Chapter 1- The Beginnings of a Wall
Deep within the caves of the sacred Meteor Falls in the Hoenn Region, all is calm and serene. Pokemon of different species can be seen running or flying about as all seems to be alright.
For now.
"Dedede, Use Flash Cannon! Knighty, intercept that with Power-Up Punch!"
An explosion could be heard from deep within the Falls as Pokemon Trainer, Fabian Alloy commands his two Pokemon during an intense training session between his Empoleon, and Bisharp. The two combatants are sweating pretty hard, since this particular session was a rather difficult one. Neither one giving in, of course.
"hhhmmmm... We're refining our technique with each and every session but still..." Fabian murmurs, not really surprised about the outcome at this point.
He glances at the two currently toughing it out against each other and starts to walk up to them with a raised hand. "Alright, Gabachos, Time to call it a day. I don't think we can break through this time..."
"Empo! Empoleon Po!" 'Harump! This damned wall of ours is getting to be a nuisance!’
Fabian gives the Empoleon a sheepish grin as he walks over the Bisharp with a Full Restore on hand. "Alrighty, Knighty... Heh, that rhymed. You know the drill, this WILL sting a bit." The Dark type nods in response as he braces himself for the incoming medicinal spray.
A Scizor and Klefki are watching the training from not too far away as Knighty's wounds are being treated to. The Scizor then applies a claw to her face, rubbing it in annoyance.
"Scizor! Sciz Sciz! Scizoor!" 'Ugh, and ANOTHER dead end in our training! I wish we'd be able to pass that already!'
The Klefki notices the annoyed Scizor and proceeds to hug her in an attempt to hug her. No words were really needed at this point as Fabian turns his head towards their direction.
"I'm REALLy sorry about this Amigos..." Apologizes their trainer, sighing as he then begins to rub the back his head in embarrassment after patching up his two companions. "I know that we've been working at this for MONTHS, but I've just been at a bit of a block lately... No new ideas, nothing new to go up against... Sometimes I regret doing all of that studying and all way back when..." The young man then proceeds to walk towards the middle of the makeshift arena, motioning for the Steel types to follow him.
"SOOO... we've hit yet ANOTHER wall..." The group groans at this before he can continue. "Hey now, Nada de eso, yeah? YES, we've hit another wall, but we're STILL in tip-top shape!" Fabian adds as he waves a hand over the group. "At this point all we can really do is do our best to keep it that way. We have the strength and the will to keep entering these tough events and Toppingso that we can keep on getting stronger and all, pero eso no es todo..."
The man pauses for a moment and then resumes his speech after thinking of what to say. "For the past eight years, we've been working at it. Honestly, you guys are probably the hardest working group of Mons I've ever seen. I know we've had our Ups and Downs over the years, but still!" He walks over to Dedede, affectionately rubbing the Emperor Pokemon's head, the eyes of the others now looking at their trainer with nothing but blazing determination.
"We've accomplished alot! Aaaaaannnd now I've kind of run out of inspirational things to say..." he admits with a smile, gaining amused looks and chuckles from his team. "Anyways, time to find a place to rest up! I KNOW ya'll are hungry because so am I~!" With this, the group makes their way out of the cave system and out to the road south towards Rustboro City.
Lunch was relatively quiet that afternoon, as the group ate their lunch at the Rustboro Pokemon Center. Fabian and his team were sharing a pot of stew while re-energizing when a young woman who seemed to be in her late teens or early twenties walks over to him with an excitedly nervous look on her face before mustering the courage to speak up
" Uuum, excuse me sir, b-but... Would you happen to be F-Fabian Alloy..?" She stammers, clearly nervous about something. Fabian inwardly sighs at this but obliges her anyways.
"Well, Amiga, it depends on who be asking" Fabian blinks as a pretty good poker face begins to grace him. The nervous woman is all of the sudden grinning before taking out what seems to be a photo of him on a small poster for the Hoenn League and going on a tangent of sorts. "My name is Emily and I'm a HUGE fan of yours! That match between you and Steven Stone was so awesome I mean, That Scizor of yours moves with so much grace and agility..."
Fabian loves fans, this is true. He has no problems in people or sometimes even Pokemon coming up to him and asking for an autograph, or even a battle! But sometimes he has... well, THESE kind of fans.
The poor guy would normally preen himself over the attention, but this was just too much! At this point, he was getting pretty overwhelmed by this small, but overly excitable young woman.
His team looks over at the two in amusement before talking amongst themselves, leaving their poor trainer to a rather adorably hilarious fate.
'Should we help him...?' The Bisharp looks over to his trainer before turning his head to the rest of his comrades, who are also watching their trainer with amused expressions in their faces. Dedede the Empoleon shakes his head at this 'No... I think it is best if we leave it be... It's HIS problem after all!'
The Emperor Pokemon then closes his eyes, thinking about the results of today's training sessions. He then turns head towards the Scizor. 'Today's training was rather ... unsuccessful, was it not?'Scyella gives Dedede a deadpan look before applying a claw to her face. 'No shat, sherlock! Unsuccessful is an UNDERSTATEMENT! I mean, C'MON! Why can't we ever have more positive results?! Being this stagnant ain't going to take us anywhere!'
The commotion does not go unnoticed by the two humans currently in a one-sided conversation. The woman having been startled by the sudden outburst from the Bug type and was now cowering behind Fabian.
"U-Uuuumm, Mr. Alloy, sir. I think your Scizor may be bothered about something...!" cries out the frightened girl. Fabian can only continuously rub the back of his head in annoyance as he tries to explain. "Yeeaaahhh, sorry about that, Muchachita, this one can get pretty agitated when she's pissed about something... Best just to let her calm down on her own."
The man then proceeds to get up and start packing up the picnic he and his group was having before asking," Say, Mija. Hand me that poster, yeah?"
Emily gives Fabian a confused look but complies anyways. He thing starts to fish around in his pockets for something. That something being a pen, much to the pleasure of the young woman. "Alrighty, Gabacha. This will be signed too... Emily, right?"
"Yes, Emily Deer, actually. thank you sooo much for signing this!" Fabian couldn't help but chuckle at this as he hands her back the signed poster. "Well, anything for a beautiful Maiden such as yourself, Mija~!"
Emily then says her goodbyes as she begins to leave, having gotten what she wanted and some more!
As Fabian cleans up, Scyella has calmed herself quite a bit. She was still pretty bitter about the results of her training, but there wasn't really anything they could do anyways. Nothing that they know of, at least. Fabian takes note of the depressed Scizor and walks over to her as he finishes packing up.
"Hey there, you have us quite the scare earlier today. Ye alright?" Scyella doesn't respond, and instead gets up and flies towards the gang's room in the Pokemon center.
"Well then... Can't help them all I suppose" he murmurs to himself, the rest of his team already gone also. "Time for some well deserved rest then!"
Fabian was restless.
He simply couldn't fall asleep in the slightest, no matter what he tried. He's counted Mareep, read some books that were available in the room, and he'd even gone out again for a nighttime jig to burn off some more energy. Nothing was working.
Nothing at all.
And this bothered him greatly, to no end.
Fabian was now sitting on a bench just outside of the Pokemon Center, pondering what his next move will be. Unfortunately, is is also not going so well.
"Ugh! Is this what a Block is supposed to be! This thing just freaking sucks, man!" cries out a frustrated Fabian. "Maybe I should just take up contests or something. I hear that one Devita chick is pretty good at what she does, winning a festival of that size tends to tell everybody just that I guess." he muses, chuckling at the thought of him and his crew in flashy dresses and suits.
"Maybe I can try to rise to her level in contests...? I'm PRETTY sure we can do it... I already have some inkling of what we COULD do but still... I don't know how the crew would react to this...."
He then pauses for a moment, his face scrunching up in a look that tells everybody 'I'm thinking', while still conscious of the world around him. "... eeehhh, but what do contests have to do with how strong we are...? Nothing, really. All we'd do is just add some flashiness and screw up our momentum during battle. Que Idea tan terrible, Fabian!"
Fabian just sighs for the umpteenth time today, giving up on brainstorming for the night. "... Nothing I can do now... even with the Super Training Program, I'm just so uninspired... zzz" And with that, Fabian is out cold on the bench. But not without a distant, yet gentle voice resonating in his head.
“Rest now my children, for when you awake, a whole new world shall be your home!”
A gentle breeze is the first thing Fabian feels as he slowly begins to stir. Memories of the night prior begin to flood his head as he lays there with his eyes still closed.
'Must have fallen asleep outside again...'
Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. He has done this so many times in the past that is't now practically routine. This time however, was different.
There are no noises of urban civilization,nor is there any scent of pollution. Instead, there are sounds one would normally only hear in a forest. There's also the fact that the air he's breathing in seems to be extremely clean.
Too clean.
That and whatever he was laying on doesn't exactly feel like a wooden bench of any kind. It feels more like ...mud.
At this, Fabian finally opens his eyes and gets up to scan his surroundings. This course of action is a failure when he then falls over face-first in said mud.
‘PINCHE MIERDA!'
He begins to mentally curse himself in the head for being so darn clumsy and tries again. However, on the second attempt, he looks down at his flippers.
His flippers.
His blue, hand-like flippers.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!"
After this ... intense vocal outburst, Fabian proceeds to use his newly acquired appendages to explore his own body a bit, starting with his head and face. Apparently, he now had a large fin on his head of some kind and some REALLY sensitive... well, sensors on his cheeks that are indicative of a Marshtomp or Swampert. He then proceeds to look down at his legs and notices how short and stubby they are, which explains his new perspective.
Definitely a Marshtomp, no doubt about it now.
"Well shiiiiit... How the actual flying fuck am I a Marshtomp in the first place? Last I checked, this kind of thing doesn't just well, happen. " he wonders out loud. He then takes a wobbly step forward, in an attempt to not stay in the same place and possibly practice basic motor skills.
"So far so good..." he murmurs to himself, daring to take yet another step forward. While doing this, his mind begins to wander.' Well, we ain't in Rustboro anymore, obviously. But what I want to know is... Where the heck am I?!'
The former human then stops to take a proper look of the area surrounding him. He seems to be on a riverbank of some kind if the mud and water streaming a few feet in front of him is any indication. Surrounding the riverbank are what appears to be mountains of sorts. One seems to be a proper mountain range while the other looks like a spire of some kind, giving it a rather regal air about it.
"Heh, looks like que ay nada en este... " Fabian pauses as he takes a closer look at the spire, spotting what seems to be part of a building. Said building seemed to be of a gold and purple coloring, resembling what seems to be part of a castle. "Huh? Izzat a... Izzat civilization?" He wonders aloud, not really caring much about the surrounding area anymore.
His focus was now entirely on that spire.
"Wonder how the heck I'm going to get up there... I'm not seeing any possible way of-" He stops as he spots what seems to be rail tracks in the distance. "I wonder... What if I followed this thing...? Could be pretty dangerous though... What if a Train decides to send me to hell a bit early...?" Fabian shakes his heads to rid himself of such thoughts. Now was the time for investigation, not such dangerous thoughts!
With this in mind, he begins his trek towards said rail tracks. The walk was realistically only twenty minutes or so, but time seemed to pass Fabian pretty slowly, as he wasn't used to taking so many short strides. Especially in an area that is mostly mud!
"Oh sweet, sweet Arceus, I finally made it!"
The Water type had arrived at his destination after what seemed to be an eternity in his mind. The poor Marshtomp was already sweating bullets, quickly revealing how unused he was to his new body as his breathing grew louder and louder.
"Uff... Not... Exactly in... in the best shape right now it seems... ugh... Shouldn't have eaten so many of those Lavaridge Tacos yesterday... So... much regret... *huff*... At least I made it....I hope." He decides to take a breather and sits down for a spell in an attempt to regain some lost energy, but not before taking a closer look at the tracks in front of him.
"Huh, it looks like they weren’t just tricks on me eyes after all~! LA VICTORIA!” The Mudfish gave a rather loud cheer while internally congratulating himself for the feat. "YESSSS Welp, looks like there's a w-" His tired mind and body suddenly gave out in the midst of his cheering, as he then unexpectedly goes into a state of Rest.
"...Way..."
A pair of earth ponies wearing Transport uniforms on a pump car are merrily driving their way from Fillydelphia to Canterlot on this fine, Celestia-blessed day. One with a rather impressive dark mustache, while the other is sporting an equally impressive beard. The marsh they are rolling through is pleasant, not a single cragadile in sight! The two ponies, Full Steam and his brother Watchdog are pumping along as they make Idle conversation to pass the time.
"Hey Steam, How long do ya thing we have 'till we reach good ole' Can'erlot, ey?"
Full Steam ponders for a bit while still concentrating on the rhythm they have, his light brown coated face scrunching up as his darker mane keeps falling onto his face.
"Not too sure, brother. I reckon it might take us at least a few of more hours before we can actually go through Mount Canterlot's tunnel system. That is ONE heckova confusin' place if ya ask me!"
The two brothers share a laugh while remembering their past attempts of navigation through the Discord-Damned place.
"Alrighty, ya old colt! we're-a passin over the stream, a good plus, I say, Watchdogydog! Ya know what that means!"
Watchdog's face brightens up at the news, his body and spirit suddenly given a massive boost as his brother gives him a cheesy grin.
"EEEEEEEYYYYYYYEEAAAAHHHH~!"
The pair cheer at the thought of finally returning to their Resting Stop after a morning full of repairs and hard work. Nothing can stop them now! Not even if Celestia came in and-
"Hey Steam, hold up a sec, Ah see a weird critter lying too close to the rails! SHTAAAHP!"
Steam immediately responds to Watchdog's warning with the utmost timing and pulls the brakes as quickly as possible without snapping them. The wheels give a loud screech as the beaks immediately put a stop to their movement just before they hit the creature.
Watchdog and Steam wipe their heads of the sweat that built up on their brows during the ride before hopping off the car and walking towards the creature. The poor thing seems to have collapsed from exhaustion and just so happened to land right next to the rails. This thing was so lucky that Watchdog's special talent was looking out for things...
Full steam was the first one on the scene and begins to quietly examine the creature. "Hey Watchy, whatcha ya reckon this thang is? A've NEVER seen anything lahk it before... looks lahk some kinda gigantic, mutant mudskipper or sumpthin' ya'll see in a lake in Ponyville if ya ask me..."
Watchdog shakes his head in response, not really knowing what else to compare it to. "I ain't to sure what it is either Brother, but Ah say we bring it wid us! The poor thang looks lahk it could use a friendly hoof anyways. Maybe we can get some of them Canterlot smarties to get a gander and help it out?"
The two brothers give each other a nod of affirmation before prepping themselves to gently load their new passenger into the car.
This ride may have gotten alot more interesting.
Author's Note
... Oh dear sweet Arceus, what have I written?! anyhow... Here's my little submission. Thing. Stuff. Whatever for the Newverse/Wayverse thingamcbob that exists and well... YEAH.
Hopefully this came out alright. I'm kind of in need of some volunteers for editors and people to bounce ideas off and such. Writing-wise, I'm not the most creative guy in the world. I'm a bit more musically inclined, actually.
If ya'll want to help, don't be afraid to either PM me or just leave a comment and stuff.
either way, enjoy!
-Parukia de Bolivar.
