Ch 5 – Should’ve Been a Cowboy

“Alright, let’s get your evaluation over with,” Lucario began, all three members of Team Apex gathered around him. “We’ll start with your exploration sense. Treecko, you managed the underground river well enough, and once you landed in the lake it was a good idea to swim to shore. That said, once you made it to the dungeon it was pretty damn obvious you were choosing directions at random.”

Blizz rubbed the back of his head.

“In a normal dungeon it’s not a huge deal, but there were a couple spots where I could literally fucking see the staircase through some of the amber but you missed it.”

“Perhaps I should re-assume the duty I left to you if that’s the case,” the Prince snarked.

“Umbreon, shut the fuck up,” Lucario said. “While Treecko wasn’t bad at exploring, you two were absolute shit at it. Neither of you have any sense for adventure, and while Vulpix is excusable given that she just joined your team, you’ve been working with Treecko since day one.”

The Prince opened his mouth to protest, but Blizz spoke out first

“Hey, I’m supposed to be team lead,” he argued. “As long as we’re a kinda functional team, does it matter if one of us sucks at something if someone else can cover it?”

“That’s true, and that was pretty obvious when you guys fought Kabutops. I’m not gonna bullshit around it, you guys are weak as hell. You can take a hit well enough, but it took you way too many hits to keep Kabutops down. Especially Treecko, you had a four times advantage over the bastard.”

Blizz nodded, taking mental notes on Lucario’s critique.

“But that aside, you guys were pretty badass. Freezing the floor was a great call, especially since Kabutops had a fucking potato for a brain. Treecko did a great job pissing off Kabutops then making sure he could never land a hit.”

“Pissing him off wasn’t really intentional,” Blizz clarified.

“I know, that was the best part. Anyways, overall I want you guys to focus on hitting harder and being less of a bitch. Got it?”

“I think?” Blizz confirmed.

“That’s hardly helpful…” The Prince mumbled.

“Great, then go get some dinner.”

Team Apex entered the mess hall, where dinner had already started. As they were eating, Blizz noticed that Rune was eating much more than she was the previous night. That’s probably an improvement.

---

“THEN LET’S FUCKING GET IT!”

“YEAAAA!”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” Rune commented after the chant.

“You should. Plus it’s good training for what Lucario said we should focus on,” Blizz argued.

“Are you proposing that rattling off some inane story about a Rattata will make us, and I quote, ‘less of a bitch’?”

“Yea, probably.”

They walked up to the Outlaw board, looking for their next mission.

“Looks like they still haven’t found Misdreavus,” Blizz noted as they scanned the board.

“Why are you so fascinated with this case?” The Prince asked. “We are highly unlikely to be able to take a job like that anyways.”

“Just curious. Anyways… You guys wanna do this?” He held up a poster for a C-rank mission to arrest a Morgrem.

“Oh god he looks disgusting,” Rune complained.

“Well that’s kinda rude,” Blizz responded. “How do you think he would feel about you saying that?”

“Please save the snide remarks for once we actually reach him,” the Prince instructed. “Where would he be located?”

“Glowing Canopy,” Blizz answered, translating the document. “You guys ready to go?”

“I think we need to stop in town for some supplies,” the Prince noted.

“Then we’ll do that first.”

---

Six hours later, Team Apex was walking back into town with an unconscious Morgrem in tow.

“Ugh I was right, he’s a creep,” Rune commented, looking at the pink and black gremlin being drug behind them.

“Yea, didn’t expect you to learn Ice Shard specifically to fuck him up though. Good job on that, by the way.”

“He was coming right at me! I needed to do something.”

“If it were anyone else I would argue that your response was a tad excessive, but I find it particularly difficult to sympathize with this creature,” the Prince agreed.

They marched into the police station, where in addition to the usual groups of Magnemite, there was a Jangmo-o behind the counter.

“Hey, are y’all here to drop off the Morgrem?” he asked.

“Yep, don’t think I’ve seen you around before, you new here?” Blizz asked.

“Yea, I’m Kib- err, I’m Jangmo-o. Pleasure to meet y’all.” He held out a paw, which Blizz shook. “Just got hired here the other day, I help out the Magnemite with dealing with all the outlaws. Now let me see here…” He flipped through some documents behind the counter. “Alright, that mission was a C so here’s your 600 Poké.”

“Thanks,” Blizz said as he slid the money into his bag.

“Why aren’t you a Magnemite?” Rune asked, eying Jangmo-o.

“Well I saw that they were struggling with one of them ground types not too long ago, decided to give them a hand. They needed some help, I needed a job. And the boss has been nothing but nice.”

“Would you be the first Pokémon to join the police department that’s not a Magnemite?” the Prince questioned.

“Nah, they bring on temps pretty often. Dunno how long they’ll be needing me, but I’ll be sticking around until then.”

Before his teammates could ask Jangmo-o any other debatably socially acceptable questions, Blizz cut them off. “Good luck with the department then,” he said, leaving the building, with Rune and the Prince in tow.

They were more than ready for dinner by the time it rolled around. While they were eating though, Blizz noticed an Absol enter through the guild’s main ladder. He couldn’t see where they went from where he was sitting though.

Deciding that he had enough of dinner, he left the mess hall to see what the Absol was up to.

The Absol in question knocked on the door of Scizor’s office. Not too long after, it opened and Absol stepped inside. Blizz decided that any further attempts to satisfy his curiosity would probably irritate Scizor, so he just returned to his room.

His teammates joined him soon enough, and after another round of ruthlessly mocking the Morgrem they arrested, dozed off.

---

The days started to pass a bit quicker for Blizz. Team Apex was putting in the work to get better, despite the near-constant complaining from two/thirds of the team.

While they did take on some of the easier rescue missions, these were generally more difficult than they would like for circumstances beyond their control. That, combined with their first experience rescuing Rune, meant they stuck with outlaw missions.

As a result, they became pretty familiar with Jangmo-o.

“So who y’all got for me today?” He asked, watching Team Apex as they rolled an unconscious Golem into the station.

“Golem,” Blizz answered. “C rank outlaw, pulled him out of Amber Canyon.”

“Gotcha… That checks out.” A couple of Magnmeite took over the duty of rolling Golem to his jail cell, much to Apex’s relief.

“So any cool new arrests today?” Blizz asked.

“Not really, got a weird case though,” Jangmo-o answered. “You heard anything about the husks that have been popping up?”

“…Husks?”

“Yea, some explorers have ran into feral Pokémon that look even more empty than normal. They just don’t do anything, even when they get attacked. We’ve been calling them husks for now.”

“I can’t imagine that’s excessively abnormal for the ferals,” the Prince commented. “Certainly no more unique than their homicidal tendencies.”

“…It sorta is,” Jangmo-o responded. “Ferals are all instinct, so for them to just take an attack without even thinking about doing anything is weird.”

“So why did this come up with you though?” Rune asked. “It doesn’t sound like the type of thing that would concern the police.”

“Well, normally no, but just the other day Team Arctic brought in an outlaw, and they seemed like a husk. Completely unresponsive to everything. Ended up bringing him to Chansey’s instead of a jail cell.”

“And they just don’t do anything?”

“Yea, it’s weird. They can breathe and drink, but otherwise they don’t do anything. Real creepy. Especially since that guy attacked 20-odd Pokémon before. Not the type that you’d think would be sitting by doing nothing.”

“Damn, any other cases?”

“Not as far as we know, and this guy was on his way to being feral. Haven’t heard anything about normal Pokémon becoming husks.”

“Then it just makes our job easier,” Rune summarized. “I’ll take easier ferals any day.”

The conversation trailed off as Blizz collected his payment. Apex cleared out of the station as other teams came by to turn in their outlaw for the day.

On their way back, they ran into Rockruff and Gible from Team Drill, who were limping their way to the guild.

The Prince noticed the injured team first, and tried to prevent the inevitable. “Blizz, please do not try to-”

“Hey, you guys alright!” Blizz yelled, running over to the duo.

Both Rune and the Prince groaned, before following behind.

“We got pretty messed up,” Gible summarized, as Blizz lifted her arm around his shoulder.

“We went after the notorious outlaw Misdreavas, but we were routed,” Rockruff explained.

“So they finally managed to track her down?”

“Affirmative, but after our failed mission she has doubtless moved to a new base of operations.”

“You two appear to be sufficiently strong,” the Prince noted. “How was it possible for a single Pokémon to do this much to you?”

“She had traps everywhere,” Gible answered. “She knew we were coming way ahead of time.”

“There was no chance of us beating her when she held such control over the battlefield,” Rockruff added. “A retreat was virtually mandatory.”

The walk back let Apex consider the situation. They’ve never seen another one of their guildmates come back like this. Occasionally they’d fail a mission, but they use an escape orb before they got hurt. The last major injury in the guild was Blizz’s broken leg after rescuing Rune.

They had to help their injured guildmates down the ladder, which actually meant that Blizz helped them down while the Prince and Rune provided moral support of questionable value.

As everyone was dropping their stuff off in their rooms, Blizz noticed that the Absol was back, this time talking to Scizor and Lucario out in the open.

Deciding that this was as good a chance as any, he approached the outlaw board and acted like he was looking through the postings while listening in on their conversation.

“Are you certain you don’t want to rejoin us?” Scizor asked.

“There is nothing I have ever been more certain about,” the Absol responded. “I shouldn’t have to remind you what happened to me after being in your team for as long as I was.”

“But you still broke all that ‘I’ll-never-talk-to-you-again’ bullshit anyways,” Lucario noted.

“Which should tell you the urgency of the situation I’m describing. Plus, you appear to be missing your second in command as well.”

“…We had a disagreement,” Lucario stated, his voice devoid of all the energy Blizz has come to expect.

“Hmm… In any case, we should discuss what was discovered today in a more private space,” Absol decided.

The three entered Scizor’s office and shut the door, leaving Blizz alone in front of a bunch of wanted posters.

Dinner came soon enough, and outside Combusken and Team Arctic taunting Team Drill for failing to catch Misdreavus, was pretty uneventful.

---

After the wake-up call, all the teams assembled for morning announcements.

“Listen up fuckers! We got some new intel about that disaster mentioned earlier. Scizor, give them the technical stuff.”

Scizor cleared his throat. “As many of you have discovered, there appears to be a condition going around that causes feral Pokémon to become devoid of well… everything. They are barely capable of breathing, and show no reactions to any external stimuli. According to our source, this is likely the root of the impending disaster mentioned previously.”

There were some murmurs among the assembled exploration teams.

“Now this does not mean there is any immediate risk. As far as we know, only feral Pokémon can become husks, and as far as I’m aware none of you are ferals.”

Most Pokémon in the room sneaked a glance at Dewott.

“All we are asking for the time being is to keep an eye out for any information regarding husks. So far, they’ve only appeared occasionally in some of the more challenging dungeons. Dungeons with known husk populations should now be marked on your wonder maps. If you discover a husk outside of one of these dungeons, please report it to me so we can add it to the list.”

Blizz took out their wonder map, scanning over the few dungeons they had explored. None had any new markings on them.

“Once again, we will not be diverting any teams to focus on this given its non-urgent nature. That will be all for now. Guildmaster?”

Lucario stepped in front of the teams, and began the morning chant.

“IT WAS TWELVE HUNDRED AND THIRTEEN!”

—

Another day of jobs meant another unconscious Pokémon to drag to Magnezone’s. This time the position was filled by an Arcanine.

They managed to make it through the doorway of Magnezone’s, each member holding a side of a stretcher carrying the tied up Arcanine.

“Apex, pleasure to see you here again,” Jangmo-o greeted. “Good work with Arcanine there, he was really causing issues.”

“You think you could like, ask your boss to figure something out so we don’t have to carry them back each time?” Blizz asked, catching his breath.

“Well, there is a teleport system like that for outlaws, but you gotta be a higher rank explorer to use it.”

The room fell into a brief silence, the only sound being the Magnemite’s ambient buzzing.

The silence was soon replaced by the Prince rushing in front of Jangmo-o. “Do you mean to tell me that this entire time there was a system we could use to teleport outlaws in and out of the station? That we didn’t have to roll that Onix the entire 2 kilometers?”

Jangmo-o looked slightly intimidated. “Hey, it’s only supposed to be used by Silver rank teams. I agree though, it’d be way better if everyone could use it.”

“How is there any conceivable reason why that feature should be confined to upper rank teams only?”

“Hey. I’m just the messenger. You’d gotta take it up with the boss if you want to know.”

“Silver rank, right?” Blizz asked, opening his team information on his badge. “Doesn’t look like we’re too far out from that.”

“There ya go then,” Jangmo-o commented. “Looks like y’all only need a couple more missions. Pretty sure your guild does do an exam for silver though…”

“We have to do another exam?” Blizz asked. The entrance exam wasn’t particularly difficult, but it was infuriating (and caused him to despise the entire Geodude line).

“Pretty sure that’s the case. That’s what I hear from Team Spark, at least.”

“Only three more days of dragging outlaws back here every day…” Rune contemplated.

“Y’all could try to do some rescues instead, that way you don’t have to carry the Pokémon the whole way,” Jangmo-o suggested.

“You weren’t there when we had to deal with that Beartic,” Blizz commented. “That dude screwed us up hard.”

“I heard there were a bunch of things that went wrong there though,” Jangmo-o argued. “It may be worth trying again.”

Blizz gave it some thought. “…Fine, we’ll do some rescues,” he decided. “Means we probably won’t be running into you for a little while then.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it, I’m sure you’ll be headed back here soon enough. Y’all definitely seem like the outlaw hunter type.”

“I think the entire guild is like that…” Rune muttered.

“There’s a reason Nova Town is the safest city in Varin,” Jangmo-o agreed. “Or so I’ve been told, haven’t seen anything since I moved here.”

“Are you not from Nova Town?” The Prince asked.

“No sir, been here for just shy of a week. I was lucky Magnezone needed my help.” It was apparent that he was trying to change the subject. Despite that, a spark of hope started brewing in Blizz.

“Where are you from then?” He asked.

“Ah, I doubt it’s somewhere y’all would’ve heard of. Different continent.”

“Well, none of us are from the area either,” Blizz explained. “You ever heard of a place called Earth?”

Jangmo-o’s eyes widened slightly. “… I don’t suppose you looked… a bit different back there?”

“That is quite the understatement,” the Prince answered.

“The whole reason we have this whole exploration team is to find out why we ended up here. You interested in finding out as well?”

He considered the offer. “My shift’s up in an hour, I’ll talk to the boss and get back to you then.”

“Fair enough, we’ll be at the guild when you’re done.”

Team Apex left the police station. Once they were clear of the other Pokémon around town, they discussed the new revelation.

“How are there so many humans here?” Rune asked, slightly annoyed. “How many have we not ran into yet?”

“Well there are now four of us,” the Prince answered. “Though I would not have assumed Jangmo-o used to be a human from his behavior.”

“Longer they spend here, less obvious they are,” Blizz summarized. “So if we want to find others, we should get on that now.”

“But they’re not coming here at the same time, right?” The Prince asked. “I arrived the day after you, then Rune came either the next day or the day after-”

“I definitely woke up the same day that Beartic got me,” Rune interjected.

“So it was Blizz, myself, a gap day, then Rune. Do we know where Jangmo-o fits in?”

“We first saw him five days ago, when we brought in that Morgrem,” Blizz answered. “So he probably was here a day or two before that.”

“So that would be… 6 days ago, I believe. Which would mean he was here two days after Rune showed up, at the earliest.”

“We could also just ask the dude,” Blizz offered.

“…Fair point.”

---

After dinner, Blizz loitered around the guild waiting for Jangmo-o to show up. The wait ended as the ex-human in question awkwardly climbed down the ladder.

Honestly, he had nothing but respect for Rune and the Prince for managing to use the ladder as a quadruped every day.

“Treecko, good to see you,” Jangmo-o began.

“Same. Let’s head to our room though, we’re not too big on talking about home in a space this public.”

“I put that together back at the station. Lead the way.”

Inside Team Apex’s room, the Prince and Rune were in the middle of a heated game of “Rune absentmindedly watching the Prince play solitaire with a pack of cards he definitely bought with team money but no one cares enough to call him out on it.”

When they saw Jangmo-o enter, the Prince put down his hand of cards.

“Alright, we should be good to talk now,” Blizz declared, closing the door. “These things block out enough noise as long as we’re not shouting.”

“Well I’m pretty darn surprised there’s other ex-humans here, especially that it’s you lot.”

“You have something against us?” Rune asked, eyes narrowing.

“Oh heavens no, exact opposite. Y’all were my favorite team to deal with over at the station.”

“Let’s focus on the topic at hand,” the Prince said. “As the overarching leader of Team Apex, I would like to formally extend to you an invitation to our team.”

“Appreciated, but ain’t Treecko the-” He looked over at Rune, who was desperately making a “shhh” motion with her paw. “…Ah, gotcha. Well, offer’s appreciated. Talked to the boss after my shift was up, said he was fine with me running off to join a team.”

“So you’ll be with us?” Rune asked.

“Think so. But it’s a bit rude to make an offer like that without introducing yourselves though.”

“Well you probably know by now, we only remember nicknames. But I’m Blizz,” he introduced.

“Refer to me as The Prince.”

“Rune.”

“Pleasure to properly meet y’all. Name’s Kibo, and I’d be happy to join up with Apex.”

“Right on.” Blizz and Kibo shook hands once again.

“So y’all call each other by your names, right? Because memorizing all these different species has been a bit difficult.”

“Yea. Just don’t introduce yourself with your real name,” Blizz answered. “Dunno why that’s such a weird thing around here…”

“Well I trust your judgment on these things more than my own.”

Blizz took Kibo into Scizor’s office. He looked up at the new recruit for a second, before pressing a claw against his forehead. With his other arm, he dug out a new rescue badge, and threw it at the Jangmo-o, all without saying a word.

The throw was probably a bit more forceful than it needed to be.

“Is that all it takes?” Kibo asked.

Scizor didn’t dignify that with an answer, going back to whatever document he was reading.

“Just take that as a yes. If he needed something else, he’d ask for it,” Blizz explained.

“Well, thank you sir,” Kibo said as they exited Scizor’s office.

“So where were you staying while you worked at Magnezone’s?” Blizz asked.

“There was an empty space on the top floor of the station no one was using, boss said it’d be fine if I used it. Doesn’t seem like I’ll be needing it now though. Any reason for asking?”

“Not really, was wondering if you had a house or something.”

“Nah, was hoping to buy one after working at the station for a bit. But honestly this seems like a much better choice.”

“You ready for a dungeon tomorrow then?” Blizz asked, has he settled onto his bed.

“Darn right,” Kibo responded, lying on his bed.

“Do you have to say darn all the time?” Rune complained from her half-asleep state.

“Well I wouldn’t want to swear in such polite company,” Kibo explained.

“Thank you for being the first person on this team to understand the respect needed in the face of royalty.”

“Shut up Prince,” Rune asked, trying to go from half-asleep to fully asleep.

“Hmph.”

---

“NOW, ARE WE GONNA LET SOME LITTLE RATTATA OUTDO US?”

“HELL NO!”

“THEN LET’S FUCKING GET IT!”

“YEAAAAA!”

“I see what you meant, that was great,” Kibo commented after participating in his first chant.

“You’re supposed to say ‘Hell no’ on the second to last call though,” Rune pointed out.

“‘Heck no’ has the same effect,” Kibo argued.

“I have nothing but content for that banal shouting competition, but even I can agree that ‘Hell no’ and ‘Heck no’ represent vastly different verbal strengths,” the Prince stated.

“One of these days we’ll get you to say something,” Blizz called out from his spot in front of the outlaw board.

“Hey, I thought y’all were gonna try to take on more rescue missions,” Kibo asked.

“Given we have a much stronger background in outlaw apprehension, I would assume Blizz believes it would be a safer way to integrate you into the team,” the Prince explained.

“Ah, you don’t need to worry about me none. The Magnemite taught me a thing or two about fighting, I ain’t gonna just be dead weight. Also, wouldn’t outlaw missions be a bit more risky than rescues?”

Blizz heard it, and hesitantly walked over to the rescue board.

“… Normally, yes…” Rune muttered.

“We have had a mixed record with regards to rescue missions,” the Prince explained. “It appears there are always extenuating circumstances to make that type of mission more difficult.”

Blizz returned to the group, carrying a sheet of paper. “Got a D-tier mission out to Surging Valley, gotta get an Oddish out from floor 7. Sounds easy enough.”

“Something’s gonna happen,” Rune noted.

“Let’s go do it!” Kibo yelled.

---

“This place is terrible,” Rune complained, as she jumped across yet another flowing river. “What floor are we on now?”

“The same as the last time you asked,” Blizz answered, firing a Leafage at an upcoming Marill. “Three.”

“Ughhh…”

“I gotta say, this is really fun!” Kibo announced, clearing the river with a single jump.

“Please speak for yourself,” the Prince asked. “This is the worst dungeon since we had to go through since that forsaken river with Lucario.”

Blizz held up his arm. “You guys hear that?”

A faint rumbling sound was echoing throughout the dungeon.

Rune was not pleased. “Seriously? The last one was only 15 minutes ago.”

“Perhaps we would have made it to the next floor by now if you were not insistent on drying out your fur after every surge,” the Prince snarked.

“You take longer to dry off than I do!” Rune shot back.

“Can you two shut up until after it’s done?” Blizz got down on all fours, using his magical gecko powers to cling to the dungeon floor. The Prince, Rune, and Kibo grabbed onto his tail, as the source of the rumbling showed itself.

A surge of water was rushing through the dungeon, heading for Team Apex. They tightened their grip on Blizz and held their breath, as the water struck them.

Given that this was the 5th time it’s happened since entering the dungeon they knew what was coming. Despite that, it still sucked. The water flowed past them, and it would have easily swept them away if they weren’t holding onto something.

A stray Staryu caught up in the current struck Kibo, who in response used Dragon Tail to knock it away.

The surge subsided after a few seconds, allowing Team Apex to breathe again.

A couple of Magikarp and Goldeen were left flopping around, where they’d probably remain until the next one.

“Let’s keep moving,” Blizz decided. “We got most of the floor mapped out, only a couple places where the staircase could be.”

They continued progressing through the dungeon, the random surges becoming more frequent the further they descended. The only upside of it was that both Rune and the Prince gave up on trying to dry themselves off.

At last, they reached the 7th floor.

“Looking for an Oddish, and we do not want to knock it out,” Blizz reminded them as they climbed past the staircase.

“Do we really think he’s still alive after all those surges?” Rune asked.

“They usually don’t put out rescue notices for dead Pokémon,” Kibo explained. “Even if he is, we still get a reward for bringing back his corpse.”

“…That’s a bit morbid,” Rune commented.

“Let’s go off the assumption that he’s alive, because if he was dead there’s no way we could track his corpse through all these surges,” Blizz decided.

The surges seemed to be much worse on this floor than any other. Almost half their time was spent underwater, meaning that they couldn’t even cross a room before having to cling onto Blizz again.

They were making progress though, much in the same way a Magikarp makes progress when there’s a gentle current through a river: costing them all their effort to make any marginal gain, and any minor issue or the occasional enemy caused them to fall back far more than they progressed.

Unlike a Magikarp though, their reward was not transforming into a infamously powerful dragon, but rather finding a single Oddish who was using Ingrain to root itself in place.

“Hey, are you guys my rescue team?” He asked, as another surge started rumbling through the dungeon.

Blizz nodded, clinging onto the floor yet again.

“Awesome, this place sucks-” Oddish’s words were cut off by the water flowing over him, which didn’t seem to bother him at all. When the surge ended, Oddish continued like nothing happened. “And then this Seaking just came by and decided to hit me with a Water Pulse-”

“We’re leaving right now,” Blizz said, not waiting for any confirmation from Oddish or the team.

When the group could see again, they were at the dungeon entrance.

“Okay, that was terrible for all of us, so we’re gonna go back to Nova Town, and please don’t bother Vulpix or Umbreon.”

“Okay! So as I was saying, that Seaking just came out of nowhere…”

The walk back was more tolerable than navigating the dungeon, but that was all that could be said for it. Blizz developed a theory that being in the dungeon for so long made it so Oddish no longer had any need for air, which would explain how he could talk without even pausing to breathe for the entire 30 minute walk back to town.

Despite the circumstances, the Prince managed to keep his mouth shut until the moment Chansey took Oddish away for his medical examination.

“There are no words in the entirety of my language which can even approximate how agonizing dealing with that horrendous creature was. That glorified shrub somehow has become the worst monster I have had the misfortune of dealing with since arriving, which I would like to point out is an extraordinarily high bar.”

Before the Prince could continue his rant, Chansey returned. “I’m happy to report that Oddish will be fine. He also asked if he could join your team on its-”

“Absolutely. Fucking. Not,” the Prince interrupted.

“Tell him we’re sorry, but we have a similar background that lets us work well as a team,” Blizz stepped in. “We can’t bring just anyone else in.”

“It’s fine, I’ll let him know.” Chansey went back into her clinic, leaving Team Apex alone.

As they were returning to the guild, Rune was the first to break up the Prince’s complaining about Oddish or the dungeon.

“So we’re not doing any more rescue missions for a while, right?”

“If I have to do another I’m quitting,” the Prince agreed.

“I think I see where y’all were coming from when you said you didn’t have the best luck on rescue missions,” Kibo admitted.

“Outlaws are more fun anyways,” Blizz finalized.

The group reached the guild and collected their reward from Scizor. After dinner, they all collapsed on their beds.

The previous day wiped them out so hard all four had to be woken up by Lucario’s Metal Sound.

The Metal Sound also happened several meters away from their heads, which made it that much more pleasant.

“WAKE UP BASTARDS!”

Blizz’s hands lurched towards his ears. “Fuck…”

Team Apex slowly got up onto their feet. Seeing that his job was done here, Lucario retreated back into the guild’s main room.

“I still can’t believe I have to have my sleep schedule dictated by a brute such as him,” the Prince complained. “He knows nothing about the mental exhaustion being a monarch entails.”

When they lined up for morning announcements, the assembled teams seemed to be slightly more excited than normal.

“Attention please,” Scizor asked. “We have a major announcement today. Guildmaster?”

“Alright listen up fuckers. Take a look at this.” He held out a flyer with a drawing of a mountain on it. There was also some text, but Blizz’s illiteracy struck once again, forcing him to merely admire the pictures.

“This is the 32nd Guilded Games competition, and you wanna know something? We’re gonna FUCKING win it!”

Before Lucario could go on much longer, Scizor stepped in.

“For our newer recruits, the Guilded Games are an annual series of competitions held between the four major guilds of Varin. This year, the completion will be held at the summit of Breach Mountain, which involves navigating a mystery dungeon to access. We’re going to bringing all of our exploration teams, so we expect all of you to prepare accordingly.”

“We’re leaving tomorrow, games start the day after. Now, who’s ready to win!”

“YEAAA!”