I put my crossbow by the door, and with how gently I set it down, the way I throw off my bag looks like an earthquake.
I cringe as it hits the floor with a crack, and I remember how many fragile things were in there. After a shopping spree for our new team, I should be more mindful of what's in there.
Three orbs fall out, each shattering on the ground one by one.
The first two are both escape orbs, and they both do nothing except dissolve when broken outside of a dungeon.
The third one looks nothing like an escape orb, and that confuses me because I didn't buy any spherical objects except for escape orbs. I must've gotten it on accident. Oh well.
It shatters on the ground, and immediately, my bag gets sent flying several meters into the air.
I gasp and maneuver my body to try and catch it, but I fail and my bag slams down on the floor for a second time.
I groan and cautiously open the bag to assess the damage, only to be surprised to find that there is none. Everything in my bag is perfectly fine.
I'll have to talk to Kecleon about this later, but I'm too busy right now.
It's only been a week since everything changed for me, and I don't know if I'm brave enough to confront him. Yet I enter anyways.
I didn't tell Hypno I was going here, if I did, he might have stopped me.
I really should not be able to just walk in here, but the regulations on visiting prisoners here are just about the worst I've ever seen. (I don't know any other prisons.)
Chary spits in my face.
"You better get your sorry ass out of here!" I ignore his threat, knowing that he's helpless behind those bars. I need to get right to the point of why I'm here, before Hypno notices that I've been gone for too long.
"I need to ask you 'Why?', Chary, 'Why?'." I'll make no mistake, Chary is smart, and he will try to word his answer in the best way possible.
Yet, he seemed to be stumped. He knew that not answering my question would be stupid, and answering it would be stupid too.
There was a moment of pause before he spoke.
"Is this some sort of trick to force me to confess?" It wasn't. "If it is, I'm not going to answer it!"
"Chary, it's not. I promise," I spoke to him, now ready to try anything to find out what the hell he wanted with those murders.
"You're lying."
"Fair enough."
"...You know, Adam... You were a great help to the team, and you could have stayed a great help if you didn't say anything."
"You're lying."
"If neither of us is gonna believe what the other says, what point do you expect to find in this conversation?" Chary raised a good point, so I took it to heart and left.
Well, that was a disappointment.
Word of what happened with Hypno rippled through the city quickly, and while people were hesitant to trust us at first, the evidence in our favor was undeniable. Hypno's horrid reputation faded away, as people were quick to turn their anger on Chary. I suspect that Chary's popularity issues beforehand may have had some impact on how fast the transition was.
It's a cold day today, and we're heading into a dungeon to prepare for our latest mission.
We were told that today, we would be fetching an artifact deep within. There were some words thrown around about "Mass mind warping capabilities," and "Very fragile, shatters easily." and other weird stuff like that.
Inside the dungeon, it's best described as a sandy, dry wasteland riddled with steep cliffs and small bug types. We fight through hoards of giant butterflies, worms, and other creepy crawlies. My strategy of 'Shoot everything to death with a crossbow' works very well.
After loads of """fighting""", we run into our first major roadblock. Across a large cliff, there's a Pinser repeatedly hurling rocks at us. We can ignore the pokemon for a while until we hit a narrow bridge.
While their rocks barely deal damage to us, we cannot cross the bridge without the fear of the Pinsir knocking us into the pit to our deaths.
Annoyed, I reluctantly pull out my crossbow again and aim it.
I look up and see that the thing has caught my arrow in mid-air, an incredible flex on us both. If I wasn't so annoyed, I would be impressed.
I stare into my bag, searching for possible solutions. I see loads of orbs and seeds, all of which would easily deal with the Pinsir.
There's a small problem, however, in the fact that I'm not a super athlete like he is, and so I can't throw any of them that far.
I look at the jump orb and I consider jumping across, while this would be badass if I manage to pull it off, there is simply too much risk of being hit with an anti-air rock to carry it out.
I look at all my other options. There's my crossbow, Stun Seeds, Jump Orbs, and so much more. Yet none of these items could work.
…
Wait…
I dodge yet another rock and I pick up a Jump Orb. I stare at the crossbow with delight as I gently skewer the Jump Orb with an arrow. I then push the arrow into its slot in the crossbow, making sure to not accidentally set it off, and aim at the Pinsir once again.
Just as I planned, he instinctively knocks the arrow out of the air, activating my trap. The orb activates and sends him straight off the side of the cliff.
The success of the maneuver makes me so proud of myself that I jump in celebration.
My celebration is short-lived, however, as I land on a large shard rock. It makes me fall over, to avoid furtherly pressing my foot down. I get up rather easily and look at the badge I was holding. It had malfunctioned and accidentally activated emergency rescue mode. Once that is activated, it can't be undone until someone else arrives.
Next, I noticed that my bag was missing, and I looked up with great regret for overpacking.
My bag hits me, knocking me over for a second time, and my head proceeds to make its fourth painful collision within a 20-second timespan, knocking me out.
I am woken by an Inteleon, and he helps me back onto my feet. He is shorter and has smaller fingers than most others in his species.
My legs are sore, everything is sore. I want to go home.
"Are you okay?" he asks. I tell him I am fine, but he's smart enough to give me a berry from my bag anyway, making the soreness go away. The Inteleon gets up and is about to walk away, but he notices my crossbow on the ground.
"What is this?" he asks with a tone of curiosity. I tell him that it is a "crossbow" and his curiosity intensifies. His face lights up as I explain it to him and point at all the relevant parts.
"First, the string, this mechanism… here. It holds an arrow back; and boom! Fire an…" My voice stops as I notice some other pokemon running past us in the distance. I note how organized they all are, signaling that they are not ferals. Among their group, I see an Alakazam, a Butterfree, a Mankee, a Flareon, a Drowzee, and a Floatzel.
They run behind a small cove where I cannot see what they are doing. After a moment, a flash of light appears from behind their wall, and just as fast as I saw them, they all vanish. I'm confused so I ask Hypno about it.
"What was that?" I abandon the hope of getting an answer from him as he looks to be just as confused as I am.
"That was a freelance team. It looks like they just stole our loot." Inteleon answers instead after I had forgotten that he was there. He looks for my reaction and continues. "They are teams that work independently of the guild. That team, 'Team Desire', is known for being rather scummy with taking other people's work."
We are unconcerned about it, as the guild has a very lenient policy on situations like this. In fact, they just bought us some free time with how long it should take us to get to the end of the dungeon. We talk more about things like the crossbow, the guild, and teams.
The Inteleon tells us his name is actually Dan.
On the last topic, Dan brings up something unexpected.
"Well, the Guildmaster needs me to find a new team rather soon..." There's silence in the room for a moment. Hypno and I also need a third member, so it would be convenient, but this quickly after we met?
"And I mean, really soon." Hypno and I look at each other, and then silently decide.
AN: Things are starting to kick off, and I would love to hear what you think. Thanks to SnowLabrador for beta reading!