Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: End of Darkness Chapter 4

Chapter 1: http://lakevalor.net/forums/index.php?/topic/1924-Pokémon-mystery-dungeon-end-of-darkness-chapter-1/

Chapter 2: http://lakevalor.net/forums/index.php?/topic/1927-Pokémon-mystery-dungeon-end-of-darkness-chapter-2/

Chapter 3: http://lakevalor.net/forums/index.php?/topic/2211-Pokémon-mystery-dungeon-end-of-darkness-chapter-3/

Boughbranch Woods appeared to grow darker and more sinister as Damien and Jess went deeper into it. Damien was still using his powers to sense for enemies, and it was helping; they had fought another Cacnea and a Dustox when they finished the first battle. Now he was using it to find Pachi. He had now been here for an hour. He hoped that he would find her soon, or else Growlithe would give up hope and leave the plane crash.​

Damien found an apple a little farther in. He and Jess took a break to share it, still keeping watch for more Pokémon.​

"Hey, Jess," Damien started. "How does that hood work? I couldn't even sense your aura when you had it on."​

She shrugged. "Beats me. I just found it on the ground somewhere close to home. I knew that it made me invisible when I put it on to see how it fit. I didn't realize how it could hide my aura, though. Speaking of which, how can you use your aura? Riolu shouldn't be able to do that."​

"It just came to me. I found out I could do that a couple of years back, while Dyllan was battling one of his friends. It confused scientists, and no one else was sure how I could use it. I thought it was normal until Dyllan told me otherwise," Damien rambled, taking another bite out of his half of the apple.​

"Well, it's not necessarily a bad thing. You probably just have a special ability unique to you. Although on this island–wait, I can hear something."​

When it got quiet, Damien could hear it too. Cries for help were coming far from the west, and it sounded like a young female.​

"I think that's our girl. Come on, Jess. We've got a mission to finish," Damien commanded, getting to his feet and running towards the direction of the cries. He ran for a minute or two with Jess following behind, though she wasn't exactly close. He made his way to where a Pachirisu was tied to a tree quite a few feet from the ground.​

"Hey, are you Pachi?" Damien called up to her.​

"Yeah," she said, half-afraid.​

"Okay! We'll get you down! Just as soon as we figure out how..." Damien said, examining the situation. She was tied almost twice as high as Damien could reach. He thought about using Aura Sphere to cut the ropes, but he didn't want her to fall and get hurt. He looked at Jess, who was possibly thinking about the same thing he was.​

"Jess what kind of moves do you know?" he asked suddenly.​

"Well, I know Fury Swipes, Scratch and Scary Face. I think I could claw my way up the tree and Scratch the vines off. You can catch her, if she's not too heavy."​

"I heard that!" Pachi yelled, feeling a bit insulted.​

"I guess it's worth a shot," Damien said, positioning himself under Pachi to where he could catch her.​

Jess then proceeded to climb up to the vines that held Pachi and used Scratch. The vines snapped instantly, and Pachi fell right into Damien's arms, though he may have buckled a little bit.​

"Thanks!" she said happily.​

"No problem," Damien replied, putting her down. "Alright, we need to hurry; Growlithe's still waiting for you back at my place. Jess should probably take the rear to look out for enemies."​

Jess nodded and started following them, making sure to pay attention to her surroundings. There weren't any enemies for the first few minutes, but as they came back to the previous battle spot, Damien noticed something different. He stopped.​

"What's wrong?" Pachi asked.​

"The Cacnea we battled earlier... someone must have picked it up or something..."​

"Are you sure it didn't just get up and walk away?" Jess answered.​

"...Maybe," Damien said. "But not without help. There's another set of footprints here," he crouched down to point them out. They left it and continued going on. Damien used his sensing powers to look out for any other unwanted bad guys. At one point, he spotted a negative presence, but it ran off before attempting to battle.​

"Looks like we might get there without a problem," Jess said happily.​

"Well, just because there hasn't been anyone attacking doesn't mean that there won't be any more problems," Pachi replied, a little wary. "After all, we haven't made our way through the Woods yet..."​

Damien held up his paw to signal the two girls to be quiet. His sensing had picked up yet another negative aura, and this time it was hostile. He felt it lurking behind a bush nearby, planning to attack. He charged up an Aura Sphere in his paw, still keeping watch for any sign of violence. He concentrated for a moment more. Neither he nor the enemy moved a muscle, but Damien could feel its impatience rising to the point of breaking.​

Then, without time for anyone to react, he threw the Sphere into the bush, where it exploded on contact. There was no movement made by anyone for a few moments. All was still until the Dark Shroomish stumbled out from the bush, a little bruised and beaten. Damien prepared himself a battle stance as Jess started growling. Pachi just backed away.​

The Shroomish's impatience got the best of it as it suddenly let loose a Stun Spore attack. Damien was quick enough to dodge and get Pachi out of the way, but Jess was not so lucky. Her legs buckled, and she fell to the ground unmoving. She was now paralyzed.​

"Crap!" she managed to say weakly as the Shroomish dashed after her on its stubby legs. It jumped and landed right on her back, possibly intending to break it. After the powdery attack had dissipated, Damien moved in for the defeat. He swatted the Shroomish off of Jess' back with the back of his paw. He kept attacking as it landed, kicking it in its side and letting it slam into a tree. Meanwhile, Pachi made her way over to the paralyzed Jess.​

"The Cheri Berry... I saw Damien pick it up and put it in his scarf. That's the only thing that can help my paralysis!" Jess said, looking at Damien as he continued to battle the enraged Pokémon.​

Pachi called over to him, "Damien, Jess needs a Cheri Berry out of your scarf!"​

As soon as she said this, the Shroomish looked at the scarf slung over Damien's shoulder. It smiled and jumped at him, just barely missing when Damien managed to move to the side. It jumped again and slammed into Damien's stomach. He ended up dropping the scarf, with the contents spilling out. The enemy then ran over to the little red berry that lay on the ground. It was quick enough to pop the berry into its mouth before Damien tackled it. But it was too late–it had already swallowed the berry whole. Damien, who was rather angry about this, ended up pulling his paw back and charged energy within it. He called out, "Force Palm!"​

The attack landed square in the middle of Shroomish's face, knocking it out and leaving it with a nasty busted lip. Damien was left with a bit of blood on his face, but he was otherwise okay. He got off of it and wiped the blood on his paw off on the closest tree he could find. He picked up the scarf and put all of the items back into it. He then walked over to Jess, still worried about her. To his surprise, he found Pachi using a strange power to heal her. In a minute, the process ended, and Jess got up like she was never in any pain–or paralyzed, for that matter–at all.​

Damien was absolutely stunned.​

"She should be fine now," Pachi said nonchalantly. "She wasn't too badly hurt, and the paralysis was easy to fix."​

Damien just stared at her, still not believing what he saw.​

"I'll explain later," she said. "Let's just go."​

"Yeah... let's just go..." Damien finished off, a little frightened by this strange new character...​