Chapter Text
If he was honest, he had done everything anyway. At the beginning of his journey, Grey had always had something to do; whether it was catching new creaturemon or competing in gyms, he was busy somewhere. As of recent months, however, his Creaturedex was completely filled and every single badge was in his collection, not that those badges were any difficulty to get anyway. People basically gave them away for some reason.
Since then, Grey had spent his time trying to go literally everywhere in an attempt to find something new but found that the frequent barriers around his world were stopping him way too often. So he may or may not have started messing with some stuff and getting through many of the invisible, or sometimes very visible, walls that had stopped him previously.
Unfortunately, it is this hobby Grey had taken up out of sheer boredom that has caused the mess he is in at that very moment. He supposes maybe if he hadn’t gone through that barrier he wouldn’t have found this weird yellow rat and he also thinks maybe he wouldn’t be in immense pain. Said pain was caused by Shinto who seemed to be crushing both of them to death? That’s what it felt like anyway.
Grey had thought that maybe since he had done everything anyway, death shouldn’t be so unwelcome to him. However, this was not the case as even with the sickening sound of glitching filling his ears, he found himself trying to fight the crumpling of his person, hoping he might survive this with his life. At that time, though, it seemed that wouldn’t be the case, and with a last scream of pain, black swept his vision as death crept upon the young trainer.
- - -
He was wrong.
Grey sat up, still in a completely pitch-black void, but breathing. And not crushed. And alive. And the rat was still here. And- the rat is still here.
He whipped around to see the yellow creature had regressed to her little form from before the whole capturing incident. After hanging his head with a thankful sigh he looked back up to see Shinto staring back at him. He squinted his eyes at her with an annoyed frown and the other copied him in jest. Seeing she obviously felt nothing from his very intimidating look he sighed once more and stood up.
“So where in the heck are we?”
Shinto only shrugged, and crawled quickly over to Grey, proceeding to climb up his back despite his vocal protests. She sat perched on his shoulder and looked at him from the side.
“Really?”
She made no move to leave.
“ Fine , whatever, you can stay there, but we have to find a way out of this place. This is so your fault by the way so you better help out in our endeavors.”
Shinto raised her eyes and tilted her head keeping full eye contact with the trainer who only scoffed.
“Trying to capture you, a creaturemon, inside of a Creatureball is a perfectly normal thing for a creaturemon trainer to do. I know you are very averse to being captured but you way overreacted.”
She rolled her eyes, or at least it looked like she did, Grey realized she didn’t actually have pupils in this form. Which is for the better because those small glowing white ones looked more like nightmare fuel than anything. Either way, he began to walk while the small creaturemon bounced energetically on his shoulder, beginning the duo’s journey to nowhere.
Well, hopefully somewhere, they just didn’t know where yet.
- - -
They had been walking for hours. When in the actual fuck did this end.
Grey’s originally brisk-paced steps had become slow and lagging as the two dragged on through the endless abyss in boredom. Shinto herself had stopped bouncing long ago and had curled around the trainer’s neck to rest.
“...Shinto I don’t think I can go on with this for much longer, we are literally going nowhere. ”
The little creature gave him a sympathetic look and leaped off of Grey’s shoulder. She sat down and patted the floor near her, an amused look crossing her expression after staring at what was probably a very tired-looking Grey face. He let himself fall down into a crisscross sit. He was sitting there for a break. He definitely wasn’t completely giving up or anything that’s ridiculous.
After taking off his hat and setting it off to the side, Grey fell onto his back and lay with his arms and legs splayed out on the ground. Shinto got up from her own spot and walked over to curl up under one of them. Grey made no acknowledgment of this however there was no resistance either.
There wasn’t really any harm in sleeping, there wasn’t much of anything else to do, so he closed his eyes, Shinto having already done so, letting sleep wash over him. Grey was woken up from his peaceful slumber, however, by the sound of water dripping.
After a few drops echoed throughout the otherwise completely silent void, he hesitantly opened his eyes. He didn’t move at all until his mind slowly processed the fact that he was in fact hearing a real noise in the real world which was the dark abyss that had literally nothing in it to make noise.
But then how was there a dripping sound?
Grey swiftly sprung up and looked around, startling a now-dazed Shinto from her sleep in the process. She was in the middle of giving the boy a dirty look until she as well heard one of the infamous water drops. Her ears moved around in search of the noise as well afterward, the sound being explanation enough for Grey’s behavior.
“Shinto,” the trainer whispered, “do you know where the noise is coming from? If we follow in that direction maybe we’ll finally find something.”
With a nod, the yellow creaturemon pointed Grey in a direction and let him pick her up as he went forward to approach the noise. He heard each drip closer and closer as he stalked forward, Shinto leaning with interest from her perch atop his head. Soon enough, Grey could just make out a figure. His steps slowed as he took each as silently as he could to not alert the other entity.
He had to admit, he found it very odd that, from the distance they were at, it almost seemed as if the person had no legs and was like floating or something. In fact, he couldn’t even see arms. Yet he could make out their hat and the jacket they wore.
Grey stopped and quietly commented, “how could the sound be coming from them?”
Shinto, who had moved from his head to his shoulder, shrugged. Except she stopped midway and appeared to be looking closely at the figure. She motioned him to get closer, which he hesitantly did. He very much regretted it when he was finally able to make out that they were not wearing black sleeves and gloves or something, but in fact quite literally had no arms or legs.
So he said what any normal person would say.
“HOLY SHIT, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOUR LIMBS!?”
Grey felt he always asked the right questions at the right times and this was definitely one of those times. He especially felt so when the boy had turned around slowly and looked at him with his eyes. Well not really since it didn't seem like there were eyes anymore and instead some strange black liquid dripped out of them and occasionally the floor. It sent a chill down his spine.
“...I guess it wasn’t water…” Grey breathed out seeing as the mystery had been solved.
He wasn’t really focusing on said mystery anymore though, not when he was looking at this person that was definitely not alive anymore.
This led Grey to think about two things. The first being, if that was here then seriously where in the actual shit had Shinto taken them. The second being, is he okay? Should Grey do something about that?? Maybe it was private and he shouldn’t ask, but either way, he had to make amends. Perhaps, it was a little bit offensive to scream about someone’s possible insecurities.
Taking a deep breath, he coughed awkwardly and, without making eye contact with the other, began to speak.
“Um, so t-that did not come out right…uh…”
The other boy tilted their head and Grey just stared at the ground finding the black void quite interesting at that moment.
On the other hand, Shinto, whose head had been perked up since the other turned around, found the prospect of a new person to be incredible. It meant she had another person to play with. She didn’t discriminate between dead-looking and not-dead-looking people when it came to friends. If she did, she wouldn’t still be hanging out with Grey.
The creaturemon slapped the trainer on his cheek and when he whipped his head toward her with a glare of offense she motioned towards the other kid who was still floating there waiting. Grey looked up and stared into the eyeholes of the boy. He then tried to sound completely normal as he attempted once more to talk to the kid.
“So…I’m- my name is Grey,” he then motioned towards his shoulder, “and this is Shinto. She isn’t my creaturemon or anything but she is…here I guess. I don’t know.”
Shinto gave him another slap, this time simply crossing her arms at his annoyed “Hey!”
“What? I mean a few hours, I think it was hours, ago you tried to kill me? Am I supposed to get “friends” from that?”
The creaturemon only gave a huff in response and then jumped off to skitter towards the witness of their stupidity. The other boy had looked down at her then, head still tilted. Grey stared at him and after a few seconds of silence asked, “So, what’s your name?”
He didn’t think the other boy was going to answer until he heard him finally rasp out a drawled, “ I’m dead .”
Grey flinched and at first, said nothing at the unnerving voice saying the unnerving thing that was not a proper response to his question. But he really couldn’t help filling the silence because lately there had been a plethora of it and he found himself quite tired from the lack of noise.
“Dead seems like an odd thing to have to call you. It almost seems like you may have not answered my question correctly BUT, don’t worry, because if that isn’t actually your name then you’ll find I’m giving you an amazing once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to revise your answer.”
The other boy stared for a second but his eyes then scrunched up in amusement at Grey’s words. Suddenly, red glowing letter-looking things lined up in front of him, spelling out a name. The trainer decided he was gonna let this one go because there were way too many things he was questioning at the moment.
“Gold. Okay, I can definitely work with that.”
Grey gave a shaky smile to the other boy, who gave a small smile back. Shinto found this opportunity perfect to crawl up his back and jump onto Gold’s shoulder. The ex-trainer jolted in surprise, having not seen the creaturemon, but let her settle onto his shoulder as she booped his nose.
“So, do you have any idea where we are?” Grey, who may have been watching Shinto with an amused smile but was not warming up to her he wasn’t shut up- asked hopefully.
Gold only stared at him.
Grey sighed, he felt like he did that a lot, and looked into the dark abyss that lay before them. It seemed they were at a dead end once again.
“Well, me and Shinto were trying to get out of here. See, the little rat did something dumb because, I guess, she was a bit mad at me for doing what every single creaturemon trainer would have done- ack- don’t kick me Shinto bad- AH- NO! MY HAT!”
While Grey was preoccupied grabbing his kicked-off hat off the floor and fixing it back atop his head, Gold turned his head to look at the creaturemon questioningly.
She looked to the side, obviously guilty of what was being accused. She was not sorry though, not at all.
“Anyways,” Grey began once more, hat back in its rightful place, “somehow she sent both of us here. Which is kind of embarrassing I mean what type of attack affects you too?- HAH you missed!”
Shinto jumped off of the ex-trainer’s shoulder and grabbed Grey’s hat this time. She landed on the ground, hat in mouth, and ran on all fours away from the duo.
“HEY! COME BACK HERE YOU DUMB RAT! SHINTO!”
Gold snickered to himself as Grey chased the thief around the void, neither straying too far though. Always close enough to be seen from where he was.
In the end, Grey had given up and just laid stomach down on the ground, hands covering his head in shame. Shinto sat on his back with the hat much too big for her covering her entire face. She couldn’t see but she got triumph from her win either way. Gold was lying down next to Grey, watching him mourn the loss of his hat and his pride.
Grey had to admit, though, as much as he was suffering at that moment, he wasn’t actually upset by any of this. Shinto, for all her stupidity and annoyance, was quite entertaining. And Gold, although Grey hadn’t known him for long, seemed to be nice as well. Plus all of this was somehow much more exciting than his own world from before.
That place was honestly just as much an empty abyss as the actual empty abyss they were in, but worse. There he hadn’t just been bored, but also alone. Sure he had his parents…but they never really felt like his parents and everyone there felt really fake. It was strange.
But, in the completely empty void of nothingness he found himself in with Shinto and Gold, the only negative was that there was nothing to do. In some ways, he felt thankful Shinto somehow sent them to oblivion with her weird ass attack thing…wait.
Grey perked himself up with his elbows and looked on his back where Shinto met his stare from under his hat.
“Shinto, can you still do that weird thing that sent us here? Can’t you just bring us back?”
She looked at him, expressionless. Then she looked down, letting the hat slip from her head. Her ears popped up and she clambered off his back.
At this point gold had floated up to see what Shinto was doing, the strange letters coming from behind him to see as well. Grey turned over and sat up to watch.
Shinto proceeded to finally nod at Grey and then aggressively point down to signal she would be doing it right then. The trainer isn’t sure why he hadn’t expected this but immediately began regretting his suggestion because now he realized he was gonna have to go back through that horrible agonizing pain.
“Now, wait a second Shinto, we don’t have to do it right now, I mean this place isn’t even that ba- WHAT THE FUCK.”
As it turns out, Shinto could not do her attack in normal little rat form but instead had to be in horrifying nightmare fuel form.
“Okay, maybe warn a guy before you do that, jeez, I don’t need any more trauma from you.”
She shrugged like always and suddenly the world began to shift. And glitch. And Grey had never regretted something so much in his life. Except maybe before the first time this happened. Either way, he ignored his panic at the incoming agony in favor of warning the other person here that sat in confusion at what was occurring.
“Gold, Shinto is about to like destroy everything so be prepared I guess- OH, wait, actually, do you want to leave with us? I just kind of assumed but I guess I never asked. I mean maybe you like being in a completely empty void of nothingness how would I know?”
The ex-trainer shook his head at the last statement and looked over to Shinto who met his gaze and gave him a reassuring nod. She was actually planning on bringing him either way, can’t really break an entire world and exclude someone, but he didn’t have to know that.
“Well anyway, Can you feel pain? Well, I hope not or else we are about to be horrible agonizing pain buddies hahahah-”
His excessive nervous laughter was cut short as Gold leaned on Grey’s side. The trainer looked at the other in confusion but realized that due to Gold’s unfortunate lack of every single limb on his body along with the ability to speak anything other than rasps he was very limited in ways to comfort someone. But even with this, he had just tried.
This thought is the only reason Grey didn’t shove him off when he realized that one of the bones sticking out of the ex-trainer’s body was touching his side. This became the least of his worries anyway when the crushing pain began anew. To think in the span of one day this had now happened to him twice. And the second time was his idea.
What the fuck is Grey’s life?