Author's Note:

I got the idea for this from combining Dangan Ronpa, Battle Royale, Hunger Games, and Pokémon. Therefore, you will see a lot of innocent young Pokémon dying for absolutely no reason at all but simple survival. I'm also warning you that you may find some scenes gory. The pairings throughout the story will be SnivyxOshawott, LomBreloom, FroslassxTreecko, and ClefairyxRoselia, none of which is yaoi or yuri.

Insert disclaimers here.

All right, with all that out of the way, let's begin the story, shall we.

Nightmare Guild

Prologue

Something happened a few days ago

Place: Thunderwave Cave

...Everything is shaking. I don't know what's happening. No one is here with me. No one cares about me. No one cares that I will perish under these falling boulders. No one cares whether I live or die. No one tries to come for me. I doubt they even remember I exist. They are all safe outside while I look up at the cave ceiling, wondering which boulder that will crush me...

...

...

Present day

"Pelipper. Could you deliver these letters, please?"

The head postal officer, also another Pelipper, was sitting at his desk in their post office, high on a cliff near the Pokémon Square. He was sweating just by sitting all day behind his desk. The head postal officer was like that. He sweats a lot.

Pelipper the wandering postal carrier didn't, although his job consisted of roaming the skies frequently to deliver letters to the Pokémon of the Square. Most letters they received at the Pelipper Post Office were addressed to the various rescue teams in the Pokémon Square and its surrounding areas.

"Roger that."

Pelipper went to get the four letters his sweaty friend was handing out with his wing. The four letters were identical although they were addressed to different Pokémon. Pelipper noted that they looked very sophisticated. They were printed on quality paper and even had a crest with a Cresselia on it. The sender was written as a "Guildmaster C of Dream Guild".

However, it was when glimpsing their receivers' addresses that Pelipper burst out. "Two of these letters are to go to Treasure Town, and another one's even supposed to go all the way to PokéPark. Do you really want me to deliver them today? If so, I might not get back here until evening."

The head postal officer smiled apologetically at him. "I know, and I'm sorry," he said. "I know that wandering postal carriers aren't supposed to have overtime work hours, but those letters seem to be important. They were supposed to go on express air mail, but all our Flygon aren't here. They're already on express jobs of their own, so I need you to do this one. Sorry," he said again.

Pelipper tried not to look put out - he was looking forward to eating a warm dinner with his wife back home this evening. But since he was a wandering postal carrier, and a good one at that, he managed to stay poker-faced. "All right," he said. "I'll just go now, then."

"Thanks, Pelipper!" his friend called as the wandering postal carrier took to the skies through the hole in their roof.

...

Pelipper was so used to delivering letters to different destinations that he didn't miss a beat. He would deliver the letter which had the closest destination, and then work his way to the destination farthest away. His first destination was this very Pokémon Square, and the letter was to go to a rescue team called Team DynamicPunch. In less than a few minutes, he had spied the rather small Riolu-shaped team base. He hovered lower and popped the correct letter into their mailbox.

His next destination was Treasure Town, which wasn't that far away from the Pokémon Square. He had two letters to deliver there: one to a Team Overgrow and the other to a Team Red Bow. He finally saw the two bases he was looking for: one was a Breloom-shaped one and the other was a rather strange Roselia-shaped one but with Froslass ice crystals on its head and the wings of a Staraptor. There were two more THUNKs as he popped each letter into their mailboxes.

Finally, his farthest destination was PokéPark. Luckily for Pelipper, he wasn't carrying that heavy a load anymore - he only had one letter to deliver left.

Since PokéPark wasn't like the rest of the Pokémon World - it was divided into areas with their own Area Keepers - PokéPark didn't have any rescue team bases. However, the envelope stated that the invitation meant for Team PokéPark could be delivered to the Beach Cove area of PokéPark. Pelipper was supposed to leave the letter at Samurott's lighthouse by the seaside.

After doing so, Pelipper took to the skies once again, this time in the direction of home.

And hot dinner.

Team Overgrow

"Look what I found in our mailbox."

It was Treecko Kimori, the brains and strategy-maker of Team Overgrow. He was striding purposely into their Breloom-shaped base, holding a letter in his hand. It was almost evening, and the team had just finished a challenging rescue job. Recently they were trying to collect more Explorer Points, so they chose more difficult rescue jobs. A few days ago, they'd done this really challenging one in Thunderwave Cave. Fortunately, they managed to complete their job and even made friends with a Normal-rank rescue team called Team DynamicPunch who was also there.

The other three members of the team were lounging lazily inside the base, but Treecko wasn't. He was too serious to be sitting around doing nothing. That was how no-nonsense Treecko was.

Seeing the letter in Treecko's hand, team leader Breloom Kinogassa said while clacking his sore knuckles, "Nope, no more rescue jobs for today, Treecko, thank ye very much."

"But this isn't a rescue job," Treecko protested. "This is a letter from Guildmaster C of... Dream Guild."

Breloom looked a fraction more interested than he was earlier. "Really? Sounds important. What does it say?"

Treecko read the letter aloud:

»̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶»̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶»̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶»̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶»̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶»̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶

Team Overgrow (Breloom Kinogassa, Treecko Kimori, Lombre Raindish, and Cleffy Clefairy)

Treasure Town

We are proud to inform you that your team has been selected to participate in the 1-week camp for certain rescue teams at Dream Guild, Little Isshu, from June 25 to July 2. You do not need to bring anything with you, just this invitation.

Activities will include training by the guildmaster of Dream Guild and the usual activities you will find in any other guild... But better. That's because you'll be at the Dream Guild.

Thank you for your attention and we hopefully await your participation.

Sincerely,

Guildmaster C

»̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶»̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶»̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶»̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶»̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶»̶✽«̶ »̶✽«̶

"Umm..." Cleffy Clefairy, a rather insecure and unconfident Pokémon with a cute yellow hairbow, wavered after reading the letter. "Wh-what's Dream Guild?"

"¡Ay caramba!" It was Lombre Raindish, the other girl in the team who was as different from Cleffy as black and white. She often mixes up English with her mother tongue, Spanish. She always wears a black skull-patterned bandanna and black boots and loves metal music. Other than that, she never wants to leave home without her Gibson Flying V guitar. "Whaddya mean, you don't know Dream Guild? It's quite popular."

"Dream Guild is a very prestigious guild in Little Isshu," Treecko explained. "Although they usually like to keep their information to themselves - as in confidential, Dream Guild has a very good reputation. They say the guild building is like a castle in itself."

"Really?" Breloom's eyes widened. "So what do ya guys think? Should we participate in this camp thingy?"

"We should," Treecko said seriously. "It might score us some much-needed Explorer Points. Besides, the guild is very prestigious..." Lombre agreed by nodding gamely, while Cleffy heaved a great sigh before replying, "OK, m-maybe we should..."

"All right," Breloom said. "That means we're in."

.

.

.

And with that, Team Overgrow was doomed.