Chapter 8: Road to the Elite Four- Checkpoint

The next morning…

I walked out of my room with a yawn. Everything that had happened yesterday had finally tired me out, so the moment I entered my room last night I had just conked out without much celebration. We didn't talk much about Monotuff's motive, since I, and I'm assuming nearly everyone else, didn't know what to make of it.

So, I chose not to think of it for now. Unlike the previous nightmare that Monotuff had called a motive, this one seemed inconsequential.

As I strode down the hallway, I paused, noticing Greninja staring sternly at a nearby door to another door. At her feet lay a small plate of berries. "Greninja?" I asked as she turned giving me a look of slight surprise.

She let out a small sigh. "Braixen," she greeted formally, with a nod.

"Who are you waiting for?" I asked, glancing at the door. It was the door to Gengar's room.

Greninja shrugged. "No one really." She replied. "I'm just leaving food for Gengar. He hasn't come out of his room since last night after Monotuff had shown us his new motive. As such I've been leaving him food." She chuckled. "Perhaps there's something about the motive that has him spooked."

"You mean…" I tried to recall the motive, but only one scene came to my mind. "The cursed human thing?"

Greninja nodded. "Maybe he knows something about it." She tilted her head. "However, we may never be able to ask him about it until he comes outside. Regardless, the motive is weak and I'm not about to let him starve to death just because he's afraid."

"Oh," I said quietly. "Ok."

Greninja just smiled. "Well then," she said, changing the subject. "Shall we go to our next class? I believe it's Ribombee's turn isn't it?"

I gave her an appreciative smile back happy to see the subject shift away from talking about the motive. "Yes," I answered. "I just wonder what we're going to do!" I already knew a lot about the berries we ate every day, so I didn't exactly know what she would be teaching me. Still, I was pretty excited!

Xxx

I regret everything.

The moment Greninja and I made it to Ribombee's Gym overlooking the cliff on Sharpedo's Bluff, we were split into two groups, each working on one end of the gym. Apparently, this wasn't some much as a class as it was an easy way for Ribombee to get us to work. Greninja was a part of the other group, but luckily, I was in a group with both Ribombee and Blissey. I didn't know what the other group was assigned to do, but Ribombee asked everyone in my group to do nothing but pull weeds. Still, I felt lucky to be with Ribombee in her actual gym since I could just ask her for help if I needed it.

At least I felt I was lucky until I realized just how hot it was inside the greenhouse.

It was sweltering. Every second inside made it feel more and more like I was being cooked alive and I found myself constantly glancing at a nearby clock to see when it would hit noon, so I could go back into the cool depths of the guild.

"Braixen?" I jumped about a foot into the air thanks to Ribombee's voice from behind me. I quickly turned around to see her giving me a nervous smile. "Is everything okay?"

I nodded rapidly, hoping she couldn't see that exhausted expression I was making before. "Yeah! Everything is fine!"

Her smile wavered. "It is a bit exhausting, isn't it?" she correctly deduced, looking down at the ground.

I flinched. "N-No, t-that-!"

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "I couldn't think of anything to have my class be about. I've never had to teach other pokémon about what I do before."

"It's okay, Ribombee," Blissey said sweetly as she strode over to us, carrying a small bucket of berries. She placed it down on the ground and turned towards me. "Ribombee was up all night with me trying to think of something she could do."

"But this was the best I could think of," she said miserably.

"It's not that bad," I insisted. "It's just… really hot."

Ribombee seemed to be on the verge of laughing. "Well it is a greenhouse," she pointed out. "The greenhouse effect and all."

I blinked. "Greenhouse Effect?"

"Oh!" Ribombee visibly brightened. "Well to explain it simply the planet's sky traps the heat from the sun and makes the entire planet warmer since the heat can't escape. This greenhouse works the same way, trapping heat and making the inside hotter."

I nodded, surprisingly able to follow the explanation. But still… "Why didn't you talk about this for your class?" I asked, innocently. "It's pretty interesting and you explained it well."

Ribombee blinked, before falling to the ground and covering her face looking embarrassed. "Oooooh…" she moaned. "You're right! Why didn't I think of that?!"

Blissey giggled. "Well then you can do it next time, Ribombee," she said.

Ribombee smiled, awkwardly flying back up to my eye level. "I guess you're right," she admitted.

I looked between the two, before kneeling down and pulling a couple more weeds from the dirt, just to make it seem like I was still working. "You two are good friends," I noted, with a sad smile. Their camaraderie made me miss my siblings somewhat.

"We've known each other since we were children," Ribombee explained. "And when we grew up and gained our respective talents we worked relatively close to each other."

"I worked in a hospital, obviously," Blissey said with a giggle.

"I was in charge of a garden that was near the hospital and provided it with berries and the like," Ribombee explained. "So for most of our life, we've been close together." She shook her head with a light laugh. "I don't think we've ever been apart from each other before."

"At least not any longer than 10 hours," Blissey remarked lightly. "Every pokémon needs their sleep."

"So you two have known each other for your entire lives?" I asked, my eyes widening. I had known them to be good friends but for them to know each other for so long…

Ribombee nodded. "When you live near each other and work together for so long it's hard to not become friends," she explained.

Blissey nodded and grabbed the bucket of berries, lifting it with her arms. "I've got to go and put this in the Healer Gym for my own class tomorrow," she said to Ribombee. "See you during lunch?"

Ribombee beamed. "Of course!"

Her friend smiled back and left the greenhouse. Once she left, Ribombee dropped her smile and let out a huge sigh.

"Is something wrong?" I asked with a frown.

Ribombee glanced around us to make sure no one was listening in before leaning in towards me to whisper, "Can I tell you something in confidence?"

Curious, I nodded.

Again she looked around, before saying, "I'm… I'm worried about Blissey."

I blinked. "You are?"

She nodded. "I've… I've never seen her act the way she did during the trial," she said sadly. "I'm just worried that this… game may be causing her some stress."

Again, I nodded. Not surprising. If the motive wasn't so confusing I'm sure I would also be somewhat stressed at the moment. I certainly was before the last murder.

Ribombee let out another sigh. "I just don't know what to do," she admitted. "I'm afraid she's going to something drastic."

I took a second to think about what to say. "I don't think that Blissey would do something like that," I said firmly. "She's still a nice pokémon and cares about all of us. If that wasn't the case then…" I took a second to think. "Would she still be helping you with your greenhouse? Or still offering to teach all of us about medicine and healing pokémon?"

Ribombee seemed to contemplate it, before giving me a soft smile. "You're right," she said. "There's no way. Blissey isn't that type of pokémon. There's no way she would kill for Monotuff."

I smiled. "Exactly!" I looked down at the dirt below me, realizing that I hadn't done too much work in the time that we had been talking. "Um…" I said sheepishly. "Do you mind helping me pull weeds?

Ribombee laughed. "Of course!"

Xxx

If there was something I wasn't expecting to do after wallowing all morning under the hot sun, it was helping Pelipper sort through some documentation inside his gym. But he had come up to me, looking desperate, practically begging me to help him. Unable to really say no, despite the fact that Pelipper was kind of a pervert, I followed him to his gym to find it a complete mess.

My mouth fell open when I noticed the piles and piles of envelopes and paper all over the ground. "What happened here?" I asked weakly.

Pelipper looked embarrassed. "Er… I was looking for something and uh… something fell over and…" He fell silent.

I gave him a look, before shrugging. Something that he was embarrassed about doing perhaps? "If you say so," I said, kindly, kneeling down to pick up some papers. I was already a little tired from the greenhouse activities earlier that morning, but I had gotten some food into me and the Deliveryman Gym was pretty cold, unlike the greenhouse. "Where should I put everything?"

Pelipper blinked not bothering to hide that he was surprised. "T-thanks," he mumbled, helping out by picking up some letters with his wings.

"I don't mind," I replied. It was true. I was already used to helping others clean and, if anything, it continued to distract me from the other things that were going on around us.

We continued picking up the mess for the next few minutes in silence. Finally, Pelipper said, "If you see a letter with a wailord stamp and addressed to me can you tell me? And don't open it!"

I frowned as I picked up a letter with the exact description he had given me. "You mean like this?" I asked uncertainly.

"What are you…?" Pelipper's eyes widened as he caught a glimpse of the paper I was holding onto. "Gimme that!" he yelped, snatching the letter out of my grasp.

I didn't try to take it back and instead just gave him a raised eyebrow. "Is it something important?" I questioned.

"No! I mean, yes! I mean… uh…" Pelipper didn't seem to be able to come up with a concrete answer so he just hung his body in shame. "It's complicated," he muttered.

"Oh." I fell quiet and continued to clean up, taking the cue that Pelipper didn't want to talk about it.

Another long while before either of us talked. It was mostly me cleaning up, while Pelipper was staring nervously at the letter he had taken from me. By the time that I was halfway done with the cleaning…

"It's from my family."

"Hm?" I turned back towards Pelipper to see him still staring at the letter.

His expression seemed unnaturally downcast. "It's a letter that my family asked me to deliver to myself," he explained.

I frowned. "Sorry?" I said, not understanding it at all. "You were asked to deliver a letter to yourself? By your family?" Even saying that out loud myself made no sense to me.

Pelipper grimaced. "It was my dad's idea," he grumbled. "A symbolic gesture or whatever." He shook his head. "I stored it here when I first came to this gym, but when I invited you and Lucario it went missing. I assumed that one of you put it somewhere else I couldn't find it and spent all of this morning looking for it. And um…" he shifted uncomfortably. "That's how the mess appeared. Apparently, I wasn't looking hard enough anyway." He chuckled rather nervously.

"So you haven't opened it?" I gave the letter some more scrutiny.

Pelipper looked uncomfortable. "No, I guess I'm just afraid of what it might say."

"Why?" I frowned. "If it's a letter that your family wrote from before all of this then it must be encouraging."

"My family…" Pelipper let out a sigh. "We were all raised to be delivery birds. We basically lived in a building just like this. It was a lot bigger than this one though, which made sense since my family was pretty big." He let out a bitter sigh. "If I have to be honest, they all consider me to be a little bit of a failure."

I blinked. "But weren't you the hero who saved that village from the disease?" I asked.

That only seemed to make Pelipper look more apprehensive. "True but…" He sighed, before suddenly shaking his head. "Fine! Let's rip this bandage off now! No more waiting!" he said, sounding a little more determined, though it sounded a little forced. "A cute girl is cheering me on and I'm not about to let that pass!"

I just gave him a dry look. What the heck was he talking about?

He tore open the envelope and withdrew the single piece of paper from within. It was folded into thirds and, after another moment of hesitation from Pelipper, he unfolded it.

On the paper were only two words.

"We understand."

I frowned. "That's not much of a letter…" My voice died when I noticed Pelipper, who was gazing solemnly at the two words. Without another word, he ripped the paper into the two and tossed them into a nearby trash can. "Let's finish cleaning," he muttered.

I gave him a worried look as he continued to pick up the trash off the ground. Not really sure of what to say to him, I knelt back down to the floor and began picking up some more of the envelopes that littered the gym.

"Hey, Braixen," Pelipper said suddenly.

"Yeah?"

"Would you like to go out with me?"

I flushed. "I-I thought I already said no!"

Pelipper laughed shakily. "Yeah, I know." He turned away from me and, probably assuming I couldn't hear him, he muttered, "Not until I actually am a hero, huh?"

For the rest of the day, no more words passed between us. By the time we had finished cleaning up, the sun had already gone down. We split apart from each other once we reached the guild. After a quick dinner, I started to head back towards my bed, only to be stopped by Grovyle and Lucario just as I left the dining hall. "What's wrong?" I asked, seeing the two of them step in front of me, blocking my path.

"Well…" Grovyle folded his arms and waited for Lucario to speak.

Lucario scowled at him but gave me a serious stare. "We wish to convince Gengar to exit his room!" he explained, loudly.

"Oh," I said quietly. "He still hasn't come out?"

"No," Grovyle answered. "Even I'm getting a little worried, to be honest."

"But then… why do you need me?"

"You've got a good heart, Braixen," Lucario said. "You were the one who saved us in the last trial. If you speak to him directly, then maybe he'll listen!"

"H-huh?" I blinked. "Well sure I could try, but…"

"There's no harm in trying, Braixen," Grovyle said. "Both Lucario and I have, but with no luck."

I swallowed. "Alright then." I walked over to Gengar's door and rapped on the wooden door. "Gengar…?" I said carefully.

A long silence passed, so I turned to Lucario and Grovyle. "Um… he's not-?" I stopped talking just in time to see the door open a crack and Gengar's eye peek out from the darkness.

"Braixen?" I heard him mumble. "What are you doing here?"

"Um…" I glanced at Grovyle who just gave me a shrug. "I just wanted to know why you wouldn't come out?"

"Oh…" He looked down at the floor. "I just need to be by myself for a while. If that explains anything. Please just leave me alone." With those words, he shut the door.

I gave Lucario and Grovyle a helpless shrug. Grovyle returned it with a shrug of his own. "Just don't bother. If he wants to be a coward and hide within his room, then let him."

"That just isn't right though," Lucario said. "We should be trying to do whatever we can to help him in any way we can."

Grovyle just sighed. "You can't save everyone," he said wisely.

I winced, while Lucario only got angrier. "W-We won't know until we try!" he shouted at Grovyle.

"We did try," Grovyle snapped back. "Gengar obviously doesn't want to talk about it so why should we be forcing him to?"

"Because then we might be able to save him!" Lucario argued. "What if he's planning to do something terrible inside his room and we could convince him otherwise?!"

"Umm…" I held up my hands. "Let's not shout here…" I said nervously.

Grovyle snorted. "If he does end up killing someone. Then we'll deal with it." He looked away from Lucario. "You can't save everyone."

Lucario slammed his hand into the wall angrily with a loud thud, making both me and Grovyle jump. "Like hell, I can't save you Weavile!"

Grovyle narrowed his eyes. "Weavile?"

Lucario looked surprised for a moment before his face suddenly fell. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "That was uncalled for." He was quiet for a moment, before he said, almost robotically, "I'm tired. I think I'll go to sleep." He gave Grovyle and me a nod. "Good night."

Grovyle watched Lucario go and disappear into his room. "What was that about?" he muttered.

I just gave another helpless shrug.

We just said "good night," to each other, before heading to our respective rooms. I just collapsed onto my bed, taking a little time to think about what happened today. I was worried about Gengar, but if he was keeping himself locked in his room, then I guess there wasn't really anything I could do. Lucario's outburst was worrying, however. Wasn't Weavile one of his team members? Did something perhaps happen to her?

I had no way of knowing as I felt my eyes getting heavy. I yawned and a minute later I felt myself succumbing to sleep.

Xxx

The next morning…

BAM! BAM!

"Braixen?! You awake?!"

I could hear Noivern knocking on my door just outside, but instead of answering, I turned around in my bed, hoping that she would go away. I was just so exhausted that I hoped that she would think that I was still asleep and leave.

BAM!

"Come on, I know you're in there!"

With a groan, I rolled over onto my side before finally standing up from my bed of hay and heading to the door. I opened it and gave the energetic noivern an annoyed glare.

"Oh good!" Noivern beamed. "You're awake. I was starting to think you were dead. I was about to start raising the alarm bells!"

"Noivern…" I rubbed eyes and yawned. "What is it? It's too early in the morning…"

"Its never too early for practice!" She grinned.

I gave her a blank look. I was far too tired for this. "…What?"

She turned around and walked away, before beckoning me to follow her. I rolled my eyes but acquiesced- I was just ready to go back to sleep at that point.

She led me outside and, for a fleeting moment, I thought she was leading me away so she could kill me. However, I quickly dismissed the idea. Noivern didn't really have any motive to kill anyone and seemed to prefer gliding through life rather than put too much effort in. So when we reached the clearing right outside the Racer Gym and Deliveryman Gym, I was confused to find a pile of small instruments.

Noivern gestured to the pile. "Well? Pick one."

I blinked. "Sorry?"

She smirked. "You have to pick an instrument if you're going to join a band."

"A band?"

"Yep!" Noivern cheerfully nodded. "I've been a solo act for most of my career but after a while, I couldn't pull the same crowds I used to be able to pull. I was hoping coming here would reinvigorate my career, but…" She shifted uncomfortably. "But now I'm going to move onto my backup plan! A band!"

My mouth went dry. "Ok…" I said slowly. "But why ask me?"

Noivern smirked. "Because you're the only one here that's too nice to say 'no!'"

Ouch. As much as it pained me to admit to myself, Noivern was right. Perhaps she was a lot smarter than I initially gave her credit for.

I glanced at the pile of instruments again, before picking a small one about the length of my arm that was made out some sort of dark colored wood. Noivern only frowned once she saw what I picked up. "A violin?" she asked uncertainly.

"Is there something wrong with it?" I asked, alarmed, nearly dropping it out of my hands.

"No!" Noivern replied quickly, before cocking her head to the side. "It's just…" She looked at the violin awkwardly. "A violin isn't really the instrument for a rock band…"

I frowned, picking up the bow for the violin. "Well…" I said slowly. "It's really the only instrument that I recognized."

Noivern perked up. "Really?"

I nodded. "Yeah. My mother used to own one."

"Then you know how to play?!" Noivern said excitedly.

I winced. "Um… no." I looked down sadly. "My mother never taught me how to play. It was just something that was in our house. She never even used the thing."

"Dammit," Noivern muttered to herself, obviously thinking that I couldn't hear her. She turned back to me and forced a smile. "Well, I guess I'll be the one to teach you how to play!"

I blinked. "You know how to play the violin?"

Noivern smirked. "Yep! I'm the Ultimate Rock Star! That means I know how to play all sorts of instruments!"

I was pretty sure that wasn't what it meant to be a rock star, but I still let Noivern teach me how to play. She actually wasn't that bad of a teacher. However, I wasn't the best student and I could tell that from Noivern's expression whenever I tried to play the violin without her help. Still, at the end of our small lesson, she complimented how quickly I was able to grasp onto lessons. Sensing that she was just trying to be nice, I thanked her, before heading back to my room, to get some much-needed rest.

Xxx

Blissey didn't have her class until nighttime, so I ended up sleeping through most of the day until dinner. After dinner, I used the ladder to enter the floor her Gym was on, realizing at that moment that I hadn't actually been on this floor since the day after the trial.

It was just as clean and sterile as I had remembered it. No blemishes marked the walls and the tiled floor was the same as when I first saw it several days ago. It seemed like not a lot of other pokémon had entered the floor for any sort of reason.

It took me a few minutes to remember the way over to the Healer Gym, but when I got there the door was closed. I knocked and waited patiently for a minute, before Blissey opened the door, giving me a wide smile. "Come in! Come in!" she said enthusiastically, moving aside to let me through.

I walked through, getting my first good look at the gym since I had actually never been inside before. It was about half the size as the Fighter Gym, so about the size of the Deliveryman Gym. Blissey had apparently organized the room into a sort of classroom, with the beds removed of their mattresses and placed on the ground as places to sit, with the frames used as makeshift desks. She had found some extra beds, presumably from the storage room, to use.

I took a seat next to Froslass, giving her a smile as a greeting. She just scowled and turned her head away from me.

Well, at least I tried.

Blissey clapped from where she was standing, in front of all of the makeshift desks. "Well…" she said with a sad smile. "I guess that might be all…"

I looked around, surprised to find that only half of us were actually here. Gengar was missing which wasn't that much of a surprise but along with him Grovyle, Ribombee, Porygon, Zebstrika, Lycanroc, and Lucario were also missing. Some of them weren't surprising, such as Lucario and Lycanroc who both held some disdain for the floors underneath the guild. Porygon hadn't been coming to classes for a while now, though I didn't know why. The others were probably busy… with something.

"We'll be working on creating our own medicines," Blissey instructed. "You'll be working in partners. Next to you is a basket containing berries and…"

Blissey continued to lecture with some complicated terms and phrases being thrown around, but I was able to grasp the gist of it. She was just tasking us to crush some berries in order to create some healing potions that she herself created by using said berries. Froslass and I were working together and she tasked me to grind up the berries using a mortar and pestle. Froslass was handling some other chemicals, but her focus wasn't entirely on our tasks, rather she was staring intently at Blissey.

After some time passed with her doing nothing with the berries I was grinding up, I asked, "Are you okay, Froslass?"

She blinked and turned to me as if surprised to see me there. "I'm fine," she said shortly, for the first time her attention turning to mixing the berry mush I was handing her. Her stammer was gone and I assumed it was thanks to the rather cool temperature of the Healer Gym.

I frowned, trying to think of something to say to her. Finally, I landed on a question. "Can you tell me about the Kimono Eevees?"

Froslass paused for a moment, before continuing her work. "What do you want to know about them?" she asked back, begrudgingly.

"Well, how was it to be under their tutelage?" I asked.

Froslass paused for a moment. "Suffocating."

I blinked. "What?"

She gritted her teeth. "They always think that they know everything," she complained. "They make me follow all of their orders. My life was kept to a strict schedule. I had strict lessons. I was barely ever left outside." Her face turned into that of pain. "Coming here… was my first chance of finally leaving that-"

"Hey Blissey," Pelipper who was partnered with Greninja, raised a wing. "We're…" He was nudged by Greninja and hastily wiped off some berry juice off of his beak. "I mean I ran out of berries."

Blissey peered into the basket she had set aside for them. "Oh dear," she said. "I guess that means I'll have to go topside and retrieve some more then." She headed towards the door. "Just keep on working on what you all have for now, please." She went through the door and closed it behind her, disappearing from view.

Froslass was carefully watching Blissey with narrowed eyes, which is something I didn't miss. "Do you not like her?" I asked.

Froslass seemed to be debating something to herself before turning back to me, covering her mouth with her sleeve. "I don't like pokémon like her," she replied. "Always acting so nice to others, but at the same time thinking she's smarter. It reminds me of those stupid Eevees!" With a growl, she slammed her fist down on the bed frame.

I was taken aback by the tone of her voice. "I'm sure they aren't that bad," I tried to say, but it sounded weak to my ears.

Froslass was quiet for a long while, just staring at a nearby wall. "Dancing is all I have," she scowled. "And even then… they took it from me."

I gave her a worried look, but couldn't think of anything to say. Instead, we both just kept silently working, until Blissey came back about ten minutes later. At the end of the class, Froslass and I managed to create a few bottles of medicine for Blissey's stash, but the two of us didn't talk again.

It was approaching midnight, but I couldn't sleep, so I lay down on my bed and just stared at the ceiling. Froslass's problems may have been worrying but at the end of this day…

No one was dead.

All of my new friends were still alive.

I actually have hope that we'll all actually make it out of here alive. That was something I felt couldn't be understated.

My spirits lifted, I felt myself finally succumbing to sleep.

Xxx

The next morning…

I woke that morning in a more chipper mood than I had been in in a long time. The classes, despite the problems with the earlier ones, were starting to get better and we even had classes with Lucario again today. No one had fallen to Monotuff's schemes regarding the motive. I was pretty happy to head to another class with Lucario despite how tiring it may end up being. So after grabbing a quick breakfast, I found myself walking towards the Fighter's Gym with sipping on a tall glass of oran berry smoothie.

However, when I got there, I was met with a strange situation.

Grovyle was impatiently and repeatedly knocked on the back entrance of the gym. "What's happening?" I asked innocently, coming up from behind him.

Grovyle glanced at me his face full of frustration. The fact that I took another loud slurp from my smoothie, seemed to only annoy him further. "Lucario's locked the doors again," he explained. "We haven't been able to get in."

From the around the corner of the gym and presumably at the other entrance, came Noivern, Ribombee, Pelipper, Greninja, and Froslass. "Jeez…" Pelipper groaned, placing a wing over his eyes. "What are we going to do now?"

"H-He's j-just a m-muscle br-brained id-idiot!" Froslass stammered. "N-not letting u-us in f-for his own c-class!"

"Should we just skip it?" Ribombee suggested.

"The training is supposed to be important," Greninja pointed out. "Lucario might throw a fit if we skip despite it being his fault that we weren't let in."

I shrugged. "Why don't we just use the elevator on B3F?"

Everyone turned to me. "I mean…" Grovyle said uncertainly. "That could work, but wouldn't Lucario be pissed to see us using the lift? He still hasn't forgiven Porygon after all."

"Psh." Pelipper snorted. "If he's not going to let us in, then why bother to respect what he wants?"

My eyes lit up, as I suddenly got a great idea. "We could prank him!" I suggested excitedly.

Grovyle gave me a dry look. "Prank him," he repeated.

"Yeah! I've done it too my little brothers and sisters before and they've always loved it!"

Froslass rolled her eyes. "J-jeez, what a-are you, the U-Ultimate Pr-Prankster?!"

I gave her a confused look. "No, I'm the Ultimate Luckster," I said honestly.

Froslass recoiled as though she had been slapped and began to mumble furiously to herself. "I think it sounds like a fun idea, Braixen," Ribombee said sweetly. "I'm sure Lucario would get over the prank sooner or later if we at apologize afterward."

I smiled and nodded. "Of course," I exclaimed, secretly excited to see Lucario's face. The idea of doing something normal I did with my family… well, it was oddly comforting in this situation.

Noivern was also excited. "I think I saw some scary masks in the storage room!" she said. "I'll go grab them!" She flew off before anyone could stop her.

Grovyle let out an exasperated sigh that I couldn't understand. "Fine," he said finally. "I'll play along. There's no harm, I guess."

Ribombee gave Grovyle a nervous look. "If you don't want to be a part of this it's fine, Grovyle," she insisted. "It's just something we want to do for fun. To take away from our…" She fidgeted. "Our situation."

He just nodded. "I understand," he replied. "Just don't make me take the blame for this or make me apologize. This wasn't my idea after all." He gave me another look that I couldn't decipher, before walking away, heading back towards the guild.

Froslass snickered. "T-This is g-gonna be f-fun!" she muttered to herself, floating after Grovyle. Both Greninja and Pelipper merely shrugged before following.

"Come on, Ribombee!" I exclaimed excitedly, recalling some memories of what I used to do to my siblings. Knowing Lucario, he would at least take this somewhat in stride and forgive us. "This'll be fun!"

A while later and we all had descended the ladder down to B3F, where the elevator to the surface was. But while our small group was walking towards the Fighter Gym's basement…

"Braixen? Grovyle? What… what are you all doing here?"

The moment we turned the corner we came face to face with Porygon, who looked completely baffled. "I thought Lucario was having his class today. Why did you come back?"

"He locked the doors again," Greninja explained. "Some of us figured we could enter through the elevator on this floor and one of us…" She eyed me. "Thought it would be a good time for a practical joke."

"Hey!" I protested.

Porygon made an expression I couldn't decipher before it disappeared. "May I join you?" he asked stiffly.

I cocked my head to the side. "Ok?" I replied uncertainly, suddenly realizing that I hadn't seen Porygon for the past two days.

Where had he been?

Not willing to question him on that right away, I skirted around him and continued my way towards the basement of the Fighter Gym. I could hear the shuffling of feet, or wings in Pelipper's case, behind me.

"Why are you here?" I heard Porygon ask from behind me.

"Curiosity," Greninja chuckled ominously, just as I reached the door. "A train wreck is always fun to witness."

"I just want the gym to be able to bulk up again," Pelipper grumbled, as he flexed his wing. "The ladies love a strong man. If I end up like Lucario then there's no girl out there who can resist me!"

Ribombee giggled. "It's too bad you can't learn 'Bulk Up,'" she pointed out.

"Hrk!" I heard Pelipper groan and I couldn't help but laugh out loud as I turned the doorknob. The image of a muscled Pelipper using Bulk Up was too funny to me.

At that moment, I had forgotten how easily despair could strike.

When I opened the door and walked in, two things happened. The first was that the moment I walked in the elevator was already ascending to the surface. So I had stopped moving right in the middle of the room an unshakable dread suddenly falling over me. The second-!

"Ding Dong!" Monotuff's voice echoed from all around us. "A body has been discovered. After a set period of time, a guild trail will begin!"

I whirled around only to find everyone behind me staring at a point to my right. Shaking, I turned my head to where their gaze was pointing, silently begging that it was all a big joke.

Lucario's body was on the floor, its back propped up by the wall behind him so it looked like it was just sitting on the floor. Its eyes were closed and a large dark green arrow had pierced its chest just to the right of the spike on its chest. Blood slowly dribbled down from the chest wound onto the floor. Above his body was a message.

"This isn't…" I hear Grovyle say, as Ribombee let out a strangled cry.

I looked up to read the words that had been written in, what I assumed to be at least, Lucario's blood. A phrase I remember reading before.

"I aM The CurSEd hUMaN"

Alive:

Braixen: Ultimate Luckster

Grovyle: Ultimate ?

Noivern: Ultimate Rock Star

Marowak: Ultimate Archaeologist

Pelipper: Ultimate Deliveryman

Froslass: Ultimate Dancer

Gengar: Ultimate Infiltrator

Blissey: Ultimate Healer

Lycanroc: Ultimate Berserker

Zebstrika: Ultimate Racer

Porygon 2: Ultimate Hacker

Ribombee- Ultimate Botanist

Greninja: Ultimate Assassin

Dead:

Metang: Ultimate Genius

Zoroark: Ultimate Illusionist

Lucario: Ultimate Fighter

Sorry for the long wait for this chapter. June was a busy month for me. Hopefully, I can finish the next three chapters by the end of August, which is the goal I set for myself.

I'm not 100% certain about all the free time events in this chapter. If there are any problems regarding continuity with them feel free to tell me. I wrote this over an entire month so, even though I checked my work, I'm worried that perhaps there might be some issues.

So what do you think about who was killed? Admittedly, I'm sure it was a little obvious that Lucario would be the victim. And I bet some of you can even figure out the killer rather easily too! This case isn't really that tough but I'm still excited to finally write the conclusion of it!

Reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated.