Chapter 9

Duel at Dusk

Kerrosian Territory - Kerrosia

The three pokemon stood unmoving. The atmosphere was eerily quiet. It felt like nothing in the Guild's courtyard wanted to penetrate the tense bubble. No breeze shook the leaves, no Guild member walked by; not even the once bustling noises from inside the Guild touched them.

Dillan was left in stunned silence at what he'd just heard. Hazel wanted a duel with Ryan? This was definitely something out of a fantasy novel. And he would have been giddily excited if it came from anyone else. But it didn't; it was Hazel challenging Ryan.

"Guys…"

Ryan looked towards Hazel's bag at his feet and kicked it back across the ground. "The hell made you think I'd care about this?"

But Hazel advanced towards the pachirisu. "Are you afraid I'll actually win?"

A taunting sneer made its way to Ryan's face. "As if. I'm only afraid of ghosts." But Ryan immediately slapped a paw to his forehead. "Oh, my bad. That's your thing."

Hazel met his sneer with a smirk of her own. She jabbed a pointed claw out at Ryan: "Big talk for someone who's… uh… kinda lame! …And…" But her tongue seemed to keep getting in the way of forming anything devastating. Her face twisted as she visibly sought after something to really hit Ryan in the gut, but struggled to find the right words. "And you're short! Yeah! You're so short that even a low blow is… on your level… shorty!"

Hazel forced a smirk in a vain attempt at keeping control, but they both knew it was a pitiful display. All it managed was to make Dillan cringe.

"Isn't name-calling beneath you both?" Dillan insisted, stepping between the two once more. "Really. Let's just talk it out! No duel necessary!"

A sharp scoff made Dillan wince. "We're done talking. I'm out of here."

"Ryan, wait!" Hazel's jaw clenched. She desperately dove towards her bag.

Ryan ignored Hazel's words and turned once more to leave, yet he stopped at a metallic clatter sounding from behind. Hazel had come back up, clutching onto a sack of coins like a life-line. She held it out towards Ryan and eyed him with a gaze of steel.

"I promise I'll make it worth your while! If you win, you can have all my pokes!"

Another scoff sounded from Ryan as he spun around. "Why would I want your pokes?"

"You don't have any!" Hazel insisted. She tossed the satchel of pokes at Ryan's feet. "I have five hundred left. Beat me, and they're yours."

"Five hundred is barely a room."

"We've been eating nothing but dried berries and cactus juice for days now, right?" Hazel crossed her arms with a knowing nod towards the satchel. "Five hundred pokes is enough to buy you dinner, maybe some berry bread; a bit of 'sale nuces', perhaps?"

Dillan couldn't believe what he was hearing. Was Hazel really that desperate to fight the pachirisu? He wouldn't stay, even if she won. And if she asked for it as a condition, Ryan would deny it outright - a meal wasn't worth the risk of staying; not to the pachirisu.

However, Dillan's eyes shot open as a smirk set on Ryan's face. He reached down for the pokes. "If you want a fight, we'll fight!" He stepped around Dillan, looking Hazel in the eyes with a fire that put her tail-flame to shame. "Not here though. The Guild would have our asses for tearing up its courtyard."

Hazel set a fist on her hip as her tail swung behind. "Got any better ideas in that… stupid head of yours?"

Ryan rolled his eyes at the lame insult. "Every Guild has multiple sparring rooms reserved for members to train. Bet you they're empty due to the exam."

"But like you said, they're reserved for members. We're not Guildlings yet. They'll arrest us just for trespassing."

"Guys!" Dillan insisted. "I don't think getting arrested will help any of us!"

Yet the pachirisu scoffed with a dismissive flick of his tail. "They're too busy with the exam," he retorted. "The Guild members won't catch anything." Ryan took an extra step towards Hazel with his tail arched skyward. "We fight or I walk right now. What's it gonna be? "

Dillan was sure of Hazel's next words. The pokemon who wanted to join the Guild more than anything. The fiery lizard who Dillan always considered to be above board. Surely, she wouldn't-

Hazel had no hesitation. She reached down for her bag, hoisting it back over her shoulder with, "I won't lose."

Ay dios mío…

Sparks shot off the pachirisu's cheeks as a confident smirk spread across his face. "You're so going down."

After passing through the still-clamoring main room, the Guild felt eerily silent. The hallways were as dead as a graveyard. Not a Guild member to be seen. Still, Dillan felt his nerve being put to the test.

He recalled back when his old, human friends would break into that run-down fairground on the edge of town. The place had been abandoned for over a decade after that freak decapitation (Little Jimbo never saw it coming…). Dillan's old friends would go in with spray paint, tagging everything in sight. But Dillan would never think of joining. The thought of him in handcuffs was just too horrid to bear. What would his momma say?

"¡Mi hijo es un gamberro más!" She would most definitely shout, clutching her dress with clenched fists.

But here he was, breaking into a Guild battle arena, the image of his morbidly irate mother flashing across his gaze. And why? Just so his friends could fight each other?

The butterflies in his stomach were fluttering so fast they could lift him from the ground. And yet he seemed to be the only one worried.

Ryan, a good few feet ahead, had a new-found pep. Given his grin, the idea of beating on Hazel was very pleasing to the pachirisu. His cheeks sparked across the air as he skipped across the hallways on those stubby legs of his.

All the while, Hazel seemed to be deep in thought. Her flame pulsed at a steady rate while her claw found itself pressed against her chin. She traced Ryan's every step with fervor. She seemed to be analyzing them as if to gain intelligence on how best to handle the pachirisu.

"Hazel," Dillan finally spoke up, just quiet enough to avoid Ryan's hearing. "Can you tell me what we're doing here?"

Hazel didn't stop looking over Ryan's steps, not even to address Dillan. "I'm not going to let Ryan leave our team. Not yet."

Confusion made Dillan shake his head. "I don't see how this changes his mind."

"That part should be obvious. Ryan needs to know that I can handle myself, right? Beating him in a fight will show him just that."

Dillan looked ahead at Ryan with a tilt to his head. "I… don't think that's Ryan's entire problem."

"Well, it's definitely part of it." The charmeleon grit her teeth. "Look, Ryan's not ending our team on my watch. If I stand by, everything we've done up until now would have been pointless.

"I know Ryan likes to fight, right? Of course he does! He's a guy. Guys like proving they're better than everyone else. And when a guy does that, he gets the other guys to respect him-… or something like that. With that in mind, it only makes sense that, by beating Ryan, we'll keep the team together. I just have to come up with a strategy."

Dillan shook his head. As one of the resident guys, he disagreed with all that "macho" crap. He found it all to be so silly in the end! Why would one guy flexing his muscles suddenly command respect? And that didn't seem to be Ryan's opinion, either, else he'd have left Dillan a long time ago.

"Hazel…"

"I'm asking you to trust me on this, Dillan…"

Her shoulders sank at those words, as if an invisible weight fell on her back. Dillan saw her tail drag on the ground behind as her gaze lingered on Ryan's footsteps. Each left an invisible impression only Hazel seemed to see. It seemed impossible for her to look away, like it'd be looking away from a lone flame in the dark.

It made Dillan sad to see Hazel this way. And hearing her sound this desperate shot needles at his heart, prickling away at his insistence on leaving. She needed this fight to work. Why that was, Dillan didn't know.

This seemed to be about more than maintaining a dream to Hazel. After all, she could find other pokemon to form a team. Why was Ryan that important? Why was Dillan? Was it just because she saw them as her friends? Or was this something else entirely?

In the end, did any of that matter? Here Hazel was, asking Dillan to have her back. She needed a friend to believe in her, in spite of the impossibility that stared them in the face. She needed him to put aside what was right and wrong for a second and be there for her. She needed a friend.

"Hazel," Dillan placed a reassuring claw on her shoulder. "If this is what you need, I'm here for you."

It seemed as though Dillan's words radiated warmth through his touch. Her shoulders relaxed and a smile returned to her in an instant. She finally turned from Ryan's invisible prints and looked to Dillan thankfully. She set a warm paw on his claw and nodded.

In the end, they met no resistance whatsoever. Ryan appeared to be correct about everyone being too distracted. They could hear the cheers of battle radiate the orange hallways, assumedly from one of Kaimana's exams, but no one ever stopped them. Within a minute, the trio found themselves within the painted boundaries of an arena much like the one they'd fought Kaimana in.

Rocky pillars arched skyward towards a raised, stone ceiling on every side. The once tiled hallway gave way to dirt underfoot that felt cold to the touch. White paint bordered the arena signaled the out-of-bounds section, while two box-like boundaries sat on opposite ends.

The air seemed to bite across the empty stands as Ryan and Hazel took to the center of the arena. Dillan followed, sure he'd be made into an impromptu referee. Not that the idea was pleasant.

"What are the rules?" Hazel asked. "No holds barred?"

Ryan pulled his stubby arms across his body in a stretch. "Too easy. We play Boundary rules. Stepping outside the ring is an automatic loss. Fight until you drop, and no death blows."

Hazel crossed her arms at that statement. "If you're worried about me roasting you alive, I was going to keep my fire moderated."

"That rule's for your comfort," Ryan said with a spark of his cheeks.

"Dillan will be the referee," Hazel said with a gesture to the gabite.

Dillan sighed, still unsure about this whole thing. "Just… try not to hit me, okay?"

"That'd be a wasted attack," Ryan said with a dismissive wave of the paw. He started off towards the left side of the arena - towards the box painted on the ground. Dillan assumed it served as the official starting point to any battle, recalling Kaimana having taken up the same kind of box earlier that night.

Dillan drew back from the middle of the arena, towards the edge. He could hear Ryan's cheeks crackling with electricity, along with Hazel's tail-flame flaring as she took her own box. The tension bathed the room in an eerie air.

"Ready?" Hazel shouted across the arena.

Ryan didn't answer vocally. Instead, a bolt of electricity shot into the air. Dillan felt himself shook by the sound of thunder, banging throughout the arena. Ryan was ready.

"Start the fight whenever you're ready, Dillan!" Hazel called out.

If he were being honest, Dillan didn't know who would win.

From their experience together, the only time Dillan had seen Hazel fight, it was with the sandslash in Void Canyon. She seemed competent enough, but that was all Dillan knew. And to his knowledge, those were the first fights Hazel had ever experienced.

Ryan, on the other hand, not only managed to take on the sandslash, but Dillan watched him single-handedly fend off a horde of leafy elf monsters. Ryan's body was littered in scars presumably from fights he'd been in. He had definite experience. That said, the dusknoir defeated him pretty easily in Sandy Slopes. Twice. Not to mention Kaimana subdued him just as easily as Hazel. Was Ryan as powerful a fighter as he boasted or did those scars mark his losses?

Dillan didn't know how the fight would end, and he didn't even know if Hazel's plan would end up working. Even so, he found himself praying she was right: that Ryan would see her strength and decide to stay. After all, wasn't Grace's wellbeing riding on whether they could make the team work out?

Dillan raised his fins into the air. They shot out into their usual, white scythes - rippling heat like blazed swords. And with a swipe towards the ground, Ryan and Hazel darted towards each other.

Intense heat hit the field in an instant. Hazel's flame flared as she opened her maw. Where there was once a field caked in dirt now raged a literal wall of fire spewed by the charmeleon. It etched a clear divide between the two, effectively stopping Ryan's advance in an instant. Yet as she finished the wall, Hazel doubled over.

She panted ferociously, reeling from the sheer effort of erecting her wall. Not to mention their fight with Kaimana. However, it didn't stop her from grinning wickedly. She cackled across the flames as an awe-struck expression overtook Ryan's face.

"Good luck getting past that one!" she cheered.

Yet Ryan recovered quickly. He doubled back, literally sprinting up the side of a stone pillar. From his aerial vantage point, he let out a roaring jolt of electricity.

The charmeleon seized at the sudden attack, rolling to the left with a skid. And in an instant, she met his attack, spitting up a red-hot sphere. Ryan leapt out of the way, jumping towards another pillar as the previous detonated from the fireball. And in mid-air, Ryan swished his tail, summoning a volley of sparkling stones.

Hazel didn't move to evade, instead holding her arms above her face and absorbing the attack. The stones detonated against her arms in a crackle of sparks.

The pachirisu landed on-target with a slam of his feet. He bounced a slight bit from the impact but recovered with a vicious grin. "You like that?! You can't dodge 'Swift', can ya?!"

He sent another volley towards the charmeleon. Dillan watched with a wincing expression, seeing Hazel not even bother to move as another attack collided. Her teeth clenched ferociously, and Dillan was sure her stamina couldn't last. Yet just as this thought left his brain, he saw smoke shooting out from the charmeleon's nostrils. The black cloud sat on the ground, and within a moment, she surrounded herself in an obscuring ball of black.

Ryan wasn't fazed by the attack in the slightest. "Swift doesn't miss, Hazel!" he hollered. "Smoke screen's useless-" yet he stopped upon a sharp glow within the smoke. In a split second, a streaking ball of fire flew like a cannonball from the smoke. It streaked through the air with an ear piercing squeal.

Ryan winced from the sudden attack, the smoke only giving him a split second to jump from his pillar. It detonated below Ryan's feet as he narrowly avoided the blast.

A shrieking barrage hailed from the dispersing smoke: a move Hazel hurled with visible strain. And Ryan was forced to jump from pillar to pillar just to avoid the blasts. Dillan couldn't imagine the exertion such an attack could be putting on Hazel, nor the physical abuse crashing against stone was doing to Ryan. Both their bodies tensed with every movement - every attack and every evasion.

Ryan's mouth went immediately agape as he leapt from another pillar. Dillan could see the pachirisu's feet slip from underneath him: a misstep. Ryan soared through the air with wide eyes and gritted teeth as he collided face-first into rock.

"Ryan!?" Dillan hollered in worry.

He watched in horror as the pachirisu took a nosedive from the pillar. Yet Ryan maneuvered his tail and arms, catching the wind like a skydiver and rolling himself on instinct. He landed feet-first with all the grace of an olympic gymnast, and stumbled underneath his weight.

Hazel took her chance within an instant. She descended on Ryan through her fiery wall. Her form descended in an instant, pinning the pachirisu in the dirt. Hazel opened her maw to let a jet of flame hail down on him like hellfire. Yet she found herself seize as Ryan surged blue lightning across her body.

With his foe sparking and tense, he managed to wriggle out from underneath her in a panting fit. Ryan then dove straight for her face, slamming his head full-force.

Both pokemon fell to the floor in an awkward display of exhaustion. Ryan continued to spark on the ground uncontrollably. All the while Hazel's flame flickered dimly.

Dillan was left awe-struck. From the wall of flame to Ryan's agile movement across the pillars, the two pokemon clearly had more than enough fight within them. He expected them both to be out in a matter of seconds. However, he found himself blinking in disbelief as Hazel pressed the ground with a shaky paw.

"You don't quit… do you…?" Ryan panted.

"I'm not done…" Hazel panted with a wicked grin. "You're… not winning…"

Hazel managed to hoist herself to her feet. Yet her legs were shaky. Her fists balled weakly into fists. And Ryan just rolled over onto all-fours.

The pachirisu sneered towards Hazel. "You know… I only agreed to this… to kick your ass…"

Hazel grinned towards the pachirisu. "The… money was a… nice addition…"

Ryan raised his tail upwards. It shook like a leaf on a windy day, but it didn't give. The sparking in Ryan's cheeks grew more erratic - more reckless. It began arching through his fur, standing every frizzled hair on-end. Dillan felt the scales on his back tingle.

"I'm not… losing…" Ryan hissed.

"Neither am I," Hazel started with an intense scowl. "I'm not letting… you leave our team…"

The look on Ryan's face grew with intensity as his brow furrowed. The sparking across Ryan's back grew more vicious as well. "You honestly think winning… changes things?" he growled. "I can't trust you to have my back."

Hazel's legs shook beneath her own weight. "I can… hold my own! Doesn't this show you that…?"

"It's more than that, Hazel!" Ryan snapped. "I don't care that you're afraid of ghosts! I care that you never told us! Not even when it was too late! You ran away! We were your team, and you didn't tell us!"

"I didn't tell you because I was afraid!" Hazel snapped. Her fists clenched as her knuckles grew white. "I was afraid, okay?!"

But Dillan found himself shaking his head as well. He didn't want the team to end, but… "Ryan's… right, Hazel. You should have told us, and you could have before Sandy Slopes."

"Exactly!" Ryan hissed into the ground. "You could have told us before those ghosts were all over us! But you didn't!"

"No!" Hazel's jaw set into her lower lip as she stared hard at the ground below. Her claws found themselves wrapping around her tail, and she wrung it in her claws. "I wasn't… I didn't tell you because… because I was afraid… of you both…"

Ryan opened his mouth as if to counter what Hazel said, yet he paused. Both him and Dillan looked towards Hazel, taken aback by her words.

"You… what?" Dillan found himself asking more forcefully than he would otherwise had wanted, but Hazel continued nonetheless.

"Yeah, I kept my fear of ghosts a secret… I kept it because I've tried starting five rescue teams already." She held up both hands, showing five claws in total. And she laughed. "Five times. How pathetic am I that I couldn't make it work…?

"And every time I told them I had a fear of ghosts, they called me… broken. They said I couldn't make a rescue team with a fear like that. To my face, they told me I couldn't have my dream because of fear." Hazel's shaky legs finally buckled as tears came to her eyes. "Do you know how it feels to be told you aren't good enough? And to have it happen over and over again… It makes you think… what if they were right?"

The sparks slowed across Ryan's ruffled fur as his expression softened. He looked at Hazel with a furrowed brow. And Dillan found his shoulders relax at Hazel's words.

"Hazel…"

"Becoming a rescue team is my dream, Ryan… So yeah, I kept a secret. I was afraid that if I told you the truth, you'd both have done the same thing… You especially, Ryan. Because you didn't want to be on a team to begin with. It reminds you too much of your old one, right?"

Ryan found himself speechless in response. His gaze fell at that statement, scanning the ground with familiarity in his eyes. He seemed to resonate with those words as they hung in the air. It was the truth, Dillan thought.

This was the heart of it all: why Hazel never said anything, why Ryan never wanted the team to begin with, and why they were at each other's throats the past few days.

Tears ran down Hazel's face as she looked towards Ryan in shame. "I'm sorry I made it impossible to rely on me." Her voice broke, cracking like glass. And she looked towards Dillan with the same, broken eyes. "I'm sorry, Dillan. I didn't mean to get us almost killed… I really am… I just… I'm broken…"

"Hey," Ryan said with a small paw on her leg. His eyes traced the tears on Hazel's face as he bit his lower lip. "I'm… uh… sorry, too."

The air in the room fell silent. Both Hazel and Dillan just blinked in shock.

"You're sorry?" Hazel repeated.

"I might… not have been as open to joining. And you were right before… Adelina, my old teammate… She was gold. And I thought… Well, joining a team would be a slap in the face of what we had."

Hazel sniffled and wiped a few tears away. "Why did you even come along in the first place…? You're strong enough to make it on your own."

"It's because of the nuzleaf, right?" Dillan spoke up, sure of that fact. He stepped towards Ryan and Hazel. "They're the same reason you wanted to help Team Terror."

Ryan chuckled softly to himself. "Yeah… I might have thought… the Guild could help fight those guys if they ever came back for me…"

"You joined to feel safe…?" Hazel asked.

Ryan scoffed at the question, but he never denied it. "You don't know what they're like." He looked towards Dillan, too: "Neither do you. I know they messed up your leg, but you were only with them for a night.

"The pokemon they-..." Ryan stopped himself, pressing a paw against his face - against his scars. "They're vicious, and they don't care who they hurt."

"I'm sorry, Ryan," Dillan started, walking next to the two pokemon and sitting down next to them. "I know I'm not the best fighter, and I don't know what I'd do if those nuzleaf come back… But I promise I'll get better. And I won't let them hurt you again."

"Hey," Ryan said with a push to Dillan's arm. "When I called you weak… I didn't mean it, okay? I know you're trying to get stronger, so forget I said anything."

The apology made Dillan smile broadly. He nodded a couple times with, "Thanks, Ry."

"And Hazel," Ryan said, redirecting attention to the charmeleon. "Who are those idiots to tell you what you can and can't do? You wanna form a rescue team? Fuck those guys for saying anything else."

Dillan nodded in agreement. "So what if you have a fear? That makes you like anyone else. I mean, I'm scared of dolls."

"What?" Hazel asked with a smirk.

But Dillan just nodded, leaning backwards on his fins. "My sister used to have a whole wardrobe of them. She'd take a few of them out and hide them in the darkest corners of the house so I'd find them."

Hazel found herself laughing through her tears at that. But Dillan didn't mind. In fact, if laughing at his fear made her smile, he'd shout it to the world: "I'm afraid of dolls!"

"The ocean," Ryan said with a raised paw and a smirk. "That much water freaks me out."

Hazel set a claw to her chin with a smile. "I guess you'd have a hard time swimming with how stubby your legs are, so that makes sense."

Ryan pursed his lips and shot Hazel a warning glance. "Keep it up, and I'll give you a new fear."

The three pokemon looked across each other and… everything felt normal again- no. Not normal. Dillan could tell something else had taken form at that moment. For the first time, the three pokemon felt truly comfortable with each other. They weren't just a group of three anymore. They were finally a team.

Yet Dillan found a nagging feeling sat in the back of his brain, like something had gone unsaid that needed saying. And Dillan knew what that something was. He found his eyes turning towards the sky, knowing the moon would be out about now.

'No,' Dillan thought. 'Telling them would complicate things. It'd be cruel to do that. Just… enjoy the moment for what it is.'

Ryan broke the silence as he stood from the group. "Look," he said, taking to the front of the two like a stage. "I might have jumped the gun when I said I don't wanna be a team with you both. You're pretty cool at the end of the day… even if you're a pain in the ass at times."

"I'll take that as a compliment," Hazel laughed between sniffles.

Dillan looked hopefully down at Ryan. "Does that mean you wanna be a team?" A grin spread across the gabite's maw, waiting in anticipation of an answer.

Ryan sat with the question for a few seconds but eventually shrugged. "I guess it does."

The pachirisu found himself in immediate shock as Hazel quickly wrapped her arms around him. "Thank you!"

The pachirisu's cheeks grew a rosy red as his eyes started darting around the room for an escape. It made Dillan laugh to see Hazel's hug bring the pachirisu into the same circumstance as himself back in Ferricia.

"I don't… hug…" Ryan started, moving his arms towards Hazel's midsection to push her away. However, he found himself growing silent. His arms found themselves around Hazel awkwardly, patting her like some sort of puppy or small child. "Just this once, Hazel."

"Thanks for believing in me, Ryan," Hazel said. "You, too, Dillan."

All and all, Dillan was surprised things went so well. Who knew trespassing on Guild property could lead to such a constructive atmosphere?

"Really though," Ryan said, finally pushing against Hazel's grip. "Enough hugging. We should talk strategy."

"Strategy…?" Hazel said slowly. Her arms eventually unwrapped around Ryan and she shot up. "Oh, right! We still need to beat Kaimana!"

"Right…" Dillan continued slowly, recalling the beat down from earlier. He rubbed at a bruise that began to form along his arm. "She's gonna be a roadblock, huh?"

"Maybe…" Ryan said, setting a paw to his chin. "But now we know how she fights."

Hazel's tail swayed back and forth behind her. "Ooh! We can come up with an attack plan!"

"We'll make a strategy," Dillan smiled.

Ryan snapped his fingers together. "Exactly! Last time, we didn't work together. But this time-"

"-we'll use a strategy to guarantee cooperation!" Hazel balled her fists in front from excitement. "She won't know what hit her!"

Dillan raised his fin in the air: "I've got a question. Hazel, you said Flame Thrower would work well against Kaimana, right?"

"Yeah," Hazel said. Her lips grew tight like a lizard's smile as she pointed a claw towards Dillan. "I like what you're thinking!"

"I don't." Ryan crossed his arms. "Dillan, the exam ends in a couple weeks, and you're not a charmeleon. Learning Flame Thrower's gonna time we don't have."

"Ah…" Dillan pursed his lips, scratching at the ground with a claw. "I guess it would…"

Ryan watched as the gabite scraped the ground absentmindedly; a smirk came to his face as he walked across the field. "That doesn't mean we can't teach you something else."

"Oh!" Hazel grinned towards Ryan. "You want him to learn a ground-type attack!"

"Yup," Ryan gave a point towards Hazel. "I think the move could give us an advantage against Kaimana, too."

A smile set on Dillan's face as he watched his two teammates beginning to talk over strategies. Each member seemed excited for the battle to come. Each one wanted to give it their all. But more importantly, they talked with a single goal in mind like a real team.

'By this time next week, we'll be Guild members,' Dillan thought, making to stand. He approached his teammates and set a claw on their shoulders: "Let's beat Kaimana."

Kerrosian Territory - Kerrosia

The bar was a quaint, little hotspot most pokemon within Kerrosia were blissfully unaware of. A small tavern at the bottom of the city where the dirt laid undisturbed by the Guild members above.

It was a quiet place that never heard the above commotion (it helped Kaimana allowed it to be this way). Here, the scum of Ganderosa could congregate without fear. Here, bar fights were just a Tuesday, and blood was just another scent amongst a putrid air. Amidst the brawls and smashed tables, across the hall from shattered debris, laid three pokemon sitting idly in one of the tavern's rooms.

They'd been renting the space out for nearly a month now. Mo, a bulky krookodile who wore a tattered traveler's cloak over one shoulder, called the place, "a hive of scum and villainy." So, it was the perfect place to lay low for very little.

Not that Valery, a small, spunky mienfoo (who was otherwise unnoteworthy), agreed.

She would lie atop the splintered floor, lazily sighing into the air about how bored she was. She was an attention whore through and through. Always restless, always needing one thing or another. Always bothering the others. Which made sense given she was merely a child. Not that it made her any more pleasant to be around.

No, in fact, the hakamo-o would rather toss her from a cliff and be done with the brat. After all, what has she done for the group other than be a nuisance?

Yet Mo would always give her that annoying look: the one with the raised eyebrow that said, "Be patient, Fitz. You know we can't do that."

A problem child through and through… Fitz sighed aloud, slumping over the back of a chair whose seat had been worn over the years.

"Fiiiitz!" Valery whined.

Fitz grabbed at her face as she felt the mienfoo's grip tighten around her tail. "Leave me be, child," she insisted. "I've no time for your frivolous games. I'm working."

Valery strained against Fitz's tail. "You've been staring at the window for hours! Just come play with me!"

"I am working," Fitz insisted, yanking her tail from the girl's grasp. "Go bother Leon."

"Leon's asleep, and I'm bored!" Valery gestured towards the corner where a circle of hay sat. Leon laid there motionless. His cloak sat over his large body like a scruffy blanket as he attempted to get as much sleep as possible. That or he faked it so Valery wouldn't bother him. 'The nerve…'

Valery poked at Fitz's back. "Come on!"

"That is hardly my problem. Cease your petulance."

Fitz pursed her lips together, trying her best to ignore the annoying child and focus on her task at hand. She looked out the window towards the road below, a road that ran parallel to the river into the shadowy bottom of the pit. She scanned each pokemon that passed, looking them over with a careful eye.

A steelix snaked its way by, standing at least two stories high. Fitz dismissed it relatively fast, her eyes settling on a small poochyena that passed.

Poke.

Fitz ignored Valery's silly game, instead watching the poochyena carefully. The pokemon seemed like a good candidate. Small. Wimpy. And its satchel swung at its side with a weight to it. It either had something very heavy or lots of trinkets it could live without.

Fitz perked up, watching intently. It seemed to be alone, walking on the edge of the street where-

Poke.

Fitz's concentration was broken by another fuzzy finger making its way into her back. She blinked a couple times, going back to the poochyenna who was on the edge of the street. Its paws were stained in orange, and it seemed to just be waiting for something. An easy mark given Fitz's typing. Perhaps she'd found a mark worthy of their time.

Poke poke.

Then, Fitz spotted the set of three mightyenna, all wearing the same black sash around their ankle. Her lip upturned in disappointment as the three approached the poochyena. And the poochyena's eyes lit up.

She slumped back over the back of the chair with a hiss of her tongue. "Hardly worth the effort, after all…"

Poke poke poke.

Fitz felt her will to live giving out quickly. She looked over the edge of the window and wondered what it'd be like throwing herself over the edge. She was three stories up. It'd be quick. Would death really be that bad compared to-

"Fiiiiitz!" Valery whined. "Play with me!"

"Fine!" the hakamo-o hissed through her teeth. She reached down, lifting the girl upwards onto her lap. "Count the pokemon who go by! See if you can reach one-hundred!"

"I'm not five," the mienfoo pouted. "I'm almost thirteen, you freaking weirdo!"

Fitz scoffed aloud. "Yet you behave like a toddler."

"Not my fault I'm bored." Valery crossed her arms in defiance. "The trials and tribulations of a girl with no one her age."

"How horrid," Fitz said deadpan. "Maybe we should test your ability to fly? That should be entertainment to us both. Any objections, Leon?"

Yet the big beast just sat there motionless.

"You wouldn't dare," the mienfoo said with a stick of her nose upwards. "I'm not worth murdering."

A sigh escaped Fitz's lips as she knew the girl was right. However, this fact was slowly becoming a thing of fiction.

"Can you at least make yourself useful and help me find a mark?"

"Why didn't you say so?" the girl asked with a smirk. Fitz could only look skyward and pray to Arceus himself to save her from this child.

"How about them?" Valery said with a quick point to the street. "They look easy enough!"

But Fitz just shook her head. "Look again." She jabbed a claw towards the group of pokemon: a scruffy pachirisu, a skinny-looking gabite, and a charmeleon with a bag at its side. "The bag looks valuable, but there's a gabite with them. They're too hearty a pokemon to fight. You'd be carved up within a mere moment."

But Valery just scowled down at the three. "He doesn't look so tough to me… Look at his scrawny arms! And that clumsy way he walks! I bet he gets the mousey thing to dress him in the morning…"

Fitz looked towards the gabite with a critical eye. While Valery was right - he did seem skinnier compared to any gabite she'd seen, and he did walk like he was born yesterday what with the way he swayed (would do better holding his arms out instead of stumbling like a child) - he was still a gabite. The pokemon were renowned for their raw strength. What makes him a better target than anyone else?

The mienfoo jabbed at her a couple more times. "Look! The fire thing's got a glowing bag!"

Fitz's eyes wandered towards the charmeleon's bag. And, just as Valery said, a small, blue glow emanated from behind the stitching. Fitz blinked a couple times, just staring at the satchel with curiosity. It was an intriguing glow, that's for sure. Just what could it be?

"Maybe an escape orb?" she suggested.

"No," a gruff voice sounded from behind.

Fitz looked back to see Leon had snuck up behind her. 'Not asleep after all…' He had made his way as silently as a light breeze behind the two. His eyes sat on the bag with an intensity as his claws sat curled around the chair.

"Leon…?" the hakamo-o started. She made to get up, holding Valery in her arms as she did so. However, the krookodile shook his head. He looked with an intense stare towards Fitz. "You don't think…"

"Them," Leon said, finality set firmly in his voice.

"We're gonna go after them?" Valery said with excitement. She jumped from Fitz's arms with a cheer, pumping her fists into the air. "Time for some crimes!"

"Not yet," Fitz said, turning back to face the three. She watched them intently, never taking her eyes off them: not until they passed around the corner and out of sight. "The gabite gives me pause. First, we watch to determine how competent they are."

She turned towards Leon for confirmation, and the krookodile nodded his head.

"Only after we know our enemies do we strike. Not before."

Valery flopped onto the back of the chair in disappointment. Yet before Fitz could press her for whether she understood, she slowly nodded.

"Good," Fitz stated with a scowl out the window. "By the time they see us, it will have been too late."

(A/N)

Hey all!

Been a bit, I know. Writing this fight between Ryan and Hazel was very difficult to do. Long story short, I wrote out at least three different ways for Ryan and Hazel to get over their differences. Eventually, I went with what you're reading now. It was a long process but I eventually made it through.

Suffice to say, I just wanted to say thanks for hanging in there with me!

The story continues! Next chapter might be the last chapter I release for a while until I get the next part of the story written, but I'm really liking what I've written so far.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Like, comment, and subscribe!