*Music: Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door – Fahr Outpost
Back here again, Sanvu thought idly.
The dreamscape he found himself changed little in its presentation, though luckily he was no longer heaving his way through it, at least not as much as before. The heatwave was still present, but it was as if some of its mass had lifted up and away from Sanvu’s current location.
But he wasn’t out of the woods yet.
No, Sanvu still struggled yet to stand; his body still clutching the ground, despite that it wasn’t that hot compared to prior. Some kind of vibration rocked his body. He wasn’t nearly lucid enough to be able to create a proper description, but the only way he could describe it was a disorienting sense of vertigo similar to confusion. Was he being attacked?
In the glance he stole out of a single eye, he noticed that the shadow of the tree now sported flecks of bark of an unknown nature due to how his vision was swaying whenever he so much as twitched, so it wasn’t easily able to be described, but he thought he would see swerved patterns that twisted in some kind of unknown pattern. It only coated a small circle in the middle of the tree; as if growing on the large shadow that otherwise still retained its pitch-black shade.
He clung to consciousness as long as he could, enough to hear the muffled voice booming out across the landscape again.
“Gather…. everyone’s…. visions….”
These words continued to echo around the space, with Sanvu only able to hear through prickling darkness, clinging for his own sake in trying to maintain any sort of focus in this landscape.
They started up again when he watched as the pattern at the centre of the tree began to slightly expand, or maybe it wasn’t, he couldn’t entirely be sure. He couldn’t be certain of what he was even seeing, or what that trees purpose for even being here was.
He collapsed, but he wasn’t ready to wake up yet, flat down, eyes still shut tight to retain some level of consciousness. Luckily, as if hearing his silent plea, the voices started up again.
“Preserve…”
“Eviscerate…”
“Incinerate…”
Then he heard booming laughter, alongside repetitions of those last three words, which did not sound good to the former human.
Before he could wonder what any of it meant; he began to change consciousness at a rapid rate, whether he was losing or gaining it was purely up to perspective at the end of the day, and not even he could be sure which one it was.
Not that he had any ability to figure it out now.
~~
When he regained consciousness in Pachuku’s small home, it was as if he hadn’t fully left the dream. He practically rolled out of bed, clutching his head in weary exhaustion. Pachuku had already seen him, rushing over upon noticing Sanvu’s state.
“Ugh…”
“Are you all right? Sanvu?” Pachuku probed, his eyes wide in terror. “Was it one of those dreams again?”
Sanvu for a couple of seconds couldn’t pick himself up off the floor, until it just subsided, leaving nothing behind in his whole body. It had felt like he’d woken up without getting enough sleep, but as if it had taken him a good couple of minutes for the world to catch up. He eventually picked himself up, no worse for wear physically, except that his face exhibited visible exhaustion.
“Y-yeah… I think I’m fine… I was just… so dizzy… that dream was so… eugh…”
“If you don’t want to talk about it, it’s okay…” Pachuku reassured, to which Sanvu shook his head.
“No, really, I’m perfectly fine telling you. You haven’t done anything wrong, after all,” he quickly recovered his wits for a moment so that he could explain.
And so he recounted everything; the pressure, the tree, how it didn’t feel as hot as before, but also the revelations that were the new words that had been said. Pachuku could only shake his head when it’s all over.
“So, everyone’s ‘visions’ are being gathered…. to do all that? What do they mean by ‘vision’? Same as before with the ‘belief’ and ‘dream’ stuff?” Pachuku speculated aloud. Sanvu could hardly bring himself to come to any conclusion.
“I’m wondering about that tree. I could see real bark on it… on like… the middle of it, but the rest was still in shadow.” His mind briefly flashed with a realisation, though he didn’t say it aloud ‘what if I’m being attacked to fuel this tree? Is that even possible?’
“Yeah, I wish I knew what the tree had in its role in all this. You sure you’re alright?” he squinted, as if trying to stare the exhaustion out of him would cure him.
“I’m fine; honestly, I don’t… know what that was. I hope I don’t always wake up like that.”
“I hope it doesn’t get to a point where you… won’t…”
“I hope not either…” he trailed off, Pachuku immediately puffing up.
“Well, let’s try and make the most of our waking hours, huh?” as he bounded off. “You tell me if you’re feeling off, I don’t care what Didra says, I’ll zap her if I have to if it means you’ll be alright.”
Sanvu could only lightly snicker at that, hardly imagining lying to the little squirrel. It was true, for as creepy as the dreams were, morning and the day were a welcome respite from the hellscape that plagued his mind. He couldn’t even be sure it was his mind; he was assured he used to be human, so why he didn’t look human in the dreamscape still puzzled him, but in bringing this up to Pachuku in the past, he’d figured it might have to do with the memory loss somehow, and both had just somewhat resigned themselves to not thinking about it.
But as Sanvu contemplated it in the back of his mind while Pachuku set himself on distracting them from that little episode, he couldn’t entirely be sure they were dreams, since their effects seemed to weave their way into the real world in which he woke up in every day.
Once they finished their routine of grabbing their items and setting out for the day, Pachuku opened the door and was met with the sight of a small green bird, who’s eyes appeared to squint so far in which they almost looked closed.
“There you two are,” was all Notey mumbled. “You must come, quickly, to Mindscape. There is something we must tell you.”
“You couldn’t wait for us?” Pachuku chided the bird that was barely bigger than his foot, who could only manage a shrug with his small wings the best way a bird could.
“No, I was told to fetch you. Now come.”
They were lead to the room in which they were first recruited, on the left of the entrance being lead to by Didra. Both were extremely worried, neither could really feel safe in her presence, though Sanvu masked his with a kind of indifference that secured his worries away somewhere else, Pachuku was less attuned to that, and so sometimes fiddled with his paws in the same way he typically did on his first couple of days here when he first met Sanvu. Sanvu would glance at him to make sure he’s okay, and he would just nod affirmatively to Sanvu, which befuddled the former human, just a little, but didn’t press. If Didra had noticed any of this, she never once made motion or pointed it out through voice.
They sat down, the anticipation brewing, when Didra spoke, in her usual tone of voice that didn’t suggest anything abnormal.
“Now, I don’t want either of you two to worry about your position here at Mindscape. I’m very appreciative of the work you’ve done for all of us, among our various teams; you’ve come across a treasure trove of information. We wouldn’t have known that type energy or that somebody specific was behind all of this until you stepped foot in here. I almost feel bad about giving Pachuku those requirements, even, but that’s all in the past now, isn’t it?”
She spoke so softly it could almost fool the anxious duo into believing it was entirely genuine. But apprehension still laced the air. She continued.
“If you have any suspicions about it being me, I assure you, it sounds ridiculous, I have absolutely no idea what’s going on. This facility can help Amnesiacs, and that’s all I know. Everyone I know wants us to solve this crisis, and that’s what we’ll do, somehow.”
She looked away, face pensive, before continuing. “I was… reluctant, to give you this mission, because I worry what could happen to you in particular, Sanvu,” she pointed out, Sanvu’s curiosity having been piqued; her? Worried about him? “But… I don’t have that much of a choice.”
“That dungeon you saw a couple of days ago, with this device,” she held up the black brick from a couple of days prior, the dungeon detector. “I’d like you to go in there; it’s been named Elevated Forest, due to the fact the forest in the dungeon appears to sit on higher land than the plains below. I’ve already gone in there myself, as have the Tenditions, and let me warn you, they didn’t come back without problems,” She narrowed her eyes in Sanvu’s direction, before closing them and turning away. “The dungeon is primarily made up of Grass-type Pokemon, and, I’m not sure what, but something is happening to them. For some reason, I see less and less apparitions every time I go back in there, and the Tenditions reported something of the sort perhaps tracking them, I suspect, because of Sero’s own Grass-typing,” she explained. “Do you see what I mean about being reluctant to give you this?”
Sanvu had sort of pieced it together now; this mission was going to be particularly dangerous. Pachuku continued to fiddle with his paws.
“So, I’d like you to make a round trip around the dungeon, find out anything you can about what is happening to the apparitions there, or even just anything, but the moment anything happens, you’re to come back here. Understood?”
Neither could find it in themselves to disagree with that notion, despite their own personal grievances, and so the two were off to prepare for the forest dungeon.
The anticipation was high in anxiety and curiosity in both of the Pokemon. What would they find in this dungeon, and would it even be significant enough for themselves, let alone Didra.
It hadn’t escaped them that most of the time, they had essentially been running in circles, and were avoiding the problem at large. Why in particular was Didra so insistent that they go to these random dungeons? It just seemed like, with more time that passed, that the dungeons were just closing in like a ring of fire, and all they were finding was meaningless drivel.
But yet they continued; for it would be so much worse if they didn’t have any badge to protect them, regardless of whether Didra liked them or not, they couldn’t just abandon what they knew at heart.
Upon arriving in the dungeon, all they were met with was the same description Didra had provided, cliffs with trees on them surrounding the duo in squarish, sometimes circular rooms with grass coating the ground. Sanvu otherwise felt at home, if it wasn’t for the fact the air felt a little too humid for his liking.
“Is it me, or is it hot in here?” Sanvu asked, to seeming nobody.
“I mean, we did just cross sand to get here. Let’s just do this quickly and get out, cause both of us will be resisted hard in here,” Pachuku warned, as they proceeded.
But no matter how far they walked, how many rooms they went through, not a single enemy attacked them. Pachuku was alert at all times, looking all over the place, trying to spot any Pokemon who would attack Sanvu from the heights, and Sanvu was somewhat alert too, if only because of the warning from prior.
But nothing came.
The rooms were barren, asides from the items they would find littering the floor. Pachuku would pick them up, but it all was a bit too eerie.
“Man, you’d think she meant Ghost-type by accident with how empty it all is…” Pachuku joked. Sanvu couldn’t suppress chuckling.
“Either it’s easy, or we’re being watched. It’s one of either, I’d guess,” the Grass-type figured.
If there wasn’t such an apprehensive atmosphere, Sanvu thought he would probably enjoy this pleasant walk. He wasn’t sure how much of it was due to his new body, given he couldn’t remember if he was particularly a forest person before this.
It was two floors into the dungeon, after seeing nothing but trees, cliffs and the occasional berry, seed or orb, that they actually saw something significant.
They came to a wide room, and in the corner, was some kind of large goat-like Pokemon, with a leafy collar that extended down its neck and over its back, and it was lying down, immobile. It shocked both of them, before Pachuku wandered over to check it. It was completely out cold, its eyes glassy.
“Is… it…” Sanvu couldn’t word out the rest. He felt some sort of minor headache, pressing his hand against his own head, but it was otherwise minor, he could still stand, and it only surfaced for a moment.
“I’ve never seen this before…” Pachuku faltered, walking all around. “It’s a Skiddo, but… was it part of the dungeon?”
Neither could really voice anything as Sanvu stepped closer, touching it with his hand, only for something truly bizarre to occur.
His hands began to feel extremely hot, and then something happened. The edges of his vision blurred white before fading out completely.
He was no longer in the forest.
*Music: Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon – Voidlands
When his vision cleared, he could no longer see the forest. The edges of his vision were tinted blueish, but Sanvu was too awestruck to notice. He saw eyes opening, as if he was inside the head of somebody else, watching through their eyes.
This somebody appeared to have a white muzzle, with a black nose visible from what he could see. He saw them lift themselves up with four yellow, thin, furry legs reminiscent of a quadruped.
“Euurgh…” he heard the voice grunt as they pushed themselves up. They sounded masculine, maybe a little younger than him by a few years. Sanvu saw the vision move about rapidly, as if looking for somebody, and saw a rocky kind of elevated platform, the sky encased in some kind of pink haze. Eventually his vision settled on what Sanvu had recognised as a Pikachu, who looked pretty similar to Peko, lying face down some distance away. Besides the usual features, yellow fur, red cheeks, lightning bolt tail, the Pikachu was also wearing a scarf of some kind, adorned with green stripes, wrapped around its neck.
“Sparky!” he heard the voice yell, before this individual went over to rouse the Pikachu, prodding him with his nose. “Sparky… are you alright?!”
The Pikachu roused wearily, looking directly at the individual Sanvu was watching through, and saw visible confusion reach his face for a moment.
“Huh… wait… Daniel? Why’re you…?” the Pikachu responded. He sounded significantly younger than the other individual-Sanvu suspected he was named Daniel- was, at least by a couple of years. He looked about, his face tearing up. “Wh-where are we?!”
Daniel followed his gaze, allowing Sanvu to see beyond the rocky walls that encased their safe-looking haven; around them were barren lands with lava pools decorating the landscape.
‘Wow, yeah, that does look pretty bad…’ Sanvu thought, idly, witnessing alongside Daniel the hellscape that they’d ended up in.
“Wait a minute, weren’t we turned to stone?!” Sparky blurted out. This caught Sanvu off guard.
‘Turned… to stone?’
His vision dipped low, he’d suspected Daniel dropped his head.
“So… this is where you go… after being turned to stone…?” Daniel muttered, in some form of resignation.
“What’re we gonna do?! This place is… I can’t even say it!” he heard Sparky blurt, in some form of a mix between exasperation and fear. “Mr. Nuzleaf… he was so nice to us, and then…”
Daniel hung his head even lower, so all Sanvu could see was the ground and the paws that lay at his feet, as well as what looked like another green scarf that looked identical to Sparky’s, tied around his own yellow neck. He heard him whisper, if only to himself “he tricked us… me… everybody…”
“I’ll never forgive him!” he heard the Pikachu shout, his cheeks audibly sparking in much a similar way to Pachuku. “B-but… why… why would he go and do all that? Why would he be turning Pokemon to stone?!” he cried, Daniel hanging his head in silence for a long moment, Sanvu extremely confused.
‘So… they’re in some kind of… world… after being turned to stone? But… why am I seeing this?’
He saw Daniel go over and nudge Sparky after a while with his snout. “We’re not going to know anything if we stand around here. You… are you with me, Sparky?” he heard Daniel ask.
“I know… we can’t give up hope, right? There’s gotta be a chance outta here. There’s just gotta be,” he heard Sparky respond.
He saw the edges of his vision perk up with fluffy white fur, as if Daniel had smiled, and then he saw them packing what looked like items of some kind into a bag. It wasn’t long after they’d started running out that Sanvu‘s vision of this began to fade, and he was back in the forest, touching a Skiddo.
~~
*Music: Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon – Abyssal Badlands
Pachuku during this, which had only been for a moment, had been looking at Sanvu worriedly, since Sanvu was particularly quiet for only a moment. When Sanvu reached back, his hand flapping as if to get something off, he knew something had happened just from Sanvu’s face alone, never mind the awe that had run itself all across his body.
“What happened?” Sanvu was shaking his head as he asked.
“I… honestly don’t know what that was. I just went to touch it and then… it’s like I was… in somebody else.”
He explained the contents of the vision to Pachuku, including as much as he could remember, the terror transferring from his own body to Pachuku’s within seconds.
“So you just… saw all that from touching the Skiddo?! How… How come you… how come now and not earlier?!” Pachuku questioned, Sanvu shrugging, equally as unsure.
“I… don’t know. But… we could use it… to find out what’s going on here, right?” Sanvu supposed, Pachuku’s face creasing.
“S-Sure, but let’s just be careful. Try touching the Skiddo again.”
Sanvu did so, but nothing happened. The Skiddo didn’t respond, nor did Sanvu’s vision blur. It wasn’t long after he’d taken his hand off that it disappeared the way typical apparitions did, leaving empty space as it melted into the floor.
“Nothing?” Pachuku inquired. Sanvu shook his head. “No, the heat wasn’t there either.”
“Hm?”
“When I touched it… it felt hot at first. Then I was just… in that guy’s head… Daniel, I think he was, and it wasn’t hot anymore.”
“Huh, well, let’s just be sure we’re totally safe before you use it, if we find anyone else here, that is,” he figured, moving onwards. Sanvu followed after, the pressure in his lead replaced with swirling thoughts from the revelations he’d just witnessed.
He was hoping that they weren’t too late for the rest of the forest’s remaining life.
They continued through the barren forest. There were no sounds besides their own footsteps, breathing, and the many questions both had for one another regarding what Sanvu’s vision had explained, and how he’d even come to the point of having these visions in the first place.
It was on the fourth floor, that they saw another one.
“Another Grass-type!” Pachuku pointed out, moving over to it. This one was a large Pokemon, a fair bit larger than the Skiddo, a monkey of some kind, with greenish leaf-like fur covering its body in various spots. Some on its head appeared to form the shape of a pompadour, extending well past his head. It was also out cold, unresponsive to the two smaller Pokemon.
“Maybe your joke about Ghost-types wasn’t all that wrong,” Sanvu remarked, when Pachuku laughed uneasily.
“N-No, these are definitely Grass-type. Ghost-types don’t form from other types; that’s just a dumb myth. But… what could’ve happened to them? What could’ve affected them to hurt them this much… but not cause them to disappear…” Pachuku worried, getting fiddly. Sanvu strayed away from it.
“I’m not sure if it’ll happen again, but… let me know when you want me to see what’s going on with those guys,” Sanvu verified, looking at the monkey, making careful attention to not touch it.
“It’s a Simisage… um… well, I suppose if you’ll do the honours, then. I’ll keep a lookout for anyone weird, I promise.”
Sanvu nodded, walking over, beginning to feel that pressure brew in his head, heat coursing through his hand as he touched the Simisage, his vision blurring.
~~
*Music: Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon – Cave of the Deep
He was once again inside Daniel’s head; once he was sure the same snout appeared at the bottom of his vision. Only instead of the landscape with the lava pools from earlier, it appeared he was in some kind of rocky cave with shiny red, yellow and purple hues.
He saw his vision turn to face someone, and besides Sparky, there were two other Pokemon that Sanvu didn’t recognise. One was a really small orange rodent barely the current height of Daniel’s feet, who also adorned red cheeks, with large black whiskers on them, resembling a much smaller version of Sparky, and had a really long black tail in the shape of something akin to a plug, while the other was a large, at least, a little but more than Daniel’s current eye level, yellow and grey Pokemon who looked somewhat like a woman, except that what looked like her ‘hair’ was instead a set of jaws with giant teeth on the back. All of them looked relieved, as if they’d been through a gauntlet of some kind.
“Everyone okay?” he heard Daniel inquire, which prompted everyone to give affirmatives. He noticed the small orange rodent pointing behind Daniel.
“There’s more ancient writing over there!” he heard her say, in a small but loud voice. He saw Daniel look over to some kind of weird illegible scrawl carved into the wall of this cave they were in.
“Sparky, it would be faster if you did it,” he heard the other Pokemon-the yellow and black one he couldn’t put a name to- say, and saw Sparky nod out of the corner of his vision. Daniel ran closer to the illegible scrawl, as Sparky began to read it, with a proud look and without any stuttering of any kind.
“’Why do Pokemon turn to stone?’ Dark Matter is the source of all woe,” he heard Sparky start.
‘Dark…Matter? What’s that?’
“Dark Matter?!” he heard the small rodent shout, though he couldn’t see it. He heard Daniel whisper the same.
“There’s more. Dark Matter absorbs the energy of Pokemon as it turns them to stone. With that energy, it grows stronger. It will continue to turn Pokemon to stone in order to enlarge itself, and its power,” the Pikachu read out. “But… wasn’t it Nuzleaf and Yveltal who turned us to stone? What’s this Dark Matter about?”
‘‘Yveltal?’ Why is that name so familiar…?’
“It seems that it’s responsible for turning Pokemon to stone, if what’s written here is correct,” he heard the older yellow-black Pokemon mention.
“But is it a Pokemon? What is it?” he heard Sparky say, face scrunched in confusion. He noticed a similar confusion on the small orange rodent, since Daniel had turned around to face them all instead of the wall.
“I don’t know… have any of you heard of it before this point?” he heard Daniel ask.
“No, it’s the first I’m hearing of it…” he saw the yellow-black Pokemon respond. He noticed that she wasn’t using her larger mouth to talk; which while a little trivial, still confused the former human. This was despite what he was hearing through Daniel’s ears.
‘What is Dark Matter? Not even I know… But even still… why am I seeing this?’
Sanvu couldn’t exactly come to any particular conclusion, but he began to feel the heat again as Daniel turned around, eliciting a familiar reaction from Sanvu.
‘Wait… this is exactly like… earlier…’ he realised.
“There’s more over there!” he heard Sparky shout, before it all faded away again, once again flicking his hand free of the heat now that he was back.
~~
*Music: Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon – Voidlands
When Sanvu was done recovering the forest, he touched his other hand to the one he’d used to touch the Simisage, and felt nothing but leafy skin. The heat was somehow internal, and not something he felt in his body at all.
Pachuku was looking at him worriedly. “So? Did you see anything?”
Sanvu retold the events of the vision again, Pachuku clarifying the names of the Pokemon he didn’t know, as well as something else.
“I think I’ve figured it out… the dreams I had… they felt the same way.”
“Huh?” Pachuku jumped in shock? “W-Why?”
“When I touch these Pokemon, I feel hot. But when I went to find out why it’s so hot… I don’t feel it in me. I also… felt dizzy for a moment, the same way it was impossible to focus in these recent dreams,” Sanvu explained, as he looked at his green hand. “Those dreams were almost as hot as how I feel upon touching these Pokemon.”
After he said that, the Simisage disappeared into the floor, leaving an empty space.
“Okay… so what do your dreams have to do with these Pokemon…. turning to stone? And what’s this Dark Matter thingy?”
“I don’t know, but they suspected it was possible for them to turn to Dark Matter as the cause… but Sparky… said it was… Nuzleaf and Yveltal? Who did it instead?”
Pachuku’s face paled. “Yveltal?! Wait, Sanvu!” he pointed. “Your dream told you about Yveltal, didn’t it? I’m pretty sure I recall you telling me that, right?”
“It did sound familiar, but… wait…”
“Dark Matter’s…. manipulating Yveltal somehow… or is maybe related… but… what was it you said?”
Sanvu found it hard to recall himself, given he’d had so many of these dreams that they mostly blurred together. “I… I don’t know, I think it just mentioned its name.”
“Oh man, is this related to you?!” Pachuku worried, looking about. “We’d better… we should keep going, b-but…”
“Anything wrong?” Sanvu asked, confused. “I mean, yes, it’s a worry but… about the here and now… it… looks the same as ever?”
Pachuku shook his head hard, as if he was shaking something out.
“I-It’s nothing. Just… if we find anything bad, we need to leave. Didra wouldn’t want us out here too long when she warned us stuff could happen, y’know?” Pachuku worried.
Sanvu wore a different expression, instead opting to continue on. “I want to find out more, I think it’s relevant. Somehow. Or I wouldn’t be seeing this.”
“Huh?” Pachuku wondered, Sanvu continuing.
“Not just for this whole situation. For my own sake,” he said, looking back directly at Pachuku, resolute. “You with me?”
Pachuku fiddled a little with his paws before walking up, slowly. “S-Sure, but… don’t get too reckless, alright?”
So they continued through the barren dungeon, awaiting what was to come next.
~~
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