An Age of Valour
by the Lady of the Mists
Chapter Thirty-two: A Surprise Encounter
Lydia placed her hands on her hips, taking a defensive position as Jesse's hand moved towards his Pokéballs as he stood next to her, ready to back her up in need be. Jennie's eyes narrowed as she recognised the older trainer from the café in Goldenrod, but said nothing as Alicia walked towards them, a smirk playing across her face.
"Gotten this far, have you, Talon?" she inquired. "I have to admit, I was surprised that you managed to make it this far. Didn't think that you had it in you," she added.
"Look, if we're gonna have another battle, you might want to turn around, because the captain there is watching us," Lydia informed her. Alicia froze and her eyes travelled up to where the captain, having noticed the tension between the trainers, was keeping a close watch on them.
Forcing a smile that seemed alien on her face, Alicia turned back to the gang, folding her arms across her chest. "Oh, don't worry, I'm not here to fight," she said scathingly. "In fact, I wasn't even planning on seeing you at all, Talon. Not that I really take any pleasure in seeing your pathetic face. So, tell me, caught any new Pokémon? Not that I care, just curious as to how far down the ladder you are."
"Just so you can go running to your boss and tell him that I'm not worth the effort in why he's after me?" Lydia said calmly. Alicia's eyes narrowed, but she didn't retaliate. "You're wasting your time, Knightly. I've got other problems to deal with and I really don't care about you or your boss's plans at the moment, because there are other things that I've got to deal with, so why don't you just do us both a favour and leave us alone? Because if your boss keeps sending his minions after us, then he's gonna become my enemy."
Alicia's jaw dropped in anger and her face flushed red. "Minion?" she demanded, reaching for her Pokéball when a sailor walked by them, giving all four of them a stern look before moving on. She scowled, but dropped her hand away. "I'll have you know that I am no minion. I am more valuable to the chief than you can even conceive."
She stepped closer, her face inches away from Lydia's. "And I'll have you know that the only reason why you're still alive is because there's still room to determine which side you're going to be on. So if I were you, I would choose the right one very soon. Because if you don't, then things are going to get worse before they turn ugly."
Turning on her heel, she walked away, her chin held high as if she were a queen rather than a common thief working for an obscure boss, her long blonde hair glistening in the sunlight. Lydia sighed as she reached up, tightening her grin on the locket that hung around her neck.
"That girl keeps getting more and more annoying every time that we see her," Jesse commented as they walked over to the deck, sitting down on the chairs that were spread out there while they waited for the rest of the passengers to board before they took off.
"Tell me about it," Jennie grumbled. "I've only met her twice and she is getting on my last nerve."
"Well, don't worry about her," Lydia assured them. "I caught a glimpse of her thoughts and she's getting in some major trouble with her boss concerning us. Considering that we keep ruining every one of her plans, she's in hot water with him. I'm actually kind of feeling sorry for her," she added. "I mean, she's only doing what she's told."
"Yeah, but that's only because you're one of the nicest kids on the planet," Jesse told her with a grin. Jennie rolled her eyes, muttering something that neither one of them caught. "Don't suppose that you heard anything that might point out who her boss is, did you?"
Both Jennie and Lydia stared at him as though he had grown three heads. "What?" he asked.
"You're kidding me, right?" Jennie asked her brother incredulously. "After everything that's happened recently, after everything we've learned, you still haven't figured it out?"
"Figured what out?"
"Alicia's boss is my father," Lydia told him in exasperation. "Or William, rather." Jesse was right, she decided, she still couldn't get used to calling Jack her father or William her uncle.
"What?" Jesse stared at them both incredulously, then shook his head, as though disgusted with himself. "Okay, how did I miss that one? That was completely obvious."
"Because you're an idiot that misses the obvious and wouldn't see the obvious if it danced right in front of him," Jennie said calmly. Jesse scowled at her and Lydia sighed.
"What I'm worried about if what if Alicia was telling us the truth?" she asked quietly. "What if she's not one of those 'lowlife trainers,' as Hayden called them. He said that there were going to be hardcore ones coming after me, to take me in to see William. What if Alicia is actually one of them?" She raised her head to look at her friends, both whom were wearing worried expressions as they considered the dilemma.
"I don't think that's what she meant," Jesse said after a long moment. "It seemed like there was something more going on than what she was saying. Besides, even if she is, we have battled against her before and won. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy, but if we stick together, we should be okay."
Jennie looked at her brother before looking towards Lydia, who shivered slightly, the breeze off of the ocean making the air seem colder than it really was. "Either way, we should keep a close eye on her while we're here," she said quietly as she glanced towards where Alicia was standing on the ferry, her grey eyes watching the three of them very carefully and diligently. "I really hope she doesn't ruin my time on the Islands, though, because I've waited a very long time for this."
"Don't worry, I don't think she's going to be any trouble," Lydia told her as she kept a careful eye on Alicia. "For once, I think she's going to leave us alone. Besides being in trouble with her boss, she looks like she's alone right now. And she's not stupid enough to go three against one."
"You got a point," Jesse agreed. "That girl might be arrogant, manipulative, and deceitful, but she's smart. Heading into battle, even against the good guys, outnumbered isn't smart."
Jennie looked sceptical. "Well, either way," she observed, looking towards Lydia, "I think you should tell Hayden about this."
Lydia nodded, already having made plans to contact her brother later and tell him everything that Alicia had told her. "Don't worry, I will. He already dropped those pictures off at his friend's, so he should be back to stalking me in the shadows pretty soon."
"Very stealthy of him," Jennie observed as the horn sounded and the ferry began to shove off, leaving Olivine City behind for the time behind. "All right, I'm starved, what do you say we go get something to eat?"
--
The stars lit the sky that night as Lydia sat on the top deck with Umbreon laying his head in his trainer's lap while she stroked him behind the ears absently, staring off into the distance while waves rocked the ferry, spraying the trainer with its mists. Jennie and Jesse had gone to bed hours ago, but she had stayed up. There was simply too much going on in her head for her to go to sleep just yet.
Leaning her head back against the chair she was sitting in, Lydia closed her eyes, stretching out with her psyche to find her brother's aura, searching for the place he was at. She had never tried to find somewhere before this way, but with Hayden, it was easy to find him. She smiled as she felt his familiar presence and touched his mind gently, not wanting to wake him if he was asleep. "Hayden? Hayden, are you awake? It's Lydia."
It took a minute for her brother to answer her, but when he did, he sounded alarmed and frightened, as though he were expecting the worse of news. "Lydia? What is it? What's wrong, are you all right?"
"Yeah, I'm okay," she assured him, feeling bad for frightening him so badly. "Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you."
"Don't worry about it," Hayden told her, sounding relieved now that he knew that she was all right. "There's just a whole bunch of stuff with the war starting up again. It's kind of got me a little bit on edge." He paused. "So, what's up, anyway?"
"Nothing out of the ordinary, unless you count seeing Alicia Knightly as new," Lydia answered dryly. The blonde trainer hadn't so much as looked at them through dinner and hadn't approached them when they were up on deck earlier, conversing with the other trainers, but that didn't mean she wasn't allowed to worry. The girl had caused enough problems for them already and Lydia had the feeling she wasn't done giving them trouble.
Almost the second that she said Alicia's name, Hayden let out an internal, silent cry of alarm. "WHAT? When?" he demanded.
With a small sigh, Lydia recounted the day's events to her brother, including everything that Alicia had told them regarding her boss, their uncle. Hayden kept quiet the entire way through and didn't say a word when she was finished. Lydia waited a full minute for him to speak before she prompted him. "Hayden? Are you still there?" she asked. "I don't think that was a boring enough tale to get you to fall asleep."
Hayden gave a noise that could only be described as laughter as he answered her. "No, I'm here," he assured her, his amusement fading away as he turned serious. "Well, this is certainly unexpected. Why would Alicia Knightly be so important to William? Doesn't make any sense," he added slowly. "From what I know about her, she's nothing more than just another lowlife there, not one of his most important followers."
"Well, she might have been lying," Lydia pointed out as she shifted her position, causing Umbreon to whine and she stroked him reassuringly. She wasn't strong enough in her powers to know whether or not somebody was lying to her. Granted, telepathy was the easiest power that she had in her possession, for her anyway, but it was still hard for her to use her powers when she had lived in fear of using them for so long.
"Yeah, that's possible, but . . . I don't think so. I've never met her, Lydia, I only know her by reputation, but why would she embellish her importance to William? She's probably in deep water with him right now, after failing to capture you several times. Overstating her importance now would cost her what little respect he still hast for her. No, there's something more going on there." He paused. "And speaking of more going on, my friend is still working on those drawings from the cave. He's very enthusiastic about the ruins, though, which means that it's probably something really important." Lydia giggled slightly, making a few trainers look at her strangely. After all, to them it looked like she was giggling at something nobody else could see. "I'll try and get back as soon as I can, all right? I don't like leaving you alone for too long."
"You might as well take your time, because I don't think anything is going to happen anytime soon." Lydia groaned as soon as she said that. "And I just jinxed us by saying that, didn't I?"
"Oh, yeah," Hayden agreed enthusiastically. "But I'll forgive you. You guys still on your way to the Islands or are you on your way to Cianwood yet?"
"We're on our way to the Islands now," Lydia told him. "We got on the ferry this morning, so we should be arriving there early tomorrow morning." She paused, thinking about the prediction from the cave. "Did your friend have any info about what the civilisation might be about? Or what the prophecy meant?"
"Pretty much the same thing that we managed to decipher while we were at the ruins," Hayden admitted. "He hasn't managed to come up with anything new. Don't worry about it, though. You give him enough time and he'll manage to wrangle the whole thing. Hopefully, it's not going to take him as long as it did on that mystery of Shellder he did a couple years ago."
"Do I want to know?"
"I don't think so."
Lydia smiled faintly as she gently pushed Umbreon off of her. "Come on, let's go down to the cabin, buddy," she told him aloud. Umbreon whined, but followed her. "All right, well, I'm going to get some sleep. I'll see you when I see you, okay?"
"Yeah, I should probably get some sleep, too. Kind of had an early morning." Now that Lydia's attention had been brought to it, she noticed he did sound tired. "Barring any complications, I should see you guys when you get to Cianwood."
"And that just jinxed it," Lydia teased him as she opened the door to her cabin that she was sharing with the Turner siblings, finding them both asleep. Umbreon climbed up onto her bed and curled into a ball.
"Funny, funny girl," Hayden said, laughing. "I'll talk to you soon. Keep safe, little sister." He paused, embracing her in his mind and drawing her close to him. . "I love you."
"I love you, too, big brother," Lydia said with a smile as she climbed onto her bed, laying her head down on the pillow. She was asleep before she even closed the link between her and her brother.