In the original version, I posted Chapters 21, 22, and 23 within a day of each other as part of a thank you celebration for hitting a milestone.

Since I can get these out just the same, I thought why not? Hah, back then I even wrote all three within the same day which was a huge undertaking and thus those chapters were among the roughest of the whole story.

When Striker had been thrown roughly into the cell next to his, Scout had very little to say to him.

His paw stung like beedrill were crawling in his flesh, stabbing him with their stingers. It didn't compare to the pain of feeling abandoned, left to rot, and jeered at as he was carted away with no one but Mane calling foul.

It heartened him a little at least that the litleo stuck up for him. And yet Mane was disliked by the town and his support meant nothing to sway the hearts of those he thought were kind pokemon.

It frightened him, truly, in ways that jumping into dungeons never had. The feral pokemon appeared almost mindless, just berserkers with a touch of tragedy to them that Corphish had revealed.

The citizens of Treasure Town, however? They could think for themselves. They could think and love and hate.

And for a moment he felt what Wartortle of Team Go-Getters must have felt those years ago. A whole town united in their contempt for him.

How amusing in such a bitter way. Tricked by a Ghost-type into thinking he was the one trying to damn them when rather it was the ghost who fooled them. Scout was the enemy, the vile mole that had infiltrated the Wigglytuff Guild to find the location of the Time Gears to give his wicked partners the positions to strike.

And strike they did.

Striker was next to him. He might have washed the blood of slashing Rai off him but Scout still could see it on him. See Rai's shocked expression as he crumpled to the ground, his lifeblood staining the ground red.

He didn't want to talk to him. He knew Grovyle put the salvation of the world before everything, even his own life. He knew it was likely an accident, he had seen his reflection and mused on it in retrospect.

Yet, seeing Rai collapse like that would lead him to threaten Sean shortly after this, no words being spoken between them as they both languished as failures in their cells.

His head ached like nothing else.

It felt like he was being moved, but the effort to open his eyes was too much. Something heavy smacked on the ground and something tittered before he was moved again.

Awareness flowed in and out until Chatot was sure he was being held upward. With blood flowing normally again, he found the prospect of opening his eyes to merely be a herculean task, rather than outright impossible.

"Mmmf," he groaned, cracking an eye open. His vision swam immediately, and he had to close it again. He tried again, things were a little clearer, but his eyes were still filled with fluid. Chatot lifted a wing to rub his eye.

Well, he tried.

"Hm?" Awareness began to return much faster. "What?" Chatot squawked as his other eye was a bit clearer, and blinking a bunch cleared the other one up as well as it could.

He was tied to a pillar, that was the first thing he couldn't help but disapprove of.

The second disapproval was all the sableye staring hungrily at him. Such a prospect would be unpleasant even if he wasn't held in place.

The third, and greatest, disapproval he decided upon was the fact that he was not the only one being lynched like this.

"Litleo?" Chatot squawked, ignoring the sableye. "Litleo?" he said harsher but still no response. "Litleo, can you hear me?" Finally the troublemaker reacted.

He did a lot of the same as Chatot himself, sighing and groaning, before slowly coming to with a lot of blinking. Once he was aware he seemed to jolt, as best as he could when tied to a pillar and stared out in shock.

"You know…?" Litleo began, staring out in a mixture of shock and terror. "I once had a dream juuust like this. It was… interesting."

Chatot tried to ruffle his feathers as he found a fourth thing to disapprove of, inappropriate-on-multiple-levels jokes, but a sound from his left interrupted him.

The human, Riolu, or really the 'real' Sean snorted in amusement. He met Chatot's eyes and Chatot was spooked to see the darkness of the expression he wore.

Chatot didn't wish to stare into that abyss for long, so he broke eye contact and looked back to the sableye. "What is the meaning of this?" he demanded shrilly. He cleared his throat and spoke more confidently. "Release us immediately."

The sableye just tittered at him again. "Wheh-heh-heh." A few scraped their claws and others eyed them hungrily. Chatot grew less comfortable by the moment.

"So, where's Dusknoir?" Sean asked, voice much calmer and level than Chatot's own. "Couldn't he stand to face us like this?"

"I was simply ensuring the safety of a prisoner," Dusknoir said grandly, melting in from a dark door. "I would have had this done already, but I found myself needing to take some time to compose myself."

Sean grinned widely, an expression Chatot found to be ridiculous. "You didn't get Striker did you?"

Dusknoir's fingers twitched and he rolled his head stiffly. "No." His anger began to brim and Dusknoir's baleful eye moved to Chatot. "Thanks to you."

"Me?" Chatot squawked. "YOU attacked first! You broke OUR laws? How DARE you do such a thing Dusknoir. And to think I actually respected you once. But now to see you as a craven, irrational, vicious thug I see my thoughts were incorrect."

"Ha!" Litleo laughed despite their predicament. "Burn!"

Dusknoir raised his hand to glare at Chatot and the bird found himself looking away. "Due to you," he spat. "Grovyle escaped. He remains in the past to end the world. That is on you, Chatot."

"Don't listen to him," Sean cut in. "Dusknoir has been using you all. Scout was telling the truth, we are trying to save the world, YOU might have saved the world there, Chatot." He paused before looking to Dusknoir. "What did happen actually? After I got tossed through."

"Chats fucking bodied Dusknoir!" Litleo laughed. "I thought you were a bit soft, but I think I can get why you were part of that 'Team With No Name'. Heh, Dusknoir didn't like that."

Sean smiled. "I bet he didn't."

"It is no matter," Dusknoir interjected smoothly, voice still brimming with shaking anger. "I have Sean and I still brought Scout back with me. It is only Striker that I yet need to obtain, and he is viewed as the most reviled thief in your time. Perhaps I won't even need to do anything if the crowd's violence does him in regardless."

"He'll survive," Sean growled and Dusknoir eyed him. "The pokemon of the past will see sense once he gets to talk like you've been trying to deny us."

"Perhaps. But he'll be arrested nonetheless. It will be simple to return with Master Dialga's blessing and retrieve him."

Litleo snorted. "After you did what you did, I'd like to see you show your face to the guild. Wigglytuff would explode you."

Dusknoir glowered but then waved his hand at the sableye. "Sadly you will not get the chance to see such a thing." Litleo's grin became fixed as the sableye all chuckled. "None of you are leaving this room alive. Sableye?"

"Wheh-heh-heh."

"W-w-w-w-wait!" Chatot squawked as Litleo squeaked in sudden fear. "What do you think you are doing?"

Dusknoir didn't answer, he was already heading out of the room.

"What's the matter?" Sean called, but Dusknoir didn't pause. "Can't stand to watch me die? C'mon, Guardian! Were you always this much of a coward?"

Dusknoir froze, even the sableye paused with highly unsure expressions. He turned back to Sean with a searching look, the anger in his eye had burned out. "I… I have business elsewhere."

He turned away to leave the room but paused again, floating frozen at the doorway. He gave a deep sigh and slowly turned back but couldn't meet Sean's eyes. The sableye shrugged it off and clashed their claws again.

"Okay, listen up," Sean hissed, loud enough for only Chatot and Litleo. "These guys get a bit excited, a bit sloppy, they are definitely going to hit the ropes. If we all get a chance, we have to break these things. They are flimsy, one good tear should be enough."

"W-wha?" Chatot squawked.

"Just don't act until I say so!" Sean hissed and braced as the sableye came for them.

The claws were awful.

Half physical, scratching lines of pain in his heads and necks, half spiritual and striking their spirits. Chatot and Litleo fared better than most would, being Normal-types.

Sean fared much worse, but he'd suffered this before in smaller doses and forced himself to think about Striker, think about Scout, his thoughts even moved to Guardian, and he held his composure.

The sableye slashed and slashed, nicking and scratching the ropes in their eagerness.

Sean forced his head to the side to see the progress of the others. Litleo's ropes were fraying, Chatot's were taking some time however and he dearly hoped they could withstand this.

He felt blood begin dripping and even his spirit shrieking in pain. Chatot began to spasm and his rope frayed.

Sean tried to speak, blood was in his mouth, blood was in his eyes, blood was in his soul.

He tried to speak, but he found that he couldn't, their dark energies crawling down his throat again.

Dusknoir, no Guardian, was frozen to the spot, watching with unblinking intensity. His fingers began to twitch erratically, shadows began to dance like puppets on strings. The attack continued, and the blood was beginning to hit the ground like precious rubies.

His fingers twitched in a way he couldn't control.

A sableye stumbled slightly as it found its balance not quite what it expected.

"NOW!"

Sean pushed with everything he had, and his bellow got through to the others, both lashing out in instinctual desperation. The ropes broke and the sableye were knocked back.

In the chaos of the fight, Sean had palmed a luminous orb that Striker had given to him before he journeyed to Azelf's lake. Being thrown through time before left him a little more resilient to its effects compared to Mane and Trill, Scout also seemed to have passed out though.

Sean managed to hold onto consciousness long enough to keep the orb concealed before awakening again on the pillars.

"Eyes!" he yelled to the two before smashing the orb on the ground, causing it to erupt like a flashbang.

Sableye didn't have eyelids. They couldn't quite close their eyes and were sensitive to bright lights regardless. Dusknoir didn't have an eyelid himself and was also blinded by the burst of light.

All six sableye fell back screeching from the burst of white light, trying to cover their eyes, as Dusknoir roared in pain. Sean grabbed Chatot and hoisted him onto his back and kicked Litleo into gear as well. "We have to run," he said, and Litleo nodded, running alongside him as Sean carried Chatot.

They left from the right door, since Dusknoir was shrieking something from the left. Both of his companions were a bit blinded by the orb as well, neither had closed their eyes in time, but at least weren't facing him at the time.

Sean ran forward, pass a door that was beginning to open, turned left, forward, right, right, right, left, left, and then ran to a hole in the wall and peered out. "Here," he said, pushing Chatot up. The bird was still in a bit of shock from the ordeal but flapped his wings and hovered outside as Sean helped Litleo out.

"What… is this place?" Chatot gasped, looking out at the dark and frozen landscape. He had brain damage, that was the only explanation for what he was seeing. Even his worst nightmares back in Treeshroud Forest never created scenes like this.

"How well can you fly?" Sean asked, crouching down and pulling both pokémon out of sight. Something reached the hole and paused and all three of them held their breaths. It moved on and they breathed a sigh of relief.

"My wings are undamaged," Chatot answered, simple questions were helping.

"Can you hold onto Litleo?" he asked, the pokémon in question was still taking time to breathe again. "And fly him down to that path?" Sean pointed and their eyes followed to where he was meaning.

A very thin path skirting the edge of a cliff and giving a great view of all the falling rocks that just hung suspended in mid-air.

"This is like the water that froze at the Underground Lake," Litleo whispered as Chatot nodded.

"I-I think so. I've carried the Guildmaster."

"Good, Litleo?" Sean turned to him and gave him a gentle shake to rouse him from just staring blankly. "Hold onto Chatot."

Chatot fluttered over and the two pokémon tangled him into Chatot's claws so he could carry him down. "I'll meet you down there."

"What are you?" Chatot began, but Sean was already moving. Skidding down the sharp cliff without hesitation. "Oh."

He hastened to catch up, the sounds of shouting could still be heard as there was literally no other sound. There wasn't even the sound of dirt moving and rocks sliding, as nothing was moving besides Sean himself. Only the sounds of skin and fur getting torn by the descent.

Chatot wished to grab him and help him down as well, but two pokémon would be a struggle and he needed both talons for Litleo anyway.

They were quiet as they flew down, the sounds of their own breathing being the most they could hear.

Once Sean got to the bottom, he looked up and gestured wildly. "Get to the ground," he hissed, half whispering half shouting.

Chatot did as he was asked. There would be time to retain dignity later, but he had no idea what was going on and this pokémon seemed to have some idea.

"We are going to have to run," Sean said and began doing as he said. Litleo quickly joined him while Chatot had to hop and flutter to keep up. "Don't fly," he said when Chatot began to. "We have to minimise risk we'll be seen. And don't talk."

Both pokémon had many questions.

Why were rocks falling from the sky, but not?

Why did Dusknoir try to kill them?

Why was this place a hellscape?

Why was the person trying to doom their world helping them?

Many questions. But until they were safe, both would hold their tongues.

Both could taste blood still anyway. The sableye hadn't left the worst scratches, whatever else the sableye were striking left them shaking though, but there was still some blood.

Hopefully, they wouldn't leave a trail.

They ran until Chatot felt his legs just giving in. "We-we-we have to stop," he gasped, fluttering more than hopping as he just couldn't anymore. "Please."

Sean didn't reply immediately but then pointed. "That cropping, just get to there."

Chatot groaned but continued at it. Litleo said nothing, he simply focused on getting there.

"This alcove will shield us for a bit," Sean said, glancing around. There was an entrance to a dungeon right here, which would be helpful. Litleo and Chatot staggered to a stop, gasping for breath. Sean had them move in closer, underneath some frozen rocks. Litleo looked unhappy about that, but they weren't going to fall.

"What is going on?" Litleo demanded angrily, then had to pant for breath again.

"Once you have your breath we have to move on," Sean said, gesturing to the dungeon. "It's unsafe to stay so close to the stockade."

"Now just hold on!" Chatot squawked, flapping angrily between hard breaths. "We worked with you to escape… that, urk. But we are not going any further without answers!"

Litleo glanced towards Chatot, something resembling respect in his eyes.

Sean sighed. "Alright fine," he said and pointed to the rock fields. "Look at that. Look. At. That. What does that look like?"

Chatot was silent, observing the frozen area. There was no ice though, everything had simply stopped.

"It's dark," Litleo said helpfully.

"It's frozen," Sean said. "Think back to when Dusknoir was telling the town about the future when he had Scout arrested." Both pokémon flinched at the reminder. "What did he say about Grovyle, Scout, and me?"

"That you were seeking the planets paralysis," Chatot answered before giving Sean a glare. "So, it this it then? Grovyle remains free and so you succeed?"

"No!" Sean raised his voice. "This IS the future that WE came back to prevent."

"That doesn't make sense!" Litleo growled back. "You and Grovyle were stealing Time Gears. You know, the things needed to keep time moving. How is this NOT your fault?"

"Because the Time Gears were never meant to remain where they were," Sean answered and looked up at the unmoving sky. "Look. I can't say I know everything, I really don't. But I came to this world from my own and found it like this, lifeless, frozen. Paralysed. The world had already collapsed."

Sean sighed and looked down to face them. "I don't know if there is anything I can say that'll convince you. But look at what Dusknoir just tried to do! Kill you both. Do you really think he was surprised by this mess of a world? If things had changed he would have disappeared already. But they haven't. This is the world Grovyle, Scout, and I have been trying to change. And we needed to place the Time Gears in their proper place."

Sean turned and pointed out to the distance, where a citadel loomed. "Temporal Tower."

"That's… broken," Litleo whispered. Shards of the once glorious spire were strewn about as if the top had exploded before freezing in time.

"Yeah. It has to be fixed in the past, to stop this future. The gears were a part of the tower, I think at least. They were taken to stabilise time a long time ago but weren't supposed to stay taken."

Chatot looked uneasy. He thought of what Scout had said. "If… if this is true, and you were human…." He glanced out. "Wartortle of Team Go-Getters. Dewott of Paradise. Two humans who came to save the world, become a pokemon to do it."

He gazed sharply at Sean who looked genuinely interested in the idea of others. "Why wasn't it simply told? If… if Meowth knew, why lie?"

Mane also frowned, looking expectantly for answers.

Sean offered a regretful look. "We knew how people would react to the gears being taken, causing time freezing before they could be brought to the tower. And, as for Scout, he really did have amnesia. I really think he did think he was me, but." He blushed a little. "I guess they say imitation is flattery, haa."

Chatot and Litleo exchanged a glance before nodding uneasily. "I still do not know how much trust to put in your words," Chatot said and Sean frowned. "But you did save our lives, to the detriment of yourself possibly. It would have been easier to escape if there was a distraction after all."

Sean smiled slightly. "I'm not the kind to leave someone to die."

"That's all well and good," Litleo said nasally before turning back the way they came. "But we're missing someone."

"Scout," Chatot hissed and turned himself. "How could I have forgotten?" He fluttered slightly before nodding.

"You… are you thinking of going back?" Sean asked and they turned back to him.

"You bet your nice ass we are!" Litleo said and grinned. "You might have known him once, but he's MY teammate and Shinx would literally never forgive me if I came back without him, I'm not leaving him to Dusknoir's freaky fingers."

"You will not be uncouth when we find him," Chatot snapped. "But he is also a member of the Wigglytuff Guild and I am the second to the Guildmaster. To leave an apprentice to such a fate is unacceptable."

"Scout will be fine," Sean said uncertainly. "Dusknoir cares too much about him to hurt him. You noticed he wasn't on the execution posts like we were? He'd be somewhere else, and safe."

"What tosh," Chatot said, flapping a wing. "You said that you came to the past with him. YOU would leave him here?"

Sean sighed and rubbed his face. "There are few things I want less," he admitted, "BUT I know Scout will be safe."

"Why?" Litleo demanded. "Considering what Dusknoir has done so far, why would we believe that he'd be safe here? What more is here that you aren't telling us?"

Sean hesitated. He couldn't be left alone here. He saved them because it was genuinely right to do, but he also couldn't survive this place alone. At least not with his sanity intact.

"If you aren't going to talk, then we'll just leave without you," Litleo continued, nodding to Chatot. "Thanks for the save, but we're not leaving him here."

"Just," Sean began, tensing up, before sighing. "Alright. Alright. I really didn't want to leave him. He WILL be safe, but he won't be happy. And I…" he glanced back to the dungeon. "Without Striker or Scout or anyone else I can't really get to Celebi myself. I don't even have my Treasure Bag…"

He nodded to himself, deciding, and stepped forward. "You'll need me and my smarts to possibly survive this anyway.

"Just like you need us," Litleo muttered, but he seemed happier with the help.

"Heh," Sean chuckled and nodded. "Yeah, I do actually… it's not a good idea to be alone in this place." He frowned and looked back to the dungeon. "It messes with you. Makes you hear things that aren't there, or... maybe stuff you shouldn't be able to hear in the first place," he admitted, looking highly uncomfortable. "Let's just... go."

"Very well," Chatot squawked. "Let us be off."

They took one step each before the sounds of scrabbling caused them all to jump back into the cove. A distant scream froze them all and various energy was summoned to fight if necessary.

Scout awoke feeling only pain.

It felt like someone was rubbing the backs of his eyeballs and there wasn't anything more that he wanted at that moment than for the feeling to stop.

Opening his eyes helped in theory. The feeling behind his eyes stopped but was replaced with the sensation of many tiny needles being pressed into the front of his eyes.

There was no winning really, and he moaned.

"Thirsty?" something said, and he whimpered. The feeling of a bowl being pressed to his lips was welcome and Scout opened his mouth. He choked after a few mouthfuls and began coughing, the feeling rippling through his skull painfully. The water was nice though, his skin felt so hot.

The sound of the bowl being set down caught his attention as did the sound of something clanging shut. He forced his eyes back open and blinked them until it was no longer painful, only uncomfortable, to keep them open.

He saw the gem-incrusted eyes of a sableye and started back with a cry of alarm.

"Hey-hey-hey," the sableye said, raising its hands. "Calm down will you?"

"What? Where? Who? What? And why?" Scout gasped, scrambling back. He didn't go too far before something yanked his leg and he slipped onto his back.

"Uh… say again?" the sableye asked as Scout leaned up.

He tested both legs. The right leg was fine, the left leg was also fine. The claws were all still no, no fur had been removed. The one small issue was the shackle around his ankle, connected to a chain, that was then connected to the floor.

"Yeah." the sableye winced, seeing that he had noticed. "Please don't start shouting at me."

Scout considered that request for half a second. "No."

The sableye sighed and braced.

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" Scout yelled, standing up. He wanted to run to the bars, but the chain wasn't very long.

"Not as bad as I was expecting," the sableye admitted and Scout growled.

"I'll give you bad if you don't start talking."

"The long and the short of it is that Master Dusknoir wants you protected," the sableye explained, talking quickly, "but he also thinks you're probably still confused and might do something… drastic. So, you're just in there for the time being."

Scout glared and pointed his undamaged paw and extended the claws before going further and wrapping them into darkness for Night Slash. "I will not just sit here."

The sableye frowned and raised his own hands. "I'm sorry, but I do have permission to knock you out if you try anything."

Scout seethed but let the move go and sat back down, glaring holes into the sableye. It continued to look very uncomfortable with the attention. Scout noticed a pair of Treasure Bags behind it and realised they had also dumped their bags there, which seemed odd.

"Uh… not that I really get it, but don't meowth have to blink?"

Scout's eyes were burning, but it was the principle of the matter to continue staring without pause.

"Seriously. Please."

He continued staring at it sighed and turned away, Scout blinked immediately multiple times.

"You know you've got it better than anyone I've ever heard of," the sableye muttered, turning back to Scout. "Master Dusknoir actually likes you. You're gonna get fed as much as you want and nothing out there can possibly hurt you when Master Dusknoir is protecting you."

"If you're trying to sell me on this," Scout said before sighing. "I… I don't know."

The sableye rested his head on his hands and asked. "What don't you know?"

"Everything!" Scout replied angrily. "Just a few days ago I knew everything, and now I don't know anything."

"Well, uh… you're a meowth?"

Scout gave it a flat look. That one actually stung since he thought he was human but apparently not!

"I'm not an idiot thank you." Ha. "I meant what's going on. I thought… I thought I knew what was going on, and now this? All this? It doesn't make sense. Why does Dusknoir care that much about me?"

"I don't know," the sableye answered. "You'd have to ask him yourself."

"Well then where is he?" Scout demanded and the sableye winced and looked away. Scout frowned and glanced around. "We're in the future." It dawned on him. "He's going to kill them."

"If it, uh… if it makes you feel better, you'll be fine!"

"It doesn't," Scout growled. "You disgusting freaks."

"Hey! That's-" Sableye's words were lost when something boomed close by and both of them jumped. "What was that?" it screeched and ran to the door.

Scout tried to run forward and look but was tripped by the shackle again. He hissed angrily as shouts and the sounds of charging feet reached them.

Three blurs zipped by the open door and the sableye jumped. "The prisoners!" it hissed quietly and glanced back to Scout then back to the door. "I… uh." It looked back and forth, but the sounds of its fellows seemed to be going farther away rather than closer. "Dammit," it cursed and ran out the door, the other way, to alert the others which way the prisoners had gone.

Scout immediately generated a Night Slash and began hacking at the chain.

His normal claws were protected by the dark energy, but he wasn't making much of a dent in the links of chains. Put it between. He stopped, took a breath, forced two claws between one of the links and then used Night Slash.

The expansion of the solid energy strained his claws, and soon it felt like trying to push a boulder. Scout didn't pause even as his claws began to break under the strain.

He gasped out as the chain broke and shook his paw. A claw had cracked slightly but didn't break. Already going better than the last lock he'd tried to break. He ran to the door and immediately reached through to put a claw through the lock. He winced as the memory of the last time he'd done this flashed through his mind, but pressed on.

Physically pressing the door caused him to nearly fall over when it swung open. He caught himself and couldn't help but pause in surprise.

The door hadn't been locked. Was the sableye that irresponsible?

It had left him alone, so Scout decided it really was that foolish.

He grabbed the bags, noticing how light they were, and peeked out the door before running off in the direction he had seen the others go.

The sounds of movement echoed continuously as there were no other sounds to be heard. He glanced out an open hole in the wall but saw nothing of interest, just a sheer cliff, and moved on.

This place was a field of endless grey. No colour, no landmarks, just passageways that were often cracked yet allowing nothing from the outside in. As there was no wind to speak of in the first place.

He found what seemed like a door and tried to open it, but it didn't budge. The sounds of sableye still followed him, and Scout moved on.

He tried another two doors before finding a window. Deciding he had to get out of the compound, he lifted himself out and looked around.

He had a wide vantage to the complete horror that was the Dark Future.

The sky was grey and tinged with stone-like clouds that floated like bloated corpses in the polluted ocean that was the sky.

Dim rays of light that crawled across the horizon lit a barren wasteland as far as the eye could see. The wind didn't blow. Morning would never come. Spring, summer, autumn, or winter would never come. It was a world of perpetuity, locked in the moment of its last breath to be preserved until there was none left to witness it.

It was a graveyard.

The world will be your graveyard.

Tearing his eyes from the void-like horizon, Scout spotted a dim rocky path stretching out below the cliffs. "Grovyle, the game… that's the way right?"

He hoped so at least.

Getting down would not be pleasant or easy, but it would be quick.

Scout edged himself towards the cliff and looked down. He hissed out in disdain; it wasn't a sheer drop, but it was close to one. He knew once he began to go, he would not be able to stop.

Yet there weren't any other options.

"Okay, okay, okay," he repeated and began to ease himself down. The stones did not move, which was nice, but also not nice as the sharper edges immediately scraped his feet. Lifeblood dripped on the thirsted stones.

Scout hissed in pain, but he couldn't stop. He'd been in a lot of pain the last few days, his left paw was still aching from the broken claw and he feared that he might have gotten an infection. The trip through time had also left his limbs shaky, or was that the trauma from the night before?

Scout slipped and fell several meters before he slowed himself enough to stop. Gasping now, he continued going down as carefully as he could. To break something here, especially a leg, would be ruinous.

Each moment felt like torture. Both due to all the rocks digging into him and the emotional terror. You weren't sure which was worse.

He slipped again and decided he hated rocks so very much.

With his tail, Scout felt his way for holds and sharp rocks to avoid. He strategically allowed himself to fall at times, cutting himself some more in the process.

All the while, he was having a bad day. Quite a bad day. It was a beautiful day outside, birds were bleeding, and flowers were dead.

The sounds of sableye began to fade into nothing. Absolutely nothing.

The gasp of his own breath seemed to echo out for miles, a siren call to any hungering predator that remained on this cursed land. Scout could hear the beat of his heart, thumping almost painfully loud in his ears. Thump-thump-thump.

His mind briefly turned to auditory deprivation rooms and wondered if he'd go mad from the sound of his own heartbeat. Thump-thum-thump.

Scout reached the bottom and decided he could go mad later. For now, he had to run. Tump-thump-thump.

The flat cliffs he had found himself on were nice to run across but left him anxious. He was in plain sight up here, and it was a bit too far of a drop-down to the path to risk. "Thump-tHup-Thump.

There were no holds to slow his fall, and he'd almost certainly break something at that distance. Thump-thump-thump.

He ran and ran until his lungs burned, and the pounding of his own heart bounced like a bongo drum in his ears. Sean wasn't sure how long he had run for, was he Sean? No, he was Scout. Scout the meowth, the partner to Dusknoir. Thump-thump.

No. Thump.

Partner to Sean, he looked up to the human, so strong despite having no powers. He wanted to be as brave as Sean, as swift as Striker, as strong as Guardian, and as bright as Saniya. Thum.

He was Sean. Thu.

Sean was an interloper. Th

This is my body. T

I am you and you are me.

Let . me

Give me.

R̴el͘ea̕se.

Scout slipped off the cliff he was desperately scrabbling against, he had been abandoned there. He didn't mean to go off, he didn't want to fall off. His claws couldn't hold, one was missing, another was damaged, his arms were burning, and his legs couldn't hold him.

Scout screamed as he lost his hold and fell. Thump-thump-thu-

In the old days I gained inspiration for how to do the Dark Future section from an author called NaturallyDark. Great author, should throw some support that way!