Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Adventurers of the Universe

Laketop Showdown! Zeke vs The Cloaked Attacker

Zeke opens his eyes.

Lani just fell asleep. Zeke gets up and sneaks around the room, getting his adventuring gear and slipping out of the room. He heads straight for the backdoor, which he uses to escape from the guild. Zeke zig-zags through the World Woods like a Zigzagoon as he weaves between the trees on a mission. He stops at a cave in the side of a hill, where he slips in and walks toward a light.

A moonlit lake in the heart of the woods. Nobody knows of its location except him. He comes here nightly. He sits and enjoys the natural world that surrounds him... for a moment. A dark figure rustles through the bushes for a moment, stops, and pounces out at him. It makes the first move with a ball of Aura and Chakra flying at Zeke. He backflips, dodging the Aura Sphere, then his eyes glow red in the night. He launches at his mysterious opponent an Aura Sphere just like the one thrown at him. The opponent flips away and lands on the lake, in the moonlight. Zeke is able to vaguely make out that the opponent is bipedal, and seems to wear a scarf, cape, or cloak, which billows due to the cold, nighttime breeze.

Zeke sees his opponent's golden eyes glisten in the moonlight for a split second, and his own eyes glow a deeper red. As the opponent stands on the water and gathers wind to back up the force of its palm upon impact with Zeke's face, Zeke raises a paw and prepares the same move.

Their Force Palm attacks collide, and Zeke gets a look at the top half of his attacker's face. As they try to overpower each other, though being a perfect match in strength, he sees their two golden eyes. There's some blue and black fur, a large tuft of the black covering their right eye and occasionally the left as well. They jump back, and the lake's water flies into the air, blocking Zeke's view of the fighter. With no way to see them, he doesn't respond perfectly when they drop from above. He spins around all the same, however, and manages to use Protect, creating a wall of defensively purposed Infinity Energy to block the attacker's Force Palm. With their eyes back in sight, he powers up and launches an Aura Sphere at the same time as them. The spheres collide, and both of the Pokemon sink into the lake.

Zeke opens his eyes first, and finds his attacker next to him. He uses Agility to speed up his swimming as he pulls them out of the water with him. He leaves them on the lakeside and heads back to the guild, soaked and exhausted. He collapses in front of the door.

The next morning...

Zeke wakes up in the hospital wing with Natsuki Realmseeker and Lani standing over him. "Wow! That's so cool! Can you show me how to do that?" Lani asks Natsuki.

"Sure, I can try. I feel like showing you Sacred Style would be better than Survival Style, though." Natsuki remarks.

"What's the difference?" Lani tilts her head. "Additionally, what's a style?"

"Well, a style is how one may put a spin on traditional Pokemon moves. Sure, it costss additional power points to add a style to your move when manipulating it, but it can be quite worth it. Survival Style was what I put on Heal Pulse just now. It is the basic form of healing styles that most adventurer medics learn. Though I believe you should learn Sacred Style. It's a bit more costly to the average joe, if they can use it at all. But for certain beings, it costs less power points than the normal move. It's incredibly powerful, and calls upon the divinity of the gods. I'll show you in a moment."

"Ugh, why are you so loud?" Zeke groaned. "Man, your voices are becoming such a drag to hear."

"Ah! Zeke! You're awake!" Lani shouts happily.

"What did I just say? It's like you're using Sound Style." Zeke half jokes.

"Oh, so you know a bit about move styles too, huh, Mister Zora?" Natsuki asks Zeke.

"Yeah, a bit. I've been learning them on my own for a bit, and I think I've perfected my own type of style."

"Great! Now, tomorrow, can you help me show Lani a bit about styles? I think it's about time she knew how to use them. Would that be okay?" The Guildmistress asks.

Zeke groans louder. "Yeah, sure, whatever. Could you just leave me in peace ?"

"Oh, yeah, yeah! Certainly! Wouldn't want to be a drag." And with that, Natsuki herded Lani out of the room, then shut the door.

Zeke sits up. He looks back at the fight last night. His eyes glow red again for a split second, then return to being blue. "What was the deal with that guy?" He mumbles to himself. "Ugh. That was inconvenient. Whatever, the past is the past. That's behind me, for now." Zeke sighs. I really want to fight that dude again, though. Maybe he'll return some night.