"Hurry!" Faris shouted as Quill, Aamira, and Lucario ran across the open plane. Normally something like this would be no trouble for Quill and Lucario, but they weren't going to leave Aamira behind.
Aamira's lungs were burning and she felt that she wouldn't be able to keep going for long. Her arm wasn't helping matters much either, in spite of being immobilized in a sling. With one last burst of speed, she cleared the last of the distance between them and the tunnel entrance by the lakebed. Once they were all inside, Aamira leaned against the wall, panting and trying to catch her breath.
"I'm sorry." Quill said. "I had no idea that the ground sloped like that so far from the cave. If I could have just dug us a little closer."
"No, you did good." Aamira said through her gasps for air. "In such a flat landscape, natural caves are pretty rare, so traveling underground by using Dig was a great idea. You couldn't have known that the ground level would change so suddenly. I shouldn't have suggested running. We could have just waited for morning while Faris went on ahead."
"No, I think it was for the best." Faris was looking at the dark night sky outside. The moon had just come out from behind the dark storm clouds in the distance and, though it had started to wane some time ago, was shining brightly. "We got here safely and now we don't have to risk anyone stumbling across our tunnel and fining you."
"So basically you at least eased his mind, even though you nearly got yourself caught by doing it." Bisharp summarized for them.
"Well I doubt any of us wanted to stay in that tunnel for much longer anyway." Lucario said. "Besides, Zoroark might not have been looking right at that moment, even if the moon was out."
"Yea, but look at it now." Aamira was now standing just in the shadow of the cave, looking out over the huge, glass-like lake that surrounded the Mirror Palace. It was no wonder it was called the Mirror Palace; the water on the lake's surface was so still that it looked almost like the water was, in fact, a thin piece of glass separating the palace on their side to an identical, upside-down one on the other side. The clouds were patchy and the light from the moon created a halo effect whenever a cloud came close to it. The moonlight both lit up the dark and dreary clouds and turned the castle into a haunted black silhouette.
"What is it?" Lucario asked.
Aamira, who had had a strange look in her eyes until then, finally snapped back to reality. "Oh sorry, what?"
"You were being a little too quiet and you looked a little weird for a second." Lucario said.
"Oh, that…" Aamira said. "It might sound strange but… I guess maybe I'm a little homesick."
"You mean for your hometown?" Quill asked. "But I thought you hated it in this world?"
"Well, I don't like Zoroark, but that doesn't mean I hate the whole world." Aamira said. "After living in this world for around eleven years and not being able to remember it, then only getting a small glimpse of the castle I had called home from the outside while running away… I don't know, I just wish I could remember more of it."
"You should see it in the daytime." Faris said. "Better yet, at sunset. Inari isn't called the city of the setting sun for nothing, you know."
"The thing is, I kind of get the feeling that I've seen it before, like I'm really close to remembering it, and yet all I can ever get is the feeling. The actual memory keeps lingering just on the edges of the shadows."
"Well that's very nice." Bisharp said, reminding them all of the seriousness of their situation. "In case you haven't forgotten, Faris and I were supposed to be at the palace earlier today. We're already running behind, so we have to go now!"
"She's right." Faris said. "Let's get going."
They all followed Faris deeper into the tunnel. He seemed anxious to get through there quickly after spending the last few days underground. Quill had tried to light the way for a while, but as they got closer to the border to Neltona, the soil became moister from their constant rainfall and it became uncomfortably humid when he tried to light the way with his fire. Aside from that, half of the time he was digging through dirt that was more like mud, and was usually too wet for his fire to work well anyway. Lucario had lit the way most of the time with his Aura Sphere, but the light caused by it was still fairly dim, especially to human eyes. To Aamira's surprise, even when it was almost pitch black in the tunnel, she could see fairly well. Because of this, she didn't feel so resentful towards her nickname, "Brighteyes".
The bottom of the tunnel was soon filled with water up to Quill's shoulders when he stood on his back legs. To avoid walking through it, he took to riding on Aamira's shoulder. Lucario was getting tired from using Aura Sphere constantly over the last few days, which was something Aamira couldn't even imagine doing.
Finally their tunnel joined up with an old waterway that was used to keep water away from the lakebeds by the castle during the rainy season, which was almost always in effect in this area. The water didn't go into their tunnel, but continued down in a different direction and joined up with a nearby river. The water in the tunnel had most likely come from the soil above becoming oversaturated or from the lake overflowing and flooding the tunnel. Either way, they had come at a good time. Any other time, this whole tunnel would most likely be completely flooded and impossible to access, although this, according to Faris, was what made it such a secret passage connecting the outside to the inner castle walls.
There were several ladders along the waterway that led to drains on the lakebeds and near the inside of the wall. One certain ladder didn't lead to a drain, but to an apparent dead end. Either way, it was at such an even increment with the rest that anyone who had stumbled across it from the waterway by accident would just assume that it had been closed off long ago. This wasn't the case though.
Faris climbed up the wet and slippery ladder and pushed the tile at the top out of the way. After telling them that it was all clear, everyone followed without hesitation. As it turned out, they weren't inside the wall at all. Well, they were, but they were literally inside it. Hidden between the layers and layers of brick, there was this one small hidden cavity, just big enough for all of them to fit into.
Faris pressed against a section of the brick wall and the whole thing slid out on a sort of rail that wouldn't be visible from the outside or even the inside. They were about to follow when Faris pushed back on the wall, sealing them all inside.
"Ah, Faris! There you are!" It seemed that he had closed the secret passage just in time to keep another guard from spotting them. "You're late. Trouble on the road?"
"You might say that." Faris said with a nervous laugh.
"Yea, I get it." He had obviously interpreted the laugh to mean something other than what it really did, because he kept talking as though it were. "You know that little imp that's been following us around lately? Well it's back and it won't leave us alone for more than a few minutes."
"Ugh, here it comes now." A female voice said. They assumed this was the guard's partner, since he repeated this to Faris.
Lucario closed his eyes and focused on the aura of the people on the other side of the wall. Nothing seemed unusual about this guard. As Faris had said days before, Zoroark hadn't bothered giving any Leuminite to regular guards. His partner, as far as he could tell, wasn't as young as Poochyena had been, though she wasn't very old either. If raised as a guard, she would most likely prove to be quick to anger and extremely violent.
Then he noticed another aura. It was a strange one that looked like a swirling mass of color, most of them fairly dark, like some sort of shadowy whirlpool, and yet much calmer than that. It was almost eerily calm by the speed it moved. He had seen this aura before, though he couldn't remember where. When he finally realized who this was, he thought he must have been mistaken. Surely it couldn't be…
"What do you want?" The angry second guard shouted towards the newcomer. "Get out of here, you little pest!"
Lucario noticed the figure's aura spike, as if making a sudden movement, such as an angry wave of its arms. And yet no words were spoken. Surely not, but then it must have been…
"It's Daisy." He whispered to Aamira and Quill.
Quill nearly fell off of Aamira's shoulder out of surprise. He leaned over to the small crack in the wall where the secret door was hidden. It was small enough that no one would notice it if they didn't already know it was there, and yet just big enough for them to see through.
Quill's excitement died away almost instantly when he recognized the little Banette who was waving both of her arms around furiously at the two guards. "Oh, it's the Banette…" Though it was still interesting to see her here, he couldn't help feeling extremely disappointed. That feeling vanished almost instantly when he felt Aamira's shoulder muscles suddenly tense underneath him. "What is it?"
Aamira shook her head. Maybe she just felt too nervous to talk this close to a potential enemy. Quill was sure that she would tell him later if it was anything important.
"Is there any reason it would want to bother us so much?" Faris asked the other guard.
"Not that I know of." he said. "Well you know there's that one pokemon that Houndoom brought a few days back. Ever since it's been sneaking around. You know how strict all of our protocol is, and yet everyone goes a little over the line sometimes. Naps on night duty, playing card games at night, you know."
"I do love my card games." Faris said.
"Well with that… that THING roaming around here, if we step even one toe out of line, it slaps us!"
"Just kick it out then. OUCH!" Apparently he had just received one such slap from Daisy.
"It had a message that came with it, with the king's seal. We have to keep it here, but he doesn't say why. Maybe he thinks that we're being too relaxed with the security."
Aamira couldn't help smiling to herself. That much was true. If it hadn't been, they never would have been able to sneak in like they had. All of the guards knew about the tunnel leading to the waterways, though they didn't know about this hidden entrance. At the very least they should have stationed someone outside of the tunnel.
"Well, I'll figure out what it's doing here." Faris said. "I'll relieve you of duty, go get some rest."
"But sir, you've been traveling for days. Surely you're the one who needs rest?"
"Thank you for your concern." Faris said. "However, I think you'll find that my endurance is somewhat higher than yours. Of course, I have my energetic partner to thank for that."
The other guard laughed. "Understandable. Should I take this imp with me?"
"Yes, please do. Maybe it could go chase around the other slackers who are asleep on duty."
After a while, Bisharp came back to the secret passage and told them that they were alone. Daisy had finally agreed to go off with the other guard.
"Faris is keeping an eye out." Bisharp said. "In the morning we're going to go check things out and try to find a better hiding spot. For the time being, you'll all have to make due with this. We won't be able to stay here all night, so keep your voices down and don't talk at all unless it's absolutely necessary. Other guards will be making their rounds, so be sure to keep quiet."
"What if their partners smell us or hear our breathing?" Aamira asked.
"That shouldn't be too much of a problem." Bisharp said. "There are a lot of salt deposits in this area, so the entire castle would smell like salt to a pokemon. The smell of the salty water from the waterways will help to cover your scents. The wall here is thick enough to block out quieter sounds, so as long as you don't speak too loudly, they shouldn't hear you either."
Aamira sighed and sat against the side of the wall. Of course after being a prisoner for so long, being in such a small space like this probably wasn't the most exciting thing in her mind. More than that though, that was the first time that she truly realized that Lucario and Quill were most likely being hunted just as much as she was. Maybe not Quill so much because they got him and Daisy mixed up at first, but how long would it be before they realized?
Zoroark would definitely want Lucario to join the hunters, which was why he would be looking for him. Even so, he didn't know the real reason why Zoroark wanted him to join. In fact, aside from Aamira, Mew was probably the only person who would know that reason. She decided that she would definitely have to tell them once they got out of this place.
Eventually they all managed to fall asleep. The next day they were woken up by the sound of metal scraping on stone. Since Bisharp had a habit of doing this to sharpen her blades, it had become their signal over the past few days.
"We're awake…" Aamira said groggily as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
"Meet us by the fountain in the center of the keep at dusk." Bisharp said. "We found—"
She was cut off suddenly, most likely by another pokemon coming her way. They heard her walking away, trying to keep her pace slow and calm but not trying to seem too deliberate. Whatever she had been trying to say, they would have to find out later when they met with her and Faris.
They had slept a lot longer than they realized. It was already past noon by the time Bisharp had come by. They wondered what she and Faris had been up to in that amount of time.
When the sound of the guards on patrol started to fade, Aamira risked speaking for just a few moments. "You two need to be ready for a fight." She whispered to them.
"Why is that? Bisharp didn't give us any specific details." Lucario whispered back.
"That's what I'm worried about." Aamira said. "It could be that the General managed to alert someone by now about seeing us with Faris in the forest. They might already suspect that we're here just because Faris is here."
"But she couldn't have gone back to the capitol already, could she?" Quill asked.
"We can't count on that." Aamira said. "If Faris was captured, it could be that they're using Bisharp to lure us into a trap. I know it seems terrible to be so suspicious of an ally, but there's no other choice if we're going to get out of here without being caught. We have to stay on guard at all times."
They both nodded and they returned to silence. After hours of waiting, the sun began to set. The break in noise before had been during a change in the guard. Now they were waiting for another one so that they would be able to sneak out.
When the shift finally changed, Aamira pushed open the secret passage and they snuck out. Quill kept his ears strained and Lucario kept a lookout for anyone's aura. When the fountain came into sight, they were able to relax a little. Both Faris and Bisharp had been waiting for them and there had been no sign of an ambush or trap of any sort.
"What's going on?" Aamira asked.
"We're not going to be able to stay here." Faris said. "Remember what the other guard said before? That Banette showed up right when a certain prisoner was brought here. You might know who it is. It's a Cyndaquil wearing a red and white bow."
"Daisy!" Quill said.
"I tried to sneak in to find her, but security here is really tight right now, so I couldn't figure out where she's being held." Bisharp said. "Sorry I couldn't be more helpful."
"Don't worry, we can figure it out." Aamira said.
"You've noticed how heavy the guard is, haven't you?" Faris asked. "Normally there are only a few guards stationed here in order to defend the border if need be. The only reason it would ever be this heavily guarded would be if the king was meeting an ambassador from another country, usually Neltona."
"He's not coming here, is he?" Quill asked.
"Possibly." Faris said. "If he does, I'm afraid hiding here won't be an option. However, I think there's a greater reason for it. Daisy was kidnapped in the first place to lure Aamira out of hiding. Having her kept as a prisoner in such a highly secure area would almost guarantee that you would be found and captured in a rescue attempt."
"So are you saying we should just run?" Aamira asked.
"That would be the sensible thing to do." Bisharp said.
"But not the right thing." Faris said. "I'm sure that Zoroark would know that you had some help in escaping before, but I think he would count on you trying to rescue her alone. He would probably assume that whoever had helped you would try to stop you from doing this. Between the five of us, I think we might be able to fight our way through. There is a repercussion though…"
"Your treachery will become known. You'll be replaced as the captain of the guard." Aamira said.
"Why can't you just ask to see Daisy?" Quill asked.
"Because many of these guards don't answer to me, but to Zoroark directly. Some of them are probably even aware that Xerxes is nothing more than a disguise. If I made them suspicious in any way, they would surely tell him. Even then, there would still be the issue of how to get her out."
"But we would know where she is." Quill said.
"Not necessarily." Aamira said. "I'm sure Zoroark would have made them memorize a code of sorts. He probably would have made it so that no one could go near her unless they gave them a certain password to assure them that it was an order directly from him."
"I've memorized a few such codes on his orders before, but not the same ones that the guards would know." Faris said. "It's obvious that he doesn't want me as an enemy and is only doing it to keep me on his side. Not really on his side, but under his control. My word means a lot to quite a few people. No doubt he wouldn't want me spreading certain rumors."
"Like if I somehow convinced you to tell people that I really did reappear?" Aamira asked. "That was around the time Zoroark showed you who he really was."
Faris nodded. "That's what I think. It would have been nice to stay on as a spy for a while longer, but unfortunately it looks like that's not going to be possible unless we want to abandon that Cyndaquil."
"There is another option." Aamira said in a voice that told them that he wasn't going to like hearing it. "You could leave the rescue to us."
"Absolutely not!" Bisharp said.
Aamira sighed and shook her head. "You don't get it, do you? What's it going to matter what happens to me a hundred years from now? Even if something bad does happen to me, you would still be able to beat Zoroark from being on the inside. If I get captured, so what? You could always break me out later. I'm sure you'd find a way. Or is there some reason I shouldn't trust you to rescue me later?"
"Well… no…" Faris said.
"Zoroark will think of plans from every angle to corner his enemies. We need to do the same. Teamwork is important, but that doesn't mean we always have to work as a team. Working together but separately at the same time would just be that much more effective."
There was a moment of uncomfortable silence between them before Bisharp spoke up. "I get it now. I really underestimated you before. She's right, Faris. We can't underestimate the situation."
Faris seemed reluctant to agree, but eventually he nodded. "Alright. Get going now before it gets too dark. Aamira, I trust you'll remember your way around. If not I hope you at least get a sense of the Palace like you did with Inari. You all have a five minute head start. After that I'll have to chase after you, not as your enemy but as the Captain of the Guard."
Lucario and Quill looked shocked, but Aamira and nodded and ran around to the side of the castle wall. They hesitated for a second before following after her. They realized that if Faris came across them again that they would have to either fight him and Bisharp seriously or they would have to get caught in order to keep up appearances. Even so, it was difficult knowing they were fighting against an ally now.
They followed after Aamira, who did seem to have a sense of where to go here, as if she had done this before. Near the castle wall in the courtyard, she pushed against a part of the wall, which swung open revealing another passage like the one they had been through.
"How many passages are there around here?" Lucario asked.
"At least twelve, I would say." Aamira said. "Most old castles were built with secret passages to enable quick escapes in case of a sudden attack. A long time ago, everyone knew where these passages were because the countries were always in constant turmoil. In the last few centuries though, things have been so calm that there was no need for the passages and they were almost all forgotten. In the last few years though, I might have found a few…"
"You found this passage?" Lucario asked.
"Well I did used to be a spy for Zoroark, didn't I?" Aamira said. "I'm not going to bother looking back on it or regretting whatever I might have done. If I can remember my way around here, it will be putting that information to good use."
The way Aamira could figure out how to navigate the secret passages was impressive, though not always accurate. It seemed that her sense of direction was the same as how someone would walk somewhere they've been a hundred times before without even needing to know where they were going. Unfortunately, though she was able to figure out where all of the passages were, it usually got them going in the wrong direction. They usually ended up in places like secret meeting halls, throne rooms, guard barracks, and, strangely enough, the kitchen.
"The kitchen!?" Quill said as they backed away from the secret door that led to the inside of a spice cabinet.
Aamira laughed nervously and blushed a little. "I guess I got hungry a lot… I mean, I would probably be stuck in here for hours at a time, so of course I would… it's not like I probably snuck down here every ten minutes or so. That is… let's keep looking."
Quill and Lucario laughed and followed after her. Eventually, she found the way into a passage that led even deeper than the dungeons. With any luck, they would find their way beneath Daisy's cell and would be able to sneak her out through the floor in her cell. Strangely enough, all of the cells were abandoned.
"The dungeons here are usually only used for special cases. Prisoners of war, foreign spies, even outlaws trying to escape Neltona by crossing our borders."
"So you could say Daisy would be a prisoner of war." Lucario said. "Even so, the dungeons seem to be an obvious place to hold a prisoner when trying to set a trap. There are probably a whole bunch of Zoroark's special guards up there waiting for us."
"So Daisy's somewhere else." Quill said.
"Yea, but where?" Aamira said.
"Isn't it obvious?" Lucario said. "When exploring a dungeon, the other kind, of course, where would you normally find a valuable treasure or a strong dungeon boss? Not at the starting point, which in this place would be the bottom of the castle, but at the end. In this case, the top floor."
"In the keep, most likely." Aamira said. "Yea, it makes sense. That's the most protected area in the palace. Usually it's used to protect the king or queen whenever they visit here, or to protect a foreign guest. They'd probably hide her there somewhere."
"Any idea where to start?" Quill asked.
"The center tower. It's the tallest. I think there's a room hidden there somehow. She's probably there. I'm feeling a little apprehensive though. I'm not sure why…" Aamira thought for a moment, trying to place that apprehensive feeling. She found that if she could match up a familiar emotion to certain locations or actions that it helped her decide which way to go. "I think we have to leave the secret passages."
"Whatever's necessary!" Quill said. "We have to find her!"
There was another courtyard separating them from the keep. They had no choice but to run across it when Lucario assured them that no guards were around. It took about five minutes for them to all get across. By now it was night and they were lucky that it was now drizzling lightly, since there wasn't a moon for them to avoid.
Once they were all inside, they were able to breathe a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, after that they heard a growl from behind them. They turned to see who had spotted them and a small Houndoom with shiny blue fur and short horns walked towards them from out of the shadows.
The Houndoom looked like it was ready to pounce. Lucario readied an Aura Sphere and Quill flared up his fire, ready to attack if it pounced at them.
Aamira stood behind them, staring at the familiar Houndoom. She had seen this one once before in the last two years and didn't need her instinctual memories to figure out what to do in this situation. She put her fingers to her lips and gave a low whistle. The Houndoom's growl stopped and he raised his head, tilting his head to the side. The tip of his tail twitched excitedly, as though happy enough to wag his tail, and yet hesitant to do so.
"It's okay." Aamira said in a soft voice. "Come here, boy!"
The Houndoom barked happily and ran over to Aamira. His tail was now wagging quickly and he was staring up at Aamira expectantly.
"Er…" Aamira didn't know exactly what the Houndoom once, though she was just as taken back this time as she was before by how animal-like he acted. "Oh, do you… Are you hungry?"
The Houndoom barked again and bounded around the three of them in a playful sort of way.
"Who's this Houndoom?" Quill asked, obviously just as confused by behavior.
"His name's Blue. I raised him since he was a Houndour. I think that Zoroark wanted him to end up as my partner, since his Houndoom would technically be this one's superior. Even so, I don't think that desire lasted long. Zoroark didn't want me to think too freely in case I figured out what he was really like and tried to run off. Having a partner with the mindset of a common animal seemed beneficial at first, so he altered this one's mind somehow. After a while though, Blue started to see me more as his 'pack leader' than that other Houndoom, so the entire plan was ruined."
"How could he do that to a fellow pokemon?" Lucario asked.
"'Fellow pokemon'?" Aamira said bitterly. "Do you honestly think he sees himself as being on the same lower level as anyone else? Human, pokemon, to him it doesn't matter. He's a god and we're just a means of entertainment." She turned back to Blue and touched the tip of one of his horns. "Filed them down again, did they? Poor thing… Okay, boy. Go get the mousey! Go on. Where is it?"
Blue barked and bounded off ahead of them. They didn't like how he made so much noise, but if he knew the way, it was their best option. Luckily the guards around here seemed to be accustomed to the Houndoom running around the place and they didn't pay him too much attention. If Lucario ever sensed a guard up ahead, they would simply hide in a nearby room and let Blue distract them. After they passed by, they would continue following.
On the top floor, they followed Blue down a narrow hallway into a circular room. It seemed to be a dead end. There were no doors leading in other directions and not even any furniture.
"It led us to a dead end." Lucario said suspiciously.
"Maybe there's a secret passage?" Quill suggested, though he seemed equally suspicious.
Blue turned back towards them and growled. He wasn't growling at them though, but at the hall behind them. They turned to see their exit being blocked by the little Banette that they hadn't seen in years before this night.
"Daisy, what are you doing here?" Quill asked.
Daisy didn't speak, as usual, and yet she still seemed to be ignoring him. She was staring straight at Aamira with her arms crossed. Aamira's one good arm was hanging at her side, her hand clenched into a fist.
"I should have said something sooner…" Aamira said. "I ran away before. Twice. Afterwards, I was given a mission to go to Atra. Do you really think Zoroark would let me go alone and unsupervised?"
"You can't mean Daisy…" Lucario said, remembering the time that Daisy had once helped him to save Aamira's life. "There's no way… She was just a doll before, wasn't she?"
"Maybe, but then again, humans have been able to create artificial pokemon in the past. Zoroark is a master at it. She probably wasn't ever really a doll, just asleep, waiting for the time when I would try to turn my back on Zoroark. When she woke up the second time I came to Atra, it was most likely because she sensed something about me had changed. Not really physically, maybe, but she probably realized that I had done something to my memory."
"So Daisy was acting as a spy just like you were…" Quill said.
"I must have known too. At least, I must have figured it out at some point. I left Daisy behind in order to trick Mismagius into thinking I had been kidnapped, or at least that's what I wanted everyone to believe." Aamira smirked. "So it looks like my loyalty was shifting even back then, huh?"
Daisy balled up her hands into fists and stomped on the ground a couple of times. She seemed to be completely furious with her for doing this. At least it explained why she was in this world. After Aamira vanished from using Aura Restore on the Looking Glass, she must have run off to find her master and tell him what had happened.
"I can't believe this…" Quill said. "Espeon named my sister after her!"
Daisy made a motion that looked like a sign and shook her head. Without waiting for any of them to speak again, she attacked with Will-o-wisp. Aamira managed to jump back to avoid it and Quill didn't get burned since he was a fire type, but Lucario got a really bad burn across the back of his arms when he tried to block it. Seeing that her attack had hit Lucario, she followed up by attacking him with Hex.
Blue ran up behind Lucario and pushed him out of the way. Being a dark type, the attack didn't have any effect on him. Lucario attacked with Dragon Pulse and knocked her into the hall. Daisy got up and used Shadow Sneak to get behind Quill and attack him. Quill flared up the fire on his neck and lower back and Daisy backed off to avoid touching the flames. He turned towards her and attacked with Flamethrower.
Daisy fell to the ground near Blue and started to stand back up, but immediately stopped when Blue started growling.
"We have to go." Aamira said.
"But Daisy…" Quill said.
"It's a dead end." Lucario said. "We'll have to either come back later or keep looking while we run. Someone's coming, we have to go now."
Aamira had to pick Quill up and carry him, since he wasn't willing to leave on his own. There were tears in his eyes and he was trying his best to keep his fire down so he wouldn't burn Aamira, and yet there was a part of him that wanted to out of hope that she would drop him and he could go back to looking.
When they were finally out in the courtyard, they were surrounded by guards. Quite a few were chasing after them from inside the keep and the ones outside had noticed the disturbance and had rushed to corner the intruders. With Quill in a bad state, that left Lucario and Blue to fight off the guards and their partners. Blue seemed to be really timid and nervous around other pokemon, which left Lucario to do most of the fighting.
By this time it had started raining pretty hard. Quill wouldn't be able to help fight even if he wanted to. Eventually, somehow, Lucario and Blue had been able to knock out all of the guards and their pokemon, though they had to injure a few of them quite seriously in order to do it.
Soon there was only one left. He was holding his injured partner, a Raticate, in his arms and was now running away. Quill, who had finally had enough, squirmed out of Aamira's arms and chased after him, knocking him to the ground.
"Quill, that's enough!" Aamira said. "That one wasn't attacking us!"
Quill stared down at the human and the unconscious Raticate for a moment before stepping back. He wasn't ready to back off entirely though. He got down on all fours and flared up his fire, which in the rain looked like little more than a few sparks, and yet was still somehow really menacing.
"Where's my sister?!" Quill shouted at him.
"Your sister…" The guard said, seeming to understand what was going on now. "Okay, just calm down. You only had to ask, no need to get violent."
Quill extinguished his fire, but didn't lower his guard. "So where is she!? What has Xerxes done with her!?"
"He brought her here a few days ago, about a week I'd say. There's a secret room up in the tallest tower that can only be accessed by a hidden trap door." So their theory on Daisy's location had been right after all, they just hadn't looked hard enough. "Only a few people were told it was there and those people were assigned with guarding over the castle's keep and making sure the Cyndaquil there didn't escape. We were told that the Cyndaquil and her partner had been fugitives from Neltona and that they were going to hold her there until the border patrol found her partner. Xerxes believed that he might try to sneak in and rescue her from the dungeon, so she was hidden in that tower and we set up a trap in the dungeon and were told to arrest anyone without authorization who showed up there.
"I thought something was strange though." he said. "My Raticate went up there to deliver some food once and they ended up talking. She had some pretty strange stories, but she honestly didn't seem to know anything about Neltona or Dellevis or even Xerxes. She kept saying that she was kidnapped by his Houndoom and that her brother was going to come rescue her, but that just seemed so strange. It didn't make sense that Houndoom would do something like that."
"We've got to go back and rescue her!" Quill said.
"No, don't." the guard said. "You'll be wasting your time and you'll just end up getting caught. Just two nights ago, a boy showed up here in the dungeon. We thought he must have been her partner since he had come looking for her. After realizing that she wasn't in the dungeon, he ran to the keep. By the time the other guards had surrounded the keep, he was already gone and so was the Cyndaquil. He took out so many guards and their partners without the help of a pokemon… It was about the most terrifying thing I had ever seen."
"So she was rescued by someone else?" Quill asked. "Or was she just kidnapped by someone else?"
"I couldn't say." The guard said. "I thought for sure it must have been her partner though, since he had black hair like a lot of the folks from Neltona do. Although he did have those blue eyes, so I guess that's not necessarily a guarantee."
"I have white hair and red eyes." Aamira pointed out.
"Yes, and that's strange on its own. Who are all of you people?"
"Just one question." Aamira said. "If Daisy did escape, then why are there still so many guards around the keep?"
"It's that Banette. She can somehow communicate directly with Xerxes and he passed on an order through her to keep up the guard as usual in case someone else came through. None of us saw the point, but that Banette kept us from slacking on the job regardless. Guarding an empty keep though, it just seemed so pointless."
"Hang on, that Banette is mute, isn't she? How could she talk to Xerxes from such a long distance and be able to repeat his messages?" Lucario asked.
"Mute?" The guard said. "I think you must be mistaken. She doesn't talk a lot, but she does. She uses a basin of water to talk with Xerxes somehow. I think it must be some sort of ghost type ability."
Aamira's eyes widened. It had to be water from the Eye of the Moon. Somehow, Zoroark had found a way to use it as a means of communicating over large distances. But if that was true, then by now…
"We have to get out of here!" Aamira said to Lucario and Quill. "Daisy's not here, there's no reason to linger."
"Right." The two of them said, and ran off ahead. Aamira followed immediately after with Blue at her heels.
"Wait!" Aamira turned back and saw the guard getting back to his feet. He was staring at Aamira strangely, as though she seemed familiar to him. "It couldn't be… Destiny?"
Aamira thought for a moment about whether she should answer or not. In the end, she gave a short nod and turned to run after Quill and Lucario. The guard stood there, dumbfounded, and returned to the keep as soon as he finally regained his senses. He had no idea what was going on, but the one thing he was sure about was that he didn't like it. Just as he was heading back into the keep, his captain came running out with his Bisharp following behind.
Lucario turned to the sound of footsteps on water and muddy earth approaching from behind. He raised his arm just in time to block an attack from Bisharp with the spike on his paw, and knocked her back with an Aura Sphere from the other.
Bisharp was getting up, ready for another attack, but the guard they had interrogated earlier spoke up. "Stop! That's Destiny you're attacking!"
Bisharp looked towards Aamira and then back to her partner, as though trying to decide what to do. While the three of them seemed to be distracted though, the four of them had slipped into the secret passage and disappeared.
The four of them ran through the storm all night and it continued late into the morning. If Aamira ever started to tire out, Blue would let her ride on his back, which was almost just as tiring considering his horns were short and difficult to hold onto and she only had one hand to hold on with.
Eventually the rain stopped. The clouds were starting to thin and sun shone through a few cloudless patches in the sky. Stretched ahead of them were nothing but planes and a few patches of trees. They found a shady tree to sit and rest under. The leaves on the tree were so big that underneath it was completely dry in spite of the bad storm they had run through.
"He wasn't kidding about attacking us…" Quill said. "What are we supposed to do now? Meet up with him somewhere? Or keep running?"
"This might give us some options." Lucario said, handing a sealed envelope to Aamira. "Bisharp slipped this into my hand when she attacked me. I think she attacked me because we had fought before and she knew I would be able to block without her having to hold back. It's addressed to you, so you should open it."
"Not that it really matters." Aamira opened the envelope and Blue laid down next to her, resting his head in her lap just as any dog would. "It's definitely from Faris. It has his Captain of the Guard seal and his signature. 'If you got this letter, it means you escaped successfully, and hopefully Daisy was with you. I know our initial plan was to hide you in the Mirror Palace and to escort you to Neltona after a certain length of time, but obviously plans have changed since then. Obviously I won't be able to escort you as I'm now stuck here trying to keep up appearances. I've made arrangements for you to stay in Neltona with a close friend of mine for the time being. Enclosed in this letter is a map of the continent and the three main countries and directions to his estate. I'll be joining you as soon as I possibly can.'" Aamira stopped reading there and stared intently at the rest of the letter.
"So it looks like we at least have somewhere to go." Quill said. "Hopefully we can get a chance to rest and maybe get a good source of information to find out about that black-haired boy who either rescued or kidnapped Daisy."
"Whether she was rescued or kidnapped, you have to agree that it's better than being anywhere near Zoroark or that Houndoom." Lucario said as he looked over the map that was enclosed in the envelope. Quill nodded in agreement. Even if she had been taken with the intention of being kidnapped, he was somehow greatly relieved by this.
"No way!" Aamira shouted, making everyone jump, including Blue who raised his head off of her lap and stared at her, half curious and half terrified.
"What is it?" Quill asked.
Aamira was still staring intently at the letter, as if unable to believe whatever information it held. It took her a moment to speak, but when she did, it wasn't what they had expected. "Faris's friend is my uncle!"