A Rather Unwelcome Burden

Chapter 1

He had absolutely no idea where the hell he was. That much was certain.

Actually, he did know one other thing, for sure.

He was pissed. And not the simple, "hey buddy, I broke your last pencil in half on the day of the big test, so now you have to make an ass out of yourself so someone will give you theirs."

No, this pissy attitude was more akin to, "I just ate all the bacon."

Truly, this hypothetical situation was worse than the Holocaust.

He shook his head. Bacon and genocide? He must've fallen asleep in history class while eating lunch again.

And after the "Dirty Sanchez" 'stache his friends had drawn on him in sharpie, he thought he would never do that again.

At least, he hoped to God it was sharpie.

Suddenly, his musings on the working of the universe and their correlation with permanent markers was interrupted by an ethereal voice.

"Are you quite done thinking about stupid shit yet?"

He blinked, and looked around for the source of the voice. He checked everywhere he could in the floating, endless, black, possibly demon-infested hell-pit he was in. After finding nothing, he hesitantly lifted up his shoes to check the bottom of them.

Nothing on the left.

Nothing on the right.

Crisis averted. If his mother had found out he had brought a disembodied spirit that had somehow managed to crawl its way out of the deepest layer of hell, he wouldn't get any dinner.

Fuck you, mom.

He heard a sigh. "Are you done acting like an idiot yet? I'm running a very, very tight schedule here, and dealing with your ridiculous shenanigans is more tiring than you'd think. Honestly, you've been here less than a minute and a half, and I already want to give you a vasectomy with a rusty fork to prevent you from having offspring."

He only knew of one entity powerful enough to commit such a degrading medical procedure with tarnished silverware.

"Am I speaking to Jesus?" he asked.

He heard what sounded like a face hitting a table.

"Is that a no, then?"

"Look, it doesn't matter who I am. All that matters is that you answer this question; what do you think of your world?"

"Yes."

"'Yes?'"

"Yes."

"Yes to what?"

"Just, yes. I kind of like the world, you know. That's where I keep all my stuff."

"That's the only reason why you like it?"

"Well, we also have porn."

"Ah. Now, I ask you this question; would you like to leave this world in favor of another?"

He blinked. "Okay, what?"

"Do. You. Want to. Leave. The world. For. Another."

"Um, why?"

"Okay, I was going to give some long-winded speech about the fate of the universe or something, but I'll just skip it because it's not important. Basically, there's this other world filled with pokémon. Yes, from the Japanese game. Except they're real. Also, their world's going to shit, because they fucked up and brought some douchebag in from your world. So, we figured we'd bring in another person and turn them into a pokémon to help them unfuck themselves. Sound cool?"

He scratched his head. "I guess. What do I have to do to get to this other world?"

"Answer this questionnaire. Some of the questions may seem weird, but I assure you, they are all necessary, and the fate of the world rests in you answering them."

"Really?"

"Just answer the questions."

"Okay, fine. I'll play along."

"Good, now we're getting somewhere. Question 1: what is-"

"Love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me, no more."

"Fine. I guess that counts. Question 2: complete this sentence; Jack and John went to the tree to…"

"Cut it down to make a table, which they would then place in the cemetery on the night of the full moon so they could have something to strap a virgin onto in order to sacrifice her to summon Ronnie James Dio, the evil ruler of hell and heavy metal, to get him to sing once more his songs of loneliness and evil women. Also, all of this is going on with Venom playing in the background."

There was a long pause when he finished his long sentence. Finally, the ethereal voice decided to chime in.

"Wow, that was disturbing. Okay, we're moving on to the next question, because I need to go see my special doctor after this. Question 3: An orphan comes up to you on the street, asking for money. What do you do?"

"Give him money."

"Wait, really? I was expecting something seriously fucked u-"

"'Scuse me, but it's rude to interrupt. Now, as I was saying, I'd give him money, but I'd make sure it was counterfeit, covered in semen and cocaine, and had a piece of a finger belonging to Jimmy Hoffa in it, so as to get the little orphan onto the F.B.I.'s list of Crazy Motherfucking Psychopaths That Will Fuck Up Your Shit if You So Much As Look at Them in a Normal Manner. That's a real list, too."

There was the sound of papers being torn, glass bottles being shattered, and the uttering of racial slurs all around him. This went on for about eighty-nine seconds, before the voice finally came back to talk.

"Well, that's the last question. Yup, no more. Only three. Well, according to these results, you're a selfish, hateful, cynical, evil, and generally unpleasant individual who probably leaves the toilet seat up. Therefore, you are going to be a shinx, because fuck cats and their self-absorbed attitudes. Assholes."

At this, the unnamed human felt himself become enveloped in a fluorescent light. He closed his eyes and allowed the transformation to take place without a struggle. However, just as he felt the first symptoms of unconsciousness creep up on him, his eyes snapped open.

"Wait! Mysterious voice, will I ever see you again?"

"No, I'm just a plot device useful for one or two scenes in this whole thing. Have fun unfucking the world. Try not to die…or, you know what? I hope you die! Fuck you, man!"

There was what sounded like a microphone being dropped, followed immediately by what sounded like two grown men fighting over something. Deciding not to pursue the matter any further, the human closed his eyes and finally allowed himself to black out.

"Hey, buddy."

"Ughhh…"

"Hey."

"Ughhhhhhh…"

"Son, you're in my fucking azaleas! Get out before I go grab my can opener and open up a can of whoop-ass on you!"

He slowly opened an eye, then jumped at what he saw. In front of him was a houndour. Wait, why was he surprised? The voice had told him about the world he was going into. With a jolt, he realized that, if there was a pokémon in front of him…

He looked down. There, in place of two feet were four blue-furred paws. He was just about to make a pun regarding Krystal from Star Fox and furries when he was knocked out of his stupor by a fast-moving object from behind him.

The impact caused him to roll approximately eight feet away, out of the annoyed houndour's azaleas. And thank God for that, too. That houndour looked like he was about to bust more nuts than a radical feminist with a sledgehammer in a boys' locker room.

He shook his head, then stood up. As the impact had somehow also turned him around, the first thing he did was return his gaze to the houndour. To his surprise, he also saw a butterfree floating next to the houndour. His admittedly smaller-than-average brain was able to piece two and two together and come to the conclusion that root beer was the best soda ever made. Oh, and that the butterfree had knocked him on his ass. Putting off the immense desire he suddenly had for a can of root beer, he decided to listen in to the conversation playing out before him.

"No, Butterfree! I will not go rescue your son again!" the houndour said.

The butterfree twitched its wings irritably. "C'mon, please Houndour? I just need you to go get him one more time!"

"You said that the last four times he fell into that fucking cavern! Why can't you just go get him? All you have to do is find the stairs and they'll lead you right to him!"

Butterfree narrowed her eyes. "Okay, I'll be blunt; I don't want to go down there, okay? I'm a lazy fucknugget. Nobody else wants to go get him, either. So, I'm asking you to go get him for me."

Houndour let out a growl. "Hang on a minute," he said, turning to the shinx behind him. "Well, now that you're out of my azaleas, maybe you'd like to tell me some things? For starters, your name, where you're from, and why I shouldn't kick your ass."

The shinx frowned. "Fine. My name is Dave. I used to be a human, but I was turned into a shinx by a disembodied voice who asked me to save this world from something."

Houndour gave him an incredulous stare. "You're also obviously crazy. Now, why shouldn't I kick your ass for stomping on my flowers?"

Dave thought for a moment. In that moment, the hamster inside his noggin began running inside its wheel, promptly died of a heart attack, and was replaced by another hamster. This hamster also died of a heart attack. Then, his brain decided, "fuck metaphors!".

Also, he came up with a plan.

"Well, I have a proposition for you, Houndour."

"Oh, do tell."

Dave motioned towards Butterfree. "It's obvious she's not going to leave you alone until you find her brat. Well, I can help you with that."

Houndour looked at him, obviously interested. "Go on…"

Dave smiled. "It's simple; the two of us go save this little bastard from whatever hell he's gotten his pre-pubescent ass into, come back, then watch as Butterfree leaves, never to return again…until her pants-on-head retarded kid decides to jump down another chasm, that is."

Houndour smiled. "You're alright, kid. I may not kick your ass after all." That being said, he turned to Butterfree. "Okay, we'll go find him."

Butterfree let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you…for a second, I thought I'd have to do something! I'll just wait here until you two get back. Oh, he's also in-"

"Let me guess; Tiny Woods, right?" Houndour asked, annoyed.

"Yes. Dumbass won't stay away," Butterfree said.

Houndour nodded. "Okay. Follow me, Dave."

Dave nodded, and the two of them took off running. However, before they even got ten feet away, Houndour stopped.

"Don't touch my fucking azaleas, Butterfree! I will fuck up your shit if you do!" he shouted, before taking off running again.

Tiny Woods, as the name implies, is notorious for being very, very small. The other, bigger, thicker woods that surround it often make fun of it and take its lunch money, and the beautiful rain forests refuse to associate with anything that small. Size does matter, children.

Dave was snapped out of his thoughts by a paw to the back of the skull, courtesy of Houndour.

"Pay attention, dammit!" Houndour said, as he stared at the entrance to the woods. "Right, here's the plan; we go inside, find the stairs, and get down to this little bastard."

Dave gave him a questioning look. "But…why are there stairs in a-"

"Is that really important in a time like this, Dave?"

"Well, it's certainly cause for concern, yes. I mean, it must clash so horribly with the walls…"

Houndour stared at him. "…You're fucking weird," he said. "Now, be careful when we get in there; there's a bunch of territorial pokémon that live in there that can and will try and rob you to fuel their cocaine addictions. It's like an inner city in there."

Dave, however, was already long gone. "Goddamn it…" Houndour muttered, as he ran in after Dave.

Dave, meanwhile, was busy being backed into a corner by several sunkern brandishing black, slicked-back hair, leather jackets, and switchblades.

"Looks like someone's a little lost…" one said. He approached Dave slowly, switchblade at the ready…

…Only for it to fall as soon as he moved, because sunkern have no hands with which to hold switchblades. As if on cue, the rest of the sunkern's switchblades all clattered to the ground, leaving them defenseless against an understandably pissed-off shinx.

Dave grinned. Now, it was time for some payback. Now, it was time to use an attack! Focusing on the group of targets in front of him, Dave tried to command his brain to use an attack. Instead, all he got was a burst vessel in his eye.

"Aaaaahh, dammit!" he shouted, as he stumbled around, one paw clenched over his eye. In his injured state, he didn't notice when he accidentally kicked one of the switchblades lying on the ground.

Consequently, he also didn't notice it go flying, cleanly cleaving all of the sunkern in front of him in half, somehow.

"Dave? Dave! What happened?" Houndour said, as he ran out of the tunnel.

"I burst a damn blood vessel!" Dave yelled.

Houndour scoffed. "Is that all? I thought you-" he stopped when he saw the dead sunkern lying in front of him, before turning back to Dave, who was still struggling with his eye problem and loudly cursing. Houndour thought about saying something, but decided it would be better not to. Instead, he removed Dave's paw from in front of his eye, and poked him in it.

"Ow!"

"You're wasting time, now let's go!" Houndour said, as he ran further into the woods.

"And you're an ass, but you don't see me complaining…" Dave muttered, before chasing after his partner.

Two more floors. Two more floors of that madness.

And neither one of them had gotten a scratch, mainly because of Houndour's use of ember. Dave had asked for help in learning to use attacks, but received nothing but laughter and a polite, "you're fucking retarded," from Houndour.

All in all, everything went better than expected.

"Is this the last floor?" Dave asked.

"Well, there's a child sitting in the middle of the room, and no conceivable exit in sight. Gee Dave, I don't know."

"You know, your sarcasm hurts."

"Not as much as a fireball to the ass. Now, grab the kid and let's go."

Dave, grumbling, walked over to the kid and went to pick him up. In return, he received a face full of string shot.

"Son of a bitch, right in the eye!" he yelled, as he swiped furiously at it in an attempt to remove it.

"That'll teach you!" the caterpie said, in a squeaky voice that resembled something slightly less pleasant than nails on a chalkboard.

Houndour glared at him. "Caterpie, c'mon. Your lazy mother asked us to find you."

Caterpie's eyes brightened. "Really? Oh, please take me home! I do miss her so!"

"Then why'd you jump in a damn cavern?!" Dave yelled, as he peeled the last of the string off his face.

"Will you come on?" Houndour said.

"I would, if I knew where the stairs were!"

Houndour paused, then looked around before cursing himself for forgetting that one crucial thing he had mentioned a few sentences ago. "Well…most of the time, a rescue team is the one to do these kinds of jobs, and they have special badges that let them teleport out of places like this."

"You guys! We can get out of this, no problem! After all, Whiscash says; 'If you wish hard enough, and practice every day, all your dreams will come true!'" Caterpie said.

"Practice what?" Dave asked.

"Didn't Whiscash get arrested for child molestation?" Houndour asked.

Caterpie glared at him. "The charges were dropped!"

"Whatever quoting shitty philosophy won't get us out of here we need a miracle," Dave said.

As soon as he said that, a meteorite crashed through the ceiling and landed right in front of them, creating a hole through all the floors of the woods. Even stranger was the fact that the meteorite had conveniently collapsed into a set of stairs.

"What the ever-loving fuck just happened?" Dave asked.

"I don't know, but I'll take it," Houndour said, as he and Caterpie approached the mysterious ruins and proceeded to walk up them to the top. Dave was just about to join them, when he took a look at the meteorite and noticed something strange; there, carved into the side of the space rock, were someone's initials.

"Who's 'P.D.'?" he wondered aloud, before running up the stairs to join Houndour at the top.

"Oh, thank you for finding Caterpie! Here, take these berries!" Butterfree said, as she forced berries into Dave's paws.

"What am I supposed to do with these?"

"Plant them in the ground, Dave," Houndour said, before turning to Caterpie. "So, you're not going to run into any more chasms, right?"

Caterpie thought for a moment. "Well, maybe one tomorrow-" He was interrupted with a smack from his mother.

"What did I tell you about being stupid?" she asked, "you don't get a birthday this year."

Caterpie began to tear up. Houndour, seeing this, placed a paw on top of his head, and offered some wise words;

"Son? Nut up or shut up."

And with that, he jabbed Caterpie in the crotch with one of his paws, then sent the family on their way. About this time, a dirt-covered Dave returned to him.

"Well, I planted the berries like you asked. Guess I'll be on my way now," he said, before beginning to walk away. He stopped when he felt a paw on his shoulder.

"Dave? I was thinking; maybe we should form our own rescue team," Houndour said.

"Really? What makes you say that?" Dave asked, as Houndour stepped towards him.

"Well, I was thinking; I need a hobby other than my azaleas, you need to learn how not to be retarded. So, this kind of fit the bill for both."

Dave blinked. "That doesn't make a whole lot of sense…"

Houndour rolled his eyes. "Just say yes."

"Fine. I'll join your team."

Houndour smiled. "Great."

The two sat there in silence, until Dave broke it.

"You know, you can take your paw off my shoulder and move your face farther away from mine."

"Why?"

Just then, a group of pokémon tourists being led by a golduck with a camera around its neck stopped and looked at them.

"…And if you look over there, you'll see a few 'homosexuals'."

Dave and Houndour looked at each other, then towards the golduck. Both began to clear their throats, and Houndour removed his paw from Dave's shoulder before turning to him.

"…We'll file for an official form tomorrow. You can stay at my place until then. Sound good?"

Dave nodded. "Thanks."

"Hey, you helped me get rid of that insect bitch. This is the least I could do," Houndour said.

"Hey, I think they're about to kiss!" one of the tourists shouted from the back of the group.

Dave turned towards the group. "We're not gay! Fuck off!"

"Aww, whatever, man. Everything ends in yaoi these days! You'll give in some day! The fans demand it!"

"Fans of what?" Houndour asked.

"It doesn't matter, he's crazy. Let's just head back, okay?" Dave asked.

Houndour nodded. "I'll give you the tour around town tomorrow."

With that, the two of them walked back towards Houndour's house, intent upon not doing anything gay.

"Aww, c'mon, man!" the annoying tourist from earlier cried.

A/N: A little rough around the edges (okay a LOT rough around the edges), but I'm pleased with how this turned out, overall. Thoughts? Suggestions? Hate Mail? There's a section for that.

Stay…erm…read-y, my friends.

Yes, that was supposed to be a parody of the Dos Equis guy. I regret nothing.