(Cont. from https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/269121474/ ) With having already searched the entire floor, making it up to the stairs was simple. They swiftly climbed up the staircase, arriving at the last floor. As this was one of the safe floors, like at Mt. Steel, it was composed of only one large room. Luckily for the team, the three mankeys they had been looking for were clustered in the center of this room, loudly muttering to one another, and every once and awhile one would hit or tug on the short, light sandy colored fur of another. None of them noticed the quartet entering, all too absorbed in whatever they were doing. “Excuse me?” Keahi called out, easily gaining the attention of the three fighting-types. “Hi! We’re Team Galaxy, and we were hoping we could talk to you three for a moment,” zie said. The trio leaped to their feet in battle-ready positions, crouched slightly with their hands in fists, fur bristling and curly tails lashing about. One that was just barely taller than the others stepped forward, barring their teeth at the team and growling slightly. “Team Galaxy?” Mankey repeated, “talk? Gah! Interrupting our work, wanting to talk? I bet you think you’re stronger than us! Know-it-all rescue teams like you make me mad! Taste our anger, in battle!” they yelled. With that battle cry, they attacked. Nelvana reacted instantly, chucking her club at the one in the center, the same one who had yelled, and was presumably the leader. Her weapon hit Mankey right in the center of their forehead, and then returned to the cubone’s hands, leaving the target to collapse on the ground, knocked out in one hit. This didn’t dissuade the other two mankeys in the slightest, as they lunged forward to attack as well. Keahi took on the one to the team’s left, opening up zir beak, visible flames flickering out for a moment as zie charged the move, before letting out a scorching jet of flames at the mankey. The flamethrower dissipated quickly, revealing that this mankey was no stronger than the one before it, and was also left in a defeated heap, fur singed from the fire. Tsuki stepped forward to handle the last one, with the knowledge that Alex didn’t have a strong ranged move, just bullet seed. She opened her mouth, frost lightly wafting in front of her for a moment before she let out a ray of ice at the final opponent. Like the two attacks before it, this landed perfectly on target, freezing the foe, who fell to the ground right after being hit, shattering the ice upon impact. But the damage was done, and all the mankeys were beaten. It took a moment, but then the trio disappeared from the dungeon in a beam of light. “Huh, that was… really easy. Easier than I expected honestly, from what we heard. I didn’t even need to put an attack in,” Alex commented, chucking to himself. “I bet even my bullet seed would have knocked out one of these guys.” “Perhaps,” Tsuki agreed, licking her chilled whiskers idly. “Still felt it would be better to get my ice beam in, rather than risk the rare chance that the seeds wouldn’t work,” she added. Alex shrugged, “fair enough. Good job, by the way. That’s an impressive move.” “Heh, yeah. Pretty cool,” Nelvana giggled, “now, should we, uh, go look for them again? I feel like we should still talk to them, or their parents at least,” she continued without missing a beat, leaving the pun behind. Keahi nodded, “yup, we should go do both probably, if we can,” zie replied, “do we need to use our badges to teleport out, or is there an easier exit right here?” zie asked, glancing at Alex. “Yeah, there’s an easy way out. Right over… here!” Alex responded, wandering over to the other side of the room, and hopping over a fallen log, disappearing into the shadows. Following the speedy grovyle, the group found themselves back where they started outside the dungeon, right by the trees crossed together in an arc. Nothing was different from when they had first arrived aside from the slight change in the sun’s angle, the three mankeys piled up a few feet away from them. “Huh, that’s convenient,” Alex mused, going to stand beside the fainted trio. “I guess we should take these three home, shouldn’t we?” “I guess so!” Nelvana replied, following the grovyle once more over to the mankeys, crouching down to hoist one of them, coincidentally the same one she had hit, carefully over her shoulder to carry them. Alex followed suit by picking up the second mankey, similarly to the way he carried Sableye back at Frosty Peak, and then Tsuki arrived to carry the third. Keahi waited patiently for zir teammates to be comfortably holding the fighting-types before heading off back to where they had seen the treehouses. After only a couple corrections from Alex when the torchic wandered off path, Keahi managed to lead everyone back to the forest village, and with some tracking done by Tsuki, they even managed to find the tree that at least one of the mankeys lived in.
This treehouse had no rope ladder like some of the others, but it did have many branches, including some low-hanging ones. “Alright,” Alex began, setting down his load at the base of the tree. “No ladder, so only Nel and I can climb up. Unless one of you have some secret tree climbing skills that I haven’t heard of. We can head up and see who we can talk to of authority, and you two can watch these ruffians to make sure they don’t wake up and immediately throw a fit, sound good?” “I…” Keahi hesitated, and then sighed. “Yeah, that makes sense.” “We’ll be quick! Don’t worry!” Nelvana assured her partner, passing over the club. “Here, do you mind holding onto this for me? It’ll just be in the way right now,” she added. Keahi smiled softly, “sure, add one more to the list of things we have to keep an eye on,” zie joked. “Are you sure that you can climb up, Nel?” Tsuki questioned, glancing from her teammate to the tall tree. Nelvana nodded, taking a quick glance of her own at the plant, “yeah, I can handle this, it’ll be alright,” she answered, “I may be a cubone now, but that doesn’t change my climbing abilities. Used to have to climb trees all the time after all.” “Might be easier now with that tail, actually,” Alex commented, “guess we’ll have to see. C’mon.” Alex, already standing by the tree’s trunk, took a small step back before leaping up for a branch. His powerful jump easily brought him up to one, and he swiftly pulled himself up. The grovyle smiled to himself, pausing to enjoy being in such a location, before looking back down at the others, now patiently waiting to see if Nelvana would come up. Nelvana walked up to the tree, setting down the mankey she had been carrying along with the other before looking up at Alex, meeting his gaze before turning her attention to her next step. Locating one of the lower branches, she positioned herself underneath it, and then sprung upwards, grabbing onto the branch and immediately pulling herself up to sit atop it, not leaving any time to lose her grip. Seeing that Nelvana would be fine, Alex began to quickly make his way up the rest of the tree, and Nelvana followed at a slower pace. Soon both disappeared into the foliage, their movements well trained and quiet, the only sign that they made it up to the house was the sound of them knocking at the door a few minutes after the climbing began. There was some unclear chatter for a moment, and then the door closed again with a simple click. After showing introducing themselves, and Nelvana showing her badge to the primeape at the door, the pair had been let inside. Primeape turned out to be the parent of the leader of the trouble-making trio, and they were surprisingly understanding and complaisant with the duo. They explained what the mankeys had been doing, and how they were sent out to try dealing with things, and how that had gone. It didn’t take much after that to convince Primeape to try disciplining their children more, and that such behavior was going to harm others and themselves. “That was pretty easy. I guess all Primeape needed to convince them that they needed to take better care of their kids was a high ranked rescue team,” Alex mumbled to Nelvana, who nodded in agreement. “And hey, thanks for doing most of the talking. You’re still much better at diplomacy than I am,” he added. Meanwhile, Keahi and Tsuki patiently waited for the others to return. Tsuki had placed the mankey she was carrying along with the others, and now the pair was sitting beside one another quietly, staring up at the tree that their teammates had gone up. The small, warm colored bird balanced on the toes of zir talons, swaying back and forth in an attempt to get a better view. The long white furred quadruped remained still and quiet, for a few moments, only giving the occasional side eye to her companion, when suddenly she stiffened, hunching over slightly and digging her large claws into the earth. Keahi turned to look over at Tsuki, zir eyes widening at the sight of the absol’s discomfort. “What’s wrong?” Keahi asked, taking a cautionary step in front of Tsuki. “We… we need to get back to the base,” Tsuki hissed, lifting her head again. “Now? What’s happening? Should I call for Nel and Alex?” Keahi questioned rapidly. “…” Tsuki stared ahead blankly, before dropping her gaze to the ground. “…no, it’s too late. We shouldn’t rush them anyway,” she murmured. Keahi observed Tsuki silently, glancing from the tree to the absol worriedly, finally swallowing zir breath and staying quiet, zir face scrunched up with concern. Art, characters, and plot belong to me Pokemon and PMD belong to Nintendo Please don't remix First: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/203259124/ Next: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/269124387/ Previous: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/269121474/