Author's Note

My first serious attempt at a crossover. Fooler's Rush In doesn't count because it's a complete mess. Pokémon: Explorer's of Time and Darkness is the only canon recognized by this work since I haven't played the other games. Equestria is more or less the same as canon but with obvious role changes. Will add characters as they appear later on.

Note the word 'Pokémon' and its associated species are in lowercase. I'm aware that they're technically supposed to be capitalized. However, as the main characters are represented by nicknames instead of species, and I tend to write the ponies and their sub-species in lowercase letters, I made the decision to treat all species equally for the sake of consistency.

Enjoy!

Edit: 2/10/2024 I misspelled Nickit.
Edit: 2/12/2024 Editing pass complete.

Team Allure

Equestria Mystery Dungeon

By AJ Aficionado

The pleasant white noise of rushing water greeted the umbreon’s ears as his eyes stirred open.

The cavernous room was nearly pitch black, save for the soft, golden luminescence of the many rings covering his mostly black, furry body. He looked around at the three other beds, made of rough straw similar to his, noting their emptiness.

“That’s some uncharacteristic initiative from my team,” he muttered sleepily as his muzzle gaped open into a yawn. He hopped out of his nest-like bed of straw, shaking himself off in a doglike fashion, and began gathering seeds and berries from barrels lining the cool walls of his cave home, mixing them together in a bowl which he then filled with water from another barrel.

The balancing act of keeping the bowl secured snugly in the gap between his two large ears as he walked from barrel to barrel would have been quite a sight to the more bipedal of pokémon species, but to eeveelutions — evolved forms of the notoriously adaptable dog/cat/foxlike pokémon, eevee — it was just another day in the life.

He sat and munched on his meal, tail swishing behind him contentedly as he read the note left for him at the table.

Ebon,

Sorry for leaving you in the dark (literally). Me and the gals are in Treasure Town shopping and scouting out missions for the day. We brought the Explorer’s Bag with us in case you’re wondering where it ran off to.

I’m hoping someone’s discovered a new continent or something so we can have a change of scenery for once. We’re getting stronger but the enemies we face just… aren’t, you know? Sometimes it feels like the world is getting smaller and I’m tempted to just go back to the village. We have plenty of money from combing over ruins and arresting bad pokémon to live out our days comfortably.

So why not just quit? I admit the thought has occurred to me more than once. But then I think about how much Glassie would hate not having violence to dish out and how awkward it would be to tell Sike we’re retiring just after recruiting her. And that’s not even considering how hard you’d take it. Oh, just listen to me ranting onto the paper. I’m sorry to dump my frustrations like that onto you, love.

To get back on topic, we’re also hanging with the old guildies to try to get Sike to come out of her shell. The espeons I’ve met have all tended to be reserved and even withdrawn, particularly the ones raised by non-espeons. I guess that’s the cost of being as highly specialized as we eevees are — we’re also highly confusing, even to our own family. I’d probably feel awkward around others too, honestly.

I’ll meet you on the road out of town. Wherever you decide to send us, please don’t forget to grab an escape orb at the bank in case things go to heck! Glassie tells me to tell you she wants to try another hail/blizzard combo run, so bring 3 weather bands too so we don’t all get battered with hailstones all day. I swear, that glaceon wants nothing more than to tackle dungeons all by herself. That and sleep with barely-legal starter types. I can’t honestly tell which she enjoys more, but she’s nothing if not excellent at her job.

Regardless, I look forward to exploring with you, as usual, handsome.

- Edelweiss

“That’s my Edelweiss, my leafeon psychiatrist, quartermaster and second-guesser.” Ebon the umbreon muttered before continuing to eat breakfast. He’d have a chat with her later about what the team was saying in his absence about getting burned out. Did they share Edelweiss’s sentiments? Was he the only one who still enjoyed their work?

Ebon thought about his team, imagining them together at the old guild hangout chatting with its wigglytuff guildmaster, Commander Snuggles, and the rest of his former colleagues. Sike was a recent acquisition to the team — an innocent civilian hiding away from the world who had the misfortune of being robbed by a gang that holed up in a nasty place called Shimmer Hill with a bunch of other criminal scum. After she’d seen them capture the leader and recover most of the stolen goods, Sike asked to join Team Allure.

Her reasons seemed sound enough. She’d said she wanted to learn how to fight so she could stand up for herself as well as pay the team back for their kindness, given she had no reward to offer them upfront. Even if she was inexperienced, it was an offer he was only too willing to accept. Espeons were typically valuable assets to an exploration team for their ability to read minds and send telepathic messages if they were properly trained. When things went wrong and seconds counted, instant communication was priceless.

But in Sike's case, Ebon just thought she was impossibly cute with her forked tail and amazing flanks and simply looking at her was reward enough. If she weren’t so shy and he wasn’t her boss, he might forgo taking Sike to mystery dungeons and just train her in bed.

Glassie the glaceon had come from humble beginnings, serving as an artificial snow maker for a ski-resort in Sinnoh — a fate that she’d confided had been such torment for her, she had recurring nightmares of somehow ending up being forced to do it again if for some reason she couldn’t go exploring anymore.

Unable to endure the indignity of putting her magical abilities to such mundane use as making snow for other pokémon to slide around on, she’d struck out on her own, fighting in arena combat. She’d done that until her body could no longer handle the constant abuse, ultimately deciding that joining an exploration team would be a good way to ‘settle down’.

She also had an unstoppable libido if the rumors were true, which made a lot of pokémon happy. Everybody except him, who had a prime glaceon rump right in front of him and couldn’t take it as her leader and boss.

“The sacrifices I make…” Ebon grumbled, before taking another bite of his meal and washing it down with a small vial of elixir.

Edelweiss the leafeon was Ebon’s first partner, both in the explorer and sexual sense. She was also his sister, but he carefully kept that information to himself. They’d departed from a place called Eevee Village, which was home to the namesake pokémon and all of its variants, in search of treasure and fame. The village also had a completely justified reputation for being tolerant of inbreeding and incestuous pairings. It was unquestionably a paradise for those such as he, and Ebon found himself regretting leaving it at times, given how different the outsiders and their culture were.

If these outsider pokémon knew Ebon had been ‘slipping his sister the bone’ and ‘tying her in knots’ from time to time, he could expect to find his own face on a wanted poster.

Both he and Edelweiss knew they’d never be a ‘proper’ married couple, but he still looked forward to quality time with his sis when the two of them were alone and had nothing else going on.

With breakfast finished, he picked up a broom designed for eevees to hold in their mouths and began sweeping the cave floor of scattered hay and dirt into a big pile. Satisfied, he pushed the pile with his broom over to the waterfall taking up nearly one full side of his cave and swept it away with the flow. Not only did it serve to both obscure their exact location, it gave them a much-needed shower after a long day of running missions. A door painted to blend in with the greens and browns outside their home was the primary means of leaving and entering, but as an early-morning pick-me-up or a fun way to cool off on a hot day, the four would often take turns jumping through the waterfall and climbing back up to the cave to do it all over again.

If his teammates were normally some of the most beautiful pokémon to ever live, they looked even better with wet fur.

Next on Ebon’s to-do list was the overflowing trash can next to the ice stone-powered freezer he put Edelweiss’s letter into. No use leaving evidence of their less-than-platonic relationship for the others.

Glassie had apparently finished off the last of her Hoggin’ Pawz half-gallon carton of ice cream and left it snarkily turned upside down on top of the already-compacted garbage of used grimy food, used technical machines — single-use ability kits to train new abilities — milk jars and junk food wrappers.

“Arceus, darn it, Glassie!” Ebon growled through his teeth as he dragged the overfilled bag, still partially wedged inside the can, and dragged it outside through the door and placed it inside the can for the scavenging nickit pokémon to steal. He knew he would have to yell at her later for such a flagrant disregard for the rules and that after looking into her beautiful blue eyes, he’d lose his nerve quickly. Maybe she’d consent to being relentlessly bred as a form of punishment instead. It was no more than she deserved.

“I really need to get laid. I really, really, really need to get laid.” Ebon whimpered to himself, taking a leak into an open trench dug for just such a purpose outside his cave. He was even now still erect having shaken himself off, images of his teammates in compromising positions flashing in rapid succession through his mind.

By the time he was done cold-showering himself off in the waterfall —and gaining some welcome limpness in the process — the sun had finally come up, shining through the many open windows. Looking out from the one in the kitchen, he could make out his eevee-shaped mailbox near the dirt road leading into town; one of its ears was pointing up, indicating a new delivery.

“Weird. The post doesn’t even run today.” A strange excitement gripped him as he pondered the implications. “Could it be… Wonder Mail? No way…” He finished eating and washed his dish before putting it back in the cupboard.

House rules stated that everyone washes their dishes immediately after using one and as leader of Team Allure, he had to live by example.

After quickly tying his old Wigglytuff’s Guild scarf around his neck and tucking his map into his fluffy chest fur, he raced outside through the door.

“And now, the moment of truth!” Having reached the mailbox, he opened it to find a sealed envelope without any sort of address or identifying information on it whatsoever. His earlier excitement grew as he beheld the runed seal holding the letter closed. He didn’t dare try to force open a magically-sealed item in a world that contained creatures that would blow their messages (or even themselves!) up rather than face capture, and so he looked for alternate means of entry.

It was at that moment he noticed the seal perfectly matched the rune on his scarf.

Smiling, he then knew exactly what to do, pressing his scarf rune into the seal. Glowing bright for a moment before it faded into nothingness, it released its magical hold on the paper, leaving Ebon able to open the letter easily with one quick swipe from a single claw.

“This is incredible! I thought the secret rank thing was a joke!” He gave a whooping cheer and he leapt into the air on all fours.

His team had once rescued a scizor from a lovestruck froslass, and it’d granted him and his team the ‘secret rank’ which would allow for missions to be sent for his eyes only. Other explorers he’d spoken to had never heard of such a thing. To his great annoyance, they treated him like a ‘special needs’ umbreon whenever the subject of the strange rune pinned to his scarf came up. Over time, he’d trained himself to never even think about it at long last, after years of nothing, was this very secretive-looking letter being held in his paws.

His eyes scanned over the letter. It was an invitation to explore a mystery dungeon he’d never heard of called ‘Ponyta Passage’ — named after a horse-like pokémon native to the Kanto and Galar regions. Comparing his own map with the one sent, he was not surprised to learn that his map did not know the location. That soon changed as it absorbed the new information with a flash of golden light; Ebon watching with the eagerness of a young eevee cub.

And then he yelped in surprise when the letter burst into flames atop the mailbox where he’d set it, singing the base of one of the mailbox’s flag-ears before Ebon could bat it away.

“Jeez. Well, I guess that’s one way to keep it a secret. Just wait until the team hears about this!” He set off towards Treasure Town at a full sprint. The ladies could wait on whatever missions they discovered. They were off for a real adventure.

Ebon didn’t stop running until he reached town. As promised, Edelweiss was there with the bag. The other two were nowhere to be seen.

“The bag's a little heavier than when I picked it up at the hideout. Kek the Kecleon’s Shop had a great deal on reviver seeds today so I bought them all!” The corners of Edelweiss’s toffee-colored eyes crinkled up. “Hopefully, they’ll make us all a bit smarter.”

“I was kind of hoping for something to make me a bit less horny.” Ebon kissed her freckled cheek and licked the single strand of grass gracing her forehead before tracing his tongue wetly up the length of one of her long, leaflike ears as his sister cooed with delight. “But lacking it, I guess I’ll just have to relieve my urges on you,” he cooed.

She gave a pleasured sound of her own. “What happened to your principles, brother? You’re in authority over me! How dare you take advantage of me in front of the townsfolk?” Edelweiss teased as she leaned her ear into the contact.

“Not if they don’t look our way!” Ebon whispered to her before slipping his slurping tongue into her inner ear in an act of intimacy he knew she loved as much as him — her ears were just too big and tempting not to touch and explore.

“Ebon! You should at least drag me into the bush first before you have your way with me!” she only half-protested. The umbreon considered his sister’s words, unsheathing his canine member which slowly filled until it extended nearly half the length of his body before silently cursing his luck and backing away as Glassie strutted up to the two of them like the mayor of Treasure Town. Sike was with her, a few feet back and with her tail hovering low to the ground as if she were under threat.

Instinctively, he put his sister between himself and the rest of the team to block his erection from view. “Hey, Glassie.” Ebon couldn’t quite hide the disappointment from his voice. “What’s with Sike, is she okay?”

“No, I’m not okay!” Sike sat down huffily, slashing her tail angrily behind her. “Glassie tried talking some bidoof into asking me out and he did!”

Ebon knew this particular bidoof, a rodent-like pokémon fond of building huge, elaborate dams along Pokémon World's pristine rivers, with large buck teeth. A nice guy if rather unsophisticated in his mannerisms.

“Glassie!” Edelweiss growled, pawing at the dirt road.

“Um… you’re welcome!”Glassie shouted back at Sike, indignantly.

“Glassie, I know you mean well, but you need to consult with your teammate before trying to pass her off like an unwanted hold item you pulled out of a nickit’s hoard,” Ebon said sarcastically. “I mean, do you even know if she likes guys?”

Glassie looked back at Ebon looking as if she were holding back laughter. Sike’s face turned deep red and Edelweiss did an about-face, looking up at him with exasperated anger. “Ebon!”

Ebon felt his face become hot and tugged at his scarf, nervously. “Not… that it’s any of my business. I’m sorry, Sike.”

Arceus, I am a stupid idiot. Ebon thought to himself. He didn’t know what he hated himself for more at that moment — that he was an unwitting participant in Glassie’s bullying or that he still hoped deep down he’d have a chance to rut the beautiful espeon senseless someday, especially given the fact she was genuinely curious about her sexuality.

He blinked and shook his head at the thought. Check that — a stupid, horny idiot who still needs to get laid, badly.

“Apology accepted, Ebon.” Sike looked awkwardly at the road beneath her, running her paw daintily over its dusty surface. “I’m just not comfortable talking about scary stuff like sex yet… or seeing any other pokémon.”

“And there’s no rush, sweetie.” Edelweiss coiled a vine around Sike’s back and stroked her silky soft fur. Sike responded with throaty purrs that filled the umbreon with contentment.

“Yeah, I’m sorry… I guess.” Glassie grated practically through her teeth. “But speaking of scoring some action, where are we going today, boss? Hopefully somewhere with a lot of grass and ground types for those sweet, sweet type-advantage criticals. I wanna wreck some faces!”

Glassie did a backflip on the spot, landing squarely on all four paws; bent forward low to the ground with her ribbon-like tail quivering behind her like skorupi’s sting as she bore her teeth in a display of predatory pride.

Despite her aggressive stance, the intimidation factor was completely undone for Ebon who immediately imagined himself mounting the eeveelution from behind. He vividly imagined filling her icy love tunnel with a sticky avalanche of hot umbreon seed while she begged for more, not content to stop until there was a brand new eevee growing in her belly…

“Ebon! Hellooo! Ebon!” Glassie scowled up at him. “Dude, what the heck is wrong with you this morning? You’re all spaced out!”

Ebon imagined an entire brood of Glassie’s brown-and-tan striped eggs surrounding them in a candle-lit circle, each resting in their own nest of straw. The glaceon begging for just one more eevee as his erection sank deep inside her again and again — the whole room soon overflowing with eggs. He knew he’d have to stop eventually but his hardness never faltered as he seed instantly replenished with each climax.

“EBON!”

“Huh?” Realizing he was daydreaming again, Ebon shook his head and silently cursed himself again. “Uh, sorry. I didn’t sleep all that well.” He wished he hadn’t been too tired the last few nights to masturbate before bed, given how pent-up he felt now. Living in the same room with three other pokémon was a major drawback in more ways than one, given it didn’t always allow the privacy he needed to take care of his more personal needs.

“But enough of that. Actually, I have some fantastic news to deliver to you all. Give me your maps. I need to update them.”

“Update them? What do you mean, Ebon?” Edelweiss asked, before she pawed over the map she’d stowed in her leafy green chest fluff.

The other two did likewise and Ebon, not answering Edelweiss, instead collected their maps and stacked his on top. The stack illuminated briefly as each map updated to match his.

“Wha- How did you do that without taking a mission from the guild?” Edelweiss asked, the other two party members adding their own confused expressions.

“That Wonder Mail system actually works! I got a mission to go to someplace called ‘Ponyta Passage’. Completely unexplored territory!” Ebon pawed the updated maps back to his team.

“‘Ponyta Passage’?” Sike replied slowly, repeating back the words as if they were spoken in some foreign language. “It’s filled with ponyta, I presume?”

“Just their luck they’d have a type-advantage over me. Not that it’ll save them from my blizzard!” A breeze wicked past them, sending a plume of powdery snow from off of Glassie’s back and into the air.

“I don’t know what lives there, Sike. The message didn’t say and it sorta… caught fire and burned up after my map updated,” Ebon replied delicately. “I guess I screwed up. I didn’t really read the message closely. I saw the name of the dungeon and the map and was too excited to catch the rest. I just couldn’t believe the Wonder Mail actually worked!”

“Completely understandable, bruh… I mean boss,” Edelweiss quickly added as Ebon cringed slightly. “What matters is we have someplace new and interesting to go to for a change!”

“Yeah!” Glassie made another backflip, giving Ebon a brief but tantalizing view of her backside before striking her trademark pose.

“Yeah…” Sike’s ears drooped.

“Aw, don’t worry Sike. We'll keep you safe. Whoever might be living there, they won’t come anywhere near you.” Glassie breathed ice onto a nearby rock, freezing it solid instantly. “And if they target the whole room with an ability… well… at least you know how to dig a hole to avoid it.”

“Glassie’s right, Sike. We’ll treat this like the final dungeon we’ll ever have to run and bring plenty of reviver seeds.” Ebon said, nodding. “Unfortunately, Glassie, I don’t think we’ll be able to let you just blizzard bomb the entire site.”

“Aww, why not, Ebon?”

“It’s a strong strategy but its strength is brittle. There are too many things that can go wrong in a dungeon you don’t know with strategies that rely on a single trick. Sure you can control the weather but other pokémon can too,” Ebon explained.

“Point taken, Boss.” Glassie chuckled. “You know, others say I think too much like I’m fighting in the arena. They might have a point, huh?”

“I find the only real item you can truly rely on to save your hide in all situations is the escape orb,” Sike opined. “Retreat is sometimes the best option.”

“I agree you should never forget to bring one escape orb,” Edelweiss nudged her brother with her tail. “Eh, Ebon?”

“Yeah, yeah! I’ll remember it this time, Mom!” Ebon gave a barklike laugh. The other three laughed as well. “So we’re all okay with heading into the unknown for a change?”

“Yeah!” Team Allure chorused back at him.

Ebon tied the Explorer’s bag to his back and started walking to the bank. “Smiles go for miles. Sort out your abilities with Alec, say goodbye to all your friends and be back here in fifteen minutes. We’ve got a long journey ahead of us.”

His team nodded and split off towards a large, yellow electric-type anthropomorphic pokémon standing behind a counter.

Ebon stood at the bank, thinking as Temujina the motherly kangaskhan waited patiently for him to sort out his inventory while the rest of the team were at the Electrivire Link Shop modifying their abilities.

Surely valuable treasures awaited in a location no one had picked over already, so he couldn’t just cram his bag with sixty reviver seeds as if he were facing down a guardian or something. As they needed plenty of room to lug their likely loot, they would travel light — no greater than twenty-five items. He also couldn’t waste time trying to cover all of his bases with helpful seeds and orbs when the dungeon itself could be counted on to provide them plenty of oran berries for healing. So he deposited all of his berries except three and withdrew ten reviver seeds in their place.

There was also the imperative need for food once they got there. How many floors did this location have? How many rooms were on each floor? He assumed the worst and grabbed five huge apples.

There was Sike being isolated from the group to worry about as well. She wasn’t as useless as your typical glory-seeking escort stepping into dungeons well beyond their ability to handle, but until she was more seasoned, she was still the weak link in the chain. If a warp trap isolated her from the group, Ebon would have to corral her quickly. So he withdrew three rollcall orbs next.

Bad luck with traps draining their abilities was always a problem so three max elixirs went into the bag as well to restore their powers.

That left space for a single escape orb if everything went completely to the houndooms. It hadn’t happened yet to his group given how powerful they were and how well they worked together, but there was still a first time for everything.

He didn’t bother with held items. Far too situational and one sticky trap away from being utterly useless dead weight.

“Perfect! Now that that’s settled, Temujina, I want to deposit all of this again.” Ebon plopped the bag back on the counter. “I’ll take all this stuff out later once I’m on the road from one of your statues. For now, just give me 10 oran berries and apples for me and my team to eat.”

“But you’ve been sorting this out for the last ten minutes! Isn't this all a bit anticlimatic?” she asked.

“Sorry, lovely. I’m not much of an abstract thinker. I’ve got to have the stuff right in front of me to think properly,” Ebon replied, scratching his head.

“Hmph! Boys…” Temujina waved him off.

Glassie turned to look at Ebon, clearly upset that she’d had to swap out ‘hail’ for ‘water spout’.

“Stupid, water-type move…” Glassie grumbled, walking away from the Electrivire Link shop. “I feel like such a sell-out…”

“You’ll thank me when the whole dungeon turns out to be fire and ground-type. Now let’s move out!” Ebon exclaimed, circling his tail to signal his party for final assembly at the road out of town.

The townsfolk cheered them on, wishing them the best of luck. Temujina even hugged them all around the neck. “Return safely, Team Allure. We await news of your glorious triumph!” She called out to them.

“We’ll bring you back a gold ribbon, Temujina!” Ebon called back before the four waved to their fans and departed. The cheering grew quieter and quieter until soon they were on their own. The umbreon adjusted the strap carrying one of the four tents in addition to the Explorer Bag on his back. They wouldn’t have to worry about food and shelter during the six-month-long journey it’d take to get there, but he knew he and his party were going to be really sore before it was all over.

Six and a half months later, their destination came within sight of Team Allure’s caravan. Bad weather and the occasional raid from criminal bands and even feral pokémon — the latter living in caves and holes in the ground — had certainly made things lively and dangerous. Especially as they ventured further out; the settlements they passed grew smaller and smaller until civilized pokémon had disappeared from sight entirely, replaced by bad roads and pristine wilderness. It was like they’d fallen off the map into an entirely new world.

Upon arrival at the location marked on their map, they set up base camp in a dark wood, bisected by a river near the shadow of a tall mountain that had no name.

Previous experience had taught Ebon and his team that once you got a glimpse of the kangaskhan statue — a magical access portal to the bank account back in Treasure Town — you’d found the entrance to your mystery dungeon. This particular statue was set in front of a wide-open cave mouth that let up into the mountain; not for the first time he wondered how the statues had been transported out there in the first place.

But then so did everyone else.

Regardless of the answer, their objective reached, they immediately went to work pitching tents, digging wells, camouflaging the perimeter of their camp, and otherwise building their new home for the foreseeable future.

Fire was normally difficult to generate or manage among the four inappropriate elemental types so they brought a fire stone to manage the task. Refrigeration was covered, thanks to Glassie, who found a small cave near their camp which she was able to freeze over, using her blizzard ability and then seal off with a boulder to keep their provisions cold. In short order, they had a fridge stocked with meat courtesy of the area’s feral pokémon population, obligingly provided by Ebon himself who went off into the wilderness at night to hunt.

Ebon, Glassie, and Sike were sitting near a small fire on top of conveniently-placed boulders, pointedly refusing to sit on the rough wooden bench ebon had built atop which their dinner of seasoned wild scorbunny chops and tumblers of water sat on dinner plates. Not that he could blame them given the surface of said bench resembled a jolteon’s backside and would do just as much damage if sat on.

Edelweiss showed up unannounced and sat at one of the vacant boulders around the fire.

“No intelligent pokémon around for miles but they definitely once lived here. Or something did…” Edelweiss tossed Ebon a stone, inscribed with runes he could not translate but recognized as an older version of the language he spoke. “Another artifact I found while I was scouting the area. I’m betting it’s connected to our ‘Ponyta Passage’.”

“Excellent find, si- Edelweiss.” Ebon quickly corrected himself. "You must be starving. Help yourself to some dinner! We’ve just about got this place whipped up into a proper camp and I was thinking we can start our first excursion into Ponyta Passage tomorrow.”

“Are we going to talk about how often you two get each other’s names wrong?” Sike asked, eying the pair of them with apparent suspicion.

“No, we’re not,” Edelweiss stated plainly, forking over a plateful of scorbunny for herself to eat. “And thanks for the offer. This scorbunny looks delicious!”

Glassie swallowed her mouthful of food and belched loudly before patting her stomach. “I love expeditions. City living is so soft. Out here, in the middle of nowhere, we have fulfilled our destiny as eevees — to adapt and overcome all obstacles and live as free ‘mons!”

“Hear, hear!” Ebon toasted his frosty friend with a mug of crystal clear river water.

“Closer than brother and sister, we are. No secrets among family.” Glassie stopped speaking to look into the faces of her teammates. Ebon inwardly froze, shooting his sister a look which she shared back with him. A look that said ‘I don’t like where this is going’.

“What I mean to say, Team Allure, is if there’s something going on between Ebon and Edelweiss, then there will be no protest from me. We should not be ashamed of being desirable to other pokémon just as we shouldn’t be ashamed of who we share our bodies with. That is all I have to say.” Glassie set the knife and fork down on her empty plate and began grooming her paws.

A spot of pink appeared on Ebon’s cheek as he caught Glassie’s attention. She was clearly giving him an out but it was obvious to him he had to say something in response. “I… appreciate the sentiment, Glassie but I feel it’s inappropriate for me to ‘share my body’ as you say with any of you. As your leader, it’s my job to ensure you’re all treated equally and seeing any one of you puts my impartiality into question.”

“Quite a progressive way of viewing things, I’d say,” Sike nodded her approval at Ebon.

Glassie grunted and rolled her eyes.

“Oh, what is it now, Glassie?” Sike said irritably. “What is your counterpoint to this? Do you think he should be sleeping with all of us? Maybe we can all be evaluated on how well we can suck his…his…”

“His what?” Glassie replied with all the false sweetness of a smiling mawile.

“Glassie, I’m warning you!” Edelweiss threatened.

“Sike, I know you don’t like reading other pokémon’s minds because you prefer not to know what they’re thinking so I’m going to spell it out for you: You’re breathtakingly gorgeous and Ebon has noticed.”

The room went silent from Glassie’s proclamation before Ebon cut in. “Glassie, this is not cool…”

Glassie continued speaking as if she’d heard nothing. “He’s noticed all of us are beautiful, sexual creatures and in his mind, he’s imagined having sex with all three of us. Am I wrong? Tell me, Ebon. Just answer me this one question. Am I wrong?”

No, you aren't wrong but I’ll never admit to that! Ebon refused to say, maintaining a stony gaze with his subordinate.

An awkward silence filled the room again. Ebon noticed Sike’s ears had perked up and her face began to flush crimson.

“No worries, Ebon. You don't even have to say it,” Glassie said with a look of pure unfiltered smugness.

“I’ve never been told…” Sike spoke in a barely audible whisper.

“Told that pokémon find each other attractive?” Glassie asked in apparently genuine concern so far as Ebon could tell.

“I’ve never been told I was very pretty before…” Sike’s content seemed to radiate out from her with the warmth of the fire in the center of their tent.

“I’m pretty sure I have!” Edelweiss replied crossly.

“Glassie, what do you think is pretty about me? I have to know!” Sike’s forked tail twitch and spasmed as if dodging Zeraora’s electric wrath.

“Your exquisitely soft lavender fur, your soulful matching eyes, your spectacularly large ears just demanding to be worshiped with tooth and tongue…” Glassie’s hooded eyes, like an arbok, bore into the espeon now. Ebon suspected that having finished her dinner, Sike was going to end up being dessert to a still-hungry glaceon.

And he decided he was okay with that. More than okay. Especially if he got to watch.

“But sylveon’s ears are bigger!” Sike slapped both forepaws to the side of her head.

“Sylveon’s ears are longer but not as broad.” Glassie countered, but then her expression changed from aroused to apprehensive. “Also, sylveons are kind of terrifying to me, especially under low-light.”

“Terrifying?” Ebon and Sike echoed while the latter gave Glassie a highly dubious expression.

She hesitated for a moment, but answered. “I’m not proud of admitting it but yeah. There’s just too much action going on up there, you know? Those fluffy ears are swaying, the tail is wagging, those two eyes popping out at you… and the fangs — those throat tearing fangs are constantly showing because they are almost always smiling for whatever reason!”

As she spoke, Glassie’s voice became higher and higher pitched as if she were genuinely in fear. “And to top it all off, their ribbons are all swaying at once! Like they could just jam every one of them inside of you at any moment and no one will even hear you scream!”

Glassie’s head whipped around and looked outside at the growing darkness behind them as if half-expecting an assault of amorous sylveons at any moment.

It was everything Ebon could do to keep from laughing, jamming both of his forepaws into his muzzle to suppress it. To think of the team’s most notorious sex fiend being terrified of any sexual engagement was too incredible for words.

Admittedly, the idea of being cornered by a sex-crazed sylveon and taken advantage of did give the weaker-typed umbreon a bit of a thrill which he quickly squelched. That was just a silly obsession and no one else had to know about it.

Sike’s ears drooped so low, they nearly touched the ground. “Great, now you’ve given me more things to have nightmares about, Glassie!”

“Look, Sike. My point is that you’re beautiful.” Glassie got up from her seat at the table and sat next to Sike, lifting her lilting ears up and bringing her muzzle to within mere inches of Glassie’s own. “And no sylveon can ever have that over you. You deserve better than to be alone.”

Her cheeks flushed a deeper hue. “You really mean that?” she asked, to which she received a sharp nod and a steady gaze back.

“Wow, Glassie… I never knew…” Sike whispered before their lips made contact.

“Wow…” Ebon whispered, receiving a poke to the ribs from one of Edelweiss’s leafy tendrils in return.

“Sorry,” Ebon mouthed silently back to Edelweiss who shook her head in disbelief. It didn’t stop his eeveehood from evolving beneath him, however, rapidly expanding at the sight of his two female teammates making out for the first time.

And it kept happening. To his surprise and delight, Sike wasn’t recoiling with fear and retreating as she had so many times before from affection, even allowing Glassie’s blue tongue to enter her mouth through the gap formed at the side of Sike’s muzzle.

The popping of spit as the two kissed was soon joined by a low, sensual purr from Sike’s throat.

Ebon felt her sister’s paw clutch his, turning to steal a quick kiss from his sister as their teammates were distracted.

“Later, brother. I think tonight is our best chance!” Edelweiss mouthed silently and winked before the pair turned their attentions back onto Sike and Glassie who by then had broken from their spell.

“Sike… Do you want to continue this before we go to sleep, tonight? Somewhere a bit more private?” Glassie asked, gently running her paws over the espeon’s ample flanks. “I have many more reasoned arguments to share about why you’re beautiful. Want to hear them?”

“I’d like that, Glassie.” Sike’s tail was reared now, twitching ever so slightly as if of its own accord. Ebon could recognize Sike was using her psychic abilities to the fullest, predicting Glassie’s next move. “Meet you at my tent?”

“I’ll be right there. Just let me hang back for a quick second, okay?” Sike nodded back in response to Glassie’s question and bowed low at Ebon and Edelweiss before running back to her tent.

“That was… a most unusual turn of events, I must say,” Edelweiss said in surprise understatement as Ebon could only stare. “But not entirely unwelcome!”

“I take it that you’re thanking me, then,” Glassie replied, frowning back at her.

Edelweiss sighed. “Yes, I suppose I am. Just be gentle with her, okay? This is progress for her, but it can all be ruined in an instant if you push her too far.”

Ebon nodded his agreement, finally finding his voice again. “You’re also going to tell her that this… encounter of yours is a one-time thing so she doesn’t expect wedding bells to come out of all of this.”

Glassie winced. “Yeah, I know how this looks. Just have a little faith in me, okay? You two are the ones who need to go slow and take it easy. Ebon looks thick enough to breed a zoroark!”

Glassie sauntered off, flicking her ribbon tail up and giving Ebon a good look at her hollowed icy cave as if to remind him of what he was missing out on. “Can’t wait to go exploring with you two tomorrow.”

“We’re going to make history! Don’t stay up too late,” Ebon called back to her as she followed Sike into the tent, leaving the pair alone for the first time all day.

Edelweiss extinguished the fire with a bucket of water, stirring it up carefully and dousing it again until they were satisfied it wouldn’t start back up.

“Brother?”

“Yes, Edelweiss?”

“My tent, now!” she lashed a pair of tendrils around his belly and began dragging him towards her own tent.

“Y-yes, dear!” he said as he made only a half-hearted show of resisting, letting his toeclaws dig into the ground as if he was being dragged there against his will. Which was anything but the case, but they did enjoy a little roleplay now and again.

And Glassie thought sylveons could be assertive! That was the last thought he had before he disappeared inside the tent.