[IC] Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of the Void

[Card Captor]

Kamina

Kamina did not fear the ice.

Normally, this would be a good thing, since Ice type barely works on him...but this time was different; this time he was up against a Legendary. Even if he did have support from another Legendary, it was still dangerous.

"CHARGEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Too bad he didn't realize that.

Blasting forward engulfed in his Flame Charge, he broke through the Blizzard, the fire and his typing protecting him, and tackled Kyurem on the head.

---
Tini

The Gallade was babbling nonsense. Unfortunately, Tini didn't realize that "...'Goodbye moon'?..." His eyes widened "No! He's going to get rid of the moon!" Tini let out an adorable snort of anger "How dare you threaten the moon! It's very important; without it, the night sky would be less pretty. So in the name of the moon; I'll punish you!" With that, he let out a Fairy Wind

[Evanist]

When Celes saw the bookcase finally fall down onto the guild master as well as him finally coming back into her sense, she calm down. "Finally... took you long enough to actually get back your senses... you have been causing lot of issues here." she then said to him, annoyed as she looked if anyone else was here, still ready to fight there. Those god dang jerks that did this to him. She just looked around at this place that seemed very.. well.. white. What kind of place was this anyway? This was just too weird to say the least. And those potions and that acid... unless some old pokemon made those, she felt like this place had lot more secrets to hold here then what meet the eyes. She then looked at Nina and what she explained to the guildmaster.. who then went and nodded off. She sighed a bit. "Might be best to leave him behind for this... not sure what we would find here." she then says worried.

---

When Eralion saw the hit knock out one of those guys, he breath in deeply, relaxing a bit at this, staying calm as he then went to follow. "Geez that was quite a hit I took there." he then says before going and seeing the Gallade and seeing him then being confused cause of Bonnies attack. Well that worked very well here. But one thing he noticed was the attract that failed. Well... guess it can't work every time? Maybe he trained against that... He then moved to help, actually using meteor mash on the gallade, going to do as much damage as possible here. He could not use fighting type moves here, dark type was normal effective, but steel type could work and this would hurt that jerk quite a lot. He also heard what Tini said. Well.. good old Tini.. at least he was on our side... would be very afraid if he would have been an enemy instead... very.. very afraid.

[Gavin]

Magma got my signal. He used confusion on the Aron, and I grabbed the coins Hudson had dropped before we escaped into the bushes. I was surprised at how fast Magma could run; it was difficult keeping up at first. Before long, though, he looked to be out of breath, so I slowed down and stopped soon after.
"So..." Magma said in between breaths, "What was up with that bug guy? Why did he betray you like that?"
I sat down, frustrated with my own stupidity. The only items I had left were my stick and the few coins Magma had knocked out of Hudson's hand. "I'm an idiot, that's why," I said more to myself than anyone, "I was in the town nearby and put down my bag for a second. I guess I wasn't thinking. That Wurmple, Hudson, he took it while I wasn't looking. And me being the idiot I am, believed him when he said he was an explorer who'd help get my stuff back."
I glanced up at Magma then pretended to be more interested in a leaf on the ground, too embarrassed with myself to make eye contact. "Anyway, I still had the money from my bag, so he lured me in here and took that, too. I managed to get this back, though." I held up the stick. To me, it was one of the most important items I owned. It reminded me of the practice battles my friend and I used to have and made me feel like I could take on the world, despite how bad I am at battling without it. Even Hudson didn't seem that intimidating when I had this.
"Thanks for your help back there, but can I ask you something?" I stood up, looking at my stick in both hands then to Magma. "I know you just met me, so you can say no if you want, but I really want to go after Hudson. I don't think I can do it by myself." If Magma agreed, I might still have a chance at getting my stuff back. Hudson couldn't have gone far with the warp seed he ate, but I still had no idea how we'd be able to find him in this forest.

[Riddles]

[Josh]
It soon became apparent that reasoning with Kyurem wasn't an option. The Blizzard that he sent towards them threatened to knock out most of them, and probably would have if Reshiram's wall of flames hadn't stopped it. Though Reshiram could put a stop to Kyurem's attacks, this meant that he wouldn't have a lot of chances to use attacks of his own. It would be best to stay back and use long-ranged attacks, to make it easier for Reshiram to protect them.

Apparently, Kamina hadn't realized this, because he immediately charged at the rampaging legendary. Though the Blizzard wasn't enough to stop him, there was no way that was Kyurem's only attack. "Kamina, get back here!" Josh shouted out to his teammate, but whether or not Kamina would listen to him was a different story.

After aiming carefully to ensure he didn't hit Kamina, Josh began building up energy, before unleashing it in a powerful blast towards Kyurem. This was Dragon Pulse, a move that Josh had never used before now. Though it was a powerful attack, it would take a lot more than that to bring a legendary like Kyurem down.

---

[Donovan]
The Salandit did something to Donovan. He wasn't sure what it was, but at that moment, he was hit with a sudden wave of dizziness. He quickly stumbled away from his intended target, instead hitting something else. Though he had no clue what it was, he began wildly slashing at it with Metal Claw, determined to take down this new opponent. It wasn't until his head cleared that he realized he wasn't attacking a Pokemon, but a small shrub, which had now been reduced to a pile of twigs and leaves.

The Gible and Salandit were nowhere to be found. No matter how hard he looked, Donovan couldn't find any trace of them. "Cowards! You dare run from a fight?" Donovan shouted, receiving no response. With no way of knowing where they went, all he could do was head in the direction his instincts were telling him to go.

His instincts were wrong. As he came upon a small cliff, he peered over the edge, and while he didn't see those two Pokemon from before, he did find a new opponent. This time it was a Wurmple, who was carrying some kind of bag with him. The drop was short enough that it wouldn't hurt him, so he used this opportunity to try out yet another attack he'd seen in the Colosseum. "METEOR... STRIKE!" He called out, before leaping off the side of the cliff, aiming to land on the Wurmple down below.

Just like last time, though, it didn't work out like he'd planned. Not only did he completely miss, but he'd also landed on his back. As much as he tried to flip himself over, the spike on his backside had been driven into the ground. Even worse, that "Nyaaaaaaaagh!" Donovan's cries echoed through the forest. "This means nothing! A tiny insect like you is still no match for me!" He couldn't see where exactly the Wurmple was, so he began swiping his limbs through the air, hoping to hit him with Metal Claw if he happened to be close enough.

---

[Dexter]
With the bookshelf brought down onto the Guildmaster's head, the fight was over. "So, what made the Guildmaster go apeshit?" Dexter asked. He seemed to have come to his senses at that point, which was good news. It meant that whatever it was, it wasn't permanent. "Check some of the bottles. Let's see what they've been brewing in here."

[Lucius Cypher]

It was hard to navigate without a map. Gren had hoped maybe, just maybe, following the stars would've helped him. His mother did teach him how to use the stars to navigate after all. But it was hard to use the stars during the day, and in this strange and new land, harder to figure out where the stars were. In other words, Gren was lost. "Gaaaaah! I knew I should've gotten a map!" The young aron flopped down as he groaned and moaned. In the last town he was at he could've brought a map with his meager amount of poke, but he was saving it specifically because he was still confident in his navigational skills. The people at the town even told him which way to go in order to find the Allure Town. Just cut through the Birchwood Forest. But that was yesterday. Gren had been in these forest for at least a day, and he hasn't even found the place he started.

At least his father's survivals skills came in handy. Gren was able to sustain himself on some berries, as well as drinking the natural mineral water. Water normally too impure for regular pokemon to eat, but for someone like Gren, a bit of toxic water rich in iron was nothing for him. Still Gren didn't have any plans to live as a hermit in the Birchwood. He needed to find his way back to civlization! And so the young aron would continue onwards, hoping to find at least someone who could direct him out from these woods. That's when he heard some voices nearby. It was hard to pinpoint exactly, but there was at least two. Hopeful, the green-eyed aron rushed to find them. He found a gible and a sandlit. "Finally! Are you guys from town? I need help getting out of these woods!"

[KaBling]

I was somewhat uneasy at the thought of fighting Kyreum. Although we weren't strangers to beating the crap out of legendary Pokemon, they wouldn't simply let us waltz in and trash them. After all, we've been whittled down in this frozen hell, and now we're stepping into the devil's chamber.

Which honestly looked rather unremarkable; as we strolled in a group preparing for a fight, all the scary icy stalactites looked just the same as the previous thousand we saw earlier, and the chamber was as detailed as a canvas with blue spilled all over it. It was almost as if Kyreum ate ice all evening in a certain radius whilst waiting for us. The only eye-catching detail was the floating MacGuffin that bore no importance to anyone here... well, except to Kamina and I. Before I was able to preach the importance of taking that thing, Reshiram thought it best to talk to his brother. Forgive my condescending tone, but he might as well been talking to a purple snowflake with teeth. Who happened to grunt at every inflection in Reshiram's words. I'd describe it but - a) I can't remember his weird choice of words, and b) I need to narrate quickly.

Then he attempted to impale us on those hanging stalactites, which actually were scary once they started dropping like knives on the command of his stomp. I narrowly avoiding being skewered by a stalactite as it whizzed past my eye - there was to be no quarter given it seemed. Almost immediately following that, the chamber turned into an echoing chorus of fighting and light. At least four of us got an attack in before Kyreum roared at his loudest, sending a violent wave of jagged ice and sharp wind towards us all. I was prepared to stand my ground personally even if my teammates went down, both magnets swung up to my face. Yet, Reshiram with a swish of his head immediately blocked and shielded the attack, fogging up my eye and saving us all from a quick end. Thanks to him there's a story to tell.

"Everyone alright?" I yelled out, quickly spinning up my magnets and firing off a literal beam of light towards Kyreum. I didn't immediately investigate if he got harmed or gave him snow blindness, since I was trying to bark out orders. "Okay, whatever you do, DO NOT destroy that crystal!" I yelled out, seeing that Kyreum himself wasn't stepping too far from the floating void crystal.

[ZombieMagikarp]

-Crash!-

A blink. Dazy and spinning and spurring around. “...and he - PTOOH! Sticks the landing!”. He’s quick to hop back up onto his feet, only before hopping back down, kissing the ground and the newspapers he’s landed on. Mid-paper-kiss, the Swampert brings the clipping up with him, quickly flipping through the various pages, skimming the works. “Words… words… words… gollicks, I can’t read a friggin’ thing, almost like I can’t see - SEE!” He brings the newspaper down below his eye-level, staring straight into the eyes of a Doduo, with the same look of surprise and bewilderment, sans the slightly crooked smile.

“H-ell-o! Breen! Breen Torrents, captain of Team Scooterz - well, ex-captain - and I’m a Swampert - well, obviously, you can see that, you’ve got two eyes…” Another blink. Blank stare from the Dodou’s head. Both heads. “...four… eyes? That doesn’t seem right… Well, that’s okay! I can stare both of you down easily, that’s fine when I’ve got four eyes two, see, glasses technically count - I’m blind without ‘em - literally, colorblind, can’t see color and - well, can’t see anything without them, really. Only if they’re on right. Believe it or not, I somehow forget sometimes. Put ‘em on upside down, backwards, forget them. It's like my baseball hat! Always backwards, never forwards. Sometimes. Really!”

The Dodou tilts both of it’s heads either way, completely and utterly confused at the events that transpired in front of it.

“Well, enough about me - what about you?” The bird motions to open it’s mouths, before Breen drops the newspaper, pressing a finger to each of its’ beaks. “Uhp, uhp, uhp! Don’t talk. I got this. I’ll answer it for you - you’re Cupri, and you’re the black sheep of the family because you’re special - you’re shiny! And today is the day that changes that - you try to make a statement, but can’t, and well, it gets all muddled - just because you don’t belong! Or think you don’t belong. Don’t fit in with the rest of your folks because well, being the black sheep is weird when you’re a white Torracat, am I right?”

His grins fades as he looks back up at the Dodou, bringing his hands down before reaching back flipping his 3-D specs rightside up. “Ah. Right. That makes sense. Uh. Excuse me a sec, then this isn’t the…” He reaches back down, picking up the newspaper. “Right. Twenty-second day of… okay, got that right, then, uh - oh, nope. I’m a month early. Year early? Noooo, can’t be. That’d be…”

He flips his glasses off - his red and blue eyes shining, giving the Dodou another headturn, before flipping the specs right back on - color-coordinating. “I’m five years late. Well, five early if you account for the…” He glances back over at the Dodou, with it’s necks twisted around each other, cartoon birds flying above its head - confused. “Riiiiiight, sorry - uh, who’s in charge here? This is a guild, after all, so where’s your -” One last glance at the newspaper in front of him - large bold red letters - GUILDMASTER WALLY MISSING!

“Oh, crud… Guildmaster… Wally’s missing? Frig, do you know what this means? I’ve landed at the precise moment in time where it’s meant to happen and where it’s meant to be and where one thing leads to another and the very theory of time and space and darkness and infinity itself combine and it can only mean one thing…

“I’m in Treasure Town!”

[ZombieMagikarp]

Two twigs, tied together with a bit of thread from a scarf with a glass from a Wonder Orb slabbed in the middle of a leaf held with the bondage of a chewed up blue gummi. This is Breen’s latest invention. “...so, what this thing is - it’s sorta like a radar, helps me figure out where void cataclysms are coming from, if they’re coming from, and what they’re doing. Don’t ask me how it works, it just does. I dropped here for some reason, and I’m willing to bet Wally’s disappearance has something to do with that…”

With his contraption in hand, the Swampert meanders about the guild floor, picking up pockets of sand and tossing it back onto the floor, his remote glowing as he looks around, tossing papers around as he barges through crowds - the beeping and glowing growing stronger as he gets closer, up until he slams himself into the Guildmaster’s Room’s door. “...right. Cool.” He wavers his device around the door, the thing glowing and beeping uncontrollably. Knock, knock, knock. “Solid reinforced wood with bits of steel, can’t exactly punch my way in… but whatever’s inside has got to at least be half the reason for the guildmaster’s disappearance and descent into madness and who the hell am I talking to?”.

He shifts and spins around, to his audience of: no one. Well, save for the trash-can. He spins back, working around the door, holding himself against it, using a bit of twig to attempt to lock-pick into the room. Muttering under his breath, he snaps the twig. “Ack, dammit, no luck… I’d probably need a key to get in here… but who carries a key around this building aside from the guildmaster… Well, guildmaster and -”

The trash can behind him tumbles over, crashing and bumbling - food scraps and newspapers spilling over to reveal it’s humbled contents: “Charlie! Hey-hey! Just the bird I wanted to see - well, assuming I’m not in trouble…” He rushes over, picking up the Chatot brushing him off of dust and trash. “How’s my favorite assistant to the guildmaster doing? Well - second favorite, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.”

“SQUAWK! Mutiny! Full forced feathered mutiny! To the highest degree! Thrown in the trash by my own guildmates, I’m the one in charge, they ought to respect me!” He flutters up and down, thrashing, before realizing Breen’s staring down at him, blinking. “Uh-heh. Uh. Phewf, my apologies… and who might you be?”

“You don’t… recognize…” Breen tilts his glasses down for a moment, looking back at his device, blinking green. He waves a hand in front of Charlie, back to his face. “Oh, crud, this might be worse than I thought… void catacylstics is one thing, but time and memory loss… ooh, maybe it’s just a relapse and memory jog from a hit to the head?” He knocks on Charlie’s noggin. “Nope, can’t be... uh. Right! Yeah! Hi! I’m uhm... Hm, can’t run the risk of having him remember me… not while the last time I saw him he…” He blinks, cutting himself off, holding out one paw to shake, the other, reaching into his satchel and pulling out a notepad. “He-ell-o! Ferris! Ferris Booker, at your service!” He taps the notepad - shining with a holographic trading card with his name scratched on. “As you can see, I’ll be taking over guildmaster for the time being, and I’m afraid I wasn’t given a key. You can totally get me in, right?”
Charlie leans forward, staring at the holographic piece taped to Breen’s notepad, before squawking up. “Seems legit! Thank Arceus you’re here, the place has been a madhouse.” - He manages to step aside Breen, shining the key past him and opening the door, leading the Swampert in. Breen takes a quick look around - the place being immaculate, save for behind the desk.

While Charlie goes on about basic maintenance and Breen’s new orderly assigned position as Treasure Town Wigglytuff Guildmaster blah blah blah, he looks around the room, flipping through books, running his device up and down various things - before leading himself toward the desk, opening a drawer and pulling out a platinum badge, orb, and what looks like a keypad, and while Charlie occupies himself more with basic paperwork for Breen to fill out - Breen sends an SOS Message.

“Oughta do the trick - sent with a… hundred acre radius - any participating guild-member or member of the expedition society should receive it, assuming they’re logged on… just new recruits should get it… if I’m lucky, it should just barely reach out to Birchwood Forest… hopefully… at least one Pokemon can get it... well, one Pokemon and the Guildmaster...“

-message: sent: guildmaster’s office

hello! If you’re guildmaster wally, don’t read this! Skip down. treasure town guild: get here as soon as possible, run if you have to, teleport, whatever - get here, knock on the guildmaster’s door four times, and whatever you do, don’t blink

for guildmaster wally: hello! don’t get hurt and remember this for future reference: i told you so

Love,
the temporary new guildmaster xoxo

[Kamen Evie]

“Don't beat yourself up over it,” Rebecca said to Nina. “There was a lot going on. The pressure can really get to you.” She looked over to the guildmaster. What exactly happened to him? She thought for a moment, before being startled as he got back to his feet, and struck a dazzling pose.

“Whoa…” she muttered, enamored. Since when did guildmasters get so cool? She shook her head. There were more important things to think about. Like just about everything that was going on, really.

"Check some of the bottles,” Dexter said. “Let's see what they've been brewing in here."

“Good idea, Dex,” Rebecca said. “Let's see how well they're labelled…” She began telekinetically grabbing bottles off the shelves and trying to glean their contents. She thought she remembered how chemical abbreviations worked, anyways. Maybe that was enough.

[Lugia]

[Spruce]

Celina suggested trying to leave Wally behind, but I KNEW that wouldn't end well. "Celina, if we leave him behind, they'll just capture him, and make him crazy again, do you want to fight him a SECOND time? I sure don't," Wally, who only seemed to wake up once a broken up broadcast started shouting through Nina, Rebecca, and Dexter's badges... hello!... guildmaster Wally ... read this! Skip... treasure town... run..., guildmaster..., don't blink! ... I told you so. though, it seems like there was some sort of interference messing with the message that was sent, and weirdly, it was displayed in a blue color, as well. Maybe that's all there really was to that message, but that leaves more questions than it answered, and that just left me sitting and waiting as Rebecca checked the labels of the chemical flasks, and while Wally just danced around. I could hear dragon pokemon around us, but, for some reason, they didn't DARE come near us, right now. Maybe it was because we had Wally with us, or maybe it was because they saw us beat him in battle? One way, or another, they didn't want to mess with us, which, well, was VERY good.

---

[Nina]

"Yeah, I guess I shouldn't, but still, that was stupid of me," I said to Rebecca as she kept checking the flasks... it seemed like they were marked 'Experiment 1', or other experiment numbers, but one of them stuck out to me, in particular 'Experiment 4 - w / Missingno. piece' wait... a piece of WHAT? Wasn't 'Missingno.' the name of that horrible thing that chased us down in Sunswept plains? The thing that revived the zombie? What were these guys doing with a PIECE of that thing? Did... did it allow them to take a piece, and if so... does that mean that Missingno. has the power to corrupt even normal city pokemon like me, and Rebecca? I ended up muttering "A piece of... that thing...?" completely by mistake, but that was probably enough to point out what I saw while Rebecca was messing with chemicals. Dexter just seemed to wait patiently, but, then again, this WAS his idea, so that made sense, at least.

---

[Bonnie]

The confusion was still going on, and Tini, for some reason, didn't realize that he was speaking utter nonsense, so I decided to correct him with "No, Tini, he's just confused. Pokemon say weird things when they're confused," and while Tini's Fairy Wind hit, he seemed to accidentally duck out of the way of Eralion's Meteor mash before shouting "I don't want your encyclopedias! They don't have the knowledge of the universe! Blue, blue, blue... blue... pink... blue..." that first part sounded eerily like something Tini would say, but the second part was him just saying blue over and over with a pink thrown in for no reason... the gallade then used swords dance, a move that can't really miss, even under the effects of confusion, and I tried to use frustration against him, focusing on all the horrible things my father did, and... I didn't seem capable of mustering my usual strength for that move, for some reason. I then noticed the gallade looking oddly... lovingly... at Eralion, and ignoring that, I said "Thank goodness he's still confused, r-right? 'Cause if he could hit, right now, we'd all be done for..."

---

["Magma"]

Almost as soon as I said it would take a while for him to get back here, I noticed an Aron heading towards us. "GAH! HE'S BACK!" I screamed before I noticed something... his eyes were green, not the usual blue, and I don't think he was wearing the scarf, or whatever the other one had. I still backed away, a little bit, and he seemed to ask how to get out of the woods. "I'm sorry, I don't really know, myself, but uh... he should know," I then gestured for Gavin to answer him before I heard someone shouting something... something about a stupid broadcast message, and something about a guildmaster... hmm. "Hey, Gavin... first of all, I'd absolutely LOVE to help you out with this 'Hudson' character, and on that subject... did Hudson have a badge with him? You said he tricked with something of the sort, that shouting might have been him!" I then start to leave before I remember the other Aron, I then tell him "Oh, uh, we're on our way to catch a no-good, dirty, rotten liar and a thief, who said he was a part of some guild, or something. He's a wurmple, so he's not THAT strong, but still... do you want to come with us for that? I... THINK he's on the way out of here," I then slowed down, just in case he answered 'yes'... didn't want to split up the group, right?

---

[Anthony]

That blizzard told me, and everyone around me that ranged options were the best, and even so, I wouldn't want to put out our own flame shield with a muddy water, so... it seemed like I'd be using dragon breath, instead, and once I did that, I noticed Kyurem show a shadowy aura before trying to slash at Kamina, only for Daniel to take the hit, and counter with a foul play, using Kyurem's own power against him, and dealing a decent enough amount of damage... and while he probably just saved Kamina's skin, now HE was in serious danger from the next blizzard attack. "Daniel! Kamina! Get back here, please!" I shouted to them, not wanting this to happen, however, Daniel responded with "No, sorry, not until Kamina gets back there! I can't leave him to take shadow damage like that!" that response gave me a pit in my stomach, and it seems like Reshiram was still busy keeping the fire wall intact. At the very least, Devon was behind the wall, and using psybeam to deal some damage from a distance like the rest of us... hopefully were. Just about then, M shot out a beam of electricity that lit up the whole room, nearly blinding even me, and Kyurem seemed to be particularly effected by it... now, knowing M from this adventure, unfortunately, it wouldn't be easy to convince him to do that, again.

[Card Captor]

Kamina

Kamina didn't like the idea of running away, however, the idea of a comrade getting hurt because of him was worse. So he pulled back to where the others were, now not sure what else to do.

---
Tini

"...How dare you!" Tini yelled "You just called us encyclopedias sellers! That is crossing the line, taste my minty fury slash vengeance!" Tini quickly let out another Fairy Wind after saying that.

[Evanist]

Celes moved forwards to follow Spruce and the others, looking at he flasks and seeing each experiment. It was then that her ears picked up what Nina said about one of the flask. She moved forwards just a bit. "A piece of what exactly?" she then ask calmly, noticing that no one wanted to attack them right now. Well, that was a good thing here at least. It would give them a break and not have to deal with being attacked again. She just relaxed just a bit, staying near Spruce. One thing for sure, this place was really REALLY weird. The faster they do this dang mission, the better. Talk about something they didnt expect at all.

---

As Eralion fought the now confused Gallade, he saw him go and dodge the attack and then... looking at him with... lovingly eyes? He looked annoyed. "Nope nope nope.. not going that way!" he then says before going to meteor mash the Gallade with the strongest hit that he could, trying to take adventage of his moment of... well... lets just say stargazing or something... to go and strike with as much damage as possible. Eralion just hope that it was cause that jerk was confused that he did that, cause he was not interested at all on going that with that murderer.

[Riddles]

Josh
At the very least, Kamina had the sense to return to the backline. He'd most likely gotten used to being able to tank most attacks. That would explain his recklessness, at least. With everybody back behind the firewall, they were protected from a lot of Kyurem's attacks. That wall wouldn't stay up forever, though. They'd need a way to defeat Kyurem quicker. At their current pace, they'd be there for a while.

Josh began to think. He'd considered using that ability Anthony had, but first he'd have to figure out what triggers it. He'd first used it after taking a kick to the head from that first orb's guardian. Then, it activated during their fight with Reshiram yesterday, when he'd gotten hit by that pillar. In both situations, he'd taken a blow to the head, but was that really the secret to activating his power?

It was a risk, but Josh decided to take it. Using his psychic powers, he picked up one of the chunks of ice that had fallen from the ceiling earlier. "Anthony, I'm going to try something, and I need you to trust me." The chunk of ice floated toward Anthony, hovering over his head for a brief moment. "If this doesn't work, I am SO sorry." With that, using all of the strength he could muster, he slammed the chunk of ice down onto Anthony's head as hard as he possibly could.

---

Dexter
The labels on the chemicals were very vague about what was actually in them. Most of them were just labelled with things like 'Experiment 1', not mentioning what the experiment was, or what the chemical would do. "The fuck is this? You'd think they'd at least say what's in the damn things." Assuming they were all the same way, he let out a long sigh. "This was a waste of time."

When Nina mentioned a piece of something, Dexter walked over, peering over her shoulder. "A piece of what, now?" Nina was holding Experiment 4, but unlike the other bottles, this one at least had something else written on it. 'Missingno. piece'... that meant this must be what they came here for. Dexter turned to their client. "Is this what we're looking for? I want to get the fuck out of this place."

At that moment, he got a message on his badge. It was jumbled, and difficult to read, but whoever sent it mentioned the guildmaster. "That's right. If he's here, they're probably pissing themselves right now looking for him."

---

Donovan
Just when Donovan thought the cowardly bug had escaped, he heard his voice nearby, taunting him. "Heh. Tough luck, kid." Donovan struggled, trying to flip himself back onto his feet, but it was no use. Unless someone came along and decided to help him, he'd be stuck there. "That was a close one, you know. You might've gotten me if you weren't a complete moron."

"I'M NOT A MORON, I'M A BADASS!" Donovan wildly flailed his limbs, to no avail. The Wurmple was well out of his reach. "Remember my name! Donovan Steele is the champion who will defeat you!"

The Wurmple laughed. "Good luck with that, kid. I can't poison you, so..." Donovan could hear him rummaging around. "I'll be taking this... jar of paint. Is that really all you have on you? Whatever, I can get a decent price for it, anyway."

Just then, Donovan heard a voice coming from the bug's bag, mentioning a 'guildmaster'. He didn't know what a 'guildmaster' was, but this insect had clearly kidnapped someone. He scurried away into the bushes, though that didn't stop Donovan from shouting. "Coward! You dare run away!? I will hunt you down, you honorless insect!" He would not hunt him down. In fact, until someone helped him, he wouldn't be able to move from that spot.

[Gavin]

"Treasure Town's off that way. I can show you later, but right now I've gotta get my stuff back," I said to the Aron, "I'm Gavin, by the way." Magma explained the situation to him, and despite having just met me, Magma was actually willing to help. We headed off into the forest towards where he had heard the talking, and before long I heard a faint, frustrated cry, "I'M NOT A MORON, I'M A BADASS!" We followed the sound to a small cliff, where I spotted the Aron from before stuck at the bottom. The spike on his back had been driven into the ground, preventing him from doing anything except flail his legs uselessly as Hudson rummaged through his belongings.

"I'll be taking this... jar of paint," Hudson said, examining the jar like there should have been something more useful hidden inside, "Is that really all you have on you? Whatever, I can get a decent price for it, anyway." A message came from his bag again as he scurried towards the bushes, the Aron still flailing helplessly on the ground and screaming empty threats. I couldn't help but feel sorry for the Aron, but if we were going to catch Hudson we needed to act fast. "Magma you go left," I said, making up a plan on the spot and turning to the green-eyed Aron, "and you go around him to the right. I'll distract him. We need to block his escape."

Luckily, the cliff was short enough to jump down. I came up behind Hudson just as he reached the bushes and grabbed the oversized bag he was dragging across the ground. "You again?" he said, pulling against me to try and get his bag back, "Just scram already, won't ya?"

"Someone get him!" I shouted, as Hudson aimed his tail at me and shot several venomous-looking needles. I dodged them but let go of his bag in the process. Hopefully, I had bought enough time for Magma or the new Aron to attack and block his escape.

[Lucius Cypher]

"Whooooa... Bad guys? So like... An adventure! Let me help!" Gren left home to do stuff like this, so he wasn't afraid to assist these strangers in taking down a thief. The gible introduced himself as Gavin, while also mentioning that the salandit was named Magma. Made sense. Gren nodded his head eagerly. "My name is Gren! Nice to meet ya. Let's go catch that thief before he gets too far!" The little aron followed the two deeper into the forest, hyped about his first real adventure. While he has fought bad guys before he had the support of his whole village helping him. This time it'll just be him and these two! He hopes it won't be too tough of a fight, but he wasn't going to back down even if it was a tough fight.

Wasn't long before everyone reached a clifftop where they could see another aron flipped upside down, and a wrumple. The other aron was shouting threats and such, but it looked like the Wrumple was getting away. Gavin told Gren to go right, so Gren quickly made his way down the right side oft he wurmple as stealthy as he could. Once Gren was in position Gavin started to tussle with the wurmple over a bag. Gren got a bit closer, then tensed up his legs. A wurmple would be an easy prey for Gren, compared to all of those fighting pokemon who attacked his village! Once Gavin was out of the way, Gren suddenly burst forward like a bullet right towards the Wrumple. He came at the bug pokemon with astonishing speed for a steel-type, moving fast enough to win the initiative and hopefully hit the Wurmple first. Gren aimed for the bug's head to hopefully knock him out in one sneak attack.

[KaBling]

I'll be honest: it's not normal for any Pokemon to stand toe-to-toe against Legendary Pokemon. Some could vapourise you with a thought alone. So, were we really in the throne of a god and living to tell the tale? It's an unbelievable tale for sure, but I doubt anyone will be able to match it in time. Maybe we just had a Legendary following us. Maybe we were Legendary.

Kyreum was an unrelenting beast, jacked up on whatever he was running on (ice, adrenaline, maybe even shadow formula). Yet, for every sharpened gust, pointed icicle or discoloured patch of reality, we would fight back and chip at his strength. Beams of light and thoughts were enough to make him blink, stumbling and incoherently stammering curses. There was a brief pause in the fight to take respite in, Reshiram's shield standing up for a bit longer without steaming us to death.

Frankly, I was delighted, with my eye 'smirking' under a ragged breath. Yes, we took hard hits. Yes, we returned pain with extreme prejudice. Yes, we turned on each other at the worst possible moment...

I am not kidding. When my eye jolted away from Kyreum and to Anthony, I thought Kyreum got lucky with a stray icicle and split his helmet open. Shock distracted me at first, seeing the ominous chunks of ice scattered around where Anthony was. Was he pancaked? Is he right behind an ice shard? Why was it floating for a split-second?

My smirk disappeared, eye sprung wide open and horrified. "Wha... what?! Someone shove those off him!" I desperately called, almost shrilling from the quick command. It took a bit to connect the words together too, realising Josh had... for some forsaken reason, bashed Anthony's head in. With his mind. "J-Josh! What did you do that for?!" Sparks instinctively flew from my magnet as I floated in-between Anthony and Josh, immediately demanding an answer and trying to get a voice over the thundering howls of the blizzard. It seemed like Kyreum was gonna back at it again, but I wasn't sure if Josh had gone insane or...

[Kamen Evie]

Rebecca just kind of half-heartedly nodded to Nina. She didn’t think her friend’s outburst was too bad, but she wasn’t going to suppress her friend’s desire to improve if that’s how she saw it. These chemicals were so weird…

"The fuck is this? You'd think they'd at least say what's in the damn things." Dexter said.

“Yeah,” Rebecca answered as she went through them, setting bottles on the desk behind her as she went through them. “Tell me about it… Experiment 1, Experiment 2, Experiment 3, Experi- Wait, Missingno.?! Now we’re getting somewhere…” She tried to see if there was anything she else she could glean from it, but she was having a tough time. Either way, she made sure to be gentle with it. If it had a piece of something as abominable as THAT inside, it’d have to be extremely dangerous. A real biohazard.

“Well,” Rebecca said. “For anyone not in the know, Missingno. Is… well, I’m not sure what it is exactly. But it’s really big, it’s really creepy, and it can corrupt things and make them really creepy too. So it’s a bit of a problem. Be really careful around that bottle, by the way.” She paused for a moment as she thought of what to do next.

“Hey!” The Kirlia shouted out to the various dragons working in the shadows. “Can you guys tell me where you keep your notes? Or are you just gonna keep hanging around back there. It’s getting kind of awkward.” She ruffled through some drawers for a moment before she heard a pinging noise from her badge and got a mysterious message. Didn’t come out too clearly though. Which was kind of annoying, but they were pretty far away and underground.

“Well,” Rebecca mused, with just a tinge of annoyance in her voice. “There’s a dilemma. That sounds like it’s maybe pretty important, but then again, this is too, and I don’t know how long these guys are going to leave precious secret research around here…” she put her finger to her forehead for a moment. Then she turned to their client.

“Do you think we’ve done enough here?” Rebecca asked the Bronzor. “Otherwise we’ve got two teams here, so we can split up and bring the guildmaster back while we stay on the hunt for more clues, if we can pull it off...”

[Lugia]

[Anthony]

Before I could even object, an icicle ended up crashing right into my helmet, and I felt a weird... daze... "ALRIGHT, MAGGOTS! IT'S TIME WE TURNED YOU INTO MEN!" I shouted, though, of course, I didn't mean to say that... what I DID mean to do, however, was use that weird aura that appeared, again to heal whatever injuries the team had, and make it so their attacks hit two to five times in a row, regardless of whether or not they did so to begin with. "Alright, MAGGOTS, send the enemy your best barrage! NOW! FIRE AT WILL!" and on that word, I used dragon breath over and over again, dealing a decent amount of damage to kyurem, and even managing to paralyze it while I did so. Reshiram decided to use flamethrower, which, just like dragon breath, seemed to hit multiple times, in his case, four, and that didn't seem to sit too well with kyurem, as it started to look around for any sort of berries, or other healing items. "NOW, MAGGOTS! FINISH IT OFF! IT CAN'T HAVE TOO MUCH FIGHT LEFT IN IT!" I shouted, again, without my own say-so. I then finally shook off that daze, however, the effect of... whatever that was... was still active, thankfully. This could easily end up winning us the fight, and Kyurem tried its best to attack after the paralysis, but, of course... it didn't get too far, making the big bad ice guy lose a turn while Daniel just flew up to the paralyzed legendary, and just started beating the thing up with his wings, using wing attack five times, and dealing quite a bit of damage... and while Devon somehow found the strength to lift the thing, and just slam it against all of the walls, the ceiling, and the floor, using psychic at least four times with that, and, of course, dealing even more damage.

---

[Spruce]

Rebecca seemed to suggest that we split up, and I nodded at that almost by complete mistake. The bronzor then said "Yes, I think that splitting up here would work to our advantage. Spruce and Celes should bring the guildmaster back to his guild, while the rest of us should keep exploring... if they were able to harvest a piece of... THAT THING... then we have to get rid of whatever they used to take it, right?" after that, the guildmaster started following me, saying "I know the message said to skip Treasure town, and never come back, but I think my guild needs me... so, I'll take you guys back there!" I then held out my badge, and just teleported him, and us, back to Arnold's guild, and I quietly led him out of the place... after which he just started spinning while walking back to his guild. "Yeah, still the same guildmaster... let's hope he actually finds his way back after getting himself that dizzy," I said as I looked at the SOS board for the first time in a while. It seems like there were a few missions that weren't already taken, including one involving a missing Arcanine in the northern forest... wait... weren't we THERE? Didn't we find an arcanine while we were there? Seems like the arcanine's friend, listed as 'Barry' has been looking for him for years. That... that can't be true. I took the paper from the board, and immediately showed it to Celes, who teleported in with me, and as I showed her, I asked "Celes, do you remember that crazy arcanine who attacked us, and called everyone 'Barry'? I sure do, I just didn't think Barry was a real pokemon, let alone that he was LOOKING for this arcanine,"

---

[Nina]

As soon as Rebecca said they should split up, the bronzor explained that there was more to be done, but he WANTED us to split up for some reason, and, unfortunately, we lost our three most powerful allies all in an instant as they all just teleported away. "Well, I was going to suggest we stick together, since splitting up like this was the WORST thing we could have done," I said, annoyed, and just as they left, a group of dragon types walked up to us... welp. In the group, there was a dragonite, a salamence, and a hydreigon, and they seemed to come from the hallway that led to our left... maybe that's where we should go, next. I decided to just use a flash tackle on one of them, revealing a very important-looking door behind the trio... maybe that's what we were here for, or, at least, maybe our client will be satisfied once we get there, and, of course, it dealt some damage to the dragonite, nowhere near as much as I had hoped, but at least it wasn't at full health, anymore. The dragonite then decided to attack me with dragon rush, sending me flying back to my team, and causing the bronzor to try to use iron defense, yet again, as if his earlier usages of the move wore off, or something. "Guys... I found an... important-looking door..." I said through my daze, and yes, of course, I was dazed, I was sent back to a metal wall with a powerful, dragon-type attack, I'm just surprised that I wasn't knocked out with that.

---

[Bonnie]

The gallade was still confused, and he took the hit, but that didn't seem to slow him down, too much, and oddly enough, neither did Tini's fairy wind. "I won't buy any encyclopedias... what do you think I am? An idiot? Goodbye sun, goodbye moon, goodbye June, goodbye hon," Tini seemed to believe every word the gallade was jabbering while confused, so I just had to wonder what he'll say about THIS one. I then mustered up as much hate for my father as I could, and focused it all into a frustration attack, dealing some decent damage to him, and he fired back with a close combat, this time, actually hitting me, and... and I didn't die... I wasn't even knocked out. Sure, it hurt, but have I really gotten THAT much stronger? That can't be right. He then looked over to Tini, specifically, and said "Only idiots buy encyclopedias thinking that they have ALL the knowledge of the world in them... spittoon, golden spittoon... that's not what you should have stolen..." he then kept trying to look in a single direction, but it seems like the world was still spinning in his mind, which was very good for us.

---

[Magma]

It seemed like Gavin had a plan, and I wasn't one to say no to something like that, so, I put myself in a position that didn't allow the wurmple to escape, and, of course, he backed away from Gren as soon as Gren attacked him, only to bump into me. "Where do you think you're going, hm? Sorry, but I'm not about to just let you escape," I then used ember on him, again, dealing serious damage, and causing him to just throw the bag at Gavin, with him shouting "ALRIGHT, THAT'S IT! I thought you were an easy mark, but NOOOO! You had to just DOG me for some stupid, random seeds and other garbage! I'm getting out of here!" I then noticed that he dropped his badge, and I picked it up, just to press a weird button on it that teleported me, my allies, and Hudson over to... somewhere that had a wooden floor. Hudson seemed to be scared of this place, but, of course, he still couldn't move, and soon enough, a couple of magnemite showed up just to take him away... they even handed Gavin some golden coins as a reward. What an odd interaction, but I assumed that they'd explain what just happened, and if not, asking them about it would make me seem suspicious. One thing I did notice, however, was the fact that it teleported BOTH of the aron with me, Gren, and the one that was still acting like a turtle on its back. I weighed my options, and just decided to flip him back over, and explain "I guess you're one of our allies, now? Welcome to the um... team?"

[ZombieMagikarp]

“Well, that’s because HE’S Barry, looking for Barry, looking for himself, if that makes sense.”

Breen’s standing, arms crossed, staring at the affixed SOS Board in the guildmaster’s room - able to update the message board on his own accord as well as view Pokemon’s updates to the boards in real time, sorta like a schedule - powered by a team of Pelipper and Joltik and some form of mechanics. In this instance, he’s reading updates to the board - old and new - this one, just posted an hour ago regarding some Arcanine looking for his friend Barry, and another one - hardly touched, aged and tattered from years ago - with the exact same description, word for word.

“...some deep metaphorical bullcrud, really… on the surface, at least. Well, not quite. You can say all you want about how he’s probably just some poor Arcanine who’s gone mad trying to metaphorically find himself and discover true meaning - but what if he’s literally trying to find himself? A clone? Ditto?”

He’s still messing around with the SOS Board, pinning new notes and rescue team and exploration missions about the board, pulling them from a big bag of envelopes and tossing them onto the board in live updates all across the towns in some seemingly random order.

“Or maybe he just doesn’t have the time… to find himself stuck in time? Trapped after some mess with void crystals or some other reason… and in an attempt to save himself, he ends up becoming the whole reason he’s stuck there… attacking those trying to help him because, well, he doesn’t know right from wrong - why would he try to help others when he can’t even save himself? Almost like he’s his own ghost.”

He takes a step back, admiring his work on the board for a minute, adjusting his bowtie, before leaning back into the board, pressing himself up against it.

“What do you think, Spruce, huh? Do you believe in ghosts? Well, that wouldn’t make much sense to ask - you’re hearing a disembodied voice right now! And for another, ghosts aren’t real - but I very much am. I can’t hear you, but you can hear me - see, this bad boy -” He slaps the board, pinning another message on it. “Not only updates in real time, but it allows for a one-way intercom call - it was mainly used back in the day for guildmasters to directly message other guilds and guildmasters when they needed to make extreme SOS requests off the cuff without the need of paper - in the event it’s that dire and severe - but I figured this might be fun too!”

"...Wally's on his way, isn't he? Well! That WOULD mean I don't have too much time left, but I've got enough time - don't I? If he spinned he must've spun in several directions, which means he doesn't have too much a sense of direction or orientation while he's all wibbly wobbley, so I estimate that'll take him about... three and a half hours for him to finally make it back to the guild! That's more than enough time for me to save the world, isn't it?"

“Oh, and no, like I said, I have no idea what you’re saying. It might sound like I’m replying, but I’m not! Just mere coincidence if I happen to know what you’re about to say! Anywho! I’ll see you in a bit - or not - well, that’s not really up to you, really! I’ll see you soon, and before, and in the future - and well, I’m not one for introductions, but I promise you’ve met me already! At least, in one timeline or another... anyway! You oughta head to Birchwood Forest! Lovely view there, wicked lovely people, too…”

Just before he logs off, he spins around, smiling, tilting his glasses up. “Oh, and one more thing…doesn’t something seem off about the message board words? See ya soon!”

BRing mE my gummi! plEase fiNd my aWesome treASure!
2F crystal chasm 14F skylight tower

HElp! RobbErs!
1F tiny woods 5F bubble pond

[Lucius Cypher]

Gren and the other pokemon managed to take out the wrumple. It really wasn't all that difficult even though Gren missed his attack. He made a mental note that he needed to work on his aim some more. But before Gren could even get a word in, he was teleported to some strange room! He had no idea how this happened and looked around frantically. The wrumple was then taken away by some magnemites, but that didn't really explain what was going on. Gren, Magma, Gavin, and some other aron Gren has never met before were here. Approaching Magma and the other aron Gren looked around curiously. "What just happened? Are we in trouble?" Gren didn't sound nervous, though he did seem a bit on edge. If they were going to have to fight, Gren wasn't going to go down easily!