"There you are, Bulbasaur."

Axew hurdled over a large rock to reach the grass Pokémon, who barely stirred when she arrived. Without moving from his seated position, he greeted her.

"Hey, Axew."

On the ground was a small collection of sticks arranged like a log cabin- the product of Bulbasaur's solitude. Axew crouched next to it and looked at Bulbasaur's red-rimmed eyes.

"Yeah, so, you gotta second?" she asked. "There's somethin' we need to talk about."

Bulbasaur acknowledged her with a brief glance. "What is it?"

"It's about your partner- my friend, Chikorita."

She fell back and landed in a seated position.

"I dunno what went on between you two last night, but y'all need to fix it, a'ight? I can't stand seeing her all sad like that."

He watched a few squirrels to avoid looking at her. "We're not fighting, if that's what you're implying."

"Don't matter. You shouldn't leave her anyway. You're partners- that means you stick together no matter how tough it is."

She folded her arms after seeing his expressionless face. "If you can't commit to that, then you don't deserve her as your partner."

He lowered his head and watched her with glaring eyes. "Is that all you came to say?"

She returned with a passive-aggressive smirk before standing up.

"Actually, I came to tell ya to get your lazy butt back to camp. We're tearing down the place and headin' for the mystery dungeon, so hurry up."

Axew gave a wave for him to move, which, he reluctantly obeyed. After making sure he was going in the right direction, she followed closely behind him, as if escorting him through the woods.

Large groups of gnarled trees grasped at the air, tangling themselves with one another as they fought to control the precious sunlight. The twisted branches formed a canopy of mangled limbs, casting an eerie shadow on the four explorers below, who stumbled through the dungeon with but tiny streams of light to guide their paths. Beneath the arch of interconnected trees, Shuppet felt himself at home in such darkness. He would even spin happily from time to time, and zipped about as a curious fly.

Chikorita and Bulbasaur pressed close to one another, fearing that any manner of dark creatures would come between them should they separate. The bulb Pokémon wanted to stop the expedition and light a torch, but knew the group hadn't the patience for a tedious session of fire-starting. So instead, he squinted in the dim light, focusing on taking one safe step at a time.

Team Gnaw had only found a few abandoned apples and seeds on the ground- things hardly worth risking the dungeon-dwellers' anger over. Because Axew went ahead of the group, she took most of the valuables, leaving the leftovers for the less brave explorers to collect in her wake. Even so, Axew found reason to complain about the quality of the items found.

"Lookathis!" she exclaimed, holding up a blue sphere covered in pine resin and dirt. "This Invisify orb is sticky! What a piece of junk!"

She tossed the orb to the side and continued scouring the floor for better items. She raised her head at the sound of leaves rustling above her. She smiled. It was only Shuppet, playing in the trees. She reached into her bag and took out a Blast seed. With a grunt, she threw it near the oblivious ghost.

There was a loud explosion as the seed made contact with the tree. Chikorita cried out as the whole dungeon trembled from the loud noise. Nearly bursting from laughter, Axew pointed at the shaken Shuppet as he prepared for his swift revenge.

"Hey, look Shuppet! The branches didn't break! Now we know the ceiling is part of the mystery dungeon!"

Because Shuppet didn't carry a bag filled with explosives or have the capacity to throw rocks back, he silently slipped into the tree wall, disappearing from sight to surprise her.

Axew, aware and prepared for such tricks, ran deeper into the dungeon, laughing at the thrill of being chased. Bulbasaur and Chikorita didn't know whether it was wiser to follow her or stay far away to avoid getting caught up in their games.

Bulbasaur picked up the discarded Invisify orb and put it in his bag. It might not have been useful to Axew, but it sounded incredibly useful to him. He could ask his partner how to fix sticky items during a less turbulent time.

Chikorita walked slowly ahead, hesitant to venture too close to the potential disaster zone. "Let's agree not to throw Blast seeds at each other for sport," she said, watching as Shuppet popped out from one of the trees and screeched in Axew's ear.

Bulbasaur winced as she saw Axew fall on her knees, trying to reach her ears to protect herself. "Yeah," he agreed. "I don't think either of us can handle the strain."

Axew batted at the ghost, who evaded her movements with a laugh. After her ears stopped ringing, the dragon laughed with him.

Bulbasaur looked around nervously. "You guys aren't worried about alerting the bad Pokémon?" he inquired in a hushed voice.

"Oh, relax, Bulby." Axew dismissed him with a laugh. "I don't see any bad Pokémon. Do you, Shuppet?"

The little ghost shook his head.

Axew puffed out her chest and bellowed, "Come on out, bad Pokémon! Go ahead! We ain't scared o' ya!"

There was an irreverent silence as Axew's voice echoed between the tree trunks, waking whatever nocturnal creatures weren't already disturbed by their antics. After a few moments without response, she grinned at Team Gnaw.

"See? They scared of us. That, or they've all got food poisoning and are taking some real painful dumps somewhere."

She lumbered about, making crude gestures and exclaiming such disgusting noises and phrases, that Chikorita felt embarrassed to be part of the same traveling party. Shuppet was enthralled by her performance and demanded an encore.

"We should hurry up if we want to get anywhere today," Bulbasaur mentioned, in no mood for another round of such watery sounds.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever."

She pinched her tusks and made exaggerated head movements to show she was looking around. After settling on a direction, she made a wild wave of her arm to indicate her intent. Then, without looking back, she led the group into the next room.

Chikorita and Bulbasaur followed closely behind, exchanging nervous glances as the trees began to sway and creak, bending under their own weight. Even such harmless sounds set them on edge after what happened to Gible.

The next room was much like the corridor they were just in, but smaller- much smaller. The most striking difference, however, was the way the floor sparkled. In the center of the room was a pile of gold coins, which spilled out, covering the place with treasure. Axew ran to the pile and embraced it as a long-lost friend.

"We're rich!" she shouted, reaching into the stack to feel the coins. Shuppet flew down and rubbed his face against the treasure lovingly just as Team Gnaw walked in.

"This looks like an obvious trap," Bulbasaur noted, putting a damper on the mood.

Axew withdrew from her findings as if it were about to explode. "Woah, you're right."

She wiped away invisible sweat. "Man, that was close!" she exclaimed, before several Pokémon dropped on them.