Pannen, Leah, Ishmael, and Elijah walked across the sidewalks of Horizon City. The buildings and almost every other pokemon continued to tower over them, but the city was beginning to feel less alien to them as they spent more time in it. It didn't feel like home by any means, it just didn't feel actively hostile.

They were not wearing the same backpacks they had begun their journeys with. Instead, they wore uniforms of the P.P.F.F. and carried identical bags.

As they walked, the mienfoo had his paw placed on his stomach. "Aaaaaug, I feel sooo sick," he complained.

"I'm very sorry, I'm sure you'll feel better soon," Pannen said.

"How many sweets have you been eating?" Leah asked.

"Umm… I'm not sure," Ishmael said.

"What do you mean you're 'not sure'?" The espurr asked

"I don't know, it's been a lot," Ishmael said.

"Well it's no wonder you're feeling awful then!" Leah raised her voice.

"You don't need to yell," Pannen scolded Leah.

"What did he think was going to happen?" the espurr asked.

"It tastes good…" Ishmael whimpered.

"Don't you think you could show some self-restraint? Sheesh," Leah said.

"Don't be harping on him," Pannen said to Leah. She then turned to Ishmael. "It's good that we're walking around, then. That exercise will help you feel better."

"We should also find some food that has actual fibers and nutrition in it," Leah said.

"That too."

"But that can come a bit later, we're not too far from a library and I'd really like to go there."

"Why are you wanting to go there?"

"To research some stuff," Leah said. "You know, like, Lilac, stuff."

"Well since we have this day off, I was wanting to ask around to see if we could find anything about Hunter or Aika," Pannen said.

Leah looked annoyed. "How about I head to the library and you do whatever you want to do?" she suggested.

Pannen shrugged. "Alright, as long as we all get back to the headquarters before sundown we should be fine," she said. "Come Eli, let's help Ishmael out and start asking around for leads."

Elijah's head sparked up. "Can I go with Leah instead?'

Pannen looked taken aback. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah, I'd… prefer to look around there."

"Wouldn't you like to stay with me?" Pannen asked.

"I just… want some more things to read," he said.

Pannen looked disappointed. "If you insist, then you can go there. Just don't get lost, please."

"Alright," Elijah said.

"I can look after him to make sure he doesn't go anywhere," Leah said. "I am older than you, afterall."

"Thank you, Leah," Pannen said.

They split up, Leah continuing to walk towards the Horizon City library as Elijah followed while Pannen and Ishmael turned down another road. The mienfoo still held a paw to his stomach.

Leah kept her eyes forward instead of on Elijah as the two walked forward. Elijah remained mostly silent, his head not being lifted very much. Even when she wasn't paying him much mind, Leah eventually spoke up.

"I'm surprised you chose to stay by me instead of your sister," she said.

"I just want to get my mind off of things," he admitted.

"Can't say I blame you, in all honesty," Leah replied. "I'm glad you have interest in reading, unlike others."

Elijah didn't respond to that statement, he didn't want to vindicate a statement on Ishmael made behind his back.

The Horizon City library was large, old, clean, and newly painted. Leah was happy to see the location in-person when she had only read about it before. But when she walked up the stone steps and entered the building fully, her excitement was let down. Pockets of empty shelves were littered everywhere and allowed her to see through the bookshelves when she shouldn't have been able to. It felt wrong to her. The library was certainly not on its best days.

Leah briefly looked back just to make sure again that Elijah was still behind her. After seeing him enter, she returned her attention to the library. In only a few seconds an exciting trip had turned into a mystery, and Leah was set on resolving it.

She walked closer to the shelves to take a closer look. All sorts of bookshelves had noticeable gaps, but Leah observed that the sections on history seemed particularly hollow. As she searched around, she noticed that a couple of pokemon there were turning their eyes to look at her. Leah figured it was because of the P.P.F.F. uniform she was wearing.

She saw a cyclizar that looked like a librarian. Leah gave a small wave to him and approached. "Excuuuusse me, do you have a moment?" she spoke quietly, obeying the rules of a library.

"Yes?" the librarian asked.

"I'm terribly sorry, I'm still rather new to this city. I noticed there seems to be quite a few empty shelves here, is there a greater story with that?" Leah kept her voice faint.

"Yes yes, I'm terribly sorry about that," the librarian said. "This library was constructed when House Breach was in charge of the city, and the books unfortunately reflected those dark times. We have been busy reviewing and removing the problematic books to help this city in moving on from the past, but it's been a significant undertaking. We're looking for more books to replace the removed books with, but that has been our secondary goal."

Leah squinted in annoyance. "Well that's rather irritating. Could you not have kept the books for historical purposes? Couldn't you just put a disclaimer on them?"

"They reflected a dark past we need to move on from," the librarian reiterated. "The books were originally approved by House Breach, and some were even written directly by members of that house. We cannot have people sympathizing with or repeating the actions of them, making these revisions a necessity. I am deeply sorry that you have come to this library while it was in a transitory time, but next year is when we should be adding more books than we are removing."

"Very well," Leah's annoyance didn't cease, but she accepted the reality.

The espurr broke eye contact to look in another direction, she then began thinking. "House Breach practiced forms of occultism, so that is certainly the sort of books that were first off the chopping block. Annoying, as I'm sure that's the sort of thing that contacting the dead would fall under, so I doubt I can find that in here anymore. If it was ever here in the first place.

Taking away the books just seems so unnecessary, so I have to work with what I have…"

She continued to be lost in thought. She felt it would be a waste if she were to spend time walking to the library and walk out with nothing. As such, she sought to figure out something worthwhile she could pick out.

"I recall my parents mentioning that what House Breach was doing involved using type materials. That's it. Those are common and fundamental enough that they couldn't have removed all of it. They've probably reviewed the books and removed all ones with even excerpts on those kinds of uses, but I'm sure I could sus out the details myself even off of basic information.

Oh yes, there was also that special kind of tree we were supposed to find at Kiritown. A surdwood tree, I believe they called it. I could try to look into those incase there's anything special about them."

Leah nodded her head, as though agreeing with her own plans. She turned to Elijah again. "I have an idea on what I'm going to look into here, do you?"

"I think I'll just try to find some stories."

"Really? That's it?"

"Yeah," he said.

"Sounds like a bit of a waste to me but okay. I'll trust you can find the fiction section yourself, then."

Leah turned again and began walking down the aisles of shelves, reading the category labels. Elijah stayed put for one moment, and then began looking around himself.

The two spent a few hours in the library, not in any significant hurry at all. Leah kept picking out a few books to read their tables of contents and skim through what seemed to be the more intriguing sections of the book. As she expected, she couldn't find anything that touched on the subjects of occultism or communion with the dead directly. The library fell well below Leah's expectations, but she was still able to find things of use.

Elijah was comparatively aimless in his approach. Most of his time he spent was merely walking down the aisles to glance at the names and covers of books. Only a scarce few times did he pull a book out to actually read the contents. He had no real plan because- truthfully- he cared about the experience of being at a library more than the books themselves. He wanted a chance to escape and not think about the P.P.F.F. or stress over Aika's whereabouts. As it would turn out, the library offered him little with the way of true escapism. The holes in the bookshelves, the P.P.F.F. uniform adorning his upper body, and the books themselves made it challenging to be distracted. Through his time there, he saw books with names such as "Life and Death of Eno Gabrielson," "The war for true pokemon rights", and "Understanding human fragility".

Being new to the library, they had to get registered before they were allowed to take books out. It should have taken a decent amount of time, but it was a remarkably swift process after Leah proved they were members of the P.P.F.F. She also felt it necessary to say who her parents were, whether or not that was relevant.

Leah and Elijah expected they would have to come to Pannen and Ishmael. To their surprise, it was Pannen and Ishmael who came to them.

After having to remind Ishmael to keep his voice down in a library, they told each other about their experiences. Pannen lamented that she wasn't able to learn much on Hunter, but she didn't lose hope. The mienfoo was feeling better physically, but he complained about being in a place as boring as a library.

Once they were done catching up again, Pannen went to Elijah to help him find some books that he would like. Although Elijah did not want her help, she gave it anyways.

It took a few hours, but they eventually left the library. Elijah only carried a single book, a simple adventure story called "Age of Beginnings". After all her struggles, Leah took four books out which she felt contained potential. The most promising of which was a book called "Deep accounts of type materials and awakening", written by "Dr. Rolan the glaceon."

They went across Horizon City again, the only difference now being the few extra books they had with them.

They were returning to the PPFF headquarters. But it didn't quite feel like that, since it didn't feel like they had ever left. The PPFF bled into almost every facet of that city and its influence was palpable. Everywhere, billboards, signs, and "rebellious" graffiti celebrated the PPFF and demonized humans. They all noticed it, both consciously and subconsciously. Their feelings were not equal on the matter.

Elijah was the shortest one there, and the towering buildings didn't let him forget. The many signs of the P.P.F.F. made the foundation feel omnipotent in that city; each of them felt like an eye that was gazing right on him. The only thing he could think was to avert his eyes back to the ground. He occasionally glanced back at Pannen. "Has she ever been wrong before?" he would frequently think.

As they walked along the streets, they continued to see signs of the past being covered: walls being painted in new and bright colors, buildings covered in canvas cloth, squares of demolished cobblestone and brick, and empty pedestals where a statue once stood. They passed by all of it, and they said nothing about it.

They had returned to their room. Ishmael paced around the halls of the building to continue exercising away his self-inflicted illness, while the other three remained in the room with their books.

Elijah once again sat beside his bed, as it was the most private place he could find there. He took the pillow off of his bed to support his head as he laid on the ground with his singular book on his chest. It was strictly less comfortable than simply being on his bed, but he felt it gave him more privacy.

Leah and Pannen were in the main section of their room. The espurr poured over the books she'd gotten, quickly scanning over each page before turning to the next.

Pannen sat uncomfortably, frequently switching positions and tapping her leg. Simply waiting around didn't feel like a heroic endeavor at all, and she wanted to be a hero. As the hours passed by, Pannen quickly got herself into a cycle where she would fidget around, go over to Elijah to check up on him, go to Leah to check on how she was going, attempt to read Leah's books by looking over the espurr's shoulder, get confused by what was written, leaving the room to find Ishmael and catch up with him, and then returning to the room's main sofa where she would repeat the whole cycle all over again.

When Leah wasn't having her concentration broken by the older of the two minccino, Leah was quite immersed in reading through the books she got. She knew she didn't need to read every letter of every word and every sentence, she skimmed through them all to gauge how pertinent the information was. The first two books she picked up were underwhelming, just surface level information stated and restated in a verbose manner. The few brief moments of intriguing writing didn't save the books. But once Leah reached the third book, that was when things got interesting.

It was a book on the researcher "Rolan the glaceon". It detailed his goals, his background studying, his ambitions, his methods, and the victims of his experiments in vivid detail. The details of the victims were told early on and in gruesome detail, as if put there to ward off any readers with weaker stomachs. Leah continued onwards anyways.

She was captured as she read about the deeper details- and not being distracted by Pannen. Accounts of curious results, accomplishments that seemed decidedly supernatural, and most fascinating of all were the descriptions on "Type Awakenings."

"Did this somehow fall through the cracks of censorship? This sort of stuff must be bordering on what House Breach was up to," Leah thought.

To her, the book became a mystery in and of itself. It seemed impossible that such a book could be obtained in such a nonchalant manner. As intriguing as that was, she was more focused on the exact contents. It was exactly the sort of thing she wanted. She didn't need to ask Lilac to learn about the hidden aspects of the world, all she needed to do was turn the page and keep reading.

Hours passed for them. Ishmael returned to the room, feeling better after his basic exercise (and looking forward to eating more sweets again). Pannen had an easier time striking a conversation with Ishmael as Elijah and Leah remained glued to their books. They talked about their homes and families, they talked about the city, they talked about the evil things done by humans they heard about, and they talked about their favorite snacks.

As it approached dusk, they received a knock on the door and a summon. It was for a speech being held by none other than Sesha herself. Pannen didn't ask if it was obligatory or not, she simply encouraged the rest of her team to attend it. And so they did, regardless of what they were doing or trying to do before.

The speech was held at a large amphitheater in the buildings, giving a wide space that was still closed off from the outside. Even with its size, it was cramped with all the pokemon in uniforms in that room, leaving the smaller ones to struggle to find a good view. Pannen, Elijah, Leah, and Ishmael were absolutely no exception there.

Sesha came there, standing behind a podium and above all of them. She spoke to all of them, making direct eye contact with none.

The speech stretched for almost an hour. Eno kept speaking, not even so much as taking a break to drink some water. On and on she talked, almost unnatural as she seemingly had no fatigue and her eyes remained looking dead. Her words were routine, it could be felt that she'd spoken much of those words before numerous times. She spoke about Eno, she spoke about the motto of Horizon city, and she reiterated that "P.P.F.F." stood for "Pokemon Persistence and Freedom Foundation" a nauseating number of times. It was tiring.

They had only been a part of the foundation for a few days. Yet, the words and talking points were already feeling repetitive: stated again and again until memorization. Through it all, Sesha would never bring up a question without providing her own answer to it not long thereafter.

But as the event stretched onwards, there was a moment the tone changed. It was subtle, but it could be felt. "But the days where humans can freely oppress us are over," the shift began. "We can stand up for ourselves now, and they will hate us evermore because of that."

Any pokemon there who was once distracted had their attention recaptured by her.

"The story has been the same for longer than we can account, but it has changed now. For all of history, humans have killed true pokemon in cold blood," Sesha proclaimed.

"...True pokemon have also killed other true pokemon," Elijah thought to himself.

"They have stolen our belongings! Our land!" Sesha became more heated.

"...True pokemon do that to other true pokemon all the time. I'm pretty sure more often than humans do it," Elijah thought to himself.

"And they've manipulated us countless times before."

"...So do you," Elijah thought.

"Enough is enough. We will fight back against them. We will subvert the dynamic of tyranny and make them pay for it- pay for all of it. Whether they're out in the open or hidden, whether they're honest or deceptive, and whether it's the humans themselves or the Maxes they've manipulated into being their servants. We will find them, we will fight them, and we will have our justice."

Elijah turned his head to look around the room. He tried to find someone who looked horrified, or even just someone who looked concerned after these deliberate calls for violence. He didn't find any. All he saw were the subtle nods of agreement and their enchanted eyes. Elijah didn't even want to look towards Pannen.

"And when I look around this room, I have no doubts that we will be successful," Sesha said. "We are the underdogs!"

End of chapter 23