[[ Melody ]]
Knowing that you could not be seen by anyone except a malevolent spirit and yourself was indeed an otherworldly feeling. Melody stared down at her nightgown and the bottom halves of her legs peeping out from beneath it. When she glanced over at the mirror hanging from the wall, it showed no sign that she existed. She let out a drawn-out sigh and turned away to watch Lee and the girl play their "game".
The Hitmonlee was just finishing up a battle with a shadowy clone of himself, undoubtedly an mirage the ghost child had conjured up. The fake Lee then morphed itself into a Hitmonchan gijinka, perhaps someone Lee had once known. A hint of surprise found its way onto his face briefly, but then it evaporated and he took down the new opponent without a hitch. Melody found herself admiring his ability to keep such a level head when facing an adversary.
"Aw..." the girl moaned, peeking out from behind her illusion. She made a disappointed expression and commented, "You’re not like the others…"
"Come," Lee responded, "I'm about to end this fight."
What happened next occurred so swiftly, Melody was unable to register it until it was already over. As Lee took a step forward, the floor opened up into a gigantic hole, sucking both him and Melody down into its depths. As the Mudkip started falling, her eyes darted over to the mirror, where she witnessed her figure flicker and become visible again. The girl, equally surprised as the gijinkas, let out a yelp and leaped back, landing on the rim of the pit. Melody could make out the desperation in her mint-green eyes as she helplessly watched them drop. Her mouth formed the words, "My 'friends'...", and the next moment, she had disappeared from view.
As Melody plummeted downwards, she looked at her accompaniments. Lee was trying not to allow himself to be thrown around as much by the air rushing past them. There was something else with them, too. The Mud Fish Pokemon squinted her eyes as she identified a... doll? No, wait, she realized, that's not a doll. That's another gijinka! Sure enough, the toy started growing in size until it had become proportionate to an average human's mass.
Melody beamed widely. "Kat!" she exclaimed. "So nice of you to join us!"
Lee nodded at the Glameow, his own form of greeting.
Before Kat could respond, the scene abruptly shifted. The black pit opened into a vast area, appearing almost like another dimension. The three gijinka dropped from the "sky", watching the ground coming up quickly. However, it was soon revealed they weren't the only ones falling; other familiar faces popped out of similar holes in the sky. Melody glanced through the rain of gijinkas, attempting to identify a few. She spotted Nina in one area, Hoom and Badrak in another, and as she turned her head to the side, her eyes widened as she recognized the only Houndour gijinka she knew.
"Hon! Hon!!!" she screamed in jubilation. At the mentioning of his name, he looked over at her and gave her a half-wave, his blank expression hinting at his befuddlement with this sudden turn of events. Melody was preparing to continue communicating with him, but was interrupted when she landed spread-eagle on her back. There were other loud thumps that followed as everyone else hit the ground.
The female gijinka coughed as she sat up, observing everyone reunite with their compatriots. A twinge of worry filled her when she did not see Andreas in the crowd, but she brushed it off. If he's not here, then he's just in the mansion, she assured herself. She started to brush the dust off of her nightclothes, but booming laughter startled her out of her task. The others fell silent as well.
The voice that had emitted such a terrible laugh continued. "IT APPEARS YOU ARE ALL HERE!" it rumbled, making the ground shudder slightly. "You cannot defeat me in this place. In this word I rule all. Welcome to the Twilight Zone."
A chorus of "What?!" rang out through the multitude. An ominous wind whispered through the open space, blowing a hat off of a Smeargle gijinka's head. Mutters broke out through the group, apparently coming from people comforting each other or figuring out a way to get back to the mansion. Melody shifted uncomfortably, searching for any sign of the source of the voice.
A cloaked figure appeared from thin air. It cackled madly as it advanced towards the group of gijinkas. Nina let out a cry of fear, and a Meowth gijinka was quick to calm her. Lupe, who had been sitting quietly for the majority of the time, rose to her feet and burst out, “Just what the hell are you?!”
“Aw… That’s mean,” the anonymous figure retorted. “Why don’t you at least try some common decency when speaking?”
Lupe growled but said no more.
Two others stood up: Estelle and a Banette that Melody couldn't recognize. “You’re not human,” the Espeon stated. The Banette continued, “And you’re not Gijinka or Pokemon.”
“Ahhh correct, correct both of you should get an A in school…” the man sneered. “I am none of the above… can you guess what I am then?”
"Another ghost," a Gengar responded plainly.
Melody's eyes narrowed. That cloaked bastard thinks he's got it all, doesn't he? she thought. He's insulting us. I won't allow it. She pushed herself from the ground and assumed an attack position. "Are you with the little girl?" she demanded, giving him a hard stare at the area where his face should have been.
“Ah, no no no,” he said pleasantly. “We sprits are not of the communing class. She is very weak in comparison with my powers which is why I decided to take away her play toys as well.” He gestured to a rather stiff-looking Kat.
The questions and comments continued, and the man answered each with ease. At one point, just as things were quieting down again, the Smeargle conjured a stuffed rabbit from nowhere. He took it into his arms and began to step away from the group, but Lux halted him. Melody quirked an eyebrow and she attempted to listen to the words they were exchanging, but she was too far away to hear.
A scream tore through the air. The Mudkip whipped her head to the left, where shadows morphed themselves into human-sized spiders and began crawling through the crowd. Startled gijinkas started moving away from the monsters, thus splitting up the group. “No! Don’t split up!” the Smeargle cried, but he was too late.
The calm situation descended into chaos. A particularly large multitude of arachnids surrounded Melody, successfully isolating her from the others. "Why is it almost always me that gets separated?" she huffed, slamming her foot into a nearby spider. The creature let out a squeal of pain and burst into ash. Wait... ash? An idea formed in Melody's mind. If they can be reduced to dust... they can be washed away by water. A grin spread across her face. "Hydro Pump!" she commanded. She formed the water that emerged from her hand into the familiar ribbon-like shape and started swinging. The monsters dropped like flies, nothing more than organic obstacles in Hydro Pump's way. "This... this is like slicing cheese," Melody commented, effortlessly dispatching several more spiders. "How easy can this get?"
Almost as if to contradict her statement, the arachnids changed shape and took on the form of locusts. They swarmed around her, blocking her view. All she could see was the sandy brown insects closing in on her. She attempted to bat them away with her Hydro-Pump-turned-whip, but there were too many for her to handle. In the end, she was forced to resort to using her unmodified attacks at frequent intervals. However, even that was proving useless. Every time she would blast a hole through the locusts with a well-placed Ice Beam, the opening would simply fill up with the flying insects again. She was overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. Her breathing hitched as she felt the locusts squeeze closer to her.
It was then that she comprehended that they were trying to suffocate her, and there was no way out.
+
[[ Luis ]]
The events of the night had happened so swiftly, Luis had hardly been able to understand them all. It seemed that one moment he was standing on a balcony, chatting with Vixy, and the next, he was in a separate dimension entirely, combating hordes of winged insects alongside his trusted gijinka comrades. Everything has changed so abruptly, he thought. It is like a phantasmagoria... an ever-shifting dream. I do hope that once this is over with, we can return to the manor.
The number of members in his group ballooned from consisting of him, Lee, a Glameow, and a Salbeye, to containing a multitude of other gijinka, two of which he recognized as Hoom and Lupe. The others were completely new faces, but however much he wished to greet them all, focusing on beating back the locusts was his first priority. He kept up the pace of firing off continuous Aura Spheres at the foes, occasionally using another move from his arsenal to switch things up. The insects managed to nick him a couple of times, but the Shell Bell he kept tucked into his boot was able to restore him to full health with ease.
Luis glanced around at the other gijinkas in his group. Each of them were making use of their own signature moves, displaying their surprisingly high potential. With each others' help, they were making significant headway in the sea of locusts. He felt pride for his comrades swell inside of his chest. The level of teamwork they were presenting was incredible, and he very well knew that some of them did not even know half of the people they were fighting alongside. Us working together like this is the one thing keeping us afloat in this situation, he said to himself. If we keep it up, we may get this whole ordeal out of the way in almost no time.
A rather large locust emerged from the swarm without warning. The male Lucario was too preoccupied to smack it away, so it proceeded to slice at him. The sharp teeth tore at the skin of his right forearm. He felt the fangs enter through the soft membrane and shred muscle tissue. There was a sickening pop as the teeth severed a tendon. "Dammit!" Luis swore as pain exploded through his arm, which fell to his side, useless. He incinerated the locust responsible for his injury with a fiercer-than-normal Dragon Pulse. He winced when he looked at his now-limp right arm, which was bleeding profusely from the insect's bite. It will take the Shell Bell a while to mend that completely, he thought. Damn. He decided resort to using all of his moves with his left limb, something that hindered his efforts to help his friends significantly.
There was a sudden shift in the swarm of locusts. A large cluster of them broke away, abandoning the remainder of their swarm as they buzzed away. Several of the gjinkas donned confused expressions. "Where are they going?" Hoom inquired in between her fire attacks. "Are they retreating?"
Luis squinted at the mass of dust-colored pests, bemused by their abrupt change in behavior. They hovered in the air for several moments, not moving an inch. Everyone held their breath. Suddenly, the hum of their wings gained volume, and their cluster took on a new formation: a huge, towering wall of insects. After a second's hesitation, they plowed forward, moving swiftly towards the group of gijinkas.
"I really don't think becoming a Great Wall of Locusts could be called retreating!" someone shouted over the roar. Luis swallowed hard, his ears laying down on his head. How are we going to get through this? he asked himself. I am unsure if a simultaneous, collective attack could even work. Nevertheless, he crouched in an attack position, prepared to take the offensive if necessary.
Continue?
Melody and Luis.
----
Whaaaat? Luis, the courteous little chap that rarely even uses contractions... cusses? Why yes, he does when he's feeling... rather displeased. The worse mood something gets him into, the more vulgar his swear choice becomes. And even though this occurrence is extremely rare, it's still very lulzy to imagine Luis dropping the F-bomb here and there while still managing not to use one contraction. Ah, the things you can think of when you're bored! P:
So... yes. Another long post. Hope people are able to work off of this one.
Kudos to you if you noticed that I occasionally pull my story titles from the chapter names in Bleach when I'm unsure what to name my post, like this time. It's actually very convenient, you know. Bleach has the most random chapter titles that fit with practically every situation. But that's just my opinion, you know. :U
