An Age of Valour
by the Lady of the Mists
Chapter Four: Morning Conspiracies
It was still early in the morning when Lydia woke up suddenly, her instincts on alert. The three other trainers were still asleep as she slowly climbed out of bed, pushing her brown hair out of her blue eyes tiredly, grabbing her jacket and slipping it on quickly.
"Vee?"
Lydia glanced around at Eevee, who had woken up. His brown eyes were looking in confusion at his trainer, who smiled and shook her head, patting Eevee gently on the head.
"Go back to sleep, Eevee," she told him gently. "I'll be back. Won't be a minute." But the Pokémon shook his head, jumping off of the bed and rubbing his trainer's ankles.
The amused trainer smiled and shook her head. "All right, let's go," she said quickly. She wasn't sure what it was, but she felt as though something were wrong. A chill travelled up her spine as she opened the door to the room, walking outside and quickly shutting it behind her and Eevee.
Lydia quietly walked down the hall, not wanting to disturb anybody if it weren't necessary. But of course, she thought tiredly, when had she ever been wrong when her psyche told her something?
Hearing voices coming from the dining hall, Lydia crept closer, trying to get a better idea of what was going on. Eevee stuck close, fear appearing in his brown eyes. Lydia bent down and picked him up. "It's all right, buddy," she murmured, stroking the fox Pokémon. As she held him, she tiptoed over to the door, easing it open ever so slightly as she slowly sat down onto the ground. The moment that she opened the door, the voices intensified.
"I don't care how you do," a male voice was saying. "I don't care who does it, I just want this ship taken over before it make port. These Pokémon trainers are young, easily swayed. And I more people working for me. Our main obligation is to rid the world of evil and to do that, Pokémon must be under our control." Lydia frowned; it sounded like the man who was speaking was doing so by a telephone. There were some in there, she knew, having seen a few trainers telephone home at dinner.
Not only that, but the man sounded vaguely familiar, like she'd heard him somewhere before.
"We know, sir, and we are doing the best that we can," a female voice said. Lydia's eyes hardened immediately; that voice she knew. That girl was the girl from earlier today, Alicia Knightly. "But many of these trainers are more stubborn than we anticipated. And most of them would never even think about using Pokémon's power for evil."
"Like that one girl that you were arguing with earlier," a boy replied. "The new trainer with the Eevee. What's her name?"
"It's Lydia Talon," a new voice spoke up. "She's on our way to Cherrygrove to meet with her uncle. Got a tongue on her, that one does. I'd hate to get on her bad side."
"Her, I don't care about," the man on the telephone said. "She you can get rid of. Both her and that worthless Pokémon of hers. But all the others I want you to bring to me. If you can't persuade them to work for me, my friends, then I'm sure that I can think of a few ways." Lydia could practically hear the smirk in the man's voice. She didn't like the way that he said that. "Perhaps the lives of their Pokémon will be enough to make them lifelong followers of mine. And after we have taken over this ship, we will start taking over Johto, piece by piece. And after that, the world."
"It will be done as you wish, sir," one of the boys said. "Before nightfall, we will be back at your mansion and you can deal with these trainers as you feel necessary."
Lydia's blood froze as she backed up, Eevee still in her arms. "They want to try and control everybody on this ship," she whispered. "We've got to get help."
"Eevee-vee!" Eevee jumped out of her arms and hurried back down the corridor. Lydia ran after him, wondering where he was going. At least, she did, until they ran into a trainer coming down the same hall.
"Whoa! Where are you going?" he asked as Lydia practically screeched to halt, trying to catch her breath. Eevee had been running so fast. "Okay, easy, just take deep breaths. What's going on?"
"Trainers . . ." Lydia gasped out. "In the dining hall. They're planning to taking over the ship. They were talking to someone on the telephone who said that he wanted more followers or something like that. He wants Pokémon trainers to follow him."
The trainer in front of her stared at her. "You serious?" he said incredulously. She nodded, still taking deep breaths. "Nobody in their right mind would do something like that!"
"He said something about threatening the Pokémon in order for them to swear loyalty to him," she explained. "And I think some would do that. They might do anything to stop him from hurting Pokémon. We've got to do something!"
"Okay, let's get the captain," he ordered, seizing Lydia's arm and hauling her alone with him.
Lydia ran with him, however, and called back, "Eevee, come on!" The fox Pokémon hurried back to her and she scooped him up into her arms, running along with the boy.
Glancing at him sideways, Lydia studied him critically. He had dark brown hair that framed a determined face and intense green eyes that sparkled like the sea. He was taller than she was, but seemed about the same age. However, he seemed to be a lot more experienced in training than she was. Though this was probably due to the fact that she was starting late.
"I think the crew quarters are through here," he said, steering her down a hallway. Sure enough, the sign ahead was marked "crew only." There were a few crew members who were starting to get started.
"Hey, you kids!" one of them yelled, spotting the trainers. "You can't be down here! It's off limits!"
"It's an emergency!" the boy retorted, glaring at them. "I think you'd better tell them what happened." He looked towards Lydia, who nodded.
"Yeah, okay, Jesse," she said, unconsciously using her psychic powers to find out his name. He blinked once, startled, but overlooked it due to the situation, as she launched into the story of what she'd heard in the dining hall not ten minutes ago.
By the time that she had finished, they had been joined by the captain, who was frowning at them, a bit disturbed by their words. "You're absolutely sure that's what you heard, young lady?' he asked, his tone hard. He was staring at her intently as she nodded, relieved.
"You believe me, then?" she asked. She'd expected to be ignored, to just been overlooked. But the captain smiled wanly and nodded.
"Of course I believe you," he said. "I know Alicia Knightly and I've known she was trouble since she was born. Her parents aren't much better, I'll have you known. Andrew," he said, looking towards a crew member. "Please escort Miss Talon and Mr. Turner to my office. I don't want them anywhere near the dining hall right now and we can't get them back to their dormitories without being seen. It's better if you two weren't involved in this," he explained. "Then whoever they're working for will be after you two in particular."
"I don't think so," Lydia said, shaking her head. "He said that they could dispose of me, that he wasn't interested in me."
"All the more reason for you to avoid being seen," the captain told her. "Everyone else, come with me."
Andrew looked towards them as the crew followed their captain. "All right, you two, come with me," he said, turning and heading down the hallway.
Lydia let out a deep sigh. "Looks like it's going to be a long day," she mumbled. Eevee snuggled closer to her as his trainer walked through the corridors.
--
It was around nine when the captain finally returned to his office, looking over at the two of you. "Success," he said cheerfully. "The people in question have been taken into custody and they'll be turned over to Cherrygrove police department as soon as we arrive. Unfortunately, we weren't able to trace the call to whomever it was they were receiving the orders from, but hopefully we'll be able to get answers from some of them." He glanced at Lydia. "You didn't happen to hear a name earlier, did you?"
Lydia thought back, thinking hard, but shook her head. "No, they just referred to him as 'sir'," she answered. The captain nodded. "They might not even know who he is, sir. He could be keeping his identity a secret even from his own followers."
"Possibly," the captain sighed. "But that's what we're going to figure out. For right now, though, the two of you need to go and get ready. We'll be arriving at Cherrygrove later today and breakfast looks appetising today. Our cook is serving her specialty: chocolate chip pancakes."
"Yum," Lydia said with a grin. Jesse, too, smiled.
"Run along," he said. "Take the corridor left and then go right when you reach the end. Staircase at the end will take you up to the deck."
"Thank you," Jesse said as he and Lydia left the room. "So you want to explain what happened earlier?"
"Hmm?"
"I wasn't going to say anything while we were both worried, but I'm pretty sure that I didn't say my name. But you knew it," Jesse accused her. Lydia sighed, looking away. "How did you know? What, are you psychic or something?" He meant it as a joke, but Lydia jerked anyway, looking at him.
His amused smile vanished and he stared at her. "You are, aren't you?" he whispered.
"A little," Lydia admitted. "I mean, it's not strong, but I can read people's thoughts and I've got some precognition power. That's it, though. Jesse, I swear, I didn't do it on purpose. Just sometimes I do it without meaning to. It just comes as second nature."
Jesse opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it. "Okay, but you don't do it all the time, do you?" He seemed a little bit freaked, not that Lydia could blame him.
"Not on purpose, no. I don't try to. People shouldn't go digging around in people's thoughts without permission," Lydia replied as they opened the door to the dining hall. Trainers were already in line and most of which were sitting down, eating. "You're not going to say anything, are you?"
"Get a lot of grief about it, do you?" Lydia rolled her eyes and Jesse grinned. "All right, I won't say anything. Who'd believe me, anyway?"
"Unfortunately, a lot of people," Lydia said dryly. Both trainers laughed as they received their portions of the chocolate chip pancakes and some Pokémon food for Eevee and Jesse's Pokémon. "So, where are you from, anyway?"
"Pretty far, actually. Ever heard of Alyson?" he asked her. Lydia frowned and shook her head. "It's a town over in Kanto, pretty close to Mt. Moon. I started out there and made my way through the Indigo League. Then I decided to come here and I just brought Ivysaur with me." He released the grass Pokémon and set the Pokémon food next to him, scratching his head. "I wanted to start it over like I started my Kanto journey."
"So I guess we're both starting out, then."
"Guess so. How about you?"
Lydia sighed. "Well, my dad wasn't exactly too thrilled with the idea of Pokémon training. The idea of it completely horrified him and ever since my mom died, he never let me do anything that I wanted. Which basically means that I've never done anything of my own free will," she added dryly. "I never knew her."
"How'd she die?"
"Giving birth to me," Lydia said softly, digging into the pancakes. "So I grew up with my dad on Rosewaters Isle, before I found Eevee here two days ago, wounded, and took him to the Pokémon Centre. He disowned me then, told me to do whatever I wanted."
"That must be rough," Jesse said, wincing slightly. "I mean, my dad walked out on us when I was a kid, but at least I still had Mom and my sisters."
"I've got my uncle," Lydia said with a shrug. "And I've got Eevee. That's enough." She looked down at her finished plate. "And maybe soon, I'll have some more friends."
"You planning on entering the Johto League?" Jesse asked her, raising an eyebrow.
"That is if Eevee's up for it," Lydia answered, glancing at the fox Pokémon. "What do you think about that, buddy?"
"Vee!" Eevee confirmed. He was thrilled with the idea, she thought as she smiled at his happiness.
"Well, then, maybe we'll face each other in the Silver Conference," Jesse said with a shrug.
Lydia smiled. "Perhaps."