Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Hands of Creation

Chapter 129 - New Home

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The strange atmosphere of Cipher City had been messing with his battleheart instincts. Every mean look given to him by the guards, every impartial glare, made him reflexively conjure up ideas on how to strike them down, how to fight each one, how to kill them in three different ways. It was savage. It was something from his mutant self, spiking his desire to fight to unhealthy levels. A defiant pride that he wouldn't be weak. Even as a Mystic, that didn't leave him. Would he always be broken in that way?

"March," growled one of the guards behind him. This one was a savage Arcanine with matted fur and the splash of a wound from some recent scuffle.

"I am, I am," Owen murmured. He had no means to resist them, even if he could give them trouble if he wished.

They didn't want him dead, after all.

Regrettably, Owen hadn't gotten to see much of Cipher City on his way in. He'd been asleep for all of it. By the time he was awake, he'd been tossed to the ground like trash for the guards to escort inside. He had only seen the black-purple castle made of some Voidland-borne stone at the heart of the city. Behind him had been crystal-engraved buildings tens of stories high on roads paved with black obsidian.

While a little dark, Owen had to admit it was pretty in its own, mysterious way. A shame there was no mystery to it, in truth. It was only the capital of the Voidlands' half-ruler, Alexander.

"MOVE!"

Strong arms hurled Owen across the ground where he rolled and coughed. The Pangoro that had tossed him snarled and marched forward, ready to kick him next.

"Hey!" Arcanine shoved himself in the way. "We were ordered not to kill him."

"I wasn't gonna kill him," Pangoro dismissed readily. "But he was standing there, daydreaming."

"Just give him time. He's not going anywhere," Arcanine said back, and then gave Owen a sympathetic glance. "It's his last days of freedom. Can't you give him that?"

That gaze from Arcanine reminded Owen of Auntie Arcanine, back when he had been blissfully ignorant of so much. Back when he was still trying to become a Heart.

Pangoro growled and grabbed Owen by the arm—Owen realized it was back to red scales, no longer leafy—and then shoved him forward again, but it was noticeably gentler.

"Just keep walking. What, you want a tour?"

"Is that an option?" Owen asked.

"I was being sarcastic, wise guy."

"Oh." Owen glanced to his left, toward a black lake with a few swimmers playing in it. Nearest was a Swampert doing exhaustive flips and dives out and into the dark surface. Absently, he wondered if the water tasted foul like their rivers. To his right was a courtyard of plants of varying shades of red and purple, just like basically everything else that was 'natural' in this realm.

"Can you stop daydreaming for five seconds?" Pangoro grabbed Owen by the back of his neck and picked him up.

"Hey—hey!" Owen flailed and Pangoro deliberately dropped him. He landed on his feet.

"March."

"How come I'm not tied up, anyway?" Owen pressed as he moved.

"We were told not to," explained Arcanine. "That's all we really know."

It was a long walk, but they'd eventually gotten to the castle's proper entrance. The doors were perpetually open and nearly thirty feet across and twice as high, as if a whole fleet of Pokémon could pass through effortlessly if they wished. Owen wondered how often that was actually the case.