Chapter 41
Andy didn't really know what to do at this point in time. It had all happened so fast, and Andy had so much trouble trying to cope with everything that had just happened. He tried to take it in one at a time, but everytime he started thinking about them he began feeling completely awful and it triggered a bunch of negative feelings. He kept asking himself where it all went wrong.
Okay, first there was the beach ambush that we tried to do, but then we were the ones who got ambushed, we got pinned down, Sam...got axed, then...ugh.
The negative feelings started to well up again, and he tried to stop thinking about it. However, he kept dwelling on it over and over and over again. He kept wishing he could go back and fix it all. If not to stop the ambush, save Sam and to keep Rufus from his goal, then at least to keep his now non existent aura sensors.
Had we failed the moment we accepting the truce they proposed and fell for their trick?
The nurse opened up the door for his room and walked in.
"Hello Andy, how are you feeling now?"
"Honestly? Absolutely terrible. Guilt, regret, deep anxiety, inadequacy and grief, to name a few."
"I'm a professional for physical abnormalties hon."
"Right. I'm well, but I think the pain is starting to set in. It really hurts."
"Okay, good. I'll prescribe some painkillers for you. Afterwards we'll do physical therapy for you to help you get used to using your moves without any aura power."
"That sounds like a plan."
"Depending on how well you do, the treatment could take from a few days to a few weeks. At most it would only be for about a month and a half."
"Hmm, that's fine."
"Alright, let me know if you need anything."
"See ya."
She left the room and Andy laid back down on his bed, gently laying his head down on the pillow. He looked up towards the sky and saw the crack in the sky, still there. It kind of reminded him of the giant cut in the sky from Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, when the player would get Dialga/Palkia if a player brough Axelf, Uxie and Mespirit in their team when they would fly on Mega Latios/Latias. Then, if they traded with a friend who owned the different version and flew into the sky with both Dialga and Palkia in their team, they would find another crack in the sky with Giratina waiting for them...
Andy took a moment to check on how he was feeling. Explaining to himself game mechanics was incredibly nerdy, for sure, but it was a pleasant distraction from what he was feeling.
Wonderful! Here, let me think about something else. Uh...oh! Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a great game, but Simon/Richter is a wonderful character to play as, and I should know! Throwing the Axe has it travelling on a parabolic curve perfect for edge guarding. The cross can go forward and backwards and travels through enemies, which is perfect for crowd control and for people trying to sneak up behind you! Oh, but the Holy Water is my favorite. It doesn't have very good range, as it lands in front of you, but if your enemy gets stuck in it then you have a short time to do whatever you want to them. Personally, I prefer comboing them by throwing the Holy Water, and when doing a nice side smash on them. You would have to be careful though, as Simon and Richter have different effects for their Waters. Simon has the fire effect, while Richter's effect is...aura.
He groaned. Back to square one.
A pebble hit the window and Andy jumped, making his head hurt. He sat up and walked over to the window. West, Clair and Josh were outside the window looking in. He opened the glass.
"Hey, buddy," West said, "We're going after Rufus and Vincent. You coming?"
Andy felt a bit taken back. DUring all this time at the hospital he never thought about actually going up to stop them, or really about anything like that for the matter. All he wanted to do was to sit and recover, like the nurse said he would have to.
"...No."
"Why not?"
"I'm sorry, I can't do it this time. I'm out. I need to recover from this one. This injury is a bit more complicated than anything we we're used to back at the base," Andy said. "The nurse said that I won't be able to use Aura for...well, it seems like forever."
"Dude!" Josh said, "You've still got three other moves you can use!"
"It's not that simple! I've been using aura ever since I became a Lucario, but now that I can't use it I need to get used to that!"
"We've all been fighting without aura since we became Pokemon! What's losing a body part going to do?"
"Dude," Andy said as he tilted his head and motioned the empty space, "my identity literally got blown up! What is a Lucario without aura, huh?! I ju-yeah I-you just-but-ack! Point is, I can't go! Please, just leave me alone."
He didn't wait for them to answer before he began closing the window. "I've seen you guys fight, you are all so talented and powerful. You don't need me to handle any challenge you face. I have faith in you. Good luck." He closed the window and laid back into bed.
There were no other disturbances from them for the remainder of the day. He just stared at the ceiling trying not to let the weight of reality crush him as he sat in silence. It was a rather boring task; Andy soon found himself studying the grain of the wooded ceiling above him to pass his boredom. It was, to put it bluntly, extremely boring.
Soon after that time a Dragonite knocked on his window. "Your friends are in the Scar and they sent me to let you know. I hope you feel better soon."
"Thank you."
The Dragonite left. Later, Andy felt his eyelids go heavy, and soon he was in darkness.
***
"Okay, are you ready for this?"
"Yes, let's do it."
Andy's Ariados companion, one of the many friends that went with him on this raid, hoisted Andy down into the giant container that housed an important item. Andy didn't really know what the item was, what it's purpose was, or if they were stealing it for their own use or to prevent them from using it for some nefarious purpose, but it felt important, and Andy wanted it.
The surrounding container was constructed out of glass, for anyone to see through for ease of being able to push the alarm if something happened to the item. The area outside of the container was full of metal and some other material of constructing the room, leading Andy to infer that he was in an industrial building. Is it a base, a factory, or maybe an eleaborate warehouse?
Who cares, let's just get this thing already.
Andy decended down from the ceiling. He could have sworn he was hearing some cool spy theme from a movie playing in his head, but he ignored it as we finally reached the desired height...near his legs.
"I can't reach, can you move me so my arms are closer to it?"
"There's nowhere else I can go from here to move you."
"You're a spider, just crawl on the walls of the duct."
"Oh yeah."
Andy heard the scuttling of large insect legs and felt the rope shift and his body moving backwards so the item was in a more desirable position for obtaining. Andy lowered his paws and gently lifted it up.
Clank!
"It's locked onto the stand. Give me a minute, I'll unlock it."
"Hurry, I can't keep you up for much longer!"
Andy reached into a bag that had appeared at his side, and he searched through a bunch of tools. He eventually found just the thing he was looking for, apparently. Even though he had no idea what it was or how to use it, his arms seemed to know what to do, as they moved the item towards the restraints and got to work.
Wait, is the music actually here?
The latches on the the item unbuckled, and Andy took up the device. "Okay," he reported to his accomplice, "Pull me up. I've got it."
The Ariados shifted to his original position, and then began pulling Andy up. The ascension was slower than the descension, but that was okay. So long as it was a steady climb upwards, things would be fine.
That is, until the lock on the door shifted so loud if made Andy jump. The force of the jump caused the already unstable Ariados to lose grip on the Lucario and fall out of the vent. Andy hit his lower jaw against the pedestal on the way up, and his Ariados friend fell beside him.
"Oh shoot."
The people in the doorway, Andy didn't see what exactly they looked like, they loaded their weapons and got ready to fire. Andy didn't have enough time for that. Since the cover was already blown, he kicked the glass container to shatter it, and then he and his companion quickly dispatched the guards. The alarm was sounded, and Andy grabbed onto the string still connected to the Ariados. He tied multiple crosses around his body to tie himself to the string.
"Don't panic, this'll be just like we practiced, okay?"
Ariados nodded his head. Andy continued to wrap the string around his body, and soon the Ariados was picked up from the string. The result had Andy tied to the Ariados, back-to-back, as if he were wearing a spider-themed backpack.
The sped out of the room and headed down the hall. Somehow there was a memory of a map in Andy's mind, and he knew which directions to take to get to the rendevous point they set up with another accomplise. He ran down the hall, turned the corner, knocked out an incoming guard, continued down the hall and...
Ah, Andy thought, this is the room with all of the boxes in it. They will provide good cover from guard attacks, unless...
Andy had a suspicion about the particular stack of boxes in the side, a stack they would need to pass if they wanted to get to the other side of the hall. If a guard had beaten them to a box, they could be hiding for the right moment to strike them.
Andy leapt on top of the boxes, sung his legs over the side and landed with a kick. Sure enough, a guard was waiting there with his gun. Before he could react to shoot the intruders, he was knocked onto the floor. Andy picked up the gun and used it to target the guards coming into the hall. It was a bit weird to trigger the gun with his paws, but he managed to find a way to dispatch the approaching guards. His ears picked up rushing footsteps behind him. He spun around and opened fire with a spray of bullets, making the mark every time. Another guard, presumably one hiding behind the next stack of boxes, approached Andy and gave him a bonk on the head with his pistol. Andy grabbed his arm from the air, whacked the gun out of his hand, picked it up and gave his a serving of a good pistol whip, to return the favor. As he walked down the hall, another guard approached. Before he could even twitch his finger to pull the trigger, Andy pinned an arm behind the guard's back and bashed their head into another stack of boxes, which toppled over and crushed another hiding guard.
Andy picked up a weapon that was lying around and used it to get ready for what may be ahead. He was able to shoot all hiding guards before they could react, and eventually they were down the hall.
When Andy turned the corner, they were met with armed forces blocking their entire way through the hall. The guards on the front lines had riot shields up in place, and behind them loads of items and cargo to make it hard to slip past them. None of them had weapons, an obvious clue that they were now interested in taking them in rather than taking them out. Andy was not worried; this is what he and his Ariados friend had been practicing.
"Ready?"
"Yup!"
Andy ran for the crowd as the Ariados flexed its legs. Andy then tilted and began heading for the wall. When Andy got close enough to hear his friend's many legs begin making contact with the wall, he pushed a little further into the wall and then let go to take care of it.
The Ariados was now scuttling on the ceiling to the other side of the hall, and Andy was tied along for the ride. The guards down below had not prepared for this, and they didn't have any weapons to stop them. The obstacles stretched all the way down to the end of the wall, so having the Ariados give him a ride over the junk was a good idea.
When they had cleared all of the junk and was able to make a clear landing, the Ariados began climbing down the walls until Andy was able to touch the ground. From then the Ariados disconnected from the wall and Andy was able to continue running.
Almost there, just a little bit farther!
At last, the entrance was in sight. Their other friend, a Grovyle, was waiting for them at the entrance. It used its leaves to cut through the web that strung Andy and the Ariados together, and they came apart.
"Do you have it?"
Andy took the bag and retrieved the item.
"That's great! Now lets get back to-"
Beep-beep!
The three of them had just noticed a bomb strapped onto the wall right next to them, due to the flash that it gave off when the countdown hit zero. They all jumped back to avoid the blast as the bomb exploded and...
Andy woke up. But not quite so. He was back inside the nursing place in the Pokemon world, but something was wrong. The Ariados and the Grovyle were still there, and still suspended from the blast. The music that was going on during the dream was still there and still playing.
However, unlike the dream, there was a shadowy blob where the blast initially took place. The blob was growing, and something about it made Andy...scared, for his life. He tried to move or anything, but he couldn't move his body at all. He couldn't even turn his neck; only his eyes would respond to what he wanted to do.
It's just sleep paralysis, don't panic...
Andy just watched the shadow grow. It soon grew branches and appendeges that spread around Andy and started to block out the surrounding area. The Ariados and the Grovyle began to flicker and clip, and soon they began to decompose. The music was becoming distorted and evil sounding. If sound could rot, that was what Andy was listening to.
Soon Andy could make out certain features of the shadow. Where they eyes? Was that a set of teeth that was coming in? The form took a shape Andy could not very well describe, but it made him feel anxious. Run, escape, live. Those were the kind of thoughts running through Andy's head on repeat. They would not stop, and they only got louder and louder.
The shadowy figure rose up above the bed. It towered over Andy and made most Pokemon he had met dwarves in comparison. It roared a kind of roar that hurt Andy's ears, and then lunged.
Andy woke up a second time. This time there were no rotting friends, no distorted music, no monsters, and most importantly no more sleep paralysis. Andy sat there with a kind of jaded look on his face. He was well aware that some dreams have meaning behind them, but...what possible message could be interpreted from this dream?
It was in the middle of the night. Andy could tell by how dim it was compared to earlier in the day. He looked outside the window. The Scar was still up there, giving off an eerie green glow onto the land below similar to the moon when it was full.
Okay, if the Scar is there then that means Vincent hasn't done anything yet...but that also means that my friends haven't been able to take him down yet.
If that isn't concerning, I don't know what is.
That definitely is concerning.
What should we do?
I guess we should go in after them.
Really? Is that such a good idea?
Well, I'm not sure. Nobody else seems to be in the rush to go in and stop him. Plus, I do feel like it is kind of my responsibility to help take care of him, since he is from my world.
I guess that's a fair point. Where are you going to get your ride?
I can ask that Dragonite to help me out. I don't know if he'll mind, but maybe I can ask.
How will you leave the hospital?
Andy jumped out of the window.
Oh, that works.
Now, where is that Dragonite?
He walked around town and found that one of the stalls was still on. It was a food stall, and there were some Pokemon that were eating there.
Stress eaters, I'll bet. Smart of the business owners to cash in while they can.
He walked near the stall and found the Dragonite there, eating a plate of Oran Berries.
"Excuse me?"
"Mmph?"
"Are you the Dragonite that flew my friends up there to the Scar?"
"Yeah. They haven't come back in some time though, and I'm a bit worried for them."
"Well, that's what I came here to ask. Can you fly me up there so I can check on them?"
"Uh, well sure, but how are you going to be able to really fight without, uh...those?" Andy knew she was referring to his busted sensors. He had never felt self-conscious about them until now.
"I'll figure something out. I've still got three moves I can use." He said as he purchased items from the shopkeeper for supplies, and put them in a complimentary sack.
"Alright, well, lets get you up there then." The Dragonite took one last drink of lemonade, paid the shopkeeper, and then brought Andy to a cleared path. Andy hopped onto her back as the creature ran down the path, like an airplane on the runway. Soon her big wings began flapping, and they were off the ground. Andy felt the wind on his fur as they soared almost entriely upwards to the large rift. The town was getting smaller and smaller as a whirring sound of the space and time circulating around the Scar was getting louder and louder.
I have no idea what I'm doing, do I?
Next: here
Andy didn't really know what to do at this point in time. It had all happened so fast, and Andy had so much trouble trying to cope with everything that had just happened. He tried to take it in one at a time, but everytime he started thinking about them he began feeling completely awful and it triggered a bunch of negative feelings. He kept asking himself where it all went wrong.
Okay, first there was the beach ambush that we tried to do, but then we were the ones who got ambushed, we got pinned down, Sam...got axed, then...ugh.
The negative feelings started to well up again, and he tried to stop thinking about it. However, he kept dwelling on it over and over and over again. He kept wishing he could go back and fix it all. If not to stop the ambush, save Sam and to keep Rufus from his goal, then at least to keep his now non existent aura sensors.
Had we failed the moment we accepting the truce they proposed and fell for their trick?
The nurse opened up the door for his room and walked in.
"Hello Andy, how are you feeling now?"
"Honestly? Absolutely terrible. Guilt, regret, deep anxiety, inadequacy and grief, to name a few."
"I'm a professional for physical abnormalties hon."
"Right. I'm well, but I think the pain is starting to set in. It really hurts."
"Okay, good. I'll prescribe some painkillers for you. Afterwards we'll do physical therapy for you to help you get used to using your moves without any aura power."
"That sounds like a plan."
"Depending on how well you do, the treatment could take from a few days to a few weeks. At most it would only be for about a month and a half."
"Hmm, that's fine."
"Alright, let me know if you need anything."
"See ya."
She left the room and Andy laid back down on his bed, gently laying his head down on the pillow. He looked up towards the sky and saw the crack in the sky, still there. It kind of reminded him of the giant cut in the sky from Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, when the player would get Dialga/Palkia if a player brough Axelf, Uxie and Mespirit in their team when they would fly on Mega Latios/Latias. Then, if they traded with a friend who owned the different version and flew into the sky with both Dialga and Palkia in their team, they would find another crack in the sky with Giratina waiting for them...
Andy took a moment to check on how he was feeling. Explaining to himself game mechanics was incredibly nerdy, for sure, but it was a pleasant distraction from what he was feeling.
Wonderful! Here, let me think about something else. Uh...oh! Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is a great game, but Simon/Richter is a wonderful character to play as, and I should know! Throwing the Axe has it travelling on a parabolic curve perfect for edge guarding. The cross can go forward and backwards and travels through enemies, which is perfect for crowd control and for people trying to sneak up behind you! Oh, but the Holy Water is my favorite. It doesn't have very good range, as it lands in front of you, but if your enemy gets stuck in it then you have a short time to do whatever you want to them. Personally, I prefer comboing them by throwing the Holy Water, and when doing a nice side smash on them. You would have to be careful though, as Simon and Richter have different effects for their Waters. Simon has the fire effect, while Richter's effect is...aura.
He groaned. Back to square one.
A pebble hit the window and Andy jumped, making his head hurt. He sat up and walked over to the window. West, Clair and Josh were outside the window looking in. He opened the glass.
"Hey, buddy," West said, "We're going after Rufus and Vincent. You coming?"
Andy felt a bit taken back. DUring all this time at the hospital he never thought about actually going up to stop them, or really about anything like that for the matter. All he wanted to do was to sit and recover, like the nurse said he would have to.
"...No."
"Why not?"
"I'm sorry, I can't do it this time. I'm out. I need to recover from this one. This injury is a bit more complicated than anything we we're used to back at the base," Andy said. "The nurse said that I won't be able to use Aura for...well, it seems like forever."
"Dude!" Josh said, "You've still got three other moves you can use!"
"It's not that simple! I've been using aura ever since I became a Lucario, but now that I can't use it I need to get used to that!"
"We've all been fighting without aura since we became Pokemon! What's losing a body part going to do?"
"Dude," Andy said as he tilted his head and motioned the empty space, "my identity literally got blown up! What is a Lucario without aura, huh?! I ju-yeah I-you just-but-ack! Point is, I can't go! Please, just leave me alone."
He didn't wait for them to answer before he began closing the window. "I've seen you guys fight, you are all so talented and powerful. You don't need me to handle any challenge you face. I have faith in you. Good luck." He closed the window and laid back into bed.
There were no other disturbances from them for the remainder of the day. He just stared at the ceiling trying not to let the weight of reality crush him as he sat in silence. It was a rather boring task; Andy soon found himself studying the grain of the wooded ceiling above him to pass his boredom. It was, to put it bluntly, extremely boring.
Soon after that time a Dragonite knocked on his window. "Your friends are in the Scar and they sent me to let you know. I hope you feel better soon."
"Thank you."
The Dragonite left. Later, Andy felt his eyelids go heavy, and soon he was in darkness.
***
"Okay, are you ready for this?"
"Yes, let's do it."
Andy's Ariados companion, one of the many friends that went with him on this raid, hoisted Andy down into the giant container that housed an important item. Andy didn't really know what the item was, what it's purpose was, or if they were stealing it for their own use or to prevent them from using it for some nefarious purpose, but it felt important, and Andy wanted it.
The surrounding container was constructed out of glass, for anyone to see through for ease of being able to push the alarm if something happened to the item. The area outside of the container was full of metal and some other material of constructing the room, leading Andy to infer that he was in an industrial building. Is it a base, a factory, or maybe an eleaborate warehouse?
Who cares, let's just get this thing already.
Andy decended down from the ceiling. He could have sworn he was hearing some cool spy theme from a movie playing in his head, but he ignored it as we finally reached the desired height...near his legs.
"I can't reach, can you move me so my arms are closer to it?"
"There's nowhere else I can go from here to move you."
"You're a spider, just crawl on the walls of the duct."
"Oh yeah."
Andy heard the scuttling of large insect legs and felt the rope shift and his body moving backwards so the item was in a more desirable position for obtaining. Andy lowered his paws and gently lifted it up.
Clank!
"It's locked onto the stand. Give me a minute, I'll unlock it."
"Hurry, I can't keep you up for much longer!"
Andy reached into a bag that had appeared at his side, and he searched through a bunch of tools. He eventually found just the thing he was looking for, apparently. Even though he had no idea what it was or how to use it, his arms seemed to know what to do, as they moved the item towards the restraints and got to work.
Wait, is the music actually here?
The latches on the the item unbuckled, and Andy took up the device. "Okay," he reported to his accomplice, "Pull me up. I've got it."
The Ariados shifted to his original position, and then began pulling Andy up. The ascension was slower than the descension, but that was okay. So long as it was a steady climb upwards, things would be fine.
That is, until the lock on the door shifted so loud if made Andy jump. The force of the jump caused the already unstable Ariados to lose grip on the Lucario and fall out of the vent. Andy hit his lower jaw against the pedestal on the way up, and his Ariados friend fell beside him.
"Oh shoot."
The people in the doorway, Andy didn't see what exactly they looked like, they loaded their weapons and got ready to fire. Andy didn't have enough time for that. Since the cover was already blown, he kicked the glass container to shatter it, and then he and his companion quickly dispatched the guards. The alarm was sounded, and Andy grabbed onto the string still connected to the Ariados. He tied multiple crosses around his body to tie himself to the string.
"Don't panic, this'll be just like we practiced, okay?"
Ariados nodded his head. Andy continued to wrap the string around his body, and soon the Ariados was picked up from the string. The result had Andy tied to the Ariados, back-to-back, as if he were wearing a spider-themed backpack.
The sped out of the room and headed down the hall. Somehow there was a memory of a map in Andy's mind, and he knew which directions to take to get to the rendevous point they set up with another accomplise. He ran down the hall, turned the corner, knocked out an incoming guard, continued down the hall and...
Ah, Andy thought, this is the room with all of the boxes in it. They will provide good cover from guard attacks, unless...
Andy had a suspicion about the particular stack of boxes in the side, a stack they would need to pass if they wanted to get to the other side of the hall. If a guard had beaten them to a box, they could be hiding for the right moment to strike them.
Andy leapt on top of the boxes, sung his legs over the side and landed with a kick. Sure enough, a guard was waiting there with his gun. Before he could react to shoot the intruders, he was knocked onto the floor. Andy picked up the gun and used it to target the guards coming into the hall. It was a bit weird to trigger the gun with his paws, but he managed to find a way to dispatch the approaching guards. His ears picked up rushing footsteps behind him. He spun around and opened fire with a spray of bullets, making the mark every time. Another guard, presumably one hiding behind the next stack of boxes, approached Andy and gave him a bonk on the head with his pistol. Andy grabbed his arm from the air, whacked the gun out of his hand, picked it up and gave his a serving of a good pistol whip, to return the favor. As he walked down the hall, another guard approached. Before he could even twitch his finger to pull the trigger, Andy pinned an arm behind the guard's back and bashed their head into another stack of boxes, which toppled over and crushed another hiding guard.
Andy picked up a weapon that was lying around and used it to get ready for what may be ahead. He was able to shoot all hiding guards before they could react, and eventually they were down the hall.
When Andy turned the corner, they were met with armed forces blocking their entire way through the hall. The guards on the front lines had riot shields up in place, and behind them loads of items and cargo to make it hard to slip past them. None of them had weapons, an obvious clue that they were now interested in taking them in rather than taking them out. Andy was not worried; this is what he and his Ariados friend had been practicing.
"Ready?"
"Yup!"
Andy ran for the crowd as the Ariados flexed its legs. Andy then tilted and began heading for the wall. When Andy got close enough to hear his friend's many legs begin making contact with the wall, he pushed a little further into the wall and then let go to take care of it.
The Ariados was now scuttling on the ceiling to the other side of the hall, and Andy was tied along for the ride. The guards down below had not prepared for this, and they didn't have any weapons to stop them. The obstacles stretched all the way down to the end of the wall, so having the Ariados give him a ride over the junk was a good idea.
When they had cleared all of the junk and was able to make a clear landing, the Ariados began climbing down the walls until Andy was able to touch the ground. From then the Ariados disconnected from the wall and Andy was able to continue running.
Almost there, just a little bit farther!
At last, the entrance was in sight. Their other friend, a Grovyle, was waiting for them at the entrance. It used its leaves to cut through the web that strung Andy and the Ariados together, and they came apart.
"Do you have it?"
Andy took the bag and retrieved the item.
"That's great! Now lets get back to-"
Beep-beep!
The three of them had just noticed a bomb strapped onto the wall right next to them, due to the flash that it gave off when the countdown hit zero. They all jumped back to avoid the blast as the bomb exploded and...
Andy woke up. But not quite so. He was back inside the nursing place in the Pokemon world, but something was wrong. The Ariados and the Grovyle were still there, and still suspended from the blast. The music that was going on during the dream was still there and still playing.
However, unlike the dream, there was a shadowy blob where the blast initially took place. The blob was growing, and something about it made Andy...scared, for his life. He tried to move or anything, but he couldn't move his body at all. He couldn't even turn his neck; only his eyes would respond to what he wanted to do.
It's just sleep paralysis, don't panic...
Andy just watched the shadow grow. It soon grew branches and appendeges that spread around Andy and started to block out the surrounding area. The Ariados and the Grovyle began to flicker and clip, and soon they began to decompose. The music was becoming distorted and evil sounding. If sound could rot, that was what Andy was listening to.
Soon Andy could make out certain features of the shadow. Where they eyes? Was that a set of teeth that was coming in? The form took a shape Andy could not very well describe, but it made him feel anxious. Run, escape, live. Those were the kind of thoughts running through Andy's head on repeat. They would not stop, and they only got louder and louder.
The shadowy figure rose up above the bed. It towered over Andy and made most Pokemon he had met dwarves in comparison. It roared a kind of roar that hurt Andy's ears, and then lunged.
Andy woke up a second time. This time there were no rotting friends, no distorted music, no monsters, and most importantly no more sleep paralysis. Andy sat there with a kind of jaded look on his face. He was well aware that some dreams have meaning behind them, but...what possible message could be interpreted from this dream?
It was in the middle of the night. Andy could tell by how dim it was compared to earlier in the day. He looked outside the window. The Scar was still up there, giving off an eerie green glow onto the land below similar to the moon when it was full.
Okay, if the Scar is there then that means Vincent hasn't done anything yet...but that also means that my friends haven't been able to take him down yet.
If that isn't concerning, I don't know what is.
That definitely is concerning.
What should we do?
I guess we should go in after them.
Really? Is that such a good idea?
Well, I'm not sure. Nobody else seems to be in the rush to go in and stop him. Plus, I do feel like it is kind of my responsibility to help take care of him, since he is from my world.
I guess that's a fair point. Where are you going to get your ride?
I can ask that Dragonite to help me out. I don't know if he'll mind, but maybe I can ask.
How will you leave the hospital?
Andy jumped out of the window.
Oh, that works.
Now, where is that Dragonite?
He walked around town and found that one of the stalls was still on. It was a food stall, and there were some Pokemon that were eating there.
Stress eaters, I'll bet. Smart of the business owners to cash in while they can.
He walked near the stall and found the Dragonite there, eating a plate of Oran Berries.
"Excuse me?"
"Mmph?"
"Are you the Dragonite that flew my friends up there to the Scar?"
"Yeah. They haven't come back in some time though, and I'm a bit worried for them."
"Well, that's what I came here to ask. Can you fly me up there so I can check on them?"
"Uh, well sure, but how are you going to be able to really fight without, uh...those?" Andy knew she was referring to his busted sensors. He had never felt self-conscious about them until now.
"I'll figure something out. I've still got three moves I can use." He said as he purchased items from the shopkeeper for supplies, and put them in a complimentary sack.
"Alright, well, lets get you up there then." The Dragonite took one last drink of lemonade, paid the shopkeeper, and then brought Andy to a cleared path. Andy hopped onto her back as the creature ran down the path, like an airplane on the runway. Soon her big wings began flapping, and they were off the ground. Andy felt the wind on his fur as they soared almost entriely upwards to the large rift. The town was getting smaller and smaller as a whirring sound of the space and time circulating around the Scar was getting louder and louder.
I have no idea what I'm doing, do I?
Next: here
