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PMD: Odyssey to Dawn

DreamSayer

Name's Adam.
[spoil]Hello, this is the first chapter of the re-written iteration of my story. I'm posting the first two chapters as a sort of trial run to gains some early reception. More chapters are sure to come in the future, For now, you have these to enjoy![/spoil]

Here's the link to the old version: http://www.serebiiforums.com/showthread.php?658541-PMD-Odyssey-to-Dawn

Chapter Index
[spoil]Chapter 1: Prepare for Dawn
Chapter 2: Blue
Chapter 3: Red Flower
Chapter 4: Wooden Masks

Chapter 5: Withered Bloom
[/spoil]
Chapter 1: Prepare for Dawn



A gentle breeze blew through wild flower vines in a sloped ditch, the leaves swaying by mossy rocks and ferns. Pollen grains and dandelion seeds were sent drifting away by the wind while a young Minccino laid there, curled up, and asleep beneath the shade of rocks. A Ribombee was gathering pollen in a small hand woven sash nearby, doing so by putting her head into flower cups and withdrawing it with pollen grains all over her short delicate hair. After that, she’d then collect the pollen with her thin arms and roll them up then into balls before storing them in the sash. The Ribombee felt that she was done, so she decided to wake her nearby companion.

"Wake up, Harvey!" she yelled into the Minccino's ear at the top of her lungs.

Harvey’s deep ocean blue eyes pried open slowly as he woke up. He grumbled a few times before his eyelids started closing up again.

Frowning, the Ribombee yelled at him again. "Harvey!"

"I'm up!" Harvey groaned, rubbing his eyes slowly as he unwrapped his long bushy tail—which he was using as a pillow—and then stretched his paws, his long white tipped ears fluttering as he did. "I'm awake… You can stop yelling now." Harvey ended his sentence with a sigh, glancing at the pink Ribombee.

Rubee buzzed her wings as she zipped around over his head. "I’m done collecting all the pollen and nectar! Now get up, it's time head back home!"

Harvey clicked his tongue, looking away with a lazy expression. “Give me five,” he said, lying back down.

When he didn't oblige, she pulled on his ears. "Come on! Get up! You lazy bum!"

"Ow, ow, ow! Quit doing that!" Harvey leapt up, holding the tips of his ears. "Geez! You didn't have to do that!"

"It’s your fault for not listening, now let’s get going. You don't want to keep Moga waiting too long now, do you?"

"Hey don't forget, you're the one who dragged us all the way out here in the first place," Harvey said as he climbed down off his rock, shuddering as his feet touched the cold moist ground. "Could carry me out of here? I really don't want to have to touch any more of these things. They give me goosebumps." Harvey flailed his paw to shake off some moss, a sick feeling welling up in his gut.

"Sure, Mr. Cleanfreak!" Rubee chuckled, sliding her sash over her head. "Hold this first."

Harvey collected the sash and wore it around his shoulder. He then raised his paws up, smiling. "Up and away, Rubee!"

Rubee rolled her eyes. She wrapped her hands around his chest and flapped her wings continuously until a they made a faint buzz. Soon, Harvey felt his feet leaving the ground as she flew him up towards the mouth of the ditch. "You know, Rubee, it’s really amazing how you're able to carry me even though you're like, twice smaller than I am."

"What can I say? You're pretty light; just a ball of fluff and fuzz. I could probably carry you for a couple of hours without breaking a sweat."

Harvey raised a brow, wearing a smirk. "You can?! Why don't we do that now?"

"Nice try." She shook her head, putting him back on the ground once they were out of the ditch. "Can't be bothered. You have like two… four strong legs that can carry you around."

Harvey let out a defeated sigh, scratching his head with his paw as he smiled. "Well, it was worth a shot."

Rubee chuckled as she pulled the sash off him, exposing the strange blue mark he always had on his back for as long as she could remember. It resembled an inverted anchor with a wide flattened crown, slightly curved arms and a slightly blunted base. A round black oval sat in the middle of the crown, building contrast against the blue mark. When she asked him about it the first time, he didn’t even know it was there, and it had been a mystery ever since.

"I guess you'll just have to learn how to fly on your own. Who knows? Maybe you'll grow wings when you evolve someday!"

Harvey placed his paw on his chin as he pondered her words. I don't think I'll have wings even when I evolve. Can a human-turned Pokémon evolve anyway?

"Hey, I was only joking!” Rubee pleaded, thinking he was saddened from his expression. “I could fly you home now if you want."

Harvey waved his paw dismissively, though appreciating the gesture. "No thanks. I think I'll just walk."

"Okay… Suit yourself!"
***C***​

They walked past a wide tree on their way back. A tree so tall, they couldn't see the topmost branches from where they stood. The forest was filled with similarly sized trees, blocking off a lot of sunlight with their large canopies. The tree roots had emerged above the ground, molding the terrain around them to form ridges and slopes. The trees were called Sky Arrows by the locals, and despite their wondrous nature, the rest of the world was mostly unaware of their existence.

As Rubee buzzed in the air, Harvey was half listening to her as she rambled on and on about all the kinds of pollen puffs she was going to make that day. He remained mostly distant for most of the walk until Rubee paused, annoyed when she noticed that he wasn't listening.

She hovered in front of his face with puffed up cheeks. "Hey! Are you even listening to me at all?!"

"What? Oh, of course I was listening, one hundred percent!" Harvey said in an obviously nervous posture.

"Yeah? What was the last word I said?"

Harvey raised his hand to speak, but he slowly lowered it back down. "Okay, you got me."

"Seriously Harvey," she said, sighing. "Your head is always in the clouds these days."

"I'm sorry. It's just that… I've been having these strange thoughts lately…"

"What kind of thoughts? Oh, you must be thinking of how great a sister I am!" she joked, nudging him on the arm.

"What? Not that!" he said, pushing her face away. "You know I've been having dreams about home lately; about my human life… Also, It's been six years, Rubee," Harvey sat on a large root. "To this day, I have no idea why I’m here or how to get back."

Rubee folded her arms, sitting next to him with an attentive look. "Didn't Moga tell you to cut it out? You've been having these dreams for months now. None of those things are real. What's real is what you see now, Harvey… This is where we belong."

“Is it truly?” Harvey frowned and placed his paw on his chin.

Rubee heaved a sigh, tilting her head to the side. “You know, it’s not like I don’t believe you or anything, but it worries me whenever you bring this up over and over again. It’s only a matter of time before you decide to do something crazy, like the time you tried to eat a hundred berries just because someone dared you to.”

Harvey threw his hands up, chest stiffened and his smile glowing with determination. "I know what I have to do. I’m to go back to where I came from, and I’ll do that by going beyond the forest and over the cliffs! I won't learn anything if I keep staying in one place for the rest of my life… I need to go find answers."

Rubee face palmed with a pout. "Good luck convincing Moga about that." She knew there was no point in trying to make him change his mind at that point. Once Harvey decided on something, he always saw it through to the end. It was something she both liked and despised about her brother.

"It’s okay If he's not fine with it. Besides, it's about time we went out to see the world for ourselves, don't you think?"

"I can’t speak for you, but I'm pretty comfortable with my life the way it is. I don't want to go into a dangerous place just to see what's on the other side. Sometimes, it's best to just appreciate what you have without asking for more."

"Come on, Rubee. Don't you want to know where you came from too?"

Rubee stared blankly at the ground as she hovered forward, thinking about the faint memories she had of her earliest childhood. She recalled the first time they’d even met; he’d found her injured, wingless and lost near a creek. Yet, he helped her to recover up until her wings grew back. There’s not much Rubee could remember before that, and she too often wished she could remember her past.

"Well… I do, but—"

"We can go find out together, if you come with me that is." Harvey stopped, holding out his paw to her. "Well? What do you say?"

Rubee puckered her lips, groaning in indecision. "Fine! If by some miracle Moga allows us to leave the village, then I'll come with you. But if he refuses, then I guess that’s that."

"Haha! I knew I could count on you," Harvey said, giving her a wide smile.

***C***​

By the time they returned to their village, the sun was about to set. The village wasn't very large, nor was it very populated. The houses of the residents were made of wood harvested from the surrounding forests; most of them were carved out hollows of already standing trees however. Some of the settlers even went ahead and carved in multiple floors in their tree houses. And with the multiple windows and whatnot, it was a miracle that the trees managed to thrive and not fall.

Aside from Harvey and Rubee, all the other villagers were at least part grass type. They were made of three species mainly; shiftrys, simisages and brelooms. However, wild sawsbucks and deerlings still roamed the forests.
Harvey and Rubee headed to the largest tree growing at the heart of the village. There lived the village chief, Moga. The tree house was wide; it had branches stretching out in all directions, all growing thick, rough barks that were as old as they were sturdy, while vines hung down all over the tree. There was also a wooden door at the front, a stone slab at the base, forming a floor mat of sorts, and two windows sat on two sides of the tree.
They say that it was the first tree in the forest to be carved when the villagers first settled there a little over two centuries ago. The village chief at the time, with the help of other villagers, carved the rest of the settlements. It's a bit murky how the other trees came around, but it's general belief among the villagers that the guardian of forests and flowers, Shaymin, created them.

Harvey knocked on the door three times and then turned the knob. "Moga, we're back!" they announced.

Rubee pushed away a hanging vine that was getting in the way. “Harvey, don’t you think it’s about time you cut these vines already?”

Harvey threw her a look. “Isn’t it your turn to do it?”

“Is it?”

“Yes. Yes it is.”

“Ugh, but I don’t wanna!”

Harvey clicked his tongue, and not wanting to keep going at it, he opened the door so they could go in. Almost everything inside the house was wooden. The chairs, tables, utensils, cleaning equipment, the list goes on.

The living room inside was somewhat large, where some couches were placed in an orderly fashion for visitors. The couches were arranged around a wide straw mat spread in the middle and a large chair stood at the end of the room where the chief sat during meetings. Harvey glanced at the numerous paintings hung on the walls ranging from landscapes to portrait images depicting nature mostly. They were gifts from the other settlers.

"Ah! You have returned, Harvey and Rubee." Moga gestured them to come over with his hand. He dropped the small figure he was carving on his table as he leaned to them. "How was your day?"

"It was great! I found some new flowers not far away!" Rubee said, quickly downplaying the distance they actually went to get the flowers. "I can't wait to see the kind of pollen puffs I can make with them!"

"I just hope they won't be poisonous this time," Harvey grumbled, looking like he was about to throw up because Rubee always had him try out the pollen puffs first whenever she made them using new flowers.

Rubee pouted, turning her face away. "I apologized about last time, okay?! Stop bringing it back up every chance you get."

Moga watched as the two half siblings quarreled, prompting him to smile almost proudly. He was seated on a chair, holding a walking stick in front of him. The shiftry was the oldest settler in the village. The leaves on his hands had grown crimson, and his hair was rough to the touch as a result of his old age.

"Now stop that you two, you can settle your differences later," he said. "Rubee dear, could you get me some water?"

Rubee silently obliged, buzzing her way to the kitchen to get the water. She left her sash behind on the floor and as she left, Harvey picked it up and hung it on a rack next to a window. He then closed the door they left open and used his tail to sweep the dirt they'd carried in with them.

Harvey then grew quiet. He was feeling nervous about how he would approach telling Moga about what was on his mind. He stared at the ground as he scratched the back of his head.

"Is everything alright?" Moga said, snapping him from his idleness.

"Oh, I was just thinking… well… there's something I need to let you know."

At that time, Rubee was about to fly into the room while holding the bowl of water over her head. When she heard them talking, she stayed behind the door and decided to listen to see how things would go.

"What is it? Please don't tell me it's about those dreams of yours about another life again."

Harvey swallowed, his heart beating faster, but he continued. "Actually, it's more than just that. I've done a lot of thinking lately, and I decided, I'm going."

Moga sat up, his grip on his stick strengthening. "Going? Where to?"

"I’m going to leave the village and find a way to get back home. I know I'll never learn anything if I stay here." He turned around with his paw poking the mark on his back. "I also need to know what this thing means."

Moga let out an exasperated sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Listen Harvey, what you're trying to do is too reckless for me to approve."

"It'll be alright, I promise! I can take care of myself out there in the world. And I know there's a whole world out there beyond this village which is why—"

"Harvey… I understand that you feel lost and confused at times. We all do. But I cannot let you go on with this… You cannot leave this village under any circumstance. You know fully well that the only way out of this village is through Kalledes Dead End. You know It's a very dangerous place and none of the people that went in there ever came back alive. This village has been our prison longer than you were born. What makes you think you can do what others couldn't?"

"You always say that Kalledes is dangerous and we should stay away from it! But who's to say that all those other people just wanted to go out and see what's out there and didn’t come back? There are many things that may have caused them to disappear, and i wouldn't know whether if it's really dangerous as you make it sound unless go there and see it for myself."

"You're willing to throw your life away? At what cost? What even makes you think you'll find the answers you're looking for? You'll just end up on a wild goose chase, and that's even if you can survive the place you’re so eager to plunge right into!" Moga stopped to catch his breath. He then got up and walked a few steps towards Harvey. "Just forfeit this Harvey. You have everything you need here. There are nice people, abundant food, clean water, what more could you ask for?"

Harvey clenched his fists, then raised his head again. “You’re right. I’ll be honest, it was a stupid idea.”

Moga smiled, glad he could get through. “I’m glad you could understand.”

“I’m going upstairs now,” Harvey said, leaving the living room. On his way, he walked past Rubee.

Rubee's eyebrows lowered in suspicion at Harvey—He of all people gave up on something?!—before she entered the room to fulfill Moga's request. "Here's the water you asked for…"

"Oh, thank you Rubee." Moga stood in front of his chair and exhaled. "I fear for that boy these days." He muttered to himself. "There's still so much that he doesn't know."

Rubee gently kept the bowl on the table near the chair and lowered her head. She took her hung sash and glanced at Moga momentarily. "I'll go and make some pollen puffs now. Would you like some?"

"Yes please, dear." He smiled. "I could use some."
***C***​

Harvey lay on his small bed, which was the size of a bucket with a cushion in it. He idly stared at the ceiling, his breathing and expression calm and content. He wasn’t simply lying around doing nothing. He was still deep in thought. Dammit, Moga, why does he have to be so over dramatic? *tch* Looks like this is it, I’m never going back home now. Yeah right. Unless they plan on putting me in chains—

A few knocks came from the door, followed by a familiar buzz. "Harvey? Would you like a pollen puff? It's buttercup flavored."

"No, thank you." He spoke audibly enough to be heard.

"Oh, okay then. Can I come in anyway?"

"No, I want to be alone right now."

"I see…"

She left.
***C***​

Some hours passed. Harvey watched through his window as the last lights got put out. He gulped and turned to look at his door for a few seconds.

“Okay, the coast is clear now. Time to get moving,” Harvey whispered to himself.

He got down from the window and grabbed a small bag to carry all the things he would need on his journey, starting with his blanket. Too bad his bag wasn't big enough for him to carry his bed along with, as much as he'd wanted to. The next thing he took was his hand-crafted bow along with some makeshift arrows to go along with it. He used his bow and arrow to hunt sawsbucks and deerlings from time to time, and he was very good at it.

He gently unlocked the door, scanning the corridors to see if anyone was there as he poked his head through. It was all clear. He went down on his front paws and tip toed his way through the corridor. As he passed by Rubee's room, he noticed that her door was hanging open. Harvey’s ears stood on alert, but when he picked up faint snores from the other side of the door, he proceeded ahead.

That was close. Thought she’d be awake there for a second.

Harvey climbed downstairs, creating as little noise as possible in his tracks. He went to the storage room and took some berries. That was all he thought he'd need initially. Taking money was completely out of the question and he only took the berries because Moga gave them the privilege to take them any time they wanted, but he'd have to steal to get his hands on cash. He could live with being a disobedient runaway Pokémon, but not as a thief.

Harvey glanced at the front door. It was probably locked, and Moga would be with the keys, which meant there was only one other way out.

He tip toed back to his room and climbed out through the window. Rubee not cutting off those hanging vines on time had paid off. Climbing down them was easy for him and he was finally out of the house. He stared back up the window and took a deep breath; the same window that he fell out of when he and Rubee were fighting over the last oran berry the other day. The same tall tree that he had learned to climb when he was only as tall as Moga's knees. The very same tree they used to sneak into for berries before Moga took them in. All those memories, and he was leaving them behind. Harvey felt bad, but his determination superseded the guilt about his decision.

"Goodbye everyone. Thank you for taking care of me through all these years." Harvey turned around and ran on all fours. The sooner he got to the crevice and went into it, the better it'd be, and the lower his chances of being thwarted would become.
***C***​

Harvey stopped to catch his breath as he encountered a cliff. Ahead of him was an old bridge, and beyond that was the entrance to Kalledes Dead End, which he could faintly see underneath the moonlight. Harvey always had a feeling that the village was probably inside an impact crater of some kind, but he could never truly be sure of that assessment. At least that’s one thing he could do by leaving the village.

Harvey slapped his cheeks and shook his face. "I have to do this. It's like Dad always used to tell me, 'move forward no matter what'"

"So, you ARE leaving."

His heart sink to his stomach when he heard that voice. Harvey slowly turned his head over his shoulder to look at the person. "Rubee? I thought you were asleep."

"I guess you must've woken me up." She gave him a judging expression. "Actually, I couldn't sleep at all."

Harvey clenched his paw and turned around to look at her properly. "If you're here to stop me, then give it up. I've already made up my mind, Rubee."

She put her hand on her red scarf-like filament. "Relax, that's not what I'm here to do."

"Then what are you doing here?” he asked.

"I'm coming with you." Her mouth curved into a smile. "You did ask me to come with you before, didn't you?"

"Didn't you say that you wouldn't come with me if Moga didn't allow it?" Harvey folded his arms, his ears tilting. "Why change your mind now? You don't have to do this if you don't really want to. I don't want to make you feel like you're being forced to do anything. I'm not."

"We made a promise a long time ago, remember? That we'd always be together, through thick and thin, no matter what. Besides, you once told me that you're nothing without me, and I'm nothing without you either." She flew in front of him and threw him a smile. "So, come on, let's go show whatever's in that spooky place who's boss."

Harvey nodded, exhaling a sigh. "Alright then, suit yourself."

They stopped in front of the dungeon entrance. The thick vines and leaves covering the entrance climbed down all the way to the ground, only stopping by Harvey’s toes. Harvey eyed a large pink bulb that grew over the crevice, and it seemed to be where all the vines were growing out from.

When Harvey spoke, he could hear his voice echoing in the hole in front of them. He and Rubee exchanged looks and then nodded at each other. They had reached the point of no return. There was no going back. They'd made their choice and their paths were set. They entered the dungeon, and disappeared into its darkness.
 
Last edited:

DreamSayer

Name's Adam.
Chapter 2: Blue

The first floor of Kalledes Dead End was quite the strange place. The tunnel was constructed with thick vines sprouting and slithering across its walls and ceiling. The wall vines were different in appearance from the ones above in that they were brown, dry and thick, whereas the ceiling vines were a grim blue, leaking a gloomy aura through gaps between them.

“What kind of place is this?” Rubee muttered, drifting about and taking in the bizarreness of her surroundings. She threw her arms by her sides, groaning. “It’s so weird!”

“You can say that again, but it’s not like we were expecting this place to be normal to begin with.” Harvey stood idle, staring at the ceiling vines with caution, then he noticed that a wall had replaced their previous entrance. “I have a feeling we don’t want to be standing around in one place for too long.” Harvey motioned her to follow with his paw, his eyes surveying the area for anything else suspicious. By that time, the only thing that really struck him as odd was how soft the ground soil felt; it was the loamy kind of black soil.

“But we’re going to be here for a while, aren’t we? We might as well take our time to explore!” Rubee said, poking one of the vine legs on the wall, inwardly chuckling at how funny it felt against her palm.

Harvey heaved a sigh, shrugging. “Fine, but don’t let your guard dow— look out!”

Rubee’s chest fell as she pulled backwards, narrowly evading an attack from above. She shot the attacking creature a glare. It was a green spider Pokémon, and it had its fangs halfway buried into the ground.

“Rubee!” Harvey yelled, drawing out his bow and arrow. Aware of the situation, Rubee steered clear of the path for him to shoot. Harvey released the arrow just as the Spinarak pulled its fangs free, but the arrow merely grazed the Spinarak’s exoskeleton as it flipped sideways from the attack.

Harvey shot it a glare, clicking his tongue. “Dang, I almost had it!”

Rubee pointed at the Spinarak, her face twisting. “Ew! What’s it trying to do now?!”

The Spinarak growled, turning around and raising its rear toward them. It shot a jet of sticky webs from its spinneret straight at Harvey. Harvey dropped into an evasive stance and rolled out of the way, glancing at the webs flying past his previous position.

That was a close one! The last thing I need is to have some sticky webs on my body. The mere thought of it caused Harvey to shudder.

“Why you no good idiot poop face!” Rubee yelled, swiping her palm across her red scarf filament, extracting a yellow glowing fluid from it. Pollen grains from her body followed the movements of her hand as she moved it around to form the pollen puff. She then hurled it at the Spinarak, who was unaware.

The pollen puff hit, exploding into a cloud of dust, throwing the Spinarak into a restless fit as the fluids from the pollen puff burned its eyes, coughing and sneezing as the pollen dust irritated it even further. It started hitting its face against the wall as it tried to flee.

Harvey saw his chance, pulling another arrow from his bag and shooting at the Spinarak swiftly. The arrow didn’t remain airborne too long; it went right into the Spinarak’s head with a cracking sound in a fraction of a second.

The Spinarak let out a pained screech, fidgeting uncontrollably until it threw itself upside down. It squirmed about like that for a few seconds before it exploded into white dust particles.

Harvey and Rubee stared wide-eyed at what transpired, neither of them saying a word for a minute. Harvey walked over and retrieved his used arrow, discovering that there wasn’t any blood on it.

Rubee scratched her cheek, her heart still pounding in her chest. “Uhm… are wild Pokémon supposed to pop like that?”

“No, but like I said, this place isn’t exactly normal either. I have a feeling this isn’t going to be the last one we’ll be seeing… We need to be more careful, so don’t go wandering off like that again,” Harvey said, returning the arrow into a pocket in his bag.

“Yeah, we need to get out of here quickly,” Rubee said, turning around to stare at the dead end behind them.

***C***

Harvey dragged his paw against the wall as they walked. They hadn’t encountered any more Pokémon since the Spinarak from before, making their adventure grow dull.

Harvey heaved a sigh, half hoping for something exciting to happen, then his ears perked up as his nose picked up a scent. He sniffed a few times just to be sure, and there really was a faint, yet depressing atmosphere to the environment.

“Hey, Harvey, do you smell something?” Rubee asked, wearing a dreamy expression as she perceived it too. “It smells like… flowers! Let’s go find them!” She said, zipping off toward the scent.

“Wait, it could be a trap!” Harvey face-palmed when she ignored him. “For crying out loud. She’s like a metal to a magnet when it comes to flowers,” he muttered as he gave chase, running quickly to make sure he didn’t fall behind too much.

Eventually, a figure sitting against the wall grew visible in their path. Harvey squinted his eyes to figure out what it was, but he was still too far from it to make it out. As they got closer, Rubee halted in her tracks, letting out a shriek. Harvey also pulled the brakes when he caught up to her, watching as she pointed at the figure against the wall, her face distraught.

“There’s a dead person in here!”

Harvey looked where she pointed. The figure they’d been seeing turned out to be a really old skeleton of a bird-like Pokémon. Its skull was tilted, facing the ground and the jaw was almost dropping off.

“How long has this been here?” Harvey asked, inching closer to examine it. He noticed a bag sitting next to the skeleton, one of the bony wings resting on top of it.

“What are you doing Harvey?!” Rubee asked when she saw him moving even closer to the skeleton, her fingers and toes tingling.

Harvey threw her a dotted eyed look. “I want to see what’s in the bag.”

“But what if the skeleton comes to life and grabs you?!”

“Oh please, like that’s going to happen.” To be sure though, Harvey used one of his arrows to poke the skeleton’s skull. It didn’t budge. Seeing that, he carefully pulled the bag away from the body, his lips curling as he dragged it aside. It was perhaps the dustiest thing he’d ever seen before.

“Well? What’s in it?” Rubee said, poking her head over.

Harvey groaned, opening the bag carefully to reveal its contents. In it, they found nothing but a really old journal, a bronze disk-shaped badge and a peculiar gadget. “Is that it?” Harvey said, wearing a bitter smile.

“I know, right? I really thought we’d find a few more things in there,” Rubee agreed, equally as disappointed.

“Let’s see if there’s anything interesting written in this book.” Harvey opened the journal, getting greeted by the name of the previous owner ‘Omex.’ Harvey leafed through some of the pages until he came across some paragraphs written very roughly, suggesting that the owner was in a hurry when he wrote it.

“What’s in it?” asked Rubee.

“It’s some kind of warning. Let me read it out. ‘Ten days have passed since we set out to sea to find the lost guardian. The guildmaster insists that we find her, that she’s needed to fight the threat, but after what happened to the temporal tower and all the other guardians… I can no longer believe anyone stands a chance against the shadows, not even guardians. Maybe, just maybe, I will be proven wrong and the future will have lied to me.’”

Rubee placed her hand on her mouth, tilting her head as she frowned. “Shadows? Guardians? What do they all mean?”

Harvey shook his head, biting on his nail. “I don’t know.” He leafed through more pages until he found another passage even rougher than the one before. There were even unmistakable bloodstains on the pages, which made Harvey swallow hard.

“’There’s no hope. Even she has fallen, and this island has been corrupted by the shadows as well. Everyone is… dead, I alone lived, but I do not have much longer either. If someone ever reads this… leave this place while you still can…’ That’s where it ends… What in the world happened to this guy?”

Rubee raised her hands in a shrug. “Beats me.” Her eyes then glinted. “The flower, we’re pretty close!”

“Wait, don’t just run of like tha—aaaaand, she’s gone again. What happened to always sticking together, Rubee?!” Harvey said, clicking his tongue as he quickly shoved the journal and gadget into his bag before giving chase after her.

“Hurry up then!” Rubee yelled, fidgeting as she stopped for him to catch up.

When he caught up, they continued together down the tunnel for some minutes until they came across a large room. It was also made up of vined walls and ceiling; it was also oozing a depressing blue aura.

Harvey was quick to observe the giant blue flower bud sitting in the middle of the room, and since the flower scent was strongest in the room, it was clear that’s what was getting Rubee riled up.

“Woah! That thing’s huge!” Rubee wowed at the flower bud, hovering slowly to it.

“Don’t go near that thing Rubee, we have no idea what could happen,” Harvey cautioned, raising his paw in front of her. “My mother may be a botanist, but I don’t think even she could explain this if she were here!”

Rubee groaned, but she decided to listen to him.

They took slow steps to the bulb, half expecting it to explode and unleash a bloom of chaos every step of the way. Up close, they discovered that it didn’t really do anything; it was just sitting there, roots buried deep into the ground, and it was emitting nothing but a faint sensation of gloominess.

Rubee’s antennae drooped, hovering away from the bulb. “I don’t like this flower… it’s too weird. I feel sad just being near it.”

“I wonder if we can figure out what it’s doing here in the first place. It could give us some clues about this place.” Harvey raised his head, looking around the room; from the sloped entrance they came in through to the three other tunnels leading out of the room. His ears then rose; there was someone crying from one of the corridors.

“Did you just hear that? Someone’s in trouble!”

“Did one of the kids follow us in here and got lost?”

“I don’t think anyone was awake when we came in here, but we should go and help whoever it is!” Harvey said, and so they ran into one of the corridors which occasionally split into other pathways. However, they were guided by the crying sounds.

At long last, they came upon the room, one a lot smaller than the one they were in before. Harvey swerved his head left and right until he spotted a Pokémon, curled up and sobbing in a corner.

“Hey!” he called out, raising his paw in a wave. “Over here!”

The Pokémon looked toward them, her face dampened with tears and eyes black as beads. Her entire back was feathered with blue leaves, starting from two black petaled flowers on the sides of her head. The rest of her body and limbs were covered in stark white fur.

“Are you alright?” Harvey asked, stopping by the blue hedgehog Pokémon.

Rubee hovered in front of the Pokémon, stopping in front of her face. “It’s okay, we’re here to help you.”

“I’m not scared,” the Pokémon said, sniffling. “I just want to go home. I don’t like it here, but what does it even matter anymore. You two should just stay away from me, I’m nothing but a failure. I abandoned them, I abandoned them all. I’m… I’m the worst,” she said, bawling while covering her face.

“It’s okay, there there.” Harvey placed his paw on his chest. “I’m Harvey, and this is my sister, Rubee.” When Harvey finished talking, the Pokémon started wailing even louder than before.

Harvey drew back, his eyes widened. “Uhh, Rubee, make her stop crying?”

“Me?!” Rubee retorted.

“Yeah, give her a pollen puff or something to make her feel better!”

Rubee huffed. “Okay…” she said, materializing a pollen puff on her hand. “Here, this’ll make you feel better.”

The Pokémon lowered her paws from her face, giving Rubee a reluctant stare as she hiccupped. She collected the pollen puff, nibbling a small bite in between sniffles.

“So, what’s your name?” Rubee asked, easing the awkwardness in the atmosphere.

“Shaymin,” she replied.

Harvey and Rubee’s eyes widened, jaws dropping to the ground. “What?!”

Shaymin stared at them with a blinking expression.

“You’re THE Shaymin? The guardian or forests?”

“So, they still call me that? I’m not worthy even of that title, I failed everyone. I’ve seen everyone I ever loved die as I outlived them all. My life is meaningless to me, and so is everything else,” she said, her eyes lowering as she mumbled to herself.

“What happened to you? How did you end up in Kalledes Dead End?”

“I was cursed, I was cursed with this existence… I’ll never be able to go home again!” Shaymin said, bursting into tears again.

“That’s not true! Your existence is not a curse. We’ve heard stories about you, stories about how you’ve helped people. You’re not a curse Shaymin, you’re a blessing.” Harvey said, holding her paw. “We’ll get you home, isn’t that right, Rubee?”

“Yeah, you can count on us!” Rubee said, nodding with a smile.

The room went quiet, then they heard a rustling noise from the ceiling. The vines had begun twisting, curling and tearing apart as the blue aura poured out like sludge leaking through a broken bucket.

Harvey stood on alert, his face grimacing. “What’s going on?!”

“No! It’s going to happen again!” Shaymin cried.

Rubee shook her, her heart racing. “What’s going to happen?!”

“The floor… it’s going to collapse because of me! I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry! It’s all my fault!”

“Rubee, we need to get out of here!” Harvey said, furrowing his eyes.

“You don’t need to tell me twice!”

They ran a few steps toward the exit of the room, but Harvey noticed that Shaymin wasn’t following them. She remained motionless, her head lowered and tears ever dripping down her muzzle.

“Come with us, Shaymin! We need to find somewhere safe!” Harvey pleaded, returning to her as the vines grew crazier all the while.

“No, I’ll only share misery with you if I come along. Just leave me here, alone,” Shaymin said as she turned her back to him, intent on curling up in a corner somewhere to continue crying, but Harvey wasn’t going to have any of that. He dashed and stopped in front of her, a trail of white quickly diminishing behind him.

“I know I only met you today and it doesn’t make sense for me to be this persistent, but I’m not leaving you behind no matter what you say, so please, come with us! I cannot force you to do anything, nor do I know what turned you like this, but I can only help you if you let me!” Harvey said, lending his hand out to her.

Shaymin stared at him in silence, then her lips started curving into a smile. Harvey’s mouth hung open, she was actually smiling! Though just a little.

“You sounded a lot like him just now. Okay, I’ll come with you.” As Shaymin said that, the blue permeating aura started receding back into the ceiling, and the vines tightened the loose gaps between them. It then occurred to Harvey, the stronger her feeling of sadness, the less stable everywhere became on the floor.

“Hey, the place is back to normal!” Rubee said, heaving a relieved sigh.

“If you can really free me from this place, then maybe…” Then, she looked like she was about to cry again.

“Yes, you’ll be free, Shaymin! Now, let’s find the way out together!” Harvey quickly said, and he managed to prevent the worst from happening again.

Shaymin responded with a nod, her smile more visible.

Together along with Shaymin, they traced their path back to the large room with the flower bulb so they could start over from there. However, as soon as they got into the room, Shaymin started acting strange, the black flowers on her head emanating a faint buzzing sensation. Harvey’s heart panicked when he saw that, thinking she was about to fall into another breakdown, but he rested assured when she didn’t.

“Shaymin? Where are you going?” Harvey asked, following closely behind her.

“It’s the way out…” Shaymin said, approaching the bulb slowly.

Shaymin stopped right in front of the flower bud. When she pressed her paw against it, a single petal on each of her flowers glowed in a faint pink light, and the large blue flower opened and bloomed, revealing its true star shape and a dark brownish hollow center.

A wave of light then coursed through Shaymin’s body, transforming her leaves into a light green hue and a petal from her flowers to pink. She turned around toward them, her expression sickly and her stance fragile. “You two,” she uttered. “I can’t keep this for long, but you have to listen to me while there’s still time!”

“What’s happening to you, Shaymin?” Harvey asked, his mind still processing what he was witnessing.

“I don’t know who either of you are, or why you’ve come here, but I need your help,” Shaymin said, wincing for a second. “There’s a version of me on every floor… find all of them, remind them of what it meant to be me. It’s the only way. Please!” Shaymin said before she was absorbed into the large flower, vanishing before their very eyes.

“Hey, wait!” Harvey drew his arm out toward her, but she was already gone.

“So, what do we do now?” Rubee asked, tilting her head, gulping. “She didn’t even remember us.”

Harvey waved his paw at her, giving her an ‘isn’t it obvious’ look. “Shaymin said there was a version of her on every floor, but since she couldn’t recognize us for some reason, the one we met just now was both her and not her at the same time.”

“Huh?” Rubee asked, blinking.

“What I’m saying is that we can save Shaymin, and also get out of here.”

“Well then, what are we waiting for?!” Rubee chimed, throwing a fist into the air. As she hovered near the hole in the flower, her expression dimmed. She turned her face toward Harvey, glancing repeated at the hole as though she wasn’t certain about going inside it.

Harvey heaved an exasperated sigh. “Fine, I’ll go in first!” And so, he walked up to it and jumped into the hole without the slightest bit of hesitation.

Rubee screamed. “W-wait for me!” She said, flying after him moments later.

As Harvey fell through the hole, he found it curious that it was a misty blotched gray tube with nothing but empty space and mist surrounding him. He swiped his paw against the mist, but it phased right through him, earning an intrigued look from him. About five seconds later, they were dropped off into another empty room, Harvey landing with a pained groaned while Rubee floated above him. She was holding back a laugh.

“Owww,” Harvey said, raising his face as he pulled against the sand.

“Are you alright?” Rubee asked, dropping next to his face.

Harvey nodded, pushing himself back to his feet and dusting off his fur. “I’m good, but what’s up with this floor?!” Harvey asked, his hair rising on end and his body growing agitated. “It feels so…”

“Gross, so gross.” Rubee drew her face in, covering her mouth as she nodded in agreement.

The second floor was oozing a powerfully resentful stench that smelled like rotting fish corpses and sewage, permeating the air everywhere to the point it appeared as a greenish mist. There was an abundance of fungus on the wall vines, where some parts of it had decayed while other parts were greasy to the touch. Even the ceiling vines looked sickly, and were coated in a viscous brown aura. Harvey really didn’t want to know what would happen if he touched that.

“Urrgh, I think I’m going to puke,” Harvey said, his eyes growing watery as his dinner tried crawling up his throat. “We need to find the shaymin and flower on this floor, and fast. Rubee, can you locate the flower like last time?”

“Barely, but between all the awfulness in this place—” she hadn’t finished her sentence when they both heard movement from behind them.

Harvey and Rubee turned around in alert, and then they saw two purple, yellow whiskered blob-like Pokémon approaching them. Like the Spinarak on the previous floor, these ones had lifeless empty eyes. Their arms short and stubby, bearing just three digits each and their abdomen were circled with multiple black diamond marks. As they moved, their large lips would protrude in and out, a thing Harvey found very irritating.

“Rubee, stand back!” Harvey said, well aware of her poison weakness as he withdrew his weapon. He shot an arrow at one, but the Swalot swallowed it hole, its mouth expanding wide enough to fit three Pokémon of Harvey’s size.

“It… it ate your arrow!”

Harvey frowned in disdain, his mind growing nauseous by the minute. The Swalot spat out a green viscous liquid at Harvey, but he managed to sidestep out of the way despite his dizziness. When Harvey saw the green liquid making the ground sizzle, his eyes widened. “Acid?! Rubee, let’s bail!” Harvey darted in the opposite direction from the Swalots. “Hurry!”

“You don’t have to tell me!” Rubee said in a frightened voice, following him.

The Swalots tried to give chase, repeatedly unleashing a flurry of acid sprays in Harvey and Rubee’s direction, but they failed. Their movements were slow, and so were their attacks. Harvey and Rubee managed to escape, dealing with poison types was too bothersome for Harvey. His only hope was that they could find Shaymin and move on before they run into another one of them.
 
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Ambyssin

Winter can't come soon enough
I think my thoughts on the original version were a bit minimal and scatterbrained. Just at first glance, it doesn't look like the opening bit has changed too much. But the brother-sister dynamic Harvey and Rubee have going is very clearly laid out for us. Though the degree to which they remember their old lives is different and that has a bit of a schism as to what they're thinking. I guess it speaks to Rubee's more naive nature how easily Harvey's able to sway her about leaving. Still, I think the tweaking allowed Rubee's decision at the end of the chapter to feel more heartwarming than it did in the original. And apparently Rubee's shiny, I think?

You know fully well that the only way out of this village is through Kalledes Dead End. You know It's a very dangerous place and none of the people that went in there ever came back alive.
So, uh, how do they know it leads out of the village, exactly? And how do they know no one's come back alive? Because if people went in to investigate, found dead bodies, and then came back, that technically counts as showing up alive, right? Harvey kind of brings that up and then Moga just doesn't even give him a straight answer. If he's the village elder, shouldn't he have considered that?

He used his bow and arrow to hunt sawsbucks and deerlings from time to time, and he was very good at it.
I don't remember if this was in the original or not, but that's a rather frightening use for the bow. Poor Sawsbucks. D:

Onto the dungeon itself, as it looks like right off the bat we've got different enemies. Rubee's insults are A+, by the way. Top marks. It also looks like some of the generic fluff seems to have been cut out to get straight to the good stuff. Like mention of a guild and Temporal Tower! So, we're in an analogue to the canon universe, then? That's interesting. Though, from the way that note sounded, if something happened to Temporal Tower and it wasn't fixed, Harvey and Rubee shouldn't have been in a nice, green, sunny village, so I'm assuming the problem passed? (Or it's just referring to the Explorers games...)

Speaking of changes, Shaymin's character seems to have been tweaked considerably. And I'm a fan of it. I was kind of iffy on the messed-up memory tidbits in the original version. But having her consciousness split up is a neat idea. And I'm curious to see what those other fragments are going to act like when Harvey and Rubee find them. Overall, I'd say it's a good start, and I'm liking the changes. Though, again, some of Moga's logic is a bit iffy for me.

Spotted a couple of typos along the way:

drifting away by the wind while A young minccino laid there
Accidental capitalized letter here.

"Harvey? Would you like some pollen puffs? It's buttercup flavored."
You've got plural and singular mixed together here. It should either be "a pollen puff" or "They're buttercup flavored."

That was a close one! The last thing I need is to have some sticky webs on my body. The mere thought of it caused Harvey to shudder.
Think you're missing some quotation marks here.
 

Cutlerine

Gone. Not coming back.
You know, I think this is a fair bit more characterful than your original; I feel like there's a greater variation in your sentence structure, for one thing, and that doesn't necessarily sound like much, but it does quite a lot to liven up your prose style. A quick comparison between the first chapters of each version confirms that you've done good work going through and making line edits to make the sentences much more interesting.

I do however think that the opening scene is still a little heavy on exposition-y dialogue; I like that you introduce data bit by bit instead of all at once in one block, but I think it would work better still if it was spread out even more. We don't need to know absolutely everything about Harvey and Rubee right off the bat; that nice lively conversation between them at the start is enough to catch the interest for the moment! After that, you could sort of introduce these bits of their backstory as and when they become appropriate, over the next chapter or two, and it would feel much more natural.

There are a couple of instances where I think the phrasing is a little strange, too, especially in the second chapter; lines like “making their uneventful adventure grow dull” (which is essentially just repeating the point) and “there really was a nice, yet depressing smell in the air” (which is a bit difficult to imagine) might benefit from a bit of a reappraisal. There are a few other lines, like the uneventful adventure one, where you seem to repeat ideas unnecessarily, sometimes to the detriment of the sense – “a peculiar gadget device” is a case in point; you just need to say “a peculiar gadget” or “a peculiar device”, and in fact saying both kind of makes the sentence grammatically incorrect.

That said! Like Ambyssin, I approve of the way you cut straight to the point in the second chapter; it's much tighter. I think you've done good work with Shaymin's character, too, although I feel like some of her protestations might be a mite overblown – but then again, she's consistent about it, so perhaps that's just how this new incarnation of her speaks.

Finally, here's this one little thing I noticed:

I’ll be honest, It was a stupid idea.

'It' shouldn't be capitalised here.

Other than that, yeah! I'm quite impressed with the alterations you've made. I look forward to seeing what you're going to do when it comes to the third chapter.
 

Negrek

Lost but Seeking
Congrats on finishing your rewrites! It's really difficult to stick with reworking old material, so it's great that you stuck with it and got it all done. Good luck moving on to new chapters and keeping the story going!

The first chapter doesn't differ that much from the original, from what I can recall, though iirc in that version Moga banished Harvey from the village forever in a way that seemed strange and doesn't make sense? It's much better in this version--Moga still says no, but he doesn't get all extra about it, and Harvey and Rubee set out on their adventure nonetheless.

One thing I'd like to see more of is Harvey's reasons for setting out now. Yes, he's curious about his past, he wants to know why he has this special mark, but as it is I don't get a real sense of why this is so important to him. In the previous version you mentioned that the other villagers didn't like him much, which I think you dropped here, but one way or another I think you would benefit from showing a little more of what drives Harvey to leave home. Why are answers so important to him? And why now--after a nap in the meadow, what makes him decide that now is the right time to leave? It would delay the start of the plot proper a little, but I think a bit of extra time spent with Harvey and Rubee, to see what their life is like in the village and get a sense of what makes the two of them tick, so I have a better understanding of what they're losing by choosing to go on this adventure, and why Harvey wants this so badly that he's willing to go in blind to this place that supposedly kills people (and Rubee's willing to go with him).

Completely unrelated to anything, I thought the image of Rubee sticking her face in a bunch of flowers to collect pollen was hilarious.

I like the general weirdness of the mystery dungeon. They're already strange, surreal places in the games themselves, but when you're not constrained by the limits of needing to program some kind of consistent, balanced experience for a player, you're free to get really weird, and I like that you kind of ran with that. I also like the encounter with the failed explorer; it gives you some ominous world-building and a sense that the place really is both ancient and dangerous. (And also that things were rather different in whatever era the explorer's from? The stuff the journal describes doesn't seem to match up too well with the environment the dungeon's in currently.)

The encounter with Shaymin, on the other hand, struck me as kind of random. It goes back to what I was saying earlier about Harvey's motivation... He wants to get through this dungeon so he can see the wider world and learn about his potential special destiny, okay. I would hope he wouldn't leave Shaymin hanging one way or another, but on the other hand her being there doesn't appear to tie in with his story arc at all, and at this introductory part of the story, we don't really need to be wandering off on a sidequest already. Not really sure why this struck me as weird, because obviously stories have characters running into important figures that develop the plot at convenient moments all the time, but somehow I'm not really feeling it here.

I was also wondering why Harvey and Rubee have basically no idea how the dungeon works. Obviously if people don't come back after going there, there isn't going to be a solid understanding in the village about what exactly it contains. But people know it's a scary place, right? Surely there must be some stories about what lurks in there. Not necessarily accurate ones! But it would be nice to get an idea of how Harvey and Rubee think the dungeon works, even if it's totally wrong. Them being totally unprepared for

Overall, I think the dungeoneering atmosphere itself is good, and the brief action scenes you include work well. The wild pokémon being some kind of constructs/illusions/whatever that crumble when they "faint" is a neat idea, and kind of handily gets around the problem of the protagonists murdering their way through the place (although supposedly Harvey uses that bow for hunting other pokémon, yikes). I think you have a good grasp of writing "adventuring," in general, so I look forward to seeing more of that in future chapters!

I also think you do a nice job of Rubee and Harvey's interactions. They genuinely feel like a pair of slightly-bratty siblings, with their gentle teasing and obvious understanding of and affection for one another. It's an interesting twist on the PMD partner setup, I guess; usually you have two new-to-each-other people teaming up and learning more about one another along the way, whereas here we have two old acquaintances setting off on a new kind of adventure for them.

In general the mechanics are better in this version of the story (and I understand you've had it betaed), but there's still a decent amount of weirdness going on. It's less straight-up problems as it is weird phrasing or not-quite-correct syntax. Just from the beginning of the first chapter, we have:

"Wake up, Harvey!" she yelled into the minccino's ear on the top of her voice.
Should definitely be "at the top of her voice," or "at the top of her lungs," the most common form.

Harvey groaned, rubbing his eyes slowly as he unwrapped his long bushy tail from around himself—which he was using as a pillow—and then stretched his paws, his long white tipped ears fluttering as he did.
Misplaced modifier here. "Which he was using as a pillow" refers to "himself," and Harvey wasn't using himseslf as a pillow. Simply moving the apposative earlier works fine, like "Harvey groaned, rubbing his eyes slowly as he unwrapped his long bushy tail--which he was using as a pillow--from around..."

Could carry me out of here?
Missing a word here.

You know, Rubee, it’s really amazing how you're able to carry me even though you're like, twice smaller than I am.
"Twice smaller" is a really weird construction. "Half my size" or something would read less strangely.

Small stuff like that you can't always get betaed away, and working to pick up more of it on your own will improve your prose overall. The same old advice I give applies here, too; if you don't read your story aloud to yourself, maybe try that and see if it helps you catch some errors. (Or you can go for the terrifying level-two version, which is having someone else read the chapter to you!)

In any case I don't really know what's changed in the revision outside of the very first chapter, but it's exciting to see you posting again, and I hope your writing's going well!
 

DreamSayer

Name's Adam.
Okay guys, most of what you guys said followed generally the same lines, so i figured i'll respond to you all at once rather than separately. To start off, i want to thank you for pointing out all those typos me and my beta had missed, especially the ones in the first chapter as i didn't exactly overhaul that chapter to begin with.

Most of you were asking how Moga knew how no one had ever come back alive, why Harvey and Rubee weren't shown interacting with other villagers or how them meeting Shaymin in the dungeon felt random and out of the blue. I have the answers to all of these questions, i do, but doing that will spoil a good chunk of the later chapters i've already written, so you'll have to be patient and bear with me for now.

I was also wondering why Harvey and Rubee have basically no idea how the dungeon works. Obviously if people don't come back after going there, there isn't going to be a solid understanding in the village about what exactly it contains. But people know it's a scary place, right? Surely there must be some stories about what lurks in there. Not necessarily accurate ones! But it would be nice to get an idea of how Harvey and Rubee think the dungeon works, even if it's totally wrong. Them being totally unprepared for

Okay, i admit this was a minor oversight, but cut me some slack. I wanted to make the experience entirely new to them and it partly has something to do with what i mentioned before about me having to spoil later chapters.
 

DreamSayer

Name's Adam.
Chapter 3: Red Flower

"Are we getting closer to the flower yet?" Harvey asked, wheezing as he gripped hard on his chest. He stopped walking, bending over as he coughed non-stop from the gases and fumes enveloping them.

"We're almost there," Rubee said, barely standing the stench of the place herself. She looked at Harvey over her shoulder; from his darting eyes, fidgeting movement and incessant mumblings, he looked like he could snap at any second. Rubee drifted closer to his shoulder, gently reaching her palm to him. "Harvey, are you going to be alright?"

Harvey tried to force a smile in response, but he couldn't muster the strength to do so. "I just want us to get off this floor already… before, aaargh!" Harvey let out a yell, rubbing his eyes with his paws repeatedly. "Just how close are we?!"

Rubee drew back from him, closely dodging a swing of his tail slap. Harvey glared at her, his pupils retracted to dots and his nose twitching every few seconds. He then turned around and bolted off into the corridor.

Oh no! He's really beginning to lose it! "Harvey, wait!" Rubee called out as she gave chase. I know you're a clean freak Harvey, but I never imagined we'd ever end up in a place like this that'd push you over the edge like this… it's scary seeing you this way.

"Harvey, where are you going?!" Rubee yelled, trying to catch up. Somehow, he was faster in his state of perilous insanity. When he didn't listen, she'd puff her cheeks up in annoyance.

Rubee flew in front of his path and spread her arms wide. "Harvey, if you truly love me, you'd stop right no—" Hardly had she finished when he dashed past her with quick attack. I really thought that would work. Oh dear, if only there was a way I could snap him out of this… wait! I could try using that sweet scent move, maybe that'll bring him back to his senses.

Gaining on him with her superior speed, Rubee flew past Harvey. She stopped and took a deep breath, though she regretted her decision right after when the awful stench almost made her to choke.

Right, the air still smells like poop, she mentally noted. Rubee puffed her cheeks up, her face growing red as she fell into deep concentration. She stared at Harvey as he approached her, his eyes closed, and a pained expression on his face.

Here goes nothing! Rubee told herself, repeatedly flapping her wings with all her strength to raise a gust of wind with silvery shards in them. The gust blew forward like a twister, and threw Harvey back as he ran right into it. Rubee's heart sunk into her stomach when she heard Harvey scream, his arms shielding his face as the silvery shards cut slits through his skin. Rubee quickly stopped the attack, flying to him as he was shuddering. I'm such an idiot! I used silver wind! "Harvey, I'm… I'm so sorry, I didn't mean—" She gasped when Harvey raised his paw near his mouth, biting hard on it with his teeth.

"Hey, what are you doing, stop that!" Rubee yelled, attempting to pull his paw out of his mouth.

"It's okay," Harvey said, wincing as he spoke. He threw her a glance and said, "Thanks for that by the way."

Rubee threw her arms wide, her face heating up. "Thanks for what, hurting you?!"

"Yeah," Harvey nodded, watching blood slowly dripping from his tooth marked wrist.

Rubee frowned, glaring at him as he tore out a portion of the blanket in his bag. As he was wrapping it around his wound like a makeshift bandage, he looked her way, and when he saw the look she was giving him, he quickly said, "I'm sorry for going crazy on you like that. I think I… almost… hit you."

"What are you saying?! I don't care if you hit me when you were being all crazy, but you shouldn't be thanking me for hurting you, idiot!" Rubee retorted, tears welling up in her eyes, though she tried to hide it by looking away.

Harvey stared back at her, his eyes widened and his mouth hung open. "Oh! I was thanking you because you snapped me out of it long enough for me to do this," Harvey said, raising his bandaged arm, fingers twitching ever slightly. "Sorry for scaring you like that."

"I wasn't scared! I was just… worried!" Rubee yelled, heaving a sigh while quickly wiping her eyes. She turned back slowly at him, her eyes falling on his paw. "Doesn't that," she said, observing the pained look on his face. "Hurt?"

"Oh, it hurts alright!" Harvey said, biting his lip. "I can't even use my bow."

"Do you want a pollen puff?"

"Not now. The pain keeps my mind away from how… this place is." Harvey said, using another torn portion of his blanket to cover his face nose-down. "I can't fight very well with just one paw, so I'll need you to watch my back."

Gasp! This'll be my chance to act as the big sister! "Don't worry Harvey, you can count on me!" Rubee said, wearing a wide grin as she placed her hands on her hips.

"Well don't I feel safer already?" Harvey chuckled lightly. He took a few steps forward and raised his face. "Now then, let's get back on track. We find the Shaymin on this floor, then we get the hell out of here."

"Right!" Rubee hovered around his head, her antennae twitching as she surveyed for the flower trail. Her lips curved in a smile when she picked up on a trail. "It's over that way!"

***C***

And so, with Rubee acting as Harvey's guiding key, they traversed the rotting labyrinth, avoiding anything that looked too disgusting for them to even come close to. At one point, they mistook a lump of filth protruding from a wall to be an enemy Pokémon. Out of instinct, Rubee threw a bluish-white pollen puff at the target which froze it solid on contact.

Harvey couldn't help uttering in surprise, "Just how many types of those can you use?"

"Depends on the kind of flowers I find," Rubee replied giddily.

"How many do you have left?"

"Counting all the ones I've used today, I'd say I can make twelve more of them without refilling my pollen sacs."

"Wow, that sounds really—"

"Disgusting," said a voice from somewhere nearby.

They turned to the direction of the voice and found a Shaymin with brown leaves, wearing a bitter expression while staring at a wall in front of her. "Everything in this world is nothing but ugly."

"Hey, it's Shaymin!" Rubee buzzed. Her voice startled the shaymin, whom threw them a sour glance before exhaling an exasperated sigh.

"Urgh, who are you two supposed to be?" Shaymin asked sourly. As they were about to answer, she threw them a dismissive wave. "I don't really care, just get out of my hair already. This place is ugly enough, I don't need to deal with more of it."

Rubee frowned, folding her arms. Okay, I really don't like this Shaymin.

"We're here to help, Shaymin," Harvey said, walking toward Shaymin with his paws raised upward.

Shaymin jerked away from him, her face cringing and her teeth exposed. "Stay away from me, you filthy Pokémon!" She pressed her paws against her mouth, almost looking like she was going to throw up. "Get away! You're going to make me puke."

Shaymin tapped her paw on the ground, and suddenly a wall of vines sprung from the soil around her, forming a barrier between them.

Harvey paused in his tracks, waving his paws around as he said, "Look Shaymin, we met another you on the floor before this one. We helped her get through her sadness, and we're going to help you get through your problem too, if you'd just let us."

Shaymin scoffed at him. "Problems? I don't have any problems! Even if I did, I don't want your help. Go away!"

"Hey, what's your deal?!" Rubee hovered forward, sharing in Harvey's frustration.

Harvey clicked his tongue. "Are all the Shaymins going to be this stubborn?"

Rubee observed as Harvey fell into thinking, and she hoped he'd come up with a way to lure Shaymin out of her self-made barrier. She pushed her hands against her face, her eyes drifting around the room with the ever present rotting smell and fumes. Given her typing, Rubee was growing anxious that the floor might poison her eventually.

Harvey gasped. "That's it!"

Rubee tilted her head, exhaling a relieved gasp. "What's it?"

"I have an idea," Harvey said, flicking his fingers. "Hey Shaymin, look what I have!" Harvey said, pulling out a small pebble sized marble from his bag. The pebble was dark purple and had streaks of black. Harvey had polished it so much that it had become extremely shiny.

"What? What's that?! I want it!" Shaymin said, enamored by the shininess of the polished rock. "Give me!" She demanded, throwing her arms through the gaps in her vine fence.

Rubee watched with him with widened eyes, her lips parted slightly. Is he really going to give her his lucky treasure?

"Only if you come with us," Harvey said, drawing the marble away from Shaymin. "Then you can have it."

Shaymin rolled her eyes and hissed. "Fine! I don't care. Just give me the stupid rock and I'll come with you or whatever." With a swing of her paw, the vines receded into the ground, leaving behind small mounds of grimy soil.

"Come on, give it!" Shaymin demanded, snatching the shiny pebble from Harvey's hand. He didn't even show the slightest sign of irritation by her behavior as she raised it in front of her face, her eyes gleaming with delight as her mouth drooled. "A dusk stone! It's so pretty, and clean! Thank you very much… thank you…"

"What's wrong?" Harvey asked.

"It's nothing. I just can't remember the last time I thanked anyone," Shaymin said, laughing a little, then her face grew dazed again. "So, where did you want me to follow you again?"

Harvey gave Rubee slight nod. Rubee understood. "It's right this way! I know where to go!" Phew! I'm glad we're finally getting out of this dump of a place! Rubee thought, her forehead creasing.

On their way to the flower room, Rubee hovered next to Harvey's ear and asked in a whispered voice, "Are you really sure about letting her have that? I mean, Moga gave it to you and you're just handing it over now?"

"Well, it is just a rock. Besides, it's either that or we remain in this place," Harvey said, pointing her toward the decaying walls. "You decide."

Rubee placed her palm on her mouth, groaning. "I guess you have a point."

"You two are so slow, hurry up!" Shaymin said, trotting in front of them with her head held high.

They got to the large room with the flower in it. Unlike the room in the previous floor. There was a giant orange five petaled flower glued to the wall, and like everything in the floor so far, it smelled like a dying corpse. Neither Harvey nor Rubee were eager to move one step near it until Shaymin did her thing and unlocked the path to the next floor for them.

Before Shaymin was absorbed into the flower, she turned to them with a smile. "Always aim for the light, and you'll find your way. Hurry, I'll be waiting for you." With those few words, she disappeared into the flower's center, a center that was glowing with a red crimson hue.

Harvey and Rubee approached the flower, cautious as to where it was going to lead them. They were also blocking their noses so they wouldn't have to smell its odor.

"I've always wondered what a Rafflesia flower looked like in real life, but I never thought it'd be this huge," Harvey said, poking his head into the flower's round interior. "It only looks slightly different from the ones I've seen in Mom's study books." After a brief pause, he motioned to Rubee, "Come on, let's carry on!"

***C***

"Wow, this place gives me the creeps," Harvey said, his ears drooping as the pathway behind them fizzled.

The third floor was vast, empty and broken in fragments. Harvey and Rubee found themselves standing on a platform which periodically glowed in a bright orange color before dimming out. Whenever the platform dimmed, its outlines glowed into a neon white, giving it a rather sci-fi look. They could see similar floating platforms and fragmented pathways surrounding them in every direction they looked, ranging from long pillars that never seemed to end to spiraling platforms that looked ready to collapse and even some that looked as though they were lit on fire.

"Rubee, I think I could use that pollen puff now," Harvey said, gnashing his teeth as he held his injured paw hard.

"I thought it wasn't bothering you before," Rubee commented as she handed him a yellow healing pollen puff.

"Yeah, my crazy instincts that made me want to leave that place so bad coupled the insane pain I was feeling kind of canceled each other out in a strange way. Now that we're out of there, all I'm left with is the…" Harvey couldn't even finish his sentence before stuffing the pollen puff in his mouth. He let out a relieved sigh as the wound healed rapidly, leaving not even the faintest of scars. "Feels much better now," Harvey huffed, undoing the bandages around his paw and flexing his fingers.

Rubee took her eyes off Harvey's actions and started hovering idly, watching all the structures around herself. To her, they looked like stars in the night sky, or perhaps giant irregular planets and moons looming? She didn't really know how to put it, though one in particular seemed to get bigger each time it glowed. Rubee squinted her eyes harder at it, and her heart soon started beating rapidly with each time it glowed.

"Harvey!" Rubee grabbed him and took off into the air. Before Harvey could ask why she just did that, they heard a loud crashing boom immediately followed by several chunks of debris flying in their direction. She managed to avoid all of them, but barely.

"That was too close!" Harvey said, gasping with widened eyes. "Let's keep our eyes peeled for more crashing platforms."

Rubee stared back vacantly at where they were just moments before. "Yeah, let's."

I thought that the last floor would be the craziest one we've been to yet, but I was wrong. This one's a fruit punch of crazy multiplied by seven! Rubee snapped out of her thoughts to strengthen her grip around Harvey.

"Rubee, over there! That place looks safe enough. We should head there for now," Harvey said, panting as they maneuvered around chunks of rock and dead plant matter.

Rubee's eyes fell on the platform he pointed at. It looked shaky at best, slanting with rubble slowly falling off one of the edges. It was like a piece of a wall that broke off, because there were several hanging vines interlaced around it.

Rubee did her best to land gently and for once since they entered the floor, they could catch a break.

"First thing's first, what is wrong with this floor?" Harvey said, sitting down as Rubee found a spot beside him. "It so… chaotic."

"I can barely even sense the flower on this floor, and it'll be hard finding it with how dark this place is even with all the glowy things around."

Harvey furrowed his brows, staring at the far distance. "Have you noticed that none of the other platforms are moving? Wonder what made that other one to suddenly fall down on us," Harvey said, peeking over the edge of the platform only to be greeted by the same dark emptiness. "Yep, I wouldn't want to find out what lies at the bottom down there."

"Harvey… what is that?" Rubee asked, her hand shaking as she pointed at a bright orange spinning object. It looked like a flaming cannon ball, and it was darting around like a meteor. It crashed from platform to platform with constant momentum, throwing everything it hit flying deeper into the darkness.

"What is it now?" Harvey said, striding over next to her. He squinted his eyes at the object, gasping as it turned its trajectory straight toward them. "Crap! Let's get out of here!"

Rubee whisked Harvey up into the air as she attempted to evade the flaming cannon ball. They'd only gotten a handful of meters into the air when they heard a large boom behind them again, and before they could react to it, they had to avoid a strike from behind them when the flaming cannon bounced off the platform into them. Rubee barely dodged, but she lost her balance from the sheer turbulence of the cannon's speed and ended up losing her grip around Harvey. When she recovered, she gasped, watching with widened eyes as Harvey plummeted down screaming.

"Harvey!" she screamed at the top of her lungs as she took a nosedive to catch him before he crashed into the platform below. She bit her lip as she came close to reaching him, stretching her arms out as far as she could. Rubee reached him barely, but they were so close to the ground that they both fell down rolling. As the dust cleared, Rubee heard Harvey groaning, but a wave of relief swept across her just knowing that he was alive at least.

"That's another one I owe you now," Harvey said, dusting himself as he stood up.

"Yeah, don't mention it," Rubee replied with a dismissive wave followed by a chuckle. She fluttered her wings to hover over the ground. From a quick observation, she learned that they were on a very wide platform that even had some of its walls still present even in the absence of any ceilings. It was what's left of a large room, she surmised.

Their ears went rattling when they heard another loud crash close to them. Whatever chased them before had crashed onto their platform, nearly splitting it in half. When the smoke cleared, Harvey and Rubee were finally greeted by it, and it turned out to be another Shaymin. Unlike the other Shaymins however, she looked just as vicious as all the other wild Pokémon they'd encountered in the dead end.

Her flowers had four pink petals, and her back was decorated with bright red leaves which periodically switched to a ventra black, making her almost impossible to see when the platform wasn't glowing. She shot Harvey and Rubee a glare, taking slow burning steps toward them with a low growl.

"Shaymin?" Harvey said, slowly raising a paw toward her. Rubee could feel his body shaking just by hovering next to him.

"Who are you?! Are you one of them too?!" Shaymin's expression suddenly went grim as she started backing away from them. "No! Please leave me alone!" She then switched back to her rage, her body flaring up once more. "I'll never let you hurt me again!"

"I have a feeling calming her down isn't going to be easy," Harvey said, clicking his tongue as his tail turned white, its fur becoming sharp and jagged in the process. "Get ready for anything, Rubee."

"Are we going to fight her?!" Rubee asked, throwing him a confused glare while keeping the approaching Shaymin in her field of vision.

"No. We're going to try and stall her, see if we can tire her out."

Shaymin stood still momentarily, then she curled up like a ball. She started spinning violently in place, creating a shower of dust behind her and causing a depression in the ground. With a loud boom, Shaymin shot forward in Harvey's direction, leaving a trail of red and flames behind her as she advanced.

Harvey immediately took an evasive leap to the side, dodging the attack. As Harvey rebounded back to his feet, he saw Shaymin continue to fly off into the distance away from them, but not for long, as she continuously changed trajectory until she was eventually coming their way again.

Harvey clicked his tongue. They only had a few seconds before they'd have to dodge another Shaymin Spin Dash.

"Harvey, I have a feeling she's going to kill us long before we even make her break a sweat," Rubee said, groaning.

"I know that!" Harvey retorted, wiping some dirt off his cheek. "We need to find a way to pin her down!"

"How are we going to do that?!" Rubee asked, but Harvey couldn't answer.

Shaymin came bolting at them, forcing Harvey and Rubee to separate in order to evade the attack. The force of Shaymin's impact pushed Rubee away, making her fall on the ground. Rubee groaned as she carried herself back on her knees, her eyes drifting until they fell on Harvey, whom was standing a few feet away from Shaymin. Rubee struggled to carry herself back into the air as Shaymin turned her attention toward Harvey.

What's he doing?! Why isn't he running away?! Rubee asked herself, watching Harvey stand in place as Shaymin readied another one of her dash attacks. Harvey crouched forward, his tail gathering energy until its white jaggedness turned into a silvery luster. It was when Rubee saw the lingering white fuming from his body like gentle steam that she realized what Harvey was trying to do.

"Harvey, don't be crazy!" Rubee yelled as she flew in their direction, but her chest pained when she knew she wouldn't make it there on time.

"I'm going to make you listen to me whether you want to or not, Shaymin!" Harvey said moments before Shaymin darted forward at him. Rubee barely understood what happened next, all she could do was watch.

Shaymin would dash at Harvey, he'd dodge and strike her with his iron tail, breaking her momentum and slowing her down ever so slightly. They continued in that routine multiple times, both parties equally insistent on outdoing the other. Rubee knew she was supposed to be doing something to assist, but she was completely mesmerized by the sparks that shot off each time Harvey and Shaymin clashed body and tail. Eventually though, Harvey held Shaymin down as she clashed with him, one of his eyes closed as the sparks were beginning to fly toward his face. With a roaring cry, Harvey swung his tail forward, sending Shaymin flying and landing on the ground on her back.

Harvey took that chance to quickly get on top of her and pin her down. "Look at me!" Harvey said, breathing heavily as Shaymin slowly raised her eyes to meet his.

"Please leave me alone, I don't want to hurt anyone… I don't want to be afraid anymore," she said, her body visibly shaking as her leaves turned black one by one.

"Then don't give in to your fear! You must fight it, remember who you're meant to be, who you are! Tell me, who are you?!"

In that one brief moment… Maybe it was the color of the floor, or she was bonked in the head from her previous fall, but Rubee could swear that Harvey's eyes had turned golden.

Tears streamed down Shaymin's face, her anger and fears fading away like steam. "I'm Shaymin… I'm Shaymin!" she said, burying her face into Harvey's chest, the floor gradually stabilizing as she cried. Floating platforms started connecting to each other like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and in a matter of minutes, the floor looked just as normal as the first floor they'd been in.

Shaymin drew back from Harvey slowly, taking deep breaths as she walked a few steps from them. "I'm sorry for attacking you two like that, even though you were just trying to help me. I… I thought you were one of them."

"One of them?" Harvey asked, tilting his ears as he stood up.

"They were Pokémon that came from a world of nightmares… I was so afraid of them, but not anymore, thanks to you," Shaymin said, smiling.

Shaymin raised her face toward a large red flower with a bright yellow center at the middle. Rubee immediately felt stupid for not noticing something that large and obvious sooner.

"Your journey is almost over. There's still one of them left. You must help her accept reality, for she'll never know what it feels like by herself," Shaymin said, by then her leaves had turned green and all but one of the petals on her head flowers each were pink. "And be wary of the wood carver."

"Help her accept reality?" Rubee asked, blinking as they were walking toward the large flower.

Shaymin gave her a solemn nod. "You'll understand when you meet her," she said, and with that, she was absorbed into the flower until they were to meet her in the next floor.

Before they entered the flower's portal, Harvey placed his paw against his chin. "I wonder what she meant by that. And there's that wood carver she mentioned…"

Rubee raised her hands in a shrug. "Dunno… we'll just have to go and see!" she said, throwing her arm into the air.

Harvey clicked his tongue, letting out a groan. As he was going to to walk into the portal, Rubee quickly noticed that the once black oval sitting in the middle of the blue mark on his back had turned into a crimson red.

"Harvey wait!" Rubee said, drawing her hand toward him.

"Hrrrn?" Harvey threw her a glance over his shoulder, his brow raised.

"Do you feel different in any way… ever since we got here?" she asked, adding a nervous chuckle at the end of her sentence.

Harvey groaned then shrugged. "Nope. I feel pretty much the same. Why?"

She gave him a dismissive wave, her eyes trailing off. "Oh, it's nothing! Carry on!"

Harvey narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, then proceeded into the flower portal. Rubee took a brief pause to heave a relieved sigh. I guess it really was just my imagination after all.
 
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Ambyssin

Winter can't come soon enough
This is very different. I know at the start of the original version, you had minor instances of Harvey's clean freak tendencies showing through. But this time around this toxic, poisonous part of the dungeon just completely overwhelms. It seems to turn him feral, for lack of a better description on my part. It all lends itself to showing the Rubee really cares quite a bit about Harvey, considering she was willing to put herself in harm's way to try and snap Harvey to his senses. The only thing is that I'd have liked there to be a little bit of an explanation as to why exactly Rubee ended up using Silver Wind instead of Sweet Scent. Did she panic and fall back on self-preservation instincts? Did the toxins mess with her head? Some clarification would be appreciated.

And then you give us bratty!Shaymin, who's able to be coerced with a shiny object. Not gonna lie, I'd have liked to see other (failed) attempts to get Shaymin to cooperate, before jumping right to the Dusk Stone. Especially since Harvey was so willing to part with it, despite Rubee's claim of it being a good luck charm. Kind of felt a bit contradictory, and like the good luck charm should've been a last ditch effort sort of thing.

Rage!Shaymin's domain feels like something ripped out of a Crash Bandicoot game. Maybe the combination of a more technical look with a giant ball of fiery destruction has something to do with it. I think some of the descriptive sentences may have gone on for a bit too long, and should've been weaved in to the parts where Rubee and Harvey are evading the flaming Shaymin.

They only had a few seconds before they'd have to dodge another Shaymin Spin Dash.
Aww yeah, this Shaymin's way past cool! sorrynotsorry

That said, it looks like battling this Shaymin brought out... something in Harvey. Some sort of latent power, that I'm assuming is going to get brought up again very shortly. I think you did an alright job handling things from Rubee's perspective. Her thoughts didn't intrude into what was happening, and it kept the stuff about Harvey at the end of a bit of a mystery.

Speaking of, your tag at the last sentence is incomplete:
I guess it really was just my imagination after all.[/i
 

DreamSayer

Name's Adam.
And then you give us bratty!Shaymin, who's able to be coerced with a shiny object. Not gonna lie, I'd have liked to see other (failed) attempts to get Shaymin to cooperate, before jumping right to the Dusk Stone.

Yeah, I considered lengthening that scene initially, but I felt it'd be unnecessary filler since my focus was to just get straight to the point at all times in my rewrite. That came at the cost of keeping most of the scenes in my chapters brief and short. I hope it didn't detract too much from your experience though.

I think some of the descriptive sentences may have gone on for a bit too long, and should've been weaved in to the parts where Rubee and Harvey are evading the flaming Shaymin.

I have no excuses for this. I only recently learned of the phenomenon of blending descriptions into character movements. Wish I had sooner.

Speaking of, your tag at the last sentence is incomplete:

Dang nammit! Thanks for the heads up btw.
 

DreamSayer

Name's Adam.
Chapter 4: Wooden Masks


"Whoa!" Was all Harvey said as they entered the fourth floor. Were he to describe it in a few words, it'd be 'a garden of flowers.'

Just like the floor before it, it also had no high walls; none Harvey could see anyway. Rather, there were short hedges of interlacing yellow flowered bushes, stretching out to form the corridors, and round headed yellow leaved trees assembled between intervals. When Harvey raised his head, he had to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight. Not wanting to burn his eye sockets, he quickly looked away. To Harvey, the more serene atmosphere of the floor was a breath of fresh air compared to everything else they'd been through.

"So, where do we start?" Harvey said, glancing over at Rubee. He paused, squinting his eyes at her. "Rubee? Is everything alright?"

Rubee's mouth hung open, her hands slumped down and her movement flighty.

"Earth to Rubee, are you there?" Harvey said, waving his paw in front of her face.

"Flowers Harvey, flowers everywhere!" Rubee squealed, shaking her wrists. "So many of them!" she said, plucking one right out of the ground.

Harvey shook his head and sighed. "I guess we all have our things that make us lose a few bolts, don't we?"

"Oh please, I'm not like you. I'm perfectly in control, see!" she said, turning around at him with her face muddled with pollen grains.

Harvey clicked his tongue as he rolled his eyes. "Come on, let's go find Shaymin. This place is nice and all, but we shouldn't forget that we're in a dangerous place. And be careful, will you? You never know what might jump out of those flower bushes."

Rubee pouted her face, covering half of it with a yellow flower cup. "Geez, fine. Let me just take enough to refill my pollen puffs."

Harvey sighed as he let her do her thing. He found himself a clean patch of grass to sit. Once he was settled, he thoroughly examined his body and started cleaning himself up. His face grew sour as he sniffed his feet; the horrible odor from the second floor still lingered on it. He made a mental note to himself to douse his feet up in water as soon as he could. There were also patches of dirt on his fur, both from his earlier falls and their squabble with Shaymin. What's more, Harvey's tail was still a bit numb and stiff when he held it in his paws.

Harvey frowned, letting go of his tail. "If that fight had dragged out any longer, I might've broken my tail bones…" he muttered to himself.

"Whoa! Who're you guys!" exclaimed a familiar squeal, alerting them.

Harvey turned his eyes to find a yellow leaved Shaymin. She was heedlessly approaching them from the end of the corridor, wearing a big smile like she's known them her entire life. "Are you two new?! That's amazing! I haven't seen a new face around here since… like forever!" She turned around and started running off somewhere. "Come! I want to show you two something!"

"Hey, wait up!" Harvey leapt to his feet, almost tripping as he ran after her.

Rubee dropped the flower she was obsessing over and queued along behind him, but when they reached the corner, Shaymin had disappeared all of a sudden.

Harvey jerked back, his lips parting slightly as his brain ran the numbers on how Shaymin did her vanishing act. Just then, Harvey heard someone giggling behind them. When he and Rubee turned around, they saw a spot in the yellow flowers shaking.

"Hihi, you found me!" Shaymin cried, bursting out of the flowers with a wide smile. "That was really fun! Youguys are really fun!" she said, laughing.

Harvey and Rubee wore disturbed grimaces as they stared at the hedgehog lying on her back, laughing as she rocked back and forth. Shaymin paused her laughter and jumped back on her feet.

"Let's play again! I'm going to run and hide somewhere clever, and you're going to try and catch me!"

"Wait, wait, wait a minute! Slow down, Shay. Can we like just calm down and talk for a minute?" Harvey said, flailing his paws in front of him as he approached her.

"One, two, three, let's begin!" Then Shaymin raced off into another corner.

Harvey swung his hands down shouting, "Dammit, wait, Shaymin!" He motioned to Rubee, saying, "Come on! Let's follow her!"

The two siblings followed Shaymin's trails into the corner, but they dropped their jaws to the ground as soon as they saw six Shaymins, laughing while running about like little girls. They each went into different corridors and corners.

One of them briefly stayed behind, skipping on her toes as she said, "If you can find the real me before the sun sets, you win! But if I win, you'll have to stay here and play games with me every single day… forever!"

"Wait, what?! We didn't sign up for any of that!" Harvey retorted, but the Shaymin stuck her tongue out, blew for a while, then ran off.

Harvey just stood there, his eyes twitchy and his mouth unable to speak. "What the Heck just happened?!"

"Um Harvey, is the sun supposed to be moving that fast?" Rubee asked, her hands over her forehead as she squinted towards the east.

"What do you mean?" Harvey raised his head up, gasping when he saw how the sun was gliding through the sky. "That doesn't make any sense! At this rate, it'll be sunset in like… thirty minutes!"

Rubee pressed her cheeks with her palms, her eyes lowering. "And then we'd be trapped here and forced to play silly games with Shaymin for the rest of our lives!" Rubee then paused, her mouth opening slightly. "Actually, that doesn't sound so bad." She shook her head, saying "Nah, not worth it."

"Come on! We gotta move, and fast!" Harvey ran forward toward the six diverging paths. He skidded back and forth, gasping hitching breaths.

"Which way should we go?! How would we even know if we've found the right one?!" Rubee asked, joining in on his peril.

Harvey wracked his brain for clues, things he might've seen that could help, things he didn't pay too much heed to before. That was when it hit him.

He gasped as he threw Rubee a glance. "I just remembered, that Shaymin that… mocked us earlier had white petals on her head; they were not pink! That must mean she was definitely a fake."

"Are you sure? Her flower looked pretty pink to me," Rubee said, tilting her head as she wore a skeptical frown.

Harvey lowered his face, biting down on his finger. "Yeah, well it was kinda pink, but it was much lighter than the first Shaymin we met… There's also the fact that the one that mocked us asked us to find the real one, but shecould've been the real one and was just trying to throw us off trail. If that's the case, how do we know the first one we met wasn't a fake either? How do we know if all of them aren't fakes?!" Harvey slapped his cheeks and groaned. "Arrgh! This is so confusing!" Harvey muttered to himself.

Rubee threw him a sly look when she overheard his last sentence. "Just try not to hurt yourself while you're at it, okay?" Rubee said, evoking a chuckle.

Harvey threw her an irksome glance. "Look! We really don't have time for this! I tell you what? Let's just find all of the Shaymins. We're bound to run into the real one eventually!" Harvey strode into one of the corridors at random.

Together with Rubee, they traveled through the maze, always checking to see the sun's position every once in a while. They finally ran into a Shaymin after a tedious search, but as soon as she spotted them, she laughed cheerily before popping into sparkle dust. Harvey watched what happened with widened eyes, while Rubee hummed in slight amusement.

"What?" Harvey asked, his eyes twitching. "Did she just blow up."

"That means she wasn't the real deal, right?"

"Pretty much." Harvey swerved his head around, zeroing in his sights on a corridor by the end of the room.

Harvey dashed into the corner, withered yellow petals crunching beneath his paws as he strode to the other end of the path. He halted as soon upon reaching the next room, his mouth falling agape at what he saw.

Presented before them was what appeared to be an amusement park. A large unmoving merry go round at the center of the park immediately caught Harvey's eye. He wondered what Pokémon the peculiar horses on the ride were supposed to represent; they resembled ponies a bit.

"Okay, what's going on now?" Harvey muttered, taking a look around the area. He noticed that all the rides were made of the same plants that made up the hedges, just in different forms and shapes. "It's like we're in some kind of amusement park… and it looks just like an amusement park I've been to once."

`I decided to shake up the games a little bit to make things a bit more fun for you guys!` Shaymin said, her voice coming from a wooden speaker attached to a pole tree.

"What do you mean you're shaking things up?!" Harvey asked, trotting over to the speaker.

`There are four of me in here, each carefully hidden somewhere. Try finding us, it'll be fun ride!"

"Do we really have to?"

The speaker went silent, and Shaymin didn't speak again when Harvey waited a few moments more. Harvey pinched the bride of his nose, exhaling a sigh. He observed the rest of the amusement park from where he was, counting about six other rides aside from the merry go round.

"Harvey, did you notice that there's a flower on each side of this thing?" Rubee asked from a distance, her hand over her mouth as she hovered in front of the ride.

Harvey trotted over to have a look at it, and she was right, there were one of those star shaped flowers on each face of the ride.

Harvey pondered what it meant. He lightly rubbed against it with his paw as a few possibilities sprang into his head. He just hoped that finding the Shaymins will evoke a reaction from the ride somehow. Not wanting to waste any more time, he and Rubee decided to begin searching, and they started with an out-of-place house of mirrors.

Harvey realized that they weren't so much mirrors as they were giant reflective petals arranged in a maze pattern. Great. Like the Dungeon itself wasn't already enough of a puzzle to begin with. He clenched his paws as he approached a petal mirror.

Harvey and Rubee felt their way around the maze, and for the first in a long time, Harvey got a good look at his reflection. He quickly adjusted the tufts of hair crawling down his face, and while doing so, he caught a glimpse of something yellow in his peripheral vision.

"There's a Shaymin over there!" he whispered, tugging at Rubee to get her attention.

Rubee gasped quietly, then she nodded. "Let's sneak up on her."

"Good idea."

Harvey tiptoed in Shaymin's direction, his heart pounding as he hoped she doesn't notice them. Lucky for them, she was backing them and didn't seem to notice. However, part of Harvey felt strongly that they were just approaching a reflection and not the actual Shaymin. They'd just have to find out when they reach her.

Harvey focused his eyes on his target, like a predator stalking its prey during a hunt. In a swift motion, he lunged himself forward at the Shaymin, gliding through the air for a second before pouncing right on the yellow hedgehog. As soon as she felt him, she yelped and spun rapidly, throwing him into one of the petals.

"Hey, what gives?! I wasn't even ready yet!" Shaymin complained, but her frown quickly condensed into a smile. "But I guess you've found me now. Buh bye!" With that, she poofed away.

Harvey groaned as he pulled his back away from the glassy wall. Rubee buzzed to his side, mildly worried.

"Are you alright?" she asked, blinking at him.

Harvey raised up to his feet, straightening his back as he let out a grunt. "Yeah, it only hurt a bit. But at least we found one of them. Only three more to go… assuming she was telling the truth."

"You're right."

Harvey narrowed his eyes as he stared at his reflection ahead. "Did you notice that she didn't have a reflection? If she did, finding her here wouldn't have been this easy."

"Whoa, I didn't notice at all."

Harvey mulled over it a bit, but decided it didn't matter. He motioned to Rubee, and they left the maze of mirrors.

When they got outside, Harvey noticed that one of the flowers on the merry go round was glowing in a pale pink color. He approached it with curious eyes. If we find all the other Shaymins… maybe this thing will...

"Harvey! The sun, it's almost setting!" Rubee said, pointing at the sun that was a quarter away from sinking behind the flower hedges.

Harvey clicked his tongue as he darted ahead, Rubee following in tow.

They visited the other rides in the park to find the other Shaymins. The other ones were comparably harder to find, and catch. They almost got squashed while chasing the one in the high-speed roller coaster, there was another that hid herself pretty well in a ferris wheel car and there was one that gave them a hard time with the bumper cars.

At long last, their search was brought down to one. The only Shaymin left wasn't even on any of the rides, she was just loitering about, almost as if asking to be found. As soon as the Shaymin saw them, she ran off while they gave chase. After a while, she tripped over and rolled down a slope before stopping to a halt.

"Game over Shaymin, we have the high ground!" Rubee boasted, folding her arms.

"You're the last one, right? That makes you the real Shaymin," Harvey said, panting between words while resting his paws on his sides.

Shaymin slowly got up on her feet. "You're right. You guys won fair and square… or did you?" She raised her face at them, sticking her tongue out. "Psych! This still isn't the real me!" She then popped, just like the others.

"What?! I don't get it! There were only six of them, weren't there?" Harvey said, feeling like a lost ball in the weeds. "Maybe there's one we missed!"

"Harvey, the sun…" Rubee said, looking up at the slowly darkening sky.

Then, Shaymin's voice started blaring from every direction, loud enough to sound like she was right in front of them, but still sounded like she was anything but nearby.

`Haha! You're going to lose! But don't worry! Now we get to have fun like this forever and ever! The fun will never end, you'll see, and we'll be friends for life! Isn't that amazing?!`

Harvey's ears drooped, his eyes scanning the surroundings tirelessly for Shaymin. He looked like he was about to say something but didn't know how to put it.

`So, what do you guys want us to play tomorrow? It's okay, you get to pick the game since you're my friends now.`

"I think I'm beginning to understand you. You're alone, isn't that it, Shaymin?" Harvey finally said, his face calm and stern.

`Wha-? What are you talking about?`

"It took a while for me to connect the dots. During your life, you were probably the kind of person to be surrounded by people, always smiling and laughing together with them… but no one ever truly understood you, did they? And because of that, you've always felt alone."

`That's not true! I'm not alone—`

"Then why are you forcing us to play this game, just so you can make us be your friends?" Harvey asked, waving his paw with his eyes narrowed. "You don't have to take my word for it, but I kind of understand how you feel, Shaymin. Even though we've been living in the village for six years, Rubee and I have always felt alone; there weren't any other kids around to hang out with."

Rubee nodded, swinging into the conversation. "He's right Shaymin, you have no idea how boring it can get sometimes."

"With us, you're never alone, Shaymin, and you never have to be. Come with us and we'll find our way out together… as real friends," Harvey said, reaching his paw out in front of him.

Just then, Harvey heard familiar rustling sounds coming from above him. When he turned, he saw Shaymin poke her head through one of the yellow trees. He was also quick to notice that her flowers were a much deeper shade of pink than the ones they'd met before her.

"You guys are really going to be my friends?" Shaymin asked, her eyes glistening as she leapt down from her hiding spot, landing with a soft thud.

Harvey smiled, nodding. "Mmhm!"

Shaymin smiled widely. "No one's ever asked me to be their friend before… I… I…," as Shaymin stammered, the black petals on her flowers started fading to pink. Shaymin started crying loudly, tears streaming down her face. "I've never had a friend before."

Harvey placed his paw on her forehead, his mouth curving in a smile. "Well you have us now."

Shaymin held his paw, sniffling as she smiled. "Thank you." She swerved her head to the side, biting her lip. "The merry go round… that's your way out. Since you've found me, it should start working now."

"Why a merry go round?" Harvey uttered, prompting a look from Shaymin.

"I… I don't know either. I don't even remember seeing anything like it, yet I feel like I've been here before."

Harvey narrowed his eyes as he placed his paw over his chin. "That's weird. Anyway, let's get this over with and hopefully be able to leave this darn place."

`I cannot allow that!` A long slender wooden hand appeared out of nowhere. It snatched Shaymin away with its long thin fingers right before Harvey and Rubee's eyes, dragging her across the floor as she screamed and to Harvey and Rubee for help.

"Shaymin!" Harvey furrowed his brows as he dropped on all fours, darting forward as fast as he could with his quick attack, his heart beating every time the wooden hand slammed and hurled Shaymin around like a ragdoll as it pulled her away.

"Leave Shaymin alone, you stinky monster!" Rubee yelled as she hurled her pollen puff, but it barely fell out of reach and missed the target.

Harvey's mouth opened wide when he saw the hand retreat into a… tear in space on the wall of a corridor. Both it and Shaymin's helpless cries went silent after that.

Harvey stopped in front of the tear, keeping his distance as he inspected it. The tear had a rough shape, as if it was forced in, and it barely made any sense to Harvey. Why was it there, and why did it take Shaymin? Harvey briefly considered walking into it, but he refrained when the thought of getting torn to shreds entered his mind.

Harvey equipped his bow and drew out an arrow. He tied a long string to the end of the arrow, raising his aim for the tear.

"Harvey, what do you think you're doing?!"

"I want to see whether it's safe to go inside," he muttered as he prepared to release his shot.

Another pair of wooden arms shot out of the tear, startling Harvey and making him release his arrow prematurely into the hedges.

`You're coming too!` it shouted, forcefully pulling them both into the tear.

Harvey held his breath as he felt himself getting pulled into the static portal. His hair stood on end, his body feeling like it was getting ripped apart as his eyes were blasted with psychedelic colors. Harvey gasped for breath, trying his best to break free from the wooden arm's hold, but he was losing consciousness very quickly. With an angered yell, Harvey dug his sharp rodent teeth into the wooden arm. He gasped when he was jerked forward even faster until he was pulled into the other side of the tear.

Harvey met the ground with a thud, letting out a pained squeak almost too faint to hear. He raised his face while coughing out dirt from his mouth, and he quickly cleaned himself up when the coughs subsided. He looked around himself, and the first thing that came across him was what confused him the most. They were somehow back in their village; all the tree houses were there, and everything else was as they'd left it. He rised up on his feet, finding himself in front of Moga's big tree… but something was wrong. The air felt heavy, almost making it hard to breathe, and all the color in the village was nonexistent as everything appeared monochrome gray. Surely, something wasn't right.

"Rubee!" Harvey called out. He was instantly relieved when he heard a moan nearby.

"I'm right here… urrgh," she replied, her arm raised up as she lifted herself with the other.

As she raised her face, her eyes widened. "Harvey, we're back home?!"

"I don't think this is our home… something's obviously not right… hey, where's Shaymin?!" Harvey threw glances around his surroundings, but there was no sign Shaymin was ever there.

"What was that thing that pulled us into that portal anyway? Urgh, my head still feels wobbly," Rubee said, barely maintaining balance on her feet. "Hey, we should go talk to Moga, maybe he knows why everything is so spooky all of a sudden! He might also know where Shaymin is."

"Good idea, Rubee. I just hope he's around and okay, I don't like how quiet this place is," Harvey said, his lips parting slightly.

When he and Rubee walked up to Moga's tree, Harvey drew his paw to the door, and after some hesitation, he gave the door a few knocks. Harvey and Rubee were immediately shocked when the door opened up by itself, a chilling sensation washing out through them from the doorway. Harvey puckered his lips, and as he was about to make his way inside, he heard Rubee whimper behind him.

"Are you crazy?! You're really going inside?" Rubee cautioned, her limbs shaking as her eyes lowered.

"Whatever's in there, I'm sure it's nothing we can't handle," Harvey replied, trying his best to give her a reassuring smile.

"Harvey? Is that you?" They heard Moga's voice call from inside the house. Immediately, they both forgot about their doubts and rushed into the tree house.

"Moga!" Harvey and Rubee chanted as they entered. They turned left and right and soon found Moga sitting on his chief's chair in the living room. His eyes were fixated on an elliptical wooden mask, one he was actively carving.

"You're o… kay?" Harvey said, uncertainty emanating from his tone.

Moga grinned, still carving his mask. "Please, do come and sit. We have much to discuss, young ones."

When Rubee held onto his arm, Harvey could feel her heart beating through his skin. Harvey swallowed as they sat on the mat across Moga, though Harvey made sure to keep his bag containing his bow and arrows close by… just in case. He already didn't like where things were going.

Something seems off about Moga, Harvey surmised.

"What's going on, Moga? What's happened to the village? And where did everyone go?" Harvey finally asked after a period of silence.

Moga paused briefly, raising his almost hollow eyes at them. "Look around you, Harvey, they're all here."

Harvey swerved his head around, and sure enough, they were surrounded by silhouettes of Pokémon, some of which he slightly recognized. Harvey turned his face back to Moga, but Moga continued as he was about to speak. "Everyone is here, and they're all sad that you two ran away. You really broke our hearts, Harvey, both of you." Moga raised his face toward them, his almost hollow eyes staring into their souls. "But worry not, you're home now, and everything will be fine and back to normal."

Having had enough of the absurdity of the situation, Harvey rose to his feet, his eyes narrowed. "Moga, what is going on? What are you really?"

Moga cackled, keeping his mask on his lap. "I am all there is, or all there ever was. Not that it matters. Harvey, did you know? You're the reason any of this exists," Moga said, leaning back on his chair. "When you arrived here those six years ago, you created this space between the material world and the void lands, giving consciousness to Shaymin's greatest nightmare. As soon as I became aware of my sentience, I decided to keep you here, to understand what you really were, but I never could figure it out. You continue to be an anomaly I can't wrap my head around." He craned his face to Rubee, who tensed in response. "You too are an anomaly I can't wrap my head around: girl who leapt through time?"

Rubee narrowed her eyes, letting those words sink in for a minute. "Through time?"

"What? I don't… none of this makes sense," Harvey retorted.

"It doesn't have to make sense to either of you, but one thing I can thank you for, is this," Moga said, raising his hand to reveal six different colored wisp-like orbs. Clenching his fist, the orbs merged together to form an even larger white one. "You've brought Shaymin's heart to me, and I'm ever grateful. Sadly, that's where your usefulness ends." As Moga finished speaking, he placed the mask he was carving over his face, and then his body began to distort. "Your presence is a threat to me you see, and now that you've learned the truth, I cannot turn a blind eye."

Harvey's eyes widened. He held Rubee's hand and turned to the door. "Rubee, let's get out of here!"

The silhouettes got in his path to stop him. Harvey cursed under his breath as his tail went white. With a swift turn, he slashed at them, his face creasing as they popped like tar bubbles. With a path secured, he and Rubee exited the house as fast as they could.

The tree house tore down and collapsed behind them, sending a tidal wave of dust and debris that swept Harvey off his feet and into the air.

In the aftermath, Harvey found himself trudged between the roots of a tree. Rubee was at least safe; he shielded her in his arms during the whole chaos. He sneezed as the dust settled around them, allowing Rubee to struggle out of his arms, coughing.

As she got up, Harvey leaned his face toward her. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Rubee responded with a nod, letting him heave a relieved sigh, but that soon changed when a large figure appeared in front of them as most of the dust settled. It was Moga, but he'd greatly deformed and become at least four times his original size. He was essentially a giant ball of spiky white fur with several slender wooden arms on his sides; twelve of which Harver could count. A large wooden mask rested in front of the body, it's texture so stiff that Moga's mouth no longer moved when he spoke. Harvey gasped when he recognized the same white orb Moga showed them, sitting in the forehead of Moga's mask like a gemstone decoration.

"It didn't have to come to this, Harvey. Had you listened, had you not gone into the dungeon when I told you to stay," Moga said, his joints audibly creaking as he slowly walked, scanning the area for the two siblings. "Now you'll both die here."

"Come on, let's get out of here," Harvey whispered to Rubee. She looked at him for a few seconds, her eyes lowered and tears almost welling up. The two of them used the dust as cover, sneaking their way out of the village square and heading into the forest. When they got far away enough, they picked up their speed and ran even deeper into the forest.

They found a place to hide behind a large curved rock and stayed there to take a break. Harvey's chest was pounding too hard for him to mind the moss on the rock, though he avoided leaning against it anyway. He watched as Rubee hovered next to him, her expression devastated.

"All this time… That Moga has to be a fake, right? The real Moga would never try to hurt us, right, Harvey?" Rubee asked, her voice cracking up.

Harvey bit his lip, his eyes lowering. "I wish I had an answer for that, Rubee." Harvey wanted to say, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. "It doesn't matter, all we know is that whatever that thing is, it's a monster. It has Shaymin and now it wants to kill us too!"

"Are we really going to die?"

"Listen to yourself, Rubee. Of course, we're not going to die! I won't allow that thing to lay even a scratch on you. We're gonna free Shaymin from its evil too, and get out as we promised we would."

"Then, what should we do?"

"We can try fighting back, but that's risky. Moga was able to tear that whole tree down by himsel—"

"Stop calling that thing Moga… please."

Harvey paused for a minute, then sighed as he continued. "Let's call it Kalledes then, after the dungeon, okay?"

Rubee nodded.

"Good. As I was saying, that thing's no doubt powerful. We shouldn't approach it carelessly. What we need is a plan, a good plan." Harvey said, peeking over the edge of the rock as he heard distant creaking sounds of Kalledes approaching.

"There's no point in hiding from me, Harvey! In the end, it all leads back to darkness!" Kalledes roared, knocking and pushing smaller trees over to find them. With every thwack and crack, Harvey could feel Kalledes treading closer to their location.

"I'm not sure how this is going to work Rubee, but it's the best I can come up with now," Harvey whispered to Rubee, withdrawing his bow from around his shoulder.

Rubee shut her lips, bringing her face closer. "Wait! Remember when Shaymin said we should always aim for the light, could she have meant…"

Harvey's mouth widened. "Rubee, you're a genius…"

Rubee's cheeks went red. "Oh, it's nothing, just a thought."

Harvey peeked over their hiding spot again. "I think I know just how we're going to do this… let's just hope it works."

***C***​

"You can't hide forever, Harvey… Rubee! You can only keep running till your legs break." Kalledes laughed almost maniacally as he lifted and turned boulders around. When he didn't find them, he'd grunt and hurl the terrain obstacles away.

"I'm right here!" Harvey shouted from high above, sitting on a branch hidden by leaves with his tail hanging low.

"You actually announced your position? I expected you to be much smarter," Kalledes snorted, shooting two of his twelve arms high up into the air at Harvey.

Harvey leapt down from the branch straight toward Kalledes' approaching arms, his tail shining with the metallic sheen of iron tail. Kalledes suddenly felt his face get hit by something only for half of his face to be frozen a split second later.

"What?!" he shouted, becoming so disoriented that all of his arms whirled around and missed Harvey completely.

Kalledes cursed under his breath when he faintly caught a glimpse of Rubee retreating behind a tree and out of view.

"Eat this!" Harvey roared, landing his tail harshly on top of Kalledes' mask, breaking off a chunk of it aside, but missing Shaymin's heart by a few millimeters.

Harvey rebounded and scurried away from Kalledes as soon as his paws touched the ground, hearing Kalledes shouting after him. Harvey winced a bit when he saw Kalledes' mask. The broken portion was exuding a black, murky smoke.

"You little bastards! Now you've truly done it. I'll show you what hell looks like!" Kalledes roared as he threw his arms straight toward where Harvey ran. He let out a disappointed grunt when he retracted his arms with nothing.

Harvey took slow heavy breaths while he hid on another tree branch, observing Kalledes rip off the remainder of the ice on his mask. Harvey aimed his arrow at Kalledes, steadying his aim for Shaymin's glowing heart. In a slight mishap, Harvey stepped on an unstable area of the branch, which created a noise. His heart then stopped when Kalledes looked his way.

"Over there!"

Before Harvey knew it, Kalledes had knocked the tree he was on from its roots, sending him spiraling up in mid-air. Kalledes then smacked Harvey right out of the air, throwing Harvey flying deeper into the forest. Air escaped Harvey's lungs as his body slammed hard against a tree trunk. He remained glued to the trunk for a few seconds before falling down face flat.

"Harvey!" Harvey heard Rubee cry out, watching as she dashed through the air to meet him.

"I'm okay," Harvey said, raising his paw as he tried to stand back up.

Rubee rummaged through Harvey's bag, which he gave her to hold onto previously, for an oran berry. However, she was shocked to find that all the berries in the bag had withered and turned black.

"Those berries you stole won't help you now," Kalledes said, cackling. He'd caught up to them, and he was towering over them from just a handful of meters away.

"We don't need them!" Harvey retorted, rising to his feet. He got into a fighting stance, activating his tail slap while Rubee stood strong beside him.

"You're right, nor will you be needing your lives either. Like I said before Harvey, it all leads back to darkness in the end."
 
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Ambyssin

Winter can't come soon enough
*sees chapter title* Looks like this chapter's 100% Aku Aku approved! :D

I'm going to call into question your description of this fourth floor. This might be nitpicking on my part, but having Harvey call the atmosphere of the fourth floor "quiet" strikes me as a bit off. The other levels certainly weren't that loud (at least, some of the parts we saw). There were some dangers, sure, but poisonous air and a hyperactive Shaymin don't exactly scream "loud" to me. Rubee's reaction is probably the best part of the opening, because of course a pollen-loving bug would totally flip out at a big ol' flower garden.

What's more, Harvey's tail was still a bit numb and vibrating when he held it in his paws.
Two things here. One: I find it a bit odd that you'd put "What's more," in the narration. It feels a bit informal for me. The other thing is that I'm not sure "vibrating" is the right word here. Something doesn't vibrate in pain, it throbs in pain.

"What the Heck just happened?!"
Accidentally capitalized "heck" here.

Also, I don't know if this was intentional, but you initially made me think of Parfum Palace in XY with Shaymin wanting to hide out in the flower garden. And then you throw a curveball with Shaymin having perfected shadow clone jutsu. It's a nifty little puzzle idea, although you choose to spend most of your time just having Harvey try to reason it out, initially. Which is a little bit boring, if I'm honest. Kind of reminds me of that really stupid mission in Sonic 06 where you need to find the guard captain (look it up, it's ridiculous XP). Still, it's something different and adds to the really odd "redesign" you've given to this dungeon (and Shaymin).

"Aww, you're thinking of that human girlfriend of yours again?"
I understand this is teasing the reader as to who Annie is, but this line comes off as really forced. Rubee knows Annie is Harvey's human friend. The only reason she'd say "human girlfried," is for the audience's benefit. But that just makes it awkward. If you said, "Aww, do you miss your old girlfriend?" or something similar, I think it would still do the job (since we already know Harvey's human, it's not too big of a leap to make).

I don't really have much to say about the whole "loneliness is this Shaymin's other emotion" part. Harvey caught on pretty quickly, so I wouldn't say he "finally" figured it out. It was a good way to tie it back into Harvey's decision to leave, at least. Though, a part of me was hoping the resolution to this wouldn't involve just talking Shaymin down, because that's pretty much what they had done with all the other Shaymin essences. So, I was very happy to see a big ol' spoopy hand pop in and drag everyone through some sort of space-time rift. And from there things really deviate because we get very... uh... I'm going to go Kingdom Hearts here. Because the explanation boiled down to something, something nightmares/DARKNESS and I didn't entirely understand it. I spotted "child of light" which positively screams that Harvey's some sort of chosen one, though the birthmark also was a dead-wringer for that category.

But then Nightmare!Moga slips into a Skull Kill impression, creepy mask and all. Okay, sure, why not. I know you said LoZ is an inspiration here. Why not go for Majora's Mask. *shrug*

Kalledes suddenly felt his face get hit by something only for half of his face to be frozen a split second later.
This line also needs to be cleaned up. It's very awkward with how it's phrased. You could, for example, say, "Something struck Kalledes' face, freezing half of it solid."

So we're still going to get a boss here, but I imagine it'll be veeeeeeery different. This chapter was a bit up and down for me, namely because some of the interactions felt a little stiff here, in comparison to last chapter.
 

DreamSayer

Name's Adam.
So we're still going to get a boss here, but I imagine it'll be veeeeeeery different. This chapter was a bit up and down for me, namely because some of the interactions felt a little stiff here, in comparison to last chapter.

Yeah, the boss fight is a lot different compared to the old one. And I've taken your criticisms into consideration and have fixed some of the problems with the chapter. Thanks for reviewing btw! :)
 

Chibi Pika

Stay positive
Hey there, I’ve just read the first two chapters, but I’m already very impressed. This is shaping up to be a pretty big improvement over the original! And it’s weird cause like, I took another look at the old version and things haven’t changed that much. But there’s just something about it that feels like a much stronger first impression.

First of all, Harvey and Rubee’s interactions are a ton of fun, and you’ve captured their sibling dynamic perfectly. Second, the prose definitely flows better, from what I can tell. I remember there were quite a few parts in the old version where the description felt stilted or flat, and it’s a lot smoother now, imo.

I do admit I found the detail about Harvey hunting Sawsbuck to be kind of odd. I mean, Minccino don’t seem like carnivores…? Although if you want to mention his bow skills, perhaps he could have used it for protection when leaving the village (although the entire forest is implied to be pretty safe and peaceful, as a contrast to the outside world.) Hmm… maybe it was a hobby of his as a human?

Moving on to chapter 2. I feel like the atmosphere is stronger in this version, and it gets to the point a lot quicker. Harvey and Rubee’s reactions to things were a lot stronger too (like finding the skeleton.) I really liked the addition of the Xatu’s notes, which heavily imply that you’re already setting up the Shadow Pokémon plot as well as Shaymin having more of a central role. I also really like the idea of Shaymin’s consciousness being broken into pieces, trapping her in the dungeon. My guess is that the first piece they found represented sadness, as she had blue leaves and gave the whole floor a blue, depressing aura. I’m curious to see how things will go since it looks like their dungeon crawl is going to be quite different from last time!

~Chibi~;249;;448;
 

DreamSayer

Name's Adam.
Chibi

Hey there, I’ve just read the first two chapters, but I’m already very impressed. This is shaping up to be a pretty big improvement over the original! And it’s weird cause like, I took another look at the old version and things haven’t changed that much. But there’s just something about it that feels like a much stronger first impression.

Yeah, things changed a lot more starting with the second chapter though. By the third chapter, it's already a completely different story compared to the original.

I do admit I found the detail about Harvey hunting Sawsbuck to be kind of odd. I mean, Minccino don’t seem like carnivores…? Although if you want to mention his bow skills, perhaps he could have used it for protection when leaving the village (although the entire forest is implied to be pretty safe and peaceful, as a contrast to the outside world.) Hmm… maybe it was a hobby of his as a human?

Well, I looked it up and it turns out that Chinchillas are omnivores. So, I thought it'd be likely that Harvey is capable of eating meat. Plus, he used to be a human, and because of that, hunting wild Pokémon wouldn't really be something he'd be too uncomfortable with, I guess.

Anyway, thanks for the review! :)
 

DreamSayer

Name's Adam.
Chapter 5:Withered Bloom

Harvey gritted his teeth, watching as Kalledes nonchalantly raised his creaking arms. He held them still in the air for a second, before throwing them all straight at the pair of siblings.

The arms tore through the air, crushing everything in their path, sending objects and rubble scattering about. Kalledes then retracted his arms, walking to the site of the impact to see if he'd gotten the job done. There was no blood, no broken bones or torn pieces of flesh. They'd escaped, he concluded.

Kalledes raised a chunk of a tree in his claws, his sharp nails digging into the bark. "This is getting really old, Harvey! Try as you might, but you can't keep running!" he roared, crushing the tree bark in his hands.

Meanwhile, Rubee had lifted Harvey away moments before Kalledes launched his attack. She carried Harvey through the air, trying to create as much distance between them and their foe.

"Rubee, we need to go back. We can't free Shaymin by running away!" Harvey complained, struggling to get her to let him go.

Rubee puckered her lips, shaking her head as she continued to fly in the opposite direction. "We can't do this Harvey, that thing is too scary. I… I don't want it to hurt you again!"

"Rubee, put me down, please," Harvey pleaded still.

Rubee scrunched up her face, but she gave in to his request. She stopped next to a tree and set Harvey down. As she did, she turned her face away from him, saying, "You're going to go back and try to fight it, aren't you?"

Harvey held her by her arms, his paws cold as he said, "I understand how you feel, Rubee, I do. I'm just as afraid of seeing you get hurt too! But we can't keep running like frightened children. We can either go back and fight or keep running till our legs can't take it anymore. So, what would you prefer we did?"

"Interesting question, Harvey. Though I'd very much prefer you chose the latter, but without the running part," Kalledes said from the tree tops.

Both Harvey and Rubee looked up in shock, spotting Kalledes hanging between the trees like a giant orangutan. Kalledes stretched his spare arms out at them, forcing Harvey to make an evasive jump, while Rubee darted out of the way. Having separated the two momentarily, Kalledes landed between them, turning his gaze onto Rubee.

"You think you're fast, but you really aren't. Don't forget, I'm the wise old shiftry that raised you," Kalledes cackled, raising his claw up toward Rubee.

Harvey gasped when he saw that, but the moment he moved an inch, he felt a sudden coldness hit him at the core when Kalledes redirected his strike towards him instead. The attack barely clipped past Harvey as he leapt in an arc, the sheer force of the attack making him spin in the air longer than he'd hoped.

Harvey bounced back on his feet as soon as he landed, his head woozy from his last jump. He deflected an attack from Kalledes, his tail clanging as metal met wood. Harvey bit his lip as Kalledes tried to attack again.

"Leave him alone!" Rubee cried out, hurling a pollen puff at Kalledes.

The behemoth caught her in the attack. He raised a gust of wind with a forceful swipe of his arm, disrupting the trajectory of the pollen puff. Rubee watched helplessly as it fell into the grass.

Kalledes shuddered for a second. The grass the pollen puff fell on decayed in seconds. He swerved his head at the ribombee , who was returning him a furious glare. "I must say, you might just be more dangerous than I give you credit for."

Kalledes let out a pained grunt as Harvey chopped off one of his appendages from underneath, forcing his balance to sag. He'd allowed the ribombee to distract him long enough to let his guard down against Harvey.

Harvey promptly trotted up Kalledes' body, his eyes dead set on striking the wooden mask again. He was just about to reach it when Kalledes swatted him off his back. Unrelenting, Kalledes slammed Harvey on the ground before he could spring back up.

He raised the minccino in his arm, watching him squirm and struggle to break free. "Why don't you…" Kalledes flung Harvey off with bolting speed in a random direction. "Go take a break while I deal with your sister over here?"

Harvey gasped as he flew through the air like a missile. He cringed hard whenever his back collided with a stray branch as he torpedoed his way uncontrollably. He finally felt his body hit against something hard enough to stop his flight, but not before breaking through a window and falling to the ground.

***C***​

Clouds of dust, a broken cupboard and a cracked wall surrounded Harvey as he lay motionless on the ground. His bones rattled beneath his fur and his muscles stung.

Harvey coughed out blood as he tried his hardest to breathe; his chest felt like it had been compressed from the impact. He cleaned off the blood with his paw, leaving behind a red smudge on his face. Harvey opened his eyes slowly, his vision blurry as a green blob appeared to be walking his way.

"Harvey, are you alright? Can you stand?" the blob asked, raising what looked like a paw toward Harvey's face.

"Shaymin? is that you? But how?" Harvey asked as his vision began clearing up, allowing him to see her properly.

She looked at him with guilt in her lowered eyes, though she appeared to be trying to run away. "I'm sorry for getting you into this mess."

"There's no need to apologize, and I don't get it… how're you still here? I thought your heart was—"

"Yes, it has. That monster has the fragments that make up most of me, and now leaving this place is almost like a lost cause." She gave him a studying look, then her expression went sober. "Harvey, you two cannot win as you are now. He'll… he'll kill you."

Harvey shook his head as he drew his brows together. "That's not true, we'll never know till we try," he said, forcing a smile. He then scrunched up his face when a surge of pain shot up his abdomen as he tried to move.

"Don't overexert yourself! You're… wounded, terribly," Shaymin said, holding him down to keep him from standing up.

"But I have to go, Rubee is still out there!"

"I know, that's why I'm going to lend you my power."

Harvey's ears drooped, his feet pushing pieces of detritus around the floor. "What?"

"That monster took most, but not all of my heart. There's still one he couldn't get, and that's the me talking to you right now," she said. It was then that Harvey noticed her leaves were white, and not actually green. "You're different from any pokemon I've met during my lifetime, so, I think this could work," Shaymin then leaned her face toward his and said, "Harvey, we're going to join hearts! Please, will you accept?"

Harvey raised a brow as he gave her a quizzical look. "I don't know what that means, but I don't really care right now. As long as it can help me beat that thing to the dirt where it belongs," Harvey said, grimacing as his consciousness started drifting away.

Harvey's eyes pried open and wide seconds later. He gasped as he swerved his head around, finding himself alone and still surrounded by broken furniture and the window above ahead. He placed his paw on his chest, grunting as he tried to get back on his feet. It was then that he felt a strange fabric around his neck. As his face trailed down, he found a green, red tipped scarf neatly tied around his neck. It had the soothing scent of roses.

`Do you like the scarf? I think it suits you.`

"You made this for me?" Harvey muttered, but he felt confused when he couldn't find her anywhere.

`Yes! It's not purely cosmetic though. It'll help boost your abilities,` Shaymin's voice said into his head.

"Shaymin? Where… are you exactly?"

`I'm within you. We've joined our hearts and so, we share our thoughts now, b-but don't worry! It's only temporary… I think… at least until we defeat that monster.`

"Have you ever done this before?" Harvey asked as a wave of uncertainty hit him. He was also surprised that all his wounds had healed, which he assumed was Shaymin's doing. "Will there be any side effects?"

`I'm sorry, but this is the first time I've ever done something like this. I'm not sure of the consequences, but your special ability has awakened as a result of this, I'm sure of it.`

Harvey raised a brow, his ears tilting sideways. "Special ability? What's that?"

`There's no time to explain right now, I just hope that the one I awakened isn't the one that just makes you appear more… adorable to girls.`

Harvey's ears drooped. "Wait, what?! How will that help me in any way?" Harvey then heard a shriek from outside that sounded like Rubee's voice. He bit his lower lip, suppressing all his previous thoughts as he made his way for the window he came in through.

Oh no! I've wasted so much time! Please be safe, Rubee!Harvey thought as he landed outside. Without wasting another second, he got down on all fours and scurried back into the battlefield.

***C***​

Rubee huffed as she crisscrossed between tree lines, able to evade most of Kalledes' attacks with her swift speed.

Kelledes chased after her relentlessly, knocking down everything in his path as he tried to get her. Every so often, he'd be forced to pause and evade as she hurled her deadly pollen puffs his way. He dodged the first three ones, but a fourth one landed on one of his limbs, sending a jolt of pain up his appendage. He grimaced and tore off the limb to prevent the paralysis from spreading.

"You sly little devil," he cursed as he discovered he'd lost sight of her.

Rubee hid in a burrow inside a tree, taking heavy breaths as she tried to regain her strength. Never before had she wished she could eat her own pollen puffs. She could've really used one at the time.

She peeked out of her hiding spot, sighing in relief when she didn't see him. She leaned back against the wall of the burrow and let out another sigh.

I only have a few left. Maybe I should try using some of my other techniques. Sheswiped up two droplets from her scarf organ: one was a clear green and the other a sickly purple. She mixed the two together and watched her pollen dust surround it to complete the concoction. Doesn't matter, this'll finish him once and for all.

She darted out of her hiding spot and went seeking for Kalledes. She gasped when she spotted him near a dried creek. A smile swept across her face as she tried sneaking up on him; he was too busy rummaging through rocks and fallen trees to notice her.

Her heart froze when he suddenly whipped his head around. Too shocked to react on time, she shrieked as he swatted her down, forcing her to drop her pollen puff. She winced as she held her arm, shuddering as he towered over her.

"Alright, now that we're alone, how about we have a fun little chat, Rubee dear?"

Rubee shrieked, her eyes widening and her limbs shaking. "Just… what are you? And what have you done to the village!" Rubee demanded, her voice echoing through the silent forest.

"Were you not listening this whole time? I am Moga!"

"You're really him?" Rubee said, tears flowing down her cheeks.

Kalledes smiled beneath his mask. "Yes, the whole thing about me being your humble, caring guardian… It was always just a ruse!" Kalledes said, raising an arm as he bared his sharpened claws. When he swung his claw down at her, Harvey appeared from nowhere and chopped Kalledes' arm off with his iron tail.

Harvey then retreated to Rubee's side, still keeping his gaze on his masked foe who returned an irked glare.

Rubee then caught Harvey off guard by throwing him a hug to the head. "Harvey! You're okay!" she squealed, a few tear drops falling from her eyes. Harvey briefly glanced at her, chuckling at her silliness. However, the atmosphere tensed up again when Kalledes began moving.

"So, you've returned, Harvey. You're far more resilient than I gave you credit for—" Kalledes then took a long hard look at Harvey, and he was quick to notice something was different about the minccino.

Kalledes' hair spiked up as he asked, "How can this be?! I thought I had all of them!" He then stomped his limbs down, his eyes glowing red. "No matter, I'm ending you both now!" Kalledes shot a preemptive claw strike at the siblings.

Harvey gasped, holding onto Rubee as they rolled out of harm's way. He let go of her as they ran around Kalledes, evading his strikes which collided with whatever stray object was behind them.

Just then, an idea popped into Harvey's head as he observed Kalledes' pattern of attacks. He halted to wait for a claw strike, and as it swooshed his way, Harvey leapt up, eying Kalledes' arm as it dug into the ground beneath him.

As soon as Harvey's paws touched the slender wooden arm's surface, he bolted up to Kelledes' face, his back glowing with iron tail as he struck with all his might. Kalledes screamed as Harvey clashed his tail against the mask right near the already broken portion. With a huff, Harvey crouched and rebounded himself off the mask, smiling as Rubee caught him in the air.

Kalledes growled as he latched onto his face, the cracks on his mask expanded rapidly with no signs of slowing.

Kalledes raised all of his free arms and started swinging them around in a desperate plight to end the battle. Rubee evaded the strikes, panting as exhaustion finally started to strain her wings.

Kalledes' arms then all fell inactive as he tried his hardest to stop the black smog from gushing out of his wound.

"Now's our chance!" Harvey chanted, he then looked at Rubee and said, "Rubee, throw me at him, now!"

Rubee threw him a wide-eyed glance at first, then she nodded in understanding. She flew in a circle twice before hurling him straight at Kalledes. "Go get him, Harvey!" she cheered.

Harvey felt the wind swimming against his fur as he neared the immobilized Kalledes. He felt like time had stopped for him, and at that time, his body tingled all over as an orange aura enveloped him.

His body then grew hot as the aura concentrated around his tail. When Harvey caught a glimpse of it, he was awed to find that his iron tail had been evolved with a bright orange blade shaped coating.

Kalledes shot his claws forward in retaliation, but with a triumphant shout, Harvey repelled the attacks with repeated strikes and landed his tail with full force right on Kalledes' mask, destroying what was left of it.

With that strike, Kalledes' mask was shattered completely and Shaymin's heart floated up into the sky, dissipating. Kalledes then shrunk rapidly, eventually reverting back into the frail, old Moga he used to be. His crimson leaves were withering even more, parts of his limbs were breaking off, and his eyes looked more hollow than ever.

"Shaymin, your hearts!" Harvey shouted, placing his paw against his chest as his heart raced.

"How? Who taught you that technique?!" Moga demanded, trying to walk, nearly toppling over.

"I don't know. Maybe I always knew it, and why should I even tell you?" Harvey replied while crouched, unable to stop panting from exhaustion.

Boy, that move sure used up a lot of strength.

Moga smirked as he fell to his knees. "So, you two have won and are now… you're free. I hope you're happy, because nothing awaits you in the outside world but suffering."

"What makes you think that? You've never seen what's beyond here yourself," Harvey rebutted, furrowing his eyebrows as he stood upright.

"Mark my words Harvey; be wary of those you trust, else all you'll get is a knife in the back." With those final words, Moga's body disintegrated into swirling black smoke.

The moment he was gone, color returned to the once faded forest, filling it up with the lively green Harvey and Rubee were accustomed to.

"Phew, that's over now," Harvey muttered to himself, taking a long deep breath. He didn't even spend a second to ponder on Moga's cryptic warning.

"Harvey… look over there," Rubee whispered, pointing somewhere.

Harvey turned his face to see what she was pointing at. His mouth opened slightly as he saw all the different colored Shaymin, coming out from their hiding spots. The shaymins assembled, each wearing a smile as they merged together to combine into a bright light. It was then that the true Shaymin appeared.

Shaymin's feather-like green feathers glowed elegantly, the petals of her deep pink flowers swaying as she hovered a few inches over the ground. As she opened her green eyes, she smiled at them, saying, "You did it! You've freed me!"

"Shaymin!" Harvey and Rubee said, running to her. They held her paws to help her with her descent. Shaymin was quick to give them both a tight hug as soon as she came down, taking Harvey by surprise.

"I cannot thank you two enough, especially you, Harvey, for carrying my hopes with you," Shaymin said, her eyes gleaming with pearls of tears.

"Hey, I helped!" Rubee protested.

"I know, none of this would've been possible without you too, Rubee. You were always there when Harvey needed you, you were always there for me."

Hearing those words, Rubee's face went bright red and she retreated behind Harvey, not saying another word.

"I'm glad we were able to come this far and all, but what comes next?" Harvey asked.

Their brief moment of celebration would soon come crashing down when the forest started to collapse. The sky shattered magnificently into pieces, the trees withered and tore down, rocks ground down into dust and the earth became littered with fissures.

"What's going on?!" Harvey asked, stumbling about as the ground trembled.

"Harvey, I don't like this!" Rubee said, hiding herself in between Harvey's ears. "Why is this happening?!"

"I'm no longer bound to this place, so, maybe it's collapsing because of that!" Shaymin guessed, her movements flighty as the three of them huddled up together.

"Then how do we get out of this?!" Harvey shouted, jumping as a tree fell a few meters from them.

Shaymin walked some steps from them, then her body started shifting. Harvey watched her shape change to resemble a small deer with long, flat, wing-like ears. Her leaves formed what resembled a mohawk on her head and her flower moved to her neck region, which resembled a scarf that was almost a perfect match for the scarf she gave Harvey.

Shaymin looked at Harvey with a smile. "Get on, I'll get us out of here!" Shaymin said, but when she saw the their confused expressions, she added, "I can fly in this form!"

Harvey didn't really have the time to object as a crack on the ground sped their way from the distance. It was awkward for him at first, but he managed to find a way to sit comfortably on Shaymin's back.

He flinched a bit as she took off, watching in awe at her precision during flight. She was able to guide herself between the slanted and fallen trees very easily and not even sharp turns were the least bit of a problem for the guardian. Even Rubee wasn't that good when carrying Harvey around.

"There it is! That's our way out!" Shaymin said as they approached the bridge, which wasn't spared from the calamity either, and had long collapsed into the ravines below.

"Isn't that the way into the dungeon?" Harvey asked, recognizing the cave she was leading them to.

"No, it's the way out! Now, hold on tight you two!" Shaymin said, bursting forward with even greater acceleration.

Harvey's ears danced in the wind as they whisked forward. He observed as the calamity was quickly catching up to them. Everything was straight up falling out of existence behind them in a sea of cascading limbo.

Harvey held his breath as Shaymin entered the crevice moments before it too came crashing down. A wave of breathlessness hit Harvey as they traveled through the empty space filled with psychedelic colors. It was just like when they were being pulled through the tear before. Harvey bit hard on his lip as he tightened his grip around Shaymin as he felt suffocation choke his windpipes. He wasn't sure he could retain consciousness as he felt himself slowly, slowly slipping away.

***C***​

Harvey woke up to a slight buzz ringing in his ears; his body's first instincts was rub them continuously until the buzzing subsided. He let out a groan as he raised his head off the ground. He realized he was lying on a rocky surface, his ears twitched slightly as he pushed a pebble in his idle movements. A dripping sound permeated his surroundings, his ears flickering each time they picked it up. He grimaced as he shook his body, ending it with a huff.

Harvey wondered whether he was in a cave of some kind. The lighting of the site was a bit dim, and his eyes could only make out vague shapes here and there. Slowly, his eyes adjusted as his pupils expanded to let in more light, and he could then see peculiar decorated pillars sporting marked carvings that resembled totem butterflies.

While taking a few steps forward to further investigate, Harvey's foot bumped into something soft and fuzzy. His eyes trailed down and he found Rubee lying on her stomach; her eyes shut while she slept soundly.

"Rubee, wake up!" Harvey whispered, grabbing her by the shoulders as he shook her back and forth.

Rubee groaned, blinking her eyes slowly to find him staring back at her. "H-Harvey? What happened? Did I fall asleep?"

"Yeah. Do you feel alright?" Harvey inquired, checking her general shape for any signs on harm; her wings were still intact, her scarf was still there too, and there was nothing for him to worry about. His mind at ease, Harvey evoked a relieved sigh.

Harvey heard someone whimper close by, and his ears fell on its source; it was Shaymin, her eyes tightly shut as she struggled to breathe properly. As he approached her, he quickly noticed that her body had grown translucent, as he could see the tiny rocks and specks of sand sitting underneath her.

"Shaymin?" Harvey asked, his paws shaking as he lifted them to her. "What's happening to you? You're fading?"

Shaymin's eyes opened slightly, her smile weak as she slowly got up on her hind paws. "Harvey, Rubee, you're both okay. That's…" Shaymin fidgeted, her feet giving in to her weight. Harvey caught her before she met the earth, helping her stand once more. "Sorry, I don't feel too good."

"What's going on with you, Shaymin? Are you going to disappear?" Rubee asked, leaning forward as she hovered in front of the hedgehog's face. "Please tell me you're not going to disappear. Shaymin, please tell me you're going to be okay," Rubee pleaded, resting on Shaymin's muzzle.

Shaymin stared back at her, biting her lip as she shook her off. "I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I don't have much time left."

Harvey's pupils retracted to dots, his jaw hanging open and his chest stiffening. "What are you trying to say, Shaymin?"

"I'm going to die,"

"But why? That doesn't make any sense!" Harvey snapped, his face held low, ears drooped and paws clenched. "What was the point of all this then? After all we went through to save you?"

"You have saved me, and I'm free now."

"But you're dying… how come?"

"Because…" Shaymin sighed, her eyes facing the entrance of the place. The large square doorway was held together by two pillars standing side by side. It wasn't a cave after all, and was most likely a temple of some sort.

"I'm going to return from whence I came; The Hall of Origin, where I shall find eternal rest."

"Isn't there a way for you to stay?" Rubee pleaded, tears welling up in her eyes as she pressed her palms over her mouth.

Shaymin shook her head solemnly. "A heart cannot exist without a body. I've been gone for so long, my original body's probably rotted away and buried in who knows where?"

Harvey's ears perked up. "But hold on, you said we joined hearts before, right?"

"Yes, we did."

"Can't we do that again? Then, you'd still be able to stay with us."

"I can't," Shaymin said, turning him down. "If I give you all of my heart, then you wouldn't be you anymore. You'd just be me, but in a different body, and we'd always be fighting over control," Shaymin said, she chuckled as she continued, "Then you'd have to change your name to Harmin or Shayvey. See? Both names sound horrible. You still have the portion of my heart that embodies my hope, and for me, that's enough," Shaymin said, placing her paw on his chest.

Harvey held her paw, his head filling up with heat just knowing there was little he could do. He raised his face toward Shaymin, his lips forming a frown as he saw the pained smile she was trying her best to maintain.

"I don't care what happens to me, Shaymin. If it means—"

"Harvey, please help me walk. I want to watch the sun rise," Shaymin requested, struggling to remain afoot as she faced the entrance of the temple.

Harvey gnashed his teeth, forcing his eyes shut. He held Shaymin's front paw, his paws numb and chest heavy as he helped her walk on the cold hard floor.

Gradually, they made it to the edge of the entrance where they were greeted by an alluring scenery. The sky was a soft orange color by the horizon, and the rest of it still dark blue as dawn approached. Beneath them were the crowns of trees, swaying gently in the cold morning breeze as the early birds sang their songs.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Shaymin said, grinning. "This was the first thing I saw after I was made a guardian right in this very temple. It didn't look this old the last time I was here, goes to show just how much I've missed as time went by."

"Shaymin, I…" Harvey began, his vision getting cloudy as his tail curled up.

"Please do not grieve for me, Harvey. Let my passing not become a burden to you. None of this is your fault, it's just the way things are."

"Shaymin, please don't g-go," Rubee pleaded again, sniffling as she wiped tears from her eyes.

"You two have given me more than I could ever have asked for in the brief time we knew each other, and that memory will forever remain with me. Promise me you'll live your life to the fullest and share the light you gave me with everyone you meet," Shaymin said as she shed a tear. With those last words, she vanished completely along with any signs of her presence.

She was gone.

Harvey sat there, quiet. His ears drooped and his head hung low. As Rubee started bawling out loudly next to him, he pulled her closer with his tail and held her in an embrace.
 
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Ambyssin

Winter can't come soon enough
Okay this is very... Kingdom Hearts. I wish I could say something else about it, but, well, look at what Shaymin's saying here. Perhaps it wouldn't have felt so blatant if, instead of Kalledes having hold of some of Shaymin's hearts, he had fragments of Shaymin's soul instead? Sorry I'm bringing it up, but when you're drawing from that particularly RPG I'm going to strike up the same issue that I have with those games in general: "heart" is such a nebulous way of phrasing something that's never really explained in that series. If it's meant to represent souls or spirits or something, then my suggestion is that that get explained sooner rather than later or you'll risk confusing folks like me. @.@

That said, I think Kalledes actually being a monster with a voice gives him more of a personality than the original version had. Initially he was a cool boss concept, but was just sort of a faceless, voiceless monster that didn't serve much purpose other than being a boss. Now he's actively taunting Harvey, and it's pretty clear he wants the guy dead and wants Shaymin's power for... something.

Harvey raised a brow, his ears tilting sideways. "Special ability? What's that?"

`There's no time to explain right now, I just hope that the one I awakened isn't the one that just makes you appear more… adorable to girls.`
In the name of the moon, Harvey will defeat you, Kalledes! For he is the best Magical Girl! *ahem* Sorry about that. In any case, this is one of those "there's no time to explain" moments that rubs me the wrong way. Frankly, I think, given Shaymin hasn't really done this before, you'd be better off swapping that bit out with her saying that she's still trying to figure out how this works, too. Because otherwise, she should be explaining this heart-merging stuff while Harvey's battling. Since, y'know, lives are at stake, here.

Maybe I always knew it, and why should I even tell you?
This line also felt off to me. Especially since this new dungeon-crawling had made Harvey and Rubee out to be very close. So, this feels somewhat out of character for him to keep her out of the loop like that. Perhaps you meant to say that he's just as confused as Rubee is?

Also, I'm a bit confused. Was Kalledes actually Moga or just a Skull Kid-esque demon... thingy? In any case, the ending for this dungeon is certainly very, very different. It's not even a heroic sacrifice on the part of Shaymin. So, it was certainly jarring. In a good way, I suppose. Though, I do think that Rubee's and Harvey's reactions were a bit overblown. Yeah, Shaymin dying is sad, but the two of them were acting like Shaymin was one of their best friends when they barely knew her (and her fragmented being had actually spent the past few chapters harrassing the two of them). I'm not entirely sure how that could be touched up. I just thought I'd point it out.

A few grammatical tidbits I spotted before I go:
Try as you might, but you can't keep running!
The "but" here, isn't necessary.

You're different from any pokemon I've met Harvey during my lifetime, so, I think this could work
Similarly, the "Harvey" doesn't need to be there, unless you want it to start as, "Harvey, you're different..."

be wary of those you trust, else all you'd get is a knife in the back
Bit of verb tense confusion here. "All you'll get is a knife in the back."

Anyway, with how differently things went here, I have absolutely no idea where you're going to go with this. So, color me interested.
 

DreamSayer

Name's Adam.
Amby

That said, I think Kalledes actually being a monster with a voice gives him more of a personality than the original version had. Initially he was a cool boss concept, but was just sort of a faceless, voiceless monster that didn't serve much purpose other than being a boss. Now he's actively taunting Harvey, and it's pretty clear he wants the guy dead and wants Shaymin's power for... something.

It's not really her power that he wanted. He just wanted to use her to turn the Dungeon into his own personal playground, though, I should've made that clearer. My bad.

Also, I'm a bit confused. Was Kalledes actually Moga or just a Skull Kid-esque demon... thingy? In any case, the ending for this dungeon is certainly very, very different.

Yeah, Kalledes was pretty much Moga all along.

Thanks for the review btw! I'll promptly fix the typos you pointed out.
 
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