.20

"Everymon does bad things once in a while. But I think it's about what you do after that decides what kind of person you are."

~~~~\({O})/~~~~

PART I. THE VILLAGE

~~~~\({O})/~~~~

1.

Tricky

~\({O})/~

~Espurr~

Slowly coming to. Espurr blinked her eyes open wearily. The sun shone brightly in her face, and she tried to raise her arms to shield her eyes. Her left arm felt dull and stiff; she couldn't move it. She looked over and saw it was in a deep green cast. She was lying on a golden straw bed that was almost like a large nest. It felt scratchy against her fur but soft at the same time.

"Oh! You're up now. Good."

Espurr's head turned to the side, where she saw Audino stepping towards her. The place was spacious and sunlit, decorated with counters against the apricot-colored walls and cabinets, large windows that let the sun in, and two other straw beds just like the one Espurr was lying on. The floor was made of rich, dark-colored wood. Audino beckoned to someone standing outside the door where Espurr couldn't see them, then walked over to a cabinet filled with several types of herbal remedies. The exotic smells wafted over to Espurr as Audino opened the cabinet's doors and fished through it.

Espurr tried to raise herself from the straw bed she'd been sleeping on, clumsily working with only one arm. Audino turned back at the sound of the straw rustling, looking at Espurr disapprovingly.

"Sit down, please. You still need rest!" she chided Espurr. Espurr sat down again, noticing for the first time how much her body hurt from the events of the previous day. Her left arm dully ached within the confines of the cast, tinging the corners of her eyes red. It was annoying, but a vast improvement over the blinding pain from last night.

Last night… Espurr suddenly felt a lot less relaxed.

"You collapsed the moment we arrived here. Half delirious, I suspect." Audino continued to fish through the cupboard with her back to Espurr. "And just before Errand Day, too. You were lucky Kecleon's stays open late on Saturdays."

Audino finally found what she was looking for, closing the cabinet and glancing towards the still-empty doorway.

"Well, what are you still waiting out there for? You need treatment!" she scolded the unseen pokemon in the doorway.

"Sorry, Ms. Audino," a voice muttered from outside. "It hurts to walk…."

"Well, that's why you don't go jumping out of trees," Audino retorted, pouring whatever she had gotten into several small leaf-made pouches.

Jumping out of trees… was that a normal thing here? Did pokemon like senselessly breaking their appendages? If so, they weren't going to be friends.

"Not to worry," Audino continued. "You'll have company."

"Really?!" the voice suddenly perked up with all the excitement of a pokemon kit in front of a candied berry stall, and a fennekin somehow limped through the doorway on only one leg. Audino directed her to the nearest straw bed, which the fennekin threw herself on like it was a pile of autumn leaves.

Audino supplied her with a few bags of leaf-wrapped ice. "Keep those on for the next twenty minutes or so," she ordered. The fennekin reluctantly put her paws under the ice.

"IF you rest, you'll be better by the end of the day," she told the fennekin. "But unfortunately…" she said, addressing Espurr, "I estimate your injuries will take a little longer to heal. You'll need a week to fully recover."

"A WEEK!?" the fennekin moaned, like it was her with the broken bone and not Espurr.

"A broken bone is no joke," Audino told the fennekin. There was just a hint of an annoyed edge to her voice. "A week, and no less."

She grabbed her bag, and began to walk towards the door. "I'll be back shortly, I've scheduled another appointment in for today. I don't want either of you to move a muscle until I return, do you understand me?" she asked, punctuating the last sentence with a pointed glance towards the fennekin.

"Y-yes, ma'am! Absolutely understood!" the fennekin chirped happily, in a tone that suggested it was not understood at all. Audino kept her wary eyes on the fennekin a good moment longer.

"I expect to see you both sitting on those beds when I return," she stated for finality, and then walked out the door without another word.

"SO-o-o-o-o-o…." the fennekin drew out her single word for as long as possible after making sure Audino had left. "What are you in for?"

"You're new here," she piped up just a second later.

"What's your name?" she asked immediately after that.

"Are you…"

"Hah! There's no way you're Ms. Audino's kid, are you?"

"Wait. Are you?"

"Huh? Are you? Pleaaase tell me!"

"Do I ask too many questions? Some pokemon say I do, but Mr. Farfetch'd says that the worst questions are unasked ones, so I'm going to ask as many as possible!"

"What's your name? I feel like I've asked that one before…"

Espurr watched the fennekin prattle on and on, growing more and more nonplussed with each second. How was she supposed to answer any of the questions if she couldn't get a word in?

"…And then I totally robbed like, half my Pop's strawberry stash, and then he made me clean the entire house from top to bottom! That was a week ago." The fennekin finished telling what must have been a lengthy story in the space of half a minute.

"A~nyway, I'm out of things to talk about. Did I ask for your name?" she finished. Espurr blinked a couple of times at the fennekin, flabbergasted.

The fennekin immediately drooped down, a slight tinge of blue tinting Espurr's vision. Displeasure. Maybe she'd realized just how much information she'd unloaded in so little time.

"I came here just to see you, you know." she muttered.

"You …did?" Espurr asked in surprise before the fennekin could open her mouth again.

"Yep! Jumped out of a tree to do it, too. Twisted my tail, sprained three of my ankles, and my ear hurts." the fennekin tried to wag her tail, and cringed in silent pain. "But it was all for a noble cause!" she stated boldly, perking up. "I couldn't allow a fellow child to suffer in the clutches of the evil Nurse Audino for an entire week!" the fennekin moaned dramatically, attempting to put a paw to her forehead, before wincing at the sudden pain and shoving it back under the ice.

"Audino can't be evil." Espurr stated, trying her best to ignore the fact that the obviously crazy pokemon in front of her had just endangered her life to meet her. "She saved my life yesterday and patched me up." She directed her eyes towards the cast on her left arm for good measure.

The fennekin looked at her like she was both crazy and the best thing ever. "Wait. Did you just say she saved your life?"

In that green-tinged moment of fear, Espurr realized she had gone too far. What was she going to say that wouldn't immediately put her in an awkward situation? 'I woke up yesterday in the middle of the woods with no memories and then spent the night getting chased by three hostile pokemon, that I tried to get away from by jumping out of a tree and that's how I broke my arm?' Just from what she'd seen of the fennekin, her entire life's story would be spilled to the world in three minutes flat.

"What's your name?" Espurr asked cautiously, trying to quietly divert the subject.

"Uh-uh! You're not changing the subject on me—" the fennekin angrily began.

"If you tell me your name, I'll tell you mine."

"Deal."

The fennekin cleared her throat dramatically, as if queuing up for a moving performance. "My name is… A secret! But everyone just calls me Tricky, so you can too!" she boldly stared Espurr right in the eye. "Your turn."

"Oh… I'm Espurr." Espurr said flatly.

"Well, that's boring." Tricky yawned, stretching the best she could under the bags of ice. Squinting for just a second, she pulled her paw out from under the ice and gave it a twist just to be sure.

"Oh wow! I'm healed! I'm finally healed!" Tricky screeched, jumping up from her bed of straw and ice and frolicking around the room in joy. Espurr watched Tricky's tail painfully cramp as she tried to wag it, sending the fox plummeting to the ground headfirst.

"My tail still hurts, though…" she muttered from the floor. And then she was back up again, walking rather stiffly to avoid moving her tail. "Wanna go exploring?" she asked excitedly.

Espurr was fairly sure Tricky had some kind of memory problem. "We were told to wait here," she reminded Tricky. "Besides," she added, tilting her head. "I don't think you can go many places with that tail."

"Hah!" Tricky guffawed. "That's just what Audino says. If you listen to the dumb adults your whole life, life stays boring! Besides, I haven't showed you around yet!" Without another word or even Espurr's consent, Tricky shunted her off the bed and began to push her out the door.

"Tricky!" Espurr yelped in shock.

"Silence, my liege!" Tricky called back in a heavy accent she didn't recognize. "This is the most important of occasions, and it demands our full attention!"

Espurr tried to drag her feet against the ground in order to bring them to a halt, but it didn't slow Tricky down one little bit. And with her left arm in the condition it was, Espurr found herself left totally helpless as Tricky bulldozed her down the steep hill and through a clearing full of wooden seats.

"That's the school—school's out today—" Tricky said in between gasps as they passed.

"Tricky!" Both Espurr's and Tricky's heads turned to the right, where what could best be described as an angry otter wearing a safety vest was marching right towards them.

"Berry crackers…" Tricky mumbled. "Bye, Watchog! See you tomorrow!"

"Is this another one of your shenanigans?" Watchog angrily asked as he marched towards the pair. "What are you doing with that poor student?!" he shrieked in horror once he'd gotten close enough to see what was happening. "Put them down right now!"

"No can do, Watchog!" Tricky yelled as she plowed Espurr off. "Audino's orders! Espurr needs me to show her around town!"

"That's VICE PRINCIPAL Watchog to you!" Watchog called after her. "And those don't sound like Audino's orders!"

"They are! Trust me!" Tricky yelled as she turned a corner.

"Trust… you?" Espurr could hear Watchog sputtering the proposition in disbelief as they rounded the corner, like it was in another language. She could kind of see why.

"This is the village square!" Tricky announced as they entered a large, circular plaza with houses and colorful tents set up on all sides. The houses had domed roofs like acorn nuts, and the paved stones of the square were arranged in a large perfect circle. Long, black poles with tarped orbs on top stood around on either side of the entrances and exits. There were a few pedestrians milling around or walking off to mind their own business, all of them doing what Espurr assumed was pointedly avoiding Tricky. Thankfully, Tricky had stopped pushing her around like a toy, and she thankfully jumped on the chance to dust herself off with her good arm and catch her bearings.

"The village is larger," Tricky prattled on, oblivious, "but this is the place where everything happens! You've got your Café Connection, which is called that because there's an actual phone there, your perfume tent—no-mon talks about the perfume tent—and your Kecleon's Stall!" Tricky excitedly pointed all three out as she mentioned them. "Don't steal from Kecleon," she added in a hush, leaning too close to Espurr's ear for comfort. "Trust me."

Espurr wasn't sure whether to be curious despite herself or worried by that. She wasn't even supposed to be here. It had been all of five minutes since she'd woken up, and already she was knee-deep in trouble! And she hadn't even had a say in the matter. She wanted to fold her arms, but she could only move one.

"And so, you see…"

Espurr's ears twitched, and for a minute she turned away from the fennekin eagerly awaiting her reaction to eavesdrop just a little.

"…He's nine! We both know he wouldn't just walk into one of those places like that! Not unless somemon prompted him first…"

"Well, I'm getting to that…"

"What's so interesting?" Tricky's head curiously slid over to the side of Espurr's, who had turned to view the pair of arguing pokemon. Upon seeing them, her entire face lit up, a slight wince betraying the pain from her injured ear.

"Deerling! Shelmet!" she gasped, suddenly plowing into Espurr from behind again, who let out a shocked yelp. Before she knew it, she was being forcefully pushed towards the duo. Again. "Guysguysguysguysguys—"

Deerling, the elder one, looked up, her face twisting up into annoyed incredulity as Tricky pushed the hapless Espurr towards her.

"Um… hi?" Deerling raised a hoof in perplexed greeting. "Tricky, what are you up to now?" she asked in a much sterner tone. "I thought you were still up in Nurse Audino's office for jumping out of that tree."

Tricky let Espurr down, dashing out in front of her stiffly. "Guys—You are never gonna believe this—I found Nurse Audino's kid! Seriously! See?"

"Loser alert..." Shelmet, the younger one, rolled his eyes.

"Tricky…" If Deerling whacked a hoof against her face, then shook her head. She stared at Tricky in something resembling annoyance. "Nurse Audino doesn't have kids. Plus, she isn't married, and she isn't a psychic-type. How could this be her kid?" she stuck an irked hoof in Espurr's direction.

"Well…" Tricky's tail drooped. She winced. "She's… adopted! Audino saved her life last night!" she nodded vigorously, as if that would prove her point even more. "…Right, Espurr?" She looked at Espurr, hoping for confirmation.

It took Espurr a few seconds to realize that Tricky had just come up with the perfect cover story for her. This way, she wouldn't have to explain herself to everyone!

"…Something like that," Espurr replied. Deerling looked surprised; Espurr figured she wasn't used to being wrong. But almost immediately she was all business again.

"Great," she said, bowing her head respectfully. "See you in class tomorrow." She ignored Tricky. "And you…"

Deerling turned to Shelmet, the little pokemon already trembling through his shell at her fury. "Show me exactly where he went in. We need to get him out of there before nightfall!"

Without another word, Shelmet led Deerling off through the town gates. Deerling practically dug her hooves into the ground in anger with every step she took.

"So… Are we following them, or are we following them?" Tricky asked mischievously from beside Espurr.

"We're going to get in more trouble..." Espurr couldn't fathom how the fennekin could still want to continue onwards, especially after jumping headfirst out of a tree. Hadn't they gone far enough?

"Ha!" Tricky laughed. " I laugh in the face of trouble! See?"

She forced a few more laughs out of herself. They sounded like coughing.

"Well, we're in enough of it as it is. I wouldn't want to get kicked out the day I got here." Espurr turned around and began to walk as fast as her short legs would take her, heading back up towards the school. Hopefully, Tricky would let her go.

"Come on!" Tricky cried, running back up and rapidly orbiting her as she continued up towards the town's northern gate. "You're just like every other pokemon in this village! We'll be in and out! It's probably nothing anyway!"

Espurr did her best to ignore her. The events of yesterday were beginning to flash through her head again—Her harrowing trip through the woods, the strange pokemon that had chased her… She couldn't go there. She couldn't. What if they were still looking for her? What if they were right outside the village at this very moment?

What if… What if they found Shelmet and Deerling?

If that were true, it bugged her that two pokemon were walking right into it. But she didn't want to be caught in it herself! Especially not with one of her arms down for the count.

Espurr hadn't realized she'd stopped walking until Tricky stopped too, tilting her head in confusion.

"…Does this mean you changed your mind?" she asked hopefully.

Espurr's eyes widened, and she grabbed Tricky behind one of the houses with her good paw without even thinking.

"Hey! What gives—" Tricky started to fuss, but Espurr quietly put her good paw to Tricky's snout. Once she was sure Tricky would be silent, she pointed.

"Look! Audino's coming back."

Sure enough, the pink and yellow pokemon was leisurely hiking up the hill to the school, unaware that the very two pokemon she had told to stay put were watching her at that moment.

"No biggie!" Tricky suddenly leapt up with new life. "We'll just take the long way around. If we're quick, she'll never know we were gone! Follow me!"

She began to dash down the thin alleyway, stopping some six feet away for Espurr to catch up.

"Come on, slowpoke!" she yelled back from across the alleyway. "At this rate, taking the long way around won't be a shortcut!"

Espurr just couldn't move as fast as Tricky could, and that was a fact. She kept stopping to catch her breath and tripping on the various things in the alleyway. Audino had been right: She did need more rest.

~\({O})/~

This wasn't the way back at all, Espurr was coming to realize. They had since abandoned the buildings of the village for trees that blotted out the sun ominously, casting everything below into various shades of blue and purple. It wasn't like the foggy green forest she had run through yesterday, but it was no less foreboding, either.

"Are you certain this is the way back to the school?" Espurr suspiciously asked Tricky, who was sniffing something out on the ground as she went.

"Yep! Totally. We're taking the looooong way around," The fox remarked, her eyes straight on the ground. Espurr could see her mental smirk. She tilted her head in suspicion. The colorful roofs of the village were quickly disappearing in the distance behind them. If this was truly the long way around, then Tricky had meant it in every sense of the word.

"What kind of shortcut takes us farther awa—"

"Stop!"

Tricky suddenly perked straight up, holding out a paw to stop Espurr from going any further. In the distance, someone was talking.

"I'm going in after him!"

"No! You c-can't! We… we won't let anything bad happen to you!"

"Like you didn't let anything bad happen to Goomy?"

There was a scoff, followed by the clip-clop of someone backing away.

"Fine! You two go, then."

"W-why would we do that? I'm sure he's fine."

"Y-yeah, he's totally fine. And once he brings that paper back, he'll prove it!"

"He should have been back hours ago!"

Espurr recognized two of the voices as Deerling and Shelmet—but, the other, the third one, was foreign to her. But that didn't matter now—they'd left the village! That meant if those strange pokemon really were lurking around…

"You brought us here?" Espurr snapped at Tricky. The corners of her vision were tinted with magenta annoyance. "I thought we were going back to the house!"

"Well, yoouu weren't going to come on your own…" Tricky said. "Soo I had to improvise!"

"But…" Espurr stopped at a loss for words. "I didn't want to come!"

"But this is way more fun than sitting around in the school!" Tricky pleaded, almost like she was trying to convince herself. "You wanna have fun, don't you?"

"Who's that?" Deerling yelled loudly towards the brushes. "Show yourselves!"

Seconds later, she was greeted with the sight of Tricky stumbling out of the underbrush, followed by Espurr not a moment afterwards.

"Oh…" Espurr gingerly picked some twigs out of her fur as Deerling relaxed. "It's you two."

"You guys left without meeee…" Tricky whined, infusing her voice with extra sadness to get the specific effect she wanted.

"Well, I didn't see you signing up to help," Deerling pointed out venomously, staring daggers at Tricky.

"Well, no-mon told me!" Tricky whined.

"There is a good reason for that," Deering snapped. She nodded her head down at Tricky's silently cramping tail. "Besides, you're injured. It's best if you just go back to the school clinic."

"Yeah! We don't need a loser like you taking up precious space when we're short on time," a third voice interjected. The words had come from a pancham who leaned against one of the trees, his arms folded. He was chewing a twig in his mouth like he thought it made him look cool.

"Who's the new kid?" Pancham asked, twirling the twig around in his teeth.

"Nurse Audino's child," everyone but Espurr replied in unison.

"Guys, we're on a clock here!" Deerling stepped up. "Goomy should have been back hours ago. He could be in serious trouble! You know what happens when pokemon stay in mystery dungeons too long. And if you don't want to get grounded for life by your parents…" she looked pointedly at Pancham and Shelmet. "Then it's our responsibility to help him!"

"Hey," Pancham said, raising his arms. "Dad's outta town, he ain't gonna do jack squat. Besides, it's not a big deal. You're freaking out over nothing."

"I am not freaking out over nothing, Pancham!" Deerling exploded at him. "You know that! You all know that! We can't leave him in there; we can't have a repeat!"

Tricky's ears quickly lowered at that sentence, and out of nowhere Espurr was blindsided by a cloud of something foreign that colored the sides of her vision blue. She realized that it was coming from Tricky, who suddenly looked pretty distressed. Desperate to get free of the mind-fog, she moved away from Tricky, and it lifted just enough for Espurr to think again. Soon after, it was gone, and Tricky had settled back into her normal peppy self.

All the arguing that had been going on in the meantime was making Espurr's head hurt in more ways than one, and she wanted nothing more than to be back safe in the house that Tricky had dragged her out of. But at the same time… Espurr looked towards the forest ahead of her, and saw the dark, tangled mass of trees that lay ahead. Even from here, she could tell something was wrong with it. And there was a child just like her stuck in there…

What if the beheeyem got him?

The thought of going in herself made her stomach flip. She didn't even have both of her arms right now. But the thought of going back to the house knowing there was someone stuck in there just like she'd been made it flip more. With that thought, Espurr knew she couldn't just turn around and leave.

"He's gonna be fine!" Pancham shouted in self-defense over all the yelling. "All of this because—"

"—We'll go."

The clearing fell silent. Everyone looked in surprise at where the voice came from. Tricky's mouth fell open in awe and stayed that way. Espurr looked around to make sure everyone's attention was on her, then put her good paw down.

"…Are you sure?" Deerling asked, eyeing Espurr's cast. "You don't look too good."

Espurr's attention was drawn back to her cast, and the dull maroon throbbing of her bone that was slowly beginning to become sharper. She had a feeling she was going to regret that decision.

"Well, we won't stop you." Pancham nodded exaggeratedly and stepped aside. Shelmet quickly followed suit, bobbing his shell with a wide grin.

Deerling sent them a quick glare of annoyance, then cleared a path for Espurr and—reluctantly—Tricky.

"Good luck," she said, sighing.

"Have fun getting killed!" Shelmet yelled after them.

"Shelmet!" Deerling's shrill scolding could be heard but not seen, as the bushes began to close up the way back. Espurr watched as they curled up around each other, creating a dark wall of blue leaves behind them. She cast a look to the front. From here on out, the forest looked like it wanted to rend them limb from limb.

Maybe it did.

~\({O})/~

Foreboding Forest

"I'm gonna be honest with you…" Tricky excitedly scampered all around Espurr as the pair made their way through the shadowy forest. "That was amazing! I didn't think you were the exploring type! Now we can be fellow explorers together, and brave mystery dungeons together, and even join the Expedition Society together! When we grow up, of course. The Expedition Society doesn't accept children."

Espurr tripped over her own feet again, for the seventeenth time that day. Sure, the ground was littered with all manner of trip-friendly objects, but she could tell that wasn't where the problem originated from. It felt like… It felt like her feet weren't her own.

"But I don't want to do all that stuff," she muttered. She didn't know if Tricky heard her or not.

She looked up at the woods, noticing the utter lack of wind, how the forest seemed to stare down upon them with a thousand evil eyes, the rancid scent of something dead that once again filled the air… Something was wrong here.

"The forest doesn't want us here," Espurr finally concluded aloud. "I can feel it."

"Well, duuuh." Tricky was nonplussed. "We're in a mystery dungeon." She dismissed it with a wave of her paw. "I should know, I've been through, like, 30 of these and come out just fine! You'll always know you're in a mystery dungeon when the wind stops blowing, and everything smells bad, and you get that kinda creepy feeling, like somemon's watching you…"

Tricky's constant word vomit blended in with the background noise as Espurr walked. She happily tuned the fennekin out. How far in was Goomy from here? If not for him, she wouldn't have dared to set foot in here. She just hoped he wasn't too far from the entrance.

"…And you know it's time to leave once this really thick fog starts creeping in…" Words finally stopped sprinting out of Tricky's mouth, the fennekin falling silent as she saw the same thing Espurr was seeing: A thick mass of fog slowly crept between the trees, almost impossible to see through.

"…Exactly like that," Tricky quietly finished. She suddenly looked a lot more frantic. "Already?" she yelled to all the trees around them. Her voice echoed up into the painted canopy. "We were only here for five minutes! How come there's already fog?!"

Espurr watched the treetops above crackle violently, blown by a strong wind that had come out of nowhere.

"Tricky?"

"Yes?" The normally hyperactive fox glanced back at Espurr.

"What happens if you stay in a mystery dungeon for too long?" Espurr asked, her voice wavering with just a hint of fear.

"Well, first, this really freaky wind starts to blow out of nowhere," Tricky started, ticking it off on her paw. "And it just gets stronger every time it comes back. And if you don't leave after that, then the dungeon begins to lash out at you itSELF—"

Both Espurr and Tricky jumped a combined total of six feet apart as the trunk of a giant tree suddenly splintered apart, falling to the ground with a deafening crash and flattening the area of ground Espurr and Tricky had previously been on.

Shaken, Espurr made her way around the tree trunk to where Tricky was still picking herself up.

"Maybe I should just stop talking…" Tricky finally conceded, still catching her breath from the sudden incident.

~\({O})/~

~Goomy~

This had all been such a bad idea. He'd only wanted to prove himself to the other kids. He was nine! That was… a big kid's age for sure! But no-mon ever seemed to realize that. Deerling only coddled him, and Pancham and Shelmet bullied him more than the others, and Tricky… No-mon liked to talk about or to Tricky. Not that he hadn't tried. A week ago—the first and only time he'd attempted making friends with her—she had roped him into stealing strawberries from her Pop's berry patch. That did not end well for either of them.

But this was just as bad, if not even worse! Pancham and Shelmet had told him to do it. If he could find the paper they had left in this dungeon from the last school field trip, write his name on it, and bring it back to them before nightfall, they said, then they would finally recognize him as one of the Big Kids and stop teasing him! It was too good to be a dream, so he'd taken the dare.

And he'd found the paper too, on the first floor of the dungeon, no less! Watchog had taught him that dungeons always kept anything you dropped in there around until somemon picked it up, and he was proud for remembering it. But then this really creepy fog began to roll in, and suddenly everything felt more scary than it should have, and he couldn't move! He was too scared to.

And it just got worse the longer he sat there. The fog, the drafts of wind, the scary feeling coming from everywhere… He had heard that there were wild pokemon who lived in mystery dungeons, wild pokemon that would eat you all up for breakfast if they caught you, wild pokemon that had been brainwashed by the Dungeon Wraith and set out as its personal hunting slaves…

No matter how confidently Deerling had told him the Dungeon Wraith was just a scary story made up to frighten little kids into staying in the towns, Goomy couldn't help but wonder if the off-kilter howls he heard travelling through the woods more and more frequently were really just wild pokemon after all. They didn't sound like the howls of any pokemon he'd been taught about in school, off-pitch roars and screeches that rustled through the wood like the moans of a ghost.

Goomy didn't like ghosts. He shivered even more then he already had been, keeping the paper close just in case a sudden wind came up and blew it away. Was he going to die here?

"GOOMY!"

Off in the distance, to Goomy's left. He looked in that direction, but couldn't see anyone through the unnaturally thick fog.

"GOOMY! WHERE ARE YOU?"

His heart leaping with sudden joy, Goomy realized where he had heard that voice before. It was Tricky!

"I- I—" Goomy's voice stuttered and died in his throat. No! He couldn't be too scared to call for help, not when it was so close! Too scared to move, too scared to talk… Pancham had been right. He really was just a little kid after all. Maybe he deserved to be teased and coddled. He'd take that over sitting alone in this dark and scary dungeon any day.

"GOOMY!"

With a sudden pang of fear, Goomy realized the shouts were coming from his right now. They were passing him!

"I- I… I—I'm HERE! I'M OVER HERE!" he yelled out, his voice returning to him in an instant.

An excruciating ten seconds passed. Goomy didn't hear a response. Had he not been loud enough? Did they not hear him?

But all his fears were dashed when two shadows approached through the clouds, the fog parting to reveal—

A pair of furfrou. They leapt out of the clouds in sync, their eyes vacant and their mouths dripping with drool, both aligned in permanent snarls. A tatted, bright pink bag hung from one of them, all scratched up and crawling with dirt and leaves. Goomy couldn't stand it anymore. He broke down in tears before the twin beasts. He was going to become some wild pokemon's lunch!

"Begone, foul beasts!"

Tricky's voice shot through the air again, and the furfrou were suddenly sent running off once a pair of twin embers flew through the air and set both their scruffy heads alight. Tricky rushed out of the fog, followed by an espurr Goomy didn't know but was just as glad to see.

"Tricky!" Goomy happily glode over to Tricky, giving her his best attempt at a non-slimy hug. It was a short-lived reunion, however. The mystery dungeon actively repelled such activities with a bellowing screech that blew through the trees and nearly knocked the three of them off their feet.

"Uh-oh…" Tricky looked up at the trees, rattled. "It's getting mad. We should go."

~\({O})/~

Principal's Office

"In my fifteen months of service as the esteemed Vice Principal of this school…" The torches were lit in the Principal's Office. Watchog paced the principal's office like a stressed-out madmon. All three of the other teachers in the room watched him as he did it. "In my fifteen flipping months of service… one student has been the very bane of my existence."

Espurr, Tricky, and Goomy were all seated in front of Principal Simipour, the head faculty member of Serenity Village's school. He watched Watchog pace back and forth through the office through sleep-worn eyes, the same tired smile adorning his face as he did it. A short stack of papers decorated his desk, blank sides up. Audino had recommended he go for a checkup multiple times in the past, but Simipour had always insisted he was just fine.

Watchog suddenly spun on his feet, pointing a paw directly at Tricky.

"Thievery, trespassing, cutting school… And now she's corrupting the newcomers! She's making them think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want…" Watchog let out a hysterical chuckle. "Just think, the next generation: A bunch of scummy layabouts who steal and pillage and trespass to their heart's content! Are you all just going to sit back and let this be the future?" he questioned the teachers, gesturing broadly to the trio of students in front of him. "This needs to be nipped in the bud, right here, right now—"

"I'm terribly sorry to interrupt your… maniacal rant," Farfetch'd started carefully, clutching his stalk in his wings. "But is there a specific reason you've summoned us teachers and these three poor students here after nightfall, when they should be sleeping safely in their beds right about now?"

"Ha!" Watchog squeaked out a sudden laugh, cutting Farfetch'd off with wide eyes. "Oh, I assure you, Farfetch'd, sleep is the last thing on these little demons' minds…"

"Wanna remind me why you made him Vice Principal again?" Audino muttered to Principal Simipour. She sounded miffed.

"As it happens," Watchog continued, "I didn't have these students dragged from their beds. Rather, I ran into them on their way back…" he paused for dramatic effect, "…From the Foreboding Forest."

Silence fell over the room, as the other three teachers tried to digest that.

"But what were they doing in the Foreboding Forest, I hear you ask?" Watchog continued, only pretending to have heard them ask. "Why, none other than… a dare!"

He whipped out the paper with Goomy's slimy paw-writing on it, making sure the other teachers could see it.

"And here's the proof!" Watchog crowed triumphantly. "A sheet of paper, straight from the school's stores! And there's only one pokemon who would propose a dare as stupid as this…"

Watchog cast his narrowing eyes down towards Tricky, who immediately looked appalled.

"I-it wasn't me this time! I swear!" Tricky cried out in her defense, but found herself breaking under Watchog's intense glare.

"You said you found all three of them exiting the dungeon together;" Principal Simipour spoke, his expression as infuriatingly cheerful as ever. "Yet only one has written their name on the sheet of paper?"

Watchog suddenly looked a lot less confident in his deductions. "…Yes," he conceded, suddenly losing a good portion of his bravado.

"And assuming the point of this dare was to write one's name on this sheet of paper and bring it back to the village…" Simipour turned to Goomy for confirmation, which Goomy readily provided with a nod. "Then I think it's safe to say these two were not part of the dare in the first place, wouldn't you agree?"

"…Yes," Watchog concluded, looking suitably cowed.

"And knowing that," Simipour continued, "What would you then say they were doing in the dungeon?"

Tricky piped up before Watchog could.

"We were saving Goomy! Pancham and Shelmet dared him to go in and he didn't come back out, so me and Espurr volunteered to go in after him, and we saved him from getting eaten by dungeon pokemon!"

A wave of uneasiness passed through the teachers at the mention of dungeon pokemon.

"See?" Tricky questioned Watchog indignantly. "The dungeon was only one floor anyway…"

"Then, I think it's settled," Simipour concluded.

Watchog caught his jaw just in time to stop it from falling open in shock. "You aren't seriously going to let them go unpunished, Principal?!" he asked in shock.

"Oh, certainly not," Simipour replied, clasping his hands. "Children going into mystery dungeons unsupervised is grave misbehavior indeed. But…"

He glanced towards Tricky, Espurr, and Goomy.

"…The cause was noble, and I have a hunch little Goomy here won't be venturing outside the bounds of the village on his own anytime soon. Therefore, excessive punishment is unnecessary. A weeks' worth detentions will do."

"Detention for a week?!" both Tricky and Watchog cried out, for entirely different reasons.

"But we went in to save somemon," Espurr pleaded. "How come we're being punished too?"

"Dungeons are incredibly dangerous places. You should have come to an adult instead," Simipour replied.

"Like the adults would ever set foot into a dungeon…" Espurr heard Tricky puff out of the corner of her mouth. The whole thing didn't feel fair to Espurr, but Simipour was already speaking again anyway.

"One week is final. And unless you'd like me to make it two, I highly suggest rolling with it," Simipour finished, pointing his half-closed eyes towards Tricky.

With little more than a squeak of fear, Tricky disappeared out the door, only stopping once to groan in pain as her tail cramped halfway down the hall.

"Wait!" Audino called out after her, grabbing her exploration bag and dashing out after Tricky. "You still need healing! I'm ordering you back to the clinic!"

The door slammed shut of its own accord behind them, leaving only three teachers and two students in a silent office.

"I-I think I s-should be going," Goomy finally stuttered out, the excitement of the day's events finally beginning to get to him.

"I agree," Simipour replied. "If I remember right, you live in the same area as Farfetch'd, correct?"

Goomy thought about it for a second, then nodded. His floppy antennae bounced back and forth. Simipour turned to Farfetch'd.

"If you would do the honors…" he asked. Farfetch'd nodded and left without another word. Goomy slimed off in his wake.

Now it was just Espurr, Watchog, and Simipour in the office.

"W-what about Pancham?" Watchog sputtered. "Aren't we gonna punish him too? I say two weeks' detention."

"Now now, Watchog," Simipour said. He almost slurred it. "Pancham's family has been historically difficult when it comes to punishments."

"W—" Watchog began. "W-well we can't just not do anything!"

"You know his father," Simipour yawned. "The Kecleon merchant folk are a hassle to deal with when they aren't angry. Lecture him, tell him to clean the school clinic tomorrow, and leave it at that,"

Espurr considered her options, looking at Watchog as he silently mulled over his orders. A moment later, he stormed out, letting the door swing shut behind him.

"Espurr, was it?"

Espurr glanced up at Simipour, who still wearing the same, lethargic expression on his face. His eyes were shut like he was an inch from sleep.

"I heard about your predicament last night," he told her, still seated. "I must say, it was rather reckless of you to charge into yet another mystery dungeon only the day you got here, especially with an injured arm. However, it's convenient you're here now."

He opened a drawer below his desk and put the stack of papers in front of him into it.

"The pokemon who chased you are known as Beheeyem, and they've been sighted several times in the past several days searching for you. Highly dangerous, do not approach." Simipour's voice lost its airy quality for a more sincere tone. "That is why, for the time being, I strongly implore you to stay within the bounds of this village. I say this out of concern for your own safety, not to put a shackle on your freedom. This village doesn't need another disappearance on its paws."

Disappearance?" Espurr suddenly felt like she wanted to puke. "You mean… someone already disappeared?"

"We'll… discuss that another time." Simipour closed the drawer and leaned back in his seat. "But, for now, I think it best that you stop allowing such thoughts to clog up your mind, and take kind Nurse Audino up on her offer to let you stay up at the School Clinic."

Left with no other options, Espurr nodded silently, and politely bid Principal Simipour good night. She looked back once on the way out, but Simipour was already snoozing with his head on his desk.

~\({O})/~

School Clinic

"And I mean it this time." Audino stopped at Tricky's nest on her way into one of the clinic's other rooms. "Stay in your beds, or I'll see what I can do about extending that weeks' detention to a month."

Satisfied at the suitably frightened look on Tricky's face, Audino draped a thick tarp over each of the high-up baskets containing luminescent moss that lit the room with a bright blue glow, then continued into the clinic's other room, leaving the door open just a crack behind her.

"It's so unfaaiiir," Tricky whined once they were alone. "We save Goomy and we get thrown in detention. The adults never do anything right!"

Espurr carefully helped herself to one of the berries on the plate between them, and took a bite as she listened to Tricky whine. She agreed, it wasn't fair, but she had other reasons to be shaken right now. Tricky must have noticed her staring down, wide-eyed at her half-eaten berry in silence.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

What was wrong? Espurr was finally realizing how much danger she'd just been in. If she hadn't stumbled upon Audino by chance… she might not have survived at all. That was a very scary thought, and she'd just tempted fate again. On her very first day.

"Nothing," Espurr said. Another thing she couldn't say aloud. "Just the dungeon."

"I know what you meeeaan," Tricky groaned, flopping herself backwards on her bed of straw. She really didn't. "That dungeon was so cool, though. I've only been in it twice before. Usually it has more floors than that…"

At some point, Espurr learned how to tune out Tricky's ramblings. She was just going on to herself at this point. She didn't know how, but she was able to sense some frenetic energy off the pokemon. Like she was talking to herself to keep herself calm.

A little while later, Espurr glanced at Tricky, who had drifted off to sleep through her rambling. She was still muttering gibberish in her slumber, the half-eaten celery stalk resting idly at the foot of her bed. Espurr decided to follow Tricky's example, and closed her eyes to rest as well.

Then, a moment later, she got up, placed the celery stalk back on the plate, and promptly collapsed into the straw bed again.

~\({O})/~

From Wartortle's Guide to Dungeoneering: Mystery Dungeons

Vast, spontaneous labyrinths that appear seemingly without rhyme or reason. Mystery Dungeons warp a spot of land into a maze with physics and characteristics that defy the natural laws of the world. In a mystery dungeon, the wall may be made of floor, or the floor of roof. Plants may lash out and snag animals to be absorbed into the walls. Some say the dungeons have even displayed signs of sentience…

Music of the week!

There's Something Wrong - Yuki Kajiura