When Blizz closed his eyes, he was on a stretcher moving towards Nova Town. When he opened them, he was lying in a hospital bed with his leg in a splint.
"You finally woke up," Chansey noticed, walking over. "How do you feel?"
"Well, my leg's terrible, but everything else feels fine."
"Wonderful. You broke your leg and there might have been an infection. Thankfully, the ice you pressed against it managed to stall it out for long enough to get it to me. And since you're a grass type, you should be able to heal the fracture quickly. Just take it easy and keep the leg exposed to as much sunlight as possible tomorrow."
"Okay, that's good."
"As for my other concern…"
She slapped Blizz over the head with her clipboard.
"What were you thinking, giving an unconscious Pokémon raw Oran juice? Thankfully she's fine now, but if I took too long…"
"I know you're not supposed to, but she was pretty badly hurt and neither me or Umbreon could carry her. If she couldn't walk we would have had to leave her there."
"You are aware of what happens when you give an unconscious Pokémon an Oran Berry, right?"
"Sort of, it like, causes them to burn up, right?"
"It kicks their body's healing processes into overdrive while doing virtually nothing to wake their mind up. Depending on the species and the severity of whatever knocked them unconscious, their body can begin to auto-cannibalize trying to heal injuries that don't exist. Luckily for you, ice-types tend to resist this for longer than other Pokémon."
"Sorry, but I couldn't think of anything else to do."
"… In the circumstances you found yourself in, you probably made the correct choice. However, in the future you should come more prepared so a situation like this doesn't happen in the first case. Where did you find her?"
"The top of Shining Peaks."
Chansey froze. "They sent a rookie exploration team to a rescue mission on the summit of Shining Peaks?"
"Yea… it was only a D rank…"
Chansey looked furious. "THEY SAID GOING TO THE SUMMIT WAS A D RANK?"
"… I mean the dungeon didn't seem that difficult…"
"It's not the dungeon that's the problem, the peak has…" She looked at Blizz's leg. "Did you run into the Beartic?"
"Sure did, we beat its ass. It broke my leg though…"
"… You took down Beartic? As in, fully knocked it out?"
"Yea, pretty sure. We did get kinda lucky, think he was confused towards the end of the fight."
"And you're a rookie squad?"
"Nah, we hit Normal Rank yesterday- err uh, how long was I out?"
"Only a couple of hours."
"Then yea, we got Normal yesterday."
She took a deep breath. "I owe Lucario a great deal for what he's done for me, but for the love of Arceus he needs to reconsider how he handles new teams."
"Oh, uh, where did Umbreon go?"
"He's been in the waiting room. He didn't want to leave until he knew you and Vulpix were safe."
"Well are we?"
"As I said, you just need to take it easy and lay in a spot with direct sunlight, your leg should be good to go after a day. Vulpix is completely fine now, and just needs to rest."
"Then I'm good to go?"
"…Yes, but one second." She wrote something on a sheet of paper, and stamped it with her paw. "Make sure Scizor sees it. Mission rankings are supposed to be the guildmaster's job, but knowing Lucario he probably made Scizor do it…"
Blizz took the paper, and looked it over. It was written in footprint runes though, and he assumed that taking out his badge to translate it right now would be rude.
"Got it. I'll make sure to pass it off."
"Then please, take care."
Blizz left the clinic, walking past Vulpix who was also in a hospital bed. While he knew he was starting to lose his grip towards the end earlier, he was pretty sure he heard Vulpix say she was a human.
He left a note written in English on the table next to her.
Come to Lucario's Guild (blue tent building north of town)
Ask for Treecko or Umbreon
We're the same as you, we can help.
-Green
Once he returned the pen he stole, he entered the waiting room, which was completely empty.
He opened the door and saw the Prince walking down the street, carrying his bag.
"Ah, you finally came out. I assume your leg is functional now?"
"Yea, doctor says to take it easy though. Were you waiting on me?"
"Don't kid yourself, even in this form I have better things to do than wait for an inevitable outcome."
"Of course… Anyways, did you get the reward yet?"
"Not yet, I was preoccupied restocking our supplies. I took the liberty of withdrawing from the team fund to purchase a Reviver Seed. I assumed you would have no objections to this, not that you have any say in the matter anyways."
"Nah you're good, I was gonna do that once I got out."
"Splendid."
They returned to the guild, as Blizz entered Scizor's office to collect their rewards.
"Team Apex, I assume your mission was…" he trailed off as he noticed Blizz's splint. "Oh."
"Hey, we did make it, just got a little injured in the process." Blizz held up the job listing. "Vulpix is safe at Chansey's."
"Well I suppose that would be a success. And your leg?"
"She said I just need to take tomorrow off and it'll be healed the day after."
"Ah, grass-types do tend to heal quickly… Well in that case let me get the rewards."
He brought out 400 Poké, which Blizz placed in his bag. His badge updated as the team progressed slightly through Normal rank.
"Also, uh, Chansey wanted me to give you this," he said, holding out the note. "Didn't get a chance to translate it yet so I'm not sure what it's about."
"Let me see…" He took it from Blizz.
He looked it over, his facial expression changing several times over the course of a few seconds. Once he finished it, he stared at the team.
"You two took down the Beartic at Shining Peaks?"
"Yea, is it really a big deal?"
"…That bear has been the bane of countless explorers. Generally we avoid the summit unless it's in hibernation or we're sending a veteran squad."
"Was that what the letter was about?"
"Partly, Chansey was… irritated, to put it mildly, that we'd list a mission to Shining Peaks as a D rank. Which is a valid concern, it should have been at least a B rank…"
"Then do we get a bonus?"
Scizor stared at Blizz. "Don't push it." He looked back at the mission listing. "I can't figure out why this was a D rank though…"
"Who decides the ranking of missions?"
"There's a system in place based on what we know about the dungeon and how far into it the client is; there's a chart at Pelipper's office you can ask to look at if you're curious. But it's rare for them to make a mistake like this."
"Could someone have changed it?"
"… It's possible, but I can't figure out why. Usually Pokémon will make their mission a higher rank to attract better explorers, not set it lower. Did you notice anything unique about the client?"
He didn't think it was a good idea to go into the full ex-human thing, so he decided to stick with the explanation he told Team Spark.
"Well, yea. Umbreon and I are both from a place pretty far from here, but we woke up around Nova Town with no idea how we got here. On the way back from the dungeon, we found out that Vulpix was in the same situation as us… Not positive on that though, she was kinda delirious when we were talking about it."
"Hmm… where are you three from then?"
"Earth."
"…Interesting… And you have no idea how you arrived here?"
"None. To be honest, a big part of why we joined the guild was to figure out how it happened." And how we can get back.
Blizz figured saying the second part out loud wouldn't help him much here.
Scizor seemed lost in thought. "Well, you have demonstrated your value to the guild, I'll be sure to note any information I come across regarding… Earth, you called it and direct it to you."
"That would be really helpful, thanks."
"In any case, given your condition I will grant your team tomorrow off. However, I want you back on missions as soon as you've recovered. Understood?"
"Gotcha."
"Then you're dismissed. In the meantime, I'm going to look into why the mission was under-ranked."
Blizz returned to his room and threw himself onto his bed. The Prince was already there, resting after the hell that was today. It was much later but he still couldn't believe that everything had happened today.
"I don't think I mentioned yet, I think the Vulpix we rescued is another ex-human."
"And how did you find this out?"
"When you left us by the tree, she said that she was supposed to be a human. She definitely was out of it, but I still think it was true."
"Then what do you plan on doing?"
"I left a note next to her hospital bed to come talk to us when she's feeling better, we can figure out what to do from there."
"So you would like to have her join our team."
"If she wants to. I mean, we can't really force anyone."
"Very well. By virtue of expanding our coalition of ex-humans, you have my approval to invite her."
Blizz couldn't shake the feeling that the Prince was being more cooperative than normal right now. Probably the exhaustion.
The two layed there semi-comatose until the dinner announcement, the only thing capable of making them get up.
They took their spots towards the end of the table, and after dealing with some questions about how Blizz broke his leg, dug into their food.
"Hey, did you hear about the theft at the Duskull's Bank in Tenea City?" Gible gossiped.
"Several hundred thousand Poké was stolen straight from the vault, what of it?" Hawlutcha asked.
"Supposedly they got the suspect down," Gible continued. "They're gonna update the outlaw board with a Track mission for them tomorrow. Supposedly they're doing it both here and at the guild in Tenea City."
"So we're gonna be bashing heads with Hydregion's Guild again? I'll pass," Hawlutcha decided. "The thief stole from Tenea, let's let Tenea's guild deal with it."
"The problem is Magnezone doesn't really know where they are, they could be anywhere between Nova and Tenea."
"So the search zone is the entire northern half of Varin?" Sneasel commented. "Even the teams that are famous for tracking would be crazy to take on a mission like."
"Once they're found though, it's a different story," Dewott stated, slicing the air with one of his shells for effect.
"To have pulled off a heist in the middle of Tenea though, I think tracking them down is going to be much more difficult than combat," Shinx said.
"So we let the scrubs down at Hydreigon's Guild search for a couple weeks, and when they come up short we step in and bring them to justice, completely embarrassing them," Combusken proposed.
"Hydregion's Guild consists of fellow explorers. Any history between our guildmaster and theirs should have no impact on how we treat them, and we absolutely should not aspire to embarrass them due to some misguided sense of pride," Hawlutcha scolded.
"Is uh… Is there something I should know here?" Blizz whispered to Chimchar.
"Just a guild rivalry. Hydregion and Lucario don't really get along well, no one really knows why though."
"Huh."
The discussion shifted on to how the Pokémon managed to steal all the Poké in the first place, with theories ranging from a tunnel underneath the bank to teleportation bullshittery. By this point Blizz was well aware that Pokémon had a wide array of abilities, but he had no idea how large the list was, and kept his mouth shut.
The Prince meanwhile seemed to only take notice when they mentioned the volume of money stolen, but didn't provide anything to the conversation.
"THEN LET'S FUCKING GET IT!"
"YEAAAAA!"
After morning announcements, Blizz limped his way out of the guild. Doctor's orders were to not use his leg much and stay in the sunlight. Simple enough.
The Prince was tasked with some basic supply runs for the guild. He repeatedly insisted that he was above such trivialities, but agreed after Blizz came up with some bullshit about how a monarch should understand the duties of the common folk to better lead them.
They really were settling into a moderately functional working relationship.
Once he exited the tent, Blizz sat down on the canyon's ridge, dangling his feet off the edge and staring into the valley.
It's been five days since he woke up as Pokémon, and he was mostly used to his new body by this point. While the circumstances surrounding his transformation still remained a complete mystery, working with the guild's been great, and he found two other ex-humans to figure things out with.
Even with the broken leg, things could have been far worse.
He was pulled from his recollecting by a voice.
"Hey, you're the green thing from earlier?"
He turned around to see the Vulpix from earlier, now completely awake.
"That'd be me. Kinda surprised you remembered that."
"No thanks to you." She walked to Blizz and sat down around a yard away from him, as her volume dropped a considerable amount. "You said you're the same as me, does that mean-"
"Human. Or used to be, I'm pretty sure. Same with the Prince, who's the Umbreon- err, the black thing from earlier."
"Oh… do you know what happened?"
"Not really, kinda trying to figure that out."
Blizz explained as much as he could to the Vulpix, mostly about how this place worked and what Pokémon were. He briefly touched on the guild and mystery dungeons, but the rest of that could wait until he makes his pitch to her later.
"So there's no humans here? Like, at all?"
"At least as far as I can tell. We're hoping to keep the whole 'used to be human' thing quiet, so I haven't been able to ask about it much."
"…We're completely alone here."
"Not exactly, the locals have been super nice. And I managed to convince the assistant guildmaster to look out for anything that could have brought a bunch of Pokémon from the far-off land known as 'Earth'."
"Is that the lie you're going with?"
"Less a lie, more an omission. I don't think it's incorrect to say that Earth is very far away."
"…I'll use that too. But why did you want to talk to me in the first place?"
"Well, we kinda have an ex-human team at the guild. Right now it's me and the Prince, but we were wondering if you'd like to join as well."
"Why would I want to? You look like shit right now."
Blizz really hoped there would come a time where he could recruit someone with just the moral argument. One of these days…
"We want to figure out why we came here and why we were transformed into Pokémon," Blizz explained. "The guild provides resources for exploring and discovering things, along with the more pressing need of food and shelter."
"You really couldn't take a job at one of the 50 places around town?"
"Yea, it'd probably be easier, but then we wouldn't be able to find out why we all look like fantasy creatures."
"Ugh…"
"I mean, you don't need to join if you don't want to. Exploration stuff is kinda difficult. I just figured keeping all the ex-humans in the same place will make planning and figuring things out a bit easier. If you could go off on your own, we could probably pull some money out of the team fund to get you a place to stay for a couple nights…"
Vulpix looked at her feet. "… I can't do anything alone…" she said, barely more than a whisper.
"Sorry, what'd you say?"
"… I'll join," she decided. "But I'm not going to be that useful to you guys."
"Honestly if we had an extra set of hands when we were rescuing you yesterday half of the problems could have been avoided."
"If you think so…"
"So do you remember your name? Or a nickname? The Prince and I can only remember nicknames."
"Rune. I'm pretty sure that's a nickname too."
"Well I'm Blizz." He extended his hand. "Welcome to Team Apex."
"I can't even pretend to be surprised at this point," Scizor mused, as he prepared Rune's explorer's badge. "You're now tied with Blitz for the largest team in the guild."
"We're basically just a union for people- err, Pokémon that came from Earth," Blizz commented.
"I can tell… Alright Vulpix, your registration is complete. You're free to join Team Apex on missions starting tomorrow."
"Thank you," Rune said, before they left the room. They went straight to the mess hall, where dinner was set to begin.
The rest of the guild's explorers began to file in, some commenting on the new member of Apex. After a brief introduction from Blizz, they all dug into their food.
Rune seemed uncomfortable at first, nervously pawing around her food, before taking a cautious bite.
"… It's not that good…"
"Usually tastes better when we're completely exhausted," Blizz explained.
"While I agree the taste and presentation leave much to be desired, I can appreciate that the food tends to be quite filling."
Rune took another bite, then pushed the plate away. "Well I've been resting for most of the day anyways, I don't really need it…"
She left the mess hall before anyone could say anything else. Blizz and the Prince looked slightly confused, but decided to finish their meals before figuring out what was going on with her.
After the rest of Team Apex finished, they returned to their room, where Rune was sprawled out on her bed.
"Hey, you alright?" Blizz asked, while the Prince stood awkwardly in the doorway.
"… How the hell could I be?" She snapped. "I look like a fox, this place is nothing like I know, everyone is this weird animal thing that apparently can kill me in one hit if they wanted to, I have no idea who I am, and my only lifeline is a gecko and cat covered in glow sticks. How have you been dealing with this?"
"… Honestly I've just been rolling with the punches. Keep focusing on things and you won't have time to dwell on the shitty stuff. And honestly, this world isn't really that bad. You'll come around to it eventually."
"But I don't want to get used to this place, I want to go back home to whatever my family is and to-"
"And that's what we're doing," Blizz interrupted. "We're exploring with the express purpose of figuring out what our home is and how to go back there. Right now, this the situation we're in, and the sooner we accept it the easier it'll be to get out of it."
"But I'm completely useless to you guys."
"Didn't we talk about this earlier? Plus, if you're really worried about it you can always just train."
"… I'm just, I'm not cut out for this. I don't know why I agreed to join you…"
Blizz mentally kicked himself, it didn't really occur to him that her reluctance to join had less to do with being a prick (as was the case with the Prince) and more that she just has no idea what she's doing.
"Then we'll help walk you through it. We'll just do an easy mission tomorrow, take it easy, and show you all the tricks we've learned for dealing with our new forms."
"Well… if you say so."
Seeing that the emotional crisis was mostly resolved, the Prince fully entered the room and fell onto his bed. Rune and Blizz did the same, all three asleep within 10 minutes.
"THEN LET'S FUCKING GET IT!"
"YEAAAAA!"
"Do you guys actually do that every morning?" Rune asked after the morning chant.
"Yea, it's pretty hype if you let yourself get into it," Blizz responded.
"For what it's worth I do not understand it either," the Prince countered.
"I don't think either of you are capable of being excited," Blizz concluded.
While they were talking, Lucario and Scizor approached the team.
"Yo newbies." The team turned to face their guildmaster. "Got a job for you today."
"What's up?" Blizz asked.
"The guildmaster will be accompanying you on your mission today," Scizor explained. "After explaining to him the issues surrounding the under-ranked mission to Shining Peaks the previous day, he stated, and I quote, 'Those motherfuckers are legends, move my schedule around so I'm observing them today.'"
"Hell yea I did," Lucario confirmed.
"Is this something we should come to expect?" The Prince asked.
"Typically once a month either myself or Lucario will accompany an exploration team on their daily mission. This allows us to see how they handle a more challenging dungeon while granting them a safety net. We can also critique their exploration or combat methods in the field as opposed to relying on guild training or after action reports."
"It means I get to figure out exactly what makes each team in my guild badass. Blitz are some of the best fighters I know, Arctic just tears through anything in front of them, Drill cannot physically be stopped, and Spark will march into hell and back if you ask them to. Now I gotta figure out what you guys are about."
Blizz looked over at Rune, considering their conversation last night. She looked conflicted, but gave a nervous nod.
"Then let's do it," Blizz declared.
"That's what I wanna see. You fuckers are gonna be taking on a B rank mission today, come by my room when you find one. And don't do one of those stupid item retrieval or outlaw tracking missions."
Lucario and Scizor left as Team Apex crowded around the Outlaw board.
"Looking for B ranks here," Blizz said to himself has he flipped through the various notices. He paused on one listing, mostly out of curiosity.
"I assume we are not particularly interested in an S rank tracking mission," the Prince commented, looking over Blizz's shoulder at the sketch of a Misdreavas.
"I was just wondering if this was the thief they were talking about at dinner two nights ago," Blizz admitted. "Never seen a track mission this highly rated."
"If we could not waste any time here, that would be ideal. We still have no idea how Rune will fare in a dungeon, and the sooner we begin today the better. And Lucario is certain to make today far worse…"
"Fine." Blizz returned Misdreavas' listing and continued his search. "How about this then?"
He took off another notice and translated it with his badge.
Outlaw Capture Mission - B Rank
Target: Kabutops
Location: Amber Canyon
Info: Kabutops is wanted for viciously attacking Pokémon at random. Possible signs of ferality. Please knock out Kabutops and return him to the nearest police station.
"He looks tough," Rune commented.
"He can't possibly be worse than the Beartic from yesterday," the Prince considered.
"Then we'll do it." Blizz took the flyer and the group returned to Lucario's office.
"You bastards got a mission?" He asked.
"Yea, going for a Kabutops in Amber Canyon."
"Nice choice, Amber Canyon is great. Let's fucking get it!"
Team Apex and Lucario set out for Amber Canyon. They followed a riverbank upstream for 50 minutes, ending up at the base of a waterfall. From the waterfall, the river split in two. One half flowed down towards Nova Town, the way they came from. The other appeared to flow into an open cave.
"Amber Cave was my favorite dungeon," Lucario explained as they prepared to enter. "Pokemon there were badass. Ended up meeting one of my teammates here. He was a feral, beat the shit out of him, came to his senses enough to want to join me."
"Was that Scizor?" Blizz asked.
"Nah, Scizor's got a stick too deep up his ass to be an ex-feral. You've never met the guy."
The conversation trailed off as Blizz examined the cave entrance. There wasn't any bank along the side he could stand on— the only way in was to jump into the water.
Lucario looked at Blizz, and kicked him into the river.
Rune and the Prince stood on edge as Blizz vanished with the current.
"Come on, you're not gonna let your leader deal with a dungeon on his own, are you?" Lucario threw himself into the water immediately after.
"I'll have you know I'm the actual leader," the Prince mumbled as he gently lowered himself into the river and slid in.
Rune was the last one left, and nervously ran her paw against the river. The current didn't seem to be that strong…
She climbed in as well and let the water take her away.
Back at the front of the group, Blizz was having the time of his life.
"WOOOOO!"
He was knocked around a fair bit as the current would slam him into a rock formation or two, but never enough to really hurt him. There seemed to have been a couple drops as he felt himself entering into free fall on more than a few occasions.
At last, he entered a final free fall, where the water stream dumped him out at the center of a lake in a huge cavern. He swam to the nearest solid land and shook the water off his scales.
Lucario and his teammates followed soon after, joining him on the lake's shore.
"So how was that?" Lucario asked.
"Fucking awesome."
"Absolutely horrid."
"Terrifying…"
"That's what exploring is all about," Lucario explained. "If you don't feel all three it's not a real exploration."
The one benefit of the impromptu water slide for Rune was that it compelled her to learn Powder Snow, which she used to freeze off the water trapped in her fur.
"Alright, you fuckers ready to start the dungeon?"
"Extra time will not make me any more ready," the Prince responded, still dripping wet.
"Then let's go."
Lucario led the way to a gap in the cavern's wall. He stepped aside, letting Blizz take his position as team leader.
It was another rocky dungeon, which Blizz was honestly starting to get tired of. However, what set it apart from the others was occasional pockets of amber. Every once in a while the amber would be thick enough to let them see through a wall.
The ferals in the dungeon proved to be a bit more difficult than Blizz or the Prince were used to. Not that any of them posed much of a challenge, but they had to be slightly more intelligent than the "attack anything that moves" strategy that got them through their first few dungeons.
It didn't help that they were also trying to integrate Rune into their exploration, frequently pausing to explain to her things that Blizz either glossed over or forgot to mention yesterday.
Lucario for his part was mostly just watching the team work. Occasionally when a feral would set its sights on him he'd give it a brief demonstration on why he earned the rank of guildmaster, but otherwise he didn't want to interfere with Apex's system.
All these factors combined meant that the Prince and Blizz were arguing far less than either of them would have liked.
Callouts of approaching ferals or explaining the difference between an Oran and Oren berry simply didn't fill the silence of the dungeon like arguing over niche political systems that didn't even exist in this world could.
Despite the new member, dungeon navigation was mostly fine. Unlike Blizz or the Prince, virtually all of Rune's moves were ranged, so they adjusted their formation. Blizz still remained in the lead, Rune stood in the center, and the Prince took up the rear. Rune could assist whether enemies were coming from the front or back, while the tougher members of the team would be up front focusing on melee attacks.
Not that the change would stop Blizz from spamming Leafage in any circumstance it was remotely viable in though.
"And there we go," he announced, as he approached the Omanyte he just knocked unconscious. "20 yards, pretty sure that's a personal best."
"Would it kill you to not use American units?" Rune asked, slightly annoyed.
"I'm sorry, did your sad little European units put a man on the-"
"Did you just refer to imperial units as 'American'?" The Prince interrupted.
"…I mean yea? No one calls it imperial anymore."
"That's absurd, the British Empire is far more mighty than anything the states could hope to be."
Blizz stopped to think about something. He was going to follow up with a question, but Lucario had just caught up to them. Instead, he gave them the official "this has to do with us being humans so we'll talk about it later when there's no one else around" look, which they all picked up on.
They kept moving through the dungeon, taking a break at floor 10 to split up an apple. Not a major meal, but they knew they were coming up on where the outlaw was supposed to be, and once they got out of the dungeon keeping their stomachs full was much less important.
Once they hit floor 13, their badge politely informed them that the outlaw was nearby by aggressively vibrating.
"He's here, everyone be ready to beat him up," Blizz commanded.
They progressed through the floor much more cautiously than they usually do. This wasn't a high bar, but the fact that they put any effort into being cautious in the first place would be considered a miracle to some.
"Everyone stop," Blizz called. The rest of Team Apex and Lucario froze behind him, as he looked around. It felt like there was something… off-
He was pulled out of his thoughts as a scythe claw proceeded to descend down on him. He jumped out of the way, but the attacker managed to graze his tail.
"Hey! Dealing with that when it hurts sucks," he complained as he recovered from the attack. The rest of Team Apex entered a battle stance, while Lucario stepped out of the way to watch.
Across from them, Kabutops stood, sizing up the three Pokemon he was about to fight.
"I'LL FUCKING KILL ALL OF YOU!"
"I believe a little bit of politeness would go a long way for you," the Prince remarked. "Consider rephrasing it as an offer rather than a demand and you might find others to be more amenable to you."
"GAHHHH!"
Unsurprisingly, it lashed out at Blizz again. At this point he was used to being the primary target of whatever feral Pokemon or outlaw they run into, so dodging had become mostly instinctual.
What did surprise him though was the Prince immediately using Quick Attack, as opposed to their typical strategy of Blizz serving as a dodge tank while the Prince would maybe throw a few Shadow Balls at their enemy if he was feeling up to it.
Rune took over the duty of ranged attacks in his place, using Powder Snow on Kabutops whenever there was an opening. While she was missing more often than not, her misses proved to be more helpful than her hits.
The ground became covered with ice and snow, and everyone found themselves slipping. The Prince remained light on his feet, attacking with the poise and grace he insisted any true monarch must have.
Blizz, meanwhile, attacked with the poise and grace of an opossum covered in baby oil, using the environment to slide around Kabutops' many attempts to decapitate him.
"STAND STILL PUNY TREECKO!"
The Kabutops was not quite as lucky on the new surface as Team Apex. His frantic attempts to murder the Treecko meant that he found himself going too fast on a surface not conducive to stopping with alarming frequency.
"You think we could recruit the wall into Apex?" Blizz asked as Kabutops crashed into the wall yet again. "It's really pulling its weight here."
"Shouldn't you be more focused on not getting hit?" Rune asked, as another Powder Snow froze the dungeon floor. "You're the one with all our stuff, if you go down we're all screwed."
"I get that you're new so I'll cut you some slack- haha, missed me again dumbass- but yea, being a smartass is an essential part of the combat process."
"Trust me, I would put a stop to this behavior as well if I could," the Prince argued, closing in on the dazed Kabutops using Bite. "However I do not believe Blizz is capable of performing at his peak unless he is annoying everyone else around him."
"Both you guys are more than welcome to join in on this," Blizz responded, jumping over a Slash attack before responding with a Pound. "It's really good at demoralizing our enemies."
"I WILL CUT EACH AND EVERY LIMB FROM YOUR SAD AND PATHETIC BODY!"
"See? Can't you sense the fear in his voice?"
"Please don't get yourself killed," Rune pleaded.
"That kinda depends on how good you guys are at hitting the outlaw." He watched as both a Shadow Ball and a Powder Snow missed their target. "For instance, that's the type of aim that will get me killed."
"We are not responsible for any injury stemming from your own stupidity," the Prince reasoned.
"But you guys have been enabling my stupidity," Blizz argued, as fired off a Leafage at the rapidly approaching fossil Pokemon. "That's like, partly your fault for not getting me to stop."
"Under neither British or American law does that hold true."
"But we're in Varin… Yo Lucario?"
"Hm?"
"If like, I commit a crime and Umbreon knew I would and didn't do anything, is he in trouble for anything I did?"
"Ask Scizor when you get back, I don't care about all that legal bullshit."
"Thank you, very helpful."
"Any time."
A lucky shot from Rune managed to freeze Kabutops' feet, causing him to fall over and slide along the ice. Taking advantage of the opening, Blizz, the Prince, and Rune all converged on the temporarily downed Pokemon and attacked point-blank.
In the face of the onslaught, the Kabtuops finally fell unconscious.
"Fucking finally."
"That was a sufficient performance."
"You two do that every time?"
"I mean most of our big battles are just me figuring out how to dodge the enemy then hitting them until they stay down. This was pretty textbook if you look at it like that."
"We've only had two other significant battles, and in one of them you broke your leg," the Prince reminded him. "I wouldn't define anything we have yet done as being by the books."
"If you guys are finished, might wanna get out of here," Lucario interrupted. "Wind's starting to pick up."
As if on cue, a gust of wind knocked Blizz back a bit.
"Right, we should do that."
The group tied up Kabutops (taking special care around his claws) and warped out of the dungeon.
Before the light completely obscured his vision, Blizz swore he saw the guildmaster's expression change.
A/N: Rune joined the team, and some more Lucario content
Ch 5: Should've Been a Cowboy - 12/26/21