Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Hands of Creation

Chapter 10 - The Hunters' Mission

The last of the mist faded. Zena's words echoed in his thoughts.

Rhys is one of the Hunters.

The Lucario let out a pant. "Owen, I—"

The Charmeleon opened with a plume of fire. It was easily blocked, but Owen followed up by lunging forward. He wasn't using words anymore, just roars and grunts. Rhys deftly blocked every hit with little pulses of aura from his paws, stepping backwards with each lunge Owen made.

"Owen, enough!" Rhys said.

"You—what did you do—what did you do to Mom?!" Owen shouted.

"Your mother?! What in the world do you mean?!"

Owen roared and blasted Rhys with fire, point-blank. He couldn't deflect this one, and his upper body was briefly alight. This was too much for Rhys to tolerate. With a single blow and a grunt of anger, Rhys swiped his paw toward Owen and created a small sphere on his side. It exploded, and blasted Owen with a shockwave of aura force. He slammed into a tree and cried in pain when his left shoulder dislocated itself, and his left leg broke in two places. A few ribs probably got fractured, too. There was a large welt on his right side where the aura had exploded, and some scales had been blasted off, too. He crumpled to the ground; it hurt too much to move.

Zena spewed another beam of water at Rhys, but the Hunter jumped to the right in a blue blur. Zena blinked and lost track of him. She turned toward Owen and saw Rhys there instead, kneeling down. Rhys' eyes were narrowed with concern.

"You won't!" Zena shouted. "Get away from him! Or I'll fire again! I won't miss!"

"If you do miss, you will hit Owen," Rhys said calmly. He didn't even react to her.

"It's... it's a risk I'll take to stop you, you—murderer!"

"Murderer," Rhys repeated softly. He inspected Owen, who only glared. Flames danced out of his mouth. "Your mother is worried about you, Owen. Your father, too."

"You're a Hunter," Owen said. "Zena... Zena told me! You... you killed Guardians like me!"

"Owen." Rhys closed his eyes. "If I wanted to kill, then you two would already be dead."

"N-no way!" Owen said. "I'd totally beat you if... if I wanted to! I'm a Guardian! I survived drowning!"

"Drowning," Rhys said with a snort. "You took a quarter of the day, I imagine, just to recover from that. Do you really think a Hunter would kill a Guardian by drowning them?"

Owen gulped. "Y-yeah, well, I bet I could survive... a lot of things, now." His eyes darted to the left and right, searching for some sort of opening. Owen focused on a tree behind Rhys. The Lucario followed his gaze—just what Owen wanted. He spewed a wad of fire at Rhys the moment he looked away. In a single, deft motion, Rhys brought his arm up and blocked the blast with another aura shield.

Owen flinched, and Rhys looked at him with a knowing glare. Owen had no escape.

"You cannot survive much," Rhys said. "Divine energy from the Orb sustains you, even if your very heart stops. However, great injury to your body disrupts that flow. If someone wished to kill you... they would. And they can. Just because you are Mystic does not mean you are invincible. Look at you, Owen." He shook his head. "A body half broken already. If I aimed for your head," he pointed out, "the Grass Orb would be without a host once more."

Owen envisioned Rhys doing just that. Moving his paw just a bit further up. He would've been headless. Just like that. He thought back to the Aerodactyl. He still would have been paralyzed from the waist down from his strikes. And if he was rejected from the Dungeon, some opportunistic wild Pokémon still could have feasted on his unconscious body.