.18

Today's headline: Harsher weather may affect supply shipments to and from Waterport

Located off the coast of Air, the Waterport provides a hub space for much of the valuable supplies that sustain all five Continents. But the future of this merchants' heaven may be in jeopardy, as the promise of harsher weather on the horizon threatens to disrupt supply shipments to and from the floating market.

"Bureaucracy," grumbles one merchant. "Because of government laws, we can't just cut through land. We have to take this supplies all the way around the top or the bottom of the Air Continent. Either way is treacherous, and we lose more ships than we should on these journeys. Moreso now that storm season's a-coming."

Storms in recent years have grown harsher and more spontaneous for reasons that experienced meteorologists are still trying to pick apart. And with storm season on the way, the threat to cargo only grows larger.

~ Cloud Nine News Network

~\({O})/~

6.

The Council of Baram

~\({O})/~

Baram Town ~ Air Continent

~Mawile and Archen~

"It's too windy up here…" Archen complained, ruffling his feathers as he and Mawile crossed yet another fenceless, sky-high bridge between the massive windmills of Baram Town.

"You're in a better mood today," Mawile noted, tucking her journal back into her bag. The ground underneath them was elaborately paved, colored stone, which was beginning to warm up to uncomfortable levels in the hot sun.

"Yeah…" Archen ruffled his feathers nervously as they walked. "Well, sleep does wonders for mood, it turns out. Now if only we could tell that to the pokemon who scheduled this meeting…"

He looked upwards, met only with the sun and the looming presence of the windmills' massive vanes. They were on the highest bridge in the city, leading to the highest floor of the tallest building, a windmill so immense that scaling it could only have been practical for those with wings. The thought to look down over the side of the bridge briefly crossed Archen's mind, but he immediately edged just a little further away in response.

Flying types were flying types, but somemon ought to have installed fences for those who weren't blessed with the power of flight.

A pair of murkrow fluttered forwards as Mawile and Archen approached the large doors at the end of the bridge.

"Names, appointments," one of them droned out, reciting from a tired script.

"Mawile and Archen, Expedition Society," Mawile responded without skipping a beat. "Here to see Mayor Honchkrow. Appointments scheduled for 9:00 A.M. on Wednesday."

The murkrow checked his clipboard, routinely confirming Mawile's information, then stepped aside.

"The mayor will be with you shortly," he said, bobbing his head. "Until then, please enjoy your stay in the waiting room."

Mawile quickly took the lead, throwing open the doors with proper grace so they didn't hit the wall as they walked in.

The waiting room was suitably lofty for the space inside the highest windmill in Baram. Many stained-glass windows decorated the walls, and the floor was decked out in an impressive display of ceramic tile-art. Archen didn't like the way it felt against his talons, but he was happier to be over the fenceless bridges between the windmills than he was annoyed by the floor. Mawile, who didn't seem to be bothered by the floor at all, strode over and promptly took a seat on one of the lobby's backless stools.

"'Tha' right? Well, eat a mudkip for all I care! I'll just go set up my shop somewhere else!"

The fancy double doors of the mayor's office were forcefully thrown open, and out stomped a seething staraptor. They bent forward and made a very rude upwards gesture with their tail feathers, then stomped the rest of the way out of the room. The windmill's grand outer doors clanged with an echo behind them.

"Irregular," Archen heard Mawile quietly comment. She pulled out her journal and quickly began to mark something down, probably the broad outline of the event in her logs for future reference. Archen could hear the massive city bell ringing from a few floors below, clanging nine times to announce the arrival of 9:00 A.M.

A third murkrow stepped out of the office, carrying a scroll in its wings.

"Appointments scheduled for Mawile and Archen of the Expedition Society, at 9:00 A.M.?" he wearily announced.

"Present." Mawile sat up from the stool, flipping her journal and quill into her bag. She and Archen walked across the uncomfortable tile floor, crossing over from the tile outside to the much comfier carpeting of the Mayor's office. The door closed behind the pair of explorers, and then they faced the immense gut of Mayor Honchkrow.

It was nearly impossible to tell where the gut ended and the feathers began. The immense bird could barely fit behind his desk, and Archen was even more skeptical about his ability to fly. There were a pair of perches in the office in place of chairs, meaning non-bird visitors would have to stand.

"Sorry for my previous client's outburst," Honchkrow warbled, his accent distinctly the type Archen had only heard on birds from Baram Town.. "It's not the way I envisioned starting this meeting, but sometimes you get little blemishes staining the tapestry."

"It's no problem at all," Mawile said. "We barely noticed."

"Glad to hear it," Honchkrow said, fluffing his feathers. "I mean, speaking of staining the tapestry, did you know it's customary on the Grass Continent to just do your business wherever you please?"

Silence filled the room.

Mawile suddenly had a forced-sounding cough. Anything to move past the awkwardness of the moment.

"… No. We did not," she finally managed to get out.

"Well, neither did I," Honchkrow continued. "Until I became mayor. Those savages on Grass have opposed HAPPI and any sort of modern innovations for years, and still bother to call themselves 'civilized'. And they wanted to set up shops here! They'll be the end of us all, I tell you…"

With a scoff and a sigh, he clapped his wings together, leaning forward.

"Anyway… now that we have that behind us, let's get down to business, namely: Why were two cartographers sent to scope out the crisis on the Air Continent?"

Both Mawile and Archen were baffled by the mayor's sudden pivot.

"Car… tographers?" Archen asked.

"Mapmakers."

If stares could do damage, Archen was sure their confused stares combined would have burned a hole clean through the mayor.

" Now, now, nothing wrong with maps," Honchkrow corrected himself. "I love a good map. They make great napkins. But when mere map-making suddenly becomes interference on the level of a proper rescue guild, one has to assume…"

He let the sentence die in his breast. What he implied spoke louder.

"I think you'll find our credentials are steady," Mawile stated calmly, doing her best to keep her cool as always. "As the nearest registered HAPPI establishment, the Expedition Society was sent on behalf of the organization to investigate when teams from Mist couldn't. Upon arrival we proceeded in accordance with guidelines and are here to deliver our testimony on the matter as registered explorers."

The words that flew out of Mawile's mouth were swift and flawless, leaving Honchkrow stunned at the promptness of the reply and clearly trying to think of how to respond. Mawile capitalized on his moment of silence, digging in her large exploration bag and producing both expedition gadgets.

"That'll solve your legal woes," she told the flabbergasted mayor, setting both expedition gadgets on the desk.

"Don't let it go to your head." Honchkrow regained his composure at the last minute, his belly rippling as he adjusted himself in his seat. "Or… heads. Which one is it again?"

Once again, Archen could see Mawile doing her best to take the mayor's comments in stride.

"Head, thank you."

She clicked both gadgets on, pressed the photo button, and let the mayor begin to slowly scroll through the photos of the dilapidated Pokemon Plaza. Honchkrow began to fidget uneasily as he viewed the slideshow of perfect stone statues, taking a deep breath once it was over.

"Something else you might want to know," Archen began before Honchkrow could say anything. "We were attacked right after we took those photos."

"Is this true?" Honchkrow asked, one eyebrow raised.

"It is." Mawile scrolled back through the photos. "We were ambushed by what appeared to be a walking anomaly, for lack of a better term. You can see the very edge of it in a few of these photos." She stopped on the photos for good measure, allowing Honchkrow to find the anomaly himself.

Honchkrow leaned back in his seat, taking a deep breath and rubbing his temples with his wings.

"I want those photos transferred to HAPPI. Send in the thingamabobs if you need to. And then… I want the Expedition Society to stay out of this. I don't need map makers meddling around in real rescue guild business."

"With all due respect, mayor," Mawile said evenly, "the Expedition Society is a registered guild under HAPPI. Baram Town isn't."

"Is that so?" Honchkrow let out a chuckle that grated Mawile's ears. "Care to explain why you're in my office reporting to me, then? Explain it away, throw all the jargon at me you want. Believe me, I'd love to hear it."

Mawile pointedly didn't answer the question. Instead, she stuffed the expedition gadgets in her bag and zipped it up, gesturing for Archen to follow her out.

"Thought so," Honchkrow sneered as they turned for the door.. "As long as the Rescuer's Guild is out of the picture, every team on this continent reports to me. And I want you both off. I don't want to see any of your faces back here again until this all blows over. Stay in your bounds. Be a good manager and go tell your employees that for me."

Though she kept her gait even, controlled, Mawile took several deep breaths on her way to the door. He had the infuriating ability to pierce her collected front, but she wasn't about to say anything back to him. She wasn't going to have the last laugh. She was above that. She was…

… She couldn't help herself. She stopped at the doorway, pretending to check her bag as she flexed muscles that hadn't seen extensive use in years:

"The Expedition Society is not under my jurisdiction," Mawile's maw rasped out, raw and guttural. And if you were ever to meet the 'mon with that power, you wouldn't be so arrogant in his presence.

Honchkrow jumped in his seat at the sound of Mawile's second voice.

"Oh! Silly me," Mawile stated, hiding the smirk on her face. "It is heads. The back maw has a mind of its own sometimes. I'd be careful about upsetting it, if I were you."

Though she couldn't see him, the long period of silence told her Honchkrow was stunned silent.

"S-same difference," he finally managed to say.

Satisfied with the waver in his voice, Mawile briskly walked out and let the doors to Honchkrow's office clang shut behind her. As the pair of explorers made their way across the massive windmill bridges, even erudite, disciplined Mawile couldn't help but stifle the beginnings of a grin spreading across her face.

Maybe she wasn't above a well-deserved scare after all.

~\({O})/~

School Grounds

~Espurr~

"Not that one, dangnabbit!"

Nuzleaf thwacked one of Farfetch'd's spare teaching leeks into the board. "This one is 'E'. Find 'Z' for me. Zzzz."

Espurr failed to keep in a frustrated sigh. She was sure the same exact thing read on her face. The class had gone on for almost an hour now, and she couldn't make heads or tails of this stupid alphabet. Though the colors she was getting used to seeing didn't show up around him, she could tell Nuzleaf was getting just as fed up as she was. That only made her own patience wane faster.

"Crapshoots." Nuzleaf glanced at the sky, taking in the morning sun and gauging the time. "We're outta time."

"I haven't heard a better thing all morning," Espurr recited with fake enthusiasm.

"Yeah, I don't like it either." If Nuzleaf could have sounded any more done with the entire affair, he'd be dead.

"Since ya still didn't manage to find the darn Z," he snapped, thwacking Farfetch'd's leek on the board again. "It's here." He pointed to the very last letter at the end of the board.

Espurr just deflated.

"Frakkin' blue monkey…" she heard him mutter to himself as he marched off. "Can shove his 'guard duty waive' up his tail. Didn' tell me it was this hard ta teach a pokemon how ta read tha alphabet…"

Espurr watched Nuzleaf's figure become smaller as he entered the village plaza in the distance. In the three days she'd been here, she hadn't heard anything about guard duty...

~\({O})/~

"I don't know anything about that, why do you ask?" Deerling absentmindedly scratched at her tawny new dark green coat of fur with a hoof. Espurr sat in the unoccupied desk next to Deerling's. Pancham had wanted to take it, but Deerling insisted it remain vacant for her own sanity. According to Tricky, no-mon had sat in it for the whole semester.

"One of the teachers let it slip," Espurr explained. "I'm still getting the hang of things around here, so I thought I'd ask around."

"That is really weird," Deerling admitted, tilting her head. "Although… my parents are always out on 'important business' every few weeks… maybe they're guarding the Crooked House?" she shrugged the best she could. "That's the only way I can explain it."

"Crooked House?" Espurr asked.

"Oh. Right. I keep forgetting you're new. It's the molt, I swear it…" Deerling massaged her forehead with her hooves briefly.

"The Crooked House is this creepy place that was already standing when the village was founded," Deering continued. "No-mon knows who built it, or what it was even for. Everymon tells ghost stories about it, like that one with the crooked 'mon. It's on the outskirts of town, so you won't see it unless you actually leave the plaza, but seriously. It's some freaky stuff. Not even Tricky's been past the front gate."

Even Espurr knew that if Tricky refused to enter somewhere, that was a major red flag.

The other students were beginning to file in now, supervised by Audino instead of Watchog. Espurr had to admit the change in atmosphere was pleasant.

"Hey, Espurr! Over here!"

Tricky, who had barged into the classroom at some point, waved back at Espurr from up-front. Deerling's face darkened.

"Remember our talk?" she nudged Espurr with a hoof for her attention, her tone suddenly hushed and urgent. Espurr nodded.

"Yo Deerling!" Pancham hopped over his desk and into his seat, leaning back with his feet on top. "Looking good with that new summer coat—"

"Go stick your head in a trash can and faint, Pancham." Deerling snapped.

"You aren't switching seats, right?" Tricky called back. Espurr hopped down from the vacant desk and walked over to her own up in the front.

"What were you doing with Deerling?" Tricky asked once Espurr had sat down.

"Just having a chat," Espurr told her.

Something about that didn't seem to sit right with Tricky, which Espurr just didn't understand. Wasn't a chat innocent enough? Some flecks of muddy blue began to leak into her vision again, making her edge away on instinct. But whatever it was, Tricky didn't seem interested in elaborating. She remembered Deerling's words from the night before. This wasn't the first time it had happened… should she push?

But before Espurr could, Tricky seemed to swallow it. The blue disappeared, like it had been erased.

"Attention, class!" Everymon looked up from their chatter as Farfetch'd took his place at the teacher's desk. Watchog lumbered off towards his post. looking like he had lost an entire night's worth of sleep.

"As I'm sure I don't need to remind you…" Farfetch'd picked up one of his trademark leeks from the ground, crossing off students' names quickly. "Tomorrow marks the start of our end of spring exams."

He pulled a paper out of the history book he had brought with him, straightening it out and beginning to read off it slowly.

"The first exam you six will take is for my own class. It also doubles as a writing exam, so you'll all be filling it out on paper. Participation is mandatory, and where you fall on the test will affect your curriculum next year."

He lowered the paper. "Any questions?"

The classroom was silent. Only Espurr's good paw slowly rose up into the air.

"Yes?" Farfetch'd pointed her out.

"The exams are on paper, right?" Espurr asked.

"That's right."

Espurr felt embarrassed asking the next question. She knew what everymon would think.

"What if… you can't read?"

All eyes were suddenly on Espurr, and not in a way she liked. It didn't help that she could feel it too, the muddy brown confusion and realization as they realized she was talking about herself. It made her want to recoil, roll herself up into a ball or vanish from the spot.

Farfetched massaged his forehead with one of his wings, unsure of how to answer.

"If you can't read the exam, then one of our teachers can help you take it some other way," he managed to get out.

Trying to ignore the eyes on her, Espurr quickly nodded, then realized she was still holding her good paw up and put it down. She tried to mind her own business for the rest of the class, but still she felt the lingering presence of her classmates' eyes on her the entire time. They never left.

~\({O})/~

"I'm afraid not," Farfetch'd said, taking a sip from his recess wooden cup of tea. "I have to be the one to oversee everymon else's exams. Wouldn't do for the other students to be distracted with another classmate's answers. I will direct you to Nurse Audino, however. She's popular with the less able students."

"I'm sorry, I just can't," Audino told Espurr, setting out the lunch prep. "I have to get this clinic cleaned up and prepare for the exam after tomorrow's. Why don't you ask the Principal?"

"Mine," Shelmet growled, throwing open the door to the principal's office with the pointy side of his shell and letting it whack Espurr in the face. Espurr, who was sick and tired of having her face shoved into things, had the sudden, purple-tinted urge to drag him out of there herself and throw him into a wall just to see how he liked it.

If she'd had two working paws to do it with. Just the thought of trying to do it with her head gave her the crimson tingles of a headache.

As the door closed behind Shelmet, the realization finally hit Espurr full-force. There was only one teacher left to ask, and she sure wasn't going to learn Unown in a single day…

…Oh no.

"Can't read, huh?"

Espurr spun around with a small yelp, startled. Pancham leaned against the side of the School Clinic, his arms folded.

"What's the story there?" he asked nonchalantly. "Were you raised in the woods or something?"

Espurr wasn't dumb enough to fall for that twice.

"I have nothing to say to you," she told him flatly, then walked off east towards the School Clinic.

"Hey, y'know," Pancham jeered loudly as she passed him. "Maybe I'm not that far off. I bet you were raised in a dungeon! It all makes sense now, why you can't read, why you just had so much fun going out with the Troublemaker yesterday…"

Espurr did her best to ignore him. He just wanted the last laugh, because she hadn't let him have it yesterday. She wasn't going to let him get to her.

"And I bet that's why you're going to be learning the baby material when you fail the test tomorrow! Like a baby!" The words flew in on the breeze towards her. And that was the last straw. Espurr stopped. She turned around and marched right back to him until they were face-to-face.

"For your information," she told him evenly, channeling the flickers of red flashing at the corners of her vision into something more directed. Directed at him. "I'm going to score perfectly on that test tomorrow. And when I'm walking around with a passing grade, we'll see just how smug you are then."

Pancham just smirked the most satisfied smirk Espurr had ever seen.

"Well then I guess we'll see about that," Pancham said, leaning in close. "Sure hope you can back your sass."

He flashed a grin, spat the twig in his mouth out onto the ground, and then sauntered off.

Espurr wanted badly to say Pancham didn't get to her. But the truth was, he did. He really did.

~\({O})/~

"Where've you been all recess?" Tricky fell into stride with Espurr as they walked down the cobbled steps from the School Clinic towards the classroom.

"Trying to get a teacher to help me with the test," Espurr said. Indigo embarrassment fluttering on her eyes, she brushed that over as quick as she could: "What about you?"

"Reading!"

Espurr couldn't help but do a double take when she heard that. Tricky? Reading?

"One minute!" Watchog yelled grumpily from below. "Everymon had better get down here!"

Tricky spun on her paws, easily walking backwards down the path.

"By the way, that book on mystery dungeons? I checked it out again. Watchog must have been surprised I managed to get it, because his face was all like bleagh—"

She lolled her tongue out, bugged her eyes, and made an expression that was way too exaggerated to ever be on Watchog's face.

"And guess what?" she continued. "There's a small dungeon right near Pop's oran berry fields! It's where all the combee make their honey, and they sell it to Kecleon every year, so there's no way it's dangerous. Wanna go exploring with me after detention?"

Like clockwork, Deerling's words replayed in Espurr's head. No mystery dungeons…

"That's what you said about the mines," Espurr said. "And those turned out really dandy."

"This'll be different!"

"Like how?" Espurr asked.

"Well… there won't be any monsters," Tricky pointed out.

That did make it marginally better.

"Monsters aren't everything," Espurr replied. "It could still be dangerous."

"But…" Tricky trailed off. She paused, struggling to come up with an excuse. "Once we join the Expedition Society, we aren't gonna get breaks, so why take any now?"

There it was again. Expedition Society.

"When did I say I'd join the Expedition Society?" Espurr asked.

"You aren't joining? Sacrilege."

Tricky couldn't help but stifle a laugh at Espurr's face. "C'mon—I'm kidding! You take jokes waaaay too seriously. Besides…" she whispered, as they entered the classroom and took their seats. "I'll convince you in time…"

The classroom went quiet as Watchog lumbered up, then took his spot at the teacher's desk.

"May I have your attention, please," he muttered out, looming over the students from the teacher's desk. "Firstly, I'm sure I don't need to remind everymon of what happens if I catch you using the skills taught in this classroom outside of it."

"Detention for life," the class wearily recited back in unison. "We know."

"Good." Watchog picked up one of Farfetch'd's leeks and whacked the blackboard unceremoniously like a gong.

"Self-defense," he began, monotone, before tossing the leek to the side. "We already know that all pokemon can draw on their inner energy and channel it into an external attack. What type you are affects what type of power you can use: A fire-type will draw from fire, a water-type will draw from water, etcetera." He paced the classroom stiffly from side to side, his arms folded behind his back. "However, drawing from that energy depletes it. The energy required to perform a single attack would be enough to completely consume a small animal."

A largish crow fluttered onto the ground near the classroom, pecking at the ground. Espurr could see Tricky staring at its glossy black feathers, distracted.

"Lucky for you lot of troublemakers…" Watchog continued. "Pokemon have much more energy than small animals. And you can both use and endure that energy… up to a certain threshold."

In the back of the classroom, Shelmet lay asleep in his seat, having snuck in and dozed off at some point in the class.

"Everymon awake in the classroom!" Watchog yelled at him. Shelmet snapped awake, quickly sitting straight up in his seat.

"Now what happens when your body is pushed past its energy threshold?" Watchog asked loudly, going back to addressing the entire class.

"You faint," most of the students replied back tiredly.

"Fainting." Watchog whacked the blackboard again with another leek. "Fainting is what happens when your body loses too much energy. You can faint from hunger, energy fatigue, or by getting hit with enough of them. In civilized settings, making your opponent faint is the universally accepted method of winning a battle. But in Dungeons, fainting can mean the difference between life and death."

Watchog cast his intense gaze towards Tricky. "And that is why none of you should be playing around in mystery dungeons," he finished, glaring at the fennekin accusingly. At Tricky's determined smirk of 'Never!', Watchog changed gears, chucking the leek to the ground like it was an apple core.

"While going into an actual mystery dungeon for this lesson is a waste of time," Watchog went on, "the Principal has given me express permission to use my Vice Principal Powers—" Tricky failed to suppress a loud snort of laughter "—to turn this classroom into a Fully Safety Regulated Mystery Dungeon! Ping-Shapow-Whazam!"

Watchog snapped and clapped his paws together repeatedly, the sounds coming from his mouth devolving into indistinguishable sputtering noises as he continued. It continued for a full half-minute, until eventually a final sound effect tapered off into a wheeze made him cough from loss of breath.

"We're still in the classroom," Tricky pointed out impishly after Watchog had finished.

"Yeah. Lame." Pancham traded looks with a still-sleepy Shelmet.

"Use your imagination," Watchog grumbled, leaning a paw on the desk as he caught his breath. "It's not like you're in any shortage of that."

He took his position behind the desk again, staring at the students in their seats.

"Pair up! All of you!" Watchog clapped his paws together. "We're going to be practicing harnessing your energy on each other today."

There was zero enthusiasm from any side of the classroom. Pancham, from the back of the class, lazily stuck a paw up.

"No, you can't use weapons," Watchog said.

The paw went down.

"I need a couple of volunteers…" he began, his eyes gliding to two of the seats at the front of the class. "Espurr, Tricky!" he snapped. "Would you like to volunteer to demonstrate?"

"Why not?" Tricky got up from her seat, tapping Espurr on the shoulder with her tail as she passed. If it was possible for Espurr to sag down in her seat any more than she was already, she would have sunk through the floor. She'd already had to embarrass herself once; she couldn't battle! Tricky knew that better than anymon.

But Watchog was staring at her expectantly, and she could feel all eyes on her again. Admitting she couldn't read had been enough; if she had to admit she couldn't battle, what would the other students think of her then? She couldn't do it. So she rose from her desk, straightening her fur and joining Tricky at the front of the seats. Maybe she'd learn on the fly.

Watchog positioned them on opposite sides in front of the teacher's desk, making them back up until they were standing against opposing sides of the classroom. He made the other students stand against the wall, so they'd be out of the way in case a stray attack made its way to the seats.

"On my mark!" he began, raising his stout arm into the air. "I want you both to hit each other with a strong, healthy attack." Espurr moved her eyes from Watchog to Tricky, who was busy conjuring an ember in her chest. The fennekin opened her mouth, and Espurr saw the flickering flame that burned in the back of her throat.

"Entire books have been written on the art of harnessing your energy," Watchog declared for the class. "But my opinion? The best way of learning is doing it in practice. Start!"

Watchog's arm came flying down, and in an instant, Tricky planted her paws into the ground and shot a blast of flame straight at Espurr. At a loss for ideas, Espurr did the only feasible thing she could think of in the moment—she ducked. The Ember went straight over her head and flickered away in the distance as it flew off.

Espurr slowly picked herself up from the ground, ignoring the stinging where she'd hit the dirt. Her heart pounded in her chest, small green splotches fading away with every beat.

Watchog sputtered in annoyance. "Wh— what was that?" he questioned annoyedly. "Again!"

Espurr and Tricky took their positions once more. Watchog stood against the teacher's desk, raising his arm a second time.

"On my mark!"

It was at that point that Espurr realized she had absolutely no idea what she was doing.

"Ready?" Watchog surveyed the both of them. Tricky nodded readily, practically bouncing in place. Espurr resumed her fighting position. Watchog had said that all pokemon could harness energy, right? Well, she was a pokemon. She had to be able to do something.

"Start!"

Once more, Tricky launched an ember straight at Espurr. And this time, it didn't miss. Espurr felt like she'd been punched in the stomach, and the punch burned. She stumbled a good few feet back, falling against the edge of the blackboard tree.

"And that is how to properly use a move!" Watchog crowed, clapping his paws together in applause. Espurr slowly picked herself up from the tree, biting back the dull ache that had popped up in her bad arm. At least she hadn't fallen on it.

"Alright, next pair over here!" Watchog pointed to the ground in front of the teacher's desk. "You two. Up against the wall with everymon else!"

Pancham and Shelmet rudely pushed Deerling and Goomy aside as Espurr and Tricky took their spots with the others against the steps to the clinic.

"No misbehavior, either of you." Watchog raised his arm again, eyeing both of them closely. "Three… Two… One…"

"Start!"

Tricky fired another ember from her mouth, which Espurr narrowly avoided. Watchog gazed down at her disapprovingly, arms folded, as she picked herself up from the ground.

"Again!"

Espurr was hit in the face.

"Again!"

Espurr stumbled against the desks.

"Again!"

Espurr charged forward with a stick in her paws—

"That's cheating!"

"My throat hurts," Tricky complained. "Can we do somemon else for a while?"

"Switch!"

"Wow," Pancham said, as a battered Espurr and Tricky took their places against at the end of the line. "You guys are getting beat. I'd hate to see you have to go up against me."

Espurr wasn't going to say anything in front of him. She stared down at her paws in frustration, the purple encroaching on her vision and building up in the back of her head. Why wasn't she able to do anything? She was the only one who couldn't!

She looked up at the sounds of crashing coming from the front of the classroom, where an obviously faking Deerling had just let Goomy tackle her to the ground. Espurr thought back to all the training rounds she had gone through in the last fifteen minutes. She hadn't been able to land a single hit in any of them.

Then it occurred to her: Maybe she didn't have to.

"Mr. Watchog?" Espurr raised her good paw. Watchog looked like he wanted to correct a certain honorific, but bit it back. "Yes?" he asked.

"I'd like to try one more time."

Watchog thought it over for the better part of a minute. Then he sighed, and pointed to the space in front of the teacher's desk. Tricky let out a wordless groan, slumping her head in defeat. She began to trudge towards her spot in the classroom slowly.

"Not you." Watchog stuck out an arm stiffly, stopping Tricky in her tracks. "I promised Audino I'd leave you all reasonably unharmed, so up to the clinic you go. Now!"

Without another word, Tricky changed her course towards the school clinic, bounding up the stairs quickly.

"Any volunteers?" Watchog asked the rest of the class.

"I'll do it." Pancham's smooth voice rang out against the silence of the other students. Espurr watched him saunter up to the other side of the teacher's desk, taking a fighting position confidently. All the better. She'd enjoy this.

"One more time! On my mark!" Watchog raised his arm, glancing at both students. "Everymon ready?"

Espurr closed her eyes, blotting out the world. She focused on Pancham, trying to see if she could grip him and lift him up in the air like she had done to those objects yesterday. Except… she couldn't. She couldn't seem to get a good grip on him at all, let alone lift him up properly.

"Start!"

Pancham wasted no time charging towards her, his fists brimming with colorless energy. That was going to hurt if it hit her. But Espurr was determined not to let that happened. If she could just get a good grip—

Pancham's fist collided with her face, sending her flying back several feet. She hit the ground painfully, barely registering the sound of Watchog calling the match. Her face stung, but what stung even more was the realization that she'd just let it happen, and there wasn't anything she could do about it. The frustration in her finally reached a breaking point. Her ears began to tingle, accompanied by annoying static. The wave of purple mounted in Espurr's head, and suddenly turned into something much more tangible—

There was a large 'boom!' and then everything hurt, and she couldn't open her eyes again for several minutes.

~\({O})/~

Air Continent Administration Records: Baram Town

The main harbor port for the Air Continent, Baram Town has grown wealthy off the merchant trade and the supplies that travel to the Rescuer's Guild. The city is known for its distinctive architecture, along with the windmills that power the city's grain production and water channeling. Unknown to most of the public, Baram Town is built on a large network of caverns that have been repurposed into the city's sewer system and production network. A lack of maintenance over the years has let the lines between the two grow increasingly thin.

Music of the Week!

The Consul of Wizards - Benjamin Walfisch