It was once again time to enter the hole that was the abyss of Sanvu’s dreams.
The same cliff, and the same darkness permeated the landscape; its sole known inhabitant only aware of himself being the only thing present.
As he got his bearings, the ground lightly shook. The dreamer collapsed on his front, but could otherwise recover.
The ground continued to rumble and crumble. Truly, the only sound that appeared to be present was the vibration of the ground itself, as if the ground itself were living, and trying to shake something off of it.
Sanvu couldn’t remain lucid for long, feeling some kind of vibrational pressure that usually indicated he was about to awake; but with nothing to show for his effort…?
Indeed, he would leave this realm empty in mind, soul and knowledge, to be suckered once again into the world of the waking.
As the day welcomed his arrival, Pachuku was once again wandering about as if nothing had happened. Sanvu looked over habitually, expecting once again for Pachuku to ask what was wrong. Pachuku noticed his arousing, but this was after a long moment of him grabbing berries to put into the bag.
“Oh, hey! Any dreams?”
“…Yeah. You got enough sleep?”
“Huh. That’s funny,” Pachuku began, sounding somewhat interested, “If you had one, I didn’t notice anything this time.”
“How would you… notice?”
“Did I mention you would thrash in your sleep? Sometimes I even hear you using your vines in your sleep,” he motioned to the wooden wall, where Sanvu noticed a couple of marks on this odd set of padding that could only have been caused by damage. He felt a bit embarrassed for not noticing them earlier.
“Sorry for busting up your place.”
“No, no, that wall’s easy for punishment. It’s got the thick stuff cause… uhh, I forget the reason, but it’s not the only time I’ve had someone here.”
That got Sanvu’s attention, despite that he could see the padding that Pachuku mentioned. It looked like a giant slab of something smooth just stuffed against the bed. Before he could ask, Pachuku continued on.
“Anyway, it’s been lessening. You were practically sleeping normally last night, all things considered. I thought maybe they’d have given up, but I guess if you did do something, I could at least sleep on it.”
Sanvu was slightly relieved, all things considered, it could be worse. “Who did you have here, before me?”
“Often when I’d save some of the others from the dungeon or the woods who weren’t Amnesiacs they’d wanna stay a night, like with Maluw. I only really had space for one, and they’d often just get back to their own thing and go back to their own home after a day or two and forget about me.”
Sanvu’s eyes softened as he continued, “I’d always hoped I’d get a teammate, anyways. It just didn’t happen until you came along. That is, of course, when you suggested we should.”
“And I don’t intend to go back on that,” Sanvu assured the squirrel. In a way, he was telling himself this as well. “But… well, nothing happened. I was in the dark space again, but, I didn’t hear anything. The ground was shaking, like, an earthquake or something. But nothing interesting happened.”
Sanvu lowered his head, looking at his hands. “Nothing very insightful.”
“Doesn’t sound like it,” Pachuku noted, “But that’s okay. Every little bit helps right?”
“You’re really sure of that?”
“It’s all we can do,” Pachuku pointed out, bobbing on his feet, “If it’s not today, it’ll definitely be another. Now let’s get to the rest of today!”
Pachuku’s optimism was the good kind of infectious, Sanvu thought as the groove of the day began.
Their entrance into Mindscape was as smooth as any other. They met some of the others, and silently exchanged knowing glances that bored through every other Pokemon, well, at least from the Minders’s end, because the others were none the wiser as to why such looks were being exchanged at all as fellow co-workers.
Didra had her suspicions, as she entered, in witness to those same looks that would confuse her, but she would also suppress her own confusion, she could hardly expect such grim looks to be knowing of the all-encompassing issues of the entire town, that wouldn’t make sense.
When they entered the facility, she quickly brought them over again, as the three of them sat in the typical room that was her office.
“So, I have begun investigations, on the “Treaders” since it’s becoming clear at this point that information needs to be procured,” She started. Both of them didn’t change their glum expressions, but she didn’t question a thing, “Regarding their absence, and regarding some other matters. That’s all I’ll tell you on that at the moment.”
Then, their mission was divulged. It was simple enough, described as probing Discipline Cave, as word from the other teams is that Amnesiac energy has been felt coming from there again, and in much greater quantity.
“..So don’t go in, as I don’t think the badges would be able to protect you enough. I’d like to know how far outside the dungeon the energy reaches, especially since it changed types recently. It should be weak enough to just get an outer radius measurement, so that’s your job today. Should be simple, yes?”
They both nodded silently, before turning to leave. As they left, she went to examine her desk for notes on this potential team. She hardly remembered signing any more than three teams on, mostly because of the restrictions being on Pokemon that could actually prove themselves to want to help, or so she supposed.
She considered this well after they left; figuring something drastic needed to be done if they had so few teams.
As the two travelled to their destination, the ice slowly was making its compatibility, or lack thereof, known to the little snake-lizard, both of them knew for sure that Didra was truly lying. There wasn’t even a point in questioning why she didn’t see Stony Enclose’s collapse as even being potentially related, she just wasn’t even talking about that dungeon anymore. But it wasn’t as if they could do much about that, as everyone had said.
At least, if the other dungeon was collapsing too, there’d be some getting to the bottom of this, so Sanvu hoped as they went along.
“It has to,” Pachuku hoped also, paws shaking. “Maybe the abundance of Amnesiac energy causes them to collapse or something, but then it’s the matter of what’s even causing that.”
“Baby steps, I suppose,” Sanvu reassured, hands glued to his arms. Most of the time, they were just saying things to keep themselves from frosting up.
Once they reached the entrance, the badges indeed began to glow, though only at a light flicker.
As Pachuku wandered around getting a feel for it, Sanvu stood still, though mostly because he wanted to busy himself with thoughts to keep from thinking about the unpleasant chill of the elements at the moment.
‘What does rumbling mean? Is the world about to break apart? That isn’t exactly news, the dungeons are forming a ring around the whole town anyways, so clearly the world’s in some danger.’
Pachuku was at Sanvu’s right, currently measuring how close he could get to the Amnesiac energy before the light was too much. It appeared to form a small radius outside the dungeon’s entrance, and going closer in to it would send more light from the badge as he approached in and out like an odd game of hot and cold. One could only imagine the inside to be a nightmare, and not just because of their predisposition to the cold with the badges reacting as they did.
Eventually, the two agreed to call it a mission, but Pachuku didn’t prepare to walk back, as Sanvu would expect. Pachuku motioned with a paw for him to follow, and they instead walked around.
To where Stony Enclose would’ve been, crossing a small set of rocks as they walked around the base, eventually leading back to the entrance.
Which was still barricaded, though it looked a little different than earlier, as Pachuku’s eyes narrowed, tilting his head to the sides. Due to the distance, it was less cold over here than it was over on the Discipline Cave side, so Sanvu at least had the idle thought capacity to wonder what Pachuku was attempting to do, especially since their mission was so easy today.
Eventually, Pachuku spoke up.
“I thought we’d look at it again, but… the rocks… so smooth. You see that?”
The entrance looked much like any other stone wall. But, it did seem to look shinier, somehow. Sanvu figured that explained his confusion, maybe the confusion of everyone else upon their questioning as well; because it otherwise resembled what they had seen previously when they had come here upon discovering it wasn’t here anymore.
“I don’t know enough about this world to know if that isn’t just some normal weird stuff that happens around here.”
“Rock-types have a move that can polish themselves up to make them faster, but…” Pachuku looked around, “Who’d wanna polish this? At all?”
“Maybe a new dungeon’s forming there soon? Maybe we could go back in there, I don’t know; sounds possible, right?” Sanvu half-hoped.
“I haven’t heard of a dungeon collapsing to change its types, never mind that it had changed to Dragon before it had. Something’s just not adding up.”
“I don’t know about you, but today, I’d prefer an easy mission as opposed to literally bashing our heads against a wall.” Sanvu sounded as sympathetic as he could; he wanted to help, but it seemed impossible to either of them, let alone everyone else who refused to acknowledge it.
“I guess…” Pachuku agreed, looking at it sadly, as if he felt pity. “Whatever’s happened to them, we gotta make up for it, somehow, I guess.”
Sanvu grunted in agreement, giving the stone wall a similar look before departing. As he did, he noticed the nearby grass was no long crushed by the litter that had covered the area before.
“The items, they aren’t here anymore?”
“Some wild Pokemon probably took ‘em,” Pachuku commented, noticing the same thing. “Typical scavengers.”
“…What?”
“Sometimes Pokemon from the dungeons wander out of them, but they’re often really dumb, so they wander right back into a dungeon. They don’t make it far outside, but if they take an item with them, it does stuff to ‘em, and they either disintegrate along with the item or they end up back in the dungeon and the item ends up who knows where.”
“So they just… come take your stuff?”
“Dungeon apparitions don’t last long outside of dungeons, but they can come grab them, yeah. Especially at this point with the town being all self-serving, they tend to like that. Or heck, if it wasn’t them, maybe one of the other teams came and stole all the items. “
Sanvu couldn’t find himself arguing with this, just choosing to walk back. “We completed the mission, so let’s go get that over with.”
That concluded their visitation of the caves for the day.
“I see, that doesn’t sound good. If the energy is expanding, it might collapse that particular dungeon as well…”
Didra’s ramblings seemed to register, but they once again wore those scowls that confounded her so much.
“That’s all I needed you to do, today. It would do you well to train, or prepare yourselves, since this puts me in a tight spot as to our preparations at large. There are many things to consider, which I’ll spare you the listing of,” she mused, waving an arm dismissively.
Both of the Minders looked at one another once more before leaving silently. It would be a long day for all of them.
Because they’d been let off early, the two could do little else, so they decided to train instead.
“Oh wow, it’s been a while, hello, Sanvu, Pachuku,” Trunie greeted. Sanvu quickly waved their way silently, while Pachuku followed behind. The Inkay was levitating various objects around a dummy in the far end of the room.
Pachuku got right to shocking a dummy in the far end, “She said to prepare, so I guess ensuring our moves are up to snuff would probably fall under that,” Pachuku mumbled, the nearby Gothorita nodding.
“Always good to be prepared, especially in these trying times,” she agreed.
Sanvu stood by, not feeling the need to train as much. However, he did somewhat mess up a dummy of his own after watching Pachuku just attempt to demolish his. Eventually, after a while of the sole sound of hits, the squirrel spoke up.
“What’s Didra up to? She doesn’t even seem concerned that a team of ours just potentially vanished inside a dungeon that collapsed at all, I don’t want to think she’s behind it all… but she isn’t making me think otherwise.”
“Why’s that?” Trunie wondered, watching Pachuku as he rammed once again into his dummy at a blinding speed.
“She’s just being so vague! What if we collapsed in a dungeon, huh?”
Sanvu shuddered at the thought, wincing for just a second as he listened to that.
“Well, you guys have heard of the barrier, haven’t you?”
“What barrier?” Sanvu inquired, and she clasped her arms together,
“There’s been word that on top of the dungeons that are surrounding our town, preventing anyone but the flyers that have the capacity to cross the dungeons, there’s also a barrier surrounding us, preventing escape.”
“Yes, it’s quite awful. If anyone outside our bubble knows, well, we wouldn’t know about it!” the Inkay chimed in, as he continued working around on the side. His movements appeared to be a little faster, and clumsier, as he was working on what appeared to be a dummy that had fallen apart.
“We don’t know what the barrier really is, but we know it exists, since Didra’s been sending the bigger teams out to investigate it,” Trunie revealed.
“So, besides the dungeons, there’s a second layer to all of this?” Sanvu figured.
“Not just second, who knows how many layers there are. You two are only a small team; it shouldn’t worry you so much that she’s simply assigning the lower tier of missions to you.”
“Still, it would suck if everything collapsed on us and nobody would bail us out. It’s already happened to one team,” Pachuku mumbled, before letting loose another set of charges.
“It would, but I would imagine Didra is more cautious now as a result,” Trunie reassured them. “It would suck if we lost more to the barrier, so their sacrifice shouldn’t be in vain.”
“Still, can’t blame him for thinking she might be hiding something with the way she reacted. You’d think she’d be more upset, maybe,” Sanvu speculated, which made Trunie nod sadly.
“She has… strange ways of showing her concern, but I’ve never known her to not be concerned. Surely there’d be a lot more… terrible things she could do if she were truly behind this world’s growing calamities.”
“What could be behind that…” Sanvu wondered as he stood. Pachuku continued to just smack his dummy until it was too fried for further use. By that point, Kichy began work on that particular dummy, so Pachuku watched idly as Sanvu continued to speculate on the side.
“Pachuku said something about there being other calamities when humans were around in this world. Could that be the culprit… me?” he wondered. Pachuku’s eyes softened in his direction, and Trunie shook her head almost instantly.
“No, that couldn’t be. The calamities that were present when humans saved our world were a lot more… widespread,” she remarked, her face taking on a focused appearance. “That affected the entire continent, or the entire world in some cases, and it was those humans that saved us from those calamities.”
“Still, I can’t help but feel my being here is connected to all this somehow. I can hardly remember anything about who I am, besides my own name and that I’m not… this.” He mentioned, gesturing at his body. The Psychic-type goth waved her arm dismissively.
“Maybe it is, or it isn’t. Until we get evidence, there’s no benefit in simply blaming this or that for the cause,” she reassured again, smiling warmly in his direction. “Besides, if you can’t remember who you were, that hardly says anything about the rest of the town’s memory problems being your fault. Who would blame you when you appear to be just as much suffering as those in town?”
“Pokemon lose their memory seemingly randomly, relevant to Amnesiac energy or not,” the Inkay piped in, continuing to move objects about as he spoke. “Even those in town just randomly lose it, and nobody blames them for weird stuff. A human losing their memory… well, that’s no different from a Pokemon losing their memory.”
“Exactly!” The Gothorita affirmed, “Until we know what the cause is, there’s no point in feeling down about it, who knows how much worse that could make things.”
Sanvu hummed in satisfaction, but still continued speculating silently. Eventually, the doors opened again, to an Oshawott and her teammates.
“Hopefully we didn’t miss being able to hone our edges!” the small otter cried out, her left paw thrust up. The Ferroseed was behind it, and he appeared to be shivering or vibrating. The Swoobat had flown in, landing behind the Oshawott on her other side. Trunie took notice of them.
“Kichy has at least a couple more dummies on the ready. Are all of you training?”
“Oh no, only these guys,” the Oshawott confirmed, her paw sweeping around to her teammates. Kichy had set up some more dummies that looked much bigger, probably due to their size and strength. Oshee immediately swung her head around to where Sanvu and Pachuku were sitting over in the corner, looking at her with looks mixed somewhere between worried and terror.
“I just, uh, wanted to come for a little chat, while the others got to work. For, um, some conversing?”
“With us?” Pachuku asked, his paw pointing to his head. She nodded.
“Yeah! But, like, not here; just, um, somewhere a bit more private.”
“Well I’m sure they’re mostly done here, right?” Trunie pondered, which prompted a small nod from Pachuku. Both of them stood up as Oshee beckoned them over.
“I’m sure you’ll like this, but I don’t wanna bother the others while they’re getting themselves sorted. So let’s leave them to it,” she shared, as they left the room. The three small Pokemon walked straight ahead, returning to the room in which Sanvu and Pachuku had been recruited for the first time in. It seemed as if there were more boxes in the room than before, but it otherwise looked the same.
Once she’d sat down, the two Minders decided to do the same, watching her all the while, before she finally spoke up first.
“So, I’m sure this’ll interest you, since Didra finally let me tell you about it, boy I was getting tired of the secrecy…” she started, shaking her head and closing her eyes, as if it had been a chore. “But there’s a lead, into this whole problem.”
“The Amnesiacs problem?” Sanvu responded, which resulted in the crossing of her paws, as well as an Oshawott could do, that is.
“I’m not talking about any other. So, I’ll fill you in. Me and the others, we went and completed that little dungeon out by the beach, the one you two totally flubbed in, and we found something interesting based on what you guys found there.”
“With the jars of stuff we found?” Pachuku questioned. She nodded.
“Oh yeah, and we dealt with the Aerodactyl, too. Guy couldn’t stand a chance against me and Sero,” She bragged, puffing herself to make herself seem bigger, a frown on her face despite these words. “Anyway, this isn’t about me, it’s about what he said.”
Back down in the tunnel that the Minders had fainted in….
“Alright, buddy, we know you knocked out our teammates. They apparently said they found jars of… stuff, here. What was it-what is it…?” Oshee huffed, shell in her left paw, as her left foot stood atop the Aerodactyl’s maw. She was mildly exhausted, but pinned him all the same. The Swoobat was pretty much holding it down by the back, the Ferroseed also pinning down its maw, the trio together flattening the dinosaur down to the ground.
“Why… should I tell youuuu, you cretins…” the Aerodactyl hissed, before being injected with a load of smaller needles ejected by the nearby egg.
“We won’t hesitate to bring you in and all your buddies if you know what’s good for you,” Sero growled back, voice low.
“Alrighttt, fine… you’ll get what is necessary….” it grumbled, trying to prepare power to bust out, but finding it difficult to. “That was type energy…. the essencccce of all Pokemon of this world…”
“Wait, you mean the very same essence that makes Pokemon apparitions in dungeons?” Oshee verified, the Aerodactyl grunting an agreement.
“Correcttt…” he nudged again, but that had the Swoobat on top of him instantly, forcing a yelp out of him. All three Pokemon were on their guard, Oshee in particular lashing with her shell when he tried to jump up just now.
“Why do you need that? How does that help Pokemon lose their memory?”
“It is requirrrrred…” he drawled, once again with indignance. “to trap the dark spirits… of this world…”
“Dark spirits?” Oshee echoed, with Sero piping in before she could finish. “What’re these ‘dark spirits’?”
“Those of this world… and of this land in particularrrr… the will of those who live…”
He broke free with his tail, the Swoobat flying off behind her Oshawott teammate. The Oshawott immediately spewed forth a stream of water, which managed to keep him down a little longer. This time Sero bounced on him, acting himself a sentient set of needles as he latched onto the back of the large dinosaur.
“Tell us what these ‘dark spirits’ are, and how they relate to the Amnesiacs or I will knock you out!” she demanded, exasperated. She meanwhile, with the paw that wasn’t holding her shell, dug into her bag and fished out a pink Mago Berry, throwing it at the Swoobat, who gleefully devoured it with pleasure.
“I have tolddd you their relation, alreadyyyy…” it hissed, “You need not know more…. augh!” it yelped as it thrashed about, eventually knocking the Grass and Steel type off of it. As he rolled off, he grunted in disagreement. Oshee went to use another Water Gun, but it took off, screeching, before she could muster up yet another in her exhausted state.
“Yourrr time will come yet!” were the last words they heard before it vanished. Oshee quickly got her teammates up, and they each ran deeper through the hallway, only finding the tunnel ending at a dark wall that even illuminated, showed no sign of the Aerodactyl. The three of them looked about, but it was as if he had vanished into thin air.
“Let’s go… Oshee…” Swensie requested, panting. “Maybe Didra can figure out whatever these… “dark spirits” are.”
“Sure,” she snarled, turning away back to the dungeon’s endpoint. “To think, what they could’ve found if this lug hadn’t stopped them. Ugh…”
They had then warped back.
“So when was this?” Sanvu asked, eyebrows furrowed.
“Only a couple of days ago. It was before Didra locked up Mindscape because of the Amnesiac Axew,” she explained, “But that’s not all.”
“We went back there on order of Didra once she figured the dungeon might be useful, and we found type energy, just sitting outside of the dungeon. The dungeon was still there, unlike what happened with you, but we took it back, and that’s when Didra realised what it was for.”
She leaned in closer, face scrunched into a scowl, “I don’t know what he meant by ‘trapping the dark spirits’ and we’re still trying to figure that part out. But they’re taking this energy because this energy is what heals a Pokemon from the state of being an Amnesiac when inside of a dungeon for too long, and they don’t want that, somehow.”
It was hardly surprising at this point, besides the looks of terror that still enveloped the Minders each. Sanvu himself was making connections in his own head, but Oshee continued before he could speak.
“But the breakdown of the dungeons? That’s related, to all of it, including the weird weather, and the weird atmosphere of society. And it’s resulted in the dungeons surrounding our town. We went back in the dungeon, and there were fewer floors than the first time we went through it. We had to conclude that they’re destroying certain dungeons, and perhaps erecting new ones, hence the type changes we’ve been seeing.”
“But who’s this ‘they’ that you’re talking about?” Pachuku pondered, Oshee shrugging.
“That’s what we’re still figuring out, whomever the Aerodactyl works for, likely. But that’s basically where we’re at with this whole thing. You guys should be on the lookout for anything that mentions what these dark spirits are.”
“Speaking of…” Sanvu interjected, slowly, “…I had a dream where someone was talking about ‘dark spirits.’ Something about… a darkness that was growing, but I didn’t hear any more than that.”
“I beg your pardon?” Oshee beseeched, staring right at Sanvu, “You what, dreamed about this?”
“Yes, I’ve been having them for a while now, there’s this… voice that speaks to me. Or it’s more like multiple, I think. It sounds like one voice but it also doesn’t. A couple of days ago… it sounded like they were telling me ‘a darkness’ is growing, and they mentioned something about ‘dark spirits’ then too.”
Oshee tilted her head upon hearing this, her features creased. “Uh… huh. Nothing else other than that, huh?”
“No, not yet. I mean, they’ve told me other things, like, um… something to do with Yveltal, or Beheeyem. But I don’t get that much information.”
“Right…” she held a paw up, as if to stop him. “Sorry if this is going to sound a bit weird, but I’m not particularly sure I believe that. Right after I say something about ‘dark spirits’ you say you’ve known this whole time? And why not tell Didra, if these truly meant anything to our goals?”
Sanvu remained silent, but was anything but in his own head. Pachuku also looked to be stifling some choice words.
“But, and forgive me for this, we don’t need every human that comes along pretending they can match the ones in the legends. Memory loss or not, or whatever, I just find it too difficult to believe. It’s too convenient; especially since this whole mission I’m talking about was because you guys were too underpowered for this particular enemy.”
“I mean… didn’t you say he escaped? Wouldn’t that make you guys unprepared too?” Pachuku retorted. Oshee turned away, paws on her hips.
“We at least got something out of him. What’re dreams meant to prove? If they’re to mean anything, pretending like you’re better than me will only get you so far,” she denoted.
Sanvu pouted in response. “That wasn’t-“
“Anyway, I’ve told you what Didra cleared for me, so I’ll let you in on that tidbit. I’ll let you go, so I can join the others in our training.”
And she soon left the room leaving both in stunned silence. Sanvu huffed her dismissal away, while Pachuku’s sigh was slower, as if he expected it.
“Yeah, this is why I wanted to work against them,” Pachuku confessed, with Sanvu completely inclined to agree.
The silent agreement was one only they held against the rest of the world.
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