Chapter Text
My head swam with an overwhelming wave of nausea and pain that nearly made me lose my footing. I dropped to a knee and sucked a breath in through my teeth, long and slow.
“Leo? You alright?”
“Yeah, sorry Chuck, just another migraine. They’re really kicking my ass today. This is the second one today.”
Chuck frowned and set down his shovel, “listen kid, if this is too much work for you… maybe you should talk with Grace about getting a different assignment.”
I stood suddenly and felt my stomach almost drop through the floor, “I’m fine. I can handle it.”
He looked worried, this wasn’t the first time he’d given me that look, like the kind one gives to their child when he tries to lift something that is simply too heavy. He didn’t want to outright tell me I had to stop, but he didn’t believe I could manage. I picked up my own shovel and gave him a wry smile.
“Okay kid, if you say you’ve got it then I believe you. These are hopefully the last holes we’ll have to dig for today.”
“I’ll cross my fingers.”
It was a humorless joke and we both knew it, this wasn’t a fun or even rewarding job. Digging holes for hours wasn’t hard and exhausting work, especially since each one needed to be at least six feet deep, on the bright side at least we weren’t stuck with the burials.
As we dug I felt something wet running down my face. Was I… drooling? I wiped at my mouth and looked at my hand, there was nothing. I could feel it on my face but no matter how much I wiped with my hand or sleeve I felt nothing with them.
Chuck dropped into the hole next to me and just stared at me for a few seconds before he suddenly grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me hard against the side of the hole.
“Chuck what the hell?”
“HOLD HIM DOWN. HE’S CONVULSING.”
I blinked and my legs gave out, a bright light filled my eyes as I felt myself shaking uncontrollably. It felt almost like shivers but with each shake I felt my muscles contract.
“He’s choking, put him on his side!”
Voices? Were they talking about me? Am I dying? My face still feels wet, it burns. Someone turn down the light, it’s too bright. My thoughts ran senseless and for each coherent thought I tried to form a dozen empty or confused messages flooded my mind, I couldn’t think. Too bright. Too loud. Why can’t I wake up?
I felt my chest tense suddenly and my back contracted and arched up as I gasped and coughed, vomiting on the floor below me. Too far below. I hacked and clawed at my chest, I’d had the air knocked out of me before and this felt so much worse, almost like drowning.
I heaved and gasped, my lungs rattling in my chest with each breath. Tears welled up in my eyes and I almost fell off the table I had somehow ended up on. I felt strong arms pull me back and push me down onto the table. My breathing got faster as I struggled.
“Let me go! I already went! I already did it! I can’t go again!”
“Calm down kid, you're freaking out. You’re alright!”
The voice was sweet and a bit too high pitched, it reminded me of an over enthusiastic waitress I’d once had. A memory from a long time ago, in a second it was gone as I focused on the present and the person speaking… or rather, the pokemon speaking. A chansey. I pulled against the hands holding me down and panicked.
“Where am I? Who are you? What have you done to me! Get off!”
“Please calm down little one, you are safe in my clinic. Eveything is alright, we’ve done nothing but treat you since you were brought in.”
I breathed fast and hard but turned my head to stare into her eyes intensely. They were soft eyes, the kind you might see on a mother. She looked down at me and smiled reassuringly, but her eyes were worried. It seemed familiar but I couldn’t place it. She whispered something to someone else and I turned my head left, seeing another pokèmon holding me down.
This one I didn’t recognize, it was much taller than me and covered in white fur on its torso and head, red fur on its arms and legs, and it appeared to have no fur on its hands or feet which were a dark shade of blue that looked like the color of frostbite. What stood out above all of that though was the back of its head which sported a large flame, that looked almost like vibrant red and orange hair.
I winced away from the fire instinctively and the pokemon seemed to take notice before gently letting go of my arm and backing up a bit. The chansey followed suit a moment later but looked much more worried than the unknown pokemon. I took a moment to look around and the room did somewhat look like a clinic, much nicer than the lab for sure. It was much less drab and there was a window letting in a bit of sunlight. Chansey pulled me from my thoughts and I turned back to her when she spoke.
“Are you alright dear? You were unconscious and you began convulsing when we tried to wake you up.”
I had to take a moment to figure out how to speak before I cleared my throat and answered, “I think I’m okay… I’m not sure what happened.”
“Well… you were found by one of our rescue teams near a mystery dungeon, you literally ran into them and knocked yourself out for quite a while. They brought you back here and we’ve been treating you since then.”
The tall fire pokemon interjected with a curious tone and stepped back up to the table I was laying on. “How did you end up in a mystery dungeon anyway? You don’t look like a wild pokèmon and you aren’t wearing a team badge, so why were you down there… and how’d you get those injuries?”
His voice sounded male, at least I thought so. The thought of talking pokèmon was still a strange one and I kept expecting to snap out of this or wake up, but at this point that seemed like it wasn’t going to happen.
The fire pokemon cleared his throat and pointed at the circular mark on my side and the small marks where I’d been pierced by the strange tubes in the pod.
“I’m referring to those, they don’t look like anything I’ve ever seen a pokèmon inflict. What in the dungeon did that to you?”
I blinked and looked at the chansey for a moment as if she’d offer some help with my memory but as I turned back to the fire pokèmon I was still completely at a loss. “What exactly is a dungeon? Are you talking about that laboratory?”
He frowned and it looked as if he raised an eyebrow, despite not having any. “A mystery dungeon. The one you were seen at is extremely dangerous and very much off limits to anyone.”
“Listen buddy, I don’t know what the hell a mystery dungeon is and I don’t remember how I ended up in there.”
He seemed taken aback for a moment and the chansey looked as if she was about to cry. She quickly walked across the room and I heard a door shut as she left. Again I took a moment to look around now that I wasn’t being distracted and she wasn't standing in my view. The room was full of shelves of jars and various tables with what looked like either very rudimentary or old medical supplies. It was a clinic for sure, just very old-school looking, almost like an alchemist’s or herbalists workshop.
Bandages sat on a wooden bench next to what looked like a really old stethoscope that had been worn down and had a bit of rust on it. As I was looking around the other pokèmon huffed and his flames seemed to intensify for a moment.
“I’m infernape, and you have no right to talk to us like that after we saved your hide. I don’t know whose kid you are but if you were mine, you’d get a very strong talking to for using such foul language!”
I blinked and looked at him for a second and did a double take. “All I said was hell. I don’t think that’s a big deal but I’m sorry if that came off rudely. I’m really just as confused… well, more confused than you are. I don’t know what a mystery dungeon is and I don’t know how I ended up underground in that lab.”
“You…” he seemed mad for a second more before sighing. “…we’re on the lower levels? That’s very dangerous. You’re lucky to have made it out. As for what a mystery dungeon is… your parents should’ve explained it to you, but it is a very dangerous place, usually underground where reality is warped and extremely dangerous wild pokemon live. They’re not like you or I. They’d attack anyone they saw just for the sake of defending territory.”
“Yeah that sounds like a wild pokèmon, but I’m not sure what you mean by warping reality, everything looked normal to me, just really really old.”
“I mean that every time you enter a mystery dungeon the layout will change, sometimes subtly and sometimes completely, no one knows precisely why they occur or how, but they are as I said often underground. The one you saw was at one point an old human lab though.”
“So where are all the humans?”
Infernape looked spatial for a moment and paused as if carefully choosing his words. “They’re gone. They went extinct many years ago because of a massive disaster. They left behind only their destroyed structures like the one you were found at, but… you really should know that. Are you perhaps, from before the human collapse?”
“I think so..? I can’t remember much before I woke up inside this.. thing inside the lab…”
I explained what happened and infernape nodded along looking more concerned as I went on with my explanation. After I finished he looked worried, but nodded a minute before saying a word, seemingly thinking deeply about what I’d told him. I’d left out a few of the weirder parts of course, like the human memories and the strange pods.
“I think that you need to see the guild master. I’ll take you to him.”