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"Gooood moorning!" An upbeat Marble flops out of the crate and my sleep is disrupted, not that I mind though since it already was disrupted earlier. I turn over on my side to face Marble and…
…?
"Marble, why are you glowing purple?" Surrounding him is a faint purple aura. Marble looks at me with a confused stare. He sits and looks at himself, at his paws and at his tail and he opens a drawer, pulling out a hand mirror and looking at himself. "There's no… Oh! Oh my god!"
"So do you see it?" I get up and stretch and sit on the side of the bed.
"Heck yeah I do! Where's my fur brush? This is some HORRIBLE bed head!" He fishes back into the draw and pulls out a brush. Good grief.
"Oh, yeah, I was gonna ask you something today! If you don't mind?" Marble brushes at his hair tuft.
"Shoot."
"Right so… There was a job on the board that I noticed a few days back that no one's taken. It's a mission to get someone's stolen items but no one's touched it! Not even the guild! They say it's because someone called 'The Glass Cannon' stole it, so the job rose from a 2 star difficulty to a 4 after those rumors spread. So I've been eyeing it for a while and I've wanted to make a name for myself, so..." Marble tosses his hair brush and mirror into the drawer and slams it shut, whirling around to me still lazily sitting on the haybed. He points a paw at me.
"I want you to take on this mission with me!" He speaks with stars in his eyes. I stare blankly back and his enthusiasm fades just a little.
"I'm not so sure… It's a 4 star mission you said? Is that out of 5 stars?"
"10, actually. Anything above 5 though is reserved for the highest ranking guild members. So this mission will still be difficult! Hoho!"
"Do you know anything about this 'Glass Cannon' dude, for starters?"
"Not a clue! Never heard of em'. They're probably new around the block..." I facepalm.
"Well, no info then. Do we know where they are currently?"
"The job board said Moonlight cave- That's right in the middle of Grytille forest."
"Well-" I get up off the bed and trip up on a stray piece of paper. "Let's get a move on and find this Glass Cannon!" I march for the door and Marble marches behind me.
The first adventure I'm having! An expedition out to a cave in the dead center of the forest, and a job that's ranked 4 stars in difficulty out of 5, technically out of 10. As we're leaving, Corviknight tells us to stay out of trouble.
As we're walking across the bridge I ask, "So why do you think they're called Glass Cannon?"
"Maybe they're strong but can't take hits well?"
We reach the cave and descend down into the depths. Protruding from the walls and ceiling of the cave are white crystals emitting a brilliant light shining our way down. We've taken so many split paths but thank god they all go downwards, so we don't have to worry about getting lost since the only way from the bottom is up!
"How much longer til-" I stop and I have to pull Marble away behind a rock.
"H-huh?"
I peer over the rock and point, Marble peers out to look too.
"Alright, I want all this stuff moved out of this cave today. Do well and you get paid well. Critical, Comet Storm, you two are guarding the loot until the Timburr crew arrives to move it away to a safer location." It's that Noivern from earlier!
"Got it!" The breloom says, doing a salute.
"No problem Glass~" Ribombee says with a grin.
The treasure pile they have is full of equipment and other weird stuff. There's wooden wands, orbs, and a bunch of berries. Lastly, there's a ton of money. Gold coins with the letter P on them.
Something I notice is that all three of these Pokémon have auras around them. The Noivern has a white aura, the Ribombee has a yellow aura and the Breloom has an orange aura.
"IT'S-!" I quickly put my paws over Marble's mouth and pulled him back down behind the rock out of view. I talk quietly, "You moron!-"
"Hey, who's there!?" Glass exclaims. I can hear their wings flapping, they must be flying up to get a better view of the area.
"Psst, hey! I have an idea!" Marble says, I look at him incredulously and he smiles. "Watch this…"
The purple aura I've been seeing on Marble since this morning flares up, and then Marble is coated in a purple mist. When the mist dissipates, Marble still has that purple aura but he isn't a Zorua anymore, he's a Timburr! I look around to the side of him, expecting to find a Zorua tail, since that's how Zorua in my world worked- using an illusion to mask themselves- but they could never mask the tail.
I didn't find a Zorua tail. Marble walks out from behind the rock and waves to the Glass. "Hey! It's part of the Timburr crew!"
Glass swoops down in front of Marble. Towering above him and looking behind him. "Well, where are the others? You Timburr crew always come in a team." Glass looks like he's staring through Marble with that terrifying gaze. Marble sweats a little.
"W-we had a little hold up, y'see? We had to cross this chasm- the rest of the crew threw me over the chasm so I could come tell you we'd be late, they're still back there trying to figure out how to cross." Glass keeps up his scary gaze, almost like he knows Marble's bluffing the entire thing. Or he's just frustrated knowing that the crew would be late. He sighs and turns around to Critical the Breloom and Comet the Ribombee.
"Well, looks like you got more hours. That means more pay." Critical looks pretty happy about this but Comet looks disinterested. Glass turns back to Marble. "You tell your crew when they get here that I said their pay is cut. They will receive 5000P less." Glass then walks out of the cave chamber.
Holy Arceus. Marble pulled that stunt off. He managed to mimic a Timburr and fool that Noivern. I think back to what Victini said. "You can see others who are gifted." No other Pokémon back at the village have had these kinds of auras around them. Only these Pokémon do. And they've all given themselves nicknames. The Ribombee is nicknamed Comet Storm, the Breloom is Critical and the Noivern is the Glass Cannon.
Marble shivers a little, and walks up to Critical and Comet. Comet still looks disinterested in what's going on and Critical is sitting down sorting through the loot. Marble tries to play the role again.
"Um, are you sure you're supposed to be touching those?" Marble inquires.
"You aren't our boss!" Critical hisses. Comet rolls her eyes and hit's Critical on the head with her hand. "Ow!"
"The Timburr is right. This isn't our loot, we're guarding it."
Marble looks back at me and waves me over and since the double C named duo is faced away towards the pile I make my way over, speed walking to the next large rock I can hide behind.
"Are you gonna let yourself get bossed around by a grunt? We're high rank you know. Glass ain't gonna kill us if we take a look at the haul!" They continue to bicker, I get closer and hide behind a rock pillar.
"Critical, honey, just because you're high rank doesn't make you not dumb."
Critical represses a growl. His orange aura glows faintly for a moment. With a nickname like Critical I fear what kinda thing he can do. At least with Comet Storm I can easily figure out what their power probably is, but not with Critical. Maybe they always land critical hits? No, it can't be that simple.
Marble looks at me with an impatient look. Shoot, I'm supposed to do something but what? I need to think of something before their conversation ends, but what? I can't charge in guns blazing without knowing their moves first. Or maybe I should take advantage of the element of surprise?
There's too many thoughts in my head. If only Marble could tell me directly what I should be doing in my position.
"Whatever." Critical says. "Timburr, give me your wooden beam- Where's your wooden beam?" Marble looks at himself. The beam!
"Uhh- I must've left it with the group of Timburr at the chasm." Marble sweats. The more I wait, the more stressed I get.
I need to take that first step forward and do something… How do Pokémon do moves? I need to concentrate...
"Oh, okay. Never leave your beam though, that stuffs irreplaceable basically, and I need it to rest on for those long work hou- AGH!" I peered out from behind the pillar and shot a focused psybeam at the Breloom's back. Fighting and Psychic don't mix and he was caught off guard, a critical hit!
"Oh COME ON!" Comet readies herself for a fight. "It was supposed to be a relaxing shift!
I quickly go behind the pillar, Marble looks stressed and the cloud of purple mist appears around him again and a fireball comes out of the cloud of purple aimed at Comet. She's prepared for it and a star shield appears to block the shot. So, that's the auras explained. Every Pokémon with these auras has a special power. The purple mist fades and Marble's changed to a Quilava. It's almost like his power is just the move transform.
"What do we do!?" I run out from the pillar aiming another psybeam on Critical to keep them down. Comet looks at me with disgust and scoffs, deciding to keep her attention on Marble.
"I'm not sure! Keep attacking!" Marble says, hurling fireballs that get blocked one by one by star shields. I was so focused on looking at the spectacle of fireballs being hurled with stars blocking them that I completely forgot about Critical, he's gotten up and is looking at me with eyes alight with a fiery fury. I brace myself.
"Well, you got a few lucky hits, I'll give you that. After us two smash you into a pulp, you'll tell us your names!" With a fist shaking with anger he points at me.
We failed to do this stealthily. We either get smashed into dust or we beat them down.
Maybe it was a mistake to do a 4 star job, I should've suggested an easier mission first, this is more than I can chew.
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