C h a p t e r 5

The second "floor" of the Sunlit Meadow proved to be much of the same as Floor 1. They saw several more feral Pokemon, which were quickly defeated through the combined efforts of Sapphire and Singe. After being defeated, most of the feral Pokemon scurried away, giving Sapphire a sense of pride in how the feral Pokemon were already beginning to fear her, even thought the feral Pokemon were quite weak. However, as she learned, there were limits to how much she was allowed to do.

"I've got this one," Sapphire told Singe as they entered a room to find a Rattata lying in wait. Singe nodded, sitting back and watching as Sapphire took a step forward.

"Come on," Sapphire growled, giving the Rattata a challenging motion with her stubby fingers. The Rattata let out a shrill cry and sprang forward. Sapphire moved to the side, slicing the Rattata on the side with a glancing Scratch. The Rattata let out a screech of anger, charging forward again. It moved more quickly than Sapphire expected, succeeding in knocking her to the ground. Its sharp fangs struck, biting into her tender nose. Sapphire screamed in pain, then struck the Rattata with a second Scratch, sending it flying, taking a bit of her nose with it.

Sapphire touched her throbbing nose gently; her hand came away stained with red. Anger crackled over her scales, and she advanced upon the fallen Rattata, which laid on its side moving feebly. Blood oozes from several small gashes on its side where her claws had penetrated through its soft purple fur.

"You little—" she snarled, only to blink in surprise as she found Singe standing between her and the Rattata.

"What are you doing? Get out of the way," she growled.

"You can't hurt it, Sapphire, it's beaten," Singe said. "Come on, we've got Cookie to save."

"Look what it did to my nose!" Sapphire exclaimed, pointing to her bloody snout. "The little rat is going to pay!"

"You beat it, Sapphire, that's punishment enough. For ferals, it's the worst thing that can happen to them, being at the mercy of an invading Pokemon that is much stronger than them. It's like being face-to-face with a predator; that's why they hate us so much. They're terrified that someday the civilized Pokemon might decide to claim their home once and for all." He glanced over his shoulder at the Rattata, which was struggling to get to its paws and run away. "Legend teams are here to help, not kick Pokemon that are already down and terrified. We're here to preserve the peace, and that is why we show them mercy."

Sapphire let out an irritated breath through her nose, then sighed; the aching in her nose was already disappearing and it was no longer bleeding, thanks to the dungeon's strange powers. "Fine," she said gruffly, brushing past him and heading into the next hallway. She didn't hear his footsteps behind her, and she turned to see him actually carrying the beaten creature towards the grass. "What are you doing?"

"He won't make it back into the grass himself, and it's dangerous to leave him here. Predators prey on beaten Pokemon like him, ones that can't get away. He'll be safe in the grass," Singe called. He reached into the seemingly impenetrable grass, keeping his own two feet firmly on the dusty ground as he laid the Rattata down. As soon as Singe moved back, the grass sprang up, shielding the Rattata from view.

Sapphire could only shake her head at his softness. "You didn't do that for the first Rattata I beat," she pointed out.

"We were near a Flagstone then, I knew the grass would spring up again when we got to the next floor, and he'd be safe," Singe said, breaking into a trot to catch up. "We haven't found the Flagstone here yet, and we have no idea where it is."

"Don't we have a map for this, or something?" Sapphire complained. Singe blinked in surprise, as if he'd remembered something. He opened their item pouch and rooted around inside, finally appearing with a strange piece of paper. On one side, it showed a strange-looking picture; looking closer, Sapphire saw that it was a landmass surrounded by water, dotted with strange landforms and little notes scrawled over the page.

Singe flipped the paper over, and smiled. "Here we go," he said, pointing at it. Sapphire leaned over for a better look.

"This is the layout of the dungeon, everything we've seen so far!" she exclaimed. "There's Floor 1…and here's Floor 2!" She stared at him. "What is this? Why didn't we have this earlier? This would have been useful when we were running in circles…look, right there!" She pointed to a hallway that ended in an odd square circle, through which Sapphire and Singe had gone three times before realizing they weren't making any progress.

Singe flushed with embarrassment. "I kind of, um, forgot…but these come with every item bag thingie. This one was at the very very bottom, though, and they're deeper than they look…anyway, it's called a Wonder Map, because—"

"It's wonderous and you don't know how it works?" Sapphire asked dryly. Singe gave a sheepish nod.

"It's another one of those weird things that happens with mystery dungeons. Outside of this dungeon, this side of the map will be completely blank. But inside, we get the layout of everything we've seen so far, like there's a Pidgey's-eye view of our journey. And here—" he flipped the map over, showing the landmass, "is the map of our whole region. See all these weird landmasses that normally wouldn't be on an island? The Legendary made those so every Pokemon could live here and be happy. There are villages and dungeons scattered near almost all of them."

"Does the region have a name?" Sapphire asked. Singe shook his head.

"Naming a region…that's sort of a human thing. See, we name towns and cities and stuff; they're ours, and we made them. And we name mystery dungeons too, because then everyone knows which one you're talking about; it's a lot easier to say 'Sunlit Meadow' than 'that mystery dungeon in a meadow that's kind of near that little village called Dewdum'. But the region…well, everyone knows what that is, and it's the entire land; we didn't make it, and we don't own it. So it doesn't have a name. It's just our home."

Sapphire nodded; it made sense in a sort of animalistic earthy kinda way, which she supposed fit Pokemon just fine.

"So, this map comes in handy," she said. "What about the other dungeons? I only see the Sunlit Meadow on here." She pointed to it on the map, a tiny golden dot next to a green dot that she guessed represented Dewdum. Dewdum was smaller than she'd expected, compared to the rest of the region; it was tucked away in a small forest.

"We've only been to Sunlit Meadow, you see, so that's all it has recorded," Singe explained. "Wonder Maps will only record dungeons that you've been too. Of course, other Pokemon can sometimes alter the map to show you a dungeon without you having to go there; Psychics like Magnus are good at that sort of thing. Luke too, because he uses the map's aura and changes it."

"And even with that, he doesn't understand how they work?" Sapphire asked. "How do the people in charge of all this stuff make them."

"They're called the Legend League, and I honestly don't know," Singe admitted. "The Legend League really doesn't talk about this stuff much, but I've asked Skylar where he gets his badge and item bags. He says they come in the mail, usually a few days before a new team signs up, like they're waiting for their new owners."

Sapphire shivered. "That's kinda creepy."

"Or miraculous, depending on how you look at it," Singe said brightly. "Now, let's look here…." He poured over the map, tracing their current route with his finger. "Ah, I see. We shouldn't go down this hall, it will probably be a dead end."

Sapphire peered down at the map. "Why?"

"Well, see these two dots? Those are us," Singe said, pointing with his finger. "And we're almost at the edge of the map; that means we're at the end of the dungeon on this side. And we're in the lower corner, so we can't go down. We can only go up, but there was a hallway to our left before, and that will probably go up instead."

Sapphire nodded, seeing the logic; she glanced over the map again, noting how Floor 1's layout was half the size of Floor 2's, and had moved into the corner rather than the center of the page.

Floor 2's will do the same when we get to Floor 3, so we have more space, she realized. I wonder how it handles longer dungeons? How long can dungeons get?

She blinked, realizing that Singe had already started walking again, moving back into the Rattata room.

"I thought I was the leader," she growled to him. Singe just flashed her a grin, stepping aside as they entered the room and allowing her to move into the next hallway first.

She strode into the next room, tense; behind her, Singe laughed. She glanced towards him, a quizzical look on her face.

"There's a Flagstone in this room; it shows up as a little blue square, see?" he pointed towards it on the map.

"What's the point in that? I can see it, it's right there."

"Hang on!" Singe exclaimed. "Once you hit a Flagstone, the floor will start to disappear. Let's grab these items first, okay?"

"Items?"

"These blue dots here are items," Singe said, "They're easy to see in a field or cave, but hard in a forest, so they're useful. Come on, let's go find them."

He trotted forward, towards a clump of bushes. Sapphire quickly followed him, watching as he rifled through the bushes.

"Oh, good, this is a Pecha bush!" Singe exclaimed. "My favorite!"

Sapphire pushed through the bush, to see him stuffing the berries into his mouth. She frowned, and he blushed, embarrassed. He swallowed the mouthful of berries, coughed awkwardly, and placed a few of the soft pink berries into the item bag.

"Ahem. Sorry. I'm just so hungry…we haven't eaten at all today, you know?"

Sapphire stomach rumbled, and she grimaced. Slowly, she picked one of the berries, placing it on her tongue nervously, fearing what it might taste like.

It seemed to melt on her tongue, and unimaginable sweetness – almost too much, really – burst into her mouth. She blinked in surprise, and swallowed quickly.

"Great, aren't they?" Singe asked, his voice almost a purr. Sapphire gave a little shrug.

"They're very, um, sweet. Which I guess is okay…." Sapphire trailed off as Singe rolled his eyes at her.

"More for me," he grinned. "Go and see if you can find these other items, I think they're over there." He waved his hand to the right. Sapphire's eyes narrowed at being ordered around, but she waddled off in the direction he'd indicated.

Several large trees dotted the right side of the room, along with some smaller bushes. She inspected the bushes curiously, but they didn't appear to have any berries on their branches. Frowning, she looked up into the tree branches, and her eyes widened. The tree was positively laden with big, beautiful, gleaming apples. Her mouth began to water at the very sight of them, and her stomach gave a feral growl.

She tried to hook her little claws into the bark, but her arms weren't strong enough to pull herself into the tree. She frowned, then gripped the thin trunk and shook it with all her might. A round apple landed on her head, right on the top, and she fell backwards, momentarily stunned. A second fell into her lap, and several more full, juicy apples fell to the ground.

Sapphire grabbed the apple, hunger overwhelming the thought of Singe, who was probably equally hungry, as berries were not very filling. She bit into it, her heart pounding at the sweet crunch and eyes widening as the juice filled her mouth. She let out a quiet sigh of absolute bliss, taking another bite. The apple disappeared entirely with her third bite, but she felt oddly full. She let out a loud burp, and patted her stomach; she was not completely full, but the apple had definitely taken the edge off of her hunger.

She heaved herself to her feet, and attempted to gather the fallen apples. It proved to be hard word; her stubby arms were not suitable for holding the large apples, and they were slick against her scales, so she could not attempt to hold them against her sides. She let out a frustrated growl as she dropped one apple while attempting to pick up another, for the umpteenth time.

She heard a laugh behind her, and saw that Singe was watching.

"Come over here and help me," she growled; he hastened to obey. He seemed strangely cheerful, despite being in a strange place where no one seemed to quite understand the rules, surrounded by feral Pokemon trying to kill them.

"You saved some of those berries for us, I hope?"

Singe nodded quickly. "And left two still on the bush, of course."

Sapphire dropped the apples she'd managed to hold onto into Singe's bag. It dropped slightly from the weight, but not nearly as much as it should have, laden with so many items.

"More Palkia-space-stuff," Singe said, answering her questioning glance. "The bags are a lot bigger inside than out, but the gravity is different or something, so they don't seem to weigh as much."

Sapphire shrugged; none of this really seemed to make sense, and how a bag worked was the least of her problems.

"Well, we've got full bellies and plenty of berries; looks like we're ready to blow this popsicle stand," Singe said cheerily.

"You can do the honors," Sapphire said, and Singe strode towards the Flagstone, letting out an excited giggle as it sank under his weight. The grass wall in front of them gave way to a new path; quickly, Singe and Sapphire hurried into it, watching Floor 2 disappear behind them.

"Well, looks like we're onto Floor 3," Singe said. "Let's go!"

. . .

Floor 3 was almost exactly like Floor 2, except on this floor they found a Sleep seed (it appeared that the names of seeds was entirely self-explanatory) as well as a bush of Oran berries. Oran berries, however, seemed to be common, for the bush was positively full of the blue berries; it turned out to be lucky, when Singe had a nasty encounter with a rather fierce Pidgey.

"How long is this dungeon?" Sapphire asked as Singe gulped down the blue berry; his scales almost seemed to shine, and it was as if weeks were flashing before her eyes as the Pidgey's slash across Singe's stomach healed itself. Singe let out a relieved sigh, rubbing his stomach where the wound had been.

"Well, there are five big floors like this," he said, "and then the final floor, which is really just one room. It's where the boss is."

"So we've got to get to Floor 6?"

Singe laughed. "No. Jigglypuff said she thought Cookie was there, but I doubt it…it's a mother's worst nightmare, her kid making it to the very end of a dungeon; she probably just thought the worst. Cookie's probably on the next floor; I'm sure our badge will shine."

"It had better," Sapphire said, with a glance towards the sky. "It's almost sundown, our badge will teleport us away, right?"

Singe nodded. "It's set to get us out of here at sunset, right, but it'll give us a choice before it actually does it; the teleporting is really just a precaution for if we get lost. We've got as much time as we need."

"What if we faint?"

"The badge is synced to our life-force; if we're in danger of dying, it'll teleport us away."

Sapphire's eyes widened. "Dying? Like, as in, floating-in-heaven-with-the-angels-and-harps dying?"

"Harps are those stringy things, right? You use your fingers?" Singe asked curiously. "But what's an angel?"

Sapphire sighed quietly. "Never mind, Singe, just never mind." She waddled into the next hallway, Singe trotting along behind her.

"Flagstone in this room," Singe announced as they entered a new room; Sapphire glanced around, spotting the gray stone quickly.

"Items?" she asked, and Singe shook his head. Sapphire walked towards the Flagstone, stepping on it and hearing the familiar click. She and Singe rushed towards the new floor – Singe informed her that if they stayed too long after pushing a Flagstone, the grass would actually spring up around them – and entered Floor 4.

Sapphire smirked, feeling smug; they already had the hang of this whole operation, it seemed like. She turned towards Singe, expecting to see the same feeling on his face, but the Charmander seemed worried as he glanced down at the badge hanging on their bag.

"What is it?" Sapphire asked, cocking her head to one side. Singe shook himself.

"Nothing, let's go," he said quickly. Sapphire shrugged to herself, and waddled away.

. . .

"That was awesome!" Singe cheered, as Sapphire took down two Pidgeys at once, sending them both squawking and flying away. "Way to go, Sapphire! You're definitely getting stronger. I bet you'll be able to use Water Gun soon!"

"I squirt water out of my mouth then, right?" Sapphire asked, her voice practically a purr; she was already feeling much more powerful than she had in Dewdum. It was as though the mystery dungeon was her element; her heart seemed to beat rapidly while she was inside, the blood pounding in her ear (holes), every scale tingling with the excitement of battle even when there were no foes to face.

"You summon your inner water powers, yeah," Singe said. His face was split in a grin. "I bet you get the hang of it in no time. Why not try it now?"

"Okay," Sapphire said slowly, patting her belly as if there might be an inner pouch of water somewhere. Singe laughed.

"Unlike a Fire type, your element isn't actually inside of you," he said. "You Water types take the water in the air around you and condense it. You're stronger around real bodies of water, because you can draw from them, and you can even use the clouds above to help. Fire types do have the advantage of being able to use their powers everywhere except underwater, but the only thing that gives us a boost is extreme heat."

"So…how do I do it, then?" Sapphire asked.

"You've got to focus your energy, just like you would using Scratch. Only this time, you have to feel your energy building inside of you, building and building until you can feel it pulse. And then you kind of…pull it out of yourself, I guess, force it out, and it will appear as water. Or, that's how Fire types like myself use Ember…although I haven't been able to master it, ha…." Singe sweatdropped. "It's a lot harder to train against leaves and rocks and stuff, you don't get strong nearly as fast…but I wasn't strong enough to come in here by myself. Or brave enough, I guess. But with you…." He flushed.

Sapphire wasn't paying attention; she was trying to focus on the energy in her stomach.

Focus, she thought to herself. Focus…feel it build in your stomach…building, building…yes, I think I feel something! Her scales prickled with excitement. Build…build…a little premature, but let's try to release!

She opened her mouth ready to let the water burst forward. Instead, a massive burp shook her entire body, as the 'energy' she'd build inside of her burst forward, giving off a faint smell of apple. Embarrassed, she clamped her jaws shut as Singe laughed.

He stifled his giggles as he saw her expression. "Don't feel bad, Sapphire," he said, a chuckle still in his voice, "I nearly set Libby on fire when I tried using Ember the first time. She was foraging, and very, ah, not pleased…." He rubbed his side, where Sapphire could see three faint scars, roughly the width of a Glameow's claws.

"Come on, let's go," she growled, breaking into an awkward little trot.

"Another Flagstone," Singe announced as they entered the room. "An item over there, I'll go get it."

Sapphire smirked. "These dungeons are so small; they aren't as hard as I thought."

"Not all of them are that size," Singe said, returning with a seed clutched in his hand. "Palkia made bigger dungeons for the more dangerous ones, so they'd be satisfied with their confinements instead of trying to break out and continue their assault on the civilized Pokemon. Go on, push it."

Sapphire did so, and the two of them headed into the next floor. Singe stared at the badge, and paled as it didn't glitter.

"What's the matter?" Sapphire asked, frowning at him. "You look oddly gloomy. We're almost finished, right?"

"The badge didn't glow…Cookie really is on Floor 6," Singe whispered. Sapphire realized he was trembling.

"What's the matter with that? What's wrong?"

"Sapphire…every dungeon is ruled by a boss. This boss is the strongest feral Pokemon in the whole dungeon. They're dangerous, completely ruthless. They'll kill anything that gets in their way."

"So you're worried about Cookie? Because she's there with it?" Sapphire asked, a knot of anxiety forming in her stomach.

"Well, yes, of course I'm worried about that…but remember what I said from before, Sapphire? How the feral Pokemon are scared of us? Well, bosses aren't. They think we're trying to take their territory whenever we come in here…and they'll never give it up, not when they have every other feral Pokemon in the dungeon depending on them. You see, what sets bosses apart is that they'll fight to the death. Floating-in-heaven-with-the-angels-and-harps death."

AN: Now, there are 30+ of you all reading this story, so a few reviews now and again would be appreciated! Thanks oodles to those that have, but those that haven't should be shamied.