Chapter Two: Talking Heads

…and then, with a singular voice, Drowzee, Chatot, and the other apprentices all screamed, "YOU DID WHAAAAAAAT?!"

This, of course, was the wrong thing to do when around small children, especially when said children are already on edge from suddenly finding themselves in a strange place, surrounded by strange people, and with no familiar comforts in sight. The little human girl—presumably Laura—had her hands occupied, so her only defense against the loud noise and tension was to screw her eyes shut and hunch over as much as possible, trying to use her shoulders to cover her ears. Paula, now an adorable pichu, had both of her paws free… but rather than use them to cover her large ears, she instead used them to give a death-grip on Laura's already rumpled collar and begin wailing in terror. Which, of, course, made the human carrying her almost drop her in shock… which set off another round of wailing at an even higher pitch. But it also succeeded in shutting everyone else up and making them cringe in shame for having frightened someone so little and adorable.

Everyone, except Drowzee, that is, who instead gave a low moan of "Oh no… not again…!" before he dropped the human's hand in favor of moving around so that he was standing in front of the two kids and tried to calm the little pichu down. "H-hey, it's… okay!" he said a bit frantically, making shushing noises and waving his hands in front of himself, as if he both wanted to scoop her out of the human's arms in order to better soothe her but was also too terrified to make the attempt. "C'mon, Paula, we're all really, really sorry for yelling and being noisy! We promise not to do it again, so there's no reason to—!"

But that, apparently, was also the wrong thing to say, as the poor thing's wailing did not cease, and she started adding in tearful shouts of "No! No! No!" in amongst her pitiful cries, her cheeks sparking a little as she shook her head, managing to clip the human's face with her large ears each time. Laura, for her part, did not seem to care about that overly much, and actually seemed to be less upset about the noise in general now that it was only coming from one source. The hand not holding the Tiny Mouse Pokémon—which she had used to cover one of her ears after it was finally freed from Drowzee's grasp—slowly came down and cradled the back of Paula's head, creating a more stable hold. She frowned, glancing briefly at the electric-type in her arms before turning her attention to Drowzee and his ineffectual efforts at trying to control the situation.

"I don't think you're helping, Mr. Drowzee," she told him seriously. Or at least as seriously as a small child—practically a toddler, really—could get. It was such an unexpected statement coming from such an unexpected source that Drowzee immediately shut up and actually reeled back a bit in shock. But she paid no further attention to him, instead turning back towards Paula. She jostled her a bit, startling Paula into a brief moment of silence, which Laura then took full advantage of by saying, "Hey. Hey, you… uh… is your name really Paula?"

Paula looked at her, blinking her teary eyes in surprise that the strange girl was actually asking her about her name, instead of just assuming that these strangers throwing it around were right about what it was. Which… yeah, they were, but Paula didn't know who they were; they didn't look like they were her parents' friends, or anything like the pokémon in the picture Ricky had sent of his team's fellow apprentices in the guild he was training at, so she didn't know how they knew who she was. And she didn't like that—especially since she didn't know where she even was, aside from "definitely not home." But… she guessed the girl holding her was okay, even if she looked weird. Her eyes were pretty, and it was nice of her to offer to carry her around—especially since that grate that Mr. Drowzee had tried to get her to step on earlier was really, really scary, and it looked like it would tickle her feet, or that she would fall through into the darkness below if she tried to stand on it. So, it would probably be okay to introduce herself.

She nodded a little, and then leaned up so that she could whisper, "Uh huh… I'm Paula… Paula Sparks," into her ear. Except she wasn't all that great at whispering at the moment, since her throat was all scratchy from all the crying and yelling she was doing earlier, so all of the other strangers probably heard her, too.

The human took that in stride. "It's nice to meet you!" she announced "And everyone here! Even if everyone's really confused 'n' stuff." At this point she dropped her head down to "whisper" into Paula's large ears and, "I don' think they know what's goin' on either." Again, everyone else heard this because she apparently wasn't any better than Paula was at whispering, even if she didn't have the handicap of a sore throat like Paula did. But after that "whispered" pronouncement, she paused, and then drew herself back up to her full height and said, rather bluntly, "My arms are tired. I'mma put you down now, 'kay?"

Paula, whose tears had mostly stopped by that point, frowned in obvious disappointment, her lips quivering into a pout, before she shakily nodded. She sniffled a bit after she was set down, and rubbed the tears from her eyes. But it wasn't as if Laura was abandoning her completely, since as soon as Paula sat down, the human immediately plopped down beside her. She then rolled onto her stomach, propped her head up with her hands, and began kicking her legs in the air behind her as she stared at the adults around her expectantly.

After a moment of their rather wary staring right back at her, supremely confused by the fact that she was the one taking charge of the situation, considering her older self's personality, Chatot awkwardly cleared his throat.

"…Right then," he began. "Now that we've all… er… calmed down a bit, I suppose that the first thing we should do is figure out what we know for sure about the situation at hand. So that would mean… Drowzee."

"Oh!" Drowzee tore his eyes away from the sight of the kids—Laura having pretty quickly decided that her arms were just as tired while supporting her head as they had been while holding Paula, and thus having rolled onto her back, limbs spread out like a star and head tilted backwards to watch the group from upside down while Paula basically faceplanted into her stomach, having decided that her fellow child would make a serviceable pillow—in surprise upon being addressed. "Yes?" he asked. "What, uh… what can I do for you?"

"Can you please tell us exactly what happened when you met up with Team Rainbow this evening?" Chatot asked. "And how they changed from their normal selves into… this?"

"Oh! Yeah, yeah sure, I can do that," Drowzee said. "I don't really understand it… and I'm not entirely sure what happened to cause this… but this is what I saw: Like I said, I wasn't expecting to actually get here until tomorrow, but the journey took less time than I thought it would. Just as I was making my way to the crossroads, I happened to see Team Rainbow a little way away. I called out a greeting to Paula, and she answered back with…

"Oh! Hey, Drowzee!" Paula called back, turning around from where she was leaning down and talking to her partner. Laura was, rather worryingly, sitting on the ground, head in her knees, and breathing somewhat heavily. She did tilt her head a bit and peek her eyes out at him, however.

"Are you okay?" he asked in worry. "It's kind of late out…"

Paula nodded. "Yeah, we're fine," she affirmed. "We were on our way back, but we picked up tons of cool treasure today, so our bag is heavier than normal and Laura just needed to stop and take a break for a bit."

Drowzee stole a glance at their bag where it sat on the ground near Laura's feet, the strap looped around her arm. While it did, admittedly, look a bit bulgier than normal Treasure Bags usually did, he knew that he'd seen her and Paula toting it around when it was much heavier and fuller looking without breaking a sweat. Coupled with the fact that Laura still looked like she had bags under her eyes, even weeks after the whole Dreamy Blackmailer fiasco—and Paula, too, now that he got a bit of a closer look—and it painted a darker picture than what Paula was trying to describe. But given that the very presence of the eye-bags indicated that the two were likely not as relaxed or recovered as Paula's cheeriness was trying to lead him to believe, he decided not to comment.

"…Right," he said, instead of calling her out on the fact that all was not as fine as she wanted to make it appear. It would likely only make them try even harder and less successfully to convince him of the notion that they were fine. He compromised by suggesting, "In that case, you should definitely make sure to get a good night's sleep tonight."

But this was apparently the wrong thing to say, as Paula outright flinched at the suggestion, growing pale at the thought, and Laura, while her reaction wasn't quite as extreme, still hid her eyes again and gave a mournful sigh.

"Do you… ah… do you want me to see if Cresselia can come over and help?" Drowzee said, frowning at the sight and feeling anxious to do something, anything, to help his friends.

"No, no, really! We're fine!" Paula tried to assure him, frantically shaking her head as the color came back to her face.

"…It's okay if you still aren't. You two have been through a lot recently, and—"

"I…" Paula trailed off with a sigh, a pained look on her face. "I—we… we know. And we know everyone is still really worried about us, but…"

"…Even he would say that nightmares at this point wouldn't help anything… and the only way we can think of to help with that is to make some better memories to dream about," Laura finished, raising her head to look at him straight in the eyes.

Paula winced at the reminder… but it was more of a resigned wince, if anything, and Drowzee supposed that if that was going to be her only reaction, then it meant things really were improving for her. At least a little bit. Also, the fact that Laura could actually talk about these things and look at him in the eyes again, despite how up close and personal he'd gotten with all her issues during his most recent trip inside her head could only point to good things. Still… if he'd learned anything from this most recent trial, it was that recovery was a process, and sometimes it was the little things that helped the most.

"Well, just so long as you're aware…" he began, "in any case, it's actually good that I caught you out here; considering that Cresselia was briefly a member of Team Rainbow, I wanted to see if you had any advice on how to balance the duties of a legendary with, well, everything else."

The two looked relieved at the topic change. "Sure thing!" Paula said eagerly. "But, uh… I'm not sure how much help we'll be considering that the lack of a proper balance is what made her have to leave in the first place…"

"Well, at least you'll be able to tell me what not to do, then, right?" Drowzee said, a smirk on his face as he offered Laura a hand up. She took it, a small grin of her own appearing on her face. She then went to heft Team Rainbow's Treasure Bag over her shoulder, but Drowzee stopped her, making grabby motions with his other hand. "Nah, let me go ahead and carry it the rest of the way for you—consider it a bit of payment for the advice."

Laura rolled her eyes, grin still on her face, before she handed the bag over, their hands briefly brushing as she did so. But just as she turned and began to take her first steps toward the crossroads, she suddenly stumbled, a wince crossing her face, and brought her hands up to her temples.

"Laura? Are you okay?" Paula asked in worry, scampering closer to her partner.

Laura made a noise of discomfort, but then she nodded. "D-Dimensional Scream," she explained, as her eyes began to glow and acquire the far-off look that had become so familiar.

Drowzee couldn't help but be a bit curious about the process. After all, he hadn't had as much experience with it as the others had, considering how often he was away from town—and since it apparently was this ability which had led to his capture during his outlaw days, he was doubly interested. Not that he was resentful of it, or anything, since he really had needed someone to put him on the straight and narrow. But he couldn't help but be curious about what, exactly, Laura had seen that day… he hoped it wasn't anything too bad—he knows that he said some not-so-nice things to Azurill that had scared him, and that he was still ashamed of to this day. Then again, considering that he had literally wandered through some of the darkest, most painful and private parts of Laura's mind recently, he figured that if she had seen some of his more painful and embarrassing moments, it would only be fair. …That being said, though, considering that he was one of the last things she touched before this Dimensional Scream activated, and even he knew enough about the ability to know that touch was what triggered the visions, he really hoped that the vision she was having right now involving him wasn't too embarrassing. Or that at least if was and involved something happening in the future, she would be able to describe it enough that he could mitigate the chance that anyone else would witness the embarrassing display. …Maybe in that case he could get her to describe it to him sometime when Paula wasn't around.

Of course, there was always the possibility that the bag had been the trigger, or that it was something else innocuous, so he supposed he would just have to wait and see. Luckily, it looked like the vision was ending now, so he wouldn't have to wait too long. …Then again, the fact that Laura's face was rapidly losing color, even as she blinked her way back to the present, did not bode very well…

"…Laura? Are you okay?" Paula asked, catching the unease on her face. When Laura failed to say anything, she gave her shoulder a firm shake. "Laura?" she asked, a desperate note entering her voice. "What did you see?"

The worry in her partner's voice finally broke Laura out of her stupor, and she gave a quick glance in her direction, before turning a rather haunted look towards Drowzee, and then her gaze dropped to her hands.

"…No… but that's…" she stumbled back a few steps, her limbs trembling as she covered her eyes. "That can't be…"

"…L-Laura?" Drowzee called, starting to feel scared about what, exactly, his friend just saw in her vision. He took a step forward, hand outstretched as if he wanted to grasp her shoulder—whether to offer comfort or prevent her from moving away again, he wasn't sure—but before he could take another step Laura flinched back violently.

"L-Laura?!" he and Paula called out as one, obvious distress in their voices.

Laura gasped, her fingers parting briefly so that the two could see the lost gaze of her rainbow-colored eyes. But then she glanced between the two of them, winced at the looks on their faces, and then covered them again before taking a shaky inhale for courage and dropping her hands again to look Drowzee squarely in the eyes.

"You… I saw…" her courage briefly failed and she trailed off, looking lost, but it seemed it was only a momentary faltering, she quickly shook her head and took another inhale, steadying herself. "I saw you, Drowzee, along with Marill, Chatot, and Guildmaster Wigglytuff. You were on Mt. Bristle, and looking frantically for something … or, rather, someone. Because then you looked relieved, and shouted 'Hey!' and… a human girl turned to look at you. She…" but Laura trailed off here with a gulp, shaking her head and refusing to continue further.

"A… a human?" Drowzee asked, dumbfounded. The only human he'd ever seen outside of dreams had been Laura herself, and the circumstances surrounding that had definitely been unusual. As far as he knew, humans were a rarity. So why would one go to Mt. Bristle? And how would they know him? And when exactly would this happen? It had to be sometime in the future, because, again, as of this moment he didn't know any other humans but Laura.

"But why is that so upsetting, Laura?" Paula asked, getting Drowzee back on track to the present.

"She…" Laura swallowed. "Her eyes… they were like mine," she whispered.

"No way! She had rainbow eyes too?" Paula gasped. "So that means… do you think she was maybe your successor?!" Drowzee whipped his head over to look at Laura as the horror of that possibility dawned on him as well. But apparently Paula didn't grasp the implications of that idea, since she continued with, "That's so cool that you get to see what she'll look like, and—" but then it finally dawned on Paula as well exactly what that meant, and her own face drained of color as well. "But… wait… in order for you to have a successor… that means that first you'll… y-you'll have to… t-to—!"

She couldn't finish the thought. It was too horrible to even consider. But the implications lingered in the air: in order for Laura to have a successor, a future Rainbow Child… it meant that she would have to reincarnate. And in order for her to reincarnate… she would first have to, well… to die."

"…How much time do you think we have?" Drowzee asked morosely. If the time he had left with his friend was now limited, then he wanted to know exactly what that limit was, so that he could be sure not to waste the now even more precious commodity. "And… and should we tell anyone else?" All three of them paused and winced at the thought. But then Laura turned thoughtful as she went over the vision again, trying to pinpoint any clues that would tell her how far in the future it occurred.

"I think… not long," was her deduction. "You and the others didn't look any older, so it couldn't have been—" she cut herself off, blinking at a sudden realization. "…You didn't look any older. Like… not even a little. But that girl had to be at least three, maybe four years old, so that means…"

"S-So that means…?" Paula repeated, a bit of hope coming back into her voice.

Laura gave a sigh of relief, "She can't be my successor—not unless some sort of time travel is involved. Which… wouldn't actually be that strange, considering my own history, but…" she trailed off, a frown on her face that went unnoticed by her two friends who were busy giving twin sighs of relief.

"Don't scare us like that, Laura!" Paula complained.

"Seriously…" Drowzee concurred wholeheartedly. "Though… I guess we might still want to watch out if it is a case of time travel. Those tend to be pretty serious. And if a little kid is involved this time, one who's even younger than you were the first time you did it…"

Paula nodded in agreement. "That's a good point. I guess we should start getting ready to take care of a kid, then? Hm… I wonder what human kids need… I wouldn't want to end up in a similar situation to what happened with Manaphy right after he hatched," she shuddered a bit at the reminder. "At least we already have a human expert on hand, right, Laura?" she asked with a smile, moving closer to her with the intent of giving her a playful nudge. But before she could, she noticed the frown that was still on Laura's face.

"Laura? Is… is something else wrong?"

Laura blinked, looking at Paula before rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "Oh… no, not 'wrong' so much as…. 'strange,' I guess." At Paula and Drowzee's expectant faces, she continued. "The girl… now that I think back on it, she looked really… familiar."

"You mean… aside from the eyes?" Drowzee asked.

Laura nodded. "Yeah. I could swear I'd seen her before… maybe in a picture? Or… no." Her mouth opened into a little "o" of shock. "She looked like a younger version of that statue… the one from Relatia's Cave…" Her brow furrowed. "But that statue… she was the very first. So how could… why would she be here? And now? And…" she trailed off, looking a bit sick. "I don't… I don't feel so good…"

"L-Laura?" Drowzee said, starting to panic again and move towards her to try to help. "What's wrong? What just—?"

"Ugh…" he suddenly heard from behind him, turning around just in time to see Paula crouch over, clutching her stomach. "Me neither…"

"Paula?" Drowzee called, feeling suddenly frantic and stuck looking between the two girls, unsure of who he should help first, or what he could even do to help in the first place. The panic only grew when he heard what he thought was a scream echoing in the distance… and then Team Rainbow screamed as well as they were enveloped in a bright light. It was so bright, that Drowzee had to shut his eyes against it. And when he could finally open them again and look frantically for his friends… he visibly jolted back upon finding that they had changed.

Where once stood a pikachu was now an adorable, little pichu—laying on the ground, apparently unconscious. He stared at the sight in shock before slowly turning in search of his treecko friend… and found, instead, a little human girl with white hair, also lying on the ground.

…Well, he supposed that answered the question of where and when he would meet another human, even if he still wasn't entirely clear about what just happened. But before he had the chance to figure it out, the little human started to stir.

"Mm… H-huh?" She said, blinking her pretty, rainbow-colored eyes open and staring straight at him.

"L-Laura?" he whispered in shock. "Is… is that you?"

The little girl cocked her head. "Who're you?" she asked, rather than actually respond to his question.

Drowzee gulped. "It… it's me. Drowzee," he said. The girl simply cocked her head in the other direction. "Y-you know… your friend?" No comprehension. "The… the first pokémon you and Paula ever helped arrest?"

Then, Drowzee's heart plummeted when the girl asked "What's a Pokémon?"

But before Drowzee could even begin to react to the terrifying implications that question brought on, he heard some sleepy mumbles coming from where the pichu lay. He and the girl turned their heads towards her just in time to see her big eyes blink open as she sat up and started to look around.

"…P-Paula?" Drowzee asked desperately.

The little pichu nodded, breathing a small, soft, "Yeah" … before she flinched back and then promptly burst into tears.

Laura frowned and crawled towards her while Drowzee panicked at the sight of the tears. "Wh-wha…? Wh-what's wrong? Why are you crying?!"

"I'm not s'pposed to talk to strangers!" Paula wailed. "Mommy'll be mad at me an'… an'…" she abruptly stopped crying, looking around and sniffling a bit… before the tears and wailing returned ten-fold and she wailed, even more shrilly "An' Mommy's not here! I WAN' MOMMY!" as she beat her tiny fists against the ground.

"Oh… oh no…" Drowzee groaned, completely out of his depth…

"…And that's when I decided to come to the guild," Drowzee finished. "It took a while to convince Paula that it was okay to follow me—I had to show her my new exploration team badge and everything, and then when we actually got to the guild, she was too scared to step on the grate… but she let Laura pick her up, and then… well, you know the rest." He shrugged. "As for what actually caused this… I have no clue. I'm assuming that the scream and the light were involved, but as for how…?" He shook his head and shrugged again.

"Oh… oh, golly…" Bidoof moaned from where he was standing by Chatot. Chatot covered his head with his wings and sighed. That was just… well.

"All… all right," he finally said, uncovering his head. "So what appears to have happened is that upon waking Jirachi—who had fallen asleep on the Beach during his visit with Bidoof, our illustrious guild, and Treasure Town in general—Bidoof triggered Jirachi's, shall we say, 'protocols,' for granting wishes… and then, due to stress and general worry for Team Rainbow's well-being… Bidoof inadvertently made a wish that Paula and Laura could be children again… which Jirachi then granted just as Drowzee met up with Team Rainbow near the Crossroads once they finally made it back from their longer-than-advised day of exploration. Does this sound about right?"

"Hey, hey! Don't forget that Jirachi passed out after granting the wish!" Corphish called out. "Unless maybe that's normal for him… Hey, Bidoof, did he do that last time he granted a wish for you?"

"N-no," Bidoof replied, cringing under the scrutiny. "I mean… I guess he might've gone back to sleep after I left… but he and I talked a bit first right after I made my wish to… uh," he coughed in embarrassment, declining to say out loud what the wish had been, even though most everyone had figured it out earlier. "But, uh… he didn't do any of that glowy stuff back then… and I'm not sure he actually granted the wish right away, so I reckon it's possible that if he did wait until after I left to grant the wish, then he may have passed out then, too, yup yup." He frowned, remembering something, before adding, "Oh! But, uh… he did say this time that he 'overdid it' a little, and it seemed like he seemed real concerned about Laura—or maybe the Rainbow Child in general?—when he started glowing, so, uh…" he frowned and shrugged, "I don't really know, but I reckon it might be important?"

"Hm… perhaps," Chatot acknowledged, a frown on his face.

"Y'know… this human doesn't really LOOK like Laura did as a human," Loudred suddenly said. "Except for her EYES. Are we REALLY sure it's actually her?"

"That is a good point," Dugtrio agreed. "When Laura briefly assumed her human form, she was much taller… And her hair was brown, not white."

"Yeah, but our Laura is also older than this one, and Mason said that human kids are smaller than the adults are, so maybe their hair just changes color when they evolve, like the fur of an electrike when it becomes a manectric," his son offered. But then he got a confused look on his face. "Er… Dad? Do… do humans actually… evolve, when they become adults?"

Everyone pondered that for a moment.

"I'm… I'm not entirely sure about that," Chatot said, finally breaking the silence. "But… I also agree with Loudredl I'm not entirely positive that this is actually Laura."

"Oh, oh?" Wigglytuff asked. "So you don't think that these are the child versions of our friendly-friends Laura and Paula?"

"I'm fairly certain that the pichu is Paula," his head of intelligence clarified, "but the human… if you recall Drowzee's story, she never actually confirmed that her name was Laura. asked. And… she had no idea what a pokémon was. Given the story Laura told us in Relatia's Cave about her childhood and some of the… erm… other things she revealed to me in that… other cave the two of us were in recently," he paused here to shudder at the memories, "Laura lived with pokémon from a very young age—and even while she was still living with humans, she was, at least, aware of what pokémon were."

"…That's a good point," Chimecho agreed. "So, then, who is this human? And what happened to Laura?"

"I think… I think it might still be Laura," Drowzee said. "Just… not our Laura. And… maybe she doesn't actually go by that name?"

"Oh my gosh! What do you mean by that? How could she be Laura, but not Laura?" Sunflora asked.

"Laura—older Laura… our Laura? …you know who I mean—right before she was hit with that light, when she was talking about the human that she saw in her vision… after we established that it probably wasn't her next incarnation (and thank Arceus we managed to figure that out), she said something about her looking 'familiar' and talking about how she 'looked like a younger version of the very first.' Since this human is probably the one she saw in her vision, maybe when she said 'first'… she meant her very first incarnation?" He looked around the room at everyone's stunned expressions. "If that's the case… if this is the very first Rainbow Child… and if she really is an actual child right now… then wouldn't it make sense that she doesn't know what pokémon are? I mean… we don't really know how old she was during the Time Gear Legend, right?"

"…And in that case, considering the nature of reincarnation… she would, essentially, be our Laura, and yet… not," Chatot extrapolated. "That… makes a great deal of sense. Especially given that Jirachi, apparently, needed to use more power than usual to grant such a wish. I can only imagine how much power it would take to turn back time on so many separate lives…" he then paused, considering something else that made the theory even more likely. "…And if the child really is at an age before she visited our world for the first time, then it also means that she is also at the age before she faced any real responsibilities as a productive or favored servant of Relatia… or from any responsibilities or consequences from helping to create and, ultimately, complete the Time Gears. Which would fit in perfectly with the spirit of Bidoof's wish."

Again, there was silence as everyone soaked that in.

"OKAY," Loudred said. "So… now that THAT'S been established… what do we do NOW?"

"Oh my gosh, yes!" Sunflora agreed. "We know what happened now, and, why… but how do we fix it?"

"I would assume Jirachi is the only one who can do that, meh heh heh… But since he is currently passed out…?" Croagunk shrugged, trying to affect an air of nonchalance to hide his worry—not that anyone actually bought it.

"So… what should we do in the meantime?" Chimecho fretted. "Can we… can we really take care of the two of them while they're like this?"

"Of course we can!" Wigglytuff exclaimed, sounding shocked that one of his apprentices would think otherwise. "They're our friendly-friends, after all! And they need our help!"

"And, hey, hey, since this is basically Bidoof's fault, anyways, we can just leave most of the hard work to him," Corphish reasoned.

Bidoof winced at the reminder of his role in matter, but agreed readily. "Yup yup… and I reckon I've got a fair bit of experience with kids that will come in handy, what with my little siblings and all. And," he shrugged a bit sheepishly, "maybe I'll be able to wake Jirachi up a little quicker? Since I'm apparently pretty good at that…"

"Great!" Wigglytuff declared.

"If you need any help, I'd be glad to do what I can," Drowzee offered. "I mean… since everything is still getting settled with the new team, I have plenty of time on my hands."

"Yes, that would help a great deal," Chatot agreed. "We do still have a guild to run, after all! As for what to do first… hrm… Bidoof, since this is, however accidentally it may have been, technically speaking your fault…"

"Oof… you don't have to be so blunt about it…"

"…tomorrow you will be in charge of managing the affairs Team Rainbow left undone today, what with the late hour of their return—greeting the pokémon whose job requests they completed today, settling things with Officer Magnezone in regards to the outlaws they helped capture, sorting through and cataloguing the supplies and treasures they acquired… and so on and so forth."

Bidoof groaned at all the extra work, but readily agreed. "Yup, yup… I reckon that's fair… sigh…"

"Hey, hey! What should we do about the kids right now, though?" Corphish asked. "It's kind of late, and it's dark out, so it would probably be a bad idea to take them out to Sharpedo Bluff right now, right? If only because of all the attention they're sure to get at the moment."

"Oh my gosh, yes! And kids like them probably need early bedtimes, anyways!" Sunflora added.

"They probably haven't eaten yet, either… so maybe we should feed them first? And then figure out a place for them to sleep?" Chimecho asked, frowning, as she contemplated whether she knew any specifically kid-oriented recipes.

"Meh heh heh… But before all that… shouldn't we figure out where the kids actually are?" Croagunk suddenly put in, his laugh sounding more nervous than unnerving, for once.

"HUH?" everyone asked, turning towards him. He merely pointed to the spot where Laura (or at least, the girl who would one day become Laura, but who they were still going to call Laura in their heads for now because they weren't entirely sure what her name actually was during that first lifetime) and Paula were sitting at the start of Drowzee's tale… the spot which had, upon further reflection, been suspiciously quiet, given the general nature of small, likely bored children…

…Only to find it empty. The children, being, again, small, and likely bored, had somehow wandered away unnoticed during the discussion, and now they had no idea where the duo went.

"AAAH! WE LOST THE CHILDREN!"