Pokemon Corrupted Sunflower

by DarkFoxKit

What was supposed to be a coming of age day for twin boys to become Pokemon Trainers, turned into a tragedy. Mysterious people wearing Swinub outfits started appearing everywhere, Pokemon are being taken away and experimented on, and people are becoming corrupted. Can a young boy and his Pokemon survive in this world and find out what happened to his brother?

7. Chapter 7: Invaders

DarkFoxKit: Just for the record, we aren't done posting chapters yet. Just that we'll take a long break once we get to a certain point.

Traveling Master: Sorry if it sounded like we were. Our bad, but like DarkFoxKit said, we ain't stopping now.

DarkFoxKit: At the very least, we have one reviewer to look forward to reading until then. I hope if anyone else is reading this, they're enjoying it too.

Traveling Master: So with that, let's continue on with the story.

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Chapter 7: Invaders

Leblanc and Duster opened the door, and headed into what appeared to be an empty room. It didn't look like they could go much further than this. There was some kind of face looking thing at the back of the room, but it looked more like a decorated wall than a door. And there were some kind of drawing of chibi silhouettes on the walls that looked like they were dancing or something.

But what caught Duster's attention was a very shiny vase looking object in the middle of the room, sitting there like a perfect little treasure waiting to be picked up. Before approaching said treasure, Duster surveyed the room, trying to spot any traps. While he didn't spot any, it did nothing to quell his nerves. Considering the many encounters they had so far, Duster was expecting some other random ghost to appear and challenge them to some obscure game, or prank them.

Duster shook his head, knowing he can't let worries and doubt stop him from his mission. Taking a deep breath to calm his nerves, Duster walked towards the little treasure, taking cautionary steps. Once he was within reach, Duster slowly poked the item, ready to pull back in case a similar scenario happened with the ghost armor knight. Much to his relief, nothing had happened, giving him reason to place both hands on the side of the item, preparing to take it from its resting place.

Duster waited a few seconds, waiting to see if some ghost would appear or some trap be activated, but to his surprise, nothing happened. He cautiously picked up the treasure and flinched, expecting the real trap to appear, but once again, nothing had occurred.

Leblanc was looking around for any traps as well, but it didn't look like anything happened. "Huh… I guess… Wess didn't place any booby traps on the thing we needed to find? … Is that thing what we needed to find?"

"Did this Wess person describe what the object looks like at all?" Sakura asked.

"He only said it was shiny," Leblanc answered.

Sakura tilted her head. "I mean it's shiny… so uh… anything else fits that description here?"

"Apparently we don't need a full description. After all 'a true thief would know what they are looking for'," Leblanc answered, mimicking Wess while doing so.

"That… doesn't really give you much to work with. Was there anything else he could've said?" Sakura asked.

Leblanc shook her head. "That's all we got. We came here to be tested, and after everything we went through, I'm pretty sure we found what we were looking for…I hope…"

Duster was still examining the item, unsure if this was what they were truly looking for. But considering how this appeared to be the last room, and after all the encounters they had gone through, Duster was convinced that this item must've been the one Wess had wanted him and Leblanc to find.

"Unless there's some other doorway we missed, I think we found what we were looking for," Duster remarked.

Duster saw a label on the shiny vase-like object. It was apparently called 'The Legendary Spitoon'. Duster almost dropped it in disgust, but he didn't want to break it since it was apparently very important. Besides, with how shiny it was, it likely wasn't used at all, or very thoroughly clean.

With the shiny object in hand, Duster and Leblanc decided it was time to make their way out of the tower. With all the ghosts gone, it was a surprisingly easy and quiet trip back. They did see Mr. Passion milling about though, he was in the kitchen, looking tired. That concert he had earlier must've tired him out. Duster decided it was wise to leave Mr. Passion alone to rest.

Before long, Duster, Leblanc, and Sakura were finally outside of the tower. As soon as they were, they could see the morning sun rising in the sky. It was now the dawn of a new day.

"I almost forgot how nice the morning sun was," Sakura said in awe.

"I can't believe how long we've been in that tower. Feels like it's been months," Leblanc yawned. "I'm just looking forward to having a long sleep when we get back."

Noticing Leblanc's yawn, Duster couldn't help but chuckle. "Don't worry, we'll be home soon and we can finally rest once we give my dad this…treasure."

Duster waved to Nipolyte as he was passing by, seeing how the old man was coming to the tower early in the morning. Nipolyte looked surprised at Duster, probably for being in the tower all night. Duster didn't have time for a small chat, however, he needed to get back to the lab as soon as possible.

Duster and Leblanc made their way into the village. Sakura, who was still around Duster's neck, was looking around in awe. This was her first time seeing the village after all.

Finally, Duster and Leblanc made it into the lab, where Wess and his Weavile were waiting. Sakura was still looking around in awe, but she became still when they walked up to a new person. She was curious, and wanted to pay attention to what was going to happen.

"We're back, Father," Duster announced.

Wess's back was facing towards him, as he was currently going over research notes. Without turning around, the professor greeted his son. "Took you long enough. Was starting to think you failed and decided to run away. I was about to send Shadowstar to check on you. Good thing I didn't need to."

Leblanc shivered at the mention of Shadowstar, her mother. Speaking of which, she could see the Weavile standing next to Wess, giving a neutral, yet stern look.

"So… Duster… were you able to bring the important object I wanted you to take from the temple?" Wess asked, still not facing Duster.

"It wasn't easy, and it took us a good minute to find it. We check every possible room and floor, but I believe this is what you were looking for," Duster then proceeded to take out the golden item that they had found.

Wess finally turned around to see what item Duster had revealed. His expression was unchanging, which didn't help Duster much at all. Then again, he always had a hard time reading his father's expressions, so for all he could know, Wess might've been actually satisfied.

"So this…is the treasure you and Leblanc had found?" Wess asked as he took hold of the item.

Wess turned around again, holding the vase-like object, seeming to be thinking. "... Well, well, this is the Legendary Spitoon. It seems to be quite a nice find. Well, Duster, it looks like my judgment was right after all."

For a moment, Duster felt relieved, and happy. Wess sounded like he actually believed in Duster and in his skills, and had only been harsh on him to push him further. But then… Wess quickly turned back to Duster.

"You are a COMPLETE MORON!" Wess shouted before he threw the spitoon into the ground, breaking it into pieces. "You moron! You moron! YOU MORON!"

Leblanc was utterly horrified while Duster stood there in shock. Shadowstar was sneering at Leblanc. The Weavile hadn't said a word and Leblanc could already hear the condescending thoughts her mother was thinking right now.

"You call yourself a thief, yet you can't even tell what you have to steal!?" Wess shouted.

"What a disappointment," Shadowstar said coldly.

Unlike Wess, who exploded in anger, Shadowstar was calm, cold, and calculating. In a way, Leblanc felt that was even worse than an explosion. Sakura, who had been remaining still this whole time, took a more defensive covering around Duster's shoulder. Barely five minutes and she already disliked Wess and Shadowstar.

"Hey! You shouldn't be calling them a disappointment! They worked hard to find that item! You didn't do anything to help, expecting them to find a random item in an old abandoned tower!" Sakura hissed at the Weavile.

Shadowstar looked at Sakura, a little surprised.

Wess was surprised as well when he saw the Pokemon around Duster's shoulders move and squeaked out.

"What is that?" Wess asked. "That Pokemon around your neck? That's… that's a rare Dratini… and not just any Dratini, but an alternate colored Dratini, or as most people call them, a shiny Dratini. Where did you find such a rare Pokemon?"

Wess didn't even give Duster a chance to answer, he was suddenly close to Duster to check out Sakura, who was confused by this old man's sudden interest in her.

"H-hey, what are you doing?" Sakura asked.

"I had never seen a real one up close before, especially an alternate colored one…" Wess mumbled. "Its blue scales are pink… no, magenta."

Shadowstar grumbled before she clawed Wess's pants, trying to get him out of his 'professor mode' since now wasn't the time.

"Well…we will discuss this Pokemon later, seeing as how you had failed as a thief, looks like you have no choice but to go back," Wess suddenly declared.

"B-but we searched everywhere, and-" Duster tried explaining, only for Wess to cut him off.

"No excuse. I said a true thief would know what they are searching for, and you couldn't even muster that much! If I let you live with your failure, how can I expect you to become a true master thief!" Wess snapped, causing Duster to flinch backwards.

That was when Duster had lost his footing, with his bad leg giving out and causing him to fall backwards. While his father's words hurt more than the fall itself, it didn't help much with the current situation. Duster barely noticed something falling out of his pack from his fall, giving a quick glance to see it was the amulet he had picked up from after meeting that strange pink haired person.

Before either Duster or Leblanc could go to pick up said item, Shadowstar had moved faster than either could blink, picking up the item and presenting it to Wess.

"Weav Weavile," Shadowstar showed.

Wess turned to see the item Shadowstar was holding, blinking a few times. "Let me have a closer look at that, Shadowstar."

Shadowstar handed Wess the small item. Wess studied it for a moment and looked a little shocked and pale.

"This… isn't the item I wanted you to find, but… could it be?" Wess frowned before he looked at Duster. "Where did you get this pendant?"

Duster frowned, but he recalled how he got it. "A strange person with bright pink hair jumped into the tower while Leblanc and I were climbing it. They dropped that pendant. I tried to give it back to them, but I hadn't seen them since."

Wess looked at the pendant again. "Duster… I think the owner of that pendant must be… the Princess of the Tower."

"Princess?" Duster asked. "Why would an abandoned tower have a princess?"

"It's more complicated than you could wrap your mind around," Wess answered before sighing. "Despite the rare Dratini you, somehow, managed to find and bring back… your first real job as a thief was a complete and utter failure. But we are running out of time. I have no choice but to come with you this time. You and Leblanc obviously can't do this on your own, and this is too important for you to mess up again. We must return to the tower at once. Take me to that room you found the spitoon in. Shadowstar and I will show you what you two are missing."

Leblanc frowned at the idea her mother was coming along as well.

"I can see why you two were so stressed out about getting the job done earlier." Sakura grumbled. "Especially with a confused old man who doesn't seem to know what an Ekans is."

"Ekans?" Shadowstar mused. "Well, one thing is certain, you definitely fit in with Duster and Leblanc. Despite your unique colors, I can already tell how much of a disappointment you must've been to your family. No worries, your time here might yield some results, and we might be able to make something out of you."

"Oh… hitting it where it hurts. What a meanie," Sakura huffed. "Though your perception of me is pretty spot on, so that's pretty cool."

"Why are you calling her cool when she just hurt you?" Leblanc asked.

"I mean she isn't exactly wrong, I hadn't even told her why my family kicked me out yet she already guessed it. Are we sure she isn't a Psychic type?" Sakura asked.

"... Sometimes I envy you…" Leblanc sighed.

Wess looked at the egg that he was currently incubating in an egg container, it was the same egg Lucas protected when the Tyranitar that Flint brought in went crazy. "Don't worry, I'll be back before long."

Duster frowned, seeing Wess's softer side a little, but it wasn't directed at him.

"Let's go, we're wasting time," Wess hissed at Duster.

"R-right," Duster replied.

Duster with Sakura still on his shoulders, and Leblanc began leading Wess and Shadowstar back to the tower. They passed through the village. It was early, so not a lot of the villagers were out and about right now. However, as they were getting closer to the tower, they felt the ground rumble.

"Huh? What's going on?" Wess asked.

Duster's eyes went wide when he saw what appeared to be large white tanks heading towards the tower. Before any could grasp on what the tanks were doing, they suddenly charged through the gates, knocking it over with ease.

"Well that's one way to get to the tower," Leblanc remarked. "Last time we had to take an underground tunnel to get to the tower."

"Why would they knock the gate down?" Sakura asked.

"Don't know, but keep your guard up," Leblanc advised.

"The fact these people are using tanks… it means they're ready for war," Shadowstar warned. "We may need to worry about a battle or two."

"Let's keep going, we need to get to the item before those Swinub people do." Wess frowned.

The group hurried on ahead. They could see tractor skidmarks on the ground, leaving behind a scar on the earth. Duster frowned when he saw Nippolyte lying on the ground.

"Nippolyte? Are you okay?"

"Ow… owowow…. Some Swinub looking guys just busted their way into the tower… if you're going in there, be careful… they a bunch of thugs…" Nippolyte groaned.

"He'll be fine, we need to hurry, Duster," Wess spoke up.

"But we can't just leave-" Duster started, only for Wess to cut him off.

"There's more important things that we need to take care of, and if Nippolyte said those Swinub men are involved, then time is of the essence. Nippolyte has been through worse, so we need to go now!" Wess ordered.

Duster nodded before giving one last look at the old man. Part of him still wished to help Nippolyte, but with his father there, Duster felt he had no choice. Continuing onward, Duster and Wess saw a few of the tanks were parked outside the tower, while the main door upfront had already been torn down. Wasting no time, Duster and Wess, along with their Pokemon, entered the tower.

They both stopped in their tracks because they were shocked by what they saw. Duster immediately recognized the Swinub men, having fought them before with Flint. Next to these Swinub men was a Ditto. There was something strange about the Ditto, it was just staring out like it was staring into space, not even seeing them. There was also a strange metal antenna on its head.

The Swinub men saw them and one of them hurried behind the Ditto, pulling out wires that had electricity sparking between them.

"What are you-" Duster began to ask when the Swinub man stabbed the Ditto with the wires, shocking it.

"What are you doing to that Ditto!?" Wess shouted.

For a moment, the Ditto didn't look like it even reacted, but then its body began to tremble and morph. The Ditto suddenly got a lot taller, grew out long arms and legs. Its eyes were bigger, but just as empty as before, and its mouth stretched in a thin line. It didn't look like any Pokemon, it looked like a pink, gooey robot.

Before Duster and Wess could send their Pokemon to stop the Swinub men, the strange Ditto suddenly walked in front of them, blocking their path as it brought back its right arm and swung towards Wess. Duster immediately dived, pushing Wess along the way and out of the Ditto's attack as it ended up hitting the ground where Wess was only a few seconds ago. Both were shocked to see many cracks in the ground.

"Get up Duster, we need to take that Ditto down before it tries attacking us again," Wess stated before turning to Shadowstar. "Quick, use Hone Claws!"

Shadowstar sharpened her claws on the floor to make them stronger.

"Leblanc, use Rock Smash!" Duster ordered.

Leblanc ran at the strange Ditto and was about to attack.

"Body Slam!" One of the Swinub man shouted.

The strange Ditto, who was larger than Leblanc, jumped suddenly and landed on top of Leblanc. Leblanc let out a pained cry as she was smooshed to the floor. The Ditto stood back, seeing Leblanc still on the ground, her body numb with paralysis from the Body Slam attack. It raised a right leg, prepared to finish Leblanc off, only for an icy blue beam to hit it square on the back, causing its body to become rigid as ice started forming. The same Swinub man was shocked as he noticed the attack having come from the Weavile.

"Ice Beam? But our machine is supposed to make Ditto far more resilient," The Swinub man exclaimed.

"Get up Leblanc, you've been through far worse before. This Ditto should be a walk in the park for you!" Shadowstar berated.

Leblanc groaned as she struggled to fight through the paralysis to get up. Duster walked over to Leblanc and took out a small red berry.

"Here, eat this, it's a Cheri Berry, it should cure your paralysis," Duster offered.

Leblanc didn't hesitate to grab the Cheri Berry into her mouth and swallowed it as quickly as she could. The numbness on her body went away, and she was able to move again.

"Are you okay?" Duster asked.

Leblanc gave a nod, but she was embarrassed because of how quickly she fell in front of an opponent in front of her mother, who was looking at her with annoyance.

"Come on! Get up!" The Swinub men were trying to shock the strange Ditto with their wires again, breaking the ice that had been forming around the Ditto.

The Ditto vibrated, letting out a loud yet strange sounding moan. Seeing how they only had a short time before the Ditto broke free, Duster thought of a plan after having watched both the strange Ditto fight while the Swinub man gave orders.

That Ditto seems a lot faster despite its clunky size. And those Swinub men don't look like they have a ton of experience with battling with Pokemon. I'm guessing this Ditto is something new they are using too, especially with that weird antenna attached to its body. If that's the case, we'll just have to use that against them. Duster thought as he whispered his plan to Leblanc.

The Sneasel nodded, trusting Duster and also wanting a second chance to prove to her mother that she was more than capable of taking on this overgrown Ditto.

"Okay!" The Swinub men shouted as the Ditto was able to start moving again. "Now be smart and attack that Weavile from afar!"

The Ditto turned to the Weavile this time and shot out an electric attack, using Thunderbolt. Shadowstar yawned before she stepped to the side, easily dodging the bolt.

"Hey! Your fight is with me!" Leblanc shouted as she grinned. "Aww, what's wrong? Is the weird Ditto too afraid to handle lil' ol me?"

"You've got this, Leblanc!" Sakura cheered, seeing how Leblanc wanted to battle on her own to prove something to her mean mother.

The Ditto gave a loud moan as it turned to Sakura and began running at her, pulling back its fist for what looked like a punch.

"Go for it!" Duster called out.

The Sneasel ran forward, looking like she was going to meet the punch head on with her claws. Seeing how Leblanc was using the same move from before, Ditto didn't even wait for Swinub to issue an order, already in the motion of using Mach Punch. Just like before, despite its clunky size, the Ditto was surprisingly faster, and it seemed as though its attack would hit Leblanc before she could reach with her own attack.

"Now, Leblanc! Use Quick Attack!" Duster issued the order, having faith his plan would work.

Using said attack to give herself a boost of speed, Leblanc managed to duck beneath the Ditto's attack, causing its momentum to pull its body forward and losing balance. But she wasn't done, knowing this was a small window of opportunity. Leblanc quickly ran behind the Ditto and jumped on its back, though the Ditto seemed to hardly notice, being more focused on trying to regain its balance.

Spotting the base location of the antenna that those Swinub men had attached earlier, Leblanc swung back with her claws and used Metal Claw to slice the metal rod. The Ditto let out a loud painful moan as the Sneasel jumped away, watching the body shift and become unstable, parts of its body falling off in a gooey mess. Before the Swinub men could even figure out what to do, the Ditto's body collapsed into nothing more but a giant pink puddle.

The Swinub men cursed before one of them held out a Poke Ball, returning the pink puddle back into it. They quickly ran deeper into the tower in a panic.

"You see, mother? I was able to defeat that opponent just fine!" Leblanc pointed out after the Swinub men ran.

"Not bad," Wess noted. "But still, you could've done better had you not run in all willy nilly in the first place."

"Duster and Leblanc did well considering that was an opponent we weren't familiar with." Sakura huffed.

"Not every encounter will be as easy or familiar. Doesn't matter if they've never fought a strange Pokemon like that one before, it won't stop their opponent from attacking, giving them a chance to learn more about it, or even try to fight back. We train them intensely just so they can be prepared for the unknown," Shadowstar remarked. "Still, they need more work, but that will come later."

"Any idea on what they were doing to that Ditto?" Duster asked. "I have never seen one take on a form like that."

"It's the first for me as well," Wess noted. "If I had to surmise, I'd say that machine they attached to it connected directly to the Ditto's nerval system, forcing it to morph into whatever sick form they wish. Not only that, Ditto are normally only able to use Transform, taking on a new form and copying the moves of those it copies. This one was able to use its own set of moves. If we run into more of those, I expect you to be better prepared now, especially after facing one of them. Don't be expecting us to always be here to help you."

"I'll try my best, Father," Duster sighed.

"We have a worse problem than I expected," Wess noted grimly. "The fact these men are here at all means they must be after something. Most likely the item we need. We better hurry, if those people get the item, who knows what kind of damage they'll do. We must get back to that spot you found that spitoon in now!"

Duster and Wess, along with their Pokemon, rushed up the stairs. They saw more of the Swinub men around the tower. Sakura frowned as she saw these people invading the tower. This place was practically her home for a long time before Duster bought her. It was also so lively last night, so to see it in this state being invaded by these people made her feel sad and troubled. Duster and Wess showed why they were trained thieves, Sakura was impressed how well they, Leblanc, and Shadowstar were able to stay hidden while moving upward. The Swinub men had no idea where they were.

They could hear the Swinub men chatting with each other as they were moving, but they didn't stick around long enough to hear what they had to say.

Duster finally lead Wess into the room where he, Leblanc, and Sakura found the spitoon.

"This is where we found it," Duster stated. "But this seems to lead to a dead end."

"I knew your skills were lacking, but didn't realize how much," Wess sighed as he walked up towards the far wall, pointing to the strange images on the wall. "Did it ever occur to you that all these symbols had some significance?"

"I didn't know-"

Wess cut him off. "A great thief knows to have a keen eye for anything out of the ordinary. The real treasure that I had hoped you would've found is further inside."

"But how? It's a dead end," Duster remarked.

Wess ignored Duster's question as he examined the wall closer. "Hmm, seems as though someone has already been through here and opened the door. Looks recent too. Only one that comes to mind is the princess." Wess mumbled out loud.

Duster frowned.

"That wall is a door?" Sakura questioned. "What, are you supposed to destroy it?"

"How crude," Shadowstar sneered. "You're definitely a freshly caught Pokemon."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sakura asked.

"Don't pay her any mind, Sakura, this is just how mother is," Leblanc assured. "All she ever does is judge and criticize."

Wess took a moment to sigh before turning to look at Duster. "Duster… this is embarrassing, turn away. Shadowstar, you'll have to do this with me."

Shadowstar frowned, but she walked up next to her Trainer. "Leblanc, you and the wild Dratini turn away too."

"Is that supposed to be a slur? Why do you keep calling me a 'Dratini'?" Sakura frowned.

"Like I said, just ignore her for now," Leblanc answered as she turned around.

Duster had already turned around, wondering what Wess and his Weavile were going to do, but he knew better than to give his father more reason to berate him. Sakura was just as unsure, but chose to join Duster and Leblanc and faced away as well.

Wess sighed one last time. "Ready Shadowstar? It shouldn't be too difficult, but I'm not as young as I used to be."

"Wea Weav," Shadowstar replied while stretching.

Wess and Shadowstar began their dancing. Duster could swear he heard some funny sounding music all of a sudden. Wess began to move his arms and butt around in the air while Shadowstar was doing the same, she had to synchronize with her partner for this to work.

Wess turned his head to Duster for a moment, who still wasn't looking. "Don't look now. It's not like I'm going to stick my butt out, though."

With those words said, Duster couldn't resist for long. After a moment or two, Duster turned around, along with Sakura and Leblanc. Wess and Shadowstar weren't looking at them, so they didn't notice them peeking. Wess and Shadowstar were doing some sort of weird dance that involved them moving around, waving their butts and tail feathers in the air. When Wess and Shadowstar began to spin around, Duster and Leblanc quickly turned around before they could notice them peeking. Duster and Leblacn peeked again to see Wess and Shadowstar spinning around faster before stopping with their hands in the air.

The face wall's mouth suddenly opened wide like it was laughing before it stabilized. The strange music had ceased, letting Duster, Leblanc, and Sakura to believe that Wess and Shadowstar were finished. Turning to face his father, he was greeted with Wess looking back at him with his arms crossed.

"Honestly, I believe we had taught you and Leblanc unique…moves during your training," Wess huffed. "I even told you a million times to do it whenever you found yourself stuck."

Duster decided not to respond to that, because frankly, he thought his dad was high whenever he and Shadowstar showed him and Leblanc those dance steps. In all honesty, it never occurred to Duster that it would be important for thief work to have to do such a ridiculous dance for anything. Duster had been 99% sure Wess only said for him to do that just to make a fool out of him. Apparently Wess had been serious about it, go figure. But at least Duster got to see the full dance from his father and Weavile.

"Um… okay, I'll keep that in mind," Duster said.

Wess looked like he wanted to chew Duster out some more, but he realized they had more important things to worry about right now. "The princess should be ahead… and those Swinub people are still inside the temple as well. We better watch ourselves."

Duster nodded as the group continued onward, leaving the once dead end room. Upon entering the new area, Duster saw they were now on top of a balcony. With a view of the outside, something in the yard caught his attention.

There appeared to be a glowing object that was sticking up from the ground. Duster couldn't quite tell what it was from this far away, but the glow definitely caught his attention.

"What is that?" Duster asked. "Is that the shiny item we're looking for?"

"It looks really pretty," Sakura noted, her eyes sparkling at the shiny object in the yard.

"That… small glowing object… I believe was something that was passed down for many generations in this temple," Wess stated as he looked at the object. "I remember asking the priest of this temple about it, but they just told me to forget about it… so I just minded my own business and forgot about it, at least… I think."

"You think?" Duster frowned.

"It was a long time ago, and my memory isn't perfect…I remember having decided to just forget about it and never brought it up again…" Wess replied. "And in any case, that isn't the important item I needed you to find."

"Right, because just telling us it's shiny is so helpful," Leblanc sarcastically grumbled.

"If only your tongue was as sharp as your skills, you wouldn't have trouble finding it in the first place," Shadowstar remarked.

Leblanc frowned while Sakura glared at the Weavile, who seemed hardly fazed by either expression. Seeing that Wess was moving on, Shadowstar followed after him, prompting Duster to follow too. Sakura, who had still been snug around Duster's shoulders, looked back to see Leblanc sigh as she shook her head, being the last to follow the group.

They walked through the door, heading towards a set of stairs. However, as soon as they walked in, Wess immediately saw a large ball of ice heading their way. Without a word of warning, he jumped to the side, dodging it. Shadowstar, Leblanc, and Duster also had good instincts, quickly jumping out of the way as well as the ice ball hit the door behind them, freezing a good chunk of it.

"Whoa! What was that!?" Sakura yelped, who was currently relieved that she was on Duster's neck right now, since she knew she wouldn't have reacted fast enough to dodge that herself.

"Who are you!?" A feminine yet rough voice shouted.

Wess and Duster looked up to see a young woman with bright pink short hair, wearing a blue looking hoodie that covered most of her body, and pink boots. She had a Pokemon next to her, which wasn't a Pokemon from this region. The Pokemon in question was a Ralts, and it seemed to be worried. The woman had her leg caught in some kind of Ursaring trap.

Her expression then was filled with relief as she looked at Wess, recognition coming across her face. "...Wess?! Is that you, you old geezer?!"

Duster was surprised that this woman had such a mouth on her, calling his father an 'old geezer'. Wess would've beaten his butt if he had said something like that. However, Wess didn't look at all offended, instead, he and Shadowstar quickly went up the stairs to approach the woman. Duster frowned, but seeing how the woman wasn't attacking them anymore, though he wasn't sure if it was her or her Ralts that threw that ice ball, even though he was sure Ralts couldn't learn any Ice type moves, Duster and Leblanc followed their parent to the woman.

"Oh, Princess! So it was you that my idiot of a son found. My, how this brings back memories. This old geezer would have a hard time remembering you," Wess suddenly gave a heart, surprising both Duster and Leblanc. "No, no, wait! I'm so giddy that I'm getting my words mixed up."

Giddy? Both Duster and Leblanc thought at the same time.

"I would never have forgotten you…wait…I mean…no, uh…" Wess suddenly turned towards Duster, looking very flustered. "Duster, you moron! Get your act together!"

Duster flinched at suddenly being yelled at. He had no idea what his father wanted from him. Since this woman was apparently a princess, maybe he had to bow to her. Duster gave a bow, careful to not let Sakura fall off of his shoulders.

"It's… uh… a pleasure to meet you, your Majesty," Duster politely said.

"Cut the formal crap," The woman grumbled. "I don't need that. What I need is to get this trap off of me. I was trying to get Blade to use Confusion to get the trap off of me, but he hasn't had much success, he's still in training. And I can't get it off myself."

"Ah, Blade must be this Ralts then," Wess concluded.

"Why hello little one," Shadowstar knelt and smiled softly at the Ralts. "You must be very brave to stay by your trainer's side."

Blade blushed slightly at the compliment while looking slightly down. "...T-thank you…"

Leblanc and Sakura looked at Shadowstar's soft attitude to the Ralts and huffed with indignation.

"Yes, I found his egg and he hatched a few days ago," The woman explained. "He's still young, and I want to try to train him to be strong. But I guess trying to come here with a baby wasn't the best idea. I'm considering cutting my foot off…"

"Oh, Princess, you do not need to resort to something so gruesome!" Wess quickly spoke up. "Shadowstar is trained in disarming traps!"

The Weavile gave a proud smirk before she used her claws to do a quick swipe across the Ursaring trap, easily causing it to open without an issue.

"That's… cool!" Blade said in admiration.

Leblanc crossed her arms in annoyance. "I could've done that too…"

With the trap no longer clamping on the woman's leg, Wess carefully picked up the trap and tossed it down the stairs. He then checked the woman's leg before taking out a Potion.

"This will sting a little, Princess, but I need to disinfect your wound," Wess warned.

"Just hurry and do it," The woman grumbled.

Duster was a little surprised that Wess was using a Potion, though Potions had healing properties, even on humans. It was just that the Potions were a little too strong for humans, so they usually used a diluted version for cleaning their wounds.

Wess sprayed the Potion on the woman's leg. The woman hissed in pain, but seemed to refuse to cry out. After a moment or two, Wess wrapped up the woman's leg with some gauze.

"There, your wound should heal up soon, Princess," Wess stated. "But, may I ask, what are you doing here?"

"I have my reasons," The woman sighed before something caught her eyes.

The woman looked at Duster before approaching him, seeing a familiar necklace on him. "Hey, that's my pendant! So you took it, huh?"

"He didn't take it, he found it after you dropped it," Sakura pointed out. "He may be a thief, but he's a thief of justice!"

The woman looked at Sakura in surprise. "Oh… I didn't realize you had a real shiny Pokemon around your shoulders, I thought it was just a decoration! Damn, can't let my guard down for even a second."

Duster didn't know how to react to that, but the woman was quick to snatch her pendant back.

The woman looked at Duster for a moment, then at Wess, then at Duster again. "He's your son, geezer?"

"You could say that," Wess answered.

"Right… well…" Duster cleared his throat. "My name is Duster."

"And what's your name?" Sakura asked.

The woman looked at Sakura one more time before turning to face Duster. She suddenly got close to Duster to examine him closer, being only a few inches from his face. Duster didn't know how to react to the sudden approach, and was even more confused when she started sniffing him a bit. She then took a step back once she was done, having apparently finished her examination.

"Hmmm….His breath kinda stinks," Kumatora bluntly stated, catching Duster completely off guard. "Duster, huh? Well, the name's Kumatora, good to meetcha!"

Kumatora then held out her arm, waiting for Duster to shake it, while giving off a big grin.

Duster blinked a few times, confused by Kumatora's complete mannerism. Taking her hand, he shook it back. "Uh…it's nice to meet you too…Kumatora."

Letting go, Kumatora gave a confident look at Duster. "Well, now that the formalities are out of the way, let's get going!"

"Go where?" Duster asked, still kind of dumbfounded, and he didn't know why Kumatora was here to begin with.

"To the top of the tower, duh. Isn't that where you two are going too?" Kumatora replied.

"I'm ready to go, Mama!" The Ralts spoke up cheerfully.

Kumatora looked like she was blushing a teeny bit, though Duster wasn't sure.

"Of course, it would make sense you would be after the same thing, Princess," Wess realized. "But don't overdo it, your leg is still healing."

"Be careful, little one, this place is dangerous and you're still in training," Shadowstar gently warned Blade.

"Wow… she sure change her tune when it comes to the little baby," Sakura noted.

"I know, it's annoying," Leblanc huffed. "She was never this sweet with me, not even after I was born. As soon as I hatched out of my egg, she was all business from the start."

"I think it's kinda sweet though… not the part where she was all business with you, but to the baby Pokemon," Sakura remarked.

"That baby is called a Ralts… and it's not sweet, it's aggravating…" Leblanc huffed.

Duster could feel how tense Leblanc was, and he didn't blame her. He could guess what she was feeling, seeing how he was also feeling a bit the same way after seeing how both Wess and Shadowstar have been acting towards Kumator and her Ralts. Giving a comforting pat to Leblanc's head, Duster smiled at the Sneasel, who only huffed, despite appreciating the gesture.

Kumatora was about to take the lead when an idea popped into her head. She gave a little mischievous grin as she turn to face Duster once more. "Hey! Geezer's son, since your old man is worried about my leg, how about you escort me? Count it as part of your training or whatever."

"What? But-" Duster started, only for Wess to interrupt him.

"Oh shush now, Duster. This is a perfect opportunity, go on and escort her already," Wess ordered.

Duster sighed as he walked to the front of the group. "Yes father. I mean my leg is also injured, but who cares about that, right?"

Wess at least had the courtesy to wince a little at Duster's comment.

"Your leg is injured?" Kumatora asked, surprised, before he noticed Duster was limping a little as he walked ahead.

"Training accident… happened years ago though, so I'm used to it," Duster explained.

"Right… okay," Kumatora said before she held up a Poke Ball. "Blade, you stay in your ball for now. I don't want you getting lost here."

"Awww…" The Ralts pouted as Kumatora had the Poke Ball shoot out a red beam of light at Blade, turning him into energy before being pulled inside the Poke Ball.

"Blade is still young, and he's not very fast on his feet. I rather keep him in his Poke Ball while we traverse," Kumatora explained, though she didn't say it, Wess and Duster knew that leaving the baby Ralts out would slow them down considerably.

"I'm just surprised, Princess… when we last spoke, you seemed pretty adamant about never using Poke Balls or having Pokemon fight battles for you," Wess noted as they were walking up the stairs and heading into a corridor.

"I still think that way. It's not like I spontaneously decided I wanted to become a Pokemon Trainer," Kumatora grumbled. "But Blade's egg was alone. I don't know what happened to his parents, and he hatched before I could get him to a responsible Trainer or a Pokemon Center. He kinda imprinted on me… so I decided to keep him with me. He's got some pretty strong psychic abilities, it'd be a waste to not try to train him. So I just grabbed an empty Poke Ball at a market and had him go inside so I wouldn't have to worry about losing him."

"Well, I could already tell from first glance that the Ralts is in good hands," Wess remarked. "And who knows, perhaps Blade can help you in ways you can't imagine."

"Sure, old geezer," Kumatora smiled while rolling her eyes. "But enough lollygagging, we're wasting time and we aren't the only ones searching for a special little something. I take it that's what you two are here for?"

"Correct, I had sent my son and his Pokemon here as a test to retrieve such item, but they failed, hence why I'm here," Wess answered.

"Really?" Kumatora looked at both Duster, Sakura, and Leblanc. "You three couldn't find it? It's not that hard to spot."

"I'm new, I have no idea what you're talking about. And neither do they, because the only information we were given was that it's shiny. Thieves of justice must have more information to find what they're looking for!" Sakura explained.

Kumatora put a hand over her mouth, trying not to laugh.

"We were given… a very vague description on what we were supposed to find," Duster admitted. "We brought back the wrong… object, evidently."

"If you were actually skilled and intelligent, you would've worked out what it was you needed to find. A spitoon is shiny, but it holds no importance, that should've crossed your mind before you brought it back home, wasting valuable time," Shadowstar reprimanded, even if Duster couldn't understand her, he knew she was scolding him.

"Oh, sorry, Mother, maybe next time we should just dump every shiny thing we find useless in the trash, like your Poke Ball that's sparkling in the sunlight…" Leblanc muttered bitterly under her breath.

Weavile turned her head and glared at her daughter, who flinched back at the glare.

Kumatora looked like she was going to say something, when they saw a Ninetales standing in front of them. The Ninetales looked at them for a moment before it uncurled its nine tails, spiking each of them as straight as the tails could go.

"Watch out!" Kumatora warned.

Blue fire balls formed on each tail.

"Is that… Will-O-Wisp?" Wess frowned.

"Oh no, not again…" Sakura gulped, remembering what it was like to be burned.

"I got this! PK Freeze!" Kumatora called out.

Duster watched in shock as Kumatora's fingers glowed with blue energy, and unleashed frosty ice crystals at the Will-O-Wisps. The ice crystals caused the fire balls to disappear, turning into steam. The Ninetales started growling.

"How did she-" Duster started to ask, only for Wess to interrupt him once more.

"No time to ask, just watch, you might actually learn something in that useless brain of yours," Wess interjected.

Duster frowned, but Wess had a point, this wasn't the time for questions. "Leblanc, Sakura!"

"Yeah!" Sakura jumped from Duster's shoulders and launched herself at the Ninetales.

Without hesitation, the serpent slammed her tail into the fiery fox. Ninetales gave an angry roar before shooting out flames from its maw at Sakura. Sakura yelped as she suddenly found herself trapped inside a fiery tornado. Despite her best efforts, Sakura couldn't free herself from the Fire Spin attack, giving the Ninetales the chance to focus their next attack on her. But with their focus solely on Sakura, they failed to notice Leblanc charging behind with Quick Attack.

Just as the Ninetales opened its maw to release flames on Sakura, Leblanc tackled the fire fox from behind, shoving it towards the fiery tornado, and at the same time, shoving into Sakura and knocking the "Ekans" out of the Fire Spin attack while putting both herself and the enemy into the fiery tornado. Using the momentum and the Ninetales own body, Leblanc jumped from the fire fox and managed to get past the flames, wincing a bit as her body was slightly burned, but nothing too bad. Landing a bit hard, Leblanc rolled across the floor but quickly got up to check on Sakura.

"Sorry about that, but had to get you out quickly before that Ninetales attacked you again," Leblanc said as she checked for any wounds on Sakura.

"Look out!" Sakura suddenly warned.

The Ninetales zoomed right at Leblanc, knocking her on her back. The Ninetales had just used its own Quick Attack.

To keep the Ninetales from attacking Leblanc and Sakura again, Duster ran in and kicked the Ninetales in the side to knock it away.

"You should train that Dratini, Duster, she can't just go rushing into the battle like that," Wess criticized.

"I just got her a few hours ago!" Duster grumbled.

The Ninetales got back to its paws and created more purple and blue fire balls, using Will-O-Wisp at the humans. Duster, Wess, and Kumatora tried to move away, but Kumatora's injured leg made her stumble. Seeing this, Wess quickly leaped in front of Kumatora to take the Will-O-Wisp, leaving a burn on his cheek.

"You didn't have to do that, you crazy old geezer! There's only so much your body can take!" Kumatora scolded.

"You think this burn is enough to take me out?" Wess laughed, but winced from the burn wounds. "No need to worry about me, we can do that later."

"Hey, Duster! You keep that Ninetales distracted, I'll see if I can help your old man!" Kumatora called out.

"Right! Sakura, use Wrap!" Duster called out.

Sakura quickly slithered at the Ninetales and wrapped her long body around Ninetale's waist. Ninetales let out a roar as it struggled against Sakura's hold.

"This should only take a second… I haven't used it much, but hopefully it works," Kumatora said before she put a hand on Wess's burnt cheek. "Healing."

Kumatora's hand glowed a slight green as Wess started to feel more energetic than he had in years, and the burn on his cheek disappeared.

"Your skills will never cease to amaze me, you have grown a lot since I last saw you," Wess complimented.

"A lot has happened, you old coot. Now save the compliments for later, we still have a lot to tackle in this tower," Kumatora remarked with a grin.

While Sakura had Ninetales bound with Wrap, Leblanc had been using Quick Attack and Rock Smash against the fire fox. The Ninetales growled as it used Fire Spin around itself, forcing Sakura off and Leblanc back, and freeing itself as it turned its attention towards Duster. Seeing how he had been giving Sakura and Leblanc different commands, it figured that taking him out would give it a better chance. Opening its maw, the Ninetales was about to unleash Flamethrower at Duster, but before it could, a powerful blast of ice energy hit it on its side, knocking it back and even managing to freeze parts of its body. Duster turned to the side to see Kumatora having both arms raised towards the fire Pokemon, having just used her strange powers to attack it.

Once again, Duster wondered who was this strange person, and how she was able to perform such feats, but his thoughts were interrupted as the Ninetales got up once more. Seeing that the enemy was more than it could handle, the Ninetales growled before running away, thinking it better to not face a group of enemies, especially a human who can use strange powers to attack.

"Yeah? Same goes to you, pal!" Kumatora shouted at the Ninetales as it ran away before she turned to the others. "I think that went well. Though it looks like some of the older Pokemon are guarding the top part of the tower, so we better watch our step."

"Right… and while we do that…" Duster began as he looked at Kumatora. "Mind explaining to me how the heck you were able to use moves like a Pokemon?"

"Duster, you don't just ask the Princess personal questions!" Wess scolded him.

"You seem to know about this Princess's abilities, Dad. So why was I never informed of this?" Duster frowned.

Before Wess could continue arguing with his son, Kumatora spoke up. "I was born with these powers. As far as I know, I'm not quite like any other human."

"Princess, you don't have to-" Wess started, only for Kumatora to cut him off, surprising Duster and Leblanc, since they both know Wess would have a fit of rage if Duster ever tried that.

"It's okay, if we are going to be going through this tower together, then it's best that we know each other's strengths and weaknesses," Kumatora explained before turning back to Duster. "I'm able to use some elemental powers, as well as debuffs, and some minor healing. On top of that, I am also capable of understanding Pokemon. That's how I know you're good to your Pokemon, seeing how your unusually colored Sneasel works with you, and how much the shiny Dr- sorry, 'Ekans', likes you. She calls you the 'Thieves of Justice' by the way."

"W-wait… really?" Duster asked, surprised.

"Of course! We are the Thieves of Justice!" Sakura beamed.

"I think he means Kumatora understanding us," Leblanc pointed out.

"Oh yeah, that's pretty weird, but in a good way!" Sakura smiled.

Kumatora chuckled. "I guess you could say I'm a psychic. I can sense Pokemon's feelings and surface thoughts as well."

"So like the Gym Leader, Sabrina, in the Kanto region?" Duster asked.

"Sort of, though I guess I'm a much more… extreme case, since I'm not just limited to Psychic abilities," Kumatora answered.

"How so?" Duster inquired.

"I wish I could tell, but like I said, I was born with these powers. They emerged on their own as I grew older. Some of them when I was far younger, so it's hard to tell how much more potent they could be," Kumatora explained

"The Princess is… a very special child," Wess hesitantly said. "I was always tasked to look after her. Since her abilities can go out of control, I needed a Dark type to help me keep things under control since they are immune to psychic attacks. That was when I had to find Shadowstar, and had her help me since then. I grew a deep appreciation for Dark types, and wanted to study them more, to also try to put people's misconceptions that all Dark types were inherently evil to rest. They are mischievous, and are prone to prank others, but that doesn't mean they are evil."

"Shadowstar was always patient with me, especially during those harder days," Kumatora added, having knelt down to get closer to Shadowstar and rub her head. "Not only did Wess and Shadowstar helped me with my powers, but they also helped me to better understand Pokemon in general. Not just with communicating but with understanding their feelings as well."

"You've also shown us much as well, teaching us things we never considered before," Shadowstar replied, enjoying the pats from Kumatora.

Leblanc couldn't help but glare at her mother, seeing how docile she was acting towards Kumatora.

"Well, that's me and the old geezer, what about you, Duster?" Kumatora asked. "Have anything you need to share with us?"

"Not much," Duster answered. "I've been training under Dad's strict regimen with Leblanc here since I was 7 years old. I got crippled in a training accident, but I still try to make the most use out of what happened. My leg can kick hard when I swing it, and I can move pretty quickly. As an undercover job, I'm my father's lab assistant. Though this was my first real job as a thief."

"Don't forget about our climbing skills, no one can match our skills when we work together!" Leblanc proudly stated.

Kumatora looked at Leblanc before returning her gaze back to Duster. "Your Sneasel mentioned how you two can climb? Sorry for sounding a bit skeptical, but with your leg, how can you climb so well?"

"It was part of my training, and it was something me and Leblanc had learned to hone well, especially after my leg injury," Duster explained.

"Interesting," Kumatora noted, taking one last glance towards Duster's leg. "Considering how well you handled yourself during that battle with the Ninetales, as well as both your Pokemon responding well to your commands, I think we are in good hands."

"Alright then, I believe that's everything we needed to talk about?" Wess asked. "We've come across a rather irritating problem."

Wess pointed forward, seeing a rather large gap between them and the room ahead.

"I don't suppose you could fly too?" Kumatora asked Duster.

"I don't need to," Duster replied. "Sakura actually helped us get across the last gap… which reminds me, how did you get past that?"

"I didn't. I just jumped into one of the windows," Kumatora shrugged. "Wait, how does Sakura help us get across? Does she become a bridge or something?"

"Oh, no, no, no, I wouldn't be strong enough for that," Sakura answered. "But I can help swing you guys across the gap like a rope. I just need something to latch onto."

Kumatora blinked at hearing that. "What? You want us to use you as a rope?"

"Yup!" The innocent 'Ekans' replied with a smile. "As a Thief of Justice, I must have my own uses too!"

Kumatora was still skeptical, so she turned to Duster for confirmation, to which he replied with a nod. "I was just as surprised as you, but Sakura is very durable and stronger than she looks. She was able to hold my weight with no issue, but not sure how well she would do with more than one person."

"It might be best to go one at a time," Wess suggested. "Dratini can grow to be large enough to carry a person, but the one looks to be young. We don't want to strain her too much."

Sakura huffed. "For a Pokemon Professor, you sure don't know your Pokemon."

Kumatora whispered to Wess. "The Dratini thinks she's an Ekans, so she doesn't know what a 'Dratini' is and thinks you're insulting her."

Wess raised an eyebrow, but seeing how it came from Kumatora, didn't question it. Shadowstar did shake her head though.

Duster gave Sakura a quick pat, getting her attention. "Ready, Sakura? I don't want to put too much strain on your body, so we'll go one at a time. Meanwhile, Leblanc, just like last time, you'll use the walls to climb and meet us at the otherside."

Sakura used her end of the tail to salute, showing she was ready while Leblanc gave a nod, giving herself some space to get a running start. Waiting for Leblanc to go first, the Sneasel jump towards the wall and used her sharp claws to run along side the wall until she was safely on the other side of the gap. Getting as close as he could, Duster stood by the edge of the gap, seeing a chandelier hanging on the ceiling. Sakura already knew where to aim for, so when Duster swung her body, she stretched and aimed towards the chandelier until she was able to securely grasp it in between her teeth.

Seeing that Sakura was secured, Duster put his faith in his Pokemon jumped forward, Sakura using her tail to also hold tightly onto Duster's arm. Just like the first time, the duo were able to get safely across the gap, with Duster landing on the other side and Leblanc being there to help him with the landing. Wess and Kumatora couldn't believe their eyes, but lo and behold, Duster had managed to cross the gap with Sakura's help.

Sakura swung her tail back over to Kumatora and Wess.

"Please, go on ahead, Princess," Wess said.

Kumatora grinned, she never thought she would get to swing on a Dratini, let alone a shiny one. She grabbed onto Sakura's tail before Sakura swung her safely to the other side. Then finally, she swung her tail back to Wess. Wess easily grabbed onto Sakura's tail before she swung him to the other side. With all the humans on the other side, Sakura let go of the chandelier and landed on the other side herself.

"I'll admit, that was pretty clever," Wess remarked.

"Sakura is pretty creative." Duster nodded.

"You're not hurt from all of that, are you?" Kumatora asked Sakura.

"Nope, I'm fine!" Sakura proudly answered. "My body's strong and durable, if nothing else."

"Looks like you found yourself a very strong 'Ekans', Duster," Kumatora remarked as she turned to face him. "But lets keep going, we have no idea if those Swinub men got further in, or what kind of Pokemon might be agitated from all the commotion. Best give our A game."

With that Duster took the lead once more, with Sakura slithering back onto his shoulders while Leblanc followed close behind. Kumatora came next as Wess and Shadowstar took the rear. Thanks to the numbers of their group, many of the small Pokemon that happened to be there knew better than to try and pick a fight with them. Similar to the previous floors, there were gaps across the floor, but thanks to Sakura, they were able to cross them with ease. And they rounded up the stairs leading to the next room, Duster stopped when there was an odd sign.

"Beware of sleeping Abra?" Duster read outloud, confused by the strange warning.

"Hmm… Abra usually sleeps several hours a day," Wess noted. "If disturbed, they usually teleport subconsciously. But if there's a group of them, there's a good chance their Psychic powers could cause the threatening object to teleport away instead."

"So we could get teleported somewhere completely random?" Kumatora frowned. "I'm not liking that idea."

"Then I'd advise we try not to disturb the Abra as we go through," Wess stated.

The group went into the large room. There weren't a lot of wild Pokemon here, except for a bunch of sleeping Abra. Hoping to get past the Abra, the group tried to quietly go around. However, as they started rounding a corner, Kumatora started getting a headache. This caused her to wobble a little. Duster took notice, and quickly grabbed her hand before she could step on an Abra's tail. They hurriedly, yet quietly, went to the next room, getting away from the sleeping Abra.

"Looks like we made it," Leblanc noted in relief.

"Kumatora? Are you okay?" Duster asked.

"Princess? Are you feeling ill?" Wess worriedly asked.

"I'm okay," Kumatora said, rubbing the side of her head. "I… I think maybe being in a room with a lot of Psychic Pokemon, it was disturbing my mind a little…"

"It's okay if you need to rest-" Wess started, only for Kumatora to cut him off.

"I said I'm okay!" Kumatora snapped, but then calmed down a moment after. "Sorry, but we can't afford to waste time. A little headache won't stop me, but if those Swinub punks get to the treasure first, then we'll all be dealing with a bigger headache. Now let's get going."

"But-" Wess started when Duster shook his head.

"If she wants to keep going, we shouldn't stop her," Duster said before he walked over to Kumatora. "Though try to take it easy. It wouldn't do us much good if you suddenly passed out."

"Fine," Kumatora huffed. "We'll go a bit slower then."

The group continued forward, Kumatora's headache hadn't left her yet. Due to this, Kumatora decided to release her Ralts and let him do some fighting. She couldn't focus well enough to use her strange psychic powers, and she needed Blade to get stronger anyway.

There were a few ornery Spinarak that Blade was able to take care of quickly with Confusion. Though the longer Blade was out, the more of his personality began to shine.

"I have taken care of the accursed six legged Bugs," Blade announced. "No harm shall come to my Trainer while I'm around!"

"Wow, you sure are a lot louder than when we first met," Sakura noted.

"What!? You're real and not just some fancy scarf?" The Ralts replied to Sakura in shock.

"I'm real alright, I'm also a scarf, and a rope!" Sakura smiled.

Blade turned to Kumatora for confirmation, who gave a small smile as she nodded. The Ralts turned back to Sakura before giving a bow of respect. "You must have trained very hard to achieve such abilities."

"I've only trained to be a Thief of Justice for three hours!" Sakura smiled.

Blade looked like he wanted to say something, but Leblanc just shook her head.

The group came up to some large looking doors. Wess walked up and opened the doors. Inside looked to be another room. There didn't look to be any other doors or secret places for them to go any further.

Duster's eyes were immediately caught on the shiny thing that was sitting on some kind of pedestal at the back of the room. The group approached the shiny object. Upon closer inspection, Duster could see the object looked to be an egg shaped object. The egg itself looked to be white with pink symbols glowing and pulsing on it. There were also a pair of clear looking wings on the egg's left and right sides.

"Whoa, what is that? It definitely looks important," Sakura questioned curiously.

Wess walked closer to the glowing object as Shadowstar stayed close to him. "Duster… this is the important item I wanted you to retrieve."

"Okay…" Duster said. You could've just told me it was an egg-shaped object, that would've been better than just saying it was shiny.

Though Duster wisely kept his mouth shut.

"This egg is called the 'Egg of Time'," Wess explained. "Truth be told, not even I know anything about this egg outside of legends. The legends say this egg was lost in the stream of time, and recently appeared here even though it was said to have been here for hundreds of years. There are all sorts of secrets inside this egg."

Kumatora then stepped forward and Wess stepped aside for her. "And now it looks like we need those very secrets. Looks like we made it before the others…If this egg had gotten into the wrong hands, then those very secrets would be opened to them…And who knows what kind of calamity would happen."

"Just what kind of hope…or calamity is hidden away in this egg…Even I don't know," Wess remarked. "But either way…this Egg of Time is our secret."

"What's the Egg of Time for?" Duster asked.

"I would like to ask that question myself," Kumatora chuckled. "I mean doesn't it seem ridiculous we went through all of that just to get to this one little egg? Just how many secrets does this egg hold, and can it really help us?"

"Indeed, it does seem quite ridiculous," Wess agreed. "Though big things come in small packages. Though what's most ridiculous of all…"

Wess turned to Duster all of a sudden. "Is this moron standing right here! Duster, this egg gives off such a thick scent of secrets that's so concentrated it almost reminded me of condensed Moomoo Milk. Yet you couldn't catch even a whiff of it. That's how much of a moron you are, you're a failure as a thief!"

Duster frowned as he stepped back from the sudden, harsh criticism.

"This was his first mission! You're being way too harsh on him!" Leblanc snapped, not caring that Wess couldn't understand her, he should understand enough that she was far from pleased with his attitude.

"And we made it all the way up here, isn't that what counts?" Sakura frowned.

"Hush, both of you, you are both too naive to understand the ramifications of Wess's words, and how much of a disappointment Duster was on his first mission as a thief," Shadowstar sneered coldly. "He was trained for this, but came back with the wrong item. He didn't even think to use that sacred dance to open the door, or that the object is far more important than some spitoon. That's why he's a failure. And the same goes for you as well, Leblanc."

Duster had no words to say, though it didn't take a detective to know how he felt. Leblanc was in the same boat, knowing just as well as he did that they didn't deserve such criticism from Wess or Shadowstar. Sakura felt compelled to defend the two, but before she could, Kumatora suddenly stepped in between Duster and Wess.

"You shouldn't keep calling your own kid a moron like that," Kumatora remarked as she turned to Shadowstar. "Same goes to you, you shouldn't keep calling your own daughter a failure…Cause if they were truly a moron and failure, then they wouldn't understand anyways."

…I can't tell if that was a compliment or an insult…Duster thought, but still remained silent.

"Anyways, we can't let the bad guys get their hands on this egg," Kumatora stated just as she reached for the egg. But before she could fully grasp it, a loud knock interrupted her, followed by more pounding against the door they had entered from. "Speak of the Giratina."

Just outside of the room, the Swinub men were stationed just outside of the doors. They were using those strange Ditto to try to break open the doors.

"Hit it harder!" The Swinub men shouted.

"It sounds like there's more of them coming," Blade warned. "We must act fast if we want to get the egg and get out."

"Right! Geezer, Duster, let's grab the egg and get the heck out of here!" Kumatora shouted, ignoring her headache as she turned back to the egg and plucked it out of the pedestal.

Wess hadn't noticed Kumatora already grabbed the egg as he was looking at the door, bracing himself in case it got broken down. "Princess, please wait! I know the egg is just sitting there nonchalantly, but I placed traps around the egg! Just let me disarm-"

Wess turned to Kumatora to see she was already holding the egg.

"Huh? Traps?" Kumatora frowned. "... What kind of traps?"

"Uh-oh…" Duster gulped.

As if on cue, the floor underneath them suddenly disappeared. They cried out as they began falling a long way down.

"PRINCESS!" Wess shouted in concern, ignoring Duster's own predicament.

"MY BAAAAAAAAD!" Kumatora shouted as they all continued to fall.

Soon the group landed in what seemed like a chamber filled with water. Thankfully where they landed was towards the deeper end of the watery room, giving them a rather safe land. Wess was the first to pop his head out of the water as he tried looking for Kumatora.

"Princess!" Wess shouted.

Kumatora then popped out, coughing a bit of water before responding. "I'm fine…but…Where's…"

"What's the matter?" Wess asked, then noticing Kumatora trying to look for someone else. "If you're worried about that moron, then don't be. He's been trained for just this sort of thing."

"I'm talking about Blade! He doesn't know how to swim! And the egg!" Kumatora snapped. "Blade! Where are you!?"

Kumatora heard coughing as she saw the Ralts struggling to keep his head above water.

"I'm sorry Blade," Kumatora apologized as she returned the Ralts back into his Poke Ball.

Shadowstar was above the water and frowned. "Where are the others?"

Leblanc and Duster came up for air in the water.

"Don't worry, the egg is fine," Duster spoke up, knowing that was more important than his life, at least according to his dad.

"How do you know?" Kumatora asked.

"Sakura is getting it. She's a natural in the water," Duster answered.

As if on cue, the egg popped up to the surface, and the Dratini's head came up. "I got it! I got the important time egg!"

"Oh! The egg!" Wess exclaimed. "That Dra-er… 'Ekans' of yours is truly handy. I take back all those times I call you a moron! You're no longer a moron, congrats!"

Duster couldn't tell if his father was being sarcastic, but Wess wasn't really known for his sarcasm, so for now, Duster decided to just take it as it is. Sakura swam towards Duster, handing the egg to him. But just as Duster was about to take hold of the egg, but then he noticed the water below him darkened. With his body reacting, Duster quickly grabbed hold of Sakura and pulled her back just as the shadow emerged from the water, nearly taking Sakura with it.

Unfortunately due to the sudden movement and surprise visit from their unknown assailant, Sakura has lost grip of the egg, with Wess giving an audible gasp as he saw the egg submerge into the rising figure.

"I take back everything I just said! You're the biggest moron to have ever existed!" Wess shouted as he begun to swim towards the figure, only for Shadowstar to pull him back. "Shadowstar, what are you doing-"

Just as Wess was about to question his Pokemon's action, more of the figure's body emerged from beneath the one, which would've hit Wess during the process. As the water cleared from the figure's body, the group all looked up at the towering serpent like Pokemon. The Pokemon was huge, it was a bloody red color serpent with a cream underbelly. It looked at them with anger and rage.

"What the Distortion World is that!?" Kumatora shouted.

"I-I think that's a Gyarados?" Duster frowned.

"But why is it red!? Aren't Gyarados supposed to be blue?" Kumatora questioned before she looked at Sakura. "N-nevermind! Where's the egg?"

"It got sucked in the water before the Gyarados came up!" Leblanc pointed out.

"You don't think…" Duster began, paling as he looked at the large open mouth of the red Gyarados.

"You moron! You let the egg get eaten?!" Wess shouted.

"I was saving Sakura!" Duster defended himself.

"Enough!" Kumatora shouted. "We don't have time to bicker. We have a bigger problem right now, and that Gyrados is too angry to be reasoned with!"

"You're right, princess," Wess apologized before turning to his Weavile. "Shadowstar, I don't need to explain the dire situation we are in, no holding back. That Gyarados must be taken down as quickly as possible."

Shadowstar grinned before turning to look at Leblanc and Sakura. "Watch closely, this is what we expect your performance to be like in the future."

Due to the terrain being mostly water, Shadowstar shot out a beam of ice from her mouth, turning a large chunk of the water under her into solid ice.

"Use Hone Claws, keep an eye on the Gyarados, then take it down with Night Slash!" Wess commanded.

Shadowstar started sharpening her claws as the red Gyarados jumped out of the water and moved closer to Shadowstar. Gyarados tried to grab Shadowstar with its fangs, likely intending to use some kind of fang move, but Shadowstar easily dodged the Gyarados, moving much faster. Then she jumped at the Gyarados, coating her claws with a dark purple energy, then she slashed down at the red Gyarados's chest, leaving a large gash mark. The Gyarados let out a cry of pain as it fell back.

"Whoa… geezer, your Weavile is a lot stronger than I thought, taking out the Gyarados in one hit like that," Kumatora said, very impressed.

Leblanc rolled her eyes, grumbling to herself. "You just wanted to show off for the pink haired girl…"

"Now we just need to get the egg out of that serpent," Wess grumbled. "Might be easier to just catch it… it is a shiny, so it's also rare. It would do wonders for my research as a Pokemon Professor…"

Wess started reaching for something in his pocket, but before he could take it out, the Gyarados suddenly began thrashing about.

"W-what's going on? I thought it fainted from that Night Slash." Duster frowned.

"It should've, this isn't natural." Wess frowned as well.

"What's happening?" Sakura asked as the thrashing Gyarados started glowing brightly. "Is it evolving?"

"It can't be!" Wess exclaimed, having figured what was happening. "But that's impossible!"

Wess tried to move back, but the constant thrashing from the Gyarados was making it difficult for him to move. Suddenly its tail raised up and was about to come crashing down on top of Wess.

"Weav!" Shadowstar shouted as she immediately created an icy foothold to leap from and towards Wess.

Shadowstar managed to reach Wess and push them just out of range of the Gyarados's tail, but the impact caused the water to surge, sending both Wess and Shadowstar crashing towards the wall. The impact left a rather large crack against the wall, and for a moment Duster's heart skipped a beat.

"Dad!" Duster shouted as he made his way towards Wess with haste.

As he got closer, he couldn't tell how badly injured his father was, but the sight of seeing two bodies float on the water didn't help quell his nervous thoughts. Once Duster had reached them, with some slight difficulty, he managed to flipped them over, keeping Wess and Shadowstar's head above the water. He gave a sigh of relief as he saw the two were still breathing, unfortunately they seemed to have fallen unconscious from the recent impact.

"They're unconscious!" Duster shouted to Kumatora.

Kumatora quickly made her way over to Wess and Shadowstar and frowned.

"Can't you heal them like you did before?" Duster asked.

Kumatora put a hand on Wess's head for a moment before frowning. "I'm sorry… I can only heal a little bit, and I can't do anything if someone's unconscious. That's beyond my capabilities I'm afraid."

The Gyarados stopped thrashing around as its body started to grow. Large wing-like fins began to protrude out of its back.

"Uh… guys? We might be in trouble, especially with my mother out of commission…" Leblanc gulped.

"It really is evolving! Wow, I didn't know it could evolve!" Sakura said, impressed.

"Great, like we needed this thing to get bigger…" Kumatora grumbled as she rubbed her head. Now really isn't a good time for a headache…

"We need to get out of here…" Duster frowned.

Sakura noticed something floating in the water and picked it up with her tail. Though nobody was really paying attention to her.

"How? We're stuck here, there doesn't seem to be an exit, unless you can bust through solid walls," Kumatora frowned.

"We may not have a choice here, we'll have to fight." Leblanc frowned.

The glowing finally faded, and the red Gyarados before them looked very different. It had two large fins on its back, its whiskers were much longer, the fins at the back of his mouth were longer and sharper, and the crest on its head grew longer and sharper as well. It let out a loud roar.

"Whatever we're going to do, we better do it soon," Kumatora hissed. "I don't think that Gyarados is going to wait for much longer."

The red Gyarados swam toward them, bringing up a lot of water. They were going to drown if they didn't act fast. Duster, seeing the dire situation, acted fast.

"Sakura, get my father and Shadowstar to the safest place you can find here!" Duster quickly said.

Sakura was small, but she was capable. She wrapped her body around Wess and pushed Shadowstar with her head as the water was coming down on them. Duster, Kumatora, and Leblanc were pushed underwater. Leblanc grabbed onto Duster, trying to help him find the surface. Duster and Leblanc were great swimmers, they had been training in all sorts of terrain, including rough waters, mostly the rivers near New Bark Village. Duster quickly grabbed onto Kumatora's hand since she was having trouble finding her way to the surface after being knocked around. The three quickly broke the surface, gulping in much needed air.

The Gyarados didn't hesitate to move toward them and opened its large mouth. Leblanc jumped in front of Duster as the Gyarados chomped down, using Crunch. Luckily, Leblanc resisted the Dark type attack, but she was still pretty badly hurt from that.

"Leblanc!" Duster shouted in concern. "Let her go!"

Duster swam up to the Gyarados and swung his leg as hard as could at the Gyarados's stomach. The Gyarados hissed as it spat out Leblanc back into the water. Trying to slow the Gyarados down, Kumatora held up her hand.

"PK Freeze!" Kumatora shot out an icy attack, freezing some parts of the Gyarados. "Get away from it quickly! I don't think that ice is going to hold it for very long!"

Duster used the Gyarados's own body to push himself away while Leblanc managed to put some distance between her and the angry water Pokemon.

"Do you know any other special moves that might help? That ice move looks like it's only gonna slow it down," Duster asked after getting to a safe distance.

"Well, I don't think fire is going to do much with all this water," Kumatora said. "I can probably try to heal you two, and maybe try to make it hit a little less hard, like how a Pokemon would use Growl or Baby-Doll Eyes, but otherwise, there isn't much else I can do here… and my headache's still killing me."

Kumatora put a hand on Leblanc's head. "Lifeup."

Kumatora's hand glowed a soft green and Leblanc felt most of her wounds healing up.

"Oooh, that feels so much better!" Leblanc smiled.

"It's too bad your Ralts can't swim, we could use all the help we can get…" Duster frowned.

"I can help!" Sakura spoke up, swimming over to Duster and the others.

"Sakura?" Duster blinked. "Weren't you taking care of my dad and his Pokemon?"

Sakura said something, and Kumatora translated. "She said she found a safe place to put them so they wouldn't drown… on some… bone piles?"

Sakura looked at a corner of the walls. Duster saw there were indeed piles of bones that were stacked pretty high above the water. That was gruesome, it was a wonder how Duster missed that pile of bones in the first place. But it also made him wonder how long this Gyarados had been down here, and how many people and Pokemon were eaten.

Duster didn't have time to think about it, however, because the Gyarados broke free from the ice and was coming at them again. He would gladly take Sakura's help.

"Sakura use Thunder Wave! We need to slow this thing down!" Duster quickly ordered.

Sakura unleashed a small jolt of electricity at the large Gyarados. However, the Gyarados moved faster than Sakura could shoot out the Thunder Wave, causing her to miss. The Gyarados spun in a circle at a rapid pace, creating a twister. Duster, Kumatora, Sakura, and Leblanc were sucked into the tornado. Sakura let out a cry of pain. Sakura tried to fight back against the Twister with her own Twister, but the Gyarados's Twister was much bigger and more powerful.

"L-Leblanc! Try using Quick Attack to get out of the Twister and attack that Gyarados!" Duster shouted through the Twister, hoping the off colored Sneasel heard him.

Duster wasn't sure if Leblanc actually heard him at first, but he saw a purple blur managing to use some of the debris that had been picked up by both Twisters as footing. Surprisingly enough, despite the Sneasel clingling through the air, this was somewhat familiar to the encounter they had with the Annihilape during their nightly adventure. Having said prior experience, Leblanc was able to angle herself and used the debris to reach the Gyarados with Quick Attack, hitting it square across its head.

With its concentration broken, the Gyarados's Twister faltered as it turned its attention towards Leblanc, but in that moment, Sakura, who had been constantly trying to counter the previous Twister with her own, was now overcoming Gyarados's own Twister. By the time it realized what was going on, it tried to reinforce its own attack, but it was too late. With Gyrados's Twister now broken and overwhelmed by Sakura's, Duster and Kumatora fell to the watery parts below while Leblanc had jumped back so that she would not get caught in Sakura's Twister. But despite getting the upper hand, Sakura was already showing signs of fatigue from trying to keep a constant Twister, it wouldn't be long until her own attack broke and the Gyarados was freed once more.

"We need to take advantage of this!" Kumatora spoke up. "Let's see how that Gyarados like being in a fiery tornado! No Water type will like that! PK Fire!"

Kumatora shot out fire balls from her hand. The fireballs joined in Sakura's Twister, which quickly made the fireballs grow in size until they engulfed the entire tornado, burning the Gyarados inside.

Despite this, the Gyarados gave a loud roar, creating a large waterfall, dousing the flames and destroying Sakura's Twister. Sakura yelped as she fell back into the water herself. Sakura lifted her head from the water and let out a terrified scream as the large Gyarados was coming at her with its fangs coated in ice.

Seeing that Sakura was in danger, Leblanc wasted no time using Quick Attack to launch herself as Sakura, pushing her away from the Ice Fang attack. The Gyarados bit into the water, freezing a good chunk of it into ice.

"Thanks… Maybe this angry dragon might feel better if I dance for it?" Sakura frowned before she started twirling herself in the water.

"I don't think dancing is going to-" Leblanc cut herself off, realizing if Sakura did her Dragon Dance, she'd be stronger and faster. "Keep dancing, I'll try to keep the Gyarados distracted!"

Leblanc then proceeded to focus on using Quick Attack to use a sort of 'hit and run' tactic, making sure to hit Gyarados's blind spots, and maneuvering out of harm's way whenever it tried to attack her. But she knew it could only work for so long, both because the Gyarados might get a lucky hit, as well as the fact she couldn't keep using Quick Attack forever. Leblanc knew she would run out of energy to use it, but her main focus right now was to keep Gyarados distracted.

The Gyarados grew frustrated with Leblanc, and created another Twister to blow her away. Though the Twister was much smaller than the last attack. Duster and Kumatora swam closer to the Gyarados themselves. Kumatora pulled back her hand and punched the Gyarados as hard as she could. Duster was rather impressed that Kumatora would just punch the giant Gyarados like that, but he joined in by kicking Gyarados's side.

With Sakura completing her Dragon Dance, she was able to move much faster. She saw Duster and Kumatora getting tossed to the side by smaller Twisters.

"Don't hurt my friends you big meanie!" Sakura wrapped her body around Gyarados's torso, though her body was hardly long enough to wrap all the way around, she was able to latch onto it.

"Sakura!" Duster called out, seeing how the smaller serpent was latching onto the much larger one. "Quick! Use Thunder Wave now!"

Sakura didn't hesitate to zap the Gyarados, making its body go numb. The Gyarados was having trouble moving the way it wanted to. Sakura let go of the Gyarados, unable to keep clinging onto it.

"Let's try to attack it all together!" Duster called out, hoping one last attack from all of them would knock out this giant.

Leblanc rushed in, using Rock Smash. Despite Gyarados supposedly being half Flying type, she noticed Rock Smash seemed to be doing a lot more damage to the Gyarados than it should. Kumatora punched the Gyarados with her fists and Duster kicked the Gyarados. Sakura came in, using Slam with her tail.

Despite this, the Gyarados still didn't go down. After being attacked, it managed to move its body enough to jump high and dived into the water, creating a large tidal wave that washed the group against the wall. Duster coughed out some water as he landed on what felt like unstable yet solid ground. He blinked his eyes a few times, seeing he was on top of the bone pile. Kumatora, Sakura, and Leblanc were also on top of the bone pile.

Kumatora sat up, letting out a loud, angry cry. "THAT'S IT! I'VE HAD IT WITH YOU!"

Duster looked over at Kumatora, and his eyes went wide when he saw her fingers sparking with electricity.

The Gyarados tried to attack them once more, but the paralysis was doing its work, the Gyarados couldn't move for a moment. That was all Kumatora needed.

"PK THUNDER!" Kumatora shouted as a lightning bolt fired out of her fingers and right at the Gyarados.

The Gyarados let out a cry from being shocked by the lightning attack. As it leaned down in exhaustion, its body glowed again. The Gyarados became smaller, losing all those extra, unnatural looking features it had. Now the Gyarados looked like a normal Gyarados again, though it was still red.

Sakura shook her head before she slithered over to Duster. She had been holding onto something with her tail during that battle. "Um… I think you can use this to catch that Gyarados? I know it was a big meanie and tried to hurt us, but I just think they're unhappy being trapped down here for so long."

Sakura lifted up her tail.

Kumatora looked at Sakura. "You serious?"

"What?" Duster blinked, seeing Sakura holding up her tail, and saw a type of Poke Ball.

The Poke Ball itself has a blue top instead of the usual red, though it has a red "V" going up the middle, and three vertical yellow lines. Duster recognized this Poke Ball.

"A Lure Ball?" Duster questioned as he picked up the Lure Ball. "My Dad was working on some Apricorns a few weeks ago… he said he wanted to make them into Poke Balls like Kurt did… I didn't know he succeeded."

"Well… are you going to use that to catch that Gyarados?" Kumatora asked. "It may be unconscious now, but if it wakes up it may go on another rampage."

The Gyarados let out a groan before it made a coughing sound, then something shiny came out of its mouth. Duster saw that the Gyarados just spat out the Egg of Time.

"I don't know what the best thing to do is, but if my dad wants this Gyarados, then fine. I'll catch it so it won't bother us," Duster sighed before he threw the Lure Ball at the red Gyarados before diving into the water.

Duster grabbed onto the egg as the Lure Ball hit the unconscious red Gyarados, turning the Gyarados into energy that went inside the Lure Ball. The Lure Ball fell into the water and floated there. The Lure Ball's button flashed red a couple of times before it let out a PING, signifying a successful capture.

Duster, still clutching the egg, swam over to the Lure Ball, picking it up before shrinking the Lure Ball, and putting it into his pocket.

"Okay, I got the egg, and the Gyarados is caught. Now we just gotta wake up my dad and Shadowstar and see if they can find a secret exit or something," Duster said.

"It looks like the geezer's already waking up," Kumatora stated as he knelt down to Wess and Shadowstar, who were already stirring.

Upon hearing that Wess was regaining consciousness, Duster quickly went to his side and helped him up.

"What…What happened?" Wess asked as his brain tried to regain focus.

"Take it easy, Dad, you and Shadowstar got knocked back hard when Gyarados evolved," Duster explained.

Wess's eyes shot open at recalling the Gyarados. "The Mega Gyarados! Where is it? Where's the egg?!"

"Dad, slow down, both have been taken care of," Duster said as he showed both the egg and the Lure ball to his father. "It wasn't easy, but we managed to stop the Gyarados and get the egg back safely."

Wess blinked, shocked to see Duster, the one he had deemed a failure, and a moron, was holding the egg and the Lure Ball he had been planning to use to catch the red Gyarados before it changed and knocked him out.

"You seriously did?" Wess asked.

"Well, I had Kumatora's help of course, she dealt the final blow," Duster pointed out. "I didn't know you could use an electric attack."

"Neither did I. Up until that moment, I didn't know how to use the lightning attack," Kumatora admitted. "After my headache went away, I just suddenly knew how to use it. But that's not important right now. What was up with that Gyarados? Why did it suddenly change like that? It went back to normal after we defeated it though."

"It went back to normal?" Wess blinked. "Hmmm… that… phenomena that happened to that Gyarados… it looked similar to what happened to that Tyranitar that Flint brought back. It changed, looked different, became much stronger and a lot more violent. But that Tyranitar had yet to change back, but the Gyarados did?"

"Yeah… right after it changed back to normal, the Gyarados spat the egg out too," Duster explained.

Wess looked at the egg for a moment. "Hmm… it could be that what happened was after the Gyarados swallowed the egg, the egg gave it some kind of power that made it change. So when it fell unconscious, the power faded away. Unlike with the Tyranitar that had been experimented on by humans with ill intentions."

"I still can't believe you guys defeated that Gyarados without us… then again, you had the help of the Princess, so maybe it wasn't that strange." Shadowstar remarked.

"You never want to give a genuine compliment, do you, Mother?" Leblanc hissed. "We almost died while you and your Trainer were off in lala land!"

"And?" Shadowstar asked, showing no signs of being bothered by her daughter's accusation. "Do you expect me to give praise for how lucky you were? If you had indeed died, than me and Wess would've followed soon after. From the sound of it, it was thanks to the Princess that the Gyarados was finally taken down. Had she not unlocked her new ability, that Gyarados would've most likely taken everyone's life."

Leblanc was glaring daggers at her mother as the Weavile, who for a small moment gave a softened look, which confused the Sneasel. But that expression was soon replaced with the same familiar judging look that Leblanc had grown used to seeing.

"Once you and Duster actually proof to be capable of handling yourself without relying on luck, then I'll give a genuine compliment. Until then, the only thing you can hope to do is strive to be better," Shadowstar stated as she turned her attention back to Wess and Kumatora.

Leblanc couldn't hold back anymore. She got in front of Shadowstar and used Metal Claw at her chest, knocking her back a little. "You know what, Mother? I've had it with you! All you ever do is criticize me and Duster! If we so much as blink or breathe the wrong way, you never shut up about it! It was your Trainer's fault that Duster had become crippled! It was your Trainer's fault that we didn't know what the Distortion World we were looking for! Duster and I had been working hard to please your ungrateful butts, but all you do is criticize and insult us! I'll bet you and your Trainer wouldn't even care if we had died, because you two are oh-so-much better than we ever will be! Well, you know what, Mother? Screw you and your Trainer!"

"Leblanc! That's enough, please stop!" Duster called out, having seen Leblanc attacking Shadowstar and was yelling at her.

"Duster! I'm disappointed. I thought you and Leblanc may have gotten better after working with the Princess to take out that Gyarados, but I see you failed in teaching Leblanc how to restrain herself," Wess sighed.

Duster frowned. "... Dad, you and Shadowstar haven't exactly been supportive or kind to us. Leblanc can only take so much before she blows up, and I can't blame her."

"Please don't fight…" Sakura begged.

"Do you expect us to coddle you? To give you a carefree life?" Wess countered. "I thought I hammered it into that moronic brain of yours years ago, that we will be hard on you, that we will train you and your Pokemon for your own good! If all you're gonna do is complain, then all those years of training would've been for nothing, and you and Leblanc will end up wasting your lives for nothing!"

Leblanc growled as she glared at Wess. "SHUT UP YOU OLD TYRANT!"

Leblanc's claws glowed, turning into steel. She jumped at Wess, about to attack him, surprising everyone. However, Shadowstar reacted faster, and used Night Slash at Leblanc, forcing her back down before she could make contact with Wess.

Leblanc growled and looked up at her mother, but just as her eyes locked onto her mothers, for a brief moment she felt a sudden chill go down her spine. Of all the times she had seen her mother's disapproving expression, this was the first time she saw true hostilities in those eyes.

"You can attack me all you want, hate me for all I care, but if you ever try to attack my trainer again, I don't care if you're my own daughter, I will end your life," Shadowstar threatened.

But before either Leblanc or anyone else could react, a red beam suddenly hit Shadowstar from behind, as her body was encased in energy and she was returned back to her Pokeball, which stunned both Leblanc and Duster. Wess normally keeps Shadowstar out of her Pokeball, to the point where some would believe she wasn't caught in the first place. The only other time that Duster and Leblanc would recall when Wess intentionally returned Shadowstar to her Pokeball was when they were on a camping trip as part of their training, when an Ursaring had attacked the campsite.

Had it not been for Shadowstar, Wess would've been fatally wounded, but despite having beaten the Ursaring, Shadowstar had not ceased her attacks, to the point she was starting to draw blood from the Pokemon. It was only thanks to Wess recalling her, and later administering medicine to the Ursaring, that Pokemon managed to survive.

Duster and Leblanc's thoughts were interrupted by Wess's sighing. "Well…that's one thing I can at least confirm, Leblanc is definitely Shadowstar's offspring. She won't be happy, so you better keep Leblanc in check for the time being."

"I see there's a lot of family drama going on between you two and your Pokemon," Kumatora spoke up, having witnessed the whole thing, but it wasn't her place to try to step in. "We best get out of here before something else happens, then you can work out your family issues when we're safe."

"Right…" Duster knew Kumatora had a point, despite seeing that Leblanc had reached her breaking point, it wasn't right of her to try to attack Wess like she did. He knew he and Leblanc will be dealing with the consequences soon.

"This is a dungeon," Wess said. "There isn't an easy way out of here… our best best is to try to climb back to the top."

"That seems like it's going to take way too long," Kumatora groaned. "Even with those Wall Staples-"

Kumatora was interrupted when a door suddenly opened up on the wall. But as soon as it did, it started to cause the water to drain out, pulling them along with it.

The bone piles were washed away, and they fell back into the water. Duster had the Lure Ball in his pocket as he clutched onto the egg. Sakura, Leblanc, Wess, and Kumatora tried to swim against the current, but Leblanc saw Duster was getting swept away due to holding onto the egg. Not wanting to lose him, Leblanc quickly followed the current to stay close to Duster. Sakura, Wess, and Kumatora kept trying to swim against the current. They succeeded for a little bit, but the current was too strong, and eventually they were all pulled out into the stream of the river, outside of the temple.

Kumatora groaned. Her head was pounding, and she was wet. She heard someone talking, which caused her to open her eyes. She was confused, the last thing she remembered was being in a dungeon of some kind, and being washed away into the river. But now she found herself waking up in a bed, in a house. She sat up, wondering what happened and where she was.

Kumatora quickly checked her pocket, and was relieved to see the Poke Ball with Blade in it was still with her. She looked around for a moment, seeing Wess lying unconscious on a bed.

"Oh good, you're awake!" A child spoke up, surprising Kumatora.

The child had someone with him, a tall man carrying around a log. Next to the man was a Farfetch'd.

"Are we…?" Kumatora began to ask when Wess started stirring.

"Ugh…"

Wess sat up from the bed he was laying in. He quickly got out of bed and looked around, his heart racing until he saw where he was. "Where are we…? Is this… my house?"

The Poke Ball Wess had with him suddenly opened up, revealing his Weavile, who was looking over at Wess in concern.

"Weav?" Shadowstar frowned.

"I'm okay, for the most part," Wess assured. "But I'd like an explanation."

"Oh, old man Wess!" The young boy spoke up.

"Fuel? What are you and Lighter doing here?" Wess asked.

"I saw you and this tough looking girl washed up ashore from the river! Good thing my dad was there, cause I probably would've pretended to not see you if I was by myself," Fuel sheepishly admitted.

Wess was still trying to clear his head. "...I see…Thank you, Fuel."

Fuel nodded before going by his father's side, who was getting ready to leave. "You take care now, rest easy. Your body may need some more time to recover."

"Wait, before you go, did you find my moron, too?" Wess asked.

Fuel gave a nervous look at his dad, who scratched the back of his head for a minute. "Oh…you mean Duster? Sorry, it was only you two that we found."

Shadowstar frowned before she walked over to the Farfetch'd.

"Weavile, weav?" Shadowstar asked.

The Farfetch'd shook his head. "Far, farfetch'd."

Shadowstar frowned more.

"No sign of Sakura or Leblanc either it sounds like," Kumatora translated.

Wess frowned, but didn't want to show his worry, especially in front of others. "That moron… taking his merry damn time… he's in big trouble, once I find him."

"You just woke up, you should probably rest some more before trying to find your son," Lighter suggested. "Come on, Fuel, time to go."

Fuel nodded one more time before waving goodbye to Wess and Kumatora. As soon as they had left, Kumatora shooked her head and was getting ready to leave.

"No time to rest, we need to go look for them right now!" Kumatora stated with haste as she turned to Wess. "Duster must still have the egg with him. Hopefully if we find Duster, we'll find the egg, and Leblanc and Sakura."

"Yes… we should go look for them," Wess agreed.

"Weavile!" Shadowstar huffed, looking rather annoyed.

Kumatora, Wess, and Shadowstar didn't waste any time leaving the house, despite what Lighter suggested. They hurried through the small hill that Wess's house was on.

"Aren't you worried about your son?" Kumatora asked Wess as they were walking. "Or are you more worried about the egg? You did seem pretty hard on him during that whole trip."

"Duster is a trained thief. He'll be fine, that moron can survive anything," Wess answered.

Shadowstar nodded in agreement.

"It's likely they're just… further down the river," Wess said, though he hadn't shown any emotions on his face or in his tone.

Kumatora didn't need to be psychic to know that Wess and Shadowstar were worried. She decided not to say anything else as they continued moving.

They looked at the river, but seeing no signs of Duster, the egg, Leblanc, or Sakura.

"They might've gotten out of the river, or was saved by one of the villagers, like we were," Wess suggested. "We should look in town."

"Good idea," Kumatora agreed.

Kumatora, Wess, and Shadowstar hurried into New Bark Village, heading towards the plaza. They were surprised to see a crowd had formed. Apparently, someone was raising a fuss about something. As Kumatora, Wess, and Shadowstar got closer, a chubby man noticed them and shouted.

"Ah! You!"

"Hmm?" Wess frowned, seeing that the man was looking directly at him. "Butch… what do you want?"

The chubby man called Butch frowned. "Old man Wess! Where's Duster, that scumbucket!?"

Wess was surprised at Butch's anger at Duster. Wess usually called Duster names, mainly 'moron', but a 'scumbucket' wasn't what he would usually call Duster.

"Why are you looking for Duster?" Wess questioned.

Butch pointed at the well behind him while still glaring at Wess. "He's the only one I told about the money I hid the well, and now the money's gone! That means Duster stole it! That was my money!"

Trying to calm Butch down, one of the ladies, Lisa, asked him a question. "We've already asked a thousand times, but where did you even get the money in the first place?"

"That sounds all too fishy as well," said another lady. "How does anyone get that much money in a place like New Bark Village?"

Butch frowned as he looked at the crowd, not seeming to know how to answer.

At the same time, another man walked toward the plaza, likely noticing the ruckus. This man wore a cowboy outfit, most of his eyes were covered by the cowboy hat. He had a Houndour walking next to him. Kumatora didn't recognize the man, but he seemed like a strong guy.

"Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!" Butch shouted before turning back to Wess and pointed an accusatory finger at him. "Look! Wess and Duster may seem like innocent Pokemon Professor and Researchers, but they are totally trained thieves! They use Dark type Pokemon like Sneasel, who does that unless they're thieves!? They never did anything before because there was nothing worth stealing in our village, you see? But we know they would steal good stuff like a big bag of money if they saw it!"

Kumatora had heard enough. "Alright, shut your pie hole and listen up, punk!"

Kumatora stormed up to Butch, and Butch quickly ran behind another guy and started using him as a shield between him and Kumatora.

"W-who are you?! A f-friend of the thieves?" Butch shakingly asked, which only prompted another angry glare from Kumatora, causing him to yelp in fear. "No violence!"

Before things could escalate further, Kumatora saw the same man wearing the cowboy attire stepping forward. Everyone seemed to have gone silent as they all turned towards the man, making Kumatora wonder even more who exactly was this person.

"Let's just all of us calm down. Kicking up a fuss won't help us figure anything out, especially with Duster gone," the man calmly stated.

Wess gave a small sigh of relief. "Thank you, Flint."

Flint…What is it about you that seems so…off? I can't place my finger on it, but it almost feels familiar? Kumatora thought as she remained silent, letting Flint handle the situation.

"Now Wess, the villagers and I still believe that Duster isn't in the wrong, so for now, let's wait until your son returns so he could share his side of the story," Flint suggested.

Shadowstar gave a frown as she heard her Trainer muttered something. "Duster… you moron… you better get back soon, along with your Pokemon…"

---

Sobbas: DarkFoxKit: Just so you know, Sobbas, we're not finished yet. We have more chapters in reserve, we're just going to post them all before taking that break. But we are happy to hear you're enjoying the story more and more. While it is based off of Mother 3's plot, we're also trying to make the story our own.

Traveling Master: Considering that several stuff happens before the main stuff in the game, we decided to follow suit, while also adding extra stuff before fully focusing on Lucas. And considering what Duster will go through, it's best that we tackle what we can with him before shifting back to Lucas.

It was a fun battle, and I believe it was Ceruledge that gave us the idea to use the living armor thing. Considering that the tower was filled with tons of Ghost Pokemon, we were able to come up with tons of fun scenarios.

DarkFoxKit: Though the Ceruledge turned out to be Honedge wanting to be a Ceruledge. It was a fun way to explore both of their Pokedex entries. As for Sakura, yeah, she's similar to Berry in the whole being a dragon that was raised by another, similar species. But her attitude being on the more positive side, it was a fun character to write. And not realizing Sakura was a shiny Dratini could be because we couldn't really spell it out to the viewers, we tried to describe how she looked through words, but I understand people often skim through descriptions and not really get the full picture. We did try to make it a lot more obvious in this chapter just in case it was missed in the previous chapter.

Berry being planned to be a Dratini instead of a Goomy was due to the fact that Dragonite is a cool Pokemon, and I love it. But deciding it to being a Goomy instead felt more earned for when Berry gets stronger. There was a Pokedex entry in Pokemon X that said Goomy was the 'weakest dragon', and that fit what we were going for with the character. Blizza being a Jangmo-o wasn't really related to the decision on what to make Berry into, I think that was something TM decided on due to using a Jangmo-o in his latest Pokemon playthrough at the time.

Traveling Master: I do recall making an entire Pokemon team of dragons, but I honestly forgot what gave me the idea to use Jangmo-o as Blizza. But it worked out surprisingly well in the end. As for the Absol, it's gonna be its own thing. But I'll let you be the judge for whenever that Absol does appear. Original Dust was anything but a normal Absol. Even before CoD Dust was far more chaotic and eccentric compared to the story version.

DarkFoxKit: But enough about CoD, let's get back to this story. Sakura having a strong power isn't due to having a powerful, devastating force like with Berry, it was just to show how strong a Dragon type really is. Even though the games made Twister's power a mere 40, which I do not agree with, just imagine being hit by a freaking tornado, that is a pretty devastating attack. Leblanc was expecting Sakura to use Gust, not Twister, and Twister would hit a lot harder than Gust would.

Traveling Master: Both Leblanc and Duster have some serious parental issues, and as you perfectly described, Leblanc is so focused on having to perform to her best ability, anything short is automatically failure in her mother's eyes. It's a deep resentment, and her being a different kind of Sneasel really doesn't help her relationship with her mother as well.

DarkFoxKit: Yeah, Sakura could see that Leblanc was having trouble, and decided to try dancing with her. It wasn't obvious, but Sakura did end up using Dragon Dance during the dance. It was hinted at when Sakura mentioned being full of energy after it was over. But yeah, Sakura really helped Leblanc loosen up and enjoy herself during the dance.

Traveling Master: It's also a challenge when it comes to that language barrier for Duster his Pokemon. But that can be said too for a lot of pet owners who wish they could understand what their pets are saying. Luckily for Duster and Leblanc the two have a deep bond and have known each other long enough that Duster can occasionally guess what Leblanc is trying to say.

Well, we had to make the tower more interesting, and like I mentioned before, with it being filled with so many Ghost Pokemon, we were able to come up with many fun scenarios. Reason why Mr. Passion was an Annihilape was cause his hair reminded me of Beethoven's hairstyle and it was oddly amusing thinking how a Pokemon like Annihilape would be passionate about music. Game wise, "Mr. Passion" was only a musical ghost boss that you had to get through. Instead of being a copy of the game and a simple battle, we decided to mix it up with the whole dance/music battle thing.

DarkFoxKit: The further we get in the story, the more different it will become from Mother 3. The set up is the same, or rather, similar to Mother 3, but the story is going to go in its own direction once everything's been set up. As for the Ghost Pokemon, we thought it'd be nice to mess around with them. Pokemon itself hinted strongly how some humans become Ghost Pokemon upon death, like with Unovian Yamask. There was also that Gastly in the early days of the Pokemon anime that spoke in human language, so that was the idea we went with this. Your idea for the protagonist turning into a ghost Pokemon is definitely interesting, maybe something we might use in the future, who knows?

Thank you for reviewing and showing us that we at least have someone who enjoys what we're writing here. We'll keep updating until we've finished posting all the chapters we have in reserve. We'll probably be working on something else before coming back to this. I don't want this story to die because I have a lot planned for it, but since it doesn't seem to be gaining a lot of attention right now, it's definitely not high on our priority list of what to write at the moment.