Chapter 6 – Split

DAY 3

Despite the sleep seed he’d eaten the previous night, Kai had quite a bit of trouble falling asleep. He’d spent a good portion of the night tossing back and forth – at least from what he remembers. And while he would say it’s a surprise that he managed to wake up the next morning before the sun rose above the horizon, the prodding at his side makes that far less surprising as, with a sigh, he opens his eyes to find Myzi standing over him.

Hearing his sigh, she immediately starts, hissing “I want to talk to you for a bit. Maybe train too, but mostly talk.”

“Okay…?” The quilava raises a paw to rub an eye. His stomach growls, and his other paw moves to his stomach.

“Cool. Follow me.”

She starts walking away, leaving Kai to messily stumble to his feet. Off to the side, the zebstrika watches the two of them with mild interest.

When they make it to the camp’s edge, Kai notes wordlessly to himself that Sumac is also awake. Notably far more awake than he is.

The deino continues on, a little louder and more chipper than before, “Figure I could ask this before it leaves my mind, but are you hungry by any chance?”

The quilava looks down at his stomach for a moment. “Um. I guess…?”

“Hah! My theory’s probably correct then!”

“…Theory?”

“Items don’t work on you, I think.”

“…I don’t-“

“You’re hungry, so the herb didn’t work for you. Sumac noticed you struggling to sleep last night. Neither seed worked then. Or you were super unlucky and Zoo picked out the wrong items for some reason, but I doubt that.”

Sumac, with a little crack in her voice, joins the conversation, “Hey, um… doesn’t that put him at a-“

“Yeah, he’s kinda screwed in that regard.”

‘…Oh kay?’

Kai makes to take a step forward, a blip of anger appearing in his mind briefly before he dismisses it, taking a step back instead, confusion replacing that anger.

“…What do items do for me…?”

Sumac takes over, “Items that were formed in dungeons that can do various helpful things. Some teleport, some replenish energy, some help with sleep, stuff like that.”

“…Um…” ‘Was Paws right about the fact that I shouldn’t join the guilds, then…?’

Myzi smiles, shaking her head. “It’s whatever. I wouldn’t be too concerned about that typa stuff anyways – the guilds are kinda over-reliant on items like that. You’ll be fine.”

The goomy cringes, but doesn’t say anything else.

“I kinda wanna go explore some dungeon again, heh.”

Sumac looks at Myzi as if the deino were concussed. “Are you-“

“Something to do later maybe. Wanna fight, Kai?”

“W-wha-?”

“It’s early in the morning, and I want to see how good you are in a battle.”

“I still don’t know how-“

“I’m well aware. Just go at me with whatever you think will stop me. We can go from there.”

“-… Why now…?”

“Because I want to do this now, and I don’t really want to put it off.”

“Mmm…”

Myzi steps ten paces back from where she was standing, right up against a tree, as the goomy slides over towards where the Zebstrika’s currently rising to his hooves. Kai guesses he’s getting ready to wake the rest of the group.

Myzi tilts her head down to where Kai can’t see her face. “So. Kai! You ready?”

The quilava forces himself to his feet again, though he can’t help feeling sluggish. “No…?”

‘What attacks am I even supposed to use? Do I just-‘

“Too bad. We’re going in five.”

‘Fuck- give me a second-‘

“Four.”

‘Maybe I could just-?’

“Three.”

‘…Run at her…?’

“Two.”

‘No, probably not-‘

“One.”

‘Just… plan around-‘

“Start.”

‘Damnit.‘

Myzi lifts her head just enough so that Kai can see her toothy grin. And, within moments, she charges, and Kai stumbles back ever-so-slightly.

She whizzes by his right, missing him by only centimeters. His fur bristles as he turns around quickly, the deino frozen in place a bit behind him. He can’t tell if she missed on purpose or not. ‘Though, guess… now’s my chance…?’

As the deino starts slowly turning around, that toothy grin still ever-present, the quilava plants his paws in the ground, and does the only thing his mind can think of; he leaps at the deino.

It works, though barely.

Ducking in his head and bringing down his shoulder, he jumps, though not without a millisecond of hesitation that messes up his jump far more than it should’ve, weakening his leverage with the slight misbalancing. He makes it just far enough to slam against her front leg, causing it to fold in from the force. Didn’t seem to actually do much, though.

His body makes for a nice replacement stilt for that displaced digit as well, much to his frustration. The deino’s head tilts down, grin growing wider, and she lets out a laugh of excitement before swiftly biting down on his thigh.

Kai doesn’t know how much pain it’s supposed to give him, but it’s more than enough to force out a flinch and a grunt. It feels like multiple stinging pinpricks exposing his skin to open air, but it’s surprisingly tame in terms of actual pain.

It’s also upstaged quite fast as, with a grunt of her own, the Deino manages to pick him up by that thigh, running and stumbling into a tree using his body as something of a cushion. She bounces back, releasing her grip as the impact brings out a wheeze-cough from him, and completely taking his breath away.

The Deino backs away, leaving his line of sight as he discovers his thigh to be bleeding from her grip. He has far more important things to worry about, however – desperately trying to get his breathing back to normal, coughing his throat dry.

His fit does manage to calm down within a few moments, and Kai turns his attention back to the blooming patch of sticky fur. Stretching the leg out a little and, with hesitance, giving it a light kick, it luckily doesn’t seem to be more than a small annoyance.

When he looks back up at the deino who’d apparently started speaking, the only thing he can process is the beating of his own heart, his adrenaline kicking in. Kai glares at her, staying low to the ground. He does notice that she’s not putting her full weight on that leg he’d slammed his body against. Not that it makes much of a difference anyways.

As his breathing calms and slows to reasonable levels, he watches silently as bubbles of darkish mist begin to form around the deino, her laugh escalating into a cackle. All he can really think to do is hang low.

Then, with a woosh of air, the mist somewhat solidifies into a literal wave of energy ejecting from the deino, speeding away from her in all directions as a pulse. In surprise, Kai trips over his own feet in an attempt to get out of range, completely failing to jump more than his own body length away. Instead, he closes his eyes in preparation.

He almost immediately feels that woosh of air, but doesn’t feel anything physically hit his body otherwise.

He opens his eyes a moment later, looking back at the now heavy-breathing deino, wondering what just happened. He’s out of breath and his back leg still feels somewhat weak, but otherwise he feels fine. He looks over to the goomy in confusion finding everyone in the group awake, watching the battle themselves. The two guild members whisper a comment between themselves, Mudkip and Sumac watch them neutrally, and the azumarill simply looks curious, and ever-so-slightly worried.

‘Did her attack… fail or something? What…?’

Myzi seems to notice them as well, turning away from him. “Hahah… That felt… worthwhile. You wanna stop fighting, Kai? If you’re still conscious, at least.”

“…Yeah. Did you really have to slam me against a tree? And what did you even launch at me at the end there?” The quilava growls, surprising himself.

Myzi turns back, laughing again. “Just because I felt like it, and I just wanted to try out a new move, ‘cuz figured why not. Also- hah, coming out of your shell?”

“What are you talking about?”

“This is the first time you haven’t just been, like, plainly neutral. Or nervous. Maybe we should do this more often.”

“…Really?” Kai breathes out. His adrenaline slowly leaves his body.

“Sure! Gives both of us the practice we need!”

“But I don’t… want-“

“Nah.” Myzi sticks her tongue out at the quilava with a grin, “I’m not letting you retreat back into your shell that quickly. How’s about another-“

“Guys!”

Zoo approaches the duo, holding her hands up.

“We’re planning on leaving in just a bit, but uh…”

She mainly looks at Kai, “Are you guys hurt or anything? I saw Kai take quite the beating.”

Kai’s breathing slowly starts to normalize, glaring down at his thigh for how sticky it feels, “I kinda just… want food right now.”

“…Oh! Wait, did the seed I gave you-“

“I dunno. I’m just hungry for some reason.”

“-…Alright. I did pack some apples for us in case we couldn’t find any food, but I’ll give you a couple. Did we give him the wrong…?”

The azumarill mumbles away as she reaches into the bag, grabbing two apples for the quilava. He thanks her, taking a bite of the fruit, the sound semi-jolting her out of her stupor.

“-Ah! Um, outside of that, is everyone good?”

Everyone nods, and she smiles. “Great! We’ll be traveling ’til around mid-day, then we’ll stop for a lunch break before traveling for the rest of the day. From there, we’ll repeat that pattern until we reach the guild. Sound like a plan?”

Everyone nods again.

“Alright, let’s head out, then.”

---

The group leaves the site, Zoo once again taking the lead, and Kai positioned in front of Mudkip and behind Myzi and Sumac this time. The two sister-like friends whisper-banter between themselves, though Kai tunes them out. The ache in his back leg wears off pretty quick, though his fur there remains a bit unkempt. Feeling the wind against it feels ever-so-slightly uncomfortable, but he ignores it mostly thoughtlessly, the leg twitching every so often. His breathing returns to normal a few moments after finishing his second apple.

The terrain shifts from forest-like to swamp-like as they progress, Kai noting that his feet are leaving larger indents, but besides that the path remains steadfast.

A small amount of tension does well up within him as the azumarill motions for them to stop about an hour into their trek. Confusion mostly, though.

As she turns around slowly, nervously, to face them, Kai tries and fails to peek around her.

She lets out a deep breath, clapping her hands with a forced smile. “So! Apparently, randomly, a dungeon formed along the path behind us, so we’ll need to take a different path.”

Zebstrika’s voice speaks up from the back of the group. “Um… well, the two of us came here with a different path, so we could-“ “Myzi.” “that way.”

Kai’s attention turns to the goomy sitting on Myzi’s back. Nobody else looks at the two of them, and he assumes nobody else heard her whisper.

The deino faces away from the Azumarill, taking a step closer to Kai. “C’monnnn, it’ll be fuuun! I have more faith in us this time, too.”

“Myzi. Listen to me. Are you-… why are you being stupid now, of all times? Is it because of-”

Kai takes a small step back as the deino turns a little further. “I’m willing to take the risk now, ‘cuz I think we’ve got this.”

She takes another step towards him, her paw making contact with his.

“C’mon, Kai.”

She smiles, immediately reaching down to bite onto it, and Kai lets out a yelp of pain as she quickly turns around, dragging him to her side.

“-report the dungeon back to the guildma- Myzi!? Kai-”

With Kai forced to run right along beside her, the deino dashes past the Azumarill, and towards… something wholly different from the last dungeon they went through. Instead of the black inky substance that functioned as an entrance before, this one is just a wall of constantly moving pastel-colored waves, slowly swirling and shifting around.

The goomy jumps off Myzi’s back, but that doesn’t stop the deino.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” The azumarill shouts. Myzi doesn’t stop, nor does she even flinch. She just keeps going. Sumac makes her voice heard one last time as well, if only for a brief instant.

“MYZ-“

Kai and Myzi enter the dungeon.

---

[UNNAMED DUNGEON]

Status: Unstable (Active)

---

Floor 1

The two of them crash against the sandy floor, Myzi quickly letting go of Kai’s arm and just barely avoiding landing on her face. Kai doesn’t manage the same, smashing his nose against the ground.

Rather than his front paws going to the ground to push himself up, they zip up to his ears, pushing them down against his head because of just how loud their surroundings happen to be.

Letting out a groan, he tilts his head up, opens his eyes, and takes in his surroundings.

On either side of them, water drops down from probably thousands of times higher than how tall he stands, akin to waterfalls. They also happen to stretch for quite a ways length-wise as well, rounding out just behind and probably somewhere further ahead of them.

If he could actually hear himself think, he’d be curious about the simple fact that there’s a path here in the first place. All he can really piece together is that it’s probably not the best idea to test the waters, both figuratively and literally. He can even see some darker shadows moving back and forth, their sources seemingly staring at him…

He turns away, bringing his attention to the deino – still on her feet, but looking to be struggling. Her head is down and her legs are shaking (one more than the others, Kai realizes with the slightest bit of guilt – the one he’d rammed into), her chest visibly heaving from where Kai can see her. She looks like she’s about to throw up.

He’d love to scream at her or do… whatever else he might do out of anger to her, but she probably wouldn’t hear him, and he’s quite busy trying not to panic.

‘Why the hell is this dungeon so different from the last one we went in!? Is this dungeon normal, or is the other one normal? What could even be considered normal, anyways? And… what’s even happening with Myzi? Dungeons have… something that makes her specifically not feel good…?’

Trembling a little, the quilava slowly takes one paw off an ear, then the other. He winces at the increase in volume, hesitates, and slowly brings himself to his feet, albeit somewhat shakily.

A flash of light from a few feet away, startling him. He freezes, turning around.

Zoo has joined the dungeon, and she does not look happy.

The azumarill makes to yell at them, mouth already open upon Kai first laying his eyes on her, only to falter with a wince. Movement from the deino brings his attention back to her, that sudden addition of a new individual causing her to lose concentration. She fully panics, stumbling back, before falling off her own feet, hitting the ground with her head, hard.

She doesn’t get back up.

With his ears finally (at least reasonably) adjusted to the roaring waters surrounding him, he looks between the deino and azumarill, wholly unsure what to feel. Then, once again, another flash of light goes off, this time at his side. Then, to his surprise, another.

Mudkip appears, and only moments later, Myzi disappears.

Mudkip reacts pretty badly to the sudden volume as well, though he manages to pick himself up quickly, assumedly somewhat confused at the lack of Myzi, looking between the two remaining in confusion. Mostly looking at Zoo, though.

Questions finally slip from the cracks between the basement of his mind and the wall of sound, his attention lingering where the deino’s body had been only moments earlier. ‘…What just happened? …Did she d-‘

Kai’s thought is abruptly cut off as a shot of water blasts by his face, impacting something only a few feet away from him, having apparently jumped out of the water. He doesn’t even try to identify characteristics from it, considering the thing has neither arms nor legs.

One of the shadows he’d noticed earlier too, he realizes. He takes a step back, yanking himself back to reality fully as he lets himself observe his surroundings more carefully, and ignoring Mudkip’s small glare. Though it seems like the sand is in fact touching the water from where he’s standing, it’s probably more like they’re just on a ridiculously tall path. Or a floating path.

He makes to look around more, still watching the shadows, before feeling a tap on his shoulder.

Kai and Mudkip turn together as one, the mudkip only being a few inches away from him, to the azumarill.

Knowing she can’t speak, she starts by pointing a paw at mudkip, then she uses a water gun to her right. Then, she points at Kai, hesitates for a moment, and points to the left.

Neither Kai nor Mudkip understand what she’s trying to say. 

Assumedly huffing, Zoo walks over to Kai, grabbing his shoulders, lifting him up onto his back paws, and forcing him to go back to back with her. Conveniently for her demonstration, another creature jumps out, specifically at her, and she shoots it away with a water gun. One comes at Kai, and he flinches, but manages to knock it away with a paw slap. She turns around, nodding with a smile.

He looks back at the water. Some of the creatures there look… noticeably bigger than both him and Mudkip. And Zoo, too.

Though he is quite a bit taller than Mudkip, so if push comes to shove, the quilava could function as something of a shield for the mudkip.

‘Not that I actually want to get hit…’

If Mudkip’s water gun works as well here as it did back in the other dungeon, he thinks they’ll be fine…?

‘We’ll be fine. Nothing’s going to go wrong, as long as we don’t get attacked by some super-… Everything will be fine.’

He walks up to Mudkip, not meeting his eyes – not that the mudkip tries to meet Kai’s either – and they go back to back. Immediately, three creatures jump out at the quilava, and more at the others. Kai more or less slaps them away like he did with the previous ones, and Mudkip shoots his down with rapid-fire water guns.

Kai is still not used to how downright aggressive they are. ‘Deeefinitely reassuring.’

In front of them, Zoo simply dodges out of the way of hers. Turning back to them briefly, she beckons them to follow her onwards.

Together, the three of them move along, each dealing with the foes in their own ways. Zoo keeps dodging, picking up seemingly random things from the ground and putting it in her bag, Mudkip continues shooting, and Kai just keeps slapping.

Though he does have noticeably less of the creatures jumping out at him than the other two, Kai quickly realizes his method might not last too long for him though, the water creatures jumping out being bigger and bigger as they travel further and further through the dungeon.

In an attempt to slap yet another water creature, his hand makes contact, but it isn’t strong enough to keep the thing away. His arms flail around until they manage to wrap around the water creature instead, the thing flopping around in his arms for a while before slowly growing still. Kai doesn’t quite know how he’d managed to hold onto the thing. He doesn’t know why, either.

Another water creature, this one with a horn, jumps at him. With a flinch, Kai takes a stance, holding the one he’d caught out as something of a shield out of pure instinct, and closes his eyes in preparation. Unlike when he’d done it earlier in his battle with Myzi, this time the attack hits, and he nearly loses his footing. Tightening his closed eyes, he steels himself and pushes against the force with the makeshift shield until that force goes away, slowly allowing himself to open his eyes. The thing lands on the sand a tad bit away from him, flopping around uselessly.

Kai flips over the now very dead shield he’d used, and… he lets it drop to the ground as well, looking away in disgust. It smells terrible, and the horn had damn near stabbed right through the thing. He looks back at Mudkip for a moment before readying himself to body even more water creatures, letting out a shaky breath, and continuing onwards.

That strategy probably wouldn’t have worked regardless as, nearing the end of the trail, the creatures jumping out at them eclipse their entire group in size by quite a bit. The three of them come to a mutual decision to abandon trying to fight back, sticking to dodging while booking it to the path’s end. Kai gets clipped far more than he’d like and Mudkip is breathing heavily from beside him, but they reach the end relatively unscathed. Kai hopes it’s the end, at least. It’s wider than the regular path, rounding out into something of a cylinder-like shape. The three of them look around for a while, but thirty or so seconds pass, and nothing jumps out at them.

They don’t necessarily relax, but Mudkip does let himself fall to the ground with a thump that Kai feels through the ground before he sees it. Kai makes to do the same, tucking one leg in, but stops when he catches movement from the water on the far end of the cylinder.

From the water, once again, emerges a water creature, colored mostly blue with a yellow underbelly, and having six weed-like appendages, two on its head and four on its back. This one, however, doesn’t jump out like the creatures that came before it. It only hovers forwards, stopping a small distance from where it’d come from (its hovering adding yet another point of confusion for Kai to mull over when he deems the time right). Kai struggles to get himself to meet its eyes. He does manage it, only to be somewhat confused – the thing is pupilless.

The regal-ish weedy thing directs its attention upwards, looking behind their small group. Kai can’t help but follow its gaze, seeing something drop down from above, just behind them – a massive wall, coming from seemingly nowhere. It falls rapidly and crashes down with a thundering BOOM, the sound eclipsing the already loud waterfalls for a brief moment, hurting Kai’s ears even more. The mini earthquake it causes rattles the quilava’s entire body. He slowly backs away from the door, shaking, and sits himself down a few feet away, dumbfounded.

Something gets thrown at Kai, and he nearly falls over when it hits him, clumsily wrapping his arms around it and anchoring himself with his legs.

The bag is very heavy.

He looks over to the azumarill as she gives an apologetic wave before turning around to face the creature, settling into something of a fighting stance.

The water creature’s eyes narrow a little at the azumarill before it directs its attention slightly leftwards. A few feet away from Kai, the mudkip its gaze is now directed towards freezes in place, putting a foot down. Zoo notices the switch of attention too with widened eyes as the creature rears its head back, a ball of water forming in front of its mouth. Mudkip backs up a little, but manages the same. The azumarill makes to jump in the way of the attack from the creature, instead watching as the two water guns clash with one another before dissipating, hitting neither party.

The resulting splash hits Zoo head-on, the azumarill having the awareness to duck her head before it hit her face-on.  

It glares at the mudkip who can only take a step back, forming another small ball of water as insurance, and noticeably more terrified than before. Luckily for the mudkip, however, it wasn’t necessary.

Zoo jumps to action, slamming herself against the creature’s yellow torso and knocking it back a surprising distance, considering it’s more than double her size – something Kai only notices now that they’re right next to one another. It blinks, eyes slightly widened, and turns its attention to the new threat.

Backing up a little and planting a foot, the azumarill crouches down, starting to shake a little. The creature quickly charges up a different, purplish fire-looking move, throwing it at the azumarill. Nothing happens, though looking closer, Kai starts noticing a light fog around the azumarill, seemingly generated from her body. He can’t tell if it was caused by the purple fire move or not.

Her foe seems to notice the mist too, rearing back a small distance.

That light fog slowly begins to form into something a bit more solid, hovering around Zoo like a shield as the water creature hurriedly charges up and launches a massive wall of water at the azumarill. It sends her back a couple steps, but the foggy shield doesn’t dissipate.

Instead, with a crouch and a leap, it follows her as she once again slams herself against the water creature. This time, however, she doesn’t bounce away. The haze completely overtakes the two of them, though Kai and Mudkip can just barely make out what’s happening.

The azumarill manages to hop up and grab onto the thing’s head horns as it makes to escape, using her own momentum to slam the thing’s face down against the ground. She lands on her back, but doesn’t hesitate, bouncing right back up, and jumping away and out of the fog for a brief moment.

She gives Mudkip and Kai a smile before dashing back in, ramming right into the thing’s head. Its body stiffens from the impact, then loosens as it (hopefully) passes out. The fog around the azumarill starts to clear as she stands by its side, almost daring it to try attacking her again.

Luckily for their group, it doesn’t rise.

Kai stares at the thing, stunned.

Zoo waits a few moments to confirm its unconsciousness before walking back to Kai and Mudkip with a wave and a grin.

As soon as she reaches the two, looking away from the downed weed creature, the ground they’re standing on seems to pulse, the small wave expanding from the thing’s body. As their group turns their attention back to the creature, they find the thing already half-buried within the sand. None of them make a move to stop it as, after three or so seconds pass, the creature’s body completely sinks down as if it were in quicksand.

And, before the group even has a chance to process what happened, from where the creature had been swallowed by the sand, two orbs rise from within the sand, taking the body’s place.

‘…Did the dungeon… eat the thing or something…? And what…’

Kai stares at an orb as the azumarill walks forwards slowly. The quilava shakes his head to clear his thoughts as he turns his attention to her.

Zoo carefully picks up one of the two orbs. It sparkles at the azumarill’s touch.

She balances it in one paw, testing its weight, before picking up the other and doing the same. From there, she turns around, walking back to the two with a skeptical look on her face, and puts one of the orbs in the bag she’d thrown to Kai. Then, she turns back, walking to where the orbs had come from. She does what she did moments earlier, weighing the thing in a paw…

Before smashing it against the sand below her.

Immediately, the ground below them starts rumbling, wavering and shaking – even more than earlier. Cracks in the sand begin to form, and those cracks quickly make way for holes. Zoo frowns, trying and failing to leap back to the two of them – the biggest hole having formed directly underneath her.

She manages to lock eyes with Kai for a moment, giving him something of a reassuring smile, before she ultimately falls down into what is now seemingly the only way the remaining two of them can take to progress.

Contrary to what he might expect of the mudkip, he doesn’t hesitate in the slightest, following right after the azumarill, and jumping into the ever-growing hole as the ground around them falls more and more apart.

Status: Unstable (Draining)

Immediately, after the Mudkip disappears from view, surprisingly, the shaking calms down significantly and the wreckage almost seems to freeze, giving the quilava a chance to breathe. He takes the opportunity despite his confusion.

He backs himself fully over to the wall that’d fallen moments earlier, sitting himself down for a moment and observing the dungeon’s state – the waterfalls are still running, but the land in the middle almost seems to be floating.

‘…What other option is there for me, though? Zoo probably did that on purpose anyways… Why though? How the hell do these dungeons even work?’

He stares down to where his comrades had jumped with a scowl.

‘…Geez. …Really?’

He shuffles a little closer to the drop.

‘I really hate how different this one is from the last one. If this does have another floor though… I’d really rather not get left behind. …’

He leans over the edge, remembering the weight he’d put on his back during the battle earlier.

‘I still have the bag too, don’t I. …errrgh. …Please don’t be dangerous…’

He shuffles a little further forward, grabbing the bag from his back and holding it tight to his stomach. Squeezing his eyes shut, he shuffles a little further until, finally, he slips and falls into the hole that’d taken his partners, wrapping himself around the bag as if it were a lifeline.