Hey, look guys, it's that fan fiction I said I would post today in a completely unrelated thread. It's here! Honestly, this should've been here much earlier, but Winter Break made me supremely lazy. Oh well.

Anyway, this is a Pokémon Mystery Dungeon fan fiction, largely based off Pokémon Mystery Dungeon 2. This is honestly more a trial run of trying to get back into writing more than being written with the idea of being a fully fleshed out story, but this is the first part. I guess whether or not people care at all is going to be the deciding factor over whether I really continue this much more or try moving to something else.

Anyways, without further ado, I present to you the first part of Trials of Fire.

---

A flash of lightning, the roaring sounds of thunder. Water pours in massive troves as visibility is reduced to insignificance. Two figures riding through this storm hold on to each other as their unstable vessel gets pummeled by an unseen force.

Another attack damages one of the two, making him lose his grip a bit. “Agh…!”

“Hey, are you alright?! You’d better not lose it now; we’re almost there!”

“B-but…he’s chasing us! How much longer do you think we can--“ Another attack rails the figure as he tries to finish. “Argh!”

The other figure responds with an even tighter grip, bracing himself for another blow “N-no! S-stay with me! I-I won’t…”

“Ungh…!” One more attack hits, and this time it’s a direct hit. Finally, the damaged one’s grip loosens too far, and he begins to slip away…

“I won’t…let…go! N-no! Don’t lose it now! We’re there! Just a little longer…!”

“…I-I’m sorry, I…”

“Wh-what are you…?! No! Don’t you…!” Finally, the two lost contact as the damage was too great, and a final blow made them both split off, away into the unknown…

…

“We were able to stop one, sir, but the other…he still continues on his way.”

“That’s fine. One of them alone will surely fail their mission, but I will keep chase as a precautionary measure. I order the rest of you to find the other, as well as continue the capture mission. I’ll make sure that the course of time does not change…”

“Of course.”

---

“…Ah…”

“Yo, wake up, will you…?”

“Hm…?”

“Ah! About time; I had to carry you back all the way here, so you’d better be alive!”

“Wh-who…?” Terra began to come to his senses as his eyes shifted open. His back was lying on something somewhat prickly, but other than that, he was feeling rather relaxed for someone who practically fell from the sky--not that he knew even that much. His eyes, finally wide open, were staring up at a cloud-dotted sky, the view surrounded by a ceiling of rocks on all sides. He turned his head from side to side, initially not noticing anyone around him. “Where, where am I?”

“You’re at Sharpedo Bluff. Thought I could at least try to get you in a little bit of cover, even if the ceiling’s a bit spotty.” The owner of the soft, feminine voice showed herself to the still-dizzy individual; she was a Pichu, with standard long ears and a shorter than average tail. Her pinkish cheek pouches were discharging electricity infrequently as she continued to speak excitedly. "I know it's not much of a place, but I tried to make you somewhat comfortable!" She smiled brightly as she finished.

"Um, that's nice, but why'd you do anything with me? Do, do I know you perhaps?" He sat himself up, stretching while trying to maintain his balance. Something felt off about him, but he wasn't quite certain what it was in his groggy state.

"What do you mean by that?" The Pichu expressed her concern with a stern frown. "With all of the natural disasters and attacks that have happened, it's only natural to help a Pokémon in need!"

"A...pokémon? The heck are you talking about?"

"Did you hit your head or something?" she asked, poking Terra's head playfully with one of her forepaws.

"...Maybe I did, and I honestly don't remember much. But, I know for certain that I'm no Pokémon."

The Pichu responded with an increasingly quizzical look strewn about her face. "You're weird. You must've really taken a hit to that noggin of yours if you think that."

Terra finally woke up significantly upon hearing that. "Excuse me?"

"Um, I know my eyesight isn't falling me yet, and you look like a plain old Treecko to me."

He gave a noticeable hesitation before answering back to the Pichu. "Stop pulling my leg here. Of course I'm not a Treecko..."

"Take a look for yourself." The Pichu, finally seeming at least a little bit impatient at this point, grabbed one of Terra's arms and brought it up to his line of sight, watching as his expression of disbelief turned into one of shock.

"Wh-what...?" He pulled the thin, green arm he now had from the Pichu's grip, and turned his hand--or more, his small, three-fingered forepaw, toward him, staring at it intently. "What kind of joke did you all pull on me here?!"

"I'm not pulling anything here, promise! Why are you acting so strange...?"

Terra finally sighed, trying to calm himself down. The Pichu was clearly being sincere; she had no reason to lie to a complete stranger like that. She probably knows only just as much as he does, he figured. "Fine, fine, I believe it. But, I'm also telling you the truth! I'm not a Pokémon. I'm a human!"

"Really?" The Pichu cocked her head to the side, rather puzzled. "I'll admit, that's kinda tough to swallow, y'know. I've never heard of anything like that happening, or, at least, not in real life, I haven't."

"Hm? What do you mean, 'not in real life'?"

"Well, it's true that all of us kids have heard of humans, but that's all a bunch of fairy tale stuff to us out here! It's impossible for humans, transformed or not, to see this part of the world, much less enter it!"

"Eh..."

"That's seriously hard to believe."

"Well, then I'll just have to ask you to believe me, then."

"...Okay, look. How about you tell me your name, at least? My name's Bella!"

"I'm Terra. Pleased to meet you."

"Terra, huh?" Bella let out a small smile. "I think that's an awesome name! But you don't have to be so formal, y'know."

"Um, right. My apologies."

"...And not even two seconds later, you keep doing it, huh?"

"Ack, sorry..." Terra bowed his head down slightly. "I just find it natural to speak like that."

"Ah, whatever!" Bella, already having shrugged it off, smiled even brighter. "That just means you're a bit more unique, right?" She then proceeded to pounce somewhat at her new friend, pulling him into a hug. "I hope we can be great friends!"

Rather puzzled and admittedly uncomfortable, Terra tried to struggle out of Bella’s complete absence of personal space. “Um, y-you don’t have to be that happy right now, y’know…”

“Oops, sorry, I guess you’re still a bit loopy, huh?” Finally, the excited Pichu let go and sat back beside Terra. “I still don’t really know where you came from, honestly. Can you at least tell me that much?”

“Oh, right, I’m sorry. I’m from…” A long pause. Terra squinted his eyes shut as he attempted to think about where he was coming from to have ended up here. He began to think to himself as he continued to search his mind for an answer. ‘Urk…! I can’t, I can’t have forgotten even that much! What was I doing just before this…? Augh, I can’t remember even a shred of it!’

Bella, finally having caught on to the fact that her new friend might actually be struggling to remember anything at all, gave a concerned frown and tapped his shoulder lightly. “Hey, u-uh, never mind about that, okay? Sorry I asked.”

With a disconcerted sigh, the Treecko finally looked to her once again. “It’s fine. I didn’t exactly expect to forget something like that. I mean, obviously, that’s something that just happened, and I can’t even remember what I was doing that far back.”

“Look, it’s alright. It just might take time, right?”

‘Oh boy, this little one seems pretty naïve, huh? I really want to try to give my opinion on the matter, that this sort of stuff doesn’t magically happen, but--‘

“Hello-o-o? Earth to Terra! Wait, that doesn’t even make sense…”

“Ah!” Caught slightly off-guard by Bella’s impatience, Terra panicked and jumped up to his feet. “…Oh, sorry about that.” He sighed a few times before sitting down again.

“Um, you’re standing on end right now… Are you alright?”

“Y-yeah, I’m just fine.”

“Promise?”

Terra just gave an unamused stare before answering back. “Promise.”

“Pinkie promise?”

“…You, uh, do know that neither of us has pinkies, right…?”

“Of course I do, silly! But we can still do it, right?”

‘Well, at least now I know that her claim of there being stories of humans isn’t entirely wrong…’

“So?”

“I already told you. I promise.”

Bella turned around and sighed, finally submitting. “Well, you can be no fun.”

“We just met. I’d like to remind you of that.”

“Doesn’t mean you can’t be fun!” The Pichu gave a rather silly smirk in response, as she quickly turned back to Terra.

‘Jeez, I wonder who’s watching who…’ Confused, he got up on his feet again and began to scan around where he was. “So, you said this was, um, Sharpedo Bluff, right?”

“That’s right! I guess you can say that I kinda live here.”

Terra looked out at the view of the ocean for a second before looking back to Bella. “Um, you live within a cliff?”

“Don’t worry, though! It’s perfectly safe!”

‘I didn’t actually have that concern, I just wanted to know if that was the case to begin with…’

“But anyway, if you’re feeling alright, maybe I should show you around a bit!”

“Um, I’d rather just stay put for a while. I don’t want to cause any commotion or anything.”

“Oh, come on! Tons of Pokémon come in and out of Treasure Town every day! One extra face won’t make them suspicious!”

“I’d still rather stick around for a while--“

“Oh, come on! What’s the harm in it?” The young Pichu finally grabbed Terra by the arm and started to drag him off. “Let’s just look around! Can’t we do that much?”

“Can I just--“

“Alright, let’s go!” It seems that Bella has made up her mind, with or without Terra, as she drags him off to the town excitedly.