Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Hands of Creation

Chapter 92 - Rediscovery

Angelo had fallen into a healthy routine. He would wake up around early afternoon, have breakfast, do some drawing, and leave his home to heal the dying. Then, along the way, he would see small requests on the board by the Central Waypoint—now nonfunctional and repurposed as a trouble board. Angelo was, therefore, able to take on essentially any request, whether he wanted to or not.

He didn't understand. It had been so perfect. Every day would have been the same and nobody would have assumed any differently. He was an artist, just a simple comic artist who wrote about heroes taking down impossible villains. He wasn't someone who actually could!

And yet, now, they assumed he was. Suddenly he was the versatile hero. And now, standing at the exit to his art shop slash home, he knew that it would only be two steps before someone would ask him for help.

He pawed uncertainly at the door, undoing the latch—but then heard a small, squeaking sound, followed by a scratching noise below.

"Erm, hello?" Angelo asked.

Little, fuzzy yellow legs poked out from underneath the door. More scratching and squeaking, angry little noises, and a Joltik finally popped out. "You!"

Angelo flinched, stepping away. "Me?"

"Yeah, you!" She leaped onto his face, and Angelo screamed, flailing,and tried to grab her. Instead, she squirmed and found her way somewhere under his hat fur. "You're late!"

Angelo was still screaming.

"Why'd you take so long to wake up!?"

Angelo was still screaming.

Then he felt something bite against his skull, and then he couldn't move. Electricity raced along his body, numbing him, and he fell on his side with jerking, spasming motions.

"Oh, great, and now you can't even move!" Willow jammed her leg against Angelo's head again. "Come on, you're stronger than that! Get up!"

"I'm... trying..."

"Hmph!" Willow hopped off and waited at the door. "We need your help with scouting this time."

"Scouting?" Angelo repeated, his gaze focused on a few dusty coins that had rolled under a shelf a long time ago. "Why scouting?"

"Well, because you can fly!"

"Oh, so I can."

"And if we're ever short on units to send somewhere, Elder said that you'd be the best person to grab! Because you're a wildcard, or something!"

"Elder. The giant Torkoal?"

"Yup!"

"Of course." In the past few days, he had seen him giving out calm orders in the place of the Lucario mate of his. What ever happened to him, anyway? Well, perhaps he was on a long travel.

"You know, I'm kinda jealous," Willow said, prodding Angelo again while the feeling slowly and agonizingly returned to his limbs. "Since when can a Smeargle learn so many moves and keep them?"

"Sticky aura, Father called it." Angelo slowly rolled until he was on his belly, then shakily brought his arms forward. Up, up... don't fall, don't fall... Too weak to stand. Not yet. Sitting would do.

Willow, clearly impatient, hopped a few times before landing on a nearby shelf, dangerously close to a framed picture of his grandfather, Smeargle Angelo. While recovering from his paralysis, the current Angelo wondered if his grandfather, too, had been driven insane by overworking. Sure, the cover was that he had gone insane somehow by straying too close to Void Basin, but really, weren't those just silly rumors? Overworking sounded a lot more likely...