By this point, Blizz had amassed a great deal of knowledge on how to deal with waking up with a severe headache. His experiences as a Pokémon and the subconscious instincts that likely came from before his transformation told him exactly what to do- try bringing a hand up to his forehead.

He quickly realized this was impossible, as something was holding his arms down.

As he came to, he began looking around, trying to get a sense of where he and the others were.

He was tied down to a wooden board that seemed to be carried by a Flygon at the front end. He couldn't rotate his head enough to see behind him, but the soft blue glow was a pretty good indicator that the Prince was nearby.

That was good, they didn't separate them yet.

Aside from that, he recognized the grasslands they were walking through as a part of the route between Nova Town and Tenea City. Roguepoint Mesa was south of Nova Town, so it would have been faster to drag them to Nova Town or Cascia than to make the entire trip east.

This did not reflect favorably on his current captors.

Once Blizz was confident he had enough information, he began aggressively thrashing around, trying to free himself from his bindings.

"Hey! One of them woke up!"

Blizz could tell the shout came from the Flygon in front of him. He wasn't able to tell who it was that proceeded to bash him over the head with a Guillotine.

The second time Blizz woke up, he found himself indoors. The room was dark and uncomfortably damp, and he could tell that he was sitting on a stone floor.

Still better than getting dragged around outside though. He slowly rose to his feet, letting his eyes adjust to the lighting.

While his bag was missing, he still had his goggles. So his captors weren't complete monsters, at least.

It was still too dark for him to see well, but he was able to pick up some basic features of the room he was in. It was a small rectangle, with bars covering the front end.

This was a jail cell.

It sorta made sense given what Flygon said before he knocked out Blizz and all his teammates, but actually seeing the cell from the inside really drove it home.

Thankfully, he could make out the same comforting light blue glow from earlier in the cell next to him.

"Yo Prince, you there?"

"If I were to pretend to be asleep would you not bother me?" Despite the Prince's snark, he didn't sound nearly as confident as he normally is.

"Nope."

"Hmph... unsurprising."

"Blizz, about time you got up!" Even if Blizz couldn't see the source, Kibo's accent was very distinctive.

Mira's voice rang out from the jail cell opposite of Blizz's. "Almost all of us are here. You were the last one to wake up."

"...Damn, that's wack... Wait, almost?"

"Zar is presently missing," the Duke commented. "All other members of our party are accounted for."

"Oh shit... Wait, that's a good thing-"

"Have you not put it together?" the Prince asked, a twinge of irritation coming through.

"...Put what together?"

"...Zar was working against us," Rune summarized.

Blizz blinked a few times beneath his goggles. "...What?"

The Prince's tone was slightly accusatory. "Did not one part of her behavior seem suspicious to you?"

"No I mean… yea it did, but like..." Blizz thought back to the conversation he had with her the other day. She said she couldn't explain why she vanished, but she'd promise to be there when they needed it… Could she really have done this?

"Take your time to come to terms with this," the Prince advised. "However, we should determine our next course of action."

Blizz shook his head, not that anyone else could see it. "She promised me that she'd help us, and I still believe in her."

Though he couldn't see his teammate, Blizz could tell the Prince just rolled his eyes. "She was the newest recruit who practically begged to join our team, and now she is the only Pokémon not imprisoned with us. Make of it what you will."

That... was a bit harder to explain away. Why would they separate Zar? Sure she was crazy powerful, but the rest of them weren't complete pushovers. It didn't seem like there was a real reason they'd need a separate cell for the Treecko.

"...We'll figure it out. Did the police guys come in here at all?"

Mira shook her head. "No, it's been at least a day according to Angel."

"Yea!" the Bagon confirmed. "We haven't even gotten any food or anything!"

Blizz's mind flashed back to what the Flygon said before knocking him out. That they'd be telling them everything?

"...They'll probably come in soon-ish," Blizz said. "I'm pretty sure they want to interrogate us."

"Why would they want that?" Ride whispered. "We don't even know what we did..."

"I believe they sought to direct the blame of the husk crisis towards us," the Duke said.

"But that's bullshit!" Angel shouted. "We're here to stop it!"

"Hydreigon has a vast amount of influence over this city," the Prince reasoned. "If he is the culprit, it would not be out of the question to assume this was a part of his method to remove the threat we pose."

"I don't think those guys were actual police officers though," Rune muttered. "They used moves like Fissure and Guillotine, but that's illegal."

"We are in a prison though," Mira pointed out. "Either they built another prison identical to the one in Tenea to trick us, or we are actually under arrest."

Rune's voice softened. "Right..."

There was a brief silence as the conversation came to a lull. Blizz decided to change the topic. "Got any ideas for busting out of here?"

"Of course." The Prince's voice returned to his typical self-assured confidence. "They neglected to remove our accessories."

The glow to Blizz's right disappeared for a minute, before the Prince emerged from the ground in the center of the jail block.

Blizz smiled. "Damn, almost forgot about the gem thing. Can you go any further with it?"

"Unfortunately, no. The door out of the cell block is locked, and too well-lit for me to use the properties of the gem."

"Damn... But that's gonna be huge if they ever send someone in for us."

"Correct. Which is why I believe it is fitting to conserve our strengths for this moment."

"But they will still need to come for us," the Duke pointed out. "It may well be several days before they do so."

"Right, good point..." Blizz considered that. "Could Prince try to slip out while the guards are distracted? See if he can get the keys?"

"It may be doable. However my absence will be particularly striking, given the nature of this form." The Prince gestured towards the glowing rings on his body.

"I... might be able to try something," Mira offered. "I can't project an illusion like that, but I can do this..." There was a puff of smoke, before the Zorua resembled the Prince, right down to the gem around his neck.

Blizz admired her for a second. "Fuck that ability is cool."

"Oh uh, thanks…" Mira didn't quite know how to deal with the complement, so she moved her focus back to the task at hand. "I think I could try to mimic you while you're out, and everyone else acts like I'm in your cell, but invsible... But if they kept track of who's in what-"

The Prince cut Mira off. "We will make it work, I am not particularly concerned about our captor's competence. If and when they arrive, you shall mimic me while I explore the compound and search for the keys to our cells."

Blizz nodded, not that anyone could see it in the darkness. "Hell yea, let's get it."

It was another 12 hours before their captors finally arrived. The Flygon and Mudsdale walked in, slamming the door shut behind them.

"Alright, which of you wants to go first?" The Flygon hovered around the jail cells, staring into each. Though with the door shut, it was almost pitch black inside; Blizz was pretty sure that he wasn't even looking in the right direction when he flew past his own cell.

The glow of an Umbreon's rings from the cell across from him informed the Treecko that their plan was in action.

"We're here to get a confession out of you eight, and we don't care what it takes to get it!" Mudsdale declared."...Treecko! You first!"

Flygon smiled, before launching an Earth Power into Blizz's cell. The attack connected, temporarily stunning him as Flygon unlocked the cell door and grabbed him by the arms.

"Now, how the hell are you turning Pokémon into husks?" Mudsdale asked, raising a hoof over Blizz.

So it was gonna be like this. "Look bro, I got no fucking idea," Blizz answered.

The Mudsdale brought down the hoof, slamming Blizz with a particularly brutal High Horsepower. Alongside the pain, he heard more than a few cracks coming from his chest. If Treecko had ribs, he definitely broke a few of them.

"You better tell us something," Mudsdale sneered. "We don't care how long it takes, we're not leaving without an answer."

Blizz looked around, looking for any sign that the Prince was actually doing something. He was absolutely fine with distracting these guys by letting them beat the crap out of him, but he wanted to make sure that it would be worth the bruises.

Though with the exit door locked shut and the two police officers standing across from each other, he wasn't really sure what the Prince could do.

Well, might as well follow through on it. "…Go fuck yourselves."

Mudsdale was not particularly fond of this response. He threw another High Horsepower onto Blizz, creating a series of very unpleasant cracking sounds around the area of his plausibly-existent ribs. "Wrong answer."

Out of the corner of his eyesight, Blizz noticed a blue glow slowly getting brighter. The Prince was doing something...

"Why the hell do you guys think we did it anyways?" Blizz asked, trying to divert as much attention away from the Prince as possible. "Like, you-"

"Shut up!" Mudsdale went for a Strength this time, knocking Blizz into the far wall. On the plus side, he wasn't stuck in Flygon's grasp. If there was ever a time to cause problems, it was now.

Before Flygon could pin Blizz back down, he jumped to his feet and used Double Team, filling the prison block with duplicates of himself.

"Cheeky bastard!" Flygon immediately used Bulldoze, hitting everyone in the area. All the fake Blizzs disappeared, the real Blizz got knocked off his feet, and the Prince fell almost directly behind Mudsdale.

Maybe it wasn't Blizz's smartest idea. Mudsdale marched up to him, eyes filled with murderous intent. It almost reminded him of a feral.

Mudsdale's body shined a reflective silver, before he proceeded to jump on top of Blizz with Heavy Slam.

All things considered, getting knocked out instantly was the best mercy he could have asked for.

When Blizz woke back up, he felt the worst he ever had since becoming a Pokémon, which was a very high bar. Every part of his body ached, combined with a few sharp pains in his chest area.

"...Fuck!"

Even though mustering the strength to let that out hurt, Blizz thought it was worth it.

"I am glad to see you are awake again." He recognized the Prince's voice, coming from the cell next to him. "Are you in a position where I can chastise you for your actions, or should I wait until you are more conscious?"

"Nah, you can hit me right now..."

"Dude, that guy just brutalized you!" Angel shouted.

"It was awful..." Mira whispered.

Blizz slowly tried to sit up, "Uh, how long was I out this time?"

"It was a good couple hours," Kibo reported. "Way less than the first time."

"That's... probably good?" Blizz feels a lot worse than the first time, though. "Did they do that to any of you?"

The explorers fell quiet, silently debating on whether or not they should tell Blizz the truth.

Of course, Angel failed to detect this, and spoke her mind anyways. "Nope! They said they got their fill just beating you up, so they just left the rest of us alone."

Blizz managed a weak smile. "Nice..."

"This is not nice, they severely injured and attempted to torture you," the Prince explained. "One of us will step up next time if they reuse these tactics. You are not to antagonize them further."

"...But like, it stopped the rest of you from getting-"

"No." The Prince's tone was absolute. "You are not repeating that."

Blizz looked at the wall to his right, where he was pretty sure the Prince was on the other side. He was more than willing to take more abuse if it meant the rest of them didn't have to deal with that. Though it looked like they wouldn't accept that answer.

"Fine... What else happened though? Did they notice you slipped out?"

There was another round of silence, as no one wanted to acknowledge that Blizz letting himself get beaten up did in fact help them out.

The Prince let out a long sigh. "...They did not."

"So uh, what'd you do then?"

"...If they were to look, they would find that they are missing the spare keys to the room's exit."

Blizz's eyes widened. It wasn't enough to bust them all out yet, but that was a really good start.

"Fucking awesome, that means-"

"Before you finish that thought, let me please remind you one more time that you are not to repeat the circumstances that led to this."

"...Fine... So uh, what do we do now then? If you can get out whenever you like."

"We were talking about this earlier," Mira interjected. "Right now, they think we're accounted for and not going anywhere."

"Which is something we can use to our advantage," the Duke picked up. "So long as our captors assume we are locked up, they will be careless. This leaves us with a prime opportunity to gather information."

"What info do we need though?" Blizz asked. "The dudes that beat me up sound like they have no clue what's going on."

"Understanding why we have been made suspects in the husk crisis would be our first priority," the Prince explained. "While I harbor no doubts that Zar sold us out, we do not know why or what factors led to the Tenea Police Department growing suspicious of us."

"So you're gonna go sneak around and figure out what's going on?" Blizz summarized

"...Partially. While I am more than capable of this, intelligence gathering is very strongly suited to Mira's species. As soon as I obtain a means of unlocking her cell, she will take over this responsibility."

"Yea, my illusions should be able to help." Mira said.

"Hell yea they will." Blizz laid himself back down, ignoring the lingering pain from getting beaten up. While he would've preferred to be the one putting himself in the most danger, the Prince was right; him and Mira would be really good at this.

So for now, he'd just sit back and let his friends handle it. He'll probably get his chance to pull his own weight later.

Once the Prince was confident their captors wouldn't be returning for a while, he slipped into the shadows of his jail cell.

He was slowly getting used to the experience, but it was still unsettling. It was like he was in every shadow around all at once, and in a room that's almost pitch black, the feeling was particularly uncomfortable.

Still, discomfort was hardly a thing that could stop him now; the seven most important beings in this world were counting on him, and he needed to ensure he delivered.

Holding the key in his mouth, he slowly cracked open the door to their jail cell, peeking his head into the hallway to verify no one was there.

The torchlit stone passageway was clear of any other Pokémon, meaning he didn't have to worry for now.

The passageway itself was a corridor with several sets of doors like the one he just emerged from. Each door had a single key next to them, which unlocked that cell block. Unfortunately, the keys for the individual cells weren't in this hallway, so he'd have to keep looking.

He silently advanced down the hall, his eyes fixed on the far end. If he was spotted now, he'd be forced to fight. And even if he could win, that meant they wouldn't be able to collect any of the intelligence they needed.

So all he could really do was just pray as he made it to the end. Thankfully, the hallway stopped as it emptied out into an administrative room. At the very front was a desk staffed by Flygon, with what the Prince assumed to be the station's exit right past it.

The room itself was mostly tables and filing cabinets, all of which cast shadows on the ground, meaning the Umbreon now had an exit plan if it was necessary.

It was possible he'd need to use it too. While he wasn't looking this way, the Flygon was sitting at the front desk, reading through a book.

The Prince dashed to cover underneath a table, where he could melt into the shadows once again. He held off for now though, trying to figure out what Flygon was looking at.

For what was probably the first time in his life, the Prince was annoyed that someone was reading silently. Flygon simply sat there, occasionally flipping to a new page, not saying anything.

The Prince slowly drew closer, but soon realized that the document was in Footprint Runes. He stood no chance of understanding it without using his guild badge, and there was no way he could take that out without Flygon noticing.

So, he settled on surveying the rest of the room. The folders that were open had pictures of what the Prince assumed were various outlaws; nothing relating to him or his teammates though.

He heard Flygon's chair creak and immediately dived for cover, keeping an eye on his captor. Said dragon slowly stood up, stretched out his arms, and flew into a nearby hallway.

With Flygon out of the way, the Prince was able to spot a new set of keyrings hidden behind the desk— Each one had 8 keys on it. He looked back down the hall Flygon disappeared into, making sure that he wouldn't be turning around.

When it looked like he was clear, the Prince sprinted out of his hiding place, snagging the furthest key ring on the right. If their cell was the last one in the hallway, then it would make sense their keys were the furthest along the rack.

As soon as he bit down on the metal he turned around, running back into the hallway he came from and slipping back into their cell block.

"Yo welcome back," Blizz said, watching the soft blue glow illuminate the room. "Figure out anything cool?"

"I am not incompetent," the Prince responded, strutting to the center of the room and holding out the keys with only a bit of dramatic flourish. "We will no longer be confined by these cells, should we so wish."

"Let's go!" Angel yelled, prompting a round of shh's from her teammates and an annoyed glare from the Prince.

"...In any case, our preliminary plan should still remain in place," the Prince said. "While we now have the option for a large-scale breakout, it will likely suit us better to remain in place and gather intelligence."

"Right… let's do this…" Mira's shaky voice made it perfectly clear how confident she was, but the situation was too important to let her fear get in the way. There was another puff of smoke coming from Mira's cell, before a perfect copy of the Mudsdale stood where the Zorua once was.

"I can't change my voice with this though," Mira explained, with a very Mira-like voice. "If I have to talk to someone it'll be hard…"

The Prince smirked. "That should be sufficient. Allow me to unlock your door." He stepped up, looking for the key engraved with the same number 7 that was printed above Mira's cell.

Once he found it, he pressed it in, though it didn't go in very far. The Prince's smirk started to falter as he tried to force it in, though the key refused to go in any further.

"...Do you maybe have the wrong key?" Mira offered, sensing the Prince's growing frustration.

The Umbreon growled in response. "I would not make such a mistake."

"Then why isn't it going in?" Kibo asked.

The Prince tried a few other keys on the ring, checking to see if maybe the keys were just mislabeled. "Do you truly believe the overseers of this prison are competent?"

"No, but... maybe you did just get the wrong key ring," Rune suggested.

The Prince stopped his unlocking attempts to pivot towards Rune's cell. "I can assure you, I would not make such a mistake."

The Prince made such a mistake.

After 15 very tense minutes, he relented, going back into the administrative room to swap out the ring he had with the second one from the right. Quite regrettably, Flygon had returned to the desk, and he had to hide inside a shadow for another half hour before the dragon got up again.

The entire time, he was forcing himself to not think about what his teammates would say here.

He returned back to the cell block, and unlocked Mira's cell on his first attempt. Before anyone else could get a word in, he preemptively defended himself. "As I said, the administrators of this prison are simply incompetent."

Mira was too nervous over what she was about to do to give the Prince a hard time, so she resigned herself to letting him get it out of his system.

Once the ranting was done, he traded places with Mira, giving her the keys. Still disguised as a Mudsdale, she left the cell block.

She continued down the hall and through the administrative room. Not forced to hide like the Prince was, she was able to more thoroughly examine the room, looking for any clues as to why they were locked up.

Unfortunately, whoever orchestrated their arrest made the decision to not leave these types of incriminating documents out where everyone could see them. And since opening up the various filing cabinets without her illusion clipping into them would be impossible, she decided to keep moving through the police station.

As she walked through, she noticed the front door appeared to be locked shut. The lock was internal, so she could pretty easily get out, but that probably meant Flygon had gone home for the day.

She eased up slightly, but still maintained the illusion just in case.

Making a left from the administrative room, she found the employee lounge. It looked like the chairs and tables were built for quadrupeds, which told her that it was very likely Mudsdale and Flygon had worked here for a while. While she and her team usually didn't take outlaw missions, she thought it was weird they'd never seen those Pokémon before.

The room itself had a set of lockers on the far wall which looked to be filled with items like stun seeds and petrify orbs. Not useless, but not relevant to her, so she pressed on. However, the employee lounge was a dead end, so she returned to the administrative room.

With no one around she slowly approached the exit, preparing herself to go outside for the first time in days. It looked like they'd have plenty of time to figure out why they're imprisoned, but if they're gonna survive they'll need supplies.

—

Blizz awoke a couple hours later when the door slammed open again. His eyes adjusted to see a Mudsdale come in by itself, shutting the door behind it.

"Welcome back," the Duke greeted. "I trust you have made some progress?"

Mira dropped the illusion, returning to her Zorua form. "...Not really. There's a ton of paperwork, and I can only really look through it when the other prison guards aren't here."

"I see..." The Duke nodded understandingly. "Yet you do not appear to have the demeanor you typically show when you have failed. Have you accomplished some other objective?"

Mira held up a couple blue orbs in response. "I made it to Kecleon's and was able to buy some storage orbs, so we should be able to pull food and medical supplies when we need." She said the last part looking at Blizz. "I also made a duplicate of the keys to our cells and cell blocks, so they don't notice their keys are missing."

"I didn't think of that," Angel commented. "That's really smart."

"I… went up to them in my normal form though," Mira admitted. "I don't think anyone recognized me, but it could be possible.

"Acquiring the storage orbs was a more pressing concern," the Duke said. "If you took the necessary precautions, which I trust you did, then we should be fine."

"Indeed," the Prince agreed. "In any case, we should decide on a course of action moving forward. If they opt to do another round of interrogation, or if we are reasonably confident that they do not possess any information of note, we will escape. Until that point, we shall continue our search."

Blizz and Mira both nodded, neither having any objections to the Prince's plan.

"Then we should withdraw supplies using the storage orb, then rest for the night."

Fortunately for everyone, none of their captors came in for interrogations for the rest of the day. Or at least what they assumed was a day, given Mira and the Prince were the only ones who had any grasp on what the day-night cycle was like outside.

Still, no more surprise visits meant that Mira was able to go for another stroll around the police station.

As she crept back into the administration room, she noticed the Flygon sitting behind his desk, looking bored. He was idly rotating a key ring around one of his claws, not paying much attention to anything around him.

Mira weighed her options here. She could continue searching through documents and files, but that hasn't yielded any results so far. Alternatively, she could talk to Flygon directly under her disguise. The risk was massive, but everyone else was counting on her— The longer they spent here, the more likely they'd have to deal with another "interrogation."

She snuck off into the empty employee lounge and let a puff of smoke envelop her, making her resemble Mudsdale once again. She cleared her throat, trying to get her voice as low as possible to match Mudsdale's dark, jeering tone.

With a deep breath, she walked out of the lounge, earning a glance from Flygon.

"Thought you went out already," the dragon commented, still rotating the ring around his claw.

"Left some stuff behind," Mira responded, making sure her voice didn't shake in sheer terror.

"Hmph." Flygon seemed content with that answer, going back to resting his head on the front counter.

The silence wouldn't help them figure out what was going on. She'd need to press. "...So when are we gonna beat up the shitheads again?"

That sounded like something Mudsdale would say.

Flygon smirked, letting out a low chuckle. "Patience, my friend. They're dangerous, we need to starve them a bit before we go back in."

The statement almost caused Mira to break her illusion, but she managed to hang on.

"Yeah, but why do we even need to bother with the confession? Couldn't we just say they signed off on it?"

Flygon looked back once again. "I'm the one who always has to read things out for you... Remember what the contract said? We need to get a recording of them admitting it. Stops the assholes in Nova Town from bailing them out."

Would Lucario's guild bail them out? She wouldn't put it past the guildmaster, but it's been a while by this point; shouldn't they have at least heard something from him by this point?

They already have their own plan to get through this, Mira decided to focus on that for now. "You got the contract around then?"

Flygon's face contorted into a smug grin as he looked at the illusory Mudsdale. Mira immediately went into panic mode, did he figure out her identity?

"You actually asking to read something? I never thought I'd see the day."

The actual Mira hidden beneath the illusion tensed up, though the fake Mudsdale remained perfectly calm. She prayed she didn't just screw everything up for them...

Flygon, meanwhile, just laughed to himself, letting the grin fade away. "Nah, I'm proud of you. I know how hard you've been trying, I think you're right on the cusp of getting it." He opened a cabinet under his desk, removing a document covered in footprint runes. He held it up, before placing it on the table behind him. "Let's read through it together, alright?"

Mira nervously stepped up on the other side of the table as Flygon rotated it in her direction. She really didn't know what to make of this.

"Now let's start with the header." Flygon's tone was much more friendly and encouraging, as he tapped a claw on the footprint runes at the top of the document.

Mira gulped behind her illusion as she looked down on the paper.

"It's… Outlaw Mission… Is that x8?"

Flygon nodded, a genuine grin on his face. "Exactly! Let's keep going."

In what was the single most awkward thirty minutes Mira had ever experienced since waking up as a Pokémon, she and Flygon slowly worked their way through reading the document, all while Mira tried her best to keep acting like she was indeed Flygon's husband.

Still, she managed to power through, memorizing as much as she possibly could of the paper in front of them.

Outlaw Mission (x8) - S Rank

Client: Hydreigon's Guild

Target(s): Treecko, Umbreon, Southern Vulpix, Jangmo-o (Team Apex), Zorua, Flareon, Taillow, Bagon (Team Terrae)

Location: Roguepoint Mesa

Info: We have reason to suspect that these individuals are responsible for the husk crisis. They should be detained using whatever means necessary. Once in captivity, make use of a recording device to extract a verbal confession from one or more members of the group. Having physical proof is essential. Apply any interrogation tactics you deem applicable.

Once proof is attained, bring the recording to the final floor of Rusthill Cavern for the final payout.

Initial payment attached.

Mira's mind was a mess of emotions right now. She wasn't sure if she should be horrified that Hydreigon paid for them to get arrested and to torture a confession out of them, concerned that Flygon thought going to the final floor of a mystery dungeon to meet a shady contact was a good idea, or embarrassed that all of Flygon's glowing praise which should be directed to his partner was instead going to Mira.

"That was great!" Flygon beamed. "I think you're ready to take on the academy entrance exam, then we can start being real cops!"

"Haha… yea, that'd be great…" Everything else aside, Mira needed to get out of there right now. "…Well anyways, I think I need to get going…"

Flygon nodded, though his expression darkened a bit. "Of course, see you at home?"

"Right…" As quickly as she could, Mira fled outside. It probably wasn't the best idea given that now she had to find a way to sneak back into the police station, but at least it meant she wasn't at as much risk anymore.

As she stood outside the station coming up with a plan, she noticed in the corner of her eye a Piplup with a pair of pointed green glasses walking down the street, with a shadow that looked much heavier than normal.

Odd.

Before long Mira snuck back in, informing all her teammates about what she found out.

"That sounds like we got a lead!" Blizz shouted, excitedly. "We can get going then!"

"I am not certain that is the best idea," the Duke argued. "They stated that they were concerned about the Nova Town guild coming to our assistance. Perhaps it may help if we were to wait and see if any of them come for us?"

"Bro I don't wanna stay here any longer than I have to," Blizz countered.

"Yea! We've been cooped up here too long!" Kibo agreed.

The Prince looked between the two Pokémon debating. "Perhaps leaving a message describing where we are going may be a worthwhile compromise? If our captors stumble upon it first, it will do them no good since they are already aware of the location's significance. Whereas if a guild member finds it, they will know where we have gone."

The other explorers let out murmurs of agreement with the plan.

"Then it is settled," the Prince decided. "Duke, if you may use Flamethrower to carve our destination into the wall?"

The Duke smiled as Mira walked over to unlock his cell door. "Most certainly."

The nearly pitch black room suddenly flared orange as a stream of fire shot out from the Duke.

It faded off and on as he worked, slowly scorching the words "Rusthill Cavern" into the side of the cell block.

When he was done it was too dark to actually admire his handiwork, but Mira and the Prince both assured him it was fine.

Mira went around unlocking all the other cells as Blizz shattered the last storage orb, summoning his and Mira's supply bags to them.

Blizz stepped up to the exit of the cell block, but before he pressed it open he took one last look back at the prison.

He really wasn't going to be missing it.

A/N: So full disclosure, outside of some of the jokes I wasn't really a fan of this chapter. I promise the next one's gonna be lit though.

Also Kibo wishes all of you guys a happy 4th of July. Rest of the cast could care less.

Ch 25: Ready to Die - 7/9/22