*Music: Luigi’s Mansion 3 – 10F Tomb Suites Track 6

“Original…. creator…”

The words all had their own rendition as they echoed through the space. Though, it was hardly surprising. One word could be expected to be followed by many of the same. That’s just how it worked in this place. It seemed there was no other way to it.

“Hidden… Refer to… “The Universe” or “Dark” “ugly” “emotions” or “spirits””

None of those words were lost on Sanvu as he laid perfectly still.

“Pokemon… mustn’t… know…”

Mustn’t know what, Sanvu wondered.

Then another voice rang out… distant, but different from the rest. This one’s voice was serene, almost magical in nature, a subtle twinkle that would easily distinguish it from the rest in the way it seemed to glimmer without visible stimulus.

As he heard this, he felt an uncomfortable sensation in his tail. The pinpricking? In the dreamspace? How was that possible?

Unless… these weren’t dreams at all, or so Sanvu surmised.

“H-human…” the voice cried out, its voice weak. “Listen to my words…”

Sanvu turned his head from his spot on the ground as he laid down; the voice appeared to be coming from the tree, which appeared to be the only light glistening the space in this place.

“This place… It is not a dream. Yet it continues to be so, for your own fractured spirit.”

The human’s mouth gaped, listening silently and intently, as it continued. “Not all hope… is lost… ”

Sanvu then felt an intense vibration, the pain of waking reverberating through his body. He desperately tried to hold on, if only so he could get this voice’s name, which he somehow figured was different than the rest, if only from the sheer difference in volume.

“…or… ou….”

~~

It faded as he was transported home.

---

Pachuku was shaking him awake when Sanvu managed to rouse himself, as he gasped for air upon waking.

“You okay?! You wouldn’t wake for ages there! I was worried for a while there!”

“Pachuku…” Sanvu breathed, before shaking himself out of it. “I have to tell you.”

“…Quickly.”

So he recollected the dream as best he could, including the revelation he came to that the dreams were in fact not really dreams, and instead only seemed as such from his ‘fractured’ spirit, according to the voice, which sounded like it came from the tree, and didn’t have the same volume or intonation as the rest.

Pachuku shivered for a second before his features grew more focused. “Now this just makes me mad. Whoever it was you met has really just been trying to reach out to you this whole time and Dark Matter has just been tormenting you the whole time. Argh!” he stomped, before quickly darting around. “We gotta make our way to Mindscape, quick, before they worry about us.”

Sanvu managed to slide his way off, not at 100% capacity, but many of yesterday’s burns were reduced to mere smears on his body, and he didn’t feel anything upon landing, except when he fell forward.

“Ugh!” his tail resumed its pins-and-needles sensation it had been doing in the dream. “Did I… tell you I felt this in the dream too?”

“Yeah, well, the nice voice said it wasn’t a dream, so that’s probably why you felt it, r-right?” Pachuku pointed out. “At l-least we know why all that stuff’s been happening to you, huh?”

“Only question is why you guys can’t remember any of all this happening with the tree. You guys don’t dream I know, yet nobody questioned it.”

“W-well… I mean…” Pachuku tapped his paws together, prompting Sanvu to facepalm.

“Right, you had that dream, but I mean everybody else.”

Neither could provide a satisfactory answer as they sped through the morning. Eventually, Sanvu could manage to move about without much pain, but it still worried him a small bit.

Eventually, they heard a rapping at the door. They both knew who it was.

---

After being escorted to the facility by the bird that once again could only do as he was told, the Minders looked around for their usual leader, given the circumstances. Notey stood off to the side.

It wasn’t moments later that from their left, hopped toward them a small Pokemon they recognised; the Fennekin from yesterday. She pranced over, performing a bow as best could be done by a quadruped. One could almost be mistaken for thinking she was showing off with how she made it look like some kind of strut.

“Thank you so much, you two. I couldn’t remember anything about why I ended up out there; or anything besides myself besides my name. Ha! Glad that’s over with!” She praised, a small giggle following it up afterwards.

Pachuku beamed back. “Oh, well, uh, sure, no problem. You, uh, gonna stay in Mentage? Yeah, things are pretty bad right now but uh… being in dungeons is way worse!”

“I’ll try to, but you guys better do something about that fog that’s rolling in. That stuff looks nasty! Anyways, I better get on it before I forget again, aha, good luck on your missions today!” she cheered out, running as she left, Sanvu only giving a small wave as she left. After she’d left the premises though, his features grew more focused, especially given what her species reminded him of that only made her recent quips all the more concerning.

Not that it was to be alleviated by their leader, who entered the room from the hallway in front of them, who, while she looked perfectly amicable, was peering around, as if looking for somebody. When she stopped in front of the Minders, she momentarily looked at them before conferring what she needed.

“So, your mission today. That would be Mystical Woods,” she started, “We must continue to push back against the growing amount of Amnesiacs, and this will probably help with that.”

Before either of them could speak, she continued.

“I have… heard from an unknown source within town that there is a matter related to this… Dark Matter, who appears to be in control of the dungeons. Since Mystical Woods is no longer Mystical Woods, but rather…”

She made a sweeping motion with her arm. “Mystical Swamp, now, due to an abundance of Water-types, this alongside a bogging down of the ground that’s made traversal immediately more difficult.”

Both of them could only stare in silence since she knew of Dark Matter. It wasn’t hard to figure out who this ‘unknown source’ might have been, since it was obvious at every turn with the way she talked.

“You’re to look for an Amnesiac that ended up in there, just like yesterday, though I can’t imagine it would be too difficult for you due to your types.”

“Excuse me but uh…” Pachuku piped in, nervously fidgeting with his paws. He had to word this delicately. “How… is looking for an Amnesiac going to help with the encroaching fog? What did we even do, yesterday? Sh-shouldn’t we be… like… finding a way to stop it?”

“One should ask why it hasn’t engulfed the town already,” Didra responded, with no hint of emotion in her voice. “Yesterday, you were in a dungeon which was on fire, correct?” Both nodded. “Yes, but that was in the middle of said fog, you required an Orb to get there. The dungeon was still active, until yesterday when it became part of the fog. Dungeons are being harvested for type energy, and they did not get ‘enough’ because that dungeon wasn’t meant to collapse yet. If we can force this one to collapse too, this may stifle our enemy’s progress at harvesting type energy for creating Amnesiacs. It also helps that we’re saving our civilians along the way,” she finished. As she did, the door to her left closed, and out came a Gothorita and an Inkay.

“Oh, yes, because of the limited ability of traversal, I would like you to travel with Trunie and Kichy. Both have been trained in Psychic, which should make it a virtual non-issue for either of you.” Sanvu raised a brow.

“She means they’ll just pick us up and fly us over anything difficult,” Pachuku clarified, with Trunie practically jumping on the spot.

“Oh, this’ll be so exciting! I’ve been waiting for the chance to see you in action instead of just hanging around in the back doing goodness knows what,” Trunie cried, “Not that doing Amnesiac work isn’t great, but I’ve been looking forward to this!”

“So, I expect today’s mission to be well understood?” Both nodded, any other thoughts shelved in the back. “Splendid, I’ll leave you to it.”

Before the two could get a chance to watch where she was going, the floating squid flew down to greet them.

“So, you two prepared?” he asked, with Pachuku stepping in.

“Ah, no, Notey brought us here as if we weren’t going to bring ourselves anyway, so we had no time. We should probably go do that.”

“Sure, meet us at the entrance, ooh this is going to be so exciting!” the Gothorita cried, as each pair went to their respective destinations. As they did, Sanvu’s tail flared up again, and as it did, he noticed Pachuku’s tail also sparking.

“Of course it has to happen where no one else can see it,” the Grass-type grumbled.

---

When they went into Mystical Woods, or what had become of it, Pachuku had only packed a minimal amount of supplies including an Escape Orb because of the aforementioned type-advantages, and it balanced it out, anyways, due to the wide spread of types on their team.

It wasn’t a pretty sight. The area used to be drowned in pink, but now that was replaced by sickly blue and purple hues all across the place. What used to be cliffs were essentially slabs of leaning dirt, melting its way into the many dozens of brown, muddy piles that dotted the floor, leaving the floor almost impossible to navigate, save for a few spots here and there of untouched ground that also donned blue-tinted grass. Because the cliffs were so melted; the trademark rocks that used to be the hallmark of the dungeon, while still white, were much fewer in presence, with many having fallen out of the walls, and even in some cases, fragments of these rocks could be spotted in the corners of rooms, as if they had shattered into dozens of pieces. Streams of water also filled the boundaries of rooms past the cliffs, and one could potentially see many of the rocks either in those or even half-submerged in the muddy puddles.

“So, here’s how things will work,” Trunie started, adopting a much more serious tone, clapping her hands together. “Both of us aren’t really, well, too much of fighters. It was us who found out what happened to this place, yesterday, after all, and we didn’t get very far. So, um, we can help out, but our helping out will be as Didra said, helping you get around this mess.”

“Can you even discern rooms like this?” Sanvu inquired. Both he and Pachuku were aghast at the state; it quite literally looked like the dungeon was indeed ‘falling apart’ in the most literal of the definition, a far cry from what it used to be.

“They just look a bit lopsided, the dungeon is still a dungeon,” Pachuku said, but even he was tossing his head around.

“Well, I suppose we should demonstrate how we’ll help, huh?” Kichy supposed, opting to lift Pachuku first without much difficulty, his body, primarily eyes, gaining a lighter-blue aura in the act of doing so. This mesmerised Sanvu; he’d hardly seen actual psychokinesis in action just in general, and seeing it so effortlessly done by a squid had him practically agape. When Pachuku was dropped in what was essentially another room with a wide bunch of grass, he noticed Pachuku’s tail acting up again, which the squirrel promptly ignored when picking himself up and turning back to where everyone else was. Kichy had also lost the blue enhancements, looking particularly no worse for wear himself, though it seemed he’d also noticed the strange electrical output, with the way his face curled in worry.

“See, hardly a scratch on me!” the squirrel managed to cry out, though there was a raspiness to it which Sanvu didn’t quite ignore, though he figured it was probably due to whatever was afflicting Pachuku at the moment rather than it being any result of the psychic hold.

“You ready?” Trunie probed Sanvu before he nodded. She then proceeded to adopt the same blue enhancements as Sanvu himself was lifted in the same manner.

It felt something akin to merely being lifted up by invisible hands that were guiding his every motion over closer to Pachuku. Less like flight; and more like some sort of invisible grip that had him constrained until he was also dropped down. He was too mentally awestruck to feel anything, until his tail threatened to snap him desperately out of his stupor, as he fell forward on his face, luckily only meeting grass, as he mentally and physically groaned.

The two Psychics floated over, and both were tending to them. “You alright? We didn’t do anything, did we?” the goth girl cried. Pachuku’s tail had died down to a small sparkle, while Sanvu had to pick himself up carefully due to the fact he was still experiencing it.

“I’ve never heard of Psychic giving Pokemon any adverse effects. What’s going on with you two?” the squid piped in, with Pachuku opting to speak for the still wincing Grass-type.

“W-Well, uh, apparently when we’re close to learning new moves, both of us get this… um… what did you call it Sanvu? It’s kinda like paralysis, but also not really, cause Electric-types like me don’t get paralysis-“

“That feeling when you sleep on something the wrong way… pins-and-needles is what I’d call it…” Sanvu muttered, interjecting through gritted teeth.

“Yeah, yeah! Anyway, it usually goes away after a while, probably has nothing to do with Psychic, cause this has been happening for a while.”

“Oh, well that’s a relief-“ the squid started, before Trunie immediately interrupted him, speaking very loudly.

“Oh, well that’s totally normal! Learning new moves always comes with difficulty, doesn’t it?” she pointed at more of the mud-puddles. “You guys should take the lead; especially so we can help us all cross the large gaps, and you just handle battles, okay?”

At that, Sanvu’s tail finally seemed to die down, allowing him to pick himself up, only to notice their smiling faces. Pachuku was shivering; he looked practically about to collapse.

“S-Sanvu…”

“Keep an eye on them,” he whispered. “We’ll just go ahead.”

The few apparitions they did encounter were all Water-type, as Didra had noticed. Much of the dungeon was merely floating, though not because any of them waded in any water. Pachuku and Sanvu would alternate enemies, as they appeared to have a bit more to them to prevent them from going down in one hit, but because the dungeon seemed eager to give them an easier time, they otherwise pretty much curbstomped the dungeon.

Despite the strange outbursts from their companions whenever they brought up the prickling sensations, which seemed to be their real enemy in the dungeon today given the circumstances, they made themselves useful company, since one too many a time would the Minders fall into one of the mud-puddles by accident. Where for Sanvu; it was just mild discomfort due to the consistency being almost liquid-like, for Pachuku it was like stepping in a mound of fire and he would have to shake himself out down to each individual drop, though he complained more about it than it actually providing him any significant pain, Sanvu noticed, due to the lack of visible effects after-the-fact. They were lucky the Psychics could essentially fling it without having to touch it, though Trunie sometimes got herself caught in one and would squeal as she tried to nick it away. Sanvu for a brief moment when this occurred almost felt a sense of familiarity, though he expected this to be the case if the theory about this whole world being comprised of his memories was indeed completely or even only partially true. As usual, he wouldn’t be able to discern the source of said familiarity, so he essentially only tried to pinpoint the general feeling and would otherwise ignore the rest, in the hopes he might encounter something later that would provide it more clarity.

It was on the third floor that a crashing sound was heard in the distance. Both the Minders’s extremities flared up, causing them to fall forward. The squid floated up to discern the noise; clearly they wouldn’t be able to figure it out while they were still recovering.

“Sounds like a cliff collapsed,” Kichy speculated, floating up to attempt to see it, only to encounter a physical barrier when he went too high, so he promptly came back down.

“Could it be collapsing already?” Trunie contemplated, forcing a groan out of Sanvu.

“I’d like to think so, given how nice this place looked a while ago,” the Snivy’s tail began to die down, but Pachuku was still experiencing sparkles on his tail that had him flopped forward on his belly. “It’s only the most sensible conclusion.”

“I m-mean, isn’t it what Didra wanted us to do, anyway?” Pachuku finally managed out, was his own tail died down shortly after. Trunie could only shrug.

“It wouldn’t be good if we left somebody trapped here. We’d better pick up the pace.”

“Maybe not if they’re in pain, Trunie, goodness, normal or not, we shouldn’t be pushing them!” Kichy reprimanded, gesturing to them with an arm

“N-No, it’s fine,” Sanvu winced, as they continued, the episode of fizzling dying down as they continued to traverse.

The three subsequent floors were largely uneventful. A cliff collapsed here and there, an apparition appeared and Sanvu and Pachuku would gamble on which one would destroy it, unless it was a Ducklett, or a Wooper, in which only one of them would be able to reliably rid them of being attacked, and they otherwise floated over the many muddy chasms, though not always with success. Along, with, of course, the dreaded prickles.

Sometimes, they couldn’t tell if the dungeons were shrinking due to the strange room layouts and the fact they had to essentially hax their way around most of the ground obstacles but also especially because of the leaning cliffs, the floors often looked bigger than they could tell, despite that they were pretty resolute in following a linear path to the stairway in every floor.

It was on the 6^th floor that something significant occurred.

They proceeded forward, but found after Sanvu and Pachuku were ahead by a significant margin, Trunie and Kichy were stuck, pushing against a sort of invisible wall. There was virtually no mud in this area, a leaning cliff that was primarily comprised of dirt, but it seemed much drier in this particular locale.

“Hey, you guys alright?” Pachuku called back as Trunie pushed against something invisible.

“Don’t… know!” she cried out, continuing to push against it. “It’s like we can’t go any farther!” as if to emphasise this point, Kichy moved to her right to attempt going around, but it was as if the line barred any entry, from above or below, left or right, it was impossible for the Psychic-types to cross.

“This is just like yesterday…” Pachuku whispered to Sanvu, who recalled the same with Oshee. The Grass-type then called out, “You guys should probably go back, the Amnesiac is probably right here. We can handle the rest.”

“Alright, but be careful!” Kichy called out, deciding to wave with one of his head flaps before choosing to fly the other way. Trunie reluctantly followed, waving as she left. “You better not go too much farther, you guys hear?!”

Both called out affirmatives as they ran the other way, both of them far more serious since they both knew whatever wanted them to continue was after them specifically, and they knew it as much by now.

Inside the hallway to the next room, they encountered…

A cliff.

Though this one looked more like a patchwork-wall of mud and dirt, barely any higher than two heads above Sanvu’s own head, and it looked to be somewhat melting.

“There’s something here, let’s just be-“ Pachuku was about to say the word careful, but the sparkling in his tail and cheeks prevented him from really getting out. It was a lucky break that he didn’t need to say it, especially since Sanvu had only somewhat collapsed.

Sanvu wandered closer, trying to not send it tumbling his way, and though he felt the pins-and-needles, it was lessening the further towards it he went. It wasn’t a second when he decided he’d slam it.

With his tail, which had slightly started glowing due to the energy he pummelled into it, he sliced open the wall, allowing the entire wall to fall forward into a pile of dirt that seemed to allow entry. The air smelled a bit like plants had been uprooted after this, as Sanvu stood back.

“H-How’d you… come to do that?” Pachuku breathed.

“I just wanted to smack it out, somehow,” Sanvu admitted, somewhat exasperated. “What about it were you worried about? I hoped it wouldn’t fall on us.”

“N-No, it’s not that, that move, that was Leaf Blade,” Pachuku pointed out, his smile trying to break through his own discomfort, “D-Does that mean you… don’t feel it anymore?”

Sanvu didn’t really feel much of anything, which he found odd, but explained as such to the little squirrel. His head tilted in worry. “That’s weird though, why would everyone except Oshee say that it’s normal? I’m still worried about that.”

“For what it’s worth, I probably won’t have to worry about it until I learn another one. Maybe you’re not far behind,” Sanvu pointed out, as he continued through the narrow path that had been paved through, avoiding all the little pitfalls. It felt like the air was growing drier with each step that they took.

It wasn’t long before their badges glowed upon finding a small Pokemon about their own size. It was primarily blue in colour, a quadruped, with a large fin-like protrusion on the top of its head, and orange spiky protrusions coming out of its cheeks. Its tail looked somewhat like its head, only it was donned with a lighter-blue colouration. It had its face planted on the ground, and looked like it was shivering.

Though upon hearing the footsteps of the approaching badged Pokemon, its features immediately relaxed, and it ran over. Neither of them needed the badges to know that this was the Amnesiac; the pressure radiated off this thing like static.

“Hi, hi! I’m Channu! Are you here to rescue me! Oh thank relief! I kept hearing noises and I was worried I was going to die in this place! I wanted to get out, but there were so many Pokemon that would just appear any time I tried to and-“ he collapsed at their feet “Oh please get me out of heeeere!”

“Sure, we’ll-“ Sanvu started, before noticing that Pachuku, while his features were sparking, was tossing his head all around the sky, attempting to spot something. It looked as if he was anticipating the events of the previous day happening again.

“Oh, what’re your names? It’s kinda strange, I feel like I’ve always been here, but I have this weird feeling that I wasn’t? It’s kinda weird. Like I knew I needed to be rescued but not really? Hard to explain,” the Mudkip continued, Sanvu working his badge.

“Alright, well, you’ll get your answers to that shortly. I’m Sanvu and this is Pachuku,” he introduced, as he ensured the Mudkip was sent back, leaving only the two alone. Immediately after, Sanvu also looked around, just in case they were going to get swooped like last time.

Nothing came, at least for a few seconds. Pachuku continued to wince every couple of seconds the longer his tail sparkled; it seemed the burden was almost too great.

But then, in the distance, sounded a large cracking sound, like something large was falling, akin to a tree. Pachuku immediately spun around, releasing a large blue ball of electrical energy aimed towards the sound, but it instead hit some large tree resting on one of the large trees, dissolving harmlessly into the dungeon. Pachuku’s face slowly morphed into awe at realising what he just did.

“Y-YES! Electro Ball! Perfect timing,” he quipped, as Sanvu opted to smile for his friend’s little achievement. Pachuku practically danced in place, though the area around them remained silent for a few seconds, before a tremor in the actual ground threatened to snap them out of their moment.

“W-What’s happening?!”

“We’d better get out of here before we’re stuck in this place without an escape,” Sanvu grumbled as he fumbled for the Orb, bringing it out and willing them to escape. Seconds later, they were warped out of the dungeon.

Quick thinking enough to launch them out of the way of the imploding swamp as it tumbled to its doom in mere seconds.

---

When they got back to Mindscape, they didn’t notice anything strange upon going in, Didra was there waiting for them, a smile plastered on her face.

“I’ll have the Mudkip processed as soon as possible,” she assured them, as Sanvu figured she meant the individual they saved. “You two did really well today, even with our other members helping you.”

Both of them couldn’t help guiding their eyes to the walls on both their left and right; while the hall way still resembled the way it had always looked, the doors leading to either end were no longer present, just maintaining a solid wall.

It also looked clean, as if the doors themselves had become one with the walls they had once been a part of. Didra noticed their worried gazes, and perhaps, extrapolated their thoughts, if even only as much as she could allow herself to what with the fact she couldn’t directly read their minds.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, after all, you still have the capacity to help Amnesiacs, and you’ve been doing so well! I’d hardly consider that a point of concern, yes?” she assured, if only half-heartedly.

Sanvu looked at her, trying his best to mask his concern as much as possible. “May we leave, so we can continue to prepare for tomorrow, whatever that may entail?”

“Oh, of course, don’t let me keep you here. Go on, you’ll need your energy,” she waved, leaving them alone. Notey hopped after her, leaving both of them to excuse themselves.

“You saw that, right?”

“How could you not?!” the squirrel practically shouted, through the loudest whisper one could hear. “How does that… that kind of thing happen?!”

“Same way the signs can’t show Pokemon names after they’ve been eradicated,” Sanvu surmised, the frustration eking out of his voice. “Because we’re clearly not doing enough, regardless of what she says.”

“S-Sanvu…” Pachuku echoed, shaking his head as he stared ahead. “At least home doesn’t look too scuffed, right?”

Indeed, the home looked untouched, exactly the way they’d left it.

“I don’t like that we’re being kept out of this, even if I should be okay with it,” Sanvu mumbled, upon seeing it relatively okay compared to Mindscape’s doors. “It looks like we’re on the road to failure.”

“W-well,” Pachuku messed with his paws before stumbling on an answer. “It’s not like we have to stick with Mindscape, right? I mean, we do, because of the Amnesiac stuff, but if they collapse, well, we can still keep trying then, right?”

Sanvu gave him a face that suggested incredulity, with his features refusing to lighten, as Pachuku continued. “I know it looks grim now, b-but, we can get through it, right? It’s like you said, anything to get to the bottom of this will probably yield your memories and all, so I hardly think there’s any failure to worry about, whether Mindscape collapses or not, huh?” he tried to smile, though his worries still crept through. Sanvu pretended not to notice them as he went inside.

“Yeah, well, at least if we get more dungeons like that and not yesterday’s furnace, then I’ll be perfectly fine with that.”

“Ha, ha, that’s the spirit! Especially now that we can use those two new moves we got!”

They babbled on for much of the night, the two relishing in the few moments of their collective sanity as the world outside watched jealously the two miniscules as they mingled with one another for another night before tucking themselves in to await the coming day with the sliver of hope that somehow, someway, they would stop this crisis.

“The projection must be destroyed.”

The origin of that voice could not be pinpointed, nor did a single one of the souls in the town hear this demand as it reverberated through the very essence of the aura in the air, instead of the vibrations that ears could receive.

Or that minds could process.