Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Hands of Creation

Chapter 80 - Finding Stability

Demitri was a lot heavier than Mispy remembered.

The Haxorus lounged on her back, axes by his side, while he nestled his face against her. "Thanks for this, Mispy," Demitri mumbled.

The Meganium nodded silently, though she was more focused on her surroundings. With no idea on where to go, they had decided to try to find the highest ground possible. To their fortune, they had wound up right next to a mountain, stuck in some kind of valley. The mountains were black—so dark that, at times, it was hard to tell where there were cracks in the ground, or boulders to step over. It had gotten so bad that Demitri had tripped every other step, resulting in Mispy's more unorthodox mode of travel.

Her vines crawled over every small pit and dip, filling in the cracks without much issue. Sliding forward, creeping one vine at a time, she focused on their surroundings. The actual aspect of climbing—the slope wasn't very steep—had become a routine. Red skies above and black rocks below made for a very ominous sight. The wind was invisible, kicking up no dust; she could only know to brace herself when she heard it coming, or otherwise had to make sure she had a good foothold—vinehold, technically—of a nearby rock.

"How far up are we?" Demitri said. "I don't wanna look down."

"Almost," Mispy said. The summit wasn't too far. If she really wanted to, Demitri could probably ball her up and throw her to the top. If only they had Gahi or Owen to do the flying; it would've taken Owen only a few hundred seconds to get to the top of the mountain from here. Instead, they had to deal with kiloseconds.

Mispy suddenly stopped.

"H-huh?" Demitri braced himself. "Is there another one?"

"Mhm."

She raised a vine, pointing it at the ground to her left. She waited, staring, her antennae twitching. Then, suddenly, something black oozed out of the ground, lunging at her; the Meganium's vine was faster, piercing it right in the center. It shrieked and went limp; she flicked it ahead, where it bled an inky blackness.

"Is it dead?" Demitri asked.

Mispy prodded at the thing; no movement. She jabbed it. More black ooze came out. "Dead." She curled a vine around it, lifting it toward Demitri. It dripped thickly. "Hungry?"

Demitri's head jerked forward in a restrained retch. "I—I'm full from the last one," he said.

Mispy shrugged; the vine holding the carcass split open four ways and wrapped around the vaguely shapeless blob. Once she actually pressed on the strange body, she felt vague, slightly harder parts of the body that resembled limbs. Did this thing actually have arms and legs beneath its rounded mass? How strange. Not that it mattered; it was food, now.

Piece by piece, her vines tore away, swallowing each piece greedily until all that remained was black residue. She sighed, satisfied. Any food was good food, and it seemed like they weren't going to come across anything fruit-based for Demitri to enjoy anyway.

It had been a battle just to feed him the first time. 'What if that blob had a family?' Demitri had protested.

She sighed at the thought, which earned a worried pat from the Haxorus. "It's okay," she said.

"It's settling well, right?" he asked.

"Mm."

Maybe they did have families, but as far as Mispy could tell, they were even dumber than ferals—not counting Enet. Then again, she didn't deal with ferals all that often... But these things just attacked on sight. They were defending themselves! And once they were dead, well, it'd be wasteful, wouldn't it?