PMD: Warped Skies

by Team Ion

Playing the part of the hero sounded fun at first, until he took a meaty punch to the face. Stranded in a world reminiscent of a game he once knew, a human-turned-Meowth struggles to retain his humanity while filling the shoes of the game's protagonists. However, this is not a game. Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers, SI-OC/Isekai. Cover by Bograbbit!

52. The Battle Today

Ready to GO? Action happens in this chapter! Delicious, delicious battles.

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Lucario woke with a killer headache.

"Who poured hot sauce in my eyes when I was sleeping?" she groaned, shuffling around on the straw she was on. The distant sounds of sleep reached her ears and buried into her aching brain like more nails.

She pulled herself up and found herself in a room she didn't know with a bunch of pokémon. "Okay. How much DID I drink?" she asked, squinting in the darkness.

To her relief, she recognised the forms of Team Sunrise and deduced with her galaxy-sized brain, with supernovas going off in it, that she was in their room.

Guardian didn't really know what to do with her at the late hour they were at, so they each gave up part of their bed to give Lucario something softer to sleep on than the cold, hard, ground and fell down and passed out.

It was still quite early, the sun had yet to rise, and she carefully and quietly extracted herself from the room. She may not ever get the mercy of a full night of sleep, Lucario guessed she'd slept for maybe five hours, which was longer than usual, but she didn't need to ruin their beauty sleep.

They definitely needed it.

She wandered the guild for a short time, turning left instead of right after slipping out of Team Sunrise's room and stumbling upon an empty room.

There was a brief wonder why she hadn't been dumped in this room, but she noticed signs of habitation. And cat fur.

"Ah… it's the kitties room." She left it well enough alone after going through their stuff, of course. Finding nothing interesting, she wandered out with her head still pounding. She decided she needed something to drink, not alcohol, and with no coffee beans to roast, she substituted it with the mysterious fluid in the Swap Cauldron.

"Hoo, that's got pop!" Lucario said after dunking her head in it. She considered removing the fur that had been left in it, but she had a passing idea of how objects like this worked and decided someone would be happy to get lucario fur.

Even happier if they knew which lucario that fur belonged to, but no one needed to find out.

If Croagunk wanted to sell it himself, he was free to.

She was on her way to the medical bay, aiming to bother Carapace before Chimecho could yell at her again, but was stopped by a different grumpy pokémon.

"What are you doing skulking around here at this time?" Armaldo demanded. It didn't matter that this was Lucario, she had already shown she didn't care for being praised and worshipped and treated like anyone special.

That really made him respect her a little more, but at the same time she was a complete clown and the circus that came with it, so it was hard to believe this was the Legendary Lucario at times. She was the pokémon who started the entire world, essentially.

Not literally, of course. But many of the concepts that pokémon as a whole lived by had been brought by Lucario. She had armed pokémon with the skills to adventure in dungeons and the safety of being rescued from them. It was thanks to her that he was an explorer, if just through the fact she made it possible in the first place.

Maybe by that logic, she was also the reason he had become an outlaw, but pokémon praising and blaming Lucario for things entirely unconnected to her was tiresome enough. He had enough pride to not fall into such a demeaning thing himself.

So, when he found her creeping along not as quietly as she might think he knew how to respond. Humming something under her breath wasn't conducive to stealth. He barked at her like he barked at Bidoof when he returned back to the guild at weird hours of the night.

Lucario's ears flicked up, and he noticed that they were a little larger than the norm. She turned to face him, a momentary flash of paw-in-the-cookie-jar on her face before she noticed who it was.

"Oh, Armaldo. Nice to see you," Lucario said, smoothly.

"It's extremely early," Armaldo said, voice as coarse as ever. "If you are thinking of bothering the patient at this hour, I can assure you that it is a poor choice."

"It's mine to make, though," Lucario replied. "But you can distract me for a bit if you'd like. What are you doing up at this hour?"

"The guild needs a lot of work to run," Armaldo answered. "I ensure things are ready to move once the Guildmaster and his apprentices have awoken."

"Sounds busy," she yawned.

"If you are tired, you should sleep."

She yawned again and smacked her lips. "I feel like that's a little rich coming from someone well over a century my junior."

"I need to be awake," Armaldo replied. "I hardly see why you need to be."

"Well if you must know." She rolled her eyes and cracked her neck, tassels flopping about. "Every morning, I commit to the ritual of dunking the moon and lifting the sun up to burn away all those nasty abominations."

Armaldo gave her a flat look.

"I never get the mercy of a full night of sleep," Lucario said, honestly. "I'd say four hours is about as much as I normally get and I can't be bothered just lying in a heap waiting for the sun to rise, I might as well get moving."

A flicker of something went in Armaldo's eyes. Was that concern, Lucario wondered? She snorted at him.

"That is not healthy," Armaldo said.

Lucario scoffed. "I never said it was healthy, just reality. Trust me, big bug guy this is the best I get."

"Well, that explains some of your attitudes, then," he growled.

She smirked. "Nah, that's just because I'm a bastard coated bastard with bastard filling." She stepped away from the pathway to the medical bay. "Well, I'm bored. Show me what the guild's number 2 does to start up."

"You do not want to bother Scizor now?" Armaldo said, turning around to begin walking to the mess hall.

"Cara can get some more beauty sleep. Trust me, he needs it. Forty-three years of it was hardly enough to make him halfway good-looking."

"You make a lot of callous jokes."

"I know I'll outlive basically anyone I ever grow to care about. Call it some unhealthy coping technique."

"And treating that as a joke is more of an example."

She gave him the finger guns. "Now you're catching on."

Lucario metaphorically watched over Armaldo's shoulder as he counted out the rations of the day, discarded completed and out-of-date job requests, and got his notes in order for morning address.

He didn't appreciate her biting commentary.

"And… here we find the lone armaldo," Lucario said as if she was narrating a game of golf. "Tasting the air to get a feel of the direction of the wind. What is he doing…? Ah, he's going for quite the bold risk, one singular pile of paperwork. It may be easy to lose track of important things like this, but it is also a cutting edge technique of space-saving. Will it work out or will this end in failure?"

"Must you?"

"I must."

She didn't solely watch and prattle on, however. She did help. With a broom that looked as ancient as she was, she swept the higher level. There was more debris left after yesterday, and she knew it was because of her.

Lucario was cleaning smudges off the window when her larger-than-normal ears picked up the sounds of activity down below. Tossing the rag to the side, she strutted down to the lower deck where the apprentices were up and rowdy.

They fell silent upon seeing her. "Bow," she said. A fair number of them actually did that. "For the love of-" Lucario held her nose. "You'd think I learn by this point."

The doors to Wigglytuff's chambers opened, and Armaldo and the Guildmaster came out. Armaldo frowned dangerously upon seeing the state of the guild. "Why are you all so quiet? And why are you bowing?"

He glanced to Lucario, as if this was her fault.

Well. It was. "I was joking," she insisted, crossing her arms. "Joking!"

Hesitantly some pokémon began to pull themselves up. Only Team Sunrise, Chimecho, Dugtrio and Diglett, and oddly enough Bidoof hadn't done as she asked and bowed to her.

Wigglytuff gave an amused titter, and Armaldo started morning address with a bit more eternal-contempt-for-life in his voice.

Most of everyone was given pretty intense work for the day. And as Lucario had shadowed him as he decided what to give, she knew he was harsher on them for that little incident.

The only team Armaldo didn't bark at was Team Sunrise. And it wasn't because they hadn't bowed. Armaldo grunted at Lucario, giving her some side-eye. "Are you babysitting them again today?"

"Sure am!"

"Try to not let them fail again."

"Oh, we're not going to be working today!" Lucario laughed, strolling over to the four nervous pokémon. "Well. It's going to be a workout, but you can get fucked over by another prostitute tomorrow."

Armaldo and Wigglytuff coughed violently.

"What?" Armaldo demanded.

Lucario turned with a gleam in her eye. "Oh?" she purred. "They didn't tell you?"

She felt hands grab him. "We can assure you," Guardian insisted. "That Lucario is simply wording it for fun. Krokorok merely escaped after battling us."

"Although he definitely had a thing for Striker," Saniya said. "I get it." She nodded. Striker covered his face.

Lucario gave a toothy grin at the guild's leadership and let Guardian drag her away.

"Must you?" he asked tiredly.

"I told EVERYONE at Spinda's Café," Lucario laughed. She felt the hands get tighter. "I'm sure the whole knows by now."

They nearly reached the incline, so she mentioned. "You think it'll look good for Dusknoir to be manhandling the Legendary Lucario around my… lovely fans?"

He paused and reluctantly let go of her. She rolled her arms. "You've got a firm grip," she said positively. Now. I'll see you where I see you."

She dashed for the window and went right through it.

"Should we like… pick a job and then… I dunno, leave her behind?" Sean asked.

"Do you really think she won't be able to find us?" Striker asked.

"Fair point."

With Lucario's earlier words in mind, they picked a small job from the job notice board that was fairly unimportant. Striker and Saniya wanted to fight some outlaws again, especially after yesterday, but Guardian convinced them it was best to spare themselves the shame of it.

Lucario didn't join them in town this time. It might have been because the pokémon from yesterday had grown wise. Not nearly as many pokémon were crowding the guild, most of them hanging back in town to get a glimpse of the Legendary Lucario.

It worked well enough that no one even so much as glanced at them and shopping was done in record time. Maybe also because they didn't need as much.

Just a refresh of some healing items and Striker's Orb's that had been lost to yesterday.

Leaving on the crossroads, Lucario was nowhere in sight.

"Wonder where she is?" Sean asked.

"Here," Lucario said.

He jumped, and Guardian caught him again. "Were you just waiting for me to ask that?" Sean snapped, heart pounding.

She gave him the finger guns, wink, and a click of the tongue altogether. He frowned deeply at her, and she laughed at him.

"What job did you pick today?" Lucario asked.

"Something simple," Guardian assured her. "We are simply heading into the Mt Bristle to retrieve a lost possession."

"Perfect!" She beamed. "Figured that'd be the idea today!"

"…Why?" Sean dared to ask.

Lucario smirked at them, and it was terrifying. She formed her Bone Rush Aura Blade again and twirled it around. "Well," she said as if she was gossiping over tea, "Kenji, Jessica's team, even Team Go-Getters. I always make a habit of giving you famous teams a good roughin' up just to remind you of the simple fact of the world."

That didn't sound very nice.

"I… what?"

"I am going to fight you, Team Sunrise," Lucario declared. "Cause remember! There's always a bigger fish. See you there!" She raced off, doing something someone like Scout would call Naruto Running.

"Do you wanna just… like… go back to town?" Sean asked.

"You kidding me?" Saniya said, zooming up with fire in her eyes. "We get to FIGHT Lucario? I can get revenge! AHAHAHAHAHHA!"

Thunder crashed. It was a sunny, cloudless morning.

"Besides," Striker added, smirking himself. He raised his arms, glinting with green. "She's very confident, but we are no pushovers."

Guardian nodded. "It is hardly as if we can avoid this, after all. She will simply badger us again and again." He was eager to test his might against Lucario himself.

Sean wasn't sure. He had woken up grumpy again and had a feeling of being on edge again. He felt one of his aura tassels, wondering if they were the reason. Still, three of them were in agreement, and he admitted to himself that battling Lucario WAS a tempting idea. "Alright. Let's take her down!"

Mt Bristle wasn't a far dungeon. The distant mountain could be seen from Treasure Town after all. Nor was it considered a particularly dangerous dungeon.

However, with the promise of Lucario lying in wait made the prospect of the trip a little thrilling in the nerves it caused.

They had to find Mankey's armband that had been lost at some point in the dungeon. Why he wouldn't just go and get it himself? The letter made it too clear.

I cannot fight without it. I will not live without it.

My armband is my strength. My will. My life. My- This part was scratched out.

An ode to a Muscle Band…

It was clear he wouldn't be able to get up from bed, let alone tackle a dungeon.

And finding it within an entire dungeon wasn't exactly fun.

Ultimately, Saniya broke a machop who was wearing it and tossed it aside like dirt. Raising the Muscle Band in victory.

"Calm down," Sean said.

"I have the power now," Saniya said, going to loop the item around her. Striker snatched it off her, passed it to Guardian, who got it to Sean.

He placed it securely in the Treasure Bag, and Saniya stared imperiously down at him. "You are but another Fighting-type."

"Try me."

She poked him on the nose and giggled. "Alrighty then. LUCARIO!"

"Yo?" she asked, startling Sean again.

"HOLY! Where do you even COME FROM?"

"That's a question with many possible answers." She raised her head and nodded towards a corridor. "Follow me. I've picked out our battlefield."

Team Sunrise followed dutifully in silence. There were no feral pokémon out in this direction.

Not anymore.

They stepped into a very large dungeon room which, to their surprise, the sky could be seen.

"I thought this was a cave dungeon!?" Guardian said, staring up in awed confusion. The sky, like other dungeons where the sky could be seen, was a rolling, roiling, mass of dark red and purple clouds. Close enough that Saniya felt like she could fly up and touch them, yet so far she could teleport for a million years and not be close.

The sky in dungeons wasn't nice to look at.

"Ignore that for now," Lucario said, dusting off some rather dusty paws. There was an awful lot of rubble in this room, out to the sides.

"Did you… destroy the roof?" Sean asked.

"Questions can be saved until after," she said, striding forth. Lucario walked until there was a fair amount of distance between them before stopping, straightening her back, and turning around.

"Team Sunrise," she said, voice carrying far and wide. "I cannot promise not to hurt you. This battle will go until one side gives in, or one side is just outright knocked out and can't go on. Do you understand? This isn't going to be a very fun experience for you."

Sean answered since he was their leader. "Bring it on Lucario!"

Sean's tassels rose, Striker's arms burned green, Guardian's belly mouth spilled some dark mist, and Saniya glowed with Power.

Lucario smirked and took a half step back, raising her arms and generating a simple Bone Rush. "Come on then."

And then she moved.

Team Sunrise wasn't there in Labyrinth Cave. They did not know.

And while Diglett certainly had some things to say about it, he had no idea Lucario was hardly treating Garchomp seriously.

She was fast.

One moment she was forming her glowing Bone Rush, the next moment she had cleared the meters she had put between them and was swinging it.

With one end of it, she struck Sean on the shoulder, while the other end smacked Saniya out of the air. Going further before Striker and Guardian could even react, she had swung it again, clobbering Striker in the chest and bashing Guardian in the top of his head.

In just a moment she had sent Team Sunrise each flying in a different direction, splitting them up.

"Come on now," Lucario said, grinning widely as she waited for them all to hit the ground and stop rolling. "Keep up."

Eyeing Guardian first, Lucario spun her Bone Rush in her paws a few times and gave him time to recover, walking sedately towards him as Guardian clutched at his head.

His eye focused on her and burned with baleful fire. Lucario's shadow, twisting from the light show above, turned against her and snared her legs. Guardian's eye continued to glow, and he formed a Shadow Ball.

He threw it with all his might, and it was easily defeated by her Bone Rush. The Shadow Ball wasn't the attack, however, but the distraction. Saniya came for the back of Lucario's head as she was caught by the shadows and distracted by the attack.

Yet Lucario's smirk never ceased, and she cracked her neck at the exact moment Saniya tried to strike it. Saniya's eyes widened. As a Psychic-type, she could push herself to react to things faster than a normal pokémon. But she could only watch as Lucario glanced to her and shifted her grip on the Bone Rush.

It smacked Saniya in the face and knocked her back before Lucario leapt up, twisting over Striker who tried to come at her from underground. She swung the Bone Rush and struck him in the back of the head.

"You're making it too easy for me," Lucario laughed, winking at Guardian. She rushed him, sprinting rather than stepping faster than they could keep up with. He was not agile, but he was tough.

She was only using her Bone Rush, striking in in the back, against his chest, in the joints of his arms before a bash across the side of the head knocked him down.

Guardian toppled. Then a shadow zipped from the ground to grab her leg. Lucario raised an eye as it pulled her back down, jarring her leg against the ground. Guardian, not as downed as he seemed, swung at her with a fist covered in flame.

She caught his wrist and stopped him cold.

Guardian grunted, trying to force it, and tried a Fire Punch with the other arm. She caught that one too. She squeezed, and he gasped, flames sputtering out. Lucario pulled him over her shoulder and slammed him right onto Sean, who was coming for her back.

She casually stepped back from the pile, clapping her ashy paws. "Come on. Everyone tries to fight me from behind. You think I do not immediately know what you're trying?" She gestured a 'come at me' twist of her paw. "If you want to actually have a chance, fight me from the front.

"Very well," Striker said, sliding into view. His arms glowed, and he yelled out, pumping even more Power into his Leaf Blades until they extended into sabres of green light.

"That's better," Lucario said, forming her Bone Rush again. "Entertain me."

Striker ran for her. He WAS fast, that couldn't be denied. Fast enough to even impress her a little.

Striker slashed back and forth, but she blocked them with deflective strikes from her Bone Rush. He tried to break it, his attack should slice right through the Ground-type energy of the Bone Rush, but any marks he left in it melted away into nothing. She was pumping too much Power into them, repairing the damage his attacks dealt before he could break them.

Striker put both arms together and slashed out a brutal X. Lucario met it with her Bone Rush, but it broke.

She was knocked back, lines of fur falling from her arms and chest as the X of green burned through her fur.

"Impressive," Lucario said, nodding. But her smirk only deepened. "Guess that means I shouldn't just fuck with you all, then."

She moved again. Just as fast as the first time. She didn't even form the Bone Rush this time, meeting Striker in Close Combat and using her whole body to beat him black and blue.

A chop to the neck, and blow to the joint of his arm, a kick to the leg. She grabbed him by the tail and swung him around, tossing him into the air before forming something black and spirally in her paw.

"Ever wonder what a Dark Pulse is?" Lucario asked the falling Striker, her shadow beginning to curl around her. "It's a pain. And I have a lot of it to share."

She pointed and fired a stream of curling, burning, hoops of blackness to blow him out of the air.

Or that was the idea.

Saniya teleported onto Lucario's arm and pulled it down, sending most of her Dark Pulse into the ground.

It tore the dungeon's floor up wherever it touched, sending dirt and stones flying. The initial beginning of the attack still hit Striker, and he was sent into the distant wall.

Lucario raised her knee up as Saniya pulled her arm down and clobbered Saniya in the nose with it, probably breaking something. "Not bad, Pink," she said, flash-forming a Bone Rush to strike again.

Saniya caught it was Psychic, and then caught the entirety of Lucario with Psychic.

"I…" Saniya gasped, feeling immense pressure from grabbing Lucario with everything she had. "I held Dialga down with this. I held time together with this. You will NOT breakthrough me!"

With a telekinetic burst, she pulled the groaning Sean and Guardian up and yelled. "ATTACK NOW!"

Saniya talked a big game. But she had completed such feats while still at full power. She wasn't anywhere near to the strength she channelled back then, and Lucario was an entire ocean being held back by a single dam.

A single crack and it'd overwhelm her and burst forward. "Ahh, ow-ow-OW!" Saniya's nose began to bleed from the strain of holding the ancient pokémon down, and even then Lucario was moving.

Slowly, but she was turning her head, shifting her legs, raising her arms. "Hurry!" Saniya shrieked.

Guardian and Sean came in Fire Punch and Force Palm to crash against Lucario's chest, avoiding the blunted spike.

Saniya sagged in the air as her grip was broken from the sheer smack to her captive and Lucario was knocked flying like she'd done to them at the beginning.

Guardian caught Saniya as Sean pulled a quick oran berry out to smush into her mouth.

"Oh buddies, oh pals, oh friends of mine," Saniya slurred through a mouthful of oran. "That was actually as tough as holding time together."

Sean looked back to the wall. "I'll get Striker up," he said and raced off, leaving the two of them to hold Lucario off.

She was getting up. Admittedly slowly, but surely Lucario was standing. She cracked her neck again. "I'm impressed," Lucario said, not really any worse for wear. "You four DO make a decent team. I'd rate you… probably an eight altogether. Unfortunately, however-"

She moved again and grabbed the two pokémon standing between her and Sean. "You're sevens on your own."

She slammed Saniya into Guardian's head, knocking both of them out for a minute and formed a Bone Rush. "Oh, Seaaaan~?"

Sean glanced back in horror. He skidded to a stop and desperately pulled on mimicry. She was upon him, but he blocked her strike with his own Bone Rush.

The strike shattered it, but he'd avoided damage to his actual bones.

Sean leapt between her legs before she could bash his head in, digging into the bag. She spun on him, and he flicked a seed into the air before punching it with a Force Palm.

The blast seed exploded, knocking both of them back. Sadly, Lucario was now between him and Striker who was… not there anymore.

Just a hole.

Sean resigned himself to holding Lucario off himself until Striker could reach her and copied her Bone Rush again, several times. It broke every time he blocked, but he was fast enough to form another one to continue blocking.

His arms were aching and shaking from every blow jarring his whole body and Lucario kept a shit-eating smirk on her face the whole time.

"Come on, are you even trying?" she laughed. The ground below her shifted, and he leapt for her, trying to press the advantage with a Force Palm. His sudden attack caught her off guard and Striker was able to blast out from underground without being clubbed again.

Lucario blocked Sean's hit, but Striker's scored a nasty uppercut to her stomach. Striker caught Sean as the riolu said. "Boost me!"

Sean had boosted Striker enough times that Striker was happy to repay the favour, throwing Sean at Lucario. A metal-rattling bang echoed out, and Sean and Lucario were knocked flying, Force Palm exploding them apart.

Sean landed near Guardian while Lucario did a flip and landed on her feet. Striker dove back underground and so Lucario sprinted for the hole and dropped a present in it.

A Dragon Pulse.

Something deep exploded, and a muffled cry reached their ears.

"Are you ready to give in, yet?" Lucario asked. Sean finished dropping a sitrus berry in Guardian's belly mouth, and they both rose up. "No? Good."

She began to dramatically slow-walk towards them. Striker burst out from behind her, Leaf Blades shining. She ducked underneath him and formed a Bone Rush and extended it straight up, hitting his jaw with a considerably bony blow.

She grabbed his leg before he could begin flying away and tossed him at Guardian.

Being so nice and gracious, Lucario waited for Saniya to also join them and for Sean to feed them all that good, good, healing items.

"You know, I don't use items myself," Lucario said, restarting her walk. "It's arrogance, I can assure you. I don't know Protect either, more arrogance. I haven't had a challenge in decades, even Cara I have to intentionally limit myself to have some fun. He's about equal to me in skill, which is nice, but I outclass him in Power so much it's not fun to really go all out."

She paused at about twenty meters from them. "You're doing quite well, Team Sunrise. Most pokémon go down after a couple hits from me. I tip Tyson's fedora for you. But we're approaching the point where stubbornness will get you hurt. I'm going to take you down now."

She said this so matter-of-factly that it was terrifying.

Lucario moved.

Sean tried to rush out to stop her, but he couldn't hold back a tsunami of a pokémon with his paws. She gave him a gentle thwack on the head with her Bone Rush, knocking him sprawling, and went for the others.

Saniya tried to stop her with Psychic, but she was still weakened from doing it earlier, and Lucario disabled her attempt with a single ring of Dark Pulse.

She entered Team Sunrise's space, and then it has begun.

Guardian's hands both burned with fire, and he began trading dukes with her, Lucario caught one wrist, but Striker slashed at her. The two together were a powerful team.

She took a crack at Guardian, but Striker's Leaf Blade cut right through the Bone Rush. He was burning with green, and she realised something.

Overgrow.

Aiming at Striker to take him down was thwarted as Guardian caught her limbs with spreading, solid, shadows, diverting her strikes and slowing her steps.

They danced around her, a pair of pokémon that had fought together, and each other, for years.

Guardian punched; Striker slashed. Striker kicked; Guardian restrained. Saniya joined the slobber knocker herself, impairing Lucario's sight with leaves and battering her with stones. Not just Ancient Power, but stones she ripped from the ground to smack her over the head with.

Lucario swiped at Saniya, Guardian caught her arm and squeezed with a flaming palm.

Striker slashed an X into her back, she drove materialising Bone Rush's that weren't in her paws at him, but Saniya diverted them back at her with Psychic.

Team Sunrise were powerful on their own, but they always won due to their teamwork. Even Lucario was finding it difficult to break this chain.

She formed a Dark Pulse to blast Guardian away, Striker met it with an Overgrowth-boosted Energy Ball and detonated it before it could fully form.

That, however, was what she was waiting for. The detonation hurt for sure. Her own Dark Pulse was a powerful attack indeed, but the eruption knocked everyone flying, not just herself.

Teamwork that was Team Sunrise's biggest strength and Lucario was having trouble overcoming it without doing some serious damage.

So, explosion.

Flipping in the air and onto her feet, Lucario moved back first. She punched Saniya with enough force to crash her against the wall far behind Sean and then leapt after her.

Saniya struck the wall with a cry, beginning to bounce off it. Before she could even fall off the wall, Lucario landed next to her, channelling Dark Energy through her feet. She leapt off, leaving a wave of Dark Pulse behind and blasting Saniya again when the wave enveloped her. Saniya dropped.

With the propelled force of the Dark Pulse, she literally flew. Forming the Bone Rush one more time, Lucario knocked the recovering Sean back down before reaching Striker.

She twisted and cracked it over his head. The burning energy of Overgrow flickered out. Striker dropped.

She reached Guardian, breathing a Dragon Pulse into existence, and blasted it into his belly mouth, sending a muffled explosion through the room. Guardian dropped.

Lucario exhaled softly and straightened up, turning back to the last one standing.

Sean was facing her, quivering slightly. She winked. "Now that they're out of the way." She cracked her neck again and shook her limbs to get some more blood going. "Let's actually do this."

"Wut?" Sean asked, but Lucario was on him already.

She hit his nose with the end of her Bone Rush, and he recoiled with a shout of pain. "Come on then," she said and hit him again in the same spot. "Come on. Who's a fearsome human?"

"Ah, STOP!"

She hit him again and put on a cutesy voice. "Who's a cute human? You are! You are!" She hit him again.

"Lucario!"

She hit him again.

"LUCARIO!"

She hit him again.

"ENOUGH!"

She hit him again.

Blood was beginning to drip now, and Sean stared at his paw in anger. He trembled, but not out of fear. His tassels were raising. "Stop," he growled.

She hit him again.

Sean snapped.

He attacked Lucario in a blind rage. Several Force Palms jarred her legs before she began to swipe her Bone Rush around, blocking the thundering blows.

The bone shattered from every hit, but she too could form one lightning-quick, and she deflected his Force Palms, stepping back as he tried to rampage against her.

The pain of the recoil began to creep into his wrists, and with one huge strike, he knocked Lucario flying, carving right through the Bone Rush as if it was butter.

She hit the wall, cracking her head against it, and he froze. "A-Ah," he whispered.

Lucario groaned and pulled herself up, rubbing the back of her head. "That's going to be a bump," she complained.

"Lu-Lucario, I'm-"

She stepped up to him and hit him in the nose. Again. "What was that?" she asked, that shit-eating grin back as Sean went ramrod still.

His eye twitched. She hit him in the nose, again.

Lucario wowed as Sean went wild on her again.

This continued for a while until, after calming down, she hit him in the nose and he just groaned and fell back.

"Hm," Lucario hummed, poking the downed riolu a few times. "Looks like you're done."

She stole the Treasure Bag from him, ate their apples, and then began administering oran and sitrus berries to everyone.

She didn't give them the four reviver seeds Sean had for emergencies. They were fine, just beaten, bruised, and in a couple cases, bloody.

"So," Lucario said, clapping and sitting down, "what did we learn?"

"Was there a point to this?" Guardian asked, weakly.

"Sure was! That's why I asked!"

There was silence. Lucario waited expectantly. When no answer came, she turned to Sean. "How do you feel?"

"Like death." Sean considered it for a moment. "Yeah. Death."

"I mean emotionally. Mentally. On the inside."

"Like…." Sean opened his mouth to tell her how much he disliked her now, but oddly enough that wasn't true. "Huh."

"Oh?" Lucario smirked again. That was a little annoying.

Sean frowned. "I… huh."

"What is it?" Saniya demanded. Lucario had also torn up some fabric for them to press against bleeding spots, Sean and Saniya had nosebleeds, and their voices were a little muffled.

"I was feeling really on edge today like all these days have been actually. But now… I feel okay. I feel kinda… good?" Sean frowned cutely, puzzled at this turn of events.

Lucario nodded and leaned back, satisfied. She had assembled them all into a little circle to sit down and talk about important shit. "I thought so. Nothing like some percussive maintenance."

"What did you do?" Sean asked. "I haven't felt this good in months. I mean, I still feel like a tractor ran over me, but I don't feel like shouting and crying anymore."

The others gave him a worried look, he hadn't expressed something like THAT before.

"Well, sit down, pull up a cuppa, and get ready because I'm about to teach you all some history!" Lucario proclaimed happily. They were already sitting down. There were no cups to speak of. And she wasn't going to wait for them to get ready.

"Hang on, what DID you do?" Sean pressed the point.

She gestured back and forth with her paw. "Don't worry your fluffy furry butt about it, I'll get there."

She took a breath and glanced up at the smouldering sky for a while. "Sean. Have you thought about what's different about this world compared to your own?"

Sean blinked. "Uh… yeah?"

"What?"

He blinked again. "There's pokémon, well there are pokémon where I come from but no communities or anything. Just human ones."

She cocked her head slightly. "Eeeeh, almost there. I come from a different world too. It might be the same as you might be a different one. There really aren't that many different worlds, so it's possible. But the main thing I've found between this one and other worlds is two main things."

She raised a stumpy finger. "One: No humans. Two: Can you think of it?"

Sean stared at her a little dumbly. She gave him a lot of minor gestures, flicking her eyes about until it finally dawned on him. "Mystery Dungeons!?"

Lucario beamed at him. "There you go."

She looked to the sky again, and they looked with her. "It's odd that this is the only world with dungeons. And also the only world without humans. I've been able to glance into other worlds. Seen some shit that I." She shuddered. "Did NOT want to see. But some stuff that's just curious. This world has no humans. This world has dungeons. I feel like those things are connected."

"You feel?" Guardian asked. He was probably the least injured, as he was the toughest. Still, he'd eaten several Dragon Pulse's and felt a little sick.

She shrugged. "I can't say for certain, sorry. I know a lot, stuff I'm about to share with you, but much of it is conjecture and theory."

"You think humans and dungeons are connected?" Sean asked.

She nodded. "I do. And while it may seem just like a guess to start with, I do know for sure a few important things." She leaned back. "I was brought to this world in a different way to you… how did you come over, actually?"

"I can answer that!" Saniya said, bouncing up. "My Giratina was able to contact a Giratina from another world, and that one was able to pull Sean into their Reverse World and send him along into our Reverse World and out into the Dark Future by way of thin barriers in reality! That's what Giratina said, at least."

Lucario stared at her for a moment, a small frown on her face. "Huh. Okay." She gave Sean a curious look before shaking it off. "I was brought here by Arceus."

"Truly?" Guardian and Saniya gasped.

Lucario nodded. "And they were 'kind' enough to explain a little of the shitstorm I was heading into to fix. Apparently, this world has the same beginning as the one I am from but an event about… I'd say around three thousand years ago now caused a timeline split."

Sean was also frowning now; this was tingling something in his memory.

"If you've heard of alternate universes," she added, nodding to Sean. "Forget what you think. There isn't a world where every different option came to pass. A timeline split requires something obscenely, cataclysmically, large that it literally breaks reality apart. And even then, to my knowledge, part of what Arceus DOES up in that higher dimension is pruning these splits out to not unbalance shit. I dunno, that part is just a guess from me."

"Three thousand years ago?" Sean repeated.

She nodded. "Ah. Does that sound familiar then?" He nodded. "Guess you paid attention in class. It was the firing of some superweapon by a king of Kalos that created this." Sean's eyes widened.

"AZ," he whispered. "The Ultimate Weapon. But wait?" He frowned. "That's just a myth."

"Heh, in my experience, most myths tend to have more than just a kernel of truth. So. AZ? That what they're called?" she asked. He nodded. "Neat. In one reality, in mine and what actually does seem like to be yours too, the damage was minimal. I don't know why. Maybe 'AZ' got cold feet at the last moment, or someone managed to do something just in time. Either way, it was a failure. However… maybe it took some other kind of intervention to stop?"

"You're saying that… the Ultimate Weapon did this?" Sean asked. "Destroyed humanity?"

Lucario nodded. "Right. Not all at once, I doubt. Humans are not easy to kill. I can attest to that." She had a somewhat bitter smile. "But it did enough damage that they all died out eventually. We've just got relics of them left here, like Aegis Cave, or the Circh Dungeon."

She glanced up at the sky again. "To be clear, Arceus did not tell me much. Some of that is just my connecting of dots. The last thing it told me before dumping me here was that this world was permitted to remain out of curiosity. How would a world with no humans work?"

She frowned. "That tells me that you guys have got some type of importance. I can hardly guess what. Humans evolved out from pokémon, I'm pretty sure. But I don't know what the world was like before that happened. There is no history, and I never really bothered to ask any Legendary that might know. Hard enough to find as it is, my first thought is usually to challenge them, not what was the world like a fuck-tonne of years ago."

"Well that's… enlightening," Sean said, not really sure what to do with this knowledge now. Guardian was enraptured, he loved history, but the others also were unsure.

"Why are you telling us this?" Striker asked.

Lucario shrugged. "That amount of detail? Because I like you. But it is important to the next part of this."

"There's more?" Guardian was thrilled.

"Easy there, this is less history and more specifics. But I do have an answer, and a solution, for Sean's crankiness." She turned to him. "Kenji was the same. Dimitri was the same. Jessica was the same. Happy human-turned-pokémon that slowly grew moodier and moodier."

She frowned. "Kenji's a dick and also been around the longest which explains a bit of that. Dimitri was probably around the same age as you… how old are you?"

"Uh." He was thrown by the switch back to him, again. "Around… sixteen, I think?"

"And you were how old when you came here?"

"Twelve."

"Hm." She stared at him again, eye twitching just briefly, before shrugging it off. "You and Dimitri could be explained by puberty, and Kenji is just an edgy bastard. But Jessica was an adult. A well-adjusted adult." She rubbed her lip. "With a hell of a right hook."

She looked to Sean again, eyes piercing through him. "With Kenji? He's a dick, so who cares about him being human?"

She frowned. "Dimitri becoming a little surly too, is odd, but he had to save the world. That's stressful, and people manage stress oddly after things relax."

She shook her head. "But Jessica too? Three humans-turned-pokémon. They all became moody, angry, and emotionally unstable, the longer it went on. That's three for three. And now you. Four. Four humans-turned-pokémon, each following a similar path."

She cracked her knuckles. "Odd. Isn't it?"

Sean glanced to his friends, worriedly. They all shared his concern. "Is something happening to me?" he asked.

"I don't know, to be entirely honest," Lucario said, shrugging. "I have my guesses, but they are just guesses. But. It's another thing there, isn't it? No humans. Dungeons. And humans that appear inevitably become moody. Is it just homesickness? Is it frustration at how pokémon can be? Is it the response after trauma since you only seem to appear when the world is in danger? Maybe."

"But you think it's something to do with dungeons?" Sean asked, staring her down. "Right?"

She shrugged yet again. "I can't say for sure, and I don't feel like concerning anyone over pointless guesses."

No one knew what to say.

"Look, I'm dumping enough on you without getting to the point. I don't know if this moodiness is anything besides angst, but something has proven to work for it." She waved at their surroundings. "Working out allllll your frustration in a dungeon has proven to work. Helped Dimitri. Helped Jessica. Kenji's still a contrarian, but he was always a lot nicer afterwards."

"That's why you wanted to fight us?" Sean asked. She nodded. "Oh… did you have to hit me in the nose that many times?"

"Yes," Lucario said, probably lying. "It's more than just working out, and it NEEDS to also go down in a dungeon. You need to really push yourself, work out that tension and let it just… bleed out. Maybe not literally, and it isn't like you need to do this every day. Just… think of it as your 'time of the month' heh." She winked, and Sean blushed.

She grinned at him, and he managed a small, but real, grin back. "You'll be fine, Sean. It is weird that this keeps going on with humans, but it's easily fixed. And heck, if you do some real rough training, you might not drag the others down so much!"

His grin faded to a flat look. She poked her tongue out at him.

"Alrighty then! Looking forward to the walk back to town? I sure am!"

They all groaned. They had just fought the Legendary Lucario. Walking anywhere was not on their list of priorities.

"Carry me," Saniya pleaded. Guardian, kind as he was, obliged.

"Me too." Sean reached up with grabby hands. Lucario stared at him again, almost looking unsettled. Guardian did as he was asked.

"Say… Guardian?" Striker began.

"No. If the citizens see me carrying you, they'll judge me as much as they judge you."

"Hey! You're the one being judged!"

"I overheard some pokémon referring to you as Scumiker while we were shopping today. For the first time, I am not the least respected in town."

Striker growled.

"Oh yeah," Lucario bursting out into laughter. "I spread the word of Scumiker, seems to be catching on!"

Striker gave her a very dangerous look. "Careful," she laughed. "I could tell them even more!"

He glanced away, grumbling under his breath.

They stumble back to town would take a while.

---

Team Gazer had proven to be quite the entertaining companions.

"Inquisitive: What is the value in watching this?" Beldum asked. Of everyone in the crowd, only they ended up getting splashed by Totodile at the climax of his dance.

"Thank you," Totodile said, bowing to individual pokémon. "Thank you. Thank you. Not you." He did not bow to Beldum. "Thank you." Nodded to Electrike who whistled.

"Declaration: I am offended."

Beldum got splashed again, and so they had to leave quickly. Unfortunately, Exeggutor finally left their tree, rushing down with an urgent message for Team Ion, but they had already left.

The plus of walking their way back meant that activities that Team Ion hadn't been able to enjoy before, due to their haste of finding Pyroar, were now ready for them.

There was no rush at all to get back to Treasure Town, after all, so the seven of them took their time enjoying the towns and villages they passed through. Ara had Scout tie a rock to Rai's tail and instructed him to build up muscle in the fifth appendage.

In Rivers Bank, the seven of them joined a local competition. The rules were simple. The first team to catch Cutiefly won. And Cutiefly was to be treated gently. Those were the only rules.

Obviously, attacking everyone else was the immediate choice.

With three pokémon to a team, Ara could not join Ion or Gazer and decided to work entirely on her own, putting her nose up at any other team.

Rivers Bank was a very small town, so there wasn't a whole lot to break, which was lucky when Graveler decided to explode and took out three different teams. All to give his partners a better chance.

Cutiefly, unlike the others, was beholden to absolutely zero rules and he had a very good time of turning everyone against everyone. With a wink and attract, he destroyed the teamwork of four separate teams.

One may wonder why he would subject himself to so many pokémon trying to capture him. No one but the officiators of the competition knew that it was Cutiefly's idea in the first place and he revelled in the chaos.

But it was also the culture of the little town and brought in plenty of pokémon for this twisted fairy's game.

Ultimately, Cutiefly fled into a dungeon and with Team Gazer butting heads with Team Ion, neither of them were able to enter in time before a team consisting of a fennekin, vulpix, and espeon got in ahead of them.

Ara also pursued.

It was the first team who won, with Ara wandering out an hour later all confused. "I swear they navigated that dungeon better than I've ever seen," Ara said, staring after the winning trio in something resembling actual respect. "Hit me with a combination attack too. Ouch."

After continuing on, and Scout nearly falling into the Thousand Falls, he swore that someone tried to push him in, Team Gazer challenged them to their own little competition.

With both of them still licking their wounds after the slobber knocker in Rivers Bank, they put off the battle for now and instead moved towards an old dungeon in the area. By this point, Rai could hold his tail up even with the rock. So, Ara had a bigger one tied to it.

"Moss Cavern has got a lot of dead ends," Beheeyem warned. "Collapsed dead ends. The dungeon feels like it's going to fall on your head at any time… perfect for us!"

"Sure," Scout said, unsure.

"There's this really fun treasure at the end too!" Electrike said, hopping around excitedly. "We got it once, but someone else got it too! It's a Joy Seed!"

"Declaration: It appears this dungeon regenerates its treasure." Which was fair enough, being that items appeared scattered through dungeons all the time.

"And how do you want to do this?" Ara asked, behind them as always but never too far. "You can't go in at the same time, or you'll be regarded as a team of six. The dungeon won't like that."

"Yeah I don't really want to see what it'll do," Rai shivered, thinking of his first venture through the Hidden Land.

"You can go in first," Beheeyem said. "Just to be fair as we have done this dungeon before."

"So. I'll wait at the entrance and whoever comes out first, WITH the Joy Seed, is the winner?" Ara surmised. She got assent to those stipulations.

"You don't already have a Joy Seed, do you?" Scout asked, eyes narrowed.

"…Not at all."

Ara held her paw out, and Beheeyem grumbled and handed it over.

Scout shook his head. Not even surprised Beheeyem hadn't even attempted to lie, he had noticed it when he first came, and it was same now. Pokémon weren't natural liars.

"We should hand ours over too," Rai said, very helpfully.

Scout, straight-faced, handed it over without hesitation. Mane gave Rai a side-eyed look and Scout a small smirk, Scout shrugged in an oh well fashion.

With the cheating stymied at the source, they were ready. Beldum kept count, as no one would be better at ensuring a fair amount of time had passed then them, and once the fifth minute was reached, they headed in as well.

It was an old dungeon with many frustrating dead ends and a lot of Rock-type and Grass-type pokémon. Besides some nasty geodude and an encounter with a vileplume that poisoned Scout, there weren't many issues for Team Ion besides geography.

It moving on them and attacking, many rocks being geodude, was somewhat irksome.

The head start did give them the edge over Team Gazer, however, and Team Ion claimed the Joy Seed first, exiting the dungeon all fluffy and pleased with themselves.

Rai chatted with Ara, and Scout and Mane also took some time to themselves while waiting for the other team.

"I think we should just go," Mane said, only joking a little. "It'd be hilarious to see Beheeyem's face though."

"I wonder what Beldum would say," Scout giggled. "Declaration: You are rude pokémon."

"Declaration: You are also unobservant."

Scout jumped immediately upon Beldum's unamused voice reached him. Mane did not, having seen them coming. Scout levelled him with a betrayed look, so Mane licked him on the nose to fluster him.

"So," Ara said, walking over with Rai. "Team Ion exited first with the Joy Seed."

"Yes," Beheeyem grumbled. "We gathered that."

Electrike didn't accept this. "We demand a rematch!" he declared, stomping a foot and sparking.

"We do?" Beheeyem whispered.

"I thought that's what you were going to do," Electrike hissed back, trying and failing to be quiet.

"No…" Beheeyem groaned.

"Statement: That will not be necessary," Beldum rescued them. "A race with a handicap on us proves nothing. There is only one competition that will prove the true superior of us."

"Saving the world?" Rai asked, innocently cute. His sass was not appreciated, and he gave a subtle wink to Scout and Mane.

"No," Beheeyem scoffed. "Cobalt has the right idea. We still have not had our battle!"

"Name a time and a place," Mane said, striding up and walking past Team Gazer, rubbing his tail against Beheeyem as he did so. "We'll take you on any time."

"Right here! Right now!" Electrike said, but Beheeyem hushed him.

"We all must be at peak condition, no exhaustion or dalliance that anyone can use to claim a handicap. No, we'll battle tomorrow morning after everyone has rested."

"If that's what you want," Rai said, nodding. He looked to Scout. "What do you think?"

"I think," Scout said, stepping over to Rai and Mane himself, "you're on. We won thanks to Corphish before, but we're all stronger now and have Mane." He turned to grin at Team Gazer, gone was the nervous meowth that couldn't battle that they had met as, a time that felt so long ago now. "Tomorrow morning then."

It was agreed.

"There's one thing that will make this a true test of skill," Ara said, the next morning as they were gearing up to fight. She turned to Scout. "Drop the bag."

He blinked at her, and she nodded at Beheeyem too. "That one too. Drop the scarves. Drop. EVERYTHING. If you really want to prove who's the strongest here, you're going to be playing entirely on equal playing fields. No items."

She was met with a bit of protest.

"Half my role is managing items!"

"Without seeds and berries, someone could be seriously hurt."

"I want to eat oran berry's!"

"Sis is right." Rai quietened the argument, nodding to Ara and then glancing to Scout. "Could you take this off?" he asked, holding his neck out and presenting his scarf.

Scout nodded and began to untangle them, removing his Joy Ribbon and even the Silver Bow from Mane. He enjoyed feeling the Silver Bow again, it left certain tingles on his paw pads.

Team Gazer also relinquished their items, leaving everything for Ara to protect and absolutely not pilfer through for the best items.

"I'll keep a watch on the battle," she said, taking the role of officiator. "I'll decide if someone ought to be taken out of the fight since this is a friendly battle we don't want anyone actually hurt. Prove whichever team is the superior one and finally stop with the tension. Okay? Okay."

It was a nice clearing they picked for their fight. Nice now, it was going to be torn up a little. Team Ion took the side to the right of Ara, Team Gazer taking the left. With a bubbling stream not too far away and trees crowning this area as a lovely glade, it was time to sing the song of pokémon.

"Rai," Ara said, catching his eye. She twitched her tail a few times and winked, he smiled back and nodded before composing his face in a battle-ready stern stare.

"Okay… both teams ready?" Ara called. She received determined nods from every participant, besides Beldum as nodding required their entire body to headbutt the air.

"Have fun you six. FIGHT!"

Muscles had been tensed, claws were twitching, eyes were narrowed, and noses were twitching.

With Ara's call, they battle begun in an immediate blaze of elemental activity. Electrike and Rai both lit up with electricity and tried to snipe another, Beheeyem was Rai's target while Electrike was aiming for Mane.

Both arcs of electricity clashed in mid-air as the Electric-type's battled for dominance.

Mane has breathed a storm of Ember's right at Beldum as Scout dashed ahead, a great deal faster than what he had shown way back when. He was also aiming for Beheeyem, remembering what the Psychic-type did the last time they fought.

Beldum intervened, however, and Scout's claws, melding with darkness, clanged against Beldum's metallic body. Unlike the last time, however, this was no mere Scratch attack but a super-effective Night Slash, sending a blade of darkness through Beldum and affecting them a great deal more than they were expecting.

Still, Beldum taking a double hit from Scout and Mane gave Beheeyem the time to channel his Power and throw out a grand, shimmering, cage of bizarre energy, twisting their agility and speed against them.

"Curses," Scout blurted as Beldum suddenly spun on him like a spinning top and crashed their body against his chest. It was awfully familiar, and he didn't much appreciate the super-quick Take Down.

Scout went flying, and Mane tried to run up but found his legs weren't obeying like normal, it felt like he was trying to run through water and Beldum turned on him as well.

Mane's mouth lit up with flames as Beldum rocketed at him. He received a cracking head strike from Beldum, but detonated his Fire Blast at point-blank range, blasting Beldum back as well as a drop of blood fell from his temple.

Rai and Electrike's beam struggle broke when an explosion sent Beldum through it, and Rai charged Electrike. They were of similar speed and contesting each other prevented the bizarre effects of the Trick Room from affecting either of them.

Rai tackled Electrike and knocked their heads together, scuffling on the grass but neither trying to shock the other.

Beheeyem, torn between Rai and Mane elected to assist Electrike and charged Rai. Adding him into the mix affected the matchup. Rai wasn't slowed, but Beheeyem was ridiculously faster.

He snatched Rai off Electrike and tossed him into the air, sending a telekinetic blast up at him. Rai matched it with a Thunderbolt, but Electrike took advantage of that and jumped into the discharge, powering himself up and lancing Rai out the sky with a follow-up Thunderbolt.

The two members of Team Gazer shared a confident nod before a blast of Embers forced them apart. Beldum, however, came charging back, charred and hurting but still very much in this. Mane let himself fall to the ground to avoid the blow, no number of slow limbs stopped the pull of gravity, and he could fall at the same speed.

Right into Scout's range.

He had bit his lip when Beldum smacked against him and had used that blood to form a handy Shadow Ball, driving it paws-first into Beldum's eye.

Mane rolled around the other way and yelled. "Watch out!"

He prepared a Fire Blast but Beheeyem snatched him up from afar with his Psychic, throttling him in the air and pulling his mouth away from Beldum who was shaking it off.

Electrike took another Thunderbolt for Beheeyem from Rai and Rai growled. "I can't get around his ability," he snarled. Rai was a famously good shot with his electric attacks, having them diverted was frustrating.

Scout raised his Night Slash's and took another bone-bending Take Down but slashed through Beldum again.

"Demand: How are you still conscious?" Beldum said, voice afflicting a measure of frustration unusual to their normal flat tone.

"I'm just getting started," Scout said, rubbing his mouth. His eyes burned into Beldum's single eye and his koban seemed to reflect an unusual amount of light for a moment.

Beldum was unaffected by the attempt at dominating their mind but then was hit by a barrage of embers. Scout followed him and blasted him yet again with a Shadow Ball, knocking Beldum up. It hadn't put them to sleep, but his Hypnosis had still slowed them down enough.

"Cobalt!" Beheeyem yelled, speaking their name for the second time today. He raised his hands to direct his focus and telekinetically pulled Beldum back, out of the way of Rai's Thunderbolt.

"Dammit!" Rai yelled, growing more frustrated with his misses. Electrike spun around and shook his rump at Rai to taunt him further.

"Volt!" Beheeyem yelled sharply. With Beldum out of his range, Scout had launched himself forward at max speed, jumping into a pouncing leap right before reaching Mane's part, clearing the disabling effects of Trick Room.

Beheeyem tried to catch Scout off reflex. Your regular meowth was a Normal-type after all. He knew it was different for Scout, but instincts won over reason even for a Psychic-type.

Scout's Night Slash crippled his leg and snapped his natural floating ability, and he hit the ground.

Mane bellowed out a bombarding yell, knocking Volt off his feet and giving Rai a clear shot to unleash a Thunderbolt on the entirety of Team Gazer.

Scout was collateral damage, but that was expected at this point. Rai knew and trusted Scout's toughness by now.

Fighting through the pain of being zapped, Scout formed another Shadow Ball on Thoughtlight and knocked him flying, towards Rai and Mane. They hit him together, mutual Quick Attack right into Thoughtlight's belly.

Thoughtlight flew out of the Trick Room and crashed through the branches of several trees. Ara trotted over to where he fell as the remaining members of Team Gazer pulled themselves together.

The Trick Room was quivering at this point, and Cobalt knew they didn't have much time before it failed entirely. "Directive: Cover me," they said and flew for Rai, the only one not particularly winded at this point.

Rai took a heavy load of steel right to his chest and was knocked out of the Trick Room as well. Scout and Mane prepared their super-effective attacks on them, but Volt was able to zap them both and send them twitching to the ground.

"Looks like Beheeyem is still in this," Ara determined, as Thoughtlight was not going down so easily. He was slow out of the Trick Room and could see it beginning to collapse, he began to build the Power to reinstate it, but Rai came running around the edge of it to meet him.

Rai was the closest thing to an official leader of Team Ion; it was only right he takes on the leader of Team Gazer mon-a-mon.

Thoughtlight dropped his concentration for Trick Room and instead focused everything on stopping Rai in his tracks, snaring him with as powerful of a Psychic he could do without actually trying to break bones.

Rai felt the air in his lungs get forced out when his whole body clamped down in mid-air, and he wheezed a breath back in, physically struggling against the weight of the Psychic might crushing every part of him.

He yelled out and sparked with electricity, but Thoughtlight would not let go even as lightning arced down his arms.

His fingers were constantly flashing from the will he needed to restrain Rai and he dearly hoped Volt or Cobalt would notice and aid him soon. Team Gazer fought best as a team, after all.

Rai's mouth went entirely black, and his fangs burned with Dark Energy, and he bit through the Psychic with Bite. Thoughtlight gasped sharply as suddenly Dark Energy began warring with his Psychic control and his arms shook as Rai writhed in the air, snapping at invisible strings.

His back paws touched the ground, and his claws extended, digging into the grass as his tail also flexed before slamming straight down, glinting metallic for a second.

Ara watched with a proud smile.

Rai rooted himself in the ground and tugged until Thoughtlight's control snapped, breaking out of the Psychic on his own.

Thoughtlight groaned out and sagged briefly, it took an unfair amount of focus to hold someone down and breaking it gave him a splitting headache.

Rai gave him other pains to worry about as he slammed into his stomach, after charging himself with electricity. The makeshift Spark dazed Thoughtlight and Rai finished him off with a crack of thunder.

Scout and Mane were handling their fight as a team. The Trick Room had begun to fail entirely, robbing Cobalt of their crushing speed. Their Take Down still hurt, but Scout was agile enough to avoid him and keep him away from Mane, giving Mane the space to fight Volt from afar.

Ember's crashed with Thunderbolt's in the air, sending static electricity and burning flames everywhere. Mane couldn't quite charge in as electricity hurt from any distance and Volt was just as fast and slightly more agile than him.

Scout's claws raked lines in Cobalt's metal body many times, but he lacked the oomph to really take the beldum out. His only option was to build a Shadow Ball, but Cobalt was aggressive enough to prevent him from getting the time needed to really build one.

Both duos were at a stalemate until Scout glanced to Mane and made a decision. "Hey!" Scout yelled, slashing Cobalt away. "Switch!"

He ran to block Volt's Thunderbolt with twin Night Slash's, giving Mane the time to breathe and turn on the charging Cobalt.

Scout was still zapped as blocking lighting with things attached to him didn't work like it did in the anime's he thought he watched, but his steps were undeterred, walking through the lightning to an increasingly-distressed Volt.

"What even are you?" Volt yelled over the sounds of his discharge petering out.

"Unfairly durable for a skinny little meowth," Scout answered before pouncing.

Mane blasted Cobalt out of the air with a Fire Blast and then did a second time just for good measure.

Cobalt's eye was blinking different colours, not unlike Thoughtlight's fingers, in distress. "Alarm. Alarm. Alarm." They repeated, not saying anything more.

Scout crashed against Volt and took another shock for his troubles but pinned the electrike and his eyes burned into him as well. Volt felt a lot different to the steely wall that Cobalt had presented, but no less tricky, being a sparking channel of activity.

Scout would never claim to be a master of Hypnosis, but it did the job well enough to daze Volt with some extended use, and he pulled himself off him, staggering back. Volt was blinking dumbly and trying to remember what foot he used to walk with as Scout called upon the Shadow Ball he couldn't manage against Cobalt.

Right as Volt began to spark, Scout unleashed it on HIS face for a change.

Volt dropped.

Mane stepped back from the blinking Cobalt, deciding that he'd gone far enough. Ara trotted over as the beldum tried to rise up and tackle again.

"Defiant Challenge: I am not yet finished. Face me, coward, or feel my wrath!"

Mane turned on them. "You asked for it."

Ara wisely stepped back and let Mane blast Cobalt again, coughing out smoke after he did so. He was tapped, and so was Cobalt. They were still blinking, trying to rise up, but Ara put a paw on them. "Enough," she said, forcing them back down. "You've lost. Accept it."

Cobalt beeped something angry at her, but it was no word she could understand.

Scout stumbled over to their bags and began divvying up restorative items to everyone. Beldum was able to eat through the second hole in their head and did so in absolute silence.

Flush with victory, Mane trotted around the defeated Team Gazer only a little dickishly. "Looks like we won," he said, highly pleased. "This is like… the last right of passage. Dreadful opening exploration, Beach Cave/Amp Plains? Check. Handsome kitty? Check. Beat Team Gazer? Check."

"Yeah, laugh it up now," Electrike warned. "We'll win next time!"

"Indubitably." Beheeyem nodded. "A victory for Team Ion, today perhaps, but there is always tomorrow."

"You can't be thinking of fighting us again, tomorrow?" Rai groaned.

Beheeyem and Electrike glanced to Beldum, but they didn't do the Team Gazer norm and add their own two-poké in as well.

"Beldum?" Beheeyem asked, rubbing a bruise on his stomach. "Are you okay?"

"Statement: I am not in any mortal peril."

"That's… not really what I asked."

"I am fine," Beldum said, giving no preface to their words beforehand. Their eye swivelled to Beheeyem before swivelling away. "Annoyance: Your mothering only further cements you as the parental figure of Team Gazer."

Beldum's attempt to bait Beheeyem didn't work, for once, and only incited more concern.

"You okay, Co?" Electrike asked.

"Statement: Beheeyem already asked that."

Team Ion, and Ara, watched this exchange in silence. Ara started snacking on an oran berry herself. She rubbed her tail on Rai's, giving it metallic glints now and then.

"Well, I'm asking now!" Electrike exclaimed.

"Frustrated Retort: Stop asking."

"Cobalt," Beheeyem said, worried.

"Fine!" Beldum yelled. "Emotional Tirade: It's my fault. It's always my fault. My uselessly limited movepool that began to wane your battle prowess and interfere with Volt's speed by focusing on Trick Room. Extrapolative Analysis: We are slow in dungeons, hardly the great explorers we set out to be, and time and time again has shown only I am the issue."

"Cobalt that's hardly your fault," Thoughtlight said, after taking a stunned moment. He had never heard so much from his friend. "When you evolve, everything will sort itself out."

"Demand: And when will that be?" Cobalt asked, an edge of emotion still in their voice. Their eye swivelled towards the ground, downcast. "Miserable Statement: It has been years and years and nothing. No victory hard-won or not, no amount of fighting and training. No hope with Luminous Spring. Nothing."

That caught Scout's attention. "Hey, uh… not to interrupt," he said, interrupting. Team Gazer all looked up with the realisation they had shown some drama outside of their team. Rai and Scout looked a little uncomfortable, Mane was just zoned out.

Ara continued to munch on food, taking an apple out of Team Ion's Treasure Bag.

Beheeyem rubbed his face, he was aching all over, and this was only reminding him of it. "My apologies," he said.

"No, don't… I was just wondering about Luminous Spring?" he asked, glancing to Rai. "I don't think I ever actually asked about it. For… reasons, but that's a real place?"

Rai nodded. "You know of it then?"

"Do pokémon go there to evolve?"

"That's correct," Beheeyem said, answering in Rai's stead. "Although several years ago the spring simply… went dark. No pokémon has been able to evolve. We first came to the Grass Continent in search of a place for Beldum to evolve, as Luminous Cave on the Air Continent also went dark."

"And pokémon cannot evolve other ways?" Scout asked, highly puzzled. "I could have sworn I've seen dungeon pokémon evolve, and plenty of already-evolved pokémon are in them. They can't ALL be pokémon initially trapped there, right?"

"No," Thoughtlight said, a little puzzled in kind as to why Scout didn't know this. "Natural evolution remains a path, but no one knows what triggers it. Pokémon need to achieve some condition to naturally evolve, for some pokémon that condition has been determined. A specific item, or area, or even state of mind or time. Most others, however, live their lives not knowing when, or if."

Thoughtlight sighed. "However, areas such as Luminous Spring are known to work on request rather than asinine, unknown, conditions. The loss of these places, however, has left pokémon like Beldum frustrated, their species is known to be an exceptionally difficult pokémon to naturally evolve, and no other way has been figured out."

"We always were adventures and treasure hunters!" Volt piped up. "And the Grass Continent has lots of mysteries, but we did initially sort of come here for Beldum."

Beldum's eye swivelled again. They knew this, of course, it was no secret. Still, frustration emanated from them continuously.

Scout wet his lips, recalling what he knew that others didn't. "I think… if I remember right," he stressed the word and Rai and Mane's ears flicked. "Luminous Spring… and I suppose Luminous Cave were affected by time going to shit, that WAS happening years in advance after all. With time fixed, maybe the spring is active again?"

Silence dominated the clearing.

"Are you… how would you… no, you would, wouldn't you?"

Scout nodded, fairly sure. He recalled it wouldn't work for him or Rai. Or perhaps it'd just be him and Mane, Rai never travelled through time after all.

"Isn't Mystifying Forest close by?" Mane asked, raising a paw.

"I mean… yeah, it is," Ara confirmed. "How… interesting that this would come up now," she added, giving Scout a lingering look.

Scout was genuinely clueless as to this but played it off coolly. "Well, I mean, it's worth a shot, right?" he asked, glancing around to everyone.

Team Gazer took a moment to huddle together and discuss backup plans in case of this being an insidious trap and if such a venture would be worth it.

It was quickly decided, however, that they would indeed give this a shot.

"Well," Ara said, getting to her feet and stretching out. "As the one with the map, I'll lead us."

"Hang on," Scout said, "the six of us just had a battle."

"And?" Ara asked.

"We need some time to recuperate," Beheeyem said.

"Nonsense. Pain is just weakness leaving the body!" She zapped Scout to prove it.

"Argh," Scout yelped, jumping up and dropping back down.

"See?"

Five pokémon all glanced to Scout on the ground, who's foot was twitching slightly.

"Oh please, Rai's shocked you harder than that. I know. He's told me." She said this in a very strange way and gave Scout a whole new look of danger before shaking her mane and pointing them forwards. "Get up and get going. If you can walk, you can walk. And if you don't think you can, I'll make sure you can't."

The threat kicked them into gear and taskmaster Ara was followed with some space between her and the rest of them.

"Your sister is mean," Electrike whispered.

"I heard that."

He eeped and ducked back behind Beheeyem. "Protect me, daddy!"

Beheeyem groaned and felt that old headache come back. "How much will it cost for you to just electrocute him anyway?" he called.

"Electrocute means 'to death' you know?" Ara replied.

"Yes. I know."

"Heh."

Mystifying Forest would still take a couple days to reach. Team Ion, having gone mostly north from Treasure Town in pursuit of Pyroar, had passed the forest by a considerable margin. From where they had battled Team Gazer, however, the forest was due slightly northeast from their location. They had neared the ocean before diverting towards Mystifying Forest.

It felt right for Scout to be heading there. It was the location of the graduate exam that was the expected test, and he did want to visit the spring if just to confirm it was active again and let the pokémon know they could evolve there again.

With Pyroar defeated and no known reason for them to dawdle, they happily made their way to Mystifying Forest, recovering from their fight over the next two days with some healthy snacking.

Team Gazer just could not let the competitive edge go, and when they arrived, a new challenge was writ.

"Whoever gets to the end first wins!" Electrike said.

"And we'll be entering first, this time," Beheeyem added.

"You've already been here," Mane pointed out.

"And you'll have a fourth member," Beheeyem retorted, gesturing to Ara.

"I'm bored now, can we just go in."

"Declaration: Eat our dust." And Team Gazer rushed in.

"Do you think we should just let them win?" Scout asked.

"Never!" Rai yelled. "We will destroy them every single time!"

"I think Rai's going crazy," Mane whispered loudly to Scout.

"Seems so," Scout whispered loudly back.

Rai pounced on Scout. "Hey! He said it first!"

"And you are so much easier to pin," Rai replied and licked Scout's nose, flustering him.

"Please get off him," Ara said, painfully flatly. Rai blushed and did as he was asked. Ara needed to take a moment to not kill someone. "Let's get through Mystifying Forest without being weird. You." She flicked her tail at Mane. "You're going to lead; this is a heavy Grass-type dungeon. You." She poked her tail at Scout. "Are going to be separated from my brother."

"Does that mean I get to be with Rai today?" Mane teased.

She crackled with electricity. "No. Lead. From the front."

Mane rolled his eyes and bumped Scout. "Well, you heard the taskmaster. Let's play nice."

They entered after a few more minutes of waiting. Ara positioned herself in the middle with Rai at the very back, separating him from the other two.

She wasn't in the mood for inside jokes and flirting slowing them down. For once, Rai was in agreement as he wanted to beat Team Gazer as well.

With the group somewhat split into two, it was a pair of duos who took on the feral pokémon. Scout and Mane used fire and claws to ward off any foolish oddish or ninetales that sought to destroy them.

Ara and Rai, on the other hand, combined their electricity to show any pokémon seeking to mess with them that electricity hurts and that it was hardly worth it.

As they went, she also continued showing Rai tail tricks. He had graduated from wearing a rock on his tail to carrying one, the star-end curled around a rock. He dropped it fairly often when he was distracted, however.

Still, it was helping as she teaching him something.

"Okay!" Ara called an hour into the dungeon. "You. Litleo. Swap with me."

Mane glanced back, surprised. Rai had taken a few hits from an exeggutor's Barrage, but he insisted he was fine. Guarding Rai with fire was more important than her ease of mind, and she pushed him back and began leading herself.

Scout was not allowed to join them and had to awkwardly keep up with Ara. She moved quickly, almost like she wanted to get away from him, so he had to run to keep up.

"You don't… like us very much, do you?" Scout asked after a few minutes of this. He had hit an exeggutor with Shadow Ball, so he hoped that was enough clout to start resolving this.

"No," Ara said, without any hesitation or restraint.

She didn't say anything more Scout could use to respond to, so he ended up falling silent again.

It was Ara, in the end, who scoffed out a breath and began talking again. "I would like to say, for Raigeki's sake, that it's nothing personal. That I'm just overly protective of the only family member I have left, but that'd just be a lie to make us both feel better."

She gave him a side-eyed look. It wasn't exactly a glare but certainly wasn't friendly. "I'm not exactly the best sibling, leaving him to fend for himself for these last few years hardly gives me the right to dictate what he wants to do. But the fact still remains that I don't think you're good enough for him."

Scout managed a nod. "I… well, fair enough, I suppose. It's Rai's decision, though."

"It is, yes," Ara replied. "But also yours, and I'm not blind to the fact that you don't share the same kind of intimacy with those two like they share with each other. I don't know what's going on in your head, but to me, it looks like you're stringing Rai along."

"That's not it at all!" Scout protested.

"Then what is it?" Ara demanded.

Scout paused, considered his words, before deciding that anything that wasn't entirely the truth would just anger her more. He no longer lied like he used to.

"Part of me still thinks I'm human," Scout said. "I know I'm not, but logic doesn't change it. And humans don't… with other… species."

Ara considered him for a moment, not speaking though.

"It's not that I don't like them," Scout continued. "It's just difficult to work through it all. I am trying, though. Didn't he tell you about the touch therapy idea?"

"He did," Ara replied, nodding. "And is it working?"

No one had asked him that yet.

Scout nodded. "Yes, it is."

"Maybe you should let them know that," Ara said. He nodded to her, and she nodded back. "Alright, enough talking. Let's hurry up."

Thankfully the tension between them eased a bit, and Team Ion reached the end of the dungeon.

"Careful," Scout said as they left the winding pathways and the sky above could be seen again, a much nicer colour than what lurked through the thick leaves that covered the sky in the dungeon. "There might be a pitfall up ahead."

There was, in fact, a large hole in the ground. Not covered up, however. They easily avoided it and made the last few steps, entering Luminous Spring.

Three pokémon panted for breath in front of them.

"We…" Beheeyem huffed, gasping for breath. "Win."

"Victory…" Electrike wheezed, laying on his side.

"Glorious Declaration: Victory for Team Gazer!"

"Victory for Team Gazer!" the other two chorused before falling into a coughing fit.

Rai sighed, sparked a little, but congratulated them all the same. "Damn. Good job though, we both had a few good advantages here, but you won fair and square."

"Yes," Beheeyem managed.

"Declaration: Let us all recount our team motto. All of us."

"I don't think so," Ara said.

Beheeyem and Electrike got up. "I am Thoughtlight of Team Gazer!" he began. "These are my compatriots, Volt and Cobalt! We seek to uncover the past!" He paused and glared at Team Ion. "Do it."

"We seek to uncover the past?" Scout said, uncertainly.

"Explore the future!" Volt yelled.

"Explore the future." Rai acquiesced.

"Declaration: And protect the present!"

"I'm not saying it," Mane said. Team Gazer looked to Ara in unison.

She shocked them for absolutely no reason.

"We're actually here for something other than ego," she reminded them.

"I don't remember that," Electrike said. "Isn't this so we can be lauded as the ones who brought back evolution?"

"Technically, that was us," Scout pointed out, giving a wave.

"Technicalities," Beheeyem said, brushing that off.

"They're in a mood, aren't they?" Mane whispered to Rai, who nodded back.

"Let's take a look," Scout said, stepping himself forwards. He liked to give good news for once, so he really hoped that he wasn't going to crush Cobalt's hopes and dreams.

The path to Luminous Spring from the exit of the dungeon wasn't long, and soon the smell of moss, the soft sounds of water, and a widening landscape heralded their entrance.

Luminous Spring was a simple pond. Rocks that worked all the way down into the water dotted the edges far away, and the water was a mixture of blues and greens, flowing together in a dance of natural colours.

There was no stunning light shining down on it, however, and Scout knew that was an important part.

"This is what it was like before," Beheeyem said, quietly. "There's supposed to be a light here."

Beldum floated in silence, and it was Scout who walked forwards first. He eased himself into the water and began to swim out.

"Wait, can you swim!?" Electrike asked in a surge of panic.

"He can," Rai insisted, and Scout proved his bucking of the cats-vs-water trend by paddling out like a dog.

The water was cold, he didn't like that. And it didn't move much either, leaving a layer of grossness on the top, staining his fur a murky green. He kept his mouth tightly closed and breathed out hard with his nose to stop any water going up there.

"Okay?" Scout yelled. "If there is something supposed to happen, I'd really like to not look like Saniya and look foolish."

He waited, everyone waited, something flickered in the distance and then it was like the world blinked something out of its eye. Light began to beam down from above, cascading onto Scout and lighting him up like an angel.

"Those that seek awakening," a disembodied voice spoke, coming from every direction at once. It was soft, gentle, and very kind. "The resumption of time has brought light here again. If you seek evolution… come forth."

At the shore, the assembled pokémon all began talking at once.

"Oh, wow!"

"It's really back?"

"D-Declaration?"

"Scout come back!"

"Wait does he want to evolve, though?"

Scout, for his part, was not interested. "Seeker of awakening?" the voice called regardless. "Do you seek this path?"

"No!" Scout called sharply, beginning to paddle back. "I just came out to make sure the spring was going to work."

The light flickered once as he swam back before the voice spoke again. "Curious," it said. None of the listeners could determine if the speaker was male or female. "It seems that evolution is barred to you for reasons beyond the norm."

"Yeah," Scout said, reaching shallower water. "Because of travelling through time, right?"

"… There is an influence of the distortion of space, yes. Why that should be… time travel, you say? Yes, that would do if the time you travelled to no longer exists… ah yes, that makes sense."

Scout reached the shore and crawled out, shaking himself off like a dog and spraying everyone else. "S-sorry," he said when he got many unfriendly looks.

"It is not just you," the voice continued, Mane frowned. "This distortion is greater than one. The litleo and the shinx, they too are barred from evolution."

"Wait?" Scout said as Rai and Ara recoiled. "Rai never time travelled. Why would HE be barred?"

"I do not know," the voice answered. "Yet the same distortion lurks around him. I have no answers to give, I am merely a vessel for enlightenment. If none are here to welcome evolution, then I shall go."

"Wait!" Beheeyem called, stretching their hand out to the light. "We do have someone here who wants to evolve." He turned to Beldum, who had been awfully silent through all of this.

Beldum's eye swivelled between their partners before floating forth. "Seeker of awakening, this is Luminous Spring. Do you seek to evolve?"

"Declaration: Yes."

"You do not anything more to evolve. Seeker of awakening, once this action has begun, there is no changing. Are you sure?"

"Resolution: I am."

"Very well. Seeker, we shall begin."

The light grew blindingly bright, and everyone had to avert their gaze. The light of Luminous Spring erupted further than just the clearing, it beamed an arc of pure light into the skyline, presenting the action far and wide.

Pokémon began to talk about what they had seen and what it could mean.

As the light faded and everyone was able to look again, Beldum was no more. In their place floated a larger pokémon. With a pair of arms similar to what Beldum had looked before, now attacked to a disk-like body, two red eyes peered forth with a spike jutting forth like a nose.

Metang was now here.

"C-Cobalt you evolved!" Beheeyem said before bursting into tears. "I'm so proud of you."

Electrike cheered and ran circles around the sobbing Beheeyem. "Cobalt! Cobalt! Cobalt! Cobalt!"

Slowly, Cobalt floated forth. They felt around, lifting their arms curiously. Beldum had been a mostly-unmoving girder of steel, Metang, however, had a little bit of dexterity.

"Declaration," Metang said, reaching the sobbing Beheeyem. "I can… hug you now." And so they did, Beheeyem gasped as the metallic arms nearly broke something and that stopped the crying at least.

"C-Careful you're strong!" Thoughtlight wheezed, and Metang adjusted their grip a few times.

Volt jumped onto Cobalt's back. "You're so big now!" he cheered. "I can nap on you now!"

"Query: And why would you want to?"

"Why not?"

"That's a pokémon."

"And so are you!" Volt jumped off and landed on the ground. "This is awesome! YEEEAAH!"

"Seekers of awakening?" the voice called, cutting through the festivities. "Are there any others who seek the light of evolution?"

Thoughtlight glanced at Volt, but he shook his head. "Nah, I want to evolve like Thoughtlight did. Spontaneous. Uh, no offence."

"There is none to take."

Volt definitely didn't glance at Rai and Ara as he said that.

"I'm good," Ara said, also declining.

"Very well," the voice said, beginning to dim.

"Wait!" Scout called, and the light only flickered. "If… if it's alright could I ask you some questions?"

"I am… unused to questions," the voice replied. "And I can tell you I likely will not answer."

It wasn't a refusal to the asking, however, so he went for it. "Are you Xerneas?"

"I cannot answer that."

"Cannot or will not?"

"I cannot answer that."

Scout breathed out a sigh and nodded. "That's fair enough." He was pretty sure of it.

The light began to dim, and the seven pokémon discussed leaving. This was their last excursion before Treasure Town, so they had no reason to dawdle any further.

Before they could leave, however, the light returned brightly.

"This is not my place," the voice spoke, emanating from everywhere at once with some sort of physical weight. "I am a neutral participant, taking no side. But… I am aware of the change to time." They knew, thanks to Saniya and Dialga, that only pokémon who were legendary pokémon were sensitive to the changing of time.

"There is one thing I must give a warning to you." Scout felt the weight focus on him and knew it was speaking directly to him. "You knew of the distortion of yourself, that is clear, but… you may not know what this truly means."

"Will you tell me?" Scout asked, nervously.

"This distortion created by this paradox is not additive. It is not one, two, three." Scout, Rai, and Mane each felt the number hit them as the voice spoke. "It is multiplicative. One. Two. Four."

Scout went the colour of ash underneath his fur as the implications hit him. "There… there are at least four other pokémon like us," he said.

One. Two. Four. Eight. Sixteen. Thirty-two. Sixty-four.

And that was assuming Soothe wasn't around as well.

The voice was also quiet after Scout spoke of how many pokémon were also causing this distortion, but then it spoke. "Palkia is a powerful pokémon, the deity in control of the fabric of space. It can handle threats to its domain, even if this level of distortion may be causing some trouble, there should be no concern. Forget my interference."

Scout didn't let it go. "And what if someone would take advantage of this distortion and make it worse?" he asked.

"Impossible. No one would cross Palkia so foolishly.

"Darkrai," Scout said. "Darkrai was the reason Temporal Tower nearly collapsed! If he'd cross Dialga, why not Palkia?"

It was dead silent.

The light began to dim. "I am a neutral party," it said. "No other pokémon here with to evolve, so I will go."

"Wait!"

"Hang on!"

"You know more about this!"

"Don't just go!"

The light faded entirely; the presence was gone.

Scout turned to the others. "We have to get back to Treasure Town now!" he said. There was no argument, and they left in a hurry.

---

Uh oh.

Funnily enough, someone mentioned evolution in a review just two chapters ago. Yeah, I still have Luminous Spring, but natural evolution still exists, few pokémon just have any idea how it's supposed to work. And Luminous Spring still has requirements no one can figure out, and the 'voice' doesn't explain either.

Sorry, this chapter took a while, I got distracted by stuff. But yeah! A new piece of the puzzle has been revealed. Every pokémon causing distortion doubles the amount of distortion. Two pokémon? That's nothing. Three pokémon? Eh, it's hardly a thing. Six pokémon? Well, that's a bit concerning. Seven pokémon? Oh, I wonder what could be done THEN.

And yet, we'll see. We'll see.

Before I go, poll stuff!

People quite like Saniya, makes me happy.

She's entirely insane and it's equally as crazy how much I love her. That won with 10 votes. Nine of you have been hearing Saniya tell you to burn things. And five wish for a friend like her. She's also taken five people's fingernails and replaced them with bee's. Thanks for voting!

And a new poll! We'll be looking at my favourite canon character, Guardian the Great Dusknoir!