Chapter fifteen:

Treasure Town Razed

"Howl?"

His paws shook, and he gripped the rim of the pool.

"Who were they, Guildmaster?" he asked, his voice unsteady, "The attackers? …Feral?"

It was unlikely, he thought. Feral were only ever known to work alongside other Feral if the two in question were a symbiotic species; and even then, the instant one had worn out its usefulness, they were (if lucky) driven away by their companion.

"No," was Wigglytuff's reply, "They weren't."

His grip tightened even further, and his trembling was transferred up the length of his arms.

"But, then…!"

It made no sense! If not Feral, who would do something like this?! Who would attack and destroy an innocent little town whose citizens were no more than merchants and loving families? There was still, of course, the presence of a famous guild, but if the grudge had been against Wigglytuff, why had the whole town been burned to ash?!

"Howl…"

Sally groaned and hefted his arm over her shoulders as Rowan took hold of the opposite arm, and together they began their awkward, dangerous limp back towards the cave, barely resting for a single second after they had managed to climb – along with Howl's lifeless body – back up the slope's rugged surface.

"Howl, you… may find it hard to believe me, but… I swear I'm telling you the truth. The attackers weren't Feral.

They were something else. Something… worse."

"Worse?"

He heard a faint rustle, and then the Guildmaster entered through the curtain hiding them from each other's view and walked right up to his side.

"Howl," he said at last, staring into his own reflection, "Have you… heard of a place called Icicle Forest? It's often spoken of in myths and fairy-tales, but there's always been evidence of it actually existing somewhere on cold, frozen land."

"Icicle Forest?" he echoed.

Wigglytuff looked at him, his one-eyed expression that of mild surprise.

"You haven't heard of it?"

"I…"

He hesitated. The name was not all unfamiliar to him.

"I've heard the name before, but none of the stories or myths."

"Seriously?"

He shook his head plainly. He had never had the time to indulge in myths and fairy-tales. At least, not of his own choice, due to the work he had been assigned at the very guild he was in, and thanks to the very Pokémon that stood beside him.

Whenever he had been put into a group to go and investigate the rumours of a strange place or sent to uncover the mysteries of some ancient ruins, it had always been at Wigglytuff's instruction.

"Well…" Wigglytuff went on, "I suppose the fairy-tales and myths aren't really what's important. But they do all point to one conclusion about it:

Icicle Forest is a barren, lifeless place hidden somewhere deep in the land of snow. It's said that eventually – once you've travelled deep into its depths, the environment around you begins to behave strangely. Not because you're hallucinating from the cold or exhaustion – what you see happening is real. But of course… explorers dismiss it all as hallucinations and keep on going in their search. It's said that eventually… you see large floating icicle shards in the air around you, growing gradually bigger and bigger as you head further in. But by the time you've realised just where you are – at least this is what the stories all say – it's already too late. You won't have the strength to leave."

"Why?" he asked. How could the Guildmaster have forsaken the chance to send them to find a place like this?! A place wrapped in danger and mystery!

As if he had sensed what Howl had been thinking, Wigglytuff looked at him desolately.

"Oh, Howl… Searching for Icicle Forest became a taboo even stronger than that of taking another's life…! I could never, ever, ever risk sending my friends there!"

He paused, lips quivering.

"There's some kind of power – or curse in that horrible place… Maybe a trap set by an incredibly powerful Ghost-Type Pokémon…!

The floating icicles in the Icicle Forest…. sap out an intruder's soul. Their spirit, their mind... everything. And it just leaves their bodies right where they are; empty shells waiting to be frozen and buried underneath the snow."

They lowered him into the corner at the very end of the cave and Sally began to panic as she saw that the freshly-grown skin had not held, and the wound was bleeding all over again. The juice within Oran Berries was strong, but it was no miracle cure.

She felt around in her rucksack for more, but there was not a single one that was spherical any longer.

'The slope-!' she realised, 'When we fell-!'

She shook her head in utter disbelief and upended the berries onto the floor.

"No…!" she pleaded, "This is not happening…!"

Sally seized a cloth from the previous pile of her belongings and pressed it flat over the wound, holding one hand over the other and applying all the pressure she could muster.

Every nerve was on edge and her eyes felt as though they were melting in their sockets as she turned her gaze around.

"Rowan!" she said, "Please, I know it wasn't easy, but my leg is really messed up – You've got to go back and-"

"I know," he said at once, getting to his feet and gripping her shoulder, "I'll go back for more."

"You've got to hurry!" she implored, "The two of us won't last up here – if he dies, we're as good as dead!

And he-!

He's lost so much already! I don't know how much more he can stand to lose!"

Rowan hastened to the corner and darted out of sight, but then Sally heard his voice yelp and he recoiled back into the wall as there came a loud twittering sound and rapid flap of wings as the infant Bird-Pokémon came into view, clutching between her feet a round, blue object.

"Yes!" Rowan cried, snatching it from her grasp.

"Please!" he said, holding the berry with one hand and pointing to it with the other, "We need more! We need you to get more! And fast!"

"Please!" Sally reinforced, her eyes starting to leak hot tears down her battered cheeks.

The Pidgey looked to her and saw the squashed, useless berries on the ground and gave a high cry when she saw the Pokémon who had freed her lying limp against the cave's end. She fluttered towards him and perched on his muzzle, twittering and flapping her wings in his eyes to try and receive some response, and when none came, she screeched again and flew around the corner and out of the cave so fast it seemed as if any slight turn in the wrong direction could flatten her against a potential obstacle.

"And that's not all," Guildmaster Wigglytuff continued before Howl had even recovered from the horror of his words, "It gets worse…! It was said in a few of the stories – but of course we all thought this was just made-up – that sometimes Ghost-Type Pokémon would try to brave the barren place in search of… victims.

…Living-but-empty bodies for them to inhabit."

Howl forced back his revulsion and held his tongue, waiting for him to continue.

"A-And…!" said Wigglytuff, "We thought… We thought that maybe… They were the ones who had attacked our town! The Pokémon who we were up against were… strange. Different.

…Scary.

They had these big, dark streaks all over them, and their eyes… they didn't have any irises, just the black bits, the pupils. But their pupils were… like a spec of red flame. They fought like Feral, but… they were even worse than that. Feral lose consciousness, Feral know when they can't win and try to escape. These Pokémon… they only attacked and nothing else. They didn't hold anything back, they didn't hesitate, they just attacked, attacked and they never, ever stopped!"

Howl remembered what Chatot had said just outside the Guildmaster's chamber.

"So… when Chatot said he thought I was something called a Shadow…" he murmured, "he was talking about…"

"Mm-hmm," Wigglytuff replied, "Chatot gave them the name. He said it's because they're being controlled by someone else. Like an actual shadow. They look like us, but aren't actually us. Only ever following the command of the body, or in this case, the possessor."

"Was it Ghost-Type Pokémon who were the possessors?" Howl growled, "If they were sick enough to actually take control of those who went into Icicle Forest, then they wouldn't bat an-"

"No," said Wigglytuff, "No. It wasn't Ghost-Type Pokémon. They were once like us, remember? Alive and breathing. The only reason they would really take control of one of the empty bodies is so that they could live on, in a way; no longer restricted to the boundaries their spiritual forms have. They wouldn't do something like this all of a sudden… Not to so many poor Pokémon towns.

…Yes," He looked up at Howl as he made to clarify, "Yes, Howl. Towns.

This was more than a grudge against just Treasure Town. The possessor of the Shadows is a truly terrible Pokémon. Terribly powerful and terribly cruel. Just after the attack, when the Shadows suddenly withdrew, the sky turned a shade of red just like that of the Shadows' pupils… and we heard the voice of the one who'd tried to destroy us. He revealed who he was, how he had created his army, and just what his intentions were…"

She burrowed her nails beneath the skin and pulled the berry apart, holding one half above the open wound before crushing it in her fist. The juice dripped freely, and soon after she had taken hold of the remaining half, the faintest of sounds was carried to her ears. It was a sound like bubbling liquid accompanied by a gentle hiss. But nothing would distract her, and she continued to dispense Oran juice as carefully and quickly as she could, Rowan seated behind her and breaking up those brought in by the young Pidgey every few minutes so that Sally could pour the juice in without pause.

"Who was it, Guildmaster?"

Wigglytuff's fingers clenched, and his arms shook as he stared into the pool.

"Why?!" Howl pleaded, "Why did they do it?!"

Wigglytuff blinked, shook his head, met his gaze and responded,

"He called himself the Emissary of Nature. He claimed that we had turned our backs on our purpose by choosing to be Civilised. He said that nature's course for Pokémon kind had always been an entire race of Feral – where the strong survive and the weak are consumed – in his words – just as nature intended.

But Chatot and I recognised the gigantic shadow – the actual 'shadow' – of the Pokémon in the clouds above us…"

The Pidgey fluttered around the corner clumsily, the Oran Berry held precariously in her unscathed leg. Rowan took it from her and immediately she almost fell straight down to the ground and panted, her heavy breaths accompanied by a quiet little note each time. Sally crushed the berry she'd been holding over Howl's abdomen and made to reach for another, but Rowan caught hold of her wrist.

"Hold on. Let's leave it for a bit."

"But-"

"We've used, like, twenty of them already! Our only means of getting more is totally wiped out as it is. Let's check that the juice is working like you said it would before we use any more."

"But-" she said again,

"Sally, c'mon," said Rowan sharply, "this isn't you. I know, I know, we're out in the mountains, in a thunderstorm, getting attacked by nutcases and actual monsters, but come on! You never lose your cool like this. You're supposed to be the smart one!"

She looked into the face before her, the familiar dark-green eyes resolute as they had been ever since the very first time she had looked into them. He cocked his head to the side and smirked, scattering her nostalgia.

"True…"

The word came out as a croak. She cleared her throat and tried again.

"True… I am the smart one."

"'Course you are."

Keeping a firm hold on her wrist, he lead her over to Howl's corner and they looked upon the effect that the Oran Berries had had.

"Who was he?"

Wigglytuff paused before finally answering.

"He is one of the Legendary Pokémon. His true name surrounded – like all Legendries – in stories of their deeds.

…He is called…

Giratina."

"There," she said, and together they took hold of his shoulders, steered him away from the wall and lowered him carefully onto the rug on the cave's floor, covering him with the dry sides of their cloaks and piling the softest items they had into a bag for a headrest.

"That should make him more comfortable…"

"It all started about a week ago. It was just another sunny, peaceful day in our town when the sky turned dark, just like that. Then there was another glow right above us. A great, big red glow among black clouds darker than the abyss. And before anybody could react, rocks started falling from the dark clouds; big, flaming boulder-sized rocks rained down on the homes of Treasure Town."

"A Move? An attacker from the sky?"

"No.

…We thought so at the time, though, which was exactly what Giratina wanted. It was a trick. While we all had our noggins pointed up, trying to figure out who was attacking and where they were, the rocks were silently breaking apart.

…Inside the rocks were the Shadows. They leapt on us seemingly out of nowhere, and even as we got over the shock, more of them were raining down on us.

And I…

I-I…!"

The water began to ripple and slosh about in its basin, and Howl became aware of a rumble in the ground at the same time noticing that Wigglytuff's face was screwed up in a bunch, his fists trembling and body outlined in a faint glow.

"Guildmaster!"

He clutched his shoulders and shook him, a millisecond away from telling him to be calm, but remembering how that had fared the last time Wigglytuff had begun to lose control of his power.

"…Wigglytuff!"

No Pokémon within the guild other than Chatot was permitted to call the Guildmaster by name, and such was the shock of Howl's insolence that Wigglytuff froze on the spot, turning his head towards him with his mouth stood ajar.

"Please!" Howl went on without allowing a moment of silence, "Tell me! I have to know!"

"I…!" Wigglytuff stammered, held back by the twister of his own emotions,

"I-I…!"

Then he shut his eye tight and flung himself onto Howl and sobbed like a child.

"I didn't know what to do!" he cried, "Howl! For the first time since I'd become a Guildmaster, I didn't know what to do!"

Howl froze, his arms hovering on either side of Wigglytuff's ears. He knew the Guildmaster well to be genuinely eccentric, but Howl had not been prepared to be embraced by him.

He gripped his shoulders and dislodged the embrace.

"What happened?" he went on mercilessly.

Wigglytuff sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his hand.

"Everyone but me was a hero," he said, "Chatot saved me and hid me from harm, and all the guild members and recruits focused as one on dividing into two big groups. The guild members had the job of holding back what was expected to be an army, and the recruits – being as there were lots more of them – to evacuate and protect the families and merchants.

The Members were expecting to fight off an army, and they were right. There was just no end to them! After I'd seen how my friends had been brave and put everyone else's safety before theirs, after I'd seen how they were ready to fight every last attacker until the end, I… That's when I finally snapped out of it. I was their leader. They were my friends… and I knew I had to protect them!"

There was no need for further clarification, Howl thought. Despite his veneer, Wigglytuff was utterly unrivalled when it came to battle, both in skill and the almost Legendary Pokémon standard of power he held.

"The guild recruits evacuated the town of innocents," Howl said, "Because in an instant it had changed from home into a battlefield..."

There was a pause.

"So, then…"

He looked up at Wigglytuff, feeling his desperation and anguish begin to melt away,

"Illume… She… She was with them, right? She's safe?"

Wigglytuff met his gaze awkwardly and after a moment's hesitation, shook his head.

"No?

What…

What do you…

What do you mean No?!"

"Howl…" Wigglytuff's voice began to tremble, and his eyes started to shimmer.

"…Where have you been all this time? It's been so long, and we've heard nothing from you! Nothing!"

Howl clenched his paws and bowed his head.

The Guildmaster went on, giving him no respite,

"You said you'd come back, and everybody – everybody believed you. Even Chatot! You never said you'd be gone for over a year! As time went on, some of the town Pokémon started to have doubts. Some thought something might've happened to you, and others thought differently. Then some of the recruits even started to worry. But still, despite everything, Illume never stopped believing in you, and neither did I! We both knew there was no way you'd break your promise! We knew you'd come back! Even when all this happened, even though she could've saved herself by doing so, Illume refused to go along with the evacuation team!

She said: 'Howl promised he'd come back! I'm not going anywhere until he does!'.

But still… Giratina has continued to send down Shadows to find us, and we've already had to relocate to another hiding spot twice!"

"But here? In the guild? Surely-"

"We always had to remain close to Treasure Town, thanks to Illume. Chatot figured it was risky, but of all the places he wouldn't expect us to be, it'd be right back here in the guild. We've been able to stock up on supplies and medicines too."

Howl's pulse began to speed faster than a Rapidash after a quarter-mile sprint.

"So Illume is here! She's in the guild too!"

He leapt to his feet and ran towards the doorway, but,

"Howl, no!"

suddenly Wigglytuff ran past him and stood directly in his path, blocking the way,

"You can't! You mustn't see her!"

"What? Guildmaster, I – Get out of my way!"

Wigglytuff shook his head wildly and cried,

"No!

No!

No!

No!

NO!"

There was a sudden blinding flash, and Howl was knocked down by an unseen force.

"You can't," said Wigglytuff.

"I'm sorry, Howl. I really, really, am, but I… I think you should go."

A gust of wind blew through the opening in the rocky wall and sent ripples over the water's surface as if to break the silence that fell.

"Go?" Howl echoed at last,

"I can't 'go'. I only just got here."

"She's different, Howl. If you show yourself to her now, I don't know what'll happen. And I don't want to find out. It's too dangerous. If she even knew you were here…!"

He paused.

"When Chatot said we were going to go back into Treasure Town… it was like Illume had suddenly changed back into the little Chimchar we recruited along with you so long ago. For some reason, sheexpectedyou to be here, waiting for us when we returned.

Themoment Treasure Town came into view on our return, Illume sprinted off with no warning at all and started calling your name all over the place like she thought you were hiding underneath the wreckage somewhere. We looked too, but she literally didn't leave a single stone unturned. We stopped searching pretty soon, but she… It was like she just couldn't hear us. She searched the town three times, ran up and down to the guild twice, and searched the beach every time she passed it!

When she finally stopped… she seemed to sort of freeze up. She just stared out into the ocean, standing right where she'd been when you left.

I think she couldn't accept it.

…You weren't there. You hadn't come back. Out of all of us, she needed you most of all, and…"

Howl's insides were aflame with self-resentment. And perhaps Wigglytuff had sensed this, for he gave a watery smile and helped him to his feet, saying,

"Howl… I… I knew you'd come back, though. Even though you'd been gone for so long, even though we had more reason to believe you weren't coming back, I… I just couldn't actually believe you'd broken your promise.

This isn't how I'd imagined it to be, but… it's good to see you again. I'm glad that you're alright.

Please… do this for me, not just because I'm the Guildmaster… Do this for me as my good friend among the guild recruits:

Go. Save yourself. Be selfish for once in your life."

Howl shook his head.

"Me being selfish is the whole reason I wasn't here for Treasure Town. The whole reason I wasn't here when the closest thing to family I have needed me. Even if I wasn't around when this started, I owe it to everyone to be here now."

"Howl! You don't understand! Illume is…!

…Look. You can't be seen by her. First she refused to stop believing in you, then when it seemed hopeless, she was broken; crushed by it, and now… Now she's… angry.

If you show yourself to her now, I don't know what she'll do, Howl."

"But still," Howl insisted, stepping closer adamantly, "I owe it to her!"

Wigglytuff's glare was met with one with twice its force. A glare he had never once expected to see on Howl's face – familiar or evolved.

"I'm coming too," he conceded without withdrawing his expression, "And I'm going to see her first to let her know that… someone wants to talk to her. We need to do this carefully, Howl."

"Understood, Guildmaster."

Wigglytuff nodded, turned on the spot without another word and lead the way back through his chamber and into the room where the guild members still stood, discussing amongst themselves what had transpired. Wigglytuff's pace declined slightly as the Lucario's name was mentioned and he looked hesitantly at him, but the recruit moved on stoutly. Illume was first on the list; he would have time to recover and steel himself once more before facing the guild members too.

Wigglytuff and Howl headed through the corridor into the crew rooms, heading right to one at the very end which was covered, like the Guildmaster's secret room by a veil for a door.

"She's been resting in here," he said, his voice barely above a whisper, "She might be asleep right now, or she might be awake. Either way, she's been just as beat-up as the rest of us, so if things do get… bad… you have to be careful with how you push her away. If things get bad, that is."

Howl nodded and remained behind as Guildmaster Wigglytuff exhaled deeply before knocking gently against the built-in sign on the wall beside the entrance.

"Illume?" he said, "It's the Guildmaster. Are you awake?"

No response came from beyond the veil.

"Illume?"

Again, nothing.

"I'm coming in, OK?"

Wigglytuff stepped into the room and motioned for Howl to remain where he was. The recruit waited, straining his ears. Then there was a rustling sound, then the Guildmaster's voice gasped,

"No!" -and his footsteps thundered around beyond the veil, the word returning every few seconds.

"No, Illume, no! Why-?! Where-?!"

Howl barged into the room and saw bedding laid in the centre with its covers tossed to the side, and then he saw Wigglytuff standing with his entire upper-body leaning directly outside the window.

"ILLUME!" he called, his voice echoing across the sky.

Howl had barely opened his mouth to speak when Wigglytuff pulled himself back into the room and ran past him, nearly knocking him over.

"Everyone, move out, MOVE OUT!" Wigglytuff bellowed in his familiar commanding tone, "Illume has snuck out! Search the town!"

"Wha-!" Howl darted to the open window and leaned his own upper-body out, scouring the cliff's surface.

Sure enough, beginning at the window and trailing along the side of the cliff were deep claw-marks in-between the jagged spaces.