*Music: Luigi’s Mansion 3: 2B Boilerworks Toad (Storage Room)
Back in the abyss, the voices started up again, but this time, instead of simple one-sentence words that boomed as proclamations across the sky, there appeared to be a conversation going on, which Sanvu was privy to.
“What is innocence?” One voice cried out, this one sounding inquisitive. A different voice, one that boomed in its depth, responded, practically vibrating the area with its mere presence. Sanvu could even see the shadow that resembled the tree nearby shaking.
“Innocence is the state of being ignorant without fear,” it boomed, in response, “If you do not fear, you would be innocent, and that embodies the leaf,” it maintained.
Neither of these voices, nor any others, seemed to be aware of Sanvu’s presence. Most of the time, he was too paralysed mentally to even attempt speaking to the ones who summoned him to this place, whether these voices were responsible or not, he’d often thought it best to just lay low regardless. He wouldn’t know what to do if they were to attack him somehow in his dreams.
He’d cried out numerous times in these dreams, but hadn’t received a response, as if none of the voices knew he was present. So he merely waited around most of the time, trying to get cues from the environment, however little he could muster.
“The leaf embodies innocence?” the other voice solicited. Sanvu still couldn’t be sure if they were talking about him or not.
“Yes, it does, and if you are innocent, the plan cannot proceed. Innocence is the source of hope, after all,” the larger voice broadcasted. Sanvu only just got that to sink in, before he began to feel the world slip away, his body collapsing, struggling to at least hear a little more.
“It must be eliminated… all must know soon….” was all Sanvu managed to hear, from which voice, he couldn’t be sure.
~~
After Sanvu recounted the dream’s events to Pachuku, he seemed to nod, looking all around the place as he came to a conclusion.
“They’re all talking about hope,” Pachuku observed, tail swishing. “Just like the one you had before, that one talked about belief, this one talked about innocence. You’re saying the voices want to… take it away?”
“How would they do that though? I don’t think I’m particularly insightful in solving this crisis.”
“Well, I mean, if there’s a way to destroy hope, they’re doing a good job,” the squirrel mused, turning away towards the town. “With the warps out, it’s only a matter of time before everyone goes wild trying to get out.”
Sanvu could only look down, the weariness evident on his face. Pachuku figured to give him some space, as he stole a glance at that slip of paper. Apparently, according to Notey and Didra when they’d brought it for them to inspect, it did appear to have some relation to Sanvu, but it seemed very disconnected from the Amnesiac energy, and so little had been done with it.
As he looked at it now, though, there was still that deep-seated feeling of contempt that would well up upon thinking of it. When he tried to think of the reason why he would hate it so much… he came up blank.
Pachuku at this point was talking to himself, but he was never too quiet, so Sanvu could essentially hear everything despite the intention.
“Hope… maybe everyone’s emotion has some level to play in all this, I mean, that’s how the Bittercold happened too…” he guessed, as he grabbed various berries to start the morning.
Pachuku continued to muse like this for the morning, until he realised how it was wearing on his friend, and promptly put a stop to it. Despite this, though, regular discussion couldn’t continue for too long.
By the time they left home, something was immediately apparent. The sky was overcast, and various clouds of a wispy smoke were rising in the distance.
It was particularly unnerving, but there was little they could do except to go to Mindscape.
When Didra met them, they talked about how Sanvu’s dreams mentioned the intention to remove hope from the populace. She said she would consider this angle, even though it seems obvious, and to tell her more when they know more specifics.
“After all, it’s not as if you know these voices, do you?” she shrugged, Sanvu inclined to agree.
“Y-Yeah, it’s like they don’t even hear me if I try to ask who they are. They keep talking about a ‘leaf’ and there’s this giant tree, I can’t be certain if they’re talking about me or any other leaf.”
“Hence why I would like you to try and find out specifics. Today’s mission should be a little bit interesting,” she winked, the two stealing a glance at one another.
“So, I’m sure you’ve noticed the fog, right?” she guessed, both of them nodding. “Well, your job today is to head to the expanse where the giant beach is. If you head past there, near that new Mystery Dungeon, you’ll find a small community of mostly Water-type Pokemon. Apparently, the fog is strongest there. Find out as much as you can about this fog, and what it’s doing, though your job today is primarily escort, I’m not sure why.”
“Wouldn’t it be to trap us?” Pachuku figured, to which she nodded, but also placed a hand on her forehead in exasperation.
“Surely, but have you ever heard of fog being used as a trapping tactic? That’s your job to figure out,” she necessitated, turning to leave. “Oh, and I believe there are some Pokemon to guide you about the place, a Dwebble, Carracosta and Barbaracle, I believe. Look for them and help them out.”
With those words and a wave, she was off, leaving the Minders alone.
As they proceeded to the area, both couldn’t help but remain suspicious of Didra.
“Why does she want to deny the dreams?” Pachuku puzzled; his volume close to a yell but more like a huff. Sanvu could only sigh in response.
“There’s something up with her, but, I mean, that’s not new. But could it be related?”
“Related to what?”
“This whole… losing hope, thing. They do say it’s a stage of grief, after all, denial.”
“Huh, yeah, never thought about it that way,” Pachuku wondered. “But she just seems, well, tired, not sad.”
“It’s still bad, negative leaning, I’m sure it counts.”
It was all they could do to distract from the gloomy day around them; the atmosphere brimming with pressure of all kinds.
As they crossed the beach, the fog was extremely apparent to the naked eye. It seemed to extend infinitely, blocking out the ocean almost entirely. Sanvu had attempted to look out for water, and its edges, still oddly rigidly adhering to the same strict patterns as before, continued to tide in and out, though it seemed less forceful than before, sometimes not even appearing at all.
They crossed one beach to another, this one more resembling a regular beach, with much lighter yellow sand, dotted with rocks. The forest still stood as a backdrop, though despite the very pristine look, the air was charged with unease. Many of the Pokemon here were chattering about something, most pointing towards the sea.
Upon reaching the more normal-looking beach, they were greeted by a small crab-like Pokemon wearing a large rock on its back. Upon noticing them, it scuttled over.
“Ah, so you’re the team I asked for? Great-great, what’re your names? I’m Pwed.”
“I’m Pachuku, and this is Sanvu, nice to meet you, Pwed,” the squirrel introduced, sweeping his paw over to Sanvu, who lightly waved. “This one’s the Dwebble,” he whispered to Sanvu, who nodded in understanding.
“Ah, so, I’m sure you don’t need an explanation for the poor weather today, but we noticed this only a couple days or so ago, and we’d like those of Mindscape to look at this.”
Sanvu looked about, as if searching for someone. “Weren’t there others we needed to look out for?”
“Oh, I think they went to go ward everyone off, since the fog is becoming such a problem for the local populace. Especially since most of the others live underwater normally…” he informed, “I’m merely here to help with the crossing of the large beach nearby.”
“If you guys live underwater, though, how would the fog hurt you guys?” Pachuku asked. “It’s not like visibility’s something you need to be worried about under there… right?”
“That’s part of the problem, see-see,” he stammered, gesturing with a claw towards the sea. “Soon there won’t be much of an access to the sea for us to even be worried about seeing it, let alone being in it.”
The Dwebble crawled closer to the edge of the sand, closest to the edge of the water where there was a line drawn. “This has also been here for a few days now. It doesn’t appear like this material can be scrubbed out, you see” he demonstrated by rubbing in the sand with a claw where the line was present. “We don’t know where it came from.”
In the sand appeared to be some kind of black line. It extended across the shoreline, visible to all of the Pokemon looking down at it. The black line appeared to float above the sand by just a bit, as if it wasn’t physically part of the sand, and was semi-obscured by the fog, which seemed to cover the entire ocean at this point.
“Well, Didra seemed in denial but what do you think, definitely a trap?” Sanvu figured, Pachuku shrugging.
“Maybe, but couldn’t you just swim out?”
“But-but, that’s what nobody can seem to do,” the Dwebble protested, waving his claws. “Nobody… nobody can seem to get out.”
“How’s that possible?” Sanvu probed, looking at it again.
“I’m gonna check for all of us. Surely everyone’s just being silly,” Pachuku decided, as he charged forward, Sanvu leaning to stop him, before opting to stay behind.
“Is that a good idea?” he pleaded, Pachuku seemingly ignoring him.
“You’ll see; he won’t be able to get far. I don’t quite know why he’s so enthusiastic, since he typically would not like water but…” the small crab trailed off.
Pachuku meanwhile, had been expecting to swim, but instead ended up walking in what essentially was a giant puddle that barely went higher than his hind paws, allowing him to essentially walk through with little hindrance. The squirrel thought this extremely odd, especially the lack of rising depth. He was only walking in one direction, eventually; he couldn’t even see Sanvu and Pwed even if he looked back.
It wasn’t until a couple of minutes later that he ended up walking back to them, but he hadn’t turned himself around, essentially walking right back to the shore without having turned once. Upon seeing them, he was extremely confused.
“But… I went straight ahead!”
“That’s… weird…” Sanvu faltered, the Dwebble shaking his head.
“You see, any of us try to leave via the water, and we just get funnelled back here, no matter what happens.”
“You only went forward?” Sanvu asked, Pachuku nodding.
“Yeah, I was thinking of turning back, but it’s just one giant puddle. I didn’t even get that wet,” he shook his feet free of the water from the shallows, but he was completely dry everywhere else.
“That definitely sounds like some kind of trap, a weird one. How does going forward make you turn back?”
“There are… stories about this…” Pwed chimed in, voice low and uncertain. “The legends have it that the deities responsible for our world have the power to do this… it’s no different than the creation of a Mystery Dungeon, but without all the corruption of the local population, that kind of directionless… nonsense is exactly the kind of thing they’d make.”
“Which deities?” Sanvu wondered, before Pachuku sighed.
“You mean, like, those old stories? About Dialga and Palkia? Those’re just rumors, though, right?”
“Yes-yes, exactly them!” Pwed blurted, before lowering his voice. “They say there have been times where when a Dialga and Palkia enter conflict, they’ll just… rip out a chunk of the land in order to harvest energy for said conflict. It’s said this is one of those signs,” he explained, looking at the fog.
“Deities?” Sanvu asked again, his head tilted in Pachuku’s direction.
“They’re Legendary Pokemon, Dialga and Palkia. It’s said there were two in particular higher than the rest who, alongside Arceus, created the time and space of this world, respectively. Dialga maintains time, and Palkia space, each is the respective’s domain, but…” Pachuku informed, shrugging, “but which Dialga and Palkia would be responsible for this? Everybody knows the legends are just Pokemon like us, right? So how can you pin the blame on one specific group when there are multiple of them?”
“So there are… multiple of these Pokemon?”
“Yes-yes, though in far fewer number than non-Legendary Pokemon. But-but, it’s still a possibility, no?” Pwed figured.
“Hold on, we don’t need to jump to conclusions. This line, for instance. Did you see anyone who put this line down?” Sanvu pointed towards it with a hand.
“N-no! Everyone I’ve talked to either doesn’t know it’s here, or they just say it ‘appeared’ out of nowhere!”
“Eerie…” Sanvu commented, staring at it again. He attempted to follow its trail left by looking in that direction, towards the beach with the darker sand they arrived from.
“Okay, so we don’t know where it came from. Where’s it going to?” Sanvu mused, Pachuku following his lead.
“Ah yeah! So how long is this line?” the squirrel asked the small crab, looking right compared to Sanvu’s left, trying to pinpoint the end of it, which seemed to extend across the entire beach.
“It just appears to go the whole way,” he gestured in Pachuku’s direction. “We think the fog is attracted to it.”
“If only we could see what it’s made of,” Pachuku contemplated, once again trying to feel it to no avail. “Some ethereal ghost-stuff, maybe? I wouldn’t know.”
“Maybe we should go this way, see how far it goes,” Sanvu offered, not budging from his position of looking left.
With little more to go on, they went back to the position they were at before the beach transferred color. What was even more odd, however, was that the line stopped before they hit the darker sand of the wider area, but the fog still covered the entire ocean from the same general position all the way almost up to where the smaller waves were on the beach with the darker sand. It was as if the entire ocean had evaporated, or was in the process of evaporating.
“So-so, what do we think?” Pwed inquired; the two unsure.
“Maybe it is attracted to the line, maybe it isn’t?” Sanvu speculated. “There’s some water there, but…”
“But it still peters out into the fog anyway, so perhaps it is still in the process of drying up.”
“But, who’d be responsible for such a thing?” Pachuku questioned, with neither of the others able to provide an answer. Pwed looked about.
“This is odd, the others should have rounded everyone up by now…” Pwed mumbled, the others silently encouraging him to continue. “Oh-oh, yes, of the Water-type Pokemon stranded here, we were all expected to go to Mentage. The reason we brought you is because if a dungeon were to form, we wouldn’t know what to do, as none of us have that much dungeon experience. The line is concerning, alongside the recent dungeon, so we thought getting out of here should be our biggest priority.”
“Makes sense, but…”
“The other two, they were going to round everybody up. There aren’t that many of us… could something have happened?” Pwed contemplated, slightly shivering.
“Maybe we should go look for them? Where’d you last see them?” Sanvu questioned, the crab pointing the direction they came.
“They were going along the shoreline, I believe. But that was only a few minutes ago….”
“We should look for them. What’re we looking for…?”
“Do you not know Pokemon species?” Pwed asked, puzzled. Pachuku stepped in.
“Ah, yeah, it’s a long story, but basically, he just needs a bit of extra help from me. So uh, they’re larger Pokemon-“
“Does everyone know everyone else’s species around here?” Sanvu guessed, which prompted Pachuku to nod very hard as Pwed started back down the other direction.
“Yeah, everyone gets a rough approximation of species. But you don’t mind that explanation, do you?” he whispered, curious, Sanvu shaking his head.
“No, just don’t go blurting it out everywhere that I’m… y’know.”
“Yeah, got it, don’t worry. They’re both large, and both very bulky. We won’t miss ‘em.” Pachuku described, before bounding after the crab, whose steps were very slow. Sanvu followed on behind, as they began a search for the two other Pokemon.
A long trip down the beach later, to the point that the nearby Mystery Dungeon was long out of sight; they eventually found the two Pokemon. The rest of the Pokemon behind them were staring at them strangely, almost fearfully.
“Hello-hello! Abaco! Cledes! We were worried about you!” the Dwebble chimed, but no response came from the bulky Pokemon in question.
Upon turning around, the smaller Pokemon could see why; their faces looked distant, cold, the hints of something darker appearing in both of their eyes, like hulking beasts aroused from a slumber. The Pokemon behind them were fearful, some crying out. Some were lying at their feet, having sustained some injuries.
“Wh-what’s… happening to them?!” Pwed gulped out.
Before he could get a response, Pachuku zipped past all of them, kicking up sand, which ended up causing Sanvu to stumble over, coughing out the dust. Pachuku’s cheeks were alight, and then-
BZZP!
He’d Nuzzled both of them in an instant, and where a small mote of dark aura had been on their bodies, now instead sparks danced along their bodies from the quick thinking of Pachuku, as the two beasts quickly recovered their senses.
“Wh-wha… how did that happen?” the Carracosta stammered out, pained from the paralysis. “W-why-“
“Preventing any pain before it gets worse,” Pachuku assured, as the paralysis continued to perform its job. “Guess we now know electricity really does do something to that stuff like it did in our earlier missions.”
“What stuff?” the Barbaracle snapped, as he tried to move. “We just woke up after… some undeserved nap, urgh!” his various arms flailed as he tried to rid them of the paralysis.
“Has that happened, recently? To anyone else?” Sanvu wondered, asking the crab.
“N-no, wh-what was that?”
“Something must be taking these Pokemon to gather forces for someone. It just has to be, there’s some kind of mastermind behind the missing memories, missing energy, dungeons collapsing…” Sanvu vented, shaking his head at the end. “And why we’re being trapped.”
“They seem fine!” Pachuku yelled back, the two hulking Pokemon approaching the smaller ones.
“So, Nuzzle can force Pokemon out of that state? Noted,” Sanvu commented.
“Or we just got here in the nick of time…” Pachuku retorted, looking away. “It’s not that powerful.”
“Sorry for that, we were rounding up all these Pokemon when we just… fell asleep. I’m Abaco, and this is Cledes,” the Carracosta introduced, waving a flipper in the other Pokemon’s direction.
“Hello, thank you for saving us,” the Barbaracle kneeled.
“Well, we’d better get out of here before that occurs again,” Abaco figured, looking back at the other Pokemon who’re all very confused.
“It’s fine, if you resurge, I’ll just keep up the Nuzzle, since it worked the first time,” Pachuku promised, as they promptly decided to leave the small beach, the migration to Mentage having begun.
The Minders were still somewhat bothered by the line though, and weren’t anticipating how Didra would react to its presence, either.
After a long day of escorting many Water-type Pokemon to Mentage, it was agreed that they would live alongside the river that lead out of Mentage on one of the farther ends, due to space concerns. After a successful escort, which was essentially just a really long day of walking as well as ensuring the aura didn’t resurface; Abaco and Cledes were told to stay within Mindscape by Notey, while the other Water-types remained somewhat safe within the shrinking plot that was Mentage in general.
They were safely within Mindscape’s entrance awaiting the mission’s reward with Pwed.
“Well-well, I suppose this is where we part,” the Dwebble imparted, “I hope it’ll be easy enough to settle down here…”
“Just so long as you don’t partake in any ‘house appearances,’” Pachuku joked, somewhat sarcastically. “Then yeah, you can fit anywhere.”
“Oh, you don’t need to worry about that. This here is my home,” he gestured towards the rock he was holding. “I’ll just need a good source to sit myself down near, and I’ll be set for a while.”
“Oh, yeah, then, uh, stay out of the dungeons, aha, don’t wanna end up like your friends there, or worse.”
They each gave their regards before parting, before Didra hopped out of the main room, so that they could divulge what they saw, including the line, the fog, and everything that was related.
“Right… we need to start taking this seriously. We’re indeed being bottled in, and we need to investigate why that is. Tomorrow you’ll be going with the Cognition; they’ve been assigned duty related to the fog and its sudden appearance, so it would do best if you worked together on that. That is all, try to rest today.”
Later that afternoon, as the two rested, Sanvu opted to look outside the window, at the overcast sky that seemed unchanging.
“I miss the sun…” he whined, Pachuku sighing.
“At least she actually seems to care this time. Only took blotting out the ocean for her to go, ‘hmm, maybe we should stop all the menial nothing,’” he criticized, fishing out for some coins. “Hey, will you be alright here on your own?”
“Why’s that?”
“I’m not going far. We need to get some more items, especially if we’re gonna be encountering this more often. Just want to give us all a rest after the sand, but I could do for some more,” Pachuku mentioned. Sanvu shrugged in response.
“Go ahead, it’s not like you need to be attached to me or anything.”
“Alright, I won’t be long!”
Pachuku bounded out the door, money in hand with the bag, Sanvu alone with nothing but the slip at the end of his bed to look at.
It was still getting to be a bit much, all of this, as his thoughts swirled. Could the voice in his dreams be trapping them? Or was it something else? He got a little distracted, getting lost in his own head as he looked at the seemingly nonsensical slip of paper, finding nothing in particular of note even though he desperately wished it so.
He’d tried to make sense of that scribble that was lost in translation, but it hadn’t seemed to bring anything new up. He thought back to the dream he had this morning, almost coming to a conclusion, but ultimately unable to.
He watched the window again, his eyes settling on the tops of the trees. He watched them idly, not really paying much attention, hoping he could find out what this all meant before they were swallowed up by whatever this was.
The mood lifted a little when Pachuku returned some unknown time later, it was a while, but Sanvu wasn’t counting. He insisted they didn’t bring up anything to do with the Amnesiacs for some reason, and was happy to spend the night showing Sanvu something.
Apparently, it was a game that he’d learned from somebody. When Sanvu asked who they were, Pachuku wouldn’t know, but would quickly divert the conversation so that they could get started. It was apparently useful for teaching species and their related types, which was something that practically lasted them the rest of the night.
“You’re given the name of a Pokemon, and some hints about where they live, then, you guess within three tries what you think what their types are. If you win, you get a point and proceed,” Pachuku explained, laying down what looked like 10 marbles. “Every ten Pokemon you get right, you get a marble, every five wrong, you put a marble back, but, you get a chance to recover a marble if you guess an adjacent type to a Pokemon. It’s so much easier when you’re blind.”
“So I don’t have to worry about essentially knowing nothing?”
“The idea is that you know more!”
Pachuku essentially won most of the games, using the book he’d shown Sanvu earlier to give the names, but Sanvu found the night fun, if only to distract from his existential crisis and the ever-looming doom outside. By the time they’d finished the 5th game, it was night, and Sanvu had only secured a win once, with one of the adjacent types.
It wouldn’t be too much longer, however, before it was once again time to delve right back into that foggy abyss for details on their state of being.
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