I should go back and add crappy drawings for the first 3 chapters too :3

***

The school bell rang, allowing for the building's inhabitants to gleefully escape. Floyd and Saffron walked out the entrance together, talking about their least favorite classes. Floyd detested English, but Saffron struggled in mathematics. They hit the crossroads in front of the school, said goodbye, and walked their separate ways.

Saffron walked home as she normally did, staying out of other people's ways. She passed by the city park, which was looking increasingly like brilliant amber gems as the leaves continued to change color. A girl she had not seen before with a dark gold hood and pink lipstick laid passed out on a park bench.

We're starting to see more and more people like her in this town, Saffron thought. What a shame.

After she passed by, the girl on the bench sat up. She yawned, then looked at Saffron with contempt. "Forest's Curse."

-----

There was a knock at the glass door at the back of Saffron's house. She put down her pencil and walked over to it. She slid open the door, stepping out onto the wooden porch that had plants suspended in the air by baskets. She looked down.

At her feet was an unusual guest. It had a wooden face and branches that looked like ears. Its small, worm-like body wore the wooden face like a helmet. It was a Phantump.

"I haven't seen you around before," said Saffron. She looked around, but no Pokemon had accompanied the ghost up to her porch. "Did another Pokemon tell you about me or something? Hold on, let me go get something for you to eat."

She stepped back inside and closed the door behind her. She went to her kitchen and opened a cupboard door under her sink. There was a large bag of Pokemon food sitting there. She took a scoop of it and placed it in one of the many plastic bowls sitting next to the bag.

When she went outside to deliver the food, there were now two Phantumps.

She put the food down in front of the first Pokemon. "That's weird, I didn't even know Pokemon like you lived around here. Wait a second; I'll go get some more food."

By the time that she had gotten another bowl, there were four Phantumps sitting outside her house, begging for food. Strangely enough, however, they hadn't touched the bowl she had already brought them. Instead, they jumped up and down at her knees and stared at her with empty expressions. They chirped as they jumped. It was starting to creep Saffron out.

"Okay then, goodbye." She shut the door behind her as she fled in a brisk walk to her room upstairs. She looked back briefly to see the Pokemon jumping at her glass door, chirping on and on. She tried to resume her homework, but shortly after she had gotten back into the groove of things there was a scratching at her window.

Startled, Saffron pulled the blinds slightly out of the way so she could get a peek at what was causing the noise.

She almost jumped when she saw the blank stare of a Phantump.

She reached for her pokeballs. "This has to stop." She stormed downstairs and went to the back porch. There were almost a dozen little stump Pokemon at the back of her house.

"Arcanine, scare them off please!"

A red beam shot out of a pokeball in her hand and formed a big orange and cream beast in her yard.

The creature roared like a lion and sent the little Pokemon fleeing into the woods surrounding the house.

Saffron looked around carefully to make sure that there were no more Phantumps laying in hiding. "Alright, return Arcanine. Thanks for your help."

Arcanine barked before it was pulled back into its trainer's capsule.

Trying for a third time to be productive with her schoolwork, Saffron sat back down at her desk and worked diligently for a while.

Everything was going smoothly until Saffron heard glass shattering on the floor below her.

She jumped up and grabbed Arcanine's pokeball again, then ran as fast as she could downstairs.

Phantumps were climbing into her house through a broken window and were piling up on the floor next to the wall.

Her heart skipped a beat.

"Get out of my house!" she yelled, waving them away. Instead of leaving, however, they saw her and locked onto her, beginning their slow but merciless jumping towards her.

They even broke into my house! Are they after me? If I stay here, they'll probably wreck my house!

Saffron ran out of the back door, almost stepping on several stump ghosts on her way. She kept running and running until she thought she had lost them deep in the forest.

She panted heavily to regain her breath. "They're slow Pokemon, I probably just need to hide here for a while."

As she caught her breath she was able to look around her. There was a tree stump where she didn't remember one being. The cut looked fresh with sap still around the edges.

"Are you kidding me? Someone snuck out here and cut down this perfectly good tree? People make me sick sometimes."

She started to hear a familiar and nerve wracking chirping sound off in the distance. Saffron tried to get as quiet as possible so that she could listen carefully. She wanted to run in the opposite direction of them, but she heard them approaching from every direction. She was surrounded.

Over the horizons all around her came a film of black and brown shadows. There were easily hundreds of them at this point.

"Arcanine, come back out please!"

Her partner came out of its capsule and stood firmly next to her.

"They're not backing up this time, they must be confident in their numbers. Crap, where are these things coming from?"

The circle of Phantumps formed grew tighter around them.

Phantumps are grass type Pokemon, so I could probably scare them off with fire techniques, but I don't want to risk lighting any trees on fire. "Arcanine, Bite them if they get too close."

The hoard of Pokemon was forming a thick ring with a radius of only a few feet around them. A few brave individuals jumped out at them.

Arcanine skillfully batted the invaders away with its tail and paws, but more and more ghosts were deciding to take their leap of faith. He snapped his jaws at them whenever they got close to his face, but that didn't deter the stumplings. It was getting hard to keep up with.

Saffron whirled around wildly, trying to not leave open any chances for the small Pokemon to jump at her. She spotted another new stump from the trees around her.

Did I just not notice that one before, or is it new?

In addition to more of the small creatures getting brave enough to jump at Saffron and her Arcanine, the number of the little demons was growing at a terrifying rate. More walked towards them from off in the distance at every given moment.

For the first time, a Phantump landed a hit on Arcanine. Soon as it landed on the furry beast, roots grew out of its face and tried to ingrain themselves into Arcanine.

Saffron swatted it off before it could do any damage.

This is getting dangerous! I've got to do something.

Motion in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She looked over and saw a puff of smoke dissipate around a Phantump sitting on a newly created stump that had not been there before. The trees were turning into more of the Pokemon and the epidemic was spreading like a plague.

Finally, it all came together in Saffron's mind. This isn't a weird coincidence, this is the work of a Semishade! Someone is targeting me. How many of us are out there if this is my second encounter with Semishades like me already? How are they finding me?

She saw another Phantump come into being at the expense of a tree. The Semishade behind this attack was doing something even worse than just going after her; they were sacrificing the forest to do it.

Saffron's mind raced. She didn't want to use any fire moves, but what choice did she have? Arcanine was being overwhelmed, and he didn't have any moves that were wide enough spreading to get rid of the pests that weren't also normal type and thus not effective.

She didn't want to use any fire moves, but the fact stood that at that rate, before long the forest would be turned into a legion of Phantumps anyways.

Arcanine, after holding out for so long, was finally taken down with roots being driven into his skin.

Flashbacks rushed into Saffron's mind.

"Oh, would you look at that," her mother had once said, "a little birdy came to us and looks hungry. Why don't you go get some food for it?"

"Here you go birdy," the young Saffron had said. Her eyes lit up with joy as the Fletching pecked up the seeds that she had provided.

"There you go! Now you've made a new friend. Who knows, it might bring some of its own friends later."

The bird flew off, leaving a smile on her face.

Memories flashed by of all the Pokemon that had come to her pleasant little porch over the years. There was the Liepard that seemed too prideful to accept the food. There was the Stoutland that was growing old and needed food desperately and was guided there by a Pawniard. There was even that one Slowpoke that looked lost beyond measure that somehow appeared at her house.

This forest was their home.

Saffron's mind was shaken back to reality.

A tear fell down her face as roots dug into her own thigh. She had no choice but to do a mass extermination.

The wind blew ominously.

"Will-O-Wisp!"

The air around her lit up and erupted into flames. Wind hit leaves then ignited, setting whole trees on fire in seconds.

Whenever fire touched a Phantump, it would poof into a puff of smoke just as easily as it had come. The strategy was working, but in order to be truly effective, the entire forest had to be cleansed of its curse.

Tears streamed in small rivers on Saffron's cheeks. Her soul flared up resolutely and took visible shape as a large Litwick around her. The increased air currents created by the fire's heated air allowed for her ability to spread the fire further. A ripple of flames bolted through the forest and kept going, even past what Saffron could see.

She fell to her knees as she drew out more power from the Pokemon living inside of her. Her heart's beat became irregular and slowed down. Not enough oxygen was getting through her body.

The homes of the Pokemon she had cared for for so long, she was destroying them to save herself. Who knew how many Pokemon would themselves get caught in the flames and perish. Even though she knew there would be no forest at the end of this ordeal either way, she felt the weight of her decision crush her.

Her soul put up one more ounce of fight. She ignited the air above the flames, creating more flames and more rising air, and through a feedback loop continued to add onto itself. Through this process, a column of fire spanning almost the whole area of the forest shot into the sky and off into the atmosphere. The fires lost their fuel and died away.

Exhausted and about dead from almost stopping her heart, Saffron completely collapsed onto the singed plane that was now smoldering embers.

Arcanine, now safe, looked sadly upon his trainer and laid next to her. He howled wildly at the falling of his trainer, but would not leave his trainer's side. Like a wolf at the moon, he kept howling until there was no more howling that could be done. Smoke billowed off of the ashes and still burning trees around them, floating calmly but not without remorse into the sky above.

-----

The girl with the pink lipstick awoke suddenly to the smell of smoke and the burn of smoldering heat around her. She stood up so fast her hood slipped off, revealing auburn neck long hair with a flat spot on the left side of her head. She looked around herself. Almost everything was on fire. She looked and saw the entrance of the park. She had to get out of this wooden deathtrap while she still could.

She ran towards the entrance, then heard the creaking of wood above her. She narrowly dodged a tree falling to the ground, blackened by fire.

"Screw this! I'll get rid of all these trees in an instant! Forest's Curse!"

She motioned towards the tree in front of her, but nothing happened.

"What? Is it not working because it's burning?"

Another tree fell next to her. She was slowly being trapped.

She yelled angrily. "Stop it! Do what you're supposed to, dang it!"

But nothing happened.

Her anger boiled and the shadow of a spectre engulfed her body. The shadow was that of a Phantump. The normally expressionless Pokemon smiled eerily.

The girl tried turning around to run, but she couldn't move. She looked down at her foot to see that it had become wooden and dug into the ground with roots. The wooden appearance spread like a rash rapidly over her body. She yelled at the sky one last time before becoming engulfed in bark.

Years later the strange wooden statue of a humanoid figure yelling at the sky would be a point of interest for the town. People would stop by and take pictures with the statue, laughing and smiling as they did so. The strangest thing about the statue was not its pose, though. The strangest thing about the statue was that it appeared in the middle of the park after a huge freak wildfire broke out. The mystery of the bizarre statue was never solved.

The statue was aptly given the name "Forest's Curse" and remained unrotting for decades to come.

***

From the Archives: Forest's Curse

User: Trixie

Range: Roughly a few kilometers

Description: A few trees can be turned into Phantumps, leaving stumps in their wake. Like an infection, more trees around the Phantumps turn into more Phantumps that all have a singular goal in their mind. That goal can be whatever the user desires. The curse has potential to backfire, however.

Status: Living out a curse