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Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Overthrown

Knightfall

Blazing Wordsmith
Chapter Two: A Slight Discrepancy

“…For their greed, they were stripped of their wealth.
For their misuse of knowledge, they were sentenced to live lives of ignorance.
For their most heinous of crimes they committed under the light of the sun, they were condemned to a world of darkness.
Never to see the true light of the sun again.
For the war they fought, for the blood they shed, for the lives they destroyed, for the land they soiled, for the balance they usurped, for the peace they shattered, for the world they tore apart, they were banished.
Banished by the gods from this world, forever imprisoned behind a Seal created by the gods.
Exiled, for eternity.”

Excerpt from the manuscript, Legend of the Great War.
Courtesy the Trinity Isle Research and Archives facility. (T.I.R.A)


Leo had realized that this was a playback of his forgotten life, a dream of sorts; mostly because he never remembered waking up from when he passed out.
A flash-back; somehow dredged up from the bottomless abyss that held his past life.

He stood-- well, it was more like observing from above, like a phantom. He watched from a short distance as a group of figures ran down a narrow metal catwalk inside some sort of darkened concrete building.
He could see himself, as a human. He couldn't remember his face, but he knew it was him. The other adults were unrecognizable though.

He was running-- clarification-- his human self was running. From what his other self was running from, he’s not entirely sure.

He heard the sounds of their shoes click on the metal catwalk as his human self followed the adult figures in front of him. Leo saw that his human self wanted to catch his breath, but he knew he couldn't; he has to keep up with the others.

As to reaffirm his other self’s unknown reason for not stopping, Leo heard an explosion. The blast was muffled by the concrete walls of this building, but it didn’t stop the acrid smell of smoke and burning furniture from reaching Leo’s phantom nose.

His human self ran even faster, propelled by fear.
Suddenly one of the figures in the front of the group opened a metal door, light poured in from the outside. Leo felt himself blink as the bright light made the dark hallway visible.

From his outsider viewpoint Leo was amazed at what some of the figures looked like.
A couple of the adults, comprised of both men and women were dressed in formal black business suits that where soaked in sweat and had more wrinkles and tears than a tailor could ever hope to fix.
Aside from these “official” people, the few others were clothed in some sort of strange armor and helmets. Each of these armored people was gripping some sort of black handheld machine, their faces set with an unreadable look that betrayed no emotions or fear.

He looked at his human self with an air of detachment; he couldn’t believe that he originally was one of them; it seemed so sort of unreal.
His human self also looked at of place with the adults; wearing only a simple T-shirt and jeans.

As if opening the door triggered some sort of signal the men in the armor sprung into action. Clutching the black devices with both hands they rushed out of the door, followed quickly by his dream self and the others.
Leo couldn’t move as his other self ran out into the bright light of whatever was outside.

Suddenly there was a sharp cracking of thunder, lots of it, coming from directly outside the open door in short rapid bursts. He heard yelling, the roar of the thunder blasts grew louder and more rapid.
Than everything was enveloped in the bright light; the light had all but blinded him, but his hearing remained intact.

He doubled over as the sounds amplified themselves louder; he covered his ears with his claws in a vain attempt to block out the ear shattering noise.
Just as he thought his head was going to burst from the noise, he awoke with a start.

Gasping for air, he looked around at the room he was in. He was laying on a pitiful excuse for a bed-a small circle of damp straw- in the middle of a stone walled chamber. There was only a single heavy wooden door and it didn’t have a handle. The only source of light aside from his torch of a tail was a small glowing crystal fixture on the ceiling.

Leo’s pulse quickened, where am I?
He quickly got to his feet, and than almost instantly was broadsided with a dizzy spell. His body stumbled and he found himself holding onto the cool stone wall for support.

The gnawing pain of hunger he felt from before had decided to rear its ugly head once more.
His stomach decided it was the right time to remind him of its existence and the fact that it hadn’t been filled in recent memory.
He was about to slide down the wall to the floor in defeat when his eyes caught a flash of metal.

He slowly turned his head to face the source of the glint as not to provoke another dizzy spell. It was a small metal plate; however it wasn’t this that had Leo’s attention.
It was the two small red apples that rested on the platter.

He willed the little energy his body had left into the form of a clumsy dive. The rough slide across the stone floor didn’t seem to hurt as much thanks to his new scaly skin.

His sharp teeth made short work the soft apple flesh; he tore through both of the fruits with lightning speed. He tried to savor the juicy flavor. As he finished the fruit, he attempted to jog his memory as to when he had last enjoyed them.
He couldn’t, and he again cursed his amnesia.

Licking his lips, Leo finally felt almost happy, despite his shortfall recollecting his memory. He tossed the two apple cores back onto the plate.
He wasn’t completely full, he was still in some sort of prison, and he was suddenly feeling very drowsy.
His breathing slowed, his eye lids suddenly became heavy, and soon he found himself laying on a slightly damp pile of straw on the floor.

Why am I sleepy? I just woke up, didn’t I? Leo tried to reason, but his mind also was getting sluggish, I should be trying to find- he let loose an involuntary yawn-a way out...of…here….

And with that last thought, he drifted off to a sleep. Thankfully this time there were no dreams he was forced to watch.


Leo woke to the screeching of the door to his cell opening.
As he groggily sat up, two things happened at once.

The first being that what looked like two metal spheres with magnets attached to their sides floated into the room.
The second being that the metal sphere things talked.

“BZZZT! Looks like he’s awake. Finally. BZZZT!”

Leo could only stare as one of the spheres zoomed close to his face. This caused Leo to franticly claw his way backwards, only to have a wall crash into the back of his head.

Leo winched in pain and tenderly rubbed the back of his scalp- still noting the fact that he now had a horn.
However this made the two magnetic abominations burst into fits of what Leo could only assume was laughter. All he could hear was the sound of harsh static and metallic screeches coming from the two guards.

Wanting to preserve some of his dignity, Leo quickly got to his feet and angrily swiped his claw at one of the spheres. He was rewarded with a hit, even if it only made the sphere bob slightly in the air.

That said sphere returned the favor with a small burst of electricity from his magnet appendages aimed at Leo.
The voltage wasn’t enough to permanently harm him; the Magnemite wasn’t stupid and he needed this job.

Leo felt like his body was on fire, yet he stood up and faced the twin guards with a look of pure repressed anger.

“BZZZT! Don’t look at us like that! BZZZT!” the first sphere shouted, his higher tones sounding like an out of tune microphone.

“BZZZT! Yeah, you kind of deserved it for making us work overtime. If it wasn’t for you, we’d probably be back at the Hub recharging by now. BZZZT!” the second sphere continued the first’s rant.

Leo didn’t respond, he only focused more of his anger into his glare, maybe if I concentrate hard enough they’ll both explode. Who knows what I can do in this body?

They didn’t explode, much to his dismay. They did however shackle both of his wrists together with some sort of magnet chain, and tried to lead him out of the room to somewhere else in the underground building.

The word “tried” meaning they attempted to walk him out of his cell, but after being thrown in prison, drugged, bruised, laughed at, and shocked, Leo wasn’t in the mood for compliance.

“ZT! Stop resisting! Our chief wants to talk with you. ZZT!” one of the guards groaned.

Leo simply dragged his feet on the packed dirt floor, a procedure which worked well now that he had claws. Not impressed with his little show of defiance, the guards continued prodding him with small electric zaps while muttering about his species stubbornness.

At last they had arrived at their destination, a small room cut from the stone. Inside as only a wooden table and a small chair made of the same substance.

The guards entered with Leo and instructed him to sit down. He carefully made sure his tail wasn’t in the way before completing the action while the guards waited.

A short time later another creature much like the guards floated through the doorway.
It was a much bigger identical form of the guards and had an air of authority as it started talking to the guards.
The guards reported on the recent events to the, what Leo would assume was their chief officer.
They were being very secretive about it, talking in hushed tones; it wasn’t like Leo could glean any information from their conversation even if he wanted to. They were talking in a series of beeps and tones, a language that most sentient beings not acquainted with radio signals wouldn’t understand.

As soon as they were finished giving their version of the report, the officer turned to look at Leo.
Leo gave a weak wave to the one eyed creature, careful to let him see the small blackened areas on his scales from when they had zapped him.

The ovular magnetic creature suddenly shouted at the guards in a language that sounded like the unholy combination of metallic screeches, high pitched static, Morse code, and other unpleasant mechanical noises that threatened to make Leo’s ears bleed.

This sudden outburst made the both of the guards zoom out of the room in sheer terror. The larger creature than aimed one of his magnet hands at the metal door and pulled it shut with a magnetic pulse.

While Leo stared in mixed awe of the creature, it floated over to the opposite side of the table and started to talk.

“Let me be the first to apologize for their behavior, I had absolutely no idea of their actions. BZZZT! They were acting completely out of the orders I gave them. BZZZT! I specifically told them to escort you to this chamber, and not to damage you in the process!” He buzzed angrily as his apology came to an end.

“It’s alright; I’ll be fine in no time.” Leo responded with forced cheerfulness, but he couldn’t hide his look of utter confusion and hatred of the guards from the creature.

“Ah. You’re wondering why you’re here, aren’t you? BZZZT!” he asked knowingly, as Leo nodded, affirming his answer.

“You were brought here two days ago suffering from severe malnutrition and sleep deprivation as a side affect of your time in Tranquility Fields. That’s why we had to coat your meal with sleep seed extract, by the way. BZZT!”

Wait, two days? How long was I out? Where exactly was I? Surprisingly, the only part of what he said that made any sense to Leo was why he was drugged.

“BZZZZT! I know you’re wondering why you’re here, being interrogated by me to be more specific, aren’t you? BZZZT!” Leo had no idea that the officer was able to read minds. He gave him a silent look that said, “No, I want to know why the sky is blue”.

Apparently not seeing Leo’s glare, the officer continued,
“BZZZT! I haven’t seen you around here before so I’ll introduce myself. My name is Auxiliary Gear Magnezone; you may call me Officer Gear; I’m in charge of Loyalty Square’s prison. BZZZT! I’ve been in charge of this prison for te-”

“Why am I in prison in the first place?” Leo suddenly interrupted; irritated with the lack of real answers and abuse he was receiving in this place.

The creature, Officer Gear, was silent for a moment; the only sound in the chamber came from the faint sounds of the surface world above and the quiet whirring noise that accompanied the Magnezone’s constantly turning magnets.

“BZT! You want to know why you are here? You are here because the rescue team that found you passed out in front of the Fields was required to bring you here by law. BzzzzT! No one is allowed near the Fields without permission. No one. You’re guilty of trespassing. BzZt! That’s why you’re here! Don’t act like you don’t know; everyone without a death wish knows to stay away from the Fields! bZZttT!” Gear shouted, the mechanism that controlled his voice failing to remove the static tones in his speech.

Leo wasn’t expecting that, he’d been through a lot the past couple days, but he wasn’t expecting to be yelled at; much less charged with a crime.

He stood up, nearly knocking the chair over in the process. He leaned over the table and got close to Gear’s single red eye.

“Listen, I woke up in the middle of that field with no idea of who I was, or how I got there, much less that I was committing a crime. I was concerned with finding a way out of that place, and eventually I did. I don’t really care for your rules about trespassing. I just want to leave, now.” he said the last word with such iciness it surprised him.
It wasn’t the only thing to surprise him; Leo swore he saw actual steam exiting his nostrils as he ended his rant

It felt good to let that built up rage out, he hadn’t had much of a chance to let it out earlier. He knew that he’d have to face some sort of punishment for talking back to the officer, but it felt great to finally get it off his chest and stand up for himself.

After what seemed an eternity, or maybe it was just a couple of seconds, Gear spoke.

“BZZZT! You got guts, Charmeleon, and a temper to match. Tell you what, you deserve to know what’s going on, and I’ll tell you. BZZZT! As long as you tell me what I need to know, alright? Seem fair? ZT!”

Leo wasn’t to keen to take his offer, but took a mental note on what exactly he had turned into, a Charmeleon is it? Strange name for whatever I am .
He slowly nodded, hoping that he could answer the officer’s questions. Otherwise, he could be here for a while.

“ZZZT! Good. Now, you claim you have no idea who you are or how you got inside the dungeon known as Tranquility Fields. Could you please explain what happened? BZT!”

Leo shifted in the chair, “I don’t know exactly what happened myself, I’m not sure how I could possibly explain it to you. I have no ide-” Leo began to say, before Gear interrupted.

“ZZT! Just tell me to the best of your ability, alright? ZT!” Gear told Leo, getting slightly irritated with him.

So began Leo’s most uncomfortable experience in this new world yet.
He went over every detail in his escapade from when he first woke up to when he last blacked out, even including his loss of memory and how he escaped through the barrier leaving nothing out of the narrative.
Except for his memories of being a human that is; he decided it was best to leave that little detail out of his story until he knew a lot more about what was going on.

When he finally finished his tale, Gear said nothing for a few minutes; his mind processing and going over every aspect of what was just told to him.

“BZZZT! You’ve got to be the strangest Pokemon I’ve ever had to interrogate, and I’ve run this prison for ten years. You’ve just made my job slightly easier, if anything. They’ll never believe this down at the Federation. BZZZT!” Gear laughed loudly.

Not knowing what Gear meant by the comment, Leo decided to speak.

“Remember your part of the deal; now please tell me what I want to know. Officer.” he asked, quickly adding the last word to the end.

Gear glared at him, his single red eye glowing with slight irritation. At long last he said, “So I did. And now I know why what you want to ask, and the answer, simply, is the Fields are dangerous.”

Not stopping even for Leo’s confusion, he continued,
“The dungeon you came out of is off limits to everyone. BZZZT!
Even after the Restoration of Time, the dungeon never recovered from the effects of the Crisis. It turned into a black hole of sorts, anyone who went in was never heard from again. ZzzT!”
Gear stopped his explanation suddenly, and grew quiet for a moment. To Leo it was if he was reminded of those he had known who didn’t return from those fields.
He also gave a thought to the terms Gear had mentioned, Federation? Crisis? Restoration of Time? Obviously they are important, but I have no idea what they are. He made a quick note to eventually find out what these events were.

Gear’s words also brought up an eerie thought; back in the Fields, what if I couldn’t break through the barrier?
Leo shuddered at the grim possibilities of what might have happened.

As Leo was processing his own thoughts, Gear found his voice again.

“The Federation called off the rescue efforts and erased Tranquility Fields from its maps. They gave us orders to guard the entrances and to punish those who got too close. That’s why you’re here, because technically you crossed the boundary, and the law states you must face the consequences.”

Leo tensed, he wasn’t sure what made up the punishment in this world, but he didn’t want to find out anytime soon.

“Fortunately for you, the odd circumstances of your escape will be enough to simply write this off as an unusual incident. Mostly because- to the extent of your knowledge- you never went into the Fields, you only came out of them. BZZZT!” Gear explained, much to Leo’s relief.

His claws slowly released from the wooden seat of the chair, as he processed the officer’s about-face in punishing him.
I’m getting out of this place, finally, out…

The Magnezone continued speaking,
“Sorry about imprisoning you and all that.
But procedure must be followed; otherwise there’d be no order, so to ensure order we had to at least question you on your little “adventure’ in Tranquility Fields. BZZZT!
Please understand why we had to do what we did.” and with that statement Gear used a radio tone to signal one of the Magnemite guards to enter the room.

The guard was not one of the guards from earlier, much to Leo’s satisfaction. If he ever got his hands on either one of them again, they would be the ones on the ground in pain, not him.

Returning to this guard, he was carrying a metal crate with his twin magnets. He gently set the crate down on the wooden interrogation table and with Gear’s nod of dismissal; he floated out of the room.

Gear hovered slightly higher off the ground and reached inside the crate. He pulled out a folded wad of paper pinched in his magnet-like appendage.
He placed the folded paper on the table and gave it a push.

It slid across the rough wooden surface, stopping right in front of Leo.

Leo carefully unfolded it, and laid the flattened document on the table. It had no words or letters at all, only some sort of code printed on the entirety of it; various couplings of dots and dashes made up the print on the paper.
Either way, Leo had no way of reading it, much less any idea of language what it was.

Fortunately, Gear chose at that time to provide an answer.
“BZZZT! That is your ticket out of this place, please don’t lose it.”

Leo stared up at the oversized floating magnet with a look of suspicion. He didn’t believe that he’d be given permission to leave this easily.

Gear couldn’t read minds, but he could read Leo’s look of disbelief as clearly as a book.

“You can leave, if that is what your question is. We no further need for your presence here; you have been cleared of the charges against you. ZTT!” he explained as he motioned toward the door of the chamber, opening it with a magnetic pulse.

“So were do I go now?” Leo asked uncertainly, he didn’t want to get lost in this maze of a prison by accident.

Gear pondered his question over for a moment.
How hard can it be to tell me the way out your own prison? Leo thought as Gear’s lack of answering stretched on.

When Gear finally spoke up, Leo was about to fall asleep, his head pressed against the table.

“BZZZT! Well, I’m not sure exactly what you should do next. Until you recover from your amnesia, you can’t exactly go off on your own, can you? BZZZT! I guess I can talk to the Guild and see if you can stay there for a few days…” he trailed off suddenly; an idea just hit him.

Leo sighed and put his head down again, this wasn’t what he meant by his question, he just wanted directions out of here, but he took mental notes of the places he mentioned.

It was only a few seconds this time before Gear started speaking again,

“BZZZT! In fact, I might not need to trouble the Guild with you after all. Please wait a moment.”
As he finished Gear suddenly emitted a series of beeps and tones. Almost instantly another guard zoomed through the open door and into the room. He hovered over to Gear and handed him a blank piece of paper.

Gear silently dismissed the guard and laid the paper on the table in front of him. Without warning his right magnet started spinning, generating sparks of electricity as it spun faster.

Than Gear aimed the electricity, in a single, thin beam of energy, at the paper and quickly moved the beam across the paper much like a pen or pencil.
Leo vainly tried to associate a face or a name with these items from his past, but as said, it was a vain attempt, his amnesia was still too powerful.

Pens and pencils. Just another useless shred of memory. He sighed inwardly as he gave up trying to remember.
Leo decided to pay attention to Gear and his activity once more.
He watched in curiosity as Gear finished his work; burning the last few lines into the paper. Gear than stopped the energy beam and picked up the smoking paper. From what Leo could see, an entire letter had been composed from the burnt lines in the paper.

Gear than used his magnets to gently fold the paper into a simple square, he than slid it across the table like the release paper before.

“Just give those to the guard at the front sentry post on the surface floor, alright? BZZZT! That should take care of your problems, for now at least.” Gear said as Leo placed both folded papers in his claw, and stood up.

Leo was about to walk out of the room into the hallway Gear suddenly shouted for his attention.
He turned back around to face the officer, what now? He thought as Gear reached inside the metal crate again.

“Figured you didn’t want to leave this behind” he said as he pulled out a familiar small crystal key on a golden string, “It seems pretty valuable.”

Any thoughts of irritation for Gear vanished as Leo meekly made his way over to the floating Pokemon. Gear gently turned over the artifact to Leo, who than slowly slid the golden thread over his neck.

He sighed as relief flooded him, if he had lost it he didn’t know what he would do. It was the last thing he had of his past life; he needed to keep it safe.

“Thank you, sir.” Leo whispered, still in shock of the officer’s kindness in returning the key.
Something told Leo that Gear could have fetched a good deal of money if he were to have kept and sold it someplace.

“BZZZT! You’re welcome, Charmeleon. Unfortunately not all of us in this business share my principles when it comes to matters like these.” Gear told a still stunned Leo cheerfully.

“It’s Leo,” Leo quietly told Gear.

“Ahh, Leo is it? Alright, well good to know your name in case we ever meet again. BZZZT!” Gear said as he floated past Leo and into the hallway.

“Just go along the other path, and you’ll eventually reach the surface. Remember to give those papers to the guard, or else.” Gear called from down the hallway, and than he was gone. Off to deal with other matters deeper inside the prison.

Leo snapped out of the semi-stupor he was in and walked out of the chamber. He made sure that he went along the hallway opposite from where he had last seen Gear.

The hallway smelt strongly of wet hay and damp earth, something that, as a creature with a live fire burning on his tail, he didn’t find too comfortable.
His clawed feet made a slight clicking noise when they touched the stone floor, as he quickly walked through the winding hallways, always heading upwards.
He was careful not to accidently turn down one of the many side hallways that lead back down into the unpleasantness of the prison.
After he walked for about five minutes he noticed the walls of the hallway change from stone to packed dirt, and the dim light slowly get brighter.

Soon he reached a three-way intersection, two of the paths lead elsewhere in the prison, while the third path he had all ready traveled. In wall in front of him was a pair of rectangular metal doors which lead to the lobby and outside.
Normally this wouldn’t have been so much of a problem if they had some type of knob, but they didn’t. The doors where completely smooth and appeared impossible to open.

Leo tried knocking loudly on the smooth metal, but no one seemed on the other side to answer him, or maybe they were just ignoring him.
Not about to give into defeat to a seemingly impassible barrier, he employed the same tactic that he successfully used in an earlier battle against a certain wall of wheat.


He awoke shortly afterwards to the sounds of static buzzing, and looked above him to see a Magnemite above him. He winced as he slowly got to his feet, he felt sore all over, and had a splitting head ache.
He made a painful mental note never to tackle a solid metal anything, especially at a full sprint.

The guard apparently didn’t want to get involved in Leo’s dilemma and simply used his magnetic pull to easily open the door.
Shielding his adjusting eyes from the light from beyond the door, he thanked the Magnemite who nodded in reply and flew off elsewhere in the prison.

Leo cautiously walked through the doorway into the lobby; the term lobby could only be applied if taken very loosely. The room was much brighter than the rest of the prison, considering that it had a few windows covered in sticks in the clay walls.
Other than the brightness there was little to it, there was only a small wooden booth with a Magnemite that floated behind it located by the open entrance way, and many wooden bulletin boards were mounted on the walls, each covered in posters that showed a colorful drawing of a certain Pokemon.

Leo now noticed why the guard hadn’t heard his knocking on the door earlier; he was busy talking with two creatures on the other side of his booth.
It took Leo a few seconds, but he realized that he recognized the two creatures. They were the blue and black dog and yellow and white fox from outside the Field.

No, he didn’t have the time to deal with them; his full focus was on the opening in the wall that led out of this place. He couldn’t risk his freedom with talking to the guard, for all he knew they would charge him with another crime.
He’d have to be quiet, and slowly sneak around the two Pokemon while the guard was distracted.

He flattened himself against the wall, and slowly began edging himself along it. It was incredibly slow going, but he was making progress, slowly but surely.
About halfway to the opening, Leo took a tentative glance at the guard.

The Magnemite was still conversing with the dog and fox Pokemon.
Good, he’s still talking with them, Leo thought as he continued to slide his way across the wall.
He was almost to the opening, he could turn the corner and be outside, that’s how close he was to freedom, but the booth was directly beside his target destination. He couldn’t go past without getting spotted unless he was extremely lucky.

Seeing no other alternative Leo grabbed his key and took a deep breath.
He ran directly behind the two Pokemon and into the opening as quick as his reptilian feet would allow.
He was almost in the clear, he couldn’t believe his apparent luck that the guard didn’t see him; he applauded himself for finally turning his streak of bad luck around.
It is at these times reality reminds us, often painfully, that some people or Pokemon aren’t made to succeed at certain things, like escaping unnoticed from a prison for instance.

Leo was halfway down the stone steps of the prison when suddenly he felt something metallic wrap painfully tight around both his ankles.
Leo soon found this pain was rather insignificant when compared with the pain of losing his balance and falling down half a flight of stone steps, face first.

He laid there for a moment, in quiet agony at the bottom of the steps, his entire body fighting to assess and mend the many bruises he had sustained in his misadventure.

Unfortunately for him, his rest was interrupted by the familiar whirring sound of a Magnemite. He could have sworn that it hid an almost inaudible laugh under its buzzing, as it attached one of its magnets to the metal cords around his ankles.

Leo soon found out that the only thing more painful than falling down half a flight of stone steps, was being quickly dragged up an entire flight of stone steps after doing the former.
With each step Leo was dragged up, he had to hold back an even greater amount of tears. At the top step, Leo uttered a small whimper. The guard didn’t even look at his captive as he continued to drag him back inside the prison foyer.
Leo watched the feet of the two creatures quickly shuffle out of the way, as he was dragged into the middle of the room, both his body and pride greatly bruised.

Once at the guard’s destination, the Magnemite shot a magnetic pulse at the tight metal cords that secured his feet. They instantly loosened and unwound, freeing his now slightly numb feet.
The guard quickly took the cord and stashed it behind his desk again. He than returned to the hurt Charmeleon and told Leo to stand, while the other two Pokemon silently stood and watched.

Leo painfully complied as the upset guard muttered words that Leo was sure were unfit for regular conversation.
As soon as he was finally standing, the guard started to spin both of its magnets, generating many sparks as he aimed the magnets squarely at Leo’s torso. Leo braced for the inevitable pain, his eyes squeezed tight, and his body as tense at he could make it without feeling pain.

After a few seconds he dared to open his eyes. The guard was no longer charging for a stunning shot, but instead looking at the crumpled papers clenched tightly in the claws on his right hand.
He had forgotten about them, they had been in his hand the entire time.
Silently swearing to himself, he cursed the fact that he had forgotten about the release papers that he was given and his own stupidity. He could have just handed over the paper and have been on his way, but no. Of course that didn’t happen.

The guard apparently saw what Leo was thinking and snatched the papers from his claw, and quickly scanned them both.
He took the first of the papers with the strange code on it and put it in the booth, and than gave the second paper to the blue and black dog.

The dog Pokemon slowly accepted the paper, not knowing what could possibly be on it.
He lowered the paper slightly so that his fox partner could get a good look at it as well.

While they read the content of the paper, Leo and the guard simply had engaged in a silent staring contest. The guard wishing he could zap Leo upside the head for his stupidity, and Leo busy closing one eye and imaging he was squishing the guard’s metal ball body between his claws.

As soon as the blue and black dog Pokemon was finished reading the letter he simply crumbled it into a ball and returned it to the guard, who zapped it into ash with his magnets.

“BZZZT! Well, than. Now you both know what’s going on, I’m most regrettably required by royal law and Gear’s mandatory “moral obligations” to ask if you have any questions or concerns about your new “addition” to your team. ZTTT!”
The guard sighed, apathetically addressing the other two Pokemon. Wait, new addition?

It was the dog who answered the guard, “Is this legal? Can Officer Gear do this? He never asked us, or told us anything!” he yelled at the guard.

The guard angrily zoomed over to the dog, “Listen, Riolu, and listen well; I don’t care. I honestly don’t. ZZT! Now, shut up. ZT! In fact Gear can do this. Royal decree number five-hundred and seven, section two, sub-section three. ZZT!”

The Riolu crossed his arms, “But it isn’t fair! We didn’t ask for a new teammate when we rescued him, why can’t he just go to the Guild or something?”

The guard rounded on him, “BZZZT! Do I need to repeat the decree to you? In the case of a national emergency, and this is one, the Chief Officer has the authority to assign rescue and exploration teams temporary members as to not burden the Guild’s functions during said national emergency. What part of that isn’t clear? BZZZT! Now leave! I don’t want to have to charge you with resisting an officer’s order. Go! ZT!”

The Riolu wasn’t done arguing yet, and was about to talk when the Jolteon stopped him.

“Just stop, Jay. We can’t do anything about it now, and arguing won’t help. Let’s just go.” She told the upset Riolu, apparently named Jay.
He reluctantly complied and muttered something about the guard under his breath.

The guard looked pleased for once, “BZZZT! Thank you, Jolteon! At least someone here has proved that they can listen to reason, unlike some others. BZT!” he said, directing his last enunciated word at both Leo and Jay.

Leo silently observed as the three Pokemon argued over his fate, a conversation not comfortable to listen to in the slightest.

Jay and the Jolteon both turned to exit the prison, the guard quickly told Leo to follow them.

“BZT! You’re with them now. Have fun with your new teammates! BZZT!” The guard laughed, a horrid static buzzing sound, and shoved Leo out of the lobby, onto the top steps where he left him.
Confused with the events that made up the past few minutes, Leo continued down the steps, thankfully without tripping.

He stopped at the bottom of the stairs, taking in his surroundings. He saw the other stone and clay buildings of the town, as well as a multitude of creatures simply milling about, going on with their daily lives.

Leo twisted around in a circle, taking in the wonderful strangeness of it all, the colorful buildings, as the equally colorful creatures that walked, crawled, floated, and flew around him. Many of them were totally unlike any animal he had ever seen before; wow.

Before he was done marveling the scenery, Jay and the Jolteon found him.

“Well, I guess I’m with you guys for now. Right?” Leo said uncomfortably, as tried to get on their good side. He didn’t want to be hated by them, just because Gear took matters into his own hands.

“Yeah, you’re with us, Charmeleon. Just stay with us.” Jay told him as he and the Jolteon started to make their way down the dirt street.

“It’s Leo. My name’s Leo.” Leo called to them as he followed the two.

As they moved past the various shops and buildings of the square, Leo tried to contain his curiosity as he took in the colorful wares of the vendors.

He saw berries and fruits of nearly every shape and size, from a small red one the size of a marble, to apples about the size of one of the Magnemite guards.
Along with the many fruits, he saw various metal goods, bags of small red colored seeds, and blue glass orbs stocked on the shelves and counters of the shops.

As he was looking, he realized that Jay and the Jolteon were both far ahead of him.
Leo ran forward to catch up with the Jolteon. Since she seemed the nicer of the two, Leo started to chat with her.

“Hey, it’s been a pretty hectic day so far, hasn’t it?” Leo asked, trying to make small talk with her. He sighed inwardly since at least he didn’t ask her about the weather.

“Yeah, it’s been pretty confusing so far. We really weren’t expecting Officer Gear to assign you to our team like that.” she said, as they turned off of the main street and onto a smaller dirt path.

“So that’s why he’s in such a bad mood, because of me?” Leo asked, jerking a claw toward Jay, who was walking a few strides ahead of them, and didn’t notice their conversation.

“I don’t think it’s you personally, he just doesn’t like it when he doesn’t get a warning of some sort when Gear or someone pulls these sorts of things. Like I said earlier, Gear never told us anything, except to be at the station this morning.” she explained, but Leo still had unanswered questions.

“So what’s your name? I got Jay’s, but not yours.” Leo inquired, wanting as much information as he could get.

The Jolteon looked somewhat surprised at this, “My name’s Kelly, and yours is Leo, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So what’s your story? I know you must have something to tell, since most Pokemon don’t just burst out of a dungeon wall, and then pass out. And now with your episode at the prison entrance, I really want to hear it.” Kelly asked Leo after a minute or so of relative quiet.

Leo had been somewhat expecting her question, the fact that they might to hear his story. It was a reasonable request, after all he was getting to stay with them, even if it was forcibly ordered, it was still the least he could do.

He glanced down at the key, which hung limply around his neck, his only link to whatever happened before he woke up in the middle of the Fields.
All of the things that had happened to him, from waking up until now, they were all so strange and new to him. He had all ready told Gear his slightly altered story, and now he was going to get the chance to tell it again.

He looked over to Kelly, “It’s a long, complicated story.” he said with a small chuckle, after all when he looked back on it, it was a little funny at times.

“Well, you’ll get the chance to tell us once we get to our base. And than afterwards, you’ll get the grand tour of the place. Sound good?” Kelly explained as Leo noticed that they weren’t in the town anymore.
They were on the edge of a small wooded valley, and the sun was starting to set.
The scent of the woods and the fact that wasn’t in the prison anymore calmed him.
It perhaps the calmest Leo had felt yet in this place, and to him passing out and being drugged to sleep didn’t count as being calm.

“Yeah, that sounds good” he said as they continued down the path, leaving Leo to his thoughts.

This is going to be interesting. He thought as he made a note to find out exactly what a “rescue team” was, and what was going to happen to him tomorrow.

They were questions Leo could only hope would be answered.


Author’s Notes:
As for the cause of the delay, life and school decided to broadside me with a lot of things all at one time, but I’ve dealt with them, and now am back to writing.
Chapter Three might also be slightly delayed, as finals are coming up next month and early June, but I will make a serious effort to finish it before the exams hit.

As for this chapter, it was slightly more difficult to write for me, adding to the delay. I wanted Leo to meet and join his team differently than the normal “partner asks main character to join his team” scenario.
So after a bit of brainstorming I came up with the idea that the Fields are very dangerous and that led to the idea of a prison, Gear, and some very irritated Magnemite guards. It also gave me the opportunity to add to Leo’s character and insert some humor into the chapter.
I felt that it was different enough, but that’s just my opinion. Please tell me yours. I’d like to hear your comments/opinions on the story so far.

So, as usual, please feel free to comment, critique, and correct my work.
Again, please point out all the mistakes in my chapters, don’t worry, I can take it.
I apologize again for the lengthy wait, and I will try my best to ensure that it never happens again.

Also, got a new banner for the fic. I think it looks pretty good...

Knightfall signing off… ;005;
 
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Wyrm

~Setting Sail~
Good to see that you've been able to plow through school work. Now, let's see here...

Hm. It seems you're still having comma perils. Sadly, I don't believe I have enough time to point them out. But I have found a way (thank you language arts class) to clearly point out how the issue works.

While somewhat relevant, you can combine two separate thoughts incorrectly by what's called a comma splice. There have been numerous instances where you've placed a comma when there should've been a semicolon to separate the two alike thoughts. This can be fixed by either inserting the semicolons accordingly, adding a coordinating conjunction (such as "and") after the comma in certain places, or putting in a period and converting the second part into a separate sentence. When editing, use logic to determine what works where. Hopefully this helps.

Also, around the time the Magnemite in the lobby was talking to Kelly about somebody finally listening to reason, you messed up the italics tag in "can".

Otherwise, you're doing pretty good.

There's a nice blend of plot-ish-ness and "Oh no you didn't sister" comedy in this chapter. It makes for a good story while things are still developing.

I liked the unlikely method of recruitment featured here. Poor Jay. He doesn't seem to be in the mood for members out of the blue. However, stories are just cruel like that. HEE HEE

*inner shipper squeaks* Is it just me, or is there a hint of...ahem, potential between Leo and Kelly? *winks halfway* I don't know, but something just clicked with their interactions.

I just noticed something about Leo's situation the prison. It's actually similar to what I have planned in a future story. Thankfully, I think there's enough of a difference between the two to keep everybody friendly. Whew. :p

Keep up the good work, fellow author. *salutes*
 

Knightfall

Blazing Wordsmith
Reply time once again!


Good to see that you've been able to plow through school work.

School work, the ever present bane of my writing. Mostly projects and finals, though.

While somewhat relevant, you can combine two separate thoughts incorrectly by what's called a comma splice. There have been numerous instances where you've placed a comma when there should've been a semicolon to separate the two alike thoughts. This can be fixed by either inserting the semicolons accordingly, adding a coordinating conjunction (such as "and") after the comma in certain places, or putting in a period and converting the second part into a separate sentence. When editing, use logic to determine what works where. Hopefully this helps.

Hmm, I'll fix those as quickly as I can. I wrote the majority of this chapter in a fit of much needed inspiration in the course of a few hours, so I guess I over looked the correct semicolon usage. Whoops.
Thanks for the advice.

Also, around the time the Magnemite in the lobby was talking to Kelly about somebody finally listening to reason, you messed up the italics tag in "can".

Fixed, man those things are annoying.

Otherwise, you're doing pretty good.

There's a nice blend of plot-ish-ness and "Oh no you didn't sister" comedy in this chapter. It makes for a good story while things are still developing.

Thank you, I was a little worried on how the overall chapter would appeal to readers. Looks like I did all right.

I liked the unlikely method of recruitment featured here. Poor Jay. He doesn't seem to be in the mood for members out of the blue. However, stories are just cruel like that. HEE HEE

Unlikely, unusual, different, same thing, they're all what I was aiming for.

And yes, as the author of this story I possess the authorly authority to make life difficult for all my characters.

*inner shipper squeaks* Is it just me, or is there a hint of...ahem, potential between Leo and Kelly? *winks halfway* I don't know, but something just clicked with their interactions.

I'm not sure if I'll do anything with them at the moment. Maybe once my writing skills improve enough and the story progresses a bit....maybe.

I just noticed something about Leo's situation the prison. It's actually similar to what I have planned in a future story. Thankfully, I think there's enough of a difference between the two to keep everybody friendly. Whew. :p

Great minds think alike I guess. That's kind of strange really...maybe I am one of the guys from Inception.

Keep up the good work, fellow author. *salutes*

*Returns salute* Thank you.

Knightfall signing off...;005;
 
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His human self also looked at of place
Should be out.

Leo had no idea that the officer was able to read minds. He gave him a silent look that said, “No, I want to know why the sky is blue”.
Sarcasm, yay! :)

And huzzah, you defeated the evil schoolwork! I liked the porttrayal of the Magnemite and Officer Gear and how you distinguished all the Magnemite, as the flatness of their characters was something that narked me in Explorers of Sky. The plot moved on nicely as well, but not too fast. And this "national emergency" malarky is interesting, as everyone seemed to be fairly calm when they where walking through the town...This chapter was worth the wait, imo, and good luck with your finals and stuff!
 

Knightfall

Blazing Wordsmith
Should be out.

Thanks for pointing that out, will fix. EDIT: Fixed

And huzzah, you defeated the evil schoolwork! I liked the porttrayal of the Magnemite and Officer Gear and how you distinguished all the Magnemite, as the flatness of their characters was something that narked me in Explorers of Sky. The plot moved on nicely as well, but not too fast. And this "national emergency" malarky is interesting, as everyone seemed to be fairly calm when they where walking through the town...This chapter was worth the wait, imo, and good luck with your finals and stuff!

Yeah, I always thought some of the characters in Sky weren't fleshed out enough, and so that brought forth some very mean Magnemites. \
I'm so glad you noticed the "national emergency" part. More on that will be revealed as the story progresses I promise, including why eveyone was so calm.

Thanks for posting,

Knightfall signing off...;005;
 

Azurus

The Ancient Absol
Ah hey knightfall, goodwork as always and enjoy whats happening so far. I really do like the way you introduced the rescue team joining, tho I wonder if anything will happen with the guild due to it's business.

However there are a few errors.

1. Riolu is spelled wrong on all occasions.
2. You accidently omitted a whole word a few times. Tho I'll be damned if I can find them again.

Other than that it's all good and eagerly await the next chapter.
 

Knightfall

Blazing Wordsmith
Ah hey knightfall, goodwork as always and enjoy whats happening so far. I really do like the way you introduced the rescue team joining, tho I wonder if anything will happen with the guild due to it's business.

Thank you, I tried really hard to make Leo's "recruitment" stand out from everything else.

1. Riolu is spelled wrong on all occasions.

Oh God, that's embarrassing. Has been fixed...

2. You accidently omitted a whole word a few times. Tho I'll be damned if I can find them again.

I reread the chapter again, and I think I found them all. Fixed.

Other than that it's all good and eagerly await the next chapter.

Thank you, I always like it when readers like my work, thanks again.

Knightfall signing off...;005;

Edit: Wow, over a thousand views.
 
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Rotomknight

THE GREATEST TRAINER
I am no longer on the pm list please add me.
 
neat

Great! I found your story after clicking on your sig in your review of My Trip to the End of Time. I like it, though I wish the protaginist wasn't another human-turned-pokemon, but there are comma problems.

I found a mistake, which I won't quote, because something is wrong with my ds, so I'll write it:

You never went in, you simply out.

I think you meant to add another went.

Anyway, keep this up! I'm looking forward to the next chapter!
 

Sidewinder

Ours is the Fury
I actually just got around to seeing that you posted on the review exchange thread, so I'm hoping we can exchange.

One thing that struck me right off the bat were your paragraphs.

He looked up from his work and looked out of a conveniently placed window in the rock wall to peer into the chamber below.
Another slightly older balding scientist was dashing about the inner perimeter of the concrete walled chamber, connecting the last few wires that were chaotically laced from the ebbing power supply to a strange metal ring embedded in the wall that made it seem like a tunnel; a tunnel full of live high-voltage energy conductors and spinning metal gears that is.

It reads better if you back up the sentences, like this:

He looked up from his work and looked out of a conveniently placed window in the rock wall to peer into the chamber below. Another slightly older balding scientist was dashing about the inner perimeter of the concrete walled chamber, connecting the last few wires that were chaotically laced from the ebbing power supply to a strange metal ring embedded in the wall that made it seem like a tunnel; a tunnel full of live high-voltage energy conductors and spinning metal gears that is.

“It’s true that we were given orders to watch over the boy, but we also have contingency orders that say that in case of a catastrophic situation-and this is one- the complete evacuation of company personal and important data is to be given first priority over the welfare of others,”
He paused to see if the man he was talking to in the upper deck was paying attention, he was barely.

“It’s true that we were given orders to watch over the boy, but we also have contingency orders that say that in case of a catastrophic situation-and this is one- the complete evacuation of company personal and important data is to be given first priority over the welfare of others,” He paused to see if the man he was talking to in the upper deck was paying attention, he was barely.

See what I mean? It makes it easier to read. The blocky uneven text made me lose my place a couple times. Going back after you post a chapter and looking for this can usually weed these errors out.

a sudden flash of bright blue punctured the darkness. It lit up the dark stalks like lightening.

Should be 'lightning'

I just finished Chapter 1, and I'm having a little trobule connecting with Leo. Obviously he's intelligent, and somewhat calculating judging by the way he sizes up his situation of being turned into a Pokemon. I have to say, I would be nowhere near that calm. He almost seems too calm to be honest; it would be such a shock to be completely transformed. And though he is taking it reasonably well, I hope you expand on his newfound physical limitations and strengths. I did feel you did a great job describing his processes with looking for food, resting, looking, resting; it just goes to show how analytical and smart he is by not pushing himself too far. Another good portion was his carefulness when it came to the flame on his tail. I've always wondered how careful the 'char' line is with their biologically imperfect addition of flames and I think you did a good job describing it.

The wall he encountered was another good addition. I was confused at first by it but when I got to the end of the chapter and saw your explanation for it I laughed. I remember riding my bike in Sapphire one day while watching tv, getting caught up in a scene, only to look down minutes later to see I'd been pedaling into a tree for the last ten minutes haha. I don't have experience with any of the Mytery Dungeon games so I'm assuming what you were refrencing is somewhat similar.


Haha @ the fake wait for Chapter 2 on the first post of this page

Another thing I think you are doing great at are the quotes at the begginning of each chapter. They go a long way to set the mood for each chapter and are a great addition. I flirted with doing something similar with my own fic, but I ultimately decided against because of how hard it is to match the quote with whatever scene is unfolding in each chapter. So good job on that.

Another thing I really liked is the characterization you put into the magnemite family. You really stayed true to what I think they'd be like if I ever came across one. The beeps, buzzes, morse code, was all very well done. The 'Bzzt' that followed or interuppted Magenezone's speech was a really good example of this. After awhile I started to think that they're were almost too many breaks in the dialogue with the 'Bzzt', but as I read on it almost became natural and I started to make the sound in my head. When you're doing sound effects like that, make sure to be aware of what it looks like to a reader, and not to overdo it. You've struck up a good balance so far, just be aware.

I have to say that the one thing that keeps sticking out for me is the description. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way you described Riolu was a black/blue dog. That really doesn't tell me alot. The magnemite specie description was a little lacking as well I think, and when it came to Magnezone all I kept thinking was that if a non-pokemon oriented person read this, all they would be able to picture would be a floating ball of red magnets. I've said this in other fics before and I'll say it here as well. 99% of people who read your fic here are not going to NEED description of the Pokemon you introduce. However, I always try to picture scenes unfolding in my head as I read them, and for some parts of your story it was hard for me. You did a decent job with Charmeleon, but the rest seemed somewhat bland. Not that I'm saying you need to two paragraphs of description everytime a new Pokemon is introduced, but a little more description for the Pokemon would go a long way in helping to make the story more enjoyable.

All in all, I like what you've put out so far. I can definitely say that I now want to play through one of the Mystery Dungeon games to see what the hype is about lol. You havent posted enough for me to get a full idea of where this is going, so I'll end it here. I am curious to see where you take this however, and look forward to reading more. Good job!
 

Knightfall

Blazing Wordsmith
Thank you for the review; the more critique I recieve, the better writer I become.

One thing that struck me right off the bat were your paragraphs.

Yeah, the prologue was somewhat of a test chapter for me, as it was the first full chapter I'd ever written for anything. At least I got some good feedback from the first couple of reviewers, like "big blocks of text are bad".
I'll take care of those ASAP.

Should be 'lightning'

Grrr, I thought I got all the ones from that chapter. I'll fix that as well.

I just finished Chapter 1, and I'm having a little trobule connecting with Leo. Obviously he's intelligent, and somewhat calculating judging by the way he sizes up his situation of being turned into a Pokemon. I have to say, I would be nowhere near that calm. He almost seems too calm to be honest; it would be such a shock to be completely transformed. And though he is taking it reasonably well, I hope you expand on his newfound physical limitations and strengths.

I see what you mean. He does seem to take it unusally well, but he did have higher priorities at the moment, such as finding food and a way out of that cursed field. I thought that it was rational, but I see how it was too calm.
But I have an explanation for that; while it's true he was turned into a Pokemon by circumstances that will be won't fully understood for a while, he also was distracted in a way by his thoughts for basic survival. He's just been withholding his emotions until he has a moment to really think about it. And his breif time in the Pokeworld hasn't been exactly calm.

And for his newfound strengths, he'll find out exactly what he can do in chapter three. So don't worry there.


I did feel you did a great job describing his processes with looking for food, resting, looking, resting; it just goes to show how analytical and smart he is by not pushing himself too far. Another good portion was his carefulness when it came to the flame on his tail. I've always wondered how careful the 'char' line is with their biologically imperfect addition of flames and I think you did a good job describing it.

Thanks, I always wondered why they were given such an obvious weakness myself, but I'm not complaining. It gives me more to work with.


The wall he encountered was another good addition. I was confused at first by it but when I got to the end of the chapter and saw your explanation for it I laughed. I remember riding my bike in Sapphire one day while watching tv, getting caught up in a scene, only to look down minutes later to see I'd been pedaling into a tree for the last ten minutes haha. I don't have experience with any of the Mytery Dungeon games so I'm assuming what you were refrencing is somewhat similar.

Leo's "altercation" with the dungeon wall was the first scene I felt myself laugh when I wrote it. I had a real fun time with that chapter.
And yes, the boundries in the regular games are a perfect example of how a dungeon barrier works; impossible to get through by walking, and the only way through is to use a cheat. Leo basically cheated the dungeon.


Haha @ the fake wait for Chapter 2 on the first post of this page
After how long it took me to post that chapter, I felt like I needed something to make people laugh.

Another thing I think you are doing great at are the quotes at the begginning of each chapter. They go a long way to set the mood for each chapter and are a great addition. I flirted with doing something similar with my own fic, but I ultimately decided against because of how hard it is to match the quote with whatever scene is unfolding in each chapter. So good job on that.

Why thank you; the idea actually came from one of Cutlerine's fics: My Journey to the End of Time By Pearl Gideon.
They do play a certain signifigance in telling the backstory of the fic without directly incorperating it into the chapter.
Some of them are important, as will several future quotes, so pay attention.

Another thing I really liked is the characterization you put into the magnemite family. You really stayed true to what I think they'd be like if I ever came across one. The beeps, buzzes, morse code, was all very well done. The 'Bzzt' that followed or interuppted Magenezone's speech was a really good example of this. After awhile I started to think that they're were almost too many breaks in the dialogue with the 'Bzzt', but as I read on it almost became natural and I started to make the sound in my head. When you're doing sound effects like that, make sure to be aware of what it looks like to a reader, and not to overdo it. You've struck up a good balance so far, just be aware.

I tried to tone down their noises in the later part of the chapter, as they were getting to be very numerous.

I have to say that the one thing that keeps sticking out for me is the description. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way you described Riolu was a black/blue dog. That really doesn't tell me alot. The magnemite specie description was a little lacking as well I think, and when it came to Magnezone all I kept thinking was that if a non-pokemon oriented person read this, all they would be able to picture would be a floating ball of red magnets. I've said this in other fics before and I'll say it here as well. 99% of people who read your fic here are not going to NEED description of the Pokemon you introduce. However, I always try to picture scenes unfolding in my head as I read them, and for some parts of your story it was hard for me. You did a decent job with Charmeleon, but the rest seemed somewhat bland. Not that I'm saying you need to two paragraphs of description everytime a new Pokemon is introduced, but a little more description for the Pokemon would go a long way in helping to make the story more enjoyable.

One of my biggest banes as a writer aside from commas and semicolons. Description, or rather the lack of it has haunted me for a while now, and I'm really trying to rid myself of it. That'll be one of my major goals for the next chapter as well as the rest of the fic.

All in all, I like what you've put out so far. I can definitely say that I now want to play through one of the Mystery Dungeon games to see what the hype is about lol. You havent posted enough for me to get a full idea of where this is going, so I'll end it here. I am curious to see where you take this however, and look forward to reading more. Good job!

Thank you. I am still amazed at the support and publicity that this fic is getting even though it is still in its infancy, only two chapters (and a prologue) long so far. I'm thankful for all the reviews I've gotten.
And now, I'll think I'll start writing my review of your fic.

Knightfall signing off...;005;

P.S: I highly recommend the Mystery Dungeon games, especially Explorers of Sky, or Blue Rescue Team. They're both excellent games.
 

pokenutter

Warrior of Time
Okay, so first off, I'm very sorry about the delay on this review- I missed it in my inbox.

Okay, so I'd absolutely say that the story portion reveals a lot about the world- the coexistence of guilds and teams, what seems like a police state with the Magnemites and Magnezone near the top, the reason for the lack of population in the Mystery Dungeon... Another neat little bit was the reference to EoT/EoD/EoS.

A lot happens here, and it works really well. There was a larger number of typos than the last 2 chapters, but that's something that ought to iron itself out over time.

Overall, a good chapter. Looking forward to the next installment!
 

Knightfall

Blazing Wordsmith
Okay, so first off, I'm very sorry about the delay on this review- I missed it in my inbox.

Happens to us all, don't worry about it.

Okay, so I'd absolutely say that the story portion reveals a lot about the world- the coexistence of guilds and teams, what seems like a police state with the Magnemites and Magnezone near the top, the reason for the lack of population in the Mystery Dungeon... Another neat little bit was the reference to EoT/EoD/EoS.

I'm glad you noticed the government structure. More about it will be revealed in future chapters, and well, it's pretty important. And my brain is a little frazzled after the massive exams I just took, what was the reference you saw? Because I put a few in there.

A lot happens here, and it works really well. There was a larger number of typos than the last 2 chapters, but that's something that ought to iron itself out over time.

This chapter was written in little over a few hours in a fit of inspiration I had at 1 in the morning. So that can explain some of the typos that are present.

Overall, a good chapter. Looking forward to the next installment!

Thanks, the next chapter is coming along slowly, but it is still being written. I still have a few exams at the end of the month, so I have no idea when the chapter will be out.

Knightfall signing off...;005;
 
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pokenutter

Warrior of Time
I'm glad you noticed the government structure. More about it will be revealed in future chapters, and well, it's pretty important. And my brain is a little frazzled after the massive exams I just took, what was the reference you saw? Because I put a few in there.

The one I noticed was the offhand reference to the Restoration of Time.
 

Knightfall

Blazing Wordsmith
Chapter Three: Calibration

[Bypassing Security Encryption][Begin Transmission Playback] [File Addendum Found]
Republic Capital Prison

Date [REDACTED]

Time 8:35A.M.

Prisoner #037

Name : David M. Radic

Occupation: Ex-President

Crimes : High Treason

Current Status: Executed

Comments: [REDACTED]
[Unauthorized Access Detected: Disengaging File][Transmission Ended]

Transmission recovered from computer hard drives by Rogue Industries Counter-Crisis Unit (CCU) personal approximately twenty-seven hours after the destruction of the Dawson Mainland Research Facility.


The team, with their new addition in tow, arrived at the base shortly after leaving the square, via a short trail through the forest that led to a large grassy clearing near the foot of the small valley.
The base wasn’t the only structure in the valley; there were several other dwellings made up of a mishmash of logs and other materials seemingly held together by sheer will and rope.

Leo had taken a moment to admire the base when he first saw it; a jumble of log planks and stone fitted together made up the exterior of the single story structure, it was definitely unlike anything Leo remembered seeing before.

Entering the base, Leo saw that it was completely different from the outside. It was much neater than the rough exterior; there was a small center room that linked to several other rooms that Leo barely got a glimpse of; a few had either a hammock hung from the log wall or a simple straw bed on the floor with a few blankets messily piled in the corners along with several wooden chests apparently used for storage.

In one of the unoccupied rooms Leo spied a small shelf crammed with books. He made a note to look through those when he got the chance.

It was the only tour he got of the place before he found himself sitting in the center room of the base, with Jay and Kelly prodding him to tell his story.

Leo gulped, he knew he needed to chose his words wisely or else things might get more complicated for him than they already were.
He took a breath and began, “The first thing I can definitely remember is waking up on the ground with the sun glaring down on me…”


It was well past sunset by the time Leo had even gone half way with his tale. When the darkness fell, Jay stopped him for a moment; he got up, went over to the wooden wall, and tapped a dull blue crystal shard in a metal container on the wall.
As soon as his blue paw hit the jagged surface of the shard it burst into a small shinning light. He went all around the circular room lightly touching each of the shards until he thought the amount of light adequate.

When Leo questioned him about what they were Jay replied,
“Luminous Orb shards.” He said it as if every being with a pulse knew what a Luminous Orb was, unfortunately for Leo, the Riolu didn’t elaborate on the strange fixtures.

With some convincing, Jay eventually got Leo to continue with his story. It was a late hour by the time the Charmeleon was finished. A time when ghosts of the deceased are said to roam the land, leaving behind trails of dew, mist, and fog. With his story completed, Leo wondered what his new teammates would think of him. They both appeared to be attentive to his narrative, but Leo couldn’t fathom was the thoughts were processing through their heads.

He wasn’t worried about how they would react to the fact that he used to be a human; he taken too many risks in the past few days, and had decided to leave that little detail out of his account.

It isn’t the right time or place to tell them. Besides, I have no idea what they’ll think of me if they find out, I need to find out more about this place before that happens. He reasoned while he feigned the account of what had happened when he first woke up in the Fields and his realization that he was no longer human.
He felt somewhat guilty about inadvertently lying to them, but he told himself it was for the best.

Jay was the first to break the relatively short silence.

“Really?” He commented nonchalantly while waving a blue paw at Leo’s words that hung in the air.
“The Far Reach frontier explorers’ stories are more believable if only slightly, and most of them are certified insane.”

“What?” Leo shot back at the Riolu. He doesn’t believe me. He just dismissed by story, just like that!

Jay didn’t miss a beat, “I’m sorry, but you story sounds just a little unbelievable. Just 'waking up' in an inescapable dungeon and escape it? It just doesn’t happen; not that it couldn’t happen, it doesn’t happen!”

Leo shot up from the wooden stool he’d been sitting on, and glared at the Riolu. His red eyes hidden behind his “mask” of black fur didn’t even blink.

“You saw what happened! You saw me crash through the barrier of that place with your own eyes! Kelly too!” Leo shouted at his annoyed leader, who simply turned away from him.

“You don’t believe me, everything I went through?” Never mind the fact that the story you told them is a lie in itself, his conscience whispered to him.
He ignored it and returned his full attention back to the canine Pokemon.

Jay took a deep, calming breath and slowly faced the fuming lizard.

“Look, I’m sorry for yelling. I’m still a little irritated from the stunt Gear pulled earlier- not that you’re not a good Pokemon and all, but he was stepping beyond his bounds.” He explained, slowing his heavy breathing and continued his apology,
“But there’s no use crying over it; you’re here now and I can’t easily change that. So for now, we’ll wait until tomorrow to find out what it is you can do now that you’re here,”

Surprised by Jay’s sudden attitude shift Leo noted to try and remain on his new leader’s good side.
“So, do you believe what happened to me?” he asked, his own anger with the Pokemon diminishing slowly.

“I’ll admit that the waking up inside one of the most dangerous dungeons this side of the Kingdom and escaping it, is slightly far-fetched, but we did see you break out of it, so I’ll take it that you’re telling the truth.” Jay said as he walked past the Charmeleon into one of the rooms that branched off from the center chamber.

“Thank you,” Leo said quietly.
Suddenly a thought surfaced in his mind. “Jay, you said something about finding out what I can do tomorrow. What are you talking about?”

“You’ll find out in the morning,” the Riolu shouted from his room without looking back at Leo.

He pushed his clawed hand to his forehead, how am I supposed to know anything when he’s so confusing all the time?
“Is he always like this?” Leo asked Kelly, who had remained relatively silent since he started his retelling.

She got to her feet.
“I’ll admit he can be a little frustrating at times, but he isn’t usually like this, at least not that I’ve seen since I meet him. I’ll tell you something I’ve found out about Jay: he likes knowing what’s going on at all times, and with what he doesn’t know…well, you saw how he reacted. It’s not you; it’s the system he’s mad at. Gear’s actions were perfectly within his power, but he didn’t give us any warning,” she answered him, finally giving an explanation to the deserving Charmeleon.

I guess that makes sense, Leo thought, I understand liking knowing what’s going on, too.
“Wait, what system? Is it Gear and the others?” He asked prying her for any shards of information he could get from her.

“It’s them, and the fact that the king gave the police teams virtually unlimited power across The Kingdom, because of the state of world lately.” She told him, lowering her head with a sigh that one makes when no matter what they do, it can’t change the world.

Genuinely concerned now, Leo asked again.
“What’s going on? What’s going on with the world?”

She raised her head and gave him an incredulous look.
“You really don’t know?” she asked in disbelief.

“I kind of don’t remember anything about…well, anything.” Leo said sheepishly as her look softened as she understood his dilemma.

“Oh, yeah. Your amnesia.” She said with a tired yawn. “Listen, Leo. I promise I will explain to you everything you need to know, but right now it’s pretty late and we’ve all had a long day.” She started to slowly walk past him into the same hallway Jay had went down.

She stopped at the entrance to her room opposite of Jay’s, “Pick a room, and try to get some sleep for tomorrow.” She let out another soft yawn, “Goodnight, Leo.”

And she went into her room; Leo was left standing in the middle room. Shrugging his shoulders he tried to find the room with the bookshelf he saw earlier.

With minimal mishaps, he located the room he desired. With a better survey Leo found that the wall held two hooks for a hammock, which he found stuffed in a small trunk along the wall. He dragged it out of the chest and hooked the two ends to the wall.
Impressed with his work hanging bed set up, he made his way over to the book shelf. It wasn’t high up on the wall so Leo could see every book’s title without much effort.

Their covers were worn and slightly torn, and the once bright lettering on the spines faded. Leo struggled to translate the titles as their letters were written in some sort of script that resembled Standard*, but the letters didn’t exactly match.

With a little more effort he was able to make out the titles, he scanned across them all trying to find something remotely helpful. He read the titles as he grabbed the books.
“The Psychic Pokemon’s Guide to Reading Minds and Influencing the Weak-Minded”, no, I don’t need that. He placed the book on the floor.

“The Complete History of Blast Seeds: High Explosive Edition”, not what I need right now. He put the book on top of the last book on the floor.

“Royal Genealogy: The Rulers of the Kingdom and the Royal Lineage”, interesting, but no. He put it on the pile with the others.

“This Lasting Feud: The Enduring Conflict Between The Kingdom and its Renegade Colonies”, I’ll look at that later, but not now. He placed it with the others as he looked at the next book.

“Magmortar’s Guide to Making Anything and Everything Combustible”, just leave it alone, Leo. He thought before throwing the book on the growing pile of discarded books.

Finally he found something of reasonable help, “Common Knowledge: A Comprehensive Guide to the World-(compiled by the Trinity Isle Research and Archives facility)”, this might be what I need! he thought excitedly as he slid the worn book out from between its brethren and hopped into the hammock, his fiery tail hanging off the side of it.

He gently pulled open the cover looked flipped through the pages until he found a chapter that looked interesting.

“Chapter Eight: Mythological Creatures…..”He said with a yawn.

Scanning through the pages of the chapter he stopped when he saw the heading: “Humans”.
All thoughts of sleeping left him as he read the opening paragraph.
“What?”
Puzzled at why his original species was listed as a myth he read the entry processing every word like it was gold.

“Humans are beings that we have little information on other than that they are the focal point of several popular legends. The most commonly known of these ancient stories is “The Legend of the Great War” in which the human nations begin a fierce war between themselves and Pokemon. The legend has been corrupted by generations of retelling so it is not entirely clear on why the war was started in the first place; however most versions have that the human nations were eventually defeated by the Dragon Trinity who banished them as eternal punishment.”

Leo was fascinated with the partially informative passage. Eager to find out more he continued reading.

“Though it is not clear if humans existed or are a true myth, these legends are popular among Pokemon as the supposed fate of these beings. To find out if they did, in fact, exist at one point in time; several T.I.R.A sponsored archeological teams are preparing to travel to the islands thought to be closest to the lost civilization to look for evidence.”

Leo was rather disappointed that the book did not go into detail with the legend, but was content that he found some information within the context.

He flipped through several other chapters, “Chapter One: The Kingdom. Chapter Two: Rescue Teams. Chapter Seven: Mystery Dungeons”, he murmured to himself before finally falling asleep.


Leo woke when the smell of burning paper reached his nose.
He flailed in the hammock until he fell over the side of it onto the packed dirt floor.
Ignoring the sore pains in his limbs he found the source of the acrid smell: it was a book, “The Complete History of Blast Seeds” to be exact.
He had placed it along with several other discarded books in a pile beside his hammock, only now it was on fire.
During his few hours of sleep he got after reading, his tail had apparently brushed up against the pile and set the top book aflame.

In alarm, Leo snatched the blazing volume and threw in on the floor. He got to his feet and quickly stomped on the book repeatedly until he was satisfied that the fire was out.
He inspected the other books in the pile to make sure the fire hadn’t spread to any of them, and to his relief it hadn’t.
The “Complete History” wasn’t as lucky as its companions; the front cover and the first couple chapters were charred beyond hope of repair.

Not good. Burning a book is definitely not a way to make a good impression. With that thought in mind, he decided that is was best that he disposed of the novel.

Looping his key around his neck he took a quick look out of the doorway of his room. After make sure it was clear, he quietly took the blackened book in his claws and tiptoed into the hallway, which was no small accomplishment considering he was still getting used to the new shape of his feet.

The hallway was still lit by the soft bluish glow of the Luminous Orb shards, allowing Leo to not accidently stumble into the walls and wake Jay or Kelly.

Successfully navigating through the Luminous Orb lit base, Leo pushed open the rough wooden door and snuck outside. It was still dark, but the faint glow on the horizon told him it wouldn’t stay that way for long. With the destroyed book in hand, he quietly walked through the dew stained grass until he came to a small knoll that overlooked most of the valley.

Winding back his arm, he chucked the book. The novel soared through the air over somewhere deep in the lower half of the gorge.

After listening for the tell-tale “thud” that resonated from the impact, Leo took advantage of the peace and quiet to sort through the all the events that had befell him in the days before.
His strange transformation, his complete amnesia, his adventure in the Fields and all the trouble it brought him, being wrongly arrested than interrogated by Gear and his deputies, being dragged back inside the prison by the Magnemite, getting assigned to the team, all of it still painfully fresh in his mind.

Unable to remember his previous life, not knowing anything about the world, finding out that humans were nothing but myths; it was enough to make anyone frustrated beyond the point of anger.
Going over the events that had made the last few days less than ideal made his tail flare to coincide with his feelings.
Cursing his so-called “luck”, he shattered the morning tranquility with an infuriated yell.

The sound of his shout carried throughout the valley and all its inhabitants, causing a startled flock of Pidgey to flee their tree in alarm and making more than one house’s windows to light up with the flicker of torchlight.
He screamed until he couldn’t any more, venting every one of the emotions he that had built up over the last few days.
Gasping for breath, it felt like a heavy burden was taken off his shoulders.

“I hope you have a good reason for waking me up like that,” a voice asked from behind Leo.
Startled, Leo swung around to face the unwelcome intruder, his right clawed hand curled into a fist ready to strike.
Just as he was about to clock the unknown Pokemon, he held his fist back. The growing light revealed the intruder to be none other than Jay.

“God, don’t do that!” Leo told him with a small sigh of relief that it was Jay and not a ticked off local wanting revenge for their interrupted sleep.

“Than maybe the next time you decide to let off some steam, you make it that it doesn’t wake everyone in the province,” Jay scolded as he dropped a satchel he was holding to the ground.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to do it, but I was just so … frustrated with everything.” Leo apologized, watching as the scattered Pidgy reformed their flock and returned to their tree.

“You really were telling the truth last night, weren’t you? This amnesia of yours and everything else that you said happened, I guess you weren’t lying after all.” Jay realized, as the Riolu crossed his arms.

“You actually believe my story now?” Leo asked his uncertainty ebbing away with the night cold.

“Might as well, because no normal Pokemon just starts screaming at sunrise for the fun of it, except maybe Vigoroth, the guy’s insane. And besides, if I was stuck in that dungeon for a day, I’d probably start screaming like an insane Pokemon too.” Jay answered the Charmeleon, as the sun’s glow started to make its way over the mountains that bordered the eastern end of the valley.

Leo pondered his teammate’s words while turning the on his neck key over in his claws. Who knows? Maybe that place really did affect me after all.

The brief silence that followed their conversation was interrupted by the sounding of a loud, single, cheerful trumpet note that carried across the morning air from the direction of the town.
Jay’s ears twitched upon hearing the noise, “That was the signal that the markets are open. I need to take care of some business there while it’s still early.
You can come along if you want; it’s up to you.” He said with a shrug.

Shaking away his previous thoughts, Leo nodded.
“What about Kelly?” he asked, pointing a single claw at the structure they called a base, and he now called his home, at least for now.

Jay waved the question away,
“Don’t worry, she’ll get the supplies together, than she’ll meet us in the Square like usual. And we kind of need to hurry if we want to get there before the crowd shows up.”

He bent down and picked up the small, worn satchel off the ground. It was colored light brown--or at least that was the color it had faded to-- and it had a faint golden insignia embroidered on the front flap of it-the symbol itself was, unsurprisingly, not recognized by Leo as the royal seal of The Kingdom.

Jay slid the satchel over his shoulder and with a quick “come on” motion of his paw, took off running down the path leading to the Square. Leo stood blinking at the Riolu’s speedy departure and shook himself back to reality. He ordered his legs to run to catch up with Jay.
He sprinted down the tree lined path, trying not to trip and fall comically on the roots that stuck up from the ground.

He saw Jay many yards ahead of him, striding with ease over the roots and fallen leafy boughs, while he barely managed to maintain a running pace with his new feet, much less not stumble into branches along the way.
Before long the dark canopy of trees gave way to the flicker of flaming torches from the square.

Leo emerged from the forest path breathing hard, but not nearly as scratched up as he thought he would have been after barreling through several low branches.
He glanced down at his scaly skin; there might actually be some advantages to this body after all, he thought.
He saw Jay giving him a smug look from a few feet up the street; he looked like he’d been waiting there for a while.

“Forgot how to run?” he taunted, making Leo pay for his interrupted sleep.
Leo growled, while it was true hadn’t run that fast in… well, recent memory, but he hadn’t forgotten that much.
Pushing the sudden desire to slash at the Riolu away, Leo managed to ask Jay what sort of “business” he had to take care of so early.

“You’ll find out in a few minutes, but for now just follow me while we pass through the checkpoint,” was all he told him before he started walking toward the town.

Leo walked behind Jay as they approached the outskirts of the town. There, built across the middle of the street were two torch lit booths made of wooden planks.
One booth on each side of the street, each blending in perfectly with the dwellings of the Pokemon that lived in the Square; one reason why Leo never noticed them yesterday.

Inside the security booths were two Pokemon, whose species he’d hold a grudge with for a long time yet, possibly forever.

The two Magnemite floated lazily at their posts, but suddenly gained an alertness they lacked before when Jay and Leo walked into their sight. The guards zoomed out of their booths and hovered over the two early visitors.

“Just let me do the talking,” Jay whispered to Leo as he turned to the guard on the right

“Hello, sirs. My friend and I have to get through. Would you please-“

“ZZT! Please,” the Magnemite on the left said.

“for the love of Arceus,” added the one on the right

“shut up so we can verify both of your citizen IDs. ZZZT! ” they both droned, yawns of static emanated from both of the sentinel units.
Reluctantly, Jay shut his mouth.

“Now, please present some form of valid identification; emphasis on the “valid” part”, the guard on the left ordered, holding out his horseshoe magnet appendage.

“Alright,” Jay answered, pulling open his satchel. After a few seconds of searching, he produced a small, circular, metal badge that sported a pair of wings on each side.
As soon as he held the badge up it suddenly flew from Jay’s paw and landed with a metallic “clink!” on the guard’s outstretched magnet.

“Verification in process,” the guard said boredly, even though he didn’t appear to actually do anything with the badge except stare at intensely with his single eye.

“Now, Charmeleon. Your badge please,” the Magnemite on the right asked while his comrade continued to stare at the badge.

Leo was at a loss. “Umm, I don’t have a badge.”

The guard buzzed in annoyance. “Well than, where is your citizen ID?”

“I don’t actually have one either.” Leo slowly told the guard, unsure of what was to happen next.

“An unregistered citizen, eh? ZT! Do we have a fugitive from the Colonies, maybe? Well, rebel scum, we have some space for you in the town prison. Rho, come help me with him!”

“Wait! Wait! Wait! I’m not-” Leo stuttered as the right guard hovered toward him, his magnets sparking with stunning energy.

Before Leo could turn tail and run, Jay stepped in between him and the guard.
“Wait a minute! Wait a minute! He’s not from the Colonies! He got clearance from Gear yesterday.”

The guard paused, his magnet’s energy dissipating.
“Clearance? From Gear? I’ll need to verify this. Please wait a moment while I contact Chief Officer Gear.”
The guard fell silent as he used his screw-like antenna to contact the Magnezone.

As the guard on the right was doing this, the guard on the left, Rho, had ceased his staring contest with the badge and magnetically levitated it back to Jay. "ZT! Premission to enter, Jay, of Team Salient. ZZT!"
Seconds after Jay got his badge back, the guard on the right started talking again.

“You may pass; turns out Gear actually did give you clearance. He also told me to apologize for my rash treatment of you and your friend Jay, or else I’ll be reassigned to the Sawgrass Town patrol.” the Magnemite on the right shuddered like the mere uttering of the words “apology” and “Sawgrass Town” caused him physical pain.

The guard took a deep static filled breath,
“I, Deputy Officer Ion, am sincerely sor…”he stopped in the middle of his forced apology.
His frame shook and his magnets spun and sparked erratically,
“ ...ry and you are an outstanding citizen,” he finished.
As soon as the final part of the word came from his speaker, a spark shot from his spherical body and he dropped like a stone to the street with a metallic clang, a thin trail of smoke coming from his body.

His counterpart, Rho gave a static filled sigh as he hovered over the fallen officer and attached one of his magnets to his fried friend. Swinging around to signal that they could pass, he than started dragging Ion elsewhere to recover while muttering
“…we weren’t made to show emotions”.

“That was …odd,” Leo stated; slightly confused over what exactly had just occurred.
Jay shrugged and motioned for him to follow as he started walking away from the checkpoint into the predawn Square.

Once they were a good distance away from the checkpoint and any eavesdropping police, Jay finally spoke.
“We didn’t always have them guarding everywhere, you know. It was one event that caused this,” He whispered as the two walked further away from the sentry posts.

“It was two months ago. A group of refugee Pokemon suddenly showed up in the town one day, nothing wrong with that- we’ve been receiving refugees even since this civil war started. But over the next few days strange things started happening: item rations going missing, Gold and Silver Poké disappearing out of the bank, and important war messages from the Federation never arriving.”

“What happened with them? Those Pokemon?” Leo asked, intrigued by the story behind the abundance of security forces.

Jay went on,
“Well, after a few days of observing the new arrivals and finding them guilty of the rash of crime, Gear and the Guild combined their teams and raided the entire Western Quarter of the square. They arrested a good deal of the outlaw Pokemon, but not without razing half of the Quarter to the ground.” He pointed his paw down a side street.

It was hard to distinguish in the faint light, but Leo could see the evidence of the disastrous fire. Focusing on the area, he saw that behind the clay and stone buildings of the town lay an expanse of blackened buildings and charred rubble.

“Turns out that they were Colony spies smuggling information back to them. Naturally, our king was beside himself with anger, he overrode the Federation and decreed that all towns and cities are to be constantly guarded by police, no exceptions.” Jay concluded as they approached the open market area of the square, which was still bathed in a gray light from the retreating night.
“It’s not like we enough problems to worry about, anyways,” the Riolu sighed as they entered the center square of the Square.
The waving colorful banners attached to the buildings Leo saw yesterday now hung limply, occasionally fluttering in the weak morning breeze.
The tarp covered shops were still for the most part quiet, except for a select few.
There were only five or so other Pokemon that milled around the deserted marketplace- looking for early deals or more often than not, information that only a select few can give at this time of morning.
One of the few shops that happened to be operating at this early hour was a small lantern lit stand tucked into the side of the street among the other currently closed stands.

Jay motioned for Leo to follow him as he approached the stand. The small wooden sign on it read simply: “Aleck’s Goods”
On the wooden table were several small glass containers filled with some sort of viscous liquid and fragments of colored crystals that seemed to change their coloring every time Leo blinked, but they weren’t the oddest items on the stand: on the back area of the surface were several small piles of dirt.
The stand also appeared to be empty, but that fact didn’t seem to deter Jay. He reached his arm over the cart and all of its odd merchandise until he came to the piles of dirt.

He lightly touched the nearest pile of earth with the tip of his paw. As soon as the few grains of soil moved, a small rumbling sounded from behind the counter.
Leo leaned forward to get a closer look at the miniature earthquake, but he immediately jumped back out of shock when a small purple blur shot up from the ground with a fountain of displaced pebbles and soil.

The little purple goblin creature turned to look at them with its eyes, which, much to Leo’s mixture of fascination and repulsion, were a pair of cut diamonds.

Jay cracked a smile. “Aleck, we need your help with somethi-” he started to ask before he was abruptly cut off by the feral shop owner.

“You have disturbed the dirt!” he shouted, slashing his claws erratically in the air.

“Aleck!” Jay shouted, swinging one of his paws at the shopkeeper’s head. He avoided the sharp claws and landed a direct hit on the side of the Sableye’s head, right underneath the Pokemon’s short, spiky ear.

The purple creature’s flailing actions halted, and he shook his head slowly. He coughed twice, and looked up again from across the counter at his two customers.

“Ahhh, my valued customers! Good morning! What can I do for my most privileged of patrons this fine dawn?” the shopkeeper wheezed, his voice completely lacking the violence he had a moment ago.

Undeterred, Jay attempted to ask the Pokemon again.
“Aleck, we need your help with something.”

Aleck sighed. “Thank you, Jay. Not many folks stop by my old shop anymore, not since those darn Kelcon brothers built one of their stores here and with the war rationing going on; I’m amazed I’m still in business! If it weren’t for my few customers, I’d have-”

Jay tapped once on the rough wooden counter to stop the Sableye’s rant on his financial woes.
“Aleck, we need your assistance with an item of ours; we’re not buying at the moment unfortunately,” Jay said, watching the old Pokemon give another sigh.

“Fine, let’s get this done quickly. Let me see the hunk of crystal you’ve brought- me along with every other rescue team in the business has for the last thirty years,” he said, holding out one of his small purple claws.

Jay shook his head, “It’s no ordinary hunk of crystal; Leo, if you would give him your key for a minute.”

“What? Why?” Leo asked, clutching his treasure defensively.

“Think of it as a way of me saying sorry for treating you like garbage yesterday. Just hand it to him.” Jay insisted, as the shopkeeper’s diamond eyes stared at the artifact.

Reluctantly, Leo placed his key on the counter, and it was almost instantly snatched by the purple Pokemon.
Aleck held the key up close where he went over it with his small claws.
“Hmm, interesting. Very interesting,” He mumbled as he continued analyzing the object as Leo watched him like a hawk for any attempt to harm his treasure.

“Well, what’s it made of?” Jay asked, as the Sableye handed the key back to its original owner. Leo quickly took it and placed it around his neck with a deep sigh of relief.

Aleck muttered anxiously to himself as Jay inquired again as to what it was made of.

Aleck finally answered the two. “I’ll be honest with you; I’ve never seen anything like that key before. It’s as hard as diamond, has energy like an Orb crystal, and its craftsmanship is unlike anything else. Also, the necklace itself unfortunately isn’t gold, but it’s a strong metal nonetheless.”
He explained as he read off the mental list he’d made when he observed the key.

Leo was amazed at the results of the Pokemon’s analysis, while Jay asked what the thing was worth.

Aleck rubbed the back of his neck, “I dunno, it’s hard to say really. I’d buy it from you for three thousand Gold Poké right now.”

Jay’s eyes went wide. “Three. T-thousand?” he asked, struggling to believe the amount the Sableye offered.

Aleck turned towards Leo who answered his question before he even asked it.
“Not for sale, sorry.”
Aleck sighed in disappointment as Jay squeezed his mouth shut to keep from screaming at his teammate.

“Understandable, quite understandable,” He reluctantly agreed as he turned to Jay, “Any more items of value that need to be appraised?”
Jay took a deep breath and answered Aleck, “No, but we do need one more thing; he needs a badge, and we can’t get one from the Guild for certain reasons,” Jay told Aleck, jabbing a paw toward Leo.

Aleck started muttering to himself again, after a few seconds he answered Jay.

“I might be able to get one by tomorrow, and that’ll be two Silver Poké when I get it.” Aleck informed them.

Satisfied with the answer, Jay thanked the Sableye, who than burrowed back into the ground, off to do what ever it was he did in his free time.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting that. Not three thousand. Personally, I’d have sold it, but it is yours. Better keep that thing safe, Leo,” Jay said, walking away from Aleck’s store towards the opposite side of the marketplace. Jay continuing to talk about what they’d be able to do with the small fortune of gold coins.

“Is that why we’re here? To have my key appraised?” Leo asked, wondering if that was why they he had run all the way into town.

“I came to get you a badge, to keep another incident at the checkpoints from happening again. And I wanted to do something to make up for yesterday, but we’re not quite done yet. We still need to choose a job request over by the Post Office,” Jay explained as the square suddenly lit with the full brilliance of the morning sun as it came over the mountains.

“Wait. Job request?” Leo asked as Jay said nothing and dragged him over to an older building made of stones cracked from age and ivy, its rough wooden sign read: “Post Office” and under that: “Established: does the date even matter? It’s old, really old.”
Adjacent to the ancient looking post office, were several depilated wooden boards all covered with multitudes of posters and looked like even the slightest breeze could reduce them to splinters.

As they got closer, Leo saw that only a portion of the posters were new while most were yellowed and torn from rain and age.
Once they were standing directly at the boards Leo saw that one of the boards had posters that contained images of vicious looking Pokemon and boasted descriptions and rewards for their capture. One poster showed a picture of a light purple bulldog Pokemon with a single broken fang.
Trounce the Granbull: wanted for smuggling illegal items and other thefts against the crown. Location: Solitary Forest, near Area Three. Reward: 580 Copper Poké
He caught another description of an outlaw; this one seemed much larger than the others and had a painting of a regal looking cream colored fox sporting a look of pure wickedness.
Raiss the Ninetales: wanted for numerous crimes against the Kingdom in the Far Reach territories near the Oresville settlement. Note: all pursuing Tracker teams must exercise caution as this Pokemon is cunning and is possibly working with an unidentified accomplice.
Reward for capture: 1,500 Silver Poké.

Another poster, another picture, another reward promised in exchange for capture. Amid the sea of posters, were several newer looking posters plastered on top of dozens of outdated jobs.
They advertised phrases like: “Rebellion will not be tolerated! Fight for The Kingdom!”, “The Colonies will not triumph against us!”, and finally “The Kingdom will not be split in two! Take back the Colonies!”
As Leo gazed over the posters and propaganda wondering what exactly was wrong with this world, Jay handed him a single poster.
“Take a look.” Jay ordered.

Taking the paper, Leo saw, much to his relief, that it wasn’t an outlaw job.

Client: Pidgeotto
Location: Spore Meadows Dungeon, Area Six
Reward: Silver


“Oddly sparse with the info. Usually rescue requests are full of pleas for help, but this one, not much of anything,” Jay commented on the unusually empty poster.

Leo gulped not really hearing the Riolu’s remark; his tail flickered slightly as he reread over the request.
“A dungeon? We’re going willingly into a dungeon?”

“Where else would we go?” he said with a laugh.


Leo and Jay had rendezvoused with Kelly at the outside of the Square where she handed Leo a satchel similar to Jay’s and on she had around her neck.
The Spore Meadows Dungeon wasn’t too far from the Square; an hour long hike though the southern side of the valley led them to the entrance. Surrounded by forest, the Meadows stood out significantly against the trees with its towering grass and weeds.

The wall of field plants seemed eerily similar to the that of Tranquility Fields; however, Kelly repeatedly assured Leo that it was nothing like that hell.

Without another thought, Jay walked through the wall of green grass and abruptly vanished behind it, not even a rustle could be seen on the outside. Before Leo could react to Jay’s disappearance, Kelly motioned for him to follow as she too disappeared through the weeds.

For a minute, Leo stood there trying to gain the courage to follow. He took a deep breath to calm his racing heart. You heard Kelly, there’s nothing to worry about.
Before he could even begin to doubt her words, Leo squeezed his eyes shut and ran full speed through the dungeon barrier.
It felt like he passed through a wall of freezing water, and as quickly as it started, the sensation ceased.

When Leo finally opened his eyes he saw that he was standing in a small clearing, surrounded by the walls of grass and weeds. He also saw that he was alone; Jay and Kelly were nowhere in sight.
“Just great, I’m lost. What do I do now- What the heck was that?!” He yelled as he heard the wall of grass rustle violently.
Not looking back, he grabbed the strap of his bag, and sprinted through the tall grass into the dungeon.


Spore Meadows: Area One

Crashing through weeds taller as he was, Leo ran. As he ran, his claw brushed up against an oblong pod attached to a weed. As soon as he touched it, the pod burst into a cloud of colorful spores.
Leo gasped for breath as he passed through the cloud, running into another clearing. Stopping for a moment to catch his breath, Leo heard the grass behind him rustle again.

Leo slowly turned around to face what ever horror popped out of the dungeon.
Much to his relief, he didn’t see a snarling monster about to maim him, but instead, a small green creature with a flower on its head that drifted lazily along in the air.
Leo smiled as he approached the creature, “You don’t look so bad.”

The creature in question turned toward him, only now sensing his presence. It stared at him with its small red eyes, and twirled once in the air landing a few feet away, a plain smile etched on its face.
Convinced that the strange Pokemon wasn’t going to harm him, Leo went up to it again.
“Could you help me? I’m trying to find my teammates.”

Suddenly the creature let out a loud shriek that caused Leo to hold the sides of his head where his ears normally would have been.
The creature yelled with a voice in an incomprehensible language that sounded like wind blowing through trees during a storm.
The creature used its ears to direct a small gust of wind at Leo, propelling itself further away from the stunned wayward explorer.
As soon as the creature stopped its shrill alarm, Leo turned to run for the safety of the grass overgrowth. The creature moved through the air as quickly as a hurricane’s gale, and shot a single glowing seed from its flower at the moving Charmeleon.

The seed caught Leo in his back; it burst in a spray of syrupy, sweet smelling substance that clung to Leo’s scales.
While Leo was distracted by the new coating on his body, the small creature decided to pelt the intruder with another barrage of seeds that burst into a cloud of gaseous spores when they hit.

As Leo struggled to dodge the flying seeds and clouds of spores, he dove into the tall forest of weeds that surrounded the clearing.
The creature stopped its attack when it saw that its target was missing. As lazily as a summer island breeze, it floated down to the ground and looked around for the missing intruder.
Thankfully it didn’t appear to be even remotely intelligent, because it seemed to have forgotten where Leo dove into the grass, despite having seen it a few seconds earlier.
As the creature scanned the clearing for Leo, he was busy trying to find some way to get rid of the thing. Fighting isn’t the greatest option; through I do have claws now. There’s got to be something I can do.

Watching the Pokemon float around the clearing, being gently pushed along by the breezes, he got an idea. Could it really be that simple? He laughed to himself darkly, this was going to be fun.

Leo waited until the Pokemon was directly in front of his hiding spot, as soon as it landed Leo pounced from the grass with a battle cry.
The creature turned around and shrieked in alarm and prepared another attack, but it was too late. Leo reached the creature and swung his foot upwards and kicked the Pokemon’s underside as hard as he could.

“Skiploooooooom!” the Pokemon screamed as it was propelled high into the air. Leo watched as the winds carried the stunned Pokemon away.

Leo smiled, this counted as a victory in his book despite the fact that he still smelled like a flower and was bruised from the seed bullets.

Suddenly, he heard more rustling from the grass as more Pokemon appeared. Small round pink Pokemon with two leafy sprouts attached to their heads and several more Skiploom.

Now that he knew how to deal with them, Leo grinned, Game on.
With a battle cry, he charged into the small group of Pokemon.


Spore Meadows Area Six
If one had the ability to see past the temporal anomaly that is Spore Meadows, they would have seen an extraordinary sight: scores of angered Hoppip and Skiploom raining down from the sky over every area of the dungeon.
This event would have easily have been classified as an adverse change in the wind currents, but another reason was the true cause.

Leo had been busy; as he had advanced further into the mystery dungeon looking for any sign of his teammates he had somehow become the target of every Hoppip and Skiploom in the area.
Punching and punting away every enemy Pokemon slowly exhausted him, but thankfully the cottonweed Pokemon only came in groups of two or three at a time.
They were somehow drawn to him like a magnet, and immediately started to bombard him with spore seeds once eye contact was made.

Crouching in the grass out of sight from the roaming Pokemon, Leo rested, using his satchel as a pillow. Suddenly, he realized that he had forgotten that he even had the bag completely until now.
He slung his bag Kelly had provided him with to the ground and opened it. Inside were items he wished he’d remembered he had earlier.
An apple glistened in the noon sun for an instant before Leo chomped into it, hungrily devouring the fruit. Other than the apple was a curious, round, blue berry he’d seen in the market yesterday, and two round stones. He ate the berry in one bite and left the two stones alone as he hefted the bag back onto his shoulder.

Feeling completely rejuvenated from the apple and little berry, he traveled through the grass- the laws of physics not applying as his flaming tail didn’t torch the entire dungeon.

With the scores of Hoppip and Skiploom drifting helplessly in the air behind him, Leo carefully peered into the next clearing.
At first he didn’t see anything, and then he heard voices coming from the far corner of the glade.
“…Please get me outta here; I’ve been here for three days. Doesn’t that thing work?” A voice said, followed by a round of coughing.

Another voice spoke, which Leo identified as Jay.
“Don’t talk, or else you’ll pass out again. We’ll get you out of here, don’t worry.”

The voice mumbled something before going silent. Slowly coming out of the grass, Leo made his way through the clearing over to where he last heard the voices, watching out for any other enraged dungeon dwellers.

As he rounded a turn in the glade, he saw Jay, Kelly, and a Pokemon he’d never seen before crouched near the ground in pain. It was a large beige raptor with a head-crest of curved red feathers.
Jay and Kelly appeared to be attending to the bird, and didn’t notice him approaching from behind.

“Hey, you two. Is that your missing guy over there?” the Pidgeotto coughed, as Jay and Kelly turned around.

“Leo! You made it! I was worried when you weren’t with us when we went entered!” Kelly exclaimed.
“I told you he’d be alright, this dungeon isn’t that difficult,” Jay stated, as the Pidgeotto grunted in obvious disagreement as he gingerly lifted his bloodied left wing that Leo knew wasn’t supposed to bend that far backwards.

“Wait, didn’t you have to fight through swarms of Pokemon to get here?” Leo asked, looking away from the bird Pokemon’s clearly broken wing.

“What? No. In fact we hardly saw any Pokemon at all, that’s why we got here so quickly. What happened to you?” Kelly asked, puzzled over Leo’s previous question.

Leo briefly explained what had befallen on him since he was separated from them at the dungeon entrance.
“That’s just some straight up bad luck you got right there.” The Pidgeotto commented as he grunted in pain as Jay poured clear liquid from a small glass vial over the Pokemon’s wound.

“Wait, who exactly are you?” Leo asked the battered Pidgeotto.

Continued on next post.
 
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Knightfall

Blazing Wordsmith
Chapter Three-Continued

“Name’s Icarus. I’m the one your teammates are supposed to be rescuing. By the way, why’s that taking so long?” Icarus answered, directing the latter question to Jay.

“The badges aren’t working right, I already told you that; just give us a few minutes to fix them, ok?” Jay growled as he continued pressing a small raised button on the center of his badge.

“Kelly, what’s going on? What do badges have to do with rescuing this guy?” Leo inquired, wondering what the heck the small metal badges possibly could do.

“They have the ability to instantly teleport a Pokemon out of a dungeon, or at least they do when they actually work.” She grumbled as she jabbed the center of her own rescue badge again, nothing happened.
“Those things can teleport? Why isn’t it working? They are supposed to work aren’t they? Aren’t they called rescue badges for that reason?” Leo asked, beginning to worry now that their escape route out of this place was possibly gone.

Kelly answered, taking a break from the malfunctioning badge.
“Lately the Federation has been commandeering the Psychic Pokemon that oversee and control the all the teleportation channels that come from all of the badges, and decide when to open them. So, until one of them comes back to work, we’ll have to wait or find our way out ourselves.” she grumbled.
In frustration, Jay threw his badge to the ground of the dungeon, “The one time we actually succeed in a mission, and we can’t get out of the dungeon!”

Suddenly Icarus spoke while pointing his good wing at the opposite end of the glade, “Eh, you guys? I’m sorry to interrupt, but what in Moltres’s holy name is that?”

“What are you …? Mew, mother of Arceus …” Jay swore as he looked across the clearing.

“That” turned out to be scores upon scores of Hoppip and Skiploom appearing from the grass, all of them wearing looks of hatred one does not normally expect to see on sentient weeds.

The group of Pokemon was stunned into silence by the sheer amount of the native Pokemon except Icarus who let loose a quiet yet lengthy explicative.
The Pidgeotto suddenly sniffed, “Wait a sec,” he sniffed again.
“I thought I knew that smell; Charmeleon, you’ve been Stained by one of them. You led ‘em straight here.”
Icarus noted as the advancing wall of Pokemon abruptly stopped moving forward.

“W-what’s going on?” Leo stuttered as the crowds of pink and green Pokemon parted to reveal a small spherical blue Pokemon with two large tuffs of cotton on its arms and one on its head.
The blue Pokemon spoke, its booming, bossy voice totally unfitting of its small form.
“So, you all are the intruders that have got my soldiers running around like the idiots they are? State your names and what business you have inside my dungeon. Now.”

“We’re Team Salient; we accepted a job to rescue this Pidgeotto,” Kelly said, beating Icarus’s string of curses, and Jay’s own response.

“A rescue team, are you? Well normally I wouldn’t have too much of a problem with that, but the Pokemon you’re rescuing is my prisoner. I can’t have him going to the king about my little smuggling operation in this dungeon,” The boss Pokemon told them while Icarus grunted in disgust.

“Prisoner? Ha! If my wing wasn’t broken, I’d kill you right now, Jumpluff!” the injured bird shouted as Jumpluff chuckled, an action Leo would have found slightly adorable if the Pokemon didn’t hold their lives in his evil, cottony hands.

“Shut up, Pidgeotto. I can’t help but be impressed that you actually managed to send out a distress message, but that now leaves us with the matter of what to do with your rescuers. I obviously can’t have them going off and telling their Guildmaster about my operation here, it’s just not good business,” The dungeon boss explained as he pondered the situation.

“But we’re not part of a-” Jay started before Jumpluff cut him off.

“Unfortunately, I don’t know whether I can trust you all to keep your traps shut. I’ve found that the best solution to a problem is usually the easiest, and killing you all seems pretty easy right about now,” Jumpluff said.

“Wait, we’re not part of any guild-thing! We won’t tell anyone about whatever you have here!” Leo shouted in vain to the boss.

“Gas them. Make sure they never get the chance to tell anyone all we’ve done,” Jumpluff ordered as he backed away behind his minions, who chattered with glee at the prospect of a something new to murder.

Backing up against the dungeon wall, Leo knew they only had a few seconds to act before the hoard of Pokemon unleashed their seed attack. Jay quickly gathered them together.
“Alright, Kelly, keep trying to get the badge to work and guard Icarus. Hopefully we’ll get lucky with it. Leo, you and I will hold them off until something happens. And Icarus?”

The bird Pokemon sat up hearing his name, “What?”

“Just shut up. You’re the reason we’re here in the first place,” Jay quickly listed as the Hoppip and Skiploom mob suddenly screeched in a single, horrid voice.

Wait, hold them off? With what exactly?
“Jay, what are you talking-” was all Leo got to say before the mass of enemy Pokemon launched glowing seed-like projectiles into the air. Leo stared with his mouth hanging open as the simultaneous attacks arced in the sky and fell through the sky like bombs from overhead.

Leo barely had time to snap out of his trance and raise his arms over his head when the glowing seeds hit like a storm of hail. The seeds exploded with their many small clouds of poison spores merging into one giant cloud of thick purplish gas that instantly diffused throughout the entire dungeon area.

His eyes watering, Leo struggled to breathe as he stumbled around the gas covered clearing, tripping more than once into a band of charging Hoppip.
Trying to remain focused as the amount of breathable air diminished; Leo clumsily slashed his claws at the Pokemon, who screeched in pain when he successfully landed a hit.
The other Hoppip panicked and either shot off small rapid bursts of seeds at their own comrades or simply crashed into each other.
If there was any advantage Team Salient had in this fight it was that their enemy, though barbarically brutal, were definitely among the more idiotic Pokemon in the land. They were a fairly effective force when calm, but if startled they broke down faster than the countless attempts at peace between the Kingdom and the Colonies.

Through the chaos of nauseating gas, stray Hoppip and Skiploom, and the occasional rapid burst of seeds cutting through the gas, Leo saw the shape of Jay with one of his fists glowing bright; punch one of the Hoppip in its pink body.
The creature went crashing into the dirt. The Riolu turned to do the same thing to a Skiploom when it fired several seeds that landed at his feet, detonating with a sudden plume of gas.

Jay stumbled backwards, until he was face to face with an overwhelmed Leo.
“Why aren’t you fighting? A Flamethrower would be really useful right about now!” he said, gasping with nearly every other word.

“I-I have no idea what you’re talking about! What flamethrower?” Leo said before going into a gas induced coughing fit.
Jay’s adrenaline fueled battle ready expression changed to one of disbelief.
“What flamethrower?! Your attack moves! What else do you think I’m talking about?!” he yelled as a strong gust of wind brushed past us.
It seemed Icarus wasn’t content to lay low this battle, and was using his undamaged wing to blow some of the foul gas away temporarily before stopping from the pain it caused him.

Leo took a few precious seconds to breathe the unpolluted air, “I don’t remember how to do any attacks!” he countered as they moved to dodge a Hoppip’s barrage of high speed seeds.
Just as Jay was about to speak, he and Leo were forced to duck to avoid a sudden bolt of lightning that shot inches of their heads.
The attack shot directly into a group of Skiploom, causing them to screech in pain, and their leaf green skin to blacken as their smoking unconscious forms crashed to the ground.
Leo took a quick look behind him to see where exactly a bolt of lightning had come from. He saw Icarus breathing hard from his position on the ground, directing more of his Gust attacks at the surrounding gas cloud, he also saw the dozens of scattered Skiploom and Hoppip, but they weren’t the source of the attack.

Than he saw Kelly still guarding the collapsed Icarus and trying to activate the badge. She was wobbling with exhaustion and her spiky, yellow and white fur still cackling with electricity from the lightning bolt she had generated and launched.

She did that? “Wow,” Leo said in awe his teammate’s power.

His thoughts of admiration were interrupted when Jay punched him in the arm.
“Leo, what do you mean that you can’t remember any attacks?” he asked as the cloud of poison slowly enveloped them again.

“I just don’t remember how.” Leo explained as he gulped one last breath of clean air before the haze returned.

Jay wasn’t convinced. “No matter how bad your amnesia happens to be, you don’t forget instincts! That's why they're called instincts!” he yelled through the fumes as a Skiploom crashed between them.

The sentient weed spit a volley of seeds at the two arguing Pokemon. The seeds pelted Leo, bursting on impact into even more clouds of the poison to appear and sting his lungs with every breath. The attack knocked Leo off his feet; he landed hard on the ground where he watched as Jay quickly raised his fist, somehow glowing with energy again, and punched the attacking Pokemon away.

Jay moved to where Leo had fallen and offered the Charmeleon a paw. His mind dizzy from the gas and fatigue, Leo slowly grasped his clawed hand around Jay’s.

Once he was standing, he turned to tell Jay thanks, but as soon as he did he was assaulted by another wave of gas. He couldn’t take much more; whatever was in this gas obviously wasn’t for his benefit health-wise.
Suddenly there was a large flash of light to his right; he turned to see that where Icarus had been was now absolutely nothing. Their client had simply vanished into thin air.
He looked around for Kelly, but she was nowhere to be found among the clearing.

His vision starting to blacken around the edges; he turned to his side where Jay had been a moment ago, but instead found an enraged Skiploom charging at him full speed through the air. Jay was gone too.
He tried to move out of the way, but his everything he did seemed to be stuck in slow motion as the green Pokemon barreled into him.
Leo crashed to the ground clutching his side in pain as the Skiploom screeched in triumph. He tried to breathe, but by then the air had effectively stopped being even remotely breathable.

In his agony Leo looked up at the crowd of Pokemon that had surrounded him. Jumpluff appeared above him charging some sort of green sphere of energy to finish him off.

“Don’t take it personally, it’s just good business,” He sneered, as the attack was almost completely charged and definitely lethal.

He weakly closed his eyes as he waited the inevitable pain that was to come. It’s probably better than dying from this gas his mind told him as some sort of depressing silver lining to this situation.
In his fading mental state he wondered where had the others gone, if they had been killed by the heartless crime boss or had simply abandoned him while they fled to safety.
Both thoughts made him boil with anger, the weak flicker of fire on his tail suddenly ignited as if it was doused in gasoline.
He felt like some last reserve of energy had been found: his mind cleared, the pain from his wounds numbed, and his lungs ignored the searing pain they felt with every quick, adrenaline-fueled breath he took.

Not wanting to die just yet, Leo pushed off the ground and quickly rolled to the side as Jumpluff launched his Energy Ball attack into the spot of dungeon floor where he just had been a half-second before.

Before the boss’s army could converge on the Charmeleon, he leapt up and tackled the stunned crime leader. The wayward rescue team member and the dungeon boss both crashed to the ground as Leo swung his claws at the every inch of the pinned Jumpluff’s face he could reach, leaving large cuts under both of the Pokemon’s small, beady, red eyes.

More of the gas seed attacks were pelting him from all around, bursting into clouds of purple, yellow, and grey gas that mixed with the already saturated air.
Leo stopped his slashing frenzy for an instant to deliver a swipe to a Hoppip who’d gotten too close. In this split second, the pinned boss charged up a small Energy Ball attack at Leo.
“Dasvidaniya, Charmeleon!”
Leo squeezed his eyes shut as he braced once again for the possible end of his existence.

Whether or not the lethal point blank attack actually impacted, Leo didn’t know as all he felt was something pulling quickly him through a wall of extremely cold water and suddenly he was standing on a hard stone floor inside of a civilized building.

Not even trying to understanding what sort of miracle had just occurred, his legs gave out from under him as the small reserve of energy had burnt itself out.
He tried to laugh realizing he was safe-and partly from exhaustion, but instead coughed out a small cloud of purple gas from his burning lungs.

As he closed his eyes from sheer fatigue, he heard the jabber of faint, frantic voices that grew louder with every passing second.

“…I found him! Get someone! Hurry!” Leo heard Jay shout as the trample of footsteps grew closer and as he found himself passing out-once again- for the fourth time since he arrived in this world.

End Chapter Three


Author’s Notes:
Wow, what a long chapter, in my opinion at least. Didn't intend for it to be over a post long, sorry.
I’m very sorry about the long wait between chapters, but since I’m on summer break now the chapters should be arriving a bit more frequently.
The beginning part of the chapter seemed a little choppy and not as well written as some of the things I have written before. I’m just not as happy with the first part as I am with the other half.
In speaking of the second half, I found the inspiration for Leo being left behind when I noticed that in the PMD games when a mission is completed the client always leaves first, than the leader than the second team member than the third and than fourth. I took that a step further with a delay between the time when Jay left the dungeon and the time when Leo left the dungeon.
(And I’ll give a cookie to who ever can figure out the code at the top of the chapter, and it DOES actually convert to words)

Moving on, the character of Raiss the Ninetales belongs to my friend, Azurus, as does the name Oresville.
Thank you to everyone who reads this for putting up with my numerous delays in between chapters, I hope to continue writing quality chapters for you to enjoy.

As usual, reviews are much appreciated as is constructive criticism.
And I started a PM list, so anyone who want to be on it, just say so.

In other news, I’ll be going away for around two and a half weeks on vacation in a few days, so I won’t be working as much on this as I’d like, but I promise to have a new chapter up soon after I get back

Thanks again,

Knightfall signing off…;005;
 
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Azurus

The Ancient Absol
First off, some mistakes.

One of the books has the word Physic when it's refering to Psychic.

Jay when* on, "well, after a few days....
*Should be went.
"It's not like we * enough problems to worry about, anyways"
*there should be the word "have" here

"The one time we actually succeed in a mission, can* we can't get out?" I think *can is unneccessary.

Now to my reply,
This chapter was fantastic, I don't know what much else to say other than the humor and action were really good and... I can't formulate a proper response, so I'll mention a few things.
Ironicn that the blast seed book caught fire, I'm also surprised nothing else did, I thought for sure the book would have been noticed missing anyway.

3000 gold poke for a key, well since it sells for so much it can't be that important since "Key" items are always too valuable to sell. Dohohoho- *shot

The magnemite was also a nice touch, no matter how they act it always seems rude, even sincerity has what feels to be mockery in it.

I thought for sure Leo would have used a fire attack when "Blaze" kicked in, good thing he got back safely tho. I imagine he going to get a stern talking too and probably more questions as to his origins next chapter.

Raiss, being worth 5500 gold poke... I like it but a comment in passing about that reward size would have been made more amazing since she is obviously like 6875× more of a threat than the previously mentioned outlaw, who was worth only 80 bronze, what could she have possibly done to deserve that bounty?

I really enjoyed this chapter and I hope you enjoy your vacation.
 
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Azurus

The Ancient Absol
*Translation*
[spoil]
Republic Capital Prison

Date REDACTED (REDEACTED?)

Time 8:35A.M.

Prisoner #037

Name : David M. Radic

Occupation: Ex-President

Crimes : High Treason

Current Status: To Be Executed

Comments: [REDACTED]
[/spoil]
*End Translation*

Chapter 0.5 translation
*Translation*
[spoil]
1st line of binary, Exile, it takes your mind...again
2nd line of binary, Exile
3rd line of binary, It takes your mind
4th line of binary, again...
5th line of binary, You got suckers luck
6th line of binary, Have you given up?
7th line of binary, Does it feel like a trial?
8th line of binary, Does it trouble your mind,
9th line of binary, the way you trouble mine?
10th line of binary, Oh you meant so much
11th line of binary, Have you given up?
12th line of binary, Are you just thinking too fast,
13th line of binary, you're like marbles on glass?
14th line of binary, vilify....
15th line of binary, Don't even try...Vilify
16th line of binary, Don't even try
17th line of binary, You got suckers luck
18th line of binary, Have you given up?
19th line of binary, Does it feel like a trial?
20th line of binary, Does it trouble you (your?) mind the way you trouble mine?
21st line of binary, Did you fall for the same empty answers again?
[/spoil]
*End Translation*
 
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