As Aiden and Trevor ventured onwards, maneuvering through a myriad of winding paths and battling through several hostile crawlers, they eventually managed to come across a circular patch of flat land surrounded by a plethora of towering trees. In front of the pair stood a bright red flag which fluttered gently in the wind. Upon seeing the flag, Aiden immediately sprinted forwards, plucked the flagpole from the ground, and began waving it in the air elatedly.
"Here it is, Treph!" Aiden cheered excitedly, "The sun's still up! We're on pace to pass this thing!"
"Yeah, we did it, alright," Trevor stated halfheartedly, feeling as if he had served no role in reaching this point.
"Can you believe it?!" Aiden asked while twirling the flag around and laughing elatedly. "We're about to ace this test! After all this time, I'm actually about to become an official explorer!"
"No, you're not," a raspy, venomous voice declared from one of the trees which surrounded the pair. "Not a weak, pathetic team like yours."
Trevor desperately clutched Aiden's satchel while backing away, his eyes frantically darting around in an attempt to find the voice's source.
"Huh?!" Aiden gasped, dropping the flag and balling her paws into fists. "Who are you?!" she shouted, "Show yourself!"
No response emerged. A deafening silence lingered in the air as Aiden bent her knees, steeling herself up for a looming battle as Trevor stood trembling to the side.
Right as Trevor felt as if he was about to explode from tension, a giant, winged shadow propelled itself directly towards Aiden from a cluster of trees to her right. The Scorbunny managed to narrowly dodge, causing the shadow to ungracefully collide with the jungle floor and crash onto the floor with a loud thud. From the trees which the shadow had emerged from, a sour-faced Drapion leapt downwards and threw up its scissor-like pincers in visible frustration.
"Dammit Ave, I told you to wait for my signal!" the Drapion vented as he began storming towards the injured shadow.
"Sorry Fang," the winged shadow apologized, popping his head out of the ground to reveal the massive mouth of a Golbat with a giant lump visible atop his bruised head. "I thought that I could, you know, get a jump on them while they were stunned by your venomous insults."
Upon seeing the Drapion and the Golbat together, Aiden's angry expression transformed into that of startled recognition. "You... you two are from the Bush Burners! You're the rookie-crushers that disappeared a while back!"
"Course' we are," Fang answered pridefully, "And we're back to do what we do best. Burn garbage teams like yours so they never enter another dungeon again."
Screaming loudly, Fang lunged towards Aiden while wildly brandishing one of his pincers. Utilizing her swift reflexes, Aiden managed to duck under the razor-sharp claw before counterattacking with a swift uppercut to the chin, sending the Drapion stumbling backwards dazedly. Recoiling in surprise at seeing his partner get hurt, Ave created a massive gale of wind by aggressively flailing his wings, causing the Scorbunny to stumble slightly. Fang, upon regaining his composure, charged towards the Scorbunny and threw out a wild haymaker, only for his attack to be sidestepped, then countered yet again. The Drapion grimaced as blood began dripping from his damaged face.
"Hey, this one can actually fight!" Ave shouted, his eyes widening in shocked admiration. "That's more than we can say for most of our targets!"
"Shut up!" Fang snapped, "She's just getting lucky! If we can slow her down, she'll be completely vulnerable. Lets immobilize her with poison!"
Aiden barely had an opportunity to rest before both Fang and Ave began spitting out globs of black sludge towards her at high speeds. While struggling to repeatedly dive away from the barrage of poison, she managed to notice Trevor inching towards her with a paw in his satchel, a look of desperation etched on his face as he tried building up the courage to assist her.
YOU ARE READING
Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Rising Spirits
Adventure"All things... must eventually come to pass..." Trevor, a timid human turned Meowth, has been thrust into an unfamiliar world of talking Pokémon who view his kind as inexplicably tied to the looming, unseen threat which threatens their world. With n...
