[IC] Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of the Void

[Lugia]

[Spruce]

"Well... I'm ready," I say weakly as I tie the duo up with void whips. I knew that these wouldn't hold for too long, but, thanks to Celes' chains, they didn't have to. I then press the button to teleport myself, and the rest of my team, Kamina included, back to the guild. Once back, I say "Ugh... Celes... maybe you should handle this for a while... I'm not in the best condition for this right now," after that, I head down and towards my team's room. For some reason, it felt as if it had already been ages since I last slept here, and yet, I was certain that I did so earlier today. I shake off that feeling and pass out on my bed. I then started to have those same dreams about that weird place, yet, this place seemed familiar now... was it possibly... that oddity from earlier? It sure looked like it was, but in the dream, there was a giant, towering, snakelike figure in the distance. Those two crooks were there too, yet, they smiled as I passed by instead of attacking me. "We've weakened him, now go! Finish him off!" I hear the chermeleon call out to me. Finish who off? What universe was this that I was WORKING with these jerks!? Either way, I had little control over what happened next, and saw myself running towards the giant figure, but... before I could attack, I was thrown into some sort of portal, which led right to the guild, and next to Celes and the tied up duo... what the heck!? Sure, it didn't make any sense, but, then again, I've heard that dreams typically don't make much sense, if any. The dream sort of just stopped right there for whatever reason, and I kept on with my now-dreamless sleep.

---

[Anthony]

"Thank you all for showing me the way out," Darkrai said to my team. This time, however, he sounded normal, and seemed to have a rather deep voice instead of his old, raspy voice. Terra then turns towards Josh after he asked about Blaze, and, with a worried look on her face, she runs off, presumably back to the basement again. I didn't really feel as though she needed any additional help, so, I stayed right here with the weird old dude. "I've been trapped in that place for years... only just surviving off of the elder's dreams... funny thing, I was just passing through as a tourist, back when this place was a tourism hot-spot," he then laughed, but, said laugh was cut short when a certain victini showed up. "YOU!" The elder shouted. The elder then ran up to Darkrai, and continued with "Don't you know where your place is, monster!? Get back in the basement, you horrible fiend!" Darkrai answers with "You don't understand! I mean you no-" he was cut off with the elder saying "I understand plenty! Those nightmares you caused, and those lies about you just 'wanting to pass through town', pffft, simple, easy to see through illusions, just like what the rest of you dark-types use to make others think you're not evil! I know better, though, I'm not so easily tricked, not so easily..." the elder went on and on about how evil dark types supposedly were while Darkrai simply flew off, and Daniel just continued to look angrier and angrier. I had to hold him back from attacking the elder a couple times, and thankfully, he stopped trying to attack the man after that.

---

[Bonnie]

"Hey, Tini, we could really use some help over here!" I call out to Tini, who still seemed focused on the aipom, instead of the scrafty who just showed his face by using hi-jump-kick and then acid, thankfully missing William with his hi-jump-kick and smashing into a tree, instead. I, after going over my moveset in my head, decide to try to use attract on the scrafty, his masculine voice giving away his gender... well, that, and the fact that he was seen earlier with a female kirlia, whom we are now helping. This would at least make a decent distraction, and, seemed to work just fine, with him making some sort of stupid-face at me that I could only assume was 'love'... of course, the scraggy family was never known for their expressions, but instead, their habit of spitting bile at their enemies. He seemed as though he was trying to attack someone, but instead just looked over at me some more, as if I was some sort of beauty queen or something. I then think my options through again, and remember that bite can leave enemies open for attack. That being my only option, I run right at him, and bite him right on the hand... of course, he hardly seemed to notice, and I ended up in some sort of bramble bush, with the spiky plant leaving a few balls of spikes stuck in my fur. Obviously, I didn't stay in there for long, and unfortunately, almost every movement was now coupled with some sort of spike-based pain. I then started to think if there was any possible way to use this as an advantage, but laughed at the idea, and started trying to take out some of the spikes... I had to do this one at a time, and gave up whatever attack opportunities might come up, soon.

[Evanist]

As Celes looked at Spruce leave, she sat down, and breath deeply. The 2 little troublemakers were tied up right now, and some questioning would soon fallow when they will wake up. She breath deeply, and sits down, looking at herself a bit more, her ribbons and how she had changed.... She told herself that she would come back home when she would have evolved, but what would her parents even say for that.... And Spruce.... will her parents be alright with her being in love with him? She just did not know about that.... they probably would have expected her to go and find another eevee or something. She then got her bag, and remembered something. She took out the stone from before, the one that they found just floating on the waves, and looks at it, cleaning it a bit, unsure about what it even was. She just had no idea at all what all this was about. She then looks at the 2 tied up pokemons, and let out a deep sighed. Why would they even do things like that to cause so much problem. She stares and then looked up. She was wondering... if things had been gotten worst in the old area near the forest before.... Maybe she could go check that out if Spruce does not feel like moving for a bit... or she could also try to get him to see her parents. But god that might end up awkward... Really awkward.

[Card Captor]

Kamina

"That was awesome!" the little fishy cried "we have got to take more days off; they're just like adventures!" To Kamina, today was definitely a good day. With the bad guys already being taken care of by Celes, Kamina was free to get some sleep to replenish his strength for the next day. "I'll bet that tomorrow is going to be awesome too! I just can't wait for the next adventure! I might even evolve soon. I feel like I've gotten a lot stronger ever since I came to this guild." He mused to himself as he Splashed over to his bed. "I wonder what being a Gyarados is going to feel like. I mean yeah, sure I'll be stronger...but what about that body shape? I won't be able to get around using Splash like I do now. That's going to take some getting used to." With all that said, Kamina fell asleep

Tini

Another one? Wow, these guys were starting to pop up everywhere "Fairy Wind!" Tini cried out as he blasted the Scrafty with his minty smelling attack. However before he let off another attack, he noticed Bonnie's current state; nasty thorny things stuck in her fur. It looked extremely painful. It was at that point that he stopped thinking and just acted. Slithering over to her as fast as his little body could, he quickly grabbed one of the thorny things with his mouth, getting a little scratch in the process. When he felt like he had a good enough grip, he yanked it off of her, spitting it away from them. That done, he went back to grab another thorny thing to repeat the process

[Riddles]

Apparently, Darkrai had just been passing through the town, and ended up getting captured. They threw him in the basement, and without the elders dreams to give him energy, he probably would've died down there. The moment the elder saw Darkrai outside of the basement, he began ranting about how "dark types are evil" and that "they use illusions to trick people". Darkrai tried to explain himself, but the elder just considered it another act of trickery. Knowing that the elder couldn't be reasoned with, Darkrai just flew away.

The elder continued his rant, even after Darkrai left. It was clearly beginning to get on Daniel's nerves at this point. If Anthony hadn't held him back, he probably would've attacked.
"Just ignore him, Daniel." Josh said, taking his badge out of his bag. "Get your badges ready, guys. As soon as Terra comes back with that cure, we're leaving."

[ZombieMagikarp]

The cosmos is all there is, ever was, or ever will be. Our contemplations of the cosmos stirs - there is a tingling in the spine; a falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the grandest of mysteries. Lost between intensity and eternity, is our home the earth. Each speck of light, every microscopic organism, every being on this planet is sacred. Every night, we have the chance, for the approximate time of a varying twelve and a half hours, to look up into the vastness that is space. The vastness known as the our galaxy. There are, an estimate, of over one hundred billion stars in our galaxy, two thousand of which are observable at night.

On such a night like this, the majority of the constellations can be seen. Where there is the Tauros, Orion's Belt, or the Drie Susters, an extra star shines bright in the sky. Calm, quaint, and quiet, i- hold up. It's getting closer. That's not even a star. I think it's saying something, too!

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck!...Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck, FUCK FUCK! OH, SHIT!" Faster than a speeding bullet, and yet slower than the speed of light (huh, didn't even know that was possible), plummets a small, blue object. Being spat out of the ground, the projection sends him uuuuppp and nooooow dooown...straight smack dab of some town some where. Knowing the advent of Deus Ex Machina - this mysterious blue Pokemon is probably taking a rough landing in front of some poor bastar- oh look! He faceplanted onto a Zoroark! Ouch. Big guy's white hair is all messed up now, not in the least bit fluffy or cute anymore. Few broken bones and paws, but no matter! The other Pokemon stands up atop him, brushing himself off. Not a scratch on him - even his red 'n blue 3-D specs are in perfect condition. The backwards ballcap atop his head in prestine condition.

He pulls out a notepad, pencil in his mouth as he flips about. "Note to self: don't fuck with a family of Electrode." He looks down at the groaning Zoroark rubbing his broken arm. Looking back and forth, he swipes the satchel from him, slowly backing up, while dotting down some more notes. "Remind yourself that you saved a family of Electrode annnd..." He searches through the stolen satchel, looking at its contents. "...that I was rewarded with this new bag and bunches of items! Atta boy, Breen, atta boy...". He runs off, only to make a completely 180 and stops, looking back and forth and all around. "Shit. I have a feelin' I'm not on page 12 anymore..."

[Sumable]

-William-
I use Fury Swipes a couple times on the Scrafty as he's looking at Bonnie, but as I follow his face and eyes, I see Bonnie fall over into thorns. "Ouch! That must hurt. Uh..." I say, walking behind her and pulling out a thorn or two. "Just think about anything other than pain," I say as I pull another thorn/spike out. I then see the scrafty approach and he pulls a spike out as well. "Uh... right! The fight!" I say as I do feint attack once more, hitting the scrafty in the jaw. I then use Fury swipes twice, but the scrafty looked only wounded rather than about to faint. He looked that way five minutes ago, too... "Tini, use that thing again, I can barely do a thing to him," I say, and I go back to helping Bonnie with the thorns.

[KaBling]

"If those bastards don't talk by... 10 seconds, I'll be shocking their brains out. It's gotta be painful to cook a head."

Uh, that's not what I'd usually say. Something wasn't right with my personality. Then again, I had mysteriously gotten over Davis quite quickly. Maybe I said that because I needed to let out some steam, 'cause mourning on the job doesn't tend to go well. Spruce had gone off to bed, obviously dazed and having taken the full force of damage lately. Celes, Kamina and I were the only ones in the room, with the regular guarding Bisharp not present. A few more Pokemon teleported in, though they'd end up running since they were probably being chased.

"9..."

I was growing impatient with the two, who just seemed to stare at me. Glare? Strangely, they weren't doing that at all. In fact, they seemed... scared. I wasn't put off by their appearance.

I felt... different. Definitely didn't seem too attached to morals. My voice quivered slightly, though I held it steady as I let off a spark between my magnets. I sighed briefly, wishing time would go a bit faster... I knew it wasn't a good idea to torture someone, but lately I was just kinda pissed with everything at this point. I felt as if life owed me, or I'd go against my morals and have some revenge against it.

"Okay, 3 because you're both stubborn idiots... 2... 1? Well, Celes? Want to get them to talk, more or less?"

[Lugia]

[???]

"We'll..." I start to say before looking at my still fainted partner. I then correct myself, saying "Or, I guess, I'll talk," I then continue on. Whoever these pokemon were, they at least didn't seem to be against us void types, "We're trying to save the world. These void crystals are growing unstable due to Giratina's realm being torn apart. Let me explain that last part... not too long ago, a strange pokemon told Giratina that his realm would be destroyed, she went on to explain that the other world was apparently empty, ready for the taking. Unfortunately, Giratina believed her, and he used his own power to start to destabilize the void crystals which held him in place, and kept him tied to that realm. My partner and I knew that this mysterious pokemon was lying, so we followed her into this world, where we overheard her talking about how she was going to destroy all of the void crystals... we couldn't let her do that," I then take a breath, and struggle a bit against these odd, and oddly effective chains, sighing when my attempt to escape my bindings failed. I then add "Thankfully, we still managed to take one of the crystals while you and your team distracted the strange pokemon... now we just need the others, and then we can finally put an end to this. All we'd need to do after that to keep Giratina in his own realm is to put these crystals in his grave," I look around a bit... this was one of those older guilds. I guess that would explain why I kept running into these pokemon, but, if they're here, then where's that strange pokemon who convinced Giratina to try to take over this place? Where was she? My partner, Flare woke up after this, and asked "Wha...? Where am I? Ack! Why can't I move!?" Much to my embarrassment. "Right... now, would you mind untying us? We'd like to get back to our job, and hopefully save this world, as well as our own," I then ask, in high hopes that they might let us go.

---

[Anthony]

The elder finally finished his speech, and looked around, eventually asking "Eh? Now, what was I ranting about? Weren't there more of ya? Hm..." I didn't answer, as he just left the building, along with Terra who returned shortly after with a sort of fiery gem in hand, and a big smile on her face. "Alright, let's try this thing out," she said happily as she placed the gem next to Blaze (who was still an egg). Both the gem, and the egg glowed bright red, with the glow quickly growing in size until it looked as though we were all caught in some sort of inferno. Daniel shielded his eyes for some reason, but I didn't really find the light too bright, myself. The glow vanished, and left behind a now-permanently-hatched Blaze, who seemed dazed and a little confused for a moment before shouting out "Terra! You cured me! Thank you, big sis!" Well, he sure seemed excited about it, and, well, I guess he really should. Daniel, who just unshielded his eyes seemed pretty happy as well, even if he didn't ever really get to meet Blaze. "Well, team, I think we should call this one a win," I then announce, as Hex seemed to be a little quiet at the moment. I then head out of the village, only to see Darkrai again. "I really can't thank you enough, but I do know quite a bit about ancient things, maybe that would help, is there anything you'd like to know?" He asks me almost as soon as I see him. "Um..." I start to say before Static pokes his head out of my bag, and taps me where my shoulder would be if I had any. "Oh, right, do you know where the nearest orb of balance is, and if so, is there anything that I should watch out for?" Darkrai thinks for a moment, just as well, too, as I had to wait for the rest of my teammates to arrive.

---

[Bonnie]

With Tini helping me out, the thorns came out really quickly, and that's when I got an idea. I scooped some of them up formed them into a ball of spikes, and quickly used switcheroo, forcing the scrafty to hold them, while I ended up with... er... some sort of half-eaten apple? Gross. The ball of spikes seemed to be doing its trick, that is, damaging the scrafty, and being really difficult to remove, and I smiled a bit, knowing that the tables might have just been turned by that. The scrafty tries to prepare a hi-jump-kick again, but takes one look at my smiling face and seems to just stop, preferring to just stand there, with a stupid face. I tried to make it look as though I liked that, mainly because that would get him to stop attacking more often, and just stood there, waiting for the rest of my team to finish him off. "Okay, Tini, now would be a good time for that fairy wind," I say to Tini, who was still right next to me from pulling out those spikes. It probably looked like I was attracted to this scrafty, and trust me, I wasn't, but really I was just trying to keep him occupied while the rest of my team finishes him off. I then remember Samuel, and scare myself thinking that he might just burn down the forest just so he won't be lost anymore... I mean, I wouldn't put it past him after the way he basically burned down my home without any hint of hesitation. That being said, he was a decent teammate to have around, just, keep him away from sticks, or wood, or really, anything flammable.

[Sumable]

-Samuel-
I was practically sitting down in my little cave, screaming now. I didn't want to be lost. "WILLIAM! BONNIE! SOMEONE?!" I was screaming, my hands cupped around my mouth. I was running everywhere and yelling my lungs out. I decide to run randomly through the forest, screaming madly. I was panicked, and I had run apon a scrafty, and my team, but I was so damn panicked that I began swatting at whoever I saw first. "WILLIAM HELP I'VE BEEN AMBUSHED BY A LARGE GROUP OF WILDS!" I scream. Turns out that I was slapping William in the face the whole time for three minutes straight.

-William-
While resting, suddenly Samuel bursts in from nowhere, screams louder than a whismur ever could, and strikes me many, many, many times. It took a while for him to realize who was who, and then he calmed down. "Ouch! What the hell were you doing?!" I yell. "Ugh. Well, we got this guy. Just waiting for him to faint, and we'll drag him back to the guild," I say.

[Evanist]

Celes listened to the whole story, sitting down as she listens. When she heard about the whole Giratina being trick, one name came into her mind.
"Desia...." she says before untying them. She looks at them and sighed.
"Do not move.... if it is really the case, I want a confirmation...." she says before looking to her right, seeing a male meowstic talking with other members of the guild.
"Hey you! Mind coming here a second?" Celes then yells. The meowstic looked at her a bit confused before moving forwards.
"What?" the meowstic said, a bit annoyed.
"Mind checking their mind if they tell the truth about what they just said about the void crystals?" Celes then says. The meowstic looked at her confused a bit.
"Wait... what?" he says. Celes sighed.
"Just do it..." she says as the meowstic turns to the charmeleon and the vulpix, scanning into their mind and then stopping there, staring at them, and turning to Celes.
"They... They were telling the truth but.... if thats the case... then..." the meowstic then says. Celes sighed a bit.
"Mind warning the others about this please.... so we don't get any trouble with people wanting to defend the crystals from these 2?" she asks. The meowstic nods before rushing off. Celes turns to the other 2, her chains disappearing.
"I am sorry.... I needed to be sure about this... but with the effects that it does around the shrines... will it restore to normal one day or is there anything we can do about it?" she asks, now wishing Spruce was there. He needed to hear about this.

[Card Captor]

Tini

"You got it!" he chirped "Fairy Wind!" he fired the minty smelling attack at the Scrafty. While he was briefly occupied mentally by the strange Pokemon who came running at them from nowhere screaming, Bonnie's voice recaptured his attention. "Big meany face, I won't let you hurt anyone anymore! Fairy Wind!" he shot out a second blast of minty justice at the foul criminal. Thanks to his inability to focus on more then one thing at a time, he was able to ignore the pain from the cuts he got helping Bonnie get those thorny things out of her fur

[Riddles]

After the elder stopped ranting, he seemed to completely forget what just happened. Moments later, Terra returned, carrying Blaze's egg and some sort of gem, which Josh assumed was the cure. When Terra placed the gem and the egg beside each other, they both emitted a bright light, which Daniel had to shield his eyes from. It wasn't too bright, but Josh just assumed that Daniel was more sensitive to light due to him being a Dark-type, or something like that.

When the light faded, Blaze was standing there, now permanently hatched. Everyone seemed glad that he was finally cured.
"Well, team, I think we should call this one a win," Anthony said.
"I'm just glad it's finally over." Josh said. He was about to teleport back to the guild, but then noticed that Anthony had left the city on foot.

Matt and Josh followed him out of the city to see him and Static talking to Darkrai. They seemed to be discussing the location of the first Orb of Balance.
"I almost forgot about those." Josh said.
Hopefully Darkrai knew the location of at least one of them. They didn't seem like the kind of thing that would be easy to find, so they would probably be searching for a long time if he didn't.

[KaBling]

Well, they responded rather calmly. I stopped my act (because torture's unnecessary at this point), and brushed off the fact that nobody seemed to react to... well, me willing to electrocute a pair of people without any second thoughts. Shocking.

"Nice story. But fuck..." I was brushing my eye at this point. "How the hell does Desia manipulate a literally-damned Pokemon? I know Arceus banished him five ways from reality, but Giratina's gotta make sense. He's got a whole universe to himself - if he's gonna skip worlds, he shouldn't bring the remains of a war over here." Great. Now we have another excuse to kill Desia. First there's trying to kill us several times, then possessing Spruce's brother, then manipulating me and expecting me to kill Davis for her. Sometimes, the world does get a bit unbearable... second time that's happened in a day or so.

"Well, let's get off to bed." I turned away from the tied pair, while the Vulpix was still trying to get away. I didn't care about that, nor the Meowstic - I just needed to talk to Celes. "Savour the fact Celes that we're not just up against a bitch mastermind now, but also the devil himself. I personally don't want to let them go, so they can watch me drink some oran juice. Now goodnight." I hissed, carefully mincing my words as I left the two tied up in the chair. Nowhere else to keep them after all.

And then, carefully strolling through the dark corridor, I made it to our cabin, and kinda sunk into my bed. Today was... slightly less disappointing than any of the other days.

[Lugia]

[Anthony]

After Matt and Josh rejoin me, Darkrai suddenly seems to have remembered something. "OH! Now I remember where that thing was. I was actually trying to visit the place myself which led me to this city. The orb's just past the city itself and better yet the guardian shouldn't be too much for you to handle. It should be just north of here on top of the nearby mountain which is populated primarily by fighting types. There aren't too many traps along the way and the guardian as I've said before isn't too much. He's just some scrafty and isn't a shadow pokemon or anything like that. In fact I think my friend might have even solved some of the puzzles on his way over to the orb. I mean assuming that he continued towards the orb even after I got caught. So north and on top of a mountain got all that?" He... unfortunately spoke a little too fast, as if he was incredibly excited about what he remembered. All I could really make out was 'north of here' and 'populated primarily by fighting types'. "Could you slow down a bit?" I ask Darkrai, not having heard much of that. He repeated what he said, but, he didn't say it any slower, unfortunately for me. "Er... could either of you understand what Darkrai just tried to say to us?" I then ask the other two. Hopefully, they each understood at least something from the two times that he went through his little spiel. Static then adds "Well... all I got was that the guardian's a scrafty... does that help?" It almost sounded as if Static's head was spinning from the speed of Darkrai's speech. I wonder if he's going to get like this every time he remembers something about the orbs of balance? That wouldn't be very helpful.

---

[Bonnie]

That last fairy wind from Tini was enough to knock out the scrafty, thankfully. "Alright, we won!" I say to the rest of my team, including Samuel who was, for some reason, slapping William repeatedly. I then press the button on my badge, but for some reason, it only teleports us to Treasure Town... and not even in front of the guild. Odd, was someone somehow messing with our badges? I notice a vaguely canine shaped pokemon a few feet in front of me, but, the second I spot him or her, he or she darts right into the bushes. Who or what was that? I ask myself as I look around for the rest of my team... whatever that was, I didn't want to face it alone. "H-hello?" I call out to the bushes, only to, obviously, get no response. As soon as the rest of my team gathers here apparently via teleportation, the thing rushes right towards William, shouting something along the lines of "You knocked out my boyfriend!" Or... something similar to that. Did that scrafty we brought in have some sort of relation with this pokemon? Was this the real reason that the mission was put up, to get revenge on someone who was apparently seeing other pokemon? If that was so, then I honestly felt pretty bad for our victim, now... and I also kinda felt bad because I took a mission that was written out of rage, rather than urgency... we're not mercenaries, we're supposed to be rescuers... as in, we help those who are actually in NEED of help, rather than just whoever WANTS help.

---

[???]

"The shrines should return to normal once we place all of the void crystals in their spot in Giratina's grave. I hope none of the pokemon died because of this... but, even if that's the case, then I suppose I'll have to call it their sacrifice," I say to the sylveon who somehow was capable of tying us up with these chains. I then notice the angry magnemite, who simply floated down, possibly to his own team's bed, and add "What his problem? Either way, at least I've got the name of the one who tricked Giratina... Desia... why does that name sound familiar?" Flare then finally asks "So, would you mind telling us your name, miss?" she seemed rather calm, which was weird given her fear of being unable to move. I was about to say something, but she apparently finally snapped, shouting "Get me outta here! I can't handle this anymore!" She then just went on to shouting... not really forming words, just, screaming, obviously out of fear. It took her long enough, as she usually goes right to the screaming and shouting, not even giving herself a single second to try to be calm. It can be difficult with her sometimes, especially on mornings when she wakes up and thinks that her own blankets are preventing movement somehow. "Yes, um, would you please let us go? I'd rather not have to listen to this for too long," I state, only raising my voice so that I could be heard over Flare's screams of fear. I tried to get out again, but, just like last time, there was no luck... and worse, I couldn't cover my ears as Flare's screams got louder and louder... hopefully, I'll go deaf soon enough, and wouldn't have to hear it anymore.

[Sumable]

-William-
After we knock the scrafty out, Bonnie teleports us back to Treasure Town. As soon as I get back with the scrafty in my hands, a Ninetails runs up to me, yelling "Scrafty! You beat up my boyfriend!" and she tackles me. She grabs the scrafty and begins dragging him off, but I hop up and run after her, grabbing her tail, when suddenly she whips around with the most menacing, blood-red eyes I've ever seen, and suddenly I'm paralyzed, with a sharp pain in my forehead as I begin having flashbacks. Painful, quick, short, and also dark flashbacks, as well. Suddenly, the quick cycling through of flashbacks stops on one where one of my co-workers, the smeargle, attempted to kill me as I was saving my old boss. I hear a blood-curdling laugh. Suddenly, I get my vision back, and she had used some move, and we were in some flame room. It felt like it was burning me, and she says "So you think it's funny to get in the way of LOVE?! Hmph! I wonder how useful you'd be if you could only ever use one move!" as I feel jolts of pain around my heart and liver. She then began forcing my muscles to tighten as she strikes with another tackle, and I was crying at this point. "I don't think that curse is quite enough, though," she says. "How about that, and I beset upon you plaguing visions, night terrors, and an unstable mind?" she growls. "Yes! I think that's fair, seeing as you fried some big pokemon's brain not too long ago!" she howls, and at that point I faint.

I wake up minutes later, pretty much just the same. "Wh-what happened? Was I attacked?" I ask, grabbing my chest and standing up. I was still my old, scaly self, but my tongue seemed to sort of be hanging out of the side of my mouth. I hear a few whispers, and I see a blissey using Heal Pulse on me. Suddenly, I hear a particularly loud whisper, saying "You're just worthless, you pile of scaly JUNK!" and I look around. "Who said that?!" I ask, but I wasn't able to barely even sit up. Samuel asked "Who said what?" and I say "Someone called me junk." "No one called you anything, Will. You just sorta fainted after that ninetails engulfed you in flame... and why do you have your tongue out?" Samuel asks. I stick my tongue back in my mouth, and the blissey puts me back down, continuing to use Heal Pulse. I fall asleep, too tired to stay awake.

-Samuel (While the fight was happening)-
I get teleported back to Treasure Town, and suddenly someone steals the scrafty. William chases after the pokemon, and grabs her tail, and she struck him down, putting up a large wall of flame around them. I hear a lot of shrieks of pain, and when the flame dissipates, the ninetails was continuing to run away, and was being chased down by some guards, when she suddenly went up in flames, and disappeared in the smoke. I run over to Will, and a crowd gathers around, and a few minutes after the crowd gathers, a blissey pushes through saying "Oh my oh my oh my oh my! What happened?" as she begins using Heal Pulse over and over again on William.

[Evanist]

As Celes looked at M just go and leave, she let out a slight growl. Seriously... there was problems like that in the world and how did he react? He wants them to die or something. She then turns to the vulpix who was litterally screening in fear before quickly putting a paw on her mouth.
"Will you stop screaming for crying out loud! Look, I understand that there is trouble, and having gotten the confirmation about you telling the truth." she says before removing the chains she had used. She then looks at the 2 pokemons and growls a bit.
"Now here the thing: I know full well my group will ask what the heck was happening and why I removed those chains. So here what I want to say. Do not leave this guild until tomorrow where I can get you guys to explain the situation to Spruce, who is the leader of my group." she says before breathing deeply. She calms down.
"Names Celes, and the reason why I ask this is that I know full well that if I let you go and continue the way you do that work, pokemons will get hurt. I agree we need the void crystals, but we also need to keep the people safe. Like get the pokemons of the forest to evacuate before taking the crystal, explaining the situation. This way there will be less trouble with pokemons thinking of you guys like thieves only and such. I hope you understand what I am saying." Celes then says as calm as possible to the 2 pokemons. She knew she would have to keep a eye on them. Guess she would need to take some soup.... after making a batch that is..

[Riddles]

Darkrai remembered where one of the orbs was, but when he tried to tell them its location, he was talking too fast for anyone to understand him. Even after Anthony asked him to repeat himself, it was still almost impossible to understand. Anthony asked the rest of the team what they could recall anything.
"Uh...I heard something about a mountain that's just north of here." Josh said.
"According to what I heard, Darkrai has a friend who may have started searching for the orb already." Matt said.

There was probably a lot more to what Darkrai said, but what they heard was probably all they were going to get. They had enough information to know where they were going, anyway. Getting there shouldn't be a problem, but it was starting to get late.
"I say we find a place to spend the night, then head up north tomorrow." Josh said. "I'm sure there's a hotel or something that we can stay at."

[Sumable]

Post-skip
-William-
I was restless through the night, holding back screams of anguish as, bit by bit, I changed. I wrote down each morph, every one of them taking at least an hour. Each change was very significant, and I fainted about three times, each time lasting anywhere from five to ten minutes. All of my teammates were asleep, whilst I was listening to passive-aggressive voices. Some were just mean, but not one sentence sounded the same as the other, in terms of who said it.

10 o' clock: My hands and fingers are bigger, while my arms are slightly smaller than the width of my hands.
Eleven: My legs are starting to change. They're longer, smoother, and my feet got large. The tips of my toes are more rounded and large, which definitely helps my balance.
Midnight; My tail thinned at the base and widened at the end, but suddenly stopping in a paintbrush like point. It hurt a little bit, but not much.
One in the morning: My torso is taller and thinner, which is a good change but my organs hurt badly. I'm in agonizing pain.
Two in the morning: *scribbled writing* I can't stand this pain... my head's changing, and my nose is bleeding, and it's the most significant change yet... I can't remember any of my old moves that I used before, and I can barely st *writing stops and a scribbled line drags on for about three inches before suddenly stopping*
Four AM: I've been having horrible shedding for the past half-hour, after I woke up from the last change. In the spots where I moulted, I grew patches of fur.
9 o' clock: I've finished going through a lot of pain from these transformations that I've been having since I grabbed that ninetail's tail. I am unsure of how my teammates will react, or anyone else for that matter, since I am now a completely different species. I feel oddly warm now, after changing.

Loudred yells in the halls for everyone to wake up. I still had a bloody nose, felt like a living bruise, and the space around my eyes was covered in tears. I limp out of our small crew room, feeling weird walking with new feet and legs. I get out in the hall, and in the big group. No one recognized me at all. Not even Samuel. Everyone was confused on whether or not I was a new guild member, or an intruder. Luckily, I still had my badge pinned to my chest, so they just thought I was a new guild member. Everyone asked my name, and I said "William," but my voice had changed. In fact, everything was changed, and from my beat-up appearance, two of the higher ranks thought I went on a difficult mission. No one other than my team knew me in the guild. Samuel called me a liar after the morning chant, and accused me of being an intruder. This, of course, was not good. Samuel probably thinks that because the old me is gone, he's the leader of the group. I go around and try to find Bonnie, but I decide to give up. I wouldn't know what to say or how to explain that I was now a smeargle rather than a kecleon. I wouldn't know what to say to my parents, either, because they always write letters to me and invite me over.

[KaBling]

Just as I was dropping onto a blanket or so, I was getting back up, scolding. I swear to God I had to traverse a corridor to get to the cabin. It was a miracle nobody else was disturbed by the screaming. "What in the- oh, for goodness sake! The fact I can't even SLEEP is reason enough why I like ending you two!" I yelled, my eye wide open despite my body trying to weigh me down for sleep. "You've already killed us once or twice, and I really ought to repay that since you're breaking my hearing!" I continued on, wondering how Spruce was able to sleep. Maybe he was really dead, but brushing aside that, I went on to complain. Well, really remind them why I was so fed up with them. "You bastards thought we were some rogue thieves, or the servants of, er, Giratina or Desia, or even both without even much to go on!" I rambled on, making gestures on trying to get my point across. Well, that point must've hurt anyway. It was already dark, but they didn't seem to keen on sleep themselves. "The guild IS pretty unforgiving, and if word were to get out about you two attacking us over some misunderstanding, let's just say it'll be like two Treasure Guild members against the entire fucking town of Allure Town..." I sniffed, almost chuckling afterwards... "You've already attacked us, and God knows what else will happen, 'cause its a miracle the guild doesn't know about your actions. Frankly, we've already let you go, and we're not sure what you'll do next, but heed this message: if you really want to save this world, promise us you won't attack us again, or I WILL fucking cut you in half like a lightning bolt striking a tree!" That was probably the more threatening thing I have said. Ever. Normally, I wouldn't even think about it, but...

"Urgh, I'm tired." I turned away from the pair, who didn't scream, and yet looked liked they wanted to. 'We've got two people with unknown intentions (I don't mean saving the world, I mean alignments), we're letting them go... but, we can always sleep it off. Assuming they won't attack us again. That's kinda the only reason why I want to kill them brutally." Then, I plopped off to bed again. No words, just the sound of a blanket getting squashed.

[Lugia]

[Spruce]

I finally woke up after having exerted myself so much in the last battle, and went straight upstairs after the morning chant which I honestly didn't really feel like participating in this time. Once upstairs, the first thing I noticed was the fact that someone let those two criminals out... and they were standing over me, smiling as if they had some sort of scheme. "Who the HECK let you out!?" I shout at them, angered that someone would let someone like these two out of their bindings. The vulpix then says "Celes did, and thank goodness... I was getting kinda scared," Celes? But... she wouldn't betray the team like this... or would she? I think as I try to make sense of it all. I didn't feel as though I could fight these two, especially since I was alone, and no longer underwater. Apparently, I had a confused or stunned look on my face, as the charmeleon asked "Why are you so surprised that she let us out? Don't you two know each other?" Why in the world were they speaking so calmly to me? It was almost as if they thought I wasn't an enemy of theirs, which I was, at least, at this point. Since I couldn't fight them alone, I ran back downstairs, and shook Celes awake, shouting "Celes, why did you let those two go!? What the heck happened last night!? Did they hypnotize you!? What's WRONG WITH YOU!?" It really didn't make much sense, but, I figured that if she couldn't provide a decent answer to all of this, perhaps M could. I just hoped she wasn't still under whatever mind control they put her under... or worse, somehow convinced that they were the good guys and we were the evil ones all along.

---

[Bonnie]

After a dreamless sleep, I yawn and roll out of bed, only to notice a sickening amount of someone's shed skin. Yuck, can't these lizards at least pick up their discarded skins? Ah, well... at least they're nice enough to me. I think as I try to maneuver my way around the thin, white sheets of pure nastiness. Samuel seems to have woken up earlier than I have, and the same could apparently be said about William, which was kind of strange. I continue trying to not touch any of that shed skin when I accidentally trip over a loose plank, and end up face-first in a pile of old lizard skin. I was too stunned to scream, however, I also noticed that there was some sort of lump, rectangular in shape that the skin was covering. I brush the skin aside, and thankfully succeed in not vomiting, and notice a book... William's journal... out of sheer curiosity, I turn to the last page, and finally figure out the who and the why of the gross, skin-covered floor. Apparently, William went through some sort of change... one that may or may not have happened thanks to the ninetales from last night. I then start asking around the guild if anyone's seen William, with the journal still in hand. Eventually, I was pointed to this smeargle, who looked beaten up and bloody as if he was hit by an entire pack of rampaging tauros. "William?" I ask the smeargle, who, in addition to looking beat-up, also looked somewhat forlorn, as if he's been rejected by someone... or possibly the entire guild. "William, it's me, Bonnie. Um... I'm sorry for reading your journal, but, that's how I know that you're you. I mean, who would make up getting changed into something like that, right?" I then add, trying to put a cheerful spin on the event, but I probably failed. Either way, I had a plan to at least allow Samuel to finally put two and two together.

---

[Anthony]

Somehow, I found myself waking up right on the ground, next to Darkrai... who actually isn't here anymore for some reason. "Ugh... that was the worst..." I comment, noting that even the rocky peak of Mt. Dragoncoil was more comfortable than this ground, which, looked somewhat dry for whatever reason. If I had to guess, I would assume the ground ended up like this thanks to the large number of fire-types living right next to it. Terra was also gone, but, there was a letter from her stuck to my face. It fell off quickly enough, and thankfully was still legible.
'Team Scarab:
thank you all for helping Blaze and I out of this situation.
if I have any more problems in the future, I'll be sure to
ask you guys first! In the package is something that may
help out Josh... as well as a couple items for the rest of you.
Consider them your reward, oh, and, the 1000 poke as
well... that was from Blaze.
~Terra'
I then look around for this mysterious package, only to notice a sleeping delibird right next to our group. His bag appeared to be filled to the brim with things that... well, I assumed from his blue hat, were supposed to be delivered to various pokemon around the area. I try to wake him up, and after a bit, he screeches as if someone was attacking him, and I barely evade an icy wind from his beak. Then he comes to his senses, and says "Oh, um, delivery for Team Scarab... is that you guys?" I nod, and look over to my teammates, who were still asleep, and he drops a square box of some sort, and flies off as if he was in a hurry. "Um... guys? I think we should take a look at this," I then say to my group, showing the letter while next to the box, that is, after I make sure everyone's awake.