Well heated, well furnished, good lighting, clean beds, clean air, and a breathtaking view of the city. Larger than a typical hotel room, the living spaces in the P.P.F.F. headquarters left little to be complained about. Pannen, Elijah, Leah, and Ishmael were able to rest well in it.

"This place is great!" Ishmael said. "Not as big as home, but still quite roomy."

"Yeah. This place is weirdly big," Leah responded. "Like I would've expected something like a room with rows of bunk beds and storage drawers, but this is a full blown apartment."

"I honestly wouldn't be surprised if they're treating us extra well if they know we're the children of the pokemon who took down Armin," Pannen said.

"I mean I know that, but I find it strange they'd have something like this in the first place," Leah said as she continued to look around the living quarters. "I also feel like the architecture style doesn't quite match the rest of this structure? I kinda feel this gets weirder the more I think about it."

"Maybe you're thinking too hard about it then?" Ishmael said.

"I'll think about it as hard as I please," Leah scowled.

"It's also amazing to think that they're actually paying us some money to be here," Pannen said. "This really was a blessing."

"It's… nice," Elijah said.

"Are you doing okay?" Pannen asked Elijah.

"Well… I'll be honest, I'm rather worried," he said.

"Yeah, I am too. I can understand how you feel," Pannen said.

"You are?" Elijah asked.

"Yeah," she said. "I really hope Sesha isn't going to be stalling us with how long she takes to tell us where Hunter is. We're really dependent on her and I'm not too fond of that. But she relates to us, so I'm sure she'll not take too long."

That was not what Elijah was concerned about.

"It's not just that."

"What is it?"

"I mean, is this place right?" Elijah said. "I understand that Armin wasn't a good person at all. But is this really warranted? I don't feel it is."

"Hmm. Those are probably some going points. I don't think I fully know these things myself," Pannen said. "But Sesha is still hurting from what's happened to her sister. I don't think it would be right for us to say she's wrong."

"I don't really see too much wrong with this. Don't you remember the whole 'Burning of Prenarch' massacre? Humans are clearly still at it," Leah said. "Besides. It's just about impossible to work for a truly good place. The higher ups at most companies are twisted one way or another. And even your parents had to work alongside some pretty bad people at the guild. If this place is an evil, it's a lesser one to be sure."

"That's something to consider too," Pannen said.

"I feel I kinda got lost at some point. Give me a bit and I'll catch up," Ishmael said.

Elijah lowered his head.

"Everything is okay, Elijah. I promise," Pannen said. "Anyways! We've got a big day ahead of us, so we should make ourselves look ideal. I saw they provided us some soap for free, so let's be taking turns getting ourselves fully cleaned in the bathroom."

"Hang on now. You're our leader here and a minccino. Shouldn't you be handling all of the cleaning duties?" Leah said.

"L-Leah, what are you implying?" Pannen asked.

"Heh. Relax, relax, I'm just joking around," Leah said. "I can go first."

"Do I HAVE to clean myself?" Ishmael asked.

"Yes. We've all gotten really dirty from all of the traveling we've been doing, so we really ought to."

"Fine," Ishmael relented.

"Although I… feel like we're forgetting about something," Leah said.

"It's probably nothing. Come on, let's not be wasting time."

The team took turns cleaning themselves from all the dirt and toils their fur had gathered from the adventure. When they were done, they continued exploring all the corners of their new living space and chatting among themselves.

They eventually heard some small yet hard knocks on the door. Pannen wasted no time before she ran over to the door and opened it up, letting them see a familiar face on the other side: Phineas the serperior.

"Hello there!" Phineas said.

"Hi!" Pannen said.

"I'm delighted to see you're still here. You made the right decision to join us," the serperior said.

Elijah's gaze returned to the floor.

"Have you been getting acquainted with your new space?" Phineas asked.

"Not as good as home, but it is fine," Pannen replied.

"Good, very good to hear," he said. "If you're finished getting used to there, I've been tasked with helping you four get acquainted with the rest of this building. It's rather obligatory now."

"Alright. But remember, we're here to find out about Hunter," Pannen said.

"I'm following what I've been ordered to do, I'm sorry if I can't directly help with that," Phineas replied.

"Sesha knows about it, could we speak with her again?" Pannen asked.

"We'll have to see~" Phineas said.

"It's rather rude to be pestering them about Hunter at every moment, Pannen," Leah said. "Help them before getting helped."

"You're right, Leah," Pannen said. She then turned back to Phineas. "We're all ready, let's get moving."

"Excellent. Don't worry, all you're going to have to do is follow me for the next few hours."

The building didn't make sense. Not in the sense that it was bigger on the inside or that the angles didn't add up, but in the sense that the way the building was constructed wasn't logical or efficient. Unused rooms, entire areas closed off, hallways that seemed to just spin around, and much redundancy. Pannen couldn't even begin to imagine how aggravated Tamin would've been if she was there. Phineas seemed to have keen familiarity with the location, though.

"Will we be having to remember all of this?" Pannen inquired.

"Realistically, probably not," Phineas said. "You'll memorize what you need to in due time, and that will be that."

"What would a typical day of work be like here?" Leah asked. "I can't quite feel out what a routine would be like."

"Most days, it's nothing. Unless you're going to be helping with finances, you'll likely be participating in the movements or heading out to different towns to spread the message."

"Movements?" Leah asked.

"Gatherings in the streets or in front of different buildings to demand justice. Peaceful, of course. Not difficult by any means."

"Is that everyday?"

"No. You'll likely have plenty of downtime, don't worry."

"That's reassuring," Pannen said.

Pannen looked back at her team. Ishmael's mind seemed to be elsewhere, making little to no effort in actually committing the building to memory. Leah had a paw on her chin, deep in thought but looking towards the ground instead of at her surroundings. Elijah was at the back as he usually was, his tail hung low and his head tilted downwards.

"Are you doing okay, Eli?" Pannen asked.

"I'm not sure."

"What's wrong?"

"I'm just… still not sure about this place."

"Nonsense!" Phineas interjected. "You're at the most important movement in the world here, there is no greater place you could be."

"That's easy for you to say," Elijah said.

"It's the truth," Phineas said.

"Everything is okay, Eli," Pannen assured. "You don't need to be worried. I promise everything will be alright in the end."

"Okay…" he said.

Pannen turned to Leah. "How about you? Are you doing alright?"

"Yes, just lost in thought," the espurr said. "I still feel like we're forgetting something."

"Whatever it is, I'm sure it's not too important if you forgot about it," Pannen said.

Phineas smiled. "Tell you what. If you kids are starting to get bored of this tour, then I suppose we could just take a direct path to the main event and skip over some of the superfluous stops."

Pannen looked back to the serperior. "What is the 'main event'?" she asked.

"Why, none other than a meeting with Oscar the charchomp himself! The knight of the foundation," Phineas said. "His schedule is usually quite busy, but he made time to meet you four in particular."

"Who is he? Is he like Sesha?" Pannen asked.

"In many ways they are alike, and in many ways they are different. I'm sure you'll get to see that yourself. Oscar is an incredible person. Persistent, honorable, intelligent… and he was the apprentice of Hunter the zoroark."

Pannen's eyes widened. The other three had their attention captured as well. "Bring us to him! We need to meet him!"

"Now I've got your interest. Be patient now, let's not make ruckus. Just keep following me and I'll bring you right to him."

"Right," Pannen nodded her head.

Phineas continued guiding the four throughout the large structure, being slightly more focused with the path he took. In spite of his previous promise, they still occasionally stopped along the way so that Phineas could talk about some common room, some lobby, or some window with a "particularly good view". It wasn't much different to how it was before he told them of Oscar.

With every stop they made, Elijah felt things were slowing down even more. With every stop they made, Elijah felt worse. His tail hung lower and it felt it was getting harder and harder to lift his head from looking downwards. He didn't feel right at all in that building. In some ways he preferred being in a mystery dungeon, because in those he knew he needed to be a vigilante. When he was at that building, he didn't know how he was supposed to feel. And because of that, he felt he was doing it wrong no matter what emotions he felt or face he put on. He kept wanting to walk away and clear his thoughts, but he kept following Pannen- and Phineas by extension.

Pannen wasn't oblivious to how Elijah felt. She occasionally glanced back at him and noticed how down he looked. She said some reassuring words to him and held his paw at points, but she wasn't in a position to have a full conversation with him.

Eventually, they scaled another staircase and reached a door. "He should be inside of here," Phineas said. "Is everyone ready?"

"Yes," Pannen said with conviction.

"Ready as we'll ever be," Leah said.

"Could we just go in already?" Ishmael said.

"I think so," Elijah said.

"Just remember to remain respectful while you're there," Phineas the serperior said.

He pushed the door open with his vines, and they entered in a single file line.

The room was unlike the others they saw throughout the structure. It wasn't just the monotonous, sterile whites with decorations. It was more personalized, complete with wall paper and mats of dark blue, purple, and gray. It was the only room in the building that hadn't seemed like it was cleaned mere hours before they came in, or that it was the only room allowed to get dirty. Instead of the desks and redundant plants, there were shelves of sentimental trinkets and punching bags. And instead of numerous worker pokemon walking around, there were just two pokemon who sat in the room: Oscar the garchomp and Sesha the absol.

Phineas appeared surprised. "Sesha, I wasn't aware you would be here too," he said.

"You couldn't have, it was a recent decision of mine," Sesha said, her voice as straightforward as ever, her face showing little emotion. "I just wanted to see this conversation."

Oscar turned to Sesha. "These four are the ones you were talking about?"

"Yes," the absol confirmed.

The garchomp looked towards the four visitors. Disappointment. That was what his eyes showed as he looked downwards to the minccino, mienfoo, and espurr who were far smaller than him. Even still, he walked forward to approach.

"Hello there, good to meet you lot," Oscar said to them.

"You're Oscar?" Pannen asked.

"I am."

"Are the things they said about you true?"

"I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific than that."

"Were you really trained by Hunter the zoroark?"

"The one and only," Oscar confirmed. "He was a rather lax mentor, but he knew to be harsh when it really counted. We trained together for years, and I can assure he lives up to all the hype."

Leah patted the side of Pannen's arm. "Don't be rushing this," she whispered to her.

"Just how strong are you?!" Ishmael excitedly asked.

"Stronger than each of your parents, that's to be sure."

Sesha gave a glare at Oscar.

"I mean, I could put up a really good fight with your parents in a fair fight. Probably either of us could win."

"What's the bestest thing you've done?" Ishmael said.

"Hmm. That's a hard one to figure out," Oscar put a finger on his chin. "Although we should have plenty of time for me to show you my feats."

"Oscar is what we call 'the Knight of the Foundation'. He's taken up the mantle Hunter once held, and he has done so flawlessly," Sesha said. "So carry respect. Think of him like he's Hunter himself."

Elijah remained silent. He looked at the ground, not participating in the conversation. His feelings that things were simply wrong

"So what exactly does he do?" Leah inquired. "Or what has he done?"

The garchomp smiled. "I assume you are familiar with the 'Burning of Prenarch', yes?" he said.

"We are," Pannen interjected, speaking over Leah.

"And have you wondered why we aren't still scared of those four particular humans?"

"I suppose I haven't thought about it," Pannen said.

"Well, you can thank me for that," Oscar said.

"You dealt with them?"

"Took each of them out myself. One. By. One," Oscar said.

Elijah shifted uncomfortably again.

"All by yourself?" Ishmael asked.

"I can't take all the credit, it was a team effort to gather the information and get the trail on each of them. But I did the fighting myself," Oscar began cracking his joints. "They did put up a decent fight, but none of them were a match for me and Hunter's training.

But, don't go around telling anyone else that."

"Why not?" Pannen asked.

"If we let humans know that there is a garchomp training specifically to counter them, then the humans will prepare," Sesha explained. "So we keep the 'Knight of the Foundation' a secret. Or if information does get out, then all we let people will know is that a garchomp is among the hundreds of pokemon a part of the P.P.F.F. It's important we remain a step ahead, so I must ask you to keep quiet about Oscar here."

That was the first time Elijah had been specifically asked to do something since he'd entered the P.P.F.F., the first time he was explicitly commanded by the higher-ups at it. It was a small command, but it was still something. That unnerved him. Those terrible feelings that were accumulating for the entire day. That was the tipping point for him.

"I'm sorry, I- I have to leave," Elijah said.

"Eli, what's wrong?" Pannen asked as she turned around.

"I need to go."

Elijah hastily walked, almost ran out of the room as he turned his eyes away from everyone else. "Eli!" Pannen called out to him.

He ignored Pannen speaking and ran out of the room, back into the stairwell they entered by. He went up against the wall, put his back to it, sat down, and closed his eyes.

Things were just becoming too much, he needed time alone to think. This wasn't what he wanted. He wasn't sure what he should be doing, he didn't even have the slightest idea on where to start. His frenzied mind desperately tried to figure some plan out, but he came up with nothing.

"Eli," Pannen's voice rang through.

He opened his eyes to see his sister in front of her, she had followed him out.

"I just-"

"It's okay," Pannen interrupted him.

"No-"

"I promise it's all okay," Pannen said. "I'll admit this isn't what we had planned, but it's okay. We can get through this all together."

"I don't want any of this," Elijah said.

"Do you want to go back home without Aika?" Pannen asked.

"Well, no. It's just-"

"Then this is what we'll have to do," Pannen told him. "Look, I understand what you're feeling."

"You do?"

"Yes," Pannen said. "Humans can be scary. They killed Eno, and they've killed others to. You don't want to have to go up against any of them, much less without Aika here as well. I understand that. But I can absolutely promise you: it's okay. We will get through this, and we will see her again."

Elijah didn't respond.

"You might be scared now. But in time, I have no doubt that you'll become a brave hero who will look the evils of this world dead in the eye," Pannen said.

"Okay…" Elijah said, his eyes gazing at the floor.

He calmed down. Not so much because Pannen's pep talk had inspired him, it was more like his mind simply gave up on being emotional. He found little assurance in his sister's words, but he felt it was pointless trying to explain how he actually felt to her.

"Are you two good now?" Leah asked.

They turned to look behind Pannen. Leah and Ishmael were there.

"Followed us out?" Pannen asked.

"Well we couldn't really continue that meeting without you two," Leah said.

"Right," Pannen said.

"Are we going to go back to them now?" Leah asked.

"...Probably just for a bit, I think we should be heading back to our room now," Pannen said.

The four came back into the room with Oscar and Sesha. Instead of continuing the conversation, it was mostly just them excusing themselves as they wanted to head back. Sesha was visibly annoyed, but allowed them to leave after discussing when they could have another conversation with Oscar.

Pannen, Elijah, Leah, and Ishmael left the room and navigated back to their personal room. Oscar and Sesha remained, now alone.

"Not ideal, but we can still work with this," Sesha said.

"They might not have the right mindset yet. They are still quite young," Oscar said.

"I wasn't referring to them, I was more referring to you," Sesha said.

"What did I do wrong?"

"Bringing up the Burning of Prenarch unprompted isn't a great strategy, and I think you made that little one uncomfortable by immediately talking about violence. You need to let them control the flow of the conversation so you can adjust your responses accordingly."

"I am sorry about that. I tried to do well," Oscar said.

"You haven't received media training, so this isn't your strong suit. I anticipated that so I decided to accompany you here- and my hunch was right."

"You're right. I promise I'll work on those skills some more," Oscar said.

"No. Handling social interactions is my specialty, you'd be better off still concentrating on combat training," Sesha said.

"Are you sure? I already do that a lot."

"Yes, I am sure," Sesha said quite directly. "We could very well only get one clear shot at killing The Pilgrim. If you fail, then they're just going to keep their guard up even more and that will be it. I cannot afford a single chance, when I say we need to be absolutely sure about this, I mean it. You are to continue training."

The garchomp briefly opened his mouth, but he quickly closed it and solemnly nodded his head instead. "As you wish."

"Good. I'll handle those four, you handle that one."

Pannen, Elijah, Leah, and Ishmael were back in their living quarters. It was still in the middle of the day, but each of them felt tired already. Pannen even closed the curtains to make the room less of a strain.

Pannen, the espurr, and the mienfoo sat around a coffee table while Elijah was in another room. Pannen had her head toward the ground as she searched for a position which relieved her tension. Ishmael's head kept looking around the room, trying to find something to entertain him. Leah leaned back with a paw on her chin, lost in thought.

"I'm not sure we made much progress today, not sure when we'll learn about where Hunter is."

"I hope we can start doing stuff soon, I don't wanna just be sitting around here," Ishmael said.

"Well we should be getting our uniforms later today, so it shouldn't be much longer I think," Pannen said. "Right now I'm more concerned about Hunter."

"Maybe they want us to prove ourselves?" Ishmael said.

"Maybe? I'm just… not sure," Pannen said. "For now, we just need to keep at this. This is a good cause we're standing up for, and that's what's important."

"Hmm…" Leah continued to think. "Oh! I just figured out what I was forgetting,"

"Is it that I haven't played my flute in a little while?" Ishmael asked.

"What? No, that's not it."

"What is it?" The mienfoo spoke so fast it was like a single word with three syllables.

"Lilac! We haven't reached out to her in a little while," Leah said.

"Oh you're right! How could we forget?" Pannen said.

"We've had a lot of distractions lately, that's probably the reason," Leah said.

The espurr put her backpack on the coffee table and began rummaging through it. "I'm not sure I can jerry-rig together the same thing I did last time, but we still have the board and… wait, is this a good idea to do it here?"

"What do you mean?" Pannen said.

"It just occurred to me, but I'm not sure how much… privacy we really have here," The espurr said. "I remember my dad told me about the time he found a Sound Stone in his room listening in on him, what if there's something similar here? Or if just the walls are thin? It's not even our building."

"I hadn't considered that," Pannen admitted.

"So what if it's a little weird?" Ishmael said.

"It just being 'weird' isn't my main worry, I just… don't know what will happen if the whole world learns about this and that worries me… and what if they think we're insane?"

The room fell quiet for a moment as they all thought about it. Leah began zipping her backpack back together. "Let's not do this here. I'm sure Lilac will understand."

"Will she get lonely?" Ishmael asked.

"She's probably used to that by now, I don't think a few more days will affect that by much," Leah said.

"We've got a lot on our plate as is," Pannen assured.

As those three talked in the main room of their apartment, Elijah rested sitting beside his bed.

His backpack was open on the ground. In one paw, he held the piece of soft wood he got from the same house they found the ouija board in. In his other paw, he held the whittling tool he got from the same place. He slowly carved away at the wood, giving it form as strands of curled wood fell onto the floor. Every cut into the wood was made slowly with caution, he gradually figured out what he wanted the final result to be as he went.

The process was therapeutic for him. It wasn't his sister choosing how to whittle the wood, it wasn't Leah or Ishmael, and it wasn't the P.P.F.F. It was just his decision. But as relaxing as it was, there was a single troubling thought that remained in his mind no matter what: "Either every single other person here is wrong, or it's just me who is wrong."

End of chapter 21.