?"
"Well, it's not a settlement..."
"A lost continent, then?"
Weiss stared at her for a moment, "...No."
"Then what is it?"
"...I'll explain later." Weiss replied, "...Speaking of explaining things, would you care to tell me what the word 'pokemon' means? You've used it several times already."
"Is this a trick question?" Yuki gave her a puzzled look for a moment before smiling, "Oh, I get it! This is a test of knowledge, or character, or something!"
Weiss stared at her for a moment, "...Sure. Let's go with that..."
"Cool! Well, a pokemon is basically anyone and everyone, like you and me. That's what everyone knows, I guess. And we come in so many different kinds that it would probably take forever to count them all… We come in a whole bunch of types too..."
"...I see..." Weiss filed that information with the Z Crystal tidbit, noting that apparently Yuki thought she was one of these 'pokemon', "...So do you know what kind of 'pokemon' I am?"
"Of course! You're a Snorunt!" Yuki wagged her tails, "So did I pass...?"
"For now..." Weiss replied, "Anyway, we should keep moving."
"Yeah, we really should." the vulpix agreed, "We don't want to get attacked by the so-called Mysterious Wind, after all!"
Weiss blinked as her companion began bounding off deeper into the dungeon.
"...What do you mean by Mysterious Wind?!"
***
"Weiss?! Yang!?" Ruby called out as she walked along.
"Yang!? Er… who was the other one again?" Ellen questioned.
"Blake."
"Ah, right…" she nodded, before joining in the calling once more, "Blake!? Weiss!? Ruby's friends?! Hello…?"
"Where are you guys?!" Ruby yelled, deflating a bit when she received no reply.
"...We'll find them, I'm sure of it." the Lilligant gave her a reassuring pat.
"I just hope they're all okay..."
"...So what's it like being human?" Ellen asked, hoping to lighten the mood a bit.
"It feels… uh… normal... I guess…? It's kinda hard to describe..."
"That's understandable…"
"So what's a pokemon anyway…? You mentioned it before when we met."
"Ah, well, pokemon are basically every creature on the planet… I'd explain more, but it would be a rather lengthy discussion…"
"Right… So does that mean I'm a pokemon then?"
"You are." Ellen nodded, "A Zorua, to be exact."
"Huh… so what kind are you?"
"I'm what's known as a Lilligant."
"Oh."
A moment of awkward silence passes.
"...So what is it like to use illusions?" Ellen asked.
"Illusions?" Ruby tilted her head.
"Mhm. Zorua and their evolved form are known to have natural illusion abilities that let them disguise themselves as others… Did you ever experiment with you ability since you became a pokemon…?"
"No… I didn't even know I could do that… plus I had other things on my mind... So how does it work? It actually sounds pretty cool."
"I'm not sure. No other pokemon can use illusions like Zorua and Zoroark can. It might be something instinctual to you, perhaps…?"
"Maybe…?" Ruby fidgeted, "I don't know… I haven't even tried to do it yet… So do Lilligants have anything special they can do."
"Well, Lilligants can one of multiple abilities depending on the individual. For instance, I'm unable to be confused, while my mother, meanwhile, is able to move faster under strong sunlight."
"Cool. So wait, you really can't be confused?"
"Mhm." Ellen nodded.
"So, if someone talked really fast and you could only understand a few fragments of it, would it confuse you at all? What if you saw a really hard math problem?"
"...Well, I still wouldn't understand in those cases, but I wouldn't be disoriented or dizzy from it at all."
"What if someone told you a paradox and said to think long and hard on it?" Ruby tilted her head.
"It wouldn't faze me."
"What about confusing optical illusions on paper?"
"I'm not sure. I've never tried it with one, to be honest..." Ellen shrugged, "Usually the most common sources of confusion in the world are the ones caused by pokemon moves anyway, rather than mundane things such as those..."
"Oh..."
They continued walking for a while, looking for any sign of Ruby's friends, before entering an ominous looking clearing with spider webs scattered everywhere. Ellen stiffened as soon as she noticed the silk.
"Ew… that's a lot of webs..." Ruby remarked as she glanced around the clearing.
"Indeed… Perhaps we should turn back. I doubt your friends went this way..."
"Huh, why?" Ruby asked, "What makes you so sure…?"
"I'll explain later. Right now we should really leave this place before something notices us."
"Oh, I'm afraid it is way too late for that now, dearie..." A deceptively soothing voice from above caught their attention. Glancing upwards, Ruby felt her jaw drops as a massive four-legged red and black spider descended from the treetops on a line of silk and landed next to them. With a yelp, Ellen jumped back, only for a few more of the spiders to drop down from their hiding places.
Backing away, the two of them realized that they were surrounded by at least fifteen of the large spiders, with a few groups of smaller, green ones, mixed in.
"E-Ellen, what are those…?" Ruby questioned.
"The smaller ones are Spinarak. The big ones are their evolved form, Ariados…" the lilligant explained, "We seem to have stumbled into their nest, and we are also at a type disadvantage against them..."
"Type disadvantage… What do you mean…?"
"Long story short, they can probably hurt us a lot more than we can hurt them..."
"Oh..." Ruby frowned, looking at the first ariados to speak, "So what do you want with us…?"
The oversized spider chuckled, "Why, to devour you of course… You did walk right into the middle of our nest, after all, my dear… It's really convenient, by the way, you're saving the majority of us from having to make a hunting trip tonight, so I really must thank you."
"...I have an idea." Ellen whispered, "When I say 'now', follow my lead. Whatever you do, don't breathe in until we're clear of the cloud."
"O-Okay..." Ruby nodded, trying to process what Ellen meant by 'cloud'.
They backed up slowly as the bug type pokemon slowly crept closer. Taking Ruby's collapsed weapon in one arm, Ellen curled the tip of her other leaf in preparation for what she was about to do.
"NOW!" Ellen exclaimed as she tossed a cloud of Sleep Powder at a cluster of spinaraks, putting them to sleep as the narcoleptic spores began to disperse, Ruby held her breath as the two of them began to run through the gap that was created.
The spinaraks and ariados that weren't affected by the powder began to give chase, firing streams of purple-white needles from their mouths at the two as they fled...
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- Location
- Castle Drakenhof
Are you ever going to branch out from following all four characters at a time? Splitting the snippet like that really cuts down on what you can do per chapter, because of how small they are. Now, I don't want to dictate how you write, but that sort of chapter formatting only really works with drastically longer updates. Of Elder Scrolls and Huntsmen does this well. Look at the chapter lengths.
Of Elder Scrolls and Huntsmen: Dragon Rose, a RWBY/The Elder Scrolls crossover
Of Elder Scrolls and Huntsmen: Dragon Rose, a RWBY/The Elder Scrolls crossover
- Location
- Yes
//Later on I do intend to focus on one or two groups at a time until the big reunion, but for now I feel like sticking with all four, at least until things get more established.
- Location
- Yes
//Just want to apologize for the lack of updates, I'll try to have the next chapter for this up by the end of Sunday at the latest.
AuthorNCS
*Only suffering*
- Location
- Diana Cavendish's Heart
Ruby better master her illusion ASAP (and evolve so she can use her weapon properly), because she's like the only one with the ability to give the entire team their human forms back.
Wess got lucky, because Frostlass is one of those evolvation stone forms that doesn't hamper move growth. She gets a few useful moves immediately like Double Team, Ominous Wind, and Ice Shard. She lost a lot of physical damage but gained a crap ton of speed (definitely much faster than when she was human since Frostlass is as fast as Latios and Latias stat wise).
Blake on the other hand shouldn't evolve, since going Liepard means she looses bipedal movement.
Is Yang's ability Bulletproof? Because her aura + semblance + Bide + Iron Defense + Kommo-o's bulk = ridiciously amazing defense in the future.
... But until then, she's kinda limited to her weapon since Jangmo-o gets garbage moves earily on.
Wess got lucky, because Frostlass is one of those evolvation stone forms that doesn't hamper move growth. She gets a few useful moves immediately like Double Team, Ominous Wind, and Ice Shard. She lost a lot of physical damage but gained a crap ton of speed (definitely much faster than when she was human since Frostlass is as fast as Latios and Latias stat wise).
Blake on the other hand shouldn't evolve, since going Liepard means she looses bipedal movement.
Is Yang's ability Bulletproof? Because her aura + semblance + Bide + Iron Defense + Kommo-o's bulk = ridiciously amazing defense in the future.
... But until then, she's kinda limited to her weapon since Jangmo-o gets garbage moves earily on.
Last edited:
- Location
- Within the Light of Hope
So Mystery dungeon and seperate exploratory teams when?
- Location
- Somewhere
Don't worry about it. Take a break if you need to. Burnout kills 99.99% of enthusiasm and productivity.
Babysharkdodo
I knew the song before it was recorded
- Location
- A place
Neat story and am eager to see more.
- Location
- Yes
//Look, I know I said I'd have something up by now, but life had other plans unfortunately, so things have been delayed more than I would've liked...
//I'll have something up sometime this week, thank you all for your patience thus far.
//I'll have something up sometime this week, thank you all for your patience thus far.
- Location
- Yes
//Small update:
//Chapter is about halfway written. Sorry for the slow progress and for failing to meet "deadlines" twice in a row. Third time's the charm, hopefully.
//Chapter is about halfway written. Sorry for the slow progress and for failing to meet "deadlines" twice in a row. Third time's the charm, hopefully.
- Location
- Yes
//Just a small update to let you know this isn't dead and to prevent this thread from auto-locking.
//I know what I said before, and I honestly feel bad about not being able to fulfill things on my end. I haven't been able to progress much over the last month or so, mostly due to some writer's block I'm suffering in regards to Blake's part of the next chapter.
//I'll try to pump out the next chapter as soon as I can, and for those who are still sticking around I thank you for your patience so far.
//I know what I said before, and I honestly feel bad about not being able to fulfill things on my end. I haven't been able to progress much over the last month or so, mostly due to some writer's block I'm suffering in regards to Blake's part of the next chapter.
//I'll try to pump out the next chapter as soon as I can, and for those who are still sticking around I thank you for your patience so far.
Chapter 4
- Location
- Yes
//Sorry for the long wait, and if this turned out shorter than you were expecting.
//Also no Yangmo-o this chapter. The next scene I had in mind for her was going to take place in the evening, and I couldn't think of any good filler to coincide with the other three's storylines, so she'll be appearing in the next chapter.
-----------------
"RUBY! BLAKE!? YANG!?" Weiss called out once again.
"WEISS'S BUDDIES!?!" Yuki joined in, their voices echoing throughout the cave, startling yet another flock of Zubat.
After letting the swarm pass over them, Yuki turned to her companion, "You know, I'm starting to think that they aren't in this part of the dungeon..."
"Really? What gave you that idea…?" Weiss frowned.
"Well, they weren't answering us for fifteen minutes straight, for one..." the vulpix shrugged, prompting a sigh from the human turned snorunt.
"Let's... just keep going before this mythical wind of yours shows up..."
"It's not a myth. I've heard stories of it getting pokemon!"
"And do those stories have any proof?" Weiss questioned. After hearing about the so-called 'Mysterious Wind', she felt it was more of a story told to children to keep them out of Dungeons. The thought of a sentient, malevolent wind that forcibly ejected explorers from natural labyrinths seemed hard to believe, since otherwise getting lost in one -- which is supposedly a common problem -- wouldn't be an issue, as, in theory, one would just need to wait for the wind...
"Well DUH!" Yuki frowned, "Eyewitness accounts, of course!"
"I meant scientific proof."
"Probably! There's smart people that go into dungeons all the time from what I've heard!"
"...That's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?"
Weiss sighed, "Nevermind… So why are you looking for this… Ice Stone, was it?"
"Why I want to evolve, silly!" the vulpix smiled.
"Evolve?"
"Yeah, you know. When a small pokemon becomes a big pokemon?"
So some kind of metamorphosis. Weiss thought, "So I guess that these evolution stones you mentioned earlier are what causes evolution?"
"Well… yeah. It's in the name after all… But it's not every evolution. Some pokemon evolve through stones, but with others it depends on other things. Most commonly it's associated with strength and experience, if anything."
"Interesting…"
"You know, I've said it before, but you're pretty weird. Especially since you don't know stuff like that." Yuki wagged her tails, "But it's not a bad thing, though. Weirdos are fun to be around sometimes!"
"...Thanks… I guess..." Weiss blinked, not sure whether to take that as an insult or a compliment, "So, how much farther?"
"I mean, it's supposed to be a relatively small dungeon, so not far I think…? Hopefully…? We just need to keep walking."
"Uh huh… We're lost, aren't we?"
"What? Of course not! My intuition tells me the way forward is uh..." Yuki quickly glanced about, "...Forward!"
She paused for a moment...
"...Okay, I think we may be a tiny bit lost..."
Weiss promptly facepalmed.
"I think we've passed that tree six times now..." Ruby noted as she and her lilligant companion kept wandering along.
While they managed to escape from those overgrown spiders, it only seemed to serve to get them lost in a gloomy part of the forest, where the bark on the trees was extremely dark. They had been going in circles for a while now.
"Are you certain?" Ellen questioned, glancing about.
"Positive. See that weird bulge in the bark and the way the trunk seems to twist to the side? That's the only tree around here that I've seen like that."
"Hmm… I certainly hope we didn't enter a Mystery Dungeon by mistake while getting away from those spinarak and ariados..."
"Mystery Dungeon?" Ruby tilted her head.
"Yes. They're natural labyrinths that are quite dangerous places, especially the larger ones. I heard that there was one in the area called Blackbark Forest. Judging by the coloration on these trees, I estimate that, best case, it's nearby, and worst case, we've already entered it..."
"...So how do we get out if we ended up in it?"
"I've heard it's rather difficult to escape a dungeon unless you know what you're doing or have specialized equipment, unfortunately…"
"So we're basically stuck here unless we somehow find the exit..."
"I'm afraid so… We could bank on IMDER sending an expedition out here, but the chances of them sending a team out here are low considering how many dungeons there are in the world...."
"...IMDER?"
"An institution dedicated to the study and exploration of Mystery Dungeons." the lilligant explained, "They also handle rescue operations for dungeons, as well as track and apprehend outlaws that elude the authorities."
"So they're sorta like a Huntsman Academy in a way?" Ruby blinked.
"Huntsman Academy…?"
"Yeah, places dedicated to training Huntsmen and Huntresses, warriors dedicated to fighting the Grimm and keeping the peace."
"Oh, I see. Well I suppose it would be similar in regard to the peacekeeping role… What are the Grimm? I've never heard of a pokemon like that."
"Oh boy, uh… Well they're soulless creatures drawn to negativity." Ruby elaborated, "Humanity has been fighting them for like... forever..."
"I see, so dark types then? Perhaps Dark/Ghost?"
"I mean, they are pretty dark…" the huntress turned zorua blinked, "Oh yeah, speaking of types, I've been meaning to ask: What exactly did you mean earlier when you said we were at a type disadvantage against those spider things? I mean, I know you said they could potentially hurt us a lot, but I still don't understand why."
"Ah yes, I suppose you wouldn't understand..." Ellen rubbed her chin with one of her leaves, "Well, pokemon fall into one of 18 types, sometimes two at once depending on the variety. I'm a grass type, while you're a dark type. Ariados and its pre-evolution are both poison and bug types, attacks of those types would be very effective on a grass type such as myself, and your typing unfortunately gives you a vulnerability to bug type moves..."
"So they're sort of like elements in a way? Like what Dust has?"
"Elements? Well, I suppose you could put it that way… I could elaborate some more while we try to find our bearings if you'd like… though I'm not sure what mere dust has to do with this."
"Well, if pokemon types are what I think they are, then I guess you can say Dust is basically crystals with a type…" Ruby explained as they continued.
"So like Z Crystals?"
"I dunno... maybe…? What are those like?"
"Well, I haven't seen them in person, but from what I've read they're these small crystals that, when attached to an appropriate apparatus, allow the user to channel energy into a powerful, albeit exhausting, move."
"So it's like an awesome super move?" Ruby tilted her head.
"If the move is offensive, generally, then yes. However, I've also read that they can be used for more support type moves as well." Ellen clarified.
"That sounds amazing! You know, if we ever find one I should take a look at it. If it's anything like Dust then I might be able to use it with my baby!"
"Your… baby…?" Ellen tilted her head, before realizing something, "Oh, right. I do believe you called this thing I'm holding your baby… How does this work anyway…?"
"Well, Crescent Rose is capable of three basic modes. There's storage mode, which its in right now, which I designed to be easy to carry when not in use. Then there's the sniper rifle functionality, which is incorporated into the weapon's rifle and scythe configurations-"
As Ruby began descending into the technical jargon and specifications of her weapon, the lilligant found herself becoming increasingly more lost in her inability to understand most of what the human-turned-zorua was saying...
***
"You know, it really isn't that funny." Blake frowned.
It had taken her over twenty minutes to figure out how to retract her claws, involving several failed attempts, to her sneasel companion's utter amusement.
"Oh come on, you have to admit some of the things you tried were a little silly…" the pokemon in question smirked, "I mean, come on, you tried to use a log to forcibly push them in and ended up with a piece of bark stuck to your paw for five minutes! How is that not funny?"
"Can we just change the subject please?"
"Fine, fine…" Kiara waved a claw, "So you wanted to check what other moves you had besides scratch, right?"
Blake gave a small nod.
"Alright so, uh… does anything else sorta instinctually come to mind…? It doesn't necessarily have to do with hitting anything. Some moves are more support-oriented, after all."
Blake considered for a moment, thinking long and hard. Eventually, a sensation began to build in her throat. Wondering if this was her chance, she opened her mouth…
And a rather adorable sounding meow escaped her lips, causing her to rapidly cover them with her paws. Embarrassed and shocked, she looked, wide-eyed, at the Sneasel beside her, who was now struggling to contain her laughter.
Eventually, it got the better of her, and Kiara fell over in a laughing fit.
"...Are you done?" Blake frowned after a minute of the sharp claw pokemon's giggling.
"Yeah, yeah… Sorry…" she sniggered a bit as she got to her feet, "Anyway, that looked like Growl to me." Kiara explained, "It's a basic move a lot of pokemon know when they're inexperienced."
"Uh huh… Does it really do anything other than… that?"
"Not really. You see, it's mostly used as a distraction." the sneasel explained, "Basically you wait until somebody lunges at you and then growl adorably at them. It's usually enough to throw off an opponent and make their blow slightly less effective. Though it's really outclassed by other moves, so most pokemon that can learn it tend to drop it after a while."
Blake nodded, making a note to herself not to use that embarrassing move in the future.
"So is there anything notable between here and this town we're going to?"
"There's a couple of Mystery Dungeons, but they're rather easy to go around. Otherwise it'll be smooth sailing I think…"
As the pair continued walking, they were unaware of a pair of figures watching them intently from the treeline a considerable distance behind them. Both of them were white-furred, black-skinned, canine creatures with scythe-like growths protruding from their heads: known and feared widely as Absol.
"What do you think?" one asked the other.
"The threads of disaster are beginning to wind around them. They'll definitely be involved in one sometime in the near future." came the reply.
"Could it be related to the foreboding the clan leader sensed?"
"We cannot tell at this stage." the second absol shook his head, "Nor can we tell if they'll lead to the cause, or be simply caught in the crossfire."
"What should we do?"
"Report back to the clan. I'll tail them for a while, if only to keep her from interfering. If we can sense the impending disaster, then no doubt she would as well, and we certainly wouldn't want her making things worse with her radical ideas..."
"I understand." the first absol nodded "May fate be with you."
And with that, he disappeared into the forest as his companion returned his gaze to the duo of dark types on the road.
//Also no Yangmo-o this chapter. The next scene I had in mind for her was going to take place in the evening, and I couldn't think of any good filler to coincide with the other three's storylines, so she'll be appearing in the next chapter.
-----------------
"RUBY! BLAKE!? YANG!?" Weiss called out once again.
"WEISS'S BUDDIES!?!" Yuki joined in, their voices echoing throughout the cave, startling yet another flock of Zubat.
After letting the swarm pass over them, Yuki turned to her companion, "You know, I'm starting to think that they aren't in this part of the dungeon..."
"Really? What gave you that idea…?" Weiss frowned.
"Well, they weren't answering us for fifteen minutes straight, for one..." the vulpix shrugged, prompting a sigh from the human turned snorunt.
"Let's... just keep going before this mythical wind of yours shows up..."
"It's not a myth. I've heard stories of it getting pokemon!"
"And do those stories have any proof?" Weiss questioned. After hearing about the so-called 'Mysterious Wind', she felt it was more of a story told to children to keep them out of Dungeons. The thought of a sentient, malevolent wind that forcibly ejected explorers from natural labyrinths seemed hard to believe, since otherwise getting lost in one -- which is supposedly a common problem -- wouldn't be an issue, as, in theory, one would just need to wait for the wind...
"Well DUH!" Yuki frowned, "Eyewitness accounts, of course!"
"I meant scientific proof."
"Probably! There's smart people that go into dungeons all the time from what I've heard!"
"...That's not what I meant."
"Then what did you mean?"
Weiss sighed, "Nevermind… So why are you looking for this… Ice Stone, was it?"
"Why I want to evolve, silly!" the vulpix smiled.
"Evolve?"
"Yeah, you know. When a small pokemon becomes a big pokemon?"
So some kind of metamorphosis. Weiss thought, "So I guess that these evolution stones you mentioned earlier are what causes evolution?"
"Well… yeah. It's in the name after all… But it's not every evolution. Some pokemon evolve through stones, but with others it depends on other things. Most commonly it's associated with strength and experience, if anything."
"Interesting…"
"You know, I've said it before, but you're pretty weird. Especially since you don't know stuff like that." Yuki wagged her tails, "But it's not a bad thing, though. Weirdos are fun to be around sometimes!"
"...Thanks… I guess..." Weiss blinked, not sure whether to take that as an insult or a compliment, "So, how much farther?"
"I mean, it's supposed to be a relatively small dungeon, so not far I think…? Hopefully…? We just need to keep walking."
"Uh huh… We're lost, aren't we?"
"What? Of course not! My intuition tells me the way forward is uh..." Yuki quickly glanced about, "...Forward!"
She paused for a moment...
"...Okay, I think we may be a tiny bit lost..."
Weiss promptly facepalmed.
***
"I think we've passed that tree six times now..." Ruby noted as she and her lilligant companion kept wandering along.
While they managed to escape from those overgrown spiders, it only seemed to serve to get them lost in a gloomy part of the forest, where the bark on the trees was extremely dark. They had been going in circles for a while now.
"Are you certain?" Ellen questioned, glancing about.
"Positive. See that weird bulge in the bark and the way the trunk seems to twist to the side? That's the only tree around here that I've seen like that."
"Hmm… I certainly hope we didn't enter a Mystery Dungeon by mistake while getting away from those spinarak and ariados..."
"Mystery Dungeon?" Ruby tilted her head.
"Yes. They're natural labyrinths that are quite dangerous places, especially the larger ones. I heard that there was one in the area called Blackbark Forest. Judging by the coloration on these trees, I estimate that, best case, it's nearby, and worst case, we've already entered it..."
"...So how do we get out if we ended up in it?"
"I've heard it's rather difficult to escape a dungeon unless you know what you're doing or have specialized equipment, unfortunately…"
"So we're basically stuck here unless we somehow find the exit..."
"I'm afraid so… We could bank on IMDER sending an expedition out here, but the chances of them sending a team out here are low considering how many dungeons there are in the world...."
"...IMDER?"
"An institution dedicated to the study and exploration of Mystery Dungeons." the lilligant explained, "They also handle rescue operations for dungeons, as well as track and apprehend outlaws that elude the authorities."
"So they're sorta like a Huntsman Academy in a way?" Ruby blinked.
"Huntsman Academy…?"
"Yeah, places dedicated to training Huntsmen and Huntresses, warriors dedicated to fighting the Grimm and keeping the peace."
"Oh, I see. Well I suppose it would be similar in regard to the peacekeeping role… What are the Grimm? I've never heard of a pokemon like that."
"Oh boy, uh… Well they're soulless creatures drawn to negativity." Ruby elaborated, "Humanity has been fighting them for like... forever..."
"I see, so dark types then? Perhaps Dark/Ghost?"
"I mean, they are pretty dark…" the huntress turned zorua blinked, "Oh yeah, speaking of types, I've been meaning to ask: What exactly did you mean earlier when you said we were at a type disadvantage against those spider things? I mean, I know you said they could potentially hurt us a lot, but I still don't understand why."
"Ah yes, I suppose you wouldn't understand..." Ellen rubbed her chin with one of her leaves, "Well, pokemon fall into one of 18 types, sometimes two at once depending on the variety. I'm a grass type, while you're a dark type. Ariados and its pre-evolution are both poison and bug types, attacks of those types would be very effective on a grass type such as myself, and your typing unfortunately gives you a vulnerability to bug type moves..."
"So they're sort of like elements in a way? Like what Dust has?"
"Elements? Well, I suppose you could put it that way… I could elaborate some more while we try to find our bearings if you'd like… though I'm not sure what mere dust has to do with this."
"Well, if pokemon types are what I think they are, then I guess you can say Dust is basically crystals with a type…" Ruby explained as they continued.
"So like Z Crystals?"
"I dunno... maybe…? What are those like?"
"Well, I haven't seen them in person, but from what I've read they're these small crystals that, when attached to an appropriate apparatus, allow the user to channel energy into a powerful, albeit exhausting, move."
"So it's like an awesome super move?" Ruby tilted her head.
"If the move is offensive, generally, then yes. However, I've also read that they can be used for more support type moves as well." Ellen clarified.
"That sounds amazing! You know, if we ever find one I should take a look at it. If it's anything like Dust then I might be able to use it with my baby!"
"Your… baby…?" Ellen tilted her head, before realizing something, "Oh, right. I do believe you called this thing I'm holding your baby… How does this work anyway…?"
"Well, Crescent Rose is capable of three basic modes. There's storage mode, which its in right now, which I designed to be easy to carry when not in use. Then there's the sniper rifle functionality, which is incorporated into the weapon's rifle and scythe configurations-"
As Ruby began descending into the technical jargon and specifications of her weapon, the lilligant found herself becoming increasingly more lost in her inability to understand most of what the human-turned-zorua was saying...
***
"You know, it really isn't that funny." Blake frowned.
It had taken her over twenty minutes to figure out how to retract her claws, involving several failed attempts, to her sneasel companion's utter amusement.
"Oh come on, you have to admit some of the things you tried were a little silly…" the pokemon in question smirked, "I mean, come on, you tried to use a log to forcibly push them in and ended up with a piece of bark stuck to your paw for five minutes! How is that not funny?"
"Can we just change the subject please?"
"Fine, fine…" Kiara waved a claw, "So you wanted to check what other moves you had besides scratch, right?"
Blake gave a small nod.
"Alright so, uh… does anything else sorta instinctually come to mind…? It doesn't necessarily have to do with hitting anything. Some moves are more support-oriented, after all."
Blake considered for a moment, thinking long and hard. Eventually, a sensation began to build in her throat. Wondering if this was her chance, she opened her mouth…
And a rather adorable sounding meow escaped her lips, causing her to rapidly cover them with her paws. Embarrassed and shocked, she looked, wide-eyed, at the Sneasel beside her, who was now struggling to contain her laughter.
Eventually, it got the better of her, and Kiara fell over in a laughing fit.
"...Are you done?" Blake frowned after a minute of the sharp claw pokemon's giggling.
"Yeah, yeah… Sorry…" she sniggered a bit as she got to her feet, "Anyway, that looked like Growl to me." Kiara explained, "It's a basic move a lot of pokemon know when they're inexperienced."
"Uh huh… Does it really do anything other than… that?"
"Not really. You see, it's mostly used as a distraction." the sneasel explained, "Basically you wait until somebody lunges at you and then growl adorably at them. It's usually enough to throw off an opponent and make their blow slightly less effective. Though it's really outclassed by other moves, so most pokemon that can learn it tend to drop it after a while."
Blake nodded, making a note to herself not to use that embarrassing move in the future.
"So is there anything notable between here and this town we're going to?"
"There's a couple of Mystery Dungeons, but they're rather easy to go around. Otherwise it'll be smooth sailing I think…"
As the pair continued walking, they were unaware of a pair of figures watching them intently from the treeline a considerable distance behind them. Both of them were white-furred, black-skinned, canine creatures with scythe-like growths protruding from their heads: known and feared widely as Absol.
"What do you think?" one asked the other.
"The threads of disaster are beginning to wind around them. They'll definitely be involved in one sometime in the near future." came the reply.
"Could it be related to the foreboding the clan leader sensed?"
"We cannot tell at this stage." the second absol shook his head, "Nor can we tell if they'll lead to the cause, or be simply caught in the crossfire."
"What should we do?"
"Report back to the clan. I'll tail them for a while, if only to keep her from interfering. If we can sense the impending disaster, then no doubt she would as well, and we certainly wouldn't want her making things worse with her radical ideas..."
"I understand." the first absol nodded "May fate be with you."
And with that, he disappeared into the forest as his companion returned his gaze to the duo of dark types on the road.
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