The room was quiet save for the sawing of Sol's claw against the cord binding. It was a slow, rhythmic sound, each thread severed deliberately and without hurry. Her goal wasn't to escape. It was to give herself the illusion of being able to something, anything.
Jak could understand this. How was one expected to fight something that hid out of sight and didn't attack directly? Jak supposed they would have to try and track the coward down through whatever means necessary and put an end to it. None of this going to the clan business.
Jak did not like the Lucario or that Riolu. She believed them, but she didn't like them. Sol should take care of the threat but they would have her hide. Jak knew that there was a time for running, but when someone was purposefully targeting you, they wouldn't quit until you put an end to it.
Jak wanted to hunt Sol's attacker down. She wanted to tear them to bits then burn the pieces to ashes. She wanted to set the mountain ablaze. She wanted to chase that Lucario away from her pack. She wanted to destroy all those who would threaten Sol, the Eevee, and even Ren.
No one would harm her pack. No one would take her alpha. Not tricky psychics attacking from within dreams, and certainly not a random Lucario.
Jak huffed a puff of smoke. She didn't need to worry about that. There was no way Sol was going to the clan.
"I think I have to go with them," Sol said quietly, eyes fixed on the painting on the wall and her wrist bent awkwardly as she sawed absently on the cord.
Jak's eyes narrowed to slits and a growl rumbled deep in her chest. "No."
"I don't have a choice."
Jak stomped over to side by her bed, leaning over so her face was directly above Sol's. The faint orange glow of fire could be seen in her throat when she opened her mouth. "Listen to Jak. You will not go. We must hunt this threat down, not hide."
"How? How are we supposed to hunt them down? No one even saw what did this! I hate to admit it, but Eliza's right. I need to learn to defend myself."
Jak glared at Sol for a long moment. Then, without a word, left the room. She was shaking with rage. Of course. Of course Sol would do the complete opposite of what was expected. Of course she wouldn't listen to what Jak had to say. That's how it had always been, and then it would fall to Jak to protect them when things inevitably went wrong.
Anger surged inside the Charmander, red hot and blinding. Her pace steadily quickened until she was running through the hall. Jak wouldn't let it happen again this time. She'd block the path to destruction before Sol could take it. She charged down the stairs and into the waiting room.
"What are you-" the Eevee said when the Charmander entered, but she didn't listen. The heedlessly ran across the room, scattering the wooden figurines Riley had set up on the floor, and lunged across a table at Eliza.
Eliza threw herself to the side, landing in a ready stance. Jak tumbled into the now unoccupied chair, tipping it over and crashing to the floor.
"Jak!" the Eevee shouted. The Charmander scrambled to her feet and rushed the Lucario again. She deftly spun out of the way and Jak crashed into a table.
"Stop it!"
Jak was caught in a berserker rage. Eliza was as calm as ever, poised to dodge another attack and content to play defense until Jak wore herself out. So Jak switched tactics. With a deep breath she bathed the room in fire.
"BURN!"
"No!"
"Theynin!"
There was an explosion of blue light and Jak was sent rocketing across the room. Riley pressed the attack, bombarding Jak with wave after wave of Aura Spheres. The Shaymin at the front desk screamed as the wooden floor was devoured by flames, Eliza caught in the middle.
Jak howled and spat even more fire, this time aimed at Riley. No one ever listened to her. Jak had warned them not to go after the water float, but they did and Sol could have died. She warned them not to trust the Dusknoir, but they did and ended up prisoners. She had wanted to stick with the Grovyle when they had escaped from the Dusknoir's grasp, but they didn't and wandered around a dangerous world without a guide. No one ever listened to Jak and it always ended badly. She would make them listen.
Riley leapt and spun, trying to dodge the spray of fire. Eliza backed away from the wall of flames that cut off any exit. The Eevee pleaded to Jak to stop. The Shaymin continued to scream. Ren just stood there stupidly, hands clasped around his pale bone club.
Then, with a yell of effort, the Cubone threw his arms into the air. A section of the wooden floor, weakened by fire, exploded upwards. A surge of earth and dirt flew up through the hole like a geyser, landing everywhere and smothering the flames. Ren fell to his knees, exhausted from the strain and gasping for breath.
This proved enough of a distraction for Riley to leap forwards and close the distance between himself and Jak. A quick jab to the stomach knocked the breath from lungs and stopped her from breathing more flames. Momentarily stunned, she could do nothing as Riley grabbed her wrist and twisted while simultaneously hooking the back of her leg with his foot, forcing her to the ground. He jabbed a knee into her back and twisted her arm painfully with one hand and holding her head against the floor with another.
Jak squirmed and snapped at the air until Riley twisted her arm further and the pain forced her to stop. She growled, deep and low. The anger and hatred she felt refused to die down. They were trying to take Sol from her. They were trying to split her pack. They were trying to leave Jak all by herself.
Jak didn't want to go back to being all alone.
"What's gotten into you?!" the Eevee said.
Eliza approached, getting down low to look the Charmander in the eye. Jak glared back.
"Let her up," Eliza ordered.
Riley's eyes scrunched in worry, but he didn't hesitate to follow his Theynin's command. Jak slowly got back to her feet, eyes still locked with Eliza's. The Shaymin whimpered from behind his desk across the room. A tense moment passed where no one spoke, and then Jak simply turned and left the building into the cold evening.
No one was on her side. Her pack was falling apart.
...
"I don't understand," Eevee said, almost pleadingly. "Why would she do that?"
Because she's crazy, Riley thought. You're all crazy.
He eyed the scattered armies of yellow and blue on the ground. Thankfully they had been away from the Charmander's fire, but they were hopelessly mixed together. He would have to start all over again, all that work gone without a conclusion.
And the floor was completely destroyed. Couldn't forget about that. This exploration team seemed to really enjoy destroying property.
"She was angry, but beyond that I do not know," Eliza said.
"She's never just attacked someone before!" Eevee exclaimed. "I mean, except for Loudred. And us when we first met. But that was different! She thought we were enemies!"
Eliza sighed, a very tired sound. This worried Riley. His Theynin always carried her burdens and responsibilities with strength and diligence, but never with such a weary look.
"There are different kinds of enemies just as there are different kinds of threats," Ren said. "I shall retrieve her."
The Cubone left, leaving Eliza, Eevee, Riley and the still cowering Shaymin in the room. Riley shook his head and began to collect the wooden soldiers back into their metal box. Yellow on one side, blue one the other, green acting as a buffer between them.
"Riley," Eliza said. "Go up to Sol's room. Only the dead wouldn't have heard this commotion. I must speak with Eevee and deal with the mess we made here."
Riley supressed a sigh. He couldn't see a way that this was going to end well. At least Sol wouldn't be able to crazy like the Charmander and attack everyone. Or maybe she would. Riley was done with guessing what this lot would do.
He took the metal box and went upstairs.
...
It was windy and bits of snow and ice were thrown into the air, creating flurries and snow drifts. The sun was hanging low in the sky and the temperature was steadily dropping. Jak was glad for the bite of the cold air and the sting of the wind. It was good to feel something other than the simmering anger and sudden wave of despair that started the moment she had left the small hospit.
They were going to kick her out. Sol was leaving for the clan and Eevee was going to abandon her after what she just did. Ren wouldn't care. He never cared about anything that happened. He would just stand there and spout nonsense as she left.
Jak wandered away from the village and its collection of warm homes. She wouldn't even bother going back. She'd just leave and spare them the hassle of telling her to go. She'd go back to the Steam Cave and take back her territory. Maybe she'd expand and take the top sixth of the cave. Really, she never should have left in the first place. Jak was a wild Pokémon. She never belonged in the towns and she certainly never belonged in an exploration team.
She looked down at her arm. A black bandana with the red stitched design of Eevee's relic fragment was tied around her wrist. The symbol of Team Wanderers. Jak tugged at the knot until it loosened enough to slip it off. For a long time she held on to it, walking further and further away from the town until hers were the only footprints around.
Little by little she loosened her grip. It wasn't long then before the wind tore it from her grasp and swept it away. She immediately regretted letting it go but couldn't bring herself to chase after it.
...
"Go away."
The command was expected. Riley steeled his nerves and stayed in the room.
"Eliza told me to come here and that is what I will do."
Sol glared at him, dragging her claw against slowly and deliberately along the cord binding her wrist to the bed post. Only threads were holding it together now, thin enough for her to snap without much effort, but for some reason she didn't bother and instead sawed at it, severing only the thinnest sliver with each pass.
Riley sat down on the floor and opened the metal box. He could feel Sol's gaze on him but refused to look up as he arranged the soldiers in a new pattern, coming up with a scenario as he went. The yellow army would be holed up in a mountain fortress, and the blues were trying to find a way to defeat them before the yellows decided to take the offensive and use the higher ground to their advantage...
Riley lost himself in the planning, the strategies, the battles and numerous formations. After a time, the yellows were winning and pushing the blues further and further down the mountain. Once they hit they bottom they'd be pushed up against a river and trapped. But the yellows were chasing them further and further from there stronghold-
"What about that one?"
Riley's head snapped up to look at Sol. She had been quiet for so long and he had been so focused that he had forgotten that anyone was around.
"Huh?" he said, not knowing what she was talking about.
"That one," she nodded to the side of the war field. "That blue one is on the other side of what I assume is supposed to be a mountain."
Riley quickly found the soldier she meant. It was the blue Lucario with splotch of uneven blue, discarded to the side and forgotten. There was a snap as Sol finally broke the cord and struggled to sit up with half her body either in a cast or heavily bandaged.
"What if that one went through there," she pointed from the soldier to where a nearby valley between a pile of books and a scarf, "follows the path without any guards, up to there," she pointed to the back of the book mountain fortress, "and then takes the castle thing while most everyone else is down there," she points to the main battle down the mountain.
Riley shook his head. "That's the forgotten pass. The both the yellows and the blues don't know about it, even though it used to be used as an escape route from the fort."
"The soldier is quite literally right in front of it. I would think it would be pretty hard to miss."
"No one would know that it leads to the fort. It could be just another valley."
Sol rolled her eyes. "You know, there's this thing that some people devote there lives to, and it's called exploring."
Riley examined the figure closely, thinking of all the things a soldier of the clan would do in that position.
"If this one was brought into the fight, the first thing it would have to do is report in with a superior and receive orders, not wander off on a whim. And if it failed, the yellows would learn of the route's existence. Then they could follow it and attack the blues from both sides."
"No risk, no reward. And orders are over rated."
Riley scowled at the absurdity of such a statement. The chain of command was important. Everything would fall into chaos if everyone just did whatever they wanted. But Sol's existence proved that not everyone was reasonable, so it was possible that not every soldier would do what was right, and Riley had never accounted for such a thing in one of his simulations. And who knew, maybe he'd gain some insight into how someone insane like Sol thought.
So he'd have an insubordinate soldier that did what it wanted. He placed the wooden figure back where it had been at the end of the pass. Several minutes passed before Sol spoke again.
"So, what did Jak do?"
"What?"
"She stormed out of her, then people started yelling, someone screamed 'Burn', there was a very loud crash and now you're here. If I know Jak, she did something violent."
"... She attacked Eliza," Riley said reluctantly. They had actually just had civil discussion, even if Sol's ideas had been somewhat ludicrous, and now she was going to explode into insanity again.
But, surprisingly, Sol handled this calmly. She sighed and shook her head.
"Do you know why she would do such a thing?" Riley asked carefully.
"For the same reason she attacks everything. She thinks they're a threat."
Sol's eyes lost focus for a moment, then she frowned and shook her head.
"Weird," she muttered to herself.
When Sol said nothing more, Riley turned his attention back to the two armies.
So, I was checking my account the other day when I noticed the publication date on SotMD. In about two months it will have been two years since I started this fic. It really doesn't feel like its been that long, but at the same time it feels like I've been working on this for a long time, especially when I think of how much more I have left to do.
I would like to say that I now have a solid plan of what direction I'm going in, how everything is going to end and how I'm going to tie up all the subplots. On my to do list is: the clans, Eevee's family, a cameo of a certain Pokémon, one more post game subplot, the end battle, post post game events, why Palkia hates Sol, and a bittersweet ending. Am I missing anything? Is there anything you just have to know that isn't listed here? Be sure to let me know.
And before I go any further, I would just like to say to those who read PMD: And Then There Were Fewer, that was just a parody I made after watching too much Family Guy. It has no actual impact on the ending of this fic. Characters could leave before the end, new characters could arrive as in the case of Eliza and Riley.
It's been a while since I responded to reviews, so here you go.
A lot of hate for poor reporter Skitty. The article will come up soon and there will be an explanation. Think about it, though, and it should be pretty easy to figure out what happened. Hint: Chapter 44
Team Platium: Wow, that's a lot of reviews. Loving the feedback. Anyway, Grovyle is awesome. Playing the game, I always pictured him as a sort of gruff badass who'd spit in death's face but has a soft spot for the lost. I'm the type of person who's favorite character is usually the villain, but not in this game. I tried listening to Pegboard Disconnected. It's not my usual type of music, but I liked it. Wrote this chapter while listening to need to worry about me abandoning this story. I'm in it to the bitter how I wrote this story do you mean how I did everyone's viewpoint and showed what Dusknoir was think as he deceived everyone? Because I was conflicted about that at first, then decided that everyone probably had already played the game and knew the big 'surprise' that was coming anyway. I'm glad that I did it this way, because I think it let me flesh out the characters more and over a longer period.
Tastic: Glad you're liking this, and now that we're past the main game I'll be getting pretty far away from the game events. And by pretty far away I mean I'll be all but setting fire to the canon events and jumping on the ashes.I am aware that I mess up my spelling and grammar. That's mostly because I don't have spell check or anything like that on my computer, and when I copy and paste chapters into one after I'm done it sometimes decides to stop working halfway through.
coaster3000: I think it has less with Riley being shy and more to do with him having no idea how to react to the insanity that is Sol. Really, who would? I, for one, can't wait for the clans. I think we'll be able to understand Riley a little better while also see Sol try to fit in in a society obsessed with order. That should go well.
Charmanderfan: A lot of people have asked about the romance. We shall see.