Note: This chapter should be be better than the previous, being longer and with exposition and action better interspersed. Also, the worst of the beginning exposition is done now, so that's a positive!

Chapter 2: What's a mystery dungeon?

After puzzling over that question for a bit, we arrived at the small village in which Glide lived. Now, as we walk into the town square, We pass close to a Kakuna, who seems to be lying on their side in a corner. "Excuse me, Glide, but could you help me up?" it says somewhat pathetically, "Aipom said He'd be right back, but he's been gone an hour, so he's probably just left me. Again." he said with a small sigh. Glide then proceeded to help the Kakuna balance himself on the somewhat flexible tip of his body. "Thanks, Aipom is fun to be around, but he tends to forget that I can't really get up without help," The Kakuna buzzes, "wait a second, who's this? I've never seen them before." Glide suddenly gesticulates wildly,

"Oh yeah! I found this Litwick in a mystery dungeon with no memories! You know what that means, right!"

"Oooh! That means you'll be able to go to the Rescue guild and then they'll have to let you in, because they said they would give whoever turned in one of those pokemon can get any reward they pick!" The Kakuna looks equally as happy for a moment, then it's expression falls. (or at least that's what I think, It's hard to tell with such a rigid face) "But then you'll leave and become famous, and we'll never see you again!"

"Nonsense!" Exclaims Glide, "I'll visit whenever I pass by and tell you stories of my adventures!" Now I clear my throat (for a given value of throat, I'm not even certain I have lungs)

"You both know I'm right here, right?" That nets me a perfectly synchronized reaction of "Oh I'm so sorry!" and then the Kakuna falls over and Glide starts to right him again. Is EVERYONE here like this? I sigh.

"Anyways! We really should be getting supplies for the journey to Galvan City, where the nearest Rescue Guild base is! We'll have to go through a mystery dungeon, and my dungeoning supplies are low now." Glide states after getting the Kakuna stable again.

The Kakuna looks down again,"Alright, I guess," he buzzes, somewhat sadly, "I'll see you again someday, then".

We walk off a bit, and I say, "Aren't you concerned about your friend there? He seemed rather depressed that you'd be leaving."

Glide frowns for a moment,"I'm sure he'll be alright, I'm not his only friend after all..." she looks thoughtful, and continues to look so until we arrive at a brightly colored stall in the town square with a Kecleon behind the counter. "Oh! This is Kecleon's shop! Kecleons run shops pretty much everywhere, You can even sometimes find one in a dungeon with a pack of things to sell! I've never met a Kecleon who wasn't selling something!" she brightens again at getting to share information.

The Kecleon chuckles. "Indeed, my kind do enjoy entrepreneurship, Miss. So what do you wish to purchase?" As Glide starts purchasing items and haggling over prices, I start to think. How did I end up in that cave? I wonder, followed by equally confusing thoughts like Why am I now a pokemon? and Are all pokemon this cheery? but such thoughts just end up chasing themselves around and around again with no answers, even as it grows late and Glide takes me inside her house to rest for tomorrow.

The next day, we start to set out again when we hear a recognizable voice shout from behind, "WAIT!" we turn around to see the Kakuna from before, bouncing along awkwardly on the his body's tip. "I thought about it as you left yesterday, and I want to go with you!" He says as he catches up. I start with"Are you sure you-" but Glide interrupts with a "Yes." before I can finish, looking surprisingly serious. I look at her, and she continues, "Yesterday I might've said no, but I thought about it last night, because of what Litwick here said about it, I realized you probably would have felt pretty lonely without me." she looks up. "So if you want to come, then yes, you can come."

The Kakuna's expression brightens immensely. "So I can come?"

Glide nods, "Yes, you big doofus, now come on!" I suspect this is a big moment for them, but I can't really get into it on account of having known both of them for less than 24 hours. Anyways, after that we proceed down the path, with the two of them chatting together, and me oozing along beside them quietly. Eventually we reach a point where the trees start to fit together really closely, except for a almost tunnel-like path. "Well, we've reached the mystery dungeon!" Glide says perkily, "here's Pollendust Forest!".

I think for a second. "What even is a mystery dungeon? You said the cave you found me in is one too?"

Glide straightens up. "Yeah, that was Mirror Cavern! It's a lot easier to get through than this one, I think, but not much in there."

"But what is a mystery dungeon?" I ask.

The Kakuna (must ask his name) replies, "Oh! It's a place where space and time get all wonky! It's inside is always changing when you aren't looking, and sometimes you get weird things happening, like how in this one here, the flowers are always in bloom!"

"So why are we going in here then? It sounds kinda creepy, really." I gesture at the opening.

Glide responds, "You have to go through at least one dungeon to get much of anywhere, really," she gestures as well, "They're really common, and tend to be a lot faster to go through than around, since they mess with time and space and stuff."

Kakuna nods "The shorter ones tend to have less space inside then outside, actually."

I shrug. "Well let's go then, I guess."

We entered the dungeon, walking through a short corridor formed by the unnaturally close-together trees, until we hit a clearing. Upon entering it, I see why the dungeon has it's name. Every single spot sunlight hit, there's a riot of flowers. Every single tree, I can see more flower petals than I can leaves. There's pollen so thick in the air than you can see it as a yellow haze. And if the sight of a thousand colors of flower clashing with each other was not enough to give me a headache, there is just as many overlayed scents, making an almost sickly sweet whole to do so instead. "Agh! When you said there would be flowers I didn't expect this!" I shout, covering my eyes.

"Yeah, there's a lot." Kakuna says, "It looks better when you can see into the ultraviolet, though."

"Well that's not much comfort!"

Glide replies, "You'll get used to it, now let's go!" I uncover my eyes and follow, grateful when we go into another narrow path, where the shade prevents there from being so many plants. We go through several more clearings like before, finding nothing but a few apples and berries, (which Glide adds to her bag) until eventually in one clearing a Skiploom pops out of one of the clumps of flowers. It then proceeds to blindside us with a spray of Poison Powder, which engulfed us in a cloud of it's toxic spores. Me and glide started coughing, caught flatfooted, but Kakuna didn't seem to be affected, instead he returned fire with a spray of purple barbs from where a mouth might be. The Skiploom looked pained, but not much so. As I was coughing, I noticed a few puffs of black smoke. Looking up I saw my flame emanating a a wisp of the same. Having an idea, I tried willing it in the general direction of the Skiploom. Suddenly a roil of slightly purple smoke emanates from my flame at the plant pokemon. It then starts hacking quite a bit worse than I was, letting Kakuna finish the feral off with a few more Poison Stings. (Wait, how do I know this? I can tell I just used Smog, but I'm not sure how I know it's that move specifically, must figure this out later)

After eating some Pecha berries, we continue onward, dealing with yet more flowery clearings and flowery pokemon (luckily I figured out how to use smog at will quickly afterwards, it was great against all the grass opponents in here, as well as the Flabebe), with that Skiploom being the toughest thing we encountered. Eventually we decide to take a break to eat, (Although I wasn't that hungry, the other two were) And Glide asks "Don't you know some sort of fire move? You keep using Smog, but you seem to be a fire pokemon, Shouldn't you be doing Ember or something?"

I shrug. "I probably can do it, but I'm not sure how," I continue, "I kinda seem familiar with what moves are what, somehow, but doing my own seems to not be something I know how to do." (I don't mention the whole "think I used to be human" thing, since they don't seem to exist here, And I'm not sure if it's a good idea to bring up). I continue further with "I kinda just figured out Smog, during the Skiploom attack, and I might be able to do Astonish"

"Ah. So you've forgotten how to type channel?" Kakuna says.

"Type channel?" I tilt my head at that.

"Yeah, I took a class on it so I could keep using moves as a Kakuna and not be stuck Hardening! It's real easy, or at least starting it is. You just focus on the type, the fundamentals of it, and if you shape it right you can attack with it! Different types flow different ways, and you can do any move if you can get the type to shape itself right! Of course certain types like to pull into certain shapes, and it can be hard or impossible to do more than basic stuff if you're not the right type..." Kakuna looks like he's remembering something, but shakes himself "Anyways! Doing your own type just requires a little focus! Just try and do Smog, but with fire! It should come naturally to you!"

"Alright, I'll try" I say, and start to focus on fire. Glide and Kakuna move to the side of the clearing, And I attempt to push the thought of "fire" in a direction the same way I pushed the thought of "smog"

And then I heard a "WHOOMPH!" and was suddenly in the middle of a considerably more charred and blackened clearing. With my considerably less conscious acquaintances lying against the trees. I wonder for a moment what just happened, and then I realize: THE POLLEN! While my purple ghostly fire didn't seem to interact with it, Ember probably made considerably more mundane flames. I Must have ignited the pollen, causing a powder explosion. To test this, I tried Ember again, and a ball of perfectly normal-looking fire spat out of my flame. -Well, now what do I do?- I thought, -Both of the people traveling with me are unconscious at best, and I don't think I can make it through this dungeon on my own.- But then, two pillars of light shot from my two companions. "Uhhhh..." Glide moaned, "What hit me?"

"Sorry!" I said back. "Apparently if I try to use Ember in here, the pollen explodes!"

"Well, thank Arceus that Kecleon had a couple of the tiny Reviver Seeds then," Glide says, "Or else that would have been a lot uglier."

"Reviver Seeds?" I ask.

"They're these little seeds, that will heal any injury, even bring you back from the dead, if you're in a mystery dungeon and get defeated somehow." Glide says, helping right Kakuna.

Kakuna continues, "The Tiny ones can be found in pretty much any dungeon, if only rarely, and there are a few bigger ones that will even recover any exhaustion you have in the deeper dungeons"

"Alright," I shrug, accepting it as just another of the weird things to this world, "let's move on I guess." and so we do.

After much trudging through more flowers and explosive pollen, with me continuing to simply do Smog against everything, we hit a clearing larger than the rest. I look around, and it seems empty, with no further exit. Before I can ask about any thing, we hear buzzing laughter. I look to the source to see a Vivillion descend from the sky. Glide and Kakuna both look panicked, while I just look baffled. The Vivillion speaks, in a voice practically unintelligible through the buzz "Tehehehe... You'vvve wandered into my lair... Tehehe... I like to havvve fun with thozzze who wander in... AHAHAHA!" and then it launches a small burst of wind at Kakuna with it's pink and green wings, knocking him flying into a tree, and on his side. And then it giggled again. Glide lunges, but is intercepted with another Gust. I try a Smog, but another Gust dispersed it. The Vivillion proceeds to hit Kakuna again with A Psybeam, causing him to scream in agony. I attempt an Astonish, and it just laughs, and then suddenly the worldis reeling crazily as another Gust flings me into the air. And through a tree. And then I realize: I'm a GHOST! I can go through objects! I sneak (literally) through the trees behind the Vivillion. I shout "Boo!" for another astonish, and this time I get a reaction, with it skipping a beat in it's flutter and pausing in it's Psybeaming of Glide for a moment. I emit my own giggle as I realize this allows me a chance. I will myself to sink into the ground before it can bring a Psybeam to bear on me, then pop out again behind it. Then, I use Ember. Cue the Vivillion being caught in a very large fireball (albeit not room-sized, the Gusts having cleared out most of the pollen.) The Vivillion has become a blackened husk, with it's wings still burning merrily. Oops, I may have overdone that I think to myself, before being interrupted by the barely-conscious Glide. "Hooray! You took down the dungeon boss!" she gleefully shouts.

"Dungeon boss?" I look at her.

"Oh yeah, sometimes at the end of a dungeon you find them, they're pokemon who got lost in the dungeon for a really long time, and sorta became part of the dungeon, keeping them alive even after," She gestures at the charred Vivillion, "stuff like that happens. It keeps them in a sort of room like this, and sometimes the room will show up at the end when you go through. You can't go on until you take down the boss or it lets you through, and they tend to be nuts from the isolation and try to kill anyone they see." I look over and see that the room now has an exit, with normal vegetation on the other side.

"So it's not dead?" I ask.

Glide picks up the unconscious Kakuna. "Nope. Local legend says this boss has been here since the dungeon formed, and that she got stuck because the dungeon literally started forming around her when she was out gathering nectar in the forest."

"That's kinda sad," I look at the corpse "How long ago was that?"

"No one around here actually knows, It's been at least a few hundred years."

I wince. "I hope she gets out of here someday."

"That'll only happen if we get rid of the dungeon, and no-one knows how to do that."

I sigh, and turn to leave the dungeon.

Author's note: And that's that chapter! Next chapter we get to Galvan City and the Rescue Guild!