#she mentions that Celebi is going to think this is hilarious

[sincerely-sofie]

I'm imagining a scenario where team Skull go to Twig while Opal is on a play date or something, and ask Twig to teach them opal's unique way of talking so they can better understand her.

And Twig is just reveling in getting to teach these 35-40something year olds how to talk old 'english' style. She'd oblige of course, since they're friends at this point. But she would make her enjoyment of this situation abundantly clear.

Although Twig is more familiar than Team Skull is with the outdated, oftentimes obsolete vocabulary that Opal uses, she’d still defer to Ark as a teacher on this subject. Ye Olde Medieval Pokespeak is something she can struggle with and use incorrectly when she jokingly incorporates it into her own speech, and she doesn��t want to accidentally give Opal further trouble than she already has while interacting with people. She could also use some lessons herself— she understands how things work and how most words are used, but not why, and would sit in with Team Skull as Ark quizzes them on vocabulary and grammar, taking extensive notes as she is so fond of doing.

Also, it’s kinda funny to watch Skuntank squirm when interacting with Ark after an interaction where he realized what Ark’s species was.

[nelvana]

In which the dungeon of space is explored

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which the god of space is met Previous: In which the god of time is met

    Spinning. Hurtled through an empty darkness. Falling and yet flying. Spinning, spinning. Nothing tangible anywhere close. Nothing. Spinning.

    Nelvana kept her eyes firmly shut, with the amount it felt like they were being pushed through the space in between one end of the portal to the other, she almost doubted that she could open her eyes if she wanted to.

    What she could feel though was her hand still tightly gripped with Alex’s. This was comforting, in a moment where nothing else possibly could be. Everything felt far too familiar, and yet new and strange. All she could do was hold on, hold on despite the spinning threatening to tear them apart. Don’t let go.

    He did his best to tug her closer, tugging against the spinning and spinning and the pushing and pulling, and she tugged back. Hold on. Don’t let go.

    Suddenly, they were out. Even with her eyes still closed, Nelvana could feel the difference as they were shot out of the other end of the portal, especially as they hit the ground and skidded to a long-awaited halt.

    “You made it!” Ceebee exclaimed, “there was a long enough pause that I started getting worried.”

    Alex let out a strained laugh, “come on, when have we ever not made it through somethin’?”

    Wearily, Nelvana opened her eyes back up, staring up at a dark and rocky ceiling. Sitting up slightly from laying down on her back, she could see that past the portal was just the empty expanse of space. All the floors and ground crumpled away just before the portal itself, making Nelvana’s stomach turn at the idea that they could have missed the landing and just fell into space forever. The portal itself was bright compared to everything else, looking so out of place that if one didn’t know any better it could have been assumed to be fake, or some sort of illusion. Glancing behind her, she could see that their worries about the dungeon being well hidden weren’t needed, as the mouth of a large cavern opened up not far away from where they had landed.

    “Hey,” Alex whispered, still sounding winded. “We held on.”

    Nelvana blinked, and though she could still feel her hand grasped in Alex’s, she couldn’t help but look over at it being mentioned. She smiled, feeling a sudden relief flooding through her; though she could not remember the incident herself, she knew she had ended up letting go in the time portal, which is what split them apart from the beginning. Part of her still didn’t want to let go now, though surely their death grips on each other would start hurting once the adrenaline wore off. Seeming to have the same train of thought, Alex let go as she did… only to grab her shoulders and pull her in for a hug. She could feel his heart pounding.

    “Yeah… we did,” Nelvana murmured in response, unable to think of what else to say.

    After lingering in the moment for a bit longer, there was a hum from the portal as a blur of orange and yellow feathers was shot out of it. Having not moved much after they had landed, Keahi hit Alex square in the back, knocking everyone back to the ground.

    “O-Oh, sorry!” Keahi apologized once zie had gathered zir bearings.

    Alex coughed, but then let out another chortle, “it’s fine, it’s fine…”

    Surprising herself, Nelvana couldn’t help but burst out laughing at this. She crawled out from the bottom of the pile and didn’t get up, allowing herself to continue her laughing on the ground. Her laughter was contagious, and once Alex began as well, Keahi soon joined in, rolling off the grovyle and allowing him to sit up again as they all began cracking up at such a simple thing. Ceebee couldn’t help but giggle as well, though Dusknoir watched on quietly for the moment.

    Just as they started calming down, the portal hummed again and Damien was thrown out. His landing was no better than anyone else’s, as he faceplanted onto the floor, prompting everyone to start laughing even harder.

    Nelvana began wheezing to catch her breath, unable to stop herself from laughing. It was hard to breath, especially after being winded before, and her throat was starting to hurt, but it felt good. It felt good to just laugh about something and be happy after all this stress, even just for a moment.

    Damien pulled himself back to his feet, “aw, come on, was that really that funny…?” he questioned, though his poorly hid smile betrayed that he knew that if it hadn’t been him, he would be laughing too.

    “It isn’t just that…” Ceebee chuckled, “when Keahi came in, they smacked Alex in the back and knocked him and Nelvana over. It was hilarious, and your entry only added to it,” she explained.

    Imagining that scene, Damien couldn’t help but snicker now too, “okay, yeah, I can see that.”

    As everyone slowly started to calm down again, Nelvana became aware of the fact that Dusknoir had been quietly watching them all this entire time. She hesitantly glanced back over at him, surprised to find only a curious look to his eye, and the grin on his belly almost looking soft and like a natural smile; almost as if he wanted to laugh and partake in the cheery spirits of the group. Despite nothing malicious coming off from him, she found herself quieting down soon after that.

    Not long afterwards, Tsuki came out from the portal, with Edgar clinging onto her back, his arms buried in her neck fur to ensure his grip. She stumbled as she hit the ground, but managed to not fall over and ensuring her passenger’s safety. Gasping, she shook herself off and Edgar carefully floated off from the absol.

    “Thanks Tsuki!” he told her.

    She smiled back, “no problem.”

    With the final two members of the group through, the portal closed behind them and leaving nothing to suggest its existence to begin with.

    “No turning back now,” Alex commented.

    “Do… Do you think the badges will work here?” Damien asked after a pause.

    “They barely work sometimes in other dungeons; I don’t think they’ll work too well around a dungeon in space,” Nelvana told him.

    “Can you all see the entrance, or shall I direct you there?” Giratina spoke up.

    “Oh right, you can’t see… yeah, we can find it just fine, thanks though!” Ceebee replied.

    “Hey Edgar, thanks to holding onto ‘em for so long, but do you want me to hang onto the rock for awhile now?” Alex offered, standing up and brushing himself off.

    “Hm… I think I can keep holding onto it! It’s been good for hearing them more easily!” Edgar decided, “thanks for offering though,” he added.

    “Are we all good to go then? Everyone recovered from that ride?” Keahi asked, shaking out zir feathers and hopping towards the mouth of the cave.

    “I am ready,” Tsuki responded, standing back up tall and stepping over to the torchic. “We do not wish to fall too far behind Dialga and Celebi; they have likely already gone through their portal now and may be facing Palkia at this very moment,” she continued, turning back to the rest of the party.

    “Tsuki has a good point, unless anyone needs a moment, we should be heading straight in,” Alex agreed.

    “I think we’re all good to go!” Ceebee declared, antennae twitching momentarily. “Line up, everyone!”

    “The last dungeon… here we come,” Nelvana murmured, getting up to join the others at the front of the line.

    Entering the cavern didn’t change much from what they had seen outside. It had the same dim lighting, and the same, strange, grey stone that held the cave together, with an oddly colored green rock ground. It was rock unlike others they had seen in caves, and there were even a few craters in the floor, ranging from barely noticeable dips to gaping holes in some rooms.

    “This looks like the moon!” Damien realized suddenly, “I thought this place looked strange… we’re literally in a space rock right now.”

    “Ohhh…” Keahi responded, “that makes sense! I thought these craters reminded me of something…”

    “You’ve been to the moon before?” Edgar gasped.

    Alex chuckled, “no, but you can see the craters when looking at it from home. Makes it kind of look spotted.”

    “Oh! So that’s what that was!” Edgar exclaimed, eye glittering with fascination at all of this. “I get it now.”

    “Aha! Stairs! We’ve got a good start,” Nelvana hummed suddenly, stepping into the next room to lead everyone down the stairs to the next floor.

    “Only twenty-four more to go,” Damien sighed.

    Not long into their exploration of this second floor, however, Alex frowned, signalling to slow down as he was reviewing their dungeon map.

    “Hey, this is really weird, but… that path we walked through not long ago seems to be gone,” he announced, pointing out the missing hallway on the map.

    “Has this happened before?” Dusknoir asked quietly.

    “Not from what we’ve seen… I suggest we check; it could be the map not working,” Tsuki said.

    “I’m fine with turning around,” Nelvana agreed, “it would be good to pinpoint what this is before it becomes a problem.”

    “Got it, backtracking then…” Alex responded.

    Heading back the way they came, reversing the lineup order since they had no room to rearrange themselves right away, the group traced their earlier path over to another hallway. Alex hastily had to stop himself as they walked up to where the hallway had gone missing on the map, stretching an arm to his side just in case he would need to block anyone else from passing. Just like the map reflected, the entire area ahead was gone. All there was, was an empty area leading out into space, surely stranding or killing anyone who fell in. The rocks that once made up the walls and floor of the hallway crumbled away, some even floating in the void ahead. Distantly, they could even see the room the hallway once led to.

    “It’s all gone…” Ceebee gasped, fluttering over Alex’s shoulders. “What happened?”

    “I don’t know…” he murmured in response.

    Tsuki, on the other hand, was already starting to bristle, and was trying to step back, further away from the deteriorating corridor. Damien stepped back, at first thinking she wanted more space, but she continued pushing him, and therefor, Keahi and Nelvana, so that they could move away.

    “The dungeon is held up by Palkia! It’s falling apart!” Tsuki called out, “we need to get out of here, now!”

    Just as the words began leaving the absol’s mouth, Alex had to stumble back as more of the flooring crumbled under his feet. Immediately he spun around, not hesitating to push Dusknoir to encourage him to began moving too. Dusknoir quickly made way for the grovyle, and in fact instinctively grabbed Alex’s hand to pull him further away from the edge. Were it not for the evident danger in front of them, Alex would have resisted Dusknoir’s grasp, but in this moment, he reluctantly let the larger pokemon help pull him out of the way.

    “Tsuki’s right! We need to move!” Alex yelled, scrambling to avoid falling into the empty expanse below.

    Thrown into a panicked hurry, the group bolted out of the hallway, heading back down the one they had been following since before they had been told to turn around, sprinting down the tunnel until they had arrived into another room to regroup and catch their breaths.

    “The dungeon is falling apart, you said?” Nelvana gasped once making sure to check that everyone had made it.

    Tsuki nodded, “yes! I can’t believe I didn’t notice before… We may have a limited amount of time on each floor before it completely rearranges itself on its own, or breaks apart altogether.”

    “Temporal Tower wasn’t acting like this though, even in… the other timeline,” Dusknoir pointed out, “why is this happening here?”

    “Temporal Tower did fall apart, but the dungeon ‘fixed’ itself once Primal Dialga had established themself,” Giratina responded, “here… Palkia is not focusing at all on the dungeon, and in fact, may be actively tearing it apart due to them turning primal. I don’t doubt that the fact that Dialga is likely fighting them now helps out situation much,” they explained.

    “Do you think that’s why we haven’t seen any spawn yet?” Nelvana asked, “the dungeon doesn’t have enough energy to support that?”

    “Yes and no. I could be wrong, but I doubt the dungeon will completely give up on its defenses. However, I suspect that this means a lot more monster houses, and fewer other spawn encounters otherwise,” Giratina answered, “I am not certain about traps though.”

    “I guess we’ll just have to see,” Alex sighed, adjusting his bag. “We can’t linger anywhere too long; we’re just going to have to keep moving and hope for the best here.”

    “I believe that I will be able to help direct you away from weakened dungeon areas, so they do not break when you are in them,” Giratina offered.

    “I can help with that too. I could sense when the floor back there was going to break more; it’s corrupted energy,” Tsuki added, hunched over as she sat and waited for her fur to slowly flatten again.

    “Sounds like a plan then!” Keahi chirped, “with any luck, we’ll be able to avoid any of the broken paths, and still be able to find the stairs! Not having much spawn aside from monster houses is probably good too; we won’t be slowed down by every encounter as much,” zie continued.

    Nelvana nodded, “that’s right. We can do this, we can make this work. Okay, team?”

    “Let’s do this!” Edgar cheered.

    Giratina’s predictions turned out mostly correct. They didn’t run into any spawn until they were swarmed on floor four, though it was not a monster house that activated when they entered, and almost as if all these spawns had spawned separately but had been waiting here for someone to fight.

    Between the new dungeon pokemon that many were not familiar with, there were some familiar species that showed up. A charizard and a sableye were in the first ambush, the former of which went down to Alex’s thunder punch, and the latter of which got burned aside from Keahi’s flamethrower.

    Later, they ran into a dungeon drapion and xatu, which were both slightly saddening to have to defeat, with the knowledge of the pokemon of the same species that were their friends. Those two in particular only showed up once though, and weren’t seen from any monster houses or otherwise after floor seven.

    As it turned out, though, monster houses paired with the deteriorating rooms were an extremely dangerous combination. With the high energy from the monster house paired with the low energy from the room, they cancelled each other out, leaving Giratina unable to detect that something was up. Tsuki could sense those rooms still, but between everything else pounding in her head, a couple times it was a bit too late, leaving everyone to scramble back out of the room as it fell apart, leaving the spawn to crumble with the room. Still, the idea of one of the kadabra or some other pokemon trying to drag someone into the abyss…

    “This dungeon is super creepy,” Edgar whimpered, any excitement at the prospect of a new area having long since died down. “I don’t like it here. Even when it isn’t falling apart.”

    “Kinda like Temporal Tower actually, huh buddy?” Damien responded, “is this a legendary thing? To have their dungeons be freaking creepy and strange?”

    “None of the ones we ran into before this had dungeons this bad,” Keahi told him, “this might be just ‘cause these ones are more… otherworldly.”

    Damien sighed, “yeah, probably,” he agreed quietly.

    A few minutes later, passing into another corridor, a space in the wall to the group’s left crumbled away, pieces of rubble forming together to create a new pathway.

    “That’s a new one,” Damien commented.

    “Woah, is that what dungeons look like when they reform?” Keahi gasped, shuffling back to poke zir head over to the new hallway. “Is it safe to enter?” zie asked, glancing over at Tsuki.

    “It’s new… so it should not break again any time soon,” Tsuki murmured, “however, I am not certain of if it is sturdy yet. We should come back later if we want to go down that path.”

    Nodding, Keahi hopped back up to behind Nelvana, and after exchanging some nods, they continued forward again with the rest of the group trailing behind.

    “Super weird!” Damien whispered as they walked off.

    In the end, they did not end up returning to that new pathway on that floor as they found the stairs sooner than that. However, there were a couple other floors where they would need to use fresh corridors. Sometimes the routes leading up to the stairs would all deteriorate before they could get there, as the group had worried about previously but had begun letting their guards down around the idea, thus leaving the group to impatiently and nervously wait for a new hallway to be created so that they could continue. While there was the silent consideration to have Ceebee uses telekinesis to transport everyone to the other side, the possibility for failure before even accounting for Tsuki’s dark-type was too big to risk even mentioning aloud.

    Because of the current nature of this dungeon, by the time they had arrived to the fifteenth floor, the safe floor, it no longer felt as safe as other dungeons would present special floors like these. The fear of their single room breaking apart didn’t encourage anyone to want to linger long, and thus they only spent as much time as required to check on everyone before moving on.

    “You know… it’s nice that no floor has completely broken before we’ve even gotten there!” Edgar commented, voice squeaking at first as though he worried his words may bring into life the very thing he worried about.

    “I have not quite seen a dungeon be destroyed like this before, but I have a theory on why that is the case. The dungeon only wishes to sustain itself for as long as possible, though will preserve energy where it can by giving up in certain areas. After we have passed by a floor, the dungeon has no reason to hold it up in that moment and allows it to break so that it can distribute that energy elsewhere,” Giratina explained.

    “So, you’re saying that the dungeon is trying to let us through?” Keahi questioned, glancing back up at the duskull carrying the stone.

    “Er, well, I wouldn’t know if the dungeon would be so… merciful, but as an inanimate structure made of energy, it may wish to be the one to fell us, and since it cannot perceive anything beyond itself, to it, us falling out as a result from the dungeon breaking would be a loss for it, since it would not get our energy,” they answered.

    Tsuki nodded, “that sounds like a reasonable theory.”

    Damien rubbed his forehead with the palm of one hand, “man, the more I learn about mystery dungeons, the more confused I get,” he muttered.

    “These are unusual circumstances, I wouldn’t worry too much on the logic of it all, as it will return to normal, well, as normal as these get, once the world’s balance is finally restored,” Giratina assured him.

    “Do you think this is the only dungeon like this right now?” Edgar asked, “were all the dungeons like this in the dead timeline?” he added.

    “No, not really…” Alex responded, “in fact, the dungeons weren’t too different from this time. The majority were a lot stronger, but the weirdest thing that would ever happen was that in some areas a dungeon would take much longer to ‘reset’,” he continued.

    “It’s a time versus space matter! Time and space are very closely connected, but are still different. With space being out of control, it makes sense that dungeons would break apart and reform out of control, while with time being out of control, so long as the dungeons could adjust and return to their usual rhythm, they could actually hold together fairly well!” Ceebee chimed in.

    “Also do note that our friends here from that timeline were from many years after the… Temporal Tower, er, destruction incident. The dungeons had time to adjust and reform themselves to the new situation; they’re like that,” Giratina added.

    “That makes sense!” Edgar hummed, satisfied with the answers.

    Nervously, the group eventually made their way through the remaining floors of the dungeon. Exiting the twenty-fifth floor brought everyone relief, but it was short-lived as they were quickly reminded of why they were here.

    A loud, pained roar reverberated around the walls from out into the darkness; Dialga. Another roar followed the first, this one even louder, but filled with fury and shaking with abysmal power that shook the very cavern they were all in; Palkia. The familiarity and suddenness of the first roar brought many in the group to jump from surprise, some letting out sharp gasps or tiny yelps, but the second only brought dread sinking in deep in their stomachs.

    “It came from up ahead,” Dusknoir stated, “the battle has already begun; we need to hurry.”

    With silent nods of agreement, the group continued heading forward again. No longer pressed to a single line formation now that they were outside of the dungeon, some began spreading out slightly, moving ahead and clumping up in some areas. Alex, being one of the fastest and hasty by nature, pulled up to the front of the group, assuming the leading position, though he kept his pace still slow enough to keep the group together. Ceebee fluttered up to keep pace with him, before she suddenly froze in pain and dropped, fortunately being caught in the arms of the grovyle, who paused with bewilderment and concern.

    Not long after this, before Ceebee could recover and explain what happened, there was another roar, another from Dialga, but this stood out from the ones before as not being a battle cry but a wail of agony. Their scream was a strangled cry that trailed off into faint gasping whimpers.

    “Master!” Dusknoir gasped, recognizing the sound from the time god.

    At the sound, Alex’s gaze turned sharply back to the path they had been heading down before, but he didn’t linger there for long and looked back down at Ceebee. Many of the others were gathered around now, worried about what had happened to Dialga but more concerned in the immediate moment for their friend. After seconds that felt far too drawn out, Ceebee stirred, wincing, and slowly flapped her wings to bring herself out of the grovyle’s arms and into the air.

    “We need to help Dialga,” Ceebee hissed, staring ahead with a grave determination.

    “Wait, Ceebee,” Nelvana spoke up, “Are you hurt? What happened?”

    Alex stepped over to Ceebee again, silently requesting an answer to Nelvana’s questions, but she didn’t respond. Swallowing her breath, the celebi flew further into the corridor, leaving everyone to hurriedly move to catch up with her.

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which the god of space is met Previous: In which the god of time is met