Pokeumans: Chapter 28

Pokeumans: Chapter 28

Chapter 28

Andy heard a whooshing sound and he was enveloped in total darkness. He looked behind, but there was no form of light. The door has disappeared, so now there was absolutely no light at all. The inside of the castle was warmer than he expected it to be, only it wasn’t the warm and inviting kind of heat Andy felt outside. It felt humid and kind of unnerving.

“Nephi?” Andy stretched his arms out to the side. He didn’t feel the Blaziken, even when he spun in circles with his arms extended. “Nephi, where are you?”

“Calm down.” Nephi spoke, but it was through Andy’s mind rather than an actual person speaking next to him. “I think we got separated, looks like we may have to go through this alone.”

“Alone? Where are you, and how are you able to speak to me?

“I’m a part of you, dumbo. Don’t try to look for me or you’ll attract some unwanted customers.”

“Um…what?”

“I can tell the things in here are quite hostile. They could quite possibly go for the kill down here.”

“What should I do?”

“Walk. Just keep walking forward. If anything shows up, ignore it. If it promises sanctuary, avoid it. If it takes the shape of a loved on, push on. If it decided to rush at you, hurry away. They can’t hurt you unless you engage them. Don’t use any moves on them, just keep going.”

Andy had to take deep breaths to stop him from getting paralyzed with fear. His legs felt wobbly, and his every instinct was refusing to move anymore. His gut was telling him to sit down, close his eyes, and hope he would wake up again, perhaps still stranded in the middle of the ocean. For once, he didn’t think Pokextinction or Vincent was so bad of an idea anymore. But he had to move and stop this dark infestation from taking control of him, and possibly hurting his friends.

With one last deep breath, he took a step. Step after step after step he walked.

Maybe this isn’t so bad. Maybe I won’t see anyone for a long time and I’ll calm down when I reach the end. Maybe it’s all just a mean prank Nephi thought up of. Maybe-

He screamed when he saw a human figure falling at high speeds to the floor in front of him. When it came into contact, blood splattered from it’s sides and a sickening symphony of crushed bones and messed up intestines played out. The human groaned as he lifted his head and looked towards Andy.

“Help me…please…” He gasped as he coughed up blood and reached for Andy. When Andy heard another groan form the ceiling, he looked up to find a morbid party of human figures hanging from the wall. Some were dead and decomposing in some of the most nightmaringly way possibly. Others were crying and screaming from the pain of starvation or the ropes around their necks.

Andy couldn’t see himself, but he could definitely feel his eyes dilate in terror. He folded his ears over his head, leaped over the still gasping person, and ran for the darkness beyond. He entered into a sort of trance as he took step after step. Soon, his arms grew tired, and he lowered his arms as high ears shot back up. All the crying and gasping was gone. He was alone once again.

He stood still for a moment to take some breaths. As he regained some sense of self, he began to realize how stupid that all was. That was one of the cheapest tactics in the book! It was so stupid and cliché he couldn’t believe it actually scared him. He laughed for a moment before a piercing though made him stop.

What if this place was keeping track of his every thought? If that’s true, then that would mean it would try its hardest to keep him in here or hurt him. What if it was reading that thought? Would this place know how to keep him off his guard? If it read that thought, would it try to keep confusing Andy? And if the tower read that thought, would it-

Gosh, I hate not knowing how my own mind works.

Andy walked forward, feeling a little bit better than usual. Due to the absence of anything for a while, he began to sing a random song that came into his head.

“Got a whale of a tale to tell ya lads, a whale of a tale or two, ‘bout the flappin’ fish and the girls I’ve loved on nights like this with the moon above, whale of a tale and it’s all true I swear by my-” He stopped when he saw a white figure in the distance. Having learned from his last experience, he decided to approach cautiously until he began to make out a familiar crest and the coat of fur.

“Sasha.” Andy said in a melancholy tone of voice.

“Andy!” Sasha, or rather, the imposter of Sasha cried out. “Where am I?!”

“You’re a fake. Don’t bother.”

“No, Andy, really! Please, I’m lost. Ow!” Sasha suddenly reached a paw up to her forehead. When she lowered the paw, the burn mark of the laser Vincent used appeared. “Oh...Andy, please, it burns.” Sasha began to have tears in her eyes, and she began to hyperventilate.

“Andy, please!! Help me! Oh, it burns!!!” Sasha flopped down on the ground and tried to put her paws where the burn was, but to no avail. Andy’s heart rate began to increase; he could feel whatever pain the imposter was trying to act.

“You’re a good actor, I’ll give you that, now leave me alone!” He began to walk away. Sasha let out the most blood curling scream that made Andy run again.

ANDY!!! IT BURNS!!! AUGH!!! PLEASE, MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE!!” Sasha wailed. Her crying made Andy’s heart melt. It was like a little girl begging for whatever miracle her father could provide for a brutal injury she was a stranger to. If Andy didn’t know what was going on, he would’ve made a heel-face turn and tried to help her, but he knew better.

When he was far away, he began to slow down again. It looks like things were starting to get a little more personal, rather than going for a person’s worst fears.

As he continued walking into the darkness, he saw his family looking around stranded.

I honestly can’t tell if I should be thinking this is unfair or if I should feel happy. Andy had to be honest with himself; he completely forgot he had a human family in the first place. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t know if he really considered them family before he met his friends.

“Andy,” his father cried, “Where are you?!” Andy’s body stiffened up, like an instinct he was engineered to adopt. Whenever his parents called his name, he was always expected to be punctual about his showing up, or he’d be in trouble. He thought if he turned around and walked away, he wouldn’t have to deal with them, but then his younger sister pointed him out.

“Andy! There, you are, we’ve been looking all over for you!” Andy slowly turned around and faced the family he had left behind. “Why are you like this?”

“Sorry mom, this is who I am.” Andy honestly just wanted to leave.

“Why did you leave us?”

“I wasn’t my choice, but I honestly don’t want to go back.” Do I?

“C’mon, we’re going home.”

“No! I’m staying!” Here? In the darkness? Yes.

“You have to! You still have school!”

“I’ve found a better one!”

“You are an older brother to four children!”

“They wanted me to burn anyway!”

“You have a future you’re about to throw away!”

“I’m making my own!”

“You’re just being selfish. You need to stop this right now and get back here.”

“No, I won’t! I never felt sad for you guys. Both you and Dad have been abusing me and my siblings since we were little!”

“Ridiculous!”

“Wanna bet? Mom, you’ve been psychologically abusing us all the time. Nothing was ever good enough for you, and I honestly can’t remember how many times you’ve wished we were never born! Whenever you got mad, you’d break glass and personal things. Dad’s been the more physically abusive, but only because he was your puppet! So don’t give me that selfish junk! I’m happy here!”

Andy didn’t want anymore of this. He turned and quickly ran way. His Dad called out to him with his loud voice, but Andy didn’t freeze up. He ran and ran and ran until he saw a tunnel filtering what looked like daylight!

This is it, I’m so close! He kept going until his friends walked in front of him. He stopped as the nightmare projections of Claire, Josh, and West turned around to face him.

“I can’t believe you.” Claire said.

“You’ve left us to die alone.” West spoke.

“You’re a coward. Prepare to fight!” Josh shouted as he got into a battle stance.

Andy stood still.

“Well, what are you waiting for?! Come on and fight us!”

Andy laughed, the amateurish apparitions of his friends seemed ridiculous. He just casually walked around the group.

“Get back here!” Josh said, but he was planted to the spot unless Andy engaged him. Andy couldn’t help but to move his tail in motion that made it seem like he was mocking them. He simply strolled into the light.

The light increased until he had to put a paw over his eyes. When the light dimmed, he looked around. He was in the middle of a desert. It had Joshua trees, sage bushes and sand dunes abound. In one direction, Andy could see some city lights in the distance, and around the sides were lonely plateaus and far away was a mountain range.

“Andy! Andy, can you hear me?”

“Nephi! I sure can. I made it through!”

“Don’t jinx yourself.”

“Was that supposed to be a Pokémon pun?”

“No, I mean you’re not done yet. You made it past the preliminaries. Now, it looks like you have one more thing left to do.”

The wind picked up and sand was gathering. It formed into a dust devil, and it was swirling in place. Soon, out of nowhere, wisps of darkness came and flooded into the storm. After some time, the wind died down and the sand returned to its place. A Lucario was in the fetal position suspended in the air. It uncurled as it neared the ground. When it reached the ground on its feet, it opened its eyes.

Andy had never seen anything like this before. This Lucario looked like it was made out of pure light-blue crystal for its entire body. Its eyes were a lifeless and dull gray, almost like a stone of its own.

“What?!”

“It looks like your final enemy in this place is yourself. All the negative emotions and experiences have materialized themselves into this.”

“A copy.” Andy said. The other Andy growled and got into a fighting pose. “Never mind, I know I can take you down!”

The fake leaped into the air and launched a Dragon Pulse. Andy was able to doge out of the way and counter it with an Aura Sphere, which collided with the crystal figure. Andy noted how the copy’s cry was a garbled, deeper version of the real Andy’s voice. It just spun and landed graciously on its feet.

The copy leaped into the air and charged and Aura Sphere. To Andy’s surprise, the sphere didn’t fire. Rather, the fake seemed to detach itself from the sphere as it dropped towards the ground. Now, a glowing ball of energy just hung in the night sky.

Odd, why didn’t it fire?

Andy shook this thought out of his head and launched another Aura Sphere at the Lucario. It was hit, but it recovered again, leaving behind two more Aura Spheres hanging out in the sky. He leaped into the air very quickly and left behind one more Aura Sphere, surrounding Andy in Aura Spheres surrounded in the sky.

The copy landed outside the circle and lifted its hands. Andy could feel it becoming connected to all the spheres at once. Then, like a conductor for a musical, it raised its arms. All four Aura Spheres spun to the sky. When he dropped it down, Andy heard a rushing sound as all four Aura Spheres came crashing down.

“Eat this.” It said as Andy was bombarded with an assault of Aura Spheres. He had never seen this kind of use for the spheres before! The spheres only seemed to shrink in size. The copy continued to wave its arms, hitting Andy over and over again with four Aura Spheres until they disappeared from existence.

This guy reminds of Kuja from Dissidia.

Andy wanted to try that, too. He leaped into the air and charged an Aura Sphere. But when he tried to disconnect himself from the sphere, it just launched it like a normal attack, which was useful in terms of accuracy, but Andy wasn’t sure if it really was doing anything.

He rushed towards the copy and did a Blaze Kick to its face, which seemed to get damaged and knocked back. Andy chased the copy and tried to give him a Dragon Pulse, but it dodged and retaliated with its own Blaze Kick.

Andy didn’t know how much he could take. He wanted to end the fight so he could get out of his stupid mind and be able to see his friends again. This copy just didn’t seem to understand what was going on. Andy really needed to end this fight.

Suddenly, Andy got an idea. If the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games applied to the real world as well as the main series games, would anything from the Super Smash Bros. series worked? Worth a try.

While Andy was strategically running around the battlefield, he tried to remember how the Lucario of that game fought. He tried to think of how he could replicate some of the moves he used in the game to give him the edge. He thought of something, but it was worth a try.

Andy stood still and placed his paw on the ground and closed his eyes. He gathered all the aura energy from his surroundings as he could. With his aura sensors, he could tell that energy was coming in from all the places it could. He could feel the power coursing through his body. All the gathering even disturbed some of the sand.

With all the aura energy in his system, he jumped and found he could levitate. He gathered all the energy in his hands, but rather than form them into a ball, he allowed it to keep spilling into his hands until he felt he couldn’t hold anymore. With a mighty thrust of his arms, he was now replicating Lucario’s final smash from Brawl. The copy was caught in the large beam, and Andy could see how much damage it inflicted over time.

When the attack was over, Andy felt exhausted and wobbled onto his feet. He felt like he spun around for about ten seconds. The copy didn’t fare very well. It staggered and wobbled as it limped over towards Andy.

“I…have underestimated you…” It said. It reached out its paw in attempt to perhaps do more damage to Andy, but it collapsed on the ground. Andy heard cracking as beams of light shot from the clone’s body, which grew in brightness until the crystallized Andy shattered.

For some strange reason, Andy felt very calm, like part of him that was hurt had finally been put to rest. It felt something like true peace. He felt like some part of him that was kept away from himself was finally returned. This was reflected in the sky. When Andy looked towards the east, he saw the sun breaking the horizon.

“Andy! Are you okay?!”

“Yeah, I’m fine. How’d I do?”

“You just did something people spend their whole lives trying to do in vain. You’ve overcome yourself!”

“Oh, good.”

“Hang tight, you should be coming out shortly.”

Not a moment too soon and he was surrounded in a blue light. He looked down in shock at first to see he was levitating from the ground, but the peace inside him had him close his eyes and tilt his head upward as he was lifted towards the sky.

When he opened his eyes again, Nephi was standing right in front of him. He slowly clapped his hands.

“Good job! I honestly didn’t think you could do it!”

“How’d you get out here?”

“I’ve always been out here. Sorry I had to fib about being separated. I’m not allowed to go in there, so I stopped right before I went inside, but you didn’t notice before it was too late.”

“Well…hey, I still appreciate you cared enough to help me out.”

“Yeah, look behind you.” Andy turned around the face the castle. The dead grass and other vegetation nearby turned green and full of life as if reached the castle. When it hit, the castle no longer had a foreboding sense to it. Now it seemed like a perfect place to go on an adventure in. The Dreamscape seemed to have become a little more livelier now that the threat was gone.

“Well now, does this solve the problem?”

“Yep. Good job, now you’ll be immune to meeting the same fate as the legendaries.”

“Sweet!”

“Yep, you’ve done well. Now, I’ll have to return you to the waking world.”

“Already?”

“Yeah. I think someone has been taking care of your body while you were out, so you won’t be alone.”

Andy paused. Someone was taking care of him in the outside world? Some part of him hoped that it was his friends who had survived the explosion.

“Okay, I’m ready. Let’s go.”

Nephi nodded as they walked down the hillside. He nibbled on some oatmeal raisin cookies while they made their way to the dock. They hopped into the boat, and Nephi untied the rope. He started the engine and they were off.

Andy looked back at the island. Soon he couldn’t see the people, then the huts, then the individual trees, and finally the island disappeared. He looked up at the sky. He didn’t know if he would be able to get used to being able to feel things like hunger, thirst, or temperature. He shook his head. He would get back to being used to it very quickly.

Nephi slowed down the boat until they got to the piece of wood, still floating on the water. Nephi cut the engine.

“Well, see ya. It was a lot of fun, I guess, but now you need to go home.”

“How do I get out of here?”

“Go to sleep. I took you out here because it’s easier to sleep in the ocean. You ready?”

Andy looked into the water. It was crystal clear, but he couldn’t see the bottom of it. He didn’t know how long it would take to fall asleep, or even if he would leave. Even if it were a technical dream, he wasn’t very interested in bobbing in the middle of the ocean. He had to return home though, because if he didn’t his physical body could die, and it would take him with himself.

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

“Okie Dokie.” Nephi picked Andy up and began swinging him, building up good momentum. “Allie oop!” He flung Andy off the side of the boat, and Andy was underwater.

Looking up, and saw the boat speed back towards the island, out of sight. He returned to the rippling sun. It was still beautiful, and he stared at until he felt drowsiness overtake him. He slowly closed his eyes as he drifted off to reality.

Chapter 29: Next
Author
Aura Knight
Posted on
Rating
5.00 star(s) 1 ratings

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Nice I love the nightmare clarie, Josh and west!
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