'Sup guys! Jango here. Juuust completed a... Personal project. Lets just call it that. Don't need to talk about that right now. You might find out later when Hyperjade notices... Heh. Cant wait to see his face. This is going to be epic, maybe i don't even need to see it, if he yells loud enough.

Try to ignore that for now... Don't need Hyperjade knowing something's up at the moment. Read the chapter instead. You will probably smile later too. See ya!

-Jango

Chapter 26: Patience

Θ Omniscient POV Θ

Sage blinked in surprise. "A red absol, you say?" he asked the crowd, and they nodded. One young pokemon piped up: "I haven't seen an absol before" she said in a small voice "is a red color weird?"

"No, no" Sage said "It's just unusual". Sage fidgeted with the small explorer badge pinned to him. "That absol there, it's the usual color". "oh…" the young pokemon said, thinking about the last encounter with the red absol. "Oh! And she had a mightyena with her!"

"A mightyena you say?" Sage asked the child, who nodded vigorously.

Right then. A red absol and a mightyena arrive in our village… Sage thought to himself. "Did they need anything?"

"Just rest" a female pokemon piped up from the background "they bickered a bit, told a few stories, and just collapsed in exhaustion".

"Thank you, Shaymin" Sage said. He guessed they might be a couple or something, if they had bickered and then told stories. Or, it was more complicated than that. The only reason Sage had delved into the topic was the fact that the absol was red. quite a rare occurrence. He has only seen one other pokemon with a strange coloring.

What the shaymin he had spoken to had failed to mention was how the mightyena had been the one they had blown off of the side of the mountain. She had realized that maybe Sage would get the wrong idea, and that maybe he would ask what he had been doing very rapidly. He was very protective of his home after all. Shaymin remembered that Mightyena had clearly changed for the better.

That was the last update. Sage was sometimes gone for quite a while, but not too many intense things happen at the shaymin village. He paid a visit to the sleeping absol before he departed for the mountain. He would not use a gracidea to get there. Instead, the little shaymin would brave all of the treacherous rocks near the top. It was a part of his training, in the scenario that it be too cold to fly.

He inspected the absol. The ghost type energy should have made the sleeping pokemon invisible, even if the ghostly energy was not invisible. What worried Sage more was the fact that this absol was using the ghostly energy at all. Why would he? He would have been safe here, what caused him to need to rest so long?

It was possible that the absol just wanted some time to avoid contact. The last absol he had met had been somewhat antisocial, but… This absol's motives confused him. Curled up and snoring, this absol worried him. He tried to discover why when he searched the source of his fear.

Some source of power was putting fear into Sage. It had been a while since the explorer shaymin had experienced any fear. It was not just the ghostly energy, though that probably made it worse. The other shaymin in the village had not mentioned any fear.

Sage frowned down at the sleeping pokemon in front of him. Emotions tend to affect the shaymin species, particularly gratitude. fear could do so, but only the emotions of others.

My flowers are wilting a little bit… Sage thought with a start. A negative emotion could do that. Was it sadness? Was it anger? Was it jealousy? Sage could not tell. Based on the fact that the absol had sent himself into a sleep, it sent a strong signal that he was sad, but he could still be angry, still be frustrated. All that Sage knew was that some negative emotion was erupting from this pokemon, enough to make his flowers wilt a little bit already.

Two days, and if this pokemon is still sleeping, Sage would be notified. Then, he would fly to find drowzee. He worried about this. This absol had just been here this morning, so he would not be in any danger of starving, but a few days and he would be extremely hungry. Not leaving the state after that, that could mean trouble. Trouble enough to be willing to starve.

It was for the best to leave him for two days. Trying to wake him up would be pointless anyways. After shaking his head, he walked away to begin his trek to the top of the mountain.

⽕Sarah's POV⽕

I looked about, blinking my eyes repeatedly. I tried to find what had hit me, but I was not using my absol sense properly. My eyes just gave me a big blank. Blindness. I would be blind until Chimecho could heal me. I was in trouble. My absol sense going crazy, I was utterly incapable of seeing.

Another hit struck, though it was a bit weaker. "Stop that!" I heard Nincada squeak in the background, but he was too far away to help. Amid the blows I sustained, I forced myself to calm down and focus on what was around me.

Why am I so terrible at this!?

Eventually, I could 'see' the breloom. it had backed up and prepared another mach punch. It would be over if I got hit by that. Steeling my nerves, I built a flamethrower in my chest. When the breloom decided to lunge, it got a full flamethrower to the face.

It's cry of pain was drowned out by the flames. One hit KO. My head slumped against the ground, my open eyes failing to see anything. Blindness. I would be blind until I got back to the guild.

I wobbled to a standing position, before Nincada skittered over to me. "Are you alright?" he asked "why are your eyes closed still?" I did not want to tell him. Being blind was a huge hinderance. I opened them to find no change. It had been so bright that my open eyes had taken a huge hit. "Sarah!" Nincada cried out "your eyes…"

"yeah…" I muttered. This seemed like cruel and unusual punishment to me. crippled for the rest of the mission. What fun. I went to roll my eyes, but there was a pain there. "Does it look that bad?" I asked.

"it's like… Like the color leached from your eyes. They look gray" he informed me. Cripes. Gray eyes? Gray would be a good eye color for a normal absol. it would look very uniform on all that black and white. Problem is, I am red. Gray does not go with red. "Great…" I muttered, and Nincada became restless. "You can't see?" he asked worriedly.

"I can use my sense to try and map out my surroundings" I said and Nincada seemed to relax until I said "except i'm not very good at that…" Nincada shuddered. I had to change the subject. I searched for the chest. "Can't 'see' too far… Where is the chest?" I asked. Nincada immediately jumped a bit. "oh, no, you are not going anywhere near that thing". I scowled.

"My vision is gone already. I can't get hurt more" I said. and he looked right at me, and then shook his head. "Debatable…" was all he said. "Just keep enemies away from me" I said "now where is the chest?"

Nincada hesitated, and I looked right at him and gave a glare. Just because I was blind did not mean I was completely blind. My vision had been obliterated, but I am an absol. I can at least use the senses I have. He eventually pointed in a direction, and I went that way. The ground suddenly sloped down, so I knew I was going the right way. The chest still rang out with danger, causing me to want to recoil. Maybe my eyes could get further damaged. Whatever.

I reached the light source, closing my eyes regardless of whether I needed to. The pouch that held the first being open, I placed the light stars in there one by one. There were quite a lot of them; Probably why I had lost my eyesight so quickly looking at them like I had. Stupid breloom…

The light began to lessen apparently, because Nincada drew closer. It took me several minutes, but once every single one was in my bag, nincada sighed. "Much better" he said, climbing up the chest side to peer in. Apparently nothing else was in there. Nincada climbed onto my back. "We'll find the one we were supposed to, then head home to heal you" he said. he was acting quite like a leader.

"You'll have to be my eyes. My absol sense is limited" I told him. he nodded and settled down on my back, prepared to view the landscape in search for another light star. When we headed out, I almost tripped several times. It would take a while to figure out how to navigate purely by absol sense.

I could manage it.

⽛Mightyena's POV⽛

Floor five.

There was plenty in the way of enemies now. If any group had attacked the seedot… Well, that was actually unlikely. We were the primary targets here, evidenced by the hordes of bug types around. They could not do much damage, though Bastiodon would get hit by the occasional attack. Most attacks bounced off of Bastiodon without damaging anything.

I never let myself get hit with a string shot. Bastiodon would sometimes get wrapped up, but he just would walk through it without much of a problem. Machoke could rip out of string shot. Those two proved to be a decent asset in this dungeon.

So when we found the seedot, it was rather simple to send him home. At the guild, we would receive a reward. Probably would not be much. Regardless, that was it for that job. Job well done. See you next time a seedot gets lost in apple woods.

"Do you want to leave the dungeon now?" I asked servine "you don't have to go with us for our job". She stared at me with a weird look on her face.

"Are you serious?" she asked sarcastically "you helped with our job, we will help with yours". She folded her leafy arms in front of her. I smirked and nodded. That whole act had made the teammates very uncomfortable. They were super confused on what was going through our heads. I began my walk to get towards the next floor. The stairs happened to be right there, begging the question as to why the seedot had not gotten himself out of here at least to the next floor.

Everybody followed me. My job was next. Snubbulls are not known for strength. It would be rather easy. My shadow ball would pass right through the normal type, but if Servine did not just smash a crater with her ball and chain, I could take the outlaw out with some other attacks. or, Machoke could just punch it in the face. Victory was assured.

The sixth floor was a bit odd. The rooms were bigger, more expansive, and there were some bigger and better items. "Oh, look" I said, viewing the disk on the ground "I think this is a bullet seed attack".

"We have about fourteen of those" Servine responded dully "from our little treasure find". Right. We did not need TM's. I left the thing alone. Bullet seed isn't too good of a move anyways. However, a caterpie apparently decided that it was certainly good enough for us, trying to hit us with a string shot. Bastiodon just got in the way. The guy was covered in weblike material now. he needed a bath of sorts.

Bastiodon was not the biggest fan of water, though he liked it more than fire. To get cleaned off, he would rather use a broom or something. Machoke would have to help him with that. I was not exactly built to handle a broom.

Our next corridor had something I had not seen for a while within it. There was a big door, several times taller than any of us A massive keyhole rested in it. In front of it was the biggest butterfree I have ever seen. It was easily three times the size of the average butterfree.

"In apple woods?" Servine said "These don't show up here…"

"A lot of things have been changing recently. Ever seen a butterfree that big?" I asked. Servine shook her head. As I joke, I asked "think it knows psychic?" with a smirk on my face.

She scowled at me. "Guess who's going first, smartass?" she asked, and the tangela started giggling uncontrollably. Machoke let out a deep chuckle, and even Bastiodon managed to look amused. I realized I had just offered to fight a massive, probably powerful bug type. "Ah, i've got this" I said, and my team backed up a few steps, as did Servine and her team. I could have just blown up the butterfree from here, but that was just not fancy enough.

instead, I rushed at it, and when it saw me, I had to dodge a silverwind attack. I almost failed to, because it was a pretty big attack as it turned out. The bigger the wings of the bug type, the more expansive the attack. I whirled behind it, and jumped. My strength having been boosted from my ability, I used quick attack and struck the flying bug type in the back. It squeaked with surprise before crashing into the ground. Having landed, with it struggling to get back up, the others could not see me.

Knowing they could not see me, I decided to try something I had been practicing for the tournament. Charging up a shadow ball in my mouth, I made it suddenly split into several dozen small shadow balls that fired out in a wave in front of me, blasting the butterfree unconscious instantly and sending it flying towards my friends, who almost got crushed if Bastiodon had not stepped out from behind to act as a shield. The unconscious pokemon slumped to the ground.

"Oookay then" Servine said. I wondered what she was thinking. Had I just scared her with that? Oh well, it's just how strong my shadow ball eruption trick is. No point in worrying about it. "Well done" she said then.

We focused on the door. "I don't bring dungeon keys to dungeons that don't have these normally" I said defeatedly.

"Fortunately for you, I always take one dungeon key with me. You should too, considering that we each got about two dozen of them in our waterfall cave haul" Servine said, her vine reaching into her bag seemingly on it's own and pulling out a key that looked far too big for the bag. It's good that those things are bigger on the inside.

The gargantuan key slotted neatly into it's respective door, and once Servine twisted it, the key glowed and vanished. Five seconds later, the door did the same. Behind the door was… Nothing. Nothing valuable anyways. There were some gummis, but the room was small.

"Dissapointment city" Servine murmured, viewing the gummis. "Purple, red, white… Nothing we can use".

"I guess that's what we get for wasting a key on a locked room in a pathetic dungeon like this" I replied, eliciting a nod from Servine. The others looked rather disappointed.

"No matter. We should not waste too much time here" I said. Servine nodded again. She evidently decided to lead the way to the next floor, considering how she started to move before I did. It seemed we were taking turns being the leader, which made sense really, in the absence of… Caleb.

Damn. I can't even go a few hours without thinking about the poor guy…

Caleb's leadership skills had made his contributions to the team essential. If he had been here, we would have waited for him to start, because we all thought of him as the leader. I wondered what he would think of that.

Servine was making her way through the next room when my thought process was interrupted once again by an annoying swarm of bugs. After the dust settled, about twenty weedles had been downed. A few other bug types had joined the pile as well.

"Sewaddles" Servine said, poking one of the unconscious bug and grass types with her sword lightly "That's new".

I certainly had not seen these guys in this dungeon ever before. normally, sewaddles were prevalent in forest dungeons of different continents altogether. The world really was changing, and at a very fast pace.

"Stairs there" Bastiodon rumbled, looking into the distance. He was looking through a short corridor towards the next room, where the stairs had been. It was surrounded by taller grass, but clearly visible. "Ten to one that grass is hiding more bugs" I said. Servine nodded.

I thought we would just jump through, but Servine had a different idea. She pawned off her sword to her vine, and grabbed her flail with the vines. That basically created two super long range weapons. With a good couple slashes, she managed to clear away the grass. There were in fact a few sewaddle within the grass, minding their own business. They took a nasty hit. They were super resistant to grass type moves, but sewaddles are profoundly weak. One hit KO's were possible.

So one staircase later, we were planning on taking down one silly outlaw.

"Not right here" I grunted, realizing that the outlaw would probably avoid us at all cost. Servine looked about quite a bit. "He's a hider" she muttered "i hate it when they do that. Cowards…"

"They tend to be cowards, especially recently" I said. She was right. They run when they see us nowadays, having gotten it through their skulls that rescue teams are there to mess them up. Nowadays, more and more of them run away or hide instead of ambushing teams at the staircase. It was annoying. I preferred straight up fights. Apparently Servine did as well.

"If we sprint around, we might find him. Shall we split up?" I asked. Servine thought about it for a bit. I could hear the tangela shaking themselves. Still not wanting to be around me eh?

"Sure. Let's end this quickly" she responded. She split off from us, racing way too fast for the tangela to follow. They tried, however, but we would all get separated. "You two take that exit" I told my teammates, gesturing towards another corridor.

As for me, I decided to go alone into a final exit. I just wish I had turned left instead.

So many butterfrees. So… Many…

⽊Servine's POV⽊

So after I had placed my weapons back in my hands, I met enemy after enemy. So many bugs. Bugs creep me out, actually, now that I think about it. The eat leaves. Plants. I'm a plant. I was edible. This thought kept arriving in my head ever since Caleb told me I tasted like spinach.

What is spinach, anyways? Caleb had said it was a plant. An edible plant.

I guess humans can eat lots of things then. Wait, why was I thinking about this? Probably because of the parallel between humans and these freaking bugs. However, they evidently could eat plenty of things. And like pecha berries a lot. And eat something called spinach. I should probably ask Caleb to elaborate.

If he comes back.

Ouch. Even thinking about bug eating habits turned the topic to Caleb. Geez. I could not even deal with my own form thinking about it. I was dinner. That terrified me. Hopefully if Caleb ever showed up, he would tell me that humans can eat a lot of things or something.

Now I was wondering what they eat. Time to change the topic. New topic: Destruction of pathetic bugs. stab that one, smash the other. Lunge at a few while swinging my ball and chain behind me to avoid getting jumped.

That worked pretty well actually. I felt something get smashed behind me. I turned long enough to see a beautifly. Another thing I have not seen very often in this dungeon. New aspects of dungeons were popping up so often nowadays. I tried to forget about it.

One room of enemies later, my tangela caught up to me. The little goofballs had not split up like the plan. I smirked to myself, my back turned. Then, I stabbed another bug type fool. Goodness, these enemies were pathetic.

There was no snubbull though. I wanted to find a snubbull. I was going to find the others now, having searched a lot of rooms. I ran towards the center of the floor, having gone through an entire side of the dungeon. Meeting no enemies, I got to a large room. With play-perfect timing as Mightyena showed up on the opposite side ot the room. A few moments later, we seemed to notice how simultaneous that was.

"Interesting…" I said, and he nodded. We were in an empty room. It was nice here. The sun streamed through in several places, the sun somewhat past noon. The tree branches stretched out making a intricate roof with many gaping holes. The roof was also lower, and it had basically looked like a impressive jungle gym. I needed these trees as my new roof. But, I could not do that. I could not just teleport stuff out of a dungeon. Even if I was a psychic type, I could not teleport it out of a dungeon.

Bastiodon chose that time to show up in a third corridor, Machoke in tow. I waited for the tangela to show up with even more excellent timing. However, they did not.

I viewed the rest of the room. It was devoid of apples for some reason. Why? Every room in apple woods had at least two apples lying about, as the dungeon goes. This room had none. I viewed the room around me. There was a bush in the corner, cleverly colored like the rest of the dungeon, but bushes did not show up here.

"Gotcha…" I whispered so quietly not even Mightyena could hear. With one motion, I flicked my hand, the sword in it sailing straight into the bush.

"OW!" a voice cried out, prompting a certain outlaw to stumble out of the bush. clever little hiding spot, but bushes are practically non existential within the apple woods. A perfect spot to hide, however.

"Ohhhh, i'll get you now!" the wimpy 'outlaw' yelled, trying to be frightening. I heard the others come up behind me while the silly pink pokemon charged me. I allowed him to get closer, my arms crossed, my frown slightly exaggerated. His charge was sloppy, he was frightened. When he neared me, I sidestepped with ease.

BONG!

Snubbull had just headbutted Bastiodon, with pathetic effects. He slid down for a moment before he flopped off, landing on his back. He was out cold. Mightyena checked on him. "Was a flashy and exciting battle too much to ask for?" he asked nobody in general, bringing a smirk to my face.

"Maybe you wanted me to outdo you" I ventured, causing him to whip his head around. "in your dreams" he said, causing my arrogant grin to widen a bit "You won't be outdoing my battle with moves like that" he taunted.

"We'll see how that turns out when I slam you into the floor during the tournament" I shot back. His little smirk appeared on his face "Or when I blow you up within an instant" he returned. Our little verbal war was brewing, and probably would have been pretty fun, but we were interrupted.

The tangela staggered into the room, breathing somewhat heavily, with some damage on their bodies. "You two sure missed an epic battle" I said sarcastically, but how how would they know? They had not been there. They warily viewed the unconscious snubbull, and I was almost dying of laughter inside. My face was straight outside, however.

"See ya at the cafe" Mightyena said, before disappearing with a flash of light along with his team. The moment he did, what the tangela were running from became apparent. A horde of large bug types. Whirlipedes. some sewaddles, even a leavanny. A freaking bug type, leafy eating army.

"Nope!" I said, before zapping my team back to the guild as well.

⽕Sarah's POV⽕

We walked along. Not being able to see was freaky for me, but it would be so much worse than being a pokemon without another way to tell where I was. Being an absol was great, though i'm not the best at doing absol like things.

So when we were walking along, I realized that without Nincada, I would be screwed. I did not have the greatest sense range, in fact it's just about the worse. Either way, Nincada knew when I had gone to an area before… Somehow. It was very helpful.

"Being blind sucks" I commented, causing Nincada to sigh. "Maybe you should not have stuck your head into a chest full of light stars with your eyes open" he replied, having been tired of my commenting on the situation every fifteen minutes.

"Hey, I was thrown in there by a breloom" I said in defence of myself, causing him to just shake his head in exasperation. I guess I have been somewhat annoying. Guess what? So was the fact that I was freaking blind. Venting about that was good enough for me to avoid being insanely annoyed about the topic.

It was pretty much fine, because this place was nothing but a bunch of hills. It would be extremely annoying if the place looked amazing and beautiful. Thankfully, rolling hills were just a little mundane. The sky had been pretty, though. Shame I could not see that.

My eyes being grey was going to be a little annoying when I got home. Several pokemon would see that when I got back, before I could be healed by Chimecho. So many people saying 'oh my goodness what on earth happened to your eyes?'. Boy, that's going to be pitiful.

"Sarah, could you stop for a moment?" Nincada asked. I complied instantly, almost tripping in the process. "Could you turn to the left?"

I did so. "Not that far left" I heard. I looked back to the right. "Good enough".

I began to travel forward, as Nincada began to rummage in my bag. "What are you looking for?" I asked. He did not reply, just dug into the large bag. Finally, he dragged something out of it. A little star shaped item. "One of the light stars? Only one? How will that hel-... Oooooooohhhhhhhh" I finished, noticing that if he wanted to find a light star, he could just use another. "Is it glowing?"

"Yep" he said "doesn't mean anything for distance, because it's the quantity of them that determines brightness, but if it snaps off, i'll know it" he said.

"Why pull it out now? How far does this proximity thing go?"

"Don't know. However, the other one should glow as well. Try going over that hill".

"Hill? My sense is pretty short range nincada. It's flat here" I reminded him. He sighed. "Of all times for you to go blind… It's to the right a little bit". I turned. "Too far right". I turned back a bit and began to walk. Sure enough, the ground began an incline, almost tripping me Once I reached the top, Nincada looked around.

"Ah" he said, raising a claw and pointing in a direction. Following the direction his claw was pointing, I arrived at my destination. A small crystal star shaped item was just sitting there. It was more visible than the other objects, just like the crystal Nincada was holding. When Nincada put his away, the one on the ground faded 'till it was just as mundane as a regular object.

I picked the thing up, letting Nincada take it from me, before he put it away in a different pouch. This was because it was the request item. Job done. Soon, I would have my eyesight back, and well timed as well. I hoped that it would be quick, and maybe that Chimecho would be the first to notice the issue.

"Shall we go?" I asked Nincada, who just nodded. I was going to use my badge, but Nincada decided to use his first. With a ZAP! and a flash of light that I could not see (i knew it was there, though), we warped to the guild.

Once I felt the ground beneath my feet, I observed the area without moving. The beds were in between me and the door. I walked around them. I closed my currently useless eyes in order to avoid problems with the other guild members. As I walked, others called to me.

"Why are your eyes closed?"

"No reason…" I lied.

"Hey, Sarah… What's up with having your eyes closed and all?"

"Training my absol sense to see without them in case of emergencies" I lied.

Getting up the ladder was a challenge. I almost fell off part of the way up, but I kept my claws dug into the porous material. All the holes in it were due to others climbing up it with similar usages. I'll bet this ladder has to be replaced every once in a while. The second floor welcomed me with several more questions, for which I had a lie prepared.

Chimecho was dead ahead, having just finished talking to some random team. They seemed to look like small Mightyena's, but I could not be sure. "Oh, hello, Sarah! Is there anything I can do for you today?" she asked sweetly.

"I guess you could say that…" I muttered, opening my useless eyes. She floated back almost a meter in surprise. "Oh, no! Not that! Hang on one second!"

She began to move back and forth, a chiming sound coming from her, resonating throughout the air. I felt the damage on my face disappear. My eyesight would take far longer to heal. Therefore I stood there while Chimecho kept talking while she healed me.

"What the heck did you do to your eyes?! she demanded. I mumbled something about falling into a chest filled with shining crystals face first with my eyes open. That in itself sounded slightly ludicrous, and Chimecho was a bit mad about my decision making before I clarified that I had been tossed in by a breloom.

"Hey, I can see a blur now" I commented after about three minutes. It took a long time to heal blindness apparently. "Did you just keep staring into it for a while?!" Chimecho exclaimed, prompting a blush to come to my face and for Nincada to poke me with his claw in a way that said 'i told you so'. I ignored him.

Did I mention I suck at decision making?

After about five minutes, I could stop using my absol sense. And it just kept getting better. The rest of my wounds were gone. When my vision finally, finally snapped back to full clarity, I felt perfectly healthy.

"You should have left the dungeon the instant that happened" Chimecho said, making me focus on her. Oh man, it was good to see again. Yet, it seemed Chimecho had some bad news for me. "You said your eyesight was back to full?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because while your eyes are mostly back to normal, theres a few tiny gray flecks in them. Nothing anybody would see without being up close, but there are grey flecks in your eye color now" Chimecho said sadly.

What!? WHAT!?

"WHAT!?" I yelled in shock, causing everybody in the room to whip their heads around and stare. I immediately shut my stupid yap. I should at least apologize.

"I-... I'm sorry, Chimecho" I stammered, feeling more than a little embarrassed. She recovered slowly, leaving me to think for a minute. A permanent change in eye color, huh? Blue with flecks of gray? What would others think? What would Caleb think?

Stop that.

"It's all right, Sarah" Chimecho said soothingly, though she still seemed shaken "It's a normal reaction. Honestly, coupled with the sky blue, I think it looks rather… well, it doesn't look bad at all".

I gave her a strange look. "You think so?" I asked. She got a closer look. "Well, they look much more detailed, instead of that monotone blue. Even from a distance, they actually look deeper".

Huh.

"Soooo, good thing?" I asked slowly, resulting in a vigorous nod from Chimecho, who apparently was super relieved: Disaster averted. Eyes in acceptable condition. "i'm sorry for yelling at you" I said, and promptly left. So many eyes staring at me. That had been so much more public than what I wanted. It was my fault anyways.

At least it seems to not be so bad… Maybe I can handle having a slight color change in the eyes. At least I can see.

As I prepared to take a nap before dinner, my thoughts turned to Caleb again. I was worried about him. I thought that he may not come back, and what would happen to him? Would he get lost somewhere, wandering for ages, living his life alone somewhere. He would not be happy. He would not be helped.

What could I do about it? I would wait a few days first. If he did not come back for two days, I would talk to Wigglytuff about sending out a letter out to discover where he was. Not to bring him back, just to find out where he was at this moment. If I could do that, and if the response was that he was doing well, I would not go after him.

I promised myself that I would not go and find him if we were told that he was fine. I promised. I really hoped that I could live up to that. I hoped that my love would not get in the way. What I really wanted was to be with him, but if he was not happy… It would be pointless.

So I promised. I told myself that I would not go after him if I was told that he was in good health. I was setting myself up for failure, but for once it was the right thing to do. Two days before I send a letter out. I would just have to be patient

⽊Servine's POV⽊

"Oh, my" I said, discovering the impressive taste of my new combination of a grass gummi, a cheri berry, and a persim berry. "This is much better than just having a grass gummi drink".

"This is awesome" Mightyena said, having not listened. He was taking a rare break from his tamato berry and black gummi drink. I had no idea how he could consume such spicy stuff. He had actually put in a tamato berry. The spiciest stuff in the world. Literally makes some pokemon breath fire when consumed. Mightyena was drinking it along with the two black gummis within his drink. It was impossible.

He took another drink before setting it down and looking at me. "What?" he asked, and I realized I was staring at him. "Oh… just realizing again that you are drinking something like that. How can you deal with such spicy food?"

"Actually, it's kind of a part of my training. That and I do enjoy the taste of it, once you get past the spiciness" he replied. I looked at the black and red swirls in his drink. "Planning against fire types?" I asked.

"Or Sarah" he replied "gotta be able to take a little heat if she ends up fighting us in the tournament". I frowned at his connection. Sarah would certainly be an issue if she tried to fight us, but like the other teams, Bastiodon could likely just blow her up with flash cannon.

Speaking of our teammates, Bastiodon was feasting on this pudding like silver and blue substance made from a silver gummi and two oran berries. Tasty stuff to him, though I don't know what those silver gummis were actually made of. Probably have some sort of metal in them. Maybe silver. Would make sense.

Machoke was having a fruit and berry smoothie, made from an oran berry, a pecha berry, and a banana. Ever since the guy had tried one of the bananas that Caleb had picked before he had arrived, he found he really liked them. So, Machoke had asked Mightyena at some point to get or buy some of them. Mightyena surprised both of his teammates by saying 'sure'. Apparently, anyways.

The tangela were sharing one glass of pure grass gummi drink. They really enjoyed grass gummis, more than most. They took turns taking a big drink of the stuff. They literally did everything together, the little grass types. my teammates were strange, but they were certainly reliable.

"So" Mightyena began, making me turn my attention back to him "Anything happen before you left the dungeon?"

"Uh…" I said, unwilling to tell him about our rather hasty retreat. The tangela twins started to giggle again, prompting a smirk to appear on Mightyena's face. He knew that when the tangela started laughing, it was because I did, said, or caused something embarrassing. He did not even ask. No need to know.

My own drink was disappearing rapidly, almost without my knowledge. It was that good. I tried to slow down. I was enjoying having some time to just talk with friends.

I really do consider Mightyena a friend now. Kind of rivals at this point. And he had impressed me with that fight against the giant butterfree.

Next topic… "So" I said, and the entire group looked straight at me. "Giant butterfree: Dungeon spawned test, or just pure chance?"

Mightyena tilted his head a bit in thought. He was having trouble deciding. "We probably could bicker about it for hours" he finally replied "we'll never know". He was right. We never would know. Not knowing things frustrated me, but nothing could be done.

"Right" was all I said, before returning my attention to my delicious drink. This place was a favorite. Not just for me, but for a lot of pokemon. Some days, Spinda had to pull out extra tables for the customers. Many rescue teams came in here after their missions, and if the timing was wrong, so many of them showed up Spinda started to get dizzy trying to accommodate them.

Today, at this time, it was about half full. It was maybe a few more minutes before a certain loudred came in. Loudred was chatting very loudly with another pokemon, Sunflora. Loudred was announcing how there was some commotion when team edge had gotten back to the guild. I was a little excited before I realized that it just meant Sarah and Nincada. Apparently Sarah had gotten a little over reactive about something. Would not be the first time.

This made me realize something. Sarah may be responsible, but what was done was done. Sarah loved Caleb enough to go mad and chase him. That was Sarah. Who she was. We could no longer treat her like this. It was time to forgive Sarah.

⽛Mightyena's POV⽛

"We need to have a little chat" Servine said, looking straight at me "alone". Had she gone mad? What was up with her?

The tangela apparently thought that she was insane as well. Machoke nudged me, a slightly worried look on his own face. What the heck was happening to all of us? We were all crazy right?

Then, it dawned on me what she wanted to talk about. "Ah. The little announcement?" I asked. She replied: "Sort of…". What did that mean? I sighed. "Just let me finish my drink first" I told her, grabbing the glass and tilting it up again. The spicy substance fell down my throat. Such delicious stuff if you could handle the spiciness.

I managed to drain the stuff, and went on to wait for Servine to finish her drink, which was mostly gone. The others had finished theirs, so we all made her uncomfortable on purpose with our stares. She pretended to ignore us, sipping down her interesting combination drink. Cheri and persim, really? I know that the grass gummis are great for grass types, but the berries did not go together, in my humble opinion.

Okay, maybe not so humble, but…

"Right" Servine said finally, slamming her cup into the table in a manner that says "I am done. This is over". "You two go back to the grove" she addressed the tangela. I looked at my teammates. "You two do likewise. Off to the cave" I told them. They reluctantly nodded and began the journey away and out of the place. Servine watched them leave.

"Aaand we're off" she said, after they had been gone for a minute. The tangela were not insane enough to disobey Servine, but Machoke had seemed worried about me. Was it that they did not trust Servine? Why? "Right" I said, standing up. We left quickly, emerging into the sunlight. The sun was setting, but it would be several more hours. "Hmmm…" Servine said "Probably should be somewhere secluded to avoid people sneaking in to hear the topic. Not everybody needs to know about Caleb".

"Right" I said.

I seem to say that a lot… Oh well.

We travelled away from town, towards a place where the only way people could hear us if they were a super hearing sensitive pokemon like me, or in the clearing themselves. "You wanted to talk about Sarah" I guessed.

"Yeah. You know everything that happened, except for when you were, you know, trying to kill us all" she said reluctantly. Should I tell her that I was conscious when that happened, and that I simply could not control myself? Yeah, I should. Problem was, it would be difficult to do so.

"Uh…" I began, not really planning out what I was going to say. What could I say? How could I say it? "Out with it!" Servine said, her attention on me. "Uh… Well, I just was thinking. I could not control myself during that ordeal, but…" I faltered. Servine was still waiting on me. "I could still see, feel, and think. I just could not… Control anything" I finished. I had gotten it out.

Servine was looking horrified at that. "Oh" she said simply. After a few tense moments had passed, she winced. "I didn't know…" she whispered. I nodded and looked away towards the trees to my right. Why I was looking over there I did not know.

"Do you think Caleb knew what was happening too?" I asked, and Servine flinched again. "I don't know… Maybe that was why he was so silent when he came out of it… I stopped him from saying anything, thinking that talking to us would make it worse… Do you think that helped cause him to stay?

"I think everything that happened to him helped him stay" I replied truthfully. Servine sighed and sat back, looking up at the sky. After about five minutes of silence she said: "You know we have to forgive Sarah, right?"

"Servine…"

"We do. While She was at the most fault, it was not all of her fault. We all made mistakes that led to this, and I really think that Caleb's mind had not considered Sarah as he was deciding, at least not much. With only Sarah hounding him, he probably would be home right now… We're all to blame, and we can't keep pretending we're not. Sarah really was blinded, you know. Blinded by her love. We have no such excuse".

I waited while she finished her monologue. She was right, but she had not taken everything into account… The thing she was missing was rather personal to me. "Servine, she asked me to betray Caleb" I reminded her "i planned to stop her, but that had to mean betraying her instead. I was going to anyway, but it did not work out. You know that. how can I forgive Sarah for asking me to do that, putting me in a position where I had to betray somebody?"

Servine blinked at that. She seemed very thoughtful. For two minutes, she just stared at the sky. "Yeah…" she murmured. Then she looked right at me. "We need to forgive her anyways. You know that. It's over. If we just keep being angry at Sarah, nothing will come of it".

"Nothing will come of it…" I echoed. She was right. I could not hold it against Sarah. She may not be innocent, but she was certainly blinded by love. In fact, she was practically drowning in her love for Caleb.

I am no longer blinded as such.

Yet, Sarah was. Caleb was gone for now, and Sarah was probably devastated. I did not want to forgive her entirely, but anybody so blinded by love would be pushed to any extent. After I thought about that, I realized that despite my stubbornness, I no longer felt real anger towards Sarah. I could forgive her. I could treat her like I could now treat others. Now, I was fully a changed pokemon.

I nodded. There were no words needed to describe this anyways. Servine seemed surprised that I was complying. Really, I had just forgiven her. Maybe I had even had a better time of it than Servine had. Servine, to her credit, said nothing either. She went from her sitting position to flopping on her back. I guess she was more tired from the day than I was.

She seemed to be content just staring into the sky. I meanwhile, focused on trying to forgive Sarah. The way to do it, I once learned, was to imagine an image of the person you are trying to forgive, and focus on being calm, collected.

It's been awhile since I have done this…

Just sadness and defeat awaited me when I thought about her. No anger at this point. I wondered why. Maybe I felt that I had failed in giving up in loving her. I argued to myself that it was not so much giving up, but I did not really believe myself. Instead, I shoved down every emotion and left nothing. Completely neutral. Sarah was a random absol to me. Now I just had to find out what it meant when I thought of someone as just a random person to me.

Now I could only wait and be patient while Caleb decides whether to come back. I hoped I could wait for that to work out. if it did. I could only do that while he was gone. Would he come back? Would he flee to some other country and hide away, pretending that he was some normal absol, pretending that nothing had transpired? Would Caleb do that?

Servine clearly did not want to talk anymore. I had understood, and she knew it. So, I turned away. I walked off, leaving her to lie there and think things through. Sometimes. Servine's thought process confused me intensely.

I wandered back towards home. I would just have to get on with my life. However, I could instead do some training alone. I had to have something to keep around for the third part of the tournament where the fights were one on one. I needed something to keep secret until I truly needed it.

Maybe I could…

⽕Sarah's POV⽕

It turns out I am not patient. I wandered about around the guild, and through the town trying to take my mind off of Caleb Instead, I tried to focus on the tournament. There was no arena being built right now. I wondered when they would start. Soon, right? Arenas would take time to build right?

No arena was around, but I noticed that with all of the housing places for pokemon that were coming from the different place were avoiding a large area. I blinked. Hey, wow. This massive empty spot meant that the arena would be about as big as the space right? This was massive.

The houses… Some were made of wood, some made of dirt somehow, one… Was that metal? None of them were built of crystals, which I would have liked a lot. When we graduated from the guild, I wanted to go and grab a ton of beautiful crystals and build us a house. Or get somebody else to do it. I really can't build stuff.

If I think being four legged sucks, what would Caleb think?

Oh, and now I am thinking of Caleb again. Nothing would happen without having something to do with Caleb, and my thoughts always turned to Caleb. Caleb. Everything I do causes me to think about him. He was always on my mind.

He always will be. Trying to forget him is pointless. Caleb, what can I do to find you? One more day, and I will send out a letter. I will find out where you are. If you are in trouble, I will try to get to you.

I kept promising myself that. I kept promising, but if I found out where he was, would I actually stay here if he was safe? Probably not. Even I knew that I could not control myself. I just felt so much more… Alive when he was around.

I wanted so much to find him, and the feeling grew constantly. I really was obsessed wasn't i? How could I deal with that? Should I be dealing with it at all? Should I try to abandon my love for Caleb, or should I just go with it? Should I search him out?

One more day… One more day… I can handle it…

Could I handle it? Could I manage to hold myself back? Could I stop myself from rushing off tomorrow? Could I do anything? Why am I so obsessed, and why can't I let myself forget about him?

The only person who could tell me was probably Caleb. I could ask him. If he did tell me, would it be easier to let him go? I would have to find Caleb to ask him, and I knew I would not be able to hold myself back… What was I to do?

Can I possibly handle it if he's gone forever?

Hey, everybody! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I know that you guys REALLY want to know what's going to happen with Caleb. Well i know. Not telling you just yet though! HAHAHAA... Well, you guys will get some more story before that happens.

Either way, i hope you all enjoyed this chapter. I certainly enjoyed writing it.

Please review, please tell me what you think! Please, if you enjoyed the story, and want to receive updates for more by email, please follow/favorite! Character Bio's welcome and wanted!

Thank you all for reading this chapter, and i hope you continue to enjoy it in the future. Good day!

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