The Grovyle yawned, scratching his long neck with one green, clawed hand. He wasn't getting much of a break lately - he had been ordered to guard the west flank of Castle Marshix last night, too, and now this morning and afternoon he was doing the same. He must have slept for only five hours in the last two days; it was getting hard just to keep his eyes open now. In this state, he wasn't much use as a sentry - but he knew what would happen if he disobeyed a direct order. So he had gritted his teeth and walked back up the long, spiral staircase to the top of Castle Marshix, and taken his place at its western-facing side. At the east was a Nuzleaf, at the north a Bayleef, and at the south a Gloom. If he hadn't known better, the Grovyle would have thought that Ho-oh was persecuting Grass Pokemon - then again, he didn't know better. In fact, he happened to know that Ho-oh didn't like Grass Pokemon. An unsettling thought, considering what became of most Pokemon Ho-oh disliked.
The Grovyle sighed, struggling to stay fully awake against the tide of exhaustion threatening to consume him. Rubbing his eyes, he scanned the lawn, and then the trees of Petalburg Woods in the distance. Still nothing but the usual activity of the servants in the field below. He yawned again, closing his eyes against the burning sun. What he wouldn't give to be down in his nice, soft bed in the barracks, down on the first floor on the castle, drifting in the wonderful, relaxing realm of sleep...in a void of blackness...
Asleep...
"Argh! Help!"
The Grovyle's eyes snapped wide open - his heart suddenly racing, he looked over the edge of the battlements. Below, in the lawn, he could just make out a group of soldiers - Charmeleon, by the looks of them - and they seemed to be in trouble. Cringing, he leaned as far over the edge as he could, trying to make out what was going on. A group of mixed types, obviously not from the castle, had appeared on the lawn without his noticing - and they were attacking the castle soldiers.
Suddenly wide awake, the Grovyle raised his hands high - his palms glowed white for a moment, then a volley of leaves rocketed up into the air. He threw his head back, looking straight up, praying that one of the Bird Pokemon that guarded the castle skies had seen his Razor Leaf attack. A second later, the Grovyle breathed out in relief; Anya, one of the Pidgeot guards, had seen his warning, and she was flying down at high speed to where he stood, waiting.
"What is it?" she asked as she approached. The wind from one of her impressive downward strokes buffeted the Grovyle, and he staggered.
"Down there," he said quickly, pointing off the edge of the battlements. "There's a patrol of Charmeleon being attacked - I think it's the Karim."
"Rrrakk!" Anya sneered, perching on the battlements and gazing down. "Do they honestly think they can hurt us with a group that small? There must be fifteen of them, if that. They will pay for their insolence."
With that, she spread her large wings and dropped off battlements, screeching as she did so - as an alert to any soldiers who were training in the castle courtyard. The Grovyle wondered for a moment how Anya had been able to tell how many attackers there were - then he remembered the powerful sight most Bird Pokemon possessed. He wished he had such sight. Maybe if he had been able to see through the back of his own head, he would have seen the huge majestic Fearow that, a moment later, drove its beak into the back of his head, ending his life.
A Suicune - Lazarus - cast his eyes over the battle. It wasn't going well, as he had predicted - fifteen Pokemon against the five thousand that populated Castle Marshix had been a hopeless death sentence. Of course, he thought bitterly, there was no point in him feeling guilty - they had been willing to somehow try and fight their way into the castle to liberate their captured friends, and Ambra, as head of the Karim, had given her permission. Lazarus felt a stab of resentment when he remembered the conversation they had had the night before, in their hideout in Petalburg Woods.
"You can't let them go," he told her, in a fiery temper after being told this news. "You might as well be sending them to their deaths!"
"I am not forcing them to go," Ambra said, in that calm, mysterious voice. How he hated that voice of hers - completely unemotional, like all Psychic Pokemon. Being a Latias, she definitely fit this description. "But I am also not going to prevent them. It's their decision - it is their friends and allies who are being held in the castle. Ho-oh is probably keeping them alive to try and get information of our whereabouts from them. Once he realizes that they won't relent anything, he'll no doubt kill them."
"They are my friends, too," Lazarus replied angrily. "And there is no point in them running in there like that, fifteen of them, in broad daylight. They'll all be destroyed - they must know they're no use to anyone dead. Anyway," he added suspiciously, "how do you know for sure that Celpris and his group are still alive? They were captured three days ago - anything could have happened to them by now."
"They are alive," Ambra said plainly. "I can sense them."
Lazarus gritted his teeth - he hated her Psychic powers, too. They made him feel, if possible, even more useless.
"Yes, they may be alive," he muttered, "but these fools won't be if they go charging in there like that. It's suicide! And you know as well as I do that we can't spare any more Pokemon here - there's only a hundred of us, eighty-five by tomorrow night if they go. Can't you talk sense into them?"
"Eldora and a few others have gone into Route 116 to look for more willing members for our cause," Ambra said calmly, avoiding his question. "Tomorrow I will take a group up to Route 114, maybe into Meteor Falls as well. I will leave you in charge."
"What about tomorrow afternoon?"
"I do not see a point in discussing it further, Lazarus."
"Fine. It will be on your head, not mine."
Lazarus felt another stab of emotion at the memory, but it was not resentment - it was grief, mixed with anger. How could she have allowed them to do this? And she had sent him to watch, from the edge of the Woods, and then report to her after they were all killed. Those had not been her words, but they might as well have been. Because almost all of them were dead, and they were dying right in front of his eyes - it was all he could do not to go charging into the middle of it and try to defend them. But he knew that if he did, he would be just as foolish as they had been. She had even forbade Lazarus to try and talk them out of it. "It is their decision," she had said again, in that impassive voice. It made his blood boil.
He raised his head, looking up into the sky. He could see a Fearow circling high above Castle Marshix, who he recognized immediately - it was Quartus, another member of the Karim. He was flying higher than any of Ho-oh's Pidgeot sentries, and none of them seemed to want to go near him. It was understandable - he was more than twice as big as any of them, with a beak long and sharp enough to pierce in through one side and out the other.
The Karim was, as far as its members knew, the only secret group to be plotting against Ho-oh's empire - or, at least, they had been secret. Somehow, Ho-oh had caught wind of their existence, and had sent patrols out into the forest to search for them. That was how a small group, led by an Umbreon called Celpris, had been captured. As far as the rest of the Karim knew - thanks, of course, to Ambra - they were still alive in the castle. And, also thanks to Ambra, it had been this knowledge that had driven fifteen close friends of the captured Pokemon to try and force their way into the castle and down to the dungeons, to save their friends.
Lazarus lowered his eyes from the sky and focused once again on the lawn, to where the fifteen Karim members had been a moment before. The castle's lawns were very long, and he couldn't make out everything from this distance, but he could easily tell that the battle was over. His stomach clenched as he made out the dead bodies of a few of his former friends, and he watched as a Wartortle sprayed a stream of water on a patch of grass that had been set on fire by one of the Charmeleon soldier's Flamethrower attacks. A new anger filled him, but it was not directed at Ambra - it was directed at the evil, murdering, cowardly, self-proclaimed "King" of Pokemon. Ho-oh.
Shaking his large, dark blue head, Lazarus turned away from the horrible scene and marched off quickly into the trees of Petalburg Woods, to report to Ambra.