#well at least there's still chatot and wigglytuff

[themetallicnemesis]

God now that i look back at it, partner probably just latched onto dusknoir so quickly because he saw them as some kind of father figure. Rip

#partner didn't even knew who he was before he came into the guild they just saw a strong adult explorer who's nice to them assigned him dad #well at least there's still chatot and wigglytuff #pmd #pokemon #pokemon mystery dungeon #pmd eos #pmd explorers #shitpost

[catflowerqueen]

Logistics of a “Speed Run”

So, this is probably going to end up on my what if…? List eventually, so I think I’ll just do some vague outlining here.

Starting Premise: The original expedition members are the only ones who go on the expedition to fogbound Lake.

1st Time Gear Located: Mesprit’s

Dugtrio rationalizes his not being chosen as Wigglytuff and Chatot deciding he needs more quality time with his son, but Diglett is not yet at the level where he could handle a full expedition. He… might be right? At least partially? Like I said—I don’t think they would have separated the two long-term quite yet, but, in all honesty, Diglett does seem to be the more responsible of the pair at this moment. However, he also seemed to be leaning on his dad quite a bit during the actual expedition itself (looking to him for approval, for example) once they hit Base Camp, so it is also possible that his confidence is only because of his familiarity with the Guild and Treasure Town.

Whatever the case—Dugtrio decides to take this bonding opportunity to mentor his son on the complexities of the move Dig, and upon realizing/remembering that Laura also knows this move (or her expressing interest in learning it) decides to take her along, with Paula as a spotter. For some reason he decides the best place to do this is around the Northern Desert—likely as an intermediate sort of lesson, for how to deal with loose soil and cave-ins? Or something? Or, like, there just so happens to be a lot of jobs for that area, so he just decides once they finish them to start working on Dig lessons.

Croagunk remains behind to watch the guild and his Swap Cauldron.

The group ends up accidentally tunneling into Quicksand Cave and either decide to take the opportunity to explore, or have no other choice because the tunnels collapsed and they can’t get out otherwise. This is possibly Laura’s fault, if her feelings of déjà vu and familiarity for the place (which she did canonically feel there in canon, but to a somewhat lesser degree since she was comparing it to her experience at Foggy Forest—meaning that she would be feeling it even more here) distract her to the point of making some digging mistakes. The result either way is that they end up meeting Mesprit and seeing her Time Gear. She doesn’t really have good defenses like Uxie does—she can sort of project feelings of disinterest, fear to make others leave her alone, but only if she’s paying attention and considering that Laura is in the party, it might not work. So, they’re going to have to try and get through to her via words.

Team Rainbow may or may not reveal the whole “human” thing to Mesprit—unlike in canon where the stories about Uxie made them think he was directly involved in the amnesia, there isn’t really a correlation between Mesprit’s powers and Laura’s situation that they can tell, in addition to the fact that they are not alone here, and might feel awkward about bringing it up around Diglett and his dad.

Either way, Mesprit extracts a promise from them not to tell, and they go home. Croagunk remains oblivious.

 2nd Time Gear located: Azelf’s

Probably at some point they’ll run into Grovyle—who has a little more freedom of movement since he hasn’t been identified yet. He may or may not go into the guild itself at some point to gather news, but at some point he and Laura will spend some time standing next to each other—or she just happens to be in his vicinity for some reason, like if he’s on the Beach muttering to himself and she overhears and wanders over to listen.

We already know he has somewhat of a habit of talking to himself—which probably stems from how quiet Laura was while travelling with him, so he would basically just soundboard off of her whenever they were planning/he felt it was relatively safe to talk (because he was a bit more socialized and had parents who would have encouraged him to talk/theorize/ask questions when the environment is safe. Not to mention he had a friend in Celebi before she was forced to relocate). But because he got in the habit, he sort of forgets at times that his partner isn’t actually around at the moment, resulting in him, well, talking to himself. And then when, unbeknownst to him, Laura is around… well, he would sort of sense the familiarity and just fall back into those habits even easier.

The result of this is that she catches him debating which Time Gear location to go after next (though he wouldn’t actually say that part out loud) and she picks up the name Crystal Cave before he finally catches on to what he’s doing and makes a hasty exit. The name sounds familiar/intriguing, though, so Laura suggests that Team Rainbow go there next if they can find some jobs on the board. Which they do, so they do.

In the course of their work and exploring, they stumble upon the Crystal Lake. They are extremely nervous/panicked/general freaking out about finding another Time Gear when that was in no way their intent, and Azelf is curious/amused enough by the spectacle that he comes and investigates. He can tell they are determined to keep things a secret, and probably heard about the situation from Mesprit, so he’s actually pretty chill about the whole thing, and they probably even chat a little bit before the duo leaves. Laura probably gives him a warning that there might be a Grovyle coming to sight see or something in the near future, since that’s where she got the idea from to explore the place. So she unintentionally gives him the warning to be on the lookout, even though they still think at this time that his travelling plans were innocuous.

 3rd Time Gear located: Uxie’s

The guild finally returns, feeling a little bummed that their expedition was a failure—because, as I’ve said before, I think it is unlikely Uxie would have let the group (minus possibly Wigglytuff) see the lake if not for the hero and partner accidentally stalling for time and seeking unrelated information in the game, which would have endeared them to him more and made him more willing to risk it. Without them there—and without the partner finding the drought stone, since that may or may not have happened if they weren’t there (because, privately, I think the reason they found it in the first place was that everyone stampeding to explore accidentally unearthed it [and Uxie probably just goes and deposits it in a random place in the forest whenever it is successfully used and he has to resort to Groudon/memory wiping to drive them away] and then the partner just happened to look down at the right moment. But with fewer people in attendance, that part might not have happened).

Though, it is entirely possible (and likely) that Bidoof might have managed to find the stone if he got lost in the Forest Path loop one too many times, and then just decided to take it with him as a treasure, the way he did that random crystal in canon. And maybe they could successfully find the statue, but have to wait for Chatot or someone to decipher the footprint runes (because I get the feeling that’s an uncommon skill, but is one of the things the partner learned in preparation for fulfilling their dream), and then no one has any idea what the drought stone is. Possibly Bidoof doesn’t even pick it up until they’re leaving, and the group might not have had the cohesiveness they did in canon to all go and share their finds since Dugtrio wasn’t there to suggest the apprentices work as one. That left the group each holding a bunch of different puzzle pieces, but not being able to put them together.

Anyways, they return, life gets back to normal, Dusknoir shows up, yadda yadda. At some point Bidoof lets Laura look at the pretty rock he found, and she has a Dimensional Scream about its purpose (though she doesn’t yet know what her ability is called). This… probably gets shared with the guild at large? Especially if Dusknoir still happens to be hanging around when Bidoof is showing off? …Or if it happened the night they got back (before Dusknoir arrived), and then all the apprentices got excited and caught Chatot’s attention.

So, Wigglytuff decides that Bidoof, Paula, and Laura should go back there the next day to figure things out—since they’re the ones with the most pieces of the puzzle. And he probably lets them go alone, at that, so Bidoof can actually get another chance to fulfill his wish and actually teach his friends things. So they do, and find Uxie and his Time Gear. And probably also ask him about the memory thing (since I feel like Bidoof’s presence is less awkward as far as spilling that goes? He is kind of their teacher, and the one that they’re probably closest to, even if he doesn’t generally get to do as much for them as he’d hoped). More conversations ensue and promises of secrecy are made—as well as some vows to look into things since it is extremely weird that this duo keeps finding Time Gears when they aren’t even trying to do so—though Uxie is going to be vague about it with Bidoof’s presence, only mentioning that they’d made contact with his siblings without bringing up what they guard.

Uxie either gives them a random treasure or helps them come up with a cover story to tell everyone else—probably something like “it turns out that the legendary lake is just what happens when the fog “lifts.” Or, more “accurately,” what happens is all the fog and water vapor condense and absolutely drenches and waterlogs the forest. The groudon statue is, therefore, somewhat of a misdirection.

…Laura probably comes up with that explanation, purely because of how complex it is and how many logical leaps it requires. But they just let her have her fun with it, considering the personal disappointment she just went through.

Also—Grovyle’s timeline is a bit delayed from what it was in canon since he got a bit scared off by that brush with Laura and decided to lay low for a little bit. So he either shows up a day after they leave, or they happen to see him on their way back—but don’t pick up on the fact that he’s there to steal the Time Gear. Uxie does not think they told Grovyle about him both because of just how quickly he appeared after the trio left and because Azelf probably told him about Laura’s tourist warning.

 Fallout:

There is awkwardness among the Dugtrio family, Bidoof, and Team Rainbow when the news breaks about the Limestone Cavern gear being missing, and then even more when Grovyle is finally revealed as the thief—especially since that particular revelation comes with Laura blurting out about how she saw the guy earlier, and how he was making travel plans—so now she feels guilty that she didn’t think to question him about it. …And then with that comes the revelation that the remaining Time Gears’ locations are already known. Which does make it a little easier to actually go and fortify them, since they don’t have to spend time searching.

The end result is probably that they catch Grovyle at whichever lake he targets next, and the whole “getting dragged into the future” thing happens a lot earlier, and without the massive injury and illness from the Crystal Lake fight that gets alluded to in Missing Scenes. This also means that the Town Meeting scene probably doesn’t happen, since Dusknoir doesn’t actually need to utilize all those resources. Though there would have to be a scene or something that happens afterwards with the guild, at least—and probably Officer Magnezone—where Dusknoir would have to explain why he should get custody of the criminal.

This… leads to some interesting possibilities as far as whether or not the whole “the hero and partner get dragged into the future” thing would even happen. Because at the very least Dusknoir would have to give a reason for why Laura would need to come with him, and depending on where they do all this planning, and whether or not Grovyle happens to be in earshot for this…

Well, I’m imagining a scene or something where Dusknoir “suggests” that Laura (and probably Paula) guard Grovyle while he goes and gets all the sableye ready to prepare for a return trip (because that way he can keep the two of them close together if he needs to quickly grab them and run). Laura probably would accidentally touch him at some point and set off a dimensional scream, which would reveal, if not everything about her own personal history, then at least some inconsistencies in Dusknoir’s story. So Grovyle’s innocence would probably get sorted out fairly quickly, and then the issue would become how to protect him and the Time Gears from Dusknoir, as well as how to find the Hidden Land. …Or that dimensional scream happens right before Dusknoir drags him to the future, so Laura is still reeling from that revelation when she and Paula get dragged there as well—which would endear Grovyle and his efforts to them very quickly, and they would be on board with his plans from the start.

In any case, they would have a lot more time to plan, bond, and search for the Hidden Land after that. Which means discussion of Laura’s past and history would become inevitable, and the whole “we will disappear” thing might get figured out. But I don’t see this particular “what if…?” scenario being one where Relatia actually gets called to fix things, simply because Laura wouldn’t have quite enough time here to figure all of that out.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #what if...? #fanfiction #major spoilers #feel free to ask questions!

[phantom-mizero]

In my opinion there is always one character on the good-side of every pmd game that does some really bad things that are sometimes even worse than what the bad-side in the games do. Gates to Infinity: Many Pokémon have problems stemming from depression in this game and the one thing that is actually bad is Espeon entrusting the Entercards to a child. It is the most understandable of the bunch, but so many things could have gone wrong if Munna and her gang would have found out. Espeon apologizes and I can forgive the thing because it was a tense moments after a long chase, but still. Rescue Team Blue/Red: Team ACT or more specifically Alakazam. From the first time Alakazam sees Hero he knows that they are a human and makes vague statements that can be interpreted that he knows about either the future or about the Ninetales Legend. Not to mention that he sends Hero and Partner to Xatu, which confirms this even more. Team ACT is regarded as at least one of the best teams on the continent, which also doesn't have to mean a thing, because they are just on par with Hero Partner and Absol. All of this makes Alakazam and his Team seem rather pretentious and arrogant, not to mention that Alakazam specifically doesn’t want to tell Hero any of the things he knows so they can enjoy life here more. I do not understand Alakazam’s reasons or why he isn’t even telling the Pokémon of Pokémon Square, who are literally rallying against Hero anything that he knows. Alakazam infuriates me a lot. Explorers of Darkness/Time/Sky: Chatot with his shady business practices and bad leadership skills, which makes him rather unsuited for his position. I am not mad that the guild takes a rather large sum of your earnings, but the fact that Chatot doesn’t tell you this a) upfront and b) for what it’s used is really bad. You can only guess where all the money is going to. Literally any workplace would tell you this upfront, or at least when you get the job. Wigglytuff believes in second chances, which I adore, but that makes him bad to approach for things like Team Skull, so you should go to his Assistant Chatot, who doesn’t take you serious for insulting a known explorer team, even if what you say is the truth. After you have no Perfect Apple’s he doesn’t even give Partner and Hero a chance to explain why, he just shuts them up, cancels their dinner and wants to present them as the scapegoats for when he doesn’t even know why one of their best new teams didn’t make it. Canceled Dinner also means that they would go two days while working without any food except dungeon rations, which would be kept as such, because you only have limited storage and aren’t guaranteed to find or buy extra food. The other apprentices sharing some food with Hero and Partner is not only precious but could have kept them from fainting in the dungeon the next day. Not only is all this bad leadership, but also extremely dangerous for someone who’s under an older more experienced persons guidance who want’s to learn their trade. I also don’t think that Wigglytuff knew about this, nor about the next point. On the night after the incident he tells you that you shouldn’t hope to be on the big expedition. Not only is this a dick move, but he is also just the assistant of Guildmaster Wigglytuff. Chatot can not, in anyway, make a decision like that or even tell you this because he is not the leader of this Guild and does not decide such things. He also wanted to say something, when he read Partner and Hero’s names, but knows enough about Wigglytuff that he doesn’t. On the Expedition he get’s mad when you are “too late”, even tho your whole Team is made out of new recruits and probably got lost on the way for a bit. Additionally there is extra dialog when you take the wrong path that leads you around back to the camp, so he want’s to hear your good news, because you came back, but you have none, so gets even madder about it insisting you go back in again. You don’t have to talk with Chatot after Azurill and Marill ask you to get their item for them back, but if you do he insists that, no, you can’t take the day off, because they are already understaffed. Gee whiz, I sure wonder why?! I sure do wonder why everyone turns their backs on this guild after they found out how badly this place is run. He recaps what Hero and Partner did after they came back to the guild from the bad future, before he makes fun of them, basically calling them crazy, doing a 180, when he gets accused of not trusting them for telling the truth and ends up laugh-crying out of sheer desperation because this is the first time he got backed into a corner for being really shitty to anyone because he is in a position of power. Wigglytuff assigns Chatot to look after the guild, but more importantly Hero and Partner on the mission were a bunch of dangerous criminals await them. He insist that they shouldn’t drag him down, before running after Team Skull, when he finally realizes that they’re thiefs and going even further without Hero and Partner and running into said criminals. At that point I do not care that he protects them from the criminals first attack, because he lost any loyalty or trust I ever had in him quite awhile ago. PSMD: Ampharos is an overall bad leader, who and lies and betrays Hero and Partner more than the actual bad guys of this pmd game – which is something. Ampharos sets out to Serene Village without telling anyone, with his terrible sense of direction, which makes him bumble around like he’s drunk in unknown locations. When Partner asks if he works for the Expedition Society, he declines and after getting to their base in Lively Town he says that he doesn’t work for them, because they work for him. He admits them in the Expedition Society actually as full members, but tells them that they’re only Junior members, making that up on the spot, while NOT telling ANYONE in the Society about ANY of this! He sends you off to wake Jirachi up, but does not tell you that Jirachi sleepfights anyone who tries that and acts surprised afterwards that you look as if you were just in a boss fight. This was also in a library with precious books and equipment to study astronomy, including a large and important telescope. They do a big expedition to the volcano and every member, except Hero and Partner, get told that Entei lives there, so they need to be careful. So he decides to let Buizel watch over them, because what are the chances of them getting to the peak first!? Espurr plays double agent in the late game for both sides, but I am 100 % sure that Ampharos tells her to not say anything about that to Hero and Partner so their reaction are genuine and they can bust in a few minutes later anyway to look heroic. The outcome is just that I trusted no one but Partner at this point. I was even convinced that Lapras and the shopkeepers where in on it. There is also the post-game where you only want Partner back after a really long fetch quest were it turns out that Ampharos with Xatu and Mawhile came up with a dumb kidnapping plot, with the reason that Dark Matter is still in Mew and Nuzleaf and the Beheeyem trying to get rid of it, which would erase Mew from existence. That is contradicted by Partner’s words when they disappear and the real reason that Mew is sick is because Partner was still, in a way, alive in them, but could only be brought back if Hero had strong enough emotions for them otherwise they would disappear. Ampharos is someone irresponsible and incredibly childish with a hero complex, while having negative communication skills. Yet he is quite manipulative, while he lies and withholds important information to the rest of the Expedition Society. There is also a line of dialogue where he talks about not wanting to ruin it this time, referencing that he most likely took in children in the Society before, which didn’t work out so well. The whole Expedition Society jokes about leaving because they see all of his flaws, but I actually want them to kick Ampharos out. He rather hatches big convoluted plans, not telling anyone about them, than talking something out and making plans actually with them. Literally anything that he does wrong can be fixed by talking to someone, telling them his plans and what he wants to do.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #pokemon mystery dungeon rescue team #pokemon mystery dungeon explorers #pokemon mystery dungeon gates to infinity #pokemon super mystery dungeon #pokemon mystery dungeon spoilers #pokemon mystery dungeon rescue team spoilers #pokemon mystery dungeon explorers spoilers #pokemon mystery dungeon gates to infinity spoilers #pokemon super mystery dungeon spoilers #pmd

[flyingfishflopsthings]

PMD 2: Super hero/magic AU ideas

I had an idea and i think it’s fun, but i don’t plan on actually writing it because I have other PMD stories I want to write first, so I’m putting it out here.

In this AU, the Guild is a Hogwarts/Camp Half Blood style institution that teaches those with powers how to wield them and how to help people with them.

like its a kind of boarding school situation, they all live there and have lessons on how to use their powers and stuff. Also has potential for Hijinks and Shenanigans, which is, in my opinion, a vitally imporant and underused part of any story in the explorers games

I think there’s still mystery dungeons, but some of them are like labyrinths under cities, and there can be multiple dungeons in one area, they kind of cross over each other. 

Everyone is human in this AU, but some manifestations of power lead to physical mutations that may allude to the power. For example, Corphish has the power to breath underwater, and has crawfish claws in place of his hands

Powers are very common, lots of people have at least some mild potential, but not everyone wants to use that for guild work. Marrowak, for example, uses his powers to help train others in combat, while Xautu has x-ray vision used for looking in boxes.

sometimes the mutations are the power- Chatot’s power is that he has bird wings that allowed him to fly, until the initial ambush in Brine Cave prevented him from being safely capable of flight.

Guildmaster Wigglytuff is a well known and very powerful hero who retired from active duty along side his sidekick Chatot to run the guild after Chatot’s injury. His powers were initially believed to be simply a basic, but potent super strength, but the attack in Brine Cave unlocked a secondary power that allows him to cause explosions and tremors. His control over this secondary power is less exact, and in times of extreme emotion, can loosen.

having secondary powers is rare but not unheard of, and the two powers aren’t always related. Its more unusual that the power didn’t manifest until late in his career.

The Guild members have a wide range of powers-  Loudred has an enhanced voice that can do damage through its sheer volume, Sunflora has control over plants as well as mild healing abilities, Crogunk is capable of making toxins in his skin and is skilled at martial arts, Chimeco has both Empath and Telekinetic powers, Dugtrio and Diglett both have earth bending powers, and Bidoof’s powers give him beaver traits (not an especially useful power, but he’s trying to make it work)

Team skull might also be a part of the guild idk

The partner, Chimchar in this case (going off of the Anime) has fire powers and desperately wants to join the guild

he finds the hero, Piplup, collapsed on the beach with no memory except the knowledge that this beak and these flippers are DEFIANTLY new. After some experimentation, they find they also have hydrokenis

The two of them decide to join the guild together because Piplup doesnt seem to have anywhere else to go and kind of wants to learn how to control their new powers

Some people have such strong powers that they are considered not entirely human, and more deific, particually as after a certain threshold of power, regardless of their actual ability they become functionally immortal. This is the case with Palkia and Dialga in particular, who are incredibly old, and have taken it upon themselves to maintain the correct workings of Time and Space. 

Grovyle has super speed, as well as very weak earth bending.

Celebi is also functionally imortal but is on the lower end of the power spectrum for that threshold. She is able to send other people back in time, as well as thoughts and information that allow her to manipulate the time stream, but cannot travel back herself.

Dusknoir has control over spirits, which manifest as the Sableye entourage. He is a loyal sidekick to Dialgia out of self-serving necessity.

Team charm are a heroic team headed by Loppuny, who has Super Jumping Powers (think Remy from Taz: C) She maybe has manifested rabbit ears? idk i also like the big hatsune miku ponytales i give her in my design. which ever is more fun is what she has. Gardivouir has claravoient powers, and Medicham has the power of both Very good Punching, as well as mild psychic abilities. 

Lapras is maybe a giant or something in this au? im not really sure how he carrys people. who knows maybe he can shapeshift into a boat. thats pretty cool.

Manaphy is a child Chimchar and Piplup find with strong Hydrokenis, and they can tell he is likely to become one of the deific heros in the future. He has such a strong connection to the ocean he has to raised in it.

idk thats it basically

i think this is a fun au, i came up with the idea after reading a homestuck fic called doc scratch’s school for exeptional puplis or something along those lines

its very good, very fun super school shenangians as well as high stakes

takes place on a moon, very cool. weird mysterys are happening

if you like homestuck you should read it basically

feel free to add more ideas if you have any, i’d love to talk to people about this au!

#pmd #pmd 2 #pmd sky #pmd explorers #pokemon mystery dungeon #pmd au #Superhero au #this got pretty long #also incoherent by the end #maybe i'll do some designs for this at some point #i think it has potential for Very Fun Designs

[perenlop]

PMD?

Favorite character: that one heracross in spinda cafe that keeps dragging out his wooooords and hollering out of nowhere about how much he wants a friend and how fun exploring is and how good the drinks are pmd2 partner!! their entire arc just makes me feel things, its the typical “wimp learns how to be brave” plot but hey it was my first one and its very organic and sweet to watch them grow and watch their relationship with the hero develop... i like to think abt them

Second favorite character: psmd partner! ik i like the partners... theyre just so sweet i cant help it. but i also love grovyle, very common but he means a lot to me. theres also wigglytuff and gurdurr and espurr and emolga! i also love scizor, hes more obscure but he makes me feel things.

Least favorite character: nuzleaf.

The character I’m most like: virizion, her arc really hit me hard as a kid ngl. also pmd2 hero

Favorite pairing: pmd2 hero x partner will always be number 1 in my heart. chatot x wigglytuff is also the only mlm boss/second hand mon pairing thats good as far as i know. celebi x grovyle is the childhood otp as well... also espurr x psmd partner

Least favorite pairing: LOTS. gardevoir x gengar, scizor x froslass, and grovyle x dusknoir come to mind. 

Favorite moment: that part where the hero comforts partner in the future and convinces them that they need to find grovyle, its such a soft and sweet yet truthful scene and its always stuck out to me. god pmd2′s storytelling is so good... also like. every single moment of igglybuff the prodigy. all of it is so good. and the talk between grovyle and partner when they hero is still asleep. i have a lot of favorite scenes but im trying to keep things brief or else this will be too long

Rating out of 10: 10 out of 10 i am biased and thats epic

#sociallyunacceptableorb #mail #it has been pmd hours for a whole week...

[totallycorrectpmdquotes]

Hi! Not to rush you, but do you have a date in mind to update Backfire? I really wanna see how Dusknoir gets out of this one >:3

*abrupt realization that I’ve been sitting on this ask for almost two months, and haven’t transferred chapters 4 & 5 over from AO3* uh. Whoops.

Let me just… fix that…

(Previous Chapters)

Uxie’s powers aren’t just limited to his lake, and affect all memories which could be traced back to the Time Gears. It’s easy to imagine the mental catastrophe this could cause in the mind of someone who’s spent nearly their entire life looking into them. In his defense, Uxie was really mad at Grovyle.

-

4.

Dusknoir didn’t look anythinglike the Guildmaster did when he was asleep. For starters, he’d actually closedhis eye, while Wigglytuff had always just stared blankly ahead. He’d also beensurrounded by an ominous blacklight aura and moved stiffly compared to theGuildmaster’s ragdoll-limbs. It was easy to tell when he woke up – the auradropped and Dusknoir jerked back, obviously upset by what he’d nearly done toChatot.

At least, Breeze hoped so. Shereally, really hoped the Great Dusknoir hadn’t meant to hurt Chatot like that.

The Guildmaster still trembledand held Chatot tight, only a few seconds away from bawling as Chatot repeatedhow fine he was.

Breeze grabbed one of her oranberries from her treasure bag and passed it off to Chimecho. Chimecho didn’tneed any other instructions, she joined the Guildmaster in fussing over Chatotand began the long, painful process of convincing him to eat it.

Dusknoir spoke, finally, andstared past the group. “He’s awake.”

Breeze felt her partner shove herout of the way just in time to avoid the curtain that fell on her Guildmates.Grovyle tucked and rolled, landing only a pawstep away from Breeze.

“Wait -” she started to say, butGrovyle was faster. He leapt for the wall, and with one solid kick took out thewindow frame and launched himself out of the guild.

The guild struggled out from thecurtain as both Breeze and Dusknoir dove for the window, his hands and her pawsside by side as they both leaned halfway out. Grovyle threw the frame away andcaught a ledge, swinging himself back up onto solid ground. He looked back upat them, his expression barely outlined in the dim torchlight – wide eyes and atense posture.

“We’ll handle this!” Dugtriocalled, and the ground under Breeze’s paws churned. She leaned further, eyesstill on Grovyle as he shook off his claws – and Dugtrio popped out of the wallright in front of him. Grovyle yelped and slapped him.

It wasn’t a move – it was just aslap. Dugtrio was unphased.

“Do not engage!” Chatot squawked,and ruffled Breeze’s fur as he flew overhead. He swooped down, wobbling onstill half-frozen wings. This time, Grovyle did use a move – quickattack, it looked like, from how he cleared the distance between himand Chatot in a single bound. With two flaps, Chatot tried to fly back – withthe ice still in his wings, weighing him down, he had no chance of succeeding.

Chatot hit a rocky slope andslid. Dugtrio abandoned his post and burrowed through the cliff face to shootout only a pawstep above the ocean’s waves. He broke Chatot’s fall, but nearlylost his grip. Grovyle landed back on the ledge and sent a shower of pebblesdown at them.

Breeze could feel her guildmatescrowded behind her as they tried to squeeze past or lift each other up so theycould see too. Wigglytuff sobbed, and Breeze could feel the guild shake underher – Grovyle flattened himself against the cliff face to avoid falling off it.A burning growl rose up in her throat, and she turned to Dusknoir as embers litup her teeth. “Do something! ”

Dusknoir jolted and stared at herfor a second before he disappeared. Wigglytuff pushed through the crowd to takehis spot. Breeze spun back around as Grovyle yelped and pressed his backagainst the cliff – Dusknoir had manifested just out of arm’s reach off thecliff’s edge.

“You’re coming with me,” he said.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Grovylereplied, his weak rasp nearly lost to the wind and waves. He clung to the wallbehind him and stared at Dusknoir.

No, wait. PastDusknoir?

Breeze squinted and leanedfarther. There was a shadow floating over the ocean, silhouetted by moonlight.It held out a hand, and a ball of blacklight curled in its palm.

Breeze had a thought, then, abouthow that blacklight the shadow held looked an awful lot like the one that hadsurrounded Dusknoir earlier. Then she saw where it was aiming.

She didn’t think again.“Look out! ” Breeze shouted as she flung herself out thewindow. Her guildmates echoed her by screaming her name, but did nothing thatstopped her from smashing into Dusknoir. He was knocked aside as she bouncedback – her back hit the cliff face, the sharp stones pierced her fur, and shetumbled forward.

A clawed hand grabbed her backpaw and swung her up before she could skid further. Grovyle set her down andopened his mouth to say something.

Then she tackled him, andthe shadow ball exploded the ledge they’d been standing on amoment before. Grovyle hit the cliffs, Breeze hit Grovyle, and they flipped.She got a clear view of her guildmates holding Dusk back from throwing himselfafter her, and everyone on the cliff-face reaching for her.

Dusknoir’s outstretched handsclosed around the strap of her Treasure Bag instead of her leg, and Breeze hitthe ocean head-first.

.-.

By the time Dusknoir managed tobreak away from the frantic guild members and reach his underlings’ campsite,they were already packed and ready to leave. Dusknoir would be thankful if hewas an idiot and not well aware they would not be ready yet without outsideorders.

“You,” he pointed to the closestone, “What are you doing?”

The other five froze as thatsableye turned to face Dusknoir. He had a glassy, unfocused look in hisgemstone eyes. He was half-asleep. “What you asked us to do,Lord Dusknoir.”

Dusknoir’s heart hammered, and hecovered the rising panic with rage. “Humour me. What is it?”

The other sableye backpedaled andabandoned their associate. The traitor in front of Dusknoirfrowned, then laughed nervously. “To… search down the girl and Grovyle…? Andeliminate them?”

Another sableye piped up. “Noneof us saw you give him these orders, Lord Dusknoir!”

“As I suspected,” Dusknoirreplied, and wrapped a hand around Sableye’s torso. He lifted him and squeezed.“Do you feel this?”

Sableye wheezed, and Dusknoirfelt his ribs start to bend under his grasp. He dropped the pokemon and let himland in a heap.

“This is real. Remember it. Don’tbe a fool.” He looked up at the others. A few stared at their companion, butnone of them were stupid enough to rush over to check on him. “You will searchfor them, but you will not engage. You will follow the coast until you uncovera marker of them coming ashore, which you will then report to me. Tail them. Donot let them see you. Am I understood?” He towered over the one in front of him,and watched that poor, stupid sableye cough. “Do not let thisworld turn you soft. Our mission isn’t done yet.”

A rumble of reluctant agreementran through his underlings. Dusknoir cracked his knuckles, and the reluctancedisappeared.

He took his leave, a chesto berryborrowed from Team Relic’s treasure bag clutched in his hand in case Darkraidecided to pay him another visit. Dusknoir cut through the trees to return tothe crossroads and gave the path to the beach a long look. The sky over theocean had started to turn a pale blue. He could hear the waves lapping againstthe sand, just loud enough to reach his ears. The scent of sea salt mixed withdew-covered leaves blew past on the gentle breeze, pleasantly cool.

There was, yet again, a shadow ofa human man right beside him.

Dusknoir pointedly ignored him,and the distant commotion of the guild, as he watched the sun rise.

.-.

For what was unfortunately notthe first time in her memory, Breeze woke up covered in sand with a full bodyache.

She started gagging before sheeven tried to force her eyes open, and by the time she had managed to sit upshe had a disgustingly large pile of sand that had been in her mouth infront of her.

“Ew,” her throat burned. “Ew, ew-” she fluffed up her fur and immediately winced - her muscles screamed at theextra tension. She flopped back down onto the packed earth floor, which wasfreezing, and decided she’d just be covered in sand the rest of her life. Thelittle cave she’d ended up in seemed to be more dirt than sand, so maybe shecould get some variety. Her Persim Band, by some miracle, wasn’t sand-coated –but it was stuck in one stiff position thanks to a thick layer of seasalt. Great.

The faint sunlight at the end ofthe cave turned dark, and Breeze forced herself through the pain to sit upagain.

“Oh, you’re alive.” Grovyle said.He took a bite of one of the apples he held in his arms. “Sorry I couldn’t giveyou a better bed, I barely managed to drag you in here before I passed out. Youmust be hungry. Luckily for you, I found a sitrus.” He started to cross thedistance between them. Breeze put all her energy into backing up as fast as shecould. Grovyle stopped.

“Where are we?” She fluffed upher fur and growled. The deep ache nearly made her lose her balance.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Grovylesaid. He set the sitrus and an apple down and backed up. He took another biteof his own apple and chewed before he spoke. Breeze didn’t move. “We’re in somesort of burrow by a river that meets the ocean. We got swept quite a distancealong the coast, and the waves did a number on you.” Breeze still didn’t move.Grovyle rolled his eyes. “If I leave will you eat the berry?”

“Why did you save me?” Breezeasked.

“Why did you save me? ”Grovyle replied.

The two stared at each other fora long moment. Breeze swallowed the urge to point out that she’d been trying tosave Dusknoir, not him. Grovyle just frowned at her.

After that long, awkward momentpassed, Breeze lowered her gaze. She took a deep breath in and started to inchcloser to Grovyle. He doesn’t remember the Time Gears. He doesn’tremember being a bad Pokémon. I wanted to give him a second chance. I’m givinghim a second chance.

Within only one bite, the warmthof the sitrus berry had started to soothe her aching everything. She ate therest in only two more bites. “Thanks,” she said as soon as she finished, “thathelped.”

“Don’t mention it,” Grovyle said.He rolled the apple closer to her, and Breeze finished it in a few bites –Grovyle still nursed his own. “…So, Nixie, you got a name?”

Breeze looked up from her applecore. “I’m a vulpix.”

“Oh,” Grovyle narrowed his eyesat her, “are you? Is a nixie your evolution?”

“No? That’s a ninetales.” She hadn’tforgotten basic pokemon names when she’d lost her memories. “What’s a nixie?”

Grovyle frowned at Breeze for severallong moments before he shook his head and rubbed one of his temples with twoclaws. “Never mind. I’m… what’s your name?”

Breeze hesitated. “Uh,” she pawedthe ground and scraped back a line of dirt. Dusk would know if it wasappropriate to answer that question. But Dusk wasn’t here, and Breeze wasalone. Type advantage or not, she was alone. “Good question. My best friendcalls me Breeze. What about you?”

Grovyle’s frown deepened. “Thatdoesn’t matter,” he said. “If you can walk, we-”

“No, no,” Breeze cut in, andtried to fix Grovyle with a serious look. “You don’t get to ask me your nameand not offer yours.”

He shook his head. “It’s notimportant, I shouldn’t have asked. As I was saying -”

“Do you not remember?”

There was a beat of heavy silencebetween them. Breeze did her best not to wilt under Grovyle’s huge-eyed stare.

“I do,” Grovyle said,unconvincingly. “But if I’m here then I don’t deserve it.” He pointed over hisshoulder, “That shadow might find us again if we stay. We should keep moving.”

Breeze narrowed her eyes. Grovylepointedly did not look at her. “Why?” She settled on at last, “What will happenif it catches us?”

“I don’t know,” Grovyle said.“It’ll probably try and kill me again. You too, given that you helped me. Thesafest option is to keep moving.”

“Why? So it can track you?”Breeze sat down and crossed her front paws over top of each other. “So you haveto keep running? So you have to jump out more windows and off more cliffs?”

“You pushed me,”Grovyle grumbled.

“Yeah, yeah. You know that’s notmy point.” She waved a paw, “I also told you not to jump out the window. Do youhave any idea why I didn’t want you to throw yourself into the ocean?” Grovylegave her a particularly grumpy glare. This time, Breeze ignored it. “We were atthe Wigglytuff Guild. Everyone at the guild helps Pokemon who are in danger. Weprotect ones who are running from something. Everyone there is strong,especially the Guildmaster.”

“Was that the one choking thebird or the one doing the choking?” Grovyle said, deadpan.

“Neither, actually. Dusknoir wassleepwalking and didn’t mean to hurt Chatot.” He didn’t look any moreconvinced. Breeze shuffled, suddenly sheepish. “I’m sure if we go back, and youjust talk to them, you’ll see what I mean. It’s safer than running. Okay?That’s why we brought you back there in the first place.”

Instead of looking at Breeze,Grovyle focused on the apple. For several tense breaths, the only sound wasa snap as he twisted off the stem.

“You knew I was having memoryissues,” Grovyle said. “Is it wrong to assume you know why?”

Breeze nearly choked on her ownanxious gulp. “Kinda? I – I didn’t bring you back. Dusknoir did. He – youshould ask him what happened to you.”

Grovyle kept eye contact as hetook a slow bite of his apple. “But you know. Why won’t you tell me?”

How are you this calm? It tooka whole mystery dungeon for me to stop panicking when I lost my memory. Isnot what Breeze said, as tempted as she was. Instead, she shrugged. “I don’tknow enough to help you. I just -” didn’t want to abandon you, wantedto give you a second chance, felt my gut churn at the thought of lettingDusknoir take you back to the future and I don’t know why, “- want toknow what you remember? We all do. Dusknoir told us you’d have memoryproblems.”

For several moments longer,Grovyle stared at her, chewing slowly. “Did he find anyone else with me? Anyother treeckos? Or grovyles? Sceptiles, even?”

There was a sinking, sad feelingin Breeze’s gut. “No,” she said, and caught the tiniest flinch from Grovyle.“You were alone, as far as I know. Dusknoir would know more.” He saidyou had a friend in the future.

In the silence that followed,Grovyle finally finished his apple – including the core, seeds and all. “Well,”he said, “as I was trying to say before, we should go. Staying here won’t do usany good, especially with that shadow on our tail. If you can walk, we shouldleave.”

“Back to the guild?” Breezeasked, hopefully.

“If that’s where this Dusknoiris, then sure.” Grovyle shrugged and offered a hand to help Breeze up. Shepretended not to see it. “But I’m not sticking around.”

“Alright,” Breeze said. And stoodup on her unsteady legs as Grovyle pulled his hand back. She offered him asmile. He just looked confused. “Then let’s go.”

Grovyle nodded and made his wayto the entrance. He waited for Breeze to stumble over to him before continuingout of their riverbank cave at a much slower pace. They stayed side by side asthey stumbled up the dry riverbed.

Although the two barely looked ateach other (aside from courtesy checks to be sure the other was still besidethem), they both kept their eyes to the sky as the sun rose higher and higherpast the dawn.

#Backfire #PMD #Pokemon Mystery Dungeon #so far the theme for this fic seems to be that every five chapters I write a REALLY GOOD ONE and I can confirm that chapter 5 is dope #mine #Anonymous

[redladydeath]

you know what really bugs me?

when i was a kid, playing through the pmd explorers games, i was absolutely convinced chatot and wigglytuff were women. they’re feminine looking pokemon so to my little nine year old brain, they were women, and whenever they were referred to as ‘he’ it was just a typo. and it made me feel good thinking they were women. like. to fully developed female characters who were leaders and well respected, but still people in their own right with quirks, flaws, and good points. it felt so nice as a young kid to be playing a game where there were female characters who weren't just defined by their gender.

and then i got older and replayed the games and watched the anime episodes based off them and i realized i was wrong. the ‘he’s weren't typos, chatot and wigglytuff were just men. and that’s fine. it doesn’t wreck their characters by any means and i still loves these games to death, but... i miss that feeling i had when i was little, thinking there were two main female characters in the game who were treated no differently than the male characters by the story. thinking that there were characters who, yes, were feminine, but weren’t limited to their stereotype or were background elements or even fucking sexualized (*cough cough* team charm).

like. this seems like a stupid thing to get peeved over, i know, but. it’s a weird feeling, thinking something is more progressive than it actually is and then being hit with the realization that it even actively plays into the tropes that you were so refreshed it avoided, at least in your mind

#redlady speaks #pmd #like. all the female characters in explorers are either maternal figures stereotypes or romantic interests/sexualized #and those who aren't are just random npcs #(and yes there's cresselia but she shows up super late in the game and makes everyone hate her as soon as you have to fight with her) #it just makes the little nine year old girl in me sad

[randomeevee]

Rind took a deep breath before entering the large meeting hall with Agnès. She tightened the white and purple cloak she wore, making sure her badge fastened it around her. Pretty soon, she’d have to turn this cloak in for a black one, it was symbolic of her team ranking up.

There were many teams filed into the large meeting hall, their leader and second-in-command representing them in various perches. Some were on ground level, while many were in the walls like boxes in a theatre. They all faced the seat of the Guildmaster Wigglytuff and his assistant Chatot. Rind and Agnès climbed up a flight of stairs to reach their perch, and waited for the meeting to begin.

In the perch, Rind began to identify leaders from other teams. Team Mercenary’s Ethel and Goody were busying themselves with adjusting their cloaks, Team Elite’s Goldfur and Snowfeather were quietly talking amongst themselves,Team Chorale’s Misterioso and Presto were chatting with a group of boys. Rind was able to pick out the three confused-looking youngsters of Team Believe near the entrance, they must’ve gotten lost looking for their perch. 

Team Believe was a cute little group. Their leader was Sorrel, a Fennekin. Dream, a Purrloin, was the second-in-command. Foxpaw, the Eevee-Fox hybrid, was permitted to join his team in the meetings since they were so small. Rind was proud of them all, as she and the other members of Team Dame apprenticed them all and showed them how to function as a team. It was a proud moment for them all when Team Believe graduated from their apprenticeship at the guild, their somewhat askew white and gold cloaks were proof of that.

Rind smiled at Sorrel as she made eye-contact with her, and waved the group over. Rind had made sure that Team Believe’s perch was close to Team Dame’s. The youngsters expressed relief upon seeing their mentor, and finally found their perch on time.

The loud chatter of the room silenced as a bell was rung, the meeting was to begin. 

“Ahem. Welcome, welcome, fellow pokemon!” Chatot began. “This is the second meeting for this month, as you all know. But first we must begin with a couple announcements. Guildmaster!” 

“Yes, yes. Announcements!” The laid-back Wigglytuff said as he stood up from his seat. “Not much today, other than a warm welcome to Team Believe!”

He motioned to the three youngsters, who bowed their heads respectfully as a wave of congratulations were sent their way.

“Now! Primary issues on the table!” Chatot chattered on about odd weather patterns and a small spike in lowly bandits, and then handed the time over to guild leaders who had discoveries to share. Team Amour, led by a Nidorino and Nidorina, blabbed about a moonlit lake they had discovered for quite some time, until the sounds of snoozing could be heard. Wigglytuff was asleep.

“I have something to report, Chatot.” Goldfur said gruffly as he and Snowfeather practically shoved Team Amour out of the announcement spot. “How about the increasing famine this land is experiencing, huh? Is that not of worth to talk about?”

A murmur arose in the meeting hall. Eyes were rolled as Goldfur kept talking, they knew Team Elite’s routine. 

“Yeah, yeah you all know what’s going on! Droughts, come in and dry up the crops. And then as if to tease us, heavy rains come to flood away the hope we had for food! All this is causing some major unrest in the community, you know. Why don’t we do something about that?”

“It’s not as easy as it may seem, Goldfur.” Chatot retorted. “Right now, our farmers are still reeling from the floods. As long as the waters are still high, there is nothing they can do!”

“Okay, here’s an idea. Why don’t we destroy those worthless farms then? There’s no point to them if al they’re just going to get flooded and flooded over and over again!”

“Goldfur!” Chatot scolded as the meeting hall made a louder commotion.

“Destroy the farms? Are you mad!?”

“How much more can they be destroyed?”

“Those farmhands are good-for-nothings, anyways.”

Snowfeather’s ear twitched as he heard a stray comment among the crowd. Suddenly, his loud voice broke the commotion as he pointed a paw at the pokemon who uttered those words.

“You there! Say that again.” The Ninetales commanded, catching the Donphan off his guard. He was the leader of Team Heavy, Dormouse.

“Uhh.... Well I said that those farmers weren’t pulling their weight, Snowfeather.”

“Exactly the point my dear leader was trying to make, before he was interrupted.” Snowfeather said slyly. “See, his plan is to have to weak farmers... Move out. And we send the strong from Guild Square to mend everything.”

A faint murmur started up again as everyone considered his idea.

“Move them out?”

“Well, maybe he has a point there. Maybe the farmers are getting old and lazy.”

“But where will they go?”

“Wha- Hey! It’s not that easy!” Misterioso spoke up from his perch. “Presto and I have been out there, and I can tell you that the situation is far worse than you pokemon think it is! It’s impossible to navigate anywhere, and bandits run rampant! Not only that, but the volcano is showing signs of eruption! The flooding shows no sign of stopping, and it could start impacting Guild Square soon! What do you do about that? What do you do about the things we can’t control?!”

Snowfeather dismissed the Zorua with a snort. “Oh, don’t tell me you all believe that testimony from a former thief! He’s untrustworthy!”

“Snowfeather! You are not to berate other teams in this hall!” Chatot scolded. 

“I’ve turned over a new leaf.” Misterioso said confidently. 

“Well then, little Zorua. What do you propose we do in the instance that these disasters start to take over Guild Square, hmm?” Goldfur taunted with a flick of hs tail.

“Well... Evacuate, of course!”

“To where? The countryside? But I thought it was flooded up!” The Mightyena laughed. “Well, what now little pokemon? What should we ever do in the face of danger?”

“We find new land!” Rind boldly proposed as she descended from her perch with Agnès at her side. She could see Goldfur’s chops pull back slightly as she made herself known to him.

“Listen, my team and I have been investigating a secret passageway through Zero Isle South. We believe it leads to a much more peaceful and possibly undisturbed territory!”

“Ah, listen to the freaky pipsqueak you will.” Goldfur groaned. “Listen, Eevee. Listen to how unrealistic you sound right now. You and your little team intend to move every soul out to this little land of opportunity you think exists? You’re crazier than I thought.”

“That’s why we are still investigating it!” Rind retorted. “We don’t intend to move everyone, but we wish to move anyone who doesn’t feel safe in this region anymore!”

“Oh, look at you. You’re still a child, head in the clouds. Keep dreaming, tiny. This little land of yours doesn’t exist!”

“Much like your brain, Goldfur?” Rind cooly told him off. 

“That is enough out of the both of you! I am ending this feud before it even begins!” Chatot squawked angrily. It was common knowledge among the meeting hall that Team Dame and Team Elite did not get along. Lengthy arguments usually followed them.

“I am willing to give Team Dame benefit of the doubt this time. It is a risky move that could be promising if it pays off. Besides, Goldfur, you don’t seem to think of the implications of a new territory such as this through enough.

I will give Team Dame at least four years to determine the existence of this territory. But until then, we should all remain on our toes surrounding these disasters. Stay vigilant, Pokemon. Dismissed!”

#🔠drabbles🔠 #🌟Rind🌟 #🌨agnès🌨 #🏮misterioso🏮 #🎖goldfur🎖 #🕊snowfeather🕊

[pmd-heroxpartner-central]

Because of You Chapter 2

Chapter 2: Desperation

Sorry this took so long kept forgetting to upload it :P

Chloe was shocked beyond belief.

“Excuse me?!”

Chimchar didn't seem to hear her. He was obviously in too much shock.

“Dad wh...What are you doing here?!” He cried.

“I was about to ask you the same thing!” Infernape scowled.

Chimchar backed off a little.

“I…I’m part of an exploration team now, and there’s nothing you can do about it!” He declared in a determined voice.

Chloe looked confused, what was this all about? She decided to try and get some answers.

“Erm excuse me, but I don’t quite understand. What does Chimchar mean by…?”

But before Chloe could finish, Infernape gave her a dangerous look.

“You stay out of this!”

Chloe immediately backed off, Chimchar wasn't amused at all.

“Hey! You can’t talk to my friend like that!”

“And what did I say about conversing let alone making friends with non-fire types?!” growled Infernape.

Chimchar shrank down to the ground, Chloe looked even more shocked than before.

Only allowed to make friends with fire types? How unfair is that? She thought.

Infernape then roughly grabbed the Relic Fragment that his son always wore around his neck, making the poor Pokémon gag a little.

“I see you actually managed to find this piece of junk,” he snarled

Chimchar just looked away.

“It’s not junk,” he muttered bitterly.

“You really are a stubborn child aren’t you?” said Infernape sternly. “I’ve specifically forbidden you to join an exploration team, and one day you weren’t in your room. I’ve looked everywhere, but recently I happen to overhear someone talking about a so called Team Firestorm, and they just happen to mention that a Chimchar with a scar was a member. I had a feeling it was you and it looks like I was right.”

Infernape let go of the Relic Fragment releasing Chimchar causing him to topple over.

“Do you know how long I’ve looked for you?!” he exclaimed.

Chimchar just glared.

“For what?” he asked icily. So you can keep blaming me for what happened?!”

Chloe was stunned, Where did that come from? She had never heard him speak like that before, not even to an outlaw. Chloe glared at Infernape.

“Excuse me, but what's going on here? Why has it taken you over a year to come looking in Treasure Town for him!?” she asked.

Infernape glared back and swatted Chloe away as if she was an annoying Combee.

“That is none of your concern!”

Chimchar hurried to Chloe's side.

“Are you okay, Chloe?”

“Yeah, I'm fine,” said Chloe getting back on her feet. Her tail twitched in anger. How dare this Infernape harass her best friend like this. Infernape glared at Chimchar.

“And don’t you dare talk back to me like that! You know very well that if you hadn’t disobeyed us and….”

“SHUT UP!!!!!”

Chloe literally jumped away from Chimchar, startled by that sudden outburst. She studied Chimchar's face and saw a hurt look in his eyes he started clenching his fists. Chloe knew that what Infernape just said really got to him. She's never seen him like this. Normally Chimchar was a shy pokemon. He got more confident over the past year but still needed some coaxing now and again. A whimper from Chimchar snapped Chloe out of her thoughts.

“Don't you think I know....” he muttered. “Don't you think I know it was my fault!? I've lived with the guilt for eight years now! I don't need you to remind me!!!”

Chloe felt her heart break as she watched Chimchar desperately try to hold back his tears, but failing miserably.

“You just won't let me live it down!!! I won't let you make my life a misery anymore!”

Infernape scowled,

“Come on,” he said sternly. “We're going home.”

Infernape tried to take Chimchar's arm but he jumped back.

“Back off!”

Then Chimchar just ran off towards Treasure Town. Infernape sighed angrily and glared at Chloe.

“You see what you did?!”

“No, what did I do?!” exclaimed, Chloe. Infernape was getting on her very last nerve, and who ever knew Chloe can vouch that she hasn't got many to spare. Just then Chatot arrived at the scene, looking quite bewildered.

“Goodness gracious, what’s all this about? I was on my way to let you know of a Challenge Request, only to nearly get run over by a seemingly upset Chimchar.”

“Yeah, well you can thank Mr. Loud-mouth for that one.” said Chloe, “And for once I'm not talking about Loudred.”

Infernape glared at Chloe for that remark.

“Maybe you should explain what happened from the beginning,” suggested Chatot.

Chloe explained everything to Chatot, about Infernape, and about his “attitude”. Chatot nodded.

“Hmm, I see, then we have a bit of a predicament.”

“I am taking my son home! And you non fire types better not try and stop me!” boomed Infernape, making the other two pokemon jump.

Chatot hopped over to him.

“Now, now there’s no need to be rude. If you feel the need to take him home then we can’t stop you, but he seemed quite distressed when he dashed by me so at least let him have some time alone.”

Infernape scowled but nodded.

“Fine, we will leave in the morning, it's getting late anyway.”

With that he went on his way.

“Chatot there's gotta be something we can do!” asked Chloe feeling crestfallen by this.

Chatot looked sympathetic.

“If Infernape is Chimchar’s father then he still has authority over him, I'm sorry.”

“But it took Infernape at least a year to come here looking for him!” cried Chloe. “What kind of father is that!? I may not remember my parents, but I'm certain they wouldn't have given up!”

Chatot sighed.

“I can't imagine how you must be feeling Chloe, but Chimchar is still young. In fact if I was in charge of the guild instead of Guildmaster Wigglytuff I would have asked for proof of parent's consent if applicants were around your age. But you know what the Guildmaster's like: accepting anyone who comes through the door. I only go along with it because he's the one who has the final say. Even if Chimchar's father came while you were still in the Guild, even Wigglytuff would've had to meet his demands.”

Chloe sighed sadly,

“That doesn't make it right.”

“Well needless to say I don't think you two will be able to do that Challenge Request right now so I'll just let Aggron know that he'll have to come back another time. I'll be sure to explain the situation to him.”

Chloe nodded.

“Thanks, Chatot.”

Later Chloe went in search for Chimchar, who had not returned yet which worried her. Chloe had a good idea where he could be so she headed for the beach, and sure enough Chimchar was sitting on the sand, watching the Krabby blow bubbles, but not even that seemed to be cheering him up right now. This worried Chloe even more because this scene always brought a smile to her partner’s face. Chloe felt sorry for Chimchar. It was obvious from the look of his eyes that he had been crying.

Chloe slowly walked up to the little pokemon. Chimchar glanced up.

“Leave me alone,” He moaned.

Chloe felt a little hurt by this but tried put her paw on his shoulder for comfort.

“Chimchar,...”

“I said go away!” shouted Chimchar, slapping Chloe's paw away. The outburst scared away some of the Krabby.

Chloe stepped back then glared, her tail twitching

“Fine, Let your dad take you home see if I care!”

Chloe stormed off back to Sharpedo Bluff. Once inside, Chloe kicked over the treasure Bag in frustration, causing it's contents to spill out. One item caught Chloe's eye. It was the Red Silk she and Chimchar found in Midnight Forest. It reminded her of Chimchar as it had the power to boost fire-type moves. Chloe picked it up and stared at the crimson fabric. Sighing sadly, Chloe sat down on her straw bed.

“Oh man I really goofed this time. I was supposed to try and cheer Chimchar up but I probably just things worse.”

Chloe laid down and clutched the silk with her paws. She was usually very optimistic but it wasn't that easy right now. She was about to be separated from her partner and best friend because of some selfish, stubborn father. It wasn't fair. Chloe started feeling her eyelids grow heavy, but she didn't want to fall asleep until Chimchar came back. After a while however Chloe gave in and fell asleep.

KER-KLUNK!

Chloe woke up to a loud noise coming from just a few feet away. She groggily sat up and rubbed her eyes, muttering a curse to who or what ever woke her from her slumber. It was now really dark outside. Chloe gazed in the direction of the noise and was shocked to see Chimchar, Treasure Bag in hand as he was picking up a wonder orb that seemingly fell out of the Treasure Bag that the Chimp Pokemon already had over his shoulder.

“Chimchar,...what are you doing?” asked Chloe almost afraid to hear the answer.

Chimchar looked away, placing the orb back into the Treasure Bag where it belonged.

“I'm getting out of here,” he said simply.

This made Chloe sit bolt up right.

“What?!”

“I can't stay here. I can't let my dad take over my life again!” moaned Chimchar

“And where in the world do you plan on going?!” cried Chloe.

“Anywhere but here,” said Chimchar, making his way for the steps.

“So you were gonna leave just like that?!” yelled Chloe “Without me?!”

Chimchar turned to face Chloe.

“I didn't think you'd want to leave here just because of me.” he said sadly

“What?! Do you even know me at all?!” cried Chloe actually managing to get a chuckle in. She walked up to Chimchar. “But still...think about what you're about to do. You're gonna worry everyone if you just leave without saying anything. Come on, I thought I was meant to be the hasty one.”

“I don't have a choice,” groaned Chimchar.

“Don't give me that! Of course you have a choice. Look, if we just talk to you're dad tommorow...”

“There's no talking to him Chloe!” Chimchar cut off. “If I stay that's the end of our team! I don't want that and I'm sure you don't want that either!”

Chloe sighed.

Running away would also mean the end of our team!” yelled Chloe “So I fail to see your logic. Besides running away is not the answer. It's never the answer!”

“Yeah well it did good until he found me.” muttered Chimchar.

Chloe looked confused.

“What?”

The look on Chimchar's face told Chloe that he just let something slip. He then made a dash upstairs. Chloe sighed testily and ran up in pursuit.

“Chimchar get back here!” she called as if trying to reprimand a disobedient child.

Chloe made it up the steps to see Chimchar already nearly half way across Treasure Town.

“Chimchar, wait for me will ya!” Chloe yelled running as fast as she could to the retreating figure. She managed to grab Chimchar's arm just as they reached the watering hole.

“Let me go!!” He yelled.

“For crying out loud, Chimchar you're gonna wake everyone up,” Chloe growled. Then she released a sigh.

“Alright, fine If you're gonna be stubborn then go, but I'm coming with you.”

Chimchar gave Chloe a surprised look.

“But...”

“Buts are for sitting on.” Chloe cut off, folding her arms. “So, are we leaving or aren't we?”

Chimchar thought for a moment then nodded.

“Right, let's go.”

And the duo went down the path away from Treasure Town. Chloe could hardly believe she was doing this. But there was no way she was gonna let Chimchar go anywhere on his own. Chloe took one last look at their home town not knowing when or if she'll see it or any of it's inhabitants again.

“Chloe, you coming?!” Chimchar called breaking Chloe's train of thought.

“Yeah, I'm coming!” She called back and followed Chimchar to wherever they end up.

To Be Continued...

#pokemon mystery dungeon #pikachu #chimchar

[catflowerqueen]

How did Paula Evolve?

I’ve been thinking more about Hidden in Plain Sight and my post on why Paula’s evolution made the guild think she was older than she actually was, and I’ve realized that, given the way pichu usually evolve, coupled with all the barriers to evolution that pokemon would be facing at this point in the story… this might actually be a contributing factor to why Wigglytuff and Chatot are initially so worried about what Paula’s home life was like before she tells them about the lesser-known aspects of the Torterra Guild. 

Outside of the Mystery Dungeon games, pichu only evolve with high friendship. Given this restriction, one would assume that it would take a while for such friendships to form—possibly even years—so you wouldn’t really see pikachu as young as Paula is—or, at the very least, she would be right on the edge of it as far as relative ages go. This is even more true in my stories, where pokemon age at around the same rate as humans. The thing is, that’s not the method that pichu use in the Mystery Dungeon games—instead, it relies on IQ, which can be increased via eating gummis. While that makes sense as a game mechanic, it’s a little weird to rely solely on that for story purposes. So, in this case, it’s probably some mix of the two—knowledge and experience mixed with relationships. The thing is… normally it takes a pichu a lot longer to gain those things naturally—because while they would be getting the relationship boost from their parents since day one, retention of knowledge and memories doesn’t really happen until toddlerhood, and gaining the experience that evolution takes into account wouldn’t really start until the kid was old enough/big enough to fight or to start attending school/otherwise getting lessons. Paula, then, would be right on the outskirts of that—old enough to theoretically have some schooling, but young enough that no one would think that she’s ”graduated” to the minimal levels that one would normally see in a pikachu—especially one who is alone, considering that, due to the necessity of close relationships to evolve in the first place, most newly-evolved pikachu would still be around the family and friends who helped them reach evolution in the first place.

And as close as she is to Laura, they know that she can’t be the one whose relationship helped Paula reach evolution, since not only did they both admit that they met each other basically hours before joining the guild (not to mention that the rest of the guild had already figured this out for themselves, given that Paula had made it up to the grate and then run away due to fear/nervousness many times before she actually joined), but places like Luminous Spring had stopped working a while before any of the other negative effects of time stopping showed up. Now, we don’t know exactly how long that was, but it was definitely long enough that people noticed—meaning that Paula would have been even younger when she evolved, and definitely longer than the bare minimum age for the normal occurrence that she is now. Especially when you consider Paula’s personality and general confidence issues before meeting Laura. The only time you would see it happening younger… is if something had gone really, really wrong.

Now, if the requirement was just general knowledge, or even fighting skills, that would be one thing. Considering everything the two managed to do, it wouldn’t be wrong to consider them prodigies—and we already know from the Igglybuff special episode that baby pokemon can be incredibly strong. So even though Laura and Paula are obviously not at the level Wigglytuff was back then, it would be easy to assume something similar was going on, and that Paula had just managed to find an evolution location earlier than Wigglytuff did (although we don’t actually know how long he stayed an igglybuff or jigglypuff). And they already know that Paula is smart and well-studied, considering that she knows how to read footprint runes. The issue, then, becomes the relationship aspect. For a pichu to reach that point that young, and then to (at least seemingly, since it is entirely possible that Paula was writing letters or something without their knowledge… event though I’ve already established that she wasn’t, since her parents and brother didn’t know she’d graduated before Ricky came to get her for the reunion and she hadn’t heard anything about Felix since right before leaving home, as she was eager to swap stories with him) not be around the person whose relationship helped her… then either something traumatic happened to make her lose them (with the implication being that it was the process of losing them which strengthened the bonds enough to the point that counted despite the shortened timespan), or the relationship involved… let’s just say, the sort of thing that Igglybuff’s parents thought was going on when they heard about their son hanging out with an outlaw, or the sort of thing that Drowzee was doing before being reformed, only to a greater and even more sinister degree. The sort of thing that creates a very false/wrong sort of bond that only counts because the pichu in question is too young to know any better/different.

Now, this isn’t to say that it’s impossible for a good sort of relationship bond to form in a short period of time—something like, say, an intense summer camp experience could do the same thing. It’s just a lot rarer, and typically still involves something extremely intense happening to cement the bond, which can still cause its own scars. (Or such as finding an amnesiac, former human on the beach, fighting through a cave with them in order to get back a sentimental object, and then agreeing to form a team with them both to help them out and to fulfill your own dreams). The point being, while it is, technically, possible for a pichu to attain evolution at a young age using the usual, healthy methods… its still really rare, and throws up a bunch of red flags that Wigglytuff and Chatot would definitely notice upon getting the chance to sit down and breathe after hearing Paula’s true age—such as during their journey back to the guild.

And the thing is… while they’re definitely on the wrong track as far as Paula having any sort of tragic past goes… they’re not wrong in thinking that she’s way too young to have attained the necessary condition for a normal pichu evolution considering that she didn’t actually evolve in the normal way. Her method of evolution was actually closer to what happened with Dusknoir and Grovyle—although she doesn’t quite realize it yet, and may not for some time. It’s actually part of why she was so confused about the fact that you could evolve at Luminous Spring. Considering that she is a pikachu, let’s all just agree that her—and other pikachu Partners of other Players—confusion and lack of knowledge about evolution even being a thing was just an in-game thing as a way to explain the mechanic. Her actual confusion in my stories just came from the fact that she was unaware of the usual method of evolution, since what happened to her was outside the norm.

See… given the normal progression of evolution in the raichu-line, parents don’t typically tell their kids about evolution until they’re a little older, likely after they’ve made a few close friends, or seen others evolve when they couldn’t, due to their specific requirements. Even then, many just stop at the pikachu stage, since you need an item to go further and those can often be expensive/hard to find unless you know an explorer. But given the age gap between Paula and Ricky, she probably wasn’t as curious or concerned about his evolution into a pikachu as she might have been otherwise, simply assuming that it was just something that happened to older kids. And since she seemed to struggle a little bit making friends outside of her cousin Felix (though, that was partially due to her being far more serious about her interest in exploring that most other kids, and, therefore, spending a lot more time studying than they wanted to put up with), her parents knew—or, rather, thought—that she would be a late bloomer.

But then… she had a little adventure of her own, and by her own… and found the Relic Fragment. And part of the reason she considers it her treasure—the main reason, really—is because right after she found it… she evolved into the pikachu she is today. (Given that, though… I suppose, in a sense, she did meet the typical requirements after all. She was already well on her way in terms of general knowledge, and the Relic Fragment is the cause of an extremely close bond… it’s just that it happened a bit out of chronological order. Though, given what the fragment is a key to… I guess it’s not really all that surprising that it wouldn’t take the typical progression of time into account.)

Now, considering that she was, in fact, close to her cousin Felix, and often went on little explorations, her sudden evolution may have been a surprise to her parents/the other adults around her, but it wouldn’t have been too shocking—they would have just figured that she was closer to her cousin than the initially thought and that she’d accidentally stumbled upon the usual location people from their area used when evolving. She may have gotten a light scolding about wandering too far away, but that’s about it. They may or may not have even bothered to explain what usually happens when pichu evolve—and I’m leaning towards a no, considering her confusion at Luminous Spring and the way I can use her lack of knowledge to mildly baffle Wigglytuff and Chatot after they clear up the misconceptions about any unpleasantness in her past—and the only explanation she got about how to attain the raichu stage was that it required an item in addition to the “usual method”—which they assumed she knew, since they assumed she had evolved normally. But really, she didn’t/wouldn’t/won’t figure it out until after her graduation, when a certain hushed conversation between her parents about” how glad they were that they had saved up and given Ricky that evolution item when they did, and that—despite their initial worries about him rushing into the decision—he had used it to evolve immediately afterwards considering that another cousin had tried to evolve yesterday but could not, despite definitely meeting the requirements, and that hopefully the issue would be fixed by the time they had saved up again to buy another one or one of their kids found one during an exploration for Paula to use,” will suddenly make a lot more sense.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #what if...? #hidden in plain sight #fanfiction #writing #the world's treasure #spoilers

[catflowerqueen]

So I’ve been doing some thinking as I attempt to write out the next chapter of Hidden in Plain Sight, and it occurs to me that there might be more than one reason that Loudred is on Sentry Duty all the time.

A bit part of HIPS is that the guild and Treasure Town are having to deal with the fact that Paula and Laura are kids, and you can’t treat kids the same way as you can adults/normal teenagers. As much as kids might think they’re grown ups, they really, really aren’t, and shouldn’t be put into the sorts of dangerous situations these two went through in canon. Could they physically survive it? Well, yes, obviously. Should they have had to? No, no they should not have. 

But they kind of have themselves backed into a corner now, for multiple reasons, since Laura literally has nowhere else to go, and even if they did find someone who could look after her... there’s the Time Gear to deal with. It isn’t so much that they’re afraid she would tell someone about it, but, rather, they’re worried someone might try to target her and pump her for information if she doesn’t have the protection of the guild. Given some of the things they discussed with Uxie, they know there is a high chance that the thief knows the locations of other Time Gears, if not necessarily their protections. And if the thief does manage to come to the lake and escape justice, they’re going to wonder what happened to the Time Gear. It wouldn’t be too hard for the thief to figure out that the Wigglytuff Guild went on an expedition there--and, from that, it wouldn’t be hard to figure out their identities, or the fact that shortly afterwards one of them left the guild. From there, it wouldn’t be too hard to find said pokemon and... well, you get the picture. There would be the same sort of issue if they sent Paula home, if not even worse because she actually does have a paper trail and would be a lot easier to find. So at least until the crisis is over, the two have to stay at the guild.

Beyond that... well, they still do genuinely want to be explorers, so the trouble becomes how to teach them and help them do that while still remaining age-appropriate. And since the entire point of a guild is to help with training, they should be able to figure something out for them, right?

But that got me thinking: what are the sorts of ways that the guild helps their other apprentices with training?

We’ve already kind of seen what they did with Bidoof--keeping him on easier duties until he was strong enough to venture out on tougher missions, and having an older apprentice help him out when he did so. But what about, say, an apprentice like Loudred.

So that got me to thinking about the sorts of issues Loudred might be dealing with that hinder him on his explorations, and I think I’ve stumbled upon a big one: His personality and seeming lack of brain-mouth filter. He’s got a loud mouth, literalness aside, and tends to not think through what he says. And we’ve seen this in-game, with how he was acting in Sunflora’s special episode, and then the ways that he and the Partner clash (though some of that might be intentional teasing).

And I think that’s exactly why he was put on Sentry Duty: to teach him how to modulate that impulses and peacefully interact with the public--and maybe learn some tact.

Think about it: who is the first person someone would see upon entering the guild? Loudred, as he goes to open the gate and let them in. So he would see a lot of different pokemon every day. And considering that at least some of those pokemon would be coming in with job requests, one can imagine that emotions would be high. I mean, how many of those requests come from people looking for lost friends? And even if there is someone else vetting those requests so they go through Dugtrio and the boards first, do you really think that’s going to stop someone desperate? It certainly didn’t stop the Marill brothers, or that snover who tricked Bidoof--though, admittedly, it seems like they just told Loudred they were visitng specific people, rather than that they needed help.

But even then... a lot of officials would be coming in as well--like officer Magnezone, and obviously someone informs the pokemon whose job you’ve taken considering that they’re there to meet you when you finish up. So people come in a lot, and a lot of those people would require some delicate handling.

And Loudred must know this--since he definitely would have figured it out the first time he accidentally made a client cry and then got scolded by Chatot for it--so even if he isn’t all that great at it (see the first time he sort-of met the Player when they weren’t getting on the grate fast enough for him), he’s surely trying to get better... right?

So when Chatot and Wigglytuff realized he had this problem while they were creating a training plan for him in the beginning, they probably thought about all the factors that go into sentry duty and deliberately put him there--and since he seems to be strong enough that he doesn’t need too much outside training, that’s why he’s there basically every day.

It doesn’t necessarily help with how he interacts with friends--see his major faux pas with the whole ninetales thing in chapter 1 of HIPS along with multiple other interacts he’s had with Laura and Paula (and Sunflora) over the course of the game and my stories--but he probably is a bit better when dealing with the general populace. We haven’t seen anyone complain about it, at least.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #hidden in plain sight #HIPS #fanfiction #writing #loudred #headcanon #the world's treasure #missing scenes

[catflowerqueen]

Guess what I did last night instead of working?

Hidden in Plain Sight

Chapter 2: Children are Precious

A/N: If you are confused about the "Sudowoodo" thing Wigglytuff mentions in this chapter, it might be good to go back and read chapter 41, "Brutal," from Missing Scenes.

Chapter 2: Children are Precious

The morning may have been bright and cheery, while the breeze held a pleasant coolness that could cut through even the thickest bouts of heat and humidity, but it did nothing to penetrate the tense and awkward air of Wigglytuff's quarters that morning as he and his head of intelligence attempted to act naturally and un-flustered around their youngest apprentices. For all that the two of them had made plans and preparations for this conversation during the return trip from the expedition, it was a lot different to try and implement any of them while staring the two bright hopefuls in their slightly-tired, yet still eager faces. Even Wigglytuff, usually so vibrant and at ease when talking to his recruits, was at a loss for how to start.

Luckily, though, his best friend and right-wing man was able to put his usual flustered and slightly anxious attitude towards all things pertaining to the running of the guild to good use when he finally ruffled his feathers a bit before clapping his wings together and saying, "Well, then! I'm sure the two of you are wondering why I called you in here this morning, yes?"

Paula, ever bright and eager, twitched her ears in confusion. "Huh? Didn't you call us in here to find a good hiding spot for the Time Gear?" She turned to her partner, who gripped the bag holding the Time Gear—which she hadn't set down even once since placing it inside—even tighter, as if she was reluctant even now, in the safety of the guild, to let it out of her sight for fear of something happening to it. "That's what he said when we got home last night, right, Laura? Or did I mishear that?"

Both girls turned expectantly towards Chatot, seeking confirmation, but the action only served to make the flying-type even more flustered.

"That is… er, well, yes, that is one of the reasons," Wigglytuff's closest friend and partner finally managed to stammer out. "But there's also the matter of the two of you to consider, in light of the information we learned from Uxie."

The two girls looked confused, and their expressions… well, looking at them now Wigglytuff couldn't believe he'd never realized how young the two of them really were. Competent, budding explorers they may be, but the fact that they didn't—or couldn't—consider the implications behind making all of the decisions they had at such a young age… well, if anything, it certainly made Wigglytuff feel a lot more sympathy for what his parents had gone through when he was a kid, off exploring with Master Armaldo. While he would always remember his master with fondness and gratitude for all his lessons, looking back at those times now, with these two kids staring so bright-eyed and naïve in front of him, he could admit that he definitely hadn't thought things through as a kid, and his parents had been completely right to worry about what he'd been up to. But at the same time… he had, in his own roundabout way, told his parents and friends what he'd been doing. He could even remember one time outright telling his father that he was spending the day with Master, but his father had apparently thought he'd just meant he was spending the day with a friend he "respected a great deal," or something along those lines. The most important thing that he and Chatot could do right now was to listen; while there could be perfectly reasonable and innocuous reasons for the girls to have made the decisions they did… it was equally, if not more, likely that something else was going on that the girls just didn't have the experience or knowledge necessary to understand the full implications of.

It wasn't really something that he wanted to consider, but… as he and his partner watched the girls sleeping at night during their trek back to the guild—because despite how good a job Bidoof and the girls had done in getting to the campsite safely, there was no way they were going to let Team Rainbow out of their sight after learning how young and vulnerable they really were, let alone when one of them currently had custody of such a precious artifact—the two of them couldn't help but compare interactions they'd had with the duo since they joined the guild and belatedly notice some dangerous red flags that popped up. Oh, Wigglytuff had definitely noticed a few concerning things before, especially regarding Laura, but with the additional knowledge of their ages and Laura's species change and memory loss to consider, things that he'd initially just thought were some bigger than average stumbling blocks he and Chatot would have to help the two smooth out in order to become top-notch explorers were now suddenly blaring warning signs that something was probably seriously wrong with their situation.

"I suppose we should start with the simpler—for a given value of the term—situation," Chatot said, bringing Wigglytuff out of his thoughts and back to the present moment. His friend took a fortifying breath and turned a worried gaze to the Electric-type in the room. "Paula… are things… okay, at home?"

Paula looked even more confused now, and shared a baffled glance with her partner. "Huh? What are you talking about?"

And, really, where could they even start without upsetting her? At the fact that the Raichu-line wasn't native to the area, so she likely would have had to travel some distance before even reaching their guild, and none of the other apprentices had noticed any other pikachu or raichu in or around town on the day that Diglett first reported seeing her footprints? Or the very fact that since Diglett had admitted to seeing her footprint appear multiple times before she finally joined, despite there still being no reports of her species-line in town—or, for that matter, reports of anyone from another species-line who looked like they could be parents or guardians, but who did not already have their charges close at hand— it heavily implied that she had been left to fend for herself for a few weeks at the very minimum? Or even the fact that—and this was an especially sickening one to worry about, but… The fact that, normally, if a pichu evolved as young as Paula had—Paula, who was already straddling the line of what was considered the minimum age for a pikachu, but who had to have evolved even younger considering the current issues with anyone evolving at all—when their requirements included not only experience and knowledge, but also an extremely strong bond… it implied that something had seriously gone awry. Something along the lines of what the first outlaw they'd capture had attempted to do with—no, even worse than that, for he, at least, was going to return Azurill to his brother immediately after laying claim to the supposed treasure of Mt. Bristle. This was more like… Wigglytuff shuddered to think it, considering how blasé he'd been about the situation (and how, unbeknownst to him at the time, Laura did, in actuality, fit within the usual demographic perfectly) but… it was more along the lines of what Sudowoodo, the Kidnapping Mastermind, did to his victims—had planned on doing to Laura if she hadn't defeated him on that mission with Croagunk—if over a longer period, and with no plans for ransom.

But he supposed that Chatot had a point with starting with what was easiest. So, rather than bringing any of those possibilities to light, Wigglytuff instead offered, "We're concerned because, normally, pokémon don't join guilds until they're a few years older than you are now." Paula looked absolutely baffled at this, so Wigglytuff gave her a wry sort of smile and leaned closer, as if confiding a secret, and admitted, "Even though people call me a prodigy… I didn't start exploration work in earnest until I was at least sixteen. There was that period when I was a lot younger, yes… but! Even then, I had Master Armaldo with me. And my parents were super upset when they found out. It took a long time and a lot of learning and studying before they felt okay with letting me do it again, and do it on my own. And if there had been a guild like this one nearby, they probably would have wanted me to wait even longer so I could study there first before setting off as an explorer. It can be dangerous work, after all!" At that, the Balloon Pokémon nodded once and then leaned back. "So, Paula, you can see why we're a bit… worried, yes? You're our precious friendly-friend, so when we see that your parents let you leave so soon, and without—"

"But—!" Paula suddenly interrupted, looking a little shocked, "But this is the age everyone joins the guild back home!"

Wigglytuff reeled back a bit more in absolute shock. "Oh, oh?" he asked, mildly, for the sake of the child in front of him, though his anger was starting to rise at the thought that there was any guild out there taking advantage of the young like this—or, even worse, that there was a community which condoned it to the point of the practice being so widespread.

"Yeah!" Paula affirmed, nodding rapidly before suddenly wincing. "I mean… I guess my brother was a little older," she admitted. But she was quick to add, "But only by, like, a year. And only because Ricky was mom and dad's firstborn, and they were worried! But he told us that he was still one of the oldest kids at the entry level for the Torterra Guild at the time, and—"

"Wait a moment! Paula, did you say the Torterra Guild?" Chatot suddenly interjected. He, like Wigglytuff, had been gearing up in anger over the apparent malpractice of a fellow guild, but upon hearing the name of the guild in question, he felt nothing but confusion. "Paula, are you sure you have that name correct? I have never seen an apprentice from the Torterra Guild who was younger than Bidoof's age—and even he would be right on the edge of acceptable!"

Paula rolled her eyes—her anxiety and confusion in the situation momentarily forget that she was standing in front of an authority figure whom she would normally show more respect to, if only to avoid a lecture on decorum. "Well I mean, yeah, obviously they don't let you become an apprentice until you've passed all your tests and things, and that can sometimes take years, but—"

"Squawk! Wait a moment, what—? Tests? I… what?" Chatot shared a bewildered look with the Guildmaster.

"That's… yes?" Paula said, seeming unsure now herself. "You know… for all the classes you have to take before you can move onto the explorer track?" At the duo's blank stare, she tried to break it down further. "The life skills classes? Where they teach you things like foraging, map-reading, tool making… stuff like that. Then, if you decided to join under the 'Exploration Team' track, if you pass all your tests, you get to actually call yourself 'Apprentice' for real, and do more of the explorer-specific training, instead of just the public stuff you get to do as a 'recruit' or 'member.'"

"The… the 'public stuff'?" Chatot questioned, still trying to wrap his mind around the information Paula was giving him.

Paula shrugged. "Yeah. I mean… not everyone who joins the guild wants to be an explorer. A lot of pokémon just want things like the life skill classes I just talked about, since they're also really helpful for people who want to be, like, shopkeepers or something. Or who travel a lot. Or who want to be able to mend their own scarves and blankets, or whatever. Stuff like that. They're really useful, so lots of pokémon join and graduate—but only the ones who go on to join the Exploration Team track actually get to say that they apprenticed under them."

This explanation did a lot to calm Wigglytuff and Chatot down from their earlier rage—although, rather than completely remove his agitation Chatot seemed to turn it more towards mumbling something about "inflated graduation rates" and "no wonder they seem to be everywhere" But while it might have dispelled some of the red flags regarding why Paula joined a guild at such a young age, there were still plenty of others—such as, "Why did you decide to join a guild so far from home, then?"

Paula rubbed the back of her neck, putting some serious thought into Wigglytuff's question. "I mean… I did almost join the Torterra Guild. There are lots of good things about it! Some of the teachers I met with said I'd probably even be fast-tracked because of how good Ricky did, and how I already knew some of the stuff from when he accidentally sent us his homework, instead of letters. But… then I just would have been under his shadow for the whole time. I want to become an explorer on my own merits!"

That was a familiar sentiment to Wigglytuff, and he spared a surreptitious glance towards his partner. Just as he'd thought, Chatot had frozen at the words, calming down slightly and fixing Paula with a sympathetic stare. He had his own brother issues after all. But Paula wasn't finished.

"Also… I mean, I was already considering your guild a little bit, too, Guildmaster Wigglytuff. Basically every explorer hopeful does! And all your graduates are always really great at exploring, and I wanted to focus more on the exploration stuff anyways. And then there was this dream I had, where…" she trailed off, blushing a little, "Um, I guess that part's not important… but anyways… that's why I decided to try and join here, instead."

"Yes, well, that's all perfectly understandable," Chatot suddenly cut in, preening a bit at the praise. "We are a very prestigious institution, after all! But," he calmed down and gave her a serious look, "Paula… you do realize that most guilds do not actually offer classes of that sort… yes?"

Paula looked stunned; apparently, she had not, in fact, realized this. Chatot's eye started twitching a bit. "In fact… most guilds expect you to join with those skills already in hand. There is no 'recruit' or 'member' phase before you can become an apprentice. When you join, you are an apprentice from the start. And, from the sounds of things, in terms of actual apprentice work, the Torterra guild is not too far off in terms of expectations—they still require their apprentices to know certain skills beforehand, skills which take years to learn.

"So, Paula… if you thought that you would be spending a few years on classwork before you started exploration work in earnest… then why didn't you say anything when the first thing I had you do was take an actual job off the job board, rather than giving you any of those lessons?"

Paula blushed even harder. "I kind of, um… I thought that maybe that was your version of an entrance exam? Like… you were gauging how good we already were as explorers, and since we successfully completed the mission, it meant you were fast-tracking us?" Chatot just stared at her. "But I guess… that's not what you were doing?"

Chatot's wings met his face, and he started muttering again about backfiring plans. If Wigglytuff hadn't wanted to keep up a calm, assuring persona in front of Team Rainbow, he would have winced in sympathy at Chatot's plight. After all, Wigglytuff well-remembered the discussion he and Chatot had after the whole Star Cave incident regarding Bidoof, and the way they'd been handling training their apprentices up until that point. Paula's assumption about them having an entrance exam of sorts wasn't exactly unwarranted… it's just that until Team Rainbow had joined, it had never been quite so formalized, or focused on the outright "exploring" aspect of their line of work.

Normally when Team Perfect Apple admitted new recruits to their guild, they conducted a sort of "observation period" to see what sort of skills the pokémon came in with, the areas they were most in need of improvement, if there was anything in particular they already excelled at… things like that. This typically took the form of assigning some menial tasks and then observing them as they completed them. It was surprising the sort of information one could glean from such things if they were truly paying attention. For example… having a new recruit run small errands for the other apprentices involving fetching them specific items let Chatot and Wigglytuff know how good the new recruit's skills were when it came to identifying the differences in seeds and berries—after all, it would be terrible for an explorer to think they'd stocked up on Reviver Seeds or Oran Berries when, instead, they'd accidentally packed their look-alikes! Sending a recruit to Kecleon Market in order to check their stock helped gauge things such as memorization and information retention, since while they would be sent out with a list, they would still have to remember the responses of the proprietors—or, if they were extremely clever recruits, they might think outside the box and bring a writing implement to scribble down the answers on the back of the list. Then, of course, there were the tasks such as general maintenance, which told the Guildmaster and his Head of Intelligence anything from whether or not the recruit knew how to sew, to their physical fitness levels. Once the duo had a baseline, they could begin implementing specific training programs and slowly begin sending the recruits out into the field, where these basic skills would provide a firm foundation as they started proper exploring.

It also let them see what other areas would need improvement. For instance, while Loudred was incredibly strong and could rattle off the exploration basics if directly asked, putting such things into practice had… mixed results. He was often impatient, and went a bit too much with gut feelings instead of taking a moment to plan, or think things through. Not to mention that his brain to mouth filter wasn't the greatest. But, depending on what sort of work he wanted to specifically focus on after graduating, some of these skills would be… not "less important," per say, but less often used. This was why they had offered him the chance to take the graduation exam last year, after Sunflora turned the opportunity down. It wasn't entirely surprising that he'd failed—their guild had strict expectations, after all, and it often took more than one attempt to pass successfully—but the fact that it had still been mostly due to his impatience meant that this was an area he needed to double down and improve on. So, Chatot and Wigglytuff had discussed it and opted to put him on sentry duty—where he would have to really think things through in regards to whether or not someone should be allowed into the guild, and where he would have to take the time to think before he spoke his mind when it came to assuaging the fears of panicking pokémon coming to the Wigglytuff Guild seeking assistance, or those who needed reassurance that, yes, their friends and family really had been found safely and would be returning soon. As well as, of course, maintaining the proper dignity and respect when faced with officials like Officer Magnezone or his deputies, or other esteemed visitors to the guild. For the most part, it appeared to be working… although recent events—specifically with some of the things the Big Voice pokémon had said or implied about Laura on this last expedition—made Wigglytuff think that he had backslid a little, and that he and Chatot needed to actually sit him down and spell it out for him why he'd been put near-permanently on sentry duty in the first place.

In any case… this system had worked just fine until Bidoof joined the guild. Now, to be perfectly fair to Bidoof, part of the problems he'd had stemmed from the fact that while the Bibarel-line did ultimately end up as both Normal- and Water-type… their skill set when it came to daily living typically geared more towards life on the water. But since they could comfortably spend time on land, many of them tended to have unrealistic expectations for what life was like for those living there full-time. This was especially true among the young—and, considering that Bidoof himself was just barely at an age any sane or reasonable pokémon would reasonable for someone to start exploration, he was definitely counted in that category. This meant that there were a lot of skills he didn't have, simply because he wouldn't have thought he'd need them—or, in cases such as berry identification, because he hadn't realized that there was more for him to know.

Although, really, his biggest issue upon joining had been his stamina and mobility. While the Bibarel line was surprisingly agile in the water—considering their size and seeming lack of aquatic appendages—they couldn't really move all that quickly on the land. While this typically wasn't a problem for them, since, again, most of their time was spent in the water, what Bidoof hadn't considered when choosing to join the Wigglytuff guild was that most of his exploration work and training would be taking place in dungeons where water was scarce—at least in terms of being able to swim in it. Corphish actually had a similar problem when he first joined, if to a lesser degree. While the Crawdaunt-line shared general habitats with that of the Bibarel-line, Corphish in particular had lived beneath the waves given that his father was apparently from a different species-line, one that needed to live underwater full time. As such, Corphish already knew from the start that life on land would likely be very different than life underwater, even if he couldn't quite manage to imagine what it would actually be like. In preparation for this, he'd tried to learn all he could and keep an open mind about things so that he could quickly learn about everything else. With no preconceived notions, and the knowledge that there was a lot he didn't know, he was able better able to outright ask for information and help, and to admit from the start that there was a lot he needed to learn. With Bidoof, however, since he had lived partially on land his whole life, he'd had a lot more misconceptions about the wider world that weren't as easily shrugged off. This meant that he ran into the issue of not knowing the sorts of things he didn't know—meaning that he came in with fewer skills and had a harder time when it came to asking about what sorts of things he should know or learn, even after getting the physical aspects down.

With Corphish, they could start to send him out on easy missions once his physical abilities had improved enough since he knew enough about the other subjects that it would only be a benefit to him, even if he didn't know absolutely everything that could prove useful. Heck, at that point, he still hadn't known most things that he would need to in the long run. But when it came to Bidoof… he'd started at a disadvantage on both fronts, and it had been long enough since Corphish had passed that point (coupled with a few nasty incidents in those early days that led them to regret sending him out as soon as they did and that had made them even more wary when it came to planning for Bidoof) that they hadn't really realized they'd kept Bidoof back from the more hands-on aspects of exploration work for far longer than they should have until he decided to rebel and had almost gotten seriously hurt during the whole Star Cave thing.

With that in mind, when it came to Team Rainbow's observation period, Chatot had suggested—and Wigglytuff had agreed—that they should let them try and fulfill a simple job request from day one, and then to gauge how they did from there. If they happened to fail, then not only would it help establish a baseline for them as far as Wigglytuff and Chatot were concerned, but it would also hopefully teach the girls that they weren't ready yet for the hands-on work, which would hopefully keep them from getting as impatient or disheartened as Bidoof did.

Except Paula and Laura succeeded with aplomb—and even more so the next day when they successfully defeated their first outlaw with no outside help, despite the fact that Chatot had intended for Bidoof to go along with them after helping them pick a job, as outlaw missions could be tricky for new recruits. The two achieved success after success, and while normally that would be something to applaud… considering what they knew now, Chatot had a point about the plan backfiring spectacularly.

Given everything they had achieved so far, is was clear to Wigglytuff that these girls, like him, were exploration prodigies. But the fact that they were prodigies with so many successes behind them only served to mask the very real issues they were facing. If one didn't know their true ages… just looking at the surface level, it seemed that the two of them were just your average recruit. Perhaps below average, even, for how naïve and ignorant they could be about common exploration topics. But that wasn't the case at all; yes, there was a lot they didn't know, but that was in no way their fault. They were literally children. There was no way they would have had the time to learn everything they needed to know. But because they were prodigies and Paula had admitted to having access to a few higher level bits of learning via her brother, let alone whatever skills Laura had brought to the table, the two of them were able to effectively pool their resources enough to make it look as though they had more training than they actually did. Furthermore, with Paula's explanations of the Torterra Guild and her expectations going into the Wigglytuff Guild… it made sense why neither of them would have asked for additional lessons or training. He and Chatot thought the girls already knew the basics, while Paula assumed that since neither he nor Chatot had brought it up it meant they thought Team Rainbow hadn't needed to know more than they already did. And given Laura's still unaddressed amnesia issues, it was unclear how much she actually knew about guilds in general, let alone what sorts of expectations she would have had at the start of training.

Wigglytuff nodded to himself as the pieces clicked together to form a clearer picture of what happened. Assuming it was all true—and Wigglytuff didn't really have any reason to doubt that it was—it made complete sense why a parent would allow their child to join at such a young age. There was one thing that still bothered him, though…

The Balloon pokémon clapped his hands together, bringing everyone's attention back to him. "Well, now that that's been cleared up, it makes perfect sense why friendly-friend Paula would have come all this way to join us at such a young age—especially if your parents thought the same too! But…" his gaze turned serious again, unnerving Paula enough that she actually gulped in apprehension. "That still doesn't explain why they would have let you come here all on your lonesome. After all, friendly-friend Diglett said he'd seen your footprint lots of times before you and Laura actually joined us, Paula. Enough times that it had to have been weeks since you'd arrived in town—meaning that you would have been alone for all that time." The "And having to fend for yourself for all that time when that is never a child's job" part went unsaid.

But it didn't go unheard, because Paula picked it up immediately and tried to go for a world-record in "most blushes within the hour" when the rest of her face turned as red as her cheeks once more. "Oh, yeah, that's mostly on me."

Wigglytuff raised a skeptical brow.

"Okay, so, my parents did want to escort me here, but I thought it would be kind of… embarrassing. I'm kind of the baby of the family, and they can get really fussy and just… uh… a bit much when it comes to my accomplishments. Like… right after I evolved, they wanted to throw some sort of big party, and I just—" she shook her head, as if trying to dispel an embarrassing memory. "—Anyways! The point is that I convinced them not to come. But they were still really worried, so they made Ricky escort me as a compromise. But I mean… he's, well, him, so it would have been even more embarrassing if he'd come in with me. So, I told him that I would be fine if he just left me at the crossroads, especially since his team probably had a lot of missions to do that they needed their leader for. But then after I made it to the grate I kind of… chickened out a little. Or… a lot." She winced. But then she turned to her partner, a huge smile on her face, "But then I met Laura, and we decided to join together!"

The explanation and accompanying smile eased a lot of the guildmaster's fears. It still wasn't great that Paula had been left to fend for herself during that period of time, but coupled with the rest of her explanations, and how bright, happy, and—most importantly—healthy she'd been upon finally joining his guild, it probably meant that Paula's situation wasn't nearly as bad as Wigglytuff had been fearing after learning her true age. Even considering her early evolution… well, there wasn't really a tactful way to bring it up anyways, especially in the face of everything else they'd learned. But considering her sincerity about everything, he was willing to believe there was a reasonable explanation for that as well. After all, it wasn't like there hadn't been any cases of a pichu evolving young in perfectly benign circumstances—it was just rare for one to both gain the knowledge and experience necessary and then form a close enough bond that quickly when there wasn't something… else… hastening it along. But given Paula's stories about studying her brother's homework, it was clear that, if given the chance, Paula could happily devote time to learning of her own volition. Also, considering how close she had become with Laura—close enough to form a team and partnership, even—after only knowing her for such a brief period of time, he could easily see Paula having formed a close enough friendship with someone to act as a catalyst in her younger days.

But, speaking of Laura…

"What's the next issue?"

All eyes turned to the treecko in the room. She briefly looked away under the scrutiny of her Guildmaster and his Head of Intelligence's gazes, but then she gripped her team's Treasure Bag harder for a moment, seeking comfort, and continued, "You said that Paula's situation was simpler, and considering what else we learned from Uxie, I'm guessing the next thing we're going to talk about is me, but…" she looked away again, shrinking back slightly, "…since I can't remember my past, I don't really know why I was alone on the beach when Paula found me, or about what my home life was like."

"Well, yes, that is among our concerns," Chatot acknowledged, "but more importantly…" he trailed off with a wince, unsure how to continue.

Paula shuffled closer to her partner, leaning against her shoulder a little to provide moral support as Laura looked between Chatot and Wigglytuff in trepidation. The mystery was definitely concerning, since, as far as Wigglytuff knew, humans aged at around the same rate as pokémon and were just as protective and nurturing as them when it came to their children. Even disregarding the weirdness of the species change—which was a concerning mystery in and of itself, but one which they were unlikely to solve any time soon given that even Uxie, who was so knowledgeable and had literally looked inside her head for answers had no idea—there were not many circumstances which could be deemed "good" which would leave a child as young as Laura in such a lonely, vulnerable position. Especially considering that she had amnesia, since there were even fewer circumstances in which such a condition could be deemed as "good."

But that wasn't the most important thing at the moment, and, even as it pained him to say it, the question had to be asked: "Laura," Chatot finally continued, putting as much gentleness into his voice as he could, "do you actually… want to be here?"

Laura blinked in obvious confusion, and Chatot started wincing again, as if it physically pained him to have to clarify his meaning. "That is… do you actually want to be an apprentice at the guild?"

Laura still looked confused, but hesitantly answered, "Y-yes…?"

But everyone in the room could sense how unsure that answer was—including her partner, whose eyes suddenly widened as she looked towards the treecko in shock and… guilt? As if suddenly realizing something for the first time. Given what Paula just told them about her past, and her obvious dedication to the vocation considering she was willing to devote herself to it so young, it was a feeling Wigglytuff could sympathize with. It was always hard the first time you were confronted with the fact that not everyone was as interested or passionate about exploring as you were; the fact that friends who had decided to become teachers or shopkeepers did so not because they felt themselves ill-suited to the work of exploration and thought that this was a better way for them to contribute to help other explorers, but because their actual passions were, in fact, shop-keeping or teaching. The fact that it wasn't just unavoidable or important duties which kept pokémon out of the field, but that there were some pokémon who were, at best, indifferent to exploring and, at worst, outright hated it. It had to be an even harder realization to face that it was entirely possible that one's best friend also fell into those latter categories, at least to some degree. But considering how dangerous being on an Exploration Team could be—how dangerous it had already proved to be, for these two (because even though Uxie's Groudon illusion was just that, an illusion, it was still an incredibly realistic and dangerous foe, considering how effective it had been up until that point at keeping visitors away from Fogbound Lake, and it wasn't something that two kids should have had to deal with—especially not on their own. And that wasn't even getting into the fact that they had apparently been targeted by Team Skull—more than once, if their behaviors while interacting with them while the trio was staying at the guild were any implication).

"I mean," Laura's voice grew quieter and even more unsure and faltering, as was typical for her when placed unexpectedly into the spotlight, "Paula's my friend, and we work well together… and she's helped me out so much and… so when she asked… when she needed help… how could I say no?" Laura looked around, confused and desperate, trying to meet first Chatot's eyes—which were turned away, his face an expression of deep pain despite how hard he was trying to hide it for young Laura's sake—then Paula's—though she quickly turned away herself after seeing the absolute devastation in the pikachu's eyes—and finally Wigglytuff's.

Though it was one of the hardest things he'd ever had to do (because, how, how could he have missed something like this? The entire reason he'd let her join his guild in the first place was because he'd sensed she'd needed help, and yet when it came down to actually helping her…), he met her seeking gaze dead-on, his own eyes as gentle and apologetic as he could make them.

"It's great that you wanted to help your friend," he assured her, pleased as some of the tension drained out of her frame. "But that's not what Chatot and I are concerned about." He leaned back a little in thought. "Hm… How to put this… Okay. So, you know what we were just worried about with Paula, right? About how she was left on her own, and how we were worried that her being here as young as she was meant that she didn't have anyone back home she could rely on?" He waited for Laura's hesitant nod before continuing, "Well, it's the same sort of thing for you, friendly-friend; we're worried that the only reason you joined is because you felt like you didn't have any other options."

At the dual wince Team Rainbow gave—each colored by their own varying shades of guilt and shame—Wigglytuff gave a sad little sigh. "I understand that things were probably really hard for you then, and that you didn't know what to do. And, again, it really is admirable how you were willing to help out your new friend like that! But… it seems like most of Paula's struggles when it came to finally joining us was that she needed a little boost of courage to take those last few steps and actually stay and stand firm until Loudred opened the gates. And… I can see how your amnesia might have meant that you didn't really know what being on an exploration team really meant at first," he paused as she gave another little wince. "But, Laura… after being with us a few days, and seeing how we worked and what sorts of things we did… surely you knew that if you'd just asked us for help, we would have given it to you… right? You know you don't have to trade working for us—putting yourself into danger on a daily basis—for help… right?"

Laura's face grew red, and she mumbled something too low for Wigglytuff to hear. But apparently Chatot heard it, as he finally stopped wincing at the absolute shock of it and whipped around to face her. "I'm sorry, could you please repeat that?!"

Laura's face grew even redder as she gave a little cough and repeated, in a voice barely louder than her previous attempt but just loud enough for Wigglytuff to hear this time, "I mean… it does seem like most of the clients offer rewards for work… and since I wouldn't really have any money or anything if I wasn't taking jobs, I just…"

She trailed off into mumbling again, but it was enough for Wigglytuff to get the gist of what she meant. The thought of it made him feel a little sick, and even more worried about this precious child than he already was.

Chatot flapped his wings to get her attention, looking a little queasy himself. "Laura, I know that in the past I may have seemed a bit, ah, too concerned, shall we say, with the state of the guild's coffers and reputation and… things of the like. But I assure you: we—and any self-respecting guild or explorer—would never turn someone away who needed help because we didn't think they pay us for it! In fact, payment is never a prerequisite for asking for our help! And beyond that," his eyes turned serious, "you are a child. Even if we hadn't already assumed a duty of care for you when you signed on as an apprentice, you still would have been able to depend on us for assistance simply because children should never be forced to fend for themselves. That's the job of the adults—whether or not they also happen to be excellent explorers. Do you understand?"

She didn't entirely look like she did, honestly, but… she looked like maybe she could start trying to. It was enough for Chatot to be able to give an exasperated sigh and say, "Well, whether or not you understand, can you at least believe me that, whether you actually want to be an explorer or not, we of the Wigglytuff Guild will still take care of you until you decide you want to leave? And that even then, we will still ensure that you are in a safe place before we actually leave you entirely?"

She looked much more confidant at this, and gave a little nod. The two adults in the room all but sagged in relief, and Chatot said, "With that in mind, I'll ask again: Do you actually want to be here, to be an explorer?"

Laura took a moment to actually consider it, this time. Her eyes were thoughtful, and she even went so far as to put her hand on her chin. "I think… I don't actually know," she truthfully admitted. "I mean… I like exploring—especially when I get to do it with Paula," she stopped here to give her partner a quick grin, which was tearfully returned—it seemed as though Paula had gone through her own whirlwind of emotions during Chatot and Wigglytuff's explanations, especially in regards to feeling guilty that she might have dragged Laura into a life that she actually hated because of her own selfish dream of being an explorer, when it was obvious that Laura was in need of serious help. She still felt kind of guilty about everything, but Laura's assurance that she did, in fact, enjoy exploring helped lighten her heart a little, and she vowed that whatever Laura's answer, she would do her best to support her.

"And," Laura continued, unaware of Paula's silent convictions, "I like hanging out with everyone every day, and getting to learn from them, but as for the future… I don't really know. Maybe one day I'll hear about a job or something that I really want to do instead, or," she paused again, giving a little shrug, "maybe if Uxie's right and I do get my memories back in a few years, I'll remember that there's a job that I'd already decided I really wanted to do, but just can't remember right now. …Assuming it's even a job I could still do, considering I'm not human any more, and I don't know if I ever will be again. But… I think for right now, at least, I want to continue being an apprentice," she finally decided. But then she seemed unsure of herself again, toeing the ground and shyly asking, "Is… is that okay? Even if I change my mind later?"

It was everything Wigglytuff could do to hold in his sigh of relief, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't hold back his smile. That was all right, though—he was known for his happy smiles, and this was definitely something to be happy about. "Of course it is, friendly-friend! We'd love to have you stay and learn with us, for however long you'd like to! But!" he said suddenly, cutting off her own sigh of relief and making her choke on air a little. "That does bring us to the third issue we need to discuss."

Team Rainbow shared a confused look before Paula blinked and her expression cleared as the likely topic hit her. "Right, now we have to talk about hiding the Time Gear!"

"Er, well… yes and no," Chatot said, drawing their once-more confused gazes towards him. "That is part of it, yes, but more importantly… do you recall what I said about the Torterra Guild being an outlier in terms of offering classes to recruits as part of guild membership?"

"Yes…?" Paula said, still confused, before she realized something and her ears drooped in sadness. "Oh… so since the Wigglytuff Guild doesn't offer them, and you weren't actually giving us an entrance exam, you're saying that we'd need to leave and take those classes first before coming back and joining again as apprentices?" she hazarded a guess. But then she scrunched her nose in confusion once more. "But, wait, you just said that Laura could still stay here as an apprentice, even if she wasn't sure she wanted to be an explorer when she grew up. So how would that…?"

"Well, yes, that's where the Time Gear complicates things." Chatot explained. "Normally, that would be exactly the case—considering the way you described those lessons from the Torterra Guild, the skills involved are vital ones for explorers to have, and ones which we for the most part expect our recruits to already have a firm foundation in. That doesn't always happen, admittedly," he trailed off a little, thinking back once more on the Bidoof situation, before he shook his head free of the memories and continued, "but in that case we would expect the recruit to either do a self-study in order to gain those skills, or to ask us or another apprentice for help directly. Considering our focus as a guild, we are not really equipped to handle large numbers of blank-slate apprentices. At the same time, however… it's not exactly safe to send either of you away from the guild, at the moment."

"Huh? Why not?" Paula asked.

But Laura was the one to answer. "Because of the Time Gear, right?" she guessed.

"Exactly right, Laura," Chatot confirmed. "If Uxie was right about the thief already knowing where they're hidden, then if they went to Fogbound Lake and found the Time Gear missing… even though no one in the guild would reveal that we now have custody over it, the fact that we recently went on an expedition to Foggy Forest is well-known. It wouldn't be out of the question for them to assume we had some information on what happened to it. From there, it would be simple for them to find out the identities of the guild members, especially since the entire guild went on the expedition. And if the two of you suddenly left the guild… well, even if that wasn't suspicious enough on its own, it would still be far too much of a risk that the thief could track either of you down and, well…" He shuddered, and the girls shuddered along with him. The implications alone were terrible enough without needing them to be spelled out.

"But… since you don't normally take apprentices as young as we are, wouldn't it also be suspicious if we stayed?" Paula asked.

Chatot shook his head. "It shouldn't be. It's a bit unusual yes, but… well, considering how adept the two of you are already at exploring, I believe it is safe to say that you could be considered prodigies. Considering that our esteemed Guildmaster is also a prodigy, it makes a certain amount of sense that he would be interested and accepting of teaching others like himself."

The girls blushed at the praise, but Chatot took no notice as he continued, his tone more businesslike, "That being said, there will have to be a few changes in your schedules. As good as you two are, we cannot, in good conscience, keep sending you out for missions until we are assured that you have the basics down. Honestly, I'm not sure why I didn't notice sooner that there were areas where the two of you were sorely lacking in your educations. The Apple Woods fiasco, for one, should have been a major tip-off! So, we will have to make sure that the two of you are properly educated, so that you can become top-notch explorers! Of course, assuming that's what the two of you still want to do in the future. We've discussed your feelings on the matter already, Laura, but the same applies to you as well, Paula! If at any point you change your mind, we will make sure that you are safely settled somewhere else, or back at your home—after the current crisis is resolved, of course. And in either case, Laura, we will do our best to help you figure out your past—after all, there is a chance that Uxie's theories are incorrect, and even if they aren't, you still shouldn't have to wait years to find that out if there's any chance we could find the answers in the meantime."

Paula, who had bristled at the Apple Woods comment, calmed down by the end of Chatot's speech. She didn't believe that she would ever want to be anything other than an explorer, but… it was still nice to know he was at least giving her the option. "Thank you, Chatot," she said, her partner nodding in agreement.

Wigglytuff suddenly clapped his hands, startling everyone in the room. "It's so great that we've got that settled now!" he exclaimed once he had everyone's attention. "But now we really should take care of the Time Gear. Laura, if you could bring it over here?"

The Grass-type still seemed a bit reluctant to part with the precious artifact, but she did ultimately nod in assent and take it out of the bag, heading over towards Wigglytuff. He took it from her, and then moved over to one of the many treasure chests in the room. "We'll make some more formal plans later, but it wouldn't hurt to start teaching you a bit now. Let's start with a lesson on finding treasure," he said as he opened the chest and then started sifting through some of the treasures inside.

"Now, the best way to find treasure is to first know how to hide it. A lot of times when you see something like a chest or a map, there will be secret tests or traps involved. Like maybe the map will be coated in a false layer with incorrect directions, or there will be a bunch of different fake traps in a room, or the room will have a solution which seems really obvious but is actually a cover for a different sort of trap. I came across lots of those when I was just starting out! Actually, it might be good for you to hear that story—there's a lot in it that we can apply to now. Hm… where to start…? I guess the best place should be on that peaceful prairie, back when I was still just Igglybuff…"

#pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #what if...? #hidden in plain sight #writing #fanfiction #procrastination at its finest

[catflowerqueen]

You know, for all my talk about how Paula evolved, and how the circumstances are kind of suspicious if you don’t know any better… ironically, there is a pokémon in Treasure Town who actually does fit the assumptions that Wigglytuff came to by the end of the chapter. That pokémon is, of course, Marill.

Azurill have the same evolutionary requirements of pichu, and, unlike Paula, Marill did not have access to the same “shortcut,” as it were. He evolved the normal way, and, since he’s a little younger than Paula, it’s actually more suspicious that he’s currently a marill since, again, he would have to have evolved earlier than his current age. Though it does, at least, help pinpoint a more exact timeline for when the evolution issues started to become more widespread. He seems comfortable in his body (compare how differently he and his brother walk in-game, with how I had Grovyle struggle with his sudden change to moving bipedally after his own evolution), so it probably has to have been at least a few months or so since he evolved. But considering the circumstances behind it, I doubt it’s been more than six. Maybe a year, at most—but even that I feel is pushing it.

 The reason why I say this, and why I say he evolved so early, has to do with the theory Wigglytuff finally settled on for Paula’s early evolution. Marill’s catalyst was… I wouldn’t say “benign,” exactly, but it has to do with what the Kecleon brothers told the Hero and Partner during the brothers’ introduction—his mother recently became ill, so he felt like he needed to step up so he could help her and better take care of Azurill. His strong bond with his brother fulfilled the first half of his requirements, and his general maturity (based on some of the things he says in-game leading me to believe that he also leans towards being a bit of a bookworm) and the sudden change in circumstances—leading to more “experience and knowledge”—fulfilled the other half. If his mother hadn’t fallen ill, he probably wouldn’t have evolved for a few more years. Definitely not until he was at least Paula’s current age in the story, if not a bit older, even—and that’s disregarding the current difficulties everyone is having in general at this point in time. The reason no one is making a fuss about it like Wigglytuff and Chatot were with Paula is that they know the family, and are aware of the cause, so everyone knows it’s more of an unfortunate circumstance than anything else, and something beyond anyone’s control or outright influence. Also, as far as the guild goes… it’s entirely likely that they have no idea who they are beyond what Team Rainbow may have said while discussing their first outlaw capture. Maybe a few of the other apprentices, Chatot, or Wigglytuff, have seen the duo in town while stocking up on supplies, but it isn’t like they would really be friends with them the way Team Rainbow is. Especially not at the time HIPS is taking place.

 It is probably another reason why the Kecleon brothers seem so fond of the duo, though, and make a point to tell the Hero and partner about how the duo has “stepped up and taken charge,” and to directly tell the Azumarill brothers how “admirable” they are.

 If I had to guess relative ages… well, Laura’s maturity given her unfortunate circumstances growing up put a bit of a wrench in things, but I still feel like Marill is younger than her. She is exactly eleven (and a few days) at the time of meeting him, so I feel like he would be around nine, maybe ten years of age. Which is definitely younger than is typical for a marill. Azurill, then, is around six or seven—noticeably younger than his brother, but still old enough to be able to accompany Marill on quick errands even with a bit of an age-gap between the two. And that means that the brothers would still be young enough that Paula’s age of thirteen years makes her seem like a cool big-sister/older-kid type—because thirteen definitely makes you a cool teenager to younger kids, even though she only just barely qualifies as a teenager and the gap in reality is not actually that big.

 This does, of course, make me wonder a little bit about what that means in terms of perceptions about the four of them (Team Rainbow and the Azumarill brothers) as far as the Kecleon brothers go—both in canon and in HIPS. Because, of course, all of them are part of a three-stage evolutionary line, and Paula and Marill are already on stage two while Laura and Azurill are not. But Paula and Laura definitely seem older than the brothers, and by a big enough margin that the duo could look up to them and ask them for help and protection, even if the girls weren’t already expected to do that given their position as explorers training at the Wigglytuff Guild. And, of course, since all pokémon have different evolution requirements… well, the Kecleon brothers already know what caused Marill to reach his second stage so early, and marill evolve into azumarill at level 18. Treecko, on the other hand, only hit their first evolution at level sixteen, and then they evolve for the last time at level thirty-six. Then, of course, pichu share the same requirements as azurill, and then their third-stage evolution depends on owning a requisite item. Of course, that’s all going to translate differently in the story, since the story doesn’t use the same mechanisms as the “game” terms.

 That means in-story it’s probably more something like… assuming the pokémon in question even wants to evolve in the first place, and then wants to continue on a “normal” path rather than staying for an extended period of time (or forever) on one specific stage, then, typically, all three of the kids’ evolutionary lines would move onto their second stage at roughly the same time in their early teenage years (a little older than Paula is now). After that, the azumarill-line hits the third stage first, probably at the end of the teenage years. In comparison, the sceptile-line wouldn’t evolve again until late twenties, early thirties. And the raichu-line can basically evolve for the last time whenever they find a stone—and typically they would begin thinking about whether or not they would even want to during their mid-to-late teenage years, with plenty of them deciding that they are uninterested at that time (or being unable to gain possession of a stone) and then either staying a pikachu for the rest of their lives, or only evolving later into adulthood. Essentially, though, it means that if you see a marill, then—current circumstances with evolution being barred to everyone aside—you are probably looking at a teenager, while a grovyle could be anything from a teenager to a young adult and a pikachu could range anywhere from a teenager to an elder.

 Ironically, this actually means that Grovyle was pretty much right in line with the typical progression for his species-line in the world of the past—if not a bit earlier, even. Now he is probably reaching a point where it wouldn’t be unreasonable for him to think about evolving again, actually, now that the option is more open to him. And he wouldn’t have the same hang-ups that others might have considering that, even when the future was dark, his parents made it all the way to being sceptiles.

 …Where was I going with this…? Oh, right, the Kecleon brothers’ perceptions of things. Well, considering the situation with evolution currently, they probably assumed—like everyone else—that Paula was older and evolved at around the typical age, Laura would have just reached the age where she would be considering whether or not she wanted to move to the next stage before the option was barred to her, Azurill is obviously still too young either way, and Marill had to mature a little bit faster than normal. So, basically, of the four of them, Marill is the only one whose evolutionary status they would see as “unusual,” and if they’d had any thought regarding Laura or Paula it would have been that Paula was lucky she had the chance to decide before the sudden cut-off, and Laura’s situation may or may not be a little pitiable depending on whether or not she was thinking of moving to the grovyle stage.

  After finding out Team Rainbow’s true ages, though… they will probably assume that she’s in a similar boat as Marill—except maybe her circumstances were a bit more dire, considering she’s actually an apprentice. The fact that they would have seen her roaming around town during those weeks of getting cold feet about actually joining the guild—especially since she had to pass by them going to and from the guild every day, and they would have seen her disappointed expression most evenings considering where they are located relative to Sharpedo Bluff—would only make their assumptions about her situation even worse. They will probably also figure that Laura is in the same boat, if not one in even worse shape since she joined up even younger. And while they are definitely going to learn about the age thing, the amnesia and species-change thing is probably not going to come out until much, much later. Maybe. I’m still deciding on how much they’re going to share on that front, since while it’s not directly tied to the whole “the guild is now host to a Time Gear” thing, it’s… sort of indirectly tied to it, at this point? Kind of sort of?

 Like… if it comes out while they’re chatting and Laura/Paula mentions that she’s taking lessons from Sunflora, then I can see it as being part of a natural progression of that conversation. Otherwise… while it’s simple enough to discuss the age thing, since the inhabitants of Treasure Town are going to wonder why the girls aren’t going out on missions as much, there really isn’t an easy way to bring up the whole “Laura used to be a human” thing, especially now that it’s pretty firmly tied up with the whole “we think that she was part of a group of humans who worshipped the deity that gave us the Time Gears” deal—and there is no way anyone is going to be mentioning the Time Gears in any capacity considering the favor they’re doing for Uxie. And even in regards to extra training with Sunflora… it would be very easy for them to assume that’s happening because she’s young and Sunflora is the only resident grass-type around who could help her fine-tune some things, rather than because she needs to literally learn how to be a pokémon, and Sunflora is her best bet at learning since there are, actually, some things she would need to know about being a grass-type specifically. So, unless they ask specifically what sorts of things Sunflora is actually teaching Laura, and then she/Paula mentions something extremely basic and non-specific to grass-types, the species-change and/or amnesia probably isn’t going to come up until Dusknoir inevitably figures out who she is. And even that conversation is probably going to go differently, since, again, they’re going to be more concerned with the Time Gear situation at present than they are with Laura’s memories. Actually, Dusknoir is probably going to have to work solely with context clues this time around, since I highly doubt they are going to outright ask him like they did in canon, even though they probably would talk to the Kecleon and Azumarill brothers about the Dimensional Scream at some point—though Dusknoir is not likely to be the source of information for that, either.

 …Come to that, it might actually be Uxie, or one of his siblings, who finally spills the beans to Dusknoir/about Laura’s status as a former human (or at least opens a somewhat safer gateway for it to actually come up in discussion) after the Crystal Lake fight happens. It is entirely possible—and extremely likely—that while in canon Dusknoir questioned why the guild lied to him about seeing a Time Gear on their expedition, here he’s going to, instead, question why they didn’t bring up the fact that they knew Uxie. Or at the very least he’s going to use his “outsider” status to make an interested comment on that fact, since, honestly, everyone who actually knows Wigglytuff is probably going to assume that his failing to mention Uxie after the expedition was more a lie of omission anyways. Or maybe they wouldn’t even go that far, since it would be entirely reasonable for the guild to still say they didn’t really find anything on their expedition, because even if it is kind of cool that Uxie is a legendary, why would they go around spreading information about where he lived? It would be kind of rude to just announce his address willy-nilly like that, and while it’s always cool to make new friends, considering Wiggyltuff’s personality, it isn’t like that’s really notable in any way. It would not surprise anyone to learn that he’d become friends with a legendary, and since all his friends are equal in his eyes, it isn’t like he would be going around and bragging about his new friend’s status as a legendary or anything. The most important bit of that expedition for him would be the revelations about his youngest apprentices, and no one would really think to question the specifics behind how he learned that, anyways. Especially since even after Uxie identifies Grovyle as the thief, he is going to be cagey in general about when, exactly, he moved the Time Gear to begin. Or whether he even did move it to begin with, since as far as anyone knows he might not have kept the Time Gear in his actual home in the first place. So as far as anyone else knows, the Wigglytuff Guild might not have known that Uxie had any connection to the Time Gears until he brought it up after identifying the thief.

 But if Uxie, Wigglytuff, or any of the others do start to be more open about the fact that they did, indeed, meet during that expedition, then it’s entirely possible that they might discuss what Uxie tried to do for Laura, and what little information he managed to find. Even if they left the Time Gear out of it (which they definitely would if they noticed Dusknoir in earshot), it would still be enough confirmation for Dusknoir about who she is. And, really… all he would care about anyways in terms of the Time Gear is that Grovyle doesn’t come into possession of it, and that Laura remains oblivious to why she might want to go looking for any of them. Sure, maybe he would wonder idly where Uxie’s went, or whether it was even at the lake to begin with, but it ultimately wouldn’t matter to him in the long run.

 And, wow, did that get way off-topic to my original point of this post, which was that the reason no one is overly worried about the fact that Marill evolved as early as he did even though he shares his second-stage evolution method with Paula and were extremely concerned about her is because they can attribute his meeting the requirements to his bond with his little brother and wanting/needing to step up for his sick mother’s sake.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #what if...? #hidden in plain sight #writing #fanfiction #headcanons

[catflowerqueen]

Working on the next chapter of HIPS (and once again neglecting my actual work to do so), and... it really is harder than I thought to convey the tone and information I need to when there is so much dramatic irony on both sides of this conversation. 

Because on the one hand, we played the game from the player and partner’s perspective, know how everything ended up with them, and I know that--complications with Laura’s entire situation aside--Paula and her parents’ mutual decision to let her attempt to train at the Wigglytuff Guild, rather than the more familiar (to them) Torterra Guild was perfectly reasonable and innocuous. But on the other hand... Wigglytuff and Chatot have some extremely legitimate points about what the girl’s actions would seem to imply about their pasts, especially in light of the Igglybuff special episode, and the fact that the more I think about it, the worse it seems that Paula was literally hanging around unsupervised for up to weeks at a time after being escorted to Treasure Town and then never bothered writing home once since finally joining the guild.

And in-game, there are plenty of good reasons for that last point (at least while she was still part of the guild), the main one being how hectic and involved everything got when time started going crazy in earnest. (And her being unsupervised for so long in the first place can be attributed to Ricky being her initial escort--for all that he’s her older brother, he isn’t all that involved in her day-to-day life or the bureaucracy that surrounds certain things. Since no one in that family knew a thing about how the Wigglytuff Guild ran things, and he was only a little older than Paula currently is, he would have no idea the paperwork involved in running guilds, the fact that his parents had to sign him up for the public portions of the Torterra Guild--much like how parents sign their kids up for school in the real world--or the fact that Paula was not already technically a part of the Wigglytuff Guild when he dropped her off at the crossroads and then pointed her towards the guild before immediately leaving for a mission. By that same token, her parents would have assumed--or at least hoped--that Ricky would know enough to at least wait to make sure she actually made it inside the guild and actually signed up/decided at the last minute she would rather join the Torterra Guild instead before just leaving her there. A simple case of miscommunication that happens all the time in families). She simply didn’t have time to write them--beyond the fact that kids (and adults) can be notoriously bad at times when it comes to keeping up with long distance relationships. But, not knowing these circumstances... it does make it look like Paula’s parents were at the very least neglectful, if not outright terrible. Or that Paula is an orphan or otherwise slipped through the cracks in terms of proper guardianship.

And then there’s the case of Laura, where, leaving aside what her potential familial situation might be, since she doesn’t know and it is entirely possible that she does, actually, have someone looking for her, her immediate thought upon learning she had amnesia was not to go ask someone outright for help, but, rather, that the only way she could get help (or food or shelter) was through bartering her services without knowing whether she would actually get any meaningful returns for it. Which, honestly, considering that Paula knew that part of the work of exploration teams was to provide help in just that sort of scenario, she probably should have thought that through a little more, and suggested that they might help Laura free of charge or expectation--which they would have. But considering Paula’s age, it’s not entirely surprising that she didn’t think of that first, since, well, kids’ minds work on strange wavelengths sometimes.

The point of that being... from the outside, it sort of looks like Laura thought she had no other choice but to work for the guild if she wanted to get answers about her past, when the reality is that they would have helped her either way. So, from Wigglytuff and Chatot’s perspective, they now have a recruit who has already been put into multiple dangerous situations who may not have actually wanted to be doing this work in the first place, but is doing it anyways since she thinks she has no other choice in the matter because she doesn’t have anywhere else to go. Which, based on the way Paula actually tried to sell the idea of joining a team to her is... not entirely wrong? But also not entirely right. And, again, Paula is a child--she probably didn’t think things through all the way out of excitement over her own dreams and the exploration success the two of them just had. She was definitely thinking a bit (or a lot) selfishly in that moment... but kids can be selfish, and she didn’t mean any harm by it. And she WAS trying to help Laura in the only way she knew how at that moment. 

Besides, her offer of friendship was genuine, and the two did become close. She’s probably never thought to ask Laura what she actually wants to do with her life because, given her own upbringing, it’s only natural that kids want to be explorers. That’s something that Wigglytuff, most of the other recruits, and even Chatot experienced, too, and since Laura has never once expressed a negative opinion on it since actually joining... well, it just wouldn’t have occurred to her that Laura might want something different. And given Laura’s own experiences... she might not remember them, but her subconscious definitely still has an influence on her and she’s never really gotten the option to express her own opinions one way or the other. Even her decision to try to fix things in the dark future could be argued as being more out of a sense of duty and obligations towards Relatia/the world in general than because she necessarily wants it for herself. I mean... it’s complicated, but, for various reasons, she clearly has a tendency to self-sacrifice, which multiple people and pokemon have noted.

Where was I going with this....? Oh, yeah: It’s hard to convey the sort of tone I need from Wigglytuff when I do know both sides of the story, and when thinking from his point of view just uncovers more implications to Team Rainbow’s actions than I’d thought of, which, in turn, are only partially true given that I know the full story behind why those chose the things they did. And, considering Laura’s current situation, I actually know more than even she does, at the moment.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #hidden in plain sight #what if...? #writing #fanfiction #spoilers #procrastination at its finest

[totallycorrectpmdquotes]

I'm on another PMD kick, and I stumbled across your Backfire fic on AO3, and it's super good so far! Even if it's a while to the next update, it was totally worth reading what you have so far-- so good job, and good luck with it if you ever continue!

Thank you so much! :DD

But speaking of updates...

(Chapter 1) (Chapter 2)

Uxie’s powers aren’t just limited to his lake, and affect all memories which could be traced back to the Time Gears. It’s easy to imagine the mental catastrophe this could cause in the mind of someone who’s spent nearly their entire life looking into them. In his defense, Uxie was really mad at Grovyle.

-

3.

For Chatot, it had been aparticularly frazzling evening. The Guildmaster had reorganized a storage roomwith a rather small window for Grovyle by throwing all its contents into thehall. Bidoof and Loudred carried out their orders to clear the mess away quicklyenough, although Chatot would not bethe first one to open the closets they had stuffed everything in. When OfficerMagnezone had led the secret transport of the still unconscious Grovyle,Dusknoir had followed. As Grovyle was deposited in his new bed – closer to theGuildmaster’s chamber than any of the apprentice’s, just to be safe – Dusknoirhad promptly positioned himself outside the door.

“Dusknoir, Sir,” Chatot had said,“we can have the apprentices take over that position. You don’t need to troubleyourself for us.” His intention had been to send Chimecho to take over, andmore importantly, have her make sure the Great Dusknoir was alright.

But Dusknoir had waved him offand refuted any further attempts to convince him that they could help. “I camehere to find him, I’ll guard him. It’s no trouble.”

A few minutes later, Dusknoirapparently caught sight of his reflection in one of the lower-level drinkingfountains and jumped in fright. No one dared to ask what startled him. Herefused to leave his post when dinner was ready as well, despite the fact thatGrovyle wasn’t due to wake for another several hours. And Chatot, well, mayhave reacted by bringing him a plate of leftovers sprinkled with a portion ofground sleep seeds.

He was concerned and had everyright to be! Dusknoir would surely be upset when he woke, and Chatot would takethe consequences of his actions in stride. He would apologize for hisdeception, but not for his actions. Dusknoir needed to rest – whatever ailmenthe was suffering from would not be treated if he ran himself ragged.

Night fell on the guild, andChatot enlisted Chimecho’s help to move the now fully asleep Dusknoir to theGuildmaster’s bed.

“And remember, this stays betweenus.” Chatot said, well aware that Chimecho already knew and wouldn’t say a wordabout Dusknoir’s condition. Nervousness kept him tittering about, though. “Areyou certain he has to be awake for you to examine him?”

“Sorry,” she said, and used herpsychic to gently set Dusknoir down. “If he’s against it, we could have someonetalk with him and I’ll examine him while he’s distracted.”

Chatot hesitated for a secondbefore he sighed. “You have better eyes for this than anyone in the guild. Ifyou think that would be enough for you to help him, then I trust yourjudgement.” He shrugged off Dusknoir’s bag and did his best not to look at thesleeping form. “You may take your leave and return to your quarters.” He was very aware she would not be doing that;the apprentices would be meeting in Team Relic’s room, where the two would bebombarded with questions about why they had decided to let Grovyle stay.

Chimecho nodded, and with a quietring of her bell, she left the room. Chatot watched her leave before he nudgedDusknoir’s bag closer to him. There was something strange about the bag,something that Chatot struggled to put a feather on, but it clicked when hefound a worn patch on the right side where a few rolled up pieces of parchmentwere visible. The bag was the same model as Grovyle’s.

Chatot allowed himself a momentof short, quiet laughter – he’d had such a horrifying feeling, and all it hadamounted to was that. How incrediblysimplistic. Those bags must be mass produced in the future with that samedefect. It was unfortunate that the Great Dusknoir had such a poor qualitytreasure bag.

With one long look at the piecesof parchment which, really, were none of Chatot’s business and were not something he’d be prying into,Chatot returned to his post outside of Grovyle’s room. The Guildmaster sat tothe left of the door, two crochet hooks in his hands and what looked like a half-finishedyarn apple in his lap.

“Hiya!” The Guildmaster said,loudly, but clearly trying to be quiet. “How’s Dusknoir? Is he having sweetdreams?”

“I’m sure he is,” Chatot said,and made himself comfortable to the right of the door. “And Grovyle?”

The Guildmaster put down his yarnand stared across the room. “…No,” he said, “he’s still having nightmares. Buthe’ll be awake soon. He’ll be happier then.”

Chatot glanced back, through thecurtain they’d draped over the doorway. The shadows were twisted around Grovyle,and in the dim light almost looked like they were standing over him.

Chatot pulled the curtain openfarther as Grovyle shuddered, and the illusion faded.

.-.

There was no vulpix named Breannain the Wigglytuff Guild. However, there was one who’d introduce herself by hernickname, Breeze.

She hadn’t known that Pokémon goby their species name unless interacting with their family until she was told.She was practically illiterate – everyone around wrote and read in footprintrunes, but she didn’t even know the alphabet. When asked where she was from, orwhy she had made her way to Treasure Town in the first place, all Breeze had tooffer was a shrug.

Honestly, it was impressive thatno one had figured out her secret yet. Well, they’d figured out about herDimensional Scream, but her secret of being a ‘human turned Pokémon withamnesia who couldn’t even remember her own real name’ was still safe.

Mostly.

Breeze sat beside her partner,Dusk, with their guildmates crowded into the room with them. They’d beenarguing for the past several minutes. Breeze had been reorganizing her treasurebag for most of them and left Dusk to deal with their friends’ questions.

At least Chimecho had taken pityand brought him a chalkboard so he wouldn’t strain his voice anymore.

“But I don’t understand,” Sunflora said, “he’s a bad Pokémon!”

Dusk dipped his paw in chalk duskand drew several footprints from various normal-types while Breeze triplechecked her stash of orans for any orens. She returned them to her bag as Duskgestured to his writing.

“I guess,” Sunflora hesitated,“but you can’t change nature.”

“We are still worried about youtwo,” Dugtrio said, “you may be confident in this second chance, but we wouldhate to see a horrible fate befall you.”

Breeze didn’t look at him (them?She really needed to find a chance to ask what Dugtrio preferred) and insteadgently dumped out her orbs. She started to sort them by function, thenalphabetically on top of that. Dusk used some grass and water-type footprintsthis time.

“We will not question yourdecision further,” Dugtrio said, “but know that you may fall back on us if thisfails.”

“WELL, I will!” Loudred announcedand was promptly shushed by the rest of the apprentices.

“Oh my gosh, do you want Chatot to come tell us off?”Sunflora said as she whacked him with one of her leaves. “Be quiet for once!”

“Fine!” Loudred said in whatcould barely be counted as an indoor voice. Breeze heard him stomp towards her,and kept her eyes focused on the orbs. “Vulpix, don’t do anything stupid.”

Breeze pawed categories of orbs alittle bit farther apart. “I won’t.”

“I mean it,” Loudred said, “Idon’t care if you think he’s cool,you get yourself or any of us killed we’re going to have a problem.”

Breeze licked her lips and didn’tlook up at him. “I won’t,” she repeated, “I know what I’m doing.”

“But that’s what we want toknow,” Chimecho pointed out, her voice gentle. “What is your plan? We know hewon’t remember you, and that you feel bad because of how much he’s missing, buthe nearly killed you both. Why are you putting so much faith in him?”

Dusk started to write somethingdown, but Corphish held up a claw to stop him.

“Hey-hey, no offense Riolu,” hesaid, “but I want to hear what Vulpix has to say about this. She’s been tooquiet.”

As an agreement rippled acrossthe guild, Breeze coaxed her orbs back towards her. “Uh,” she swallowed,“well…”

Breeze frowned. Why… why was she doing this? Yes, she felt badfor and identified with Grovyle, but she hadn’t been a bad person. She’d neverhurt anyone who hadn’t deserved it, and Grovyle had nearly destroyed the world.He’d tried to kill her, Dusk, Uxie, Mesprit, Azelf – everyone. What if she was looking at this all wrong? What if hestill remembered how much he wanted to hurt them, just not the why? What if she was being stupid, andputting so much trust in someone who was just going to hurt the guild?

“Come ON!” Loudred said, yellingright by her ear, “Spit it out!”

There was a muffled squawk beforea tremor knocked the apprentices off their feet.

.-.

Dusknoir sat on the edge of afrozen riverbank beside a man dressed in shades of gray. They had a pile ofrocks between them and sat in silence as they threw them into the river. Thesound of a splash was there, but the water didn’t move as it sucked the rocksdown. Dusknoir pulled out a rock, flat and circular with small protrusionsaround the edge, and handed it off to the human. Immediately after touching itthe human gasped and gripped his head. The rock fell from his hand and rolleddown the bank, bouncing twice before it finally settled in the shallows.Dusknoir stared at the man, and he stared back with blank, unseeing eyes.

Dusknoir blinked.

He was on a cliff face, a body infront of him and his hands stained a dark red. There was a loud, shrill noise.There had been for the past minute.

He turned around, and the imageof a small child with red-brown hair drifted away like smoke. The cliffblurred. The body faded.

He was in a blank but colourfulroom, and in front of him was an unfortunately familiar shadow form with a wispof white hair.

“Hello, Hope,” Darkrai said,absolutely smug, “are you having a nice nap?”

“Don’t call me that,” Dusknoirsnapped, immediately on guard. “What are you doing here?”

“What, you thought you were theonly one who followed those idiots when they fled back in time?” Darkrai said,“I knew you were dense, but I was hoping you weren’t stupid.” He sighed,overtly dramatic as Dusknoir scowled. “Of course that was too much to hope for.Tell me, what was your theory for why the brat doesn’t remember you anymore?The power of friendship between you and your minions?”

“You don’t need to act like achild,” Dusknoir growled, and continued to stare at Darkrai’s smug face. “You…did you do that to her?”

“If it’s any consolation, it wasa happy accident. I was aiming for the nuisance your friends have dumped in theother room – I planned on blasting him out of existence, but your little bratsaw me and took the hit.”

“She’s not mine,” Dusknoir corrected,“if you did this to her, why don’t you go finish the job?”

“What, and take all your glory? Please,” Darkrai grinned, “besides, Icould ask you the same thing. You’ve completed your mission. Why are you stillhere?”

Dusknoir narrowed his eye andspoke carefully. “There was an issue with creating the Dimensional Hole back.”

“Oh, why didn’t you say so?”Darkrai said, faux cheerful and still unbearably smug. He snapped his fingers,and the dream world shifted to hold a frozen Dimensional Hole. “I’ll just set thisdown right outside, and then you can finish your job.”

No! “That’s not necessary,” Dusknoir said quickly. “Besides,they’re both still far too entwined with the others in this time. I’ll needmore time to separate them so I can take them back without severely -”

“If you’re going to make excuses,at least put some effort into them.”

Dusknoir froze. Darkrai suddenlyseemed so much bigger than him. “E-excuse me?”

“I own dreams, you idiot. This is my realm.” He was barely the size ofDarkrai’s eye now. “I know you don’t want to leave. For all you try and protestyou want to stay here and enjoy this time before it’s gone, while still pretendingyou’re just doing your job. And who could blame you, especially with your history? I wonder what Dialga wouldthink of this after how much faith they put in you. I’m sure they’d be rathercross.”

“Don’t question my loyalties,”Dusknoir shouted back, and struggled to keep himself steady as Darkrai’s laughshook the dreamscape. “I’m just as loyal to Master Dialga as you are!”

The laugh grew louder. Thecolours got brighter, more saturated, and began to drip into each other.

“That’s not a very high bar,”Darkrai said. “Still, if you’re oh so convinced of your loyalties, then let memake the task simpler for you.” Dusknoir looked down and saw that his handwrapped around Chatot’s neck.

“Wait -” he couldn’t shout. Hisvoice wouldn’t get any louder than a whisper. The ground below him started toshake as the shadows morphed into Wigglytuff, and the colours dripped into thebackground of the Wigglytuff guild. Dusknoir tried to shout again, but no wordscame out.

“The Dimensional Hole will beatop Mt Bristle when you’re done,” Darkrai’s voice said, echoing fromeverywhere and nowhere at once. “Don’t take too long. Make sure you don’t needmy help again.”

A variety of faceless shadows ranin from down the hall, led by that same little girl with red-brown hair.

Dusknoir jolted, free from thenightmare. Breanna, who’d led the charge of apprentices through the guild’sshaking halls, was a vulpix again.

Dusknoir dropped Chatot and backedup as quickly as he could. The guild stopped shaking as Dusknoir raised hishands, and everyone ran over to help Chatot up. He had tiny flakes of ice inhis feathers, and Dusknoir glanced down at his hands in horror. There was norecovery from this. He would be run out – he needed to grab the two he had comefor and be done with it. He had no time to waste.

“I’m alright,” Chatot wheezed,and looked over at Dusknoir, halfway across the room. “Dusknoir, sir?”Wigglytuff grabbed Chatot and held him tight as the rest of the guild movedcloser. “Are you okay?”

Dusknoir swallowed and glanceddown at his hands. He scrambled to find the words, but his tongue was stillfrozen. He couldn’t think of what to say.

He looked up, at Chatot at first,then past him at Breanna’s horrified look. Then past her, at the green form inthe doorway he was supposed to be guarding.

Grovyle met his eyes before he ducked back, andDusknoir was confident he’d seen the whole thing.

#PMD #Pokemon Mystery Dungeon #Not Quotes #Mine #Backfire #I really like writing the stuff Dusknoir's going through it's so much fun #also my girl finally got herself a POV spot! There will absolutely be more of that since I love her #Anonymous

[catflowerqueen]

Hidden In Plain Sight

Don’t expect any fast updates on this (or any of my other stories, really), because classes restart for me today, and I already spent a lot longer working on this than I really should have at the moment, considering that I still have some paperwork I really need to do, which I probably should have done a few days ago, but... please enjoy another part of my “What if...?” series.

Summary:  Wherein Uxie takes his role as the Being of Knowledge the slightest bit more seriously, and an offer to help Laura with her amnesia leads to the Wigglytuff Guild taking temporary custody of the Time Gear of Fogbound Lake. Grovyle is not amused. Also, Chatot contemplates the merits of establishing better intraguild communications, or, at the very least, instituting a minimum age for admittance into the Wigglytuff Guild.

Hidden in Plain Sight

Chapter One:           

   “I shall not take away your memories of this place. You have earned my trust. But I must ask that you keep this place a secret,” Uxie declared, to the relief of the Wigglytuff Guild whose members gathered by the lakeshore, drinking in its stunning sights. Sure, after seeing what exactly the treasure of Fogbound Lake was they all completely understood why the Being of Knowledge resorted to such extreme measures in the first place in order to protect it, and in the back of their minds they had already resigned themselves to losing some of their memories in order to help protect the Time Gear… but the sight of the lake before them really was beautiful, and it would have been a shame to lose such precious memories. But just before Guildmaster Wigglytuff was about to open his mouth to give his assurances that his guild would keep their silence, as well as to give thanks to Uxie for his generosity, the Being of Knowledge spoke again.

                “Speaking of memories, however… I do believe we have some unfinished memories in regards to yours, Laura,” he said, surprising everyone present, if not for quite the same reasons.

                “Huh? But I thought that you said you didn’t know anything about what caused her memory loss?” Paula asked.

                “That is true,” Uxie confirmed, completely ignoring everyone else’s confusion and sudden intakes of shock over this bit of knowledge about their friend. “But as I was about to say before the rest of your fellow guildmates appeared… while I have, lately, been more focused on erasing memories, it is also possible for me to help people regain them as well.” Upon seeing the dual hopeful looks that started to spring up on Team Rainbow’s faces, he hastened to add, “It is not always foolproof, as memories and the mind are complex things. Depending on the actual cause of your friend’s amnesia, it may not be possible for me to do much. Laura’s unique circumstances in regards to her species might also complicate things.”

                “That’s perfectly all right!” Paula exclaimed. “Any little bit would be a big help. Right, Laura?”

                But before the treecko had the chance to give her opinion, Loudred interjected, loudly demanding “WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! Just… HOLD ON there for a second. What… what are you TALKING about? Laura has AMNESIA? Since WHEN?”

                Laura blinked at this before cringing a bit and blushing upon realizing that she’d never actually shared this piece of information with any of the other guildmembers. “Um… Ever since I met Paula,” she confessed.

                “Yeah,” Paula gave a nervous chuckle, sheepishly rubbing her neck, “that’s actually why she agreed to form an exploration team with me in the first place—I thought that since the Wigglytuff Guild was so well known and had so many resources, you might be able to help her figure out her past.”

                “…And the reason you never informed us of this so that we could, actually try and help you with this is because…?” Chatot asked, his eye developing a mild twitch at the fact that, first of all, this pair of recruits had neglected to inform anyone of the serious issues that were plaguing Laura, and, secondly, that this neglect occurred in spite of the hope for help being one of their main goals for joining in the first place.

                “I mean… we were really busy settling in those first few days… and then there was that whole thing with Azurill… and then by that point it just felt kind of… awkward, I guess?” Paula shrugged, a blush rising to her face as well.

                “Especially since you didn’t seem to know much about the other issue I had, when I asked,” Laura added quietly.

                “What ‘other issue?’” Diglett asked.

                “Indeed, what could be a more pressing issue than the fact that you have amnesia?” his father inquired.

                Wigglytuff, meanwhile, who was just as surprised as everyone else by this turn of events but was trying to be a bit more rational, for once—as he realized that this explained a lot about some of the more concerning things he’d noticed about his precious apprentice, and was trying to do some preliminary planning on what he could do to help her once they got back home, especially if Uxie wasn’t able to help her retrieve any of her memories—suddenly recalled a conversation the guild had participated in shortly after Team Rainbow’s first major exploration. “Oh! Does it have something to do with humans?” he asked.

                That jogged Chatot’s memories, which he had been searching through in an attempt to recall any questions Laura had asked him recently that he hadn’t been able to answer that seemed particularly strange or out of the ordinary at the time. “Ah, yes!” he exclaimed. “Thank you for the reminder, Guildmaster! If I recall correctly… you and Paula were curious about their stories, yes? Specifically, if there were any about humans who were turned into—” he cut the thought off as something suddenly clicked, and then he sputtered, “SQUAWK! Wh-what?! You can’t be serious! Are you… are you seriously trying to imply that Laura, our Laura who is obviously a treecko, at one point used to be a human?!”

                “WHAT?!” the remaining guildmembers, sans Paula, Laura, and Wigglytuff, screamed. “YOU USED TO BE HUMAN?!”

                Laura rubbed her arm nervously as she gave a quiet affirmation.

                This just shocked everyone even more. “But… how is that POSSIBLE?!” Loudred demanded. But then he, too, recalled that conversation and remembered something that Croagunk had brought up during it in regards to legends about humans. “Unless… did Laura maybe PULL on a ninetales’ TAIL?”

                “Oh my gosh, Loudred, how could you even think something like that?” Sunflora demanded, sounding affronted on her friend’s behalf. “No way would Laura do something that cruel!”

                “But how would we even KNOW?” Loudred asked, his face becoming pinched as he actually stopped for a moment to contemplate the possibility. He suddenly turned his gaze towards Laura, and she cringed under the scrutiny. “If you REALLY don’t remember anything about your past, then for all we, OR you, know… maybe you actually WERE a really mean person!”

                Sunflora and Chimecho gasped in shock at his audacity, and Paula’s expression became enraged. But before she had the chance to lay into him, Dugtrio barked out “Loudred! That is crossing a line! Apologize to Laura at once!”

                “I—” Loudred looked around at the disappointed faces of his fellow apprentices and superiors, cringing when he saw the unhappy frown on Wigglytuff’s face, and then cringing even harder when he saw that Laura had withdrawn even further into herself than usual and was clutching her arm tightly in a trembling grip. “I—that’s—ugh… You’re RIGHT. That was WAY out line… I’m really, REALLY sorry, Laura.”

                “Well, whether she had the capacity for that sort of thing or not, we can definitely confirm—without even having to look into her memories, actually—that Laura was not the human in that particular legend,” Uxie suddenly piped up, making many of the assembled jump slightly in surprise, as they had momentarily forgotten his presence. He seemed rather amused by the whole situation, really. “Despite there being many iterations of that particular legend, all of them do share the same detail in common: the human was to be reborn as a pokémon. This implies that after spending an entire life as a human, they would then die and reincarnate—and it is this reincarnation which would be a pokémon. In Laura’s case, however, she was born a human and then changed into a pokémon during this lifetime. Therefore, she does not fit the requirements set by this specific legend,” he explained. Sunflora crossed her leaves and raised a brow at Loudred in an “I-told-you-so” sort of way, and he shrunk back under the scrutiny.

 “Furthermore,” Uxie added, “it’s my experience that when memory loss is involved, it typically does not result in drastic personality changes. Therefore, if your friend’s current attitude and demeanor indicates that she is incapable of that sort of cruelty, then it is highly likely that this held true in the past as well. If there was some sort of major personality difference, then it indicates a much larger problem.” He then gave everyone a moment to absorb that information, taking special of note of Laura and ensuring that she was able to regain a bit of her confidence before he switched back to the actual matter at hand. “In any case… as I was trying to explain, the fact that your natural species is a human might complicate things in regards to how much help I can ultimately give you. Though, that is not so much because you were a human, but more because it is unclear what caused you to switch species in the first place.”

                Laura gave a slow, thoughtful nod. It made perfect sense… though it also made her a little nervous. What if he couldn’t restore all of her memories? It would be one thing if he just couldn’t help at all—a bit disappointing, maybe, but it would ultimately leave her no worse off than she already was—but given how maddening it was to be in this place, and to have these vague feelings of familiarity with no clear explanation as for why… if a partial recall led to such scenarios becoming even more common, then she thought that might actually be worse. But at the same time… it really did bother her that she couldn’t remember anything about her past, even if she didn’t express those sentiments too often. Or at all, really, since no one else outside of Paula had any clue there was even an issue until today.

                Wigglytuff noticed her nervousness. “It’s okay if you don’t want to do this, Laura,” he told her, moving to be closer to her. He placed his hands on her shoulders, and looked directly into her eyes. “Whether you get your memories back or not, you’re still our friendly-friend, and we’ll always do our best to support you,” he assured her, giving her shoulders a comforting squeeze.

                “Yes,” Uxie agreed. “It is entirely your decision whether you want me to try and use my powers or not; memories are intensely personal things, and the process would still be rather invasive, even though I would be trying to help you regain your memories, rather than take them away. Also: even if you do decide that you would rather forgo my help at the moment… that doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind and return at a later date.”

                Laura took a moment to think it over. “I think…” she paused, taking in everyone’s encouraging faces. Then she took in a deep breath to steady herself, and declared, “I think I do want you to try. Even if it turns out that you can’t help much… I think I would regret it if I didn’t at least make the attempt.”

                Uxie nodded. “Very well. In that case, I suggest that you sit down—the process shouldn’t hurt, but it might leave you a bit dizzy, or disoriented.”

                Laura nodded, and Wigglytuff pulled her into a brief hug before he helped her settle on the ground. Uxie floated over and placed his hands on her temples. “Close your eyes,” he instructed her. Once she complied, he continued, “I will begin on the count of three. One… two… three.”

                At that, his eyes, though still shut, began to glow slightly, and Laura’s expression became a little pinched. But neither of them made a sound. The members of the Wigglytuff Guild waited with baited breath, but as the minutes ticked by with nothing happening, they began getting a bit restless. Before anyone could say something to break the silence, however, Uxie gave a small “Hm,” and lifted his hands from Laura’s head. Laura, in turn, scrunched her face up even more before relaxing and blinking her eyes open, her expression a bit dazed.

                “So… did it work?” Corphish asked, looking between the two of them. The other apprentices were eager to know as well… but their hearts sank when Laura frowned and gave a disappointed shake of her head.

                “Unfortunately, I was unable to uncover any concrete memories,” Uxie informed the crowd. Their hearts sank even more, and they tried to prepare themselves to give him thanks for trying, or to comfort Laura over the failure, but before they could, Uxie said something else which brought a bit of hope back. “However, that in itself, Laura, gives me some clues to your past.”

                “R-Really? That’s great! Paula exclaimed. “What does it tell you?”

                “First, I should explain a bit what I look for when I delve into someone’s mind,” Uxie said, settling down on the ground himself so that he would be more comfortable while he explained. He waited for everyone else to follow suit before continuing, ”When I delve into someone’s mind to manipulate their memories, I typically don’t do so with intent to pry—even when my goal is to erase memories of Fogbound Lake, I try not to look beyond the surface level since, frankly, it isn’t any of my business. So, what I do instead is to search for certain impressions which I either draw closer to the surface to make them easier to look at, or push farther back into the subconscious, rendering them nearly inaccessible. In truth… when I erase someone’s memories, I typically don’t actually remove them so much as I simply push the contents down deep within their minds,” he admitted. “After all, it is far more likely that people would become suspicious and attempt to come back and search the area if there was actually a chunk of their memories missing, rather than if they still retained some memory of an exploration, but no memories of actually reaching Fogbound Lake.”

                “I see! So, then they would assume that they really had searched everywhere, but just hadn’t been able to find anything, right?” Chimecho guessed.

                “Correct,” Uxie affirmed, a proud grin on his face. “And this is typically the case with amnesiacs as well—it isn’t that their memories are gone, it’s just that they are inaccessible for some reason. Typically, what I would see in these instances is a sort of… fog, almost.” He paused here, considering something, and then gave an amused shake of the head. “It’s actually a little like Fogbound Lake, in a way—the mental fog obscures the paths that one would typically use to find and access their memories, much like the fog here obscures access to the path one needs to take in order to reach the Time Gear. So what I do in this sort of situation is to, essentially, clear away the fog of one’s mind.”

                “But if you couldn’t do that this time, then what does it mean for Laura?” Paula asked, glancing between Uxie and her partner—who actually seemed more interested in the explanation on the mechanics of memory retrieval than disappointed that it hadn’t worked for her.

                “In Laura’s case… there really isn’t any fog to sift through,” Uxie shrugged. “There is a little bit, yes, and some dim impressions and recollections—which is likely why you felt this place was familiar to you—but for the most part… the area of your mind where memories are stored is just… blank. As if it was empty, or locked behind some sort of impenetrable door.”

              “If that’s the case, then… hey, hey! How does that give you any clues to hercpast?” Corphish wondered.

                “Ah, because you see… this is not the first time I have come across such a condition in humans.”

                Paula frowned. “But… hold on a minute. Uxie, didn’t you say that humans had never come to the lake before? If that’s the case, then how…?”

                “I see your confusion, but while it is true that humans have never come here, that doesn’t mean I’ve never met any—it simply means that in order to interact with the ones I know of, it meant that I had to leave my lake for a while. I actually used to visit with a group of them fairly regularly, but something changed roughly a millennia ago and I haven’t really gone out much since.” Uxie paused here with a sigh, sounding almost nostalgic. But then he shook his head, continuing, “Ah… in any case, this particular condition is rather rare, and is typically found only in one specific… subset, shall we say.”

                “OH! I get it NOW! So you’re saying that since Laura has the condition too… then it means SHE’S probably part of that subset!” Loudred exclaimed, feeling pleased with himself for putting all that together when Uxie nodded.

                “Exactly right. Mind you, this is only a guess at this point—circumstances being what they are at the moment, and especially with the transformation, I cannot say for sure… but the probability is high.”

                “So… what are these people like?” Laura finally piped up and asked. “If you’re right, and I was one of them… what does that mean for me?”

                Uxie turned back to her, and she blinked upon seeing a bit more warmth in his expression than had been there previously. It wasn’t as though he’d looked unfriendly or mean or anything, but his expression before sifting through her mind had been more placid, full of a more neutral sort of geniality.

 “Well,” he began, “I suppose that the most important thing would probably be—”

 But he abruptly cut himself off, tilting his head in consideration and looking between her and the lake. “Hm… Now there’s and interesting idea… and since I’m the one doing it, it shouldn’t have any negative effects…” he mumbled before turning to the group as a whole. “Please wait here for a moment,” he requested.

 Everyone was confused at the abrupt topic change, but readily complied. They watched as Uxie swiftly flew over towards the middle of the lake until he was right above the Time Gear… and then their jaws dropped in complete and utter shock when he suddenly ducked down beneath the water and re-emerged with the Time Gear in his arms. The light dimmed around the Time Gear’s holding place, and they all looked around wildly, fearful of time stopping around them… but nothing else happened.

 “There is no need for alarm,” Uxie told them as he flew back to the shore, easily detecting their panic and immediately guessing its source. “I am the guardian of this particular Time Gear, so the area shouldn’t experience any negative effects of time stopping so long as it is in my possession.” Everyone gave a sigh of relief, and they watched curiously as he came to a stop before Laura. “That being said, however… would the Wigglytuff Guild mind doing a favor for me?”

 Wigglytuff tilted his head, “A favor? Sure! We’d be glad to help you, friendly-friend! And it would only be right after all you’ve done to help us!”

 “Good. Then… would you please hold on to this Time Gear for me?” he asked, offering the precious treasure to the treecko in front of him. Her eyes—along with everyone else’s, honestly—widened in shock and she quickly backed up, holding her hands out as if to ward him away… even as a tiny part of her screamed out that she should take it from him, now, right now, she needed it…!

 But she didn’t betray any of these inner thoughts, instead offering a breathless “Wh-what?!”

 This exclamation was echoed by a much louder “WHAT?!” from Chatot. “F-Far be it for our humble guild to question your judgement, Uxie, but why in the world would you ask us such a thing?! For us to take this Time Gear, when another has already been stolen—!”

 “Yes… but that very threat is why I wish you to take it with you, and protect it at your guild.” That cut the panicking off short, and Uxie further explained, “The Time Gear that has already been stolen, it is the one from Treeshroud Forest. Unlike the Time Gear here at Fogbound Lake, or the one in Limestone Cavern which your esteemed guildmaster has seen,” at this everyone jolted and looked to Wigglytuff in surprise—both at the fact that he’d apparently seen a Time Gear before this one and because Uxie apparently knew about it, “that particular location has no secondary defenses. There is no puzzle to solve, or guardian to best. There is only the dungeon itself, which, while perhaps a little larger than most others, is just as ordinary at it appears to be. In that sense, one could say that its best defense was the fact that the Time Gear was, essentially, hidden in plain sight.”

 “I see, I see… and because it is so ordinary and plain-seeming, no one would think it hid such an important treasure. As a consequence, no one would go looking for one,” Dugtrio nodded, thinking the reasoning through.

 Paula frowned. “In that case… isn’t it possible that the thief just didn’t realize it was a Time Gear? I mean, I didn’t know what Time Gears looked like until you told us about this one, Uxie, so if they just thought it was some other sort of treasure… then maybe everyone is worrying over nothing? I mean… the fact that it’s gone is still really bad, but if it was just an accident, maybe we don’t need to worry about any others being taken.”

 “I wouldn’t count on it, meh heh heh,” Croagunk shook his head. “Even if they did initially take it without realizing what it was, the fact that time stopped after it was removed would have been a big tip-off that something was wrong.”

 “Oh, yeah, good point.”

 “Indeed,” Uxie concurred. “That leads me to believe that someone stole it deliberately. And the fact that they even knew to check Treeshroud Forest in the first place…”

 “…Means that it’s possible they might look for others as well… and that they may already know where some are located,” Wigglytuff finished for him, his face grim.

 “Exactly. Which is why, if the thief does already have information on the other Time Gear locations… by moving one of them to a completely different area, it would hopefully throw them off the trail. Or, at the very least, give us more time to try and stop them,” Uxie reasoned.

 “Okay, I reckon I can understand that,” Bidoof said, “but why choose our guild, then? We get tons of pokémon coming in and out every day… wouldn’t that just make it more likely for someone to find out about it?”

 “…No,” Laura said quietly, the reasoning dawning on her. “Because they wouldn’t expect that we had it… right? Our reputation would protect us… and also the Time Gear… because it would hidden in plain sight, just like the one in Treeshroud Forest. Right?”

 Uxie smiled at her cleverness. “Indeed, and that very reputation is one of the reasons why I know I could trust you with this task. Your renown and notoriety are such that even I, who spends much of my time alone, have heard of it… and added to that, another guardian has already proved that your leader, Guildmaster Wigglytuff, is trustworthy.”

 “Oh, oh? You heard from Ditto?” Wigglytuff asked, growing excited at the thought of his old friend.

 Uxie nodded, this time fondly as he recalled the younger pokémon. “Yes. Ditto is probably the most… proactive of the guardians, seconded only by my brother, Azelf, and he always lets us know whenever someone seems to be extremely persistent in regards to finding the ‘treasure’ of Limestone Cavern… or, in your case, when someone actually manages to figure out the secret in its entirety.”

 “So, um… what’s the other reason?” Chimecho asked. “You said there was more than one… right?”

 “Yes,” Uxie confirmed, “and that actually brings us back to you, Laura.”

 Laura blinked in surprise, and her partner asked, “Huh? What does Laura have to do with anything?”

 “Just a moment ago, you asked what the people whom I suspect you are a part of are like… the most important thing to know about them is probably the fact that they worship a deity known as ‘Relatia’… and that this deity is the one responsible for bringing the Time Gears to our world.” Laura’s eyes widened. “As such, if you truly do belong to those people… then you would be more entitled than most to deal with the Time Gear, and to act as its protector.”

 “But… but you said that you weren’t certain that I was actually a member of that group,” Laura pointed out. “So in that case…”

 Uxie merely shrugged. “In that case, my first line of reasoning still holds. But I truly do believe that when you were a human, that you worshipped Relatia; it would certainly explain why this place felt familiar to you—despite never having been here before—as Relatia’s people are some of the few who know the locations of the Time Gears,” He allowed everyone a moment to let that sink in, before he asked again, “So, having explained all that… will you, the Wigglytuff Guild, undertake the task of guarding my Time Gear? At least until this crisis has passed?”

 The guild turned towards their guildmaster, who had a serious expression on his face once more. He looked at Uxie, with his patient expression; at Laura, with an expression that was half scared, half hopeful; at the Time Gear, which, as an inanimate object, had no expression, but which still looked so vulnerable nonetheless, especially now that it was out in the open, and not surrounded by an intricate pattern of light and energy. The he looked back at Uxie, and his mouth widened into a big grin. “Of course we will, friendly-friend!”

 Uxie tried to hide a sigh of relief—it wouldn’t have been a big deal if Wigglytuff hadn’t agreed, and he wouldn’t have blamed him one bit for opting out of such an important and potentially dangerous task, but the fact that there was now this extra measure of safety in a situation as dire as this current crisis already made him feel a lot more hopeful about the situation. “In that case, this next part may be a bit tricky; while there are safeties in place that allows a Time Gear’s guardian to remove it from its area with no ill consequences, it is not certain what happens when one of them willingly gives it up to another. So we all should be prepared to run as soon as this Time Gear leaves my hands.”

 “Understood,” Chatot said, nodding decisively. Then he turned to the recruits and squawked, “Well? You heard the pokémon! Get ready to run!”

 “Yes, sir!” the apprentices all cheered as they put their weight in their front feet (or whatever the equivalent action was, for those whose appendages and methods of locomotion didn’t quite fit that description) and turned towards the exit—but only slightly, as they were all still supremely curious and wanted to see the actual hand off for themselves.

 Uxie moved even closer to Laura, and once more offered her the Time Gear. “Are you ready, Laura?”

 Laura started to reach her hands out for the precious artifact… but then she hesitated momentarily, still wary of the feelings that looking at it invoked. She took a deep breath, centering herself, before trying again. This time she was successful, and placed her hands on the Time Gear in a secure grip. It felt surprisingly warm beneath her fingers, for something which had just been residing at the bottom of a lake, and rather than feeling metallic, like she would have expected, it felt almost like… stone? But smooth stone, rather than crumbly or rough. But more than anything, it almost felt like… like it was alive, in a way. Or that it at least had some sort of emotional ability. Because as she stared into it, and into the light it pulsated… she could swear it emanated some sort of feeling of… joy? Relief? Holding it felt like… like she was coming home, for the first time in… in so, so long…

 Laura was so absorbed in the sensation of touching the Time Gear that she almost didn’t notice when Uxie let go. Actually, she wouldn’t have noticed it at all if not for the unexpected weight change causing her to stumble. The Time Gear was a bit heavier than it looked, though not so heavy as one would assume based on its composition. But before she could devote any more time into inspecting it, there was a bright flash of light, and she felt a surge of energy that sent her tumbling to her knees. Luckily, though, she managed to keep her tight grip on the Time Gear. Unluckily, however, it meant that she was now in a position where she wouldn’t easily be able to escape if something did end up happening to the flow of time in the area. But once the light died down and she was able to blink away the spots in her vision… nothing really happened. She looked around a little, but nothing seemed to have changed. Maybe it was a bit darker in the area? But that could easily be attributed to the late hour, or the fact that most of the volbeat and illumise had finished their dances above the water and were headed home. She glanced back towards the entrance to see her fellow guild members slowly relaxing from their tensed positions and also look around in confusion.

 “Hm… I suppose that was rather anticlimactic,” Uxie said from in front of her, causing her to jolt in surprise and whip her head back towards him, since she hadn’t realized he was there. “I’ll admit, that was not what I expected to happen… but it is a potentially useful situation, if someone else does end up coming here in search of the Time Gear.” He floated a bit away from her, slowly turning around and taking in all the sights before turning his gaze back on the artifact in her arms. “Of course, the fact that the Time Gear is still in close proximity to the lake, despite no longer being in my possession, might be affecting things somewhat…” He hummed again before coming closer again and offering her a hand up, which she took, before leading her towards the rest of the guild. “Come—I will join you for a bit of your journey back down, in order that I might observe the effects of distance on the lake.”

 It was, admittedly, a little awkward to be sharing the presence with a legendary, especially one who was treating the endeavor as an almost scientific curiosity. The fact that no one really had the chance to discuss what had just happened—whether in regards to the revelations about their teammate or the ramification of the task they’d just been given—didn’t help much either. Although, speaking of recent events…

 “So, um, Uxie… I know that you couldn’t help Laura out with regaining any of her actual memories… but do you know of anything else we can do to try and help?” Paula asked on behalf of her partner—who seemed too absorbed in hugging the bag now holding the Time Gear close to her chest to pay much attention to the attempts at small talk going on around her. She’d had enough presence of mind to put it out of sight once Loudred made a joke about the possibility that she was the real Time Gear thief all along, with how much focus she was putting on it and the way she’d refused to let anyone carry it, but she hadn’t noticed when Sunflora subsequently exploded on him, scolding him for the tasteless joke—especially since she hadn’t let him off the hook yet for how mean he’d been to her over the whole ninetales thing.

 “Hm?” Uxie replied, rather distracted, as he glanced at her from where he was floating—backwards, so that he could keep an eye on the lake as it seemed to grow smaller and smaller the farther they moved away from it. But the change in perspectives seemed to be the only change afflicting Fogbound Lake; it was otherwise perfectly normal, despite its lack of Time Gear. “Oh, right…” Uxie said once Paula’s words finally registered. He tilted his head, thinking through some possibilities. “I suppose that using an aura crystal might help, but those are extremely rare. Especially lately, for some reason,” he mulled things over a bit more before shaking his head. “Unfortunately, there typically isn’t much that can be done about this specific condition. However… I believe in Laura’s specific case that the issue will resolve itself when she’s a bit older.”

 “Oh wow, really?” Paula asked, excited, before shaking her friend’s shoulder in an attempt to get her attention. Once she caught the treecko’s gaze, she smiled widely at her. “Hear that, Laura? Uxie thinks that you just need a little patience, and that you’ll get your memories back when you’re older!”

 “Golly, that really is great news!” Bidoof, who had evidently been listening in on the conversation—like most everyone else had been, actually, even if some were better at hiding the fact than others—said from Paula’s other side. “How long do you reckon she’ll have to wait?”

 “Not too long—if my theory is correct, then things should become clearer for you once you turn thirteen.”

 Everything screeched to a halt.

 “What?” Chatot asked, sounding scandalized. “What do you mean, once she turns thirteen? How… how old is she now?”

 “Based on how developed your mind seemed to be… I would estimate somewhere around ten, maybe eleven years of age. Possibly twelve, at maximum.”

 “WHAT?! YOU’RE ONLY HOW OLD?!” everyone demanded, absolutely flabbergasted by the revelation of how young she actually was.

 Everyone except Paula, however, who was significantly calmer as she said, “Huh. I thought you were a bit closer to my age, but it looks like you’re actually a few years younger than me!”

 Chatot’s eye started to twitch. “And… dare I ask exactly how old you are?” he said in a strangled voice, extremely wary of the answer.

 “Thirteen,” was Paula’s matter-of-fact reply.

 “WHAAAAAAAAT?!”

#pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #what if...? #writing #fanfiction #sleep is for the weak