Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of the Stars

Chapter 6

When the duo reached the main room, instead of heading for the Job Board on the left, Skittle walked over to the Outlaw Board on the right. Once in front of it, Zero looked at Skittle and tilted his head, "Um.... What are we doing over here? We usually get jobs from the board of the left side...."

"I know," Skittle said, looking at the jobs on the board, "But I figured we should take a job from Outlaw Board this time. That's why there are pictures on the posted jobs.... The Pokémon shown on them are the outlaws we have to bring to justice, all ranging from mere petty thieves to really dangerous criminals that need to be brought to justice as fast as possible. But in order to bring them to justice, we have to beat them so we have to be strong enough to do so. That's why we haven't done one till now, I wanted to make sure we'd be able to take one of these jobs and succeed."

"That makes sense..." Zero said, "Given how hard you try to keep us from fainting in Dungeons, there must be a penalty for doing so if we fall to a criminal, that penalty would happen which would cause the loss to sting more."

"Exactly," Skittle said with a smile, "The penalty for falling in a Dungeon would be losing half of the items in our bag as well half of our Poke... Luckily, we shouldn't have to worry about it."

Zero nodded, "Okay, so who are we going after today?"

"Let's see... How about... Hunter," Skittle said, pulling down a piece of paper with the image of Hunter on it and showing it to Zero. Hunter, as shown in the image, was a Pokémon whose body looked somewhat like a floating head with two disembodied hands floating next to it. "It should be easy to spot being he's on Mt Bristle floor 7. He'll be the only Hunter there!"

Zero nodded, "Okay. So, are we heading out there at once or are we heading into town?"

"Town first," Skittle said, "I want to see if the café is open. After meeting Kyubi and seeing how far is was in the building process, I really want to visit it when it opens. After that we'll head off to Mt Bristle."

"Sounds good," Zero said, "Shall we head out now?" Skittle nodded and the duo went off to town. When they got there, they heard a lot of noise coming from inside the café.

"Sounds like the cafe's open..." Zero said.

"Yeah..." Skittle muttered, "Let's go in..." Skittle then walked inside with Zero following her closely. Almost as soon as they did, almost every Pokémon stopped what they were doing and looked at them. Zero could tell that it was making Skittle uncomfortable and was about to do something before a beetle like Pokémon stood up from his seat and walked over to them.

"You two been to a café like this before?" He asked gently.

"N-no..." Skittle said softly, "First time to be honest...."

"Well then, let me explain the two here!" The Pokémon said, "Oh yeah, I'm Heracross, one of the Pokémon you'll see here often." He then turned and pointed to the counter Kyubi was behind, "That's the drink stand. A young Braixen named Kyubi runs it and she can turn all kinds of consumables into fantastic drinks for you!" He then pointed at the counter on the other side of the room and said, "Over there is the trade shop. I haven't met the Pokémon who run it yet but I hear they're brother and sister. The shop is simple, you trade items you don't want or need and get something in return. Being it just started, their list of trade items will be limited but will grow as items are traded in." He then turned and smiled at Zero and Skittle, "I hope you enjoy being here as much as I do."

"Thanks," Skittle said, smiling slightly.

"You sure know a lot about these kinds of cafes...." Zero said.