The doctor kept a watchful eye on Mandy all night, but to his surprise her fever subsided late in the early morning hours, so he knew that she had only caught a 24-hour virus and that she was going to be just fine after she had gotten some rest. His final decision was to keep Mandy in bed and keep her comfortable for the day so that her virus wouldn't come back, and he planned to tell Archie this when he came to check on the child.
Archie came back to check on the child around 7:00 that morning. "Aw…... She's still asleep……. I hope she feels better." Archie said, while looking at Mandy.
"Archie, I would like to keep Mandy in bed until late this afternoon so that I can be sure that the virus she caught doesn't come back." The doctor said.
Archie looked surprised. "She caught a virus!?" Archie exclaimed in a shocked manner.
"Don't worry, Archie, little children are always coming down with some type of sickness that doesn't last long. She'll be perfectly well by this afternoon, she only needs rest, so don't worry." The doctor glanced at Mandy before he looked at Archie again and asked, "Did you contact the Fallarbor Police yet?"
Archie looked up from where he was watching Mandy before he replied, "No, not yet, I'll do that in a minute, but you're right, if Mandy is that missing child it can't go unreported; so I will get in touch with them."
"Good, though I wonder what will happen to Mandy if she turns out to be the missing child." The doctor remarked.
"Most likely they'll come for Mandy and try to place her with other relatives." Archie replied.
"You're probably right about that, though there is there a chance that Maxie could recover the child when you're turning her over to the police?" The doctor asked, clearly concerned about Mandy's safety.
"If Maxie recovers her, he's probably going to try to raise her as his child, if that happens there's a good chance that Maxie will pull Mandy into his team when she gets old enough. I can't afford to let that happen because I care for Mandy's well-being and I would hate to see her get hurt by my team……." Archie replied.
"I'm sure you'd think of someway to capture her in a way that didn't involve hurting her." The doctor remarked after a pause.
"Yeah, hmm…… I might use a Poliwhirl to hypnotize her into sleep so that she won't get hurt if Maxie manages to turn her against us." Archie said, after a moment of thinking.
The doctor nodded in agreement before he said, "True, that would work, and it wouldn't hurt her since that attack would only lull her to sleep, and it wouldn't hurt her while it was being used on her."
Archie looked at Mandy, praying that he wouldn't have to take the child captive again. "Though hopefully, we won't have to worry about that, and we can hope that Mandy will be placed with relatives and will grow up into a darling child." Archie said, still looking at Mandy.
"I hope that too. Now, if you want to contact the police, I think now would be a good time to do it, since we have no way of knowing whether Maxie will attack our base and manage to recover Mandy in that attempt." The doctor said.
"I'll do that." Archie replied.
~*~
Back at the Team Magma base, Maxie was hearing reports from one of his grunt spies, who had discovered that Team Aqua had a base near Petalburg, and that one of them had seen Archie carrying Mandy back to that base.
"So, you're telling me that you saw Archie carrying Mandy back to his other base?" Maxie asked one of his spies.
"Yes, sir, I saw Archie carrying the child to his base near Petalburg." The grunt replied.
"You know where the entrance to their base is, right?" Maxie asked.
"Yes, sir, I do." The grunt replied.
"Where is it?" Maxie questioned eagerly.
"They've dug their base underneath the Petalburg Woods. The entrance to it is underneath a large tree stump that they've fixed so that they can roll it off the entrance and then move it back over it to conceal it." The grunt replied.
"Good, now thanks to your information we can go retrieve Mandy. As a reward for your accomplishment, I'm going to promote you. You're an Admin now, Adam!" Maxie exclaimed, handing Adam a special pin.
Adam looked surprised. "Thank you, boss, I'll bear my new responsibility with pride and I await your next order." Adam said.
"Gather the grunts and have them meet me at the entrance, we're going to retrieve Mandy." Maxie replied.
"Yes, sir!" Adam now ran off to do as Maxie had asked him to do.
Little did Archie now that his alternate base had been found and also that Maxie and his grunts were coming for Mandy.