Chapter 20: Out of the Frying Pan

The stretch of sea between the third and fourth Spiral beacons (named after the designs painted on the beacons marking this particular sea route) between Kenobi and Tromba was inviting that day. The waves lolled along with their normal undulations and marine Pokémon occasionally swam about between them giving spirited calls to one another. The sea air was crisp and refreshing, as it tends to be in the immediate aftermath of a recently-subsided storm.

Although the storm that passed upwind of the third Spiral beacon the night before was gone, the stretch of sea route was still marred by the presence of a two-masted ship with lavender sails with purple squares captained by an ill-tempered Mothim. The Bug-Type flitted here and there in his species' usual, erratic fashion. Every so often, he would bark orders to subordinates on deck, and to those escorting his craft in the skies above and the seas below.

It had been five hours since Lyn was supposed to have passed the fourth beacon, long enough for word to get out and reach Kenobi Island and the ears of its Administrator. The absence of news was neither expected, nor desired, and gave the Mothim plenty to grumble about to himself on his voyage over. Lyn never seemed to have trouble reining in those Tromban peasants before, could he really have been caught so off-guard by some inclement weather rolling in earlier than expected?

A call went up from a Pidgeot flying alongside the ship, prompting Ellsberg to over to some rigging along the side to perch and look off into the distance. Just a ways off starboard was a three-masted ship- if you could call it that.

The sails were torn to ribbons and the net-bedding normally towed from the hull for the sea escorts to rest on at night snapped and trailed after the ship in a tangled knot in the water. The rigging fared little better, and was strewn haphazardly here and there twisted up among the masts… So in spite of the reports the Mothim heard, Lyn hadn't been able to outrun the inclement weather after all.

"Of all the times to get ahead of yourself, Lyn," Ellsberg sighed to himself. The Mothim called to his lavender-scarved subordinates to bring the ship to a halt. The Pokémon aboard steadied their footing and the cry went out to drop the anchor. Not too long afterwards, the ship slowed, thanks to the escorts whipping up a sudden headwind and opposing current against the ship's present course. As the vessel slowed, and the splash of a stone anchor hitting the water sounded over the waves, the ship's moth captain hopped up and fluttered off towards Lyn's stricken ship. Even from that distance, it was apparent that Lyn's crew was busy. All over the deck and in the seas and skies around the damaged boat, Pokémon darted here and there attempting to patch together temporary fixes to their craft. Even so, their numbers seemed unusually sparse... Ellsberg was sure that the Samurott had brought along more escorts than the number that paid it watch at that moment, and that there were more deckhands when he left than the skeleton crew on the deck...

As for Lyn's whereabouts, it took Ellsberg a moment, but after having his attention drawn to a wake approaching from the port side, he saw the ship's captain clamber up to the deck from the stricken ship's side. As the Mothim flew closer, it became more and more apparent the Samurott was in a sour mood, the Water-Type having one of his seamitars drawn and clenched in his paws in spite of the lack of any obvious target for them. Just as Ellsberg flitted up to Lyn's side, the moth flinched and caught his ears as the Samurott bellowed into the face of an unfortunate Nuzleaf with a bandaged stomach who had set down a damaged block and tackle to catch his breath on deck. The captain's yells drew a startled yelp from the dryad, and prompted him to pick the crate back up and dart away as fast as his legs allowed him to under such strain.

Ellsberg shook his head, and then cleared his throat, prompting the still-scowling Samurott to grudgingly turn his way.

"I see that the early storm caught you off-guard," the Mothim grumbled. "Administrator Farn's been wondering about why the sighters didn't see your ship go past the fourth Spiral this morning."

"Mrph… Something came up last night," Lyn growled back. Was this… hesitance? Obviously it would not do much good to overly injure the pride of a Commissioner, but even so…

If Lyn had made it to the third Spiral when the spotters there said he had, he should have been out of the storm's path when it blew through...

Then what had happened here last night?

"Well, obviously! I don't think I've ever seen your ship in such a state before!" Ellsberg piped back. Things were in a sorrier state than the mangled sails and tangled ropes left on from afar. As the Mothim fluttered about the deck of Lyn's craft, he noticed that it seemed that half the Pokémon had bruises or bandaged wounds on them. Except… something wasn't adding up.

There were far too many injured crewmates from the tumult of a simple overnight storm. And upon closer inspection, the damage to Lyn's vessel seemed to radiate outward. There were chunks of the railing on the other end that were broken and splintered from heavy objects careening through them and into the sea. Why, it was as if the storm winds had clustered in one place and blown out in all directions like the fiery burst of a Blast Seed! And there was also a nagging concern from earlier that struck the Bug-Type as all the more pertinent now...

"Where on earth is the rest of your crew?"

The Samurott gritted his teeth for a moment, before he exhaled and started to answer the Bug-Type.

"The storm swept away a couple things last night," he answered. "They're a little preoccupied with recovering them right no-"

Only for a panting Crawdaunt with a binding over some cracks on his thorax's exoskeleton to clamber up the side of the ship behind the Samurott and dash red and white crustacean plates still dripping seawater when he suddenly cried out to Lyn...

"Captain! We've canvassed the second search area on the bow end! Still no sign of the Lugia or the stowaw-!"

The crawdad's words died in his mouth as he saw a Mothim with a Second-Rank scarf fluttering in front of him with a face that was slipping increasingly into shock. More concerningly, Lyn was just to the side of the bug, and glaring daggers at the now-paling creature.

"I… wasn't supposed to say that out loud, was I-?" the Crawdaunt stammered, only to be cut off with a sudden thwack as the Samurott drew his blade and struck the Pokémon with its flat.

"ARGH!"

The hapless Water-Type went flying over the deck's railing and into the sea below with a splash, bobbing up to the water's surface dazed and stunned.

"Get back out there and be a little more observant of your surroundings this time!" the Samurott barked after the Crawdaunt. The creature quickly swam back away from the ship, his quiet wincing being swiftly replaced with a startled Mothim's buzzing.

"What?! You mean this isn't storm damage?!" Ellsberg fluttered around nervously as his mind began to put two and two together about its culprit. "You let the sea god get away?!"

"Ellsberg, does it look like I'd ever let anything just 'get away'?!" Lyn spat, clearly unpleased with the wording of the notary's question. The Samurott shook his head and gestured at an Ursaring preoccupied with helping to sort out wadded up pieces of one of the main masts. "Misha downed him last night! I saw the flash and smoke with my own eyes!"

"Then where is he?!" the bug insisted. The Mothim flitting anxiously about the Samurott, Commissioners didn't just lose Pokémon like that! Let alone Pokémon that were pivotal to the Company's future fortunes!

"Does it really need an explanation?" Lyn growled back, gesturing at the lolling waves around the ship. "We're currently doing a search of the nearby seafloor for him and those meddlesome brats. One of the sea Pokémon around here probably found them and brought them into the Subway."

Of course! The Cradle was still in one piece, so that would logically preclude anything too drastic happening to the Guardian of the Seas. So the Subway, the maze of breathable passages and Mystery Dungeons under the waves that crossed the seafloor and seamounts like strands on an Ariados' web… that was the most logical place that the seabird could've escaped to!

"I'll send out word for reinforcements as soon as I pull back into port," Ellsberg cried, flapping his wings anxiously. "The-"

"No, you won't," Lyn interrupted, his voice taking a growling seriousness to it. "The Subway's riddled with choke points and the Guardian would be in no condition to travel far along in it. This isn't an unmanageable situation… yet."

"Lyn, are you daft?" Ellsberg spluttered. "The Subway leads to almost every island in the Cradle-!"

Any further objections melted into a yelp as the Samurott caught Ellsberg by the scarf. Before the Mothim could so much as react, he found himself staring into Lyn's smoldering eyes.

"I'm perfectly aware of the potential disadvantages, Ellsberg, and they're more than manageable given the mission the Board gave me. Are you forgetting that they specifically asked not to draw attention to the extraction? You can't dismiss rumblings of Legendaries roaming about as 'peasants' tall tales' when they're coming from major settlements!" he snapped back. "Just what do you think the future would hold for the Pokémon that compromised the Company's interests by needlessly running his mouth off instead of getting out of the way from a quick and quiet canvassing of the nearby Subway passages? My inability to pass my current post as Commissioner down to you would be the least of your worries!"

The Bug-Type paused and quietly blanched. The Board wouldn't be happy about what happened, no… But the otter raised a good point. Ellsberg himself hadn't filled in even his own crew to the specifics of what Lyn's mission was about, precisely because the more mouths there were to silence, the harder it was to keep things mum. "Loose lips sink ships," or so the saying (created by a Pokémon that had lips, clearly) went. And as for the fate of the lips that sank the Company's plans for the young Protector, especially if it was because of a mere Second-Rank like him… Well, "expulsion from the Company's ranks and abject poverty" was the least unpalatable of several unpleasant possibilities that came to the moth's mind.

"Point taken," Ellsberg gulped. The Mothim felt the Samurott's grip release and the Bug-type quickly flitted back away from the Commissioner. He would need to remember to give Lyn a larger berth when he was in a poor mood he thought to himself, before turning back to try and settle one remaining loose end...

"But then what am I supposed to tell Farn and the rest of the Board?"

"Tell them that I've had a slight complication," the Samurott answered. "The Guardian of the Seas damaged my ship, but crippled himself in the process and exposed himself to imminent recapture."

Ellsberg's face fell. Those were surely not the words Farn would want to hear immediately after "the Protector escaped," but… there weren't really any better ways of mincing the situation. Kenobi's Administrator had eyes that were said to pierce through walls as if they were empty air, and her perception of attempts to mislead her were similarly sharp. There were few things more intimidating than an Administrator crossed, and given how little Farn thought of would-be hoodwinkers and how intimidating she already was while at ease… Well...

"Let's… go with that, then," the Mothim answered. The Bug-Type perched on a railing and looked back at the Samurott. "Just don't make me regret this, Lyn."

And then he took to the air, fluttering back to the smaller ship from starboard side of the battered craft. As the moth slipped from view, Lyn turned and looked out to sea, growling under his breath.

"Where are you, you little whelp? You couldn't have been blown that far..."


In spite of Lyn's estimation of the Ursaring's strength, Team Traveler was in fact blown all the way to an island, coming to a crashing stop on a Mystery Dungeon's floor filled with a dense forest in the dead of night.

Woosh

One that would not remain as it was for much longer. After Elty came to, he and Nida desperately tried to drag Pleo's still-limp body along with them through the rough corridors amidst the tangled maze of trees and shrubs. A process that in spite of their efforts, bore little fruit as the young Protector was much bigger and bulkier than either of the two.

"Well, wherever we are, it's not on Tromba, otherwise Pataki and her friends would have sensed it. There's no way my badge hasn't gotten pressed at least once in all of this!" Nida panted as she tried to shove Pleo's body ahead from behind. "If there are Psychics watching this Mystery Dungeon at all, they don't know to look for us right now."

Elty meanwhile tugged along at the young Lugia's wing, pulling him along off of a mossy patch and into a section covered in fallen leaves and twigs.

"Nngh…"

"Hey, wait!" the Growlithe barked. "I think he's getting up!"

Pleo's body suddenly recoiled and shifted, his body curling up and thrashing as if someone had drawn a fire to it. He murmured incoherently, something about "get away" and "falling", until all of a sudden-

"A-AAAH!"

Nida and Elty recoiled as Pleo suddenly threw his eyes open and charged ahead wildly, tripping over a root.

"N-No! St-Stop! It hurts! The light hur-!"

"Pleo! Calm down!" Nida cried. The Nidoran rushing to the white bird's side and nuzzling into the bird's breast. "You're okay! You're okay! They're gone now..."

Pleo panted and his pupils slowly returned to a larger and less panicked appearance. His movements were awkward and jerky much as Nida and Elty's were, clearly suffering from the effects of the Hyper Beam and the subsequent fall through the fog and canopy. The Lugia looked around and saw that sure enough, they were all no longer at sea, but in a place that seemed like the path up to the Mystery Dungeon back on Tromba.

"W-We got away?" he asked, the Protector's voice betraying a desperate longing for an end to his ordeal. No more Company. No more growling and glaring Pokémon. No more painful, burning rays of light. No more falling. Just to be able to go home and rest alongside all their friends and family back in Bluewhorl…

Nida bit her tongue as she tried to think of how to explain their predicament to the young bird, only for Pleo to abruptly get shoved forward from behind.

"We're away enough!" Elty yipped. "But we need to get moving! Now!"

Again and again, the dog pushed Pleo forward and back onto the path, drawing pained and bewildered cries with each shove.

"O-Ouch! Wait!" he squawked. "Why are we moving so fast?!"

Woosh

Suddenly a stiff wind coursed through the corridor, sending leaves and dust flying pell-mell all while disturbing the fur and feathers of Team Traveller's members. Pleo looked puzzledly at the sudden wind, and he noticed that both Nida and Elty looked shaken.

"Did you feel that? The floor's about to get cleared out by the Distortion here!" Elty cried. "If we can't find the stairs or a place to hunker down, we'll get blown who knows where!"

Blown… Who knows where? Like with the beam of light earlier? With all of the searing pain it brought? Pleo's eyes widened again and he beat out his wings in panicked flails.

"I d-don't wanna to get blown away again!" he cried.

"None of us are getting blown anywhere!" Nida squeaked, flailing her paws to try and draw Pleo's attention. "We can find a place to get away from the winds! We just need to stick together!"

"Yeah, that way!" the Growlithe grunted, pawing off in the direction of the path.

The three hastily returned to the path, moving much quicker now that Pleo could move on his own… Not like that said much. No matter how much Pleo tried, he simply wasn't able to muster the energy to get airborne, and was forced to waddle and hop along the ground. Nida and Elty were not much better as their dashing was reduced to a middling, hobbling gait by the wounds all over their bodies.

They went down corridor after corridor, but every way they turned, there were no stairs nor sight of the comforting fog that marked a possible stable zone. Those zones were patches of steady ground and clear weather on dungeon floors which the Distortion's winds had left untouched. They hadn't even seen a single seed or orb all this time, and by extension, none of those so-called 'Escape Orbs' that Nida had heard of, which were supposedly lifesavers in situations like these. Only dead ends, and intersections, and-

Woosh!

The sound of the wind had grown much louder and closer- there were not many winds left before the floor would finally be reclaimed by the Distortion. It was something that Nida was grateful Pleo hadn't experienced yet, but even then...

"A-Aah! N-Nida!"

The wind did little to assuage his panic, as the little Protector whirled about and tried to look for somewhere, anywhere where he could run to.

"We're trying! We're trying, Pleo!" Nida cried back, desperately pleading with the young Protector to calm down. "Just- Please! No te rindas! Don't panic right now!"

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Elty drawing near a patch of well-packed dust on the ground, and sniffing at it.

"Elty?!" the Nidoran hissed. "Can you not wander off at a time like-?!"

"Didn't you notice?" he exclaimed. "The leaves and dust didn't get kicked up as badly as last time!"

Nida and Pleo looked around and sure enough, in this particular corridor, the leaves on the ground had shifted only about as much as they would have in a stiff breeze, as opposed to the heavy wind they felt earlier. The Growlithe suddenly stopped at a curtain of vines and called out.

"There!"

The Growlithe breathed a cone of embers at a curtain of vines. The plants shriveled under the heat and a few of the vines fell away, revealing the beginnings of a curtain of fog in the gaps behind them.

"H-Huh?!"

"Wait, that's a stable patch! But how on earth did you-?!"

"I didn't go into my first dungeon yesterday, you know!" Elty shot back. "Places near stable patches aren't affected by changes in the Distortion right away! So-!"

Woosh

That time, the leaves definitely moved much further, and the sound of the wind in the background had become a deafening, howling roar.

"Hurry up and get in there!" the dog barked.

The three ran in past the vines as the howling outside continued and the winds grew stronger and stronger. As they progressed further down the passage, they noticed that the mist had started to grow thicker. Why this was like the fog at the entrance! But… travelling through it...

"H-How are we supposed to make it through in time?" Pleo squawked.

"Hold onto my tail! It'll be close, but I think I can get us through!" Elty shouted. "And no matter what, don't stop for anything!"

Pleo latched onto Elty's tail with his beak as Nida hurriedly hopped atop Pleo's shoulders, and the Growlithe was off. The little orange dog hurried ahead, leaving Pleo to follow whatever way his head was yanked. The fog grew thicker and thicker with each hurried step forward as the howling grew more and more garbled. As legs and tails vanished into the haze, Elty's pace grew slower and slower; apparently he couldn't rush tracking a path even in these circumstances.

Pleo grew more and more panicked, but still, he did not dare let go of the furry fluff in his mouth. As the sound of the wind grew more and more incoherent, it suddenly dawned on the group… the noise was also growing weaker and weaker. Elty's pace started to quicken, and the team began to little by little hear the muddled din fade into progressive silence, followed by the smell of grass and flowers growing thicker and thicker.

Sure enough, the mist started to clear out, revealing a small meadow next to a high stony ledge that was ringed by a wall of fog in all directions.

Elty stumbled forward, and collapsed onto a small clump of short ferns. Nida tumbled off of Pleo and onto the ground.

"Ah-aaaah…"

The Nidoran stayed on the ground, her legs not cooperating and her breaths heavy as she couldn't help but have her mind drift back over and over again to how close the team had come to being swept away to gods-knows-where.

Her ears then pricked up as a soft sniffling noise reached her ears. Nida staggered to her feet and flared out her barbs, until she realized that the sound was...

"Pleo?"

The Nidoran looked over and saw that as Pleo continued to sniffle, tears dribbled from his eyes and onto the ground. The Nidoran limped over to the bird and sank her muzzle into his plumage, stroking her partner.

"Pleo," she pleaded. "Please don't cry."

"Yeah, it's alright," Elty's voice added, its owner having staggered up to his feet from his resting place. "We're safe… er… ish."

"B-But we don't even know where we are!" Pleo exclaimed in between continued sniffles. Nida tried to think of something to say back to him, but… she couldn't think of anything, the awful truth of Pleo's statement sinking in as her ears began to droop. They really didn't have any idea of where they were. They were in a Mystery Dungeon that was completely unlike the one on Tromba, one that could be in the middle of the sea for all they knew.

Was there really any way to know where they were? All they had to work with that moment was that they were in the middle of a clearing in an island of stability, located in the midst of a constantly-shifting Distortion. Their only other clues consisting of a few trees, some low plants, and a ledge covered in writing made from charcoal and berry juice a few paces over.

"Eighth floor… Eastern Groves," Elty murmured to himself as he stared at a small patch of script on the ledge. "I swear that I've heard of a dungeon named that before…"

Nida hopped over to get a better look at the scrawls. This was writing, just like she had seen on signs and pieces of paper back home... Hold on a minute! This was writing! A Pokémon's writing!

"Pleo, we're not the only Pokémon that have gotten stuck here before!" Nida said, watching as Pleo's crying started to die down.

"We- We aren't?"

"Really! We aren't! Look!" she replied, as her eyes settled along the wall filled with runes of various colors and shapes, onto a line of similar, but sloppier symbols in black streaks from charcoal. "Look at this line right below the one Elty read! It's leaving encouragement for Pokémon stuck like us, Pleo."

The Growlithe went up to the message, stared at it for a moment, then scowled and tilted his head.

"'If you're stuck here reading this, always look on the bright side of life'... Oi, are you sure that message wasn't sarcasm?" he asked. "Because the messages right next to this one look like something you'd see on the alley outside a juice bar, or the inside of a lat-"

Nida swiftly hissed for silence from the Growlithe and glared at him as the dog shot a sour scowl back and roll his eyes. Darn it Elty, it was encouragement! How sincere or not it was was unimportant when it was making Pleo settle down right now.

"The writing here means someone was stuck here once before, and they got rescued later on," Nida quickly reassured Pleo. Her eyes then drifted towards Elty's bag, when a sudden thought crossed her mind. She dug through it and saw that, buried at the bottom, was an envelope, a piece of paper, and a small piece of charcoal to write on it with (if with a couple obvious bite marks at one end). Not as much as she'd have wanted, but Elty at least didn't go into things totally unprepared with that bag of his. She fished out the three articles and proudly showed them to Pleo.

"And we have a way of letting them know we're here, too!" she explained. "As long as we stick together and stay calm, we'll get rescued just like whoever wrote that message on the wall!"

"Well, you'll need to let the Distortion's winds blow it out," Elty corrected. "But we could be in worse straits right now."

Pleo seemed to have cheered up, and the little Protector brought a wing to his beak and paused in thought...

"Can you let me send it off, then?" he asked.

"Yeah," Nida replied, giving a tired smile back to the Protector as she began to get up. "I think we can do tha-"

And abruptly flinched as she chanced to stumble shoulder-first onto the ground after losing her balance on a pebble, sending a jolt of pain shooting through her body from an obscured wound under her pelt. The Nidoran lurched her body back up, wincing, and flattened out her ears, shaking her head.

"Um… How about after we patch ourselves up first?"


Recovery went less than smoothly. Much to Nida's dismay, it turned out that the berry crate that she and Elty hid in on Lyn's ship contained primarily cash crops, meaning that most of Elty's loot from the box were useless for treating wounds. Between the three of them, all they had to work with were two lonely Oran Berries- ones that hadn't been touched by the effects of a Mystery Dungeon's Distortion, at that. The Nidoran and Growlithe took turns applying the fruits and dividing up the pulp, if a bit more sparingly than either would have liked, and attempted to make up the difference with some inert berries in the bag and rest on the clearing's ground.

The aches and pains all over the three Pokémon's bodies dulled a little, but failed to completely fade away. As time went by, the rescue request was written and sealed in the envelope, while Pleo's lavender Company scarf was charred and rubbed through the dirt to get rid of that troublesome purple square that would need to be explained to rescuers. The team's energies then shifted to keeping a dutiful watch for any potential emerging figures from the surrounding fog, as their lingering aches and the tedium of a long wait without much to do but look at the haze around them set in.

It became harder and harder to tell how long the three were in there. The mist-shrouded sky above didn't even allow the sight of the Travellers crossing overhead to give some clue as to how long the three were in the clearing. The little Protector in the group began to fidget nervously and pace about, asking over and over again...

"How much longer are we going to stay here?"

Pleo's eyes darted here and there at the surrounding curtain of fog as his inquiry went unanswered again and again. Elty scowled, of all the times to be pestered with repeated questions, this wasn't one of them. The Growlithe sprang up and thrust his muzzle into Pleo's face.

"Um, hello?" he snapped. "We almost got blown away with the floor! Don't be in such a rush to get moving!"

Pleo squawked and hastily beat his wings to hop up onto a tree branch away from Elty, stumbling a bit from still-weakened balance when he reached it. As Nida watched her teammates butt heads with each other, she lowered her ears in dismay, grumbling under her breath about the Growlithe's attitude. Things weren't exactly going smoothly among the group, even with their already… er… shaky relationships with each other.

Nida bit her tongue to try and avoid blurting out her frustrations with the two. Why couldn't Pleo realize that they didn't have any better idea than he did of what was going on out there? And why did Elty need to be such an obnoxious snot at a time like this? That's when it struck her- maybe the team needed something to do other than just sit here. Being stuck in one place not knowing what would happen to them surely neither helped tempers nor anxieties. They needed something... something like...

"Why don't we try checking outside? It has been a while, Elty," the Nidoran suggested. "And we should be able to tell if the outside's still in flux by the time we hit the deeper parts of the fog anyways."

The bird and dog looked at each other a moment; after thinking it over, a cautious "Okay" from Pleo, and an irritated "Fine" from Elty, the group decided to set out through the curtain of fog. After coming to the conclusion that trusting someone to latch onto a poisonous spike lump was less-than-ideal given the circumstances, Elty was again selected to lead the group back through the barrier and into the Mystery Dungeon. Much as had happened when coming into the clearing, as the group ventured deeper into the fog, the world around them faded little by little and their senses became distorted in the mist. The group's pace was much slower and methodical that time, with the only company aside from each other during the trek being the sounds of footsteps and Nida occasionally murmuring soft words of encouragement to Pleo to keep him moving in the unsettling haze.

When the fog started to clear up again, the first thing that struck the group was the lack of sound. A sign the winds had subsided, hopefully. As the team trudged on, they felt a barky substance under their feet and saw a dim light up ahead. Why if the ceiling were lower and Nida didn't know any better, she'd think the team had found a passage back into her Mami and Papi's burrow!

The fog finally faded away as the group followed the light out into a rough corridor formed by tall trees and thickets in between their trunks. They looked back and saw that they had come from a great, hollowed log that had been toppled over to form a rough tunnel, the fog still faintly visible in it. Above them was a milky-white layer, much as sea fog appears at night when suspended over the ground- just thin enough for the light of the stars and moon to muddle in, but just thick enough to muddle and obscure their shapes.

It was a place to start, at least. Nida sighed and turned back to the log as Elty and Pleo still looked about their surroundings, where she drug her feet through the dirt to form a cross-shape in front of it. No sense in losing track of a perfectly good hiding spot, at least.

"Pleo, let's have you try and give the letter a head start with a gust and see if there's any supplies we can gather on this floor," Nida said. "We don't know how long we'll be down here, so it would be best to try and prepare for the worst."

"Oi, don't forget skarby!" the Growlithe insisted. "Since we're stuck and out here anyways, we might as well see if something good turns up!"

Nida rolled her eyes and decided not to dignify Elty's words with a response, instead turning to the young Lugia with the sealed distress message in her mouth. She saw that his strength had returned enough to get himself airborne as he flapped up and circled a few times above the team before coming back down in a clumsy landing. The Nidoran set the letter down on the cross in the dirt and smiled slightly, clearly he just needed to get his blood flowing.

"Got all that, Pleo?"

"I… I think so," he replied.

"Alright, holler out if you find something!"

After leaving Pleo to blow the letter off deep into the floor with an awkward but serviceable Whirlwind, the team set off. Nida lead the way as Elty followed closely on her heels and Pleo took to the air behind them, coming back down to earth every now and then. His flight was still erratic and labored from a mix of inexperience and fatigue, but he tracked the team well enough to maintain a constant-ish course.

This dungeon seemed to be somewhat like the rainforest back home. There was the leaf litter on the ground, the occasional root and upended log to cross... Except there was also the fact that everything felt damp, much as the forest at home did during wet season. The undergrowth also was denser than anything Nida remembered seeing near the town or paths, and the trees made the ones on Tromba look like dwarfs. The branches above were filled with plants growing on them whose roots dangled, their shape and pigmentation making them seem like colorful, leafy stars above their heads.

So not that similar to home once you really thought about it...

"Ow!"

All of a sudden, Nida felt a sharp jab shoot through her foot. She recoiled as Pleo and Elty cried out and ran up to her.

"What's wrong?!" Pleo cried out.

"Don't worry, I'm fine," the Nidoran replied, shaking her foot. "I just stepped on something…"

The blue rabbit lowered her head to the ground and sniffed at some leaves, where she noticed a point sticking out from underneath them. She nosed the leaves away and underneath them was a sharp, wooden spike.

"Wait!" she exclaimed. "I think I found something!"

"Eh?" Pleo asked, as he fluttered over to eye the strange spike. "What is it?"

"It's a Stick," Elty answered, sniffing at the long and sharp wooden barb. "You throw it at other Pokémon."

"So… Like a Gravelerock?" Pleo asked.

"A worse Gravelerock, maybe," Nida murmured, frowning as she scooped up the stick and slipped it into Elty's bag. Sticks and barbs of their ilk were always much more cumbersome objects to throw than Gravelerocks, especially for Pokémon that usually went about on all fours like Nidoran. You couldn't arc them thanks to their oblong shape, which made throwing them from behind cover or teammates awkward and difficult. Still, she supposed that it was better than nothing; it could help them in a pinch at the least-

"A-Aah!"

All of a sudden, Pleo pitched forward and tumbled onto the ground. As the little Lugia staggered to get back up, Nida and Elty's fur stood on end. There was a barb embedded in between Pleo's feathers along his right wing's carpal joint, dribbling noxious purple fluid from its end.

"You! Get out of our territory!"

The culprit of the Poison Sting quickly became apparent as a Weedle dropped down chittering angrily from an overhead branch, accompanied by a leering Hoppip.

"Yeah! You can't just disturb a Pokémon's sleep like that!" the Hoppip fumed, bouncing up and down angrily in the air before she expelled some greenish powder at the group.

The three hastily scattered as the powder spread and settled on the ground where they once were, coating it with a fine dust. Oh great, a battle with ferals, just what the team did not need right now.

"Hang in there!" Nida hollered. The Nidoran took the barb back from Elty's bag and whigged it at the Hoppip. "We're gonna have to fight them off!"

The barb struck the Grass-Type's side, making her yelp and tumble down to the floor. As the pink Pokémon slowly picked herself off the ground, Elty dashed towards the Weedle

"Sorry about waking you up!" he growled. "Lemme make it up with a warm welcome!"

The Growlithe inhaled, and before the Bug-Type could scuttle away, spat a clump of cinders at his face, sending the creature screeching on the ground rubbing at his burns.

"Hah! Bet you haven't gotten one that warm before, have y-?"

Before Elty could finish taunting, he suddenly breathed in and abruptly started hacking and spluttering. When he looked up, he saw that the Hoppip had scattered another batch of powder directly onto him, this one leaving sickly purple dust-like particles all over his fur.

"Stop it!" a voice suddenly cried out. As Elty continued to try and catch his breath, he saw the Hoppip get caught by a sudden piercing gust. The creature shrieked as she was blown into a tree trunk alongside the thicket-lined path, and dropped down to the ground, twitching.

"A-Aaah! L-Leave me alone!"

The Weedle at this point had flown into a panic at the realization that he was all alone against the three remaining Pokémon. He promptly grabbed his pink Grass-Type ally and desperately drug her off into some bushes. Afterwards, some quiet, frightened whimpering came from the direction the Weedle fled to, eventually giving way to the sounds of a groaning creature stirring, a pair of bodies hastily tearing away through the brush, and finally... silence.

"And that'll teach you two to not attack other Pokémon for no reason!" Nida huffed after the pair of ferals. The Nidoran flared her ears, kicked a pebble into the bushes after them, and went over to recover the wooden barb she flung at the Hoppip. After becoming satisfied that the two Pokémon were gone, she turned back to her teammates.

"They didn't hurt you guys too much, did they?"

Nida trailed off and let the Stick slip out of her paws when she saw that both her teammates looked ill and their bodies' movements were labored and clumsy.

"Oh no."

"Urgh… K-Kurczę," Elty gagged. "I think they left a mark."

She saw that Elty's pelt around his snout and face was covered in purple dust. Poison Powder, and he had obviously breathed the particles in. As for the barb stuck in Pleo, that must have been...

"Is this 'poison' too, Nida?" Pleo asked, groaning as he rested on the ground to try and soothe his increasingly woozy head and stomach. "Do we have one of those 'Pechy' Berries to make it go away?"

"J-Just a second!" Nida stuttered as she went over and threw Elty's satchel open. "I'll get those Pecha Berries and then all of this will be-"

The Nidoran looked through the satchel. A Cleanse Orb, the piece of charcoal she used to write the distress letter with, Pleo's King's Rock… Eh?! She started dumping out the contents of the bag. There were definitely still berries in there alright… A Durin Berry (why had Elty bothered stealing one of those anyways?), a Pinkan Berry (they grew those back home?), but...

"Huh?!" she cried, staring wide-eyed at the Growlithe. "I could have sworn there were Pecha Berries in the crate with us!"

"What's that look for?" Elty growled back, the creature's legs wobbling under the strain of the venom in his body. "I just grabbed whatever was closest, alright?"

Nida blanched. The only things that she had seen in Elty's bag that weren't from Lyn's ship were the half-bitten lump of charcoal, a twine 'writing band' that Pokémon like Elty slipped over their forepaws to hold said charcoal in place for writing, Pleo's torn scarf, and his lucky charm! All of the other Oran Berries, all of the other Pecha Berries… all of them were either still at home with Crom, or presently in the team's stomachs. The Nidoran's mind raced, there had to be something they could do now! Maybe… Maybe…

"There- There should be a Pecha Berry on this floor, right?" she stammered. "We could try finding it!"

"All by yourself?" the Growlithe muttered.

Nida lowered her ears and leered back at the Growlithe. What kind of stupid question was that?

"Of course not!" she hissed. "What kind of tonto goes off alone in a Mystery Dungeon?!"

"The one who doesn't want to make poison seep in faster," Elty retorted with a gagging groan.

Nida's heart sank. The Growlithe brought up a good point. Turning around and going back to the stable zone would just be prolonging the inevitable of the poison overtaking Elty and Pleo. She couldn't go off all alone to look for a Pecha Berry. If she had run into those two ferals on her own earlier, they would have surely brought her to her knees. And if Elty and Pleo had to fight ferals like them in their current condition, they would likely not fare any better. They couldn't all go together to look for a Pecha Berry since they were all already weakened, and the poison would only get worse as they moved.

"N-Nida?" Pleo asked nervously. "What are we going to do?"

Nida looked down at the ground. Was there anything they could do? She tried over and over to think of something, but everything just boiled down to the same awful choices. She felt drops well up in her eyes as she began to see that no matter what the team did here, there wasn't any way that someone wasn't going to get hurt. All because of something stupid they could have avoided if they have had the chance to prepare like they did at home...

"Oi!"

Wait a minute, was that-? A voice?

"This is Team Chasseur of the Boisocéan Island Guild! Is anyone out there?!" it called out again, its tenor coming out as a bug-like chitter.

"We heard a struggle!" a mewling, feline voice added.

That- That was help! Travelers Above, there was a way out of this! Granted, there were any number of ways this could still go wrong, but what did the team have to lose at this point? Without thinking or bothering to blink away the mist in her eyes, Nida cried out to the voices with all her strength.

"W-We're right here! We need medical attention!"

Some startled murmures went up in the direction of the earlier voices, followed by the sounds of dashing footfalls against the leaf litter of a floor paths.

"Tiens bon, we're getting you out!" another voice interjected, intermixed with… snorts? Clearly the voice of some sort of earthier creature.

Nida looked down the bend of the path ahead and saw three Pokémon round the corner. There was a Venipede scuttling along in a faded black scarf with a white snowflake design, and two Pokémon in matching scarfs dashing along after him. They were a Tepig and a Purrloin, the former wearing his scarf in the same loose style that the Venipede and Team Traveller did, the latter curiously having tied his scarf up into a tight, skin-hugging band securing a tail that formed a carefully-splayed cravat. Almost as quickly as Team Traveller spotted them, the three strangers had run up to the beleaguered rescue team and began to size them up.

"Yeesh, you guys look terrible," the Tepig muttered. "Did you step on an Explosion Trap or something? I'm not sure there's even Pokémon down here that can singe you like that."

"It's a long- gargh… story," Elty began as he struggled to fight back retching, the Fire-Type lowering his head to the ground as his stomach grew more and more uncooperative.

"Ack!" the Purrloin hissed, hopping back away from the ill-looking dog. "If you're gonna vomit, do it in the bushes! I don't need that anywhere near my pelt!"

"They're poisoned… Actor, fish out the Pecha Berry from Francouer's bag and split it between the two," the Venipede chirped. "It won't be enough to dispel the poison entirely, but it should tide them over until we can get them to Maranda and the rest of the medics."

The Purrloin dug through the Tepig's bag and fished out a pink, heart-shaped berry from it. With one swift motion, he slipped a claw along it and sliced it into two pieces around a pit inside before pulling them apart. The purple cat then set about applying the halves' juices to the two's wounds. Plucking out the barb from Pleo's carpal joint to crush one half against it, and the other against Elty's muzzle to allow the juice to dribble down his sinuses. Much as in the case of Oran Berries, the pulpy remains were also not wasted, and set before the two pink-stained patients. Elty and Pleo greedily devouring their halves of the fruit as soon as they were laid out before them as Nida set to work putting all of the team's belongings back into their bag.

"Normally this would be about when we'd make pleasantries and all, but we'll keep this short since you're looking… well, awful," the Venipede sighed. "I'm Venner, the Chacripan's Actor-"

"I have a proper name, you know!" the Purrloin hissed as he licked up some Pecha juice from his paw. "And I'm the refined one of the lot. Not that you can really expect much from an outfit that literally has 'Hunter' in its name."

"Whatever," the Bug-Type harrumphed. "And the Gruikui's Francouer."

"Sorry our first meeting had to be this rough," the Tepig replied. "But since we're all here, mind telling us your names for the rescue log?"

"Er…" Nida began. Chacripan? Gruikui? But the two were a Purrloin and a Tepig! Lucky save or not, this was certainly an… interesting Rescue Team, the blue spike ball shaking her head before she cleared her throat and replied. "Well, I'm not really sure what you meant by half of that, but… I'm Nida."

"And I'm Eltenios," the Growlithe answered.

"'Elty' is fine for the Growlithe," she replied, lowering her ears and scowling at the orange dog.

"'Growlithe'?" the Tepig murmured to himself, tilting an ear back quizzically.

"It's the thing that you and the other swamp bugs on this island call a 'Caninos'," Actor whispered back. "Something you'd know if you two actually got around more often."

"'Elty' does click off the mandibles better," Venner said to himself. "Just saying."

Elty rolled his eyes and frowned after hearing the bug's response, 'Eltenios' wasn't that complicated a name, was it? Especially compared to a mouthful like 'Caninos'! All of a sudden, the conversation shifted once again as the Purrloin in the other group gestured at Pleo.

"And what about that gull thing with you?" the Dark-Type asked.

"I'm Pleo!" he chirped back, his voice sounding healthier already now that the Pecha fragment had reined in some of the effects of the Weedle's venom. "My friends say I'm called a 'Lugia', and I'm the Protector!"

The three Pokémon traded looks with each other and then looked back at the white bird.

"'Lugia'?" Francoeur wondered. "Venner, have you ever heard of a Pokémon by that name?"

"Nope," the Venipede replied, shaking his head.

"No, really," the Purrloin insisted. "What are you?"

Elty grumbled under his breath and shook his head, before the orange dog began to offer an explanation of his own back to their rescuers.

"Would you believe that he's an oversized pain in the-?"

"Elty!" Nida snapped, glaring daggers at the Growlithe. The Nidoran turned back to the other Pokémon, waving her paws insistently. "He really is the Protector! He's how we got here in the first place!"

"Nice try," Venner buzzed. "But the Protector here has powers over forming passages through time. Every Pokémon on Boisocéan Island knows that."

"Yeah, and le Prince des Temps is a little plant-fairy," the Tepig added. "Not some overgrown seabird!"

"Bw- Bwas- Whaa…?" Pleo stammered. But- But he was the Protector! And the island wasn't called Bwas... Whatever the little bug just said! "But I'm the Protector of Tromba!"

"Um… Pleo?" Elty whispered, putting a paw over his muzzle. "I think we're somewhere different."

That time, Pleo's comments drew head shakes from their three rescuers. That must have been quite the fall these three strangers went through.

"Xe tuti mati," the Purrloin muttered under his breath.

"The wounds and poison must be getting to them. Come on, let's get you all to Maranda," the Venipede sighed, before he sidled up against a tree trunk and pressed a glinting badge pinned to his scarf against it. "Oi, Meyrink!"

"Eh?" a voice suddenly replied. Its tenor sounded vaguely like that of the sound of air blown over a clay jug's neck, the humming presence filling the minds of the gathered Pokémon. "What are you doing out in the dungeon at this hour, Venner?"

"Ne t'en fais pas!" the Bug-Type snapped back. "We found some Pokémon in here!"

"How many?"

"Party of three! And don't keep them waiting, they need patching up!"

"Kids these days," the voice sighed. "Un instant. I'll go wake Acamar."

Suddenly, two bursts of light lit up the end of the corridor. As Team Traveller's eyes adjusted to the unexpected flash, they saw that a Claydol and Staryu had abruptly appeared, and drew closer to the group.

"You all need to learn how to go exploring at sane hours," the Claydol grumbled.

"Yeah! Some of us need our rest in the water!" the Staryu burbled tiredly.

"That's something we'll keep in mind the next time we have a choice," Elty groaned, rolling his eyes.

"Here, go with Meyrink here," Venner instructed, gesturing at the Claydol with his antennae. "When we get back, we'll help you find your way over to the medics."

The items from the team's ransacked bag were returned to their places inside the team's bag and one by one, the Pokémon of Team Traveller made their way tiredly over to the black and red Psychic-Type, locking their wings and paws to form a chain with the creature. At last, they were finally going to be heading to someplace safe… Someplace where even if their ordeal wasn't over, it would be pushed aside, at least for a while.

"Yeah, and we'll hash out the details of that reward on the way over!" Actor called out.

Or maybe it wouldn't...

"Eh?! Rew-?!"

Before Nida could regain her composure, the surrounding forest melted away in a flash of light, as Meyrink whisked the three out of the dungeon.


Author's Notes:

- (¡)No te rindas! - Spanish: "Don't (you) give up!"
- skarby - Polish: "treasures"
- Tiens bon - French: "Hold on"
- Caninos - French: "Growlithe"
- le Prince des Temps - French: "the Prince of Time"
- Xe tuti mati - Venetian: "They're all crazy"
- Ne t'en fais pas! - French: "Don't worry about it!"
- Un instant. - French: "One moment." lit. "A moment."