- Chapter 10: Reunion -
I froze in surprise as I processed Blaze's words. For a reason that I could not fathom, Gundabad desired our presence—at a very late hour, no less.
Why would he want us to come to him? Did we commit some wrong that demanded his recourse?
"Did he say why?" I asked Blaze, unable to withhold my mounting anxiety from my voice.
Unfortunately, Blaze shook his head. "Gundabad usually never tells me why he wants me to fetch pokémon for him, and I never ask. Sorry!"
Dangit. I really hoped he knew. Now I just have to hope that Gundabad doesn't want us for anything bad, I told myself.
"That's fine. Just lead us down," I said to him. Blaze nodded and bounced lightly across the balcony to the stairs.
"What does that geezer want with us?" Ray asked rhetorically.
"No clue. Something important if he wants us so badly," I responded. And here I was looking forward to falling asleep in my nice, cozy bed.
"Please follow me!" Blaze called energetically.
I had to egg Ray to get him to come, but nevertheless, we tailed after him. After walking down the spiral staircase and out the exit door on the right, we entered into the Grand Hall. Compared to earlier this evening, the hall appeared empty. Only a few pokémon roamed the area.
At the end of the hall, Blaze rapped on the guildmaster's door. "Guildmaster, I've brought you Team Advent," he announced.
"Let them in," the guildmaster's gruff voice commanded.
Cheerfully, Blaze ducked in through the well-disguised flap at the bottom of the door. I tried to follow him, but the flap oddly refused to budge, no matter how hard I pushed on it.
"The flap only opens for messengers!" Blaze called from inside the room. "Nice try, though. I saw another messenger do it once—before I became one—and I tried to do it, too, but I just hit my head really hard on the door! Boy, I felt really stupid after—"
"Blaze, enough rambling. Let them in," the guildmaster repeated.
"Yes, sir, Guildmaster Gundabad, sir!"
A flick sound echoed on the other side of the door.
"You came come in now, Team Advent," Blaze said. Ray did not wait for him to finish his sentence before he roughly pushed the door open. The riolu nearly nailed the messenger with the door, and Ray passed him by without a glance.
Once all three of us had entered, Blaze turned to push the door shut.
"Blaze, stop," the guildmaster said, pointing his claw towards the door.
Blaze halted and peered at the guildmaster questioningly. Still extending his claw, he said, "You are dismissed. This is discussion is not meant for your ears, and that includes through eavesdropping."
Blaze's tail visibly sagged. "Yes, sir," he mumbled before dragging himself out of the room. Ray unceremoniously shut the door after him.
"Good Arceus, he can be such an idiot sometimes. Anyway, you three, come take a seat," the guildmaster said as he gestured to the mats in front of him.
Eris quickly shot me a nervous look. I gently reached and patted her knee. She relaxed slightly, and I determinedly prodded her forward until she sat on the leftmost mat. Ray chose the rightmost one, leaving me with the mat directly before the guildmaster.
"I'm not one for small talk, so I'll get to the point," the guildmaster stated. "Have you three told anyone about Shroud?"
His question dumbfounded me. Of course we haven't! I thought.
"No, sir, we haven't told anyone," I said. Eris voiced a similar reply, and Ray remained silent.
At our negative answer, the guildmaster frowned. "Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yeah, we're positive. We haven't said anything about him to anyone," I confirmed.
The garchomp breathed out harshly from his nose. He crossed his arms and stared into empty space, his face distant. His awkward silence, combined with the pressure of the current situation, wore on my nerves. I shifted on my mat, wanting, yet not daring to speak and interrupt the guildmaster's line of thought. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ray curl and uncurl his fists repeatedly.
C'mon, Ray, hold it in, I thought anxiously. Please have restraint for just this once.
Finally, the guildmaster exhaled and thumped his tail on the floor. "I guess I could tell you," he muttered as if thinking aloud. Casting his gaze down to us, he asked, "Have you three heard the latest news in the exploration world?"
Eris and I shook our heads.
"Should've known. It's very recent, and it's not popular," he said. "It concerns the one topic I've been hoping didn't spread: Shroud."
My mind recoiled at his words. N-no way. How...how can this be? I thought this was a contained issue.
"A few days before you officially joined my guild, I was contacted by Hawthorne about a criminal that had escaped to our half of the continent. They placed a large bounty on the head of a certain cloaked individual. At first, I only thought it was nothing until more reports of this criminal came pouring in, Ace's report being the latest."
He's been to more places? I thought. Then, I recalled that he had mentioned about a mine blowing up near Hawthorne and a monastery being destroyed.
"The notice came along with these papers," the guildmaster said, tossing a stack of papers down in front of us. "Apparently, I wasn't the only who had this issue thrust into their claws. Take a look."
I stooped to read the top paper, Eris and Ray crowding on either side of me. A large picture of Shroud in his black cloak dominated the center of the paper. The bottom of the page contained several lines of text.
"Shroud - S Class Criminal
Wanted for mass destruction of many locations across the continent. Motives unknown. Highly dangerous. Not afraid to kill. Must be apprehended ALIVE. Return to Hawthorne Central Jail upon capture.
Bounty - 500,000 Poké"
"500,000 Poké?!" I exclaimed. Ray's eyes widened at the massive sum. Eris gasped in shock and leaned closer to paper in disbelief.
Gundabad rapped his claws on his knees. "Yes, an exorbitant amount. Unfortunately, due to these bounty papers, news of Shroud is spreading around the continent. I've already heard whispers of him in Treasure Town. Sooner or later, everyone in the town will know about him."
I cocked my head in thought. "Isn't this a good thing, though? He'll get captured more quickly."
As soon as the words had come out of my mouth, Gundabad fiercely growled. "No, this is not a good thing. The majority of my guild is not nearly equipped enough to handle him; they'll just get killed. I don't want my comrades dying on me just to get rich quick. I've already had to deal with some being hospitalized."
Him saying to this us only confused me. "Guildmaster, why bother telling us any of this? It's not like we can really help your current situation," I said. Not beyond anything that I want to admit, anyway.
"You can help," Gundabad replied brusquely. "What I need right now is information, and you can get it. I found your interview with Detectives Jane and Pads when I visited the Sunrise Police Station. Mona, I've read that you have a long history with Kyle and Zane. You're the only one here who can approach them familiarly and thus acquire the most information. As a member of my guild, I have more faith in you than in those police."
His words shocked me to my core. He found out about that? What else can he find out about me? How much about me is privy to him?
Gundabad continued to explain. "I need you to go talk to those two tomorrow at Sunrise Hospital and get information on the one who kidnapped them, tortured them, and abandoned them. If things keep going the way they are, I'll need any and all information. Right now, those two have it, and you're the only way to get it."
I felt an invisible weight settle on my shoulders. Me, the newest exploration team leader of one of the most powerful guilds on the continent, is asked by the guildmaster himself to visit old friends in a hospital. Certainly, this is not what I was expecting so soon out of the gate. Astonishment filled me at the thought of it all.
"Um, I can do it," I replied in a small voice. "I was planning on going there tomorrow to see if they were okay, anyway."
Gundabad nodded gratefully. "Good to hear. I want that information by tomorrow night."
"I'll get the information," I assured, trying to maintain a bolder tone of voice.
A pleased expression flitted across Gundabad's face. "Visiting hours are between midmorning and noon and between lunch and mid-afternoon. Understand?" When I nodded, he continued, "Then you're dismissed. Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Guildmaster," I said.
"Um, goodnight...," Eris said.
Ray trained his eyes to the wall and quietly stood.
We left the guildmaster's room and rushed to our warm, inviting beds. Nothing disturbed us for the rest of the night.
Sunlight peeked out from above the buildings and splashed onto my fur, signaling that the day had reached midmorning. In front of me laid a modest, white-washed building. A sign nailed above the doors read "Sunrise Hospital - Caring for All Your Emergency Needs".
Despite the assurance that I gave the guildmaster last night, the idea of speaking with Zane did not enthuse me. He might just zap me out the door before I could even say a word in my defense. Hopefully, I could acquire information from Kyle before I had to confront Zane.
"This place looks like a dump," Ray remarked with a demeaning tone.
"Ray, this place isn't a dump. It just...looks a little dirty because dust stands out on white," I said. He shot me a sarcastic look. I sighed and shook my head. "Whatever, Ray. Let's go inside already. We're burning daylight."
It was Ray's turn to shake his head. "No thanks. Give me the treasure box; I'll get it appraised."
"How are you going to appraise it if we don't have any money?" I said. I purposefully avoided mentioning the thousands of emergency money in my bank account. That account was paws-off unless absolutely necessary.
"I've got my connections," he dodged.
"Con-nec-tions," I repeated, articulating every syllable.
"Look, it's not illegal. Just gimme the box."
"…Alright. Take it, you miser," I said. I proffered my bag to him, and accordingly, he reached into it and pulled out the treasure box. With him holding it, I could see how tiny it was in size—barely larger than my bag.
"Eris, you wanna go with him?" I asked, knowing what lay ahead. It doesn't take two to get information. Plus, she's almost as scared of Zane as I am, I thought.
Eris stared at me blankly. I almost thought she did not hear me when she suddenly said, "No, no—I'll go with you. This is r-really important, and I'm w-worried, too, ya know."
Despite the part of me that wanted her to leave with Ray, a sense of relief settled over me. Now, I would not have to deal with Zane alone, even though the thought of me needing another person to deal with my problems bugged the crap out of me.
"Well, see ya back in a bit," Ray said. Shifting the Box into a more comfortable position, he strutted past me and into the street. He easily slipped into the crowd and vanished from sight.
"Wait, Ray! Meet back here, right?" I called. I thought I heard him say, "Yes," but the noise of the crowd drowned out whatever response he might have given.
"Ah well," I said, partly with resignation for the task ahead. I faced the hospital once more. Mustering my courage, I strode towards the front doors. Eris still was with me. I could do this.
A chime sounded as we walked through the doors. The inside of the hospital appeared plain. Several wooden chairs and cushion seats lined the walls to my left and right. A front desk filled the space on the back wall. On both sides of the front desk, hallways extended into the depths of the building. A spinda sat behind the desk, her head lazily propped on her left arm as she read a novella.
Having learned about the general operation of clinics from one that had been in Oran Forest, I approached the receptionist. She must have noticed me out of the corner of her eyes because she shut her book and lifted her head off her hand.
"Hello. How may I help you?" she asked politely.
"Hello. We're here to visit two pokémon who should have been checked in here yesterday," I said. "Their names are Kyle and Zane. They're a combusken and luxio, respectively."
"Hmm...," the spinda hummed. She reached under her desk and pulled out a booklet. Opening it, she flipped through the pages until she reached a page in the middle. "Yes, a combusken and luxio were checked in here yesterday. Unfortunately, it says here that the luxio has yet to awaken and cannot accept visitors right now, but you can visit the combusken."
Zane's still asleep, I pondered. That might be a good thing, actually...
"Yeah, sure. We'll visit Kyle—er, the combusken, I mean," I confirmed.
"Very well. Give me a moment," the spinda said. She asked us for our names, which we readily gave her, then jotted them down in her booklet. After snapping it shut, she extended her hand under her desk and swapped the roster with an hourglass. Since I could not physically hold the hourglass, she gave the item to Eris.
"When you get to the combusken's room, just give that thing a turn. The hourglass will glow green once the sand's hit the bottom. That's your signal that your visiting time is up. If you try to stay too long, we'll know, and we'll have to ask you to leave. The patients need as much rest as possible," the spinda explained.
The spinda leaned back and shouted at a nearby door in the hallway. A floette poked her head out of the doorway in response. The spinda motioned for her to come closer.
"What is it?" the floette asked. She tilted her head against her flower in a curious pose.
"I need you to take these two to room 14 on the third floor," the spinda said.
"Room 314? Didn't that patient only just get cleared?" the floette asked concernedly.
"These two still want to visit anyway," the spinda retorted.
The floette frowned at her comment, but she did not spark an argument. Instead, she floated to us and said, "You two can follow me. The stairwell is this way."
She guided us down the left hallway to a door on the left. As the floette hovered in front of the door, a soothing wind sprung out of nowhere and turned the doorknob. While I breathed in a deep, relaxing breath, Eris shivered and hugged her arms close to her chest.
"This way," the floette said. She led us up two flights of stairs and through another doorway. She guided us to the right along the third floor's hallway until we reached a door marked "314".
The floette gestured to the door. "He's in there," she said, "but I would be careful. This patient was in a terrible mental state when he first woke up. I wouldn't do anything to panic him if I were you."
Unfortunately, I might do just that if I ask Kyle about his incident, I realized. Oh, Arceus, please let this go okay.
"Thanks for the warning," I said.
"Have a good day," the floette said, waving goodbye.
I waited until she had shut the stairwell door behind her before opening the door to Kyle's room. The room had a barren appearance; it only contained two nightstands, a small cabinet, and a bed. Sunlight streamed from a window and reflected off the gray walls onto the combusken resting on the bed. Bandages wreathed his head and torso, and his left arm hung in a sling.
My word. Kyle looks so horrible with all those bandages. What did his attacker really do to him? I thought in horror.
Oblivious to our entrance, Kyle gazed abjectly out the window near his bedside. His chest raised and lowered slowly, constrained by its tight wrappings. His uninjured arm laid bent at his side, almost as if prepared to punch any threat that presented itself to it.
"Hey, Kyle," I said.
Kyle rotated his head from the window to me. His blank expression shocked me. His eyes appeared so dead and lifeless that if he had stopped breathing for just a moment, I would have thought that he was dead. If I peered deeper into those eyes, I could spot an inner torment writhing like seviper.
As our eyes held each other's gazes, I could see his brain starting to come to life behind his dull irises as he processed who stood in front of him.
"Mona?" he said in disbelief.
"Hi, Kyle. It's me," I greeted, confirming my identity. I understood his incredulity; I would be filled with shock if I saw Kyle suddenly open the door to my hospital room.
Kyle shifted his gaze to Eris. "And you...? You're the transfer…Eris?"
Eris blushed and ducked her head. "Y-yeah... I, um, am...," she whispered shyly.
Kyle did not reply in kind; he merely lowered his head back onto the pillow. His behavior more than disturbed me. While he was not a talkative pokémon, Kyle did have manners. For him to not return a simple greeting, his mind must be deeply perturbed.
I have to get him to talk,I thought.
"So, Kyle, how are you doing right now? When will the doctors let you out?" I inquired.
He lifted his head off his pillow, but he did not speak. His eyes rolled back to the window. When I followed his gaze, I noticed a flock of wingull soaring over the tops of the buildings.
"Kyle?" I called.
He returned his attention to me. His eyes had a more focused appearance. "I'm...getting better," he shakily responded, finally speaking. "I can leave in nine days." Making eye contact with me, he asked, "How did you get here?"
Eager to keep his attention, I summarized our trip here and our acceptance into Ironfist, glossing over the emotional details of our application process. I made sure to avoid mentioning Shroud. At the end, I proffered my explorer's badge with its new, shiny luster. Eris mimicked me and pointed out hers as well.
Kyle nodded distractedly and gazed out the window again. I permitted a silence to settle over us for a minute to give Kyle a moment to rest. Then, I stated, "Kyle, I saw you outside of Treasure Town."
Kyle suddenly jerked his entire body upward. His eyes contained little trace of the fog they held short moments ago. His free hand dug into his bed, his claws puncturing it.
I took his sudden focus as a sign to continue. "Kyle, you were hurt. Really badly. You almost looked dead."
Kyle gripped his bed tighter. His claws ripped the cotton out of the bed's interior with their steady clenching and unclenching motion.
"Kyle, I need to know who did that to you. I need to find him and make him pay for what he did to you, to Lucy, and to all the other people he's hurt," I told him.
His hand curled firmly into a fist. His expression hardened into a serious visage. His eyes stared at the bed sheet draped over his lower body.
"Please, Kyle. I need to know. Who did it? Who hurt you?" I asked.
Remaining silent for a moment longer, Kyle finally answered me: "Him. The cloaked one."
His response confirmed all of my suspicions. I knew it. Shroud did attack him, I thought. Unfortunately, that piece of information would not help me, or anyone, find him; I had to press further.
"Kyle, if you can remember, where did...heattack you?" I asked, avoiding mentioning the dreaded name.
Flinching slightly, Kyle quietly replied, "It was near the mountains. I was journeying to them when he attacked me. I did not see him. I did not hear him."
Holy crap, I thought.
"He used attacks that I had never known existed. I never stood a chance. He beat me over and over and…gah. Then, everything went black. I woke up here," he finished. He shut his eyes in pain and slouched his shoulders. The pure memory of the encounter obviously agonized him beyond words.
I approached him and stared up at him. My Arceus. He looks terrible. I feel so bad now, I thought regretfully.
"Kyle, I'm so sorry. I wanted that information so badly that I didn't think too much about how you would feel. I'm sorry," I apologized.
Kyle did not respond to my apology. Instead, he removed his right hand from his bed and buried his head in it. Comprehending that Kyle had nothing more to say to us, I stepped away from him and walked towards the door.
"Let's go, Eris. Kyle needs to rest," I said.
She nodded. As she opened the door, a voice stopped me in my tracks.
"Mona," Kyle called.
Pivoting around on my hind legs, I cocked my head curiously and responded, "Yeah, Kyle?"
He removed his head from his hand and stared at me fearfully. "Don't go after him. He is utterly merciless. He will get you. You will die."
Shuddering at his deadly prediction, I mumbled a hasty goodbye and rushed out of the room before Kyle could say anything more. I heard Eris swing the door shut behind me.
"Kyle…," she said sadly. I noticed that she was gripping the hourglass a litter tighter than she should have.
"I know," I wholeheartedly agreed. If Shroud nearly destroyed Kyle, the fighting prodigy, in a heartbeat, he was deadly in my book. He almost nearly killed me, too. Without Ace's last-minute rescue, I would have died.
"What he told us at the end... Mona, um, were you actually planning on...going after him?" Eris asked.
I closed my eyes and turned my head away from her. Truthfully, I wanted to go after him. I wanted to make him pay for all of the suffering, the agony, he had—and still is—putting me through. A fire burned in my soul even just thinking about that cloaked freak.
My silence was all the answer she needed. Eris hugged the hourglass against her chest. "Mona, you c-can't be serious!"
Sighing, I said, "I know, Eris, but something in me won't just sit idly by while he destroys people's lives like he did to Lucy. Even if I can't catch him myself, I'm going to make darn sure that somebody else can. I—he can't just be left alone. He can't."
"He can't, or you can't?" she asked sagely, her eyes gazing down at me.
Why does she have that look in her eyes? Is she...afraid of me? I thought. No, that can't be right. Why would she be afraid of me? I must be mistaking things. She must be afraid of how evil Shroud is. She said so herself.
Glancing down at the hourglass in Eris's hands, I noticed that the sand had barely filled the bottom to half-full. "Hey, Eris, let's just head back down. We've got plenty of time; we don't have to rush back," I said, trying to steer the conversation away from the current topic.
"Mona, d-don't drop this on m-me," she said.
I sighed in exasperation. "Eris, how can you not feel angry at Shroud for what he did to Lucy? Don't you feel like he shouldn't be getting away with it like he is?"
Eris's gaze lowered to the floor. "L-L-Let's just go…," she whispered after a long moment.
I remembered that the staircase laid down the hall to our right, so I pointed in the respective direction. "I think it's this way," I said. Eris shuffled after me.
Taking the lead, I ambled along the hallway, my mind reflecting on Kyle's information. He did not give me much knew information; all I could glean from his words was that Shroud attacked Kyle while Kyle was journeying to the mountains.
The mountains are quite a distance from the school, I pondered.He must've spent the past two-ish weeks since his attack on the school getting to them, attacking Kyle and Zane, and bringing them to Treasure Town. That means that Kyle and Zane must have been close to each other; otherwise, Shroud wouldn't have made it back to here in time. But why bring them to Treasure Town at all? It's half a continent away!
On my left, a door hung slightly ajar on its hinges. Breaking out of my thoughts, I curiously leaned close to the door and peeked into the room. The room seemed much the same as Kyle's room: gray walls, nightstands, a bed, and...
No. It can't be.
A luxio laid awake on his bed. His body was oriented in such a manner that he was facing directly towards the door. Instantly, I recognized him despite his bandaged face; the luxio was Zane.
My body stiffened upon recognizing him, which attracted Eris's attention. She glanced from the interior of the room to me, a questioning look on her face. I did not respond to her tacit inquiry; my conflicting emotions had engrossed me.
He's awake. The nurse said he was asleep, but he's not. Should I go in? I don't want to see him, but I promised the guildmaster information. Kyle's vague information won't cut it...or will it?
Unfortunately, Zane made my choice for me. His eyes flicked to the door disinterestedly, and he saw me paralyzed outside of his room. His eyes widened in shock, then harshly narrowed.
"Mona," Zane seethed, his voice laced with contempt.
At this point, if I decided to leave, I would be blatantly running away from him. My paw had been forced; I had to speak with Zane or walk away with a wounded pride.
The choice was obvious.
"Zane," I said, my distaste as equally evident as his. I pushed open the door to his room and stepped inside of it.
"What are you doing here?" he growled threateningly.
I tried to give him a partial truth. "I was just here to visit you and Kyle to see how you were," I answered.
"Ha! You think I'm an idiot?" Zane scoffed. He curled into a sitting position on his bed and glowered down at me. "I can tell that you are here for another reason than to simply visitme. After all, why would you come to me on your own volition?"
He had called my bluff. I automatically flinched at his scathing remark. Zane softly purred in amusement at my cowering.
"I'm going to ask you again: what are you really doing here?" he questioned.
I paused, then I responded with full honesty: "I'm here to acquire information on the pokémon who attacked you and Kyle."
Zane's face hardened inexplicably. A frown crawled onto his face, and he crossed his forepaws in front of him. "Why would a low-life like you want such a thing from me?" he asked.
I shoved down my rising anger. "Well, not enough information is known about Shroud to catch him," I vaguely responded, trying to direct the conversation away from me personally. "He attacked you, so you probably know something about him that might be beneficial knowledge."
I heard Zane's tail thump underneath his bed sheet. "You have no connection to this, I presume? You're just a bystander in this situation?" he asked.
I cocked my head at him. "No, I'm—" I started to say, but quickly bit my tongue upon realizing the implications of what I was saying. I had just admitted that I was, or at least wanted, to be involved in the Shroud hunt. Zane's eyes glinted at my response.
"Hmph. I should have suspected as much. You're here for personal reasons, are you not?" he stated in a rhetorical tone. At my lack of a response, he began to laugh triumphantly. "You think you can apprehend Shroud? Ha! You do not even have a chance of touching him! He would kill you in an instant," he sardonically joked.
I frantically tried to scrounge up a rebuttal. How is he so good at seeing through me? It's not fair!
"Zane, this isn't about me," I argued. "I'm not the only who wants to capture Shroud. Other pokémon with plenty more experience than me want to find him. You're one of the few pokémon who's survived an encounter with him, and that means that you're one of the few who actually knows something about him. He's killed innocents and ruined countless other pokémon's lives. He needs to be apprehended."
"I do not care about other's desires. They can do whatever they please, so long as they do not bother me with their trivial grievances," Zane calmly said. "Currently, you are bothering me with your incessant pleading, and I have no reason to entrust information to you."
Preparing a retort, I opened my mouth to voice my opinions when Zane suddenly said, "Wait a moment." His mouth curled into an uncanny smirk. "I think I can offer you a trade," he purred. "If you give me what I want, I'll give you what you want."
I growled at his dominance in our conversation, but nonetheless replied, "What do you want, Zane?"
He leaned close to me and said, "I want your detect band."
What? My detect band? I thought incredulously. "Why do you want my detect band?" I asked, a suspicious tone creeping into my voice.
Zane retracted himself and shifted back into a comfortable position. "Do you want the information or not?" he countered, posing an ultimatum.
"...Alright, Zane. I'll give you the band," I acquiesced.
A hand pressed down on my shoulder. "Mona, a-a-are you, um, sure about this? He, uh, might not h-have good information," Eris cautioned.
"Eris. Please take the band off my neck," I said. My head turned to hers, and our eyes connected. I channeled as much of my determination into my stare as I could. She visibly squirmed for several seconds before sighing.
"Mona, you c-can' b-be—"
"Please take it off, Eris," I repeated. Eris sighed in defeat.
"Okay...," she said. She reluctantly untied the band from around my neck and placed it on Zane's bed. With a pleasant expression, Zane tucked the band under his sheets.
"Hmm. Well, I am a pokémon of my word. I suppose I could tell you what I know," he said. "Now, where to begin...?"
He paused for a moment, his face contemplative. "I suppose I'll start with the school fire since that's the last time I remember seeing you. I had awoken after destroying the rubble blocking the escape route to find myself abandoned in the midst of the flames. I saw you imbeciles crowded around a huge mass of vines like it was the discovery of a century. The next thing I know, a cloaked figure teleports in front of me and knocks me out."
Teleportation? That would explain how he got out of Mr. Ace's vines so easily. It also is a likely explanation for how he got himself and two bodies across half a continent so quickly, I mused.
"I next remember waking up in a dismal, tiny cave. A dark, shadowy power bound my legs and stomach to the ground. My captor was with me. At that point...he began to...," Zane said, then halted. He visibly winced at the end of his sentence upon recalling what must have been agonizing memories.
"...Regardless," he continued, "I fell unconscious and found myself in this bed when I returned to consciousness."
His story raised more questions in me than answered them. Deciding that they were harmless enough to ask, I said, "Did he ever mention why he took you? Do you know anything about where he took you?"
Zane shook his head. "He did mention 'breaking' something in some ruins several times, but that's all I remember. I do not know anything about the cave in which he imprisoned me. However, I do remember seeing a massive mountain that pierced through the clouds dominating much of the exterior view of the cave. It was hard to miss."
"I see. That's all?"
"Yes. I believe I have fulfilled my end of the bargain."
"Well, then, I guess that's it," I said.
Zane smirked smugly. "Pleasure doing business with you."
"Sure, yeah."
I could not stand the sight of Zane's victorious grin, so I turned my back to him and strode stiffly out the room, leaving Eris to shut the door behind us. Once she had closed it, we both sighed, but for different reasons.
"Mona, why did you…?" Eris asked.
"What other option did we have?" I rebuked.
"I-I don't know! Just s-something else."
"Well, it's over now. We got what we needed. Let's go wait outside for Ray," I said curtly. Eris glanced down at her hourglass, which had drained a little past halfway. Letting her hands fall to her sides, she followed me as I marched to the stairs.
Moving on already from the argument, I tried to piece together Zane and Kyle's information. They were both attacked in the mountains. Zane had mentioned teleporting, an impossibly tall mountain near him, and some ruins in which Shroud wanted to "break something."
Those ruins must be that Ruins of Eld of which Team Crescent spoke, I thought. Could those ruins be sealed? Is that why Shroud wants to "break" them? Then, why did he not just blow up the entrance? With the power he showed, I figured that he could easily do it.
Arrgh, too many questions with not enough answers !I mentally growled.
When we reached the first floor, Eris returned the hourglass to the spinda at the front desk. The spinda thanked us and bade us good day. However, she stopped us from leaving when she asked, "Hey, you don't have your band anymore. Did you lose it?"
Confused, I glanced down at my neck. I almost gasped when I remembered that I had given Zane my detect band. Of course, someone would notice when such a precious item vanished.
"Um, well, I took it off upstairs since it was getting too hot for me to wear it," I quickly lied. I figured that the hospital would not appreciate me giving their patient an item such as a detect band.
"Oh, I always feel cold in the upper floors, but I guess your fur's thicker than mine. Sorry for holding you up. Have a nice day," the spinda apologized.
"You as well," I said. Eris waved goodbye with a smile. We left the spinda to her business and exited into the sunny early afternoon. The streets had only thickened with more townsfolk since midmorning, and voices of many volumes rang in the warm, summer air.
My eyes scanned our side of the street for any sign of Ray. Finding none, I said to Eris in an exasperated tone, "It looks like Ray isn't back yet. He's probably at the guild."
"I'm right here," a voice called from my left. I wheeled towards the shadows and discerned Ray leaning against the wall of another building to the left of the hospital. He pushed himself off the wall and sauntered to me and Eris. I felt my cheeks burn hotly from embarrassment.
"Where've you been?" I asked, trying to recover my dignity. As soon as the question left my mouth, I perceived a seed resting loosely in his right paw. I only spent a second identifying it: a reviver seed.
"Ray, how did you get that reviver seed?" I asked in surprise. He actually managed to acquire one? How did he get the money? I thought.
Ray held the reviver seed before him. "This? Oh, I got this at the market," he responded. "Took some haggling, but I got a good price."
"Yeah, but how did it all happen? Last time I checked, we were pretty much broke," I said.
"I have my connections," he said, parroting his statement from before, "and we just so happened to get a gold ribbon from the box."
"A g-gold ribbon?" Eris said awe. "Those t-things are worth so much!"
"Made buying that reviver seed a piece of cake, I bet," I said appreciatively.
"We came out with a flat 1,600," he said. He shoved the seed into my bag and tightly secured the flap.
"Wow! Thanks, Ray," I said, pleased that the Treasure Box had contained such a valuable item. "Thank you for buying that for us. It was really thoughtful of you to think of everyone like that."
Thought I tried to sound sincere in my thank-you, Ray brushed off the compliment remorselessly. "It was something that would have been stupid not to do," he said with a shrug.
I mentally sighed at my failed attempt to elicit a grateful acknowledgement from Ray. Maybe he's just like this all the time,I thought saddeningly.
Ray turned towards the street and began walking away from us. Knowing that Ray would leave without us, I told Eris that we should follow him and ran after him. After wading through the streets and into Ironfist, we returned to Alice's office. About to begin her lunch break, Alice initially was irritated at our arrival, but once we revealed that we had acquired a reviver seed, she abruptly changed her tune. She congratulated us and told us that we had received our reward of ten rank points and 100 poké. We did not bother telling her that we had bought it from the marketplace.
Instead of paying us directly, she handed us a voucher and directed us to the payment exchange on the opposite side of the office space. Jeremiah, the persian in charge of managing the exchange, would swap our voucher for the money. I apologized for interrupting her lunch break and thanked her for her time.
Jeremiah acted pleasant compared to the duskull moneylender I had encountered a few days prior. He simply handed us our money without much small talk. While the 100 poké paled in comparison to the 1,600 we currently had, we were still grateful for it.
Outside the office complex, we debated our next course of action.
"We could pick up a job for tomorrow right now," I suggested.
"There's not a lot of jobs left, though. We won't get good pickings," Ray countered. "We should wait until later or until tomorrow to get a new request."
"Yeah, but we would have to deal with the crowds in morning. Not a lot of people are here right now. We could choose without the pressure of having lots of other teams behind us who want the same thing we do," I said.
Ray opened his mouth to continue arguing when his stomach rumbled audibly. He blinked in shock and stared down at his belly. Almost as if in response, my stomach growled loudly.
"Well, we could get a bite to eat and come back later," I said laughingly.
"...Alright," Ray said, "but only because we can't eat here."
Eris injected herself into our conversation. "Um, I remember, uh, seeing a place at Pokémon Square..."
I smiled at her gratefully. "Sounds great!" I said. "Let's get going; we're all really hungry."
We quickly rushed out of the guild and scurried towards Pokémon Square. Busy crowds flocked around the multitude of exploration-themed shops and business buildings. The old monument of Wigglytuff's Guild soared over the entire square, its tattered entrance tent still imbuing the atmosphere with its powerful presence.
After a minute of searching, we located the restaurant that Eris had recalled from our last visit to the famous square.
"What?!" I exclaimed as I read the prices on the display menu. "This is... This is almost criminal! Look at the price of that berry platter."
Indeed, the menu featured a host of incredibly pricey delicacies. A single cup of oran berry tea cost 800 poké. The berry platter that I had mentioned cost a whopping 7,350 Poké.
"I'm so sorry...," Eris apologized. "I didn't know...that it would be so much...to eat here."
"It's fine, Eris," I said. "We can just find someplace else. It'll give us the excuse to learn the town's layout a little more, too."
Ray snorted at my comment but did not say anything patronizing.
I shot him a brief glare, then said, "Well, we can go west. Ray, you did say that a lot of shops were around there."
Ray shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "Fine with me."
"I wouldn't mind, um, seeing the town, too," Eris said.
"Then it's settled. Let's take Main Street; we're sure to find a lot of stuff there," I said.
The western half of Main Street proved to be less crowded than the eastern half. Despite that fact, many pokémon still clogged the sides of the streets, leaving the center clear for bulky pokémon that pulled carts full of merchants' goods.
After enjoying a pleasant, sight-seeing stroll, we happened upon a reasonably priced café that appeared to be privately owned. We ravenously stormed into the shop and ordered a delicious, fresh lunch.
The chef prepared our meals quickly. As he set the food before us, I silently offered the meal to Arceus, then dug into my steaming chilan berry and leafy greens sandwich. Eris contentedly munched on a salad, and Ray gobbled a queer item called a vegetable "hot pocket". It seemed interesting enough that I decided I would purchase one for myself sometime in the future.
"So, guys, I was thinking: we have to make sure that we don't fail our next mission. We can't just hope to get lucky again and be able to buy our mission's item," I said.
"That's t-true, but we did do it in the end, right?" Eris said after swallowing a bite.
"Yeah, but it just doesn't sit right with me that we bought off our job," I said. "Plus, that's kind of self-defeating."
"We got it done, and we got it done cheap. We wouldn't have had to do it if you hadn't used it on me," Ray spat, clearly still not over the matter.
"And if you hadn't gotten knocked out in the first place, I wouldn't have had to make that choice," I shot back.
"Guys, please!" Eris said, interrupting us both. "We messed up, okay? Could we j-just, ya know, um, take it and move on…or whatever they say?"
Our waiter arrived with the bill before either Ray or I could reply. I glanced over it to make sure the price was correct and was a little shocked at the number at the bottom.
"Hey, guys," I said concernedly. "We might want to go to a nearby market and pick up some food for ourselves. We spent 530 poké on our lunch, which is still a good bit of money. If we get our own food, we would probably save some poké in the long run."
"Lemme see that," Ray said, snatching the bill from across the table. He skimmed the listed prices as if to ensure they were accurate. He fingered his collar fur and grunted. "We should buy our own food. Even though this was a cheaper café, this bill is still overpriced."
"We could...go to Pokémon Square," Eris offered.
I shook my head. "No, that place will be too expensive. We could look around here some more; the prices seem to be lower in this area of town."
We still had to pay the bill, so we left 530 poké on the table. Having learned from our mistake, we traveled further west in search for a marketplace. After half an hour, we discovered a promising market located near the northwestern edge of town. Luckily, I still wore my treasure bag, meaning that we enough room to carry a large quantity of food.
Almost stuffing the bag full of the fruits, vegetables, and bread, we exited the market some short time later. A pride settled over me at how well I had haggled for the prices on the produce. Mom and Dad had taught me well.
Mom and Dad…I should write to them soon, I thought.
"Well, this produce will probably stay good for a while in here," I said, gesturing to the bag. "I guess we'll head over to the library. You going to train now?"
"Yep. See you in a bit," Ray said. He slipped back into the crowd without further statement.
Eris stared after him. "You think it was okay to just, uh, l-let him on our team?" she asked me.
"I think so. He's crabby as heck, but he's reliable—somewhat," I said. Eris giggled a little bit after I said that. I laughed a little, too; laughter was really contagious.
"Okay, I saw a library a little back toward the square. Let's head to that one," I suggested. Trekking back through the crowd, we hustled to a rather squat building in between two apartment complexes. The summer sun reflected brightly off its polished wood walls. Not a single window lay on its walls, thus completely obscuring the interior.
A familiar ecstasy washed over me. I thoroughly enjoyed in visiting a library. The vast knowledge and entertainment it contained enraptured me to the point of wanting to huddle in the back for hours—an act that I have committed on several occasions. My parents, at the end of every year, always treated me to a massive day out at the library followed by a trip to the bookstore to purchase two new books.
At the thought of my parents, I realized that I had yet to write to them. I had been gone for over two weeks, so I knew that they were expecting some correspondence soon. I wrote down on my mental checklist to write to them today or tomorrow.
"Let's hurry up inside, Eris!" I cheered, rushing to the doors.
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