PMD Rising Darkness - Chap 06

The duo entered the dungeon, excited and eager. There was dry grass everywhere and the rooms were bordered by rocky foundations. They dashed through the dungeon's rooms with great speed. They encountered a couple fire type Pokémon on the way, but nothing they couldn't handle. The enemies were weak and they took them down quite quickly.
"This is almost too easy," groaned Flare.
"Don't get overconfident. We never know what we'll find in these dungeons."
"Seriously, none of us even got hit yet."
"Right now, I'm more worried about finding the stairs... We've been roaming around this level for at least an hour and haven't found them yet," she replied, worried. Flare couldn't protest there. The fact that they couldn't find the stairs was a rather disturbing problem.
"Well, which corridor did we not go through yet?"
"I don't know... Let me see your floor map."
"Um, floor map? Oh yeah! Um, just wait a sec..." he said as he dug through the treasure bag. "Um.... I think we lost it..."
"What?!" she yelled exasperated. "So, you're telling me is that on top of having no idea where the stairs are, you misplaced the floor map we drew which was our only chance to save time?"
"Um... Yeah," admitted Flare, embarrassed.
"Okay... Well, let's just keep moving... We'll find the stairs eventually..." She appeared calm in this situation, but she was irritated by what just happened. She started sketching another floor map as they wandered around the floor.
"Weird... The floors of this dungeon seem much bigger than the average one, don't you think?" remarked Lyra. Flare looked at the endless field that surrounded them.
"Yeah, it does." he sighed, and wondered, "is that what the map says?"
"Yeah... I'm running out of room to write this down, actually... Anyway, let's head over there. I don't think we were there yet." Her partner nodded in response, and they went towards the passageway.
"FINALLY!" yelled Flare as they saw the faraway silhouette of the stairs. They both ran towards it, eager to move on. "Just three more to go now," he moaned when they started climbing them.
"We might get lucky next time. That's another great thing in these dungeons. You never know what's going to happen!"
"Yeah... For the better or the worse..." he replied, thinking back at their misadventure in Palane Forest.
"Look, see?" the Sandslash exclaimed, "The stairs are right over there!" They started walking, their confidence up again, but it soon got cut off as Lyra heard a blunt sound when she stepped on something.
"This can't be good..."
In a matter of seconds, she disappeared. Flare didn't know what to think as a wave of fear invaded him. He approached the area where she vanished.
"Damn it!" he yelled when he understood what had happened, his fear replaced with anger. She stepped right on a warp trap. "Great... Just when things couldn't get any worse," he sighed. "Well I guess I'll wait for her next to the stairs..."


The ground type got up slowly, letting out small coughs. She looked around, trying to find out what happened. Nothing was the same, she couldn't see the stairs anywhere and the room she was in was much smaller. That's when she realized she fell into a trap. Another problem was that she didn't have the treasure bag and therefore didn't have any items to help her. Without waiting any longer, she started exploring on her own, hoping to find her partner soon. She trailed off and didn't seem to be getting closer to the stairs. Only, she started worrying when she heard an odd noise coming from a corner nearby.
"Who's there?" she yelped, worried, as hiding wasn't part of the local Pokémon's habits. Obviously, there was no answer. She kept staring at the area for a couple seconds, and then kept walking, constantly looking everywhere. Someone was following her and she knew it. She noticed a dark blue item far away. She strode toward it, curious as to what it was. It was a regular orb. There was a symbol on it allowing the ground type to identify the item. It was a radar orb.
"Finally, luck is turning!" she thought blissfully as she used the orb, creating a huge burst of light. She now felt a figure nearby, behind her. Now aware of the lurker's position, she kept going on slowly, bracing herself for the imminent encounter. She went through another narrow passageway that gave, to her own disappointment, to another empty stretch of grass. She sighed once more and began searching for another passageway she hadn't explored yet. Before she got to move further, she felt the presence drawing nearer. Whoever it was, he was very close by. But Lyra couldn't see anything anywhere. Extremely cautious, she walked very slowly and was ready to dodge anything that would jump at her. Before she knew it, a Pokémon leapt from the grass at full speed in her direction, and she barely managed to avoid the blow.
"You?!! Here?!" shouted Lyra angrily.
"Long time no see, my dear," snickered the individual. It was Artemis standing in front of her. Only this time, he seemed more enraged than ever.
"How did you find us here?!"
"You didn't think that I wouldn't come back to reclaim what is mine, did you? It was child's play, really. From far away, I observed the exploration guilds around. That Gabite's one was the closest to Palane Forest so I figured I'd stalk that one first. As soon as I saw you, I just followed you here. Now, before anyone gets badly hurt, return to me what is mine!" he spoke, serious again.
"What are you talking about? You're going to kill us anyway! I don't even have your items! And even if I did, I'd never give them back to you. You shall never harm Lugia, and I'll do everything I can to prevent that!" she declared, taking a battle stance.
"W-... What? How did you know about Lugia?" wondered Artemis, confused.
"Very simple answer. The Armaldo you faced that night wasn't dead and put a bounty on your head. Everyone knows that you have the Silver Flute."
Artemis stared at her in utter disbelief. "It... It can't be!!!" He was infuriated now. "That Armaldo DIED! I saw it with my own eyes! There's no way he can still be alive!!" As soon as he finished his sentence, he charged full speed at Lyra and unleashed an X-Scisor attack. Before she had time to realize what was happenening, Artemis followed up with a Giga Impact attack that went right to her gut, sending her flying against the rocky walls. She got up coughing and very weakened. Artemis stood in front of her, apparently exhausted and panting heavily. She took advantage of the situation and her type advantage and used a Rock Slide attack on him and created a sandstorm instants later. His senses regained, he looked around frantically. Despite his lower vision, he managed to identify the Sandslash's silhouette and pounced once again towards her, preparing another X-Scisor attack. She barely managed to dodge it and countered with a Slash attack.
"That's it, I'm finished with games now!" he asserted and launched a Hyper Beam attack. She did not see the attack coming and got stuck inside the intense beam of light, receiving massive damage. The beam lasted a couple seconds. There was nothing she could do now. Too weak to keep fighting, she fell face forward, her energy abandoning her. He was simply too strong. Despite her type advantage, she alone was no match for him. The sandstorm stopped a few seconds later. The victorious Pokémon snickered, satisfied with his easy victory, when he saw his opponent on the floor. He walked towards her and realized she was still conscious, but unable to move.
"I'm gonna ask only once. Where are my items?" He placed one of his blades right in front of her to show her how serious he was. She didn't show it, but she was scared to death. She remained silent, almost on the verge of crying. Artemis started to get impatient and repeated his question in a much more serious tone. She still didn't answer. Artemis sighed as he raised his blade for the final blow.
She knew what was coming. For nothing in the world would she have betrayed Flare, even less Lugia. If she had to die to keep either of them from suffering, she was ready to do so.
All of a sudden, she heard a yelp of pain. She barely managed to look up, and saw the Scyther was hit by an ember attack.
"...Flare?"
"Don't you dare touch her again!" the Vulpix growled, standing with a menacing look. Scyther noticed the fox and recognized his treasure bag.
"So you're the one who has it!" Not losing any time, he dashed towards him with a cut attack in mind. The fire type anticipated the attack, but still got hit on his hind leg. He lost no time and countered with another Ember attack. Once again, Scyther roared in pain as the fire burnt him. Already weakened from his battle with Lyra, he had a hard time to keep up. His type disadvantage didn't help much either. He decided it was best for him to retreat. He knew where they were now anyway.
"Don't let this second victory get to your head. I'll get those items back whether you like it or not!" he said before flying off once again. Flare was relieved and ran towards his friend.
"Lyra! You okay?!"
"Yeah... I'll make it..."
Flare dug through the treasure bag and gave her an Oran Berry. In a matter of seconds, she felt her strength coming back to her and she stood back up on her two feet again, her body heavily bruised and scraped.
"Thanks... I needed that..." she said, almost embarrassed at what had happened.
"Anytime. You would have done the same for me, so... But what happened, exactly? How did he find us?"
"Well, I fell into a warp trap, and when I was trying to find my way back, he attacked me... He said he followed us from the guild, so basically, he knows where we are and will keep following us everywhere we go..."
"Damn... This is bad. Well, let's worry about this later; we really should finish the mission first," he said with a reassuring tone, noticing that Lyra was still frightened at what had happened. As they headed back towards the staircase, the Sandslash was wondering something.
"Say Flare, how did you find me back there?"
"Well, I was waiting for you to come back to the stairs when I heard these awkward sounds from the room right next to me. I figured I'd go take a look, and that's when I found you..." He paused briefly. "I think we got really lucky once again..."
"Tell me about it."


They climbed up to the fourth floor fairly quickly after that. They found the item in question and left the dungeon proud and victorious. When they got out, they didn't realize it was almost night time. They hurried back to the guild, where they received their client.
"Thank you so much for bringing back my Wonder Gummi! I really needed it! You have my eternal gratitude!"
"No problem at all!" articulated the ground type, blushing a little bit, "We were happy to help!"
"As a reward, I want you to have this reviver seed and these 1 000 Poké."
"You serious?" marveled Flare in disbelief, "That seems like a lot compared to what we actually did."
"No, not at all! You really deserve it! I'm eternally grateful for what you did."
"Congratulations Team SolarQuake! You proved yourselves well in this mission! We're more than glad to have you here!" Jake suddenly said, with his usual enthusiastic voice, "Just, as you probably know, we have to take a part of the rewards our explorations teams get. We need it to keep everyone here accommodated."
"Oh, well, we understand. How much of the reward do you take?"
"In this case, we'll just take 600 Poké. As we aren't a guild of significant importance yet, we don't need that much money to finance this place."
"Okay, thanks a lot Jake!" said Lyra, satisfied with the answer. "Okay, bye Minun! We have to go now."
"Thanks again!" he said before leaving the guild's locals.
Then, the duo went towards the Vibrava.
"Hey Jake, we need to see the guildmaster about an important issue, is he free right now? Or is he too busy?"
"Um... Right now, it should be fine. I'll go ask him, wait here please." He came back two minutes later. "Okay, he's ready to receive you. Please go in."
"Thank you Jake!" The duo headed inside, ready to explain everything to the guildmaster.