Team Apex had spent a total of six days in Zero Isle South. Any energy the five managed to cling onto after the dungeon was drained by the confrontation with Mewtwo. Thankfully, they still had one more night of vacation before they had to head back to the guild.
As soon as Zar flew them back to West Island, they rented two rooms from the first inn they could find. At long last they had the chance to catch up on all of the lost sleep the dungeon inflicted on them.
It took until noon the next day for any of them to wake up. Naturally, Zar was the first. She quietly climbed out of bed, taking care to not wake Rune up, and crept out of the room to make her way outside.
Blizz was right. Photosynthesis as a Treecko was awesome. Figuring that as long as she stayed in the general vicinity of the inn where her teammates could find her, she climbed up to the roof, where there was nothing between herself and the sun.
She had a lot to think about. Mewtwo and the rest of Apex knew she was to blame for everyone being here. A part of her was terrified to think what they would have done to her if they didn't find out about the whole being dead thing first.
...She had to be dead too, didn't she? If she really was human.
Her train of thought was broken by the sound of footsteps. She looked over to her side, seeing a familiar Treecko coming up to join her.
"Hey, other guys are still out cold. Mind if I chill up here?"
Zar shook her head.
"Lit." Blizz plopped himself down a short distance from her, as a comfortable silence arose.
"…Thanks again." Zar's voice was soft. "Even if it wasn't Uxie, you guys put in so much effort for me."
"Eh, don't mention it. We back up other humans, right?" Blizz fist bumped Zar from his position lying down.
"I guess..." Zar looked down for a moment, deep in thought. "I'm just sorry I've been keeping so many secrets from you guys."
"Well that's like, mostly behind us now, right?" Blizz looked over to Zar with a smile. The smile faltered slightly when Zar averted her eyes. "Fuck is there something else?"
"...Maybe..."
Blizz let out a sigh. "What is it this time?"
"I can't tell you-" She cut herself off, watching the way Blizz's expression shifted to annoyance. "I actually can't tell you this time. It helps all of us, but if I tell anyone I lose it."
Blizz sat back up, mostly confused. "What do you mean?"
"It's..." Zar rose as well, looking straight through Blizz's goggles. "Can you please take my word for something? Like we did back at the guild?"
"That sorta depends on what it is."
"I swear it's my last big secret, and if anyone else finds out about it I can't use it any more. I promise it's important, and I've been using it to help you guys. I… I've been using it since before we met."
Blizz sat there, listening to Zar's words. At the end of the day, she hasn't lied to him. That moment in the guild, back when she was concealing her identity— when she said she wasn't lying, Blizz was inclined to believe her.
"Alright Zar, I trust you."
Not that Blizz was paying any attention to it at the moment, but if he looked in his bag, he would notice that his brand new Z-crystal just gained a tiny scratch in it.
Sticking to Kibo's plan, the five of them waited to take the ferry back to the mainland. Despite Zar's insistence that she could transform into a Latias and get them there ten times faster, Kibo remained steadfast. With a little bit of guilt tripping that he and Rune didn't get to enjoy their vacation at all since they were the first into the dungeon, Zar relented, allowing them to take the crowded ferry.
By the time they reached the mainland, the Mudsdale from earlier was waiting for them. "About time you showed up."
"Sorry, ferry was late." Blizz hopped up into the wagon, taking one of the seats exposed to the sun.
"Ferry's always late. I plan for that." Once all the explorers were loaded, Mudsdale departed, taking them north.
After more than a few hours of trotting along, the iconic pillars of Roguepoint Mesa came back into sight once again. Blizz looked off towards them, once again pondering the fond memories of that time they got arrested on false charges.
"Hey, how do you think the other guys are doing?" he asked, not bothering to face any of his teammates.
"I have no doubts that Lucario is keeping Fanita incredibly busy," the Prince stated, not daring to leave the shade of the cloth canvas. "And I am certain the Duke is ensuring Team Terrae has done something productive."
"We can ask them when we get back," Kibo said. "Plus I still never took that dungeon run with Angel..."
The explorers were left wondering as Mudsdale's cart rumbled along.
"I am Uxie, the guardian of knowledge. The four of you have shown great intellect in making it to my chamber."
Team Terrae looked on with bated breath at the legendary Pokémon floating in front of them. It took them half a week to get to this point, and now they could finally see the fruits of their labor.
The first three days of their vacation to Gremis Keep had gone more or less normally. Mira, the Duke, and Ride all gravitated towards the city's library, said to be the greatest in all of Varin.
Angel was not quite as compelled by the existence of a bunch of books, but she knew it was important to her friends so she didn't complain. Still, they all should have known asking the Bagon to stay still for that long would be a bad idea. So she might have wandered around a little bit, stumbling into the giant castle at the heart of Gremis. Then she might have stumbled around a bit more, got into a defiant argument with one or two guards, and found her way into a dungeon called Zero Isle East.
At first, she thought she was completely screwed. It wasn't just any normal mystery dungeon, it was covered in all these doors with stupid questions that there was no way she could know the answer to. Words like STAB and IV were thrown all over the place, and she was completely clueless.
But thankfully, her team came to the rescue. When they realized that Angel had left the library, the rest of them followed the trail of chaos, finding their way to the dungeon entrance themselves. They found Angel quickly, which wasn't that difficult given that the vast majority of the floor was completely inaccessible to her.
It turned out that Mira could make out the nonsense questions, and answered them pretty well. She explained something about competing in a VGC once? It didn't make any sense to the rest of Team Terrae, but she seemed to get all the questions correct, so none of them were going to complain.
While Mira was busy doing math to solve questions, Angel got to stick to her personal specialty: fighting. The dungeon did make her realize how much they relied on Mira's illusions in fights, but it wasn't anything unmanageable.
Soon after 40 floors of exploration, easily the longest mystery dungeon any of them had gone through, they made it to the final floor: a set of ancient ruins with a giant lake in the center. As soon as Angel ran down to check it out, a legendary Pokémon popped out, and now they were here.
"The very embodiment of knowledge itself." The Duke nodded, eager to please the Pokémon in front of him. "It is an honor to meet you."
"Please do not waste my time with flattery," Uxie responded, shifting his gaze to the other explorers. A frown crossed the Duke's face, though Uxie didn't pay it any mind. "As a reward for completing my trial, I shall bestow unto you a boon."
"What is it?" Mira asked, making sure that the Duke didn't get the opportunity to tarnish their image any more than he already had.
"You will be permitted to ask me one question," Uxie explained. "I have a vast knowledge of the workings of this world, to the point that nothing is off-limits."
Mira's eyes widened. "Anyth-" She quickly caught herself before she asked something that could be interpreted as a question. "…Please let my team and I discuss this."
Uxie gave a bored sigh. "Go ahead."
The four members of Team Terrae gathered around in a huddle.
"What should we ask him?" Angel asked. "Something about the husks?"
"Obviously it should pertain to the husk crisis," the Duke agreed. "The concern is what specifically is to be asked."
"...Maybe 'what do we still need to do'?" Ride proposed, her voice barely above a whisper. "That tells us if there's anything else."
"That's vague though," Mira responded. "We might not get anything important."
"Don't we need to still find a way to reverse the husk thing?" Angel asked. "We don't even know where to start with that."
Mira abruptly looked at her teammate. "Angel... that's genius. If we can figure out a way to cure the condition, we can revive Hydreigon and interrogate him."
Angel blinked a few times, not quite expecting Mira of all people to say she did something smart. "Thanks!"
"I consent to this plan of action," the Duke approved.
Mira nodded, turning back around to face the legendary. "Uxie, we have our question."
"Yes, I heard, your huddle was not particularly silent. Are you certain that's what you wish to ask?"
Mira slowly nodded. "We are certain. We want to know how to reverse the husk phenomena."
Uxie's body lit up in a soft yellow glow, pondering the sum of all knowledge in Varin. He remained like that for a few minutes. Only the sound of tiny waves crashing against the edge of the lake broke the silence.
At last the glow subsided, and Uxie flew down to the explorers. "I have your answer. Pokémon become husks when their emotion, memory, and willpower are driven to an extent that no mortal is capable of withstanding. On its own, the effect is permanent. However, other Pokémon can share their own emotions, memory, and willpower with the husk in question. Once these aspects are seeded, they must be exposed to the Resonance for a controlled amount of time, strengthening them back to the level they used to be."
Mira furiously jotted down notes on Uxie's explanation, using barely legible Footprint Runes.
"And how do we share these aspects with another Pokémon?" the Duke asked. "That seems like a skillset that would be more in-line with you or your siblings than us mere mortals."
"It is possible for psychic types to share memories between Pokémon. The memory must include both the husk and the Pokémon who is resuscitating them, and feature both of them exhibiting their willpower and emotion."
"So we just have to find memories where we were doing something badass with the husk, get a psychic type to share them, and bring them back into a husk dungeon," Angel summarized. "That's awesome! We can totally do that with Hydreigon!"
The Duke nodded. "I agree, this constitutes a major breakthrough." He bent his front legs down in a vague approximation of a bow. "We thank you for your insight, Uxie."
Uxie just sighed. "Shut up Flareon." With one more short burst of yellow light, a path of stones rose up over the lake, giving the explorers a route to the warp tile at the end of the room.
The Duke was left with his mouth open, forcing his other teammates to pick up the slack. They escorted him across the path, taking a brief pause before stepping on the warp tile.
While Ride was flying over, she could've sworn she noticed a metallic sheen coming from somewhere in the ruins. But before she could investigate, the warp tile activated, taking Team Terrae away.
As the four explorers left, Uxie sighed to himself. "Arceus that Flareon is such a tool…"
"Charges laid!" Leaf shouted down the hall as he waddled back to Fanita's side.
"Wonderful. Would you like to do the honors?"
Leaf enthusiastically nodded, before firing a Bubblebeam at the bundle of high explosives on the far side of the dungeon.
It took a few seconds for any part of the bubble barrage to find the percussion cap. But eventually one did, popping with just enough force to nudge it forward.
This, of course, caused the brick of Fire Stones, Blast Seeds, and Violent Seeds to detonate. In turn, all the nearby bricks began the detonation process, creating an ever-expanding explosion. Due to some clever design work on Leaf's part, the explosions expanded explicitly downwards.
When the echoes of the blasts came to a stop and the room was no longer lit a dark shade of orange, Fanita and Leaf went forward to assess the damage.
Where there was once a pile of high explosives, was now a chasm in the dungeon floor leading down several floors.
"You were right," Fanita praised, assessing the new hole in the dungeon. "It goes down quite a distance."
It was too dark for either of them to see where the bottom of the pit was, even with Fanita being a ghost type and Leaf's glasses having their night vision mode switched on.
Lifting up her companion with Psychic, Fanita started descending the pit. The two of them passed by floor after floor of the mystery dungeon, each one looking harder than the last. Of course, all the ferals could do was look at them angrily as the explorers passed them. The occasional ranged attack attempting to hit them was predicted well in advance by Leaf, allowing them to dodge with ease.
In all, they flew down 15 floors with relative ease since the most energy Fanita had to exert was keeping a Psychic up. As soon as they reached the bottom, Leaf took his bag out and started laying down another pile of explosives.
After two more chains of explosions, Fanita and Leaf decided that they were close enough to their goal that using more explosions to tunnel down deeper would be unnecessary.
"According to Scizor, Mesprit will be on floor 50," Leaf reported as he checked his badge.
Zero Isle West - Floor 48
"Then we have to do two floors properly... Oh well." Fanita let out a sigh of resignation. While she still very much wanted to use more explosions to save some time, it would probably send the wrong message to Mesprit. Scizor was pretty firm in explaining that they needed to ask her questions, which would be much more difficult if they put a brand new hole in the roof of her house.
Still, even without copious amounts of high explosives on their side, Team Vindicate was a force to be reckoned with. Leaf's glasses could make out ranged attacks and where they were aimed at well before the other Pokémon was close to finishing charging them. Trickery from Fanita also meant that anyone who managed to get close enough for a melee strike would suddenly find themselves swinging at air.
So while the ferals were certainly some of the toughest either of them have ever dealt with, navigating the dungeon was still more than doable. Fanita did notice that a lot of them were using moves like Swagger and Taunt far more often than she'd seen in the past, though it wasn't any concern when none of the attacks could connect.
After an hour of knocking out unsuspecting ferals and slipping past suspecting ones, the duo made it to the final staircase. Eager to complete the mission Lucario and Scizor picked out for them, Leaf dived down onto floor 50.
Unsurprisingly, this floor was a large room with a lake in the center. This time, the region around the lake seemed to be a thinly-wooded forest.
Floating over the center of the lake, however, was a very annoyed-looking Mesprit.
As soon as Fanita and Leaf came into sight, she immediately launched into a rant.
"I cannot believe the two of you. This dungeon is borderline sacred, and you thought you could make it to the bottom just by blowing things up? That is so rude I don't even know where to start. This was barely a trial-"
"Sorry to interrupt," Fanita cut in, not the least sorry to interrupt. "But we just came here to ask some questions."
Mesprit crossed her arms and looked off to the side. "Hmph. Fine, but you don't get a blessing because you cheated."
"Oh, I think we can work with that." Fanita grinned as she surveyed the lake. She was more than willing to take the blessing if it was something that could be stolen, but to do that she'd have to know what it was she was looking for first. Mesprit would also probably kick them out if she noticed, and then they wouldn't be able to finish the mission and that would get both her and Leaf in trouble.
"First off, do you recall a Lucario who came through here about ten years ago?"
Mesprit gave a curt nod, still annoyed with the explorers. "Yeah, he came through with an Absol. There was so much... ugh." Mesprit struggled to find the right word to describe the emotions she sensed that day, instead opting for a vague hand motion. "I have no idea how those two made it to the end, and they didn't cheat like you."
"Sorry about that," Leaf apologized, his head drooping down. "We thought you wouldn't mind since the dungeon resets itself."
"That doesn't give you free reign to-"
"I haven't finished yet, could we get through this list before you explain why what we did is wrong?" Fanita asked, bailing out Leaf before he self-incriminated too much. "This is very important, after all."
Mesprit looked annoyed by this request, but obliged. "Fine, what else do you have?"
Fanita gave a quick glance to the list Scizor prepared for her. "Do you recall a Hydreigon ever coming through here in the last 50 years?"
The legendary immediately shook her head. "Nope, never. Last fifty years were a Lucario and Absol, Audino and Southern Sandslash, and a Hawlucha and Tyrogue."
Fanita recognized the last duo as some of her guildmates. Either that, or some other Hawlucha and Tyrogue combination managed to find the entrance to Zero Isle West and make it to the end.
"Good to know. Now has anyone who's ever gone through here taken some water from your lake?"
Mesprit had to stop and think about that one. "...I don't think so. But someone may have and I didn't notice. In case you couldn't tell there's a lot of water here and only one me."
"So you don't really know..." Leaf sighed in defeat.
Mesprit shrugged. "I'd say sorry, but I don't like you."
Fanita was already intending on stealing whatever this blessing is anyways, but the fact that Mesprit went out of her way to hurt Leaf's feelings meant she would be doing it in the most difficult way possible. But there was still business to get through first.
"Moving on, did you think that anyone coming through here seemed unstable or hostile?"
Mesprit gave Fanita a charged stare. She got the message.
"Anyone else?"
"Nope." Mesprit continued to stare at Fanita. "In all my years down here, only two."
"Who are they?" Leaf asked, thinking he was on the verge of a major breakthrough.
"Don't worry about that," Fanita quickly shut down, before returning to her list. "Mesprit, do you know anything else about the husks or the Resonance?"
"Like I care about some stupid curse that only affects mortals. It's probably just some due punishment for your kind after you screwed over a legendary. There seems to be a lot of those."
That was so wildly off-base with everything they knew about the husk crisis that Fanita seriously considered stopping this line of questioning right here. But there was only one more point on the list, so she decided to just finish it up.
"Last thing, do you know of any legendary Pokémon becoming husks?"
Mesprit seemed to be strongly offended by the question, which was particularly impressive given that she was already offended by every other question they've asked. "As if some curse could possibly do anything to a Pokémon of our standing. What a stupid question."
A part of Fanita really hoped Mesprit could be affected.
"Well, if that is the case, I think we're done here. Leaf?"
Fanita turned to her protege, and had to suppress the instinct to tell Leaf how proud she was of him. Without any cue from Fanita, he decided to scan the lake with his goggles to look for any goodies Mesprit may be keeping from them.
"If that's all, then get out of here." Mesprit raised a stone bridge across the lake, which was fairly useless given that Fanita could float and Leaf could swim. Still, if for no other reason than to respect the spirit of the gesture, Team Vindicate set down the path, going very slowly.
Mesprit quickly became annoyed with their pace and pushed them along with Psychic. "Out you go! I don't want to deal with you anymore."
The added speed was suddenly making it very difficult for Leaf to finish his scan of the lake. Though as he was moments away from the warp tile at the end of the room, he suddenly dug his feet in.
"Wait, stop!"
"Nope! Out!" Mesprit easily overpowered the Piplup, floating him and Fanita onto the warp tile.
For her part, Fanita looked at Leaf with concern, but being the recipient of Mesprit's undivided attention made it difficult for her to pull any tricks out.
"No, you don't understand! There's a-" The activation of the warp tile cut Leaf off mid-sentence, allowing Mesprit to enjoy the peace and silence of her lake once again.
This lasted for all of 10 seconds, before a high-explosive charge that Fanita placed under the lake god-knows-when detonated.
Back on the surface, Team Vindicate stood above a chasm on a small island not too far from Nova Town.
"What did you see in there?" Fanita asked, concerned for what could cause Leaf to have that reaction.
"It... it was one of those antennas, hidden under the lake. A Conduit."
Fanita blinked a few times. "…Oh."
The wagon screeched to a stop a couple blocks away from the center of Nova Town. After making sure that they had actually paid Mudsdale for both trips, Team Apex filed out.
Kibo looked around, breathing in the crisp air of their sorta-home. "...I gotta say, accents from Cascia may be familiar, but this place just feels like home."
"Nah I get it," Blizz agreed, leading the way back to the guild. "Love this place."
"The weather here is far more tolerable than any of the islands on Cascia," the Prince stated.
Rune shook her head. "Of course that's what matters to you..."
"I'm fine with anywhere," Zar said. "But I think Nova Town's become my favorite too."
The march back to the guild was broken up by seeing Team Terrae walking in from the other direction. For a few moments, both teams played the awkward game of pretending that they didn't notice each other until they got to a distance where each could actually communicate.
Angel, of course, didn't care for this courtesy. "DRAGON DUDE! APEX GUYS! HEY!" Not waiting for the approval of her teammates, she charged forwards to Kibo's side.
"Nice to see you as well." Kibo smiled as the rest of Team Terrae reunited with Apex, though Angel seemed to be considerably closer than the others.
"So how was your guys' break?" Blizz asked, as the group progressed down the road much slower than before.
"You would not believe what we ended up going through," Mira muttered. "We ended up dealing with a 50 floor mystery dungeon."
Blizz looked at the Zorua, smiling. "God, that sounds terrible."
"...Blizz, what did you do?"
Blizz walked on with the same smug smile on his face.
Mira just sighed in exacerbation. "Dammit Blizz..."
After the process of trying to climb down the guild's ladder, all nine of them had finally made it home. Scizor seemed to be waiting for them, standing outside his office.
"Apex, Terrae, I hope your vacations have been relaxing."
No one responded, which told Scizor everything he needed to know.
"…I trust that you have not done anything illegal?"
Again, no one responded.
"…Nothing that can get traced back to you or the guild?"
That caused a round of nods.
"Good enough. Drop your equipment off in your room. Treecko and Zorua, meet in my office once you're done. I have some very difficult missions for your teams in the coming days, and I would like to begin briefing you as soon as possible."
"Gotcha."
"Yes sir."
The teams split up to head into their respective rooms. Kibo immediately threw himself onto his straw bed, while the Prince acted like he had enough dignity to gently approach his bed and lie down.
After Blizz set his bag down, he went back out and entered Scizor's office. Unsurprisingly, Mira beat him there. Somewhat more surprising, Fanita was waiting there as well.
She gave Blizz a welcoming head tilt. "Olá."
"Yo. Guessing you've been busy?"
"Of course, I have much to do to repay my debt."
"Please don't start now," Scizor asked from behind his desk. "We have news to share regarding the husk crisis, I trust that you can relay what I'm about to tell you to your teammates?"
Blizz and Mira looked at each other, before nodding slowly.
"Very well. While the two of you were on vacation, I sent Team Vindicate to Zero Isle West, a hidden mystery dungeon close to Nova Town. Here, they ran into Mesprit. As I'm sure you remember, the conduits function by utilizing the essence of the Lake Trio. Misdreavus and Piplup were able to hold a discussion-"
"Uh, sir?" Mira looked very uncomfortable interrupting. "I... my team did the exact same thing. While we were in Gremis Keep, we discovered Zero Island East, and made it to the end. We met Uxie, who allowed us to ask him one question."
Scizor took a deep breath. "I am certain that you and your team were able to come up with a meaningful question. However..." He turned to face Blizz. "Zero Isle South?"
"Yep," Blizz answered. "It was 180 floors, place was miserable."
"...I hope the three of you are aware you managed to clear what are considered to be some of the hardest mystery dungeons in all of Varin."
"I fucking know, it was a nightmare. Got this out of it though." Blizz fumbled through his bag, taking out the Z-crystal he received from Azelf.
Scizor's eye twitched slightly, as he reached into his desk to grab a vial of Persim juice. He had a feeling something would be happening when Apex and Terrae returned, so he stashed a couple more than normal just in case.
"That is a Z-crystal," Scizor explained. "Do you recall the powerful attack that Hydreigon used which knocked all of us out?"
Blizz nodded— he liked where this was going.
"That was a Z-move. It's only possible to do such an attack when you are in possession of a Z-crystal. As you are."
"Fucking awesome... How do I use it?"
Scizor leaned in, investigating the crystal in Blizz's hands. "I... am not quite sure. Even if Hydreigon was forthcoming with the details of the attack back when we were a single team, your crystal looks... odd. They are supposed to have a tint of some form, in addition to a symbol in the center."
"Huh..." Blizz held up the crystal against the torchlight, verifying Scizor's assumptions. It was indeed completely translucent, aside from a scratch he must have not noticed before.
"We can discuss this further at another point," Scizor stated. "I would like to hear the information Teams Apex and Terrae uncovered in their expeditions."
"Right, uh..." Blizz looked over to the Zorua sitting beside him. "You wanna go first or should I?"
"You can go."
"Rad." He turned back to Scizor as he placed his crystal back into his bag. "So, met Azelf at the end of the dungeon. He recognized that Zar was a Mew immediately, didn't really like her that much. Prince still managed to get some questions out of him though, said that Hydreigon and Lucario were the only guys to make it to the end in over 100 years."
Scizor nodded. "I know for a fact the two managed to complete the dungeon as a duo, so that checks out. But no one else?"
"Yeah, unless you want to include us too."
"Hmm..."
Fanita flew up, in a vague approximation of raising her hand. "When I was talking to Mesprit, she stated that there were a few Pokémon who had come through the dungeon, but Hydreigon wasn't one of them."
"Remind me again who made it to Mesprit's chamber.
"She said in the last 50 years there was Lucario and Absol, an Audino and Southern Sandslash, and Hawlucha and Tyrogue. Hydreigon wasn't mentioned."
"...So if Hydreigon had an accomplice," Scizor mused to himself, "Absol can be ruled out immediately. Even putting aside the fact that I trust him as a former teammate, his perpetual migraine worsens in response to imminent disasters. As for the others, I have my doubts that the Auditaker and Randy Sandslash are involved in this in any way, and I have nothing but faith in our guild's apprentices."
Mira slowly raised a paw. "…Is it possible it was someone beyond 50 years ago?"
Scizor shook his head. "Doubtful. Otherwise you would have been summoned here far earlier."
Mira seemed to hesitate asking her next question, knowing it was a bit of a stretch. "…Could Hydreigon or someone else have used time travel?"
Scizor quickly shook his head. "Absurd. There is only one Pokémon capable of traversing time, and if Dialga has decided to eradicate all conscious life there is very little we could do."
Mira opened her mouth to say something else, but the force with which Scizor just shut her down caused her to reconsider.
"In any case, Treecko, did you have anything else to add?"
Blizz shook his head. He decided to exclude the bits about how they had to basically sneak into the dungeon, which meant that he also had to leave off most of the stuff about Mewtwo. If it became relevant later he could mention it.
"I see. Then in that case, Zorua, what did your team uncover at the end of Zero Isle East?"
"Uxie only allowed us to ask one question, so we asked how to save someone from being a husk." Some of Mira's earlier hesitation faded away now that she knew what she was talking about.
Scizor's eyes widened slightly. "And what did he say?"
"If you can implant an emotionally charged memory that you shared with someone else and expose them to the Resonance, that will allow them to regain their memory, willpower, and emotion."
Something about that explanation clicked with Blizz. His mind drifted to the "flashback" he had on top of Breach Mountain, where he was certain he saw himself. Was…
This line of thought started to give him a headache that made it very difficult to concentrate. There was a ringing in his ears he couldn't quite place, as he sat back into his chair.
When he could see again, he noticed a red claw holding out a vial of Persim juice. Not questioning why Scizor was offering now, he popped off the cap and downed it in one sip.
Immediately the ringing faded away, allowing him to make out the room again. Mira and Fanita were looking at him with varying levels of concern. Scizor seemed to be somewhat affected as well, though not nearly as badly as Blizz.
"…Sorry about that. Not sure what happened."
"Would you like to stop for tonight?" Scizor offered just as much for his own sake as for Blizz's. "We can go over the rest of the details tomorrow after morning announcements."
"Uhh… yeah, that'd be good." The Persim juice helped, but there was still a faint ringing in his ears that refused to go away.
"Very well. Go get some rest, we will reconvene in the morning."
With that, Blizz began walking back to his room, forced to lean on the walls as he walked. Mira helped to support him, and Fanita kept him upright with a Psychic, allowing him to make it through the main hall.
Though in his half-dazed state, his focus drifted to his guildmates. Things seemed to be more… loud than normal? It was hard to say if that was an effect of the migraine or not, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.
Once they finished escorting Blizz to his bed, Mira whispered something to the Prince that Blizz couldn't quite make out. The Prince gave a brief nod, then returned to his bed, though he seemed to be paying a bit more attention to Blizz than normal. Before long, the door slammed shut, leaving the four members of Team Apex in their room.
The traveling exhausted Blizz more than he realized, so despite the guild feeling more rowdy than normal he drifted off to sleep quickly.
The next morning brought with it a loud CLANG and the confirmation that Blizz's headache had not gone away. It felt like it was piercing through his skull now, far worse than last night. The entire world around him devolved into a mix of blurry colors and sounds, nothing particularly more distinct than anything else.
So had the Prince not tackled him to the side, the Flamethrower flying into Team Apex's room would have cooked the Treecko alive.
"YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES! YOU STOLE ALL THE GLORY!"
The sound of fighting echoed throughout the guild, though there seemed to be only one Pokémon interested in battling Team Apex. Combusken, eyes filled with far more intensity than any mortal should have, prepared another Flamethrower.
A/N: Okay, fun and relaxing break over. Who's ready for the climax arc?
Ch 33: It's The End Of The World As We Know It - 10/8/22