.9

"Every year, thousands of tons of freight are hauled off the Grass Continent for use on Air, Water, and Mist. Do the rescue guilds of Grass condone HAPPI stealing their resources? No. But they don't have a choice. They can't trade with anymon but HAPPI, because HAPPI controls all the trade."

~ Arbok, Air Continent politician

~\({O})/~

15.

Photos and Conspiracy

~\({O})/~

Expedition Society Base – Lively Town

Primarina

It was morning.

Primarina lay on his back in the bed of straw, oh so uncomfortable but unwilling to move. Needles of pain prickled at his forehead, threatening to split it wide open. The light hurt his eyes, but shutting them just made it hurt more. In the corner of his sight, something black flickered and was gone.

Secretary told him that was what he got for drinking so much alcohol in one sitting. But getting blackout drunk had never hurt like this before. Primarina had just dismissed him. He didn't have time to listen to such nonsense when his head felt like it was unraveling at the seams and he needed the most luxurious water bath in the world, but didn't feel good enough to get up and request one.

Destroy the photos.

Primarina stopped rattling through complaints in his head. That last one hadn't been a complaint. It wasn't even on the subject of complaints. It had come out of nowhere. It wasn't his. Whose was it—

"Oh," he muttered lazily, coming to the addled realization. "It's you again."

Destroy the photos.

There it was again. Primarina had heard the Voice before, but it had only whispered in the past. It informed him of things in the back of his head, like what the pokemon he was talking to was thinking, or how many jars of shellfish Secretary had bought for breakfast on any given day. And it had always been right, so when the Voice had told him to position the Exeggutor in a certain spot between the Air and Water Continents, he sailed there at its behest. But it had never been this loud before. Or this forceful. And truth be told, that worried Primarina a little.

"Secretary?" he weakly called out, his voice a croak. Maybe it was high time he did something about it… Secretary would help him. Secretary always had something handy. Secretary would—

Your servant will not help you.

Primarina decided he'd had enough. He tried to raise himself from the bed of straw, but found that he couldn't move—he was paralyzed!

Destroy the photos. Rip them tear Them Kill Them To Shreds.

Primarina was horrified. He wanted to scream, but not even his mouth worked anymore.

Destroy the photos. It is in your best interest.

There was nothing Primarina could do. Nothing except listen to the Voice. Maybe try to bargain with it. But then that last sentence caught his attention.

"…What?"

It is in your best interest. What you see on those photos will destroy life as you know it. Destroy the photos, and you never have to see it. Destroy the photos, and you can continue living your normal life. Destroy the photos, and you can pretend it never happened. You can do that… can't you?

Perhaps it was the hangover, or the dreamy haze Primarina was currently in, but something about the Voice's words sounded very agreeable. Of course that made sense. He had a good life. Why would he want to spoil it by getting involved with troubling things? He was finding himself agreeing with the Voice more and more by the minute.

Destroy the photos.

Destroy the photos. He could do that.

You can do that.

But how?

You know how. They will trust you like the fools they are. Leave no traces behind. they must be gone for good, or you have failed.

Primarina couldn't move, but in his mind he nodded. And then, just like that, the needles of pain evaporated. The fog that lay in his head disappeared, leaving an empty space for his thoughts to exist once more. He could think clearly once again.

Allow me to aid you.

Black sparks hummed through the air, crackling and popping as they did. They disappeared into Primarina's body, and movement returned to him. He sat up straight in bed, blinking his eyes. He felt no traces of the hangover he had been suffering previously. In fact, he had never felt this healthy in years!

Remember your mission. You know what must be done.

Primarina nodded. He did.

Destroy the photos.

~\({O})/~

~Mawile~

The single photo was pinned to the wall, isolated from the others. There used to be a lot of things pinned to that wall, but Mawile had taken them all down just for this occasion. They currently lay in a big fat messy pile on the other side of the room, untouched.

Mawile had foregone her hypothetical period of sleep that week in favor of research. Over the years, the Expedition Society (mainly Mawile) had traded, bought, and bartered their way into a vast collection of old, ancient, and new books—and now that Mawile had what was likely the closest thing that existed to a photo of whatever had attacked them in Pokemon Plaza, she planned to use it.

So far, she hadn't had any luck. She had cross-referenced and pulled open books galore, following any lead she could possibly find. A small settlement that disappeared off the shores of Sand 250 years ago turned out to be the work of a nasty spiritomb that had since been slain by a pair of Sand-native explorers, and a group of travelling cannibal pokemon were responsible for a slew of murders across the Grass Continent only a century before, but there were apparently no existing records of pokemon spontaneously becoming stone statues recorded anywhere in history. And Mawile had spent the whole night researching. Water. Grass. Mist. Air. Some lore and slight digging into Sand, but that was barely scratching the surface when it came to Sand.

There was nothing. No evidence. No clues. No leads. For the first time in a long, long while, Mawile found herself at a loss. Had the monster all really been a trick of the light? Did it exist at all? It had felt real.

But even so, a psychic skilled enough could make one believe anything was real. What if they had just been throwing attacks out at thin air the entire time?

But the photos didn't lie. There it was, displayed clear as day on the photo's sleek surface: The proof that even if it was trickery, it was physical trickery. Whatever its true form was, it had been there.

But then what was it?

A sudden knock on the door invaded the quietness of Mawile's personal office/library, stirring her from her sleep-deprived thought stupor.

She cleared her throat, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and attempting to look composed as she turned towards the door. "Come in."

The door opened a crack, and Dedenne peeked her head in.

"I would have called you…" she panted—it looked like she had run the entire way there—"but I just got off a call from the Chief! He's in Lively Town!"

~\({O})/~

Lively Town

~Ampharos~

Ampharos could see the familiar observatory tower of Headquarters stretching above all the other buildings of Lively Town. It was a welcome sight indeed. He kept the billowy, earth-green hood of his cloak up as he walked through the streets, for what little good it did him—many of the pokemon in Lively Town had all seen that cloak enough times to hazard a pretty good guess at who was underneath it. That, and his tail was peeking out. An instant giveaway.

Beside him, Team Limestone walked, looking almost as weary as Ampharos felt. He owed them a healthy round of thanks. He would have been stumbling around the Lively Mountain Range for at least another day if he hadn't run into them by pure chance in the middle of the morning. Torracat Cinder could read and keep track of a map better than Ampharos could, and the four of them had made it back to Lively Town in just four hours.

They stopped just outside the Lively Town market. Cinder needed to return the exploration bag they had gone out into the mountains to retrieve to the cinccino that owned it and collect the bounty, and he said Ampharos could leave without them. Ampharos said he'd rather wait for their return, but declined to accompany them to the client's house. Which left him loitering around the marketplace until they came back. He estimated about five minutes.

There was still a little money in his bag. Ampharos had expected Kangaskhan's rates to be much, much steeper, but in hindsight using Swanna Inn's infamous prices to scale for a small village town may have been a misjudgment. Staying thrice as long as he'd expected to had cleaned out most of it, but there were still some odds and ends left over. Having odds and ends from mission supplies sitting around in his bag bothered Ampharos. And he was in the market area…

He pulled the remaining poke out of his bag, just enough coins to fit in his paw. Ampharos frowned. It might buy a few appleberries.

~\({O})/~

Expedition Society Headquarters

"Chief!"

"How go the missions?"

"It's good to see you all again!"

The pokemon of the Expedition Society excitedly greeted Ampharos and Team Limestone as the four pokemon entered the Society's lobby.

"Are you guys feeling alright?" Dedenne asked. "Any cuts? Scratches? Feeling sick? I can wire you through to Nickit, just say the word."

"I think if anymon here was sick it would be obvious," Cinder yawned dismissively, a piece of apple still in his mouth. He padded around Dedenne lazily, puffing out his fur as he went.

"That's not always true—" Dedenne began angrily, but Cinder had already prowled off. Vulpix and Rockruff shared looks.

"Do you wanna get poked with metal things for an hour while bandit-fox makes nasty comments about your fluff?" Vulpix Holly asked Rockruff Granite in a hushed tone, her snow-white ears pinning back a bit. Ampharos sent them both a disapproving look. Holly's eyes widened in realization, and she muttered a quick 'sorry' before scampering off down a hallway. Granite just pawed the ground for a minute, then walked off in some random direction before Dedenne could scold her more.

"So how did the map work?" Dedenne asked, scurrying after Ampharos as he walked up the grand lobby stairs. "You still have it, right?"

"That… is… classified," Ampharos announced.

"You lost it, didn't you."

"That is…" Ampharos began, more sheepishly than last time. "Also classified."

Dedenne looked like she wanted to mutter something foul.

The staircase took Ampharos up through a large archway and into the second floor hub, where Ampharos and Dedenne finally split paths. Ampharos strolled towards the library nook on the left, depositing the stem of an apple in the second-floor-corridor waste bin and raising his paw to knock.

The door opened before he could, and he suddenly found himself face to face with Mawile.

"Chief," she said in acknowledgement, stepping to the side to allow Ampharos in.

"Mawile." The door closed behind them, and then they were alone.

"Shall we compare notes?" Mawile asked, stepping over to where her books and research lay open. Ampharos noticed the way her eyelids hung, her body slouched, her back maw drooped. Her movements were clumsy, slightly jerky. Her fur had lost its usual sheen and looked duller, slightly ratty.

"Have you been sleeping well?" he asked.

"One period a week," Mawile answered hastily, shuffling a few books. "Chesto berries work wonders for the mind and soul." There was a half-eaten chesto berry on the desk, which Mawile discreetly finished in one bite.

Ampharos ultimately decided to hold off from commenting further on her sleeping habits. He took a seat in a chair near the door, where a few dusty cloaks that may have fallen off his own back during previous meetings were draped. After standing all that time, Ampharos had almost forgotten what sitting was like. He took a moment to relax before speaking.

"Through no small effort, I have managed to locate the Human," Ampharos finally began. "She's a girl, about 13 years old, Espurr. Almost always seen with a fennekin friend. Currently safe and sound in the secluded Serenity Village. Through a couple of 'chance meetings' I gifted them a connection orb and an expedition gadget, so they should be trackable on the Pokemon Nexus. We'll know their every movement from here on out."

"A child…" Mawile rapidly jotted it all down on a piece of paper. "None of the others were children when they arrived. Are you sure you found the right pokemon?"

"I am almost certain we have the right one," Ampharos said, leaning forward. He spoke in a low voice. "She showed up only a few days ago. The villagers barely knew her. She acts out of her element. No other 'mon in that village did."

"There were two energy surges," Mawile responded. "Common sense dictates that two Humans entered this world. What about the other one?"

"I did not find anymon who struck me the same way," said Ampharos. "And if two were sent, why not send both at once? Why space them out when there is strength in numbers?"

The air hung heavy with the implication of Ampharos' statement.

"You mean to say that they were killed?" Mawile asked.

"It's a possibility," Ampharos said. "One that grows more and more likely with every passing day."

~\({O})/~

Residential Wing

~Team Limestone~

The curtains were drawn over the room's entrance, but the window was wide open.

"This place needs fresh air," Holly said, swinging her white puffy tails around to expel some dust from the windowsill. "And don't either of you deny it."

"I'm not denying it…" Granite whined, covering her nose with her paws. "What happened here?"

"Dedenne said the room was used to house an injured skuntank or something," Cinder grumbled.

"Our room?!" Holly moaned, slapping a paw over her face. "We'll never get it ooouuuut…"

"Just deal with it," Cinder grunted. He didn't seem to be bothered by the stench at all. "At least the mission loot was a lot. We can buy something even smellier and block out the stench."

"How is something smellier going to help?" Granite cried.

"We'll never smell a thing again," said Cinder. It was his attempt at a joke. The look Holly gave him smacked of the lowest form of disapproval.

Then the curtains suddenly whooshed back, causing the three of them to jump.

"Alright," Nickit said, trotting into the room. "Little birdie told me the three of you didn't show up for your post-mission checkups."

"Was this 'birdie' a mouse?" Holly asked, flopping upside down on one of the straw beds with a completely unamused look on her snout. "Tell her to die for me, thanks."

Nickit sniffed the air. "Smells like a skuntank died in here," she commented offhandedly.

All three pokemon shared an uneasy glance, as they realized they hadn't checked under the beds for skuntank residue.

"Eat this," Nickit plopped her bag on the ground, opened it, and handed an oran berry to Cinder. "Eat this, eat this." Granite and Holly got oran berries too. "Don't make me shove it down your throat," she snapped upon seeing Granite's look of disgust. The rockruff quickly ate it.

All three members of the team were then made to sit, stretch, and stand in awkward positions as Nickit poked and prodded them with the many apparatuses in her bag.

"Eat this," she said, handing a rawst berry to Cinder. "And for god's sake, stop eating spicy foods! You're making that heartburn problem of yours worse.

"Have you been taking those dust baths?" she asked Granite. "Remember those pictures I showed you? Do you wanna end up like that? No? Then take dust baths.

"Less water means less ambient coolness means more suffering for you," Nickit said, sprucing the fluff on the top of Holly's head and watching closely to see how it settled. "Drink more water. Or maybe you'll melt! Don't ask me what happens then; I've never studied a melting vulpix before. So don't make me."

"But none of us are sick?" Holly questioned as Nickit trotted over to her bag and began to pack up her kit.

"Nah," Nickit said, grabbing the bag in her teeth and throwing it on her back. "You're clean.

"And remember, nothing with medicinal berries in it for the rest of the evening," Nickit called out as she trotted towards the door. "'Nless you wanna wake up tomorrow and spend the rest of the day in my office."

And then, just as quickly as she had arrived, Nickit was gone. All three members of the team stared at each other in befuddled silence for a moment. Then they quickly hopped into action.

"Berry crackers check the beds!"

~\({O})/~

Expedition Society Headquarters ~ Midday

Clack. Mawile rolled the shutters over the windows, casting the room into darkness. The doors on all sides were closed, including the almost never used bar gate that barred the second floor from entry via the stairway. Mawile had sent Dedenne around with a roll-call sheet about a half hour ago, and now the entirety of the Expedition Society was gathered in the room. Braixen leaned against the wall to the side, his arms folded as he looked at the completely blank wall in the back of the room.

Mawile directed her gaze towards him, and then spoke: "Would you kindly get Primarina for us?"

Braixen didn't answer that. He just unfolded his arms, and walked off in the direction of Ampharos' office silently. Ampharos shook his head to clear it of the slight tingling.

"What a strange 'mon," he commented offhandedly to himself. And it was true. Something about that braixen he found concerning. He almost looked too young to be an adult, even if he was the Ambassador's secretary. And learning that the Ambassador had travelled all the way from Cloud Nine just to pick up these photos was even more concerning.

Ampharos knew that wasn't standard procedure; the Ambassador had no business meddling in affairs that didn't concern the well-being of his continent. If Cloud Nine even knew about the photos, they would have sent a sanctioned rescue team from Pokemon Paradise to pick them up, not Primarina.

Which begged the question: Why was Primarina here?

~\({O})/~

~Primarina~

Primarina was in the middle of hurriedly packing his bags when he heard a knock on the door.

"Come in!" he announced, slithering in front of the bags as if to hide them. The door opened, and then Secretary peeked in.

"Um… yeah," he said. "They want you for some kind of event out there. Looks important. You should probably go."

Primarina quickly nodded with a furtive look around, as if he wanted Secretary out of the room. "Tell them I'll be there shortly," he said.

Secretary closed the door, and then Braixen walked back down the hall to the room where the rest of the Expedition Society waited.

"He'll be there shortly," Braixen said, and then he folded his arms and went back to leaning against the wall.

~\({O})/~

There was a small, round indent on the floor in the very middle of the room, just large enough to fit the bottom half of a connection orb. Mawile carefully slotted an orb into the opening, then stood back. The sound of several large clacks clanged out from under the pokemons' feet, and then the floor began to roll back from the center. Mawile stepped back behind the hexagonal circle of safety tape that decorated the floor, and made sure that everymon else had done the same.

The connection orb rose up into the air on a thin pedestal, and a six-sided console followed by a railing both slid up out of the empty cavity in the floor. The large clack of something slotting into place below them traveled throughout the room, and then all was silent. Mawile stepped forward, pressing something on the console. Ocean-blue light shot up out of the pedestal and through the connection orb, bathing the white draw-down projector screen ahead of them in light.

"Slide one." Mawile clicked something on the console, and a skyline photo of the deserted city of Pokemon Plaza appeared where the connection orb's ocean-blue glow had been. "Approximately two weeks ago, communications in and out of Pokemon Plaza halted completely. The Expedition Society was drafted at the behest of the Helping Adventurous Pokemon Prosper Institute and Cloud Nine to investigate the issue, and our findings have proved sufficiently disturbing."

Mawile clicked the button again, showing a close-up picture of a petrified zangoose with a terrified expression on its face. "Slide two. Here we see the anomalous phenomenon that has managed to affect every pokemon within a mile-wide radius of Pokemon Plaza. While I hate to present such speculation as fact without conclusive evidence, it seems as though the affected pokemon have been turned—inside and out—to solid stone. Not even the rock types have been spared."

Mawile clicked the button. Slide three: A petrified geodude, completely stone from the inside and out. It lay on the ground, stony features spread out in a frightening grimace. There were a couple of audible gasps from Team Limestone and Bunnelby's side of the room. Ampharos watched the presentation silently, with stony eyes.

"The Expedition Society has reason to believe that this is not the cause of a natural disaster," Mawile continued. "Somemon is behind these attacks. Slide four."

Mawile clicked the button. Slide Four was a photo of a wrecked storefront.

"Observe." Mawile pointed with her much larger shadow to the upper left-half of the photo, where the blurred image of a shadowy leg and several spines could be seen. "What you are currently viewing is the best existing photo of the anomaly I can only assume is behind these incidents." Mawile turned back towards Primarina, Braixen, and the rest of the Executive Staff.

"While performing reconnaissance, Off-Continent Explorer Archen and I were ambushed by this creature, which used an attack I have yet to identify. This creature is not a pokemon. It is not a known construct of any mystery dungeon on any continent. It did not make any attempt to communicate with either myself or with Archen before attacking us. And I can only assume—" Mawile rifled through the rest of the slides, showing the devastation of Pokemon Plaza from all sides and angles "—that it caused the destruction seen in these photos. If any of you are to encounter a creature that looks, acts, or even sounds remotely like the one shown and described here, you are to abort your mission, return straight to Headquarters, and report to either me or the Chief. Is that understood?"

The room was punctuated with nods and hums of acknowledgement. Primarina stared up at the projector, his face constantly contorting between different expressions. Sense was returning to him. He was finding it harder and harder to listen to that little voice in his head. He… This wasn't his business. Yeah, it wasn't. He had no business being here. He shouldn't be here. He should leave. He was only here because the Voice told him to come. He should…

…No. He was in too deep now. He had already offered. It had to look like he left with them.

Remember your mission.

It was too late. Too late to back out. Too late to get help. Primarina was trapped and he knew it.

"Good," Mawile said. And with that, she reached over and pulled the connection orb out of the pokemon Nexus. Stepping onto the floor as it slowly slid back in and walking past the tape, she slipped the connection orb in her bag. "That'll be all. Thank you for your time." And with that, Mawile threw open the shutters, blinding half the pokemon in the room and causing the rest of them to quickly hide their eyes.

"Apologies," Mawile stated at the light-induced groans that pervaded the room, blinking rapidly herself as her eyes tried to adjust to the light. "I'm afraid that was a mistake."

"A little more than a mistake…" Buizel groaned, his eyes over his paws. "You ruined my eyes…"

Mawile courteously ignored him. She walked up to Primarina, who had barely recovered from the sudden flood of light into his eyes.

"As promised," she began, digging into her bag. "Physical copies, to be taken back to Cloud Nine for processing."

Mawile's hand emerged with a short stack of photos, handing them to Primarina. Primarina reluctantly took them in his flippers, handing them off to Braixen. He whispered something in Braixen's ear, who nodded, quickly opened the gate leading to the bottom floor and slipped through it.

"I- I do ask that you provide me and Braixen with lodging for one more night," Primarina said. "The Exeggutor has not been fully prepared for sea yet; it's been a while since I've had any maintenance done… you understand."

Mawile nodded cordially. "Of course." she then turned and briskly headed towards the library. Ampharos took that as his chance to step in.

"Afternoon," he cut in with his jovial tone, slipping in front of Primarina before the seal could move anywhere else. "I don't believe we've met. Care to shake paws for a minute or two?"

If Primarina had any overt objections, he was good at hiding them. Although Ampharos could tell he had them anyway. He held out a flipper, which Ampharos heartily shook.

"You're the 'Chief' everymon here talks about so much, correct?" Primarina kept his tone regal, bearing Ampharos' vigorous paw-shaking as best he could.

"Correctomundo!" Ampharos exclaimed, continuing to shake Primarina's flipper. "And you're our beloved guest, who has taken up residence in my office for the time being. We're chuffed to have you!"

Primarina retracted his flipper as soon as he could pry it out of Ampharos' paw. "…I am very pleased to be here as well," he said, sounding like each word of that sentence was a slight against his very being. "…'Chuffed', if that's how you 'mon say it in Lively Town."

"Chuffed to meet you! You may call me Ampharos." Ampharos said. "and to echo the words of my vice-chief, on the behalf of everymon in the Expedition Society I wish you a grand rest of your stay."

"…So do I," Primarina replied after a moment. "In fact, I'm enjoying it so much I must get to packing my bags in excitement. There is a long journey back to Cloud Nine ahead of us, after all."

"Be my guest!" Ampharos declared. "Literally."

Primarina grimaced. Then he slowly slid himself along back to Ampharos' office. Once the door had closed behind him, Ampharos lost his cheer. He leaned against the wall, folding his paws behind his back and furrowing his brow. Very suspicious indeed.

~\({O})/~

Mess Hall ~ Evening

Swirlix had spent the day cooking up a storm ever since Ampharos had returned, and despite Mawile's concerns over general supplies a feast decorated the tables of the Expedition Society that night. Everymon gathered around the table, conversing with each other and eating heartily from the vast piles of food that decorated the plates, more than all of them combined could eat in one meal.

Even 'mon like Nickit who preferred to keep to themselves had shown up for the feast, since Swirlix had long since made it clear that if one did not make it to dinnertime, one would be making their own dinner. Dinnertime was the one event at the Expedition Society that everymon in Headquarters could be trusted to regularly show up at, and so lots of trading and bartering and gossip went on between the constant chomping and slurping at the dinner table.

"Found a mission on the board, by the by," Bunnelby said to Buizel in between bites of several different vegetables and berries. "Grass Continent. Looks like something you'd be into."

He picked the lettuce out of his dish. Nickit pointedly ate the leaves. Buizel nodded, but he was too busy taking a bite out of a piece of fish to respond.

At the head of the long table, Ampharos noticed Mawile taking a bite of a chesto berry. That had been her second one today that he knew of. She was attempting to go without sleep for too long, he knew. But that wasn't as important right now. Certainly not anything to disrupt kind Swirlix's feast over. Instead, he discreetly scanned the dinner participants for either Primarina or Braixen.

Neither were there.

~\({O})/~

Expedition Society Hallway ~ Nighttime

Dinner was over. Mawile walked down the hallway, struggling to keep herself upright. She felt tired beyond comprehension, but there was important work to be done. That took priority over sleep.

There was the sound of somemon walking up the stairs—tripping—and then stumbling onto the second floor. Soon after that Ampharos caught up with Mawile and joined her in stride. They walked in silence for a moment. Then, Ampharos spoke:

"You need to sleep," he said, his voice low and soft. "Your maw is drooping. I can tell you need it."

"I can't sleep yet," Mawile muttered. "I have important things to do."

"Such as?" Ampharos asked.

"Research. I have to go through the archives on the Sand Continent—" A yawn grabbed Mawile, cutting off her sentence "—and see if I can find a reference on that anomaly there."

"Things like that are done better when one is refreshed and awake," Ampharos stated.

"Sleeping wastes time," Mawile responded.

"Sleep is important," Ampharos said. "And you are in dire need of it."

"I can't sleep yet," Mawile repeated, slightly slurring. She was having trouble making it to the end of the hall. "I must keep going, keep working, find an… an…"

Ampharos said nothing. He walked with her at the slow pace she was going, and it got slower and slower until eventually Mawile's legs gave out from under her—

—Ampharos caught her in his arms before she fell. She snored softly in his arms, several lost days of sleep catching up to her in an instant. Ampharos cocked his head in quiet concern. Chesto berries were a powerful thing, and he worried for Mawile sometimes. Silently, he carried her all the way to her office and laid her down on her bed. In her sleep, Mawile grasped for one of the few remaining chesto berries on the bedside desk, but Ampharos removed them from her reach.

"Sleep," he whispered, and then Mawile fell still.

Once he was sure that Mawile had truly fallen to sleep, Ampharos picked up the chesto berries once again, walked out with them, and let the office door close behind him.

~\({O})/~

Observatory ~ Sundown

The sun had long since completed its journey over the horizon. Jirachi, like everymon else in the Expedition Society, slept.

Unaware of the world outside the frame of his dreams. Unaware of the battered old printer, which had finally finished making the copies of the photos he had put on yesterday. Unaware of the many other photos ziplined above him, the photos pinned to them swaying softly above.

Unaware of the door to the observatory slowly creeping open. Somemon nimbly hopped in, quietly brushing the doorstopper into place with their bushy tail.

They slowly crept across the room, making sure not to disturb Jirachi as they went. Their claws on the floor made no sound. Until they reached the printer.

Claws settled themselves over the finished photos, deftly removing them from the printer and slipping them into a bag without a sound. Seconds later, the clothing lines in the office were expertly severed from below, and the photos snatched away without a sound as they fell to the floor.

The pokemon moved onto the desk. They grabbed a connection orb out of their bag. The click of the orb as it slotted into Mawile's expedition gadget clacked throughout the room, louder than they had anticipated. The pokemon's head snapped back towards Jirachi. Had he heard… ?

He hadn't. Still sleeping. Still safe. The pokemon turned back to what they were doing. Downloading something. Deleting it from the gadget. The pokemon repeated the same thing with Archen's expedition gadget. Insert orb. Make sure Jirachi is still sleeping. Download. Delete from gadget.

The pokemon quietly slipped the connection orb back in their bag, and crept back across the room. Past the sleeping Jirachi. Still sleeping.

Mawile carefully adjusted the bag so it wouldn't knock any of the dusty books laying around, then let the door quietly close behind her.

~\({O})/~

Expedition Society Headquarters ~ Lively Town

Braixen stepped out the doors of the Expedition Society. Only the space between two lavender walls stood between him and his goal now.

He took a slow, long glance around at the town below him, a collection of shining lights illuminating the way to the dark pier. This place was the highest vantage point in the city. Even when the sun had already set, he could see the Exeggutor from here clearly. That was good. He was close. From the bag that hung from his shoulders he produced the photos that Primarina had given to him earlier. They needed to be disposed of quickly, as Primarina had instructed. Braixen kneeled over the sewer monhole that was in the middle of the square, hastily tearing the photos in halves, fourths, then dropping the pieces into the depths through the metal plate's slits. The muks could have them. Braixen dusted off his hands—

"Leaving so soon?" Ampharos asked from behind him, leaning against the side of the Society's large double-doors. Braixen froze at his voice. "How very unlike you. I would have thought you'd want to cover up your tracks a little more first."

Braixen slowly rose from his crouching position over the sewer grate, trying not to look like he was guilty. "I don't know what you're talking about," he repeated mechanically. "I was just going for a nighttime stroll. Thought I saw something in the sewers."

"Oh, but you do," Ampharos said. "Lying does you no good here. Tell me… what's that by your feet?"

Braixen looked down at where Ampharos was looking, and noticed a largish scrap of a photo. Berry crackers, he had been caught. His first instinct was to run for it, but then he wondered if Ampharos expected him to do that. If he'd planned this far… how many Expedition Society members were waiting for him beyond those gates?

No, the best option was to play it safe for now.

"…Would I have gotten away with it?" Braixen asked, not even turning around.

"Ah, but you almost did!" Ampharos replied jovially. "I must admit that was clever of you; impersonating my vice-chief. If only I didn't know my colleagues as well as I do. Just like I know your true form. We have no need of illusions here, either."

Common sense told Braixen not to be difficult before he knew what he was dealing with. His form began to shimmer, and he felt the familiar sense of a disguise he felt naked without leaving him. And then, in Braixen's place there stood a zoroark. Ampharos could tell he was young, barely of age.

"So now what?" Zoroark asked, still facing away from Ampharos.

"Now…" Ampharos began. "You aren't in trouble. But I suspect you aren't doing this on your own, are you? Somemon put you up to this. If you told me who… maybe I could help."

His words were strangely disarming. They turned Zoroark's defenses off, made him want to believe what Ampharos was saying, that maybe this was something more than just a trick to capture him. And maybe he wanted to believe it.

"No-mon put me up to this," he growled at Ampharos. "I did it all on my own."

"But did you?" Ampharos asked, like he already knew the answer. He probably did, Zoroark realized. "Did you want those photos gone?"

He gave Zoroark a long, silent pause to respond. Zoroark found that he couldn't bring himself to.

"Or is that Ambassador Primarina talking?"

That was the moment when Zoroark realized this pokemon saw right through him. Not just the disguises, or the theft, or even who he was working for. Everything.

"I can't go back with nothing," he said. "If he even thinks I was caught or that I backed out, he'll turn me over to the police to save his own hide."

"You won't have to go back with nothing," Ampharos said. From out of the bag he was holding he pulled an identical connection orb, showing it to Zoroark. "You can smash that orb on the ground, or you can hand it to me and smash this one instead. A bright kid like you should be able to decide what the right path is."

It should have been obvious. He was so close. So close now. He could just leave, and even if Ampharos had an ambush waiting for him, he bet he could take them on. All he had to do was walk out of the courtyard. The Exeggutor would take off, and Primarina never had to know anything had gone wrong. All he had to do was leave. All he had to do was leave.

So why hadn't he?

"The Expedition Society could offer refuge in the event something bad does happen," Ampharos continued, noticing Zoroark's hesitation. "Sanctuary. I know Primarina. The Ambassador would rather save his own skin than come back here to make sure the job is done… if he cares enough to go looking in the first place. Just don't be a part of his foolishness."

Zoroark had no reason to trust this pokemon. Not as much reason as he had to trust Primarina's wrath. Maybe it was the natural disarming charm Ampharos had. Maybe he was still naïve enough to believe what Ampharos was saying, that if he fell there'd be somemon to pick him up. But whatever the reason, he found himself walking forward, implicitly admitting defeat. Every single step in Ampharos' direction felt wrong; outstretching an arm and letting the orb fall into Ampharos' flipper felt like a colossal, terrible mistake. But before he knew it, it was a mistake he could no longer take back. The orb was gone, and another orb that looked the same was held out in front of him in that yellow paw.

It didn't look so different from the last. It had the same, sky-blue sheen. If one didn't know, one would never guess. Zoroark took it in his claws. It felt the same too. And identical weight and grip.

"You made a noble decision," said Ampharos. "There are some dummy files on it if he makes you check. Know that my offer still stands, if you find yourself in need of it."

Zoroark didn't answer him. He didn't want to be in this courtyard anymore. He just slunk away with the deftness that his species was known for, morphing back into a disguise before he hit the town. Even if it was night, he didn't need to be seen in his true colors.

~\({O})/~

~The Exeggutor~

"Did you get it?" Ambassador Primarina asked as Zoroark-as-Braixen stepped onto the ship. He held out the orb for Primarina to see.

"Good," Primarina barked. "Now smash it. As far as anymon outside this room is concerned it never existed."

Zoroark-as-Braixen nodded. He stood back, raised his arm, and then hurled the orb straight at the floor. For all its resilience, the connection orb was still a fragile piece of technology. It smashed apart into tiny little bits against the hard, wooden floorboards of the cabin. Zoroark ground it into dust with his feet. Now no-mon would ever know what had been on it. And neither would Primarina.

Zoroark was counting on that.

~\({O})/~

Music of the week!

Pegasus - Bear McCreary