Dawn had gotten to her secret training ground. All the others were already waiting for her at the gym so they can go over what happened during the jailbreak. Getting inside the others had their masks off but still were in their hero costumes. What she did not expect was the fourth one on green with them.
"Who is she?"
She had short orange red hair with a spiky style almost mirroring Ash, brownish red eyes and a green bodysuit which truly resembled nature. She carried herself with experience as Dawn saw her guard up ready for a fight anytime.
"Name's Zoey. So you're Umbreon huh?"
"Blacky! How's it going!?" The grass spirit loud calling her dark sister Dawn heard Umbreon speak up.
"Hello Leaf. Spend a lot of my time in darkness waiting for something to happen."
"Nothing new for you then?"
"Shut it. Let our hosts get to know each other first."
"You're not carrying an earring?" Dawn looked at Zoey but found no earring in her lobes. The new heroine pulled on her collar and showed Dawn where she hid her jewel.
"I never was one for earrings. I keep my secrets close to my chest." She joked as she then touched her green jewel on her necklace and began her transformation in front of Dawn. Dawn seeing the red hair shift to green she removed her hair and touched her own earring starting the change too. The two finished morphing and smiled.
"What do you know? There's really another one here."
"We have to start training now! I can't wait to see your powers!" Dawn excited to get to know Zoey more. Perhaps after their workout she and May can go and exchange stories with Zoey about their experiences as heroines.
"A little patience Dawn." Riley told her.
"There is something else we need to talk about to you."
Dawn saw them staring at her as if she did something wrong before Ash spoke up.
"Oh Deedee." Ash used Dawn's nickname as if she had done something stupid. Being too busy with the escapees he only just now got to hear about Dawn's little break in at the hotel the shaolin is staying at. Dawn rubbed the back of her head.
"I regret nothing." She boasted proudly. The second aura guardian among them shook his head.
"What were you thinking sneaking into that hotel?" Riley asked her having heard the report of it. Dawn stood her ground in this not going to take anymore babying from more experienced people.
"I just can't wait any longer to see if I have what it takes. That first leap is the most dangerous one but only I can have the courage to make it. Only the one with the powers can decide when she's ready. I had to decide for myself and not clutch on to anyone else."
"And now you're one of us..." Umbreon said while mentally smiling. Dawn got it in the end just like every host should.
"Sorry for not being straight to you the whole time. But I'm the same with every host." Umbreon telling Dawn that her boot camp is over. The blue haired girl finally got the courage needed and so the spirit can loosen her leash a bit more.
"We all are. Same thing with May that I pretended to give her the cold shoulder." Glaceon confirmed that every spirit did the same and that it's nothing personal.
"No need to worry. I get it now." Dawn belonging now had some questions first but May told her it had to wait.
"We didn't wanted to make her repeat herself so we waited for you to come." Riley said as Leafeon asked for their help and they'd be happy to provide it.
"What brings you here Zoey? Did you live, move here or did you chase someone?"
"The latter unfortunately. I originally come from Larousse City. Me and Leafeon keep it save like you guys do. But there's a drug dealer there that goes by the name of Cacturne. He took to this place to expand his market and I chased him to here to put a stop to it."
"Tell us more about him." Ash thinking a well known drug dealer from out of town will only create more problems in the streets. Police and paramedics were already making more hours than necessary and he did not want to let them have even more work by cleaning up junkies.
"Ever since I started a year ago I've been cleaning the streets of his dealers. He's able to shoot pins from all over his body and has the prickly personality to go with it. He's a male who acts feminine so at first sight he really creeps you out but I know it's just an act. You see him, you hit him as hard as you can with a blunt object and not with your fists unless you want to turn into a hedgehog instead of a wolf and frog."
Telling the aura guardians and fellow sisters that hitting him hurts.
"Cacturne? As in cactus. Or cacti?" Umbreon figured out. Like their names it sometimes was a reference to something so the connection is easily made in combination of hearing what powers he had.
"We love our plant based powers in Larousse." Speaking off plant like things Ash thought it was a good time to bring another one based on plants up.
"Do you maybe know the guy I fought before you arrived. Roses for hands, has a musketeer look to him. Doesn't show mercy to people he beat." Ash summarized his impression of the rose fighter. Zoey sighed heavily knowing who it is.
"That's Roserade. Of course he's here as well." Leafeon personally tired herself of handling the male. Any good will she and Zoey build up in their hometown mostly got tossed out by Roserade and Cacturne.
"You sound tired. He's not like us?" May having only seen him once didn't had much to go on. He seemed to have the right intentions by chasing that dealer too.
"He has a real loose set of morals when it comes to fighting criminals. He shows no restraint and if one dies he sees it more as an accident than a responsibility to hold back."
"I know. He would've impaled a guy if I didn't stop him." Ash saving a escapee from an early death sentence.
"Do you know who he is?" Dawn asked her.
"Sorry. I tried to talk to him about it but he insists on keeping it to himself. And we don't like each other as I'm all for the law abd he takes it into his own hands."
"And he's really quick to judge. You stopping him did not sit well with him as he then tries to make a shish kebab out of you."
"Can we help you with any of them?" The Veilstone inhabitants gladly wanted to help Zoey and her spirit.
"I'm new in town and like to have one of you guys to show me around."
"We love too but we kind of have our own issues which does not make it safe for us as well to patrol." Riley had to let her down as it wasn't that easy.
"Like who? We can help each other. You scratch my back I scratch yours."
"How experienced are you in finding a necromancer?"
"Oh, that's bad." Leafeon hearing from Glaceon what the true threat is started to worry too.
"And there's Sableye who robbed a jewelry store the other day." Ash calmly said.
"We're leaving town now!" Leafeon knowing the creature too well like her sisters did not want to function as a jawbreaker for it.
"You just leave him to us. We'll get him for you girls as long as you handle the shaolin." Ash said as he found his opponent tricky.
"We already have given you permission to use this place. Feel free to make yourself at home here." Riley agreeing that Zoey and her spirit can use this place as she sees fit. Not much in the way of furniture yet Leafeon made a suggestion.
"This place needs a bit of green."
Riley would put it on his to do list. Speaking of things written on paper.
"So Dawn. What did you take?" The scroll she took the shaolin's nation demanded it back. Dawn took it out of her backpack and handed it over to him.
"I was hoping it held something on why they are here and why they want your aura." She explained her reasoning for taking it. Riley opened it up and couldn't make sense out of it. He had to find a translator that can do it for him but he needed time to come up with a plan.
"I'll try and see if I can get something out of it." Riley rolled it up again for later.
"Maybe we can hang out after school tomorrow Zoey." Dawn suggested.
"What school are you going?" May wondered.
Zoey explained that she is here until the summer break and finishing up the year. Depending on how long Cacturne is out doing jobs she'd be staying in Veilstone City until she caught him. Hearing the school she's going to Dawn and May both were excited.
"That's our school too!" This is great! We're all in the same place!"
"It makes it easy for me to find all of you." Ash said. At least if something at school happens again there should be enough power to stop it.
"Let's make a timeline for what we all did that night and then make a plan for all our troubles. You guys have school again and I don't want your friends to become suspicious of you by showing up bruised and tired." They needed a new plan of approach for everything and with Dawn and Zoey included it increased their odds.
"Zoey. Would you mind showing us your powers so we know how to best use them?"
"Of course. I'm more effective if there's a good patch of dirt nearby but I can show you guys what we can do."
Zoey raised her hands and from the wooden boards of the Gym some flora in the form of bushes began to sprout. The green coming around them the males and girls saw some flowers begin to sprout from the bushes Zoey was making.
"Amazing."
Zoey then walked up to one of the bushes and reached in. She started to pull out a green sword with a large hilt and held it with both her arms.
"This is my Leaf Blade. I'm also trained in a bit of sword fighting in case I run into Roserade." Dawn seeing her nature counterpart wave the sword around expertly she found herself lacking again.
"When are you going to teach me how to fight with a weapon?"
"When you're proven in physical combat." Umbreon told her as weapons are nothing but a extension of your skills and she would train Dawn in her trademark one with more experience.
Somewhere in town a man was watching the news report. Naturally the main subject is the prison break that happened and the events that transpired. Seeing images of the one ice user that beat his men on the night of the kidnapping, a wolf, a frog, a musketeer with roses for hands and the one that stole something from the shaolin that is uninvited his plan took a wrong turn.
Most or the men in the prison were his from the night he send his bodies out to kidnap a majority of the female populace. Having knowledge about a tradition of family that passed down a mantle from generation to generation he send his men out to gather them up and if so take away those abilities.
"The prison break was to confirm the amount of them. Instead it only increased the number more than I hoped for."
He wanted to know what and who he was up against when he would take over the city. Instead of tiring the heroes out he would launch an all or nothing assault to kill them all at once so nobody would stand in his way.
"And now with even more aura guardians here…do they still have a secret society here?" The people that can form blue weapons from their souls he did not want to go up against an entire clan as they existed in the old days. The number now being more than a handful he had to take steps to at least improve his odds now.
He shut the TV off having heard enough. Getting out of his chair he went to his basement in his own home. Multiple caskets were in it as he took his work to home and went to a special one.
So far he had the Maple family and the Ketchum's on his hit list. The daughter of the police officer had defended herself expertly despite his undead being and men trying to take her away to the warehouse he collected them all. And the boy from the Ketchum's which was first thought to be an Ashley as Ash can be a shortened version of the name, showed remarkable skill to fend off one of his creatures. They were the prime suspects of having unnatural abilities like himself as even his normal men armed with weapons stood no chance against his creations.
Opening it he had a large rock placed into it.
"Didn't think I had to set you loose so soon."
Years of shady deals and deaths were gathered in this stone. It was his best work in necromancy next to the people that he kept undead. Those things were capable but they were nothing compared to what he's about to unleash on the so called heroes of Veilstone City.
He grabbed a large hammer from his workshop and smashed the rock with it. The pieces from it crumbling he took a few steps back.
A purple swirling mist leaked out of the stone. Green orbs with yellow spots that were the souls of the ones he collected the mist formed itself and hovered above him. The dark magic he created bounded the fog to his commands and the man knew where to start.
"Spiritomb. Made of 108 vile spirits. Go find and kill those that oppose me." His thoughts put into his creation it had the faces of the Maple girl and the Ketchum boy in mind. The evil spirit would kill them first eliminating some certain threats. And if they weren't the ones they were looking for they'd be dead anyway.
The purple fog shot out of the basement and through his chimney into the outside world. Seeing his creation leave he'd keep a close eye on the news this week as he was sure another big fight was going to break out pretty shortly between the 'heroes' of Veilstone City and his magic that defied the mortal plain of existence.
See you around.