Chapter 17: Hope Against Hope
Perhaps the sense of urgency made everyone more fleetfooted, or perhaps the lack of other Pokémon along the path after Lyn and his underlings had intimidated Bluewhorl into submission had allowed the team to keep a faster pace, but the trip from the Guild to the harbor went by faster that day. Nida, Crom and Elty dutifully kept their distance from the perimeter that the Company had set up around the docks, spying carefully down the town's paths and in between structures for any sign of an unmonitored approach.
Eventually, the group got their break after Crom spotted a Dusclops with a hastily-applied bandage stained with Oran juice and a Heracross walking away from a small cluster of crude wooden crates down an alley.
"I get why we didn't have the peasants load the cargo, but why do we have to handle these crates?! We have teleporters on the crew!" the beetle chittered as the pair slipped past the end of the alleyway. "Wouldn't them blipping things into the hull make this go by faster? Pokémon like them can teleport teams out of Mystery Dungeons just fine!"
"That's 'cause they have those teams' extra mindpower to borrow for that, and even with the help, it still takes the wind out of them and eats into their accuracy," the Dusclops scoffed as the pair slipped out of Team Traveller's view. "If it was that easy to get aboard the ship like that without an accident, don't you think we'd have just blipped that Wingull aboard earlier?"
As the pair's chatter faded into the distance, the team quietly crept down the alleyway towards the boxes, which were each about as tall as Crom.
"So what's your plan?" Elty asked.
"Look for open crates in that bunch there!" Nida cried. "If we get in one, we'll get a shot at-"
"Someone's coming!" Crom whispered hastily after sniffing at the air. The three Pokémon froze in their tracks as they heard footsteps approach the end of the path, and saw a Krokorok pass the alleyway carrying a crate with stains from crushed berries around its lid.
"Lousy hicks, some 'provisions' these are!"
"Meep," Elty gulped.
The creature set down the crate with a rough thud and once again passed the mouth of the alley, pausing for a brief, heartstopping moment to scratch his backside. As the Dark-Type lingered on in front of them, the party of Pokémon froze. Their breaths became shallow and slow, their hearts raced, and their heads began to feel faint as they found themselves devoid of strength or will to continue forward. After what seemed like an eternity, the Krokorok continued on his way, his grumbling about the local residents eventually fading with his footsteps, leaving the team to exhale loudly.
"Phew, that was-" Crom began, only to abruptly stop his train of thought as his snout caught a whiff of a vile odor that lingered in the air.
"Er… Something smells rank," Crom gagged as he covered his snout with a claw.
The smell brought to mind the stone-lined pits that the town maintained on the fringes of town, hidden from view by tall partitions with herbs planted about them to block the odor. Places where Bluewhorl's residents could rid themselves of muck and grime that had no further use other than to be periodically burned to ashes and returned to the earth. Except, this was not the outskirts of town, and the smell was here, making Nida instantly jump to conclusions about its source.
"Ugh, Elty!" Nida complained, as she too attempted to block the stench from her nose.
"That wasn't me!" the Growlithe huffed back angrily. "The smell's stronger in your direction!"
"No wait, he's right!" Crom cried, suddenly gesturing down the alley. "Look!"
Nida and Elty poked their heads out of the alley and looked towards the crate that the Krokorok had set down. There were some stains around its lip, most likely from being forced shut with an overflow of berries in the past. The lid had come loose, revealing that its contents were a mix of fruits, with a number of green, spiky fruits clustered towards the top.
"Durin Berries?" Nida whispered.
"Well, we do grow them on this island," Crom whispered back. "And even though they smell awful, if you throw in a good amount of sugar and prepare them right..."
"Isn't that why you'd pack them at the bottom of the crate with some herbs to block the smell and put the rest of the berries on top?" Elty grumbled. "And I thought they were bitter and sour fruits that barely anyone liked!"
Perhaps that was normally the case, but Company shakedowns were hardly anything the town wished to consider normal, and there were only so many ways for most residents to air their displeasure without incurring the wrath of the lavender-scarved Pokémon. More importantly than that, it occurred to Nida that if the fruit's smell was overpowering from that distance…
Who on the ship would be able to sniff them out after sneaking aboard?
"Enough, I think that we've got our cover," Nida interrupted. "Come on!"
The three quickly darted out from the alley and up to the boxes. Crom pushed back the lid to the crate full of berries, where there was a gap at the top, just big enough for the two smaller Pokémon to fit in. Nida hopped up onto the reeking crate, then paused a moment before she shook her head and jumped in, perching among the fruit. Crom dropped a flailing and protesting Growlithe alongside her. When it came time for the Druddigon to join, though…
"Er… I don't think you're going to fit here," Elty said, flattening his ears as he looked at the remaining space, and then back at the Druddigon. The ruddy lizard looked about anxiously, trying to think of some way he too could fit into the box with his compatriots.
"Uhm… Well… What about…?"
The Druddigon trailed off as his eyes searched about, until he noticed a worn, empty crate with a crack on one of its sides plugged with wadded-up paper. The sorry container was tilted over on an undamaged side, with its lid lying detached next to a tangle of sea-drenched rope. As soon as he saw the crate, an idea dawned on the young dragon...
"Aha, this one's empty!" he exclaimed. Crom hastily scurried over, righted the box, snatched up the lid, and pushed the wooden container over to Nida and Elty's crate. "Move some of the Durin berries over to cover me! They'll think that it's just a second batch of berries!"
"Right!" the Nidoran answered. Crom clambered into the cracked crate and, after folding his wings back and fidgeting some, was able to fit snugly into his wooden box. Nida and Elty then quickly kicked up and threw some of the pungent berries around them onto Crom, forming a thin layer over the dragon who poked his head and arms out of the crate.
Crom then slid the lid to Nida and Elty's crate over its opening. After a few fumbling attempts and crushing a couple berries in his crate, he did likewise with his own, leaving the three to sit there in the darkness, with only the stench of fresh Durin Berries to keep them company.
"Well, I guess always putting off that bath wasn't such a bad id-," Elty began, only to be met with a sharp kick and a hiss from his Nidoran fellow-traveler.
"Elty, shush!"
Nida's insistence for quiet was well-timed, as shortly after her admonishment, the sound of footsteps and chatter drew nearer and nearer to the crates- until it was quite literally on top of Nida and Elty.
Nida's heart skipped a beat when she felt the crate move, and after a tense moment where she expected the lid to get ripped open at a second's notice, she felt the crate rise off the ground. The crate then rocked back and forth as a voice prattled on, which she supposed to belong to the Pokémon moving the box. As the carrier's paces continued, Nida began to breathe again. Each step forward was one step closer to Pleo, and one step closer to making this whole mess right again.
On Lyn's ship, Pokémon in lavender scarves milled to and fro, moving crates and barrels from the docks up gangplanks and onto the deck. From there, they were piled in the center, where other Pokémon would grab them and then hoist them below the deck with some netting attached to a crude wooden pulley, hewn by patient claws for impatient sea hands.
The Krokorok Team Traveller narrowly eluded earlier picked up a crate with old berry juice stains around its lip. The creature grumbled a little under his breath about it being a touch heavier than usual, but shrugged and put the crate down on the netting to be hoisted down next, ignorant of the racing heartbeats inside that the wood muffled. A Graveler tugged at the rope and began to raise the crate when a commotion suddenly broke out from behind.
"Gyah!"
One of the deckhands, a Grumpig, had tripped while struggling with a particularly heavy crate with a crack clumsily caulked with wadded paper. Such slip-ups were to be expected from time to time, if more likely to attract derision rather than sympathy from one's peers on a crew like Lyn's. What made this slip-up different was...
"Ouch!"
A young, but rough cry that rang out from inside the crate. Oblivious to the young and unseen hearts among them sinking like stones at sea, all nearby Company eyes looked around, before settling on an askew crate in the middle of the boat's deck.
"Did that crate just yelp?" a Crawdaunt asked, the creature moving slightly to avoid disturbing some bindings over a tender spot on his thorax from the earlier battle.
"Open it up," a Weavile growled, flashing his claws at the cracked box.
The Grumpig got up, brushed himself off, flipped the crate, and moved a paw to the side of the lid. With one swift movement, the Grumpig flung the lid open and caused a dazed, young Druddigon to tumble out along with a few stray berries...
Into a sea of glaring eyes.
"Um… H-Hi?" Crom stammered, as he tried to backpedal back into the crate, only to be drug out and shoved onto the deck.
"And just what do you think you're doing here, brat?" the Weavile snarled, as his compatriots quickly joined in and began to ring the young intruder. The simmering chorus of hostility was suddenly pierced by Lyn's voice calling out from the stern.
"Isn't it obvious?" the Samurott asked, the Water-Type leaping over a railing near the helm and coming to a stop on the deck. The captain hung towards the back of the crowd, glaring over the heads of his subordinates into Crom's increasingly wide and intimidated eyes. "He wants his bird back like the rest of the peasants here."
The Druddigon trembled a little at the sight of all of the cruel gazes around him, before he dug his claws into the wood. Mustering the bravest face he could throw together, he growled back at the Samurott who so callously tormented his town.
"Th-That's right! Pleo's not yours, so give him back! Right no-OW!"
Crom was summarily cut off by a sharp kick to his stomach from one of the lackeys, and then a punch. Another lackey threw a Gravelerock, another a stream of electricity, while yet another struck him with a glowing beam of light. Crom's pained and frightened cries rang out across the deck in between sickening thuds as the Pokémon that ringed him bore down on him. At this point, the young Nidoran in the juice-stained crate could take it no longer. If the crate were not there to hide and muffle her, they could have seen beads of poison dribbling off Nida's raised barbs, a wide-eyed look of stupefied shock, and heard her cry out in horror.
"Cro-!"
"S-Shh!" a Growlithe's quieter, shaken voice scolded, muzzling the Nidoran by throwing a paw over her mouth. "You'll give us away!"
Crom's cries grew weaker and weaker; by the time that Lyn motioned for the Pokémon attacking him to leave him be, all that was left of the once-defiant intruder was an unconscious blue-and-red lump covered in deep bruises and scrapes, drawing shallow breaths and groaning weakly from time to time.
"Hrmph. Now then, since that waste of my time's over... throw him off my ship and back where he belongs," Lyn growled, before he turned for the stairs back up to his perch at the helm.
The Krokorok dumped out the stray berries from the crate before the Grumpig shoved the unconscious dragon back into the empty crate and lifted it over his head.
"And take your lousy crate with you, too!"
He steadied his feet and with an overhead hurl, sent the crate flying towards the main square by the docks. Lyn watched the crate sail up before it tumbled back to earth and splintered against the hard ground below, ejecting Crom and sending him rolling up against a wall. The racket made Mirlia poke her head out with her daughter from their damaged Juice Bar. The sight of Crom slumped over in the square drew a startled cry from the two, and the elder Pokémon quickly rushed out to scoop up the wounded dragon. As she spirited him back into her establishment, Lyn turned back to his crew.
"Search the cargo!" he barked. "He probably brought others!"
After the Samurott's command, the deck went abuzz with activity. Deckhands began to force open the crates that were in the same bunch as the cracked one that held the intruder, rooting through their contents in search of other conspirators. The Graveler began to bring the half-raised crate back down to the deck, as its occupants desperately tried to dig deeper and hide in the mass of berries and fruits… just as a voice called out from above.
"Captain! There's a storm brewing!"
Its owner, a Xatu, swooped down and perched in front of the Samurott, beating her wings excitedly. Meanwhile, the Rock-Type set the crate down on the deck and began to clear away its netting.
"Yes, yes, you told me about the storm earlier today," Lyn grumbled. "It's taking a long route over, you said."
"Um, yeah… I kinda need to revise that forecast," the Psychic-Type said, showing off a little glass sphere with a winding tube curling upwards from its side filled with colored water and attached to a string with her beak. The boulder-like Pokémon opened the lid to the crate now on the deck, and pulled it away as the bird continued.
"We're already going to be pushing it for beating it to port in Kenobi, Captain. If you want to leave, the time is now."
Everyone on deck paused after hearing the creature's words, including the Graveler, who turned to see that their captain was rather visibly mulling on what to do next.
"We just checked the crates that were next to the one the lizard was in!" a Heracross volunteered. "There's nothing in them! If others snuck in, they'd want to stick close to him to coordinate with each other, right?"
Lyn looked out at the sea, and then at the town ahead of the bow. He then frowned and shook his head before bellowing out to his crew.
"Raise the anchor and lower the sails! We're getting out of here!"
"But we still have crates on the-!" a Dusclops interjected, before Lyn adamantly interrupted.
"I said we're getting out of here!" he growled. "I'm not letting myself get stuck here with a restive and scheming bunch of peasants, waiting for a storm to pass while we have such a big prize to lose!"
The deckhands, knowing better than to challenge their superior over something he had set his mind to, immediately set to work carrying out his orders as an afterthought rang out over the deck.
"And get the rest of those crates below deck before we hit the open water!"
The Graveler, looking back at his opened crate and seeing nothing but berries from a glance, shrugged his shoulders and put the lid back on. He then hoisted the crate up in the netting and sent it below the ship's decks. Once the crate completed its passage down to the orlop deck, a Heatmor grabbed it and slid it into a corner, as the boat began to drift out for the open ocean.
Crom began to stir, feelings of aches and pains all over his body coming to him along with a bitter, herbal taste in his mouth. Little by little, his vision returned to him and became less indistinct, as he saw Mirlia, Minia, and a Sableye peering down at him. When he looked around, he saw that he was lying on a cleared table at Mirlia's Juice Bar, as the rest of the battered establishment came into view.
"Nngh…"
"Easy there, Crom," the elder Kangaskhan said. "You had a bit of a hard knock earlier."
"Yeah, those Company jerks threw you from their ship!" her daughter added.
"Gwuh? Where am I?" Crom asked as he gagged on something and spat up something that looked like a chewed-up root onto the floor, much to the displeasure of the Sableye.
"You're at my place," Mirlia replied. "You were in really rough shape earlier, and it looked like you needed some patching up before you went to the medics' hut."
"Yeah, if you can't make it up there, we'll help you there now!" Minia interjected.
"A-Aah! Forget about them!" Crom shouted, as he woozily clambered off the table and stumbled to his feet. "I need to get back to the ship!"
"Eh?! You're nuts!" the purple imp exclaimed. "You want to pick another fight with them?!"
"Um, Crom… I know that the Protector means a lot to this town, but that's simply a fight that you and I can't win," the elder barkeep said as she got up and cut the Druddigon's path off, her words growing more reluctant and faltering and her gaze more ground-bound as she went on. "And…"
"Lyn's ship just unmoored from the docks a couple minutes ago," her daughter interrupted, the little Kangaskhan's voice quiet and mournful. Minia's words suddenly threw the young Druddigon into a panic.
"Wh-What?!"
He stumbled to his feet and darted around Mirlia. Although every bone and muscle in his body cried out in protest, the Druddigon bolted for the door, leaving the barkeep to call out after him:
"Cr-Crom?! Wait! You're still hurt!"
Crom reached the path and turned to the harbor where, sure enough, it was as the Kangaskhan had said. Lyn's ship had left the docks, and had already sailed off into the open sea, growing smaller and smaller as Crom began to blink away larger and larger tears.
"N-No…"
Back in the wooden crate that smelt of Durin Berries, things were similarly grim, as Nida and Elty fumbled around in their wooden snare in a panic. The only things keeping their hysterics restrained to hushed whispers were the lingering enemies all about them.
"No! C-Crom!" Nida sobbed, her sniffling little voice filled with frightened anguish.
"Crom?!" the Growlithe barked back indignantly, sorely regretting giving into the little spike ball's paw-twisting earlier. "What about us?! At least he's on land!"
Elty's words made Nida pause, as she began to sniffle a little less and attempt to reassure herself.
"That's- That's right! The town would help him! They'd patch him up!"
"It's nice to hear that you can somehow salvage your plan at a time like this," Elty growled. "But was getting caught part of it, too?!"
"It… It…"
"It's- It's not over yet!" she cried, trying to muster a defiant tone in spite of her fear and sorrow. "We can't just throw our paws up and say 'así es la vida!' We just need to wait until the coast is clear and then we can still find Pleo!"
Yes. They could still find Pleo, and then they would all escape. Back to Tromba. Back to Crom. Back to Kiran. Back to Mami, Papi, and all those little spike balls that suddenly meant more than anything in all the Cradle to her right now. Back to a world where all things would be right and well again. That would be the end of everything!
"... I hope."
Back at the warehouse, the gathering of team heads and other selected Pokémon from around the town continued on. The Ampharos, the metaphorical and literal illuminator of the group, dominated the proceedings as he mulled the next course of action before the gathered townsfolk.
"Guildmaster…" Pitys asked, the voice of Team Sawtooth's Shiftry leader betraying hints of frustration. "Do we have any plans? I mean, 'charging the ship' is kinda out of the question. You saw what happened earlier, we can't just rousingly cheer 'Al abordaje!' out of that!"
"And so's 'having Pataki and the rest of us blip in to the Protector's location,'" a Kadabra from the teleport crew added. "Even if Lyn hasn't thrown his badge away, without backup, we'd get picked off by Lyn's cronies before we had a chance to get out! And with how cramped that ship is, we'd have enough trouble just teleporting ourselves in!"
"Almost!" the Ampharos cheerily answered. "Just need to wrap my head around a few last details…"
"Hatteras, Lyn is leaving at sundown!" Mosca interjected. "At this rate, he'll sail out of the harbor before we do anything!"
"And boss is busy getting patched up right now!" a Mawile in guards' garb added, waving his arms for attention. "It's not like we could have him try and cut up Lyn for us before he gets away!"
"Aha! I've got it!" the Ampharos sparked, his tail bulb suddenly glowing brighter as he excitedly hopped up in front of the surprised crowd.
"We'll have Mincho here stand one of the bluffs overlooking the harbor!" he cried, gesturing at a Wynaut towards the back of the crowd. "And put a mirror next to her! And put another mirror aligned with that mirror pointing at Lyn's ship! And then, Mincho will Mirror Coat a Flash Cannon into those mirrors, reflecting all the way until it burns up Lyn's sails!"
The gathering was left speechless for a few moments, before reluctant and skeptical voices began to air themselves one by one.
"Um…"
"Er… Guildmaster… I'm not sure if I can pull that off…"
"Guildmaster Hatteras... That's seriously what we're going with?"
"I know! Isn't it brilliant?" the Ampharos cheered as he sparked and accidentally set alight a fuse to a round object wrapped in paper. A Seel noticed the burning fuse was near a number of other round objects of the sort and yelped as he quickly shuffled over to pop the sphere onto his head and headbutt it through a canvas partition that served as a window shade.
A few seconds later, everyone flinched and hit the ground as a loud blast rang out. After stumbling back up to the sound of a few cries from outside, a few Pokémon from the group ran to the now shade-less window to see that the sphere had left scorch marks on the ground and the side of the warehouse, along with smoldering fires that some of the guild's Water-Types were hastily putting out.
"… Or, to clean out the stash of supplies from the last New Year's festival, we'll just wait for him to reach the edge of the harbor from those same bluffs and blow some holes in his hull with these!" the Ampharos exclaimed as he picked up one of the other spheres with fuses.
"We're going to blow up his ship with a bunch of Blast Seeds and berry powder glued together?" the Kadabra asked.
"Ah-ah-ah! A bunch of firework shells!" Hatteras corrected.
"Same difference, but that works!" the Psychic-Type replied.
"Yeah! Surely losing a ship will keep Lyn's cronies busy just staying above water!" a Luxio added. "All the better to keep them from wrecking the town!"
"See, now that sounds like a more reasonable plan!" Mincho cheered.
"Mmm hmm, it'll certainly put some rain on his parade!" Pitys exclaimed.
"With fire, too!" the Mawile exclaimed only to stop and bite his tongue, frowning after the Steel-Type noticed something seemed amiss. "But… I feel like we're missing something still, though…"
"Now that you mention it," Kiran murmured as he ruffled his feathers out of disquiet. "Wouldn't this be about the time that Scout normally said something sarcastic?"
An awkward pause filled the room before Mosca finally cleared her throat.
"Oh, Scout's not in town," the Hawlucha said. "He left on that ship that set out for Boisocéan last night."
"Oh. Yes. Poor us. How will we ever survive without Scout?" Pitys said, rolling her eyes.
"Hrm, we'll have to manage nonetheless," Hatteras said to himself before he cleared his throat and turned back to the rest of the gathering. "But anyways! Are we ready to put this show on the road?!"
"YEAH!"
"Are we ready to knock Lyn down a peg?!" the Ampharos asked, and was once again met with a rousing cheer from the gathered Pokémon.
"YEAH!"
"Are we ready to take our Protector back-?!"
That time, there was no cheer, but the sound of the Primeape at the door crying out startledly.
"E-Eh?! Wait, don't come in here! You're hurt! Go see the-!"
And the sound of Crom running into the meeting bawling loudly.
"K-Kiran!"
The young Druddigon was a mess. Mirlia and her daughter ran in a hurry through the door after Crom and came to an uneasy stop at the edge of the stunned gathering… Had- Had he come all the way up here in his wretched state? There were scrapes and deep bruises all over Crom's body that were still untreated, and his face was drenched in tears that were still dribbling down his snout.
"Crom?!" Kiran squawked out of shock, as he rushed over to his battered teammate. "What happened?!"
"Th-They took everyone else!" the Druddigon cried. As the creature continued to sob, his voice broke in between words that came out as something that sounded almost like a pitiful howl.
"Crom! Calm down! Calm down!" Kiran desperately tried to reassure his distraught teammate, as speculation abounded around the gathered Pokémon as to what might have happened to Crom, and what Gwenith was going to do to the unfortunate saps who did this to her child when she got her claws on them.
"What's going on here?!" Hatteras exclaimed.
"W-We were t-trying to get Pleo back, and Lyn, he- he-"
Crom couldn't get any further before he broke down again, crying into Kiran's wing. But there was no need, everyone already pieced it together. The rest of Kiran's team had gotten into big trouble with Lyn, and now needed someone to bail them out. They could take care of that!
"Come on, let's use those fireworks now! The harbor might take a bit more of a beating, but we can still make it work!" the Kadabra exclaimed.
"Yeah, let's stop hi-!" Pitys began, only for her words to die in her throat and the determined mood of the gathering to come to an abrupt crash as they crossed the doorway out of the warehouse. There in the distance, they saw Lyn's ship, now heading for the edge of the horizon out at sea.
"Oh no…" the Mawile muttered.
"Eh?! He left early?!" Mosca cried out in shock. All the while, Kiran's heart began to sink, and the Swellow turned to Hatteras, stammering in panic.
"G-Guildmaster Hatteras, we do have a way of getting them back, yes?"
"Er… Well," the Ampharos struggled, as he racked his mind trying to think of some way to salvage his now-derailed plan for stopping Lyn before he could slip away. "We can have the Pokémon from the harbor catch up with him and chuck them at the ship to blow it up there!"
"Um, Guildmaster Hatteras…?" a Persian asked.
"How are we supposed to do that when half of the harbor's Pokémon tough enough to do that are hurt right now?" an Azumarill from the docks asked as she pointed at a number of wounded Pokémon from the harbor who had lined up along the beach to be treated by the guild's medics. If they could have already been dealt with so severely, what hope did the others in the harbor have of overpowering his sea escorts?
"Well- Uh," Hatteras muttered, desperately trying to think of something, anything else that could still be done to rescue the rest of Team Traveler. "Then we can always have Kiran and our other Flying-Types bring the fireworks over to the ship by air!"
"They'll get picked off by Lyn's fliers and cannons, though!" a Hoothoot cried out. To this, the proud Guildmaster had no answer, but simply stared blankly off ahead.
"Guildmaster Hatteras?" Kiran asked quietly as Crom continued to sniffle into his plumage. "Isn't- Isn't there anything at all we can do?"
"I'm- I'm sorry, Kiran," the Ampharos replied, hanging his head before looking up falteringly. "The only solution left I can think of right now…"
Hatteras trailed off and turned out to the sea, the words finally coming for him to finish his thought.
"Is to pray for a miracle."
If that miracle was somehow waiting in the wings, it was surely not in the same room as Pleo at that moment. When the young Protector woke up from his bump to his head on the docks, he was greeted with a forlorn and unassuring environment. It was a dark, featureless room, devoid of lighting from any source. The only reassurance that the place was even a room at all and not some abyss was the texture of wooden planks underfoot that bobbed and creaked up and down rhythmically.
There was some sort of cloth over his snout, loose enough to allow him to speak, but still snug enough to even keep him from fully yawning, let alone to be able to form and spit up a glowing ball. His feet and wings were held in place by strange, smooth ropes of some sort. The bindings were made of interconnected loops that felt as cold and unyielding as stone no matter how hard he tugged or pecked at them, with no discernible knot to try and undo.
It felt like nowhere on Tromba at all, not even like a place beyond the fog and in the Mystery Dungeon. From everything that Pleo could remember from before he woke up, he reasoned that wherever he was, it had to be the fault of that Samurott. So with nothing else at his disposal for breaking free, Pleo did what little he could think of at that time.
"Let me go! Let me go!"
Namely to shout repeatedly into the darkness and thrash against his bindings, over and over again, until his voice started to become hoarse, his body began to grow sore, and tears of exhaustion welled up. How did this even happen? Why? Why wasn't his power as a Protector, the one that was supposed to have helped the town, there for him now to blow away the darkness all around him?
All of a sudden, a harsh voice called off from the distance, muffled by an unseen barrier.
"Are you still going on about leaving that hamlet?"
The darkness gave way with a creak as a door opened, letting in a little blotch of light from a candlelit jar outside. The light made the room a little more visible: the walls and ceiling were made from rough wood much like the floor, and the loops that connected and tied down Pleo had a dark, grayish-black color to them that reminded the young Protector of Hess' hide and metal armor.
The young Lugia's observations of the room around him were quickly cut off as Lyn entered. Banette and a Toxicroak followed closely behind him, shooting a piercing, scowling glare at the young Lugia all the while.
"Why are you doing this to me?!" Pleo squawked. "Tromba's my home!"
"Because if I bring you to my father, it'll validate me in his eyes and he'll finally accept me for the first time since I was young," the Samurott answered absentmindedly as he fished out one of his blades and began to twirl it in his paws lazily.
"E-Eh?!"
Pleo's startled cry was answered with a scoff as Lyn spun his blade a few more times about his knuckles. The seamitar's twirling suddenly came to an abrupt halt as Lyn grabbed its hilt and addressed the young Protector in a much more serious tone.
"Nah, I'm doing this because you're my ticket to being promoted to an Administrator. Unlike some Pokémon, I don't let emotional sops get in the way of my tasks."
"An 'Admi-what'?" Pleo asked, before he shook his head and hardened a glare at the Samurott. "And I'm a Protector, not a 'ticket'!"
"You still can't figure it out?" Lyn scoffed. "Really now, that island's an awful lot like the clutter around your neck there."
The Samurott then placed his seamitar at the side of Pleo's neck, holding it still as Pleo's eyes widened in frightened shock. Pleo flinched as he felt a swift motion forward and away from his neck.
Thump
Pleo heard something small abruptly drop to the ground. Looking around, he saw that Lyn was still in front of him, but had moved his sword away. Lyn's lackeys were picking up a few objects bundled in cloth off the ground... when it suddenly hit him.
That bundle was his scarf, his badge, and the lucky charm Hatteras made for him!
"Wait! What are you doing?! Those are mine!" Pleo cried.
"Quiet! You won't need those anymore!" the Samurott bellowed, as the Banette suddenly came up beside Pleo and roughly slipped another cloth about his neck. After the Ghost-type finished her claw-work and made some sort of remark about "There, much better now," Pleo looked down, and saw that the creature had replaced his scarf with a lavender one with a violet square in the middle.
"As I was saying," Lyn continued. "They're cute to look at and have around, but they're utterly useless to you and weigh you down. Why should a god, a creature meant to protect Pokémon and their livelihoods, be watching over some nowhere island when there're much bigger problems in our territories we can point you at?"
The ship's captain then looked over his shoulder to the Toxicroak, and spoke nonchalantly.
"Give the King's Rock to Mercury after your shift's done outside, she might find some use from it. As for the rest, it's garbage. Do whatever you want with it."
The pair gave a summary "Aye" and promptly walked out of the door, much to Pleo's indignance.
"No! Give them back!" he shouted, struggling against his strange bonds. "Give them-! A-Aah!"
Pleo's angry cries abruptly gave way to terrified silence as Lyn swung his seamitar at his neck, touching the tip just under his lower beak.
"Tell me, did you ever wonder why your flight feathers were untouched instead of clipped short like some captured pirate? It's because getting too forceful with you would risk trouble with bleeding-hearts like Osmund that might have slipped past screening when I put this crew together," the Samurott growled. "So I'll be nice and explain this to you once."
"You're ours. The Company's asset on the Company's territory. So play along nicely and help me and your future superiors out as we need, and it'll all go well for you," Lyn said as he slipped his blade back into a sheath along his arm, while Pleo continued to tremble. "And if not… well, even a god can have the foolishness whipped out of it and have its priorities set straight."
The Samurott then walked over to the door, and called out back to Pleo.
"Your old life is gone. Dead. Buried at sea. You don't have a prince to come and rescue you and carry you over the horizon, so get over it and move on to your new life as the Protector of the Company's interests."
He slammed the door, the barren room returning back to its inky blackness. The sounds from the room died and an eerie silence lingered for a few moments, punctuated only by the creaking and groaning of the ship as it bobbed on the sea's waves… only to then be joined by a whine and the quiet, despairing sounds of a young Pokémon sobbing.
For what seemed like an eternity, Nida and Elty waited in the berry-juice stained crate in the cargo hold. The pair did everything they could think of to try and ease the passage of time... They treated their wounds with Oran Berries in the crate... Nida nervously shifted Durin Berries to the bottom of the crate to try and keep herself busy and cut the stench down… Elty helped himself to some of the berries and stuffed them in his satchel, mentioning a "two-clawed discount"… It was a monotony that should have been broken by a daring burst out of the crate, except something would always come up.
Many times the Nidoran had been sure no one was around and began to open the crate's lid, only to see some Pokémon in a lavender scarf walk by, or hear one further down the hold, too close to risk them overhearing an escape. Other times, the coast was preoccupied by less dutiful guards, such as a group whiling away time in the middle of the hold playing a game of numbered cards and stones, or two deck hands who smelt strongly of berry juice arguing about how to properly recount the tale of "Butts, the Warrior of Light and Restorer of the Wind".
But at long last, a long lull came, and the Nidoran popped the crate's lid open, seeing that this time, finally, there was not sight, sound, or smell of anyone nearby.
"Psst! Elty!" Nida whispered.
"Eh?" the Growlithe yawned, having dozed off after so many false alarms and a general dearth of things to do in the crate.
"I think the coast is clear! Come on, let's get Pleo and fly out of here!"
"Nida... we're on a boat surrounded by Company grunts. There's strażnicy outside, too!" Elty grumbled. "Even if we find Pleo without getting caught, how do you expect us to get off this boat? There's no junk that's getting offloaded at a dock to hide in!"
"We'll cause a distraction to keep them busy while we fly off, then!" she insisted. "Pleo can carry you while flying around. It's worth a shot to have him try carrying us both, right?"
Elty furrowed his brow and shook his head. Weren't Nidoran supposed to be skittish and quick to flee as ferals? Why did he have to have the luck to get stuck with one that didn't know how to pick her fights?
"Look, I'm sure that you want to help your friend and all, but seriously, focus on staying in one piece here!" he whispered back. "Just ride this out and we'll sneak off during unloading."
"Elty, don't you think they're going to check the cargo when they take it off too?" Nida growled, glaring into the Growlithe's eyes. There was a moment of awkward silence as Elty stared back into the Nidoran's eyes, before he blinked and sighed.
"Point taken. Just don't do anything stupid during this, alright?"
Nida then lifted the lid up, and with a few small kicks, pushed it back along the crate enough to leave a gap big enough to crawl out of...
Whump
And promptly pratfall about three feet onto the floor of the cargo hold below.
"Gih!"
"Oi! What did I just tell you?!" Elty huffed as he hopped out of the box, landing on his feet just ahead of the Nidoran. "Are you trying to get us caught?!"
"Get off my case! I didn't ask to get stuck with you!" Nida hissed as she picked herself up off the floor, fanning her spikes out. "And if Crom were here, I'd partner up with him and leave you back in that box to try and pull your escape on your own!"
The Growlithe turned back to the Nidoran, and the two glared at each other for an uncomfortable moment before the Growlithe spoke up with a vaguely teasing tone.
"You like him, don't you?"
"Shut up!" Nida growled. The Nidoran opened her mouth to begin to tear into the lippy little dog when all of a sudden, the sound of something shifting made the two's fur stand on end.
"Nngh… Your turn, I'm tired of being stuck here at the brig with this bird," a sleepy voice called out.
After a tense silence, the two heard… Snoring? After looking up past the grate which separated the cargo hold from the deck, it became apparent that the moon and the stars were out, and even after a long, cautious wait, Nida couldn't see any of the forms of the flying escorts pass over the grate. Aha, so that would explain why they hadn't heard anything. Most of the ship must've been asleep!
"Wait a minute," Elty murmured. "That voice just said something about watching a bird..."
The Growlithe crept on ahead, and saw that at the end of the hold, a Toxicroak was dozing on a crate by the door muttering in his sleep. And in his claws were a blue scarf and a length of cord.
"Ah!" Nida squeaked. "Those are Pleo's!"
The two snuck over to the frog, and after waiting for the creature to stretch in his sleep, quickly snatched up the purloined effects. Pleo's badge was still just as it was before he was taken… Everything else, not so much. Why, his scarf had been cut on one side, and so had the cord which used to hold the stone ring that Zigzagoon gave him, the King's Rock itself being nowhere to be found. Nida shifted her ears uneasily and looked about the hold.
"Do you think that's-?"
"Do we have any other leads?" Elty grumbled, flattening out his ears.
"We'll have to go with it, then. But how on earth do we find this 'brig'?"
Elty stepped under the grate and stared up, sniffing at the air a moment.
"Brigs are supposed to be places where crews like the Company's keep Pokémon tied down. On ships that have them, they're usually in the steerage, which is always opposite the direction that the wind blows against the sails to make a ship go forward," he murmured to himself as he circled about.
"So then, we need to head that way!" he barked, gesturing with his muzzle at an open door on the opposite end of the hold.
"Right!" Nida answered, as the two Pokémon crept down the darkened cargo bay of the ship. Their friend was so close, and yet so far from them...
But there was no time to get hung up over that, as the Nidoran whispered to herself.
"Please hang in there, Pleo. We're almost there."
Author's Notes:
- así es la vida - Spanish: "such is life"
- (¡)Al abordaje! - Spanish: "All aboard!"
- strażnicy - Polish: "guards", "watchmen"
