( 2 Months Before The Area Zero Incident, early summer )
( Nemona's Age: 17; Scarlet's Age: 15; Arven's Age: 16 )

Chapter 8:
The Tower Incident
(Part 1)

The summer air was sweet and still, with barely a breeze beneath the late morning sun. It was getting pretty hot, too, with the sun nearing the top of the sky. Nemona wiped a couple beads of sweat from her forehead as she surveyed the brightly lit landscape, nary a cloud in the sky.

Yep, there was the tower in question, the one they'd been searching for. She knew she'd find it as long as they'd just kept looking.

"¡Oye! Lettyyyy~!" Nemona called, adding a giggle for good measure as she enthusiastically waved both arms toward her new friend in the distance. Scarlet, who seemed to be taking their time picking some berries like they were going out of style, emerged from the wooded area to meet up with Nemona in a clearing.

The both of them were wearing the official summer uniform of Naranja Academy, with its white cotton polo tee, orange tie, and matching, baggy orange shorts. Nemona's hair was up in its usual ponytail while Scarlet's was cut short in the back, but long in the front, with curving black bangs that covered their left eye and a braided side-front tail that hung from their right temple. A pokéball-inspired hair clip accented the end of the braid, and while it looked new, it also appeared to be made of simple plastic. Even Scarlet's shoes looked kind of weathered and old, so much so that the recent polishing they'd received couldn't hide their wear and tear fully. On their back they wore a simple brown rucksack of sorts that looked ancient, held together with a patchwork of duct tape. Nemona, by comparison, had a fresh set of new sneakers, custom-made for her, a newly re-fitted arm brace, and brand new black tights.

When pressed about their gear, Letty had simply said, 'Director's gonna hook me up with new crap over the weekend, or something.'

So Nemona had stopped bugging them about it, even though she felt like a brand new student in particular really needed proper clothes and equipment to be hiking around Paldea. At least the uniform Scarlet had on was new, though at that point it was looking speckled with dirt, grass stains, and bits of berry juice from their fruit picking.

As Scarlet approached without a word, Nemona could see a small twinkle in their otherwise dull, crimson eye as they surveyed the steep stone structure ahead of them, across the clearing. It was one of the many old watchtowers that dotted the Paldean landscape. They tended to be near different towns and settlements, probably a relic of the old royal state that was long since defunct.

'Professor Raifort says that those towers were built way way back when Paldea was at war,' Nemona had explained to Letty earlier that morning. 'Like a way to keep watch for invasions, or something? Guess the old king we had back then was really paranoid about people trying to steal his treasure, or something...'

Scarlet had puffed a bit of hot air from their nose, nodding to themself as they followed along, but had nothing else to say on the matter.

Nemona wasn't exactly sure why Scarlet was so dead-set on finding towers like this. Maybe they were, like, into archaeology, or whatever? Since they seemed to like researching old structures and legends and stuff, always reading about them in that strange red book they carried around everywhere... But then, they kept going on about something called 'The Treasures of Ruin,' some sort of Paldean Legend that Nemona didn't know much of. Her family always dismissed that sort of thing, legends and fairytales and the like: 'fantasies will rot your brain, you need real life goals to reach toward, which you can grab with your own two hands and call your own,' as Father would say. Scarlet did seem to be taking the whole 'Treasure Hunt' tradition of Naranja Academy to be more... literal than most – if any – students Nemona had met during her time at the school. They'd talk about their coin collection, or the relics they'd found in their time in Paldea thus far.

Regardless, Nemona wasn't that fussed about why Scarlet was looking for these towers. All that mattered was that it meant that Scarlet was relying on Nemona to help find them. And that meant Nemona was needed, which was the perfect excuse to form a connection, show Scarlet around the region, pass by the different gyms, and coax Letty into fighting the Gym Leaders. Just the day prior, Scarlet had defeated their first Gym Challenge battle in Cortondo, and Gym Leader Katy had advised that she'd seen a watchtower near Artazon. So, here they were, having found the thing after a couple hours of exploring. The sooner they wrapped this up, the sooner Nemona could nudge Letty toward Artazon to take on Brassius...

"Ehhh? See?" Nemona said, patting herself on the back with her tone. "Toldja we'd find it. Now, let's go up there and-"
"Yup, see what we see."

Scarlet started walking ahead without another word. Dang, they were so cool...

Nemona considered what she could do to prove her worth to this new acquaintance – no, this new friend, right? They were totally friends, this was their first day meeting up in the morning and going out exploring together, which was totally a thing you did with friends. Yeah? And Nemona wanted to prove herself to this new friend. She'd have to bust out some courage...

"Let's do it to it!" cheered Nemona, pumping up her fist and bolting off for the watchtower.

"H-Hey!" Scarlet cried out from behind.

Nemona was going to keep pushing out as much energy as she could for Letty. If her new friend saw how often and how much Nemona was willing to go 100% for their sake, maybe that would result in something, here? And besides, if things ever got, you know, 'a bit much,' as Clavell would put it, then... Nemona could just invoke the man – she was giving this her all because the Director had assigned her, specifically, to look over the new student from another region. Even La Primera, Geeta, had snuck in the suggestion that Nemona ought to be a mentor to Scarlet. So... So this was just her doing her duty, doing what was expected of her, not selfish at all! It just happened to line up with what she wanted – which, you know, that just meant she was the perfect candidate to do the job, yeah?

Before long, Nemona had crossed the clearing and reached the base of the stone tower. Huffing for air from her sprint, she swallowed spit and coughed a little as she gaped upward at the vertical ascent of ladder rungs before her. A shudder went down her back at the prospect of how exhausting the climb would be. But she could do this. Couldn't look weak in front of her new friend, or else they might start worrying about her. Steeling herself for the task ahead, she pumped her fists before her.

"Wait up," Scarlet called with dull syllables from the distance, taking their time.

"Jeje, you're gonna learn to keep up with me! See you at the top, Letty!" Nemona shouted back over her shoulder, grinning to herself and stifling a snicker at the way Scarlet was gesturing back at her. No way was she gonna slow down, Scarlet needed to pick up the pace if they wanted to keep up with the likes of Champion Nemona, hah!

"Hup-hup, hup-hup!" Nemona exerted, making sounds to keep herself focused on the arduous work of climbing such a tall ladder. Her head began swimming with possibilities.

What if they spotted something worth checking out from up there? Maybe some old ruin not easily seen from the ground... Or a powerful Pokémon they could take on together, as a team! Wasn't Scarlet trying to look for those super big Pokémon people were reporting seeing... 'Titan' Pokémon, was it? Those things that one guy, uh... Arven. He was trying to hunt down these 'Titans', attempting to sidetrack Scarlet from the more important goal of the Gym Challenge... Probably trying to swipe Nemona's new friend away because he was such a grumpy, sourpuss loner that he couldn't make his own friends... Well, it wasn't like Nemona had many people she got along with as a real friend, so, like... he could go find his own! She called dibs on Letty first!

Nemona found herself suddenly hoping they didn't see anything noteworthy from up there, due to the possibility of it throwing off her plan of taking Scarlet to Artazon next...

"-... up there...!" Scarlet was shouting something behind her from down below, but it didn't matter. Letty could come up here themself, jejeje...

By the time Nemona had reached the top, she could really feel her body starting to get upset at her about all of this sudden, intense, strenuous exercise. She crawled onto the tower's top, panting and wheezing on her knees. The sun-baked stones comprising the tower were warm against her skin, and the heat drifting up from them, combined with the sun beating down a bit closer and much more directly than it had on the ground... it was starting to make her feel pretty lethargic.

Feeling her travel bag beginning to stick to her back, she slung off her accessory and propped it against the rim of the tower, next to the ladder she'd just climbed. With a loud 'Whew!' she used the bottom of her bracer to rub sweat off of her forehead, pushing herself up from her knees and planting her sneakers down on the stone.

As she surveyed the environs around her, something extremely suspicious caught her eye: a red treasure chest, shining in the midday light, the sun's reflection almost blinding her from bouncing off its gold trim. It was just sitting there, in broad daylight, at the opposite side of the tower's peak.

"Xerneas' holy antlers...!" she whispered to herself in awe. How was there a legit treasure chest just hanging out in a place like this? In the middle of nowhere? How'd someone even get it up there? Use their Pokémon, maybe? But why? And who had the key to it? And what was inside it?

Oh, man, Letty was gonna flip when they saw-...

The treasure chest moved.

Taking in a deep breath – she was still recovering from the climb – Nemona wondered if the heat was really getting to her that much where she was seeing things... So she stared sternly...

The lid definitely moved. Something was peeking out at her from within it.

And Nemona's mind whirled through the different possibilities of what could be happening in the situation she found herself in.

One distinct possibility made sense more than anything else.

"... Gimmighoul...?"

Ghost Pokémon of a rather diminutive size, Gimmighouls were spread across the Paldean region, and could be found hiding out in all sorts of nooks and crannies, making odd little noises that would catch passersby off guard. Normally, they could only carry around but a single coin they coveted. In some rare instances, however, they were known to inhabit stationary treasure chests... which also seemed to be tethered to their bodies – or perhaps some extension of their bodies? Nemona didn't know the science behind it, as not many trainers seemed to catch the 'mons to begin with. Plus, the ones without treasure chests seemed to vanish once a human became aware of them, abandoning their precious coins. Scarlet had already collected a few of them this way in their travels, it seemed – they were keen on the things.

Either way, Nemona could recall her history professor, Raifort, at one point touching on Gimmighoul and their treasured coins being related to the old royalty of Paldea, though the truth of the matter seemed lost to time. But they were definitely Ghost Type creatures, and, according to reports, the treasure chest form was known to lure humans in at the prospect of treasure – only to use some kind of unknown ability to drain their life force. Which sounded awesome and sneaky and creepy, just like a Ghost Type should be, she figured.

The twinkle of two golden circles glinted at Nemona from within the darkness of the barely open treasure chest across the way. She'd been so captivated by getting to observe this creature in its natural habitat, consumed by memories of her knowledge on the 'mon, that she'd neglected to internalize and act on that last bit of info she'd recounted.

With an ominous flash of purple light, the treasure chest sprang open. The scattering of coins clinking and a small croaking sound emerged, and Nemona suddenly felt her head spin as the world whirled downward before her eyes. Her feet left the ground, and all she could see was the sky as her entire body quivered, weightless, convulsing as a force tugged at her abdomen. She coughed and groaned, her teeth snapping tight as her hands balled into fists. She desperately tried to reach for a pokéball from her pocket, but it was no use. Her heart was firing like a piston as her muscles twitched tightly – it was like some invisible hand had reached into her ribcage and was squeezing her heart and lungs like a lime, wringing the juice from her. The sensation, as intense as it was, lasted but only a couple seconds until something else happened.

From the upper edge of Nemona's blurred vision, the shape of a fellow human, orange and white and black, vaulted over her. It was Letty! Come to her rescue!

Such a sight was worth the excruciating pain Nemona found herself experiencing. Another couple seconds of this pain passed, and it began to wane, that invisible hand loosening its grip. Nemona's brain was lacking oxygen, she suddenly realized – the state her body was in was preventing her from breathing properly. The sight of the sunny, bright blue sky that took up her vision was quickly growing dark and hazy.

She heard the jangling of coins. The familiar sound of a pokéball releasing its monster.

And Scarlet's raspy tones commanding: "'Bite' this asshole."

Hissing, snarling...

"Goough-!" Nemona choked out as the hard stone floor beneath her collided with her back. Whatever force had lifted her off the ground had released, and the landed had knocked some wind out of her. Writhing and clutching at herself, Nemona sputtered out harsh, wheezing coughs, her body desperate to resupply on oxygen. Everything went dark as she felt her body go numb.

The next thing she knew, she was blinking up at the sky, her back heated by warm stone and her front side likewise warmed from the pale sunlight.

"-'s right, run the fuck away, dipshit!" Scarlet was scoffing, somewhere beyond Nemona's vision.

Able to move her trembling body and breathe again, Nemona propped herself up on her palms, sprawled on her hip as she pushed herself to regain her bearings. The edge of her vision obscured by her dangling ponytail, she deciphered that she'd only been out for a moment.

"Nice work," Scarlet was saying stoically to their prideful Sprigatito. They gave it a rough but affectionate pet on the head, ruffling the 'mon's ears around as she cleaned herself from the battle she'd just won for her trainer – urgh, Nemona had missed getting to watch! Total bummer...

"... L-Letty..." she croaked out, her voice hoarse and her throat a bit sore from the sudden coughing fit.

She watched as Scarlet unceremoniously scooped golden coins from an empty, lifeless shell of a treasure chest and dumped them into... a sack of... webbing? Ohhh, right, Scarlet liked to use their Tarountula's innate web pouch to carry treasure around. Since the coins were inorganic, non-Pokémon material after their Gimmighoul connection was severed, it meant the Tarantoula would have to stay out of his pokéball while lugging the stuff around. So, Scarlet seemed comfortable with wearing their Tarountula, attaching it to their backpack by his sticky webbing.

Nemona's... history... with certain Bug Type Pokémon made this a bit of a jarring sight on occasion, but Letty's Tarantoula was actually super friendly and helpful, so it wasn't really a problem.

In fact, said Pokémon noticed Nemona stirring awake, and made a small sound to his owner to indicate this to Scarlet. Scarlet shot a quick glance over their shoulder at Nemona, who smiled warily back, trying to play off how much wind had just gotten knocked out of her with a trembling thumbs up. Scarlet immediately turned their head away, an odd look about them that Nemona was unsure how to interpret. Scarlet was very difficult to read, more so than most, even with all of the deliberate effort Nemona had put into figuring out these kinds of things. Perhaps it was that enigma that was part of Letty's appeal – Nemona didn't want think about it too much.

But something Scarlet did want to think about a lot was treasure. If Nemona's special interest was battling, Letty's totally seemed to be treasure, money, any way of earning cash. And right then, they were rolling in a nice bounty of Gimmighoul coins, their clinking and clattering a deliciously metallic melody that carried a slight twinge of otherworldly backing vocals.

Nemona bit her lip, worrying if she'd annoyed Scarlet by pushing ahead on her own. Was that why they'd been trying to get her to slow down? Had they maybe figured a Gimmighoul chest would be lurking up here? Dangit... She'd fumbled things up by getting overeager. Like usual...

"H-Hey, umm-..." Nemona cleared her dried out throat as she shifted her weight. "Sorry about that, I was... just wanting to help out, got... got a little carried away..." She grunted the last word out as she pushed herself up off the floor and onto her two feet, which felt way more laborious than expected. "I, uh-..." She took a step forward, and her whole body wobbled, her legs like lead.

Her eyes widened with shock as her legs gave out on her suddenly. The split-second descent back to her knees caused her heart to skip a beat, her rib-cage overcome by a hollow feeling, as if it had been scooped clean out. Her knees throbbed with pain from having collided with the rocky floor beneath her, and her left hand felt scraped by the force of catching her weight on the hard surface.

"Wh... Whoa..." she meekly uttered in a daze. Just trying to hold herself up on her knees was proving to be more difficult with each passing moment.

"Ugh. Look," Scarlet sighed, continuing to pile coins into their webbed bag without so much as looking Nemona's way. "Just... take it easy, all right? That creepo drained some of your life force. It's some kind of weird move that only works on humans, that's why you won't ever see it in a battle." With an unceremonious shrug, their eyes as dull as ever, they concluded, "That's Ghost Types for you, I guess. Bet you feel pretty shitty right now, yeah?"

"Mmhh-... Mm-hmm," Nemona hummed pathetically, her entire being aching with a pang of agony – but part of her was buzzing with admiration at Scarlet's knowledge on the subject. They must've been doing their research!

"So, like-..." Scarlet spoke as they gathered their prize pieces. "You'll be fine, but... your body's gonna need time to recover." Flicking a hand at the air dismissively, they advised, "Give it a few hours, take a nap, you'll start to feel better..."

"You-...Nngh-..." Nemona winced pathetically, and hated her body for betraying her condition with involuntary sounds such as this. Her head was lulling as the weight of her eyelids was rapidly increasing. She uttered out between heavy breaths, "You say it like it's... from first hand... experience..." Every word was a labor to speak.

"... Yup," was all Scarlet said, their body leaning over as Nemona could hear the scraping of metal against the inside of the chest.

So... Scarlet had been attacked like this before, huh...? It was why they'd been trying to tell her to slow down.

"I... I just wanted to help out," Nemona insisted drowsily.

"Well. Mission accomplished," Letty said flatly, and the last of the coins plinked itself into their Tarantoula's webbed satchel. "That fucker was so distracted by you, I was able to catch it off guard and get an easy score."

"Hh-... Heh," Nemona forced a laugh, her eyelids waning at half mast as her chin pressed into her chest. "Guess... I... turned out to... be a half decent... decoy... Gghh-..."

Nemona pushed her head up to look at Scarlet, watching their Tarantoula jump up, attaching itself to his trainer's back – the loud jangling of coins shifting around was muffled by the webbing, and Scarlet grunted as the weight settled onto their shoulders and they stood upright.

"Yup," she said dryly, looking down at Nemona. "You seem like pretty good bait for this kinda shit. Careless. Ignorant. Loud..." They walked up to where Nemona was, their shoes tapping against the watchtower's uneven bricks. They smirked. "Has its uses, at least."

Nemona couldn't tell if that was another of Letty's witty back-handed compliments, a genuine insult, or some combination of the two...

As Scarlet reached her, Nemona tried to look up at them, but in doing so, lost her balance and collapsed onto her side. As least from the ground, she could see Scarlet's cold, dispassionate expression glowering down at them, as if they were annoyed.

"Tch." Scarlet's dull red eyes pierced through Nemona's barely functional gaze. "... Maybe listen to me next time, huh?" they grumbled, walking right over Nemona and toward the edge of the tower they'd both emerged from.

Nemona scrunched her brows with frustration. Scarlet was totally annoyed at her... Drat, dangit, urgh... And they were walking away...!

"Whh-..." Nemona panicked, scrambling to crane her neck as she wondered where the heck Scarlet was going. "Where-... you-...?" she groaned out, her voice pitching up in desperation. She didn't want to be left alone, here, she didn't want to lose sight of Letty...

As they walked away from her, Scarlet ignored Nemona's attempt at inquiry. They advised, "Might be a good idea to let your Pokémon out, keep watch as you recoup. Y'know?"

"Y-Yeah... good idea..." Nemona grunted, twisting herself around to grab a pokéball from her pocket and release the 'mon within. She could see Scarlet stepping up on top of the watchtower's edge. There was no wind, just the hot sun beating down against their back. Their Tarantoula tilted his head curiously at Nemona – or rather, at the Quaxley she'd just let out of her pokéball. Her duck 'mon made a disgruntled quacking sound at Scarlet's back, and Scarlet didn't react in any way.

Nemona realized she ought to toss out her intentions before Scarlet ran off, as they already had done on her a few times. This was-... Scarlet wasn't ditching her, or... or abandoning her, no-no-no, this was just... Letty's way. They ran to their 'Own Tempo', and stuff. Nemona did, too – those tempos were... different, was all. Letty didn't want to be burdened with sitting around and babysitting Nemona. It was her own fault for getting attacked, anyway... Stupid...

"Uhh, y-you... go aw-... go on ahead to... Arta-... ech-!... Artazon," Nemona called out, her voice failing her, devolving into some coughs. She slumped from her back onto her side again, thrusting up a quivering finger in an attempt to push her body to stay awake long enough to advise, "I'll... I'll catch up... when I'm feel-... guh-... feeling better, n'... we can challenge... the Gym... togethhh...-"

Nemona's hand fell across her waist as she barely could keep one eye open.

Scarlet remained still, not so much as glancing over their shoulder as they uttered tiredly,
"... Not my problem."

That was all Scarlet had to say, not even bidding farewell before jumping off the sheer edge of the tower. Their Tarantoula latched onto the corner of the cobbled stone on their way down, and Scarlet had grabbed a tendril of webbing mid-jump, using it as a bungee cord to drop down safely (or a risky version of safely, anyway). Nemona's barely open eyelid fell closed, and she could hear the tapping of shoes against dirt and the -snap- of webbing before her body was completely spent, her senses fully shutting down.