The walls began to reflect the morning light as Edda sat in meditation. She had been planning Pokemon strategies through the Hour of the Ox, and since then had alternated 15-minute sleep sessions with 45-minute periods of contemplation. Her twin albino Glameow napped on either side of her; their spiral tails floated in the air, twitching as they dreamt. On the other side of the room, the boys snored like donkeys.
The morning light took shape and brought detail to the room: the Hour of the Dragon. Edda sprang silently to her feet. On the other side of the room, Pablo's Megatross were already observing her. They had learned her routine, though she varied it sometimes, just to keep them on their guard. Pablo was a huge rumpled pile snoring loudly in the corner.
Rolled up against the wall, wrapped tightly in a cloak, was Raed. He was starting to shiver and twitch, in a pattern that had repeated twice so far that night, as he descended in to REM sleep and to the nightmares that he was unable to avoid. Edda considered kicking Raed awake and sparing him his last set of nightmares but decided against it. Raed's Musharna lay beside him, ready to help him with any dream he couldn't handle. And besides, he and Edda were rivals.
Edda paid little conscious attention to the next several hours, especially once Pablo woke up. Pablo had a tendency to speak great loud boisterous nonsense, and had singled out Edda for frequent teasing. Edda kept him around to test her mental discipline. She had resolved to disarm him permanently when next she battled him.
As they left the abandoned temple in which they had slept, Pablo's chatter was momentarily quieted by giant gulps of sweetened water he took. Edda sidled up to Raed. "What did you see in your dreams last night?" she asked him.
"Great destruction," he said. "I was a tree, and I was burned. I was the earth, and I was turned to sand. I was life, and I fled. And if I did not flee..." He shivered.
"Then Musharna woke you," Edda said.
"No," said Pablo. "Musharna only helps me when my dreams are about to kill me."
Edda nodded. Behind them, Pablo's voice began again, as he attached his Vest and sent out orders to the Beldum and Metang that had been patrolling that night.
"What will cause this destruction?" Edda said. "And when will it happen?"
"Humans will cause the destruction," Raed said. "And it will happen early in the day."
Pablo appeared in the doorway and began commenting with guffaws on their lack of hygiene, their inability to create a decent breakfast, and the extent to which Pablo was a superior Trainer. Nodding to Raed, Edda began walking. Raed, Pablo, and Pablo's Metagross followed.
Over the next hour, Edda learned many things about Pablo, none of which she found particularly interesting. She was told about the country village in which he grew up, the Pokemon he had as a child, the Pokemon he had WANTED as a child, the Pokemon he had said he had NOT wanted as a child (although he really had) and every person who had Pokemon that he had wanted as a child but did not have. He was halfway through a detailed discussion of a childhood acquaintance's Swinub, when suddenly he stopped and said: "What's that?"
They had emerged from a forest path. In a clearing ahead, a stick had been jabbed into the ground. An envelope was attached to the top of it.
"Go get it," Pablo said to Raed.
"N- No way..." Raed said. He felt faint any time he walked for more than a couple of minutes, and was now desperately out of breath. "Send a bird."
Pablo reached to the metal mest he had attached to his pear-shaped, oversized body. He pushed a button. A Pokeball shot out of his vest, splitting open to produce a Spearow. "Get the envelope!" Pablo said, then he started to tell a story in which he had lost an envelope that had he had never actually been given.
"Do you think-" Raed said.
"Yes," Edda said. "Listen. Nothing in the forest is moving."
"Pablo, be careful," Raed said as the Spearow returned and dropped the envelope into Pablo's hand.
"Careful?" Pablo laughed. "What's there to be careful about? You're hanging with the most powerful Pokemon Master in the world!"
Pablo opened the envelope, and read the small card inside.
"Hah, that's funny," he said, holding the card up to Edda and Raed. "What do you think it means?"
On the card, Edda read the words: "Prepare for trouble."