Umbra squealed loudly as he realized he had been caught, he started running. He saw one of the human's arms turn blue and suddenly he couldn't move. The blue-armed one shouted something, and the male next to him said something quietly, grabbed his bag, and walked over slowly. Umbra growled as he came over, pulling the apple he had swiped closer to his body. He saw the human reach into his bag and pull something out that smelled of Miltank.

The human edged closer and unwrapped the bundle, holding it out to Umbra. As his feet began to thaw out, he sniffed the meat, trying to detect some kind of poison. As his stomach growled wildly, he swiped the meat and handed the apple back to the human, and ran to the edge of the cliff to begin devouring his treat.

I looked over at the human, "I wasn't going to kill him. It was just to immobilize him. I'm not evil you know just weary of this strange place." I looked around the area.

I watched as the creature went over to the cliff. I walked a little closer where he was. Trying to be careful not to provoke him, I crouched down. "I'm sorry I froze your legs. I reacted with my instict and I realized I made a mistake." I held out my hand to him, the Crystal on my arms dulling their light. "Can you speak like the other creature?"

Jet was confused at everything that just happened in front of him. Jet dhook his head. "What in the hell are you people or things. Some guy froze some little demons feet. We got a half-demon thing and an oversized yelloe mouse. The only person that is somewhat normal is the guy with a giant sword. Seriously, where did you come from?"

Umbra was stunned when he realized he could understand the human that crouched next to him. Umbra reached out and touched the crystalline surface of the human's arm, it felt cool to the touch, Umbra wondered if the human would mind him sharpening his claws on it sometime.

"I... I am Umbra. Human can understand me?"

Umbra winced at his arm, he looked down and could see bone poking through his skin. Umbra looked up at the human with the blue arm, "Arm hurts, can you help? No pokeballs, or I hit human."

Umbra looked over at the Pikachu. "You. Pikachu. Trust these humans?"

Umbra's belly growled again and he resumed shoving meat into his mouth with his good arm, and looked over at the one who was bellowing loudly. "Little demon?!" Umbra hissed at him, but was too busy eating and his arm hurt too much to slash his ankles right now.

I smiled as Umbra spoke to me. "Yes I can understand you but I am not an ordinary human. In my world I'm known as a Crystal Being or Cryso as the newer generation calls it." I looked down at his arm and frowned. "Sadly I'm no healer and I don't know what a pokeball is or where to find one." I remembered Umbra looking at the yellow creature and calling it a...Pika..chu? Yeah I think that was it. "Hold on a sec 'kay." I smiled faintly and got up to talk with the others.

"We need someone to look at Umbra's arm.", I lifted my hand in his direction. "I'm no medic or healer so I can't help him. I was hoping someone else could attend to him or at least show me what to do."

I glanced up at the guy that was somewhat freaked out. "I think that the yellow mouse and Umbra are from the same world since Umbra called it a Pikachu or something like that. But I'm from the Crystal Domain, to answer your question and the name's Trevor." I held out my hand for him to shake. I hope he at least knows what a handshake is, then at least will have something familiar.

Jet shook Trevors hand. "The name's Jet and I'm from Koji City. The world I'm from does not have special powers or pokeballs. We just have swords and guns for fighting. I however, use a weapon most people don't use." Jet pointed to his head. "The mind, that is the ultimate weapon." Jet eyed the little demon who took his little buddy's apple. "And you little demon, don't mess with the Chu. I dont' konw it as well as you but I know it's not a thief."

I nodded to Trevor. He didn't seem like the guy to hurt another that way. His ability just got to me, bringing up a few bad memories. "Yeah, I know. I'm sorry." I scratched the back of my head. I gave the creature back its apple.

Sparky was given the apple back and was overjoyed to eat it again.

The Pikachu chuckled with her mouthful, "Trust these guys? Not a chance! Though, I like these two, not so much the guy with the gun and the crystal-man--- But the lady that smelled like pancakes earlier, and the messy-haired one that gave me an apple!" she chucked the last piece into her mouth-hole, "Though one thing is for sure, they're not trainers. They don't smell anything like the humans in our world, so you can trust they can't catch you in a pokeball, Mr. Sneasel. I know you're a Wild Pokemon, so I can understand why you feel cautious around humans. But don't worry, these guys seem pretty nice. I'm a good judge of character, especially when it comes to humans. I was hatched in the care of a Trainer, after all."

Pokemon, Trainers, Pokeballs, the thing formally known as a Pikachu, and the creature to the right of me known as a Sneasel. It was all so confusing. Maybe it was just best to leave it at that. "Okay, so Umbra is your name. How about you, Pikachu?"

"My name's Sparky. Oh, and if you don't know why, you'll probably find out later," she smirked.

"Sparky, huh? Cool. It's nice to meet you two, I'm Spence," I turned to catch the new man's name, "Jet, it's good to finally see someone as normal as me," I chuckled, "Not that I mind something new. Over there is Keyleria---"

Keyleria, Trevor, Jet, Sparky, Umbra and I... What a mix, I thought. I suddenly found myself in my own little world again as I turned to stare at the pedestal. What were we all doing here? How did we get here? How many other worlds were there other than our own? There were so many questions that needed answering, I felt frustrated. I let out an annoyed sigh, placing my hand to my forehead.

“I’d eat that food if I were you...”

“Huh? What? Guys, do you hear anything? That voice...” It sounded like an old man’s voice. It sounded wise, but emotionless, echoing through my mind and my thoughts. I looked around for any sign of where it came from. Suddenly, I noticed something, something almost horrifying. My hands, my arms, no, my whole body was see-through! “The hell?! What is this?!!” I gasped. I looked to everyone else. Their bodies were also slowly vanishing away. The only two who weren’t were the Pokemon.

“The food in the bag which you hold... It changed as you appeared from your world to this one... The food you eat in this world will keep your bodies bond to this world and heal certain injures... Without it, your hearts and minds will come to reject this foreign world, where your being does not truly belong... And your bodies will disappear, and your hearts and souls lost to the void which brought you here... Until the great Crystal is recovered.”

“This world?! So it IS another world!! I don’t know what you’re going on about, Voice, but I for one don’t wanna disappear!” I looked inside the bag of food I had left-- a few apples, some bread, two bottles of milk... I took the bottle and proceeded to scull it down, passing the bag over to the next person.

I wiped my mouth of the leftover milk that almost ran down my face and looked back at my hand, slowly but surely, my body returned to its former glory and I remained visible. “Whew, that’s better. That almost scared me to death!”

I regained my composure and looked up with a glare, “Just who was that voice? Surely you guys heard him, too.”

((Umbra's broken arm will heal thanks to the meat. You guys eat up that food and talk to the voice, ask him questions and whatnot. ))

Sparky twitched her ears, a sign that she also heard the same voice's call. No disappearing for Sparky, she thought happily. Spence and Keyleria were hearing things as well, but she tried to ignore it for the time being.

She walked over to stand in front of Keyleria as she sat, "You said you'd make me pancakes, right? I wouldn't mind if you're a clumsy Dragonite, and besides, humans are annoying anyway. I have to look after an annoying brat by the name of Le---!! Uh, nevermind..." Sparky murmured that last part, hesitating to speak his name. Talking about him would've probably made her miss him more, which she hated.

(Taji, Jet called the sneasel a little demon, not,pikachu)

Jet took part of the bread from the bag and quickly devoured it. He then looked up at the sky from where the voice came from. Jet did not really care what he had to here, he just needed to survive. The guy named Spence was a little to uppity for his liking. Spence was one of those lets-go-team-and-save -the day type of guys. Jet did not like those type of guys as they were usually the first to go in his world. Jet looked up at the sky and said in a sarcastic tone. "Oh great voice from the heavens, what is this Great Crystal and why have you chosen us?"

I grabbed a piece of Clear Fruit out of my pack on my back. Forgot I even had this. I began eating it, my body regaining it's solidity. After hearing the voice I began thinking that maybe whoever this guy is he might know where we are. If this guy knows stuff about this world then he should know why we're here. I wonder if it has anything to do with what my Master told me before I arrived?

I looked up, "Why are we here?"

Umbra had just finished his meat, and looked up at the group. The Pikachu said he liked these humans and that they had no Pokeballs, but Umbra was still going to be careful, there's more than one way to catch a Pokemon.

He looked the humans over: He disliked the black-haired one (OOC, I have trouble remembering your guys' names/appearances, could someone give me a quick recap of names+appearance next post? >.<) that called him a little demon, the fiery one with red hair who said something about demons seemed okay, and the Pikachu named Sparky seemed to like her. The Pikachu seemed kind of sketchy; Umbra never liked captured Pokemon. The one called Cryso though, he liked. He liked that he didn't hesitate to freeze him to the ground, but apologized right after. He eyed the giant sword the last human had, that made Umbra nervous. Most humans he had met weren't very skilled with guns and he could easily disarm them, so he wasn't worried about the one with guns. But he had never met an unskilled swordsman. I'll have to be careful around him...

He was licking his lips when he noticed the humans were suddenly turning transparent, and his arm became extremely itchy all of a sudden. He went to scratch it but remembered that he might injure himself more, until he looked down and saw that his arm was mending itself together. He yelped involuntarily and heard a random voice out of nowhere.

Umbra spun around, twitching his ears and sniffing for where the voice came from. It said something about food and not being transparent, but he was too intent on finding the voice to listen. He looked back at the humans to see the one with the big sword gulping down a whole bottle of smelly white liquid, the red one was scarfing down a pear, the one with the guns was devouring a loaf of bread, and the Cryso one was eating some sort of strange clear fruit. As they all returned to normal, he ran up to the one named Cryso and sat on his shoulder, sniffing his hair and trying to find out why he went transparent.

Umbra looked down from the human's shoulder to hear the Pikachu say something about a bratty kid, but stopped short of what he was saying. "Le-what? Is that your trainer's name? So you *are* captured." He sneered.

((thanks sometimes I read things too fast and I see misread certain things))

"Well now what do we do... people from other worlds seeing that is the case apparently." I said aloud, wanting to where we go from here. "I know we all heard that voice telling us about these Crystal things, don't try to deny it because it will only stall the transition from your world to this one."

Looking at Sparky "Yes I can make you Pancakes but I do need certain things for it, none of which I currently have."

The Pikachu growled at the Sneasel, barking, "Yeah, so what?! Human's aren't that bad! Besides, what would a snot-nosed baby Sneasel know of humans anyway?" she poked her tongue out making a face at him.

---

“Let me start from the beginning...”

The voice seemed closer now. A strange man suddenly emerged from as if nothing above the pedestal, before my very eyes. The solemn figure was robed in an enchanting black and gold kimono. He had long strains of golden hair and a long untamed beard. You couldn’t distinguish where he had his eyes open or closed under his golden bushy brows. He was as old as he was ancient, someone you should respect. His voice was louder, and more powerful than ever, almost hypnotising. The Pokemon, Keyleria, Trevor, Jet and I became silent. I found it very hard to even utter a word.

“I should introduce myself... My name is Age.

I was once Guardian of the Light in this world for many eons ... Until the Guardian, Lord of Darkness, detesting the Light so much, ripped open the heart of this world, from the parallel side of this land, and shattered the great Light, the Light in the form of a Great Crystal... The shattered shards of Light which once belonged in this world’s very heart, where only but a void of nothingness remains, were then stolen and hidden away, never to be reunited together again... I call these shards of light, Light Shards-- and one of them alone is tremendously powerful in the wrong hands.

How were you brought here, and by whom? I believe that the great Heart, before the void, simply cried out for help. Why you--? Why among you were chosen? It may be nothing more than mere coincidence, or perhaps if you believe in fate? It’s up to you to be the judge of that. This is a world tied to many worlds, principle and rules co-existing together. As you journey to seek the Crystal’s shards, you will see many familiar and also very unfamiliar things...”

As I heard him out, believing every single word he told us, I started to hear tiredness in his voice.

“You were summoned from your worlds-- To find the Light Shards, and bring the Light back to this world, deprived of it... Evil lurks around every corner, so you must be aware...”

Suddenly, the man named Age fell to one knee, as if he were running out of energy completely.

I reached out, “Wait! Hold on, what’s wrong?!”

He smirked upwards to me, “I am not of the living anymore. The Dark Lord destroyed me and my failed attempts to protect the Crystal. I saved my last bit of energy to give you, travellers-- this message. I will shortly fade away into the void...”

((Somebody ask the locations of the Light Shards, where they should begin first, maybe how we get back home, then we can begin and get into our first battle! Whew.))

Umbra looked down from the human's shoulder, and puffed out his chest. "I'm no baby, I'm Umbra Sneasel, first born of my father and future leader of my own clan! And of course you think humans are great, you were born into captivity! What would you know of freedom?" Umbra turned around on the human's shoulder and spanked his bum towards the Pikachu to tease him.

The same voice was heard again, but Umbra had difficulty understanding the big words he used. He got the basic message, and called out, "How do I get home? I must return to the snow and my homeland!"


(Thanks Crunchy and red for helping me with that.)

Jet shook his head at at the Sneasel shaking his bum. "Yeah, the leader of the no-one-cares clan. Seriously, I thought leaders were supposed to be brave, strong and charasmatic. Your more like a weak, creepy gremlin." Jet then looked up at the sky. "Okay Mr. Voice in the sky, where do we find these shards and where do we even start? However, this world is a little bit better than mine."

"Hey, you don't need to be mean to her." I looked at Umbra out of the corner of my eye as I listened to the Sage. I wonder if this Great Crystal is similar to the Great Crystal of my world.

I looked over at Jet then the Sage. "Yes, I would also like to know how to get these Shards. This world is almost a perfect reflection of my own. It's very odd."

Jet rolled his eyes at the red-head woman. "Well in my world, I killed most of the leaders. That was basically my job, this leader hires me to kill this leader and that leader hired me to kill that leader. When the job was done, I killed my corrupt employer. To those horrible corrupt fools, their lust for power is greater than than their sence of morality. That is what I did for a living in my world, kill the corrupt. Unlike you, I don't cower under my so-called leaders, I did something about it." Jet looked around at everybody. "Listen, I know you don't like me and I could care less. But we need to work together if you want to go home."

No, they arent. The two crystals are different (because your crystal and this world's have different principles, as different worlds do in games or anime). This Crystal belongs to a void, the heart of this world, and in fact, the Crystal's true form is light, which is connected to all worlds. Because it was shattered, darkness took over the world. They're crystals, so they are going to have some similarities there, though the Light Shard do have a special power I won't reveal just yet.

This world's crystal is called the Crystal of Light. I must have confused you when Age said the "Great Crystal". The Crystal of Light is probably going to be the only original thing that connects all worlds, along with some towns and cities (well, I did mix up three theories from games/anime about the Crystal, so it might not possibly count).

((I hope you guys pay close attention/read my posts fully next time. Age "the voice" is standing clearly in front of you guys. Also, "The Pokemon, Keyleria, Trevor, Jet and I became silent. I found it very hard to even utter a word." It would be hard to bekker to one another if you were silent. I'm allowed to point you guys into the right direction by god-moding! Besides, this was supposed to be major to the plot, but whatever. ))

Age stood firmly once again. I could tell that he was going over his limit. I wanted to tell him to relax and take it easy, but I needed to know these answers for myself, too.

"I'm afraid, Umbra, that you must gather the Light Shards of the Crystal first. Jet is correct, you must all help each other in order to find these said shards, and once altogether, the Crystal of Light will be reborn and this world will return to normal. Those of you should then be returned to your home world...

Trevor... Smothered by an unnatural forest, consumed by fiery volcanic lava, drowned within great sea, frozen under the coldest glacial of ice, buried within earths darkest curst, casted off into the void of sky, eaten and swallowed by a soulless demon, and the eighth, thrown into the darkest depths of hell itself... These are the last locations I sensed their power. But as I have grown weak, I've lost their direction... It also seems that other people are also working towards obtaining these shards... Both good people like yourselves, but also very bad people...

The first location... Go down below here and meet someone in the empty village called Hope... They should help you.

Keyleria... I'm sorry, but I am no God. I am just a protector of the Light... Nothing more. The Crystal shattering and the world's cry for help, is the only explanation I have that you people are here. I'm not even at all sure if you collect all shards that you'll be returned to your world... It's only a guess..."

Keyleria mentioned some guy named Fate, and immediately I thought back to how Cory appeared.

Age let in a deep breath, "That’s right. Fate, along with the others-- Are...!!" he suddenly then fell, this moment seemed like it was in slow-motion. As he hit the ground, he remained lifeless to the world, suddenly disappearing in a stream of light which flowed up and dispersed into the sky.

I watched as he died before my eyes, something I told myself I wouldn't ever let happen again. I bunched my fists as I sighed, bowing my head, "Goodbye, Age..."

Sparky jumped up, sniffing sadly at the area Age vanished. Was he really, dead...? She thought.

I turned to the others, "Anyway, let's go down to the village he said. I'm sure we'll find more answers there."

Umbra jumped off Cryso's shoulder, sad for reason's he didn't know. This man never did anything for me... he wasn't my friend... why am I sad for him? He went over and sniffed the area with the Pikachu. Umbra looked over to the Pikachu and said quietly, "Sorry I called you a whiny captive Pokemon... I'm just wary around humans and their Pokemon, I've never met a captured Pokemon I like. Friends?" Umbra held out his claw to the Pikachu.

He perked up as he thought back on the old man's words. Did he say glacier? That means ice! And snow! And cold! Woohoo!

Umbra ran back over and jumped onto the shoulders of the one he called Cryso. "Okay, I'm ready! Let's go get some... uh... crystals! What did he call them again? Light shards? I don't know. All I know is I want to get back to the snow!"

Sparky smiled, shaking hands with the Sneasel, "Yeah, friends. No hard feelings, Umbra."

Sparky turned back around, looking up into the sky as it became night. The stars started twinkling beautifully. Unknown to the others, she shed a tear which sparkled from her pinkish red cheek.

She turned back, walking over toward Keyleria, "I've never seen anybody die before... But I'm okay. Too bad Age didn't get to answer your question about that Fate guy."

I turned to Keyleria and Sparky in a dead-serious look, "Don't worry, Keyleria. You're not the only one. I saw somebody I fought before I got here, too-- But..." I looked down in frustration. Would anybody believe me if I told them? I had a hard time believing it myself. "...The guy I saw, Jack and I destroyed him 10 years ago, no doubt about it. But I definitely saw him today, and he laughed at me... His name is Cory. He was a Magi who wanted to eliminate all Humes, including anyone who got in his way. He summoned powerful dark fiends to destroy us. His spells were mainly fire-based... If somehow he's still alive, and he's somewhere in this world hunting down the Light Shards, I want you guys to be careful," I nodded.

I turned around to see off the darkness below the cliff, glaring into the distance. Somewhere out there, was he waiting for us?

((I'll wait for a post from each of you before we go down the cliff into town.))

Jet listenedto Spence as he told the story of his nemesis and how he could be in this world. "I doubt this, but if my nemesis got in this world, that would not be pleasnt event. People call him the Merc. He is a human weapon and is an expert in almost anything combat related. He killed anything that got in his way and anything that got hiim a big pay check. The worst thing he done though was kill my father. I will not lie, my father was no saint but he tried to turn his life around. But that Merc took everything from me that night. Took my home, my family, and my want to live. I'll tell you people one thing, the Merc shows no mercy. He kills first and never asks questions, If he is here, than it's best we avoid him than have an encounter."

((Our "nemesis's" are all equal in strength. Remember that.))

"The Merc, huh?" I chuckled, still looking out, "You mean a soldier, a mercenary, right? I was a soldier, too. To be ranked a mercenary is a pretty big deal... Well, I hope we don't run into any of them."