Interceptor's Wish

by Masterdude21

What started as a young man's search for his abducted mother spirals out of control. Soon, he is fighting a desperate war for survival against greater odds than a more generous God would have allowed. The enemy is everywhere and allies are far too few. With the entire region at stake, who can prevail when fate itself seems set against you? - Novelization of Pokemon Rejuvenation.

44. Darchlight Caves

AN: Happy New Year everybody! Somehow, we have managed to successfully make it the next year! Here's to a healthy 2025 and above all, a happy 2025.

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Chapter 10– Stopped In Our Tracks

Darchlight Caves

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Oblitus Town was so incredibly abandoned that Will was able to count its inhabitants using just his two hands and Kanon's head. Most of its houses were boarded up, plants and trees were in the process of overrunning much of the town's remaining infrastructure and even its Pokecenter was a rundown, dark shack.

"This place has seen better days, goddamn," Venam said as the four of them slowly made their way deeper into the settlement. "Is this even a town anymore?"

They passed by a large, black structure that could have once been a club or a disco or something. Will knelt down in front of the sign, trying to make sense of the faded text.

"The only people I've seen around here are travelers like us," Melia replied. "Route Seven is considered the wilderness of Aevium. It's not too surprising."

'... Town. Gym Leader: D…g...n V.. ndt. Win Rate: 87.99%'

The rest was too smudged out to read.

"April said that GDC was very close by, right?" Kanon said. "It's possible that this place was run down due to competition or something."

"I'm inclined to agree with that, actually."

"Welp, it's not like we came for Oblitus Town itself, so let's move on," Venam said.

Will brought up the rear of their group and kept his head on a swivel. Unlike Akuwa Town, Oblitus Town genuinely looked like a dilapidated mess so the total absence of other people didn't necessarily have to mean anything, but still. Everything inside of him yelled that he had to be sharper.

Kelvin's home was a bit further up the hill, past the abandoned train stop and the tracks. It looked like it could have once been a small family farm, complete with overgrown pastures and a rotting, wooden fence.

An old, worn-looking woman diligently hacked away at the weeds that were creeping up on her front yard. She looked up at their approach, her wrinkled forehead creased into a frown.

"Do you think this is Kelvin's home?" Venam said. "Maybe we should knock…?"

"No use, child," the woman croaked. "Kelvin is out at the moment."

Kanon glanced at her. "You are…?"

The woman uttered a wheezy chuckle. "I'm his wife."

"Aw…what? He's gone?" Venam groaned.

Kelvin's wife shoved her hoe into the ground and leaned on its handle as she sized Venam up. "Hm…I believe he said he was going to - "

A heavy thump echoed through the forest. The ground shuddered and a large plume of smoke mushroomed up into the sky, something like a kilometer away.

Will instinctively ducked. That didn't sound like an energy discharge from a Pokemon to him, but a genuine explosion! Could that be related to what April had sensed? "Guys, get down!" He hissed when he noticed that he was the only one who'd taken anything even remotely like cover.

Kanon quickly followed his example and dropped to a crouch as well, while Melia and Venam exchanged a puzzled look together.

"Th-That was an explosion!" Kanon told him.

"Yeah, no kidding Einstein," Venam hissed.

Will ignored her. "Did you catch the direction, Kanon?"

"Maybe it came - "

Behind them, the old lady said, "Oh, that sounded like it came from Yui's Ranch! My husband was just there to pick up ingredients for supper later!"

"Don't worry ma'am!" Melia said."We'll go check things out for you! Let's go, guys!"

They split up in two teams, Will and Kanon quickly hurrying to cross the road towards the left and Melia and Venam straying towards the right. Their route towards Yui's Ranch took them straight past the train. Luckily, nobody had bombed the train or anything like that, and the passengers were still in the process of hurriedly fleeing back inside for cover when the four of them came back.

Kanon was a fast runner; Will and him reached the train before Melia and Venam did. Will caught a concerned-looking April hurrying out one of the doors facing the north just as they entered the clearing again.

"Will, what's going on?" She called out to him. "What was that explosion?"

"That's what we're finding out," Will yelled back. "It came from Yui's Ranch!"

"But north of Yui's Ranch is the Grand Dream Bridge! You don't think - ?"

It sure looked that way. If it was, this man Kelvin would have his job cut out for him.

With a grim look on her face, April shut the train entrance behind her and then hurried along with them. For a woman in a dress, she moved with the practiced ease and grace of a runner, easily keeping up with Kanon and him.

Yui's Ranch was just up ahead. It wasn't on fire, but already the first police officers were on-site. They were fanning out, rounding up the ranch's inhabitants for questioning and spreading out over the other entrances.

Beyond that ranch, a mere hundred meters or so, lay the Grand Dream Bridge.

What was left of it.

An explosion had torn the bridge apart. The entire middle section was just gone. Whatever parts hadn't been scattered in a ten-mile radius were properly at the bottom of that river now.

"Excuse me!" One of the officers yelled, striding towards them with quick, purposeful steps. "I cannot permit you all to proceed any further!"

The five of them came to a halt. "What the hell is going on?!" Venam shouted.

"Guys, look!" Kanon said, pointing at the devastation.

The others spotted it now, too. It was a ghastly sight for sure. Destroying a wooden bridge heading through the forest was one thing, but this was a major entrance into Aevium's capital city they'd just blown apart.

"It's been destroyed," Melia gasped. "Just like the one before!"

"This is screwed up…"

"We have determined that explosives were used, but the culprit is still at large," the officer told them. "As a result, the bridge is strictly off limits until our investigation is is complete - "

She barely got to finish her words before one of the people standing behind her detached himself from the others and stomped towards her. "Do you KNOW how much effort it took for me to build this bridge?! It took blood, sweat. money, and mostly money!" He turned towards her partner, who was furiously scribbling something on his notepad. "And now it's all gone because some delinquents cant let the rest of us live in peace for ONCE!"

Delinquents with a lot of firepower, then.

Old man Kelvin, he presumed?

Melia stepped towards the senior. "If you're the one who built the bridge…does that mean you're Kelvin?"

The man turned a wary eye her way. "Yes, that's my name, but who's askin'?"

"Kelvin!" April exclaimed, pushing her way to the front of their formation. "I'm so glad to see that you're alright!"

"Ah!" Kelvin said, pushing his glasses further up his nose. "Miss Al - "

"Kelvin," she interrupted him, "what are you doing all the way out here?"

"Oh, well, I heard the tracks for the Grand Express were destroyed so I was making my way to GDC to make a claim," the man calmly said. "But just as I was about to cross the Grand Bridge…BOOM!" He suddenly shouted and Melia uttered a little yelp. "I was nearly blown to oblivion!"

April sighed. "We're going to have to repair them. Is that possible at this point?"

"Hrm…this bridge takes a lot of specific and special material to make. It's at least a week's worth of effort. The bridge down by the stream, however, should take no less than a day's work. Provided I have the materials to work with, that is."

"Alright then," Venam said easily. "Tell us what you need and we'll fetch 'em for you."

In a heartbeat, Kelvin was up in Venam's grill. "Ah, good! I thought you'd never ask, lass!"

"Wh-Wha?"

Nodding rapidly to himself as he stroked his chin, Kelvin rattled off, "Yes, I'll need regular old lumber you can find strewn about Route Seven. I'll need quite a lot! Your job is the most crucial to this plan so get on to it! GO!" He added when he saw Venam hesitate.

She stiffened. "Y-Yes sir! Right away sir!"

Before Venam had even spun on her heels to run off, Kelvin was ordering Melia around next. "As for you, lass! I'm going to need twenty Honeydew Planks! You can find them in Honec Woods! This job is the most crucial job. Go!"

Melia chuckled. "Sure thing. I'll get right on that, then."

The second Melia started to move, Kelvin stood in front of Will next. "And finally for the most crucial part! I need twenty Darchlight Planks! You can retrieve these from Darchlight Woods. Now GO!"

The most crucial part?

…he was not going to screw this one up. "On it sir!" He snapped, before hurrying after Melia and Venam.

"Um, I guess I'll go assist them with their tasks," he heard Kanon say.

"Wait Kanon," April said, and Will's pace slowed. "There's actually something I'd like to speak to you about. Does…Does the "Servan's Trial" mean anything to you?"

He came to a sudden stop. Slowly, he turned around to stare at April.

She met his stare in kind. Her bright, purple eyes seemed to pierce straight through him. Slowly, she reached out and took Kanon's arm.

Then, April began guiding the guy past the cordon of police officers and out of sight.

Away from him.

That wasn't right at all. What was that about?

Should he…should he just let that happen? It didn't make any sense for April to spirit Kanon away for some "Trial" when she'd never even met the guy before. Whatever the reason, Kanon had a fascination for April that might render him…well, vulnerable to the woman.

Damnit, he couldn't make sense of her! His gut told him that she wouldn't hurt them, that he could even trust her, but the facts didn't line up in her favor at all! Everything she did and said was wrapped in a layer of mystery and lies and Kanon…Kanon didn't seem to get that.

Hesitantly, he took a few steps back towards the ruined bridge.

Then, he stopped.

What was he even doing? This was exactly what Adam and Tesla had been trying to teach him. There were times where he needed to be sharp and alert, but far more often there were times where he needed to wind down, take a breath and just let things be. He had to stop looking into things so much. Venam had tried to tell him as much, hadn't she?

If he wanted to stop blaming himself for matters beyond his control, like Tesla had urged him to do, then he needed to start recognizing when things really were beyond his control.

This was just April needing one more person for some mystery assignment. If Kanon had gotten the most crucial of all Kelvin's assignments, then maybe April would be discussing this trial thing with him instead.

Confident that he was on the right track, Will left the two to their own devices and hurried back the way they'd come. The two girls were just up ahead. Venam seemed to be fuming about something, like usual, with Melia looking a lot more at peace with what was going on.

"I think I've been played! That bastard took my act of kindness and yanked it out of my grasp…"

With her wrists crossed behind her back, Melia smiled at her friend and said, "Like a Wurmple to a Staravia. It's hard to see."

"We have to fix the bridge either way, so it's whatever," Venam continued. Her expression darkened, and she added, "But eventually I want revenge…"

"...No you don't," Melia said.

Venam shrugged. "No, not really. So where do we even start with this one? I'm assuming all three of us have to go to different areas of Route Seven."

"I've got Darchlight Woods," Will said, carefully eyeing Venam to try and gauge her reaction.

For whatever it was worth, her reaction was back to being all casual. "Darchlight Woods?" She said, frowning. "I've never heard of a place like that. But I'm sure it's nearby…probably."

"I have to go to a place called Honec Woods!" Melia added, her silver eyes gleaming a bit as she looked back and forth between the two of them. "I remember seeing a sign for that area just around here, but the police have everything blocked off…"

"The police are no match for our superior sneaking skills," Will said.

Melia was smirking as she said, "Maybe for you. You don't have that bell on you yet. Some of us have stompy boots however."

"Hey!" Venam said with faux shock. "Melia! What's that for?"

"Nothing!" Melia quickly said, hiding her smirk with her hand. "Just nothing."

"Yeah, right," Venam replied, eying Melia with suspicion. "I can be sneaky too."

"Oh, speaking of sneaking around, Will where did you leave Kanon?" Melia asked.

"He's - "

"Probably hanging around with that train mil - lady," Venam cut him off, correcting herself just in time. She began marching off on her stompy boots. "Leave him be. I'm sure he's just fine. Let's go gather these planks."

Melia watched her venture off with something like annoyance on her face. "I knew what you were about to say…" She grumbled, before glancing back at Will again. "You were saying?"

"Talking about some stuff with April," Will said after a moment's thought. "That's…yeah, that."

"Well, Kanon's struggled to get a conversation going with other people in the past before, so I guess this is good for him?" Melia said, a hint of mischief in her voice.

"Not everyone can be a social butterfly like you and me," Will said, nodding along with her.

She beamed at him. "Will, you…okay, compared to Kanon you definitely know how to hold your own when things are serious, but you are just so adorably helpless at times that I can't…"

"Can't?" Will said when she didn't finish.

"You know," Melia hummed. "Just can't."

"...I do know," Will said, making a mental note to figure out what that was supposed to mean. "And for the record, I would argue, but I don't know how."

Melia broke into another laugh at that and they set off to follow Venam. After they headed through Yui's Ranch and back towards the southern approach, she said, "That was some quick thinking aboard the train, Will."

"Well…April did the thinking," he admitted. He decided against telling her about the weird blue mist and the dizziness. It was something he still needed to make sense of, himself. "The rest was more…"

She gave him a pointed look. "Crisis management?"

Will laughed a little. "Yeah. You could say that. I went to check in with April after the Marina Tube. We talked for a while, then suddenly…she just knew that something terrible would happen unless we stopped the train."

Melia thought about that for a moment. "So…she's got special powers?"

"Seems that way," Will said. Just like Indriad. Just like Maria and…Madame X and Spacea and Tiempa. "I…Melia, I'm not sure I can trust her," he blurted out.

She straightened at that. "You're not?"

He nodded, his hands clenching around the straps of his backpack. "No. I'm…okay, this sounds so dumb but the facts are all off to me and - "

"It's not," Melia told him firmly. "It's not dumb, Will. Your instinct has helped us out many times before. I trust it and I trust you, so you should as well."

"She's searching for power and doesn't tell us her true name." He dropped his hand to his satchel to make sure his Pokeballs were aligned correctly. "She knew Nim, she could have fought during Terajuma but didn't and this guy chasing after her…she's sticking up for him even though she's scared of him finding her."

"And yet you helped her gain access to a Garufan ruin," Melia replied. She didn't sound accusing. but merely curious. "You even danced together, afterwards which, knowing you, you really wouldn't have done unless you somehow felt comfortable enough around her."

That was true, and it was the reason why April had him so confused. "It's…" he paused for a moment, thinking it through. "Something…something about her makes me trust her in spite of these facts. Little things that show her heart is in the right place even if the circumstances are sketchy."

"...like my dad," Melia quietly said.

"Yeah," he said slowly. Exactly like her dad. Everything about Jenner's reappearance had been just as sketchy, if not more so, than April's. In spite of that, he'd told Melia to trust him. And they'd been right to do so. "Just like your dad."

She sighed. "Well, it sounds to me like you've already made the choice to trust April. Otherwise, you wouldn't have risked derailing the entire train for her."

"I guess so." Will replied, realizing that she was right. "No, you're right. That's exactly it. Thank you."

"No need to thank me," Melia replied warmly. "I'm just glad you're talking to me about this, honestly."

"I promised I would, didn't I?" He said. "Besides; if there's anyone I trust absolutely, it's you, so - "

Melia looked at him over her shoulder. "Really?" She asked, her eyes crinkling with affection.

"Really," Will replied. "That shouldn't be anything new to you, though."

"No…" she said slowly. "It's not, but it's nice to hear."

Then, when they continued on their way, Melia murmured so softly that he wasn't even sure if he was supposed to hear it, "...really nice to hear."

The path through Route Seven snaked around the other side of the river. "Wait a minute!" Venam's voice echoed through the forest just up ahead.

Melia and Will shot each other a look and picked up the pace. They hurried in Venam's direction until they found her Venam standing on the edge of the trail. She stood frozen, staring at something that lay inside of a weathered crater. Inside…

"This is the machine Saki built back on Terajuma!" Venam said. "But it's in shambles…"

It was. Last time Will had seen this thing was when Saki, Adam, Val and Braixen had prevented Sharon from falling to her death. Then, Crescent had teleported them away to bring Aelita to a spiritual healer on Route Nine, which lay north of GDC.

The machine looked like it had taken fire. No bodies, no rusty traces of blood. It could have been washed away with the rain though. Had they come under attack? If so, was that before or after they'd dropped Aelita off? Had they won and been forced to abandon the machine? Or…or had they lost and…

As he tried to put the pieces together, Venam began laughing.

"Venam, are you good?" Melia asked her.

"Guys, I think I've figured it out!" Venam said in-between gasps of air. "The cause of all these explosions with the bridge? It has to be Saki's dumb ass! She's always blowing things up with her inventions! Know what I think? I think her mech malfunctioned and blew itself up and the nearby bridge too. Then, while she was walking back to GDC she did something dumb and blew that one away too."

Will heaved a frustrated sigh. Venam knew Saki better than he did, but Saki hadn't been alone. Would she really cause such damage simply by accident? When her robot had made it through Valor Mountain completely unscathed?

"As likely as it is for Saki to cause immense amounts of destruction," Melia mused, carefully eyeing the crater and the remains of Saki's machine. "There's a hole in this theory."

"Eh?"

"Both incidents with the bridges have been fairly recent, yes?" Melia continued. "Just look at the wreckage site. If this just occurred then the soil would be scorched. But the wreckage is covered with rust and grass is growing over it. Whenever this happened, it wasn't recent."

She was right. Vegetation like that could pop up whenever a particular Grass-type felt like it, but the rust was much harder to explain.

Venam groaned. "So then what happened here…where's Saki and the others?"

Will took a knee and studied the wreckage more closely. One of its spindly legs had violently torn off, but whether that was because of combat or simply because of a malfunction, he couldn't tell. That said…

He looked around. No large peaks or massive trees to fall from. This machine couldn't have fallen to create that crater, which suggested combat. "They might have taken fire," he slowly said. Something in his chest tightened. The question was, what had happened to his friends? Was there a way of knowing if they'd just been injured, or if they'd…if Team Xen had killed them? "I can't see if they got into combat or - "

"I'm telling you, somehow, this was Saki's dumb ass," Venam said dismissively.

"It's not just Saki, they got Aelita with them!" Will snapped. "Or did you forget that too?"

Venam bristled. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that she could be hurt!" Will said. He screwed his eyes shut, pictung Aelita, helpless and sick, taken hostage by Team Xen while Saki, Adam and Val lay broken or bleeding or in pieces somewhere around this forest. "If something happened to her…if-if they took her or…or…I can't lose Aelita, Venam, I can't - if that happens I - I'll - "

"Will." Melia surged forwards, fastening her hands around his wrists. "Slow down. We don't know that. GDC is mere kilometers away, they could have made it to the city. Saki could have simply messed up, forcing them all to walk to the city instead."

The feeling of her fingers around his wrists made him realize that the ever-familiar pressure and tension had seeped right back into his body. The maddening thought he'd have to do Valor Summit all over again but this time, with Aelita's life on the line, knowing what had happened last time…it was too much.

He leaned into her touch, and her close proximity helped her words sink in. "If they took our friends again…" he said, his voice tight.

"It could be just as Venam said," Melia told him, her voice calm. "It's likely she and the others got up and walked to GDC. We can't jump to conclusions here."

They didn't know that this was an ambush. Saki could have just screwed up. He was jumping to conclusions here. Will repeated Melia's words to himself. He wanted them to be true, needed them to be true.

"I… Venam said hesitantly. She wasn't looking at him. "Look, I didn't mean…whatever happened here isn't our business right now, okay? We have our own mission. We gotta get these materials so we can get into the city ourselves. Once we do, I bet I know exactly where I can find those idiots, yeah?"

"Ye-yeah," Will said. He didn't look at her, either. The distance between them still felt enormous, but…it wasn't something that couldn't be patched up. They'd get those materials, fix the bridge, get to GDC…and then things would resolve themselves. "You're right. We'll look for them in the city."

"Okay, let's focus on getting Kelvin those materials of his, shall we?" Melia said. She let go of him. "The sooner we complete our crucial tasks, the sooner we can find out."

"Yeah, I think we should split up here then," Venam said. "We can cover more ground and get those things faster."

Will didn't see any reason to disagree and neither did Melia. The three of them left Saki's rusty, decaying machine behind, and set out to find their materials.

The path through Route Seven into the Darchlight Woods reminded him of Route Three, where Aelita and him had gotten Axew's egg and met back up with Ren. Overhead, flocks of Starly danced through the sky, little groups of Octillery had taken over the rocky riverbanks and large, majestic Sawbuck darted through the forest.

"Hurry it up Flora!" A man's voice cut through the air down the road. "I've seen Cascoon move faster than that!"

The response was an inevitable and frustrated "Do not RUSH me, Florin!"

Will froze, then slowly crept towards the nearest tree and took cover there. Slowly, he peeked his head around and glanced at the direction of the commotion.

A duo of familiar green-haired siblings was struggling with the nearest river crossing, the same one he'd have to take to get to Darchlight Forest as well. Florin had already made it, but it seemed like Flora hadn't played enough hopscotch in her youth, since she stood precariously balanced on one of the boulders protruding from the river, struggling to maintain her balance.

It would have been dangerous had they been trying to cross rapid currents. Since the vegetation and floating tree trunks suggested this river lacked any kind of current at all, Flora would likely be fine.

"If I fall in the water and get soggy, it's going to be YOUR head!" Flora bit at her brother.

Soggy?

She would be so fine.

Flora gathered her courage and made the final jump. She landed in front of her brother, wobbled a bit, then straightened her dress and crossed her arms. "There…are you satisfied now?"

Will, who would have rather seen her fall in and get soggy, decided that no, he wasn't satisfied. It was good to see the brother and sister were still sticking together however. He hadn't seen them on Terajuma before the assault on Team Xen's blockade, but if nothing else, Flora struck him like a woman of her word. They would have been around to fight anyway, since Team Xen had launched multiple raids into the cities and Talon -

Talon.

His heart sank. Talon, Flora and Florin had been friends long before he ever entered the picture.

"I didn't mean to rush you, but this is urgent!" Florin told his sister.

"The boy's not goin' anywhere, obviously," Flora grumbled. "We can't help him if we both end up hurt because of impatience, yes?"

Well, yes. But if they were trying to help him, what were they even doing out here?

"That's true…right, well, let's get going, then," Florin replied.

Flora gestured ahead. "Lead the way."

The siblings continued onwards. Thinking nothing of it, Will continued his search for the Darchlight Woods. Nevertheless, Route Seven was large, and it wasn't long before he ran into a familiar face again.

Melia stood at the edge of one of the ponds, gazing into its blue depths as if contemplating her life. Will smiled to himself as he approached her. Pulling a "Boo" on her like she had in the Marina Tube and hearing her go "Eep!" again would have been so adorable. Melia being Melia however, meant that she might just eep her way into the water and get soggy and he couldn't have that.

"Hey Melia."

She perked up. "Oh, hey Will! How about we take a small break? I'd like to chat."

"Sure."

Melia looked around, her expression brightening when she saw a fallen tree a few meters away from the pond's edge. "Let's grab a seat over there. You know, after everything we've been through I was hoping we could catch a small moment of peace."

"It does feel like it's just one thing after another," Will agreed. They took a seat on the log next to each other. Melia sat right next to him, close enough for their knees and shoulders to make contact.

"I was actually getting a bit hyped to visit Grand Dream City again," Melia said. She gazed out over the forest, a dreamy look in her eyes. "I was only seven when I was there last. I bet things have changed a lot."

That meant almost twelve years had passed since - no, Melia spent three years in the span of two months, in the past. So for her, it was twelve years while chronologically, it had been nine. "Been a decade, then. Do you miss it?"

"Hm…Not really?" She thought about that some more. "I mean, I've always wanted to go back to see what it was like. It's like…I've been to this city before, but I don't really remember anything about it." She turned her eyes back to him. "Yet there's still this nostalgic thing about it that drives me insane. Half of me is like, 'it's probably just some regular city, it's not that big of a deal.'. And then the other half is just like 'I NEED TO GO BACK, I NEED TO GO BACK!'"

She bounced up and down on the log as she said that and Will had to chuckle at her enthusiasm. It was just so damn cute. "It's a good thing we are going back, then."

Melia smiled sheepishly as a reddish hue touched her cheeks. "I got a little carried away there…"

"No, that's okay," Will said, reaching out to squeeze her hand in reassurance. "It's been a while since you've had the chance to be enthusiastic about something. This is a good thing."

"Hey, thanks," she replied, squeezing back. "I can't wait to share this good thing with you and the others."

"Do you remember why you went in the first place?" Will asked.

Melia pulled her shoulders up in an exaggerated shrug. "Not at all! I think my dad had something he had to take care of or something. Most of the time he just pulled me around to different offices and stuff."

"Professor business," Will said sagely.

With a smile, she replied, "Professor business that got me to see some crazy Pokemon I never knew existed! There was this one Pokemon who had a freakin' Flygon!"

That cold, dark night at the strait came to mind. Wind rustling past his face, a pair of Flygons plunging into the cold sea.

The possibility that it could have been Ren he'd sent to the bottom of the sea.

Somehow, by some miracle, Melia didn't see that as she cheerfully continued, "I know a lot about Flygon now, but when I was small I was so astonished by it! It had those cool wings and goggle like eyes…for a long time I've wanted a Flygon, but desert based Pokemon are rare in this region."

"They are," Will agreed.

"Anyway, despite not remembering that much about the city, I will always remember one thing…"

The cute little Pokemon she had met there. "Hapi," Will said at once.

"Yeah!" Melia said, and the way she beamed told him that him remembering that detail meant a lot to her. "That's where I got my first Pokemon!"

"How did that meeting go, anyway?"

Melia shifted on the tree, before promptly leaning her head on his shoulder. "I was playing in the park when I saw this Pokemon egg out in the open. I waddled over there and touched the egg. The moment I did, it started to hatch! When Togepi finally came around, I was the first thing it saw. I think it thought I was its mother or something. It wouldn't let go of me!"

Remembering his first egg hatching, that seemed to line up with Axew's birth. That had been back on Route Four, with Nim and Aelita in a warm, cozy little tent. "Pokemon tend to imprint on the first people they see."

"What was weirder was that this Togepi had a different color scheme altogether!" Melia continued merrily. "I've never seen a Togepi in my life before this, so I had no idea, but…when Jenner saw it, he freaked out so hard and told me everything there is to know about Shiny Pokemon."

Will imagined baby Melia staring blankly at Jenner as the man began laying down the heaviest theories and scientific concepts.

"I think that's when I became obsessed with Shiny Pokemon," Melia continued. "To the point where I would actively look for them while I was out doing research. That's how my original team came together…" The enthusiasm slipped from her features. "The one you saw in Goldenwood Forest…"

"Where are they?" Will asked, although he could already imagine the answer.

"Spacea and Tiempa took them away from me and gave them to Irvin," Melia replied. She managed to keep her voice somewhat matter-of-factly, but the way her shoulders slumped as she stared at the still surface of the water stirred something within Will. It was the same, steely defiance he'd felt when he stood in Jenner's lab after Hapi had just teleported him and his trainer away.

They'd taken her Pokemon. "Why would they do that?" Will asked.

Melia tore her gaze from the pond and shifted her head to looked up him. "They told me that I needed to start from scratch, but I begged them to let me at least have Hapi."

That set off every single alarm bell in his head - and he had a lot of alarms these days.

Will couldn't imagine. Without memories, he literally couldn't, but even so. To have her friends, whom she'd had presumably her entire life, taken away at the darkest moment of her life was…he didn't have any other description for that than needlessly cruel. It was petty. It wasn't necessarily evil so much as it was just so pointless. "Those petty bitches," he spat.

She cringed a bit at his choice of words. "Will…"

"I don't care if they hear me. No, it would be better if they did," he said. "Melia, you'd just found out your father had sold you out to the enemy, that you needed to abandon everything you ever held dear and to top if off, everyone you loved would be left thinking you'd been murdered in that cave. And then, they took your Pokemon away for…what, a clean slate?"

"They were being pragmatic, I guess," Melia quietly said.

"No," Will said sharply. "Melia, Crescent faking your death so Team Xen stopped pursuing you was pragmatic. Those two taking away the only link to your previous life is not." He untangled his hand from hers and placed it atop her shoulder, trying to impart upon her how important this was to get. "It's cruel. It's needless. And…I think it was abusive, too."

The weight shifted from his side and he found that Melia was now staring at him with something like shock.. "What? No, I don't think - "

"Melia, I don't have all the details, but them forcing you to cut all ties to your previous life, leaving you with nothing and nobody to depend on, completely alone so you're forced to depend on them for everything? If that's not emotional abuse, then it's definitely emotional manipulation. It's scummy either way."

Melia seemed to shrink in on herself, the muscles in her shoulders going stiff and tense. "I…I hadn't…I hadn't thought about it like that. I mean…the stakes are so high, and they need us committed and focused and…"

"And vulnerable and dependent on them?" Will said. "It sounds to me like you're describing Team Xen, except those guys are allowed to keep their own Pokemon."

Melia folded her hands above her lap. "I'm not sure…I want to believe that. I know it must sound terrible to someone from the outside, but…they're doing what they have to do. I think." Her eyebrows knitted together in a frown. "But I do resent Spacea and Tiempa because of that."

Will gave her knee a little squeeze. He had some choice words for a leader who had to stoop to such levels of cruelty in order to keep their people motivated, but they weren't what Melia needed to hear. "Where are your Pokemon now?" He asked.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I…I miss them, you know? I miss them with my entire being each and every day. They were my first Pokemon and we had so many experiences together. It's not that I don't love my current team, but they were my original guys. Buneary, Stufful and Eevee…I hope I'll see you all again one day…"

"Maybe you will," Will offered.

She chuckled bitterly. "I don't think there is much of a chance of that. I don't even know what happened to them."

"Maybe we can ask Spacea and Tiempa - "

"No," Melia said immediately. "I think the less interaction we have with the Hags, the better."

"Fine," Will said. He eased one arm around Melia's shoulders, hugged her against him for a quick second and then got to his feet again. "I'll ask them myself."

"Oh no!" Melia protested, jumping to her feet after him. "Don't even think about it! I'm not subjecting you to the Hags either!"

Will wasn't going to push Melia on this topic when it was still so sensitive for her, but the fact that she was this adamant about him not meeting the people who called themselves leaders, further proved how wrong their way of going about this seemed.

"You're not," he replied. "That would be me."

A soft scoff. "No, we're not doing that Will," she said in a casual voice that, nevertheless, brokered no resistance. "We're not visiting the Hags. That would be a bad decision."

"I love making bad decisions," Will said, pushing humor into his tone to let her know that he had conceded, that they could joke and tease and thus, skirt around this painful subject.

"Oh yeah?" She said, doing that smug-eyebrow-raise thing she did and he was a hundred percent there for it. There was a hint of challenge in her voice, as if she expected him to continue.

"There's not a force in Aevium that can keep me from making my very bad decisions," Will teased, curious to see how far Melia wanted to take this. How far she wanted him to take it. His original intention of easing her nerves, it seemed, had worked far better than intended.

"Oh, is that so?" Melia said, flashing him a toothy grin that suggested she could take this a lot further than he thought. "And what if I beg to differ?"

"Th-Then…I'll…" He halted, feeling silly and uncertain, before a haze of recklessness swept over his thoughts, fueled by want and confusion and the memory of her fingers fluttering down his ribs. He pushed on. "Then you'll have to do something about that."

The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could hesitate. His stomach cramped together at how stupid he sounded and yet…the way Melia's face lit up washed away any lingering sense of regret. His words drew her towards him like a magnet, slowly placing one foot in front of the other as she bore down on him with all the air of a predator. Smooth. Languid. "Well then, if that's the way you're going to be, I'll just have to make you," Melia said. Mirth twinkled in her eyes, but there was something else there too. Mischief, perhaps, but it could be something deeper, something fiercer.

Whatever it was, her words immediately made his face grow warm. She'd gotten close now, putting her face within inches of his own and that had gotten his heart twirling in his chest. "Oh," he said intelligently when he remembered how to speak again. "And h-how would you go about doing that?"

She smirked, clearly delighted by his reaction. Her silver eyes pierced straight through him, pinning him in place. She bit down on her lower lip, just enough to be noticeable. "Hmmm…" She reached for his chin, fingertips just barely training along the edge of his jawline. "Misbehave, and you'll find out."

His abdomen pulled tighter at those words and left him more than a little bit excited.

"I'm headed off to Honec," Melia said, grinning at what she saw on his face. "Stay out of trouble, Will." With that left up in the air, Melia then brushed past him, wandering off again to - presumably - start heading towards the Honec Woods for her crucial role in Kelvin's masterplan.

"I'm headed to Darchlight," Will said when he finished rebooting his brain. At that point, he wasn't sure if Melia even heard him.

As they parted ways once more, Will felt like his mind had turned into a tumble dryer the way his thoughts rolled and rolled around inside of his head. His heart swooned in his chest as he realized that Melia had been flirting with him. Somehow, he'd caught that and flirted back. They'd had little moments where things got playful and teasing and just so comfortable before, but this…this was new.

That feeling that had crept up on him in the cabin before was back with a vengeance. Melia was his friend, yes, but she was more than that. Melia was the girl he'd been fighting to protect since day one. She was the girl whose presence had solidified the direction of his journey. She was the girl who had come back when he needed her the most and saved him from that damned frozen prison and she'd continued to take care of him ever since.

The familiar adoration that twinkled in her eyes, the playful quirk of her lips and the smug aura of control and…

He wasn't just falling for Melia anymore, he'd fallen for her, hard.

Will tried to direct his senses towards the forest that surrounded him, pin his thoughts in place with plans for Darchlight planks and finding out what Flora and Florin were doing here. His heart didn't agree with that at all. It kept bouncing all over his chest and he couldn't help but replay Melia's words over and over in his head, kept focusing on the knowing, confident smirk that never failed to make him blush.

Misbehave and find out.

He wasn't going to get anything productive done this day if he kept thinking about Melia, but he couldn't stop thinking about Melia or the feeling of her hair brushing against his face as he pressed himself against her side, warm and the softness of her skin as she ran her fingers across his jaw -

"Come on," Will said to himself. "Get your head on straight. You have wood to gather."

His roadtrip through Route Seven took him to the other side of the river, where he walked across a series of abandoned train tracks until, to his surprise, he came across a few not-so-abandoned carts. Puffs of opaque smoke even plumed up from one of them through a makeshift chimney, as if someone had repurposed them into temporary living quarters.

He wasn't far from the truth. The lady who lived there, Yira as she'd introduced herself, was surprised that someone had found her grotto there and even offered him the chance to take a quick rest there should he need it.

"I've been livin' out here for a coupl' years now," she said with a thick accent. "Gets quite lonely out here, but sometimes I do get visitors, just like you! In fact, I had myself a little roommate for a while. She comes and goes."

"Maybe I'll run into her around here," Will replied. .

"Maybe. Just remember; if ya needs a place to rest for a while, there's a bed inside this here train."

"Another time. Do you happen to know the way to Darchlight Forest?"

Yira did and before long, Will found himself back on the trail. As he made his way through rocky hills, he realized that there had to be a better way of traversing the terrain. Hiking across the trail was fun and all, but he wasn't hanging around here for fun. The sooner he reached his destination the better.

A certain someone on his team helped him traverse the otherwise impassable terrain in single bounds. Within a minute, Blaziken and him reached the top of the rocky hills. From there, Will had a perfect view of his surroundings. Darchlight Forest sprawled out the west, wide and dark and seemingly at odds with the otherwise tranquil nature of Route Seven. Honec Woods lay a bit further to the north. The line that divided Honec and Darchlight was almost a physical thing, like fresh and salt water meeting in the center of a lake, and Will guessed that was where Darchlight got its actual name.

Blaziken approached the edge of the plateau. She nudged a pebble off the ridge and watched it fall.

Will, meanwhile, spotted a pair of familiar green-haired trainers making their way across the trail further down, deeper into the woods. They disappeared from view after a minute though, but Will was confident he'd be able to follow them if he moved quickly enough.

"Let's climb down on that side," Will said, pointing to a slope that didn't look as precarious as the others. "Can you handle the landing?"

It was a rhetorical question. Blaziken always stuck the landing. Just like their descent on the Xen battleship, Blaziken alternated between large sections of falling and gradual deceleration, and a hike that could have cost them half an hour was handled in the span of a few minutes.

Darchlight Woods was straight ahead. Through twists and turns and leaving more than a few startled Geodudes in his wake, Will managed to keep up a solid pace. He alternated between a minute of running and two minutes of walking to catch his breath. He just hoped that his new teammate didn't mind all the jostling in his backpack too much.

Axew had never complained before, so it would be fine.

The grassy path leading from Route Seven ended at the ominous mouth of Darchlight Forest. The towering trees with their thick, heavy foliage seemed to snuff out all the light as Will ventured forth. The warm glow of the afternoon vanished when he walked into ancient wood's, like he'd just been swallowed by a great beast.

The ambience around him grew quiet and subdued. The further into the forest he went, the heavier the air felt. A fog enveloped his surroundings, not as bad as the one in Gardevoir's nightmare realm but it was there nonetheless. In the distance, Pokemon chirped and cried and little wisps of light flickered through the fog.

Will didn't see the siblings anywhere, but he'd been closing in on them before he entered the forest proper, so they couldn't have gone very far.

He passed through a cluster of large, dark trees, crossed a wooden bridge to get on the other side of a silvery river and then paused.

The constant rustling he heard in the bushes around him made it hard to hear, but it was almost as if he heard something move through the foliage behind him.

Will glanced around to give the area he just passed through a critical look. Was it just him, or did the shadows of a particular pair of trees look different from the others?

That was when the pair of trainers whirled from around the trees together, jumping into the clearing in a synchronized manner, shouting, "BOO!"

"Grah!" Startled, Will took a few steps back, his heart leaping to his throat.

Freaking Florin and Flora!

Seeing the green-haired siblings roll up on him like that instead of Team Xen or, even worse, Karen asking him for a family dinner, helped ease his nerves. He even managed to turn the kneejerk reach for his Pokemon into something more casual in the process.

"Did you really think we would let you trail us like that?" Flora said disdainfully, her expression dripping with scorn.

"Just so you know, we were once part of the Skwovet Scouts!" Florin added. "So don't even think about pulling a fast one on - " He cut himself off and performed a double take, really looking at the hapless idiot in their path. "Hold the phone…that's our old buddy Will! Flora, false alarm!"

Flora's eyes widened in recognition. Groaning in frustration, she smacked her forehead with her palm. "Maybe we are bad at letting people trail us…" She shook the frustration off and angrily approached him. "Just what are you doing all the way out here by yourself?" She demanded.

It was so good to see that Flora hadn't changed at all since their last stint together... "Just chilling, plank you very much," he bit back.

Florin laughed, but Flora's glare told him that she wasn't amused. It was equal parts anger and confusion. "What?"

"I think he's using 'plank' as a pun for 'thank'," Florin explained,

"Yeah, I got that Mister Skwovet Scout," she said with an almost disdainful roll of her eyes. "I just don't think it was very good!"

"Give it a rest already Flora," her brother said, still smiling. "Fighting Will is not our objective. Don't forget the real reason why we're here…."

With a scoff, Flora turned away.

Florin looked at her pensively. "I don't know if you've heard this, but Talon was attacked and was turned to stone," he said quietly. "Flora said she might have a way to save him and bring him back to health, so that's why we're here in Darchlight Woods."

"Seriously?" Will exclaimed. "You can do that?"

"Hold up, I said I might have a way to help," Flora protested. "I don't know if the serum I'm thinking of will have any effect at all."

Serum? Flora knew of a freaking serum that could turn people from stone back to normal? How? Since when?

"But there's a chance, right?" Florin insisted.

"You're putting a lot of stock into something I don't have much confidence in…" Flora crossed her arms and gave her brother a firm look. "When I told you what I had in mind I didn't think you'd go this nuts over it."

"Flora!" He gasped. "He's my best friend! And he's our roommate!"

"Tch…why'd you have to go and make me feel guilty?" Flora muttered angrily. "Look, I'll try my best. Just don't get angry with me if it flops."

"I'm…sorry about Talon, guys," Will said.

"Yeah, well, now that we've spilled our guts, it's your turn," Flora said. "For real this time, because the last time I saw you, you were neck deep in your fight with Team Xen."

Will relented. After all, Flora had come clean with him and he liked Florin. "I was heading to GDC by train, but both the Grand Bridge and the Grand Express Bridge were destroyed. I'm here to gather materials to help fix them."

"Oh god!" Florin said, shooting a horrified look at his sister. "This is serious…we were just on the bridge half an hour ago and it was fine! To think that, if we crossed it just a little later…"

Half an hour ago…that wasn't a coincidence. Someone must have wanted someone on that train dead. How could Team Xen have possibly known that Melia, Venam and him had been on their way? Could April…

No, that couldn't be it. If Team Xen wanted them dead, they could have easily bombarded the train from the air. Besides; they wanted Melia alive, so derailing a train and getting everybody onboard killed made zero sense.

"Well, this is just fortuitous indeed!" Flora said. "It just so happens that Florin knows where to find these Darchlight planks."

"Really?" Will said.

"That is true," Florin affirmed.

"Settled then!" Flora piped up. "In that case, I'll go look for the root specimen I need for my serum, and Florin can assist you with finding the planks you need."

"I'm getting a weird sense of deja-vu," Will commented. Last time Flora wandered off on her own, things hadn't gone very well. "A root specimen?"

"What else were we going to find in a forest?" Flora said with an annoyed tone. "Nearly all modern medicine started out on concoction made from natural ingredients."

"As long as those ingredients don't try to mutate and eat me…"

"Hilarious," Flora said flatly. "Are we all in agreement? Yes? Good. There's a small village deep within the woods. Let's rendezvous there."

She walked off briskly without even waiting for a response, leaving the two guys on their own.

"I'm glad to see we all learned our lesson from the forest temple that day," Will said.

"Yeah, my sister's always trying to get rid of me someway or somehow." Florin shrugged. "Oh well. I'm just going to put my faith in her. As for the planks…there's a specific area that's authorized for cutting down trees."

"Can't we just knock down the trees here?" Will asked. "That'd be faster."

"No!" Florin exclaimed before Will could even finish his sentence. "Of course we can't, Will, that's just insane! Darchlight Forest is delicate and knocking down the wrong tree might deprive the Pokemon here of their homes! The ecosystem here isn't like that in the other forests. No, I am the one who marked the authorized area, I can tell you which trees are good to cut down."

"Okay," Will said, raising his hands in surrender. "Okay. I didn't know it was that important."

"It is!" Florin said, before proceeding to tell him all about the finer details and importance of proper forest maintenance and management over the course of the next twenty minutes.

Will tried to keep his wits about him as he followed Florin to the north. Something about the forest bugged him in a way few other forests had. The finer, smaller details came off as unnatural to him. Formations of mushrooms growing in perfect circles, trees with bark grown out in the shape of human expressions, distant laughter echoing through the forest…he just didn't like it.

He wasn't sure if Florin noticed his discomfort. He happily kept talking about restoration of soil and tending to wounded plants to the point that, when something massive soared overhead with enough speed to make the trees shake, he barely noticed it.

"Whoah, heavy breeze!" Florin laughed.

"Uh - "

"Ah, there we go! This is the spot! See, the marked trees are the ones that will supply us with Darchlight Planks. See them? There, there and there?"

"The blue ones?" Will asked.

"They're called Spiritblume Trees. and they're special because it only takes half a year for them to fully grow! The ones that are sectioned off are off-limits and logs placed around the area are for the people of Darchlight Village."

"You sure know your stuff," Will remarked as he headed deeper into the clearing.

"Oh!" Florin said. "Uh, I'm the head of GEPA! The Grand Environmental Protection Agency. Our job is to keep the environment healthy and thriving! There's a lot of greedy people who would exploit the environment for a quick buck. My team and I put our heart into making sure things like that don't happen."

"So what happens if you encounter people who don't care about those rules? You know the type."

Florin chuckled. "Heh. Well, I dislike violence, but I'm not above kicking some butts if necessary! It helps that I've got Flora around. We work part time at our Botanical Garden by the way, so I don't have her help every time, but that's kind of a hobby thing."

"Guess that makes sense," Will muttered in response. "How do you want to bring these trees down? I didn't bring Venam's pocket knife."

"Uh, who? No worries! My Pokemon can handle it all!"

As they got to work marking and cutting down trees, Will sent out Kirlia and asked her if she wanted to help Florin and him move the planks his Pokemon cut.

While Florin tended to his work, another massive shadow shot overhead, passing right over Kirlia and him. His little Psychic-type jumped and promptly teleported halfway across the clearing, taking refuge in an old, hollowed-out tree.

"Hey Kirlia, I'm ready for…huh?" Florin looked up to see their helper was missing. "Where'd she go?"

"She…probably got spooked by something," Will said as he tried to peer through the canopy. Nothing; Darchlight Forest seemed to swallow all light.

What was this thing? What was it after?

"Oh, that happens! This forest is rife with pranksters and other, sometimes scary Pokemon," Florin said. "We should be totally fine, though. How about you go find the next tree?"

"R-Right."

The next tree grew on an elevated section at the edge of the clearing. Halfway up, Kirlia teleported down next to him, brushing his way through the thick foliage. Branches tugged at his clothes and got tangled in the straps of his backpack when he crouched down to pass underneath them.

That was probably why he hadn't stumbled into the open before hearing the voices. Harsh male voices arguing amongst each other before a sharp, female voice cut them off.

Instinctively dropping into a low crouch, Will brought his finger to his lips to shush Kirlia, before very slowly easing himself down onto his stomach. He slid his backpack off and laid it down against the tree. Moving slowly and silently, he began crawling his way through the thick brushes to the depression on the other side of the tree. Kirlia hopped down onto his back and the sudden weight stopped him dead in his tracks.

"Seriously?" He whispered.

Kirlia imitated him, getting down on her stomach and putting her head between his shoulder blades. The foliage in front of him, thick, flexible branches with sharp leaves, suddenly whipped sideways with a purple glow. Silently, Kirlia wrenched them apart, allowing him a much better view down the slope. It wasn't precise work, but it was silent, which was all that mattered.

After half a minute of searching, Will spotted a pair of men clad in black fatigues and something like balaclavas to hide their faces. They, as well as the green-haired woman facing them, stood atop a wooden platform of sorts, overlooking a large, dark sinkhole in the ground. The entire area seemed to be fenced in, but he couldn't be sure with the shrubbery in his face.

"...heard that the Grand Bridge was destroyed," the woman said angrily. The pair of glasses she wore on her face hid her eyes well enough, but it wasn't difficult to imagine her glaring daggers at these two.

"Yes! We've detonated the explosives we've planted there!" One of the black-clad goons replied.

Will shifted his weight to his right a bit more, trying to get a better angle. Who were these people?

"That action was completely unauthorized!" The woman yelled and holy shit, he knew that voice! "Those explosives were supposed to go off on my command! A command I have not given. So…I'm awaiting an explanation."

Moving with exaggerated slowness, Will moved to press his forearm against his mouth, fearing that even breathing too much might give him away somehow. This…was big. For once, he had the drop on a potential threat before it could move against him. These guys had no idea he was here and he would love to keep it that way.

"B-But ma'am!" The other man protested. "You did give the command."

"I did not!" Flora snapped with a steely edge to her voice. "This little scheme of trying to place the blame on me isn't going to end well for any of you."

This didn't make sense. Flora had seemed genuinely surprised to hear that the bridge had been blown. Had she been faking that?

"So," Flora continued on a calmer note, "I'm going to give you another command, and this time you'd do best to follow it. Drop it, and let's move on."

Her goons exchanged something of an uneasy glance between each other. "Y-Yes ma'am," one of them sighed.

"Good. Now that's settled…I'm stuck here with my brother and another annoying trainer."

Hello Fora, Will mouthed. One annoying trainer, coming right up…

"Unfortunately, the next step in the operation requires my presence," his green-haired demolition woman continued. "As a result, we're just going to have to wait for the bridge to be repaired. Which completely resets all our progress in this operation. But at this point it's neither here nor there. Disperse for now. When we make it back to HQ we'll discuss what we need to do to make up for this horrendous failure"

"Understood!" Her two thugs yelled, snapping to attention before hurrying out of there.

Muttering something to herself, Fora took off her own black thug-jacket and her sunglasses and began stuffing them into her own bag. It was around that moment that Will braced himself for the inevitable moment Flora would whip around, reveal that she knew he'd been spying on her all along and promptly teleport him out into the open to smite him down, but that didn't happen.

Instead, another massive shape flew overhead, sending the Impidimps hanging around the grotto running in a panic.

Who was stalking who?

"Will?" Florin's voice came from behind. "Where'd you go?"

"Crap," Will whispered. "Backwards, let's go!"

As he committed to an awkward backwards crawl out of his observation spot, he glanced over his shoulder and saw Florin approaching him. "Ah, there you are! What are you doing on the ground?"

"Uh…searching for tracks?" Will said.

"...oh," Florin replied after a moment's pause, peering at the spot he'd just vacated. "Well, you've also found the tree I was talking about. I'll go ahead and chop this one down too so…wait a minute."

Florin then proceeded to crash through the thick underbrush Will had carefully nestled his way through. "Hey that's Flora! She hasn't found her specimen yet?"

"Florin - "

If Florin recognized any of the sketchiness of the situation, he simply shrugged it off. "Welp, we planned to meet up at the village in the woods, but it looks like she isn't done yet. Let's go meet up with her and help her out with things! This tree should get us all set up for repairing that bridge!"

Will backed away from the slope and watched Florin work his green fingers. Did he know about his sister's activities? Was he in on it as well, and was this all just an act? Flora had drugged them together with Talon back in that temple, but that could have been a front to fool Talon as well.

He knew literally nothing beyond the absolute basics; Flora was apparently a or even the leader of a group of people who had the means and motivation to sabotage the major infrastructure junctions around GDC…with disastrous consequences. Was it just the bridge they'd been after? Was derailing the train and killing its passengers their goal?

Were they criminals? Terrorists? Something else?

The details didn't add up. Flora's desire to distance herself from her brother suggested she didn't actually want him involved and she wouldn't risk ostracizing her subordinates with some bullshit story about permission unless she thought it was truly important.

"Hey, Florin," Will started as Florin's Pokemon started carving the fallen log into workable planks.

"Yeah?"

"Did you notice something off about Flora lately?" Will asked, carefully studying Florin to see what effect his words had on the guy. Florin seemed like a decent man to him, but if he was in on this, somehow, this could get real dangerous real fast.

Florin considered his words, before smiling and sighing. "Ah, Will, I think I know what's bothering you."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah…last time, things got a bit heavy. To be honest, I would struggle to trust someone who drugged my tea as well. And the last time Flora wandered off on her own, she did get in trouble." Florin nodded at him in what Will guessed was meant to be a reassuring, even understanding manner. "But please believe me when I say that Flora's heart is in the right place. She's a good person Will, even though she often acts like she doesn't care."

…damnit, he didn't know, he couldn't see it! Was Florin being genuine? Was he covering for his sister, trying to divert his suspicions? Did Florin know he found out about Flora?

Melia would know. If she were here now, she'd figure out what to do in a heartbeat.

"Right," Will said, making a point of nodding along with Florin. Best thing he could do was keep this one close to his chest, pretend he didn't know. He'd ask April and Melia for their thoughts later. "Well, you know her best, Florin. I won't be taking any drinks from her anytime soon though."

With a hearty laugh, Florin went back to work, and soon the two of them had processed the second tree into a good stash of Darchlight planks. With Kelvin's building materials arranged in a neat bundle, the two guys started making their way to that strange, fenced-in area they'd spotted Flora hanging around.

"Darchlight Village is a literal walk through the park from here," Florin said as they approached the entrance. "Oh, I know! When we're done we should head over, show you around. There's this large manor all the way in the back and…well…I've always wanted to check it out, but it's abandoned, you know? It's…Flora teases me a lot about this, but there's just something about it that…well…"

"An abandoned manor in an eternally-dark, eerie forest?" Will replied when Florin's struggling became too much for him to bear. "That's just objectively spooky, Florin, no other way about it."

"I know right?" Florin said, eagerly latching on to his words. "The people in Darchlight are genuinely so nice and if I wanted to explore the mansion, they would let me spelunk there for hours."

"Why would you want that?" Will asked.

"Because the mansion is heritage!" Florin replied excitedly. "It's culture, and the act of exploration is a reward in itself!"

Will could see where he was coming from. If Darchlight Village was as close as Florin said it was, there could be no harm in checking things out there.

The fenced-in area Flora was rummaging around in was topped with razor wire, oddly enough. Multiple signs reading "STAY OUT" hung around the perimeter as well, which made it doubly odd that the front gate was just…open. A silent invitation to come in and snoop around.

Who could ignore an invitation like that?

"This…doesn't look right at all," Florin said, nervous eyes taking in the surrounding trucks, before settling on the small structure to their left. "What did we just stumble into? And why is Flora here?" Pensively, he glanced at massive cargo containers that had been deposited right next to the building. He took off with sudden focus, striding towards Flora, who was still standing where Will had last seen her. "Flora!"

Startled, his sibling whipped around. "Florin?!" She exclaimed. "Will?! What are you two doing back here?!"

It was very likely that a certain pair of goons had forgotten to lock the gate behind them.

"I could ask you the same question!" Florin said pointedly. "I thought you were supposed to be looking for that root specimen!"

Flora glanced away. "I have been. It's been rough. I wasn't getting anywhere so I went past the gate and tried to look around." She shot Will a dirty look before addressing her brother again. "Besides! Weren't we supposed to rendezvous at Darchlight Village?"

"We finished early and decided we wanted to help you out!" Florin replied. "But it seems you're in your pissy mood again."

"You know me," Flora grumbled. "I don't like it when things don't go according to plan."

"And that's just how it's going to be, huh?" Florin pushed.

Flora didn't respond.

Scoffing, Florin turned away from his sister. What followed was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch out forever. It was heavy, tangible, and for the first time Will truly understood what it meant when people said that tension could be thick enough to cut with a knife. "Guys…are we good?" He said, desperate to break that silence.

"Peachy," Flora said, her voice positively dripping with venom.

"I'm glad you feel that way," Florin replied, so sincere that Will guessed he'd filtered out everything except for her literal words. He regarded his sister for a moment, then swept his gaze across the area. "This place looks like a Bladestar base."

Bladestar…so this was what Rhodea had been talking about.

"That's because it is, but it seems abandoned," Flora replied. "There's not much - "

Again something massive flew overhead, casting a massive shadow over Will and the Flo-siblings.

"What?" Flora said, craning her head up into the sky. "Did you guys hear that?"

"I didn't hear anything?" Florin replied.

"I swear I just heard - "

Faster than Will could blink, a massive shape detached itself from the night sky and swept towards them. It came down on Florin so fast and so suddenly that by the time Will even realized what was happening, Florin's body was already tumbling down the sinkhole

"Florin!" His sister screamed.

And then the a fucking Giratina levitated down in front of them. It uttered a bone-quaking roar that seemed to vibrate the very air around them.

How? Where did this thing come from, Crescent had sent it away, he'd seen her do it!

"What the hell?" Flora's features settled into stony anger. "Hey! You're gonna pay for doing that to my brother! Will, let's tear this oversized bird to pieces."

Will stepped up. Finding out why Giratina came back could wait. He'd defeated this thing once, he could do so again.

A flash of light, the feeling of staticky interference prickling against his thoughts and suddenly, Will found himself staring at a trio of Giratina instead of just one.

Now that's just not fair.

"Wh-What?!" A frantic Flora shouted. "What's going on? Why are there three of them now?"

Another Giratina flickered into existence to his left, immediately followed by another one to their right.

Slowly, Flora and Will began inching backwards, away from this impossible arrangement of Legendary Pokemon. Will's mind raced as he struggled to process the situation. There had only ever been one Giratina before. There had only ever been one shadow darting overhead.

"I was prepared to fight one, not three, and certainly not five," Flora said. "What a fucking bother…"

As one, the five Legendary Pokemon charged at them and brought the world crashing down on him, turning it into a yawning blackness.

In that blackness, he drifted.

"Did you get that for me? Aww, that's so sweet! Thanks, but you really didn't have to!"

An image asserted itself brightly in the center of his mind.

Long, rose-colored hair, a dazzling smile and the softest, most compassionate eyes the world had to offer. She was beautiful, so beautiful. She marveled at the gift he'd brought her and the way her hair caught the rays of the sun was just stunning. Affection swept through him as he saw her lilac eyes widen with glee -

With a pained groan, Will saw a different world coming into blurry focus in front of his eyes but it didn't come together in a way that made sense. She was there, the rose-haired girl was right there but at the same time she wasn't. Where had she gone? He had a…he'd brought her a…

Shakily, he brought a hand to his forehead. His head was pounding something awful and yet the inexplicable sense of familiarity and glee that swept through him along the images didn't go away easily. The memory had come so suddenly and so vividly and it hadn't been from Aevium.

He huffed a quiet laugh. He'd remembered a thing! He'd remembered something! Venam and Melia had been right, if he just walked harder through Aevium he might get things back! When he found them again, he'd tell them and…and…

…why did his arm look like that?

With mounting confusion, Will stared at the glowing schisms running across his body. His left arm was a reddish-orange brown, glowing incandescently against his surroundings. When he turned it around he saw that the glowy schism was like a dividing line or something; it wrapped around his arm and over his elbow and where the brown glow touched the cracks, it transitioned and continued on in an equally incandescent white glow. That spread out over his shoulder and ate his chest. When Will jerked his jacket and shirt aside, he saw that the strange glowy colors came from his flesh and skin. There, like cracks snaking across a window, the whiteness transitioned into a light shade of green. Across his chest, down his abdomen and spiraling down his left leg, greenness and whiteness met dark brown. It was the same for his other leg and his right arm, but with light brown and pink instead.

What the hell?

He was so focused on the intensity of his memory and the weirdness of his physical appearance that he nearly missed the fact that Florin had been shouting at him, presumably for a while, from right next to him.

His heart racing, Will turned his attention to the man to his right - but the weirdness of the situation didn't end there. Florin wasn't Florin, or at least not the man he knew. This Florin hovered in his glass cell, a pair of long, fluffy wings keeping him aloft as he gazed down at Will with concern. "Will, wake up! Are you okay!"

"Am I dreaming?" Will murmured. He ran his hands across the glass cell that he just now realized pressed down on him from all sides. Its surface felt smooth and very real.

"If this is a dream, it's not a funny one," Florin replied. "Are you in pain Will?"

"Pain?" Will murmured. He closed his right eye - still blind in the left - and then remembered how he'd ended up down here in the first place. Giratina - or rather, Giratinas - had attacked Flora and him. Knocked him down that sinkhole and…but why? If they'd wanted Flora and him dead -

He recalled with horrible clarity how Jenner had clutched the smoking, burning remnants of his ruined chest and abdomen.

Will shuddered. That. If Giratina wanted them dead, then…that would have happened already.

Florin had asked him something. "What?" He asked when he realized he'd forgotten.

"I asked if you were in pain," Florin said patiently. "You look like it. Or rather, you looked like it."

"No…I'm not," Will replied. "It looks weird, but I don't feel…where's Flora? Did you see her?"

With a smile, Florin hovered towards the back of his cell and hooked his thumb towards the cell next to him. "Right there!"

There stood Flora clad in what looked like a trenchcoat, her hair tied up in a tight ponytail and gathered underneath a black cap of sorts, a bit like Amanda's. She looked like a real hardass now. Will would have made a joke about the outfit suiting her better, but he knew of better ways to dig a hole for himself, and it didn't make sense regardless because he knew for a fact that Flora hadn't had those clothes on her before they fell.

"Wow, you look like a real mess," Flora commented.

"Guess both of our exteriors now match the interior," Will replied.

Flora rolled her eyes. "So what just happened to us?"

"After I fell down that hole, you and Will showed up shortly after," Florin explained.

With a heavy scoff, Flora replied, "That Giratina…or rather, those Giratinas…they must have knocked us into that pit deliberately. But why?" She glanced around the cavern pensively, before her eyes settled on her brother. "Florin, you have wings."

"Yeah, I noticed," Florin said. "We all look quite strange. Falling into that hole seems to have had some…physical effect on us."

Will ran his thumb across his collarbone. It didn't feel different for him, but evidently their appearance wasn't just an illusion or anything. Florin was actually flying.

"Well, this is just great," Flora spat. "What are we supposed to do now?"

"Dunno. But the doors are sealed shut and we're trapped in these uncomfortable tubes," Florin replied.

Then, another voice spoke up, coming from right behind Will. "Speak for yourself. I think these things are quite comfy."

Will spun around and saw that there was another tube he hadn't even seen before. It was right next to his, making it the fourth in the row of glass prison cells. Inside, a girl had gotten to her feet, and she looked the polar opposite of Florin. A long, reddish trail protruded from the base of her spine, ending in a glowing red, fleshy spade. Her skin glowed with a faint hue of red, and her blood-red eyes blazed like Kirlia's did. The reddish aura surrounding her even came with a pair of horns, sweeping upwards along the edge of her hair. Whoever she was, she looked very much like a devil.

That being said, her expression was one of mild curiosity, and Will didn't think she looked mean-spirited or unkind. She was a very attractive young woman, maybe a few years older than him, and she looked vaguely familiar.

"You guys sure are loud, you know that?" The girl continued. "Here I was taking a peaceful nap until you three decided to have a rap battle down in the caves."

A nap? In these circumstances? Who was this woman, why was she even here?

"Huh! Who are you?" Florin asked.

"Inconsequential," the girl said dismissively.

First impressions were extremely important. "Nice to meet you, Inconsequential," Will said.

The devil-like girl eyed him with an air of disappointment.

Before Will could proceed to introduce himself, Flora yelled, "The hell do you mean "inconsequential"? You shouldn't be down here like this!"

Without missing a beat, the girl replied, "The same could be said for you lot. Are all of you not down here with me at this very moment?"

"Um…she's got you there, Flora," Florin said, flashing his sister an apologetic smile.

"That's beside the point!" Flora argued. "What psychopath sleeps in a place like this?"

"This psychopath, ma'am," the stranger replied calmly. "But could we do without throwing such a pointed word like that around? Truthfully, it's a low-hanging fruit and it isn't even appropriate."

"I think she has you yet again," Florin pointed out.

"She's not making it very difficult."

Will saw a storm gathering in Flora's eyes and felt glad that he still had Florin's glass tube separating him from her. "The nerve of this one…" Flora growled. "Not like it matters. She's trapped down here just like the rest of us."

Devil-girl leaned against the back of her tube with an almost casual air. "I'm not trapped? I can't be trapped. I never have, never will, and never shall be "trapped"."

Either she had the world's greatest masterkey, or they were lapsing into a particular branch of philosophy that Will simply couldn't wrap his head around.

"But the door…" Florin muttered.

"This rusty and useless excuse for a door? I don't think so," the strange girl continued. She then proceeded to very casually push the heavy steel door open and walk on through, before sauntering past Will's door with the air of someone retrieving the paper from their mailbox and stopping in front of Florin's tube. "What was that about being stuck?" She asked.

Florin gaped at her wide-eyed, before turning his head towards Flora and deciding to promptly diss her for the third time. "And for the third time it seems like my sister has just been thrashed once again."

Will snorted. Had he been Flora, he would have cut his losses and just shut his mouth at that point. Maybe it was a girl thing, some unseen rivalry triggered by a factor Florin and him couldn't see, but this battle of wits wasn't going to end up in her favor anytime soon.

Flora, being Flora and not him, opened her mouth yet again. "Okay since you seem to have all the answers - Would you please explain how you were able to escape?"

Coyly, the devil-girl leaned against the stairs leading to Florin's cell. "I suppose I could tell you?" She said, her expression one of feigned innocence. She tapped her lips thoughtfully. "But that's no fun, nor is it satisfying…alas, if I must, then I suppose a simple "please" shall suffice."

Will thought he saw one of Flora's eyes twitch. "I dislike you," she hissed. "But please."

The barest hint of a smile tugged at the strange girl's lips. "Very well."

In a display of incredible acrobatics, the girl proceeded to leap at Will's tube, kicked off back at Florin's, pivot, propel herself back at the top of Will's tube again and then jump the gap. She barely managed to grab a hold of the edge of Florin's tube, struggled for a moment, before clambering atop. "There," she said, sitting down at the edge and crossing one leg over the other.

Will caught himself staring. "Flashy!" He said. "How'd you do that?"

"Thanks, but I had no idea I could do that. Never tried something like that but it worked out."

That…that made no sense. None of this made any sense. Once again, he was floundering in a situation completely out of his control. If this was a dream, he blamed Darchlight Woods. Actually, he'd blame Flora.

"Very impressive," a not-at-all impressed Flora intoned. "Now explain."

"Well, it sounds ridiculous, but just follow my instructions," the girl explained. The spaded tip of her tail slowly wagged back and forth as she explained, "Stare at the door and focus on breaking it down. Pretend that you have psychic powers and you can use telekinesis or something."

"Um…" Florin said.

"And then when you're fully focused, just…do it."

Will felt increasingly certain that they'd all ended up in some sort of dreamscape of sorts. None of this made sense, Florin was an angel, the girl who finally shut Flora down was a devil and his body was a jungle's rainbow. Sure, why not pretend to have telekinetic powers?

He took a deep breath, reminding himself to remain calm. If this was really some sort of elaborate dreamscape or worse, an enemy action, then this girl was the odd one out. She knew too much, felt too at ease around here.

Stay resilient, and play along, Will told himself.

"Do what?" Florin asked.

"It," the devilish girl helpfully clarified. "Just do it."

Before Will could come up with something smart to say back, Flora proceeded to bust her door off its hinges by scowling at it. "Done," she said as she strolled out.

"How in the - ?" Florin sputtered.

"Just follow the imp's instructions," Flora said dismissively.

Will rolled his shoulders in anticipation of the heavy staring contest he was about to start with the cold exterior of his prison. He concentrated on a rusty spot on the door, glared, then wondered if this was what Nim's reality was like. A reality where the laws of physics were more like guidelines, where focus and concentration were all what was needed to bend her surroundings to her will.

Next to him, Florin busted his cell door open as well. "Jeez, that was wild…"

He renewed his stare, tried to shove the image of Nim's body sinking in that lava from his mind, and tried again. This was probably how the likes of Gardevoir and Indriad influenced their reality; the power was innate, and the focus and concentration was the outlet, the way to shape their abilities. Well, not for Gardevoir since she was a Pokemon. Indeed and Maria, then.

His door failed to yield.

"Come on Will! You can do it!" Florin cheered.

"Having some performance issues there?" Flora said.

Will ignored her. Ignored the strange way Florin's too-small wings still kept his body aloft and even ignored the way the devil-girl's eyes burned a hole in his neck as she stared at him. He took another breath, concentrated on that same rusty spot and then imagined himself about to fall upon one of Team Xen's battleships again, plummeting through the night on Pidgeot, Froslass and Blaziken at his beck and call in a wash of adrenaline and focus. No thinking, no room for doubts. Just the absolute certainty of knowing his enemy, knowing his friends and understanding with absolute clarity what needed to be done and that he had the tools and the means to get it done.

An invisible hand shoved his door open.

"There you go!" Florin exclaimed.

"And after listening to me, you're free," the strange girl commented. She hopped down from the top of Florin's tube, landed easily on her feet and strolled off the platform.

"Thank you so much…uh…well, I don't have a name for you, so…" Florin sheepishly said.

"It's Erin," the girl replied. "That's all."

"Erin! Thank you!" Florin said.

"Thank you for your help, Erin," Will said. "I'm Will. These are Florin and - "

"May I ask, Erin, how did you get down here?" Flora demanded, as if the very idea of Erin being down here by herself was somehow a grave insult.

If Flora's hostility bothered her, Erin didn't show it. "Well if you must know, I was looking for a friend I lost," she calmly replied. "We got separated somehow and I was walking through the woods until suddenly I just fell through the floor."

That seemed to surprise Flora. "You fell? Through the ground?"

"Yes," Erin simply said. "I didn't even notice the crevice in the ground." She paused. "No, actually, I'm very sure that it wasn't there - until it was."

"This girl has lost her mind," Flora said with a shake of her head.

"Yeah, because sinkholes are such a novel concept," Will shot back, annoyed at Flora's blatant hostility here. It was her thugs who'd nearly gotten his friends hurt, after all, and the second the opportunity presented itself he was going to get himself some answers.

Flora glared at him and opened her mouth to retort.

"Okay then. Just how did you three end up down here?" Erin asked, beating her to it. "I'm all ears, Broccoli Queen. Let's hear your explanation."

Her tone was polite enough, but there was an implication in her words, something subtle and intangible, that Will couldn't quite place.

It left Flora floundering. "We…We were attacked by a group of Giratina…" She said, her voice uncharacteristically meek.

Erin blinked, then cocked an eyebrow. "I'm so sorry, what? Giratina the Legendary Pokemon? A group of them?"

Again, Erin spoke in the kind of tone that couldn't be taken offense at, but left a deeper impression of something else.

"It does sound ridiculous when you say it aloud," Florin agreed with her.

"That's because it is ridiculous," Erin said, dropping all pretenses. "And after you berated me for my explanation? If that's the best you could come up with, then your neurons need some serious maintenance."

At that moment, two different thoughts shot through Will's own overworked neurons. The first went something along the lines of him really not wanting to end up on Erin's bad side. The second, however, was that keeping everybody safe from the rogue Legendary Pokemon would be that much harder if none of them even believed that the threat existed.

Will couldn't believe that he was about to do it, but he had to back Flora up here. He'd lie awake and question what choices in life led to him to this point later. "She's right. There is a Giratina loose in Aevium and it knocked us down our own sinkhole."

Erin gave him a scrutinizing look. Her gaze was sharp and piercing, and Will got the impression that lying to this young woman would be a very bad idea. "I have a hard time believing that," she told him.

"Well, it's not like I can confirm either," Florin shrugged. "I was pushed into this hole before I even saw anything."

"Really?" Erin asked. "I wouldn't believe a lie like that if it fell from the heavens themselves!"

The cave trembled and all four of them froze on the spot - save for Erin, who nearly jumped a foot in the air. The noise came from the left side of the cavern, where the walls took a slight bend to open up in another chamber of sorts. A plume of dust blew from around the corner there.

"What was that?" Florin yelled.

"Something just landed in the middle of that room," Flora said.

"It seems I've spoken too soon," Erin remarked.

"Let's investigate!"

They rushed past several rows of tables covered with consoles and computer screens and hurried into the next chamber.

There, as if the universe was somehow more eager to prove Flora right than it was to prove Will wrong, laid the massive and unmoving bulk of Giratina.

It was experience more than instinct that had Will back away from the Legendary Pokemon. His back hit the wall on the other end of the cave and he pressed into it.

I beat that thing, he thought wildly to himself. I beat it. I can beat it again.

"Well, there's your evidence," Flora remarked. She looked at Erin with a satisfied expression.

"Guess I deserve that one or being a little too arrogant with my comeback," Erin said with a shrug. "I concede." She cast her gaze about the room, as if looking for something, and her eyes settled on Will for a moment.

Swallowing hard. Will forced himself to take a step away from the wall, then another. He didn't like the way Erin looked at him, as if somehow, she knew. "One lie from the heavens, coming right up," he quipped.

"Still, this is only one of the Giratina you've mentioned," Florin continued.

"There were more…I think?"

Erin glanced back at the unmoving Legendary. "Either way you two did a real number on this one," she said. "It's beat up pretty badly. Knocked right out."

"I fought that thing plenty of times in the past, but Flora and I didn't get any attacks in, on the surface," Will said.

"Yeah, so this doesn't make any sense," Flora added.

"Hmm…" Erin knelt down next to the Legendary Pokemon and it took everything Will had to remain calm when she did. "The damage is quite clear if you just take a look."

Oh, he could bet…he'd just keep his distance. Vaguely, he knew that Giratina wasn't to blame for Geara's actions, and yet…yet he couldn't bear the thought of being near it again. He just couldn't. Not after the things he'd seen it do.

"I'm not disagreeing with you, it's clear as day," Flora said. "It's just…if Will and I didn't do this, then who did?"

There was a long moment of silence during which they all stared at each other. "Well," Erin spoke up. "Personally, I'd rather not find out. We should formulate an escape plan and route immediately."

Will reflected on the possibility of a Pokemon stronger than Giratina lurking around and found himself agreeing with Erin. "Yeah."

"I agree," Florin said.

That word hadn't even fallen from his lips before Flora walked off on her own. "In that case, I suggest we split up and search the area. I saw an opening leading to another room while in that small prison of mine. I'll take the time to investigate that area of the cave - "

Erin took three firm passes and put herself in Flora's way. "Stop."

With a collective intake of air, Florin and Will went very, very still.

Flora leveled a glare at Erin. "What?"

"You don't get to make that decision alone," Erin calmly said. "We all need to agree on it."

Flora crossed her arms and jutted her jaw out, looking a hell of a lot like Venam in doing so. "What's the issue?"

"You just seem a little eager to run off alone, is all," Erin said evenly. "Pardon me for finding that just a little suspicious."

Whoeve Erin was, she was whip-smart. Will could see himself liking her.

Flora grit her teeth. "Working alone is what I'm best at. That's all this is."

"No more bickering!" Florin said before Erin could pick that retort apart. "We're going to settle this in a civil manner." Using his wings, he floated a few meters away from Giratina. "There seems to be a door up those stairs," he said, pointing at a small hallway nestled between the rocks to the north. "And to the left there's the corner Flora mentioned. There's four of us. We can split into teams of two. What do we say to that?"

Will. who had thought the civil manner to solve this dispute was extreme violence by means of a Pokemon battle, found himself agreeing easily.

Flora almost seemed to be insulted by the suggestion. "I'd rather you stay here and not touch anything, really."

Which sort of suggested Bladestar had boobietrapped the hell out of this place.

"Let's get an unbiased vote," Erin said, before turning to face Will. "Will was it? You decide what happens from here. Okay?"

"Will is hardly an unbiased vote," Flora protested hotly.

"Well, I distrust you, you dislike me and Florin is your brother," Erin shot back. "Will claims to have experience with Giratina and frankly, I believe him. Okay? Okay. So Will, decide."

It wasn't so much a request as it was an order, and Will instinctively felt himself snapping to attention because of it. "Okay…" he muttered, putting things together for himself. "Okay." Florin was in the dark. He didn't know about Flora's true pastimes. Erin was an unknown element, someone who had the potential to be extremely dangerous. He needed to keep an eye on her. More than that though, he needed to keep an eye on Flora. Rhodes had said Bladestar was a problem. His very first interaction with Bladestar activities had very nearly cost him his loved ones. That wasn't something he took kindly to. He needed to have a little talk with Flora. For that, he would need some privacy. "Flora, we're going together. One Ranger is no Ranger, after all."

Flora stared at him like he'd just grown an extra head. "But…"

"Will voted and that's that," Erin said. "He's going with you."

Something ugly flickered across Flora's expression. "Very well," she hissed. "I prefer working alone, so don't expect anything."

His expectations were so low that he doubted she would fail him there. "We'll see."

Working her jaw for a moment, Flora settled for a tense, "We should get moving," before promptly walking off.

"Good luck Will!" Florin bade him. He left the 'you're gonna need it' part unsaid and Will was glad he did. He doubted Flora and him would have had a good time together even if hadn't been planning an awkward conversation with her.

He hurried after the angry lady before she could walk off on her own. Through the bizarre cave system they went, walking past strange, misshapen trees and flights of stone stairs that couldn't possibly be natural formations. Wherever they were, they were far from the deepest point of the cave. Flora and him walked past crevices and chasms that reminded him of Angie's own dimension; a seemingly bottomless pit glowing in alternating shades and hues.

Just a whole lot of weirdness.

Flora picked a seemingly random direction that eventually led them into a well-lit section of the cave that had been repurposed as a lab at one point. Bookshelves lined the far wall, and some sort of industrial set-up dominated the center, complete with some sort of 3D printer and an assembly line. Multiple consoles and storage containers had been placed around said assembly line to further enhance the production efficiency of…whatever the hell it was they'd been building.

"Huh…this room looks suspicious," Flora said. She scoffed, then finally turned to address him. "Alright Will, since you were so eager to follow me, I'll lay out the game plan. There seems to be another door right here - " she gestured at a solid steel security door installed into the stone wall to their right, " - I'll check that room. You take this one. Take your time to go through everything." She jabbed a finger at his chest and sternly added, "Got it?"

Flora didn't even bother to wait for his response. She simply strolled towards the metal door, did something that unlocked it, and then disappeared through the opening.

Now granted, enough loose bundles of paper, dossiers and journals littered the room that Will could have kept himself entertained for a couple of hours. If this place had been set up by Bladestar in the past, they really should have gone through the effort of burning all his stuff before abandoning it.

Flora had left him to investigate this place, but…there wouldn't be a better opportunity than this moment.

Will sent out Blaziken. He relayed his game plan instead.

They were going in.

"Will?" Flora gasped when she turned around and saw the pair approaching her. "HEY! What the hell - "

A terse command, a simple gesture and Blaziken bounded towards Flora. She crossed the remaining five or so meters with a single bound, seized Flora's throat in one clawed hand and pulled her off her feet, before rolling the girl over her hip and throwing her to the ground. There, she shoved Flora to her knees, then got her other claw on the back of her head, putting just the right amount of pressure on Flora's neck.

The entire thing had taken Blaziken about two seconds, which was twice as long as it would have taken her iif Will hadn't given the order not to actually harm or hurt Flora.

"Before you say anything, you should know that your Bladestar buddies nearly killed the people I love when they blew up that bridge," Will said, staring in Flora's eyes. She stared back at him without a hint of fear, but the annoyance was gone now. Whatever else she was thinking at that moment, he had her unbridled attention. "It took a lot out of me to protect them. So, please think long and hard before you start lying to me."

Flora's eyes flicked upwards, towards Blaziken. "Before you go and assume anything, I ask that you listen to what I have to say," she said. She licked her lips, and her eyes darted from Will to the exit, then back again. "I admit that I am the leader of the Bladestar Organization. But you, Will, are about to make a big mistake."

Will glanced at Blaziken. She shifted her weight just a bit, then shot him the look that suggested she had this locked down.

He squatted in front of Flora and said, "Okay. I'm listening."

~~~~~~~(II)~~~~~~~

---

AN: Well damn, this chapter was a whole lot of fun to write. Even though it doesn't have any combat or violent action, I think it makes up for that by virtue of having a whoooole lot of other stuff, up to and including some steamy flirty scenes. Looks like our Interceptor has finally realized that, not only is he smitten, he's also a goner when it comes to Melia. Maybe it was for the better that he ended up reuniting with the Flo-siblings and found himself on an unforeseen spelunking session in the Darchlighr Caves.

Speaking of, welcome Erin! She's one of the characters I have been looking forward to writing the most. We'll just have to see what the future holds for our heroes.