Ch 3 – Two Heads are Better Than One

“In what conceivable universe is going right the best idea here?” The Prince asked as they were walking through a dungeon floor.

“Because we already saw that west of here is a long hallway, unless you want to stop so we can pull out the floor map again,” Blizz shot back.

“The hallway was much further back, it’s almost a guarantee there’s an L-junct-”

“Crabrawler coming up on you.”

“Ah, thanks.” The Prince shot out a Shadow Ball, knocking out the approaching feral. “Sorry, where were we?”

“You were saying there’s probably an L-turn on the west passageway.”

“Right. I can guarantee there’s a turn that will lead us into a new room.”

“Well I’m gonna go this way, and as your previously appointed Minister of Mystery Dungeon Affairs-”

“I declared you the Overseer of Mystery Dungeon Affairs.”

“Sorry. As your appointed Overseer of Mystery Dungeon Affairs I’m going to pull rank and say we’re going east.”

“You have no such authority to overrule a monarch- how dare you?”

Blizz already started walking down the corridor. He tuned out the Prince’s complaining, trying to focus on listening to any Pokémon that might come up on them.

When he felt the ground shake slightly, he held a hand up to the Prince who temporarily shut up.

Blizz shot a Leafage down the corridor, which made a satisfying clunk as it knocked out a Shellos.

“Nice shot,” the Prince complimented. “Now, as I was saying, your insolence when dealing with a member of the royal…”

Blizz went back to ignoring him.

True to his prediction though, the next room along the passageway contained a staircase leading to the next floor.

“Told ya,” Blizz teased, before climbing up the staircase.

The two managed to argue their way through 7 floors of rock formations, tide pools, and aggressive water types. Their power level was more than enough to move through the dungeon without breaking a sweat, which only served to give them more energy to direct at each other.

“How do you even know you’re royalty? You might have gotten the nickname from some friends or something.”

“True royalty manifests itself in more ways than one’s lineage,” the Prince explained. “We are simply a cut above other humans.”

“Gonna throw this out there, you’re not exactly human right now.”

“Just because I lack my true form-”

“Hold up.” Treecko pulled out his badge, which seemed to be vibrating. “Looks like the target was spotted on this floor.”

“It resembled a purple monkey, correct?”

“Yea, that’s the guy.”

“Should be child’s play.”

“I agree, but could you say it in a less evil-supervillain way?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I only speak proper English, unlike you.”

“Language is supposed to evolve, you’re not supposed to talk like Shakespeare.”

“Perhaps people would if our culture hasn’t evolved such that the peasantry can dictate the upper echelon’s language.”

“Please don’t go on another rant-”

“It is absolutely absurd that a random farm worker would have the capacity to check a box on a piece of paper and remove a true monarch from power.”

“Rule of law comes from the consent of the governed-”

“Typical yank, not appreciating the merits of such a time-tested governing system.”

“I don’t even know where to start on what’s wrong with monar-”

“Am I interrupting something?” Before either side could react, a series of yellow stars flew into Blizz’s back, knocking him off his feet.

They turned around to see the Aipom on the wanted poster.

“Bro, attacking from the back is a bitch move,” Blizz said, dusting himself off.

“So is teaming up 2 on 1.”

“… Okay yea, but we’re also not criminals.”

“And how do you know I’m not-”

He was cut off by the Prince launching a Shadow Ball. It kinda just phased through the Aipom though.

“Not only do you interrupt me, you try to attack a Normal type with a Ghost type move?”

“Look we’re kinda new to this. You’re such a non-threat that they were willing to send a group like us after you.”

“How hurtful. Maybe I’ll show them why they’re wrong.”

Blizz led with a Leafage which did slightly hurt the Aipom. In response, Aipom launched another Swift attack, which hurt Blizz a good bit more.

“Can’t you attack him too?” He asked, jumping back to his feet.

“No no, keep going, he makes a wonderful meat shield,” Umbreon commented, hitting Aipom with a Tackle.

“So this is who they send after me…” Aipom jumped over the Prince and used Double Slap on Blizz.

“For fucks sake he was right there!” Blizz tried to counterattack with a Pound, but Aipom bounced back before he could land it.

“Well he’s obviously someone of value, whereas you’re just a pathetic commoner,” Aipom explained, charging another Swift.

“Finally someone gets it,” the Prince agreed.

“We can have a more in-depth discussion of your royal lineage after we take this bastard down,” Blizz shouted as he used his tail to intercept most of the Swift attack.

“Or you could side with me and be with someone who can respect your status,” Aipom reasoned, sidestepping another Leafage.

“I appreciate your concern, but Blizz is still my subject and I have a duty to uphold to him, even if he doesn’t fully appreciate our social contract,” the Prince explained as he used Bite on Aipom.

“Worth a try. You’re a cunt though.”

“Well that’s hardly language I’d use in the presence of a prince,” he continued, hitting the Aipom with another Tackle.

A final Leafage from Blizz managed to knock out the outlaw.

“For the record he was right,” Blizz stated. “You are kinda a cunt.”

“You simply lash out at that which you don’t understand. Shall we depart?”

“Yea, let’s go.”

They tied up the outlaw and shined their badge on him, causing him to vanish from the dungeon. They followed soon after, regrouping and returning to Nova Town.

“Thank you for apprehending the outlaw,” Magnemite said, as they took away Aipom. “I forwarded the tax to the guild, here is your share.” He laid out 200 Poké, which Blizz added to the team fund.

As he accepted the payment, he felt his badge vibrate. He held it up, the hologram display showing a couple of arrows accompanied by the words “RANK UP!”

Both his and the Prince’s badges glowed, as the crystal in the center changed color from light blue to pink.

When the rank up animation finished, he looked at his new status.

Treecko (Blizz) – Team Apex

Normal Rank – Lucario’s Guild

“Looks like we’re not rookies anymore,” Blizz commented.

“It’s about time,” the Prince grumbled.

They made their way back to the guild, where they met up with Scizor to discuss the mission.

“It went pretty good I think,” Blizz summarized. “I got slapped around a bit but was never close to getting knocked out, and Umbreon didn’t get hit at all.”

“And how about your dungeon exploration?”

“We… well… we made it through.”

“He refused to accept my superior navigational sense.”

“You didn’t even check the map-”

“I have other things to deal with, please continue the argument once we’re done here,” Scizor pleaded.

Both Pokémon shut up, which gave Scizor an opportunity to continue. “It sounds like your power is sufficient, though you may lack effective team coherence-”

“Nah, we’re a pretty good combo in combat,” Blizz interrupted. “Just navigation where there tends to be issues.”

“You and everyone else at this guild… Okay, while your combat prowess is sufficient, it sounds like your dungeon exploration could use some work. As such, I’m confining you to at most C rank outlaw and escort missions and D rank rescue and recovery missions.”

“We shall tear through them,” the Prince stated.

“Yea we got this,” Blizz agreed.

“Hmph, if you’re done then please leave, I have other matters to take care of.”

They left Scizor’s office, heading back to their room while they waited for dinner.

“You think we should get some furniture or something?” Blizz asked from his bed. “Like, just throw a sofa right in front of that window there.”

“I could not care less,” the Price responded. “Just as long as it doesn’t look cheap.”

“Yea yea you’re better than peasant notions such as furniture.”

“Do you have any purpose for continuing this discussion, or do you simply wish to antagonize me?”

“I mean it can be kinda fun in the dungeon, but not now.”

“Then please let me rest.”

Seeing that there wasn’t much use in staying with the Prince, Blizz took a walk into town. Though the majority of the team’s funds came from the reward from helping apprehend Nuzleaf, the reward for their capture today and the occasional piles of change they found in the dungeon wasn’t negligible either.

He first went to the bank to deposit some of the extra Poké.

“Ahh, welcome back young Treecko,” the Duskull began. “Here to make a deposit?”

“Yea, dropping off 250 into the team fund.”

“Splendid, I shall take that off your hands then.” Blizz handed in the coins as Duskull took them into who-knows-where.

“Your Poké shall rest here, forever if you so choose. Is there anything else you’d like to do?”

“Nah, that’s it. Thanks.”

Blizz walked away from the bank. He still had to find a way to kill time until dinner, so he decided to wander around town more.

Most of the shops outside of town square didn’t sell anything of use to Blizz. Maybe one day he’d figure out some cause that urgently required a set of fine china, but until that day he was just going to walk past Polteageist’s shop.

He ended up back at Leavanny’s store. Now that most of his essentials were taken care of by the guild, he could get away with spending a bit more than the first time he stumbled in.

“Ah, welcome back Treecko.” She waved as Treecko entered the store. “Has the bag been holding up well for you?”

“Yea, brought it through Tidal Cliffside and it didn’t fall apart, so I’d say that’s pretty good.”

“Wonderful. What brings you in today then?”

“Just looking around, killing time before I head back to the guild.”

“So you did make it in! Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

Blizz looked around the various displays. He recognized some of the designs on display; quite a few of the scarves and bandannas were worn by other members of his guild.

However, one item managed to catch his eye. A pair of green safety goggles with a red tint over the eyes was sitting on top of a display pedestal.

Once again, he got the feeling of familiarity— that this is important to him somehow, like there’s a memory buried just beneath the surface of his mind but he can’t get out.

Honestly it’s getting kinda obnoxious at this point.

Still, he was curious. “How much for these?”

“Ah, you have good taste. Those are All-Weather Goggles. They’re pretty rare, as I can’t make them; the only way I come across any is by buying them from Kecleon or other explorers. That’s about… hmm… 15,000?”

This was a fairly considerable amount compared to the 100 Poké he had on him and another 900 in the bank. Not to mention that that was the team fund, and the Prince would probably not like it too much if he spent all their money on a random accessory.

(Even though the Prince would definitely do that for himself)

“I’ll have to pass,” Blizz informed Leavanny.

“A shame. Let me know if you change your mind.”

Having had his hopes at getting a cool accessory crushed, Blizz finally returned to the guild as they were about to start dinner.

---

“THEN LET’S FUCKING GET IT!”

“YEAAAAA!”

After the morning chant ended Blizz and the Prince went up to the mission boards.

“I think we should try a rescue mission today.,” Blizz explained. “Scizor knows we can kick ass at outlaws, but he was right that we kinda sucked at exploring. We should probably get some practice on that first.”

“I’ll permit it,” the Prince agreed, before looking conflicted. “I too gave our previous mission some thought. I’ve come to the conclusion that maintaining a consistent exploration presence is more significant than occasionally making an incorrect turn due to your sense of direction.”

It looked like saying this was causing physical pain to the Prince.

“Given your above average luck when randomly choosing a direction to travel in compared to my own, I elected to expand the role of the Overseer of Mystery Dungeon Affairs to include primary navigational duties.”

This was the most surprised Blizz has ever been since he woke up as a Pokémon. Despite his disbelief in the reality of the situation, the explanation continued.

“While I will absolutely not hesitate to inform you if you are making a poor decision, I shall leave field command of exploration to your discretion.”

He appeared to notice Blizz’s expression, and defended himself.

“It is an important duty of any king to surround himself with advisors so that he may devote himself to more significant affairs. You have simply proven yourself to be capable enough to assume a role that previously I sought to fill. This changes nothing about my overall leadership of the team.”

“Yea yea, so you’ll actually follow me for once?”

“I have simply opted to allow you to deal with the tedium of navigation in my stead. Do not let it get to your head.”

“Alright, we can probably go further today then,” Blizz declared. “Let’s take a look at the jobs then.”

The duo examined the board, searching for any D rank rescue missions.

One stood out to them, a posting for a snow white Vulpix. Blizz held up his badge to translate.

Rescue Mission – D Rank

Client: Southern Vulpix

Location: Shining Peaks

Info: A non-feral Southern Vulpix was sighted at the mountain summit, and appeared to be injured. The Exploration Team should climb to the top of the mountain, secure the Vulpix, and return to Nova Town so she may receive medical attention.

“Looks good to you?” Blizz asked.

“It should suffice.”

“Great, let’s take it.”

An unfortunate trend of higher-rank missions was that they tended to involve a lot more walking to get to the location in question. Today, it was 40 minutes to the base of a small mountain.

“Is this the location of the dungeon?” The Prince asked, as he looked at the mountain ahead of him.

“Should be, according to the map. You ready?”

“As ready as I can possibly be.”

The two entered a tunnel at the mountain base.

“…Okay I know this sounds bad after what we talked about this morning, but could you take the lead for a bit?”

“Any reason for this?”

“I uhh, can’t really see in the dark. Usually it gets a bit brighter once we reach the actual mystery dungeon part, but we’ve been walking for a bit and I think we have a while before we get there.”

“Fine. However as soon as we reach the dungeon proper, you are to return to your standard post. We can’t have the team leader be the front line against any feral Pokémon.”

“Of course, that was what I was worried about.”

If the Prince picked up on the sarcasm he didn’t say anything. They traded positions, as the blue rings on his body glowed a little bit brighter.

Thankfully, they didn’t have to go much further before they found themselves in a mystery dungeon floor.

“Now, you should take your-”

The Prince was cut off by an Icy Wind attack coming from a Vanillite in the room. Blizz wasted no time in using Leafage on the attacker, following up with a Pound before it could recover.

Once the Vanillite was no longer a threat, he turned his attention back to his comrade who currently had his legs covered in a sheet of ice.

“You are never convincing me to take the lead again,” the Prince mused.

“To be fair it was 50/50 for it to attack me or you. Just think of it as payback for Aipom yesterday.”

“Aipom simply understood true regality, something you appear to…”

Once again, their conversation decayed into a petty argument, pausing occasionally to put down the occasional feral they came across.

Unlike last time though, their arguments involved purely arbitrary topics, such as whether Team Arctic or Blitz were better, or the flaws and merits of representational democracy. Notably, the subject of “the direction you chose to go is fucking stupid” never came up, meaning they spent far less time waiting in rooms looking through the floor map.

As a result, nine floors passed by relatively quickly, with the most notable change being the temperature steadily decreasing.

“How much longer must we progress?” The Prince asked, visibly irritated by the cold.

“Dunno, job listing didn’t say. Probably like, 3 more floors?” Blizz responded, visibly not irritated by the cold.

“How can you tolerate this anyways? Aren’t the grass creatures supposed to be more susceptible to the cold?”

“And the heat,” Blizz responded. “But yea, that’s how it’s supposed to work.”

“Then why do you appear to be unbothered by it?”

Blizz just shrugged. “No clue, not complaining though.”

“Perhaps it may relate to your name…” the Prince thought out loud.

“My name?”

“‘Blizz’ is quite obviously a shortened form of ‘blizzard’…” He noticed Blizz’s blank stare. “…Please do not tell me you have never considered this until now.”

“Look, things have kinda been coming at us one thing after another, and it’s not like Blizz is an actual thing like Prince is.”

“No, no it is understandable. After all, it falls onto me to do the mental heavy lifting for our team.”

Blizz considered it for a moment. He knows for a fact he’s been called Blizz at some point in whatever his past life was. Maybe he was involved in a blizzard or something? It wouldn’t really explain why he just wasn’t feeling the cold though, especially since he was now a grass type.

He was pulled out of his thoughts by an approaching Spheal. He got into a battle position as it started barreling towards him.

He could worry about his name later.

---

Despite his insistence that Blizz take the lead, the Prince was more than happy to run ahead as they climbed the final staircase.

“Pretty sure you’re supposed to be a dark type,” Blizz commented, watching the Prince bask in the now-abundant sunlight.

“This body is nothing but a fragment of my true self, I abide by none of this world’s preconceived notions of how someone of this form should act.”

Blizz looked around the peak for the target. The dungeon name was fairly accurate; the ice on the ground was reflecting the sunlight, and at this elevation with no cloud cover the entire floor was nearly blinding.

“Vulpix, you up here?” Blizz called out. “Kinda hard to see anything up here.”

“Grrr…”

“Okay I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that whoever just growled isn’t Vulpix.”

The ground seemed to shake as the growling got louder. Blizz and the Prince backed into each other, searching for the source of the noise.

“Who’s there!” The Prince yelled out.

“GAHHHH!”

A large white paw lashed out at the duo, forcing them to jump out of the way and break formation. They did finally find the source of the growling though.

A large feral Beartic stood opposite them, ready to kill the exploration team.

“I am going to operate under the assumption that this is far stronger than the other ferals we have encountered so far, and would suggest you do the same,” the Prince evaluated.

“Yea, gotcha.”

Blizz led with a Leafage, which did nothing but direct the Beartic’s attention towards himself.

Taking advantage of his smaller size, he focused purely on dodging the beast’s attacks as the Prince peppered it with Shadow Balls.

“Could you maybe convince it to stop moving? These attacks are rather difficult to aim.”

“It’ll only stop moving if I stop-” He weaved side to side to dodge Beartic’s Icicle Crash. “Only if I stop moving, and that looks like a really bad idea right now.”

“Then perhaps just run around it so it’s not chasing after you?”

“It’s only attacking me, can’t you just get closer?”

“But I wouldn’t want to take the chance of it being able to hit me.”

“Oh my fucking god you’re terrible.”

“That’s no way to speak to someone who is currently responsible for all the damage to our foe.”

Blizz kept weaving around every attack the Beartic sent his way. However, he was feeling the exhaustion start to build up, while the Beartic wasn’t slowing down at all.

Seeing that the Prince was starting to miss more often than he was hitting, Blizz decided to change his strategy.

The next time an oversized paw tried to crash down on him, he only sidestepped slightly, before jumping onto the claw and running up Beartic’s arm.

It started thrashing around trying to shake the Treecko off, but for reasons not even Blizz fully understood he managed to cling on.

Once he climbed up to the back of Beartic’s head, he launched several point blank Leafages. While he was trying to aim for ears, mouth, and eyes; being flung around at high speeds as Beartic desperately tried to shake him off limited his accuracy to “shooting in the vague direction of where its head was a moment ago.”

It seemed like they were finally harming the Pokémon though, as it visibly recoiled from each hit.

Unfortunately, that also caused it to become even more aggressive. It slammed its back on the ground, using the Treecko as a cushion to soften the blow for itself.

“FUCK!” He yelled out as a fresh round of pain coursed through his body. He didn’t get a chance to recover either as Beartic climbed back to its feet and used Thrash, launching the already-injured Blizz into a nearby rock formation.

Blizz’s ears were ringing as he could faintly make out the approaching Beartic. It was still in the middle of a Thrash, and didn’t seem like it was going to slow down any time soon.

Blizz tried to stare down the Beartic, but the dizziness made it difficult to tell which one of the two approaching polar bears was the one about to kill him. Still, it was the thought that counts.

Before it could deliver the next attack, a streak of black and blue flew by, slamming into Beartic’s side.

After the impact, the Prince pivoted around to face down the bear, who was now directing its rage towards the Umbreon.

“The sacrifices I make for the commoners…”

The Prince repeated whatever attack it was he just used. He wasn’t sure the details of how it worked, but it did let him move fast enough to run in for a hit and get out of range before Beartic had a chance to strike back.

As the Prince continued a very delicate game of keeping distance with the beast while still staying close enough to strike at it, Blizz was fumbling through his bag.

His probably-concussed brain was trying to remember whether it was the pink or blue berry that would help him recover. He settled on taking both, and the train wreck his body felt like subsided into more of a bike crash.

He’ll take it.

He jumped to his feet and found that despite the Oran Berry, his left leg still hurt like hell. He’d power through it for now though, it looked like the Prince was losing ground.

He tried to use Leafage, but found that he was out of energy for the move. His own fault for using it too much as they went through the dungeon.

Instead, he settled on plan B. He dashed forward with a speed he never knew he had and slammed himself into the Beartic in a similar way as the Prince had a moment ago.

He couldn’t tell whether it hurt the Beartic or his leg more, but that didn’t really matter at the moment.

Now the Beartic had no idea what to do, trying to decide who to lash out at between the Pokémon both bombarding it with Quick Attacks. It didn’t help that the Thrash had ended and it was now confused, causing it to see a couple more Treeckos and Umbreons than were actually there.

Team Apex didn’t waste the opportunity though. Noticing that Beartic was now attacking at air, Blizz closed the distance one more time and delivered a Pound to its face.

The Beartic finally went down. Once they were sure he was completely unconscious, the duo collapsed onto the ground as well.

“… That was way harder than Aipom,” Blizz decided through heavy breaths.

“Agreed… Do you think there’s a reward for taking it down?”

“Doubt it… that was just a really strong feral…”

“…Unfortunate…”

The two lied there, trying to catch their breath.

“…We should probably look for Vulpix now,” Blizz said.

“Can we take five more minutes?”

“We only knocked out the bear… it might wake up soon…”

“… So be it…”

The Prince got back to his feet, while Blizz tried to but found that the pain in his leg was a lot harder to ignore now than when he had adrenaline racing through his system.

“I think I may have broken a leg there…” he admitted, trying to examine his left leg. “You go look for Vulpix, once I think I can walk again I’ll join you.”

“Hmph…” The Prince left to search the mountaintop, while Blizz dug through his supplies for anything that could help right now.

“Couple of seeds, don’t think another Oran will help, I don’t know why we don’t immediately throw away the Oren berries…”

He found nothing helpful in his bag, so he settled on covering the leg with ice and wrapping his bag’s strap around the injury so hopefully he could make it to Chansey’s.

He tried standing on it and he only slightly wanted to drop dead right then and there, which should be good enough.

He followed the footprints to the Prince, who was currently standing in front of an unconscious Southern Vulpix. The Vulpix was covered in scratch marks and bruises, with streaks of what Blizz really hoped wasn’t blood running across her fur.

“I found her like this,” the Prince explained. “Normally I’d suggest we carry her into town, but given your status it would probably be better if we healed her to a point where she can walk on her own.”

“We can try, but we don’t have any Revivers. All we have is a single Oran and you’re not really supposed to use those when the Pokémon is already unconscious.”

“Do we have much of a choice though? I can’t carry other Pokémon and you appear to be struggling to carry yourself.”

“…Alright, here you go.”

Blizz handed the Prince the last Oran berry they had, who proceeded to very awkwardly press it against the Vulpix’s closed mouth.

Blizz gave him a stare, before taking the berry back. He propped open the Vulpix’s mouth and squeezed the berry.

It seemed to work as the scratches began to heal up. She slowly managed to open her eyes.

“Wha… where am I?”

“We’re at Snowy Peaks, we’re gonna bring you back to Nova Town to get you help,” Blizz explained.

“Nova… Town?”

“She’s likely still in a state of delirium,” the Prince noticed. “We should get her back to Nova Town so she can be properly looked at.”

“Yea… can you walk?”

“Walk…?” She managed to stand up, but was shaking heavily. Her first step caused her to lose balance, prompting the Prince to run to her side and stabilize her.

“Hmph, another cripple.”

“I can take care of myself, focus on helping her on the way back,” Blizz instructed.

“As if I was going to waste my precious energy on you.”

Blizz used his badge to send the three of them out, and they began the slow process of walking back to Nova Town.

“You’d think they’d figure out some way to like, get first aid at the dungeon entrances or something,” Blizz said, 10 minutes into their walk. “Like, do they just expect us to walk back outlaws or unconscious Pokémon on our own every time?”

“I would assume they have some level of rapid response infrastructure but only use it in urgent cases.”

“You think delirium, dizziness, and a broken leg counts as urgent?”

“Given that we’ve currently managed to make it at least part way there, probably not.”

“Damn.”

The Vulpix looked at Blizz with glazed over eyes. “…Why are you green…”

“…In the future, I propose we primarily adhere to outlaw missions unless there are special circumstances involved.”

“Agreed.”

The walk continued, the silence occasionally broken by the occasional unprompted comment from the Vulpix.

As Blizz was walking, a sharp pain suddenly ran up his bad leg. He fell to the ground, earning a look from the Prince.

“Oh… fuck…”

“Is your leg flaring up?” The Prince asked.

“…Yea… It just got really bad…”

“Hmm… Give me your wonder map.”

Not in any position to argue, he handed it off.

“We’re not far from the city… I suppose I can bail you out just this once. I’ll run into town and summon help.”

Blizz could have sworn he saw a different expression flash across the Prince’s face before returning to its normal “I know I’m better than you.”

“…Thanks bro.”

“Do not call me that.”

The Prince dropped off Vulpix by a nearby tree and took off. Blizz limped towards that same tree and propped himself against it.

“…Did he leave me?” Vulpix muttered.

“No, he’s just going to get us help. He’ll be back soon.” But this is the Prince we’re talking about and he really could just abandon-

“They always leave… first the green, now the black. Everyone always leaves…”

“I’m right here.” Blizz scooted towards the Vulpix’s line of sight, trying to move his broken leg as little as possible. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“Oh, the green came back…”

“I was always here.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes, Blizz dealing with his increasing sense of dizziness.

“… Am I dying?”

“You are definitely not dying.” You almost certainly are.

“Why do I feel so terrible then?”

“You’re just exhausted.” And I gave you an Oran Berry when you were already unconscious which is absolutely not something you’re supposed to do but we were kinda desperate and-

“Why am I white then?”

“Well you’re a Vulpix, err a Southern Vulpix. You’re supposed to be white.” But it’s supposed to be shining white not a dull-

“…I’m not a Vulpix… I’m a human…”

That managed to shut up the voice in Blizz’s head.

“You’re a human?”

“Mm-hmm.”

God damnit you’re such a fuck up not only did you basically poison the client so your weak ass wouldn’t have to carry her now you’re gonna be responsible for the death of another human-

“So am I, actually. Or, I used to be human. Now I’m a Treecko.”

“Treecko?”

“Yea, all green and look like a gecko.”

“… That’s cool.” She thinks the person that’s responsible for killing her is cool.

Before Blizz’s mind could supply any more extraordinarily helpful commentary, two Machokes, Chansey, and the Prince appeared over the hill.

“Took you long enough,” Blizz joked.

“The next time you feel that my response speed is inadequate, feel free to try being the uninjured one.”

“Was that sarcasm? Since when could you do that?”

“Something has been eroding my sanity, and I’m not sure if it is the animals’ fault or yours.”

“Umbreon gave me an explanation of what’s going on,” Chansey explained as the Machokes set down two stretchers. “We can discuss the specifics of what you did and why later, but for now we need to get both of you back to my clinic.”

Having been effectively rescued, Blizz let himself daze in and out of consciousness on the stretcher as they moved toward Nova Town. He stopped fighting it as he passed by the city limit.