Chapter 13: Back to the Wall
The floor that Team Traveler had stumbled into was a spacious cavern with a ceiling that carried on beyond the range of even Crom's vision. The ground was largely devoid of obstacles, much as the courtyards in Mosca's Dojo were. The primary exceptions were a few glowing moss beds and a network of what, depending on one's perspective, were either rather shallow pools or particularly deep puddles on the ground.
On one end of the floor's first chamber was the team, the now-sealed stairs that they had taken to get there, and some dead ends further behind them. On the other end were three corridors. One, a water-filled channel leading to a deeper pool. The other two, a pair of passages that trailed off deeper into the Mystery Dungeon…
But more importantly, the Buizel, Corsola, Frillish, Finneon, and two Zubat from earlier were also at the other end. Angered, aggressive, and worst of all, standing in between Team Traveler and any exit.
"Er… Hi there?" Elty gulped. Step by step, the Growlithe backpedaled away nervously- not that it made much of a difference. For each step Elty and the others took backwards, the six ferals took one forwards as they continued their growling march towards the group.
"We were just looking for the stairs!" Crom cried out to the advancing Pokémon. The young Druddigon's voice had a gruff, grumbling tone to it, albeit one tinged with anxious unease. "Let us through and we'll get out of here right away!"
"Oh, you'll be going places, alright!" a Zubat from the approaching group screeched.
"Hope you like seeing stars!" the Buizel hissed back at the young dragon. The creature kept her back arched and her paws dug into the ground, ready to throw her body forward at a moment's notice. The other Pokémon's postures were no less inviting, all of them also ready for sudden lunges.
Those… were not exactly the results of fruitful diplomacy. Worse still, as the group continued falling further and further back, they noticed they were running out of open ground between themselves and the chamber's stony walls to retreat to.
"Wait!" Nida squeaked to the approaching ferals. As the Nidoran continued her plea, hoping desperately as she kept her barbs spread wide and tensed that the situation could be defused peacefully against such numerous foes. "We just stepped down here!"
"Yeah! We haven't swiped anything yet!" Elty protested. As his barks reverberated in the chamber, the Growlithe's eyes darted nervously here in there for in search of something- anything that might help him give the approaching assailants the slip.
Nida screwed her eyes shut in frustration. Of all of the things for that pudgy mutt to say to a Monster House, why did he have to say that? They needed to give these Pokémon a reason not to beat the poison out of them! Something… something like…
She noticed Pleo out of the corner of her eye. Wait a minute! That could work! ... Maybe... It hadn't worked a few floors earlier, but if nothing else, it could at least buy some time to fall back. Nida shook her head, dug in her feet to stand her ground, and opened her mouth to speak...
"And you wouldn't hurt a group of Pokémon escorting the Protector, would you?" she asked the approaching ferals accusingly. Immediately, the Pokémon stopped and traded uneasy looks with each other.
"The… Protector?" the blue jellyfish asked warily as he sized up the white bird among the intruders.
"That's me!" Pleo cried. Now that the Pokémon weren't growling at him and their scowls had been displaced with stunned glances, it became much easier to muster the strength to stand firm. The Lugia spread his wings, and bellowed out in the largest voice the little bird could muster. "If you really care about me… then you'll leave them alone!"
There was a lingering, uncomfortable silence, Nida, Elty, and Crom taking the time to quietly inch back away from the mass of other Pokémon as the ferals traded uneasy looks with one another. All of a sudden, there was a splash from a nearby pool as the Finneon ahead shook his head and cleared his throat.
"Oh, yeah?" he asked, the shock slipping from his face as his expression slowly drifted back into a mistrusting glare. "Pruébamelo! You can't just say you're the Protector!"
The Finneon's skepticism seemed to rub off onto the other ferals, as hostile expressions one by one began to return to their faces. Pleo's boldness started to evaporate as his mind raced to try and think of a way to placate his audience.
"Um… Er... I'm me? I mean, I have these pretty fea-"
His uneasy words only served to make the unfriendly looks on the ferals' faces harden as they traded skeptical whispers. Suddenly, the Corsola stepped forward and demanded...
"Show us your power!"
Nida blanched after she heard the Corsola, and sinking expressions spread over her teammates' faces. All this time in the Mystery Dungeon, Pleo hadn't done anything that would really prove he was the Protector. How could he suddenly pull something from out his wings now? And if he did… would everyone wind up buried under a wall of rocks? She still remembered how that empty passage was collapsed on the day she first met the little bird.
"Er... W-Well," Pleo stammered before he shook his head and spread his wings. "Hyah!"
With all of his might, Pleo brought his wings together and sent a swirling gust of wind above the heads of the waiting ferals. Everyone flinched for a moment, and then, after the wind subsided, everyone looked around… and saw that the only change Pleo had effected was some disturbed dust and pebbles on the ground and tousled fur on one of the Zubat, whose expression was hardening into hostility once again.
"Um… C-Can I try again?" Pleo weakly groaned.
"We've seen enough!" the Finneon yelled as he burst out of the pool. "Time to tan your hides!"
The creature spat a jet of water out at Pleo, which struck him in the face, sending him tumbling back with a startled squawk. Without missing a beat, the Lugia hastily picked himself up and dashed off, retreating behind the rest of the team. After shaking his head to regain his wits and recover from the sting of the jet of water, Pleo saw that his teammates, while still wide-eyed and anxious much as he was, were all poised in battle stances.
"Brace yourselves!" Nida cried. "We're gonna have to fight our way out of this!"
Pleo hastily tensed and drew his neck and wings close to his body, the last beads of water from the fish's attack rolling off his plumes. Meanwhile, Crom ran towards the Finneon that lead the charge, and dug out a round, scaled, orange-ish seed.
"Grr! You just won't listen, will you?!" he growled back at the Finneon before he popped the seed into his mouth.
"Take this!" Crom cried, biting down on the orange seed. A brilliant gout of fire erupted out of his maw and onto the Finneon, who had unwisely charged on ahead into terrain that was out of his element. The flames swallowed up the hapless fish and sent him tumbling along the ground shrieking in pain. Ultimately, the creature came to rest in a pool, floating upside-down on the surface, groaning and unable to muster the strength to right his body.
Unfortunately for the young Druddigon, his victory came at a price. He had defeated one foe… only to notice the others were already closing the distance to him, completely unimpeded.
Before Crom could so much as swipe a claw in his defense, he was shoved to the side by a tackle from the Corsola. The dragon tumbled along through a puddle and back onto dry-ish ground, uneasily trying to regain his footing on a patch of cave stone with a spiral design he didn't think much of at the time. That was, until the Druddigon clearly heard a soft click amid the cries of his teammates and the baying of his assailants.
"Huh-? Agh!"
The ground beneath Crom abruptly whirled around repeatedly before coming to an equally abrupt stop, leaving the the poor dragon to totter about disoriented with little white-and-blue birds circling in his vision.
"Gaaah, what is-?"
Except, much to his rude surprise, those birds spoke like the other ferals. And all of a sudden, sharp pains shot through his body as the 'birds' began hitting and dousing him from every direction he turned to.
"A-Aah! H-Help!" he cried. Crom thrashed this way and that under the barrage of attacks, desperately trying to swipe back at his assailants with his claws.
From Nida's vantage point, she could clearly see the direness of the situation. The ferals had surrounded the Spin Trap they had shoved Crom onto. Her partner's dazed swipes struck nothing but empty air over and over again as the creatures did everything in their power to pummel the poor dragon into next week.
"Crom!" Pleo squawked. At that moment, the Lugia's anxieties were pushed from his mind, and the bird took off running towards his embattled teammate, Nida hot on his tail.
"Hang in there-!" she cried, before Elty's voice chimed in from behind.
"Oi, you salt-suckers! Pick a fairer fight!"
The next thing Nida and Pleo felt was Elty tagging them from behind before falling back, leaving a bluish, sparking aura to envelop the two before settling down.
"Elty?!" Pleo squawked. "What did you do to-?!"
"Don't worry about it!" the Growlithe snapped. No sense in explaining the ins-and-outs of a Helping Hand at a time like this, after all. "Just hit them before the boost wears off!"
"Right!" Nida huffed. The Nidoran dashed up to the Buizel and gave a stiff kick at her flank. The creature froze in pain, but when Nida brought her leg out for another kick, the mustelid ran on ahead, leaving Nida kicking nothing but air.
"Grr, let's see you do that twice, spike ball!" the Buizel spat before she lunged for the Nidoran, only for Nida to hop over her shoulder and behind the sea weasel.
"Huh? Where'd she-? Eargh!"
The creature abruptly pitched forward and slumped onto the ground. Embedded into her back was a Nidoran's barb... further behind, was the barb's previous owner, astonished with her achievement.
"Wait, that was a sting!" she cried, her voice beginning to grow giddy as she realized... "I finally stung a-! Gah!"
Nida's elation was promptly brought back to earth by a stiff, watery smack which sent her rolling along the floor. As she lay stunned on the ground, catching her breath, she could hear the sound of a Frillish angrily burbling and drawing near…
"Pay attention, Księżniczka!"
Elty's voice rang out and was quickly joined by the sound of the Frillish screeching, followed by a faint thud and groaning. When Nida righted herself and turned towards the direction of the commotion, she saw her assailant sprawled out on the floor with bite marks on his bell and Elty approaching her, brimming with confidence.
"See, you've gotta be smart about picking your-"
Before Elty could finish his thought, he was abruptly bowled over, then sent tumbling into one of the pools by a stream of scalding bubbles that burst along his side. Nida only dodged the attack by abruptly hopping out of the way. When she turned back, she saw Elty coughing up water as he weakly limped back to drier ground.
"Gyaah! You ferals aren't supposed to be smart about picking fights with me!" he whined, before he turned to see the Corsola responsible for the Bubble Beam drawing near to him in the pool.
The Growlithe bolted out of the water and ran off in open retreat, the Corsola chasing after him, consciously sticking near to the pools. No sense getting lured out onto the ground and routed, after all. Crom was a little further back from Elty's current trajectory, clutching his head, tottering. And there was the sound of a Zubat's flapping wings rapidly drawing on Nida's position...
Yes, things weren't going well at all.
"N-Nida! Keep them off our tails for a moment!" Crom shouted. The Druddigon dug out an object from the team bag and sent it rolling along a spit of stone towards, whirling around to make a break for cover with Elty. Without thinking, the Nidoran darted for the tumbling object before it could come to a stop, scooped it up, and flung it as hard as she could in the direction of the angry screeches from the Zubat.
As the object left her paws, she saw that she had thrown the Slow Orb from the floor before… except she had arced her throw for a bed of soft moss, far too soft to make the orb break. Meaning that it would be of little help against the Zubat who was swooping straight for her.
"Ack!"
As Nida fanned out her barbs and braced herself, she heard and felt a whoosh of wind. Much to her astonishment, Nida saw the Slow Orb abruptly change direction in midair, getting sent into a wall before exploding in a shower of green shards. Suddenly, a torrent of white threads shot out from the broken orb, worming wildly about the room. Nida looked back at the Zubat just in time to see the creature fall to the floor and struggle against white, silky bands that clung to her body. As the bat groaned and struggled to lift her body back in the air, Nida quickly ran up and kicked the downed creature in the head, and then once again for good measure. The second kick sent the Pokémon sailing limply through the air before crashing back down to the ground twitching and groaning.
Immediately after that, the young Protector of Tromba ran up panting to the Nidoran from the direction of the gust.
"Nida?! Are you alright?!"
It was then that Nida realized how her botched throw managed to hit her foe. Pleo's gust had redirected her Slow Orb! The Nidoran looked down at herself, over at Pleo, and then at Crom and Elty further away, and saw that none of them had been gummed up by the threads!
This was their big chance!
"Crom! Elty! We'll cover-! Gah!"
Nida pulled her head in to narrowly duck and dodge a column of disturbed air that accompanied a loud shriek, the attack carrying on into the wall of the chamber. Nida and Pleo shook their heads to dispel some momentary light-headedness from the racket, and whirled around to see the remaining Pokémon. Of the group that had ambushed them, only the remaining Zubat and the Corsola, having given up his pursuit of Elty, still stared them down. Their bodies were covered in white silk, but the two had visibly managed to adjust to the strands gumming up their movement, the bat enough to even get falteringly airborne again. Both of them were much closer than either Nida or Pleo had expected. The ferals' expressions were still hostile, but now intermingled with fear.
"Wh-Who do you even think you are?!" the Corsola cried out.
"Y-Yeah! Barging in on our home like this!" the Zubat fumed.
"We just wanted to get through!" Pleo protested. "What's so-?"
"Pleo!" Nida's voice suddenly admonished. "Don't just stand there!"
Pleo looked back and saw that Nida had retreated towards the direction Crom and Elty fell back towards. He suddenly felt a stabbing pain on his neck as something latched onto it. Pleo beat his wings wildly, and ran about shouting in a panic. The pain dulled with a sudden slap against his head, which made Pleo stop to regain his bearings. When he looked up, he caught sight of the remaining Zubat glowering at him in the air, his mouth dribbling some red fluid that looked like the scrapes he had seen on his teammates after battles. On the ground off to the side was the Corsola, who had flanked him together with the flying Pokémon.
"A-Aah!" Pleo squawked, his eyes going wide as he began to realize what a predicament he was now in. "You snuck up on me!"
"So what? You fought dirty!" the Corsola growled. "So we'll fight back dirty!"
"Have some pain, you imposter!" the Zubat shouted before he lunged for the young Lugia, the Corsola joining in. Pleo hopped up in a blind panic as the two Pokémon descended on his position, sailing high off the ground as the Zubat carried on with his swoop into the cave floor with a yelp. As he began to stall in the air, he heard his attackers' confusion below.
"Huh?!"
"Ow! Where'd he go-?!"
And then gravity took over and the young Protector started falling back to earth again, flailing desperately.
"A-Aack!"
Pleo's tumbles and rolls through the air became slower, and his body began to straighten out into a straight dive towards the ground as he spread his wings. The cave floor was now rapidly approaching, which made Pleo cry out and pull his wings back, cringing in anticipation of the impact.
Except… He felt… Air underneath him?
"Argh!"
And then the stiff smack of his left wing clipping something, followed by the feeling of air again. Pleo opened his eyes, he saw the other Zubat groaning on the ground below him, feebly twitching her wings. The Lugia blinked, although it was beginning to stall and slow, his body was sailing up into the air again!
He gave another beat of his wings- and instead of falling to the ground again, he stayed in his place and spun a little. Why, this meant... He was flying!
"I'm- I'm flying! I'm really flying this time!" he cried, his voice drawing Nida's awed attention from the ground, before it was interrupted by the panicked-sounding voice of the Corsola.
"A-Ahh… Stay back! St-Stay back! None of this would have happened if you never came!" he cried.
"Just stand down and let us through!" Nida barked. "Haven't we fought long enough?"
"Leave me alone!" the creature shrieked, before he opened his mouth and prepared to breathe out a stream of gloppy bubbles at the Nidoran. "Just go awa-!"
The creature then flinched after catching a barb in his face, which sent him reeling backwards. The barb was followed up by a glowing ball that sent him tumbling across the floor. As the creature staggered up, his last sensation before lapsing out of consciousness was being pounced on and pinned to the ground by something gliding in from the air with a hide that felt like sandpaper.
"Aaack," the Corsola groaned, his legs going limp as his eyes slipped shut.
"And stay down!" Crom growled to the creature before getting up, his maw stained with Oran juice.
"Daj spokoj!" Elty protested, quickly coming up from behind with a similarly stained muzzle. "I could have finished him-"
Before Elty could finish, he was interrupted by the sound of a faint splashing thud.
"Ow!"
Everyone turned towards the sound of the yelp, seeing Pleo getting up from a crash-landing in one of the cave pools and lurching about in a daze.
"Attacking while flying's hard," he groaned, as he tottered disorientedly back over to Nida. "Are- Are there any more mean Pokémon?"
"No- I- I think that's all of them," she replied to Pleo in between ragged pants. The Nidoran drew her barbs back against her hide, and went over to steady the bird's unstable gait, sighing out of relief that the battle was finally over, even if the Oran stains on her other companions evidenced that its after-effects were still around to be grappled with.
"You really are terrible at healing, Crom," she chuckled, shooting a tired smirk at a Druddigon who instantly grew flustered with the charge.
"H-Hey!" he protested. "Kiran said that if you're ever in a pinch, you can just eat the berries and they'll still work! ... Kinda."
"Ugh… This is just great," Elty grumbled. "We still need to find the stairs Kiran took and-"
The Growlithe looked back in the direction of the stairs, only to see that they had vanished! The only evidence of them ever existing was a small mound of broken stone on the ground, seemingly dropped from above.
"Wait a minute, there were stairs there just a minute ago!"
"Huh?!" Pleo cried out. The dog was right, there definitely were stairs there earlier. But… where did they go?
"They must've shifted while we were battling," Crom explained. "Why, that means that Kiran-"
"Están bien?!"
Would have already made it to their floor?
Everyone turned and watched Team Traveller's leader fly in from the leftmost of the three passages that exited the chamber, Team Sawtooth following after closely. The Swellow rushed up and landed near Team Traveler, who quickly drew up to him.
"Yeah, we're fine... Well-" Nida stopped to frown and shake her head, flattening out her ears. "Okay, we're not. But you get the idea, Kiran."
"Why on earth did you all go on ahead without us?!" Kiran cried, beating his wings out with an admonishing squawk.
"You all just blundered right into a Monster House!" Alto exclaimed.
There was a long and lingering silence, as Crom, Nida, and Pleo one-by-one began to give unamused glares at Elty.
"Er… Something came up?" the Growlithe sheepishly offered.
"We had some bad luck with a trap near the stairs," Crom grunted. "We weren't exactly expecting to-"
"Oi, look alive, everyone," Pitys suddenly interrupted. Sure enough, the Pokémon scattered about the floor were once again beginning to stir.
"Nrgh," the Finneon groaned as he falteringly righted himself and weakly splashed in his pool, the defiance returning to his voice. "This isn't-!"
Only to be replaced by startled shock when he and the other ferals saw the four much larger and intimidating Pokémon that had since joined the 'intruders' they had fought with.
"Gih!"
"E-Eep!"
"I'd encourage you all to not pick another fight," Kiran replied, scowling at the Pokémon. "We're just passing through, and we'd like to go through without any trouble."
The weakened ferals traded nervous glances with each other as they tried to decide what to do about these new Pokémon. On the one hand, they were violating their territory… on the other hand, they looked much tougher and meaner than the four worn-out and battered intruders from earlier.
"That- That- Th-This isn't fair!" the Finneon whined.
"D-Don't argue with the monsters!" one of the Zubat admonished. "Let's get out of here!"
The six hastily retreated as quickly as their condition allowed them to down the other two exits, their voices fading as they vanished deeper into the maze as the gathered Pokémon watched
"Well, all's well that ends well," Nida said to herself with a tired sigh.
"Do you all need any help getting healed up?" Kiran asked, as he inspected his charges. Their fight surely must have been one grueling ordeal. Crom was covered in lacerations and bruises, and had clearly seen more than his due share of punishment.
Pokémon like Nida and Elty were always somewhat hard to get a bead on, what with fur in the way, but he could clearly see they too had been fairly roughed up. There were scrapes on their body here and there, and the Growlithe still had glop from the Frillish caught in his pelt.
Even Pleo was not spared, Kiran noticed that Pleo would occasionally rub his face into his wing- apparently it must have smarted from being hit by something. The Swellow then noticed with a shudder that some feathers on the backside of Pleo's neck that had been sullied from some darkening reddish fluid. Blood, if thankfully not fresh, he presumed.
"Thanks for the offer," Crom replied. "But… I think we can handle it."
"E-Eh?!" Kiran protested, ruffling his feathers uneasily. "But you're all-!"
"We made it this far on our own, Kiran," Nida replied softly. Kiran blinked and saw the Nidoran's face was filled with a determined look that shone even through her body's tired gait. "I think we can manage the rest."
There was a long silence as the four elder Pokémon puzzled themselves as to the right thing to do in this situation. Yes, they were still kids, but...
"They do have a point," Cardellini murmured.
"Yeah, if they can hold their own in a Monster House, I think that they can patch themselves up fine," Alto added.
"Heh… Let's get cracking, then!" Kiran chirped, beating his wings and taking back to the air. "I wanna find that Substitute and get outta here as much as you do! So let's get this show on the road!"
Crom got a chance to practice his healing skills once again… with the aid of Kiran's dutiful supervision and instructions to keep him on task, that is. Before long, the team patched themselves up and carried on, as their wounds recovered with the help of the Oran Berries they had packed for that day.
The trek to the next floor was much quieter, after which Pataki gleefully informed "The decoy to rescue is somewhere on this floor!", leading to a mostly uneventful search through the corridors and bends of the Mystery Dungeon.
That was, until Team Traveler found the much-awaited Substitute, and presented it to Kiran and the others.
"Wait, this was their objective?" Cardellini asked, burying his face into an open claw.
"Uh, well," Kiran trailed off as he too took in the sight of the training decoy. "The psychics would be the Pokémon best suited to getting a decoy in here, so…"
Substitutes were doppelgangers born of the essence of life in Pokémon. Just similar enough to their makers to trick opponents into focusing on them in the heat of battle, or so the explanation went. In a pinch, the mimicries made for serviceable dolls. For guards to use as sparring dummies... for younger Pokémon to use as playthings... and of course, for the guild to use in training missions. So logically, it should have been much less of a surprise to everyone that the Substitute that the team stumbled on that day…
"Kiran," Pleo began. "Why does our decoy look like-?"
Would be a crude doll-like figure of a Kirlia, the Pokémon who had clearly gone through far more trouble than necessary to put it there.
"Do you like it, Protector?" Pataki's voice rang out in the minds of the gathered Pokémon. "I even made it myself!"
"Oh no…" Nida groaned, flattening out her ears.
"Who's pressing their badge?" Crom asked. As the Druddigon screwed his eyes shut in frustration, Pleo ruffled his feathers and awkwardly tried to think of something to say back to the enamored wall-talker.
"Um, it looks... cute?"
"I know right?" Pataki's voice gushed. "It only took me three tries and wearing myself down a little to make a substitute of myself that looked as good as-"
"Um, as lovely as your paw-work is… Can we get out of here?!" Elty barked.
"It would be nice to get back home about now, Pataki," Kiran sighed.
"Yeah, it's not like some of us don't have other missions to get back to, you know!" Cardellini snapped at the unseen voice.
"Hrmph! I was getting to that!"
After a short pause, there was a blip of light further down the room. As Team Traveler turned to face Pataki, they saw that much to their surprise, the Natu from the teleportation pad had accompanied her that day.
"Wait, there's two of them this time?" Pleo asked.
"Two teleporters for two groups!" the Natu chirped. "I'll take Kiran and the others in the first one, and then when we get the clearing all ready, it'll be safe for Pataki to take the rest of you over."
"Music to my ears," Pataki crooned, her expression brightening after hearing that she would have another chance to be close to the Protector. An announcement that came much to the groaning dismay of Team Traveler.
"Please just hurry this up," Elty grumbled, moving a paw over his snout.
The Natu hopped over onto the Shiftry's head and clung to her hair, who in turn provided her arms for Kiran and her teammates to latch onto. After all of the older Pokémon found partners to hold onto, the group vanished with a blip of light much as before, leaving Team Traveler… and one rather giddy Kirlia.
"You know, Protector," the Kirlia babbled cheerily. "The best way to keep a chain of Pokémon together is to have a bigger Pokémon holding on directly to the teleporter."
"Oh?" Pleo asked. Pataki needed a strong Pokémon, huh? Pleo thought and thought about the Kirlia's suggestion, then, after an epiphany, chirped back triumphantly at the Psychic. "Oh! So Crom, then!"
"What?!" Pataki exclaimed, her face giving way to mortified shock. "No! I was talking about-!"
"Oi! Pataki! The clearing's open! Go ahead and bring them over!" a Kadabra's voice reverberated.
"I think I'll take up the 'bigger' conduit role today, thanks," Crom answered, rolling his eyes as he grasped one of Pataki's arms.
"But- But-" the Kirlia protested, the rest of the team dutifully ignoring her as they formed a chain around Crom's free arm and his wings.
"It would be nice if we could get home sometime today, Pataki," Nida grumbled, glaring at the green and white sprite.
"And Crom probably is still tougher than me right now," Pleo answered as he grabbed the Kirlia decoy with his beak. "Maybe it would make more sense to be your conduit another time?"
"And you heard the nice Pokémon! The clearing's open, idźmy dalej!" Elty snapped.
"Ugh… Fine," the Kirlia grumbled, before the team vanished from the cave.
With a blip, the team arrived back at the guild's receiving field, where Hatteras was awaiting them on the sidelines. After Team Traveler and Pataki let go of each other, Pleo set down Pataki's Substitute and nosed it forward towards the now somewhat sour-looking Kirlia.
"Um… So I guess we should give this back to you since this was supposed to be a rescue mission?" he asked, the question immediately clearing up the Psychic type's demeanor.
"Oh no, that's fine! You can keep it!" she cheerfully replied. "Why, I was honestly expecting you to!"
"Um…" Crom groaned.
"Can we not keep that thing in our section of the sleeping hall?" Nida hissed under her breath.
"Er… I guess it would make my shrine look a little less lonely?" Pleo volunteered, moving a wing behind his head sheepishly.
"Of course it would!" Pataki exclaimed before she turned to leave the field, gushing aloud to herself all the while about how the Protector was going to put her handiwork on show at his shrine. Team Sawtooth also left the clearing, excusing themselves with the words: "That ahp-gredh isn't going to find itself for Melissa." The team sighed quietly in relief, and turned to make their way to Hatteras.
"Psst, nice save there," Elty whispered.
"Yeah, I was afraid that I was going to have to make my siblings dispose of that thing," Nida murmured as the group walked up to an Ampharos waiting expectantly alongside a Swellow.
"Hey! So how'd it go in there?" Hatteras cheerily asked the team.
"It was really tough!" Pleo chirped.
"Yeah, we really had to work to get our mission done that time," Nida sighed.
"Oh?" Hatteras asked, his eyes adopting a keen look to them. "Did… Anything peculiar happen with Pleo in there?"
"Uh huh! Uh huh!" Pleo exclaimed, before he hopped up into the air and soared forward.
"I can fly now!" he cried. Pleo soared on, his young frame still having some of that majesty that the old Lugia must surely have had back when it flew above the seas. Well… had it. Just a moment later, a sudden breeze blew Pleo off course and into a tree branch, causing the young Protector to tumble back to earth.
"Oof! Er… Kinda?" the Lugia said sheepishly, ruffling his feathers as he got back up to his feet and waddled back to the group.
"Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, mewa," Elty muttered under his breath.
"I'm sure it'll work itself out with practice," Crom added. "But he really did fly in there, Hatteras."
"I… see," Hatteras murmured as he stroked his chin, before turning back to the young sea god. "Was there anything else that happened in there that was strange, Pleo?"
"Um… Well, we got into some fights," Pleo said, drawing a wing to his beak. "It was just like training, except the Pokémon I was fighting with were meaner."
"Meh, I didn't see him do anything that some Pidgey couldn't do," Elty said.
"Yeah... fighting and flying aside, we didn't see anything out of the ordinary from him today," Nida added.
"I… understand," Hatteras replied. The Ampharos still wore a smile in front of the young Pokémon, but for a second, Nida and Crom swore that they had seen his expression droop a bit.
"Well, Kiran? What do you think?" he asked, turning to the Swellow beside him.
"Oh! Well..." Kiran murmured to himself. "I must say that I can't really think of anything holding Nida and Crom back, so…"
"Wait, we've finally graduated?" Crom asked, his eyes lighting up.
"We're now in Normal Rank?" Nida prodded excitedly, her ears perking up expectantly..
"Heh, yeah. You are," Kiran chuckled. "Congratulations, you two! Welcome to Normal Rank!"
"Woo hoo!" Crom roared in triumph, beating his wings excitedly.
"We can finally move on now!" Nida cheered, bouncing up and down as she leapt into Crom's arms. The Druddigon, still high off of the euphoric mood, lifted her up and eagerly spun her around in front of the others.
"Why, we could even set up our own team together!" he cried, before a disappointed chirp suddenly pierced the festive atmosphere.
"Aw… You're- You're gonna leave?"
Crom and Nida abruptly stopped and saw that Pleo was staring at them, his head lowered and his spirits downcast. After trading looks with each other, the two prodded their team leader.
"Wait... Kiran? Pleo's not graduating with us?" Nida asked.
"Yeah, he went through the test just like we did," Crom added.
"Er… Well, he is still rather inexperienced," Kiran explained. "And Elty here needs to stay wherever Pleo is, so…"
"Seriously?" Elty grumbled. "Just graduate him with the others!"
"It is part of your community service, Elty," Hatteras sternly admonished, as Pleo looked down at the ground and began to mutter quietly.
"But… I thought we were gonna stay and play together..."
"Erm, well… I mean, just because we graduated doesn't mean we have to move on right away," Crom replied. "I guess I could still learn a few things from Kiran about healing."
"And it would be nice to get some time to look around at the other teams before I suddenly jump off to another one," Nida added as she hopped down from Crom's arms.
"So… You'll stay with me?" Pleo asked, his demeanor beginning to brighten a bit.
"Heh, I think we can do that for a little while," Nida said, before she sidled up and give a nuzzle to the Lugia.
"Yeah, why if we could get you onto our team once you graduate… Why, we'd be able to get all the missions we wanted!" Crom cheered. "Not many Pokémon would turn down help from the Protector, you know!"
"And, well… we did make a promise, after all," Nida replied, flattening out her ears sheepishly.
"Yay! We're still together! We're still together!" Pleo exclaimed, giddily hopping about to and fro.
"Fantastic," Elty growled, rolling his eyes.
"Heh, why don't you kids take the rest of the day off?" Kiran chirped to the four. "You've earned it."
"Yay! Free day!" Pleo cheered as he beat his wings excitedly. "Come on! Let's go to the beach!"
Kiran watched as Pleo flew down from the ledge to the beach below, his teammates joining him after clambering down the path (Elty a bit more begrudgingly than the others). As the four reached the sand below, Kiran noticed in the corner of his eye that Hatteras' expression had sunk, his ears drooping down, and the Ampharos was tirely rubbing his brow with one of his paws.
"Is something wrong, Guildmaster?" the Swellow asked, turning to face the Ampharos.
"This… wasn't supposed to happen, Kiran," Hatteras sighed.
"What wasn't?"
"We weren't supposed to still be clueless about Pleo's power even after he went through the Mystery Dungeon!" the Ampharos exclaimed.
"Guildmaster, I'm certain he'll figure it out soon enough," Kiran reassured. He turned back to see Team Traveler on the beach below and babbling about their little distractions.
There was Pleo's giddy bobbing in the surf... Crom and Nida following after the little bird into the water... Elty furrowing his brow and trying to offer the team help with building a sand castle instead because hadn't they "been in water enough for one day already?"
"Just let the kids have their moment," the Swellow chirped. "Getting Pleo all worried about how to draw out his power won't make him learn how to do it any faster, right? Why, if my experiences with trying to force things are anything to go by… it might slow down his learning by over 50%!"
The Ampharos looked out at the four young Pokémon, and after a long pause, he shook his head and sighed.
"Let's hope you're right, Kiran," Hatteras murmured to himself. "And hope that he learns how to bring it out before he truly needs it."
As the afternoon gave way to sunset, and the sunset in turn gave way to nightfall, Ellsberg and his crew put a fair distance between themselves and the sleepy island of Tromba just as the Time Lord's Traveller began its arc across the sky. As Ellsberg yawned and beat his wings on the railing of the deck, a Pidgeot from among the ship's escorts squawked her sighting of land ahead to the west lit by the moon and stars.
Above the horizon rose a chain of long, narrow reefs that formed an atoll ringing an island. On it were two sets of peaks with scraggly trees, a valley in between them that was covered in fog, and a collection of shacks with smoke trailing up from small fires that comprised a town on a seaside bluff markedly busier and more populated than Bluewhorl… that was Kenobi Island, alright. Or as some of the locals would occasionally insist, Tennobi Island.
But Ellsberg's ship had no need to go that far to pull into port. Instead, the craft slowly turned and bobbed towards a complex of docks, rudely-constructed warehouses, and yards filled with wooden crates, all under the shadow of a sturdy stone fortress on the atoll in the foreground .
"Pull her up beside the closest dock to the storehouse you can get," Ellsberg barked to the Gligar. "I'll catch up after I run some briefings."
The Gligar chittered back an affirmation before Ellsberg hopped up onto a railing of his ship, and took to the air with a fluttering leap. The Mothim carried on past the churning waves below, above some docks with a variety of ships, past gruff lavender-scarved Company grunts watching Pokémon milling about moving cargo to and fro, and on towards a complex of buildings arranged around some square courtyards next to the fort.
In the yards, the Mothim could see colleagues with lavender scarves sparring, with Pokémon lining the sides of the battlefields with carefully-maintained barriers of light. One fielded a match on a clearing covered with craggy rocks between an Eelektross, a Chesnaught and a Houndoom against an opposing squad consisting of a Vigoroth, Arbok, and an Aerodactyl. Another hosted a Staraptor and Crobat diving and weaving around each other's attacks in a pitched aerial battle. One to the south was occupied by some weaker Company initiates who were bashing in some straw dummies on poles topped with Watmel Berries for heads.
But the one courtyard that stood out most was the one occupied by a Samurott with a lavender scarf bearing a purple square, with two more layers of smaller squares overlaid at the corners in a repeating pattern. The mustelid was in the middle of a dash toward a standing figure of a Nidorina that, after a moment's hesitation, Ellsberg deduced was a Substitute.
"Aha… There you are," the Mothim buzzed to himself, and flitted down to the sidelines just in time to see the Samurott punt the mock Nidorina up into the air with one of his forelimbs. With one smooth motion, the massive otter then drew a blade with his still moving paw from a keratinous scabbard along his other arm…
Gashunk!
And cleaved the Substitute's head from its shoulders as it fell back to earth, sending it rolling along the field as it and the now headless body began to dissipate into blue mist.
"You're late, Ellsberg," the Samurott chided, giving the Mothim a passing glance before sheathing his blade. The blue otter then ambled over to a wooden bin next to a satchel, with an abacus dangling out of the bag's mouth. As the moth flitted up, he saw that the bin was full of Substitutes, the rough mimicries of various species heaped upon each other into a pile that just crested the top.
"Apologies, some things just can't be helped," the Mothim replied. "I wasn't exactly expecting you to pull into port at a hive of scum and villainy like Kenobi, Lyn."
"Mrph, the hive is on the island in Mossaisle Town, not the atoll around it," the Samurott snapped, turning from the bin a moment. "Besides, my ship needed a patch job, and these are our only yards outside the capital."
"Looks more like you're bored and wasting Substitutes," Ellsberg buzzed. "The Ditto that make them for us don't work that cheaply, you know!"
"Well, you could tell me what you've found out about those rumors instead of haranguing someone above your rank," the Samurott growled, glaring at the moth as he dug out a Substitute that was fashioned in the shape of a Sceptile. Ellsberg blanched a moment, and then shook his head and cleared his throat to quickly recompose himself.
"Er… right. Well, whatever fought off the so-called 'Iron Fleet' was a Pokémon by the name of 'Pleo', and…" the Mothim prattled on, fluttering to and fro as Lyn set up the Sceptile decoy. "While I don't have any conclusive evidence... I could sense that the locals were most evasive about the Pokémon's identity, and I believe that I know why."
"Enlighten me, then," Lyn replied as he sauntered back from his training doll over to Ellsberg. The Mothim duly dug through a satchel he brought along, before his arms stopped moving and he produced the silvery-white feather he had taken from Bluewhorl Town.
"Well now, does this remind you of anything you might have heard of in one of your debriefings?" Ellsberg asked. The Samurott paused and blinked out of surprise at the sight of the peculiar feather. After running a digit along the plume of the feather, brought up a paw to stroke his whiskers as he stared intently at Ellsberg's keepsake...
"So, the 'Guardian of the Seas' has finally awakened," he murmured.
"All signs seem to indicate that, yes," the Mothim said. "So, I take it that that's your main priority after chasing down that Aggron and his sea rabble."
There was a long pause between the two Pokémon as they looked each other in the eye, and then both burst out laughing.
"Pffahaha! Oh, Ellsberg, you really do know how to tell a good joke," Lyn snickered as he turned his attention back to the waiting surrogate Sceptile on the field.
"Heh heh heh," the Mothim chortled as he came to a rest on the ground to catch his breath. "I suppose it would be a little unreasonable to focus on a sideshow that's better known even among his peers for bungled raids and empty bluster, wouldn't it?"
"Well, he's certainly not the first item on my checklist once that hull's done getting touched up!"
The Samurott then gave a deep bellow, and charged the Substitute, spitting up a freezing beam that caked the decoy in ice. When he reached the encrusted mimic, he drove a blade into its belly before throwing the unfortunate, ice-encrusted decoy backwards. The Sceptile doll came to a tumbling stop at the feet of the Mothim, now with a gaping hole under its chest, and began to decompose into green mist around its wound in front of the Mothim.
"Eugh... you sure know how to leave an impression," Ellsberg muttered, flinching at the sight of the mutilated decoy.
The Mothim leapt into the air and fluttered uneasily to distance himself from the decomposing Substitute. It was truly a blessing that Arceus had made it such that nobody in their world could get cut to pieces as easily as Lyn's unfortunate Substitutes. Ellsberg shook his head, and then attempted to change the subject with his higher-ranked peer.
"I still don't understand why the Board is already putting their contingency plan into action for this god, though. Shouldn't they wait until the Intelligence Division can find out more about him?"
"What can I say? They need a champion," Lyn said as he made his way back to the bin of Substitutes. "One that they can use to help smooth over some lasting thorns in the Company's side. To soothe and charm those loose ends that helped to put an end to the old order all those years ago."
"And you need that promotion to becoming an Administrator," the Mothim added.
"It would be nice, yes," Lyn replied as he dragged out an Ampharos substitute from the bin, placed it in the middle of the courtyard, and then paced away from his next victim of training towards Ellsberg. "Being the teeth for the Company in collecting tribute and enforcing the peace as a Commissioner is fun and all, but I could use some different Pokémon to order around. It's not like Darzin's doing much with his Administratorship anyways."
"There's just one problem, Lyn," the Mothim rebutted as the Samurott turned his attention back to the mock Ampharos. "What if your would-be champion doesn't play along?"
"That's why the board wants me going after this god- both its mind and its body are still young and weak." the Samurott answered, waving a paw dismissively. "And weak Pokémon are quite pliable creatures. If they don't want to play along, who cares?"
The creature then reared up with a hunch onto his hind legs, quickly drew his blades from his arms, and after spitting up a freezing beam at the Ampharos decoy's head, lunged for it.
The doll immediately fell victim to a torrent of slashes, to its neck, to its chest, to its left leg, a stab to its stomach that flung it into the air…
Splutch!
And an impaling stab into its back as it struck the ground, the poor Ampharos Substitute beginning to melt away into yellow and black mist around the embedded blade before Lyn turned back to Ellsberg.
"You can make them," he sneered.
Author's Notes:
- (¡)Pruébamelo! - Spanish: "Prove it to me!"
- Księżniczka - Polish: "Princess"
- (¡¿)Están bien?! - Spanish: "Are you (all) okay/alright?!"
- idźmy dalej! - Polish: "let's move on!"
