Chapter Twenty-Three:
A familiar face

"I swear," grumbled an unseen voice, before what felt like the hilt of a knife was shoved into her ribcage, making her start and finally open her eyes to the bright morning in front of her.
Sally saw Howl stood over her for but a moment before he moved on to wake Rowan, and she untangled her limbs from her recently-purchased sleeping-bag and sat up to witness the newly-risen sun shining its light on the lichens and mosses to a crisp brilliance beneath the glow.
She felt her hair and cheeks moistened from the morning dew and reached into her pack for a towel as she heard her companion groaning reluctantly, even as he was prodded with more and more force as the seconds went by.
Finally she rolled her eyes and stood up, unsteady at first and nearly losing her footing from the simple act, surprised to find her head swimming and stomach churning with the dull pang of famine.
She supposed even in their sleep, their bodies were rapidly consuming energy simply to recover from the trials of their journey thus far, but she mastered herself and saw Howl preparing to drop whatever was in his arms - perhaps to apply more force to his efforts - before she stepped in swiftly.
"Here, here, I got this," she said, "leave him to me..."
-and she knelt down beside Rowan, his mind still clinging to the comfort of slumber, and she leaned in close to his right ear, her nose almost in direct contact with his hair, and Howl saw her lips move, just slightly, as she whispered something even he couldn't interpret even with ears like his.
The effect was immediate; following a final, and particularly fluent movement of the mouth, Sally's words caused Rowan's eyes to snap open and the youth himself to struggle vainly in the confines of his sleeping bag before he freed his arms, clasped a hand over his mouth and scrabbled backwards away from her and the Pokémon; gasping, panting, eyes wide with a sudden cold horror, which turned to deepest fury as Sally's laughter met his ears.
"You-!" he began, but couldn't finish. He seemed incoherent with anger,
"Sally! I told you to nev-
Stop doing that! It's not funny! It was never funny!"
"What?" Howl asked, beginning to smile at Sally's relentless snickering, "What did she do?"
"She said... some stuff," replied Rowan elusively, "Brought up some bad memories."
"Oh, don't be dramatic," she cut in at once, still smiling at the joke, "Embarrassing is more accurate."
"I told you to never do that again!" he cried, his voice beginning to rise until Howl shushed him so sharply that even Sally had to hiccup her mirth down.
"Alright," said the Pokémon, his tone serious, though the corners of his mouth still fighting to hold down his own smile, "keep it down, now. We're not alone, remember? And since the three of us are awake... finally," - he added a glance even in Sally's direction at this, "I think it's time for the three of us to-"
-but a quiet sound cut over his words. A little gurgling sound straight from Sally's middle.
"...Exactly," he finished idly.
Sally awkwardly rubbed the back of her head and glanced to each of them in turn with a Mareepish smile.
He crouched towards the centre of the little clearing, where Sally had been sleeping not a full ten minutes before and finally lowered the contents of his arms to the ground, revealing it to be foods of fruit, fungi and foliage.
The humans crowded close and began eating at once, only just realising how hungry they were while Howl unsheathed a single claw and began to trace something into the earth between them.
Sally slaked her thirst from the flask and asked at last what it was, only to find the answer before she had completed her question; it was a map. But of what? Of where?
The answer came before she had spoken;
"Alright, you two. Do you have a map? I want you to precisely memorise the route I've drawn out for you."
"We're gonna split up?" Rowan asked with a vain attempt to hide the budding agitation in his voice while Sally rummaged through her luggage.
"Yes," Howl replied, adding swiftly:
"But we won't be far apart, and you won't be going alone. Trill will be with you every step of the way, and if you get stuck, she'll relay to me at once and I'll come over to you.
I know, I know... it's a risk. But I promise it's only a temporary one, and whatever chances of danger there are for you, they're nothing comparable to the danger of you being found by those recent-captives down below. You'll just need-"
But he broke off as his eyes registered the large sheet of paper Sally had spread out on the ground before her.
Even with it viewed from an upside-down angle, it seemed that Howl knew the map of their continent well enough to be frustrated at the wild inaccuracy of it. With nary a word, he snatched it up from the ground and stared at it, his stare transforming into a gradual, narrow-eyed glare.
"This?" he barked, and if he had spoken through the tongue, droplets would no doubt have flown from his maw from the force of his speech.
"This is the map humans have of our land?! Did you buy this one on sale or something?!"
"No?" Sally replied, "Why? Is it... wrong?"
"Wrong..." he grumbled, reminding the two more than ever of a disdainful and vitriolic elder, "It's almost totally blank is what it is! And where it isn't blank, it's either exaggerated or blatantly false - it's less a map and more a boredom-induced doodle!"
"Oh," she replied flatly, controlling her expression, "Oh dear."
He gave the map a last spiteful glance before thrusting it back towards her, and she retrieved it calmly as he shook his head wearily, gathering himself.
"We did buy notepads if that helps?" she said, "we could trace the map on those?"
He nodded, still not meeting their eyes and swept away half of the map he had drawn in the soil, leaving out only what was relevant to their course, and she copied it to the best of her ability, though when the thought of them travelling separately from their protector forced its way to the surface of her pool of thoughts, she couldn't prevent the tremor in her hands.

Then, without the slightest sound, sense or sight in warning, a high scream from below shattered the silence, followed by the crack and burst of Moves.

Howl leapt to his feet as if he had been crouched in waiting the whole time, his blazing glare turned to pinpoint the direction of the cry while the humans struggled to gather their wits.

They hastened to his side at the lip of the ridge and saw to their horror the entire camp of escaped Pokémon surrounded by a militia of a single species Howl couldn't identify.
The escapee Pokémon were backing into a tight circle and holding all the ground their frail Moves could command, but the assailants were not approaching swiftly, and as a Move made to connect with them, they either smacked the Moves aside with arms suffused in the teal-hued light of a Water-Type Move, or they would...
Howl blinked at first when he saw the alternative:
As a lance of flame shot out from Charizard on the left side of the circle towards the antagonist Pokémon, Howl thought at first for the Move to have found its mark; but no sooner had the flames dispersed, then the attacker had reappeared again in the empty patch of grass, dousing it in a splash of water upon its inexplicable return.

He wasted not a second longer;
Signalling his clients to remain where they were stationed, he leapt forward into the air, arrived at the angular wall leading him to the grass and hooked his claws into the cold stone, slowing his momentum until his feet found solid ground and he ducked down among the blades of grass, concentrating with all his heart on his Aura Senses.
A prism of different Aura-colours fell upon his closed eyes and as he focused from one to the other.
He noticed two of the approaching Pokémon halt in their tracks, realising in the same instant what had made them do so.
With a soft rumble followed by a clatter of stone, Drilbur and Bunnelby exploded out of the ground directly beneath their individual quarry, both of whom reacted with the reflexes of an Electric-Type, launching themselves into the air mere inches above the two Ground-Types, who were so astonished - as their Auras clearly indicated - by their attacks being evaded that they were simply unaware of the webbed fingers clamping around them until they were pinioned on the cold earth again.
Panic swept like an ocean wave over the remaining escapees, but before it could escalate further and drench them in icy fear, just as Howl had broke into a crouching run towards one of the Ground-Type's restraints, Force Palm at the ready, an unfamiliar voice bellowed out high and clear above the commotion:
"You IDIOTS!
What are you doing?! This wasn't part of the plan! I told you to wait-"
The voice fell short however, for its speaker had sensed something, and rightly, for half a second later, Howl had leapt out from his concealment and made to bring the full might of Force Palm crashing down upon the one of the Water-Type assailants, but the owner of the commanding voice sprang forwards through the air to intercept him, and together they collided only to fall apart upon the ground, each of their numerous companions shuffling away from them as they fell.
Of the two of them, the first to rise was Howl, and the acting commander of the Water-Types - a female Ninetales - only had enough time to look up before Howl was crashing into her with Extreme Speed, carrying her through the air and shoving her body hard against the racing ground beneath their trajectory, scattering grass and earth in their wake - but before the two had even slowed in their momentum, she had coiled six of her nine tails around his ankles and kicked him in the middle with all four legs, finally dislodging him, and each of them coming to an unsteady rest many feet from their respective groups.

The two scrambled to their feet with almost identical speed, and the Ninetales prepared to launch the ranged Move Flamethrower, but to her shock, she found the Lucario sprinting towards her with such swiftness that she was forced to clutch the searing flames between her maw and backflip to evade his strike, soaring in a graceful arc and raising her head halfway to spit the Move down in the midst of her retreat.
Howl managed to duck beneath the onslaught and grab ahold of her airborne foreleg, twisting round to hurl his foe straight into the high rock structure they had arrived beside.
The Ninetales' mind was a torrent of thought and excitement, but her inner voice was quiet and collected as she managed to catch herself on the rock structure and bounce lightly off it to the ground.
'Wow...' she thought amidst the chaos, 'Wow...! This one is aggressive...!'
Not wasting time for him to continue his onslaught, she lunged in his direction for a counter-attack, deciding;
'Well, in that case, I'll bet your defences must be poor enough for me to-'
-but at that, the kick she had swung from her hind-legs in another graceful backflip was deflected by a black paw before her thought even reached its close.
'Oh,' she concluded, 'Alright - his defences are just as good as... as...'
Her crimson eye saw a speeding fist and she ducked, exhaling yet another Flamethrower in a great lance from her maw, forcing the Lucario to leap out of harm and chuck an Aura Sphere after her.
By this point, the Ninetales had begun to read his attack pattern, however; and made sure that when she evaded his explosive Aura Sphere, the direction she leapt in was of that towards the attacker himself, and her guess rang true, for as she whirled round to strike with her most powerful Move, Howl had closed the distance between them at the first chance he'd been offered, and in the air between the two his combined Force Palms met with her Flare Blitz, and a mighty explosion of the colliding forces sent each combatant hurtling backwards through the air and bouncing, rolling, skidding and dragging along the earth until they rested feet apart, each of them struggling with tremulous limbs to regain their footing before the other.

Finally Howl managed to raise his head, and found the Ninetales to raise her own a mere fraction of an instant after he had done so himself. The two stood apart, gazing at each other with stiffened, tensed bodies, each of them breathing heavily from their lightning-swift exchange of blows, yet neither of them sporting so much as a bruise.

Howl's mind was in a sudden veil of uncertainty; he thought he had recognised the Move his Force Palms had intercepted. Not merely the Move itself, but the peculiar technique with which it had been unleashed...
Meanwhile across from him, the Ninetales had at last reached the end of her trail of thought in the midst of their chaotic battle.
'Just as good as... mine,' she pondered. But surely it did not mean... how could it be possible?
These thoughts raced across both their minds at the precisely same moment, each only made aware of their shared feelings when they met each-other's gaze plainly for the first time.

The Lucario glared at the Ninetales.
The Ninetales stared back with quivering lips parted.

Then the Ninetales swallowed back the lump in her throat, recovered her wits and spoke in a voice that rang clear even to the motionless onlookers,
"You're good... very good.
...Who was your teacher?"

Howl gave his answer in the way he had been taught to. He rolled his shoulders once and braced his stance again, allowing the glow of his navy-blue Aura to envelop his raised fists.

To the spectators' unanimous surprise; the Ninetales seemed to have been anticipating this; for each of them saw her many tails give a brief, cautious wiggle of happiness, and Howl saw a phantom smile curve her muzzle.
"Not giving me any information, huh?" she asked, "You were trained by a guild, weren't you?"
Howl's burning Aura flickered and withdrew a slight while the tension of his stance waned, mirroring his hesitation.

The Ninetales' stance had dropped in its entirety, and she seemed to have merely woken from slumber for all the tension she displayed.
She crooked her head to the side and flashed him a kindly smile as she took a single, deliberate step closer.
Her smile was met with a blazing glare, and Howl's stance returned with all its tension intact, accompanied by the owner's continued silence.
'He won't answer any of my questions...' the Ninetales perused, 'and he's not dropping his guard...
Yeah... that checks out.
But... he can't really be...
There's no way. It's not possible.'
She drew a deep, slow breath to steady her nerves and continued,
"I'm a Guild-Mon too, Lucario... or rather... I was one.
If you're the real deal... then you should be able to finish these quotes for me, just like in our procedure.
'One: Don't shirk...'"

Doubt crept into Howl's posture as the words met his ears, and this time they showed no signs of vanishing.
The Ninetales repeated:
"'Don't shirk...'"
-and finally the Lucario found his voice again, answering;
"'Don't shirk work'."
The Ninetales' tails began to wag with fervour, but she kept her expression controlled as she offered another test:
"'Run away and'..."
"'Run away and pay'."
She swallowed, and felt her pulse speed before proceeding to the final test.
"And... the third one? The... unofficial third quote of the morning routine?
Does that... ring any bells?"
Howl gaped, then he too steadied himself, struggled briefly to recall the quote that Guildmaster Wigglytuff had struggled vainly to convince other guilds to add to their own morning cheers that their recruits were made to call, and upon the notion unanimous refusal - just as Chatot had predicted - Wigglytuff had exorcised his frustration by forcing his own Guild-Mon to include the third quote for months there onwards until one morning he had simply forgotten the whole ordeal, and not a single recruit had seen fit to remind him of it.
Howl gathered his thoughts as if arranging a jigsaw of his memory, beginning vaguely:
"'S-Smiles'- ah...
'Smiles'..."
Then, abruptly, his eyes and the Ninetales' met, and they shared a look before she nodded, as if in encouragement, before they finished the unofficial, but unforgettable quote in unison:

"'Smiles go for miles'."

They stared at each-other across the short distance from which they stood, he feeling his Aura recede without any input from him, she letting her tails wag without a modicum of restraint, and each of them feeling their legs steer them towards one-another, slowly, tentatively, perusing their former-foe in a new light.
Then, only about five feet apart, he saw steam rising from her cheeks, scalded by the white-hot tears flowing down them.
Then, in a moment of uncharacteristic loss of control, the Ninetales blurted out in a single hoarse breath:
"It is you!
Howl!
Oh, Howl!"
-and she sprang forwards, wrapping her front legs around his neck and careening him down to the earth in a choking gasp.
Had the Ninetales not cried his name a mere second before, and he would have thought their battle to have resumed all of a sudden, but as he felt her Fire-Type tears scalding his own flesh and subconsciously gasped from the sharp, searing pain of it, he felt a light scent waft into his nose.
A familiar scent.
One he could hardly believe to find himself experiencing again after so many years.
"Pah-..." he croaked, struggling to see the face of the half-remembered girl, "Pyra...? Pyra, is that... you?"
The sobs rattled her and shook even further blazing tears from her, and her tails began to wag in such a frenzy that he found himself blessing the fact that the sun was not in their line of obscurity.
Some distance away, the spectators all found themselves feeling suddenly bashful, some even letting out half-stifled sounds of disgust or outrage, for all their eyes could find were the wildly-waving tails of the girl named Pyra, the occasional outward-reaching arm of Howl, and the rest entirely submerged in the sea of green blades but for their voices overflowing with emotion, sometimes with a barely articulate sound instead of a completed word, and so it continued until at last Howl gave a rather undignified yelp and snarl of;
"No, Pyra - NO! No nuzzling!"
-then two forearms firmly clasping her at the shoulders and the two of them returned above the surface, each of their sleek fur coats matted and covered in dust, though the Ninetales' tails still wagged and beat at the earth without a care in the world, despite the factor of her needing to be held at bay.
Their gazes swept over one-another time and again, for this was the first they had seen of one-another in so very long a time, and Howl couldn't repress a shudder as he saw how the years of struggle had fared upon Pyra;
Her muzzle was above average in length, just as he remembered it being when she had been a Vulpix, her thick, lustrous fur coat kept the sleekest and cleanest of all the Guild Pokémon he had known glaring almost as bright as the sun itself under its heavenward glare.
But in stark contrast to both that and his memory, her right ear was crooked from a slash that had rent through it, and he saw that her left forepaw was missing its innermost toe.
He wondered with horror just how many scars her fur concealed across her being, just as his did...
"It's really you...!" she breathed, "You're alive! I... I can't believe it! Howl...!"
"You took the words right out of my mouth!" he responded, "I'd heard that the recruits were sent out to protect the escaping townsfolk, but... to see you here!
Where are the others?! Turtwig and Wartortle and Char-"
-but Pyra cut across him sharply,
"The escaping-? Wait! Wait, so... some of Treasure Town survived?!"
"Wh-..."
Howl's voice had flittered to such depths of breathlessness that he could not even form the word to express his incredulity.
Close as she was to his face, however, there was no need for him to do so, and her tails began to slow and droop until it was almost a challenge for them to meet each-other's gaze.
"I..." she explained, "I wasn't there... I wasn't in town. I'd been sent out on a solo mission. Chatot gave it to me as punishment for-
...Just punishment.
I was sent to the Crystalline Caverns. You remember - up in the north? Yeah?
Then... when I finally got outta there with the client... we had no idea what had happened. We knew that something was wrong - the sky had never gone that kind of red before, but...
But the guild! You said that some recruits were 'sent'?! Like they were given orders?! Were you there?! What-..." her voice too gave out as she saw his expression.
"I..." he murmured, "Pyra... you... you weren't... you're not... with them..."

A silence passed between them, for only a minute, but to them it felt like ten.
They traded a curious glance with one-another; one that was filled with uncertainty yet simultaneous expectancy, with Pyra expecting Howl to reassure her with knowledge she already knew in her heart, and with him expecting her to assure him of the same thing, and they would each feel comfort in the other's assertions.
They opened their mouths to speak, but stopped as soon as the other began, and found themselves mirroring one-another's expressions and shared in an awkward smile.

Then, finally, a harsh, elder voice bellowed from the gathering and shattered their reverie:
"What in the actual blazes are you two doing?! This is not the place for such behaviour, in public, right before children's eyes as well! Were you never taught to-"
-and as Charizard flew all too easily into a loud, angry rant that was utterly inaudible to the two, they explained who their company was, Howl telling his side of the story first.
Pyra answered:
"They're all with me, these Water-Types."
"I've never seen Pokémon like them before..."
"Well, that's sorta their deal. They're called Greninja. They prefer to live and train in the company of their own kind. It took some persuasion, but these guys are following my orders for the time being."
"What? But they're Water-Type and you're... How-?"
"It's a bit of a long one, I'm afraid. I'll tell you later, now is not the place. Their hidden village is about a half-hour's walk from here. They won't let any of 'em live there, but if your group is well enough for the trip, we can all go together and I'll see if I can talk deal with these pompous so-and-so's..."
"That sounds... Pyra... That would be incredible. I-I don't know what..."
They felt even their ears quiver at the volume with which Charizard scolded them now, and exchanging a last, fleeting smile, Howl leaned forward, steering them both to their feet, but he had barely placed a sole foot down to stand up with when Pyra suddenly leaned in close, her good paw at his shoulder and whispered softly into his ear,
"By the way...
I like your evolved form..."
-and Howl felt his fur bristle and his face flush hotly as she placed a phantom kiss on his cheek before releasing her hold and leading him towards their respective groups, her tails stood erect and lightly wagging with her concealed merriment.
He touched the spot lightly with his paw, stupefied for a minute, letting his wits return on their own before he got up to approach in her stead as she busily handed out orders to her Greninja followers, directing half to check on the escapees' condition, whether there were any injured or who needed food, and Howl reassured them with brief, clear explanations so that they were trusting enough to allow themselves to be treated.
Under the cover of the many conversing voices, he managed to mention to an idle bystander he had to reclaim luggage, located Trill the Pidgey and, with a surreptitious telepathic whisper and point, hastened back up the slope towards his human companions before anyone could call him back.

It was only a slight rearrangement of their original plans, and thus it took no more than five or ten minutes to explain to them; now instead of the alternate path that they had meticulously traced into their own notebooks, they were to follow behind the Pokémon directly with the guidance of Trill, who could disappear every so often among the clouds without anyone noticing in order to locate and instruct the humans.
Though Sally and Rowan both pestered him with questions as to who these newcomers were and exactly where it was they were being lead to, he simply shook his head at their demands and responded by assuring them he would not allow harm to befall them during or after this sudden detour.
Then, at a raised voice from the grounds below, he snatched up the sack from the cave of two days prior, still torn, battered and with only a handful of fruits to be salvaged from its depths, and hurried back alongside Trill to meet the call.

Their course, just as Pyra had claimed it would, did not take them far from the little pond. They were lead by their silent, stoic Greninja guides through a little cluster of woods down the mountain slope, and soon, with no clear catalyst for the shift, they turned abruptly to the side, leading them westward along a ridge in the mountain, with solid wall on their left, and a drop of fathomless depth on their right.
It took some persuasion, but they managed to get the group moving again after this mild pothole in their otherwise smooth journey.
After the initial hesitance, however, the escapees came to a complete standstill when their course began to ring with the sound of crashing water. Howl and Pyra had been submerged in their own talk at that point, and to the entire group's surprise, it was the Fire-Type herself who ended up soothing and reassuring their onslaught of waterfall-related fears. With the sound of the crashing deluge only a few minutes away, and the sound of the flowing rivers far beneath them, she stood to face them, her calm, sardonic gaze and words full of sincerity enough to reach even the seething Charizard, who had unsurprisingly been among the loudest of the rebellious voices.
So, Pyra had turned away, her tails erect and trotting happily onward as if there had been no interruption and continued her conversation to Howl as the raging waters grew steadily louder:
"So I saw they were in trouble and ran in to help. Y'know, just like we were trained to do."
"You didn't think that the humans may have caught a Feral?" Howl asked, "A Feral that would have been anything but grateful to you for saving them?"
"Oh, I considered that, but... well, it wasn't like I had any other end goal or desired locations to occupy me, you know? I wasn't just gonna walk away from what I'd seen. So I went in, sent the humans home, snagged their captive and made our way outta there before more trouble showed up. I treated the little fella's injuries and when he finally woke up, he answered that he was a Froakie, that he'd gone swimming too far in the river and had gotten swept up by the current, and remembered getting battered about before landing finally on the shore and losing consciousness."
"Where he was discovered and captured by roaming monster hunters," said Howl grimly.
"we-e-ell..." the Ninetales responded, "Yes and no. That is how he got caught so easily, but honestly, I don't think they were monster hunters. Nah, they were too clumsy."
"Villagers, then? That would explain-"
"No, not them neither. They had metal on their bodies like the ones that stand guard around towns, but they didn't look like guards to me. They had these emblems on their capes as if they wanted to stand out somehow."
"Emblems? Like what? Pyra-"
"Ohh, who cares?" she admonished with a familiar airy grin, "Like I said they were very flimsy. You shoulda' seen 'em, Howl; one look at me and they all bunched up together and made it all too easy for me to beat them with just one shot of Flamethrower! They're old news."
Howl was not altogether convinced, but had not the time to dwell on it, for Pyra continued brusquely,
"Before I'd even asked him where his home was, the little one started blubbing and asking me which way his mountain was, and I told him all about our guild's code and promised I'd take him to where we're going right now.
'Course, he didn't understand a lot of what I'd said about being from a guild and all, but it sounded impressive, and that's all he needed to...
Ohpe!"
She stopped abruptly so that Howl almost bumped into her and came alarmingly close to losing his footing completely.
"We're here!" she announced happily, as if oblivious to his narrowly-missed plummet down the side of the ridge.
The Ninetales turned her gaze towards their two Greninja escorts and said,
"Boys, if you please?"
To Howl's silent bemusement, the looks they returned to her were of the deepest irritation, and even contempt from one, but they took her at her word and leapt across the point at which their path came to a sudden halt, soaring as if weightless through the saturated air towards the great wall across from the gap where the great clamouring waterfall had finally come into view.
The two Greninja grasped invisible leverages on the solid stone wall with their webbed fingers looking as though they had practically stuck onto its flat, smooth sheen, and from either side of the great expanse of descending water, the two Greninja moved together, one launching himself into the flow of water, arms enveloped in teal light and held before him, shielding him from the deluge and splitting the fall into two separate currents, exposing the wall behind its veil, and onto this wall the second Greninja sprang, holding himself fast onto points that Howl couldn't even locate.
He made a mental note to ask the curious Pokémon at the first chance he got just how they executed the technique.
The second Greninja drew back his right arm, suffusing it in the teal light of its Type before it brought the arm down upon the smooth wall.
It did this again, and once more, and Howl realised it to be a rhythmic knock of the same kind Guild-Mon used in code.
The Greninja knocked loudly on the wall once, thrice, twice, and then fell still, waiting.

Then the reply came almost at once, though they could hardly hear it over the rushing water.
The reply imitated the frequency of the original speaker's; once, thrice, twice and then falling silent in turn.

Then the Greninja replied with twice, thrice, thrice again, and finally a last, singular knock upon the wall.
Then there came a loud crunch, and the patch of wall seemed to shift, and before they could register that properly, the two Greninja had leapt away from the waterfall and joined them back atop the ridge, watching without comment as the patch of wall seemed to retreat a mere inch, then slid sideways into the wall as a long, wide plank of oak was slid out from the opening for the Greninja to catch ahold of and place firmly on the ridge, creating a perfect means for them all to cross into the surface of the mountain.

"Right this way, everyone," called Pyra, happily taking the lead once more and not batting an ear as she drew closer and closer to the onslaught of water.
Howl followed after her, but not before saying swiftly,
"Trill, can you-?"
"I'm on it, Howl!" replied the little, quiet voice from his shoulder, and with a scurry of wingbeats she took to the air before any could notice her.
Howl tried to enter the cave swiftly, but was unable to prevent his fur being doused all the same, and awaiting him on the other side was a Greninja who seemed older than the two who had entered before him; his blue skin darker, his eyes more cloudy and posture stooped ever so slightly. Nevertheless, his expression was every bit as contemptuous as he glared from him, to the other Pokémon entering across the bridge, and at last to the Ninetales, who was still rigorously shaking her fur all over and exhaling wafts of heated air onto the patches of it her muzzle could reach.
"What... is this?" the elder Greninja asked, addressing the Fire-Type, "This was never part of our arrangement. The very fact that we allowed your presence among us ought to have been more than enough, we would have thought..."
"They're just visiting, Marsh," replied Pyra scathingly, "They need a place to rest and restock, they're not here to stay... I know the rules."
The Greninja named Marsh shook his head wearily, saying,
"The others won't accept this, Pyra... they're unhappy enough with you as it is. You realise that this will be the last straw for many, and you will not be allowed to return...!"
"Just doing my job, old Mon," she said coldly, "Surely the others aren't so obtuse as to rebuke me for that."
The two who had escorted them shot angered looks in her direction, but the eldest merely continued to shake his head disapprovingly as she turned away and shouldered past the escort Greninja and descended the carved stone steps beyond them, calling for her clients to follow as she did so.
"I wouldn't be in your position, little lady," called Marsh solemnly, "Not for a chance to spar with the Elders, I wouldn't be in your position..."
Pyra met his statement without a look, without a word, without a thought.
Howl hastened to her side, intent on asking her to elaborate all that they had heard, but before he could, she had manipulated the flames within her being to burn brightly across her paws and the tips of her tails, and Howl followed suit, enveloping his own body in Aura just as a sound met their ears from within the depths; the sound of the smallest of trickling streams, accompanied by a gentle, rhythmic tapping every half-minute.
"They're made from bamboo," said Pyra in answer to his unspoken inquiry,
"They call them water timers.
We're almost at the village now, Howl...
Almost there..."