Chapter 11

Vital Information

Jolton's End

King set Zekra and Terron on the cold cave floor once he came to the bottom of the stairway.

Their bodies were soaked in the blood of King's slaughtered foes.

Once she was released, Zekra started to shake off all the blood that clung to her fur, apparently not affected by what had just happened.

Terron, on the other hand, was too petrified to move at all. He had never seen so many deaths before in such gruesome fashions. He could feel his body shaking. He could feel the pain coursing through him and the blood running out of his wounds. However, he found himself not concerned with the pain at the moment.

His mind was ravaged and was trying to compose itself. Many thoughts that would have normally been structured flew through him aimlessly, his mind unable to keep them in order due to its current state.

So many images and thoughts were flooding through him. All of them were meaningless, useless thoughts. None of these thoughts had any purpose, yet Terron watched and listened to every single one of them.

Visions of Pokémon violently being killed…

Sections of the Fellowship base…

Countless strategies to be used for battle…

Zekra…

Zekra watching her hometown burn and reduce to ash…

Zekra watching her friends die at the hands of creatures that were not Pokémon…

This must have been what Zekra felt like when she saw her entire town slaughtered before her eyes.

That was the one organized thought that went through Terron's head. It was the only thought that seemed to have a purpose and a meaning to him.

It was then that Terron realized something about that thought. The Pokémon that died in front of him were wild Pokémon. None of those creatures desired anything in life except for flesh of enemies slain by their own hands.

What Zekra went through was different. Everyone who was killed in front of her was someone she grew up with. Zekra had personal relationships with many of those who died that day. They were all sentient beings who had dreams, hopes, and families…

Yet, despite having witnessed the massacre of all Pokémon she knew in her village, Zekra had taken it rather well when Terron met her right after the incident. So surely, he too could be strong like her.

Terron, inspired by this thought, managed to get his mind to focus back on reality. The thoughts still ran rampant, but Terron found he could still concentrate on the real world. Even through the pain, he managed to focus.

His eyes wandered to the Light ball still grasped in his hands. Somehow, he managed to keep a hold on it through all of that. Once he was able to verify that he still had the sphere, Terron looked around to see where they were now.

This was the very bottom of Jolton Cave. Much unlike the rest of the cave, this floor seemed to resemble an actual cave. There weren't any corridors or multiple rooms as Mystery Dungeons normally had. This place he stood in was simply one large room with stalagmites protruding from the ground and stalactites hanging from the ceiling. At the very far end of the room was a giant blue crystal crackling with electricity. Though it was quite a ways away, Terron could tell it was probably taller than King.

An exit could be seen in the side of a wall far away. It was a giant hole with light flooding out of it. It was adding much more light to the room than the Light Ball had been capable of.

Terron glanced at his surroundings again, finding how odd everything looked compared to the other floors of the Mystery Dungeon.

"Why does everything look normal?" Terron asked, his voice still reluctant from the internal confusion. "We're still in the Mystery Dungeon, aren't we?"

"The Mystery Dungeon ended once we went down that final staircase a moment ago," King explained. "We're out of the Mystery Dungeon. This is simply the bottom of the original Jolton Cave, which is uncorrupted by the dungeon's curse. These exist for dungeons that take place in some kind of enclosed area like a tower or cave. Not so much for places like forests, however."

"Then this is pretty much the old cave before a Mystery Dungeon took over," Terron noted. "I guess that would explain why there aren't any corridors or anything."

"Wait, why do Mystery Dungeons have that weird corridor and room layout?" Zekra then asked. "I keep seeing it in every dungeon we go in. And why does it look different for every dungeon and floor we go on? I mean, if they're being taken over by the same 'curse', then why a different layout for everything?"

"I'm not quite sure why such a design exists," King shrugged. "That must be the dungeon's choice design. As for why every dungeon looks different in layout, that's not known either. All we know is that the curse constantly changes the dungeon's layout every time someone new enters. We don't understand anything else about the structure other than that. They're called Mystery Dungeons for a reason after all."

"So if I go to a dungeon I've already been in, it'll be just as tricky to navigate as the first time?!" Zekra cried. "The paths will all be different? Lame!"

"Afraid so," King replied. "Deal with it."

Zekra sighed in defeat and continued to get the blood off her body. However, it had been absorbed into her fur and wouldn't come off as easily. She stared at the blood-stained fur for a moment and then seemed to remember something.

"Hey, what was that loud screeching sound from earlier?" Zekra asked King. "You know, the thing that made everyone start screaming and stuff. And why weren't you affected by it?"

"Oh, you must mean this," King said.

The Bisharp held up his drawn blades and gently made the sharp edges touch. Terron and Zekra stared curiously, not sure what to expect.

The blades slowly scrapped against one another. Tiny sparks flew out of the steel.

SCREECH!

The first time the children heard this horrible sound, they had been rather far away from King, so they hadn't received the worst. However, that was no longer true. They were right in front of King now while he unleashed this ear-shattering attack.

They were being hit with the full blast.

Terron and Zekra collapsed onto the ground and immediately, blood started to pour from their ears. King swiftly ceased rubbing the metal together and had the blades disappear back into his arms. The children looked up at him, both of them cringing.

"Does that answer your question?" King asked.

"WHAT?" Zekra asked loudly.

"Hmmm seems that worked too well," King said thoughtfully. "Looks like your eardrums have been ruptured."

"WHAT?!" Zekra then asked again. "I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"

In annoyance, King took out two Oran Berries from the backpack and crammed them into Terron and Zekra's mouths. Terron nearly choked on the fruit that was suddenly shoved into his maw, but he managed to chew it down.

As the two of them began to recover their hearing and wounds from the previous battle, the sounds of someone running filled the air. Terron looked behind him to find a Raichu and Eevee rushing toward them. Static was sparking through the Raichu's fur to offer limited light to the newcomers. He watched as the two new Pokémon stopped in front of the group, both rubbing their ears in agitation.

"Why'd you have to do that?" the male Raichu cried. "It hurts, you know! I told Pokémon I'd be waiting here for them, but I didn't send a challenge letter! I'm not interested in fighting anyone!"

"I was showing these children something," King stated calmly. "I apologize for the pain I brought upon your ears."

"It's fine," the Raichu said as he looked down at Terron and Zekra. "But, are you Special Tasks Fellowship members by any chance? I never see children at the Fellowship, but you have that sort of look that I see the members have."

"Yes," King answered. "They're new recruits and I'm assisting them. Children, show him your marks."

The two held out their paws and allowed the Raichu to see their Fellowship brands. Satisfied with their proof, the Raichu smiled. He seemed happy about having their presence with him and didn't, in the slightest, seem affected by the blood sprayed all over the group's bodies.

"Tell us your name, fellow Raichu," King said. "It's a custom for our organization to know the names of our… customers."

"My name is Voltzile," the Raichu introduced before gesturing to the Eevee besides him. "And this is my friend, Luna. You know, the one I mentioned in my posting."

"Nice to meet you three." Luna said with a small bow of her head in a quiet feminine voice.

"But before we talk to you about the incident," Voltzile quickly said, "I'd like to see the Thunderstone I asked for. You know, to make sure that I'm not being used."

Terron scoffed at the comment. Voltzile wanted to make sure he would get his reward so it didn't feel like he was being cheated. However, he was actually cheating the Fellowship by not giving up the information willingly. He was wasting the Fellowship's resources.

"Funny how you would say that when you're-"

"You can only see it," King interrupted. "You can keep it when you tell us all you know. If you try to steal it before then though, well… we're going to have some problems. Do we have an understanding?"

King cast Terron a warning glare. It was only for a second, but Terron understood what King was telling him. He needed to keep quiet and not ruin the mood of the clients. Otherwise, they might not get the information they sought.

While Terron didn't agree with the duo's intentions, he knew King was right with not insulting the Raichu or Eevee.

"Alright, that's fine," Voltzile said with a shrug. "I can work with that."

King dug through the travel bag until he pulled out a white cloth that was wrapped around an unknown object. He slowly opened up the cloth to reveal a small, green stone resting within. Etched into the stone's center was an inscription of a lightning bolt.

Voltzile and Luna stared at it from where they stood. Both of their eyes were wide and shining with so much wonder, one could think that they had just seen Ho-oh flying past them in the skies.

"It's so beautiful…" Voltzile said in fascination. "It's just like how I remember my Thunderstone was way back then…"

Terron glanced at the stone, and then looked back at the Raichu in confusion. To him, the stone didn't seem all that special. It didn't even shine like the Light Ball or have electricity flow through it. It was simply just a green rock with a fancy inscription in it.

Must be a Pokémon thing. Terron reasoned.

"Now that you've seen your Thunderstone," King said as he put the cloth back over the stone, "tell us what you know about the Plagued Ones. Tell us all that you know."

"Luna and I were at Abanor City a few days ago when we saw those things," Voltzile stated as he tried to recall the incident. "We were… well, escaping from the law. We escaped prison a while ago and we were trying to get the police off our tails. So, we were going to Abanor City since that's a pretty small town with not so many Pokémon and we didn't think we'd get caught there. However… when we got there… it was a bit different than we thought."

The Raichu went silent, his expression grim from thinking about the memory.

"The town was completely vacant," Luna then said, seeing that the Raichu wasn't going to finish his explanation. "Nobody was there. The town wasn't destroyed, though. Everything was the way it should be, but everyone was gone. We searched all over the place for someone, but no one showed up. It was honestly kind of scary with nobody around in this city. It was a bit like a ghost town. Right when we left the city grounds though, a door opened up from one of the houses nearby where we were. I thought it was another Pokémon, so I was about to greet them, but… it wasn't a Pokémon. It looked like an Absol, but there was something wrong with it. It was almost like a ghost. My instincts told me I needed to get out of there, but I wanted to know what that thing was. So, Voltzile and I hid behind some trees and watched it. It stood there for a while, flinching as if something was attacking it. I didn't see anything attacking it though, so I'm not sure why it would have done that. But eventually, that Absol thing stopped flinching and took off. Somehow, it managed to fly even though it didn't have wings. And then Voltzile and I ran as fast as we could in case more of those things showed up."

"Did you see where it went?" King asked.

"It fled east, I believe," the Eevee replied. "Don't really know why though since there aren't really any nearby cities in that direction."

"You're sure there weren't any others of its kind with it?" King then asked.

"No, there weren't anymore," Voltzile then answered, getting over the memory. "At least, none that I saw. I'm pretty sure there was just one."

"I see," King said. "Do you know what it might have been doing at that location where no one else was?"

"Well, I'm not sure." Voltzile said as he scratched his ears. "I don't know much about Plagued Ones. I didn't even know that's what that Absol was until I heard a rumor about what the Fellowship's real purpose is. I mean, that thing was a Plagued One, wasn't it?"

"From how you describe it, yes," King stated. "However, many of our reports always showed that those creatures traveled in swarms. Yours is the first to show that they can travel alone. Are you sure all this single creature did was cringe for no apparent reason?"

"Yeah, that's all it did," Voltzile insisted. "It could have been raiding the house though. But, that's only a guess. That's everything I know and Luna knows. Right?"

"Afraid so," the Eevee said with a frown. "We probably should have investigated the house that the Absol came out of, but we really didn't want to stay in that town any longer."

"And you're being completely honest with us, correct?" King asked. "You're not lying to us just to get this valuable Thunderstone? Because if you are of course, you know what the Special Tasks Fellowship will do to you…"

Both of the criminals' eyes grew and a grimace appeared on their faces.

"We're not lying!" Voltzile and Luna cried at once.

The two glanced at one another before Luna let Voltzile say what he wanted to say first.

"If you don't believe us, you can go check Abanor City yourself!" the Raichu stated. "No one's there! Everyone's gone!"

"Besides, why would we lie to you?" Luna asked. "Only an idiot would attempt to lie to the Fellowships. We know how talented your group is at detecting lies… and don't even get me started on what you do to those who you realize are lying. No one wants to be taken to the Dusk Mines Fellowship..."

King stared at the two, his expression unreadable. They glared back, their eyes unwavering in their supposed truth. Terron couldn't tell whether King was being skeptical or not. He could only wait and see what the Bisharp would decide.

What does the Fellowship do to Pokémon who lie to them? Terron wondered. And… why is it the Dusk Mines Fellowship rather than ours? What's so special about that one? Where is that one anyway…

"Alright, I choose to believe you two," King said, interrupting the Cubone's thought. "Your information will be helpful. Take your Thunderstone and get out of here."

King tossed the wrapped evolution stone at the two. Voltzile caught it, unwrapped the cloth, and allowed the two of them to stare in wonder at the stone once more.

"Yes!" Voltzile said with glee. "Now you can be a Jolteon and no one will be able to track you! Still have a problem with me… but we'll figure that out later!"

"I recommend you use that stone soon, or else it'll get stolen," King advised nonchalantly. "And remember, you don't tell anyone that the Fellowship got that for you, nor do you tell anyone about the Plagued Ones. Got it?"

"Yeah, we understand," Voltzile confirmed. "Thanks for the Thunderstone, though. And don't worry; we're not going to break the law anymore… maybe. Hope your group manages to stop the Plagued Ones! Good luck!"

"See you!" Luna said with a friendly wave of her paw.

With that, the two friends ran out of the cave, both happy as could be. Terron watched the two leave until they were no longer in sight. Once they were gone, he looked up at the Bisharp.

"How do you know if Pokémon are lying to you when you do stuff like this?" Terron asked curiously. "You have that happen to you guys, don't you?"

"Years of practice, Cubone child," King answered simply. "Many of our members have the ability to know when someone lies due to training. There are always ways to tell when someone is not telling the truth. As for if we have ever been lied to, yes, some of our clients try to lie to us. They tried to get rewards from us using false information. However, we realized it right away and gave them the proper punishment."

"Those two were mentioning something about the Dusk Mine Fellowship though…" Terron then said. "They were saying that we send criminals to that Fellowship. What did they mean by that?"

King was quiet for a moment.

"Whenever we find out we've been lied to, we send those who lied over to the Dusk Mines Fellowship," the Bisharp said after a while. "The Fellowship of the north. Unlike most of the other Fellowships, that one is distant from society. The sole leader felt that his Fellowship shouldn't dwell within a city since it runs the risk of having the public figure out our true purpose more easily. He felt that keeping our secret was more important than having support from the city. And that works to our advantage."

"And why would that be?" Terron asked curiously.

"There is a specific rule for what we do to liars, and that is that we execute them," King replied. "But, we don't execute anyone at our Fellowship since we simply don't have anywhere to dispose of the bodies that would be out of sight. We don't have a deep and powerful river to dump the corpses in like the Nestati Fellowship, a convenient graveyard nearby like the Oracion Fellowship, nor the ability to drop the bodies off the high mountain tops like the Pledge Mountain Fellowship. Our Fellowship is surrounded by inhabited land. So, we bring the criminals to Dusk Mines instead and have them execute our criminals. No one visits them directly, so they have a much easier time disposing of their liars and ours. They don't mind slaughtering our liars, though. In fact, I feel at times they enjoy being able to have more creatures to slaughter… they seem much too happy whenever we bring them a new batch of criminals…"

"Oh," Terron said. "I see."

Terron felt a shiver go up his spine at the thought of the other Fellowship. He could just see Dusk Mines now with its ominous atmosphere and its bloodthirsty members crawling within the base.

He could see their one leader, sitting upon a throne of corpses with paws covered in blood... smiling maliciously.

Terron desperately wanted to get off the subject.

He didn't want to know more about the Fellowship's punishments.

He didn't want to know further information about the Dusk Mines' base.

He imagined more information would make things worse… if that was even possible.

He'd think about this later, but not in this cave with a Fellowship leader.

The Cubone, for a brief second, started to feel terrified of the Fellowship despite knowing they were a helpful and virtuous organization.

"So are we done?" Terron then asked hastily. "We have anything else to do?"

"No, the mission is finished," King replied. "Now we just have to get back to the base, record your mission at registration, and get your payment for completing this mission. Then the rest of the day is yours to do as you please."

"Alright, cool," Terron said.

King made his way to the exit. Terron started to follow behind him. He was rather glad this mission was over. He had learned quite today, but he nonetheless couldn't wait for the mission to end. He wanted to relax after having to travel through a hostile cave with King and his creepy information.

The disturbing images started coming into Terron's head again.

No, you're thinking about it again. Terron thought to himself. Stop thinking about it. Their intentions are good. They just have a very odd way of dealing punishments. Stop feeling terrified of them.

Just then, Terron noticed Zekra wasn't following behind me. He stopped worrying about his thoughts and looked back at the Zorua to see what was wrong. For some reason, she was standing still and her eyes gave the impression that she was in a trance.

Terron approached her and waved his paw in front of her face. Her attention didn't return to reality.

"Zekra?" he asked. "How come you're standing there? Something bothering you?"

The faraway expression disappeared from the Zorua's eyes as she looked up at Terron. Her eyes were filled with calm, but there was a lingering emotion of fear. She did her best to hide that fear, but Terron could still see it.

Upon seeing it, he started to get a vague idea of what was bothering her.

"Is it about… those things Voltzile and Luna were talking about?" Terron asked, not wanting to say the Plagued Ones' names in front of Zekra.

"Sort of," Zekra said hesitantly. "It's just that… those two criminals… they… they remind me of…"

Zekra wasn't able to say what was on her mind. She stopped in the middle of her talking and nervously looked around.

"Never mind," Zekra said hurriedly. "Forget what I said. Let's just get going."

The Zorua went forward without Terron to exit the cave. Terron stood there for a few moments, the conversation replaying over and over in his head.

Once his brain felt he had heard it enough times and stopped playing it, Terron finally went to go leave the cave as well.

Aurora Town

With the mission over, the three had their Drifblim take them back to their town. The ride home was a peaceful and uneventful, allowing the team to relax and simply enjoy the sights. Once they had arrived at their destination, Terron felt refreshed from all of the battling and dungeon crawling.

Zekra too, was happier than she had been before. The air travel must have given her time to relax and clear her thoughts.

King however, seemed the same as ever.

Terron wondered if King ever looked happy.

The three stood outside of the Drifblim Transportation building, standing on the sidelines of the road. Occasionally a Pokémon would pass by them and stare at Terron due to his lack of helmet, but otherwise, the three were left in peace.

"Congratulations," King said blandly. "You two finished a mission. Without dying. That's an accomplishment from how your last mission went."

"Ummm, thanks?" Zekra said unsurely. "So all we have to do now is just report our mission and then we're done for the day?"

"You'll also have to report the information you received from the Raichu and Eevee," King added on. "Once you do that though, you'll be finished. You can do that by yourself, can't you?"

"Yeah, of course!" Zekra assured. "That's not hard at all!"

"Good," King said with a nod. "Now that the mission is finished, my time assisting you two is over. I no longer have anything to help you with. From this moment onward, you two are on your own."

"But you're still going to teach me that cool move you used, right?" Zekra asked. "You know, the one you used in the dungeon with the darkness."

"Dark Pulse," King verified. "I'll teach you that power another time. Come ask me about it when you can manage to take on 'B' Rank missions. Then I'll know that you can handle its power."

Zekra nodded in understanding. King then reached into his backpack and pulled out the mission paper and a certain spherical item; the Light ball in its deactivated form.

King handed the two items to Terron. The Cubone looked at the sphere oddly for a few seconds, and then looked up at King in confusion. He opened his mouth to say something, but King answered before words could come.

"You can keep that Light Ball," King explained. "I've got a million just like it. Besides, you need that more than I do in your financially broke state."

King hefted the bag onto his shoulders and began walking away from the two.

"See you children around," the Bisharp said without looking at them.

Terron and Zekra slowly waved goodbye to the disappearing Team Valor member, though they doubted he saw their waves. Once he was gone, the two looked at one another.

"Well, guess that's that," Terron said. "You want to go to the base now or do you wanna do something else first?"

"Probably should go to registration first," Zekra replied. "You know, to get it out of the way."

"Sounds like a good idea," Terron said. "I just hope we can remember everything about what Voltzile and Luna told us…"

The two had gone to the registration office of the Fellowship base and much to their dismay, found they had a hard time remembering all of the details about Voltzile's story. Apparently, they had to remember practically everything about the story. Terron and Zekra had only remembered the most important parts of the story, so they had spent about half an hour desperately attempting to remember the important, seemingly trivial details. Of course, Emdox ended up probing Terron's mind anyway to get the entire story, but it was still nonetheless an annoying and stressful time.

However, their efforts were paid off when they were given their reward paid by the Fellowship itself: a small sack with 500 Poké. Gaining their first 'real' reward was enough for the two to completely forget about how irritated they had been.

And not only that, but it had no fund deductions since it was not an outside fund source.

The two were now sitting at a table in the cafeteria, staring in wonder at the small, golden coins they had spread out on the table. They had their meals with them, but the two were paying no mind to the food. The money was all they could truly focus on.

"So does having 500 Poké make us rich?" Terron asked Zekra eagerly, not quite understanding the currency of the Pokémon world.

"Well, no, not really," Zekra answered. "I mean, we could buy quite a few berries with this kind of money… and maybe there's some scarves that are pretty cheap. But if we get this much money every day, then we can be rich! I bet the harder missions pay even more Poké too!"

"Pretty sure you're right," Terron said with a nod. "We'll have to go to the store and see what we can buy with this later. At least we've got this Light Ball for free."

Terron glanced over at the sphere resting on the table besides his meal. Now that it was deactivated, the sphere no longer had a lightning bolt moving within. Instead, it looked like an empty, dull globe.

Terron half wanted to activate the item to see the fascinating appearance it gave.

"Wonder where the electricity comes from anyway?" the Cubone then wondered.

"Maybe you have to give it electricity or something." Zekra suggested.

"But King didn't have any electricity," Terron reasoned. "Or, maybe he made a spark with his blades or something. Hm, wish he would have told us how to use this thing. Hopefully we'll figure out how to use it."

"Yeah, can't be that hard," Zekra said. "But, we'll avoid dungeons in caves and mountains until then. Just in case."

Terron packed up the coins and the Light Ball into the sack before he and Zekra started to enjoy their meals. He, as usual, didn't look at the Zorua's food in fear that he'd start feeling sick.

When the two had finished, they turned in their plates to the chefs so that they might be washed and reused. They thanked them for the meal and headed outside to go visit the store for some shopping. It was still afternoon for the two, giving them plenty of time to do whatever they wanted the rest of the day.

As the two left the base, chatting about what items they might find, Éclair happened to walk past them so that she could get to the base. When the Ninetales noticed their presence, she stopped and made her way back to the children.

"Dear children, I wish to speak to you," Éclair called.

Terron and Zekra stopped walking. They watched as Éclair caught up to where they were and looked upon them.

"Hi, Éclair," Zekra said with a friendly smile. "What is it?"

"I was informed that you two completed your mission not long ago." the Ninetales said. "I wished to know how it went."

"Oh, it went fine," Zekra replied. "Nothing really special. Just talked to some clients and got some information. We already gave it to Emdox, though, and now, we're just going to go to the Kecleon Market."

"Ah, I see," Éclair said. "And how was King? He didn't torment you, did he? I have countless memories of King being too brutal with others."

Éclair seemed to smile a bit, as if finding the memories to be amusing.

"Um, no, he was fine," Zekra said awkwardly. "But, how'd you know he helped us with the mission?"

"King told me so yesterday," the Ninetales answered. "It was his excuse for not completing an errand for me. Nonetheless, I am glad he was able to assist you two. Despite his rather harsh ways, he is very knowledgeable and makes a fine mentor. I, myself, still learn new things from him all the time."

"Well okay then," Zekra then said.

"I hope that we'll be able to do alright on our future missions though," Terron said. "We learned quite a few things about how to survive in dungeons and how to prepare for the day, but I'm hoping that will be enough to let us succeed from now on. King's not going to help us anymore with that. We're kind of on our own now."

Terron frowned in melancholy at the thought of that. Despite having only been tutored for a few hours, Terron could feel the pangs of wanting a teacher again.

While he had been fine before Team Vendetta had King, it was only because he didn't get to experience how valuable a mentor was and felt Zekra was all he needed.

But, now that he had the opportunity to have an expert companion on the team, Terron felt he couldn't go back.

Having a professional tag-along meant having a stronger feeling of safety, and he didn't want that to go away.

Even if the tag-along belonged to a group that killed liars.

Ugh, stop thinking about that! Terron thought in exasperation. Let it go!

"Yeah, I'm kind of worried myself," Zekra added. "I mean… I know a lot of things, but having a guide is nice. It's going to be a little odd going back to the way things were…"

"I assure you that you should be fine on your upcoming tasks without any guides," Éclair said with a small smile. "However, since I know that your doubt still lingers, I will give you advice so that you may become more competent and be able to do things on your own."

Terron and Zekra looked at Éclair, eyes filled with hope and curiosity. It got Terron's mind off his tormented thoughts.

"If you wish to become successful in your later missions, you need to start training," Éclair explained. "Simply going on missions will not allow you to prosper. You must gain strength outside of the Fellowship. Performing only Fellowship tasks will allow you adequate competence and independence, but one day, there will be a time when you need more than adequateness. How and where you choose to train is decided by you, but that is my advice. Seek to gain strength on your own time and your power and self-reliance will improve more than it ever could by doing only missions."

"Seek training…" Zekra repeated slowly.

"Exactly," Éclair replied. "That is how Len, King, and I became competent when we belonged to the original Fellowship. We would go to the Wildfire Plains after every mission. We would battle the wild Pokémon and each other, and also taught one another all we knew. And though it took time, we eventually became the way we are now."

Terron and Zekra nodded thoughtfully.

"Those are my words of wisdom to you," Éclair then said. "You may choose to heed it or not."

The Ninetales looked behind her, towards the giant tree base.

"I must be going now," she said. "I have a meal to attend to. Take care, children."

The Ninetales left the two behind her as she walked away. Terron and Zekra watched her go, thinking about the words she had just told them.