"NOW ARE WE GONNA LET SOME LITTLE RATTATA BEAT US?"
"HELL NO!"
"THEN LET'S FUCKING GET IT!"
"YEAAAAA!"
The day after their first A-rank mission against Houndoom and learning a few new moves, Team Apex was back to work, looking over the mission board for their next job.
It was not going great.
Blizz lowered his badge and stepped away from the outlaw board. "All the major missions were already taken, only ones left are E rank."
There was a moment of silence as the meaning of that resonated throughout the team.
After observing the requisite period of grief in which the others came to terms with this fact, the Prince spoke. "...It is to be a rescue mission day, then."
"It... looks like it," Rune agreed, terrified at the prospect.
"Hey, maybe it'll go better than normal!" Kibo's ever-present optimism tried to bring the group up. "Could be our first good rescue mission!"
"Do not say such things," the Prince scolded. "We are to accomplish our objective today and suffer as little as possible. This is all we may hope for."
With a nervous nod, Blizz walked over to the rescue request board.
"...Only one A-Rank here, to Burning Rapids. Need to rescue... Huh, another Treecko."
He held out the flyer, showing a picture of a Treecko with a different coloration than Blizz.
The Prince looked carefully at the poster. "...Am I the only one here who is experiencing a sensation of unease from this mission?"
Kibo cocked his head. "More than normal for a rescue mission?"
"Yes... I struggle to describe the feeling, however."
"No, I feel it too," Rune agreed. "…It's just… foreboding."
"That is precisely it."
Blizz looked between his teammates. "It's the only A mission on the board. Only other thing we could do is a C rank out to… I think that says Surging Valley."
"We are to take the A-rank." The Prince took the initiative, tearing off the poster and marching off.
"Yea that's what I was thinking." Blizz adjusted the strap on his goggles and followed behind, setting off to Nova Town to restock.
"Here we are, Burning Rapids." Kibo looked up from the map.
For the first time, they traveled west of Nova Town, reaching the western coast of Varin and hiking south along the ocean until they reached a volcano.
"Says here that you gotta watch out for the rapids that flow through the dungeon," Kibo continued. "They're super hot, can burn you if you're not careful."
The Prince sighed. "I no longer harbor any doubts that this dungeon will prove to be utterly terrible."
Rune nodded. "Maybe we should've just taken Surging Valley..."
"We're already here, no point in worrying too much about it now." Blizz tightened his bag strap. "Got our mission, all we gotta do is find the Treecko and get out."
He stopped short of saying he had a good feeling about it because he's pretty sure that phrase is cursed. But he could speak from experience that Treecko's are pretty versatile. Whoever they needed to rescue would probably be fine.
After waiting a minute for everyone to make their final preparations, Blizz made the call. "Anyone not ready?" With no responses, he led the way into an opening along the side of the volcano.
Both the temperature and the humidity sharply rose as they climbed down to the first floor of the dungeon. The walls and floor were made of a disgusting reddish stone, filled with openings for geysers or gas vents.
"This was about what I was expecting..." Rune immediately used Powder Snow on herself to cool off.
"Just keep moving guys, we all know the drill by now," Blizz encouraged.
In an impressive show of foresight, the dungeon proved to be exactly as terrible as the four of them expected. The ferals were considerably strong, they had to cross over rivers of boiling water on multiple occasions, and the dungeon was just long— after 10 floors of misery, they made it to the clearing.
"Okay, calling a break here," Blizz decided, taking out four apples from his bag. "Rest up for a while, then we push on through the next however-fucking-many."
"At least it's getting colder the deeper we go," Rune pointed out. "It's almost at the point where I don't feel like dying…"
Kibo impaled his apple on his tail. "I didn't mind it too much, I think my species just deals with this type of weather really well."
The Prince sighed. "Please do not try to brag here."
"Oh, sorry, didn't mean to make it sound like that..."
"Prince is just being Prince," Blizz mediated. "You're good."
"Well... if ya say so." Kibo went back to eating his apple, the slightly guilty expression remaining on his face.
"What floor is the client on?" The Prince asked, changing the subject.
Blizz opened up his badge, navigating to the mission info tab. "Says they're at the end of the dungeon. No floor count."
"Wonderful…"
The next 10 floors proved to be merciful to Team Apex. While the ferals were much stronger, the boiling rivers and heat vents vanished entirely. The energy they gained from not fighting in a dungeon that makes you regret every decision in your life that led you to this moment made up for the extra damage the ferals were doing.
"Got a couple more rooms where the staircase could be," Blizz called, knocking out an Omastar with Leafage. "We'll backtrack two hallways and make a left."
"Roger!" Kibo took the leader position, following Blizz's route.
As they walked, Rune leaned into the Prince. "Hey uh... do you feel like we're being watched?"
The Prince didn't even look back. "Most definitely."
"Wha... what do you mean?"
"I have felt the sensation of being watched since we entered this segment of the dungeon. Possibly prior to it as well."
"Then... why didn't you say anything?"
"What would common knowledge of this do for us? Whoever is spectating us will likely reveal themselves at some point regardless."
"...I mean, you have a point, but still... Maybe just a warning?"
"Any foe that has the means to pursue us through a mystery dungeon of this caliber is likely much too capable to take any effective preventative measures towards us. I intended to issue a warning to the others once we reached the final stairwell."
"Fine..."
Thankfully, it turned out that the staircase was in the first room the team checked, meaning they could make the final descent.
With a dramatic flair, the Prince stopped the group. "Ahem. Before we continue any further, I would like to point out that Rune and myself feel that we have been under watch since entering this stage of the dungeon."
Blizz looked at the Prince. "Like… legit?"
The Prince groaned. "...Yes. Legit."
"Word. Probably got some dude we need to fight next then." In spite of this warning, he threw himself down the stairs.
The rest of the team looked between each other, before following behind with a collective sigh.
The final floor of the dungeon was a large room, reminding Blizz a little too much of where his battle with Fanita took place.
Instead of a battle with an illusive ghost thief, however, this room only contained four statues.
Three of them were about the same height; they all had fairly stumpy legs, and a series of dots where their eyes would be. The fourth statue was leagues bigger, and appeared to be slightly overgrown with moss and vines.
"Guys, you know what this is about?" Blizz called over the rest of the team.
"...Feel like I've seen something like this before at the station," Kibo offered. "Not sure what they are though."
"Is Treecko here then?" Rune asked, walking around the back of the statues.
The Prince shook his head. "I do not see anyone else in this room."
Blizz stopped examining the statues to think. "Then maybe there's another room... oh god don't tell me we have to solve some bullshit puzzle with these statues."
When Blizz said 'another room' a faint rumbling went through the room.
"BREAK: Intruder Present EQUALS TRUE. Combat Loop OPEN PARENTHESIS Chamber Defense CLOSE PARENTHESIS."
Kibo looked around for the source of the voice. "What's going on?"
The Prince backed away from the statues, readying a Shadow Ball. "Were I to make a guess, I would assume that the 'BS puzzle' Blizz mentioned is about to make itself known."
The fingers on the three shorter statues began moving slightly.
"Guys... I think the statues are alive..." Rune said, voice trembling.
"Oh thank god it's just a battle then." Blizz jumped back to the rest of his team, watching the three smaller statues whirr to life. "Was worried we'd have to do like, a matching game or some shit."
Three Pokemon came to life, standing across the ex-humans. The lights on the faces of Regirock, Regice, and Registeel all flashed three times in unison.
"Alright, Lucario said we need a battle plan, right? So here's what I'm thinking." As Blizz was speaking, all three golems took a synchronized step towards the exploration team.
"Thinking like, obviously they're rock, ice, and steel types."
Another step.
"So we focus on the ice one first, because that guy could fuck Kibo up."
Yet another step. They were not very fast.
"Then rock because we can drop that guy fastest. We end on steel because we don't really have good moves to deal with him but Rune's the only one who's got a defensive problem."
The Prince gave the team leader an annoyed glare. "Is this strategy meeting concluded?"
"Yea, think so."
"Wonderful." Having fully heard Blizz's instructions and the rationale behind them, he promptly ignored them, launching a Shadow Ball at the nearest golem, Registeel.
Whatever compelled the three Regis to act in unison fell apart as the Prince finished his attack. Regirock and Regice dived to the side, which given their speed turned out to be them just falling down to the side.
Registeel made no attempt to dodge the inbound attack. After the explosion faded away, it lifted an arm, pointing its fingers at the Prince. There was a brief pause as a yellow orb appeared in front of it, before firing a Hyper Beam at the Prince. Given how far the attack was used away from the Umbreon, he sidestepped it easily.
"Okay, new plan," Blizz decided, not wanting to have to corral the Prince into being a team player right now. "Random bullshit, anyone who doesn't get a KO has to do logistics duty by themselves next time!"
The threat of having to do logistics duty without any support made the three other ex-humans shudder.
Kibo was pulled from his abject terror as a Stone Edge nearly missed him, a spire of rock managing to ding one his scales.
"Guess it's you and me," he decided, a smile on his face. He ran forward with his tail glowing, using Dragon Tail to launch the Regirock into the large statue in the back.
Meanwhile, Rune decided to try her new move. A hailstorm covered the entire room in seconds.
"Was doing this truly necessary?" The Prince complained from his position behind Registeel.
Kibo looked back to Rune as he walked towards the Regirock he just launched. "I don't mind none, just don't do it too often, alright?"
"...My bad..." Rune looked down out of embarrassment, before remembering that she was in the middle of an important battle.
She felt much lighter as Snow Cloak activated, changing her from a single Vulpix that obeyed the laws of matter to a non-Newtonian Vulpix-shaped cloud that could appear anywhere within the bounds of the storm.
She used this ability to pull off attacks on all the golems, then falling back before they could even see where they were hit from.
Since Kibo was dealing with the rock, Prince with the steel, and Rune was kinda fighting whoever was most convenient at that moment, Blizz was left responsible for dealing with the ice golem.
He ran forward, busting out his new Double Team as he charged. The already slow-thinking Regice had no clue which Blizz was the real one, using 5 different Ice Beams and only managing to eliminate half of the doubles.
Blizz could absolutely have gone for an attack by this point, but watching Regice struggle was a lot more entertaining.
"Blizz, focus on the battle," Rune scolded, suddenly appearing at the real Blizz's side.
"Fine..." He and all his remaining doubles dashed in using Quick Attack. Given the large weight of Regice compared to the not-large weight of a Treecko, the attack did not do very much. Fortunately, Regice was so confused by the amount of Treecko's attacking it had no chance at staging a real counterattack.
Blizz bounced back as his Double Team completely faded. Just as Regice was about to fire an Ice Beam at Blizz, a Regirock flew into the golem.
"My bad!" Kibo shouted over the chaos of the battle.
"Nah you're good, that helped!" Blizz prepared to fire a barrage of Leafages at the two, but lowered his arm as he watched what the two golems were doing.
Whatever coordination the Regis had earlier seemed to vanish entirely as they flopped around trying to stand up. They were both dead-set on getting to their feet at this exact location before rejoining the battle, which proved to be an issue as there happened to be another Regi trying to do the same exact thing. As a result, right before one of them was ready to walk, the other would try to push itself up and ram into the former with its shoulder, knocking it over. Then as soon as this Regi was able to walk, the other would do the same thing.
This cycle did not seem like it would end any time soon.
Good for Team Apex though. Blizz and Kibo shifted their focus to Registeel, who was thoroughly preoccupied dealing with the Prince, deftly weaving around every attack the steel-type tried.
Blizz and Kibo rushed in with Pound and Headbutt, respectively. Seeing his comrades approaching, the Prince let off, shifting to a ranged focus to let Blizz and Kibo manage the melee fighting.
Registeel was really struggling. While the attacks were barely doing any damage to it, it couldn't figure out which foe to concentrate on. It kept changing targets, which gave each explorer ample time to recover from their last dodge.
After nearly a half hour of chip attacks, Regirock and Regice competing to stand up in the same spot of the floor, and Registeel not managing to connect a single attack with its abysmal speed, the steel-type golem froze.
"ERROR Hammer Arm UNDERSCORE Get Power Points OPEN PARENTHESIS CLOSE PARENTHESIS LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 0."
The explorers stopped to look at Registeel. It reached out towards Kibo, before stopping again.
"ERROR: Hyper Beam UNDERSCORE Get Power Points OPEN PARENTHESIS CLOSE PARENTHESIS LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 0."
The Prince's eyes narrowed. "What is this nonsense it is speaking?"
Rune was the only one who seemed to have some clue. "...That sounds like computer code..."
The Prince charged up a Shadow Ball as he asked for clarification. "Computer code?"
"...Don't worry about it, just... I can't understand it, I was never that good at it…"
"So we're basically fighting robots!" Kibo summarized.
Rune really didn't think this was a good time to explain how computers worked to her teammates. "...Sure, yea."
Blizz looked rejuvenated by the prospect of doing something so cool. "Fuck yea, beating the crap out of an actual robot." He redoubled his effort, firing a shaky Energy Ball at Registeel. "...Still need to work on that move though..."
"ERROR: Iron Head UNDERSCORE Get Power Points OPEN PARENTHESIS CLOSE PARENTHESIS LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 0."
"I mean the shouting's annoying but it's better than actually having to fight the thing." Kibo's tail lit up, ready to fire off another Dragon Tail.
"ERROR: Flash Cannon UNDERSCORE Get Power Points OPEN PARENTHESIS CLOSE PARENTHESIS LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 0."
"If I am understanding its shouting correctly, this would be a moment of rest for us," the Prince advised. "If we need to distribute any elixirs or berries I believe it would be most optimal to do so now."
Blizz canceled his next Energy Ball. "Oh, right. Uh, who needs healing?"
"My Aurora Beam is getting weak..." Rune admitted. "But I want to see if I can use Sheer Cold before I take an elixir."
"Yea, fair enough. Anyone else?"
"I'll take an oran!" Kibo shouted as the Dragon Tail launched Registeel to the opposite side of the room.
"Catch!" Blizz tossed the berry to the dragon type, who caught it with his mouth and bit down.
"Thank you!"
"ERROR: Get Total Powerpoints OPEN PARENTHESIS CLOSE PARENTHESIS LESS THAN OR EQUAL TO 0. CATCH: CONTACT DEVELOPER."
The floor of the dungeon began shaking once again. While this was a valid cause of concern for Team Apex, it made Regirock's and Regice's attempts to stand up fail even more spectacularly, which was kinda funny to watch.
"DEVELOPER AID REQUEST UNDERSTOOD." The voice didn't belong to Registeel, it was much deeper and came from behind it.
The largest statue began moving, rising up to its feet. "Get Unit Health Points OPEN PARENTHESIS CLOSE PARENTHESIS... OPEN CURLY BRACKET 270 COMMA 310 COMMA 25 CLOSE CURLY BRACKET."
"...Is it like, trying to tell us how close we are to knocking the robots out?" Blizz asked.
"Scan Enemies OPEN PARENTHESIS CLOSE PARENTHESIS… EQUAL TO four. Combat Loop OPEN PARENTHESES four CLOSE PARENTHESES."
The largest titan held out both its hands toward was as far as it got before ice began to creep up its body. Rune stepped out from behind Regigigas, swaying slightly.
"...I don't know if I can do another one of those..." She looked back at her handiwork as the Sheer Cold spread, fully encasing Regigigas. It lasted for a few seconds before the ice completely shattered, rendering Regigigas unconscious on the ground.
Blizz looked over the titan. "You took that guy down in one hit. Fucking nice."
"...I need to lie down now..." Without waiting for anyone else's approval, Rune collapsed, falling asleep.
The Prince picked up Rune and dropped her off towards the back of the room where she would be out of the way of the battle. "While I would typically be more irritated about this behavior, I believe she has adequately pulled her weight in this battle."
The group re-focused on the remaining golems. If Regigigas' analysis was to be believed, Registeel was almost out of the battle. To verify this, Blizz fired off an Energy Ball, slightly more steady than the previous one.
As soon as it made contact, Registeel fell over with a satisfying thud.
"Huh. Guess that's two left."
Blizz, Kibo, and the Prince surrounded Regirock and Regice, who were somehow still competing to stand up at the exact same location.
"Do we even need to fight them?" Kibo asked. "Doesn't look like they're any threat like this..."
"I mean, we already looked over this room and couldn't find anything else," Blizz argued. "It'd make sense if like, we have to knock them out to move onto wherever the client is."
The Prince sighed. "If that were true, that implies the client managed to defeat these four single-handedly, progress into whatever hypothetical room they guard, then proceed to injure themselves or get lost to the extent that they need another rescue team to pick them up."
Blizz and Kibo stared at him for a moment, before Blizz managed to piece together what he was saying.
"Wait, you think this was another setup?"
"I believe it to be similar to the mission we undertook to rescue Rune."
"But like, Rune was... Oooooh." The final implication clicked for Blizz. "The Treecko we're trying to rescue might be a human?"
The Prince nodded. "I believe it to be highly likely."
"So we're trying to save another human? Better get to work finishing off these guys then!" Kibo's tail lit up as he approached the two flailing golems.
The Prince lifted a paw in front of Kibo. "Restrain yourself, once we renew our assault both of them are liable to attack us. Given the extent to which we struggled fighting the steel beast, battling two at the same time while Rune is out of commission will prove to be a challenge."
Kibo turned to face the Prince. "But if there's a human trapped here we gotta rescue them!"
"And we shall, however we are presented with an optimal scenario to prepare. Blizz, what do we have in the way of seeds?"
"Let's see... two violent, one empowerment, two warp, one blast, couple revivers, and one heal."
"Administer the violent seeds to myself and Kibo, I would like you to use the blast on my command."
Blizz just shrugged, tossing the seeds to his teammates. "Go nuts."
As the Prince bit down on the violent seed, the rings on his body began glowing much more intensely, his eyes shrinking slightly.
"Now attack! We must vanquish the barbarians!"
Kibo did the same, though the seed had no visual effect on him.
Blizz looked between his two teammates. "...So that's just a Prince thing. Rad." He threw the blast seed at the ball of Regis, scattering them to opposite sides of the room with a satisfying explosion.
The Prince immediately took off after Regice, tearing at the golem with a viciousness no one really expected from him. He wasn't dodging nearly as well as he was at the start of the fight, with quite a few hits just barely missing him, though from the rage in his eyes it was apparent he wouldn't care even if he did get hit.
Kibo was fighting a bit more normally, relying predominantly on Dragon Tail to fling Regirock around. Blizz tried using Energy Ball and Leafage to support the dragon type, but with how quickly Regirock was traveling only a few managed to connect.
"This is pretty gosh darn awesome!" Trying the trick he proposed to Lucario, Kibo used Dragon Tail on the ground to launch himself and immediately chase after wherever Regirock landed. Unlike Regice, who could at least try to fire off a few attacks between the Prince's barrage, Regirock was getting precisely zero openings.
At last, Regirock collapsed, though Kibo didn't recognize this at first, slamming its unconscious body around a few more times.
Blizz decided to intervene, firing a Leafage over the Jangmo-o's head. "Kibo, chill! He's out."
"He is?" He looked at the unconscious golem beneath his feet. "…Dang. My bad."
The two looked over at the Prince, who was still going at Regice.
"You will regret ever lashing out against the monarchy!" He jumped into the air and fired a larger than normal Shadow Ball at the ice type, then landed and rammed into Regice with a Quick Attack. "We are above you heathens!"
Kibo looked a little nervous, the effects of the violent seed clearing out of his system. "Should we... help him out there?"
"I don't think that'd go too well for us..." Blizz looked on as the Prince used Bite on Regice's head. He didn't think the golems were meant to have chunks of their body ripped out of them.
Kibo nodded.
"And for your trespasses against all of Britain and her people, I sentence you to the gallows!"
"He seems... really into it," Kibo commented.
"Maybe we should make sure he doesn't actually kill the thing... though guess if it's a robot it's not really killing..."
Before Blizz or Kibo could express their concern to the Prince, Regice fell over, finally unconscious.
"That... is what... you deserve..." The Prince was panting, the violent seed wearing off for him as well.
"Well uh, nice job guys," Blizz summarized. "…Guess all of us took one down here. Which means we all gotta do logistics duty."
Kibo looked around. "You think we're gonna see a secret passage now?"
"Over here." Rune spoke up from behind them, having woken up from her nap.
The rest of the team turned around, seeing a normal looking wall.
Before anyone could make a remark, Rune stuck her paw onto the wall, which passed straight through it.
"I was lying against the wall, and I woke up when it stopped... being a wall," she explained.
"Nice find," Blizz praised, walking forward. "Everyone ready to keep going?"
He didn't actually wait for a response, passing through the fake wall.
What awaited him on the other side was a far cry from the disgusting walls and thermal vents of Burning Rapids. While it was still a cave, there was a distinctly not-boiling river passing through a grassy clearing, several small trees and shrubs scattered throughout it. In the middle of the room, hanging off the roof, was a glowing white orb lighting up the entire room.
The entire chamber had a much calmer aura, like an oasis in the middle of the dungeon.
At the center of the grassy clearing was another Treecko lying asleep. Unlike Blizz, this one had a mint green coloration and red tail at the end.
As the rest of the team filed in and admired the oasis, Blizz ran forwards to the other Treecko, nudging their shoulder.
"Hey uh... you good there?"
Immediately the Treecko's eyes shot open.
"Oh my gosh someone finally came!" She jumped up to her feet, only slightly startling Blizz. "Been waiting here for like, forever! Was wondering when I would get help!"
"Uh... so you wanna get out of here then?"
"Yea! Thank you so much!"
The Prince eyed the Treecko suspiciously, a glance that went unnoticed by the others.
Blizz fumbled with his badge, navigating through the menus to warp all of them out of the dungeon. "God I have so many fucking questions here... Probably should wait to ask until we're out though."
"Halt." The Prince walked forward, past the two Treeckos and under the room's light source. He dug down for a moment, before pulling out a small chest that was barely buried.
The shiny Treecko looked at the box with curiosity. "Oh! I forgot that I saw that!"
"You... forgot?"
"Yea, when I first got here, I saw something right there. Wanted to see what it was, but got distracted and forgot about it."
"...How long were you here for?"
"A few days."
"You were trapped here with no means of escape for greater than 48 hours and you never considered examining the box."
"Yea!"
The Prince winced, as if the response caused him physical pain.
"Blizz, if you have no reservations, I would like to take this with us as a treasure. I suspect we are the first explorers to venture into this cavern in a while— this may have some value."
Blizz nodded. "Yea go ahead. Uh, anything else before we go? Goes for you too, Treecko."
"Nope!" The Treecko seemed way too energetic for someone who was trapped here. Maybe it was just the excitement of finally getting out?
"Alright, warping out." Blizz pressed the icon on his badge, as all the Pokémon present vanished to the dungeon entrance.
A/N: Treemko
I've been making really good progress in Nano, so expect weekly updates up through chapter 19.
Ch 16: Already Gone - 4/23/22