Chapter 22

Intermission

Mystic slapped a piece of paper on a table, displayed on its face appeared to be a map. Mardol was on the south eastern side of the map with Wightstone facing to the west. More to the north was the nation known as Zerith and to the west, across a vast ocean, was Jagorii.

Sitting in the room were various royal guards, such as Aurora, Rydon, Willow, Diode, Redwing, and even Wetleaf, to name a few. Standing next to Mystic was her spouse, Psyche, who observed her actions carefully.

Mystic cleared her throat before speaking. "Alright everyone, I require your attention as I explain our current ordeal. As you all should be rather familiarized with by now, our Princess underwent a voyage on our latest ship. A vessel to be a worthy candidate of wearing a title such as that of 'flag ship.' Durring their underway in which the vessel embarked upon, they had encountered two Jagorii ships, right around the vicinity of... this location."

Mystic circled her finger around a darker section of water. "Needless to say, the ship was not as battle ready as we had at once predicted, thus resulting in the loss of this fine ship as well as a large portion of its crew... I know a few of you present in this room were acquainted with some royal guards aboard that ship. Our deepest respects go out to our lost brothers and sisters, but now is not the time for grieving of the absence of our loved ones and friends.

"Five crew members survived in total, Starshine being among those. Another survivor was capable of relaying a message which had eventually made its way to me. Since their capture, I have established Psycoms with the Princess and have received a steady flow of information over the past few days. It has now fallen upon my hands to enact a plan of innate success."

"So what exactly is the plan?" Redwing asked. The ledian was currently leaning against a beam with his arms crossed.

"I will need some of the best bodies currently available within this room to partake in a rescue mission."

Rykon, who was sitting lazily on a couch beside Aurora, snorted. "You basically want us to go on a suicide mission to go save some people who are pretty much as good as dead? Pfft, I'll pass."

"It wasn't an offer. Rykon, Redwing, and Willow; you three will be accompanying Psyche on this rescue assignment."

"Why me? Just send Diode."

"Let me tell this in a way that little, egotistical mind of yours can comprehend. Do you want to be remembered as Rykon, the intrepid soldier who assisted in the search and rescue mission of Princess Starshine? Or would you prefer Rykon, the arrogant soldier who hid in cowardice while his colleagues performed the impossible in place of him?"

"Oh, that's real cute, Mystic. But you're forgetting a key detail, which is that the public isn't to know about this little slip-up. Right? So go bribe someone else."

"Guess again, because we are letting the people know."

Rykon readjusted his position. "Now why the hell would you go and do that? Are you trying to ruin her reputation even more? Not that I care, but she is your friend after all."

"Let us just say I have things under complete control on my side. Now, I entrust that you could be capable enough to square things away on your side of the field."

"Grr, but why send me? There's plenty of capable bodies here."

"Why's it such a big deal to you?" Aurora asked.

"Aww, is Rykon upset 'cause he won't have more time to spend with that buizel girl he fancies so much," Wetleaf mocked.

Rykon released an annoyed growl. Aurora laughed to herself. "I completely forgot about that. Tell us Rykon, how'd your 'date' go?" She asked while nudging his side.

"Mind your own business."

"Oh my god, it completely went south didn't it?" She began to laugh a bit more. "Please don't tell me you resorted to the whole pessimistic attitude near the end." Rykon only growled more audibly. "You did! You totally did, you predictable dunce!" Aurora howled in laughter, causing a few of the other Royal Guards to join in.

The shiny manectric swiftly got on all fours and glared daggers at the amaura. "I said mind your own damn business!"

"Enough!" Psyche shouted to silence the commotion. "You can all worry about your petty squabbles at another time. Whether you like it or not, Starshine is still the Princess, and as such, it is your duty and responsibility to carry out all of her orders and to ensure her safety. This plan is a direct order from her passed down by Mystic. Tomorrow morning, right after the sun peaks the horizon, we'll be sailing."

"And what," Rykon retorted, "you're completely fine with just throwing our ship into a fucking warzone without any hesitation."

"We never said we'd be alone, now did we?"

"Oh, Arceus, do you mean the guild is assisting with this as well?" The grin he received was enough to make him groan in displeasure. "That doesn't make this mission feel any less suicidal. And why send all of you supposedly best troops to the same location at the same time? What if an incident occurs out there or back here?"

"This concludes the meeting," Mystic said, ignoring the manectric. "You are all free to carry about your day. Rykon, Redwing, and Willow, please do not be late to the docks. This mission is time essential."

The room cleared out relatively quickly and Rykon made his way back home. Accompanying him was Aurora. A good majority of their walk inside the castle walls was quite, it wasn't until they were outside that Rykon decided to speak.

"This is such bullshit!"

"I still think you're overreacting. I'd kill to get a chance to actually do some more important missions outside of Mardol."

"Then by all means, take my assignment."

"You and I both know it isn't that easy."

"It's so annoying, constantly having to babysit the Princess. I know it's a 'crime' for me to say this, but I really wish she'd just hurry up and croak. This city needs some better leadership and they definitely are not going to find it in her."

"God, Rykon, can you give it a rest already. I've heard this a thousand times from you by now."

"Zip it! I'm still not over you making a complete mockery of me back in the briefing room."

"Don't get mad at me, Wetleaf's the one who started it."

"And you made the snowball bigger than it needed to be."

"I don't even see how you're struggling to get anywhere with Nixie. She seems pretty naive to me, you could easily take advantage of that if you wanted to. You didn't hear that from me though."

"She's not too naive, she does train with Mystic and seems to have a pretty fair bit of self awareness. My original tactic didn't work, but I have a few other tricks up my fur."

"Why even bother with her anyway? You still have me around."

"Let's just say I'm tired of catching the same fish from a heavily populated lake. And not to be too blunt, but you're a rather easy catch with how willing you are to spread your legs for people."

"Are you implying that I'm a whore?" Her tone became a bit sharp.

"Well, I never said the exact word..."

"But you're heavily insinuating it. I am not a 'whore,' I'm a woman who knows what she wants, and what I want is for certain men to satisfy my sexual needs."

"They're pretty much one in the same thing if you ask me. My point is is that I want a challenging catch, and that's exactly what Nixie is."

They had now reached Rykon's home. Nothing too big, but an average sized home for someone in his line of work. He then opened the door for the two of them to enter. The interior was a little quaint and the curtains shielded the windows.

Aurora made her way inside and opened a desk next to a couch. Using her teeth, she grabbed a pouch from within and sat it on a table in front of the couch. Rykon already knew what she had in mind and closed the door behind him before meeting with her at the table.

The pouch was rather small and inside was a fine white, powdery substance. Aurora carefully poured the contents on the table and split the small pile of powder up between the two. As she continued preparing the rest of the needed items, she continued their conversation.

"So, what exactly is your plan of action now?"

Rykon stared at Aurora as she grabbed a blade with her mouth and began dicing any clumped up mounds of powder. "Currently, her focus is on that growlithe, Flint. I don't even see what she sees in that guy. He looks so vulnerable and hardly has an ounce of confidence in him. I'm a damn shiny for fuck sakes, how couldn't she be interested in me? If I could somehow shift her focus away from Flint, or perhaps intervene in some way, then that would be a starting point."

Aurora had finished cutting the powder and had now began separating them into groups of lines. "Yeah, I'm familiar with Flint. He was part of a bounty in escorting me back here. Still don't know why they consider an escort mission a bounty... pretty sure bounties refer to wanted mon," she trailed.

"As I was saying, he's a bit of a hindrance. No idea how he even used to make a living off of bounty hunting, he can't fight for shit. Well, there was this one time with a scyther... Anyway, if I remember correctly, I believe he's currently with the Princess right now."

That caught his attention. He thought for a moment as he looked down at the fine powdery substance below him. He brought his nose down and swiftly inhaled a line of the powdery drug. "That is interesting. Maybe this mission might be worth my time after all."

It wasn't until after his sentence that the drug took its effect. Aurora had done the same and now both felt relatively at ease and a lot more loosened up. "So what, gonna try something a little mischievous?"

"Perhaps. I definitely have some gears turning in my head now. I currently don't know much of Flint's feelings towards Nixie, but I could surely get him derailed if the feelings are only one sided. Then deceive Nixie just a bit and things should fall into place from there."

Aurora inhaled another line. "Heh, I like your mischievous side. Anything involving you interfering with Flint is fine by me." She stared down at the remaining contents of their drug. "Hey, I have a plan b if it comes down to it."

"Oh yeah? Let me hear it."

"I doubt that buizel has a sliver of knowledge about drugs. You could always get her cooked up on some of this, or maybe even the harder stuff we've had. I bet she'd be less defensive. And it would be a bonus if you could find something to boost her ecstacy."

Rykon's mouth curled into a grin. "I like the way you think." His grin then faded. "This is another reason I wish I wasn't leaving tomorrow. I bet I could pull it off in one night."

Aurora picked herself up and walked towards the only room in the house. She then turned to look at the manectric. "It can't be helped now. But you want to know what could be helped? My own needs.~"

She continued towards the room adding a light swing to her hips. Rykon followed behind her. By the time he had entered the room, she was already laying on the bed with a lustful stare in her eyes. Rykon climbed onto the bed and maneuvered his body over her own.

"For someone who's 'tired of the same old catch,' you sure show no hesitation."

"I'm not picky, I take what I can get."

"I do this merely out of pity for you."

"You won't be thinking that when I'm through with you."

Aurora feined a yawn. "Make this one count, it'll be the last time you get the chance to do so until you get back."

Snow fell like leaves from a tree, and winds ripped about the air. It was cold which only made traversing the snow-covered mountain-tops that much harder to traverse. A beaten and tattered zoroark took step after step into the thick blanket of snow. By now, he was sure that his feet were completely numb and on the verge of acquiring frostbite.

Behind the shivering zoroark were the weavile and an umbreon. Frostbite had no real issue traversing the terrain as he was partial to frigid climates. Tenebris bit the pain as he walked forth. He was no stranger to harsh, cold climates, but that didn't mean he favored them.

Their journey had lasted far too long, and they were finally real close to reaching their goal. Of course, this didn't mean they were in the clear just yet. Traveling by foot was their most stealthy approach into Mardol, but getting into Whitestone itself was a whole other challenge in of itself. To further avoid possible confrontation, they decided on cutting through the mountain. This proved to be their most difficult feat yet. Afterwards, the rest of their journey would be far easier. Or so they thought.

Tenebris constantly had a feeling that they were being followed. Many times, he would stay behind the group to see if his suspicions were correct. But he never did seem to spot anyone. Tenebris wasn't exactly on edge about being ambushed, he was more than capable of fending for himself. His apprehension did only grow slightly as they scaled to the heights of the mountain where the group was at their most vulnerable state.

Things only felt worse as their visibility was greatly hindered by the thick clouds encircling the mountain. It was near impossible to see anything past fifty or so paces. Xandora had created quite the gap from the two and was close to being out of their line of sight. Tenebris instructed for Frostbite to catch up to him to which he obeyed.

As he tried pressing forward, a harsh wind picked up and wiped across the weavile's face. As the winds calmed down, he noticed he could no longer see the zoroark. He quickly ran, following the path of the footprints engraved into the snow. He was thrown off guard when he noticed the footprints lead to a dead end.

"Son of a bitch!"

Tenebris heard the shout and immediately understood the situation. He gritted his teeth and looked around. He perked up his ears in an effort to hear the faintest of sounds, but all he heard was the never ending howling of wind.

Suddenly, he heard a whelping sound, followed by a soft crash. Both Frostbite and Tenebris rushed towards the sound. Before they arrived, they saw a flash of purple. As they approached the scene, they saw the silhouettes of two figures. One was that of Xandora facedown on the ground, and the other was an absol who pinned the zoroark to the ground.

"Angel?" Frostbite asked.

Giggling could be heard. "Who else?"

The two had finally arrived to the scene, and sure enough, Angel was standing atop Xandora.

"What are you doing here, Angel?" Asked Tenebris. "I thought I had tasked you with hunting down that poochyena."

"About that. He sorta... slipped between my claws. I goofed up."

"You mean he got away?" His voice rose.

"Yeah, pretty much." The umbreon was about to lash out at her, but she interrupted before he could do so. "However! I did get a good bit of news from everyone else you assigned missions to. I got some real juicy details to convey to you."

"Out with it," he said through his teeth.

"So first up is Magnus. His troops are all still ready by the boarder and he's conducted a fair bit of reconnaissance on the Peace Guild. He is awaiting further instructions. The same pretty much goes for Banshee as well, but she and Toxin have both informed me that one - just one - buizel managed to escape."

"Can I trust any of you to actually do your jobs correctly? As of late, you've all been disappointing me."

"Hold on, there's some good news, I think. The buizel escaped to Whitestone. Banshee saw it board on one of the Fourth Light's ships. But the main piece of information I have for you is what I learned while hunting Nightfang." Tenebris ushered her to continue. "So there was this weird murkrow who spoke in bizarre, riddled hodgepodge. Anyway, Nightfang had given the gem to this bird. Now, assuming this bird isn't a complete psycho, that gem should be arriving in Whitestone and he made it sound as if it was in Nightfang's destiny to find his way to Whitestone so he could retrieve the gem."

Tenebris dropped his guard just slightly, "...a bird? What did he look like?"

Angel shrugged. "Well, like I said, he is a murkrow. He looked rather old and wore some dingy cloth over its eyes."

Tenebris bit his lip and paced back and forth in thought. "I see..." He then stopped to look at Angel. "Fine, so be it. So we will have Nightfang, the gem, a buizel, and an eevee all sitting right where we need them. This all just got a lot more interesting. Angel, listen closely, we have a slight change of plans."

Tesla steadily woke up from his unconcious state and was immediately greeted with a throbbing pain in his tail. He looked at the bandages and winced as he replayed the memory of Kindle tearing the flesh off of it. The mareep was then met with a headache and he realized that his entire body was sore.

"Oh, look who finally decided to wake up," came a rather familiar voice.

'I just woke up, give me a damn break...'

Looking to his side, Tesla saw both the fennekin he was familiar with and the poochyena who he had no idea of. Kindle faced Tesla with a glare and marched towards him.

"You've got a lot of nerve trying to tip the scales of the battle in your favor. Tell me, what do you have to say for yourself?"

Tesla looked at her with a clueless stare. "What in mew's name are you talking about."

Kindle held up the eviolite in her paw to show Tesla. "This! You remember this? You remember the struggle I went threw to get this for you? And you just used it against me. Are you too scared to fight me in a fair battle? 'Fraid I might win against you?"

Tesla rubbed his forehead in irritation. "Just let it go already, Kindle. I get that you have pent up aggression against me now, but stop playing the victim and tagging every little thing I do as a way of targeting your poor, fragile emotions. Yes, I used it for a slight advantage, that's just called using my resources. It's not even like I knew I would be battling you. Just give it a damn rest and go fawn over some other male already."

Kindle opened her mouth to say something, but closed it instead. With a growl, she stomped out of the room. Nightfang glanced at tesla and he too turned his gaze towards the poochyena.

"Uhh, you guys in a tough spot in your relationship?" He asked.

"We're not together. We're just... friends on some bad terms at the moment."

"I see. Not really my business anyway, I suppose." Nightfang then laid on his side to curl up in a ball.

"It's just so frustrating," Tesla complained. Nightfang groaned to himself and looked back towards Tesla. "She's mad because she had feelings for me and I didn't reciprocate those feelings with her. She was only interested in me because I 'treated her differently.' All of the sudden, I'm mate material for her for treating her nicely on one occasion. And now she's turning her emotions a complete one-eighty and victimizing herself for every little thing I do. 'Oh, Tesla, you breathed too much, you're clearly harassing me.' She fucking tore flesh from my tail, just because I didn't like her back. Ridiculous!"

"You done?" Nightfang asked.

Tesla was taken aback by the poochyena's comment. "Sheesh, who pissed in your food?"

"I just really don't care about your guys' petty squabbles. I have my own problems to deal with right now."

"You don't care, yet you're the one who initiated the conversation in the first place."

"That's why I then followed up with it's not my business. Now, I'd appreciate it if you would leave me be to my thoughts for now."

"Geez, are all dark types like you?" Nightfang didn't reply, leading Tesla to sigh. "Alright, alright. Maybe you and I started on the wrong foot... Paw? So I take it you got a small introduction to Kindle?"

"A small bit, yeah. She's rather hyper and can shift her mood real easily. She seems to have it out for you and judging from your outburst earlier, perhaps she is a little out of place. However, I did also hear her side of the story."

"Her side of the story?"

Nightfang nodded. "I don't know too much about you two, but her feelings for you developed over time, not just a sudden overnight occurrence. From her view point, it did feel like you were leading her on and the fact that you knew she had feelings for you and didn't try to confront her was something that sent her off. Yes, tearing your tail off is a bit overkill, but why had you not told her earlier that you wished not for your friendship to advance?"

Tesla looked down a bit. "Honestly, I don't know. Maybe I became too accustom to having someone there for me. I guess I just didn't want to hurt her feelings and to have her distance herself from me. But look where that got me now, this is the most distant we've been from each other."

"I see. Pardon me if I seem too nosey, but why exactly are you not interested in her? With a bond that you two had, it almost feels inevitable to happen."

"Don't get me wrong, Kindle is a rather attractive gal, any man would be lucky to have her just on looks alone. The thing is is that she's looking for a long term relationship, having a family, and all that other stuff. Me? I'm not into relationships all that much - I'm a no strings attached kinda guy. Kindle deserves someone who would actually want to fulfill those needs for her, and I am not that guy."

"I think I understand where you're coming from. But with the way you are concerned for Kindle's future, were she to actually find a mate later, would that distract you at all? How would it make you feel?"

"If you're implying that I would be jealous, you might as well toss those thoughts aside," Tesla laughed. "I'd be happy for her and supportive in her decision."

"You say that, but just earlier you were saying how you didn't want to distance yourself from each other. Would she not be more invested in her time with her mate rather than you?"

Tesla's demeanor changed and he couldn't think of a reply. He sat there, letting the poochyena's words sink in. He looked towards the eviolite. The gift Kindle had given him earlier in their adventures. He started replaying memories of their friendship. Finding her in the museum, going to the church of mew, exploring the side of a cliff with a small walkway, the two inside a cave while Kindle provided light, the two of them fighting off a mob of salandit, meeting at a tavern with Flint and Rose, fighting a weavile, and so on. As each of the memories passed, Kindle slowly faded until it was just Tesla in his memories.

In a somber tone, he replied, "Point taken."