Chapter 9: What is a Mystery Dungeon?

Before long, Mr. Zeta’s class was over. It was a nice review of some famous moves and their effects, but overall, it went by pretty nicely. Everyone exited the class and went towards the exit. Well… all except Claire who went straight to Iris’s office while running, not even bothering to look at that one crushed locker door that was beside her that one moment.

She arrived at the office and knocked on the door, sitting down on the floor, shaking from excitement. After a few seconds, the door opened, revealing a shiny Decidueye and a shiny Joltik. “Ah, had a feeling it was you.” Iris said as she looked confused as to why John was on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry, she knows. My bad…” He said looking down while Claire quickly waved him off.

“No, no, it’s fine! I uh… also had a feeling that would’ve happened.”

“… Do you honestly think that low of me? That I can’t keep secrets?” Iris laughed at the comment.

“Don’t blame him, I already knew he was there since I entered the class.” The Decidueye said while extending her wing to Claire, so John could walk towards her and get on top of her head once again.

“But how though?” Claire asked. Iris, in response, pointed at her eyes.

“I might be getting a bit old, but my eyes never deceive me!” She said with a smirk, as she folded her wings back around herself. “Well then, I believe that’s everything for today?” Claire looked at the Decidueye pleadingly.

“Hey, Ms. Iris?”

“Yes, my dear?”

“… can I take John with me to school tomorrow?” She asked and John butted in.

“But, what if we get caught by a student or worse, a teacher?” He speculated, already fearing the worst.

“Well, he’s right Claire, haven’t I told you already?” Iris asked, looking at Claire with a frown. Claire started wagging her tail.

“Don’t worry, that’s because tomorrow I’m going to a Mystery Dungeon with all of my class!” She said excitedly while the teacher’s heartbeat dropped.

“You’re what!?” She asked in astonishment while John looked confused as he put a nub on his chin.

“What is a Mystery Dungeon?” John asked, not knowing why Iris was acting like it was a big deal. She looked at him and sighed.

“She didn’t teach you about this? I was sure it was the first thing she would’ve told you about this world.” She looked at Claire with an eyebrow raised. Claire rubbed the back of her head while laughing sheepishly.

“Woops… I was so excited to know that he was a human so… I kinda forgot.” She clears her throat and starts the explanation, “So-” only to be interrupted by the archer owl.

“Sorry to butt in but… you don’t wanna miss your bus, right?” Claire gasped.

“I completely forgot about it! I need to go, for more info on the situation ask Mr. Zeta, he was the one to propose that idea. Bye Me. Iris, c’mon John!”

“I am literally on your head right now…” The Decidueye waved at them as she saw Claire bolting to the exit John kept his body steady trying not to fall. Iris stopped waving and sighed as she put a wing on her head.

“Zeta… what are you thinking…?” She started to walk towards another room, the school was empty at the moment since all of the students were on the exit taking their busses. It was perfectly normal for Iris until she saw a crushed metal locker door, fallen off from the locker. “Oh dear, what happened?” She went closer to inspect it, crouched down, and ran a wing over the door. “No signs of any brutal physical contact… must’ve been a psychic type, but who?”

“Something wrong [Owl Lady]? Oh wowsers, what happened to that door?” She looked behind to find Zeta, the Porygon-Z floating behind her, his body glitchy as usual. She got up and turned to him.

“Probably some psychic type with anger issues. On a more important note… do you think sending them to a Mystery Dungeon is a good idea?” She asked the Porygon-Z, and he immediately replied.

“Do not worry [Falco], I chose the easiest and closest Mystery Dungeon[™] that Burgroth town has to offer. Besides, they are under [24h security surveillance] by me!” He replied while his eyes got static in some parts. “Don’t worry, the [fat bastar-] director agreed with me that they are at that age!” Iris looked at him and sighed.

“Well if you say so… just hope nothing bad happens to them.” She relaxed her body. ‘If John’s a human, he’s fulfilling the beginning of his destiny. Hope this is a good place to learn about his powers.’ She thought.

“I assure you that no one touches our students before I [decapitate them all in a big bloodbath].” He laughed while glitching as Iris also joined in making an awkward laugh.

‘Man, these species are weird…’ Iris thought to herself.

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The twins (and their small guest) arrived at their home, their parents were out at work so they were alone in their house for a couple of hours before their mother arrived home, followed by their father. They each took out their uniforms, thankfully, there was an easy-to-reach zipper on the front of the uniform, that allowed four-legged Pokémon to take it out with ease. After that, Elsa went to her usual business that is staring at the mirror while seeing her phone messages. Claire shot a glare at her sis and approached her.

“What are you doing?” John whispered in her ear.

Claire started to produce some fire in her mouth. “Just a payback…” She calmly said before shooting a small ember onto her sister’s hair, it started burning.

“My hair!!!” The white fox loudly screamed as she started to make a small blizzard around herself to erase the fire, even if the cold was around Elsa, John could still feel an insane amount of cold since he, apparently, had no heating system. He curled on himself and started shaking, grabbing a tuft of fur from Claire and covering himself like a blanket. Elsa turned to look at Claire with rage on her face as she jumped down from the chair, landing gracefully. “What the fuck… was THAT FOR!?” The cold veil was still around her while Claire shot her own hot veil.

“That’s what you deserve after what you did to Amy!” She retorted back while she had small flames coming out of her mouth. It could be seen cold small puffs of air coming out of Elsa’s mouth.

“Why you little…!” Elsa said angrily while preparing to shoot a wave of snow until John stood up from Claire’s fur shouting loudly with a high-pitched voice.

“For fuck sake, fucking stop!!!” They stopped their attacks and they all looked at John who just jumped from Claire’s head onto the bed. ‘Woah, these jumps are huge… I’m starting to get the hang of it.’ He looked towards the sisters. “I don’t know what happened and I don’t wanna know, but please, this is getting annoying, don’t kill yourselves for some stupidity.” He didn’t know why he was doing this, but he was the adult of the house basically, he needed to get things in order! Claire looked down in regret.

“I’m sorry John…” The orange fox said regretfully while Elsa shot a glare at him and approached him, showing her fangs.

“And why should I listen to you? You’re pathetic and hopeless, like I said before, I could eat you right now and you wouldn’t be able to do anything…” She said while grinning maliciously at him, letting out a freezing aura. He won’t be intimidated like that again, he is not the prey in the world, he is a human in this situation! He just gotta outsmart the ones bigger than him. Even though he was shaking from cold (and probably fear), there was a way to get out of this situation, while showing his superiority to these animals.

‘Wait a second… I forgot she’s just like me!’ He prepared to jump at her. ‘She wouldn’t even dare to touch a bug… like me!

“What… are you doing?” She asked, taking a step back from the bed. John then jumped from the bed and landed on her snout. The jump was so quick that Elsa only processed that he was there two seconds later. She then let out a loud scream and started running around the room in panic, shaking her head to get John off her face. Meanwhile, Claire was giggling to herself while muttering “Deserved”.

“Get it off, get it off, get it off, get off!!!” She let out some icy breaths randomly while still shaking her head. Until she grabbed John with her forepaws and threw him on the bed.

“John!” Claire shouted as she ran over to the bed and went to inspect John. He let out a pained “Ow” as he wiggled his limbs, scrambling to get back on his feet once again.

“Huh… that didn’t hurt as much as I thought…” He felt like he was perfectly healthy, with no sore limbs whatsoever, no broken exoskeleton or misplaced eternal organs. His breathing was fine as well. “Probably the fact that I fell on the bed…”

“John, are you alright?” She asked as she eyed him in every direction, to find any sign of bruises.

“I’m fine, like actually though. It almost didn’t hurt at all.” He confirmed and Claire sighed in relief.

“Thank Arceus for that…” Claire then glared at her sister, who just let out an annoyed grunt in return.

“Never… let your pet touch me EVER again! Now if you excuse me, I’m gonna take a bath to take out this bug filth from my body.” She huffed as she went left the room. Claire sighed and looked at John.

“What was that? When did all that confidence come over you?” She asked, confused. The shiny looked away rubbing the back of his head.

“I um… don’t know… I just felt like I should prove a point… like I needed to exert my superiority to her, even though I am small…” He admitted. “Human nature is kinda like that… they don’t know limits…”

“Oooh, I see. So that’s why humans always save the world from planetary dangers!” She said excitedly. “Then maybe you get to do it too!”

“Yeah, I’m gonna do it… in your damn dreams! That shit still sounds like some big fairy tale that I’m not gonna take part in!” He said in a bit of anger.

“But it IS true! They saved the world from a meteor, prevented time from stopping, and much more!” She jumped on the bed, John could see excitement plastered all over her face. “You might be smaller than the rest, sure, but, you can do a lot of things if you just believe in yourself!”

“… You’re sounding like a game NPC again…” Both stayed silent for a moment before giggling before busting out a laugh, making John chuckle a little as well. The laugh died down and Claire spoke again.

“Yeah you’re right hehe… I do sound like that sometimes, don’t I?”

“Yep, you do… so… are you gonna explain to me what the hell Mystery Dungeons are?” He asked while laying on the bed, Claire’s eyes widened.

“Dammit, I forgot about that! Okay, so for short…” She started to sit like a bipedal creature again. “Mystery Dungeons are basically labyrinths all around the world. They could either be a forest, a cave, or even temples! No one knows how they work, apparently, a dungeon is separated by floors… I still don’t know if that’s true…”

“Are you for real…? Like… temples and caves, I kinda get it, but a forest having separate floors? How are they separated? By what, elevators?” John asked playfully.

“Actually, it’s stairs.” John stayed quiet for a second before taking a deep breath and clasping his forenubs together.

“Explain to me… what in the hell the gods of this place were smoking when they created those places…?” John asked, putting on a deadpan face. Claire shrugged as she look away.

“I don’t know. They’re not called “Mystery Dungeons” for nothing, right?” More silence, then again, Claire indeed had a point. John sighed.

“Alright, what can you find in these dungeons? Like, I need to know basically everything before we enter.”

“Oh, it’s a dungeon next to our town. It’s called Jingle-Jungle Woods, it’s a pretty small dungeon, mostly eleven floors. It’s filled with wild bug and normal type Pokémon.” John froze at the mention of bugs.

“No… nononononononono, you- you’re not telling that you’re taking me there, are you?” John asked worried.

“Um… is there a problem?” John was mentally sweating, he was about to walk in on a hellhole full of bugs? Wait, he couldn’t show weakness. He needed to find any excuse to not go.

“I erm… you know that I’m too weak to enter like… any kind of fight with some wild ani- Pokémon right? I would just get beaten and eaten easily… I don’t even know how to do a cool move!” He said in a melancholic way, trying to sound defenseless.

“Oh, don’t worry! I’ll protect you if any Pokémon sneak up on us!” She said ecstatically, her eyes glimmering.

“B- but…” He got interrupted by the sound of his belly rumbling again.

“Oh, you’re hungry again, don’t worry I’ll take you to an outlet!” John tried to protest by flailing his limbs, but Claire had already grabbed him with her mouth and carried him next to the same electrical outlet. She put the Joltik on the ground and he looked at her. “Come on, you had done this before right?” John sighs and proceeds to climb the wall again, since he was clinging to more shaky surfaces, standing on the wall was easier.

“Here we go again…” He said as he approached the outlet once again and sank his teeth into the two holes. It felt weird knowing this is how he was gonna be fed every time in his new life, and it was only one type of food. ‘Do outlets with different watts taste different?’ He thought as he removed the fangs from the outlet and crawled back onto the floor.

“I got a question… how does electricity taste?” She asked tilting her head.

“Well… if I had to put it into words… it feels like I’m sucking the juice out of a straw, but instead of juice it’s like… sour and sweet at the same time.” He affirmed.

“Like lemonade?”

“Yeah like lemonade but um… the sour part is more apparent.” He admitted, touching his tongue with a nub. He then removed it and looks at it. “It honestly feels weird as hell, but at least is filling my stomach and it doesn’t have a bad taste.” He added.

“Interesting… hey, wanna see me train?” She asked as John tilted his head. “I need to get stronger you know, and what else is better than to train, for what is basically my first mission?”

“Ah, I get it. Sure, I wanna see how your fireworks more closely. Hm… and maybe you can teach me some stuff that I can maybe do?” He requested.

“Hm… I might not be a bug type of an electric type… but sure, I can try. Anything for you!”

“Um… thanks…” He rubbed the top of his head while looking away. John climbed on Claire and she went to the backyard of her house for training for tomorrow.