Chapter 4 - Got Me Running

Upon our leaving the initial room and exploring our first corridor, I start noticing something subtly different about the direction we're headed. While we have long since passed the point where grass ceased covering the ground part way through the previous floor, the forest surrounding us has begun to thin out as well.

This is only highlighted by the fact that this path is much longer than any of the previous ones we've been down. Trees and shrubs get thinner, featuring less leaves. Where there were once flowers behind the invisible walls only sprigs of grass remains, and dirt becomes the predominant texture of the ground.

Needless to say, it is a bit off putting. I wouldn't call it scary, per say, but I can say that there's a certain sense of being somewhere we shouldn't in the air.

I glance over at Cole, but he seems fairly unperturbed. I suppose this might be another area wherein it is my own lack of acclimation to Mystery Dungeons that is bothering me more than anything else. Just in case, however, I prepare to ask a question to Cole.

"Hey Cole, uh…" I begin, clasping my hands together near my waist. "Doesn't this seem… a bit, um, strange? With how the trees and, well, fortre- forest is thinning out?" I ask as I glance behind us, nerves starting to gnaw at me a touch.

Cole looks back at me as we treck down this elongated hallway. "Don't worry about it, dude," he says.

"Butterfree said there was an earthquake. If a big ol' fissure opened up and Butterfree's kid fell in, then the Dungeon was probably damaged too." He turns his attention back to the path ahead, and we both spot a fork in the path.

He starts talking again as we come upon said fork. "I mean, honestly, the forest clearing out to fresh ground just tells me that we're going the right way, y'know?" he says, looking down both potential routes. I take a glance as well, and notice that one path continues down into pure dirt and jagged roots, while the other one hosts more and more plant life as it continues.

"We should go this way," Cole says while going down the more desolate path. I go on and follow him, my sense of unease still present, but much less strongly than before.

The idea of the outside affecting the internal workings of a Mystery Dungeon, unlike everything else about these things, does make a certain amount of sense to me. While I may find the particular affects of this earthquake on this Dungeon a touch unsettling, the fact that I can wrap my head around this at all is a wonderful change of pace.

We continue down the corridor, before eventually coming to another room. I see, right beside the entrance to the next path, what looks like at first glance to be a disc of some sort, and I walk over to inspect it.

Picking it up, I notice it's a lot thicker than it looks. Turning it around in my grasp, I realize that, while it is shaped like a disc, it's actually a case of some sort. Finding a latch on the side, I pop it open and find… a scroll?

Yup, it is indeed a scroll. There are also a handful of other small trinkets inside the case, but the item that immediately grabs my attention is the scroll. Why is there a scroll? What is the purpose of leaving this out here? Did somebody drop it?

I hear Cole walk up to my side. "Whatcha got there… oh!" he says, with what I interpret as a happy kind of surprise. "You don't see one of these every day out here!"

"W-what is this?" I ask with a raised 'eyebrow'.

Cole looks over at me confused. Oh, I must have asked something dumb. "What, you don't know?" he asks surprised.

Yup, here we go…

"This is a TM - Training Manual if you're a nerd. They're these little guides on how to perform certain moves."

He takes the scroll in his talon and gives it a once over.

He holds the scroll up to show a little star seal on it. "If you can do them, anyways. This little star here," - he gestures to the seal - "means it's a normal type technique. Most 'mon can learn these kinds of moves. If it's got a different seal, it's more specifically for that kind of Pokémon, usually."

Cole hands the scroll to me, and I put it back inside the disc case. "You should hold on to that, dude. It won't make you a master, but you could probably learn something good with that," he says while I leave my berry behind to take the case.

"Besides, you could always sell it, y'know," he says with a wink.

I nod to him, and we continue down the next corridor.

I will need to learn how to battle properly, won't I? I know Cole says I can stay with him, and he's fairly capable, but if this place is any indication, knowing how to fight is very important here. I don't know how much fighting I'm going to have to do, but I will need to know how to defend myself. Maybe this TM is exactly what I need…

I put my thoughts aside as we enter our next room. The dirt floor is cracked and dry as we walk in. The only indication of plant life to be had here are the jagged twigs and broken trunks of trees. In the far left corner of the room, is the final staircase.

I rush over to the staircase with joy. We've finally reached the end!

"Alright, we made it!" I hear Cole say beside me.

It was a difficult, painful journey up to this point, but we've made it. We've made it! The end of the Mystery Du-

Prior to me completing my thought, I hear the rushing of air and the ruffling of feathers above us. Before I'm really able to react, I feel the sharp end of a beak impact my skull and send me to the ground with a painful 'konk'.

"Arthur!" I hear Cole exclaim.

The effect this has on me is, to say the least, not great. My eyes are temporarily blinded by a wash of stars and noise as I clutch the spot where I've been pecked. I let out a loud groan as I try to recover from the painful strike. I note that I've naturally coiled up, and I uncurl myself, slowly getting to my feet, unsteady.

Taking stock of my surroundings, I notice that I've been knocked away from the staircase. Cole is looking up to the sky with frustration, and I follow his gaze to find our assailant: a lone Pidgey, flying around in circles.

The Pidgey takes a sudden turn and I look at them in the eyes as they try to dive-bomb me once again. Before it can impact me, I fling myself out of the way, landing on my stomach. I hear it fly past, the speed kicking up a small amount of dust in its wake, and I am very briefly relieved that I won't have to deal with an even worse ache in my skull than I already have.

Cole quickly steps in front of me as I get up once again. His talons scratch the ground as he glares at the Pidgey in the air. "Get down here, you bastard!" he yells into the sky, before raising his talon and making the same pose I saw him do against the Wurmple from earlier.

The Pidgey takes the bait, and dives down again. I see the bird set on a collision course with another bird, and I quickly scurry off to the side. Right as I bump into the staircase, I see Cole strike downwards at the Pidgey, only to find himself missing when our attacker dodges to the side.

He ends up with a stomach full of beak for his troubles.

Cole is knocked down to the side, and I hear him hit the ground with a 'pomf'.

I realize that my heart is pounding in my ears. I don't know what to do, and I look around frantically for the Pidgey. I know I can't take this bird on. It is way too fast, and I'm not strong or quick enough myself to hit it when it comes to dive bomb me. Apparently neither is-

I leap out of the way of another divebomb.

-Cole. If I can't hit them, can't keep up with them, and can't even do an actual move, how am I supposed to fight them? Surely there must be something we can do? Can we escape some… how… ?

Wait.

Cole is standing upright now, staring the Pidgey down. I open my mouth. No sound comes out as I hear my heart in my ears and grasp my chest with my left hand. My mouth feels dry, but after a long moment and a divebomb-dodge from Cole, sound is finally able to escape me.

"Cole, I- we can't fight this Pidgey. We have to get out of here!" I say, running up to his side as he lands on his feet. I tug on his feathers, and he looks back at me momentarily.

I realize that I'm distracting him from the fight Pidgey is trying to have with us, so I begin jogging towards the stairs with Cole in tow. "Quick, we've got to get up the stairs!"

Cole says, "Okay!" with determination and a nod.

I hear a bird call behind us, and I realize that the Pidgey didn't stop attacking us just so we could talk. Looking back quickly, I see that the deranged bird is just barely starting to divebomb us once again. With only steps between us and the stairs, Cole and I pick up the pace, swiftly running to make it up the stairs before we get turned to bird food.

The air behind us is suddenly filled with the sound of feathers.

We make it up the first few steps.

The Pidgey flies straight into the stairs, knocking itself out cold, but…

We're already up the stairs.

With a mighty stumble, I crash into Arthur and we go sprawling on the floor. This doesn't help the fact that my stomach is still smarting a little bit, but the relief of being out of that situation let's me kinda ignore it.

Kinda.

I get up off of Arthur, and he hops up and scurries a few feet away from where we landed. He does his signature 'I'm going to look exactly everywhere except Cole' bit, before finally settling his eyes in my general direction.

"We…alright, we made it!" he says with a little smile.

"Yeah!" I say in response. Heck, not only did we make it out of that dumb fight, we also just so happened to make it to - I look around real quick and… yup, there they are! - Butterfree's kid!

I walk over to them with Arthur, and I see them munching on an apple, curled up and… chilling out?

"Hey there!" I start. "You're Butterfree's kid, yeah?"

They look up at us with their big buggy eyes. They uncurl themselves from their little spot in the dirt and take the finishing bite out of their apple. "Yup! That's me!" they say through a piece of apple in a girlish voice.

"You're Mom was pretty worried, y'know. She said there was some kinda earthquake. You alright?" I ask her with concern.

She takes a moment and inspects her body, looking at her stomach, her back, and looking up at her antenna. Eventually, finished with her checkup, she turns back to me. "Yup! I'm fine," she says with a squeak. "Can we go home now?"

"Yes we can!" I say happily.

I turn to Arthur, and see that he's taking in our cave-y surroundings. With a bit of the ol' gusto and a terrible Aguarian accent, I say "Come along Arthur! We must show the young lady back to her court," which gets both Arthur's attention, and a giggle from the little Caterpie girl.

With the little girl and Arthur in tow, I face the direction we came in and walk onwards to the exit.

This was a pretty weird day, all things considered. I met this Snivy dude, went dungeon diving to find some Butterfree's kid, and even lost a fight to another bird. I can't wait to get home, kick back, relax, and just chill out. Heh, in all this action I kinda forgot what I was doing out and about in the first place. Wasn't I supposed to go get something… ?

Oh well, whatever. I'm sure Snizzy'll give me an earful about it if it was actually important.

As we walk through this long cave back to the outside world, I hear Arthur clear his throat. Glancing over, I see him open and close his mouth. He meets my eyes and drops his gaze immediately. As I turn back to the cavern ahead, I hear him finally say something.

"Um, Cole," he begins. "Wh- how are we, um… getting out of here? Exactly?" he asks with what sounds to me like confusion.

"Huh?" I reply.

I look back at him again, and see that he's staring at the cave wall next to him as we walk and talk. I see his gaze fix on bits of root sticking out from the ceiling, before he says "Uh, al- let me ask something else. What I mean is, well, we came this way from below, right?"

"Yes… ?" I say. Where's he going with this?

"And is the exit straight ahead?" he asks while he fiddles with the latches on the TM case.

"Yes," I respond, eyebrow raised.

I turn my head back to the path, thinking Arthur's done with his questions, and see that the exit of this mystery dungeon is just in view. I recognize the light spilling in from the exit as a tell tale sign that we won't be here much longer.

Suddenly, I hear Arthur ask, "So, uh… why did we have to come rescue Caterpie? Couldn't she have just, well, walked?"

"Well, y'see Arthur…" I begin. I try to recall a reason as to why the kid couldn't have just left on their own. I mean, sure there isn't a maze to get lost in, or wild pokemon to fight, or annoying traps to fall into, but…

…Wait, actually, never mind, that's a great question.

"I'm… not sure, actually," I finish lamely with a tilt of my head. I look down at the Caterpie following us, and then back to the path ahead. Hmm…

Most of the time, when pokemon end up in mystery dungeons by accident, they end up at the start of the dungeon, regardless of which way they entered. To see this Caterpie at the end of a dungeon, totally unscathed, and just straight chilling is... well, it's weird, mon! Especially since we had such a hard time as a team!

"Hey Caterpie?" I say as we continue.

At this point, the exit is right in front of us, and with great satisfaction, I step out unto the chill autumn forest. I glance back at my companions and see them emerge from the mystery dungeon, weirdly flat foliage the only thing indicating where'd they been.

"Yes~?" she asks playfully.

I look back at her with both a tilted head and a raised eyebrow for maximum curiosity power. "How'd you end up at the end of the mystery dungeon? I know you're big n' strong, but no one attacked you, or anything?" I ask.

She looks up at me with her, admittedly, adorable bug eyes and says, "Ummm, well, some Wurmples tried to, but I string shotted them." She tilts her head in what I'm going to assume is some kind of buggy thinking pose.

"Oh! There was Pidgey on the third floor! He was mean at first, but I gave him an oran berry, and then he was nice!" she says, happily.

I hear a "Wha-!", before I turn to see Arthur give himself a good ol' fashioned face palm.

I am… wow, okay. Guess this kid can really handle themselves. I mean, here we were, having all this trouble, and this kid is just clearing house on both of us. Just… jeez, we really gotta train. A little girl got through a dungeon easier than we did, mon!

Ouch. That stings.

We continue through the forest, retracing our steps. Funnily enough, when you exit a mystery dungeon, you get spit out at the entrance. I don't let it bother me, but I kinda see why Arthur would find all this weird. I mean, hey, if I hadn't've ever entered a mystery dungeon, maybe I'd be just as weird as this guy.

After awhile, we come to a clearing. I see a purple bug pokemon flying in circles. They've got their antennas in their hands, and while I can't tell what exactly they're saying, I know fretting mom noises when I hear them. I think we've found our Butterfree.

I hear a little squeak to my side, and in an instant I see Caterpie rush over to her mom. Butterfree's head perks up, and she turns to face her daughter. Within seconds, Caterpie tackle-hugs Butterfree, and they fall to the ground giggling together.

"Oh, my baby! You're back!," she says with all the motherly love in the world as Arthur and I walk into Butterfree's clearing. We watch her and Caterpie have their heartwarming reunion for a bit, but Butterfree notices us eventually, and the moment ends as she takes flight again.

"You two really helped a mother out. I can't thank you two enough!" she says with gratitude.

I rub the back of my head with my feathers. She looks at us both while I say "Heh, it's no problem, dude. What kinda 'mons would we be if we said no?"

"Oh, if only more rescue teams were like you two," she says. "Here, I have your reward."

She flys over to me and gives me 400 poké. I take the eight 50 poké coins, and she flies over to Arthur. Looking over, I see that Arthur is looking down at the grass again. Butterfree takes out a cobalt blue scarf and wraps it around Arthur's neck, which going off his wide eyes, really surprised him.

Arthur's hand reaches up to feel his new scarf, and I turn back to Butterfree. She flies down and nuzzles her child, before saying, "Again, thank you two so much! I don't know what I'd do if anything happened to my baby."

She ends the nuzz' and looks at us again. "If I ever need help again, I'll be sure to talk to you two. What's your team's name?" she asks.

I reply with, "Team Aurora."

"Okay. Team Aurora, thank you!" she says. With that, she and Caterpie turn and leave to where ever it is that they're going to.

As I watch the retreating forms of both Butterfree and Caterpie, I find myself running my hands along my new scarf. The silky smooth feel, and extremely soft fabric are just so pleasent that its nearly unbearable. I'm almost over come with just how wonderful this scarf truly is, and the brilliant and striking shade of blue appeals to my aesthetic sense in a way that I can't quite describe with mere words.

The scarf is, admittedly, a touch large on my small frame. The ends of it hang down about half the way to my legs. This doesn't really bother me, the more of this stunning fabric the better, but I can see that it may be an issue later.

I hear a shifting of talons next to me, and glance over in Cole's direction. He's taken to facing outwards towards the road.

This clearing in which we've been the recipients of gratitude is really what looks to me like a resting area along the road between two places. It's cleared out and spacious, even though the rest of the forest can seem a bit dense, and there's some evidence of Pokemon having passed through here; a handful of apple cores and half-finished berries scattered about here and there.

"Alright, Arthur, let's get going. We gotta get you situated at our place, and you gotta meet Snizzy," I hear Cole say from the road.

I hurriedly walk over to meet him. To be honest, I'm fairly nervous. I have found myself growing a certain fondness for this companionable Torchic, and I really don't want to make a bad impression on this Snizzy person. Just imagining all the things that could go wrong with this person who Cole holds in esteem really sets my stomach off as we walk.

I focus on the soft chirps and buzzes of the forest to try and keep myself calm. My ears catch the sounds of trees in a light breeze as my heart refuses to do anything except get louder. I glance over at Cole briefly, who just walks without issue, before returning my sight to the grass once again.

This isn't working. I can't relax. Even though we're out of the Mystery Dungeon, and inside a real, actual forest, I can't seem to calm myself. I don't understand why. Why is it that I can at least calm myself within that bizarre facsimile of a forest, but I cannot within the real forest itself?

I realize that fixating on this feeling is only making it worse, so I decide to distract myself in a different way. Perhaps I can talk to Cole? That should hopefully take my mind off of this so that I don't present as some sort of unworthy nervous wreck to this Snizzy person.

"So, uh… Cole," I begin.

I hear Cole respond with a "Yeah?" and I continue.

"You and Butterfree said something about, uh… us being a Rescue Team?" I ask.

I hear a stick break underneath Cole's talons as he responds. "Yup. You gotta do something while you stay with us, dude. So you're part of Team Aurora now!" he says with some subdued enthusiasm.

I guess that makes sense. After all, I will be staying with them for some time while I learn about this world and the Pokemon in it. I can't just mooch off of Cole's generosity. It only makes sense that I'd be working with him in Team Aurora for the time being, though as an aside, it does seem odd to me that a fire-type like Cole is on Team Aurora.

"Wha- um, why is the Team called Aurora? You're, well, you're a fire type, right?" I ask, curious.

"Oh!" Cole says. "Well, I didn't pick the name, y'know. Snizzy's the guy in charge, I'm just his partner, mon."

Oh great.

Oh god I'm going to go meet the leader. Oh geez, what am I going to do? Oh no, I'm a terrible dungeoneer! I'm going to get kicked out immediately. I'm going to walk in the door, and they're just going to throw me out in seconds for not being competent. Not fit to fight, too dumb to resolve things peacefully with a berry that I left behind like an absolute nimrod! What am I going to do?! Oh geez, oh gee-

"Uh, you alright dude?" Cole asks from beside me, breaking me from my thoughts. I realize that I'm breathing fairly hard. My stomach is doing somersaults while my brain waterboards me with apprehension about the trial ahead.

I open my mouth to respond, but find that words escape me. I clutch the ends of my scarf in my hands as I rub the beautiful fabric between my palms and pointer fingers. The texture is just so wonderful, and while it doesn't stop everything going on, it gives me some ground to anchor myself to.

Eventually, after awhile of Cole seeming concerned for my well being, and me not helping the situation by being silent, I'm able to talk.

"I'm just… I'm so nervous. I don't kn- what if Snizzy's- Just…" I trail off at this point, but I think Cole can understand what's going from that much, at least.

As we reach the edge of the forest, I can see in the distance a stone building. Something about the cool blue-tinged grey, combined with the absence of grass in a few foots radius around the building gives off a very cold impression to me. It's both curious and uninviting on some sort of strangely instinctual level.

"You're nervous about meeting Snizzy, huh?" I hear Cole ask a little more softly than I'm used to from him. I glance over at him and see that he's looking at me with a sort of sympathy. Something about the way his head feathers are a bit more limp gives a disarming impression.

"Don't worry, I kinda get it," he says. As we walk closer to the house ahead, I can hear the understanding in Cole's voice, and it helps bring me further back to earth. "An experienced hardcore guy like Snizzy? Heck, I was kinda nervous when I first met him too, dude. He can be kinda… intense."

We walk up to the porch of the house, and I realize that this must be the home of Snizzy and Cole. "Look, I'm here with you. I'll help you out, dude, don't worry. He can be a bit much, but I promise Snizzy just wants to help, even if he doesn't like to show it," Cole says.

I look up at the dark wooden door in front of me. I feel so small, and even though the door isn't much taller than me, I still feel as though it towers over me imposingly. The sun is setting behind our backs, casting our shadows over the door.

"Just knock, dude, it'll be alright," I hear from my left.

I take a deep breath…

And I knock on the door.