The names of the OCs in this chapter are courtesy of alexa-the-eevee from tumblr, for whom this chapter is dedicated to. I would also like to dedicate this chapter to citrus-chickadee, also on tumblr as well as here. You two have given me the support and encouragement that I needed to finally finish this after two long years.

Chapter 46: Climb It

As Team Rainbow stepped out of the Wigglytuff Guild to face a new a new day, Paula's entire demeanor seemed to embody the guild's rule number three: Smiles go for miles. Clearly, the pikachu was still riding high off of the events from yesterday. True, it may not have exactly been a "sanctioned" assignment, and the actual lead-up and situation had been extremely worrisome, but the actual exploration part of scaling Mt. Bristle in search of Azurill had been thrilling. Not to mention the fact that it felt so good to see the reunion between him and his brother. Paula's smile actually brightened even more at remembering Laura's own smile at the sight. It had probably been the brightest and warmest smile she'd ever seen from the treecko. Maybe she had a soft spot for children?

A sudden sound made her ears perk up, and as she glanced towards the stairs leading up to the guild, her bright smile transformed into a sly smirk as she spotted two laughing children—a bellsprout and an eevee—bounding up the steps. She glanced over at her partner and had to laugh a bit herself at the contented sigh and smile the treecko gave when she, too, noticed the kids.

"I guess that answers that," Paula thought, giving Laura a playful nudge and laughing again when her partner startled and blushed before looking away… only to blush even harder as she sheepishly turned back to watch the kids some more, as if she were drawn to the sight magnetically.

The two children appeared to be playing with a disk-shaped toy. The eevee would throw it as hard and far as she could and then the bellsprout would use her vine whip attack to grab it and then throw it back for the eevee to catch in her mouth. The cycle repeated over and over again, the disk flying higher and farther each time, until—

"Wait, Alexa! That's too far!"

—the eevee, apparently named Alexa, threw the disk too fast and far for her friend to catch it. The four pokémon watched in dismay as the bellsprout's vines missed grabbing the toy by barely an inch. Then, adding insult to injury, the wind picked up, carrying the toy even higher until it plopped down onto the very tip of the left ear-shaped part of the building that housed the guild's entryway.

The bellsprout started sniffling. "M-my… my favorite toy…!"

"Oh! I'm so sorry Belle!" Alexa started babbling, trying to stave off her friend's tears.

"Oh, no…" Paula muttered softly, trying to think of a way to retrieve the toy. She turned to her partner to see if she had any ideas, just in time to see Laura gain a determined expression before nodding decisively and heading over to the upset children.

"Your name is Belle, right?" she gently addressed the bellsprout, crouching down a bit to get more on her level. When the young grass-type nodded miserably in confirmation, Laura smiled and assured her, "Don't worry, Belle—I'll get it back for you in no time."

"H-how are you gonna do th-that?" Belle sniffled. "It's so high up!"

Laura gave her a mischievous smirk. "Just watch," she said, getting up and marching towards the building. She studied it for a moment, as if she was sizing it up, before nodding to herself, grasping a handful of the sturdy fabric near the gate, and…

Loudred tapped his foot impatiently as he stood by the mechanism that controlled the gates, waiting for the visitor, whom Diglett identified as a seedot ages ago, to finally step off the grate and come inside.

"Grr… What is TAKING them so long?" he demanded angrily to the air. But when the visitor still failed to appear, "That's IT!" he decided, "I'm giving them ONE more minute before I—" But his threat never came to completion, as the sudden sound of gasps and startled shouts from outside grabbed his attention and his curiosity compelled him to go outside and see for himself what was going on.

When he stepped outside, he was surprised to be confronted with a small crowd of pokémon, composed of a mixture of ages and species—including the seedot visitor who still hadn't set foot off of the grate—who all seemed to be… looking up at the guild's entryway building. He spotted one of the new apprentices, Paula, standing at the forefront of the crowd, and while there was a grass-type standing next to her, it was decidedly not her partner. Since the two had been practically joined at the hip ever since joining the guild, this was a very weird occurrence. Possibly even weirder than whatever had happened to spawn the small crowd in the first place, actually, which meant his curiosity peaked even further. But as curious as he was about Laura's absence, he decided that his priorities should probably lay in finding out what was going on that had so thoroughly entranced the visitor so that he could finally usher him inside and get on with work. He opted to ask Paula since she was not only in an optimal position at the front of the crowd, so would probably actually know the answers to his questions, but also because, while some of the assembled pokémon he could vaguely recognize from having visited the guild before—including the seedot whose distracted frame of mind had brought him out, actually—she was the only one he had any real familiarity with.

"So Paula… what the HECK is going on here?!" he demanded, marching up to her. "Why is everyone just STANDING AROUND like this?"

Paula startled at the voice, but she only gave a quick glance his way before turning her attention towards whatever had everyone so interested about the building. "Oh… Hey, Loudred," she said, even her voice sounding distracted. But then she gestured upwards, pointing up near one of the ear-shaped portions of the building. "We're just watching Laura retrieve a lost toy."

Loudred followed her paw… and his jaw dropped at the sight that met him. About three-fourths of the way up the left ear of the entryway building, quickly hauling herself upwards, hand over hand, was Laura. She was moving surely and steadily and showing no signs of stopping. In fact, just in the time since Loudred began observing her, she had gained another few feet in height.

"WHAT THE—?!" Loudred exclaimed, craning his neck to better follow her ascent and using a hand to shade his eyes from the brightness of the midmorning sun, "WHY is Laura CLIMBING the ENTRYWAY BUILDING?!"

Paula glanced back at him and rolled her eyes. "I just told you," she huffed, "she's trying to retrieve—"

But before she could reiterate her partner's purpose in climbing, the crowd was treated to the loud, half scandalized, half worried shout of "Laura is doing WHAT?!" come from beneath the gate, followed by a loud flurry of flapping wings. Loudred and Paula glanced at each other and shared a wince; apparently Chatot had been close enough to the sentry post to hear Loudred's exclamation.

Indeed, scant moments later found Chatot—along with Wigglytuff and everyone else in the guild who hadn't left for their explorations yet—rushing outside just in time to witness a disk-shaped toy being thrown down and caught by an ecstatic young bellsprout.

"Thank you, Laura!" the child screamed upwards, waving at something—or, rather, someone—who was apparently perched at the top. The members of the guild who had just rushed outside looked up and, sure enough: there was Laura, three limbs wrapped around the entryway building's left ear with a fourth waving happily back at the child, a rather smug grin on her face.

"Laura!" Chatot screeched, his eyes, previously wide with shock, narrowing in annoyance at the fact that her antics had garnered such a crowd who would be sure to spread gossip about her reckless actions, sullying the good name of the Wigglytuff Guild, "you get down here this instant!"

Despite how far away she was, Chatot's keen eyes allowed him to catch the momentary wince that crossed Laura's features at his tone. Chatot nodded decisively to himself, pleased that he seemed to have gotten the message across about how unacceptable her actions were and just how much trouble she would be in the instant she set foot back on the ground. But the thought of said ground—which, upon further reflection, really was rather far away from her current location—coupled with the sight of her glancing around, seeming to be looking for a safe path to descend, brought about visions of her taking a misstep or losing a handhold and sending her small, fragile body careening down through the unforgiving air, obeying cruel laws of gravity and—

—he immediately changed his mind and, wide-eyed in fear, screamed up "On second thought, you stay right where you are, young lady! Do you hear me? Do not move even a single muscle!"

He paused only enough to see her give a thumbs up and settle back into her former position before he spread his wings and swiftly flew up to meet her. He may have even overshot it a bit, as he got a brief glimpse of her wide, startled eyes as he finally came to a stop hovering a little over her head. He peered down at the ground below, wincing a bit as he confirmed that, yes, they really were quite high up, actually, before he re-positioned himself directly in front of Laura until his stern, narrowed eyes were staring directly into her sheepish ones.

"Now, you will listen to me and do exactly as I say," he ordered. "Do you understand?" He waited until she nodded her assent before he began guiding her down, keeping in a position where he could help her to keep her grip on the fabric, or catch her if she fell.

Most of the crowd had dispersed by the time the treecko's feet finally planted themselves once more on the ground, as watching someone climb down something with help from a fussy busybody wasn't nearly as interesting as watching that same someone climb up something solo. In fact, the only pokémon left watching by the time Laura turned around to face the music were Paula, the two kids at the root of the incident, a victreebel who was likely the father of the young bellsprout,and Wigglytuff. Loudred and the other apprentices, no strangers to Chatot's tongue-lashings and scolding tendencies, had wisely scattered after being assured that their fellow apprentice was standing safely on the ground once more. Laura gave a brief smile towards the children and her partner before glancing back at Chatot, her face falling as she noticed his stern glare and saw him give a big inhale in preparation of giving her the scolding of a lifetime. But that scolding never came, as Belle, before Chatot had even had the chance to finish inhaling, lunged and essentially plowed Laura over in an overenthusiastic hug of gratitude.

"ThankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouTHANKYOU!" she let out in a rush as she nuzzled Laura's chest. It was clear from Laura's face that she would have warmly replied "You're welcome" if not for the fact that Belle had knocked all the air out of her.

Upon seeing this, the victreebel chuckled and gently pulled his daughter away before offering Laura a vine and helping her stand back up. "Yes, thank you very much for helping my daughter and her friend," he said, before turning towards Chatot and Guildmaster Wigglytuff. "It's good to see that the renown of the Wigglytuff Guild is most definitively deserved. You should be proud to have apprentices like this one who are willing to go above and beyond in the name of helping out their fellow pokémon!"

Chatot deflated slightly in shock. "Er, yes… well…"

But luckily for him, Wigglytuff, bursting with pride over his new apprentice, immediately chimed in with "We can't take all the credit! Friendly-friend Laura just joined us a few days ago!

He paused momentarily before ruffling his feathers and pulling up straight, composing himself once more into full confidence. "Yes, and it's a trait that we like to keep encouraging even after joining! 'Smiles go for miles' is one of our mottos, you know!"

The victreebel smiled again and nodded in appreciation. "That's an excellent motto," he agreed. "I wish to thank you again for all your help, but now we must be off."

"Thanks again, Laura!"

"Yes, thank you!"

With that, the trio left to continue on with their day and find some less windy places to play. Chatot waited until they were out of earshot before he turned back to Laura, a stern glare in his eye and a reprimand on his tongue. Just because the praise had eased his fury slightly didn't mean he wasn't still upset, after all.

"Just what were you thinking?" he demanded. "Things may have worked out this time, but that was still an incredibly foolish and dangerous thing to do!"

Laura cringed, looking down in mild shame. "…The kids needed help," she mumbled softly, scuffing her feet against the ground.

Chatot sighed, covering his eyes with his wings. "It didn't occur to you to go and ask someone for help? Someone such as me? Who has wings? And can fly? Rather than attempt to climb a structure that is not supposed to be climbed on?"

"I mean… technically it isn't against the rules to climb the entryway building," Paula reasoned in an attempt to help her partner, who was now blushing in embarrassment. "At least… you didn't mention anything like that when we joined."

In response, Chatot just mumbled something about how he "didn't think he'd need to mention it, since he'd assumed it was just common sense," shaking his head in exasperation.

"I admit it was a little scary to you so high up, Laura," Wigglytuff suddenly interjected, "but seeing you make it all the way to the top like that was also really cool! It just goes to show how good treeckos are at climbing things, I guess."

At this, Chatot paused in his head-shaking. "That is true," he mused, suddenly thoughtful. "All the information I have on the sceptile-line does agree that members of the species tend to live in forests or jungles with tall trees with dense leaf coverage, necessitating their climbing in order to better utilize the sunlight that filters through… so taking that into account…" He dropped his wings, turning a calculating gaze towards Laura, then up at the guild's entryway building, and then towards the sparse foliage surrounding the area. "Ah," he inhaled a sharp breath. "I see what the problem is. Even with the high amounts of sunlight in the area mitigating the need for your climbing instincts, you still possess them... and with how short the trees are here, coupled with the jobs you've done thus far, you haven't had enough stimulation in regards to those instincts. In light of that, I suppose it isn't unreasonable that this was your first solution to the issue at hand."

Paula and Laura shared a glance that, thankfully, went unnoticed by the guild's head of intelligence. Given that Laura's natural species was human, they weren't entirely sure that Chatot's reasoning really applied in this situation. On the other hand, neither of them knew enough about what had actually happened to cause the species change in the first place, so they couldn't be sure that her new biology wasn't subconsciously affecting her, or her instincts. But whether it was actually true or applicable or not, they would still take it since it gave them an easy excuse to hopefully avoid any consequences for Laura's little stunt—and possibly future stunts as well, since during the climb Laura had discovered that she actually really, really liked climbing things and generally being up high. Especially when it came to the view.

"So!" Chatot suddenly said, interrupting their thoughts. "The Guildmaster and I will work on finding some regular tasks which you can do in order to stimulate those instincts. Or, failing that, we will at least find some safer places for you to climb—as good as that display was, you are still rather young, and we wouldn't want you to overdo things or find yourself in a situation in which you can't safely get out of!" He turned to Wigglytuff. "Does this meet your approval, Guildmaster?"

Wigglytuff nodded enthusiastically. "Of course! It's our job as Guildmaster and Head of Intelligence to make sure our recruits are healthy and happy so that they can train hard and become the best explorers they can! You can always come to us if you're having problems," he assured, actually sounding a bit more serious than usual, just to drive the point home.

"In the meantime, no more climbing the entryway building, understand?" Chatot asked, a stern look in his eyes. "This is now an official rule!"

The ruling lasted for about a week before a vicious storm blew in, damaging some of the fabric that covered the entryway building and necessitating some repair work, and Chatot found out that Laura not only knew how to sew, but that she was actually a lot better at the task than either he or Chimecho was, so if they wanted it to get fixed—and fixed well—in any reasonable amount of time, he would have to allow her to climb up it again—with strict supervision, or course.

Much later…

"You know… one of the few positive things I can say about the dark future is that it is significantly easier to navigate," Grovyle grumbled as he surveyed the scene before him. Or, more specifically, as he gave a petulant glare towards the huge, downed tree which now blocked the route he'd apparently taken through Treeshroud Forest the first time he visited. At least… he was pretty sure this was the same path. After all, he remembered passing by that weirdly-shaped rock from last time, too. Then again, the trio had already passed by three suspiciously similar-looking, weirdly-shaped rocks already, so who really knew for sure.

Laura gave a non-committal hum. Grovyle's sentiments did make a certain amount of sense, after all. A dark future with no weather meant that the wind, rain, and lightning wouldn't be able to knock trees over, or start fires. If winter didn't come, then nothing would start to freeze that wasn't already frozen—and on the flip-side, no spring meant no thawing, meaning that people could continue to walk on top of a frozen river for a shortcut to the opposite bank. And if the planet didn't move, then there would be no worry of rockslides or earthquakes suddenly making paths unusable. Unless there was a big fight between pokémon or something that caused the damage, paths outside of Mystery Dungeons—which worked under their own rules—would never change. By that token, it really would be a lot easier to navigate after you memorized which path you wanted to take. But on the other hand… it took a lot of the thrill of exploration out of it, since it meant there was nothing new to discover. Aside from the aforementioned changes caused by pokémon battling, or just trying to live their lives the best they could under the dismal circumstances, she supposed.

Laura was pulled from her musings by Paula saying, "It looks like it's charred," as she examined the tree. "Maybe it was struck by lightning? I wonder if it means that there was a storm here after the Time Gear got put back in…"

"It may have even happened during my first trip," Grovyle sighed, finally giving up his ineffectual glare at the offending obstacle. "It was storming when I took the Time Gear, so for all I know it might have been struck by lightning right after I passed by. Not that it really matters when it happened, as the results are still the same; we can't go this way, and will have to find an alternate route. But with all the rest of the damage from the storm cluttering the ground and pathways the way it is, that might be easier said than done…"

Laura merely hummed again, this time thoughtfully as she looked at the trees surrounding them. Then, in a move that proved some bonds transcended such barriers as amnesia, she shared a look with Grovyle.

"…Ten minutes," he said, sounding simultaneously tired, amused, and fond.

Laura gave a short, sharp nod, a huge grin on her face.

Then the two immediately scrambled up the nearest tree trunks, leaving Paula alone to stare up at the canopy of leaves above her in complete confusion as to what in the world just happened. But she wasn't left in that state for long, as barely two minutes passed before Grovyle swung down again from the branches.

"Okay, I've found the path we need to take," he declared, before settling himself down at the base of the tree.

Paula glanced between him and the tree Laura had climbed a few times before asking, "Um… shouldn't we call Laura down, then? I thought we were in a hurry…"

Grovyle waved it off. "Oh, that hasn't changed, but I told Laura ten minutes; she's not going to budge until they're up. We may as well take advantage of that and take a little break."

Paula gave one last glance up at the tress before settling down herself. She supposed he had a point—if given even the slightest chance or reason to climb something tall, there would be a ninety percent likelihood that Laura would take it. The incident with the guild's entryway building proved that well enough. As did the sun lamp incident, and the rocks on the beach, and that giant pole stuck up in the middle of nowhere, and her absolute glee at getting to climb up Mt. Horn during the expedition… the Perfect Apple Tree in Apple Woods was actually an anomaly in that she didn't try to climb it in order to reach the Perfect Apples that Team Skull hadn't gotten to in the highest branches, and even then it wasn't that she hadn't wanted to. She had just deferred to Paula's worry about lingering injuries or status ailments from Skuntank and Koffing's noxious gas combo, since treeckos were grass-types and, thus, extremely susceptible to poison. Although, speaking of treeckos, and the sceptile-line in general…

"So, Grovyle, I've been wondering something," Paula started.

"Yes?"

"Guildmaster Wigglytuff once told us that treeckos are really good at climbing things, and Chatot said that the sceptile-line in general had an instinct for climbing things since they tended to live in tall trees… and since you're a part of that line… did Laura learn how to climb from you?"

Grovyle chuckled warmly and grinned as he looked towards where his friend was still high in her tree. "No," he said, "she's been climbing since before I met her. In fact, that's actually how we met in the first place—she fell out of a tree and landed right on top of me."

Paula gave a startled laugh. "Are you serious?" she asked, laughing even more once Grovyle nodded in assent.

"Once, while we were still searching for Time Gears, I shot down her suggestion of five minutes for a reconnaissance from the trees and suggested an hour instead—because naïve me didn't yet know the differences between time measurements and assumed that since one was less than five, it meant the hour was the shorter time period—and she fully took advantage of that." He grinned even harder as Paula laughed louder. "And," he added, "I fully believe that she would have kept letting me think that if her need to make sure I knew how to tell time properly didn't overrun her need to climb high places."

Paula just laughed even louder. But then Grovyle sighed, his grin tapering off a bit and becoming melancholy. He slumped into the tree a bit more and his tone grew somber as he said, "If anything… she's actually the one who taught me how to climb as well as I do." When Paula's smile fell at his tone, he explained, "For all that this 'Chatot' of yours is correct about the sceptile-line having an instinct for climbing, it was actually something that I had to suppress for quite a while. Our evolutionary line… the bright coloring makes us easy targets in the dark world, and our numbers—and those of grass-types in general, really—dropped because of the lack of sunlight. We had to adapt to live in other places. Most of my early life was spent living underground, where it was easier and safer to put up sun lamps. It meant that even though I lived in a forest… I didn't actually get the chance to climb trees until after I'd evolved and was travelling with Laura."

"I'm… I'm sorry to hear that," Paula told him, hesitantly reaching out a paw like she wanted to comfort him with it, but was unsure if it would be appreciated.

Grovyle gave her a small, appreciative smile. "It's just one more reason to make sure that future never comes about," he shrugged. But then he straightened up a bit and turned his head toward her. "Though, now I'm a bit curious. What brought about that discussion on sceptile-line instincts with your guildmaster?"

"Oh, that's because Chatot was trying to figure out an explanation for why Laura decided to climb up the guild's entryway building herself to retrieve a child's lost toy rather than call him for help, since he can fly."

"Laura climbed where?!" Grovyle asked in shock, his jaw dropping. But then he just dropped his head back and practically roared with laughter. "Oh, Laura… you really haven't changed a bit!"

This was the scene Laura found a few minutes later when she finally came down from the treetops, and her friends refused to explain what prompted it. Though Paula did promise to explain later, once the Time Gear was in Grovyle's possession once more.

But by that point, they were too worried over Treeshroud Forest's continued paralyzed state—despite having found the Time Gear in its proper place—and what that meant for the state of Temporal Tower, and the incident was all but forgotten.

Later still…

Even once the members of the Wigglytuff Guild had been assured that Chatot would heal up just fine from protecting Team Rainbow in Brine Cave, they were still too keyed up to even contemplate going to sleep. Besides, Wigglytuff was way more lenient that Chatot when it came to lights out anyways, and he showed no inclination for heading to bed himself—instead opting to go and raid the larder for a midnight snack, since he'd been too busy tending Chatot to even think about food—so no one felt any guilt or reservations about staying up in the main area to talk about the recent events. They just had to make sure to stay quiet enough that they didn't wake Chatot up. But they were sure it would be a simple enough task, since Wigglytuff had taken him to Team Rainbow's room in order to tend his wounds, since it was still full of a lot of medical supplies from where they had still needed to treat Laura's injuries and illness from the Crystal Lake battle right up to where she and Paula were taken to the future, and no one had really had the heart to disturb the room while they were gone or the time to after they came back. Luckily no one had been injured enough to need any of those extra supplies until now. In any case, the room was the farthest one from the main area, meaning that they had a bit of a buffer in terms of noise.

Speaking of Team Rainbow, once the worry about Chatot and Wigglytuff's story about his previous Brine Cave exploration were out of the way, everyone's conversation turned towards the girls' current adventure and the speculation on what the Hidden Land and Temporal Tower were like.

"I bet it's REALLY COOL and full of awesome TREASURE!" Loudred speculated.

"Yes, and for a place called 'Hidden Land' I am sure it must house many secrets, rich with history," Dugtrio concurred.

"Ooh… do you think there may even be information on the World's Treasure there?" Sunflora wondered. "Since it's where Dialga lives, and since he controls time, there must be some information there, right?"

Everyone pondered that for a moment, sighing wistfully. Being the one to someday find the World's Treasure was every explorer's dream, but few actually contemplated conducting a serious search. This was mostly because there was so little information on it. Everyone had at least heard of it, but no one had any concrete ideas on what it actually was. An actual item? Something more nebulous, such as secrets or knowledge? Or perhaps it was merely a beautiful view, like the treasure of Fogbound Lake turned out to be? Many people even thought that it didn't actually exist at all—that it was just some story or rumor, the kind of thing that got people excited about the idea of exploring without actually having a concrete end goal. Then again, a lot of people had also thought the same things about the Time Gears before this ongoing crisis brought them to light, so who really knew.

"Well," Chimecho finally chimed in and broke through everyone's daydreams, "whether the Hidden Land does or doesn't have any information on it, it's unlikely that Team Rainbow and Grovyle will have the chance to look, since they'll be focused on finding Temporal Tower."

Corphish deflated. "I guess you're right, hey, hey…"

"Hey, Dad? What does Temporal Tower look like?" Diglett wondered.

"Ah, what an excellent question, my son. However… it is one I do not have an answer to."

"I reckon it'll be the same color as the Time Gears, yup, yup," Bidoof guessed.

"That would make a lot of sense," Sunflora agreed. "But… ooh, it's so frustrating that we have so little information about it!"

"Meh heh heh… It makes you wonder where Laura found out about it the first time, doesn't it?" Croagunk finally piped up.

Corphhish cocked his head in confusion. "Hey, hey? What do you mean?"

Croagunk shrugged. "Given Paula's description of the dark future, it doesn't seem like pokémon were generally sociable with each other, so I'm just curious about how she found all this stuff about Temporal Tower and the true purpose of the Time Gears in the first place."

"Hm… that is a good point," Dugtrio acknowledged. "And give her own quiet demeanor, that would make things even harder on her end. Though, granted, we do not know how differently she acted back then, compared to now. It is entirely possible that the amnesia and species change had some effect on her personality."

"I'm not so sure about that," Chimecho disagreed. "If things really were that bad in the dark world, and she and Grovyle were forced to be on the run all the time, then it would make sense for her to be generally quieter, and to only really confide in a few people. It would just be safer that way—especially if humans are as rare there as they are here, since it would have just made her a bigger target."

The assembled group frowned at the idea of their friend being forced on the run for so much of her life, even more so since they'd gotten a taste of what it must have been like for her, given what was revealed about Dusknoir and they way he tricked them all and dragged Team Rainbow into the future, not to mention the state of the girls when they finally returned. Although, surprisingly enough, Laura actually seemed to be in a bit better shape upon her return to the guild than she had been during the departure through the Dimensional Hole. Maybe there was something in those weird bandages she was sporting that accelerated the healing process? Or maybe it was just because their last memories of her prior to that had been shadowed by how frail she had looked in the throes of illness, so what they remembered was worse than what had actually taken place.

"If that's TRUE… then I also wonder why she did all this in the FIRST place," Loudred broke the silence, a frown on his face. "Who cares WHERE she learned it all… now I want to know WHY!"

"Oh my gosh, Loudred! Of course she would do something like this! Laura always helps those in need to the best of her abilities! This isn't any different!" Sunflora rolled her eyes.

"UGH! I didn't mean it like THAT!" Loudred said, rolling his eyes as well and crossing his arms in annoyance. "Of COURSE it's in her nature to help… but given how OUTLANDISH the whole thing is, why would she even BELIEVE it in the first place?" he demanded. "Given how we ALL tried to deny their story about the future at first… except for MAYBE Bidoof and the Guildmaster… why wouldn't the REVERSE be true as well?"

"Oof… I reckon… maybe she had a dimensional scream?" Bidoof ventured. "So she knew it was possible?"

"Oh, I'm sure the answer is much simpler than that, meh heh heh…" Croagunk said, a smirk growing on his face.

Corphish almost didn't want to know, as that expression never boded well when it came to Croagunk's inner thoughts, but, at the same time, he knew that the curiosity would eat him alive for the rest of his life if he never found out, so finally he took one for the team and asked, "So… what is the answer?"

Croagunk's smirk only grew even wider. "Well, the place that Team Rainbow and Grovyle are currently searching for is known as Temporal Tower, right? What's the first thing that comes to mind when you think of a tower?"

"Hm… Well, their height, for one thing," Chimecho answered after a moment of thought. "They're typically very tall and… oh!" she cut herself off as she came to a realization. Then she started giggling. "I see what you mean! Yes, yes that makes perfect sense!"

"I am… lost," Dugtrio admitted, looking between the two. "What makes perfect sense?"

"OH!" Loudred suddenly exclaimed as he, too, got what Croagunk was implying. "YEAH! That's GOTTA be the reason why!"

"Uh… What is?" Bidoof asked, as even Sunflora joined in the laughter. "I'm with Dutrio—I don't get it either!"

"Oh! Bidoof, it's just…" Sunflora had to take a moment to reign in her chuckling before she could give him a coherent hint. "Think about it: What does Laura do when confronted with tall things—and especially with tall things that she actually has permission to explore?"

"Well… I reckon she… oh!" Bidoof blinked, and he started to grin when he, too—along with the remaining members of the guild—finally got it. "That…. Ha… ha ha ha! Yup, yup—that has to be the reason why!"

It took an even longer time for anyone to calm down from their laughter in order to attempt sleep, because the explanation that their minds had conjured up for why Laura would have gone through all the trouble of a life on the run and travelling through time—aside from her genuinely kind personality, of course—was just too hilarious. And it was all too easy to believe that when told that the end goal of such a venture would be reaching the top of an extremely tall tower, Laura would readily and eagerly agree to drop everything else in her life and agree to such a mad and dangerous quest simply for the chance to climb it.