The following night, Callula noticed that Dante never came back to their room. She obviously didn't investigate, but even without knowing for sure, there was only one possibility: he had been invited to Luca's room.

Of course, whether Luca actually had the authority to keep staying in that room—let alone invite someone else into it—was an interesting question. She was only given that room because Absol and Lann used it as a recovery room, essentially; everyone else, even Durste and Maybelle, slept together in the same room. It seemed Luca had simply assumed that it was her room and her room alone, and not given much thought to where everyone else was sleeping—but to her credit, no one seemed to have any interest in informing her. In fairness, though, her and Dante had had it the worst of them all; if anyone deserved a comfortable bed and a private room, it was them.

At the moment, everyone (save for Absol) was patiently waiting in the main hall during the early morning. By Callula's understanding, before anyone had even woken up, an extremely elderly Kecleon arrived and asked to be given a demonstration of the dungeon items. It had been a full two hours since they disappeared into Luca's room, and honestly, Callula was growing a bit worried. Nothing especially bad could have happened since Lann's senses weren't alerted, but still—it was hard to not let the mind wander, waiting with so much anticipation.

Callula glanced to look at Dante. He was acting a bit shy, but that was to be expected when he fled from all of them yesterday and didn't offer any explanation—and unfortunately, Callula herself hadn't managed to witness him interacting with Luca yet today due to her slow wake up. It was only a matter of time before she got some information, but Callula was positively aching to know what had happened during their meeting yesterday.

Finally, the door cracked open. The ancient Kecleon limped out and, upon seeing the crowd of Pokémon waiting outside, gave a small gesture with a single hand that Callula assumed was meant to be a wave, as he held a piece of paper in his other. Close behind him was Luca, face neutral.

"Now, would you mind getting the door for me?" the Kecleon asked.

"Oh! Sure." Speed-walking forward, Luca pulled the heavy front door open and allowed the Kecleon to wobble through. Then, closing it, Luca put her back against the door and huffed as if she had just dropped a heavy weight.

"Well?" Lann asked.

"I guess I'm the leader of an organization," Luca breathed, allowing a sheepish smile to show. "They're making me change the name to the Explorer Federation, but... it's official."

"Ooh, federation!" Callula cooed. "How official sounding. Congratulations, dear."

"Congratulations, indeed," Lann said, glowing with pride. "So, now that you are officially our leader, what are the first steps?"

"I'm glad you asked," Luca said, having made her way closer and sat on the bare floor. "Starting tomorrow, the Kecleon guild will be putting up posters that I designed all around the continent, meaning we're going to start getting recruits. Lann, I remember back at the Coalition with Isle you said that only Mini was able to actually guarantee my safety in close proximity. Is this still true? Will I not be able to interview these recruits safely?"

"Assuming you care about the well-being of these recruits, that's correct. I can keep you safe, but I cannot do so without killing them if they try anything."

"Well, if they suddenly attack during their interview, I suppose that's fine. Once we start getting recruits, though, we'll need to record a lot of information. Dante, can I leave developing the system to you?"

"Of course," Dante answered confidently.

"Great. Decly, uhh... are you still fine to be a part of this, just to check?"

In response, Decly bowed low and brought a wing across her chest. It was a gesture of fealty, and Luca immediately flushed with embarrassment.

"Oh-kay, uhh, t-thanks," Luca stammered. "We need to start thinking about taking over the berry dungeon, so do you think you could go back there? Stay undetected and survey the activity there for say, a week and a half or so?"

Decly bowed once again, but this time, she didn't come back up from it. Instead, she simply used her ghost-type nature to descend through the floor and disappear entirely.

"Anything for us?" Isle asked.

"You and Callula should stay here for now. I'm working on a plan with the Kecleon, but we need a bit to finish it up. And Lann, if it's not obvious, I need you here."

"Sounds good," Lann said. "I intend to have daily training sessions. Assuming we all have your permission, of course."

"Can I join?" Luca asked.

"I don't know. Can you?"

Luca sighed. "Yes, I can. I guess it's an order."

"That's better," Lann smiled. "The day is still young, so shall we have our first training session now?"

Callula noticed that as everyone else geared up, Maybelle was looking conflicted. "Can I... come watch?" the young Absol ventured. "I'm not joining your organization, but—"

"Of course you can," Luca said.

"Oh! Thanks."

A minute later, the whole group was moving through Harvest together. Dante and Luca's proximity to each other didn't evade Callula's notice, even with her relative inability to see from behind Isle's crown.

"So, I assume your talk went well yesterday?" Lann said, shamelessly bringing what was in Callula's mind to the open.

"Oh, it did!" Luca responded. "Thanks for your help. And you too, Callula."

Lann didn't respond, so Callula assumed he gave some nonverbal acknowledgement that she couldn't see. In any case, that was it: for the rest of the walk to the town's outskirts, no one spoke.

Then, finally, they arrived. Callula was only aware of this by Isle's halting, but when she felt her slow, she disconnected to look around.

They had walked a couple hundred feet outside of town to a small clearing. A circle of bare dirt marked a small arena, while a canvas rain cover tied to the nearby trees created a roof not over the arena, but over a nondescript patch of grass a few meters from the edge.

"This is where I was training with Decly," Lann explained, moving to stand underneath the rain cover. "So, shall we get started? Luca and Dante, I assume you two are still ideal sparring partners?"

"We'll see, I guess," Luca shrugged.

"Excellent. Isle, I'm not actually familiar with your training, so I'm not sure what you'd benefit from the most."

"Oh, I'm just here to watch for today," Isle said. "Assuming I'm not being ordered to train?"

"You all have got to stop teasing me about that," came Luca's voice. "I'll actually order you to stop if I need to."

"That's the spirit," Lann said. "Now, if you aren't doing anything, Isle, help Callula watch Luca and Dante and make sure they don't hurt each other too bad."

With that, the six of them split into pairs. Luca and Dante took the center of the arena and stood opposite each other, Lann and Durste walked off into the forest, and Callula found a place in Isle's lap where she sat at the very edge of the arena.

"Ready?" Dante asked.

"Mmm... it depends," Luca said. "Are you going to use fire, or no?"

"I don't know, are you going to feel my Aura to read my moves?"

"You know I can't turn that off. Plus, it doesn't remotely work like that."

"We'll start with fire. If it's too much, I'll dial it back. You can heal burns, right, Callula?"

"Of course!"

"See? It'll be fine."

Luca sighed. "You're only saying that because you don't know what being hit by fire really feels like. But OK."

Callula watched as the two of them leapt into action. With her complete lack of combat ability, she found herself unable to properly follow or understand their movements. Luca seemed to be dodging the flames skillfully for the time being, but there wasn't much else to see. Looking up, Callula was hoping she could get a glimpse of Isle's eyes as she watched them.

Instead, Isle was looking directly down to meet her with eye contact. "Hi."

"Oh, hi?" Callula said, surprised. "Shouldn't you be watching them?"

"Shouldn't you? You're the one that has to heal them."

"That's not how this works! I can't step in if they go too far."

"You really think either of them would hurt the other?"

"We don't know what happened during their talk. There could be hard feelings."

"I'll repeat myself: do you really think that'd be enough for them to hurt each other? Besides, their talk clearly went well."

"What? Why do you say that?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Isle asked, shrugging. "They're not distancing themselves in the least. If anything, they're closer than ever."

Callula returned her eyes to the fight, idling watching it. "I hadn't really noticed. I suppose I'm the oblivious one, eh?"

"No. But you should definitely make it less obvious how desperate you are for news."

Callula flinched, suddenly feeling herself blush with embarrassment. "You're exaggerating, right? It's not that easy to see."

"I mean... if I'm being honest, it's obvious to me. You haven't been on my head at all unless we're traveling because you want to be able to see them and are worried about missing things. You've also been doing your best to hide it, but it's clear you're keeping an eye on them."

"Do you think they know?"

"If I had to guess, yeah," Isle said, looking back at the fight. "If you want you can stop paying such attention. I'll just let you know if anything impor—hey!" she suddenly shouted, violently throwing Callula out of her lap.

Callula took the landing poorly; with Isle giving her absolutely zero warning, she didn't even have time to properly register what was happening before she found herself landing on the grass. It wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been since as a Comfey she was quite light, but Callula felt a rush of indignation regardless. Pushing herself back up, she opened her mouth to shout at Isle for being so rough—but when she saw what was happening, she reconsidered.

Now that she was paying attention and they were still, Callula was able to see Luca and Dante's conditions. Luca was bleeding from a handful of scratches across her body made by Dante's claws—and even worse, there was a string of three large puncture wounds where he had plunged the tips in. Finally, even from where she was floating, Callula could see that the palm of Luca's right paw was burned to the degree that if it wasn't treated, she might be in danger of permanent damage. Callula would have been angry at Dante for being so cruel, but it was obvious that he had sustained a similar amount of damage despite the lack of visible injuries; in addition to his blaze being active, his movements were awkward and twitchy in the way that only a paralyzed Pokémon could manage. Both of them were open-mouth gasping, seemingly overtaken by the rush of combat and unable to catch their breath.

"What is wrong with you two?" Isle said, standing between them and holding each claw out to keep them apart. Her back was to Callula, but she could hear the deadly seriousness in her voice. "Were you trying to kill each other?"

Luca fell back, allowing herself to sit down. Her breathing slowed, but not quite enough for her to respond.

"Well?" Isle asked, lowering her claws as Dante followed suit and clumsily fell back to sit.

"S-sorry," Luca gasped. Within only a moment or two, her breathing returned to normal. "I don't know what happened. It was normal in the beginning."

"Can I...?" Callula ventured, approaching them.

"Go ahead," Isle said, turning. Callula could see that her mask had a collection of new slits in front of her mouth—although Callula hadn't noticed, Isle must have spat ice shards to stop the fight. "I think they're through it."

Callula got busy healing both of their wounds; starting with a bit of healing of their wounds to guarantee that they wouldn't scar, she proceeded to healing Luca's burn.

"When did it go wrong, exactly?" Isle asked while Callula worked.

"When Dante got the first hit, I guess," Luca said. "It felt like... him or me."

"You had a similar experience, Dante?"

Dante was clearly having much more trouble calming down, so as Callula began healing his paralysis, he only grunted in response.

"I think maybe I've seen something like what happened to you," Isle said. "Granted, I didn't see it except for the very end, so I might be mistaken."

"When?"

"I've never experienced it myself, but back when I was in the White Spine, I'd have to duel the occasional target. Although it was quite rare, sometimes even the most gentle Pokémon would lose themselves in an attempt to survive. Most if not all had a past as a wild."

"So, what?" Luca asked as Callula began healing her once again. "I've spent enough time out of town that I've got wild Pokémon instincts?"

Isle paused to remove her torn mask, revealing the scar across her mouth. "If I had to describe it, I'd say you inherited wild Pokémon trauma. This is all speculation, though, of course."

"Good way to describe it," Dante said, having finally recovered enough to speak. "I really thought I'd never experience it when I left my family."

"You know of it?"

"Yeah, of course," he said, wincing. Now that his blaze was no longer active due to Callula's initial healing, it was clear that the blunt damage he had sustained was bothering him. "The stronger and more experienced a wild Pokémon gets, the more likely that they'll abandon their reason and treat mundane situations with deadly and excessive seriousness."

"Surely we're not that strong or experienced," Luca said.

Dante shrugged. "If we're thinking of it from the trauma angle, what we went through was much worse than any member of a wild group. They don't have to fight every day, let alone through a dungeon, and no one is hunting them specifically."

"So what, we're just psychopaths now? It can't be that extreme."

With Luca healed, Callula switched to Dante. "Of course it isn't," she said, hoping to reassure. "This is the first time in months you two have fought without your lives on the line. You just got a bit caught up in the moment."

"Either way, I think we're both done for today," Luca sighed. "Wanna head back together?" she asked Dante.

"Once I'm healed, sure. I gotta say, those force palms hurt."

"As if it could ever be as bad as your claws and flames!" Luca laughed. Callula smiled with relief: it seemed there was a complete lack of bad blood between them.

"We'll join you, then," Isle said.

"I was actually hoping that we could go back alone?" Luca said.

"...Oh! Yeah, go ahead."

Luca nodded a bit too hard, suddenly seeming a bit self-conscious. "OK, well... let's catch up later. Ready, Dante?"

"Just about," he said, standing just as Callula was finishing up.

Side by side, Luca and Dante walked back towards Harvest. They were close, talking animatedly in hushed tones as they went.

"...OK admittedly, I think I see what you mean," Callula said once they were well out of earshot.

"Right? It's like they've been mates for years already."

Callula sniffed, regretting how out of hand her obsession had gotten. "Let's go find Lann, huh? Tell him about what happened."


Three weeks later, not much had changed. Luca had settled into a tentative routine: wake up, go train with everyone just outside of town (with the added rule that as soon as a single hit was scored, the fight was over—which had thus far solved their issue), then return to her Explorer Federation duties. If she managed to finish everything before it was time to sleep she would enjoy some free time, though it seemed her duties were multiplying as time went on: for the past four days she had been working right up until sleeping. If it got any worse, she might have to rethink her schedule.

In fact, today in particular was expected to be so busy that Luca entirely forwent the morning training. Instead she was alone in her room, sitting at the table the Kecleon had gifted her and mulling over blueprints for the first independent Explorer outpost.

Without Lann, guaranteeing safety was difficult—but overall, the plans for it seemed about as safe as it could get. With an entrance hidden just outside the charmingly-named village of Rock, the underground base would have an emergency exit into the home of a dark-type allied to the Kecleon in town, meaning the only significant security risk was a psychic-type with enough power to either recognize a member by their thoughts or sense them deep within the earth—and for either to realistically occur, the White Spine would need to already suspect the base's location. That is, if the White Spine was a normal organization; with Giratina being able to search freely with the simple presence of a marked Pokémon and the White Spine seeming to have a specialty in having spies in unlikely places, even such a hidden base suddenly felt exposed and risky. Luca could somewhat alleviate the risk of spies by thoroughly vetting the applicants' Aura, but what if she made a mistake? And even worse, it seemed there was no defense against Giratina's prying eyes.

Luca leaned back, forcing herself to look away from the document. Regardless of how risky it seemed, it was genuinely the best she could hope for—and for her Federation to have any hope against the White Spine, expanding was perfectly essential. All she could do was hope that it would be a good long while before Giratina began searching underneath the ground in random towns, but she would definitely have to remember to make the dangers clear to Isle and Callula before she approved what would end up being their base.

As if on cue, the door to her room silently swung open the instant Luca made her decision. Luca's breath caught as the black and white head of an Absol poked through; although Absol and Maybelle had both joined the Federation nearly a full week ago, Luca was still used to feeling like she was caught doing something shameful when either of them appeared while she was working. This was an especially troublesome tendency in Maybelle's case considering she was now essentially working as her secretary.

Recognizable by her smooth glossy pelt that hadn't yet suffered from age, Maybelle strode into the room with her mouth delicately holding a slip of paper, being careful to pull the door closed behind her.

"Hey," Maybelle said through the paper, her eyes scanning the blueprint that was still front and center on Luca's desk. "Is that approved? Should I take it to Kecleon?"

"I want to go over it with Isle and Callula first," Luca said, moving the blueprints to the left side of the desk and doing her best not to see how large today's to-do pile was. "Is that something to add?"

"I think you'll want to deal with it now," Maybelle said, depositing the paper on the center of the desk. "It's Decly's report on the berry dungeon."

"Decly's back?"

"Mhm. She delivered this in person, and is now dead asleep in the dormitory."

Luca slid the paper to the side of the desk so she could pick it up. "...Where did she even get the paper?"

"I didn't ask," Maybelle said wryly. "Now will you open it already? I want to see what her handwriting looks like."

Finally, Luca unfolded the message. Inside, written in blocky but proper runes, there was not a full report but only two sentences: 'The berry dungeon camp was abandoned approximately a week before I arrived, and continued to be empty until I left. Dungeon was still functional, though—I got a few orans.'

Luca hummed thoughtfully, allowing the paper to fall flat on the desk so Maybelle could see. Shamelessly, the young Absol leaned over it and scanned it hungrily.

"What do you think?" Luca asked once her eyes stopped moving.

"I think it's a trap," Maybelle said. "They must have seen her coming and abandoned the camp to try to bait us into doing something stupid."

"Seen Decly coming, though? In a forest? The whole reason I sent her was because of all the Pokémon that exist, Decidueye are likely the most difficult to detect in a forest. Plus, she even received specialized training back at the Coalition, she was so good—even for her species."

"That's all well and good, but is there even an alternative? They just packed up and left an invaluable, replenishing resource?"

"Maybe they have enough berries that they don't need it," Luca pointed out. "Maybe they just want to grow them elsewhere, closer to where they need them."

"It's fantastically foolish to leave it unguarded," Maybelle said. "It simply must be a trap."

"I just wish I could see the camp myself."

"Did you not hear a word I said?" Maybelle said, exasperated.

"I did, but I don't agree. We can't discount it entirely, when it could be an invaluable opportunity."

Maybelle sighed, clearly frustrated. "Fine, but we should ask someone else. We aren't exactly the most worldly and experienced pair. In the meantime, are you finally going to stop avoiding interviewing the applicants?"

"I'm not avoiding it, I'm waiting so I can do them all at once."

"And the first one that arrived has been waiting more than a week for you."

"Even if I did the interview and hired them, they'd still be waiting in the exact same way since I don't have anything for them to do."

"But if you didn't hire them, they could leave."

"If I didn't hire them, it would be because they're a White Spine spy. They wouldn't be able to leave, they'd be dead."

"Just like that?" Maybelle asked, a strange edge in her voice.

Luca shrugged. "If I'm to choose between the lives of those in my care and those that are intent on ending them, it's an easy choice. I can't afford to be sloppy."

"I didn't realize you were so ruthless," Maybelle said matter-of-factly.

"Yeah, well, we'll see if I'm able to actually go through with it when the time comes," Luca sighed, reluctantly turning her attention to the stack of papers that needed addressing. "Was there anything else?"

Maybelle didn't speak, and Luca was expecting her to simply leave—but when she looked up, the young Absol's red eyes were locked onto hers.

"Uh..." Luca waffled, feeling suddenly very scrutinized. "Maybelle?"

"You're not waiting to do the interviews in one batch at all, are you? You're scared of having to kill them if they're spies."

Luca felt her face grow hot at the implication. "I'm waiting to do them because of all this!" she said, raising her voice more than she meant to as she gestured towards her to-do pile. "As soon as I stop to do the interviews, I'll have fallen behind."

"Then let me handle today's work," Maybelle said, challenging. "Me and Mom, so you can't claim that I'm not qualified."

"What? But all of this is stuff for me."

"Surely you don't intend to do everything in this organization. It's only going to get worse, so you have to start trusting others sometime."

Luca opened her mouth to protest, but she quickly realized she didn't have much to say. Maybelle was right, of course—the whole reason for recruitment was so Luca could delegate duties, and the bigger the organization became, the less she would be able to directly control.

"Fine. We'll do the interviews today, then."

Maybelle brightened up instantly. "OK! I'll get everything set up, then. Why don't you go tell Absol that she'll be working on it, and I'll send Lann in with the first applicant in a bit?"

"You've been planning this."

"Well, of course," Maybelle said, turning back on her way out. "It's my job, isn't it? See you soon."

Now that Maybelle had left, Luca did what she had to; standing up from behind her desk, she made her way to Absol and Lann's room directly across the main hallway.

Taking a deep breath, Luca steeled herself. Absol had joined the Federation, so there was little to be concerned about. Still, Luca felt as if something had changed between them since the Coalition days—something that would never return to normal. Even if that was true, though, it was no excuse to treat her differently. In fact, it likely made treating her the same more important than ever. Luca finally opened the door and stepped inside.

Sat in the center of the room, Absol was busy inspecting a small wooden box. Complete with a thick lid, it was crafted with priority given to sturdiness and durability over aesthetic and lack of weight.

"Hm?" Absol hummed at the door's opening. "Oh, Luca. Hello. Dante was looking for a place to store reports and correspondence. Do you think this would work for the time being?"

"I can't imagine he'd have any complaints. Eventually, though, we should probably get something with a lock on it."

"Oh, this actually does have a lock," Absol said, carefully placing the lid down with an audible mechanical click. Then, making sure Luca could see what she was doing, she brought a claw underneath the lip of the lid. She pressed up, and a slightly different mechanical click was audible as she lifted the lid once again, unimpeded. "It's near unopenable unless you know where to press with a claw. Certainly not perfectly secure, but still pretty good."

"That must be quite expensive to make, no? Where'd you get it?"

"Oh, from an old craftsmon I knew," Absol smiled, placing the lid down with a third and final click. "Ancient history, now. So, how can I help you?"

"Maybelle volunteered herself and you to deal with my work today so I can I have time to do interviews."

Absol stood up from the box, leaving it behind. "OK."

"...Just like that?"

"What did you expect me to say? No?"

"Kind of," Luca admitted. "I thought you were still mad at me."

Absol moved past Luca through the doorway, not saying a word.

"...Wait, are you?"

"Does it matter?"

"O-of course it does!" Luca exclaimed.

Absol sighed—a mix of exhaustion and frustration. "Some days I am. Those are the days that I hate you for bringing me and my family back into this mess and not allowing us to just relax in peace. Other times I'm so relieved that you made it back to remind me what really matters and save me from giving up entirely. Most days, though, I'm just confused. None of these days will prevent me from doing what I agreed to. Now, do you regret asking?"

"Yeah," Luca breathed, thankful that she was being given an out. "S-sorry. I'll show you where the papers are.

"Please do," Absol said evenly, seemingly unperturbed by her own admission of hatred.

Luca led Absol through her own home, bringing her back to the desk and pointing out the pile of papers. Absol accepted them without complaint before wordlessly disappearing back into the rest of the house. Only when the door closed behind her and Luca was alone did she breathe; somehow, in less than a minute, her relationship with Absol had simultaneously been repaired and damaged further.

Pushing the old dark-type out of her mind, Luca sat back behind her desk and focused on what was important: the impending interviews. She had to figure out what exactly she wanted to ask before the door to her room opened next.