A new leaf

The rest of that day was spent learning the plethora of items and their function. It was difficult, but the different swirls and patterns helped make a mental map of the whole thing. What Mark wasn’t expecting was for Rose to give him some sort of reward for figuring things out.

A piece of cloth, a bandana, the same lime tone as the ones his new teammates were wearing. (Well, it was lime, but apparently neither Simon nor Rose knew what that word meant, so green-yellow it is).

Apparently having the cloth was an identifier for members of the guild, which meant that he was getting one too, so he happily tied it around his neck.

And after a deserved night of rest, here they were. Poison Garden. Simon thought that it would be a good idea to try this dungeon again, since this time Mark wouldn’t be fighting, and the two siblings had no problems with the ferals there.

“Oh, and by the way, this is an actual mission now.” Mark turned to Rose. An actual mission? As in, they’re getting paid for this? “Accepted it yesterday while I was registering Mark in, we just need to find a scarf. Floor… 3, I think? Should be easy, it’ll give us a good chance to test things.”

“Why didn’t you ask me about it?”

“Do you really think I would go back home to talk about it, and then go to the guild again to accept the mission? C’mon, Simon, think a bit.” Rose smirked as Simon let out an annoyed puff. Yep, definitely siblings.

Mark was at least walking into the dungeon with more confidence than last time. He was the one carrying the bag instead of Rose and… Damn, how did Rose deal with all this weight? To be fair she was the biggest of the bunch, so it made sense, but wow.

It wasn’t long until a feral Pokémon came into view. Another Ekans. Mark was visibly shuddering, but the siblings quickly stepped in front.

“Okay, let’s start slow. Hand over a Totter Seed, Mark!”

He rummaged through the bag, trying to remember his mental map. ‘Right… Totter… that’s the one that makes enemies confused, so… The spiral? I think it was the spiral.’ He grabbed the seed and handed it over to Simon, who smiled as he threw it to the snake.

“Very nice. It took me ages to figure out how to distinguish them from each other, so I’m genuinely very surprised.”

“It was all because of my teaching, surely.” Mark didn’t need to look at Rose to feel her smirk, it was her thing at this point. She followed it by engulfing herself in flames and rushing to the Ekans for a tackle.

It got launched against one of the trees, but quickly recovered, now angry and wanting to attack. It spit some orange-y sludge multiple times, but the confusion made it miss all of them.

“Ok Rose, stop trying to show off, let me at least get a hit in, will ya?”

Simon jumped in, covering his tail in water. He took a running start and smacked the Ekans with it. The snake wasn’t done yet, but it was clear that there was a lot of damage done to it.

Rose finished it off with a small fireball, it didn’t seem like it took much effort for her, but it was enough to seal the deal.

Mark looked at the snake, not moving. “So like… did we kill it or…?”

“Oh, Arceus, no. It just fainted. We don’t kill anyone here, we aren’t monsters.”

“You say that, but last time, that Ekans had no hesitation with me…”

“Well, yeah, but that’s because they’re feral, they don’t know any better aside from attacking everything that moves.” Mark regrouped with the other two while Rose talked. He wasn’t that happy to hear that if he was alone, he would have actually died. “Now, c’mon, let’s find the stairs.”

“Stairs? In the middle of a forest? You did say something about a ‘Floor 3’, is that related?”

“Mystery Dungeons don’t operate like actual, logical sites, Mark.” Simon said, waving his arms in the air like he was signaling the entire place. “They are really weird, and yep, they have floors for some reason. Not like you can see them until you’ve entered them, though.”

‘Well, that’s another thing to add to the ‘I don’t want to think about it too much’ list.’

As they kept going through the dungeon, Rose made it a point to teach Mark the names of the ferals they encountered. Mark could only keep up so much, though. He already had enough in his head with all the seeds and orbs and whatever else they thought to bring.

“What was that last one, again?”

“Skorupi, that’s the third time you’ve asked.”

“Okay look, it’s not my fault that whoever named these species just put some random letters together to make something happen.”

Mark heard a loud chuckle from Simon. He guessed he was happy to not be the only one bantering with Rose from time to time.

The fights were going well, at least. His knowledge of items was being cemented slowly, with only one fail so far when he gave Rose a Switcher Orb instead of a Rocky one. It was worth it if only for her reaction, though.

They eventually found the stairs which made Mark stare at them in confusion. “Okay, so this is a joke, right? I can literally see the end of the stairs and there’s nothing there.”

“Honestly, you remind me of myself when I first entered one of these. But in case you still don’t believe it, I’ll go first.”

Simon climbed the stairs and… he just vanished. Mark’s mouth was agape. This wasn’t possible.

“C’mon, bud, don’t keep us waiting.” Rose smirked yet again as she also disappeared while getting up. Finding himself alone, Mark was too terrified to do anything else other than follow them. He watched as the environment seemed to fade in front of him. Before he could even notice, the stairs were gone. Rose and Simon were there, watching him like nothing was wrong, but he could tell that they were in a completely different spot of the dungeon, somehow.

“There better be a good explanation for that.”

“Nope! Now, c’mon let’s get goi-” Simon was cut off by the sound of many Pokémon appearing at once, all around them. “Oooookay, monster house.”

“Hey Mark? This is your chance to prove yourself, feel free to experiment with items this time.” There was some concern on Rose’s voice this time. “But please try not to mess up, this is a bit more dangerous than usual…”

And with no further words, the both of them started attacking. Mark was scared, very scared, but he took a deep breath and tried to look through the bag. There had to be something to help there. Anything.

‘Shit, okay… Calm down, Mark. You got this, just breathe. Uh… Mug Orb? No… Definitely not Align… Not Rollcall…’

He kept on looking but nothing was helpful. Except… It would be a gamble, but he trusted the other two. So without more hesitation, he grabbed the orb and smashed it on the ground. All the ferals immediately flinched heavily… but so did Mark.

“What?!” Simon turned to look at him. “What did you…?”

“Simon! Not now, he’s going to be fine! Help me get rid of them!”

He shook his head and focused on the battle, which thankfully didn’t take long after what Mark did.

Once it was over, both of them rushed to him. He was panting heavily, still standing, but leaning against the wall to not fall over. He looked at the siblings and smiled weakly. “Heh… Two-Edge Orb…”

“Holy shit… No wonder you fell too, there were like ten of them…” Simon took the bag out of Mark’s paws and got a seed out for him.

Mark pondered on the seed a bit, trying to figure out if he could identify it. “Energy…?” Simon nodded, returning the smile.

“C’mon, eat it, you need it.”

Mark didn’t think about it twice.

---

The rest of the floor wasn’t that interesting. A feral here and there, but after his stunt earlier, Mark was confident about himself. He couldn’t fight, but at least he was doing something to help.

They found the next set of stairs decently quick, which meant they were on the floor the supposed scarf was in.

“The client specified that it was a red scarf with green dots. Pretty easy to see, so let’s start moving.”

“Isn’t it that one over there?” Mark pointed to a piece of cloth that matched perfectly the description. It was just there, in the corner of the room.

Simon and Rose looked at each other for a bit before snorting. “Okay, we got lucky, that’s cool.” Rose went to grab it while Simon kept laughing. “It’s always some whiplash when we expect the worst and the goal of the mission is just at the very start.”

Mark managed to laugh a bit as well, which he appreciated after the hell that these last days had been. “So, Escape Orb?”

“Nah, no need.” Rose said as she came back with the scarf on her back. “Poison Garden only has three floors, another reason why I suggested it as your training place, it’s very short.”

“Oh, these places aren’t infinite? That’s good to know, I thought you were done for if you didn’t carry the Escape Orb.”

“Thankfully not, though they’re always handy to have. One of the higher-level dungeons has like a hundred floors, and I refuse to go through all of them.”

Mark chuckled again as they started moving again in search for the last set of stairs.

---

Funnily enough, the stairs were in the room next to the scarf. Judging by the sibling’s reactions, that was rare, but Mark wasn’t going to complain.

After exiting, Simon convinced Mark to accompany them to the guild to deliver the scarf. He didn’t feel that comfortable with other Pokémon, but he guessed he’d need to learn about the guild sooner or later, so he went with it.

The guild was… big. That was the only word in Mark’s mind as he walked in. Tons of other creatures wearing bandanas or arm bands of different colors and patterns. It was a bit overwhelming, but it made him happy to see such a community working together.

The client was waiting for them near the entrance. Rose delivered the scarf to what Simon called a Nuzleaf, and they gave Rose a bag supposedly full of money. Clean transaction, that’s for sure.

Simon, meanwhile, was explaining the guild to Mark. The training they had to do, the installments, the procedures… The explanation got cut short as a certain Pokémon approached them.

“My, my, is this the new recruit Rose mentioned, Simon?”

It looked like a pig, but with a purple body and black legs. “Oh, hey Guildmaster Gren! Yep, this is him! Mark, this is Gren, our guildmaster and boss of this organization.”

‘Well, shit.’ That’s the first thing Mark thought as he extended his paw for a handshake. He was already surprised to see someone approach them, he wasn’t expecting this someone to be the big supervisor of this place.

“I-it’s nice to meet you, Guildmaster.” Yeah, it was very obvious that Mark was nervous.

“Same goes to you, Mark. Welcome to the team!” They said with a grin. “I am pretty busy at the moment, but I had to come say hi to the new member! Did your first mission go well?”

“You should’ve seen him, using a Two-Edge Orb on a monster house to make our battle easier. He has guts!”

“Well, that’s nice to hear! I have to go do more paperwork, but I hope you enjoy your stay in the team, Mark.”

“Uh… T-thanks!”

Gren giggled as they left. Once out of sight, Mark left the biggest sigh of relief he could muster. “I wasn’t expecting to see the top of the top right away…”

“Neither did I! But you don’t have to worry, they may be the boss, but they’re a sweetheart. Always making sure we are happy.”

Mark didn’t have time to think about it that much as Rose came soon after. With the three of them together, they went back home.

That night, Mark couldn’t sleep. Seeing as he was going to stay in their home for a long time, Mark convinced Simon to go back to his own bed while he took the couch. At least, until they could get another bed for him.

But it wasn’t because of the couch that Mark couldn’t sleep, it was because of all the thoughts running around inside his head.

He was happy to be welcomed and integrated into a team. He had two people that he could call friends, and they were taking care of him, making sure he learned.

But there was also a hint of sadness. It didn’t feel right to hide being a human, but he had the sensation that it would cause more trouble than it’s worth. Besides, he didn’t remember his life as one, why should he feel like he should go back? He still remembered what Simon mentioned about his defeatism, that it came from way earlier than this. So maybe his human life just… wasn’t that good.

He was going back and forth with his reflections, trying to figure out what was right. But in the end, he gave up. He had Simon and Rose now, and he was happy to be here. Wasn’t that what mattered?

‘I think… I think I can get used to this…’