-William-
I see Bonnie and Samuel still fighting the Conkeldurr. I smile as I see it stuck, paralyzed and making googly-eyes at Bonnie. I walk over to it, and sit down. It stares at me, and I stare back, slowly morphing colors smoothly, in a swirled pattern, going faster and faster and faster, etc etc. I concentrate, closing my eyes and, like a psychic type might, get into his brain and sort of turn its thoughts into complete mush. I then put in some of my own thoughts, except I purposefully make them confusing, random, and alternating between very fast, and slower than a Shuckle without legs. After I have a good feeling that I sort of lobotomized it permanently without removing half of its brain, and fainted the beast entirely, I stop shifting colors, and stand up. "He's done," I say, looking back. It was fainted. I had an extremely bad headache from that, and I say "C'mon. Let's go," as I begin walking west again. Samuel follows me, and I rub my forehead. "Wow... I wonder what I did," I say. "I saw a lot of things in his mind, from his thoughts of snapping my neck, to words or names like 'Richard' and 'Garrison'. I also saw a picture of a Gallade in his head, too."

As Celes heard that this was Spruce's brother, she understood why Spruce was having so much difficulty... and he... he was so strong... What could they do.... what could they even do to beat him... it seemed hopeless. Just then she was shocked by the thunderbolt, and then her eyes filled more in anger. She then saw Vine going for a dragon rush. She suddenly rushes and blocks Vine's taking the damage, before something inside her clicked. Vine, annoyed by her persistance, prepared a shadow rush attack.... before getting hit by a large blast of light coming from Celes. As the light was subsiding, Celes was flowting in the air, light energy pouring from her body, giving off radiant light as she blasts Vine away, actually hitting and damaging him.
"Spruce... I have this.... Take care that M and you don't get hurt... this energy.... it.... it is hard to control...." she says, anger starting to pour inside her more from having seen her friends going and getting hit. She growled at Vine, angry.
"You.... you have caused harm to me and my friends...." she says, anger pulsating the light around her more.

Bucket man? Hex thought, glancing at Terra. That seemed more or less scathing than what she had called Anthony. It was the pokemon equivalent of calling a guy in a wheelchair "wheelman." Eh, whatever. Hex watched as Pinky disappeared behind the waterfall, off to grab a rope for Terra. Shame that they didn't seem to have any pokemon that could carry Terra up the waterfall. Matt couldn't, and she certainly couldn't. Hopefully Pinky doesn't take too long.

Hex fluttered up to the top of the waterfall, while Terra waited for her lift. It shouldn't take as long as it did when they were looking for a plank, so they should more or less be in the clear. Luckily! Blaze was a long to keep her in line, or else she probably would've blown her top and end up killing Anthony or something with her magical fairy powers. When they traversed the cave, she hoped that she wouldn't too badly destroy the dragon types living there.

Hex was thinking about mingling with some of the water types there, but she decided that it would be too awkward. After all, these were Josh's people, not hers. It would be like Josh one day just suddenly walking into the hive and acting like he knew everyone. She kinda fluttered in place while waiting for Pinky to lift Terra up. In the mean time, she waited for Pinky to return by staring down the waterfall, waiting. For Terra to just start swimming up the waterfall or something.

I could tell by Spruce's annoyed expression that he was more of an older brother, rather than an actual twin.

...

What? Did I suddenly lose all ability, literally? Anyway, apparently Desia ordered Vine to prioritise me over my teammates. Unfair and a waste, but I was already a threat to her at this point.

Of course, I sighed in relief once I noticed he was beginning to... actually, I sighed in dismay, since he got smart and targeted everyone. But, that son-of-a-bitch-who-betrayed-a-brother-from-another-mother wasn't gonna kill us all that easily. (I'll explain that later... the 'b' word is reserved for those I hate most, and the last several words don't mean 'Spruce'.) As electricity flowed through the water and tased my teammates, I managed to suck all the electricity into myself. "I'm back, and ready to electrify!" Thank God, I was sick of talking like an old hag/Desia. I felt a bit dented, but I wasn't too hazy.

To start things off: Supersonic. But underwater, it became Sonic Boom. Underwater, the medium to allow waves to travel was a lot more physical than air. So, it would be painful, if not as lethal as setting off a sea mine underwater. Vine wanted to kill us, we'd oblige by sending him better gifts.

But, I wondered how much my... friends could take. They took all sorts of attacks and shrugged it off as if they were snowballs. It was already life's hack for our bubbles to stay intact, but we'd all start bleeding eventually.

At last, that glorious moment of the once long and forgotten term known as "patience" ceases to exist in the mind of poor, poor Breen. And that's assuming he had any of it to begin with. And of course, I mean, it ceases to exist in the way that, it's finally his time to talk to whatever scatterbrain running this seemingly random booth in the middle of the guild is doing, anyway. Just before he snaps from playing the waiting game for much too long, a Delibird gestures him to move forward. Sweet. Friggin'. Relief.

Breen slams his paws down on the desk, shuffling the papers about, staring straight into the line of sight with the Delibird, who's just staring right back at him with a happy-go-lucky smile and peaceful attitude. Just like him, that filthy featherbrain! "Hullo~!" He grins, giving a bit of a wave towards Breen.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy. No time for some sorta meet 'n greet kinda deal here. I wanna know what you're doin' that's leavin' me outta a job!" Out of a job? Breen, what are you- ooooh, I see. You see, from time to time, if the Outlaw and Rescue boards in the guild appear to be a little lackluster in the action side of things (and believe me, they always are), Breen will take mercenary requests out of his comics - similar to the Kraidslist outside the more run down towns, kinda like a bartering sorta deal. No need to accept it or anything, just make sure it gets down, and you'll be paid handsomely, without the cruddy guild-tax tacked onto it! Plus! As an added bonus! Complete 100 jobs from these comics and YOU get to meet THE Rocket Zigzagoon and his buddies the Protectors of the Pokeverse, Breen's favorite comic super-heroes! The comic ads haven't received much reaction in the line of anyone, with the exception of one 3-D glasses wearing wacko of a Mudkip - you know who that is - and a Grovyle. It seems as though this Delibird has taken note of this, and is SELLING - no, worse... - GIVING THESE JOBS AWAY FOR FREE! What an asshole!

The Delibird shrugs, still smiling, "I've no idea what you mean, 'lil guy! I just thought it'd be a great idea to give these jobs out to those looking for them! Hehe! Isn't that fun?" Breen pouts, attempting to make himself look a bit taller. "Buddy, FUN is sliding down some log in a dungeon, ending up in a pile of leaves, stepping on said pile of leaves, resulting in a trap door leading down to some Legendary Pokemon you can recruit for our team." He doodles this all out on a flyer on the table. "BAM! That's action. Now, I'd rather not have others learn about my super-awesome comic deal with these, alright?"

"Hmm...nah. This is fine."

"And what if I don't want you to?" Breen smirks, getting a tad angry with this guy.

"Ahem...Bonny? Clyde?" The Delibird claps, looking behind Breen, who scoffs, laughing. "Pfft. What kind of names are Bonny and Clyde? What, are those your security buddies who I'm at first gonna assume are some dorky Wurmples and or Caterpies who end up being a Golem and Machamp as soon as look behind me, and then one of them's gonna pick me up, stick a flyer to my face with a drawn on frowny, and kick me out of the guild?

The Delibird blinks, gesturing for Breen to turn around. "Ha! I knew it'd be two bug type Pokemo-"

"Goddammit...they were tough for a friggin' bug..."

Tini

It was time for the last fight; Tini and Jasper were both staring each other down...also, there may or may not have been a tumbleweed blowing through the dojo. Their epic stare down was broken when the word "Fight!" was uttered

"Fairy Wind!"

Unlike the last two, Jasper was barely effected by the attack "ha! This is going to be a breeze (coughlamepuncough)!" Rushing in, Jasper hit Tini with a Lick

"Ewwww!" Tini moaned as he got hit with a few more Licks.

"Hah! Looks like you're not as tough as you thought you little punk!" Jasper heckled Tini

As much as Tini wanted to squeeze that meany Ghastly, he didn't have the strength to leap up at him. It was right then, at the edge of defeat, that Tini felt something awaken inside of him. It was a power that had laid dormant for quite some time, and it was now ready to emerge. However, in order to invoke that power, Tini would need to call it using that which was most sacred and precious in this world, something that was gifted to mortals by the gods themselves. Steeling his resolve, Tini called out the new name of this power "By The Power Of Cookies!!!!!" and all of a sudden, his strength returned to him

"W-what!? Why is he glowing like that!?...Also, why do I smell cookies!?" Jasper, as well as everyone else, found themselves rather baffled by this turn of events. Tini coiled his body up getting ready to leap at Jasper "hah, you moron, I'm a Ghost Ty-gack" before he could finish, Tini had lept up to him and had Wrapped around his body, out of reach of his tongue "get...get him off me..." the somehow choking ghost managed to say. Without any limbs, he was unable to remove the Dratini from his body, and so Tini was able to continue to squeeze the life out of him. After a few minutes, Jasper fainted

Tini responded accordingly "yay! I win"

"B-but how!? Wrap is a Normal Type move. Those don't do anything to Ghost Types" Gasper squeaked out

Tini stopped his adorable little victory dance "wait...they don't? Well then, someone really should have told me that"

[Spruce]

Vine didn't seem to take any damage from anything... well... save for Celes' light blast, or, whatever that was. It seemed to hurt him at least enough to get him to flinch. "Spruce... you've always been such a burden to me, and such a pest to Desia. I'll happily destroy you, you useless excuse for a brother," Vine's voice sounded different, harsher than the voice I was used to... why did he call me useless, and what the heck did Desia have to do with this? I remember him saying something about her back before all of this mess, but it seemed like she was just a friend... not his lover, or something. The thought of those two together like that was almost enough to make me puke... thankfully, only almost. I tried to use the fact that he was with her, an enemy as some motivation to attack, yet fail miserably once again. I then looked down at the ground, feeling completely useless, and Vine headed right for Celes, that is, until he was forced backwards by M's make-shift Sonic Boom attack. He then aimed right for M, using dragon rush, however, I stepped in and took the attack for him... after all, it was the only thing I was good for in this fight, that is, keeping the others from toppling over before they could finish him off. Unfortunately, that attack nearly knocked me out, and I didn't think to buy any oran berries back at the shop. I end up coughing up blood, and manage to almost stand back up. Just to hear 'Vine' laugh and say "Scum like you doesn't even deserve to live," That wasn't something Vine would ever say to me. If anything, the real Vine would have been worried, and would have stopped his attack. He would have helped me... though, just the fact that he was attacking me had to mean that he wasn't himself, and I should probably stop thinking about that subject.

---

[Anthony]

I waited at the entrance to the cave for Terra to get up here. She started tapping her foot before one of Josh's friends threw down a sturdy-looking rope to her, and she climbed up it with almost no effort... which seemed weird given how tiny her arms were. "Alright, feels good to make some more progress," Terra says to us before asking "So, where's this so-called-secret cave?" She seemed to be in a much better mood than when we left her alone for a moment. Terra then looks squarely at Hex for a moment, as if she was trying to remember something, but didn't say anything else. That was strange... I mean, why did she look at Hex like that? I think as I follow Terra for a while. I then wait until nobody else was nearby, and ask "So... what was up with that weird way you looked at Hex?" Terra then looks around, and finally whispers "I think she might be the princess of one of the hives... I'm not sure, though, I mean, I haven't seen any beedril looking for her yet," that was strange... Hex? A princess? Pfffft, if that were true, then we wouldn't have any kind of money issues around here, kinda like that time that Terra gave us all that money back in Scale City, except it would be all the time. Yeah... we'd have the coolest stuff, and we'd have all the awesome berries we could carry with the best wheelbarrow we could find... or maybe even a couple of machamps to carry the stuff if we fill up the wheelbarrow. I start daydreaming about if that were true for a moment, and apparently scare Terra off, or something 'cause she left before I snapped out of my daydream.

---

[Bonnie]

I was about to say something about continuing to fight, but... well, I wasn't paying any attention until I turned to see that the conkeldurr was fainted. William seemed to finish him off with some sort of... er... psychic rainbow move? Either way, since we were no longer in danger, our badges went back into 'mission completed' mode, indicated by a green light. Everyone else was ready to go, but I didn't want to leave the escape orb here. I looked everywhere for it until I notice a tiny hole behind a bush with an odd shine to it. I take a closer look, and then pull out the orb, though, I decide against using it, after all, we might actually need it some other time. Instead, I pressed the button on my badge to teleport back to the Treasure Town guild. Maybe someday I'll be able to stand up to my father... that would be nice... I think as I wait for the others to teleport back as well. I notice a strange group hanging around the outlaw board... they were a trio of poochyena who seemed to be looking for a mission. I walked up to one of them, but he barked at me and said "Stay out of our way, missy, we've got an outlaw to catch," I would have attacked them, but... well... they weren't wild, so I'd probably get in trouble, no matter what they said to me beforehand. I then walked back over to the mission board, and a Meowstic walks up right next to me. "So, do you have the doll?" He asks me, sounding more annoyed than happy. I simply answer "No, one of my other teammates does, just wait, they'll be here soon," he then sits down in a stool right next to the mission board, and waits.

As Celes saw Spruce getting hit and coughing blood, her own blood pumped up rapidly in her body. She quickly rush and strike Vine hard with a large light blast, making him fall backwards from the attack. Celes stood in front of Spruce, eyes of anger right now.
"You guys get some safety. I am gonna take care of this.... I do not want you to be hurt." she says, before looking at Vince, who saw the anger in Celes eye's, and could not stop s slight shiver down his spine... Just then her voice boomed hard into the air.
"How could you join someone that only wants powers and sufferering! And how can you even call your brother a burden! And saying that someone does not deserve to live! It is inacceptable! " she says charging up a light energy. Vine quickly uses a shadowrush attack, actually damaging Celes a bit, but then was quickly greeted by a larger light blast then before, smashing into him, knocking him away. He looks up at Celes.
"What the heck Desia! I though you called their team weak!" Vine then said, before Celes booming voice fills the air.
"You have given in to a dark and shadowy power, and for this you must be purged!" she yells before Vine gets hit by yet another light orb attack. Vine seemed weakened now, having take a lot of energy in this. He then tries to use one attack... He thunderbolts all around, hitting Celes who feels the electricity, and stumble a bit, but then moves towards him.. Her eyes were pulsating light energy at the moment. Wanting to hurt Spruce... his own brother... something was wrong with him... and she had to try to beat him to figure out what to do about this

"Alright, looks like we got everyone up." Eddie said. "The tunnel's back here. Follow me."
He led them to the other side of the camp. There was a large boulder, and he assumed the entrance to the tunnel was behind it.
"Hey Ray, we need your help with this." Eddie said.
Ray came out of one of the tents, and went over to them. "You're going to try again? Eddie, you barely made it out last time."
"I'm not going in. They are."
"Alright then. I should warn you, though, you'll get swarmed as soon as you walk in."
Ray rolled the boulder out of the way, just enough for them to get into the tunnel.
"Now, once you go in, I'll have to put the boulder back so the wild Pokemon can't get to us. I hope you have a light source, 'cause it'll get dark in there."
Josh assumed that Blaze would be able to light it up. "Yeah, I think we'll be okay. Thanks, Ray."

Once everyone was inside, Ray pushed the boulder over the entrance. Josh couldn't see a thing. There could be wild Pokemon all around them and they wouldn't even know. They weren't getting attacked yet, though.
"This doesn't seem to bad." Josh said. "Where are all the-"
Josh was interrupted when a Noibat flew overhead, hitting him with a Gust. He could hear several other Pokemon launching attacks at his teammates.
"Blaze, we need you to light this place up a little." Josh said. He wouldn't be able to hit any of them if he couldn't see them.

Hex watched in unease as Ray slowly rolled the boulder out of the way, revealing the cave. It wasn't quite as light as she had imagined it out to be. It was like a giant gaping maw in there, and even looking in from the entrance it seemed almost pitch black. It was like the cave was protected by a wall of darkness from the outside. Hex took a deep breath, waiting for everyone to head into the cave. Hopefully Blaze could light it up for them, or they'd be trapped in the darkness.

Hex ventured in alongside the rest of the team, squinting. Matt and Anthony's both seemed to just barely shine, but it was only the outside sun reflecting off of their amorphous bodies. She heard the sound of rock against rock, and suddenly the boulder rolled over the entrance of the cave, trapping the team in. Now it was just them and the darkness. It was completely silent for a moment, and it seemed that they were all alone in the cave. Ralph began, "Where are all the-"

Hex heard a rumbling, and felt a set of dull teeth enclosing around her. She quickly gusted, and heard the pokemon hit the cave wall before the sound of digging filled her ears again. Hex looked around, completely blind to the pokemon attacking. "You had to open your mouth." She said, trying to get a foothold. Hex heard the sound of digging stopping, and felt a sudden rush of air. She gusted in front of her, and heard the pokemon abruptly hit the wall with a growl.

Hex tried to calm herself down. It would be fine, if Blaze could just get that light up. For the third time, she heard the digging stop, and preparing herself for an attack, she looked around. This only made her realize she still couldn't see. She felt a hard headbutt rather than a bite, and it was her turn to get knocked into the wall. She felt a presence looming over, and she could barely see the silhouette of something hanging right over her, it's head hung low.

Hex barely had time to register what was happening before she felt a strong sharpness in her mouth, and almost out of instinct, lunged forward to bite whatever was there. She felt a hard shell in her mouth. The pokemon squealed before digging into the dirt again. "Huh." She said, gnashing her teeth. "That's new."

-Samuel-
I look at my badge, and see it was green. I press the button and it warps William and I back to the guild, and I grab the doll from William and look around. I run to the meowstic and present it to him. "Took you long eno... Oh, hey Will! Anyways, that took you a long time," Meowstic says, handing the doll to his daughter. She stops crying and hugs the doll tightly, taking deep breaths. I smile and the meowstic hands us each 1000 poke, to which Chatot swoops in, taking all of it, and giving us 10% back. The meowstic sees this, and is disgusted. "Thief! You can't take away their hard-earned money!" The meowstic says. Chatot squawks "It's for... er... their training. 90% of their earnings go to the guildmaster to pay for their training... Now scuttle off before I make you, if you aren't joining the guild!" and then the meowstic and espurr leave quickly. "Ah, you three. You disappeared from the morning cheer. We were gonna introduce you to the guild, so wake up early next morning!" he squawks. "I'd also advise reading the full board of rules."

-William-
I get teleported back to the guild and I see Meowstic. Samuel hands the doll over, and I wave. "Hey, Jake!" I say, smiling and waving. He waves back, and I look around for a bit before Meowstic hands us our cash, and then Chatot takes it away and threatens the meowstic. He scolds us for not showing up to 'The Morning Cheer' and gives us our cut of the money back. I sigh, and say "I got more money than this at my old job," as i put the money in my backpack. "I'm tired. Wanna call it a day and just rest?" I ask, popping my shoulders. I go to the crew rooms and rest. Meanwhile, Samuel was in other rooms, looking through other people's stuff. He walks back into our crew room. "Bidoof's Diary, page twenty three: I found something weird! There was this mission that this kid had. I took it for her because she was sleeping when she shouldn't have, and I was ready to save whatever kid was in danger! She tried taking it back, but I kept it and took off for Sunswept Plains, but I couldn't go there because a bunch of water types were spraying down a fire that was there, so it was soaked all over. I came back and now I'm writing this!"

When on a last stand, a person's mind gets hazy. Spruce was nearly dead, Celes WAS dead, and I was next. I glared at Vine silently, not exactly painless and well-rested.

...

Funny that. None of that actually happened.

Celes' choice of words was rather odd, but otherwise fitting for this situation. Made it seem like some sort of fantasy. Vine's attack was supposed to be the real fantasy, charging me up as my Tackle move instead let out a move known to be Thunder Wave. Unlike my other electrical move, it was controlled like a wave and just bolted towards Vine, instead of spraying everywhere. I prayed to Arceus that my attack would be followed with paralysis, adding in how the move shouldn't miss despite accidentally using that.

Things fell quiet. Aside from Celes and Vine's one-on-one battle, everything else was suspiciously quiet. The ocean became as normal as hearing the air on land. With only luck and a ring of coins around me, I rushed to Vine's side. "Oh phew, you're awake." I said, grinning with my eye. "We're gonna be outta Hell soon."

Ironically, Vine rammed into me with a Dragon Rush attack, full of purple fury and yellow crackles - damn bastard missed the shield that was Celes and (un)luckily got me instead. All I could remember was a good night lullaby filled with curses and cackles. My vision was off and my head hurt as much as the first time I got a concussion. I was still alive, thanks to my typing though.

"Argh..." I slipped my radar dish back on my head. I couldn't see right and couldn't lock my eye onto something, but I could feel Vine had held onto me as he tried to yank a magnet away from me. As I had other ideas (and he would take forever to go against the forces of nature/physics/magnetism), I jostled it away from him (which was easier than expected, thanks to his paralysis) and jabbed him in his chest with both my magnets, separating the merged bubble between us as he floated backwards. "You've got guts to go against a person trying to save someone's life." Granted, I wasn't really saving Spruce from anything, although technically it can be counted as reviving someone and therefore performing medic duty. And, basically you're a monster if you attack someone performing healing duties. Don't ask me, ask Davis. He's been in more shit than me.

[Spruce]

Celes and M took a few attacks, and, more importantly, returned the favor to Vine, who seemed to be on his last legs by now. "I should have known... that a coward like you wouldn't fight me one-on-one..." Vine says to me, though, just from the pauses he had to take during his speech, I could tell that he couldn't take much more. I couldn't bring myself to say anything to him, and he continued with "With you out of the picture, Desia and I will be free to rule as king and queen... heh, to rule this horrible, unforgiving world that has taken so much from me... I guess it's the least that this planet can do for me," he then, after taking a look at all of my teammates, including me, ran up to Celes, charging himself with that familiar shadowy energy. I ran, or, rather, tried to run to get in the way of my attack, with me knowing that shadow-type moves don't effect me at all, however, while I couldn't make it to him in time, he simply stopped dead in his tracks, and said something under his breath about paralysis. Wait... he's NOT immune to electric-type moves? I thought as I recalled a few adventures, or, more accurately, the handful of adventures that Vine and I went on as a team... every time except for now, he was completely immune to electric-type attacks, heck, that's what got us out of that fight against the group of luxio and their leader, the luxray. It must have something to do with this shadow energy... could it have changed him this much? I then think as I limp over to where the fight was. Sure, Celes told me to stay back, but it there was a chance that I could block another attack for her, then I'd take it. Heck, this wasn't even just from the love, but Celes was easily doing the most damage out of all of us... with me not even being able to so much as even attack him... hold it... 'love'? When did that happen?

---

[Anthony]

Terra and I simply followed the others into the dark, mysterious shortcut, and Terra is almost instantly asked to light the place up with Blaze. After that, she pulls out a stick, and says "On it. Blaze, use your searing shot on this stick," Blaze, after exiting from her backpack for a brief moment, uses some sort of fire-type attack on the stick that Terra pulled out of her bag, lighting the place up to reveal a murkrow, a noibat, a goomy, and two dratini. The murkrow, apparently surprised by the light, flew away from the team before I could do anything, and the noibat shouted at the bird for being a coward, apparently angry at him for leaving the battle before it even began. The other pokemon spread out their attacks, with the noibat trying to use leech life on Matt, possibly just because it would be super-effective, with the goomy slowly making its way over to me to eventually use tackle on me, which I easily countered with counter, throwing its attack back at it with double the power... though... the attack didn't do all that much to me, unfortunately. The dratini then tried to attack Josh with twister, though, since Josh was in a bucket... somehow, I didn't think the attack would actually do much. Terra just sorta stayed there for a bit until the dragons noticed her, and started to try to leave, with someone from somewhere using pursuit on the noibat before he could successfully fly away, knocking the noibat out, and 'encouraging' the other pokemon to stay in the fight. Terra didn't seem to do anything, she didn't attack for some reason, and that prompted me to ask "Hey, Terra, why aren't you helping?" She then shrugged, and answered "Well, I've pretty much beaten up this whole mountain... I'd rather let you guys catch up to me, and... well... I kinda don't want to be completely relied on," weird, though, who was helping us? I didn't know ANY pokemon that might know pursuit, and whoever they were, they were just out of the view of our torchlight.

---

[Bonnie]

I start to head off to bed, and notice Samuel digging through some bidoof's stuff. My first thought was What a jerk... he just can't leave anyone's things alone, can he? but, then I heard him actually read it, and apparently, that guy couldn't get too far in his search for my father, which was a good thing. Whew... well, I guess something good DID come from Samuel burning down my first actual home... maybe he's not so bad after all. I then think after hearing the whole thing. A smile came to my face before I headed off, again, towards my room. Today's mission was quick, but it was rough. It took a ton out of me, even if I didn't really show it until now. I check my backpack, just to make sure that the mission statement was still in there, and, thankfully, it was, and I stupidly put the backpack under my pillow, and started to sleep. I was thinking of pretty nice things, such as beating down that jerk who seemed to have us beat, and the fact that the bidoof wasn't able to get to my father's house, as in, at all, thanks to the fire, and then I finally started to dream... this time, sure, my father was included, but, this time, I actually fought back, and my attacks were actually hurting him. It was as if I had a shot at beating him, which was comforting, and, better yet, his attacks couldn't seem to make contact with me. This battle in my dream was going much better than it usually did, that is, with me being completely unable to fight back, and with him... no, I probably shouldn't even think about thinking of that, else it may just change my dream, and so far, this was one of my best.

After Blaze lit up the cave, they could see who was attacking them. There was a Goomy, a Murkrow, a Noibat, and two Dratini. The Murkrow fled as soon as the torch was lit, leaving the other four to fight. Matt got hit with a Leech Life from the Noibat, then began putting up Reflect to shield them from attacks. One of the Dratini used Twister on Josh, who retaliated with a spray of acid.
"Looks like I got a new move." Josh said.
At this point, the wild Pokemon had noticed Terra, and tried to flee. After one of them got knocked out by Pursuit, they decided to stay and fight. Nobody in the group knew Pursuit, though. Somebody else was here with them. It seemed like they were trying to help them, but Josh couldn't help but wonder who it was.
"Who's there?" he asked, hoping that whoever it was would reveal themselves. This was pretty unlikely, though. It seemed like they were trying to stay out of sight.

As Celes saw the shadowy attack coming, she was going to brrace for impact... at least... that what she though until she saw that Vine was paralyzed, and stopped his atttack. She smiles and walks towards him, a slight sinister smile in her face.
"Wanted to hurt me and my friends eh...." she says before letting out a large light blast attack, smashing Vine away and onto a rock. He looks up at Celes who was walking towards him, now obviously scared.
"Wha... This energy... what are you!" Vine yells.
"Your worst nightmare...." Celes responded before blasting him once again. Vine was almost finish then. Celes walked to Vine and lifted his head with one of her paws.
"Never will you hurt me and my friends again!" she yells before letting out one final light blast attack, larger then her previous ones, blasting Vine full force and sending him in the air before crashing on the ground. Celes breath deeply, having expended her energy in that last attack. Vine was now fainted... That what she wanted to do. She then fell on the ground, breathing deeply after this. She was still conscious, but felt as if she was ran over by a million tauros.... What the heck was that energy she used? How did she end up using it anyway? So many questions... so little answers. It was really annoying her so much... She breath deeply, and looks back at her team.
"It... it is done.... " she says, before falling on her side, her legs hurting too much right now. This was too much for her. She was still conscious, but barely.

Fwoomph. A small ember flickered, shining surprisingly brightly in the once pitch-black cave. The torch emitted a low hissing noise, as the fire ate away at the wood. The light revealed the attackers, who almost seemed to flinch at the sudden brightness. A Goomy, Noibat, and two Dratini surrounded them, just within the reach of the flickering flames. The skin of these pokemon seemed to be pale and translucent.. the Goomy more so than regularly.

The attempted to attack, but the rest of the team seemed to shrug off them off with ease. Matt was leeched, but he quickly set up a barrier of transparent, glowing glass. The Dratini launched a twister at Matt, but it mostly seemed to just kind of swirl the water around in the bucket like a toilet, so he sprayed acid at it. The Goomy attacked Anthiny, onyx to just kind of bounce off of him. They seemed slightly off of their game, due to the sudden introduction of light.

Hex gusted aside one of the Dratini, a bit tempted to try out her new bite attack, but decided that she would just go for the easy route. Terra, on the other hand, was simply standing there, until the wild pokemon seemed to notice her, and began to flee. The Goomy kind tried to slowly slither away with the Dratini, but they were disorganized and hurrying. The Noibat attempted to fly away, before a glowing purple jab knocked it out of the sky.

The Noibat hit the ground hard, landing on the rock in a frail heap. The pursuit had completely knocked it out, causing it to veer off course and into the wall. "We won't hurt you." She said, trying to add onto Josh's question. Chances were, though, that the pokemon hiding in the shadows could probably take them all on with ease. It so easily slapped a Noibat out of consciousness, it could probably just do the exact same to them without a care in the world.

Argh. Me head.

"I swear to Arceus Vine spoke differently." What? He didn't sound like himself. There was something odd about his voice before his eventual demise. Could have been just my concussion though - any more of these and I'll probably go crazy forever. Sure, I couldn't see right, but as long as we found some berries then we'd get more or less better. It's like a potion in an edible ball. Celes had... an emotional breakdown and expressed herself to Vine, and that just saved everyone's life.

"Right. Let's try to forget this all happened. This guy's dead, she's dead, you and me are still alive. Who wants to party?" Turned out to be rather insulting to call someone alive 'dead.' Especially if they saved your arse. But, it wasn't like I knew, I mean I have a frickin' concussion for the second time within a week or so. And already I'm beginning to bond with these Pokemon. "I'm just joking. We're near the shore or something - I'm gonna go try to find some berries at this time of day, just so we can stay awake as we get back to the guild." My Arceus. I really did not notice how dark it was in the outside world. It was still pretty bright down here, to which I assumed it was a function of the HM. Those things take every situation seriously. If they can survive a war and over several thousand years, then you're guaranteed for life.

I made the mistake of going forwards. Something slipped my mind, and I knew it wasn't going to end well. Eh. I was already beginning to float upwards towards some trees and a... cabin?

[Spruce]

I was going to say something about M calling someone who was alive 'dead', but he then admitted that he was 'just kidding', and headed up to the surface before I could say anything. I then turned towards Celes, who was knocked out, and Vine, who was knocked out as well... and possibly even dea... no, no, he's still alive, he has to be. I then hear someone approaching us, and turn to see a lopunny, a medicham, and a gardevior, all in a bubble just like ours. The three seemed tougher than they looked, and once they got to us, the lopunny asked me "What happened here?" I start to answer, "Well, you see Vine-" I was cut off, however, by the gardevior saying "Vine must have gotten himself knocked out trying to protect you from some giant monster, right?" I shake my head 'no', but the medicham, apparently ignoring me, adds "Of course that's what happened! What else could it have been?" I try to say something, but the lopunny, before I could even say anything, says "Don't worry, kid, we always keep an extra reviver seed just in case this kind of thing happens, we'll have him up and ready to fight again in no time," I try to stop her from giving the seed to Vine, however, she simply jumps over me, and puts the seed right in his mouth... it didn't take long for the seed's effects to take hold, and revive Vine. "Ugh... wha happen?" Vine asked, apparently confused. His colors didn't change one bit, but at least he sounded like himself, again. I was going to say something, but, I couldn't, for some reason. "Spruce...? How'd you get here? Where is here? And... why are you grey?" He asked me, one question after another without any time to answer in between them. I then answered "Um... in that order, yes, it's me, a Dive HM, we're at the bottom of the ocean near Treasure Town, and... that last one's kind of a long story," Vine then looked over to Celes, and checked his bag, apparently for a reviver seed, but, he didn't find anything, this much was apparent due to the next thing he said "I'm sorry, but I don't have anything for her right now. Maybe you should just head back to the guild," with that, Vine walked away with the odd trio of somehow familiar pokemon, leaving Celes and I alone under the ocean.

---

[Anthony]

The mystery pokemon who was just beyond the torch's light didn't seem to answer to anything Josh and Hex said, unfortunately. I, however, had more important things to do, such as... um... countering another tackle from that other goomy, I guess. Terra sat down, and Blaze started asking her to help us out, however, she didn't listen to him at all, and just shook her head whenever he asked her to help. The two dratini both decided to attack Hex, and both attacked with twister, hoping to slam her into a wall, or something. Out of nowhere, an orange beak came out of the shadows, and whatever it was attached to used peck on one of the dratini, though, it didn't seem to do nearly as much as pursuit did, I could only assume that this was the mystery pokemon. Wait... wasn't there a murkrow in this mess, before? Wouldn't a murkrow know peck and possibly pursuit? Hmm... I think as the goomy finally uses something other than tacke with... bubble. I almost didn't even realize that was supposed to be an attack, and tried to use absorb, but it didn't seem to really do all that much, unfortunately. It didn't seem as though either myself or the other goomy were really going to gain much ground until another attack from the darkness, this time an astonish on the other goomy, making him flinch, and giving me an opportunity to use tackle on him, and finally knocking him out.

I returned as quickly as I came.

I had no berries with me.

I was dead on the inside.

I knew I forgot Davis.

As I floated upwards into the night, I noticed some Wingulls gathering on top of a lone cabin, filled with a light... except, it wasn't just some normal light. Not candlelight, not even electrical light. Suspicious, I continued forwards, smiling as my glowing wound lost colouration. While it would probably illuminate the next time I fought a shadow Pokemon, it would at least give me an early warning of some in the area.

My smile quickly faded upon hearing some familiar voices. "...if fighting is sure to result in victory then you must FIGHT! Sun Tzu said that..." Oh Arceus. What have I stumbled upon? "Heheh... I've missed a lot, haven't I?" The loud voices definitely kept me awake. I floated out of the water, going over patches of bright berry bushes. I heard voices that trampled on memories. One part of me didn't want to know what was happening, but the other part was soooo damn curious. I would try to kill my other side after knowing what was inside the rather old cabin.

The door wasn't closed. The voices continued droning on about Sun Tzu. I felt a sharp feeling that hurt more than Desia ever could. I made a little prayer as I slowly peered through the door, Wingulls watching me as they had nothing better to do...

No. You know. When I usually saw Davis, I would be happy and wishing for him to come back. But, no. This time, he was dead to me.

I see what Desia meant by 'replacement.' "Davis, we've got a visitor." I heard the other voice speak, seeing me as if it was completely normal for a badly-scarred Magnemite to enter without knocking.

"What?! We aren't supposed to have visi- oh." While he yelled at my replacement, I just entered casually, floating and making no sound. There were two Porygons in this room with me. Both looked old, but the other just looked cracked and dusty. The cabin itself looked cosy, although it had some old relics from the past. Davis had laid out his stars and stripes flag onto the wall, obviously in tatters and remarkably clean of rot.

"So. Desia said something about... a replacement. Is that true?"

"You spoke with Desia?" Davis asked, rather shocked I would go to such lengths. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"Is that true? You... replaced me, with an excuse of a Porygon?"

"Actually, it's the other way around." I felt nervous hearing my own voice, coming from that Porygon. "You see, Davis and I had to get away from Desia for a while... and, he was going to go insane in that community, with no one else to speak to him. So, he created you." He seemed to smile at the end of that sentence, despite not being able to show facial expressions. His tone said it all. "I'm Milloon. You're Milloon. Guess who's the clone."

"Davis, you bloody idiot..." I was about to start my speech, wiping tears across my eye and deliberately flinging them onto the Porygon. "For many bloody years, I thought we had a thing going. I was created not as a meaningless companion but as a personal friend of yours."

"That's what he inten-"

"Oh shut up you fucking idiot." The Porygon raised his head at me. Davis silently gestured at the Porygon to keep down. "And now, I find out the ugly truth. I have spent DAYS looking for you, getting myself killed and leaving behind scars that will never fade. LOOK AT ME. Does it LOOK healthy? Do I FEEL healthy? Will I EVER be healthy? Only damn Arceus knows, because you couldn't give two fucks about me and what I had to go through, JUST SO I COULD FIND YOU HEAR RECITING LINES FROM A VIDEO GAME." Davis simply sat there, staring at me. "Aye... I'll never know how you managed to live all this time while I went through a cycle of pain. I spent so much of my time looking for you. Then, you try to push out a note telling me of your death... did you know how broken I am knowing Desia wasn't lying? She may have attacked us afterwards, but for goodness sake she kept her word. You will never understand how much I've changed since looking for you... and now, I don't even know what to say to you."

"You best get going." The Porygon said, on the same tone as I was. "There's no room here for you. Davis has made his decision, and now you're gonna have to leave."

With those words, I turned my back on everyone. "Milloon, wait!"

I thought I heard the Porygon muttering how it wasn't my name. Davis came rushing to me as I began floating towards the water. "Don't..."

"Don't what?" I asked him, without much emotion. "Don't leave you? Don't make me go through pain to find you hanging out by a replacement?"

"No... I'm really, really sorry this had to happen." Davis spoke in a softer tone, softer than his usual voice. "It's just... well, I had to talk to something during my time."

"Maybe, you shouldn't have created me. I'm better off dead as a clone."

"You're not a clone. You've gained sentience, and that's remarkable considering how I've really made you out of scrap metal and some stray red energy. You aren't dead to me, but... it's certainly not your fault everything has happened."

With those words, I sank into the water, letting a bubble form over me. I was tired listening to him. "Miles... Miles, is your new name. I don't want you thinking you're a clone then next time you beat the crap out of Desia." I smiled a little, but I didn't let it show to Davis.

"Well... bye then. Forever."

I was broken. Into pieces which got mashed. I approached my own group, unsure what to say as I sighed. The bubble formed around me without the HM, which I presumed was a result of being a part of this group. I didn't want to think at this point, though.

"Nevermind. I couldn't find any berries." Then, I noticed the group. I didn't really change my expression, though.

As Celes was almost in her unconsciousness, she felt as if everything around her was clear as day.... feeling every life form.... It was really weird.... She tried to rise up, but could not, her body refusing to move. It was as if it felt slightly dead.... but.... it was not.
Why can't I move.... what... what happen to me... she though, unsure. She looked around with what was left of her vision, seeing them still underwater. Soon, she was able to speak abit, feeling some energy coming back to her, but not too much. She moved her head a bit.
"Spruce...." she says, weakly. She just could not get up right now. It was as if 100 tauros had stamped on her.... It hurted.... she felt all the damage that she had gotten from the fight with Vine now, and it felt as if she coulden't bare the hurt that was on her now. A reviver seed... she needed a reviver seed of treatment. Then, she started to sense something at a distance.... a small light moving, with what seemed like 2 bright eyes. She stared at them before they moved away quickly. She just did not know what those were.