Suit, check.

  Diamond sword, check.

  Gun, check.

  Blocks, check.

  Food, check.

  Other shit, check.

  Humanoid figure watching him from the trees, check. (Jophiel shot at it once, it didn't react, very cool.)

  Alright, good to go.

  Pokenav? 6:30AM.

  He's back at the dock, pcing SAND at the SAND HOLE again. He wants to get this dome today, he's getting sick of collecting sand.

  At least the ocean looks nice, no massive sea monsters to ruin my day” He murmurs.

  “Oh! I know this!!! That's because Css-1 Leviathans don't get those close to the shore! Most of them have sleepy-time WAYYYYY down there!”

  Mhmm, yep that makes sense.

  Joshua stops.

  “...”

  Slowly, he looks down, meeting the gaze of Gabriel's rge bright pink eyes and positively beaming smile.

  “...”

  “Mmmmaybe a Css-2”

  Joshua can only respond appropriately.

  “what”

  Gabriel, like she's remembering that she is in fact Pink, just tilts her head in confusion.

  “What?”

  [What?]

  “Gabriel that is the single scariest fucking thing you've ever said”

  “Gasp! Language!”

  “Sorry”

  Joshua shakes his head, suddenly now VERY aware of how out into the ocean he is. But he realizes something before he can panic.

  “Wait, you remember something? About your past?”

  “Uh…”

  She taps on the dome of her “head” and furrows her brow. Perking up she suddenly gasps, good sign.

  “Ah! I remember water!”

  Nevermind.

  “A LOOOOOOT of water!”

  “That's… that's nice, Pink”

  “Hehe”

  *thud*

  “Hm?”

  He sees something shift in the corner of his eye, the sound of sand thudding against itself alerting him that he's FINALLY done.

  The sand hole is complete!

  “Horray!!!” Gabriel throws her hooves up.

  Joshua throws his own arms up, adapting to this strange mood The Pink One created.

  “Yippie!!!”

  Time to finally see what this signal was all about…

  …

  Joshua climbs down the dder, slowly descending into the sandy depths.

  He definitely doesn't like the fact the only thing separating himself and the ocean is a block of sand, but he can make it work.

  It goes down, and down.

  Uriel is on his back, pcing torches on the wall behind him. Jophiel is too rge to fit down here, and to be frank he doesn't trust Gabriel to not puncture her suit in such an enclosed space.

  So Uriel is coming with him.

  He can feel the jealousy coming from Jophiel, but she doesn't comment on it.

  Eventually, they hit the bottom. Which is just… gravel.

  Is it underground too?

  Man, if only there were a really cool and pretty unicorn with his entire supply of shovels in her saddlebag who could help right now.

  *ting*

  A shovel wrapped in a pastel pink glow falls down the hole, slowly at first, before the aura fades and it nds on the ground.

  (“You don't have to stroke my ego if you want something, Joshua”)

  Liar, she's loves it.

  (“I can't really deny that”)

  Shovel acquired.

  Joshua digs down, luckily the gravel surrounding it doesn't fill in the hole, which is definitely should under normal circumstances.

  Two blocks, three.

  Fou- What's that?

  It's not gravel, it's a rough dark material.

  His UI pops up.

  [STONE BRICK]

  Stone brick?

  Down here?

  His heart thumps.

  …Stronghold?

  “No, that doesn't make sense…”

  It wouldn't be this close. Not this close to the surface.

  Taking out his pickaxe, he breaks through the brick and is immediately hit with a horrid stench.

  Like stale iron and rusted metal.

  There's light down there, a rotating red light creeps up through the hole onto his face- and holy shit that is LOUD.

  An arm birs, broken and stuttering slightly in volume. In random intervals it goes from barely above static to a head-hurting wail.

  “What the hell is this?”

  A bunker?

  (“It has an arm system…”)

  “Generation?”

  (“Maybe…”)

  Joshua thinks it over for a moment.

  Not hearing anything other than the arm, he pces a few pnks down and dders himself down to the floor.

  Stepping onto the carpeted floor (odd), he looks around, and raises an eyebrow at what definitely looks like… a… pyground?

  Pypen?

  It looks like an underground shelter, with brick walls and… weirdly colored carpeted floor. It reminds him of that one rug with the streets on it, he used to have one of those.

  There's two doors on the right and left of him, just pin gray doors like he would see at an office building.

  The room found himself in is definitely a pyroom, there's a slide, swings, balls, all brightly colored and spread around the room.

  It's hard to really see anything with the fshing red arm lights.

  Joshua pulls out his pistol and equips his shield.

  “Let me know if you see anything, alright Uri?”

  “B-Blitz!” She nods.

  Joshua explores and finds…

  Not… a lot.

  The first room is just a living area, a textbook living room and connected kitchen, with an offroom bathroom.

  There's two bedrooms along the hallway.

  Each have a pque hanging off of nail in it.

  One says “Martha”. There's decal of butterflies and unicorns drawn on it with other… how does he expin it, “little girl things”, drawn with excited but sloppy lines.

  The other says “Dad”. There's slow, precise drawings of magic wands, wizard hats and other stereotypical wizard things... Also what looks to be a ham sandwich, strange.

  [Awwwww]

  Joshua gets a really, really bad feeling.

  Deciding to prioritize on getting the lights back on, he goes back into the pyground and walks through the other door.

  “Now this I can work with”

  It's a b, and his eyes are immediately caught to the massive machine at the far wall that just screams “generator”.

  Walking up, there's a screen dispyed on the side.

  [OVERRIDE LOCKDOWN?]

  [Y/N]

  He presses Y, and the entire building seems to stutter for a second. The red lights cutting out, and the arms going silent.

  Joshua grips his pistol a little harder.

  Then, everything flicks back on. But with no arm, and no red lights. Just the typical pale florescent lights that sputter on and reveal everything to him.

  Oh.

  (“Oh dear”)

  It's a bloodbath.

  He can't even begin to imagine what kind event happened here, but he knows that it did not end well.

  What he can picture to be a organized, somewhat archaic b is completely destroyed as tables and chairs are flung around with no rhyme or reason.

  Along the walls and flopr are scorch marks, long fans of burned stone, the blooming arches of electric scars, and… is that ice? How?

  It paints the entire room in a violent, chaotic dispy of the aftermath of… something so very wrong. Stains along the floor, puddles of brown-bck ichor that smell like old copper, and deep segemted cuts slice at the stone like it was effortless.

  Cw marks.

  His mind flickers back to the cw marks along his own wall along the moat.

  Parasites.

  [Oh no…]

  [oh]

  [That's… not good]

  [Get out of there Joshua!]

  He has to admit, that is tempting.

  But there has to be something here, something that will help.

  He just has a feeling.

  Back to the pyground, there's nothing out of pce about it, aside from the minor damage that comes with age.

  Then, back to the livingroom and kitchen.

  The fridge is… useless, everything inside is spoiled. He should take it anyways, he could think of a dozen uses for a refrigerator.

  But something about this pce just…

  It feels familiar. Not that he can recognize or rete to any of this, but it's just…

  Weird.

  There's photos and pieces of paper posted on it, it's all rotten and worm. He's not able to pick anything out of them, so he moves on.

  The bathroom has a hole in it.

  He recognizes that type of hole.

  Next is the rooms.

  There's a bunch of lines along the doorframe of “Martha’s” door.

  04/01/1955 - Age 12 y - 158cm

  04/02/1954 - Age 11 y - 144cm

  04/01/1953 - Age 10 y - 139cm

  It goes all the way down, down to…

  04/01/1946 - Age 3 y - 101cm

  Joshua runs his hand down it.

  And he comes to a realization.

  Why this all feels… wrong.

  Why he doesn't want to touch anything, why he feels like he's somewhere he shouldn't be.

  This isn't a bunker.

  This is a home.

  …was.

  Was a home.

  “...”

  “Blitzle?” A confused bleat knocks him out of it.

  “I'm… yeah, let's… let's keep going”

  He enters “Dad's” room first.

  It's spartan, but still worn by time, very scarce decorations but theres still a few pieces of paper that tter the floor.

  There’s a body.

  There's…

  That's a body.

  A skeleton, by this point, but the bck ichor of rotting flesh still cling to his bones like cobwebs. His body is wrapped in a dull gray robe, torn and ripped at the seams.

  His head is gone. Not gone, destroyed.

  He sits slumped backwards at the desk at the center of the room. A shotgun sits in his p, and a massive bck stain stands out like a wound against the back wall.

  Most of his skull is just… gone. Sharp edges of bone point outward like a serrated knife.

  A thought goes through him.

  The Soulbound Bow.

  Ace's proof that there was someone else out there besides them.

  Was this him?

  Uriel is shaking.

  He wonders how long he would have stared if he didn't notice that.

  Joshua closes the door, and takes a few moments to calm down the zebra.

  He looks over at “Martha's” door.

  Uriel goes into the pokeball, she shouldn't have to see things like this, even if it puts him in more danger.

  He can regenerate.

  She cannot.

  (“I… we don't like seeing you get hurt either way, Joshua”)

  ‘She's still recovering, Love’ He thinks.

  (“I know, just… be careful”)

  She's hating the fact she can't be down here with him.

  Theoretically she could just teleport to him, but neither of them want to risk trying that out in the ocean of all pces.

  With the link, there should be no problem as shes able to perfectly visualize where he is. But… no. Just no.

  Next is Martha's door, gun in hand he opens it and is immediately met with another wave of fucking VILE stench.

  The room has much more… character. More color, but his eyes immediately snap to the bed.

  Dozens of long, tiny tendrils, bck as ink. Twitching like an insects leg, pouring from the eyes, ears, mouth… everything, into a gore of bck and rotting meat.

  From a little girl who, from what he can gather, was so full of life.

  Reduced to a mere host.

  Her head moves.

  Joshua raises his pistol.

  *BANG*

  It keeps moving, limbs twisting and contorting, reaching out like a starving animal.

  He winces.

  *BANG BANG*

  A gargling sound, a gasping sound of air, gas releasing, a child's whine.

  *BANG BANG BANG*

  It stops moving.

  Joshua stops.

  He stares for a moment.

  Memories of his mother, his parents, start to rise once more.

  The height chart, his mom did that too.

  His dad always kept his side of one room bare.

  Looking at the rotting face, he can almost imagine it looking… sad? Relieved? Angry?

  He doesn’t know.

  Without a word, he checks his bullets and walks out.

  Not even sparing a gnce to the electronics, or what he could possibly scavenge from this pce.

  He just goes right back to the dder, fills the gap in the ceiling back in, and climbs back up.

  [...Joshua?]

  [StevenStoneOffical: Joshua, are you okay?]

  [You okay bud?]

  No response.

  He reaches the top, where the others are waiting for him.

  “Welcome back Mr. Joshua! Did you find anything?” Gabriel chrips out.

  Joshua goes to open his mouth.

  No words come out.

  In his inventory, his eyes pause on a particur device he made just earlier today. Pulling it to his hand, it beeps to life.

  [MOBILE NAVIGATIONAL DEVICE]

  A warm feeling rises in his gut. Rage? Sadness? What would you even call this?

  He gained nothing.

  Jophiel looks at him, a moment of reflection.

  No.

  He did gain something.

  “Nope”

  He puts Ace's coordinates in.

  “Nothing at all”

  Inwardly, he prays that wherever they, and those Pokemon in the school ended up…

  Somewhere better.

  “Let's go home”

  Because this one won't allow you to be comfortable…

  Not for a moment.

  But it's cruelness will only sharpen his resolve.

  Salvation is near, and he will be there to see it.