- Chapter 13: More Than Meets the Eye -
"Toss them down right here," the granbull ordered, pointing near the bonfire. A crowd had gathered around it, their sunken faces accentuated by the firelight. A shiver ran down my spine at their intent stares and quiet murmurs.
"Why don't we just toss them right in, Yurk? This little piece of crap is a pain," the zangoose said, shaking Ray to emphasize his point. Ray, who had the breath knocked out of him, wheezed in protest.
"Just do it," the granbull, apparently called Yurk, said, his voice dipping into a deep baritone. Without further hesitation, the zangoose dropped us next to the fire. Its heat seared my right cheek, but because my legs were tightly bound, I could not shift myself away from it. More painful than the heat was my headache with its unrelenting throbbing. The rude slamming to the ground did not help matters in the slightest.
Eris landed right next to me, her face peaceful in sleep. Irritation flashed through me at how lucky she was. Here I was, in the middle of some hostile group of people, and she just got to sleepthrough it.
I should be more concerned about me and Ray, I thought, trying to push past my petty mindset. My headache was making me more irritable than I thought possible.
Yurk positioned himself right next to Ray, who growled at him. In response, Yurk buried his foot into Ray's side, pressing down slowly. Ray's growl morphed into gasps for air. My heart pounded as Ray's breaths grew weaker and weaker; then, Yurk removed his foot with a satisfied snort. Ray did not growl at him again. Yurk eye's fell to my bag, and a hungry gleam shone within them. "Search her bag. See what she has."
The zangoose eagerly ripped my bag off of me and dug his claws into its contents. He pulled out all of our provisions, newly acquired items from the dungeon, and our job request. Upon taking the request, he unrolled it. His eyebrows raised as he read the document.
"Hey, Yurk, this is one of those fake job requests that we sent to one of those explorer's guilds. It has Trevor's name," the zangoose commented, proffering the paper to the granbull.
Yurk snatched the paper and examined it. Nodding his head once, he said, "Would you look at that. It's the one we sent to that Ironfist Guild." He raised his head from the paper and examined me, Ray, and Eris critically. "Didn't know they started accepting children."
In instinctual defiance, Ray growled at the granbull. Yurk only laughed at Ray's efforts.
"Haha, look at him, trying to get at me," he chortled. Suddenly growing serious, he leaned close to Ray and said, "Listen, you rascal. You're outmatched here, so I suggest that you do yourself a favor and quit trying to resist."
"Does it look like I care?" Ray spat. "If I had to take on all of you, I would do it."
Yurk chortled again. Turning toward a ledian behind him, he instructed, "Tie them to the stakes. They'll make a nice ransom; everybody pays for kids."
The ledian moved to hoist me; the zangoose did similarly with Ray. Two others handled Eris. As my captor moved to the stakes and the noibat, a tangrowth near the food table asked, "Are y'all sure we should be doing this?"
"What do you mean, Trevor?" Yurk questioned darkly. The ledian stopped moving, letting me dangle in his grip. I did not resist him; what good would it do me in this scenario?
Trevor shrugged his arms. "We're messing with one of the top expl'ration guilds 'round here. They'd most likely beat us up, hands down."
"That's why we're not going to ask for a ridiculous amount," Yurk countered. "I'm not daft. I know what we're going up against. If I didn't, I wouldn't have used this plan in the first place."
"I'm not arguing against the money. Times are too tough not to. I'm just sayin' is all," Trevor said.
"We're ransoming them. Quit being a feebas. Hank, get them tied," Yurk said with a tone of finality. I noticed that his hands had curled into fists. In reponse, the ledian, Hank, shifted his grip on me. The sudden movement jarred my brain, causing me to grunt in pain.
"Jeez, you're heavy," he commented.
And you smell, I mentally retorted.
While he swung me around into his grip, my eyes connected with Yurk's from across the bonfire. The spike in my head drove down further, and my stomach coiled into knots. I suddenly felt the sense to run as far away from him as possible.
"Hank, wait," Yurk called.
Hank halted, jostling me, and said, "Yeah?"
"Bring her to me."
His cold voice blanketed me like freezing air. Something about him disturbed me on a deep level that I could not comprehend. The more I attempted to shake the feeling, the more it festered within me.
Hank seemed to hesitate in confusion. His grip on me oddly tightened before quickly relaxing. He lifted me slightly before carefully striding to Yurk.
"What's the matter?" Hank asked.
"I just need to see her for a second," he responded, bending down to my eye level. In instinctual defense, I unsheathed my claws and thrusted them at him. Simultaneously, I wiggled as far away from him as I possibly could.
"Stay away from me," I hissed. Ignoring me, he leaned closer, silent as stone. His breath, hot and malodorous, nearly made me gag. My heart thumped wildly in my chest, following the rhythm of my accelerated breathing. I felt that my brain was being squeezed into a tiny ball.
His gaze probed me like a hungry predator sizing up its prey; then, he slowly stood upright. I sighed in relief as the pain in my head lessened.
"She's one of them," Yurk whispered. A chilling tension settled over the assembled pokémon. They exchanged shocked expressions with each other, and several muttered under their breaths to their neighbors. Alarmingly, a sense of gleearose in the atmosphere.
One of them? Why? Who's them? I thought fearfully.
"He will be very pleased to know that we have found one," Yurk continued. "Make sure herbonds are especially tight, Hank. We don't want her trying to escape like the last one."
"Sure," Hank said quietly. Gripping me tightly, he strode toward the stakes. The other thieves had already bound Eris and Ray and had left a coil of rope near another stake, presumably for me. Ray gazed at me questioningly, motioning to Yurk with his head. I shook my own head, not wanting to tell him what Yurk said.
Setting me on the ground, Hank untied my legs and discarded the rope. With the new, longer rope, he looped it around my midsection and the stake several times. He tied the coil off behind me, where I could not reach it with my claws.
"I really wish I didn't have to do this, but there's not much of a choice," he said with an air of resignation.
"Why are you doing this? We've done nothing wrong to you!" I demanded.
Hank ignored me, cinching my ropes with an unnecessary tug. His eyes purposefully avoiding mine, he rose and strode over to the fire, sitting next to the zangoose.
Sighing profusely, Ray slumped against his stake and muttered, "Well, this is fan-freaking-tastic."
I curled my paws tightly, vigorously thinking of a way to escape. Unfortunately, I could not think of a single way out of our predicament. I had little chance of freeing myself without someone noticing me. If I managed to free myself undetected, the space around me offered no immediate cover. I would be noticed as soon as I movedl the sentries that were posted in the trees near the Mystery Dungeon's entrance would assuredly be watching my every move. We did not even have a chance of someone coming to rescue us. No one knew where we had gone, and nobody ever would.
We were isolated and helpless.
I closed my eyes in resignation. How many times had I ended up in this type of a scenario in the past month? Twice? Four times? I could not even bother to count, especially with my debilitating headache. Something inside of me whispered that this probably would not be the last.
"We've got to get out of here," I whispered to myself.
Ray, overhearing me, jabbed, "No dip! Any additional bright ideas?"
"I'm thinking, Ray. It's just a little hard to strategize when Eris is unconscious," I said, motioning with my eyes to the breloom, whose head dangled over her left shoulder.
"Here's an idea: let's snap Eris into her rage mode or whatever the heck she does and get her to free us. She's at least more capable that way," Ray said hotly.
I narrowed my eyes. "You don't mean that."
"Try me."
"Geez, you two geezers, could you be any louder? At least keep your voices down if you're going to talk about escape already."
Ray and I simultaneously shifted our attention to the noibat. One of her eyebrows was raised at us; I could glean an impression of silent laughter from her. A scar wound its way down the outside edge of her left ear, pale against her dark purple fur.
An awkward silence stretched between us as we observed each other. I could tell that she not been here for long, judging by how uncomfortable she seemed in her bonds.
"Who're you?" Ray asked.
"Tasha. At least, I hope I am," the noibat replied, her grin stretching into a cheeky smile. "And you are…?"
"I'm Mona," I offered, "and he's Ray."
"Well, Mona, I would normally say something like, 'Nice to meet you,' but in this kind of a situation, it'd be more like, 'Sorry to meet you,'" she quipped with a slow wink.
I huffed lightheartedly. After a pause, I added, "Who are these people?"
"Thieves," Tasha responded immediately. "They've been stealing from 'round here for a while now. They actually do it pretty well if I do say so myself. Not that I'm appreciating them or anything."
I blinked at her and her effusive speech. Still, it beat arguing with Ray for the time being. "So, um, if you don't mind me asking, how'd you end up here?"
Tasha straightened her head, her expression hardening. "That's a long story."
Indicating with my head toward our bonds, I said, "We do have the time."
She raised her eyebrows thoughtfully. "True dat," she agreed. "If you really want to know, then I guess it won't hurt to tell you.
"About a couple of weeks ago—I'm not sure how long—I heard word that a wanted pokémon was lurking around in this forest. I figured that it was an easy way to pick up some cash, so I hunted for a couple of leads. Once I located the pokémon, I planned to sneak up on him and take him down.
"It turns out that this 'wanted pokémon' was actually a group of thieves, and this nearby town was offering a very nice price for them. I eventually found their hideout, this ravine, and made a foolproof plan to take them out. It was all in a day's work to me.
"I made my move during the night, when I was sure that they would be asleep. As I was flying into the ravine to set up my traps, one of those scums—that granbull they call Yurk—literally jumped twenty feet into the air and landed on my hidden little ledge. I was knocked out before I could cry uncle. Next thing I knew, I was right bound up in this rope. I still haven't figured out how he heard me when I flew without a sound and made absolutely sure that I wasn't seen beforehand. I've been here for three days now," she finished.
"Oh, Tasha, I'm so sorry," I said with a hint of forced pity.
"Sure, it sucks, but I've been in worse before. Nobody said being a bounty hunter was easy," she said indifferently.
Oh, she's a bounty hunter. Now it all makes sense, I thought.
"Seems the same happened to you," she stated with a nod to my bindings.
"Well, it was kind of the same. We got a fake job request. We're explorers," I said, proffering her my badge by puffing out my chest. She examined the badge curiously.
"I've never had the chance to see one of these up close," she stated. "Aren't the gems color-coded according to rank?"
"Uh-huh," I replied.
"So, what's yours?" she asked harmlessly.
"Normal Rank," I said after a split-second hesitation.
"Isn't that the lowest?"
"Um, yes, it is," I said slowly, suddenly uncomfortable with the direction that the conversation was taking.
"Oh," she said, thankfully without a condescending tone. "You're new to exploring, then?"
"Not entirely. I received training while I was in school. Although, to be honest, it's not that much like the real thing," I explained.
"Learning's really worthless, ain't it? Bounty hunting wasn't like how I thought it was at first. It took some getting used to." Here she paused, her eyes growing distant and withdrawn. I squirmed in my bonds, unsure of how to continue.
Then, Tasha abruptly shook her head and plastered a smile on her face. "Sorry, I got lost in thought for a second," she apologized sheepishly. "Where were we?"
"We should be talking about how to get out of here," Ray interjected, his tone of voice much calmer. He wiggled around until he could spy at us out of his right eye.
"Yeah, true, true," Tasha babbled. "You know, since the two, er, three of you of are here, I guess this makes my idea a lot easier."
I cocked my head at the noibat. "Idea? What do you have in mind?"
She detailed her plan, which boiled down to a relatively simple concept. The thieves apparently all gathered together during dinner, which meant that no sentries were watching them directly. At that point, Tasha could use her Supersonic attack to disorient them. However, it would be a short period of time since the move would be weakened as to not confuse us when it bounced back off the walls. Then, I would use my Swift (which she had somehow already known I could use), break our bonds with them, and flee during the turmoil up a hidden tunnel behind us. Nobody would be between us and the tunnel, and we would get away scotch-free.
When I glanced behind me, I spotted a narrow opening into the rock face, which was overshadowed by a pile of boulders. Eris would have a bit of hard time squeezing into it, but the tunnel was a viable escape option. It sure as heck beat going through the Mystery Dungeon again.
"So that means we'll have to wait a whole day," Ray said.
"Yeah, we will. What, you on a schedule or something?" Tasha asked.
"More or less. Anyway, we should just break out when they fall asleep. Much more effective," Ray said, countering Tasha's plan.
Tasha shook her head like a parent does to an ignorant child. "Tried that already on the first day I got here. Dang sentries caught me faster than an ekans does a rattata. Wouldn't exactly be good form for them to let free a prisoner who knows what they're doing, huh?"
"You already said they're thieves. It's not really breaking news about what they do," Ray said with a roll of his eyes.
"Oh no, not just that. They're taking people and sending them off with this weird person," Tasha said smartly.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
Tasha obnoxiously sucked in a deep breath. "Okay, so, there's this weird, creepy pokémon that showed up two days ago—when I was first here—and took this other guy that had been here before me. Yurk was saying something about this guy being 'marked' or some crap like that. Anyway, the stranger showed up and took the poor sap out of here. I felt really bad for the dude, especially because I heard a scream in the forest not too long after they left. That stranger has got to the be the most wack guy I've seen, what with the long, black cloak he wears and his weird, deep voice. The guy almost speaks bass."
My heartbeat had accelerated throughout her entire explanation until it thumped like a hammer against my chest. Ray and I exchanged a glance, both immediately figuring out who had taken the pokémon: Shroud. Then, a more worrisome thought crossed my mind.
Yurk said that I'm "one of them." Oh my Arceus. I'm on his hit list, I thought with dread. Is he after me because Mr. Ace stopped him from killing me that day? Then how the heck did Yurk know?!
My mind suddenly stilled. If Shroud came here, then maybe… Maybe I could…
I shook my head. No! I'll get killed if I do that. I just have to get out of here for now.
"Mona, you good?" Ray asked. I blinked, realizing I had shaken my head without even saying anything. Instead of attempting to pass it off as nothing, I let my mouth curl into a grimace.
"Shroud has to be the one who came here. That means that I'm on his hit list," I uttered solemnly.
"True," Ray said. Then, he added, "That sucks."
"How considerate."
"Hold on, you mean the Shroud, as in the famous criminal that everyone's trying to hunt down?" Tasha asked, a hungry gleam in her eye.
"Yeah. He's evil—just evil," I said, my voice diminishing into a depressed tone.
"I have to agree with the riolu. Sucks for you," she said. I frowned at her, and she shrugged back at me.
Why does everyone seem to reserve their pity from me? I thought.
At that moment, a groan sounded from my left. Eris slowly opened her eyes, trying to shift out of her uncomfortable sleeping position. Her body met with resistance from the ropes, and with panic, she realized where she was: not in the dungeon.
"W-What's going on? Where am I?" she cried, struggling in her bindings.
"Eris, calm down!" I said sternly. The breloom realized that I was next to her, and she stopped pulling against the rope.
"Mona, what's going on?" she asked me, a pained frown creasing her chin. Checking around me to make sure that we had lost the attention of the thieves, I explained to Eris all that had occurred, including our plan. With the apprehension she tacitly expressed, she clearly felt reluctance to proceed with Tasha's plan. However, I convinced her that we should listen to the person who had been here long enough to observe the camp and decide on the best course of action.
With the night still young, we fell asleep as best as we could.
Day felt more like night. The sun only cast its rays into the ravine for a meager two hours. Under its solidary strength, the air rapidly heated, forcing the ravine's inhabitants to seek respite inside of their caves. Ray, Eris, Tasha, and I baked in the sunlight with no relief at all, save for when the sun finally disappeared behind the trees far above us.
Several hours passed without incident. Tints of indigo soon streaked through the once-sparkling-blue sky, heralding the arrival of night. Two fires had been lit in ash-filled pits, and a couple of cooks were preparing some stew in pots sitting over the flames.
From hidden vantage points in the ravine, sentries clambered down the rocks. When their number crested five, I fully understood why Tasha planned her escape during dinnertime. We would have been blasted to smithereens before we could have made it halfway.
Every so often, a pokémon strolled out from behind the boulder pile at the ravine's end. Many held small morsels of Berries or dead game stuffed inside of sacks. Some placed their hauls on the lone table, while others stashed them inside of the largest cave, presumably a storage area.
When an ampharos bearing a worn basket traipsed out of the ravine, Tasha caught my attention with a whisper of my name.
"Yeah?" I breathed in response.
"That ampharos is the last one," she said. "Everyone who left this morning has come back."
"That means they're close to serving out dinner," I concluded.
Tasha nodded in confirmation. "Yep. Other than the fact that they're preparing the food, of couse. Personally, I find it weird that they like to all eat together like one big, giant family, but, hey, that just makes it easier for us."
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Ray staring at me. When I turned my head to return the look, he swiftly snapped his head away from me. Frowning, I observed him for a moment longer before similarly glancing away from him.
Sometimes, I thought.
The sound of a wooden ladle rapping against a pot rang in the air.
"Dinner's done, everyone!" one of the cooks, a sunflora, shouted in monotone, a characteristic rather unbecoming of a bright yellow flower pokémon. A chorus of shuffling feet and stamping hooves immediately followed as the pokémon in the camp rushed toward the stew. My stomach growled as I watched the stew being meticulously distributed, even though it bore a putrid color. Having only eaten a single rawst berry and drunk a small cup of water, my body was voraciously demanding for the food a mere twenty feet away from it.
Focus, Mona, focus, I said to myself, pushing my hunger to the back of my mind.
"Tasha, are you ready?" I asked the noibat.
"Yep. We just need to wait a little longer," she responded. Her entire physique appeared alert, and she was straining all of her body against the rope binding her.
"This is a really bad idea," Ray whispered indignantly.
"Do you have any other ideas?" I shot back.
"Yeah, I do: don't do this," he said cynically.
"Ray, we can't wait any longer. Hecould show up at any moment," I said. Fear broiled in my heart at the mention of Shroud's arrival.
"You know, I don't get why you're so afraid of him. He didn't torture you like he did Kyle and Zane. He only tried to kill you for a few seconds, and you're acting like he's the bane of your existence," Ray said. He unwaveringly glared at me, his face scrunched in irritation.
I hesitated in my reply. "Ray, just…," I said tightly, disengaging eye contact with him.
"Just what?" he practically growled.
"…We need to get out of here," I said resolutely.
"No, Mona, you're—"
"Is there a problem over here?" a voice drawled. The pinsir that Eris had punched when we were being captured sauntered over to us. He stepped close to me and Ray and clacked the pincers on his head together in a silent threat.
Ray and I both snapped our mouths shut.
"Good. Now keep it that way," he said. Turning his back to us, he hobbled over to a group of bug-type pokémon and sat in their circle.
"You guys need to keep it quiet!" Tasha hissed. "You almost blew our chance! Now, we'll have to wait even longer in order for them to forget about us again."
Ray grunted and rolled his eyes. I shook my head at him and mouthed an apology to Tasha. Miffed, she retrained her gaze on the thieves but occasionally peered at us out of the corner of her eye.
Silence stretched between the four of us as Tasha vigilantly studied the thieves. Over time, the stew in the pots diminished as the cooks doled it out to the waiting pokémon. After several minutes of tense suspense, when all had received their meals and were contentedly gorging on them, Tasha signaled us with a flick of her ears. Ray, Eris, and I signaled her back in turn; I pinned my ears against my head in preparation.
"We are so going to regret this," Ray muttered so softly that I almost did not hear it.
As soon as he finished, a whining screeched wailed from Tasha's ears. The horrendous noise assailed my eardrums with a fierce intensity. Crying out in shock, I fought against the urge to hurl the miniscule, half-digested meal in my stomach.
Tasha's Supersonic blasted through the assembled thieves. Bowls tumbled from dazed hands, their contents splattering over the rocky ground. The ones closest to us crumbled to the ground and vainly covered their ears. Pokémon stumbled in their efforts to regain their balance. Not a single person around us escaped the ferocious attack.
"Mona! Get us out!" Tasha screamed over the raucous noises of the confused pokémon.
Swallowing back bile, I attempted to conjure a Swift star near Tasha. A ball of light appeared above the rope around Tasha, but it fizzed out of existence as another wave of nausea coursed through me.
"Get it together, Mona!" Ray yelled. "We don't have all day!"
"I'm trying!" I said defensively. Affixing my gaze on Tasha's rope, I summoned another Swift star above it. This one retained its form, and I willed it to spin rapidly and slice through the rope. The star heeded my thoughts and easily slashed through the rope. Caught off-guard by the sudden lack of rope holding her to the stake, Tasha fell forward onto the ground with an exclamation of surprise.
Rapidly, I moved the Swift star over to Eris and Ray and freed them both. Eris sighed in relief as her bindings collapsed in a heap, and Ray flung his rope boldly off of him. Bringing the star to me, I cut my rope clean down the middle and shrugged off the loose segments.
"Okay, let's—gulp—get out of here," I said.
Without further hesitation, the four of us sprinted, albeit with a slight wobble, toward the hidden passageway. Tasha soared ahead of us, her wings flapping rapidly.
A hoarse voice shouted incomprehensibly from my left. My head automatically swiveled toward the source of the noise, and I reeled in astonishment as Yurk charged through the crowd and toward us.
What the heck?! No! I thought Tasha said that they were all eating! I mentally exclaimed in distress.
"What is the meaning of this?" Yurk said angrily. His gaze immediately shot to Tasha, who had nearly reached the passageway behind the rocks. Her wings flapped tiredly as if they were lifting a great burden between them, the obvious result of days of motionless imprisonment.
The moment he saw her, Yurk growled so powerfully that I felt my chest vibrate. His malevolent glare sent a violent shiver down my spine. Frantically, I pushed myself faster toward the boulder pile. My heart beat rapidly in my chest, fueled by adrenaline.
For a split second, I thought that we would escape. Tasha was descending toward the passageway's entrance, and the three of us were mere feet behind her. Nobody could stop us; we were too far away for any of the thieves from the cave to reach us in time. We would be free.
All we needed was a few more seconds.
In that very instant, Yurk soared from overhead and landed right in front of Tasha. Snarling fiercely, he grabbed Tasha by her throat and ripped her right of the air. Without any restraint, he flung her into the ground. She wheezed and clutched at her sides as her body curled into a ball.
Terrified at Yurk's display of ruthlessness, I hastily scrambled to a stop, my eyes scanning for a way around the granbull. Yurk huffed disdainfully at the incapacitated Tasha; as he stepped over her, he noticed me staring edgily at him. His eyes, full of malice, bored into my own.
"You fools! How dare you try to escape?" he cried. He stomped toward us, his fists poised to strike. A dark haze formed around his clenched hands. Ray attempted to dodge around him, but Yurk swung his right fist at impossible speeds into Ray's back. The overwhelming force behind the blow drove the riolu forward several feet and into the rocky wall. Dazed, he slumped limply to the ground.
Yurk advanced on Ray, and his fists uncurled. The shadows dripping off his hands condensed around his fingers, forming long, deadly claws. I gasped, images of Lucy's death flashing before my eyes. Those were the same claws that had killed her. Those same claws were about to kill Ray.
My emotions reached a fever pitch. Crying valiantly, I bolted to Ray using Quick Attack and settled into a defensive stance before him. I instinctively bristled my tail and neck fur to increase my intimidation.
"Stay back!" I roared. A cold feeling flowed through my jaws as I screamed; when I stopped, I noticed that a wisp of shadows was curling out of the corner of my mouth. Fear broiled within me as that dark trail drifted to the ground.
Yurk regarded me coldly, then smiled toothily. "How amusing," he taunted. He leisurely strode closer to me and Ray. Sliding back, I conjured a host of Swift stars, more than I had ever summoned before. They swam through the air like a rolling ocean, partially walling Yurk from us.
Bemused, he glanced at the shining stars around him with little concern. "What a pitiful threat. You should be ashamed," he said mockingly. Suddenly, he widened his jaw and roared at me. Waves of raw power flew from his mouth, crushing me under their forceful pressure. My paws strained to hold their ground, but they eventually lost their grip. I tumbled backward and crashed into Ray, and my Swift dissipated harmlessly into the air.
Coughing, I crawled away from Ray and weakly pushed myself to my paws. Footsteps quaked the ground, drawing close to me, and a hand snatched my scruff and hauled me into the air.
"This is an attack," Yurk bragged, thrusting me back into the ground. He pressed down on my chest and gradually squeezed the air out of my lungs. Shadows congealed around his hand and stabbed into my ribs. I futilely sucked in air, but my lungs could not expand enough to allow sufficient air to enter. As my desperation increased, Yurk began to cackle and compress my body even further. The corners of my vision darkened, and my grasp on consciousness loosened.
"Yurk! Stop! That's enough!" a voice demanded.
Instead, Yurk lowered himself closer to me. Eyes as dark as the night sky ravenously drank me in like a starving predator. The fingers on his other hand extended over my chest and dug their nails into my sides. My weak resistance steadily died as my air-deprived body became comatose.
"YURK! You're killing her!" the voice shouted, sounding distant.
At those words, Yurk blinked and lurched back from me. His hands detached from my chest, and I gasped when precious air entered my lungs. As I recovered from being asphyxiated, Yurk glanced between me and his hands, his midnight eyes now ringed in white. His breaths were heavy, laden with an emotion that I could not understand.
Right next to him stood Trevor, the vines on his body writhing in agitation. Other thieves, having recovered from being confused, had gathered around us. Yurk observed them all, a scowl forming on his face.
Trevor opened his mouth and said, "Yurk, what the he—"
Clenching his fists, Yurk brushed past Trevor, cutting him off mid-sentence, and said to the thieves, "Tie them up."
No one moved. When Yurk saw that they were doing nothing, he repeated in a deeper voice, "Tie them up!"
As soon as the command escaped his lips, Yurk's body locked together. His eyes glazed, and his hands dropped to his sides.
"Yurk? Are you okay, man?" Hank asked, his black-spotted elytra fluttering. The others appeared similarly anxious at Yurk's sudden behavioral flip.
Yurk remained obliviously frozen in place. After a moment of silence, his mouth curled upward in a devious grin.
"He is coming," Yurk said. A dark cackle escaped his lips. Crazed eyes gazed at each of the thieves in turn before settling on me.
"He will be here tomorrow at midday, when the sun reaches its zenith," he elaborated. "We must be ready. We must be ready…"
Muttering to himself, Yurk ambled past the thieves and into a cave with claw marks along its entrance. When the shadows had swallowed him, Hank twirled the rope around his sticky hands and plod guardedly to me.
"I'm going to have to tie you up now," Hank spoke with an edge of caution.
Indignantly, I raised my haunches and charged a Shadow Ball in front of my mouth. Hank stopped approaching when I mustered the attack.
"Don't come any closer," I spat around the glowing purple orb.
Stretching the rope taut, Hank said, "Listen, kiddo, it's one of you versus all of us. You might hit me, sure, but you'll get hit a lot more."
I shuffled uncertainly in place, considering the implications of his words.
He's right. I'm just going to get injured if I pick a fight right now, I thought. Stealing a look over my shoulder, I observed that Eris trembled in fright, her tail wedged firmly between her hands. She hardly seemed to notice me watching her, preferring to stare abstractly at her feet. Ray, meanwhile, had just pulled himself to his feet, but his expression indicated that he was in no condition to fight. Tasha still lay prone on the ground, wheezing.
They'll get hurt if I fight here, I realized.
Sighing, I returned my gaze to Hank. I dissolved my Shadow Ball and shifted out of my aggressive stance. Hank visibly relaxed as I lowered my guard.
"Good choice. I honestly didn't want this to turn out badly, either," he breathed in relief. Motioning with his four empty arms to the stakes, he continued, "Just walk back over there. No need to go fast; just take it slow."
Scrutinizing Hank out of the corner of my eye, I tread warily to the stakes. While Eris could similarly walk to one of the stakes, Tasha and Ray had to be carried due to them being severely weakened from Yurk's devastating blows.
While Hank hovered over me, I spied Ray out of the corner of my eye. To my surprise, he was returning the gesture, his expression inexplicable. I fully swiveled my head toward him, but he turned away before I finished.
Once we had all been securely bound to those dreadful wooden posts, Hank asked a girafarig to stand watch over us. The girafarig clearly had reservations about becoming a sentry because he attempted to negotiate the subject with Hank. After a short debate, the girafarig conceded, and she settled on a spot near us.
This is bad, I thought. We have a someone watching us now.
"Well. Isn't this fantastic," Ray snapped. Apparently, his mood from moments ago had either lifted or been suppressed. He twisted his paws against the rope and sighed when they unsuccessfully loosened its knot. Irately, he turned toward Tasha.
"This is your fault," he hissed at the noibat. "If you hadn't just assumed that everyone would be outside, then we wouldn't have gotten caught."
"Excuse me?" Tasha exclaimed.
"It's not her fault that Yurk and those other pokémon didn't go outside, Ray," I said.
"She was looking at them the entire time," he argued.
"And we were, too," I countered. "We could've at least seen that Yurk wasn't with them."
"Yurk was out there. I don't know why he wasn't confused—or, rather, why he recovered so darn quickly," Tasha said. As we switched our attention to her, she continued, "We had our chance, and we blew it."
Ray snorted at her remark. "Tch. Why did we even trust…," he said, then fell into grumbling.
Despite my defense of Tasha, her words struck a chord in me. We had failed to break free. We had no back-up plan. We had our chance; now, we were stuck here.
No, there has to be another way. I won't let Shroud take me! I thought defiantly.
"Tasha, do you remember seeing any other way out of here?" I asked her.
She immediately shook her head in denial. "We can't do much of anything. Everyone's going to be on high alert. Plus, we have a sentry personally watching us now. There's not much of a chance of us getting out now."
Not one of us spoke as we absorbed Tasha's words. I grit my teeth as I searched my mind for another method we could use to break out of the camp.
I could knock out the girafarig with a Shadow Ball, but then I'd attract the others' attention. I could do it at night… No, the other sentries in the trees would see it. I'd have to knock them out to, but the noise that would make would wake up the others, and we'd still have to free ourselves and get out of here without them catching us…
While I had lost myself in thought, the thieves had finally recovered from their confusion, their bumbling calming to controlled swaying. A few of them noticed the mess about them and began to clean up the debris. The vast majority, however, quickly concluded that we were the source of the Supersonic, and they did not hesitate to turn their wrath upon us.
"What'ssss the big idea, huh?" a seviper hissed. "You think it'sss funny to watch ussss toddle around like drunkardsssss?"
"What's it you?" Ray spat.
The seviper glared daggers at Ray and reared his tail besides his head. "Maybe I sssshould return the favor," he said suggestively, lowering his tail over the defiant riolu.
"Don't even think about it, Tom," the girafarig said firmly, butting the seviper's tail away.
"Why? Whoever sssaid that we couldn't give them a few little deep cutssss?" Tom said. He inched closer to Ray dangling his tail close to Ray's face.
"Because these kids are our ticket to cash so we can get out of this pothole of a ravine," the girafarig answered dully. "If we ransom them with wounds all over them, we're going to have a lot less of an edge in negotiation."
Tom hesitated, glancing between Ray and the girafarig. After a few seconds, he slithered back from the riolu. "I ssssuppose you're right," he said, appearing to have calmed slightly.
"Personally, I'd love to give them a good Stomp in the face, but…," she said suggestively, shrugging her shoulders.
"Yeah, I get it," Tom said. His tongue snaked out of his mouth, tasting the air near us, before slithering back between his fangs. With no further interest in maiming us, he slunk away.
I've really messed up this time, I thought, my insides broiling with humiliation from all of the hateful stares that we were receiving.Out of all the mistakes I've made in my life, this is the final one,I thought. I…I'm going to die, aren't I?
No. I refuse.
In this manner, my mind circled around itself, contradicting both sides of the argument and never settling on an answer. Dusk faded into night, and my body, exhausted from its lack of sleep from last night, slipped into a dozing state.
However, one thought lurked in the back of my mind. It terrified me so much that I hardly wanted to acknowledge it, yet the truth of it was undeniable.
I had secreted the same shadows out of my mouth that Yurk had out of his hands.
Be sure to follow "The Divine Chronicles: The Last Heir" to be notified as soon as the latest chapter is uploaded.