Tony looked down and had his gaze met by the Marill, who was only barely visible from where I was standing. She groaned as she almost had to stand up on her chair so that she could reach the top of the hilariously oversized desk. She took a deep breath.

"Team name?" She asked.

"Team Zac," Tony replied. There was a pause as the Marill partially expected Tony to continue.

"...And your members?"

"Steve, Aza, Gray, Mark, Ian, Steve, Toz." He turned around and pointed at each of us as he rattled off our names. After turning back around, it took him a moment to realize he forgot about himself. "Oh, and Tony," he chuckled.

"Just fill out this form, and you're good to go." The Marill handed him a sheath of papers. Tony looked at us, and soon settled his eyes directly on me.

Our sights had only crossed for a moment, but I knew my fate was already sealed. I couldn't really write in this language, and I really didn't want to be outed as illiterate.

If I was forced into this, it would be checkmate. I needed to figure out a way to get out as soon as possible, no matter the cost, and without raising suspicions as well-

"Aza, would you fill this out for me?" Tony asked, diverting his attention away. I let out a deep breath, knowing I had been saved.

"Why me? Why can't Steve do it?" Nope. Nevermind. Not safe. I took another deep breath and waited for an answer from Tony, wondering what'd he decide and how I could make a run for it if he agreed with Aza.

...

"Ugh. Aza, just fill it out." Tony looked disappointed in him.

Once she wrote some things down, she "gently" put it down on the Marill's desk. The Marill barely even glanced at the paper before making their call.

"You're in. The new mystery dungeon has just been found, so your first mission is to scout it out and just look for anything useful." Everyone was confused, were we getting our first assignment right now?

"That's it?" Tony asked.

"Yep."

"There's no orientation?" Ian asked.

"Nope. Now, get! …By the way, you might want this paper. It kind of is your orientation."

I heard a faint sigh coming from the desk as we were leaving. "This place needs more people…"

I followed my newly dubbed teammates, as they seemed to somehow already know where they were going. We walked up the cliff and into the forest. I noticed that nobody discussed a pay rate, so I just hoped we were actually getting paid for this.

I recognized the area where the kecleon led me out of the forest, and wondered where he was now. Well, I knew that he was probably at his shop, but I wondered what he thought about me, about-


Wait... "The new mystery dungeon"... What does that mean, exactly? I woke up in a small room with no exit… like a dungeon…

If that's the case, then…


The memories came flooding back. I remembered being clawed to death by that feral fox, and waking up in that dungeon. I remembered the thirst, the darkness, the fear of death…

A pit began to form in my stomach, and suddenly I wasn't sure if I could bear the sight of that place again.

Yet, I would be going back. I felt so helpless.

'Deep breaths,' I thought.

'Deep breaths.'

When I approached the crest of that hill behind the rest of my team, I heard a conversation at the dungeon between two people. I recognized Aza's voice, but not the other.

My curiosity overpowered my caution, and I peeked my ear over.

"I came to this place as soon as I heard where it was!" The unknown voice said.

"Okay, but we're here on guild duty, not you. Why are you even here?" Aza asked.

"Well, I…" Their voice dropped like they had just realized that they couldn't continue the sentence. "-I wanted to figure out what form the human took."

My expression dropped even further when I realized that I had probably shed some fur while I was there, and I needed to get in before them to cover it up. I mustered my confidence and walked over to the entrance. I was going to ask to be let inside, but as I gazed upon the pokemon standing in my way, my words faltered. It echoed some of my last memories seared into my brain seconds before my death. It held the fiery orange of the fox that killed me. It was inevitable that I would encounter a pokemon that looked like a fox at some point, but right here of all places? It was like the universe decided it hated me right now. My heart raced, and my breaths got shorter. My vision became fixated on the entrance, and I couldn't focus on anything except for my goal.

Gotta cover it up.

"Steve, are you okay?" Tony asked, but I didn't respond.

I rushed inside, sat down against a wall in the corner, and gripped my legs really hard. Too hard. When I lifted my paws, a large amount of fur came up with it. It felt like I was about to faint from shock; I shook my paw, scattering it everywhere. Maybe this would cover my tracks.

With the entrance now open, there was just barely enough light inside to see. There was nothing in the room, as I already knew. Just pebbles, dirt, and spikey rock walls.

Just. one. tiny. room.

Gray entered behind me, confused at what I had just done.

With that, our mission came to an abrupt end.

I claimed that I had just tripped, but I never explained to anyone why I ran into the dungeon in the first place. I was embarrassed, but I knew it had to be done. Nobody wanted to talk to me, (at least, that's what it felt like.) but Tony negotiated a deal where he would go home with me, and everyone else would report back to the guild. I was clearly injured, after all. The good news was that they apparently only needed to report what was inside of the dungeon when they got there, which was nothing, as they thought the fur was definitely from me just then.

I collapsed into the same chair I had done not too long ago. I could only think about what this would mean for me, and what it meant about everyone else. Would they ostracize me? Would I get kicked out of the guild on the first day? Once I realized that I wouldn't reach any conclusions, I took the trip upstairs, one step at a time. I knew Tony was the only one here besides me, but I couldn't hear him anywhere in the house.

I sat down on my bed, unwilling to go to sleep, and unwilling to look at my barren surroundings. I just spaced out and got lost deep in thought.

My time alone would not be long, however, as I heard a knock on the bedroom door.

'What is it now?' I thought, exhausted.

I opened the door, and Tony stepped inside. Before saying anything, he shut the door behind him and rotated the desk chair to face me. He sat down in it, and took a deep breath. My eyes turned back towards the desk when I realized that I had left my journal open, and he would only have to turn around to see its contents.

However, it appeared that Tony looked into my eyes and saw my concern. He reached behind himself and closed the journal without ever breaking eye contact. It relieved me of that concern but created a whole other one entirely.

"Are you here because of… that?" I asked him, referring to my "fall" in the dungeon. Tony sighed.

"Only partially," he said.

"Hi, my name is Tony." There was a pause. "How are you?"

I stared at him for a second in confusion, my brain lagging for a few seconds before It caught up with me. He said that in regular English. No telepathy, and no auto-translation of any kind; I froze in shock. He absolutely noticed my reaction, and after switching back to his original language, he said this;

"So, Steve. Since we first met, there has always been something strange about you." I nodded. "I've never seen you… until the day you showed up at this house, and you've been utterly confused the entire time about… well, everything!" I started to sweat, wondering if anyone else noticed how clueless I was.

"You have a journal containing 'nonsense', and when you approached the dungeon where the most recent human came from…"

Suddenly, what Tony was trying to say clicked inside my head, sending me into panic mode. Yet, I barely managed to keep my composure. Tony then confirmed what I had suspected.

"I've never seen you before, you don't write our language, you're always confused about everything like it's the first time you're hearing it, and you're-" He cut himself off.

"-Honestly, I'm ashamed of myself for not putting it together before this morning!"

I remembered the things which were said about "humans", about killing them, about searching for them, and was terrified. This was it. I had gotten a good second chance, but my life was over. Tony wanted to kill me, and I stood no chance against one pokemon in a fight, and even if I did win, I couldn't beat the rest of them!

My concern turned to fear, and my fear turned to terror, and I couldn't stop myself from crying. I naturally tried my hardest to mask it, but to no avail.

Tony now knew that I knew that he knew. He moved to block the only door, ensuring that I had no escape before attacking. I couldn't even bear to look up…