Chapter One - Bun on the Run

Buneary snuck forwards, ears twisting right and left as he listened for trouble.

And there was trouble. Lots of it. More than one brave buneary could handle, and it wasn't fair at all.

It had all started a few days ago, when some big stomping humans with red coats and mean pokemon walked through the forest around Buneary's home and started tossing balls around. Buneary had seen his mother captured in one of them, then some of his siblings.

He didn't stick around. Some of his family had tried to fight, because they were braver than he was, but they were beaten down too. The humans came prepared, with nets and bug pokemon that could string a poor buneary up without giving them a chance to run.

It wasn't fair!

So with a few well-timed smacks of his ears against the ground, Buneary had fled. First into the familiar forests around his home. He knew all the best spots. Holes to avoid spearows and spaces where a few berry bushes sat, big juicy berries hanging from their branches.

Then, when the humans chased, accompanied by yapping growlithes, he had pushed further. Hopping across a stream, then deeper into the woods where Buneary was worried that hungry pokemon were waiting for him, but those were better than the humans in the red coats.

Past the forest was the Forbidden Place.

It was a space with ancient human buildings made of stone. Some humans lingered there, but not too many, and they didn't stay for long. No one did, because the place was Wrong. There was something in the air, a feeling that made Buneary's ear tufts stand on end.

But Buneary was a smart buneary, and he knew that if no one wanted to stay there, then it would certainly be a good place to hide!

Buneary stumbled around a tree, glanced back to see if there were any pursuers, then looked out ahead.

The forest thinned out, then gave way to a rocky space. There were rocks all over, but they were carved, with squared edges worn out by time and the elements. Holes dotted the ground, which he picked up on immediately. Those meant safety... assuming he didn't hop into one and discover that it was some ekans' home.

Buneary hopped forwards, then leapt out and behind a small, crumbling wall when he heard something big and clumsy pushing through the brush on the edge of the forest.

"Where is it?" a human asked.

He perked one ear up, listening as hard as he could.

"It just disappeared," another voice said as someone else came out of the forest at a much slower pace.

"Buneary can't teleport, don't worry, it's around here somewhere," the first human said. "Go, Growlithe!"

There was a crack-hiss sound, then four thumps as something landed nearby. "Grow-Growlithe!" Where is it? Where... oh, I can smell it! If I find it, do I get treats? Hmm hmm?

One of the humans laughed. "Yeah, Growlithe, you'll get a snack if you find the buneary. Come on, go!"

"Growlithe!" I'm on it!

Buneary backed away from the ruins, head turning this way and that as he looked for an escape. Could he outrun it? The humans, sure, they were slow and clumsy, but the growlithe? No way, that was a big pokemon that could zoom ahead way faster than he could ever hope to move.

So he looked down. The ruins were overgrown and ancient, a space where plantlife only grew in spare patches. There were some old statues, fallen over and crumbling, and a few bits that were probably human buildings a long time ago... and some holes.

Buneary saw something, in the centre of a patch of stone on the ground, with a wide crack running through it, a hole, only about the size of his head, but it was there!

He took off in a sprint, not spending a moment to think about this twice. It was escape or capture.

"Grow!" There!

The growlithe charged after him, and Buneary could have sworn that in the moments before he leapt up and dove ears-first into the hole, he could feel the pokemon's breath on his fluffy backside.

But he made it!

His head plopped into the hole, legs wiggling above him as he tried to scamper in deeper. The hole was too small! Or so he thought at first. A few desperate smacks from his ears moved some loose stones and then the hole widened just enough for him to slip into it some more.

Buneary fell into a small opening and looked back.

What he found was the sniffling nostrils of growlithe, the pokemon's entire muzzle shoved into the hole.

With a vindictive grin, Buneary flicked one of his ears out in a Tackle that snapped right on the end of the dog-pokemon's nose.

The growlithe yipped in pain and tugged his head back, letting some more light into the tunnel. Buneary used that moment to turn and start digging. He flung out a few pebbles and loose bits of stone out of the tunnel, before the humans could reach in with their long arms, then he continued to dive in deeper.

Buneary wasn't an expert digger, and he was no bunnelby, but he wasn't a slouch either. Dirt flew, rocks were swept away, and he made his escape deeper underground.

At least, until something went crunch and the bunny pokemon suddenly found himself standing on nothing.

"Buuuun!" he screamed as he plummeted into the dark.

He landed, tail-first, on some hard-packed dirt, then bounced once while dirt and little rocks fell around him.

The crashing dirt settled soon enough, and Buneary finally dared to open his eyes to take in the space around him, or what little he could see of it. The room, because it was a room, was square, about the size of a smaller human home, he supposed, with stone walls covered in creeping vines and ancient carvings. The only light poured in from a small crack in the ceiling, but it wasn't direct light.

Blinking a few times, he swiped an ear across his face to clear it of dirt and dust, then tried to peer deeper into the dark. There was nothing much to see, not with so little light. Even as his eyes adjusted, the dark didn't recede much at all.

So... a dark room, and he was alone.

Buneary let out a sigh and hopped deeper into the room. His body was tired, but he had made it! Escape!

He turned a circle, taking in the walls, the dirt, the carvings, and the small cracks and crevices that ran around the floor and walls. Escape was well and good, but he also had to find a way out. He didn't want to have to go all the way back through the hole he had come in, because those humans might still be out there, waiting.

Also... he looked up, way up. The ceiling was easily twice as tall as a human was, and he only came up to a human's knees--and only if he stretched his ears way out. No. There was no way he was going back up that hole.

Buneary shivered a little as his adrenaline rush began to wear off, and his fear returned. He was alone. In a dark room. In an unfamiliar place. And he didn't know how to get out.

He hopped forwards, ears twitching and searching for anything. A noise, a scent, anything.

The room was adjoined to another, then another, but at the end of that, there was nothing but a passage blocked off by a wall of crumbled stones with old symbols carved into them.

He poked his head into the hole and blinked, finding an empty space that looked like it had once held a door, but it had long since rotted away.

There was something in the air down here.

Power. A deep, disturbing power, its source deeper in the tunnels.

It sent shivers down his spine and made his heart thump faster. He had the feeling that, should he dare to go into the depths of this strange place, he wouldn't be coming out again.

Buneary shook his head. He wasn't stupid. No way. He'd find a way out and be back to his family in no time. He'd find another way out.

What felt like hours and hours later, after hopping along the edge of every room and poking each stone with his ears, after taking a long nap in the first room he'd fallen into and taking some time to clean the dirt out of his fur, the buneary realized that there was no exit to this place.

The final proof of that was a pile of old bones he'd found in a corner and which had made him let out a very masculine and powerful scream. Once he'd calmed down and approached the bones, he discovered that the bones had belonged to a stantler. The antlers were a dead giveaway, though Buneary had no idea how the big horn pokemon had ended up in these rooms.

With no other choice, he had to go deeper in.

Deeper into the depths of this strange, wrong place.

With a shiver and a twitch, he headed into the next room. It was dark, with only a small pool of light coming from a glowing symbol carved into the far wall. There were some short pillars in the room, all of them facing that symbol set within a circle of smaller, non-glowing marks.

He hopped towards the pillars, curious, and found that they were covered in markings too. Carvings that his sensitive ears could pick out and, when he looked closer, were made of a different material than the stone around them. Strange. Then again, humans did strange things all the time, so old humans were probably no different.

There was no exit here. No way out.

Buneary's eyes stung a little. What was he supposed to do? He wasn't strong enough to dig a new tunnel, and the walls were far too hard for him to make a dent in them.

Was this it? Was he going to die down here, in this dark, horrible place? His tummy grumbled at him. He was so hungry. Hungry and still tired and a little scared.

He was about to curl up and cry, his ears drooping limply, when the light caught his attention again. It was power... could he use it?

He looked at the markings on the pillars, then, with a bit of hesitation, he hopped up and placed one foot on the nearest one, right under the bigger symbol.

Nothing happened.

He stepped on it, then hopped up and down.

More nothing.

His ears dropped a little. He should have known. This was all nonsense. Why would anyone leave something valuable lying around anyway?

Then the lights flickered and the symbols flashed, glowing brightly for a brief second.

Buneary froze, staring at the glowing lights. "Buh... umm, b-bun?" Is anyone there?

He stepped onto another mark, then another, hopping between the symbols, and the symbols glowed.

The room was lit with a dull, green glow, and the light from the symbols seemed to grow, the shapes growing more defined and vibrant. He was doing something! It was working! There was a feeling in the air, like a faint hum, and his ears felt a bit weird, but that didn't matter! He'd do whatever was necessary to get out of here.

Buneary started hopping all over the place, moving around the room and making the symbols flare to life, the glow filling the room. The feeling of power was getting stronger and stronger, and when the last symbol was active, the entire room was filled with light.

And then, out of nowhere, and through absolutely no fault of his, the room exploded.

He was flung backwards, ears pulled tightly to his chest as a wave of heat and light washed over him, throwing him against the far wall and leaving him in a daze.

His ears were ringing, his whole body hurt, and little pidgeys spun around his head. He sat up, shook his head, and looked back.

The far wall was a wreck. Pieces of the wall were scattered all around the room, and there was a deep pit in the middle of the room where the pillars had been. A hole.

And out of that hole, poking out in a rather strange way and lit from some light coming from a fresh hole in the ceiling, was a pair of large bunny ears.

"I... don't think this is the bathroom," someone said.

***