April 4th, First Year
Cold, cold, cold! It was all Akari could think about as each step brought her further and further into the soaked sludgy gray hills of the Horseshoe Plains. At least it wasn't raining. Or snowing again, for that matter. She could only hope that the brutal winter would eventually let up soon. There was only so much she could tolerate.
And how long have I been here anyway, she found herself asking, avoiding a foxhole. She trudged on at the head of the group, Rei and Warden Lian not too far behind her, their snow-flecked cloaks whipping in the fierce winds as they stood to survey the opposite riverbank.
Their task was to move further toward the evacuated Oreburrow Settlement and follow Lord Kleavor into the Heartwood; to see whether the Lord stopped to rest or when a good opportunity to strike would be. This was a mission that only a few skilled scouts could partake in; ironically enough, the three of them seemed to be the only ones fit for the task.
Akari shivered, balling her hands into fists as her eyes caught on the shiny wet stumps atop the forested cliffs. They certainly weren't shiny because of the snowmelt, that much she could tell. She tried not to gag the deeper they traveled into the woods. It would be childish of her to give up so soon or look weak in front of the others. It certainly sounded like a piece of cake back in the encampment, but now? She swallowed and found her footing, careful to watch where she set her feet as she picked her way down the hill.
"Remind me again why the settlement was evacuated," Rei murmured, his eyes wide as they walked amongst the damaged undergrowth.
"Flooded about a month ago," Lian responded curtly. His eyes were trained on the approaching terracotta buildings. The corners of his mouth turned downwards. "Cut through the old bridge an' drowned a bunch of folks. I wasn't here when it happened and all, but I hear it was real bad."
"Oh."
The closer they approached, the more nervous Akari became. It came as a white-hot sting from her throat as if somebody had poured molten lead into her mouth. An abandoned cloth doll soaked with mud and snowmelt laid up against a tree stump, completely forgotten. Rotten wooden buckets and reed bindings littered the clearing. The mud brick houses colored with various scribbles were now splattered with dark browns and blacks and the windchimes that hung from the rafters were none better.
Her mind flashed to a similar home, one where the walls were a solid white stucco, and the shingles atop the roof were a simple dark blue. Where the grass of the lawn was always kept tidy. Where the excess of rainwater they received would drip down serenely in front of her bedroom window and collect on her mother's flower garden.
She would open her window, letting in the cold breeze before sitting down in front of her c-r and making notes to L-s and B-y about her plans for the day. Days like those- well- she always liked the wet muggy weather in T-f T—n but not so much being out in it.
Akari stilled. A memory. She wanted to laugh aloud like a giddy schoolgirl. Finally! Finally, a memory had surfaced! She focused harder on the little mud-brick house but to her utter dismay, the memory of her supposed home faded.
"Let's keep movin'," Lian huffed, giving her an odd look before quieting. "Don't wanna stick around here too long. Follow me. I'll take ya' to the old bridge used to cross the river."
From the looks of it, the Oreburrow Settlement looked to be a once-thriving village. They passed plenty of underwater homes, wooden bowls and chairs floating in the current as they knocked against disturbed doors and broken walls. There, in a place where the river should have never touched, the water was up to their knees, dark and cloudy and pooling with debris.
They moved deeper still to where the settlement was split in two by the river. On their side, the river raced down a gulch, the noise both troubling and soothing. Warden Lian drew them to a halt, gesturing at a rotten wooden post.
"Here's where the bridge would start if the flood wouldn't have broken it. I don't think there's a place we can cross up here. S' too rough. Water's too choppy." He turned, frustrated, toward the two of them. "Any ideas?"
Akari immediately brightened. "Rei, can't we just ask your Buizel for help?" She'd been thinking about how to cross the river since they had come to the top of the hills some time ago.
"Good idea!"
In a few back-and-forth trips, they stood on the other side of the river on an exposed cliff, watching as a chunk of river ice cascaded into the wider bay downstream.
"Okay, so-" Akari began, pulling out a map- " we need to move higher into the Heartwood. Is there a path from the village to your old post? Or, do you know a way to get to the Scyther that live in the woods?"
"There is as a matter o' fact. Though, with all these bugs rampaging, I sure hope the trail is still intact. Lemme see." Warden Lian led them up the hills where the village houses were still intact, noticeably turning his head to stare dolefully at one of them before focusing on the emerging treeline. "Looks like this half of the village survived the brunt of the storm. We can take this trail here-" he pointed at a half-cobblestone, half-dirt path- "and it'll take us up near where the Scyther live. We'll need to be real careful from here on out."
"Agreed," Rei nodded. "Everybody have their supplies?" The boy pulled out a stained brown cloth bag, his nose scrunching as he began fiddling with the knot at the top.
Ever since their run-in with that alpha Luxray in that distortion, Rei had been trying to work out a means to keep wild pokémon at bay. With Akari's help and with the notes gathered by other Galaxy Scouts, the two had come up with a temporary solution: smelly herbs.
It worked well enough in keeping wild pokémon out of the encampment. Each of them kept three bags of the smelly concoction on them and thus far, it seemed to be working.
"Yup."
"I've got mine," Akari confirmed.
"Then let's go."
Though Lian kept the party on the trail, it was Akari and seemingly only Akari that could hear the incessant buzzing. The further they drew into the forested cliffs, the louder and louder the ringing became in her ears. Each time they stopped to make camp, Akari found herself staring into the woods, waiting for the swarm to emerge and attack.
The smelly poultice seemed to keep the bugs at bay, though it didn't stop them from felling trees to nearly crush them in their tracks. A few bug-types like Beautiflies or Cascoons would simply throw themselves into the path before beginning to convulse, too weak to crawl away or use their moves.
Akari seized the opportunity and captured each new pokémon they ran into during their ascension. She palmed the ball of a particularly large Beautifly and tucked it away at her belt. If she could find the chance, maybe she could put the alpha on her team. Bug-types certainly weren't her favorite, but they did have access to a wide variety of status moves; particularly, their moves regarding spores- and again, her memory seemed to unlock only slightly, allowing for the most useless of insights to emerge.
And then she thought to herself, maybe it's the spores causing the bugs to act like that. Though they awaited the arrival of a Scyther or perhaps even Lord Kleavor, they never did come, even as the group stopped and began making camp for the night.
Is this something I could do? Calm a noble? She carefully held her packed rations in her hands, letting her eyes wander back into the shadows of the woods again. The familiar hot and uncomfortable pressure in her throat arrived and she set down her bowl, pain lancing up her tongue as she realized she'd been biting down in her absence of mind.
Shouldn't my core memories have come back by now? Shouldn't some form of awareness or some muscle memories have kicked in? She palmed Oshawott's ball. A deeper question, one that she really didn't want to ask herself, clawed at the back of her mind, desperate to be answered: was she being protected by Almighty Sinnoh?
Here, in this vast expanse where people were viciously attacked and the weather killed, would her creator, presumably the one to bring her here- would it protect her? Would it miraculously keep her from death? She thought back to Yuki- had that been a mere coincidence or was it the preplanned intention of her harbinger? Who's to say that this mission couldn't go horribly wrong?
Akari turned her eyes up at the cloudy skies, her eyes widening. Who's to say that this bug swarm couldn't descend upon them at any moment and devour them like they did the trees and foliage? Who's to say that her attempting to calm the noble wouldn't end up with her in pieces? Was she invincible?
No, Akari found herself thinking, trying to ignore the urgent flood of panic that was making her hands shake. "No, I got attacked by those wild pokémon back during my trial. I'm not invincible."
"You talkin' to yourself over there?"
Akari nearly fell over as Warden Lian came into view, his expression skeptical. "Me? Oh-uh- no! No, of course not! Heh heh. Just thinking out loud, that's all."
Lian gave her a long hard look… and then nodded, seemingly satisfied with her answer. "Good. Don't think there'd be enough time to get 'ya back to camp. Ain't nice but it's the truth."
"Sooo," Rei butted in, twiddling his hands as he sat in front of the fire they'd created. "If I may ask, Warden Lian," he began, his voice weak.
"What?"
"I wanted to ask how you usually handle Lord Kleavor." Rei pulled out a poorly bound notebook from his pack, taking up his pen again. "It would be a- uh- a wonderful opportunity to study Lord Kleavor up close and- uh- maybe possibly to get some pointers from the Warden who sees to them…?"
Akari thought Warden Lian couldn't possibly look prouder of himself as the boy adjusted his large hat atop his head, a toothy grin playing on his face.
"Ya know, I don't quite agree with what ya'll Galaxy folks do, but I most certainly can give ya some notes on the Lord, what with how much I do 'round here. Whaddya wanna know?"
"Everything!" Rei replied cheerfully.
Akari listened as the two boys chatted next to the fire but she started back awake when the topic came to something so obvious, Akari couldn't help but want to smack herself in the face. The two had gotten to the topic of taking care of the Lord, specifically how to keep the Lord happy and healthy.
If Lord Kleavor was frenzied now, then how would they- namely, she- go about making Lord Kleavor happy again? If it were her, she'd be happier if she were somewhere warmer where a cold wind wasn't creeping into her clothes and where she was full- food!
"How do you calm Lord Kleavor down when he's usually angry?" Akari blurted out.
Lian took a second to respond. "Well, I usually make sure the other Scythers are away from Grandtree Arena where the Lord's seat is and then I go an' get his favorite foods. Lord Kleavor likes eatin' the Wurmple and Silcoon bugs that make their homes 'round here, but he also likes snackin' on tumblestones."
"Wait. You kill the Wurmples?" Rei asked, his pen flying across the pages in his notebook.
"Wha- no! Heaven's sake, no! We respect pokémon. We don't go around killin' 'em!" Lian retorted. "I just herd 'em straight to the arena. Not a fan of hurting small bugs myself. Gathering the stones is easy enough. I just mix them with pinecones and leaves to make balms. Do it every week or so."
"Have you tried giving Lord Kleavor the balms since he's been frenzied?" Akari asked.
"I have as a matter of fact. Was one of the first things I tried, though it didn't work too well. Nearly got sliced in two since Lord Kleavor was in a rage." The boy paused, his mouth slightly agape as he looked from the two scouts before him to the woods. "But maybe…"
"-If we use those balms in conjunction with battling the Lord, maybe we could calm its frenzy?" Akari put forward. "Think about it. We could slow the Lord down with our pokémon and then throw balms at it to try and snap it out of its frenzy. There's a few of us scouts who can wield pokémon- Warden Ingo would be a key player there! We could have him do most of the battling and then myself, Rei, and the other scouts can hurl the balms at the Lord in the meantime."
"That… that might actually just work, Akari," Rei mused. "But why throw the balms? We're just throwing food at it. Why not lay a trap instead?"
"I never said we couldn't."
"And we're not just throwin' the food. It's the smell of it that's most likely to work. I don't think Lord Kleavor will be chowin' down while we're throwin' down, if you get my gesture."
"But do you think it could work, Warden Lian?" Akari queried.
Warden Lian then fell silent for a long time, his eyebrows furrowed as he quietly finished up his bowl and began cleaning up.
As Akari rolled out her bedroll, her eyes following Rei as he took a seat on a tree stump, she couldn't help but wonder what to make of their situation. They couldn't do anything unless Warden Lian gave them the green light- whatever that was supposed to mean. He was younger than the both of them, right? Why had the Pearl Clan appointed such a young kid to such a high position of power?
She turned over in her bedroll and closed her eyes. Was putting this decision into Lian's hands such a good idea? Maybe, they would be better off asking Warden Ingo or Warden Mai. Those two were much older than Lian, and probably more experienced than the boy.
"…We should test it out on the swarm first," Lian eventually murmured.
Huh?
"See if it works on them first. Especially the Scythers. We could test it tomorrow an' then go back to camp and see what the others think about it. They are helpin' us out an' all. Would be better to run it by everybody instead of just us three."
"Right," Rei replied. "Sounds good."
April 6th, First Year
The trio rolled back into camp just as the sun was cresting over the hill. Their research mission on balms was a partial success.
Akari could do nothing but wait as Warden Lian presented the idea to both Warden Ingo and Warden Mai along with a handful of Galaxy Scouts that would be tagging along. After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, three figures exited the tent, their heads bent close as they spoke in hushed whispers. One of their eyes fell to Akari.
"Ah, good morning Miss Akari!" Warden Ingo was the first to notice her and gave her a courteous nod. "Thank you for your patience. I'm sure you would like to hear the results of your plan being shared with the survey scouts, yes?"
Akari quickly got to her feet. "Yes, please! The sooner we take care of this, the better."
Warden Ingo gave her a pleased look, the corners of his eyes crinkling though his ever-present frown remained. "We have heard about your test with using balms on the frenzied bug-types in the Heartwood; quite clever."
"Thank you very much for your diligent note taking, Rei," Warden Mai added. "It seems the balms are our first step forward to quelling Lord Kleavor. While I am skeptical that the balms would take such a calming effect so soon as you had noted in your journal, I don't see why it wouldn't work or in the very least, why we shouldn't test our theory on our main target." In a side note, the warden added, "And I hope to see whether this theory might work on Lord Wyrdeer as well."
"Have we gotten any news on Lord Wyrdeer actually?" pondered Rei. "Has anybody else from your search party gotten better?"
Warden Mai shook her head. "I'm afraid not. It seems I'm the only one who hasn't fallen ill. That might be due to my constant exposure to Lord Wyrdeer or perhaps, it is something out of my control."
"What do you mean by 'falling ill'? What happened up there in the hills?" Akari questioned. "I don't mean to sound rude ma'am, but you do still look pale from that whole ordeal a few days ago. Are you sure you're okay to be up right now?"
"I'm as alright as I can be," Mai chuckled. "As for what happened in the hills, I'm not quite sure." I'm not usually out of turn with my memories, so to speak-" she threw an uneasy glance at Warden Ingo- "but I can't remember what exactly happened after one of the scouts had a seizure."
Akari listened as Warden Mai described her collection on her group's ascension into Deertrack Heights. Between the mentionings of time distortion outbreaks and the warden's visible discomfort at actually sighting her own Lord, Akari couldn't tell which was more disturbing: the fact that just being near the elusive lord apparently caused mental distress and seizures or the fact that all of the party members had lost multiple days' worth of memories.
"You don't remember anything after sighting Lord Wyrdeer?" Rei tried. "Nothing at all?"
"The last thing I remember is that one scout having a seizure. Everything else is completely blank after that. I've already asked the remaining party members what they remember but they aren't well enough to be fully coherent. They slip into wakefulness and then faint seconds later. Some of them didn't even remember the trip up the mountain… I want to believe that one of us does know, but…"
"But?" Akari intruded. She knew where this conversation was heading to.
"…But I am- well, I am very uncomfortable at the prospect of asking. Maybe now would be a good time to explain."
"Please, do share," Ingo encouraged her.
"Right. Lord Wyrdeer has the ability to talk to people- with its divine powers, I mean," Warden Mai stumbled. "I have heard it speak to me numerous times during my tenure as its warden. I have also had a few chances to see it use its powers on other people and it seems that they all adopt that look-"
"Like the lights are on but nobody's home?" Akari tried not to remember how cold the tent was the last time she was close. "How long does it last for?"
"For as long as the Lord is speaking, I believe."
"Does that mean that Lord Wyrdeer is speaking to Jaku? Is it still speaking to her and if so, is that a bad thing?" Rei postulated.
"The last time we spoke, it called me 'champion'," Akari interjected. "If anything, we weren't talking to Jaku so we were probably speaking to Lord Wyrdeer. I don't want to believe that we were talking to something else."
"Halt. That wouldn't make sense given that Lord Wyrdeer is still derailed in Deertrack Heights," Warden Ingo cut through. "How can it be speaking calmly to us when its cab is still rampaging from afar? I don't believe psychic-type pokémon have the strength to operate completely independent of their tracks."
"That's what I'd like to know," Warden Mai quipped. "I've never seen the Lord try to speak through other people. Usually, whatever it says is just kept between whoever it's talking to. And… I don't know if that's really the case here. Egel- one of our own rangers- he was the first to start feeling sick. Jaku was next- something happened to her in one of the distortions but she was fine afterwards. And then-"
"The blackout?" Rei finished promptly. "That's all fine and dandy. But how about we try to get some more information from her? She's still in the medical tent, isn't she? We can try to see what or who it is we're talking to."
"…Rei, do you even realize how horrifying that is? To not know what you're talking to?" Akari grimaced. What would it feel like, to be used as a mouthpiece against your own will? To be strung around like a puppet on a string? Did Jaku even know what was going on or was she completely oblivious? … Or was Jaku even still with them?
Much to Akari and Warden Mai's dismay, the group carefully made their way through the camp toward the medical tent. They would need answers to this question to better understand how to quell Lord Wyrdeer when the time came to it. Two guards sat outside the tent flap, trading cards back and forth as they squabbled about something trivial. They let the group in without a fuss.
The medical tent was quiet, only interrupted by the faint snore or rustle of linen as the sick rangers and scouts slept. All but one ranger, that is.
There, still sitting up straight with a blank expression trained on the open tent window was Jaku looking as though she hadn't moved since the night Akari had last seen her. At their arrival, the young woman snapped her head to stare at them before visibly relaxing, running a hand through their disheveled hair.
"Oh, it's just you guys."
Akari paused, dumbfounded. Wait, wait, wait. What? The group approached closer and to Akari's further surprise, Jaku gave them a little wave with a confused grin on her face. Her eyes were dull with exhaustion, and it was nothing like the uncanny vacant expression from before.
"Why're you guys looking at me like that? Was I the first to get up or something?"
"… I wouldn't say that," Akari spoke carefully. "More like, we're surprised to see that you're back to normal," she spoke slowly. "Are you back to normal?" Akari knew the answer the moment Jaku raised an eyebrow at her. The tired look had given way to a skeptical, almost humorous look in the older woman's eyes as she reclined lazily against the tent wall.
"Don't tell me I set something on fire while I was sick. I thought it was bad enough that my pokémon were missing when I came to. Do you happen to know where they are?"
"We thought you would know that," Warden Mai rasped. "Are you… okay? Do you feel strange at all?"
"Apart from my vision being a little fuzzy, not really. I think the medics said that I was hyped up on psychic-energy or something like that," the ranger drawled, scratching at a spot on her head. "Apparently I was staring at the wall like a zombie. They gave me something to keep me calm- don't know what exactly but it's certainly doing its job."
"Do you remember the conversation we had a few days ago?" Warden Ingo tried.
"No, not at all."
"What's the last thing you might recall?"
Jaku grimaced. "Mikiro was having a seizure after we got a little too close to Lord Wyrdeer. Komuro and I tried to help him and he got better after a while but we got separated from the rest of the group because more pokémon were starting to appear from the distortion. We ran into a Sneasel- or maybe it was a Weaville?" Jaku shook her head. "I got separated from Komuro and Mikiro after that and I just kind of wandered the woods. I tried calling for you guys but I got nothing back."
"What else do you recall?" Warden Ingo prompted her. "Do you remember anything about Lord Wyrdeer?"
"No. I didn't see the Lord after we encountered it the first time, but I know it did something to Mikiro because as soon as he got better, he started speaking gibberish. He was completely unintelligible, and he had this look to him. I can't describe it but it was just… uncanny. No, I just remember that I was wandering through the woods like an idiot when I found those good boys again."
Akari paused. "…'Good boys'? What do you mean by that?"
Jaku smiled. "Earlier on, before we encountered Lord Wyrdeer, a time distortion opened up and I ran into a group of these small fuzzy pink-and-white pokémon. They were friendly when I first met them and they seemed awfully familiar to me."
"Those pokémon!" Warden Mai gasped. "I know what you're talking about. You ran into those things again? What did they do? Did they hurt you?" she demanded.
"No, not at all! I ran into like two of them and they were leading me somewhere. Higher up into the hills, I think, because we were completely off the trail after that. I don't remember when they disappeared, but I do remember walking into this huge clearing at the summit of the hills. No grass- just dirt and snow and these weird tracks in the ground- or maybe it was a pattern? I don't know. And I think that you guys finally caught up to me because I heard this voice just shy of the treeline asking how I managed to get there. That's when my memory cuts out."
