A/N: Man I'm really sorry this is getting dragged out for so long. The reason I was able to upload so many chapters at the start was that it was my gap year, which it obviously is not anymore. I hope at least some people are still following this.

––

"So then after that, she wanted to sneak off to Romani Ranch and go Miltank tipping," Torterra said as he emerged from the water after swimming beneath the dragon cloud, seemingly not noticing the half-drowned Pichu and Clefairy clinging to his back. "I was opposed to the idea, but about five sake bombs later and she had me convinced. Everything after that is kind of a blur."

"You know, I take it back. I was happier when I didn't know how you knew Vaporeon," said Clefairy.

"Ah, lo and behold. We have arrived!" said the Torterra. Pichu and Clefairy looked and saw they had been brought to the entrance of the Great Bay Temple. "Now go, brave hero, and purge the evil in this temple. And stop defacing my tree."

"What? Oh, fine," Pichu griped, tossing aside the chisel he'd been using to carve something obscene into the trunk of the tree. "C'mon C-Money, let's get this over with."

"We haven't even started and I'm already miserable," Clefairy groaned, hugging herself and shivering. "We're both soaking wet. At this rate we're going to die of hypothermia before you get us killed some other way."

"Oh, I'll take care of that! HIYAAAAAAAA!" Pichu roared, generating a broiling wave of Sacred Fire that simultaneously lit all the torches in front of the door, also severely burning Clefairy and turning all the crates and barrels in the room into ash.

"Thank you, you've burned all my nerve endings so I can't feel cold anymore. You know that destructive streak of yours is going to bite you in the ass before you know it," said Clefairy.

"Oh come on. Like how?" Pichu scoffed, kicking open the chest that had appeared only to be greeted by a Stray Fairy that jumped out and latched onto his face. "Oh. Like that. Well just so long as there's no more water for the rest of the temple – " Pichu walked through the door and saw the room on the other side was flooded with water. "Suicune damnit."

"Whoa! That's a huge waterwheel!" Clefairy gasped, looking up above their heads. Sure enough, there was a very large waterwheel rotating up above their heads, its axle extending through the wall and into the next room. It was being turned by the water shooting out of a large yellow waterspout on the right side of the room. There was another yellow one behind it and red one on the left side of the room, but they were currently inactivated. Not to mention there was a bunch of yellow and red pipes snaking across the walls and through the doorway on the far end.

"Well, clearly it was too much to ask for a water dungeon with no water mechanics," Clefairy sighed. "Well Pichu, we have to turn on that yellow one in the back to get across the room. Let's hop to it."

"I'M KIND OF PREOCCUPIED!" snapped Pichu, who was still frantically trying to pry the Stray Fairy off his face. He staggered past Clefairy and finally fell off the platform they were standing on and into the water, where he was accosted by another Stray Fairy that burst out of its bubble and also latched onto him.

"This would be funnier if it weren't a waste of my time as well as yours," said Clefairy, pulling him out of the water. Pichu eventually made it across the room by putting on his Dewott Mask, turning a large yellow switch underwater that activated the second waterspout, then jumping on top of the water from a high ledge and crossing over to the door.

"Woah," he said once he saw what was on the other side. It was an enormous metal pit completely filled with water, with a bunch of underwater tunnels branching off in every direction. The axle of the waterwheel was turning a huge underwater fan, its massive blades churning the water into an incredibly strong current.

"Ahhh, so the waterwheel is turning that huge fan. This explains everything. …Wait, no it doesn't. This explains nothing. What the hell is all this stuff even doing here? I thought temples were supposed to be places of worship or something, what does any of this have to do with anything religious?!"

Sensing his Great Fairy Mask, another Stray Fairy came exploding out of a nearby barrel and tackled him, sending him screaming into the water. He was sent swirling around and around and unable to stop, only for another Stray Fairy to emerge from a pot on the very bottom of the pit and latch onto him as well.

"Hey Pichu, you missed one," said Clefairy as she entered the room holding yet another Stray Fairy, only to gaze into the water in time to watch Pichu swirling around the periphery and frantically flailing as he fought off four fairies at once. "Hmm. It would appear I caught him at a bad time."

Pichu was finally sent hurtling through one of the tunnels, flying into the room on the other side and crashing his head against the metal wall before slumping to the ground.

"Owww… wow, I'm glad that's over with. Good thing I can somehow breathe and talk down here despite Dewotts not having gills and whatnot. Now, where do I go next?"

He looked up and saw the entrance to yet another tunnel up above his head, which was guarded by a pair of Binacles latched onto the walls and waving their arms about.

"Hello there, friends!" he said brightly. "Can you please point me in the direction of your leader? I need to go brutally kill him and save the world."

"I have a better idea," said a Binacle, grabbing Pichu by the ankle and repeatedly bashing him against the wall before hurling him down the tunnel.

"Why do my friends keep hurting me?"

"Well, there you finally are. Took you long enough," said Clefairy as Pichu emerged from the water. She was sitting on top of an opened chest with another Stray Fairy in her hands.

"What the – C-Money? How'd you get in here?"

"Well I'd love to tell you, but I'm sure I'd just bore you with the details."

"You got thrown in here by the Binacles too, didn't you."

"Shut up! I just told them their music sucked and they got all touchy."

Pichu and Clefairy walked through the door and took another underwater tunnel back to the hub room, picking up another Stray Fairy along the way. If you want to get technical, another Binacle grabbed Pichu and smashed him against the pot where the fairy was hidden. Then the two of them climbed out of the water so Clefairy could actually breathe and tried to figure out what to do.

"Well, the law of conservation of detail dictates that you'll have to go through all of those tunnels eventually. But the way the current's going, you can only reach that red one at the very bottom."

"But C-Money, it's all the way underwater. That means you can't come with me."

"Yes, I can barely contain my sorrow. Look, I'll stay up here and find a way to reverse the current. You just go and find all the Stray Fairies, then come back here on the off chance you don't mess up and die."

"Oh, fine… I guess I've dealt with rough things on my own before."

Minutes later

"WHAT IN THE NAME OF BUTTERSCOTCH PUDDING WITH WHIPPED CREAM AND CHOCOLATE SAUCE IS THAT?!" Pichu shrieked at the sight of the enormous oversized Forretress staring down at him from the ceiling, suspended by a cloud of dozens of Solosis… es… Soloses? Screw it, the little green things.

"Mm hmm hmm… what's this? A helpless little Pichu?" the Forretress mused in a rather effeminate voice. "I think I'll kill you by floating around in a random pattern and not actually attacking you!"

"Uh, wha – " Pichu was cut off as it plummeted down from the ceiling and slammed onto the floor, only to start drifting off aimlessly by way of the Soloses completely covering its body, preventing Pichu from attacking it.

"Okay, this is the stupidest thing that's happened to me so far. If you're gonna be like that, time for me to bring out the big guns!" Pichu snapped, pulling out an Egg Bomb. "HIYAAAAA!" he roared as he chucked bomb after bomb, the explosions dislodging several Soloses and causing them to drop to the ground. This act from Pichu proved to be a mistake, as they all came bouncing across the room and threw themselves at him.

"WAAAAUUUAAAAGGGH!" Pichu cried as the Soloses all piled on top of him. He responded by busting out his brand spanking new Shiny Leaf, slicing and dicing his spherical foes and dispatching them with ease.

The Forretress opened up its outer shell and gazed down through the gap in its defenses where the Soloses had been. "Hmm hmm… that didn't work. So I'm just going to make you fight off every one of these things before you can get to me so this fight takes an obnoxiously long time!"

"Oh hell no! Not on my watch!" Pichu shouted, hurling his Shiny Leaf up at the Forretress and impaling it right in the face. This was yet another mistake, as the Foretress let out a roar of pain and dropped to the ground with enough force to make the floor shake, then began sliding across the room in every direction, repeatedly crashing into the walls and howling in blind fury.

"Woah!" Pichu cried and frantically dived out of the Forretress's path as it slid past him, only to crash into the wall and then turn around and come charging at him again. Unfortunately, he also had to contend with the remaining Soloses that had dropped to the ground as well and were now bouncing relentlessly after him.

"NO NO NO NO NO! I can't go out like this!" Pichu screamed as he desperately hurled a volley of Egg Bombs at the pursuing Soloses. "I have to go out fighting something cool, like a giant robot or something! Not this guy!"

From where it had just crashed into the wall, the Forretress turned around and glared at Pichu. "Did you just imply I am not cool? You, sir, must be punished!" it declared, surging across the room directly toward the shrieking rodent.

––

Clefairy was back in the waterwheel room, gazing around at all the switches and differently colored pipes and trying to make some sense of it all. "Now let's see… which one of these will reverse the current in the other room?" she wondered, experimentally turning a switch.

In the room where Pichu was, there suddenly came a mighty rumbling beneath the floor and a huge torrent of water came bursting out of the grate in the floor directly beneath Forretress, slamming it up into the ceiling and killing it instantly.

"Nope. Not that one," said Clefairy.

Pichu opened his eyes and came out of his cringing pose. "Woah! I killed it with my mind! All my practice is finally paying off!"

––

Pichu very quickly came to find that every single room in this temple had pipes running along its walls, some with water flowing through them and some not. Many of the rooms also had large switches that turned the water on and off, such as the room he'd just walked back into.

"Boy, these things sure look dangerous," he observed as he held his brand new Icicle Spears, which he'd gotten out of the magic sparkly chest that had appeared when Forretress died. "I wonder if they can freeze anything they come in contact with? This is too much power for one person."

"Hey there, fatty! Your mama dress you like that?" taunted an Octillery that was sticking its head out of the water.

"DIE, HEATHEN!" Pichu shrieked, spinning around and hurling an Icicle Spear directly at it. It was hit through the forehead and instantly froze solid, becoming incased in a floating block of ice.

"…I changed my mind. This is exactly enough power for one person."

Luckily, Pichu was able to hop across the block of ice to reach the red switch, turning it and causing water to start flowing through the connecting pipe. He followed the red pipes back through the first tunnel and (after rescuing another Stray Fairy) into another room with a switch up on a red platform. He managed to reach this switch by freezing a Duosion hopping around the room and climbing from it to the platform as it turned into a solid block of ice. This didn't disturb him nearly as much as it probably should have.

"Man, I wonder what all these switches are actually doing," he said as he turned it. "Did I turn on the water somewhere or what?"

––

"Well, screw it. I can't reverse the current unless I turn the red and the yellow switch. But how am I supposed to reach those?" Clefairy griped, folding her arms and looking up at the switch on the red platform far above her head. Suddenly she started blinking as she felt a low rumbling beneath her, and then a huge waterspout came bursting through the red grate she was standing on, launching her clear through the ceiling.

"YIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII…"

––

Swimming back to one of the rooms he'd previously been in, Pichu was able to freeze the water to cross over to a door he hadn't been able to reach before. Walking through the door, he was immediately trapped inside by a portcullis, which honestly wasn't a surprise at all anymore.

"Well well well… look who's found his way into my lair," giggled the Toxicroak who was standing in the middle of the room. "I've been expecting you."

Pichu blinked. "Uhh… do I know you?"

"…No, not as such. But I'm gonna kill you anyway!" He cupped his hands over his mouth. "COME TO MEEEEEE, MY MINIONS!"

Pichu yelped in shock as yet another wave of Soloses came crashing down from the ceiling, bouncing all over the room and preventing Pichu from getting near his foe. The Toxicroak let out a cackle and disappeared among the mass of green.

Pichu was really not in the mood to deal with this. "All right, enough of this bullsh*t. I'm beating this guy in the most brutal way possible – THE POWER OF MUSIC!" He slapped on the Dewott Mask, whipped out his guitar and started rocking out. "YEAH! Carry on my wayward so-ooon! There'll be peace when you are do-one!"

"OH &*?# MY EARS!" the Toxicroak screamed in agony, grabbing his head and collapsing to the floor. "That's it, I'm moving ahead to the killing you phase! GET HIM!"

"WAAAAUUUUAAAGHHH!" Pichu shrieked as the Soloses all dogpiled on top of him, encasing him in an enormous blob of goo and dragging him toward the center of the room. "SOMEBODY HELP! WHAT'S GOING ON?!"

That very moment, Clefairy came crashing through the ceiling and down to the ground. "They've trapped you in a Mad Jelly. It's so soft that ordinary attacks won't work, so you have to think of another way."

"I DON'T RECALL THAT BEING THE CASE LAST TIME!" Pichu screamed as the Toxicroak was beating him up inside the blob of jelly. Then with one good wound-up punch, he sent the Hero of Time flying clear out of the blob and crashing into the metal wall, then let out an insane laugh as the blob rose back up to the ceiling and carried him with it.

"It would appear you've been outfoxed again, Pichu. Glad I made it in time to watch."

"Don't worry, this guy hasn't won yet!" Pichu declared. "I just have to use my other attack that I can only use when I'm a Pichu even though it would make way more sense for my transformed self to use it!"

"Wait, what – "

"Time for you to chill out!" Pichu bellowed, ripping off his mask and hurling an Icicle Spear up at the ceiling. It instantly froze the entire blob of jelly, and the Toxicroak let out a shriek as it plummeted to the ground and shattered, coming apart into a mass of wildly bouncing Soloses again.

Clefairy glared at Pichu. "'Chill out'? Are you even trying?"

"All the good ice puns were used up years ago."

"Grrr… you're never getting your hands on me, you little pipsqueak!" the Toxicroak swore angrily, hopping off toward the far end of the room and leaving his minions to deal with Pichu.

"C-Money, check this out. I'm totally gonna waste this guy!" Pichu said eagerly, putting on his Buneary Hood and using its power to race past the Soloses at lightning speed, too quickly for them to catch. "HIYAAAAAAAAAAA!" he roared, hurling himself into the air and driving an Icicle Spear through the Toxicroak, pinning him to the floor.

"He was running away from you and you do that?"

"Hey, he started it!"

With their master soundly defeated, all the Soloses suddenly fell still and dissolved away into nothing… for some reason. The Toxicroak, meanwhile, shrank and transformed into a harmless little Politoed, not for the first time.

Pichu stood back and observed this. "I was really hoping this would make more sense the second time it happened, but, nope."

––

Dawn of
THE FINAL DAY
-24 Hours Remain-

Clefairy dragged Pichu back to the waterwheel room and told him what she'd figured out; in order to reverse the flow in the other room, he'd have to turn off the yellow waterspout and turn on the red one, causing the waterwheel to turn in the opposite direction.

"Hey, here's an idea," said Pichu. "Why don't we just turn off the waterwheel, so there's no current at all and I can swim through all the tunnels and not worry about getting hurled into any walls?"

"And why don't you just shut up your stupid face?"

"Gotta work on your comebacks there, C-Money."

Clefairy shoved him off the platform and into the water. "How was that one?"

After deciding to do what Clefairy said for whatever reason, Pichu turned the two large switches in the room that turned off the water flow to the yellow waterspout and turned on the flow to the red one. Sure enough, this reversed the direction of the waterwheel and caused the water in the pit with the tunnels to swirl in the opposite direction.

"Oh, terrific. Now I get to do more swimming, don't I?"

"Uh, nope. There's a door in the back of this room we haven't been through yet that's blocked off by a waterfall. Looks like you get to solve a bunch of puzzles with your new freezing powers, and then do more swimming."

"This is my punishment for impaling the guy, isn't it?"

And so Pichu cut off the flow of the waterfall with his Icicle Spears, entering the room behind it which held a green switch and a Stray Fairy, both of which he reached by freezing the water and hopping across the ice. Then he followed the green pipes through yet another underwater tunnel (swimming directly into a set of mines, because why not) and had to solve a whole bunch of stupid freezing and thawing puzzles involving waterwheels and seesaws and other ridiculous crap, all to reach the second green switch and rescue four more Stray Fairies hidden all around the area.

"I didn't think it was possible, but this is officially the worst dungeon I've ever been in. I swear Nuzleaf designed this place just to piss me off. The only upside to this is that I can use all my suffering as inspiration for my next album."

"Pichu, you do know you're not really Dewott, right?"

"C-Money, I've been beaten, bruised, nearly drowned repeatedly, my skull has been caved in and my lungs are filling up with water. If I wanna be Dewott, then &*?#ing hell, I'm gonna be Dewott."

"Well once you're done complaining, you know you still have one more tunnel to go through," said Clefairy. They were back in the main hub room with the swirling water, and she was pointing down at the very bottom of the pit at the tunnel Pichu still hadn't swam through.

"But C-Money… if that's the last place I have to go, what if that means there's something scary waiting down there for me? And you can't come with me?" He started whimpering nervously.

"Oh, there, there… shut up, Pichu. Don't you have that plot protection or whatever? Really the worst that can happen to you is that you're caught in an endless cycle of death and regeneration, praying for the eternal embrace of oblivion that will be forever denied to you."

"Hey, you're right! That doesn't sound so bad!" Pichu said brightly. "Wish me luck!" He immediately swan dived off the platform they were standing on, plunging into the swirling vortex and vanishing through the lower tunnel.

"That worked a lot better than I thought it would," said Clefairy.

Pichu followed the green pipes to the final room, freed the final two Stray Fairies, and turned the final green switch that caused a waterspout to spring up and create a path from the platform to the final door, which surely led to the great evil that plagued the temple, judging by the number of times I used the word "final" in this sentence.

"I wonder… is this really such a good idea?" he thought as he walked through the door into almost pure darkness. "Can I really do this without Clefairy? …Ah, screw it. Of course I can! I'm the Hero of Time! What good is a hero if he can't do a little thing like YEEAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUGGHHHHHH!"

He hadn't been watching where he was going and fell through a giant hole in the floor, suffering a several hundred foot drop that by all rights should have killed him. This seemed to be a recurring theme for his adventures.

"Oww… what happened?" he groaned after he landed. He lifted his head up and saw he was lying on a metallic platform, completely surrounded by water, in the middle of a very dark, empty chamber. At least, it looked empty…

"Uh… hello?" he called out timidly. "Anybody here?"

Right on cue, the water beneath him began to churn and bubble, and Pichu scrambled backwards at the sight of something very large and dangerous slinking silently through the water, heading directly for him…

And then his eyes bulged as his foe came exploding up above the surface, leaping directly over his head with a mighty roar.

It was a Gyarados… but it was no ordinary one, and not just because of the intimidating mask it wore over its face. It was shorter but stockier than normal, with long whiskers and two enormous dorsal fins protruding from its body. This was a Mega Gyarados.

However loud its roar was, Pichu's shriek was louder still. "C-MONEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!"