.9
Cloud Nine: Senate or Sham?
The roaming airship known as Cloud Nine is a political hotspot. It's the place where the leaders of every continent meet to form a quorum that collectively decides the world's next step, overseen by Ninetales of Mt. Freeze. But just how impartial is this floating government base? And how does HAPPI's economic stronghold over valuable resources such as emera stones and presence on Cloud Nine affect the political proceedings of the quorum?
~ Back Page of The Lively Town Times
~\({O})/~
7.
I Walk Through Your Dreams
~\({O})/~
~Espurr~
Slowly coming to. Espurr's eyes were disgraced by the blackness of the void.
Another dream. She pulled herself to her feet, surveying the darkness with purpose. There was nothing around.
But of course there wouldn't be. The familiar whispers slowly began to invade the back of Espurr's hearing once again, and Espurr decided she wasn't going to be thrown for a loop a second time. This was her mind, her dream. She wasn't helpless in here… right?
They took the form of lights. Blue, flickering wisps of flame that danced around her and remained just outside of her grasp. Espurr stayed perfectly still, watching them as they flew around. Carefully, she raised her paws to the sides of her head in case she got a headache, and tried to grab one with her mind.
flames danced out of her vision while they had the chance, taking their incessant whispers with them…
And then they were gone, save for the lone one struggling in midair. Espurr took deep breaths and tried to contain her excitement as she reeled it in mentally.
And soon, she was able to hold it in her paws. It didn't burn like normal flame burned. There was no feeling of intense heat against her skin, no smell of charred fur. It just flickered above her palms, struggling less and less the closer she brought it to herself. It whispered things to her. Things that didn't make sense to her. Things in a language she barely even had a ghost of an understanding in.
And Espurr listened. There was somewhere in the back of her head where she understood the words she was hearing, where the gibberish that was being whispered to her meant more than just gibberish. And then, once the whispers had died down, and silence overtook the dreamscape once more, Espurr did something on instinct—she leaned in, and softly blew it out.
She didn't even know why. It just seemed like it was the right thing to do. Smoke spiraled upwards from the place in midair where the flame had once sat, and then Espurr was left in total blackness again.
Then the headache started. The absoLute, mind-crunching headache. It brought Espurr to her knees in pain. She clutched her head tightly, curling up in the middle of the unnaturally black floor. It was in her head, she tied to reason with herself. Pain was in her head. This dream was in her head. She could just wish it away. She could pretend it didn't matter and just like that, it wouldn't, because it never had existed anyway, and she was going to refuse to acknowledge it in three… two… one…
A horrible, blinding strike of pain split across her forehead. It hurt more than any surreal excuse for pain a dream could come up with. This was real. This had to be. She needed to wake up!
Espurr began to breathe heavy through the pain and the panic. How to wake up?
Maybe she needed to shock herself.
A nightmare. A real one.
That would do.
What nightmare?
What scared her?
The house.
The Crooked House.
Make the Crooked House.
Make something…
With that dying thought, another searing strike of pain flashed across Espurr's forehead, and she barely bit back a loud yowl of pain.
~\({O})/~
School Clinic
~Audino~
Nurse Audino had just finished converting the inside of the School Clinic into a makeshift classroom. Normally, the clinic would be considered too small for such a thing—especially considering how rowdy some of Watchog's classes tended to get—but with the actual classroom still in shambles, the only other available building was the Principal's Office.
They definitely weren't using the Principal's Office.
Espurr slept curled up on the straw bed Audino had gently pushed out of the way to make space for everything else. Audino had tried to be quiet in order not to wake her, but that Grass-Continent Unown tutor was due soon… It probably wasn't best to continue to let the student sleep any longer.
Audino sighed and turned back towards Espurr to wake her. That was when she noticed that Espurr was groaning in her sleep. And clutching her head.
~\({O})/~
~Espurr~
Espurr heard but didn't see the creaking of doors in front of her. It was all she could do to look up at the blurred sight of the house staring her down with its open doors, and suddenly—
—The floor opened up beneath her, and she was unceremoniously dropped into a pit full of water.
There seemed to be no bottom and no top in sight. The shock of being dropped underwater so quickly meant Espurr was able to forget her headache for one second, and try to swim up to the top.
She found herself blocked. Where there had been a hole, there was now nothing but solid black wall. Espurr knew it was a dream, if she tried to breathe in water in the dream she'd just breathe in air in the real world, but for some reason she couldn't seem to breathe. She couldn't seem to breath, and she was trapped underwater with no top or bottom in sight! Espurr could feel the very beginnings of air deprivation begin to take hold. This no longer seemed like a good idea. She would rather have the headache than this. She wanted out!
She couldn't believe she was going to die in a dream. That wasn't how dreams worked! She had to think her way out of this. But she couldn't seem to muster up the energy to conjure up anything else. Perhaps it really would be better to float away…
A sudden pulse of fear was enough to jolt Espurr back to her senses, and then there was a sudden flash of white—
~\({O})/~
School Clinic
Espurr jolted awake, her body snapping out of its rigid position and sending her sprawling to the floor, gasping for air. She could breathe again!
"Oh my goodness!" Audino quickly ran over to Espurr, picking her up from the floor. "What happened?"
"Dream…" Espurr managed to spit out between gasps. "I… Was… Underwater… Couldn't breathe…"
Audino helped Espurr sit back down on the straw bed, where she proceeded to catch the rest of her breath.
Finally rejuvenated and not sleepy in any way, shape, or form, Espurr cast a wayward glance towards Audino's book that lay on the counter. Her eyes flicked over the title, then went back for a second round, and a third one too.
But that wasn't possible.
"The Adventures of an Intrepid Psyduck," Espurr said, half in shock. "That's the title of the book."
~\({O})/~
"Tell me this one." Nuzleaf pointed to a random letter in the large textbook the Principal had given him.
"J," Espurr told him, without any hesitation.
"An' this one."
"D."
"An' what about this one?"
"Z."
Nuzleaf closed the book with a snap. He showed her the front cover. "An' you can read this?"
"The Beginning 'Mon's introduction to Unown," Espurr read.
"Well, that settles it." Nuzleaf set the book aside, wiping his forehead in disbelief. "I reckon you're all studied up an' everything."
"Damn psychic-types…" Espurr thought she heard him mutter to himself when he thought she wasn't looking. "If I'da known she could learn the entire language in a day I'da jumped on that sooner."
So would she.
But pokemon didn't learn a language in their sleep, and that rattled her.
~\({O})/~
Serenity Village
Nuzleaf left the textbook behind on his way out. It was a gift from Principal Simipour, but Nuzleaf had insisted it was school property, so Audino had to shelf it. And since Nuzleaf's session had finished far, far earlier than expected, that left Espurr with a good hour of free time before the start of school. It was time she used to get as far away from the School Clinic as possible. She had no idea how she could possibly have learned the entire Unown language in a single night without even intending to, and when combined with the strange dreams she had been having, it made the problem simply too big for her brain to wrap itself around.
And so Espurr went to the place she considered to be the farthest from all of that: Tricky's house.
She stood on the doorstep of Carracosta's place, her paw an inch away from the door. Was this too early? Should she even be here? She cast a furtive glance around just in case she shouldn't. How would Carracosta react? Eventually she summoned up the rest of her courage, and knocked on the door.
Only a whole moment later, it swung open, and the bulky form of Carracosta stood in the doorway.
"…Tricky's new friend, right?" he grunted out after a minute.
Espurr quickly nodded, and held out her hand. "Espurr, Mr… ?"
"Carracosta." The large blue turtle took a second to clear his throat. "Tricky's not up yet. I always wake her up at the crack of dawn, but she sleeps until the last minute anyway. There's no winning that with her."
Espurr shut her eyes and quickly rolled them so Carracosta wouldn't see. That sounded like Tricky.
"How long until she gets up?" she asked.
"About an hour, if you're lucky."
"…Oh."
~"By tha trees, through tha air"~
Espurr's head spun at the sound of the scratchy, off-tune lyrics. She knew that voice… It was Nuzleaf.
He sang?
Carracosta quickly ushered her aside, worming his way out the door and lumbering down the path towards the sound of the voice.
~"Roots of time flow ev'rywhere"~
Slowly, the figure of Nuzleaf hiking up the hill became visible to Espurr, and Carracosta suddenly drew him into a hug before he had any idea of what was happening.
"Hah… Neighbor…" Nuzleaf patted Carracosta's back desperately; wheezing for breath, and Carracosta let him down.
"You were here three days, and you didn't come visit me?!" Carracosta boomed flippantly.
"I… I was busy." Nuzleaf scratched the back of his head. "Just got back from the Grass Continent an' all."
"Come inside!" Carracosta ushered him up towards the house. "I was just making breakfast."
Espurr suddenly realized that Nuzleaf, who had just been her language tutor for the past two days, was coming towards the house. Towards her. That was an awkward meeting she didn't want to have right now. She then decided to make herself scarce, and fast.
"Huh." Carracosta muttered as he approached the door. "Wonder where that whippersnapper went."
"Whippersnapper?" Nuzleaf brushed his leaf out of his face.
"Nothing."
~\({O})/~
Carracosta's House
~Tricky~
Tricky's nose twitched.
Which was an odd thing indeed, because she was currently beating the holy mystery dungeon out of a Monster House right now! A term so obscure and specific only the most dedicated Explorer knew its name! Probably.
Another really odd thing was that all the dungeon 'mon suddenly smelled like pancakes.
Pancakes… She was kinda hungry.
Tricky opened her eyes lazily, then yawned. She was lying flat on her back in her bed in her room in her house, and not roasting several dungeon 'mon at the same time with Flamethrower like she had been dreaming about.
…Come to think of it, could fennekin even learn Flamethrower? She distantly recalled something about Watchog saying the move required too much power for unevolved pokemon to use.
Eh, whatever. It was a fun dream anyway. Tricky burst out of her room like a Quick Attack and practically flew straight into the washroom without even bidding Pops good morning. The door softly slammed shut after her.
"Wha—What in tarnation was that?!" Nuzleaf flipped out at the red-and-yellow blur that had just shot past his eyes, almost jumping out of his seat in shock.
"The whippersnapper." Carracosta flipped the pancakes he was currently griddling on his gas stove, a rare commodity he had acquired from a visit to Lively Town.
"Aha... righ'." Nuzleaf took a sip of tea, shooting the washroom door a glance uncomfortably.
Pops had a method for washing the face, but Tricky thought it was super complicated. And dunking your head underwater for a few seconds did the same thing anyway, so Tricky did that. She shook herself off, took a few laps of the water in the bowl, gargled with that, then spat it out the window like Pops had told her never to do. She stuck her head out and let the morning breeze dry her fur off. She enjoyed that, even though she was a fire-type and could just roast it all out of her fur whenever she felt like it.
That was when her eyes caught sight of something really odd, crouching near a bush on the hill on the way to her house.
Was that…
…No way.
It was!
Carracosta had just finished setting three plates of pancakes on the table when the washroom door suddenly bounced open again.
"I smell pancakes!" Tricky announced as she entered the dining room.
Carracosta turned to Tricky. "Don't—"
Tricky bounded forward, took a seat, snatched the pancakes off their resting place on the plate, left her seat, and headed for the door.
"No—You fool!" Carracosta yelled after her. But Tricky was long gone.
Nuzleaf set his tea on the table.
"Whippersnappers. Nothin' but trouble, if ya ask me."
~\({O})/~
"Epferr!"
This time, Espurr had the foresight to causally step out of Tricky's way, who stopped just short of colliding with the bush with an entire pancake hanging from her mouth. Espurr's eyes never left the blue orb she was holding.
"wapf—" Tricky stopped—inhaled the pancake—swallowed—and began again. "What are you doing here?"
Espurr looked up from the orb with that same indecipherable face Tricky could never make sense of. "I can't come here if it suits my fancy?"
Tricky slowly paced circles around Espurr. "Come on…" she drawled. "You totally came here to see me. Admit it."
Espurr instead brushed some dirt off the strange blue orb, showing it to Tricky. "We forgot all about this."
"What does that matter?" Tricky tilted her head.
"Everything! This is the answer to all our questions."
"Um, no…" Tricky gave Espurr her best skeptical look. "That's a blue glass ball."
"It's Ampharos' blue glass ball," Espurr stressed. "This—along with what I found at the school earlier—leads me to believe that Ampharos—"
Everything clicked in Tricky's head all the sudden. She gasped loudly, cutting Espurr off mid-sentence.
"OhmigoshAmpharos! I totally forgot! The most amazing thing happened yesterday! It was Ampharos!"
Espurr looked at her funny. Tricky took a deep breath—
"HewasinthecafeyesterdayandItookhisorderandhesaidtomeethimafterschoolgetsoutatthestartofsummersohecangiveusthejuniorexpeditionsocietymembershipshegot!"
Espurr just stared at Tricky. And stared. For a good ten seconds.
"Expedition Society?" she finally asked.
"Yep!" Tricky nodded so fast she thought her head might fly off her shoulders. "And you want to come along too, right?"
"But…" Espurr began. "I don't." And she didn't. She hadn't.
"But we make such a good team!" Tricky said, almost desperately. "You really don't want to change your mind?"
"Joining the Expedition Society is your dream," Espurr pointed out. "It's… not for me."
Tricky pouted.
"And why are you taking…" Espurr paused, then gingerly placed the blue orb somewhere in the grass beside her. "Why are you taking more things from Ampharos? We don't even know who he is. What if he's spying on us?"
"I'm sure it'll be fine," Tricky waved her off with a flick of her large ears. "But you're coming, right? He said he brought two…" she trailed off promptingly.
"I'm not interested," Espurr said, folding her arms and turning away from Tricky.
"But… C'mon…" Tricky whined, her voice becoming dejected. "We're friends, aren't we? Why wouldn't you want to go exploring with me?"
Espurr wasn't sure how else to explain to her that she didn't want to go, and Ampharos was suspicious anyway, and there were things they could do other than exploring—
All thoughts came to a screeching halt when Tricky's ears picked up on a sound she never thought she'd hear from Espurr—the sound of a belly rumbling. Espurr looked half-embarrassed, half caught by surprise—had she even noticed it was coming from her stomach?
Without another word, Tricky suddenly began to push Espurr back up towards her house.
"C'mon—Pops is making breakfast now! I… sorta ate my portion early, but still!"
~\({O})/~
School Grounds
~Espurr~
Ring~Ring~Ring
"Around the wood chips. Around them! That means you, Tricky!"
Vice Principal Watchog brandished a suitably ping-y bell on a stick, herding all the students around the mostly brushed to the side wreckage of the classroom and ringing it whenever somemon got too close. Although he seemed to focus mostly on Tricky, who was practically drunk on pancakes and didn't seem to care much where she was going. That left Espurr to walk with Deerling and Goomy as they headed up towards the School Clinic.
"…Morning, I guess?" Deerling said after a moment's silence. Espurr said nothing, instead gazing up at the clinic absentmindedly in thought. None of her classmates really had to know what happened up there… Perhaps it would be better that way.
Deerling slowly continued. "Goomy and I were wondering if you wanted to come over later today? We found this old board game in my parents' closet, and we were going to try it out later."
Realizing she had been ignoring Deerling for the last few minutes, Espurr turned her attention back towards her classmates.
"But I have detention," she said. "I won't be able to make it."
"And that's why I asked Watchog about the detentions," Deerling responded. "He said they were cancelled today, because the school ordered some 'mon to come and rebuild the classroom and he's in charge of directing them. He also asked if I had detention somehow, but that's paranoid and beside the point." she looked at Espurr. "So, are you coming?"
Espurr thought on it for a minute. "I don't see why not." she finally decided. "Where should I go?"
"Oh, it's…" Deerling tried to think of a proper set of directions off the top of her head. "You know the plaza? In the middle of the village?" Espurr nodded. "Start there. Head south, but not so far that you outwalk the houses. My house is on the on the right. It's got the pink roof. You'll find us quickly."
Ring~Ring~Ring
"How can you not see the wreckage?!"
~\({O})/~
Exam day had begun. Everymon got their exam booklets from Farfetch'd, then spread out amongst the clinic. Espurr's first instinct was to ask for one, now she had the ability to use it. But her second instinct, which luckily overrode her first, was to notice that Watchog was in the room. She had already asked him for help. If she tried to back out now, he'd accuse her of taking some easy way out. It seemed the only option that didn't involve upsetting Watchog some way was to fly under his radar.
"Hope you like the smell of old paper," Watchog grumbled as they entered the school's storage room. "Because that's both our lives for the next hour." Espurr briefly wondered if he was always moody by choice and not because he actually had anything to be moody about.
Watchog took a seat on a slightly sagging box of files, and gestured to a smaller one for Espurr to sit on. He pulled out a copy of the same piece of paper Espurr had seen all the other staff take, and set that by his side. The second sheet he pulled out he held up to his face, and began to read off it.
"Question one: How far back does the earliest known Human artifact date to?"
"2050," Espurr answered. That was easy. She remembered her first day at the school like it had happened less than a second ago.
Watchog pulled up the second sheet of paper and read something off it. He marked something down with a quill on the paper, and sat it down once again.
"Question two: Where did pokemon civilization first begin to establish itself?"
That made Espurr blink twice. She remembered it. It just required a little digging.
"The earliest known pokemonic civilization started on the Mist Continent," she said. "The other continents were colonized based on how much resources they had."
Watchog looked over the paper at Espurr. "In what order?"
"Water, Air, Grass, and Sand."
Watchog marked another sentence into the paper, carelessly setting it down next to him with only the quill and the inkwell as a paperweight.
"Question three," he read. "Give an estimate of the dates each continent was colonized."
Berry crackers. Espurr didn't remember that one. Watchog waited, an expectant expression upon his face. Espurr needed a moment to think. Watchog wasn't that patient. She need to stall.
"That isn't a question," Espurr said.
Watchog tapped the paper expectantly. "Yeah, well, I'm not here so you can argue about a bloody question that was punctuated with a dot. Answer it."
"I don't know." Pulling random dates out of nowhere would look bad, so she gave the most honest answer she had. The expression on Watchog's face was indecipherable. He said nothing further to her, instead grabbing the paper—
—And flipping the inkwell onto himself in the process. An entire vial-full of bluk berry ink splattered all over Watchog's chest, leaving him covered in dripping ink.
Watchog sputtered. He looked at his chest like the ink was his own blood. He sputtered again.
"…Ha! I have to wash this off before it sticks. Don't. Move. Understand?!"
Espurr nodded, and Watchog made a beeline for the door, trying at the last second to make his exit as dignified as possible. He slammed it behind him, and then Espurr was left all on her own. With two sheets of paper.
The longer she waited, the harder it became to resist looking at them. She knew she shouldn't, but she was quickly coming to regret the idea of voluntarily signing up for two hours of being barked at by Watchog. Especially if she didn't have the right answers off the bat. Maybe she could make this go quicker if she did…
"Bet you won't get a high score on the test!"
She remembered Pancham waving after her, with that insufferable sneer on his face.
That too. She'd show him. She hopped off the box she was sitting on, marching over to where the answer sheet was. She snatched the paper up, reading and memorizing the answers almost angrily.
By the time Watchog finally threw open the warehouse door and made his way back into the room, Espurr was back in her seat and it was like nothing had been touched in the first place.
~\({O})/~
Every question Watchog asked, Espurr answered correctly. Every once in a while she sent some psychic feelers out, but not once did she get the indication that Watchog suspected something. She didn't think he'd be the type to keep a suspicion like that on the down-low, anyway. All she had to do was reword the answers and he didn't suspect a thing. Even so, she couldn't kick the feeling that this was wrong, that she should pull back and at least try to answer the questions somewhat honestly, but she was in too deep now.
"Question 23: Name the three most famous exploration facilities in the world."
"The Rescuer's Guild on the Air Continent, the Wigglytuff's Guild on the Grass Continent, Pokemon Paradise on the Mist Continent."
Watchog sighed, marking yet another question off on the sheet with the answer.
"Question 57: The species of the pokemon directly involved in the Time Crisis were…
"Meowth, Riolu, Litleo, Shinx, Grovyle, Celebi, and Dusknoir."
Scritch-scratch: Another question marked off.
"Question 80, this is the last one—What did the treaty signed twenty years after the Bittercold Incident entail?
"The Global Exploration Accords, signed 11083, placed every guild on the Mist, Air, and Water continents under the control of the Helping Adventurous Pokemon Prosper Institute. This was done so that legislation could travel smoothly between the guilds without interference or interruption.
Watchog crossed the final question off the list, and sighed as he collected all the papers.
"You're free to go," he said. Espurr politely walked to the entrance of the warehouse and excused herself.
The pit in her stomach just grew larger.
~\({O})/~
The 'mon who was supposed to fix the classroom came a couple of hours early. Farfetch'd had spotted the 'mon making its way up towards the school. Audino ushered the rest of the class out the back doors of the school clinic, and led them around the classroom quietly while Watchog and Principal Simipour met with the repairmon. He was a fletchinder, and somehow didn't really strike Espurr as the builder type. He was sharper than he looked, however. No sooner had the class quietly absconded onto the path behind them that Fletchinder turned around, eyeing them interestedly.
"These your students?" he asked. His accent was Serenity Village (Or at least he didn't sound like Nuzleaf). Perhaps he was local? It didn't take long for the ever-sleep-worn Simipour to engage Fletchinder with another side tangent of the required finances, which gave Espurr and the rest of the students just enough time to slip off and out of Fletchinder's sight.
"Was he local?" Espurr asked Deerling once they were a good distance away from the school.
"Never seen him," Deerling replied. "But the Principal trusts him, so he can't be that bad. Are we still on for today, by the way?"
"On for what?"
Tricky happily scampered up to Espurr and Deerling, falling into a jolly trot alongside them.
"I can't believe Watchdog let us off like that," she bragged. "We got so lucky! Now we can explore that mystery dungeon in the berry fields together!"
"Tricky…" Espurr felt conflicted about dashing Tricky's hopes right off the bat, but she didn't want to go into another mystery dungeon right now. Not when she had so much flying around her mind already. "I… already agreed to go with Goomy and Deerling. Sorry."
"Well, can't we go together?" Tricky asked. "It's only a class A mystery dungeon. That means there's no wild dungeon 'mon in there!"
"No, Tricky… I agreed to do something else with Deerling and Goomy."
Tricky's face fell faster than a bag of rotting berries.
"But… I thought we were going to spend after school together…" she complained.
"Maybe I want to do something else for a change," Espurr said. "I don't want to go into a mystery dungeon right now."
Espurr hadn't meant it to be hurtful, but Tricky took it badly all the same.
"Fine…" she said, the disappointment hanging through her voice. "I'll just go exploring on my own, then." And with that, she was gone. Espurr couldn't help but cast a look back at Tricky. Would she be fine on her own?
"Look," Deerling said. "She'll be fine. She's been exploring on her own for years. One more day won't kill her. And besides, now I can show you the way to my house! It feels good not to get lost, right?"
"Hey."
Tricky looked up from her moping. On one side of her loomed Pancham. On the other side, Shelmet rather creepily lurked.
"…What do you guys want?" she asked, just a tiny hint of suspicion in her voice.
Pancham didn't let his gaze falter for one moment. He looked her straight in the eye. "I noticed your friend found somemon cooler to play with. That's all. Moving up in the village ranks, amiright? No need to hang with the Troublemaker anymore."
"'Tis a shame," Shelmet added sagely.
"I don't wanna hear it from you guys," Tricky said, marching ahead of Pancham and Shelmet adamantly.
"But you get us all wrong, dear 'Tricky'," Pancham said, slyly falling into Tricky's new pace. Shelmet bobbed along in the background, trying his hardest but obviously not able to keep pace with everymon else easily. "See, we aren't like Deerling and Goomy and Espurr. One little mistake doesn't make a difference in our books. Heck, we've made many, and look at us!"
"…What are you saying?" Tricky asked, curiosity inevitably beginning to overtake the suspicion.
"What I'm saying, dear Tricky…" Pancham smirked. "Is that I've had a change of heart about exploring. My bro Shelmet has too. Right, Shelmet?"
"Ha… Ha… Yeah! Whatever Pancham said." It was like Shelmet was further behind than he was before, even though he was moving as fast as his shell would take him.
"Really?" Tricky was half-optimistic, half-suspicious. Even for her, that was a little too good to be true.
"Yeah!" Pancham elbowed Tricky. "We fugitives gotta stick together, don't we?"
"…Yeah," Tricky admitted. "I guess we do."
"Alright then! And here's the best part: Me and Shelmet found the best spot for exploring! It's some sick dibs. You'd have never found it. Trust us."
And just like that, with the mention of a new location to explore, the dark spot in Tricky's day became a little brighter.
~\({O})/~
Deerling's House
~Espurr~
"So… Apparently the pawniards are all in front… And the golurk are on the sides." Deerling looked up from the instruction manual. "Did you get all that?"
Espurr had not gotten that. For the fifth time, she removed all the pieces off the board and began to reset them all again. "I thought you said all the pawniards were in the back."
"Yeah, this thing says everything but the pawniards are in back. That's like the stupidest thing ever! You could just say they're in front! And don't even get me started on why half this manual is written in Footprint Runes…"
Espurr began to set all the pawniards in front. "And where do the bisharp go?"
"Um…" Deerling quickly returned to the manual again, flipping through it with her nose. Espurr went back to neatly rearranging the different wooden pokemon in intricate patterns until she received further instructions from Deerling, or Goomy got back from the kitchen. Whichever came first.
The door to Deerling's bedroom slowly swung open, and Goomy slimed in with a plate full of what looked like… crackers. Espurr's mouth watered. The stress of the test had done a number to her stomach.
"Y-your mom's really nice…" Goomy said through a mouthful of cracker. "She got crackers for all of us. Want one?" He held the plate out towards Deerling.
"You mean the stale ones in the pantry she's been trying to get rid of for weeks?" Deering never even looked up from the manual. "I'll pass."
"They taste fine to me…" Goomy slimed over and took a seat the best he could across from Espurr. He set the plate of crackers on the table, and Espurr discreetly snatched one when Deering wasn't looking, Stale for sure, but they tasted fine enough. It wasn't like beggars could be choosers, anyhow.
A loud bang drew both Espurr and Goomy's attention. Deerling had just headbutted the manual in frustration.
"Ugh…" she grumbled in anger. "Why are there so many pawniards and only two bisharp?"
~\({O})/~
Serenity Village Outskirts
~Tricky~
"Just a little longer…"
Pancham cleared himself a path through the bushes, letting Tricky duck under the ferns before they snapped back and blocked Shelmet's path.
"Where are we headed?" Tricky asked as they headed further westwards. They were way past the Village outskirts by now. "If there were any mystery dungeons here I would know about them."
"What we found is better than a mystery dungeon," Pancham declared. "And it's just around the corner… Ah, here it is."
Pancham stopped, smirking confidently as Tricky and Shelmet finally caught up with him. Tricky's eyes widened. Located atop the trees of the forest was the wreckage of a small house, cobbled together from all sorts of raw material. Some even looked like they had come from pokemon Moves.
A tree-house.
"This is amazing!" Tricky declared. "How did you find this?"
"Oh, nothing," Pancham waved it off. "Just that we're good detectives is all. Go ahead! We want you to take the first peek."
Tricky couldn't believe her eyes. Or her ears, for that matter. This was like a dream come true! Almost too good to come true. She quickly scampered up the conveniently-placed pawholds of the tree, which would have seemed almost like steps if Tricky didn't know better.
The house itself looked like it might collapse any minute. Tricky wobbled on the branches, doing her best to keep her balance despite knowing she was twenty feet up in the air and could fall at any given moment…
"You're doing great!" yelled Pancham from below. "Just keep going!"
Tricky used the short boost of confidence from that to quickly scamper across the rest of the branch, and jump safely in the treehouse though one of the windows. Once inside, Tricky quickly tiptoed up to a window and threw it open, planning to wave out at Pancham and Shelmet-
But the moment she leaned out, the house suddenly collapsed in on itself without warning. A rope suddenly tightened around Tricky's hind legs, and she was left dangling from the treetops as most of the house fell to the ground, leaving a few choice pieces of wreckage in the trees. Tricky tried in vain to get herself upright, but was left helpless to Pancham and Shelmet's snickers.
"Guys…" she spat out. "I think the 'mon who built this place left a booby trap!"
"That's weird!" Pancham yelled up at her. "Just wait a few minutes—we'll get you down!"
But instead of climbing the tree and getting her down, Pancham and Shelmet did nothing. Tricky watched Pancham bend over, pick a rock up off the ground, and hurl it straight at her—
—The rock whizzed by her face, but thankfully missed. Tricky looked straight at Pancham in sudden horror. Of course. Why had she trusted them?!
"…Eventually," Pancham whispered to Shelmet in a low, jeering voice. Then he threw another rock.
~\({O})/~
~Espurr~
"No-mon touch anything…" Espurr slowly stepped away from the board as Deerling looked up from the manual. "I think we finally got it."
All the pieces on both sides of the chessboard were finally in their proper positions, and a quick look at the picture in the back of the manual that they hadn't discovered until after the fact confirmed it.
"Gee, that would have been nice to have like, an hour ago," Deerling muttered sardonically.
"I-is it done now?" Goomy asked.
That was when Espurr realized…
"Do we know how to play chess?"
There was silence.
Then Deerling slammed her head into the wall and let out a wordless groan of frustration.
"Deerling! Headbutting is for outside!"
"Sorry Mom!"
Another hour passed, in which Espurr, Deerling, and Goomy all fiddled with the manual and tried to get a good idea of how the game worked. Pretty soon, the sun was about to dip into evening, and Deerling's Mother walked into the bedroom to tell them that they'd best get back to their houses before dark.
"Well, that was a waste of time," Deerling announced in frustration as the four of them entered the living room.
"I warned you it wasn't going to be easy for you three to play," Deerling's Mother, a sawsbuck, said. "Now tell your friends goodnight, please. Their parents probably want them back before dark."
Espurr didn't have any parents to put a curfew over her head, but she kept that fact to herself.
"Have a nice night," Deerling said, trying to cover up her annoyed mood with a happy face. And then the door was closed in Espurr and Goomy's.
"I-I live east," Goomy said.
"I live north," Espurr said. "We can walk to the plaza together."
Goomy wasn't very opposed to that idea at all, especially since night had almost fallen.
~\({O})/~
~Tricky~
It was sundown. Tricky would have enjoyed it a lot more if she wasn't currently hanging upside down from a tree.
Pancham and Shelmet had never gotten her down like they had said they would. Although that was no surprise. They had thrown a lot of rocks at her, and then left once it began to get dark. Tricky had been left hanging in the tree, desperately trying to get herself loose. And now she was in trouble. The vines she had been tethered to were beginning to come loose from the tree, and it was a twenty-foot drop to the ground. She didn't want to fall from that height!
The wreckage of the house was still caught on the branches around her, but there was no way for her to reach it all tied up like she was. It wasn't like she hadn't been trying for the past couple of hours.
Snap. The vines became a little more frayed, causing Tricky to gasp. She had to start thinking fast, or she was doomed. Any explorer worth their salt could do it…
Tricky glanced at all the wreckage around her, looking for the nearest piece. Her eyes settled on a piece of the wall that had become speared on one of the branches not-so-far below. She could make that.
She began to rock herself back and forth in ways she knew would twist the vine and make it break faster. Slowly, but surely, the vine was becoming more and more frayed. Any minute now, it was going to snap and send her tumbling towards the ground. Tricky just shut her eyes, and tried to relax. It was a trick written in Mystery Dungeoneering Life Hacks, by Wartortle of Team Go-Getters. If you closed your eyes, and tried not to overthink it… things would turn out just fine. And that was why Tricky did her best to turn off her brain, and allow herself to work unfettered by scary thoughts.
Except for the fact that she was hanging over twenty feet above the ground, and trying to make herself fall…
Calm thoughts… Think about what Pops is making for dinner tonight… Yeah, that!
…Ugh, it wasn't working! What did Wartortle know, anyway?
Then the rope snapped, and there was no time for thinking. Less than a second later Tricky found herself digging her claws into the soft material of that wrecked wall. Maybe Wartortle had a point after all.
The drop to the ground was a little less than fifteen feet now. Tricky silently hopped from branch to branch with her back legs bound, trying to keep her mind clear and focused as she made her way down to the ground. When she finally felt her paws hit solid dirt again instead of the rough surface of another tree branch, it felt immensely liberating, and Tricky was then able to focus on biting off the binds on her hind legs.
It took a while to get home. Tricky spent much of the sundown trying to make her way out of the ambient forest before she got lost in the dark, and night had already fallen by the time she entered Serenity Village. All by herself. There weren't any streetlights like there must have been in Lively Town, and the only light came from the buildings around the square that were quickly darkening. Even Kecleon's was packing up on a weekday like this.
She felt beat-up and tired. Pops' rule was dinner before dark, so she was going to get a lecture before eating.
It was then that she realized that none of this would have happened if Espurr hadn't gone to Deerling's house. If Deerling hadn't stolen another one of Tricky's friends. Again. It wasn't fair! What Pancham and Shelmet had said was true, even if they had tied her to a tree and thrown rocks at her. Deerling still hadn't forgiven her, had she?
Tricky spotted Espurr politely waving goodbye to Goomy on the other side of the square, and this time she didn't let it go so easily.
Espurr heard the slow brushing of footsteps behind her, and turned to see Tricky trudging towards her through the streets.
"Oh, Tricky." Espurr turned around, looking at her. "You should have joined us for chess."
"I wanna know something." Tricky's voice didn't waver, although she felt all beat up and on the verge of crying. "What did Deerling say to you? About me?"
"Why do you assume Deerling said anything?" Espurr asked.
"Because she always does this! She tells the new pokemon to stay away from me, and everymon always listens to her! It's. Not. Fair!" Tricky yelled at the top of her lungs. Maybe she was blowing her breath in Espurr's face. She didn't really care. "You should have gone exploring with me, not them!"
She screamed every word at full blast into Espurr's face. Espurr's eyes narrowed.
"Well, maybe I don't want to go exploring with you," she hissed back. "All you want to do is drag me off into places no-mon else wants to go! 'Expedition Society' this, 'mystery dungeon' that! Why can't you just be like all the other kids?"
"All the other kids are rotten bullies!" Tricky growled. "Just like… you're being…"
Something snapped. Maybe it was Tricky's anger tearing red at the corners of her vision, or Espurr's indignance at being called a bully, but Espurr decided she'd had enough.
"If I'm a bully," Espurr slowly began, ice cold. "Then what does that make you?"
That shut Tricky up. She took a few steps back from Espurr, her ears flopping downward.
"I… I…" she began.
That was the point where it became too much for Tricky to bear. She took off in the direction of home as fast as she possibly could, lest Espurr or anymon else see her crying her eyes out near a bush.
~\({O})/~
~Espurr~
Some part of Espurr felt worried for Tricky as she walked up the winding forest path towards the school. She walked with her arms folded, trying to ignore the wind that blew through the trees and rattled the branches and how dark it was getting now. But the other part of her said that she was right to say it. She'd laid out the truth, plain and simple. It would have hit Tricky in the face sooner or later. Better a friend break it to her than somemon like Pancham.
And yet, the pit in her stomach grew larger.
Fletchinder had obviously been up to something in the few hours they'd been gone. All the rubble that had littered the classroom was gone now, and it looked like little more than an empty field of dirt and grass.
Audino was standing outside the door to the clinic by the time that Espurr had finished climbing up the stairs. "Oh! Right on time," she exclaimed. "I just finished locking up for the night." Audino dusted off her exploration bag and ducked in as Espurr walked in through the doors. It was true. The luminous moss orbs around the clinic had even been tarped already.
Once they were inside, Espurr flopped down on one of the straw beds, watching Audino put her exploration bag away. She let out an audible sigh, her arms still folded.
"Something the matter?" Audino asked.
It was a moment before Espurr responded.
"I think I screwed up today," she said.
"Hmm?" Audino finished setting her exploration bag next to the other two, and then turned her attention towards Espurr. "What makes you say that?"
It took Espurr a moment to think of what to say.
"If somemon you know does a bad thing, does that make them a bad person?" she asked.
"Not necessarily," Audino replied. She took a seat on the straw bed opposite of Espurr. "Everymon does bad things once in a while. But I think it's about what you do after that decides what kind of person you are. Why?"
Espurr was silent for a moment longer. She looked away from Audino's eyes, retraining them on the ground instead. Audino contemplated for a minute.
"Is this about Tricky?" she finally asked.
Espurr looked at Audino in surprise, but then nodded. Audino hmm'd.
"You had a fight, right?"
Espurr couldn't do much else but nod.
"It's okay to have a fight," Audino said. "Sometimes there's no good way to settle something, and everything comes out all wrong. But it's what you do after the fight that counts. I think you should talk to her tomorrow, and see if the two of you can make up."
"And what if that doesn't fix things?" Espurr asked.
"Then that's fine too," Audino said. "But you'll never know unless you try."
It was a moment before Espurr finally responded again.
"I will. I promise."
{beta comment: One of my worries is that this beat between Espurr and Audino might come around too soon. An alternate option is to have this conversation pop up in the next chapter instead, and leave off at this line here. Thoughts?}
~\({O})/~
~Tricky~
The dormant connection orb lay next to Tricky's bed, swept under in a place where no-mon was likely to trip on it. Tricky entered her room silently, trying to keep it all together so Pops wouldn't try to console her any further and keep reminding her. Keep bringing her back. He thought she had gotten over this almost a year ago. She just tried not to think about it, so hard not to remember it existed. It almost worked.
The case containing the pair of scarves was at the front of the pile of junk that was under Tricky's bed. Tricky pulled it out with her teeth. She opened it. She wasn't sure why she did. That pair of dusty scarves stared her right in the face. It was like they had voices: Why did you lock us away for so long?
Tricky slammed it shut, and slid it back under the bed with so much force it pushed the other junk up against the wall. She didn't like this anymore. She wanted to forget about the stupid scarves. She wanted to forget about all of it.
But she couldn't. She hadn't even gotten rid of the scarves. She wasn't strong enough to do that. She hadn't been then, and she wasn't now. Tricky hopped into her bed, and buried her head under the pillow in a vain attempt to flush it out and forget.
That was how she spent the night, and in the morning, she had forgotten everything.
~\({O})/~
Music of the week!
The End is Near At Hand - Yuki Kajiura