"Someone else has been through here already."

"Bisharp's clan?"

Rockruff shook her head. "Those are claw marks, not the bites from a blade."

Both Research teams huddled around another reflection of a dead tree. Gouges marred it, raked along the bark. A glittering substance still clung to its surface, small flecks the remnants of something more.

"What is it?" Asked Von.

"Emera. Normally we collect it in special jars to take home to Braixen, to aid in making objects of magic," squeaked Noibat.

"But what is it? Pixie dust?"

"Pixie…? No, it is material of the Dungeons," muttered Linoone. "It flows through their walls like veins."

"So it's Dungeon blood. Kind of."

Noibat withdrew a small crystalline jar from Linoone's bag and offered it to her. She took it from him, stood on her hind legs, and braced herself against the tree with one forepaw. "Leaving leftovers, wasteful, wasteful. Either they were full up or had to suddenly flee."

"Might have been a harvest cut short by the Bisharp clan," Ren mused.

Linoone's claws rasped against the wood, scraping emera into the quartzlike jar. "Marks are fresh. Wonder where they went?"

"Think they need help?" Rockruff asked.

Noibat's ears twitched. "I've heard no other signs of strife. And if they have a chamber to keep emera, they're likely as equipped as we are."

"And we have a new human to concern ourselves with." Linoone, satisfied that she had collected every speck from the bark she could, capped the chamber. Noibat took it from her and tucked it delicately back in their bag.

Von glanced back the way they came. "I thought I held my own pretty okay."

"Wands can be powerful tools," Rockruff nodded. "But you can't rely on them alone."

"Well I thought you were cool and clever," Ren grinned. "Even if Kaia can't admit it."

Rockruff rolled her eyes. "Keep growing strong, and I might one day say you're strong."

The sound of movement in the overgrowth came from the depths of the maze. All eyes turned toward the source as the wall of foliage on their left rippled with movement. The vines stretched around a protrusion of a mass that pressed itself from the wall, straining to free itself. The sound of tearing roots gave way to a bassy thump of punctured air pressure as a being pushed its way into the distorted realm of the Dungeon.

A knotted sphere of blue-green vines thicker than the kudzu that birthed it stood atop two knobby red stubs. Stark white eyes peered through its own foliage at the Researchers, and it spoke with the voice of wind whispering through the underbrush. "Fold the cloth along the center."

"A Tangela?" Von gasped.

"An amalgam," whispered Ren.

"Fold the faces of the cloth down to the limb." The trailing end of one of its vines lashed forward.

Von stared and strained to understand the voice made of rustling leaves that murmured incomprehensibilities.

"It's a small one. Salandit should fight it," spoke Linoone from behind.

Von had already begun to backpedal. "What? Why me?"

"To hone your strength! To learn!" Rockruff barked in agreement. "Do you want to brave Dungeons, or not?"

The Tangela lurched forwards in intermittent steps, each bringing its lashing vines closer to the group. "Fold the stone of the cloth to the limb."

Von's heart raced almost as fast as his mind. At least this thing isn't covered in knives. "If I lose, please save me," he shouted back to his team, and pressed forward. I've got this. Like a Charmeleon in Erika's gym. I've done this before.

He locked his eyes on the weapons of his target; two long, spindly blue vines animated by the being that wore them. If I watch their base, he figured, I can predict when they'll strike. Yet reading the alien thing's movements might be asking too much. Yet when they tensed, he sprung sideways. The air split apart as a vine cracked inches to his right. The sharp crack of noise alone rang through his skull, but he scurried forward, poisons pooling in his jaws.

He flung himself at the ball of vines and wrenched it off balance, and his claws sunk into fibrous tendrils. He opened his mouth, and screamed caustic fluid at the vacant eyes nested in the center mass of his foe. Tangela writhed as it tried to pry away from his grasp, its nebulous voice breaking through his attack. "Find the new face of the cloth and fold to the limb," it droned with all the emotion of a swarm of flies.

"That smell never gets any better, does it?" Linoone asked the rest of Night Vision.

"You asked me to fight! You wanted this!" Von shouted at his audience, flecking the last of his poison upon the plants he pinned down.

Tangela quaked, and new gaps opened through the weave of its plants. As Von sparked his furnace, ready to ignite, a plume of dull yellow spores sprayed upwards and into his open maw. They stung his tongue, and his synapses fired with alarm.

Von snorted, shuddered, and went limp as his muscles ceased working. The amalgam pulled itself free of his slackened claws, and loomed over his prone form. Eyes trapped open, Von stared ahead at Tangela as it snaked its vines around his belly and throat.

Man. Pokemon battles suck.

Wind sliced between them, severing the tendrils from Tangela's main body. Noibat coursed through the air, wings alight with his own inner power. The severed lengths of Tangela's vines thrashed, but its eyes remained free of expressing pain. "Fold each nail to the limb."

Noibat dove, and his wings sliced through his mark. The plants that comprised Tangela's strange shell scattered in tatters, blown against the wall it crept out of. Whatever body it had within burst in a shower of ichor, an oily black substance that seeped into the soil.

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Still paralyzed, Von was stuck staring ahead at the knobby red protrusions that the amalgam had stood on. Severed from their body, they sloughed apart, their red coloration melting into the same uniform black sludge that seeped into the ground.

Unable to close his eyes and shield himself from the gruesome sight, Von recoiled into his mind. For a moment that stretched on, his thoughts existed only as a cloud of frantic energy and angry emotions that spun each other into a knot of nightmares.

Gradually, he came to feel the sensation of claws built for digging grasping his snout. They opened and closed his mouth as he stared skyward at the kudzu that encompassed Bramble Hill. Slowly, he tasted the pulp of a berry on his tongue and the subtle spice beneath its off-cherry flavor. Eventually, he heard the worried words of Night Vision and Star Calling fade into being audible.

"Who eats Tangela spores?" Rockruff whined as she pawed at the ground.

"Salandit, it seems." Linoone was the one forcing him to chew. As the juices trickled down his throat and seeped into his core, Von found himself able to move, bit by bit. She released him when he frantically blinked away the dryness in his eyes.

"Von, can you hear us? Still with us?" Ren fretted away at his side. Von could only gurgle in response. "I'll take that as an 'I won't tell Slowking.' Also please promise you won't tell Slowking."

Von coughed through the mouthful of cheri berry, and flexed his claws as feeling returned to them. "Ren," he sputtered, "R-Rockruff…"

Both teammates perked their ears and leaned in closer. "We're here! What do you need?"

"Battling… sucks."

"Maybe when you battle like that." The worry in Rockruff's features faded. "But what did you learn from it?"

"Don't inhale?"

Noibat trilled in what may have been a laugh. "You handled its vines well, but made yourself vulnerable up close. How well-suited is your kind for battling at a distance?"

"How far can you spit?" Von grumbled. During his single training session with Wyn, he was able to launch toxic globs about three lengths of his new, small body, yet the motion of setting them on fire took focus and reduced momentum.

"The Salandit of the Shoals battle best close up," Rockruff answered for him.

"Then quicken yourself, Salandit, or learn to endure."

"Quicken. Definitely quicken. Salandit don't have enough predators to know how to take a blow."

"I've taken a punch before," Von scowled. As more of his motor functions returned to him, he climbed onto all fours and slithered from the center of the worried circle that crowded around him. "But teeth, claws, whips, spores, everything else- can't I just use that wand?""Wands are strong, but no substitute for what you are- what you will be capable of."

"I've never felt more encouraged in my life."

With the subject of their concern mobile once more, the four Pokemon shared a glance. "Tiring, tiring. Mission goals met?"

"We have gathered enough to make Braixen happy, with emera besides." Noibat twitched an oversized ear as he studied Von for a moment. "Night Vision, I believe our first job together is a success, despite its irregularities. You should tend to your human back at Halfhenge."

Linoone pressed a paw against the badge on Star Calling's bag. "Take us to the real," she incanted to the emblem, and drew forth a gentle glow of light from its burnished metal.

The wall of overgrowth ceded to the magic of the badge, and the atmosphere around them rippled as sense righted itself. The repeating circuits of the Dungeon closed in on themselves, snapping outside of their perception. The huddled group stood once more beneath the canopy of Bramble Hill's entrance, sunlight spilling into the passageway from outside. Its warmth was welcome on Von's scales as he scuttled away from the maddening loops behind them and rejoined the more sensible space of the Land of Smoke.

----------------------------------------

"A Bisharp and its clan, in Bramble Hill? Strange, indeed."

Upon their return, the teams split into groups to report their finds. Rockruff and Linoone met with Braixen to finish their delivery, while he, Noibat, and Ren made their way to report to Slowking.

Noibat led the way through the courtyard, into the castle, and down the stairs to the undercroft, whose vaulted ceiling played host to a thin layer of green-brown moss. The floor had been mostly flooded when Halfhenge split in two, but the uneven granite walkways Von perched on must've been installed by the same Pokemon that reinforced the damaged foundations.

The chill air kept the undercroft from feeling too humid, at least. Von couldn't smell a mold problem brewing, either. If the slowpoke that clung to the sides of the walls and the pillars were any indication, the dwellers of the undercroft were happy with their habitat.

"Did it divulge anything of import?" Slowking asked the three of them.

Ren's form faded into shadow as he took on the appearance of the same Bisharp. "The Land of Smoke belongs to Kingambit!" the image shrilled.

"She was uncooperative and would admit nothing," chittered Noibat. "They held no badge for an easy path out of the Dungeon, but spoke of having their own method. They seemed to be there for a purpose."

"Ambushing Researchers, perhaps to thin our ranks?" Slowking mused.

Von's attention was pulled from the Slowpoke lazily drifting beside the bridge to the Guildmaster. Slowking's expressiveness was difficult to parse past the shell crown that encompassed most of his skull. "If that was the case," Von offered, "Wouldn't they have just gone for our throats rather than try to rob us first?"

Ren's illusion swung a bladed arm over Von's head, who instinctively flinched. "It was a trick to disarm you! But that cute Rockruff saw through my weak scheme!"

Slowking frowned at Ren's theatrics. "Both lines of thought are worth following. We are not to underestimate the hive's cunning nor its ruthlessness, as it claimed the Coast of Reeds with each. If they are searching for something to give them a landing near Halfhenge, we must anticipate it."

Maybe I should have stayed with the ghosts after all.

Seeing Von downcast, Slowking let out a sigh. "I had hoped your first venture be one of orienting yourself, rather than the… excitement, your group has found. The Research Guild will do its utmost to see you safe, Salandit. As such, I have much to ask our winged Researchers in these coming days. Rest well, Night Vision. Salandit, I will meet you again when our humans convene for a meal. Noibat, I would like to continue our talk with your partner present. Bring her here."

Noibat saluted with a wing, and Ren's illusion dissipated. Von lingered a moment as he tried to read Slowking, in the off chance he could peer past the shell crown to search the eyes concealed beneath. Nothing came to the surface.

Von followed the sound of Noibat's wingbeats fluttering up the stairwell. He found his grip on the wall, scurrying up after Ren bounding up the steps. When Von was sure his voice wouldn't echo down the passage to the undercroft, he whispered to Ren. "He didn't seem very alarmed."

"Should he be?"

"Isn't Kingambit a threat?"

They crossed through the gateway of the keep and stone gave way to grass underfoot. "Kingambit is the same threat he's always been." Ren gave him a reassuring smile. "It's another matter of territory. There is push and pull. But remember, Von, I brought you here, to Halfhenge, for a reason. For safety! This guild has weathered worse than a greedy hive."

"I thought you brought me here to buy your way back in."

"For our safety as much as yours! And you wanted to meet other humans! They stuck around here too, didn't they?"

"I guess."

Von looked ahead at their destination of Wyn's hut. Linoone, Rockruff, and Wyn all calmly conversed, before Noibat as he touched down on the yard beside his partner. They weren't close enough to overhear their conversation, but he watched Wyn wave her paw in farewell. Yet just before she was out of reach, Linoone turned back and gave a sudden nip at Rockruff's wagging tail. The shrill bark of surprise that followed broke into a bout of yapping as Rockruff gave chase to a cackling Linoone as they streaked across the yard.

Linoone outsped the smaller dog easily. "Good work, good work!" she shouted in passing as she blitzed past Ren and Von.

Rockruff reached the rest of Night Vision, still barking, only to be intercepted by her partner. Ren parked himself between her and her quarry, grinning. "What'd Braixen give us?"

Rockruff whined as she kept glancing over Ren's shoulder to the fleeing Star Calling. "Decent coin. Extra for finding emera." Her excitable fidgeting stopped once Linoone was through the gate and out of sight.

"Excellent! And Slowking didn't yell at me at all," Ren proudly boasted.

Von found himself grinning. "Mission accomplished, then."

"Yes! We did very well, all considered. Even you, Von!" Rockruff beamed.

"Ouch. Wait, did you just call me Von?"

The smile faded fast from her face. "W-well, I feel much more confident in calling you a friend, having battled beside each other. And you let everyone else call you your true name-"

"So can I call you…?"

Her smile slowly returned. "You can call me Kaia."