The title of this chapter comes from the title of a Persona 5 Royal song - "King, Queen, and Slave." Yep, I did it. Though I couldn't bother to finish that game, because it's just too damn long!

On a different note, I'd like to thank everyone who is currently reading. You all are the real MVPs - without you, I would just be a terminally online man slouching in bed with his fingers dancing feverishly around the keyboard. That's the truth, as much as some don't like to admit it.

Current music: Princess Of China - Coldplay

SKIPPER'S POV

Ammy and I were extremely busy for the next few hours.

Every so often, we'd trade places. I would stand a little away from "camp" making sure no predators were able to attack us. Meanwhile, the mayor watched over our "Sleeping Beauties."

Night night, motherfucker.

Those words would haunt me for a while. It was one thing to attack innocent civilians trekking through the rainforest, but it was quite another to do it so mockingly. That really shouldn't have made a difference, but it did nonetheless.

After several hours had gone by (several meaning seven - I knew it was past dinnertime, not that I felt like eating), I walked back to the mayor's side. She glanced at Barrett and Lucy, who remained in the same motionless position on the ground.

"Well," Ammy suggested, "we might as well make them comfortable."

"They are alive, right?" I asked. "It doesn't really look like they're breathing."

The mayor nodded. "They're breathing, just pretty faintly. That's the thing about the poison in those darts. It's not going to kill them, at least not on its own - it's just keeping them asleep."

"Until some other predator comes along and finishes them off while they're helpless" I muttered. "Right."

Given that it'd been roughly seven hours since they'd been hit with the sleep darts, I held out some hope that they'd wake naturally at the end of the sleep-wake cycle. If so, that was bound to happen within an hour or two.

"Skipper," Ammy muttered, "help me get them into their sleeping bags."

I frowned. "But they're going to wake any minute now."

The mayor gave me a look that projected this message: Oh, you sweet, sweet summer child. You must lose some of your innocence now.

"I've tried a few remedies," the mayor responded. "Not that healing is my specialty, but what little I've attempted hasn't seemed to work."

My heart deflated a bit upon hearing that, but I wanted to remain cautiously optimistic. The spell would wear off naturally…right?

"How long will they sleep, then?" I wondered aloud, trying (and failing) not to let my voice waver.

"Well, that depends how powerful the darts were. But they're just Charmander - it probably doesn't take much to put them out for a whole day."

Given Ammy's conjecture as to how long they were likely going to remain in this state, we moved the dragons into their sleeping bags. This was a harder task than it looked, simply because Lucy and Barrett were heavy, and it's hard to get someone into a sleeping bag unwillingly. Both of the sleeping dragons remained stiff as boards during this process.

"There we are," the mayor sighed once we'd finally gotten pillows beneath their heads. "Now they look like they're sleeping the sleep of the fairies."

I snorted. "More like the sleep of the devils."

Despite my vain attempt at humor, the mayor was clearly unimpressed, and it was with heavy hearts that we ate some of the energy bars we'd purchased. Ammy pointed out that we should probably ration what we had in case our journey took longer than expected. (I didn't ask why she thought that; it was obvious. I just wasn't eager to acknowledge the real reason.)

"Well," I said once we were finished, "what should we do now?"

"Take turns sitting sentry, just like we've been doing all afternoon" the mayor responded. "It won't be a restful night."

"Indeed." In the absence of the window-blackening curtains that aided sleep in Wildebush, that very commodity would be difficult to come by for Ammy and I.

The mayor took the first watch, so I got out my sleeping bag and laid on the ground beside Lucy and Barrett. If a bunch of bush'mon came by, I would defend those who couldn't defend themselves, because that's what friends are for.

Due to my moral obligation to protect my friends, I did not sleep a wink over the next period of time, and before I knew it, Ammy came over and informed me she'd finished her shift. Neither did anything of note occur during my own shift - after a while, Ammy came back and relieved me.

"Did Barrett and Lucy wake up?"

The mayor sighed, so I knew the answer before she even uttered it. "Nope. They're still asleep. And I'll be honest - I'm getting a bit worried about them."

"You seemed plenty worried before" I pointed out.

"More so," Ammy clarified. "They haven't shown any signs of stirring. It's been almost twelve hours. But there's a storm cloud coming - if that doesn't wake them up, I don't know what will."

Sure enough, as Ammy gestured skyward, I noticed the giant storm cloud that was moving slowly toward us. It would probably be overhead in less than twenty minutes. And that tugged at my heartstrings - I couldn't imagine sleeping outdoors completely exposed to the elements like that.

"I'm going to watch over them," I said. "I'm not going to try to sleep."

The mayor gave me a sad, simple smile. "That's very noble of you, Skipper."

Maybe it was, but it didn't feel especially noble to me. It was just what you did in this situation, whether you were brave or not.

Sure enough, the cloud hovered directly overhead soon thereafter, and it chucked down so much rain, so fast, that it could probably have covered Wildebush in an inch of water and still had some left over. The ground absorbed the water quickly, but that could not have been comfortable for our sleeping companions.

Indeed, Lucy grimaced as her body was soon soaked. Her mouth opened for a brief moment, and I seized the opportunity by the reins.

"Lucy!" I exclaimed. "It's me, Skipper! Wake up!"

Lucy stirred a bit more, and I could see her eyelids flutter ever-so-slightly. My own peepers opened wider as I smiled.

"Way up in the sky, the big dragons fly/With a wing on the left, and a wing on the right/Both of them flapping with all their might!" I sang. Meanwhile, Lucy wrinkled her nose as though she smelled something disagreeable.

"Yes, you're doing it!" I cheered. "Open your eyes, Lucy!"

But maybe I just saw what I wanted to see. Because within seconds, the discomfort faded from Lucy's bright blue face, as did any sign of consciousness, and she drifted off yet again.

Ammy, who'd paced toward me in the clearing at the sound of the commotion, was less than pleased when I had to tell her it'd been a false alarm. Meanwhile, the cloud moved along, soaring on the muggy jungle winds to its next destination.

"It's unfortunate," the mayor lamented. "They can't do anything about getting rained on. They're getting a shower ten times over, but it's not by choice."

"I know," I sighed. "If morning comes and they're still asleep, what do we do?"

Ammy snorted dryly. "It's already morning. The extremely early hours of it, not that daylight is finite here."

"Right. But you know what I mean. If we're eating breakfast and Barrett and Lucy still can't, are we going to try to find the antidote?"

"I suppose we will need to" the mayor responded matter-of-factly, as though that thought had been percolating in her mind for some time. "But there is a problem."

"Yes?" I asked.

"Simply put, there's only one group that might have the antidote, or know how to make it. You know who that is, right?"

I wasn't naïve. "Of course. CountDown and the Ring-A-Dings." I still can't believe they're bounty hunters, for Arceus' sake!

"They're not going to give us their secrets willingly," Ammy continued. "And if you killed them - which you probably couldn't - well, the dead tell no tales. Which means you'd have to coax it out of them without force."

"I'm sure I could do that" I insisted, refusing to believe otherwise.

"Uh-huh" Ammy replied, rolling her eyes as though she didn't believe me in the slightest. "I'm sure you could."

"Really" I told her. "I believe I can do it."

"Are you sure? The bounty hunters might have an extra sleep dart waiting for you. If so, then I'll have to wake the three of you myself, and that sounds overwhelming."

"But you're the mayor," I told her. "There's nothing you can't do."

Amaterasu sighed, glancing at our two sleeping companions. Their chests rose and fell as though it was just another sleep, and if I looked closely enough, I could almost have convinced myself they were having pleasant dreams. At least, I hoped their dreams were sweet.

When the mayor finally responded, she sounded about ten times older than her actual age (which, for the record, I was not privy to.)

"Before the ambush yesterday, I might have agreed with you," she said. "But there's at least one thing I can't do now."

The hours ticked by at a snail's pace. The tension in the air made it clear that time would crawl until we found a solution to our bind.

We ate breakfast eventually - again, it was just the two of us. I brought up the idea of force-feeding the sleepers something from our bags - even if it somehow didn't rouse them, their bodies would at least remain nourished. But Ammy vetoed that idea out of hand.

After breakfast, we returned to our routine of switching places every two hours. It did not matter that we didn't have watches - we somehow knew when it was time for Ammy and I to trade roles. Every guarding shift felt interminable, and I didn't sleep even when it was my turn to.

At some point in the late morning, the mayor came over to tell me it was time for me to guard. I yawned, not having slept a wink that whole two hours.

"You look tired," Ammy remarked.

I smiled dryly at her. "You think?"

"Okay, I don't think that. I know that. In any case, why aren't you trying to sleep during your time off? That's the whole point of taking turns."

"I just can't bring myself to sleep right now. Not when Lucy and Barrett are sitting Golduck."

"Do you have any idea why that is?" Ammy inquired.

I shrugged. "I don't know."

In reality, I harbored what I believed was a pretty solid guess. On some level, I wanted to protect the sleepers, even if I couldn't wake them. Or perhaps, especially if I couldn't wake them.

"Look at that" the mayor noticed. "They almost look like they're reaching out for one another."

I frowned. "They're unconscious. How is that possible?"

And yet, as I stared more closely at the pair of sleeping dragons, I noticed that both Barrett and Lucy had a paw outstretched toward the other. (They were lying on their sleeping bags, not in them, due to the tropical weather.)

"Awww" I mouthed. "How cute."

"That's one way to spin it, I suppose," the mayor replied. "But it's almost time for lunch, and…".

Ammy didn't need to finish the sentence, because I knew roughly what she meant to say. It was totally obvious.

"How ironic it is," I reflected so softly I doubted Ammy could hear, "that I can't get enough sleep, and they're getting too much of it."

We sat down for lunch. As we ate our somewhat pitiful meal of granola bars, the mayor sighed.

"What's wrong, Mayor?" I asked her. "I mean, beyond what I already know about?"

"Skipper, I think we'll need to start rationing our food further. At this point, when these two wake up, they're going to be ravenous. And I don't want to have nothing to provide for them."

Within a short period of time, I sensed what she was saying, and a trace amount of adrenaline entered my body.

"So you think I should go look for the antidote?" I asked.

"I was hesitant to ask you before," the mayor responded softly, "but at this point, you're their only hope. You're our only hope - Wildebush needs the military aid from Emperor's Garden, and we can hardly send for another expedition team."

"Are you kidding? I can do this!"

That wasn't sarcasm at all, not remotely. Some - indeed, most individuals - would find such a prospect daunting. But compared to sitting by the two sleepers, watching over them and doing nothing else, the former wasn't daunting at all.

"You will need to be careful" the mayor reminded me, as though such a reminder were even needed. "You know how many violent bush'mon there are in the jungle, and you don't have any Tendakraut with you."

"If I don't eat their food, I'll be fine" I insisted. If I talked about it enough times as if it was fact, I would make it come true.

"Yes, that should go without saying" the mayor responded. "I'll stay here - I'll chaperone this slumber party."

Now, Ammy rarely joked about anything. That went with the territory when you led a community of any size, of course - it was no doubt important to keep things professional. And indeed, this joke carried very little humor. I couldn't even bring myself to laugh.

"Thank you," I told the mayor. "And if a miracle happens and they rise before I get back -".

"I doubt that."

" - but if, Mayor, if it happens, please tell them where I am. That I was trying to save them. And somehow I'd find my way back to you if necessary."

The mayor frowned. "How will you know they've woken up? Remember, you could be a mile or more away."

I paused. Admittedly, I hadn't given that much thought. But an answer showed up in my mind, almost as though someone had opened my skull and placed it in my brain.

"I just will."

Please let that be true. Please.

"Very well," the mayor said skeptically. "I will hopefully see you soon."

With that, I bade her farewell and made my way into the thick, humid greenery that was the inner world's expansive rainforest.

At first, I wanted to slap myself in the face. I wasn't scared, exactly, but I knew when I'd bitten off more than I could chew, and this was one of those times. What lead did I have?

I trekked further into the forest. Night may have been a foreign concept in the Garden of the Second Sun, but the thickest clumps of vegetation were the closest we got to that. Deep, dark shadows dotted the ground, and I had to exercise caution not to trip over any roots.

Wait a minute, I thought. I could fly and spot their den from above.

That sounded like a no-brainer at first, and that phrase is appropriate. For I didn't use my brain at all when that idea first occurred to me.

If I tried to take flight, I would no doubt get my wings caught in the branches. As such, I'd be doomed to temporary flightlessness just like Barrett, an outcome I could not risk.

And even if I were able to rise above the thick canopy, emphasis should be placed on thick. I wouldn't be able to see the ground, which would make it impossible to know if I were going the right way. My target would be a needle in the jungle.

An hour passed. Then another. Now that I was actually doing something about our plight, the clock no longer stood still. But it was also two more hours that my friends risked starving in their sleep, two more hours we were delayed in reaching the final destination. So it was hard not to panic as I wandered aimlessly through the rainforest.

After several hours (several likely meaning anywhere from four to seven), I was soaked in sweat and had nothing to show for it. If anything, I'd probably walked around the same circle repeatedly.

But I wouldn't give up. I couldn't. My friends were counting on me.

Nonetheless, my legs ached after a while, and I was just about to sit down when I realized how catastrophic a mistake that might be.

If you rest now, I chastised myself, you might never be able to continue. And you don't want to risk that.

So I bit the proverbial bullet and put my head down. Right away, I saw something different - something that had likely been there all along, but I hadn't noticed before thanks to my tunnel vision.

Watchog tended to leave trails of acorns behind them - they were known for it. And would you look at that, there just so happened to be an acorn on the ground!

Therefore, it wasn't that much of a stretch to imagine that the acorns would form a trail that, if followed, would lead to the bounty hunters' compound, lair, or whatever else you wanted to call it. It was a risk, of course - maybe CountDown and the Ring-A-Dings had elected to separate - but it was the best fortune I'd had in several hours.

Just out of the corner of my eye, I could see another acorn some thirty yards away. It blended in well with the ground, but it was visible nonetheless. This gave me some hope, therefore, that my hypothesis was correct.

During my hike, I tried to stay aware of my surroundings. The next acorn, and the next, and the next…they weren't the only things I needed to pay attention to. At any moment, I realized, I might walk into the territory of some angry Venusaur bush'mon, and their darts were far deadlier than the ones we'd faced yesterday.

Before long, I found myself in a different part of the rainforest, a region I'd never set foot in. My mother had always insisted it was too dangerous to go deep into the woods, just because there was no telling what lay within. I'd complained about those "house rules" to my heart's content, but only now was I starting to see that Mom was right.

The canopy above was so thick that it might as well have been nighttime. Additionally, the ground was covered in wet leaves that created a surface like an ice rink. But I dared not skate on it, because that would lead to a world of hurt when I inevitably crashed into something.

After pushing my way through a dark set of bushes, I came across a clearing containing a deceptively beautiful sight.

A Venusaur stood still in the middle of the clearing, scraping its legs against the ground as though it were stretching. It was surrounded by a couple dozen Butterfree fluttering all around it. Their wings were in a veritable rainbow of colors, and I wanted to smile at such a sight. It certainly distracted me from the task at hand, and I had to look down to ensure that an acorn was still within sight. (Yes, for the record. It was).

Anyway, the Venusaur began swatting at the Butterfree as they descended upon the Poison-type's body. How cruel, I thought. They only want to be playful.

One of the Butterfree separated from the Venusaur's body and let out a sound akin to an airhorn. What happened next had to be seen to be believed, yet afterward I wished I'd never borne witness to it.

Hundreds upon hundreds of Butterfree came descending from the trees, their vibrant wings flapping feverishly as they circled around the Venusaur. The lumbering Venusaur tried to stagger away from the clearing, but Butterfree flew at him from the opposite direction, landing on his face.

And then I realized: These butterflies aren't playing. They want a feast, and they're about to get it!

The Venusaur furiously swatted the Butterfree away from its face, but for each creature dislodged, three or four more would take its place. The Butterfree were multiplying, and they soon covered every square inch of the Poison-type's body. If not for the larger creature's shape, I wouldn't have known there was even a Venusaur there!

I could only watch in horror, moving neither forward nor backward, as the Butterfree slooooowwwwwly devoured the Venusaur's skin before blood was drawn. Even those with the standard white wings were now stained pink from the feast they'd been having.

They might have been eating cherry pie, or a very saucy slice of pizza, I tried telling myself, but who was I kidding?

As the Venusaur's movements grew more sluggish, as weighed down as it was by the Butterfree and as weakened as it was from blood loss, you might have expected the predators to slow down and lay off the beast. After all, Venusaur was a dead 'mon walking, and soon it'd simply be a dead 'mon. What was the point?

Well, you'd be wrong. The butterflies were only further emboldened by their target's collapse to the ground, and they multiplied further, this exponential growth continuing until the thousands of Butterfree had all eaten their fill. Finally, they flew away, returning to the canopy from which they'd come.

The carcass on the ground bore only the faintest resemblance to a living Venusaur. It looked rather like a Venusaur costume a cosplayer might have donned for a special occasion, but if that costume was covered in blood and contained internal organs.

Now, I was generally of the mindset that the only thing to be feared was fear itself. But looking at that mess on the forest floor, I was ready to hurl. The only thing keeping me from losing my lunch was the fact that the act of vomiting made noise, and keeping quiet and still kept the carnivorous Butterfree off me.

After witnessing such a grisly sight, however, I was even more determined to reach my goal. I had to be immune to fear, no matter how powerful the forces urging otherwise might have been.

I followed the acorns for another mile through even thicker vegetation. I knew that at any point, I might come across a Beedrill nest or pack of flesh-eating Butterfree, but I couldn't worry about that until it actually came up.

Fortunately, it didn't. After a mile, I came across a clearing ringed by trees with some of the thickest trunks I'd ever seen. The acorn trail stopped, and that's when I knew I'd come across something important.

My goal?

My heart felt lighter than the air for a brief moment, but that feeling was arrested when I heard a familiar tone jeer as follows: "Looks like our old friend is back."

I rolled my eyes at Danny "Ring" Braixen's voice. "What do you mean, friend?"

"You're all friends of ours!" the voice of Aaron "Ding" Watchog announced proudly. "You see, that's what comes with fame! The rest of the world knows who we are!"

"That doesn't make you my friend," I snapped. Then, getting to the point, I continued. "I followed your trail of acorns because I thought it would lead to your den. And I was right!"

"I suppose you were," Ding muttered. "But that doesn't mean you'll get what you want."

My heart pounded forcefully against my ribcage. On some level, I knew that if I spoke out of line, if I said or did something they perceived as a threat, I would be on the receiving end of one of the sleep darts that had struck down Barrett and Lucy. That prospect, however, did not frighten me as much as the knowledge that if that occurred, I wouldn't be able to help my friends.

"Well, what do you think I want?" I asked rhetorically. "I want to find out what happened to my friends. They haven't woken up since yesterday, and I want to know what you did to them!"

Just then, Jonathan "CountDown" Pyroar walked out from behind one of the trees. He was eating a slice of golden apple, which I now knew better than to steal from him. (Not that I was hungry; if anything, being in the presence of these bounty hunters made me want to hurl.)

"Hey, Johnny!" the Braixen exclaimed. "Our little friend here wants to know what happened to his buddies!"

I turned my right paw into a fist so quickly my claws nearly drew blood. But I would not show any weakness or anger - that's what the bounty hunters desired, and I would not hand it to them.

"Well," the Pyroar replied simply, "Ring here shot them with highly potent sleep darts. They're currently on an involuntary vacation to Dreamland."

"I understand that" I responded, narrowing my eyes. "But they aren't waking up. No matter what the mayor tries, they aren't opening their eyes. I want to know what was in those darts, and I figured you three have the cure for it."

On the surface, this idea was patently absurd, and I knew it. If CountDown and the Ring-A-Dings had gone through all this trouble to send my friends on a one-way trip to "Dreamland", they wouldn't give them return tickets just because. Obviously, they were the most likely Pokémon who might have the cure, but were probably the last Pokémon who'd want to hand it over.

Still, it was worth a shot, if only because I had no other option.

"I know how to make a cure for them," Danny muttered, then smiled. "But if you think I'm going to fork over the recipe without something in return, what are you smoking?"

"Nothing," I mouthed angrily. "I'm serious." I narrowed my eyes to show them that I was indeed dead fucking serious.

"Well then," the Watchog said, "I'm afraid we are at an impasse here. Ring, are you going to give him a ticket to visit his friends?"

The Braixen gave a wicked smile. "I don't think so. Where's the fun in toying with your prey if they're unconscious and don't know what's happening?"

"Just be honest with me," I told the bounty hunters in as confident a voice as I could muster. "Is there any way I can get the cure? Or am I totally boned?"

"There is a way!" CountDown replied with a fang-filled grin. "But it comes with risk! You will have to do battle with one of us!"

"Do…battle? Like, fight? To the death?"

"Not to the death, no!" CountDown announced. "There is no fun in a duel if one of the combatants is deceased afterward and can't reminisce about it!"

"Okay" I mouthed. "You mentioned that there was risk, though. What's the risk?"

Ding Watchog smirked. "Well, if you win the duel, we will make you the cure. You can go back to your friends and wake them up. If you lose, we've got a chariot with horses attached, and they're waiting to take you on that trip to Dreamland."

"No need to romanticize it," I muttered. "I'll play your game. What's the duel?"

I don't know what I'd been expecting my enemies to say. Perhaps it'd be a game of quick draw with water guns or sleep darts. Or maybe we'd be teleported to a clock and have to jump over its hands without getting hit. Still, I was a little taken aback when CountDown responded.

"Chess," he said.

I frowned. "You want me…to beat you at chess?"

"Not me, necessarily" the Pyroar replied. "You must defeat one of us in a sudden-death game of chess. Each of us will have ten minutes to make all our moves - whoever runs out of time first loses. You may choose your opponent."

"Braixen" I said automatically. "Ring, Danny - whatever your name was."

The Braixen held out his paw for me to shake, but I rejected it. The last thing I wanted was to shake hands with one of our assailants.

"We can shake hands after the game" I insisted.

"That is, if you're not sleeping the sleep of the Fairy-types!" CountDown bellowed. "Anyway, can you confirm your choice of Ring as your opponent?"

"Yes," I replied curtly.

Truth be told, I had no idea which of the bounty hunters was the worst at chess. Maybe if I'd read their faces, I would've been able to suss out which of them seemed most nervous at having to face me. In reality, my choice to face the Braixen was a case of "revenge before reason" - Ring had cast that dome spell, trapping us all so we were Magikarp in a barrel. I found him the target of my greatest fury at that very instant, so I elected to face him.

The board and chess clock were set up, and CountDown laid out the ground rules. Moving the pieces and punching the clock were to be done with the same paw. We had to verbally announce when we checked (or checkmated) our opponent's king - otherwise, we were forbidden from speaking to each other. You know, the basic professional rules of chess.

I was pretty good at chess, but if you put me against a grandmaster I'd get cut down within twenty moves. I fervently hoped, however, that I wouldn't need to be a grandmaster - I just needed to be better than the Braixen in this one game.

Ring was "kind" enough to let me control the white pieces, which would let me move first. Even now, I wonder if he wanted to lull me into a state of complacency, to make me believe that the slight advantage going first conferred was the end-all, be-all. If that's what he was going for, it didn't work.

I started with a few pawn moves, and was in turn matched by similar pawn moves from Ring. Truth be told, I had no strategy in mind, and that wasn't wise for most players. After all, chess is a game of strategy.

To the extent I had a plan, it was to make moves as quickly as possible so that my side of the clock wouldn't run out. To that extent, I was making progress - before long I had just under eight minutes left to make my moves, whereas Ring only had a little more than six.

"He's just trying to win on time!" Ring complained to CountDown, who was serving as the arbiter for our game.

The Pyroar rushed over to our board, so forcefully I feared he might well knock over the pieces. However, CountDown merely gave me a mildly furious glare. This is what he said:

"The next time I get such an allegation, and see evidence of its truth, the game will end in a draw."

"And if it's a draw?" I asked.

"You must speak to the arbiter, that being me, when your own clock is counting down" the Pyroar replied, smiling at what he apparently considered a clever pun.

I was less than amused.

After the Braixen moved his bishop, I noticed an excellent fork opportunity with my knight. I could use it to attack Ring's king and rook at the same time - he'd have to move his king out of check, which would leave me free to capture the rook for nothing!

But before I could make this move, I had to ask the question: "What happens if we draw?"

"Then you play again until a winner is determined!" CountDown exclaimed happily. "And if you're checkmated, or resign, then it's night-night for you!"

I sighed, moving my knight to fork the king and rook. "Check" I said.

It was then that I noticed something unfortunate: If I'd been paying attention, I would have seen that Ring had moved his bishop to control the square my knight was now checking the king from. As soon as I uttered the word check, I lost my knight.

Fuck, I thought, fearing that if I said that word aloud I'd be disqualified.

I had to focus. Losing a knight wasn't the end of the world - it was only three points worth of material, compared to the queen's nine. And I still had my queen, didn't I?

I remembered a lesson I'd been taught early on in my chess "career" - don't bring your queen out too early. She's too valuable - you don't want to be the first to lose her.

Well, against that advice, I moved my queen in front of my king. This created a vertical line of attack against that of the Braixen. "Check" I muttered, not realizing that I was about to pay the price for my impulsivity.

The opposing rook moved in front of the king, where it was protected by the bishop, and was now attacking my queen. I couldn't move the queen, because she was right in front of my king - an absolute pin!

Well, I could take the rook. I'd then lose the queen, which would be a net loss of four points for me. I could move the knight to defend the queen, or sacrifice another piece as bait. Or I could stop thinking so long! Arceus dammit, I'm wasting time!

I still had more clock space than Ring, but that advantage was dwindling fast. I elected to cut my losses and capture the rook.

Even though my queen was captured on Ring's very next move, I comforted myself knowing that the game wasn't over yet. It was difficult to accept that sometimes in chess, you had to make sacrifices - material wasn't everything.

Still, I was behind in material even before that trade, and now I was further behind. I could see Ding Watchog licking his lips, fiddling with his weapon and sizing me up as though debating which part of my body he'd most like to sink that sleep dart in.

And what happens when you panic in chess? Simply put, revenge before reason. I was making so many moves with so little thought, it wasn't pretty. Any chess coach worth a grain of salt would have yelled at me until I went deaf, and I would have earned it.

The one thing I had going for me, however, was the clock. After moving my knight so that it would defend one of my three remaining paws after its next move, I saw that I still had over four minutes left. By contrast, Ring had thought through his moves with care, but it had cost him time. Maybe too much time. And he still pondered his next move for a good five seconds before advancing a pawn.

I advanced my pawn so that the knight protected it. It was two spaces away from the back rank, where it could become a queen. If I could promote my pawn, I might still have a chance to turn things around. Of course, that would still require me to play more deliberately than I'd been doing.

Ring moved his king off the back rank, which then allowed me to place my pawn one square forward. Almost there.

He's in time trouble, I realized. That was a very eloquent term indeed for when a player in an otherwise advantageous position panicked due to their clock running low, possibly inducing them to make blunder after blunder.

"Check."

Ring had moved his bishop so that it attacked my king, but I was able to swiftly move the king out of the firing line. Still, the move was partly successful in its goal - the Braixen had arrested my momentum!

That was further demonstrated when Ring moved his own knight to block my pawn. While he couldn't capture it on this move, pawns could only capture diagonally, meaning that I had to do something about that knight if I were to gain a new queen.

I used up another fifteen seconds of my remaining time (roughly 3:30 in minutes and seconds) and then moved my remaining bishop so that it attacked the knight. I heard Ring growl in frustration, realizing two things: One, he would need to either move his knight or delay the inevitable by one move. Two, he had to choose quickly, or else he'd run out of time and be DQ'd.

The Braixen moved his knight out of the way, and my pawn became a queen. From that point forward, I moved the queen cautiously yet gracefully around the board, taking as many pawns and pieces as possible of my opponent's. I still kept a pawn or two alive, knowing that if I got too greedy, I risked causing a stalemate - a draw. And nobody likes a chess game that ends in a draw, least of all someone who needs to win said game.

I didn't checkmate my opponent, but that was okay. In the end, all I needed to do was not run out of time before he did, a task I had soon accomplished with what felt like relative ease. When the timer on Ring's clock, well, rang, and the Braixen glanced downward in defeat, I knew I'd done it.

But I couldn't let myself get too excited. After all, it was at least conceivable that this band of bounty hunters would go back on their word, in which case I'd be no better off than if I'd stayed behind with my friends' sleeping bodies.

"Well, congratulations," CountDown muttered. "It seems you have won."

"I have indeed!" I proclaimed, displaying as much confidence as I could muster. "Which means you have to give me the cure for the sleep darts!"

The Pyroar winked at me. For a brief moment, I became convinced that I'd been had. I wasn't going to cure my friends - if anything, I would be lucky not to join them in their slumber.

But then he chuckled, which made me even more convinced.

"I beat your friend at chess!" I bellowed. "And you're not going back on your word, are you?"

"No, of course not!" Ding Watchog exclaimed, holding his paws upward. "I can write you the recipe right now!"

"I don't need the recipe," I snapped. "I need the results. I need whatever it takes to wake two Charmander from that sleep."

Again, based on the expressions on the band's faces, I was well within my right to remain suspicious. But I stood my ground, scraping my left paw against the ground like a Venusaur about to charge its prey.

Finally, the Watchog continued. "The ingredients for the recipe are all easily obtainable within the jungle. As long as at least one member of your party can do basic math and follow the directions, you'll be able to wake them up."

"If you say so" I muttered.

"We all do," CountDown told me with a smug smile. "We're a lot of things - we're a band of musicians, a band of bounty hunters, and we're pretty good alchemists for Pokémon with no formal training in that department."

"We're 'mon of our word," Ding muttered.

A few minutes later, Danny "Ring" Braixen handed me a piece of parchment on which he'd hastily scribbled a complex recipe for something called WAKING WATER. The handwriting was barely legible unless I squinted, so I sincerely hoped Ammy's vision was better than that of most dragons her age. From what I'd gathered, the recipe would probably take at least several hours to put together (several meaning seven.)

I was about to thank them, but I stopped myself. I had what I wanted, and more importantly, these bounty hunters were the reason I'd needed to find a cure in the first place. What was there to thank them for?

"Okay then" I said, accepting the parchment from the Braixen. "If there's nothing else, I'll head back to camp."

"Okay!" CountDown echoed. "If you ever wish to play chess with us again, or even learn how to play some of our songs, just hit us up and let's meet in this grove!"

Can't imagine why I'd want to.

Clutching the parchment tightly in my paw, I speed-walked away from that grove. I didn't want to look too relieved, but I also didn't want to stay there any longer than necessary in case the bounty hunters changed their minds.

I followed the trail of acorns in reverse, practically skipping back to camp in anticipation of telling Ammy the good news.

As of right now it's 9:52 PM, which means it's time for me to do something that I named 42 times in this chapter (and yes, I actually used Ctrl + F to find that out.) I hope to wake up to feedback in my inbox. So please, if you are so inclined, let me know what you thought. Stay safe, and I'll see you next time.