Chapter 18: Hide and Seek
As the ship rocked with the waves at sea, Nida and Elty edged towards the stern in fits and spurts. They'd frequently pause to sniff the air or listen for the sound of footfalls over the creaks of the timbers around them, take a brief look further down the corridors formed by the stacks of crates, and quickly dart down to the next wooden box large enough to hide behind. Their erratic pace was set by the need to avoid detection at all costs; after all, if the Company dealt with stowaways like they did with Crom, there would be no townsfolk to come running to their aid… Or a dock to fall on, for that matter.
As her stomach knotted from stress and the steps under her feet felt light and unsteady, Nida's mind would still wander elsewhere. She thought about the young Protector at the stern... Had the Company hurt him since they took him aboard? If they had roughed him up too much… or put ritual aside and cut his flight feathers, where would any of them turn to? Was he scared? Surely he must be feeling all alone right now… But would she and Elty have anything better to offer him when they found him?
"Look alive!" the Growlithe's voice suddenly rang out, or at least as much as a hushed whisper could.
The Nidoran hopped up, and with a startled cry, whispered back.
"Huh?!"
"Someone's coming!"
She became aware of the smell of Herdier, and the sound of large footsteps coming directly towards their position. Nida froze as her legs wobbled and became unresponsive. Even her barbs seemed to be unable to rise up to face this obvious danger that was coming for her, with no place to hide, and nothing to meaningfully fight back with.
"Stop stalling!" Elty chided. "This way!"
Without thinking, Nida hopped after the voice, and followed it into a narrow gap in between crates. She stumbled in, not daring to breathe as she heard the steps pass directly by her. The blue and brown dog stopped, sniffed the air, and nosed open a crate's lid to check inside. The creature looked about for a moment and then set the lid back down, going on its way. The hound's footsteps grew fainter and fainter until they all but faded over the sound of the creaking timbers… And Nida and Elty's own heartbeats.
"That was way too close," Nida panted. She was sure their scent would have betrayed them, but the blasted Durin Berries she smelt all the while during their passage down the hold must have staved off the Herdier's suspicions. All's well that ended well, she supposed, but there was still something that nagged at Nida's mind...
"Where are we right now?" she asked, just in time to see Elty sniffing at a wooden crate. She too sniffed at the box… It had… straw in it?
The Growlithe paused, before giving a headbutt at the crate.
Tink tink tink
It was the unmistakeable, if muffled sound of something glassy inside. Elty's face lit up, as he suddenly realized...
"We're exactly where we need to be!"
The Growlithe leapt up and latched onto a corner of the lid with his mouth, using his weight to pull it off. Nida hopped up onto the ledge of the box, where inside, the source of the glassy sound became apparent.
The crate was packed full of orbs! The straw was the padding all around them, to keep them protected from rough jolts at sea. Every orb Nida remembered seeing around Tromba before was in there. There was a Totter Orb, packed with small yellow spheres of light inside that glowed in the hold's darkness. A Blowback Orb, with a whitish, wispy substance swirling around in it that looked like the clouds up in the higher parts of the sky. The familiar light blue with swirling bubbles of a Cleanse Orb that Elty was stuffing into his bag- Wait a minute.
"Eh?! What are you doing?!" Nida cried out.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Elty shot back as he nosed the Blowback Orb into his bag. "If we're going to be doing stupid stunts anyways, we might as well give ourselves a leg up!"
"Elty, en serio?" Nida hissed, flattening out her ears. "Stealing things now of all times?"
"Oi, do odważnych świat należy! Do you want to try taking on one of those guards with a bag full of berries if we get caught?" Elty growled. "Or something that might actually give us a chance?"
Nida stared at the glaring Growlithe, and then down at the orbs, and then out further down the hold where she could hear the sounds of a Pokémon shifting about. These orbs were the Company's... If she and Elty didn't use them, the Pokémon aboard this ship surely wouldn't hesitate to use them against the two.
"Okay, point taken."
Nida immediately helped dig up orbs from deeper in the box, not paying attention to what kind they were. At the very least, more orbs couldn't hurt the two right? Eventually, Elty's satchel began to visibly fill up and run out of spaces. After sliding a final violet orb in, Elty drew his bag shut, shook it up a bit to make the orbs settle towards the bottom, and with a swift motion, slung it over his back and prepared to hop out the crate.
"Alright, let's get-" the Growlithe began, only to notice the sight and sound of a Nuzleaf mumbling to himself from the direction of the stern… And drawing closer.
"Er… Not that way."
"Elty," Nida hissed. "There is no other way out!"
"Er… Uh…"
"We'll stay and hide here!" he barked. "If we hunker down, the straw's smell should cover us!"
"Hiding in another box?" Nida grumbled. "Seriously?"
"I don't see you offering any other suggestions here!" Elty growled. "And if he opens it, we'll be able to get the drop on him!"
Good enough, Nida thought to herself. She hopped in as Elty dragged the lid back onto the box. The Nidoran fanned her barbs out as Elty began to fish through his bag, searching for an orb to use just in case the lid got pulled off all of a sudden, before settling on the violet orb from earlier. After noticing a dark, jagged blotch that reminded Nida of a Zubat's shape from above, she saw that it was a One-Shot Orb. An orb that was mostly the purview of Pokémon who were desperate enough to hope fate would let the orb knock out a foe as intended, and had no other way of doing so on their own.
The sound of the approaching Pokémon came closer and closer until the Nidoran and Growlithe could hear its breath from outside the crate. The two waited and waited for the lid opening that never came.
Instead, they felt the box suddenly rise.
"Gih!"
"Ack!"
And head off, under the rocking motions of being carried along by yet another Pokémon. The creature sounded fatigued, and the sound of an occasional yawn evidenced that the guard was clearly not used to night shifts.
"Eh?" Nida asked as she felt the box come to a stop along the floor. "What on earth do sailors need a box full of orbs for right now?"
"Hmm…" Elty mulled, before he propped the lid to the box open. Nida's jaw dropped as Elty poked his head out and dragged a round, yellow berry with green circles on its skin back into the box as the lid shut.
"Whelp, whatever the reason, it apparently involves going through a galley!" the Growlithe cheered as the box rose up and started to move again. Elty contentedly began to nibble at his prize Aspear Berry while Nida seethed, her barbs fanned out, though not from an expectant battle this time.
"Elty, what is wrong with you-?" she began, only for the little dog to cut her off.
"Do you really think that whoever's carrying us wouldn't have noticed the extra weight if he were fully awake?" he retorted. The box then stopped moving, and the two felt the Grass-Type set it down and shove it to the side with a yawn. There was the sound of some shuffling and of some other Pokémon chiding the Nuzleaf for being late...
"Draw seven cards and play a basic," the other Pokémon's voice instructed. The Grass-Type could be heard chewing into something, before asking back in a voice that sounded noticeably less fatigued.
"Four prizes this match, right?"
For a card game?
"Sailors play cards in galleys?" Nida asked. Her barbs dropped from a curious befuddlement; something wasn't adding up here. Whoever had taken the box obviously needed the orbs for some reason, but surely there had to be a reason that wasn't tied to card games, right?
"Hrm…" Elty mulled, before he once again poked the lid open and shoved his head out of the crate. Just as quickly as it left, Elty's head returned, his teeth clamped around the lip of a primitive clay jug that sloshed with fluid in it.
"Looks like we're next to something a bit more secure, which would explain why they brought the orbs over," he answered as he pulled a cork off of the jug and tilted it to begin to lap up its contents from its neck. "Maybe that brig the Toxicroak mentioned."
As the Growlithe continued drinking from the jug, the faint, but perceptible sound of a Nidoran grinding her teeth filled the inside of the box.
"Rrgh… Elty!"
"Relax, rum may be poison, but a little sip never hurt a Growlithe's belly fire," the dog answered. "Besides, the guards seem a bit preoccupied right now."
"Ha! Your bench is looking thin tonight!" the Nuzleaf's voice gloated. "Weren't expecting me to run a Haymaker deck, were you?"
"Grr… I can still bounce back- Wait, I thought you got an Aspear Berry for me. Did you eat it?"
"Of course not! I brought the Chesto Berries to keep us both awake, didn't I? What, can't win without distracting me to peek through my deck?"
"I already know what's in your deck! Seriously, give me the- Wait a minute, you took my rum, too!"
"I did not! Unlike you, I don't have to stoop to tricks to win at cards!"
"Why, you!"
The conversation outside rapidly deteriorated, being replaced by the sound of blows striking bodies.
"Gah!"
A guard was thrown into the side of the crate, sending it tumbling behind some other crates. The box toppled over and dumping Nida and Elty out with a pile of straw and assorted orbs, as Elty's upended jug spilled some manner of tawny-colored fluid all over the floor. Nida's eyes widened as she realized the two of them were now out in the open, and tensed her spikes…
"You'll pay for that, bub!"
Only to see that the two guards, the Nuzleaf and a Hitmonchan, were preoccupied with their childish, violent squabble and oblivious for now to their presence.
"Hey, it's a distraction!" Elty interjected. The dog rolled to his feet and quickly pointed out a now-unguarded passage, presumably the way to that brig he had surmised they were at. "Now come on!"
The two darted past the quarrelling guards and down into a hallway lined with wooden doors and some glass jars with candles in them along the floor. The doors looked heavy and sturdily built, lacking any windows. There were also no signs of hinges on the doorways, as would be expected if the doors opened outwards- Meaning that whoever had built these doors wasn't worried about Pokémon going in…
They were worried about them coming out afterward.
"They had places for Pleo all this time?" Nida asked, her ears drooping.
"Pbbt. Nah," Elty answered. "They're for Pokémon they don't want to deal with right away."
"Oh, so for canallas like you," she snorted, rolling her eyes.
"And you too if we get caught!" the Growlithe shot back with a glare. "So stop running off your yap and start sniffing around for clues!"
The two paced up and down the corridor, stopping at the different doors. There were certainly a number of smells alright, if some muddled with age. Of Pokémon that had trodden up and down the passage, of hints of seawater, a faint but still gag-inducing smell near one of the doors that reminded Nida of an alley behind a Juice Bar after a particularly rowdy night…
But, alas-
"None of it smells like the mewa," Elty murmured.
Nida's heart sank. Could it be that Pleo really wasn't here? That they had risked limb and possibly life sneaking from the cargo hold to these cells for nothing?
It was then that Nida noticed a different smell among the odors—one that carried a whiff of seawater that smelled all too familiar…
"Eh? Wait a minute… Lyn was here? And this scent's fresh!" Nida cried out.
"Oh come on, I'm sure that he's been down here before," Elty scoffed. "He is the captain."
"Maybe, but if he was here recently," she murmured as she followed the scent along the ground. "What would he have been doing other than going to see…?"
Nida walked on, sniffing intently at the floor until she felt a bump on her head. The Nidoran pulled back and looked up, seeing that she had run into one of the sturdy, windowless doors at the end of the hallway.
"This has to be it!" she cried, hopping up and pushing against the door, only for nothing to happen.
"Eh?! It won't budge!"
"Of course it won't!" the Growlithe piped. "Look! There's a lock on it!"
Nida followed Elty's gaze towards the door and saw that there was a metal plate placed along the edge, with a hole meant to accommodate a key.
"Uhm," Nida groaned. The Nidoran scrunched her whiskers uneasily before pointing an ear at the orange dog. "You wouldn't happen to have swiped the keys back there, would you?"
Elty stared back at the Nidoran with his ears folded back and an unimpressed scowl. If she had to ask the question...
"Yeah, I didn't think so either," she said, sighing and shaking her head.
"Well, I'd love to be able to burn it open here," the orange dog said. He reared up on his hind legs to inspect and sniff the lock, before slinking back down and shaking his head. "But I think that it's a little soon to be setting the ship on fire while we're still on the orlop deck and out in the middle of the sea."
"I'll kick it down, then!" Nida cried, as she hopped back and braced her feet to prepare to rush at the door.
"And wake up the entire crew while you're at it? You don't honestly think you're going to be able to kick that open in one try, do you?"
Elty watched as the Nidoran caught herself and froze. It seemed she hadn't considered that possibility, not that living on some island all her life would have done much for reference pools. Nida visibly fumbled with her thoughts for a moment.
"Uh… Er… Hey, wait a minute," she said, the little spike ball's ears suddenly perking up as she motioned back towards the lock. "Come over here, Elty."
The two went up to the door, where, much to Elty's surprise, Nida hopped up on top of him.
"Ack!" he yelped, his legs wobbling as he tried to adjust to the sudden weight on his shoulders. "Hey, what do you think you're-?!"
He looked up, and saw that the Nidoran inspecting the keyhole. Just what was she-?
"The lock… Why it looks like one of my barbs would fit just nicely in there," she said, hopping off the Growlithe.
Wait a minute… Could it be that this little spike lump really knew…?
"Aha! Lockpicking!" Elty cheered, as he wondered why he hadn't thought of the idea himself earlier. "Why, I didn't think that a guild amator like you would know how to-!"
Only for his cheery demeanor to crash back to earth when he saw the Nidoran rear up and flick a spike into the pinhole with an audible crunch, followed by the sound of pieces of brittle iron spilling out along with dribbling poison out of the hole. Elty's jaw fell open- That wasn't what she was supposed to do at all!
"Ty- Ty bałwan! What on earth was that?!" he growled. "You were supposed to pick the-"
The door then creaked, making the pair flick their ears in surprise. Elty ran up, sniffed at the door, nudged it, and found that it now moved under his push. The Growlithe looked down at the metal fragments ejected from the keyhole and saw they were parts of small levers fashioned from brittle iron, leaving him to blink incredulously as he took a moment to register what had just happened.
"Huh. I guess breaking it works, too," he mumbled. All of a sudden, a voice from behind the door cried out.
"W-Whuh?! Who's there?! Please! Let me go!"
Nida's ears flared as she instantly recognized that the Pokémon inside could be none other than...
"Pleo!"
The Nidoran kicked the door the rest of the way open, where in the middle of the floor stood the form of a white bird that looked like he had just seen a ghost.
"N-Nida?! E-Elty?!" he squawked. The little Lugia gave a startled wingbeat (or at least as much as his bindings allowed him to) as his friends darted into the room. How had they managed to-?!
"Shh! Not so loud!" Nida shushed. The Nidoran tore away the cloth muzzling Pleo and threw it into a corner before turning back to whisper reassurance to her teammate. "We're here to bust you out!"
"B-But I'm stuck!" Pleo cried. "I'm in cold and heavy ropes without any knots in them!"
As the light filtered in from the candlelit jars outside, the two were finally able to see the pitiful sight before them. Pleo's neck and limbs had been tied down with sturdy metal chains that were bolted to the floor, which drew an involuntary shudder from Elty. Metal was hard to come by in the Cradle, with the easiest way of making anything with it requiring large quantities of metal spikes or thorns found in Mystery Dungeons to be melted down. This made chains like the ones Pleo was bogged down under vastly harder and more expensive to fashion than ropes- But once a Pokémon got tangled up in them, they rarely broke free.
"These guys weren't messing around with trying to keep you here, even if they were a little cheap on the door lock," Elty murmured to himself, nosing at a small metal padlock. "You're gonna need to do this the hard way this time, Nida."
"The hard wa-?" she began, only to be cut off by a sharp pain from her rump. Nida whirled around and saw Elty holding a freshly-plucked barb in between his teeth before spitting it out onto the floor.
"Ow! Hey!" she hissed, her spikes raised and her blood boiling at Elty's decision to suddenly rip a barb out from her. "Qué te pasa?!"
"There's supposed to be a pin inside locks like this one here," the Growlithe quickly explained, spitting the spike out onto the floor. "When you push it up, it'll make a click and then you can pull it off those chains."
That… made a surprising amount of sense. Nida growled and picked the spike up, muttering under her breath about "You could have told me that!" as she slipped the end into the lock's keyhole.
As Nida wobbled the spike back and forth to try and find that pin, she began to notice the effects that captivity had had on Pleo, and wasn't sure if she wanted to rant or cry. The little Protector's feathers around his bonds had been damaged by repeated struggling, and the plumage on his face were sullied from dried tears. The only respite from the sorry sight was that fortunately for them all, it seemed that Lyn had some respect for the gods, as he had chosen to not cut the flight feathers on Pleo's wings.
That, and the fact that, for now at least, Pleo's tears had vanished, even if they weren't replaced by the elation that she hoped he would have at being rescued.
"H-How'd you get here?!" Pleo cried.
"Long story short, we snuck aboard," Elty answered after a furtive glance at the door. "And now we're getting you off this rotten ship!"
Pleo looked at his teammates, and noticed immediately that something was amiss. His friends seemed just as frightened as he was, but more importantly...
"Where's Crom? And Kiran?" he asked. There was a long and uncomfortable silence as Nida looked down at the floor, her paw slipping from her spike a moment she struggled with how to respond to the little Lugia.
"Nida? What's wrong?" Pleo pressed, starting to grow unnerved. Nida's expression sank before she looked up at the Protector and reluctantly answered him.
"Crom's… Back home, Pleo."
"H-Huh?!" Pleo squawked, tugging against his chains. "What happened?!"
"Crom got roughed up while trying to follow us, and had to stay back-" Elty began to answer, only for Pleo to promptly cut him off.
"E-Eh?! He's hurt?!"
"Pleo-" Nida began. But it was no use, the young Protector had already begun to slip into a panic. If Crom wasn't here because he was hurt...
"Wh-What about Kiran?! And Hatteras?! What about your parents?! Are they-?!"
Each name stabbed into Nida's heart like an Iron Thorn; all of them seemed so impossibly far away right now. Were all those Pokémon back home also scared and worried about them?
"Quiet down!" Nida barked, her voice wavering as her eyes misted up. "Y-You'll give us away!"
"B-But I'm supposed to protect you all! And-" Pleo insisted. His voice began to trail off and his head drooped as he saw Nida's expression. Could it really be…? "Just being around you seems to hurt you and your friends instead."
Nida paused. Noticing the effect the tears in her eyes were having on the Protector's psyche, she brushed them aside and tried her hardest to fight back further drops. There would be plenty of time to let them flow when they weren't all in danger, and when Pleo was out of these horrid chains. She shook her head and shot back at the Lugia.
"Pl-Pleo, don't say such nonsense!"
"H-Huh?!"
"We came after you because the entire town's miserable about you being trapped here!" Nida insisted, as she made another attempt with the spike in the lock to find the pin.
"They… are?" Pleo asked.
"Yes! You're someone very special to Tromba!" Nida cried. "Even if we've had a run of bad luck lately, it hurts to see you taken away like this! And-!"
Click
That was the pin. Without thinking, Nida pulled the lock down and watched it pop open.
"Alright, now we just need to get these off of you!" Elty barked, as he slipped the lock out of the chain links with his mouth and whigged it across the room. He and Nida then set about undoing the chains that were held in place, the Nidoran continuing her explanation as she freed up Pleo's wings.
"Pleo, we were worried sick about you, too! You're our friend!" she cried. "That's why we snuck aboard in the first place! To try and help you!"
"It… was?"
"Well, that and not thinking things through," Elty added, shooting a glare at the Nidoran. Nida rolled her eyes and turned back to Pleo as he stepped forward and beat his wings- being chained up surely could not have been kind to his blood flow. After his motions settled, she walked up and sidled next to him.
"You'll have plenty of time to figure out how being a Protector works, and to make everything that's happened today right, Pleo," she said. Even though her eyes were still damp, the Nidoran gave a reassuring nuzzle into Pleo's breast to try and lift her friend's spirits. "For now, let's just get you off of this-"
All of a sudden, the light from the hallway's candles was blotted out by shadows and a gruff voice called out.
"Oi, wait a minute! What do you think you're doing?!"
Nida's blood ran cold and her barbs raised at the harsh voice. She watched as Pleo's expression give way to a frightened grimace and whirled around to see the glowering forms of the Nuzleaf and Hitmonchan from earlier. They were battered and bruised from fighting among each other, but still very much alert, and in battle-ready stances.
Hold on a minute... Neither of the two were holding orbs, so they must have been in a hurry coming into the cell block. A realization which also dawned on the Growlithe, and made his eyes suddenly light up.
"Pleo, quick! Stick a wing out!" Elty barked.
Pleo quickly complied, just in time for the Fire-Type to grab the first orb he could find from his satchel and brush it against Pleo's plumage. With a swift motion, Elty whirled his head as his jaws let go of a whitish orb containing what looked like swirling clouds. The Blowback Orb carried on into the wooden floorboards at the Nuzleaf's feet with a crash. In the twinkling of an eye, the glassy sphere burst into shards. As was the orb's nature, it acted upon the nearest Pokémon that had not made contact with it earlier, whipping up a strong wind which launched the hapless Grass-Type backwards into the doorpost.
"Now!" Elty cried.
The Growlithe spat out a surprisingly strong column of cinders at the Hitmonchan and knocked the creature to the floor before he could react to his partner's plight. Nida dashed up and gave a stiff kick at Nuzleaf's gut. Another followed, leaving the creature to crumple up and groan on the ground. The Fighting-Type staggered back to its feet, before a glowing ball cut it off and threw it against the cell's wall, slumped over.
"Whew, knew the drink and those orbs would come in handy," Elty sighed, eyeing the scattered shards of the Blowback Orb.
"Yeah, great," Nida panted. "Can we get out of here now?!"
"To where?!" Pleo squawked. "The mean Pokémon are all around us!"
"If we sneak out, you can fly us out of here!" Elty barked.
Could… That really work? No. Whether it could or not was out of the question. It would work, it had to work. And after they broke free, they would fly back home… Back to Crom, back to Kiran, back to Mami and Papi, the siblings, and everyone else who Pleo was meant to protect.
"Come on!" Nida cried as she darted out the door, Pleo and Elty following closely behind.
One deck. One deck stood between the three of them and the sky outside, from being able to fly off for home. But, all of her earlier fears and worries came back to her…
Would they be able to get past the guards in the ship? Would they be able to distract the ones outside enough to slip away?
No matter what happened in the end, they had to try! They had gone through so much already…
Even if it looked impossible, how could they not take flight now?
Author's Notes:
- do odważnych świat należy! - Polish: "fortune favors the bold!", lit. "the world belongs to the brave!"
- canallas - Spanish: "rascals", "swine". Can carry offensive connotations depending on context of use.
- amator - Polish: "amateur"
- Ty bałwan! - Polish: "You moron!"
- (¡¿)Qué te pasa?! - Spanish: "What is wrong with you?!"
