Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Hands of Creation

Chapter 13 - A Place to Call Home

Traversing Fae, Fae Forest was a calming experience, for the most part. The wild Pokémon were no match for Amia's flames, and Owen managed to take on a few as well. He used the aggressors as practice for his vines. He had learned a new technique this way, though he couldn't find a practical use for it yet, as it took too long. Owen was now able to turn his arm into a large vine. And that was all. He figured he'd build upon it later.

While the wilds themselves were not a problem, their pranks were. Everything within the Dungeon was a sea of bizarre, Pecha-pink leaves and beige wood. It smelled like candy. Wild cries of many Fairy and Bug Pokémon faintly sounded in all directions like ethereal, haunting cackles.

The seeds that appeared in this Dungeon were also something that some of the more intelligent wild Pokémon took advantage of. Near the middle of their exploration, a Whimsicott tossed with precise aim a strange seed that exploded right in front of Owen's face. The strange mist that followed made the Charmeleon's reptilian pupils dilate into saucers, and he had to be carried by Amia and Alex for two whole segments while he babbled about the leaves teasing him. This slowly transitioned into him laughing about how everybody looked like giant, rainbow Goodra, and how he could taste the light with his ears.

When Owen came back to his senses, he had no memory of the past two sections. Amia and Alex spared him the details, and instead told him that it was a Sleep Seed, rather than some sort of potent X-Eye Seed.

Thankfully, aside from a few thrown seeds, the Dungeon itself wasn't any problem for them. The forest's twisted dimensions melted away with the passage of the seventh segment. They emerged in a field that was—in stark contrast of the pink foliage that surrounded it—one of normal, green blades of grass that went up to Amia's knees. But the tall grass hid subtle details beneath it. There were large, multicolored mushrooms dotting the pasture, and the rocks were colored like rainbows.

This place was unexplored and untouched by most Pokémon affiliated with Kilo Village. Few wild Pokémon made this place their home, since it did not possess a Dungeon's eternal, maze-like qualities to keep such Pokémon trapped inside its own warped ecosystem. This made the garden's foliage move only to the wind.

"I feel like I shouldn't be here," Owen mumbled, looking around. "Don't you kinda get that feeling...? Like... like this just isn't a place where Pokémon like us should be walking?"

"I see your point," Alex mumbled, rubbing his cannons together anxiously.

"Hmm, let's just keep going," Amia said, "and see where it takes us! It can't be that bad, can it?"

"M-maybe," Owen replied. "Mom? How come... you never told me about all this? Just, you know, about being a Guardian, or that awesome Fire power!"

"W-well, it's simply because, that is, er, Owen..." She sighed. "We just wanted you to live a normal life. We'd tell you eventually, but... don't you think you deserved to just live like a normal Pokémon, at least for a little while?"

"I guess," Owen said. "It's just, it's hard because I still know they're dead."

"Oh, but they're hardly dead, dear."

There was no winning with that argument. He conceded, "I'm glad I at least had a sense of a community... Can they hear me now?"

"They can, dear," Amia said. "And they're so proud of you for taking this so well."

"...What I did counted as taking it well?" he asked, thinking about how he'd toppled Nevren over and had to get one of the Waypoints freed up thanks to his Vine Trap.

"Well, compared to how it could have gone," Amia said.

They walked some more. He saw a blue mushroom along the immediate path. Bored of the foliage, he kicked at it carelessly.