"The Rescuer's Guild has always been old-fashioned about things. It takes a day to get there by flight or by foot, half if you rush it, and they don't have any connection orb technology to reach them faster. But even so... no word in or out for a week is unsettling. It just doesn't happen."

~ Citizen of Baram Town

~\({O})/~

3.

The Deserted Plaza

~\({O})/~

Baram Town ~ Air Continent

~Mawile and Archen~

"I never understood how you manage to sleep on Lapras' backs," Archen said, ruffling his feathers in exhaustion as he stepped onto the dock after Mawile. He yawned, covering his beak with a feather. It didn't make him feel any less tired. "Don't you ever worry about falling off?"

The many painted windmills of Baram Town stood proudly above them, vanes lazily turning in the early morning breeze. On any normal day, seeing the windmills slowly rotating in the morning sun would have been a breathtaking sight worth the six-hour journey it took to get there. Today was not a normal day, and despite his sane 'mon's inability to sleep on lapras shells, they wouldn't be staying in town for more than an hour. Long nights and early mornings made Archen a very cranky bird.

Mawile, whose time management he sorely referred to as 'Drop-Dead Organization', wanted to be back in Baram Town before dark, which apparently meant chartering a lapras in the dead of night and setting out only moments after. They'd just arrived in Baram Town at the crack of dawn, and Lapras promised to return for them the next day.

Mawile marked off the second box on a page in her travel journal, which Archen saw was marked 'Arrive in Baram Town' (the first was 'Charter Lapras').

"Trial and error," she replied, stowing the journal away in her exploration bag. "You learn quickly where the best spots to sleep on a lapras' back are once you've tried it a couple of times."

Archen shivered at the thought. He never cared much for water in the first place, let alone doing something as foolhardy as what past Mawile had apparently attempted. If only he could fly… This mission would be over already, he ruminated.

The paved streets of Baram were still mostly empty for what was undoubtedly a major tourist attraction, currently belonging to the early birds, miscellaneous other early 'mon, and pairs of unfortunate explorers such as themselves. Even Kecleon was still hurriedly setting up shop as Mawile and Archen walked over to his stall.

"Ah—just a minute!" he called out with a sense of manufactured cheer and a grin that was way too wide, hurriedly straightening things on all their shelves. "I'll be ready for you in just a minute~! Bit of a late day today…"

Archen had a bit of a hard time fathoming how anymon could consider this late, but he wasn't given the time to think on it. Mawile handed him her exploration bag for the items, which Archen reluctantly took in his wings.

"Welcome to the Kecleon Shop!" Kecleon chirped, straightening his apron discreetly. "What would you like to purchase?"

"Everything on this list, please." Mawile handed him a sizeable list. "I assume you're fully stocked?"

Kecleon suddenly looked far more distressed than what was good for business.

"Actually…" he began, wringing his spindly lizard claws together uncomfortably, "My shipments come from the Rescuer's Guild in Pokemon Plaza. I haven't had a delivery in over two weeks, I'm afraid…" The wringing of his claws intensified. A stress tic. Archen was good at reading those.

Mawile took a minute to study the list.

"I think we can make a few exceptions, then," she conceded, pulling an inked quill out of the bag Archen was holding and deftly crossing several things off. Kecleon's face relaxed considerably at the large number of crossed-out items when Mawile handed it back. "We happen to be on our way to Pokemon Plaza ourselves," she said.

"R-really?" Kecleon's face lit up as he removed items from the shelves. "What for?"

"HAPPI business," Archen grumpily chimed in before Mawile could answer. Grunt work, more like. "We're investigating the sudden cut-off of communications in the area."

"Perhaps you'll take a look-see for the lucario who delivers my stocks every week?" Kecleon asked hopefully, setting the last of the items on the counter. "I'll throw in a future discount…" he hurriedly added immediately afterwards.

"We'll keep an eye out." Mawile's reply was short and prompt. "The bill, please?"

"Oh—yes—I'm just forgetting things left and right lately—"

Kecleon dived under the counter, emerging with a quill and paper. He tallied the prices of all the ingredients up in his head so fast Archen was surprised they hadn't established a shopkeeper's monopoly yet (until his tired mind reminded him that they had), writing the final bill at the bottom of the paper and sliding it to Mawile.

"That'll be 5500 Poke," Kecleon finished cheerfully. "Except for the tiny reviver seeds. I'm afraid I'm plumb out of those."

Mawile dug through the bag Archen held for the money, handing it to Kecleon and placing the items in the bag. Archen slung it over his back as they left the stall.

"Here." Mawile took the bag from Archen and handed him a chesto berry as they walked through Baram Plaza. "Breakfast."

Archen took it reluctantly, watching Mawile pull out a chesto berry of her own and take a large bite of it. It seemed she was more tired than she let on. All those nights of sleepless rune research must be taking their toll after all.

"It'll take us approximately seven hours to arrive at Pokemon Plaza," Mawile stated, taking another bite of the bitter berry. "In other words, high noon. We both need to be at our best for this."

She downed the rest of it like it was a rare delicacy. Archen grimaced through his beak at the sight. He grumbled quietly before taking a bite. This was going to give him tummy issues later.

~\({O})/~

Village Square

~Espurr~

The village square, it turned out, was most packed just before sunset on a Monday evening. Serenity Villagers scrambled around in a hurry, trying to gather all their supplies and grab an early dinner before the shops and café closed for the night. They hurriedly went about their business, narrowly skirting around Vice Principal Watchog and his trail of students, as well as the wooden wagon they carried their supplies in.

"Wait right here," Watchog ordered them as they approached Kecleon's stall. "I have to purchase the non-pickables. I don't want to see you standing one centimeter out of place when I return, or I'll assign summer detention for all three of you. Got it?"

"Got it…" All three students recited wearily.

Satisfied enough, Watchog started towards Kecleon's stall, leaving the three students on their own. Espurr took a seat on the ground the moment he had turned his back, almost drooping with sleep just like her classmates. The day had taken quite a toll on all three of them, Watchog's detention in particular. As someone who had woken up early that day, it was taking most of Espurr's willpower to keep herself from napping where she sat.

"Good evening, students."

All three students glanced up wearily at the pokemon who had greeted them, suddenly straightening up and leaping to their feet when they saw who it was. Audino adjusted her exploration bag over her shoulder, a smallish purse in her other paw.

"N-Nurse Audino!" Tricky immediately made an effort to look awake, only succeeding in making herself look constipated instead. "We totally weren't sleeping on you right now. Trust us!"

"I hope 'Vice Principal' Watchog hasn't been too hard on you," she said with air quotes, trying to keep a straight face at the sight of Tricky's acting. "He has a penchant for working the detention students to the brink of exhaustion sometimes." Audino's sentence ended with a bit of fuchsia edge to her voice. Even without it, Espurr could sense she didn't have a very good opinion of him.

"W-we know…" Goomy sighed dejectedly.

"You all behaved yourselves?" A brash voice rang out behind them. Everymon turned around to face Watchog, who lugged back a week's worth of nuts in his paws. He glowered at all three of the students as he approached. "Did anymon move?"

"Oh, put a wooper in it, Watchog," Audino retorted, suddenly less cheery. "They were with me the entire time, and I haven't seen them move once."

Espurr, Tricky, and Goomy were treated to the rare sight of watching Watchog's face suddenly grow spooked as he noticed Audino for the first time. "A-Audino!" he muttered nervously, tightly gripping the sack the nuts were held in. "Fancy seeing you here…"

"Happened to be in the area; thought I'd lend a helping paw," Audino replied. "Somemon has to look out for the students' health, after all, and it's not going to be you."

"Really?" Watchog folded his arms defensively. "They're just as happy to cause trouble on any other day. The way I see it, this is a useful waste of their energy."

"Oh, you did not just go there…"

Espurr happily tuned out what was obviously about to devolve into a colorful argument, instead watching the cloaked pokemon who was clumsily wandering through the square. He was yellow from head to toe; for what little the earth-green cloak concealed, it did nothing to hide the pokemon underneath. Espurr stepped out from behind the arguing Audino and Watchog, heading over towards the Kecleon Stall to get a better look.

"Pardon me—coming through, I'm afraid—" He stumbled through a group of conversing pokemon after tripping on a rock, the orangeish orb on his tail glowing dimly in what Espurr assumed must have been embarrassment. Was this normal? She thought. He seemed so… clumsy.

Tricky yawned loudly, walking over to stick her nose into the second most interesting thing happening in the square at that moment. Her eyes widened once she saw the pokemon.

"What's his problem?" she asked, for once too tired to set off another domino stack of mischief. Espurr looked at her briefly, no longer surprised by her abrupt interruptions anymore.

"He's not from around here, right?" Espurr asked.

"Well, duh." Tricky rolled her eyes as she sat. "Who runs like that?!"

As if on cue, the pokemon stirred from the ground, picking himself up dizzily. Espurr's eyes widened.

"He's about to charge straight at us," she suddenly said. Tricky opened her mouth to say something to the contrary—

"—My sincerest apologies, madame," the tall yellow pokemon apologized to a passing lotad as he picked himself up from the ground. "I think it's this way," he confidently stated, pointing straight in Tricky's direction. Only seconds later, he tripped over the exact same rock that had sent him sprawling to the ground in the first place. Both Espurr and Tricky barely managed to clear the way before the pokemon went barreling through and stopped just short of an unremarkable red, bird-styled tent near the southwest side of the square.

Espurr blinked twice in shock at the sight, watching Tricky stare at the crashed pokemon, eyes wide and mouth agape.

The pokemon twitched, raising himself from the ground clumsily.

"Pardon…" he apologized, trying his best to regain his bearings. "I'm afraid I possess a natural predisposition towards clumsiness."

"You wha?" Tricky's ears fell at the complicated vocabulary.

"I have an awful sense of direction." the pokemon tried his best to simplify the sentence. A second later, he shook his head.

"Oh, where are my manners?" he lamented. "My name is Ampharos. A traveling pokemon, known far and wide as…"

In a sudden burst of flamboyance, he whipped the cloak off, posing dramatically. "The Dashing Wanderer!"

The noise managed to grab the attention of a few 'mon in the square, who looked at him in annoyance. Poor Goomy, who had fallen asleep out of sheer exhaustion, was rudely snapped awake again.

"I might ask your names now," the Dashing Wanderer inquired, dropping his pose now that he had unwittingly attracted the attention of half the pokemon in Serenity Village.

"I'm Tricky. That's Espurr." Tricky's introduction was swift and effective. "We're going to join the Expedition Society when we get older!"

It was Espurr's turn to let her mouth hang open in shock. She caught it before it could become embarrassing, staring at Tricky in surprise. When had she agreed to that?! She was about to say so, but Tricky didn't give her an opening.

"You're a travelling pokemon, right?" Tricky promptly began to bombard Ampharos with her usual truckload of questions, all tiredness forgotten for the time being. "Have you been to the Expedition Society? Have you? Huh?"

"That…" the yellow pokemon paused, for obvious lack of a better answer. "…Is classified!"

"Oh…" The disappointment on Tricky's face set in faster than a flat cake. "What are you doing here, anyway?" she asked him. "We're just a loo stop on your way over the Mountain Range."

"Why, I came to see the sights, of course!" Ampharos replied cheerfully. "Serenity Village is known for its stunning scenery, after all." Ampharos glanced at Tricky's face for a minute to see if she had bought it or not. He was making this all up on the spot, of course. He couldn't reveal his true reasons for travelling to the Village.

"But now, unfortunately, I must now bid you all adieu, goodbye, tally-ho!" he exclaimed, stumbling up towards the Café Connection. "I have some important errands to tend to."

~\({O})/~

In other words, Ampharos had an important pokemon to find. And after an hour of walking around the village, he was none the closer to finding the mon he was looking for. He stopped at the door of the café, feigning a loss of breath to buy himself some time to think. In just about an hour, he had discreetly 'tested' every single adult pokemon who happened to live in the village. The place was rather secluded. Newcomers wouldn't get far without knowing the lay of the land, he theorized, which all-but ruled out the pokemon he was looking for.

His questions were mere history trivia, the sort of things anymon would know provided they'd grown up here all their lives. But so far every single adult pokemon in the village had answered his questions correctly, and therefore incorrectly, which allowed Ampharos to quickly narrow the possibilities down to three on the spot: they were A. dead/lost in the wilderness (Ampharos very much hoped it wasn't this one.), B. extremely clever and a good liar, or…

…C. They weren't an adult pokemon. Ampharos suddenly realized that last option made much more sense than it should have. But his actions today had already earned him the title of travelling madmon, he was sure; he couldn't simply go around asking about the village children! Not unless he planned to blow his cover, or spend a night in the local jail, thereby blowing his cover in the most undignified way possible. If only there was another way…

He glanced back at the pair of children he had just met. The fennekin had asked about the Expedition Society… Perhaps there was a silver lining to this after all. Disguising it as a quick bump against the doors of the café, he discreetly let his own spare Connection Orb fall from his bag. Ampharos was a minimalist packer, but he had found it was always wise to keep a spare connection orb on him. It rolled out in the middle of the square, over to where he knew they would see it.

Sure enough, a moment later, he saw the espurr and fennekin walk over, picking it up and chattering to themselves amongst it. A few times he got the creeping feeling the espurr could see him through the window, but he was pretending to stare at a menu, so he doubted the young pokemon suspected anything. This way… He'd have his answer in no time flat. If the newly arrived Human was among the village children, he'd roll with it. If not… He'd just ask for the orb back a few days later. Win-win. Ampharos began to truthfully study the menu for the first time.

Espurr and Tricky took a good long look at the Café Connection as the kooky ampharos chatted with Kangaskhan.

"That… was mega weird," Tricky concluded, after a long, quiet pause.

~\({O})/~

Serenity Village

"I mean, we don't get a lot of tourists here," Tricky said, orbiting Espurr as they walked up towards the residential section of Serenity Village . "We're super out of the way! The last one was…

"…well… you," she finished, tilting her head at Espurr.

Espurr declined to say anything in response, still inspecting the glassy blue orb their mutual acquaintance had dropped earlier. Tricky had a point, she realized. The 'Dashing Wanderer', whatever his true name and motives, was a shady character at best.

"Now that I think of it… you never told me where you came from, did you?" Tricky asked, slowing to a trot beside Espurr. "That's like, question number #2 on the list of things friends should know about each other!"

Espurr mentally froze. She still didn't have an alibi of any kind to cover for her lack of memory past the last couple of days!

"It's like I said," she replied, staring at Tricky. "I… got lost in the woods, and Nurse Audino found me and took me here."

"Yeah, but where did you come from?" Tricky dashed in front of Espurr, walking backwards up the path. 'Come on—I want the juicy bits!"

Espurr panicked inside. There were no 'juicy bits' to give! Aside from the trio of beheeyem that apparently wanted her hide, but she had a nagging feeling that was best kept to herself. And with six days of Watchog's taxing detentions ahead of them, she'd barely given any thought to the issue at all.

"I… don't want to talk about it," she finally said, directing her eyes to the orb so Tricky didn't take her stare as cue to continue prodding.

"Spoilsport." Tricky spun around, scurrying up the road and heading towards a house decorated like a large blue shell.

"C'mon!" she yelled back at Espurr, a ways ahead. "You get to meet my Pops today!"

Espurr looked up at the uniquely-decorated house, and then smartly stashed the orb in a nearby bush.

~\({O})/~

Carracosta's House

"So." The immense blue turtle grunted out, one of his flippers curled around a large spoon. A massive spread of different dishes lay in front of them, Tricky's plates piled high with choice selections from every dish. Espurr sat next to her with a small piece of fish on her plate.

"Yep." Tricky replied happily between messy laps from a bowl of rawst berry soup.

"You brought a friend." The turtle took a deliberate sip from the spoon, eyeing Espurr suspiciously.

"Yep." Tricky took a large bite of a stuffed bell pepper lying on a plate to her left.

"On leftover night."

"Yep." Crumbs went flying everywhere as she scarfed down half of a piece of peachberry cake on the plate to her right.

"Use your table manners!" he shouted, jarring her out of the cake she was currently driving her snout into. "We don't eat like dungeon ferals in front of our guests!"

Tricky jumped, immediately straightening up and cleaning up her eating habits. Espurr was taken aback by the sudden outburst, but seeing that Tricky had already returned to normal calmed her down a little.

"But I have to practice my Dungeon Eating, Pops… " Tricky said with a hint of manufactured gloom.

"What is Dungeon Eating." The big blue turtle asked, tired. He had seen too much of this.

Immediately Tricky perked up again, her eyes gleaming with that mischievous glint Espurr was beginning to know too well.

"Weeeeell…" she began. "You know how you're in a mystery dungeon, and you don't have the time to sit down and prepare great big meals?"

"No." Tricky's father replied, his tone as flat as the one-word sentence he spoke.

"Well, it happens!" Tricky continued. "And that's what Dungeon Eating's for!"

"And how does this 'Dungeon Eating' work?"

"Easy!" Tricky declared. "You just eat everything on your plate as fast as you can! Like this…"

Carracosta stopped Tricky with another one of his outbursts before she could begin messily scarfing her food down again.

"NO! I won't hear of it! You'll eat your food like a respectable 'mon, or not at all!"

"Fine…"

Tricky sat down, taking smaller bites of her cake. Crumbs still flew, probably to Carracosta's dismay, but not nearly as many.

Silently deciding that trying to interpret what had just happened in front of her wasn't worth the brainpower, Espurr took a polite bite of the fish on her plate.

~\({O})/~

"And this is my room!"

Tricky led Espurr into her bedroom, a quaint, empty room located on the western wing of the house.

"It's kind of empty…" Espurr noted, taking in the bareness of the room.

Tricky scoffed. "Well, lucky you, sleeping in Nurse Audino's office. We kids just don't have the privilege! Besides, the thing I really wanna show you is hidden on purpose."

She began to scurry towards the corner of the room where her bed was (An actual bed; Espurr realized, not a mass of straw. Tricky's father must have been generous).

"You've hidden things by accident?" Espurr asked, incredulous. Coming from Tricky, that sounded worryingly plausible.

"Do you really wanna know the answer to that?" Tricky asked, foraging under her bed. "Or do you wanna see my secret?" Without waiting for an answer, she dived head-first under the bed, rummaging around in all the junk.

Espurr waited a few minutes, then decided to peek under the bed as Tricky dug. A yellow paw slapped her away amongst the digging.

"No spoilers!" A muffled Tricky yelled from under the bed. A few dusty books with the picture of what looked like a turtle pokemon on the cover inadvertently slid out on the floor from all Tricky's digging.

A moment later, Tricky herself emerged from under the bed, releasing both a cloud of dust that shot out into both their faces, and a box.

"Ready?" she asked. Espurr didn't feel that question particularly needed to be answered.

Tricky threw open the box, and pulled out a pair of scarves. She proudly displayed them in front of Espurr, who didn't know what to think.

"These are my most prized possessions!" Tricky declared happily, holding them in front of Espurr's nose. Espurr felt it twitch uncomfortably as the dust particles went up her nostrils.

"That's… Nice…" she choked out, trying to hold in a sneeze.

Espurr's sudden sneezing fit even managed to reach Carracosta's ears from all the way from across the hall.

"Huh." Tricky shook the scarves to expel all the dust. "They are a little dusty, aren't they? I haven't used them in so long…"

She slipped one around her neck, trying to get a feel of the material again.

"Like 'em?" she joyfully asked Espurr, trotting circles around the room. "I totally forgot about them until now! I used to wear these both to school every day."

Espurr carefully picked the spare scarf up with her good paw, admiring the sky-blue fabric the garments were made of. The scarves looked normal, but even so she could feel some kind of power trapped inside their folds. She turned it around in her paw, noticing what looked like the tiniest nick just above the tie of the neck.

"They're nice," she said, looking up at Tricky. "What's the nic—"

"I know, right?" Tricky cut in. She was practically beaming with excitement. "I don't remember why I stopped wearing them—"

She suddenly froze mid-sentence, her ears lowering just a little. Espurr caught the motion before it disappeared, and she felt a sudden wave of deep blue negativity pierce through her head. It was the same as back outside the Foreboding Forest, and it blotted out Espurr's thoughts until she moved back a bit. She could tell it was coming straight from Tricky.

"Tricky?" she asked. The fennekin didn't even glance at her. Espurr noticed she was staring at the floor, breathing hard. "Is something wrong?"

Tricky quickly removed the scarf, putting it back in the case. She nearly bit the scarf out of Espurr's paw, spitting it out on top of the other one and shutting the lid of the case fast as she could.

"I'm fine…" she said with much more assertiveness than she needed to, shoving the case back under her bed, and all of the sudden she was back to her normal, perky self. The negative cloud disappeared in an instant, leaving Espurr reeling. She quickly caught her balance against Tricky's bed, waiting a few seconds until the dizziness left her. What had that been?

"See? I'm fine!" Tricky chirped. It was like she didn't even remember what had happened before. "Wanna help me clean up after dinner? Pops loves cooking, but he hates mess. And the best part is, he doesn't even notice when the leftovers go missing!"

Espurr didn't think that was the best part at all, but humored Tricky anyway. She was about to ask Tricky what had just happened, but Tricky hadn't even waited for her answer, bounding down the hall excitedly with the assumption Espurr would follow after her.

"What're you talking about?" she asked later on when Espurr questioned her. "I don't remember anything like that. I don't!"

Her cheery expression looked strained, until it all disappeared just a minute later. All in all, Espurr didn't know what to make of it. It was bizarre.

Between the two of them and Tricky's bottomless stomach, the table was cleared in only ten minutes, and the empty dishes set aside for Carracosta to Water Gun to cleanliness later. Afterwards, Espurr bid both Tricky and Carracosta good night, and set off on her way to the school. Even with her head awash with thoughts of Tricky's strange spell and her own day, she almost remembered to pick up the strange blue orb on her way out.

Almost.

~\({O})/~

Road to Pokemon Plaza

~Mawile and Archen~

For a place referred to as the Air Continent, there seemed to be an amazing amount of forests and underbrush and an amazing lack of free space. Archen held back as Mawile's back maw chomped down on an invasive branch, ripped it off the tree, and chucked it to the side. This happened often. Archen had already lost count.

"How close are we?" he asked grumpily, a tiny bit of edge creeping back into his normally scratchy voice. Chesto berries didn't agree well with his stomach.

Mawile looked up from the map she was reading.

"Very worrying," she spoke up a moment later, seemingly ignoring Archen's question.

"What's worrying?" Archen asked bluntly.

"If I'm reading this map correctly," Mawile calmly began, letting her back maw latch onto another invasive branch, "Then we should be getting close to Pokemon Plaza. And yet, the underbrush remains just as untamed as it's been this whole trip."

Archen raised an eyebrow in skepticism, unable to see how that meant anything. Seconds later, another branch was torn from the tree and tossed to the side.

"So?" he asked, stepping around the splintered branch stem.

"Pokemon Plaza is a frequented area," Mawile continued. "Therefore, the land around it should be maintained weekly, unlike the anomaly we see here." She gestured briefly to the overgrown flora around her, recording the present discoveries on her clipboard.

Archen shrugged the best he could with a sack of dungeon supplies around his back. "Maybe Air Continentals just don't like tidiness," he said.

"I think not," Mawile answered. "We're on the main traveling route. Pokemon from all continents frequent this path. But these shrubs have been growing for a couple of weeks unchecked, minimum."

"Then maybe you read the map wrong," Archen proposed.

He didn't notice Mawile had stopped until he bumped straight into her humongous back maw. A moment later, he saw why. Just ten feet down the path, a tarped wagon sat on its side. The most putrid of smells wafted from under the tarp, making Archen want to puke up the chesto berry he had consumed earlier.

Then again, his stomach argued. Maybe that would be a good thing.

Hitched to the wagon sat a perfect stone statue of a lucario, staring up at the sky in horror at something that was no longer there.

Mawile and Archen approached the wagon quickly. Mawile attempted to stuff away her map as she went. The details on the lucario statue were near life-like. Its paws were on the harness that attached it to the cart, curled around straps that hadn't been undone on time. If it had not sat right before her, Mawile wouldn't have believed such intricate sculpting was possible…

…Unless it wasn't. She recalled Kecleon's words of worry: "My shipments come from the Rescuer's Guild in Pokemon Plaza. I haven't had a delivery in over two weeks, I'm afraid…" Was it such a stretch to believe… ?

Ignoring Archen's incessant feather-ruffling, Mawile strode over to the tarped wagon, holding her breath when the smell became too putrid to bear. She whipped off the tarp with her maw, spinning full circle and casting the tarp away to see what the wagon held.

" I knew it…" Mawile muttered, taking out her journal and recording the finding as Archen gagged in the distance.

Setting the journal aside, Mawile leaned in towards the mishmash of rotting berries and other ingredients, picking up an oran by the stem in her paw. It had molded over and bruised in several places, and felt more like a miniature sack of water than anything else.

"Ugh…" Archen muttered in the background, his voice now hoarse. "Sleep deprivation and vomiting in one day… sucks."

Mawile set the berry back down, brushing her paws off as she stepped back.

"A week old, by the looks of it," she said aloud for Archen's benefit. "This must have been Kecleon's shipment. And if this is the delivery…"

They both stared back at the statue that sat in front of the cart as the full implications of that deduction hit them.

Mawile inspected the statue carefully, noticing further all the life-like details the statue had to it. Far too many for it to be a statue.

"He was attacked from behind," Mawile stated, stepping back. "And if this example is anything to go by, we can assume all of Pokemon Plaza looks like this as well."

The findings were recorded in Mawile's journal, and then they pressed forward. Mawile' deductions held true as they went. The underbrush only seemed to get worse the further in they treaded, and eventually they happened upon the statue of a scyther wildly slashing at something from the underbrush.

"The hedgekeeper, I assume." Mawile marked it all down on her journal. Archen fearfully glanced at the statue as they went.

They could see the short buildings of the great city of Pokemon Plaza through the trees as they walked. The area around them was eerily quiet. Soon after that, Mawile and Archen entered the main square of the city, which was filled with the statues of countless pokemon running in terror. Some were frozen in place, permanently going about their day in a fossilized shard of time, while others had apparently been caught running about in terror. From the looks on their faces, none of them had seen it coming.

"Okay…" Archen nervously ruffled his feathers. "We've seen what we need to. Let's go back now. We'll declare the place off-limits, done."

"We can't declare the place off-limits until we have solid grounds to do so on," Mawile told him, pulling both their expedition gadgets from her bag and handing one to Archen. "I'll need a little help photographing everything. Starting…"

She walked over to the Plaza's secondary entrance, where a collection of the five largest statues stood. Mawile only needed to lay her eyes on them once to recognize them immediately: Teams Go-Getters and A.C.T., reduced to nothing but stone statues. Like almost every statue the pair had encountered so far, they were standing in battle position, ready to fight something that had obviously overpowered them all in seconds. Mawile barely restrained her panic to a muted gasp. She was shaken, but she couldn't let it get the best of her. The best thing to do right now was to take photos and report back to the Expedition Society. Lest whatever had done this come back again.

Archen photographed the various statues on the opposite side of the square, working in tandem with Mawile until they had amassed through pictures a decent reconstruction of the scene. Looking through the evidence, Mawile didn't notice the dark figure slinking along the rooftop until it accidentally kicked a roof tile to the ground. She spun around just in time to see it conjure what seemed like a shadow ball with its claws, aiming at Archen.

"Look out—"

Mawile dropped her expedition gadget, pulling Archen out of the way before the attack could land. It exploded against the wall of a house, turning the doorway to stone.

Both Mawile and Archen assumed a battle stance, looking straight at the blurred figure that stood on the roof. It was muscular, quadrupedal, and pitch-black; it looked like somemon had cut a hole in the fabric of reality.

"Expedition Society!" Archen shouted, showing the figure his badge. "Stand down and follow us!"

It was a vain gesture. He barely jumped out of the way of another shadow attack. The figure bounded off the roof and loped straight towards them. Mawile and Archen dove out of the way just in time, The figure crashed into a storefront in the square and brought the building collapsing down on it with a crash.

Dust settled, and Mawile and Archen picked themselves up.

"W-w-w-what was that?" Archen asked, his voice picking up into a squawk.

"Be on your guard," Mawile said, her eyes fixed the rubble of the storefront begin to shift. "It's coming back."

The rubble exploded outwards—

A hasty Protect barrier from Archen was enough to shield them both from the debris. The rubble flew to the side, leaving them untouched. That was why Mawile had chosen Archen.

The charging figure that emerged from the wreckage a split second later tried to snap them up in its claws as it went, but Mawile pulled herself and Archen down low. The monster skidded over them, ramping up against the houses on the other end and charging back at them.

Mawile was swift. As Archen charged a Dragon Breath in retaliation, she pulled a blast seed from her exploration bag, and hurled it at the creature in time with Archen's attack—

The purple-colored explosion created by both the blast seed and the Dragon Breath would have brought the world's strongest pokemon to the brink of fainting, and both Mawile and Archen had to quickly scramble back to avoid being damaged by the resulting explosion as well. But, when the explosion cleared, the shadowy figure was still standing all the same. Mawile almost lost her bearings in shock. What creature was it, to survive a blast as powerful as that?

The shadowy creature took a shaky step towards them, then another. It was clearly damaged, she could tell.

It began to conjure a third attack. Mawile prepared to lure its aim elsewhere and dodge at the last second. But then, out of the blue, the figure stopped. Its body seemed to lock up just like one of Jirachi's malfunctioning robots. Mawile and Archen watched as it began to convulse violently, and then suddenly burst into tiny scraps of ash that floated off into the sky. There was nothing inside its body but more of the darkness that encompassed its outer shell.

Archen caught his breath heavily, picking up his fallen gadget from the ground.

"Are those good enough grounds for you?" he asked, trying to keep his voice down to a reasonable level. Mawile could still hear the fear in it.

She gathered her bag and gadget silently, recovering from the event. In all her years of exploration, she had never seen, heard, or read about anything like that before.

Unbeknownst to the two explorers, a single flake of blackness blew off in the wind, off in the direction of Baram Town, in the direction of the sea.

Finished gathering their supplies, Mawile and Archen began the return trip to Baram Town. It would prove one of their most bicker-free trips to date.

~\({O})/~

School Clinic

~Espurr~

"That was mighty irresponsible of him," Audino grumbled as she removed Espurr's cast. Espurr sat on one of the straw beds, watching her carefully cut it away. It was made of a hardened green block of paste, one that curled around Espurr's arm and kept it from healing bent. It was soiled and dirty from the day's activities, and some dirt had even wormed its way through the cast and onto her arm.

"I tried to advocate to the Principal in favor of your injury," Audino continued, cutting through the cast and removing it, "But he insisted nothing would happen! That it wouldn't get dirtied or wet or torn off…" she scoffed, setting the cast aside. "Sometimes I think he's just as ignorant as his Vice Principal is."

She got up to retrieve another cast from her medicine cabinet, leaving Espurr to look over her broken arm. It throbbed dully, the pain centering where the fracture must have been. The cast had kept Espurr from moving it too much, and over the course of the past two days, the pain had become little more than background noise in her mind. She tried to move it, suddenly feeling it return tenfold. Espurr let out a sudden gasp as the white-hot pain shot up her arm.

"Keep it still," Audino said. "It might grow back crooked if you move it too much."

Using a pair of sanitized leaves, she cleaned the arm off before wrapping the new cast around it.

"Now, you don't move that under any circumstances," Audino told Espurr, standing up. "Understand? If Watchog tells you to do anything of the sort, you tell him it's the nurse's orders." She put the medical supplies back inside the cupboard, closing the door with just a hint of repressed anger.

"Sleep well, you two." She set her exploration bag near the side, draping cloths over the luminous moss and heading into the clinic's back room for the night.

There was a sudden rustling of straw behind her. Espurr jumped, startled, then tried to get a better look. Nurse Audino had said two, after all…

"Don't look at me." Deerling's dejected voice drifted out from the bed behind Espurr.

Espurr tried to turn herself around the best she could without disturbing her arm.

"I don't think we've properly met," she said, preparing to introduce herself. "I'm—"

"Save it," Deerling hissed. "I'm not in the mood. Go to sleep."

~\({O})/~

Cloud Nine Archives: Rescuer's Guild

The oldest and largest rescue establishment in the world, the Rescuer's Guild stands proud as a beacon of the Air Continent's strength and stability. Run by legendary hero Wartortle, the guild handles distribution of important supplies and rescue teams across the entire continent. The guild was the last to cross over to HAPPI upon the collapse of the Rescue Team Federation, and makes its conservative stance publicly clear, mandating that HAPPI stay out of its inner workings and barring new-age connection orbs and emera technology from its premises. Despite its isolation, the guild is vital to the Air Continent's stability, and is relied on by every town on the continent.

Music of the week!

Reason - Yoshihiro Ike