Pokemon: Hoenn; City Life50 (Fortree); Actual Starter: Eevee (Shiny50); Freerunning; Swarmed+100 (100)
Priority: Physical Fitness100; Survival Training100; Master Ball*3100; HM Collection50; Rebreather50; Psionics300; Savant600; Blend In300; Egg Move4 (Flail, Wish, Stored Power, Synchronoise)200; Combat Training100; Aura600 (2500)
-Day 2586-
The following weeks were a weird mix of relieving and nerve-wracking. Evan knew the whole story and our relationship had weathered a storm of uncertainty on both sides through careful manoeuvring and diplomatic overtures, and we were fine again, which was far more important. Keeping track of Cipher, on the other hand, meant watching and waiting as Michael began his journey to hunt down the 'Unknown Spy' who kidnapped Doctor Krane with a (quickly-Snagged) Shadow Teddiursa.
Looker showing up at the end, to join him on the Robo Kyogre as a simple way to reach the island and then act as a 'telepathic relay' for all the Psychic-type Teleporters the IPF had prepared, was a bit of a shock, but he was supposed to appear in Unova's post-game to arrest Team Plasma's 'Seven Sages' which would happen sometime in the next year, so it made sense he might be here. Watching Cipher barely even try to fight back told me all it needed to: Greevil admitted after having all his Shadow Pokemon snagged by Michael that the loss of XD-001 was practically unrecoverable for their plans in any meaningful time frame. Even if they did have Shadow Lugia, even with their Legendary Bird Trio were also 'fully converted' Shadow Pokemon, fighting back the IPF over a long period of time simply wasn't feasible, especially if they knew where Citadark Isle was and how occupied it was.
On the other hand, listening to Eldes' advice about giving up and admitting his wrongdoing, was probably going to get him let off with little-to-no serious ramifications… as long as America got to keep Citadark Isle, but I trusted the local one a lot more than mine… so eh, it's not ideal, but it could be worse. If I come back here post-Spark, maybe I'll change that. Ardos, of course, got a less-lenient sentence (suggesting the detonation of the entire island, and everything and everyone left on it, just so the three of them could escape and kill a single child, will do that), as did most of the Admins… except for Lovrina, who being the head scientist, would almost certainly find 'employment' in some government facility.
I did pay her a visit in her prison, identifying myself to the officers but not to her, and showed off the Master Ball I'd caught her 'perfect' Shadow Pokemon with. As you can guess, she wasn't particularly happy, but it seemed as though a blockage in her airways interrupted her complaining like a spoiled brat. Or, it could have been me casually mentioning that human psychics could manipulate other people's insides by telekinetically blocking nerves, or creating blood clots, or simply pinning their diaphragms closed until they suffocated. Of course, I couldn't actually do that, but creating a force field in her throat was enough to convince her that I could, theoretically, kill her at any moment and leave no evidence if I had at least a rough idea of where she was. Like, say, by asking a guy I knew in the IPF. I mean, I don't know what kind of motive I'd have for that. I'd need something like, being un-fucking-amused that she'd tortured and brainwashed an innocent Legendary into a mindless killing machine, but, I could theoretically purify it over time with Aura, even if it would likely take months or even years. So I suppose if she played nice and did what she was told like a good little girl, I would have no reason to do anything drastic. For now, at least.
It's not like I didn't have a bigger problem to deal with. Lugia… was a work-in-progress. As was proven in Gale Of Darkness, Lugia couldn't be purified by normal means. I honestly didn't even want to pull them out unless I was sure I could control them, which I really wasn't. But as was also proven in Gale Of Darkness, Lugia currently had an 'instability' that I hadn't given them the chance to work out yet. As a result, Riley and I had a small-but-periodic 'chink' in the theoretically absolute brainwashing they'd endured, through which their emotions would occasionally 'stutter' and put pressure on the clearly-not-quite-flawless conditioning they'd been afflicted with. Even within the Master Ball, the Aura it contained was an excellent indicator of how 'shadowy' they were at any moment.
Unfortunately, waiting until they experienced one of those 'flickers' and using a quick Aura Purge to try and 'reset' their mind to its 'default' state the next time the opportunity came, had caused the 'darkness' of the Aura to noticeably shift the first time, but it remained stubbornly placid and uninteractible despite whatever we'd done, and repeated attempts yielded only very slight improvements. Thinking it over, I'd come to the disturbing possibility that we had removed the 'mind control' aspect of Lovina's experiments, but that was only the 'obey Greevil' part of the equation. So now Lugia was likely not going to obey him anymore, but whether or not it made them any easier for me to control was purely guesswork, and the only way to check would be to let it out. So yeah, maybe not the best idea in retrospect. The only thing Riley had been able to suggest was that I carry them with me and try communicating with them as I travelled, since they had limited awareness of the world around them while within a Pokeball and frankly, it couldn't hurt.
I was aware that Shadow Pokemon had three main ways of being purified: carrying them around with you as you walked; sending them out once per battle or Calling them out of Reverse Mode which can only be triggered through fighting, but I honestly couldn't remember if Shadow Lugia could enter Reverse Mode (maybe that's the 'flaw' that caused it to drop the S.S. Libra in canon? Maybe it's n-no, Shadow Lugia is not an it, maybe they can enter Reverse Mode but aren't supposed to be able to, and Lovina simply never got to fix it because of my capturing it early, and the 'tremors' in their conditioning are a Red Herring of some sort?); and giving them 'Cologne Massages' using Scents, which I'd purchased a decent supply of if only because Evan demanded that I 'test' them on her first and had pronounced them 'the best thing ever', but… well, I'd have to send them out first, and I honestly wasn't any more sure if I could control them outside of battle at all, let alone long enough for me to massage something into their feathers.
Still, I had at least three options. The first was Celebi: if I could get the attention of one, it might be able to 'skip over' the remaining corruption and 'open the door to Lugia's heart' like any other Shadow Pokemon… but I don't know if this ability is exclusive to the Agate Forest Celebi, or if I could try my luck with the Ilex Shrine in Johto. I could look for a Time Flute and use that, but I only know of three in canon: one was a mandatory pick-up for Wes; one was right before the top of Mount Battle, which would require a lot of effort and the defeat of multiple Trainer-owned Legendaries; and one was in the top of Pyrite Town's windmill, but the 'normal' way of accessing it was long gone(god, I should have checked that long ago) and trying to get up there with Teleport was plausible but awkward. And worst of all, I didn't even know if those Time Flutes were still there or not, or if Celebi could even purify Lugia given that time manipulation might not work on a 'perfected' Shadow Pokemon. So the whole thing might be a waste of time.
My second option was the Purification Chamber. It worked in 'canon', I was sure it would work here. But, while getting permission for a single use from the scientists would be easy with my credentials, Michael had returned every single Pokemon he snagged to the authorities, with the exception of the Legendary Birds he'd released and a Shadow Togepi he'd traded back to the owner for an Elekid. Selfish though it might be, I wasn't all that keen on finding out whether or not he'd also try and release 'my' Lugia. And yes, he had caught twelve Pokemon from the extremely-rare PokeSpots around Orre (and traded three of them to Duking for three more unique Pokemon), but that wasn't nearly enough for the Purify Chamber, so I would also have to catch up to thirty-five other Pokemon with the right typings to set the Purification Chamber to 'maximum tempo', and while I could also just bribe them to accept the catching temporarily, or ask someone to join me and loan theirs… it would be a complicated mess, and I hate having to deal with other people.
My final option was to just keep using the 'normal' methods, and try to figure out some alternatives. I knew for a fact that purchasing Aura from the Pokemon Anime Jump, which I was planning on going to, could purify Shadow Pokemon (or at least, it seemed reasonable that if they were taking Elemental Aura from Ashes Of The Past, Ash's ability to purge the local Shadow Lugia should also give me the ability to purge my Lugia, especially if I'm paying Points for it). But that was at least a decade away, so I'd been simply investigating everything else in the meantime, and giving Mount Battle a try while I waited.
Even with their standardised Double Battle rule, Evan was still 2v1'ing pretty consistently and the first fifty battles were a complete joke. Even #50, despite having a Sableye, Mightyena and the three Hoenn Starters, still hadn't evolved them past their second stages. The next ten likewise never saw a team with five Pokemon on them, though #69 had four Psychic-types and #70 had three, a Typhlosion and a Houndoom. Then #75 had an Umbreon, a Regice and an Articuno! On a team of five! I know they're relatively common Legendaries, but how even? On #80, Evan only barely dodged a Megahorn that likely would've put her out of commission. #81 had a Wobbuffet, which was a complete joke and only succeeded in taking up one of his two 'active Pokemon' slots, showing why Wobbuffet is mostly useless on Doubles teams, whereas #89 finally had a full party of six, and was not fun.
Only slightly more fun than #90, who finally ruined her win streak. Just a Regirock, paired with a Metagross, and after going through a Legendary Titan, a Skarmory who'd set up a Sandstorm and an Aggron with Protect, despite the Metagross screwing with her every step of the way, 'Ragen' had one last Pokemon: a Gliscor that came out shooting with Hyper Beam, and while she was barely able to stand after the hit she'd taken, she clearly wasn't going to win the fight even if she did continue, so I called the match.
She wasn't particularly happy about that, but she hadn't even started on the Metagross and she was clearly injured to the point of it being unreasonable to continue, so she conceded after I picked her up and took her to the Area 8 break room for healing and a Teleport back to the base of the mountain, where we spent the night while she took a well-deserved break after eighty-nine wins across two days. Having to redo the last nine battles just to refight #90 was particularly shitty in my opinion, but mostly because only #89 even gave her a challenge at this point, and being able to go back and heal after each fight only made it tedious. But hey, the second time she led off with Zap Cannon on the Metagross and then dealt with the other four while the Metagross struggled against paralysis, and that got us to the final ten, which turned out to be even more of a piss-take.
Don't get me wrong, none of them had less than five Pokemon, but #93 had an Espeon, all three Legendary Beasts, and an Umbreon. Her second loss, followed by a third to #99, who ran an Electrode, a Glalie, all three Legendary Titans, and a Shedinja. Like, don't get me wrong, the others all had one-or-two Bug- and Dark-types, but three Legendaries?! And to top it all off, not only was there an empty chest without a Time Flute when we reached #100 in the evening (which I kinda expected, I have to admit), the final boss 'Battlus' had a Dusknoir, both Lati's, a Slaking, a Salamence, and another Metagross-what is with so many people having Pseudo-Legendaries in this place? On the other hand, Evan First-Try'd them with Calm Mind, Dazzling Gleam and Shadow Ball, and the Slaking was ironically the least threat despite spamming Hyper Beam and Giga Impact. Truant still just sucks, my guy.
And with that, we completed Mt. Battle within three days, with nothing to show for it but a lot of experience for Evan and a stack of Focus Bands because those would be very useful down the line, they didn't sell Leftovers anymore (infuriatingly-enough), and Shell Bells were easy to gather the parts and pay for assembly in Shoal Cave. And then we just went to Pyrite Town, spent the night at the 'Super Hotel', and after levitating each other on top of the windmill, I levitated her high enough to see the whole room and she promptly Teleported us both up there. And lo and behold, that chest was also empty, which didn't really surprise me either. Why wouldn't he at least check what the U-Disk does, and once he had, if there's a chest right in front of him with a Time Flute in it… well, I don't see him not taking it, if only for purifying of 'his' Legendary Beasts.
But I wasn't quite so ready to give up. Agate Forest might be a bust, but I could always come back later. And in the mean time, I had an entirely-different hunch to follow up on.
In the Gen 2 Games, there was a Japanese-exclusive event in which the Player could obtain a GS Ball, a promotional item that, when left with the Apricorn Ball maker in Azalea Town for a day, would cause Ilex Forest to suddenly 'become restless', and when placed in the Ilex Forest Shrine afterwards, would cause a Celebi to appear that you could catch. Now, I didn't have a Gold-Silver Ball myself, I'm… pretty sure it flat-out didn't exist here, but, I had a Master Ball with a Shadow Lugia in it. So if anything could get the attention of a Celebi…
Well, after placing it in the tiny half-sphere indent of the Shrine and silently meditating in front of it with Evan for what had to be about two hours, my psychic abilities picked out an immensely-powerful signature that I sent the equivalent of a 'help request' to. The response of [Finally!] as the female-sounding 'Guardian of the Forest' flew over to me, suggested that she(?) had already been aware of my attempt to meet her to some degree. Unfortunately, once I explained the precise nature of the problem…
"Yeah, I kinda feared that would be the case." I admitted to the summoned Celebi, gently stroking the flank of the thankfully-but-eerily calm Shadow Lugia I'd sent out next to me.
[I'm sorry for tell you that you've wasted your journey,] She sent back in crisp Japanese, clearly well-versed in the local language. [but whatever they've done to her is way too ingrained for me to just, 'reverse' it out of her the way the Agate Celebi must have done for the other Shadow Pokemon.]
Apparently, Lugia was female. And no, it wouldn't be that easy. "In that case, can I at least ask you a few things before you leave?"
[Well, sure!] She brightened up a little. [You seem like an alright guy, lay it on me.]
"First of all, on topic. You can't purify Lugia because the conditioning is too strong to break by somehow 'reversing' time. So I doubt just keeping her with me on my travels is going to change anything in a reasonable timeframe, but I can let her out, and she seems to at least tolerate my commands. Do you know if there's anything I could do to make her purification easier, like Aura Purging her as you perform whatever-the-ritual-is, or giving her a Cologne Massage?"
[…well, I don't think being close to her while I'm warping her personal timeline is a good idea, let alone making physical contact.] A very good point. [And I'm, not really an expert on Shadow Pokemon to begin with. Maybe the Agate Celebi could do something more, I've spoken to him a few times and he's the only reason I even know what's happened to her, but you only found me because of a relative coincidence. It's not like all of the people who come to the forest try putting a Pokeball with a 'Shadow' Lugia on my shrine, just to see if 'something magical will happen'.]
Not my best lie, but she didn't seem to recognise or care that I'd concealed my metaknowledge from her. "In my defense, my alternatives are the Purification Chamber in Orre, which doesn't seem to have any effect, or just taking my time and praying something comes along and manages to heal her. I mean, it might, but-"
[Well actually, it will.] A different, more masculine voice speaking in fluent English interrupted me. That would be… yep, another Celebi just, popping up out of nowhere, as they do.
[Ah, Celebi-kun.] The Johto Celebi switched to traditional thoughtspeak, probably to include me in the conversation. [I suppose you'll be meeting them later?]
[You got it, sweetheart.] The Orre Celebi cheerily replied, leaving me wondering how old he was to have adopted American slang. [In a few days, he'll show up in Agate Forest with a Time Flute to call me, and I can fix her up using the Relic Stone as a catalyst, no problem.]
Wait, what? I quickly switched to 'general' thoughtspeak. [Wait, did I somehow miss a Time Flute in one of the places I checked?!]
[Yeah, you said that you didn't know 'the one in the top of Pyrite Town's windmill' was hidden in a big pile of junk. Gotta admit, I dunno where that one came from, but it is a genuine article.] He smirked. [I guess I'm the only reason you found that out, huh?]
"Clearly." I sighed, burying my face in my hands. [If I'd known what it looked like, I would have searched a little harder, but… what would it even be doing up there?] I added.
[Beats me, it must've gotten passed on from Agate Village at some point.] He shrugged. [But thanks for finding it, those are only supposed to be used by the Agate Village Elder if some terrible calamity strikes, and I was planning on getting rid of them a while ago since they never got used. I don't know how one ended up on the other side of the region.]
[Me neither.] I paused, something occurring to me. [Hasn't some hero already shown up a few years ago and used… I think two of them?]
[Three of them, and they were all used to purify the Legendary Beasts of Orre, so they got used for a good purpose as they were meant to.] He corrected me…
…but that doesn't add up. [Wait, I thought there were only three to begin with.]
[That's what I thought too, but I don't actually remember how many I made 'back in the day', only that it was 'a few'.] He admitted, then paused himself. [Wait, you're not even an Orre native, and the Agatians have never spread the knowledge of my Time Flutes. How do you know how many I made… and how'd you know where one of them was?]
…shit. I need his help, and while he probably has to help me since he already has in the past, 'probably' doesn't mean much with time travellers. Then again, being attacked in the past when I had nothing to my name and nothing to defend myself with wouldn't be all that helpful either, would it? [That's a difficult question for me to answer.]
I didn't even get the rest out before I got interrupted by the Ilex Celebi. [This wouldn't have anything to do with you feeling like an Ultra Beast, would it?]
That was not information I was expecting to get out of this. […I, honestly had no idea I radiated the same presence as an Ultra Beast. I assumed that whatever mechanism transmigrated my soul to this world, and reincarnated me as a fifteen-year old about to start his Pokemon Journey, would have included some sort of filter to protect me against Pokemon who can sense that sort of thing, like…] Like Necrozma. Oh shit-…but I never got attacked while touring Alola…? [This wouldn't attract any angry Necrozma, would it?]
[Necrozma might look for you, but it wouldn't attack you if you aren't one of the 'light sources' it feeds on.] The Ilex Celebi clarified. [I'd be more worried about Giratina if I were you, but your signature doesn't feel like you came from another world, it feels like you came from this one twice over or something, so they probably wouldn't care.]
[I sure as hell hope not.] I growled, thinking about how the Pokemon Anime Jump had a Freebie specifically dedicated to making sure that you don't attract attention from Legendaries who can sense that you didn't originate in this world, because being a 'Faller' in the games… causes Ultra Wormholes to open more frequently near you. But since it hasn't happened yet, whoever or whatever sent me here must have added some form of protection. [In any case, in my original world, we have several stories of the World of Capsule Monsters, and one of the more consistent is about a warrior named Leo in Arizona fighting Team Snatch, saving a girl named Mirei, and rescuing a number of Capumon they'd corrupted into Void Shadows.] There, enough truth that I can't be called on it and enough misdirection that nothing really incriminating can come out of it.
[You must've had some Ultra Wormholes open up in your world, too.] And it looks like the Orre Celebi is buying it, which is the most important thing. I don't know if their existence is non-causal, and I don't want to deal with an infinite army of time-displaced Celebi copies. Not that I think they'd attack me anyway, I haven't done anything wrong except show off knowledge I shouldn't have, but I'd rather not risk it… by taking the slightly-larger risk that they know I'm not telling the truth. [Their homeworld is supposed to be almost parallel to ours, but infested with those monsters, so someone might've escaped through an Ultra Wormhole to the past of your world and passed down some old legends.]
Of course, it helps if I'm the one pointing at least one flaw out. [Seems a bit coincidental, but I have no other explanation, and it doesn't really matter to me anymore. I've been reborn into a world where I can make a difference, and I have superpowers on top of that, so I'm okay with however it happened. Is there, anything else I need to hear?]
[Two things.] The Agate Celebi added. [First of all, I'm not a hundred percent sure what they did to Lugia, but I wasn't able to purify her completely. Whatever they did has set in much more deeply into her psyche than the other Shadow Pokemon, to the point it might have influenced her very soul, and she'll need more-than-likely need time making new memories that don't involve being a Shadow Pokemon, or whatever they did to her, before she can completely kick this to the curb.]
[That's fine.] I nodded, reaching into my jumper to grab her Master Ball and return her-and suddenly noticing a very unsubtle nudge towards the backup Master Ball I also carried around with me, because like hell I wasn't going to carry around some backup, just in case I got targeted by some random Legendary crossing my path, and demanding a fight for… well, the exact reason didn't matter that much, but Zekrom and Reshiram were both very possibly up for grabs in Unova depending on how they reacted to me, and even before them there was always the possibility of Magma, Aqua, or Galactic awakening a Legendary. Hell, even Team Rocket could always pull a Fuji and piss off a Mewtwo somehow. The simple possibility of missing out on such an occasion meant I always had one in my pocket. But why was one of them, presumably the Agate one I'd 'already met', moving my hand over to it? I simply followed suit and pulled out both of them, using my Psionics to nonchalantly juggle them and assuming that something was going on or was about to happen.
[And secondly,] The Ilex Celebi picked up where he left off. [tell your 'friend' that if he wishes entry into my forest, the least he can do is show himself and not skulk around like a common Ghost-type. We do have standards in Johto, and if a human can show respect, a fellow kami has no justification not to follow suit, even if he is American.]
…wait. [Hey, what's wrong with being American?!] The Agate Celebi spoke the same time I did, [I, honestly have no id-], and then I 'fumbled' a juggle that sent the empty Master Ball slightly lower than I 'meant' to, and combined gravity with a Psychic palm strike that slammed it heart-poundingly close to my crotch between my legs and into my shadow, where it connected with something that was not the ground or the grass on top of it, and triggered the capture sequence.
Three shifts of the Master Ball in complete silence from both speechless Celebi and a completely-unconcerned Shadow Lugia later, I reached down and scooped it up with a Look on my face. "Now, don't get me wrong," I went with English for this one, speaking directly to the Pokeball. "I distinctly remember being observed by something on Iron Island and seeing it through the walls with Aura Sight, but I was assuming that they were just a random local Ghost-type, or that they were there to watch Riley or one of the kids. And that was a long time ago. I value my privacy very highly, especially when whoever's stalking me is more than powerful enough to simply confront me, and has more than likely heard me say multiple times, that I don't catch Pokemon without their consent. That's not an absolute statement that will keep me from acting if someone's creeping on me, and you have had years to just, announce your presence in some way. If I wanted to risk someone watching me every time I masturbate, I'd find someone on the internet who's into that, not have a Ceiling Cat expy hiding behind my back, for, YEARS." I raised it to my face, imagining the memetically-heavy sweating from one of only a few Mythical Pokemon who I knew could hide in shadows. "I'm going to spend the next few days fetching that Time Flute, so I can free Lugia and ask them if they actually want to be my Pokemon. You, are going to spend that same time in this Pokeball thinking about what you did, before I send you out and ask you the same question. Consider that your 'punishment', and be grateful that it's barely a punishment at all."
Then I turned to the still-silent duo to my left and addressed the Agate Celebi. [I suppose I mentioned being spied on when I last-met-slash-next-meet you, and that you moved my arm to my backup Master Ball right before Celebi-chan would have scared them away?]
[Pretty much.] He admitted, radiating smugness. [But you were right then and now, they are kind of a creep if they've been following you around that long without saying hello, and they really should know that the Japanese Legendaries tend to be a bit more formal. Even if they did invent ninjas.] He added specifically to tease the other Celebi, making her cheeks purple a little in embarrassment and, maybe mortification?
[Well, I wasn't expecting him to have another Master Ball, let alone succeed in hitting them with it!] She barked back in shock, looking me over with wary newfound respect in her eyes. [Did you start juggling those and talking at the same time just to lull them into a false sense of security?!]
[Absolutely.] I answered without a hint of shame, repeating myself in English for the benefit of my captive-and wow, thinking about it in those terms makes this feel wrong. [If they didn't want to be caught by me, they should have spent less time spying on me. It's not like staying near multiple Psychic-type Mythicals wasn't a huge risk of exposure, and I'm sure they both knew where I was going and that they could have avoided this, by simply staying in my house or staying out of your forest while I spoke to you, but they didn't.]
[And if there's more to the story, or this is some huge coincidence or mistake, you won't use this as an excuse to keep them?] She challenged me, still visibly uncomfortable.
[Of course not. Rest assured, I won't keep them captured for more than a few days without their willing approval.] I repeated out loud in English, finally returning Lugia.
[Then I suppose I have no right to complain about getting one of my fellow kami caught.] She sighed, relaxing and rubbing her temples. [I can't believe I didn't see that coming.]
[Now you know how us puny mortals feel when you invoke the 'we've already met, so don't question me, the mighty forest kami' card.] I grinned and bowed to them, addressing each one separately with gender-specific honorifics. [Thank you for your assistance, Celebi-chan, and thank you pre-emptively for your assistance, Celebi-kun. I'll see you soon.]
Now I'll need to promise Evan more Cologne Massages to send us back to Pyrite Town, and this time, we check the whole windmill. Screw anyone asking why I'm up there, I'll just tell them I'm an Acting IPF Agent. It's not like they have a reason to believe they wouldn't still be searching for evidence, since Cipher only made their comeback three weeks ago…
AN: While I was planning on having the 'purification' take much longer, and possibly having the 'shadow'-in-question be caught next Jump, I'd rather move things along and get their introductions done in the same Chapter, so say hello to a new already-nicknamed recurring character. And don't worry, they're not going straight into a Companion slot that easily…
Alternative plan for purifying Lugia: Using an Aura Purge every day to 'dive into their pitch-black-seabed mindscape, visualise the 'door to their heart', and ram a doorjamb imbued with the concept of a positive/negative emotion into it until it eventually gives way. Rejected for granting an ability that 'canonical' Aura users have never demonstrated (to the best of my knowledge), and being able to get into and manipulate other people's mindscapes within the first Jump is kinda ridiculous. Deleted excerpt below, for those curious:
Using Aura Purge to basically dive into their mind, literally in the sense that their 'mindscape' seemed to be the bottom of a pitch-black seabed, we'd been able to patiently wait until a 'fissure' opened up in the 'ground' and force some of our 'concepts' of positive emotion through, retreating after each attempt to ensure they didn't pull something crazy from the confines of their Master Ball. Over the last year, we had slowly destabilised the darkness, causing flickering stars of 'light' to form and dissipate as time went on, but we didn't even know if that actually indicated anything or not, on account of how metaphorical a mindscape is.
Day Later Edit: And there will most likely not be a Chapter next week, as I need to assist my mother through post-eye surgery, but we'll see what happens.
