"Some say that emera, or morphae, as it's called by humans, is the essence of all of creation. It is the physical manifestation of the potential to change, to create change, to undergo change... Though its existence is known by very few and understood by even fewer, the etheric substance is fundamental to the proper functioning of all life."


Just a few miles from Luminaire...

A brown oak merchant caravan made its way along a dirt road that wound its way through a dense forest. It lurched from side to side, pulled forth by a mudsdale at a slow but steady pace. On its side was an icon of a kecleon. The owner of the caravan, a kecleon, sat at the front and seemed to be lazily staring through the trees around them. A lucario and a luxio were resting on the roof of the caravan. The lucario casually laid on its back and stared up at the sky while the luxio felt content lying down and resting their head on their front paws. Both carried small satchels and wore similarly-patterned scarves. The luxio specifically, had a purple scarf while the lucario had a green one. A small silver badge was pinned to both their scarves. It was shaped like a pokéball flanked on both sides with wings; the symbol of the mystery dungeon surveyors guild.

"Hrrrm..." the luxio mumbled to herself as she turned to the side and stared pensively into the woods. "Ugh..." she muttered again before readjusting herself.

"Something wrong Lexi?" The lucario asked, tilting his head over to look at the luxio. "You seem rather restless."

"Pfft, why are you even asking me? You already know why Flint."

"Boredom then?"

Lexi nodded. "Yep." She slowly moved her front paws together, letting a small blue arc of electricity hop between them. She watched the spark with a dull face as it flickered on and off. On and off. On and off...

"Maybe wanna hear a story to pass the time?" Flint suggested.

"Pfft, sure. That is, if I wanna pass the time sleeping. Your stories are dull as hell."

Flint let out a chuckle. "No question there. That's what happens when you grow up with ancient history lessons as your bedtime stories."

The conversation paused for a moment. The rattling of the caravan wheels and clopping of hooves filled the silence.

"Do you think… do you think we'll get attacked?" Lexi asked hesitantly. "By the bandits I mean."

"Unsure," Flint said plainly. "But they'll definitely think twice about it. I asked Deldrick a bit about their tactics. Apparently, they have been using stealth to approach the caravans before using a smoke bomb to cloud their entry and escape." The lucatio pointed up towards the sky where a fletchinder circled overhead. "Once they see Torri watching out for them, they'll probably call it quits and run off."

"Ugh… that sucks," Lexi complained.

Flint snorted. "Looking for a good scrap I take it?"

Lexi nodded back. "Pfft, of course."

Flint stretched out his arms and sat upright in a criss-cross so that he was facing the luxio. "Lexi, you need to take it easy." He held his left shoulder with his opposing arm and rotated it a few times to stretch it out. "We're getting paid to sit back and do nothing"

Lexi sighed. "I guess so. Still don't get why Deldrick called the whole team to take this job. These bandits are probably weaklings if they use wimpy tactics like that. Torri could probably take them all on her own if they decided to show up."

Flint chuckled before shrugging. "Heh, she probably could. But it pays to be safe. Since they use smoke bombs, we're never quite sure how many and who they ar-"

"CRACK CRACK CRACK!" Something appeared to fall through the trees just ahead, breaking tree branches and scattering leaves everywhere. "BOOM!" The object smashed against the ground, stirring up a large cloud of dust and dirt!

Flint jumped to his feet in an instant, taking on a battle stance.

Lexi hopped to her feet as well, the fur on her body spiked up and electricity surged across it.

The mudsdale stopped in place, but seemed relatively unfazed by the loud sound.

"WOWZA!" The Kecleon exclaimed, "what in Arceus's name was that?"

All attention was on the dust cloud made from the impact of whatever fell from the sky above. The dust cloud slowly cleared, revealing…

Flint bit his lip once he saw who it was.

Lexi gasped. "Torri!"

Flint and Lexi jumped off of the roof of the caravan and sprinted towards the injured fletchinder. Flint rolled over Torri's body to check her condition while Lexi scanned the area for any threats.

"She's just unconscious." Flint noted calmly. "That was a pretty bad fall she took."

"Was it the bandits?" Lexi exclaimed, still on full alert.

"No, I don't think so," Flint said as he looked skywards out of intuition, checking for a possible cause of the fall, but he only saw scattered cloudy skies. He then went back to checking Torri's body. "I didn't sense any other pokémon and she wouldn't have gone down so quickly without a sound, so it's rather unlikely..." Flint's voice faltered and eyes went wide once he flipped Torri over. There were talon marks raked across her back. He quickly looked skywards again for any signs of the attacker. Only wispy clouds. Flint's heart began to race.

"Arceus damn." Flint muttered to himself before quickly standing up and turning around. "Kecleon! Get inside the caravan! We're under attack!"

"Yikes! Yessir lucario!" The kecleon quickly scampered into a small hatch on the side of the caravan.

"So it is the bandits?!" Lexi exclaimed, turning back to Flint.

"Yeah," Flint said, "has to be. There are talon marks raked across her back and wings."

"Damn… Will she be fine?"

"Should be, her wounds aren't that severe." Flint gritted his teeth. "The impact from the fall though… It'll probably leave her unconscious for a while."

Flint's ear twitched at the sound of something landing near his feet. He looked down. "Crap."

"PFWOOSH! PFWOOSH! PFWOOSH!" The smoke bomb, and what sounded like a few others, exploded, instantly covering the two in a thick cloud of white smoke. Flint could barely see Lexi, who was only a few meters away.

"WOAH!" Lexi yelped.

"Shhhhhh! Be quiet!" Flint whispered through gritted teeth. "If you talk, it makes it easier for them to track yo-"

Flint's eyes went wide as Lexi was dragged away into the mist by some seemingly invisible force. "WHAAAAA!"

Flint reached out an arm towards Lexi, and was about to call out her name, but what happened next spooked him into silence.

He saw flashes of yellow, bolts of lightning, glowing through the mist. He heard the sounds of a struggle.

"Hey! Get off of me!" Lexi yelled. "You little-!"

Though after only a few moments of fighting, everything fell silent. Flint could only hear the sound of his heart beating in his chest, fear welling up inside of him.

"What the hell..." Flint muttered under his breath as he clenched his paws tight. For the brief moment he could see Lexi's aura as she was fighting, it looked like she was being pummeled by some sort of invisible force. Or perhaps an attacker he couldn't see with his aura sensors? Doubt took over his mind, losing all focus just trying to process what he saw. He had no clue who or what he was going up against anymore. Was this enemy beyond him?

"That's two of them. Where's the lucario?" Flint's ear twitched as he barely caught wind of a quiet voice ahead, near where Lexi fell.

"Shut it!" Another voice said through seemingly gritted teeth. "Don't let them hear you."

Flint took a deep breath and tried to regain his composure. "Of course," Flint thought to himself. "They are just regular pokémon using some sort of trickery to hide their auras and freak me out. It's nothing more than that."

Flint noticed that the smoke was starting to clear, and he could just barely make out Lexi's body and the figures of her attackers. They were both smaller than him, but he only had a momentary advantage, the smoke would clear soon. Before he could start dashing towards them however, he was hit from behind with something blunt at the nape of his neck.

"Ack!" Flint yelped as he fell to the ground from the sudden blow. He rolled over to get a look at his attacker, only to be met with a sharp claw pressed up against his neck, followed by a giant foot on his chest, the sheer weight pinning him down.

The lucario was now face-to-face with a giant pokémon wearing an intimidating metal-plated mask. The creature's sharp, topaz-yellow eyes seemed to stare into his soul. It took a moment for him to realize what pokémon it was from the shape of the mask, but Flint was looking at a garchomp equipped with full metal armor. He wasn't in a good position to get a good look at the whole thing in detail though.

Flint's fear was palpable. He had wide eyes and his heart was beating out of his chest. He was certain that if he tried anything to escape the garchomp's hold, then that claw would be thrust straight into his neck. This was supposed to be a simple job against simple thieves. How did these bandits take them down so easily?

"You guys should be more careful." The garchomp spoke with a deep, gravelly voice. "This one was about to rush you two down."

"Oh uh… Thanks chief!" One of the pokémon answered.

"You guys can thank me by not being so careless next time," the garchomp said with disdain. "We're lucky that the lucario can't see our auras with this tech."

Flint tried to turn his head to get a look at the other two pokémon, but the garchomp used his other claw to turn Flint's head back towards him.

"Eyes on me lucario," the garchomp spoke sternly.

The garchomp never took his eyes off of Flint, not even for a brief second. Their focus was intensely overwhelming. Flint let out an involuntary gulp. What was this garchomp's plan?

"Strong, but you lost your composure too easily there. You let your emotions take over, so you hesitated. Had you been a little faster to recover, you might've been able to take out one or two of my…" The garchomp paused for a second, as if carefully picking his next word. "Associates."

The garchomp glanced at Flint's badge and his name engraved on it. "I thought that the surveyors guild would pose a threat to us, but after your poor display, I now have my doubts. At least you're not stupid enough to make any sudden moves, so you have that going for you." The garchomp pressed his claw a little harder into Flint's neck. "Because if you did, I'd have to off you right here and now. So let's make this a learning opportunity… Flint."

"Ack!" Flint let out a choking sound from the pressure on his neck.

"The next time we meet," the garchomp threatened, putting even more pressure onto Flint's neck and drawing a drop of blood. "Or any other guild member that gets in our way," the garchomp leaned in closer to Flint's face, their sharp yellow eyes piercing his gaze. "I may not be so generous."

With a swift movement, the masked attacker hit Flint with the blunt end of his other claw, knocking him out.

Part 2: Delta