Chapter 3 - Dazed Confused

Never allow string shot to come in contact with your body. It is sticky, it is gross, and if you're a grass type that lacks natural blades of some sort, it is impossible to get off before it dries. Not to mention, when it dries up it leaves behind this flaky, off-white crust, and just… ugghh disgusting.

The texture of it while I pick it off of my tail makes me gag. Just, feeling these little flakes of string as they crumble in my hands makes shudders go up my spine. And it takes so long to get off too! I hate the way this feels, and I think I may now hate Wurmples as a result.

I need to keep my eyes moving and alert. I do not want to get into another altercation with a bug type if I can help it. Every tree, leaf, and branch is being scrutanized by me - very meticulously, mind you! - as Cole and I continue our treck to find Butterfree's child.

Am I being paranoid? Perhaps, but at the very least, I'd rather we don't end up getting blindsided like we did with the last one. I do not want to get string shotted- string shotted? String shot? I don't want to have to peel this stuff off again.

Oh god, I need to get mind off of this. No, no, here, how about I try… talking? It's marginally less painful than dried string shot, if nothing else.

"So, uh…" I clear my throat, "Cole." The words leave my mouth a little shakey, but I'll take it. Cole perks up a bit upon being addressed and he turns his gaze to me. I immediately look off to the side in response. "Yeah?" they reply.

Wait. Damn it, I don't know what to say! Uh, let's see, um… oh, I know! A question! I can ask him a question, and he'll answer, and then a conversation will ensue wherein I'll finish cleaning my tail before its end. Okay, that's a good plan, that will most likely work.

"Um, so… Mystery Dungeons. Can you tell me more? About them," okay, awkward, but we can do this, "I uh, I nev- I don't really go into them. Much. At all."

Nailed it.

"Oh!" Cole exclaims. I hear some grass beneath us crunch as we end up in a new room. Looking around, the only thing of note here is how the grass is distinctively no longer alive.

Cole pauses as we enter the room, and I do the same. "Yeah, sure dude, what do you want to know?" he asks, while peering around the room for the next corridor.

There's so much that I don't know about these things. These places, these Mystery Dungeons, really are some kind of anomaly aren't they?

"What are Mystery Dungeons?" I ask as we begin down the path to our right, where the grass begins to clear out to just dirt. I continue, "As in, h- well, why are they here? Did something happen?"

As we walk, I see another room coming up, with some sort of… staircase? An upwards staircase? That leads… nowhere? "Well, no one's really sure where Mystery Dungeons come from. They've just… always been here, I guess."

Why and how. Why and how is there a big stone staircase to nowhere in the middle of a forest. "I'm not into the theory, I just know how to get through a dungeon. You'd have to ask my pal Snizzy about that kinda abstract stuff."

We enter the next room, more large and rectangular this time. I point my stubby little snake finger at the impossible stair case ahead of us.

"Alright. Secondary question, why- what's with that staircase?" I ask, as I am, at this point, genuinely baffled. The invisible walls? I can deal with that. The random assailants? Annoying, but if we keep our wits about us, that's all they are. Hell, I'm willing to accept our disturbingly perfect surroundings! But this?

This?!

This is simply too much. I refuse to accept, I absolutely refuse to accept this without an adequate explanation. I can only hope that whatever comes out of Cole's beak is satisfactory.

I look over at him as he opens his beak to answer. I hear his feathers shift as he tilts his head and raises an… well, we don't have eyebrows, but the mannerism is fairly unmistakable. A crook of the forehead, maybe?

"Huh? What do you mean?"

No, no no no no, don't you start. Don't you even try to tell me that this is normal!

"It's just the stairs to the next floor, dude. There's not really anything weird about it."

Oh my god, he did it. He actually told me that this is normal. I… I, please, what. How. Why. Stop. No. I refuse, I simply refuse, return to sender, no deposit, no return. Just-! Wait. Hold on. Stairs to the next… floor. As in, upwards. Wha-

I look up. Let's see, clouds, blue sky, a weirdly large sun- ow, okay, looking away from that. As I blink the sunspots from my eyes, I come to the most logical conclusion I can: there is no upper floor. There cannot be an upper floor. Unless the staircase leads into the clouds, this is simply impossible! I open my mouth again.

"But we're in a forest. How can- why is there even a staircase here?" I ask in utter confusion.

I see Cole look at me, confused as well. "How else are we supposed to get to the next floor, dude? It's called a Mystery Dungeon for a reason, y'know," he tells me, before turning to the staircase in question and walking towards it.

My left eyelid twitches as I watch him move away from me. I follow him, staring at his talon-prints in the ground while I try to calm myself. I may have been able to gloss over this earlier, but with this damn string on my damn tail added on, I do not… wait.

I rub my hands all along my tail, and suddenly, everything is fine. I do not even have to try to calm myself calm. My tail is clean!

As I step up the staircase behind Cole, I feel alright. Not great, this all still bothers me, however, with the pesky irritent known as string shot gone, I feel fine.

Then I reach the final step of the stairs. I see trees, bushes, even a few flowers around me as we enter into a new room. My feet are planted firmly on the ground, with no textural indication of stone steps beneath my feet. The sky is blue, clear with the exception of a few wispy clouds, and I presume a sun, though I don't look this time. We are on another floor.

For some reason, the sound of breaking glass comes to mind.

Cole is already at the entrance to the next corridor we need to go down, and I follow him. I ignore the way my left eye twitches as we continue. I also ignore my clenched fists as my brain cells slowly whither away. I keep my mind on my surroundings as I follow Cole down the path, trying to focus on the smell of the forest, or the sounds of our steps.

We end up in another elongated room, and suddenly Cole stops. I bump into him from behind, but I step back and to the side soon after. Cole seems tense, and when I glance up at his face for a second, he looks frustrated. I hear him shift, and he says, "Hey Arthur, we got company!"

I look up to see yet another Wurmple coming our way.

I can't tell you what I see now, aside from red.

Before I'm even fully aware of what I'm doing, I find myself charging forward at the Wurmple as it squeeks in surprise. I take a leap and tackle it to the ground. I land on top of its squishy body as it squirms beneath me. I put my hands on his head and attempt to pull him up

He writhes his body as I hold him by the head, legs failing outwards. I have a hard time keeping a hold on him, and I realize fairly quickly that I have a very short time limit to take advantage of my position. Looking out and zero-ing in on Cole, I see that he's some type of shocked, but moving towards us.

"Attack him! Use your fl- your fire if you can!" I shout at Cole, which makes him spring into action after only a moments pause. He starts with a run, before jumping and delivering twin slashes across the Wurmples body with his talons.

I am momentarily confused by his choice to use his talons, but I can't complain about the efficacy of his attack.

The Wurmple shoots a burst of string shot into the air in desperation, and my eyes widen. I immediately let go and dive away, and the sound of flapping and talon patter tells me that Cole acted similarly. I land on my stomach with a 'pumf' and slowly get up, shaking my head.

And then suddenly, in a moment of clarity, my anger and adrenaline is replaced with a cold water bucket realization that I am, infact, in a battle. Very suddenly my nerves return, and I freeze up. I stare at the Wurmple, up right and hurt, but still standing and looking to fight. Cole is looking fierce, with one of his talons raised as his wings act to balance him.

They stare eachother down for a brief moment, before everything is suddenly in motion.

The Wurmple leaps to tackle Cole down. I hear Cole say, "Not this time!" before he hops and strikes downwards with great speed. His talons catch the Wurmple on his face and bring him down to the ground with a satisfying impact. Cole lets go of the Wurmple, stands over him, and Pecks the back of his head.

The Wurmple has fainted.

Y'know, I gotta admit.

That was pretty satisfying.

After having pecked that little bastard's head, I gotta say, I feel pretty slick. It feels like payback, and payback feels good.

I stick my tongue out at the little bug boi, before I leave the Wurmple on the floor and walk over to Arthur. It seems like he's back to being all weird again, but he loosens up as I approach him. I give him a satisfied little smirk. He approaches me as well, and we meet somewhere in the middle of the room.

"Y'know, I gotta say, you don't seem it, but you're not too shabby in battle," I say to the Snivy. I gotta give credit where its due. He blushes and stares at his favourite thing, the ground, before I continue "You fight pretty weird for a grass type, but… it works."

I do have to say, seeing how this guy battles versus seeing how he acts normally is almost surreal. It's like night and day. He seems so nervey and tense most of the time, but when it's time to fight, he's kinda clever. He's definitely not anywhere near as fit as he should be, he got winded after only a few dodges earlier, but he's better than you'd expect from just looking at him.

Arthur glances up at me, before looking down again and clasping his hands behind him. "I… well, okay. I don't know what came over me, really. I jus- I was just so frustrated…" he says, eyes moving across the floor very quickly.

"Well, whatever happened, it was pretty good, mon, that's all I'm saying." I guess this guy really isn't too keen on compliments, huh? I dunno, if I caught my opponent off guard like that, I'd feel pretty proud of myself. I guess maybe he's like Snizzy - no nonsense. Heh, I should introduce them…

Arthur doesn't respond, as per usual, and I turn my attention to the next corridor. "Okay, let's go. This forest's dungeon isn't too big, I think. Pretty sure we only got like, one more floor, so let's find that next staircase, grab the kid, and get outta here, alright dude?" I say, looking back as Arthur walks up behind me.

I seem him nod, and together, we walk.

Y'know, thinking about it, I wonder where this guy learned to fight, anyways. His fighting style is pretty weird for someone who's got training. Does he even have training? Looking back, he doesn't seem to have much of a technique. It's alot more… spur of the moment than I would expect from someone who acts like he does.

"Hey Arthur," I start.

I hear a quiet little "hm?" before I continue. "Where did you learn how to fight, dude? Who taught you?" I ask him with interest.

We step into another room, this one a bit smaller than the last. There are two paths to go down this time, but I can see pretty clearly that the path across from us ends in a dead end right away, so I turn my attention to the path to our right instead. I hear Arthur walk over somewhere else. Turning to look, I see he's found an oran berry and is inspecting it.

He holds onto it as he turns back to me and scurries over. "Sorry," he says, "Um, anyways…" His lips are pressed in a tight line. I nod to show I'm listening before turning to the corridor and starting down it. "I don't- I wasn't taught how to fight. I, uh, I don't know how. Really. Just, well, I guess I, um…"

That sentence fragment just kinda hangs in the air as he trails off.

All the same, that's good to know. So he probably doesn't know many moves, or at least, doesn't know how to use them as well as he could. Thinking back, the first time we got into a battle, he just froze up until he was in immediate danger, and the second time, I noticed him freeze up again after his big opening play. So he's got potential, but no training, really. Just going off instinct…

Pretty weird instinct for a Snivy, but if it works, it works. I really do have to introduce this guy to Snizzy. Imagine if Arthur got some training in, and we got him on our team? Heh, now that'd be pretty killer, I think. If nothing else, it'd be nice having someone holding the fort down while me and Snizzy are out on a mission or whatever.

I turn to look back at Arthur as we step into yet another room. "So dude," I say, before I notice the staircase to the next floor in the far right corner of the room. "I know you like to Cloyster up when I ask questions, but try to anwer this one, alright? It's kinda important," I tell him with a serious look. Arthur raises his eyebrow and nods at this.

"When we get outta here, what are you planning to do, mon? You got somewhere you're trying to be, something you're trying to do, what?" I ask him as we approach the stairs. I step up the stairs and enter the final maze floor of the dungeon. Reaching this sorta lull, I turn to Arthur and see him with his head tilted, fingers against his chin, thinking.

Another signature Arthur pause ensues, and after a long, long moment, he looks at me and says, "I'm not really sure, honestly."

I raise my brows in surprise. Usually, an east coast 'mon, all the way out here, they'd have some kind of business out here. I was expecting maybe he was visiting someone, or maybe he even had some kind of trading out here to do. I guess he must be a kind of wanderer type.

My face settles into a smile as I say, "Well, when we get outta here, you should come crash with me and my pal Snizzy, mon. You can hang out while you figure your stuff out." He looks surprised at this, but he gives me a small smile and nod, before looking away at everything in the room.

With that settled, we've only got one more set of stairs to find, and we'll be outta here lickity split. "Okay Arthur, we only gotta find this last staircase, alright? Let's get going!" I exclaim, trying to channel my inner team leader. To my surprise, I hear an "Alright, Cole!" behind me from Arthur, and I can't help but smile.

Yeah, this guy's going on the team for sure.