Chapter Text
“Well that was exciting, wasn’t it?” Chan asked, grinning widely
“Exciting? Exciting?! You made my superpowered stalker my ex-girlfriend! She tried to have Sparkles killed!” I was very much not happy about that part, and could not stress it enough to this half peeled potato.
“Half peeled potato? That’s not very nice,” Chan pouted, completely ignoring my complaint and focusing on the insulting descriptor I’d thought. “If you feel that way, I can just send you home if you like. All you said was you didn’t want to stay in that world.”
Huffy, petty little... so-and-so. I can’t even have private thoughts around her.
“No, I’d like to move on to the next world you have planned,” I said before she could cut in and comment on my thoughts again.
“Well then I’d stop thinking such nasty things darlin’” she said with a sniffy disapproving tone. “Come to my room in half an hour and I’ll have it ready for you”
She turned on her heel and walked away. I very quietly put my face in my hands when there was a click. I looked up and Chan was pointing at me what looked like a smartphone but with a distinctly concave lens covering the back.
“360 degree image capture” she told me with a wink
I looked down and realised I was buck naked and dripping wet, still in my overly endowed female form. I sighed and shook my head.
“I’ll see you in half an hour” I told her, walking to my Warehouse home for a quick shower and cuddle with Evil
Chan was waiting for me just inside the freestanding door in the Warehouse that led to her dark grey stone chamber. Why it wasn’t attached to my Warehome instead of twenty metres diagonally from the front door, I don’t know. Contrariness probably
“Took you long enough,” she said with a wry smile, looking slightly disappointed I was fully clothed again in my body mod default. “You’ll like the next jump, it’s Pokémon!”
She seemed very excited about it, but I was just confused.
“Really? Pokémon again? Does this mean you’re making me use my world return thing, or is it for the anime instead of the games?” I asked.
If it was for the anime, I was gonna smack some sense into Brock for making heart eyes and being creepy at every pretty girl and then try to get Jessie, James, and Meowth to leave Team Rocket. They were too nice at heart and far too ineffective to be part of the Pokémon mafia
“Neither. This time, you are the Pokémon” she said gleefully, handing me the tablet.
“Me? So I get a trainer, or...” I trailed off as I looked at the jump document displayed on the screen. “Ah, right. Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. I’ve only played the Super Mystery Dungeon, but it was a lot of fun. Except trying to get Mewtwo, that git kept using recover and was a real pain in the arse”
I sat on the stone floor and scrolled down. The first selection was “What Pokémon Are You?”
“Alrighty then, ummm I think I’d like to be... well I could go Charmander, but I already have Chazza and I want to bring him as my partner Pokémon,” I looked up at Chan, “I’m assuming I get a partner Pokémon? That’s a huge part of the game, palling around and exploring with a buddy.”
“You do,” Chan nodded, “but it won’t be Chazza, I’ve got someone already picked out specially for you.”
I raised an eyebrow at that. Chan’s last pick for me gave me a stalker psycho ex-girlfriend. Still, it’s not like I could do anything about it, she was in the driver's seat after all.
“Alright, well I still won’t go Charmander. Can I pick any Pokémon? I think I wanna be Gastly” I said, but as soon as I touched the screen to try and input my choice, it showed a table with the standard choices from SMD with each of the pictures of Pokémon lighting up rapidly. “Oh come on, this is randomised? My Conduit power wasn’t!”
“True, but this is different. And far more entertaining for me” Chan grinned widely. “Don’t worry darlin’, whatever it lands on, you’ll be a Drop In with the same options later on and no discounts, so it doesn’t matter much what you get”
“Maybe not within the document, but I’ll be stuck as whatever for a decade, and I don’t like the chance I’ll end up as something from gen 5” I said, trying to use my bullet-time focus to get one I wanted, but the randomiser sped up as everything else seemed to slow down. I let things speed up again, and the randomiser sped up even more.
“There’s no getting around this, whatever you get will be random” Chan said, sounding amused at my attempt
I sighed and tapped the screen, ready to take whatever I had to be. Mudkip’s picture filled the screen and did its happy animation from the game. Well that’s not too bad, I quite like the Mudkip line, dumb memes notwithstanding.
A quick flip of the gender coin showed that I’d be a male again this time round.
Apparently this place has only a small choice of location, because a triangle appeared with pictures of towns run by Pokémon on each point. A spin landed me in Treasure Town with the Exploration Teams here being part of the Wigglytuff Guild. Wigglytuff isn’t the first thought I have when it comes to small pink badasses, but since Kirby isn’t a Pokémon, Wiggles is as good as any other I suppose.
Scrolling down showed I was given a pack of free skills to go with my new Pokéform. Four moves that draw from the same PP pool, muscle memory to let me use my new body with ease, a small physical stat increase to above human norm (which would be barely noticeable with my other boosters but I wasn’t turning down), combat diagnostics to let me gauge my HP & PP, and Pokéglot so I could talk to and understand Pokémon. I’d turned it down in the first jump because it was expensive and I wasn’t sure I wanted it; here it was free and something of a necessity, so I wasn’t turning it down again.
I was assuming I could change moves in-jump, even if only after I evolved, but I still wanted good stuff straight off the bat, so after scanning the moves list provided, I picked Water Pulse, Mud Bomb, Waterfall, and Headbutt. Normally I’d pick an ice or poison move to cover my weakness, but I was an ice Conduit and I figured that was cover enough against Grass Pokémon. All up, my PP pool was 60 total which was nice. No moves of earth shattering power, but I could swap them out when I evolved, probably.
After that were the skills & perks available to me, the first of which was free and fairly strange. It was Crush, and was exactly what it sounded like, giving my partner Pokémon a crush on me. I didn’t take it. If it happened, it happened, but I don’t want to force my partner, whoever Chan’s picked for that role, to have romantic feelings for me, and that’s what this perk would do. Really not comfortable with that. Besides, I’m aromantic, so it’s not like I could reciprocate their feelings anyway.
There were two 100 perks: Natural Instinct, which increased awareness, intuition, & muscle memory, and Multitalent, which buffed my endurance, boosted my PP by 50%, and meant I only needed four hours of sleep a day. Taking both put me at 2800.
I could buy myself or my partner an evolution or two, but decided not to. Better, I think, to earn that one.
Map Surveyor gave me a mental map and an infallible sense of direction for 200, and Move Expert gave me either a fifth move or a non-legendary signature move for 200. I grabbed both, and added Aqua Tail to my moveset. Move Expert and Multitalent brought my PP total to 105, a very respectable amount.
Synchronised Souls was the only 300 thing. It was basically a soul bond between my partner and I, and without knowing my partner beforehand it wasn’t something I was comfortable taking.
All-Terrain Hiker, on the other hand, was 350 and amazing, letting me and my party walk safely on any terrain, including lava, water, clouds, and unstable ground. I didn’t realise clouds were a terrain, but I’m not complaining at all.
The final perk was Hyperkinesis for 400. It removed all lag in my reaction time, meaning I could move my body as fast as I could think with the only barrier being my body’s physical limits. I snapped that right up, leaving me with 1650CP going into the items section.
First up, I and my partner both got an Explorer/Rescue Badge for free, which would allow me to teleport twice a day to the entry of a building I’m in and will do it automatically if I’m KO’d in a Mystery Dungeon.
The first item was a 200 Wonder Map that self-updated, showed allies and enemies, and could zoom in and out. I took that and a 50 Treasure Bag, for which I imported my bag, and left me with 1400.
Next were some fashion accessories that would definitely come in handy. I got two each of Aura Ribbons (boosts non-speed stats and matches the colour of your aura), Pecha Scarves (immune to poison effects but not poison attacks), Persim Bands (immune to confusion effects), and Weather Scarves (immune to weather effects), and I picked up a Heal Ribbon for my partner since they wouldn’t have the healing factor I do.
I also imported my hyperglasses as Goggle Specs for 200 to let me see hidden traps and caches, as well as invisible enemies.
All that brought me down to 0CP left, so I went down to check out the drawbacks.
I could only take two and they were ...different. The first I discarded out of hand since it meant that I didn’t have a Partner at all, even if it did give me 300. Half the others were chucked out as well since they prevented me from even taking the skills I’d already bought. Sure they’d free up more points, but it was counterproductive to do so. From the ones remaining, I decided to take Followed and Distrusted for a total of 300CP. The first made a rival team mess with and sabotage me, and the second made it so that Pokémon other than my partner would be slow to trust me. Both were doable and shouldn’t hinder me overmuch.
With new CP under my belt, I went back up to the items and promptly added a Revive Seed Bag to my stash, bringing me right down to -50. Frowning at the weird price, I put back an Aura Ribbon to balance me out. I guess I’d just have to do without a pretty ribbon, I do have a handful of buffs already though.
“Ok Chan, Mudkip me” I said, pressing the Insertion button