Scott had never tried running since becoming a Squirtle.
And why he was so confident in his ability to run when he was, in fact, a turtle Pokémon, was a mystery.
Unlike him, his Mudkip companion was not a turtle. And he had four legs to run on. Scott had two. Mathias was outrunning him. A lot.
Mathias soon noticed Scott's absence, and turned around to see him running with all his might, but still severely lacking in speed. The Arcanine was catching up, taken by surprise at first but now on a furious chase.
"SCOTT! GO ALL FOURS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" Mathias yelled in disbelief.
"HUMANS DON'T WALK ON ALL FOURS!" Scott shouted back, before the Arcanine caught up and bit into his tail, and lifted him up by it. "YAAAAAARGH!"
At once, Mathias threw off his bag and rushed to Scott's aid. The great dog of fire glanced at the Mudkip, who was in turn staring into its eyes and talking himself into something.
"Little help here?" squeaked Scott while dangling upside down, tears welling from the pain of having his tail chewed on.
"I... have an idea... I don't know if it'll work..." Mathias replied, looking anxious.
The Arcanine made a noise that sounded rather like a condescending snort, and made to turn away with its meal.
"WAIT! I'M NOT DONE WITH YOU!" Mathias panicked, finally seeming to reach a decision and bounding up to the dog. "Scott, cover your face!"
Scott did as Mathias instructed with his hands, wondering to himself what on earth Mathias was planning.
A moment later, he felt some sand being pelted all over his body.
When the spraying was over, Scott peeked between his fingers to see that Mathias had kicked some sand at the Arcanine's face. He could hear it yelping in displeasure, and it relinquished its bite on him.
"Sand-attack!" Mathias panted. "Scott, get to where my bag is and wait there—I'll hold it off!"
Indeed, Scott had managed to shield his eyes from the makeshift sandstorm, but the Arcanine had not. Consequently, it had lost its vision; and it was now very angry.
Not wanting to take part in the fire Pokémon's rampage any more, Scott fell to all fours and tried running on them. The first few steps were clumsy and unorganized, but he soon got better and learnt it was a lot faster than his human-walk, although degrading.
On his sprint to the bag, Scott turned his head and saw Mathias sprinting around and shooting the blinded Arcanine with jets of water from his mouth. With satisfying sizzling sounds, the feral Pokémon stumbled on the spot, hurt greatly by the water.
Once the enemy was incapacitated, Mathias retreated and joined Scott, who had become the temporary bag-carrier.
"Let's go, just run to that tree, he won't follow us into the dungeon!" Mathias wheezed. Scott nodded and ran on two feet again, the bag too awkward for fours.
He felt the hot sand slapping his feet, but he kept going, Mathias by his side, the palm tree inching closer...
-Midsola Lake, Area 1-
It was suddenly nighttime.
And it was not the darker-day the Pokémon of this day had to endure. It was the true darkness where the stars and the moon were free to reign.
The air had become cool and crisp, nothing like the hot steam until then.
Scott whipped around to discover that the Arcanine was nowhere to be seen. Only an infinite stretch of grass and berry trees were there.
The desert around them had disappeared. The terrain was subtly similar to where they were before, but the desert had been replaced entirely by grassland and flowers.
The palm tree was in the same spot, a few hundred meters away, but looking very small compared to what it had been previously. It might have pushed out of the ground mere days ago.
In front of the palm was a sight that made Scott's heart truly race: a lake. A large body of water, in a location which corresponded with the pit at the desert. Moonlight was reflected on the surface of the beautiful liquid, bringing Scott a great peace of mind.
All in all, it looked as though Scott had literally run through time and into an earlier and more peaceful date. Scott was mesmerized by the beauty of this scene.
"What... what happened?" Scott whispered, again breathtaken.
"We entered a mystery dungeon." Mathias replied, his voice cracking. "This is Midsola Lake, an open-space, low-danger mystery dungeon... and since time is bungled up here, we're at about... I'd say lots of decades ago? Before... before the comet... Wow, we found a lake, didn't we...?" and he promptly collapsed on the spot, much to Scott's horror.
"Mathias! What's wrong? Mathias?" Scott shook his companion. No response.
It's a water-Pokémon thing, I guess. We're supposed to live near lakes and seas, places like that that dried up years ago.
Scott remembered these words. Mathias had said them at the settlement.
Mathias's breathing was becoming heavy and strained. He could only hope that the impossibly lucky lake would do Mathias some good.
Scott began the laborious task of dragging Mathias to the lake, which was still considerably far away. He could hear wild Pokémon all around him, could sense them-but nobody attacked, and he was thankful for it.
-Midsola Lake, Area 2-
The combined weight of the bag, the unconscious Mudkip, and the painful pounding on his bitten tail had taken their toll on Scott, but he had done it at last. They were right in front of the lake. Its surface rippled ever so slightly, a cool wind sweeping over it.
Now... what to do?
Despite his immediate impulse, throwing Mathias in the lake seemed impractical, not to mention dangerous. So instead, Scott cupped his hands and lowered them to the lake, filling them with the water(not a lot, considering his hands' size). The dip instantly gave his hand a kind of soothing and gentle relief, so intense that the rest of his body seemed to ache in comparison.
And without further ado, Scott carried that wonderful sensation over to Mathias and splashed his unconscious body with it.
Mathias shifted a little bit, but did not respond when Scott called his name. So Scott made two more trips of water splashing, and on the third, Mathias opened his eyes.
"...Night sky." he stated, naming the sky he was looking at.
"Are you okay?" Scott whispered, relieved that Mathias was fine.
"Yeah, I shouldn't have used water gun... I got dehydrated." Mathias said, quickly regaining composure. "And hey, you dragged me all the way here... I owe you one!"
"Hey, you saved me earlier, remember?" Scott smiled.
"Oh, right. So... we're even now?" Mathias grinned back.
"Even."
Some silence passed where the two water Pokémon just sat on the edge of the river, Mathias refilling his bottle from the lake, Scott drinking directly from it, both enjoying the moment.
"...So, the lake is here, filled with water." Scott said, breaking the quiet after having his thirst completely cured. "How often does that happen?"
"Like, never." Mathias laughed. "It's usually just a crater filled with Sandshrews."
"And... the Arcanine? Where did it go?" Scott asked.
"The more intelligent ferals know not to enter a dungeon." said Mathias. "The stupid ones just waltz in and get trapped... And the scary ones are the ones that come in of their own accord, for prey. That one was the first kind, I guessed. Lucky guess!"
Scott nodded, glad that it had indeed been a lucky guess, but shuddering internally at the thought of what would have happened if it was the last kind.
Mathias got up, and looked at Scott. "So, while we're here, we should go for a swim. Dungeon lakes don't happen all that often, you know. Get reinvigorated! We could cure your heat stroke completely..."
"Swim?" Scott repeated blankly.
"Yeah, swim. ...Did humans not know how to swim?" Mathias asked, astonished.
"No! We do that! Just...I don't." Scott mumbled.
"What is that supposed to mean?" Mathias said slowly.
"I can't swim." Scott blurted out. "I just remembered. I can't swim. I just can't."
Another length of silence, this time broken by a laugh.
Soon, Mathias was rolling around, laughing his guts out.
"Hey, what's so funny?" Scott groaned.
Mathias gathered himself. "Haha-oh...ha. Sorry. Just... you're a Squirtle. How can you not swim? The idea of that is... really strange."
"I... think I had bad times while trying to swim when I was a human. I can remember some stuff like that." Scott hung his head. "Great, I probably look really pathetic right now."
"Nah you don't. Not a lot, anyway. ...No, in fact, let's change that right now!" Mathias declared, grabbing Scott's hand.
"Wait, wha...AA...AAAAAA!"
Mathias, with sudden and surprising strength, had lifted Scott up like a plush toy and tossed him over to the lake.
Scott was not ready. The water was getting close. He had foggy memories of sinking into a cold abyss, and he did not like it one bit. The water was reflecting a scared and screaming Squirtle, hurtling towards it...
SPLASH.
In a cold explosion of water, every sound around him was muffled. It was like someone had suddenly stuffed his ears with large pillows.
And Scott was sinking like a rock, his limbs flailing around helplessly. He had gotten no time to take a breath for the dive. He would suffocate, trapped in the pressuring, suffocating mass crushing him, unable to float...
In his panic, he thought he saw Mathias whipping past his vision. He knew what was happening. He was now hallucinating and seeing his companion, the one who had so willingly trusted his humanity.
...No, it wasn't a hallucination. It was Mathias, zipping around him with surprising agility. Mathias gently nudged Scott righted him, stopping him from spinning around in uncontrolled circles. He made some hand gestures telling Scott to calm down. Reluctantly, he tried to, still thinking about how he would black out in moments from oxygen deprivation.
But it did not happen. On the contrary, he was fine. He was sure he had gulped some water by accident on his descent, so why was he so... at home?
Then he realized. He could breathe water.
Scott gestured his astonishment at this, and Mathias nodded wordlessly with a smile. He, as a water Pokémon, now had infinite oxygen while underwater, and Mathias was there to guide him. He could now fully appreciate the calming effect of water on his skin, around his body, soothing his tail and easing the pain of being bitten. He also noted his enhanced visibility in the water, the dim light hardly mattering in his ability to distinguish objects. He could count every fish in the lake with them easily. Around fifteen.
Mathias took Scott's hand once again, and started swimming. Scott trailed behind. He was not moving a muscle, yet Mathias was shooting past walls and rocks without any hindrance, swerving past a stray Magikarp stylishly, once even breaking the surface and doing a flip with Scott before diving again.
It was fun.
And Mathias let go.
Somehow, he was not panicking. Instead, he tried moving his legs. The way Mathias did it. With the slightest movement, he was propelled to great lengths. The use of arms in collaboration added to speed and control. His now-cured tail was great for delicate swerves. Soon, he and Mathias were circling around each other with enthusiasm. It was as though his Squirtle body was made for this, and this only.
He could have done this for hours more. For days. He wouldn't have complained if he had to live in the lake forever from then. As of that day, he had learned how to swim. And it was a glorious sensation.
After another loop-de-loop around Mathias, they propelled themselves to the surface. Their exiting speed was such that they shot out of the lake completely, landing right where Mathias had thrown Scott mere minutes ago with a soft thump.
They laid back on the grass, soaked to their bones and appreciating the temporary but glorious sight that was the moon instead of a comet in the sky. Scott personally thought that he would have liked it if time froze at this moment exactly, so he could savor it forever.
"That... was... AMAZING." Scott choked out after calming himself the best he could. "Can we do it again?"
"Nah, the Thing is going to expel us if we stay too long." Mathias said, a wide smile stuck on his face.
"And Doctor Nicole is already very upset, you two should come back already." a voice said behind them.
The two swimmers instinctively sprang to their feet and whipped around to see a Clefable with dreary eyes toting two bags, one of them Mathias's. She was grinning at them with a hint of exasperation.
"Have a nice swim?" she said, beckoning for them to follow.
-Midsola Lake, Area 3-
"...Uh, I can carry my own bag... if it's heavy..." Mathias said.
"Nah, it's fine." the Clefable replied, shaking her load of two bags a little.
"...Who are you? And how'd you find us?" Scott asked. He had seen this Clefable on their way out of the settlement, but he was sure she had gone in a different direction from them... How was she suddenly here and escorting them out of the dungeon?
"Coretta. Flame Fighter, Senior Seeker. I was going to find a lost Persim Band dropped at the Krooko Town dungeon, but then HQ had to make me, the only Seeker outdoors, find and return a Mudkip and a Squirtle to the settlement hospital." she rolled her eyes. "And I saw you kids heading out with me earlier, I knew where to go. That, and your shouting was very easy to hear, even for my ears. I changed course and followed your footsteps... beat up an Arcanine on the way... and here I am."
"Oh... right." Mathias said, looking guilty. "Is doc okay? I shouldn't have brought Scott along without telling her, sorry..."
"'Fraid she's having a near-seizure, but she'll be alright once we get back." Coretta said airily.
Meanwhile, Scott had many questions that had resurfaced after temporarily being quieted at the lake.
"So, Coretta... can I ask some questions while we go? I kind of have amnesia, I'd like to know some things..." He had decided not to mention his human bit to anyone else from now on, if he could help it. He doubted Coretta would believe it anyway, and there was no point even if she did.
"Sorry to hear, but fire away." she chirped.
"Well, first off... how'd you get the mission to find us?" Scott fired.
"This thing." Coretta said, holding up and tapping a sparkly thing she unpinned from her bag. It was a teardrop-shaped blue badge with wings. Scott recognized it as a Flame Fighter badge. "This thing lights up and vibrates when HQ wants to talk to us. Psychic Pokémon back at the base use the badges to tell us stuff telepathically. Its range is short, but it has its uses. Like right now, for example."
"Oh." Scott thought that those badges would be a nice thing to have. And he had another question. "...What are Seekers?"
"Eh, you know how Flame Fighters have different roles in the big scheme of things at least, right?"
Scott did not, but nodded anyway.
"Seekers are probably the most unimportant of them all." she rolled her eyes. "Four divisions. Defenders, Explorers, Restockers, and Seekers."
"Uh-huh." Scott responded, sidestepping a slumbering wild Rattata.
"Defenders are, well, defenders. They take position in and out of settlements, and are there to stop fire Pokémon from intruding and eating everyone. They're also in charge of inside problems as well, like sudden outbreaks of fighting or petty theft... they go on patrols around the place..."
"Fighting?" Scott repeated. "Do you guys fight each other?"
"We're a bunch of Pokémon confined to relatively small spaces, there's bound to be some trouble." she stated matter-of-factly. "Just everyday friction. And occasionally, a showdown caused by the only Zangoose in the settlement meeting the one and only Seviper in a corridor. That was a mess."
"...Yeah, that would have been a mess." Scott agreed.
"Next. Explorers do just that, exploring. They explore unknown areas, new mystery dungeons, and record possible locations for water and food. They tell other divisions about their finds so they can utilize the knowledge. Their ultimate goal is finding out the reason the comet stopped in the sky. Not much progress in that regard, but they try hard.
"And... next was... oh yeah, Restockers. They go to places where the Explorers found resources and secure them for their settlement's citizens. That's the point, Explorers don't touch the loot, they just mark them on a map so that Restockers can get them. And, if you didn't know, Flame Fighters are tied to their settlements. For example, I'm part of the Indigo Flame Fighters.
"Seekers..." Coretta had a sudden coughing fit before resuming her talking. "Seekers are-"
"I can explain, if you're tired..." Mathias suggested.
"I'm fine, Mathias." she insisted. "As I was saying, Seekers are like an awkward mix of Explorers and Restockers, and toned down a lot. We locate lost items, lost Pokémon, and escort Pokémon from one Settlement to another when the occasion arises. That's it. We only go to known locations. Nothin' that interesting, and not much fighting if we stay stealthy. No real exploring either, that's up to the Explorers."
"And you said you were... a Senior Seeker? What does that mean?" Scott asked with renewed caution at her grumbling tone.
"Means I've done the job a lot and am good at it." Coretta said shortly. "...And there's an unofficial fifth division, Recruits. Recruits are rookies who just applied, and they can do easy missions from all divisions. When they get good at it, they can choose from the four divisions and main one. And that's about it."
"Okay. Thanks for telling me, Coretta." Scott said, his mind already pondering what would be the best division for him, if he ever had to decide... it would probably never happen, but he always had strange ideas like them.
"No problemo, Squirtle. ...Ah, we're out!"
-Skoebar Desert-
The sky abruptly blinked into red, the moon disappearing to be replaced by the Trail of Moltres, the comet which frozen in place for thirty years and had been plaguing millions of Pokémons' lives.
To Scott's displeasure, the cool and crisp atmosphere of the lake had also reverted to the heat waves of the desert. The water left over on his body from the swim seemed to have evaporated instantly upon exiting the dungeon.
"You know the drill, right?" Coretta said, taking her badge out.
"Hey, couldn't we have used the teleport feature in the dungeon?" Scott inquired. "That would have been a lot less bother."
"Scott, mystery dungeons are big time-space anomalies." Mathias replied. "Trying to teleport inside one... wouldn't be pretty. We could end up inside the dirt or in the middle of the clouds... maybe even in the past..."
"Mathias is right." Coretta confirmed. "So... we going or not? I'd have no regrets, but doc would actually die from shock if I said I left you to rot here..."
So without further ado, Scott awkwardly clung to the Clefable with Mathias. She raised the badge to the cloudless sky, and the sensation of weightlessness once again flooded Scott's body. He glanced one last time at the solitary palm, looking decades old and standing alone in front of a crater of sand, before the storm of colors engulfed his vision.
-Indigo Flame Fighters Base-
Once the light had faded, they were standing in the middle of a roomy stone space, surrounded by Pokémon of various size and type, none of which paid them much attention. There were a lot of stone desks where Pokémon worked with their backs turned to them, drawing maps and talking to each other seriously. A giant flag with the same winged teardrop from the badge adorned the wall.
"...Hi, Coretta." a Buizel came along and said, looking at her tagalongs. "Are these the kids that went missing?"
"Yup, found them at Midsola Lake. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get them back to the hospital and go back out to get that Persim Band." Coretta sighed.
"Of course, er, go ahead." the Buizel mumbled, making way. Then his eyes locked with Mathias. "...Well, lookie who we have here! Mathias! That Mudkip who made off with an amnesiac was you! Sneaking out again?"
"Barry, don't tell Marcel I'm here now, I'll be skinned alive-" Mathias pleaded, but it was too late.
"MARCEL! MARCEL, MATHIAS IS BACK!" Barry shouted.
Mathias groaned.
And quite suddenly, a Marshtomp emerged from the crowd of Fighters, looking quite... murderous.
"WHAT," he growled, making Mathias squeak. "DID I SAY," he stomped forward to his brother, quieting the room and making a nearby Flaaffy faint. "ABOUT LEAVING THE SETTLEMENT?"
"Don't?" Mathias whispered, cowering beneath Marcel's intimidating figure. Scott backed away to Coretta, who silently covered his ears and folded hers.
"I TOLD YOU TO NOT LEAVE, NEVER, BUT NO! YOU TAKE MY BADGE WHEN I'M OFF-DUTY, STROLL ALONG AND 'RESCUE' A SQUIRTLE AND CRAWL BACK, AND GO OUTSIDE AGAIN WHEN MY BACK'S TURNED?" Coretta's ear-covering did not do anything for him, as Scott could hear every syllable quite clearly. "THEN YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO LOOK AFTER YOUR SUPPOSED 'RESCUEE', BUT NO, YOU TAKE THE PATIENT OUT WITH YOU! OUT TO ARCEUS KNOWS WHERE, A MIRACLE YOU WEREN'T TURNED INTO MUDKIP BARBECUE!"
Mathias made a noise that sounded like eep, but it only enraged Marcel further.
"I TOLD YOU NOT TO LEAVE! IS THAT NOT ENOUGH FOR YOU? I'VE LOST COUNT! HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU NOT TO LEAVE, I LOST COUNT! HOW CAN A SINGLE MUDKIP BE SO IGNORANT?"
The entire room went silent. Barry looked horrified by the result of his actions.
Marcel breathed deeply, seeming to regret his outburst. "...You... come to my quarters later. I'm not done with you." And he turned and left, leaving a petrified Mudkip and a cold silence in his wake.
"Let's get you to Doc." Coretta whispered to Scott, and went to Mathias. She scooped the motionless Pokémon up and exited, Scott following right behind.
"...Barry, you should learn to shut your muzzle sometimes." a Flygon advised to him once the base had started talking again.