Chapter 9 – Misunderstandings

Mary stood watching the flow of sand in the dim lamplight. It was the middle of the night. Earlier that evening, Cass had showed her to his headquarters within the Bounty Hunters' Guild.

"Every team gets a little base of operations to work out of," he had explained at the door. "Beginner teams just get the one room. I'm a Master rank team... so I get a little more."

A 'little' more was an understatement – Cass had opened the door to a large room, dominated by a buizel-height table covered with wanted posters. There was a door on each of the other three walls, leading to who knew where. Mary had glanced over the table, noticing that many of the wanted posters had been struck through with a large red X.

"I'll show you around tomorrow. It's late, so let's just head to bed for now," Cass had said casually, leading her to the door on the right. This door opened up into a longer corridor, lined with more doors either side. It reminded Mary of a hotel, and so it didn't come as a surprise when Cass told her to "pick any room you like!". She had headed straight for the first door on her left, shutting it quickly behind her. "Oh, okay. Goodnight then," Cass had called through the closed door. She hadn't answered him.

The room was quite bare-bones. Embedded in the ceiling were many blue, softly glowing crystals. It was the first she'd noticed them, though they must have been everywhere in the guild – it would be pitch black due to the lack of windows, otherwise. She also had a large trunk, for holding her non existent belongings. Finally, she had two single beds, on on either side of the room. She had slumped into the one on the left face first, and had heard a terrible ripping noise.

Ah.

The blades on her chest had ripped into the mattress, and embedded themselves. She had placed her hands on either side of her to lift herself up...

Shhhhrrkkk!

Of course, her hands were blades too.

She had sighed deeply. With one swift motion, she had rolled off the bed, landing on the ground with a metallic thunk. She had stood up, surveying the damage. The mattress was completely ruined. She had crossed over to the other bed, and wisely flopped onto her back this time.

But she had been unable to sleep. There was just too much to think about, and she couldn't settle her mind down. So she had left the guild. She had exited Cass's headquarters, and made her way by memory out of the maze that was the Bounty Hunters' Guild. Sahra Town was lit by lamplight. She had stood, looking at one of them for a little while, wondering if it worked the same as normal electricity back home. The world of pokémon had been a huge shock to her so far, and until now she hadn't had any time to truly process just how impossible everything was.

It wasn't just a world filled with pokémon. It was a society. They built buildings, formed cultures, committed crime, brought berries to their family. She could understand them, and they her. They had true consciousness – thoughts, feelings, ambitions. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting, but it definitely wasn't this.

And so she stood on the bridge, gazing into the endlessly flowing sand, trying to let it all sink in. At least it doesn't seem too different from human society so far, she thought to herself. I just need to learn all the little ways things differ, as fast as possible. I have to stay under the radar at all costs.

She shuddered. That was the other thing on her mind. The reason she had been sent here. She shut her eyes, her mind replaying the events of that terrible night for what must have been the thousandth time since she had arrived.

He's already there. He brought his daughter, and that damned scientist. Too late. Far too late. He really caught it, and so those two are at his beck and call... and the transformation is almost complete! So he succeeded? No! There's still time to stop him... But what can the two of us do against Gods? We're too late!

Her thoughts racing, she stood by the side of her ally, facing down the one she hated the most. But it wasn't a face she recognised, and it struck true fear into her heart. Behind her stood her enemy's daughter, and the terrible scientist who had enabled all of this. They were shouting at her, but she didn't dare take her eyes off the creatures in front of her, and neither did her partner.

Then her partner glanced at her, and her at him, and she saw the glint in his eye. No! But she couldn't stop him. He sprinted forwards, clutching the thing that could save them – save the world. As she feared, it was no use. After all, their enemy had the Gods at his mercy.

The monster to his left released a pulse of brilliant light, and all was lost. She watched, helpless, as the light consumed her friend before her. But the light did not stop there. It continued expanding, further, further, towards her. She couldn't react. The light consumed her. Her eyes burned with bright white, then faded to nothingness.

Mary gasped sharply, catching herself before she fell. She was so deep in thought she had almost lost her balance, and gone tumbling over the edge of the bridge. She sighed, stepping backwards and looking up at the night sky. The stars were comfortingly familiar to her. She stood there for a while, deep in thought.

"Excuse me." A voice snapped her out of her stupor, and she turned to face a gigalith. The huge rock pokémon looked at her expectantly. She stepped back to the edge of the bridge, and the gigalith passed her by. She watched it go, wondering if she would ever get used to things in this world. Once the pokémon was completely out of sight, she turned, and went back to her room.

RAP RAP RAP RAP RAP

"Wakey wakey! It's time for me to show you the ropes, be out here in five!"

Mary opened the door in Cass' face. She hadn't been sleeping

"You're that eager, huh?" Cass grinned. He stopped smiling almost immediately, though, and replaced it with a sheepish look. "About yesterday..."

Mary watched him squirm awkwardly. "Okay, I'll admit I should have let you in on the plan before we spoke to Mienshao. We probably could have worked together on a better story..."

"That wasn't the problem, Buizel," Mary said coolly, walking past him.

"Then what was the problem?" Cass asked.

Mary stopped short at the confusion in his voice. Cass the prodigy... If he was as good as he claimed to be, then this could all be one big manipulation. Keeping that in mind, Mary decided to answer his question.

"You saw me... arrive, but conveniently kept that fact hidden right up until after I'd signed the contract to be a part of your team. Almost like you're using me as a stepping stone for your delusions of greatness."

"Hey, come on..." Cass pleaded, walking to her side. "Okay, when you put it like that it sounds bad. But this isn't how I intended things to go!" he insisted. "I guess I expected you to be more, I dunno, impressed with me at how I handled it, not upset!"

"That's exactly the problem!" Mary exploded. "You have no regard for my feelings. You've dragged me up to your pedestal, you assume you're 'in on it' or something equally absurd... Let's just get one thing straight, okay, Buizel?"

Cass opened his mouth to speak, but Mary cut him off. "You might be 'Cass the Prodigy' to everyone around here, but to me, you're just a buizel. We've only just met, I have no idea who you are, and you have no idea who I am. You're going to have to earn my friendship, and that's not going to be easy after how you've treated me so far. Is that clear, Buizel?"

Cass sighed. She watched him, waiting for his response. Finally, looking at some point in the distance, he spoke. "Sure. I mean, you're right, I don't know who you are, but I know you're special. As long as I stick with you, I'll be a part of something great, I feel it. That's what's important to me, Sharp. I just thought it would be nicer if we were friends, right?"

Mary threw her blades into the air in exasperation. "You're impossible. I'm not some tool for you to use to achieve greatness..." she shook her head, and started walking. "I'm done arguing. Think what you want. Let's just get on with the tour."

"Okie dokie, if you're sure!" Cass smiled, running ahead of her enthusiastically, and opening the door to the main room for her. Mary rolled her eyes, and begun the tour.

"So, yeah, Master rank HQ. Pretty sweet, huh?" Cass boasted, resting his paws on the back of his neck and leading her to the main room with the table. "You've already seen how many rooms there are in the dormitory. Something like eight? That's how many team members it would usually take to get to this rank, but I made it all by myself.

And this is the meeting room. Sorry it's a little messy!" He strolled over to the table, motioning for Mary to follow. She hopped onto a stool stood by the table, and looked it over. It was very messy, covered in documents and posters she didn't understand. Beneath the clutter she noticed a large map, but she couldn't really make anything of it.

"So uh... I guess we'll be doing meetings and planning and stuff here from now on. I'll get this cleaned up later. I've never done a meeting before, hehe!" he chuckled, trying and failing to gather all the loose paper towards himself.

Mary could see the map more clearly now. The map was titled 'Sand Continent', and consisted of a large mainland, with a series of islands extending Northeast, forming an archipelago. There were more islands to the East of the mainland, shaped a little like a handprint, she thought. On the Eastern coast of the island was a little flag. Mary pointed the flag out.

"Is that where we are? Sahra Town?" she asked.

"Oh, yep!" Cass confirmed. "Why, never seen a map of the continent before?"

Mary winced, and didn't answer. She really needed to learn to hold her tongue, and stop asking stupid questions. The smug look on Cass's face wasn't helping her mood. She jumped down from the table.

"What are the other rooms?" she asked.

"Okay, this room opposite the entrance, that's just storage," Cass said, running to open the door. He opened it half way, and Mary saw it was filled with large crates and chests. She noticed more scarves hanging up on hooks on the wall. Cass closed the door before she could get a closer look. "It's just equipment, nothing special really," he said, moving towards the door to the left of the entrance.

"Now this room, I guess it's like a personal lounge?" Cass explained, opening the door and entering the room. Mary followed, and noticed the breeze immediately. She walked past Cass, approaching the large holes in the wall that acted as windows.

"Those are for flyers. Like a side entrance to our HQ. A bit too high for us, though," Cass said, leaning against the wall next to the door. Mary just gazed out of the window. It was a vast desert, as far as she could see. There were large cacti growing sporadically, casting long shadows in the sunrise. They were very high above ground level, about six stories, Mary estimated. She leaned out over the edge, looking straight down. This side of the building appeared to face away from town, as the desert began right at the side of the rock. She pulled herself back into the lounge and looked around. The room was empty.

"Yeah, I haven't really decided what to do with this room yet," he laughed, scratching the back of his head. "I don't really need all this space, but it's a perk of being so great, I guess."

Mary walked past him, to the meeting room. "Where to next?"

"Uh, we should get something to eat at the mess hall..." Cass said, clearly agitated about something. "We should, uh, get our stories straight. There are gonna be plenty of questions."

"Would you like me to shut up, and have you do all the talking?" Mary asked tersely.

"Guess that was kind of rude..." Cass said, shutting the door behind him. "Uh... So you're from the Bisharp Clans. They live way out in the East, over on the Grass Continent. You're the strong and silent type so you don't have to speak if you don't want, right?"

Mary nodded. "Anything else I should know?"

"I think that should be enough, if you don't talk much, you know?"

Mary said nothing, and let Cass lead the way.

As they walked through the many corridors of the Guild, she noticed that she was right about the blue crystals. They were embedded everywhere, providing enough light for the windowless building. They turned a corner, and arrived at the mess hall. Mary surveyed the room. There were many small tables of varying heights, dotted about the room. The room was almost empty, save for the honchkrow Mary had seen the previous night in the hallways of the guild. She was picking at a platter of berries when she noticed them. She perked up immediately.

"Ah, geez, I was hoping no one would be here so early..." Cass trailed off, as the honchkrow approached them eagerly.

"Good morning, Cass!" she said brightly. "Up early, I see!"

"Good morning, Midnight! Yeah, wanted to beat the rush..." Cass trailed off, as the honchkrow laughed.

"You know there is no rush here. What are you hiding?" she peered curiously at Mary. Mary stepped forward.

"Good morning. I'm Sharp, Cass's new teammate." she bowed, and smiled to herself at Cass's panicked reaction.

"Uh, yeah, meet my new teammate! I was planning on saving that announcement for later," he grimaced, giving Mary a deadly side-eye.

"My goodness!" Midnight said, shock apparent on her face. "You, recruiting a teammate? Is the world ending?"

"Nah, I just... Uh..." Cass was struggling to find the words. "I just finally found the one, you know?"

Midnight stared at him for a moment, until something seemed to click in her head.

"Ahhhhhh," she said, a knowing look in her eye. "The One! I see. Oh, how exciting for you both!"

"Wait," Cass stammered. "That's not what I meant, actually..."

"It's okay, Cascade!" Midnight assured him. "I promise that your secret is safe with me. I will leave you two alone now, I have an early start today after all!"

With a final knowing look, she left, the same way Cass and Mary had entered. Mary couldn't contain herself any more, and let out a smirk.

"What are you laughing at," Cass pouted. "Midnight is the biggest chatterbox in the guild. The secret is NOT safe with her. And it's not even the right secret!"

"I don't care," Mary said with a shrug. "I'm the strong and silent type, remember? It's your problem now."

Cass sighed. "Let's just get something to eat."

For breakfast, Mary chose a strange but not unpleasant medley of pokémon berries. It took her a few tries, but she was getting the hang of skewering using her blades, and was eating off of them comfortably. Once they were both finished, Cass lead the two of them out of the guild. Mary followed him through town. There were very few pokémon in the streets so early. Those they did run into all gave her companion a friendly wave, and gave her a curious look. It was becoming very apparent to Mary that Cass was everything he claimed to be. She was starting to feel slightly intimidated by him. Just slightly.

Finally, they came to the edge of town, where they'd arrived the previous day. Cass didn't stop there. He carried on out, out into the desert. Mary followed him, not sure what they were looking for.

"Where are we going?" she asked. "I thought you were going to show me around town."

"Eh, that can come later," he answered. "Maybe tomorrow. There's not much in town to show, honestly. Only important places for us are the prison and the guild, which you've seen."

"So where are we going?" she pressed.

"I guess here's as good as anywhere!" he replied, stopping abruptly. He turned around to face her. "Ready, Sharp? We're gonna spar!"

Mary's eyes widened. "You want to fight me?"

"If we're going to be working together, I need to know how strong you are!" he said, grinning. "I think it's more important than anything else, so yeah, let's fight!"

Mary locked eyes with him, and saw the determination in his own. Without blinking, she swung her arms downwards, unsheathing her blades. He stared right back at her, taking a battle stance. Mary blinked.

In an instant, Cass had hit her with a tackle. She was sent flying, tumbling across the sand. She scrambled frantically for a foothold, assessing herself. Nothing was hurt but her pride. She pulled herself to her knees.

"So you're not that fast," Cass said, extending a paw. She extended her arm begrudgingly, and Cass grasped it, pulling her to her feet. "That's okay, we can work on it. What moves do you know?"

"Moves..." Mary looked to one side. "Slash, I guess."

"Slash?" Cass laughed. "I mean like, what actual moves do you know?"

Mary shrugged, and Cass frowned. "Do you not have battle experience?"

"Not really," Mary admitted. Cass whistled.

"Wow. Okay, starting to see why it might be a bad idea to add people to a team without knowing a thing about them..."

Mary threw a slash at him, but with one stroke of his arm he deflected the attack. He did this almost absent-mindedly, and continued talking. "Okay, no, hold the battle. You need some actual moves first. Are you sure you don't know any moves? Like, at least a night slash or something?"

"No moves," Mary repeated, deadpan. "Honestly, I don't like admitting this, least of all to you, but I'm not even really sure how I would go about learning them."

"What, really? Do you not even know how, like, a dark type move works?" he asked, worry in his eyes. Mary just shook her head.

"Wow," he sat down on the sand. "Seriously, where did you even come from, Sharp?"

Mary just stared at him.

"Never mind. Guess it's time for a dark type lesson."

"Tell me you at least know about pokémon types?"

Mary nodded. "I know about those, yes. I'm dark and steel, you're water."

"Phew, at least you're not completely clueless!" Cass laughed. "So yeah, types. Like you said, I'm a water type, and obviously my speciality is water moves. Most pokémon are experts in their own types, and I'm the same! But we're not here for a water type lesson."

He pointed at her. "You're dark and steel type – that means you're weak to fire and ground type moves, and like, SUPER weak to fighting. You're also completely immune to both psychic and poison moves, and resist a whole bunch of other-"

"I know all this," Mary interrupted impatiently. "Tell me how to learn a dark type move."

Cass blinked. "Oh, sure. So, dark type moves.

Did you know the dark typing is sometimes called the 'evil' type?" he asked.

Mary frowned. "Evil?"

"It's not because all dark types are evil or anything!" Cass explained quickly. "It's because of where dark power draws its strength. Basically, a dark attack becomes stronger the more you want to hurt your opponent."

Mary cocked her head to one side. "Surely that's the same for all moves. If I really want to hurt you, I would swing my blade harder."

"I guess if you look at it that way... but it's different." He scratched his head. "Let me try and explain it like this, if you were using night slash, for example: Even if you swung your blade with the same physical strength, if you had stronger intent to hurt me than, uh, that cactus, then it would hurt me way more than it would hurt the cactus. Make sense?"

"It does," Mary nodded. She had another question. "How do I activate this power? How do I turn a slash into a night slash?"

"Erm... Now that, I don't know." Cass shrugged. "I've studied the theory, but that's all. I've never actually tried to learn a dark type move. I think all I could learn is to bite, and I don't really want to do that," he laughed, leaning back on his arms. "You'll just have to experiment. Maybe focus really hard on wanting to hurt me when you slash?"

"Isn't that dangerous? I could end up seriously injuring you." Mary asked.

"Nah, I'm pretty strong... Hey, why do you think it would be dangerous?" Cass narrowed his eyes. "You don't actually want to hurt me, right?"

"What about steel?" Mary quickly changed the subject.

"Steel?" Cass asked.

"How do steel type moves work?" Mary pressed.

"Wait, you don't know that either?" Cass looked shocked, but Mary stared him down resolutely. "Okay, don't give me that silent treatment so much... Let me see, how does steel work again?

I think steel's a little bit more like my water," he explained. "With the actual elements, it's more about how the user can handle that element. I can make water just using like, my body, and then manipulate it really skilfully in my attacks. Like this!"

Cass looked up, and a jet of water shot out of his mouth.

"A simple water gun, see? The water comes from in here," he said, patting his chest. "in here... somewhere. I don't know much about biology, it's just something I've learned to do instinctually."

"Instinctually..." Mary repeated forlornly.

"Yep! I think it's very similar with steel, but more... extremal? Like, I create water internally and release it, but steel types tend to like, harden the external parts of their body into steel and attack with like a powered up version of a normal attack. Like a slash could become a metal claw, or a headbutt could become an iron head. Make sense?"

"Yes," Mary answered slowly, "but how do I do that?"

"Beats me!" Cass shrugged again. "I'm pretty sure it's impossible for me to even learn a steel type move. Like I said, this stuff's very instinctual, even more than dark. In fact, I'm kind of shocked you don't know how to manipulate steel at all..."

Mary looked away. These were questions that she needed to ask, but she felt very vulnerable asking them. She felt like she was giving way too much about herself away in these questions. And even after putting herself in that position, Cass hadn't actually been very helpful. All she had to go on was that she had to feel the right way, which she wasn't very good at doing, or use her instincts, which she didn't have. She realised Cass had stood up, and was approaching her.

"Okay, okay, before we carry on training..." he grinned. "I have another theory, because all this is verrrry suspicious. I think you're either a zoroark or a ditto. Probably a ditto. Am I close?"

Mary glared at him in silence. Thankfully, it didn't seem like the idea that she was a human turned pokémon had even occurred to him, and hopefully it never would. But the fact that even after all their conversations, he was still so nonchalantly trying to learn all her secrets...

She focussed on her anger, and her right blade. She imagined slashing at Cass with a superpowered dark attack, knocking him down a peg, maybe even humbling him a bit. She wanted to show him that she was still in control, and that her secrets were off limits. She wanted to hurt him.

She felt energy collecting in her blade, and wasted no time. As fast as she could move, she took a swipe at Cass. Dark energy rippled across her blade, leaving a shadowy trail in the air. Cass ducked under her swing faster than she could comprehend, and spun around in a full circle. As he did, he wrapped his tails around her legs, and yanked them out from under her, sending her tumbling onto her back.

She rolled to the left, using her frustration at failing to fuel her next attack. She really wanted to hit him now, to wipe that smug grin off his face. Dark energy flowing through her blade, she scrambled to her feet and used her momentum to thrust her blade in Cass' direction. He dodged to her right, making it impossible for her to follow up easily.

She cursed, and tried to swing her blade at Cass, but she knew it was far too telegraphed. This time, Cass smacked her blade from below on its flat side with his paw, deflecting her attack into the air. Dark energy streamed off of her blade, dissipating quickly into the air.

They stood for a moment, Mary's blade pointing at the sky, staring each other down. Finally, Cass laughed.

"You got it pretty quick!" he commended. "Great work, Sharp. That was pretty powerful!"

Mary let her arm fall, not saying a word. She stared at the ground. She had let her emotions get the better of her intentionally, since that seemed to be the only way to use her dark type attack. But it had left her feeling angry and bitter. These emotions swam around in her head, consuming her. She fought back tears of frustration. She had a feeling she wasn't going to enjoy using these kinds of attacks.

"Hey, Sharp, look at this," Cass prompted, putting his paw in front of her face. Through the fur on the back of his paw, she saw his skin was red and angry. "That was the dark energy. Remember when I whacked your blade off course?"

Mary stared at his hand blankly. So she had hurt him. An emotion surged through her. As soon as she realised that emotion was triumph, it turned to horror. What was this power turning her into? She looked away in disgust.

"I guess you really did want to hurt me, huh?" Cass laughed awkwardly. She heard him sit down in the sand. "I, uh... I guess I haven't really been considering your feelings all that much."

She turned to him, surprised. He was looking at some point in the distance, and kept talking. "Like, you really wanted to hurt me. And I guess I only have myself to blame for that..." He sighed. "Sharp, I'm... Ugh, this is gonna sound so bad, but I'm used to everyone around me just... idolising me. Usually it's just the bad guys who want to hurt me, you know? So I must have been really awful to you."

"Cass, I tried to tell you all of this this morning," Mary fumed, "but you didn't take me seriously at all!"

"I-" Cass faltered, and his head fell. "Yeah. Sorry."

He sighed deeply. "I should try and put things right now. I want to, I mean."

He looked at her with sad eyes. "What do you want to do?" he asked.

Mary's stomach lurched. Despite everything, she hadn't even considered leaving Cass and the Bounty Hunters – she didn't have any idea what else she could do. She didn't have a single ally in this world... except for Cass. But could she even call him an ally?

She looked him over once more. This buizel, who everyone in Sahra Town seemed to know and trust wholeheartedly. Did they know he was motivated by the attention? That that was the only reason he did the things he did?

Mary frowned to herself. Was that such a bad thing, though? Did it matter why he did things, if the end result was good?

"Why do you do it, Cass?" she asked him.

"Why?" he seemed surprised at the question, but collected himself quickly. "It's obvious, right? I want to be a hero. I want to be the greatest hero this world has ever seen! Known across all the continents for taking down the toughest criminals, right? Who wouldn't want that?"

"Not because it's the right thing to do?" Mary asked, unsure of herself.

"Uh... I mean, that's what a hero is!" he replied earnestly. "A hero does the right thing, and I want to be a hero."

"So you wouldn't do the right thing if no one knew about it?" Mary pressed him.

"Geez, Sharp... why does this matter so much to you?" he asked her.

Mary opened her mouth, then closed it. Why did it matter so much?

"I mean, I'd like to think I'd always try to do the right thing no matter what... but doesn't anyone?" Cass said eventually. "I guess I just found my motivation to actually get up and do it in this dream of mine."

He frowned at her. "Do you think that's wrong? Is a pokémon who does the right thing just for the sake of it better than me?"

"No, I..." Mary struggled to find the words. "What if you're wrong about what's right, though? What if all this time, you've actually been doing the wrong thing?"

"Come on, you're being ridiculous!" Cass said, raising his voice. "I could just ask you the same question, it's pointless!

Listen, Sharp," he continued, "I haven't been a good friend to you. I get that. I made stupid assumptions, I used you without really considering your feelings. That's all I wanted to say to you just now! But it feels like you're trying to imply I'm not a good pokémon, just because I've made some stupid mistakes! Are you telling me you've never made a mistake before?"

His words cut her deep. After all, it was one mistake after another that had put her in this situation in the first place. She sighed.

"More than you could know," she said sadly. "I'm sorry, Cass."

"Aww, it's okay!" Cass said brightly, standing up with a smile. "I'm sorry too. But listen, and I know it's not what you want to hear, but I think it's time for us to figure this out for real."

Cass stood before her, and showed her the back of his injured paw. She gasped – it was already healed.

"I'm strong, Sharp," he grinned. "You've seen it, and you've seen how Sahra Town and the guild knows it. Sharp, I know you're keeping things secret, and I'll respect that from now on, I promise. But I just know you're special! You're a part of something really huge, I can feel it. I want to be your ally, Sharp. I want to be a part of what's to come, and I want to emerge as the greatest hero who's ever lived.

If it really matter to you that much that I'm doing this for the 'wrong reasons', then... okay, I guess. You don't have to stick with me. But if you want – or maybe need? – my help, I promise I'll be the strongest ally you'll ever meet. Deal?"

He extended his uninjured paw face down in front of her. She stared at it, overwhelmed with the weight of everything. She didn't know what to think any more. His motivations still didn't sit perfectly with her, but did it really even matter? What matters most, she thought, is that I think he really would make a good ally.

She placed the flat of her blade on top of his paw.

"Yeah!" Cass whooped, swinging his paw up, and dragging her arm with him. "Team Cascade is official! You won't regret it, Sharp, I promise!"

"I already am," she said, rolling her eyes, and smiling.

"Okay, let's get some serious training in now!" he said, jumping back and taking a battle stance again. Mary nodded, and charged.

By the end of the day, Team Cascade was exhausted. They had decided that Cass would show her everything else the next day. Mary let Cass lead her back through Sahra town. It was already getting dark, and the lamps were lit. They crossed the two sand rivers, and climbed their way to the guild's entrance. It was dark inside.

"Huh," Cass scratched his head. "Where are the gem-lights?"

Mary just shrugged.

"Guess we'll have to feel our way. Here, let me hold your arm, I think I can do this in the dark."

Mary let Cass take her by the arm, and lead her into the darkness. It was unnerving, but they were making steady progress. From memory, it seemed like Cass was leading them back to the mess hall. They turned another corner...

There was a blinding blue flash as the gem-lights turned back on. Mary and Cass found themselves surrounded by pokémon of all shapes and sizes in the mess hall. Mary squinted in the light, her eyes still adjusting, and saw a huge banner strung up across the far wall:

CONGRATULATIONS!

"Congratulations Cass!" the room echoed, as all the pokémon cheered for them. Midnight approached them from the side sheepishly.

"I only told my team leader! But Steelix insisted on all this..."

"Ah, it's okay!" Cass laughed nervously. "But how did you get all this done without the guildmaster knowing?"

"Well... actually..." Midnight looked towards the banner guiltily. Mary followed her eyes, and saw none other than Mienshao stepping forward and clearing his throat. The room fell silent. Mary stole a glance at Cass – he looked pale.

"Yesterday marked the end of Cascade's final day as a solo team," he said softly. Mary leaned forward, almost struggling to hear him. "Cascade has worked diligently since his induction, rising through the ranks due to his remarkable dedication and skill."

The crowd whooped briefly, and then fell silent as Mienshao cleared his throat again. "Cascade has often stated that he never intended to add a member to his team, and took pride in his solo status. However, it seems that there is a force in this world stronger than pride.

Love," Mienshao announced. "We are all... delighted to learn that Cascade has finally found someone to love, as teammate and partner. Thank you."

Mienshao stepped away as the crowd exploded.

"No, everyone, it's not like that!" Cass spluttered. "This is a misunderstanding-"

Cass stopped short as he realised he was still holding onto Mary's arm. He let go and started waving his arms around in protest, but nobody heard him. Mary couldn't help but crack a small smile.