FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Grumpy found that he attracted couch surfers a bit like food attracted stray Wingull. It seemed that no matter where he went or what he did, he always seemed to find an admittedly pleasant Pokemon who was hellbent on giving him company no matter how much he protested. So common was it at this point that he'd given up on putting locks on his door, having gotten tired of repairing the abused wood whenever someone broke through it.

Case in point was the electrical hybrid currently lounging on his couch, waiting patiently for him to finish fixing dinner. The Lucario-Toxitricity-Arctozolt (Lucazolty, as she had told him was easier to say) had stuck to him a bit like static cling stuck to socks ever since she'd crashed in on the lake outside his usual den, and had thus followed him back to his little apartment home in Holon City as well. To her credit, she was at least much more polite and respectful than most of his unexpected house guests, asking before taking his food and generally keeping the mess to a minimum. Equally amusing had been seeing her fascination at the apartment when they'd first arrived, the concept of an abandoned human dwelling leaving her with endless questions and curiosities. But as nice as her company had been, he had no particular idea what to do with her when the guild notified him of his team's next mission, the expedition expected to take days if not weeks to complete. It was a topic he had waited to broach until tonight, and one he was continuing to keep to himself as he finished cooking their meal.

The Delta Typhlosion looked up when he heard his latest guest topple the stack of books that had previously been sitting beside the couch, opening the one that had been on the bottom to study the stories and diagrams that were recorded inside. It was a catalog of the different areas around Holon, he realized, one of his first primers on how much things had changed in the area since humans had left and what was still around after the original disaster. The maps in particular seemed to interest her the most, which upon reflection didn't really surprise him. She had been a nomad prior to deciding to tag along with him, and he was sure that having a layout of the area would only encourage her to poke around further. Of course, the fallen books miffed him just a bit, but he could overlook it - she had done her best to be considerate so far, and he could forgive little slip ups.

Either the anger management courses were helping, or the Lucazolty was just sweet enough to take her brand of mayhem with a grain of salt. Maybe both.

Pulling the pan off the stove, he turned and reached towards the cabinet for a pair of bowls, ladling some of the pasta he'd prepared into each before bringing her one of them with a makeshift fork. Aella looked up from the maps and charts as he approached, reaching for the bowl with a soft smile that he couldn't help but return. He turned around to snag his own bowl before walking over to sit down beside her, looking over the book she was examining with casual curiosity.

"Planning where you want to go next?" he asked, lifting his bowl and slurping at the noodles as she continued looking over the book. She didn't answer for a long moment, turning the page before realizing that he'd asked her a question.

"I mean, not immediately. I've been enjoying this, being able to see an old human city up close. But... I mean, I don't think I'll ever be satisfied until I've seen everything I can see. And there's just so much in the world to see!" The excitement she had about it was clear in her eyes, twinkling like little sparks that he couldn't help but smile at. "But I was looking at the maps you have, and I'm getting excited to see some of these spots in person. I was actually wondering if you'd show me around some of these, it seems like you have some of these places marked for yourself." He looked a little more closely at the maps and noticed that indeed he had, little red marks of places he'd wanted to explore or had already explored.

"Well, actually, I wanted to talk to you about that," he said, licking a noodle off of his muzzle as he tried to figure out how to phrase things. "So, you remember I told you that I was part of the Lighthouse Guild here, right?" She nodded, cocking her head up at him as he continued. "Well, there's a mission that's come up that's going to take me off into the wilds for a good while. So if you want to-"

"Well yeah, of course I'll tag along!" Aella's response actually stupefied Grumpy, leaving him unable to speak for a moment as she happily continued eating her noodles without an issue.

"I- I mean, I was thinking more that you could have done some wandering but- I mean, are you sure? Things can get pretty tough on these kinds of missions, especially for my team. They usually send us to-" The Lucazolty shook her head, cutting him off by putting a fist full of noodles in his muzzle.

"Grumpy, I've been a nomad for years now. I've gotten into my fair share of scrapes, and I'm still around and strong enough to bounce your cute booty all over the house. I'm pretty sure I can handle tagging along on one of your missions." Well. With confidence like that, there wasn't much he could say to sway her, and she could certainly back up her words. Just tying her down was an exercise of an afternoon, and even then he only succeeded when she wanted him to. Trying to imagine anything being both strong and shrewd enough to put her in a corner?

Heck, maybe she might just take his position on the team. He couldn't help but smirk at that idea.

Thus settled, Aella was content to lean over into her bulky friend and eat her bowl of pasta, turning the page of the open book with one of her hind paws as they reclined together. It was a nice feeling, being able to relax for once and share a meal without expecting his own bowl to be stolen out of his hands. He nearly had relaxed himself completely when the Lucazolty suddenly pounced on and over him, running back towards the bedroom abruptly to go and find whatever had just come to mind. There was another crash, one that made him flinch and then sigh with resignation.

"I'm gonna get the cuffs out again!" he threatened.

"Like those ever work!" she shouted back. He got up, lumbering his way back to the bedroom after her, and the apartment across the hall could hear her yelping and screaming alongside his crashing into the walls as he indulged her horseplay once more.

Despite her insistence that she would be fine waking up early to report in to the guild hall, Grumpy ended up having to carry Aella on his shoulders all the way there. The sleepy hybrid complained the whole time, of course, insisting that they could have slept five more minutes just fine, to which he pointed out that her idea of five minutes was much closer to half an hour. She had been pacified for a bit by a quick stop to the bakery, grabbing them both a pastry and a coffee before carrying on towards the lighthouse at the center of the city. He was surprised to find that the rest of his team had not reported when he did, though the guild's leader was quick to answer his unasked question.

"Grumpy, I'm glad you found yourself a contract partner," she greeted them as she entered the meeting room, causing him to raise an eyebrow at the Delta Latias. "The rest of your team had to be deployed early, the situation ended up being a bit more volatile than we initially expected. You and your partner will be expected to go and provide support, and to make sure that the target artifact is returned undamaged." As usual, Cylestia hadn't specified what the artifact in question was, only that it was at the center of a new Mystery Dungeon and had been agitating the surrounding Pokemon in the area ever since it's activation. The Zygarde core that she was harboring seemed to be informing her of the nature of the situation by sense alone, the fragmented Pokemon more in tune with nature than most even with the Delta distortions in the area. Cryptic though she usually was, Grumpy had come to trust her judgement and had no reason not to do so here.

Aella seemed not to mind one way or another, both too sleepy and not invested enough in the guild's policies to raise too many questions. She simply contented herself with munching on breakfast as Cylestia walked Grumpy through the mapped out areas, supplying a copy of the map to his communicator for reference as well as supplies for the journey. It all seemed pretty straight forward as far as Grumpy could tell, with little to get in the way other than the Mystery Dungeon. So of course, the Delta Typhlosion expected no end of complications and issues just to be safe. Before they headed out of the meeting room, Cylestia turned her attention to the Lucazolty resting on his shoulders with a cocked eye.

"Aella, was it? Please do your best to assist Grumpy with this. We appreciate your help, and I get the impression you're at least half as fond of the grouchy bastard as I am. We're happy to have you working with us." Grumpy found his cheeks glowing just a bit as he took his leave, Aella playfully nuzzling into his neck as he walked.

"I dunno, Grumpy. Seems like you have a lot of folks who care about you here. I guess I'll have to make sure you come back in one piece, huh?" Grumpy chuckled at that, turning to give her a quick peck on the cheek and take a bite of her donut as he headed down the stairs.

"I'm pretty durable, you know. I'm sure you've figured that one out by now. I think I'm a bit more concerned about keeping you out of trouble." She gave him an innocent look but didn't respond one way or the other, not wanting to promise him anything she wouldn't hold to. Instead, she reached down into his bag to pull out his communicator, tapping around on the screen until the map they'd been given popped up once more and studying it as they stepped out the back exit into the morning sunshine outside.

"So we're heading down south, is that right?" She pointed to the area on the southern part of the island that had been highlighted, indicating the general area that the artifact had been seen in last. "That's not too far from that little valley you circled on your maps. I wonder if the locals have heard anything about this special whats-it-called that your boss wants us to find?" He was hard-pressed to say he wasn't impressed at her intuition, and even more so at her ability to remember the maps from the night before.

"You really are quite the handy navigator, aren't you?" he praised, lumbering off down the street towards the caravan stations at the edge of town. "Yes, it seems like this thing is somewhere around the Hidden Valley, and the local Alphas down there aren't exactly happy about the mess it's causing if the reports are correct. They haven't had much Mystery Dungeon activity in quite some time, and the mess it's causing has a lot of uncertainty going on. The sooner we can get that artifact back and close the dungeon, the better it'll be for everyone."

"But don't they have their own guilds down there? Or whoever would be the ones to keep the area peaceful?" Aella cocked her head curiously, figuring most places had some kind of defenders if they were populated enough.

"They have freelancers, but the area never developed a proper guild. Not to mention that the Badlands has a lot of muscle for hire whenever stuff starts getting dicey. This is just a little beyond their depth, and we're the ones with the most experience with this sort of mayhem. I wouldn't expect them to roll out the red carpet per se, with as proud as they are of being able to defend their own little home. But we have a contact in the area who works with us and Salt City from time to time, and they've agreed to be a point of contact if we need any help."

"Sounds about right," Aella sighed as they made their way down the street. "Too stuck in their ways to accept help from outsiders. I'm glad they have at least a few Pokemon who can be reasonable."

"Yeah, the Hidden Valley never had much of an 'open communication' sort of thing. Even though the legendary who protects the area tries to be welcoming to a diverse group, the Pokemon who live there tend to want to keep their community in a certain way, and with just certain Pokemon. You should see the kinds of hell that our contact and his partner have raised in the past though." A rare smirk crossed his face as he thought about some of the stories he'd heard from the Ninetales, looking forward to catching up with him and his poisonous mate when they arrived.

Luckily for the pair, there was a caravan assembling to head for the Hidden Valley when they arrived at the station, several wagons loaded down with supplies and what seemed to be mostly merchants heading down to do some trading with their southern neighbors. There was plenty of room for the pair to squeeze in on one of the wagons without too many questions asked, the station owners familiar enough with the Typhlosion and with the guild to accept that they were traveling on business and leave it at that. Grumpy was personally very happy about the whole arrangement, being able to skip the long walk and catch some extra sleep on the day-long ride. Aella, on the other hand, was less enthusiastic. She'd been looking forward to the chance to walk the path herself, wanting to see what might be out and around to satisfy her restless curiosity.

"Are you sure we can't just hike there?" she asked, hanging over the edge of the wagons as they got ready to get rolling. "There's so many interesting things that should be between here and there!"

"We're on a bit of a time crunch, Aella." The Lucazolty pouted, and Grumpy shook his head. "Once we've got this issue sorted out, we can take the long way home, ok? I promise, we'll visit all of the spots you were interested in on that map." It was a compromise, but one that seemed to satisfy Aella for now. She sat back down on the seat next to him, still keeping her eyes on their surroundings as the caravan started to roll on down the road. Grumpy had to admit, it was endearing how much she loved to see new areas, her wanderlust somewhat infectious. Before long, he was looking out over the edge of the wagon with her, pointing out odd rock formations of mysterious-looking paths that they would have to remember to check out on the way back.

Thus occupied, the trip southward seemed to go by much quicker than usual, the caravan making good time under the clear blue skies. They stopped once for lunch, Grumpy exchanging a few coins for some sandwiches from the driver for he and Aella to snack on before setting off once more. The way things looked around them, you could tell where the Holon Disaster's radius ended and normal landscape resumed - it was almost hard to imagine any sort of distortions being in the area the further south they went. With such good conditions and the speed of the Rapidashes who carried the carts forward, it was a little before mid afternoon when Grumpy finally noticed the landscape starting to change once more. Rolling fields slowly disappeared into growing tree canopies as the terrain started to gently slope upwards, the first indication of the tall hills and low valleys that gave the area it's name. And as the trees grew in number, so too did Grumpy start to see unnatural growths starting to spiral towards a point off to the east of them, as if beckoning in the unawares to the lair of something terrible.

The caravan station they stopped at was at a crossroads in the woods, with the Badlands sprawling out to the west and the Hidden Valley settlement properly situated further south still. Grumpy and Aella both thanked the drivers for their help as they broke off from the group of merchants and travelers, taking some time to observe the map on Grumpy's communicator as they planned their next course of action. So caught up were they that they didn't notice a stack of foxes weaving through the small crowd towards them.

"See, Fena? I told you, he's pretty hard to miss." Grumpy looked up to see a familiar cream-colored Ninetales and smiled, doubly so at the purple-hued Eevee perched on his head.

"I mean yeah, I guess. Not often you see a fire badger with those kinds of marks on his back. What is it with you and making tall friends!?" The Delta Eevee's comments only made Grumpy laugh as he turned to meet the pair, Fena seeming to perch just a bit higher on Alexi's head to better make eye contact with the pair.

"Alexi, I didn't think you'd be so quick to meet up with us. And this must be your new partner, I presume?" He offered a friendly paw, which Fena was quick to shake with both of hers just to try and prove a point. What point? Details. "This is Aella. She's working with me to solve this one as quickly as possible." Alexi couldn't help but raise an eyebrow at that, giving him a sly smile.

"New partner of your own hmm? Looks like you're quite lucky to have her along too!" Grumpy was quick to tap the Ninetales on the muzzle, more worried about offending Aella than actually offended, but Aella seemed to take the comment in stride.

"Well, look at him. Big and tough but absolutely no way he's fast enough to cover his own back if there's any speedy threats around. Of course he's lucky to have me to keep him safe." One elbow found Grumpy's ribs as the group shared a small chuckle at that, the tension from the offhand question diffused almost immediately. "Seems like everyone must have their hands pretty full if they sent the welcome wagon all the way out here though. The map they gave us says that the Hidden Valley is still a bit further on." Grumpy found himself impressed at the speed at which Aella adapted to the situation, getting right to the matter at hand without being too abrasive about it and even making a point he hadn't considered.

"M'afraid that's the gist of it, yeah," Alexi affirmed, Fena nodding on top of his head as well. "Grumpy, your team went into the distortion late yesterday afternoon, and no one has heard from them since."

"And it seems like there's just more and more strange Pokemon coming out of that distortion as well," Fena added. "Alexi and I have had our hands full trying to keep them corralled in the forest along with some of the folks from the Badlands. If things keep getting more and more out of hand though, we're really going to have quite a problem on our paws. I even heard that Ho-oh herself is getting involved, if that tells you much at all." Grumpy frowned at that. For a Legendary Pokemon to be moved to action over what seemed to have been just a small distortion was quite the decision, never mind that his own team's disappearance was worrying as well. His team was well-known for being among the strongest and most capable in the Lighthouse Guild, not easily taken down without a fight.

"Aella and I will get to work then. Just keep doing your best to cover us while we head in, last thing we need is to close the distortion and come back to a hoard of crazy Pokemon the moment we walk out." He looked to Aella with a hint of concern in his eyes, silently wondering if she knew this was what she'd be signing on for. But Aella looked undaunted by the task, simply smiling reassuringly back at him.

"Don't you worry. Grumpy and I will have this whole mess sorted out by the nightfall, just you wait. No crazy Pokemon are gonna be a match for us!" Alexi and Fena seemed to share a knowing look before nodding to the duo, Fena hopping over to Grumpy's shoulder to mess with his communicator for a moment.

"...There. Ok, that should have linked you to us, so if you need any help just give us a shout."

"Be careful, and good luck. We'll keep your backs covered." Fena leapt back over to Alexi, and the two took their leave back towards the distorted forest without further ado. As they left, Grumpy looked once more at Aella with a steely resolve in his eyes. The Lucazolty met his gaze calmly, just as ready for what lay ahead as he was.

"Shall we, then?"

The forest around them was eerily quiet for the most part, all of the natural sounds of Pokemon moving around or talking absent as they moved into the Mystery Dungeon that had spawned from the artifact's distorting properties. The only thing that broke up the sound of their paws breaking through the grass and leaves below them were the occasional shouts and sounds of battle that echoed from behind them, signs of the locals holding the line. Grumpy kept his guard up as they walked inwards, Aella studying the map until it started to lose signal as the magnetic waves around them interfered with it's internal GPS. Just as the map lost their position entirely, they broke through the trees into an almost box-like clearing, the grassy forest floor seemingly cleared away of all the foliage within. The trees around the clearing too seemed to close tighter together than they had so far, only leaving archway-like gaps in-between that seemed to lead into narrow corridors beyond.

"Looks like this is the place," Grumpy grumbled as he stepped forward, looking around the first room of the Dungeon as Aella stepped up next to him. "Try to stay close. Most of these rooms tend to be pretty normal, but I've seen more than a few that end up booby-trapped. Hopefully the Dungeon hasn't grown to be too big already, and we can make short work of finding the center." Aella nodded, moving over to the far side of the room to pick up a fallen apple.

"At least we won't be starving anytime soon," she said as she held the hefty fruit in her paws, sniffing at it a moment before judging it safe enough to eat. Grumpy nodded and moved forward towards the arch directly ahead of them to look down the path, seeing if he could make out how far away the room beyond would be. There didn't seem to be any hostile Pokemon approaching from that direction at least, and he could reasonably see the room beyond without straining too much. Probably safe enough.

"Come on, this way," he called to Aella before walking through the arch, taking slow measured steps down the unnatural hallway and checking the ground in front of them as he went. Traps in Mystery Dungeons weren't always visible to the naked eye, but kicking dirt over them would usually reveal them without setting them off, giving him a chance to disable them before they could go off. So far, it seemed like they were in the clear, though the Typhlosion was rarely one to let his guard down. Even though the distortions didn't grow more challenging until deeper in, overconfidence had cost many a rescue team an embarrassing failure or worse.

The room that opened up to them beyond the arched tunnel was larger than the last, with several dropped items scattered around. Aella broke off to check on one side of the room, where a glass orb and another apple were dropped in one corner, while Grumpy moved to inspect a bundle of sticks that seemed to have been left behind on the other. Aella made sure to take the same precautions she had seen her partner taking, kicking up dust with every few steps and thankfully finding nothing revealed. Grumpy too found nothing between him and the stick pile, which only made him more suspicious with how much stuff seemed to have been left behind. The sticks turned out to be... well, sticks, but Grumpy picked them up all the same, finding them useful for triggering traps from afar or hitting opposing Pokemon in the face. Aella, meanwhile, picked up the apple as well as what seemed to be an orb that reflected the entrance to the distortion.

"Hey Grumpy, what's this for?" She held the orb up to him, and Grumpy made his way over her to better inspect the found item. Turning it over in his hands for a moment, he handed it back to her with an almost relieved look.

"It's a Return Orb. If you crush it, it'll return us back to the start of this distorted area. So in short, an emergency button of sorts we can use if we get in over our heads." Aella nodded and put it in Grumpy's pack carefully, not wanting to set the apparently important item off early before turning her attention back to the paths to their left and right.

"Well, so far so good, I guess? Very quiet though. I expected things to be crazier, the way you were talking about this place." Grumpy nodded his agreement, though he didn't say anything more about it right away as he walked back over to the right. Kicking up the dust near the arched tunnel, a small pressure plate was exposed in the ground, waiting for an unaware explorer to stumble blindly over it. He stepped back and pulled one of the sticks out of his bag, throwing the wood at the at the pressure plate before diving away.

"Grumpy wha-" Aella's question was cut off as the trap exploded, thankfully not doing them any damage as they got out of the way. The Lucazolty looked shocked at just how dangerous the explosive trap could have been, but Grumpy just brushed himself off as if nothing special had happened. "What the heck was that?!"

"Explosive trap. They do a pretty nasty bit of damage, but they usually aren't strong enough to be more than painful. Bad if you take too many of them to the face though, especially with some of the other traps that tend to show up in these kinds of dungeons. Just keep on your guard, sometimes you can even use them to your advantage if we get cornered." Grumpy seemed calm enough about the whole thing that Aella couldn't help but take him at his word about it, relaxing a bit as she looked at the now-singed archway through the trees.

"I guess that's probably the way we should go then, if there was a trap there. Means there's gotta be something good on the other side, right?" Grumpy only shrugged.

"Sometimes. But these distortions are honestly very random, and hard to predict. It's a big part of what makes them so dangerous, the fact that they don't need to follow any rhyme or reason in their structure." He looked at the path critically, as if debating with himself before continuing. "That being said, this particular distortion is still recent, so I can't imagine the dungeon around it is very complex yet. Probably not a bad idea to go and see what's on the other side of that tunnel, just to be safe." The two exchanged a nod and made their way into the narrow passageway once again, Aella kicking dirt up perhaps a bit more vigorously than before after having seen the sorts of dangers that could be hidden in the floor.

The next room was intersected by a large pool of water, deep enough that Grumpy himself couldn't safely cross it without risking being caught at a disadvantage by any aggressive Pokemon they might encounter. Aella, however, found it easily navigable and had no issue diving into the pool while Grumpy explored the dry ground bordering it. There seemed to be even more dropped items around, as well as more evidence of some fierce battles that had recently happened. What bothered Grumpy wasn't the aftermath so much as the lack of fainted Pokemon nearby. It meant that either the fights had ended in such a way as to let the combatants disengage and walk away, or...

Well, he didn't want to consider the other option.

Picking through the discarded items laying around, Grumpy didn't see anything particularly useable or valuable to be found, just a bunch of discarded healing items that had been depleted and damaged equipment among the scorch and claw marks that seemed to have been left by the hostile Pokemon within the area. Looking back to Aella, she seemed to be having similar luck finding anything of note, swimming back towards him and shaking the water out of her fur that left Grumpy a bit damper for the trouble.

From this room, there was only one exit leading in a new direction, the archway twice as wide as the one that had brought them here. This was both reassuring and worrying to Grumpy. On one hand, it meant they had more room to maneuver around between the two chambers, but it also left more openings for traps or for enemies to surround them. The corridor was also much longer than the previous two, forking off to the right at a sharp angle that made it hard to see what lay beyond. Still, it seemed to lead the deepest thus far into the depths of the dungeon - hopefully to the next level, or to the Pokemon who had come before them.

Aella's ears kept twitching as they went down the long corridor, feeling like they were coming up on something big but not being able to put her finger on why. Nothing in particular was waiting for them around the corner of the corridor, though another bend turned off to the left once again. The longer they walked, the more uneasy Aella got, and it seemed that Grumpy shared the feeling with every dirt-kicked step.

The corridor led at last to another large room, though there was no deeper-leading staircase waiting within. Rather, to both Grumpy and Aella's surprise, there was simply the artifact they were looking for, sitting on the ground like just another random item. It seemed as if the distortion hadn't had enough time to spread further, and they'd lucked out in taking the right turns to get to the end of the road in record time.

It was too easy.

Grumpy realized too late that they were stepping into a trap, the entire thing sprung the moment they stepped into the room. From all sides, Pokemon seemed to drop down from the canopy above to surround them, all seeming enlarged and enraged by some kind of dark energy. Immediately, Grumpy moved to put himself between the nearest Pokemon and Aella, one arm raising up to block a swift Karate Chop from the Machoke in front of him and the other swinging in with a swift Ice Punch to knock it back. Not giving them the chance to advance, the Typhlosion's white flames erupting from his back as he unleashed a white-hot gout of flame.

Behind him, he heard roars of pain and felt the tingle of lightning bolts from behind him, Aella clearly leaping into action as well to join the fight. He looked over his shoulder to make sure she was ok, relieved to see the Lucazolty blasting the closest of her own enemies with heavy bursts of electricity. Focusing again on the Pokemon in front of him, Grumpy ducked and weaved under a flurry of blows coming from the Machoke as he got back onto his feet, ramming his elbow into the Zoroark that tried to sneak up behind him to knock him back as he tried to close in on the artifact on the floor.

Frustratingly, these possessed Pokemon just didn't seem to want to stay down, taking far more punishment than expected to leave them face down on the floor. Moreover, they just seemed to keep coming, even if they seemed to have lost their ability or will to use more elemental attacks when they were taken control of. Instead, they seemed to be leaning in to total bloodlust, raging with wild swipes and heavy strikes that were meant to do more than maim. Knowing that they couldn't afford to drag the fight out too long, he braced himself as he resorted instead to the coldest pits of loneliness in his chest.

Flaring up once more, his eyes took on an icy glow as the air around him rapidly started to cool, energy gathering under him as he called on a power left to him by Kyurem. With a roar, he struck the ground with both paws, unleashing a wave of cold around him with such force as to make ice crystals start forming on their fur and skin, slowing them down dramatically as they began to Glaciate. The powerful attack certainly helped to level the battlefield for himself and Aella, giving her more room to get around their slowed attacks and launch a few of her own while he held them in place, but even then they still continued to press in. Focused on the attack, Grumpy wasn't able to block a sweeping strike from a Armaldo, knocked across the room by it's overpowered strike.

He grunted as he hit the ground, managing to stop his roll and make it back to his feet to find Aella had moved to cover him in turn, her own quick paws pushing back against the encroaching hoard with electrical bolts of energy. Another Machoke tried to blindside her, only to have Grumpy intercept it with an ice-bound fist as he moved to cover her back. matching her lightning attacks with bursts of ice and flame to buy them space to maneuver towards the artifact once more. With their combined strength, they slowly started to turn the tide against the group of Pokemon around them, though Grumpy could tell that they wouldn't be able to keep this pace up forever. They had come so close to grabbing the crystalized item laying on the ground when a Haxxorous came barreling through one of the corridors, axe jaws swinging at them with clear malice in it's eyes. Without thinking, both Aella and Grumpy reached together for their own inner powers, and in that moment shocked each other and the whole room around them with what they found.

Aella's mane sparked to life, crackling with high-powered discharge as Grumpy's own flame vents flared up with a painfully cold burst of energy. Both of them leaned into the swell of energy that seemed to be reverberating between them, focusing their attention on the approaching Haxxorous before letting loose seemingly at once. There was a dazzling flash that filled the room as the pair seemed to explode with a combination of ice and electrical power, coating the area around them in permafrost as lightning lanced through the air at the Haxxorous as well as whatever other Pokemon had tried to join the charge. The resounding crack of thunder that followed seemed to shatter the ice in it's wake, sending razor sharp shards flying through the air to the agonized sounds of every Pokemon they struck.

In the wake of their combined attack, both Grumpy and Aella found themselves slumping to the ground in exhaustion. The whole room was full of fainted Pokemon, covered in electrical burns and frost and bleeding from deep cuts as well, and the artifact sitting between them looking somewhat damaged from the outburst as well. Breathing hard, he looked to Aella, glad to see her looking no worse for the wear than some minor cuts and bruises.

"Was that all?" she panted, giving him a cocky smile as she started to get back to her feet. "I was expecting more than that, with as much as you and the rest of your guild was going on."

"Was that all..." Grumpy grumbled in response, picking up the damaged artifact and tucking it into his bag. "I don't know how much more we could have dealt with, if we're being honest. Those Shadow Pokemon certainly pack quite the nasty punch. But at least we got what we came for, and hopefully taking it out of here will disrupt the distortion enough to make the Mystery Dungeon dissipate. From there, hopefully the lost Pokemon that got sucked in will come out, and the Shadow Energy should be able to dissipate."

"What if it doesn't?" Aella asked, looking at all the fainted but still very corrupt Pokemon around them.

"Well, if it's set that deep, then that's where Yuki will come in with Shawn and clean up the mess. From what I understand, the two of them figured out a way to push the Shadow Energy out of its victims and back into one of the recovered artifacts. I won't pretend I understand how it works, but it should and that's what matters." Pulling the Return orb out of his bag, he offered the item to Aella with a smile. "Since you saved my behind, I think it's only fair that you get to get us out of here."

It was always a strange sensation to feel himself yanked through space when one of the Return Orbs were crushed, returning him to where they'd first stepped into the distortion. As he'd hoped, the woods were already starting to untangle themselves from around each other, the walls and corridors starting to fade away as his vision cleared up. Without the distorting artifact to anchor the Dungeon, he could see Pokemon already starting to reappear from where the Dungeon had swallowed them up. Aella seemed equally fascinated by the changes starting, though they were both pulled out of their reverie by Alexi and Fena shouting for them.

"Hey! There you two are!" Grumpy raised a tired paw to greet them as they raced over, Fena bouncing just a bit on Alexi's head due to his less-than-graceful gait. "We were just starting to worry! We lost contact with your communicator hours ago, are you both alright?" Winded, Grumpy could only nod at the pair, falling onto his butt as he let himself relax at last.

"Yeah, I think we're ok. Aella's quite the force of nature when she's properly motivated, saved my butt and then some." Aella just pet Grumpy's head before flopping down next to him, still feeling just as worn out by the joint attack they'd unleashed. "How about the others? Are the medics on the way?"

"Looks like it, yeah. As soon as the distortion started to crumble, a bunch of fainted Pokemon started to come out of the wood works. Cleo and Tristian are already trying to pull the uncorrupted Pokemon to the medic camps, and I think Tyma and Candy are keeping an eye on the Shadow Pokemon that got knocked on their asses." Grumpy looked over to confirm that the list of names had gone straight over Aella's head, making a mental note to introduce her to the Pokemon who had come to help them once things calmed down.

"You two should go and help them out. They're gonna need all hands to clean this mess up. Aella and I will be along as soon as we catch our breaths."

"Are you sure? You two look pretty worn out." Fena's concern was touching, but Grumpy gave a nod of reassurance.

"I think we're good to give a bit more help before we head back. We won't be getting on the road until tomorrow anyways, wouldn't be good to walk around in the dark." Alexi cocked his head at that, and Grumpy just smiled at his partner. "I did promise that we'd do some sightseeing on the way home. Wouldn't want to break that promise now; Aella might just turn me into the world's biggest lightning rod." Both he and Aella shared a laugh as Alexi and Fena shrugged and left them to recover.