You wander around the mansion for a bit, wondering exactly where and what the far east room is, when you pause to sit on a couch you come across for a moment. You hadn't slept all night, and as the day wears on, you're growing more and more exhausted. You weren't exactly planning on sleeping on the couch, but closing your eyes for just a moment turns into a full-on nap. You awaken momentarily as a couple grunts settle down beside you and also begin to fall asleep. Your eyes open again when a couple more crash on the floor by your feet. You drift off back to sleep, amused at how the years of spending each night as wolfish Lycanrocs seems to have left some canine tendencies in the grunts.
You sleep rather deeply for hours, the soft sound of some of the grunts snoring the only noise in the quiet room. When you finally awaken, you're surprised to find just how many grunts have joined you in napping. They're squished together on the couch, and sleeping in a pile like dogs on the carpet in front of you. It's both peculiar and kinda cute... sorta.
"Hey!" you hear a voice quietly call at you. You follow the sound to see the male grunt who had been with Guzma earlier. "Want me to give you a tour, lady?"
A tour? Maybe this could be your chance to figure out more about that room. You carefully untangle yourself from the grunt who had fallen asleep on you and make your way past the maze of passed out grunts on the floor to join him. He tells you that his name is Liam, and you tell him yours. He leads you around, giving you the strangest tour you've ever been on.
Like the rest of the grunts, he talks with a lot of slang and informality. But you're surprised to find that his explanations also carry with them an obvious education. "You see that?" he says pointing to the molding and ornamentation of an entrance way. "Inspired by the entrance of La Maison Cubiste. Pretty fancy, huh? Those cubists. Sure liked their shapes. And they influenced a lot of Art Deco architecture around the time this place was built."
You look at him in both confusion and wonder.
He shrugs. "I wanted to be an architect."
The tour continues, with Liam giving you architectural facts, and you do your best to keep the both of you heading east. You're beginning to wonder if this little tour will result in any clues for you, when he slips up and says it. "And this is where we gotta stop. Boss don't let anyone down there."
"The far east room?"
"Uh, no. Yes. Maybe. I dunno."
"What's he hiding down there?"
"Boss ain't hidin' nothin'!"
"Well, I'm pretty sure the whole point of a forbidden room is that you're hiding something."
Liam looks panicked. "Um. You know what's cool? An empty pool. And we even got one! We should go look at it. Outside."
You sigh. "Fine, lets go."
He's visibly relieved and begins to lead you away.
As the two of you make your way back, a male grunt approaches Liam. He instantly becomes flustered, tripping over his words and face reddening. Someone has a crush. He's fully distracted, with his attention completely on this newcomer. You quietly take a few steps backward, and then you're off, back toward the far east room.
You cautiously walk down the hallway, your footsteps echoing in the emptiness. There's something on the floor ahead. A few more steps and you realize it's pieces of a broken mirror. On either side of the hallway two mirrors look as if they have been punched. One's completely shattered with its remnants dusty and forgotten on the floor. The other is intact aside from the shattered lines converging on the point of impact. Your curious, yet worried reflection stares back at you from each shard. The door directly ahead of you is scratched and marked up. What exactly is this room?
Your hand pauses on the door handle. Something about this feels wrong. But, you're here now, could you really just turn around? What if this is where the Yungoos is? For the sake of getting back to your sister with her pokemon, you have to proceed. You slowly turn the battered handle.
There's a lot to take in. Furniture and parts of the room look like they've been torn up in a rage. The fading light of day from the one large, circular window illuminates it all in a forlorn, yellow light. There's what appears to be several family portraits in the room, and all but two have claw marks through them. The two intact ones show what is unmistakably a young Guzma with his parents. In one, he seems to be no older than five. He's all bright smiles and holding a Wimpod. His smile mirrors his mother's in the picture; a large, friendly grin full of mirth and teeth. His father seems less enthused about posing for the portrait. Not unhappy, but simply bored.
The other picture is different. There are no smiles. Guzma's older here; maybe fifteen or so. His expression no longer matches his mother, but instead his father. They both look like as if they're holding in barely contained contempt. His mother's smile is still there, but it's weak. Her features are sunken in, there's dark rings under her eyes, and her hair looks like it's thinning. She looks sick.
Every other picture is too shredded to make out many details, but they seem to have been different family photos from throughout his childhood. In fact, most everything in the room seems to be pieces of his childhood or his parents, including a bag full broken golf clubs. You're fascinated with all the objects, wondering if you could piece together their story if you look around long enough. There's a wheelchair in the corner, and you wonder if it was his mothers when maybe illness had taken her ability to walk. Whatever the story was, it was not a happy one.
You hear a sound then. A bit like a chime, but it's weak. When you hear it again, you turn and find the source. It's a pokemon, but it's not the Yungoos. It's a Comfey, perched on a pillow on a torn up couch. It looks elderly and feeble. So much of the color is gone from it and its even started to lose petals. You're amazed. Here it is: The Comfey from the story. You begin to approach it, your hand reaching out.
And then the door opens behind you.
Guzma stands there in the doorway, his mouth slightly open in surprise. He blinks, and then you watch as his expression twists into anger. He marches over to you. "What are you doing here?!"
"I'm sorry-"
"I told you this room was forbidden!"
"I just - I thought that -" Maybe it's because you've intruded on some vulnerability he didn't want you to see, but this time, as he looms over you - like he did when he was a monster - you're afraid.
He's about to respond with more yelling, his eyebrows a deep crease, and his eyes ablaze with fury, causing you to wince and cower away a bit. When he sees this, he pauses. His expression softens into one that looks caught between regret and pain. He looks away from you and goes to the Comfey, checking on it.
His back's to you now, the light dancing across the skull on his jacket. "I-" you begin.
He reaches into his pocket and takes out a pokeball. He turns, and tosses it to you.
You catch it, surprised and look up from it to him.
"That's what you wanted, right?" He sounds more disappointed than angry now.
You're too shocked to say anything. You just stand there with the pokeball in your hands.
"Just go."
"What?"
"Just... get out. I'll tell them to let you out the gate."
You stay there a moment, watching him. He won't look at you. You consider saying something more, but you don't want to push your luck. You got what you came for, even if you now have mixed feelings about it. You put Yungoos's pokeball in your pocket, and leave without saying a word.
You run through the mansion, down the stairs, passing several questioning grunts, and a distraught looking Liam. You feel a small wave of guilt for using him to find the room and ducking out on him.
"Wait!" says a voice as you reach the foyer. It's Plumeria. "Where are you going?"
You stop and face her. "He let me go. I - I went to that room and -"
Plumeria's face falls.
"I'm sorry."
She doesn't say anything, but turns and moves for the stairs.
You face the door, wondering why leaving this mansion feels so strangely difficult. Maybe it's that going back to Tapu Village will feel remarkably tame compared to this. Maybe it's that you already consider Plumeria and some of the grunts friends. Maybe it's knowing that (though you try to ignore it) some bit of hope leaves with you. You've been here a day, but you know you'll miss this place and the magic you found here. You glance around one last time, then you leave, and run down the road, through the ever-present rain, to the gate.
He watches her leave from the far east room. She's running down the road now, towards the gate. Of course he failed at this too. How could it have turned out any other way?
There's footfall in the hallway and then he hears Plumeria yelling, "Guzma!" from behind the closed door.
He sighs. "Yeah, yeah, you can come in." He oh so rarely let anyone come in this room, but he'd make an exception right now.
She throws the door open. "You let her go?!"
"What else was I gonna do, Plumes? Keep her trapped here like the rest of us?"
"But it'd only been a day! We could've-"
"Do you really honestly think keeping her a prisoner would have worked?"
She looks away, swallowing before she answers. "No, but," she nods her head toward the weak Comfey.
"Yeah," says Guzma, rubbing at his undercut. "Yeah, I know."
"When the last petal falls, that's it. No more transformations. We'll stay Lycanrocs. Night won't end for us anymore. And we'll be trapped here. Still."
"I was there, Plumes. You think I'm looking forward to an eternity of no one to talk to but myself?"
Plumeria relents. "I'm sorry, Guzma."
"Me too." He turns back toward the window to continue to watch their last hope run as far as she can. If he can't cross the border, at least he could watch someone else do it.
But, there's something wrong. She's on her Mudsdale, but the horse has stopped just outside of the boundary. The rain is practically a torrential downpour - even worse than usual - making it hard to decipher what's going on in the distance.
The horse rears up, and she's barely holding on. Then the pokemon is kicking at something behind them. There's more shapes moving, and then he sees what it is. There's a horde of Araquanid attacking her.
Her Mudsdale is going wild, frantically kicking and biting at the bugs. It rears up again, and she falls from it. He starts to feel a panic crawl up him as he waits for her to move, and she doesn't.
He doesn't stop to think, he just runs out the door.
Plumeria is after him. "She's beyond the border! You'll die!"
"Can't just stay here and do nothing!"
She stops following him as he runs through the mansion's front doors and out into the rain. He'd spent so long locking himself away in the mansion that this is the first in a long time he's been on this path. The sun's almost set, and they're going to transform soon. Good, maybe that'd be better for what's about to come next.
You come to soaking wet and muddy on the ground. The rain is horrendous and you can barely see. There's Araquanid all around, and your Mudsdale is standing over you, doing his best to keep them at bay, but it's growing weary. The bugs are water types and they've got the advantage in this weather.
One of the spiders lunges forward and your Mudsdale sends it flying with a kick. Another comes immediately after and sinks fangs into his flank. The horse bucks wildly and now you're trying to avoid being stomped on. Another Araquanid bites the horse's neck as one goes for you, but it only manages to get the rubber on the bottom of your shoe. You kick your leg until you shake it off. Mudsdale continues trying to dislodge the spiders on his neck and side, splashing mud and rainwater in your face. You wipe at your eyes, coughing and gasping for air. This is bad. You wonder if you're going to die trampled by your own pokemon, while drowning in rain and being bit by bugs.
"Hey!" you hear someone yell. You look around bleary eyed and see Guzma standing at what must be the border not far from you. He's soaked and breathing heavy. He probably saw the attack from his window and ran out here. You're surprised. After everything over the last day he barreled out here to save you.
The spiders turn for a moment and Guzma continues to shout and wave, attempting to get the pokemon to chase him instead, but they don't seem interested. They refocus on you and Mudsdale, a spider going for one of his hooves.
Guzma curses. He inhales, and takes a step beyond the border.
The affects are immediate. Guzma yells as lacerations appear out of nowhere on his arms. Blood begins to drip out of his nose and mouth and mix with the rain falling on him.
"Guzma!" you yell to him.
"Hey, doll," he says wincing, his voice heavy with pain. "Just can't stay on that damn horse, huh?"
"Go back! You're going to-"
The sun finally sets and Guzma falls to his knees as the transformation starts. His face elongates, fur sprouts up, and his hands and feet erupt with claws. Clothes split off of him as they become too small to contain his monstrous form. When it's done, blood is still coming from his snout. His lips rise, baring his teeth as he snarls at the spiders. Then he launches himself at them.
With something so large and vicious coming at them, the Araquanid forget about you and Mudsdale, and go for Guzma. They spring at him and he knocks them aside one after another in a flurry of claws, growls, and teeth. He stops when he's hit with a wave of pain from the curse, crying out with a dog-like whimper. A spider takes the opportunity to clamp down on his leg, and he brings his jaws down around it.
You watch the fight continue from underneath your Mudsdale, who's still standing protectively over you. Tears leave your eyes and wander down your mud-stained face as you watch Guzma's struggle with the bugs and the curse.
He claws at one of them, tearing open the bubble enveloping its head. Another bites into his haunch, and he turns, tearing it away. Again the curse hits him, making him stumble and a fresh stream of blood comes from his snout. He snaps at an Araquanid coming for his neck and the bug bursts in his mouth.
The bodies of the spiders are starting to pile up around him. They seem to realize they can't defeat the angry beast, even as the curse continues to wound him, and they retreat, skittering away from you, Guzma, and your Mudsdale.
Guzma collapses. You scramble out from under your pokemon and run to him, your knees dropping in the mud beside him.
"You alright, princess?" he pants out in his deep, growling voice.
"You shouldn't have come out here! Look what's happening to you!"
He laughs a bit, wincing. "I might - I might be an asshole, but I - I couldn't just stay up there and watch you get killed." He grimaces as the curse does its job yet again.
You gently lay a hand on his shoulder and his eyes meet yours. "Can you stand? We have to get you back before it's too late!"
Guzma sits up and shakily rises to his hind two paws. You call Mudsdale over and try to help him lay across the horse's back. You rush them both back within the border and back to Po Town as the rain continues its unrelenting downpour.