Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Altered Bonds

  Special Episode 3 — Reconnection

  Lanturn coughed up water and salt, consciousness flooding her throbbing head. Crashing waves deafened her ears, and her nose smelled the ocean.

  “You’re up.”

  Banette’s haggard voice. She let out a groggy hum, her forehead stinging like mad, and opened her eyes. Beachy sand sprawled around her, and in front, a forest of large trees with tangled roots and vines grew — mangroves, she presumed. She craned her head to the night sky above, cloudy yet rainless. Water splashed against her tailfin, and she swiveled around as best as she could with her blue-yellow fishy body, witnessing a vast ocean of tumultuous waves.

  The sea. Lanturn felt her mind spike at the sight, the faintest recollection of something tragic floating around the recesses of her mind. Her gaze snapped to Banette, the greyish puppet ghost floating a little over the sandbars.

  His baneful purple eyes stared out into the waters, an arm clenched around a Pokeball. The zipper keeping his mouth shut had partially opened, and a ghoulish scowl cursed his face, Banette looking like he was barely holding himself from howling with rage. “What?” Lanturn said, flinching as the Pokemon’s expression fell upon her. “What’s happening? Why—”

  It struck her then. Lanturn’s eyes became grossly wide, and she pulled herself up, electromagnetism propelling her a few feet off the ground. Her fin touched her forehead, Lanturn wincing at the nasty gash lining it, and the flecks of dried blood that came off. The angler bulb hanging from the top of her head flickered to life, emitting a startlingly powerful glow that made Banette hiss and squint. The light illuminated the entire beach around them, so bright was it.

  And with that light, Lanturn found herself horrified by what she didn’t see. No living souls around. Nobody but her and Banette.

  “They’re not here.”

  Banette let out a low grumble. “You took a hit to the head,” he muttered. “A large metal object fell on you during the shipwreck. Left you half-conscious.”

  The shipwreck. She remembered it now, how she had broken out from her Pokeball and into an ocean with shattered planks and debris falling from above. Something had hit her—

  She let out a pained noise, her head feeling like mush as a slight dizziness overcame her. “I only found you in time,” Banette said, his tone bitter. “Had to steer you toward here. Never saw any of the others. They’re gone.”

  They’re gone.

  Lanturn felt a hitch in her throat. She stared out into the sea, at its relentless waves, slamming against each other. Far to the left, she swore she caught the silhouette of a grand, spiked monolith shaped like a beacon, jutting out of the ocean. And at the horizon, a magical ripple shimmered, bending the light with soft rainbow tints. It was gorgeous and fantastical.

  It was not normal. Lanturn pulled back, her eyes darting to the side to find a metallic, circular object half-buried in the sand. Her bright light revealed its red and white colors, with a button in the middle. A Pokeball. Her’s, if she had to guess.

  Banette eyed it for the briefest of moments. “It wasn’t far from you,” he said. “I kept it.”

  Lanturn gingerly took the Pokeball, holding it with both fins. She tried not to think about the others. Tried to believe they were alive somewhere, and not injured or sunken in the ocean.

  “W-where are we?”

  Lanturn thought she heard the faintest traces of hurt within Banette’s voice. “I don’t know.”

  It was not a place for humans, they learned quickly. Their first encounter with a native Gastly told them that — one look at their Pokeballs was enough to make him yell about foul human captors and Fallers and how they’ve been “saved from a fate most cruel,” and so on.

  A disgusted Banette was quick to send him into a half-sleepy state with Hypnosis, commanding him to leave and forget the entire conversation that just happened. The compelled Gastly floated off in a daze, and right after, they worked on creating a makeshift bundle of leaves to hide their balls within, Banette drying up the long mangrove leaves with Will-O-Wisps and Lanturn producing silk threads from an Electroweb to tie the bundle together.

  No, this was no place for mankind at all. Haven Archipelago, the apparent name of the land they had found themselves on, was the home of an advanced Pokemon civilization. One that so vehemently feared humans that it had built magical ocean monoliths to literally ward them off. To say Banette was shaken by the news was, well, an understatement.

  Lantern had found herself in charge of leading them, to her surprise and slight discomfort, the two of them wandering about in an attempt to figure out their whereabouts and make sense of their situation. Graymist Village had been their first encounter with actual civilization — they’d come across it by accident, and the scene dazzled their eyes. Homes of dull clay and mud littered the area, with stone roads and bridges over marshy streams connecting them. Various Pokemon roamed about, notably Water and Ghost types, chatting and laughing and even exchanging goods with money.

  It was like a Pokemon tribal society from back home, except with far more diversity and uncanny human elements thrown into the mix. Banette, having been a trained Pokemon from birth, ended up dumbstruck by it all. Lantern had lived in the wild, meanwhile, and could process the mishmash of Pokemon and human culture, even if it boggled her mind. It was strange, but not something that would leave her speechless.

  No, that honor went to Lakehome Town. A place the village locals had directed them to, showing them a road leading all the way there. That had been too much — just the pretty brick walls forming a perimeter, and watching guards that wore armbands depicting what vaguely looked like muddy water currents, had thrown her for a loop. Never mind the actual town itself, with its decorative and colorful housing, a lively marketplace with carts and stalls mixed with storefronts, and all the little details thrown into the mix.

  Lantern had found herself gawking at lanterns, pun unintended, lighting up the streets via Electric Gems stored inside. At the sale of clothing articles, most notably scarves and bandannas, and the occasional Pokemon that enjoyed wearing such things. At the meticulous construction of the town, with zones cordoned off for residential areas, recreation, businesses, and schooling. All of it, built to accommodate the diverse heights, natures, and abilities of various Pokemon species. For goodness’s sake, they even managed to make the place accessible for marine-based Pokemon, with canal roads and aqueducts built around the busier intersections to make travel easier for them!

  It was too much. The pair soon wandered into a small park area, complete with playground infrastructure like swings, seesaws, and merry-go-rounds. There was even a lake with waterpark attractions, all of which were designed to cater to a wide array of Pokemon shapes. Two Horsea had gone down a waterslide and splashed into a third waiting for them, the trio giggling, before their Kingdra father hollered at them that they were getting late for supper.

  They had arrived in town sometime past noon, a day after the storm. Lanturn vacantly looked up, found the sky growing a little dim — not quite a sunset yet, but approaching it — and wondered where all the time went. Banette stared at the park with an indescribable expression, his head hollow and the leaf bundle limp in his cloth hands. Any electric charge that had been stored in the Electroweb threads had surely dispersed by now, and yet Lanturn could’ve sworn he was pressing his hand against the silk, as if hoping to shock himself.

  They lingered there for a good while, numb. Lanturn let out a shuddering noise.

  “T-this isn’t anything like home, is it?” she said.

  “I think only you two would know the answer to that.”

  Both stiffened. Lanturn leaned her head, finding a brilliant sea serpent coiling behind the pair. His creamy scales shimmered with a cascade of rainbow colors, transitioning into a blue and pinkish tail with a fanlike shape at the end. Long, pink, eyebrow-like appendages fell to either side of his head, framing his sharp face — complete with gentle, slightly aged crimson eyes and a slight smile. A Milotic.

  Banette’s gaze turned slitlike at the intruder, instantly on alert. “Excuse us?” said Lanturn.

  A touch of somberness entered the Milotic’s eyes. “Tailtide,” he said. “It’s the name most people call me by. Forgive me for tailing you — I couldn’t ignore how lost and listless you seemed, going down these roads. You’re Fallers, aren’t you now? Outsiders to Haven Archipelago?”

  Lanturn’s breath hitched against her will. Banette tensed further.

  The sight of them going into flight-or-fight mode unfazed Tailtide. “Just an educated guess,” he said, as if he’d only been talking about the weather. Which, funnily enough, that was exactly what he ended up doing. “Flash storms localized at the island shores aren’t a normal thing outside of Blitzfield Island, you see. And the way you two seemed to be silently freaking out at your surroundings, gawking at what should be simple things like shops and lamplights, it screamed ‘not of this world.’ Gives one the impression that something unusual happened out at sea, leaving you two stranded here.”

  Had he been following them the entire time? Lanturn threw Banette a why-didn’t-you-notice look, the ghost pointedly ignoring it. “W-what do you want?” she pressed Tailtide.

  Tailtide slithered back, giving the twosome a little room. “Not much, to be honest,” he said. “Just a little talk, away from eavesdroppers nosier than myself.”

  “A talk?”

  “A talk, so that I can figure out how to best help you out.”

  The Milotic proved to be sincere, Lanturn soon found out. Before they knew it, she and Banette had become guests at Tailtide’s home, being served dinner around a wooden table in a small, undecorated, and yet cozy room. All while being engaged in a conversation that was stilted at first, but soon became as natural as swimming to discuss.

  “Quite the troubling story you have,” Tailtide said, when the twosome finished explaining how they ended up on the archipelago. “I admit, even humans make me a little nervous, but it’s horrid to hear of such a tragic shipwreck at our shores. You have my sympathies for your dear human, and the Pokemon traveling alongside you.”

  The twosome shut their eyes. Lanturn had little idea of what actually had happened to the ship, having been in her Pokeball up until it broke apart — only Lucario had been out at the time — but she knew enough of the level of destruction. A ship could not just burst into metal chunks and splinters from a stray lightning bolt. “You really think the storm wasn’t natural?”

  “Oh, it could be. But with how sudden and heavy the storm was, and the fact that it somehow obliterated a metal ship of mankind, I’d believe otherwise,” Milotic stated. “Bizarre and magical phenomena are not unheard of in these islands, especially these days. The human-warding towers out at sea could’ve been interfering with your ship, for all I know.”

  “The towers?” Banette said, before clutching his face, hiding his bitter grimace. “Those foul things are meant to kill incoming humans?”

  Tailtide frowned. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know the towers’ actual powers, but murder would be an unusual one — it’s a serious taboo in Haven Archipelago to kill, and so violently too. The towers should only repel humans, not kill, and you made it clear this was no invading warship that had to be shot down. There has to be more to the story.”

  Lanturn could only wonder. What had happened, out in that storm, that led to the ship’s destruction? A Pokemon could vaguely sense what was going on outside their Pokeball, but nothing more. Maybe Lucario or Adam could have explained what they had seen, if they were around.

  But they’re not.

  “You two have hardly touched your food, by the way. Is it not to your tastes?”

  Lanturn flushed, attention snapping back to her plate of tilapia. Not to her taste? If she weren’t so busy mulling over everything, she would’ve gobbled it all at once. Tailtide had coated it in a slather of light toasted cheese, complete with green beans, sliced peppers, herbs, and a healthy amount of spices. Goodness, the taste was beautiful! Raw fish was a blessing of the ocean, and cooking turned that blessing into flavored art.

  Lanturn quickly shook her head, managing to cut herself a sloppy-looking piece with the knife she’d been given — its handle molded for her stubby fins to clasp without too much trouble. She scooped up the fish meat with her arms and brought it into her mouth, chewing the soft, well-cooked meat with delight. Even Banette couldn’t drown himself in his gloom at the taste, the ghost savoring the fish. His knife skills were notably better than hers, his slices much straighter. It embarrassed her a little.

  To be fair, Banette had lived his whole life among humans, and his physique was better-suited to using their cumbersome utensils. A wild marine Pokemon like her could never hope to match him. At least Haven Archipelago doesn’t frown on using your arms for eating, she consoled herself. I think I’d die if people expected me to use dumb spoons and forks for everything.

  “The natives here are rather interested in Fallers, if you couldn’t tell by now,” Tailtide stated. He had made a clean cut of his tilapia, raising it to his mouth with an eyebrow-like appendage and chewing on it. “That you two are human-owned—”

  “Trained,” hissed Banette.

  “Companions to a human,” Lanturn added with a frown.

  Tailtide nodded with shut eyes, correcting his choice of wording. “That you two are so well-acquainted with humans, it makes you special in their eyes. I hear most Fallers from the human lands have few experiences with their kind, be it good or bad. They don’t know them well. My point is, try not to spread your origins around, hm? I think you wouldn’t enjoy the attention.”

  Lanturn could only imagine. She looked to Banette, who acted like Tailtide had said the most obvious thing in the universe. Even still, his gaze drifted toward the leaf bundle holding their Pokeballs, sitting a short distance away from his plate.

  “Fallers,” he muttered.

  “Yes, Fallers. Visitors from outside. We always had a few wayward Pokemon that stumbled their way into the archipelago, but the Ruptures six years back left us with a large wave of them appearing from Mystery Dungeons and temporary distortions.”

  The two of them stiffened. Six years ago? Large numbers of Pokemon appearing from distortions? “The Spacetime Pandemic,” Lanturn blurted. “You call that the Ruptures here?”

  Banette shook his head, his focus shifting to an entirely different matter. “You made a distinction between temporary distortions and something called Mystery Dungeons,” he told Tailtide.

  The Milotic put on a strange smile. “There is a rumor about human-trained Pokemon,” he said, dodging their questions. “Your sort are said to be built for battle.”

  At first, neither Lanturn nor Banette spoke. The two stared at Tailtide, who smiled harder, expecting them to talk first. As if he needed to hear their response before he could answer back.

  Lanturn sighed. Wasn’t Banette more qualified to speak about this? “It’s a cultural thing,” she said. “Battling is a sport in the human world. Pokemon like me join humans in order to participate in battles with other skilled Pokemon, which helps us gain combat skills and strength quickly. The humans are kind of like our tacticians, I guess?”

  “That leaves me with too few answers and too many questions and concerns. But I’ll save my curiosity about human-related things for another time,” Milotic said with a gesture of his pink eyebrow arms. “I take it you’re fairly capable then? At least Level 30 or 40?”

  Lanturn debated for a moment the consequences of admitting the level of power she could draw from her soul to a stranger. “Level 50,” she slowly said.

  Banette gave her the stink eye, Lanturn resisting the urge to roll her eyes back. “More or less the same.”

  “Mm, good. I said I would figure out a way to help — I think I have something that’ll keep you afloat, at least for now.” Tailtide leaned his head forward. “See, the archipelago is a place of natural distortion, and Mystery Dungeons are a result of that. They’re like little pocket worlds, shaped like mazes and guarded by traps and fake Pokemon. They’re dangerous, but also precious, due to the strange and wonderful things a dungeon can sometimes produce.”

  That alone would’ve left Lanturn and Banette baffled, but the Milotic wasn’t finished. “Pokemon that delve through these dungeons are called explorers. They’re paid to handle various problems, often related to them. And as it just so happens, there’s a shortage of explorer teams in Aquamush Town and the surrounding villages.” He flashed a grin. “Maybe you could help fill that void?”

  And thus, on that night, Team Riversouls was born.

  If anyone asked, Lanturn thought the name was lame, but she couldn’t be bothered to fight Banette over it. Not worth it.

  Mystery Dungeons, the two soon saw for themselves, were truly strange places. In the ensuing days, they found themselves entranced by the spatial anomalies, their twisted layouts and the constructs haunting them proving to be an unsettling sight to behold. They took forms that clumsily reflected reality, forming uncanny swamps whose trees couldn’t be so much as scratched, or dank mud pits with oddly shaped rooms and unnatural tunnels. Overgrown ruins with a false full moon hung over it, complete with shifty terrain that could crumble and drop victims into spike traps — thank goodness they could float over those! — and vine-covered forests with too much vegetation everywhere.

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  In any case, though, they were quick to adapt, figuring out how to navigate the curious mazes and handle its threats. They soon became used to their quirks, the horror of such places changing into wonder over time.

  It was on their fifth day when they ended up with a task to Creekchime Depths, or as the locals called it, the ‘Luminous Depths.’ Some Seadra kid had gotten lost in there, and they’d taken up the job of getting the poor Pokemon out. Which led them—

  “Behind!”

  To the present moment. Banette grunted at Lanturn’s warning, turning upon three Carbink floating out from a cluster of packed, giant yellow crystals. The blue jewels decorating the small rock Pokespawn shimmered with burning energy, Power Gem beams firing upon the Ghost-type. All of which missed as Banette simply dove into the ground, the Treasure Bag he wore vanishing with him, purple waves scattering in his wake.

  Another wave appeared behind an unfortunate Carbink, Banette emerging as he slammed into it with Phantom Force. Lanturn zapped it mid-air, grimacing as it burst apart into strange red-purplish wisps. Even now, that part really weirded her out.

  She turned back to find Banette’s mouth unzipped and retching out a Gunk Shot, the filth splattering against another Carbink and the cavern earth around it. The Pokespawn instantly dissolved into wisps, leaving the third to freak out and retreat. Not that it helped, considering how slow it was, though the action was still unusual for a Pokespawn.

  Lanturn might’ve pitied it, a couple of days ago, but she knew better. She Scalded it, letting out a torrent of steaming water from her maw, and the Carbink let out a stony croak as it broke up into wisps. The grand cavern system became eerily empty once more, the feeling amplified by the open space, streaming waters, and the forlorn chimes coming from crystal formations in the distance.

  Creekchime Depths was easily the most gorgeous dungeon they’d seen, a system of deep caverns filled with underground rivers, waterfalls, and aqueducts. Crystals of various colors, notably oranges, yellows, and milky whites, littered the area. Some were small fragments, standing on their lonesome, and others grouped together to form large lattices. It was almost like an artist had captured something beautiful and turned it into a landscape.

  Banette thought it was kind of plain and repetitive-looking. Lanturn respected the irksome puppet’s right to hold incorrect opinions.

  “Stairs,” he said, and Lanturn saw for herself the rocky circle that surrounded the exit to this floor, B7F. One more floor left. She eyed Banette, and he huffed back, their terse exchange saying enough. No point looping around the area yet again, they’d seen no sign of Seadra here.

  He’s at the spring then. Of course.

  These stairs spiraled around in a corkscrew, dropping into darkness. Lanturn swore the air whooshed around her as she went down, the light above their heads fading too quickly. Stairs and floors were so bizarre. The fact that those stairs could vary in form and appearance made them even more haunting at times.

  The stairs led to a small room at the bottom, opening up into the final floor. Notes on Creekchime Depths had stated that this floor was a static one, with Pokespawn unable to appear here, and that it had a rather straightforward corridor leading to the exit. Lanturn gasped at what sat in between.

  Waterfalls fell from both sides of the chasm-like corridor, pouring into streams that banked its edges and flowed away into tiny tunnels. A few rivulets flowed straight toward the epicenter instead — a large crystalline formation with a narrow teardrop appearance, its yellowy-white color like a tiny sun that lit up the entire area. It sat at the end of a shallow, luminescent pond, its waters rippling in subtle patterns. Smaller sets of crystals grew around it and on the walls and ceiling, their rainbow hues adding a splash of color. If Lanturn strained herself, she could’ve sworn she heard a tinkling noise coming from them all, forming a phantasmagoric melody.

  “The Luminous Spring,” she breathed. What words could she use to describe such a wonder, a place with a curious power that allowed evolution? Tailtide had personally told them of the place, of how certain special crystals could be used in tandem with the spring to evolve, but he hadn’t said a word about how beautiful the place was. Nor the Dungeon Board, and she almost suspected that was on purpose.

  Even Banette seemed overcome by the splendor of the spring, his mouth unzipping to let his jaw drop ever so slightly. “Oh,” he said, because that was the best anyone would get out of Banette.

  Both of them slowly averted their eyes, letting them drop on the Seadra slouched within the spring waters. Half-conscious. Banette moved first, and Lanturn shot past him, giving him the stink eye. He scoffed, a noise that insisted he was perfectly fine with kids, but let her handle it.

  Seadra made a groggy noise as Lanturn pulled over, lidded eyes spotting her. The seahorse had chipped scales and bruises everywhere, a sign of his bravery despite the consequences of his own hubris. “H-huh?” he said, before shaking himself. “D-don’t look at me like that! I was just resting, that’s all! ”

  Kids. “Had it rough up there, huh?” Lanturn asked, letting out a pleasant chuckle. Something about this Seadra made her think of a younger Dragonair, too eager to prove herself. “You shouldn’t go delving into dungeons by yourself, you know, reckless stuff like that isn’t healthy. But hey, between you and me, good on you that you made it to the spring! Few people your age can say they did that.”

  “I know, right? I told my da I was strong enough! Had to go see the spring for myself — someday I’ll be back as a real explorer, and then I’ll evolve and become even stronger! Dungeons will be a breeze to go through then!” Seadra puffed his chest out, before squinting at Lanturn and Banette. “Uh, you new explorers here or something? I don’t remember any team like yours.”

  Lanturn’s smile froze, Banette making a noise of muted exasperation. How often had this kid done things like this, if he kept track of the explorers that—?

  Hm. Maybe they needed to have a talk with his da. Do something to keep the boy’s ambitions from getting him into bad situations.

  It was with a little self-force that Lanturn pulled herself away from the Luminous Spring, ushering the Seadra to follow along. For a brief moment, though, her eyes flickered toward the shallow pool, the crystal light making it shimmer. And deep within that shimmer, she thought she felt something within. Something brilliant. Everchanging.

  Watching.

  It lasted for just a moment, before the pond became just a pond again. Lanturn hummed.

  It was night, and the house Lanturn resided in was quiet and peaceful. Her mind wasn’t.

  She floated in a pool of water, thoughts swimming in and out like harsh currents. Tailtide apparently was a landlord of sorts, owning a small number of homes that he rented out to various Pokemon, and he had kindly offered one each to Lanturn and Banette. The personal space was wonderful, and moreover, her home even had a small pool that served as a comfortable space to soak and sleep. To a marine-based Pokemon like herself, it was a gift beyond compare.

  She hadn’t needed to decorate the place either, Tailtide had left it furnished with cushions, tables, and other basic furniture. There was plenty of extra space for her to add a couple amenities, but Lanturn couldn’t be bothered to. She didn’t quite feel like the place really was hers, not yet.

  Maybe never.

  Her mind lingered on that for a moment, before drifting toward other things. The archipelago, the Mystery Dungeons, Tailtide and Fallers, Adam—

  How’s Banette coping with him being gone?

  In no world would Lanturn say the loss of Adam hadn’t hurt her, but she knew it wasn’t something that left her soulless. She had shed plenty of tears for him, of course, for Adam was a good lad and a young trainer she greatly respected. She wouldn’t claim she was super attached to him though.

  But Banette had been with him his whole life. Adam had been his entire world. Torterra would joke sometimes that one could imagine Banette having been once Adam’s own plushie brought to life, just like in the old legends — the two were that close. He was putting on a rather strong front, she could tell, trying not to let his death destroy him.

  But he’s hollow inside. I don’t know how he can stand it, isolating himself in his house all the time when we’re not doing explorer work.

  Explorers. It was an ideal job for them, Tailtide had done them right by suggesting it. Really, it was perhaps all that was keeping Banette from losing himself. It was certainly keeping her afloat, because goodness, she had no idea what to do with herself in a civilized Pokemon society.

  The two of them were, well, a team. Not quite a dysfunctional one, but the two of them didn’t exactly have personalities that meshed well together. She knew how to fight alongside Banette, courtesy of Adam, but she was definitely not up to talking much with the moody ghost. But she couldn’t leave him for some other explorer team, could she? That would be devastating for Banette, she was sure of that.

  Oh, she wished Lucario or Torterra were around, those two had better chemistry with Banette. Where were the others, anyway? Adam was surely gone, no thanks to the dumb towers, but would the others have survived and reached the shores of the other islands? Tailtide had made it clear that Haven Archipelago was in a shrunken subspace, such that moving a few feet outside the distortion field equated to many, many miles here.

  That was a big problem. Dragonair and Duosion could float and survive out at sea, but Torterra needed his Pokeball to drift toward one of the islands or a conveniently passing ship if he wanted to make it out alive. The stasis effect of a Pokeball would only protect him from needing food and water for so long. Lucario being the one Pokemon who had been out of his Pokeball, meanwhile—

  It’d be a miracle if he made it.

  Lanturn let herself submerge deeper into her pool, eyes shut. The shipwreck had happened close to a week ago, and grief for the dead was a distant feeling. Life was full of transactions — her relationship with Adam and the others was one such transaction. Adam gave her training and food, and in turn, she helped Adam with his Pokemon league dreams. It was how things often worked in the wild. It was fine if that transaction was over now, abrupt as the ending was. She could move on with her life, to whatever came next.

  But still. Death. It was extremely off-putting. The more Lanturn dwelled on it, the more the shipwreck left her unsettled, the mystery of it making her head burn. So many lives on that ship, claimed by ship debris and the unforgiving sea, it was wrong.

  How? she questioned. What exactly happened that night to cause such a disaster?

  She found out.

  Morning was typical at first, with Lanturn getting up bright and early to show up at the local Dungeon Board. It wasn’t anything too fancy, just a simple blue-and-white complex with a bushy garden in front. Lanturn gave a cheery greeting to an explorer team headed toward the building at the same time as her, consisting of a Poliwhirl, Eastern Shellos, and Veluza — a giant gray fish with pink spikes and Psychic power whose species she hadn’t known about before. They returned the pleasantries, asking her how she was, the two parties exchanging brief recounts of their missions for the previous day. Unlike some people, Lanturn cared about having a social life. If she was going to be living here for the foreseeable future, why not make the most of it?

  Banette always took a bit longer, what with him not being much of an early riser. It was a habit for Lanturn to go through the listed jobs ahead of time and see what would work, then pitch them to Banette. And in the meanwhile, she could chat with others, read up on news, and do stuff that didn’t involve being cooped up and angsty in her house.

  Speaking of news — there was the bulletin board. Offering a word of good luck to the other explorer team, Lanturn turned to it, taking in the various postings left there. Nothing new for the most part, except for one newspaper placed smack in the center. Clearly for attention, considering—

  “What?” Lanturn whispered, blinking her eyes. She read the headline, then re-read it, questioning what she was seeing. “What?”

  There couldn’t have been a flashier title. ‘A Perilous Clash! Lugia Hunted by Abhorrent Aerodactyl,’ read the words, with the following paragraphs explaining an incident at the northern shores of Grassbranch Island, where a skeletal Aerodactyl fiend warped a local dungeon and nearly mutated a Legendary. A literal Legendary.

  Tailtide had warned Lanturn and Banette of Abhorrents, and oh, were those things freaky! Not even Mystery Dungeons matched them in terms of nightmare fuel, not in her eyes. And to think, a lich monstrosity of an Aerodactyl had been mad enough to not just find, but threaten a Legendary?

  Lanturn read through the article with slow, deliberate speed, unwilling to miss a detail of this. Notes like the existence of a strange pillar in the former Rocky Shores dungeon popped out, Lanturn filing away details about the Feebas and Hattrem duo that originally found out about it, along with the Lugia engravings that suggested it was connected to the Legendary. Funny, how a Feebas of all Pokemon had been involved. But never mind that — there was also information about some silver feather apparently having been placed on the changed dungeon, now called Stormsoaked Shores. Nothing about what exactly happened between Aerodactyl and Lugia, though, only that the mutant had been repelled in time, and the flash storm that had occurred. One similar to the storm that happened almost a week back—

  Storm?

  More details about Lugia itself too. Their silvery, blue-scaled kin were said to be stormbringers and dispersers, able to control the seas, winds, and weather itself. They could whip up hurricanes and break them, create tsunamis and calm them. Through their will, disastrous weather conditions would form and break apart. It was abnormal for a Lugia to show itself, and twice too, bringing storms with it. According to the paper, it suggested that the storms were side-effects, caused by an outside force that had forced Lugia to unleash its power.

  Like the Aerodactyl.

  That feather that was placed on the dungeon pillar, it was Lugia’s, wasn’t it?

  For a long while, Lanturn stared at the paper, as if possessed. She had little knowledge of Lugia herself, having lived in Sinnoh for all of her life — the wild Pokemon in the surrounding seas weren’t too familiar with the Johtonian Legendary, and it had never come up during her time with Adam. But seeing this article, it all clicked in her head. This was no coincidence.

  An enraged rasp came from behind her. Lanturn lifted her head slightly, Banette’s trembling form taking in the newspaper article with dilated eyes. They were like miasmic orbs, burning with hex-filled wrath.

  Lanturn shot him a flat expression, and for a moment, she drew his ire. She saw the twitch in his arms, the impulse to punch something crossing his mind. Then his scowl mellowed, eyes losing their luster, and he settled for a long, silent, baneful hiss. The few Pokemon nearby snapped their heads over, concerned.

  They paid them no attention. Banette’s moment of raw hate soon passed, and he was left deflated, with nothing more than grudgeful frustration boiling inside of him. “Them,” he said, as if swallowing down a curse. “They had something to do with it.”

  Forces beyond their power to face, let alone judge. “Them,” Lanturn wistfully said.

  News on the topic became a hyperfixation for them. That day, they returned from their dungeon excursions to find bounties for the Aerodactyl. Not only him, but an honest-to-God Mew, his armored body made of prismatic crystals that made him seem like a demonic version of an otherwise cute, playful Mythical. Not only was he suspected to have a hand in creating corrupted Z-Crystals that could mutate any poor Pokemon struck by them, but he also seemed to be Aerodactyl’s supervisor — and oh, wasn’t that a dreadful thing to hear about? It made Lanturn want to faint on the spot.

  The news she learned about a day later, meanwhile, made her want to scream out of sheer joy and amazement.

  She did the next best thing instead and threw her Poke at a Dreepy paperboy, demanding the latest newspaper from the pallid ghost drake. Then rushed through the streets, giving apologies to all the startled Pokemon she may or may not have brushed past in her hurry. One of them, to her mortification, may have been a dumbstruck Tailtide.

  She shoved down the awkward feelings for later. Banette’s front door was never locked at this time of the day, Lanturn knew. She capitalized on this and slammed it open with manic force.

  “Banette!”

  The ghostly puppet sat on a plush chair in the living room of his small house, his face buried in a novel. Grimdark, obviously, but at least Banette did something with his free time. He gave Lanturn the stink eye for barging into his afternoon reading, before pausing at her intense expression.

  Lanturn gave no further preamble, slamming the newspaper onto a small table beside Banette’s chair. Even a stiff like him couldn’t help himself, shock making his eyes bulge as he took in the headline — ‘Scoop: Team Heavendust as Heroes of Stormsoaked Shores’ — and the accompanying portraits. His gaze had locked on instantly at the top-right image, depicting a serious-faced Lucario.

  Banette scrutinized the article itself, just to be sure. Then let out a heave as he noticed details about the Lucario and an Alolan Vulpix being new members of the explorer team. “No,” he said.

  Lanturn urgently tapped the portrait. “That’s him,” she whispered.

  “It’s him,” Banette dared to admit.

  “It’s Lucario! He’s freaking alive!”

  “Torterra must be fuming in heaven,” deadpanned Banette.

  “That’s your response? What, and Adam too?”

  A frown. “I rescind my earlier comment.”

  Typical Banette behavior. Bring up their late human trainer, and what little dark humor he could muster would evaporate like mist. Lanturn shook her head, staring at the newspaper with rapture. As did Banette, his zipped-up lips pursed in wonder.

  Lucario! To think that out of all of them, he too had survived the shipwreck! No, not just that — he’d even been part of the force that had repelled the Aerodactyl! She could hardly believe it.

  It has to be him. Oh my goodness, who else can it be? A moment of turmoil overwhelmed Lanturn as she worried about the chance she’d read too hard into the situation. It really is him, right? Oh, please tell me I’m not being a big dumb idiot, it’s gotta be him!

  Banette saw her brief uncertainty and sighed. “We write a letter.”

  Lanturn’s jaw went agape at Banette’s sheer brilliance, the likes of which blotted out her own light. A letter! Yes! Of course they should write a letter, that was the perfect way to confirm if it was him! That—

  “Uh, I don’t exactly know how to write,” muttered Lanturn.

  Banette looked at her like she was dense. “A scribe,” he slowly said.

  Oh. Oh! A scribe!

  “We’ll sign with initials. If it’s our Lucario, he’ll recognize our bad handwriting.” Banette raised an arm to silence Lanturn, before she could speak. “He’s seen your attempts to write L’s in the sand.”

  Embarrassment colored Lanturn’s cheeks red. “It is amusing,” Banette commented, staring at the other members of Team Heavendust. “He’s joined a team full of rare Sinnohan Pokemon. What kind of preposterous luck let him join a group with a Mythical Shaymin?”

  Lanturn had to agree, that kind of fortune was preposterous. Adam would’ve killed to meet a real life Shaymin! “And the young Alolan Vulpix?” she questioned. “The paper says Lucario’s her guardian figure — is she a shipwrecked Faller like us too? Did Lucario save her?”

  Banette stared down the Vulpix’s portrait, making a thoughtful hum. Lanturn spied the little wristband on her paw, and wondered if it was a sentimental accessory. Or maybe some magical item for exploring? But that was neither here nor there. If the Vulpix was an outsider like them, stranded here—

  Oh my goodness, I might have some girl company to relate to.

  Not that Lanturn was sure if she could get Lucario and Vulpix to come down to Swampblot Island, seeing how they were involved in an elite explorer team. Gosh, Lucario had to be enjoying himself there! But still, it was only fair to ask, wasn’t it? Maybe they could spare a visit? Maybe they’d even prefer the company of fellow Fallers over their current group?

  Well, first things first, they needed someone to write for them. “I know a few explorers at the Dungeon Board, maybe we could ask them for help with the letter?” said Lanturn, before mulling over it. “I mean, it’ll be awkward, and we’d have to be careful about what information we give away about ourselves—”

  Banette lazily pointed behind her. Lanturn paused, turned around, and felt herself turn red as she found Tailtide hanging close to the door entrance.

  “You were in quite a hurry, miss,” he said.

  Lanturn aborted all eye contact. Tailtide was kind enough to refrain from laughing, the Milotic snaking his way into the room. “I saw the news,” he said, craning his head toward the paper on Banette’s table. “You did say a Lucario was one of your comrades, mm? I’d be happy to help with a letter.”

  “Something short and snippy should serve,” Banette said, and for some dumb reason, Lanturn couldn’t help but fixate on the alliteration in his word choice. “Just a note that we’re alive.”

  “And, uh—” Lanturn reddened further at the attention both Pokemon gave her. “That he could try to meet us? At Aquamush Town?”

  Banette huffed as if it was only natural to bring such a thing up. “That I can do,” Tailtide said. “Do you have a sheet of paper on you, and a pen?”

  Before Banette could fetch those, however, Lanturn had drawn her eyes back to Tailtide, taking notice of a sealed envelope in the grasp of his eyebrow appendage. “You have a letter too?” she blurted.

  Tailtide pursed his lips, before letting out a little chuckle. “A funny story, that,” he said. “You’ve been watching the Stormsoaked Shores incident closely, yes? A tragic thing it is — I was a bit reluctant to ask, by the way, but it must be related to your shipwreck, isn’t it?” Seeing the faces Lanturn and Banette made, he calmly nodded. “Figures. Now, I didn’t look into this Abhorrent business at first, but I’ve become aware that there’s a related story about a Hattrem and Feebas, who discovered a strange pillar associated with the Legendary Lugia.”

  Lanturn took a moment to process where Tailtide was going with this, before it hit her. Her eyes went wide.

  “Thing is, my younger brother used to live in Grassbranch Island,” Tailtide went on, and Banette too seemed to jolt to life. “Around the northern side. I haven’t heard from him or his wife since the Ruptures, may God have mercy on them, and it’s curious to find a young Feebas all the way up there.”

  He eyed his letter, wistful and pensive. “If my hunch is right,” he said, “then I might have a niece.”

  They sent their letters. Two days later, and late into the night, a response letter made its way back to Banette’s mailbox.

  By itself, this was a major cause for celebration. Lanturn had jumped up in anticipation, the moment Banette knocked on her door to deliver the news. They stood right outside their door, Lanturn letting her angler bulb emit a faint light to illuminate the paper. And then Banette tore open the letter, reading the words written inside.

  On our way. Much to talk about.

  L.

  And they were worth gold in Lanturn’s eyes. Not just the crookedness of the ‘L’, a clear proof of who had signed it, but also what it meant. “They’re coming!” Lanturn exclaimed, feeling like she could do laps around the entire town. “Lucario and the Vulpix, they’re coming!”

  Banette wasn’t much of a smiler around anyone other than Adam. But he smiled, seeing the letter. “They’re coming.”

  …I’m not deeply attached to Lakehome Town anyway, so I don’t mind coming down as soon as I can. Will hitch a ride with an explorer team going the same way.

  It’s nice to know I have family somewhere. See you soon.

  Feebas.

  In his study, Tailtide chuckled, cozied up against a flat, plush seat built for his serpentine figure. He lingered on the last few sentences of the reply letter, feeling a fondness for them. For his newfound niece.

  He turned the switch off for his nightly reading lamp, letting the beautiful night shroud the room in cool, peaceful darkness. “She’s coming,” he said to himself.