The fight had begun. It was time to push the envelope, even though not all of them wanted to. Urist felt betrayed, his mother was refusing him of her love. He was sad, and angry, his heart said to not attack, to try and reason. His mind told him the only way was to knock her out. He was torn between his mother and the world, but his friends needed him to pick the right side. He witnessed as his friends ducked, and jumped to avoid his mother's brutal swings. The person he loved, but could he risk the entire world for her? "No…" Urist said, crying softly. His mother heard her, but she didn't want to register, she didn't want to recognize the pain she was causing her only son.

"Help us! We're having a hard time hitting her! She's too fast!" Jordan yelled. Just barely dodging the most recent swipe from the flygon.

"I've been hitting her every now and then, but it isn't enough! We need you!" Derrek yelled, Urist seemed to be in pain over his current choice he had to make.

"Forgive me mother…" Urist said, quieting off, almost as if he had more to say… he heard a bang, and the world around him shattered.

"So we're climbing this mountain, and not a thing has been attacking us." Cherry said, "Why not? They should have recognized we were here." Cherry asked, there was a blizzard. Visibility was all time low, the snow was making it hard to tell which direction to go, but Cherry and Jeremy were keeping warm because of their fiery blood. San was keeping closer to Cherry, but not close enough for any intimacy, not after Jeremy's ratting them out.

"Maybe it's because of the snowstorm?" San responded, pointing to all the surrounding area. It was hard to see five feet, the snowstorm was less of a blizzard, and more of a heavy windstorm. It wasn't actually snowing, it was picking up the snow, and moving it around. There was little to no ground snow in many places. The ascent was easy, except for the blistering winds.

"Well, I know one thing about this storm, its preventing us from assessing our height, and how much further we must climb. If only we had some sort of weather orb…" Cherry replied. Her posture was one of being bothered, and being annoyed, but it wasn't from any of her current surroundings, in fact, San held the same posture. Jeremy could feel what they could tenfold, he felt every distress of the dungeon due to the Dream Cube at it's peak. It didn't just scratch him, it drove him deeper into his sorrows and his rage. He couldn't tell if he was doing anything right, but he knew that the future of this world was dependent on if he could get the object at the top of this snowblown mountain.

"We just have to keep moving, watch out though, the ground is very…" He started, trying to think of the adjective that would best describe the weak glacier that they were walking on, "fragile." The rest of the group gasped, it was the first real time he had spoken to them on the journey. They knew his sorrow was large, but that there wasn't much to do about it, he had just lost his sister, one he had spent his childhood with, one he blamed her death on himself. He didn't feel like he was, but subconsciously he was, and it showed.

"Alright. Hey, do you think we could find some ancient Pokémon fossils? Those tend to go for a huge amount, I'd like to know more of the history of this world though. With all of it's weird history and previous heroes." Cherry said, looking at the rest of her group, she saw Jeremy confused, and responded, "Let's tell you about it when we get back. The world is kind of crazy with it's history. Plus there's more people are learning every day. Making it even crazier. There's so much to learn, my first idea for a job was actually to be a historian."

"And why would you care?" Jeremy asked, refraining from asking a rude question along similar lines.

"Well, when I was a young girl, everybody was talking about this huge archeological dig site found nearby, something of a village of times gone past. That wasn't what interested me, no, what interested me was the tales of the so called heroes, being unearthed," San snickered at her pun, "every day." She finished, shaking her head.

"Really? Give me one for example then." San said, testing her memory, she used to brag about all of this earlier in both of their lives.

"Well, let me tell you a story…" And so she told the story of Explorers of Time.

"Wow, that happened here? In this world?" Jeremy asked, "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, one hundred percent. It's cool." San said, "Rumors are that if you go to Sharpedo Bluff, you can see the ghost of the two heroes."

"I wouldn't mind meeting them, ghosts or no." Cherry said, smiling sadly.

"Well if the Dream Cubes save the world, you'll know way more heroes." San stated.

"Yes, that's so important." Cherry muttered sarcastically.

"More important than you think. You'll be better off knowing recent heroes than the heroes of the past." San replied, Jeremy thought of his sister, they used to bicker about small stuff like this, but were inseparable. It hurt him to remember his past, especially since he's seen his sister die twice.

"We should get moving, it'll be almost time. To reach the top, that is, we should get going." Jeremy jumbled up his words. He was in obvious pain, his face and shoulders slumped the more he thought about his deceased sister. He was about to cry, he wants to believe that she wasn't gone this time.

"Alright, I respect your decision. There's very little to be done. If we make it to the top, then we can get back as soon as possible. It'd be pretty nice to know if we're gonna get one now, but I can't think of how disheartening it would be to go all this way for no Dream Cube. Just think, of the stress of climbing a mountain, descending a giant crevasse, or swimming to the bottom of the sea, only for you to be forced to return empty handed. It'd be devastating, spending all that time exploring, only to be forced to turn around, and restart somewhere else. Luckily we have other people to search the other dungeons." Cherry said, smiling slightly.

"Hey, Cherry, mouth control." San said, shaking his head.

"WHAT? Oops. My apologies. I've been mostly silent to those who I don't know. Usually we're alone, but now that you're here, San's been telling me to keep my mouth closer to my chest."

"No problem, it distracts me from… Well." Jeremy said, he sighed.

"Ah, well, are you okay exploring so soon?" San asked, it the other day ago, San was seriously scared for Jeremy.

"Yeah, if it has to do with saving the world, then I'd have to, if I wanted to or no. This will help me avenge her." Jeremy said, muttering under his breath he continued, "And get me revenge."

"Good, it'll be important to keep that in mind." Cherry said, nodding to herself, "Denial and shock don't help with saving the world."

"Yeah, good to know that you've got enough strength to withhold the pain, just be sure to let it out eventually." San said, basically telling Jeremy it was okay to cry.

"Yeah, I will. I need to do my part though." The final set of stairs led up, the peak was small and looked like it should have been guarded.

"I see it! There's a Dream Cube! Let's go!" Jeremy cried, just topping the last stair.

"We can't where is it?" San cried, looking around they saw nothing, it was unusual, but as to be expected. Jeremy was seen reaching out to grab something.

"I've got it now. It's in my hand, see it?" Jeremy said, Cherry looked to his wing, he held it out almost as if he was showing her something. Then the Dream Cube materialized from one end to another, the pink materializing and spreading out to a cube that could be held on his wing.

"How heavy is that? Its size implies that you shouldn't be able to hold it!" San cried, staring in disbelief.

"It's almost as if it isn't there. I can't even feel it." Jeremy said, slightly confused, "It's just so unusual I'd expect it to have an actual weight, but it only has enough to hold in my wing without floating off."

"Really? Can I?" Cherry asked, reaching out her paw.

"No, I think we should just go back." San said, swatting her paw.

"Alright, let's go." All three held out their badges, and warped back home.

"So we're getting close to the bottom, right? I mean, we've been destroying the enemies, and it's been amazing how fast we've been crawling this dungeon." Pikachu said, smiling to her partner. "So Gina, we're taking on the world, and we won't even know that this is the right dungeon. It seemed that the world here would be one worth fighting for."

"Why do you doubt that it is? You didn't live growing up in the world I did. Why do you think that it would have no good reason to defend this world?" Gina asked, looking around at the world.

"It's my past, I must apologize, but I treat every experience the same way." Pikachu muttered, "Let's keep moving, we should be right there." Gina shook her head, knowing that something was irritating her partner. She left it alone, it was time to move on. They were close to the bottom, they knew it. There was no guardian, so there would be no great fight. There was a great gem waiting at the bottom of the area, it'd be great for later, its an expensive gem, and there would be a great sell had they actually retrieved it.

"There's nothing here?" Gina asked, kind of disappointed.

"Don't be asking me that, you're the human here." Pikachu stated outright, shaking her head, and her tail swinging behind her.

"Yeah, nothing. No cube, no dreaming. There's the crystal there, but we shouldn't bring it back." Gina replied.

"Really? Huh, let's warp back then. Maybe some others were there first, and already had one." Pikachu said, holding out her badge.

"Team Opposites, AWAY!" Gina yelled, as her badge had warped her and her partner away.

Author's Note

Well, I'm sorry that this one is shorter, and that I left Team Blanket on a cliffhanger. I was going to shift the battling from a concentration on hits, to one more focused on blocking and dodging, so I'm planning out how I'm going to do the next battle. If you feel betrayed that there are so few words, then I really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really really am sorry. Have a nice week. I must apologize for the shortness of this chapter.