Hello! Welcome to the final installment in a pokemon tale I've been working on for... would it be three years now? My name is Starry's Light, but everyone calls me Starry... so. If you're interested in the story, I'll try my best to fill in parts of what happened in the last two so you don't have to go through and read them... it's a skill I've been working on for awhile now, eheh. Feel free to tell me if I'm not doing well! I don't bite ^^
But Tim does. You'll have to see for yourself if you like him. XD

The main character is a girl named Llana, just so you know. Chapter 0 is a refresher for the events of the last story, more or less, or the important things (and isn't in Llana's point of view. If not specified, it's Llana. Just so you know.)

So, without further ado, welcome to Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Fates Beyond Shadow.

0: Remembrance

They were quiet, those two. They always were on days like these. The days when the clouds roamed by like great, fluffy beasts, their feet beats on the ground, pat pat pat, slaughtering falls of rain perhaps to be lost in the wind. It wasn't because they were sad folk, these. It was more of a ritual, now that days have come and gone, and he has died.

Old, wizened eyes rose from the fondling of the sky. His breath was a rasp nearly lost by the hands of the breeze, whispering, tearing across his old, wizened face. Whiskers—whitish wisps of mustache hung to his old, wizened figure, clumping around where the green scales ended. His leafy tail bristled in anger sometimes, but now it lay limp to the hands of the sky around him. Snivy, they called him a snivy. An old, wizened snivy.

"Stella," he rumbled, "is she doing alright? Llana, I mean..." he drew off again.

His niece. Another snivy. A little snivy. Tiny body, tiny eyes, bright green and pale scales dotting her figure; she did not have a fluffy mustache perched upon her lips: good riddance.

The creature by his side snickered quietly. She was very fluffy too, fluffy and white, not unlike her companion. Only she walked on her paws and her bright purple eyes shone with the breadth of life, unlike he. "Oh, yes, she's not dead just yet," was her cheery reply. Lips furled into a little smirk, a claw crawling up her snout, practically a dagger all on its own. "I'm very proud of her, Gerald; aren't you proud of her, Gerald? I'm sure you know how much she missed you when you so..." Eyes dangerously flashed. "Departed... Gerald."

"Shut up, you old hag." A grim little grin etched its way over tattered lips. A tattered bridge, hopeless to be held much longer. "Yes, I miss her. She's... our daughter, you would think, yes? We raised her in place of that dumb family of hers." His smirk wouldn't disappear; he was calling his sister and her husband "dumb" and oh, would that smirk not disappear.

"I suppose you could say that." Stella snorted. "Weirdo.

"But that is not the point." Each cleared their throats nigh in unison; it caused the elder snivy to stiffen in place and glare. "The point, Gerald, is that she is all on her own, now, without even a smidgen of either of us to watch out for her. That dastard Tim boy thinks he so likes her; that best friend of hers, Zoey, so clings to her. And Elijah, that boy she so loved, is dead like you." And so she smiled; it was a grim smile matching that of the Gerald she so cared for.

His attempted to strengthen; he hated copy-meowths. "I know that is not the point, Stella. I know she may very well be in danger at any time. Tim's claws are perhaps longer than the poor thing's face; that boyfriend of hers, or whatever's, gone rotting; and poor old Zoey is just a wee girl. Weaker than her, even. If you ask me, we should toss in our play already."

"Tim wants to change for her, Gerald."

"I think he should go get a life and get his bloody hands off my daughter."

"Of course, Ger—"

"And I mean literally bloody! Who hasn't he killed? He killed Elijah he killed Llana's other friends he wants to kill Zoey. He wants Llana all to himself."

His grim little grin shook and he glared out toward the clouds, because it was of course their fault that Llana's bright little childish grin had worn away to the adult beneath. Their fault Llana had to put up with this load of hooligans.

Stella sighed. "We will do our best to watch over her, Gerald. But she is growing up now... it's not completely in our hands any longer..."

"I know..." His figure sagged with each word, a sigh stitched into his soul. And another long, drawn-out sigh. His eyes showed off his years, flaunted them.

A rueful, almost prideful, little grin caressed her muzzle. "But she'll try her best. You know she's got what's best at heart; she's got us at heart..."

His lousy grin mimicked hers. She snorted.

"Oh, but her life is on fire, Stella. Who knows when she'll burn down..."

He tried and failed to hide the tiniest of sniffles.

Chapter 1: Ashes to Ashes

"I promise, Llana, we're almost there."

His words like slime fell down my throat, a hefty waterfall until its conglomeration, like a seed—a dead seed—a stone—in the pit of my stomach. They rattle within me every once in awhile; I don't really like the thought of trusting them. It's such a balmy taste, but a rancid, rancid whisper inside. I want to shut the doors and close them off: but only he knows the way back home from here.

And he is Tim. And Tim killed. He killed a lot. He set my home on fire for the purpose to kill. He set it on fire while I was away, just to be sure I couldn't be there and I wouldn't be killed too. He wanted to burn them all, all of my friends... kill them. but what was it he told me on those dirty lips of his?

What was it again?

Does he want to save them, now? Does he want to be good, now? Does he want me, now? Is he bobbing apples for my trust?

What am I to think?

My heart a thick skull in my chest: it throbs, it throbs, but sometimes I wonder if it's still really there. I want Zoey. I can trust Zoey. Oh, wait, perhaps she's dead now because Tim set her on fire.

The thought sends a scream to my lips. I try to catch it before it flies, hands slapped across my cheeks and holding or trying to hold those wordless feelings in, but of course it won't stay. I ignore it for now. Tim doesn't; he stiffens. I've never seen him stiffen before.

Tall. Great, dark streaks of fur all across his body. Dark, crushed blue eyes more black than anything. Usually he skulks along with some form of wood patched in his fingers, being a timburr: now is not that time. He's clasped my hand to his and he's run faster than I've ever seen him go prior, so that maybe we can get home before it is all but. The ground runs like ink beneath me; I can hardly stand upon it, but if I don't move, then I won't see Zoey again. And I don't know much, but I do know that I want to see Zoey.

It is not a want now but simply a need.

And that I can smell before I can see. Somewhat hunched, it's the stench of burning that catches in my lung, punches me past the heart. I wonder, ominously: are any of them still alive?—did any of them stand a chance in the first place? But—but that is ridiculous. Someone had to live... Tim didn't set the fire that long ago. There should be a chance in the least to free—to free—someone.

Zoey's body is lacerated in water. It's a natural sort of—she won't die. She won't die, right? I don't like the thought and I stare up at Tim's grim face, only there are no answers that spell out who lives and who doesn't. Maybe nobody will be hurt... maybe... maybe. They're smart. And the ones who aren't particular in that stressed area will be protected by the others. Perhaps in particular Zoey isn't smart; but Espa is, and Umbre is, and Vivi as well. And they're my friends... and they wouldn't let such a mark bequeath them of their lives, passed down farther and farther away...

Can legendary entities even die? Vivi—she's... not normal. She's not a lavender feline—Espa—or one of a blacker sheen—Umbre. No eeveeloution. No snivy. Not an oshawott—Zoey. No timburr, either... Can she even die? And thus, if she can't, will Kyo and F be saved as well? Or are they just as susceptible to—to—to—

I decide against looking at Tim.

After the shower of smoke comes lungfuls of it, the air marinated just in loads of charred stench, wafting and wafting in layers through the sky. Just behind curtains of filthy gray comes the peak: red mountains soaring just so higher than their precedent of mist: but it's not a mystical enchantment of any sort. My mouth is sour from the sucking heat already. Tim's fingers squeeze mine; a piece of me wishes to release from him but knows it would be plain and simple suicide for all of them to leave his side; as well he will not release of me. I fear in bursts he will never let go.

It's irrational but what if it's true? No... no. Slow swallow. If I want to save any of them, I must trust him: even just for a moment. Now I know he did not lie about setting our home—our Paradise—on fire. Now I know he truly did raise it to flame, and now it's burning, and for all I know, they are burning with it. And thus we much end such a thing. Tim thinks with his assistance I will... "find the willpower within to end the flame." Apparently this is how he started it.

How I wish things were so simple. But then again, perchance they really are.

And again, there they leap: flame, flame, flame. It presses to my heart, soaks me in that choking smell, squeezes escapes from my lungs and in fits makes it really feel like I will die soon. But I can't die, either. If I die, then they're all over as it is. Or are they? I don't know. Tim caused the fire; he speaks in tongues that say if he brought it then I may stop it. It's because of... who we are, isn't it...

Now that I know I'm... "light," and he's "dark." In a... simplified case of sorts. Because he can cause fires and snowstorms and black, inky darkness to seek hearts without home. And supposedly I flicker to life in just the opposite.

Scared from these thoughts, I find myself inching into place behind his furry side, hiding where it's safe and warm, but not burning, beyond him. I loathe myself for it.

Words spill from his deep and dark tone, scattered through the smoke and searching for me:

"I'll find Zoey."

"A-Ah!" Immediate digression. She—she's my best friend, Tim; I'm terrified as it is of letting her fall into—

His cough breaks me off my crown of thoughts. "I will find Zoey." His lip, in a spark of my sight, twitches. "If I do not return with her alive... well. I caused this fire, and because it is from my own sown power, you could always jump into it and... end yourself. Regular flame could not accomplish such, but..."

His head is hanging. He doesn't like this. He doesn't want to—to lose me.

It's the only truth of his I know. He's saved me from me saving my friends and nearly ending myself in the process more than the number of fingers on my hand, my scaly green hand. And thus in this I can trust him, and I let him go into the burls of flames that roar. It is only now as the wakes of sound leech into me.

buuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Ceaseless. Full. Stuffing. Void. Null and null and null: void. It is empty and so... and so am I in this placing. I try to convince myself that Zoey will be alright in Tim's not as bloodied red fingers as they were prior and scramble myself through a leaping gap of blinding scarlet. Guiding webs of light yellowish-white trace me as I arc through; it will protect me to a point. Just as it had in the snowstorm. Only... use it sparingly.

His powers are much more... deafening than mine.

BUUUUuuuuuurrrrrRRRrr...

"Ghh!" Shuffling my head side to side, my clipped whisper breaks free, and I dash from precipice to precipice on broiled, charred scars of land. Ugly little seeds of brown, of grass, like eyes, gouge me when I move. But they're not important, because as I run and think to myself all of these scary little thoughts like seeds that sprout into me it's when my head smacks into a stray tree branch within the flames and I glance as fear squeezes me toward the small hollow in the tree Espa and Umbre sometimes sleep in togeth—

Empty.

A new sense of calm overcomes me, a blanket tossed fully over my head. I'm dunked in a brief and beautiful sense of peace. They're okay... they're okay.. they're okay... The words don't feel real enough no matter how much I whisper them to myself so it's all I can do to think about my legs and moving them. Moving them far, far away from here, because they're not here. They're... somewhere safer—I don't like that as much but it's a reassurance that I have. Calmly I think betwixt breaths, talk to myself betwixt steps, try my very best to convince myself that I can and will go on. It begins to work.

Just on and on... on and on again—that's it, Llana... breathe, breathe. My eyes, large and auburn, like acorns or of such ilk, hungrily stretch across the burning as my fingers twist around the flames that engulf me. But I don't feel them; he knew I wouldn't; I knew I wouldn't, somewhere. Twisting pathways offer enough space to squeeze without quite sapping myself of my... power, if it be.

Small steps. Hops. Jumps. I crash into bits of bracken anyways. Still... I'm... I'm working. I'm not broken. Tim is going to save Zoey, he said so himself. It gets me to move on from the past of a last step, gets me to hop or try to above charred bits of land, until it's clear that my friends have all but disappeared into the final rays of—

Kff, kff, kffkff,kff. KFFffff!

Who is that? I jolt, stumble through a wave of flame and nearly ram myself into the skeleton of what I believe was once a poor tree. Stars shoot across my vision; I must ignore them if I am to find the black-stained lips of the one who called for me... Smoke, smoke, smoke; when I wave my arms in front of me I look foolish but determined, determined to catch—that sliver.

"JEN!" She can't hear me. "JEENNNN?" Is she turning? "JEN! JEENNNN! JE-JEENNNNN!" Finally.

She tries to whisper past her hacking black rasp, through the blots of blood in her rusty maw: I hold up a hand, point toward my ears, nod. It's fine, it's fine. I doubt she understands what I was trying to tell her; even I'm not sure. But I shove fingers through hands and hands of heat grabbing for my life essence; only they cannot quite touch me, a breadth apart from me. Glittering little strands protect me, for however long such may last.

Tmp... tmp... tmp.

Past the rugged stones, past the dried riverbed, don't focus on the tunnel of swallowing flames, out, out, out. My hand meets one scarred of light blue scales in midair and we each cry out to the world. My mind is crying, I did it, I did it. Jen's bright amber gaze feverishly streaks mine and I search over hers.

Light blue, cottony blue. Soft, sweet. Her thick head and thick snout glistens of sweat, her yellow underbelly trampled like daisies by children: her eyes stand unwavering, her silvery braids tucked behind a shoulder and hardly burnt, because of course she had to protect her hair. Jen the bagon, safe and sound. All accounted for. Any wounds from prior have already begun their rather quick healing process—little dragons are hasty with their layers of skin.

Deep breaths for a moment. We're trapped within a pocket of clearing, one I presume once held a small pond, for the flames have yet to try this just-slightly-moist earth that trembles beneath our feet. Hands entwined, neither of us dare let go. Jen whispers, like she is afraid to speak too loudly, that if she does I'll blow away: "You... You're here? I-I get why you're okay, but you're here? You're okay?"

"Um. Yes. Tim led me." She winces; I thrust my head back and forth; now is not the time to situate with fear. He's helping... at least for now. "I'm here. And you're he—where's Roland?" Only the boy she's bored moon-eyes into, the boy I'm sure would not leave her to die in a fire, whether she's dragon and he's grass like me or no.

"It's not a bad reason! He didn't just ditch or anything; the fire was closing in, I told him to go through the little pocket left, he yelled at me, I told him my burns would get better, I tried to shove him, I yelled more, I tried to kick him: he left. He's... he's safe. He's okay."

Jen's voice quivers, no matter what words ensue. Mine feels strangely powerful in comparison; though it's just soft and this awkward sort of royal accent mixed in.

I draw my gaze into hers again. "Roland's okay?"

Flash of green. Squinted, brownish face. Spines on his back. Tough, at least he thinks so. Chespin.

"Roland's okay." She offers a brusque nod. Thick head rolls over her hefty neck. Smaller nod follows.

We sigh, just quietly, together, and her whispers go rapid: "A-Are you gonna do the thing you did earlier? Wi-With the light, and the flashing, and the—the we-don't-burn? I-I'm okay, I mean, I am a... dragonet..."

"No, no, I don't want you to be burned again." I grit my teeth a bit. "I'd... rather not have it that way."

And with my affirmation, the sparkling vines of light come crawling, threading unto me, spreading unto her. Silvery braids spring back indignantly by the brush of its crawl, though it eventually smooths. I'm not sure if it's moved with my own will before. Usually I have to run into... Tim's devices first.

With a push, we heave through the fire: tunnel, burning, stench, smoke, heat trailing, whispering, telling, demanding me to come back but it's too late because we're already out, and Jen's not burnt this time.

She has to yell to be heard.

"KYO DIDN'T WANNA RUN! VIVI WOULDN'T LEAVE HIM!"

I wince over this new smell, one that squeezes my throat and reminds me of wet, soggy soil after withering, relentless rain. If only it would rain now—but can this kind of fire be swamped by anything besides myself or perhaps Tim's intervention? I'm not... strong enough to stop this fire. Here I am, gasping from one little excursion with Jen.

"I'LL SHOW YOU!" she goes on. So I nod beneath layers of unending sound, the fire and the coughing and the frantic screech of feet on bracken, and we shove ourselves past burly bits of smoke that may look strong but are soon forgotten behind us. I can't hear myself whispering to myself their names. A part of me wonders if that's a good thing.

Trample and trample over subtle hills and stones, kicking past each gentle, muddy release of stream—the fact that there are bits of water, and the fact that Jen's okay, allows me the faint ease of breath that it wasn't so long ago.

We nearly kick a cream face on our stumble along. It takes the entirety of a full moment for my throat to go sour and the words to die as I pluck F the victini into my arms and begin to tremble. She yowls in my ear that she's not dead, but thanks anyways. It's not until her fuzzy red fingers find assurance in mine that I allow us—now our little trio—to search again for the missing Kyo.

He's... near and dear, but yet... I suppose it would be... off. His thoughts are... off. Ripped from orbit and encircling, slowly, his mind: disconnected, disgruntled. A majestic body wraps his thoughts into coherent, shining form: radiant red-and-blue hair and strong quadrupedal structure and creamy fur and brilliant blue eyes: but merely an empty package of keldeo... or so it has been. Vivi follows him quite vividly, her green shadow like a covering for him: nurturing in a sweet and lover-type sort, a worrying one where she wishes when she sleeps at night for him to return, and the virizion, because it is how she is, must continue her efforts until his discombobulated shell breaks or she does trying.

If Jen tells me these friends have lost themselves within the flames... It matters not if Kyo's mind wasn't strong enough to sense danger! It matters not if he tossed their lives in! I believe against their... against their... burning. Burning; no; no. Creatures of old legend like F so calls she and them; so we know, so we know. The smirk by my ear offers some form of support.

Her bright orangey-red hands address swirling admixtures about us: F for fire.

Plucking, fingers tug and pulse us through yet another torrent, Jen coughing rapidly in one moment and silenced by those yellowy waves in the next. Frames of time clip past my sight: black and color in my blinking of a headache that's coming and going. The sound that will not leave me unstained sets me upon edge; it's here as the figures within begin to form. Each of their kindly-sculpted bodies and their wiser, older gazes from a time long-past.

I try to wave and F trips over me. We splutter into a dirty pool of must, Jen's thick body cradling us from above. Someone or another cries and somebody else bites down, bites hard: another high-pitched and girly shriek as we each try in our best form to calm ourselves.

My hands shift in front of my face, shielding in a form to see past this brightness. Rough-hewn wood comes in contact. Throat runs dry, a river in this storm of ours. Of course there's a fallen tree, piece of debris—whatever it is. As my fingers shift, a variety of materials connect beneath.

Under my breath, I mouth it: thin twigs, bark, leaves, a strange velvety substance, something half-melted half-cool and slick, what I presume is a strip of a fluid—water? And fur of course—fur?—fur?—what kind of fur?—color? Thick. Coarse. Gray. Handfuls and handfuls of gray.

Some part of me manages to swallow past the thought. My head aches a tiny bit. Breathe, breathe; Jen lifts her haunches from my spine, F shoulders herself aside, I tremble and try to stand and ultimately kiss the dirt again.

"Sometimes I find it hilarious that, like, she's the gawsh-durned one who's, like, our savior or whatever," happily comments F, "but, like, then the sky splits open and a bunch of gawshing light stuffs into bodies and we're saved or whatever. So savior works in the end." She spits into a flicker of flame that doesn't go out and caws: "GAAWSH!"

Jen nervously twitches beside her. Her lips move and she shakes her head, trembling voice steady to rise. "I think it's kind of cool."

"WHAH?"

"I SAID, I THINK IT'S KIND OF COOL!"

"YOU'RE SPEAKIN' ON MY, LIKE, BLIND SIDE!"

"WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH HEARING?"

"I DUNNO!"

"SO YOU CAN HEAR ME!"

"WHAT?"

Wisely the bagon recedes from conversation. Our pairs of eyes flicker again: F's sky blue, Jen's burning amber, my brown. They lead in twisting paths toward the shack of storm our other friends have come cornered toward: we raise our hands, F yells enough to spit blood, we have yet to be seen. I croak from my position in the earth; each time I sneeze I only grow stuffier.

With my gaze burning and their throats rasping, it's a strange tipping conversion as I roll toward one side. The world shifts and falls with me; it falls as I shake myself and I sneeze. Particles billow: but then I move and they stick to my scales and somehow I don't gag. But I want to.

Buuuuuuuurrrrrrrrr...BBbbbUUUuuuUUUUURRrrrrrrr... Buu—Fshhh.

A strange conglomeration of tears and snot slides down a newly-wetted throat as I pant below the hush.

Sparkling, sparkling droplets of water begin their hiking from the air toward us: they splash into a welcome wave.

Slowly, slowly speed picks up and the world pitches right-side again. I can feel the tail that was bitten behind me; somehow I can't recall the past foggy moments of my life. Something aches; I shake my head; something aches even more; I groan, a soft groan. Curling pairs of fingers, too many to be just Jen and just F, so it feels, collapse about my tiny body and drag me into open skies again. Smoke fills lungs and coughs rattle common like clouds... and I sway, and I tip, but someone knocks me the other way and I rise. Strangely, almost creepily, sticking bits of sneeze and sweat and even brownish tints surround me like... a glowing halo.

And as suddenly as the thoughts tie to me—slurring and slowly as they fall—the thmp of what must be my heart and what must be great love slam though my chest all in one moment. Strips of droplets coat me, her fur whips into me, and finally that great wave of relief falls short of a downpour.

I'm sobbing; she's sobbing; it's an understatement to think everyone's tears have begun. Simply waiting in their tiny cracks, waiting for the joy to seep in again. My head hurts, but it doesn't matter, nothing matters, I'm quietly stroking and holding the fluffy white head stuffed into my chest beneath the crook of my neck, and her arms are very tight, tighter than mine could ever try to be.

Words stem and finally ebb—then they spring into an unending flow. Someone says it first, the magic word—Zoey—but I'm not sure if she's confirming herself or if those are my lopsided, embarrassing cries. I think they're mine; her voice is louder and happier. Because she's Zoey.

It forms and burbles, coming out like: "Hi, Zoey," shaking and creaking, ripping itself open from within. Her shivering body has never held me this tightly; it's a warm feeling coating itself around me.

Her croak follows—"D-Don't say my name like that... don't say it like you never thought I was gonna show up... cuz-c-cuz I'm always gonna show up, Llana... cuz I can't stay 'way... mm—mm-hmm?"

Someone tries to laugh. It might have been Vivi.

Finally the rest of the others in startling rainbow formation fan out behind me, the ones I didn't see, the ones who didn't cross my mind just yet: Ember and Cheeka, Bay, Espa and Umbre and Espa's child—the bump in her belly has begun to noticeably show. Roland, his apologies as thick as his accent when he spots the bagon by my side. F yells at someone, joking and shrill, that it was their fault, and they have to clean up everything.

It sounds like something she'd tell Burr, but then I remember that Burr is dead. Mina is dead as well. And Elijah... Elijah.

But the tears in my eyes are only for the dear, dear girl I hold to my heart; and her tears are all for me. And it's something we both know; and strangely through the water and the dirt, it makes me warm, and it makes me happy, happy, happy...

Eventually we find the culprits who ended the fire. Exactly who we all thought it was. In more ways than one, Mary—the sweet, shimmering swanna—and Quagsire—the jolly one who brought our beginnings together—have saved us. So we all quietly accept the obvious, that of course they can also stop fires crafted in the hearts of black cavities. It simply makes sense. They are quiet when they scan over our burned but smudgy, smiley grins and wet bodies. They are quiet when they gently scour for the body of the one with the gray fur, the thick and strong corpse of a creature who built our Paradise for us.

He was a gurdurr.

Quietly from aside, Tim offers his name, his real name, one that he covered up like Quagsire and his smiling face have with his.

Gaurdio.

Eyes seek purchase in all but the thought of the body, of the name. Zoey's head dives again into me.

Everyone is silent on dry, caked lips when the gentle, gooey eyes of Quagsire's settle yet again. They're beady, set back into his face, but they twinkle like relentless stars, the ones that won't go away when it's hard to sleep at night.

"Mmmmmh... so I guess this mmmaaaay be obvious, but I suppose it's time we leave here, eh? This ain't the only fire this land's ever seen. Mmm-mmm..." His gaze draws languidly into the face of the timburr who tossed himself aside, eyes glazed. His features harden in turn; he has nothing to say; he sighs and nods, just subtly.

And Quagsire nods too. "We should go find a place to keep ourselves first. You poor things look about ready to fall over. Hmmmn..."

And on this note, he sets off.

And so we follow, every last one of us.

If you were wondering, that's around as long as the chapters in this story get. XD Usually they're... well, shorter, but I am trying to bring back pieces and such of the first and second stories... heh. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me, and this has been the first chapter of PMD3. :3 Thank you.

Zoey: I say hi! Tell them I said hi! Please! Please! HIIIIIIII! -tons of excited waving-