Locke gazed out into the dark horizon. Countless stars and colorful cosmos gazed down on fields and hills illuminated by pale moonlight. His fur could tolerate the cold just as his eyes could tolerate the darkness, nothing actively turned him away from that perch. He didn't focus on any lone object, he took the entire sight like a panorama in a museum.

Just as he didn't focus on any sight, his mind didn't linger on any one subject.

"I wonder what the other continents are like," Locke thought as he stared off. "I wonder if they're like this one, or if they're totally different. I mean they all have trees and plants, but are they the same? Maybe there are no oak trees out there, maybe they're super large forests of weeping willows out there. Or maybe it's something totally different, that I haven't ever seen before.

Are there any pokemon species out there that I've never seen before out there? Are there species that are only on this one? Hmm, I hope I can see them one day.

Huh… maybe I could see it soon? Maybe I could leave the guild and go off on an adventure? Yeah, and that way I can get out of his harness and away from Hunter!

...Wait, that wouldn't really be a good idea, there are a lot of good things and people I'd be leaving behind. What if I convinced Tamin, Dewott, and Elley to come with me though? Well, Tamin then wouldn't want to leave Scampi behind and Dewott wouldn't want to leave Mienshao behind. What if I convinced them to come along as well? Wait, Mienshao has some other friends she wouldn't want to leave behind either. This is getting complicated. Crystal would probably come with me, I don't think all the others would though.

Okay, so it wouldn't be good for me to leave the guild behind right now. I guess I could read about what the other continents are like, there are a fair few books in the guild's library… Ehhhh but I don't really like reading. They're big, boring and full of words I don't understand; just a big wall of texts. Can't even multitask at all when I reading."

Locke's mind just went on and on as he stared off into the night sky. The stars and crescent moon technically moved, but at a speed so glacial it might as well have been a still painting. There was beauty in its simplicity, there was reassurance in its everlastingness.

The more one focused on their mind, the less awareness they would have for their surroundings. As a result, he took no notice when the door near him opened up, or when familiar eyes gazed at him.

"Hey Locke," was uttered just a minute later.

He recognized the voice, which roused him to react faster. He quickly rotated his head to look to the side to look at the weavile. "Hey Crystal."

"You're looking pretty nice. I expected you to be in your room, but found you up here instead. Quite surprised, I'll be honest," Crystal said as she walked closer to him.

"Yeah. It's a pretty warm night, so I thought I'd spend some time lookin'," Locke responded, keeping eye contact with Crystal.

"That's good. And I'm really glad that you're so awake this late at night. We're going to go to a theatre," Crystal said. There wasn't any question, it was a flat statement. "I've gotten the tickets and everything."

"Really?" Locke promptly asked. "When is it?"

"About an hour from now," she said. "Come on, let's go."

Crystal extended her hand forward and one claw further. She put the claw between the metal ring on Locke's harness and held on. She then tugged on it, forcing Locke to sit up and come along.

They went full indoors and traveled down to the ground floor. Crystal eventually took her claw out of the metal ring, but only when Locke showed clear obedience.

"So I heard through the grapevine that you didn't have the best of days today," the weavile commented.

"Yeah, Hunter was up to his antics again," he explained. "Pretended to be me and dated Tamin while he was at it."

"Right, the minccino," Crystal said. "I've heard the story, and I am really glad you put a stop to it. What that zorua did was disgusting: made it look like I was being cheated on. I'm just glad he failed at throwing any wrench in our relationship. You did a good job at stopping him."

"Thank you," Locke replied, a genuine smile coming to his face. With that he just realized that getting a true compliment and admiration was something he didn't get much from her. Someone like Dewott would always compliment his performance after a competition, but it had been much more of a rarity with the weavile.

His head shifted upwards, not looking at anything in particular, as he thought about if there were any other times he could recall where Crystal complimented or thanked him.

"Well, even if you didn't have the best of days, I'm sure this night will be better for the two of us," the weavile said, denying Locke's focus.

"Y-yeah. Lookin' forward to it."

"I haven't ever seen a play during the day before, but I definitely know it's not as good as the midnight theatre," Crystal explained. "I've gone there a few times. I think my parents were performers for them."

"Really?" Locke asked.

"Yeah. Not too sure on the details since, well… I left the house, so I can't look through all they had. I do have some memories though."

"Your parents lived here like mine did?"

"What? Oh, no, I meant they were at theatres in general. Not this one in specific," Crystal clarified.

"Oh, I getcha."

"Of course they wouldn't be here. Don't you remember how we met? I was going north to avoid the summer heat. If my family lived here then I wouldn't have needed to go anywhere at all."

"Right right, sorry."

"Mhm."

The shinx expected to be able to stop by his room one more time before leaving the place, yet that wasn't what happened. Crystal just walked straight towards the building exit, so he obediently followed. In no way was he bound, he had the choice to turn away to step by his room instead, but in spite of that he kept going, turning away felt wrong for reasons he couldn't put into words. The weavile kept moving forward, so Locke kept following behind her. Not beside, behind.

They walked out of the building and onto the streets. It was only a few minutes ago that Locke was looking at this same exact area, yet it felt totally different when close to the ground instead of from a high vantage point. The cold didn't bother him too much when he was up on that porch, yet he found it far more noticeable on the ground. He chalked it up to Crystal being an ice type and him being so close to her. That's what made the most sense to him.

The town had actually managed to change a fair bit since he tracked down Hunter in it. There were obvious changes, the sunlight being gone, the sky being dark, and the streetlights on; things that it would be dumb to not expect. But in addition to that, it appeared noticeably humid with a puddle here and there in the cobble roads. The glass had become clouded and streaked, and the grass had become a lighter shade of green which juxtaposed against the darker scenery. Clearly all the byproduct of a recent rainstorm, which did give a fair amount of things to admire.

"Have you ever been to this theatre before?" Crystal asked.

"No. But I caught Hunter not far from it, so I know where it is."

"Ah, that's good. Keep following me, I'll lead the way," Crystal said. But instead of looking forward, she pulled two bluish white tickets from her pocket and checked them, looking down at them as she walked onward.

Locke thought of ideas for stops they could make, but soon realized that all of them would likely be closed at that hour anyways. He could tell it was already past one AM by the moon, so he realized that his family and just about all of his friends would probably be asleep at that time. Suddenly, a feeling came over his head and found his eyes struggling to keep themselves open, that realization just made him feel more tired in an instant.

The rest of the walk wasn't too interesting. It didn't have much in the way of aesthetic or novelty that couldn't be found in the first minute after leaving the guildhouse. Or at least, that's what Locke could see with his tired eyes.

The theatre itself stood out a whole lot more at night than it had at day, thanks to rows of fluorescent yellow lights standing on the building's heading and dotted around every sign, like beacons in the dark. Posters were installed on the side of the building, some were elaborate drawings whilst others were black and white photographs of the actors gathered together. Crystal made an offhand comment, something about how she'd like to design one of the posters someday. Locke couldn't quite catch what exactly she had said.

There was a bidoof ticketmaster sitting in a glass booth, just under where the building's roof began. Crystal walked up to him with Locke in tow. They exchanged "hello"s before Crystal withdrew two copper colored tickets from her bag, which she set down and slid to the ticketmaster through a slot in the glass. "Two for the show at two", the weavile said. He took them and put them under a hole puncher.

Locke's tail and posture had stiffened. The situation came off as tense to him, and he couldn't quite figure out what was causing that. He made some motions to stretch his muscles to ease away the tension, but some of it still lingered.

"It's this way Locke," Crystal said to him. "Come."

The two walked around the left side of the glass booth and into the building. They travelled down a red hallway with slightly sticky carpet. Posters and lights were embedded on the walls on both sides.

"The theatre is this way," Crystal said.

"I feel I should of asked this earlier, but what is this show?"

"It's a show named Red Mansion. I haven't seen it myself, but it was written and directed by Samual & Mareece, which are a couple who have made some other plays I've seen and were absolutely stellar," Crystal explained with a smile on her face. It wasn't sinister in the slightest, it was a subject she enjoyed.

"I see. So you've been here before?"

"Quite a few times, yeah. It shut down for winter but it's opened back up, and I've been at this place for many times before you got to the guild," Crystal said. "Their last play they made was definitely my favorite. It was a tragedy with a husband murdering his wife and stealing her inheritance.

Okay, that doesn't sound that great when I say it, but it was beautifully written and had so many things in it that really made me think. I doubt this one will be quite as amazing, but I think it's going to be really good."

"Alright, do you know what this one will be about then?"

"No. I didn't look up any information about it since I want to go in unspoiled," Crystal replied.

"Well, okay then… Do you know how long this will be?"

"Last one they made was two hours and fifteen minutes, so around that ballpark."

"Oh… I see," Locke said. He had been expecting it to be closer to thirty minutes, not that. Tiredness was already taking its toll on him, he knew this time would make it even worse.

They reached a door that Crystal stopped in front of, prompting Locke to halt as well. With a gesture to signal him to follow, Crystal walked in.

The interior was a proper showroom. Rows of seats declined towards the ground, with a wide rectangular stage. A large velvet cloth curtain obscured most of the stage. The lighting altered, being dimmed by lights that pointed upwards and left the floor in shadows. It was starkly different from the outside of the building, which was akin to a flare in the black night. The effects were subtle, yet the darker lighting caused Locke to get sleepier faster, as it was a constant reminder that it was night.

Crystal glanced at the tickets once more, and led the shinx to the fourth row of seats, then into it. They reached two small sized seats right next to each other, where Crystal would gesture Locke to sit on one of them.

Once sat, they looked forward to the still-blank stage.

"When's it starting?" Locke asked.

"About fifteen minutes, and keep your voice down," Crystal snapped at Locke while speaking in a whisper.

"Sorry, sorry," Locke lowered his volume just as told.

"Even if it hasn't started yet, you should at least be somewhat respectable. I paid for this, you know," Crystal continued hissing.

"I'm sorry, won't happen again," Locke lowered his volume further, down to just a whimper.

Crystal didn't speak any more, she stared him down with a contemptful gaze. Her glare went straight into his eyes, as if to look into his soul, then looked downwards to study him over. Just then, she suddenly turned away and leaned back into her seat again. With hesitation, Locke leaned back as well, looking forwards again.

There were more questions he had. He didn't know what species to expect, if there would be humor or not, if there'd be songs or not, and how many actors there would be. But none of them were ones he could bring himself to ask. Thus, he just waited as all tension returned.

"This might take place in the same world as Red Mansion, but I know it's not a direct sequel, per se," Crystal said.

"...I see," Locke said after a moment of silence, as he could tell that Crystal wanted some kind of response.

"Their plays take place on the wind continent, which has some different architecture you'll see. It's also a few decades ago, so the clothing is a lot more traditional and way different from what you've probably seen. Although this one might take place later then the others, we'll have to see. This could also be a prequel.

In the last play, the characters were…"

From there, Crystal trailed on and on, reciting just about all information she could recall about the couple's previous works. Characters, setting, writing, plot, accents, it sounded as though she was reading off an article about it. The only stops she took were to breathe in so she could speak more.

Ten minutes into her talking, it suddenly struck Locke that he hadn't spoken a word during that entire time, he was just listening while Crystal talked her heart out. He thought about what comments he could make or subjects that interested him he could discuss, but Crystal gave no opportunities for him to interject. He could interrupt her, but doing that was unthinkable.

Crystal only got shushed once the curtains began opening up. A few pokemon actors got revealed, and they gave some opening words to the audience. Locke wasn't sure of what was standard and what was unique to this play.

The show started properly, with the first scenes being slow and not at all bombastic. Locke tried his best to focus, only for his tiredness to make that quite difficult. Crystal became fully enticed by the first second, and the rest of the theatre looked onto the stage as well.

It only got worse for Locke as the play went on. It wasn't the kind of show that really interested him as there was virtually no humor. The entire show became a struggle to keep his eyes open, it seemed like just muttering blurs were constantly moving around, on, and off the stage.

At one point, Locke shifted in his seat, then felt something grab one of his paws. Crystal had reached over to place a claw on him. He expected her to take it off soon, but she didn't; she just kept it on him. Crystal was holding him, and he couldn't get off the seat without pushing it out of the way. So he remained there.

At several points, Locke came close to falling asleep, only for Crystal to rub or tap him back awake. That didn't give him the energy to be able to follow the play, though.

His sense of hearing faded after his sense of sight. The words being spoken blended together and he couldn't decipher the exact phrases in the slightest, aside from the times the actors would shout a word. The sights seemed like a painting with smeared paint, the words being said were like the words of a book that was closed before the ink could dry. All he really wanted to do was to just lean back on the soft seat and fall asleep, but the cold claw was ever present to stop him.

Eventually, the crew of the play all gathered on the edge and delivered a bow. Locke just got sleepier as the show went on, and had completely lost track of time. Seeing the red curtains finally close again and hearing the crowd give cheers refreshed him.

Locke turned his head to the left to look at Crystal. He had expected to see her looking forward to the theatre and smiling. Yet what he witnessed was the weavile looking back at him with a distasteful glare. It wasn't too overt, she hadn't been showing teeth or gazing into his soul, but he knew her face well enough to notice. His stomach sank.

"Hey Crystal. Seems it's over now," Locke sheepishly said. "It was good, right?"

"Let's head out," Crystal said, giving no answer to his question.

She pulled on Locke's harness to get him off the chair. The shinx's hairs were starting to raise as he felt concerning premonitions, but he stayed silent. They left along with the other play viewers.

They exited onto the darkened streets again, where the crowd began dispersing in different directions. Crystal marched straight back to the guildhouse. Locke followed her like a dog obediently following its master.

"Are you mad at me for something?"

She did not reply.

"Is there something I did wrong?"

She did not reply.

"I'm sorry if I didn't enjoy that play as much as you would've liked. I-I was just tired and had a bad time trying to follow what it was going on."

Nothing more occurred.

They got further from the theatre and closer to the guild. The outside didn't look very much different from an objective standpoint, as it still very much nighttime after they were leaving. But to Locke, it felt totally different. The air itself felt less welcoming, the sky looked blurred like it was painted in rough brush strokes, and the streetlights felt like searchlights which signalled him out to higher predators. He neither felt safe alone or right next to Crystal. Her footsteps felt like the loudest sounds present.

Eventually they came near the building again. Just outside the radius where guildmembers could hear them, she finally spoke again.

"Follow me. There are things I want to talk to you about."

"Uh, could we just do it here?" Locke asked.

"No. Come,"

"I- umm…"

Locke froze, unsure of what to do. He really just wanted to get back to his own room and finally sleep, and with how seemingly mad Crystal was he didn't want to be with her. For the whole time he had been blindly following her around, but now he felt threatened to the point of stopping that.

"I don't know if I want to," Locke protested, taking a step back.

"I bought you that desk, and this is how you treat me?" Crystal looked at him dead on.

"I…" Locke didn't have the energy to argue with that. "I- alright. Just for a minute. I need sleep, really."

"A minute," Crystal repeated. Locke couldn't read what she meant with that. "You've had rest. Just come." She turned back around.

Her words brought a twinge of guilt to him. He walked forward and followed her. Not out of a desire to, but he felt an obligation to.

He continued following her after they entered the building. As they passed by corridors he turned to look by them, hoping to see someone else he knew, someone like Tamin or Dewott. But he didn't see anyone like that. They were nocturnal pokemon that he had barely met and knew little about. Knowing about the reputation he had, he felt he couldn't trust any of them either.

Locke simply kept following her as they got up to the second floor. Crystal reached her door, turned the handle, pushed it open, and turned back to look at Locke. The sinking feeling in his stomach returned. Above all else, he felt threatened. He didn't feel like his life was in danger, but something certainly was.

Crystal noticed him freeze, and stared him down again. "Locke?"

"Yeah?" he quivered.

"Please come in," she commanded.

"You're scaring me," he admitted.

"Please stop fighting with me and just come in."

"I-..."

"It's. Only. For. A. Minute," Crystal sounded out each individual word. "Come. In."

With her escalating tone, Locke didn't want to anger her any further. Slowly he stepped forward, stepping into her studio-like room.

Crystal walked in and shut the door. The two were closed off, alone with only one another. Locke felt shorter than he actually was.

Crystal let out a small exhale with her eyes closed. She then turned to him.

"Locke?" her tone was frigid. "Why were you sleeping during that play I paid for and brought you to?"

"Wait, was I?" Locke asked. He did not remember such a thing happening. Sure he was tired and wanting to go to sleep, but he was pretty sure he had been at least somewhat awake through all of it, Crystal's cold claw preventing him from getting any slumber. While the details of the play were muddy, he could only recall the actors seemingly teleported instantly but besides that, no other sudden changes of that nature came to his memory.

"Yes!" her anger escalated.

"O-okay. I promise it won't happen again," Locke spurted out. He still couldn't recall ever actually sleeping, but did question his memories.

"You better! Do you have even the slightest clue how unbelievably rude that was!"

"I'm sorry! It was so late and for me I was tired!"

"Oh of course, here comes the freaking excuses! I paid for those tickets. I planned this out. I wanted to make this night be a special time for us to enjoy, and this is what you do with it?-"

"I'm sorry!-"

"Of course you just have to make it all about yourself and sleep instead of enjoying an experience we were having for the first time! I swear I cannot think of a single brat in the world more rude and disrespectful than you are!" she got gradually closer with every word uttered, forcing Locke to step back.

"I'm sorry! I swear it won't happen again!" Locke hit against the wall as he was backing up, leaving him no more room left to back up into.

"I. Swear."

Crystal took a closer look at the shinx, and saw that some dull yet barely reflective object was dangling from his neck, just under his scarf. Without forewarning, she reached forward to grab it with her claws.

It was an old pendent, one with the mechanisms to be opened. Violently, she ripped it off of Locke's neck and raised it in the air.

"What's this?" Crystal asked like an interrogator would.

"Th-that," Locke was too frantic to quickly respond. "My sister gave that to me."

She opened it up to look inside. There was an old black and white photograph within. It showed a family sitting in a typical house. One alolan ninetails, one luxray, and five young shinx all lined up.

"How much did this cost?" Crystal said, still looking at the picture.

"W-what?"

"How. Much?"

"I dunno, Elley gave it to me for free."

"Free? Well then, this should be more than a fair trade off for you wasting the money I spent on that ticket."

"No!"

Crystal snapped the pendant in half like it was a nut, the sound of the hinges breaking reverberated through the room. She took the photo out then tore it into halves. Then into quarters. Then further into tiny shards of paper.

She threw it all onto the room floor and stomped on what remained for good measure, all while Locke watched every moment of it as though reality was in slow motion.

"Never waste my time or my money like that ever again."

He did not look back up at the weavile's face, he continued staring at the broken shards scattered around the floor. Locke remembered when Elley had given him that pendent, he remembered the pristine state she had kept it in, utterly unrecognizable from how it was now. It wasn't just a pendent, it was a gift from his long lost sister. That photo was one of the last relics from his original family, but now it was gone, as if bleached from history. He couldn't physically look away from the remnants. He never had the memories of watching his family go. But now, it felt as if he was finally watching them die himself.

Locke cried.

Crystal noticed his eyes water up and the tears leave his face. Crystal's face grimaced into an expression even more hateful. "Oh, so you don't mind wasting my time and insulting me, but that dumb necklace is what you get all sappy about?!"

His eyes were still locked on the shards, his vision getting every blurrier through the flood of tears. He tried walking closer to them, ignoring her rant.

"Do you think I'm less important than a piece of property? Is that it? What the hell is your problem?!" Crystal pulled one leg into the air and kicked Locke as hard as she could. He crumbled like a moldy post, getting pushed onto his side.

Even kicked over, he still stared at the remaining shards of the pendent and photograph from whatever angle he could, a flood of tears pouring into the carpet. Crystal raised her leg up and kicked him again and again, shouting at him with every blow.

End of chapter 32.