“Vile CAD!”

The nameless hero now stood amongst the pillars that the trees made in the rolling landscape, their sword held ahead of them in a threatening display…

“If indeed thou wish’d to overthrow mine world, thou wouldst go through me first!”

They were a knight in literal shining armour, a cape of cerulean blue fluttering dramatically behind them. Around them stood a thief, a scholar, and a ninja. They stood in a line with weapons drawn, facing down the great brute of an ogre and the magician controlling them…

“RAWWWWWWWRRRRRRRR!” The ogre howled, and then snapped his own claws out to point threateningly…

“You sir knight have accosted me again and again in my travails! How would thou know my punishments and penances? I am my own creature, if thou would take that into your mind, but nay! Thine code of chivalry belays all true justice in the land!”

“Aha!” The thief said, twirling their knife on their finger… “Of course it is we who must have thy mind in mind when we fight. Your intentions, noble and free, have undone thee from all responsibility for your heinous actions!”

The ogre roared again and swiped a tree. It crashed to the ground with a might thump. Truly this was a beast of legend.

“I would have no more of your FOOLISH RANTING! Now you must face me! I will take the princess back to her tower! And you shalt meet thine end at the sharpness of mine very CLAWS!”

Tessa stared at the scene with quiet confusion as she always did. She held her knees and set her chin on them, closing her eyes as the sounds of fighting clanged in her ears. She tried to calm her breathing until she remembered she didn’t actually need to draw breath here, and so just let it be.

She stood and walked through the trees, tugging her cloak a bit tighter around herself and staring confusedly at the thief who had spoken before…
A strong fighter, and even against the magician’s wiles they seemed able to duck and weave past the strutting, preening female’s magic. The scholar behind was using their own enchantments to protect them, and allow them all the chances they needed to slash the throat of the mystic who was assaulting them…

Despite the thief nearly hitting her with a blade a couple times, Tessa didn’t flinch. She itched her muzzle casually and then turned to walk over to where the ogre was fighting the ninja, and knight…

Breathtaking displays of acrobatics and precision. The shadow moved like water, and each strike of her sterling blades reminded Tessa of light gleaming off a rushing river…

She leaned in curiously as the ninja landed and panted softly. There was a light in her middle. Tessa always liked these, because they were colourful and seemed to show a brighter future than anything Malla ever did…

A little bundle of potential. The Braxien smiled and patted her before walking away, moments before the ninja swung her arms and unleashed a rain of knives…

She looked up at the ogre, then away. She’d seen far too many similar monsters to be intimidated by this one. It was just a slavering beast, too eagerly focused on the light in the ninja’s middle… It made him a predictable, easy to manipulate target.

“YOU ARE NAUGHT BUT PURSUERS OF YOUR OWN END! FOOLS RESTRAINED BY THE YOKE OF ODIOUS OPPRESSION THAT IS THE DEATH OF OUR NATURAL INSTINCT! YOU KNOW IT TO BE TRUE AND…”

Tessa wasn’t listening. The ogre was being driven off by the ninja anyway. She was focused on the knight, who stood at one corner of the battlefield… faced away from everything else…

They weren’t moving in the slightest… Just… Staring?

Tessa studied them warily… What would they be doing here? Little details like this were always what drew her attention...

This didn’t make sense…
She took a few steps back as the knight turned around suddenly and stared down at her… Inexplicably, she was only a pace or two from it. She felt as if she stumbled backwards for miles and yet never made any progress away from the hulk in front of her…

From a shining beacon of justice and honour to some stoical metal monolith… 

Tessa reached her paw up and gripped the visor firmly, as if moving in a trance. Her claws rattled against the frigid metal, and she tried to come up with a reason not to open it… She had a million immediately in mind, but the paw slowly began to lift upwards anyway…

“Tes… sa…”

She turned and ran. She ran through the endless trees and tried not to let herself trip as her vision blurred with tears of panic... They welled and rolled down her furry cheeks within moments of hearing that distant storm… That VOICE…

Behind her, the knight took slow… heavy… deliberate steps…

Thunk… Clank… Crunch…

The woods became subsumed by an endless white nothing… Whatever odious face Tessa had seen there was no longer in evidence, replaced instead by a hollow void of shadow that seemed to drool forth from the rapidly rusting suit of armour…

It pattered against the ground, spreading pools indelibly out from each drop… The mist began to darken… All that she could see darkened…

She stopped running, and turned around…

The knight was mere steps away from her…

“TESSA…!”

It echoed like a thousand shards of metal dropped down a hollow chimney… The echoing, clinking roar was unnatural even to a world as fantastic as hers…

She held up her arms as if to shield herself… The tears continued to flow… The shadow loomed over her…

As usual, it walked straight past her…

“No, no, NO NO NO!!!”

She gripped the tattered cape. She was pulled along by the unstoppable force of the monster…

They walked towards a bonfire in the distance… The only thing in the growing night that could be seen… A shining ember to mark safety…

The knight marched up to it. Tessa grabbed the jagged gauntlet and gasped as it burned like cold acid…

She still didn’t let go…

“NOOO!”

The knight stalked up to the beacon with single minded hatred in its motions… No robotic creature doing its task with cold abandon… But a murderer…

It gripped the shoulders of the beacon…

“Mama, please… Don’t… Don’t let him…!”

But her voice weakened uselessly and devolved into desperate sobbing as the knight took the flame and pushed it down…

...down into the inky depths, where it could be snuffed forever…

The knight turned their head to look over their shoulder… And from the pitch black within the cold facade was a single eye… as blue as the deepest oceans, where warmth never found purchase, and light was a distant memory…

The gaze of the NIGHT, and all the terrible things that lived within it…

Tessa threw her head back and screamed…

“What the…!?”

Li jumped and stumbled back against Mua, and the two collapsed at the base of a tree with a soft squeak of surprise.

Ilianna quickly moved over as soon as she heard the cry, and put her hand under Tessa’s head to still and support it…

The poor Braxien had emerged from the woods and collapsed in front of them. In her fitful, restless sleep she tossed and turned and then had woken up with a scream that had caused all of their hearts to skip…

“It must have been some nightmare…” Mua grunted gently, as Tessa trembled in Ilianna’s gentle embrace. The fox breathed shakily and looked up at the Frogadier before turning away with a light blush…

“Please, I need to… To…”

Her voice was so stilted and strange. She stopped at the most awkward moments and would often mispronounce what she was saying… ‘Please’ became ‘Ple-az’, as if she had read the word instead of speaking it for most of her days…

Li stood and rubbed her arm with a wince, before coming back over to peer down at Tessa. The girl’s azure eyes were mesmerizing, but Li shook her head clear of the strange sensation and inspected her for injuries…

“What are you doing out here? Why were you in these woods? You’re not an explorer are you?”

“No…” Mua muttered in answer, as she hovered over the girl… Though her eyes were closed, she saw far more than the others ever could… And being a very sleep based Pokemon, she could sense something deeper…

“She… LIVES here…?”

The bushes rustled. Tessa winced and gripped her cloak to pull it tighter around her…

Noah emerged, his face contorted in a light frown of annoyance and one paw sliding back and forth across his scallop. His fur was raised… And he sensed something was amiss…
But when he noticed Tessa, he moved over with all the parental concern one would expect from a creature of his stature…

“You’re awake…?”

Tessa turned her head away and retreated a bit further into her cloak. Li growled softly and used her arm to nudge Noah back, as she backed off as well…

“Give her some space, we’re all crowding her. What do you mean she lives here, Mua?”

Ilianna’s eyes narrowed. As Noah backed away, Tessa’s tight grip on her cloak relaxed…

“I live here. Lived. Please, rescue me.”

Tessa spoke, soft and quickly. Ilianna looked over her shoulder as Mua nodded in confirmation… Then her ears suddenly perked and she spun around…

The bushes were rustling yet again…

“That’s not a friend.” she said, in an unusually aggressive voice. Noah, Li, and Mua quickly moved into formation to face the oncoming threat. Ilianna laid Tessa against the tree again… She gave her a pointed, motherly look that made Tessa flinch. But the young fox gave a much sharper glare than Ilianna could muster…

“You’re not that damned perceptive… Go help. Or you’ll lose.”

The words were eerily definitive. They gave Illy pause, but she backed away and let the matter lie… She joined her team and flicked her wrist to produce a gleaming blade of water…

“You…”

Dakarai nearly snarled the word as he emerged from the trees. He was the biggest Pokemon there by far, towering over all the rest and gazing amongst them like they were treats to be picked out of a candy box…

Mua… He smirked… Li… He scowled…

Illy… his eyes were fixed on…

...until Noah put his hands on his hips and stood in that cocky, proud stance…

“YOU.” he repeated. He had been thinking of what he might say all the way here, but upon meeting his rival in the flesh… He couldn’t put together the words to express every bit of hatred and longing that roiled in his chest,  like savage predators clawing at the walls of their confinement… Eager to burst forth and…

“Ahhhh… The flea-bitten MUTT...” Noah said. He had his smirk on, and yet his eyes had remained hard… If there was one foe who could cause him to break his suave leader facade... “I knew I smelled your stench around here…”

He withdrew his scallop and swung it twice. His team drew themselves up into their fighting stances…

“Well I should have expected… Malla’s loyal pet… I really hoped you’d still be in chains… But if you want to go out and ruin the world, you’ve got to go through us…”

Dakarai curled his claws into fists… Causta slowly strutted from the treeline and eyed them all… The mood went from tense, to terrifying as her Psychic influence subtly curled out and clutched each of their hearts…

Dak arched and roared…

“GRAAAAAAAAAAHHH!”

When he snapped his head back to level, he was staring not at Noah, but Ilianna…

“As usual… your RULES… More important than…”

He frothed, feeling as if he had gone over this a million times…

“Why do you… Get to have… What makes us different… Why am I on this side, and you’re stood over…”

“Are you trying to get us to have SYMPATHY for you…!?” Li snapped, stomping hard enough that the ground beneath her cracked… “Why should we care what you want?! How many Pokemon have you… against their will…!?”

She just barely managed to dodge the razor sharp rocks that were flung in her direction. Dak’s eyes snapped from her, back to Ilianna…

“SHUT UP! I am taking Tessa BACK… And then I’m going to end each and every one of you WITH MY OWN PAWS…”

Tessa winced and pulled her hood up. Then she put her paws over her head and felt tears well in her eyes again...

She could recite the steps each fighter made at this point. It was already over, but for the crying…

===

Farri sat in her room, crying.

“Hormones. Ugly little hormones. No wonder I want so badly to become a male again…”

She muttered, with her chin on her paws. She glanced up at the open window and the quiet bustle of Mew’s Nest… A musical name that even now brought a soft smile to her face…

But it fluttered away with her sigh like candle smoke. She had been confined to bed rest, given how incredibly swollen she was. By now, the litter was due any day, and while the Pokemon of Team Wellspring often broke their water deep in some dungeon, it was less fun when you were simply waddling back and forth carrying scavenged supplies from docile caves…

She laid her head to one side, and then the other. She let out a bothered ‘whuff’ of air at the itchy boredom she felt. At least the little ones were keeping her company…

“Sayl and my other self are likely just pushing carts. Nothing interesting has happened since we fought against that Deoxys… I wonder if she ever turned up…”

She rolled on her other side. She could not get comfortable… She finally stood and took to a brisk waddle back and forth in the comfortable quarters she’d carved for herself, almost literally, in the hillside that the Team Wellspring headquarters delved into. It was humble in certain ways; it consisted merely of a bed and a desk, among other necessities. And yet...

The artifices that were strewn about… Old glyphs, strange tools, endless tiny trinkets, and scrolls of half translated stories that sounded eerily familiar…

Looking at it all made Farri nod gently in approval. A soft kick to her underbelly made her sigh and long for her bed already, so she waddled towards it…

“Well. Hm. Perhaps if I can’t help in manual labour, thanks to my own being so close…”

She chuckled, her chipper self swelling up again in a moment of positive reflection…

“...I can study! Ah, I do so enjoy…”

She paused mid step and lifted her nose. It quivered and she thumped the paw down. Her fur bristled…

She smelled something acrid and awful coming over the horizon… spreading its stench like a carrion cloud…

“...what on Mew’s vast world is that…?”

Nearby, Orin thumped a book closed. Pages fluttered in the wind of a sudden storm cloud that reared up on the horizon, and blotted out the mid-day sun…

He floated forward… His movements were minimal and measured… His ears turned, his mind expanded…

He recoiled in terror…

From the training ground nearby, a half dozen or so Mienfoo all emerged. They were not sensitive to Psychic auras, but even with their limited sense of aura and empathy, they tasted bile at the back of their throats…

“Sing a little song my dears, sing a little song for me~!”

Over the hillside, almost careening for how her round body whirled with its strange strides, came Purgis…

As rain pattered gently down from the dark clouds above, she came to a wobbling stop and looked up at a sign proudly displayed…

‘Mew’s Nest’

“HA!”

Purgis giggled as if the sign was the funniest thing she’d seen in her long and wicked life. Then she reached up and scoured the sign with a firey wisp…

“Mew’s… Rest… Her final tomb~!”

She blew the wisp out, and the fire made a soft squeal of pain as it extinguished…

As she continued on, she began to hum to herself… A haunting lilt joined by a chorus of whispers… Her eyes cast a pallid green light, and her wavering arms spread wide…

“Sing me a song of the destruction to come… Sing me a cant from the place you reach from… Sing me a lyric telling of this poor town… Sing me a verse, before the fools all DROWN…!”

She burst unto the open market, as the whispers around her grew to a fever pitch. The unhallowed moans of cloying spirits reached out of every shadow and begged you to join…

“Come out… Come and play...~!”

She hummed and twirled with a malign giggle, arms splayed like she was carefree rolling through grass on a sunny meadow’s hillside…

She froze and turned her head suddenly…

“I. See. You.”

Her arm snapped out with terrifying speed and stretched to its billowing, unnatural length. It grabbed around until it felt a leg, then snagged and pulled…

“I see, I see… A little treat for me?”

She ran a feathery, wispy finger along the chin of Orin, who swallowed repeatedly and held his chest as if it would burst in fear…

“Boo… Hoo… Where’s… Mama…? Mua is NEXT…”

Orin cowered down, and balled up his fists. His mind was assailed by the wicked flame so close to his face… The unnatural sickly green fire that burned eternally behind that carven jack o lantern face… He had been face to face with many rounded middles in his short time, for certain… Somehow, he never thought he’d be swinging by a leg against a pregnant belly that contained a portal to the netherworld itself…

He did the first thing that came to his scrambled mind; he jabbed a fist out and punched at it…

In most other circumstances, it probably wouldn’t have done anything… But the Gourgeist hissed as her flame roared and flickered as if in upset… She dropped Orin immediately and backed away, holding her middle and whispering some dark language to it in a grotesquely maternal tone…

Orin took no chances, and fled. He closed his mind to the Psychic assault of the terrible thing behind him, and teleported as far away as he could…

“Damn you all, and damn you thrice over, KINDLING… When the night falls forever, where will you hide THEN!?”

She seethed and stalked forward far more deliberately than before. The punch had done nothing, but the audacity of it had upset the…

...’baby’…

She turned suddenly on seeing another rush of movement. Team Wellspring at last, although not the ‘best’ of them. A Malamar could be an intimidating opponent on its own, but against whatever had twisted this kindly pumpkin into a hellish jack o lantern…

Well, she dodged aside, gripped his head full of tentacles, and drew him in close…

“I am impressed… I suppose we have the cosmic kitten to thank for this hovel’s resistance to the whispers my dear children sing…”

The shadows still boiled at their edges with lashing tendrils, energy awaiting its moment to burst forth…

“But that will be OVER soon… Her time is COMING… Her watery warriors will break… And you will be stood behind them, cowering, until there’s NOTHING LEFT TO DEFEND YOU... But if you take my word for it, it’ll only leave you shivering in despair! So let me push you OVER THE EDGE!”

The Pokemon hiding nearby could do nothing… They heard the tortured screams of the Malamar as its life force was taken from it… As agonizing as having an organ ripped from one’s chest…

It glowed like silvery fire as she closed her fist around it, and then brought the semi translucent hand up to her face to peer in at the wispy shimmer it now contained…

“Mmm, experience the worst torments and nightmares I can put to thought… All under the watchful gaze of the Lord of the Night… And when you do this, when you curse me, know it fuels my fire… And if ever you wish the pain to stop… You may join my CHILDREN…”

She threw her head back and cackled as the shadows danced in excitement… A new playmate to torment… A new monster to torture others with… A SIBLING…

Whoosh

Purgis tilted her head back and looked at her fist.

It was empty…

Farri skidded to a stop nearby and then flicked her head. She huffed gently as the small glass jar clicked securely closed, and the silvery flame inside flickered gently…

“They all called me mad when I saved this so called ‘soul jar’… I was right!”

No one had in fact called her mad, but Farri was running mostly on adrenaline. To go from ‘just about to lie down’ to ‘fight against one of the most terrifying things you’d ever scented’ was difficult at the best of times… And for better or worse, she was heavily laden…

She didn’t have immense powers like the a Psychic type, or supernatural reflexes like a Fighting… She didn’t even have control over an element like Water…

She flicked her head to toss the jar into her satchel, then flicked her hips to close it. She took a stance and smirked…

“Come on then, or are you scared of a weak, pregnant Normal type?”

The Gourgeist hadn’t moved an inch, but when Farri said that, she turned her head suddenly towards her with a sickening crack…

“You bitch.”

“I am~!”

Purgis’ fangs ground against one another audibly as she turned and flared her aura into a terrifying presence. Farri took a step back almost involuntarily…

“Are you scared…? Scared of what a GHOST can do to one such as you…?!”

“I don’t care what strange magic you’ve dredged up, or in what swamp you discovered some ancient demonic pact… W-Which, given the flames and… Ah, the… General demeanour…”

“Ohhh~!!! A SCHOLAR?!”

Purgis suddenly hopped forward and landed with a quaking thud. Farri had immediately hopped back in response with a wary glare…

“I so rarely come across anyone who would ever recognize even a tinge of what I am, and here you are making deductions that are frighteningly accurate… There are realms of such horror I will show you, but in the end, I will respect your intelligence… I will animate your skull, so you may remind me of your wisdom all of my very long life from here!”

Farri grimaced… “My word… And I thought I was a chatterbox…”

She slammed her paw down and then seemed to flicker away into the shadows…

“...eh?”

Purgis blinked and, caught entirely off guard by her prey’s lack of response to her fearful words, was slammed in the back…

“Feint… ATTACK!”

The Ghost bent unnaturally and gave a sharp wheeze of pain. Twice now, she realized, she let her hubris leave her open to attack… This time, it was not merely a shock…

PAIN… And the flames roared ANGRILY…

She was sent crashing through a nearby stall. Berries flew up like multicoloured balloons before splattering all over the place.

Farri moved her head to the side to avoid a Tamato that nearly hit her.

“Not as bad as I would have thought…”

She breathed out hard and relaxed heavily, glancing back at her writhing midsection…

“Calm down… Calm down! You’re struggling like I’ve just eaten the spiciest thing I could! My word if you don’t stop I’ll go into labour here and no-”

Purgis burst her arm from the pile of debris she had been buried under and grasped Farri around her middle before she could even finish her sentence…

“AND I THOUGHT I WAS A CHATTERBOX…”

The Ghost petulantly said, as she lifted herself slowly, the wood and produce falling off of her and kicking up dust. She was a silhouette in the dim light, but her piercing gaze shone through, locked on Farri…

She slowly stepped forward, her arm ‘retracting’ as she did to keep Farri in the same place… So she could stalk up to her, revealing as she did that the flames had engulfed her entirely… Everything but her wispy arms was now covered in that agonizing, ever burning emerald flame… A putrid scent assailed the poor hound’s nose… Like a rotted pumpkin patch…

“Do you honestly think… That after all of this… You can stop us by attacking ME? There IS no stopping us… It’s written in the stars… The shadows SCREAM of what is to come…!”

Farri struggled hard as Purgis came closer and closer, until she was next to him… Her face was inches from her prey’s… And the heat was nearly unbearable…

“Tick tock… The Night comes, and soon! Repel me here if you can, it would do NOTHING!”

Purgis cackled wickedly. If her normal laugh was eerie and terrible, this one was unbearably more intimidating. Farri felt her urge to attack slowly fade and replace with an urge to flee as far away as she could... but she bared her fangs defiantly. Purgis’ eyes narrowed in annoyance and she grinned wider before she began to squeeze…

“No, NO! NO!!! You monster…! NO!”

“Monster, am I? And here I thought you WORSHIPPED the one who made you give birth… Mm, I suppose the pink cat is cuter than me, hm…? Don’t you fear, fair little pup… I’ll let them out of you… I will delight in knowing that the ORPHANS of Team Wellspring are suffering under the stars forever more…”

She squeezed very roughly and Farri arched with a shriek. There were ominous, sing song giggles that taunted her from the shadows…

Behind, she could feel fluids leaking…

“Now suffer, mother… So that the children you bear become motherLESS!”

THUD!!!

Purgis’s face once more became a brief image of confusion and pain before she tumbled end over end a far way down the path. Farri fell to her feet, and then collapsed… She was breathing hard…

Sayl immediately appeared in her vision… The treasure-seeking hound smiled weakly before turning to pull the soul jar out of her pouch and handing it to the confused puff…

“Perfect timing as always my dear, now… Take this and get it to safety…”

“Take… But… Farri…!”

Farri looked past them and saw a white streak rush around the corner and come skidding to a stop. Farri, the male, had Li’s gang of Mienfoo children on his back. He took one look at the scene, snarled, and dashed off in the direction Purgis had been flung…

“No buts… This is important. It’s one of ours and…”

Neither dared to look over their shoulder at the faded thing Purgis had left behind… Nor did they dare to assume what the great pumpkin might have done if she had held onto the ‘soul’…

“...he… he shouldn’t be forgotten. G-Go. To the city… To the Guild there… Find Nahna if you can, but… This… Hah…”

She winced and dug her claws in, setting her jaw before glancing back at her middle…

“I hope… Noah and the others return soon… But until then, GO! If we need to ask protection…”

Sayl nodded and flinched, looking down at the strange, ornate jar and then tucking it away in their top pom-pom. They looked at Farri one last time before turning to dash off on the wind currents, muttering a prayer to Mew under their breath…

“Please mama… Keep Farri safe… Both of them!”

Farri herself shakily pushed herself to her feet. She flinched and turned to look towards the town square…

She could hear Pokemon were clashing… She waddled that direction quickly, dripping a trail as she did…

In the town square… Purgis had burst forth once more and seemed intent on causing destruction. As the male Farri ran up and skidded to a halt, the Mienfoo crew hopped down and took their fighting stances. Despite still being young, each of the pups had their mother’s confidence…

“THREE times, and shame on me for being so lax. I suppose the FESTIVITIES make me a little GIDDY!”

Purgis’ voice was distorted painfully. Every word made the fire that burned her Grass body a bit brighter. She snapped her arms wide and the shadows roiled like a stormy sea, and then burst…

From their depths streamed dozens, perhaps even a hundred little Ghost types… Misdreavus, Shuppet, Duskull… And obviously, Pumpkaboo… They gushed forth like they had been compacted in a tiny cage, and now spilled out uncontrollably… In the dark of the blotting clouds above, they laughed and shrieked as they tumbled through the skies and began to fan out over the village…

Searching… SEEKING…

One particularly mischievous one rushed by and knocked the head of the Mew statue in the town square…
Purgis opened her fanged maw again and began to sing…

Farri folded his ears and winced. It was a haunting melody that locked a picture of the woods outside of the village into its victims’ minds…

How calm… How serene would it be to go there… To walk in the misty forest and along shaded lanes… To lie down under a tree and curl up… Close your eyes… And… 

DIE… SO THAT THEIR UGLY FLESHY CORPSES COULD FEED THE LAND…

Farri turned and looked around. The Pokemon of the village who were hiding started to be drawn forth…

He watched a Blastoise wander confusedly from their hut, eyes cloudy and unsure. Above them, like a floating crown of malice, was a Shuppet. They were humming the same tune that Purgis did… Amplifying it until it assailed even the most focused of minds…

The shadows began to close in on Farri and her team. It threatened them with the same fate… To wander like zombies and gather themselves in docile groups to be taken away on her melody… Purgis let loose a mad cackle that echoed unnaturally…

“We will not be stopped… We will not be halted! We will sew this crop… And their fertile soil will be SALTED… 

Cast away your mortal fears, cast away your doubt…~! Cast away your heart and tears, your flesh will be cast out!

Harken to my whimsy dears, hear my voice and well…!

Come into my realm here, in the deepest part of HELL!!!”

She howled with delight… Farri backed away, uneasy. In the whirl of the laughing ghosts, it was difficult to even know where to attack. Worse, the dark skies above emboldened every one of the giggling spectres...

What they wouldn’t give for one little beam of sunlight…

Purgis screamed suddenly in pain… And the giggles and laughter of the gathered Ghosts turned to panic…

A sunbeam had opened in the clouds and struck the devilish witch like a spotlight…

“CURSED SUN! CURSED SUN!!!” she shrieked, arched and clawing at the ground as if she could dig her way down and away from it. But the clouds were pierced by beam after beam until the scene became a luminous forest of mighty trees made of purest light…

Purgis and her Ghost types quickly retreated into the shadow of a nearby hut, where the fire flickered ominously. Those still trying to maintain their grasp and steal away the poor denizens of the village found themselves struck with such radiance until they were forced to release their quarry and fling themselves back to their ‘mama’…

“...About time.” Farri said, glancing down at the smirking face of the Mew statue laid a few feet away.

The dog and his companions turned and quickly entered the hut. Purgis was backed against its opposite wall, a few metres away. In the gloom, her fire was still visible as a beacon beckoning her victims…

“Oh, will you and your soggy companions’ luck ever run out…” Purgis hissed. Farri took a stance, and so did her crew. Now that Purgis was backed into a corner and nervously avoiding the bright sun patches that filtered through open windows, she seemed far less intimidating… Ah, well, a BIT less intimidating…

“Spooky old thing, we do not rely on luck. We rely on something far greater…”

“Each other!”

Farri glanced over her shoulder as the other Farri stumbled in… She was supported by a Heliolisk that was unfamiliar to either hound… 

She was a petite thing, but she was leaned on a walking stick topped with a Swapstone thanks to the heavy belly, her obvious condition shared with the feminine Farri… who was quite apparently having trouble...

“Sister, you finally burst, don’t waddle so much… Soon we’ll have to get you somewhere more comfortable… Once we route out this PEST…”

The Heliolisk stepped forward beside the male Farri and held up her staff. The sun outside only seemed to get brighter, especially as the reptile held her middle…

“I know of your work you odious witch. I wondered when I’d finally get to see you face to face…”

Purgis waddled forward slowly until she was across from the team… She crossed her arms and chuckled gently as her flames died down…

...then roared back to life twice as strong…

“My MY… If I had known I would get to destroy… THE Priestess of Mew… The Mother SUPERIOR… I would have put on my cutest COLOURS!”

She suddenly lunged an expansive ghostly hand forward, but Farri snapped his jaws down on it and snarled. When Purgis shrieked and attacked with the other hand, the Heliolisk shot a bolt of electricity to deflect it…

The Mienfoo surged forward as the fight began… Farri’s nose lead them past the illusions, so their powerful Fighting type moves could strike the Ghosts that buzzed from every shadow like flies… Within moments, their mother’s intense training became apparent as their movements were disciplined, almost moreso than the self taught Farri’s were!

But the hound had been on his own for a long time… With only Sayl to keep them company, they had found a kindred spirit and searched the deepest Dungeons and strangest corners of the world. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that they had stumbled quite accidentally into becoming a very powerful Pokemon in their own right…

Two of them, in fact.

He grinned and tugged the arm firmly down, so the Heliolisk could smite the Ghost with another concentrated ray of light. The Pumpkin shrieked and resisted… Her powerful arm dragged Farri, her paws scraping through the dirt as the two tested one another’s strength. Purgis dragged her prey closer, seeming intent on shoving her straight into the agonizing emerald flames that engulfed her form…
“Come to me, my pret-AAAHH!”

Her other arm was suddenly under the same pressure. She was pulled in two different directions by Farri… and Farri.

“Come on you overgrown GOURD…” growled the male, tugging hard. The female was sweating, and in obvious pain, but she pulled just as strongly in the other direction. Perhaps moreso, given the pressure she was under…

“Nhhh… You t-taste overCOOKED too…” the female stammered frustratedly, as she yanked…

“LET ME GO YOU MUTTS! YOU DETESTABLE STREET CURS! OW!”

She was pulled so taut in either direction that she was lifted off of her stubby legs. She kicked them desperately as her ethereal ‘hair’ was stretched and strained audibly…

“NO MORE! PLEASE!”

“Hmph. We’re the wrong Pokemon to be begging to…”

The Heliolisk stood in front of them. Around her, the Mienfoo clustered and fought off the vicious attacks of the swarming Ghosts, all of whom were trying with everything they could to free their ‘mother’. The sun outside brightened almost painfully…

“Mother of all things there is fallow produce in your harvest, don’t let it spoil us all… Whatever dark ritual she had planned, I will not allow! I have travelled here because this place has a special destiny…!!!”

Purgis arched and cackled again. Her flames flared and the shadows around her danced…

“A special destiny indeed… Her final resting place… As the darkness ends her, and takes domain…!”

The Heliolisk smirked and held up her staff. It crackled with electricity and flared with light…

“Not her Rest… Her NEST!”

And then she brought the staff down hard and a surge travelled along the ground… 

From above, Thunder struck with such force that both Farri winced and dropped what was in their mouths, jumping back…

Purgis screamed bloody murder as the energy coursed through her, and worse, it had come from above, tearing a hole in the ceiling… The sunlight scoured her as she flailed desperately, rocking on her pumpkin. Her opponent thumped her staff down again, and struck again…

Both Farri looked nervously back at what appeared to be a twisted scorch mark where Purgis had been. The shadows were no longer unnaturally dark, and the sun faded back to normal…

The Heliolisk slumped against her staff and chuckled…

“There now. I think that nightmare is officially over…”

She turned and saw the male Farri had moved quickly over to the female one as soon as the situation was under control. The Ghosts attacking had disappeared alongside their mistress, so the Mienfoo crew turned and dashed out of the hut to help the others and inspect for destruction, as they had been trained to do...

Farri’s feminine self groaned. The poor hound was in labour. She kneaded her paws and pushed her muzzle into them with a soft sigh…

“Come now, sister… This isn’t difficult. You’ve done it how many times before?”

“O-Oh please… This will always be a trial. If it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing…”

The male Farri looked up nervously as the Heliolisk who stood there swayed her hips gently…

“Now now… There’s much to do, and this is the first thing on the list no matter what… You need my help, don’t you?”

“I-I don’t necessarily NEED it, but… I don’t s-suppose I’ve ever rejected it either!”
“It depends on who you are.” the male interjected testily. He moved and stood over his other self as protectively as anyone might do to a mate…

“Obviously you’re on our side… That much is certain, but…”

“Aha! Ah, in the excitement I failed to introduce myself. Mew obviously brought me here at just the right time, hm?”

She drew a paw down over her middle. It kicked very obviously, and she chuckled with sheer delight…

“My name is… Yatzil. We have a lot to discuss…”

The female Farri arched and yelped, her claws dragging tracts in the dust below her…

“...now then… Let’s do what we came here for!”

Farri was gently moved to a nearby rug, carefully arranged for her by her counterpart. Outside, the town was gathering to ensure that no one had been stolen away by the odious spirit. Likely some were cursing the fact that there were so many mothers and thus so few to actually call on for defence… But others had defended belly or not in accordance with Mew’s teachings, and like a miracle after a storm, their huts were unscathed…

It did Yatzil’s heart good to see that the village mother had chosen for herself was so devout. Her heart thundered gently in her chest, and her babies kicked in her womb as she set her staff against a nearby wall and approached…

“You know, I meant to come sooner. The world is vast as the mother’s tummy, and much needs to be done. But I wished ever so dearly that I could meet the famous Team Wellspring… Ah! A wonderfully chosen name… Obviously you are a wellspring of children, and… Well I’m sure the way the town was made wasn’t a coincidence hm? Mother is quite creative sometimes! The lake gave everything such a…”

“Pleeeeeeeeeease…”

Farri groaned, setting her head on her paws again…

“I am INCREDIBLY INTERESTED in what you have to say, my dear fellow aspirant to the way of fertility, but FOR MEW’s SAKE, I am GIVING BIRTH…”

Yatzil blinked, then chuckled…

“Oh, well of course. I didn’t really consider a follower of mother’s teachings to be so worked up about it…”

Farri winced and gave her a nasty look. Her male counterpart paced behind her, watching more fluids leak and stain his ‘sister’s’ pretty white fur…

...there was a gleam of jealousy in his eyes that the ‘male’ Farri always had…

“We’ve done this enough that you know what you’re doing…” He said. The female lifted her head and thumped it down with a weak little huff… 

“Of course. A litter of five… I curse myself and my fertility at times…”

“Five is… fertile? For a hound?” Yatzil said, with a disapproving tut, her lizard claws gently sliding over Farri’s belly. The male growled gently in warning, but Yatzil paid it no heed…

“Your contractions are a bit uneven…”

“That ROTTEN GOURD induced my labour…” she said, in a weak little whine of complaint… “Induction makes it so much harder!”

“If you squeeze, of course…” Yatzil said, with an eye roll… “There are ways to induce that don’t involve pressure, such as herbs! Or we…”

“I ASKED IF WE COULD FOCUS ON MY LABO-… AH!”

Farri arched and winced hard as another firm gush had her canine spade suddenly bulging. She pressed her muzzle into the carpet and let out a low groan of effort…

“First pup is at the hips.” the male said, as Yatzil nodded, and moved around to the female’s hindquarters to place her paws there…

“This shouldn’t be so bad… One… Two, and…”

“AAAAAAAAOOOWW…”

Farri arched and couldn’t help but tear up. She scraped her claws through the ground and moaned gently as she felt the familiar pressure move through her body… From her bulging middle, down to her pelvis. When the pain and effort grew overwhelming, she slumped and panted like a dog in…

“Breathe, breathe! Don’t strain yourself that way…!”

Yatzil scolded her even as she petted her haunch. Farri whined indignantly…

“Okay… YOU push them out!” she bitched. Yatzil couldn’t help but break into a peal of merry laughter…

“If I could, sister…! But this is your task… Mother set it out for you. Now overcome it!”

“I’ll overcome you… Oh by Mew, I wish Sayl was here…!” she snarled, as she flexed her paws a few more times before standing shakily…

Her male half quickly moved over and stood next to her, keeping her upright with the support of his body. She panted hard, and with Yatzil’s assistance, pushed her hips down and wide…

“One… Two…” The Heliolisk said reverently. Farri rocked with her countdown…

“THREE!”

“GAAAAH!”

Her tail lifted and she arched her back. Yatzil’s eyes sparkled in excited wonder as she saw the dog’s puss bulge… open… And a fuzzy little head crown…

It stopped moments before it would have dropped. Yatzil growled…

“A little more, sister! You’ve just fought off a terrible threat to your home… Your nest! Do you think your wriggling child is stronger than that ghost?! PUSH!”

Farri snarled and ground her fangs, but she braced her paws against the ground and pushed firmly…

The inescapable throes of motherhood… The glorious sight of a newborn slipping into the open… Such effort for something so… sacred…

Yatzil’s smooth hands caught the pup and she grunted gently. Her own burdensome belly got in the way, but she managed to lift it and inspect it…

“Ahh, a girl. Congratulations, what a healthy little thing…”

Yatzil brushed away a bit of the pup’s fur and stared down into its eyes. It wasn’t whining or barking, but…

...its gaze held an odd amount of comprehension… And… Yatzil lifted a finger and gently felt over a notch on the pup’s ear that seemed to be genetic…

She glanced up at both of the adult Furfrou. Female Farri was slumped on the ground again, trying to calm her gasping breaths while her counterpart licked her cheek tenderly and whispered what a good job she’d done…

“...Oh dear. We might have a strange case here…”

The next four came out with the same amount of growling and snarling. Puppies were small, and easy to push out. That’s why there was usually so many of them…

By the end, Farri set her head down and sighed hard with relief. The male Farri paced a little, watching his pups nurse…

“Eager, hm?” Yatzil asked, as she finished washing her hands off in a nearby basin…

“We can’t help but race each other back and forth. Once the other one swells up, we have to wait. We’ve tried to ‘share’. We become insufferable, so say the others…”

Yatzil grinned and took her staff up again to lean against it, looking proudly at the puppies she’d just helped to birth…

...each had the precise same notch as their parents…
“IDIOTS! MORONS! You’d rather have rules than PLEASURE!? What does your instinct say… WHO DO YOU WANT RIGHT NOW!?”

Ilianna was panting hard enough that mist swirled from her maw with each breath. Injuries stood out on her dark body like neon as she stepped back and, with a bit of effort against the exhaustion, formed another blade with water pressure…

She said nothing… His eyes were locked on Dakari’s as he slowly backed away… Behind, Mua’s paws were held out to keep Causta pinned, in case Li’s firmly planted paw wasn’t enough to do that…

“You know it’s true… You KNOW…” he snarled, wincing in pain. His own body was covered in wounds that would doubtless add to the patchwork of scars the canvas of his flesh had been marred with… A life on the road was a long and difficult thing without a companion...

Illy said nothing. It made Dak more furious…

Noah stepped up beside her, breathing hard… His claws dug tiny divots into his scallop for how hard he held, nearly crushing it…

“The only thing I know… Dak… Is if you keep attacking… I dunno if we’re even going to NEED a jail cell for you by the end…”

Though the sentence started with Noah’s attempt at his usual cockiness, it ended more vicious and genuine than he had intended. Dakarai snarled, but was clearly intimidated on some level. All three of them were…

“...Maybe we’re destined to go like this…” he said, his muzzle twisting into a cruel grin… “One day you’ll find me crouched over her and…”

Noah flung both scallops with such force that they went straight through Dak’s shoulder and side…

The wolf howled in agony, spun, and darted away into the trees. Noah took a few steps as if he would pursue him… but then stopped and fell to one knee…

“How that damned… ugh… How he manages to keep up with us…”

He turned with a shaky sigh and looked at Ilianna. Her arms were crossed and she was stood straight. She stared in the direction Dak had gone…

“...Illy.”

She looked back at him, then turned without a word to go back to Tessa. Noah’s brow furrowed, but he walked over to Li and Mua, to assure they had their captive tightly wound up…

“...Okay you drove him off can I please be rescued now?”

“Why do you want to be rescued?”

Mua looked up in confusion. Ilianna’s tone was almost angry… Far more harsh than it should have been…

Tessa, however, didn’t seem intimidated. She remained where she had been the whole time; sat against a tree with her knees against her chest. Somehow, despite a few nearby trees being slashed or caught in the crossfire, hers was entirely unscathed…

“...because I’ve been trapped in this forest.”

Tessa said, carefully. Mua floated over and put a hand on Ilianna’s shoulder. The Frogadier didn’t move. She was glaring down at Tessa…

But Tessa merely glanced away, her expression wrinkling in annoyance…

“...we’ll have to…”

“UGH…” Noah grunted, as he stood up straighter and rubbed his shoulder… “We have to take this one to a cell. I knew we should have built one… We’ll have to camp here for now and… When we’ve recovered, we can drag this one back…”

He nudged Causta with a foot. The bird seemed to be limp. Li nervously nudged her again to make sure she was still breathing…

“...Fine… If only because I need to lie down… All this activity…”

She turned and stomped off, ducking behind a tree a short distance away. They could hear her groaning immediately. Mua sighed… the poor thing was already suffering so much. She must have been further along than she thought…

She disappeared around the tree to tend to her girlfriend. Without a word, Ilianna turned to get firewood. Noah didn’t stop her.

He stared down at Tessa with his paws on his hips. She looked away from him…

...her face was pink… Her knees were together… Noah knew that smell…

“...So. You’re kinda cute. What’s your story?”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

Noah lifted his paws in surprise, as if he’d just been thumped in the chest…

“Woah woah now. What did I do to you?”

“Nothing yet.”

Noah stared in quiet confusion and scratched his head. He sighed and took a seat nearby, a respectful distance away, so he could watch over Causta’s bound form…

“...Y’know, I know you’re in heat.”

“…”

“...look, okay, I’m not a jerk. I really am not. I just…”

He rubbed the back of his head and then looked at his paw, where a few small stones were still embedded from his fight. He plucked them out, wincing at the pain of each…

“I’m definitely not like that jerk. I began following Mew because I believe in what she stands for. Life, you know, spread as abundantly as possible. That’s why she put us here in the first place… So when I say stuff like that, it isn’t meant to… You know… I’m not like him. I wouldn’t… But… I know you’re… I mean, if you NEEDED it, obviously...”
He trailed off and she could see him chewing his cheek in deep, contemplative annoyance. He set his chin on his folded arms and stared at Causta.

Tessa pulled her cloak tighter and reddened…

“...You know, my heats are… Mm… Special?”

“Everyone’s heat is special. It means they get to make more kids.”

Tessa flinched. Noah had his back to her, so he didn’t notice. He just flicked a stone into the grass and rubbed his wounded paw…

“You’re probably not going to tell us why you were trapped out here, but it has something to do with Malla. I know that much. That’s… you know, if you’re with her, I can’t do anything but arrest her at the end of all this. Are you with her?”

Tessa was silent for awhile… Before she pulled her legs up a bit tighter…

“...no.”

“Okay. Just had to figure that part out. I’m sure if you’re lying, Mua would be able to tell anyway…”

He stood and stretched hard. More than one of his joints snapped and popped, and he tried to ignore it…

“I don’t think this dumb bird is going to go anywhere, but promise you’ll scream if she starts struggling?”

“She doesn’t.”

“Huh?”

“She won’t. Yes. I will scream.”

Noah looked confused… But he smiled lightly…

“Alright… Uh, Tessa… I need to go find my shells… It shouldn’t take me more than… Uh.”
He trailed off, seeing she wasn’t paying attention whatsoever. So he turned and, with an awkward chuckle, disappeared into the trees…

Tessa beat her head gently against her knees and then stretched her legs out.

She sighed hard…

She stared down at the black ‘leggings’ that covered her slender thighs… She flexed the toes on her foot paws… She…

...parted her thighs a bit… to feel for the spade down there… drawing a claw along its overly swollen shape and breathing inwards weakly in excitement…

Special indeed… Rare one could say… This sensation… She’d had practised on herself more than once, and she could smugly say she was quite good at it… Although one wondered if playing with one’s self was indeed something to be proud of…

“Don’t do this one Tessa, please, it’ll be hard enough as it is without… Just… Let it go, let it go… Of course it happened while I was in…”

She took a deep breath and held it…

...shlk…

She flinched and curled a leg immediately. She bit her bottom lip and looked down…

So easy to make her quiver. So much better when the anticipation saturated everything like a savoury sauce…

“Just stop, just stop! You don’t need this part, it’s not important, you don’t want to… After all of that, you don’t need to or want to!”

She was hissing to herself, as if arguing. Her finger didn’t leave her body…

It went a little deeper…

“...ohhhhh…”

She set her head back against the tree trunk above her and closed her eyes…

“Three steps to the left. Your scallop is there. I’m going to remove my paw. You’ll turn around and smell me. You’ll smell my need… You’ll come back through the trees, awkward, unsure of what you should do but… knowing what you want to do…”

She removed her paw and placed it on her middle…

“...you’ll come back… You’ll stand above me… And you’ll say…”

“...Tessa…”

She opened her eyes. Noah’s shadow was across her. She knew he was breathing hard and his face was red from her display. She knew he was stiff as a Steel type, although that she could just… See that…

But his face remained obscured in the dying light of the day. All she saw was one glinting blue eye, caught in a stray sunbeam…

She looked away…

“...too late now…”

“Huh?”

But instead of answering, she let her legs fall open again. Noah put his paw to his chest as if in surprise, but needed no further instruction. He put his paws on the tree to brace himself. Tessa gripped her hips to angle herself for the penetration…

She breathed a soft ember as he pushed in… Steam literally rose around them for their incompatibility… Water and fire somehow made things even hotter…

“Tessa… Nh… We have a place… A nest… If you get knocked up from this…”

She lifted her paw and placed it on his chin to quiet his words…

“...WHEN…”
The word alone was enough to make Noah push his hips tighter against hers… His face brightened with excited blush as he drew a claw down the side of the trunk and hissed…

“...yeah. Yeah, when… Nhhh… God why are you so tight… So hot…”

He looked over his shoulder and swivelled his ears. He had a habit of doing this to those they rescued, but somehow… This one felt special indeed. She had said her heats were something to be celebrated… Used…

...Malla had said the same thing… Back when she believed in Mew…

“Oh god you feel just like…”

Tessa stopped him again. Her face reddened harder and her passage tightened around him as he angled himself to find just the right place to press and make her squeak…

“Noah… Noah… You…”

“Sh-Shush, Tessa… Nhh… You don’t need to say a thing…”

She rolled her eyes back and wrapped her thighs around his waist. His lips spread wide over an eager grin…

He thumped her back against the tree and pushed a kiss firmly. She moaned into it… 

Nothing like a bit of fun to work off the steam of a tough battle… And lots of tough emotions…

Tessa arched and her paw dragged down his back. Her manicured claws left only the most shallow marks, and the soft embers she puffed only seemed to make her insides glow warmer…

“Yes… Yes… YES!”

Noah arched and set his jaw. Tessa pushed her face into his chest and trembled…

She felt the flood moments before he groaned and slumped against her…

The fox laid there… As Noah panted and slowly relaxed to embrace her, She stared up at the canopy above, and its endless glittering pattern of leaves…

She closed her eyes when the pattern became too familiar…

Elsewhere…

Dakarai ran through the forest as he had a thousand times…

He fled with what felt like Houndoom at his heels. No… Not a Houndoom. He always ran towards the flame… And away from the shore…

The tidal wave behind him threatened to crash down and engulf him, searing his flesh until it was eroded to nothing… And he was not ready to lie down… Not ready to have his climactic battle until he saw his desire through…

He cursed and stopped more than once to howl in utter frustration. He couldn’t even circle back to go to Malla again; he’d risk running straight into Team Wellspring…

So he did what he was going to do in the first place… He did what he knew he had to… What he always had to…

He fled…

Those that wished to shackle him laid only a few paces behind. Salvation was always a few paces ahead. If he ever slackened, they closed in, though the salvation never seemed to get closer... All he could do was run… Run and hope that no one recognized him until he could strike… Until he could take what was his…

Then it was on to the next town. The next city. The next lakeside, looking for a Frogadier when the urges became utterly overwhelming…

He didn’t know where he was running. He didn’t care about Malla’s plan, even if she herself being alone back there slowed his steps. He didn’t care whatsoever for Purgis, the greedy witch, or the bizarre and silent Ostrich who had wandered into their team.

He always wanted one thing. Right now… It was to get away… but soon it would be the same thing it always was…
How long had he been running when he finally reached the place where he broke down… The clearing had its trees scoured and its grass upturned in a furious tantrum… He smashed everything within his reach and then roared with such fury that he knew nothing within a few kilometres would dare come and investigate…

He wanted to be alone…

He turned and swiped his paw to send a tree crashing down…

...no. He didn’t want to be alone… That was the problem… He couldn’t have what he wanted…

NOAH had already TAKEN it…

As his jaws ground together in fury, and his eyes flashed with rage and madness, his ears twitched…

“...think it was over here…”

He turned around, and crouched. His nostrils quivered…

“...Yeah, it was. I dunno, something in distress maybe? If we find it, we can help it Garde…”

Dakarai froze as the scent went from muddled as dirt to vibrant as a rose…

It was… FAMILIAR…

He crept forward slowly… He placed his paws on the bushes and gently pushed them aside to peer out…

A Gardevoir was walking along the road, with her hands folded behind her back. She was looking down on and listening to a Dewott…

Dakarai bristled in fury…

Noah? HOW?

...no… Not Noah… But from the way she swaggered… From the way she smelled…
Dak’s vicious grin spread across his face again… His eyes widened with insane delight…

He thanked whatever dark force had given him such a wonderful opportunity… 

...to steal something from his rival forever...