Since last chapter was fairly short, I decided to make 2 today. I might (a very small might) make one later tonight.

Oh, and these chapters do have plenty of references in them. If you spot any, send a review in. For starters, Chapter 03 has one near the end. If you catch it, I'll give you a cookie.

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Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: The Shroud of Darkness

Chapter 09 – Makeshift Asylum

After Tim ran into the ruins, we just stood there for a second, somewhat surprised at this recent turn of events.

"I believe it would be in our best interests to make an escapade into the ruins once more to retrieve our comrade," the Chatot eventually said.

"Chance, you took the words right out of my mouth!" exclaimed the Machop.

"Waiting won't solve anything, Rose. We simply must follow him," cawed the Chatot, who we know knew to be Chance. He then swooped into the ruins after his teammate.

We soon followed suit.

When we got inside, the first thing I saw was a golden mask glittering in front of my head. I looked up, and saw the Yamask that the mask belonged to.

"Ni! Why you here?"

Amanda snickered behind me.

"Uh…" I began uneasily, "someone just sprinted in here, we'd like to find him, if you don't mind?"

"No one come in, all stay out, all but hero. Ni!"

I gave a despairing look to the Yamask before turning to our new companions. "Anyone know what the heck he's talking about?"

"Ni!" barked the Yamask unexpectedly, "you hero, you come in. All else stay."

"But, wha-" I had time to choke out before I was escorted (none too lightly) by a small army of Yamask.

"We wait long for you, now you here. We protect temple for you, we help you. Ni!"

I have no idea why he ended every sentence with ni, but whatever.

"What are you talking about?"

"Ah, hero forget. This is fine, we help you remember. Ni ni!"

"Remember wha-"

Again, I was interrupted; this time, by a frying pan.

"Ow, what was that for?"

"Ni! You remember now?"

"No, that just hurt."

"Good, you remember. You remember pain. Ni!"

This guy needed a jacket; the straighter, the better.

"Now, you pass test, you help world. Ni!"

Some part of my mind piped up then: But I didn't study!

About then, the Yamask gave a simultaneous "Ni!" and shoved me into a pit I didn't even know was there.

"Ni! You use rock to get up, and we get you to friend. Ni!"

Use rock…what?

I saw no rocks down here. In fact, the only stones in the pit were the sandstone bricks that made up this place. Was I supposed to climb up them?

No, definitely not, the guys who made this did a very good job. The stones were locked together tightly. How in the heck was I supposed to get out of here? I tried moving a stone out with my bone, but to no avail. I stayed down there for a while, trying several times to climb it, but to no avail. My mind thought around for a while, and stumbled across something. I thought back a bit, to that first mission by the Spaghetti Bowl where the rock had flown across the hole and stuck to my hand. In fact, I still had that rock somewhere. Then I thought about the second trip there, when the rock suddenly flew at that Houndour, knocking him clean out. The memory of the dream of the lady who said my power was awake came to mind, as well as the wall of stone. Suddenly, my mind clicked together the pieces, and an idea came to mind: I wonder if I could move these…

I focused on the stone in front of me, willing it to come forward. A few minutes passed, and I realized the stone was doing absolutely nothing. I tried calling upon some force within me, but I just couldn't seem to find it. Irritated, I figured if I was inside my head I could find it easily.

I thought of the door of fire in my mind. I figured either that was my body heat, or it was the battery for this power I might have.

Trying to focus on that, I tried again. It wasn't until I slammed my fist into the wall in frustration that anything happened. The block I hit went scooting backwards a little. An idea formed. Placing my palms – or at least I think I had palms – on the stone, I focused again, this time pulling my hands away from the stone.

To my utmost surprise, it moved. I stared at the block for a few seconds before I whooped in accomplishment.

About then, I heard some angry sounding "Ni!"'s from up above. Sliding a few more blocks so I could get out, I ran up the staircase I made to see what was going on.

All I saw were my teammates, the other team, and a wall of angry blackness. Looking off to the side, I saw Tim, huddled in a corner whimpering. I made a mad dash towards him, grabbed him, and ran towards everyone else.

"Guys, I got him. Let's get out of here!" I yelled at them.

The Yamask looked stunned for a second, which was all the time I needed to get my little hiny out of there. Everyone else followed suit. As soon as everyone was out of the ruins, I suddenly thought of the Yamask, possibly following us out of there. So, as sort of a coup de grace, as Amanda would say, I mustered all my might and caused a big chunk of the ceiling to fall in front of the doorway, blocking exit to the ruins.

"What in the ****?" Amanda shouted, "Where the crap did that block come from?"

I acted surprised as well, to not set off any bells.

Suddenly, the Electrike from my back piped up, "Uh, can you let me down?"

I obliged.

"Ah, Timothy," cajoled Chance, "I was deeply afraid we would not see you again, but alas we are alive and well!"

"Chance," piped up the Vibrava, "do you always talk like that?"

Timothy shot her a dirty look. "Serena, don't make fun of other Pokémon."

"Oh fine," she conceded.

Amanda then wheeled around to me and popped the question, "So how did you get out of that hole anyway?"

I paused only a moment to come up with a suitable answer.

"I found a hidden stairway."

She didn't seem completely convinced, but she went with it.

Rose spoke up for the first time in a while, "Shouldn't we be headed home?"

We all agreed, and started back for town together. As it turned out, we lived in the same general area; they just lived on the other end of town, so we didn't see much of each other.

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As soon as we got back, I checked in with Katie. She, as luck would have it, had just been admitted out of the hospital the day prior, but had stayed there as she had nowhere else to be.

Mido, however, caught wind of this, and immediately went to Ian to ask if she could stay here. I helped Mido, though, as I felt some feeling towards her. It wasn't romance, I knew what that was, it was…different. I couldn't place it, but I just knew that we had to be near one another. Ian was happy to have her, and she joined in the next day. For the next week or so, I helped get her combat-ready. We also spent that week explaining things to her, as she remembered next to nothing. I also told Amanda in secret that Katie was once human as well. She didn't have a massive reaction to this, just sort of a "Eh, okay" type attitude. The only other thing that really happened during this week of not doing much was I remembered a language I'd forgotten previously: German. I used it too. In fact, Amanda started yelling at me for doing something stupid and I yelled back at her that "deine Mutter ist eine Erdferkel." (You Mother was an Aardvark)

She replied that "Vous avez l'intelligence d'une fille scolaire japonais" (You're as smart as a Japanese School Girl)

We went back and forth like this for a minute, not understanding the other's insults, while Mido and Katie were staring at us like we'd gone mad. Would've been interesting seeing it from an outside perspective, just seeing the two of us yelling at each other in a language the other didn't understand. Eventually, the last insult hurled, we stood glaring at each other for the space of a few seconds. Then, we busted out laughing.

"I couldn't even tell what you were saying!" I gasped.

"Me neither!" she heaved.

*sigh*…good times.

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So, a week passed, and at the end of that week we got a mission. The gist of it said that we needed to escort a Pokémon in need to the hospital. Not a bad mission, I suppose. We packed up, Katie receiving help from Mido on how to pack, and set off.

Our destination wasn't too far, fortunately, so the going was fairly easy. The place we were at was near the desert we'd been at last week, where there were Mesas and Arches…It was pretty stuff. Then, Katie cracked a joke out of nowhere.

"Mido."

"What?"

"Want to know how to get the ladies?"

"Wh…uh, I guess?"

"Just take them to the mesa's, it's the highest form of flattery."

I about died laughing there. In fact, my sided ached for a few minutes after that. Everyone else got it…kind of. I had gotten it immediately, and man that was funny.

(The audio scratches and muffles for a bit, before returning to its former state.)

Hello, is this thing working? Hello?

….

Ah, here we go, that's what was wrong. Okay, back to the story.

So we walked out a bit further and found a Tyrogue carrying a Bagon on his back. The Bagon looked as if he'd seen better days; for starters, he had a big clout of blood on the side of his head. He was bloody, scratched, and barely conscious. We wasted no time in getting him back. The doctor was on us as soon as we walked through that door.

I'll admit, I was worried for the guy, so I waited at the hospital, and I waited, and waited…waited…waited…

Little did I know that the forces of darkness were still gathering…

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Oops. Guess my dividers didn't make it into the story. Sorry about that.

In apology, I made this chapter, which is easily one of the longest I've yet made.

And, there's a new Cover! It's not quite finished, so expect another update to it so it's better.

Anyway, onto Reeevieweeeerrr's Coorrrrnerrrr!

pokemonkatia168757: You reading reviews? I like reading your story! Nice chapter, it's getting very interesting! :-)

Yes, of course I read your reviews. In fact, you're probably the reason you got this second chapter, since that review just made me even happier than before. Also, thanks for keeping up, I appreciate it. As far as the story goes…yeah crap just got real.

Anyway, I haven't gotten any questions for the characters yet, so there's no section for it yet.

Also, what do you guys think of that Bagon, eh?

So, hope you guys have a lovely day, and I'll see you later.

- JacobDaGun