Chapter Five

Road to Verdant City

To look at, Null Allegard admittedly wasn't very much. Anyone who happened to glance at his grimy face and perpetually cockeyed cap rarely bothered with a second look. Null's customarily cocky swagger belied a frame so slight, bony, and malnourished that most people mistook him for a child or runty adolescent, rather than a youth actually finishing up his late teens.

Of course, those who had their dealings with Null Allegard could care less about his appearance, age, or rather dubious methods. These feelings were mutual; Null made his living ferreting out miscellaneous hard-to-get items for any and all customers without bias…as long as said patrons could pay a handsome price for what they wanted. Null was morally opposed to doing anything that did not ensure personal gain. Theoretically speaking.

But skipping along the road, hands hidden within his oversized sleeves and lips pursed in a lilting whistle, Null was the perfect picture of juvenile innocence. A Butterfree tending her nectar garden fluttered a wing in greeting as the boy passed. Null smiled back impishly, continuing down the dirt path and out of town.

The ground was still damp from yesterday's sudden cloudburst, and the limpid, rain-cleansed air felt fresh and cool. Prancing clear of any lingering puddles, Null made his way past the stretch of fields that graced the city's outskirts. A grove of trees clustered together just above the horizon, marking the border between the edge of Mercury City and the northernmost fringes of the ancient Verdant Forest.

Weaving expertly through these trees, Null kept his eyes trained on the leafy boughs. Here and there, spots of vibrant color could be glimpsed in the thick foliage above: bright reds, pale yellows, delicate pinks, and deep rich blues among them. Today's color nut fest would be a bountiful one.

Pulling out an empty burlap bag from inside his sweatshirt and slinging it over one shoulder, Null grabbed some low-lying branches and hoisted himself into the tree. Long leaflets, hanging in star-shaped clusters and wet with dew, tickled his face as he began to climb. Null ignored them without much trouble; he had been using the same foot and handholds for the past year and had long grown dispassionately expert at his job.

The color nuts dangled from the higher branches, suspended by their resilient caps. Some appeared a bit cracked or misshapen, but the majority were perfectly molded spheres with smooth gleaming shells. Null selected a choice few of each color. Taking the fist-sized nuts and snapping them off their branches was easy work. Not too long later, Null was climbing down the trees with a full sack.

A grinding noise caught the attention of his sharp ears. Twisting about, Null's cat-like green eyes darted from the branches above and back to the ground.

A young girl was huddled at the base of a nearby tree, hunched over a rock and a blue color nut. Save for the constant grind of the nutshell against the stone, she made no noise whatsoever. A badly-tangled mess of dark hair fell over her face, concealing it from view.

"Hey, kid!" Null yelled, striding over and spouting off a chain of easy lies. "Hands off the nut! Those trees're private property. Specifically my property! You're trespassing right now, ya know?"

The girl's hair went flying over her shoulder as she swerved about, revealing a wide-eyed face wholly drained of blood. A strangled cry burst out of her throat as she bolted up, dropping the nut in her haste. She stumbled backwards, groping wildly for something in her front pocket, before colliding with the tree behind her. Momentarily stunned, the girl stared at Null for several tense seconds, then slowly blinked. "S-sorry," she squeaked out guiltily, rubbing at the dark bags beneath her bloodshot eyes.

Sorry, just like that? No protests, accusations, or words said in self-defense? Whoever this girl was, she sure was compliant, not to mention easily spooked. The way her face had blanched, you'd think she'd seen a ghost. Or had somehow been expecting one.

"Whatcha doing with the nut?" Null inquired in a mixture of suspicion and curiosity.

"The…the Apricorn?" Anxiously ducking her head towards the ground, the girl scrambled forward to retrieve the blue nut. "I-I'm m-making Apricorn meal, for… uh…cakes."

"Ya can eat that stuff?"

Brow furrowing in confusion, the girl glanced at the bulging sack of color nuts slung over Null's shoulder. "You…y-you don't eat them?"

Null paused a bit at this. Every week for the last year, he had come to the same spot and picked the same number of color nuts. After packaging the lot, he would ship them by Pidgey Express to a special client in Verdant City. For all he knew, the nuts could have been ground up and served there. However, the whole arrangement seemed like far too much trouble for such an unappetizing-sounding meal.

From her spot under the Apricorn tree, Lynn nervously watched the strange boy wrinkle his nose and make a grotesque face. Should she just try to sneak away? This boy didn't look as if he'd be able to follow her, not without being severely discommoded every step of the way. Though he seemed to move easily enough, the boy had the baggiest ensemble of clothes Lynn had everset eyes on. A voluminous gray sweatshirt hung nearly to his knees, its folds of dingy drapery concealing the youth's actual build. Lynn couldn't even distinguish the boy's feet underneath his equally oversized pants. A sharp knee poked out of a hole in one pant leg, while a crudely sewn patch covered the knee of the other.

"Whatcha staring at?" the boy demanded Lynn sharply, crossing his arms and upturning his nose in a rather cavalier manner. The tips of his fingers didn't even escape his floppy sleeves. When Lynn hesitated to answer, his mouth curled into a sneer. "Eating color nuts, just like that?" he snorted. "Bet you're not from Mercury, are ya, kid? Heck, you're probably not even from this region!"

"What's M-Mer…curie?" Lynn said, tentatively trying the word out for herself.

"Mercury City, kid! Huge city? Big lights? Geez, it's right down that road over there. How could ya miss it?"

Lynn thought it was rather high of him to be calling her a "kid" when he was probably still a teenager himself, but knew better than to voice such opinions. "Wh-what about Ver…Verdant City?" she asked instead, sidestepping the boy's earlier question. "Do you know where Verdant City…uh, or Stadium…is?"

The boy snorted at Lynn's ignorance. "This here's Verdant Forest, Slowpoke brain," he replied, gesturing to the trees around them. As if Lynn didn't already know that. "Verdant City'd be all the way over on the other side of the forest. And the Stadium's in the city, obviously."

Lynn stared out at the forest miserably, heart sinking. More than anything, she had hoped to find Verdant Stadium, figure out what to do with the Rainbow Wing, and fulfill the poor Fearow's dying wish as quickly as possible. Once that was finished, she would be absolved of this strange and terrifying matter for good. But the Verdant Forest was enormous. Even having lived in it her entire life, she'd never ventured through its entirety. She'd have to start now if she hoped to reach Verdant Stadium by…by next week? Next month? Next year, even?

The boy was fiddling with his hat now, Lynn noticed out of the corner of her eye. It was a large puffy hat and, as with most of the boy's attire, far too big for its owner. Several objects rained down from its sizable confines as he yanked it off – a pocket mirror, wadded-up tissues, and a pack of playing cards among them. In a seemingly desultory manner, the boy shoved each of the objects into different pockets in his shirt and pants. Then, without hesitation, he jammed his sack of Apricorns into the hat…and placed the entire thing back onto his head! As if by magic, the bag seemed to vanish completely!

Despite her previous misgivings, Lynn found this strange trick made the boy look almost comical. The symbol on the hat's front, a circle with a slash drawn through its center, did remind her of an Apricorn with a crack down its middle.

"Hey," she called, courage trickling back. "Er…uh, s-sorry. But is there a faster way to get to Verdant City than, um…through the forest, I mean?"

"More questions, Slowpoke brain?" the boy sneered. "I ain't runnin' a charity here. What'll ya give me if I tell ya?"

After a moment of anxious inner debate, Lynn extracted a glittering fruit from her rapidly diminishing supply of Gold Berries. "I-is this okay?" she asked, extending the Berry towards the boy. As Lynn had hoped, his sharp green eyes glinted greedily. Lynn tipped the Berry so that it caught the light and cast a golden radiance across her palm and the boy's scrutinizing face. "Can you please tell me how to get to Verdant Stadium?" she asked again.

With a grunt, the boy reached into his capacious sleeves and pulled out a flimsy white stub. Handing him the Gold Berry, Lynn took the small strip and brought it close to her eyes.

"That's a train pass," the boy explained as he pocketed the Berry. "The Magnet Train leaves Mercury Station in 'bout an hour. Got it?"

Lynn didn't "get it." A brisk run-through of finding the "station," boarding the "train," and getting off at the appropriate "stop" (most of which Lynn struggled to understand) was all the instruction that the impatient boy was willing to offer. Lynn watched him exit the forest grove with a feeling of anxiety bubbling in the pit of her stomach. Not wanting to linger here alone, she packed her things without finishing breakfast. The train pass she put in her shirt pocket, along with the Rainbow Wing. That, Lynn had decided, was the probably safest place to keep the strange vessel. Not just for the Rainbow Wing's own safety, but for her own as well.

If the demon with the red eyes should return, she'd hate to be without her only weapon close at hand.

The boy, thankfully, had been true to his word. Less than an hour of walking in the direction he'd indicated brought Lynn to the edge of the field. Just a little ways off sat a small wooden lean-to, the shade offered by its long shadow an enticing sight in the afternoon sun. Lynn headed towards it purposefully, the relief of having made it to the "train station" that the boy had described putting a bit of spring back into her weary step.

There was a board hanging above the shelter's roof, blown slantwise by yesterday's storm. Lynn cocked her head and frowned at the bold block markings on the board's surface.

Mercury City Magnet Train, Outpost Station. Train departs at 10:30 AM and 2:00 PM. Please have your ticket ready before boarding.

Of course, just as with the marks on her Gold Berry cloth, Lynn had no idea what it meant. But at this point, she was too tired to care. Setting down her pack, she took a seat in the shadow of the deserted shelter, thankful that she had at least arrived without any more major mishaps.

Gazing out beyond the lean-to, Lynn could see a broad strip of bare ground, crisscrossed with spaced-out slats of corroded metal. This road went straight past the building, cut through the grass, and disappeared well into the distance. Lynn almost fancied it a rust-striped Ekans, stretching itself so taut that neither its head nor tail could be seen.

"Now those metal rail things," the Apricorn boy had informed her earlier, "they'd be the train tracks." Voice dripping with condescension, he had added, "Ya know? Tracks for trains. Don't get to close, 'kay? Or a train'll come along and squash ya real nice and flat."

Lynn wasn't sure what a train was, but if it would help her reach the Verdant Stadium and figure out the next piece of the Fearow's puzzle, it was fine by her. Overcome by a sudden yawn, she stretched out her arms and planted her elbows in the grass. As she leaned into her aching back, Lynn vaguely felt her eyelids slipping into place. It wasn't wise to let down her guard, but she honestly didn't think she could keep it up much longer. After her nightmarish night in the storm, Lynn had run for hours and hours, fueled by pure fear. Even when her body had been too weak run anymore, her thoughts had been too plagued by apprehension to permit any sleep. Now, however, her exhausted mind finally seemed to be shutting down…

A jarring clatter had her bolting onto her feet only a minute later. Stifling an shriek and looking frantically around, Lynn saw nothing. The clattering continued, becoming louder with each passing second. Hand darting automatically to the Rainbow Wing in her shirt pocket, she stepped cautiously forward. Surely that wasn't supposed to be the train?

Lynn gaped as a pillar of scintillating light ascended from the ground on the other side of the tracks. Appearing, it seemed, from the earth itself! Perhaps she was more sleep-deprived than she'd first thought.

"Oof! Ugh! Almost there…" came a groan. The pillar wobbled, but continued to rise.

Lynn blinked as the glittering column neared, its outline becoming clear as it moved into the shade. Instead of a stream of pure light, the blinding mass was actually a towering pile of shiny silver and gold boxes. Unfortunately, the boxes were teetering dangerously, their contents rattling noisily as they began to tip over. Without thinking, she dashed onto the metal train tracks, catching the boxes and pushing them back into place before they fell.

"Thanks," came the same voice as before, half-muffled underneath the tower it carried. It continued over the tracks to the train station, leaving Lynn to lick her lips nervously. Looking in the direction the boxes and their carrier had arrived from, she realized they had not risen from the ground at all.

The train station had been built on a hill, and it was down this grassy knoll that Lynn was now gazing. She could pick out the beginnings of a dirt path, winding its way from the base of the hill and disappearing into the overgrown fields beyond. But even further in the distance…Lynn's breath caught suddenly in her throat.

Gargantuan gray structures towered above the distant skyline, some hunkering together in tightly-knit groups, others looming commandingly above their fellows. Each of these massive monuments appeared to be formed from giant cliffs of cold stone, and all were perfectly symmetrical and rectangular; the entire congregation surely would've taken any human or Pokémon eons of time and limitless reserves of strength and precision to carve. At the very center stood the most breathtaking sight of all: a colossal shining dome as impossibly rounded and sleek as a newly-polished Berry shell. For several minutes, all Lynn could do was stare, drinking in the enormity of the scene before her.

"Gah, watch out! Get off those tracks!"

Finally wrenching her head away, Lynn felt crackles of static prickling her legs as the voice frantically yelled at her to move again. It was drowned out a split second later by a deafening whoosh! of streamlined body against air.