1. An Evil Will Returns


Brazen agreed to meet the punisher at a halfway shack, some miles out from the safety of her peers and the villages she watched over. It was out-of-the-way for either of them yet still he thought, this should be a fair place to speak.

Overgrowth on the walls choked the scent of sun-warmed wood. The shack had its one room and, defying regulation, locals had plundered the basement's stores. It was the sort of room no one wanted to remain still in, seeing as how the growth seemed to envelop everything. The ninetales remained calm in the face of rising tension, the creepy sensation of ivy crawling up one's hindquarters.

The pidgeotto next to him ruffled his feathers. "It's nice out today," he said, bowing his head. "Can't we just meet her outside? Or at least send me on another loop."

After some deliberations, begetting a long pause in the already-quiet shack, Brazen muttered.

"No. It's important we stay here."

The pidgeotto shrugged and started to pace about, testing the creakiness of the floorboards. It almost looked as though the bird figured it out, that it wasn't a good time to talk, but then he spotted the latch leading to the storage.

"Were these really built in case the dungeons acted up?" He asked. "I've... never been in one. Sort of sad, if you ask me."

"How so?" Brazen replied, giving up the calm. He also started to inspect the room, though he refused to move from his spot.

"If punishers—er, us—ever failed to keep the dungeons in order, this is all we have to answer for it. Wood. I'd expect stone castles and mile-deep foxholes, something to keep ferals out. Guess there's no need!" He gave a proud shake of his plumage. "We all do good work. Especially you, sun fox."

Brazen snorted. "Don't call me that." His chest grew tight.

Outside, birds continued to web together songs. A breeze filtered into the lifeless, uneven air outside, shaking the lower branches of trees.

"Flightly," Brazen said. "Remind me to order these halfway shacks stocked."

Right as Flightly turned to give him a puzzled look, a sawsbuck pushed her way through the door. The ninetales needed another pair of legs on top of the ones he alread had to match her height. She had a punisher's pattern—a sort of floral design forming a cross—stitched into her own hide, a symbol of dedication indigenous to these districts located in the fringes. Her shoulders rolled with firm muscles, and her eyes were a symbol of health, pupils tight and understanding behind them very keen. The pidgeotto wiggled off a bit of misplaced envy. He was a warrior-type himself and couldn't help the comparisons.

Brazen allowed the two to get over themselves before jumping in. "Lim, thank you for coming out here."

"I can hardly think straight," Lim admitted, chuckling. "I... this is a weird meeting."

"I might be a duke, but you don't need to feel uncomfortable. I am Brazen, and this is my protegé, Flightly."

His student bowed low. Lim returned the favor, and with that, they were all broken in. Brazen took pride in the speed at which punishers bonded. It was the result of the sun fox's mandate. Firstly, all punishers shall work in districts, to create tight relations between officials and community. Secondly, punishers in a district will refer to their fellows as family, which ensured closure, considering how many officers started as orphans—made by the act they now swore to carry out.

Lim's eyes shone. "What brings you out today?"

"Bits of stories from your district made their way to me," Brazen explained. "The grim kind. Is it true a child drowned in the river next to Blune village?"

She took in a haggard breath. "Yes. I arrived first."

"And an older pokémon, under the weather, lost himself in a daze, became tangled in thornbushes, and starved."

She hung her head, a sign her repsonse remained unchanged. Lim found this pokémon as well.

"There are two others I won't describe. A lot of punishers rumor that I don't pay close attention to their lives. I do pay attention. I collect every single report from every district in Orchidia, and I have a team dedicated to finding patterns. You seem to have stumbled onto a lot of death lately. Enough so to make me leave my ivory tower, so to speak, and meet in musty shacks."

The sawsbuck grew antsy. "I... why are you saying it all like that?" Her voice grew more and more breathy. "I didn't have anything to do with anything except finding them dead! I can barely look at a corpse. The child, I first caught a glimpse of his damp little paw. From that I could tell the entire thing was gone. We get so used to simply punishing, sending pokémon into the dungeons to... to die, no. I could never."

Flightly shot him a sidelong glance, as if to say what's your plan? Hoping, for sure, it included more than harrasssing a grieving sawsbuck.

Brazen stepped forward. "I know how you must feel. There is a reason I called you out here."

They all waited.

"I wanted to make sure you were okay, without alerting the villagers to any weakness. Your mental health matters to me, commander Lim. I apologize for the panic. Perhaps I ought to announce my intentions first—the concept of these check-ups are still in their infancy."

Two relieved sighs filled the room. The shine in Lim's eyes returned, the beginning of a grateful tear emerged in one's corner. "Oh!" She brayed. "I can't believe someone so important would... wow! I am grateful beyond words. I'm—I'm fine. Our duty is too important to let ghastly things stop us."

Brazen had been waiting for a reason to smile. "I am glad to hear you say this."

"I am glad to be able to say it. Becoming a punisher gave me the family I never had. My mother was chosen for punishment and father..." she shook off a tear.

The ninetales softened his smile. "Would you like to go hunt with Flightly and me? I can prepare cooked meat with my fire, and you may bring the rest with you. It will be a good excuse for our meeting."

"Hunt with a duke?" Lim almost fell over her legs. Many hated orphans because they knew, one day, it would be these parentless whelps leading them into the dungeons. It was a dream-come-true in the shack, a life where respect existed. "Yes, yes! I'd love to."

Flightly loved the idea as well. "Great! We can bring what we fetch back to Blune's winter stores, right? We can't worry about the dead. Just the living. Pah... leave it to the sun... to Duke Brazen to lead me out here for a lesson on compassion. He even had me going for a moment, and I practically live with the sly fellow."

Lim, busy ruffling herself in preparation for the hunt, let loose a comment. "Weakness sprouts up, you know. It's how I try to explain what happened. You can't stop creatures from being weak, all you can do is grieve for them."

The ninetales stopped half-step. "Oh no!" He gasped.

The two punishers also paused, confused.

"Lim, Flightly, we need horns in case we get separated. Better that than coming to this forsaken shack again."

"Yeah," they both cheered.

"Lim... mind getting the door to the basement? There are some in there, but the door's heavy."

Flightly shot him a glance that said there's stuff down there still?!

"Of course," she said, her hooves clacking on the floorboards. With a gracious bow, smile lining her face, she lowered herself to pull on the latch's rusty handle. A jarring creak forced the ninetales to fold his ears. Then he went full-fold, curling into a ball to shield himself.

A string drawn taut between the floor and the trapdoor broke. A contraption clicked twice into place, followed by the fwoosh of a stored combustion mechanism. Lim's expression became gaunt in the mere milliseconds before the payload flew out of its snug spot.

Like motes of dust caught in sunbeams, a thousand splinters floated about in front of the door. Howling, the sawsbuck flew several feet back to where Flightly had stood. Brazena had his jaws locked on the pidgeotto, dragging him to the front door. Flightly was a warrior through-and-through, and yet even he became paralyzed in the face of an explosion trap.

"W-What's going on?!" His student stammered, lunging towards the writhing punisher, instincts crying for him to help.

"Come on! Out, out!" The ninetales butted him through the door, whipped around. He caught a single look of Lim's eyes among the mess, and knew: he was right to spin around and spit fire onto the floor before bounding outside. He bent over the stairs and removed a concealed iron rod from beneath them, and with it, jarred the door closed.

The flames took up with the newborn breeze. The smell of sun-warmed wood transformed into a burning stench, the sky seemed to take on the color of ash. It was everything Brazen had—and more—to stave off the thoughts flurrying in his head.

"Did you—you lit the shack on fire?!" Flightly yelled, starting to flutter about.

Brazen took deep breaths to combat his dread. "Yes, I did."

"You murdered her."

"I..." he scratched his cheek free of soot, one eye locked on the blazing building. "Y-You know when they... they use that word. Weak. If you hadn't goaded her into talking, she'd have led us into the forest..."

"Yes, on the hunting trip you offered!" Flightly shouted. He seemed close to blows with his teacher.

"To attack us," Brazen snapped. "Stop questioning my actions, I'll explain—"

A loud crack came from the front door.

Brazen fell into a fighting stance. "Flightly, please, help me."

Crack.

The birds had long left by this point, the ones not pokémon, at least. Miles away villagers enjoyed the last few days before winter, where stores became short and trips out turned into dangerous endeavors. Somehow, the raining destruction felt frigid as snow already.

Crack. The pidgeotto wheeled about, racked by indecision. Every part of him likely screamed to help break the door, imagining a fellow punisher burning to death on the other side.

"Flightly!" Brazen roared. "I can't beat it alone—"

Crack—CRACK!

Lim burst out through the front, without a sound of her own. Silently, flames trailing off of her hindquarters, face shredded by the blast, she made straight for the duke. Too surprised by the creature's silence, Brazen failed to move out of the way as she headbutted him. He rolled with the blow, having her antlers deflect off of his shoulder. He managed to snap the antler since it was made brittle by heat. A cushy life hadn't taken every bit of fight from him.

The shack's fire raged on taller than all of them, as Lim wheeled about to continue the assault, not a care given for her antlers. This wasn't punisher willpower. No, the sun fox would never train a pokémon to ignore its own body crumbling down. He imagined her alone and hurt. Not able to quell the urge to harm, incapable of stopping to nurse her body.

Pity washed over him as he prepared to bring down her legs with a slash. It was this gap that allowed her hind legs to rear up. He attempted to spin out of reach of her kick. Still the full force of her hooves flew into his hind leg, sending him skidding at high speed. A clump of grass tripped him and he went sprawling into a trunk, smashing back-first. He gasped for air. Flightly had fled, either cowed by Lim's demonic presence or too confused to choose a side.

Knowing she had bested the ninetales, Lim took in a deep breath.

"You thought you were clever," she said. "I think you took an eye with that trap. I need only one, though. Perhaps, none." She pranced about, slipping as a leg temporarily gave out. "Look at me! Strong enough to take on the sun fox."

"I'm out of practice," Brazen growled. "There are others far stronger than I am who will finish the job."

"Why hunt me? I'm genuinely curious. I mean, there is nothing wrong with practicing, becoming stronger. For all your policies and mandates, you don't believe in progress. I ought to have suspected so from a political animal."

He hiked up his hind leg. It was made limp by the attack, but not broken. If he kept it under himself, he could dodge, make a plan from there. "I have seen your kind before. You slaughter those you find weak! You bestow foul energies upon one another."

"Give me three reasons anyone should care for them. I remember being young. All the grownups played nice when they figured it was someone else's day of sacrifice, a day for someone else to fall off the earth. I survived off of at least it's not me money. Not any longer... not in the world I am making."

"I believe in more than your delusions. I believe in, someday, not having to sacrifice pokémon to the dungeons at all," he said, stalling for time. "One day, I hope pokémon as a kind can return to exploration. It looks like neither of us belong in the other's world." He raised his voice to match the roaring fire behind them. "I have no room for lost souls such as you."

Lim scowled. "You're the only one who's lost, here."

She lowered her head into a rapid charge. Too fast to roll out of the way without her swinging around, causing collateral on both sides with her giant gait. He couldn't afford trading another blow. Thinking two moves ahead, an advantage in battle, sometimes inspired the hopelessness which keeps fighters rooted to the ground.

Closer, closer. The hopelessness tangled his legs. Someone more capable will do better than this, he concluded, closing his eyes.

He was right, in a way.

Flightly came exploding out of the tree line, wings tucked in. With a cry that revitalized the ninetale's nerves, his protegé smashed beak-first into the sawsbuck's head, challenging a monster that had to be three times his weight.

Lim was stopped in her tracks. The rest of her body shot upright, head pinned by the pidgeotto's body, before all of them came flopping down. The pain made the breeze into gusts, still Flightly persisted, converting his stumble into an artful recovery. Now that he chose a side, he could fight with grace. Now that he knew it was the right side, he managed to hike his wings up. He thrust forward, picking up the punisher in a gust of wind.

She skidded along the ground, rolling, fighting the wind-blast, all the way until her back hit the burning shack. Her body ignited as the air folded in on itself.

"Not fair!" She howled, trying to squash the flames. "Ambushing me, pathetic. I can beat this fire again. I am strong." No matter how much she bucked, she was too tired and battered to stave off the ninetale's flames. Quelling them was a matter of willpower. It was why fire pokémon like him could fight these monstrosities.

"Nevermind. I can't," she concluded, stumbling down, a blazing wreck. "Well-played, Flightly."

"Whatever's going on in your head, I caught a glimpse of the real you." The pidgeotto tried to hobble close, but Brazen lurched into his way. Getting close might inspire her to attempt one more attack, ruining her final, precious—lucid—moments. "Save a spot in your pack when you reach the void."

She nodded. "I apologize to the pokémon of Blune. And my siblings, they are..." she flopped over.

Silence, beside the fire, returned.

"She was responsible for it all," Flightly murmured. "But she sounded okay. Brazen. How did this happen?"

"I'm not sure how these pokémon come about," Brazen told him. His back leg regained its feeling, and its feeling was soreness. "They are compelled by a force I think is related to the dungeons. If you hadn't urged her to make that offhand comment, we would have both been slaughtered." It took an explosion trap, being cooked, throttled by Flightly and burned twiceover to make the beast succumb. "Thank you. I know I wronged you today. But if you were aware, she would have smelt your suspicion and went on guard."

Still, Flightly looked upset. "I'll go put out this fire," he said.

Despite winning, the hopelessness which rooted him before now lurked in the back of his head. Years ago, this ailment broke out, but that time it disappeared on its own, left to be a tragic phenomenon among the others battering their world. Now he knew enough about it to understand its meaning. This was symptomatic, or a sign, of greater troubles.

Taking in shallow breaths he walked over to his bag. To draft a letter to his fellow duke, the moon fox Willard. The planned message echoed in his ears. Two lines:

The energy in the Mystery Dungeons has broken free at last, it would read.

The punishers have failed.

...Make it three lines.

I have no idea what to do.


Mystery Dungeon: Spirit Children