Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Hands of Creation

Chapter 44 - Overconfident

Owen, Gahi, Enet, and Amia all returned from the Poison Guardian's realm. They smelled of the toxic swamp's noxious fumes, but thankfully didn't take much of it with them beyond that.

"Brr—what a cold draft," Amia said, rubbing her arms. "I don't think Hot Spot Cave should quite feel like this!"

Amia held her hand forward and summoned Alex next, who immediately rubbed his cannons together. "M-more like Cold Spot Cave."

Owen looked back. "Hey, dad. I hope, uh, I hope you weren't too scared back there."

"S-scared? Why would I be scared?" Alex said with a light titter. "I'm... I'm a, er, Magmortar. I'm quite scary."

Amia giggled, rubbing his flaming shoulder. "Oh, dear, you were trembling in the Fire Orb. You aren't very good with cold personalities like Ghrelle."

"I—I suppose so." Alex slumped. "S-speaking of cold, though..."

"Y-yeah, what's goin' on?" Gahi mumbled, pressing against Owen's much warmer, fiery body. Without thinking, he rubbed his cheek against Owen's shoulder; the Charizard just accepted it, figuring Gahi needed it.

Enet shrugged and smoothed out her fur, clearly glad to finally be out of the swamp. She sniffed the air—doing her best to ignore the lingering stench—and said, "I smell... two. New."

"Two new smells?" asked Owen. "Oh—that must be the two Guardians the others got!" At least the others were able to recover their Guardians. Still, that meant they were the only ones who failed this time... Not that Owen was expecting it to work out. The Poison Guardian was part of the Trinity. In hindsight, he could have been seriously hurt if he wasn't careful. But Star was confident that he'd've been fine. He was glad that she was right.

He concentrated to feel where everyone was. Most of them were near Rhys' home across the caves, so he walked, followed by the others. A few others were off on their own. Valle was where he always was, in the middle of the town, the centerpiece of Hot Spot. Manny was brawling with his spirits again in the training grounds, though it looked like Manny was a bit tired this time around.

That meant the two new bodies were in Rhys' home.

"Hello?" Owen said, peering inside. "What's going on?"

"Hey! You're back!" Willow said, hopping off of Valle and onto Owen. Reflexively, the Charizard held free hand out, catching the tiny Joltik in midair like some sort of conditioned routine. "Eww—you smell!"

"S-sorry, I think that'll wear off. We had to slog through a giant swamp of poison, so we kinda had that get stuck everywhere. Our Mystic powers were disrupted too much to just float over it, I think. I might just hop in the lava to clean up."

"Yeah, well, I can't do that," Gahi said.

"We could fuse, and then I could do it," Owen offered. "Pretty sure I can handle the lava even if you're half of me."

Gahi looked tempted.

"How about me?" Enet asked.

"Uhh... lots of water," Owen said. There was still gunk on Enet's feet where they had dipped into the poison, and her fluffy body absorbed a lot of the stench. There was no escaping Enet's particularly horrible odor.

"Hey, how about me?" Jerry spoke up, reminding Owen that some of his cargo was alive and irritated. "I'm still just a head! You gonna fix that, 'Zard?"

Willow hopped near Jerry and prodded his cheek. "How come you aren't dead?"

"Beats me," Jerry replied. "Maybe I am and this is just my dying nightmare. I'll believe anything at this point."