Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Redemption and Revival

Chapter 2

The wind blows across the plains, caressing all in its path as it journeys. A Vulpix looks up, smelling the breeze as she sees the unusual black tips of her otherwise normal red mane blow. Smelling nothing interesting, she shrugs, looking back down at her find.

Smiling, she speaks to herself, no one else around to judge her for it. "I can't believe my luck today!" She leans down, picking another bunch of oran berries from the collection of small plants and stowing them in her bag. "I might be set for a couple of weeks at this rate."

Giggling to herself, she checks the sun to make sure she has plenty of time before looking around again. "I wonder what else I can find today... maybe I'll find a treasure chest of legendary loot in a tree." Sticking out her tongue, the Pokémon laughs. "Yeah right, like that happens. Let's focus on real things." She bounds through the grass, her six tails, also black-tipped, bouncing along behind her.

The field which she is in doesn't appear to be much at first, but Pokémon who come out frequently know of particular trees and bushes that happen to produce rather helpful berries and herbs. While most would prefer to simply buy them from the store in town so as to avoid the hassle of searching for the berries, not to mention telling them apart from more dangerous lookalikes, there are still some who prefer to go out and search for them.

The town to the Vulpix's back is, from a distance, just another village with small houses and buildings constructed for various purposes, but its residents know the layout like the back of their respective hands, paws, claws, or other appendages. The field is just to the east of it, and if one were to go further east through a small but thick forest, they'd find themselves at the side of a large mountain. Nobody had ever tried climbing it before, because they already knew what was past it: the ocean. And nothing else of interest to see unless you were traveling across it.

She runs over the fields and into the forest, eyes scanning upward for treasure... realistically more like apples instead of chests. Stopping for a moment, the vulpine pokemon rears up, planting her forelegs on a tree trunk as she looks upward. "No... nothing." Shaking her head, she pushes off the tree and continues. "Shame, toasted apples are great." Looking ahead of her, she ponders this for a moment. "Hmm... might be worth going farther..." Doing just that, she journeys further into the forest.

The more she wanders into the forest, the closer together the trees seem to get, and the harder it becomes to tell direction. Luckily, no Pokémon live in this forest aside from a few docile Bug-types, but the possibility of getting lost is no less scary.

"Come on... just let me find a darn apple already..." the Pokémon mutters to herself as she continues wandering, eyes glued to the leafy canopy above her. She tries not to think too much about the bits of color starting to appear in the sky, signaling the beginning of sunset.

Suddenly, the leaf canopy all but disappears as she exits out from under it, almost running directly into the side of the mountain.

She stops, staring up at the sudden wall of earth and stone. "Didn't think I was this far... great..." Huffing a sigh, she looks around, trying to get her bearings, only to have her attention caught by something else. Seeing the slumped form of a Pokémon against the mountain, she darts toward it, recognizing it as a Shinx as she gets closer. Concern and curiosity are mixed in her grey eyes as she stops just before it, putting a paw on a blue shoulder and pushing lightly. "Hey, you okay?"

At first, the Shinx appears to be completely unmoving, almost not breathing. However, after a few seconds, its tail twitches, and the rest of its body begins to stir. Its ears flick, its forelegs begin to move, and finally, its yellow eyes start to flutter open. A soft, questioning mumble escapes its mouth.