The two did not have long to wait. Once Mandy and K.O. arrived, they set off. Mandy and K.O. led the way off through the forest. As they went on, Dawn noticed that they got more and more cautious.
At each rest stop, Dawn would practice her sword work with Mandy or K.O. while Grovyle stood watch. When he came back, Mandy would rest while K.O. took Dawn out to practice patrolling. When Dawn worked with Grovyle, they would work on her fighting and stealth skills. Mandy also worked on her fighting skills, but also taught Dawn a few simple spells that she could easily do with the help of her sword. By the time they were in the center of the Poison tree forest, Dawn could easily dual Mandy without Mandy using weak spells or moves. When Dawn was alone though, she tried to remember who she was and what that dream had meant. She found it hard to fall asleep.
"Nothing is making any sense here, Teddy. I'm still a useless tagalong that can't remember her name, I keep having nightmares about that shadow guy, and I feel like my head is going to burst with all of these headaches I keep getting!" She complained to her teddy bear as she scouted around on her own. Stopping at her first checkpoint she noticed something odd. A glowing light seemed to be coming from the darkness, only it was dimmed, like a thin blanket was covering a flashlight. "What's this?" As she headed towards the dim light, her little headache started to get worse and worse. She kept going towards the light though as she started to clutch her head with her right hand and her bear with her left hand. She was squeezing it like a stress ball before long as she kept going farther and farther. When she reached the object that radiated the light, she nearly passed out from the migraine she was receiving. It wasn't the light itself that was hurting, but something that seemed to be pushing through her foggy mind. Suddenly she fell clutching her head as a vision came to her.
In her vision, the object she had been staring at was clearer and brighter. It was more colorful and looked like a gear. It was green and blue and it looked like it had been carved out of stone. She saw a small creature that looked like K.O. sitting with his back to the gear. The only difference between him and K.O. was that this guy had no scar on his face. He looked serious and Dawn could tell that he was the guardian of the gear, or at least a guardian that watched over the gear at the moment. Then she heard the Oshawatt say something. "There are many things that can connect to the tower, but it only takes five time gears to repair any damage done to it."
When she woke up she felt weak, as though she had done some of Mandy's powerful magic. She opened her eyes and tried to look forward, but found herself looking down at the ground and a pair of green claw like feet walking. She was being carried. She tried to move, but Grovyle had a firm grip on her. "I told you to take a nap earlier, were you not listening, or do you often pass out while on patrol?" His voice was gruff as usual, but as the group had spent time together for what felt like months at times and years at others, young Dawn seemed to influence the good nature of her team. She tried to get up but felt as though she was paralyzed. Feeling useless she just started telling Grovyle about the weird light and her vision as she used her only hand that wasn't paralyzed to check for Teddy. He was safely in her coat pocket once again. "Sounds like you've got yourself a rare ability. It's called the Dimensional Scream. It can tell you the future or past about an object. That particular one sounds like you found a time gear. Those are dangerous, but also extremely useful. Time gears could have helped to fix the world… had anyone known where to find them or known to find them for that matter."
"I could find them… and we know to look for them… we could go and get it…" She whispered as she fell back asleep.
Grovyle smirked at the idea, "Not bad kid, but first we'd have to figure out a way to go back in time…"
"I'll try… to dream … of that… next…"