Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Double Edged CLASSIC

by Double Edged Team

Mathew Walker was greeted by a blinding light, commanding him to create a gateway to another world where pokémon live peacefully. With his technological wit, he sets out for this world to locate the source of the light and find the happy life he was promised. But it isn't long until this world's underbelly brings out the worst in Mathew... (2019 VERSION, SEE INTRO)

11. A Moment to Breathe

[Originally completed October 20th, 2019. Published October 26th, 2019. The therapy scene in this chapter was rewritten February 22nd, 2020, with the original content being moved to a scene in chapter 6.]

Chapter 8: A Moment to Breathe

In the aftermath of the fire, still smoking in the distance, Mathew and his friends took some time to regroup. The entire team was quickly accounted for, as well as the three dungeon pokémon they had formed an alliance with, but General Watchog was nowhere to be found. The patrats all thanked Meowth for his usage of Hypnosis as motivation during the fight. After some quick conversation, it was agreed upon that all of them would go northwards to Vahle Village - Mathew and his traveling companions to determine their next course of action, and the team led by Sergeant Watchog to begin recovery from the insanity they had fostered in Verde Valley. Soon, they proceeded towards their objective.

Unbeknownst to everyone else, however, Mathew was trying to answer some serious questions related to what had just happened. He was sure that the dream he had experienced last night was indeed a thematic representation of General Watchog's fight, but...how did he even get such a power in the first place? When did his dreams go from the recesses of his mind he had to avoid to, well, this?

Mathew knew that he didn't have all of the answers yet, so he held off on telling the team before he received a few more. Plus, he needed to make sure that this was no fluke before giving his comrades any false hope.

As the sun maintained a strong but distant warmth, the group pressed on through the valleys until they punctured the edge of a forest. Mathew was paranoid about being all the way back at Pawalmtry Forest, but Meowth advised him to make note of the actual flora around them. It was then that Mathew agreed that they were in new territory: the shrubbery was less exotic, the trees less tropical, and atop it all, everything seemed to have a bit of redder tint to it. It was starting to look a little more like the month of September - a thought that made Mathew feel oddly strange.

"It looks really pretty in this forest," Joey said, admiring the trees, bearing birch wood alongside the cubone.

"IT'S PRETTY COOL THAT YOU LIKE DEATH," ORB quipped, wheeling along beside the totodile. "BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, EVERYTHING HERE IS DYING SLOWLY. THAT'S WHY IT'S TINTED BROWN AND RED INSTEAD OF PURE GREEN."

"Anyways!" Jermy interrupted, stopping ORB. "You're right, Joey, it is really nice. It's really starting to feel like fall here..." the pikachu shuddered. "Whew. Feels a bit colder already, too. I didn't realize how much of a difference sea breezes could make…"

"JERMY, IT'S AUTUMN, NOT FALL," ORB stated.

"Eh, same thing."

"ALRIGHT THEN." ORB paused. "JERMY, DO YOU WANT ME TO MAKE YOU AUTUMN?"

"Wait, what-"

ORB rolled into Jermy's leg, tripping him over. "NoooO-" He wailed as he fell face forward.

Mathew couldn't help but chuckle. ORB's annoying as hell, but...watching these things happen to Jermy is pretty funny, he thought.

"ORB, if you had a mouth, I'd tape it shut…" Jermy muttered as he stood back up.

"MAYBE BUILD ME WITH ONE NEXT TIME."

"Giving ORB a mouth seems wasteful."

Mathew's attention was turned to Meowth and he re-entered their conversation. He walked at the same pace as them, putting no struggle into the conversation.

"Oh, hi, Meowth," Mathew welcomed. "What's the assessment on those three?"

"They're exactly what you'd expect from a less damaging dungeon like Verde Valley. It shouldn't be hard for somebody to cure with time and a few sessions."

"So…" As Joey eased back into the conversation. "We lost to some easy guys."

"What? Lost? No way!" Jermy said. "We all did fine."

Joey's maw tilted down. "I didn't. I was the one who tried to be nice, but it didn't work. It just got me all messed up with that Hypnosis thing…"

"None of us knew we were going to be dealing with an opponent with Hypnosis," Meowth objected. "Much less one who uses it the wrong way."

"There's a right and wrong way to use Hypnosis?" Mathew asked quizically.

"Don't you mean using it for good and using it for evil…?" Joey added, still in a sad demeanor.

"Not exactly." Meowth's green eyes focused on the sorrowful Joey as he explained. "General Watchog used Hypnosis to puppeteer others and force them to bend to his emotions. Hypnosis isn't supposed to be used that way. That's why Joey and Jermy's movements were so strange and slow."

"So how is it supposed to be used?" Jermy asked. "Since you have the move too and all."

Meowth swapped to attend to Jermy. "My psychology class explained to me that Hypnosis is supposed to be a mental connection, not a physical one. The link between the user and the affected's eyes is a gateway to the mind, heightening the senses shared between the two. You can influence the body from there with aggression, but the brain is the focal point." Meowth shook his head. "General Watchog should know this. I was taught as early as Lower Education that Hypnosis is a silent conversation."

"So it was basic info…" Joey sulked as they walked.

"Come on, Joey…" Jermy frowned. "I hate it when you're like this. We literally just got finished talking about the fact that we all didn't know what Hypnosis was or what it was supposed to be. You have no reason to be so self-deprecating."

"But, still…"

"I'm literally in the same boat as you!" Jermy raised his arms in mild annoyance. He stopped walking, forcing the others to hold still. "I didn't know what the patrats or General Watchog were capable of, nor what kind of plant life was around me, and it got me captured. But do you see me shrinking because I made an honest mistake?" Jermy clenched his fists at his sides. "No. I hold out. Like I always do."

There was a silence. For a moment in time, nothing was heard but the clear sounds of the life-sucked leaves swaying in the wind as they obstructed their view of the sun, attached to a tree coated in greens, browns, reds, and whites that absorbed the energy out of its extensions.

"Well, shit. There goes what little fun we were having here…" Mathew sighed.

ORB wheeled up to Jermy once more. "IF IT'S ANY COMPENSATION, IF THAT SPEECH WAS MADE BY ANYBODY OTHER THAN YOU, I WOULD HAVE APPLAUDED."

"But… I built you with only one arm," Jermy reminded him.

"DO YOU WANT TO HEAR WHAT A ONE-ARMED APPLAUSE SOUNDS LIKE?"

"Considering what happened two minutes ago? Probably not."

"Aaand it's back!" Mathew tried to smile and lighten the mood once more, but when he looked at Joey's continued expression, his optimism fell away. "We should go," he said firmly. The others quietly agreed as they continued to walk.

If it hadn't been clear already, Mathew now knew for certain that, despite his efforts to give him comfort and support, Joey still held his scars from the moment he had preyed upon him and struck him. The cubone cursed under the breaths of the breeze at himself, at his stupidly. What had become of him to resort to violence the moment his torn ego was faced with opposition? It was clear that the two were both guilty as charged, and yet neither could find a solace to move on from. They carried the burden of their sins silently, even miles away from the peace of Kalmwa'er.

Mathew glanced at Joey out of the corners of his eyes - or rather, his cracked mask. His maw was still shut, angled ever so slightly lower than he remembered. Mathew reflected on this. It was as if the fist he swung had aimed for the head instead of the chest; his face had been forever marred, his innocence and good will shred ever so slightly. A purehearted smile from the day he had quit the Pick-it Up Club flickered in Mathew's head - one he thought he may never get back.

You really fucked him up. Just like how he-

Mathew almost immediately stopped his train of mind, refocusing his attention on his previously aimless and thoughtless steps. He had never considered his likeness in that perspective before; he never let it surface that much. And yet, looking upon it, the assessment made subconsciously was correct in ways that he had once barely imagined.

He held his club up to his face, pretending to examine it, trying to keep stable while thinking about it. His own thought had disturbed himself, and seeing the weapon he used furthered it.

"HEY, CAT!"

Sergeant Watchog cried out for Meowth's assistance. Meowth moved alone, but the others trailed him as if seeking an escape from the silence. Mathew heaved a breath as they moved to the next, brighter topic, discarding the older one for a warmer day.

The full group now stood in front of an unexpected obstacle: a river. Perhaps the smallest river Mathew had ever seen, but still too big to be a creek.

"This must be Arbor River," Meowth explained. "It runs down to a pond that dumps into the ocean through Roci Grotto."

"Oh, so they're connected, huh?" Jermy said. "Do you know where it starts?"

Meowth nodded. "It starts in Arbor Lake. As you could guess, Arbor surrounds some of it."

"It...looks kinda dirty," Joey remarked.

"Sorta, yeah." Mathew looked upon the water. It was certainly not as clear as one would hope. It was tainted brown - even the foam that lapped around the few rocks which jutted out of the surface maintained the coloration.

"HOW DO WE INFILTRATE VAHLE VILLAGE FROM HERE, SIR?" one of the patrats asked Sergeant Watchog.

He opened his mouth to answer, but before he could produce a sound-

"The answer is that you don't!"

Suddenly, having somehow been in their presence all this time, a creature resembling a dark-blue otter dropped from a tree sitting adjacent to the river. She glanced at them angrily.

"AN AMBUSH!" Sergeant Watchog exclaimed. "QUICK, TAKE HER DOWN!"

The two patrats responded swiftly to the command, leaping at her from both sides. The dewott moved quickly on her feet; she crossed her arms and grabbed at the two sharp-looking shells hanging off of her skirt-like appendage of fur, spread her stance, and swung them around until they were aimed behind her. Both patrats doubled over in pain from being slashed in the chest.

Sergeant Watchog gasped. "OH NO! WAIT, PLEASE, WE MEAN NO-"

The dewott rushed up to the watchog before he could even finish the sentence. The sergeant leaned back out of fear and a desperate need to dodge. The dewott leaped up and...well...lightly tapped him on the shoulder with the scalchop in her right hand. Sergeant Watchog, still unaccustomed to his slender body, lost balance and fell over.

The dewott aimed a scalchop at the sergeant, much like how Mathew had aimed his club at Joey and Jermy to keep them still; but her hostility was also aimed at them, pointing with the other scalchop straight at Mathew. "You all need to leave this place," she said. "This village is guarded by me, and I have strict orders: no hostile dungeon pokémon allowed. And loudmouths like you are definitely dungeon pokémon."

"LOUD? I CAN BE VERY QUIET WHEN I WANT TO!" Sergeant Watchog exclaimed, on the ground.

"Is that so? Prove it."

Sergeant Watchog inhaled as much air as he could, preparing his best whisper. "HELLO! I'M NOT SO LOUD NOW AREN'T I?!"

Sheilott immediately smacked him with a scalchop. "Please quiet down. You're disturbing the peace."

"MISS! THAT SCALCHOP WAS VERY COLD, AND DANGEROUS FOR THAT MATTER! IN FACT, YOU HURT-"

Thwack!

"What did I just say about the peace?"

"I ASSURE YOU-"

Wham!

"OKAY NOW I AM CONVINCED YOU ARE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE-"

Smack!

With that, Sergeant Watchog went down, his long neck lightly sliced through several times. Mathew, Joey, Jermy, and Meowth watched in a combined sense of awe and terror as the dewott fully focused on them. "Now, which of you trespassers want in next?"

"HOLY SHIT, I CAN RELATE TO THIS WOMAN ON AN EMOTIONAL LEVEL," ORB said.

"Em-emotional?" Mathew said, tripping on his own tongue because of the threat. "You're a-"

"MATHEW LET ME HAVE THIS. IT'S ALL I CAN GET WHEN INSIDE OF THIS METAL BODY."

Jermy shook his head. "You still don't realize you get me, too…"

"THAT'S EVEN WORSE."

"So, you're the girl running things 'round here?" Joey asked, stopping Jermy and ORB's banter. "Because uh… You're really mea-"

"Joey!" Mathew suddenly jumped up and grabbed the top of Joey's maw, pulling it shut before he said anything stupid.

"Mmph! No!" Joey exclaimed. The first word came before he rose his face up to the treetops, forcing Mathew to dangle from his maw. The second came when Mathew's hanging grip became useless, causing his mouth to rise up with the grunt and make Mathew slide closer to his eyes. They both tumbled backwards, joining the dungeon pokémon in the 'dirt nap' crew.

The dewott placed her scalchops back on her hips and facepalmed. "This is too ridiculous for even a dungeon pokémon..."

Meowth shook his head. "Tell me about it."

"YEP. JUST ANOTHER CHAPTER IN OUR SAGA OF MORONIC THEATRICS."

"ORB, this isn't a show," Jermy said. "We should really be taking this person more seriously-"

"OF COURSE IT IS A THEATER. YOU BUFFOONS ARE THE COMEDY AND THE IDIOT FORCED TO DEAL WITH US IS THE TRAGEDY."

The dewott they were speaking with actually snickered at this remark. "In any case," she intervened. "My name is Sheilott. I take it you're a joint team between 'normal' pokémon and dungeon pokémon?"

"MAY YOU IDENTIFY WHO IS 'NORMAL' IN THIS PICTURE?"

"Oh, none of you," Sheilott responded. "But you four are the ones who weren't stupid enough to throw yourselves into a Mystery Dungeon. He is." She indicated towards Sergeant Watchog.

"Yep, that's right…" Mathew said while sitting up. "They wanted to get their insanity undone, or something, when we got to Vahle Village."

Sheilott seemed surprised by this. "Interesting. That hasn't happened in a while."

"Do you know the way there?" Joey asked, doing the same.

Sheilott pointed at the river. "It's just past here. I think my father could help them; he'll know what to do. I can take you there, since it looks like none of you actually mean harm."

"Sweet!" Jermy exclaimed, clearly sounding relieved.

"Is there a way across the river that doesn't require touching the water too much?" Mathew asked, on his feet now. "I can handle it at my feet, but it makes my skin sting if it's any higher…"

"Yeah." Sheilott moved her gaze towards a suspicious set of stones in the water. "I used my scalchops to carve some of the stones so they flatly jut out of the water. Think of it like a secret bridge."

"You want us to hop between them?" Meowth said.

"Yeah." She began approaching Sergeant Watchog's body. "I'll carry the dungeon pokémon over for you. I'm a good swimmer."

And so the two groups got to work. The four got in a single file line: Jermy with ORB in hand first, Joey second, Mathew third, and Meowth last, simply to grab Mathew if he falls. Carefully and slowly, they hopped between each fragment of ground standing above the water, trying to avoid falling into the painful depths alone. Jermy made the final, large leap himself, then, after placing ORB down, offered his hand to make the going easier for Joey and Mathew. Meowth didn't need help to make the leap; he instead chose to clench his bag as he jumped.

They passed the dirt-ridden river.

Meanwhile, Sheilott helped the dungeon pokémon to their feet. "Come on, I barely hurt you, you're fine," she muttered as she brought the patrats to their feet. Sergeant Watchog needed no help; he rose himself, angry, tired, but quiet, surely knowing what would happen if he dared open his mouth too often. With the full group settled, they made their way through the rest of the birch trees, until, finally, they opened up to the hilly landscape that was surely Vahle Village.

Mathew quickly learned that there were no true houses in Vahle Village; instead, small-looking doorways to burrow homes, ripped from the pages of Wonderland, protruded from the large hillsides like pustules. pokémon conversed and played in front of them using their invisible porches and yards. A drilbur passed by - a perfect candidate for whom to blame the society's invasion of dirt upon.

The cubone continued to take in the civilization they had just discovered. Vahle Village stood in stark contrast to Kalmwa'er. Kalmwa'er was quietly busy, while this quaint place was loudly idle. The chatter of conversation fluttered through the air like autumn leaves from a tree of knowledge. From it, Mathew could hear the humor of a corphish telling his surskit friend about his cool idea for a play-fight against a super evil crawdaunt while the surskit's mother spoke to his parents about her frustrations being ripped from her old home; the ambitions of a gurdurr telling a growlithe he was walking with, seeking to build a storage warehouse that could double as a second home for the newcomers to their village; the quiet mumblings of a lonely trubbish, hoping for Arceus to pick him from a crowd one day. Mere silence during their walk towards the center of the community told the cubone so much.

"ARE WE CLOSE?" Sergeant Watchog asked Sheilott.

The dewott had to break her focus on Jermy waving to a fellow pikachu to respond. "Yeah. Just don't step out of line before we-"

"Guys!" Jermy said. "What the heck is that?!" The pikachu pointed at the fields beyond at an entity that made all of them stop in their tracks. A great beast stood ahead of them, towering over the hills they had been moving towards. Mathew knew he should've been horrified; fortunately, he had already encountered this specimen before.

"AURAL SCAN COMPLETE," ORB said. "SPECIES IDENTIFIED: SILVALLY."

"Hey, Dad," Sheilott said as if nothing was out of the ordinary, approaching him just as he approached her.

"Wait, hold on. That's your-?!"

The silvally looked down among them, ignoring Jermy for the moment. "Do we have visitors, Sheilott?" he said, his voice reverberating off of the hills.

"Yeah." Sheilott proceeded to repeat what Mathew had told them their motives were for entering their village with dungeon pokémon.

"Interesting. That process hasn't been seen here in a long time. In any case, take them to Espurr. I am sure she could help them."

"What about them?" Sheilott asked, pointing at the group in an angle that pur her finger closest to Joey.

"The normal ones? Allow me to formally welcome them."

"Alright," Sheilott said. "In that case, we'll take them to Espurr." She began leading the patrats and Sergeant Watchog away.

The titan grimaced. "Sheeeilott…"

The dewott sighed and turned around. "Have a nice day," she spoke inauthentically before departing.

"Hope they get better," Joey said, innocently ignoring her fakeness.

Silvahle let out a heavy sigh. "I apologize. She doesn't have a way with presentation, at times."

"You could say the same for yourself," Meowth replied.

The beast snickered. "Perhaps! In any case, welcome. I am Silvahle, the protector of this village."

It was now that Mathew began to compare this silvally to the other one he knew. He was quick to note that this one did not have the same pink highlights - his were replaced with a light green. Otherwise, he seemed very similar to the last one he had met, aside from perhaps his name. "Silvalla, Silvahle… I'm sensing a pattern with these names," he commented.

"Ah, you have met my sibling from Kalmwa'er?" Silvahle asked Mathew.

"Yeah. He runs the Rescue Team, right."

"Indeed. He also runs the lavish restaurant that sells pastas for over 50% off!"

"Wha—"

"Forgive me. He asked me to say that to anybody who claimed to come from Kalmwa'er, and he's my brother, so I have little reason not to."

"Tell him we already ate there," Meowth said.

"Huh? When did you do that?" Joey asked.

"We went there while you were asleep Wednesday," Mathew explained.

"Aww. Now I want to eat there—"

"WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR GARLIC BREAD ADDICTIONS?" ORB asked. "FOCUS ON THE PERSON IN FRONT OF YOU, NOT BEHIND YOU."

"Yeah, let's do that…" Jermy said, sighing. "Not like we can go back to eat there right now, anyways."

"Okay, fair," Mathew said before turning his attention back to Silvahle, who had been quietly chuckling at them. "So, if your brother runs the Kalmwa'er Rescue Team, does that mean you run the Vahle Village Rescue Team?" Mathew pointed at the silvally.

"Not quite."

Mathew retracted his hand. "Oh."

"You are close, however. I do run the defense force for Vahle Village; it's simply too small to be classified as a rescue team or a guild."

"So there's a classification for that stuff?" Joey asked. "What's that all about?"

"And while we're on the subject, why are Silvallys leading these groups in the first place?" Mathew added.

"Well… I suppose I could tell you, but it'd require some backstory," Silvahle established.

"Fire away. I'll take any information that I can get."

"Very well, then." Silvahle took a deep breath. "In the early days of Dungeoneering, rescue teams and guilds were entirely run by everyday pokémon, like a normal business. However, that age ended around three hundred years ago, when there was a guildmaster whose poor rule became so notorious that it tainted the entire profession."

"One person screwed it up for everyone?" Mathew said, bewildered. "How bad were they?"

"Supposedly, her leadership, despite working for a noble cause, bred toxicity and abuse amongst its members. It led to a civil war between the top and bottom of her guild's hierarchy. The battle resulted in the death of more than a dozen individuals, including the guildmaster. The infamous tale spread like wildfire and became deeply woven with Dungeoneering history."

"You're saying she was hypocritical in her goals," Meowth accused the figure Silvahle had laid out for them. "She ran a position that asked to make Solceus a better place, then proceeded to make everything worse."

"In a way, yes."

Joey crossed his arms, the Grasso still wrapped around his right. "Then she deserved what happened."

Jermy looked at Joey with surprise. "She deserved to die?"

"Uh." Joey took a second to reevaluate. "No! I mean, she deserved to be hurt for all of the mean things she let happen. Well, not hurt but-"

"You don't have to explain yourself, young totodile," Silvahle said. "I agree that she needed to be brought to justice, even if the course taken by the rest of the guild was violent. It was a tragedy that her demise had to take freeform Dungeoneering with it."

"So, getting back on track," Mathew interrupted. "How does this play into a bunch of Silvallys running things now?"

Silvahle continued the exposition. "While watching this fallout unfold, the Legendary pokémon determined that they didn't want these professions to go to waste. A group of them known as the Tapus, after gaining divine permission, began a process known as Project Type. Their army of Silvallies were ordered to take the leadership positions of these businesses, each taking the guise of one of the types, in order to comfortably standardize them. As you might be able to guess, I am grass type, and Silvalla is fairy type."

"Huh," Mathew thought aloud. "That reminds me of all those regulations America went through. Though that wasn't caused by a god or anything…" Mathew looked up after realizing what he was doing. "Never mind. Sorry for the random subject again."

"Forgiven," Silvahle said immediately. "Our standardization rules are the reason for our size. Vahle Village is too small for a proper business like the standard set by the Tapus, and the crime rate here is effectively zero; thus, I've simply created a small group for protecting the town along my adoptive daughter."

"That's Sheilott, right?" Joey asked.

"Indeed."

"Alright, that all makes sense," Mathew said. "Thanks for explaining."

"You're quite welcome. It's my pleasure."

"Now that we've settled everything, is there anywhere that we could stay for the night?" Meowth asked, moving to conclude the conversation.

"Yes, of course," Silvahle responded. "The Dedenne Family Inn is a short walk that way." He turned his head to the right and tilted it forwards. "They'll keep you for a cheap price."

"Perfect, then. Thanks for the hospitality!" Mathew exclaimed. The group began moving in the direction Silvahle indicated.

On the way, Joey leaned in towards Mathew. "You know what's weird?" Joey asked quietly.

Mathew turned towards the totodile. "What?"

"Silvahle wasn't weirded out when you talked about America."

"Huh?" Jermy suddenly butted in. "You talked about America, Mathew?"

Mathew was taken aback. "What, you didn't hear my tangent about Pr-"

The cubone was cut off by Jermy. "Nope! All I heard was you mumbling about something, then looking up and being like, 'Oh, never mind!'"

Joey seemed very confused. "I heard him just fine…"

ORB, too, gave his two cents. "IF JERMY'S GIANT, FLOPPY EARS COULDN'T HEAR YOU, SILVAHLE WOULDN'T BE ABLE TO HEAR IT WELL EITHER, CONSIDERING THE DISTANCE TO HIS EARS."

"Hmm… Okay then," Joey said in acceptance. "It makes sense that he couldn't hear it."

"Yeah," Mathew quipped in agreement. He looked to see if Meowth felt the same way. All the cat seemed to be doing was staring at the pikachu and the robot as they walked on.

It didn't take long to find the inn Silvahle had told them about, as, unlike the rest of the village, it was kept above ground. The four of them immediately could tell why, exactly, the price was cheap. The building was made of wood, so old that it was tinted darkly, and looked like it would collapse in a moment's notice.

"It looks like we won't be sleeping comfortably," Meowth said.

Jermy sighed. "It's always the worst beds we end up with, isn't it?"

Mathew glanced at Jermy. "You didn't like Meowth's?" he asked Jermy...or rather, he almost did. However, he caught his tongue in a bout of surprise. The cubone remembered when they first arrived to the abode and believed it to be a horrible place to sleep. Now, after a little under a week, there was no other place he wanted to rest than under the dome the cat owned, in comparison to whatever this was. Once he let that assessment clear from his head, he asked the question fully.

"Meh," Jermy replied. "I've seen better, I've seen worse, I guess."

"By the way," Meowth interjected. "If I didn't make it clear before, you don't have to pay me anything for your stay in my house."

"Oh, that's good," Joey said. "Thanks."

"Of course. Use my home anytime, even if I'm not there."

With that out of the way, Meowth led the way into the shambling building. Just as its outside looks old and crumbling, the interior looked like it came out of a page from a history novel. Mathew couldn't help but liken it to one of those stereotypical western towns, which, despite not being in a desert, was fairly fitting for the kind of little world they had just stepped into. The lobby looked like an old bar that hadn't been used in ages, truly selling its ironic identity. Behind the counter across the door were endless lines of alcoholic delights…wait, there's alcohol on Solceus?

The four of them slowly approached the happy-looking dedenne behind the counter. "Hello there! Welcome to the Dedenne Family Inn!" he happily exclaimed.

"Rooms for four, please," Meowth said, removing a sack of coinage from his void of a bag. The dedenne quickly took hold of the money provided by Meowth, exchanged some of it for the key to a room, then sent them on their way. The humans trailed behind Meowth as he brought them to the stairs in order to climb to the second floor. To their right, a gigantic portrait loomed over the stairwell. Mathew stopped briefly to examine the portrait. Below it was a plaque: "Dedenne I of Vahle Village. 1934 - 1989. Founder of the Dedenne Family Inn, built with his own hands."

Dedenne I of Vahle Village. This sentence reminded Mathew of what Lucio had said the previous day. He had been looking for Meowth - specifically, Meowth II of Kalmwa'er. Mathew came to understand that this was some kind of naming convention and decided to ask Meowth about it on the way to the room.

"It's the common name denomination for those who don't have surnames or nicknames," Meowth explained. "The number of generations resets when you move your home into a different town. Mr. Persian moved into Kalmwa'er before I was born, so that would make me Meowth II of Kalmwa'er."

"Huh, okay," Mathew said.

"That's neat," Joey said. "Do you know the 'full names' of the other people in the Club?" he asked.

"I think so," Meowth said. "Minccino talked about moving from here with her mother and father, so that would make her Minccino II of Kalmwa'er, but also Minccino of an unknown generation of Vahle Village. Medicham moved to Kalmwa'er when I was young, so he's Medicham I of Kalmwa'er. Breloom is Breloom IV of Kalmwa'er, so her family's lived in Kalmwa'er longer than any of us."

"You guys sure care about your heritage and generations," Mathew commented. "Wait. I think you're forgetting someone…"

"Ziggy?" Jermy suggested.

"No, he has the nickname…"

"It's Politoed!" Joey said. "Meowth missed him. What's his number?"

Meowth took the both of them by surprise: "Politoed uses a different denomination."

"A fourth one?" Mathew said.

"Yes. He told Mr. Persian his number, XXI, marks his heritage to an important historical figure instead of where he lives. He said it was Polimagus."

"Hmm…" Jermy seemed to be trying to work out the numbers behind this information. "Twenty one generations, about twenty years per birth give or take… Dang, his heritage has been tracked all the way back to a four hundred year-old person!"

"Wow," Mathew quipped.

"Politoed told me the King's Rock he wears is a family heirloom," Joey said. "Do you think he was a king?"

"Yes, he was a king," Meowth said. "The King's Rock must've been his crown. Since it's a remnant of when Gibune was predominantly a feudal continent, it makes sense that his family would keep track of it."

Well, I learned a lot just now, Mathew thought as Meowth finally stuck the key into their room's door. The door swung towards them, revealing a room as ancient as the rest of the building; an old wooden desk was pressed into the corner by the only window, while the center of the room had four nests that were clearly on the verge of collapsing.

"Oh, no," Mathew said. "These look so uncomfortable…"

"Ah, forget it! I can survive with some rough living quarters. I just want off of my feet!" Jermy declared as he rushed into the room and spread his body upon the old thing. His body pressed against it and...it burst into strands. "Auugh!" Jermy wailed, as he had just thrown his body onto the hardwood floor.

"BE CAREFUL, JERMY. YOU COULD GET SPLINTERS FROM THIS OLD WOOD."

"So now you tell me!" Jermy sat in the mess of threads that was once a nest. "This is the beach all over again!"

The other two humans began to settle themselves in their frail nests, careful to avoid movements that would make them fall apart. Meanwhile, Meowth set down his magical bag and began to remove something from it. It was…a flat, rectangular scratch pad…?

"Why do you have that?" Mathew asked.

"I thought it would be obvious." Meowth began to stroke his paws across the tool. Back and forth...back and forth…

"Oh, you're sharpening your claws."

"Yes. I'm going to need them sharp if I need to protect myself on the way to and within Arbor."

"Arbor, oh Lord…" Jermy said, sighing. "We're going to open up that can of worms first thing?"

"We might as well get it out of the way," Meowth stated, refusing to stop his sharpening.

"Okay. But just to make sure…" Jermy sat up. "Now that we all feel like we're in a safe place where we can't be eavesdropped, are you two ready to talk about this?"

Mathew and Joey glanced at each other, then nodded silently. "I think we're ready," Mathew said.

"Okay. So… Meowth," Jermy began. "I think what you're about to do is really, really unsafe. You remember what the letter said. Mr. Persian has this big threat looming over his head where, if he tells anyone about anything going on, he could get multiple people straight-up killed. If you go towards SEAS, you're gonna be putting yourself in the same danger. I think you should stay here with me and ORB and the rest of us, so we can be safe from whoever this is and-"

"Jermy." Meowth stopped preparing his claws to look at the pikachu. His expression was still flat, but Mathew was getting better at reading past it - he could see a minisculely solemn frown. "I respect what you have done for me, Mathew, and Joey. I know you want to look out for all of us. But you can't protect me from finding the truth. That's why I have to go."

Mathew could tell Jermy was struggling to find a response. "Meowth…" What seemed to start as an argument in Jermy's mind ended as a question. "Why are you going after the people your father warned you about?"

Meowth couldn't look at Jermy as he answered. "I have nowhere else to go. As much as I hate to admit it, I wasn't very interested in my job at the Pick-it Up Club. My father recommended I join because of my medical degree, but I stopped truly enjoying my work by then."

"Wait, what do you mean, stopped enjoying it?" Mathew asked. "If you don't like your career anymore, why are you using it to help me?"

"I want to support you," Meowth replied. "That doesn't mean that I'm passionate about it, just nice enough to do it for others. Passion isn't something I've felt in a very long time." There was a pause. The cat reached for his bag. "There's something you all should know about me. I don't tell people about this - only my father and Zell know. But I trust the three of you."

Mathew watched as Meowth removed another object from his belongings. This time, the possession was much smaller - it was a tube, a cylinder topped by a large lid. Inside were seeds, similar to the ones inside of his medical supplies.

"What are those?" Joey asked.

"They're encourage seeds," Meowth replied. "They were prescribed to me as antidepressants."

"Oh…" Jermy's voice was weakened by this revelation.

"I was clinically diagnosed in my early teens, around the time I started Higher Education. I've had to contend with it for a very long time. The reason I want to go to Arbor is that I feel as though finding the truth about my father and the purpose behind what he's done will give me something to be passionate about again."

To everybody's mild surprise, Meowth broke character. His stoic, firm persona gave way into a genuine sorrow and quiet pain. The green in his eyes was barely a mask now. He toyed with the tie with black spiraling in front of the green.

"I apologize to all of you. I know that leaving will hurt everyone, Mathew especially after I offered to help him. If there's any compensation, I know some of my classmates who are still in Kalmwa'er that I can refer you to if you want to go back. I'm aware I might not come back alive, but I can't stay anymore. Whether it's contemptment or guilt…I need to be filled with passion."

Jermy was frozen, unable to respond to this vulnerability.

"LOOK," ORB said, having no emotions that could possibly be felt in this somber instant. "WHATEVER EMOTIONAL ISSUES YOU HAVE HERE DON'T WARRANT THROWING YOUR STUPID LIFE AWAY. THE ODDS OF YOU FINDING YOUR FATHER AND LIVING LONG ENOUGH TO ESCAPE SEAS' GRASP ARE MINISCULE AT BEST."

"Yeah, I kinda agree with ORB at the moment…" Mathew said. "Look, man, I can relate to you, a lot. I know what it's like to lose everything you had going for yourself… But going alone on a suicide mission isn't the answer."

Meowth glanced at Mathew. "You came alone."

"T-there's a difference. At that point I had no choice."

"You like to exaggerate your lack of freedom of choice when you really mean to state your motivation to make choices you don't like, Mathew," Meowth accused Mathew, placing his medication back in his bag. "I imagine you're just as self-driven with D.E. as I am with SEAS, even if you don't like to admit it."

"That's not true!" Mathew exclaimed, a hint of anger in his voice. "Unlike you, I have nothing to go back to! You have the Pick-it Up Club, us...you just mentioned you had classmates you knew! I don't even have my fucking cat!"

"I understand your frustrations, Mathew," Meowth said. "But I find the idea that someone like you had zero people to talk to hard to really believe. Didn't you mention a Greg and Catherine with Joey before?"

Mathew scowled. "Well fuck you for diminishing my trauma."

"Woah, hey!" Jermy shouted. "Let's take a step back here. The last thing we need right now is another fallout. We need to rely on each other right now, so if you have something mean to say, can you keep it to yourself?"

"Right…" Mathew sighed, letting his subtle wrath subside. The cubone took a moment to shoot a look at the silent Joey. He was playing with his thumbs, his head down. "Hey, do you have anything to say about this?" he asked. "You have a say here too."

"No…" Joey said. "I don't have anything to say. I'll just mess up the talk…"

"IT'S NEAR-IMPOSSIBLE FOR YOU TO GO LOWER THAN AN AD HOMINEM," ORB stated. "THOUGH IF ANYBODY WERE TO DO IT, IT'D BE YOU OR JERMY."

Mathew sighed for the poor totodile. "In any case, just…please don't go on a solo suicide mission, Meowth. We care about you — I care about you. I don't know what I'd do if I let you…" The cubone didn't need to finish his sentence for everybody in the room to understand. Joey and Jermy nodded in agreement.

Meowth took a moment to process this. "So, the main reason you don't want me to go is because you don't want me to die on my own." The cat began to take a stand. "If that's the case...maybe we could fix that about the state of my trip."

"Oh, don't you dare suggest what I think you are!" Jermy exclaimed, rising. "There's no way you're going to drag us into your problem."

"Well, what if we made the trip a mutual benefit for everyone? I find out more about my father-" He pointed at Joey. "I help you find Greg and Catherine-" And then he pointed at Mathew and Jermy. "And I help you two find D.E."

"What?!" Jermy shouted. "What makes you so sure you'll find D.E. and them at the same time?"

"I'll be honest and say that I don't have leads for Joey's parents," Meowth admitted. "But for D.E…so far we know that D.E. is a first and last name, correct?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Well, everybody I've met that has a surname turned out to be a human. And my father said most of the people he works with are human…"

"So, you're betting D.E. is somehow connected to SEAS?" Jermy asked.

"Yes."

Mathew completely bought into Meowth's proposition. "I'm betting he's working against whatever contract crap's been going on with Mr. Persian! Maybe the help he asked for in return was supporting the cause? I could get behind that if there's any diplomatic way to do it!"

"That is a huge jump, Meowth," Jermy said. "What if D.E. has nothing to do with SEAS?"

"Then we can take time away from SEAS to search for D.E.," Meowth said. "We can take time to address everybody."

"You know, I'm starting to like this idea," Mathew said. "I mean, this is all extremely dangerous stuff we're getting into, but if we have the backup plan of locating D.E. first, I think we might be okay!"

"I mean, okay, cool, but what about Joey?" Jermy asked, motioning to the totodile, who didn't seem particularly focused on anything but the rickety floorboards. "You don't even have a lead on his parents."

"Well..." Meowth put a paw to his chin. "My father's letter said something about an unknown ID."

"Oh, yeah, I remember that part of the letter," Mathew said. "I...think that was talking about my portal, since, well, I made it, not SEAS or whoever."

"Okay." Meowth seemed to be straining in remembrance. "I think there was something else…"

"I think it said they were gonna do something else," Joey commented, suddenly reentering the conversation.

"I remember that, too," Jermy said. "Meowth, can you pull that letter out of the bag so we can read it again?"

Silently, Meowth did so, handing it off to Mathew, who read the relevant sentence aloud.

I was briefed that he was assisting the investigation of a "detected w axis transfer from a source with an ID signal that is not verified in registries adjacent to the Kalmwa'er station," as well as a secondary objective I was not briefed on. In layman's terms, they are investigating a human who arrived on Solceus through means outside of the company.

"A secondary objective!" Mathew stated. "You guys are right about that. Maybe this plan has to do with Greg?"

Jermy shook his head. "You can't know that."

"You know what? Forget Greg. Let's just ask him." Mathew turned his attention to Joey. "Do you want to come with us to Arbor?"

Joey took a moment to respond. "I...guess it'll be worth a shot." He kept his eyes on the floor.

For a moment, Mathew felt further sorrow for Joey. He was progressively becoming less and less social, and it was starting to scare him. But — No, he couldn't take time to deal with that. At least, not while they were getting everything set up. He chose to wait on it.

"So there we have it," Meowth said.

Jermy sighed defeatedly. "I guess you're right. I still think you all should stay behind, but I guess I can't stop you. I'll accompany you guys to protect you."

"JERMY," ORB said. "YOU SUCK AT THIS."

"I know, I know."

"Well," Mathew said, standing up. "If we've got a tough trip ahead, I should get that Flamethrower learned."

With Jermy's help, Mathew obtained the TV from Meowth's bag. It wasn't as nice-looking as the one Jermy broke, but it was definitely functional. With a bit of testing, Jermy's plan to power it himself worked, and the black screen turned slightly brighter to signify life. Mathew happily plopped down right in front of the vintage television as the Flamethrower TM was placed into its slot.

"You might want to take a step back."

Mathew glanced at Meowth on the edge of his vision. "What, is there something weird about-"

"Good day!" An announcer's voice blared into their room as the screen changed from black to white. "The following audio waves will develop all available participants' flame pipes. In three… two… one…"

And then it began.

A great noise blared into the room. Mathew wailed as he put his hands to the side of his skull mask, searching for the ears he couldn't find to cover. Fortunately, it didn't last particularly long.

"Thank you for listening!" The TM was finished; the screen flickered off once more. Mathew fell onto his back, staring at the ceiling.

Joey quickly came to Mathew's side. "Are you okay?!" he asked worryingly. Clearly, he expected Mathew to be afraid, but to both Joey and his own surprise, he was not. His emotion at the moment was more of a...catharsis? Revelation? Satisfaction? Something of those lines. It was like...like…

"I feel like I know the answers to the goddamn universe…"

Meowth gave him a hand and helped him stand up. "TMs use loud soundwaves to slightly alter your body's behavior. That frequency must've opened your flame pipe."

"My...what?"

"It's like my water pipe, right?" Joey cut in. "Can it make fire come out of his throat?"

"Yes, if he uses the right kind of breath technique," Meowth said.

"Oh, sweet, that sounds cool. Let me try…"

Mathew took a breath, and immediately he could feel something…different in it. The addition of the flame pipe was something he could now feel. He let something hot within brew, readying himself to fire it off into—

"MATHEW! NOOOO!"

In a role reversal, Joey responded to Jermy's scream by jumping up and holding Mathew's maw down.

"MFFFFK!" Mathew pushed through his shut mouth. The fire he had been preparing settled down.

"We're in a wooden building, Mathew," Meowth reminded him.

"I know! IknowIknowIknow!" Mathew stumbled away from Joey.

"SURE YOU DO, FIRE-SWALLOWER," ORB jested.

"Oh, yeah, I did do that," the cubone said, forgetting about his near-arson. "Y'know, that fire actually tasted kinda—" Mathew was interrupted by a loud gag from his throat. "Gah, heartburn!"

"It isn't heartburn, don't panic!" Meowth quickly threw his paws onto Mathew's shoulders, trying to calm him down. Mathew was taken aback, but his reaction wasn't as extreme as it could have been - he seemed to be getting used to seeing Meowth's real emotions peek through in critical moments.

Once everyone settled down, Mathew calmly made a proposition: "Maybe I should try this outside…"

"THERE IS GRASS OUTSIDE, DINGUS," ORB interjected.

"Then, I'll just fire at the sky!" Mathew retorted as he began to make his way outside. Mathew made his way out of the hotel, the others not too far behind. Once they were atop an open hill, he drew in a breath, flaring up his fire pipe again, this time without interruption or fear of burning anything, and let out a torrent of flames. The orange and red bright inferno flowed out of his mouth, dancing its way into the blue sky, continuing to sway and spin until eventually its display was over, and the dancers retreated back into Mathew's mouth.

Joey let out a whistle. "Wow, Mathew, you'd be a real blast at a barbeque now."

Jermy chuckled. "Nice pun, Joey."

Joey blinked twice. "What?"

"Er, nevermind."

Mathew ignored them as he tried it again and again. The cubeone felt the heat bellowing out of his maw as it was spread forward, heating him as much as the air around him. After the cubone finished off with a lengthy exhalation, he rubbed the top of his mask as if to swipe off sweat. "Well, that's combat handling down!" he exclaimed. "This'll probably work as an intimidation tactic or some shit." Mathew looked towards his audience. "What do you guys think?"

"You're doing great!" Joey exclaimed, clapping in an attempt to start an implausible applause.

Meowth approached him. "That'll be helpful."

Mathew smiled with satisfaction. "Good. Hopefully this'll keep SEAS-" The cubone realized something and nearly facepalmed his mask. "Oh, they're freaking SEAS! They're going to be water type!"

"Again with the assumptions!" Jermy exclaimed. "We don't know that!"

Joey shot Jermy a look. "You dunno either!"

"HE HAS A POINT," ORB said, taking Joey's side for once.

"Uh - Yes. That's true," Jermy agreed. "We all don't know."

"If we all know nothing, all we can do is prepare for whatever we can," Meowth claimed. He turned his attention back to Mathew. "In any case, I don't think SEAS will be entirely water types, so it should find some use, particularly during the trip to Arbor."

Suddenly, something clicked in Mathew's memory. "Oh, right, the trip! That reminds me! I was working on something before I got here that might help with that."

Mathew moved to Meowth, silently requesting the bag. Once on his person, he dug out his backpack and set it on the ground. He unzipped the largest pocket and pulled some kind of machine out of it. It was a silvery machine, in the shape of a watch; in place of the markings of hours and minutes was a small screen with an accompanying keyboard. On the top end where the keyboard was, there was an opening with two pieces of plastic surrounding it, clearly meant to eject something in a focused range.

"What's that?!" Joey exclaimed. "It looks so cool!"

"Well, the idea was that it was going to be a mobile portal," Mathew said. "You can't really carry the one in the blueprints around, so I wanted to see if I could make one that I could. It doesn't work, but…"

"That's a cool concept, in any case. Can I see that?" Jermy asked.

"Yeah, of course. Just face it away from us if you want to try it." Mathew handed off the machine to the pikachu. He played with and examined it, running his fingers across the tiny but usable keyboard, the small but readable screen, the hard but firm exterior. Then, as he muttered comments to nobody but himself, he put it around his wrist, raising his arm up and down to play with the weight. Once he seemed satisfied, he searched for and found the activation button. When Jermy pressed it, a surge of energy burst into the air around them. It was not visible, but everyone could feel it.

"That definitely felt like the kind of gaseous reaction that's the main ingredient for tearing a hole through the w axis…" Jermy mumbled to himself. He suddenly moved his attention back to the cubone, his tone shifting from analysis to wonder. "Wow, you did all this design work yourself?! This is amazing!"

"Well, I did the building," Mathew said. "Somebody else took the shape of the blueprints and made the design for it."

"I mean, in any case, the fact that you did this is some next-level thinking. Really out of the box. How many models did you make?"

"Um, that's maybe the twentieth?" Mathew guessed. "Because it's so small, I got to make a lot more of them than the actual portal D.E. wanted me to make. Easier to dismantle, you know?"

"So you balanced that obligation of D.E.'s with the project you cared a lot more about?" Jermy stared at Mathew's handiwork once more, drifting his eyes away from anything else. "Ha. That sounds familiar."

"Were you doing the same thing back on Earth?" Joey asked.

Jermy nodded silently, his face a blend between a nostalgic smile and a contradictory grimace.

"JERMY'S TALKING ABOUT ME," ORB said. "THIS GUY DECIDED IT WOULD BE A GOOD TIME TO FINALIZE HIS PASSION PROJECT IN THE MIDDLE OF DEVELOPING THE HARDEST THING HE'S EVER DONE."

"Yeah, it was tough to find the time between all of the tests…" Jermy added, still adrift in his thoughts.

"I'm surprised that you guys think it's so cool," Mathew remarked. "It's not even functional. I lost steam on the work when I couldn't get anything right past the energy surge for model fifteen, and I stopped completely when-" The cubone looked at the floorboards. "Shit. Sorry."

"No, no, I get it…" Jermy didn't say a word for a strangely long period of time. As if a 'Eureka!' moment had burst through his clouded thoughts, his head snapped up. "Give me a night."

Mathew looked confusedly at the pikachu. "Huh?"

"You've already gotten most of the work done. I'm pretty sure I could finish this thing overnight."

"Overnight?! That thing took me months to even get something to come out of it!"

"Yeah, and it's great!" Jermy exclaimed. "You're just missing a couple parts in a few places. I can definitely fill in the blanks here and get this baby working."

"So you're telling me that you can figure out how to condense that energy into an actual, controlled portal in less than twelve hours?"

Jermy gave a thumbs up. "Shouldn't take me more than six."

"That's crazy!" Mathew exclaimed.

"It really isn't!" Jermy said. "I already hypothesized that you could produce a man-made portal without it being bound to a machine stabilizer, and this thing proves to me that my hypothesis was right. I learned a lot when developing the portal of mine…" Jermy paused. "I can do it again. And after that, the rest of it is tweaking the hardware and coding to get the angle and shape right so we don't make a dimensional black hole or anything."

"IF YOU COULDN'T TELL BY ME, JERMY THINKS CODING IS HIS BEST ATTRIBUTE," ORB said. "THE MOUSE MIGHT ACTUALLY BE USEFUL FOR SOMETHING."

"...You'd really do that for me?" Mathew said.

"Of course."

Suddenly, Meowth cut into the conversation. "You two should make a deal."

Mathew glanced quizzically at Meowth. "What do you mean by that?"

"If I was in your shoes, I'd want to offer Jermy help with something."

"Do you mean he helps a project of mine?" Jermy asked. "'If you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours' type of thing?"

"Yes."

"That's probably fair," Mathew agreed. "What can I help you with?"

"Good question. Hmm… Oh!" Jermy once more lit up like a lightbulb. "There was a bet I made with this guy in Kalmwa'er that I could make a cooler shield than his. I… don't really care about the bet now, but I do want to make a shield. Think you could help me brainstorm one up?"

"Seems easy enough," Mathew said.

With that, the two scientists got to work, leaving Meowth and Joey to their own devices for the rest of the day. As the afternoon sun beat down upon them with its subtle heat, Mathew and Jermy toyed with their shared projects, beginning with the portal device. After opening up the source code for Jermy to toy with, Mathew was exposed to Jermy's highly impressive work speed. It took more than an hour of analysis and explaining for Jermy to generally understand Mathew's code - a godsend, considering he didn't bother to label half of it and talking somebody through code was never easy. After that, Jermy kept testing it - trying different instructions, changing the firing angle of the gaseous reaction, toying with the design ever so slightly. After four distantly-spaced in time attempts, Mathew was taken by a momentous surprise - a black opening, like a rip, pushed through the air in front of the machine.

"YES!" Jermy shouted with glee. "IN YOUR FACE, CLEMENT! 'Couldn't do it without that robot backing me up,' he said! Well, who's laughing now?!"

"JERMY!"

ORB's exclamation caused Jermy pause. Then, after clearing his throat (or at least making the sounds of such an action), he spoke again. "Mathew, you see that?!"

Mathew waved, standing up from his workspace. "Yeah, nice job!" Mathew, too, had been hard at work playing with this shield concept that Jermy had asked of him - "Something kinda like a Venus Flytrap?" Jermy had suggested. When he wasn't cooperating with Jermy, he was sketching the idea out - at first he tried to draw a straight version of the plant, but then he remembered that he was trying to make a shield, so then he drew that a few times. Ultimately, he had come out with a simple design - an overall flat, circular shield with a bend in the middle that could shut.

Now that the portal was in a better state, Jermy and Mathew reconvened for a break. In desperate need for a late lunch, they snacked on some familiar fruit a pokémon was selling from a stand (paying with Mathew's money; Jermy was still broke from the TV). As they ate and returned to their workspace, they talked about the two projects.

"So, I think we've done just about everything on the portal we can without a stabilizer," Jermy said. "...And that's kinda the hard part."

"You said you could get it done overnight, didn't you?" Mathew said, slightly disappointed.

"I did, but that was before I realized I didn't have all of the materials around me like I usually do. I forgot that I don't have any stones to imbue."

"Uh… Imbue?"

"Oh, yeah! I forgot you haven't done any Solcean tech work before. Let me…"

Jermy stopped his sentence as they approached their worksite, where Meowth awaited them.

"Hey, Meowth!" Jermy exclaimed, leading Mathew towards him. "You're just in time to give us a lore dump!"

Meowth was unsurprisingly confused. "What?"

Jermy sidestepped away from the distance between Meowth and Mathew, clearly trying to merge Meowth into the conversation. "I was just about to tell Mathew about type stones."

"If you're looking for a basic description, they're just stones that can be mined out of the ground," Meowth said. "They have the ability to evolve pokémon."

"Oh, they're evolutionary stones," Mathew quipped. "Like the games."

"There's a little more to it," Jermy said, ending Meowth's usefulness to the exposition. "Type stones are named after the fact that they have this thing called 'type energy.' That's usually what causes an evolution, but that's not its only purpose. There's this ritual you can do to harvest the type energy out of the stone and give it to an object. It gets all of the advantages and disadvantages of the type, and, if you play with the ritual a little, it can get some other abilities too."

"Well, that's cool and all, but… Why, exactly, do you bring this up?" Mathew asked.

Jermy glared at Mathew with a clever grin. "You know how psychic types can hold stuff with their mind?"

Mathew gasped as the idea hit him like a ton of bricks. "Ooooh. That's absolutely worth trying."

"Yeah, and maybe they can help with the shield, too!" Jermy said optimistically.

"I don't intend to ruin the mood," Meowth intervened. "But you don't particularly have any type stones."

"That's why we gotta get some!" Jermy said. "I just need somewhere to look…"

"I remember hearing once that there was a town up north with a quarry that mines type stones up the river," Meowth suggested. "There may be a problem with that, though."

"What'd that be?" Mathew asked.

"...It's Arbor."

"Oh." The cubone grimaced. "Well, great. There goes that plan…"

"It's alright," Jermy told Mathew. "Judging by what I know about psychic type stones, I actually doubt that it would magically take away the trek."

Mathew didn't feel any better. The cubone felt toyed with - one minute, Solceus promised everything he could ever want out of life; the next, his lifelines were thrown out the window. A cozy job, followed by monstrous villains. A good friend, followed by betrayal. A passion project, followed by a barrier. The cycle continued and-

"Buuuuut…" Jermy intervened, picking up the project. Mathew loosened his tightened hand. "Once we get some, we can probably use it to get back to Kalmwa'er! We'll be able to visit!"

Mathew sighed. "Cool, I guess…" Dissatisfaction was still on his tongue.

Meowth stepped in - with impeccable timing, as it always seemed to be - stuffing the wristlet into his bag. "Do you have a moment?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'm on break and everything…" Mathew replied. "Do you need something?"

"I asked Joey to hang out in the village for a short while. I wanted to use the time to have our session."

"Oh yeah, that…" Mathew sighed. "We should go ahead and get that over with."

With that, the cubone left Jermy behind for a while to return to their room, where his questionably caring guide awaited his voice. The cubone sat himself inside of one of the nests in their room, careful not to break it. No matter how Mathew turned and tossed his rear and tail, it was always far scratchier than the one back at Meowth's place.

"Are you comfortable?" Meowth asked, walking over to his nest as he rummaged through his bag. The gray cat produced his reading glasses and placed them over his eyes as he sat down.

"Grk - close enough as I can get to comfortable…" Mathew muttered.

"Then we should go ahead," Meowth set, readying his notepad.

Suddenly, something came to Mathew's mind that he had planned to ask the cat. "Actually, by the way...before we start, there was something I was hoping to tell you."

Meowth glanced up from his notes. "Hm?"

"...I'm really worried about Joey."

Meowth looked back down at his notes. "To be honest with you, I agree. His behavior is worrying. I don't like seeing him with such a self-deprecating attitude." He began writing something down, most likely about Joey.

"Yeah, neither do I. Is there anything at all you could do maybe make him feel better about himself?"

"I'll see what I can do, starting tomorrow."

"Perfect," Mathew said, nodding in approval. "Okay, we can go ahead with whatever now."

"Alright," Meowth opened calmly. "During our last session, we discussed the nature of your condition and the circumstances of Earth that led to this. By now, we should be more than ready to tackle this truth."

"...Oh," The cubone said weakly. He knew this was coming, but it didn't make anything easier.

"I won't pretend that this will be an easy subject for you to talk about. However, to me, it seems that it's your inability to describe the reality of the situation that is preventing you from restabilizing yourself. Are you willing to continue?"

Mathew nodded slowly. "Okay."

Meowth flipped through his clipboard. "If memory serves me right, you lent Joey a scrapbook with important information. Are you alright with sharing this information? Visual indicators might act as an excellent way to enter this subject."

"Go for it, I guess," he replied, letting Meowth control the subject as much as possible - they were looking into a maze he thought only Meowth could decipher.

Meowth reached into his bag and produced the scrapbook. He set it down, seemingly to slide it from one nest to the other, but the unfinished state of the floorboards must've dissuaded him from that plan. Mathew was thankful - ripping up the back cover of such a critical object by trying to slide it on wood ripe for splinters would've hurt him as much as the book. Meowth decided a better plan would be to stand up and move the nest closer to Mathew, allowing them to look at the book together.

Meowth placed the book between them. They sat there for a moment.

"Uh…" Mathew said, hoping for clarity on Meowth's unspoken command.

"I can't open this myself," Meowth said. "This is your process, not mine."

Mathew took a heavy breath. He reached out with his hands and burst the book open with a slam before his fingers could reject the motion. He had pried it to whatever page the swift movement had wanted him to grab.

Inside the book was a collection of photos depicting large groups of people together in various locations.

Meowth gazed upon them with a look of - well, his look didn't change, but he seemed engaged. "These photos are nice. Have you considered a career in photography?"

"Um, no..." Mathew was mildly flabbergasted. "You don't usually give compliments like that…"

"I have my interests," Meowth replied.

The response gave Mathew no insight on whether Meowth was complimenting him for the sake of the session or out of genuity. He decided it was better not to know.

Meowth put his paw on one of the photos. It was a straight shot of three people, a bearded man, a pale-skinned woman, and a happy young boy, standing side-by-side in a large room with a sofa and a set of stairs behind them. "This looks like a normal photo of your family. Is that everyone, or are some in these other ones also family?"

"No, they're friends. We're a pretty nuclear family and all."

"Can you identify who everyone in this picture is?"

Mathew nodded. He put his nail up against the man. "... That's me, on the right." He slid it over to the woman. "The woman on the left's my wife, Laura…" Finally, he moved it to the middle. "And the smaller one in the middle's my son, Mark."

"I see." As Mathew retracted his nail, Meowth's attention was suddenly shifted to another photo. "I wasn't aware that Earth also had cat species." He pointed to the image in question - this time of him, his son, and the family cat.

"Yeah. She's a-" Mathew decided that explaining what a pet was to Meowth was probably a bad idea. "She's cute."

"Peculiar…"

Mathew looked at Meowth concerningly. "What?"

"The photo of your 'full' family doesn't have all four of you in it. Do you have one of that sort on another page, or-"

"No!" Mathew instinctively swatted at Meowth's paw as he reached to turn the page. "I mean-!" The cubone quickly retracted his threatening approach. "You can search it! You're just...not gonna find...any...of all four of us."

Meowth looked at him again with his flat stare. Mathew could see the slight contortions upon it. He already knew what happened, just from that. "Please, try to recount what happened."

Mathew shook his head. "You've already got the picture. Do I have to tell you every little thing?"

"I understand that it's hard, but you do…" Meowth pondered for a moment. "You should start by telling me a bit more about yourself. Perhaps that'll ease you into it. We are friends, after all, right? And I would love to hear more about your world."

"You don't have to butter me up like that, you know?" Mathew spoke with a frustrated tongue. "I know you don't really think that. And we've already tried dancing around the subject before."

Mathew could see the change in Meowth's body language. He seemed annoyed, but not angry...more hurt. "I'm just trying to help you."

Guilt filled the cubone's conscience. He decided, unannounced, to follow through, for both of their sakes. "So I already told you that the planet is fucked, right?"

"You did, in great detail."

"I don't really think I ever told you what I was doing while all that stuff was going on."

"Go on…" Meowth readied his clipboard.

"I grew up in this place called Albany, in upstate New York. I was born in 2029, which was right before everything in the world really started breaking down. Growing up and realizing just how terrible everything was going to become...it was awful. I felt like life was never going to have a purpose."

"So feelings of despair are not foreign to you…" Meowth seemingly noted this with his pen.

"Yeah. I wouldn't call what I had depression, but it was similar enough. I was a stupid young adult, so I thought the best plan I had would be to drink my problems away." Mathew closed his eyes, recalling the memory as if it was happening now. He remembered whirling around in that squeaky seat, looking at tables flooded with people, with laughter, with innocence. "I think a lot of people thought the same way," he described to Meowth. "The pub was always packed."

"I can guess where this is going."

"Probably." He envisioned the bar, and there she was, on the left. Brown hair that matched her eyes…a wonderfully picked dress, as always...and that happy smile. How could he ever picture this scene without her? "It's kinda stupid nowadays, but whenever I went there, I would ask for this one seat, right in the middle, that squeaked whenever you turned. I don't know why—no, that's a lie, I know why, it's just a really stupid reason that I'd rather forget about. But what matters is that, one day, this woman started sitting in the seat next to me. I didn't notice her much at first, and when I did, I didn't pay her much attention. I never spoke with her until a bartender asked both of us what we wanted and we asked for the same thing. I have no idea how it happened - it was this tangy cider that took forever to intoxicate you that people only ever got when they were feeling adventurous. But it got us talking." Mathew leaned back and stared up at the ceiling. "Alcohol preferences - our first conversation topic."

"I'm going to assume this was the beginning of your relationship," Meowth said. The sounds of furious scribbling rocketed into Mathew's mask.

"Yep. We talked about a lot of things. And laughed. Probably because our minds were number than frostbitten fingers after all of our drinking, but laughed nonetheless. At one point, she asked me if I wanted to try chatting in a more serious restaurant, and I said yes." Mathew paused, nodding to himself. "We became partners in a few months, and fiances in just about a year. Life was so much better after that."

"How so?" Meowth asked, moving to a new page now that his current one was absolutely filled with the chronicles of his younger life.

"Well, that weight that was holding me down while I was in school… It got lifted with Laura. Sure, we had to move to the middle of bumfuck nowhere, also known as Nevada because everywhere in New York besides, like, Manhattan and Brooklyn, became a toxic hellhole. But we managed to stay strong. I worked hard as an engineer and got us money to spare. And Laura pulled in some extra from her music career.

"Your wife had a music career? Interesting."

"Yeah, she was awesome. Laura became somewhat of an online celebrity back in our heydays. Man, I still remember strumming the guitar while she sang her heart out in front of the camera like it was live." Mathew's eyes began to haze. "She always loved acoustics."

"...This reminds me of Zell, but more caring and involved," Meowth said.

"Oh yeah, Zell." Mathew didn't have to say much to know that there was envy in those words. "Seems like you two had a falling out, didn't you?"

"You could say that, if we were even friends to begin with…" Meowth shook his head, stowing away his conflictions for the sake of his. "In any case, tell me about your son."

"Oh, Mark. Mark…" Mathew's mind was swung to a different loving memory. Coursing through them seemed so easy now - he had Meowth to thank for that. "My son was a one of a kind kid. He had this curiosity that came so naturally to him. He had a knack for creating things too. He was a nice artist, helped me with sketching out ideas for tools and everything."

"I presume he helped you with that object you and Jermy were working on."

Mathew nodded. "He even came up with a neat little name for it. The Wormhole Wristlet. I'm still not completely sure on it, but I don't have any better names."

"The name sounds fine." Meowth replied. "I presume that much like your wife, you were in good relations with your son?"

The most terrible shudder crackled down Mathew's roughened spine. "Y-yes... W-well, at least until…" Mathew chose to just stare at the cat in front of him.

"You can tell me." Meowth stated with just a little bit more enthusiasm peering through his jaws.

Mathew felt his eyes dampen further. He put his hands over his bone-covered head, and felt his nail drive into the godforsaken crack. Meowth's words of encouragement were but an echo to the abyss as the cubone tried to process his own memories, yet they were being flushed out by the harshest waves of sorrow, dragging him down to the most twisted depths his mind could muster. It felt like he'd be trapped down there forever. And that delusion seemed like an inescapable and insurmountable fate.

That was until a gentle touch from the shadows woke him from the madness. Mathew saw Meowth's paw gently placed on his shoulder. "You can tell me because I know you're capable of being better. Our time in Misery Woods made that clear." Meowth spoke with a sincerity Mathew had never heard from the cat before.

Mathew looked into Meowth's eyes, and took a deep breath.

"...A-at least until the day my wife died."

Mathew saw that Meowth didn't stop to take notes or get back into his nest. Instead, he watched as his friend's flat expression broke once more - into an empathy he had never seen from him before.

"Two years ago, our house was broken into in the middle of the night… Laura and I, we got close to him, peeking behind a corner. We thought we could handle it - Laura would keep him still, I would call 911. She...she was on top of him…" The tears began flowing. The pain of recollection pierced his mind. But he couldn't quit now. "W-we thought it was gonna be o-okay...h...how could we know he had a w-weapon…? N-not even a gun...that w-would've been easy…" Mathew pushed through the pain. "It was a bat! With nails! O-one hit on the side of the head was all...all it-"

Mathew emotions burst through the dam, tears flowing through his eyes like a river. Meowth did the one thing he could - embrace him.

"I'm sorry."

It was done. After so long, Mathew had told somebody the truth behind his rage. The truth behind his attack on Meowth during Roci Grotto - how, for a fleeting moment, he became his own enemy. The truth behind harming Joey - how, for a fleeting moment, he became an abuser. The truth behind his desperation for D.E. - how, for a fleeting moment, he saw a chance for happiness again.

Mathew felt so much compound on him, but above all, he felt liberated. Free from having to hide himself. Free from suffering alone.

But the fight was not over. Perhaps it never would be.

Mathew pulled away from Meowth to wipe his face. The story wasn't even over yet. "A-after that, Mark and I… grew apart. If I didn't pull away from him… I could've… I could've hurt him!"

Mathew took a moment to collect himself, giving Meowth time to write everything he just heard down. "Despite this," he continued. "I tried my damndest to keep supporting him - I got us that cat mostly so he could have something to cope with. And he did help me with the portal, so we could both escape, but two months ago…he ran away." It was then that Mathew began to weep gently. "..I-I guess his idea of escape didn't have me in it. I don't blame him, though. All I can hope is that he's okay…"

Finished writing, Meowth softly pulled his pen over the clipboard, and looked up at the cubone in front of him.

"Y'know, I just had a thought," Mathew stated. "Your own dad, Mr. Perisan? From the sounds of his letter, he was trying to do the same thing, keeping you safe from that contract stuff and all. I wonder if he felt that kind of loneliness, too." A dreadful feeling washed over him. "Oh, God, was I as bad of a parent as he was? No wonder Mark hated me…"

Mathew felt increasingly anxious as silence overtook the room. He watched Meowth's eyes close, and he knew they were determining his judgement. "...I can't know if you were a bad parent," The cat finally spoke. "But I don't believe you're a bad person."

Mathew felt ease rush over him. "R-really?"

"I learned a lot about you from your actions after that argument. The fact that you sought out Joey on your own accord, and just let your interactions return to normal once it was over says to me that you have a good heart."

Mathew felt a warmth inside himself. "Thank you. You don't know how much that means to me. After Mark ran away, I was completely alone. It hurt, Meowth… It hurt."

"I understand."

Suddenly, Mathew felt Meowth's soft arms wrap around his body again. Mathew began to feel a large mixture of different emotions dancing around his head. Despair, horror, comfort, contentment, all moving as one. Never before had he felt so good, yet so awful.

These feelings began to part as the cat's arms did, leaving Mathew to watch with a decent sense of satisfaction with himself and Meowth's work the stated cat, now back in his own nest, write down a few more notes. Half-closed eyes indicated to Mathew that the cat looked lost in his own thoughts. Then his eyes pulled open a bit as his hand placed the pen clip into the clipboard before lowering back to his side.

"Now that you told me all this," Meowth began. "It's time that we start taking efforts to help you work through all of this. It's going to take effort, but I'm certain that somebody like you has the strength to improve. In fact… I believe I know what kind of treatment we should try first. Are you ready?"

Mathew looked at Meowth with a puzzled expression gleaming through his eyes and gave him a nod. The gray cat responded by removing himself from the scratchy nest he had been sitting in. He stretched slightly before tucking his clipboard under his arm.

"Follow me, please. Bring your bone club with you," said Meowth.

Mathew obeyed his therapist's command and walked with him out of their room. Soon they were beyond the hotel, and sooner yet they were just outside the village. Mathew could see all the little burrow-like houses poking up from the ground, and the few rickety wooden buildings that towered them, despite none being more than two stories high.

"This place should work," said Meowth, breaking the serenity. "Turn your eyes to this tree."

Mathew did as he was told. He gazed at a rather old looking tree. It towered over the two of them with its dark brown bark topped with a golden yellow set of leaves that slowly began to peel away from the base, revealing a hideous tangle of sharpened branches.

"Beat up the bark of this tree with your club until I say stop."

"Um, what?"

"This is something called exposure therapy. By making you perform a similar task to what triggers your anxiety, the emotional responses to the responsible stimuli will begin to weaken," Meowth explained.

"...Alright," Mathew said. "If this is what I have to do to get better, then…" Mathew looked at the tree a few inches in front of him. The cubone pulled his shaky hand back, but a deep chill began to slither down his back. Without a boost from fight-or-flight, Mathew couldn't pull the bone forwards. He let out a frustrated groan.

"Why don't you take a few breaths first?" Meowth suggested.

In. Out. In. Out. In-

Wham!

The air rushed out of Mathew at great haste as he struck the tree with intense force. And he did so again. And again. It felt awful, but if this is what it would take to fix himself, then he would do it.

"You're doing great. Keep going," Meowth said with a little more enthusiasm than he normally spoke with.

Mathew kept hitting the tree with continuous hard left and right motions. Little scraps of bark broke off the tree's surface, and slowly drifted to the ground like broken memories into the void.

Several minutes passed. Mathew, falling into exhaustion, gave the tree the mightiest blow he could muster.

"Excellent," Meowth said. "That should be enough. Come over here."

For a few seconds, there were no words. Mathew panted from tiredness, but he didn't move nor reply. He kept trying to see the grass below him - but all he could see was blackness.

"Are you okay?"

Mathew blinked, and everything came back into focus. He quickly darted his eyes around, taking in the greens of the grass, the brown of the tree, the reds and yellows of the leaves above, the browns of those lefts scattered below, the gray of his friend, and the brightness of the sinking light. "I-I'm fine," he replied, seeing that his vision was unimpaired. It was just a blackout - a four-second long, disorienting blackout - but a blackout nonetheless. He walked over to Meowth, moving on without a further thought.

"By now, Joey and Jermy are probably already back at the room. Tomorrow, I plan to include them in our next session."

"Wait, them?" Mathew said. "What are we going to do with them?"

"I won't spoil it."

Suddenly, a new voice approached them. "What do you think you two are doing?"

Mathew and Meowth turned from the tree to see none other than the dewott they met at the front of the town. Mathew felt his agitation begin to flair up. "And what're you..." Thankfully, he was too tired to mess up the situation. "...Never mind. What seems to be the issue?" he asked.

"First off, the Swords of Justice are in the area, so I'd rather not have my village look trashed if they have a visit, thank you very much. And secondly, that's the tree I...think under," Sheilott said. "Why are you getting the bark all torn up?"

"Sorry, but that reason is private," Meowth said.

"What the hell kind of reason makes hitting a tree a private matter?"

It suddenly dawned on Mathew that he'd never heard a natural pokémon swear before. "...A good reason," was all he could find to reply with, engrossed in this thought.

"In any case, we're finished for the day. Feel free to...think."

Meowth guided Mathew away from Sheilott. As the cubone left the scene, he turned to look at her one last time. She was covered beneath the tree's leaves that would, for a time, keep her in the shade - but once those leaves fell, she would have to stare down the sun with her own two eyes.

Mathew's reassurance was suddenly accompanied by something only describable as claustrophobic. Thankfully he could take his mind off that strange feeling thanks to something else she mentioned. "Hey Meowth?"

"Hm?" The cat responded.

"Do you know who the 'Swords of Justice' are?"

"They're effectively a travelling law enforcement group. They assist in eliminating criminal activity and improving the quality of the community. They're most well known for being involved with Charles, that human I mentioned before."

"Wait, didn't you mention that was like, two hundred years ago? They must be old as shit."

"Yeah. Though you'd be hard-pressed to find a Legendary Pokémon that isn't old."

As the novelty of learning more about Solcean history began to wear off, Mathew decided to do some retrospection on the walk back. For the first time since he had arrived, things seemed to really be looking up. He had finally made a breakthrough on his screwed-up headspace, he was making movements towards figuring out what was going on, and most importantly, he was finally getting closer to finding D.E. and turning his life around. All he had to do now was just stand his ground...