Chapter 26: Hollow Garden - Part 1
"So if I already have a dad, but Dialga also helped me be born, then does that also make them a dad? Do I call them dad? Or like...Legendad? Legendaddy?" mused Lumi. He chuckled. "Legendaddy...I bet Clara would like that one."
On a whim, he stopped on his current path, and glanced at the face of a Nuzleaf, whose blank expression had been etched onto their stone white face, body no more than a statue. Just like the dozens of other ferals he had seen thus far.
"What do you think? Too much?"
Nuzleaf statue refused to comment.
"Eh, I'll workshop it."
His stomach grumbled, and he groaned and pulled out the suspiciously oran-berry shaped rock he had found an hour or so ago. Seeing it made his stomach protest further. His fangs gave a half hearted bite into it with a whimper.
As expected, it tasted like rocks, and broken dreams.
"...This place sucks..."
The first hour had been full of purpose. Lumi had strode forward amongst the pale flowers and trees with confidence, so sure that he would find everyone and things would work out, like usual. Sure, this place had no floors, and seemed less like a Dungeon and more like another dimension entirely, but it couldn't be that bad. The ferals couldn't even do anything!
The second hour had been full of silence. Tall alabaster pines and lush marble bushes, yet it all remained lifeless. The only sound came from the clack of his feet as he walked along the stone ground, or occasionally scampered across fallen logs that seemed more like stone columns on the forest floor.
The third hour had been full of his own personal rendition of whatever song popped into his head that he sang out loud. He needed something happy, so a lot of "Mr. Blue Sky" and "Hooked on a Feeling." When he got tired of that, he started to think his thoughts aloud. And when he ran out of useful thoughts, he started to talk to himself about anything.
Anything at all to distract from the silence, the hunger, and the cold realization that they may be in here for far longer than he first anticipated.
"Three hours...that's like nine outside. We should have gotten wind by now or something. What gives? Am I gonna have to camp here overnight?" he wondered. "...Does this place even have a night?"
He glanced up. While he didn't see a sun, the blank sky above did shine light down below, enough to cast shade that broke up the otherwise difficult-to-distinguish forest floor. He sighed, not looking forward to finding out how a day/night cycle worked here, and continued on his way towards his current goal.
He figured heading toward the gargantuan tree in the distance was his best bet for finding the others; it would be the greatest landmark for literal miles around, and so he decided to follow the roots he had seen from before right towards it.
From afar, the roots were large enough to dwarf trees as they wound through the landscape, and yet, he was still so far away that he hadn't even gotten to the tip of one yet. Instead, he followed the smaller offshoots that broke through the ground and got progressively thicker as he traversed the forest.
The Meowstic made a game of hopping across roots and fallen trees, all while weaving his Amp Orbs around his arms and legs to practice psychic dexterity like his mom recommended.
At this point, he had gotten rather good at it, and even let loose a few enhanced Disarming Voices that were strong enough to blast chunks off of hapless stone ferals; a suitable field test, if there ever was one.
The violence helped alleviate the boredom, but the data was more important. At least, he told himself that.
His dwindling stamina and growing hunger demanded he use less energy, so right now he opted to make them whiz around his head and arms as he walked. The root he followed now had taken him a bit off the path he had found earlier, and through a thick copse of trees. He didn't know how long he had followed it, and he wasn't sure if it mattered; for as surreal as Hollow Garden was, it didn't take long for the monotone color scheme to make everything blur together.
That is, until he carefully stepped underneath a fallen tree propped against a boulder and entered a clearing with a pale crystal ensconced on a vertical root.
His eyes widened at a refreshing sight; color.
The rich brown root stood stark against the white backdrop, and jutted directly from lush green grass. The grass looked soft, rather than the brittle, spiny facsimile of grass that grew around. The color only radiated about a foot from the crystal before it bled away into bleached white.
The Meowstic blew air out of his nose and burst from the side of the clearing, grateful for something new and potentially helpful to have presented itself. A quick glance around the clearing revealed that the root beyond the crystal grew thicker. To the side he saw a wide indentation in the ground with something that he hesitated to call water inside. Some kind of stream, perhaps?
He slowed his jog as he approached the crystal. His first thought was of a Keystone, but this seemed...different. His experience with them was limited to the ones he saw at Match Quarry, Windy Spire, and only briefly at Temporal Tower, yet each of them were much larger than this, as well as more vibrant; the gem in front of him seemed muted somehow. The color didn't radiate Energy like he thought it should.
Lumi put a paw to his chin and thought. Why is this here? Surely, this wasn't the Keystone; it was way too small… A place like this would be distorted with tons of aether, he didn't think a crystal this tiny would be able to regulate all of it.
Even if it did, it's not like it seemed to be doing that now. Its color seemed faded, with barely any glow, as if lifeless, inert...
Wait.
He glanced at his paw, and then rested it on the side of the crystal. With eyes closed, the mental representation of the aether lake bloomed before him, as it did when he touched Windy Spire's Keystone. Based on the dull green color and the way it felt, he would say this crystal had an element of Grass energy, as opposed to the other Keystone's Flying type.
Also unlike last time, where the sight had been marred with cracks and cuts, this seemed oddly still, like whatever power meant to be here had been dormant for far too long.
He frowned. His intuition told him that this smaller crystal carried some importance, yet he wasn't quite sure what he could do to help anything. Dialga gave him the ability to pause aether, but it seemed like doing that wouldn't help matters here. His foot tapped as he pondered everything he knew regarding aether and his ability.
Perhaps he would have to get creative. He recalled the devastation Dialga wrought on their own tower, only to rewind it to a restored state afterwards. Perhaps if he could rewind this crystal to when it was more active, a reaction would occur?
Could he even do that?
Well, he'd either figure something out or starve. Perhaps this was one of the 'advanced' techniques Dialga had mentioned, but he thought the lessons with Celebi were going rather well. He had been able to sit down and do nothing for a whole thirty seconds yesterday, and he didn't burst into little baby tears when he opened his eyes to the time stream now.
He burst into very masculine, adult tears. Very different.
He even had a name for the time sense he could now tap into. Celebi told him he could call that power 'Tempo.' Patent pending, of course.
"I've been trying to get Lord Dialga to agree to a name for it for literal millennia," he recalled her saying. "He might disagree, but don't you think it's fitting? Tempo. Once you get accustomed to it, you'll realize everything happens in measured intervals, marching along in procession. We're the only ones who can hear the beat."
"Everything, huh..." he murmured. With a breath he unfurled his ears, closed his eyes, and decided to wing it as he used Tempo to see more than he could before.
He saw the lake of dull green become an even duller shade, almost gray, and his senses sharpened as he concentrated. The flow of time swept over him like a wave, seconds and hours danced along his fur. He inched open one eye, just enough to see the crystal and nothing else.
It overlapped itself, phantoms of past and future instances of the object cycled in rapid succession, enough to play tricks on his mind. It shuttered and jerked from vibrant greens to a dull, dead stone, and everything in between. Celebi had told him in order to make sense of what he saw when he used his Tempo, he'd have to focus very hard on the exact possibilities he wanted to see. Only the likeliest possibilities were present enough to be manipulated with the time stream, and it required utmost focus on the precise desired outcome.
To pause something was akin to willing a blockage in the stream; encouraging time to flow around an object and not through it. She hadn't taught him more than that, but perhaps rewinding something was like…telling the stream to reverse course.
He exhaled, and focused on the possibility of the crystal as alive and full of energy, green and verdant like the grass. Psychic energy came from within, but he tried to flex some influence over the stream that flowed around him. Eyes squinted, he reached out with Tempo and attempted to grasp the errant minutes and moments from their path. It became more strenuous as he gathered more drips of time, until he strained with holding (holding, the concept barely seemed to apply here) a mass of time.
He took that mass, and tried to pull it back where it came. Against the stream.
He pulled.
Pulled.
Pulled...
His eyes opened a bit more as he clenched his teeth. He saw the flow of time around the crystal, blue and serene, become agitated around that specific area. It flickered between a dormant and active state, the past and present, but his grip was too weak. He knew he was doing something, but he knew too little. Understood too little.
He ceased his Tempo, and the whiteness of the forest bled back into focus. The crystal remained inert, with only the lingering vestiges of misplaced seconds returning to their rightful place; an intuition he knew only a precious few beings on this earth would truly understand.
A grunt escaped his lips, and he fell back on his tails and sighed. Breath came out in heavy spurts from the exertion.
And it seemed like such a good idea too…
"Aw, don't tell me you're givin' up? It looked like you had something going there!"
"Mrrroww!?"
He jolted forward and scrambled to turn around. Wide golden eyes met wild purple, and he froze at the stark contrast of Noivern's black wings against the white forest.
Lumi's surprise turned to unease at the sight of Noivern, and indecision froze him in place. He didn't know whether to be terrified, furious, or just plain annoyed.
Then the fucker giggled.
"Heh, what's wrong? No words for your old p-"
An Amp Orb powered Disarming Voice shut him up real quick, Lumi didn't hesitate to summon his orbs and shout baleful harmonics as loud as he could, fairy energy shunting from both his mouth and the field generated by his orbs, before he hurried to his feet and bolted away on all fours.
"Holyshitholyshitholyshit..." His heart raced as the white woods blurred past. His only prerogative right now was to get as far away from that guy as possible.
"Where did you even come from!?" he shouted in frustration.
"Me? I've been here!"
He almost tripped at how close the voice sounded, and turned to see Noivern leaned up against the side of a tree, smirking.
"My question is, how long have you been here, kid?"
"Up yours!" Lumi's ears unfurled as he yelled out at Noivern again. A wide smile spread on the bat's face before the Disarming Voice slammed against the tree with enough force to crack stone.
Lumi staggered back in shock when he saw no sign of Noivern. He was there one second, and then the next just...gone. Quicker than in the blink of an eye.
At that moment, Lumi heard a loud laugh echo from above and around him. His ears curled against his head, and he picked a direction to run, hopeful that maybe he could put some distance between himself and Noivern.
That seemed less and less likely as the chase went on. Hell, he hesitated to even call it a chase, because it seemed like Noivern wasn't even trying. No matter where he looked, he always saw black and purple in the corner of his eye.
Whether he laid back in tree branches, flew up above him, or leaned casually against any tree that happened to be right next to him, Noivern seemed to be everywhere, always, all at once. And each time, he looked at Lumi as if he were some funny joke he had stumbled across.
Anger started to bubble and seethe within him. He couldn't believe this guy was messing with him again.
His front paws caught on an errant tree root. Momentum made his body roll over and onto his back. He groaned and grasped his head, yet the sound of chuckling in front forced him to sit up. Noivern stood beyond in another random clearing, body racked with stifled chuckles.
He pointed at Lumi.
"I like that look on your face, I can tell you don't wear it often. Is wittle kitty getting angwy?" he asked with a cutesy tilt of his head.
A feral hiss escaped Lumi's lips. He decided running was a stupid idea, it would be way better to wipe that smirk off of Noivern's face. He reared up on both legs, and the pulse of psychic energy from his unfurled ears made his fur stand on end.
Quicker than he ever had, he wrenched his orbs to face his opponent and screeched out another Disarming Voice, this one so loud and full of frustration the air around it warbled.
Noivern didn't even break eye contact, just casually leaned his body left and right to avoid the two blasts that exploded into pink music notes behind him.
"Ah, and there it is ladies and gentlemen! He's got some fight in him after all!"
A low growl escaped Lumi's throat, and he changed tactics. The gold light of Reflect glistened between the orbs, solidified by resonance to be completely dense, and he angled it sideways so the hard edge faced the bat. With less restraint than normal, he shunted it forward with a telekinetic boost like a discus.
The hardened edge shot forward with a dangerous sheen, straight for Noivern's head. He held up his claw in response, snapped his talons, and vanished from sight. The Reflect plane sunk its edge into the side of a stone tree, and Lumi cursed loudly.
"C'mon, you almost had it that time, over here!" Noivern taunted from above. Lumi shot his head up to where he rested on a thick branch, and yelled as he ripped the screen from the tree towards the branch. Noivern disappeared with a snap of his talons again, but the branch got cut almost in two from the screen.
"Ooh, so close!" To the left, sitting on top of a boulder. Lumi pushed out a breath and widened his arms. His orbs obeyed by spreading apart, increasing the radius of the Reflect to three times his height, and he launched it forward, vertically this time. The force of the throw made it rotate like a saw blade.
Noivern barely reacted to its approach. When it reached him, he simply held out one claw to catch the large rectangular plane perfectly between two talons, and held it there. Lumi poured more energy into pushing it forward, teeth clenched and brows furrowed.
The weaponized barrier warbled from the psychic force that propelled it forward, yet Noivern held it back with as much effort as it took to pinch paper.
After a few more seconds of this, Noivern pushed his claws to the side, and redirected the large panel of hardened energy just a few inches away, where it sliced deep within the stone he sat on. The sudden impact sent a jolt of feedback through the telekinesis, and Lumi stumbled where he stood a ways away.
"You know, I think you were having better luck shoutin' at me kiddo. Why not try that again?" offered Noivern from the rock. Lumi looked up to retort, but didn't see him anywhere.
"In fact..." His voice whispered right next to his ear. He whipped his head to the side to see Noivern tower right next to him.
"Let me show you how it's done."
The bat made a big show of sucking in a breath of air. Lumi's eyes widened and he wrenched his Amp Orbs from where they were a few meters away, and quickly loaded Light Screen into them. A shield of hardened light materialized between him and Novivern, right as the other's large ears glowed white.
Noivern used Boomburst.
Lumi heard a sound like a thousand discordant brass instruments screech at once for a split second before a dull ring thrummed in his ears. Sound waves powerful enough to warp the air crashed into his shield, obscuring all sight and sound. His eyes and ears went completely numb. He only registered a distant weightlessness.
Leaves and branches rushed above in his vision, and dimly he realized that he had been propelled airborne. He barely had enough presence of mind to consider bracing before he slammed backfirst into the trunk of a tree. He slid down, curled up in a ball, and wheezed. The impact knocked the wind out of him.
Unconsciousness tempted him, teetered at the end of his vision, but he fought through the promise of painlessness. The Meowstic made himself roll onto his stomach and forced his arms to push him up so he didn't lay prone, even as coughs escaped him.
He didn't want to faint here. Not while the others were still lost, and definitely not to this damn psycho.
The clack of talons ahead. Although his vision occasionally blurred, he looked up and saw Noivern stroll towards him. He juggled his Amp Orbs in a claw as he approached and whistled all the way.
"Still with me? Good, forgot to reign that one in a bit." He caught three orbs and held the fourth up to his eye. "Looks like these things are good for something, huh?"
Lumi gave a weak glare, and had to cough some more before he responded.
"You...you're a...dick..."
Noivern came close and put a foot under his chest. He unceremoniously kicked Lumi onto his back and leaned down close. The Meowstic let out a weak groan.
"Don't be a bitch, kid. I needed you to get the fight out of your system before I talked to you, otherwise you wouldn't cooperate."
"...What?"
Noivern grinned. The more he saw it, the more that grin annoyed him. The dragon wrapped a claw around his neck, pushed down a bit, and then the world flashed purple.
For some reason the ground felt a tiny bit different, and the strangest feeling of vertigo overcame Lumi. He curled over to hold his stomach, lest he lose what little he had inside, before he noticed the crystal from before.
Lumi managed to sit up and glanced around, confirming that they were back in that same clearing from earlier. Across from him, Noivern rested on his side with his tail splayed out and a claw under his chin. The crystal pulsed weakly between them.
Noivern pointed to it.
"Fix it."
The Meowstic grabbed one of his tails and kept his glare as he processed the demand. His eyes flicked from the crystal to Noivern, but he refused to respond. Silence reigned for a few moments.
Noivern's grin dropped and he let out a groan.
"C'mon kid, what's that look for? Did you already forget Rowshore? Scratch my back like I scratched yours and fix this damn thing for me."
Lumi's ear twitched.
"Did you already forget Windy Spire? You didn't help us, you set us up," he said, then gestured at the crystal. "Besides, even if I knew what 'it' is, or how to fix it, why are you even asking me to? You want to break Keystones, not fix them. Weavile said so."
"This isn't a Keystone, it's...something in service to one. Sort of like an offshoot that helps it process and produce aether better, helps give the Leyline form. But as you can see, it's dried up, and as long as it stays like that, nobody's getting to a Keystone anytime soon."
The Meowstic's frustration gave way to curiosity at Noivern's explanation, and he glanced at a crystal in a new light. So these served as auxiliary regulators? Perhaps this was something unique to Leylines, on account of the presumably massive amounts of aether they formed from.
He frowned, then looked back at Noivern.
"Thanks for the explanation, still no reason for me to help you. Why would I help give you access to the Keystone? The whole reason we're here is to get to it before you!"
Noivern quirked a brow at him, and sat up straighter, leaned up a bit to look down at the Meowstic. He tapped the cold, hard ground with a talon. The clack rang out in the empty forest.
"It looks like you don't quite understand the situation, so I'll spell it out for you."
He gestured to the forest around them with a claw.
"It's called Hollow Garden for a reason. It's dead here. Hell, probably been dead for hundreds of years and people just got used to it. Something happened to the aether that dried it up, and all that's left is the stone frame of a Dungeon that doesn't produce what it should. That means no ferals, no Keystone, and most importantly-"
Lumi's stomach chose that moment to betray him and grumble loudly. The sound split Noivern's face in a wide smile and he pointed at the Meowstic.
"No food."
He frowned and looked away from Noivern's grin, annoyed at his frustratingly sound logic. The only sources of food here were made entirely of stone, and with no escape orbs or badges, starving to death seemed like a more real possibility as every minute passed.
Plus, if he said the truth, then what this entire region had assumed to just be a characteristic of the Leyline was really an environmental consequence of something nobody fully understood. The budding scholar within him wondered what such a cause could be, and if it could tell them more about the overall issue of aether spread, but he shelved that line of inquiry as he focused on whether Noivern's plan held any merit.
"You're thinking awful hard for someone who doesn't really have a choice." Noivern's words jerked him from his musings. "I doubt you came here alone. Just think about your little friends you brought, out there in this forest, alone. Starving."
"And what about your followers?" countered Lumi. "Where's Weavile, huh? Shouldn't you be more focused on finding her than bothering me?"
"Are you kidding? You're the ticket to all my problems right now, I'm not going anywhere. Not when I lucked out like this!"
Noivern reached over and yanked Lumi up by the scruff of his neck, then held him up like some kind of trophy. His wild eyes were predatory, like a child who had just stolen the whole cookie jar, and Lumi squirmed in his grip.
"I was flying around for hours trying to figure out how to handle this aether business, and then an Absol apprentice was just handed to me on a silver platter. And not just any apprentice, but my little pal too! Doesn't it just sound like it was meant to be, wonderkid?"
"Do you always breathe so heavy? Brush your teeth sometime, goddamn..."
"HAH! See, there you go! Lighten up and this'll be easier for you."
He plopped him down right in front of the crystal, and Lumi quickly patted down his fur, then glared up at him.
"Even if I did trust you, what makes you think I can even do anything with this? I'm a new apprentice, and I've never seen anything like this before."
"Don't play dumb with me kid. I saw what you did at Windy Spire, and I saw what you were doing not five minutes ago. You got some idea how to influence these things, more than I do, anyway." He glanced at the crystal and scratched his head. "I figured if it was like a regulator, then poking a few holes in it would get things moving inside, but it's like there's barely any juice at all."
"It looks that way, but that can't be right." Lumi stared at the crystal and rubbed his chin in thought. "If Leylines are formed from major aether channels, and this place is already active due to you guys' screwing up aether balance on the continent, then there should be plenty of aether being stirred up and generated."
His ears flattened against his head.
"But it's not like I know how to really influence the crystal necessarily. What I was doing was something a little...different."
"I'm sure we can figure something out."
"Sorry, we?" Lumi looked at him, genuinely offended. Noivern chuckled.
"I'm not that bad to work with, am I?"
"You are the first person in my life who I get pissed off just by looking at," replied Lumi. "You are single handedly making me feel things I've never felt before."
"Phew, woah..." Noivern fanned himself with a talon and huffed. "Save the sweet talk for Mauve would you? Damn..."
"Oh my God." Lumi put his head in his paws and groaned. "Just...just let me see what you were doing before. On the crystal."
Noivern agreed, stepped over towards it, and snapped his talons. The tips of them turned pink. Lumi watched, intrigued, as he brought his talons down to flick the crystal with only a bit of force. The color of it glowed a brighter green, and beneath them, the radius of color expanded further out. However, after a moment, the shine died down, and the ground returned to normal.
"See? I can get it jump started, but only for a second," explained Noivern. Lumi thought about it for a minute, before he placed a paw on the stone.
"Try it again, I need to test something."
He closed his eyes and focused on the internal aether of the crystal. When Noivern flicked it again, the dull green briefly shimmered a more vibrant emerald color, before it became muted again.
He figured that spark of life meant that it had been jolted to produce aether. Perhaps...if it could just stay like that...
With open eyes, he tapped into Tempo, and the possible states of the crystal shifted before him again. He thought about what happened when Noivern had flicked it, and formulated a plan.
At Noivern's touch, the possibility of the crystal as alive and productive took precedence over all others. It only lasted for a second, but it made the possibility more likely. Tangible. Maybe if he could grab that possibility and hold it in place, not like a pause, but more like...
"A loop?" he asked himself, then cringed. That sounded even more advanced than what he tried before, but maybe he could figure something out.
He needed some seconds to work with. Thankfully, a glance up showed them flowing serenely around, in one direction, like usual. Relying on a budding instinct within, he reached out with Tempo like he would telekinesis, and focused on guiding some spare moments down where he wanted. It took some effort, and a whole lot of gesticulating with his paws, but after ten minutes, a length of the current shifted, then veered down.
With his paws out, he slowly molded those few moments down and around the crystal, just before his little current met with itself.
That's what he intended, anyway. The stream of time dissipated to join the greater flow before he could even begin to shape it. He huffed in frustration, which Noivern hopped on in an instant.
"You're not very good at this, are you?" piped Noivern from the side.
"You can find someone else if you want, " he replied.
Ignoring Noivern's chuckles, Lumi spent the next half hour trying and retrying to keep a consistent current without it breaking apart. Thankfully, Noivern seemed to be serious about cooperation, and duly flicked the crystal whenever Lumi needed another trial to test a particular method.
"Alright, one more time," he instructed, a somewhat stable current molded in his paws. He had found that by overlapping seconds and minutes over each other, they would soon turn into hours, and even longer stretches of time. It was difficult to describe, but the feel of it seemed more...dense.
Noivern acquiesced. As soon as the crystal started to glow, Lumi connected the ends of the stream and then stepped back with his paws up. Its possible states still shifted before him, but he began to see the outcome of a verdant, healthy looking crystal more often until it outweighed all other possibilities.
He had just stuck something in a time loop. He blinked, and a giddy feeling welled up within. Oh, that sounded sick.
"Ooh, well would you look at that?" said Noivern. He cut off the connection of the time stream, and a tingle under his feet brought his glance down.
The ground beneath began to come alive, fresh grass and dirt grew slowly outward. Spurred on by the energy of the crystal, now in a persistent state of production, life itself seemed to spread from it to their surroundings.
Soft grass soothed his feet from walking on stone for so long, and as he looked around at the wave of color that washed over with ever-increasing speed, he couldn't help an excited giggle at what he just managed to accomplish. He turned in a circle and marveled at the almost pure white environment turning into something much different.
Swaths of color reached the trees and branches, and spots on the ground had been restored to patchy bits of grass. Half a fallen log had been turned to wood while the other half remained made of granite, and to his left a bed of flowers only had a pawful of blue wildflowers. He looked into the dense treeline beyond and saw a similar, patchy pattern.
It seemed only a fraction of life had been restored.
A gleam in the corner of his eye brought his attention to the crystal, which to his surprise, began to glow brighter and shake a bit. A pool of multicolored energy started to swish and churn underneath it, pure aether, he soon realized.
He stepped back, wary that something might have gone wrong, but the pool stayed contained to a small area around the crystal. Small flecks of it rose up in little bubbles.
"...So it's like a...source? Like a fountain, or maybe a gate?" he murmured, walking around it as his mind worked. He wished he had his notebook with him for this amazing discovery. He figured the term 'gate' applied to this well enough, he had gotten tired of calling them crystals.
"Maybe there are more of these gates? You think if they're all activated, there won't be any..."
He trailed off when he turned and realized Noivern had left. He looked around, ears alert in case he tried something. As he scanned the treeline, his eyes landed on the nearby stream, now clear blue rather than the offputting, sooty gray before. Bushy vines hung over it, and the water seemed to sparkle.
He scampered over to it and leaned down to take a cursory lick of the water. Once it didn't cause him to immediately vomit, he smiled, and took larger laps of the water from the stream, eager to quench his thirst.
The simple pleasure of drinking from the stream caused a sense of peace to settle over the area, and he idly wondered what the forest would look like if it weren't "dead" like Noivern said.
Lumi's sight turned gray as he activated Tempo on a whim, and glanced around with squinted eyes to try and see what secrets this place might once have had. From his perspective, hundreds of ferals cut in and out of vision, their actions jerky and overlapping over each other, all completely incomprehensible, of course. He was just about to cut it off when the sight of one particular creature gave him pause.
It cut in and out, so he only had a few seconds at a time, but he swore this Pokemon stood taller than all the rest. Quadruped, with the proudest set of antlers he'd seen. A...Deerling? Sawsbuck? For some reason those names didn't feel right. Didn't seem proper.
He kept his gaze locked on it as the figure cut across the visual clutter of conflicting times. At one point, it stepped up right next to him and leaned down to get a drink of this very spring. This close, even across time itself, a sense of tranquility so powerful he felt as if he could fall asleep right next to this pokemon and be completely safe washed over him.
A thump on his head snapped him from the tranquility in an instant. He ceased Tempo and quickly wiped away any tears that formed before he glared up at Noivern, who had apparently returned.
His glare shifted to one of surprise at the sight of the fresh oran berries in the bat's claw.
"See? What'd I tell you!" exclaimed Noivern, and held a berry down. Lumi's stomach pushed him to jump up for the berry, but it got pulled back just before he could grab it.
"Are you serio-" a talon pressed against his lips.
"Ah ah ah. You want this, you agree to work with me while we're down here. None of that funny shit. Deal?"
"...Yeah, alright. Sure," he lied. The moment he saw a hint of his friends or family, he would do everything he could to get as far from Noivern as possible. Until then, he needed Noivern to open the gates.
Plus, he was hungry, dammit.
"Hell yeah!" cheered Noivern, who plopped down next to him and threw a wing over his back. He plopped a berry in Lumi's lap, and scarfed down a handful into his big mouth. Lumi sat cross legged underneath Noivern's wing with one eye on the happy, nomming bat.
"Mm, shnot pissha, but it hitsh the shpot, huh?" commented Noivern with oran in his mouth. Berry flakes flew out as he spoke. Lumi grimaced and scooted away, and took more reserved bites into his berry. The soreness from earlier began to subside. He rolled a few more from the pile into his bag.
Lumi sighed, conflicted. Frankly, he didn't know the right thing to do here: to actually work with Noivern to open the gates, or find another way? Should he have been more resistant to cooperation and try to fight more, even though he had been completely overpowered with one move? Noivern didn't make an attempt to try and restrain him, but with how strong he seemed and his apparent ability to appear wherever he wanted, Lumi got the sense that he simply didn't think he needed to try very hard to keep him in check.
To top it off, the ease that Noivern got under his skin bothered him. It may have been hypocritical, but he actually preferred Mauve. At least she seemed to regard him as an enemy, something he could understand. He couldn't predict Noivern. Had no idea how to overcome someone that powerful and erratic. In both times he's encountered him, his actions didn't line up with his goals.
He was like an enigma, it seemed like he just did whatever without a care in the world. Like he just went with the flow and just...
...wait.
"...No. No, I can't be this bad, right?" he thought to himself, suddenly a bit more reflective of his tendency to not sweat the details too much.
A weight on his back pulled his attention up, and he caught Noivern looking down at him, smile a bit more muted. It made him uneasy.
"What?" asked Lumi. Noivern locked eyes with him.
"Just lookin' at you," he said, and smirked. "You and your pretty eyes."
"How are you gonna beat my ass one second and compliment me the next?" wondered Lumi. He shook his head and sighed. "Mauve made it sound like you guys were somehow justified in what you're doing, but I'm still not seeing it. You're just insane."
"Is that right? And what makes you say that, kid?"
"Do I even need to explain it? You're a weird, dangerous, teleporting freak who breaks everything and barely has a reason beyond "it's for the greater good' or something!"
"You know, one of my better traits is I got a good eye for people." He poked Lumi on the nose with a talon. "And I can spot a little hypocrite when I see one."
"What are you even talking about?"
"I said I was looking at your eyes, wasn't I?" Noivern leaned down, close enough to where their snouts almost touched. "And they were a real nice shade of blue when you were messing with the gate earlier. Don't look like that's your natural hue though. It seems I'm not the only freak without a plan in here, huh?"
"That's...don't-"
"I knew there was a reason I liked you from the start." Noivern shifted and put a claw on Lumi's shoulder to push him into a very unwelcome side hug. "We're just two guys trying to make the most with the information we were given. Hell, it's got me sentimental just thinking about it."
"G-get off!" Lumi struggled and shoved Noivern off, and then bared his fangs at him. "Don't try to pull the 'we're not so different, you and I' trope, it's so overused! Unlike you, I'm not putting innocent people in danger to accomplish what I want!"
"Hah, nerd! Those are some strong words though. Almost strong enough to make you sound like a hero. Is that what you're trying to be kid, a hero? Oh!"
Noivern gasped, and his eyes widened.
"If you're the hero, does that make me your villain? God, I don't know if I'm ready for that level of commitment though...and I might be a little out of your league at this point."
Noivern hummed in thought, and seemed to genuinely think something over. Lumi bit his lip, unsure where this was going.
"...Alright, no I think we can make this work. I can tell you got some hero in you, just need some time to develop. Until then, let's start with names. What's your hero name, you little nerd?"
"Wh-I don't...I don't have a hero name! That'd be so...so lame!" He gave a forced, clearly fake chuckle. " I definitely don't, um..."
His cheeks blushed at the knowing look Noivern gave him, and he grabbed a tail and looked down bashfully.
"...I don't have a name because I haven't, y'know..." He started to murmur. "...Come up with anything good yet..."
"Just throw out what you got. We'll workshop it."
"They're not that good." At Noivern's shrug, he huffed and held his tail tighter.
"...The Sage."
"Ooh, the big bad Sage, coming to give me a lecture! Try something more intimidating."
"The Phantom Hourglass?"
"Glass breaks pretty easily, which might work for you, if earlier is anything is to go by."
"The Blue Blur!"
"Gotta go a little bit faster before that makes much sense."
Lumi huffed, then mumbled something under his breath.
"Hmm? Say that again, but with confidence this time."
"I said..." Lumi sucked in a breath, and pushed past the embarrassment. "I said...Dr...Fate..."
Noivern looked at him with a blank look for a few seconds. Then bent over laughing.
"Okay, well at least I'm not called the Dungeon Master!" fumed Lumi, connecting some dots about information his dad had told him regarding their enemy.
Any hopes of saving face were dashed as Noivern just started to laugh even harder, and he clutched his stomach with both claws as his wheezes rang loud in the clearing. Lumi's ears flattened against his head, thoroughly embarrassed, and he looked around for any way to escape the awkwardness.
His eyes landed back on the gate, and the pool of aether that it's root seemed to emerge from. The way the little orbs of aether bubbled around hit him with some inspiration, and he realized a better way to use his time. With one last glance back, Lumi scampered towards the pool and crouched down to inspect it.
As before, globs of aether bubbled up from the pool and solidified into spheres that floated around the gate. The root dipped into the source, and when he looked beyond, saw that it surfaced again to connect to the much larger tree root. Multicolored veins ebbed and flowed through the root, which he assumed flowed all the way from here to the central tree miles from here.
As important as that fact seemed, right now, he focused on how the little balls of aether looked like dud orbs for testing, and he had a mind to try and make something useful.
He felt almost exposed without the weight of items in his bag.
Only a few were big enough for a proper orb, so he plucked one from the air and thought of which infusions he had been able to memorize. Right now, he only had Quick and Slow orbs memorized; those were the most basic, but also two of the most practical. He pressed the globs tight and started the infusion process, careful to get the meld just right so it wouldn't explode in his face.
After a few minutes, he exhaled a breath and looked down at his work; two Quick orbs and one Slow. He rolled them into his treasure bag, and put it around his shoulder, then looked back behind him. Noivern still lay on his back, although his chuckles had dimmed to an amused smile.
Lumi considered just using a Quick orb to get some distance between them, although by the agreement they had come to, he didn't know if he now counted as on a 'team' with Noivern, and thus the orb's effects would transfer to him too. During his studies, he learned that 'intent' and 'semantics' tended to play a role in establishing the rules of orbs, which just made them even more tricky.
Instead, he walked over to Noivern and crossed his arms. The bat looked up at him and leaned up.
"Well, Dr. Fate, you all set to get going?"
Lumi sighed and resisted the urge to sass back. He just shrugged.
"Great. Before we go though, I got one more thing for you."
"What?"
"You never told me where you got that," he said, and pointed at the pearl around Lumi's neck. He put a paw to it, thankful that the Leyline allowed him to keep it.
"You never told me why you needed to know," he fired back, now more conscious of its weight.
Lumi blinked, his stomach dropped, and when he next opened his eyes, he saw the tops of the forest trees, thousands of feet below. The expanse of the realm laid out beneath him, and a chill breeze buffeted his fur.
"You wanna try that again? I don't know if I like that attitude." Noivern's voice remained conversational, but with a clear edge He dangled the Meowstic in the air by one leg, swaying up and down as his wings kept him aloft, and brought him to his face with a raised eyebrow.
"Or what, you'll drop me?"
"It's a simple question, kid. Where did you find it?"
"I thought you wanted to cooperate? Tell me why you need to know first, and I'll tell you."
For the first time, Noivern's almost perpetual grin began to fade into a displeased line. Conversely, Lumi started to smile right back at him, happy to know he had finally managed to stick it to him.
Noivern's grip loosened, he raised one talon off of Lumi's leg. They never broke eye contact.
He released him from his claw, and Lumi fell a short distance before he was caught again in Noivern's clawed feet. A fake out.
Lumi's heart beat a tiny bit faster, and his grin widened.
Noivern chuffed out a laugh that sounded more annoyed than genuine, and Lumi could read the final warning in his eyes. He couldn't help the giggle that escaped his lips.
He let go.
Butterfree filled Lumi's chest as he fell, arms windmilling as he faced the ground. His fur whipped all around him, and the force of wind against his face grew loud enough to blanket the sound of his laughter.
Lumi stabilized himself in midair, then put his paws to his side and angled himself down into a dive. He relished in the sensation of pure speed and adrenaline, facing the ground head on. After diving a few hundred feet, he switched up and started to lean his body to do flips and twists in midair. The world around him spun like a gyroscope, and the giddy feeling in his chest never went down.
He wasn't quite sure what Noivern thought he would accomplish, threatening him with a good time. Lumi didn't need Tempo or any time sense to tell him whether this would end well or not. He had a very, very strong hunch that this would go exactly how he wanted, so he decided to indulge himself in the free ride.
During his spin, he caught the sight of the trees growing closer, so he held his arms out to steady his descent. The tops of trees rose to meet him with exponential speed, and he knew that at this rate, whatever clumsy pulse of telekinesis he could shunt out wouldn't be enough to save him from the force of gravity.
Not like he was worried about that right now. His hunch would pay off in three...two...one.
He fell past the treeline, barreled towards the ground, and something halted his body right before he hit a patch of grass, so close his paws brushed against it as he dangled. He got whiplash from the sudden halt in momentum, but otherwise, felt perfectly fine.
Lumi glanced up, and saw that Noivern held him in his claws again, as expected. The bat stood on the forest floor, with the most deliciously perturbed look on his face. The Meowstic exhaled in satisfaction.
He called his bluff.
"Ahhhhhhh...that was fun," sighed Lumi, heavy breaths starting to calm. Noivern groaned and rubbed his eyes.
"...Normally that works," he sighed. "Well I know for sure you got some balls at least, holy shit kid is it really that serious?"
"This necklace is my business, not yours." Lumi crossed his arms and sent a smug look from his upside down position. "Now, tell me why you're so interested, and maybe I'll think about saying where I got it. Or do you want to try threatening to kill me after we just established we need each other to move forward again?"
"I could just not catch you next time. How's that sound?"
"Jokes on you. I'm into that."
"...Little bastard." Despite the words, a hint of a smile played at Noivern's lips, and he dropped Lumi to the ground. He bent down to look him in the eyes, and pointed at the pearl.
"It's familiar. When I look at it, I get this sense that I've seen it before. Seems almost..."
"Nostalgic?" offered Lumi, and he cupped it. "Because that's what it does, at least, that's the scientific-"
"No, it's more than that. It's..."
Noivern petered off, as if unsure what words to use.
"Well, that can't make sense," said Lumi. "I got this as a gift. From my parents. There's no way you could have seen it?"
"A gift. Right..." Noivern wore a pensive look, one that didn't seem right on someone like him.
"...Let me touch it."
"No." Lumi actually squared up and got ready to fight. Noivern groaned and waved him down.
"Save it kid, there's a time and a place. I'll leave it alone if it means you don't get pissy."
Lumi squinted at him, but lowered his orbs and folded his ears back. He nodded, and Noivern gestured to his neck fluff again.
"Hop on. We're flying for real this time."
Lumi was aware that someone with more sense would be hesitant to go back into the sky with someone who just dropped them from it. Nevertheless, he nodded and grabbed hold of Noivern's fluff, similar to when he got carried around in Rowshore.
The bat opted to use his wings instead of his teleportation, and flapped once to shoot them into the sky, well over the tops of the trees. Now that he wasn't falling, Lumi could get a better look at the state of the land. As he thought, the once monotonous forest had been sprinkled with bits of green and brown, dotted as far as his eye could see. Beneath them, the gargantuan root that connected to the main tree pulsed with a weak stream of energy.
Lumi pointed at it, and traced it with his paw.
"If we want to find more gates, I think we should follow the roots. That one was at the tip, so maybe the others follow a similar pattern?"
"Works for me. Just get comfortable," Noivern gestured with his head towards the horizon. Lumi looked and squinted. After a few minutes of searching, he saw a thin line in the far horizon that connected to the main tree in the distance. The nearest root.
His ears fell. Just how big was this place?
"Just...teleport?"
"I don't feel like stopping every three minutes to for you to throw up, plus with the size of this palace, I want to conserve energy. But it's not all bad, wonderkid."
Noivern glanced back as he started to fly forward. A cheerful grin settled on his face.
"Traveling music always makes things better. I'll start."
"Please don't-"
"Tonight~ I'm gonna have myself, a real goooood tiiiiiiime~"
"Stop," Lumi pulled his ears and began to squirm.
"I feel aliiiiiiiiiiiIIIIVE!"
"Hnnnnnng...don't...must resist..."
"And the woooooooorld, I'll tuuuuuurn it insiiiiide ouuuuuut! Yeah!"
Lumi did his level best to block out Noivern's singing as they flew, despite every fiber of his being urging him to otherwise.
"I'm burning through the sky, yeah!"
"Two hundred degrees! That's why they call me Mr. Fahrenheeeeeeeeit~"
Or not.
Damia was angry.
She would say it was quite justified, all things considered. First, she had been separated from her group after barely a few minutes into their journey, left with nothing but her bag, and she was the one who was supposed to protect them. She was the Head. Regardless of how strong Lumi's parents were, she knew it was her job to keep them safe and she lost them instantly.
Then, she had spent the next four hours wandering around this Mew-forsaken forest, and had spent the majority of that time literally starving. Everything was made of rock, her feet hurt from getting pricked on spiny grass, and she couldn't even vent on any ferals because they were made of stone too.
And then, just when she thought she caught a break and the forest magically started to grow actual leaves and fruit again in some places, the Dragonite got launched down into a low ravine by a surprise Dazzling Gleam that left her stinging and sore.
When she glanced up, she saw several pink heads peak over the edge, which belonged to a group of Morgrem and Hattrem. As they leered down at her, she realized something, something she had glossed over in her anger earlier.
The ferals were made of stone too. Which meant some of them had been given life. And they were all fucking Fairy Types.
"AAAAAHHHH! RRRRRROOOOAAAH!"
They were...annoying, to say the least.
"GOD FUC-RRROOOOOAAAH"
Very annoying.
At first she could ward them off, claws alit with Fire punch as she roared and carved through them in defiance. However, soon their numbers grew to be too bothersome to deal with, and she figured it would be a better use of her time to just fly away instead.
Unfortunately, the Hattrem kept her grounded with their Dazzling Gleams. They forced her to maneuver through the tight trees instead, doggedly trying to get away from the pack of giggling fairies that bounded amongst the trees in hot pursuit.
The more she flew, the more tired she got. And the more tired she got, the more angry she got. And the more angry...
"RRROOOOOOOOOAAAAWWWWWW-"
The more she chose to eschew civilized words in favor of a more primal method of expressing her displeasure. Her fury filled roars rang loud throughout whatever piece of the forest she had flown through. Her empty stomach and bruised body moved on pure anger on adrenaline alone, and it reached a fever pitch when she reached a dense wall of tall trees, and no way forward.
A thump behind alerted her to a new arrival, and she turned to witness a larger than normal Grimmsnarl raise up and leer at her from a few feet away. It was tall enough to even glare down at her, and she wondered what she did to piss this Dungeon off in particular for sending a freak like this at her.
Still, she was a warrior at heart, and so let loose an ear splitting roar in challenge, despite her wounds. Her glare turned to a grimace though, as the pack of smaller fairies joined the larger one. They stalked forward, eight in number, while the Grimsnarl actually leaned back with its arms crossed and smirked.
She didn't know when ferals even gained the sentience required to smirk, but regardless it pissed her off enough to push through her exhaustion for something to tip the scales. With a mighty flap of her wings, she flew up a few meters, and burst forward up and around the pack, slowly gathering speed.
With deftness born of constant training, her wings caught the air as she flew, and she used it to whip up a powered Hurricane, using her whole body to shunt the air into a whirlwind. She kept her turns tight and powerful, and before long she couldn't see any ferals past the stormy gale she had summoned. Only their alarmed screeches reached her.
Not yet satisfied, she readied another Fire Punch, and dipped her flaming claw into the wind, adding flames to the gale until an improvised firestorm roiled and churned in the little arena.
She angled herself down and landed in a crouch, faced towards the Fire Hurricane, and watched it as it slowly began to die down. It receded, and she almost celebrated when she saw no more little fairies. That is, until the hurricane revealed the last enemy.
Grimmsnarl still stood. A bit charred, but still cocky. It raised a bulky, heavy arm and pointed at her, as if to mock her.
Damia's eye twitched. She tried to stand, but her soreness began to set into her wings and legs. She knew that it knew she had nothing left, but that didn't stop her from standing up to her full height and releasing one more mighty roar towards it.
Grimmsnarl turned its nose up at her, and then reared a heavy fist back. Pink energy formed around its fist, in preparation for Spirit Break. Its steps reverberated on the stone ground as it started to rush towards her, and she braced herself as best she could, aware she couldn't run.
Before it reached her, she heard a shrill noise.
"..oooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-"
Her eyes flicked up. A blue and pink blur broke through the trees. It slammed into the side of Grimmsnarl's head hard enough to knock it off course. The force jolted the new arrival back to land in front of her and skid backwards.
Damia blinked. It took her a few seconds to process the twin tails and purple scarf.
"...LUMI!?"
The Meowstic stood on some kind of platform made of pure light, his four orbs on each corner of the hardened plane. His ears were unfurled completely, and wreathed the platform he stood on with his telekinesis.
He glanced back to give her a nonchalant wave, but turned forward as Grimmsnarl let out a roar of frustration. It pounded the ground and barreled towards them with another fist raised. In response, Lumi hopped up, slipped the screen out from under him, and widened it in front of both of them. A loud bang jolted the screen and she saw him flinch when Grimmsnarl hit it, but it still held firm.
"Are you alright? I have orans in my bag if you need some." He reached a paw in his bag and tossed back some berries, before he refocused on keeping the barrier up as Grimmsnarl angrily wailed on it.
Damia had so many questions about this, especially how she got in a position where Lumi was the one bailing her out, but she could save those for later. She scooped up a couple of orans and scarfed them down, wounds and energy already being restored.
She felt good enough to move after a few seconds and pushed herself forward. Lumi's wall shifted colors, turning a swirling pink, and a large pink wave of Disarming Voice burst from the center of the orbs towards Grimmsnarl. It put its hands to its ears and backed off for a quick moment.
"Is it me, or is this thing freakishly big?" he wondered.
"It's a freak, alright," murmured Damia as she stepped in front and glanced down. "I don't know where you came from, but thanks. You saved me a couple bruises."
"Oh, is that all I saved?" he replied with a smug grin. "How about I save you a couple more then? I have a little frustration to let out, and I'll make sure he doesn't touch you. Sound good?"
"Hell yeah, danger cat." Damia punched a fist into her claw with a growl, and leaned forward. Lumi's orbs whizzed around his head, and he scampered right onto her shoulder, just as she burst forward with a raised claw. She heard him clap, and the power of Helping Hand surged through her.
She raked Grimmsnarl across the face, and it retaliated with another fairy-coated haymaker, quicker than anticipated. Rather than hit her, its fist bounced off of another Reflect shield that Lumi put up right where its fist would hit, and it staggered once again. It clicked that, with Lumi focusing on defense, she could play more offensive than she normally could against an enemy like this. She pressed the advantage.
Fire and lightning crashed into Grimmsnarl's body as Damia laid into it, and each time it tried to fight back, a quick shield would materialize in between them that would make it useless. After a few more moments of this back and forth, Damia roared and landed a final blow that launched Grimmsnarl onto its back. It shimmered, and then finally burst into a shower of motes of light.
Damia huffed, and brushed a claw against her chest. She turned her head to say something to Lumi, but he interrupted her with a nuzzle and loud purr against her snout. She grumbled, but decided to let him have it, and pat him gently on his head.
"Yeah, yeah. Good to see you too, Lumi. I'm...glad you're okay," she said. He smiled at her and jumped off, his orbs going into a slow orbit around him.
Now that she got a good look at him, she noticed that the right side of his face had a cut down it, red with some blood. A little more concerning, that pearl he kept on his person at all times no longer hung around his neck. She tossed him an oran, and wondered to herself what he'd been through.
"You know, I was getting a little anxious for a bit," he admitted, and bit into the offered berry. "This place is so big, and we got separated so quickly, that I didn't know when we would find each other again..."
He paused, but then his pensive expression changed to one of excitement, and he pumped his fists in the air.
"I'm sure glad I found you, though! I barely knew what I was doing, but it was badass watching you tear that feral apart! I had some pent up frustration coming down to save you, so that carnage really did alot for me."
"You and me both. And you put those orbs to good use, I'm impressed." Damia crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. "I feel like I'm learning so much about you, danger cat. I didn't even think you had 'anxious' or 'frustrated' in your vocabulary."
"Trust me," he huffed and shook his head. "I'll tell you all about how my day has gone so far. Let's just say, I really needed to see a friendly face right now."
"Actually, about that." She pointed up at the leaves. "Care to explain how the hell you knew where I was, or how you even survived that fall?"
"Oh, that. I jumped."
"..."
"Sorry. Let me rewind to like, five minutes ago."
Five minutes ago
"So you think you can love me and leave me to diieeeeeeeeee~"
"Whooo! Get it kid!"
"So you think you can-"
Lumi's powerful rendition of Beheemyan Rhapsody was interrupted by a very angry, and very familiar roar from below them. He paused and looked down towards the source of the noise. He heard it again, and this time saw what looked like strong wind blow up from directly below them.
"Damia...?" He wondered, and then grinned. Damia! Finally, someone else!
"Damn, must be some pretty strong ferals. Too bad we don't have time to-"
Lumi didn't hear the rest of what Noivern said. He was too busy falling in freefall towards the source of the noise.
He didn't quite have a plan for how to land, but he would figure that out soon enough. He had to help Damia with whatever had pissed her off.
Tempo alerted him to pain in a few seconds. Ah, so Noivern was getting more aggressive this time. Good, that meant he had a free heads up.
Lumi rotated his body and faced his orbs towards where the warning came from. As expected, Noivern popped into view with an annoyed look and a claw up to swipe at him.
In response, Lumi blasted him point-blank with an amped Disarming Voice, exactly where he knew he would appear. The claw still raked him across the face and down his side, but he managed to ward off the bat with the attack. He laughed at the loud curse Noivern let out as he got knocked off course, clutching his ears.
He glanced down and saw he only had maybe thirty more seconds of air time before he became a cat-shaped hole in the ground, so he thought fast. Possible ways out of this predicament sped through his mind as he thought in the moment.
Teleport? Didn't know how.
Slow orb to cut his momentum? It would leave him too open up here for Noiven.
Levitate? His body was still too complex to control with his mind alone, too many moving parts to keep in check,not enough time to get a handle on it before he hit the ground, and not enough power to overcome gravity safely.
But...what if he didn't use his body...
Fifteen seconds. He put his idea to the test.
He pulled his orbs close and focused Reflect between them. As before, a panel of hardened light materialized; sleek and easy to maneuver. With the rush of air through his ears and the sight of trees looming ever closer, Lumi pulled the panel underneath him, and gripped onto the edge. His teeth clenched as he pulled the panel against gravity with his telekinetic grasp, elated when he sensed his rate of fall slow.
He leveled it out some, and then pushed himself up into a crouch on top of the panel, one paw on the edge to keep balance. He puffed out a shaky laugh as the turbulence of the fall shook his improvised ride, but it stayed steady.
Arceus, he couldn't wait to go back and share all this brand new data on the applications of Resonance with Vert. He could just imagine all the tail wagging.
The hurricane below cleared, and through the gaps in the trees he saw a Damia, a hulking Grimmsnarl. With arms spread, he angled himself straight for its head.
"And so that's how I came to heroically and selflessly save you," explained Lumi.
Damia squinted at him
"So...you were...singing?"
"Uh..."
"With the enemy?"
"Listen-"
"Not just any enemy, but their leader?"
"I had a moment of weakness, okay?" he blurted. "It's hard to resist the classics!"
"...Uh-huh," she murmured. "Well, it sounds like you didn't hesitate to fight back, so I respect that at least. Idiocy of jumping without a plan aside. I'm sorry about your pearl though," she said.
"What do you mean? My pearl is right-" he patted a paw where the object was supposed to be on his neck, and Damia stepped back a bit at the uncharacteristically intense look on his face when he didn't feel it.
His fur stood on end, and his eyes scrunched in confusion, before they flicked to somewhere in the treeline and widened in something like righteous fury. He didn't even warn Damia before he ripped his orbs close to him and launched the quickest psychic saw blade towards the treeline, fast enough to cut through a few stone trees before it got lodged in the ones deeper.
Based on how his shoulders shook and the low hiss that escaped through his mouth, he didn't hit his target.
"FUCK!" he yelled. She heard a raucous laugh echo from all around them, and growled deeply as she hunched over him protectively. She didn't sense any danger after a few moments and relaxed her stance to glance down at Lumi. He seemed to brood to himself, arms crossed and tails stiff.
"Who was that? Was that our guy?" she ventured. He groaned and wiped a paw down his face.
"...Yes. That was him. Motherf..." he sighed and stomped his foot on the ground.
Damia frowned. A genuinely upset Lumi didn't make sense to her. It didn't seem right for some reason. She leaned down to flick him on the head, and huffed at him.
"Then quick whining and let's go. We'll get your pearl back, beat his ass, and find everyone else," she asserted.
He looked up at her, and the frown melted off his face in an instant. With a quick nod, he stepped forward.
"You're right. Let's get going already."
They left. Lumi shared everything he experienced with Noivern and told her everything he knew about the gates. She told him what she had noticed about the ferals here, and together they began to paint a better picture of how this Leyline actually functioned. They had agreed to make the journey to the next root by foot, on the off chance they ran into one of theirs rather than fly over them.
Damia ensured they kept a brisk pace through the environment, only stopping to fight when they absolutely had to, and picking up any items and resources that had begun to spawn. She found that Lumi made for a good traveling partner; although reckless and flippant to most things, he had a fierce protective instinct in battle, preferring to make sure neither of them came to harm and able to shout a warning when a rough attack was coming in.
She never forgot how he turned his shield into a blade the instant he got too angry though. Clara never really had a killer instinct, and she had assumed Lumi shared the same sensibilities, but perhaps he had more going on behind those friendly eyes than she suspected.
They were on the move for four more hours, before it became a bit harder to see their surroundings. It took them a second to realize that something like dusk had begun to fall over the land. The pale white and brown trees turned a shade of yellow, as if some facsimile of sunlight above them had begun to set.
Damia's survival instincts kicked in. The last thing they needed was to be caught on all sides by roaming ferals in the dark. She took the lead and guided them to find some kind of shelter. After some searching, they broke through the treeline onto the bank of a river. A wall of earth rose up on the other side, and inspiration struck her, before she threw their bags down and rifled through them for a minute.
She pulled out a Tunnel Wand, grabbed Lumi, and flew over the river towards the wall on the other side. With a flick of the wand, energy shot out to hit and burrow into it, which left a sizable tunnel big enough for both of them.
She dove down inside and quickly used her claws to knock down some of the wall to give them a tiny bit of concealment. Lumi offered to go out and get sticks to light up a fire, but they both agreed it might attract attention. Besides, a fire wouldn't be necessary, Damia's natural heat more than sufficed.
After some agreements between the two, Damia curled her body around Lumi, who snuggled up to her chest with his tails curled against him; the most efficient and practical solution given the cramped space. Regardless, she trusted Lumi well enough to share space like this, they were on a team, after all.
The Poképile firmly established, Lumi and Damia spent some of the night talking. Damia had much to say on Lumi's interesting use of Reflect, which most certainly was not supposed to be used as a mode of transportation. He countered with how if he had his way, everyone would be riding on light, because it sounded cool. Their banter served to both learn more about each other and to keep the other awake and alert. They both faced the entrance to their cave, keenly aware of the danger that lurked outside, and neither of them wanted to be caught unaware while they were asleep.
Nevertheless, exhaustion made their eyes heavy, and before long they succumbed to sleep.
Thus marked the first time in recorded history that Pokémon spent a night inside of a Dungeon.
A/N: Took a little while this time, but here it is. I wonder how many of you know any of the songs referenced. Some of my favorites to sing to whenever they come on.
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