Defenders of Evodusai Part 3
Struggling to escape the
zangoose's grip, a flash of blue appeared out of the corner of my
eye. Suddenly, Truce yelped out as if he had been struck and with a
thud, I was dropped onto my rear. "Come on Truce, stop messing with
her," Liru growled with a tiny bit of blood staining a few of her
teeth. Walking over to my sitting form, she extended a paw forward.
"Sorry about that," she apologized, "Truce only gets this way
when he spots potential." "Potential?" I asked, grabbing her
paw and pulling myself up. Looking over at Truce, I saw him rubbing
at the spot where Liru had nipped his arm. "Yeah, for the
organization that I'm trying to join," Liru smiled. "With mystery dungeons
springing up everywhere, chaos has been spreading across the lands of
Evodusai," interrupted Truce. He appeared to be fine and upon
closer inspection, the wound on his arm was barely visible. "Sofeda,
the place where I work at, is made up of three core groups: Offensive
Superiority, Defensive Defiance, and Intelligence Central. Together,
we aim to prevent the spread of disaster by minimizing the overall
damage caused by affected inhabitants and destroying the source of
the area's distortion. Most of the time, we end up finding and
removing these strange dark crystals placed deep within the area."
Pointing at Liru, Truce continued with his boring lecture. "Liru
over here was our newest recruit. Since Genko Forest is a relatively
small area, the higher ups decided that this was the perfect test to
determine which group her skills would be perfect for. Based on what
I've seen, Liru could join either the recon division of Intelligence
Central or the physical force division of Offensive Superiority." A long pause snapped me out from
my sleepy daze. Looking around, I found Liru taking a nap while Truce
was angrily trying to wake her. "Okay, that was a bit long and
boring," I yawned outright. "Since you wanted to explain all this
to me, I assume you wanted to recruit me or something?" Picking the
totodile up and shaking her, Truce turned to me and grinned. Nudging
a shoulder at the burnt up tauros, he stated, "With firepower like
that, you'll be perfect for the special attack division." Liru,
angered by the violent wake up, chomped Truce's claw and was quickly
released. "So with the prince secured, we can leave now, right?"
Liru impatiently asked. Grasping his claw, the zangoose shook his
head. "There's still one more thing we need to do," he muffled,
trying to suppress his agony. "We're in deep enough to find the
source of the dungeon. Remember, it's our duty to fix the area by
destroying the dark crystals. Liru, take her along and see if you can
find it." Nodding, Liru turned to me and
said, "let's go." We searched for a bit until we reached a small
clearing that lead into a dead end. At the back, we could see a faint
glow radiating from a crystal shard. "That must be the source, Liru
whispered. We approached it slowly, unsure about the danger the
object might possess. "It would have been nice if Truce told us
about what to expect from this thing instead of all that other boring
nonsense," I muttered. Liru gave a tiny giggle, which was a bit
unexpected. At this point, we were close enough to grab at it. Throwing caution to the wind, I clutched the ore and crushed it in my paws. Once that happened, I knew we were
in for a nasty surprise and it came in the form of a group of three
rhyhorns and a lairon. Knowing that fire was almost
useless in this situation, I cursed under my breath and turned to
Liru. "Just listen to me and we'll be fine," I ordered. "Since
they all share a weakness with water, you'll have to do the fighting
while I tell you what to do." She looked at me with shock, shook
her head a bit, and turned to face the enemy. "Alright, I'm all
ears." Two of the rhyhorns immediately targeted Liru and charged
forward in a fury. Noticing a gap between them, I told her to squeeze
through it and unleash a few water guns into one of their backs. The
trick worked like a charm as one of the frenzied rhyhorns was
instantly knocked out. Furious at the loss of their buddy, the
rhyhorn next to the lairon roared and shot out a few shards of earth. "Liru, jump into the air and
fire another round at the flanked one." Hearing my command, she
jumped a bit too late since a stray piece of rock pelted her on the
back of the leg. Wincing, she shook the blow off and followed through
with the rest of the orders, taking out another baddie. I rushed in
to catch the injured gator, placing her down gently on her feet. "How
many shots do you have left," I asked to get an idea on how well
we're doing. "I got enough in me for one final attack," she
huffed with a glint in her eyes. The remaining two pokemon blindly
charged towards us, one using the standard horn attack and the other
going for a powerful headbutt. "Let's do this," Liru shouted and
together we unleashed a water gun/ember combo that meshed together
into one. Normally, these two opposing forces would have cancelled each other out the moment they made contact. However, the swirling of these elements produced a purple mixture that was neither fully water or fire. The sight of it was mesmerizing. The sound of a huge thunk bounced off the trees, leaving
our foes crumpled in a heap. "Nice...job..." Liru wheezed.
Offering my paw this time, I picked her up and felt her using me for
support. With the job done, we started to
leave the area. The atmosphere seemed gentler, soothing the minds and
calming the bodies of everyone in the entire forest. Hostility itself
seemed to vanish and peace flowed through from the trees. After a few minutes of walking beside her, Liru stopped in
her tracks. "What's your name," she abruptly questioned. I was so
taken aback by the tone of her voice when she asked me that I just
couldn't find the words to reply with. "The way you acted earlier,
it's just, you remind me of someone from long ago. The way your eyes glowed when I first met you on that riverbed and the way it burned with passion during that battle, it was
like reuniting with a dearly departed friend." At this point, I was
just confused. "I'm sorry," I began, "I don't know what you're
talking about. I've never met anyone like you before today and if I
did, then I can't remember. Honestly, I'm sure that I was born a
human and that today was my first day as a..." I stopped talking. A
tear rolled down Liru's cheek as she moved a paw near her mouth."Winta?"