24.
A Spark and Whimper
"A missing child?"
"Y-yes! Yes…ah…a distant cousin of mine, she's…well…she asked help finding her. My cousin…she's part of research team, I think, and their leader is a friend of the girl's mother…asked him to go pick her up from school for break but…everything went wrong, I'm guessing…Mollie, ah, my cousin, told my other cousin from Viridian–or was it Pewter–that someone was trying to steal something from the girl and hired goons to…to…oh! It's so complicated! And I get the bad luck of seeing her but there's a long line in the center and everyone needs help…and by the time I ask one of the Chansey helpers to chase after the poor dear, she's already gone. Poor girl, she was limping…walked all wrong but she didn't stop. What am I going to tell Mollie?"
Sabrina listened to the local Nurse Joy with interest; she had felt the presence of a strange power some months back.
Sabrina had felt the strange power all the way from Viridian City.
It hadn't stayed long in the city, moving slowly towards a new destination, still not far away from Viridian, and staying there for months until one day a great power woke Sabrina from a nap and made her fear that the world was ending…until the power faded, became a spark, hid in the forest and trees, walked slowly one way, to another and Sabrina couldn't sense it anymore.
It returned days later, moving around Saffron and disappearing into the wilds that lead to Vermillion City.
Sabrina smiled.
"I will do my best to find her. Don't worry."
It always helped that Sabrina was a good liar.
A day later, Sabrina decides to visit Vermillion.
The girl left on the night ship to Slateport yesterday if her information is right; unfortunately, that information won't reach Joy until tomorrow. Sabrina's schedule is full today.
Lt. Surge spots her in the local cafe, and the two of them start a conversation. Sabrina asks her friend if he's seen an airship flying around.
"Now that you mention it," the older man began, rubbing his chin. "A professor asked permission to use my field outside the gym to park his airship because it needed urgent repairs…didn't see anything wrong with it at first glance, so it must have been a software thing." He stares at her. "You saw something you didn't like about that?"
"Perhaps…but it's something we can't interfere with."
"How do you figure that?"
"Because it's not up to us to change fate," Sabrina smiled. "I predict they'll find the one that professor and his crew are looking for…but it will be up to her to decide her fate."