Black Mist of Joy

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The wild Pokémon were getting stronger. William had to improve as well, as his home in the Pecha Forest wasn't one of the safest places to be.
True power comes from the heart and William knew that, but noone said, that that process couldn't be sped up.
During one of his late-night lectures, William had discovered a mysterious item of clothing, that apparently made its wearer look gentlemanly handsome enough to nearly double the rate of improvement. William knew, that he needed that item and the book had told him, where to find it.
The Blackmist Mountain extended into the clouds, piercing them and making them bleed flickering shadows onto its rugged surface.
William gulped as he approached the mountain.
"Oh joy..."

Deciding, that the unknown item wasn't worth his time, since it didn't seem to be a Joy Ribbon, William floated out of the mountain again. After the blinding sunlight he was faced with became more manageable, he saw Acro lying on the ground. Had a Pokémon attacked and defeated him this quickly?
Concerned, he asked:
"Acro? Are you okay?"

"Oh there you are! I'm fine! I just thought I'd lay down for a bit that's all" Acro said quickly, trying to hide the fact that he had panicked about being alone and tripped on a simple rock. He stood up with a nervous laugh and said, "Find anything? You'd think we'd find SOMETHING useful by now, huh?" he quickly tried to change the subject. His tail waved and accidentally knocked a small rock into an a pile of rocks, dislodging one of them and causing the pile to crumble and reveal another cavern with an item and an agitated pokemon.

This dice is not existing.

This dice is not existing.

"Found something? Yes. Found something useful? Of course not. That never happens."
As the cavern was revealed, however, William quickly spotted a suspicious item.
"Is that...? If it is, I would like to redact my previous statement..."
However, being too focussed on the item they had finally found, the Gastly didn't notice another Archen, that had been residing in the cave, picking up a rock and throwing it at him, sending him flying for a bit.
"Ow...my head..."

Acro stared as the other archen sent a boulder flying towards him a purple aura enveloped him and an orange aura surrounded the rock and stopped it an inch from the Archen's beak. The rock swirled around him and was tossed back at the rabid Archen, who was struck with the rock and trapped in the cave again for a few more moments before tossing the rock out of the way once more with a hiss. Acro blinked, he had just used Ancient Power, he had forgotten he had that move. Pebbles and rocks around him were levitated into the air with a strange aura surrounding them and were tossed at the Archen with another Ancient Power once more.

As he recovered from the concussion, William decided to use the move Spite to prevent the other Archen from tossing back the stones again. Although throwing rocks was a rather primitive way of fighting, William envied the two Archen for being able to actually do so. But then again, invention stems from neccessity, so the inability to use those ways of fighting might have been the reason, why someone invented the moves William was using. Would he invent a move himself one day? For now there wasn't the time to think of that, though. There was a Joy Ribbon, and it needed to be picked up. That was all, that mattered at the moment.

Acro began to run about, leaving copies of himself and using double team. He confused the Archen enough to get behind it, and use Iron Tail. Unfortunately the Archen noticed Acro and leaped into the air in a back flip and landed behind Acro and used a quick attack and struck the Archen in the back before using it's own double team to pull the same tactic Acro had tried with William except with Rock Throw. Acro was stunned for a bit from the surprise but recovered quickly, he shook himself and looked to see that the Archen had disappeared from his vision, behind the only ghastly in the room.

Getting hit by a Wing Attack from behind, William decided, that he had enough of the enemy Archen.
Using Spite to disable this move as well, the Pokémon should be having trouble with even being able to hit him. Also, the look of complete horror on the Archen's face made up for a bit of the pain the Wing Attack had caused. William found himself wishing for hands, wanting to throw the annoying enemy Rock type off of the mountain, so they wouldn't have to deal with this nuisance anymore.

Acro had done that for him, a rock blasted into the Archen, sending him rolling down the mountain with probably a lot of bruises and possibly some broken bones. "OH ARCEUS! SORRY!" Acro called down to his brother species wise. He hadn't meant to do that to the Archen, he cringed with every time he heard the Archen his a rock. "He's going to be okay....right?" he asked the ghastly hopefully. He took a step back and stepped onto an item that was hidden under the rock he had used to launch the flightless bird off the side of the mountain.

This dice is not existing.

"Uh...I don't know...I've never been rolling down a mountain before. But it's probably not as bad as it looks, I guess..."
William honestly had no idea and was completely unable to judge the Archen's injuries.
"Now then...", he spoke, turning to the Joy Ribbon again.
"We need to determine, which one of us is going to take this one...maybe we could flip a coin or something?"
Finally William had seen that Joy Ribbon with his own eyes. It was confirmation, that such an item actually existed. It gave him new power to carry onward...

Acro looked at the ribbon and then at William, "You have it, I'm sure we can find another one!" He smiled and hopped onto the top of the now cavern like roof, "Let's keep going up like you said, maybe rare items like that are more hidden than we thought. After all we had to move a boulder to get that." Acro had picked up the Special Band he had stepped on and began walking, not giving the ghastly a chance to refuse even if he had wanted to.

"Uh...but.."
The Archen's response left William unable to respond. But while he could simply leave now, Acro and him had survived things together, many others wouldn't even believe. Astrid would be one of those things for example. Acro was probably the first being William could call a "friend", not counting his "partners", that suddenly ran away. His own moral compass now forced him to follow the Archen and help him as well. Furthermore a strange force from somewhere far away made him want a second Joy Ribbon for no discernible reason at all. What would he need it for? And why wouldn't he put the one he got on yet?
William didn't know. But he did know, that the two of them were going to find more Joy Ribbons.
That was certain.

Acro was happy to see the ghastly follow him. He had a doubt that the pokemon would leave him on his own, but luckily the ghastly had decided to stay. He smiled and said, "So, what are you going to do now that you have a joy ribbon? Once I get one i'm going to try and get enough levels to evolve, then I might be strong enough but i'm not sure...at least i'd be able to fly a little bit though. I guess we both have to wait to evolve to get what we want." The archen began to start flipping rocks over to see if anything was under them. He spotted something wedged under a large boulder, he made his way over to inspect it while listening to the Ghastly.

This dice is not existing.

"Yeah, the same, I guess...getting hands would certainly be awesome. But otherwise I don't really know...all I usually do is wandering around the world and reading books. I don't have that much ambition. Any dreams I might have had once are long gone..."
Acro's words had made the Gastly think. What did he want? Certainly there would be more to do than just reading books. But what could he do? Society had already forced him into that role and he couldn't escape...

"How can a dream be gone? It only goes away if you let it go away right? Before the guild, I didn't really have the courage to even walk into town. I met George, a former partner of mine, and he changed that and forced me into the guild because I wanted to be in it. Now I am and my nervousness around pokemon is gone, mostly. I only get nervous when I meet a pokemon for the first time...after that I can speak and act normally." Acro rambled. He waited for a reply from the ghastly as they walked.

"It's a long story...", William sighed.
"Before the guild, I didn't have the courage to walk into town. Now, almost a year later, my suspicions and assumptions have all been proven as true. I haven't given up. I have simply realized, that there is nothing, that I can do and there's nothing, that can be done by anyone else either. I have tried. Nothing helped. In fact, now it's even worse than before. I have lost futile, useless hope and have gained understanding of the impossibility of change. That was when I realized, that my dream was gone long ago...huh?"
The Gastly stopped as he heard the Archen's steps resonate more loudly on the part of the ground they were currently standing on.
"Just a moment..."
William floated into the ground and, as expected, found another cave, which contained another item.
And that item was:

This dice is not existing.