Pokemon Mystery Dungeon - SoF - Twist in Time
Chapter 10 - Document-forgers and Lady-killers
"UP AND AT 'EM IT'S...!"
"WE GET IT!" I yelled at the top of my lungs to mute the screech from Louded as my body shot into a sitting position.
My still half asleep eyes fixed on the normal-type who had a shocked expression on his face.
"Morning." he finished weakly before he walked back into the hallway.
"That wasn't nice of you..." Ozu commented as he hopped onto his feet.
"Stupid wake-up call." I replied groggily.
My friends and I got up and prepared ourselves for the morning speech.
We walked into the main room and ordered ourselves among the other guild members.
A few of them asked me why I hadn't been at dinner yesterday. I was just about to answer when Chatot and the guildmaster came out of the office.
Chatot then held the morning briefing and just as usual...
"HURRAY!" the whole guild cheered.
The flying-type then called me over to him. In his left "hand" he held a stack of paper. In the other one was a feather and a small bottle of ink.
'Oh, god...' I knew exactly what he was about say.
"Ri... Take this into your room." he said, handing the items over to me. "Loudred will bring you the letters from the federation. You know what you have to do."
"I'm already grounded and now I have to do paperwork too? That's not..." I tried to protest but Chatot interrupted me.
"The curfew is the punishment for you reckless behavior. You haven't worked at all yesterday, so you still have to catch up on it." he said as he turned around and walked back into Wigglytuff's room.
"Oh, and don't even think of escaping your room. Loudred will guard your door all the time." he added before he closed the door behind him.
I sighed and let my head hang low.
"Hey, it could be worse." Ozu tried to cheer me up. The Chimchar grabbed my shoulder and gave me one last smile before he and Riley said good-bye and headed towards the stairs.
I walked back into my room and placed the items on the table. I didn't have to wait very long before Loudred knocked onto the door.
I saw a huge pile of letters in Loudred's arms when I opened it.
Letting out another sigh, I told him to put it on the table.
"There you go! Have FUN!" he teased with a grin before he walked out of my room and close the door behind him. 'What did I do to... Oh, right.'
I then grabbed a stool from one corner of the room, put it in front of the table and sat down on it.
'Ugh... Okay, I guess I should get started..." I thought, opening the bottle of ink.
I placed an empty sheet of paper in front of me and put the feather in my right paw.
'Ugh, how am i supposed to write with hands like this? Wait... Can I even write at all?... I guess I have to try.'
I dipped the feather into the ink and placed it on the paper.
I guided my pen shakily across the paper, but after a while I managed to write "HELLO".
'Yay! I did it.'
My writing looked more like a scribble than actual letters. I crumpled it up and thew it over my head. 'I will clean it up later.'
I took the first letter from the pile and opened it. It was written in footprint runes, though I had no problem reading them.
Hello, my name is Needle and I'm a Nidoran. My little sister lost her headband at Mount Horn. She said that it suddenly wasn't there anymore, after she and a friend had cleared the sixth floor of the dungeon. I will pay you 1000 Poke for retrieving it.
'Oh, okay... Now what do I have to write one the mission letters again?... Uhm... The client... The objective and the area... The difficulty and... The reward.'
I put another empty sheet in front of me and placed my feather on it.
'Wait a second... I can't write this in English... Can I write in footprint runes too?'
Guiding my shaky pen across the paper again, I drew the little footprint letters onto it. When I was finished, "HELLO" could be read in the pokemon font.
A sigh of relief escaped my mouth.
'Whew... Chatot would've killed me if I didn't know how to write.'
I took a new sheet and started to summarize the letter from the Nidoran. When I was done, it looked a little something like this.
Lost Headband
Client: Needle the Nidoran
Objective: Retrieve his little sister's headband
Area: Mount Horn 6F
Difficulty: Easy
Reward: 1000 Poke
I had no idea how hard this mission actually could be, but assuming that a team only had to go to the sixth floor and find a headband, I decided to mark it as "Easy".
My writing was somewhat acceptable, what made me even more proud about my first finished letter.
The next few letters from the federation were pretty much about the same stuff. But after a while, I came across a writing about an outlaw.
Hello, I'm Squirtle and a group of bandits is terrorizing my village. Their leader is a strong Pancham. Their hideout is somewhere inside of Apple woods. My village doesn't have a lot of money, so we can only bring up 2000 Poke. But we will give you a few items in return too. I have to warn you though. This Pancham has some mean tricks. Nobody in our village was able to stand a chance against him. Please help us!
This letter made me curious somehow. 'Nobody was able to stand a chance against him? This guy must be really strong then!'
I turned the letter into a "wanted poster". Not able to draw a proper image of a Pancham, the result looked like this.
Bandits terrorizing Village
Client: Squirtle
Objective: Arrest the bandit-leader Pancham
Area: Apple Woods
Difficulty: Medium
Reward: 2000 Poke + ?
'I would love to do this mission tomorrow... Hmm...'
A mischievous idea formed in my head.
I added another sentence at the bottom of the poster.
Restriction: Fighting-type team member required
'Hehe, this mission is mine.'
I put the poster to my other finished ones and proceeded with the rest of the letters.
Most of them were about lost items and other bandits. When I opened the last letter from the pile, I gasped. I read every letter with wide open eyes.
The timegear from Limestone Cavern has been stolen! Its guardian Ditto was found with severe injuries. He hasn't woken up yet. Our doctors fear that he won't wake up at all and stay in a coma. A lot of burns and bruises were found on him. However, the reason for his critical state is a deep cut from a blade. We found traces of a leaf in his wound, so we assume that the culprit is a grass-type. We have narrowed down the idendity of the thief to the following species.
Grovyle, Sceptile, Snivy, Servine, Serpirior, Shiftry, Leafeon.
If you see any of them around the location of another timegear, please inform Magnezone immediately.
"Oh, no... This is bad. Really bad!... Did... Did Grovyle really attack that Ditto when I had already beaten it?! Why would he do something like that?!'
I shook my head and pushed those irrelevant thoughts out of my head.
'Ugh, I have to do something! Should I just destroy this letter and never talk about it again?... But what if Chatot notices that one letter is missing? No, I have to do something else... Maybe... Maybe I can cover Grovyle somehow... Yes! That's it! I will just make a summary and leave his species out! That way, nobody from the guild would look for a Grovyle.'
I immediately executed my idea and wrote a fake summary.
Second timegear has been stolen!
The timegear from Limestone Cavern has been stolen! Our investigator found clues that let us narrow down the possible species of the culprit.
If you find any of the following pokemon near the location of another timegear, please inform Magnezone immediately.
Snivy, Sevine, Serpirior, Shiftry, Leafeon
'Okay, this should work... Now what to do with the original letter? They will probably throw them away, now that I summarized all of them.'
I put the original back into the pile.
'Okay... I should postpone the information about the second timegear too... I will just put it at the bottom... Yes, that could work.'
After cleaning up the table, I organized my finished sheets into a stack.
Just then, somebody knocked onto the door.
"Come in!" I answered, turning around to see who it was.
Chatot walked into the room with a bowl of berries.
"How far have you gotten until now?" he asked, walking over to me. The flying-type put the bowl next to the pile of letters.
"I'm done." I replied proudly.
"Really? All of them?" he asked with a surprised look on his face.
"Yup." I assured him.
He then looked at the well-ordered papers on the table.
"I didn't expect you to finish everything in three hours... Well, I guess you really deserve the lunch then." he said, grabbing the papers. "Loudred will clean up that pile later. You can keep the the ink and the feather. Maybe you could write a story or something if you're bored."
Chatot then walked back to the door. I heard him mutter something about "unreadable".
"Pardon?" I asked, exactly knowing what he was mumbling about.
"Nothing! Enjoy your meal!" he replied nervously as he closed the door.
'I hope it takes him a while before he sees the last paper.' I thought, eating the first berry. 'This should give Grovyle some more time.'
I quickly finished my meal and waited for Loudred to grab the heap. I didn't have to wait long for him.
After he had carried the letters out of the room, I had a couple of hours for myself again.
Most of the time until my friends arrived was spent with me drawing and writing on the empty sheets of paper which were still left on table. Most of them turned into unneccessary scribbles and doodles, so I crumpled up all of them, after they were full.
Luckily my friends walked into the room when I my options on things to do went short. I was laying on my bed, so I sat up to face them.
"Hi, there!" they greeted me.
"Oh, hi! How was you day?" I replied happily, glad that I finally had company again.
"It was okay... We had an easy mission today. I will you tell you about it after dinner." Ozu answered with a smile. "How was yours?"
"Uhm... Well, I had to do the paperwork from yesterday... It was still okay though." I said, getting up from my bed.
"Have you visited Chimecho yet? Chatot told us that you could go to the infirmary now." he continued.
"Oh, really? I hope she says that I'm ready to come with you tomorrow. I wouldn't stand another day locked up in here." I replied with a grin.
"Should we come with you or...?" Riley asked.
"If you want." I answered with a smile.
The three of us headed out of the room and walked to the infirmary. I knocked onto the door and shortly after, Chimecho called us in.
"Oh, Team Ignition." she greeted. "Are you ready for the moment of truth?"
The psychic-type ordered me to sit down on the chair again. Just as usual, she used her "diagnosis power" on me.
When she was finished, she let out a sigh.
"Well, your rib has completely recovered... I guess I have give you the permission now." she explained.
"Finally!" I cheered, throwing my hands up into the air.
I received some happy smiles from my friends.
"Here, let me take off that last bandage." she continued.
Her eyes started to glow again and the bandage around my chest slowly unwrapped itself.
My fur was still pressed against my body, leaving a slightly different colored stripe on my chest. I used my paw to fix my fur again.
"Thank, you!" I said with a smile on my face.
"No problem. Be more careful from now on." she replied with a serious voice.
"I'll try." I said with a grin.
"I'm sure of that." Her voice was full of sarcasm. "By the way, I have already prepared dinner, so you can head straight for the dinning hall."
"Okay!" we said in union as we headed to the main room.
When I closed the door behind us, Chatot stood in front of us all of a sudden.
"And?" he asked.
"I'm completely fit again!" I answered with a grin.
"Good, your team members will instruct you on everything tomorrow. We hope to see some good work from you!" he continued with a smile.
"Sure thing!" I replied happily.
The rest of the day went on without any major events. The dinner was great and I had a little small talk with the other guild members.
When we were back at our room, I cleaned up the table and carried all of the crumbled pieces of paper outside into the hallway. I threw them into a barrel that stood in one corner of the hall. Other trash was already inside it, so I assumed that it operated as a trashcan.
I walked back into our room and threw myself onto my bed.
My friends and I talked a while longer before we decided to go to sleep.
"Let's give it our all tomorrow!" Ozu said with a warm smile.
"Sure!... Good night, then." I replied, also smiling.
"Good night." they returned in union.
"UP AND AT 'EM, IT'S MORNING!"
'Ugh, here we go again...' I opened my eyes and sat up.
Looking at Loudred, revealed that he was giving me a grin. The meaning behind it was clear... He didn't like it if somebody interrupted his wake-up call. His grudge from yesterday was gone now.
I got up and equipped myself for the first mission I would have with my team. I already knew which one we would choose.
We finished our preparations and headed to the main room.
Chatot held his morning speech and the whole guild finished it with the usual cheer.
This time, I climbed into the first floor, alongside the other guild members.
I immediately lead my friends to the outlaw-board and looked for the mission I had "reserved" the day before.
"Are you sure that you want to hunt an outlaw on your first mission?" Ozu asked with a concerned face.
"Yea, sure!" I replied. I then brought my head near his ear.
"All those letters are actually from me. I found an interesting mission yesterday and reserved it for us." I whispered.
I turned towards the board and looked for the mission again.
"Ah, there it is!" I said as I grabbed the paper from the board.
I held it to my friends, so they could read it.
Ozu looked at it like he was understanding everything, however, Riley's expression was completely different.
'She has no idea how to read footprint runes.' I concluded.
I reacted immediately and told her what we were going to do today.
"A group of bandits is terrorizing a village. Their hideout is somewhere in Apple woods and their leader is a strong Pancham. We get two thousand Poke and some extra items for arresting him." I explained to her with a smile.
"Oh, okay. Thank you." she replied, returning the smile.
"Well..." Ozu started. "This is going to be our first mission!"
We left the guild and made our way to the forest.
It was exactly like the time went traveled on the expedition.
Ozu mostly talked about exploring and Riley added a few comments here and then while we walked on the road.
One topic brought up an uncomfortable conversation for them.
"I hope we won't have any problems this time..." Ozu said, turning his head towards the ground.
"This time? Have you been to Apple woods before?" I asked, interested on what was behind his sad look.
"Well, do you remember Team Skull?" he began to explain. "A few days before we found you, Chatot ordered us to go to Apple woods and collect some Perfect apples for the guildmaster. Those idiots followed, knocked us out with their "gas-combo" thing and stole all the apples so we couldn't finish our mission. We tried to explain it to Chatot but he still punished us."
Hearing this brought up a little anger... Oddly, it was more against Chatot then Team Skull.
"He really didn't let you explain it? Dammit, will those prejudicing idiots ever listen?!" I exclaimed, baling my right paw into a fist.
My friends gave me a confused look...
"What do you mean?" Riley asked.
I blinked. 'Prejudicing idiots? Who are...?' A headache interrupted my thought.
A grunt escaped my mouth as I brought my paw to my head.
The feeling quickly faded and I faced my friends again. Trying to find the thought again resulted in a useless search. My brain couldn't bring up the information again.
"Uhm... I don't... Just forget it." I finally answered.
Ozu was giving me his familiar concerned look again.
"Anyway, what happened to Team Skull? I still remember that we left them by the statue..." I said, trying to divert from my weird headache.
"Well, Wigglytuff said that they didn't want to finish the expedition and left the forest." Ozu explained, still looking concerned. "Since then, nobody has seen them again."
"I hope it stays that way. I won't be so nice like at the forest when they try something again." I replied with a growl.
"Me too. I hope we never have to smell them again." Ozu said with a grin.
It took us about three hours before we reached the border of the forest.
Before we entered the dungeon that surrounded the forest, Ozu stocked everyone up with Oran berries.
"Okay, we could come across some bandits in the dungeon. Most criminals build their hideouts inside forest that are surrounded by dungeons. They act as a natural security system for them. They probably have scouts patrol inside it, if one of them spots us, we lose the chance to take them by surprise.", the Chimchar explained.
"Okay, I got it. Let's do this." I replied, giving him a thumps up.
We entered the forest and the weird "dungeon feeling" overcame me again. My friends and I got back to our usual routine. Riley leaded, Ozu and I followed.
The common inhabitants of the forest were grass and bug-types, meaning that Ozu fought most of our battles.
His skill in covering his body with flames has gotten better since the expedition. His Fire Punches looked very powerful and knocked out every plant and bug pokemon in one hit.
I took the opportunity to train my Force Palm attack. The force from the move was huge and sent the feral pokemon flying. So was the recoil. My arm felt sore and a little numb after I had used it a couple of time. It also consumed a considerable amount of aura, leaving me a little drained.
I ate an Oran berry to get my get my energy back.
Riley showed that she was able to use Thunderbolt by now. Her small shocks from Thundershock had turned into menacing bolts of lightning.
We cleared around half of the dungeon, when we came across a big room with a group of bandits in it, which were carrying some boxes and bags. I assumed that it was their loot.
"Hey, those pokemon over there look like explorers!" one of them yelled when he noticed us. It was a Tyrogue, pointing at us with its finger.
Soundeffect: Alert (!) from Metal Gear Solid
"Quick! Go and tell the boss!" another one yelled at a Pidgey which immediately dropped the bag it was carrying with its claws and dashed off into a hallway.
The owner of the second voice was Breloom.
"Hey, what are you kids doing here?!" the grass-type yelled over to us.
"What do you think we are doing?! Were here to beat up some bandits!" I yelled back as we walked closer to them.
My view focused on the Tyrogue. "Riley, Ozu. Can you take the Breloom? I want to see what the other one can do." I said with a grin.
"Hah! You think you can take us on?" the Breloom taunted.
"Sure we can!" we yelled back in union.
The other fighting-type was eying me keenly. I walked up to it, cracking the knuckles of my paw.
"Why do you get the small one?" Riley rebelled.
"Hey! Don't judge him just because he's small! Never underestimated an opponent." I replied seriously.
My friends approached the grass-type and got ready to fight him.
"Come on! Let's go!" I said as I got into my battle stance.
BGM: Encounter - Super Smash Bros. Brawl
The Tyrogue dropped the bag it was carrying and brought his left leg one step forward. It then brought up his arms and got into the stance of a boxer.
Meanwhile, my friends began to fight the grass-type.
"Kickboxing?" I asked with a smile.
He just responded with a growl.
Though something about his stance was familiar. I knew what a kickboxer looked like, but that the little pokemon was mimicking one brought up a familiar feeling.
When the pokemon's eyes met mine, something strange happened.
I seemed like my eyes deceived me for a second when a black flickering figure flashed into my vision where the Tyrogue was standing.
A short jolt of pain shot through my head and made me lose my focus.
My enemy saw his chance and dashed forward. When I was able to pay attention again, he was already right in front of me.
The pokemon threw his hands against my ears, disorienting me. Fake Out.
When I opened my eyes again, instinct told me to make a move and go for a counter. However, my body simply didn't respond and left me wide open to another attack from the Tyrogue.
The fighting-type quickly took one step back, pulled his right fist back and readied a punch. I could tell by his eyes that he was aiming for my face.
I closed my eyes, awaiting the inevitable.
His punch made a direct hit with the left side of my face. The force pushed me back and made me take a step back.
I bit trough the pain, opened my eyes again and readied my left fist to deliver a counter. When I shot forward, something strange happened.
My attack was so fast, that my opponent couldn't even react.
'I'm not even using Extremespeed.'
I pushed the thought back and focused on the fight again.
The punch made contact with his face and made him stumble back. I didn't stop there and went for another punch. And another one. And another one.
I was moving so fast that the fighting-type wasn't able to see any of them coming.
When the Tyrogue was finally able to make out the gap between my attacks, he dashed forward and went for another blow with his right fist.
I used my left paw to divert his arm downwards and threw my right fist into his face to counter.
He stumbled back a few steps and held his nose with his right hand.
I immediately dashed towards him and delivered one final jump kick to his chest.
The Tyrogue was sent flying and landed on his back, unconscious.
I gave my now defeated enemy one last smirk before I looked over to my still fighting friends.
Ozu had a type advantage, yet they still had trouble with the grass-type.
The Breloom was fast. Ozu's attempts to hit him with a physical move failed. His Ember wasn't able to connect either.
Riley had a similar problem. Using her Irontail attack was ineffective for the same reason Ozu's attacks missed. Speed wise the Breloom was superior to them. Her Thunderbolt was weak against the grass-type and whenever she went for a Quickattack, the Breloom countered with a quick Machpunch, throwing her back again.
'Well, I guess I should help them.' I thought as I focused my aura into my right paw.
I formed a bone in my paw and spun it around a few time before I used Extremespeed to get right behind the grass-type.
Jumping up, I aimed my baton at the back of his head. The blow knocked him out immediately.
Stop music
However, while he was falling towards the ground, a cloud of dust was coming out from under his "shroom-cap".
I inhaled some of the dust and had to cough when I landed on my feet.
"Good job." I said to my friends, letting out another cough.
"Thanks..." the Pikachu replied, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "We couldn't do anything against that guy."
*Cough* "Hey, you tried your best and that's what matters." I continued. "You just have to..." *Cough* "... Work on you speed."
Ozu got worried by my coughing. "Are you okay?" he asked with a concerned face.
"Yea, just some dust." I calmed him down. "We better hurry, that Pidgey is going to warn their boss."
"We still have to tie up those two and send them out of the dungeon." the Chimchar replied, pointing at the now unconscious pokemon.
He pulled out a piece of rope from his backpack and tied it around their hands and feet.
"And how are we going to take them out of here?" I asked.
"With our badges of course!" he answered, pulling out his explorer-badge.
When he held towards the criminals, the emblem in his hand started to glow in a bright light. Their bodies began to glow too and all of a sudden, they were gone.
"Wow, what was that?" I asked, surprised by what he had just done.
"The badge let's you teleport out pokemon from the dungeon. Those two are in front of the opening we entered the dungeon. When we finish our mission, we can use our badges on ourselves and bring those bandits to Magnezone." he explained.
Another cough escape my mouth. "Wow."
We continued our exploration and cleared another couple of floors.
But something was off. My coughing stayed and got joined by a burning pain in my chest. With every floor it got worse. I felt weak in general and when my vision got blurry, I had to stop my friends.
"Hey... Something is wrong." I panted weakly.
They turned around and walked up to me immediately.
"What's wrong, Ri?" Riley asked with a concerned voice.
Just then I had to cough again. I held my paw up to cover my mouth. My eyes widened when I saw that a few droplets of blood covered my hand now.
"By Arceus! Ri! Don't move!" Ozu grabbed my shoulder and inspected me.
"What...?" I tried to ask, but he interrupted me by putting his hand on my forehead.
"Oh, no. You have a fever. That Breloom probably poisoned you with its Effect Spore." he explained, turning around and looking for something in his backpack.
I had to take a breath before I could speak again. "Effect Spore?" I asked, letting out another cough.
The fire-type pulled out a Pecha berry and handed it to me.
"Thank you." I said weakly, before I bit down on it.
The burning in my chest stopped almost immediately, but I still felt weak and drained.
"Here, take an Oran berry." Riley said, holding the blue berry to me.
I ate that one too... However, the usual effect of the berry never came.
...
"Do you feel better?" Ozu asked, his voice still full of concern.
"No... I ate an Oran berry before. I guess I still have to wait for the last one to digest." I replied, shaking my head.
"That's bad. You can't fight in this state." he said with a serious face.
"Hey, we can't give up now! We are almost through the dungeon. I will just let you handle the wild pokemon and rest a bit." I refused.
"That's the spirit!" Riley commented with a smile. "We started this mission, so we finish it."
"Okay... But promise that you won't do anything reckless when we fight the bandit chief." Ozu ordered.
We cleared the rest of the dungeon pretty quick.
When we left the dungeon, we found ourselves in a forest full of apple trees.
I was just about to ask where we should look for the hideout, when a voice pulled our attention towards it.
"Look what we have here..." a male voice said. "Another team of explorers that thinks it could arrest me."
The owner of the voice revealed his identity when a Pancham walked out from behind a tree. He was holding a rose in his right paw.
"I'm Caz the Casanova! Bandit chief and self-proclaimed lady-killer!" he exclaimed with a poetic smile, smelling the flower. 'He can't be serious.'
We got ourselves ready to fight.
"Only one girl in your group... What a pity." he said as he threw the rose towards Riley. She caught it with her right paw, looking at it with a confused expression.
"I'm a girl too!" I yelled, feeling offended. 'Who does this guy think he is?!'
...
The Pancham blinked and gave me a close look.
"Are you sure?... Well, this doesn't change anything! Caz the Casanova would never associate himself with a Tomboy like you anyway." he taunted in a nasty tone.
'He did NOT just say Tomboy.'
That word made me lose it somehow.
"T... TOMBOY?", I asked with a trembling eyebrow and a grin on my face that said "Are you kidding me?".
My friends had to hold me back while I tried to run up to him and choke him. I cursed at the smirking Pancham in every way possible.
It took me a while before I calmed down again.
"What did I say? A real lady would never use such words." he continued to taunt me.
"Argh! Just shut up!" I yelled. Struggling against my friends cost me some energy and left me panting again.
"Can we just fight already?!" Riley said as she took one step forward and threw the rose on the ground. "I'm getting sick of you, offending my friend!"
"Take it easy, Ri. We will handle him." Ozu added, grabbing my shoulder and walking past me.
"Not in a million years! This guy is mine!" I exclaimed, running past my two friends and towards the Pancham.
"I've heard that from a lot of girls before. Not in that context though." The fighting-type smirked before dashed forward too.
My eyes focused on the Pancham's fist when he pulled it back to prepare a punch.
I wanted to divert his attack with my hand, but doing so turned out to be very difficult. The Poison had done its work and left me weak and drained. My body wasn't strong enough to properly execute the orders from my brain.
The fighting-type's fist went right through my defenses and hit me in the face. He followed up with a kick to my stomach and threw me back.
A groan escaped my mouth when I landed painfully on my back.
My friends ran right past me and prepared their attacks.
Ozu covered his right arm with fire and pulled it back, ready to throw it at the Pancham, while Riley used Irontail and spun her body around to strengthen the force from her attack.
Their target jumped back and dodged both of their attacks. Ozu's fist made contact with the grounds and shot off a wave of flames around him.
Riley had to dig her feet and hands into the ground to slow down the momentum from her spin.
The Pancham quickly dashed to Riley's side and pushed her into Ozu with a powerful kick to the Pikachu's face.
Both of them got thrown back and landed on top of each other.
The outlaw didn't have time to smirk. I had already gotten up again and used Extremespeed to get in close. My vision became a little blurry when I reached my destination.
I ignored the exhaustion, put my right paw on his chest and concentrated the little aura I still had left into it.
His eyes widened when he began to feel the pressure from the emitting aura.
My Force Palm attack sent the Pancham flying with a loud blast.
He let out a scream of pain while he rolled backwards. When he finally stopped he was kneeling on the ground, holding his chest with his paw.
He took a deep breath, got back to his feet and got on his poetic smirk again.
"I changed my mind. You might be a tomboy but I like strong women. Consider my next move a gift." he said with a mischivious grin.
I could only respond with a growl, my body was still recovering from my last move.
My friends had just gotten up again and began to walk next to me when the Pancham suddenly dashed in front of my face.
I gasped when the Pokemon's eyes me mine. His look told me what he was about to do. 'Please don't.'
A pink heart formed in front of his now winking eye. 'Attract.'
The heart flew directly into my face and shattered when it made contact. I was afraid at first but when I didn't feel anything change, a smirk formed my face.
"Ri!" Ozu screamed from behind me. "Are you okay!?"
I turned around and gave him a confused look. "Why wouldn't I?"
My friends had shocked expressions on their faces for some reason.
I turned around to faced the Pancham again. He gave me his romantic smirk again.
He had a charming look in his eyes, which made blush for some reason. 'Why haven't I noticed them before? And... Wow. He looks really strong. I bet he trains a lot.'
Taking one step closer to him, I heard a voice behind me.
"Ri! Snap out of it! It's his Attract! Whatever you're seeing, it's not real!" it said. However, I didn't pay any attention to it.
All I wanted was to look at this handsome Pancham in front of me.
"Hey, do you work out?" I asked him, taking another step towards him. When I looked at his mouth, an idea formed in my head. It made me blush even more than I already was.
He knew exactly what I was thinking and brought his arm to my hip. He then pulled me up to him, our faces almost touching each other.
He held my chin with his other paw before he brought his lips towards mine. I didn't resist and closed my eyes.
...
Our lips touched and...
...
'What the fuck?!' I screamed in my head when I realized what I was doing.
My eyes shot open and I pushed the fighting type away from me. "What the fuck!" I yelled at him, still confused how it could have happened.
"Ri! You're back!" my friends said, walking next to me.
We looked at the still smirking Pancham. "Did you like it?" he taunted.
"No, god dammit! I just kissed a god damn panda!" I yelled gritting my teeth.
I could hear Ozu mumble something under his breath, but I had something else to worry about.
"... Well, I'm satisfied." he exclaimed with a laugh.
I wanted to run up to him and punch his face in, but my body was completely drained by now.
The Pikachu next to me noticed my panting and growling.
"I'll finish him." Riley said, taking one step forward.
"Riley, don't! He will get you too!" Ozu tried to stop her.
"His trick might work on a normal Pokemon, but... I'm not exactly normal." she replied, giving the Chimchar a smirk.
"Oh, a volunteer!" the Pancham smirked.
I knew immediately what she was trying to say. 'Wait! If it worked on me...'
"Riley, don't! It won't work!" I tried to stop her, but she was already running towards the Pancham, her fist covered in electricity.
The fighting-type winked at her and a pink heart flew into her face.
'This is it.'
...
My eyes widened, when she ran right through the little shattered hearts and threw her Thunder Punch into her opponents stomach.
"What?!" He screamed, when Riley's attack made contact.
The Pancham flew backwards and landed on his back. His belly had a scorched mark on it.
"I guess... You're not the tomboy here." he called over to me weakly. He then gave Riley one last smirk before he fainted.
I couldn't believe what I had just seen. "What the? Why didn't it affect you?" I asked, walking over to her.
She blinked at me. "I'm a human, remember?" she answered with a confused look on her face.
"I know, but..." I stopped there. 'God dammit. I can't tell her... I'm a human too, so why did his Attract work on me?'
"Uhm... Forget it..." I finished, breaking eye contact.
Ozu came over to us too.
"We did it." he said with a smile.
"Hey, what about the Pidgey?" Riley asked, looking around the forest.
"He's probably long gone... Our mission was to capture their chief anyway." Ozu replied.
He then looked over to me. "You should try an Oran berry again. I don't think you can make it back to the guild in that condition."
I nodded and pulled a blue berry out from my pouch. I swallowed it whole and felt better immediately. The weakness and drained feeling had faded and the pain on my face from the Pancham's punch was gone.
"Well, we should get him out of the dungeon and bring them to the guild." Ozu continued, pulling out his badge.
This time he held it above his head and the light engulfed all of us.
My vision went white and the next thing I saw was a clearing in a forest with a tied up Tyrogue and Breloom laying on the ground. It was late afternoon by now.
Ozu pulled out another piece of rope and tied it around the unconscious Pancham's hands and feet which had teleported with us.
"Okay, to warp them back to the guild, we need to use all of our badges." the Chimchar explained.
Riley and I pulled out our badges from our "hip-pouches".
"Now everyone has to touch one of the outlaws and press the button in the middle." he finished, walking over to the Breloom.
I looked at my badge. In the middle of it was something like a gemstone... Assuming that it was the button he talked about, I went over to the Tyrogue, touched him and pressed the stone.
A bright light engulfed me and I found myself teleported again. This time, the badge brought me to to the crossroad between the guild and treasure town. I was right in front of the staircase.
My friends followed shortly after. "That's amazing!" I commented, putting my badge back.
We carried the unconscious outlaws up the stairs and brought them down onto the first floor of the guild.
"Hey, Ri... We will handle the formality's with Magnezone. You can go to Chimecho and check if the poison is really gone." Ozu ordered in a serious face.
I wanted to resist at first, but nodded in understanding when I saw the concern in his eyes.
I put the Tyrogue on the ground and climbed down to the second floor.
Just when I was about to knock onto the door of the infirmary, it opened and Chimecho floated out of it.
"Oh! Hi there, Ri." she greeted. "What can I do for you?"
"Well, could you do check on me?" I explained. "I got poisoned today and my friends wanted me to make sure that all of it is gone."
"Sure thing." she replied as her eyes began to glow again and she used her "diagnosis-power".
"Well, I can't find any poison in your system... You're good to go!" she explained with a smile.
"Thanks!" I returned the smile.
"Um... I'm kind of late to prepare dinner... Could you help me with it?" she asked with a pleading voice.
"No problem!" I answered, giving her another smile.
We walked into the dinning hall and prepared the dinner for everyone. When we were finished, Chimecho called everyone and Chatot held his usual speech.
After dinner, my friends and I walked back into our room.
"Whew! What a day!" I said, removing my equipment and placing it on the table.
My friends took of their gear too and sat down onto their beds.
I walked over to mine and jumped in.
"It sure was..." Riley replied.
"Well, how was it with Magnezone?" I asked.
"Oh, he arrested the three of them and gave us our reward. We got two hundred Poke and a few Cheri berries." Ozu answered.
"Wait, two hundred? The letter said two thousand. What happened to the rest of it?" I gave him a confused look.
"Oh, right. You see, we are still apprentices, so we don't get the full amount of the actual reward." he explained.
"Great, just great!" I frowned.
We kept on talking for a while until Ozu decided that we should get some rest again.
I rested my head on the hay and wished my friends a good night.
Before I closed my eyes, I had to think about the strange thing that still bugged me.
'Why did Attract have an effect on me? Maybe because I've gotten used to my Pokemon body. That would be a possibility... Or maybe... No. I have human memories, so I can't be a normal Pokemon. Right? Ugh... I hope that I will get my memories back someday. All this speculating makes my head hurt.'
I closed my eyes and slowly drifted into sleep, hoping that the next day would be a good one.
Little did I know, that it really would be a good day. A really, really good day!
End of Chapter - 10