Chapter 6 — Sisters

"Sunstriders!"

Ethan and Fennekin froze, Fennekin with one foot in the air ready to walk down the stairs of the academy as Roserade called for them. "I need you two for a moment. I was able to speak with Houndoom about your expedition to the Sandy Shores the other day."

Fennekin looked like she had seen a ghost as she turned almost instantly to face Roserade. "Well?" she squeaked out.

Ethan turned around just in time to see Roserade, arms full of envelopes, start laughing. "Relax Fennekin, you need to stop assuming everything will go poorly. He told me you two did very well, that your strategizing and coordination were very good for your skill level, and that Ethan showed a lot of strong leadership traits. Because of your continued successes and the progress you have been making with Luxio, we have decided to give you a free day after dropping these envelopes off at the post office for us."

Ethan looked at Fennekin, who both walked on four legs and did not have their bag with her, then put out his arms. "So no missions or classes today?"

"Correct," Roserade nodded as she offloaded the envelopes from her arms into his. "Catch up on your journal, do some preparation, or go out and explore town. The day is yours!"

"Any recommendations?" he asked, leaning to one side to get the envelopes to all slide into a semi-neat pile. "Team Sunstriders kept saying something about cherry blossoms when we went to the Café with them, that sounded interesting."

"Bit late for that, I'm afraid. There are cherry trees all over Pokéopolis, and they bloom in such lovely and wonderful colors that it's very popular to go to different places to take them in. Some Pokémon come from all across Marnica just to see or paint them! But that's in the spring, so it won't be for quite a while. If you want some nature, however, the parks around Keldeo's Monument are very pretty this time of year."

"We'll have to check them out!" Fennekin chirped. "Ethan, we should try to get to the post office quickly so we can spend as much time exploring the city as we're able to."

"Works for me," he replied as he got the letters into a pile he could manage to keep under his arm. "What are all these envelopes for, anyways?"

"Mission completion notices," Roserade explained. "It's part of the paperwork that we handle for you as Academy students. These go out to the Pokémon who posted the missions, and there's one that goes to the Exploration Society. These are all already addressed, so you just need to bring them there and drop them off and they'll know what to do."

"Sounds easy enough. You ready, Fennekin?"

"Let's go!" She began bounding down the stairs, Ethan following closely behind. There was no meeting that morning, so activity was varied; Emolga and Luxio were waiting impatiently for some likely still asleep member on the third floor, while Lampent and Hattrem were excitedly pouring over some maps on the second. Pokémon were beginning to fill the lobby, among them Helioptile and Dewpider speaking with Team Culin about some mission. The whole Academy was starting to feel like home, truthfully.

It was cloudy in Pokéopolis, and he couldn't decide whether that made the weather more or less bearable. It was technically cooler, he believed, but the thick gray blanket overhead weighed down on them and sapped his energy. Even Fennekin seemed to dislike it, so it was probably good that the post office wasn't far.

The streets of Pokéopolis, while as crowded as ever, hardly seemed to be affected by the weather. Wall to wall Pokémon still packed the streets, but both of them were getting used to weaving in and out of traffic to get where they were going. Before long, they came up outside a small, worn-out wooden building with a weathered Post Office sign hanging out front. Unlike most nearby buildings, nobody seemed to be going inside, and the few Pokémon leaving were all carrying messenger bags full of envelopes like the one he was carrying.

The inside of the post office was stuffy, and was cramped with a counter cutting the room roughly in two and several Pokémon at tables, their caps and bags denoting them as postal carriers. Tall shelves towered behind the counter, piled high with packages and letters and obscuring much of the back.

"Hey!" a voice called from behind the counter before a familiar brown and white striped face popped up. "You're those new two kids at the Academy, right?"

"Yeah," Fennekin nodded. "And you're Linoone, right?"

"I am!" She put her paws on the desk, looking to Ethan with big eyes. "I ran you over the other week, didn't I? I'm so sorry, I didn't see you! And nobody really takes that road out of town, so I didn't think that I was at any risk of hitting somebody!"

"Linoone," Ethan laughed as he placed the pile of envelopes on the desk, "you ran into me. Not like you attacked me or anything. Water under the bridge."

"Thank you!" she beamed while clapping her paws together. "What have you got there, are those mission complete letters?"

"Yeah, Roserade wanted us to drop them off. She said you wouldn't need anything else from us?"

She looked down, pawing through the letters. "These look to be in order." Excitedly, she pulled out a small bell from under the desk and tapped it repeatedly, sending a quick chorus of rings throughout the post office.

"I'm coming, Linoone!" a gruff voice called from behind the shelves, causing Linoone to smile and put the bell away. Before long a large, muscular Machamp emerged from the back, an almost comically small postal cap on his head. "You just need to ring it once, you know."

"I know, but it can get noisy back there sometimes!" She gathered up the envelopes into a small stack, then put them in front of him as he came to the desk. "Mission completions!"

"Let's see…" Machamp split the pile in two, then with both sets of arms began rapidly sorting the envelopes, most of them into a large pile in front of Linoone and a few into a much smaller pile off to the side. "Think you can take those out?"

With a big smile, she gently picked up the larger stack and put it in the bag slung around her shoulders before giving a quick salute. "You can count on me, sir!" After a quick pull down on her hat she leapt over the counter, running to the door before quickly opening it, slamming it shut as she sprinted out.

"She's gonna be the death of me one of these days," Machamp chuckled to himself as he grabbed the remaining envelopes and started putting them in various spots on the shelves.

"Do you not like her?" Fennekin asked.

He shrugged both sets of his shoulders. "She's fine, just a little over eager. Practically all of the complaints I get here are due to her running people over on her route."

"You really get that many complaints?"

"I get some. Never gotten a complaint about her being late or missing anything, though, so I'm keeping her. Heck, she's probably the best worker I've seen in all my time with the post office. First time I sent her out of the city, she went to Bayou Bay and back in two days! I don't know if you kids have ever been there, but it takes most experienced carriers a few days just to make it there. I didn't believe her until she gave me the inbound mail from there; I wasn't expecting to see her for at least a week and a half."

"At least she apologized to me," Ethan said. "I'm surprised she remembered me, to be honest. That was a while ago."

"She's not a bad gal, just takes a lot of pride in her job and hates being late. Anything else I can help you with today?"

Before he could respond, Ethan felt someone tapping on his shoulder. Turning around, he saw an Espeon, bag slung around her and big purple eyes inches from his face. "Are you Ethan?"

The suddenness of it all caused him to flinch, nearly falling back into the counter. "Uh...yeah, I am. I'm sorry, I don't think we've met."

"I'm Espeon, one of Leafeon's sisters. He's told me so much about you!" She looked to Fennekin. "You're his partner, right? Fennekin?"

Fennekin nodded and stuck out a paw. "Yeah, I am. It's nice to meet you!"

Seeing Fennekin's paw gave Espeon a large smile as she took it and shook vigorously. "Nice to meet you two, too! Listen, do you have a bit of time? There's some stuff Leafeon wanted us to show you eventually, but he was planning to ask you when he saw you next. I was here dropping off some mail and saw you and thought, 'Oh my gosh! It's them!' so I figured, may as well have you come by now since he's at our house with Umbreon. She's one of our other sisters, she and I work on a lot of stuff together. So?"

"So…?"

"So do you have some time to come by?"

"Oh!" He nodded. "Yeah, we have a free day. We're not sure what we'll do with it yet, but we can swing by."

"Perfect, let's go!" She swung around and started walking out; Ethan looked to Fennekin and traded quick smiles before walking after her.

"Espeon!" Machamp called out. "You said you were here to drop off letters."

She stopped instantly, causing both Ethan and Fennekin to run into her. "You're right!" Almost oblivious to their collision, she turned around and walked back to the counter before levitating a few envelopes out of her bag and onto the counter alongside a small pouch of Poké. "That should be enough, right?"

Machamp shuffled through the letters, nodding as he did so. "Looks to be in order. You have a good day, now."

"Thanks, you too!" She turned around to face them again. "Okay, now for real, let's go!" Before even waiting for a response or confirmation, she started walking towards the door.

"What does Leafeon want to show us?" Fennekin asked as she ran up to Espeon.

"Something about the map. You guys were the ones that got us the map fragment from the Dark Cavern, right? Well, that was the final piece Umbreon and I needed and Team Sunstriders are helping us use it to look for treasure, and Leafeon says he thinks he's found another place that has a map fragment. He was saying that he thinks it would be a really good first expedition for you guys." As she was walking, her back seemed to straighten and her ears raise a little bit. "Oh, he wanted that to be a surprise. Can you guys keep a secret? Or at least act surprised?"

"Yeah," he confirmed, "we can keep the secret."

"What's the map for? And if Team Sunstriders is helping you with it, why did you put out a mission for it?"

She shrugged. "They were busy, and they made it sound like the Dark Cavern was easy enough to explore, so we figured we could just pay for another team to do it instead of having to sit around and wait for them. And we needed that map because it's a part of a bigger one, so we needed it to fill that out."

When Espeon said nothing more, Ethan and Fennekin exchanged quick glances. "Espeon," he spoke up, "I think she means what the map as a whole is for."

"Not sure!" she chirped. "That's why we're sending the boys to go find out. I like to believe it leads to treasure, but Umbreon says it's unlikely. It's a human map, and she says that humans didn't really draw that many treasure maps, only maps to artifacts and things that some Pokémon don't think humans considered treasure but we do."

"They don't consider it treasure, but we do?" he echoed. "Like what?"

"Oh, lots of stuff. We have some of it back at our study, you can look at it if you want. Even if it's not actually treasure it's cool to have and look at, right?"

"Hey, Espeon?" Fennekin spoke up. "What can you tell us about humans?"

"A lot! What do you want to know?"

"Well...what were they like? Where'd they go?"

"Well, for where they went, we don't know. Umbreon would argue with me over that since she says they're all gone, but there are stories that they still exist and are hiding, or they went somewhere far away. As for what they were like, the stories disagree on the specifics, but they used to own Pokémon as slaves and make us do everything for them. That part the stories can all agree on."

Fennekin looked at Ethan, her face somber. "And what happened to them?"

"We waged a war against them, and we won. That's where the stories stop agreeing; I think there are still some humans out there somewhere, because it seems really hard to just get rid of them entirely. There had to be some that went into hiding, right?"

"And what do you think that would mean for us if there were still humans alive today?"

"Well, I guess it's possible they just want to live in peace, but they'd probably be trying to plan another war against us. Or some fighting, at least. Maybe not a full war. They're probably too scattered for that."

"Thanks." There was definitely sadness on Fennekin's face, but was that also disappointment? When they first met, she did say that most Pokémon didn't like humans, and that definitely seemed to be the truth. He hoped the disappointment wasn't her view of humans being proven wrong. Even if it was, she knew he was one. He didn't feel like he was evil and certainly didn't want to enslave her or anybody else. Hopefully that counted for something.

The rest of the walk continued in silence until they came to a three-story house near the river, windows all shut despite most other buildings having theirs open to beat the heat. "Hey, Espeon?" Fennekin asked as they got close.

"Hm?"

"We have something we have to go do real quick around here, we'll be in in a minute. Is that fine?"

"Sure, just come on in when you're done!" The door swung open, bathed in the color of her psychic embrace, then shut itself after she walked in.

"What do we need to do?" Ethan asked Fennekin.

"Not here," she whispered, taking a few steps away and looking around before moving down the street and doing the same thing. What was up with her? Wordlessly he followed her, if for nothing else just to see what had gotten into her.

After a few minutes of searching, she ducked into a narrow alley between two shops and beckoned for him to follow. It was a tight squeeze, but he was able to fit. "What's up?" he whispered.

"It's about what Espeon said." She looked down at the ground, pursing her lips. "That's why I told you not to say anything about being a human to anyone."

A heavy silence fell over the alley. It made sense, he supposed, but he almost wondered if he was happier not knowing.

"She's wrong."

Ethan's ears pricked up. "Espeon?"

Fennekin nodded. "Yeah. Not about the war thing...about humans being evil." She brought her head up and looked him in the eyes, her own starting to become red and damp. "Maybe the ones we had a war with were, but humans aren't all evil. I don't know where that idea comes from, but I can guarantee you it's wrong."

"How, though? I mean, I want to believe you that I'm not evil, but how can you guarantee that?"

Fennekin's eyes drifted off to the side before blinking them rapidly, a small tear slowly beginning its way down her face.

"Are you a human too, Fennekin?"

The tear flew off her face as she shook her head. "No, I'm not. I've...seen a lot of things I can't tell you about. But I can say that what I've seen has shown me that everybody is wrong in thinking that humans are evil."

"And you can't tell them?"

"Everyone thinks it's the truth, but they're wrong." More silence. "Just trust me, please."

A single, involuntary laugh came from him. Was that the right response? Maybe it was. "Fennekin," he started, "why 'trust'? You're the one that's telling me you don't think I'm evil. You're probably the one that needs to trust me."

"You've already shown that you're not evil. Just...I know it sounds crazy, me saying everyone is wrong and I'm the only one who knows the truth, but you just have to believe me. Can you do that?"

He did have to admit, it was a big pill to swallow. Of course he wanted to believe her, but just what was she hiding? Why couldn't she tell him anything?

"I believe you, Fennekin."

"Thank you." A smile broke out on her face, and her tears turned from ones of despair to joy as she got on her hind legs and hugged him. "Thanks for believing me."

"Thanks for believing I'm not evil," he laughed, putting her arms around her. The two stood in the alley for a few moments, neither saying anything as the realization dawned on him that this was the first true hug with anyone that he could remember.

It felt nice.