#place your bets now folks! where do you think the seventh Time Gear is? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

totallycorrectpmdquotes · 4 years

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Super excited for more Backfire chapters!! 💖 Also DX. Is a thing it's happening i t s h a p p e n i n g

Y e s it’s going to be so great!!!

Also I’m just. going to use this ask for my other catch up chapter of Backfire since it’s one of my favourites

(Previous Chapters)

Uxie’s powers aren’t just limited to his lake, and affect all memories which could be traced back to the Time Gears. It’s easy to imagine the mental catastrophe this could cause in the mind of someone who’s spent nearly their entire life looking into them. In his defense, Uxie was really mad at Grovyle.

Azelf was anxious. He had everyright to be, of course, after what he’d heard from his siblings’ telepathy.

“I’ve finished at LimestoneCavern,” Uxie had said, “Ditto was trapped when time froze. Iput the time gear back, but nothing’s changed yet. I don’t know how long it’llbe until everything’s back to normal.”

“Nobody was at TreeshroudForest,” Mesprit had said, “There were hardly any ferals, andthere was no one at the end. I’m worried. I don’t know if she left of her ownaccord or not. I hope she’ll be back when time starts working here again.”

As worried as he was about Ditto,it was the state of Treeshroud Forest that had him particularly wound up. Andso, unfortunately, Azelf found himself teleporting off the central island helived on to its smaller, much more volcanic neighbour. He struggled his waythrough Dark Crater to reach the lesser-known sixth time gear.

In the heart of an almost-activevolcano, Azelf didn’t have much of a chance to admire the time gear held aloftby a quartet of obsidian spikes. He was here on business. So he raised his headand called out to the time gear’s guardian.

“Darkrai! Are you here?”

The room got the slightest bitdarker.

“Unfortunately,” came a voicefrom behind him, and Azelf turned to see the dark-type lurking in the shadowsbehind him.

Azelf did not jump; he frownedand ignored Darkrai’s thirst for drama. “Is everything okay?”

“Last I checked, we weren’tsupposed to leave our gears.” Darkrai snapped, “Don’t tell me you actually sealedyours in crystal?”

“That was a rumour,” Azelf saidcalmly. “We used it to draw the thief out. It worked, everything can go back tonormal now.”

Darkrai scoffed. “Too bad. Youshould have sent him my way.” He gestured to his own time gear inches above itslake of magma. “I’d love to watch a grass type try to get his hands on that.”

A rather large bubble of moltenrock burst right under the gear and sent a ripple across the lake.

“Right.” Azelf said, barelypaying attention to Darkrai’s faux querulousness. If he wanted to be needlesslydramatic, who was Azelf to stop him? “You’ve heard Cresselia’s gear was taken?”

“I found the wanted poster in abottle and read all about it. I’m sure she’s been insufferable about it.”

“Do you know where she is?”

Darkrai was silent for severallong seconds.

“How long has she been missing?”He asked, his tone much more careful now.

“We don’t know,” Azelf admitted.“There was no trace of her when Mesprit returned her gear. Do you have any ideawhere she could be?”

Darkrai frowned. “No. Have youchecked with Dialga?”

“You know it’s not that easy.”Azelf sighed, “We’ll keep a lookout for her. In the meantime, the threat may begone, but be careful, okay?”

At first, Azelf thought he’dmisread Darkrai’s look, but no. The other pokemon sneered at him.

“You too,” Darkrai said, and thecave lit up once more.

In a handful of seconds, Azelfnoticed a few things.

Darkrai was no longer in front ofhim, nor was he behind him. Darkrai was gone – as was the time gear. There wasa hole torn through time and space right beside it, which disappeared thesecond Azelf saw it. An overwhelming stillness had surrounded him. A wave ofelectric grayscale raced across the lake towards him.

Azelf didn’t have a chance tocall for his siblings. He didn’t have a chance to run. All Azelf could do wasscream as the wave hit him full-force.

A bubble of magma sat in themiddle of the lake, under where the time gear had been, frozen half-popped.

.-.

Chatot, currently, had twoPokemon under house arrest in Team Relic’s room.

Riolu had decided to tryrepeatedly to throw himself out the same window his partner had leapt from, asif that would miraculously reunite them in anything but the afterlife. As soonas the first lights hit, Corphish had gathered a team of water types to do theunfortunate deed of searching for the two. They had come back empty-handed, andDugtrio just so happened to realize that the currents at thattime last night could have carried them right across the bay towards themystery dungeon known as Brine Cave.

Experiencing that dungeon wasn’tsomething Chatot would wish on his worst enemy. But Riolu had been determinedto go reunite with his partner, so inevitably Chatot had made the executivedecision that there was no chance the boy would be leaving the guild.Especially with the still significant possibility that Vulpix, as a fire type,hadn’t survived her fall.

The other Pokemon was Dusknoir,who was much more understanding. He didn’t have any explanation for what hadhappened and seemed genuinely shocked when they only asked him to stay in theguild until they knew more about it. Chatot would deal with whateverimplications there were with that situation when he had a moment to think. Fornow, the Guild was closed to outsiders, the other apprentices had left up thecoast in search of anything, and the Guildmaster had gone toscour Brine Cave just in case. Chatot, as the head of intelligence, had stayedbehind to dig through files.

Well, officially he had beenasked to stay behind and rest. His injuries weren’t nearly that severe,however, and Chatot saw no reason why he couldn’t be productive.

Vulpix had seen something beforeshe jumped and had done so to push Dusknoir out of the way. When she’d savedGrovyle as well, the ledge they’d been standing on had been attacked. Thosewere the facts. Someone had tried to assault and kill the Pokemon from thefuture, and Vulpix had been an unfortunate extra casualty. The questionwas why?

So Chatot found himself buried inhundreds of mission reports and wanted posters as he tried to figure out whathe was missing when it came to Grovyle and the Great Dusknoir.

.-.

For a grass type, Grovyle hadhorrible sun tolerance. Breeze would be annoyed and embarrassed, but her’swasn’t much better – though, she was a fire type, she didn’t need thesun. It was just a nice and pretty bonus that could sometimes make her firetype moves stronger. Most grass types, on the other hand, would probably wasteaway and die without the sun.

Apparently, Grovyle was anexception to a rule that really shouldn’t have any of those. And Breeze was nota fan of that at all.

Most of the plants beside thedried riverbed they’d been traveling along were withered and dead. As soon asthey’d found a patch of shade, Grovyle had requested they stop for a rest.Breeze had tried to sit beside him, she really had! She was tired too, and he’dbeen so nice throughout the whole trip so far. He’d given her every healingitem they’d come across – which, admittedly, was only an oran berry and acouple heal seeds – and had double-triple checked to make sure she wasn’thaving any issues with their pace. He hadn’t been anything like the Pokemonwho’d nearly killed her and Dusk.

Unfortunately, vouching forsomeone’s second chance and actually giving it to them weren’t the same thing.As much as she tried to ignore it, Grovyle still terrified her. Every time shelooked at his leaf blades, all she could think was how he’d easily he’d thrownher and Dusk aside every time they’d tried to fight. She’d been knocked outbefore he’d struck her partner’s neck, but Breeze could picture it anyway – shehad been just outside the door when he’d told Chimecho all about it, becausehe’d thought she was worried enough about him without having to learn detailsabout how Dusk had nearly gotten his throat slit while trying to revive her.

So while Grovyle called for abreak in their journey to rest, Breeze lasted all of one minute waiting besidehim before she’d anxiously made an excuse and wandered off to ‘scout ahead.’

Breeze kept her head down as shefollowed the cracked, dry dirt further inland. Her tails dragged behind her andknocked bits of sand into her footprints. The wind from earlier had died downand left the smell of the ocean replaced by the scent of dust.

It wasn’t fair to Grovyle for herto be acting like this. Breeze knew that. He barely had any idea what was goingon, but he’d still tried to help her. She should at least be able to return thefavour instead of wandering off to who-knows-where because she was scared forno reason!

Breeze felt her eyes sting andstarted trying to blink away tears as she took another step forward – andautomatically stumbled back as her eyes and nose burned. Severalsteps back, for the first time, Breeze looked up and really took in where shewas.

She was on the edge of asandstorm, frozen in place mid-air. The wind didn’t blow. The sky was dark –the only light came from back the way Breeze had come. It reflected off eachfloating sand particle and speckled the ground in front of her with tiny silversparkles. A trickle of motionless water ran to her left, through weeds and mudthat were still fresh – but frozen. A lone magikarp was stuck mid-air, barelyabove the water, frozen in a desperate last jump to freedom.

Everything was frozen.

Breeze practically threw herselfback into the sunlight, back into the dust-scented wind, back onto the dry andcracked ground. She could feel her body tremble as she stood on the edge of thefrozen time and she nearly collapsed.

That was why the riverbed wasdry. That was why the plants had been dead, and the sun was so intense. Thisriver had probably come from the same spring Mesprit’s lake did. It was at theedge of Northern Desert and Quicksand Cave. Time was still destroyed here,thanks to Grovyle.

Breeze dropped to the ground andrubbed her face with a paw. What was she thinking? Dusknoir was right. Chatotwas right. Everyone was right. This was stupid. Just because he didn’t rememberit didn’t mean it didn’t happen. Grovyle had been trying to destroy the world! Shecouldn’t just ignore that. She couldn’t get distracted by the fact that he wasnice now, when he had no idea who she was or what was going on. If he ever gothis memories back he’d start again, and he’d attack everyone again, andeveryone would be hurt because she’d been an idiot.

There was a shadow cast over her.Breeze froze, waiting for Grovyle to speak – and then she realized that theshadow was nowhere near his body shape. The scent sunk in past the dust amoment later.

“Cha-haw-haw, what’s this?”

Breeze felt her breath catch inher throat. Very slowly, she turned – and Team Skull towered over her.

Breeze swore.

“Well isn’t this a surprise,”Skuntank said. He took a step forward, and Breeze braced herself. “Boys, itlooks like we’ve run into a friend.”

“I’m not your friend, you rottenjerk.” She snapped and let a fire spin build up in her throat.“Leave me alone.”

“Why? Who’s going to make me?”Skuntank replied. “You’re all alone, brat. We watched you walk here.”

“All the more reason to leave mealone,” Breeze growled. “What are you even doing here? Don’t you have anythingbetter to do?”

“I could ask you the same thing,”he said, “Come on Vulpix, help an old friend out.”

Breeze steadied her paws and spatthe fire spin right in Skuntank’s awful face before she duckedunder him and ran back the way she’d came.

“ Agh, boys -”Breeze was already out of earshot.

Her pounding paws dredged up moredust as she fled back the way she’d came. But she saw the shadow over herbefore she saw Grovyle’s rest stop.

Breeze tucked and rolled, dartingto the side as Zubat swooped down where she had been only a second before. Thestink hit her before Koffing did – but they both hit her hard. Breeze flippedand tumbled, her leg catching on a dying root and sending her right on herface. She felt a paw press down on her back.

“No Guildmaster, no cowardlyRiolu, no one coming to help you.” Skuntank said and leaned in as Breezesquirmed. “So why don’t we have that conversation now?”

“Get off.”

“No.”

“Why does this matter to you?!”She tried to push herself up – Skuntank pushed down harder, and Breeze didn’tmanage to stifle a pained gasp when his claws dug into her still fresh scabs.

“Because we’ve heardthe stories your Guild’s been putting out,” he said, “And how they’d offer up ajuicy reward to bring you back. So what was so important that you had to leaveyour Guild last night, huh? ”

“I didn’t run away, you idiot! ”Breeze squirmed again – if she could just flip over, she could roar, andthat would get them all far enough away from her that she could run again. “Andif you try to ransom me back to them, you’re not going to likewhat the Great Dusknoir does to you.”

Skuntank laughed again, and hiscronies joined in. “Why would an explorer like Dusknoir still care about aweakling like you?”

“He’s already saved me fromyou once, you think he won’t do it again?” She snapped, “Backoff, or you’ll have to deal with him.”

“That implies he knows where youare,” Skuntank leaned in, “if we shoot enough supersonics yourway, no one will believe anything you say. And you’ll talk then, too – so whydon’t you make this easier for yourself?” One of his claws hooked under herpersim band, “Tell us why you’re here.”

Zubat cleared his throat. “Uh,boss?”

Skuntank huffed. “What?”

“We’ve got company.”

Breeze had a brief, hopefulsecond where she was sure Dusknoir or the Guildmaster or Dusk or someone washere before Grovyle sprung out of the ground in front of her and clockedSkuntank square in the jaw.

Breeze scrambled out of his gripthe second she could, ducking behind Grovyle when he landed. “What are youdoing?!” She whispered, “They’re poison types, you’re a grass type, areyou insane?! ”

“Get ready to run,” He whisperedback.

Skuntank recovered from the blow,with Koffing at his side and Zubat ducked behind them. Breeze had a terrifyingsense of familiarity as she shuffled a few steps back.

Except, Team Skull didn’timmediately attack. They stared. “G-Groyvle?!” Zubat choked out.

“How do you know?” Breeze snappedback, “You don’t even have eyes!”

“You’re running around with theTime Gear thief?” Skuntank stared at her as he shuffled back. Breeze shot apanicked glance at Grovyle, who just looked confused.

“Y- no?” She said.

“The what thief?” Grovyle said.

Skuntank still looked shocked –and then his expression dropped. He chortled, and his cronies joined in. “I’llbet you’re worth a pretty penny.”

There was no chance for Breeze tospit back any flames – barely a chance for Grovyle to grab her and pullher down – before Koffing and Skuntank spat their noxious gascombo at them.

The pressure in Breeze’s noseturned from stench to sand, and Grovyle’s dig dropped them ina small, crooked hole.

Breeze coughed and wheezed,hacking up a few tiny flames. They smouldered and died in the sand, and theirsmoke hung heavy in the air. In the flicker of dim light, she saw the purpletinge around Grovyle’s nose and lips – and that he wasn’t moving, either.

“No,” she choked out, “no, no,come on.” She crawled forwards and nudged him with a shaking paw. “Why wouldyou do that? You – you’re a grass type, they had every advantage againstyou, why –” The smoldering bile she choked up this time had apurple tinge. “Why didn’t you hide behind me? You could’ve run. You could havesaved yourself. You – you could have…”

Breeze’s breath shook. Shethought then, about Grovyle asking why did you save me? Shethought of all the healing items he’d passed her way. He could have let herdrown. He could have abandoned her when she was unconscious – he hadn’twanted to stay, but he had. He could have let her suffer and kept the berriesfor himself. He didn’t know anything - he could have lookedafter himself.

But he’d chosen to look after herinstead.

A familiar sense of helplessnessclawed at Breeze’s heart and she didn’t like that at all.

“Help!” she choked out. TeamSkull didn’t matter – she could talk to them, not fight, and they’d take herhome. It was better than letting Grovyle die. It was better than doing nothingwhen he’d been trying so hard for her. “Please – please! HELP!”

Breeze choked up another poisonedfireball, and for a split second, she saw something floatingon Grovyle’s other side. She couldn’t make out the colours or details, butthere was something there.

“Help,” Breeze said again,“please.”

There was a heavy moment ofsilence. Breeze flattened herself down and coughed on the smoke from her ownfires.

“Alright,” a feminine voice said,and the tunnel lit up.

.-.

Dusknoir sat in the corner of aroom, a book in his hands and a panicked Riolu pacing around him. He’d tonedout every word the boy had said. Genuinely, he didn’t care. He, unfortunately,knew better than anyone how resilient Breanna and Grovyle could be.

Besides, Darkrai wouldn’t havebothered to target his sableye if the two were actually dead. And as far asprisons went, he’d certainly had far worse. If something came up, it would beno issue to escape before the situation turned serious.

A sudden silence struck him asodd, and Dusknoir looked up to see what had finally silenced the Riolu in frontof him.

The answer, apparently, was aDimensional Hole floating in the middle of the room.

Dusknoir mentally cursed, slowlyrising and inching towards the door. “Riolu,” he said, “you need to go getChatot.”

“Do you know what that is?” Theboy asked, his voice raw.

“Yes,” Dusknoir said, and floatedforwards, ready to grab and throw the Riolu the second anything changed. “Fornow, go - ”

The dimensional hole tossed outtwo prone forms and a significant amount of sand.

Riolu lunged for them at the sametime Dusknoir tried to snatch him. Riolu’s arms wrapped tight around a badlypoisoned Breanna. He pulled her away from Grovyle – fainted and unstable, worseoff than Breanna was – and nearly sobbed onto her shoulder.

Breanna held him back, tearing upas well. She looked up at Dusknoir. “Get help,” she croaked.

Dusknoir stared at her as hebacked out of the room and didn’t say the thought that stuck out in his mind –he hated the familiarity of this.

#PMD #Pokemon Mystery Dungeon #Not Quotes #anyway that first scene is what made me decide to ACTUALLY post these chapters on here instead of just telling yall to go to AO3 #I really like that first scene...#that said six is a GARBAGE number of time gears to have #seven? so much more satisfying #place your bets now folks! where do you think the seventh Time Gear is?#Here's a hint: it's a post-game dungeon #Anonymous #Backfire

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