Chapter 11: In a Fog

The following morning, the sun broke over the horizon and its light began to filter through the treetops along the path from Bluewhorl Town to Tromba's Mystery Dungeon. Along with daylight and the blue sky, signs of diurnal life returned to the woods along the path. There was the sound of ferals yawning and moseying themselves awake from further off in the undergrowth. In the distance down the hill, the faint smoke and din from the town in the distance evidenced that the skeleton crew that served Bluewhorl's more nocturnal residents had traded places with the normal Pokémon that helped keep the town running by day.

Tromp tromp tromp

And there was also the sound of two Rescue Teams trudging up the path for the fog. At the rear was a seasoned team with scarves that consisted of a green and a white field forming a sawtooth pattern, separated by a tan divider. Their ranks consisted of a Shiftry, a Croconaw, a Loudred, and their temporary Swellow addition for the day, Kiran. Up ahead of them on the path was Team Traveler, the band of rookies who were going to prove themselves today…

That they were ready to break into Normal Rank…

That the sea god among them would discover just what it would take to serve as Tromba's Protector and how to draw out his true power...

Or at least that was the hope.

"Are we there yet?" the team's Growlithe whined as he hopped over a root, a rude satchel slung over his back, which did not escape Nida's notice.

"We have a bag for the team, you know, so you don't need that," Nida growled, pointing to the Growlithe's bag.

"Relax, Elty," Crom admonished. The Druddigon perched on a stump at the rear of the group, his wings spread out to catch some warming rays from the sun. The ruddy lizard then gave his wings a lively beat and glided along with a leaping start to catch up with his teammates. "We just started going up the path a few minutes ago!"

"And why are you suddenly so hesitant to go someplace where you can pick fights with other Pokémon, anyways?" Nida grumbled, flattening out her ears.

"Because I'm not getting anything out of this!"

Of course. Nida sighed to herself and rolled her eyes. The complaint did make a kind of sense, albeit the kind that made her want to give the ex-pirate a stiff headbutt to knock some respect into him. Mercifully for Elty, her train of thought was interrupted after Pleo hopped up from the path onto a tree branch high above, clambering onto it on his way down.

"Kiran? Aren't you guys supposed to be shadowing us while we rescue that Substitute today?" he called behind him to the path below, where Kiran and Team Sawtooth dutifully followed along behind their younger charges.

"Hmm?" the Swellow asked. The blue and red bird tilted his head at Pleo curiously, as the young Lugia carefully inched along the branch, spreading his wings out for balance.

"Well, your shadow's not touching any of us," Pleo replied as he paced tottering towards the end of the branch he was on.

"Uh… 'Shadowing' means that we'll follow you around," Pitys corrected, the Shiftry sighing at this little Protector's rather… erm, literal train of thought.

"Yeah, and that's what we're doing now," Cardellini, her Croconaw teammate assured, calling up to the little white bird who was perched at the end of a now sagging-branch.

"Hmm. I guess that makes sense," Pleo mused to himself, drawing a wing to his mouth as he looked around. "But… then why call it-? Oh! Look! Look!"

Pleo noticed something off in the direction of the sea and began to gesture wildly at it. His companions hastily tried to make out what Pleo saw between the tree trunks along the path, just in case it was another pirate ship like the day up at Marley and Teja's field. Kiran flew up over the treetops and saw that from Pleo's vantage point, one could see a simple wooden pavilion on a seaside ledge.

"Heh, that's your ánima!" Kiran cheerily squawked. "Come on, we'll stop by it!"

Pleo eagerly leapt off his branch, catapulting himself into the air and flapping all the way down to the earth. After stumbling to a stop on the ground, he dusted himself off and dashed on ahead, his companions quickly following suit with a chorus of "Pleo! Wait up!" and other pleas for the little sea guardian to be a bit more patient and run a little more slowly.

Before long, Pleo found the fork in the path that led to the shrine and darted up to it, staring at this rude little structure with a strange upside-down cup thingy in it. Oh, so that must be a bell! Except Pleo couldn't understand for the life of him why that Aggron that attacked them back in the raid would think it would've been tasty at all.

As Pleo poked his head into the little structure and began to gawk at the paintings that were plastered on undersides of the roof panels, he heard footsteps running up. The young Protector turned around to see his teammates approaching the shrine as he began to wonder...

"I don't understand, why is this here?" he asked.

"Well..." Nida began. "Mom says that when the Cradle was being put together, Arceus left behind eggs of new gods based on the hopes of the Pokémon that lived there. The Pokémon here hoped for someone who could use the very sea and winds to protect them, and we got your egg from it."

"Uh huh! Uh huh!" Crom replied. "And as you protect us, and other Protectors start to wake up around the Cradle, the world around the Wastes will start to go back to normal!"

"It… will? Just from me being a Protector?" Pleo chirped.

"Yep!" the Druddigon cheered, wagging his tail a bit. "Your presence will help restore balance to the world, or at least that's how the stories go! That's why the Pokémon on this island built this shrine, so that we could always give thanks to you!"

Nida and Crom seemed sunny and to be enjoying themselves as they explained the purpose of the shrine and began to look around at the surrounding seascape.

Elty on the other hand, looked, well...

"That pathetic little rudera is supposed to be a gesture of thanks?"

Judging from the exasperated scowl that crept over his face and how quickly his ears folded back, 'unimpressed' probably was a generous way of putting it.

"Eh? But I think it looks pretty!" Pleo protested, as he felt his foot brush up against something that fell against a rock with a faint thud. Pleo craned his head down, and discovered that the object that made the noise was a little red berry, apparently frozen over.

"Eh? Isn't this one of Hariti's berries?" he asked as he inspected the little fruit.

"Huh. Looks like she must have left it as an offering earlier," Nida said to herself.

"Hrm? But why would she do that?" Pleo questioned, as he tilted his head at the Nidoran.

"It's an offering," Crom explained, beating his wings a little as he stretched a bit on the sun-drenched pathway. "Pokémon in town leave food there for you!"

"Oh! I see!" Pleo chirped, as he brought his head down to peck at the frosty red-colored little morsel, only to suddenly hear a cry.

"Hey!"

"Huh?!" Pleo squawked. He whirled around to the source of the voice, and saw a little yellow rodent with black ears and brown stripes hastily burst out of some bushes. Pleo wasn't sure what this little creature wanted, but noticed that much like the Zigzagoon who had caused a ruckus through Mildrew's field just before the Iron Fleet's raid on Bluewhorl, she wasn't wearing a scarf.

Pleo looked back at his teammates and saw that all of them had tensed up and had adopted defensive positions. Nida had her barbs fanned out, Crom had his claws bared and opened his maw a little, and Elty had steadied his legs in order to pounce at a moment's notice.

"I was going to eat that!" the Pikachu huffed, electricity dancing on the hairs of its pelt.

Oh, this must have been another one of those 'ferals', and based off of his teammates, it seemed to Pleo as if he wasn't supposed to trust her. The little Lugia braced himself, and beat its wings in protest.

"But it's mine! It's my 'anime'-thingy!"

"Er… Pollito," Kiran's voice admonished. Pleo looked up and saw the Swellow swoop in and perch on one of the eaves of the shrine. Team Sawtooth, with their jagged-patterned scarves, ran in behind the younger Pokémon with blue scarves with white stars.

The sight of all these much stronger Pokémon appearing made the sparks on the Pikachu's pelt abruptly die, and the little mouse folded its ears back and began to try and make itself look small. As the younger Pokémon began to pick up on the yellow rodent's unease, they eased themselves and traded awkward looks with each other, leaving Pleo to ask uneasily...

"Isn't it? Nida and Crom even said so..."

"Well, isn't that what everyone in town says?" Crom murmured.

"So shouldn't whatever gets left there be his?" Nida asked.

"Well, kids... over the years," Kiran began. "The town's let the ferals have the food."

"Yeah, we assumed giving Pokémon that live lean lives a helping fan was what you would have wanted. Being a 'Protector' and all," the Shiftry added.

"How… come?" Pleo asked.

"Because it's my first meal since yesterday!" the Pikachu squeaked, which made Pleo stare at the creature, and then up to Kiran.

"Pleo," he explained, flapping down and coming to a rest next to his white and blue charge. "Part of being a Protector is looking out for Pokémon that don't have it as well as you, even if they're strange to you."

'Looking out for'? Pleo thought to himself. How was skipping out on his food supposed to be protecting another Pokémon? As Pleo looked from his berry and over at the Pikachu, he noticed that the creature seemed lean and its fur seemed scraggly and unkempt, as if she had a busy and weary day, without time even to stop and eat… all while it was still morning.

Maybe… maybe 'protecting' Pokémon meant more than simply keeping mean Pokémon like Hess from hurting them... things like making sure the Pokémon next to you didn't go hungry.

"I mean, I guess," the Pikachu mumbled as she looked at the ground. "If you really need it, I could skip it…"

"It's alright, you haven't eaten for longer than me," Pleo replied. The Pikachu then eyed the frozen berry cautiously, and as she cautiously eyed the surrounding Pokémon, she scooped it up, gave a bow to the little guardian present, and then scurried back off into the bushes.

"I guess we should get going, too," Crom murmured as the Pikachu vanished into the undergrowth. "I'll make up the berry to you. After all, we've got loaves from mom's bakery!"

The Druddigon fished out two golden loaves from Kiran's bag. As was his custom, he left one at the base of the shrine, and began to tear up the other and share it with his companions. One for Pleo, one for himself, and of course, one for Nida...

"Ready to get going, Pleo?" Nida asked as she took her portion of bread loaf. The question made Pleo pause for a moment as he helped himself to his piece.

"You'll be there beside me, right?" he asked through a beakful of bread.

"Uh huh! Uh huh!" Crom cheerfully replied as he tore off a chunk for his newest teammate.

"Hrmph… I don't have much of a choice," Elty grumbled as he snatched up his piece of Crom's loaf, occasionally shooting dissatisfied looks at the loaf the dragon had just left there on the shrine's base.

"Of course we will," Nida reassured in between nibbles of her portion. "We're a team, remember?"

"Then… I think that I am," Pleo replied, ruffling his feathers as he drew near to his teammates. Crom was the first to lead the charge, marching on past Team Sawtooth. One by one, his teammates and the shadowing team followed suit, returning to the path in between the trees that wound its way up Tromba's mountains… on towards that strange, thick fog that hung from the peaks.


Before too long, Nida, Crom, Elty, Pleo, and their shadowing team found themselves in a foggy portion of forest, standing in front of a yawning cave entrance that acted as the last barrier between Tromba and the distorted floors within the Mystery Dungeon just ahead.

"Do we all know the rules for going in?" Kiran asked, keenly eyeing his charges who today would have to trawl through the floors on their own. Nida and Crom couldn't help but give each other exasperated looks, as usual.

"Um," Nida grumbled, flattening out her ears.

"Kiran," Crom added, as he slapped a claw over his snout. It was something that they had been through many times before, and judging from Elty's unamused scowl, he was certainly in their same camp.

"Look, I might not be from your island, but what kind of moron doesn't know how to safely enter a Mystery-?" he snapped, before he noticed that Pleo was staring blankly at the Swellow.

"Oh, right," the Growlithe grumbled to himself. Nida and Crom did say that this would be the feather duster's first time in a Mystery Dungeon, so of course he wouldn't know!

"What are they, Kiran?" Pleo asked.

"Why don't you explain this time, kids?" Kiran asked as he gestured to Crom and Nida with a wing.

"Stay together in the fog, don't wander off the path, and don't run into the dungeon," they dutifully recited, this time not groaning at this routine reminder since one of their companions actually needed it this time.

"Yeah, what they said!" Elty added hastily as Kiran quickly talked some matters over with Team Sawtooth that the younger Pokémon couldn't make out before Pitys spoke up.

"We'll be letting you guys lead the way in today, you know how to get in, right?"

"I sure do!" Crom answered. "All you've gotta do is make sure your feet are always on the path!"

"And when the fog gets all espesa?" Alto asked, the Loudred's booming voice carrying off into the distance.

"Keep your head close to the ground to check!" Crom dutifully replied.

"Seems like they've got the hang of it, Kiran," Cardellini said. "And if you kids run into any trouble, we'll take over for you."

"I'll follow whichever one of you will be at the end, so feel free to organize the team, Crom," Kiran replied as he turned to quickly preen some shoulder feathers. Crom stopped and eyed his teammates, before he bent down to address the Nidoran.

"You hitching a ride again this time, Nida?" he asked, his jagged maw giving the closest approximation to a smile a Druddigon could muster.

"Actually… I think I'll pass this time, Crom," Nida said, putting a paw to her mouth as she looked aside.

"Eh?!" the young Druddigon cried out of surprise. "But you always-!"

He then noticed that Nida was glancing at Pleo, who was busy preening some flight feathers on his wing.

"Someone probably needs the company a bit more," she explained. "It'll be his first time going through the fog, remember?"

"Ah, right. Good catch," Crom replied. "Pleo! Hold on tight to my tail as we go in-! Ow!"

Crom then felt Pleo latching onto the end of his tail with his beak, as he cheerily replied in a muffled tone.

"Likth dath?" he asked.

"Um… Pleo, let's try using your wings," Nida said, sighing. The Nidoran then hopped up onto Pleo's shoulders and sat at the base of his neck and after a little prodding, the Lugia let go of Crom's tail and gave the dragon a moment to wag some sensation back into it. After Crom seemed to be ready, Pleo again latched onto the Druddigon's tail, this time by pressing it firmly between his wings. Yep, everyone was now accounted for, except...

"Alright," declared the Growlithe's voice. "So I'll just go at the very end of the- Gark!"

The former pirate yelped as felt himself being lifted off the ground by the scruff of his neck, then drawn into a tight clutch of two arms coated in rough scales as Crom looked down at him with those piercing eyes of his.

"Yeah, nice try, Elty," he said. "But you'll be sticking with me today."

"Hey! I can handle myself fine! And your scales chafe!" Elty whined as Kiran grabbed Pleo's tail with his own wings and Team Sawtooth latched onto each other, grasping tails, arms, or shoulders to finish their chain.

"Alright, I think we're good here. Lead the way, Crom!" Kiran called out.

"I'm on it!" Crom cheered, as he began trudging past the lip of the cave, deeper and deeper into the mist.

As the Druddigon lead the group deeper and deeper into the haze, Pleo keenly eyed his young guide. Crom always trudged forth slowly and carefully, sometimes stopping and bending down to eye and sniff at the ground to make sure he hadn't strayed off the path. Even as his form became more and more indistinct from the haze, it was a process the young Druddigon dutifully kept up. With each step forward, less and less of the world stayed visible to the Lugia. The feeling of Nida on his shoulders, Crom's tail before him, and Kiran's wings behind him being the only sensations that seemed to not grow more muddled as he went along.

"Why do we have to go through this fog thing?" Pleo asked the riding Nidoran on his shoulders.

"That's just how the barrier to the Distortion works," Nida replied. "It apparently was that way even back in the days of humans."

"Yeah, there's stories about the different ways humans would try to mark paths through them back when they were around," Crom called off from ahead. "In one of them, they tried building pillars along the path as a guide!"

"Not that we'd ever know for sure," Kiran explained as Pleo watched the Swellow's face became harder and harder to make out in the fog. "All of those Distortions, if they're even around anymore, would be somewhere out in the Wastes."

As they kept walking along, more and more of the world around Pleo vanished. Team Sawtooth's Pokémon were the first to vanish, blotted out from Pleo's view by the fog. Kiran was next, and soon enough Pleo couldn't even make out his own tail. Then came Crom and Nida, as the fog enveloped more and more of Pleo, to the point where he couldn't even see past the end of his snout.

All the while, everything seemed to become… wrong. The chatter of his teammates, the smell of the path's surroundings, even the very feel of the air surrounding him and the path under his feet... all of it became murky, heavy, and strange, as if Crom had lead everyone into the clutch of some strange and awful snare that was closing in on him… leaving him all alone.

Pleo stopped trudging forward, not daring to move his wings or take another step, and began to call out, frightened.

"N-Nida?! Nida!"

He tried to look about, but all there was around him was this thick, oppressive haze. Pleo's heart sank and he began to wish that he was back in the town, back where he could see the sun and the sky, where everyone seemed happy and content. All of a sudden, Pleo felt something soft on his back, and heard a small voice from the haze.

"-eep going...! alm... -ough!" it called. Wait a minute, that voice… It was Nida's!

"Nida! Where are you?!" he cried, before he began to hear other voices.

"Don… -ive up!"

"So -ose!"

"-oin… grea…!"

"-ollow… -om!"

Pleo stopped and shuffled his feet… Were these sounds his teammates? Or was it all just a trick? He stood there, torn at what to do, before a voice murmured through the haze.

"right here... -side you."

It was then that Pleo shook his head and the fog suddenly seemed less overwhelming. Even if he couldn't see them, his friends really were still right beside him. He felt a tug between his wings, and decided that as disorienting as everything seemed, it was safe to press on. So he went, trudging step by step, letting Crom's tail be his guide.

Little by little, the air felt lighter and lighter and the sound of flowing water became clearer and clearer along with an increasingly strong smell of salt as the haze began to recede. Nida, Crom, Kiran… One by one, the different Pokémon that had gone along with Pleo through the mist returned to the guardian's vision, until they were all there again.

As last wisps of fog cleared away, Pleo saw that Crom led everyone into a simple sea cave with a pool of water that stretched along the wall to the right and a narrow corridor at the end.

"Make it through alright, pollito?" Kiran asked as he sidled up to Pleo. "You seemed like you took the trip through a little hard."

"I think so," Pleo murmured uneasily as he looked about the stone chamber. "But why does the fog get so scary?"

"You'll get used to it with time, Pleo," Nida explained. "It always seems scary the first time around."

"Alright, so this is as far as we'll lead you today," Pitys declared as she brushed her fans together and shook some life into them.

"Wait, it… is?" Pleo asked. "But I thought we were exploring!"

"Emphasis on 'we'," Crom replied as he stretched his limbs. "We'll be leading the way for the practice rescue, Kiran and the others will be following. Think of it as kinda being like our times going through Maestra Mosca's maze."

"I guess that makes sense," Pleo said to himself.

"And if you guys ever find yourself in need of a speedy exit, you've got an easy way to make that happen!" Kiran cheered before he pressed his badge with a wing, which quickly caused a familiar Kirlia's voice to flood the minds of the present Pokémon.

"Yeah, what is it, Kiran? I'm juggling stuff!"

"Oh, hi wall-talker!" Pleo cheered as he waved ahead, and then blinked and looked around sheepishly as he remembered that the Guild's psychics didn't have to be anywhere nearby to speak with him.

"It's Pataki, Pleo," Crom corrected. The voice, realizing who was in the party, suddenly adopted a much more congenial demeanor.

"Oh! Right! It's the Protector's big day! Ahehe, I'm sure that I can manage if he needs some help. Or maybe someone to keep that lordly mind of his company in that dreary sea cave~"

"You know, I'm pretty sure that you just made the whole 'being stuck alone in a dreary sea cave that shifts around' sound a lot more appealing right now," Elty said, rolling his eyes at the Kirlia's broadcast thoughts.

"Shut it, mutt!"

Kiran let go of his badge- no sense in getting into an argument with Pataki this early into the mission. He then motioned for his teammates to draw near, and embraced them all with his wings, even Elty.

"Good luck, kids," he said, giving a tight squeeze before letting the group free. "We'll be rooting for you!"

They all quietly nodded, before Crom turned around and began to trudge for the corridor in the back. His companions followed after the young dragon one by one as Kiran waited at the entrance with Team Sawtooth, watching his pupils vanish deeper into the maze.

"Where you go here is all up to you," he chirped to himself.


After finding each floor's stairs, Team Traveler would wait on Kiran and Team Sawtooth to come along. Then they would all go down the stairs together, the Distortion sealing up the path behind them as the Pokémon made their way deeper into the Mystery Dungeon. Once they reached the next floor, the young rookies would then once again trudge on ahead as the others sat and once again waited for them to slip out of their line of sight.

The first two floors of the dungeon were quiet ones that day, with the only real encounters in the routine the two teams established being Pataki's gushing whenever Pleo happened to brush his badge, much to the annoyance of his teammates. Still, they couldn't complain too much about things, the Substitute that the team was to 'rescue' was supposed to be somewhere between the fifth and seventh floors that day, and here they were, still on the third.

The third floor that day had been created by the Distortion as a simple collection of large chambers, mostly bereft of the spindly and narrow passageways that the team had trained in back at the Dojo. The trappings of this floor were mostly what one would expect from a sea cave: stony ceilings, floors, and walls, a few shallow pools and streams of sea water…

With one rather obvious exception.

"Look! The water's going up!" Pleo cried out.

The young Lugia pointed at a wall in their cave passageway covered with cascading seawater. Except the direction the water flowed in went from bottom to top.

"Er… Well, it seems to be, yeah," Nida murmured. She had to admit, watching that curious fascination that Guild members often felt their first time in the Mystery Dungeon was cute, but…

Was Pleo going to do this for everything out of the ordinary he ran across?

"That's so cool!" Pleo chirped. "Can we make a wall of water like this back home?"

"Tch. Not likely, they call the thing that makes these Mystery Dungeons the 'Distortion' for a reason!" a voice called out.

Pleo and Nida looked behind them and saw Elty hopping between stones over the stream of water which emptied up the wall. The little dog keenly eyed each rock, tensing up before each leap...

Splash!

... only to slip on his final jump and fall into the stream. The Growlithe slipped under the surface for a moment, before he bolted back up to his feet and quickly climbed out of the stream, coughing up some water.

"Bah… At least it's shallow," Elty grumbled to himself. The little dog crept up the edge of the pool, dripping all the while before he stopped and vigorously shook himself to try and dry his pelt.

"Heey! Come on! We can't find that Substitute if we're just sitting around here looking at the cave!" Crom cried from further down the passageway.

"Come on, Pleo, we should get going," Nida said as she turned and began to carefully trudge forward to Crom's position.

"And if we take too long here, we might get caught up when the Distortion blows away the floor," Elty chimed in as he darted off towards Crom.

"'Blows away the floor'?" Pleo asked nervously as he followed his Nidoran teammate.

Nida flattened out her ears. Why did Elty have to bring that up right now? This was Pleo's first time in the Mystery Dungeon, and the last thing anyone on the team needed was a jittery and panicky teammate in such an unstable environment.

"It's something that happens occasionally. No te preocupes! We'd be able to get enough warning to get to safety if the floor was about to get shifted up," Nida reassured.

It seemed to be good enough for the young Protector; his momentary unease wavered and then melted away as he went back to following along after Nida, occasionally casting glances back at the inverted waterfall.

The two followed Crom deeper into the maze, down a path which led the group through a broad pool that came up to Nida's knees. There were portions of the pool that gave way to darker shades of blue; presumably the deep ends. But as long as the team stayed where it was shallow-

"Ow!"

A voice cried out from ahead, and was quickly joined by Crom's.

"Gyaaah!"

Much to the shock of everyone present, Crom abruptly fell backwards into the water. He narrowly missed Nida and Elty, who sidestepped the Druddigon's body at the last minute. After the minor panic, everyone's eyes quickly settled upon a pink, wraith-like jellyfish that burst out from the water ahead of the Druddigon.

"That's my tentacle you stepped on, jerk!" the Frillish hissed as she glared at the blue and red intruder.

"Ack! Sorry! Sorry! We didn't see you!" Crom stammered.

"Yeah, do you think we just hopped into this pool for laughs or something?" Elty barked.

"Look, we're sorry about the trouble-" Nida began, before the pink creature cut her off.

"I'm sure you are!" she shouted as a red and black aura began to form around her body. "Get out!"

"Wait!" Pleo cried, waving his wings desperately at the jellyfish. "You can't attack them! I'm the Protector!"

"E-Eh?!" the creature cried out of surprise. Her aura abruptly vanished and the jellyfish began to eye the white bird skeptically. "I mean… I guess you kinda do look like how the Protector's supposed to, but…"

The Frillish paused for a moment, and then shook her head before gesturing at Nida, Elty, and Crom.

"If you're really the Protector, have your friends perform your secret ritual dance!" she cried.

"Wh-What?!" Pleo squawked.

"What dance?!" Nida cried

"My mother told me that back in the days of humans, a secret dance was used to summon the Protector in caves like this one! If that bird's really the Protector, he must have taught you it!"

Nida, Crom, and Elty stared at each other blankly. There'd been some talk of a 'Lugia's Song' in town that they'd heard hummed here and there, but they hadn't had the foggiest idea of what sort of dance was supposed to summon a bird that had trouble paying attention half the time. On top of all of that, even if they did somehow know the dance...

"Yeah… I'm not going to dance," Elty grumbled, folding back his ears.

It didn't look like they were going to have any luck performing it.

"We're doomed, aren't we?" Crom groaned, throwing a claw over his face.

"Yes, you are," the Frillish hissed, her reddish-black aura thickening and re-emerging. "That bird's an imposter!"

Before Pleo could speak back, the aura around the Frillish coalesced and focused itself into a black beam that struck Pleo in his chest and threw him backwards.

"Aah!"

As Pleo struggled back to his feet and tried to shake some sensation back into his chest (and some water off himself), the others quickly slipped into battle poses.

"We'll try diplomacy another time!" Nida cried. "Let's just fight this creepy jerk jellyfish off already!"

"Right!" Elty grunted.

"Leave us alone!" Crom roared at the Frillish, before he charged the creature and clamped down on one of her tentacles with his jaws.

"Yeargh!" the jellyfish shrieked, flailing around desperately trying to break free. As she pulled at her tentacle, an indigo aura spread over the Druddigon. As he noticed the eerie aura passing onto him along with a sudden overbearing and draining feeling, the young dragon cried out in surprise, allowing the Frillish to pull her tentacle free. Just in time for the aura to coalesce in bands that wrapped themselves around Crom's snout, clamping it shut.

"Mrrph!"

Crom began to panic, clawing at the binds around his mouth. But as hard as he tried, the strange violet binds didn't show any appreciable damage and simply refused to budge.

"Not so tough without your jaws, are ya?" the Frillish taunted as the blackish aura returned to her body. "Enjoy your curse!"

And much as she had done with Pleo, the creature's aura focused itself into a black beam which zipped forward and bowled the Druddigon over in the water.

"Mrrrrgh!"

As the Frillish darted forward to strike the Druddigon, she suddenly recoiled from a flying spike that narrowly missed her head, and a little gout of fire that passed close enough to her tentacles to singe one. The two attacks belonged to a certain Nidoran and Growlithe, who were staring down the Frillish that was now turning their direction. Nida stood much closer than Elty, who kept a healthy distance at the back.

"Elty, you can help in ways beyond sticking around in the back, you know!" she huffed to her teammate.

"Don't rush me, battling's not a science!" Elty growled back. His words were… unencouraging to say the least, as the Frillish began to close the gap with Nida, causing her to tense her barbs once more.

"Take this!"

She flicked another of her spikes from her body at the advancing jellyfish and watched it sail straight at her assailant, only for the Frillish to catch sight of the approaching spike and then abruptly fade just before it struck, leaving the projectile to pass through entirely.

Eh?! They can do that with moving objects, too-?!" Nida cried out, slack-jawed. The Frillish abruptly reappeared facing up towards the ceiling, shook her tentacles and gave a relieved sigh before turning and charging at the Nidoran. Before she could fire off another spike at the advancing Ghost-Type, she felt the familiar stream of scalding bursts and accompanying glop of a BubbleBeam.

"Ack!"

As Nida tumbled back through the water and stumbled back to her feet, she heard the sound of something bolting through the water in the direction of the Frillish, along with Pleo's voice.

"W-Wait! Leave her alone!"

Nida cleared her eyes enough to catch the Frillish whirling towards Pleo, beginning to build a dark aura around herself again as Pleo froze in his tracks.

"Eep!"

"Don't think I've forgotten about you, imposter!" the Frillish shouted at the petrified young Lugia.

Much to Nida's horror, the creature's aura coalesced again, and disgorged itself as a black beam that tore towards Pleo, making Nida flinch. Only… there were no cries of pain this time. Just the sounds of surprise from the Frillish.

"Huh?! Where'd it go?!"

When Nida's eyes opened again, she saw that Pleo had vanished from his spot. Nida gave a surprised squeak, it was then that she chanced to glance up and saw that Pleo was sailing in the air with a wobble.

"I'm flying!" he chirped, ecstatic that he was in the air, high above everyone, just barely skimming the surface of the cave's roof. "I'm fly- Whoa- Whoa!"

He then lost his balance and entered a steep dive, the Lugia plummeting like a stone back to the pool below with a splash… directly on top of the Frillish. The Frillish flopped weakly, stunned for a moment. Dazed by being landed on by a much larger creature, the jellyfish then feebly began to pull herself free.

"O-Ow- EYAAAAAH!"

The Frillish suddenly gave a shrill cry of pain intermingled with the sound of frantic splashing after Elty bit down upon her bell. Her voice wavered and her motions grew weaker until they were but occasional twitches as she slipped out of consciousness and drifted back down into the water from where she came.

"Hrmph, that far enough from the back for you, spike ball?" he asked, spitting up the taste of Frillish from his mouth.

"It's an improvement," Nida grunted, as she saw Crom stumbling over to help Pleo up onto his feet. The bands muzzling his snout began to evaporate, allowing the Druddigon to finally tear the accursed binds off.

"Is everyone alright?" the Druddigon panted, still feeling the effects of the Frillish's attack.

"My body aches a little, but I think I'm-" Pleo began, but before he could finish, the young Lugia had his attention diverted to the sight of an olive, glassy sphere that looked like it was filled with grayish, silky cords in the water. "Look!"

"Eh?" Crom began, before he too saw the sphere in the water. "Oh! Good eye! That's a Slow Orb!"

"An… 'Orb'?" the young Lugia asked as Nida bounded into the pool to fish out the Slow Orb.

"It's said that unlike things like Blast Seeds, orbs are pure crystallizations of the essence of the Distortion," Nida explained, as she nudged the orb over to Pleo. "And that depending on the orb, once they're broken, they'll either affect everyone close enough who's touched it… Or for orbs like this one, everyone close enough who hasn't touched it."

"They're supposed to be best used inside Mystery Dungeons," Crom added. "If you try using them outside, the ones that do work aren't nearly as effective out there."

Pleo stared into the strange, greenish orb, and pecked at it gently. It felt smooth and cold like one of the glass jars in town that Pokémon put moss or candles in for light, and even made a similar plinking noise. The Lugia then pushed the bauble forward with his beak, but couldn't help but feel uneasy about something.

"Wait… but isn't this 'orb' thingy the Frillish's? It was in her pool of water, wasn't it?"

"Meh, who cares?" Elty grunted. "Finder's keepers!"

"We did just get jumped for no good reason by her. And she covered me in that asquerosa bubbly glop!" Nida grumbled, flattening out her ears as she brought the Slow Orb over to the bag Crom was holding. "I'm pretty sure that's grounds for demanding something in return- Oh."

"We don't have any space left in the bag, Crom," she sighed.

"Well, I've got plenty of space in mine!" Elty offered, nosing at the bag he was still carrying from the evening he came to Tromba. "Put it here!"

There was a pause as the other three Pokémon present traded skeptical looks with each other before Nida tersely broke the silence.

"Yeah, I think we'll heal to make room, thanks."

"Daj mi spokój! I bailed you out!" the Growlithe complained. "Can't I get a little bit of trust here?!"

"It would get more confusing with two bags to have to juggle, Elty," Crom said as he began trudging through the water towards the shore. "Come on, we should get out of this pool and get patched up anyways."

The team trudged on wearily to the other side of the pool and came to a rest on the rocks. It was decided that Nida would tend to Crom, and she could also tend to Pleo… as for Nida...

"Er… How are we going to heal you, Nida?" Pleo asked.

"Uh," Nida mumbled, mouth agape. She couldn't say that she was terribly confident in letting Crom try to treat her given his… Erm, need for understudy. But the team was supposed to take care of itself…

"I'll do it," Elty volunteered.

"You what?" Nida asked, her ears beginning to droop.

"What? Basic healing isn't that uncommon of a skill, is it?" the Growlithe scoffed, before giving an askew glance at Crom. "Besides, considering your alternatives…"

"Grr… Fine, but I'm going last so that way Crom and Pleo can beat the snot out of you if you get any ideas!" Nida huffed.

Well, that settled that. Nida sidled over to Crom, who had sprawled out on the ground, and began to tend to his wounds. All the while, Pleo couldn't help but feel troubled about something. He was supposed to be the Protector of Tromba Island, and not just of the Pokémon that lived in town either. So why did the Frillish get mad at him and call him an imposter when he didn't do what she wanted? Pleo thought, and thought, but couldn't come to a satisfying answer before Nida's voice interrupted his train of thought.

"Hey, it's your turn, Pleo," she said, inspecting Pleo under his feathers. "Lemme see what I can do for you about your chest. I don't think attacks like those break hide, but it should still be treated."

"Hmm? Oh, I guess that's alright," Pleo murmured, not really paying attention as Nida brought over a peeled Oran Berry and began to inspect his chest.

"Nida?" Pleo asked.

"Hmm?"

"Why did-? Nnngh!" Pleo looked down and saw that Nida had begun to apply the berry's juice to his chest. He steeled himself a bit from the pain before he returned to his train of thought. "Why did the thing you called a 'Frillish' not believe me?"

"I don't know Pleo," Nida sighed as she brushed away some more feathers from another site on Pleo's chest. "Maybe, she was just expecting something different from a Protector."

"Am I supposed to be different as a Protector though-? Ow!"

As Pleo winced from the last of the juice, Nida stopped and thought a moment as she passed the pulp up to Pleo to chew. While the white creature bit into and swallowed the Oran pulp in bits, Nida realized that she didn't really know if Pleo was supposed to be different as a Protector or not. The only thing she had to work with was folklore and what everyone said a Protector ought to be, and… well, the town had seen for themselves that not all of them seemed to come to pass. And apparently the ferals had stories and expectations of their own that she had never heard before!

"Well, I can't say that I know for sure," the Nidoran murmured. "I'm pretty sure that you're more than just a Pokémon that's supposed to show up whenever other Pokémon do some special dance, like that Frillish thought."

"Yeah, I thought that was strange too," Pleo answered. Well, that seemed to clear one thing up: even if he was supposed to be different as a Protector, it wasn't necessarily supposed to be in the way that the Frillish wanted. The realization helped to bring some relief to Pleo as Elty drew over to Nida.

"Alright, it's your turn, spike ball," the Growlithe said as he went over to grab an Oran Berry, only for the sound of the Frillish stirring to reverberate from the pool of water.

"Nnngah."

"Er," Elty groaned, biting his tongue.

"Come on, we should get going before she wakes all the way up," Nida said. "I can get healed while we wait at the stairs."

"Sounds like music to my ears," Elty sighed as the group hurriedly went further on down the chamber, the Frillish and the pool slowly slipping out of sight.


Author's Notes:

- rudera - Polish: "hovel"
- espesa - Spanish: "thick, dense"
- (¡)No te preocupes! - Spanish: "Don't worry!"
- asquerosa - Spanish: "disgusting"
- Daj mi spokój! - Polish: Interjection, roughly "Give me a break!"