Tamin ate her breakfast quietly, still managing to be secluded and unambiguous despite being with many others at the meal table. Any observer would have their eyes glance over her like she was part of a backdrop.

She hadn't gotten as much shut eye last night as she normally did, and was doing some head shakes and face rubbing to attempt to get rid of the tiredness through stimulation.. Overnight her mind was kept awake by thinking of what to do with her newfound conflict with Yuki, exploring many different hypothetical plans she could do, how those plans could potentially go wrong, and the different contingencies if those did go wrong. All together, it was an expanding tree of plans with branches of plans, with branches sprouting off of branches, more branches breaking off of those, and even further fractaling.

While complex plans might seem better simply due to their complexity, Tamin knew simple plans are often the more rational ones as the fewer amount of variables involved means the fewer amount of things that could potentially go wrong. With that in mind, she rehearsed her simple plans in her head: "Yuki cannot force me to do things if we aren't in the same place, so I can avoid being in the same place with her at the same time, then I can largely circumvent the blackmailing altogether.

I have seen on previous days that Yuki goes off on missions right after lunch like most members here do. Therefore, I can depart on a mission right after breakfast and be off on that whilst Yuki is still at the guild. She will then stay there for a few hours before she departs on her own mission in the afternoon.

Provided our missions do not have drastically different lengths, I will then get back to the guildhouse several hours before Yuki does, which gives me a few free hours to be free to do what I want. By the time Yuki gets back, I could duck out and spend time in town instead, as the odds of her finding me throughout all of town are low and akin to finding a needle in a haystack if I play my cards right. The plan isn't foolproof and won't completely eliminate the time spent with her, but will greatly reduce it and it is not mutually exclusive with other plans I can execute.

It's funny how I used this to establish a better routine for myself. Or, more like a rouse-tine this time around, heh. Routines are always nice."

Finishing up with her meal, the minccino hopped down from her seat and picked out the ideal mission at the questboard. She had to wait a few minutes for more guild members to finish eating, but it wasn't too long before she could begin asking around for who could come along with her.

The first pokemon she turned to was Scampi, as Tamin knew the rockruff and her rather hasty nature would make it so she would willingly join Tamin quite easily. As it would turn out, she was right.

But as Scampi joined her, she suggested that they also take a Ludicolo from the guild along as well, making it clear he was a friend of Scampi. Tamin didn't know anything about Ludicolo, but wouldn't mind bringing him along nevertheless. He was indeed willing to join, but did so with a far overly enthusiastic "let's go on an adventure!" that Tamin could immediately tell could get her irritated real quick. She didn't have time to argue or find a replacement member though, she wanted to get out of the door as fast as possible, so he let him on board.

A fourth pokemon was harder to find to join her team. Tamin did initially want Locke to join, but as she looked around without any sight of him around. With a bit of asking, she found that Locke had left the guildhouse with Dewott to do Arceus-knows-what. Instead, Nidorino saw her struggling to find another guild member, and decided that he'd join them like he had joined Locke before. He was curious to see how the minccino would perform in a mission.

With four gathered together, they began preparing backpacks of supplies for the journey ahead. Tamin passively encouraged the others to make haste in getting ready, just pushy enough to ensure they sped up yet just subtle enough that they didn't get suspicious of her. Tamin was doing her best to avoid the others learning her true intentions behind doing the mission so early.

"It'll be a long journey," she muttered in her head as she, Scampi, Ludicolo and Nidorino departed while the golden light of the morning still shined over the land.

As for those who remained at the guildhouse, they mostly carried on as normal. The nocturnals headed off to bed, the diurnals gathered in the downstairs lounge to hang out, unaware of any blackmailing and scheming happening in the background. They all carried on with their typical routines.

At least, they did so for another hour after Tamin had departed.

Niot had been in the foyer, pacing around silently as he worked through thoughts. It was then where the main doors of the guildhouse began opening up, and Niot turned his head to look at what was happening. As he did, he saw an absol who certainly was not a member of the guild. She did not have a scarf around her neck and instead had a brass pocket watch to decorate herself. Of course, it wasn't uncommon for a client to come into the guild to provide a mission request, nor were absol foriegn to the local region. Thus, Niot didn't see anything as abnormal from this event, so he greeted it with his usual formalities.

"Hello there, have you come to deliver a mission request?"

"No, I have come here to deliver a different message," the absol responded, her formality matched Niot's.

"What is it you need to say?" Niot said, mildly surprised that she wasn't a client but not letting that surprise reach his face.

"I would like to speak with the guildmaster, if that is possible," she said.

"I shall summon him then."

The chatot left the foyer to head to the guildmaster office while the absol patiently waited in the foyer. Fast forward a minute's time, and Niot returned with Espeon beside him.

"Hey," Espeon said, not reaching the same levels of formality, "what'd you want to say?"

"Yes, my name is 'Eno' and I come from the absol colony in the mountains not far to the north of here. We have sensed that a massive snowstorm is coming to the region very soon, so we have been going out to warn other settlements about that."

"Wait, what?" Espeon asked in surprise.

"Based off of the disaster senses from me and many other absol from the colony, it feels it's going to be about twenty-four centimeters of snow, and will have windchill as well. It'll likely start around one in the afternoon, and continue until roughly ten hours," Eno continued to specify.

"Noon? It is coming noon today and none of you warned us earlier when we had much more time to prepare?" Niot said, getting angry out of stress.

"Apologies, for we are not oracles. The storm appears to have been suddenly formed by the abilities of other pokemon (dragonair have always been a nuisance) so the shift in environment happened instantly rather than gradually over time. It is for this reason that we were unable to forewarn you earlier, as it was physically impossible to tell it would happen before those pokemon used their powers to form the storm. There was simply no indication of it yesterday."

"What do you recommend we do about that?" Espeon asked.

"It will have to be up to you to figure out, I only volunteered to be a harbinger to warn others about it. I assume this hasn't been the first time your guild has had to deal with a storm, though."

Eno reached with one of her front paws to her neck, grabbed the brass pocket watch, and opened it up to gaze at the position of the clock hands. After looking for a few seconds, she closed it while closing her eyes the same time it shut.

"It is eighteen-past-eight right now, so you'll have just under five hours before the snow fall begins, though the wind has already started its gradual acceleration. Now if you excuse me, I need to join some of my fellow absol and warn the town so they can prepare themselves as well. Farewell."

Eno turned around and left through the main doors again, leaving Espeon and Niot behind as they were side-by-side and facing her direction. As the doors shut, their eyes shifted to look at each other.

"We need to warn everyone now," Espeon said.

"Agreed," Niot responded.

With haste, they both split up to begin doing just that.

Espeon rang the meal bell as a signal to rally the ranks of the guild together, and the mess hall was converted into a makeshift meeting room. With a few chairs stacked atop one another to create a high point for Espeon to stand at, it was in that room that they relayed the information from Eno to everyone.

The guildmaster made sure to sparse his speech with "please stay calm" and "let's not panic", whilst still parsing the information from Eno onto them and what they needed to do. How much they actually heeded to that varied on each member, both having the resolve to stay calm, but some still giving way to stress. Some knew from previous winters what the proper actions were, some did not.

The first concern the guild had was to get the treehouse building secure and weathered as it was less insulated and less prepared to stand against the natural elements. Over half the guild worked on that in specific at the start, taking materials from the downstairs storages to properly reinforce every window and otherwise weak point.

The walls and roof of the guildhouse were scrutinized to find any holes that cold could seep in from. Their studies found that it actually didn't need much improvement, and the greenhouse was fine to survive the winter in the state it was in. The second story porches were blocked off entirely with insulation, and transparent wrap was applied to the windows.

In the midst of the weathering, Locke and Dewott returned to the guildhouse. After getting a brief, they joined in with helping out. Locke got supplies from the basement while Dewott got them set up.

It took all of thirty-three seconds since starting for Dewott to declare "alright! The one who gets the most work done on weathering the guildhouse wins!" and for Mienfoo to humor him in the competition.

Hunter had the worst time out of anyone who was present in the guildhouse. He was still trapped in the solitary confinement room from what he had done to Locke, so he was alone with little knowledge of the outside world as he heard chaos unfold above him. He was left clueless as to what all the footsteps running around were about, so in that blank room his mind filled in those gaps with dark thoughts, like a child who imagined monsters inside the house when they heard things go bump in the night. The trickster was not usually one to let these irrational thoughts get to him, but the effects of solitude was one that took great resolve to resist.

He was left to guess theories on what all the scurrying around about with his own imagination, and thinking of worrying possibilities as he was denied confirmation on any of them. It wasn't long before Sylveon realized that the forty-eight hours he had to spend in that room was over, so he went down to retrieve the zorua from the confinement. Never before had Hunter been more relieved to have one of his punishments be over.

With the clock reaching eleven-thirty in the morning, the reinforcements had reached a state where they would be deemed complete by most. Once more, they were rallied together in the mess hall and Espeon got up on his stand to address the guild. This time, delivering his speech with an aura of hope rather than stress.

"Men, I must applaud you all for this. While we had such short notice to prepare, you have worked diligently to make the most out of all of it. With both power and persistence, you have made this building safe again so that we are able to endure this coming storm-"

"Does this mean we can go to sleep now?" A murkrow asked.

"I think I want to see what this storm is before I nod off," Crystal responded to them. "Clearly it's something special if we've gotten all this hyping up for it."

"Not yet," Espeon said, getting derailed from the speech. "Before we dismiss officially, it is necessary for us to do a headcount, as we must ensure no one is left behind in the cold. As you're losing your patience, let me just go ahead and start that now.

Ahem. Umbreon?"

"Here…"

"Sylveon?"

"Right here."

"Niot?"

"Present."

"Sebastien?"

"I'm safe, don't worry."

"Rustin?"

"Here."

"Armin?"

"Here…"

One by one, Espeon called out to the guildmembers. One by one, they confirmed their presence. But as he rehearsed the roster off from memory, it began to be discovered that there were holes in it, individuals who were not present. First it was Nidorino who was found to not be present, then Ludicolo, then Scampi, and then Tamin. Their names were called several times and everyone there looked around for them, but their lack of presence was only further confirmed.

Instead of a hard dismissal, they softly scattered around to search for the missing members. They hoped that they had just missed the call to regroup and were in some corner of the guild, but the fact that exactly four were missing and they were not seen in the previous hours made it clear to everyone what had actually happened, even if only subconsciously. Some saw the four prepare to head off for a mission, so that lead was investigated. Seeing what missions were taken but not finished, they found the exact mission: an expedition into the mountains to quell a mystery dungeon full of dragonair.

"This is really bad," Espeon said as they read off the missions.

"North is where the storm is coming from, so it will hit them before it hits us," Niot said.

"The mystery dungeon is a cavern, so if they reach that they could wait out the storm in there. No snow or windchill in there," Rustin argued.

"No. It's a mission that is a short distance away, so they probably don't have the proper camping equipment. Even if they can avoid hypothermia in the short term, that doesn't mean they can stake out the full storm in the long term," Espeon said. "We're going to have to send out a rescue team to get them back from the storm."

"I'll do it!" Locke announced boldly.

All who were in the room turned their heads to the shinx to look at him. Despite many eyes looming down on him, he held his ground and confidence.

"I'll go out there in the storm to get Tamin and the others back," Locke said.

The entire room was looking at Locke. As they did, the shinx remembered this wasn't the first time all the attention was on him. Last time it happened was when he went ferocious inside of the guildhouse, and got promptly put into a harness with a new set of rules. This time- however- most of the guild members didn't quite know what to think of him.

"I should help you then," Froslass said as she came closer to Locke. "Since I levitate, I will be able to scout out the region much better. And because of my ice typing, the cold doesn't really bother me anyways."

"Great, thanks for the help," Locke said.

"You're going to want me as well for this mission," Yuki said as she stepped out of the crowd towards them.

Even though he was friendly towards Froslass, he was far less so towards Yuki. Even if he couldn't articulate it into words, his gut instinct told him there was something deeply off about Yuki and her actual intentions on joining. The memories of when Yuki held him in a net also came to recollection and allowed him to put more rationality to his distrust. "I don't trust you enough to let you come along," he said bluntly in front of others.

"Now I don't think you're being rea-son-ab-le about this. My internal flame not only allows me to keep myself warm in this storm, but also keep others warm as well. Even if I will have less heat left to channel into my attacks, I am still per-fec-tly suited for this mission that is a test of survival skills and end-ur-ance rather than combat prowess," Yuki argued in a rational voice, twinged with just a slight amount of condescendence. Her desire to not have Tamin be lost was genuine, but unlike Locke who was wanting to keep a friend, she was wanting to keep someone she had in her pocket.

"She is right, her assistance will be useful and it would be cold to refuse her volunteering offer," Froslass said.

"...Fine," Locke spoke begrudgingly.

"A team of three would be fine for rescuing from the outdoors, adding more members won't make it easier to survive the cold. Start getting ready right now, I'll help by getting your bags prepared," Espeon said. "Now go, we are running on borrowed time as is."

They nodded in agreement, and moved on together.

For the next twenty minutes, they got larger backpacks than what they usually used and got it packed up to the brim. Blankets, fireseeds, cold remedies, three times the usual amount of flares they usually used, and tinder kits. They were granted permission to eat lunch early as waiting would be an egregious waste of time, which resulted in Froslass and Yuki still maintaining high etiquette while Locke ravenously feasted down, scattering crumbs everywhere like he did when he was in an eating competition with Dewott.

While they ate in the guild kitchen, Sylveon approached them while carrying some clothing at his side.

"Hey Locke, do you have a moment to spare?" Sylveon asked the shinx.

Locke turned to face him, but his mouth was still chewing food as he did. It took him a few seconds to break down what he had in his mouth and swallow the grub.

"What is it?"

"I got my old coat from storage," Sylveon said as he put his feelers in front of him to show he was holding a brown and dusty coat. "I figured you will need it far more than I do with what you're about to undergo."

Locke brought his paw forward to inspect the coat, seeing that it was from designs from years past but was well kept with any hole being well sewn shut.

"Sorry if it's a bit small for you, it was made for an eevee after all," Sylveon said as Locke continued to look. "Although it was a bit of a chubby eevee, heheh."

"Do I have to wear this?" Locke said in an unfavorable manner.

"No, it is not required. But with the blizzard it will be helpful. If it's the harness you're thinking about, then the coat will actually cover that up nicely."

"Huh… alright," Locke said as he fully took the coat. "I can get this on myself, even if it'll be a squeeze."

"Understood. Say, you can just keep that coat for yourself. I won't be having kids to give it anyways and there's no way I can use it myself."

"Uh, okay then."

"Mhm."

They finished getting food in their bellies, coats around their chest, and well packed bags on their backs. The trio had become fully prepared, but in the meantime the outdoors had become unforgiving. Any strand of blue still in the skies had disappeared as an endless blanket of white overtook the skies. The leafless branches of the trees swayed strongly in the oppressive gale. Even without stepping outside themselves, just looking out the windows at the dancing snow could impart goosebumps. Locke, Yuki, and Froslass were right in front of the recently insulated main doors of the guild and mentally preparing themselves for what was to come while Espeon stood back, not far behind.

"Are all three of you ready for this rescue?" Espeon asked them.

"More than," Locke said.

"Shouldn't be harder than a normal expedition for me," Froslass said.

"A-firm-a-tive," Yuki said.

"And you all have maps of the mountains where they are?" Espeon asked.

The three all confirmed.

"Alright. Don't have too much pressure on you as that will affect your performance, but do stay safe out there. Find the four, heal them so they don't have frostbite, and return home as a group.

Every second you spend here the storm worsens, so you best head off now. I pray for all of you."

The three nodded in agreement, and opened the doors to leave. The door opened seamlessly, and doing so greeted them with a sudden rush of cold air that their bodies weren't adapted for after spending so long in a room temperature building. Shutting the door proved to be far more difficult as the gale wind pushed against it from the side to try to keep it open. Immediately, the danger showed its hand, and they knew this was only the start of it. Once the door was shut again, they walked around the structure to begin their journey northbound.

A long, straight road led from the guildhouse to the mountains up north that were several kilometers away. Each of them walked forward in line at a steady pace as the chill and wind got to them. They headed for the mountains in hopes that would offer protection from the winds once they got there, but they knew that also meant harder to navigate terrain. But still stalwart, they marched on.

"Hang out there, Tamin. I'm coming for you," Locke muttered as they walked.

"You're not getting away from me like this, sweetie," Yuki thought to herself.

End of chapter 15.