The Absolite Chronicles: Book 2: The Challenger

by Hyperjade

There is one week before the tournament that occurs only once a decade. With Caleb back in action and joined by friends, new and newer, team Edge, team Rush, team Ivy, and team Amber train to compete. But why isn't team Raider in town? What other adventures are in store for everyone? ( A pokemon mystery dungeon story, and sequel to Book One: Change")

25. Chapter Twenty-Five

So I'm embarassed.

Jango: Tell them how dumb you are! I can't wait to hear this!

Me: ... (Gives a long sigh) For a long time, I've been using the phrase 'tic mark' to convey the anime angry mark, the bulging veins. While writing this chapter, I discovered something painful; 'Tic marks'? Those are actually the same as check marks. (Facedesks)

Jango: SOOO he's totally lacking in a way to easily convey the anime angry mark in his story from here on out. I was just WAITING for him to notice this.

Me: (Glares at Jango) Ugh... Whatever... Anyways, my buddy West told me that it's actually been a really freaking long time since I updated this. Mostly due to my writing numerous other stories, a decision I fail to regret of course. But before you get to the long awaited chapter, I had better respond to reviews.

The dude with no Life: I don't remember if I addressed your reviews to chapters nineteen and twenty last time. Doing it again!

If Shedinja did say that, then Yes, your rationale suggests his opinion is flawed. I never intended a ninjask to be a part of this story, to be honest, so I suppose the latter option you present could be the purpose.

As for the other review you left, the balls of 'energy' are not literal energy. Energy is the capacity to preform work. Take MatPat's video on DBZ's Kamehameha as an example of a similar argument. I am not saying that shadow balls and energy balls and other things like that are plasma. Some of them have plasma-like properties, but not all of them do. The type auras are described as energies sometimes, but they are unique kinds of elements. Basically, they're like my blank check. A concept I invented to decide how this particular world works, or partially how it works, meaning these elements don't have to obey the same laws that govern types of matter or energy in our universe. As for whether Caleb would question it, it's not as likely as he would be to question something like magic, or the middle finger to physics known as attacks that create matter. He's less likely to complain about type auras because the type aura 'energy' was presented to him as something quantifiable, something he can work with and understand.

Finally, Gengar explained that in this universe, the function of a nine-tailed crest is to significantly advance the power of a ninetales' curse. Other things he says during that scene between him, Amber and Gardevoir are important for answering that question too.

To West, I would say that Sarah's battle is going to have to be just beginning. She's had a few shocks that have put it off momentarily, but we all know it's not going to just happen to get better out of nowhere. I don't like writing it THAT way. I don't mean to say I think you're implying that I might do that, I just felt the urge to clarify it.

Hey, What Lies Beyond. I don't want to delve too much into what Braixen was thinking and why she was thinking it. I feel it's important for things like that to be extrapolated from the events of the story. But I was interested to hear that you didn't think his reaction was particularly extreme. It gives me further perspective of what opinions different people have.

I'm glad I conveyed how much Caleb depends on and values his mind, Aewynessa. You sharing how you felt about the chapter really helped me understand what I did right and what I did wrong, and I'm happy to say I consider last chapter to be very successful. I hope this one is as well. As for Shedinja and Sarah, I love seeing how characters will interact with their differing opinions. Communication is how you understand someone, after all, even if you disagree. And to hear that it's your favorite chapter thus far lightens my steps a bit. Well, it did, until I learned I've been misusing the phrase 'tic mark' for I think more than a year now. I'll get over it.

Appreciate the confirmation that I covered my topics well, AveragePichu.

To be direct, unAnonymous, no. Caleb's mental strength does not manifest itself in a more psychic way. As long as you aren't directly accessing his mind, you're safe from that, unless he uses his intellect against you. I already made him stronger than a normal absol in exchange for being weak to status, so I think he's covered in the augments department. Oh, and nobody's told him about mental herbs yet, even though he's asked about for help with the attract problem. I guess they forgot that one.

That's quite a time skip there, AGuyWithNoSkills. Can't directly answer questions about the total nature of the dream world, you lot will have to analyze it and theorize without my aid. It's interesting to me that you think Erza is still having trouble with her philosophying problem. I refuse to mention whether I expected you all to think it was over or not when I had her start to work through it, but...

I feel you though, NoSkills, about attract. I once got parafusioned plus attract and then flinchlocked. It was way overkill for the guy who did it to me when I did an online match. I do hope I gave a good reason that Mesprit couldn't follow the pattern of convenience and solve Sarah's problems. As for Ninetales and Daemyn, SHE didn't do it for the shipping. She did it because she's trying to throw people off in the tournament. Now me, I most certainly absolutely one hundred percent did it for the shipping. It just worked out because it was something that Ninetales would do.

Now, the 50k word challenge bombed for me. I got a good start on my completely original story "Infinity", but I had so many other things to do I didn't have a prayer of fully completing the challenge. Thank you for the review. Have a nice day.

To the guest who reviewed my chapter 11, thank you, and duly noted.

to Jooi3141-

Jango: (Hops up) Hang on a second, buddy boy. This guy seems like the kinda guy I like. Straightforward, no mincing his words, and causing you as much confusion as possible.

Me: ...Shut up, Jango. Jooi, I'm not entirely sure where you got that, but I refuse to verbally confirm or deny anything. I hope I can keep up the great work too.

Finally, we have Zlaxe. I'm not entirely sure what you mean when you say you think Caleb's outburst is a 'warning', because I'm not sure what context you mean 'warning' in. I'm not entirely sure what aphrodisiac is, but Caleb will recognize the berries, as I do. I always thought they smelled nice when crushed, but I doubt I'd want to eat one of them. That will come up eventually, and you'll know what berries they were if you don't already. It's nice to see what's going on with Sarah's home at this point in time addressed. I felt it was necessary because otherwise, I might have put it to the sidelines for a long time, and I don't think that's a good idea in terms of story.

Jango: (Pushes me aside) Whoah, whoa, buddy. Yes, you, maniacal laughing bugger. Anything this story's fourth wall connects to is MY pranking territory, got it? Got it!?

Me: (Facedesks)

---

Chapter Twenty-Five: Victory

⽯Caleb's POV⽯

My mind runs at several miles a minute constantly. I'm not going to pretend that that's probably why I can't let things go.

Everything that kept my reputation and my overall plan, and my sanity to boot, in one piece was my ability to keep my emotions together and act purely on logic and reason. And I hadn't. I'd lost my temper.

And soon after I'd started working on the machinery I'd acquired, my traitorous mind had started nagging me about the consequences of losing my temper this time. Had I gone through that situation again, my reaction would have been identical. I value the things I've set in motion, or rather, controlling the implications of my very existence so as to avoid disaster, but I value my mind more. Regardless, the result had its repercussions.

For one, in my fit of anger, I hadn't made certain Braixen wouldn't go talking about it. While I didn't assume she would run to a bunch of people and claim I'd viciously attacked her, because they would be more inclined to trust me. But she would definitely speak of it to someone. Goldeneye, I thought, might learn of this because Braixen idolized the powerful delphox. So to gauge how worried I should be, I considered how Braixen had acted before she left. Very subdued, for one, which implied I'd hit her hard and she'd realized her mistake. I had reason to believe that it was my own influence that affected the extent that Braixen went to to achieve her goals. After all, part of my influence had been the forms of media I'd shared with pokemon upon request, despite my making it all too clear that this society should do everything it can to take those media outlets and their systems as things that work in that fictional world, not this very real one. And if they wanted something, to ask me about whether I think it could negatively affect the world.

There were easily foreseeable problems with this. For one, I can hardly expect an entire world's worth of sentient creatures to uniformly treat me seriously. It was just imperative to make myself respected enough that such a vast majority would take me seriously that the rest would succumb to peer pressure. Second, if someone does defy the odds, it could cause a lot of potential chaos.

Looking at this machine, I was starting to think I'd missed something. I didn't like that. Daemyn's description of the trap he fell into gave me great pause, because I didn't have a reason to believe the trap would stop at just knocking them out. There wasn't any obvious safety built into these things, as if someone was inspired by the idea of technology, but had not the forethought to actually make it safe.

And that was my analysis of a pokemon mindset. If a pokemon defied what I've learned about the surprisingly sustainable peace in this society and actually was going out of their way to hurt others to the point of destruction, this would be the way to do it. Right now, almost every pokemon in the region was separated across it. I couldn't send out a mass warning myself. That meant that I had two options.

The first was to wait until the game was over. This was probably not the best choice in any category. I would have a full audience, but there is a much greater risk for others to be captured like the sandslash and her child was, and like Daemyn had been. My other and much better option was to locate Goldeneye in the hopes that her seemingly endless supply of remarkably convenient magic could help me get a viral message out to everyone, but that ran a risk too. For one, if Braixen found her first, she would be much less likely to help me even if I explained the situation. Though, for lack of a better term, I have little understanding of her personality because she acts somewhat closed off. The other risk is that if I can't find her before the game ends, I run the risk of being far from the town, which would cause me to fail to get there on time, also making it so that more pokemon could get caught and hurt.

The second option would require me to run like mad in random directions, frankly, in the hopes of just happening across her. Things conveniently tended to work out in this world, but I wasn't putting that to chance. All it told me was that considering the laws of probability, my luck was running out.

I chose to try and find Goldeneye. But that meant I needed to go right away. I knew what I needed to know from this machine, but I couldn't afford to keep it around. I took the few pieces I used to make the smaller version in case I needed to make a demonstration to prove my honesty, a contingency plan, and looked at the rest.

I certainly wasn't going to leave spare parts for the perpetrator to use in later traps. Expressionless, I charged up a psycho cut and attacked the parts, and then did it again and again. Once I'd reduced it to scrap metal, I slid the small parts I'd kept with me for later into my bag and turned to look around me.

Goldeneye has shown great intelligence even in her field, whether it's scientific or not. And considering she has an adopted son that is young enough to do things for fun and adventure, though that's a human age-related idea… Most pokemon seem to seek out that lifestyle regardless of age, but Goldeneye and Goldfinger seem exceptions to this constant, among others. So serious and intelligent parents with an excitable young boy they're raising… What's a reasonable place for them to be?

For one, they most certainly would not be seeking out easy places. If Skyfall wanted adventure and fun, they probably wouldn't go to a place that had such weak dungeon construct opponents that they could win by giving fierce glares. In fact, they were a well-known team with powerful capabilities, meaning they would likely go to much more challenging places. While I knew little about Goldfinger other than that he and his family share names with movies in my own world, and considering their close connection just like the connection to the movies was an unbelievable coincidence in of itself, I knew Goldeneye did enjoy fixing problems and designing magic. It was why she had been so willing to help me on numerous occasions, even allowing me an easy method of teaching and sharing information with large amounts of other people.

But I didn't think that would help me too much. Her wanting to help others and develop magic in the process doesn't correspond to any particular mystery dungeon to my knowledge, and thus wouldn't fit in with the choices they as a family might make when catering to their son's will for family time.

Goldeneye also wishes to learn. That means… Yes, she is likely either going to the cave with the floating stones filled with electricity and showing significant enough magnetic fields to float in mid-air. Another possibility is the strange new phenomenon in the dungeons marked by patches of bare dirt that absorb victims and have unique designs.

Based on these thoughts, the three most likely dungeons that would both follow Skyfall's will and Goldeneye's will were first the dungeon in which sight was unavailable and contact shone through the darkness in expanding circles, second the chargestone cavern, and perhaps third the fairy dungeon that had been located that, despite being of the same nature as the first, had an entirely different structure and system, and some contradictory aspects.

My mind wandered off for a moment.

Since I came to this world, a significant number of oddities have arisen. These dungeons that fail to follow the patterns of the ones that existed prior, for example. The pillars like the one Daemyn found and marked that might have something to do with it. The emotion sensitive crystal that could produce literal energy from that emotion… All of these things came into being seemingly within weeks of my appearance in the world. I have no clues about what exactly put me here. Come to think of it, far too many things were strange about those days.

I turned in the direction of where I remembered the invisible dungeon had been.

The last time I was in there, I complained of Erza tasting like spinach. Come to think of it, it is rather embarrassing that I commented on such a thing at all. I feel like normal nowadays, but can my conflicting instincts really have caused me to act with such strange enthusiasm for jokes? Perhaps, but I'm somewhat skeptical. I will have to put more thought into that, but right now I have something very serious to do.

I bounced a little on my legs, which gave in their current unnatural way, and remembered again how I would have to run efficiently. Then I began sprinting down the correct path, confident I was giving myself a decent shot at finding her.

⽊Erza's POV⽊

"Yaaaaah!"

I nailed guildmaster Goodra right in the face with my flail at high velocity, still holding onto it as I then landed and used his rather squishy face to launch myself at Azelf, smirking as I prepared to give him a good flurry with my rapier.

I instead hit an invisible wall right before him and it seemed to explode at me, the invisible force sending me straight into a boulder away from the legendary pokemon, who had his arms crossed. He looked pretty unamused.

Me, though, I stalled for a moment, a little dizzy. "Welp. That didn't work out the way I wanted it to." I complained as I started picking myself out. Goodra kinda looked fine. I guess having a squishy body makes physical attacks worth a lot less. This could take a while.

I started whirling my flail in my leafy hand, smirking as it spun faster and faster and made its violent humming noise. They just kind of watched me. It made sense, they were totally defensive right now, they only had to be. It was them that was guarding something.

I faced Azelf, about to release my weapon, but then hurled it at Goodra instead. Azelf didn't do a thing. Goodra stood his ground and took the attack right in the belly, but his squishy body retracted as my flail sunk into it, and then he thrust his belly forward, and the flail followed suit immediately. I yelped and bent over backward, my own flail sailing right over me and into the far wall where it crushed the wall and became buried in fallen crystals.

I raised myself straight and looked back at it. "Okay…" I muttered.

At least I learned something. They have no teamwork. They're just doing the same job.

Problem was, one guy was so squishy that physical attacks wouldn't work, and the other guy's willpower-boosted psychic powers would make him practically untouchable. So the flail was out. My sword was sharper; It could do more damage. So it was best to use it I just had to throw stuff at Azelf to see what stuck, though.

I ignored my flail and charged with the rapier, letting my speed scarf give me an enormous boost. I was right at the very large pokemon in a split second, and started jabbing him at lightning speeds with my blade. He grunted with each strike, his eyes narrowing.

"You aren't bad." he complimented me, sounding somewhat bored, and then his mouth glowed purple.

"That's not good, is it?" I asked nobody in particular. Then I jumped away as a blast of dark purple liquid-like stuff flew from his open mouth to the ground where I had stood, and it exploded in a steaming sludge. "Nope, definitely not." I sweatdropped at the sight of the steaming sludge bomb attack. That wasn't going to be amazing to fight.

He opened his mouth again, and this time a violently twisting and vibrating blue and white and red energy started generating in his mouth. He fired the attack, which acted like some sort of fusion between a beam and a tornado of those colors, forcing me to dive out of the way again. The explosion was really intense, and I was smashed against the wall even though I'd gotten a long ways away.

Ow.

I was upside down, embedded in some crystals. Some had even cut into me because of how quickly I'd hit them, but I wasn't going to just keel over, no way. I flopped to the ground before standing myself up. "You're pretty darn tough." I complimented the guildmaster. He was. Absurdly tough. It made me wonder what gave him that boost. "But I'm not just gonna fall over, you hear me!?"

"Admirable," Goodra said as he took some steps towards me. "Even though you clearly never taught yourself your enemies' abilities, you persevere in other ways. But you can improve."

"Uh…" I drew a blank. What abilities did a goodra have?

"I watched you during your battle in the first third of the tournament," he commented, calmly standing like before. "All of your attacks are primarily of the grass type, and you depend on those. But what will you do if you come across an opponent that uses that to his advantage?" he raised his paws in a gesture. "My ability is Sap Sipper. My type auras greatly fluctuate and grow upon every hit from any grass type attack."

Ah… Shit.

⌁ Jake's POV ⌁

"Nope."

"Really?"

I crossed my arms. "That sucks," I complained. "I really thought checking out caves that weren't mystery dungeons would be a great way to get something."

"There are probably a lot more caves than this." Swampert reminded me.

"I get that there's supposed to be a bunch of tricks being played on everyone, but I. Am. Bored!" Jess punched the stone wall to emphasize her point.

"Yeah, we probably should go to some dungeon, right?" I asked.

"It'd be great for training for the third part of the tournament!" Shulk added, punching the air a bit. Both Jess and he were anxious to get back to action. I was too, a little bit. Swampert was the laid back one, but still.

"Alright, we'll get out of here." I asserted, and started walking towards the brightly lit opening again. In a minute we covered our eyes with our arms as the sunlight struck us again.

Man, it was a beautiful day. There were a few fluffy white clouds in the sky, the sun shone brightly down, and we were in the forest, I'd wager without looking at the map squarely between the treeshroud forest and mystery jungle dungeons. And it was a pretty place to wander about, not a part of the dungeon. The evergreen pines mixed with some large leaf bushes and berry bushes and trees occasionally lying around made for a very pretty location, but the best was probably the rocky outcroppings made of piles of moss-covered stones, making the area seem hilly. These outcroppings also contained caves every once in a while, whether a pokemon made them for a home or they were naturally formed.

There were some of them inhabited, which was really awkward when we found out. After we'd startled that one orchynx, we learned at least their species left markers around their cave. I told them we were very sorry to have barged in because we didn't know, though Jess very reasonably pointed out that if you weren't trying to look for them, you wouldn't have seen the marks, which kind of made it pointless for outsiders at least.

Despite my apology and Jess' annoyance neutralizing each other, we were forgiven and sent on our way.

Now that we were in the sun amongst the trees, it was hard to keep our minds on the task at hand due to the pretty environment.

Swampert spoke up first, getting down to business. "The closest dungeons are the mystery jungle and treeshroud forest. The first really isn't the kind of place you take kids. No offense, Shulk."

"None taken!"

"But treeshroud forest probably isn't going to have any guildmaster in it. It'd be really random if it did." I replied, crossing my arms. "The worst that could happen in the mystery jungle is that we use a few reviver seeds, because we can handle it and just have to protect the others."

Wham!

"Do you really think you need to protect us? I can put you in the dirt in one punch!" Jess boasted as I picked myself up.

"That wasn't nice…" I complained weakly.

"That's called tough love, got it?" Jess asked, her fists sparking. "If you gave us a chance you'd probably find out we're tough as nails!"

"I believe you... " I stood up. "That was harder than you needed to hit me, though…"

"I told you, it's called tough love," Jess told me, reaching up and patting me a few times on the head. "For a shy guy, you talk about protecting people a lot."

Why the heck does she say things in that way?

"Um…" I was able to get out.

"So what's all that about? You know I'm amazing at punching things. Shulk's pretty kickass too. But you start trying to act tough real quick when something comes up. What, do I seem weak?"

I quickly waved my paws in a mixture of surrender and reassurance. "No, no! That's not it at all!" I assured her, feeling my face heat up a bit.

"Then what is it, Jake?"

"Um…" I couldn't meet her eyes. "I uh… Don't totally know myself."

She got a few bulging veins showing on her head. "You are so weird."

We were cut off by a booming chuckle, and turned to Swampert in unison. "What's up, Swampert?" I asked, confused.

"Oh, nothing. Nothing at all." He denied, shrugging. "Anyways, we might as well head to the mystery jungle dungeon."

I sweatdropped. "Uh… Okay. Mystery jungle it is." I muttered.

⽊Erza's POV⽊

I did not have a plan of attack. With Azelf kinda minding his own business, I was trying to deal with goodra first, but goodra was just gonna get more and more absurdly powerful with each stab of my sword. I guess holding back wasn't gonna work.

Their eyes widened a bit when I enveloped myself in the white flames of quick attack. "Are you trying to tell me you can sustain a quick attack along with your speed band and stay in control? I have half a mind not to believe that." Goodra boomed, bracing himself.

Azelf's eye flashed as he widened it slightly, seeming as if he was staring into my soul. "She can." was all he said.

I crouched down a bit in preparation, smirking. "If you're just gonna get stronger and stronger, I'd better kick your ass before you can launch any attacks!" I shouted, and then I blasted forward in a seeming beam of white.

Then I was just attacking. Hit him from one angle, bounce away, rebound, strike at him again. I stabbed at his malleable body as many times as I could muster with my rapier before I couldn't risk anymore and bounced away again. He roared in pain each time, telling me that even having a type disadvantage I was going strong.

He opened his mouth and prepared a dragon pulse. If every sword strike made his power rise, then man was that not a fantastic thing to be hit by. He turned towards where I guess he figured I'd be and started to launch it. I didn't risk it. I blasted myself into the open space of the massive cavern, watching the water whiz by me as I sailed over it and caught myself on the nearest convenient giant crystal structure at the water's edge.

Then the big boom happened. I looked back while giving myself a breather, and met a ton of wind in my face as everything on the other side of the lake was blown up."Holy crap, this guy is crazy O.P!" I complained aloud.

Then I sweatdropped.

That's totally my fault, too.

Goodra appeared as the dust started to settle, looking across the lake. "Quite a jump," he said, though I could only tell that from such a distance by reading his lips.

Azelf's telepathy reached me and him, though, he must have been a distance away. "Watch your fire, guildmaster." he mentally ordered calmly. "You let your power grow too strong."

Ah-hah! He's too OP for his own good and now he can't risk launching attacks unless he wants to risk destroying the lake! I'll take it!

I then wondered where the tangela twins were. I hoped they were fine. I activated quick attack again, because I wanted to take the guildmaster down right now and deal with the legendary afterward. I dropped to the floor right by the water's edge and decided to just go full speed.

Being able to run on water felt so good.

Quick attack plus speed scarf plus rapier equals a hell of a lot of attacks, and I just kept slashing away at the guildmaster, seeing him totally fail to fight back. He swung an aqua tail at me a couple times—at this point, one of those could probably one hit KO me—but he was way too slow for me to actually be hit, so I just kept blasting around him like a green and white beam.

It took a hell of a long time, but he eventually just fell over unconscious. I landed and pulled off my speed band momentarily, sighing as my eyesight snapped back to normal. I needed a breather.

As a plus, though, I hadn't had to make flails and swords over and over again, so it hadn't cost me too much grass type aura, but my normal type aura had taken a pretty big hit. Could I somehow use my grass type aura or some other aura I had to do the same thing as my quick attack?

No, I don't think that'll work-ow!

I slammed into a wall because of an unseen force, and managed to push myself to my feet quick. "That was rude!" I shouted.

"Ruder than goading a guildmaster to trash my lake?" Azelf sounded just a smidge ticked off.

"He fired, not me." I shot back. "And look at it, it's fine. Besides, you can just go and fix anything that does break, I figure."

He facepalmed. "I am a psychic being of willpower, and Uxie doesn't like being treated as blueprints. To get it just right, I'm going to have to ask a team of magic users to do the job for me. I certainly won't enjoy that."

"Sorry man, I've just got something to do." I shrugged. Then I pointed at him. "I'm gonna kick your butt if you don't hand over that treasure!"

"Your determination is too strong for your own good." Azelf told me, and my eyes widened as a blue energy started surrounding him. "Every ounce of strength you gather from your force of will I can match equally, and use my own strength to gain an advantage. You have no hope of besting me the way you are now."

I chuckled. "Then I'll do my best! You can't tell me I haven't any hope, man, that's just arrogant!"

He was silent, floating there with his arms crossed, and I took a moment to look around for my tangela twins.

"Your teammates are fine."

Azelf must have read my mind. Great. I turned to him curiously.

"They attempted to sneak up on the treasure while you were distracting us. I decided to tie them in knots and set them down just outside this cavern. Once I smash you into the ground enough times for you to fall unconscious, I'll make sure the three of you get out safely." he promised. Welp. So much for that plan. I hadn't even seen that happen.

I needed to start coming up with a plan, so it was time to distract Azelf, so I came up with a quick question: "What's with the blue energy?"

Azelf paused for a moment, but decided to answer me. "The strength of my psychic powers does not come from my intellect or focus like most others. It comes from my willpower, which is a trait unique to me. I suppose that is why it is blue."

"Uh… You're sure it's not because you're blue?"

He crossed his arms. "Uxie and Mesprit both have pink psychic energy. Uxie is not pink. I am their brother, so why would my color matter?"

"Good point." I agreed. This guy should be introduced to Caleb, I figured.

"Now if you're done trying to distract me while you come up with your fancy plan…" Azelf put one arm behind his back and turned to the side, giving me a sidelong look as he pointed his right hand at me. A glass-looking sphere expanded in front of him, almost bigger than he was, filled with red and blue lightning crackling from the center at and around the outside. I'd never seen an attack like it, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was that I didn't know what it did.

But I put my plan into action and jumped to his left, bouncing off a crystal that stuck out of the ground and flying right at his face with a new flail in hand, ready to smash him. He did the same thing to me as before, slamming me with an invisible wall of psychic energy and threw me to the ground. I looked up only to see him point his fancy attack at me and launch it, and holy crap that thing was fast.

I managed to leap out of the way as it violently exploded against the ground, and looked back at Azelf, who already had another one of those things in his right hand. He looked super cocky with his other arm behind his back like that.

What the heck was that!?

"This is psycho boost. Normally, a psychic type would have to use so much energy to use this attack that they would have to conserve energy for the rest of the battle and ration their remaining psychic type aura into their attacks," he explained, as if, and he probably was, reading my thoughts. That's how he knew where I was going to be so I couldn't catch him off guard.

He lowered it a bit so I could see his eyes. "But I gather strength from others' very force of will. I won't ever run out of psychic power. That… Is why little ol' me is a legendary pokemon. And it is why you won't get past me."

"You really like to hear yourself talk!" I exclaimed as I felt for my normal type aura. It was weaker than I wanted it to be. On the verge of running out, because I'd kept up quick attack for a long time during the fight with Goodra. I'd made it across the region once doing that, but I'd used up a lot more energy because I actually poured that energy into hitting him instead of just taking the gradual energy loss from just using it. I didn't have enough to last too long, so I really had to make it count.

That meant I had to be tricky. I geared up, holding my weapons and prepared to attack.

Azelf's eyes narrowed. "You plan to attack from behind while thinking about attacking from the right." he accused me.

Dammit!

No, I was definitely not getting a hold of this guy without quick attack. I cursed myself. Maybe I wasn't getting that thing after all.

What the hell am I saying!?

I stood tall, pounding my chest with my hand. I was not giving up. This cocky priIck was going down!

I just needed to find a way to do it. And I had to think about it after I dodged the next psycho boost, because right now my face was the target. I dove to my left and hurled my flail at him, watching as it just bounced off another psychic wall, being rejected and flipping into the lake. I quickly made a third flail and started using my head, even if he could read my thoughts.

Quick attack worked by… Well, I didn't understand exactly how it worked, all I knew is that I went really fast when I used it. I needed another way to boost my speed. What other moves did what quick attack did? There was extremespeed, but that also used normal energy. And it used more, I'm pretty sure. There was aqua jet, but not only was I not a water type, I spent absolutely no time training up my water type aura energy, so even if I miraculously managed to manipulate what I had for an aqua jet, it would be really weak, and it would last like a second before it died out. I think flame charge could do it, and then that boosted someone's speed directly, but flame charge wasn't like the other moves. Do it wrong, and I was more likely to just set myself on fire and hurt myself. Not that I had enough type aura energy in terms of fire to produce... Well any fire, I'm pretty sure. So that was out. Was there a priority electric type move?

Even if there was, it wouldn't do any good against Azelf. He was super quick with those psychic walls, his psycho boost was powerful, and he could read my movements, well, thoughts.

I had other tricks, but I couldn't just use them…

So what would he do if I did something new?

I released my vines and started to surround him with them, slowly making a cage. If the tangela could make a cage, so could I. Maybe I could keep myself close by jumping from vine to vine, even if they were my own vines. I just had to tie them down to something so gravity didn't give me a smack on the wrist.

For good measure, I decided to wrap him up in a vine to keep him still. It was weird that he wasn't doing anything, but who was I to complain? I smirked and jumped at him, reading to bash him over the head.

Then he was gone, and my flail shoved aside the wrap of vines he'd left behind.

The heck!?

Boom!

I shouted in pain as I felt a searing heat on my side and was thrown into a wall, smashing the crystals so that I was kind of resting in an Erza-shaped crater in the wall. "Ow…" I complained. What the heck just happened to me?

I heard the legendary in my head again. "I am also capable of teleportation, for your information."

God, he sounded so friggin cocky.

"So that's what a psycho boost feels like, huh?" I asked, climbing out. "Didn't hurt too-ow-bad."

He didn't speak a word, just floating where he'd blasted me. I retracted my vines slowly, realizing I wasn't in great shape. But it didn't matter. I couldn't lose, not this time. I had to do something to stop that mind reading.

I tried filling my head with thoughts, as many random thoughts as I could while I started running forward. I leapt up and swung, but he just shifted to the side in mid-air and let me start falling towards the water. I shook my head and shot a vine out, wrapping around one of the many crystals sticking out of the ground and pulled myself back to the solid surface.

"Just because there's a lot of things to hear doesn't mean I can't pick out the right one," Azelf added as he floated where he'd dodged me. "Living creatures have a natural process of thought, they organize themselves almost unconsciously. Trying to confuse a mind reader like that isn't going to disorient me."

I attacked. He slipped away and took the same stance as the last time he attacked, generating another psycho boost. "You used all of-"

He gasped and ducked under my flail as it sailed past him, watching it sail away, and then fired his psycho boost right in my face, hitting me because I'd already been diving towards him. I hit the ground hard, gasping for breath.

So close…

He had his eyes narrowed at me. "You are strong, Erza, but strength doesn't matter against me. I'll admit I did not expect you to just switch everything off and go by your battle instincts alone, but I have eyeballs. I can see things. And I'm swift enough to dodge them. And because you were just in attack mode, you left yourself wide open to my attack. It really would be in your best interests to walk away."

"Grr, I will not give up, not ever!" I shouted, "You're gonna have to take me down first!"

"Surely you can't stand for too long. You were hit by multiple psycho boosts, and you're about my size," he muttered.

I started whirling my flail, glaring at him and walking forward. He could read me, but I didn't care. I had to hit him. I started preparing my normal type energy. "I. Am going. To beat you!"

⽛Daemyn's POV⽛

"We're really gonna do this?" I asked, bending my knees slightly.

"If you want what's behind me." Ninetales gestured with her head back towards the middle of the back of the room, where the treasure she guarded prominently sat on a pedestal. It looked like a glass sphere with flame colors painted to the bottom of it, the fire swirling from the bottom of the sphere and spiraling towards the top, thinner and thinner so that the closer to the top you were, the more you could see through it. It was a really nice looking decoration.

"For a simple bauble, it has a lot of importance." she casually noted, giving me a sidelong glance. "Do you know why?"

"Not really. Doesn't look all that special to me." I admitted. It just looked nice, it seemed that was about it.

"It's special because the rules of the tournament said what I guarded was special. And because I chose it to be the item I would guard. It says a lot, I think, that just saying something is special causes people to put more value on it, which then makes it special." Ninetales smiled. "When I was very young, I always found it very odd that someone could just say something was valuable, and everyone would just agree."

I hummed in agreement, but… "I'm not sure what this has to do with us," I confessed, a little embarrassed.

"Am I not allowed to have a pleasant conversation with a friend?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No, no, I guess we can talk, but… I did kind of come here to do something and it feels really awkward now."

"It's going to feel a lot more awkward when you fight for the first time without using type aura moves." she promised me, and I blinked.

"How'd you…" I trailed off.

"It's usually true. Actual attacks are so much more effective than fighting without them normally. But I have trained myself in that kind of thing. It was out of pure boredom when I was seventy or so… It's a lot more vicious than you might think if you want to do enough damage to knock the other one unconscious."

"Um…" I didn't like the sound of that. "Does it really have to get that bad?"

"No," she said with an odd tone, tilting her head. "We can go until one of us concedes defeat, I believe. As long as we follow an honor code. If you concede, you walk away. If I concede, you walk away with the treasure. Don't worry, it will not break."

"Alright" I agreed quickly. "One more thing… What's with all the precious decor?"

"It's all stuff that isn't likely to break, but they all look quite unique, especially for a battlefield, as small as this is. If we aren't using moves, we have to be very skilled in using our paws to clamber around." Ninetales explained.

I was feeling really awkward. Caleb's talk with me started swimming through my head as I tried to come up with something to say. I really wanted to have something to talk about, because I figured if I could just come up with something she'd be really easy to talk to, but…

"What's wrong, Daemyn?" Ninetales asked me, and I snapped to attention.

"Uh… N-..." I cut myself off from saying 'nothing'. Honesty was the best policy. "I don't know what to say, but I want to keep talking… To you."

Ninetales studied me for a while, cocking her head slightly. "Do you believe people have to talk constantly?" she asked. "People don't have to speak randomly to fill the time. If you believe that, you've spent too much time with your absol friend."

I frowned. "Caleb has my full respect," I replied.

"But he has his flaws." Ninetales shot back, sitting down. "For one, his manipulations concern me. My title of Queen is rather insignificant. At least, compared to his definition of queen. I do not control the livelihoods of the pokemon that live in the region that my guild holds it's influence over. Frankly, I'm just like any other guildmaster, my region is just much larger than this one. But the human turned absol would bring his own definitions with him into this world, and assert himself."

"It's not like he had a choice." I was getting upset now. "And besides, he's the best for the job. Everyone pressures him about his life, and he is super, super careful with what he gives out and what people get from it."

"Please don't be frustrated," Ninetales said soothingly, her fluffy tails weaving a bit behind her. "I'm well aware of that. I'm just saying that he takes those habits and also applies them to his daily life. While I see some of these things are necessary to prevent his very presence from bringing discord, there are times he seems not to realize it isn't necessary."

"We can't expect someone to be perfect," I argued.

"Neither do I expect that." her gaze was soft and reassuring. "All I am saying is that we should not be so arrogant as to presume everything will magically be perfect just because it's been perfect through other kinds of disruption and disaster. But this disaster is something different. Caleb is the victim, and potentially the cause alike."

"Well…" I was going to try and refute that, but Ninetales held up a paw.

"This conversation is about you and me, Daemyn." She said quietly. "From what I understand, you were almost cruel once upon a time, but you grew past that thanks to your ever influential friend. But beyond that, once you were given a metaphorical strike on the head, you grew quickly on your own. You seem like a very good person to me, and despite being somewhat short tempered, you come across as a very kind person. I want to talk about you and what you need, not what Caleb stands for. Caleb is relevant to this conversation only in that you need to be wary of him, because if Caleb collapses under the pressure he puts on himself… I wish not to see you collapse too."

I fell silent. What on earth was I supposed to say to that?

She let the long pause go on for a while, before speaking up. "What do you want, Daemyn?"

"Um… I don't know."

She let out a laugh. "Yes, you do."

I… What?

I looked o the room, my eyes falling on the 'treasure'.

Oh yeah.

"I want to participate in the tournament. And that means I'll be walking away with that treasure." I asserted, getting into a battle stance.

"Live in the moment." Ninetales smiled, standing and getting into a fighting stance herself. "But be warned, you will find yourself quickly overwhelmed."

I charged. "C'mon, it can't be that vicious-" I started, but as I reached her, her paw struck outwards and downwards, swiping my forepaws from under me, and then slid out of my vision. Then a force slammed into my throat from underneath, squeezing tightly as she lifted me up and twisted, and my world shifted sideways as she slammed me into the dirt.

Can't breathe!

She took her jaws off my throat and stood up, backing off a few steps. "Are you going to try again?" Ninetales asked me.

I got to my feet. "That was fighting dirty," I commented.

She snorted. "Think about a world in which pokemon couldn't use the elements. Quadrupeds would have no choice but to fight like this. Would it be dirty then?"

Good point…

I smirked. "Fine, but if we're playing like that, you'd better not curse me if I wind up dragging you around by your tails."

Another sort. "Please. Not all ninetales are petty enough to put life changing curses on others for having their tails touched. They aren't going to fall off, so why should we worry?"

I wasn't going to charge at her again like last time, but I realized she was the defender. She didn't have to attack. She just had to wait. So I needed to learn from my mistakes. She'd just nabbed my throat and slammed me. If I could get her throat… Wasn't there a saying about that?

I crept forward, starting to circle, before I jumped at her from the side. She jumped away, sliding behind a brightly colored metal sign looking thing that had weird writing on it, hanging on a pair of miniature metal pillars and attached to a rectangular base. I skidded around to catch up to her, and I watched her jump right at the sign. The sign part rotated on the parts it was connected to the pillars, and she spun it and escaped through it at the same time.

She did not! She did not just do that!

I tried to jump through it too to follow her, figuring that would be faster than running haphazardly around it again, but it didn't budge when I hit it!. I toppled backward as the sign suddenly tilted the other way. I yelped and rotated onto my belly to scramble up, but the thing landed on my back and pinned me. Two golden blond paws wrapped around the top end, and Ninetales looked down and under to see me. "Give up yet?" she asked with a pretty smile.

Did she stop the thing from rotating so that I would fail? Sneaky…

"Nope," I responded, before bracing myself and pushing up with my paws. With brute strength and shaking legs, I rose and lifted her and the metal sign thing up. "Holy cow, you're heavy," I grunted, making a joke.

"Are you sure you want to antagonize the one in charge?" Ninetales asked pleasantly, but like I suspected, there was a hint of 'I will destroy you' in her voice, like what usually happens when you talk about a girl's weight.

"Relax, I was talking to the sign." I lied, and she knew I was lying, and then I shook myself, causing Ninetales and the sign thing to slide off me, and I hopped away. I crashed into one of the standing lights with glowing spheres floating above them to provide illumination, and it toppled to the floor and almost tripped me up.

I turned to smirk at Ninetales, and saw nothing but blond-slash-cream color as she tackled me, and we went rolling. She ended up on top of my and she bashed her skull into my chin and it hurt."Ow! Are we even?" I asked.

She got off me and snagged my paw in her jaws, tossing me clear across the room so I slammed into what appeared to be a fluffy chair of some kind. "Now we are," she smirked.

"Ugh… I'm losing badly…" I muttered, but I stood up and got back in a fighting stance. I figured I knew what to do now.

She charged me, and I charged her. We lunged at the same time, and tried to pass each other. She grabbed my shoulder and I grabbed hers as we tried to scratch at each other with our paws as well. Eventually, my superior physical strength won out and I slammed her into the floor, and then I tried to do it again.

She played dirty and swept her tail across my nose, making me sneeze. The next thing I knew, I was on my back again while the nine tailed fox was preparing to attack.

I flailed with my paws and kicked her away while I caught my breath. Holy crap, I was getting my tail handed to me. I rolled to my paws and braced myself, but Ninetales had gone back on the defensive, waiting for me. I looked around, and smiled at the heavy looking light fixture, and I hopped over and grabbed it in my teeth. Now I had a weapon.

Ninetales hopped away from me as I smashed the thing down near her, but I then lost my balance, and she trotted up and quickly tilted me over with her paw, making me fall to my side and lose my grip on the object. "That isn't how you use a weapon." she chastised me, before padding away and walking to the piles of things behind the treasure pedestal, and started rummaging through it.

To get revenge for her making me sneeze, I snuck up behind her and pounced, landing on her back as she was looking, and we both sunk into the piles of random artifacts, tools and treasures made of shiny bronze or sometimes gold. The pile broke, and the valuable avalanche slid us down to the floor next to each other, which did not go unnoticed.

She hopped back into the pile, prompting me to follow. Everything broke away under me, so it was hard to make ground as she reached into the pile and pulled a simple rod of silver-colored metal. "This is how you use a weapon," she said through the bar and jumped at me.

Ow. Ow. Ow.

She smacked me left and right, up and down in a matter of seconds, even releasing the object as she sent it spinning in an attack and then grabbing it out of the air to simulate weapon styles that bipeds were supposed to use, and she was kicking my tail again.

I eventually grabbed the other and of it, and Ninetales and I played a quick game of tug-of-war.

I finally got up the nerve to grab the other end of the stupid thing and we played a game of tug of war. I was naturally stronger, and I started pulling her as she pressed her paws to the dirt, skidding along as I made my way back.

She then let go of it at the wrong (right?) time and I toppled backward, and she tackled me in my moment of disorientation, the rod dropped to the ground and was swiftly forgotten.

We landed, and I was on my back again, and Ninetales had landed on top without touching the ground, so her weight was on me, and she snapped at my face at the same moment I tried to bite at hers.

Which didn't turn out… Quite the way I expected.

All the fighting just stopped, and we stared at each other. Part of me was thinking about how it felt, which was kind of distracting, but her cream-slash-blonde furred face was tinted red with heat as she stared back, astonished.

Glad nobody saw… Oh, who am I kidding?

We looked up at the same time, my ears resting in the dirt and her looking in the same direction as me as we heard a single noise that stacked on our embarrassment.

Are you serious!?

Machoke was watching with mild interest, noticeably with a swirling yellow and orange drink in his hand. Probably orange gummi and nanab berry, brow raised at the two of us. "Is this a bad time?" he asked.

⽊Erza's POV⽊

My frown deepened.

"You've been standing there for several minutes." Azelf noted absently, floating in a relaxed manner. "I don't have to hear your thoughts to know you feel stuck."

"Shut your ever-rambling mouth, pipsqueak." I snapped. "You're annoying."

Now he frowned. "You are hardly that much larger than I am, Erza." he retorted.

I leapt at him on a whim, and he pointed to his left with his hand, causing me to feel a force and I was pushed slightly in that direction, making me start sailing over the cold water again, forcing me to use my vine whip to get back before I took an unwelcome dip. While in the air, I threw my flail at the back of his head, but it just stopped before it hit him, and he took it in his hand.

"Quite a bit of ingenuity." Azelf commended me, looking it over. "To combine an energy ball and your leaf blade attack to accomplish this. Most people wouldn't expect that of you."

"What's that supposed to mean, jerk!?"

"It means you act impulsive and fight violently, and most people like that aren't associated with taking the time to invent an entirely new technique."

Man, this guy was such a jerk! It was hard to focus on anything other than that. I felt like I was forgetting something, but I couldn't bother with that right now. "What the heck is wrong with you? Is just being a legendary that important to you that you have to act all arrogant all the time?"

He crossed his arms. "I accepted being a part of this tournament thing, but I'll have you know I wasn't exactly excited about it. The whole world knows about this place, pretty much, ever since your friend Jake and his teammate Swampert found it. I prefer to relax. I'll fully admit to being lazier than you would expect from the 'being of willpower'. I'd hoped I wouldn't have to get involved, because frankly, things like this really aren't a challenge for me. You encountered Rayquaza, a legendary pokemon. While he and myself are not exactly on par in most circumstances, I can hold my own for the same reasons I can hold you off. Legendary pokemon are not to be trifled with."

"Yeah? How'd Jake and Swampert beat a bunch of you, then?" I asked, a little calmer now. He was trying to get me to walk away instead of embarrassing myself less than he was patting himself on the back.

He rolled his eyes. "Uxie decided not to attack after they beat the groudon illusion." he pointed out. "And Mesprit was caught off guard because even reading the human-turned-pikachu's mind, he exceeded his own expectations multiple times and thus hit Mesprit multiple times, fooling her by fooling himself. You are not like this."

He was right. I wasn't like that. And as a bonus problem, lightning was a lot faster than my attacks without quick attack, and generally more expansive. So I needed to figure something out, but I was forgetting something.

...Oh.

Azelf's eyes widened as I managed to react to my own memory of my extra trick and caused the flail to detonate right in his face. He shot downwards, bouncing off of a crystal structure, and splashing into the water. Oh, that was satisfying.

He rose up, looking pretty darn battered. No wonder getting caught off guard just a few times took these fragile little guys out. "How exactly does one take being forgetful as an advantage?" he asked a bit drily.

I just shrugged. I had to figure out how to hit him a second time, but I was pretty sure I hadn't temporarily forgotten anything else. I was just lucky it hadn't occurred to me until just now.

"I'm afraid this changes things a bit." Azelf raised his arm at me. "Now I feel like attacking."

...Oh.

I dove out of the way of that freakishly fast psycho boost and was still thrown by the blast. I was feeling weak after all the other hits I took. Actually, I probably didn't have any right to keep standing. But I did anyways. I wasn't going to quit until this guy made me.

But he was actually firing quickly and dangerously now. With my force of will boosting and refilling his psychic power, he could just keep firing those things.

I had to make the small amount of normal type energy count, but if he knew I was coming, he'd just teleport and make me waste it. I had to get past that and dodge his attacks at the same time.

How on earth do you deal with a mind reader? I'd bet Caleb could break him with raw information, but I couldn't. I didn't underestimate myself, so Jake's method was out. And I don't know what anyone else did. What on earth was I supposed to do?

Well, what usually causes people to get hit? There's distraction, but if he knows I'm trying to distract him that won't work. If they don't notice it, that's out too, for obvious reasons. But it's not hopeless, it can't be!

I just had to attack. I had to try and turn my still bountiful grass type aura into energy for my quick attack, see if I could add it to my small amount of normal energy.

I closed my eyes and felt for my power. I didn't care if Azelf was listening in. This was a last resort and an attempt to be inventive. With my normal energy mostly gone, my grass energy totally overshadowed it. I tried to start manipulating it, pushing and pulling at the energies experimentally, because I didn't really know how to do this.

They existed in the same place, but they were separate. Surely I could mix the two. I kept mentally moving the stuff around, feeling pretty weird because I was doing so, and I mentally commanded them to fuse. Using words didn't really work, predictably.

I grimaced and kept working at it, trying to see if I could really do it. I needed it to win, so I would accomplish it. Otherwise, I'd lose, and I wasn't going to do that. Not this time.

There was a long silence as I kept concentrating. This was really hard! I guess I didn't really understand how exactly the type auras worked, otherwise this would be way easier. And Azelf was just letting me do it for some reason, though I guess he had a good reason.

Finally, I felt something, as I started to expand my normal energy and condense my grass energy, and they started to feel different as I could feel them mingle and pulse. My scowl gave way to a victorious smirk, and I opened my eyes and looked at Azelf, who had his arms crossed and he looked rather impressed.

"Not bad," he commented. "Now what are you going to do?"

I lifted my weapons up, and enveloped myself in my new quick attack. The flames were not a light green like I expected, but more like green with white flecks swarming through it. I liked this look.

Then I reequipped my speed scarf, and my vision went funny again, and then I made the best snap decision I could.

Since the main goal was basically 'attack, I shot over to the nearest large crystal and bounced off it. Then I did it again and again with different crystals, only choosing what to hit the next time I jumped. I swore I was moving even faster than before.

Then I hit Azelf. There wasn't anything to it. I slammed my flail into his fragile little face before he could make the conscious decision to teleport. Snap decisions and moving way, way too fast won the day.

He smashed into the crystal near the water and slid into it as I lost control of my angle and dropped my normal-slash-grass quick attack and uncontrollably flipped in the air until I landed face first on the crystal floor and slid several feet. It hurt like heck, but I wasn't going to let myself fall unconscious just yet.

Grunting, I stood and carefully stepped over to the water's edge, looking over at my reflection. Man, I looked super battered. I had no right not to be unconscious right now.

I frowned. Was my reflection turning blue?

Then I watched, eyes wide, as Azelf weakly floated himself out of the water, one eye closed. I'd cracked the gem on his forehead, but that would heal. "You're… Not done yet…" he growled, summoning one psycho boost in each hand.

Clang!

My flail hit the top of his head, and he slumped unconscious to the ground to my side. I couldn't help it, even though it hurt, I started laughing happily.

Then I fell on my back, my energy to move totally gone. "I won," I said to myself. "Did anybody see that? I kicked their asses. I win. Suck it, pompous legendary and OP guildmaster, hahaha… Even if that's totally my bad, Goodra. Wonder if Sap Sipper seems so great now and I'm rambling and kinda tired…"

I blacked out.

⽛Daemyn's POV⽛

"Yes! This is a bad time!" I shouted.

Ninetales didn't have anything witty to say, her cheeks were still red.

"Are you sure?"

"What the heck are you even doing, did you seriously take a break to Spinda's Cafe while I was searching!?" I asked, eye twitching. I wasn't angry about that, not really.

"You've got the nose, not me. I would have just been wandering about uselessly." Machoke supplied, even knowing I wasn't angry about that.

I grunted and covered my eyes with my paws. "Why, why couldn't that have just gone unnoticed?" I asked. "It was an accident!"

There was an awkward pause as Machoke watched, then he shrugged, turned around, and left. Well, almost. He looked back and gave me a thumbs up on the way out. I was gonna have words with him when I got out of this.

Speaking of…

"...Are you gonna get off anytime soon?" I asked, and the normally very calm and collective guildmaster yelped and scrambled off of me, breathing heavily and turned away from me.

I stood up, looking away. "So… Should we pretend that didn't happen? Also, is that normally what happens in that kind of thing?"

She apparently decided my second question was more interesting to answer, so she ignored the former thought for a moment. "...No. Both of us snapped our jaws shut prematurely," she said, straightening a bit.

I thought back to my conversation with Caleb about who I was, something that drove my respect for him from massive to incalculable, that made Ninetales just implying something was wrong with him brought anger flashing through me before I could squash it with rationality. And I'd become flustered by the very mention of this guildmaster's name. When I'd fallen for Sarah, I'd done many things to try pull her to love me back, but she resisted. But that wasn't a good example of how I should act because Sarah's reaction was skewed by whatever crazy magic was messing with her emotions.

And the both of us were debilitated at the very event where we accidentally made lip to lip contact. I wondered if she was at least as confused as I was, so I decided to use my mouth. Not that way.

"You know, when I talked with Caleb, he had this weird moment when he focused on what I think of you, and then kind of dropped it immediately and left me confused. I didn't know what to say."

She turned and looked at me, her expression clearing somewhat as she regained her composure. "He was much more confrontational with me," she said. "When I implied that he should joke around more and try to be happier, he assured I would not do it again by teasing me about a potential relationship between the two of us. I had no adequate response for him."

"He embarrassed you into silence? Why would he do that?" I asked.

She sent me an odd look. "We are having a conversation about ourselves." she reminded me patiently. "Though in terms of ourselves, he has brought up a very clear point. When pokemon are friends, they aren't confused about it. But by all rights, we know each other well enough that we should be friends, which rules out the other time I can imagine us being in a state of confusion; being forced to converse without really liking each other, though not hating each other. Case in point: Our problem is significantly different."

"But you know what it is, don't you? Weren't you the one that not-so-subtly mentioned your age relative to your instincts to Caleb or something? And why Caleb?"

"For your information, that was purely informative," she said without missing a beat or even blinking. "Most don't understand the process for a ninetales' age. If I did not inform Caleb of this, or anyone else who asked my age for that matter, what would their reaction be if I found myself falling in love with them?"

I couldn't help but snicker. "Could it be 'What the heck is this creepy old lady doing!?'"

"Thin ice, pup, and I am a fire pokemon." Ninetales retorted playfully.

"Question." I stopped smiling. "What happens when you outlive someone?"

"The circumstances of that depends on what the pair wants." Ninetales supplied easily. "I have heard of ancestors of mine using magic with their mate's consent to prolong their mate's life to the extent of their own. I have not seen it in person, however. My mother's mate apparently chose not to follow this pattern, instead deciding to live his natural life. She respected his wish."

That must mean her father's already passed on… I don't know why I expected this to be less heavy than it was, considering my question.

"I'm sorry." I apologized.

"Don't be." she flicked her tails. "A long life can be a curse, and my father knew it. I myself could have chosen to remain a vulpix instead of evolving, to shorten my life. Both a ninetales and any potential mates they have are presented a choice. In six hundred years, I may even regret choosing my path, but at the same time, I devote my life to keeping the peace and providing order as best I can with as many people as I can by being the guildmaster of the largest guild in the largest region. I very much doubt I will regret my choice because the task I gave to myself I can fulfill indefinitely and further. Besides, I knew him for his entire life after I hatched, and the experience was a full and pleasant one."

"That's a really hard choice," I commented somewhat absently. "Who was your father?"

"A sawsbuck, if you can believe it. It may even be why I can pull off such an effective solarbeam even if the sun isn't beating down on me because of my activated ability." She smiled, her eyes seeming to glaze over a bit as she lost herself in memories. "Grass types live relatively long lives compared to some other types, but he never lost himself. He was very supportive, but always maintained a self-teaching philosophy, that pokemon learn best through experience, through taking the time to innovate and invent with their powers."

I realized I hadn't plotted any response to that kind of thing, so I just nodded.

"And you?"

I almost didn't realize she'd asked the question. I looked down. "They both have similar attitudes. Both mightyenas, both supportive parents. I guess it was me that just somehow turned rotten in spite of that."

She frowned as I degraded myself a bit, but I pressed on. "I went back home recently, and they were happy to have me back, and they didn't judge me one bit. And after all the things I'd screwed up, I couldn't believe I deserved it for a while. And maybe I did, maybe I didn't. But they gave me forgiveness anyways. I'm not quite sure where they are right now, but they must be somewhere close to the town or in it, or they were discreetly following me or something. If they were, Gallade must have made a darn good distraction."

"Gallade?" Ninetales quirked a brow.

I blinked. "Uh… Yeah. He was acting weirdly angry at me for a while, and then I caught his scent and heard him a few times while we were traveling before we decided to check here. I didn't know what I'd done, so…"

"That is troubling." Ninetales kept frowning. "Not the kind of behavior that you would expect from a typical pokemon."

Man, I kind of did something similar after Caleb pissed me off… But what pissed Gallade off?

Ignoring the irony in Ninetales thinking I fell under her rationale of 'typical pokemon', I managed a grin. "Hey, it's probably nothing. I'll just try to pull a trick like Caleb did to me if he actually bothers to look me in the eyes. Anyways, what happened after Caleb embarrassed you?"

She didn't like the change of topic, but sighed. "I pointed out that it was manipulative of him to do that to me like he did, and he acknowledged that. Then he gave a rather depressing and in my opinion fundamentally incorrect speech about what it meant to truly fail. We moved on relatively quickly. What happened to you?"

"He moved on, but it was like he was letting the thought sit on me," I replied. "And I'm grateful for it, honestly. If he hadn't, I would never have been able to even hold a proper discussion about it. I had some more time to think about it so I'm not blustering like a complete idiot."

"Which means what?" she asked.

"Well… Actually, there was another thing that happened. I'm kinda impulsive, see, and my mind was still on you when Caleb was moving on, and I kinda said that you and Caleb talk similarly and considering his problems with instincts I said we should both be glad he wasn't a girl."

"...I have a disturbing mental image in my mind." The Queen confessed. "Topic change. What do you think after all of that thinking?"

"Um… Well, You're very straightforward, and you have a very good outlook on life. You don't just agree with people if they're your friend, from what I can tell of your issues with Caleb, and you're also pretty laid back, which I just emphasize with. So you've got a lot of the things I respect about Caleb as a friend, and there's a lot of things I also think we have in common. So I'm a little hesitant to say it out loud but…"

There was a pause, so Ninetales sat down. "To me, you come across as somewhat lazy unless you're on the battlefield, in which you unleash a quick battle style." she started, and my heart sank a bit because she wasn't saying anything about whether that was good or bad to her, which sounded like she was going with pure information mode. "You show that you try to complicate things, but often you abandon this notion in favor of simplifying it eventually. You like running jokes, and you'll push them even if it's gotten old, like arguing with the red absol Sarah over petty things."

My ears probably showed my oncoming depression. Rejected again.

She looked me in the eyes. "You know, I have a few running jokes that irritate my training guild members," she announced, and I blinked. "I like long naps and have trouble waking up in the morning sometimes, and while I don't try to complicate things as much as you seem to, I have a similar solution process. See, we aren't so different. And no matter what you've done, you seem to be a very loyal and kind person, and a great friend to people who might need your support."

"Sneaky fox…" I muttered under my breath.

"I can hardly decide for you, Daemyn." Ninetales changed the topic again. "You have to decide what you want before I feel comfortable making a decision on my own."

"Well… I'd like to know what you want." I said.

"..." she looked me over. "I want to not have to try again in the future. I decided long ago I wanted a commitment."

Sound faded away from me as I experienced a storm of heavy thoughts. Was I the kind of pokemon that could provide that commitment? I'd fallen for Sarah and quickly given up on that notion, even if those circumstances were hopeless. I didn't count on not screwing up again…

'You have to decide what you want', huh? Is that all she thinks there is to it? I don't think so, she probably knows it's more complicated than that, so why simplify it for me? Does she think I can just power through the issues I can see?

Well… Why can't I? Why does everything have to be so complicated?

I slowly cleared my mind, thinking about just my emotions and basic common sense. I liked life being simple. I was more than happy with that. My mind would rush to worry about the future and what if this and what if that, and then I would think about how I feel like a very different person, and a bunch of other argumentative nonsense that frankly wasn't a good use of my time.

My heart, once I cleared my mind, said there wasn't a shred of a chance I would give this up once I committed to it.

I looked Ninetales in the eye, smiling. "Yeah, I do want that," I said.

"As do I." she agreed calmly, a relaxed smile crossing her face.

There was a short pause.

"I'm getting that freaky mental image again," I whined, remembering my talk with Caleb.

"I think we'll get past that," Ninetales assured me.

"What do we do now?" I asked, looking at the treasure. "I mean, are we supposed to keep fighting after that?"

"Not exactly." Ninetales's eyes suddenly darkened, and her tails swished around a bit. I got a sense of impending doom, and stepped back a bit. "If I am to take the role of a girlfriend, I had best act accordingly. And so far today you have called me a crazy old lady and on the heavy side."

Bad choice, bad choice!

"I'm afraid I won't be holding back on you, because you do still need the treasure." she mused calmly, and then lunged.

---

Ten minutes later, she dragged me up the steps and out of the little cave thing she had. I'd really done my best in the fight, but she'd kicked my ass and then some. I guess I needed real practice with non-type move fighting. Even as I started to learn, she evaded my tricks and used the field to assist her in getting revenge for being called an old lady.

"Ow…" I whined as she dropped me.

"I think we're even now. I do have a job to do, though, so have a nice day, Daemyn. I'll see you later." I heard her padding calmly back into the place while I lay in that spot she'd plopped me down in. Fighting like that required a lot of close contact, even if it did seem a little barbaric just because I didn't grow up with that kind of fighting.

Machoke found me like that a minute later, still drinking that nanab and orange gummi drink, because of course he was. "What did you do to get beat up that badly?" he asked.

"Called her old… And heavy."

He snorted. "Bad choice." he echoed my previous thoughts, and then crouched down, picking me up by the scruff and setting me down on my paws. I wobbled a bit, but kept standing. "So what'd it feel like?"

"Pain."

"I meant your first kiss, dude." the fighting type rolled his eyes.

"It was an accident," I mumbled. "But I'd do it again."

I neglected to mention that I was a guildmaster's boyfriend now, but eh. Details.

⽊Erza's POV⽊

I felt cold. I'd fallen unconscious, huh? That's fine. I won first. I slowly opened my eyes, seeing the glimmering ceiling of crystals hovering far, far above us. It looked really nice. I guess if they messed with light properly, people who lived here could still have their own 'night sky' above them. All the time.

I sat up, looking around. Goodra and Azelf had woken up, and were talking casually over by the water's edge. They looked okay, so I guess they'd gone and given themselves some berries. "Morning." I raised a leafy hand.

"It's nearly evening." Azelf corrected, not at all surprised that I was awake.

Goodra stepped up. "That was commendable." he complimented me. "I never thought one day an opponent would drive my strength up to such an extent that it was not safe for anyone, including me, to attack. I was forced to let you keep hitting me until I lost consciousness. What's your nickname again?"

"Erza."

"Well, Erza, you gave me a lot to think about. You should be proud of your accomplishment."

"Agreed." Azelf floated up to Goodra's side. "As arrogant as I acted, there was no doubt you did some things I did not think any opponent of mine would do. I can only blame myself for my loss."

"Yeah, you talked a lot, man." I got up fully. "And you kinda just let me hit you that last time, but a win's still a win I think."

"You may have fallen unconscious soon after you won, but you still defeated a legendary pokemon and a guildmaster. You have more than earned the treasure we are keeping for the tournament. Then, as I suspect Azelf's just been waiting for, we can leave him alone and he can relax some." Goodra told me.

"Cool. Where's this treasure?" I asked, looking around. It hadn't exactly been on display.

"I tossed it in my lake. You are going to have to have all of your determination to get it out of the cold depths of the lake." Azelf told me, his eyes flashing.

"Where's my teammates?" I asked, walking up to the water and looking in. It was a beautiful blue color with all the crystals, but I couldn't see into it very far.

"They woke up some time ago. They were just waiting for you to wake up, but they decided to take a nap."

"Figures. Welp, let's do this." I touched my hand to the water, wincing at the super cold water. "Glad I never landed in here," I commented as I promptly dunked my head under and forced myself to get over the freezing cold, opening my eyes.

Not too much. I raised my head and looked at my tail. Yeah, that could make a decent makeshift fin. Without another word I just hopped into the water.

Oh my god I regret this. No turning back now!

I kept my eyes open as I swam downwards, waving my tail and trying to use it as a fin. It didn't work amazingly, but it kind of worked. I moved around, looking for it in the water, and made it to the bottom of the lake, though this was just by the shore. It was probably way deeper further in.

I needed air, and I didn't see it. So I pushed myself up and broke the surface, taking in a big gulp of air. I then extended my vines and extend them into the water. I would try to fish for it as I swam.

And the water was so frickin' cold. I don't think I was supposed to be in this kind of cold for extended periods of time, but I was gonna do it anyways. Nevermind that I just woke up from having my ass kicked by two tough opponents.

I kept going, trying to make contact with something by sweeping my vines along the bottom, and I made contact with something. I snagged it and pulled it to me, and what I saw made me smile.

I used my other vine to tow myself back to the water's edge. "That was a frickin' breeze!" I held up the thing. It looked like a glass sphere, with a lime green double helix swirling from the top of the orb around the outside of the thing and down to the bottom, but the bottom was covered by a kind of bowl of crystals pointing diagonally outwards and upwards randomly, like a pearl in a display meant specifically for it. It was very pretty.

And it was all mine.

"Alright, you two!" I used a vine to jostle the twins from a distance making them wake up. They didn't hesitate to hop over to me, full of energy. "I won, so that means we're officially in the running!"

They gave a wordless cheer and gave the thing a close look before settling down. I put the thing in my bag and waved to my opponent's as I walked off. No point in settling down and having nice long conversations, that just wasn't my thing.

I felt like I was feeling how I was supposed to feel, like a weight had been lifted. I wasn't going to let myself get so confused again.

That reminded me. I owed Caleb a good whack over the head. I needed to have a few words with him too. Which one should I do first?

⽕Sarah's POV⽕

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"North."

"Why?"

"Because we can."

"Um…"

"Dungeons on the water's edge tend to be less populated by other pokemon, partially because they don't know about them. I know about them because I was asked to memorize the map."

By Caleb.

"And anything that most pokemon don't know about is automatically a possible place for a guildmaster."

"Nothing's going to be more distracting than fighting a guildmaster." I agreed with Shedinja, looking out. "We're in the middle of the desert, though. We should find an oasis soon."

Shedinja made a deep sound, maybe a grunt of agreement. "I know where one is."

I let him lead the way. Considering I'd never memorized the map like Caleb had gotten him to.

I wonder how Caleb's doing. I hope he's okay. He doesn't have me to protect him, and I should be-

I shook my head violently.

No! Bad Sarah!

As I mentally scolded myself, I noticed we were cresting a dune and lo and behold, a pretty oasis in the distance, and just beyond that, an odd rock structure of some kind of red and gray stone. That mattered a little less than the oasis, of course, but it was a source of shade for sure.

I bounded over to the water and started to take a long drink. It was crystal clear, and the water was delicious, as it should be. Walking through the desert wasn't fun. My fur had totally lost its shine.

"Ah… Worth it…" I mumbled between drinks, and then stood up properly. "Let's use the rock thing over there to get some shelter and look at our map."

"Um… Should we really? It looks a bit weird, like an archway." he commented, sounding a smidge nervous.

"I'm sure it's fine," I assured him. "It's not like it's even like that new small dungeon right before the desert. It's totally uneven and random looking. Why would it be the same?"

"Sarah, our lives have this horrific comic timing."

I started walking over. I needed something to do. I'd just kick ass if it did happen. So I walked into the archway halfway and sat myself down in the shade. The ground was warm, but the shade was nice anyways. Shedinja floated up to me as I dragged our map out and rolled it out. "Where are you taking me?" I asked.

"Along the coast to the north, I think. We could go to the island up to the northwest."

"Shedinja, the artwork on this island screams 'fire'," I commented. "Do you really want to go to a land filled with fire types?"

He looked right at me. "If it means I can help you. It's across a stretch of water, which will be difficult to cross without me to float you over."

"But if I get desperate enough against my will, won't I find myself trying to swim anyways?" I asked, and he quickly backtracked.

"Let's not. The last thing we need is you dropping into an ocean mystery dungeon without me and being trapped. I wouldn't know what to do and if I lost you, where to find you. So why don't we go east on the coast instead? As far as we know, it's totally free of mystery dungeons until we get to that tower."

"What tower?"

"Look at the white mark on the map." Shedinja instructed, and I did. Over to the top right corner of the map stood a detailed mark that looked like a large white tower. "The tower's actually blue and white, Caleb told me from what he's heard, but that's all anybody knows. It's all sealed up, and nobody's been able to get in or break through its doors. It's also huge, with a massive diameter and height. I'd like to see it in person, it's out of the way, and we could spend our time trying to open it."

"Sounds like a half-plan. What if Caleb, cause he's so smart, decides to investigate it himself?"

Shedinja shifted from side to side like he does to show he's shaking his head. "Caleb knows we went north, so he will probably stick to the south." he rationalized. "He'll probably be curious enough to check it out eventually, but he cares too much about fixing your problem to put that in jeopardy for a tower he's probably going to be the first to unlock anyways."

That made sense. But in the back of my head, something screamed at me to find a way to venture south. I closed my eyes and tried to force it down. "Let's make a decision quickly… If that's our best option, let's do it, no more discussion." I said hurriedly. He moved up and down to nod and I rolled the map back up with my paw pad and slid it back into my bags. Then I twisted to get out of the place.

So of course, that's when things go wrong.

The sands shifted as I apparently hit a key point in what Shedinja had correctly assumed had been a dungeon entrance activated when I strayed too far into the thing. The surroundings didn't change all that much, but the freaking oasis disappeared.

Really? One symbol of beauty? Too much to ask for?

Oh, and the gate vanished too. Whoop de doo. With dungeon pokemon literally climbing out of the ground everywhere effectively neutralizing the momentary happiness I felt at seeing the staircase in plain view. This dungeon had floors like really large and sparse monster houses, I guess.

"This is the Shimmer Desert mystery dungeon." Shedinja said. "It looks like we're here for the duration."

Okay. Time to blow up some fools.

My water pulse nailed dugtrios left and right. Playing whack-a-mole was fun enough, but then a nidoking intervened and tried to mash me under his huge fist.
Shedinja blocked the strike while I just kept up the water pulse. Every darn thing here was easily destroyed with water pulse. It was really, really easy.

We decided after I had some fun that it would be better to try and get through the floors real quick. We didn't want to waste a bunch of energy in the middle of the desert anyways.

Shedinja turned his shell's face downwards and I hopped onto his back. He then just flared away, taking me with him. Even if I didn't have room to move, I was fine.

We got to the staircase we'd seen and I jumped down it, disappearing into the depths. Then it wasn't dark anymore as we touched down in flirt two.

Progression was cake because of this because all our enemies couldn't really hit Shedinja. Some rock type attacks sailed at us from the ground, but I blew them away.

If we hadn't cheesed it, all the super tough Pokemon swarming us could have brought us down, honestly. Still, we got to the ninth floor without much of a problem.

"Suddenly sandstone." I commented as we stepped out.

"Sarah." Shedinja suddenly spoke up. "Is that…?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "And it's not guarded at all."

Every floor but this one had been more desert, but this thing was a large sandstone cave. And right at the end of it was a spherical glass ball on a pedestal of earth, alternating red and yellow colors going up it in lines.

"This is too easy. Sarah, what do your absol senses tell you?" Shedinja asked. I concentrated, trying to form a mental map. It wasn't easy for me, but I knew Caleb could do it. Maybe he'd be more impressed with me if I could do what he could do.

Then I stilled. "Uh… Shedinja? We may be in trouble."

"How astute of you to notice" we heard, and the ground began to rumble. Garchomp emerges right out of the sand, standing tall. We got the garchomp guildmaster. Great.

"Hey, you should probably just let us by, because I've got Shedinja with me." I said, not wanting to get oh so totally annihilated. I wasn't wrong, after all. Garchomp couldn't do squat to Shedinja.

"Why would I ever enter a battle with such an obvious loophole without a partner?" Garchomp asked.

BOOM.

My danger senses, despite not being that strong, began tingling madly.

BOOM.

"Shedinja, what is that?"

"How am I supposed to be able to tell?"

CRASH!

A massive clawed hand busted through the wall behind Garchomp. Then a huge clawed foot did the same. A massive creature walked straight through the sandstone and straight over the pedestal, appearing through the dust as it was swept away by an enormous roar.

"May I introduce you to Groudon?" Garchomp gestured to his teammate.

"Um… Wait!" I called, "is he even a fire type?"

"NOT… YET…" Groudon boomed, as the pressure in the room rose tremendously as he exerted raw power.

"It seems Groudon sees the Shedinja as a threat." Garchomp noted passively. "He's going all out immediately."

"A-all out?" I stammered, my life flashing before my eyes.

Groudon began to grow even bigger somehow. His body trembled and had bursts of growth at regular intervals. The black lines that traced his red scales starting to glow yellow as the heat in the room started rising. Finally, he stopped, but was a freaking monster of a Pokemon!

"YOU MAY HAVE BEEN A THREAT IN MY BASIC FORM, SPIRIT" he rumbled "BUT IN MY PRIMAL STATE, I BEAR THE ELEMENT OF FIRE."

Are you serious!?

Groudon opened his mouth. Garchomp dived under the earth and didn't come back up.

"This isn't gonna feel good." I deadpanned.

"Agreed."

KA… BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

---

⻤Shedinja's POV⻤

Sarah lay on her back in the sand next to the oasis, her normally white-pink coat blackened and the rest of her looking burned. I myself had woken up just fine after being knocked out for a while, but I was annoyed because I just had no means of getting a rawst berry into her mouth. I wasn't physically built for that. So until she woke up naturally, she was going to look extremely cooked. And she wouldn't appreciate the irony of her being beaten by fire.

But I'd been waiting for twenty minutes, and I heard her groan.

"Ow…" she whined softly, cutely, trying to open her eyes but being forced to squint them at the sun overhead. "We lost…"

"I… Yeah, we did." I agreed. "But there's no way we were equipped for that. Guildmaster Garchomp obviously expects pokemon to be forced to team up to get the treasure, to see if they fight over it afterward and cause some chaos. If the chaos gets bad enough, people take notice and it's up to someone to manage to escape with the thing, which then paints a huge target on their backs. It makes the tournament interesting."

"So that's the goal? Cool. We'll need Caleb, and Daemyn, and Erza, and everyone's teammates, and We'll kick all the ass. 'Specially Caleb. I really need Caleb to be here." Sarah muttered.

"No." I asserted, "We will not. We will allow someone else to do that. We're going somewhere where Caleb isn't likely to be. He's considerate enough to give us space to roam. Destiny Tower."

"I'm not letting big and glowy get away with toasting me!" Sarah roared, bouncing to her paws and visibly regretting it moments later as her burns probably started stinging real bad. "Rawst berry. Ow. Rawst berry." she started rooting in her pack.

"Yes, you are." I asserted once more. "Eat your rawst berry. We should set off at once."

Sarah sighed. "I would love to see Caleb come up with a way to beat those two." she mumbled, but I got in front of her right away, wishing I could convey how serious I was with expressions.

"Tough." I told her. "Eat the berry, drink some more water, and let's get out of here."

She ate the berry, and I watched her fur return to their normal color, her burns fading away like magic. She obediently took another long drink to deal with the problem of being force-fed sand after being hit with a legendary level fire attack. I'm not sure what the heck the attack was, but it definitely blew everything up. Even if I went into my own shadow, My entire shadow would have been nailed by the blast and I couldn't have avoided it.

Maybe if we'd just attacked instead of watching Groudon power up… But still. Sarah didn't need to think about that. Once she'd committed to what I needed her to do, she stood up, raring to go.

"Let's get out of this freaking desert."

---

I hope I got you guys with the title of this chapter. Just because it said 'victory', I bet some of you thought all the battles were going to be won. But hey, they lost a battle again! Have these guys lost battles since Rayquaza beat their asses? At least Erza has the raw determination to keep standing and fighting even when she's battered and bruised, and has a touch of the plot armor her scarlet haired counterpart enjoys in her canon that has nothing to do with this story.

Oh, and DaemynXQueen Ninetales is official and stuff.

Anyways, I need sleep. Review, tell me what you thought, felt, etcetera. Critique welcome. Thanks guys and gals. Good night.