Wow, chapter 10 already? How the time flies.

Thanks again to all my readers… except the hundreds of you who didn't write a review.

Nah, I'm kidding, but still, please review.

Chapter 10: Power Overwhelming

Location: Havok Sewer, Level 8

"Finally made it." Lloyd was exhausted, he had to sit for a minute. "Hand me an apple Rita."

"Umm, ok." She rummaged through the bag. "Sorry, I think were all out, got plenty of Oran Berries though." She gave him one. He began to eat right away.

"Hooray for us, we've passed the exam." Lloyd said between bites.

"Hey, we're not done yet, we still have two floors left!"

"You're not honestly thinking of going all the way are you? You heard Ewan, nobody has got all the way since the captain did it 40 years ago."

"So? That means if we do it, not only do we get the glory, but we get whatever the reward is at the end!"

Lloyd went over and took the bag again. He looked inside. "That's great and all, but we only have three oran berries left, and no apples. Plus nothing else except two escape orbs. Face it, its pointless."

"Nonsense, all we need to do is be careful."

"Smell yourself and tell ME to be careful again."

"Ugh, you're hopeless. I'm going, and you're coming too."

Lloyd rolled his eyes. "Wait up…"

---

Location: Havoc Sewer, Level 9

Rita and Lloyd were running as fast as they could down the halls of the 9th floor. In pursuit was six Golbats.

"I told you! I told you! This is all your fault!"

"No its not, its Ewans for being so vague about this place!"

"You'd better hope we get this reward or else!"

Rita and Lloyd rounded the corner and continued to run. Luckily the Golbats didn't notice and continued to go forward into a different hallway, chasing nothing.

They were both out of breath. "Well, we lost them." Remarked Rita.

"For now, but I'm sure if we don't find the stairs soon, those Golbat will find us again."

"Well, we saw most of the rooms while we ran, so it must be around…"

"Yeah, but lets be quite about it ok Rita? Hey Rita?"

Lloyd turned around to see what was holding up Rita, but she wasn't there. Lloyd looked up and saw where Rita had gone, she was being eaten by a giant purple pokemon, a Muk!

"Oh that's nasty. DON'T WORRY RITA I'LL GET YOU OUT!"

Muk towered over Lloyd, there was no way he could attack it physically, and an electric attack would also hurt Rita.

Muk slowly crawled over to Lloyd. Lloyd was running out of space and needed to think of something fast.

Then Lloyd saw something above Muk, pipes.

"Man I hope something painful is in those."

Lloyd stood his ground and powered up a thunder shock. Muk got closer and closer, its eyes focused on Lloyd. When Muk was right beneath the pipes. Lloyd let lose his attack right at the pipes, causing them to all burst.

Lloyd was lucky once again, the pipes were full of extremely hot steam. Muk got a direct blast in the face with steam.

It regurgitated Rita so that it could a quick escape, then fled into a pool of slime.

Rita smelled even worse then before.

"Hey there stinky, what's hanging?"

"Out of the way I'm gonna throw up…"

She ran past him around the corner. Lloyd laughed as she left.

"What the matter? Muk got your tongue? Or did you have his? Ahahaha!"

"Shut up and come here, the stairs are in this room."

"Ok Rita, and by the way, I told you…"

Rita slammed her leaf into Lloyds face as he passed the corner.

"Owww…"

---

Location: Havoc Sewer, Final Level

"See? No problem! We made it!"

"After being chased around for a half hour. And after you got EATEN. Did you forget about that?"

Obviously she had, because she wasn't listening to Lloyd and was walking towards the end of the sewer to claim the prize.

"Hey wait! What that's happened today makes you think it's a good idea to run up ahead?"

"You're worrying to much again."

The final floor contained no hallways, no other rooms, and no wild pokemon in sight. The only thing were a few more canals and pools of the usual disgusting sludge. And a pedestal at the far end of the room.

Rita homed in onto the pedestal, making the assumption that's where the reward was.

"Look, there is nothing left between us and the reward. Lets just get it and get out."

Lloyd couldn't really argue, the Mystery Dungeon was finished, they were an official Brotherhood team, and they were about to earn some highly sought after reward. What could go wrong?

SPLASH!

"Hold it right there."

The voice belonged to Zar.

"What are you doing here? How did you get in?" Said Rita.

When Zar landed on the ground, he caused dust to fly everywhere. Rita and Lloyd lost sight of each other.

"It should be obvious now why I'm here, and how… well it was a lot easier thanks to my new power."

When the dust settled. Lloyd and Rita saw Zar, but he was no longer a Charmander, he had evolved into a Chameleon.

"So, I'll ask this one more time, will you come quietly? Or will you both have to suffer?"

Lloyd stood his ground, unafraid of Zar despite his evolution. "We'll never surrender to you, you're a villain and a criminal and you must be stopped! Right Rita?"

Rita wasn't listening, in fact she wasn't paying attention at all, she was at the base of the pedestal trying to reach to the top of it, obviously for the prize.

"Rita!"

"Huh? What? Hey, when'd Zar get here? And hey, he's evolved!"

Both Zar and Lloyd had slapped their foreheads in disbelief.

"Enough of this foolishness, your coming with me!"

Zar inhaled a deep breath, Lloyd figured he was preparing one of his fire attacks. Lloyd stood there and waited for him to attack, Zar had used his flamethrower move directly at Lloyd, at the last moment Lloyd dodged the attack with a swift leap into the air.

Lloyd knew he wouldn't have time to charge a thunder shock, Zar was faster to the draw. If he was going to win, it would have to be with his physical attacks. Unfortunately, Lloyd had been relying on his thunder shock until now.

"Hey I got it!" yelled Rita. "No wait, I just knocked it over a little, don't worry it'll just take a sec…"

"Rita! Will you forget that thing and help?"

"But it might help us win against Zar!"

Looks like I'm on my own. If Lloyd was going to get close enough to Zar, he would have to wait for him to attack.

Just as the thought had crossed his mind. Zar breathed inwards for another fire attack. Lloyd waited once again for it to come, and when it did, he dodged it. This time, instead of just jumping sideways. He leaped over the blazing fire towards Zar.

Lloyd swung his tail around and smacked it across Zar's face, Zar didn't expect the blow and couldn't counter his acrobatic assault. Lloyd didn't give him time to recover, he leaped at Zar and tackled him in the stomach, his final attack was to leap onto his back, charge up, and shock him with a point blank thunder shock.

There's no way he can stand after that.

But Lloyd was wrong, Zar not only was still standing, he looked as though Lloyd never attacked at all. With blinding speed Zar closed the distance between him and Lloyd and slashed rapidly with both claws. Lloyd couldn't do anything as claw after claw struck him.

Lloyd couldn't take it anymore, he fell backwards onto the cold ground. Zar stepped over and placed one of his feet on Lloyd to prevent him from escaping.

"Looks like your little journey is ending early."

Zar stood over Lloyd, and began to inhale, preparing for a final flamethrower. Lloyd closed his eyes and waited for the attack. It never came.

From the other side of the room, Rita interrupted Zar with her leaf attack. Either she got the item, couldn't reach it or finally came to her senses… Definitely one of the first two.

"Lets get this guy Lloyd, once and for all!"

While Rita pelted Zar with leaf attacks, Lloyd used the time to stand up and get away. Now he had all the time in the world to use thunder shock.

"Rita, lets use both our attacks at once. Ready?"

"Yeah!"

"Then attack now!"

With perfect timing, Rita had used leaf attack at the same time that Lloyd charged up and used a thunder shock, both attacks hitting Zar.

"Keep it up Rita, I'm going for him!"

Rita understood, and attacked over and over with leaf attack. Zar stood his ground and took each one. Lloyd ran up to the distracted Zar and swiped his tail at his legs, tripping Zar. Before Zar could get up Lloyd jumped on top of him and charged a final thunder shock, looking directly into Zar's eyes as he had done so to Lloyd.

"Looks like your little hunt is ending early."

At that moment, Lloyd released more energy then ever before, all directed downwards into Zar. Unlike before, Zar couldn't endure.

"Impossible… I had so much power… how?"

Without another word, Zar fainted. Lloyd and Rita had won.

"Looks like that's the end of the that." Said Rita, she walked to where Zar and Lloyd were in the room.

"I doubt it, Zar said it was his boss that wanted me. That means this is only going to delay everything."

"Even still, you've proved you can handle yourself against such a tough opponent. This Boss guy is gotta be worried."

"Here's hoping. So did you get the reward from the pedestal?"

"Yeah, but I have no idea what it is. I figured we could ask the captain, he would probably know."

"Good idea." Lloyd looked around. Somewhere there was a ladder up, back to the surface.

When he spotted it, he looked up and up, the ladder disappeared into the darkness engulfing the room of the room.

"One last problem, how are we getting Zar upstairs?"

Lloyd pointed at the ladder so Rita could find it. When she saw it she looked at it with a gaping mouth.

"Uhh, well, I guess since I thought of visiting the captain, it's your turn to figure out the solution."

Lloyd laughed. "Well, you got me there. I guess the only thing we can do is carefully push him up as we climb."

"Yeah, that'll be your job." She wiggled one of her legs. "Hard to do with no fingers."

They both laughed. They dragged Zar over and began the long climb, Lloyd balancing Zar on his head with one hand and climbing with the other.

---

Location: HQ, back on the surface with Ewan and the fighting pokemon.

"Uh, Ewan." It was the Machop. All of them were sitting on the floor waiting for Rita and Lloyd to return. "Its been quite a while. You think the wild pokemon beat them?"

Ewan let out a sigh. "Looks like it, ok boy, you know the drill. Lets get down there and find them both. Too bad really, they seemed to have such potential…"

"Hey, don't figure us for losers yet."

It was Rita, she had come out from the hole leading to the 10th level. Ewan was speechless.

"Especially when you haven't seen our little gift."

When she said that, Ewan had thought she meant the reward at the end of the 10th floor. But then he saw a red pokemon pop out of the hole, along with Lloyd, who was pushing the red pokemon up.

"Wait, is this who I think it is?"

"Yep." Said Rita. "This is the fugitive Zar, and we captured him all by ourselves after passing one hundred percent of the sewer."

"This is… Incredible… you guys are going to be legends around here!"

"Was there any doubt?"

Nobody seemed to notice what was happening to Zar except Lloyd, who had decided to rest after the long climb. Zar was glowing as if he was evolving, but this time it seemed different, like he was losing, not gaining, power.

Then, before Lloyd's eyes, Zar transformed into the Charmander he originally met. He had de-evolved.

"Um, guys! Come look at this!"

Wondering what the fuss was about, everyone, including the two fighting pokemon sent to assist Ewan came over. When they all saw Zar, no longer a Charmeleon, but a Charmander, they all gasped aloud.

"This is unbelievable… he actually devolved?"

"You know what happened Ewan?"

"I've never even heard of such a thing, forget seen it myself. This is not good…"

"What's gonna happen now anyways Ewan? We passed the exam with flying colors. And…" But Rita saw Ewan wasn't listening, he continued to stare at Zar as if he was slowly turning inside out. "Um, Ewan?"

"Listen you two, you should head back to your rooms. I'll come by and talk to you later. For now I recommend not talking to anyone and just staying in your room. Understand?"

"Yeah, but…" began Rita.

"No buts, just go, NOW!"

Rita and Lloyd didn't need to be told twice, both left the room together and went straight to their room.

"Wow, that do you thinks going on Lloyd?"

"I don't know, but from how Ewan was reacting, things are going to get a whole lot more complicated."