With a cry, Phrena unleashed her power in one go, a devastating Moonblast. The sylvan surge rocketed down the dungeon hallway, punching through the outriders who called this temple home. Rallying her teammates, the Sylveon forged ahead.

“Keep close!” she ordered, paws slamming against the worn stone floor. “But don’t bunch up. If any traps go off—”

And speak of the devil. The moment she said it, Volta pressed her paw onto a stone panel that slowly sunk in. The Luxio had a moment of shock and dismay before a sudden lance of ice-cold air, conjured by some hidden mechanism in the temple walls, spat at her. Their third teammate, Flurry, tackled her from behind, tossing both of them to the ground as the icy blast coated the opposite wall in rime.

“I coulda handled it!” Volta spat as she untangled herself from Flurry. The Delibird crossed his arms.

“If that’s not a fine way to thank someone for saving your ass,” he started. Phrena cut them both off with light swats from her ribbon-like feelers.

“Now is not the time,” she growled. “This is the best haul we’ve ever seen. Do you want to surrender it to Hyssa and her flunkies because we were busy squabbling?”

That got them in line. Hyssa… that backstabbing Arbok had been Phrena’s teammate, once upon a time, until she’d fucked them over on a job and stolen the goods herself. Since then she’d recruited two more teammates, Torrent the Buizel and Hex the Braixen, each nearly as unscrupulous as she was. Hyssa’s team was always stealing jobs out from under them. It was more than normal rivalry; it was an outright vendetta.

“No ma’am!” both of her teammates responded, falling into line, and Phrena winced. Ma’am? She wasn’t that old!

“Anyway, let’s forge ahead!” she said, pushing harder into the temple. Her teammates followed fast.

The rescue request had come in on a sheaf of withered parchment smuggled from one of the most dangerous regions on the continent. A freelance Dewott adventurer, missing for months, managed to sneak out that he had been abducted and held hostage in a temple that was a known bastion of outriders—bandits, wanderers, thugs; the general-purpose term for pokemon who eschewed civilization to live in the murky confines of dungeons, preying on adventurers and passers-by.

Most teams wouldn’t dare risk such a stronghold, but the Dewott had provided quite the sweetened pot. On top of a heap of coin, he promised at least two eggs.

Eggs were extremely rare and valuable. It took a typical pair of compatible pokemon months of regular mating to produce an egg—and even their seasons lining up only granted a decent chance. Despite this, outriders were still known to abandon their eggs if they thought it would be a drain on their communities. They had more of them than town pokemon—probably because of a wider variety of partners and less access to.... “family planning.” Because of this, teams picked up cast-off eggs (or were rewarded them in missions) and brought them back to be raised communally by towns or guilds. For helping to keep the population up, returning even a single egg could be a career-advancing move. Bringing back two was almost a guaranteed rank up.

And Phrena would be scorched before she would give that to Hyssa.

Further down the hall, more outriders burst in. The enemy pokemon send a jagged fork of lightning streaking at her, but Volta was ready with the strategy they’d rehearsed. Phrena fell back as Volta skipped forward, absorbing so much enemy power until she was nearly aglow with it. Then, with a smirk, the Luxio sent it wheeling back, the outriders scattering like pebbles on a mountainside. The lone straggler, a harried-looking Drillbur, was immediately picked off by Flurry with a pinpoint ice attack.

“Well done,” Phrena said, marshaling her team. “Now let’s—”

A jet of water slammed into her, knocking her down with an oof. The attack had come not from the outriders, but from above—a cocky-looking Buizel was peeking down at them from an overhang. Hyssa’s squadmate.

With a snarl, Volta sent sparks at him, but the Water-type scampered before it could strike.

“You alright, boss?” Flurry asked as Phrena shook her coat free of water.

“Yeah,” she said, rising. “More hurt my pride than anything. But looks like the enemy’s caught up with us.”

“Not for long,” Volta snarled, lunging ahead.

“Wait,” Phrena said, panicking as she rushed after. “That’s what Hyssa and her squad want, to bait us!”

With Flurry at her heels, Phrena raced deeper, lungs burning. As she triggered a trap, slamming herself low to dodge a swinging post from a chamber above, she cursed out Volta. The Luxio had a good heart, but was far too easily worked up!

Eventually the hallway she was in joined another at the sides. Phrena noticed a wide array of unconscious outriders, more than could believably be attributed to Volta alone. Hyssa came this way. I know it!

She pushed into a spacious chamber, the walls carved with runic depictions of Unown, just in time to see Volta, in pursuit of Hyssa’s Buizel, step onto a slightly raised tile—and then a cage of wrought crystal slammed down around her.

“Dammit!” Volta shrieked, unleashing her lightning against the crystal. It didn’t work; the thing had been made to keep captive pokemon of many types secure. “We got a Rollcall Orb?”

The item would have immediately summoned Volta to Phrena’s side, out of the cage, but Phrena had only brought one—and used it earlier, saving Flurry from a teleportation trap. Volta’s face fell as her teammate shook her head.

Cursing her luck, Phrena probed the cage with her feelers, trying to get a read on it. Was the crystal more susceptible to physical attacks? Fire or water, perhaps? “Hold up, we’ll get you out.”

Volta’s fur bristled. “Forget me! If you hurry, you can still catch that snakey bitch and get the reward!”

Phrena raised a brow. “You’re… certain?” It was a fact of adventuring that pokemon caught alone by outriders always risked a certain sort of… attention. More than one female had ended up on the receiving end of a breeding session. It was why you were expected to travel in groups.

“They have to raise the cage to get at me,” Volta said cockily, “which leaves them at my mercy. Let them try! I’ll be fine, go rescue the client!”

“What about the Escape Orb, boss?” Flurry said. “As a last resort for her?” It was a good idea. Using it would immediately warp Volta home—along with her teammates, wherever they were. It guaranteed safety, but also guaranteed they’d fail the mission.

“That should work,” Phrena said. Fishing the orb out of her satchel and pushing it at Volta, she felt uncertain at the wounded pride on the Luxio’s face. Volta was proud and would hate to be the reason they failed.

“Trust her with this,” Flurry pushed, and Volta met her eyes and nodded. Phrena made the call—she would leave her teammate to fend for herself.

“Don’t push your luck!” she insisted. “Use the orb if there’s any doubt!” Afterwards, she took Volta’s advice and booked it, trying to ignore the sound of outriders creeping into the chamber the moment that she and Flurry were in the hall. Volta could handle herself. Phrena had to believe she could.

In the hall ahead, a knot of disorganized pokemon showed where Hyssa’s team had punched through. The outriders rallied themselves with a cry, but Phrena was having none of it. Summoning lunar energy, she unleashed it with a shout, the blast spearing down the hallway to smash into the group. They scattered and she pounced, lashing out this way and that with her feelers. Behind her, she heard Flurry going at it with his own powers, summoning ice and wind to face down interlopers.

“We can’t keep playing keep-up!” Phrena shouted over the din. “If we’re going to catch up with Hyssa, we need an alternate path!”

“Got an idea!” Flurry replied. “Who knows this place better than the natives, huh?”

It was a solid plan. Phrena chased down a fleeing outrider, Flurry mopping up the mess behind her. The outrider, a Sandshrew, took a side path away from the central way Hyssa had gone, slipping first left, then left again, each time sending a spray of sand and pebbles at his pursuer. Phrena swatted them away with her feelers, a growl cultivating itself in her throat.

She caught up just as the smaller pokemon pressed in a carving, one of the temple walls sliding up to reveal a hidden passage. As he turned to face her, she coiled one of her feelers about his neck, his eyes widening in panic.

“Where’s the Dewott,” she said, her voice low. Echoing steps behind her spoke to Flurry catching up.

“Urk,” the Sandshrew said. “Ulp.”

She loosened her feeler and he jabbed a claw at the yawning passage. “Secret stairs,” he wheezed, “about a hundred paces in. Open them, go down two levels, take a first right, and it’s a straight shot to a big chamber that meets up with the place we’re holding him.”

She let him go and he slumped over, eying her angrily.

“If I find out you’re lying to me,” Phrena said testily, “then this Delibird here…”

Standing beside her, Flurry held up a hand and summoned a plume of boreal energy, the ice dancing around his wingtip, glowing pure white. His face looked downright manic, his beak twisted into a gleeful mask of malice. The Ground-type shied away from his radiance, looking fearful—no, scratch that, looking terrified.

“…will take it outta your hide,” Flurry finished.

As the Sandshrew scuttled away, Flurry let the ice power fade away, and the twisted sneer faded from his face. “What do you think? Too strong?” he said. He was a talented actor.

“Not for an outrider,” Phrena said back. “C’mon, let’s go.”

The passage was empty. They counted out a hundred paces, trying to take smaller steps to mimic a Sandshrew’s stride, and Phrena noticed a gem surreptitiously set into the eyes of a wall carving. On pressing it, the wall folded back, revealing a shadowed staircase.

She met Flurry’s eyes and then they surged ahead in wordless union. When a pocket of outriders melted out of the wall, Flurry swooped ahead, his wings gliding. “Allow me!” he said. Twisting in the air, he reached into the sack all Delibird carried, fishing out an honest-to-Mew present, wrapped bow and all, before chucking it at the knot of enemies.

The present exploded, naturally, and the stragglers were swept up with a deluge of ice energy.

“Good work,” Phrena noted, her partner beaming with pride at her praise. As they raced along, Phrena couldn’t help but note that they hadn’t been ejected from the dungeon yet due to an Escape Orb. Good. That meant Volta either wasn’t in danger or was handling herself.

They passed a few more outriders through the passage, but not many, and no traps at all. Free of harassment, they made quick time. If Hyssa and the others had been held up even a bit, this could be their equalizer!

Eventually the passage transformed into a one-way chute. Scarcely skipping a beat, Phrena hopped onto it back-first, her paws in the air and feelers streaming behind her as she rushed down. The chute twisted and snaked, plopping her into a well-lit, open chamber. As she righted herself, Flurry glided down past her—and then the chamber doors opened, three pokemon filing in.

Hyssa, at the front, stopped, her eyes narrowing. Though her teammates looked shocked that they’d fallen behind, Hyssa only looked contemptuous. “I suppose I should’ve expected some way for you to try and sneak something you didn’t earn,” she said airily.

“That’s your specialty,” Phrena spat. Already she could feel the power singing in her as she gathered it. In cases like this, where rival teams competed for the same goal, it wasn’t uncommon for a scrap to ensue as to who had the rights for the glory. “Did you tell your teammates how you left me and the others out to dry in that gorge? Hey, Hex—Torrent! Wonder how long it’ll be till you’re the ones she throws aside like old berries?”

Hyssa’s team outnumbered Phrena’s three to two, and she and Flurry were on the receiving end of some bad matchups. Division, making it so that Hyssa’s teammates wouldn’t give it their all, was her only chance.

Hyssa’s voice was sibilant and low, like rich chocolate. “For all that talk of abandonment, I don’t see the Luxio. Left to the mercies of outriders, hmmm?”

Phrena’s anger spiked. She bared her fangs, and behind her she could feel Flurry gathering power. Hyssa rose, spreading her hood, as Torrent and Hex readied for battle, an ember dancing on the tip of the Braixen’s wand.

And then all hell broke loose—in a way none of them were expecting. Secret panels opened and outriders, dozens strong, flooded into the chamber.

Roaring with fury, Phrena unleashed her pent-up energy against the outriders. The ensuing Moonblast attack swept through their numbers, knocking them back. Nearby, Hyssa was scattering troops with sweeps of her wide tail, and Hex and Flurry had implausibly positioned themselves back to back, fire and ice spreading out in waves to drive back the enemy.

There was an unspoken rule among every adventure team, even the ones that were flat-out rivals: outriders were always a common enemy, and old enmities were forgotten until they were out of the way.

And the outriders just kept coming. Wave after wave—Ursaring and Claydol and Seviper and Flareon and Simipour, pokemon after pokemon, over and over again. They just didn’t stop; their numbers seemed almost ceaseless. This is the main outrider force, Phrena thought, no doubt about it. It was incredible—an army of pokemon dozens strong that almost certainly would have overwhelmed either team on their own. No wonder the Dewott had posted such an incredible reward. They really didn’t want him getting out.

Torrent—formerly her enemy, now an ally of circumstance—blasted a Bug-type off her back with a pinpoint precision of water. In exchange, Phrena grabbed him with her feelers and sent him skyward; the Buizel used the lofty perch to rain watery blasts down on the outriders. Their numbers were thinning.

And that let her see Hyssa slip out of the horde and make for the door on the other side.

Even as she unleashed another Moonblast, Phrena was furious. Even now, her old teammate was trying to fuck her over? She was… she was…!

A jagged beam of ice energy soared over her shoulder, trapping a Servine in frosty crystals. “We got this, ma’am!” Flurry said. The Delibird ducked a swing from a Smeargle and responded with a fierce jab from his beak. Some looked down on his species, but he was one of the most talented teammates she’d ever had. “Go get our prize!”

With a wordless cry, Phrena blasted the last few outriders in her way and made chase. There was one final hallway on the other side of the door, one Hyssa was winding down sinuously.

But then, even in their training days, Phrena had always been faster.

A weak Moonblast without much charge would do almost nothing to a Poison-type of Hyssa’s power—but the impact alone slowed her for a few seconds. It wasn’t much, but it was enough for Phrena to pounce.

“You—backstabbing—fucking—bitch!” she screamed, scrabbling against her old teammate with claw and fang. Hyssa, on her part, responded with thick lashings of her tail, trying to close in for a bite. One good Poison-type attack would take Phrena out of the game, but the Sylveon was too canny for that, keeping her head right under Hyssa’s chin—one of the few places she couldn’t bite.

“You always—held me—back!” Hyssa snarled back. The two of them tumbled down the hallway, all knotted up; Hyssa’s serpentine body wound around Phrena, Phrena’s feelers winding around back in turn.

“This is my mission!” Phrena said. “You can’t have it!”

Hyssa bludgeoned her with her tail. “Narcissist! You just don’t want others to win, it always has to be you!”

Eventually they came to a stop—at a pair of dark paws under blue-furred legs. Looking up, both females saw a very concerned-looking Dewott staring down at them.

“Are… you two my rescue?” he said with a hopeful smile.

Forcing themselves to act civilized, Phrena and Hyssa disentangled, Phrena asking the all-important question: “Who got here first?”

It would decide everything. Another unspoken rule: while competing teams could interfere with each other, and even battle, in the pursuit of a mission, when the victory criteria were met, they were met—end of discussion. As the client, the Dewott would decide—though it seemed he didn’t want to intervene in their tussle.

Plainly recognizing the hostility between them, the Dewott took an involuntary step back. “Well, you were all tangled up! It’s… kind of hard to tell! Haha…”

If he meant it to placate them, it wasn’t working. Hyssa rose up, looking thunderous. “Who got,” she said, enunciating each word, “here first?”

The Dewott rubbed his brow in annoyance. “…so I have to decide, huh? Well, like I said, you were all tangled… but I think the Sylveon’s ribbon was outside of the tangle, so…”

Elation filled Phrena. Vindication. Victory! Triumph! Every cell of her screamed to rub it in Hyssa’s infuriated face; but she settled on a knowing smirk instead.

The way the Arbok seethed was everything to her.

Phrena trotted over. “One teammate is a few rooms back, and another is earlier in the temple. We’ll fetch them on the way out. Now…” She glanced around, looking for the reward that would catapult her team to legend. “Where are the eggs?”

“…about that.”

She immediately turned on him. No way. He lied? He lied about this? A part of her almost understood. Given the complexity of the temple and the sheer volume of outriders throwing themselves at them at the end, he would almost need to lie to guarantee a rescue.

The rest of her, of course, was stone-cold furious.

“You’re a freelancer,” she said, her voice deadly low, “so you should know the punishment dished out on questgivers who offer false rewards. You’re talking years in prison.”

The Dewott held up his hands. “It’s not a false reward, honest! The eggs will just… show up through, um, an unusual circumstance…”

Sibilant laughter from the corner of the room. Phrena turned to glare at her old rival. “Arceus’s wheels,” Hyssa chuckled, “you’re honestly saying that you’re going to impregnate her as your reward? Twice? The arrogance of some pokemon!”

Phrena whipped her head towards Hyssa in disbelief, only to whip back to the Dewott, who was blushing deeper and deeper.

Storms alive, that really was what he was going for.

He spread his paws, a pleading gesture. “Listen, I understand your skepticism! I’d be willing to work for your team to pay off the debt until you have both eggs, if that’ll make you feel safer!”

Phrena snorted. “So you’re willing to just serve my team for months—if you’re even lucky enough to have finished before the year is up?”

He coughed lightly. “I, er, in my experience, it… usually takes a little less time than that.”

Phrena scoffed. “How long, then?”

He started to blush. “Um, usually… it takes about… one try?”

“One try.” Phrena’s voice was flat and skeptical.

He nodded.

“Every time?”

He nodded again.

Her paws tensed against the stone. She was supposed to believe this? The ego of some males! “Pull the other one,” Phrena snapped. (Yes, she did use a metaphor which didn’t apply to Hyssa. Had to stick to your passions.)

“It’s true!” he insisted, a touch more forcefully. “Don’t know how, but that’s just how it works for me. Found out pretty early on… you know how the adventurer life is. You, ah, make some… relationships when out exploring, y’know?”

Phrena all but rolled her eyes; she could feel Hyssa doing the same. The predilection for male adventurers to have a female in every guild, town, outpost, and sometimes even dungeons was a stereotype firmly rooted in reality.

“Anyway,” he continued, “word, um, got out, and I was… hired by some of the temple pokemon to, ah, help them repopulate.”

“You didn’t see them since we took different paths,” Hyssa said, her voice musing, “but my team passed through a chamber with a lot of pregnant females. Something’s been doing a lot of breeding in a short amount of time in this temple.”

“Yeah, those would be my… my, uh, clients,” the Dewott said, still blushing. “Lemme guess—Ninetales, Zangoose, Absol, Meowstic, Quilav—”

“We get it,” Hyssa said sardonically. The Arbok met Phrena’s eyes and nodded, the two females instantly coming to the same realization—this Dewott was probably telling the truth about his fertility if he’d managed to knock up that many pokemon at the same time. She glanced down at his equipment... she could definitely see him living up to his claims.

“Anyway, they also hired me to stay on for a bit, just to make sure it took, but then when it came time for me to leave, the temple…”

“…decided they wanted a permanent breeder for themselves, if they were in the business of expanding,” Hyssa finished mordantly. The Dewott blushed deeper and nodded.

Phrena raised an eyebrow. Outriders were known for casting off eggs… but this temple was huge, easily big enough to support a community. It made sense for them to want to expand.

“I’m decent at adventuring,” he said, “but even I can’t take on a complex this massive alone, so I got a sympathetic female to smuggle out the job posting.”

It spoke to how prestigious those eggs would be—and how long Phrena had gone without a good lay—that she was honestly considering this.

“Alright,” Phrena declared, “if we’re really going to entertain this proposition of yours, let me take a look at this.” And before the Water-type could put up a token protest, her feeler reached out to caress his sheathed cock, the touch making him tense and hiss out a sharp breath. Before long it was poking out, a bright red tip—and then he was erect. She couldn’t help but feel impressed. He was big for his size, and healthy, and when she gave his cock a tentative squeeze with her feeler, he grunted, paws clenched. His breath grew shallow with arousal.

“W-Well?” he forced out.

Before Phrena could respond, Hyssa cut in. “You know, old friend,” she said, chuckling, “we could… share this reward.”

“I won,” Phrena snarled, but Hyssa didn’t back down, an infuriatingly noxiously sweet smile on her face.

“You did,” she conceded, “you did, but… our teams each have two females, and we’re all compatible. There’s no reason why both of us shouldn’t get two eggs each after our hard work.”

“Why should I share?” Phrena shot back. “I won this fair and square. Go find someone to fuck back in town, that is if any male doesn’t raise the price higher than you can afford the moment he sees you coming!”

If the barb stung, Hyssa didn’t show it. “Why share?” she murmured. The tip of her tail dug into her explorer’s satchel, drawing out—

Phrena’s eyes widened. A Rollcall Orb. “Why indeed?” the Arbok said pleasantly. “Something tells me you’re missing one of these, or else your Luxio would have shown up with you—and I’m going to guess you left the Escape Orb with her, hmmm?”

When Phrena said nothing, Hyssa smiled wider. “Thought so. You really want to walk all the way back through the temple with a client without an easy way out? We know they’re in the market for breeders—what if the outriders carried off your Luxio, hmmm? How would you find your Escape Orb then?” She waggled the item teasingly in front of Phrena’s face. “I’m not asking you to give me anything. You’d still get the same reward either way. Just let me and my team share it, hmmm?”

“Fine!” Phrena said. “Fine. We can share.” She turned to glare at the Dewott. “I assume that’s fine with you?”

“I expected sex with strangers to be my way out of here anyway,” he said, shrugging. “So I—ah-ahhhhh… I, u-um, don’t mind…” He trailed off, blushing. Phrena had inadvertently caressed his sack with one of her feelers.

Stomping over to Hyssa, Phrena grabbed the Rollcall Orb. It would work for both their teams if they used it together.

At the count of three, they chucked it down, and the room filled with light. Teleporting in came Flurry and Hex, still standing back to back; Torrent, looking bruised and battle-worn; and—

Volta came into the room splayed and quivering, one paw reaching out languidly, her eyes half-lidded, a blush of arousal covering her face. Her tongue lolled out of a mouth that was open and inviting, a small trail of pearlescent fluid leaking out of it; similar fluid, a lot of it, dripped from between her legs. The fur on her back was rumpled as if some pokemon had been putting its weight there.

“Nnnnngggggggghhhaaaa—uh, uhhn? H-huh?” she slurred, blinking. “We done already?” As she focused, she became aware that her teammates—and worse, her rivals—were staring down at her with varying looks of exasperation and amusement. Volta’s eyes widened and she tried to shoot up—a difficult task, given that her legs were shaking. “Um… uh, m-mission accomplished… ma’am?” she asked, her throat slightly hoarse. A bit of cum trickled out of her mouth as she spoke and she wiped it away sheepishly.

Phrena was facepalming herself with one ribbon-like feeler. “The Escape Orb, Volta?” she sighed.

The Luxio turned a beet red that had nothing to do with the fucking she’d just received. “Oh, I, uh, must have—forgot that you wanted me to use it if I got in, in trouble!” She pulled it out with embarrassment. “Heh… silly me, I forgot! Whoops! That’s why I didn’t use it, ma’am! We—”

“I just need it,” Phrena said in a voice of utter long-suffering, Hex and Torrent and even Flurry’s snickering filling the room, “to complete the mission.” Volta shut it and handed it over.

“So… we won?” she ventured, clearly trying to change the subject.

“You did,” Hyssa said, smiling, coiling against herself in pleasure. “But you could say we all get to share the results.”

“Mister—” Phrena trailed off, realizing she’d never gotten the client’s name.

“Tidal,” the Dewott supplied.

“Mister Tidal here is hyperfertile, which is why the outriders wanted him in the first place. As payment, he’ll give us eggs… in the, ah, traditional manner. For lending me her Rollcall Orb, Hyssa and I have…” She sighed and grit her teeth. “Agreed… to share the reward.”

“I’ll be taking up the Water-type on his offer,” Hyssa said smoothly, “and it sounds like my old friend here will as well. Hex? You interested?”

The Braixen considered for a moment and nodded.

Volta immediately jumped in, completely shameless to the fact that she still reeked of sex and was leaking cum. “I’ll! Um! I’d uh, like to volunteer to help us, uh, get our… reward! Ma’am!”

“No surprise there,” Flurry said in a stage whisper, setting Hex and Torrent whispering. Volta whirled on him.

“Oh, fuck you, Flurry!”

“Why not?” Hyssa said, eyes gleaming. “If four of our teammates are getting involved, it almost seems unfair not to involve the males.”

“I don’t mind males joining in,” Tidal interjected from behind. “If they don’t mind sharing.”

Phrena fumed at how her old rival was taking control of the situation. How like Hyssa—who had flat-out admitted she’d lost!—to turn a simple quest reward into an inter-team orgy. Still, she had a point. If you were going to drag your team into a sexual scenario, you might as well go all the way. “The males are invited,” she said, “if they want to come.”

Flurry looked floored, his expression chastening when Torrent socked him good-naturedly in the arm. “Come on, man!” the Buizel said. While he and Flurry might be on rival teams, right now they were bound by a different sort of bond—that of mutual males facing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of some seriously crazy sex. “How often do you get a chance to get involved in an orgy? With your teammeates? And your fucking boss?”

Hyssa chuckled almost predatorily. “Be careful, Torrent,” she said, her voice low and smooth. “The purpose of this is to breed. Might I end up carrying your offspring, hmm?”

If it was meant as a deterrent (and Phrena didn’t think it was) it wasn’t working. If anything, Torrent looked more excited at the opportunity to knock up his boss.

A cavalcade of noise outside drew their attention. The outriders were amassing themselves.

“Okay, Flurry can decide later,” Phrena said, hefting the Escape Orb. “Everyone gather round. Tidal, you can rent us a suite at the inn and tonight we can get our payment.”

“Wait, I have to pay?”

She glared at him. “It’s your reward, unless you intend to impregnate us in the middle of town square.”

He looked abashed. “Fair point.”

As the doors burst inward, Phrena cast the orb to the ground, and both teams and the captive Dewott disappeared in blinding light, leaving behind a slew of very unhappy outriders.

It wasn’t until they were plopped down right in the middle of town that Phrena realized that Volta still had that just-got-fucked look to her.

“Arceus’s mercy,” she muttered at the Luxio tottered off to the inn in a gait that was failing spectacularly at being normal, “this had better be worth it.”