Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Hands of Creation

Chapter 113 - Nostalgia

She had a point. And it gave Owen pause. Could she be right? Maybe he'd been getting ahead of himself. Dark Matter had made an offer, but he could have also just as easily been waiting for the right moment to take him away, or claim him, or whatever else Dark Matter was capable of.

"We'll guard you," Mispy said, nodding. "It'll be different."

"Dark Matter doesn't care about you guys," Owen quickly interjected. "That means he might..."

Mispy looked skeptically at him. "He won't go... against you?" she questioned, stumbling over the sentence a few times.

"What, like, you mean if he doesn't wanna mess with Owen, he won't mess with us?"

"I think he messed with us enough already," Zena murmured.

"No, Zena's right." Owen rubbed under his arms, thoughtful, but satisfied now that it didn't feel heavy and thick. "Dark Matter could try to force me to get on his side by holding any of you hostage. He can do it with just one touch."

"But you can free them just as easily," Eon said, standing near the back as an equally tiny Grassmander.

"Right. I have that. And that's probably also why he can't touch me. Even if he killed me, I'd just wind up somewhere else. And now that I'm so... this"—He gestured to himself—"I don't think I would care if I died. I don't have any power left to lose."

Zena and the others looked suddenly uncomfortable.

"What?"

"Don't treat your life like it doesn't matter," Zena said gently.

"What? No, I meant—"

"I think it's just how you phrased it," Demitri said, just as gently, and Owen felt patronized.

Sighing, he tried to move on. "What—whatever. Look, I can't go and be touching all of you at once." Zena was blushing. "There needs to be some other way to protect against Dark Matter if you guys want to guard me. Maybe we should take some time to think about that. Anam's... Anam talks to Dark Matter a lot, right? Is he still here?"

"He's around." Gahi shrugged.

"Tell him that I want to talk in a few days. We can think of some precautions then."

"Will Dark Matter even want to wait?" Zena hummed.

"If he doesn't, then we didn't have much to bargain with anyway," Owen added, arms crossed as he stared at his belly. "So maybe we can use this to figure out just how badly he wants to talk to me. If he's willing to wait."

"That's... calculated," Zena commented, looking at the others. "Should we do that?"

"Hmm..." Mispy slid toward Owen and looking him over. She was huge—Owen could use her vines like a house at this size. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I am." Owen nodded firmly.

"Okay." Mispy brought a vine forward. "What's your plan?"

"Uh—Now?" Owen tried to look tough, puffing out his chest. Mispy went lower and poked his gut and all the air left him.

"By the way... why are we all gathered in the shower with Owen?" Eon asked nervously from the back. "Isn't that kind of... weird?"

"...What's weird about it?" Zena asked.

Demitri, Mispy, and Gahi also gave Eon an odd look. Enet, meanwhile, crawled forward and joined Owen to investigate the warm water.

"Ah... um... never mind. Forget I said anything."