A Yearning for the Mud
Chapter Fifty – The Town That Burned Away
Rain and sweat streamed down Wallace's face as his group neared the end of the curved stone path of what a weathered sign identified as Route 17. They arrived in the Alola region a few hours ago in the blink of an eye thanks to elgyem's teleport. In the Ula'ula Meadow, as Serena called it, they ate a quick lunch and watched red and black feathered pokémon dance through the sky and he let ariados out to interact with a few of his own species. With the plan fresh on their minds, the four of them set off with Neo and Garret leading them through the downpour of the adjacent route until they reached a looming structure that seemed to fence Po Town off from the route and serve as a gateway to it as well.
"It's eerie out here," Serena said as she inched closer to Wallace as they walked, the edge of her umbrella offering him a bit of relief from the rain. "Daddy didn't want us coming to Po Town when we visited, said it hasn't earned itself the best reputation over the years. Plus, there were hardly any trainers on the way."
Wallace spared a look over his shoulder at the mountainous hills that rose in tiers to the northeast of route 17. A handful of trainers lingered there and of them, only two bothered to acknowledge them with a battle that Neo and Garret took with ease.
Ahead of them, at the end of the tunnel, Wallace could make out little due to the gunmetal clouds blocking out most of the sunlight. The closer they came the more he began to guess shapes of dark street lamps and trace sidewalks overgrown with grass and untrimmed hedges, and large holes in the stone pathway. In the distance he saw the edge of the clouds stop abruptly where the walls, not gates, of Po Town stood tall, secluding it from the rest of the island they'd landed on. The murky outlines of buildings took shape as they neared the end of the tunnel and stopped short, none of them seemed eager to get rained on again.
A soft beeping pulled Wallace's attention from trying to outline a large building in the distance, to his shoulder. With slow pulses, elgyem flashed his red lights at Wallace. He knew red to mean a number of things, but here it had to be a sign of elgyem's apprehension for the gloomy town they'd walked into. "I feel it too," he said, rubbing the top of elgyem's head. "We won't be here long, I hope. Just to find someone that knows Reed and maybe some answers. Then we're heading home." Wallace pulled his phone out and skimmed through his newest texts, all of them were the same, updates from Eleanor, Cosmo, and Cole assuring him they were all okay. He texted back the same and snapped a picture of the entrance to Po Town to attach.
"Where's the best place to start?" Garret asked, his head down as he looked over a printed copy of the map Neo had pulled from the region's travel site. "All I see are residential homes, there's a mansion at the edge of town. Nothing like a community center or trainer school."
"Maybe we should have stopped at that little police station we passed?" Serena asked sweetly as she bit her nail despite the idea of skipping the police station having been her idea.
"They've got a Pokémon Center," Neo said, pointing out of the tunnel. "That should be good enough, they'll have recorded all of the trainers registered here."
The group left their shelter together and hadn't made it to the edge of their path before a figure slid out of the bushes and into their way. His arms were bare and being pelted with rain while a drenched black tan top clung to his body and a pair of baggy black pants sagged around his hips. He adjusted a white and black cap on his head as he shouted at the group through a stretch of black fabric hanging under their nose. "Yo! You four don't look like you're from around here."
"This must be the welcoming committee," Serena said with a sigh. "Step aside, we have business to attend to." Serena moved to pass the man before he jumped into her path, startling her back a few steps.
"Oh, not so fast," he said, wiping his nose with his thumb. "See, if you're new, then I gotta be the one to lay down the Po rule to you. There's just one, and it's that you don't say no in Po. Basically, if you meet someone, and they wanna battle, it's not up to you to decline. And there's one more thing, the winner gets a choice prize, meaning they get to take one of the loser's pokémon. Let's go, little lady, I need a new addition to my collection!" The man lifted his tank top and exposed two rows of poké balls that weighed down his waistline.
Quickly, Wallace counted at least thirty poké balls on his hips before he lowered his shirt.
Serena switched her umbrella to her other hand as she plucked a ball out from the pocket of her shorts and enlarged it. "I'm sure your pokémon won't serve me any purpose, but I'd be glad to teach you a lesson in manners. Aurorus, come out and play."
Neo's arms shot out like a mom protecting her kids as he backed Garret and Wallace into the shelter of the tunnel as a quadruped pokémoon took its place beside Serena. Its crystal blue skin with a softer blue underbelly seemed to emit smoke, as a dense white cloud surrounded it shortly after emerging from the ball. Despite the gloom that surrounded Po Town, Aurorus's sails that sprouted from the crown of its head and ran down its long neck to its back glimmered a soft yellow, their colors undeterred by the haze of the town.
"Heh, I'll use this one," the man said, eyeing a green poké ball on his waist that he pulled off and threw into the air. "Got this one from the last chump that came into Po, sent him crying back to his mommy."
The man ran back to the bushes as the ball struck the ground, a feathered and cloaked pokémon emerging. "Deci!" Wallace narrowed his eyes on the pokémon that stood on two feathered legs and seemed to be covered by a cloak made of brown feathers and a green feathered hood. If it not for its three toes each with a menacing-looking talon on the edge, he might have confused it for a person dressing up.
"Decidueye, we've got the type advantage, but let start with that spirit shackle of yours, just to make sure our new friends understand the rules about never saying no!" the man said as he fired a finger gun at Serena.
"What an idiot," Neo said as he breathed into his hands. "That thing looks like a grass-type, so he's got an advantage over Serena's rock-type, but she's got the advantage by being ice-type as well. This guy is hopeless. I hope this isn't how all Alola trainers are."
Wallace shivered as a chill struck him and turned his eyes back to the battle as Decideye lifted a wing and pulled back on a vine from its cloak, a feathered arrow notched in the makeshift bow. A glint of purple light coated the arrow as it fired. Serena didn't budge as the arrow flew by, grazing Aurorus's leg, though it didn't seem to leave a stretch and stuck itself fast into the stone of Aurorus's dim shadow.
"Now you won't be able to run away when he goin' gets tough," the man said. "And it's about to get tough. Leaf blade."
"Serena's already won," Garret said, his eyes focusing on the clouds, rather than the battle.
Wallace had to tear his eyes away from the Deciudeye soaring across the path, its wings glimmering white as it slashed at Aurorus, to the sky where Garret had been focusing. The dark storm clouds looked the same to him, though the longer he stared the more he realized the rain had stopped. Instead, thick white snowflakes were falling from the clouds. As he marveled at a snowflake that landed on his nose, something small and hard struck his forehead.
"It's hail," Neo said, pulling a pellet from his hair. "The rain is freezing, this must be Aurorus's ability."
Decidueye swept past Aurorus again, clipping her front and back legs with its wings that earned a cry from fossil Pokémon, but nothing from Serena.
"You're not giving up, are you?" the man asked as Decidueye returned to his side. "That pretty fossil is going to be mine in no time. Unless you prefer to pay up in other ways."
"Aurorus, use freeze-dry," Serena said, closing her umbrella and holding her hand out as the hail intensified, pelting the ground around them.
"Leaf blade again, aim for the neck this time," the man said.
Decidueye let out a roaring battle cry as it spreads its wings that glowed white, as it prepared for take-off a sizable chunk of hail struck one of its wings. Rather than ignore it, Decidueye seemed to falter under it and turned its neck as its wing as an explosion of ice covered its wing. The ice formation, the size of a small boulder weighed Decidueye down, throwing it off balance and sent it stumbling to the ground.
"Get up, stupid bird!" the man spat, fists clenched as he stomped into a puddle, the water splashing onto his pants.
"It's dangerous to have any moisture on you when the temperature drops," Serena said.
"Just because you made it hail doesn't mean it's getting that cold," the man said as he pulled at the bandana in front of his face, the fabric holding its original shape as he tore it off, exposing his pale face underneath. He held his hand up and huffed a few times, his breath visible from the distance. "What the hell?"
Wallace's eyes snapped back to Decidueye when it let out a cry as another ice crystal sprouted on its back followed by two more on its wings.
"I knew Po Town had some low life trainers here, I just didn't think they'd be this simple," Serena said. "It'll be just a few more minutes and that Decidueye will be completely frozen. Give up."
"I-I-I can't, w-we don't say n-no in P-Po!" he said, rubbing his arms and shoulders, his eyes growing wide as a chunk of hail smacked his leg and from it sprouted a large ice block that swallowed the entire limb.
"I told you, any amount of moisture is dangerous when dealing with freezing temperatures," Serena said, waving her umbrella at him.
Wallace clenched and opened his fists, the pads of his fingers sensitive and red from the dropping temperature. Beside him he saw Neo clearing water from his glasses and Garret touching his hair that looked solid from the collected rainwater starting to freeze. "She brought the umbrella so she wouldn't be affected by her pokémon's attack?"
"You weren't around so you wouldn't know, but she finished last year at the top of her class," Neo said, nodding. "She's the only student in the school's history to do so three years in a row. She plays like she's one thing, but she's something completely different."
"She's a little scary," Garret added.
When Wallace looked back to the battle, Decidueye was no longer visible under the jagged pillar of ice that covered its body and its unofficial trainer was nearing the same fate as another ice crystal sprouted on his side and froze his other leg, leaving his only upper body unaffected.
"Just give up, it's only going to take even longer for you to unthaw," Serena said. "It's also not healthy."
"I q-q-quit! I quit!" he screamed.
Serena wasted no time in recalling Aurorus which made the temperature pick up instantly. The last of the hail fell and before long rain started to pelt them again. Serena popped open her umbrella as she strode over to the fallen pokémon and the man in black. "I've got a couple of full heals," she said, crouching and slinging her pack off. Digging around she forced them into his hand. "Now I'll take my prize, got any rock-types? Preferably a fossil."
The man shivered as he lifted his shirt and with a shaking hand pointed to a ball on the edge of his waist. "T-this one."
Wallace and the others joined Serena as she plucked the ball he specified off and released whatever was inside out. A small canine pokémon joined them on the path, its light brown further darkening quickly from the rain. A white fur collar shook as it tried to shake off the water, its fluffy-looking tail wagging with excitement as it caught Serena staring at it.
"I can't tell you how jealous I am," Neo said, snapping a picture of the pokémon on his phone. "I've never seen this species before."
"I-It's a rockruff," the man said, trying to break bits of the ice off his legs. "I got him a few days ago."
"He's adorable," Serena said as she crouched and started to work her fingers through his fur which earned her a few leg shakes from the rockruff. "Shame he had to be separated from his trainer by the likes of you."
"Cut me a break, I'm just following orders!" he said.
"Whose orders?" Garret asked.
The man pursed his lips and averted his eyes. "I ain't saying nothing."
"Look, we're here for answers," Neo said. "Do you know someone named Reed Whitfield? He grew up here."
The man's eyes widened as he looked over each of their faces before he shrugged. "Yeah, I heard of him. I don't know him, but the name, I've heard of it. Heard some stories too," he said with a whistle. "If you're looking for answers, the nurse at the center could help. But don't forget what I said, if someone wants to battle, it ain't up to you to say no."
"We'll keep that in mind," Neo said as he patted the man on the shoulder and moved past. Garret and Wallace moved around to join Neo as well as Serena scooped up her rockruff and carried him in front of her.
"Wait! A-Are you going to unthaw me?" he asked.
"Nope," Serena said as she spun around in a circle. "Hope you're got a fire-type on you that won't mind the rain too much!"
While the path to the Pokémon Center seemed straightforward, trash and cars without engines or tires ended up blocking their path. The obstacles sent them on an adventure to find an alternate path that led them through two neighboring house's yards and under a fence and into an alleyway where Garret and Neo each took down two people dressed like Serena's opponent. Garret turned down the prize pokémon and offered it to Wallace instead.
"Um, thanks. I don't know if I can take it though," he said, eyeing the ball like it was a trap.
"Why not?" Neo asked, admiring blue punching bag-looking pokemon he'd won. It stood stoically saluting to them while Neo inspected its black tail with two eyespots staring at the sky on it.
"Because I could feel awful to know elgyem got traded and is then being bounced around from trainer to trainer," he said, placing a hand of his shoulder that elgyem tapped. "This was someone's friend, and now it's a prize in a rundown town. Maybe I'll turn it into the nurse and she can find its owner," he said they approached the front of the center.
Graffiti and lewd drawings covered the sliding doors of the Pokémon Center and when they entered, they were greeted with the smell of trash and urine. Boxes were stacked high around and on top of the café counter while broken lights flickered, unable to decide if they wanted to stay on or not. To their right, under a blue banner, sparse shelves for a mart did not invite them to come shop. Spray paint and mud covered the floor and walls and in the middle of a wall was a red counter shaped like a classic poke ball with a haggard-looking woman behind it.
"Oh, visitors," she said, closing a book she had open on the desk and trying her best to greet them with a smile that was missing a few teeth.
"Hi," Neo said, stepping ahead of the group. "We're looking for some information on someone who we think grew up here. Reed Whitfield, sound familiar?"
"Oh yes, everyone knows about the Whitfield family," she said, trying to smooth some of her dry and frazzled pink hair strands.
"Also, what happened here?" Wallace asked. "There's no working lights outside, there are people making up their own rules for battling outside. I mean, I've never seen a Pokémon Center look so – nasty before. What happened? Is Po Town abandoned?"
"Sorry that we aren't as fancy as the centers in Kalos," she said, scoffing. "I can hear it in your voice, the Kalosian accent. People love to come to Po and pick on us, but there's a lot of heart and history here. We didn't used to live like this."
"We didn't mean to offend," Serena said, resting rockruff's feet on the edge of the desk. "We're just a little confused about what could drive a town to ruin like this, and if the person we're looking for had anything to do with it."
"Is Reed in trouble?" she asked, her tone hardening.
"No," the four of them answered together before Wallace kept going. "We just wanted to know more about where he came from, that led us here. Can you help us?"
"Of course, I can," she said shuffling around behind her desk before she crouched and started to rummage. "Our systems have been down for a while, I've had to rely on keeping written records, not something you kids would understand, but it makes an old lady happy to do so. You know, the town hasn't really been right for a while. Not since the fire."
"A fire?" Garret asked.
"After that, the town just kind of lost its way and fell into madness and lawlessness," she said, rising with a thick maroon book in her arms that she dropped onto the desk, kicking up a cloud of dust. "It was a cold winter day, December 24th, 2005 to be exact. Now let's see here, I'll have to find him by his last name, one second."
The nurse flipped to the bottom onto its face and cracked the spine open to search from the back. As she searched, Wallace distanced himself from the moment mentally, the date she recalled pinging something in his deep memories. Having lived in the Lumiose townhouse his entire life, he could easily picture himself at home in front of the fireplace, their tree casting white shimmering lights across their foyer while he eyed the assortment of presents. His father talking on the phone in the background. He would have been seven then, wearing his favorite pajamas, a pair that had fabric under the arms that when spread made him look like a vivillon.
Closing his eyes, he could picture it more clearly, but the memory wasn't quite right. The fireplace, the tree, the presents, they didn't belong to him, they were Andrew's. It wasn't his father in the background, it was Charles. He'd been dropped off at the Gates's house with no explanation. The memory burned his eyes, the memory of his mother's death was still fresh in his young mind and his father vanished into the night without a word. He remembered the cold touch of the windows, fearing his father wouldn't make it home for Christmas. A nudge shook him from his trip through the archives of his memory, and when he reopened his eyes everyone's eyes were on him and his face was warm and wet.
"Sorry," he said, wiping his face and his nose, catching elgyem's worried face in his periphery. "Did you find him?"
"Yes, I did," the nurse said, eyeing him carefully. "I've got his mother's address here, not much other than that. He registered his first pokémon here when he was eleven, a duskull. He took on the island challenges, but never went all the way. He stopped short on taking on the league and left the region several years ago."
"Anymore information?" Neo asked, typing everything she said into his phone.
"His father's name was Keith, his mother is Manda," she said, flipping to another page. "That's it really. I do hope you're not going to go bother his mother, she doesn't need any stress in her life. Her life hasn't been the easiest since her husband died and her son left."
"Mr. Whitfield is dead?" Serena asked, scooping rockruff back into her arms as he tried to nibble on her fingers.
"Oh yes, he died, the night of the fire twelve years ago," the nurse said curtly as she closed the book and returned it under the desk. "Can I help you with anything else?"
"No, thank you, you've helped enough," Wallace said, motioning for the others to follow him as he crossed the lobby and out of the doors.
"Wow," Serena said as she opened her umbrella and sucked in a breath of fresh air. "A fire that killed Reed's dad, and after that the town just kind of lost itself."
"What was that inside?" Neo asked between scanning the nearby house. "You were mumbling to yourself and crying."
Wallace narrowed his eyes as if he could see the explanation behind his behavior if he focused on it hard enough. "As soon as she said that date, something just clicked in me. I remember one Christmas I thought my father wasn't coming home because he dropped me off and left and there was this terrible storm. I don't know if it's the same date, but it could have been. I would have been seven, which seems right, and I've never had another moment like that. My mom had died and my father was hovering over me so much to make sure I was okay, and he was mad at Andrew then and so it was so weird that he left me with them. Eventually, he came home and acted like nothing happened and we had Christmas together and he never mentioned that day again."
"You aren't saying your dad had something to do with the fire, are you?" Garret asked.
"Reed said he learned how to wipe memories from my father," Wallace said, ignoring Garret's question. "He didn't say that directly, but that was pretty much it. What if Reed knew my father?"
"Until we find him and ask him ourselves, his mom is our best shot for answers," Neo said. "I pulled up the GPS, the address the nurse gave us is close. Should be just a few houses down from here."
Retracing their steps, the four of them crawled back under the fence and crossed through a few more yards of what looked like vacant houses, but occasionally they heard voices behind the doors until they came to the one Neo said to stop at. Its exterior, dingey grey stones, and a burnt orange roof looked like every other house they passed, but there seemed to be less graffiti covering it, though the overgrown and marshy lawn could have made it pass for abandoned.
As they neared the door, a bush to their right rustled and two dark-colored rodents scurried away from them. Garret knocked on the door and stepped back to join their line as they waited. Wallace strained his ears to pick up a shuffling sound from inside before the doorknob twisted and flew open, a woman with aged beauty peering at them on the other side. "Hello?" she asked, brushing a few brown-gray strands of hair from her sunken in face.
While the boy's mouths hung open, Serena stepped up to the plate. "Hi! You must be Ms. Whitfield, it's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Serena Saint-Mars, and these are my classmates. We're from Radix University in the Kalos region, we attend classes there with your son, Reed."
Manda's face easily conveyed her confusion until Reed's name hit her. Her eyes popped open and a smile found its way to her lips. "Oh, my Reed? Is he with you?" she asked, stepping out of the doorway, dressed in sweats and a knitted blue shawl.
"No, ma'am, unfortunately not," Serena said. "We actually just found out that he grew up here and we're looking for him, we thought he might have come to pay you a visit. Has he been around lately?"
"My Reed hasn't come to visit me in years." Manda shook her head and grumbled a little as she collapsed against the door. "Would you like to come in?" she asked, swinging her arm toward the interior.
"Would love to," Serena said as she closed her umbrella and entered the house.
Wallace followed her with Neo and Garret on his heels. They kicked their shoes off onto a welcome mat inside and while doing so, Wallace took the time to take in the interior of the house. A couch sat to his right and an armchair to his left, another couch sat pressed against the far wall adjacent to a small boxy television. A coffee table in front of the couch beside him was covered with puzzle pieces, newspaper clippings, magazines and small empty boxes of cigarettes.
"That's enough Buzz, we have company." Manda shuffled past them and took her spot in the middle of the couch, directly across from the television. From behind the television, an elekid emerged and leaped over a stack of papers to land on the table and with another jumped landed in her lap.
Serena took a seat with rockruff in the chair while the boys poked around the room before they ended up sitting thigh to thigh on the other couch. Wallace's eyes were drawn to the walls, pictures of Manda and a young Reed, evident by his nose freckles, were everywhere. There were pictures of Reed at different ages in different locations with different Pokémon, though the duskull made numerous appearances. Craning his neck back, he found a picture of Reed holding up the peace sign beside an elgyem outside of a large tower.
"My Reed has certainly accomplished a lot in his young life," Manda said. "He would have been the champion had he not given up all of a sudden, but that's what he wanted to do."
The picture of Reed with elgyem kept pulling Wallace's attention. He looked much younger in the picture and the tower in the background, white with a sloped tiered design was recognizable anywhere. It was the same tower Andrew visited to pay respects to his starter and where he met the original elgyem, Celestial Tower. "Ms. Whitfield, this picture of your son is from Unova?" Wallace asked.
"I guess so," she said, shrugging. "I've never left Alola, so I wouldn't really know."
"It's just that I thought Reed had never left the region until he decided not to challenge the league," Wallace said. "You said that happened a few years ago."
"Did I?" she asked, waving her hands through the air as she picked up a cigarette box and threw it back down, empty. "My memory is a little fogging sometimes. But you might be right, his father did take him places sometimes, little boys' trips, can't take old mom anywhere though."
Wallace nibbled at the inside of his lip. Reed was at least fifteen in the picture with the elgyem, considering they were close in age Reed would have lost his father when he was seven, the same time Arlan vanished before Christmas. Reed's father hadn't taken him to Unova.
"Is your husband around?" Neo asked, earning glares from the rest of the group.
"My husband?" Manda asked, rocking back and forth, stroking her elekid's head. "No, no, that bum left me a few years ago. Just got up off that couch where you're sitting and walked out the door, never came back. Just like my son."
Across the room, Wallace watched Serena tap the side of her head a few times. "Reed told us his father died when he was a kid," he said, testing the waters and hoping for a nibble, not a bite.
Manda stopped rocking and creased her forehead as she looked like she had to focus on what he'd just said. "Well yeah, everyone in town knows my husband died in that horrible, horrible, fire a decade ago. Why would you bring something like that up? Did you come here just to make me feel bad?"
"Of course not," Garret said quickly. "We were just hoping to learn more about Reed. We hoped we might be here."
"You just missed him," Manda said, crossing her legs. "My Reed came by the other day to talk."
"Ms. Whitfield, thank you so much for inviting us into your home, but we should be going," Serena said, rising to her feet and heading to the door. As Wallace and the others got to their feet, he caught sight of the kitchen and glimpses of black metal cages with pokémon sleeping inside them. "Ms. Whitfield, I can't seem to work the door."
"I locked it," Manda replied proudly as she grabbed her knees and pulled herself up, her elekid jumping onto the table. "People come around asking questions about my Reed, I have a right to know what's going on! Who are you? What do you want? I know you're nothing but a bunch of slick liars from the city, my Reed has no friends!"
Wallace found himself using Garret as a shield as Manda bent her knees and started shaking her head as she screamed at them. Words like hooligans flew from her mouth as long with some words he could only guess were part of the local slang vocabulary.
"Buzz, zap 'em!"
Wallace watched the elekid glow before Garret rushed forward and gripped its antenna. Sparks of electricity danced off the elekid's body, but nothing more than that. Picking the elekid up, Garret hurled it across the room, sending it flying down the hallway before he jumped over the table and started to mess with the door and lock.
Manda cried and stumbled to move past her piles of clutter and chase after elekid while Wallace and Neo joined them at the door. "How did you do that?" Wallace asked.
Garret paused to wave his hand at Wallace. "Did you forget? I order all my clothes to resist electricity so I can train my team without getting hurt."
With a loud click the door seemed to pop and Garret swung it open. Serena slipped past him first and sprinted to the edge of the lawn, clutching her rockruff to her chest. "She's crazy!"
"She's definitely not all there," Neo said, looking between the group and the house. "Her stories kept changing about Reed and his dad."
"You're not my son's friends!"
The four of them looked back to the house to find Manda sharing the doorway with a charizard whose neck jutted out with a roar.
"Flamethrower!" Manda screeched.
Wallace yanked Neo and Garret toward him and wrapped his arm around them as he touched Serena's shoulder. "Elgyem, home now!"
Wallace watched the dark insides of the charizard's mouth ignite red hot before fire spewed from its mouth, then purple light overtook the fire and they were gone.
Their bodies twisted and warped before their feet slammed into the hard stone of the campus quad. The gurgling of the fountains was a reassuring sound as they separated and caught their breath. Wallace sent a text off to Cole, letting them know they'd made it back safe
Not a minute had passed before his phone started buzzing with texts and Neo's went off with an incoming call. reed came back, started taking people at random, in public, we gathered everyone we could, we're at the clinic.
"Wallace, we've got to get to the clinic," Neo said, lowering his phone. "That as Ellie, she said she got the girls out safe; they're hiding in the clinic and have no clue where Reed is."
"Everyone, grab hold, I'm going to have elgyem take us," Wallace said, holding his arm out. Serena squeezed his hand while Garret and Neo clutched his forearm. "Elgyem, take us to the clinic."
"Gy!" Following a series of computerized beeps, their bodies warped from the spot by the fountains and into the white quiet of the clinic's waiting room. "I say we split up, try to find as many people as you can and meet back up," he said as he moved to the doors and locked them. Rushing along the walls Wallace tugged as curtains and yanked blinds cords to shut off visibility from the outside.
"Sounds good, yell if you get into trouble," Neo said before he took off toward the ICU. "I'm going to find Ellie!"
"I'll go this way," Garret said, nodding toward the check-up station doors.
Serena placed her rockruff on the ground and he started sniffing the tiles and chairs before he darted off toward a set of double doors that the nurses use to retrieve supplies. "I'll be following him, I guess, see you soon," she said, giving his hand another squeeze.
Watching Serena and rockruff vanish around through the doors, he dug a hand into his pocket at the ball Garret had given him from his victory. Returning it to the Po nurse was out of the question now. Pocketing the ball, Wallace faced the only other hall, one that led to the resident rooms. "We're going to be okay, Elgy," he said, more to convince himself as he passed through the doorway into the bright hallway. Elgyem kept the silence at bay by humming or beeping in his ear but stopped once he heard voices. He pointed around the corner ahead of them, his lights green, and Wallace followed his instruction. Peeking around the corner he found Cole peeking out from inside a room, his hard-concentrated expression softening once they made eye contact.
"You're okay," Cole breathed as he rushed from the room and collected Wallace in a hug and planted a kiss on his forehead. "I can't let you leave my sight again; I didn't know what was happening and I couldn't stand it."
"I'm fine," he said, a little emotionally confused from learning the story of Po Town and Cole's kiss frying his brain for half a second, but fine. "Where is everyone else?"
Cole grabbed his hand and pulled him into the room they'd been assigned by Cheryl to use as their quarters while working on tyrogue. Inside he found Nicki, Alice, and Astrid cowering against the wall under observation window. Wallace looked up from them to tyrogue inside the operating room, lying across the table, tubes and machines monitoring his condition.
"I couldn't find Cheryl," Cole said, sounding a little watery. "I mean, I guess she could have gone home for the night, but that woman, you know she never stops working."
"Are you all okay?" Wallace asked, refocusing his attention on the three students.
Nicki and Alice were holding each other and nodded furiously while Astrid typed something into her tablet. "We are fine, a little shaken up," her tablet replied in its computerized monotone voice.
"The others are spread out, we all separated in the confusion, I don't even know how many are left," Cole said, rubbing his eyes as he started pacing.
"Hey, relax," Wallace said, trying to grab him to still him, but Cole kept shaking him off. "You saved them, that's all that matters."
"Wallace, it happened so fast," Cole said, slowing to a stop and facing Wallace with the saddest eyes he'd ever seen. We were in my room, Rosanna was trying to focus on her cousins, strengthening the bonds, and we heard screaming. Reed was outside and people were running and his dusclops chased them and – sucked them right up. The girls were freaked and ran, Eleanor ran after them and I lost them in the chaos. When I got outside there were so many people running and so many people weren't fast enough. I couldn't focus. I ran into them outside the building," he said, weakly gesturing to the trio on the ground.
Wallace pulled his buzzing phone from his pocket. Found them, where are you? Wallace texted Neo his location and did the same to Serena before he pocketed his phone again. "Did Rosanna make any progress?"
Cole shrugged and slapped his legs with his hands. "Wallace, we don't exactly know what we're doing. We just told her to think about her cousins and we'd see what happens, but nothing happened. What happened in Alola?"
Wallace rolled his eyes and swallowed hard, trying to find a place to start, the lawless thugs, the fire, or Reed's lunatic mother. "We didn't learn much, Po Town is a wasteland. There was an incident twelve years ago that killed Reed's father and seemed to shake the town, but I don't know what the significance of it is, if there even is one."
"Wallace!" Serena gasped, running toward him from down the hall, her rockruff on her heels. "I found something, I think you should see it too," she said, panting. "It's in the hall near the supply room, my phone died or I would have just taken a picture, but you should -," Serena peered in the room and gawked at the three on the floor. "Is this all that's left?"
"Neo's on the way with the others," Wallace said, stepping out into the hall. "By the supply room?" he asked, ready to head off before Cole grabbed his wrist and nearly caused him to fall over.
"What part of you're not leaving my sight didn't you get?" Cole asked through gritted teeth. "He's out there somewhere!"
"And if I see him I'll have elgyem teleport me away," Wallace said, prying Cole off as Neo and the others emerged from around the corner. He quickly counted their heads, noticing one platinum blond head was absent. "Where's Cosmo?"
"He wasn't in Neo's room," Cole said. "I checked, I think he was taken."
Wallace's eyes honed in on Rosanna in the pack, her eyes red and swollen as she blotted her face with a balled-up tissue. Aleigha had an arm across Rosanna's shoulders, but then pulled her in for a hug as she started sobbing.
"I should have stayed behind," Garret said. "Someone should have been with him."
"We don't have time for that," Neo said. "We can only focus on what we can do right now to save him and everyone else."
"He's right. Rosanna, I know this is a lot, but we need you to focus on your cousins," Wallace said. "Think about a memory, or their voices, or anything that stands out to you. Serena, I know you said it feels like we're just telling you things about Nat, but I want you to do the same. Think about anything you can, even if it's a faint memory that you think could be about him. I'm gonna go check something out."
"Wait, Wallace," Eleanor said. "I think you should stay and join them, think about Don."
Wallace bit into his lip as Eleanor put the spotlight on him. "I don't think my connection with Don is going to be strong enough to bring him back, his family should do it. I need to go, I'll be right back."
Without another interruption, Wallace took off from the residence hall and backtracked to the lobby and toward the doors Serena had taken earlier. He followed a narrow hallway past medicine supply rooms, a janitor's closet and an equipment room when he spotted what Serena had seen. A body hung from the ceiling in the middle of a connecting hallway, some sort of cord tangled its neck and left it dangling from the ceiling.
It wasn't real, Wallace knew, as he got closer, its shiny plastic body belonging to a dummy they used to teach CPR. The closer he got the more he could make out writing on its chest and something sticking out of its neck. Elgyem floated up to the doll and flashed his red light on it, illuminating the blade of a kitchen knife lodged into the doll's throat. Below it, a sentence had been written in red.
"What is done in the dark shall be brought to the light – Reed," Wallace said, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on edge. Was he in the building? Wallace followed the hall with elgyem flying above him, bathing the alright bright hall in red as they turned a corner that released them into another part of the clinic, one he was familiar with from the Orphan's last visit.
Wallace stepped away from the wall and moved down the hall until he came to a pair of wooden double doors. He stepped closer and stared through the windows in the doors to the only part of the clinic that wasn't sterile and white, the Chapel. Red carpet covered the floor and wooden pews sat in rows leading to the front altar where visitors could pray for the health of their pokémon or family. As his eyes took in the state of the room, Wallace glanced over the body kneeled at the front of the room and did a double-take. Reed.
Slowly, he reached into his pocket and curled his finger around ariados's ball. He watched the figure on the steps remain still as he pushed on the door, grateful it opened soundlessly for him. Crouched, Wallace crept down the aisle of the chapel, but the closer he got the more he realized the element of surprise was only on his side if he could take him down in one move. The moment he released ariados it gave Reed the chance to react, although he couldn't imagine stabbing someone, he regretted not grabbing the knife out of the dummy.
"I know you're there, Wallace," Reed said, his voice filling the space around them. He turned and smiled at him. "I'm glad you found me, I wanted to talk to you. I have a story you might like to hear. It might answer a few of your questions."
Wallace straightened up and rolled the poké ball between his fingers, wondering if he could aim and throw it hard enough to knock him out.
"I'm guessing your trip to Po Town wasn't as promising as you expect," Reed said, turning to face him fully, revealing his dusclops to be crouched there as well.
"How?"
"Po, the town that burned away. It isn't your normal road trip type spot," Reed said. "So when people come around asking questions about one of their own they reach out and make it known. I don't appreciate you digging into my past, or speaking to my mother." Reed shook his head and stood up, stretching his legs out before he pulled the edge of his shirt up and revealed the handle of a blade there. Pulling it free from a concealed sheath, Reed poked his palm with it. "I have something for you, Wallace, but I really wanted us to talk before I gave it to you," Reed said, aiming the knifepoint at him. "But I can tell from the look in your eyes you're not in the mood for a story."
"Not unless it includes an explanation and ends with you returning everyone you took," Wallace said.
Reed winced and sucked air through his teeth. "I can't do that just yet, you haven't quite learned the lesson we're trying to drive into you yet."
"Who's we?"
"My father," Reed said. "Don't worry, you'll have a chance to talk to him soon enough."
"Your father is dead," Wallace said, trying to make the words as harsh as possible, but how much could you hurt someone with the truth? "I know about the fire. Is that what this is about? Did my father have something to do with the fire that killed yours? Is that why you're doing this? Revenge? My father took away someone precious to you, so now you think you have the right to do the same? But my father's dead too, so the students here were your target? Is that it?"
Reed's eyes widened and seemed to bulge from his head as his lips curled in a smile. "You're smarter than I thought. You put all that together after half a day in my hometown? Well, you're almost right. Your father did start the Christmas Eve fire in Po Town, and it did kill a man named Keith Whitfield. Keith was my mother's husband and legally my father, but we weren't blood. My bloodline runs deeper through this story than that."
With the flick of his wrist, Reed chucked the knife forward and it landed stuck into the carpet of the chapel. "I'll tell you everything soon, but I need to keep you busy for a bit," Reed said. "Dusclops, open up, let's give Wallace a reward for all his hard work."
Dusclops lumbered forward, his red eyes glowing as the arm around him began to warp. Wallace tensed watching the portal open as colors, first green, then yellow, then brown, emerged from the swirl and then a pair of knees landed with a thud on the chapel floor. As the swirl began to vanish, Reed stepped inside and he and Dusclops vanished.
Wallace's breath caught in his throat, the fear and panic he felt in Reed's presence gone, replaced by something more primal, something akin to what a rodent must feel when it sees a snake. Some things you feel in your blood, he told Eleanor, because he felt it too. A spike of pure fear cut him from the crown of his head down, flaying his chest open and displaying his vital organs.
Chara lifted his head, his eyes wide and filled with confusion before they focused on him. The two stared at each other for a moment before Wallace's eyes flicked down to the knife stuck in the carpet, an act that tipped Chara off to the weapon.
Rather than fight for it or run, Wallace wanted to get as far from him possible. "Elgyem!" Wallace cried and Chara leaped forward as the glow of elgyem's powers bathed over them. Chara backhanded the psychic-type and sent him flying to the ground before they had managed to leave the chapel.
Wallace opened his mouth to call out, but found himself breathless as Chara's knee forced itself into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. In his moment of weakness, Chara grabbed the front of his shirt and forced him against the wall, his head bouncing like a ball. Wallace opened his eyes at the feeling of the cold blade meeting the soft skin of his neck. Chara panted as he leaned in, his mouth just inches from Wallace's ear. "Tell me everything you know about Reed Whitfield."
End of Chapter Fifty
