It was a beautiful day in Nova Town. The sun was shining down, gently rousing dozens of Pokemon from their slumber. They slowly set about their business, opening up shops, gathering equipment, or turning on their home's furnaces.

For those who belonged to Lucario's Guild, the process of getting up to take on the new day was slightly less pleasant.

"WAKE UP MOTHERFUCKERS!" A hideous metal screeching joined Lucario's voice, waking up the explorers who were unlucky enough to still be asleep.

"Fucking hell..." From his straw bed, Blizz lifted up his goggles so he could rub the sleep out of his eyes. Once he felt slightly less terrible, he rose up to his feet. Using his tail, he picked up his bag from its spot on the floor and draped it over his shoulder. "You guys ready?"

"Yeah, just give me a minute..." Chimchar was very much not ready, his eyes still closed as he lay face down in the bed.

Blizz just looked over to Shinx, who was in a similar state as himself: standing and awake, but also looking like she wanted nothing more than to crawl back to bed. She opened her mouth to ask something, but Blizz nodded before she could even get the words out.

Yellow flashes of electricity covered Shinx as she walked towards Chimchar. When there was only half a meter of distance between them, she paused. Maybe, just this once, a Spark wouldn't be necessary.

These hopes were dashed as Chimchar let out a snore. With a sigh, Shinx jumped forward.

"HEYHEY I'M UP!" This time Chimchar was actually awake, jumping to his feet as the lingering electricity coursed through his body.

"Now you are," Blizz teased.

"We're gonna miss announcements," Shinx whispered.

Blizz nodded, leading the way out of their room. "Yeah, let's get going."

"I know you told her to!" Chimchar stomped after the Treecko in faux-anger as Shinx awkwardly trailed behind.

In the guild hall, the three of them were pleased to see that they were not last. That honor went to Team Arctic, with Sneasel in the process of dragging Dewott out of his room.

"HURRY THE FUCK UP!" Lucario shouted, giving Dewott an annoyed glare.

That seemed to do the trick as the water type suddenly picked up the pace, running to their position alongside the other teams.

"...Thank you, guildmaster," Scizor said, stepping in front of the assembly. "There is only one announcement for today. I would like to remind everyone that the royal wedding in Gremis Keep has began, and a considerable portion of Tenea City's guild is helping the security detail. As such, our jurisdiction has been temporarily expanded eastwards to make up for their shortfall. Just remember that you may have to venture further out than usual during missions for the next few days."

Lucario spat on the ground at the mention of the royal wedding, but otherwise kept quiet.

"That is all. Guildmaster?"

His earlier contempt vanished as Lucario stepped up to face his guild. "IT WAS TWELVE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN!"

For some reason, as he went through the chant, Blizz found himself almost saying the guildmaster's lines.

"Who are we gonna go after today?" Chimchar asked, leaning over Blizz's shoulder as he looked through the outlaw board.

Shinx valued personal space slightly more than her teammates, so she stood a short distance away and examined her badge. There was something she wanted to check on the team status report.

Team Spark - Silver Rank

Rank-Up Progress: 97%

Shinx turned back to the others, holding up the badge's display for them all to see. "We should try to go for an A or B rank outlaw, that should give us enough points to take on the gold rank up exam."

"Yooo you're right." Blizz turned back to the board, paying a bit closer attention to the B and A rank outlaws.

"We can take on Misdreavus," Chimchar suggested, gesturing to a listing at the top of the bulletin board.

"But they're an S rank," Shinx pointed out. "We're not allowed to take those missions yet."

"Got a B rank Nuzleaf down here," Blizz said, tearing off a posting slightly lower on the board. Habitually, he reached for his own badge to translate the text into Unown Script. "In Overgrowth Woods too, super close."

"Fine…" Chimchar pouted as Blizz stuck the poster into his bag. "But once we rank up, we're gonna get Misdreavus too."

"Dude you saw how they screwed up Team Drill," Blizz commented as the three left the guild. "S ranks are fucking crazy."

"But someone has to beat them!"

Blizz and Chimchar's argument continued well after they left the guild and made the journey out to Overgrowth Woods, Shinx uncomfortably trailing behind.

Overgrowth Woods itself was not a particularly difficult dungeon. Most of it was populated by grass and bug types who would go down in one hit from most of their attacks.

Similarly, Blizz had no struggles through the bulk of the dungeon. At first he focused on Quick Attacks and Pounds, but after a panic Leafage knocked out a nearby Weedle in one hit, he figured basically anything could one-shot this dungeon's ferals.

He did think it was kinda odd how Chimchar and Shinx didn't seem to have it quite as easy though.

Still, the dungeon proved to be a cakewalk. Of course, it was still a B rank outlaw mission. The difficulty of the dungeon itself didn't matter if the outlaw just wiped them out.

As they stepped onto floor 8, all three of their badges buzzed at the same time. Nuzleaf had to be somewhere around here.

"Keep an eye out," Shinx whispered, walking closer to Chimchar than normal. "He could blend into the dungeon walls-"

"Up ahead!" Blizz fired a Leafage straight ahead, making a clunk as the leaves smashed into a Nuzleaf.

The Nuzleaf turned around, watching the three explorers enter the room he was in. "Hmph, I stole all that Poké and they only send a couple of kids after me?"

"We're not afraid of you!" Shinx cried, only moderately afraid of him.

"We're stronger than we look!" Chimchar yelled.

"That's not a high bar." Nuzleaf crouched down into a fighting stance, ready to go after the explorers.

For a brief moment, Blizz was paralyzed by a sense of deja vu, like he's seen this entire exchange once before.

Of course, the moment a fight begins is a very poor time to become lost in thought. A blade of green appeared in Nuzleaf's hand as he lunged for Blizz's head with Leaf Blade.

Chimchar launched a desperate Ember in an attempt to cover his teammate, but Nuzleaf was too fast to be hit. It did manage to pull Blizz's attention though, just as the sword of grass was about to descend on his face.

He flinched, his eyes shut as he brought up an arm to block the attack. But after a few seconds with no crippling pain in his arm or face, he let his eyes open to see what happened.

Blocking Nuzleaf's Leaf Blade was a Leaf Blade of his own, resting comfortably in his hand.

"You just learned Leaf Blade!" Chimchar shouted, excited for his teammate.

Blizz, meanwhile, just stared at the glowing sword. He was certain Treeckos couldn't learn Leaf Blade, how did he just do this?

"He's coming for you again!" This time Shinx tried to help out Blizz, using Thundershock as Nuzleaf made another lunge at Blizz. While the attack wasn't very effective, the bolt of electricity could travel much faster than Chimchar's earlier Ember, allowing it to connect.

Heeding his teammates' warning, Blizz met Nuzleaf in the middle. He ducked under a sweeping strike that Nuzleaf put way too much force into, lashing at Nuzleaf's legs. Not expecting the sudden attack so soon after his own, Nuzleaf was knocked off his feet.

With their opponent downed, Chimchar and Shinx had a much easier time delivering their own attacks, an Ember and Thundershock. Blizz, meanwhile, just continued his Leaf Blade. Though his attack was by no means perfect, it felt way too natural to be something he just learned 10 seconds ago.

The fight against Nuzleaf forced him out of his thoughts once again. A Razor Leaf barrage shot out, hitting all three of the explorers but not doing substantial damage to any one of them.

Blizz finished the battle with a Pound, slamming his tail into Nuzleaf and launching him into the far wall.

The explorers took a moment to catch their breaths, before Chimchar turned to Blizz. "That was great! Never seen you fight like that before, were you taking lessons with Lucario or something?"

Blizz just looked down at his own hands. "I... don't know. Just kinda came to me."

Shinx took out her badge once again, navigating to her teammates' status.

Shinx - Lv 32 - HP 90%

Chimchar - Lv 34 - HP 94%

Treecko - Lv 51 - HP 99%

Shinx turned to Blizz, not bothering to hide the concern on her face. "...Treecko, when did you get so far ahead of us?"

Chimchar leaned into Shinx, verifying the display. "Yeah, I swear you were 10 levels behind us when we first met. Have you been taking Joy Seeds?"

Blizz tried to look at Shinx's display to see what they were talking about, but stopped. All of it was written in footprint runes.

Why couldn't he read footprint runes?

"I... don't know." A headache was starting to form at the questions popping up in his mind. Didn't it make sense he was so high level after all the insanely strong Pokémon they've been fighting? Why couldn't he remember what Pokémon those were?

Seeing how the questions seemed to be disorienting Blizz, Shinx spoke up. "...Let's bring Nuzleaf in first, then we can figure this out."

Chimchar nodded, eager for an opportunity to get out of this situation. "Sounds good!"

But as his teammates tied up Nuzleaf, Blizz was still racking his head trying to come up with an answer. What was going on?

Blizz volunteered to drag Nuzleaf back to the police station, figuring he could use the distraction. Chimchar and Shinx were obviously concerned about him, but how could he explain all the confusion he felt right now when it barely made sense to him?

So he let the sound of the tied-up Nuzleaf being dragged over the stone road drown out his worries. It worked pretty well too, as the group made their way back into Nova Town and up the main road to the police station.

Then he froze.

Sitting at the front desk of the police station was a Jangmo-o, idly filling out paperwork. When he noticed the team come in, he shot them a smile.

"Team Spark, great to see y'all again. Looks like you got that Nuzleaf, let me get him filled out for you."

Blizz stood motionless as a group of Magnemite flew out and dragged Nuzleaf off to jail. He knew for a fact he's seen the Jangmo-o before, and not just from the police station. There was a name on the tip of his tongue, just barely out of reach.

"Hey uh, Jangmo? You got a name?"

Blizz wasn't sure what he was doing. Sure, he'd seen Jangmo-o working here before, but was that really a good enough reason to ask a Pokémon he hardly knew for their proper name?

Jangmo-o's face scrunched in thought. For a faint moment, all of Blizz reservations vanished as he thought he saw something that resembled recognition in the dragon type's eyes.

Just as soon as those hopes arose, they were dashed as the Jangmo-o gave him an awkward grin. "Sorry Treecko, that's not exactly the thing you give away to strangers."

"...No yeah, you're right. Just thought... never mind." Blizz walked out of the station, leaving his teammates and Jangmo-o behind.

"Sorry about him, he's been kinda off all day," Chimchar apologized.

"Not an issue, we all have days like that." Jangmo-o brought a claw to his chin, watching the door Blizz just left out of. "Might wanna run him by Chansey's though."

Shinx nodded. "We might do that."

Back in Team Spark's room, Blizz sat on his bed, just staring at his badge. Even as dinnertime rolled around he stayed put, trying to work his way through the mess of questions swirling around his head.

The problem wasn't just vague feelings of deja vu and muscle memory he'd never felt before, though both were parts of it. What was way worse was that it felt as if there was some obvious answer right in front of him, but this fog in his mind made it impossible to see. And after two hours of concentration, he was no closer to uncovering it than when he first started.

Half an hour after dinner began, his two teammates came in. Much to Blizz's joy, Chimchar carried a baked apple with him.

"Hey Treecko, got you this." He dropped the apple onto Blizz's bed. "You feeling any better?"

Blizz shook his head. "Sorry guys, everything just feels… off."

Chimchar and Shinx shared a glance, before turning back to Blizz.

"You know you can share anything with us," Shinx stated, sitting down in front of Blizz. "We're your teammates, right?"

For some reason, Blizz didn't feel too certain about that. Still, this seemed like a poor time to bring it up. "...I know, thanks guys. I just don't know how to describe this."

"...Do you want to hold off on the gold rank-up exam? Scizor set it up for tomorrow, but we need all of us if we're gonna make it through."

"Nah, I'll be fine guys." Blizz forced a smile out. "We've been working at this for how long now? No way we're calling it off. Plus, worst case scenario we just try again."

Shinx wasn't particularly convinced, but Chimchar bought it. "Great! Just make sure you eat something, tomorrow's gonna be tough."

Blizz nodded, taking a few small bites of his apple. Even when he wasn't quite sure who he was or what he was doing, he could rely on baked apples being the culinary equivalent of crack.

An ominous wind blew through the pitch-black guild. It was a new moon, meaning not even pale traces of moonlight could trickle into the halls.

This, of course, did nothing to deter the ghost type intruder as she floated through the walls of the guild and into Scizor's personal office. She cautiously drifted around the sleeping assistant guildmaster, working her way towards the back where he does all his paperwork.

It only took her a few moments of picking through a filing cabinet to find the mission listing she was looking for.

Item Search Mission - Rank-Up Exam

Client: Exploration Federation

Location: Wildrush Pass

Info: A crate of gold-rank exploration badges have been placed on floor 15 of the dungeon. Reach the floor and bring back at least one badge to pass the examination.

…..

Recipient: Team Spark

Despite the risk of waking up Scizor, the thief couldn't help but giggle. She put the document back exactly how she found it, and left the guild. There was less than a day to make preparations, after all.

The next morning brought some much-needed relief for Blizz. Everything that was bothering him yesterday seemed to be just a little bit further away, letting him focus on the much more pressing issue of the gold rank-up exam. He was fully aware those feelings would return the moment he gave them any substantial thought, but that was an issue future Blizz could deal with.

Chimchar and Shinx's excitement helped ground him as well. Both of them managed to jump awake at Lucario's call, no shocks needed today.

As Scizor droned off the announcements, Blizz just let himself get caught up in his teammates' enthusiasm. They could finally get gold rank, and hopefully it would be less of a disaster than their silver rank up exam.

…What was his silver exam like? All he could remember was that it went terribly. Everything else was this hazy blur.

He tried to force his mind away. Another weird sensation that he could deal with after the mission was done.

"Here is your mission." Scizor held out a sheet of paper to the explorers. "You are to make it through Wildrush Pass, and return here with at least one gold badge."

"So what's this dungeon's gimmick gonna be?" Chimchar asked as he took the flier.

"That is for you to discover, though I believe it is well suited to your team's exploration style. Good luck." Scizor turned back to his office, not giving them an opportunity to respond.

Blizz just shrugged as he took out his map. "Let's get going, gonna be a couple hours of walking."

"Do we have enough supplies?" Shinx asked. "We don't know what the dungeon will be like, we may need a specific item for it."

"If we need some random item for it, there's no chance in hell we'll just guess it and bring enough," Blizz reasoned. "Can also just jump in for like, a floor or two, figure out its gimmick, then come back and restock."

That didn't do very much to calm Shinx's concerns, but she still nodded as Chimchar and Blizz started up the ladder. It would be nice if they could get their new rank in one day...

The dungeon was northeast of Nova Town, nestled between two mountains that divided the coastline and interior of Varin. It looked like there'd be sunlight for at least the first set of dungeon floors, which struck everyone as kinda odd for a dungeon that was supposed to be a gold rank-up test— usually the ones exposed to sunlight tended to be easier.

"Alright guys, 15 floors." Blizz made some final adjustments, tightening the straps around his goggles and bag. "Everyone ready?"

Chimchar jokingly stomped up to Blizz. "Hey, I'm the leader here! I'm the one who asks if everyone's ready!"

Blizz was caught off guard by another strange feeling of familiarity. Has someone said something like that to him before?

Noticing their teammate begin to stare off into space again, Chimchar and Shinx immediately gave him another look of concern.

"If you uh, want to lead us through the dungeon that's fine with me," Chimchar offered.

"...Thanks." Without turning back, Blizz stepped into the dungeon.

Immediately, he felt a sharp wind blowing throughout the room. It pushed up on him, like it wanted to evict him from the dungeon.

"How has the dungeon wind already started?" Chimchar shouted.

"That's probably why they call it Wildrush!" Shinx responded, straining her voice over the howling of the wind. "We have to hurry through each floor or else we get kicked out."

"Then let's go!" Blizz didn't struggle quite as much as the rest of Team Spark, since he could use his magic gecko powers to cling onto the floor. He made full use of this fact, doing most of the fighting against the feral electric types who appeared to be completely unbothered by the force of the wind.

Unfortunately, even with the help of his magic gecko powers, it wasn't enough to keep him rooted in place once the dungeon wind intensified. Before they had even managed to find the first staircase, all three of them were sent flying out of the dungeon, falling on top of each other in a pile back at the dungeon's entrance.

"Fuck..." Blizz rubbed the part of his head that was slammed into the ground.

"We barely got anywhere," Shinx whispered. "How can we deal with 15 floors?"

"We'll just try again!" Chimchar declared. "We can split up and use the dungeon map to find the staircase faster."

"Sounds good," Blizz said as he walked back to the entrance. "Everyone ready for round 2?"

Everyone was not ready for round 2. Blizz was mostly fine, but Chimchar and Shinx were not. Both of them struggled to deal with the dungeon's ferals and were beaten up pretty heavily. While Blizz was able to find the staircase and signal to everyone else where it was on the badge, his teammates couldn't actually get there in time before the dungeon kicked them back out again.

After their first attempt, they were kinda tired from running around and using a few attacks. Now, Chimchar had some scorch marks from a fight against an Electrike, and Shinx's fur was matted where a Luxio had managed to hit her with a Bite.

Still, it'd been less than an hour since they arrived. There was plenty of daylight left, and with how quickly the wind kicked them out, a successful run could only take a few hours at most. They still had plenty of time before they'd have to turn back for the day.

After a brief period of quiet to tend to their injuries, Shinx spoke up. "Maybe we don't wait for each other this time. If the dungeon kicks us out this quickly, we probably won't be in any real danger from ferals."

Blizz knew how important being a team player is, and that ultimately the feeling of having Pokémon you can depend on to have your back is a safety net unlike any other in the world. None of that changed the immense feeling of relief that washed over him as Shinx made her proposal.

Chimchar seemed to come to a similar conclusion. Treecko was already a fast Pokémon, and way higher level than the rest of them— having to wait would probably just slow him down. "Let's do it."

Blizz led the way into the dungeon once again. However this time, the moment he felt wind brush against his scales, he booked it.

He lost Chimchar and Shinx almost immediately as he weaved through the stony halls and stray Thunderbolts. In less than three minutes he found the staircase, while his teammates had only made it through a couple of rooms.

He climbed up, breathing out a sigh of relief that floor 2 didn't look particularly different from floor 1. There was always the possibility that the second floor had some different but equally frustrating gimmick, but thankfully this seemed to be more of the same.

By the time he cleared the third room on this floor, his badge buzzed with a notification. He couldn't afford to waste time slowing down to check it out though, so he waited until he was running down a long, straight hallway where he could go full speed without having to pay too much attention to where he was going.

When he finally did open up the display, it said exactly what he thought it would.

Chimchar was kicked out of the dungeon!

Shinx was kicked out of the dungeon!

Blizz pinned it back onto his bag strap as he made a sharp 90º turn. He was the only one on Team Spark still in the dungeon, so he had to do them proud.

The next staircase was being guarded by a mean-looking Raichu, forcing Blizz to slow down slightly. He pulled out another Leaf Blade, ready to ram it into the electric type's stomach and move on. But before he could, a beam of pink energy shot out behind him, knocking out the Raichu in one hit.

Despite how the wind was picking up, he spared the extra few moments to look back at the source. Coming from the hallway he just ran out of was a Mismagius, with a black bag dangling around its neck that looked concerningly like the one in the sketch of the Misdreavus thief.

"Olà." She flashed Blizz a smile as she floated forwards, charging up another Psybeam. In response, Blizz scrambled up the stairs to evade the blast.

The next floor was more of the same, except this time there was the evolved form of an S rank outlaw coming after him.

Mismagius wasn't far behind, sending out a Shadow Ball. "Ah, doesn't this bring back memories?"

Blizz continued sprinting, jumping over the ball of ghost energy. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Oh, never mind, just a feeling of deja vu. But surely I'm not the only one who feels that way?"

He didn't dignify that with an answer. He wasn't even in a position to think about an answer, what with all his brain power split between evading the outlaw's attacks and navigating the dungeon to find the next staircase as quickly as possible.

When he managed to find the staircase up to floor 4, he was able to shift the target of his concentration just long enough shoot out a question. "What the hell do you even want?"

"Oh, it's just a contract, nothing personal. All I need to do is kidnap you for a few days." She floated alongside Blizz as he climbed up the stairs, taking a break from her barrage of attacks to chat. "Does none of this sound familiar to you?"

"I have no fucking clue what you're talking about." He tried to slash out at the ghost type with a Leaf Blade, but Mismagius simply floated out of range.

"A shame. Guess we have to finish it like this then." Using Psychic, she tore off a rocky segment of the dungeon wall and dropped it in front of Blizz's path. This did little to stop the Treecko, who proceeded to just vault over the boulder.

As Mismagius phased through another set of walls, she came face to face with an Energy Ball. It blew up directly on her, leaving Blizz to scamper up the next set of stairs.

While it hurt, Mismagius wasn't deterred. She continued the chase, trying to catch Blizz. They raced through eight more floors like that, with Blizz's natural speed letting him rush through the dungeon while Mismagius hunted him down with an eerie level of precision.

No matter how far ahead he got, Blizz couldn't shake the outlaw. Even if they were evenly matched, there was no way he could stay and fight her before the dungeon kicked them out. And yeah, then he could get support from Shinx and Chimchar, but he was so close to the end now. To give up would hurt more than any Psybeam Mismagius could put out.

Mismagius, for her part, just seemed to be enjoying the chase. There were more than a few Psybeams or Shadow Balls that could have very easily hit Blizz, yet they flew off course seemingly out of nowhere. And on some floors Fanita would just float alongside Blizz, making cryptic conversation as the Treecko ran like hell.

On floor 14, it was almost over. According to the mission, the badges were on floor 15— all he had to do is make it through one more level.

The wind was already howling as soon as he climbed up over the last step, a sign that he'd have even less time to clear the floor. Mismagius wasn't going to let this be easy either— this was unfortunately not a 'making really annoying conversation' floor. Her assault intensified, with twice as many attacks flying towards the Treecko.

But because this was the final floor, Blizz pulled out all of his stops too. Using Quick Attack against Mismagius was off the table for obvious reasons, but it did mean he could navigate the floor much easier.

He got a moment of relief when he came up on a feral Luxray, able to slide underneath its legs as it locked onto Mismagius. He didn't look back, but the walls of the corridor lighting up with the yellow hue of electricity gave him a rough idea of what was going on back there.

After navigating one more room without any interference from Mismagius, he made it to the staircase. The wind surged right as he managed to get foot on the staircase, trying their hardest to eject him from the dungeon.

Clinging onto the staircase with all his strength, he crawled up step after step. Each time the wind threatened to shoot him out, but he persevered. And at last, he made it to the safety of the final floor.

He flopped onto the ground, panting. It was a struggle, but he did it just in the nick of time. And with how Mismagius was being distracted by Luxray, there was no way she could-

"Olá."

"Go to hell."

Blizz had no energy to fight as Mismagius floated over the Treecko with a twisted smile.

"Well that's no way to speak to an old friend."

"Dealing with an hour of that bullshit doesn't make you an old friend."

The longer strands of Mismagius' cloak moved up and down in a vague approximation of a shrug. "Has my evolution really made me that unrecognizable?"

"I saw your wanted poster, I know who you are."

Mismagius looked on at the Treecko lying prone on the ground, continuing that smug smirk. "You know more than you think about me."

Blizz sat up, starting to get annoyed with this exchange. "What the hell do I know about some random thief?"

"Many things. Where I'm from, who I consider friends, my name."

Blizz studied the Mismagius, trying to figure out whether or not she was just insane. "How would I know your name?"

"Because it's mutual. I know yours is Blizz."

That caused alarm bells to sound off in Blizz's mind as he jumped to his feet. "How did you find that out?"

"I told you, we know each other fairly well. Don't you remember how we first met?"

Blizz could feel that strange sensation of vague familiarity come back. No matter how much Mismagius made him feel uncomfortable, he couldn't shake the feeling that there might be something behind her words.

"What are you talking about?"

"It was your silver rank up exam. Of course, you were on Team Apex at the time."

The phrase 'Team Apex' caused Blizz to fall back to the ground in pain. A splitting headache had just come from nowhere, almost as bad as when... Why did he just lose his train of thought?

"...What the fuck is happening?" Blizz's voice was much softer and less defiant than it was five seconds ago.

"I think you're remembering," Fanita chuckled. "I knocked out the Prince, Rune, and Kibo, we had a one on one battle. Which I won, I would like to point out."

Every name Mismagius mentioned smashed another mental sledgehammer into his forehead. Each one of them felt meaningful, like they were the type of things he should be embarrassed he ever forgot.

Mismagius was not particularly sympathetic to Blizz's struggles, continuing on. "Then I brought you to my hideout, and that was when I found out I wasn't the only human. You were human, I was human, all your teammates were human."

"Human" seemed to have just as strong an impact on Blizz as the names she rattled off earlier. "...I'm human?"

"Mm-hmm. Then we all found out Mira, the Duke, Angel, and Ride are also human."

Another set of names, another wave of agony in Blizz as two sets of memories fought each other.

On one hand, everything up until yesterday felt perfectly normal to him– he was once a feral who gained sentience after a battle against Team Spark, and decided to join their team.

On the other, there was a hazy vision that was slowly becoming less and less vague.

"Of course, that wasn't all of us. After all, who would summon nine humans? It took us a lot longer to find Leaf, but he was the tenth."

The hazy memories started clicking into place, and the gaps in his knowledge that just a few hours ago seemed perfectly reasonable now felt absurd. He couldn't remember ever taking a silver exam with Chimchar and Shinx, and where did he get the name Blizz if he was born a feral?

"And that was all of us. Well, plus or minus Zar, I don't think we ever figured out for certain if she was human or not."

He knew Zar, she was… green? Something finally came to mind.

"Then that just leaves me, F-"

"Fanita." Blizz looked up, locking eyes with the Mismagius. "The legendary thief turned explorer, and leader of Team Vindicate."

As a white glow surrounded the Treecko, a genuine smile appeared on Fanita's face.

"You really did remember. I'm touched."

Once again, Blizz felt the odd sensation of his limbs morphing and changing size. But this time, it didn't feel awkward or uncomfortable. This was how things were supposed to be, and he could just let it play out.

When the light faded, a Grovyle stood in front of the Mismagius. He adjusted the straps on his goggles to accommodate his larger head while Fanita let out an honest laugh. None of the previous headaches or confusion lingered.

"Fanita, what the hell happened?"

"That's a very good question, and I don't know everything. But I can tell you what I have been able to put together."

Blizz nodded, sitting back down. He had no doubts this was going to be a difficult conversation. While he talked with Fanita, the clear blue sky above him appeared to crack for a moment, before returning to normal.

A/N: And now the epilogue arc is in full swing. Looks like there are a lot of problems going on though.

Ch 39: Troublemaker - 11/19/22