Leah sat on the dirt and glass. She suppressed her horror so that she might focus on continuing to gather information.

Resting on the ground, she had the ouija board in front of her and pressed on its puck with her two paws. She thought carefully about what to ask next.

"Is it boring to be dead?" Leah spoke.

She felt the puck of the ouija board start moving to the letters. "I-N-A-S-E-N-S-E" it eventually spelled out.

Leah grabbed the journal she kept beside her, and began writing. "She says that the afterlife is 'boring', which is about what I expected."As she was writing, Leah realized the puck of the board was still moving. She quickly put the book down to follow the puck's movement with her eyes again. "I-D-O-N-T-M-I-N-D-M-U-C-H" it said. Leah paused for another moment, making sure it was done moving. She let out a breath to ease her nerves.

"But now she says that she doesn't mind. I'm not entirely sure what to make of that. My mind keeps wanting to visualize the afterlife as being a gray or black for stretching onto eternity- and even when I try to steer away from those thoughts- my mind keeps going back to that thought. But if she doesn't mind much, then surely there has to be more to it than that?" she wrote.

"I'm still frustrated by this means of communication. It's infuriatingly difficult to carry on a whole conversation when I'm receiving responses one letter at a time, and need to figure out where the spaces between words are supposed to be."

"Leah!" Pannen's voice called out.

"Yes?" Leah turned away from the journal.

"We took the fifteen minute break like you wanted. Let's get a move on again."

"Alright, I'm coming," the espurr quickly started shoveling the ouija board and the journal into her backpack. "You can just start moving, I'll be right behind you."

The espurr quickly moved her short legs to catch up with the group as they walked onwards. She got right beside Pannen.

"I asked her a few more questions this time," Pannen said to Leah as they walked together.

"What have you found out?"

"So first off, that house wasn't actually related to her. She's been accompanying us ever since we first set off."

"I kinda figured that. We were seeing her manipulating water for some time," Pannen replied. "Is the board itself special at all?"

"I'm not totally sure, but I think this might be made out of the same type of wood that that tree we retrieved from the Kiritown mystery dungeon was made out of."

"Huh, that's something… I remember someone there saying that kind of wood was 'sacred'."

"In retrospect, I wish I asked more about that," Leah admitted.

"Also I have to say, I'm fairly sure I know about this ghost buizel," Pannen said. "My parents taught me the story of the House Breach raid and how the guild ultimately took down Armin. They mentioned that there was a buizel from the guild who came along with them, but died on the way. And when I asked the spirit when she died, she said 'same day as Armin'. It seems to check out."

"It's absolutely the same person. I've studied a lot of the guild's history to know about it for when I become the next guildmaster. Her real name was 'Lilac', and she worked on the nocturnal side of the guild since that was understaffed. She joined alongside a froslass, and served the guild for several years until her death. Everyone described her as being a very spiritual person- even my parents said as much," Leah said. "Or wait, should I say that her name is Lilac? I have no idea how past and present tenses are supposed to work anymore. This is completely messing with my head."

"Same here. I know ghost type pokemon exist, but those aren't really dead, they're just called that since they're somewhat incorporeal. But now with Lilac, she is an actual genuine ghost. I've heard about those in stories, but I always told myself those were fake."

"Those stories were fake. At least, they probably were? Most were? Gah, this is all screwing with me so much," Leah said. "I just… for my whole life I knew that death was a thing, but I didn't think about it. I avoided thinking about it, actually. I kept myself distracted by studying other things. But now we have a genuine ghost that we can talk to, and I can't think about anything else now."

"I didn't give death much thought since it's such a dark thing to think about it."

"Exactly," Leah looked towards the ground. "I think I'm feeling worse after every question I'm asking Lilac, but I just need to know now. I can't just forget about this even if I want to."

"Sorry about that."

"Sorry, I'm just venting too much," Leah said.

"No, it's fine," Pannen assured. "But I think I need to ask if little Eli is doing alright, he might be feeling disturbed too."

"You do that then," Leah said.

Pannen moved closer to her brother as the four continued walking forward. Leah was at the front of the traveling group again. Her head remained tilted towards the ground. "I wish there was a better way to talk then one going one-letter at a time with this board. She's been traveling with us this whole time, but we're separated by a barrier.

Hmm. Well if some of those ghost stories were true after all, then what else did they do again? I think the term was 'seance' to refer to communicating with the dead. Surely there has to be more ways of performing one of those…"

The walk was calm, but their minds were not. The implications of everything remained fresh on their minds, even the green plains free of danger failed to ease them from thoughts existential.

Ishmael the mienfoo had it easiest among them. He accepted the reality of the situation as he'd never thought to ponder the validity of the stories he's heard before. For him, it was just another element to make the adventure spectacular. Even still, there were moments where his smile ceased when thoughts of mortality grazed his mind.

The espurr among them remained the most distraught- she was torn between trying to steer her mind away from thoughts which troubled her and desperately wanting answers to all questions she had. Many times she asked for the group to stop so that she may ask more questions on the ouija board- to which Pannen firmly said to take a break on it as they wouldn't get anywhere if they just stopped every few minutes to ask more questions. This formed a cycle which would repeat everytime Leah came up with a new question which she decided she just 'needed' to ask, leading to arguments between them. Eventually Leah began raising her voice at Pannen, but she remained firm. She wanted to set an example as being the leader and didn't want to be pushed around in front of her brother.

During the moments where things weren't so heated, Pannen and Leah tried discussing what they knew about Lilac the buizel. Pannen knew she never interacted with her parents all that much, she only knew about Lilac because she died during that pivotal mission. Pannen realized that she wasn't even sure on the precise circumstances of her death, only that she died 'along the way, holding off the enemies' as her parents put it. Even her name being 'Lilac' was new information to her, learned by courtesy of Leah.

Along this troublesome walk, Elijah remained mostly quiet and confined to himself- even more so than usual. Whatever thoughts he had, he kept to himself. When Pannen reached out to him, his responses were short and dismissive. His mind had questions about death going through it as well, he simply never vocalized. But beyond those, there was one question in particular that he kept asking himself, one question he knew not to ask as the others had no answer: "Just how long is this journey going to go on for?"

Eventually, the group came upon the town they were instructed to get to. In those verdant fields, the town of Harrenburg laid before them.

As they first saw it, the first word that came to their mind was "serene". The town was built atop a clean river, an even number of buildings on both sides of it. The buildings were clean, their brown wood seemed to shine in the sun of the clear day. The grass shined too- shining greater than gold because it was genuine. A windmill in the distance slowly spun around, and they could hear the consistent motion of a watermill in the river much closer to them. A few of the houses had gardens beside them: some with flowers, others had a personal vegetable farm.

A cloud drifted beneath the sun, casting a shadow over them as they stood still to take in the sight of the town.

After taking in its beauty for a moment, they all entered the town and stepped on the old gravel roads.

They walked past a few buildings, then turned to each other again.

"So… what do we do now?" Ishmael asked. "We're at Harrenburg, where do we go now?"

"That's a great question. If only there was someone we could ask that could answer all our questions and guide us," Leah said.

"Yeah, that would be nice," Ishmael said, not picking up Leah implications.

The espurr looked disappointed and frustrated, but not surprised. "Come, let's go somewhere a tad more private," she pointed to an alley nearby.

They went to where she pointed. Once reasonably secluded from the town's residents, Leah retrieved the ouija board and planchette from her bag again, moving it over "hello" on the board. The others gathered around the board, and Leah made room for them to each place a paw down on the planchette- if such a thing was even necessary anymore.

"Tell us, Lilac. Where should we go?" Leah inquired.

After a moment, they felt motion beneath their paws. But it wasn't the type of motion they were used to, it was rotational. Once it settled again, the pointed end of the planchette pointed in a direction deeper into the town. It gently moved back and forth for emphasis.

"...Well I guess that works, then," Pannen said. "Is there some building we should go in?"

The planchette moved over the "YES" inscribed on the board.

"What color is the building?"

The planchette returned to the letters. "C", "Y", "A", "N".

"That's light-blue, right?" Ishmael asked.

"No. That's a combination of blue and green," Leah said, her face giving an expression of 'are you serious?' that reeked with disbelief.

"Okay, okay. I get it," Ishmael responded.

"Just focus on asking questions right now," Pannen scolded them. "So Lilac, is it a house or a different kind of building we're looking for?"

"H","O","M", "E".

"Alright…" Pannen wanted to ask a few more questions about the building before searching for it. "How many windows does it have?"

Pannen, Elijah, Ishmael, and Leah continued to sit down with a paw on the planchette. It was still, it was silent. This continued for thirty agonizing seconds, consistently of increasingly awkward glances between the four living pokemon.

"...Did she miss our question?" Pannen eventually asked.

"I don't know how this works. Should we ask it again?" Elijah said.

"Maybe she needed to check the house to count the windows?" Leah proposed. "I don't know. Let's just give her another minute."

After another agonizing minute of awkward silence, they finally felt movement beneath their paws again. "1", "5".

"There we go! We've got an answer!" Pannen said.

"How many floors tall is the building?" Leah asked.

"2" the planchette moved to.

"Don't you think you could have asked that question instead?!" Leah raised her voice at Pannen, her exhausted patience turned audible. "Probably wouldn't have taken a full side track for her to remember how tall it was!"

"I'm sorry," Pannen said.

"You don't need to apologize," Elijah told Pannen. He then turned to look at Leah, giving her a negative expression.

"Whatever. Let's just get going," Leah said before she collected the board again.

The group began moving again, keeping to the direction that the planchette had pointed them in the best they could. They ran over the town's bridge and down multiple roads.

Even as the journey had taken multiple sharp turns, Elijah still couldn't find himself getting quite as excited as Pannen, Ishmael, and Leah were. While the three others had their heads forward, Elijah's still wandered to the side on their trek across the town. As he looked to the side, he noticed something which stuck out when placed on the old brick buildings: colorful fliers advertising the "Pokemon Persistence and Freedom Foundation". But as he had to keep up with Pannen, he couldn't stop to take a closer look at them.

They entered a neighborhood. The buildings were not copies of each other, each had different structure and different colors. They slowly walked down the road, not sure the precise building that had been pointed to since they had traveled so far. But it was at that moment that Leah began to feel her attention being pulled in a very specific direction; as if there was a force tugging at her mind. Once she began looking in that direction, it was hard for her to look away. She stopped in place and raised a paw to point in the direction: straight at two-story tall cyan house. Once the others looked that way too, they had a strong feeling this was it. They couldn't see the building's back side to count the number of windows, but all the other details lined up perfectly.

The place wasn't derelict like the last house they had been too, the lawn was well kept and the paint wasn't flaking. Pannen took the lead again as they walked up to the house's main door. The door was smaller than a lot of pokemon species were- just small enough that a floatzel could comfortably get there. With little hesitation, Pannen rang the building's doorbell. Not long after, they started hearing footsteps approaching the door.

It was a bunnelby that opened the door to greet them, contrary to their expectations. The pokemon looked confused as to why two minccino, a mienfoo, and an espurr were at his door, but he didn't seem annoyed.

"Hi there," Pannen said.

"Hello?" the bunnelby responded, confusion emanating through his voice.

"I know this might seem like a strange question, but does the name 'Lilac the Buizel' sound familiar to you at all?"

He thought for a second, looking up with his eyes before giving a response. "Uh… yeah, she was one of the previous residents of this house. I'm… fairly sure she's dead, so I hope you weren't looking for her."

"Step aside, I can handle this," Leah put a paw on Pannen, applying very gentle pressure.

Pannen did as she was instructed, and the espurr moved to the front of the group. "Hello, I'm a member of Nidoking's guild and these three are close friends of mine who are accompanying me," she placed a paw under her scarf to bring more attention to it. "I was asked by a family member of Lilac to check up on the house that she grew up in. Lilac was a member of the guild when it was still known as 'Espeon's guild', but she was killed in action. She is still held with importance to us.

I understand that you are the rightful owner of this house now, but is there anything left in here which belonged to Lilac?"

Leah felt that was a reasonable enough thing to say. It was certainly much easier to lie and say it was a family member who sent them and not the ghost of Lilac herself, but the reason for entry felt more iffy. The problem was that Leah herself didn't know what they needed from the house, she'd just been pointed to it.

"Oh, I see. I didn't realize you were from that guild," the bunnelby said. "Yeah, her mother passed away recently as well. She was the last person living here before I moved in, I haven't been here very long at all.

There is a kid's room in here that I assume belonged to Lilac, I haven't had the time to refurbish the room into something else so I've just left it as is. Want a peek at that? There's nothing in there that I'm really wanting to keep."

"That sounds perfect, thank you," Leah said.

"Alright. You four can just follow me, I'll show you where the room is. Please be respectful and don't make any messes."

He opened the door up further and stepped aside, letting each of them walk inside. The door opened directly into the house's living room and the decorations present teetered on the line of what would be called "minimalism". It was impossible to tell what was originally from Lilac and her family, and what was from the bunnelby after he moved in. Even if he had malicious intent, there weren't many places where a trap could be hidden.

He guided them down a hallway on the back right of the room. Each of them followed in a straight line as he led them. He stopped in front of the second door to the left of the hallway and pointed to it.

"This is the kids' room. If there's anything you need, it would be in here," he said.

"Thank you very much. I don't think we'll be in here for very long," Leah said.

"Yeah. Just as I said, don't be making any messes. Especially outside of this room."

"With all due respect sir, two of us are minccino," Pannen said. "If there's anyone you can trust to keep things tidy, then it would be us."

"Well, you got me there," he shrugged.

The four opened the door and peered inside the room.

Save for the daylight coming through the window, the room was frozen in time. A few plushies, toys, and ornaments were left in the room, kept in the place that they were and left not fully cleaned for a person who would never return to them. The white walls were painted with a crude watercolor landscape, childish even for the four explorers but never altered. There were still shelves and a dresser full of items, all left in-tact. A singular blue bed was seen in the corner of the room, and a large blue plastic mat was in the room's center.

Pannen, Elijah, Ishmael, and Leah stepped into the room and started looking around. The bunnelby waited by the room door and began leaning against the wall.

"So this is the room she grew up in," Pannen said as they all looked around. "But what were we sent here for?"

"What if she just wanted to share her town and home?" Ishmael said.

"That's a possibility, but I can't help but feel there's more of a point to all of this," Pannen said.

"Oh! Maybe there's a hidden treasure here for us to find?" Ishmael excitedly said.

"Well… maybe?" Pannen said.

"Well know you kids have gotten be interested too," the bunnelby said.

Leah glanced at that man, and then glanced at her teammates. Her ears slightly unfurled as she started channeling her psychic powers into telepathy.

"I'm not comfortable talking about all the details with that man nearby," Leah telepathically spoke to Pannen. "He still believes that it was a relative of Lilac that sent us here. We can't talk about the truth out loud."

"That sounds wise," Pannen responded.

"But I am thinking… We still don't know the rules about all of this. I think there's got to be some important reason we were brought there. Lilac doesn't have a meterial form now, so what if we're also looking for something immaterial?"

"What do you mean?"

"Let's try to look for something that she has a good, sentimental attachment with. Who knows, maybe that's really important? Things can't have physical connections to ghosts, but sentimental connections still exist."

"Interesting idea. Let's go off that."

Leah used telepathy to relay the same idea to Elijah and to Ishmael as they all continued examining the room, careful to not disturb the objects too much.

The objects that were readily visible were ones that would appeal to an older child or teenager, while the objects that would appeal to a young child or even a toddler were stored in containers and in the corners. In particular, a series of colorful containers across from the bed was filled with small toys.

Larger toys were on the top of the containers. On the bottom, fragments of broken toys lingered. They kept digging around, trying to roughly gauge how "sentimental" they could seem to be. The effort seemed to be impossible due to how nebulous that term was. But then, the youngest among them found something. As Elijah searched the containers, he found one that stuck out. It was a plastic froslass figurine toy, but details of it were altered. The figurine was split in several places, but glued back together with a lingering mark. Bands were wrapped around the thinnest parts of the figurine, artificially giving it more durability. Other parts were scratched, some had their colors faded, and others parts had unusually bright colors that indicated it was crudely painted over to try and restore its color.

"Look at this," Elijah said to the group.

The three others turned to see what he was holding, inspecting all the details he had noticed. He slowly turned it around to let everyone see it at different angles.

"If a toy is in mint condition, then it might have never been played with at all. And if a toy is broken, they could've been broken on the first day she got it. But this one was clearly worn out by extended use and has been repaired. And if it's been repaired, then that means she must have cared for it," Pannen said. "If there's a single thing in this room she would have a strong sentimental attachment with, it would be this."

Leah extended her paw. "Give it to me," she commanded Elijah.

He was annoyed by how blunt and authority her command was, not even giving a "please". Even still, Elijah complied and handed the toy to her. Leah took it and walked back to the door with it.

"Excuse me, sir. But we found this which seems like it could've been really important to Lilac. Could we take this with us? I think it would make for a good memento that her family would like to have."

The man smiled. "Of course! I certainly won't be using that myself, so you can take it," he said. "You could probably take anything in this room, in all honesty. I don't plan to have kids so I don't think I'll be using any of this."

"Thank you very much, your gratitude is greatly appreciated," Leah thanked him.

The espurr turned back to the three others. "Come. I think we've gotten what we need from here now."

Pannen, Elijah, Ishmael, and Leah walked out of the house, carrying the figurine in a bag that only had soft things inside of it. After saying their goodbyes to the friendly bunnelby, they started walking across the street again.

"There was no way we could've taken literally every toy and sentimental object in that room, so I think taking the most important item there was the best thing to do," Leah said.

"Yeah, but are we sure there wasn't some hidden treasure chest in the room?" Ishmael said. "Maybe it was hidden under the carpet?"

"Yes, we're sure," Leah said quite firmly. " She very clearly stopped using that room after she got a job at the guild, so she couldn't have been hiding the wealth she got from her job in the room. And her mother still lived for years longer than she did, don't you think she would've collected that supposed treasure already?"

"She seemed to be a mostly normal person, I think her having a hidden treasure stash is out of the question," Pannen said.

"Oh, okay…" Ishmael seemed disappointed.

"But what is the next step? We've got this toy that was sentimental to her, now what?" Pannen asked Leah.

"Yes, that's what we need to figure out next…" Leah looked up to the sky as she thought, still holding the toy. "I really think that finding sentimental things is the key here. Maybe there's some other location that holds special meaning to her?"

"Maybe a playground. She did grow up here, afterall," Ishmael said.

"Maybe there's a dinner that she loved going to as a child?" Pannen said.

"Possibly. We can search the town for those, but I an't shake the feeling that there's something more we're missing," The espurr racked her brain to recall anything about the buizel when she was alive.

It wasn't easy, as she'd died before Leah had even come into existence. It was only passing, second-hand accounts she had to work off of. But after searching her mind, she recalled something about her.

"She was always described as a very spiritual person. I remember it being said she often talked about Arceus and the creation of this world when she was at the guild, even to the point of making others uncomfortable. So with that in mind…"

Leah looked up and around her. At the edge of the town was a large wooden cathedral, the wood carvings and architecture making it unmistakable that that was what it was.

"Let's go there. That has to be important to her," Leah said.

They made their way across town again, making their way between the buildings and scaling a small incline to reach the structure. Once there, they looked around more.

Leah quickly spotted a growth of purple lilac flowers in the grass nearby. It was just then that she realized that such flowers shouldn't have been growing yet at that time of year. It was just then she realized that she'd already seen several growths of lilac flowers on their journey so far. She stepped close to inspect them closer. She knew this just had to be another part of the puzzle.

As she approached the flowers, another thing revealed itself to her: a pond beside the cathedral. It wasn't terribly large, likely just temporary and filled with rain water, but it was there. Leah looked at the pond, then at the cathedral, then at the lilac flowers, then at the toy she was holding.

"...I think I've got an idea," Leah said. "Just give me some space. I have no idea what I am doing, but I think it's worth a shot."

The other three stepped back to give Leah the space she asked for. The espurr took in a breath and let it out, calming herself.

She plucked the lilac flowers from the ground and approached the pond. She casted the purple petals into the water, letting them drift on the water's surface. "With the flowers that bear your name, with the chapel you grew your faith in, with the toy that you treasure, and in the water that you control. Lilac, I reach out to you. Speak to me," Leah said, just letting whatever she thought sounded appropriate come out of her mouth.

She began walking forward, stepping into the water and going deeper into it as she held the froslass toy to her chest. As she did so, a thought crossed her mind: "Am I really doing this? Am I trying to jerry-rig a seance together to speak with her?"

This all felt so crazy, but she knew it wouldn't work if she remained skeptical. Her sense of reality had already been shattered when she watched a planchette move on its own, this wasn't much of an escalation. She casted her doubt aside and continued walking forward, fully submerging herself in the water and feeling it fill her ears.

Once she was fully under, the world above was fully muffled away. If she focused, she could even hear her own heart beat while in that state. With her eyes closed, her sense of sight gave even less stimulation. She activated her telepathy. Normally she'd have to focus on a specific person to use telepathy, but this time she focused on the water around her while conjuring the image of a buizel in her mind's eye. "Hello?" she tried to ask.

"Hello, Leah," she heard a feminine voice respond.

Even after all that mental preparation, hearing the voice still surprised her. If she wasn't submerged underwater, she would have sharply inhaled. "You can hear me?" Leah asked.

"Yes. Do not worry, I'm here," Lilac the buizel said. "We aren't limited anymore, so you can say whatever you want to."

"Wow, I… don't even know where to begin," Leah said. "What did you do the last few years, after you died?"

"I lingered, I waited."

"Is that all what the afterlife is? Wandering this world with no corporeal form?"

"No. I'm not in the true afterlife."

"What do you mean?"

"When they die, pokemon can linger on this world before they move onto the afterlife for real. Most choose to depart after they watch their own funeral, but I haven't. I still felt there was a purpose for me, and so I waited."

"That stream of water in the mystery dungeon, that waterfall, the sky not raining on us- that was all you?"

"Yes."

Leah still had so much more she wanted to ask, but another matter pressed on her: her lack of breath and the building pain in her lungs. She tried to suppress it to buy time to ask for more questions, but that pain eventually overpowered her burning curiosity.

Leah emerged from the water, sharply breathing in and out to regain her breath.

"Leah! Are you okay?!" Pannen asked.

"Yes… I'm fine," she panted out.

"I was just about to reach into the pond to pull you out."

"I heard her."

"What?"

"I heard her voice," Leah said.

"Did she say anything important?"

"Yeah, she… said she was choosing to stay on this world," the espurr said. "I'm going to keep asking questions."

Once again, Leah submerged herself and activated her telepathy. "Are you still there? Please tell me you're still here."

"You can calm down. I'm not going anywhere."

"Good. I still have a lot to ask."

"I have no doubt. But first, know that you don't have to keep your face underwater. I don't want you drowning yourself to speak with me."

Leah let her face surface, allowing herself to breath as the rest of her body remained submerged.

"Thank you," Leah said. "So, you have the ability to still manipulate things in this world to a limited degree?"

"It was a surprise for me too."

"When did you first discover this?"

"First two times were not long after I died," she said. "I was in the group of explorers that Espeon gathered together to stop Armin and House Breach, although I died before we made it to their headquarters.

When the others in my group made it to building. They were hiding in the bushes while they discussed the best route to attack the building from. As a spirit, I had already explored the building as they were traveling there, and I saw the best route as I did.

That was when I first tried to reach them. I spoke to my old friend Froslass to tell her what the best way inside was. Because she was closely connected to me and a ghost type, she was able to hear me. She mistook my words as being her own thoughts, but she was still able to relay the information onto the team. They followed my advice.

The second time was when they were trying to find a way into the building's basement. I pushed a full bottle out of a cabinet onto the ground. Since it was filled with liquid that was mostly water, I had some control over it. By doing that, I was able to mark a part of the ground for them to use."

Leah needed a second to take that in. The story of the House Breach raid was one she was familiar with, including the buizel's death. But this was new information, from a perspective she thought could never exist. "I see," was the only words she could produce to face such a revelation.

"I haven't done much since then. Just much waiting and wandering," she said.

"I have to ask, what are you right now? Your body is still back in a grave at Eastflame."

"Just a soul."

"But what exactly is a soul? That's what confuses me."

"Let me think of a way to explain it," Lilac said. "Think of a soul as being… like a journal. One that your body and mind is writing things onto at all times, with every memory and experience. When your body fails and your original mind becomes inert, your soul will live on, bearing it all."

"So do souls not do much when we're alive?"

"I suppose not. But in the grand scheme of things, your body won't be doing much for most of eternity."

That was the word that scared Leah: eternity. It was a concept that kept grazing her mind ever since she used that ouija board for the first time, and now Lilac was explicitly mentioning it to her. An infinity of endless activity unnerved her, but an infinity of nothingness didn't seem any better and she couldn't imagine any other possibility. She felt she needed to ask something quick, just to get her mind off of it once more. "Are you able to see my soul?" Leah asked.

"Yes," Lilac answered.

"What does it look like?"

"I've seen cleaner ones."

"...I'm just going to ignore that."

Pannen watched Leah in the pond while she continued to converse with Lilac. With every passing second, the spectacle of talking to the spirit of a dead person slowly faded away (though never fully lost its strangeness). As Pannen waited there, her mind drifted away from Lilac and back to the entire reason why they were away from home in the first place: her lost sister Aika.

Pannen's expression turned grave and she turned away from the pond. She still hadn't any idea on where Aika was, and they no doubt got separated from her trail days ago. Pannen felt she needed to find AIka, that was a greater priority than with Lilac. "Maybe there's someone here who knows more about Aika?" she thought. It felt like a stretch, but she needed to know.

The chapel gave a good view of the town, she scanned around it to see if anyone looked open to talking. The first person she saw was an indeedee who was putting some fliers up on a wall. He didn't seem terribly busy.

"Keep watching Leah to make sure nothing dangerous happens, I'm going to start asking around about Aika," Pannen said to Elijah and Ishmael.

She ran off to confront the indeedee just as he finished securing a flier to a wall and turned around. "Hello, do you have a minute?"

The indeedee looked curious. "What do you need?"

"Have you heard about a minccino named Aika?" she asked.

"I'm sorry, I'm not from around this town," the indeedee responded. "I haven't heard of anyone like that."

"Oh, okay," Pannen said. "It's just someone I've been on the lookout for."

"I wish you only the best of luck on your search, then," he said.

Pannen glanced at the flier he had just put up. "Pokemon Persistence and Freedom Foundation" were the largest words on it, printed in a bold yellow font above smaller text.

"Say, what are you doing?" Pannen asked in curiosity.

"I'm putting up advertisements, making sure pokemon all around get the word- even in the small towns," he said.

"What is the 'Pokemon Persistence and Freedom Foundation'? It sounds kinda familiar, but I'm not sure I know what it is?"

"You don't know?" his eyes seemed to light up.

"No?"

The indeedee turned his body to fully face Panenn. "Years ago, an innocent absol named Eno Gabrielson was cruelly murdered by a human-turned-pokemon, her life taken away without reason. Ever since then, her death has made people more aware of just what humans are, and that has led to the founding of the Pokemon Persistence and Freedom Foundation. Or just 'P.P.F.F.' for short?"

"Really? I've heard about Eno and Armin, but not this 'P.P.F.F.'," Pannen said.

"Well, then I'm very glad I'm here to explain it," he smiled. "The P.P.F.F. is one of the most important movements in history, perhaps even the most important. They're the vanguards standing up for the rights of true pokemon all over, and taking a stand against the humans who want to suppress us and slaughter us.

Eno wasn't just the first. For almost all of history, humans have been flexing their cruelty onto pokemon and harming them for no reason- other than their own amusement of course. So that's why the P.P.F.F. was founded, they're the ones who are finally taking a standing up for all of us. They fight for justice- and most importantly- they fight for the persistence and freedom of pokemon. Hence, they are the Pokemon Persistence and Freedom Foundation."

"Huh, I see…" Pannen said, taking another look at the flier he had just put up.

"Say, you said you've heard of Eno and Armin before, but have you heard of the 'Burning of Prenarch'?" he asked.

"No, what is that?" Pannen asked.

"Oh dear, that's not good at all that you don't know," he looked to the ground.

"What was that?"

"It was a… horrific incident, even worse than what happened to Eno," he began to say. "Prenarch was a small, backwater town. Just like this one here. The people lived their lives peacefully and happily, with little to complain about. Until one day, four human-turned-pokemon showed up to it, absolutely merciless things. They began destroying buildings, stealing people's precious possessions, and murdering indiscriminately. All without a single reason for the violence.

In the end, the town was destroyed beyond repair, and seventeen people were killed on that one night."

"That's horrible!" Pannen said.

"Indeed. By every stretch of the imagination, it was an utterly horrendous massacre," he lamented. "That happened sometime after Eno was killed, and above all else it proved the need for the P.P.F.F. And that's why I'm here myself: making sure as many people know about it as possible. It could always use more support to stand up against humans."

Pannen's head was facing the ground after she heard that story. But then, a lightbulb activated in her head. She lifted her head up to look back at him. "Say, can I have one of those fliers?"

"Of course!" the indeedee said. He reached into his bag and handed her one, it was identical to the one he had just put onto the wall beside them.

Pannen skimmed over all that it was. It reiterated much of the same things the indeedee had just said. "So is the P.P.F.F. a large organization?"

"Quite large, yes. They're only a few years old, but they grew exponentially after the Burning of Prenarch happened."

"Where are they?"

"Their headquarters is established in Horizon City, it's only about a day's walk away from this town," he said. "I'm actually from Horizon City myself, in fact."

Pannen skimmed over the flier one more time before she faced the indeedee again. "Thank you, sir. I think I needed to know this."

"No problem, kid! I'm just glad I can spread the important word around! Especially to the wise youth like you!"

Pannen ran back to the cathedral, taking the flier with her in her paws. As she returned, she saw that Elijah and Ishamel were still there while Leah was emerging out from the pond again. "Guys! I have something important!" she shouted to them.

They all turned to her, although Leah still seemed to be dazed and the wet fur around her eyes limited her sight. "What is it?" Ishmael said.

"This," she showed the flier to them.

For a minute, Pannen quickly recounted all the information she'd just heard. She recounted Eno's death again, the creation and purpose of the P.P.F.F., and the Burning of Prenarch. She was quick to say all of it through her own words.

"And now, here me out:" Pannen said after she finished the recap," Aika is looking for Hunter the zoroark, who is remembered as being 'the human slayer' because of how he killed Armin. So if this organization was founded with the express purpose of combating humans, then Hunter must have had some involvement with them, right? So then we can just go to the P.P.F.F. and find Hunter through them, and then we'll find Aika with Hunter! And even if Aika hasn't found Hunter yet, I'm sure he'll help us find Aika!"

"That sounds like a great idea!" Ishmael said.

"I've never heard of such a place," Elijah questioned.

"Me neither, but this really does look legitimate to me," Pannen said.

"Armin's betrayal was… a significant event, to say the absolute least," Leah said, rubbing her eyes to restore her vision. "It sent massive shockwaves, I have no doubt that the ripples of that event reached places far outside the guild. An organization like this only makes sense, considering what he did."

"And with a place like this existing, our chances of finding Hunter (and by extension- Aika) should be way easier," Pannen said.

"Wait a second, back up just a minute," Elijah said. "What was with that 'Burning of Prenarch' thing you described? Humans killing seventeen people 'for no reason'? I remember Armin killed Eno to keep her from finding the truth and revealing secrets, which isn't a good thing but it's a reason. That event seems rather odd."

"We don't know much about the psychology of humans at this moment. Them getting morbid entertainment simply from the helplessness of true pokemon is entirely plausible," Leah argued. "We need to remember that they're not just different in terms of where they came from or biologically. They're minds are different to, there's no guarantee they have a concept of 'right' and 'wrong' like we do. Considering what he did, I have no doubt Armin enjoyed the years he was in the guild, watching people be clueless while he manipulated Max."

"Are you trying to justify an event where seventeen innocent people died, Eli?" Pannen asked him.

"What? No. I'm just-"

"We shouldn't say things like that, it's incredibly disrespectful to the victims," Pannen said.

"-I'm just thinking the motivations seem off, that's all."

Ishmael the mienfoo shrugged. "I guess that's just something they also do," he said.

"Yeah, I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility," Leah said.

"Well… okay," Elijah said, recognizing the fact that everyone was disagreeing with him.

"Mhm. Now come on, everyone. Let's head to Horizon City and find Hunter! This is the most promising lead we've got by far!"

End of chapter 15