The Guild room was abuzz with chatter as Pyro, Layne, and Dusknoir came into the guild's first underground floor. Layne walked over to Autumn and asked, "What's going on?"

"We don't know. We all just received the call. Chatot looks to be in great dismay."

Layne chuckled. "Perhaps he couldn't find any Perfect Apples on his recent trip to the forest."

Chatot spoke up, "Attention please!"

The guild stopped chattering. Layne was wondering why they were suddenly all gathered at the Outlaw Notice Board. Normally they assembled outside Wigglytuff's Chamber. Wigglytuff was standing right beside Chatot, only his friendly mood seemed to be missing in action. What was going on?

"Another Time Gear has been stolen." Chatot said in great dismay.

That shocked the Guild. "What?" Bidoof cried. "Another one?"

"That's three now!" Autumn said.

"But where?" Layne asked.

"This one..." Chatot was having trouble speaking. "The Time Gear stolen...from Fogbound Lake."

The Guild was shocked. "HOW?" Loudred cried out.

The Time Gear..." Layne began.

"Weren't we the only ones who should have known about it?" Autumn cried.

"How did someone know of it?" Layne asked.

"Did..." Diglett began. "Is it possible that a member of the guild...talked?"

"HOW DARE YOU!" Loudred called out. "That was uncalled for!"

"Hey, hey! Don't you trust your fellow members?"

Layne simply called out, "Come on, guys! It's a simple question. And it's always a possibility!"

"Yeah, it's no wonder someone would jump to that conclusion," Sunflora spoke. "It did happen right after our expedition."

Chatot calmed them. "No one would dare break our vow of secrecy we gave to Uxie. We have that much faith in that."

"One moment, please." Dusknoir called. "I'm afraid I'm not understanding what you are all saying. There was a Time Gear at Fogbound Lake? I...did not know that. I also recall that your expedition to Fogbound Lake was unsuccessful."

Layne almost looked at Dusknoir as he spoke. There was something about his mood that was once again...covering something up.

Wigglytuff spoke. "I apologize, Dusknoir. We made a vow of secrecy, and we could not tell anyone, even you."

Chatot spoke. "A lone intruder slipped into Fogbound Lake, defeated Uxie, and made off with the Time Gear."

"What?" Layne asked. "Uxie...is he..."

"Uxie is fine." Chatot said.

Wigglytuff added, "He is currently under the protection of Officer Magnezone and his squad. He was shaken, but not badly hurt."

"I'm glad to hear that." Pyro said.

"There's more." Chatot said. "According to Uxie's statements made, we finally have an identity to the thief of each Time Gear."

"Then who?" Bidoof asked. "Who are we dealing with?"

Chatot posted a poster on the Wanted Outlaw Notice Board. "Everyone, this is your top target. His name, is Grovyle."

Layne could have swore that he knew that name too. He looked a bit deep in thought. Dusknoir noticed this, but said nothing. Layne was coming up empty yet again. What would finally trigger his memory so far as to at least have a small story as to who he was?

"By golly, that's one nasty piece of work! Yup, yup..." Bidoof said.

Layne looked at the poster. This was the thief...

"This pokémon, I will say again, is a top priority for us all. It has been spread to other Guild too. Grovyle's bounty is exceedingly high, and he is wanted, apprehended at all cost."

Pyro said, "We promised Uxie that we wouldn't reveal the secret of Fogbound Lake. But then this Grovyle snatches a Time Gear right there."

"We didn't leak the secret," Chimeco said, "But I'd be ashamed to show my face to Uxie, if he were here right now."

"Hey, hey!" Corphish said, "What really sticks in my craw, is that the view we all saw...now it's gone!"

Layne was listening to all the guild chatter, but was focused on Wigglytuff. The Guildmaster looked like he was about to explode. He was curling, his fist clenched, and his ears along the back of what might have been his neck. "Hey, Wigglytuff..." Layne said, "You okay?"

Everyone looked at the Guildmaster. Chatot freaked out, "G-G-Guildmaster!"

The place began to shake. Layne knew Wigglytuff was full of surprise, but still had no clue as to how he was so powerful as to make the whole dang guild shake, from top to bottom.

Layne called over to Autumn, "I keep forgetting how Wigglytuff can do this!"

"YOOM...TAH!" Wigglytuff shouted, his tone suddenly very different than what Layne was used to hearing. Apparently it was the same for everyone in the Guild, because a lot of them jumped. Wigglytuff for the first time, looked dead serious. And Layne wasn't sure, but he didn't know how to react.

"Everyone!" Wigglytuff announced. We will catch Grovyle! We will put an end to his thieving, and we will make him rue the day he decided to steal the first Time Gear! We will catch him, in the name of the Wigglytuff Guild! Chatot!"

Chatot squawked. "Y-yes?"

"If you will, please!" Wigglytuff said.

"Y-yes!" Chatot said. "Everyone, I will repeat once again. Grovyle is your top priority. From here on out, we will put our full focus on capturing Grovyle. We expect you all to outperform the best to capture him."

"That goes without saying!" Loudred said.

"Hey, hey!" We can't let anymore Time Gears be stolen!" Corphish spoke.

"Then let's pull together!" Sunflora said. "For Uxie!"

"Not just for Uxie!" Autumn said, "But the world could be depending on us!"\Dusknoir spoke. "Wigglytuff, I believe I understand the situation now. I too, shall join in the Guild's pursuit of Grovyle."

"Thank, you great Dusknoir." Wigglytuff said, still in his strange mood.

"Golly, having Dusknoir backing us up is rather heartening!" Bidoof said.

"I am honored to be a part of this mission." Dusknoir said.

Wigglytuff spoke up again, "Chatot, you and I must discuss a strategy for capturing Grovyle." He turned to the Guild. "In the meantime, I want you all to be well prepared for any mission we should assign to you. Grovyle is not a fool, he is a very dangerous pokémon, and we must stop him. Do not think you can defeat him without some help. Do you all understand?"

The guild let out a cheer. Layne nudged Autumn and Pyro and said, "Now that's the Guildmaster I've been waiting on!"

The rest of the day was spent in Treasure Town, getting ready for anything that could pop up. Layne however spent some time at Spinda's Café, and had a couple drinks, and also went to train some at Marowak's Dojo. He and Autumn had met at the Café, and simply talked. Layne talked about how he was actually glad to see Wigglytuff act so serious for a change.

Autumn had also told him that Wigglytuff had not done that before. Well, at least for how long she'd been there.

Layne and Autumn were growing a bit closer, and it almost made Layne feel uneasy. He didn't mind being so close with Autumn sometimes, but, this was the same pokémon who when Layne first arrived here, would have liked nothing better than to see Layne off the Guild, forever. Layne chuckled still at those silly days, and Autumn probably did too. Since the destruction of her room, she had been sleeping with Chimeco, and Sunflora. Layne could hear the three of them sometimes in the night laughing about the day.

However, they had to keep their mind set on the present. Layne soon met Pyro back at the Guild, and it wasn't long after that, that the entire Guild joined as well. "I can see that everyone's with us." Chatot said. "First, and foremost, this will go without saying, Grovyle always goes where Time Gears are located."

"So where are the TIme Gears?" Layne asked from the back.

Chatot looked to Layne and said, "I'm getting to that, Layne. This is what we've been asking, but to tell you all the truth, we have no straight answers. The Time Gears have only been told in legend, there are no facts. While you all prepared, we approached Dusknoir for any ideas. He has given us several different locations as to where they may be found. We will divide you all into separate teams to investigate each and every one of these potential sites. Loudred, Sunflora, and Corphish!"

Loudred, Sunflora, and Corphish straightened. "Yes?"

"You will explore the Eastern Forest."

"Got it!" Loudred said.

"Let's do it!" Sunflora said

"Bidoof, Dugtrio, and Autumn! You will search Crystal Cave!"

"Yes, Chatot." Autumn said.

Yup, yup! We'll do just that!"

"And finally, Layne and Pyro, you two will search the North Desert."

Layne nodded, "Understood."

Diglett spoke up, "What about me, Chatot?"

Chatot said, "Diglett, I'm sorry, but you must remain at the Guild. We cannot leave the Guild unattended.

Chimeco hovered over to Diglett and said, "Don't worry, Croagunk and I will stay as well. We must remember that the work we all do is important."

Diglett nodded, but still looked a little dismayed to Layne.

"Now!" Wigglytuff roared. "Let's find these Time Gears everyone! And stop Grovyle! YOOM-TAH! We expect you all to set out tomorrow!"

The guild let out a cheer, say for Layne who simply smiled and crossed his arms. This was getting...exciting.

Dusknoir approached Pyro and Layne and said, "You both have been assigned a very difficult place to search. Be wary, the North Desert is raked by vicious storms of sand regularly. Take care of yourselves."

"We will." Layne said, perhaps for the first time, smiling at the famous explorer. Perhaps Dusknoir wasn't as bad as Layne thought.

Layne and Pyro walked out of the Guild packed for the North Desert that morning. The other exploration teams had set out too, say for Autumn, Bidoof and Dugtrio. As Layne and Pyro approached them at the crossroads, Autumn stopped Layne and said, "Guys, you haven't happened to have seen Dugtrio anywhere, have you?"

Pyro shook his head, "No. Sorry, Autumn."

"By golly, where is he? We can't be dawdling!" Bidoof said.

"Tell me about it." Autumn said.

"I got a theory to where he is..." Layne said.

"Where?"

Layne was about to talk about how Dugtrio often visited the ocean, to worship it, when suddenly Dugtrio appeared. "Apologies!" he said. "There was something I had to take care of."

Layne chuckled, and said, "Well, good luck on your search, guys."

"The same to you two!" Bidoof said. "Yup, yup!"

"Yes, and Layne..." Autumn said, as Layne and Pyro turned to head north. Layne turned, "Yes?"

Autumn came over and leaned into him and Layne returned...a friendly hug. "Be careful, Layne."

Layne looked down at her (as he was a bit taller than her), and said, "We'll be back."

Layne wiped his arm against his forehead. "Man! This desert is hotter than hell!" He was sweating up a storm and they hadn't even been in the desert 15 minutes. His fur was making sweating very uncomfortable, the bag on his side which was always slung over him felt ten times heavier, and the goggles on his head were absorbing the light, making his forehead burn. Layne sighed and took them off for the time being. He looked in the bag. Thankfully they had packed a good amount of water bottles. But they'd have to be careful with it. The last thing Layne wanted was to accidentally drop water, or for them to have to waste water due to too much sand getting into it.

"If a Time Gear is indeed hidden here," Layne said, "Whoever hid it had his head screwed on right. No one's going to come after this?"

Pyro looked back with a small smile. "You think Grovyle would stay away from this place if it had a Time Gear?"

Layne shrugged. "I wouldn't put it past him."

The desert was one hell of a challenge for both Layne and Pyro. Another 15 minutes had gone by with little to no conversation, and a sandstorm brewed up, and Layne and Pyro had little protection. Layne put on his goggles, and Pyro had his scarf over his mouth. "This storm won't do anything to help us!" Layne shouted over the wind and sand.

Pyro nodded, shading his eyes, "Looks pretty bad, wonder if we can find a shelter!"

"Doubt it," Layne said, shielding his face. "Place is as desolate as I'd expect any desert to be."

The sand against Layne's skin felt bad, as one would expect. Put Pyro looked worse. Layne wasn't feeling so bad, since he had fur to protect most of his skin, but Pyro had nothing.

Layne came over,

"Pyro! You feeling okay?"

Pyro slowly nodded. "It's just this storm."

Layne nodded, held up his arm to help try and offer some protection for his partner. "Hold on, Pyro."

Layne looked around, and saw a welcoming site. A canyon. "Pyro, follow m1"

Pyro managed to follow Layne into the canyon, and though the sandstorm raged, it blew over the canyon for the most part.

Layne smiled and said, "Well tat was fun. Want some water?"

Pyro looked over. "It okay?"

Layne nodded, holding up one of Pyro's canteens. "Should be." he said, taking out one of his and taking a swig.

Pyro took a few small drinks before handing the canteen back to Layne. "Thanks. How are you faring up?"

Layne shrugged and put the bag back over his shoulder. "No worse than usual. Shall we continue?"

Layne and Pyro continued through the canyon for most of the day. Finally they came to an opening. It was the perfect area for another short break. Layne stretched on the sand and popped his neck.

"Know what's surprising?" Pyro asked.

Layne looked over, "What's that?"

"We really haven't run into any pokémon out here." Pyro said biting into an apple.

"Doesn't surprise me." Layne said stretching some more. "The place is as dry as bone, no water, blazing heat, I don't think anyone would want to live here."

"Don't say that, Layne." Pyro said. "There are very strong pokémon capable of surviving this."

"Well we haven't met any yet, so don't fret too mu-" It was then that a roar was heard. Layne scrambled into a stance, because it was rather close. Layne looked to Pyro. "Pyro...what was that?"

Pyro looked around, "I'm not sure."

They couldn't feel any vibrations in the ground of oncoming footsteps due to the sand, so they had to keep looking around. Finally, Layne saw a pokémon walking towards them. The sandstorm kicked up again, and Layne put on his goggles. Pyro looked at the pokémon in awe. The pokémon was a green color, with a few black spots. It resembled a dinosaur, and roared to the sky. "Moth of mercy..." Layne said. "Pyro what is that?"

"If I had to hazard a guess, Layne, that pokémon's called Tyranitar!"

"It doesn't look that happy to see us. "Layne said.

"We could be in it's territory!" Pyro said. Layne looked around. Perhaps, but why here? The clearing was all that really mattered. Unless, they liked a view of an endless sea of sand, this spot wasn't that fancy. Then again...was that sand? It was, but it was being sucked down...

"Pyro! Be careful! It's quicksand!"

Tyranitar roared and charged up an attack from it's mouth.

"Layne look out!"

The Tyranitar unleashed a massive beam of light at Layne, who jumped out of the way and tumbled across the sand. "Try this one for size..." Layne said charging up a Water Pulse and throwing it at the pokémon. Tyranitar, upon impact roared in pain and anger. Layne smiled, "Looks like this pokémon doesn't like water so much either."

Pyro nodded, Tyranitar are weak to water. "I'd be careful though Layne. Tyranitar are heavily territorial, and powerful."

"I can see that." Layne said charging up another Water Pulse.

Tyranitar leaned back and shot flames from the mouth. Layne jumped out of the way, though his arm was singed. "Dang that thing can shoot fire?"

"I didn't know Tyranitar knew Flamethrower!" Pyro said.

"Pyro! I think we need to run distraction, and bring him down. Perhaps if we confuse him enough, we can bring him down!"

"How do you suggest we do that?" Pyro asked.

"Run and Fire Spin! This sandstorm it's possibly causing won't help us. If I can hide amongst your smoke, I can hit it from different directions, and possibly bring it down."

Pyro nodded, "Got it."

Pyro began to run shooting flames all around. Tyranitar wasn't that affected by the flames, but in it's rage, it was certainly confused enough. Layne hid himself amongst the smoke, and hit him from the behind with Water Gun. The Tyranitar was enraged and shot another Flamethrower at Layne who dodged it. Pyro continued surrounding Tyranitar with flame while Layne hid and hit it with certain attacks.

Tyranitar was finally angered to the point where he brought his foot up, then slammed it into the ground. The ground shook. Despite all the sand, Layne lost balance, as did Pyro. Tyranitar spotted Pyro and grabbed him, pinning him against the wall. Layne saw this. "Pyro!"

"Layne! Help!"

Layne nodded and ran up the back of the Tyranitar, he jumped as Tyranitar looked and used Iron Tail on the pokémon's head. Tyranitar roared in pain and dropped Pyro to the ground. Layne then shot one more Water Pulse, and the Tyranitar fell to the ground, unconscious. Layne caught his breath as did Pyro. They then smiled at each other as the sandstorm died.

"Well, that went better than I thought it would." Layne said.

Pyro nodded, "Well, shall we continue?"

"We can't." Layne said. "It's quicksand out there."

Pyro and Layne looked at the quicksand. "Wow..." Pyro said. "The sand's getting pulled down everywhere."

"Yeah," Layne said, "I'd be careful. "Do you see anything?" Pyro asked.

Layne looked around. For some reason he had the same feeling as he had in Fogbound Lake. Had he been here before? Perhaps...

"I don't see anything that gives evidence of a Time Gear." Pyro said. "And it's getting late. Perhaps we should head back."

Layne sighed and said, "Perhaps you're right. Let's go home before it gets too dark, and before he wakes up." he said pointing to the Tyranitar.

Upon returning to the guild, Layne and Pyro were shocked to see that everyone else's searches had been just as fruitless as theirs.

"Wow. No one found anything?" Layne asked.

"Disappointing, yes." Dugtrio said.

"Hey, hey! We did as instructed. No Time Gear." Corphish said. "Just lots of forest."

"Yeah, well, Crystal Cave..." Bidoof said, "Was full of crystals, that's for sure! Very pretty. I...I couldn't help it, but I took a crystal, I couldn't help myself."

Dugtrio and a few other guild members looked at him rather cross. "When did you pick that up?" Dugtrio asked. "Our objective was to find a Time Gear, and you had the nerve to collect a souvenir?"

"Oh, cut him some slack." Autumn said. "You used to do that all the time."

Layne simply chuckled and said, "Our souvenir was too big to bring back. We had a Tyranitar attack us."

The Guild murmured at that, but Chatot turned to Dusknoir, "I regret to say it, but all efforts ended in failure."

Dusknoir did not look happy. "Vexing. I thought each location held promise. If only I knew more..."

Chatot fluttered. "No! Please do not blame yourself! It is only thanks to your vast knowledge that we even had a plan to begin with, Dusknoir!"

"Never-the-less, the plan ended in failure. Though I share your point. Being hard on ourselves will not help the situation. Perhaps a different approach is needed. I will sleep on it tonight, and talk to you about it tomorrow."

"Sounds like a plan!" Wigglytuff said.

Chimeco then entered the room, and said, "Well, why don't we all treat ourselves to some dinner, then?"

Layne smiled and said, brushing off some more excess sand, "I thought you'd never call us in..."