Disclaimer: I do not own the Pokémon series or any of the Pokémon created by them. I don't own the terms they made either. They are owned by Nintendo, Gamefreak, and others.
Thinking and reading will be in italics.
The rest of sentry duty that day played out fine, excluding my now bandaged left paw which I got from punching the wall through one of the hallucinations. I had to have Chimecho bandage me up while I remained at my post. Three pokemon came to the guild after the slow hours, and to my surprise one of the Kecleon brothers came by to ask me to remind Chatot of a shipment of Perfect apples. The other two visitors were a Torchic looking for her mother and a Blaziken looking for her daughter. It turns out Torchic got distracted by some other pokemon her age, and ended up separated from her mother. I stopped seeing the hallucinations soon after the mother and daughter left together.
"Akuma it is time to come back up." Loudred called into the hole.
"I'll be right out." I replied as I activated my aura field, so that I could make my way back to the ladder and climb out of the hole.
Leaving the hole and entering the second underground floor of the guild was such a dramatic change in light that I had to blink a few times before my eyes adjusted.
"I told Chatot how well you did today, and he said he'd give you a well deserved reward for your excellent work as the sentry." Loudred explained as I noticed Chatot behind him giving me what I assumed was a smile.
"For your excellent results today I am proud to present you with these." Chatot said handing me 100 poké and a slip of paper which had been folded in half. I gave Chatot a flustered stare as he waddled away smiling happily to himself.
"That's surprisingly small compared to his usual rewards. I think it's less than ten percent of what he usually gives trainees." Loudred said with a shrug, as he walked to the dining room.
This has to be the reason for the small amount of apprentices in this guild, such poor payment, and what is this paper for anyway? an I.O.U or something? I thought as I unfolded the paper quickly, and looked at what was written on it. I read it quietly as I walked towards my room.
Dear Akuma, don't go to sentry duty tomorrow, and tell Loudred I sent you out to get that perfect apple order for me. I'll be waiting for you on the beach. You'll thank me for this later.
Signed Chatot.
I refolded the paper and continued to walking towards my room, I was distracted trying to think of what Chatot's surprise could be and walked straight into the door with a bang.
"Please don't let anybody have seen that." I said as I rubbed my face to lessen the pain and opened the door. I quietly walked into the room expecting to see Luca sleeping in his bed, but in his place I found the adventure bag. I quickly placed the poké I got into the bag and hid Chatot's note in my bed.
Dinner should be ready soon, I wonder if Luca will be there before it starts, or maybe he'll be out training instead. I thought to myself as I left the room to help prepare the table and food. I was inside the dining room less than a minute later, and in seconds was fast at work placing down bowls and cups for everyone.
It was surprising to see how much Chimecho had to remember about each Pokémon like how Wigglytuff refuses to eat anything other than perfect apples, Corphish is allergic to lum berries, Dugtrio hates sitrus berries and Diglett loves eating them, and that's not including each pokemon's flavor preferences.
I'll have to remember to thank him for his hard work later, because I know I would have failed at his job. I thought placing a bowl down for Chatot.
"I finished with the bowls and cups, so the set up is done. need anymore help?" I announced to Chimecho on the opposite side of the room making poffins.
"Yes, if you know how to make poffins you can." Chimecho replied as he finished another blue poffin with red sprinkles and put it in a pile of poffins of the same design and coloration. I took note that the various coloration of poffins were piled separately depending on the flavors.
Loudred had taken a few poffins from certain piles and placed them on plates and inside a bowls in three spots around the table, his own, Bidoof's seat across the table and Sunflora's seat to the right of his plate.
I'll have to remember to bug Loudred about his memory later. I thought as Chimecho placed a few berries into the poffin batter. I wasn't sure how I was going to stir the batter at first because Chimecho had be using psychic to stir I had to look around the poffin maker but I found a large enough stick lying on the table to stir with and began the process of making poffins.
I stirred the batter slowly at first being as it's mostly liquid state would easily spill out of the bowl. A few seconds later and the batter toughened out taking on more of a solidified look and texture. I noticed the change and increased my stirring speed a good few notches to keep the batter from burning. One or two minutes later and the poffin maker made a small ding sound. Chimecho came over to check on me when he heard the sound. Chimecho took the dough and molded it into an egg like shape and pressed the bottom into the table to flatten it.
"Do that with the rest of the dough and this batch of poffins will be done. I'll set the final batch of the berries next to the machine and then we'll be done with making the food." Chimecho explained as he went over to the guild's stockpile of apples and berries..
"Okay." I said as I took some dough in my good paw and began to mold it the way Chimecho had showed me.
"You won't believe how tiring it is to learn that IQ skill." Luca said as he slumped down beside me and sighed softly.
"How can it be hard if it is based on your IQ?" I asked passively rubbing my bandaged paw.
"Uh… That's not important, this skill defies physics." Luca said shoving a lum berry into his open mouth.
"How does it manage to do that?" I ask Luca as I pick up one of my poffins, that was when Luca noticed my bandaged paw.
"How did that happen to you?" Luca asked suddenly. The urgency in his voice caught me off guard, and I had to tighten my grip on the poffin to keep from accidentally dropping it.
"This?" I said raising my bandaged paw up feigning ignorance to no avail of course, as Luca soon gave a nod for me to explain my injury. While I looked at Luca thinking of what to tell him, I saw Loudred giving silent signals to me and even going so far as to mouth pleads to me.(Which were impossible to read without some sort of device, and looked incredibly ridiculous.)
"I was mad that we couldn't go adventuring together for a while so I punched a wall, and I guess after punching that gem my paw is getting me back by going on strike." I said with a chuckle that sounded almost genuine. Luca stared at me for a few seconds before sighing again.
"You are not the only one frustrated by that, so next time talk to me about it." Luca said gently petting me, as I turned back to my poffin. I'm not sure when, but somewhere during that conversation Bidoof and Corphish had started listening in because I heard a soft aww from them both which I fixed by giving them a glare.
When Luca and I were lying in bed, as Luca quietly recounted his day to me between yawns. I saw the area around our window get darker for a few brief seconds.
I could've sworn I saw something move past the window, but we are facing out of a steep drop there is no way it was Alexris. I thought as I turned my attention back to Luca's story, but it wasn't long afterward that Luca fell asleep. I pulled out Chatot's note and began to think about what he wanted to see me about.
Could it have to be about leaving the guild, maybe, or Alexris's attempt to kill Luca and kidnap me. I thought as I read the markings again to see if there was any visible proof of Chatot's mindset when he wrote the note.
Nothing I can see, so I'll just have to wait for things to play out. I thought as I became even more anxious about the letters event.
"A lot has happened recently, and all I can do is hope this won't make things worse." I said as I fell into a restless sleep.
"Hey, Akuma I'd like it if you would send me off while you are awake." Luca said as he shook me lightly.
"HEY ARE YOU TWO UP YET!" Loudred shouted as he entered with a skull shattering shout.
"Loudred next time you come in here shouting I will do something about your shouting, permanently." I shouted back at Loudred giving him a threatening stare, but he seemed unfazed as he left the room.
"That was kind of unnecessary Akuma, you should go apologize to him." Luca said shaking his head with disappointment.
"I'll do it after the mourning address, Dad." I said faking a defeated slouch.
Luca perked up a bit after I called him dad again, but his smile faded as a question came to him.
"You know I will reunite you with your parents soon, so why did you call me dad again?" Luca asked as he brushed some straw from my fur.
"I can do that without your help, and I called you dad because we have no proof that what your brother said was true." I said as I let Luca brush the last piece of straw from my fur.
"I didn't think about that Akuma, good thinking ahead." Luca said petting me playfully as he led the way out the room and to our usual spot during the morning address.
"The countdown until we leave for our guild exploration is now at two days remaining, and due to a series of request from some who would like to remain anonymous Luca and Akuma will now be part of it and have two places filled." Chatot announced drawing everyone's attention to Luca and I at the back of the room.
In one instant Luca went from my father to an overexcited child that was struggling to stay in one place then back to a visibly happy father when he saw that I was on the brink of laughing at him.
"With that announcement out of the way let's begin the mourning address." Chatot said as he waved for the start of the mourning address.
"Akuma, Bidoof, and Diglett could I talk to you both about a task I need done?" Chatot called while the crowd of pokemon dispersed. The three of us shared a glance as we walked to Chatot.
"What did you want to talk to us about?" I asked Chatot almost certain it had to do with his note. Chatot ignored my question and turned his attention to Diglett.
"Diglett can you take your old post back for today?" Chatot asked.
"Yes, I can but what will he do today?" Diglett said nodding towards me.
"I need Akuma to do some training of his own that he can't do in the guild." Chatot replied then turned his gaze to Bidoof.
"I need you to go into town to pick up our Perfect apple shipment today, because we just ran out of them last night, and you know how the guildmaster gets when he doesn't get his perfect apples." Chatot explained to Bidoof, while Bidoof nodded dutifully between every couple of words.
Chatot waved the two off once he thought they understood their jobs for the day. Once Bidoof and Diglett were out of earshot Chatot turned his gaze to me, motioned for me to follow him as he led me to the guild entrance.
"Ready for your special training?" Chatot asked as he led me over the grate in front of the guild.
"Yeah, but what am I going to train?" I ask Chatot as we begin our descent down to the well near the edge of town.
"If you haven't figured it out by now, you'll just have to find out when we start." Chatot replied as he took flight and flew even further ahead of me.
"Better keep up!" Chatot shouted as I hurried after him.
Chatot led me to a open field not too far from Treasure town, and landed a few feet in front of me.
"Is this where that training of yours is going to start?" I asked as I approached Chatot's finally still form.
"Yes, but before we start I need ask you something."Chatot said as he opened his wings again, but waited until I nodded to take off again.
"What do you think about flying?" Chatot asked as he twirled and spun through the air.
"It looks fun, but I kind of have a fear of heights." I replied looking away to avoid Chatot noticing my embarrassment, and braced myself for Chatot's laughter.
"I guess that's understandable. You just recently got wings, so it would be surprising if you trusted them that much." Chatot said giving me an understanding nod as he flew over me.
"You want to teach me how to fly I'm assuming." I said as I extended my wings to full length, and gave them a few strong flaps creating a small cloud of dust.
"Yes that is my plan." Chatot said landing beside me, and dispersing my own dust cloud and making a smaller one.
"Now we should see how you take off." Chatot said pointing a wing toward the sky.
"Okay I'll give it a try." I said jumping as high as I could, and waiting till I was a the peak of my jump to give my wings a few powerful flaps. I was so focused on synchronizing my wings movement that I hadn't realized I was flapping too slow.
"Flap fast–" Chatot flinched as my chest hit the ground hard.
I pressed my paws against my chest as I rolled on my back groaning in pain. Chatot hopped over to me with a mildly concerned expression.
"If you're too hurt we could try again tomorrow." Chatot said softly as I pulled myself to my feet.
"That would be great, but I'm sure you can't take too many days away from your usual duties to train me. Chatot do you know anyone who could train me tomorrow if you don't then I'll train on my own." I said as I began to dust my chest off, and letting out a whine when I touched a particularly sensitive spot.
"Yes I do have just the guy in mind." Chatot said waving his wing and with that signal a figure stepped into my line of sight.
"Wow! Ain't this a sight a riolu with wings imagine that. I was honestly expecting it to be one of your cruel jokes Chatot." The figure announced with a rough feminine voice as she spoke up to us.
Chatot forced an offended expression as the female Charizard laughed heartily, quickly closing the distance between us until she was right beside Chatot.
"If it is not too, rude may I ask who are you?" I said sounding a lot more formal than I had intended.
"Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm a Charizard named Maya and I'll be you flight instructor until I deem you ready."
"Okay, well I'm a Riolu named Akuma nice to meet you instructor Maya." I said extending a paw up to Maya, she looked at me as if she was sizing me up before shaking my paw with a pleasant smile.
"Akuma is it normal for you to have wings? I would know but I thought I should ask." Maya asked while trying to touch my semi-transparent wings.
"Oh… No it's unique to me Riolu and Lucario are not normally able to fly, or make wings stable enough to remain this long, much less fly with them. My wings are strong enough to let me glide at least and haven't gone away either." I explained flapping them hard to display their strength to Maya.
"I see, and because you don't have a tail that assists your flight Chatot called me to help teach you how to fly." Maya said looking from me to Chatot then back again.
Chatot nodded giving off a sightly defeated air, as Maya tried to suppress a giggle.
"Okay, Akuma are you ready to learn how to fly?" Maya shouted after she finally managed to regain her composure.
"Yes Ma'am!" I shouted back with a nod.
Sorry this chapter took so long I fainted in another dungeon, but I managed to finish it all the same. I should train more maybe
or buy a lot of reviver seeds. I made this chapter longer than usual as an apology for the long wait.
Enjoy, and review until the next chapter.