Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Quenched Torch

Chapter 19: From Bassa with Love

I came to as a figure above me gave a hard nudge with its foot. Blinking gunk out of my eyes, I tried to roll over, only to mentally scream at myself as I rolled onto my cast arm. Clenching my teeth, I turned my head just enough to meet Officer Feraligatr's gaze as she flashed that crocodile smile at our group.

"They live! Get on up, it's already mid-morning," she said. Ignoring my pitiful cry, she watched as Rye clambered to his feet beside me. A muffled comment sounded out from behind me, which I correctly assumed was Mizu. Being a Sandshrew, he seemed to have rolled into a ball to sleep and, being the menace he was, was now apparently refusing to budge. Lily scowled at him.

"Mizu..." she started.

"Fvve mre mnnts..." Mizu replied defiantly, only tightening his curled-up position. As Lily groaned in frustration, Feraligatr squatted down to look the Sandshrew over.

"Allow me, Shroomish," she said, a small smirk on her maw.

While it was hard to see in the morning sun, I could make out her pointer claw beginning to glow dimly with Water-type energy. Feraligatr laid her paw to rest on Mizu, then began to rhythmically tap on his shell with her glowing claw. Mizu flinched with each tap, though to his credit, he kept it up for a good few minutes. However, once those few minutes had passed, Mizu let out a muffled cry as he uncurled to desperately swat Feraligatr away. As he whimpered and clutched his new sore spot, she stood to address us.

"Water torture, ladies and gentlemen. Anyhoo, your new best friends did nothing but give us a hard time the whole night, though we were able to find this on them. I assume it's what you came for," she said as she held up a small bag. "Says it belongs to a Ms. Nidoran from Impetus Town?"

Rye and I quickly raised our paws, so Feraligatr unceremoniously tossed the bag into my paws. As we looked it over, in awe that we had been through all this for this one little bag, she cleared her throat.

"So... let's address the Slaking in the room, alright? What happened to their legs? They said something about their boss, and I know for certain you couldn't have done that, so did you see what happened?" she asked. An awkward silence hung in the air as we all looked to each other expectantly. Eventually, Mizu, who had finally stopped whining over his welt, sniffled once more and started.

"Uh, I-I was in the middle of fighting that big guy off with Lily and Treecko when, uh, this Xatu showed up, and, uh, he started being really cool and made the big guys fly up in the air! And they were all like..." he said, swinging his arms around to mimic what he had seen before Lily calmed him with a nudge. "Uh, then he started talking about his weird secret club, said he was, like, their leader, then he... he, uh, used his mind to break the big guys' legs."

Feraligatr watched us, her lips pursed as Mizu finished his tale.

"Hrm... what was this... er, secret club called?" she asked.

"I think he called it the Fffeh... uh, Phoenix something," Mizu said. Feraligatr made a quiet noise of disgust as she looked down at the floor, shaking her head slightly.

"Phoenixes. Should have figured they'd pull this," she muttered. With that, she pulled a small sack from behind her sash and tossed it towards us, where it hit the floor with a dull clunk.

"Thanks for the information. I guess that's case closed, then. There's your reward, you all can take your time," she told us. As she walked out the door, Rye undid the twine around the sack's opening, spilling dozens of dull metal coins onto the floor. As we ogled at the Poké before us, Lily raised her foot to get our attention.

"Uh, Treecko, remember our deal?" she asked. Rye, not breaking his gaze towards the coins, blinked once and hung his head, letting out a despairing groan.