Chapter Eight: A Cat

“We’re going to the entrance plains.”

It was the first thing Landy said as Team Weasels met him at the guild. It can’t have taken them more than a half hour, but he still scowled and shook his head as if they were late. Before either of them could respond, he sauntered off down the path.

Landy was as eager to follow as he was to do anything, but a stray thought struck Solder as he watched the meowstic’s tails sway behind him. That thought pinned him to the ground. Landy had it easy. He basically walked right into what they were doing and dragged them away with the promise of some pocket change. Not that Solder was above that. Landy was, though, based on the way he acted. Always. He had this insufferable air about him as if he was leagues ahead of everybody else. But that wasn’t true. Not if he was desperate enough to stalk Solder all morning.

So Solder shrugged and cleared his throat and crouched down in the tall grass beside the road, plucking handfuls of cornflowers from the vines that snaked around the path. He huffed a breath of fire and watched them turn to ash in his paw.

Just to prove a point.

Landy only noticed halfway around the far corner. He hesitated, Larcen stumbling beside him. He turned. Spotted Solder lounging in the stray grass. Crossed his arms like a disappointed father.

“So you need me,” Solder said.

Landy lingered for a moment. A brief twitch betrayed his grim expression. “I neither need nor want you.” Maybe he realised his own lie, because corrected it just as quickly. “ A fire type would be helpful, however.”

“Go, then. If you’re so impatient. You don’t need me. So what?”

Landy sniffed, turning his nose up at Solder. Shockingly smug for someone with noone else to turn to.

“What inane nonsense would you like me to do, then? Grovel? I could, but if that’s what satisfies you, it’s fittingly pathetic.”

 Solder dumped the ashes on the path, wiping his paw on his chest. He fired back with a glare.

“Maybe a little respect would be nice, since you’re so desperate. And half the payment. Now.”

Cue the staring match of the century. It lasted longer than Solder would’ve liked—long enough his legs started to cramp from his crouch, the stiff shafts of grass itching at his back. But some sort of understanding formed where their gazes met—an agreement. Eventually, Landy sucked in a great breath, reached into his bag and pulled out some coin, slapping it in Larcen’s paw. Larcen had just been awkwardly standing around, watching his own tails, but he took the cash eagerly.

‘Well,” Landy said, visibly restraining himself, “Shall we go, then?”

Solder scoffed.

Yes, they shall.

~ (0) ~

Solder didn’t mind Landy’s newfound silence as they swerved through the path inland. It gave Larcen an opportunity to chatter and let Solder admire the scenery, gazing up with an open mouth as the valley cliffs drifted closer and closer to the path until they towered overhead, letting just a sliver of light through with how close they were. The path inland seemed to be almost carved through the mountain rather than over, exposing earthy layers of rock on either side and filling the path’s shoulders with loose boulders instead of plants. Too dark for much to grow besides some odd vines.

It could have been a relaxing walk, but the feral lingered on his mind. And Landy did too, hovering annoyingly close to him and Larcen as they talked. He kept his mouth shut—living true to being silent if one had nothing good to say, Solder supposed—but still shook his head or rolled his eyes at exactly the wrong times.

Solder almost regretted telling him to play nice. At least he was honest before. Now all Solder could do was guess what was on the meowstic’s mind.

After a while of walking, the cliffs parted again, splitting like an opened book to reveal a field. Although field seemed like a small word. The mountains spread out, presumably to encircle them, but they were spread far enough apart that the atmosphere swallowed them in a blue haze. And the field—the waves of grass waving in the wind’s current—sloped just enough to be noticeable, tilting off in the distance, following the direction of the road. If Solder laid down and started rolling he could imagine himself going for hours.

Solder gave a low whistle. Well, he tried. It came out thin.

“Cool, huh?” Larcen said, “It’s like days of walking to get past the mountains, but once you’re out, it’s crazy. Only been once and saw more pokemon in an hour than I’ve ever seen here.”

Solder gave a lazy hum, hoping Larcen would read joy into it. Personally, he’d prefer the field.

“We’re not concerned with that, today,” Landy cut in—the first words he’d spoken in a while. “I’ve given a lot of thought to which feral we should abduct and I believe farfetch’d is an adequate choice—the coastal variety. It’s local, obviously. More importantly it’s strong enough to be a worthwhile proposition without also posing too much of a risk—consider that it’s small enough to handle and less offensively threatening without its leek. If there are any objections, I’d like to hear them now, because I refuse to enter more than one dungeon today.”

Solder blinked, turning to Larcen for help.

“Farfetch’d?”

“It’s a… small, brown bird. Got an angry face and a big ol’ leek it carries around. Hard to miss.”

“Okay.”

Landy hiked the bundle of ropes further up his shoulder.

“I’m assuming you two are ready.”

Nobody needed to nod because Landy went on without waiting for an answer, cutting a straight line down the path and through the grass. It swallowed him, leaving only the white tops of his ears visible, tracing paths through like crabs in the sand.

Solder just let him go for a while. Larcen didn’t seem eager to follow either—he had to hype himself up with a little clap of the paws and shake of the tails. Then he took off, tumbling down the hill and crashing through the sea of grass. Solder sighed, considered whether burning a path through made sense, then slapped himself in the face and took off after them.

The rest of the journey would be spent in isolation. Following behind posed no issues, considering Landy carved a trench through the plants, but catching up proved to be near impossible. The wind composed a great wall of sound through the dry rustling of the grasses, cut through by some jaunty tune Larcen took to whistling on his own, but it always seemed to drift, sometimes close enough to reach with a brief sprint, sometimes so far away Solder had to tilt his head to catch it. Although pounded down by two pairs of feet, the grasses were still loose enough to trip him up, too. He spent a lot of frustrating minutes spitting out leaves and kicking knots off his legs. Sometimes he’d just stare up into the clouds and wish he didn’t have to be stuck to the ground.

Overall, not a great experience. It didn’t last long, but even a minute was too much.  Eventually, he broke through the wall of grass into a flattened clearing and spotted Landy and Larcen sitting at the edge of a rope fence.

Solder took a moment to stare at Landy. Green stains smeared his normally pristine fur and he looked rabid with the mess of stalks and leaves making a nest out of him. Shockingly, he didn’t seem to mind. Didn’t even notice, just stared at Solder with that condescending glare. Solder figured he’d be more neurotic, but—

“Is there an issue you’d like addressed?” Landy cut in.

Solder caught himself. He crossed his arms. “You haven’t explained anything.”

“We’re going into a dungeon, what’s to explain?”

Oh, well. Maybe he’d just shut up, then.

He looked to Larcen instead.

“The entrance plains are another dungeon. They’re just that… area in the fence. Kinda weird, but dungeons are like that.” He shrugged.

That explained the fence, at least. Solder wandered up to it, putting his paws on the rope. It felt rough, bleached by the rain and sun and spiralling into the loose threads it was made from. If he pushed down on it, it creaked but barely moved. Too stiff. He looked back, as if for permission.

“Unfortunately, it’s ideal to enter linked to reduce risk of separation,” Landy said, face screwed up in thought. Or disgust. Hard to tell. “I’ll grab… Larcen’s arm, he can take yours.”

As if the buizel needed instruction. A big, stupid grin split his features. He reached out from where he was sitting, paws kneading the air like a needy toddler begging to be picked up.

“Okay, try a little harder next time,” Solder said. Still, he rolled his eyes, took Larcen’s paws and yanked him to his feet. The buizel slumped in Solder’s arms.

And Landy watched on.

“Fascinating,” he said, tone dry as bone. He approached. Gingerly took one of Larcen’s arm like it was a rotting fish.

“Let’s hurry this up. I have things to do.”

Landy had a shocking amount of strength, as it turned out. Enough to pull the duo under the fence by Larcen’s arm. Solder could feel an odd, unnatural force on top of it, but he had little time to complain as the safety of the fence posts got left behind. The scene changed. Once again, no feeling accompanied it, but Solder saw the blink this time.

For the briefest moment Solder inhabited a blackness between. Just for a millisecond—the shortest sleep of all time—but he couldn’t get it out of his head. Like the universe lagged for a moment, struggling to place them.

 And the world it decided to shove them into was as odd as his previous dungeon.

The grass had been cut. It no longer looked wild. In fact, it looked painted onto this soft floor made of… made of what? He dug his claws into it, feeling the soft bristles of grass. A green smell wafted through the area, but it quickly became overwhelming. It didn’t ebb and flow like it should, though that could be the lack of wind.

As he picked himself back up he noticed the walls, a massive simulacra of mountains ringing close around them, stuck into the ground like pieces on a diorama. A sun hung in the sky. Bright enough, but clearly fake considering Solder could stare directly at it and feel no warmth or light.

He sucked a hissing breath through his teeth, smacking his lips as a vegetal taste filled every nook in his mouth. Not pleasant. He couldn’t understand how Landy and Larcen didn’t react at all. They just waited around for Solder to finish, kicking at the turf.

“So you aren’t familiar with dungeons,” Landy said. Something lurked, barely restrained, under those words.

“I don’t know why anyone goes into these things,” Solder shot back, still trying to get the taste out of his mouth.

“Eh, they can be kinda fun. You never saw an abandoned house and went ooooh, I wonder if I could go crazy if I looked around there for too long? Me neither, but I bet I’d do it, someday.”

Solder perked up. But it wasn’t the weird fantasy that interested Solder.

“Crazy? What are you talking about?”

Landy wrinkled his button nose, fixing Solder with a condescending glare. “I regret taking you along if basic aspects of mystery dungeons elude you.” He held up a steady paw. “There’s a certain mental degradation applied to those who enter dungeons. The effects are varied—too complicated to explain to you—but needless to say that the ferals who live here were not born from nothing.”

Mental degradation? Solder pictured himself wandering through the fields, the smell of grass drowning him, this sterile, toybox world chipping away bits of him until he was just a froth-mouthed, gibbering beast. He shivered.

“Alright. Let’s blow through this place so we can leave.”

“I can agree with that sentiment, at least.”

“Don’t know how I always get stuck with the snoozers when we go spelunking,” Larcen snickered, “but alright. Get the bird, get out. Let’s keep our eyes peeled!”

With that rallying cry, Larcen pushed on. Not one to let anyone enjoy themselves, Landy stomped forward and left Solder, once again, to struggle at the rear, just watching Larcen and Landy’s tails bob back and forth. He watched, waiting for them to sync and ran over every concrete fact he knew about himself.

Just in case.

And bless his heart, Larcen had some contagious bug in there that might have infected Solder if it weren’t for Landy’s overwhelming patronising aura. It did not take long for pots to start boiling over. Specifically, when Landy told them he wouldn’t lift a paw.

“What do you mean, you aren’t fighting?” Solder spat, squinting at a pokemon in the distance—some dirty, grey rabbit. It was the firsts sign of life they’d found and although it wasn’t a farfetch’d, it crouched right in the middle of the path forward, between two oddly placed mountains. It chewed on the grass and kept a wary eye on them.

“My powers are not tuned for battle or brute applications. It’s why I brought you,” Landy said.

He punctuated the statement with a limp wave, dropping his bag to the ground and using it as a seat, legs crossed.

Useless. Great. Trying was too much to hope for from the meowstic, apparently. If only he knew who he’d hired, Solder might’ve laughed.

Solder stared down the rabbit, fixating on those massive, empty eyes, the stumpy limbs and tattered whiskers. He dropped on all fours, crouching low to the ground. The rabbit did not break eye contact. He crept forward, letting his flames crest along his back. A tentative growl built in the back of his throat. He hoped to scare the rabbit off, but if anything he had the opposite effect. Its chewing slowed, then it shifted into position to match his, warning chitters sounding from it—not taking a step out of place.

Dropping the aggression, Solder coughed and grumbled and sat back on his haunches. Larcen came up to pat him on the back.

“It’s a fucking bunny. How do I screw up intimidating a bunny?”

“You’re cute, man. I dunno.” Larcen shrugged. “C’mon, let’s go chase it off together.”

Solder wanted to say he wouldn’t fight, but…

He shifted uncomfortably in his own skin, not sure what to do with himself. He was a battler. He was strong and brave and stupid and reckless. He ran his tongue across his teeth, feeling how sharp they were.

…Maybe he’d keep trying. It helped that Larcen joined him.

Unfortunately, Landy must have sensed hesitation.

“If you leave all this to Larcen, I’ll refuse to pay you,” Landy cut in, “ I asked for a Fire type, so I expect them to participate—unless you’re broken or incapable, in which case you can leave.” He lounged on his bag, leaning back into a stretch as if he’d done any work—unconcerned by the continued snarling and snapping of the bunny. “It’s just a bunnelby. Honestly.”

This version of Landy—the one perched on the fence between civil and insulting—sucked. Solder now fully regretted making that part of the deal. The barely-hidden disdain grew so strong that unspoken insults seemed to appear above his head like advertisements on a billboard.

Solder growled, trying to put the cat out of his mind. He returned Larcen’s pat—albeit awkwardly.

“Let’s go. Can I get first shot?”

Larcen smiled, raising a paw.

“That’s the spirit! Glad you’re gettin’ into it!”

Okay, well he wouldn’t go that far. He gave a nod in response, then got up and brushed himself off.

Larcen didn’t hesitate to approach, waving Solder forward with a warm smile. The quilava followed the direction, getting in position on his side of the bunny—Larcen flanking on the other side. It jerked between the two, uncertain, the massive, dirt-stained ends of its grey ears curling. Larcen gave Solder a look. Go on, it said. But the aches of those feral chatot’s screams `resonated in his mind.

Solder winced, wrinkling his snout and gritting his teeth against the echoes.

It’s okay. It’s fine.

An awkward beat passed as he recognized that still didn’t know how to approach this.

The bunnelby had no such reservations.

Just as he stepped closer, the feral leapt, giving Solder just enough time to yelp and slam himself to the ground. He instinctively let a burst of flame crest from his head and a pained squeal joined the whip of wind as the bunnelby sailed over him. A thump sounded in the grass behind him. He scrambled to face it, pedalling back, grass scratching across his legs.

The bunnelby recovered at the same time, a black smear across its belly proof Solder hit it. Not much to savour between his leaping heart and the roar of adrenaline in his ears.

The bunnelby’s ears stiffened and it crouched for another leap. But while Solder braced himself, a blast of water soared above him. It didn’t hit—instead cutting through the grass as the bunnelby leaped to the side. No effect beyond a spray of mud to join the clumps of dirt in the bunnelby’s fur, but it gave Solder a moment to stand.

“Don’t you know flamethrower?” That obnoxious cat cut in from the sidelines.

Solder was a little preoccupied, but he could imagine Landy relaxing, book in hand, the thinnest, ugliest smirk on his muzzle as he relaxed. Insufferable.

He channelled that. Cracked his muzzle open as the bunnelby righted itself. Felt the heat well up in the back of his throat—all the hate and frustration of the day flooding him like boiling coffee. He released.

But something stuck, twisting into painful knots inside him. What should have been a great burst of flame limped from his mouth, splashing across the grass without even making it halfway. Solder coughed. A tongue of flame fled back inside as he sucked in a great breath and, as the heat seared the back of his throat, he retched. Slammed his eyes closed and planted two paws into the ground and heaved until the reflex stopped.

Once he opened his eyes again, a facefull of ears greeted him. Then, pain—screeching, the grinding of dirt and rocks, tearing of fur and skin along his side. An awful moment passed of just staring into the mountains, mouth open like fish, gurgling and gasping. Air wouldn’t come. Even as he choked, forcing his lungs to work until he felt like they might collapse.

Larcen shouted something beside him. Then, the rush of water and the brief chill of mist.

Finally, the strain in his chest lightened. He sat up, wrangling stiff limbs like they were dangling from puppet strings.

Only to spot Larcen standing bashfully over a sopping wet mound of fur and mud. He scratched at his cheek, as if embarrassed by his own speed.

“Uh, you doin’ okay?” he asked.

He hissed, picking at the stray bits of loose fur from the scrubbed patches on his side. A sharp sting still drew brief twitches from him, but at least he could breathe again.

Solder opened his mouth.

“Ridiculous. You can’t be serious, certainly.”

Then shut it just as quickly, nearly slicing the tip of his tongue.

There goes Landy, not one to let a moment rest. Solder glared back at him. Sure enough, he hadn’t moved from his little seat, arms crossed and tails fanned out behind him, as if framing a king on his milk crate throne.

“That was an atrocious, embarrassing display. I can’t imagine your clan is proud—having my own suspicions, this only confirms them. And how you landed in Seafolk in the first place,” he said, voice not raising from a calm monotone. “A broken, useless quilava. Figures I’d be forced to employ you, what other talent could the guild even draw?”

Solder… did not know how to react to that. Maybe the lack of oxygen had only just caught up with him, but his brain sputtered and creaked, words caught in the gears. It struck him that he couldn’t deny it, he already thought he was useless. He already knew. But where did Landy get off talking about it? What had he done?

As with most times, all his thoughts funnelled down the same tubes.

“Would you shut up?” he snapped, “you dragged us into this. You’re too useless to do your own work. How many pokemon did you ask before us? Or did you really just follow us around all morning?”

“I don’t need you, if that’s what you’re implying. And obviously, you can’t offer me anything.”

“That’s convincing.”

“Don’t think I’m concerned whether or not you break our agreement and leave.”

“You already fucked it up when you opened your mouth! And all your passive-aggressive shit—concerned. As if I couldn’t figure out how concerned you were. I should torch you.”

“Torch me? With what fire?”

“Or I can just bite your throat out you—”

“Ooooooookay!” Larcen cut in, literally jumping between them with a clap of his paws. A forced grin split his features, the violent swing of his brows punctuating the bobbing of his head. “Let’s all just ah… cool it. Take a seat or uh… stand, for Landy, and then we can leave and Landy can have a little lonely parade for himself!”

“No.”

Everyone looked at Solder. Even Landy, who’d been pointedly watching the horizon, broke for a moment.

Solder hated him. Maybe that was self-evident, but in a world of firsts Landy was the first pokemon Solder would be glad to make unhappy. He had no good reason to stay with Landy. But he could see the way the meowstic drew into himself the longer Solder talked. He was nervous.

“We’re finishing the job. Why not? What’s the problem? It’s fine. The money is just that important, isn’t it, Larcen?”

“Uh… no? You doin’ okay?”

Solder forced a smile—too wide, with too many teeth. He couldn’t help the low growl building at the back of his throat.“I’m great! Are you ready to get that fucking farfetch’d?”

Larcen paused. Gave him a long, disturbed stare.

“…suuuuure? Need a break? I can take care of it if you want.”

“Why would you even ask me that?”

Larcen turned away. Something uncertain played across his face.

Did Solder intend for the bunnelby’s ragged panting to be his last words? No. Not really. But it was too late to back down. And he still didn’t know how to use the manic energy that built up inside him. That old paranoia about dungeon madness set in again. He bit his cheek. Rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck. Neither of his companions were paying attention anymore—pointedly ignoring him to focus on themselves.

Oh, well. Too late to back down.

He refused to let his face soften, watching Landy’s back until the meowstic sensed him and turned around. Landy, too, betrayed nothing.

“Get up. We’re moving on.”

Solder could tell thoughts streamed through Landy’s head, but he couldn’t decipher them through the twitching of his ears. In the end, both said nothing, Landy sliding off his bag and slinging it over his shoulder again. He took off, stepping over the bunnelby’s body like a pile of rocks.

The bunnelby twitched.

And really, what kind of garbage ran through that cat’s head anyway?

~ (0)~

Landy hated to be cowed by such a pointless creature.

He’d be less bitter about it if they could get him the farfetch’d, but the chances of that happening were slim. Their only capacity so far had been in the form of a mental breakdown. As if he hadn’t seen enough of those in his career. It’s true, he could stay silent. He could follow behind, despite the total lack of stimulation—watching two broken creatures traipse through an empty meadow in the shadow of mountains.

He rarely felt dulled these days. Moments like these—lost in the dungeons, practically on his own—forced him to reflect. To remember.

And he remembered everything.

Which should satisfy the time it took his companions to subdue the float of hoppip they’d run into.

He settled down again, perching on his bag, combing the fur from his eyes and passing over the quilava’s spluttering ember to trace the mountain’s outline in the distance. His feral would be out here somewhere, ready to set Landy apart from his peers.

It’s not his peers that filled his mind, however. He remembered his father, most of all. Strong images of the hypno lounging on his porch, watching over his fields as they turned golden in the sunset. Cracking one eye open to watch young Landy try to put his broken tools back together again. He never succeeded. And his father eventually grew frustrated enough to send him picking on the opposite side of the field. Landy didn’t mind.

The hoppip were all defeated, some floating off into the distance, but most nursing wounds on the ground. No thanks to the quilava, who contributed little and now stood around awkwardly with this concerned look on its face. Then, on to the next field.

Odd to think Landy respected his father. He didn’t do much to set himself apart from the other yokels out in Pleasant Valley. He took more care of the farm than himself, later life giving him thinning fur and a permanent squint. He spent days off on his rocking chair, a baffling lack of interest in any books or games—content just to… sit there. Nights he spent at the bar in town.

It was not a lifestyle Landy understood. Nor was it something he wanted any part of. But he could only look back fondly, for whatever reason.

Finally, Larcen spotted the telltale brown feathers of a farfetch’d in the distance. Landy let the two chatter, some sort of plan coming together. It wasn’t good, but Landy didn’t bother to correct them. They could fail on their own merits.

Landy observed the farfetch’d recognizing them. The unknown pokemon, the threats. It moved like a machine. Scrappy, yet workable. Hard to tell health from Landy’s distance, but these things were fixable. Mystery dungeons were surprisingly sterile places and given the outward health of the feral, he doubted it would have picked up any diseases.

So, fixable. A new creation without the scars and scratches that came with age. Like furniture. Like his father said—the way he understood the body—each feature contributed to the overall function. It’s easy enough to deconstruct the body into parts. Like a chair or table.

His father had developed hundreds of ways to deal with ferals: how to quieten them when they were too loud, trick them into believing the crop was rotten, turn against each other, he could change seasons in their mind, cut them off from their type. Disable them. Kill them, if he had to. His reach would terrify the townsfolk, even Landy’s old colleagues—those cowards. Really, their discomfort drew from insecurity. The line between them and the ferals was extremely thin—imagine learning your decisions were nothing but a collection of impulses, your body materials to facilitate an ongoing, pointless march. And some marches were more pointless than others.

At this stage the quilava and his friend had begun trying to surround the wary farfetch’d. It drew its wing around its beak, using the other to swing its giant leek in a wide arc as warning.

With only a few more moments wasted on posturing, off they went in a burst of feathers and fur, fire and water. Landy sighed and watched from the sidelines. The kickoff was not promising. Larcen gave Solder far too much leeway, allowing the quilava breadth to attack. Which, naturally, it could not follow up on—too much flailing, absolutely no understanding of the inherent weakness of the farfetch’d. It should have been obvious once Landy said it; simply remove the leek and the farfetch’d was powerless.

And then the buizel caught a stray swing trying to leap into the fray, sending it sprawling across the green in a blaze of orange fur.

At this point, Landy could only hope the farfetch’d would be so tired he could apply some psychic tamperings uncontested.

That old flaaffy sprang to mind as solder coughed up a pale smokescreen that faded quickly in the light.

Herds of flaaffy were most common back home. They wandered in and out of the valley, streaming from dungeons in the summer months when the crops were good. They were not particularly aggressive, but an utter nuisance; they blocked roads and shops and trampled through fields recklessly. They weren’t easy to stand up to either, not with the amount of static they could generate between each other.

In some great irony, one had been caught under a fallen trunk after firing a stray thunderbolt at his father. Someone made a decision and not too long after, it had been given the haybarn as its hospital. Landy had ended up as the caretaker. He visited once a day, at first. That became twice, then, after a month, he’d taken all his books into the barn and lived there.

He’d never liked the barn before that. It creaked under its own weight.. Age stripped it of its paint, skewing the panels to let thin slivers of light scatter across the ever-present carpet of dust and overspilling piles of hay. The loft had holes, which both cleared the stench of age and opened the space to the outside. It was neither free nor private and Landy had sequestered the flaaffy into the far corner. There, he set up walls with bales of hay and worked.

The flaaffy died. Not two months in, as Landy cared for it. As it limply struggled in a bed of blankets and hay, Landy’s psychic connection feeding him the electrical spasms of a fading mind. An odd moment struck when he simply couldn’t connect anymore—when he’d try to read it and his connection would feed back to him that it didn’t exist anymore. That would be his first experience with death. And through the process of infection and sickness and fever. By the end he couldn’t tell whether he’d ever wanted to care for it or if his father had forced him.

None of that mattered. Growing older had revealed to him all the ways he could have prevented that particular death. It would have died later anyways, but…

Landy saw the spark.

Something absurd and poetic, eminently hateable in how unqualifiable it was. That flaaffy, It feared. All those hours of connecting, teaching, lying in solitude with a sapient pokemon—something had rubbed off on it. And in those final moments, Landy had to decide whether his cruelty was worth it. The flaaffy would live just long enough to realise it would die.

He would try to avoid that mistake with the farfetch’d. His knowledge of medicine had grown considerably since, so he had enough faith in his own abilities.

Of course, he was not the issue.

Between the quilava’s inability to do more than annoy the farfetch’d and the buizel’s baffling hesitance, no progress was being made. Under all the feral’s ruffled brown feathers, Landy spotted the glimmer of annoyance. It looked increasingly like the feral would flee.

Like usual, Landy had to step in to fill the void of competency.

But he… could not fight.

Well, could not, perhaps, was the wrong way to phrase it. If he tried, he imagined the fight would be over quickly. However, with powers as refined as his—and maintaining so many psychic triggers at once—that was not going to happen.

Still, as the quilava coughed another sputtering  flamethrower, plowed through by the blunt end of a leek and sending it skidding across the grass, Landy had a revelation.

An idea.

He allowed the slightest of smiles, lifting his ears a fraction and reaching out with a rabid spark of psychic energy. He moulded it as it travelled. By the time it reached the floundering form of the quilava, it had become something like a needle. He took no time to push it inside. The quilava wouldn’t feel a thing, especially not in the throes of pain, groaning, only just able to drag himself to all fours.

Landy prodded, subtle pulses of feedback informing him of the quilava’s functions. His whiskers twitched as he felt around the heart—in time with the beating. The wheeze of his lungs rattled through his connection. He skipped the fire gland; it must be malformed and underdeveloped and overall useless to produce such poor results. Eventually, he reached the diaphragm and spread out, leaking up the throat and vocal folds and seeping into the spinal column.

He established connection. For an unrestricted moment, the buzz of thoughts overwhelmed Landy. They were meaningless, though. Always, to be fair—mind-reading was not anywhere near refined enough to make anything coherent of the brain’s signals. Landy suspected he wouldn’t find anything coherent in the quilava’s mind, anyways.

He pared them down, shutting out each thread of information until it faded into a dull buzz.

Then he got to work. A twinge of feedback hit him as the quilava winced, shaking its head. Landy held back a moment, fearing the panic. It settled. He continued—introducing some motor function, tying psychic triggers together like threads on a spiderweb, passing them back through the throat and down the fire trap. Then…

Wait.

He expected the fire gland to be underdeveloped, just a shrivelled raisin lodged somewhere in there, but instead the opposite was true. Compared to samples he’d seen earlier in his career, it was exceptional—large and clearly exercised. Landy held himself back. Just for an instant. He let his ears flare slightly.

That was enough.

An outpouring of power flowed through his connection—too much to mould or dam. Landy held. He tried smoothing it, but it was like balancing a full bucket without spilling. The pulses of feedback got louder, more focused. An attack. Landy flinched, grip wet and slipping. Then he watched the quilava recover, head shaking faster.

There, in the corner of his vision, the farfetch’d turned away from a blast of water and faced them once more.

Landy bit his tongue. He couldn’t keep this up. Any attack at this stage would be disastrous, the feedback potentially damaging his own abilities, or at the very least—

The quilava growled. Loud enough Landy jumped. Before he could withdraw, it drew back and attempted another flamethrower.

Too late. He couldn’t back out safely. Landy simply severed the connection. To him, it felt something like blood loss. One moment, he was stable, the next a dizzy spell bowled him over. He slumped back, landing uncomfortably on his tails.

The quilava did not have as much luck. One moment it reared back, poised to attack. The next, it doubled over itself. It looked up, eyes wide as the farfetch’d descended upon him. It opened its maw, ready to shout.

And perhaps the most massive plume of fire Landy had ever seen poured from its mouth, easily dwarfing himself and the farfetch’d in a corona of heat and light—enough to send a hot draft rushing across Landy’s fur. Across the battlefield, Larcen dove out of the way just in time, hitting the ground with a panicked shout. It was overshadowed by the harsh wails piercing through the plume.

Just as quickly as it came, it vanished, nothing left but a plume of acrid smoke in the wind. A moment of silence reigned as the fire dissipated. The still form of the farfetch’d lay in a patch of burnt earth.

Finally, something he could work with.

Landy turned away. He threw open the flap on his satchel, digging through the contents until he found his first aid kit—all bundled and separate and rolled into its own bag. On shaky steps, he ambled down the hill and into the carnage.

Really, drawing closer felt like entering some microcosm of a warzone. Larcen stood by, still as a corpse, whiskers drawn back as wide eyes took it in. A black stain tarnished the grass, cutting a path across it. It stained the quilava, too, who cowered in a patch of ash. It shivered, paws tightly gripped around its muzzle, eyes clenched tight.

But Landy beelined for the twitching mass between them.

The farfetch’d had taken it the worst. Another black sear peeled ragged strands off its leek—which must have blocked the brunt of the attack, considering the duck wasn’t featherless and crisp. But the smell of burnt flesh still wafted through the air and large patches of feathers had vanished across its back, revealing angry red skin. As Landy approached it squealed and writhed, barely conscious.

Landy set down his kit, wrapping the tie around his paw and tugging to release it. The whole setup unfurled in the grass.

“Solder?” Larcen whispered over his shoulder, voice shaky. He approached. One small step at a time. He glanced between the quilava and the farfetch’d, uncertainty etched over his muzzle.

Landy ignored Larcen and set to work—plucking burnt feathers from flesh, wiping away ash and blood with a sanitised rag, gathering his rawst poultice and working quickly to cover the affected areas. Did he take his bandages with him? Yes, of course he did.

A growl cut him off as he started to work his way around the wounds. He glanced back, awkwardly gripping handfuls of untied bandage. The quilava glared at him, pure, red fury glinting in its eyes.

What a hassle. Landy wouldn’t turn his back on a creature like that, but it wasn’t worth his time to address. He simply twisted around to the other side of the farfetch’d and worked from there, refusing to break eye contact.

The quilava didn’t seem like a particularly intelligent creature, but it had to know that Landy had done something to it. Nevertheless, it wouldn’t be getting anything from Landy, so what was the point?

Unfortunately, the buizel picked up on the eye contact as well.

“You— I— what did you do?” He asked, still caught. Eventually, he decided to go to the quilava, approaching it like a cornered animal.

Landy didn’t bother to answer, instead taking a handful of sleep seeds, dropping them into his mortar, and mashing it into a paste with a little water. It took no time at all to spoon the paste through the ducks’ chattering beak. Even before he could force it to swallow, the chattering lessened and it slumped over into the grass. It gave Landy an opportunity to relax, testing his work, washing the blood and feathers off his paws. He’d have to sanitise later, but for now he could focus on getting the feral back to the guild.

As he turned back to his companions, an unintended consequence revealed itself. He had an escape orb with him, but that still required a degree of cooperation.

And his companions were nothing if not obstinate.

“You uh… okay, Solder?”

The quilava had recovered enough to stand. He hadn’t broken eye contact with Landy, his whole body heaving. Slowly, very slowly, he peeled his paws off his muzzle. Opened his mouth, perhaps to say something.

Instead, the briefest flicker of fire lashed out. Eyes wide, the quilava snapped its maw shut with an audible clack.

Then it was back to clutching its muzzle and staring at Landy like the meowstic might evaporate with enough effort.

“Well, it’s good that nothing was lost, at least,” Landy said, tidying up his kit and searching his bag for the escape orb. “Now, everyone gather close so the orb catches you. If you aren’t included I won’t be returning to rescue you.”

Landy expected his companions to snap back into their childish antagonism once the commotion had settled, but instead something odd had settled over them. The two other pokemon regarded him with something layered—an odd mix of stern brows and dilated pupils. Empathy (psychic or otherwise) had never been Landy’s focus, so he had little clue what to make of their reaction. He was equally uncertain how to navigate it.

“We’re leaving.” He repeated. Did something desperate slip into his tone? He tried to keep it at bay, but the scrutiny made him itch.

“What did you do to him?” Larcen pressed.

“Why assume I had any involvement? A defective pokemon—”

“Nah. Shut up, I know where that’s going. It’s all blah, blah, blah, not my fault! You clown, answer the fuckin’ question.”

Despite the implied threat, they would not move. The farfetch’d withered between them. The grass grew and Landy’s heart pulsed lowly where his paw kneaded his chest.

He did not have an answer to the question. He had many theories, but suspected his companion’s flattened ears wouldn’t perk up at the sound of them. Bitterly, he knew his father could talk his way out of this, but for the first time in a while, Landy was lost for words.

Not one to fidget, he furrowed his brows and dug his paws further into the dirt. He palmed the escape orb, holding it between them with a meaningful look on his face.

The quilava tried to chime in again. It went about as expected, leaving it coughing in Larcen’s arms. The buizel held it like Landy held his flaaffy as it died.

“Fix him!”

“Considering you’ve held up your end of the bargain, I’ll pay once we’ve left.”

“Oh, who cares about the money anymore? Answer the question!”

“And I’ll reiterate—if you aren’t in contact, you’ll be left in the dungeon.”

“Bet you can’t, can you? Just screwin’ around with other pokemon’s bodies like it’s no big deal, and you can’t even fix it!” Larcen threw his paw wide, pointing down at the farfetch’d. “And look what happened. Probably won’t even survive.”

“Of course I can fix it. It was already broken so—”

“It?!”

Landy jolted as Larcen stepped forward, stumbling back a step and nearly dropping the orb.

“And the feral will be fine. It will survive. I— it has to.” Landy clamped his mouth shut with a sharp mewl. He hadn’t meant for that to slip out.

He hadn’t necessarily meant for things to turn out this way, either. All he wanted now was to use the orb. Escape. Escape. Sit and tend to the feral in the basement cells, shut himself off from the world for a month and not bother with all these emotional shipwrecks sinking around him.

“It’s easy to diagnose you, Larcen. Your condition is obvious but you can’t fully accept how it impacts you and the pokemon around you and will never be capable of recovery because of that fact. Everyone knows, too. You act like we don’t notice when things disappear, but we pay attention.”

Larcen shook his head, jaw briefly slack. He nearly dropped the quilava in shock, but recovered enough to stare at Landy like the meowstic had folded himself in half.

“Wha… what’s that got to do… with anything?” He paused, waiting for a response that Landy didn’t have.” Are you insane? Is every fuckin’ pokemon gonna have a breakdown in this dungeon? Am I dreaming? Tell me!”

Briefly, a vision of the flaaffy flashed in Landy’s mind. Greasy, blood-stained wool; dark, pupil-filled eyes; the lost and dying.

He stood, baffled, attention turned to his tight-lipped reflection in the blue of the orb. The curve of it made him seem so distorted, bug eyed and alien. It became an impasse, freezing him in place for a few seconds.

Then minutes.

“Fine.” Larcen sighed. “We’ll bounce. Really fucked this one up, huh Landy? Your fault, y’know. Don’t know what to tell you.”

Landy glanced at the quilava.

Ah, a failure to assign responsibility correctly. Really, it… well, it should have… he knew—

He huffed minutely. Oh, he gave up. The smell of burnt flesh and dirt soaked him in nausea. He was tired and uncertain and felt completely alien. Still, Larcen waited for an answer.

Landy could only respond by holding a paw out for him to connect with.

“Not touching you.”

Larcen ignored the paw and grabbed the quilava—whose gaze held disturbingly long—dragging him by the armpits to plop him down by the farfetch’d. Gingerly, he held a paw next to the feral’s beak. Solder followed suit. Landy did, too.

With one last glance at his reflection, Landy tilted his ears and let a surge of strength flow out, crushing the orb into gravel. The familiar wrench of its power followed, like an invisible hand wrapping around his neck and yanking him through the earth.

In the blue miasma that followed, he swore he could hear bleating.

~ (0) ~

Brute was… actually making progress.

It was almost incredible. The paperwork had turned from a punishing mountain to a light coat of snow covering haxorus’ desk. With a new lightness in his chest, he could finally look at the photos of him and haxorus displayed on the wall without the usual pang of shame and disbelief and questions of how he even got here and why he deserved it and…

And there went the block again. Brute blinked, taking a rag and wiping the sheen off his goggles. He might even have to thank Landy. He’d been getting more headaches than usual, plus an odd edge he’d been feeling since the psychic triggers were put in place, but for the most part they worked great.

The thank-you would be metaphorical, of course. And from very far away.

For once he had the opportunity to stretch his neck, push his chair away from the desk and spend a little time admiring the view out the window. It was always a wonder to watch the tiny, toy boats float in and out of Seafolk no glittering waves. He’d even had time to make himself a lovely cup of tea. He took a quiet sip, letting it warm his chest and fill his mouth with the dry taste of pine.

Then something harsh pounded against his door.

He blinked, unconsciously drawing in on himself. He set his cup on the desk. The knocking sounded again, louder this time.

Should he open it? He was having such a good day; maybe he could just ignore it and they’d go away and, wait, nevermind, he forgot to lock it.

The door swung open before he could even decide, slamming against the wall and sending haxorus’ trinkets rattling on their shelves. Solder stood in the open doorway, huffing, hunched like he’d welcome a threat to attack, this feral edge ringing his eyes.

“Oh… S-solder. How can I help you?” Brute asked, trying to keep the disappointment from leaking into his voice.

Solder shuffled into the office and shoved the door shut behind him, but for an uncomfortably long while he said nothing, face screwed up in concentration. Brute looked around the room because, surely, he hadn’t done anything that wrong, right?

With a dull growl, Solder opened his mouth, flexing his jaw up and down. It took him a baffling amount of concentration, but the words finally seemed to come to him.

“Fire that fucking—” He started. A brief spark flashed in the back of his throat and he threw his paws around his muzzle, but  Brute waited patiently for him to finish. “Landy. Fire him.”

Oh. Brute blinked. The quilava seemed to coil up at the name.

He’d never had a complaint like this. He scratched at his scales. He needed to go back into business mode, but that, well— what could he say? He had no right to fire haxorus’ employees. And they really, really needed warm bodies to fill the guild.

Unfortunately, no didn’t seem like a word Solder could hear right now.

“Um… okay. You can— well, you can fill out a complaint? And I’ll get it to haxorus when he gets back, but aside from that, well…” He gave a jerky shrug, mouth caught between a smile and grimace. “You’re only here for a little bit, right? Do you think you could just… be okay with it for a bit longer?”

Solder’s glare deepened. Fire sparked across his back. But once again he took forever to speak. From what Brute knew, the quilava rarely hesitated to make himself known so this new, feral version set him on edge. Brute cleared his throat, swallowing dryly and tracing his claws on the still-warm handle of his mug.

“I’ll kill him.”

Brute flinched as the words forced themselves out Solder’s throat. Is this what going feral looked like? He’d heard of it, but dungeons didn’t usually affect pokemon so quickly.

“Do I— do I need to get you help? What happened?”

Solder seemed eager to explain. Or, his inner fire did, spilling out of his mouth with gusto and across the front of haxorus’ desk. Brute yelped, leaning over to inspect the damage. He slumped, the desk’s hard lip digging into his ribcage. The swirling, floral engravings that decorated the front were maybe a little darker, but he couldn’t spot any damage.

“Could you back up a tad?” he asked. Then he remembered who he was talking to.”I mean… I can’t afford, you know…”

“Landy fucked with me.” Solder growled.

“I don’t know how I can help you with that.”

Solder shook his head, slapping his paws against his cheeks. Then again. And again…

“O-okay, maybe I can—”

“Your job! Do your job! Oh, Landy’s a psychopath? If only someone had the power to do something about that! Damn. finally, I can say more than—” Solder coughed, faint streams of smoke shooting out his nostrils. He held, tears beading in his eyes “… fuck.”

His job. His job. Solder must be uninformed, because being guildmaster’s assistant didn’t let him have free reign over the staff. Sure he was filling in, designating responsibilities, doing things haxorus might do, but really he wasn’t much more than a shade waiting for the owner to return.

“I mean, mostly I just do the paperwork…”

“You’re the guildmaster.”

“No, I’m just— I mean, hiring the contractors and going over the rules and budgeting all need doing. So I do them. I’m not— I mean, there’s not much I can do.”

Solder paused. He seemed… calmer. Well, maybe not. Maybe something closer to the eye of the storm, eyes tracing a swirl of thoughts around him, too distracted to really focus his anger on something. Yet.

Brute really should find a way to shoo him away.

“Then hire an accountant,” Solder ground out.

“We don’t have the money.”

“Then cut. Fire Landy and use his.”

No. No no no. Brute grunted as he felt a dull headache knock at the back of his skull. He traced the furrows of his brow with a claw, noticing how much deeper they were now than when he first evolved. He couldn’t. He really couldn’t, the guildmaster would come back and look around with that awful, sad frown he always wore when something was off and he’d ask—

The feeling of Landy’s psychic trigger flicking on in his mind was familiar enough he sensed himself levelling out before it happened. He straightened himself. Tipped back his mug of tea and finished the whole thing. Lukewarm and disappointing, all the bitterness condensing in the bottom and making his mouth feel like cotton. He smacked his lips.

“No,” he said, a note of finality forced into it.

For his part, Solder did not have the meltdown Brute expected. Actually, he seemed unfazed.

“What if I just said no? What if anyone did, next time you want something? You can’t even fire Landy.”

Brute’s newfound confidence slipped, mask falling off his face. He had no answer. Nothing he could give except hope that they wouldn’t. All he knew was that he couldn’t sack anyone and if the paychecks stopped coming, well…

He’d had thoughts about it before, staring at dark spots on the ceiling as he tried to sleep on his foldable cot. He looked at them like stars, clawing at invisible designs on his old blanket—the one he’d taken from home. He couldn’t lie to himself and say anybody was particularly productive. Not when he’d seen guilds inland, where teams often took multiple jobs a day, then got back just in time to clean the mess hall. On a good day, Seafolk’s bulletin would be missing three or four notices and he’d hear Bastaya insult them on the radio for an hour in the morning. Then, nothing. Until the sun went down and he’d look over the dozen or so pokemon sleeping in the lobby like he would at a homeless shelter.

Haxorus always had big dreams for the guild and the pokemon in it. He believed in them, even if they didn’t return the favour all that enthusiastically. He faced them with a raised chin and a warm tone.

Brute just needed to keep everyone around for when haxorus came back. One loss would be disastrous. Even economically—he couldn’t skip a paycheck, couldn’t acquiesce.

So what would he do if someone wanted to leave?

Beg.

But that didn’t seem like an answer Solder wanted to hear.

Instead, he said nothing.

One silence fought another in the stale air of the office. Taking it as a sign, Brute waved a claw to open the window and propped a stick against its frame so it wouldn’t close again.

A cold wind blew through.

“Whatever,” Solder huffed and gave Brute a dismissive wave. He headed back for the door, looking back as he opened it. “I’m only still here for Larcen.”

“Seems he likes you.”

Solder didn’t acknowledge that. He kneaded a paw on the doorknob. Something softened him,  shoulders drooping, eyes widening.

“Haxorus went off to renew his guild… thing, right?”

“Um… guilmaster certification, yes.”

“Maybe you could have done that and he stayed here, if he’s so important. Just a thought.”

Solder shrugged, glare settling back onto his face.

Brute blinked.

“Wait, c-could he have done that?” he asked.

The door slammed closed before he could get an answer.

Only then did he realise that Solder wouldn’t know that answer, either.