Bruno folded his arms, silently taking in the Lumeral skyline. Being an Incineroar, and therefore a Fire-type, simply existing was enough to frighten the Grass-type inhabitants of the city, so he was trying to stay within the shadows and avoid drawing attention. To that end, he picked out a modest, unoccupied shack which was far enough from the city to use as their hideout.

"Still nothing from Chip?" Bruno asked, trying and failing to conceal his worry. As the acting Captain of Branch 22, it was his duty to remain stoic in the face of conflict. However, at the same time, Chip was a dear friend to him, and they had gone through so much together. Sure, Chip did volunteer to chase after Zacharias after Elena's failure, but Bruno knew that he'd still never be able to forgive himself if anything happened.

Jasper, the Espeon pacing around the room, nodded his head with a downtrodden look in his eye. "I have no idea what's going on!" he shouted. "The last thought I got from them was just a bunch of internal screaming, and that was hours ago, and the psychic link I made is gonna break soon!"

Bruno gritted his teeth. "It's fine, maybe… uh… they fell asleep! Or something! Point is, the meeting isn't even happening until tomorrow, so there's plenty of time for them to come back!"

"I'm scared!" Jasper shouted.

"Me too!" Bruno yelled back. "I swear to Arceus, when I get my paws on those kids who hurt them, I'll tear 'em into so many pieces that you could make confetti out of 'em!" He couldn't even remember the last time he got this angry over anything, but he wasn't sorry at all.

Jasper was about to say something, but he cut himself off, his expression morphing into that of pure joy.

"What?" Bruno asked, leaning as close as possible. "What is it? Is it Chip?"

Jasper nodded. "They- They're- I-"

"Spit it out!" Bruno yelled. "Just say everything Chip's saying!"

Jasper yelped and cleared his throat. "I'm alive and well, and at the bottom of a canyon," he recited, his voice taking on a cadence completely unlike his own and exactly like Chip's. "Fabian Vanadis fell down with me, and he dug me out of a lakebed."

"He- What?" Bruno asked. "Can you repeat?"

"I might've been starved to death, if not for Vanadis's kindness."

Bruno was now very sorry about the outburst he had earlier. "I… Wow. Are you safe? What's going on down there?"

Jasper gasped. "No!" he squeaked in his own voice, his voice dripping with fear and concern.

"Jas, don't do that!" Bruno shouted. "You know how my heart is, you're gonna kill me! Just get out with it!"

Jasper quickly nodded and returned to speaking as Chip. "Scotcher's down here, just as we were told. But, there's something concerning."

"What?" Bruno demanded.

"According to Vanadis's testimony, Scotcher claimed that the true intention of the Royal Guard was to betray us and establish a regime of their own. I cannot verify whether or not Scotcher truly said this, but I have little reason to doubt it."

"You're saying they all lied to us?" Bruno snarled. "That's… That's cheating! Are you sure the Vanadis kid is telling the truth?"

"I have no concrete proof, but as I said, I believe him. Though, keep in mind that I am biased. As I'm someone who's personally invested in Scotcher's demise, you should bear in mind that my judgment may not necessarily be sound."

Bruno nodded. Out of everyone in the Branch, Chip was easily the most disappointed in the fact that only the main royal family would be going down, and that the Guard would be spared.

The Incineroar's eyes started watering up a little. Chip was the most honest man he ever knew in his life, and they were so reasonable, and the fact that they cared about helping Bruno more than they cared about their vendetta meant the world to him. "You're the best, man," he whimpered, wiping his eyes.

Jasper snickered a little, but quickly got back into character. "Thanks," he said, back in Chip's monotone. "As our acting Captain, the choice on whether or not to trust Vanadis is up to you. However, I will implore you to evacuate the hideout and find a place that the Guard doesn't know about. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and the latter is outside our budget."

"Good call," Bruno said, managing to pull himself together. "Jasper, your link's still up with everyone else, yeah? Let 'em all know we're moving to the National Library's basement. And Chip, keep an eye on the Vanadis kid, got it? Did anyone else from his team fall down with you? Y'know, like the Commander's kid?"

"While I was buried, I overheard that Commander Moreno's son is potentially in the process of infiltrating and betraying Scotcher. Also, Prince Zacharias is said to be down here as well, though we have yet to meet as well. I'm aware that it's our mission to capture and kill them respectively, but in an effort to remain on Mr. Vanadis's good side, I have made no moves to put his friends– the 'Trailblazers,' as he referred to them– in harm's way."

Bruno felt a little intimidated. These Trailblazers were clearly a force to be reckoned with. Their wisdom and competence weren't to be underestimated under any circumstance. "Alright, well you can't hurt either of them," Bruno declared, marching out of the cabin to stare into the distance, hoping to look mysterious and cool. "If we owe your life to the Vanadis kid, we have to make it up to him. Let him know you're under strict orders from your acting Captain to help him and his friends until the conflict in Ottalon Canyon has been resolved, and that we'll return to being enemies when next we meet."

"Affirmative," Chip stated. "I fear that my link with Jasper will be breaking in a few minutes. I will continue doing everything in my power to destroy Scotcher, but besides that, are there any other orders you'd like me to follow?"

There probably were, but Bruno's head was spinning with all the information he just received. "Exercise your best judgment!" Bruno said, pointing towards the horizon. "Just remember that keeping yourself safe is the top priority! If you have any reason to doubt Vanadis, don't be afraid to turn on him before he turns on you."

Jasper opened his mouth, but he didn't say anything. "...Damn, link's gone. He was just saying some last goodbyes. Let's head to that new meeting spot now, so we can re-up my links with all the other Syndicate members."

"You're right, good idea!" Bruno said. "Man, I say that a lot. Am I being a bad Captain? Tycho never took orders from anyone but himself, not even Commander Moreno! Why did he name me as his temporary replacement? I'm not cut out for this at all!"

"Are you okay, Bruno?" Jasper asked.

"Wha- Huh? Y-Yeah, of course."

Jasper nodded uneasily. "If you say so. It's just, you were kinda zoning out. You wanna talk? Maybe?"

Bruno sighed. "Later. It's just… a lot, y'know?"

"I can't even imagine," Jasper said, smiling faintly. "Remember, you're the one who made me promise to keep you in check if this role ever ends up giving you an ego."

Yet another way Bruno needed to rely on his friends. He had to thank Arceus that he was only going to have to do this for a month before the Commander named an actual replacement, but he didn't know how he was gonna get through it when he couldn't even make simple decisions on his own. "Thanks. Let's just get moving to the basement, yeah?"

"Kind of a ballsy hiding spot," Jasper said, following Bruno as he started down the trail. "That's pretty far inside the city, y'know."

"Yeah, but its basement was the only place I could think of that only Syndicate members would know about," Bruno retorted. "Sorry, I wish I had time to come up with a better idea."

"It's good, I swear!" Jasper insisted, his tail stiffening up. "Sorry, just lead the way, I didn't mean to doubt you."

Bruno sighed, nodded, and kept on walking.

Sofia couldn't help but feel a little guilty. Fabian, Nero and Zach were all stuck at the bottom of a canyon, possibly dead, and she wasn't doing a single thing to help out. "T-Toño?" she asked hesitantly. "Y-You're sure we're doing the right thing here, right?"

As The Ripper plowed its way through tall grass and trees, traveling in the opposite direction of that canyon, Toño shrugged. "C'mon, you know those two. They're way too stubborn to die. Give 'em some time and they'll climb out themselves."

"Well, yeah, but I'm worried," she said. "We don't know what's down there, and the only one we could ask for sure just went flying down it."

"Have some faith!" Toño responded, narrowly swerving out of the way of a massive boulder. "You saw Nero jumping out of the bus once he saw Fabian and Zach fly out, and he's the most paranoid one of all of us. There's no way he'd have done that if he didn't think things would be fine. And besides, we didn't pack enough supplies to go an extra day without visiting Lumeral. We gotta make this pit stop anyway, so why not just wait for them there?"

Sofia sighed. Toño was still a little bit too unfamiliar to her for her to feel comfortable putting up any resistance against him, so she decided to suck it up and put her own feelings aside. There was no chance she was ever making it to Taro Harbor if she upset him enough for him to kick her out of The Ripper.

A few more minutes of silent driving– occasionally interrupted by a yelp from Toño whenever he almost got them into a crash– went by until they could finally see Lumeral in the distance. The gold-plated castle was an unmistakable landmark, and it was visible from miles away.

"That castle's gotta count as a roadside distraction or something," Toño muttered. "How am I supposed to keep my eyes on the road when the shiniest thing in the universe is grabbing my attention?"

"It's not like it takes much to take your eyes off the road," Sofia thought to herself. While she didn't mind Toño all that much, she really wished he'd be more careful when driving.

They parked The Ripper in a ditch that was decently far from Lumeral and buried it under some foliage, minimizing the odds of any carjacking taking place and keeping the interior cool.

The buildings on the outskirts of the city weren't as aggressively opulent as the castle, but they were far from looking like slums themselves. Every building had well-trimmed hedges and recently-mowed lawns, and the stone bricks they were built out of were rugged in a way that was far too uniform to be natural. Even the city's flaws were flawless.

"Man, this place makes Ferrumark look like a dump!" Toño said, whistling at the ornate steel entrance gate. "Of course, it's my dump, and I'll love it 'till the day I die, but this city's something else!"

Sofia nodded. "Yeah, it's a lot nicer here. I was worried it was gonna be like Delliger Hollow. But, I guess that was kinda silly, since I already studied all the travel guides and stuff before we left."

"Yeah, you're pretty good with navigation stuff," Toño remarked. "I don't think the rest of us ever would've paid attention to any of that. Sorry, I never properly thanked you for doing that part for me."

Sofia bashfully rubbed the back of her neck with her wing. "Y-Yeah, I guess I kinda like that kinda stuff. It's always been a little pet project of mine to see the world, y'know? B-But, I guess it's not exactly my dream, per se."

Toño gave her a quizzical look.

"N-Nevermind, sorry."

"No worries," Toño replied. "Anyways, we should–" He stopped dead in his tracks. "WOAH, hey, look at that!" Toño pointed at a massive billboard in the distance, which depicted an ice cream cone with an adorable mascot face drawn on it, strongly resembling a Vanillish. "We should have some ice cream!"

"Don't we need to stock up on supplies?" Sofia asked.

"Ice cream melts, but supplies don't," Toño said, as if he were giving out sage advice. "It would be silly not to prioritize the ice cream."

"Fabian and Nero could be dead right now," Sofia responded.

"C'mon, this is our last chance to go sightseeing like normal tourists!" Toño protested. "They're gonna put up wanted posters for us any day now. Don't you wanna live it up while we still can?"

As much as Sofia agreed, it felt a little gross to enjoy a pleasant ice cream date while the rest of their team was completely unaccounted for and potentially in serious danger.

"And, think about it," Toño continued. "We've had to listen to them bicker in the backseat for entire days without any breaks. Who knows if we'll ever get the chance to have some peace and quiet again?"

Once again, Sofia sighed. "You're never going to stop arguing until I let you slack off, aren't you?"

"Frequent breaks are crucial to maintaining a healthy work-life balance," Toño said.

Defeated, Sofia followed Toño along to the ice cream parlor. The line wasn't huge, but they had to wait for a couple minutes before they could place their order. The woman in charge, a sweet old Bellossom lady, had to lean over the counter to see Toño's face. "Oh, hello, dearie," she said. "What flavor are you interested in?"

The menu above the Bellossom's head showed a list of ice cream flavors a mile wide, with prices starting at expensive and ending at absurd. "Just a small vanilla, please," Sofia said, with it being the closest thing to cheap on the menu. "Sugar cone is fine."

Toño cleared his throat. "I'd like a large triple scoop waffle cone– Stantler tracks, cookies 'n cream, and rocky road– with some chocolate and caramel syrup drizzled atop each scoop, with a Cheri on top. Oh, and sprinkles too, can't forget those."

The Bellossom nodded. "My, you're quite the chocolate fanatic, aren't you? That will be twenty-seven hundred Poké in total."

Sofia audibly gasped. "Twenty-seven hundred Poké?! That's enough for a night at a five star inn!"

Toño casually spilled a bunch of coins out of his wallet and onto the desk, which the Bellossom scooped up immediately, probably fearing that he'd change his mind.

"Wh-What are you thinking?" Sofia asked. "This is an insane waste of money!"

"Worry not, Nero is paying," Toño said with a cocky grin. "C'mon, there's millions in that account, he's not gonna notice three thousand going missing."

Sofia buried her face in her wings, made sure to hold her beak shut, and screamed.

"Are you okay?" Toño asked.

Sofia looked up at Toño slowly. "Have you met Nero?!"

"That's…" Toño trailed off. "True enough, I guess. Too late now."

"He's gonna lose his mind!" Sofia shouted. "Three thousand Poké is a–"

"Twenty-seven hundred," Toño corrected her.

Sofia sighed. "Twenty-seven hundred Poké is a lot of money! It took me a full week to get him to let me see a single Poké of his! We're never going to be able to buy stuff again!"

"Eh, eso suena a un problema para el Toño de mañana," Toño said.

Sofia stared at Toño with a mix of confusion and distress. "I… What?"

"Human language," Toño said with a grin. The Bellossom finally arrived with their ice creams. Sofia's was a perfectly modest single scoop of vanilla, while Toño's cone was taller than he was. "It's called Spanish."

"O-Okay?" Sofia said, reluctantly accepting the ice cream cone. "I still don't know what any of the words you just said mean."

"Guess that means you can't argue back, huh?" Toño said, having to hug his ice cream cone in order to hold it properly.

Sofia took a deep breath to calm herself down and nodded along. She led the way to a table nearby, which had a convenient cone holder built in for quadrupeds and smaller Pokémon such as Toño. This was important to do as soon as possible, because if Toño dropped his twenty-four thousand Poké ice cream cone onto the ground, Sofia didn't know what she was gonna do.

Sofia managed to finish her cone pretty quickly, since it wasn't a completely ridiculous amount of ice cream. She dabbed her beak with a handkerchief after finishing, and was about to offer one to Toño, but upon seeing his face, she realized that this would be a comically meaningless gesture. He had barely managed to get through scoop number one, yet his entire face was soaked in chocolate syrup, to the point where he was barely recognizable. However, judging by the look of complete and utter bliss on his face, he didn't seem to mind.

"This is the greatest thing I've ever eaten in my life," Toño said, wiping his face with his paw, only managing to spread the chocolate around more.

"It better be," Sofia mumbled under her breath.

"Oh, before I forget, sorry about being so pushy with this," Toño said. "It's just, it's been three years since I've had ice cream, and I just got a little overexcited."

Sofia wasn't expecting an apology, but her anger immediately faded upon hearing one. "I-It's fine, I know where you're coming from." she said. "I have some… experience with being locked away for a while, so I get the feeling."

"That so?" Toño asked, getting to work on the second scoop. "That reminds me, I never asked you what your deal is. You don't really give me the vibe of someone who'd travel around with the two loudest people in the universe just for fun."

Sofia snorted. On one hand, she didn't want to say anything more than she had to, but on the other, she had questions for Toño as well, and she felt like there was a decent chance that he'd be receptive to her questions if she was cooperative. "It's… complicated. For one thing, I'm not really good at making friends, so if I don't hang out with Fabian, there's a pretty good chance I'd just end up alone forever. That, and… well, I need to get to Taro Harbor. It's on the way to Renegade's Edge, so it makes sense for us to travel together."

"What for?" Toño asked. That was exactly the question Sofia didn't want to hear, and the look on her face must not have done a good job of hiding it. "Oh, sorry, I'm being nosy. You don't have to answer anything I ask if you don't wanna."

"N-No, it's fine," Sofia said. "I… Uh, well, there's a certain someone who I hurt. A-Around five years ago. I've been putting off seeing him again for so long, but I can't keep going on like this. It's eating me alive."

"So, you wanna help him?"

With a heavy sigh, Sofia stared at the table. "...No. It's too late for that, now. I… I don't even know what I wanna do. I just… I can't leave it like this or I'll drive myself crazy."

Toño stopped eating his ice cream in order to listen to Sofia. "Look, I don't know what you did, but I'm sure he doesn't hate you as much as you're thinking he might."

"You have no idea how right you are." Sofia forced her eyes off the ground, trying to make eye contact. "Like I said, it's complicated. Sorry for being so vague about it, but thinking about it drags up a lot of bad memories."

"Nothing to be sorry for. Just say whatever you want. Don't let me make you feel like it's not enough."

Sofia's beak curved upward ever so slightly. His caring attitude, being a complete one-eighty compared to how he was acting just a few minutes ago, was both encouraging and amusing to her. "Got it, thank you. And also, thanks for listening. I didn't expect talking about things to feel so nice, even if it's just for a little bit."

"The pleasure's all mine," Toño said, returning to the remains of the second scoop with renewed vigor. "I told you I'm nosy, didn't I?"

She tapped her claws against the table nervously. "Right. Yeah, I get that, me too. Would… uh…" Now was as good of a time as any to ask some questions about his humanity, but she was struggling to find a way to phrase them in a way that wouldn't feel awkward. "Wh-What's, uh… your deal?"

Toño smirked. "My 'deal?' I mean, I'll talk about anything, I'm a pretty open book, but was there anywhere in particular you wanted me to start?"

"Y-Y'know, your… uh…" Sofia gestured her wings around aimlessly, hoping that this would somehow mean anything to him.

"Human stuff, yeah?" Toño asked, his mouth filled with a bite of waffle cone.

Sofia nodded. "Y-Yep. Like how'd you get here? N-Not that I'm saying I'm upset about it! I- Just, y'know–"

"I can't say I get it, myself," Toño said. "I found a weird box in my basement, I poked it, and the next thing I knew, I was in the middle of a snowstorm on a mountain, in the body of a squirrel, my breasts were gone, and a huge dragon was talking to me. Honestly, I'm shocked that fourteen-year-old me handled it so well."

"Y-Your whats were gone?" Sofia asked, bewildered. "Breasts? But, you're not…" She thought about it for a second, and immediately felt unbelievably stupid. "Oh! You're trans!"

Toño cackled harder than she'd ever seen him before, and her cheeks felt red-hot.

"Arceus, I'm so stupid, ignore me, please!"

"And thank God I am," Toño said in between laughs at Sofia's expense. "Because I'd have been freaking out way more if it wasn't for the gender euphoria."

Sofia needed a minute to emotionally recover after that one. "R-Right. Anyways. Uh… So, you don't have any idea why you're here?"

"Nah, not a clue," Toño said, still grinning a bit. "We moved pretty recently, and it was with a bunch of my grandpa's stuff. But there's probably some reason I'm here, or the Guilds wouldn't be after me."

"So, you don't know anything about why the Guilds are chasing you, either?" Sofia asked. That was going to be her next question, but she didn't mind Toño cutting right to the chase.

Toño shook his head. "Hey, I said I'm an open book, not a complete one."

"That's fair," Sofia said. "You really don't have a single clue, though?"

"Nope, just that it's got something to do with my humanity, and that this Hubert guy wants me dead because he doesn't want the Guilds to have me."

The mention of that name made Sofia's eyes widen. "Hubert?" Ever since her conversation with Shawcross, the name hadn't left her mind for a moment. He was the entire reason she existed today, and the entire reason that existence was as tragic as it was, and she didn't even know his face. "You've met him?"

"Yeah, he's an old Floatzel guy who thinks the whole world's gonna end if the Head Guildmaster meets me," Toño said. "That son of a bitch is the reason I had to go into hiding for three years. You know him?"

After some hesitation, Sofia nodded. "I know the name. Is he still alive?"

"I dunno," Toño said. "I'd probably have heard something if he wasn't, so I assume he is? I try not to think about people I hate if I can help it, so I couldn't even begin to tell you where to look for him."

"I'm jealous," Sofia said. "I wish I could just stop focusing on the negatives like that. It's so draining, and every time I open my beak, I feel like I'm dragging the mood down."

"Nothing wrong with being a pessimist," Toño replied. At long last, the remains of the cone were small enough for Toño to hold it in his paws without him looking silly. "Given how this world is, it probably makes more sense than optimism. And besides, you're never gonna be as much of a downer as Nero is, so you've got nothing to worry about."

That reminded her of how the majority of their party was still stuck at the bottom of a canyon. "Are we sure they're alright?" she asked. "At what point do we go looking for them?"

"I've seen what they're capable of, and I trust 'em not to die down there," Toño said. "But yeah, it's kind of weird they've been gone this long. How about we finish our supply run, rest for the night, and if they're still not around by morning, we go looking?"

Sofia's bad feeling wasn't going away, but she couldn't disagree with Toño. They were more than capable of overcoming the odds, and neither her nor Toño would be able to do much to help anyway. Keeping things running behind the scenes was probably as useful as they could be. "I–"

A booming thud that shook their table interrupted her.

Toño looked around nervously. "The hell was that?"

"I-I don't–"

Another one. And then another after that, in a consistent, rhythmic pattern.

Sofia squinted. "Are those… footsteps?"

Toño started tugging at his tail nervously. "M-Maybe we should–"

A rapid stream of molten lava rushed past the main sidewalk, several meters away from their table, as a horrendous roaring noise assaulted their eardrums.

Against her better judgment, Sofia craned her neck to take a look at the source of the lava. There was a massive, hulking orange beast with a silver maw, passively radiating enough heat to melt the feathers off Sofia's skin. It lumbered forward with a glassy look in its eye– not quite feral, but absolutely not sentient.

Toño grabbed Sofia by the wing and booked in the opposite direction, so fast that Sofia got queasy. "Is that Heatran?!" he screamed.

Sofia was too out of breath to scream, but she would've. Wherever this 'Heatran' was going, it was definitely marching with some purpose, with the way it was tearing past buildings to keep stomping in a perfectly straight line. But, no matter how hard she looked, she couldn't spot anything notable that the Heatran could be after. It was moving away from the castle, and the military barracks were on the opposite side of town. As far as she could see, it was just middle class housing for the rest of the city.

There was only one landmark in its path that was even remotely noticeable: a small, barely noticeable abandoned shack on a hill, well outside the perimeter of the city.