CHAPTER 18: BATTLE OF THE FOXES

Pojoin Town, the next morning

In front of a mirror in their bedroom stood a quaxly, carefully grooming his head crest, a large cup of ice water nearby to keep himself hydrated. He always likes to make sure that he looks his best when he wakes up in the morning, after all, and drinking lots of water allows his crest to remain shiny and smooth. As he did this, and as Sofia, Felipe and Mike slept, Team Seekers was on the opposite side of the room, preparing for their mission today.

“Okay, I think we have everything,” Ryan said, lying in his bed as he looked through his bag. “Reviver seeds are a must for this battle, especially now that I can be hit by zoroark’s shadow ball.” He rested a forepaw on his box of seeds. “These bad boys too. Strategic use of them could slow her and her son down. I wonder if we could find leichi or petaya berries anywhere, because those could be helpful, too…” His teammates nodded in agreement, as he pretty much covered anything they would have to say on the matter.

“I think you’re overthinking this,” Quincy said, not looking away from the mirror. “You’ll be fine. It’s not like you’re going against her by yourself. There’s four of you and only two of them. One of you even has the upper hand in terms of typing!”

“Hey!” the glaceon retorted. “You can never be too prepared, okay?”

Quincy sighed before taking a long sip of water. Just then, Ingrid opened the door unannounced, causing a startled quaxly to spit the sip all over the mirror while Ryan leapt with a start out of his bed. He landed on his feet with his back arched, tail and ears raised high, and a wide-eyed look on his face. Terry tried to pat his side to calm him, but found that his fur was sharp and cold to the touch and pulled it back reflexively, wincing.

“Oh, sorry for startling you,” Ingrid said. “I just… heard it was your birthday today.”

“Lemme guess,” Ryan said, shaking the ice crystals out of his fur, “Erin told you?”

The ninetales nodded before she prepared to pull something out of her bag. “I figured that since it was your birthday today, I’d get you a gift.” She carefully dropped a light blue disc-like device onto the floor in front of Ryan. “It’s a Technical Machine for ice beam, one of the most powerful ice attacks.”

“Oh, you shouldn’t have,” Ryan said politely.

“I’m glad you like-“

“No, you really didn’t need to,” the glaceon insisted, picking up the TM. “Seriously, where did you even get this? I don’t think I’ve even seen any in my entire time in this world.”

Ingrid raised a quizzical eyebrow at the last remark. “Come again?”

Ryan waved a forepaw dismissively, trying to steer the topic elsewhere upon realizing what he just said. “Never mind. Thanks for the gift, I do really appreciate it.” He turned it over. “I don’t see any instructions though. Maybe if I…” He touched the device to the crystals on his forehead, expecting to gain the knowledge of using a new move. Unfortunately for him, nothing happened, other than him feeling incredibly stupid in this moment.

“Tch, why did I think that would work?” He facepawed before looking over the TM again. This time, on the back he spotted instructions, but they were only in footprint runes, which he couldn’t read. That explains why I missed them in the first place, I’ve pretty much stopped noticing them, he thought.

“Can someone read this for me?” he asked sheepishly. “I, uh… can’t read footprint runes…”

“Hmm…” Ingrid hummed aloud as if she were pondering something. “Certainly. It says, ‘When touched to the head, a TM’s information is absorbed by the user’s mind, provided that the move stored on the TM is one that their species is capable of learning. However, in order to use it, one must first press the button on the front, which is labeled with the name of the move.'”

“Oh, okay,” Ryan said. “So, I was on the right track but then I missed a crucial step. That’s embarrassing.” He pressed the button on the front labeled ‘TM 13 – Ice Beam’ before tapping it to his head again. This time, the knowledge of how to use the move flooded his mind as the device was drained of its light-blue color, becoming a silvery grey.

“By the way,” Ingrid added as Ryan slipped the used TM into his bag, “if you know someone who knows recycle, they can make that TM usable again, so hold onto it for if the sneasel wants to learn it!”

“You’re being very helpful right now,” the glaceon remarked. “I really appreciate your kindness.”

“Thanks,” she said kindly.

“Yeah, but I think we should get going now.”

“You’re probably right. Chill Cave isn’t that far from here, but it is sixteen floors deep, you know, so it’ll take a while to get through.”

Ben nodded, wanting to get out of this somewhat awkward situation. “She’s right, you know. And now that you have a powerful ice move under the belt you don’t have, we’ll be much more able to take on the powerful foes that lurk within.”

His teammates nodded, and after a quick breakfast of apples, Ryan asked, “One more thing: do you have any liechi or petaya berries?”

“We should have plenty of every berry in the storerooms; take whatever you need!”

“Thanks!” he called back as he ran out of the room to get them. “Really appreciate it!”

---

When Team Seekers arrived at the entrance to Chill Cave later that morning, they noticed that it was quite a bit colder than it was even back at the town. The source seemed to be the mouth of the mystery dungeon that the team had prepared themselves to enter.

“Well, this is it,” Lena said. “We’re about to travel through the dungeon and take on a potentially very powerful and very dangerous outlaw.” She could feel a trace of something welling up in her body… fear, perhaps? Ben certainly felt it. He gulped with trepidation.

“I’m worried,” he said. “It’s possible that we won’t come back alive… if we lose, that zoroark will certainly add the four of us to her list of victims!”

Terry slapped the litten, who had been shuddering from fear, not from the cold. “Get it together, young man!” the pachirisu said, raising his voice. “You wanted to be in an exploration team the most out of any of us; this isn’t how an explorer is supposed to act! Besides, we’ve been doing this for over a month now, so any fears you’re having, you should’ve conquered by now!”

Ryan nodded. “He’s right. If we let our fear take hold of us, it’ll cost us dearly. Especially since I’m pretty sure ghost types feed off of fear. Don’t quote me on that, though, I’m not sure how true that is.”

Determination washed over Ben. “You’re right. Let’s do this!”

And with that, the four pokemon dashed into the entrance of the dungeon.

Chill Cave mystery dungeon

The team’s travel through the dungeon went smoothly enough. This dungeon is primarily home to various ice types, usually mid-stage pokemon such as piloswine and vanillish as opposed to the base forms that populated the Wistful Winterlands.

“Hey Lena,” Ryan said after knocking out a bergmite with a carefully targeted swift. “I don’t think I told you yet, but I think I found something in the guild that could help me help you remember something.”

Lena grunted in approval as she honed her claws in preparation for the next feral.

“It’s called a mutual mind reader. Ingrid let me have it since she has no use for it. With it, I’ll be able to get a video playback of any memory, even if you don’t remember it.” His face fell a bit. “Two problems though: since it’s mutual, you’ll get to see one of my memories, too. I can’t really control which of my memories it sees, either, so it might reveal something I’d rather not remember.” He didn’t say anything about the dream he had several weeks ago, because he still would prefer it if they didn’t know about it.

After this, a cubchoo leapt from a fork in the tunnel, which Ben promptly knocked out with a fast flame charge. “What’s the other one?”

“Well,” the glaceon continued, “according to the user manual, you need a separate device to actually see the memory. My laptop was brought over to this world with me, but I don’t know if it still works, so if it doesn’t, we’re out of luck unless we can fix it or find a working one somehow.”

“Wait, what’s a laptop?” Ben asked.

Ryan facepawed. “Can we continue this discussion another time?”

“Oh, okay, sorry,” Ben said, placing a paw behind his head before the quartet pressed on.

A bit later, Ryan thought of something he had been meaning to ask Terry about, but also didn’t want to bring up around Team Waterburn.

“Terry, you said there were thirteen worlds that my parents could potentially be in,” Ryan said.

“Yeah?” Terry replied.

“I’ve been meaning to ask you about what the other twelve were.”

“And why are you asking now?”

“It just crossed my mind the other day, and I didn’t want to discuss it with Sofia and her teammates around. It would’ve been a lot to explain, you know?”

“What about Lena and Ben, though?”

“Um,” Lena interjected, “we already know that you are interdimensional travelers. Plus, I’m curious now, too.”

The pachirisu, who kept close to Ben to advantage of his higher body heat, facepawed. “Looks like that cat’s out of the bag,” he muttered. He then continued, “Well, I don’t remember all of them but I do know for sure that there was a world where humans and pokemon still coexist, and another with a place called the Boiling Isles. Then there was the Mushroom Kingdom, Hyrule, and a world simply labeled ‘The Galaxy.'” He thought for a moment, trying to remember the others. “I’m sure the rest will come back to me if I think about it more.”

Lena shrugged as the quartet progressed through the dungeon. “Eh, I don’t care that much. Though, I would like to learn about the ones you did list.”

Terry nodded. “Alright then. Brace yourselves for a wild ride, a peek into other worlds! Let’s start with the human-pokemon world…”

---

Some hours later, they arrived at the stairs that connected the last two basement floors of the dungeon. Just as Terry finished explaining about the worlds he knew about, as well.

“…and that’s all you need to know about all of those worlds,” Terry finished, his voice a bit raspy from all the talking he had been doing.

Ben was speechless. He had a twinkle in his eye, fascinated by all that his own teammate seemed to know about these alternate worlds. Lena, though, had a bit more to say.

“Huh,” the sneasel mused. “This ‘Empire’ organization kind of sounds like that IEF thing that apparently built Mike.” She shrugged. “Well, aside from the evil stuff. I mean, the IEF doesn’t seem evil to me from what I’ve read about them.” She shook her head. “Anyways, those worlds sure sound interesting; I’d love to visit them someday, maybe. But for now, I think we made it to the end.”

Ben rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Well, this is it… Either we take down the zoros or die trying, and I’m not even exaggerating this time. The stakes have never been higher.”

Ryan sighed. “Yeah… but we need to do this. Let’s get going, team!” After each Seeker ingested a sitrus berry to replenish their strength, and after Terry drank some water from the frostproof canteen he had, the quartet started to climb down the final flight of stairs in this dungeon.

The large, cavernous room they entered upon disembarking the stairs was so cold that it put the previous floors to shame. It was almost cold enough for the two ice types to notice how low the air temperature was. Sitting in the center of the room was the zoroark, failing to notice Team Seekers’ arrival due to being hyper focused on brushing her son.

“Good, they’re distracted,” Ryan whispered, quietly padding around the ghostly foxes hoping they hadn’t noticed them. “Now, if we can just sneak behind them, we’ll be able to get the ambush in, and get ourselves an advantage.”

Lena and Ben followed the glaceon just as quietly, and even Terry held his breath to avoid making noise. When they were behind the zoros, the pachirisu quietly exhaled as Ryan began charging an ice beam.

If we can freeze them before she notices us, then that’s it, we win, Ryan thought as he continued charging.

One thing the ice fox failed to account for in his plan, though, is the fact that although silent while charging, an ice beam, once released, is quite loud. He didn’t remember this fact until it was already too late, and just before the beam of ice made impact, the zoroark perked up and jump-rolled out of the way, action-RPG style.

“Hey!” she shouted, fury emerging on her face as she spun around in the team’s direction. “How dare you try to attack me!”

Ryan’s ears drooped, his eyes going wide. “Oh crud.”

After gently setting down her son, who then rushed to the other side of the room to get away from the fight, the zoroark lunged at Ryan, preparing to hit him with a shadow claw. He dashed out of the way, and before she could try again, he opted to use swift. While she attempted to dodge the oncoming stars, Lena got the actual first strike, scraping at the zoroark’s shoulder with harsh metal claws. She yelped with pain and came to a stop, allowing the swift stars to connect and making her shout out once again. Ben charged forward at her as he enveloped his body in flames, leaving burn marks her fur. Terry, too, leapt from Lena’s shoulder to quickly follow up with spark.

The quartet started to close in on the outlaw as she writhed in pain. It seemed like the battle was already over. Just then, the zoroark’s eyes opened wide. She let out an incredibly powerful dark pulse, knocking all four of her attackers toward opposite corners of the room. She then stood up, her eyes practically glowing with rage. If she hadn’t been so angry, she would have likely thought about who to attack next, and determined that Terry, being the smallest, would likely be the best choice. In her blind rage, though, she lunged toward Ryan again instead, still angry that, she assumed, he tried to hurt her son.

The glaceon shakily stood up, having slammed into the wall from her powerful pulse. He then ducked to the ground again, cowering and yelling in fear from the outlaw rushing at him with another shadow claw. Just before she could scratch at his body, though, she was slammed into by Lena as she used a pursuit attack. She was a launched a fair distance, tumbling about a bit before her body stopped right in front of zorua. She didn’t move.

Ryan stood up again and looked over to where the zoroark ended up. He was still shuddering from that incredibly close call. He sighed in relief.

“Oh, man, that was too close,” he said, shaking off the ice shards that had formed in his fur. “Thanks for saving my skin, there, Lena.”

“Don’t mention it,” she replied, simply shrugging. “We’re a team. We’re supposed to have each other’s backs like that.”

The two, as well as Ben and Terry, walked over to where the zoroark lay motionless. Ryan felt for a pulse and was initially scared when he didn’t find one.

Oh no, he thought, did we… kill her?

Ben seemed to know what Ryan was thinking, and he waved dismissively. “Don’t worry, she’ll be fine. Ghost types are already dead. It’s not like they can die a second time.”

“Oh thank goodness,” Ryan said, relieved. He then noticed the zorua, cowering in fear, tears welling up in its eyes. It seemed too afraid to do anything, even to attack.

“Hey there, little one,” the glaceon said gently. “We’re not gonna hurt you. Your mom is gonna be just fine.”

He extended a forepaw in greeting. “See, look, you can trust me.”

The zorua came up to Ryan and sniffed him. It yipped.

“Attaboy,” he said, gently patting the ghostly fox cub on the head. “My name is Ryan. The sneasel is Lena, the litten is Ben, and the pachirisu is Terry. Do you have a name?”

The ice fox didn’t actually expect an answer, but to his surprise, he got one. “…Loki…”

He grinned. “Loki, huh? I like it; I think it suits you.” Even if your variant of your species isn’t really known for trickster behavior. “I’m sorry we had to knock out your mom; she’s done some very bad things, I’m afraid, and actions have consequences, so we have to bring her, and you, back with us. Don’t worry, though, you’re not in trouble, but we’re not going to just leave you out here alone, either.” He laid himself down next to the zorua. “Here, climb on my back. I’ll carry you out of this chilling place.”

After the zorua timidly climbed onto his back, the glaceon stood up again and directed his attention toward his teammates. “Alright, you three carry Loki’s mother to the waypoint; I got Loki.”

The quartet walked over to the waypoint and were warped out in a flash of light.

---

Upon exiting with Loki and his mother in tow, Team Seekers was immediately greeted by Team Waterburn, Mike, Felix, Erin and Ingrid.

“Aww,” Sofia said happily, looking at the zorua on Ryan’s back. “He’s so cute, resting on your back like that!”

Ryan could feel the zorua shuddering from the amount of other pokemon around him. Tears were welling up in his eyes again. Sofia was much more enthusiastic.

“Can we have him for our team?” she begged Erin. “Please?”

Ignoring this, Erin spoke to the team that actually carried out the mission, clapping. “Ryan and Team Seekers, we would like to congratulate you on your successful capture of the outlaw zoroark. We’ll determine what to do with her and her son later. For now, we should be heading back to the Pojoin guild, because I heard that it’s somebody’s birthday today!” The she-meowstic winked at Ryan.

The glaceon was puzzled. “Are you throwing me a party? Isn’t it a bit weird for a guildmaster to throw a party for their… um… subordinates?”

“I don’t think it is,” Felix said, shrugging. “Besides, somebody told us you were disappointed that you wouldn’t get to celebrate your birthday today.”

Sofia looked at the glaceon, a cheeky grin on her face. “You’re welcome.”

“Oh, one more thing,” Erin said, reaching into her bag, “I believe these belong to you four.”

In her paw was a stack of four silver badges, all wrapped neatly in a ribbon for ease of carrying.

“Our new silver rank badges!” Ben cheered, snatching them out of Erin’s paw. He hurriedly transferred his memory stone from the old badge to the new one, nearly dropping it and losing it in the snow in the process, and his teammates followed suit.

“Now, let’s go,” Erin said. After adding Loki and his mother to their escort list, Team Seekers, for the first time, got to teleport straight back to Pojoin Town.

---

Pojoin Town, that evening

Food, friends, and fun. That’s what a birthday party should be all about, in Ryan’s opinion, and that’s exactly what this one was. He didn’t receive any gifts, but he didn’t mind. He was just happy that he wouldn’t have to celebrate it alone, as it was his first proper party since he lost his parents. However, he didn’t let that thought distract him from dessert: double chocolate cake. He figured that if lucario, including Felix, can eat chocolate, then he should be able to also, as he couldn’t imagine himself being that far off biologically from a lucario. Luckily for him, he was right: the cake was delicious, and he felt fine afterward.

After the party ended, the Lunerian pokemon bode farewell to Ingrid and the Pojoinian guild members who had celebrated along with them. Taking Loki, who had been allowed into the party but cowered in the corner the whole time, and his mother, who was still to unconscious to enjoy it and wouldn’t have been let in regardless, the southern visitors used their badge functions to teleport back to Luneria Village.

---

Moon Continent Explorers Guild, West Coast Branch, the next morning

After some paperwork was filed, it was determined that Loki would be allowed to join Team Waterburn if he wanted to after some anxiety counseling, much to Sofia’s delight. For his mother, whose name was revealed to be Elise, it was time to determine her punishment. Normally, a murder, or even multiple, would result in lifelong imprisonment, and this case, at least in theory, would be no exception. However, since the zoroark claimed, truthfully, that the six murders and one attempted murder were all in self-defense, she would be allowed to see her son frequently, as it would be unfair to Loki to force him to stay away. She would also be given counseling to try to make her less violent and impulsive, and there was a chance that, in the future, she may even walk free one day. Elise sighed, disappointed yet relieved, when Felix and Erin told her this.

“Yeah, can’t say I don’t deserve this…” she growled regretfully as she was locked in her new cell, which was in the basement of the library. There was a lone window to the outside that would allow in sunlight so at least it wouldn’t be completely dark in there. Still, she was not looking forward to this forced imprisonment.

For Team Seekers, they received a payment of 1500 Poke, which was for the combined effort of their expedition to Pojoin Town and the capture of Elise. They were also planning to give Ryan an evolution stone of his choice, but since he had already evolved, they gave Lena a razor claw instead.

“I’ll save you for later,” she said, quickly slipping it into her bag.

As for Mike, Felix and Erin said that they are not able to join either of Team Seekers or Team Waterburn, due to one having four members already and the other pending a fourth after his counseling sessions are done.

“However,” Erin added, “since ‘Mike’ has nowhere to go, they can stay with your team in your room until another team decides to take them onto their team.”

Mike nodded. “Affirmative.”

“One last thing: if someone in the team has a birthday, they get a free day where they don’t have to do any missions. It’s guild policy,” Felix said. “Since you had a mission already planned yesterday, you get today off instead.”

Lena fistpumped, Ryan smiled, and Ben and Terry high-fived.

“You’re now dismissed,” Erin said. “Have a nice day off!”

---

The last few days were really draining for Ryan, so he decided that he should utilize part of his day off to catch up on sleep. He leapt onto his bed, which was easier now that he was taller, and curled into a ball to drift to sleep.

Dreamscape

The next thing he knew, he was back in a black void in his human form once again. Only, this time, he found that his ears, now fuzzy and like that of a glaceon’s, had moved to the top of his head. He also noticed a tail had sprouted from his backside.

That’s odd, he thought, but shrugged it off as an aspect of the dream. Maybe I should ask Mew if she appears.

Sure enough, she appeared in a flash of light in front of him.

“Okay, Mew,” he began. “I want you to explain. Why do I have the ears and tail of a glaceon even though… everything else is still human?”

“Oh, that’s simple,” Mew said. “You’re starting to think of yourself more as a glaceon and less as a human, so your dream form is starting to change into one as well.”

Ryan was shocked at this revelation. “What?!” He followed up by asserting, “I am human!”

Suddenly, the foxy ears on his head and his tail vanished and his normal human ears reappeared on the sides of his head.

“That’s more like it,” he said, rubbing one of his ears despite being unable to feel anything, given that this was a dream. He turned his attention to the mew. “Now, I believe we have some unfinished business from last time. Answer my question: how can I get back to my own world?”

Mew winced again, much like last time. “Look, the reason I didn’t answer is because the answer I have for you… well, I don’t think you’d like it very much.”

“Well, you can still tell me,” the young man said.

Mew sighed. “Fine, I can tell you that there at least is a way. But…” she trailed off. “…that’s all I can say right now.”

“I don’t care,” Ryan shouted, getting irritated at her vagueness. “Tell me!”

“If you really want to know, find out yourself!” Mew shouted back. “I’m not telling you any more!” She sighed. “Why are you sleeping anyways? Why don’t you go enjoy your day off doing something?”

Mew started to vanish from his mind again.

“Oh no you don’t,” the human shouted, running at the psycat to try to grab onto her before she vanished completely, but just before he could…

---

The glaceon woke up with a start.

“Guh!” he exclaimed, then sighed, shaking his head. “Mew’s probably right. I should make something out of my day off. We haven’t been getting many of those.”

He got down from the bed, feeling better despite not having been asleep for long, and strolled out of the room.