A Deaf Flame's Flicker

by Starry's Light

An incredibly thin munchlax suffering from low self-esteem butts heads with a deaf chimchar whose mouth has yet to be washed of curses, thus forcing their fates to twist and their story to be not alone but together. Now apparently they have to get along or something? And, like, be... friends, and junk? Some lives are about to change: big-time.

5. Nobody Likes Tall Scary Man

Me: Ahhh, it feels nice to be back in my writer hole.

Ashley: Because you live in a fucking cave yep.

Me: Dude. Come on.

Ashley: daMMIT NO YOU COME ON

Me: what

Munchie: ASHLEY I'VE BEEN TRYING SO HARD PLEASE CALM DOWN

Ashley: I DON'T TAKE THAT SHIT LIGHTLY

Me/Munchie: whAT

A Deaf Flame's Flicker

Chapter Five: Nobody Likes Tall Scary Man

Ashley appeared to have something very important on her mind that she had to tell her munchlax friend right there and then, just let it out, but her bent legs collapsed further and she took a spill out on the ground, hands extending rather dramatically: but Munchie couldn't even tell if she was trying to be dramatic or did actual pain crease upon her smudged figure then. His heart kicked like a stone and banged into a few things, battering without breaking any body parts. This sort of instinct kicked on inside of him somewhere and pestered him softly that he should probably go up to Ashley and like do something, help his poor primate friend, her arms and legs jolting and sticking up with bits of clumped, creepily gray instead of orange fur and he wasn't sure if that was a really good thing or not: Munchie felt certain that was a bad thing. But... what kind of bad thing? Painful? Evil? Uh... what? Ashley's... dad... wasn't around here somewhere, was he? No, no, that'd be scary. And bad. Real, real bad. When Munchie decided that stone-like heart flinging like no tomorrow in his chest wasn't losing itself because some evil presence permeated the air and you know planned to eat him, all of that, safety ensconced like a warm blanket. Or a hug. But he wasn't good with hugs, so the latter example was ignored for the majority.

Shaking out frail fingers, Munchie squinted his eyes at the target: the chimchar slumped in front of him. Even though she was a fire type, drool leaked out of one slit of her lip. He could feel her; drool did that to him, too. But unlike the scruffy, disease-esque munchlax, even a grosser abjection like drool appeared cute on her. Ashley had that style to her, style points, that racked up in his mind because seriously, Ashley was cute to him. Whatever, maybe everyone else didn't think so, but he did. Maybe her mate guy, Influence, did too, he didn't know what sort of relationship held fast or frail betwixt their harsh souls. He felt strongly that if the colorless leaf-melded figure behind him, also slumped, without the mark of drool upon his lip, had his memories, he just might've cursed instead of scrabbling for weaker words. It just seemed like something Ashley and her buddy from who-knows-where—Venturus, maybe, they could all be pretty swanky sailors of a sort, so said the eldest elders—would be fit in a world where curses spilled easy as clumsy, thin munchlaxes did. Yes he tripped a lot. Yes he was not proud of that fact.

Munchie's hand hovered closer to his friend's pale, somewhat plump cheek, rounding it with the color of a pie, perhaps, if he could see colors in this screwed place, with the crust already cooking and warmed to the touch. Munchie didn't know if Ashley's cheek was warm, you know, if they weren't stuck here, but it may be, since she was a fire pokemon and all and some of those guys were so hot they practically ran on steam. His fingers inched, but they froze and stuck and Munchie knew again that he would not be able to muster the courage in his weak soul to touch her like he always did, frozen on the spot. Still, guilt had stopped its deadly drainage, so he couldn't argue. Didn't find a reason to. Burning determination met icy fear and gelid stopping, clocking his movements short like jelly filled his veins, and it seemed Munchie nigh had to stop. No, he'd heard of pokemon who had limbs that lost the feeling in them but could use their mind to, like, trick the body part to move again. Something sort of magic like that: he was in a Mystery Dungeon: maybe a messed up, frozen one at that: but still a Mystery Dungeon. Maybe he could trick—oh. No. Probably not.

An unruly flop changed all of that. The sudden splay of dusky blue fur with edges of gentle tan collided with peachy oranges and pales, soon snaring his body at hers in a mess of limbs and hair. Munchie, mouth nearly on top of the chimchar's knot of hair bobbling high up on her head above the bob of flaming red-orange, spluttered back and expected her to respond. Well, you know, he did fall on top of her. Assaulted pokemon tended to do something about that. But she didn't, in fact. Didn't move. Didn't fall from her place, like she was frozen like those Mystery Dungeons and time had scooped her up—no no no Ashley don't leave Munchie please don't. His breath billowed out in little hurricanes of agony as his ears angled back and Munchie struggled to move, only to fall further into this trap he'd set out for himself. One leg sat beneath her chest, which thankfully had his wriggling toes being brushed by the slow, methodical movement of Ashley's lung circulating air, meaning no, stupid munchlax, she wasn't dead. The Waterfall Cave hadn't magically taken her away; though, as his eyes adjusted again, color seemed to... spark, in and out of vision, like his hitting the floor caused light to manipulate once more. But it fell again. Ashley's hair that should have been an odd mix of blurry reds and a flaming orange fell back to gray. The same gray as everything else in the stubborn room, even. Whatever just happened, and he looked at his arms, had ended already.

Munchie's foot still looked gray as well. He wished he could describe this coloring other than gray, but he couldn't. It was all the exact same shade. And that little notion freaked him out. Sent his heart running again. Color was gone once more and Munchie had never felt so alone, because color didn't desert. This... texture that brought beauty into his life: light and shadow, a rainbow on display, pinks, browns, everything that wasn't in a rainbow but was still a color like the different scruffy blues in his pelt. It filled out a life. And without it, Munchie sat and shivered, an ice cube beneath a heater that had stopped working. Because guess what, the frozen Mystery Dungeon thingy didn't have other temperatures besides a lukewarm feel. He sniffed and no particular scent grazed the lid of his maw. Pure... somewhat stale air. His soul, on the inside, smelled of embarrassment: believe Munchie when he said he could smell it. Oh, did he, hot and prickly and sweet enough to be considered hormones acting up inside of him, a jumble of confusion and stress allowing an accident to slip up and a splatter of embarrassment eked out. No one meant for that one thing to happen. Thus it did; thus embarrassment. Munchie wanted to go somewhere with depth again. He didn't even have a shadow arcing over the ground like his arm was. His back, on the other hand, had twisted, and so his head faced the earth below as it wrapped over Ashley's head and his spine made this half-doughnut curve. An uneven circle cut.

With nothing better to do, he coughed. This set off a series of successions where one foot slipped which was followed by the other. He'd held its full-moon shape up in the air as some sort of balance, but that balance then blundered over and lay with no color though the half-moon shape remained. He didn't fall out of shape, out of how he had been created in size, but without pale highlights, the room felt wrong. The lighting felt wrong; there was no lighting. Following that slip, Munchie hands squabbled and his entire stomach went flat on Ashley's slumped back, her should-be orange furs sticking to the circle on his chest. Nope, wait; Munchie looked and his chest looked the complete same all over. No other shape to distinguish that such a circle even existed. Munchie knew it though, locked in his skull. He couldn't forget something so basic and important. Yeah, he'd forgotten his gender that one time; no, he'd rather not dwell on that. Munchie changed the subject to the startling reek of embarrassment now that he'd gone flat on the chimchar and as hard as he struggled, his limbs grew... heavier. Sand spilled into his bones alongside waters; an ocean lived inside of him and it weighted him down. Munchie coughed grit and his limbs fell, strung heavy over the edges of his chimchar friend. He tried, but he couldn't really move anymore. Weird, since he didn't think he was that tired, but whatever. Color looped across his gaze again and Munchie blinked, staring at his scruffy blue paw until it petered out again, then a lighter blue tint sprung upon the balls of his fingers.

Oh, hey, color. Wait—color. Where did that come from? He thought it'd all disappeared or something, which was apparently possible. For legit colors to sink from existence in those strange holes of frozen time. He was beginning to feel a growing dread, cold, moldy, ugly, stinky, and it built like a pot in his heart and made him feel like if he breathed too hard his breath would reek. Because everyone else had gone unconscious, Munchie tried that and realized, to his relief, it wasn't quite true. "Th-thank gosh..." Wheezing, his voice didn't hold his sound. Pallid. Pale. Ugly. Not... soft, so soft that no other voice even came close, despite the husk wrapped around it safely like a dust covering for a scroll. There were dust coverings, strong, metal, gentle, for scrolls of importance in life. Munchie idly wondered how many might have the image of Treasure Town scrawling with red warnings about how it was the single place with no Mystery Dungeons tainting it. The only uncontaminated spot on Zundentun.

Color stabilized on his hand. "A-ah... that's so—" His voice. It was, like, normal again. Already soft, gentle to the touch, a little warm, a little brittle, and protected by the husk, like a protective boyfriend might his girlfriend. Not that protection was wrong. Oh, screw it, Munchie's face already spiked with red from the comparison. So he changed it to how his husk was Spirit, protecting his gay lover, Chindu, from whatever ailed him. That sounded cuter and made him blush less and feel less awkward, more jovial. Ish. He didn't get much jovial though. In ringlets of color and sound, Waterfall Gave had little granular bits sparking with light in Munchie's eyes. But... no... it wasn't Waterfall Cave. Color returned too fast and the song was too wrong, and it smelled like the jungle, and plus, a green, leafy figure walked out in front of him who looked an awful lot like Influence with actual color.

Whoa—Munchie glimpsed back at Influence, but the unconscious grovyle wasn't even there. He looked down; Ashley's casually slumbering body making use as a quaint table had gone as well, but he still held himself up by an invisible force that must have been her anyways. No snores fell from her lips. It only... it only was proven there by the fact Munchie continued to float in the air like she held him up. And, staring at the plant-woven green biped strutting in front of him, though further off, dizzy, and his motions shook, it seemed as if this could be... what, a flashback? A vision or something? A pop of light followed Influence's spinning motions, like he'd just come from a burst of spontaneous white light. Like Ashley had. His step, though... seemed off. And those orbs, those luminous, bright yellow orbs: seemed really off, like he'd lost his rocker. "Who... am I?" Scratchy whisper. Yep, Influence. He went on though and continued stumbling. Munchie thought he'd have to move his head as the vision thingy version of Influence walked off, but it simply followed him, like they were in his point of sight, only hovering slightly off. Munchie... had heard of some pokemon that saw their memories with themselves present—like in the background. Something like that?

The waters clinging to Influence's long, thin legs were hazy, almost wispy, and seemed to beckon him closer, almost call out his name like mystic princesses that wanted to eat him alive. Sorry—Munchie was on edge still after that whole yellow outbreak where he thought he had pinkeye but couldn't because the light was yellow. Anything could lash out and eat Influence at that time, really, but it seemed they wouldn't. Hey, in the present, the grovyle had looked pretty alive until Ashley clocked him one and lost consciousness herself—whoa, was she doing this? Was this... her vision of Influence's flashback, only Munchie's falling upon her... let him... see it... too? Best theory he had as of yet. Trying to make sure all the pieces still fit together, Munchie—unable to truly move off of Ashley and stop this vision thing—covered his ears with his hands, the double the fluffy layers blocking out Influence's repeated stumbles, squeezed his dark, dimly lit eyes tight shut, and mumbled stray thoughts together until a few began clicking. "So this is a vision of a flashback. The flashback is of Influence when he first landed here, which Ashley... accessed... after her hand hit him and... they crumpled over. I dunno... if they both... had to fall, but they did, and this started some time before I fell on top of Ashley. But I hit her, and I saw the vision too, but it'd already started." That... made enough sense. Munchie tried to shorten it. "This is Influence's flashback, which Ashley got because she came in direct contact with him, which is why she fainted, and I'm in contact with it because I smashed into her." There. He didn't know how much shorter and simpler he could get. The process was kinda long and tedious.

Munchie tried anyway. He wanted to hear something he felt secure with one last time. "I hit Ashley, who'd hit Influence, and she started this vision of his flashback." It was... a little better. Probably couldn't get much better, but knowing who Munchie was, he probably could have made it smaller if he wasn't so stupid. In the end, the thin munchlax felt satisfied, and he also didn't want to miss more of the vision thingy, so he popped open his eyes and unearthed his ears, to be met with a shock of... nope, no water at all. Somewhere... hot. It emanated red, come on, that had to be hot. Plus the vision produced heat, so Munchie could tell: he... didn't feel so stupid at the moment. Cracked fragments of rock were the walls, which held an unhealthy brown mixture of color and looked ready to collapse. A stench of heat and molten rocks procured. The mumbling grovyle with swishing leaves that he awkwardly yanked at sauntered on, with his arms frozen in front of him, clasped unto a stack of a couple of items, each... quite similar. They held powerful, green auras but the colors, being powerful and green and auras and thus hazy, like mist, had a different composure on each. So different... so similar. But he could feel the power. And he could feel there were parts missing.

As the thin munchlax's ears adjusted to hearing things again because still he had those other layers of dusky blue—yep, still colored—fur, he began to pick up the rough tone of Influence muttering to himself. He looked lonely, and then Munchie wanted to hug him. But he couldn't and he still felt heavy and it sounded better to hand on where he was. "...and even here—but I remember nothing besides these... cog things. They're important, so I should collect them... uhh... I feel their power and their importance, and somehow... I feel like I know where they are. First the waterfall"—he just... he... Waterfall Cave, Munchie wanted to sob out—"then the foggy forest area"—he just... he... Foggy Forest—"and now the volcano surrounded by green." Munchie couldn't remember its name, but that volcano—no. Pine Nut Volcano, surrounded by those lava paths of green and the storms of green lightning, all that crazy stuff. Influence was inside of it, and the lost munchlax easily confirmed it when the grovyle he watched so intently wandered stiffly past a great basin, a hole, with lava right there, sitting and bulging of heat and red, in the ground. Going through a corridor on stiff toes, he encountered a massive, humungous cavern stretched with loops and holes and steaming with smoke and heat and... a lake of red below, burbling as it wriggled. Like it was alive. Influence took an unsafe road very safely with glazed eyes like he'd done it before, and it lead down, down, closer to the freaking lava, until he disappeared altogether. The vision narrowed in on him later in this smaller, cooler cavern with the waves of red as walls, in some circular chamber that looked ceremonial. In the midst gently lied a... another time gear.

He casually plucked the powerful object, placed it atop his pile, and moved onward. Something scary rumbled in the distance, but it was like Influence the amnesiac didn't even notice. That... that was bad. That was bad bad bad bad bad.

He didn't know how many time gears Influence had, but when he and Ashley ran into him, it was obvious none of them had been in his possession. And... he recalled Jordan letting him in, how they all wanted to trust him only had to wait and were done waiting and the female gallade let it out, let him know... and how removing the time gears... how they would grow loose and weak and... bad things. They had to be watched over, had to be cared for. If one went missing, it could be reproduced, but... one had to be careful. These were the cogs of Zundentun, and they held onto the entire world. Bad things bad things bad things. They... had been removed... by a bumbling buffoon who... like Ashley, like whatever magical place he'd never heard of that they came from, realized and understood their need to be beautiful and nice and well-kept or someone... would be hurt. No... many, many lives would be hurt. From what he now knew, unstable and bad time gears, cogs not in place, would make the spoke weak and would make the world... He felt with certainty the world, first with Zundentun, then everywhere else, would be overcome by something a lot like what happened here at the good old Waterfall Cave, the... first hotspot of a time gear center that Influence had removed. And... Munchie understood that the more this happened, the longer this idly stayed, the longer nobody did anything, the worse it would get. Treasure Town was screwed, and they didn't even realize it.

Influence, he felt in his heart, had at least those time gears. Munchie didn't know how many were out there: maybe... he didn't know, using his eavesdropping powers, he'd say the representation might go one for Truught, one for Uytee, one for Venturus, one for Warldo, one for Xendrandentus, one for Yoctta, and... one for Zundentun. Or maybe one to represent all but Zundentun. He didn't know, just a harmless gander. Munchie couldn't help feeling it was his best bet at the time. Whether it meant his theory was close to being true, or just close to being completely, horridly wrong, Munchie couldn't be certain. His pertaining to give himself the bad bits of life as an excuse and to say that he'd probably get the worst thing possible meant he usually overly enjoyed what he did get and was usually wrong about everything. He guessed... that sort of made him a pessimist? No, no, he had low expectations. He didn't think much. Getting something at all that was even remotely nice meant good to him. What Ashley had said prior... about how he'd find some really nice girl or something that meant a lot to him like that... He shook his head. That... no no no no no. That was not how life worked, stupid munchlax. Maybe she'd find her nice guy; wait that had to be Influence. She... Now that Munchie lingered on it, the slight pain and the pant in Ashley's eyes, at the pause before she slapped him and he was struggling with amnesia, then her voice, seemed less exaggerated and more real, more there, flashing with color and pain like no other, cutting at his heart. She definitely had her Influence for her, and seeing him in such a state must have shook her up some on the inside. She didn't reveal what turmoil might live in there...

Shaking himself, Munchie blinked and rubbed at his eyes, then slapped at his face for good measure, and rolled off of Ashley's table-like back that'd held him up so well, for it was time to go and search out help. The longer the showing of time gears lingered in her gaze, the longer it went on, the longer it seemed... she wouldn't be waking. Was... was Ashley stuck or something? The munchlax shuddered at the idea as he did not know. Not at all. That... whole... thing... was odd. Made him question what kind of relatives she had to make her like that. Did... she have a legend as a parent or something? Like a chimchar evolution and a... a legend—if that even was possible? Munchie well enough understood legends were to magic as pokemon were to reality, just about, and they had absolutely no control over their domain, just as pokemon didn't have any as well. But... to mix each side together... Or maybe her dad was really scary. She'd called him very unkind words, so he probably wasn't someone she looked up to or anything. Ashley seemed like one of the rebellious pokemon that wouldn't listen to her dad, though. So maybe he was actually a nice guy but the chimchar was so rebellious and all of that they didn't bode well. Oh, Munchie gave up. He didn't know anything anymore. Thoughts stopped colliding.

All the munchlax really did know with a sticking certainty was that he had to do something. He had to find a way to help his dear chimchar friend, because she looked... zonked. Zonked like her mate that she'd hit rather hard. Maybe, it dawned on him, that was why she wanted him to find someone nice like him. Because she had crazy weirdo amnesiac Influence. Wait—Munchie let up for a moment before moving out of his curled-up position. Was he... jealous—of Influence? Oh, he hoped not, he didn't... oh no Ashley was close to him but not like... what? No. Oh geez no he didn't think he could feel whatever emotion that was with anyone, no. That... sounded a little... out of his zone... anyways. Plus, there was no way there could be a nice girl waiting for him like that. Or a nice boy, for that matter. He did not have the Spirit to his Chindu—or the Chindu to his Spirit—or whatever. Or the Influence to his Ashley, or the Ashley to his Influence. He was... happy... where he was. Sort of. He didn't really know, he was Munchie, he lived off of the bad scraps of life to keep everything remotely happy to look like the best thing in the world. Whatever, man, it worked. That was... sort of what mattered.

Munchie slowly, in slurred motions, picked himself up off the ground that should have been sandy with granular particles coating him, but it didn't, because it was all weird and stuff and was... frozen. Whatever freaking term it used: he was upset that Ashley had fallen, and he was upset that his favorite of all Mystery Dungeons had been the first to wreck. He really had to figure out what was going on and try to find those time gears and try to save Ashley. He would look for the others and—oh, maybe save that leafy biped of hers too. Right. Influence. Probably shouldn't leave him behind, quietly grunted the munchlax silently denying that he had something or another to pick with that freaking grovyle mate of Ashley's. Munchie silently shook his head and decided no, he had no problem that Ashley found herself someone she love some time ago, but now it just hurt to think of and imagine. He... didn't expect it. But he should have. Ashley said she wasn't so great, but he didn't feel that way. This thin soul saw enough with his hope-rimmed orbs. He saw enough.

Shaking his head, he plotted a route in his head on where... how he had to get back to the guild, and it'd probably be morning, and he'd have to pretend he'd gone out for fresh air just at dawn and he did not stay up last night with the chimchar he followed often, nope, they of course wouldn't break the one big rule of the guild. A silent realization was that everyone got along like a big merry family, but it wasn't the big rule: nobody should ever go nocturnal. No, wait; the more Munchie thought about it, the more he remembered the real big rule, that no one should go off alone, everyone had to stick together. But the way Spirit painted it out so brightly and scarily, as if he'd used his own wigglytuff blood to coat it pointedly, that we don't do nocturnal here. It started to go to Munchie's head and his breath went woozy, his movements unsteady, freaky, frenzied, and he rammed into a few walls of gray that looked like everything else in his favorite Mystery Dungeon until that shell of a bubble, like a chair, showed in the frozen waterfall, and Munchie slipped through it without so much as a bruised bump on his head or ruffled fur, and he stepped out from its wet confines, crawled past a few more splotches of watery cavern or sand or such, and walked on. And... gray.

It had grown. That strange, gray emptiness had grown. Sure, not all that much from where the line had been prior, but it had grown. Squealing like an imbecile that had lost its mind long ago, Munchie sprinted with his limbs flailing fearfully about him like they wanted to do the running and detach from his body—thankfully which he managed to not let them go. His hope-rimmed eyes that didn't look very hope-rimmed, just gray, no ability to distinguish pupil from iris from whites from any of it, continued to widen as it was. One could tell a difference of the eyes and the fur around his face because his fur happened to be fluffy and spiny in the nerve-rendered spots. Not smooth, slimy, eggshell. So there was a difference line, but it wasn't enough. He could hardly hear his own toneless cry as he ran and lost his mind until eventually Munchie looked around and something hard and scratchy practically bonked his brains right out. The satisfying donk! from its landing let him see he'd come back to the light again. Though his dear chimchar friend and her freaking mate had been left behind, still in mottled, knotted messes of unconscious limbs, Munchie had made it. He scooped up the thing that donked him and checked out its scratchy, brown, almost hairy surface. A coconut. A coconut had nearly become a murderer that day. He felt relieved he hadn't turned it into one, and, detecting his spike in thirst, cracked the hairy nut on the rough, milky brown tree in front of him, slurping down the milk within soon as a crack surfaced. Geez, running like a lunatic sure burned carbs, especially when those carbs already burned quickly due to being a munchlax and the need of food rumbled in his belly.

Being not one to judge, he shrugged his scruffy, dusk blue shoulders—contrast from the light of day in sheen above—and gobbled down the coconut too, the thin, rough texture on the outside to the thick, white goop on the in where the milk once lay. After that one finished and a burp emerged like a squishy plop, Munchie fed on more coconuts until his munchlax belly sat like a fat king on its artery throne and declared itself pudgy and full. Of course, his disappointing metabolism would burn fat quickly and keep him from his rightful munchlax size, keep him skinny and thin though he was also... a little tall, they didn't take that munchlax trait from him. And of course he had those normal munchlax things, like the crooked teeth that always stuck out at the ends of his lips, always... and he pretty much looked like one besides being painfully thin.

Yawning softly, rubbing at his eyes some more, Munchie wandered past the palm trees that produced his odd little breakfast and scrambled up through some more routes he'd started to know, just going a straight south and following the hollow, orange trails festering steam from below that warmed the feet just walking on them since those were the Steam Tunnels below, and they were a hectic network relatively well at organizing where things went. Over cracked, orange ground until it let off, Munchie managed his climb downward and forward and into the opening of Treasure Town, where the nicely-trimmed walkways of brown, soft dirt led him on until he felt like he should have turned off to that one trail, the sharp right, that went up the hill overlooking many things, but he... couldn't find it. What. What. He... he couldn't... what? But Munchie blinked, and the swarming mass of colorful bodies that became a sight for sore, colorless eyes that could once again see and hear and oh did his ears ache, a sound for sore ears, but still the pathway... it must have been blocked by all the stupid pokemon. Munchie had to find his friends. He had to. Where were the—

Cold hand. His shoulder. Hovering nearby. Breath on his ear from much more above. "Tag." No, Drynt, he didn't play tag and—oh yeah that's what the elgyem said to let the others see him. Relax, Munchie. Mystic used that all the time as it was, and so did Spirit; he should have been calm by then. "Munchie, do you feel well? I understand if you had to go out early. What went on was a little... much. Would you... like to talk about any of it?" The calm, green, gem-like elgyem then did something Munchie didn't know he had the capability of doing. Those somewhat short, green legs swept from the air and they stood, on flat feet, on... the dirt. A shudder. "I forgot how cold land was," he mumbled weakly, blinking those pretty, multicolored eyes. Drynt, when standing, happened to be under Munchie's height, even without including his angular ears. A little... under. The munchlax couldn't help but smile slightly at that notion, that he... he did beat his gem-like friend. He was... so thankful for those friends of his. "What's... going on?"

Munchie sucked in cool air and churned for thoughts, heart pumping bashfully at being so close to the elgyem who... well, yeah, he'd just put his feet on the ground for him. They were... that much closer to each other. "I... it's a lot to take in, Drynt..." Munchie whispered back, softly, "it's just... all over the place. I... you guys... the time gears: everything. And now something bad happened to the Waterfall Cave, and that really treads on my heartstrings, and... it hurts a little." It reminded him of something. Still feeling cautious, Munchie took a pause and his eyes wandered toward Drynt, whose emerald green head nodded in encouragement, softly, with a little Drynt smile on his lips, which comforted him in the middle of the sunlight, let ease shine down on him. "Did you... really cry about me? And... um..." He asked a few other questions, so the elgyem could, like, choose, without feeling all awkward. About the time gears, about the very bad thing, about losing them... about friends.

"I'll say, yes, I did cry for you." He answered the awkward one first? He... he answered the awkward one first! Munchie felt like he could fly out into outer space and run around the planet a few times and come back down, then evolve into a pretty ponyta with beautiful curls and show everyone up. Joy. It was joy—yep, he felt it. Munchie felt... happy... to have those pokemon on his side: yes, and Drynt too, oh Drynt. "Mm... The time gears are a very interesting matter. But... yes, all of them have gone missing. There's... one in the Waterfall Cave, which was taken first, which is why it's the most disrupted one. There's one in a peak of the Foggy Forest, known as Shinely. There happens to be one in the midst of the Pine Nut Volcano, and another in the very... hidden depths of the Southern Desert. One rests on the faithful Great Shiku Tree, far up in its most highest branches in the hazy skies of gray. The final one... sits in the open plains of Devaur. We have maps of these in that first room... and they're each gently engraved. A single time gear has enough points on each side to account for all places, in a way." Yes. One on top, one on bottom, a couple on one side and a couple on the other. It... fit. Very well. He saw it, then. "They... hold everything in peace.

"Without them... no, not quite." Every pause Drynt had was gentle, soft, sweet. Munchie found that endearing and... a nice habit of his. He had such a wispy tone, and only small bits of emotion melded in with that usual coldness. But the chill only made him feel warmer. "Not without them, but... the time gears need to be carefully tended. They need... guardians, which are us. Those to tend to them, to watch over them... keep each gear shining, and bright, and bountiful. To give its blessings off to the world as it is, where it can. Its sole purpose is to forever provide us, but if we don't recognize this, don't be thankful, don't watch over, don't love our Mystery Dungeons—if there's nobody to care for them... they will be lost, and... bad things will happen." The bad things. A trill of chill slowly crawled down Munchie's spine, and burned at the pit of it. "It... starts... with the loss of everything." Starts—it only started with that terrible loss of... all? "The.. time gears, have been disturbed prior, so we know this much. And we know that... other things can happen. Pokemon... lose their minds. Lose their wills. They are lost to what is left of the world, without its magics. This where we're at now—it can easily be fixed. If the original time gear was disturbed, we can help the base procure another, and if not, we must return the one that is out there still. Thank goodness it seems only the Waterfall Cave was disturbed but... from your look—the others... will... as well—if not now, then soon." Drynt seriously knew all. "It... seems likely. We must take care in our world, my friend. We must... take care.

"And you ask... about friends? I guess that's us. All of us. We care for you. The word friend is a light term for something... much deeper. I feel that some friends... stay friends for a long time. And will be connected. We are your friends, Munchie, and we want to help you however we can." Drynt continued his soft tone for a time, simply counseling Munchie, and yours truly felt... a calm within his chest. The elgyem was a comfort, whether he realized it or not. He gave off an aura that felt kind and safe, once they could see that his voice did have a little cold shard that made the warmth that much more inviting. Some words that Drynt quietly told him gave a rhythm, a thrumming tick, that he felt he would remember. These time gears... our knowledge of them comes from our exploration of them, our finding of them, and our learning of them. We wouldn't be able to do any of what we have without one another. Word of similar tune may arrive after, but Munchie felt as though he connected with that part. It... brought its own calling of reason in the world, one the munchlax happily accepted. He smiled to himself, and Drynt smiled a little more too.

Munchie was... at a peace for a moment. Thoughts began to recollect, but the peace remained. As such occurred within him, he suddenly recalled where Ashley was—and her... uh... mate—and that he had to figure out how to help her because she looked like she was in a heck of a lot of pain, and her mate was kind of zonked out, and it was just overall bad. And—those who could help: his friends. Their friends. He couldn't believe how much he used that word. Finally, he'd found... or at least he thought he found a purpose. Spirit Bright had felt pretty stable... but what Ashley was doing made it look like he really was in for it. All of the sacred freaking time gears had been stolen by her amnesiac mate for some reason and she would have explained but she lost the time: wait... why... why did she and Influence seem so... knowledgeable... around those green things? The ones who knew most of them were the pokemon of Zundentun, and those in the guild, and... they obviously felt something bad would happen did their cared time gears go awry, but... Ashley acted like she knew. He recalled when the dear, deaf chimchar first found him and how... surprised, she'd looked, when she saw everything, but how fast she adapted. Like... it was weird but she'd roll with it. And she came from spontaneous light: and she knew time gears.

Was she... a god..?

No wait no she wasn't. She... it was something else, something important, something crazy that would probably blow his mind once the pieces fit. But as of that precise moment, the pieces were still lying on the table untouched. Munchie's single need was to try and help her, however he could, and it seemed summoning his friends would do the trick. Just as the munchlax turned around to ask his dear pal Drynt this important question he needed to get through, they needed to use, this random creature from Treasure Town squealed in a very unladylike tone: "OHHH MAAII GAAWWSSHHH! LOOK IT'S THE HUUUUNKK!" The what. "THE HUUUNK! THEHUNKTHEHUNKTHEHUNKTHEHUNK." Oh, the hunk; what was a hunk? A hunk of cheese? A... hunk of... what? What was the hunk? Surely Munchie hadn't messed up, but beside him, Drynt lifted into his levitation above once more and, multicolored eyes narrowed like sharp blades of gems, pinpointed and waved with his hand and red-blue-and-yellow fingers to where this sort of wisp creature lied, his one, quite nicely-crafted eye lurking slowly, the color of a sweet strawberry. And he had a pretty eye. No wait, the other eye opened too—wait no that was all one gigantic eye. Man, was that eye pretty. Though Munchie still thought Drynt and Ashley had way prettier eyes—shh. Seriously, Drynt's were like a ton of different gems and mixed elegantly, and Ashley's were fire. Mystic had pretty gold ones as well. Chindu's, Munchie found, to be a quite calming sort of red. Spirit's were kind of a weird cloudy, Byrender's were little pinpoints, and he never quite saw Jordan's. Now that... that was the hunk?

As if he could read minds, the angular, white head turned for Munchie, but the eye seemed to brighten a little cheerfully. Not a bad guy. Okay. Well... maybe not a bad guy. Munchie had never known a bad guy, or at least someone he'd consider a villain, in his pathetic life, so he wasn't much of a judge. Well, either way, to his side, the hovering Drynt didn't crash and his face didn't pinch up or glow red as he looked at the wispy guy. All he had to say was, "Some muscles that creature pertains." Munchie nodded with a cotton-stuffed head. Some muscles. Creature fit the description of that thing very well because most of his body was sown as one by the seeds of darkness spouting from golden holes in his chest and what looked like a gold... zigzag... mouth... on his stomach that could completely tear open... at will, maybe? Well the guy was this huge black wisp but his head was white and he seemed really prim and proper and kind of cool, honestly. Drynt didn't seem to mind him, either. "Come, Munchie; I believe this creature has seen us and looks to want our attention. Perchance he recognizes us or something of the sort. Try to avoid the females and males that cannot stop shouting over how much they love him. Strange pokemon."

Munchie could only agree. Strange pokemon some were, strange indeed. There were gobs of girls and gay boys shouting about how much they loved the wisp guy whose name had yet to be announced. His one strawberry-colored orb glistened as it swerved and caught sight of the elgyem and badly-lagging-behind munchlax that had a weight problem. The whole head shook and muscles on arms clenched with his white fists. "Aaah-hah! It seems I've found the right pokemon, oh, finally! Cheerio and all of that~" He didn't even have the accent, but a stuffy, dark tone that seemed strained with joy. Not a fake joy, though, just too much crazed happiness on his part. A frenzy of joy. Weird but seemed to be happening. Munchie could only roll with it, as Byrender would proclaim. He smiled a little at that—still had yet to make his own catchphrase, but he kept on-and-off racking his mind over one. One day... Munchie would have something he could use and maybe if the other liked it they'd use it too. Surely his catchphrase would be ugly and terrible, but... But still; the poor, thin munchlax couldn't help it.

That odd voice driveled on. "What-ho! Come, you! I believe we share business." The big pokemon made of wisp and odd muscle used his gigantic hands to shoo away other bystanders so that he could... stand... almost directly beside the also-floating Drynt and his pal Munchie who scuttled on from behind, out of breath and full of weak, awkward giggles. He'd tried. "Oh, youuuu... my friends, I believe you and I: we both share a common friend, no?" Guy was talking in riddles. Munchie's head ached. "I... I am Dusknoir, the great explorer of no name. And I believe Spirit would love to see of me." Drynt and Munchie both knew that Spirit had no thought whatsoever to the other explorers because none of them had tried living in Treasure Town with all the crazy idiots—and there were sure busy roads chock-full of them—who disliked Mystery Dungeons with a passion, and also the white-furred and orange-tinged wigglytuff simply didn't care all that much for those who didn't much pester him. He eventually forgot about those who didn't dust on his life. He and Drynt, though; they said none of the sort. It'd be rude, especially when Spirit himself had been recognized. "I would love to have the chance to sit and speak with your leader and all of your pokemon troops, please~ Yes, indubitably; oh, cheerio! I must sit and comply with him about the important matters of time gears!" Ooh, he'd said the word... Sharing a glance with an even-more hesitant, obviously reluctant, stiffening elgyem the color of a gleaming emerald, he shrugged. Drynt, blinking, shrugged back slowly. They both were pretty lost, but still; it'd be rude not to.

"O-of course we'll let you stay here for a time! Please, we-we'd love the company!" It was funny how ironic that entire statement had been, and it felt stale on Munchie's tongue. But what should he have said when the guy practically invited himself on over? Plus, Dusknoir the dusknoir looked a little freaky—and in a much more eerie notion that anything he'd gotten from Jordan. Munchie liked the female gallade and wanted to call her his friend, feeling joyous he could. This... Dusknoir, right, he didn't look right. Just... seriously didn't. But it was too late, Munchie had said something, either way he couldn't think of a better response, and the wispy black guy with the muscles kept on staring that one eye the color of strawberries. Munchie's soft and husky tone snapped through: "L-let's gooo—" He winced at that, but it didn't fix anything. Munchie... Munchie had tried. He toggled with thoughts on the scary dusknoir guy and Ashley's predicament, trying to stay focused on one but he couldn't lose the other. As much as he wanted to ditch everything and run for his chimchar friend, life did not work that way, and life wanted Munchie to show off this scary Dusknoir dude. He hoped this guy didn't come from wherever Ashley and her buddy Influence had. Then again, this guy knew time gears; oh, Ashley knew them too. He wondered if there was a connection, but at the same time, the only important connection was his friendship with Ashley.

Munchie muttered a quick, soft whisper to Drynt. "Was that a bad idea?"

"Not... not quite," softly assured the elgyem. His lips had hardly moved at all.

"A-ah... I thought it might be. I could've said no but I did nothing like that."

Drynt blinked softly, slowly. "We all make mistakes. Plus, this looked like it may have been more of a good idea than anything else." After a pause, he added: "Dusknoir... doesn't seem so bad. He could be useful in our group's arsenal, in some ways. He may know ideals about topics that we haven't quite breached, or provide useful information. And no matter what could be broached, he seems likeable." Oh geez, did that elgyem know how to make someone feel good about themselves. Something warm and fuzzy emerged like a hairball in Munchie's heart, but as it combed out, all he saw was flowing waves of golden beauty. The hairball had straightened out and it was pretty. Pretty enough for him. Smiling to himself, hoping the gem-like emerald creature wouldn't take it the wrong way, Munchie bobbled his head in a nod and turned back to face the incredibly-overly-eager dusknoir dude with the one red eye throbbing of the color, and Munchie felt as if he could stare into that large orb for long enough to let its red eye fluids suck him up and murder him. Yes he couldn't shake off the feeling that something wanted to creep up in the night with a satisfying ssslluuuuuuurrrrrrrrrcchhh by his bed and then whip up gooey entrails and swallow him whole. Munchie's stomach gurgled at the thought: it was a bad thought, a thought he wanted to dispose of then.

Shaking his head, he tried to label reasons on why this was, right, a smart plan, and he should have been happy he'd gone and suggested ol' Dusknoir here to join their humble abode since it seemed like a well-rehearsed idea that could be... sort of helpful. "What are we waiting, my boys?" Your boys? Since when was he his boy? Since when was he that weirdo's boy, huh? "Come, come; let us be off!" Those huge, white hands flapped like massive wings and the fingers stuck out like fat feathers. Nowhere else to go, Munchie stumbled onward, a plainly hesitant Drynt to the slight front of him, continuing to levitate because it probably wasn't rude to do that in front of guests. The hint that Dusknoir followed his boys was how whenever passerby were scoured about, they'd coo or cry out because some vague reason shined that this guy was... well... the hunk. Whatever that hopeless thing could be describing. Anyway, what even was a hunk? He didn't get any answers, not that Munchie minded. He stopped being sure whether he actually wanted the answer to that question.

They acted casual as they led the scary wisp man that was very large down the peaceful trail of Treasure Town, the streets almost eerily quiet if its silence hadn't been so serene. The usual jubilee had died out, and peace feathered about the crowded, crammed town. It usually was loud and sure, happy, but mostly loud and untidy to the thin munchlax and his sensitive, awkwardly-angular ears the color of dark in the middle of such lightness. This new calmness descended upon and collected, pooled, filed, by that creepy dusknoir with the strawberry-red eye happened to be a thing Munchie rather enjoyed. Yep, he tossed all regrets of meeting this guy aside and felt spontaneous for running into them and thus forcing their fates to collide. He couldn't help but compare this jaunty guy with the pinching, deep tone that trickled down one's throat and made it hard to swallow to his meet of Ashley, and how they had been a sort of alone until meeting, and thus their lone silhouettes had collided and such sadness didn't have to be shed. No tears. Well, no, that was a lie: how many times had this poor, thin freak ripped into tears like a tattered birthday present already? Don't answer that. He didn't want to see the results. It'd just further scar his emotionally marred figure.

Anyway, on they went. Well, on Munchie went. Old buddy Drynt kept on levitating, though his body afloat still hovered near Munchie so that his emerald-shaped and -colored head at least situated to his side. Did the elgyem suddenly have a need to blow on Munchie's face a mark of a puff of air, he could. Oddly, being in such close range comforted him, creepy as it was. Who knew, maybe from that spacing Drynt could even feel his breath, and Munchie's breath, be channeled and their warmth was being forced against one another. They were forcing themselves to heat, perhaps. Munchie blinked plainly at the thought and tried to hide the sudden rush of turmoil within. How easy it soon became to adapt and crawl up the festering, orange tail, only swerving to a left at the bumpy road on the edge with more humps than a camerupt did on its rough, warty back. That... that said something. Still, only Munchie felt such warts as he was the only one using his actual feet in this entire stroll. Though it was a bit too stressful to be a stroll. Those were limpid and upbeat; this was not.

That swerve became its own long, winding trail of orange, more like a streak of camerupt warts—he'd gotten attached to that metaphor from prior—that continued left and left and left until they weren't really going left just up and around and back to the middle of subdued Treasure Town, only at the top of it in the white tent with orange tinges of Spirit Bright. Munchie's teeth gnashed together worriedly and his eyes seemed frightened to close on their own. Blinking became a struggle: a struggle he didn't want to go through. If only he could stop, but it was like breathing and he couldn't and if he thought about it too long it wasn't unconscious breathing or blinking anymore and he had to force himself to do it until it stopped being conscious but darn it he didn't want to blink okay. Munchie could just feel the cold breath of Dusknoir's tiny mouth—or maybe the yellow jagged thing was the mouth—billowing all about him, and the more he thought about it the more he felt pretty sure that yellow mouth was spewing it. That word, that color, yellow jabbed his brain, and he felt like he'd found its source.

Entering the tent's flap doors just reaching out to hug him and Drynt, then suddenly slapping closed as Dusknoir tried to wisp himself in or however he moved, some sort of... wispy teleport junk. He didn't know. Don't ask Munchie; ask freaking Drynt. He and the elgyem watched this extremely ominous move and whistled awkwardly through their front teeth as they stared longer. Munchie's eyes felt like they'd burn into combustion at any moment from his looking, like it was wrong to watch a big black wisp get attacked by flap doors the color of their leader's long, white furs that covered the majority of his body. Dusknoir angrily shouted a word that should have been a curse but came out garbled like being a ghost meant he'd signed a birth contract that he couldn't curse or something: Munchie didn't have the details since he only knew... fire, water, flying, normal, psychic, and... uh... psychic and fighting. None of those really mixed in with big scary ghost man Dusknoir with no name.

You bet everyone stared when they clambered down to the bottom floor of the guild, their feet—no wait only Munchie's as he was the only one not levitating—crunching against the solid carpet of gentle green grass below. Yep, he got stares; yep, everyone probably noticed the lack of Ashley and saw that Munchie had been restored but the chimchar he kept bouncing around or she who kept bouncing around him... not quite. But hey, Munchie was up and he didn't look nocturnal. Mystic, smirking a little on her chubby, orange-spiked cheeks, giggling at the sight, waddled up on her paws and whispered, "Whoa, who's turned gay? You... you're all guys... ohmygosh who's gay now? Who's gay? Who's gay? WHO'S GAY?" Munchie's heart fled from the situation and nestled itself somewhere far away so it didn't have to put up with such slander. Honestly, none of them were, far as he could tell. Maybe Dusknoir was gay. Did Mystic have a gay sensor or something in her?

"Gay? By what—possibly—could you, little girl, be referring toward?" Nope apparently not. She had no sensor. She just wanted to see gay pokemon. "I live for the girrrrrrllls~" By then that one red eye had wandered off and caught whiff of Jordan's turquoise hair in the long strands down her back and the mixture of turquoise and green bangs scattered so long and so perfectly across her pretty, porcelain face that nobody could see her eyes for some strange reasoning of hers. Maybe female gallades had messed up eyes. But oh did Dusknoir see the hair, and he shrugged this off but then he saw the chest and was like oh yeah that's a female alright. Keeping upbeat and in tune with his last comment, Munchie turned and saw the guy staring at one of his best friends like she was a dessert. "Aaaaaahh... hell-ooooo there~" he purred like an insolent pest who wanted to eat his buddy Jordan. Munchie angrily flung himself at Dusknoir but went through his black body. Thankfully the guy was too invested staring at places it was rude to be staring at—at a female, which he shouldn't be staring at, it was rude—to notice that a thin, dusk-furred munchlax had tried to attack and failed. Jordan, though, saw this, and he could feel her hidden gaze penetrating his back as it went missing through folds of cold, excessively freezing particles of fog-like black and Munchie stumbled and tried to cry out but black smoke took his breath away and black smoke sent his eyes reeling and tears to broil at an astronomically fast rate, even for him and they spilled all over the place and Munchie flailed then he fell out, breathing, panting, spitting black like he'd smoked something. He didn't smoke. There were some weirdos he'd eavesdropped on around Treasure Town that did and were freaking crazy, so Munchie knew he'd better not get a hold of those pipe things in his near future. This was as close as he'd get to legit smoke.

Everyone showed up and settled down, sitting casually in a circle like children on the grassy floor on the bottom of Spirit Bright. Spirit had shown last, Chindu just in front of him, both appearing more than slightly annoyed to be wrangled out of their room. Munchie... really didn't want to know why. Nobody questioned it, and for that he was grateful. The black-feathered bird sat to one side of his dusky self now crumpled with spots of black. To his other loftily fumped a certain caramel-colored biped who was huge and had lots of long, puffy fur that color. But his big, flat tail was the darker brown, also present on his face and little doll hands and feet that surprisingly were smaller than Ashley's: they'd checked, on occasion. "H-hey, Byrender," mumbled the munchlax. It hurt to talk. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to life. Why wouldn't the stupid fog go away. Oh well, he supposed: karma. Don't attack pokemon, even if they're staring at Jordan creepily.

Munchie quietly noted that indeed, he sat next to her in the circle, awkwardly hunched with his black, wispy form. Sighting this, angrily scowling, face streaked with red, the gallade of course noticed how his big, white hands were poised and tossed a harsh whisper at the mudkip further down the circle, whose face spiraled as she tried to take the hit, then nodded, her floppy blue fin on top wriggling, and waddled into a place so that the poor girl wouldn't have to be so close to the scary man. Munchie agreed; he did not like that dusknoir guy not one bit—nope—not—not one bit. Spirit was on Chindu's other side, which went to Dusknoir, then tiny Mystic and Jordan, then Drynt who refused to stop floating and splayed out, thus able to take in Mystic's lost spot beside him as well, and then Byrender, and then Munchie. As their talk was about to begin, or whatever this was gonna be, Byrender heftily whispered back, "Sup, my man." His man? His? Unlike with creepy floaty dusknoir guy, Munchie felt comforted by the statement and let the caramel fur to his side, like a big, warm, welcoming wall, rub by him slightly. He felt safer like that. Chindu suddenly snorted and his eyes glazed upon the wisp of black nearby.

"So I'd take it you're Dusknoir who apparently some of our children brought in for you." His flowery tone suggested Drynt and Munchie had grabbed some carrion and brought it back for everyone. The entire, gentle outlook spoiled some in glare at him. He, of course, with those cutting orbs, had saw how many black splotches were on Munchie and assumed correctly their source. "And this all so you could find us in the first place. Peculiar, may I say?" Dusknoir's scary, white face the size of a good chunk of rock nodded a thick nod. "I may; I may. We have not a clue why you've come here and what the heck you're doing here, but it would be very nice to have a few words so sweetly, kindly provided by your care." He sounded like he was trying to butter him up. If there was one thing Chindu knew how to do, it was accidentally take a man's heart. He'd apparently done that to Spirit, which got him to fall head-over-heels for him, and Chindu thought he liked girls, but then he went gay or something and it was all happy. Munchie didn't know all the details. Then his mind registered that he'd been called one of Chindu's children and he didn't know what to say. It... kind of made him happy. A bit. A warmth burned through his fur, to his heart, at it.

"I suppose I could lift your foggy heads from the storm I dearly apologize for blowing you into." This dark but jovial and strange, strange accent blew Munchie's brain off the edge. He'd been doing okay until just then. Freaking Dusknoir. "See... your—our—world"—gee nice that pause totally didn't make him suspicious take that Munchie knew these things sucker—"that we share, together, no matter how far away your humble abode is from others"—dude, just stop talking, it was painful—"has these small, detailed creations that string it all as one, and what completely connects every single pokemon altogether. And these... may I softly reveal... these... are..."

"TIME GEARS WOOHOO!"

"MYSTIC CAN YOU NOT?"

"HAHA I DIDN'T KNOW MY GAY LOVE COULD SHOUT THAT LOUD."

"SPIRIT STOP IT YOU BOTH."

Pairs of dialogue shot past each other and left Dusknoir most surely confused. He didn't know the way of the guild, and he never would, and that bestowed upon the shriveled munchlax a smile. If Dusknoir blew his way out soon... maybe he could tell the others—about poor Ashley and that they needed to save her. He... had to garner their attention himself. No one else knew. No one else understood like he did. As Dusknoir began all over again from the beginning, already painfully treading on specific words he'd already used like this was some speech he gave to everyone before taking over their minds and Spirit Bright was the only team that had yet to follow—if that was true, he knew they'd flip the table soon enough—but Munchie also began to see, as he was just scratching the surface of all the stuff he and his friends knew, they knew this, that Dusknoir didn't take account of everyone in the circle. He was completely smitten for poor Jordan who was not having this, and of course Spirit and Chindu because the red-beaked bird looked ready to tear through him, making himself entirely red, while Spirit kept interrupting with purposely idiotic ideas that found laughs in everyone because nobody liked this situation. Mystic went along with that, so she was noticed more too. If they were the big, bright dandelions, that made Munchie and Byrender and Drynt the shards of nothingness. Nope. None at all.

He... could go back to Ashley and see if she had recovered. And they could try to use that vision thing to find the time gears and get those back, and then try to wake up Influence, too. But... he could just... go back? And what if she wasn't okay? What about the help he needed to find that he currently lacked..? And who could he go to? His friends were stuck here and if he and Byrender and Drynt all swooned off or started banter, surely they'd be noticed and he'd lose his cue for a time as Dusknoir stumbled upon topics everyone, freaking, knew. Okay. Then came the yellow by his shoulder—the real yellow—and Munchie almost wanted to cry out but he didn't so since nobody would really notice he turned his head and there sat yellow, and it was a girl. A tall... tall girl. Taller than Ashley, but still only up to Munchie's... he didn't know. A little past his chest, maybe. She looked tall, though, because pichu wasn't a tall pokemon. Long, angular, yellow ears with black stripes dominated her head, then down to the cool, blue orbs with little hints of the other colors wafting in, and her soft, rounded mouth, and the pink splotches on her yellow cheeks: a sunrise painted with cherry blossoms. Her chest had been mostly covered by a gentle pink scarf, excessively long and wrinkled, and the rest of her body—her small hands and feet—were mostly yellow as well, save the spot or so of black.

She raised a hand in greetings. Munchie didn't know if she was mute or not, but would that be a rude question to ask? He didn't know. Ashley had outright told him she couldn't hear; this girl... just watched him silently. Though he supposed if she was mute then she couldn't tell him. "Are you m-mute?" A shake of the head, ears splaying out like clouds on a windy day. "Are you... the... yellow?" He had to ask, as awkward as it was, and to his surprise, yes, a bobbling nod. She was... the yellow he kept seeing. Woo-hoo, Munchie's vision wasn't impaired! "Is your... um... name... Yellow?" Another shake of the head, this one similar to trees whishing in the wind. She blinked as her head would do the talking for her. He supposed he couldn't really ask why she wasn't talking. But it seemed that pichu girl was here to help and even less noticed than the others. Munchie perhaps couldn't get out a why, but he could... she could... help. He couldn't get out a why just yet, as weird as this entire thing felt, but he could at least pester her some. That... could be essential to helping. Munchie's voice lowered and he began a traipsing trail of questions, gently worded so that her yes-or-no standards complied.

"Are you here to help me?"
Head bobbled, like a bouncing ball. Yes.
He wanted to ask why she was here, why she was helping, but he'd have to get all specific and he didn't want to. So just a simple, "Is there any specific reason, um, why, you are here, and why you help me?"
And... no head movement whatsoever. He took it even the yes-or-no questions sometimes had faults to them. She didn't want to answer it, so he moved on.
"Is it about Dusknoir?"
Her face upturned in a wild smirk and her head billowed back and forth like a hurricane, no no no no no.
"Is it about... Ashley?" No movement. "M-my friend, the chimchar who curses a lot?" Slight nod. "And... maybe... her mate—that stupid—Influence, the amnesiac grovyle?"
Much, much nodding. Yes yes yes. Here, here was her turf, and she knew how to aide it. The pichu felt at home with this information.
"Should I... go to her; or do we have to help him first?"
A head nod slow, then a slow shake, then a slow nod.
"Um... I help him later? Go to her now?"
Yes; yes; yes! Flurried nods like children tossing snowballs at each other in the snowy Mystery Dungeons.
"Do I come back to you after I check on her, then?"
A final nod dominated. He'd found enough. He'd found everything he really needed at the moment. Direct needs first. And... she'd even kept him on track. How nice... of her. He didn't even have a name, just the yellow, because that was how he'd seen her until she actually showed herself, but he thanked her softly and scurried up the ladder—then stopped, jumped down a few pegs, and still completely, outrageously ignored by Dusknoir, poked Byrender on his rather enormous back.

"Mm? Yeeeeees, Munchie? What can I do for ya?" the lax tone came winding out, and the munchlax could only grin at hearing it again; music to his ears. The soft scents of cinnamon and caramel came rolling off of the bibarel, and Munchie's heart only further festered to it. Oh, did he love his friends, and oh, how grateful was he that Byrender was here with them. His goofy, buck-toothed grin back only warmed Munchie's heart further. He seriously liked these weirdos—a lot. He... felt blessed, to be on their side.

He spoke in his soft tone and tried to be quick about it. He noticed how well the yellow, that pichu, blended into his peripheral vision and how nobody even saw her patiently sitting in the space Munchie had been not a few moments ago. "Ashley's in the Waterfall Cave, and she's found a friend of hers from wherever she came from, and they're both in a bad state. I have to check up on her, we have to collect the time gears, we have to try and recover that... b-buddy of hers." Mate, flaunted the word. Munchie blinked irritably. "Then the frozen Mystery Dungeon can be restored... and we'll meet up with you all and we can bring all the time gears back home." Oh no, Byrender's eyes were glazing over. He wanted to tell someone; he always had to tell someone. This bibarel overly shared and shared when it wasn't his time. And right now, oh, was it not his time. He felt highly unsafe with that creepy dusknoir and his huge hands casually reaching for Jordan who hissed and bit one of the fingers, nearly tearing it right off. Yep, yep: very very very unsafe. Not a good thing. Very bad thing. Ugh. No—no, Munchie, focus on the matters on hand. If Byrender wasn't allowed to say anything, he might explode. "O-okay, Byrender, listen to me!" His whisper shout regained the huggable caramel's attention. "You can't tell anyone about what I just told you—but if you're good... you can whisper it to Drynt and the pichu beside me, okay? But not altogether. One by one." Altogether might make him want to scream it. "And you have to keep it silent." Those black, beady orbs watched so carefully as Munchie made his statement, then bobbled in agreement.

"Got it, boss." A salute, silly grin, and the bibarel dulled slightly again, and nobody questioned it. The yellow behind him shared her own little smile with Munchie, and he sucked in a grateful breath and with a nod, tottered back up the ladder, glancing through the map room and recognizing spots on there with little marks that Drynt had mentioned to him: the time gears. He didn't have the time to sit around and navigate about them though so the dusky, angular head went up and out of the floppy tent's entrance and Munchie careened out from where he was, running halfway round the entrance to Spirit Bright, then taking off down the hill at a crazy speed making his eyes water and head tear back. His lone figure tore down until it wasn't down anymore but on hot, steamy, orange paths and eventually led through the violent electricity-filled rocks of Amp Plains, but only on the edges because that place scared him and even though it took longer, after more Mystery Dungeons to stumble past and more random greenies to nearly trip over, those weirdos, Munchie found his feet on cold, hard silver. And he could see the frozen Waterfall Cave coming up, but still, another small ring of loss came. Any... any color, any valor, any shadows, any sounds, and most everything else that produced true feel and emotion and life: was lost. Munchie winced, but he had to go on.

Up around that shell of a bubble to the side of the lost waterfall still the same gray—everything was that same, intermediate gray that held nothing but the drabness of it all—Munchie stumbled onward. His toes cried out from the agony and eyes began to remember how long it'd been since he'd actually, you know, slept and junk, but it was all he could do to keep going. Determination burned like the fire on Ashley's tail in his veins, and he had to keep on going, it was all he could do. All he could do.

And in the end, he came across one scattered time gear, then another, just lounging around there on the floor. Some tired, agonized footsteps, a violent curse that still sounded spicy, even in the place of no time, of no anything, and something stuttered into his view. A time gear to join its brethren. Triplets there, all the same, beautiful, glowing green, but all different too with their shifting colors of the multifarious sort. Pretty. "Oh, holy shit! Munchie! I... oh thank FUCK!" Something just as lukewarm and gray as everything else bumbled into him and hugged at his chest wildly, locking arms as the frenzied motion calmed a little. "Damn... it's so fucking quiet here. I can't even feel the heat you usually generate, even though it's so nice and warm. Shit, I really liked that—damn fucking bitch place. Such... it's a smutheaded bitchface, that sounds... about fucking right. I'm not good with names." Ashley's eyes searched up for him, and it was painful to see the gray orbs. Wait—he'd seen them prior... with that vision and... weird stuff...

"A-Ashley... what's going on? I need... help... and answers... and... a lot of things..." He cringed at how monotonous his own, soft squeak had sounded. It wasn't even soft, and the husk had withered away. No sight of it, just the pauses, the single stutter, and whisper. The Mystery Dungeons so kindly let them keep how quiet or loud a voice went. Sometimes... whispers were needed. But a sinking doubt told the munchlax they might not be needed, and that might be pretty soon of a time coming up. "Please... h-help me..."

Ashley's face registered with the words, slowly, softly. "Awwwww... Munchie, ugh, I'm so fucking sorry. Such an ass, aren't I..." She gently shook her head. "Never mind. I told you I wanted to tell you, and dammit as fuck I will. You look... super extreme-ass confused, and it's all my fault, and I'm sorry, Munchie." A blink, and she started.

"Okay, so... try to hold off for your questions until the end, because I have a shit-load of crap to unload. So basically yeah, I know what these things are because... er... I come from a bad time, and this is... a lot like that bad time." Her eyes seemed to whisper to him, please don't be scared away from me, which sent him mixed messages from what the heck was going on in that girl's head. "Influence and I... we came here through a portal my dumbass dad left open, and... we came here to... to try and fix things, make sure the time gears would be okay... because we didn't know when the hell it would be... but something was going to happen, the guild would be lost, and everything would run rampant. They... needed other members to help out, they needed others... and... bad shit would go off, okay. But we fucked up and I lost his hand and Influence lost his memory. I know psychics can help us get it back, it's nothing serious, just a small symptom, but it cost us some damn time. And that fucking idiot could only remember time gears are important so you know what the hell he did: he grabbed them all. And... bleh, nabbing them, whatever, set off this first wave when everything becomes frozen like this. Then pokemon lose hope in everything, they become fucking terrible except for the few who aren't, our lives are fucking screwed, and we all... become... immortal... in a way. Nothing to keep us alive, nothing to stop us from living. You... you know... it's terrible to be immortal. All those lives with nothing to do anymore, just milling around and... with all the fucking screwdness... they're all bitches and they're all...

"Munchie, I come from the future, and the future is not a happy place. I can't even describe it. We all curse because that's what we see as fucking lively—ImeanyeahIcursemorethaneveryoneelsebutthat'snotimportant. What's... important... is that... it's so terrible I can't even describe it to you, and I don't want you to see it because I'm terrified of what it might do to someone like you. Dammit, Munchie, I want you safe and happy right fucking here... and I want to save the present, so that the future can be restored."

All that Munchie got was they had to go find the time gears like right now and save the world. Not even Zundentun, but... the world. If Zundentun was harmed, the world would be effected, and everything... would be... terrible. Ashley saw it all and she saw it all terrible and herself terrible and they had to do something. He ran off into the gray halls, and with a snide remark, the chimchar hurdled on after him. She shouted at him to go slower, she knew where the other half of the time gears were, and so his pace slowed, his face should have blushed, and Ashley went in front of him. She walked idly, using both her hands and feet like she always did. She talked softly with him, wanting to engage him, to make sure he was... okay. And Munchie... well, yeah, he was fine, as long as nothing else became as screwed as his favorite Mystery Dungeon. That was the nice thing, though; apparently as long as they didn't go past the breaking point, as long as everything was put back into place, all the time gears recovered and safely stored, they would be... completely fine. Even the Waterfall Cave would find itself fully recovered. He didn't know what that would make of Ashley and Influence, but he supposed they'd just hang around in the present and stick with them or something.

He couldn't even keep track, but at some point in his life, a small clearing showed, greens flickering about it. In the chamber, far below wherever he'd been, only following Ashley and destiny and what his heart felt like happened to be right, there sat the time gear, and another, and a final one as well. She limply plucked one, shoved it at the pedestal sitting in the middle of the room he just noticed, and like it was insane the pedestal seemed to have a force where it shoved the little, green gear all the way to the other end of the room with a snide I-think-not attitude. Munchie ducked and his ear nearly came off. He'd... avoided it well enough. Nothing singed him as of yet. There was still hope in the angular mess protruding from the top of his head.

"Well... shit." She plucked another one, tossed it at the white marble pedestal, and Munchie further ducked, this one magically flounced out from the creepy magnetic field thing as it socked him right in his stomach. So much for crouching. He squeaked rather loudly and unmanly to such tone, and a singed burn mark bloomed out from where it'd hit, coincidentally in the middle of the pale circle on his chest. Where it would be with color. The time gear peeled off of his new tattoo and clattered to the floor. "OKAY, SMARTASS, THIS IS THE ONE." Munchie wanted to curl up in a little ball and hide but her toss was so fast and the time gear was snagged out of the air, crunched into that magical, marble, curly pedestal—oh, the pedestal—and it sat still. Suddenly the walls roared to life, teeming with droplets of water and great, churning faucets of waterfalls that reopened and bloomed to life again. It happened all in one moment, then took slower to fully recover the iridescent hues of blue, from the blackest dusk to the softest pastel. Foaming bubbles gave off popping noises, which tuned to their word as the spiraling, roiling notion went on. "See, hah, TOLD YA SO: BITCH~" She proudly kicked the pedestal and screeched in agony, her pale, large foot momentarily glowing green. Then the green left and Ashley's flaming orbs kicked in on Munchie. "Hey, uh, Munchie? I'm reaaaaally fucking weak, so I can't carry many time gears... Could you like, um... you know..."

Suddenly, like sparks, questions sizzled and flew in his mind. "Ashley... uh... I just remembered: what about that vision and Influence—and your dad?"

"Hmm." She smiled a little. "Pick up the gears and old lady Ashley will start story time. How's that for ya? I'd say it'll be fucking fine and damndy." He winced at that last part, but scooped up the pair as ordered and saw they did pack a little weight on each gear, but he could handle this. Munchie recalled the triplets upstairs... somewhere, and, nodding to himself, tried to force it all in his head, hang onto it. They picked up the pace trotting up and around, and looping and everything, and Munchie was sure to be careful with his layered, now-dusk arms and hang on tight. The deaf chimchar to his side thankfully couldn't hear if a time gear began to slip, and he tightened his hug to them in an attempt to keep them stabler. It was a halfway experience. But they eventually clambered to the top and grappled onto the others, which were deposited onto Munchie, and they went on.

"Should we go to our buddies or do this shit ourselves?"

"Definitely get the others—b-but Ashley I really need to—"

"Okay got it yes dammit sir." She paused for a moment, then went on. "Well... these topics are a little linked. Let me just breeze over them. My bitch dad, he can make portals in the future to show everyone that the past is way worse than where we are now, since you guys are like mortal and he hates colors because he's colorblind so whatever, and also he's deaf so it's like everything is amazing when he's in his time period, blah blah blah, everyone be happy. And... he's a dusknoir. He has no name like almost everyone. My mom, Darla, she's a chimchar too and she's crazy, thus here I am. And, well... see... my dad's fucking messed up and you know, he'll ra—"

Munchie gave her a look as he saw where the conversation was going.

"Oh, you know, blahblah, he'll do bad things to lots of girls by getting them into him or whatever so I'm one of his however many kids, but... uh, I'm the only one that's not a sableye. Most pokemon become messed up dark type fuckers and..." Munchie had no idea what this sableye thing was, hardly knew of dusknoir. "They're... dark pokemon, created from darkness and REALLY FUCKED UP. I'm special because my mom is and thus I still have problems, like... I fucking curse a lot more, I... have strange visions with really hurt my poor brain, and I'm deaf and there's other shit, but... I'm also a chimchar. And... my dad probably realized myself and Influence are in here, and he'll... want to do something about it. So he's probably here and he'll probably fuck up your present if we aren't careful."

Munchie wanted to cry himself to sleep. He was that tired and that upset with himself and his life. At... least... she hadn't said anything about a pichu..? Thus he was silent throughout the rest of their trip, eyes glazed and time gears trembling slightly in his arms. Ashley didn't say anything else, feeling bashful or... maybe... embarrassed about it...

When they stumbled back into the outskirts of Treasure Town, it seemed everyone was still gone except for the insane crowd of pokemon now bombarding the entrance of Spirit Bright and having no idea how to get in because that crazy tent kept flopping around its flaps and thus nobody managed to make it in. Spirit was a smart guy, must've... somehow used Mystery Dungeon magic to make that tent, or maybe it was stored in the huge head of his above the white and orange felt. Either way, smart. The only pokemon who happened to be out on the sliding-toward-evening day was a girl with a pastel pink scarf wrapped all about her neck, forearms, and the majority of her chest, her sunny yellow fur glistening with the sun caught on it. "A-ah! The yellow!"

She turned at her name. Er, nickname. What Munchie called her as, and she nodded and traipsed closer. "Ashley, this is my... friend." He'd gotten used to it. Pride welled up in his chest. So much pride. "And this is Ashley, the chimchar I'd told you about. Do you know how... we can help Influence—her... um... grovyle mate?" Ashley, surprisingly... was still quiet. She looked a little sad in her sparking orbs, no much of a flame inside. Munchie... didn't know what to say.

But to his front, smiling gently, nod curving her head in the bright, warm air, the pichu withdrew with one of her hands behind her back what looked to be a splatter of green fluid wrapped in bright pink leaves that had foreboding, purple splotches on them. "This will... help his memory?" A cheery nod. "S-sweet." She nodded again at that, smiling as well.

"What the HELL? Are you mute or do you just have a cold, or, like, what the hell? TALK!" And the yellow shook her head softly, like the waves in the ocean, at each of these things, but continued to smile anyways. "Damn." Then Ashley was silent again, and a little sad as well. He wanted to reach out and hug her or something, but the time gears didn't permit as such. Ashley quietly mumbled, "Munchie... I'll be back."

He trusted her, so he watched quietly as she took the poultice thingy from the yellow's outstretched paw and ran off with it in her maw to move as fast as those hands and feet allowed. Munchie gently placed his stack of time gears on the ground, their weight leaving his aching arms and resting on the sandy dirt below. Then he sat, too, one heap of dusky fur crunching over the earth. The yellow, smiling slightly, her large, black-tinged ears—like Spirit's with the orange—twitching as she sat with him, just as big of a bumpy sit as his. She didn't speak, and he didn't speak, but it was nice anyways. Munchie then drew out a finger and began to scrape over the dirt, making a little picture. The yellow joined him. His was full of spirals and dips that didn't come out all too well, but anyone who wasn't blind—sorry, blind pokemon—could tell they were clouds, big and puffy. She drew out a sun, somehow just as effulgent as the one hanging above them, all circular and emanating heat, her spiraling locking into it. Below, Munchie scraped in imaginary colors, and the yellow giggled softly as she helped scribble. He couldn't catch her tone as it was too short, too soft, too passing, but still, a giggle. He giggled too and felt like a nincompoop.

They were drawing a sunset, one they shared together. Munchie... enjoyed it that way. He did like the yellow, even if she wouldn't tell him her name, and she seemed like a nice little pichu. Maybe she'd actually, like, talk to him and stuff later. That'd... be pretty great. Still, the silence was pretty too, and scrapes chipped away at the time until the real sunset seemed about ready to streak over to that place he knew so well... Munchie felt nostalgia choking him up, but he shook himself and stopped staring at the sky, more to the scrabbled drawing her and the yellow had... just about completed. Her cute little finger poked out and poked a few holed, petaled some flowers, and looking back, smiled to herself. Her hands were encased with grit, and so were his. Curious on how it felt, he quickly—with a red face—took hers and grinned to himself. He wanted to apologize, but he liked the silence so much that he couldn't. They both had those passerby giggles and hung on. Munchie was just staring at those soft, gentle blue orbs that seemed to welcome him, and he sure hoped his darker ones with hopeful rims welcomed her, and they giggled a little more and with the sound of some hefty footsteps, released, turning to face the great wisp that sauntered up to them.

Munchie's heart leaped. Look who was right behind him: his friends. "Well, I'll be," grumbled that freaky Dusknoir with a once-cool eye but he was also Ashley's terrifying daddy and no no let's not mess with him. "Thank you for that lovely escape hatch. I'd rather not run through that crowd of entities." He then conspicuously winked at Jordan and everyone groaned, but the groaning was very well disguised by Byrender randomly falling over with a THUK. Of course, to everyone but Dusknoir, the fall was not random but served a very well purpose. As his great one eye looked over and caught on Munchie, Byrender quickly eyed the emerald green Drynt in which both of them tapped the others and began hurriedly whispering back and forth about what the freaking heck was going on. Poor Jordan was so invested she didn't notice the huge, white hand on her arm. Munchie was about ready to stop and sob, but that one eye, red as blood, not strawberries, blood, kept stealing looks at him, degrading looks, depraved looks, he didn't like those looks, no he didn't. His head shook like a leaf in the middle of winter as he stared down the big, scary man who was Ashley dad and evil. "Are you... what have you done. You monster." What.

At the perfect time, Ashley stumbled up as the lights in the sky melded with the horizon and burst into color, she and her mate with their heavily sparkling orbs caught in the sunset. Influence coughed, mumbled a curse, and he and she saw the monster in front of them. No, not Munchie: the other one. Munchie shuddered as he recalled the black wisps that had been stuck in his poor fur from that weirdo. "Oh, fucking shit, it's Daddy-poo. Oh DAMN."

"Crud," calmly stated the grovyle whose leaf-melded body held frigid in sight of it, of that horrid creation, the big, scary man, one of his hands still on Jordan's arm and she saw it but she'd already lost feeling in it or something and her face paled like it was cracking.

"THESE... MONSTERS..." And it was Dusknoir, his dark but jolly but freaky tone cascading down like a wave, slapping everyone senseless. As Munchie looked over—yep, Ashley and stupid Influence were both wet. The Waterfall Cave had been restored, as the only way to get in or out was through that waterfall... and... Yes, he whispered to himself, yes. "THEY HAVE TAKEN THE TIME GEARS AND DESTRUCTED... THEY HAVE TARNISHED THEM.." What. He was... acting freaky. "THEY HAVE HARMED US, MY FRIENDS."

Munchie felt pretty sure his friends were about to look at him and they were going to hate him. But instead, they all burst into laughter.

"You think they're monsters? That they've harmed us? Whoa, bro, good luck living that down! I guess that makes us ugly monsters too—haha!" Mystic chimed. Her golden orbs twinkled and smirked.

"I dunno, man, Munchie told me what's up and I told Drynt and we told everyone; so I feel pretty sure we're not the bad guys, eh?" There went Byrender, running his smooth, sweet, rocking tone over everything.

"Pfft, idiot." Spirit had the best comment yet. "I know these children, weirdo. I'm not going to respect another word you say until you admit that you're gay." Poor Jordan's face was going green; they were sure hoping he went gay, weren't they. Sadly that was not the case, and as suddenly as he'd showed, Dusknoir's eye throbbed and his stomach ripped wide open, that jagged, yellow line splitting wide and a sort of tornado pursed, sucking air... light... grit... the yellow—they were all flying inside of it.

"YOU... CREATURES... WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO—I see that none of you believe me." He sighed as Munchie lost sight of the world as he knew it. "These creatures have collected nigh every time gear for me. Sure, by accident, but they want to restore the future. I'm afraid... that won't be happening. This place is a putrid horror hole, and the place I... I am from, as well as my daughter and Influence, it's perfect. We must not lose it." Ashley and Influence were sucked in as well, and calmly, Dusknoir's belly sewed right back up. "They will be exterminated by what my sons and daughters—the other ones, the ones much... different, than Ashley—have provided, and what I told them to do. They will not return to the present." Calmly, his other white hand scooping up the pile Munchie had left so perfectly stilled, Dusknoir nodded and, one hand pulling a female gallade, the other locked upon gem-like greens of gears, he spoke softly:

"The present cannot change the future. You will be trapped where you are. Good day~" And he was gone.

Me: ;w; I apologize for this incredibly long chapter, but everything fit together so welll...

Ashley: What the hell man it's only... 15.5k... the fuck.

Me: WHOOPS SORRY. It works though so I'll leave it.

Ashley: mmmmmkay then.

Munchie: Why don't we take out the part where we all get sucked in and possibly killed?

Me: nope sorry

Munchie: aw

Me: Well... this marks just about the halfway mark of this story. Woo-hoo, thanks for reading! :3