#mt blaze

    Nelvana watched as Gengar shot awake at her statement, rubbing his eyes at the rising sun’s light before glancing over at the cubone.

    “Hm?”

    “You fell asleep,” Nelvana pointed out in a matter-of-factly tone of voice. “I thought ghost-types didn’t need sleep?” she continued, raising a brow at him.

    “They… usually don’t,” Gengar muttered, “what difference does it make anyway? There was no reason to be on guard; there is no one but us out here!” he added.

    “How would you know that? You fell asleep and weren’t on guard,” Nelvana snarked, turning away. “Well, if anyone did come by, I probably would have woken up, so at least there’s that,” she sighed.

    Gengar rolled his eyes and stood up, stretching briefly before looking back at his escort again. Nelvana had turned her attention to the firepit, no longer with a lively fire burning in it, and swirled her club around in it, spreading apart all the coals before hitting them with her club and swirling them around again.

    “We don’t have any water to drown this with, so hopefully this will do the trick and we won’t end up starting a wild fire,” Nelvana muttered, tapping her club on the ground a couple times to rid it off the ashes before meeting Gengar’s gaze. “Anyway, let’s eat and then we can head on over there,” she said.

    “Great.”

    Nelvana had found that muffins were in fact easy to pack and good for a quick morning meal, so that was what they had prepared. She instinctively checked the rest of their inventory, satisfied to find all their dungeon supplies and other snacks and items still where they had been left in the bag. After drinking some water to finish off their breakfast, the pair was back on the trail again.

    Being so close to the mountain already, it didn’t take long for the temperature to start rising. It was then that Nelvana realized that Gengar was a heat sink. Just by being around him and where he had been instantly gave off a cold feeling, as if there was just a hole in the hot air giving away to a chill.

    “Are you aware that you’re a walking heat sink?” Nelvana asked, poking a foot tentatively to where Gengar had just walked, feeling where there was still a cold spot left behind.

    “I am,” Gengar huffed, “you aren’t the first one to point that out.”

    “Hm, I suppose not,” Nelvana murmured, “that will be useful here. Not in Frosty Forest, but at least here.”

    “I’m not going to be your cooler,” Gengar told her sharply, rolling his eyes.

    “I wasn’t asking for that,” Nelvana replied, “I happen to be able to handle this fairly alright, but the fact of the matter is that this quirk will make this part of the journey a bit easier.”

    Gengar only turned away again, his ears lowering slightly. Nelvana let out a sigh, taking the lead again and continuing their path over to Mt. Blaze. It wasn’t long after that short conversation that their walk began uphill; up and round as the path began winding around the mountain. The rocks were rough and warm under Nelvana’s feet, but her claws were built for an earthier terrain so she was able to continue on alright. Gengar seemed to struggle a bit more, though he kept his mouth shut about it, only the rocks tumbling behind him and a quiet curse under his breath gave away that he was having any difficulties.

    With the storage statue in her sights up ahead, Nelvana sprung up the rest of the path over to the chest. While she didn’t expect much new that they would need to be stored in there, there would at least be some more water and possibly food, so it was worth checking out. Sparing a glance back to Gengar before opening the chest, Nelvana found the predicted extra water and snacks, as well as the unpredicted piece of paper sitting on top. She handed the items over to the one with the bag before taking the note, recognizing the handwriting on it as Alex’s. Seeing as Gengar would likely be uninterested in this, Nelvana read it silently in her head.

    ‘Hey Nel, this is Alex. I’m writing this after you had sent your message to us with the badge, so hopefully you should get it by the time you start Mt. Blaze. If Keahi didn’t mention it in her reply, she decided to stay the night at her family’s place. She had to forward us your message, and then we didn’t know what to do with it after that. Anyway, I figured I should leave this note and some extra water and food for you guys anyway. I’m not sure if Gengar eats more like Edgar or like the rest of us, but it’s always for the best to not let your client faint; from hunger especially. I do hope he isn’t causing any trouble there. You said that he had been pretty quiet, but Gah, I hate writing letters like this… just, good luck out there, and do keep your eyes out for Moltres. There’s always the chance that they’ll turn up again.’

    “Are we heading in now, or what?” Gengar questioned impatiently, glancing over Nelvana’s shoulder.

    Nelvana narrowed her eyes, hugging the paper close to her so that Gengar couldn’t read what it said, “we are going in, just give me a moment,” she growled, “I thought you’d like the break anyway considering how many you took yesterday.”

    Receiving no response, Nelvana turned her attention back to Alex’s note. She scrawled in a quick response before placing the paper back into the box. She was about the close the box when she remembered the mobile scarf still wrapped around her knuckles. She couldn’t help but wonder how Gengar hadn’t actually noticed it yet. Deciding to lower the chance of it being noticed even more, she took the fabric off her hand and set it loosely around her neck with her actual scarf. Then, she closed the box with a small pat. After staring at the statue and chest for a few moments, a question clicked into her mind and she turned back to Gengar.

    “Did you have to collect everything out of storage before disbanding your team?” she asked curiously.

    Gengar scowled at the question, but began to speak anyway, “yeah. Almost had to fight the other two for the good stuff though. I only really managed to snag what I had when I first showed you my bag.”

    “You had to fight them?” Nelvana repeated.

    “It was mostly just a lot of shoving. Not many actual attacks where used since most of us resist each other’s moves. There was no good way to divide everything evenly, so of course they all just wanted the best stuff,” Gengar scoffed, “they actually wanted to just leave me with a couple oran berries, but I wasn’t having that.”

    “Why did you disband Team Meanies, anyway?”

    “I… I just stopped agreeing with the team’s actions and goals, alright? I didn’t want to be apart of that anymore, and didn’t want to just leave Ekans and Medicham to fool around on their own with the title. Can we just head in the dungeon now?”

    “…Fine by me.”

    Part of Nelvana hadn’t been expecting them to even be able to walk inside the dungeon. After the earthquake that had torn apart the ground to the lava around it… she had been worried that that was permanent. However, as they walked into the cave, she found that nothing had changed aside from the layout of the tunnels and rooms. It was as if nothing had been damaged in the first place, and despite her previous worries she couldn’t help but wonder if it shouldn’t have fixed itself so efficiently like this.

    Regardless, she kept these thoughts to herself and silently lead on through one of the tunnels leading off the first room. The first dungeon pokemon awaited on the way, and she let herself slip back into a more serious mentality needed for a mission like this. Without her team, she would have to handle all this without messing up. Gengar fell back to silence again, and Nelvana couldn’t help but be thankful that he didn’t break her focus.

    At least, until they had reached the fifth floor. After knocking out a numel and watching it disappear from sight, Gengar seemed to no longer be able to keep silent like this.

    “Hey, if no one lives out here, how are there so many pokemon with dungeon sickness?” he asked, “it’s kind of spooky…”

    “These pokemon don’t have dungeon sickness,” Nelvana answered, “they’re just dungeon spawn.”

    “Dungeon… spawn? That’s a thing?” Gengar questioned, “what’s the difference, anyway?”

    “Dungeon spawn aren’t alive,” Nelvana responded somberly, “they’re just created by the dungeon and then their energy is recycled for more spawn when they’re defeated.”

    Gengar’s eyes widened, “wha… how?”

    “It starts with the dungeon sickness, if you’re in there for long enough, then the dungeon claims you. Once the dungeon starts learning what energies the different pokemon have, it can begin replicating that and even modifying it to be better at fighting. Trapping any travelers in here so the cycle continues,” Nelvana explained, “here, let’s use this dungeon for example. This is just full of dungeon spawn. And… let’s use that numel we just saw for this example too. Once upon a time, there was likely a whole village of numels living in this area. They would cross the mountain maybe just to explore, or even to visit Moltres. One day, a dungeon pops up, and no one notices right away. A few numels head in, get lost, and get infected. It takes awhile for anyone to take note, but eventually they send a search party. If the first few are strong enough, they can take out the search party too and keep building their numbers that way. Clearly by the fact that no one lives in this area anymore means that enough of them got stuck that the rest of them had to leave, or the rest of the village got too intimidated by being near a dungeon in general. And even if just one of those original numels that got stuck stay in there long enough to completely lose themself to the dungeon, the dungeon will know what they’re like. As the dungeon gets stronger, it will start creating its own numels,” she continued, “that’s why there are usually the same kinds of pokemon in each dungeon. Those are just the pokemon that the dungeon has learned to remember and replicate.”

    This explanation struck Gengar silent for a few moments, but he gathered himself and spoke again, “where… did you learn all this? I’ve never heard of that before, and I was on a rescue team. Is it rare?”

    “It’s not… rare, but I suppose most people are used to a rescue team being able to rescue everyone before the sickness gets that far,” Nelvana murmured, “Keahi didn’t know either. Alex, Tsuki and I had to explain it to her… hm, I wonder if Edgar knows then… this isn’t a fun topic to have to explain.”

    “So, you and Alex know from… that dark future you’re from, right? Did more people lose themselves to the dungeons then?” Gengar clarified.

    “Where did you hear about the dead timeline?” Nelvana snapped back.

    “I was there after you guys destroyed the meteor! How else was I supposed to get to you so quickly in the spirit realm? So… I heard your explanation to Edgar,” Gengar told her.

    Nelvana sighed, “alright, yeah… fair enough,” she muttered, “and before you ask, Tsuki knows too despite not being from the dead timeline because she is from the Frosty Forest, which is similar to here in that there is no one else around and the dungeons just have dungeon spawn at this point. I suppose if you want to know about that specifically more, you’ll have to ask her.”

    “Okay…” Gengar mumbled, “what is the difference between pokemon with dungeon sickness and just dungeon spawn? Like… physically. How do you tell the difference?”

    “Why are you asking?” Nelvana questioned.

    “Because! I’d rather be hitting the ones that aren’t actually alive harder than the ones that are just normal pokemon being trapped!” Gengar answered, “they all just look like dungeon pokemon to me.”

    “Fine. Do you happen to have a stun seed with you then?”

    “A stun seed? No… I don’t think so.”

    “Alright. Looks like we have to do this the hard way.”

    Before Gengar could ask what the “hard way” was, Nelvana had begun wandering off across the large room that they had found themselves in. A magby come in from one of the tunnels and spotted the cubone, beginning to snarl and spit fire at her. Through a couple swift movements, Nelvana leapt behind the pokemon, grasping her club in front of them with both hands before pushing it back against the magby’s throat and lifting it off the ground.

    “What the-“

    “There, I got one, come on and look!”

    Hesitantly, Gengar headed over to Nelvana and the captured dungeon pokemon. The magby struggled in her grip, clawing at her arms and kicking about; thick black smoke sputtering out from their mouth with bits of embers.

    “You can come closer. They can’t spit fire like this, and them clawing won’t hurt you; since you’re a ghost-type,” Nelvana continued, “and if you’re concerned for them, this doesn’t hurt. I’m just restraining their ability to spit fire is all.”

    “I’m… what about you? Aren’t magbies like, 1,100 degrees? And they’re clawing at you!” Gengar sputtered, waving his arms at the cubone. “How are you so calm about doing this?”

    “First of all, that’s a myth. They aren’t that hot,” Nelvana huffed, “and second of all, they aren’t cutting that deep. An oran berry would even be much for something as little as this,” she continued, “anyway, it will be easier to point things out if you come a bit closer.”

    Gengar slowly stepped closer, “alright, if you say so…”

    “Okay, good. Now, if you want to be able to tell the difference between dungeon spawn like this and just pokemon with dungeon sickness, you’ll usually have to do it at a glance because they’ll both just immediately attack you. However, it’s easier to point out differences up close so that you know what to look for,” Nelvana began, “if you do get a chance like this to look at them up close, you’ll see that their eyes are slightly glazed over, and will always carry only ferocity in them; if you’re someone that tries spotting emotion.”

    “Eyes are the gateway to the soul…” Gengar muttered, “okay, got it.”

    Nelvana blinked, seemingly a bit surprised by this attentive response, but she continued regardless, “the bigger thing to note is that dungeon spawn are built for the dungeon and for battling. Starting with that second point, you’ll see that this magby for example has sharper claws and teeth, and they seem to spit more embers, though I’m not one hundred percent certain about that last bit.”

    “Yeah about that… How are still just treating this like nothing? It’s starting to get fire on your club.”

    “Now, as I said, they’re built for the dungeon as well. Again, with this magby, they have had to be strengthened for this volcano dungeon. As you can see, their lower body almost resembles magma, and that likely helps it resist fire more so that it can run on the lava,” Nelvana continued, ignoring Gengar’s comment.

    “Run on lava? That’s actually a thing?” Gengar asked.

    “Kinda. You have to be constantly moving on it or else it will just start acting like normal lava, and of course you’d have to be a fire-type. Keahi tested that when we were here; she didn’t like it that much. Said it burned her feet. Obviously here the dungeon has taken that into account and has made it easier for dungeon pokemon to run along it,” Nelvana explained, “anyway, to recap… you mostly have to keep an eye out for those which look stronger and fiercer than average, and more adapted to the terrain. Alright?”

    “Yeah… I think I’ve got it,” Gengar mumbled, looking over the struggling magmar.

    “Great, because this guy is really wriggly,” Nelvana responded.

    With that, she tossed her head back before knocking it against the magby. They slumped upon impact, disappearing in a beam of light a couple moments later. Arms free, Nelvana rubbed away some of the blood on her hands before leaning her club against her right shoulder and looking up at Gengar.

    “Yo, that was really hardcore,” Gengar whispered.

    “You know, you could help with some of these battles,” she pointed out.

    “That wasn’t really a battle,” Gengar replied.

    “My point still stands. Maybe this is a bit strong for you, but it would be nice to at least get a little bit of help. You’ve been in a rescue team; you are capable of battling,” Nelvana said.

    “Fine… I’ll see what I can do,” Gengar sighed, looking away.

    They found the stairs to the next floor in the room right beside them, and easily made the climb up. While Gengar continued to simply follow Nelvana around for that entire sixth floor, he seemed to finally gain enough confidence to try battling on his own, shown as he stepped forward when a torkoal showed up.

    “That’s dungeon spawn, right?” Gengar asked.

    “I mean… all the pokemon here are, but yes,” Nelvana responded, “are you offering to fight it, or-“

    Nelvana’s question was answered before she even got the chance to finish speaking, cutting herself off midway as she spotted the attack that Gengar was preparing. Purple sparks crawled up his arm, charging around his fist before he punched the air with that energy. Over by the torkoal, a ghostly fist appeared, harshly hitting the fire-type. Nelvana flinched at the sight, and in a haze, she barely registered that Gengar used the shadow punch on the torkoal again to knock it out.

    “There, I did it!” Gengar cheered.

    Nelvana shook her head, trying bring back her focus and calm herself, “y-yeah… good job.”

    Gengar frowned, “you know, if you’re going to act like that each time I use that move then I might as well not bother,” he huffed, “you acted like that in Sinister Woods too-“

    “I know! I know, I know… Look… do you maybe have… have another move you can just use instead?” Nelvana responded, finding herself wrapping her arms around herself and looking away.

    “Why would I do that? Shadow punch is my best move, it never even misses. It’s the most useful,” Gengar replied, “what’s even your problem with it anyway? It’s just another move.”

    “It’s…” Why was it only now that the air burned her throat? “It was used by a bad person. I’m not used to having that attack not be used against me or my team,” she managed to answer.

    “Well that’s silly. You know I’m helping you here. You shouldn’t be judging just based on the move I’m using,” Gengar snarked.

    “Oh, that’s rich coming from you,” Nelvana muttered, storming off through the rest of the dungeon, hoping that Gengar wouldn’t notice that her hands were still shaking.

    Gengar didn’t help Nelvana in battle for the rest of Mt. Blaze. She didn’t comment on it again though. In fact, they had gone back to their silent way of traveling for all of the remaining floors of the dungeon. At least she knew that she would be able to handle these pokemon on her own. While help could still have been nice… she didn’t bother. It didn’t feel worth it.

    After another six floors, they had arrived at the special floor. Its Moltres statue still stood the same as before, though Nelvana didn’t pause to examine it closely like she had before. She only broke their silent streak by asking for the bag so that she could have some of the water and a quick snack, and then they headed onto the next floor.

    The next two floors passed on as the ones before, aside from Gengar being spooked by the fact that there were arcanines in this dungeon. These larger pokemon, especially with their added dungeon spawn traits, as Nelvana was quick to point out, were quite the intimidating surprise. Fearows startled him as well, but less so knowing that his typing would partially protect him. Nelvana defeated both of these pokemon regardless without much other comment from her about it.

    Finally, they arrived to the peak of the mountain. Nelvana wondered if she should mention to Gengar that Moltres could be here… and while part of her considered not bringing it up at all and letting Gengar be spooked again, she reconsidered and spoke up.

    “In case you’ve forgotten or never heard, this is the home of Moltres. They are awake and might try swooping by, so don’t freak out,” she muttered, more dryness coming off her voice than intended.

    Gengar nodded, his gaze turning upwards to scan the smoky sky in an attempt to spot the flaming legendary. Nothing did show up at first though, leaving them to wonder if they would get all the way across this last floor and down the mountain without any other interruptions.

    That thought was suddenly halted when the flapping of wings could be heard in the distance. The pair stopped their walk to wait for Moltres to arrive, which only took a few more moments. Moltres landed in front of them, bowing their head slightly to show that they weren’t here to fight.

    “Hello again… human,” Moltres greeted.

    “Hello Moltres,” Nelvana replied courtly.

    Moltres didn’t respond for a few moments, avoiding looking at the pair as if they were trying to work up the right words to tell them.

    “I… I have to admit, that I was wrong. About you. And the legend,” Moltres finally uttered, “I apologize for that, and for attacking you and your friends because of it.”

    “I accept your apology,” Nelvana responded politely.

    What she wouldn’t say was that she didn’t forgive Moltres. Attacking a trio of teens just because they were under the assumption that one of them was dangerous was a flimsy explanation at best. However, she still appreciated that they had come forward and apologized when they could have just ignored her passing by. And of course, she knew that she should be polite with legendaries regardless.

    Moltres nodded in return, sitting up straighter now that that was out of the way, “thank you. Now, what brings you and this stranger through my mountain?” they questioned sharply.

    “This, is my client, Gengar. We were just passing by to visit Ninetales about the legend again,” Nelvana told them honestly.

    Moltres’ beak opened, and then closed again with a click; again, considering something. Eventually anger flashed in their eyes, which narrowed as they reared back and flapped their flaming wings.

    “Gengar? You… You wouldn’t happen to be the one that started that rumor in the first place?” Moltres accused, “I cannot allow someone like that to pass through my home!” they spat, “Why does he walk through here; with you? He should not walk at all!”

    Nelvana narrowed her eyes, hitting her club against the ground, “calm down! He isn’t here causing trouble; I’m making sure of that. He needs to speak with Ninetales though, and we intend to break that curse that the legend spoke of,” she snapped, “let us pass.”

    There was yet another pause, and the pair couldn’t help but wonder if Moltres was going to just disregard Nelvana’s words and just attack them. However, the large bird seemed to slowly let the tension out of their body again.

    “Go then,” they hissed.

    Gengar happily obliged, hurrying away from Moltres and back towards the path down the mountain. Nelvana glanced at both pokemon, before following the ghost-type away from Mt. Blaze. Not long after she had caught up, Gengar let out a shaky breath and made eye contact with her as they walked.

    “You… you defended me,” he gasped, “why…?”

    “I wasn’t going to just let them attack you like that, even if you are a jerk,” Nelvana responded, as if the answer has been laying out as clearly as the rocks around them. “No one should be attacked because of that kind of judgement.”

    Gengar only blinked back at her, and Nelvana managed one of the few laughs of that day.

    “What? Did you think I was just going to say that I only did that because I need you to bring back Gardevoir?” Nelvana chuckled, “while I suppose that is partially true, that wasn’t my reasoning for that. That would just be selfish. There was no way I was going to have Moltres kill you in cold blood for that.”

    Leaving that response to hang in the air, Nelvana continued her way down the path. Gengar, however, had his pace slow as he was left to think that over. Why… after everything; her first answer wasn’t for her own gain.

    “Hey, when we get to where we’re setting up camp, could we have another campfire?”

    “Sure, but we won’t get there for awhile…”

    “Just thought I’d ask.”