Fledglings

[Spiteful Murkrow]

@Ambyssin

Spoiler

Interesting opening here. So, Cernun's original problem was with the Empire and not the Company, huh? Also… it's amusing how big of a difference we have when it comes to pokémon lifespans. I imagine a skarmory in my world would likely live about 1.5x as long as that. And… ah, so there IS significance behind Roteck being an Aggron. He knows Hess! Lemme guess… brother? Father? Uncle? Cousin? Well, they're probably related, anyway.

Well, the Company doesn’t exactly have a monopoly over all that is wrong and dysfunctional in Anyilla. Cernun’s story just so happens to intersect with the other main power a bit more. As for Roteck, you’re on the right track, though I’ll let you piece things together instead of just blurting it out.

At first I was wondering what the point of the Tromba scene was… but then we got to the reassignment notice and won't that be a huge slap in the face for Nina if she ever manages to get back home at all? Or maybe Scout will make a return and she'll learn through him? Anything's possible. Assuming, of course, Marley doesn't hatch some sort of ploy to escape the reassignment. Which is perfectly possible.

The main purpose of it was to check up on Tromba and to get the plot to where it needs to be for some events later in the story.

Other than that, the general scheming makes it hard for me to predict exactly what'll happen, though I'm wondering if this is the end of Team Sentinel as far as main appearances goes. I kind of liked seeing Ketu play off them (and Ellsberg), so it's a bummer they're splitting up again.

It’s not the end for them, but they’re taking a bit of a small break story-wise for the time being.

As for the rest of the part, Kiran used Diplomacy! It's super effective! Seriously, nice to see things not devolve into a scuffle after an episode that's been full of scuffles. Though with the pirate mook trio trailing behind them, I sense further scuffles in the near future.

Well I do have to keep things at least somewhat unpredictable. But yeah, they should enjoy their calm while it lasts.

squinting intensifies

No idea what you’re getting at here. :3

@Kindoflame

Spoiler

A really common mistake creators make is to only have difference in scale, sometimes to the point that the entire plot becomes a predictable cycle (e.g. One Piece). Of course, raising the stakes does not actually make a story more engaging*. However, you have been doing a really good job alternating between both. The three main subjects I have seen you switch between for differences in kind is travel, socializing, and combat. You have not been neglecting differences in scale either. Early in the story, the party flew from a ship at sea to the nearby island of Boisocéan where they had to gain support of a politically neutral leader and one Marked Pokemon, before fight off some Company mooks. Much later the party arrives at Orleigh through a secret path in an underwater Mystery Dungeon and then had to stay unnoticed by the entire island's population until a city-wide battle between pirates, soldiers, and ferals breaks out. On top of all of that, you have more recently introduced a new subject; intrigue. Not only has the dealings, diplomacy and sabotage among the Company and Empire been been more engaging as the story progressed, but even now the main cast is getting in on it, trying to manipulate the political state of the entire Cratle to get an advantage.

You have done such a great job balancing the differences in scale and kind that the story is still fresh and interesting even after ~800,000 words.

Well, I’m glad that I’ve managed to keep things compelling and unpredictable to read for you after such a long run. It can get hard to get everything together sometimes, but seeing reviews like that makes it all worth the payoff.

@Chibi Pika

Spoiler

I like how this whole scene kinda subverts the usual "protagonist imprisoned by the empire" routine, what with them just cheerfully trying to make him feel at home and totally not catching onto why he feels like a prisoner.

To be fair, from their perspective, Pleo’s at a new home right now. So it’s their job to try and make sure that he takes to it well. After all, nothing tempts fate like trying to openly bully a Pokémon that eventually learns Aeroblast into submission.

Ohh wait, I hadn't quite connected that this egg-traffciking case was connected to the raid that was mentioned earlier. And they were telling Cabot that it was no big deal and nothing happened. D:

Those eggs for the most part weren’t actually from his town. Though yeah, I can’t imagine that helped Cabot to sleep well at night.

It is fun that you get to have Team Traveller be totally outclassed in fights but still come out ahead through banding together and using creative strategy. They really have gotten a lot better at working together.

It simply wouldn’t be a PMD-like without a dynamic like that. After all, it IS a series where you defeat legendaries as unevolved Pokémon by grit, good positioning, and a bag full of OP items.

UM?! That's awful bold of him. I don't know how he possibly thinks this is going to end well. I could totally see him trying to frame it as "hey you guys don't want this sort of thing being carried out by rivals on your turf, do you?" But framing it as a threat is... eesh. Hope he's got a plan here…

Fortune favors the bold. Granted, so does horrific failure, but Cardino opted to go out on his limb, and you’ll see soon enough how it turns out for him.

@windskull

Spoiler

I think the length or structure of this sentence leads to a bit of fatigue. I found myself having to read the line twice to make sure I understood it correctly. Rearrangement of words or restructuring it into two separate sentences might help with that.

I’ll spend some time rethinking this part, but thanks for bringing it to my attention.

In retrospect, a froslass running a daycare is quite the interesting choice. Froslass certainly isn’t a pokemon you’d typically associate with a daycare of, so it’s a neat little element.

I will admit that I had finished a Shin Megami Tensei IV run shortly before I had penned the first few chapters of Fledglings. Hariti’s species and name choice owes a bit to that experience.

I kind of feel like the placement of this paragraph is to the detriment of the scene. Obviously it’s meant to explain the conversation, but I feel like it could have been introduced more organically, as most of the information in this conversation had.It’s repeated a few paragraphs down to explain the role of the company, but I think it works better that time, partially due to being phrased like rhetorical questions. Word choice might make this paragraph stick out less. But an explanation comes up later with the pirates much more naturally and provides just as much information.

This might be something that I’ll opt to leave as a learning experience for the future, though I’ll revisit it to see if it can be reworked into something more organic.

I appreciate the fact that pokemon in your fic have varying sizes (such as Chrom’s mom being bigger, since Chrom’s still a kid, and his younger brother being smaller.) It helps it feel more natural, instead of everything being standardized and uniform with pokemon popping out of the eggs at full size.

I like the ways you found to build some pokemon moves into the world. Like the uses of protect, for example. I found it clever.

That would be “Crom”, he’s a bit too lacking in swordsmanship to share the name of a Fire Emblem Lord. Though yeah, it only seemed logical to me that a Pokémon that’s six feet tall in the Pokédex would be just a little smaller when not an adult. As for the move incorporation, I’m glad to hear that you like it, though I will have to admit that I got the idea from Venia Silente’s Built for Risk, which similarly used Protect as a means to cut down on property damage for sporting fights.

I also like that the feral pokemon aren’t just like regular animals or anything like that, as it works well with a PMD mechanic that I remember comes up later.

Well, it’d be kinda awkward to staff your team full of wild recruits if they weren’t on the same level as the Pokémon that lived at the guild. As such, it only seemed logical that the two sides would be separated primarily by culture, much in the way that a Pokémon under a trainer would be with a wild encounter in the mainline games.

I like little things like this, where we see pokemon doing animal behaviors. It really sells that these are non-human creatures we’re talking about.

Yeah, it’s a hard line to straddle sometimes, but I do like putting in reminders every now and then in the story that these aren’t human characters or perspectives that we’re dealing with.

Overall, I really enjoyed this episode. It introduces a lot of little things that become relevant later, and it also happens to introduce us to the ever-comedic Iron Fleet. I very much love Hess, but I haven’t had much chance to see his personality shine yet, I’ll hold off. On a technical level, I think chapter 4 was the weakest, but none of them really stood out as bad.

Now that I’ve had time to get reacquainted with the main cast, I’d have to say ma by favorite out of Nida, Chrom, Kiran, and Pleo would be Chrom. He’s kind and eager, but also has a bit of a timid side at times (especially around Marley, understandably.) It may be a while before I get to episode 3, but I'm really looking forward to it. Until next time.

Well, I’m glad to hear that you’ve enjoyed catching up on this episode and am grateful for the critiques you’ve pointed out. I’ll be looking forward to your re-impressions of Episode 3 whenever you’re ready to lay them out.

@Namohysip

Spoiler

That… that middle paragraph was just painfully redundant. A single sentence would have sufficed. Again, less is more, but I just felt a strong need to point out this passage in particular. It could have been implied through all the context clues we’ve had prior, rather than just… outlining it like that. I’ll get into this later if the episode goes as I think it will, but I definitely recommend being very careful or aware of meandering around during the narrative.

Hrm. I’ll have to spend some thought as to if this can be improved a bit, but I don’t think it’s really an issue at the moment. I do think that the description involving Lyn is one of those moments that can’t be handled in a single sentence.

The second chapter is similar, except we have some new characters to look at, but I’d like to focus on an interesting tonal shift for this episode that is a lot more apparent. Compared to everywhere else, I think this is the first episode where verbal or narrative threats of mortality took center stage; we had a bit of that with the ferals two episodes ago, but this time, it’s more of a systemic aspect. It’s definitely an interesting flavor, but it was also very sudden, between threatening Guardia to the, ah, disciplinary policies of the Pirate guild. To be honest, I’m kinda surprised there was a pirate guild at all, since until then, Hess seemed to more or less be a free-floater.

To be fair, it’s less of a guild than a cartel of the toughest pirates who push their will onto the other crews in return for a safe haven. I’m glad that you found the tone shift interesting though, even if it felt a bit jarring for you.

Once again, I felt like the outburst came out of nowhere. This thought just occurred to me, but I feel like if Pleo really hears these voices and pleas and prayers when he gets powered up, I wonder if it would be a good foreshadowing if he just… hears them occasionally as he passes by? Maybe it’s a manifestation of his Psychic Typing, but I feel like this would be a much better way to foreshadow it than for it to all happen at once. And then the voices become more and more intense, culminating into the blast—which, by the way, was actually my favorite moment of the story in a while. Still doesn’t top the first time it happened against Lyn waaaay back then, but it was at least reminiscent of it.

That’s something I might put some thought on. Though he does definitely hear those pleas and prayers when he’s powered up.

The destruction that followed was, I believe, the current top spot for the most sudden and intense attack to ever take place. The aftermath was a bit on the nose (Pleo thinking about if this was what the Marked meant was probably unnecessary, and actually detracted from the implications by being so directly acknowledged so soon.) However, the actual moment before it was pointed out so obviously was good. Everyone had a hand in the chaos, and that chaos of the two factions trying to get a hand on Pleo was what allowed them to escape in neither’s clutches. A classic tale.

Hrm, it’s a little disappointing to hear that you thought that I undercut the delivery, but I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed the sequence.

And so it seems that Hess is going to be going after them despite everything, mostly out of convenience. I think what’s more interesting is the prisoner exchange, basically nullifying the Imperials’ losses in terms of manpower, while still giving Hess a second start on his new approach. If these new henchmen see him as incompetent, does that mean Hess will be getting a boon to his army, technically? All he needs to do is boost their morale, and… Perhaps he’ll be more intimidating than being the clear-last-place in this three-way race to Pleo.

His position will evolve a bit with time, though he definitely is playing with the weakest deck of the three at this point.

The final bit with Guardia was something that I suppose I half-saw coming. I’m a little annoyed that the reveal was actually as underwhelming as I thought it’d be for its episode-long buildup (subverting it with it being both parents didn’t quite cut it for me) but I do like the fact that it gave Elty a reason to relate to her. A glimmer of hope? And also a hint at Elty’s familiarity with loss, which is a curious side that I’m hoping gets explored soon.

I’ve ranted a lot about how the Cubone’s traditional dex entries are contradicted and, if played straight, makes no logical sense from a population standpoint, so I’m glad for the “nice stereotype” line, at least.

I actually thought I’d made it a bit clear in Guardia’s dialogue that she actually isn’t that affected by her mother’s loss by virtue of her not being hatched to see her. Though yes, not every Cubone loses their mother in Fledglings, Guardia just has the misfortune to hail from the opposite extreme and as such had to deal with and process the loss of a loved one in a very Cubone manner.

Was it bad that the moment they stole from the Kecleon, I assumed they were boned? I’m actually genuinely surprised that with how much this work seems to follow the canon Dungeon mechanics to an extent, the Kecleon weren’t one-shotting the team in a swarm like Cuccos from Legend of Zelda.

In Fledglings’ setting Pokémon tend to last longer in battle than they do the games, which is why OHKOs in battle are relatively uncommon.

Oh, I also noticed something—during the final scene with Crom’s bit, why exactly were they introduced to distantly?

You refer to many of the characters by name with little mention of their species, even if said characters appear less often compared to the core cast. Yet with these characters, which I’m significantly more familiar with, why are they introduced like this was the first time we were seeing them? I’m not sure what the rationale is behind this sort of prose.

I think that I’ll go back and change this, and opt for the namedrop route here. Though mentioning Pokémon by species is actually the first choice of synonym for names in this story, so I’m not really sure why things would come off that way. As for the choice here, it might have been due to some concerns about word/phrase repetition when initially writing up the chapter.

This has been, with a few minor variations or reordering, what the past several episodes have been like, and I think repeating it so many times is a huge issue for me. I know you told me in your last review response that that’s the formula for this part of the story, but to repeat it so often, I wouldn’t call that a style so much as a design flaw. I was literally rooting for them to lose just to break the trend.

That makes the ending of this episode that much better; the final chapter was very solid. In particular, I’d like to note that the portion where Nida and co. were fleeing from Lyn was something I was able to visualize very easily in my head, which is something rare when it comes to action scenes that are written out by others. At least, to visualize them so precisely. I haven’t had that in a while here, so I was happy to get that going for me.

Unfortunately, that trend is just the nature of the beast. Though yes, they simply weren’t going to win all their battles after each episode, and their loss here was fairly important for taking the plot where it needed to go to next. Also glad to hear that the visualization came through. It’s a bit of a juggling act sometime to paint a clear picture of what’s happening without bogging things down.

This is too long. Hooo boy. I read this one in two halves because it was just so long that I couldn’t tackle it all at once, so bear with me here. First of all, the opening half was a bit on the weak side. It lingered a little bit too much on them getting their bearings, and it opened with a fight against some randos that were more or less just villain cameos as of now. I guess Team Fang needed some relevance after being shafted for the bulk of Guiding Light, eh? But eh, opening with an inconsequential battle could’ve gone better.

That’s pretty much my only major critique for the first half, though. Afterward, I really appreciated all the interactions they had with the GL cast—Team Spectre and Crabrawler Café in particular, off the top of my head. I also liked Latias’ reaction to Lugia, though I wish it lasted a bit longer for the sake of comedy. The cultural disconnect was overplayed a bit, I think, but that’s a minor nitpick, all things considered.

Well, I’m glad to hear that you found it enjoyable even if it was a bit of a marathon. Though part of the reason why it was so long was that it had to cram an entire narrative into a single chapter, which was a bit trickier to manage since I couldn’t take it for granted my readers would know about Guiding Light’s setting.

Halfway through, I actually get some semblance of a plot for this chapter beyond Gallian showing up near the start. But during what’s basically an anime recap episode of Guiding Light, there was an odd line that caught my attention. That tidbit about people in Fledglings getting sick and spreading "miasmas"… Like another one of those special episode plot previews. I think I'm gonna back pocket that.

That’s more a reflection of how they understand disease to work in their setting. It’s a fairly pre-modern one, and as such they’d miss a lot of the subtleties that we would have for understanding the nitty-gritty of disease transmission and origins.

Boy, that whole recap went on for a whiiiiile. All just to convince Nida and Elty that this place has a scope even worse than their world, hah. But I guess it was necessary to make sure they had to get going, but I still feel like it went on for a while. Or maybe I just feel that way because it comes off as a giant advertisement for GL.

There’s a rather simple explanation for all of that.

These epithets are killing me just so you know "the dog" throws me off. Elty? Lux? I gotta double take sometimes.

I went back and made some edits to clarify things a bit.

Also, wow. Props to you guys, but probably Amby for pointing it out, that Pleo’s team would be immune to Necrozma’s soul-steal because they don’t operate in a light-based world. I’m probably one of the few readers to get that, having read both~

I believe it was Virgil who actually suggested it first, but yeah. It felt like a fun “fish out of water” thing to do for a story on the Horizon Continent.

Okay, that was actually a pretty fun read, and I was definitely able to appreciate it thanks to having read both epics at this point. Very nice and fun chapter to look through, and I decided upon Virgil’s request to actually give it a more thorough look this time compared to the other special episode entry. And… this is now a monster review. Oh well. Next time I’ll get back to my regularly scheduled reading habits.

I’m glad to hear that the April Fool’s Day one-shot was such a fun read for you. And I’ll be looking forward to your impressions as you continue on in the story.

As you might have guessed, this recent chapter took a bit longer to put together on account of some scheduling issues coming up. But I’m proud to announce that the next installment is here, with the remaining two chapters to go for this episode slated to be published before Christmas. As an advisory, there was a small but important detail that slipped publishing last time when Cernun was talking about his experiences with Kline that got retconned into Chapter 70, which will be a bit important at hinting about Kline’s abilities for the future. I’d like to extend my thanks to Virgil134, rmctagg09, and sugoitsu from ff.net for helping to pick through the rough drafts of this chapter, as well as to you readers and reviewers who’ve patiently been waiting for this story to move along.

With that, let’s pick up from last time with...

Back in Magmapool Town, the local harbor hummed with activity, with boats and accompanying sea Pokémon making their way to and from the docks in the shadow of the wreckage of the naval yard. In the midst of the port's bustle, the marine escorts of the Uragan looked around for any clues the Siglo Swellow had left behind. Among them were Cyanea and Katyusha, who busied themselves attempting to coax an elderly Relicanth to stay awake, a sharp sigh betraying past struggles.

"Okay, let's try this one more time…" Cyanea groaned. "What were you doing when the pirate ship left?"

"Well, I was taking my midday nap when I suddenly heard this racket coming from above the water," the Relicanth began. "I popped my head up and saw this white-sailed schooner pulling out of the harbor while the guards were throwing attacks at it."

"And…?" Katyusha pressed. "What did you see afterwards?"

"Oh, I couldn't tell you, dearie," the elderly fish said. "I figured that since it was the second time something of the sort had happened that day, that it was just some sort of drill and went back to sleep."

The Tentacruel and Sharpedo shot disbelieving stares at one another, before Cyanea grumbled under her breath and turned back to the Relicanth with an unimpressed frown.

"… A drill."

"Well of course," the Relicanth insisted. "Those guards and naval cadets do need to practice every now and then."

"How many drills cause damage like that?!" she exclaimed.

Cyanea raised a tentacle and pointed off insistently at the naval yard in the background. Even after a full day of work to clean it up, its docks remained a mass of ships and wrecked piers pressed up against each other. The Relicanth stared off for a moment, before shaking his head back.

"Very realistic ones," he replied. "You know as well as I do that Duke Seok's just wasting the extra taxes he levies on everybody. Why, they couldn't even be bothered to return the training ship properly and just let it sail off to the west!"

At the elderly Relicanth's mention of the Siglo Swellow having gone west, Katyusha let out a sigh of relief, batting her fins against the water as she turned around all but ready to leave the wizened fish behind.

"Finally we've got something useful from this old coot," the Sharpedo muttered, drawing a splashing protest back from the Relicanth.

"Now see here, missy! I'll have you know that back in my day I was quite the looker!" he huffed. "Why they used to call me Byeong-Ho the Dashing…"

The Relicanth trailed off and yawned, before his head sank below the surface and the rest of his body followed up to his dorsal fin, snoring and leaving behind a trail of bubbles lazily rising to the surface. Cyanea looked on with exasperated disgust, before waving a tentacle and motioning to her partner to follow along.

"Well, we have some new info at least," she grumbled. "Come on, let's go pass it on to the Captain."

Cyanea and Katyusha set off, weaving past an approaching sloop and a school of Wishiwashi as they made their way for an ironclad docked at the edge of the naval yard. As they drew closer, they saw Nagant and Jun talking near the railing as the Beedrill's buzzing voice carried along the waves.

"… that's what he said, Captain…"

The churn of the harbor's water was broken by the sound of repeated, angry thuds as Nagant pounded her firing claw against the railing with a frustrated seethe.

"Why can't Commodore Valan keep his lousy snout out in Gestirn?" the shrimp fumed. "Does he really think the Empire will fall apart if I search for the Protector on my own?"

A loud creak followed by sharp yelps rang out in the background, prompting Nagant to turn and see indigo-scarved guards bolting out of the way of a leaning mast hitting the pier with a deafening crash. The Clawitzer and her first mate looked on blankly, before she turned away and waved a claw defeatedly.

"You know what, don't answer that."

"I mean, you two did agree to meet to share findings…" Jun reminded. "And I'm sure Commodore Valan… er… probably doesn't expect anything less from you than he does from any other Captain?"

"But I don't have anything to present to him! The only new bit of information we've been able to find out so far is that Lyn left port before the Protector did!" Nagant exclaimed. "And it's not as if that pompous yashcherka is going to bring anything that's actually useful, so what am I to do now for finding the Protector?"

"Er… Captain?"

Nagant looked over the railing to see Cyanea and Katyusha staring up at her uneasily. The Clawitzer blinked a moment, before her face fell into an annoyed frown.

"What is it now, Cyanea?" Nagant snapped. "Can't you see I'm a little too busy here to hear about more of your accomplishments right now? Or are you going to tell me that you ran into that Aggron only for him to get away again?"

"Eh?" Katyusha asked, giving a puzzled raise of her brow back. "But she was just floating around here and- Ow!"

The Sharpedo jolted back with a yelp as Cyanea jabbed her with a poisonous tendril, leaving the shark to shoot back a dirty glare while the Tentacruel began to speak up.

"We just wanted to say that we think we've found something."

"Well, we haven't really found any meaningful leads yet, so it certainly can't hurt…" Jun mulled.

"Hey! Our lead's plenty meaningful!" Katyusha protested. "We found out that the ship sailed off for the west!"

Cyanea threw a tentacle over her face, before shaking her bell and turning with a sharp huff to her teammate.

"Oh come on, Katyusha, don't oversell it like that!" Cyanea cried. "There's nothing out to the west! No ports, no big reefs, just a bunch of Subway outposts and abandoned islands!"

The Tentacruel trailed off and blinked puzzledly to herself, realizing that in the midst of her chiding, something had been amiss with the Relicanth's testimony…

"Wait, what ship would want to go that way anyways?"

Nagant twitched her barbels tensely as she mulled the matter, before she narrowed her eyes in realization and she turned her attention back to her subordinates.

"One that wants to throw off its real destination elsewhere in the Cradle," Nagant answered.

"… What should we do once Valan arrives then?" Jun asked.

"I'm afraid we have no option but to just sail towards Tromba," the Clawitzer said. "Clearly cutting off those smugglers isn't working, and they might have already made it back there for all we know."

Jun flitted back with a startled buzz, staring back at his superior in shock as he raised his voice in stammering protest.

"W-We can't just sail up to a Company island!" Jun insisted. "We don't have any proof that the Protector is actually there, and it would likely mean war!"

"Well, what other options do we have, Jun?" Nagant demanded.

"Maybe… we could try Pioppo?" Katyusha proposed.

Nagant and Jun peered down at the Sharpedo with confused stares at the mention of Pioppo. Even Cyanea was caught off guard, as the Tentacruel turned and looked puzzledly at her partner.

"Huh? What are you talking about Katyusha?" Cyanea asked.

"Well… when we overheard that Kabutops and his rod talking to Lugia in Otvaga, they did mention Blackmoon Village," the Sharpedo said. "Maybe that's why they went to Sormus in the first place, so they could travel to it from there."

"But why would they be interested in those old ruins?" Jun pressed. "It's been abandoned for years and Pioppo is at the edge of the Cradle at that."

"I'm… not sure," the shark admitted. "But it is what we heard. Right, Cyanea?"

"I mean… we did… and I guess it would match up with their ship sailing west," the Tentacruel mused, prompting Jun to shoot a skeptical frown and turn towards Nagant.

"What do you think, Captain?"

"… I think they're onto something, but I don't think it's worth our time to go there," Nagant murmured, prompting Jun to give a surprised beat of his wings in response.

"Huh? But if you think those ruffians are really headed there, why wouldn't it be?"

"We've been one step behind that schooner since the moment we pulled into port," Nagant harrumphed. "If we set sail for Pioppo, what are we supposed to do if it turns out they've sailed off already?"

Nagant shook her head, before hopping up against the timbers with a determined scowl.

"No. Only a fool would chase after them at this point. We're better off trying to predict their next move and wait there for them in ambush."

"Uh… wouldn't that mean going to Tromba?" Katyusha asked.

"After going out of their way to Pioppo? Unless they planned on it, I doubt it," Cyanea countered. "There's no port on Pioppo for them to reprovision, so wouldn't they need to do that at another island before heading home?"

"If that's the case, the most logical places would be here, Haipheh, or Boisocéan," Jun said. "And I doubt they'll be pulling back into port here anytime soon…"

Nagant turned and looked out at the sea, hesitating quietly for a moment before turning back to her Beedrill first mate.

"… Call everyone back and get the ship ready to sail," Nagant said. "We'll leave the moment Commodore Valan arrives."

"Right now?" Jun asked.

"Yes," Nagant snapped. "Time is of the essence here and every passing moment increases the odds that we'll miss the Protector."

The Clawitzer looked off at the harbor where the sight of Pokémon in the air flying towards and away from the island caught her eye. The shrimp paused a moment, prompting Jun to twitch his antennae puzzledly before Nagant clicked her firing claw and turned back to her first mate with a stern gaze.

"Send a message to Darzin as well," she said. "It'd be best if we nipped any unwanted conflicts in the bud before we left."

---

"And here we are!"

Elty folded his ears back uncomfortably at the sound of Vince's voice, feeling his scarf getting tugged down past his snout and his vision to be awash in sudden light. The Growlithe squinted his eyes to try and adjust to the sudden brightness as he heard Guardia and the others being unblinded, his vision stabilizing while he turned his body around to see a gated palisade made out of wooden scraps. The Puppy Pokémon turned back ahead and saw a collection of wooden huts mixed with small plots of berry plants on both sides of a lane where Pokémon looked up and began to drift over curiously.

"Huh? Who are they?" a Castform murmured.

"Maybe they're from the same group as those other newcomers?" a Cramorant whispered.

"Then why aren't they tied up and passed out?" a Phantump asked.

Team Traveller's members looked around warily as the small gathering in front of them grew thicker with approaching Pokémon forming a growing crowd, prompting Elty to keep his body braced and tense throughout. The Growlithe felt a tap on his shoulder, making him turn to see Guardia leaning in and speaking in a low whisper.

"Gardie, don't you think it's a bit strange?"

"Us being stared at?" Elty replied. "Well, yeah."

"No, their eyes!" the Cubone insisted. "Everyone has eyes that look like Trizano's!"

The Growlithe raised a brow, before looking up at the Cramorant in the crowd who sure enough had eyes with cross-shaped pupils… as did a Tirtouga and a Polteageist chattering in the background, along with a young Kangaskhan watching them warily from within her mother's pouch. Elty blinked and began to wonder to himself what the strange eyes meant, when the crowd turned at the sound of approaching hoofbeats and one after the other villager bowed towards a coming figure. The Fire-Type watched as what appeared to be a smaller and less colorful version of the 'Xerneas' David passed himself as approached with a Dusknoir following close by his side. Much as Ketu had taunted them about, the deer really did have different eyes from David's disguise. Unlike the Deerling eyes that the Ditto had used, these had bold, blue irises and the same cross-shape pupils they'd seen in the other villagers'.

"Vince, what is going on here?" Valter demanded. "Who are these strangers and what are they doing in our village?"

"They're friends of that group with the white bird that got pulled in earlier," the Haunter replied. "We found them rooting around in the dungeon and they came quietly enough, so…"

Valter shot a disbelieving glare back at Team Phantom, letting faint, shadowy wisps trail from his hands in frustration.

"This village is supposed to remain a guarded secret!" the Dusknoir snapped. "What were you thinking just bringing them in like this?!"

"'Guarded secret?' Wait, so you mean all this time all those evil spirits were just a ruse?!" Guardia exclaimed.

Kiran sighed and lowered his brow in exasperation, shaking his head at the Cubone's outcry.

"… Wasn't that obvious by now?" he asked.

"Look, we didn't see anything alright? We've been blindfolded this entire time!" Elty insisted. "We just wanted to find our friends and have a moment to talk with that blue deer of yours over there."

Cernun tilted his head, before flicking his ears out of surprise.

"Me?" the Xerneas asked. "But what exactly did you want to-?"

"Elty?"

Elty and his companions peered over, catching the sight of Pleo's head poking above some of the shorter members of the crowd. The Lugia walked forward as Nida, Crom, and Ander followed with disbelieving gapes, Pleo blinking to make sure his eyes weren't deceiving him, before letting out a startled squawk.

"How did you all get here?!" he exclaimed.

Pleo and the others ran towards their teammates, trading relieved greetings and hugs while the gathered villagers murmured puzzledly among each other. Dimitri craned his head up, noticing Valter staring at them skeptically as the familiar form of a Skarmory with cross-shaped irises drifted in at the edge of the crowd, making the Kautops jump back in surprise.

"Trizano?!" Dimitri said. "What are you doing here?!"

"I suppose I should be asking the same of you," the Skarmory answered. "But welcome to my home, even if it's not the most welcoming of places anymore."

"Would someone please tell me what's going on here?" Valter demanded. "Trizano, why do these trespassers know you and why do you know them as well?"

"We can explain!" Nida insisted. "Just sit down and actually listen to us and what we need instead of shooing us away!"

Valter huffed and began to billow out black shadows as his eye hardened into a sharp scowl.

"Is this about that nonsense with Cernun again?" the Ghost-Type fumed. "If it's just going back to that then you can forget it and go back to your-!"

"Wait just a moment, Duke Valter!"

Valter paused mid-sentence, turning incredulously as Trizano hopped up and motioned for patience with a wave of his wings.

"Things have been… complicated between us," the Skarmory began. "As absurd as demanding things from Cernun may sound, surely we ought to give them a fair hearing first?"

The Dusknoir frowned with displeasure back at the Steel-Type, raising a finger and starting to chide him when Roteck suddenly spoke up.

"They are going to be living here with us for gods-knows-how-long," the Aggron said. "Not that I can't handle getting the stink eye from a new arrival or two, but we might as well take some time to trade our stories if they're going to be living here."

"I don't think it can hurt…" Cernun mulled. "Let's hear what they have to say, Valter."

Valter paused, trading looks between the Xerneas and the gathered interlopers, before shaking his head and murmuring under his breath.

"… Very well. We will discuss this at a quiet place," he said. "But don't test my patience any further than you have already."

The Ghost-Type turned and motioned for Cernun to follow, the blue deer setting off after him. Roteck and Trizano followed suit, leaving Team Traveller's members to hesitate for a moment before they too set off from the gathered crowd and trailed after the Xerneas and the Dusknoir. All the while the lot thought to themselves, wondering what they were to do for the 'hearing' that Trizano had gotten them into.

---

About fifteen minutes later, Valter had guided Team Traveller towards the fringes of town for a wooded patch wedged along the foggy southern fringe of the stable zone. There, the ground rose up into a ridge overlooking the village and the dim light through the fog was further plunged into shadow by the treetops overhead. Nida paced ahead uneasily, watching as Trizano and Roteck's steps became more cautious and measured as she wondered to herself just where they had been brought to when Valter suddenly paused and motioned off to his left.

"We're here," the Dusknoir said. "Though tread lightly on these hallowed grounds."

The Nidoran and her companions raised their brows, looking off to see a tiled-roofed pavilion sitting next to a small spring with columns, and an altar inside hewn from black stone. The group drew forward, noticing the structure had been well-cared for, and that along its stonework, there were paintings portraying an ominous ghostly figure with a lower body that billowed out much like a sheet in the wind. The lot paused, before looking back to their guides warily with expectant stares, wondering aloud to themselves…

"What… is this place?" Nida wondered.

"It is the santuario to our island's Protector who yet sleeps," Trizano answered. "Darkrai, Lord of the New Moon."

"Wait, your shrine?" Kiran asked.

"That's right," Roteck grunted. "We weren't able to take much of Blackmoon Village with us when we went into hiding on such short notice, but we made it a point of taking this."

"And for good reason," Valter added. "Even though we have a Protector watching over us here and now, it is still our duty to ensure our island's own Protector feels at home when he awakes."

Ander shifted uncomfortably at the mention of the second Protector, shrinking back as Cernun paced forward and began to speak to the gathered Pokémon.

"Since we were going to trade stories, a place with this much history around it seemed as good a place as any," Cernun said, making Pleo ruffle his feathers uneasily.

"So… what happened to you?"

"Well… some Pokémon say that they remember things from just before they hatched, but the first thing I remember was waking up on a stranded ship with statues of Pokémon everywhere around it," the Xerneas explained. "The ship was a mess and I don't remember finding anyone to talk to other than a couple ferals who swam away after seeing me."

The members of Team Traveller gave puzzled stares back at the blue fawn. At the back of the group, Ander froze and shrank back waveringly, before gulping and pressing ahead with something strange he'd noticed about the demon's testimony.

"S-Statues of Pokémon?" the Scyther stammered. "What do you mean by that?"

"I… suppose they weren't really statues, but I didn't have any way of knowing that at the time," Cernun replied. "I was there on that wreck for about a day when Trizano and Roteck showed up and took me into Blackmoon Village. Everyone seemed to be very agitated and nervous back then, and some of the townsfolk wouldn't even talk to me since they thought that I was with the Pokémon that attacked them."

Nida and the others tilted their heads at Cernun, finding it strange that the townsfolk could've ever been something different from the adoring mass they had seen them as. The Xerneas' words prompted Valter to give a shake of his head and let out a low sigh, as he chimed in to continue off the Protector's testimony.

"It was an episode we're all grateful that Lord Cernun has forgiven us for," the Dusknoir said. "The town had been raided by pirates shortly before his arrival, and were it not for them being scared off by a flash and a disturbance in the water from the shipwreck Cernun awakened in, they likely would've left us in far worse straits."

"I obviously didn't know that, so I spent those first few days with just Roteck and Trizano," Cernun piped. "Trizano was shorter back then and Roteck wasn't an Aggron yet… and I think you two had a Rescue Team called Team Armor? Or was it Team Alloy?"

"It was Team Anvil," Roteck corrected. "And we weren't really sure what to make of you… at least until that thing with Carola…"

"Carola?" Dimitri asked.

"The first Pokémon to become an Immortal. She was a guard who'd been grievously wounded in the raid and hovered near death after it," Valter explained. "Lord Cernun chanced to run into one of her children distraught after being told Carola was slipping away and it moved him to aid her."

"I didn't know exactly what was happening, but I remember feeling how sad everyone felt and how they wished for her to get better," Cernun said. "I tried to do something about it, and that was when my powers first came out."

"Your… powers?" Ander questioned.

"To grant everlasting life," Valter replied. "After Carola was blessed, her wounds healed without a trace and she returned with vigor we'd never seen from her along with cross-shaped pupils much like Cernun's."

"After that, I tried it again a few times and found I could heal the other hurt Pokémon," Cernun continued. "And so they became Immortals as well."

Pleo ruffled his feathers uncomfortably at the fawn's reply. Everlasting life? But… Nida had made it sound that normally Pokémon eventually stopped living, but did this mean that an Immortal could never die? If so, then…

"Wait, but if they live forever, what about their friends?" the Lugia wondered. "Wouldn't they eventually die and leave them all alone?"

"Well of course!" Cernun exclaimed. "After I realized that, I made them Immortals as well, and all of their friends too!"

Nida and Crom blinked, trading dubious looks with each other as their teammates similarly couldn't help but sense there had to be a catch to Cernun's powers. Among them, Ander buzzed with a start and went wide-eyed at the Xerneas' proclamation, holding a scythe out accusingly as he backed away for distance.

"But you- You can't just toy with life and death like it's some sweets to be handed out!" Ander protested.

"Mind your place, Scyther!" Valter snapped, prompting Ander to shrink back.

"But weren't there any side effects to what you were doing?" Guardia asked. "I mean, what would've happened if you'd made a Pokémon who had it out for someone into an Immortal? Or if you tried to disturb the dead with that power?"

Cernun's ears flared before the deer fell quiet and hung his head, an uncomfortable silence settling over the gathered Pokémon. Valter shook his head, giving a stern stare back at Guardia and her companions.

"It was precisely when Cernun began disturbing the dead that all of our troubles began," the Dusknoir sighed, drawing a stamping protest back from Cernun

"Valter, that wasn't those Pokémon's fault!" Cernun cried. "None of us knew that that Incineroar would get us into such trouble!"

Team Traveller's members shifted back uneasily at the mention of 'disturbing the dead'. Surely they didn't mean to insinuate something like there being a bunch of half-rotted corpses shuffling around somewhere thanks to Cernun's power over life…?

"Who is Cernun talking about?" Dimitri pressed. "You didn't dig up a bunch of graves and have him try to make Immortals from them, did you?"

"It wasn't anything like that! It was the shipwreck that Cernun was discovered on!" Valter insisted. "After he had reinvigorated Carola and the others, I sent for the ship to be examined for signs of its origin. Considering everything it brought on us afterwards, I would've been better off letting it sink to the bottom of the sea."

Elty bit his tongue, looking warily back at the Dusknoir as he hesitated a moment before speaking up.

"What… happened?"

"It was a vessel from the Royal Navy, and when we came upon it, we had discovered no sign of the crew and statues of Pokémon all over it, the lot fixed in expressions of shock and terror," Valter explained. "We had brought some of them back on shore and realized that they were the crew, and asked Cernun if he could heal them of their malady."

"Well, it certainly worked. Cernun's power brought those Pokémon back to life, though they didn't become Immortals like us," Trizano remarked. "Most of them were beside themselves out of fear and hysteria, so beyond learning that they'd charted a course out of the Dead Zone we weren't able to get too much from them."

"Or so we thought," Valter harrumphed. "Among those that Cernun revived was the ship's captain, who sought out my Governor at the time and passed word back to the Admiralty about Cernun's presence. That was the point when Commodore Coil was dispatched to us."

Team Traveller's members recoiled at Valter's reply. That blasted Magnezone had caused trouble even here?!

"Wait, Commodore Coil?!" Elty yipped. "That same tin can Admiral we ran into back on Giotto?"

Valter paused, giving a probing stare over the Growlithe and his companions before folding his arms and shaking his head.

"Hmph. It sounds like you've encountered him yourself," the Dusknoir said. "And not for the better either."

"I'll say! He was running an egg-napping ring with pirates under everyone's noses in the middle of the Empire!" Nida piped.

"Yeah, if it wasn't for us, he'd probably still be at it with everyone none the wiser!" Crom exclaimed, prompting Valter to begin to billow out a shadowy haze from around his body.

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me," Valter growled. "While things have obviously changed for Coil since he last came to this island 25 years ago, he sounds much like the same sort of Pokémon that I remember from those past days…"

---

(Continued in next post)

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

"It was the summer after Cernun arrived when Coil came. We'd been recovering from the raid earlier in the year and things were finally returning to normal. The villagers were happy with his presence among us… or at least most of them were. There were a small number of Marked who lived in the town at the time who insisted that Cernun would be the end of us, but none of their doomsaying had come to pass, so it didn't occur to us that there'd be other dangers that would follow him. I remember at the time I was along the seafront that day, checking up on how well reconstruction was going…"

Valter made his way down a wooden pier as the pattering of feet rang out behind him, prompting him to look back and spot guards dutifully following behind a Dhelmise in Imperial indigoes. The Dusknoir's eye proudly sported a recently transformed cross-shaped pupil, its owner dutifully tidying his scarf as he and his entourage carried on. The Ghost-Types' course took them past a motley mix of stucco-walled buildings and wooden shacks to where the town's harbor lay. As Valter neared, he saw the docks busy with small craft and sea Pokémon much as it always had been, while a shop that had been built in the shape of a Polteageist head was receiving its last coat of paint after reconstruction, complete with new cross-shaped pupils. The Dusknoir let out a content chuckle, looking back on his seaside village with the Dhelmise as he still couldn't believe how quickly it had recovered from being the burnt, rubble-strewn husk it was just mere weeks ago.

"Hmm, his Majesty will certainly be pleased to hear about how fast everything has turned around," Valter said.

"Well it'd be far from the first surprise this island's experienced this year," the Dhelmise murmured.

"And we have that Cernun to thank for it!" the Dusknoir chortled. "Were it not for the vigor he's brought to this town, it'd probably still be the shambling wreck it was after the raid!"

Valter's declaration drew a quiet frown back from the Dhelmise, who shook his head and gave a stern glance back.

"I don't think you should let the town get too attached to him, Your Grace," the Dhelmise chided. "He is a god, and this is not even his own domain."

"Pah, what good is it if a god can't feel at home wherever the fates take him?" the Duke retorted. "And besides, the villagers are happy with him, so why rush him away- Huh?"

The Dusknoir trailed off as he saw the Pokémon around them stop and look out to sea. Valter glanced puzzledly at his subjects before following their gazes off to see three ships with indigo sails pulling into port. From his vantage point, he could see gangplanks being lowered and the forms of a Magnezone, a Salamence, and an Incineroar gathering at the docks as Pokémon in naval scarves massed behind them. The nearby townsfolk looked on at the scene and traded nervous whispers, leaving Valter to blink uneasily as he sized up the arriving crews.

"… The navy?" Valter murmured. "Why are they coming now of all times?"

The Dusknoir floated forward, making his way for the docks as the Magnezone and his subordinates marched inland, meeting the Electric-Type's procession at the end of the docks. The Magnezone captain stopped to look eye to eye with the approaching Ghost-Types, before turning in place to the Salamence and Incineroar beside him with a stern buzz.

"Valan, Corbett. I want you two to fan your subordinates out and secure the perimeter," Coil ordered. "As of today, this little hamlet is as important to His Majesty's realm as Tidemill itself!"

"Understood, Commodore," the Salamence answered.

Valter blinked, watching as the Salamence and Incineroar took their leave and orderly formations of indigo-scarved Pokémon followed closely behind them. As the pair and their underlings went into town, Coil shifted his attention back to Valter and bobbed his body forward in a rough approximation of a bow that struck the Dusknoir as unusually stiff and insincere.

"Ah, you must be Duke Valter. I have heard much of you, but in the interest of time I shall move things right along," the Magnezone said. "Where is the Protector that you discovered? His Majesty has sent me to take him into the realm's care."

"'The realm's care'? Was that not my task as part of the crown?" Valter asked. "I hadn't received any indication otherwise from the court, so why the sudden change?"

"That would be because I hadn't received word back yet, Duke Valter."

Valter looked back as creaking reached his ears, turning to see his Dhelmise Governor floating forward with his expression still locked in its stern countenance from earlier.

"I had included a short summary of the developments since Cernun's arrival in my last report to the crown at Captain Corbett's request," the Dhelmise explained. "Given the extraordinary circumstances, I felt that it was something that shouldn't remain such a parochial concern."

Valter gave a befuddled blink at the Dhelmise, before narrowing his eye indignantly and letting a faint shadowy trail billow out.

"I don't understand why such a matter wouldn't be important enough to include me in it," the Dusknoir harrumphed. "But as long as I can get an explanation for what the court wants, I can send for him at once. I admittedly don't always keep tabs on him since Cernun likes to mingle with the commoners, so-"

"And there you go! Full of life just like all the others!"

Coil looked past Valter at the sound of cheers coming from further down the path. There in the middle of the lane was the form of a blue fawn posturing proudly as a young Shuppet got up and blinked cross-shaped eyes, floating off happily as the gathered townsfolk clapped and cheered on the young Protector. Valter looked back at the scene and grimaced as Coil glanced back at him with a sharp scowl.

"That won't be necessary, Your Grace," the Magnezone insisted.

Coil floated up towards the assembly, flanked at his side by a Malamar and an Aegislash as his subordinates shooed the townsfolk back. Cernun looked around, unsure what to make of the sudden newcomers as he flicked an ear back curiously.

"Who are you?" Cernun wondered. "Did you come to become an Immortal too?"

"That won't be necessary for now, Xerneas," Coil said. "I am Commodore Coil from the Royal Navy of Anyilla. I'm here to get you started on some special studies so we can get to learn about each other."

"Studies?" the Xerneas asked. "Nobody in town told me I needed anything like that. I've been busy discovering my powers!"

The Malamar and Aegislash moved forward with harsh scowls, the other naval Pokémon pacing forward as Coil floated closer towards Cernun with a stern glare.

"Well, you've been misled," he harrumphed. "Come along, little one. The sooner we get started, the better it will be for your friends."

The Xerneas' cheery demeanor suddenly faded, as he paced back unnervedly at the sight of the encroaching strangers around him. Valter began to move over to intervene, as Cernun raised his voice in a stammering protest.

"Wh-What's going on?" the young Protector stuttered. "Why can't this wait at all?"

"That's not important," Coil insisted. "All that matters right now is that you follow the wisdom that we can give you."

Coil moved a magnet towards Cernun, only for the deer to abruptly leap back and bolt away. The Magnezone let out a sharp buzz, as sparks danced irritatedly on his surface.

"Gah! Get back here!"

Coil shot a weak arc of electricity through his left magnet that zipped into Cernun's hindlegs and made the deer yelp and pratfall onto the ground. The Malamar and Aegislash immediately moved for the fallen Xerneas, as the onlooking townsfolk gasped and shouted in protest.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" Roteck cried. "That's a god-!"

"Out of the way!"

A Salamence swooped in and summarily swatted aside the protesting Lairon. Trizano flew up to interfere, only to meet much the same fate from Valan's claws. Off to the side, the Malamar hoisted Cernun off the ground with a telekinetic pull and began to drift away, carrying Cernun off as the Aegislash kept a close watch from behind. The other guards quickly closed ranks, forming a snarling cordon as Cernun struggled and cried out for help.

"Help! Help!"

Valter stared in befuddled shock at the events unfolding before him, before hurrying after Coil with a startled shout.

"Commodore?!" Valter exclaimed. "What is the meaning of this-?!"

Before the Dusknoir could finish his protest, his Dhelmise Governor abruptly floated in his way and pushed back, cutting the startled Duke off from the departing Magnezone with sharp scold.

"That's quite enough, Your Grace!" the Dhelmise interrupted. "This is an order from King Alexander's court, so it's not our place to interfere!"

Valter stared stunned at the Dhelmise, shocked to hear such words coming from the Pokémon who he'd fancied to be his confidant. Bewildered, he turned back to see Coil's entourage carry Cernun off for his ship, watching with the nearby townsfolk in wordless shock.

"Such a fool I was, not pressing the matter after hearing that. I tried telling myself that if it was really something that Alexander and his inner circle wanted, that it wasn't my place to contest it… but there was no dispelling what I had seen that day. Coil and the others remained in town after that and made me hand over the medic's hut that they repurposed into a research facility. To this day I don't understand what could have compelled King Alexander to approve Coil's research, just that it picked up after research that had been ongoing in the time of Queen Erna, using the same findings that had been recorded in what you call the 'Knights' Ledger'…"

---

"For the next couple of weeks, things managed to continue on, but cracks began to form in the peace. A scuffle with the guards here, a disorderly mob that was forced to disperse there. Before long, the higher-ranked sailors began going about in their Imperial armor much as if they were invaders forcing themselves upon our village. It became obvious to me that if things were to continue any further with Cernun, I couldn't keep the island from revolting against His Majesty. I agonized over what to do, before making the fateful choice during the New Moon to try and put an end to things on my own accord…"

The sky was moonless on the fated night, as Valter slipped from alley to alley on silent streets, the only break from the darkened walls and shuttered windows being a tatty poster blazoned with runes spelling out a curfew on the wall of a nearby shack. The Dusknoir floated along when the sound of chatter filtered along the winds, prompting him to poke his head around the corner reluctantly and see a lonely tavern lit up with Pokémon in indigo scarves sitting at the bar, including a Salamence in cerulean plates on his body that drank from a large cup before craning his head up with a displeased growl.

"Grr… what on earth is keeping Coil so long with that 'research' of his?" Valan fumed. "I'm supposed to be hunting down pirates, not sitting here getting an earful from a bunch of ungrateful peasants!"

Valter raised his brow at the dragon's complaints before carrying along, floating down the lane in the shadows for a two-storied building made of wood at the end of the street, which in happier times had been the medic's hut for the town. The Ghost-Type slowed as he approached, discovering that the windows had all been hastily barred and Pokémon in naval scarves and cerulean cloth armor were circling the outside perimeter. He hid behind an alley wall and watched the guards' movements, noticing that the Torterra and Onix that patrolled the side of the building made a habit of meeting in the middle before heading back out to the front and back of the hut. The Duke waited for the pair to start heading off, before rushing ahead and phasing through the wall, arriving into a darkened room where papers had been strewn about on desks that had been brought in.

"Cernun was supposed to be in Room 213… so… where am I right now?"

The Dusknoir floated through the doorway, turning and seeing that it had been labeled '105' with a scrawled paper that had been recently plastered onto it. He frowned, wondering where he was to go next when he heard approaching footsteps and hastily phased into the room across the hallway. Valter quickly crouched against the floor and peered at the bottom of the door, watching as an Accelgor in armor hopped by and a similarly-attired Raticate scampered past. Valter exhaled sharply after the pair left, before looking back to see the room he was in had been repurposed for storage with a small stack of barrels that piled up to the ceiling. He followed the barrels up, phasing through the ceiling to come to a room with a table and jars of medicine set out. The Ghost-Type paused uneasily when he slipped through the doorway, wondering if Cernun had perhaps been tormented there, his body turning corporeal as he looked back to see the room behind him labeled…

"'208'?" he murmured to himself. "Cernun was supposed to be in a Room 213 , so then his chamber must be…"

Valter looked off to his right where he noticed a door labeled '209', prompting him to float along until he got to a reinforced doorway at the end that bore the '213' he had searched for. The Dusknoir felt around the edges, finding a pull latch that he tugged at and discovered to be firmly fixed, the latch rattling in his grasp before he backed up and prepared to rush through the door when a sharp, hissing shout reached his ears from behind.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!"

Valter whirled around, seeing the armored Accelgor and black Raticate from earlier glaring at him. The Accelgor raised his arms for a fleeting strike, approaching with a threatening growl.

"This building is strictly off-limits to visitors!" the Accelgor snarled. "That goes for everyone on this island! Nobles like you don't get a free pass!"

"Oh, we'll see about that…"

Valter threw a fiery punch forward, catching the Accelgor under his chin and launching the Bug-Type headfirst into a nearby wall. The Raticate dove in with a crushing bite, forcing the Ghost-Type back before the Raticate pivoted and threw himself forward again with another Crunch. The Duke lurched to the side, letting the Dark-Type sail on and snap at empty air, when he slipped behind and threw a sharp chop with his hand at the back of the rat's head just below the armored helmet protecting its top, sending the Raticate tumbling to the floor.

The Dusknoir braced himself for another blow, tensely breathing only to hear the sound of incoherent groans, prompting him to shake his head and back away from the armored door, before phasing through it and popping into a darkened room filled with scattered papers and medical instruments on desks. A startled cry rang out which made him look over and see a wide-eyed Cernun with his legs and neck chained to a circular platform in the room, gasping anxiously until he recognized the newfound intruder.

"Valter?!" Cernun exclaimed. "What are you doing here?!"

"Getting you away from this place," the Ghost-Type answered as he moved over to him. "The village can't take what's happening here much longer."

"Wh-Whuh? What do you mean?" the Xerneas asked. "Where are we going?"

"I don't know yet," Valter said, as he felt along Cernun's chains for a lock. "But somewhere far away from-"

"Come now, Duke Valter, the Capital isn't that far away."

Valter and Cernun froze at the sound of rattling cloth and mail, the Dusknoir of the pair turning to see Coil in cerulean plates at a now-open doorway. Cernun struggled against his chains to hide away as the Magnezone floated forward with a fierce glare.

"That was what you were going to say, and not something treasonous, I hope."

Valter blanched, backing away uneasily as he struggled over what he could do to explain the circumstances. After fumbling with one excuse after another in his mind, the Ghost-Type wondered to himself what the point of coming here was if he was going to just shrink away when confronted over Cernun. The Dusknoir stopped himself, balling his fists as he stayed put in the Commodore's path.

"I am exercising my privileges as a noble of the court to stop this madness!" Valter cried. "I don't care what your experts are telling you, you and I both know that dealing with a god like this will only bring disaster to the realm!"

"The realm is already muddling through a disaster, Duke Valter! It's with this god's help that we can finally bring it to an end!" Coil shot back. "He's been perfectly at ease handing out immortality to common peasants, so he should have no issues giving it to the servants of His Majesty's navy in order to put an end to the Company's treason!"

Valter's eye widened at Coil's words, realizing that the Magnezone had just openly stated his intent to use the god who had come to Blackmoon Village's aid as a tool of war. The Dusknoir stammered, before shaking his head stunned back at the Electric-Type.

"Th-This is madness! You can't force a Protector to just do your bidding like a puppet!" Valter exclaimed. "That's his power to invoke, not yours!"

Coil glared fiercely at the Ghost-Type, sparks dancing on the surface of his body as he moved towards him undeterred.

"Hrmph, I've had enough of this," the Magnezone scoffed. "Retire to your palace and mind your own affairs. I'm the one representing King Alexander here, not you."

The Electric-Type floated along when Valter abruptly cut him off, billowing shadowy wisps as he reciprocated with a glare of his own.

"I can't let you do that, Commodore," the Dusknoir said. "If this is really something that His Majesty approves of, he can bring it up to my face! I won't be part of this any longer!"

The Magnezone's temper flared as the sparks on his body grew larger and louder, as his voice came out in a hateful, metallic hiss.

"Have it your way then!" Coil seethed. "I'll see to it that this is the last time you'll interfere with my plans!"

The Magnezone fired a large, jagged bolt of electricity towards Valter. The Ghost-Type reflexively lurched to the side and melted into the wall, leaving Cernun to duck and squeal as the bolt zipped overhead and broke against the wall where it left behind a scorched bloch. Coil whirled around, looking around tensely for his Dusknoir foe when Valter abruptly phased through the wall beside him, swinging a fist wreathed in flames that struck the back of Coil's head at a gap not covered by his body armor and sent him clattering to the floor.

"Who do you take me for?!" Valter spat. "Do you think a Duke just sits around all day lazing about?!"

The Magnezone rolled against the floor with an audible rattle, hastily righting himself and floating back into the air as he turned back with a sharp seethe.

"Don't try to interfere with duties you weren't trained for!"

Coil shot out a weak jolt of electricity that flowed through Valter's body and made him jerk up and freeze as his body became warm and numb. The Dusknoir struggled to move his limbs as he cracked open the mouth on his stomach along the yellow band on his torso. The Ghost-Type glared, forming a growing Shadow Ball as Coil zipped from side to side to anticipate the wraith's attack. Valter tried to keep pace with the Electric-Type with his newly sluggish body before flinging the Shadow Ball forward, only to go wide-eyed as he saw Coil float out of the way of his attack. The orb zipped along into the back wall, leaving the Commodore to spark and hiss as he glared daggers back at Valter.

"Here! Let me show you how it's done!"

The Magnezone threw out another large bolt of electricity that coursed through Valter's body and dropped him to the ground with a pained yelp. Cernun watched horrified as Valter struggled to get back up, only for Coil to fire another Thunder, and another, as the sound of agonized screams from the Dusknoir filled the air. Valter's cries grew weak as Coil cast a final bolt at his head, leaving him to loll back as a black mist began to trail up from the ends of Valter's motionless body as Cernun's voice hitched and stammered

"V-Valter!"

Coil drew his magnets back beside his body, floating up beside Valter's burned body as he shot a disgusted scowl down at him.

"Hrmph. For a 'ghost' you still very much have life in you… or had it, I should say," Coil sneered, before turning to Cernun and floating forward as sparks arced between his magnets.

"Now, time to bring you to where you're needed."

Cernun froze out of terror as the Magnezone approached, screwing his eyes shut as he expected to feel the same jolt and numbness that the Commodore inflicted on him when he was first captured. The Electric-Type neared, weak jolts of electricity dancing between his magnets when a loud crash rang out outside, followed by frantic shouts and a sharp roar in the distance.

"Gah! Fall back and form a perimeter!"

Coil paused, looking around puzzledly as he recognized the roar to come from a Salamence's voice, and none other than the Lieutenant he'd entrusted to help lead the curfew!

"Valan?" Coil buzzed. "What on earth-?"

A beam of burning, white light suddenly shot through the boarded-up window, spraying splinters and dust into the air and making both Cernun and Coil jump back. Coil brushed himself off as the din of snarls and blasts filtered in, prompting him to look out the remains of the window and see a mob of Pokémon trading blows with guards in the approach up to the medic's hut. The Magnezone let out an annoyed buzz, sparking as his voice crackled with a hissing seethe.

"Is it really so hard to get decent Lieutenants in the navy nowadays?!" Coil spat. "I warned those two that something like this could happen-"

Coil's fuming was cut off by the sound of shifting and thumping, prompting him to jolt back out of surprise as he saw Valter rise from the ground and get up. The Magnezone stared stunned as the Dusknoir righted himself, shaking an arm out of disbelief at his newfound vigor as he looked back at the Commodore. Coil noticed that the cross in Ghost-Type's eye was now missing, and the burns he'd left behind were visibly healing before his eyes while Valter glared and readied himself to battle once more.

"Gah! You were able to come back from that?!" Coil hissed. "No matter, let's see how you enjoy dying and staying dead!"

"Stop it!"

Coil looked back, where he saw Cernun lower his antlers as they lit up in a rainbow of colors and the markings on his chest and legs flushed a golden hue. The Magnezone floated dumbstruck as the light between Cernun's antlers grew brighter and brighter, the deer glaring back with a fierce defiance that he'd never seen before.

"Just get away from us!" Cernun shouted.

A great ball of pinkish-white light gathered on the Xerneas' antlers as the room was filled by blinding light that made the Pokémon outside through the window look up from their clashes with shocked stares. Coil instinctively charged up sparks on his body as the Xerneas' Moonblast sailed forward and enveloped Coil, the light inside cracking through the hut's gaps and into the night sky as a splitting, metallic screech filled the air.

"A-AAAAGGGGGHHHH!"

"As you can surmise, I failed to prevent that revolt."

---

"Given what the navy was up to, I still say we made the right call," Roteck snorted.

"So what happened to Coil?" Guardia asked.

"Well, my attack knocked him out," Cernun explained. "It didn't take long afterwards for his lackeys to grab him and leave."

"They did put up a stiff fight to try and turn things around," Trizano added. "But me, Roteck and the rest of the villagers drove them off to keep them from being able to regroup."

Valter's mood sank, as he cast his red eye's gaze down toward the ground, traces of a betrayed expression coming over his face as he thought back to the night that sealed Blackmoon Village's fate.

"Even the Governor who had worked with me for years fled with them," Valter sighed, shaking his head. "But all along, we knew this victory was fleeting. That they'd come back with even more ships to try and make an example of the revolt."

"Is that why you came to this place?" Nida wondered.

"We admittedly were at a loss for what we could do to conceal our presence, and the Marked on our island fled for Gestirn fully expecting the Empire to bring its full wrath upon us," Valter replied. "But with the pirate raids we had been suffering just before then, we decided the best option was to burn the town and make it look like a particularly cutthroat attack."

"We took that 'Knight's Ledger' that Coil had been using as part of his research with us," Roteck explained. "Figured that if it came to it, we would at least be able to keep him off our backs under threat of exposing what he was up to."

"But then why did this 'ghost' thing come along?" Pleo demanded.

"Well… our cover wasn't as effective as we had thought. About a week after Blackmoon Village was put to the torch, Valan returned with a crew to scout the island," Trizano answered. "He had begun to suspect something was up and had almost discovered Darkwood Square here when Valter came up with the idea to make the island seem like it had been haunted by the spirits of everyone from Blackmoon Village. Valan didn't seem particularly scared by it, but his crew certainly was, and it was enough to drive them off and spare the town."

"Tch, if he never bothered coming back here, he got scared enough by it. It's that Coil that was a thorn in our side," Roteck insisted. "Even after the navy got sick of sending crews out here, the rotter went out and contracted crews to try and find us. Mercenaries, pirates, the occasional merchant crew blinded by greed…"

Team Traveller watched as Valter shook his head and let out a low grumble, the Aggron's words evidently having done its part to stir up unwelcome memories for the Ghost-Type. The group wondered to themselves what could have happened to the town amidst all the attacks, when the Dusknoir hardened his brow and spoke up in a harsh voice.

"As such, we needed a way to nip such incursions in the bud. Permanently," Valter continued. "And so it was that the 'ghosts' began dragging their victims off 'to their doom' much as you lot were."

"So that's how it all happened… But what about that fight with you and Coil?" Kiran pressed. "How could you be dead and then come back?"

"It is the nature of the Immortals who bear the mark of Lord Cernun's blessing. It freezes their body's aging and gives greater vitality and healing from wounds," the Dusknoir explained. "We don't know if an Immortal will ever die of old age, but we haven't had any pass on yet since Cernun came. What we do know is that should an Immortal be struck down, he will elude death's grasp and come back to life."

"'The mark of Lord Cernun's blessing'? You mean the cross-shaped eyes?" Crom said. "But you're an Immortal and you don't have one!"

Crom looked back expectantly at Valter and the gathered Immortals, waiting for a response only to be answered with a long silence. The Druddigon blinked and shuffled awkwardly, before hesitantly pressing his question.

"… Aren't you?" he asked.

"Valter… isn't one anymore," Cernun began. "After he came back to life, the cross shape in his eye was gone and no matter how many times or how hard I've tried, I haven't been able to make him an Immortal again."

The Xerneas shook his head glumly, looking off into the distance for the edges of the stable zone.

"Those Pokémon that were petrified didn't become Immortals either when I healed them…" he said. "I don't know for sure, but I think that it just might not be possible for me to give that power if a Pokémon's already died once."

Team Traveller's members traded surprised glances with each other. Between what Cernun had to say about his true nature and the destruction of Blackmoon Village being an elaborate ruse, the lot couldn't help but feel slightly overwhelmed at everything the Protector had to say.

"That's… quite a bit to take in all at once," Dimitri murmured.

"Well, I hope it makes it clear as to why you must stay here," Valter harrumphed. "This village is in a vulnerable position and should our secret ever be exposed, Coil wouldn't hesitate to rally the Empire's ships to make short work of us."

"But you don't have to be afraid about that anymore!" Pleo insisted. "Coil's no longer in the navy!"

Pleo's exclamation drew a blank stare from the Dusknoir, who fumbled for words before he pressed the seabird to continue on.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Nida and the others got him caught egg-napping and he got in trouble and everything!" Pleo chirped. "And… I don't know about the rest of the Empire, but they can't be as bad as Coil like you make them out to be! I even made a friend from the Empire!"

"Co?" Elty asked, giving a puzzled raise of his brow. "You di-? Ow!"

The Growlithe was cut off by a conk at the back of his head from Guardia's club, prompting him to shoot a glare over as the Cubone scowled back with a sharp hiss under her breath.

"Not helping right now!" she scolded. Valter looked at the bickering pair and their surprised teammates skeptically, before turning back to Pleo with a narrowed eye.

"Explain yourself, uccello," he demanded. Pleo shifted and squirmed, wondering to himself where the best place to even begin his tale would be…

"Well…"

After a moment of deliberation, Pleo opted to begin things with the team's departure from Nerea, and how after being chased to Sormus, they were captured by an Imperial captain and brought to Giotto. There, while Pleo befriended one of his captors, Nida, Elty, and Guardia met with a local detective and two attorneys and discovered together that Coil had been dealing stolen eggs to pirates. Through grit, a dash of luck, and their participation in a local tournament, they helped their new friends in Giotto with exposing Coil, and managed to free Pleo and escape to Buyeom in the confusion surrounding Coil's summons.

"… So how do you know what happened to Coil afterwards if you fled?" Valter asked.

"Well, after escaping we got to Buyeom, which is where we met Kline," Nida answered. "He told us about how Coil got disgraced, meaning that Nico and Rita managed to expose him after we left Giotto."

"Yeah, a lot of Pokémon in Giotto found out about the truth and got angry about it," Elty said. "So he can't do you any harm anymore."

Valter paused, his eye hardening into a doubting scowl as he peered down at Elty and his teammates.

"Did you see these things happening to Coil, or was it merely told to you?" the Dusknoir demanded, prompting Team Traveller's members to sheepishly hem and haw as Nida pawed at the back of her head.

"I mean… Kline told us, and he hasn't exactly been wrong about anything so far," the Nidoran began, only to be cut off by a ghostly huff.

"Hrmph, when he chooses to be. How do you know he didn't just say what he thought you wanted to hear?"

"H-Huh?! But why would Kline do that?!" Crom exclaimed. "He was looking for someone to help him out!"

"To manipulate you into helping him with his own problems, of course!" Valter spat. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"But- But he wouldn't do anything like that!" Pleo cried. "He helped us back on Buyeom!"

The Lugia's cry drew a dismissive scoff from Valter, leaving him to blanch and grimace puzzledly. Cernun let out a low sigh, giving a glum shake of his head before speaking up in reply.

"That certainly doesn't sound like the way he was acting when he was here," the Xerneas said. "All he did was yell at me for making 'mons Immortal and tell me to completely ignore everything that was going on with Coil to help him with some 'Elilan' that was a more serious threat."

"He was probably overselling the problem anyways to try and play on Lord Cernun's emotions," Valter scoffed. "I can sympathize for his plight with his counterpart, but to come to this town and demand everyone to put all that we've cobbled together in danger to help him is the sort of selfishness I'd expect from a common corsair!"

"But Elilan is a genuine threat!" Ander insisted. "Especially if his plans get anywhere close to being completed!"

"Is that why Kline wants to charge in and risk getting captured while his foe is still young and has the upper hand? That Elilan's strength isn't going to grow as he ages, and his life will eventually grind to an end," the Dusknoir retorted. "When I pointed this out to him, he just scolded us saying that we'd either get found out eventually or run out of resources. He even spouted fearmongering hypotheticals about how Elilan might seek out Cernun directly for immortality if he got old enough! What did he tell you to get you into the fold? That Elilan will summon a meteor to fall on the Cradle?"

Team Traveller quietly grimaced at Valter's angry reply. They had seen firsthand how Kline had been able to warn them of things well beyond what any of them could have found out on their own through his Cells, so how could Valter and the villagers just dismiss Kline's warnings about Elilan as mere exaggeration?

Kiran raised his voice to speak up, only to realize that whatever had happened to sour things between Valter and Kline, it probably wasn't worth dredging up when all they had to do was convince Valter to let his part of the Knights' Ledger off the island. It couldn't be that difficult, could it? If both the Company and Empire feared it as much as Nerea said, then surely the Dusknoir could be convinced that it would keep Coil too at bay.

"But… even if we're wrong about Coil, there's no reason to live like this. You have part of the Knights' Ledger after all!" the Swellow exclaimed. "Why not just use that to blackmail the Empire into leaving you alone? It'd even work on the Company to boot!"

"We're avoiding our enemies just fine right now without having to needlessly use the Ledger or risk getting it destroyed," Valter chided. "As will you all once you stay here."

Team Traveller's members blanched and stared back blankly at the Ghost-Type. Why, it sounded as if Valter's 'solution' to the town's troubles was simply to hide away from the rest of the world entirely!

The group thought to themselves, realizing that all of the things they'd seen and overheard while in town about shortages of resources and space were happening because Darkwood Square was always growing with new Pokémon who would be around forever because Cernun had made them into Immortals on a whim. Was this what had caused drove a wedge between Kline and Cernun's falling out with each other? As perverse as it sounded… perhaps Ander really did have a point in saying that Cernun was toying irresponsibly with the balance of life, not that Valter's insistence on trapping everyone on the island was helping at all.

Kiran clamped his beak shut, wondering just what on earth any of them could do to persuade 'mons as dug in as that. The Swellow mulled the matter to himself, before deciding that as long of a shot as it seemed, perhaps Valter would respond better to a more concrete offer.

"Look, we get that you want to stay hidden and we don't want to expose you either," he said. "But if you just keep us here, you're going to get our friends worried and then they're going to come and look for-!"

Valter abruptly billowed out a black mist and hardened his hands into clenched fists, letting out a livid hiss that made Team Traveller's members jump back with a start.

"You dare try to threaten your way out of here?!" the Dusknoir bellowed.

"Th-That's not at all what I was trying to say!" Kiran stammered. "I-!"

"You will still your tongue and cease wasting my time with this nonsense!" the Ghost-Type shouted. "Your friends can try all they want, but in the end, they'll either flee like the rest when their nerves fail them, or they'll stay here for eternity!"

Valter turned away with a huff, storming off as Cernun shrank away uneasily and followed after. Along his way, Valter slowed a moment before turning back to Roteck in the pavillion.

"Roteck, take them back to their lodgings," the Dusknoir growled. "This conversation is over."

"Uh… Duke Valter," the Aggron murmured. "Are you sure that-?"

"Just do as you're ordered!"

The Aggron paused, before hesitantly making his way for Team Traveller alongside Trizano and motioning for the lot to come along with him. The group grudgingly set off, leaving the shrine behind as Trizano quietly followed along from behind. As they drifted off, Pleo looked back over his shoulder, seeing Cernun watching them depart before continuing on after Valter. The deer had to have some sympathy for their plight… but with Valter competing for his influence and being this stubborn, just what else could they do to try and plead their case…?

---

Off at the berry fields on the eastern side of Darkwood Square's clearing, the leaves rustled and shook as the forms of a Yanmega, a Manectric, and a Marowak snuck along from a path in the fog past a pair of guards playing cards, pawing at the scuffs and scrapes they'd picked up from ferals in the dungeon, and occasionally helping themselves to a berry from a passing bush. The three wandered out of the bushes and beside a row of simple shacks, prompting them to hang back into the shadows and gawk ahead warily at the sight of the village's interior further ahead.

"Any ideas where those twerps got off to?" Alvise whispered. "It took us forever just to find this other way in!"

"I dunno, why don't you go poke your snout deeper into this place yourself and tell me?" Nori grumbled.

"Ugh… what did we ever do to deserve this?" Valatos groaned.

"Er…" Nori murmured. "Well, we went around saying we were elite pirates and-"

"Don't answer that, bonehead!" the Yanmega hissed, prompting Alvise to snort and roll his eyes.

"What's with all these shacks?" he asked. "It's like there's an entire town down here."

"I've been hearing in town they've spotted more pirates lurking around here. How on earth is that possible?"

Alvise trailed off at the sound of the stranger's voice mention of pirates and froze for a moment. He blinked and turned his head towards the chatter, wondering to himself if they hadn't snuck in as well as he thought earlier.

The Manectric and his companions inched along a nearby wall at the sound of ghostly voices ahead. The three hesitated, poking their heads around the corner to spot the forms of a Haunter and a Drifloon floating down the lane as a Misdreavus accompanying them furrowed her brow back in annoyance.

"I hope you're not getting things confused with the 'mons we just brought in earlier," Lisa harrumphed, prompting Cantone to blink and sheepishly brush his feelers against each other.

"… Right. Whatever happened to them anyways?" the Drifloon asked. "Did they get sent to the cells with those real pirates?"

"Nah, I'm pretty sure they're joining our neighbors, so we'll see 'em around pretty often," Vince replied.

"'Cells'? 'Neighbors'?" Nori mumbled from his hiding place. "Who are they all talking about?"

"Really, shame they're not from that other crew. It'd never get old to scare them out of their hides!" the Haunter chortled. "Especially those three scemi going on about 'rah rah, we're elites and you're gonna listen to us' before squeaking and running off screaming like the rest of them!"

Team Phantom's members broke out into uproarious laughter as Valatos, Alvise, and Nori felt their blood boil. The Yanmega of the group flew forward, his mind set on revenge for the humiliation he'd endured from the ghostly jokers.

"Oh that's it!" Valatos seethed. "I'm gonna pull out his ghostly tongue and-!"

Nori and Alvise hastily latched onto Valatos' wings and tail, wrestling him to the ground and out of sight as they covered his mouth and desperately tried to muffle his angry hisses.

"Nani yatten da yo?! Don't just go out there!" Nori whispered.

"Yeah, you'll give us away, genius!" Alvise snapped.

Vince and his companions departed beside themselves with laughter, leaving Valatos and his companions to quietly fume after them. As the Ghost-Types slipped off, Alvise paused as a sharp scowl settled over his face.

"So then those dorks are those 'ghosts' from all those stories about Pioppo? Well there's no reason to play the fool any longer, and we'll have plenty of time to get back at 'em," the Manectric growled. "Those pirates they were talking about must've been the ones that went missing, let's find 'em and get back to the ship to explain what's really going on."

"Wait, you mean to go deeper into there?" Nori asked. "But what if we get caught?"

"Then we'll just use that Escape Orb we've got with us," Valatos said. "Let's just hurry up and find them."

The three crept along, drifting from wall to wall and alley to alley as the fields thinned and the village's shacks clustered ever-tighter with each other. All the while, the lot kept dutiful eyes and ears out for approaching Pokémon, stopping and waiting for the sounds of footsteps and voices to pass as they carried on in search of clues, only to stop and frown puzzledly at the lack of any sign as to where the captured pirates could be.

"Help! Help! Somebody get us out of here!"

The trio turned their heads, before recognizing the voice to be from a Chingling they'd remembered seeing among the crew a couple times before. The Chingling cried out for help again and again, prompting Valatos and his companions to quietly creep after the Bell Pokémon's distressed cries, following them until they found themselves at an alleyway overlooking a crude hut guarded by a Spiritomb and an Amoonguss in blue scarves.

"Doesn't that stupid little bell ever shut up?" the Spiritomb grumbled.

"Ugh, why couldn't Carola still be on shift?" the Amoonguss groaned. "At least that way she could gum up his mouth!"

Valatos peered ahead, looking for any way around the lurking guards ahead. His eyes chanced to fall upon a wobbly awning of red cloth over a doorway a few huts down on the main street, prompting him to flit his wings and hurl a cutting gust at it. The Air Slash cut through the awning's supports, leaving it to flop over and knock a resting pot to the ground with a crash that jolted the guards up and drew their attention away.

"Eh?! Hey what the-?!"

"Bah, I told Emilio to reinforce that awning!" the Amoonguss growled. "Come on!"

Alvise and his companions watched as the guards left the doorway and darted across the street, running through the doorway and across a crude lobby where they ducked down a winding set of steps and found themselves in an underground passageway dimly lit by candlelight. The three paced ahead, noticing cells built on either end of them when they chanced to catch movement at the far right end. Alvise and the others crept along and quickly found themselves face to face through a barred door held in place by a crude padlock with Alfred, Pieter, and the rest of the missing foraging party from the ship.

"Ah! It actually worked!" the Chingling exclaimed.

"Travellers above, you actually made it here!" the Noibat cried. "Quick, get us out before those two come ba-!"

"Pfft, wow! These guys have really let themselves go," Alvise sneered. Nori and Valatos joined in with jeering smirks, leaving Pieter in the cell to blink back incredulously.

"H-Huh?! What do you mean?" the Sealeo asked. "And why are you laughing right now?! We're stuck in a cell!"

"'Help! Help! Somebody save us!'" Nori snickered. "From how you were running your mouths off, I was half-expecting you to start crying for your mothers!"

The mood among the pirates in the cell quickly soured, as the Charmeleon among their number had his tail flame flush a whitish hue and let out a sharp growl in response.

"As if you'd do any better!" Alfred fumed. "Look, just hurry up and get us out of here before those guards get back!"

"Tch, do we seriously have to do everything for you?" Valatos scoffed.

The Yanmega beat his wings as a violet aura settled on a patch of the ground, the floor lurching as a large stone wreathed in a purplish glow tore out of the ground and smashed against the cell door. The pirates inside jumped back with a yelp as dust flew through the air, looking down as the air cleared to see the lock lying with its latch broken on the ground and Valatos smirking from the other end of a now wide open door.

"See?" he buzzed. "Easy as cake for an actual elite pi-"

"Ehi!"

The dragonfly and his companions froze as the other pirates grimaced, the lot looking back to see the Amoonguss and Spiritomb who'd been keeping watch outside staring them down and growling fiercely.

"I've never seen you three around here before," the Spiritomb snarled. "And what do you think you're doing letting the prisoners out?!"

"We… Uh…" Nori gulped. "We were…"

"Oh forget it, eat sparks!" Alvise snarled.

Arcs of electricity danced on Alvise's pelt as he expelled a Discharge at the two guards, leaving them to convulse and drop to the ground with sharp cries. With their enemies stunned, the pirates hastily dashed ahead, leaving the guards to stumble back up huffing and fuming from their blow.

"Nrgh… get back here!" the Amoonguss shouted.

The pirates ran for dear life as a glowing green orb and a shadowy ball zipped by, charging up the stairs and throwing one of the crates in front of the steps to buy time for an escape. Valatos and the others then rushed outside, coming to a skidding stop as they found that a small crowd of onlookers had gathered, including Team Traveller at the edge who paused and stared slack-jawed.

"W-Wait a minute!" Crom cried. "Those are-!"

Valatos and his companions narrowed their eyes, readying attacks when they heard the guards throwing aside the crate, and saw the passerbys hastily adopting aggressive stances and advancing on them from all sides.

"A-Ack! We're trapped" the Noibat cried.

"Oh no we're not!" Valatos hissed. "Hold on, dweebs!"

The Yanmega and the other pirates latched onto each other as Valatos fished out the glowing form of an Escape Orb and dashed it against the ground. A shattering noise rang out as the pirates vanished in a flash of light, the Spiritomb and Amoonguss catching up just moments too late to stop them. A stunned silence settled over the surrounding Pokémon, Elty among them shrinking back and folding his ears with a grimace as he realized that there was only one place the pirates could be headed off to now…

Straight back to the Iron Fleet, where they'd reveal everything about what they had seen.

"Oh no…"

---

Author's Notes:

- santuario - Italian: "shrine", "sanctuary"
- Co? - Polish: "What?"
- scemi - Italian: "fools", "idiots"
- Nani yatten da yo?! (何やってんだよ?) - Japanese: "What are you doing?!" (Hepburn Romanization)
- Ehi! - Italian: "Hey!"

 

[Ambyssin]

So, from the sounds of the flashback and info from Vater, the Knights' Ledger has something to do with an irresponsible use of gods' powers. It's interesting that Coil had something to do with it (because of course he did), but I must admit that, since he's already been taken down and is out of the picture — unless, of course, you bring him back because if there's one thing this fic does it's keep bringing everyone back XD — it does take away from what could've been a much bigger twist. Like, imagine instead of Coil, it was Valan who had been in charge of this stuff. It would've added a much greater layer of depth to his assuming command over Nagant. I mean, he WAS still involved, so I guess that element could still be there. ^^;

Anyway, wow, Cernun has just been granting immortality to people willy-nilly? That's... honestly kind of terrifying and I'm not sure if his immature view of death/dying when he did it constantly during the flashback makes it more or less terrifying. I also find it interesting that Vater's being a bit of a hypocrite. He chastised Coil for seeking to use Cernun in an irresponsible way... but isn't that exactly what he's doing with forcibly keeping people in the village and turning them immortal? And isn't it equally irresponsible to just keep hiding away and pretending like there are no problems? In any case, it seems like Cernun's opinion might be starting to turn... though now that the pirates have crashed the party, I suppose the game has changed. Though, we'll have to see what sort of conflict brews from this.

Lastly, of course, we have those pokémon statues mentioned in the conversation. It would seem that Yveltal is awake and active. The question is where it is and what it's doing with that Oblivion Wing. Time will tell, I guess. I don't think you'd have brought it up if Yveltal wasn't due to show up. And, well, you did start this fic back in Gen VI, so I shouldn't be surprised that the life trio would be playing an important role in the fic.

Out of the Bag

Nebby would like to know your location.

a Cramorant whispered.

How could it whisper with a fish crammed in its mouth? [thinking emoji]

Or was it Team Alloy?

4/10 not enough dragons.

"I can't let you do that, Commodore,"

Valter channeling his inner Wolf. "CAN'T LET YOU DO THAT, STAR COIL."

"Any ideas where those twerps got off to?" Alvise whispered.

By god, they really are the Team Rocket of this fic.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Chapter 58:

"Yeah, I don't really like the looks they're giving us," Elty murmured. "And the streets around here are deserted."

You know things are shifty when the ex-pirate feels uncomfortable.

The surrounding shaded street and its canal shimmered and vanished into a darkened space. Nida, Elty, and Guardia looked around in hasty glances about the dimly-lit space, their eyes adjusting to see they were inside a warehouse with a lattice of crude wooden balconies and offices. On the wall ahead, there was a balcony patrolled by a dark taupe-furred fox with a thick mane billowing from his head, the creature visibly glowering down at his startled 'guests'.

Ohhhh, that's clever. I really like seeing Zoroark illusions used for something like this. And he's gotta be a pretty dang skilled illusionist to make such a big one!

"Our organization doesn't do theft, much less egg theft. We stick to reselling from free traders and selling protective services," the younger Manectric growled. "If you don't want an abrupt swim in the canal outside the window, I'd suggest that you not bring that up again."

Heh, I like that you mentioned this, as the mafia sees themselves as quite respectable, don't they? Certainly nothing like petty criminals causing chaos on the streets. Just selling stolen goods and running protection scams services.

"We haven't been dealing with this turf issue for more than a couple weeks," the Don murmured. "There's no way a common pack of street thugs could pull off an operation like that."

Ohhhhh boy, this goes a lot further up that any of them thought, doesn't it?

Overall I really liked this scene! Nice tense, dangerous atmosphere and yet it feels believable that the mafia let them go in the end, seeing as they've got much bigger fish to fry now, and can technically benefit from Cardino's group looking into it.

"What kind of lame excuse is that?" the Growlithe snorted. "Even the captain on my old crew knew what was going on with the Pokémon under his command, so how's one of the captains of the Council supposed to be that oblivious?"

Pfft I love how offended he is that a Council head could be that crappy of a captain. xD

"Ah, but you've established a possibility, not a proof. My crew understands that we stand together, or fall divided. And those Pokémon you brought up have chosen to fall," Sibich retorted. "Even if they did get found innocent, I'm sure one of their more clear-headed peers wouldn't see it that way and want to... rectify the situation."

"So basically, you're threatening 'mons like them to stay in line or pay the price," Elty growled.

"My, those are some serious allegations, pup," the Cofagrigus scoffed. "Do you have any proof of such claims?"

He... he literally just confirmed their suspicions and then goes on to taunt them for having no proof. Oh my goddddd he's slimy.

The Cranidos clambered atop the bed and sat next to Pleo, cracking open the book to begin reading passages of a fairy tale about a spiral-like land where the Spirit World interacted more regularly with the world of the living. All the while, Pleo sank into his bedding, his eyelids growing heavy as Cabot's tale continued on as a faint homliness settled upon him. Even if Cabot wasn't Nida, Pleo realized that he hadn't felt as at peace since the night he and his teammates entered Copperband, wondering if they were doing alright themselves.

Ahhh, I've been waiting for this~ I knew these two would bond eventually, and it's sweet to see it actually happen.

The Growlithe paused and stared at the colored runes, comparing their positions in the left and right charts. One move repeated over and over again in a game would be fairly useless, but what if it was actually meant to shuffle things around instead? The Fire-Type blinked, suddenly realizing that as long of a shot as it sounded, maybe the team actually had something that could stand to be shuffled around like that...

WAIT, DON'T TELL ME IT'S--

The dog looked down at the transcribed text and noticed much to his astonishment that his still-incomplete second transcription started to have intelligible phrases in it. There was 'sandbar', 'merchant ship', 'captured loot'... Elty kept at his transcription as Nida watched, the dog carefully sketching out a short passage denoting a past raid in which the Shadow Brigade chased a merchant ship onto a sandbar and pillaged it before sailing off with captives to ransom. The rabbit looked up at the Fire-Type blankly, the two quickly coming to the realization that the paper was none other than...

Ohh my god, it is. It's the code. And Pleo got it from where it was stuffed into that book in the library, which means--ohhhhhh no. This... this goes really high up, doesn't it. And you laid the first clues for it back when the Polderfield raid was first mentioned, didn't you?

This chapter was a lot of fun! The first to feel like a full-on mystery story unfolding in front of us, and I'm... really curious how they're going to figure this one out, since the reader can only guess right now by having access to information from Pleo's side of things. Until next time~!

~Chibi~

 

[Namohysip]

Episode 11!

55

Oh look, they finally cut Pleo’s wings. I wonder, is that a symbol that the Imperials respect the gods less than the Company, or at least Lyn, did? I’m gonna keep that one in my back pocket. And hmm, that being said, sending Nida and the others off to do whatever… it’s a bit of a classic tale of getting what they want, and then sending the weaker ones home since they aren’t relevant. They aren’t really in much of a position otherwise, are they?

Hmm, I’m not sure what to make of this way that Nagant is telling the kids to go off. She’s being very cryptic, which would usually suggest that they’re doing something sinister with Pleo, but there wasn’t a whole lot of introspection on it from Nagant’s side. This story is a bit thorough with how much it wants to get into the heads of anybody with a spotlight, so if it’s being conveniently omitted here, I’m not sure if that’s being consistent. And on the other hand, if there isn’t anything truly sinister or malevolent, I don’t really know why Nagant is being so obtuse with explaining to them, at least in vague terms, that Pleo would be fine from her perspective.

Side note: You use the general phrase “Name verb “at the sight of” event-that-just-happened” very often. Might want to cut back on the repetitive stock phrase.

Looks like another setup chapter. Nothing wrong there.


56

This chapter is another setup chapter, but this is probably the first time in a LONG while where I was actually excited about having to read through it, specifically because it’s setting up for one of my favorite guilty pleasures: the tourney arc! It sort of came out of the blue—I wouldn’t have expected such a side plot from Fledglings—but here we are, and I’m definitely curious on how this semi-proxy war is going to play out. Of course, the biggest players can’t participate, lest they be spotted or have their cover blown, but having some of the underlings or second in command fighters fight in their place will be interesting. Well, and Ketu.

As of now, the four sides have flashed here and there, but I never had a good handle for how they actually were in terms of pure power scaling. And while I hope you don’t focus too much on the combat for this episode, I hope I can at least get an idea on what they’re capable of as fighters.

The egg theft bit was interesting, too. Seems that the detective/sleuthing plotline is rapidly converging with the pirate plotline, though what it’ll become has yet to be seen. You’re juggling a lot in this episode.


57

This took way too long, but they’ve finally met! Holy crap, Crom and the others finally caught up to Nida and the game of cat and mouse has ended. I was ready to be disappointed at them not running into one another again, and while I felt that the actual buildup toward them running into each other after Nida spotted them was drawn out, I’m glad that they finally reunited. Long overdue!

I’m a little disappointed not at the prose of the battle of Team Traveler, but that so much time had been spent on it. I suppose I understand that they had to battle some random team in order to have any hope of advancing, but I was more interested in seeing more of the battle that Ketu performed than anything, since I already more or less know how strong Team Traveler is. I’d prefer a shift in focus there.

I’d also like to set aside a moment to acknowledge how very obvious this chapter could have been two shorter, more reasonably sized chapters—the first half being the tournament, and the second half being the trial. This is probably the most egregious example I’ve seen in a while where it didn’t seem very sensible to have these two things lumped together, especially since this time you don’t have the excuse of trying to cover what everyone’s doing at the same time.

That being said, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the greatest sin of this epic so far—"Akin, the Rookie Killer.” Don’t think I don’t know what you did.

…Anyway, this was a nice respite from all the battles going on in this chapter, all things considered, and I was feeling refreshed after transitioning back to Nagant trying to interrogate Ketu.

Also, this chapter has a lot of epithet slip ups. Feels like you guys were trying to shuffle around epithets again to "spice up" the prose but ended up fumbling. "The (name)" instead of "the (species)” and so on Might be worth looking through, even if that might be hard to spot.

The sleuthing was another nice respite and change of pace, with the tournament battles happening in the background. I think it was a good call to have Crom’s side of the fight not get too much attention, as we’ve seen how they can fight already. Just hoping to see a bit more of the unknowns in the future chapters, as well as actual clashes between the factions that matter.


58

The talk with the Don went more or less as I thought it would go. I think this entire Don subplot is very, very reminiscent of TTYD, actually. It almost comes off as classical—the idea that the side of justice has to go with the mob in an effort to fight against a common enemy in a sort of gray-on-white team-up. It was good to get things rolling, at least.

Oh, something that surprised me was how Sibich is already in shackles. Part of this comes from Casting Off, but it seems like he’s already been defeated, in a sense. It’s almost disappointing that he’s kinda already taken care of!

Also, Cabot and Pleo have nice chemistry—I like what’s going on with them, though I do wonder how it’s going to rule in for all this. After all, Team Traveler still doesn’t have an Imperial or Company representative… Cabot and Salvini, maybe? I know you have a team of four already… but c’mon. This story is begging for a “one from each walk of life” endgame team.

Anyway, let me just briefly also mention the most tantalizing part of the chapter here… the lore. A Staraptor—a king, a hero—who came from a “metal cocoon” without any memories…? That screams human. It screams human so loudly that I don’t think that’s the case; it feels too obvious. So, while I won’t remove the possibility, I won’t adamantly stick by it, either. Ugh, it’s been so long since I got some juicy lore from this story like that. More please.

59

I don’t have as much to say about most of this chapter, but I do want to put some special focus on the scene between Pleo and Nagant, which had a bit of her past, but in general showed a night-and-day interaction between two opposite souls. Very interesting, and also a very brief moment of Pleo showing a bit of that “divine wisdom,” so to speak. Though I suppose in this case, it’s more of a “stabbing question from a child.”

Oh, and the scene with the detective work, and the trial itself—okay, yeah, it’s obviously an Ace Attorney callback, and I love that. But anyway, this, similar to the Don subplot, feels like the sorts of stories that are basic because they have to fit into a single episode. Either one of these could have had a few added twists or nuance to them and filled out an entire arc on their own, but are instead… perhaps hyper-accelerated for the sake of the full story. That left me feeling like I was reading two shallow stories rather than a single, deep one.

I also have a gripe with one aspect of the plot, and I even went out of my way to ask Virgil about a few specifications, and it indeed just seemed to have happened. Pleo, while rummaging through the library, just… stumbled upon the key decoder, stuffed in a letter, which he then, without emptying or inspecting the contents, just randomly placed a feather inside… and then Cabot, not even checking himself what could possibly be in there, sends it to Team Traveler?

That’s one of the most absurd, looooong line of coincidental circumstances to give Team Traveler exactly what they needed. I had to read back to see if there was some deterministic reason behind it, but… no! Yet, unlike the other times, when it was in Team Traveler’s disadvantage, this one was in a huge step in their favor. Agh. I really hope there’s some kind of Hand of Fate plot device that gets revealed at some point to explain how they manage these feats of coincidences, but even then, aaaaa this one really bugs me. There’s no narrative indicator at all that something was amiss to tide the reader’s suspension of disbelief over, and it was just a stroke of luck.

Whatever, moving on.

60, 61

What a fight! These last two chapters definitely wrapped up everything that had been set up in the episode, but I’d like to finally acknowledge that the Tromban team is finally not split up! That took WAY too long. I’m especially looking forward to interactions between Pleo and Ander, also because of that book Ander has, since we still don’t really know the full contents inside.

Aside from that, though, I thought that most of the other subplots were wrapped up nicely, albeit, as I mentioned before, quickly. I’ll focus on one thing that stood out to me, at least: The battle between the titans—Lyn, Nagant, and that Aggron who keeps losing. Particularly the first two. I’ve never seen them truly go toe to toe until now, and it was interesting to see how their powers compared.

Looks like the original antagonist wins here, because Lyn had just the slight edge over Nagant, at least from my perspective. Hess, uh… well, keep trying, buddy. I’m certain he’s going to become a huge threat for one key instance and get some kind of boost in power (COUGHmegaCOUGH) or competence, since his character is oozing with that kind of narrative potential. Either that or he continues to be an outclassed joke.

But aside from that, they’re all together! And it’s looking like the next episode will finally see some major changes in how it plays out, hopefully. Guess I’ll just have to see how it goes.

Overall, I think this chapter was crowded, but overall very good, and finally a step in the right direction to get things moving forward instead of meandering about. Looking forward to episode 12.


Oh, and there’s a special episode incoming. I actually already read it as of this writing, as well as episode 12, but I’m still finalizing my review and thoughts on it. More to come! …Later. NaNoWriMo might kill me in the meantime, so don’t hold your breath.

 

[Umbramatic]

Disclaimer: This review is of chapters 16-20

ONCE AGAIN AFTER 3000 YEARS I RETURN

And hoo boy things are slowly spicing up because thanks to THAT ASSHOLE LYN the party is now far from home and minus poor Chrom (at least he's gotten into Smash since that chapter was published). It's definitely going to be intresting yto see how Team Traveler adapts to this new island that speaks HONHONHON EIFFEL TOWER BAGUETTE.

The exact workings of this Company is something that definitely intrigues me, and I definitely spy hints at something even more nefarious at work than capitalism. I look forward to seeing how it plays out; in the meantime stab Lyn with a rusty pomegranate for me.

But yeah my slow trek to slowly read this fic slowly will continue. Eventually. Please give Pleo all the hugs in the meantime he needs them.

 

[Scytherwolf]

Okay, first off I want to say that I'm a new reader who just recently started this story, and I've only read 18 chapters so far. Was going to wait until I was caught up, but I had things I wanted to say, so here's a comment!

Well, first of all, I found this story because of a drawing Chibi Pika posted of a yanmega, manectric, and marowak. I had no idea who the characters were, but I LOVED that drawing, and that's what got me to start reading this story. Although I'm not up to where those characters come in, I've read enough to know that the scarves they have in the drawing mean pirate. And I just have to say, the concept of a pirate yanmega is one of the best ideas I've seen a pokemon writer come up with. So yeah, excited about this!

But anyway, on to the stuff I've actually read. I think one of the things that really draws me into this story is the world building. I'm very curious about the 'wastes' outside the Cradle. I'm not convinced there's nothing out there but danger. Seems very mysterious indeed. The way you explain mystery dungeons is interesting too; I like how a stream flowing up the wall is pretty normal for them, and the way the pokemon use the distortion of the dungeon to change items is also really clever.

Another thing I've noticed is how you put a lot of thought into the situations the characters get in, and how their world works. So there's not an easy solution for a lot of things. As someone who has to constantly think up reasons that teleportation won't work as an instant solution to a problem in my own story, I commend you.

The characters. I like all of them so far! The idea of a druddigon running a bakery is simultaneously amusing and awesome. I enjoyed the Watership Down references to the nidoran family. And as others have said, Pleo is simply adorable. I think my favorite character so far is Elty. His comments make me laugh. And his and Nida's bickering is amusing and fun to read, which is kind of weird to say because often that sort of thing gets on my nerves. But I like the "reluctantly working together" thing these two have. I admit I did feel bad for Elty for all those times he was used as a punching bag in training. I mean, I know he did an awful lot wrong, but I still felt bad for him.

The "marked" scythers are also really interesting, and I wonder just what makes them so afraid, that even seeing small Pleo is terrifying to them. There's got to be more to that whole cursed mark thing than what's been said, for them to be so convinced that legendaries wish uninvolved pokemon harm even after all this time. I know the legend's been passed down for ages, but I wonder why they are that scared, so long after this whole war thing happened. But maybe this is just me thinking that if I were in their place, I wouldn't be easily convinced some legendary was going to come after me for revenge, regardless of what anyone says. Whatever that says about me, I'm interested to learn more about this "marked" thing.

Not sure what to think of Hess yet, since he was seen so briefly, but Lyn is terrifying. I love how you made him such a sinister antagonist, especially compared to how the pirates acted in the earlier chapters. Interested to see more of him and this "Company."

I told myself I was going to read one chapter tonight, but I got sucked into the whole "Pleo gets captured" plot and had to keep going. Another thing I like about this story is how you're able to keep threats serious while still having humor; I like that balance. Also, Nida what are you talking about of COURSE you steal from the box of orbs while you have the chance!

Also, shoutout to the random heracross on Lyn's ship.

I'm going to be reading more, and hopefully it won't take me too long to catch up!

 

[windskull]

I’ve been meaning to get to episode 3 for weeks now, but NaNo has taken up all my spare time. But now that I’ve finished rereading it, it’s as good of a time as any.

Chapter 9

Heh, everyone’s ganging up on Elty. It’s to be expected at this point, but it’s still amusing.

Oh Chrom Crom, you get it eventually. Rough skin and gentle healing don’t really go hand in hand, huh? I can’t help but feel for Elty just a bit.


Ahh, Melissa. I remember really finding the idea of porygons functioning as move tutors really neat, especially with regard to TMs. Particularly, I thought it was a really neat, logical way to handle learning a move through a disc, especially in a relatively low-tech world. I also remember it wasn’t until this section that it finally clicked what an “ahp-gred”(If I’m spelling that pronunciation correctly) was. I really do like the way move tutoring and TMs in general are handled in your fic, with them only being the potential, but still needing to be practiced and improved on.


Chapter 10

"Grr… What on earth do they teach amatorzy at your guild anyways?" the orange and cream dog frowned.

So, I had to go back and check this myself, but in this case, the “the” in the second sentence should be capitalized because frowned is an action, not a dialogue tag. If it had ended in said, grumbled, or any other dialogue tag like that, this would be correct.

God, Cass is quite adorable.

Ah yes, that was why the team and anyone else who entered a Mystery Dungeon always made sure to carry some paper and envelopes with them. If they ever somehow got completely stuck and deprived of working badges, they could write a distress note. From there, the winds that reshaped floors in Distortion would catch them up, the note's light weight allowing the winds to carry them out of the Mystery Dungeon.

There’s nothing wrong with information dumps like this in small doses, though I do wonder if this could have come up more organically in the conversation instead of being narrated to us, or even explained later. I remember it coming up a few arcs down the line.

I like the worldbuilding you do with food. It works well, jiving with the idea of how it would probably be weird if all pokemon were sapient, and yet they eat other pokemon without it being weird, but also the fact that pokemon are canonically known to eat each other, it’s a nice compromise, and plays well into the idea of the pact.

I can’t really think of how I want to word this, so I’ll just say that I like that Nida’s backstory is getting some more depth, and it’s kind of nice to see more about her as a character through how she reacts to people talking about an event that was obviously quite traumatizing for her.


Chapter 11

"Well, your shadow's not touching any of us," Pleo replied as he paced tottering towards the end of the branch he was on.

Still loving how literal Pleo is taking things. Also, I’m not sure, but it feels like there should be a comma between paced and tottering. I could be wrong though.

Knowing what I know from having read the story previously, I find it interesting that they don’t seem to know there are other protectors that have awoken already. Then again, I suppose it makes sense that both the Company and the Empire would want to keep it on the down-low. Both to keep it a secret from each other and to limit the chance of uprisings.

I like the scene with the pikachu. It serves as a little lesson to Pleo, allows the team to learn something new, and contributes to the worldbuilding all at the same time.

Pataki, chill girl.

I like the… otherworldly feeling, for lack of a better term, of some of the features you give your this mystery dungeon. Like the upside-down waterfall. In general, I like it when mystery dungeons are weird and “not-quite-right.”

Heh, it makes sense that different groups of pokemon would have different ideas, traditions, and legends about their protector.


Chapter 12

I wonder if there’s any reason you chose indigo and lavender for the Empire and Company. Of course, indigo is associated with royalty and lavender is still a shade of purple...

And there they are, the dreaded company that's been alluded to up until this point. I think this is a conflict that was set up well, with the implications of a looming, hated higher power creeping up until they're in your face.

Back in Bluewhorl, the atmosphere was far less cheery as the Company ship docked. Hatteras breathed a quiet sigh of gratitude to the gods for the ship being smaller and less imposing than he had dreaded- and more importantly, for Pleo being far away right now. Far from the eyes of the Pokémon accompanying the unwelcome ship that day.

"At least it's one of their smaller ships this time. I don't think they'll be able to take much from this town today."

"How much they'd take wasn't my biggest concern," Hatteras replied. "Get some of your subordinates handy, they'll need a welcoming committee to keep them in line."

I do wonder if the first two paragraphs could have been combined in some way, since what Osmund says basically just reiterates what Hatteras was already thinking.

Elmer Ellsberg does a good job of appearing menacing in his introduction.

Hm… So a traveling warrior, like a few of the so-called 'Immortals'. How quaint,

Oh hey, is that a reference to Trizano (and possibly others) I see there?


Chapter 13

The next thing Nida and Pleo felt was Elty tagging them from behind before falling back, leaving a bluish, sparking aura to envelop the two before settling down.

That’s a neat way of describing Helping Hand. I’m guessing it’s loosely based on the anime depiction?

Oh Pataki… never change

Ah, hello Lyn. My, how menacing you are. I love the little detail in what substitutes he fights. It makes it quite obvious that he’d like nothing more than to put the Tromba residents “in their place.”


So, thoughts on the episode overall. It was pretty fun! There’s a lot more little worldbuilding tidbits here and there, and I love that we start getting hints at the bigger plot overall. Bad things are about to start happening, and I, for one, look forward to it. I don't really have any criticisms for this section, outside of the couple minor ones I mentioned above. Hopefully I'll be back to review episode 4 before the end of the year.

 

[Namohysip]

Special Episode 3:

This opening was interesting! So Elty wasn’t quite a pirate all his life after all, he was a feral! That definitely paints the little interaction that he had with Guardia in a new light, and not just because they both lost their parents. That part was obvious—what wasn’t was that they were both feral! I wonder if that’ll come up a bit more between them, or if Elty is ashamed of that in a way? After all, since he barely talks about it… if at all. I don’t think he’s ever mentioned it once explicitly, unless I missed that detail.

Red and Blue… interesting code names, though I do wonder if the ambiguity is necessary. It almost seems superfluous, but I guess you’re obviously begging for some theory crafting, so… I have two guesses. If they’re Protectors, and they’re pivotal to plans they have for the Cradle, and their nicknames are red and blue… I find myself going with two possible pairs, off the top of my head. Groudon and Kyogre—reshaping the land and sea to make a more habitable and expansive world for everyone—or Yveltal and Xerneas—powers over life and death. (Note from the future: I know I’m wrong, but I’m keeping this speculation here as perspective from a blind reader.) Seeing as Xerneas had already been mentioned as a stolen egg, I’m tempted to go with the latter. They’re a more recent Pokémon anyway, and since this story had been made at around the time of Gen 6, I’m gonna place my guess there for now.

The middle portion of the special episode was a frantic action scene that was a bit hard to follow, and I was more or less just hoping to see more glimmers of significant plot rather than just a struggle between a bunch of side or nameless characters until people got out again. Actually, I’d say that the parts that interested me the most were the beginning and ending scenes, after all the fighting settled down. I’m not quite as invested in these guys since, 1, I know where they wind up, and 2, I don’t really know them all that well.

The theorizing and little lore hints, as well as a peek at a time not too long before the start of the story, was much more interesting. Oh! And also! Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is the scene that marks the first actual on-screen death of the series! From what I’ve been told, this is more or less the halfway mark of the entire work, I’d say that’s an appropriate spot as any to place it.


Episode 12

Chapter 62

The first scene with the political discourse among the Company is interesting. Despite the fact that they should be celebrating the fact that the Empire lost their biggest catch, they can’t help but infight. I wonder if the Empire has something similar going on at their highest ranks, though it doesn’t quite seem like it. Compared to the Company, the Empire seems… a little more put-together, in terms of their higher ranks. I didn’t see a whole lot of infighting there, aside from Coil.

That being said, while the infighting doesn’t seem too bad, it seems the subjects are starting to revolt, eh? Interesting that the Queen is open to apologizing, though I do wonder what good that’ll do. It might help, but I wonder how much focus this will get. And then—oh, hello, now that is an intriguing end to a chapter. We’ve got Xerneas, and the prospect of humans? Is that just some kind of rumor? Why would talk of humans even be remotely considered possible? Since they aren’t even seen until now beyond fables, hmm…

63

I knew they were frauds—but probably only because, from a meta perspective, it seemed really weird that these heroes of their own story had gone completely unnoticed and unmentioned until now in any significant way. Plus—and I think this was unintentional—even though it was clear that “Riolu” and “Eevee” are common PMD protagonists, and Nuzleaf is a clear shoutout to Super, Eevee isn’t a legal protagonist in Super. Though I talked in private and while that didn’t seem to be the intended nod, I still thought that was a bit entertaining.

The other two standout scenes for me were Pleo having fun with mirrors, which was a nice bit of needless fluff that I actually did enjoy reading, and the scene with Darzin. So much for him potentially redeeming himself or something, since now it looks like he’s gone full antagonist, and even roped in a Marked who just wants to relax. I do wonder if you’re introducing too many minor villains from time to time, since they sort of come and go and I don’t really know which ones will get any significant focus. Hope you aren’t spreading yourself too thin with all these guys doing their own thing, since it’s starting to drag the story down in pace again.

64,65

Nagant being giddy was amazing, however brief it was. So there are things that actually make her happy. Now I’m waiting to see that happen to Lyn. I imagine if he ever gets a big break, he’ll be humming and kicking his heels together or something.

Speaking of character development, it seems that Ellsberg is continuing to stand up for himself a bit. Though I don’t have much else to comment on it than it being explicitly acknowledged here. The scenes with Darzin and Hess were fun, though more or less just to show how the Imperials and the pirate gang managed to find their way out and where to go. Oh! But the fact that the Detective will be joining the Imperials was an unexpected addition.

The encounters with Xerneas and the plan to fool others with a duplicate Pleo is a clever one! Curious where that’ll take me I await, but there’s definitely a lot of planning going on once again. I also noticed something during the second half of this thing—Inler has a lot of potential to be some kind of species parallel to the (technical) main protagonist, Nida. We’ve got Nida and Inler, two of the same kind… and I’m pretty sure Inler is the true antagonist, or the greater antagonist, since as of now the Imperials don’t seem to have much of on in the Queen, for now.

For the end of the chapter, I’m kind of surprised that Pleo is the wisest here… not because of the divine wisdom this time, but just, surely Ander would have smelled the trap, no? After all that’s happened, I mean.

66, 67

Well! These final two chapters have been quite a mess. And while it’s still the same formula, it looks like we’ve acquired a lot of new faces, most of which I’ve given up on trying to remember off the top of my head. But first, onto some basic mechanics, I think Pleo’s (first) attempt at using his power of prayer is a good indicator of how this entire episode had gone for me. It had a lot of interest and intrigue for what could happen next, but then shortly after, I’m presented with a red herring that downsizes the impact compared to what could have been. At least I eventually got some payoff from it happening the second time, though its use is starting to come off as a (literal) deus ex machina with how suddenly they happen.

I think the fight and the struggle in the dungeon, while dragging on for a while, showed a good sense of frantic panic in trying to find a way out. I think it was particularly impressive that you were able to get everywhere from the upper hand, the underdog comeback, to despair horizon, and the final retreat all in one sequence, all things considered. I think the biggest meaningful takeaway is that Kline is particularly strong when he needs to be, able to give Ketu some genuine trouble.

…Unsettled islands? How could there be unsettled islands in this world? Between how small it is and how much people travel, not to mention Water Types in general… Well, either way, an “unexplored” or otherwise uncharted landmass is certainly new. Suddenly I’m more interested in this than anything else… The intrigue of the unknown…

There’s a lot going on here. You’re setting the stage for the next episode.

 

[GastlyMan]

WOW it’s been a while since I’ve reviewed! And while I know you have plenty of reviewers already, I’m glad I decided to catch up with this story anyway (I did skip a few specials due to lack of time, but might go back if I have time in the future). I am really enjoying this. How is Team Traveller going to make their way out of this one? And what about those on Tromba? I’m excited to see. I also like how well you’ve been weaving together all the subplots and different groups of Pokémon together. It’s not easy to do, and runs the risk of being complicated or confusing, but you do a great job of avoiding both of those things.

"No. Only a fool would chase after them at this point. We're better off trying to predict their next move and wait there for them in ambush."

Well, I’m beginning to like Nagant, even if I’m not rooting for her. You do a pretty good job of making villains seem real and not cartoony. Also, I’m glad that they’re finally thinking ahead!

"They are going to be living here with us for gods-knows-how-long," the Aggron said. "Not that I can't handle getting the stink eye from a new arrival or two, but we might as well take some time to trade our stories if they're going to be living here."

Big yikes! I hope they can get out of that creepy place quickly. At least they have Trizano.

Ander shifted uncomfortably at the mention of the second Protector, shrinking back as Cernun paced forward and began to speak to the gathered Pokémon.

He has such a great internal conflict and it’s cool to see it develop.

Pleo ruffled his feathers uncomfortably at the fawn's reply. Everlasting life? But… Nida had made it sound that normally Pokémon eventually stopped living, but did this mean that an Immortal could never die? If so, then…

Oh so that’s why they keep stressing “a long time” and “eternity”...

"But weren't there any side effects to what you were doing?" Guardia asked.

I mean, creepy eyes is one of them.

"The realm is already muddling through a disaster, Duke Valter! It's with this god's help that we can finally bring it to an end!" Coil shot back. "He's been perfectly at ease handing out immortality to common peasants, so he should have no issues giving it to the servants of His Majesty's navy in order to put an end to the Company's treason!"

Young Cernun’s innocence is heart warming to read here, if a bit sad. He seems a lot like Pleo.

"Gah! You were able to come back from that?!" Coil hissed. "No matter, let's see how you enjoy dying and staying dead!"

Things that will never happen...

"Valter… isn't one anymore," Cernun began. "After he came back to life, the cross shape in his eye was gone and no matter how many times or how hard I've tried, I haven't been able to make him an Immortal again."

Whoops, never mind then I guess. D:

Straight back to the Iron Fleet, where they'd reveal everything about what they had seen.

On one hand, not cool. But on the other hand, maybe that’ll be enough reason to let Team Traveller go...?

Anyway, really enjoying the story as it progresses. Keep it up!

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

How did you come up with Pioppo?

Spoiler: Answer

Pioppo as an island was built first around the premise of it being the site of Darkrai’s egg, and an eerie-feeling island with haunted forests and an above-average number of Ghost-Type Pokémon. Unlike most islands, the name of Pioppo was not the first name related to the island that was decided, with the first named part of it being the destroyed town that Trizano hails from, Blackmoon Village. Blackmoon Village owes its name to being a nod to Newmoon Island, the site in which you encounter Darkrai in Sinnoh, by describing the appearance of a new moon as its name.

The island name was developed afterwards after a bit of a concept walk from ‘Alamos Town’ and discovering that an ‘alamo’ happens to be a type of poplar. ‘Pioppo’ happened to be the Italian word for ‘poplar’ and rolled off the tongue fairly well, and the name stuck. Before Pioppo was settled on, a few different names and directions were considered, including names themed after dreams such as Sogno and Incubo, Vuoto which was themed after the idea of a void, and the possibility of just straight-up calling the island ‘Alamos Island’.

How did you come up with Darkwood Square?

Spoiler: Answer

The premise of Darkwood Square as a small hamlet trying to hide away the truth of its inhabitants and the location of the Cradle’s Xerneas has existed since the very early days of Fledglings’ planning. Specifics regarding the village were floating up until just a couple months prior to this episode starting to be published, which is where the structure of the village being hemmed in by dungeon fog and sporting terrain damage from a hostile encounter with Kline were determined. ‘Darkwood’ was settled on fairly quickly as part of the village’s name for a few reasons. It shared a beginning with ‘Darkrai’, the local Protector, it was nestled among deep, thick woods that blocked out the sunlight, and had some continuity name-wise with the now-destroyed ‘Blackmoon Village’. For a period of time ‘Darkwood Square’ was known as ‘Darkwood Village’ until it was decided the name was too samey with Blackmoon.

How did you come up with the con artists from Buyeom?

Spoiler: Answer

The con artists on Buyeom were developed under the premise of being a team of hucksters that could swindle gullible Pokémon by tapping into their hopes and dreams of a future return of Legendaries and humans to their world. The structure of the team was built around the premise of ‘overused PMD protagonists plus an illusionist’ which resulted in picking Riolu, Eevee, plus a Ditto to fill the roles of Charlie, Marilyn, and David respectively. Albert was added as a floating fourth member as a nod to PSMD and the relationship that you have with Nuzleaf in the game, and serves as a coordinator that helps to structure and sell the team’s acts.

The names of the crew’s members are drawn from entertainers related to each individual Pokémon’s role on the team or meta. Charlie and Marilyn are named after actors Charlie Chaplin and Marilyn Monroe respectively, fitting their roles pretending to be a human and his partner. David is named after David Hand, the director of Bambi while Albert is named after Albert Freedman, a producer of “The $64,000 Question” who was caught fixing quizzes to much scandal. Most of these names were settled on fairly quickly, though ‘Charles’ was considered instead of Charlie at one point, as was ‘Shirley’ instead of Marilyn.

How did you come up with Cernun?

Spoiler: Answer

Cernun’s personality as an immature and naïve Legendary using his powers with reckless abandon has been around since before the first chapter of Fledglings was published, as have his origins from Mengir. Cernun’s name is a fragment of ‘Cernunnos’, the Celtic horned god of the forest, which was historically associated with stags. During development, ‘Ikethirn’ was considered as a name and has similar origins, specifically being a corrupted shortening of ‘Eikthyrnir’, the stag that stands atop Valhalla in Norse mythology.

How did you come up with Valter?

Spoiler: Answer

Valter was initially built around the concept of a ‘guardian’ figure for Cernun, who could for better and worse act as a conduit between him and Pioppo’s Pokémon and influence their thinking to take extreme measures to try and preserve a status quo the lot had gotten used to. Valter’s species was chosen as an homage to Dusknoir from the Explorers PMD games, though his motivations are by far purer and less destructive. Of the characters that were introduced this episode, Valter by far went through the most considered possibilities, which included “Antelmo”, “Ernesto”, “Salvio”, “Salvius”, “Salvo”, “Raniero”, “Bruno”, and “Costanzo”. His final name being settled on since it had more ‘leaderly’ connotations, as it is an Italian variant of ‘Walter’, which means ‘ruler of the army’.

How did you come up with Trizano?

Spoiler: Answer

Trizano is based around a character archetype that Tangent128 created that he refers to as ‘Valiant Knight Skarmory’, specifically of a hammy, extroverted metal bird that goes out to play the hero and help others in need. His name here owes its origin to a Chilean folk hero that @Venia Silente chanced to tell me a few stories about, and after finding it to roll off the tongue and the stories to gel well with the character premise, decided to use it as the name of our favorite Immortal Skarmory.

How did you come up with Roteck?

Spoiler: Answer

Roteck was consciously designed as a foil to Hess and teammate to Trizano, and as such his name was derived as something that would be in ‘opposition’ to Hess. Since Hess’ name was themed after machinery, it was decided that Roteck’s name ought to reflect some sort of obstacle to machinery, which quickly narrowed down to mountains.

Roteck’s name is shared with a mountain in the province of Tyrol in Italy. Other names left on the cutting board were similarly mountains from Italy, including Casentino, Néry, and Emet. His team’s name was chosen due to being something related to metal that would be able to get battered around, which led fairly quickly to ‘Team Anvil’.

As you may have gathered, Roteck has a bit more going on with Hess than meets the eye. What specifically that is shall remain unsaid for now, since it’s something due to come out into the story in due time.

How did you come up with Team Phantom?

Spoiler: Answer

For those of you who have read Guiding Light, you may have quickly surmised that Team Phantom is a fairly transparent expy of the Horizon Continent’s Team Specter. The name owes its origins to rendering our favorite ghostly pranksters' name as ‘Spectre’ as a base, which is a term for a ghost, as is ‘Phantom’.

The three are all named after comedians of Italian heritage, Vince after stand-up comedian Vince Sorrenti, Lisa after comedian Lisa Lampanelli, and Cantone after Mario Cantone. The three’s names were drawn from a large initial pool of names based along the theme of ‘comedians’, and as such at once point the Haunter now known as ‘Vince’ was Cantone. Unused names from the pool include “Aldo”, “Sebastian”, “Jeni”, “Ferrera”, “Paola”, “Dom”, and “Ray”.

What's with the ghosts?

Spoiler: Answer

The ‘ghosts’ that prowl Pioppo are a mashup of different ghostly illusion party tricks from different parts of the Pokémon franchise. In particular, Fledglings’ depiction drew from encounters with ghosts in Lavender Tower prior to obtaining the Silph Scope, down to recycling dialogue from some of the possessed trainers as lines for the hidden Ghost-Type Pokémon in-story.

What's with Immortality?

Spoiler: Answer

Immortality is a minor expansion of the wibbly-wobbly that AZ uses to stay alive for 3000 years in XY after something went wrong with the Ultimate Weapon. In this case, the effects of the weapon are credited specifically to Xerneas, with a few expansions for flavor and to emphasize that the effects are by design and not an accident such as the cross-shaped irises, the lack of aging, and regenerative abilities to make it more obvious who was Immortal and who wasn’t also, I might have been watching Baccano around the time those details were fluffed out, so it was keeping the topic on the mind.

As depicted in Chapter 72, the big constraint of Immortality that was added for metaphysical balance is that it’s only good until you die once. An Immortal that is killed will be resuscitated as a normal Pokémon so long there is enough of a body left over to stitch itself back together. Similarly, a normal Pokémon brought back to life by Cernun’s powers will not be able to become Immortal and will die permanently at some point down the line.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

@Ambyssin

Spoiler

Anyway, wow, Cernun has just been granting immortality to people willy-nilly? That's... honestly kind of terrifying and I'm not sure if his immature view of death/dying when he did it constantly during the flashback makes it more or less terrifying. I also find it interesting that Vater's being a bit of a hypocrite. He chastised Coil for seeking to use Cernun in an irresponsible way... but isn't that exactly what he's doing with forcibly keeping people in the village and turning them immortal? And isn't it equally irresponsible to just keep hiding away and pretending like there are no problems?

Well, you’re not wrong about Valter, though he’d insist it wouldn’t be an apples-to-apples comparison. After all, Valter is simply giving space to a Legendary to use its powers as it sees fit, thinking that there’d surely never be anything wrong about it. That’s a pretty far cry from being repurposed into a living weapon/supersoldier-maker.

How could it whisper with a fish crammed in its mouth? [thinking emoji]

I would presume going around doing that’s some sort of violation of the Pact, otherwise that’s a really weird fishmon that would consent to that. Plus Cramorant’s actually depicted with an empty bill more often than not in the games, with most depictions otherwise revolving around showing off its ability.

By god, they really are the Team Rocket of this fic.

I don’t think they’d be too flattered by the comparison, but I can kinda see the resemblance. Minus the lack of a clear ‘mascot’ among them.

@Chibi Pika

Spoiler

Ohhhh, that's clever. I really like seeing Zoroark illusions used for something like this. And he's gotta be a pretty dang skilled illusionist to make such a big one!

Indeedy. While Saéta’s underling is not the only Zoroark who can pull off a trick like that in the Cradle, it’s not exactly a common feat even among their number.

Heh, I like that you mentioned this, as the mafia sees themselves as quite respectable, don't they? Certainly nothing like petty criminals causing chaos on the streets. Just selling stolen goods and running protection scams services.

To be fair, it helps that their inspirations commonly have that as part of their internal mythologies that they use to justify their existences, usually some manner of “robin hood” or “nobility” complex. It’s easier to sleep at night as a mafia goon if you tell yourself that you’re keeping bigger threats such as openly predatory criminals at bay, or that something about your line of work ultimately makes the world a better place.

He... he literally just confirmed their suspicions and then goes on to taunt them for having no proof. Oh my goddddd he's slimy.

That’s Sibich for ya.

This chapter was a lot of fun! The first to feel like a full-on mystery story unfolding in front of us, and I'm... really curious how they're going to figure this one out, since the reader can only guess right now by having access to information from Pleo's side of things. Until next time~!

I’m glad to hear, and I hope that you enjoy the rest of the arc. I know that I had a lot of fun writing it out.

@Umbramatic

Spoiler

ONCE AGAIN AFTER 3000 YEARS I RETURN

And hoo boy things are slowly spicing up because thanks to THAT ASSHOLE LYN the party is now far from home and minus poor Chrom (at least he's gotten into Smash since that chapter was published). It's definitely going to be intresting yto see how Team Traveler adapts to this new island that speaks HONHONHON EIFFEL TOWER BAGUETTE.

The exact workings of this Company is something that definitely intrigues me, and I definitely spy hints at something even more nefarious at work than capitalism. I look forward to seeing how it plays out; in the meantime stab Lyn with a rusty pomegranate for me.

But yeah my slow trek to slowly read this fic slowly will continue. Eventually. Please give Pleo all the hugs in the meantime he needs them.

That would be ‘Crom’, since he’s not exactly a Lord, alas. Though I think that you’ll find the answers to your questions as you go along. I’ll be sure to relay that hug onto Pleo, and will be looking forward to your future reviews.

@Scytherwolf

Spoiler

Well, first of all, I found this story because of a drawing Chibi Pika posted of a yanmega, manectric, and marowak. I had no idea who the characters were, but I LOVED that drawing, and that's what got me to start reading this story. Although I'm not up to where those characters come in, I've read enough to know that the scarves they have in the drawing mean pirate. And I just have to say, the concept of a pirate yanmega is one of the best ideas I've seen a pokemon writer come up with. So yeah, excited about this!

I think that’s the first time that I’ve ever heard of one of the commissions pulling someone in, but I’m glad to hear that, and I’m sure you’ll love those three once you come across them.

But anyway, on to the stuff I've actually read. I think one of the things that really draws me into this story is the world building. I'm very curious about the 'wastes' outside the Cradle. I'm not convinced there's nothing out there but danger. Seems very mysterious indeed. The way you explain mystery dungeons is interesting too; I like how a stream flowing up the wall is pretty normal for them, and the way the pokemon use the distortion of the dungeon to change items is also really clever.

Yeah, one of the decisions very early on in Fledglings was to try and retain the “feel” of going through a dungeon in the games as much as possible without straining credulity instead of just making the normal caves, mountains, and forests and the like. By and large, I’ve think that it’s paid off, especially when I read comments like yours.

The characters. I like all of them so far! The idea of a druddigon running a bakery is simultaneously amusing and awesome. I enjoyed the Watership Down references to the nidoran family. And as others have said, Pleo is simply adorable. I think my favorite character so far is Elty. His comments make me laugh. And his and Nida's bickering is amusing and fun to read, which is kind of weird to say because often that sort of thing gets on my nerves. But I like the "reluctantly working together" thing these two have. I admit I did feel bad for Elty for all those times he was used as a punching bag in training. I mean, I know he did an awful lot wrong, but I still felt bad for him.

I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying the cast, and if it’s any consolation, Elty gets out of his punching bag phase relatively quickly from where you are.

I'm going to be reading more, and hopefully it won't take me too long to catch up!

Don’t sweat it too much. I’m sure I’ll love the reviews you put up during the process of you catching up.

@windskull

Spoiler

Ahh, Melissa. I remember really finding the idea of porygons functioning as move tutors really neat, especially with regard to TMs. Particularly, I thought it was a really neat, logical way to handle learning a move through a disc, especially in a relatively low-tech world. I also remember it wasn’t until this section that it finally clicked what an “ahp-gred”(If I’m spelling that pronunciation correctly) was. I really do like the way move tutoring and TMs in general are handled in your fic, with them only being the potential, but still needing to be practiced and improved on.

I mean, it did feel like less of a suspension of disbelief than assuming that there’d be detached and working disc drives lying around after untold centuries, or that bopping someone on the head with a TM would give them the power to use a new move. Between that and the canonical depiction of an Upgrade in the mainline games being a disc in a protective enclosure, it seemed like a logical enough evolution.

As for the whole “practice your moves” emphasis, part of that is rule of drama. It’d be pretty boring if Pleo could become an unstoppable force of destruction overnight thanks to the right CD collection lying around.

There’s nothing wrong with information dumps like this in small doses, though I do wonder if this could have come up more organically in the conversation instead of being narrated to us, or even explained later. I remember it coming up a few arcs down the line.

I like the worldbuilding you do with food. It works well, jiving with the idea of how it would probably be weird if all pokemon were sapient, and yet they eat other pokemon without it being weird, but also the fact that pokemon are canonically known to eat each other, it’s a nice compromise, and plays well into the idea of the pact.

Yeah, admittedly bringing up worldbuilding is something that I hadn’t fully refined earlier on in the story, and even now it’s still a learning process. But I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed the stuff set out back in Chapter 10.

I wonder if there’s any reason you chose indigo and lavender for the Empire and Company. Of course, indigo is associated with royalty and lavender is still a shade of purple...

It’s to emphasize that the two aren’t so different from each other in spite of being enemies feuding over a common territory. Given that this is your second pass in the story, you probably can think of a few details offhand of how that’s the case.

Oh hey, is that a reference to Trizano (and possibly others) I see there?

I mean, he was already explicitly namechecked during the chapter with the raid on Tromba, but otherwise yes. ^^

So, thoughts on the episode overall. It was pretty fun! There’s a lot more little worldbuilding tidbits here and there, and I love that we start getting hints at the bigger plot overall. Bad things are about to start happening, and I, for one, look forward to it. I don't really have any criticisms for this section, outside of the couple minor ones I mentioned above. Hopefully I'll be back to review episode 4 before the end of the year.

I’ll be sure to review those, since the grammar ones ought to be fairly straightforward to implement. I’ll be looking forward to the other reviews that come out as part of your second pass of the story.

@Namohysip

Spoiler

Oh look, they finally cut Pleo’s wings. I wonder, is that a symbol that the Imperials respect the gods less than the Company, or at least Lyn, did? I’m gonna keep that one in my back pocket. And hmm, that being said, sending Nida and the others off to do whatever… it’s a bit of a classic tale of getting what they want, and then sending the weaker ones home since they aren’t relevant. They aren’t really in much of a position otherwise, are they?

Well, the Empire not having to deal with Pleo’s home island regularly probably weighed in on that decision. It’s easier to get Tromba to sit down and shut up if you can play your manhandling of their god as “just business” and point out that physically he’s fine, since having to fight your way into port to collect tribute every time undoubtedly gets old.

Hmm, I’m not sure what to make of this way that Nagant is telling the kids to go off. She’s being very cryptic, which would usually suggest that they’re doing something sinister with Pleo, but there wasn’t a whole lot of introspection on it from Nagant’s side. This story is a bit thorough with how much it wants to get into the heads of anybody with a spotlight, so if it’s being conveniently omitted here, I’m not sure if that’s being consistent. And on the other hand, if there isn’t anything truly sinister or malevolent, I don’t really know why Nagant is being so obtuse with explaining to them, at least in vague terms, that Pleo would be fine from her perspective.

To be fair, the very fact that she’s dealing with Pleo isn’t supposed to be public knowledge. I can’t imagine she’d be eager to spill her guts to some peasant kids who should be back at work in a guild or in some fields instead of butting into her mission.

Side note: You use the general phrase “Name verb “at the sight of” event-that-just-happened” very often. Might want to cut back on the repetitive stock phrase.

It admittedly might be a bit late for this chapter, but I’ll keep an eye out for it in the future.

That being said, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge the greatest sin of this epic so far—"Akin, the Rookie Killer.” Don’t think I don’t know what you did.

Would that be the fact that he’s a transparent homage, or the fact that like what he homages, he’s got a real groaner of a name? :3

Also, this chapter has a lot of epithet slip ups. Feels like you guys were trying to shuffle around epithets again to "spice up" the prose but ended up fumbling. "The (name)" instead of "the (species)” and so on Might be worth looking through, even if that might be hard to spot.

I’ll be sure to take some time to go through the chapter and try to hunt them down.

I also have a gripe with one aspect of the plot, and I even went out of my way to ask Virgil about a few specifications, and it indeed just seemed to have happened. Pleo, while rummaging through the library, just… stumbled upon the key decoder, stuffed in a letter, which he then, without emptying or inspecting the contents, just randomly placed a feather inside… and then Cabot, not even checking himself what could possibly be in there, sends it to Team Traveler?

That’s one of the most absurd, looooong line of coincidental circumstances to give Team Traveler exactly what they needed. I had to read back to see if there was some deterministic reason behind it, but… no! Yet, unlike the other times, when it was in Team Traveler’s disadvantage, this one was in a huge step in their favor. Agh. I really hope there’s some kind of Hand of Fate plot device that gets revealed at some point to explain how they manage these feats of coincidences, but even then, aaaaa this one really bugs me. There’s no narrative indicator at all that something was amiss to tide the reader’s suspension of disbelief over, and it was just a stroke of luck.

While there is undoubtedly an element of chance involved, I think that you’re crossing a few wires since it wasn’t intended to be quite as coincidental as it came off to you. The presence of the decoder was because that’s where Pleo and the others saw Coil rooting around, and it made Pleo curious as to if he saw something there. Were it not for Berecien and the others opting to tutor Pleo in the library, that initial discovery would have never happened and Coil would have recovered the decoder without almost getting discovered.

As for Pleo’s lack of reaction to the decoder, it has more to do with the fact as as addressed back in the library, Pleo has next-to-nonexistent literacy, so his primary reaction upon discovering the decoder was less “what a strange letter in here” and more “Oh! I can use this envelope with this colored thingy to let my friends know I’m okay”. As for Cabot… well, that has to do with the fact that the envelope was already sealed and it’s Cabot. If it was Berecien or Niilo tasked to put Pleo to bed, I doubt he’d have even asked them for help in the first place since they didn’t come off as being as friendly as everyone’s favorite naive, starry-eyed idealist. After spending the better part of the day getting close to a childish little fledgling, it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch for Cabot both to be reluctant to blatantly snoop through Pleo’s mail, and to assume that he wasn't up to some sort of nefarious scheme.

I can understand if that comes off as a bit of a contrivance still. But it is what it is, and even in real life, events sometimes happen thanks to a series of improbable events lining up in just the right way.

Overall, I think this chapter was crowded, but overall very good, and finally a step in the right direction to get things moving forward instead of meandering about. Looking forward to episode 12.

Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that, since this is supposed to be the kickoff of the second half of the story, so the paradigm shifts will be coming in fast and thick relative to the first half.

I knew they were frauds—but probably only because, from a meta perspective, it seemed really weird that these heroes of their own story had gone completely unnoticed and unmentioned until now in any significant way. Plus—and I think this was unintentional—even though it was clear that “Riolu” and “Eevee” are common PMD protagonists, and Nuzleaf is a clear shoutout to Super, Eevee isn’t a legal protagonist in Super. Though I talked in private and while that didn’t seem to be the intended nod, I still thought that was a bit entertaining.

Well, you’re not wrong. Albert is indeed a nod to PSMD’s Nuzleaf, though he doesn’t get quite as far as PSMD!Nuzleaf in his ability to make waves in the world.

The other two standout scenes for me were Pleo having fun with mirrors, which was a nice bit of needless fluff that I actually did enjoy reading, and the scene with Darzin. So much for him potentially redeeming himself or something, since now it looks like he’s gone full antagonist, and even roped in a Marked who just wants to relax. I do wonder if you’re introducing too many minor villains from time to time, since they sort of come and go and I don’t really know which ones will get any significant focus. Hope you aren’t spreading yourself too thin with all these guys doing their own thing, since it’s starting to drag the story down in pace again.

I do understand where this concern is coming from, but not too many major villains will be introduced after this and Bunsen’s arc will effectively be done 2 episodes after this present one winds down. So I think on that front I’m good.

I think the fight and the struggle in the dungeon, while dragging on for a while, showed a good sense of frantic panic in trying to find a way out. I think it was particularly impressive that you were able to get everywhere from the upper hand, the underdog comeback, to despair horizon, and the final retreat all in one sequence, all things considered. I think the biggest meaningful takeaway is that Kline is particularly strong when he needs to be, able to give Ketu some genuine trouble.

I’m glad you enjoyed the fight, since Virgil and I put in a lot of work into that scene even relative to past climaxes.

…Unsettled islands? How could there be unsettled islands in this world? Between how small it is and how much people travel, not to mention Water Types in general… Well, either way, an “unexplored” or otherwise uncharted landmass is certainly new. Suddenly I’m more interested in this than anything else… The intrigue of the unknown…

“Unsettled” from the perspective of a non-feral Pokémon. Meaning that there’s no town or “civilization” on it, whether due to being too small or just being too much of a pain to go to and from regularly. There’s a reason the word “uninhabited” wasn’t chosen.

@GastlyMan

Spoiler

WOW it’s been a while since I’ve reviewed! And while I know you have plenty of reviewers already, I’m glad I decided to catch up with this story anyway (I did skip a few specials due to lack of time, but might go back if I have time in the future). I am really enjoying this. How is Team Traveller going to make their way out of this one? And what about those on Tromba? I’m excited to see. I also like how well you’ve been weaving together all the subplots and different groups of Pokémon together. It’s not easy to do, and runs the risk of being complicated or confusing, but you do a great job of avoiding both of those things.

Well, it’s a pleasure to see you reviewing again. I’m glad to hear that everything seems to be hitting the right notes for you, since it’s been a lot of work over the past few years. That said, you might want to go back and read the special chapter sometime, since the main plot does lean on things and events that are introduced in it.

Well, I’m beginning to like Nagant, even if I’m not rooting for her. You do a pretty good job of making villains seem real and not cartoony. Also, I’m glad that they’re finally thinking ahead!

I’m glad to hear that, since sometimes I worry about their reactions coming off as straining credulity somewhat. Though who knows, maybe you’ll wind up rooting for her somewhere down the line.

He has such a great internal conflict and it’s cool to see it develop.

Yeah, Ander may not have been the main focus in recent episodes, but I certainly didn’t forget him. Nor his very particular relationship with the Pokémon his world venerates as ‘Protectors’.

On one hand, not cool. But on the other hand, maybe that’ll be enough reason to let Team Traveller go...?

Anyway, really enjoying the story as it progresses. Keep it up!

You won’t have to wait too much longer for an answer, and I’ll try my best. ^^

I had originally been hoping to have this chapter out the door by Thanksgiving. While that obviously didn’t happen, it’s here and ready for prime-time, along with a trivia section marking getting past the 60k view mark and a couple extra doodles in the pictures section of Cabot and Guardia. The original plans of getting the next chapter out by Christmas are admittedly not going to happen, but I’m still confident that I can at least wrap up this episode by the end of the New Year and mark 2020 with a new arc.

Special thanks for this chapter goes to Virgil134, Tangent128, and the many readers and reviewers who have been keeping the thread humming along for the last month and a half.

And with that, let’s check back in on a certain band of pirates that’s been nosing around Pioppo:

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

On the Mistral Marauder, Hess and his underlings had warily ventured back onto the deck, cautiously watching over the railings out at Pioppo. The crew's wait for Valatos and his companions had gone without incident, as the forests remained peculiarly quiet and the sun moved further and further west. By the time the sky began to lose its blue daytime color, the mood on the deck had turned restless, as impatient grumbles and thumps rang out around the Aggron captain as he peered inland with his scope.

"It's been hours," a Miltank complained. "Shouldn't we have heard something back from them by now?"

"Captain, how long are we going to keep waiting for them to return?" a Vileplume demanded.

Hess let out a sigh of relief that he likely managed to get rid of his Marowak underling, pocketing his looking glass before turning back towards the gathering with a shrug of his shoulders.

"Well, we tried. It's been long enough," Hess said. "I guess we have no choice but to turn off and…"

"Oi! We're back!"

A loud buzz and woosh of air passed Hess' head, prompting him to turn and see Valatos fly by and settle on the railing. The Aggron blinked bewilderedly, before looking down to see Alvise and Nori clinging to the back of a blue Gastrodon with Alfred's missing party. Hess stared as the lot made their way up some netting back up to the deck, where his expression fell into a disappointed grimace.

"… Wait for them to tell us exactly what happened," he groaned.

"Wait, Alfred?" a Drednaw asked. "Is that you?"

"No, it's the King of Conntow," the Charmeleon snorted. "Of course it's me!"

"But how'd you get back from those ghosts?"

The crew continued trading incredulous remarks as they began to drift for the arriving pirates. Alfred and the rest of his group stayed to chatter with their peers who gave disbelieving pokes and prods, while Alvise and Nori hurried to rejoin Valatos at the head of a crowd of curious pirates. Along the way, Alvise chanced to see the Pawniard who singled him out to go scout and pushed him out of the way as a weak jolt came out his fur that sent the Pawniard falling backwards paralyzed. As Nori and Alvise approached, Hess screwed his eyes shut out of annoyance, leaving Rodion to cast a skeptical glance over at Alfred and his companions before turning back to the scouting party.

"Aren't those the deckclaws that went missing?" the Floatzel questioned. "What happened and where'd you find them?"

"Hrmph, those 'ghosts' from earlier were all fakes, that's what!" Alvise spat.

The Manectric's answer drew gasps and threw the gathered pirates into a confused din of questions. After stomping the deck for silence, Hess peered down letting out an impatient growl from the back of his throat.

"What do you mean 'fakes'? Everyone was screaming bloody murder over those ghosts earlier!"

The three shifted a bit at their captain's impatience, before they started telling him about how they came across Elty and some of his teammates shortly after finding the water the crew sent them out for. From there, it was a simple matter of tailing the whelps to a hidden village, where they discovered that some local Ghost-Types had been responsible for the 'ghosts' they'd been running into. All the while, as the trio rounded out their tale by recounting their daring escape in which they freed Alfred's party and effortlessly overpowered the guards and sighted Pleo during their escape, the mood of the crew got more and more surly. At the end of the trio's tale, Hess' maw curled into a bared-fang snarl as he began to realize that he'd been hiding on his ship all day for nothing at all!

"So all this time, we've been had by a bunch of hicks holed up in a glorified cave?!" Hess growled.

"Uh… well yeah," Nori murmured. "But where are you-?"

"That tears it!" the Aggron roared. "Nobody makes the Iron Fleet look like a fool and gets away with it!"

Hess' cry prompted a few skeptical glances from his audience, as a Wimpod from the group blinked and began to speak up.

"But what about our last trip to Andaku when we got- ARGH!"

The Wimpod was summarily cut off by a stomp on his back from Hess, leaving the hapless Bug-Type laying against the deck groaning out of pain. As nearby pirates cast wary glances at their stricken comrade, Hess cleared his throat before turning back to the rest of his crew to speak.

"As I was saying, nobody makes us look like a fool without us doing something about it!" the Aggron insisted.

"Well what are we supposed to do then?" a Cherrim demanded.

"Yeah! They've got a town and everything in there!" a Litten cried.

"We do what we do with any other town. We raid it," Hess said. "We know where it is now and last I checked, that bird we were after was there and we needed supplies anyways! We'll take him along with a bit extra!"

A few scattered ayes broke out in the gathering, while the bulk of the pirates traded dubious looks with one another. Sensing that there remained work to be done to raise his underlings' spirits, Hess stomped the deck, before letting out a bravado-filled roar.

"Tonight, we celebrate our victory on this deck! With their rum!"

The pirates' trepidation quickly vanished as the gathering broke out into ecstatic cheers at Hess' exclamation, leaving Kichiro to shake his head and bury his face in an opened fist.

"… They're just in it for the rum, aren't they?" he sighed.

"Well, sometimes Hess needs to play to his audience," Rodion offered. "No problem in using rum to help with that."

"Let's get going!" Hess bellowed. "That village isn't going to loot itself!"

"Hey, hold up a minute! Those 'mons are incredibly dug in in that dungeon!" Nori protested. "How do you expect us to charge in without them picking us off!"

Hess flinched as he spotted Nori still on the deck ahead of him. The Steel-Type paused and realized the the bone lizard did raise a fair point. Someone would need to go ahead of the rest of the crew to provide a distraction, and he already had the perfect candidates in mind…

"When we get to the Mystery Dungeon, you and your buddies are going to go ahead and cause a distraction for us in town," Hess ordered. "The rest of us will raid 'em while their guard is down."

Valatos, Alvise, and Nori jolted up in shock, stammering out protests as they tried to make sense of Hess' sudden demand.

"B-But there's only three of us and that's an entire village!" Nori complained. "How are we supposed to do anything?!"

"So start a fire or something!" the Aggron huffed. "All that matters is that you're in charge of buying us time, and if we can't make it into town, we're leaving without you!"

The three grimaced and shrank back, Hess ignoring their obvious discomfort to pace up to the edge of the railing and motion for his crew to follow.

"Come on, let's move out!"

A rousing cheer went up as Hess poked into a chest near the tiller for items and clambered down into the water, his underlings getting their own supplies as they began to prepare for battle and make their way for the beach. All the while, Alvise and his companions lingered behind, looking off at Pioppo in the distance as Alvise let out an audible gulp.

"What did we get ourselves into?"



Deep within Pioppo's Mystery Dungeon, Darkwood Square had descended into a state of general disorder after Valatos and his companions' escape. Here and there, Pokémon darted in a frantic rush, some gathering into small groups to prepare to head off into the island's wilderness and face the pirates head on, while others piled up stones and clutter to form barriers in the lanes, and a few who were once from among Valter's guards as a noble dug out old and worn-down sets of cloth and mail. All the while, Valter floated to and fro, shouting out orders as he tried his hardest to move his eye around to keep up with the whirlwind of activity.

"Get those barricades together!" the Dusknoir barked. "I wanted the main entrance blocked five minutes ago!"

As the villagers hurried about under Valter's direction, Team Traveller looked on from beside the wall of a nearby hut. The lot shifted uneasily, as they racked their minds glumly as to how they were to manage Hess' crew invading the town in search of them on top of their troubles of just making it back to the ship.

"It always seems like trouble's right on our tail…" Elty muttered.

"W-Well we can't just stand here!" Crom cried. "We need to do something!"

"Like what?" Guardia asked. "Valter didn't even want to hear from us earlier!"

Kiran looked off at the Dusknoir leader as he finished giving instructions to another group of villagers, hesitating for a moment before shaking his head and digging his feet in determinedly.

"… Maybe we should try again," the Swellow murmured. "Perhaps he'll be more willing to hear us out in a time like this."

The Flying-Type set off, followed one by one by his teammates with Elty trailing half-heartedly at the rear. If he'd only kept his yap shut back on Orleigh, none of this would be happening! He'd never have fought Pieter, and Valatos and his cronies would have never found the village…

He- He needed to get the captain to back off somehow, but how was he to do that when that blasted dragonfly would just blab about everything?!

"Gardie!"

"H-Huh?!"

Elty jolted upright with a yelp, looking ahead to see Guardia glaring back at him and stomping her feet impatiently.

"Are you coming or what?!" the Cubone snapped. "We're trying to convince Valter here!"

The Growlithe shook his head and hurried along, catching up with his teammates as Nida neared Valter, raising a forepaw as she tried to draw the Ghost-Type's attention.

"Um… Valter," Nida began. "We were just wondering if…"

"Can you not see I'm busy right now?!" the Dusknoir insisted. "I don't want to hear your protests right now!"

"But we didn't even get to-!" Crom started, only to be cut off by a sharp huff.

"Enough!" Valter fumed. "As if it's not bad enough that I need to repulse an inva-!"

Before the Ghost-Type could finish, a spinning, white projectile sailed in, clipping the Dusknoir in the face. Valter recoiled with a sharp shout, as an impatient and raspy cry piped out from Team Traveller's midst.

"Will you just let us speak for a moment?!"

Valter rubbed at his face fuming as he looked back at Team Traveller. At the fore was Guardia catching her bone in her claws and scowling at him, with the rest of her teammates staring in wide-eyed shock. The Dusknoir seethed and billowed out black, shadowy wisps about his knuckles, hardening his red eye back in a fierce glare at the bone lizard.

"What is your problem?!" Valter shouted. "You just hit me in the face!"

"That's because we're trying to help you and your colony, you stupid jerk!" Guardia piped.

One after the other, the Cubone's teammates buried their faces into open wings, paws, and the flats of scythes with audible groans. Sensing that she was alone in her willingness to fight, the Cubone blinked, before sheepishly moving her free claw behind her helmet.

"Er… ahehe… perhaps we could start over?" she offered.

Valter glared back in wordless fury and balled up his fists readying for a swing, only for the sound of hoofbeats to approach. The Dusknoir calmed a moment, looking over to see Cernun coming up from behind curiously shifting his attention between the Duke and his audience.

"Valter, what's going on between you all?" Cernun asked.

"We wanted to say that we could help fight off those pirates if you'd just give our badges back and let us call for our friends to assist you!" Nida insisted.

"That's not necessary," Valter harrumphed. "And you're quite presumptuous to think that I'd have a mind to entertain your suggestions after that little episode at the shrine earlier!"

"B-But you're turning the town upside down trying to prepare for Hess!" Pleo cried.

The gathered Pokémon paused and turned their attention to the young Lugia, who faltered a moment before pulling his wings in tight and looking up pleadingly at Cernun and Valter.

"Look, I know that maybe you're not ready to leave here… but we've dealt with Hess before and so have our friends," the Lugia said. "If they knew that you were in trouble, they'd be more than willing to help if you didn't try to keep them here forever afterwards!"

The Dusknoir scowled back sternly at Pleo's plea, only to notice from the corner of his eye that Cernun was glancing over at him with palpable unease.

"Valter, if we're really in that much danger, shouldn't we take their help?" the Xerneas asked. "They haven't tried to boss us around like Kline did, so maybe we can trust them."

Valter paused and remained silent for a moment, his scowl wavering before it dissolved into a sighing shake of his head.

"… Fine, but you'll fight on our terms, and I'm not exactly ready to give you your badges back yet" he replied. "Send a few of your friends out to pass word along with a scouting party. It would only be a short journey back to the beach to notify your companions,

"Understood," Dimitri answered. "I'm one of the best 'mons suited to cut through the brush back to camp. So I can head out and-"

"I'll come too!" Ander offered.

The gathered Pokémon stared as Ander stepped forward, visibly straying to the right to give Cernun a berth. The Scyther tapped the flats of his blades together uneasily, before continuing on in a wary tone.

"You're… going to need some way to convince them we're all okay, right?" Ander murmured. "I was one of the first 'mons taken, so if they see me okay they'll know it's safe to help."

"… Just hurry it up," Valter ordered.

Ander and Dimitri set off to a Hypno gathering with a small party of Ghost-Type Pokémon nearby. The pair made their way over as the group interlocked limbs with each other and the Hypno closed her eyes in focus, before vanishing in a blip of light. Valter stared off after the now-empty space for a moment, before turning his attention back to the remaining members of Team Traveller.

"As for the rest of you, help us prepare for the arrival of these pirates," the Duke said. "If they get away, the secrets we've fought so hard to keep hidden will be all for naught. If you know anything about what we can expect from them… well, the fate of this village could hinge on if we have a way to counter them."

"Right, show us the way, then," Kiran said.

Guardia watched as Kiran and his companions set off, beginning to walk after them when she noticed that Elty wasn't among them. The Cubone blinked and looked behind where she discovered that there was neither hide nor hair of her Growlithe teammate to be seen.

"Nani? Where'd Gardie go?" Guardia asked. "He was right here just a minute ago!"



Shhk-Shhk-Shhk

The sound of rustling bushes and crunching twigs rang out at the fog-wreathed entrance of Pioppo's Mystery Dungeon, as Hess led a small train of pirates with Rodion following close behind. The lot stopped in front of the last row of trees before they stopped growing entirely in the fog, Hess watching the mist shift with the wind before noticing a rough corridor forming ahead and turning towards Valatos and his teammates.

"This must be it. That's your cue, Valatos," Hess said. "The rest of us will be getting ready-"

"You… shall… join… us…"

The pirates turned towards the treeline to their right, watching as a purplish haze billowed out and piled up into three wispy wraiths with glowing golden eyes and disembodied hands. The gathering shrank back reflexively, as Kichiro frowned, flitting forward with an unamused stare.

"… Really?" the Ledian grumbled. "You can't even think of something original to say?"

The ghosts turned to each other for a fleeting moment, before the wraiths floated forward, their hands stretched out with open claws as they approached the pirates.

"Join us… in the Spiri-"

The figures were promptly hit with a hail of rocks, followed by a watery jet, and a barrage of beams and projectiles from the rest of the pirates that kicked up a cloud of dust. As the cloud churned, sounds of weak groans filtered through the air, leaving behind the forms of a Gengar, a Litwick, and a Shedinja sprawled out on the ground. Hess looked over the fainted Ghost-Types, before stepping forward and stomping the ground with a sharp growl.

"Jig's up, gasbags!" he snarled. "Have a small taste of what's coming to your stupid village!"

Rodion paced up, looking over the groaning Ghost-Types with a sharp frown before he turned his head up to his Aggron superior.

"What should we do with them anyways?" the Floatzel asked.

"Hrmph, tie 'em up and keep a few 'mons on watch over them while we fill up the barrels we brought along," Hess ordered. "They've got something to make up for and we could use some more deckclaws anyways."

Rodion quickly hurried ahead with a Croagunk and a Miltank, setting to work binding the Ghost-Types up with belled ropes. In the background, a group of pirates began to roll barrels down to the stream and fill them with water, leaving Hess to turn his attention over to Valatos and his teammates before shoving them off towards the fog of the Mystery Dungeon's entrance.

"As for you, it's time for you to do your part for this gig," the Aggron snapped.

"Th-This is crazy!" Nori cried. "We're three 'mons and they're an entire town!"

"Yeah, just what are we supposed to do when they already know we're coming?" Alvise demanded, only to get answered by the thump of a worn bag being thrown at his feet.

"That's for you to figure out," Hess spat. "Now get moving!"

The Aggron stomped against the ground, calling up a hail of rocks from the earth that he launched at Valatos and his companions. Nori hastily grabbed the bag on the ground before the three bolted off with frightened yelps and barely avoided the rocks, running into the mouth of the Mystery Dungeon's entrance as the fog thickened around them. The three slowed their pace after it was evident Hess wasn't following up his attack and the fog began to thin and the other side of the Mystery Dungeon started coming into view. After a few uneasy steps forward into the dungeon, the lot stopped to pant and gasp for air, Nori shaking his head and stomping his feet in frustration.

"How are we even supposed to start fires like he asked us to?" the Marowak complained. "Alvise here's the only one of us who knows any Fire attacks!"

Nori shifted the bag on his shoulder uncomfortably after he felt a poking sensation through the cloth, prompting Valatos to fly up and pull the cover back to see its mouth full of Blast Seeds and oily rags. The dragonfly and his companions traded looks with one another, before Valatos' mandibles settled into a devious smile.

"… I think we can work with this," he said. "Kom op."

---

At the Siglo Swellow's encampment at the beach, Pat had freshly returned from Tromba with mail and the sailors had begun to stock freshly cleared fire pits with wood as the sun began to pass towards the horizon. All the while, Beatrix and Vicente turned expectantly from the scene to look off at the forest, only to see time and time again that Kiran and his charges had failed to come back. The wait had left the Illumise and her first mate tense and worried, her feelings leaking out to her subordinates as anxious murmurs and rumors floated around in the background.

"… It's been six hours now since they left," Vicente sighed. "Captain, what do you think we should do?"

"We did say we'd wait until nightfall," Beatrix said. "And that hasn't happened yet…"

The Illumise trailed off, looking off at the setting sun as the orange sky seemed to turn a darker, cooler hue by the moment. The Moon Caller's Traveller could already be seen rising from the east, meaning that the nightfall she waited on would be upon them before it finished its westerly course across the sky. The Bug-Type paused, before shaking her head with a sigh.

"Though… perhaps it'd make sense to start putting together a rescue party-" she mused, only for a sharp shout to reach her ears.

"C-Captain Beatrix!"

Beatrix and Vicente grimaced as the sound of a Fraxure's hoarse shout reached their ears from behind, prompting them to whirl around and see Pladur hobbling up clutching at the bandages around his stomach, his red eyes wide and spooked with visible panic. The Illumise fumbled with her words, before finally managing to splutter back with a start at the surprise arrival.

"Pladur?!"

"What are you doing here?!" Vicente cried. "You're supposed to be resting!"

"Wh-What's going on?! Beatrix's been gone from the ship for hours and the Pokémon back on board were saying some of our crew was taken!" the Fraxure exclaimed. "Is Crom okay? He's still here, isn't he?"

Beatrix set her mandibles on edge, letting out a hemming and hawing buzz as she struggled how to answer the Fraxure without sending him off into a panic.

"Uh…" the firefly began. "Well, we were in the process of looking for him and-"

"You…" a ghostly voice rasped.

Pladur looked off in the distance as startled cries rang out from the encampment, his jaw flopping open and his face flushing pale as he pointed off with a frightened whine. Beatrix and Vicente turned around, just in time to spot a massive, violet, ghost exit the treeline as a pair of glowing yellow eyes and disembodied claws sprouted, drifting through the encampment and past Natrix and Philips as the pair looked up frozen in stupified terror and the Servine of the two flushed pale.

"Ah- Aaaah…."

"E-Eyaaaaah! Ghost! Ghost!" Philips shouted. "Everybody run!"

"Calm down a moment!" Dimitri's voice insisted. "It's not real!"

The large ghost abruptly dissipated, revealing the forms of a Gourgeist, a Palossand, and a Shuppet, along with Dimitri and Ander exiting the treeline. The gathered sailors gawked with shocked murmurs, as Vicente and Beatrix hurried up to the pair with stunned stares.

"Dimitri? Ander?" Vicente asked. "What on earth is going on here?"

"It's a long story but there's not any time to explain right now!" Ander buzzed. "The kids are in trouble and the Iron Fleet's going right for them!"

"H-Huh?! What do you mean?!" Pladur demanded. "What's happening right now?!"

---

Back in Darkwood Square, the village remained in an uproar, as barricades were hastily thrown together and groups of villagers were sent off into small squads. In the midst of the hubbub, Kiran and Guardia hurried into a small intersection, looking around at passing Pokémon when they saw Nida, Crom, and Pleo darting up from the other end and hurried up to hail them.

"You three couldn't find Elty either?" Kiran asked.

"We haven't seen so much as a hair of him!" Guardia cried. "I don't really know where else we can try."

Pleo and Crom traded worried looks as Nida shuffled her feet uncomfortably and grudgingly cast her eyes towards the ground.

"We might have a clue where he went to…" she murmured.

"One of the guards at the entrance said she spotted him sneaking off and when she followed him he ran off talking about 'fixing a mistake'!" Pleo exclaimed. "He must've tried to go out of the dungeon and leave here!"

An uneasy silence fell over Team Traveller's other members at Nida and Pleo's explanation. Elty had already snuck off once to rejoin his crew before… could he be doing the same again after everything that they'd gone through together? The scenario weighed upon the five, as Trizano hurried past in the background, pausing at the sight of the group and stepping up with a curious bat of his left wing.

"C'è qualcosa che non va?" the Skarmory asked. "Why do you all look troubled?"

"Our Growlithe friend went outside of the village," Crom said. "We were trying to think of how we could even find him without getting ambushed."

"Eh?! Well why didn't you say so earlier?!" Trizano squawked. "If it's a matter of a missing 'mon, Trizano the Valiant Knight Skarmory would be glad to help!"

"But aren't you needed here at your village?" Kiran asked. "We don't want to be weighing you down-"

"Nonsense, I've carried 'mons the size of that Growlithe and then some before," Trizano insisted. "Besides, a single 'mon wouldn't attract as much attention as a whole party."

"Then let me come with you!"

Pleo and his companions turned out of surprise to see Guardia stepping forward before Trizano, waving her club for emphasis before she pawed at the back of her helmet, realizing that perhaps she was being a touch brash.

"It's just… I think it might help if someone Gardie is more familiar with is there with him," she explained. "Since we don't really know what's gotten into him."

"Fair enough," Trizano replied. "Good luck holding down the fort, everyone."

Guardia hopped onto Trizano's back and the two hurried off for the haze in the distance. All the while, Pleo watched after the pair, before turning his head over to Kiran uneasily.

"… Did we make the right choice?" he asked.

"I mean, Trizano's argument sounded sensible," Kiran reassured. "And we'd genuinely be able to help more here-"

"Oi! Stop standing around and help us keep watch over this entrance!"

The four turned at the sound of a rumbling voice and saw Roteck scowling down at them. After a moment of awkward hemming and hawing, the group followed along to a barricade, where they took up spots overlooking the main entrance into the stable zone. Crom breathed in and tensed his body, looking down warily at his Nidoran companion as his breaths came out tense and worried.

"Do you really think that we're ready?" the Druddigon asked.

"… As ready as we can hope to be," Nida sighed. "Let's just watch each other's back and do what we can. It'll be like a big monster house!"

Crom blinked and let a small smile settle over his maw, his spirits being lifted by Nida's cheer. No sooner than he'd dispelled his worries, the air crackled with a sharp pop, making him grimace and pause.

"… What was that?"

The villagers around them turned and began running off deeper into the stable zone, conflicting orders being barked in confusion. Team Traveller watched as their barricade emptied out, before looking off to see thick, black smoke trailing up from the other end of the village, leaving the four to blanch as a sinking realization came upon them.

"A-Ack!" Kiran squawked. "They're already here!"

---

In the eastern outskirts of Darkwood Square, the forms of a sneering Yanmega, Marowak, and Manectric carried under thick black columns of smoke curling up from straw and wood huts being consumed by spreading flames. Every now and then, Valatos or Nori would throw a Blast Seed, causing a loud burst followed by a fresh column of smoke, while other columns started off slower from Alvise throwing burning fragments of cloth through doors and windows. The trio made their way to the end of their narrow street, looking back at the fiery results of their handiwork.

"Hah! This dump burns easier than a Parasect!" Valatos sneered.

"Hrmph, shame there's nothing of actual value to take here," Nori said. "Here I was expecting some resistance!"

"H-Huh?!"

The three's attention turned to the coughing, wide-eyed form of a Gastly floating out of nearby house, darting clear in front of the three pirates. The cross-pupiled Ghost-Type recoiled with a squeak, prompting Alvise to bare his fangs and approach with a predatory smirk.

"Well, well, well… look what we have here…" Alvise snickered.

"E-Eek!"

"So what about it, champ?" the Manectric sneered. "Feel tough enough to take on this big bad wolf?"

The Gastly backed away stammering, before bumping into a post and falling towards the ground, his nerves quickly failing at the sight of the sparking Manectric drawing near.

"A-AAAAAAAAH!"

The Gastly desperately zipped back up and fled down the road loudly bawling out of fright, leaving Alvise and his companions behind to trade malicious laughter among themselves.

"Pfft! What a joke!" Valatos sneered. "These dorks are even more pathetic than the dweebs back on the crew!"

The three carried on, Valatos blowing a few embers from one of the burning huts onto its neighbors to spread the flames. All the while, Alvise and Nori followed after when the Marowak of the pair abruptly paused and looked off to his right with a puzzled furrow of his brow.

"Hey… Alvise?" Nori began.

"Huh?"

"Doesn't this hut look like that one Haunter with those dweebs who tricked us back at the ruins?" Nori asked. "You suppose this is their base?"

Alvise frowned before going up to the window of the Haunter-shaped hut and peering in, discovering some clumps of straw set out as bedding. The Manectric bared his fangs, fetching an oily rag from Nori's satchel that he bit down on with a fiery bite and throwing it alight through the window. The sound of crackling fire started up as orange flames began spreading outside and pouring smoke out the windows, prompting Alvise to turn back smugly to his teammates.

"You mean it was their base," he retorted.

Valatos and Nori snickered at their friend's reply, watching with glee as the fire spread within the doomed hut when the sound of a startled, ghostly shout from behind cut through the crackling flames.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!"

The three turned to see the forms of a Haunter, Misdreavus, and Drifloon floating up in wide-eyed shock, before their mood took an angrier turn and the Ghost-Types shot back livid glares at the arsonists before them.

"That's our base you just set on fire!" Vince seethed.

"Oh put a lid on it!" Alvise scoffed.

The Manectric began to spark, prompting to Vince grit his maw and dig through a satchel on his body, fishing out a glassy orb filled with yellowish orbs of light. Before the Haunter could raise his orb, he was struck by blue bolts of electricity that made him lose his grip and fall to the ground along with his teammates. Vince and Lisa struggled back up as Cantone remained on the ground unconscious, only for Valatos to swiftly lunge in with a shadowy slash at the Haunter's face, Nori joining in with a strike from his club between Lisa's eyes. The pair listed, drifting to the ground unconscious while Alvise kicked the Totter Orb into Team Phantom's burning base and Valatos let out a triumphant buzz, sneering down at the fallen Ghost-Types.

"Hrmph, not so tough when you're in a straight fight, are you?" he spat. "Consider that payback for earlier!"

"Huh?! How did you three get back in here?!"

The Yanmega's moment of triumph was quickly cut short by a Nidoran's shout and the sound of approaching footsteps and wingbeats, looking over to see Nida, Pleo, Kiran, and Crom having arrived and staring them down with much the same mix of incredulity and indignance that Vince had. Valatos and his companions gave a sharp huff back, shooting taunting sneers at the other Pokémon.

"Tch, there's more than one entrance to this stable zone, prinses," Valatos replied.

"Yeah, we threw a Slumber Orb at the guards at a little back entrance and then we could just walk right in like nobody was home!" Nori snickered.

"You- You won't get away with this!" Pleo squawked. "We're gonna stop you and keep your buddies from making it into town!"

The three pirates dug their feet in and braced themselves at Pleo's outburst in anticipation of a sudden attack when Alvise noticed that Guardia was conspicuously missing from the party. The Manectric's tension promptly melted away, as a malicious grin started to spread over his muzzle.

"Hah, I'd like to see you brats try!" the wolf shot back. "Things will be different this time! You don't have any flour to throw in my face, no ship to throw me off of, and no helmeted ankle-biter to stop me from doing this!"

The Manectric shot out a wide, arcing spread of electricity, which swept up the four and sent them falling to the ground heaving and panting. Nida struggled against numb, wobbly limbs to stand back up, as the sound of Alvise's mocking laughs rang out in her ears.

"Ha ha ha! You really are just a bunch of dweebs without that Cubone to hide behind!" he sneered.

"N-Nrgh… C-Come on, we need to put him down for the count!" Nida said. "Crom! Help me deal with him!"

The Nidoran bounded ahead as her Druddigon partner stumbled back onto his feet with a loud roar, the pair darting from left and right to try thwart Alvise's aim as they charged him when a Marowak's shout cut through the air.

"Hold it right there, you little brat!" Nori cried.

Nida looked to her left just in time to see Nori swinging his club, which struck her in the gut and knocked her into Crom with a yelp. The two tumbled back, prompting Nori to reach through his bag for an orb to use against the pair, only to pull out an oily rag. The Ground-Type blanched, hastily poking his head in where much to his surprise he found that there was precious little in his satchel other than the fire-starting materials he'd seen earlier.

"That useless debutcho only gave us that one orb and stuff to burn things- Ow!"

The Marowak was cut off by a sharp punch trailing orange flecks that caught him in his chin, knocking him back into a wobbling stumble as Crom stormed back into battle. Further in the background, Kiran and Pleo desperately weaved away as Valatos hurled stones from the ground at them, which brushed Pleo from his underside and left him reeling in the air.

"O-Ow!"

"Gah! He closed that gap faster than I thought!" Kiran shouted. "Just hang in there, Pleo! We'll think of something!"

Pleo looked back at Valatos and tried to keep pace with the Yanmega's bobbing and weaving. He needed something to stun the Bug-Type or else he'd just fly away before he and Kiran could do any real damage to him, but the attacks they'd used had just minorly inconvenienced him!

The Lugia weaved around Valatos as the Yanmega charged in, when he remembered Alvise's earlier Discharge… and the Thunderbolt tee-yem he'd learned on Buyeom. With how painful it had been, surely a bolt of his own would hold Valatos at bay! At once, he tensed his limbs, straining with all his might to throw an arc of lightning at the Yanmega, only for it to fail to produce anything other than a few weak sparks in his plumage, much to Valatos' sneering delight.

"Hah! Leave learning moves that don't come naturally to the adults, you overgrown gull!"

The Yanmega lunged ahead with a claw trailing a shadowy haze, prompting Pleo to turn and flee with a squawk and flinch as Valatos bore down on him. Before the Bug-Type's Night Slash could hit its mark, the dragonfly was cut off by a slashing gust of air, sending him back screeching and hissing angrily as Pleo steadied out to see Kiran in front of him wide-eyed.

"Pleo, are you alright?" the Swellow panted.

"Uh- Uh huh…" Pleo gasped.

"Look, just try and stay alert," the Swellow insisted. "Every moment here counts, and if you freeze up like that-"

"Lights out, runts!" Alvise's voice snarled.

Kiran whirled and saw Alvise sparking behind him readying another Discharge. The Swellow at once dove in and flung a whirling wind at the Manectric to interrupt him, sending him tumbling back as the Swellow carried off.

"Mind your head a bit more next time!" Kiran jeered.

On the ground, Alvise got back up onto his feet, watching as Kiran circled around him and grit his teeth with a low growl.

"Pah, lousy feather duster!" he snarled. "Here, have a little parting gift just for yourself!"

A loud, electrical crackle split the air as Alvise let out a bolt of electricity, followed by a pained squawk as Kiran plummeted to the ground with a limp thud. The Swellow's teammates froze and stared with jaws agape, Pleo stammering before letting out a horrified cry.

"K-Kiran!"

A set of jeering laughs rang out, making Pleo recoil as he saw Alvise, Valatos, and Nori drawing near with predatory smirks and their bodies coiled to strike.

"Still feeling lucky, brats?" Alvise sneered. "You all oughta know when you're beat!"

"Yeah, we're really quaking in fear here. What are you lousy runts going to do that your mentor couldn't?" Valatos taunted. "Cry on us?"

"Maybe we'll go easy on ya if you hurry up and surrender!" Nori added.

Pleo backpedaled, shrinking back wide-eyed until he bumped into Nida and Crom standing firm behind him. Their eyes were wide and faces etched with fear, and yet in spite of it all, the Lugia could see that they were still unmoving. The young Protector dug his feet in, summoning all the courage he could muster to stand firm and stammer back defiantly.

"N-No! I'm their Protector!" he cried. "And I'm going to keep fighting for them for as long as I can!"

"Well, you don't need to worry about that," Alvise growled. "This little battle won't be lasting for much longer!"

The Manectric sprang forward with bared fangs, prompting Pleo to jump up and hastily take to the air. Alvise landed on the ground, his paws just barely missing Pleo's tail as he began to spark and ready a bolt of electricity, when Crom spat a Dragon Rage at him.

"Grah!"

Alvise's Thunderbolt sailed off as he reeled, managing little more than to blacken a patch of dirt. Nida watched as Alvise tried to steady himself, running in as toxic droplets began to collect on her right paw. The Nidoran jumped up, swinging her arm down for a Poison Jab, only to feel the air suddenly get knocked out of her lungs as a whirling, white object sailed in.

"A-Agh!"

Nida flopped to the ground, the poison on her arm smearing inertly against the ground as the projectile returned and clipped the back of her head, leaving her stunned in the dirt. The world around spun in Nida's eyes, friend and foe alike running muddy when a piercing scream reached her ears. She forced herself to her feet, looking over to see Pleo's wing being pinned down by a rock torn from the earth and Valatos looming over him with a cruel smile.

"Look at you, trapped by a little rock when you're supposed to be some Protector!" the Yanmega sneered.

Pleo tugged desperately at his wing, freeing it little by little with frightened pants as the Yanmega approached, his tarsal extended and starting to flash flecks of a black, shadowy aura.

"Well that's fine by me," Valatos said. "Let's see your hick friends get you out of this one!"

Pleo closed his eyes as Valatos swung at him, desperately straining his muscles as he gave one last shot at calling forth the Thunderbolt that Alcon tutored him. The Lugia felt warm sparks shoot out and heard a loud crackle along with an ear-splitting screech. Pleo opened his eyes, seeing Valatos lurch away singed with static crackling on his body, before he stalled and fell to the ground much to Nori's wide-eyed shock.

"G-Gih! Alvise! He just took out Valatos!" the Marowak complained.

"Do you think I'm blind?!" Alvise snapped. "Just get it together already!"

Nida, Pleo, and Crom hastily darted away, regrouping at the other end of the lane where they looked back at the still-bickering Marowak and Manectric. Nida glanced at Valatos, realizing that merely catching him off guard had proven enough to defeat him, before shaking her head and casting a determined glance to her teammates.

"Come on!" Nida piped. "We got one of them down! We can take the others!"

"Yeah, but for how much longer?!" Crom asked. "Alvise is still up and can hit us all at once!"

Nida looked back as Alvise and Nori drew near, bracing herself as they approached snarling and ready for battle. Between the two, Alvise was by far the bigger threat as long as he could throw around Discharge as he pleased. On the other paw, overpowering him meant little if Nori was free to just bludgeon them!

… Unless, they could do something to keep Alvise occupied while stripping him of backup.

"Then let's make Alvise think that he's the one we're gunning for!" Nida exclaimed. "Pleo! Give us some cover!"

"Right!" Pleo cried.

The Lugia opened his beak as a glowing orb formed in it, which he spat up at Alvise's chest. Nori watched as his Manectric teammate stumbled back, seeing Nida and Crom beelining for him as he darted over and called out sharply.

"Alvise!" Nori said. "Watch your- H-Huh?!"

Before the Marowak could react, Nida abruptly changed course and ran at him, leaping into the air giving a spinning kick at his belly. The Nidoran landed on the ground, preparing to give a second blow when she was cut off by a Bone Club sprawling her out, knocking her to the ground as Nori glared back with livid red eyes.

"Lousy little spike ball!" he seethed. "I'll beat you into a pulp!"

Nori leapt forward, bringing his club up and swinging it down with an overhead smash for Nida's head. As his bone barreled for the Nidoran's head, it suddenly found its mark against a bluish arm, the Marowak turning to see Crom having rushed in. The Ground-Type snarled, pulling his arm back to swing at his attacker when the Druddigon suddenly lunged forward open-jawed and bit down into the side of his neck. Nori screeched in pain, thrashing and desperately striking at the Druddigon's head as his strength ebbed and he fell forward unconscious, dragging Crom to the ground. The young dragon let go after hitting the earth with a yelp, spitting up scales and stumbling in a light-headed daze as Alvise looked over from chasing Pleo with an incredulous stare, before gritting his teeth and sparking with a disgusted growl.

"Seriously?!" the Manectric snapped. "Do I have to do everything here?!"

Sparks began to build up on Alvise's fur as he let loose a Discharge that fanned out around him, striking Crom and Nida and sending them crumpling to the ground. The pair got up woozily, struggling back to their feet when Crom turned and much to his horror, saw the form of a young Lugia slumped over unconscious further away.

"A-Ack! Pleo!"

"Hah! He'll be easy pickings!" Alvise sneered. "All I've gotta do is get you two out of the way first! And then it's just an easy Escape Orb out of here!"

The Manectric let sparks dance on his fur once again as Nida ran up to try and strike him with another Poison Jab. Alvise quickly sidestepped, prompting Crom to run in with a roaring bellow with his claws drawn for a Scratch, only to feel a warm current flow through his body and freeze up.

"Nrk!"

The Druddigon struggled, fighting unsuccessfully against his newly-paralyzed body as Alvise stepped back out of his reach. Nida instinctively reached for her bag, only to realize that she'd handed it off to Elty earlier in their exploration of the island. The only other bag for the team was with Kiran, who was sprawled out on the ground, with Alvise standing square in the way. Nida's face fell with a grimace, her reaction drawing a malicious smile from her Manectric foe, as he quickly surmised the Nidoran's predicament.

"What's the matter? Don't have a berry to heal your boyfriend?" Alvise jeered. "Well that's a shame for you, because I was just getting started!"

Alvise lunged forward, bounding towards Nida as she remained fixed and wide-eyed. After freeing Pleo from Giotto and escaping from Team Sentinel, they were gonna lose him to these three jerks?! Everything they'd done, all the fighting they'd endured… it was all going to be for naught like this?

No! It wouldn't! She wouldn't let it! Nida dug her paws in, her muscles tensing and her breaths suddenly growing short. All the while, Alvise began to spark, when suddenly, Nida's body became awash with an ethereal white light.

"Huh?!"

The light grew brighter and brighter, Nida seemingly going into a trance as the features of her body melted and reshaped themselves into a growing form with thicker legs, a longer body, and larger ears, dissipating to reveal the form of a Nidorina. Alvise stood stunned at the sudden transformation, only to be jolted back into battle by Nida narrowing her eyes, and lunge forward with a Poison Jab.

"Eat sparks!" Alvise spat.

The Manectric shot forward a coursing bolt of electricity, which flowed through Nida's body and made her screech in pain. The Nidorina's vision grew fuzzy and faint from the electricity wracking her body, the rabbit summoning all her will and newfound strength to force her body in a final lunge where she drove her poison-slicked paw into Alvise's throat. The wolf let out a sharp yelp, tumbling back before he tried to struggle back to his feet, only for his legs to give way from under his body and leave him limply slumped over.

Nida fell to her knees, panting as she weakly looked around the lane of charred cottages. The air was still thick from the smoke of Team Phantom's burning base, its owners sprawled out unconscious in the lane with Kiran and Pleo not far away. Amidst the throbbing of her head, the Nidorina heard the shouts of Pokémon belatedly arriving to fight the fires, and the tired crunch of approaching footsteps, prompting her to look up and see Crom inching forward with a wary, wide-eyed stare.

"N-Nida," he began "You-"

"We- We shouldn't just sit around right now," Nida said.

"H-Huh?"

"The rest of those pirates are still out there. We need to get Kiran, Pleo, and Team Phantom back up and tie those three up before they get back onto their feet!" the Nidorina insisted. "If their buddies walk in on us like this, we're finished!"

"Right!" Crom replied.

Nida hastily darted over to Kiran and opened his bag, letting Crom stick his claws in to fish out a Reviver Seed before making his way over to Pleo. The Druddigon craned down, moving the seed into Lugia's mouth as he looked back at Nida. Moments ago, she was the same Nidoran he'd always known, but here she was standing before him as a Nidorina… and a spitting image of her mother. The Druddigon tried to turn his attention back to Pleo as he began to stir, only to find his mind beset by worry after worry as to whether it was still his friend in the Nidorina's body, or a stranger alike in name only… and how he'd explain everything to the others when they got back…

If they got back…

"I just hope everyone else is doing fine without us…"

---

(Continued in next post)

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Back at the entrance of the Mystery Dungeon, the Iron Fleet's ranks had broken into smaller teams which left the air thick with impatient tension as some of the pirates wondered aloud as to what to expect. At the head of the group Hess peered off into the fog with Kichiro and Rodion, before looking back at his gathered underlings and giving a determined snort.

"Alright everyone, you know the drill," Hess barked. "We move in teams of three and when we make it to the town, we regroup and push through. We don't know how much the Distortion's going to separate us inside, so everyone's in charge of looking out for their own teammates. Are we clear?"

"Aye!"

Hess watched as the gathered pirates roared back enthusiastically, their spirits raised by the prospect of plunder and drink. The Aggron let a grin creep over his maw, before turning back confidently for the dungeon's entrance.

"Heh heh heh… Then let's go pay those runts a little visit-!"

"Captain!"

Hess blinked and whirled around in surprise at the sound of a familiar yipping voice. There, bounding from the bushes to the right of the group was a somewhat rounded Growlithe running out short on breath, a cursory glance revealing to all the gathered Pokémon that it was none other than…

"Eltenios?!" a Litten cried.

"What's he doing here?!" a Wimpod asked.

The shock of the Puppy Pokémon's return drew murmurs and exclamations from the crowd, only for them to be drowned out by a loud growl as Pieter stormed up to the front, flopping and fuming before the Growlithe.

"Grr! You've got some nerve showing your mug around us again!" the Sealeo spat. "Don't think I forgot about how you turned traitor earlier!"

"Oi! Enough already!" Hess bellowed.

The Sealeo abruptly bit his tongue and backed away, leaving the other pirates to cast puzzled glances over at the Aggron captain. Hess plodded forward, giving a wave of his claw as he attempted to soothe the unsettled crowd.

"Look, we've got one of our own here! Eltenios has obviously been through a lot, but I'm sure we can get to the bottom of everything over some rum and loot," he reassured. "For now, let's hear out what he's found out from those hicks, and-"

"Um… actually, about that…" Elty began. "I… I… kinda wanted to take a break from the crew."

Audible gasps followed the Growlithe's words, prompting surprised and confused whispers to filter about the group as the gathered pirates tried to figure out what had caused Elty's sudden change of heart.

"… Did he get hit in the head?" the Litten wondered. "Because that doesn't sound like Eltenios to me."

"Yeah, what sort of nonsense is this?!" the Wimpod demanded.

Others had taken a darker turn following Elty's declaration, their faces hardening into sharp scowls and glares. Among them was Kichiro, who flitted up to Elty batting his fists together with a sharp hiss.

"Sounds like Pieter and his buddies were onto something earlier," he growled. "Knock him out so we can deal with him lat-"

"Enough, Kichiro," Hess snapped, before turning a stern glare down at the Growlithe before him. "Eltenios, explain yourself, now."

Elty looked up at the Aggron's scowling face, before turning and seeing that it was being replicated by all of the other pirates who were present. The Growlithe hemmed and hawed, shifting uncomfortably as he tried to explain himself before his peers.

"Look… I know you all came here because of what I said on Orleigh about the spike ball and her friends needing to go to here-" he began, only to be interrupted by a staticky voice piping up.

"Eh? You did?" a Voltorb pressed. "We weren't thinking about anything like that when we came here."

"Yeah!" a Sandile chimed in. "We got caught up in a storm! We just needed a place where we wouldn't get sunk!"

"H-Huh?"

Elty blanched out of surprise as other pirates chimed in and nodded along with the pair's rebuttal, while a few others vaguely recalled his story but otherwise didn't think much of it. The Growlithe grimaced and pinned his ears and tail close to his body as he realized that his crewmates had come to Pioppo via complete coincidence, and for reasons he was completely unprepared to argue against. The Fire-Type backpedaled uneasily, wondering to himself whether or not he had made a mistake in seeking out his crew when a Floatzel's sharp huff snapped him back to attention.

"Eltenios, we've got a town to raid here!" Rodion grumbled. "Stop stalling and spit it out already!"

The Growlithe stared blankly, frozen with indecision before he shook his head and steeled himself before continuing to plea his case.

"Well… when I initially got caught and stuck with that spike ball's team, I really hated things. They weren't happy to have me around and I wasn't happy to be with them," Elty began. "Maybe it was us saving each others' necks a few times, but.., they eventually started treating me like I was one of them. And, it's not as if they've got anything really valuable to take, so… I was thinking maybe we don't need to pick fights with them?"

"Eltenios, we're still understaffed because of those stupid hicks," Hess growled. "What are you going on about?"

"It's just that bird with them really means a lot to them and their village, and the Company and Empire are both breathing down their neck to get at him as a weapon," the Growlithe explained. "Maybe it's a bit much to actually help them, but considering how we'd be in trouble too if either of those two got their way… maybe it'd make sense to give them a break for a while?"

"Tch, you think I don't know that? That's why we're trying to get him," the Aggron retorted, prompting Elty grimace uneasily.

"… To try and get those captured deckclaws back?" he asked.

"No, we're thinking bigger than that," Hess replied. "Perhaps it's time to stop waiting on the Company or Empire to get a Protector and get one of our own, to look out for pirates like us!"

"Wait," a Pawniard interjected. "But I thought that we were going after the bird because you wanted to get the Council off your ba-ow!"

The Pawniard was cut off by a passing backhand from Hess, before he turned back to Elty. The Growlithe went wide-eyed and began to stammer, wracking his mind desperately for a way to try and talk the Aggron down…

"B-But you can't do that!" Elty cried. "You can't take Pleo like that!"

"And why not? I'm here, so's my crew, and you know where to find him and what he's weak to," Hess snarled. "Sounds like a pretty good reason to me!"

"B-Because… the Empire! And the Company!" Elty protested. "If you got him, what good would it do if they just stole him from us afterwards?! Or another crew! Or-!"

"Eltenios, stop beating around the bush already!" the pirate captain snapped. "You know where that overgrown Wingull is, so give me something to work with already!"

The Growlithe froze and stared for a long, silent moment before he hung his head and closed his eyes with a glum shake.

"… I can't, Captain. They're my friends."

The ground suddenly lurched as Hess stomped his foot and let out a loud, irritated growl, glaring back furiously down at the pup before him.

"Eltenios, me and my crew have been giving you food and drink since you crawled aboard empty-bellied on Nagrobek!" the Aggron fumed. "We're your friends here, not some band of merry munchkins!"

"But they're friends too! Look, I know that there's obviously some bad blood, b-but that can be worked out!" Elty insisted. "I don't know when I'll be able to come back and pull my weight on the crew again, but I just wanted to make sure that they could go back to their home safely first. There's no reason why we need to get in the way of that!"

"Save it! You don't have to worry about your 'friends' fighting each other!" Hess seethed. "You've clearly made up your mind as to who your friends really are!"

The Aggron called up a few stray stones from the earth that he flung over to Elty and landed right in front of him, making the Growlithe jump back with a sharp yip. A chorus of growls filled the air, making Elty fold his ears back and whine as he spotted the other pirates closing in with glares and bared fangs, before looking back to Hess in time to see him lower his head with a fierce scowl.

"If you're really going to pick a bunch of hicks over the 'mons who've looked out for you all these years, then you clearly need a reminder of what you're choosing beaten into you!"

Hess pawed at the ground, and then charged forward, prompting Elty to flinch and screw his eyes shut in anticipation of his captain's crushing tackle when a sharp cry pierced the air.

"That's enough!"

A shout rang out followed by the ground shaking, making Elty open his eyes and jump away out of reflex as he saw Hess tumble past him. The Growlithe backed away, watching as the pirate captain got up sporting a fresh, ruddy streak on his shin when a silvery form flitted in and settled on the ground near Elty, revealing Trizano with Guardia clutching to him who warily looked around before sliding off.

"Pushing around a 'mon a fraction of your size is hardly a fair fight," Trizano said. "Isn't it, Captain Hess?"

Guardia quickly sidled up beside Elty, only to notice stunned gasps going about the gathered pirates. The Cubone tilted her head puzzledly, glancing between Trizano and the brigands as murmurs and agitated growls reached her ears.

"Wait, it's that Skarmory!" a Noibat cried.

"Again?" Kichiro hissed. "Why doesn't that stupid bird buzz off already?"

Guardia paused and blinked at the pirates' reaction, turning her head to and from Trizano and the surrounding Pokémon.

"You all know each other?" she asked, before curling her mouth into a sharp frown and turning over to Elty with a sharp scowl.

"And you didn't tell me?"

"I didn't know him that well!" Elty protested. "And is that seriously what you're most worried about right now?!"

"Grr! You're a thorn in my side as always, Trizano," Hess snarled. "Don't you ever know when to butt out of a 'mon's affairs?!"

"You didn't honestly think that I'd just sit back when your affairs involved my home island, did you?" Trizano scoffed. "I'll just thwart you here like every other time we've crossed paths!"

The pirates began to crowd around, forming a blocking ring around Elty, Guardia, and Trizano. The three braced themselves as Hess dusted himself off, balling one of his claws into a fist as he let out a bellowing roar.

"No. This time it's gonna be different!" the Aggron shouted. "I'll stomp you three into the ground myself!"

Hess stormed ahead for Trizano, pulling his fist back as flames broke out along his claw. The Aggron threw his Fire Punch forward when Trizano abruptly weaved to the side, leaving the pirate captain to swing at empty air and skid to a stop.

"Now!" Trizano cried. "While he's open!"

Trizano shot back with a spread-wing tackle, a glint of light spreading across his wings as he closed on Hess. The Aggron clumsily side-stepped the incoming Steel Wing, digging his feet in as Trizano sailed past him. Hess growled and readied himself for a retaliating lunge, when a Cubone's cry suddenly rang out from his side.

"Take this, metal face!"

The Aggron turned and recoiled at the sensation of a heavy blow breaking across his gut, prompting him to look back at the sight of Guardia pulling her club back. The Steel-Type squeaked and recoiled, flailing with a start as he jumped away wide-eyed from the bone lizard.

"A-Aaaah!"

Guardia raised a brow at the Hess' startled reaction, as Elty charged on ahead, cinders dancing in his mouth as he readied an Ember to spit up…

"Here! Have something to drink!"

… only to be abruptly knocked to the ground by a jet of briny water. The Growlithe gagged and coughed on the ground, prompting Guardia to look and see Pieter sneering as the gathered pirates traded laughs and jeers.

"Hey what the-?!" Guardia cried. "I thought we were fighting against just- Agh!"

The Cubone was cut off by a slash from behind, knocking her forward as she saw a Pawniard draw his blades back to the mocking laughter of the surrounding pirates.

"Well think again, dweeb!" the Pawniard sneered. "You pick a fight with the Iron Fleet, and you deal with all of us!"

Elty staggered back up to his feet panting and shook his head to regain his bearings. Undeterred, the Growlithe ran ahead as Hess swatted at Trizano, dashing up to spit up a spray of cinders into the pirate captain's face.

"Grah!"

Up in the air, Trizano banked hard as he circled about Hess, diving for the Aggron with his wings spread for another Steel Wing.

"You'll never keep up with me swatting at the air like that!" he chided.

"Oh shut it, you overgrown niwatori!"

Trizano turned towards Kichiro's voice, only to be abruptly enveloped by the rings of a Supersonic, making him squawk and lurch in a daze. As the Skarmory reeled, Hess whirled around, sending a well-aimed stone at the confused bird that sent him crashing to earth with a heavy thud.

"Agh!"

"Alright, that's enough fun and games," Hess snarled. "It's time to put you all down for the count!"

The Aggron stomped the ground and crouched as the earth lurched, while stones started to pry out of the ground for a Rock Slide. Elty, Trizano, and Guardia froze as the surrounding pirates jeered at their plight, when a Vileplume at the edge of the gathering turned her head and abruptly jumped back with a startled cry.

"Ack! There's someone in the-!"

Minhwa was summarily cut off by an Illumise zipping in and ramming her with a Zen Headbutt that flung her back with a yelp. Most of the pirates turned in surprise while a Drednaw and a Staravia dashing forward, only to be bogged down by Natrix and Philips bursting from the forest, while the form of an Unfezant in the air carrying Pladur followed. The Fraxure wildly threw out a Sleep Seed, which struck Pieter and left the gathering to descend into a startled uproar. Hess' eyes widened and his jaw flopped open as one after the other, more and more Pokémon in white scarves poured out of the brush and began to battle his underlings, the pirate captain struggling to make sense of the sudden reversal of fortune.

"Hey what the-?!" Hess exclaimed. "How did those Trombans-?!"

"Coming through!"

The Aggron was abruptly hit by a watery tackle that knocked him off his feet and onto his back with a heavy thud. Elty and Guardia blinked incredulously, as it became apparent that the still-dripping figure was none other than Dimitri, with Ander flitting in closely behind him and easing into a fighting stance.

"What are you all doing here?!" Ander cried. "We thought you were in the village!"

"Blame Gardie here," Guardia piped. "He decided to sneak out and blundered into this fight."

"It's… complicated," Elty muttered, before shaking his head. "But first things first, how on earth did you get everyone here?"

Hess rose back up to his feet as Kichiro and Rodion approached from his left and his right, tensing their bodies as they sized up their new foes.

"Hrmph, I see you called the cavalry," Rodion growled.

"Tch, don't you all know when to give up?" Kichiro hissed.

"Grr… reinforcements or not, it doesn't matter!" Hess snarled.

The Aggron bared his teeth, easing into a fighting stance as he let out a bellowing roar that reverberated in the air and made Elty and Guardia recoil with a start.

"We handled the Scyther and his friends on their own ship once, we can do the same here on land!"

"Let's see you back that up!" Ander shouted.

Ander whipped his scythes forward, flinging out a whitish shockwave towards Hess. The Aggron yelped out of alarm, hastily shielding his face with his arms as the Vacuum Wave struck them. The blow made him grunt in pain and sent him stumbling back as Dimitri noticed the Steel-Type was disoriented from his blow.

"Come on!" Dimitri cried. "This is our chance!"

One after the other, Elty, Guardia, Dimitri, and Trizano dashed in, readying their blows for the pirate captain when a Ledian's sharp hiss suddenly sounded out.

"I don't think so, chump!"

Kichiro spread his arms as a faint bluish aura spread over his body and settled on him, similar lights forming and spreading over Hess and Rodion in much the same manner. The light faded away as the three braced themselves, the only sign of any change being a bluish flicker that appeared when Kichiro threw one of his fists into an open palm and glared down at Elty and his companions.

"We're not going to just sit back and make this easy for you!" the Ledian snapped.

Trizano dove for Hess, flying low against the ground only for Rodion to come running up with water pooling about his paws. The Skarmory turned, only for the water to coalesce into a pair of blades. Before he could react, Rodion lunged forward with a cross-slash that sent Trizano tumbling back, forcing a hasty retreat as the Floatzel turned back to Hess.

"Captain!" Rodion exclaimed. "We've got a clear shot to put them on the ropes!"

"Way ahead of you!" the Aggron replied.

Hess stomped the ground and called out a hail of rocks, before flinging them out at chest height at Team Traveller's members. Elty and Guardia dove as the stones caught Dimitri and knocked him to the ground with a yelp, brushing Ander and Trizano as they reeled from the blow. The Growlithe poked his head up, seeing Hess trying to peer through the clouds of dust he kicked up and fail to notice them entirely.

"Come on, bonehead!" Elty cried. "This is as clear of a shot as we're going to get!"

Elty leapt ahead, breathing in sharply before spitting up a spray of cinders at Hess' face. The pirate captain recoiled, prompting Guardia to dash up and leap with her club drawn, smashing it with all her might against Hess' gut only to feel it abruptly glance off with a blue light flickering along where her bone struck, the Aggron reacting little differently than if he'd been struck with a Venipede's sting.

"A-Ah!" the Cubone yelped. "He barely felt my club because of that light thi-!"

"Get off of me!"

Hess swung around, whipping his tail into Guardia and Elty and swatting them away. The pair tumbled to a stop, groaning in a daze as they heard a dismissive snort and saw Hess approaching with his head lowered for a charge.

"It's like you two runts never dealt with Reflect before!" he sneered. "That barely did anything to me!"

Elty and Guardia hastily stumbled up and ran, Hess starting to run after them when he abruptly stopped at the sound of rushing footsteps and saw Dimitri running up with his left scythe pulled aside for a chopping strike.

"Oh no you don't!" Kichiro hissed.

Dimitri looked to his left just in time to be struck by a high-pitched pulse that distorted the air in rings, leaving him to lurch and swing at empty air. The Ledian gave a taunting jeer from the side when a loud buzz prompted him to hastily flit aside just as a Scyther's blade zipped past him, forcing him to hurry out of Ander's reach. Further away, Elty and Guardia watched Dimitri continue to struggle in his confusion, their attention turning to Rodion as he forced Trizano off with a jet of water. Hess gave a knowing glance over to the Floatzel, and lowered his body into a crouch with a low growl.

"Rodion!" the Aggron shouted. "Stay on your toes a moment!"

"Right!" the Floatzel nodded back.

Rodion cast his arms out as Trizano dove at him, forming a barrier of light that the Skarmory crashed into and glanced off with a surprised squawk. Elty looked over at Hess as he saw him brace his body and plant his feet into the ground, making him go wide-eyed as he recognized the pirate captain to be preparing nothing less than an Earthquake.

"G-Gah! Not so fast!"

The Growlithe darted up and spat up a cone of bluish-white flames that settled on the hide of Hess' right leg. Hess grimaced as he brushed the flames off of a now-reddened and burnt patch of his leg, before glaring and letting out a sharp bellow.

"Let's see you all handle this!"

Hess jumped up and slammed his legs into the ground with a violent tremor that churned the earth. Elty watched as Ander hastily flitted up with a yelp, and turned to run with Guardia when the ground lurched up and sent them flying into the air before falling down facefirst. Elty let out a sharp yelp as he crashed onto the ground, panting haggardly as he heard Dimitri screech in pain and saw the world around him grow muddy and indistinct. The Growlithe tried to struggle to his feet, only for them to give way and leave him slouched on the ground, barely able to lift his head as he heard the din of battle in the background.

A dull thud pricked Elty's ears, followed by another with the sound of wingbeats. The Fire-Type looked ahead, where suddenly he noticed the forms of two Oran Berries, Guardia dragging herself over before looking up at the sky.

"H-Huh?" Elty stammered.

The Growlithe weakly followed Guadia's gaze, spotting the form of an Unfezant flying overhead with a tusked figure clinging to its back. Elty strained his eyesight and saw that it was none other than Pat and Pladur, the Fraxure calling out to him from the Unfezant's back.

"H-Hang in there!" Pladur cried. "Don't give in just yet!"

"R-Right!" the Growlithe answered.

Elty and Guardia stumbled forward and ate their berries as Pat returned to engage the other pirates, rising back onto their feet as the fruits filled their bodies with newfound vigor. The Cubone of the pair looked back to see Trizano being swatted away by Hess, the Skarmory's blows having left little other than brief bluish flickers along the Aggron's hide.

"Gah! How are we supposed to hit through that thing?!" Guardia exclaimed.

Elty tilted his head before giving a sighing shake of his head back.

"As long as it's still around, you'd need to hit it with something that's not a physical blow," the Growlithe said. "Not that I'm exactly great with those."

The two looked over to see Hess pulling a claw out of his bag, before looking around with an embarrassed grimace. The sound of buzzing cries turned the pirate captain's attention upwards, noticing Kichiro weaving around slashes by Ander in the air, prompting him to call out with a flustered mumble.

"Uhh… Kichiro? You wouldn't happen to have something for this burn would you?"

"Oh for crying out loud!" the Ledian hissed. "How on earth do you not have anything to treat that?!"

Kichiro's scolding was cut short by a loud screech as his Scyther opponent lunged at him, prompting him to pull his arm back and drive a punch crackling with electricity square into the mantis' face that sent him falling to the ground stunned. As Ander struggled to regain his bearings, Kichiro turned away, throwing a Rawst Berry with an annoyed huff towards his Aggron teammate.

Elty blanched, watching Hess bit down on the berry's tip and begin to smear it across his burn. Whatever they could do to turn the tide of battle, it would have to happen soon. It wouldn't be long before Hess healed himself back to his former strength, while still hiding behind the protection of Kichiro's Reflect. And if Dimitri broke it, that blasted Ledian would just put up another!

… Unless Kichiro wasn't there to maintain it!

"We need to get Kichiro down for the count somehow!" Elty piped. "As long as he's up, he can just use Reflect again once this one dissipates!"

"How are we supposed to do that when Ander can't keep up with him?!" Guardia cried.

Elty turned his mind to Kichiro and grimaced. Even with his weakness to fire, he was still the third-strongest member of the Iron Fleet, hard to hit in the air, and capable of throwing a mean punch. If he saw them coming, there'd be no way they could overpower him before he put up another Reflect! They'd somehow have to keep him from putting Reflect up…

"Is that all you've got? You hit like a little grub!"

Elty turned his head at the sound of a sharp hiss and saw Ander and Kichiro staring each other down, the Ledian letting out a seething hiss as he cocked his fists back and glared daggers back at the Scyther.

"Tell me the last time a 'little grub' did something like this to you!"

The Growlithe watched as Kichiro dove after Ander, swinging wildly as a spark of inspiration came over his eyes. Kichiro had always had a short fuse when he was on the Iron Fleet, and with his temper as hot as it was, they didn't need to keep Kichiro from using Reflect. Why, with a little prodding, he'd do it just as well himself!

"I think I might have something," Elty murmured. "Come on, let's get Dimitri back on his feet!

Elty and Guardia hurried along, running for Dimitri just in time to see him strike himself with the flat of one of his blades in his confused state. Guardia held out her club and gave him a bat across his head, making him jump and shake his head with a start with newfound lucidity.

"Gah! I'm here! I'm here!"

"Great, we'll need it," Elty snapped. "Look, we're sunk as long as Hess and the others can just keep hiding behind that Reflect. I'll do my part to distract Kichiro, but you need to smash that thing to bring Hess and Rodion back down to normal!"

"But we're already having trouble fighting them normally!" Guardia protested. "How are we supposed to deal with them when they're hurting us faster than we can hurt them back?!"

"So put some more oomph in it!" Elty cried. "You learned Swords Dance from that tutor, didn't you? So use it here!"

The pair looked over to see Hess gobbling down the pulp of his Rawst Berry, turning and lowering his head with a low growl. Dimitri braced himself and raised his scythes, digging his feet into the ground as he called down to Elty.

"Here goes nothing! You two just make sure that this works!"

Dimitri lunged forward, running ahead as Hess charged with a roaring bellow as he brought a scythe back and shot it forward with a stiff chop. The scythe hit through the bluish light and hit Hess' hide, the Aggron getting sent stumbling back as the Reflect around his body abruptly dissipated, the same happening to Rodion and Kichiro as they looked down at their limbs with a start.

Guardia watched as Elty took off running after Dimitri, while the sound of cries overhead alerted her to Trizano and Ander passing overhead to engage Rodion and Kichiro to her right. The Cubone inhaled sharply, closing her eyes as she tightened her grip on her club.

"Alright… deep breaths."

The bone lizard swung her club out, spinning and jumping with a frenetic dance that made her blood pulse. She dutifully tightened her grasp on her bone, keen to keep control of its movements unlike her past attempts with her technique before she came to a stop with a stamp of her foot. Guardia paused a moment, feeling her breaths come out heavy, her eyes brightening in realization that at long last she'd finally mastered Swords Dance!

"Gah! Get off of me, you overgrown crab!"

Guardia's moment of triumph was quickly cut short by a sharp cry from Hess followed by the sight of Dimitri being struck by a steely swipe from Hess' tail, sending him sprawled out onto the ground much to Guardia's alarm.

"Dimitri!"

As the Kabutops reeled, Ander was knocked back by Kichiro striking him with a Thunderpunch, his attention quickly turning to Dimitri as he lolled and groaned struggling in a daze to get back to his feet.

"Rodion! Keep these two busy a moment!" the Ledian shouted. "I'm going to put our little Brick Breaker down for the count!"

Kichiro wheeled and dove for the Kabutops, drawing his arms back for a crackling punch when a taunting yip reached his ears.

"Oi! Kichiro! You're not seriously running away and letting Rodion carry you, are you?"

The Bug-Type whirled, stopping to see Elty bouncing back and forth before shooting a sharp glare back at the taunting Fire-Type.

"It's Keiichiro, you useless mutt!" the Ledian spat.

"Yeah? Well what are you going to do about it, Kichiro?" Elty retorted.

The Growlithe stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry, making Kichiro turn with a loud hiss, his attention now fully diverted from Dimitri and onto a single, overriding priority:

"I'll knock you into next week, Elty!" he snarled.

The beetle lunged for Elty, pulling back his fists ready to throw the opening volley of a Comet Punch. The Bug-Type threw his upper left arm forward, sailing for the Growlithe's face only for him to jump back and leave the Ledian swinging at air.

"Hah! Your aim's as bad as your banter!" Elty jeered.

The dog vaulted forward with a fiery somersault, striking Kichiro with a pained screech. Satisfied with his blow, the Puppy Pokémon tried to turn to fall back, only for a blow to hit the back of his head and knock him forward, followed by another that struck him in his gut.

"Agh!"

Elty pitched forward face-first into the ground, gasping for air as he looked up and saw a seething Kichiro hovering over him before diving with his upper right fist drawn back.

"Let's see you banter this-"

Elty flinched as a hail of stones suddenly sailed by, sweeping up Kichiro and sending him plummeting to the ground unconscious. The Growlithe looked over to see that the stones had come from Dimitri having used a Rock Slide, which similarly drew the attention of a now-livid Hess and Rodion.

"Oh, you're gonna pay for that, chump!" Hess bellowed.

Elty felt himself get pulled up by Guardia as the pair turned and watched in horror as Hess jumped up for an Earthquake. The pair froze, watching as the Aggron fell back to earth when they abruptly felt themselves get yanked up into the air as the earth jolted up in cracked shards and clods of dirt flew up from below.

"A-AAAGH!"

Elty dangled precariously as he heard a loud scream and looked down to see Dimitri toppling over amid the cracked and torn ground, when the force carrying him suddenly threw him up. The Growlithe yelped and he heard Guardia similarly cry out, the two landing on something metallic and hard to the touch. Elty cracked his eyes open and saw Guardia next to him, with Trizano's head craned back smiling at him.

"I could use some help from up here!" the Skarmory exclaimed. "We've got the vantage point, but it won't mean much if we can't do anything with it!"

A steaming jet of water suddenly flew in, prompting Trizano to pull up abruptly and Elty and Guardia to latch onto his body for dear life. In the process Guardia's eyes drifted down, which made her eyes to shrink to pins as she spotted the ground far below her.

"A-AAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The Cubone dug her claws tighter into Trizano's back, clinging tight and whimpering as Trizano evened out, giving a grimacing shake of his head.

"I should have anticipated as much bringing a Ground-Type this far up," the Skarmory murmured. "But you must fight through this fear of yours!"

"E-Easy for you to say!" Guardia snapped. "You're not the one that'll get smashed if you fall from here!"

"No, but my village will be!"

The Cubone looked up, staring with a startled gasp at Trizano's head. All this time, amidst her fright of the height she was at, it hadn't occurred to her that Trizano too would be frightened at this moment. Trizano shook his head, before banking hard as a hail of rocks zipped past his wings.

"Just think of everyone that's counting on you!" the Skarmory insisted. "Use that strength to charge through those fears!"

Back on the ground, Ander pulled Rodion aside from his shots at Trizano, the Scyther swinging a blade that nicked the Floatzel's arm and made him jerk it back with a sharp yelp. The Water-Type's cry drew Hess' attention, prompting him to turn and charge ahead at his ally's attacker.

"Oh no you don't, you lousy bug-! Agh!"

Hess' attack was abruptly cut short by a Stun Seed zipping in, cracking against the back of his head as small sparks danced along his hide and his limbs froze in place. From above, Pladur and Pat flew by, calling out to Trizano and his passengers as they passed one another.

"Now!" Pladur shouted. "While he's bogged down!"

"We're gonna need to work together for this!" Trizano cried.

"I've got you covered!" Elty exclaimed.

Blue sparks began to dance on Elty's paws, as he swiftly tagged Trizano and then Guardia, wreathing their bodies with a bluish aura that settled and subsided. The lot drew in sharp breaths as the Helping Hand faded away, filling them with newfound vigor as Trizano beat his wings and pulled his body up.

"Alright, hang on!"

The Skarmory dove forward as Pat and Pladur hastily harried Hess with a thrown Gravelerock, spreading his steely wings as a whitish glint formed along their edges and he flattened out low against the ground. Trizano rammed Hess before pulling up, prompting Guardia to whirl around and throw her club in a spinning arc. The Bonemerang carried on, striking Hess in his arm before coming around and striking him again in his face, sending him reeling back with a wide-eyed yelp.

"R-Rodion?!" Hess whined. "How is she hitting this hard?!"

Further away, the Floatzel bit down on Ander's wings with ice-coated fangs that froze them over, slashing him away with a Liquidation before turning back to Hess and crying out back to the startled captain.

"Uspokoysya! Just focus on keeping your attackers in one place!" Rodion insisted. "They can't do much if they can't move around!"

Hess looked up, watching as Trizano and Pat circled around and began to make their way back. The Aggron snarled and narrowed his eyes into a determined glare, still smarting from wounded pride from his earlier attack cut short.

"In that case, I've got the perfect thing to take out a couple of birds at once!" he cried.

The Steel-Type stomped the ground, calling up stones from the earth that he hurled up into the air. Pat squawked and wheeled back, only to be struck from below and get launched with Pladur into a nearby treetop. Trizano hastily pulled up, feeling a spray of stones strike his underbelly and knock him back, pitching Elty off who looked down and saw his feet dangling in the air and the ground fast approaching.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

The Growlithe curled up his body and screwed his eyes shut when he felt claws latch onto his shoulders, pulling him up abruptly as he looked and saw Trizano grabbing onto him with his talons.

"I've got you! I've got you!" the Skarmory insisted. "That makes two passen- Huh?!"

Trizano looked back in alarm to see that Guardia was no longer on his back, seeing her lurching and falling towards the ground right above Hess.

"Guardia!"

Much to Trizano and Elty's surprise, while Cubone clutched onto her club for dear life, she did not cry out as she fell. With a glimpse of determination in her eyes, the pair watched as the Cubone maneuvered her body to place its full weight behind her club, swinging it for Hess' fast approaching head between his eyes.

"AAAARGH!"

The Cubone bounced off of the Aggron's snout, tumbling onto the ground gasping as Hess toppled back with a bellowing roar. Guardia tried to rise to her feet, only to feel her limbs ache and wobble, leaving her to tumble dazedly as Hess righted himself clumsily and started to plod ahead.

"Hang in there!" a Skarmory's voice cried

Guardia looked up, seeing Trizano swooping in with a whitish glint on his wings and Elty clinging to his back, readying embers in his muzzle. The pair shot forward, when a jeering shout broke through the air from below.

"Here! Stick around a bit while you fight!"

Elty looked down just in time to see Rodion spit up a jet of water that broke against Trizano with a cloud of steam. The pair flinched as droplets of scalding water nipped at their hides and Trizano lurched with a pained squawk, the steam clearing to reveal a fresh burn poking between the feathers of his right wing. Elty latched on as his Skarmory companion flew lower to the ground and struggled to stay airborne, only for a hail of rocks to rip out of the earth and strike Trizano's breast. The Immortal shot up and pinwheeled, throwing Elty off to the ground tumbling away from the Skarmory with a yelp.

On the ground, Elty laid limply on his side and watched his surroundings ebb in a blur as the shouts and cries of battle came indistinctly. He rolled onto his feet, staggering up as he looked over, seeing Trizano grounded and slashing desperately with his good wing at Hess as he harried him with tired but heavy swings. Further away, Rodion was drawing near, Ander trying to stop him only to be thwarted by his frozen wings weighing him down. Elty grimaced, folding his ears and pulling his tail in tight as he struggled to see how the battle could be going any worse when he noticed that from his position, there was a clear line of sight to attack Hess. The Growlithe stared for a moment when the sound of coughing and gasps reached his ears, turning his attention to Guardia as she approached limping along against her bony club for support.

"N-Ngh… that Trizano really gives terrible advice," she wheezed. "I can barely see straight from everything spinning."

"Can you still throw?" Elty asked.

"Uh- Uh-huh."

"Then throw that bone of yours at Hess!" the Growlithe insisted. "We've got one shot at this!"

Guardia nodded back weakly, struggling back onto her feet while leaning against Elty for support before she threw her club into a spinning Bonemerang, which carried on until it found its mark square on Hess' flank.

"AUGH!"

The Aggron flinched, instinctively covering his side as Guardia let go and fell to the ground, throwing an arm up to retrieve her bone on its returning arc while Elty dashed forward faster and faster as fire began to wreath his fur. The Growlithe leapt up, somersaulting forward into a Flame Wheel as Hess shook his head and turned back for battle.

"Hey what the-?"

The Steel-Type was cut off by Elty barrelling into his face. The Growlithe felt his feet brush up against Hess' metallic head, prompting him to vault back and jump towards the ground. The Growlithe looked up, watching as Hess tottered before stumbling and falling forward face-first, prompting the Puppy Pokémon to hastily dart out of the way with a yip as Hess' body hit the ground. Elty panted, instinctively turning to flee from the Aggron when he heard an incoherent groan come from the metal lizard's throat.

"Huh?"

The din of battle settled down as the gathered Pokémon, both the pirates and the sailors stopped and gaped at the fallen captain. The members of the Iron Fleet blanched and grew wide-eyed, as startled cries went out among their number.

"C-Captain Hess!" a Hoppip cried.

"Th-This wasn't supposed to happen!" a Litten whimpered.

"Now!" Beatrix shouted. "Press your advantage while their leader's down!"

The Siglo Swellow's crew broke into a rousing cry as they threw themselves back into battle, Elty and his companions running ahead to join them as Rodion swatted aside a Timburr and beelined to Hess. The Floatzel rifled through a satching, fishing out a Tiny Reviver Seed that he slipped into the Aggron's throat, leaving him to stir weakly and raise his body clutching at his head.

"Ow… feels like I just got hit by a ship…" Hess groaned. "We at least put those dorks on the run?"

"Uh… about that…" Rodion said.

Hess looked back to see his underlings still fighting with the Siglo Swellow's crew, having been penned back along the path back to the beach, a few of their members turning and fleeing back for the ship entirely. The Aggron wobbled back up to his feet, stomping out to the head of the remaining pirates and letting out a bellowing roar as he stomped the ground and braced his stance for an Earthquake.

"Nrgh.. I'm not going to stand for this! We've got some unfinished business to settle!" he shouted, only to be answered by Dusknoir's voice.

"Hold it right there!"

Hess looked off at the treeline and saw the sight of shadowy figures approaching through the brush, revealing the glaring forms of a Dusknoir, at the head of a large crowd of Pokémon with cross-shaped pupils.

"As the leader of Darkwood Square, this is as far as you go!" Valter hissed.

Anxious gapes and stammers went about the gathered pirates, Hess and Rodion grimacing as they sized up the new group and realized they were both outnumbered and hemmed in in an inferior position. Rodion pawed at Hess' shoulder, leaning in and giving a tense whisper up to his earholes.

"I think this is the cue to turn tails, Captain," the Floatzel advised.

Hess dug his feet in blanching, feeling his limbs ache as he watched the gathered defenders advance. Seeing the path clear behind him, he wavered a moment, before reluctantly calling out to his underlings.

"Ngah… C-Come on everyone! We're getting out of here!"

The golden-scarved pirates turned and fled, tearing down the path in hasty retreat. Valter billowed out shadow, rushing ahead as he called out to his fellow villagers.

"Penso di no!" the Dusknoir cried. "Everyone, pick off whoever you-!"

"Oh just can it already!" Hess shouted.

Hess spat up a great orb of water onto the ground, swiping the top of it with his tail and sending it forward cresting into a wave. As the Surf crashed down, the Aggron hastily ran off, allowing the wave to carry on in his absence into the crowd of defenders with a chorus of shouts and yelps. Among them, Elty and Guardia were caught up in the deluge, getting knocked to the ground gagging and coughing up water as the pair stumbled back up to their feet.

"A-Agh… That Bossgodora packs quite a punch…" Guardia wheezed.

"Wh-Where's he now-?" Elty began, only to abruptly trail off. "Huh?"

The Growlithe looked up to see a few last stragglers from the Iron Fleet retreating with fainted comrades, including Hess running off with one of his earlier water barrels held over his shoulder. The pirates carried on, hastily abandoning the bound Ghost-Types from earlier as the gathered villagers threw attacks after the fleeing pirates, only for them to slip away into the bushes. A few of their number hurried along, beginning to give chase when Cernun's voice suddenly pierced the air.

"Stop!"

Sailor and Immortal alike turned at the sound of nearing hoofbeats to see Cernun approaching from the rear. The Xerneas looked off at the treeline anxiously, before lowering his head and looking away.

"Too many of them have already seen us and gotten away," Cernun said. "We're better off taking care of our wounded than dragging out a pointless fight."

The villagers shuffled and drifted off from their positions uneasily, turning their attention to the unconscious and wounded among their midst, including Trizano making his way for Dimitri on the ground. Through the shuffling masses, Pladur hobbled along with Pat, making their way over to Elty and Guardia where the Fraxure stared them down with wide, frightened eyes.

"Y-You're Crom's teammates aren't you?" he stammered. "Where is he? Is he alright?"

"He's fine," Cernun reassured, pacing up with a nod of his head. "He's back in the village with his other friends."

"O-Oh Travellers above, he's okay!" Pladur exclaimed.

The Dragon-Type's voice hitched as he started to cry, Elty and Guardia patting him to try and calm him as Ander watched uneasily. As the Fraxure sniffled and dribbled relieved tears, the Scyther noticed Cernun's head had drifted towards the ground with his ears folded back glumly. Ander hesitated a moment, before he breathed in and after summoning his courage, inched forth and warily spoke up.

"Is… Is everything alright? You seem troubled," he said. "Isn't this something you should be happy about?"

Cernun looked up at the Marked warily, pausing for a moment before he gave a sighing shake of his head.

"It's just… this is so much more of a mess for us to deal with than I thought it'd be…" the Xerneas muttered.

"What do you mean?" Guardia asked.

"It'll take a while to explain, but for now let's get back to the village," Cernun insisted. "There's still some loose ends to take care of."

---

Author's Notes:

- Kom op - Dutch: "Come on"
- C'è qualcosa che non va? - Italian: "(Is) Something wrong?"
- niwatori (鶏 / ニワトリ / にわとり) - Japanese: "chicken" (Hepburn Romanization)
- Uspokoysya! (Успокойся!) - Russian: "Calm down!" (BGN/PCGN Romanization.)
- Penso di no! - Italian: "I don't think so!"

 

[GastlyMan]

Great chapter! And I’ll be getting to those special chapters that I missed pretty soon.

"Well… when I initially got caught and stuck with that spike ball's team, I really hated things. They weren't happy to have me around and I wasn't happy to be with them," Elty began. "Maybe it was us saving each others' necks a few times, but.., they eventually started treating me like I was one of them. And, it's not as if they've got anything really valuable to take, so… I was thinking maybe we don't need to pick fights with them?"

He’s coming around! This is awesome. You’ve done a great job so far with his character progression. This turnaround doesn’t feel cheap — it took Elty a long time to get to this point, but there were little bits of improvements along the way. And I really have enjoyed watching that.

I loved seeing Nida evolve, and the narrow victory against the pirates. I am curious to see what Cernun and Valter do now — will Team Traveller still be stuck there?

Keep it up!

 

[Ambyssin]

This was a very long battle chapter. I read it during my chemo procedure... which yielded mixed results on my end. To me this felt like the story doing its version of Best Wishes!Team Rocket. I.e. taking what were previously the comic relief baddies and making them more of a force to be reckoned with. Best Wishes got episode arcs purely dedicate to the gang trying to thwart a Team Rocket operation and that's exactly what I was thinking of during the whole battle for better or worse. Now, if this was going to be the Iron Fleet's last hurrah, I'd say it was great you gave the whole crew their moments in the spotlight... buuut we all know they're going to be back again at some point, so I can't help but feel all of the fighting veered toward being unnecessarily long. I think the part with Hess was more interesting because Trizano really used the terrain (and his wings!) to give the battle some nice verticality to it. And, of course, Guardian doing a superhero landing on Hess was just... mwah. [chef's kiss gesture]

But I think, given how many scraps this fic has had so far, you might've been better off changing things up a bit and having Team Traveler and the townsfolk working to stop the fires from spreading. You've done so many battles, that a different type of conflict would be a nice change of pace. It's a bit too late for that, though. XD My big recommendation for future large battles with lots of fighters is that you try to tone down your epithets. Sometimes it was hard for me to follow what was going on because you kept substituting things like "the Puppy Pokémon" for Elty. I suggest sticking with names and pokémon species to avoid confusing readers.

Battles aside, I'm glad Nida got to evolve! Since the pirate trio has been a recurring rival group of sorts, I guess it's fitting that she'd evolve against them. Hopefully this is a preview of what's to come for some more of the characters and we'll be seeing them getting even stronger. I also liked Elty showing that he has grown attached to Team Traveler (he and Guardia are down the "fire-forged friendship" path) to the point where he tries to get the pirates to back off. And it's funny that none of them really try to question Hess' motives. Allying with the Trombans could be a good move for Hess' crew, but he's too prideful to accept it.

"That tears it!" the Aggron roared. "Nobody makes the Iron Fleet look like a fool and gets away with it!"

What are you talking about? Everyone makes the Iron Fleet look like—

"But what about our last trip to Andaku when we got- ARGH!"

Somebody give this guy a raise!

"It always seems like trouble's right on our tail…" Elty muttered.

Elty would be good at fan fic sins.

"Valter, if we're really in that much danger, shouldn't we take their help?" the Xerneas asked. "They haven't tried to boss us around like Kline did, so maybe we can trust them."

Finally, we're getting a reasonable voice of authority

"Hrmph, tie 'em up

Couldn't the ghosts just go incorporeal and phase through the rope?

"… I can't, Captain. They're my friends."

POWER OF FRIENDSHIP LET'S GOOOOOOOOOO

 

[Venia Silente]

Breaking news, after a bit of prodding from @Virgil134, I managed to continue working on the rest fo Ch. 58 review and some of 59 that had pending.

Admittedly in order to do this one I had to go to the AO3 version, not Serebii, because for stories that go really long-winded and are also intersparsed with commentary posts, the forum format legibility scales rather badly. Ont he AO3 version, I can find my way around the scenes and what parts of the story I am comparing much better.

And good thing because I had to start with tracking Cromteam fight. Which... honestly, had no right to go anyway other than how it went.

Kiran: "Stay sharp and focus on the foe that suits your fighting style best!"

Rather losing move right there. In tagging matches, in particular when you are not in the highest performance brackets, all that nets you is that you reveal your skills earlier both to the current opponent who can switch, and to later opponents. But hey at least it gets them moving.

Of course two seconds later Crom crashes hard because he did not do the homework previous to the matches, and he does *not* have the excuse of going on for a sidequest like Nida has, and makes an embarrassment of himself by running off like a scared child at the first countered attack. Way to celebrate finally learning Dragon Rage.

Yup... Crom. This section starts with not being his day. He's gonna needs lots of hugs and kisses and snuggles from Nida ain't he. Hopefully the type chart mechanics in the Fledglignsverse function any close to what they do in the Suocéverse and Crom can switch to physical to overpower his new opponent.

The others... were not doing any much better. Dimitri falls to near exactly the same trap as Crom did except he got a bit more progress in his sequence; but Paralysis is a treacherous and flicky thing and I'm pretty sure this won't be something that you can just wait out. Oh and he gets mobbed on for good measure. Good job managing that one, Kiran.

Darth Sidious: "Now, at the end, you pay the price for your lack of clarividence."

More like lack of training general really. I have a forest where one of your Druddigon has already gone to sign up to some Pokémon colony equivalent of SWAT training and Crom could certainly use the exercise considering the number and rank of boss battles coming up in the future. As for Dimitri I'm not really pinning blame on him, in an event like this status ailments can get even the best of us.

Crom inducing a change of strategy was a good idea, certainly. I'm actually surprised that Team Mirage would not have something cooked for this scenario specifically.

"Gah! It was a feint-!" the Mimikyu exclaimed, only to be cut off with a loud squawk.

Hmmm perhaps they overoptimized their strategy to keep the enemy team split apart and basically they doomed themselves the moment two members ganged up on Dimitri.

Dimitri would have been long lost if Crom had not had an eureka moment, and it was possible to get Dimitri back in play once they got the enemy party reunited. Good thing that it was basically a quick counter because a strategy that relies on your enemies already having ganded up on your own team is not sustainable for long battles wherre there's status ailments and no healing.

Dimitri. The Ghost-Type tumbled along, swept up by a Whirlwind from Kiran that sent him flying along the grassy field, directly into the path of a waiting Druddigon with opened maw, who pounced on him… and bit down.

YES! CHEW ON PHYSICAL BABY! Fairy my ass; Taverna would be proud.

(explaining the outburst: Suocéverse dragons have little if nothing to fear from Fairy type. No matter how dangerous a Clefairy or a Mimikyu are, once the dragon gets within clawing or chewing distance those opponents basically count as big bags of meat. After all a Dragon Claw might be Dragon, but it's also Claw)

Crom deserves kisses and snuggles from Nida after this battle, just sayin'. And perhaps a night of... corny attempts at romantic conversation.

"He did it! He did it!" Nida cheered.

"You mean his team did it," Guardia corrected. "Your Crimgan friend was struggling with that Pikachu-looking Pokémon."

I was half expecting Nida to come forth for her man, snarling at Guardia or something, and half expecting her to snicker and recount some other offscreen time that Crom made embarrassments of himself.

Oooh! And speaking of Team Traveller they get MAIL BOX!

Guardia: "Who are you?"
Houndoom: "I bring the messages from the tumblr askbox"

If only. But hey, an in-universe fan can not be something bad, unless it's a creep or a ply by Ketu or who knows what else.

So we open this and we get...

A PLEO FEATHER!

Really? Like, that's like sending someone the nails or the finger of a hostage family member, imagine if those thoughts went through their minds, come on why do you do this to Pleo

"'Match the position of the runes by color'," the Growlithe murmured.

"Eh? Is that supposed to mean something among you hut-dwellers?" Guardia demanded. "I don't really understand what the writer wants."

Elty: "Yes m'dear it's called a writing system and civilized mons use it"

And now it's Elty who has the eureka moment! They get a macguffin that allows them to advance that sidequest that has been draining their tournament energy for a while. And a good thing too not only did they did try it on the diary but also that work won't be held on pause while Nida has to go through her round of battle - yup, now the two coprotag teams are working together on *both* the manline quest and the sidequests.

Chapter 59 opens with a well used time skip and something that I had already foreseen coming:

The time after Team Swellow's victory on the field flew by in a daze, thanks to Team Bedtime's battle strategy abusing techniques that put their opponents to sleep,

Status effects. A bit of a running joke in many vidya franchises but in Pokémon, an untimely applied status ailment can spell Doom for a team.

Cardino sighed and he flattened his ears against his head in exasperation. If he'd known his assistants would have had this much trouble with the tournament, he would've looked around for an extra set of paws to fight in the ring while these youngsters focused on finding clues.

You can *STILL* do that you know!!!!

Really, Cardino's lack of both common sense and setting savviness makes me wonder that perhaps he's specifically assigned, or herded to, cases that the opposition wants to secure expediently and almost beyond question. Like, not even going through the whole trials and bars if possible.

"Aaaaand here's our evidence, your honor!" the Fletchinder cheered.

I can tell even in the Fledglingsverse, no one likes the stall meta o3o

The Team Traveller getting right into the exposition and the evidence being introduced to easily does not make a good judging system make, even if it at least allows for expediting the story, but I feel this gives credibility to my earlier feeling that the courts seeing these cases are basically quick shows to easily deal with loose undesirable cases without prompting much questioning.

Hey, it helps explain a Slowpoke evolutionary member as a judge...

And Nico's... attempt at stalling for more. I won't be surprised that he does *or* does not get disbarred.

All in all however, putting the pressure on the specifics of the original case regardless of whatever "judgment of character" TT have found is exactly how you expect a procedural show to go once they get to the trial. No matter what your personal feelings are, you have to sell the facts of the case and I'm pretty sure Sibich knows this way of life well enough to know exactly what and how to sell.

I am no familiar with Ace Attorney, not even with most of the memes really, but I think how the scene goes next is basically a run of how you solve a case in the AA games? Or how was the Kyoshi case solved back in AtLA. Or a Scooby Doo antics episode. Hhmmm.... inspirations.

Book: *rustle rustle*
Nida: "Aha! There's something inside this book!"
Sibich: [metal gear alarm sound.mp3]
Nida: "But how would we get to what's inside"
Sibich: "There's nothing inside, that's a wood cover!"
Akin: "Yeah and you'd be destroying evidence."
Guardia: "So wait if that's a cover, maybe we can *dis*cover!"
Readers: "Is she gonna-"
Guardia: "ORA ORA ORA ORA!" *does the absolutely obvious thing*

-Guardia produces 1x [Key Evidence]-

Everyone: "What is it???"
Nico: "It's 'listofvictims.docx'"
Sibich: "That proves nothing! Anyone could have written that!"
Rita: "It says here 'authored by Sibich, donut steel'."
Everyone: *gasps*
Slowkign Judge: "I'm gonna allow it."
Sibich: "You won't get me! This is only the beginning..."
Sibich: *fires a Shadow Ball-
Everyone: *covers*
Sibich: "...of my escape."

-one short confrontation later-

Persian: "I deserve more screentime but saving the day is okay."
Glaile: "What are you talking about I am the one who had to eat his face."
Sibich: "Curses! And I would have gotten away with it had it not been for those meddling kids!"

At least Disc One of the trial is cleared and now that opens up the sideplot numero dos: Admiral Coil? Either Sibich is just trying for a desperate exit strategy or he's saying the truth... dun dun duuuuun.

Switching over back to the main storyline of, well, Aleria's King of Fighters (teams of three from all around the world? Come on, all we need is an awoo mon to take the place of Terry Bogard - oh wait Alvise is a Manectric which is basically the Pokémon version of Zinogre who is the electric Breakdancing Wyvern from Monster Hunter who has some of the same styled moves as Terry Bogard... yeah, that scans!).

Ketu's plans for our protag teams have been found by none other than Valatos and tihis could be the start of either a heated under the table competition, or some heated surprise collaboration. Who knows! Everyone wants a piece of Team Traveller and co.

"Whelp, what are we waiting for?" the Yanmega asked. "Let's go prep for our match."

"Wait," Nori insisted. "But I thought we were gonna tell the refs that that Weavile was cheating."

"No need. Cheating or not, we can still work things through with this lineup," Valatos chittered. "So let's just have a little fun."

Oh well, "collaboration" end-air-quotes it is. I mean, does anyone even expect Valatos to pass up on the chance?

The first match is the oh so convenient one of the teams of Nida's vs Valatos'. A match that was promised to us long ago in a way and thanks Ketu for doing the Good Author's work~

This combat made good use of Alvise for him to have a bit of a day in the spotlight thanks to some vicious biting even if it came to and end with, well, a good bone club from Guardia. Looks like Alvise is in lack of training as well: a predator species should know to roll their prey so that they can bite down on the spine, not the gut or abdomen, otherwise they get exposed to direct blows to the face as has happened here. Oh and Elty contributing with some classical fetch play that, learning from their previous combat, allows him to secure a misdirection and an opportunity for his team to attack two on one.

, looking up to see none other than the tubby Growlithe culprit dart in front of him.

Elty: "It's muscle! MUSCLE!"

Still, they manage to win and inch closer to Pleo so they can nab him when they have the chance. So, even if it was mostly luck and misdirection, a good work!

Next up comes the fight of Kiran's team and... well, Kiran sucks at strategy today.

"You're supposed to be the toughest fighter on our team after a Dragon Dance or two, right?" Dimitri asked. "So just hang in there and keep your nerve, and you should be able to turn things around!"

Yeah like the enemy is going to wait two turns for you to Dragon Dance. After reading this combat I'm gonna say, every time someone comes with the idea that they'd be instant winners if they got Isekai'd into a world of Pokémon because of their knowledge of the games, I'm gonna show them this ep.

Because boy does this particular battle go bad. Sure it's a stellar moment for Ketu but it only makes him more hateable (good work!) and it unbalances the seats by giving Kiran's team a disadvantageous condition that's worse than Nida's team previous condition of moonlightning as detectives. Which, by the way, is not ended yet.

Team Swellow starts out at extreme disadvantage. They get the spiritual and emotional debuff from the entire stadium already, they are facing Ketu who is willing to go quite underhanded and was wise to get under Pladur's hide right before the match, they have Ander who has both elemental and physiological disadvantage against at least two members of the enemy team, and did I mention Ketu? Ketu is MVP of this entire match.

I actually wanted to bring that Ketu calling Pladur out to mention because it commpletely changed the stakes for the match. Before that little scene, Team Swellow had the optional, rational strategy to go with Ander against Ketu and Pladur against the Tauros and pass on the Dragon Dance until they can secure a win against one of those two since Electabuzz would be easier to handle. Oh well, they never had the chance.

Ander: "Pladur! How's that Doubles setup coming up for VGC 2019?"
Pladur: "Very well thanks I just need 2 more turns!"

Two turns that Ketu used to have the rest of Team Swellow well dispatched.

And then we get some nasty punishment for poor Pladur. Totally incoming, still not very pleasuring to watch. IMO they could have used Marley for that fight. And or have traded posts beforehand with Team Traveller and getting Elty on the team, he would have been of better physiological advantage against the Electabuzz and has an elemental strength against Ketu.

Who am I kidding, I just want more Elty screentime.

As for Ketu securing the win for the match it all came down to a nasty one on one featuring Ketu doing what he does best, hopefully both in a physical *and* metaphorical manner~

Ketu: "The Lynnisters send their regards." *stabbity stab*

-[END CREDITS]-

One could say for Team Swellow, winter has come.

And that's it for battles and the chances of rescuing our favourite birb are now down to what, something like 35% from the original potential 100%?

Remember kids: do pick *useful* sidequests that help you level up for the main storyline! *leers at Cardino*

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

@GastlyMan

Spoiler

He’s coming around! This is awesome. You’ve done a great job so far with his character progression. This turnaround doesn’t feel cheap — it took Elty a long time to get to this point, but there were little bits of improvements along the way. And I really have enjoyed watching that.

Yeah, it’s taken a few years, but Elty’s journey as a team member has always been meant to come to this point. I’m glad that you’re enjoying the payoff.

I loved seeing Nida evolve, and the narrow victory against the pirates. I am curious to see what Cernun and Valter do now — will Team Traveller still be stuck there?

Keep it up!

Well, you’ll have an answer to that question within this current update, though I’m glad to hear that you enjoyed seeing Nida evolve. Hopefully the other big turning points that this story has yet to reach will similarly hit those right notes for you.

@Ambyssin

Spoiler

This was a very long battle chapter. I read it during my chemo procedure... which yielded mixed results on my end. To me this felt like the story doing its version of Best Wishes!Team Rocket. I.e. taking what were previously the comic relief baddies and making them more of a force to be reckoned with. Best Wishes got episode arcs purely dedicate to the gang trying to thwart a Team Rocket operation and that's exactly what I was thinking of during the whole battle for better or worse. Now, if this was going to be the Iron Fleet's last hurrah, I'd say it was great you gave the whole crew their moments in the spotlight... buuut we all know they're going to be back again at some point, so I can't help but feel all of the fighting veered toward being unnecessarily long. I think the part with Hess was more interesting because Trizano really used the terrain (and his wings!) to give the battle some nice verticality to it. And, of course, Guardian doing a superhero landing on Hess was just... mwah. [chef's kiss gesture]

Well, it’s not quite their last hurrah for dealing with Team Traveller, but in a certain sense it actually is. Though that won’t really make sense until a few more chapters down the road. But I’m glad that you largely enjoyed how it turned out. I personally don’t feel there was much that could have been done to compress that fight scene given that it was effectively one fight cut short going into a second immediately afterwards, but I’ll keep length a bit more on my radar in the future.

But I think, given how many scraps this fic has had so far, you might've been better off changing things up a bit and having Team Traveler and the townsfolk working to stop the fires from spreading. You've done so many battles, that a different type of conflict would be a nice change of pace. It's a bit too late for that, though. XD My big recommendation for future large battles with lots of fighters is that you try to tone down your epithets. Sometimes it was hard for me to follow what was going on because you kept substituting things like "the Puppy Pokémon" for Elty. I suggest sticking with names and pokémon species to avoid confusing readers.

To be fair, it is a Pokémon fic, so having a bunch of battles is kinda par for the course. Additionally, this was the last hurrah for Valatos and his companions’ within the story, so it just seemed a bit anticlimactic to not have Team Traveller have one last fight with them with nothing tipping the scales in the favor. I’m sure there will be openings for other sorts of conflicts to be played around with in the future, though admittedly this wasn’t really one of them.

I’ll keep your recommendation regarding the epithets in mind, though I didn’t really think it was an issue in the last chapter, especially since we already cut down quite a few during editing. This chapter does use epithets of the “[CATEGORY] Pokémon” mold a bit more sparingly, so perhaps that’ll seem a bit less confusing this go-around.

Battles aside, I'm glad Nida got to evolve! Since the pirate trio has been a recurring rival group of sorts, I guess it's fitting that she'd evolve against them. Hopefully this is a preview of what's to come for some more of the characters and we'll be seeing them getting even stronger. I also liked Elty showing that he has grown attached to Team Traveler (he and Guardia are down the "fire-forged friendship" path) to the point where he tries to get the pirates to back off. And it's funny that none of them really try to question Hess' motives. Allying with the Trombans could be a good move for Hess' crew, but he's too prideful to accept it.

I’m glad you’re enjoying the character development. Though never say never about Hess and the Iron Fleet, even if he’s obviously not in a state to enter such a team-up anytime soon.

Couldn't the ghosts just go incorporeal and phase through the rope?

It was actually mentioned earlier in the Giotto arc, but the standard operating procedure for binding ghosts is to bind them with ropes with lots of jangly bits on them. That way, if they try to phase out, you can hear them, and promptly melt them with a barrage of attacks. Essentially a “stay here and be fine or take your chances with potential serious injury or death” shtick.

POWER OF FRIENDSHIP LET'S GOOOOOOOOOO

It wouldn’t be a PMD-like fic without it. o3o

@Venia Silente

Spoiler

YES! CHEW ON PHYSICAL BABY! Fairy my ass; Taverna would be proud.

(explaining the outburst: Suocéverse dragons have little if nothing to fear from Fairy type. No matter how dangerous a Clefairy or a Mimikyu are, once the dragon gets within clawing or chewing distance those opponents basically count as big bags of meat. After all a Dragon Claw might be Dragon, but it's also Claw)

Crom deserves kisses and snuggles from Nida after this battle, just sayin'. And perhaps a night of... corny attempts at romantic conversation.

To be fair, in PMD, there are a lot fewer circumstances where if you attack, you won’t at least do scratch damage. Though in this case, Bite would do neutral damage to Mimikyu thanks to typing, so the Fairy wouldn’t have had grounds to get cocky about being able to shrug off Dragon-Type moves anyway.

Status effects. A bit of a running joke in many vidya franchises but in Pokémon, an untimely applied status ailment can spell Doom for a team.

Yup. “Team Bedtime” isn’t such a stupid-sounding name when you can make your opponents sleep their way to a loss.

The Team Traveller getting right into the exposition and the evidence being introduced to easily does not make a good judging system make, even if it at least allows for expediting the story, but I feel this gives credibility to my earlier feeling that the courts seeing these cases are basically quick shows to easily deal with loose undesirable cases without prompting much questioning.

Hey, it helps explain a Slowpoke evolutionary member as a judge...

That’s actually not that far off from how things work in the material it homages. Most ‘mons don’t really care what happens to captured pirates in this setting, the judges in the Empire are just there to give a basic veneer of fairness, and to gauge for when they’re badly misreading the commonfolk and need to change up their plans.

Switching over back to the main storyline of, well, Aleria's King of Fighters (teams of three from all around the world? Come on, all we need is an awoo mon to take the place of Terry Bogard - oh wait Alvise is a Manectric which is basically the Pokémon version of Zinogre who is the electric Breakdancing Wyvern from Monster Hunter who has some of the same styled moves as Terry Bogard... yeah, that scans!).

To be fair, I think Alvise has a lot of self-improvement to get through before he can truly fill the role of the Cradle’s Terry Bogard doggo or get the same level of fear and respect.

Oh well, "collaboration" end-air-quotes it is. I mean, does anyone even expect Valatos to pass up on the chance?

I mean, this is Valatos we’re talking about. Every incarnation of him that I’ve come across would absolutely be petty enough to do something like that.

This combat made good use of Alvise for him to have a bit of a day in the spotlight thanks to some vicious biting even if it came to and end with, well, a good bone club from Guardia. Looks like Alvise is in lack of training as well: a predator species should know to roll their prey so that they can bite down on the spine, not the gut or abdomen, otherwise they get exposed to direct blows to the face as has happened here. Oh and Elty contributing with some classical fetch play that, learning from their previous combat, allows him to secure a misdirection and an opportunity for his team to attack two on one.

To be fair, in real life, wolves have to be taught how to hunt by their elders. Considering how Alvise straight up ran out on his family early in life, it shouldn’t be too shocking that his technique is a bit lacking.

As for Elty, he’s a dog. Did you really expect he wouldn’t pull a stunt like that with a bone?

And then we get some nasty punishment for poor Pladur. Totally incoming, still not very pleasuring to watch. IMO they could have used Marley for that fight. And or have traded posts beforehand with Team Traveller and getting Elty on the team, he would have been of better physiological advantage against the Electabuzz and has an elemental strength against Ketu.

Who am I kidding, I just want more Elty screentime.

As for Ketu securing the win for the match it all came down to a nasty one on one featuring Ketu doing what he does best, hopefully both in a physical *and* metaphorical manner~

To be fair, it’d be a bit late for them to sneak Marley onto the roster without getting into trouble. As for Ketu, he has the dual dangers of both being genuinely strong, and being misread by most of the world on his place on the cosmic power scale since he moonlights as Lyn’s First Mate. While it’s still little a ways out for you, the label actually undersells him by a fair amount.

And that's it for battles and the chances of rescuing our favourite birb are now down to what, something like 35% from the original potential 100%?

Remember kids: do pick *useful* sidequests that help you level up for the main storyline! *leers at Cardino*

To be fair, it’d be a pretty boring conflict if their odds of success never hit a snag here or there. As for Cardino’s questline, well, it does give some help of a sort, even if it’s not quite an exp dump, but I’ll let you get there when you get there.

Well, it took a lot of crunching, but the much-promised end to the present chapter is finally here along with a non-canon doodle of Cabot by Chibi-Pika. The first chapter of 2020 will be targeting a release date by the end of January due to meatspace meta shaping up to be fairly busy within the first two months of the new year, but it is my hope that 2020 will be able to have a busier update schedule than 2019 had.

I would like to take a moment to extend my thanks to Virgil134 and Tangent128, whose input helped to make this final installment of 2019 into what it is. I additionally am grateful for the readers and reviewers who have continued following this story through its ups and downs and through both fast and slow seasons, and it’s my hope that you all will enjoy today’s chapter, and those that are yet to come.

And with that, let’s get things:

In the sea north of Buyeom, the Uragan and her plated hull had laid anchor alongside a yellow buoy with a star-shaped pattern painted on it. On the deck, the crew had entered an uneasy lull, watching as the forms of three ships with indigo sails edged over the horizon. Among their number were Nagant and Jun at the railing, the Clawitzer of the pair peering through a spyglass to see an approaching frigate, along with a passing glance of a blue, flying Pokémon that flew ahead of the ships. The shrimp thought to give scope over to her first mate, when Jun moved a drill over his eyes and squinted, evidently having sighted the figure himself.

"That must be his messenger," he said. "You don't suppose they've had better luck than us, do you?"

"Cyanea and Katyusha specifically said their ship was spotted sailing west. And I doubt Valan would come to us first if he really found the Protector," Nagant harrumphed, putting away her scope. "Though that messenger seems suspiciously-"

The air wooshed above the Clawitzer captain and her first mate as a dark shadow abruptly blocked out the moon's glow and zipped from one end of the deck to the other. Nagant looked up and whirled around, searching for the disturbance's source when she was abruptly answered by the booming cry of a Salamence in flight.

"Ah! Captain Nugget! There you are!"

Nagant narrowed her eyes, looking over towards the bow to see Valan banking into a wide turn over the water before coming back for her ship, leaving her mouthparts to curl down into a sour frown.

"… Of course."

The Salamence flew over the railing and dropped down onto the deck, churning up the air as he beat his wings and came to a stop before Nagant. The sailors peered up curiously from their tasks as Valan craned his head down towards the Clawitzer with a firm, serious gaze.

"I set sail as soon as I received word of your findings," Valan said. "I hadn't discovered so much as a feather of Lugia up on Gestirn Island, so what exactly did you find out here on Buyeom?"

"We know the pirates that took him passed through given the mess they made of the naval yard. Furthermore, a couple of my subordinates discovered that their ship was last spotted sailing towards the west," Nagant replied. "Based off their course and our prior encounters with them, I can only assume they'd be making their way to Pioppo."

Valan froze for a moment, before scrunching his brow into a disgusted scowl. The Salamence's odd reaction took Nagant aback, prompting her to blink before raising her own brow back puzzledly.

"Is something the matter, Commodore?" the Clawitzer asked.

"Peh, what on earth would compel them to deal with that miserable rock?" the Salamence growled.

"I'm not sure, but they seem to be looking for something of value there," Nagant mused. "I presume that they're not looking to shelter there for long."

Valan let out a low grumble, turning off to the sea as he seemed to hesitate a moment, before pressing the matter further from his subordinate.

"Are you certain they went up that way?" the Salamence questioned. "And if so, I don't suppose you mean to chase them there."

"No. We were already one step behind them just pulling into port here," Nagant insisted, shaking her head back. "By the time we made it to Pioppo, they'd be long gone."

"So you mean to try and think a step ahead of them?" Valan demanded. "But where exactly would you propose sailing, then?"

"I would presume they'd be setting sail for their homes on Tromba next," the Clawitzer said. "If so, then assuming they made it off Pioppo, the most logical route for them would be through Haipheh."

Valan paused a moment at Nagant's reply, tilting his head as he shot a dubious frown back at her.

"And what would force them to go that route specifically?" the Salamence pressed.

"I wouldn't expect them to have much in the way of provisions after going to Pioppo, so they'd logically seek out the closest port they could shelter in," Nagant explained. "That's why it would make sense for you to cover the other possibility I can think of and set sail for Boisocéan. It'd be a longer and more difficult journey, but their ship had already visited recently, and they'd surely remember it as a safe harbor."

"Hrmph, it doesn't sound like you consider it likely for them to go that route in the first place. So why separate?" Valan grumbled. "Are you sure you can even handle the Protector on your own?"

Nagant hopped up and down against the deck, giving an impatient wave of her claws as she tried and largely failed to hide an impatient hiss at her Salamence superior.

"Commodore, I already caught him once with my crew when it was smaller than this!" she snapped. "If there's anyone in the navy that's best suited to bringing him in, it's us!"

"OW!"

Nagant and Valan turned at the sound of a sharp cry, where they saw Cabot leaning against a barrel cringing with Niilo and Berecien looking over in concern. The Cranidos opened his eyes with visible droplets forming at their edges, his voice coming out in a pained whine.

"I stubbed my toe…" he whimpered.

"Hey… It's alright," Niilo said as he patted Cabot on his shoulder. "It'll pass."

"Just take it easy for a while, alright?" Berecien added.

Nagant buried her face in her small claw, mortified as Valan turned back to her with an incredulous glance before scoffing and shaking his head.

"Wasn't he one of the Pokémon you assigned to take care of the Protector at Giotto?" the Salamence demanded.

Nagant clenched her mandibles, screwing her eyes shut as she grudgingly muttered back a reply.

"… Yes."

"And why am I supposed to believe that your subordinates could handle the Protector when that's what you had to resort to the first time?" Valan pressed, forcing Nagant to struggle to restrain herself from hissing at her superior again, before impatiently clicking her claws.

"Commodore, just listen for a second. If we both sail for one port, then that means that if there's anything that we overlooked or got caught off-guard by, those pirates will be clear into Company waters by the time we notice it!" Nagant fumed. "Considering the stakes of failing this mission, you of all Pokémon should appreciate hedging for unexpected risks!"

Valan paused, batting his tail to and fro as he thought the matter over, before giving a shake of his head and craning his neck back down.

"Hrmph, I suppose that's a fair argument," he said. "But in that case let me go to where you expect the Protector to head to. My subordinates are more experienced, and I'm sure we could put on a better display than…"

Valan cast a glance at the still-whimpering Cranidos and his companions, before turning back at Nagant with an unimpressed scoff.

"Well, it should go without saying."

"Because I tracked him down once already!" Nagant cried. "I'm the one with the experience catching him and I pieced together where he was going! Why shouldn't I have the honor of waiting for him in Haipheh?"

Valan frowned and opened his mouth seemingly ready to rebuff his subordinate, only to trail off and relent with a low growl.

"… Very well. As someone of higher rank and more firepower at my disposal, I suppose I would be more suited for handling a neutral island," the Salamence said. "Besides, when- er… if you wind failing to handle the Protector on your own, I'll still be able to come in and lend assistance!"

Nagant's body visibly tightened at the Dragon-Type's reply, her words coming in choking, barely-restrained seethes as she tried to stammer out a passing reply.

"I- That's-"

"A fantastic idea, I know," Valan finished. The Salamence turned to take his leave, readying his wings to take to the air when he craned his neck back with a small, vaguely patronizing smile.

"Good luck with your ambush, Nugget," he insisted. "I will be waiting to hear back from you and will keep an eye out for the Protector myself."

Valan crouched his legs and sprang up, taking wing and flying away from the deck of the Uragan. No sooner than the Salamence had slipped beyond earshot, Nagant whirled around and shot a watery pulse at a nearby barrel, dashing it to splinters as her subordinates flinched and cringed as she screeched angrily.

"AAAAAAAARGH! What did I ever do to deserve the gods cursing me to be stuck with that overgrown treplo?!" Nagant shouted.

"Ahem… While things came out… worse than planned with Commodore Valan, shouldn't we be moving?" Jun asked. "After all, no one knows how long we have before the Protector arrives at Haipheh."

Nagant let out an impatient huff, before turning back to her crew with a sharp scowl as she leveled her large claw out at the crowd.

"Hoist the anchor and get us moving!" she ordered. "I want us in Haipheh before sunrise!"

At once, the deck burst into activity as the sails were lowered and the stone anchor was hastily pulled up. Nagant felt the ship lurch under her body, prompting her to make her way for the railing and clamber down a rope for the familiar comforts of the sea. On her way down, she looked out over the horizon, watching her Drifblim messenger drift off in advance for Haipheh as she leveled a harsh glare off at the waves in the distance.

"This has gone on long enough," Nagant growled. "It's time to bring your little escape attempt to an end."

---

Back on the shores of Pioppo, the Mistral Marauder remained anchored in the shallow waters just offshore much as it had for the better part of the day. There, the pirates hurriedly scrambled up ropes thrown over the side of the hull, among them the ship's Aggron captain who after making it to the deck sighed and stopped a moment to catch his breath. Hess turned, seeing a Croagunk attempting to hoist a barrel up, only for it to slip and fall back into the water much to the Steel-Type's annoyance.

"Just hurry it up with those barrels!" Hess snapped. "I want to get out of here before those dweebs decide to give chase!"

The Croagunk hastily squeaked an 'aye' in response, going back for the fallen barrel as others were lugged aboard and the arrival of new pirates making their way onto the deck slowed to a crawl. After more Pokémon ceased coming along, Rodion moved a paw around, doing a headcount only to pause and realize that his count had come up three short.

"Wait, Valatos and his friends aren't back from their trip into the dungeon," he said.

"Tch, their loss if they can't make it," Hess spat. "We need to get moving while we can!"

"They are some of the stronger Pokémon on the crew," the Floatzel reminded. "Shouldn't we at least try and find out where they are first?"

Hess hemmed and hawed uneasily at his first mate's prodding. This was as good of a chance he had to be rid of that blasted Nori, but after having just come up short against a bunch of common peasants… would the crew really take his side if he pushed back against Rodion's suggestion?

"Nah, it's alright Rodion," Alfred insisted. "We've got the rest of us to worry about."

"Yeah, and didn't they say they were elite pirates?" a Pawniard added. "I'm sure they'll figure something out."

Rodion raised a brow and let his muzzle flop open in exasperated incredulity at the crew's sudden lack of concern. Hess blinked at the turn of events, before opting not to question his good fortune and chimed in with an overeager harrumph.

"Whelp, that sounded fairly convincing to me," he said. "Come on, we're moving out!"

At the Aggron's shout, the deckclaws quickly set about hoisting the anchor, as the escorts churned the surrounding air and water to push the Mistral Marauder away. While the deck returned to its busy self, Rodion paced off for the stern, watching the shrinking form of Pioppo as he wondered aloud to himself.

"What on earth happened to them out there?"

---

Half an hour after the Iron Fleet's hasty retreat, Elty and his companions marched through the thick woods of Pioppo's Mystery Dungeon after Valter, Cernun, and Trizano. A quick glance behind revealed the floor had folded vertically due to distortion, with glimpses of the rest of the party from the Siglo Swellow and the defending villagers popping through the treetops as they too made the trek for Darkwood Square.

Elty's attention drifted away when he heard Guardia call out the sighting of fog ahead, the mark of the entrance back into Darkwood Square's stable zone. After passing through the haze and letting the dungeon's winding paths melt away, Elty found himself back at the same palisade gate that Team Phantom had taken him to earlier in the day. A cursory look revealed the palisade to be undamaged, letting Elty breathe a sigh of relief as he heard excited chatter coming from his teammates further ahead. The Growlithe carried on, stepping through the gate where he saw the lot crowded around a Nidorina that was now holding out a scarf too small for her body with a sheepish laugh. Elty paced forward towards the group before he blinked, his eyes widening in surprise at the sight of the scarf as he realized the Nidorina was none other than…

"Nida? When did you evolve?!" the Growlithe cried.

"What's the matter, Elty?" the Nidorina asked, shooting back a teasing smirk. "I didn't think you were the type to worry about falling behind."

Elty folded back his ears and let out a pouting harrumph, before trying to argue that it was hardly fair to compare a Growlithe's evolution with one that could just be grown into. The Puppy Pokémon's protests drew chuckles from his teammates as one after the other, they crowded around the new Nidorina to wish her well… the sole two exceptions being Pladur who inched away uncomfortably from the Poison-Type after her gaze fell on him, and his child who watched wistfully from beside Kiran.

"She's still the same 'mon inside… isn't she…?" Crom murmured to himself.

The Druddigon looked back at Nida sizing up her new body before feeling a cold chill go down his spine. While reason insisted that Nida was still his same old teammate, she was now far from the cutesy little spike ball he'd grown up with. Her face, her fur, her very gait while walking… why it was all just like Marley's! Crom hung his head, thinking perhaps it was only logical that she'd become like her too when a sharp chirp threw off his train of thought.

"Speaking of not falling behind, why did you sneak off like that earlier, Elty?" Pleo asked.

The gathered members of Team Traveller paused and turned expectantly to their Growlithe teammate, who blinked and shuffled his paws a moment before answering with a dismissive shrug.

"I just thought that I could talk Hess and the others out of coming here," he replied. "Nothing else to it."

"Well, tell someone else before sneaking off next time!" Ander buzzed. "If it wasn't for us coming in with the ship's crew, those pirates would probably have you halfway down a plank right now!"

"Yeah, yeah… it was a learning experience, alright?" the Growlithe scoffed back, giving a grumbling shake of his head. "Besides, all's well that ends well."

Elty's fur stood on end at the sound of a loud crash, looking off towards the eastern fringes just in time to watch a charred roof cave in. After clambering onto a nearby barricade for height and squinting off into the distance, the Growlithe noticed that in spite of his nearsighted vision, he could still see that the buildings around it were all torched and ruined, prompting him to look back with puzzled concern at his teammates.

"… What on earth happened here anyways?" he asked.

"O-Ow! Hey! Easy there!"

The lot turned at the sound of a pained buzz, and saw Valatos, Alvise, and Nori with their limbs tied up being pushed along towards a wooden platform on stone blocks set up in the central square where villagers were gathering. The three were marched up and unceremoniously shoved down, leaving Nida and her teammates to trade wary glances with one another.

"Come on," Nida said. "Let's see what's happening."

The Nidorina and her companions drew forward, the air growing thick with boos and hisses from the crowd of villagers, including Team Phantom's members who were sporting fresh bandages. On the center of the platform, Alvise tried in vain to shake off the bindings over his legs as his eyes moved uneasily out to the surrounding mob, and then to his Yanmega teammate.

"Uh… Valatos, you wouldn't happen to have any ideas for us to get out of here, would you?" the Manectric gulped.

"I can't move my wings, you dip!" Valatos snapped. "What do you think?!"

Nori glanced around at the surrounding mob when he noticed Roteck nearing them on the platform. The 'mon was a spitting image of Hess, and with how cagey he'd been just being around him…

"I think I've got something," Nori said.

The Marowak shuffled to his feet, baring his teeth and glaring up at Roteck with the loudest, most threatening growl he could muster.

"Grr… you'd better untie me right now, you lousy metal-head!" Nori snarled. "Keep me waiting and I'll take one of your bones and get out of here mysel- AAAAGH!"

Nori was cut off mid-sentence by a heavy punch at his gut from Roteck, leaving him coughing and wheezing for air. Roteck stooped down, grabbing Nori by his throat as Alvise and Valatos recoiled, bringing the hapless Marowak up to his glaring eyes.

"Any more threats you want to throw my way, tough guy?" the Aggron demanded.

Nori squirmed and pulled his tail in towards his body as Roteck tightened his claws about his throat, stammering nervously before he finally managed to squeak out a reply.

"N-No…"

Roteck loosened his grip, letting Nori fall to the ground with a thud and a yelp, shooting a sharp scowl down at him and his teammates.

"Bene, I'll let the others deal with you then," the Aggron harrumphed. "They've been itching to give you three a piece of their minds over your arson earlier."

Roteck stepped aside, as the glaring crowd's boos and jeers at the captured pirates continued to ring out. The three shrank back, squirming under the torrent of growls and livid snarls about them.

"Not so tough now, huh?!" Lisa spat.

"Yeah! Serves you right for burning up our base!" Cantone fumed.

Alvise tried to turn his head as best as his bindings would allow, only to be summarily clocked in the face with an errant apple. The Manectric turned his eyes over, catching sight of the Gastly from earlier floating next to a Kangaskhan joey blowing a raspberry at him, prompting him to grit his teeth and begin to spark.

"Hey!" the Manectric snapped. "If you all think we're just going to sit here and take this, you've got another thing comin-!"

"Enough!"

Alvise quickly held his tongue and the crowd's heckling abruptly faded as a sharp shout announced Cernun and Valter's approach towards the platform, with Trizano coming along and waiting at the base. The two ascended the crude steps that had been set up at the edge and neared the captured pirates as they trained down sharp glares at them.

"When most Pokémon are stuck in a hole, they usually stop digging," Cernun piped. "Considering how much trouble you all are in, you should really set the tough 'mon act aside for a while."

Valatos, Alvise, and Nori stared up blankly, finding themselves at a loss for words at the strange deer. After spending a moment staring into Cernun's eyes, Nori began to grow unnerved and attempted to scoot back from the blue fawn.

"W-Wait, who's that 'mon supposed to be?" the Marowak stammered.

"You don't think it's another Protector, do you?" Alvise asked.

"Whatever he is, he doesn't look that tough," Valatos harrumphed, prompting Valter to narrow his eye and let out a sharp huff.

"I don't know whether you feel that our lack of numbers or our isolation as a village makes us a lesser threat, but you are sorely mistaken if so," the Dusknoir chided. "We carry the blessing of Lord Cernun, and we are capable of passing down… more lasting punishments if need be."

The Ghost-Type revealed a dusty green gem that carried a dim glow, flashing it in clear view of the gathered Pokémon that seemed to make an uncomfortable chill settle on a villager here or there. The three pirates froze and stared up with nervous grimaces, noting the deadly serious expression on their captor's face.

"W-What is that?" Valatos demanded.

"It's a Teleport Gem that the village teleporters crafted some years ago in the Dungeon's Distortion. I'm sure someone must have told you about what it does before, but it's an object capable of sending Pokémon to linked places that are beyond the ability of a teleporter to go to on his own," Valter explained. "In this case, it's linked to a canyon in the Wastes with spent ash and stone being its only comforts. We have not needed to use such things or craft additional ones in years…"

The Dusknoir paused, turning his eye out to the still-smoking fringes at the eastern end of the village, before looking back with a piercing glare and irate hiss.

"Though perhaps today will prove to be an exception."

Valatos and his companions' eyes widened, their bodies flushing pale and quivering at the idea of a cold, lonely end out in the Wastes.

"W-Wait, you can't do that!" Nori cried. "We were just following orders!"

"Y-Yeah, it's Captain Hess' fault!" Alvise insisted. "He made us come here!"

The Manectric's protest made Roteck grit his teeth and ball his fists up, stooping to grab Alvise by his neck before Cernun tapped the platform with his hooves. Roteck looked up to see the young Protector shaking his head back, prompting the Aggron to slink back with a dissatisfied growl. The entire time, Valter's expression had remained firm and wholly unmoved by the pirates' pleas.

"And yet, it was you that dealt us this blow. It's truly a miracle that none of the villagers lost their Protector's blessing from it," the Dusknoir scoffed. "I believe that in normal towns, that would be more than enough reason to have you three exiled."

The Ghost-Type's reply drew a torrent of pleas and whines from the captured pirates, which fell on deaf ears. After seeing their captors' faces still remain as hardened and inhospitable as when they came in, the three's begging began to take an increasingly desperate air and their voices began to hitch and break. All the while, Guardia shook her head from the side, as she watched Valatos, Alvise, and Nori begin shedding frightened tears onto the platform.

"Gods, you're pathetic," the Cubone said.

"I… don't think any of that will be necessary, Valter," Cernun insisted. "We've been able to deal with worse 'mons than these three before in other ways… at least when they were willing to cooperate."

The three pirates continued to sniffle a bit after the Xerneas' words, which slowly died down as the lot began to realize that they might be out of mortal danger. His eyes still damp, Nori timidly lifted his head up at the deer.

"H-Huh?"

"Well, the alternative would be to have you make what you've done to the town right," Cernun explained. "Though you'd be here for a very long time, and as such, you'd better start acting like you belong here."

"Wh-What are you going to do to us?" Valatos asked.

"I… think that Valter had a term for it once," the Xerneas mused to himself. "'Community Service,' I think?"

Cernun's reply drew approving nods and murmurs from the crowd, along with a moment of quiet surprise among Team Traveller's members as they traded glances with one another.

"Wait, they do that here too?" Elty wondered

"I guess even after hiding away in a Mystery Dungeon, some things really don't change much from town to town," Nida sighed.

"Essentially, you would be helping the village on an as-needed basis," Valter explained. "To start with, you would be cleaning up all the rubble left from the fires, and helping to build new shelters. Unpaid, of course."

The Dusknoir's explanation drew back offended glares from the pirates. Even when bound and at the mercy of a village, Community Service was no light blow to their own pride, which Alvise was quick to be let known through an irritated growl.

"And why on earth should we put up with that, huh?!" he snapped.

Valter moved the Teleport Gem around in his fingers, the dull glow giving way to a weak whitish pulse of light from within as he narrowed his eye back at the three.

"Well, there was an alternative sentence floated earlier," the Dusknoir reminded. "Would you really prefer that one instead?"

Alvise and his companions fell silent and visibly shivered at Valter's retort, the Manectric pulling his tail between his legs and lowering his head in a bid to look small and unthreatening.

"N-No…" he whined.

"Then it's time for you all to get to work," Valter harrumphed. "Roteck! Unbind them and set them to work at once after a good bath!"

Roteck stepped forward, stooping down to untie the pirates' bindings as Nori turned his head back with a surprised and annoyed scowl.

"Hey! That wasn't part of your deal earlier!" the Marowak protested. "Why do we need to take a bath?!"

"Because you three reek!" Roteck spat. "It's like you rolled around in a trash pile!"

"Hey! We already took a bath before we left Kenobi, alright?!" Alvise snapped back. "We're clean enough!"

"And when was that?" Roteck demanded.

"Uhm… about two weeks ago?" the wolf answered.

Alvise's reply drew a loud chorus of disgusted groans from the gathered villagers, as even Team Traveller's members found themselves recoiling and sticking their tongues out of revulsion… with one exception:

"… Wait, that's what they're all complaining about?" Elty scoffed, tilting an ear back. "I went without baths longer than that on the Iron Fleet!"

Nida flattened her ears and whirled to Elty, her face contorted into a disgusted frown at his reply. As if it wasn't bad enough that he wasn't bothered by such awful bathing habits…

"Ugh… why are you proud of that?!"

After making his way from one pirate to the next, Roteck undid the bindings of Valatos and his companions enough for the lot to stand and pace about. Warily, the three found their footing, eying their surroundings as the Aggron turned to the surrounding crowd.

"Are there any parting words before these three head off?" Roteck asked. "I don't expect them to have a lot of free time today."

The Aggron was answered with a host of 'nays' and grumbles to 'hurry the bums off already', prompting him to begin to march the trio off, when he heard a sharp yip coming from just beyond the platform and turned down to see Elty staring up at him.

"Actually… I've got some for them," the Growlithe said.

Roteck blinked back puzzledly as some of the bystanders raised brows and murmured among one another. After a moment's pause, the Steel-Type shook his head and let out an impatient snort.

"Fine, but hurry it up," he harrumphed.

Elty gave a grateful nod, before trotting out in front of Valatos, Alvise, and Nori with a smug smirk, making the lot glare back and visibly fight to restrain themselves.

"Grr… what did you want, you little runt?" Valatos hissed. "To come and laugh at us?"

"Well, yeah. After everything you three have put me through, of course I wanted to," Elty replied. "But… at the same time I guess I just wanted to give some advice."

"And what would a little pipsqueak like you know, huh?!" Alvise snapped.

"Well, that I've been where you are before and Community Service kinda sucks…" the Growlithe began. "But it doesn't have to stay that way."

The pirates fell silent and blinked back puzzledly at the Fire-Type. After a moment wondering to themselves what the ankle-biter before them was angling at, Nori let out a snorting harrumph in reply.

"Just what's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, if you settle down and open up to these 'mons, you might start making a few friends… real friends, not someone giving you a 'donation' to pass by you," Elty explained. "'Mons who are willing to look out for you when you get in trouble and make this whole 'Community Service' thing less of a drag. Who knows? Maybe they'll even put in a good word and get you out of that sentence faster."

"Well a fat lot that means coming from you!" Alvise growled. "I don't see you volunteering to stay behind!"

"I've already got my own Community Service and problems to deal with," Elty replied, shaking his head back. "But I did have something for you before I left."

The Growlithe turned away, poking his rump up in the air before giving it a vigorous shake as he blew a taunting raspberry at the pirates. At once, the three's tempers flared, Alvise's fur sparking as he bared his fangs angrily.

"Why you little-!"

Elty ran ahead beside himself with laughter, the Manectric and his fellows trying to give chase, only to suddenly feel the ropes at their ankles abruptly tighten. One after the other, the three pitched to the ground with yelps, coughing up dirt as the looming shadow of an impatient Aggron fell over them.

"Alright, time to go," Roteck snapped.

Roteck drug the three along, when he heard a clinking noise coming from Alvise's body. The Aggron raised a brow, before running a claw along the underside of the Manectric's scarf, finding a small bag filled with coins and giving it an absentminded toss up and down.

"How on earth did this not get confiscated already?" he grumbled. "Well no matter, you won't be needing it here anyways."

The Steel-Type turned his attention back to the ropes, dragging the pirates along as they flailed and shouted in protest at their predicament.

"A-Agh! You fat thief! That's my money there!" Alvise whined. "I earned it fair and square in a bet!"

"Stop jerking me around, you stupid clod!" Valatos protested. "I'm a grown 'mon and I can bathe whenever the hell I want!"

"Let go-! S-Stop pulling!" Nori stammered. "Marowak aren't supposed to get soaked!"

Team Traveller's members watched as the pirates were dragged away unceremoniously past the edge of the crowd. The group traded dubious glances with one another as to how much the rotters could really be made to do any good, as Vince gave a mocking wave farewell.

"Have a nice bath!" the Haunter jeered.

"Are they really going to be able to do Community Service like that?" Pleo asked.

"Golly, you don't have to worry about that," Lisa reassured. "We can handle them."

"Yeah, they're not so tough when they get caught off guard!" Cantone said. "Nothing that a prank here or there can't help out with."

"Mwee hee hee! Or twenty," Vince offered. "We've got a big score to settle with those three, and I can already tell that we're going to be getting a lot of laughs out of them for a long, long time."

The Ghost-Types bade Team Traveller farewell, before heading off after Roteck and his prisoners. Nida watched after the departing pranksters, before giving a shake of her head.

"I almost feel sorry for Valatos and his buddies…" Nida murmured. "Almost."

"So… what do we do now?" Ander asked.

As the crowd thinned and began to disperse back into the rest of the village, Pleo noticed that Valter remained with Cernun in the middle of the assembly, seemingly lost in thought. The young Protector waddled forward warily, before craning his head up with a pleading look at the Dusknoir leader.

"Is… there really nothing at all you can do to help us here?" Pleo asked. "I mean, we tried our best to help protect your village!"

"That's really not-" Valter began, only for Kiran to cut him off.

"And surely you must realize that the Iron Fleet won't forget what they saw," the Swellow added. "One way or another, other Pokémon are going to find out about this place, so the best thing we can do is settle this matter with the Empire and Company before they-!"

"Enough!" Valter snapped.

The Dusknoir shot a sharp scowl back, making Pleo back away uneasily and Kiran cast a worried glance over. After a long silence, Valter pinched at his brow, turning away with a grudging mutter.

"I… I just need some time to think this through," the Ghost-Type sighed.

Valter floated off, Cernun following along with his gaze drifting towards the ground and a troubled air surrounding him. Pleo began to head after the pair, when Trizano hopped up, and motioned for a stop with a wing.

"Bear with him a little longer, Pleo," Trizano insisted. "It's not an easy decision for him to make right now."

Pleo tilted his head back at the Skarmory, before the Steel-Type ruffled his feathers and began to follow after Cernun and Valter. The young Lugia waited a moment as the three slipped off, before turning back for his companions. All the while, he couldn't help but look back off at where Cernun, Valter, and Trizano had departed, unable to shake the feeling that when he'd tried to get their help that time, that something was different.

---

(Continued in next post)

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Team Traveller's curiosity over Valter and Cernun's decision eventually got the better of them, leading the lot over to the steps of the pavillion where Nida, Pleo, Crom, and Ander had been first shown to the village. There, the group made small talk and happily prattled away with each other happy to be reunited. All the while, Elty remained at the fringes, saying nothing with his ears and head held low, before he turned and shuffled away from the group. While his teammates had been enjoying themselves, the Growlithe's thoughts kept drifting off towards his confrontation with Hess and the Iron Fleet. To how the bridge he'd so desperately clung to for eventually returning to the crew had been burned away from under his feet with nothing to replace it.

"Gardie?"

Elty pricked his ears and turned around, where he saw Guardia standing behind him. Her red eyes were hardened into an impatient stare much as they had many a time in the past, but this time seemed to carry a curious twinge of concern.

"What's going on?" she demanded. "You wandered off again."

The Growlithe hemmed and hawed a moment, attempting to fish up one excuse after another only to find Guardia still staring insistently at him. After a long pause, Elty folded his ears back and shook his head with a low sigh.

"It's just… when Alice told me that she left her old crew without souring things with them, it made me think that after everything that I'd been through under Captain Hess I could do the same," the Growlithe said. "He always had a bit of a soft spot for me, so I was sure that if I just told him about what was going on between the Company and the Empire, that he'd understand if I wasn't ready to come back to the crew right away. Maybe even leave Pleo alone."

Elty hung his head, turning his body from his Cubone teammate as his tail drooped low against his legs.

"I wasn't expecting everything to play out anything like this," he muttered, prompting Guardia to raise a brow puzzledly.

"Eh? But why is that a problem?" the Cubone asked. "We just sent those sea-walkers running and it's not as if we can't fight them off again. Besides, surely you have other Pokémon to turn to outside of them, don't you?"

Elty looked back at Guardia, before pulling tail tight against his body and casting his eyes towards the ground with a glum air about him.

"… No, I really don't."

"Why is that?" Guardia wondered. "If you really didn't come from a forest on Nagrobek, then you grew up in a town, meaning you'd have-"

"I didn't grow up in a town, okay!" Elty snapped.

Guardia stepped back at the sound of a sharp growl from the Growlithe, who looked at her with a flash of his teeth and his fur raised. The pair stared at each other for a moment, Elty's pique fading as his ears folded back and he screwed his eyes shut with a bitter mutter.

"I grew up in a Mystery Dungeon much like you did," he said. "Even if I could go back there, I'd be as alone as when I left it."

Guardia paused, taken aback at the Fire-Type's sudden gloom. She wondered to herself if she'd perhaps stuck her bone where it wasn't needed, before uneasily opting to press the dog further.

"Then… what happened?" the Cubone murmured. "How did you go from that to being a sea-walker?"

A long pause followed Guardia's question, Elty keeping his gaze fixed towards the ground before he spoke up in a low, halting voice.

"Back on my island, things… worked differently between 'mons that wear scarves and ones that don't," the Growlithe began. "When I was growing up, my mother would always tell me to avoid the knot-necks since they were trouble. But… it just couldn't be avoided for her."

"What happened?"

"She got into a fight with some Rescue Team and overpowered them pretty badly," he replied. "A few days later, the Company sent a squad to snatch her that was headed by a Marowak. I remember he was a bit darker and leaner than your kind, and tried to capture us…"

The Growlithe trailed off, shaking his head as a dark look settled over his face.

"Well, I guess I shouldn't say 'tried'," Elty muttered. "I was the only one who got away from them."

"Eh?! But that doesn't sound anything at all like how the hut-dwellers worked on Tennobi!" Guardia exclaimed. "They always attempted to be more underhanded when they tried to take stuff from us. If they came to attack our territory in such a fashion, I doubt Tetsuzui would allow them to slink off to tell the tale afterwards."

"Again, things work… differently there. I still don't know why that's the case, but there's that big prison that Kline brought up," Elty said. "Maybe they think they can get away with treating us like that with so many strong 'mons around or something. I don't know. Regardless, about a week after my mother got taken, I ran into Pyry and Pekka-"

Guardia stared blankly back at Elty, prompting him to realize that his companion's names surely meant as much as a sentence of Nagrobeki to her and hastily amend his words.

"… a pair of sea-walkers who would become some of my best friends," he corrected. "They had broken out of the prison during a big uprising with my mother's help, and we wound up running into the Iron Fleet who took us in before leaving the island behind."

"Was that how you got your name?" Guardia asked. "That 'Eltenios' those sea-walkers kept calling you?"

"No, that's something my mother gave me. Growlithe like me on Nagrobek always got special names handed down from our parents from this ancient tongue that not even the others seem to understand," Elty said. "Mine apparently means that I'll never, ever give up… not that that really applied to that stupid rock."

Elty shook his head, turning away and peering off at the fog in the distance at the village fringes with a wistful look.

"I… was really young at the time when mama was taken and hadn't been doing so well on my own, to the point where I couldn't even scrounge some berries together," he murmured. "And when we ran into each other, Pyry and Pekka were the first 'mons who'd looked out for me since my mother, so I decided to just go with them."

"But what of your mother?" Guardia pressed. "You said that this Pyry and Pekka got away from the prison because of her help, so what happened to her?"

"… Pyry and Pekka don't know for sure. It took them a few months for them to work up the strength to say anything, but they told me that she'd stayed behind to fight some guards who were chasing them and got overpowered," Elty responded. "Considering the stories I've heard of the place since then, she's probably long dead."

Guardia bit her tongue and pawed at the ground with her feet uneasily as she spoke up in reply.

"Is… this what you were going to tell me about back on Sormus?" she asked. "Or why you were so uncomfortable when we were around those 'holding cells' on Giotto?"

"I dunno, maybe I would've choked or something even if the others didn't come along," Elty muttered. "It's not something that I like talking about much."

The Growlithe let out a glum sigh, lowering his head to the ground with a deflated air about him.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do after all of this is over," Elty murmured. "I wasn't sure if I was going to go back to piracy, but now I don't think I even have a choice."

"I'm sure that it's something we can figure out, Eltenios," Guardia said, drawing a blink and a puzzled frown back from her Growlithe teammate.

"Huh?"

"Even if you don't have anyone else to turn to, you still have us," the Cubone insisted. "And… well, getting a helping claw wasn't the end of the world for me back on Sormus."

Elty looked back into the bone lizard's eyes with a wordless blink, as a small, tired smile came over his face.

"Heh… it doesn't look like I have a lot of other options there, now does it?" he chuckled.

The pair looked back at their teammates, where they spotted Crom attempting to teach Pleo to skip stones across the stream in front of the pavillion as their teammates looked on, only to find his attempts thwarted again and again by the height of the ledge over the water's surface. The Cubone gave a small smile, before tugging at her helmet and turning to head off.

"I guess we should go and see what's going on over there," Guardia said.

"Yeah," Elty answered. "Let's go."

The Growlithe and Cubone set off for the rest of their teammates, when en route they chanced to see Nida making her way for Crom when she passed by Pladur. The Nidorina accidentally brushed the Fraxure's hide while passing, making him reflexively jerk away with a startled squeal.

"A-AAAAH!"

"Ack! Sorry! Sorry!" Nida cried. "I didn't mean to brush up against your wound!"

Pladur paused and blinked in surprise at the apology. Sensing that he was in safer circumstances than he'd feared, he hesitated a moment before turning back warily to Nida.

"H-Huh?"

"I mean, that is why you yelled, right?" the Nidorina asked, pawing sheepishly at the ground. "I'm normally used to being able to just pass by other's feet well, so… brushing up against someone past their legs is kinda new for me."

Pladur shifted uneasily, before cautiously approaching Nida when she nosed at his side, making him stifle a laugh from her fur rubbing up against him. From the side, Crom looked on and breathed out a quiet sigh of relief, as he watched the Nidorina interacting with his father with the same friendly demeanor she had as a Nidoran.

"It really is the same Nida under there…" he murmured.

"Ahem."

The Druddigon and his companions turned back to the pavillion, where they spotted Valter and Cernun making their way out, with Trizano and Roteck flanking them from behind. Crom noticed that the Dusknoir seemed to have a stern, serious air about him, making him shift uncomfortably before warily speaking up.

"Did you make a decision yet?" Crom asked.

"Well… I've put some thought into the matter," Valter said. "After consulting with Cernun, we came to the conclusion that your prior requests may have had some merit."

The Dusknoir floated forward and held out a small pile of glinting metal baubles. Team Traveller's members looked closer and noted much to their astonishment that the metal objects were their badges that had been confiscated earlier, the lot eagerly reclaiming them as Pleo looked over with his eyes widening in happy realization.

"Ah! So you're going to help us!" he cried.

"Yes. That's right," Cernun replied. The Xerneas motioned over to Valter, who revealed an old book in blue binding and passed it over. Pleo and his companions gathered around, noticing that beyond a gold trim that cut across the front cover in a cross pattern and repeated on the back, there were no runes or other adornments to the weathered tome. The young Lugia looked up curiously, as Cernun pawed uneasily at the ground.

"This is the original copy of the ledger that Coil was using all those years ago," the Xerneas said. "I… admittedly couldn't understand everything that I read from it, but considering that it mentions me being transported from Conntow, I'm sure that it would give the 'mons it speaks of a black eye if others heard what it had to say from someone who was trusted."

Team Traveller's members gave startled blinks back, as Ander warily approached and gave an uneasy shuffle of his wings.

"Wait, you were on Conntow before?" the Scyther asked.

"It's something that happened before I hatched," Cernun explained. "And… well, it's easier if you read it for yourself, since when I tried putting things together on my own, it still felt disjointed and confusing."

"Well, whatever happened there, I would think that a Protector's help is about as good as we can hope for on that front for getting Pokémon to believe it," Kiran remarked. "Though… considering the risks we will need to take, what will you do if something happens to the Ledger?"

"That is admittedly something we haven't fully figured out. We made a copy several years ago, but it would likely not help much," Valter said. "The Empire and the Company would surely dismiss it as a mere forgery and I'm not sure how we'd overcome that. As such, it is imperative that you make the most of that tome, and guard it as if the world depends on it."

"Understood," Nida replied. "With everything that's riding on this, we wouldn't want to take chances either."

"Uh… not to be a downer, but how are we gonna get this to Tromba?" Elty asked. "Every Imperial ship's looking for us and knows our sails!"

"Your captain had voiced similar concerns earlier when I met her, and I figured you'd have gotten yourself in a bit of trouble with the way you mentioned leaving Giotto," Valter replied. "So I took the liberty of going ahead and providing a solution."

The Dusknoir pointed off across the bridge, where a small group of villagers were loading dark gray sailcloth onto wagons. By chance, one of the Pokémon in their number happened to let one of the cloths slip, which partly unfurled and revealed a violet triangle centered around a wisp-like sigil. Team Traveller's members blinked out of surprise before looking back at the Dusknoir as he smiled back.

"They may not have had a chance to perform their craft for many outsiders lately, but the tailors here are every bit as skilled as they were when Blackmoon was still standing," Valter reassured. "As for you, Nidorina, we figured that you in particular might appreciate this."

The Dusknoir handed over a blue piece of cloth that Nida took, unfurling it to reveal a scarf in her same old pattern but sized for a Nidorina. The Poison-Type looked over surprisedly, as Valter let out a ghostly chuckle.

"Well, we are working with you now, are we not?" he insisted. "It wouldn't reflect well on us to let you go around looking like a common feral!"

"And you'd need help dealing with the extra attention," Trizano chimed in. "Which is why I'm coming along."

Team Traveller looked back to see the Skarmory hopping forward, pulling a wing in front of his chest to give a bow before the Rescue Team's members.

"Duke Valter has entrusted me to make sure that the Ledger stays safe during your travels," he explained. "And that should you need it, that you'd have my strength to aid your battles!"

"Heh! It'll be a pleasure to fight alongside you!" Guardia piped, giving a friendly wave as Elty flattened out his ears with a pout.

"Hopefully he can learn to tone the theatrics down for once," he grumbled.

Trizano ruffled his feathers, stepping forward to join his new teammates only for thumping, heavy footsteps to immediately follow after him. A quick glance up revealed their owner to be Roteck, who darted over to his Skarmory companion and put a claw on his wing.

"Trizano! While you're out there… please do keep an eye on my brother if you run into him," Roteck asked. "I know that he's out there and if what you told me last time is right, I'm sure he needs all the help he can get being kept out of trouble."

"Heh, I've been doing decently with that so far, haven't I?" Trizano replied. "It's nothing Trizano the Valiant Knight Skarmory can't handle!"

Team Traveller's members blinked at the Skarmory's reassurance regarding Roteck's brother. The thought crossed their mind that perhaps he was referring to Hess, but between him not speaking a lick of Pioppo's tongue and his… obviously different lifestyle, it was hard to imagine him fitting the bill. Pleo noticed his teammates preparing to set off and shook his head, reasoning that there'd surely be time to learn more later, before turning his attention over to the young Xerneas on the pavillion's steps and staring expectantly.

"… Aren't you coming too, Cernun?" Pleo wondered.

"Absolutely not!" Valter snapped. "After everything that's happened, it'll be a matter of time before the Empire or the Company come here searching for-"

"Valter, it's alright," Cernun insisted. "I think that I can explain this."

The Xerneas stepped forward towards Pleo, who tilted his head back puzzledly as Cernun began to speak up.

"I'm not coming along, Pleo," the deer said. "Or at least not right now."

Pleo froze, his wings and head drooping at the Fairy-Type's reply. All this time Cernun had seemed like he was fairly curious and open towards helping him…

"But… why not?"

"Because this town needs my help," Cernun explained. "This might not be my island, but if we're really going to have to deal with the outside world again now that word is going to go around, we're going to need some time to prepare for it."

"I… guess that's fair enough," Pleo sighed. "I just wish that that was something that could be taken care of sooner."

Cernun reflexively opened his mouth, only to let it hang open wordlessly as he hesitated and fell quiet, shuffling back uneasily. The Xerneas' loss for words prompted Valter to float up, as he attempted to carry on from where his patron had abruptly left off

"Time goes by in the blink of an eye, Lugia. Our paths may yet cross sooner than you think," the Dusknoir remarked, before hesitantly turning over to the rest of Team Traveller's members.

"I presume that this is the part where you'd want to leave," he said. "I'm… admittedly not fully comfortable with it, but there's not a lot of choices left for us."

Pleo and the others straightened up, shooting back determined looks at Valter and Cernun as Nida and Elty spoke up to reassure their new allies.

"Don't worry about us! We'll make the most of the Ledger before anyone comes back for the village!" Nida exclaimed. "It's a promise!"

"Yeah, we're not looking to string this out any longer than you are," Elty added.

"Then I shall bid you all addio and await news of your success," Valter said.

With that, Team Traveller's members slung their bags onto their shoulders, walking off in the direction of the palisade as the other sailors began to follow suit after them with their new sails. All the while Cernun watched the villagers wave them off and call out farewells and well-wishes after them as others helped the strangers cart off their new sails, a small smile spreading over his mouth as he lowered his horned head.

"Good luck, Pleo. We're all counting on you."

---

In Vollezee, the Company's shipyards were built on a keyhole-shaped extension of Canalhouse City's central canal. Amidst the city's forest of narrow, tall-roofed buildings, the din of construction and sight of lavender sails from the yards broadcasted the Company's full might. All around it, various facilities had been built to service the Company's underlings: a post office, a medic's hall for injuries in the shipyard, and a large complex of battlegrounds built under the shadow of the harbor master's office. The courtyards had been particularly well-trafficked by members of Lyn's crew that day: there was the Huntail and dark blue Barraskewda sparring directly in a flooded battlefield, the Crobat zipping to and fro between paper targets…

"Yah!"

… and yet others who had preoccupied themselves with practicing their attacks on the Substitutes that the Company procured as punching bags, including Ketu. There, on an empty courtyard, the Weavile dashed ahead towards a Growlithe Substitute and swung his claws up against its throat to send it flying upwards, before striking again with a Brick Break that launched it into a retaining wall. The hapless Substitute lingered for a moment before bleeding out orange mist and flopping down with its back torn up from impact.

"Hrmph, that Throat Chop's still holding up well enough."

The Weavile gave a bat of his claws and grumbled to himself. Such was the curse of Pokémon who attempted to keep their pool of moves as large as possible. There was always a different move here or there that required more effort than normal to keep it in practice and useful in battle. In normal times, the drudgery would be a mere annoyance, and not weigh on his mood so much…

"Ketu!"

But these were far from normal times, to say the least. Ketu turned and saw the shout was coming from none other than Lyn, approaching with stomping footfalls and bared fangs. A disgusted scowl flickered over Ketu's face for a fleeting moment, before he suppressed his emotions and affected a puzzled blink back at the Samurott.

"What's the matter, Captain?" the Weavile asked. "I was right in the middle of working on my technique a bit."

"Forget about your training for a moment!" Lyn snapped. "I need to have a word with you. Now."

"About what?" Ketu said.

"About what you know about that Ditto!" the Samurott shouted, prompting Ketu to pause and raise a brow.

"The one that we thought was Lugia?" the Weavile replied. "I mean, I only heard about it a few hours ago, so…"

"Don't play that card on me," Lyn growled. "You were one of the last Pokémon to enter the ship, so if nothing else you ought to have seen him approaching."

Ketu gave Lyn an annoyed frown in response, the Weavile consciously tightening up his body with the tense, rigid mannerisms of deep offense.

"Why are you asking me about this?" Ketu demanded. "Just because I had to run to make the boat didn't mean that I was just sitting around and looking up at the sky for weird-looking things beforehand!"

"Because someone on the crew set me up and is actively sabotaging me!" Lyn exclaimed. "You are the only Pokémon in my ranks who got to my ship after I had already captured that Ditto! Did you honestly expect me not to ask you?"

"Tch, I'm not really sure why you're wasting your time flagging me down," the Weavile scoffed. "In case you're forgetting, I was having some downtime with Sorge, Zelle, and Aldrich before I returned."

Lyn paused and blinked at the first mate's reply, his agitated demeanor melting away with a blank, puzzled expression.

"Huh?"

"You know, Sorge and his team? My best friend and your old buddy? The 'mon from the Intelligence Division who had his four-year old cover shredded just helping me make it back to the ship and getting you out of port?" Ketu said. "You could've just asked him what I was up to before giving me the third degree like this!"

Ketu watched as Lyn fell silent, seemingly torn by his appeal to the Samurott's perceived friendship with Sorge. Sensing an opportunity to nip his superior's suspicions in the bud, the Weavile shook his head, before summoning the most offended huff he could muster.

"Really, do you think I'm happy about the mission blowing up on us like this? I put my own hide on the line helping you bring that Lugia in!" Ketu snapped. "Maybe I'm more subtle than I give myself credit for, but I thought it was pretty clear that I wasn't all sunshine and rainbows since I found out!"

Lyn said nothing for what felt like a long moment, before pinching his brow and letting out a tired sigh.

"… You're right, I should've thought it over more before approaching you like that," the Samurott muttered. "I've just had a lot on my mind lately between this spy and trying to figure out where to go from here."

Ketu crossed his arms and let out a quiet scoff. Even if he was simple as ever to steer away, Lyn had a better nose for inconsistencies than he'd given him credit for. With Lyn's temper the way it was, it was best to get the Samurott to relax a bit while his suspicions were deflected. After all, as Administrator Elilan himself had reminded, any ability to make a move, let alone one to snag that Lugia, hinged on Lyn remaining his normal, dense, unsuspecting self…

A few shouts from past the battlefield's edges turned Ketu's attention to another courtyard where other members from Lyn's crew were sparring. Lyn always had been a bit more pliable after sparring… All that would be needed would be to do his normal routine, hold back on the field, and let the Samurott feel like he was in control. Surely that would help to hurry Lyn back to a state of mind he could work with.

"Maybe letting off a little steam would get things rolling," Ketu proposed. "There's an open battlefield right now, so why don't we spar a bit to get the blood flowing?"

Lyn blinked and raised a brow at Ketu's offer, giving a puzzled tilt of his head back.

"Now? I don't really see how that'll help me think things through," Lyn said. "We've both been through a lot lately and you of all Pokémon ought to know that our sparring sessions aren't casual affairs."

"Meh, it's nothing that we're not both used to at this point. And I think I've got enough tricks up my sleeve to keep things from being boring," Ketu insisted. "Besides, a problem's just a battle in your head. Might as well play through a few attacks to figure out what works."

The Samurott paused a moment, before turning back for the battlefield, a small smile spreading over his muzzle.

"Very well, I'll give it a try," the Water-Type said. "But don't expect me to go easy on you."

Lyn and Ketu took their places at opposing ends of the battlefield, the captain pulling his seamitars from their scabbards as his first mate flashed his claws. The pair drew near each other in the center of the battlefield and began to maneuver around one another, each eyeing for openings to attack each other.

"I just don't really know where to go from here with that spy," Lyn muttered. "I've tried to think of any possible telltale sign that would give him away, but it just keeps leading me to Pokémon who can't be the spy instead of any actual leads."

"Wait, just how many 'mons have you questioned so far?" Ketu asked.

"Only you so far, but I've been drawing up suspects and already set aside time to go through half of the crew in the morning to try and root him out."

Before Ketu could reply, he was cut off by Lyn spitting up a large jet of water at him, prompting the Dark-Type to jump back from the Hydro Pump's path before flicking a spray of icy flechettes back at Lyn. The Samurott felt the Ice Shard fleck his arm and jerked it back, rubbing at it as Ketu smiled with quiet satisfaction and carried on.

"You're not going to just sit around in port and question everyone until you find him, are you?" Ketu asked. "You'd be stuck here in Canalhouse for the rest of the week!"

Lyn shook his head back, taking note of how he'd exposed himself before correcting his stance and assuming a more guarded posture. The Samurott watched as Ketu sized up his newfound caution, starting to circle around as Lyn followed his movements, keeping his blades at his ready.

"I suppose that I don't have many options beyond waiting for the spy to slip up…" Lyn grumbled. "I can't afford to let that Clawitzer freely search the sea for that long."

"That crusty old crab we left behind on Giotto?" Ketu wondered. "You're really that worried about her?"

The Weavile abruptly flung another spray of icy shards, only for his attempt to be cut short by Lyn blocking the blow with a slash. The Samurott charged ahead with a watery tackle, knocking Ketu back with a heavy graze that forced him into a hasty roll back onto his feet.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Lyn insisted. "After all, who's to say that the spy hasn't told her that the Protector was last seen in Buyeom?"

Ketu sprang back from Lyn, quickly regaining a healthy buffer of space before shaking some water off his fur and giving a disgusted flick of his claws.

"Eh, I don't know, Captain. You're obviously forgetting about the real threat here," Ketu began as a small, teasing smile formed at the ends of his mouth. "Someone as skillful as that Aggron pirate might snatch away the Protector before we even get the chance. Not much we can do against a winner like that."

"Har har, that bumbling oaf in the golden scarf?" Lyn huffed, rolling his eyes in response. "Why would he be a threat at all?"

"Well, you know what they say about threats you don't pay attention to…" the Weavile said.

Ketu dashed and lunged forward, spreading the digits on his claws as he raked Lyn's arm with a slash trailing a shadowy aura. The Weavile smirked when he saw Lyn yank his arm back, as he continued to chide his superior.

"They're the ones that often turn out to be the most dangerous-"

The Weavile was abruptly cut off by the flat of Lyn's seamitar smashing into his face. Ketu stumbled back, spinning about to stay on his feet as he regained his footing a few paces away, moving a claw up to his face as he tried to shake himself out of his disoriented stun from Lyn's Revenge.

"Perhaps you ought to mind your own advice a bit more!" the Samurott shot back.

Ketu shook his head as his senses returned to normal when he noticed his paw felt wet and warm, prompting him to pull it back and notice the white fur on his paw stained a dark red. The Dark-Type stared down as he felt a small dribble of blood trickle out of his nose, turning back to see Lyn spinning a seamitar before sheathing it with a satisfied chuckle.

"Thanks for the session, it's taken more of an edge off of things than I expected," Lyn said. "Though… given your condition I think we should call it here. No need to taint the usual win with an unneeded injury."

Ketu narrowed his eyes and grit his teeth under his lips. None of this was supposed to be happening! He was supposed to be on his way to a Commander's post with Betulo for finally delivering Kline to Elilan, while this oversized blowhard was supposed to be out on his bum for embarrassing himself in front of the Board! Not gloating at him for catching him off guard while he was holding back!

… No. He'd been wearing this underranked scarf and playing the part of the weaker subordinate long enough. Even with Lyn's suspicions, surely his cover could survive his true colors poking through once.

"I think you're calling your victory a little prematurely here, Captain," Ketu growled, rubbing the blood on his nose off onto his right arm's fur. "Let's keep going."

Lyn blinked before looking over his subordinate with a dubious raise of his brow.

"Hm? Are you sure?" the Samurott asked. "Since it looked-"

"I'm fine."

Lyn looked over his first mate skeptically, pausing as Ketu's red eyes bored back into him. It was custom among Pokémon in the Company to cut sparring short once blood had been drawn, but barring a small streak on his fur, there was little sign Ketu ever had his nosebleed in the first place. While his mission needed his first mate in good health, with how insistent he was to continue, he was obviously well enough to stomach an extra blow or two…

Given all that they'd been through lately, what harm was there in indulging him?

"Hmph, very well then," Lyn replied. "Just don't expect the outcome to be any different."

Lyn eased back into a battle stance, fishing his seamitars out from their scabbards with an audible rattle when a large shard of ice abruptly flew in for his right wrist. The Samurott felt a sharp pain that slackened his paw's grip and made his right seamitar drop to the ground before reflexively jerking his paw back.

"Gah!"

The Water-Type hastily stooped down and snatched his seamitar, glancing up to see Ketu springing for his neck with his claws drawn for a Night Slash. The Samurott hastily swung his blade up in the nick of time, feeling Ketu's claws glance against its flat as his muzzle curled into an enthused grin.

"Hah! You're really getting into this!" the Samurott exclaimed.

Ketu sprang away, watching as Lyn swung his free blade and slashed through the empty air where he'd been a moment prior. The Weavile landed on the ground and crouched, feeling water against his feet when he noticed that he and Lyn were standing in the residue of his earlier Hydro Pump. Ketu inhaled and blew out a frigid wind along the ground, freezing it over towards the Samurott's direction and sweeping the otter up in the process. From his position, Lyn darted back as quickly as his slowed limbs allowed, assuming that Ketu was aiming to try and freeze his feet into place. The Samurott retreated and kept his blades at his ready, only to see Ketu dashing ahead before sliding along the ground past the tip of his nose and under his body followed by a sharp, slicing pain that flashed across his chest.

"Agh!"

Lyn recoiled and jerked back with a sharp cry, spitting up a large jet of water at Ketu that hit the ground and splashed the Weavile just after he hastily rolled out of the way. Ketu entered a crouch with a disgusted hiss, readying his legs to throw himself back into battle when the sharp bark of a Samurott's voice rang out.

"That's enough!"

Ketu glanced up to see Lyn clutching at his chest, pulling his paw back to reveal a red streak on his hide and his paw's pads sticky with blood. The Samurott looked at his reddened paw with his eyes wide with stunned surprise, before brushing it against his hide and hardening his features into a sharp scowl down at his subordinate.

"What's gotten into you?" he demanded. "I thought that you said this was an exercise to get the blood flowing!"

The Weavile bit his tongue, his eyes turning to Lyn's bloodied paw as he visibly paused, before shaking his head with a sigh.

"… Sorry. I'd just been getting a bit riled up over how things had been going with the mission," Ketu replied. "In my defense, it did still get your blood flowing."

"Well, you've certainly given me a new benchmark to train against since I've never seen you do that in sparring before," Lyn muttered. "But what was the point you were trying to make earlier?"

"Well jokes aside, my point was not to focus on that 'Nagant' too much and more on what that Lugia and his buddies are up to," the Weavile said. "Besides, we can't exactly find out how much she knows other than sailing up to her and asking."

Lyn twitched his whiskers at his first mate's reply, before curling his face into a grumbling scowl.

"Bah… if we were playing on an even field and I had a spy of my own on her crew, it would make things so much more straightforward…"

"Well we don't have one, so that can't be helped," Ketu retorted. "And that Aggron at best is just shadowing her around, so I doubt he'd have much info or be of any use to us. Not to mention he'd be a pain to track down anyway."

Lyn's face remained locked in a frown, only for his eyes to widen slightly and the Water-Type to begin pacing off for the battlefield's exit.

"… Actually, don't be too sure about that."

Ketu stared after the leaving Samurott, beginning to follow after as he raised a brow puzzledly at the captain's sudden wanderlust.

"… Lyn?"

"Go and wrangle up my original crew and get the Argent Aviso ready to sail once I get back," the otter insisted. "I think I might know a way to get our edge back to get the Protector, but it's going to require asking the Board for a favor…"

Ketu stopped, leaving Lyn to slip off into the halls and out of view. After being sure he was out of earshot, the Weavile's face fell into a puzzled scowl as he muttered aloud to himself.

"What did you think of this time?"

---

Author's Notes:

- treplo (трепло) - Russian: "windbag". Can also be used to mean "braggart" or "liar". (BGN/PCGN Romanization.)
- Bene - Italian: "Good" (interjection)
- Nagrobeki - Polish: "Nagrobekish"
- addio - Italian: "goodbye", "farewell"

 

[Sike Saner]

“What's going to be your excuse for disappointing us this time?"

"Oh come on, Elilan. He's here and he's even got an Apricorn with him!” Zorn chortled. “Have him open it and let's see the Protector for ourselves!"

"Gladly,” Lyn replied. “I bring you Lugia, the Guardian of the Seas!"

The Commissioner took out a decorated clay cup and fit the Apricorn into its curvature at the floor before the table. He took up his right seamitar, training the tip on the nut’s surface, before slicing the top off with a flick of his paw. Inler and the gathered Administrators watched as a jagged beam of light shot out and began materializing on the floor before them into the frightened form of a Ditto, who blinked his beady eyes and looked around warily, noticing the members of the Board staring down at him.

"Er… hi?" David said.

I think that moment calls for one of these.

"So... do we have any volunteers?"

Chirp chirp chirp

Hess narrowed his eyes, turning towards the back right of the gathering where a Kricketot was chittering to himself. The Aggron let out a low growl, prompting the Bug-Type to abruptly stop, before shrinking back uneasily.

Okay, that was cute.

The Bug-Type frowned a moment, before noticing that the walls of the room had been lined with bookcases packed with various tomes, broken in occasional intervals by glass cases that seemed to contain curious artifacts. In one, there was a curious machine made of rusted metal consisting of a frame and a pair of tatty wheels with spokes of metal wire, while another had what appeared to be a strange bracelet built around a glass surface in the center, and further down was yet another artifact with a cracked and dirt-caked contraption made of an unknown material that had been unfolded much like a flipbook or some manner of oversized locket.

Intriguing. The second one almost sounds like a mega ring of some sort...

"I'm glad to hear that, Administrator," Sorge answered. "In that case, let's not wait any longer and show you Subject Red."

The dragon took out a concave clay stand from further in his bag along with an Iron Thorn to keep his superior's desk tidy, setting the Apricorn down as he carefully prodded at the nut's surface. After aligning the barb with a dent in the nut's shell, Sorge drove the Iron Thorn in harder and harder until the Apricorn's surface split, and a zig-zagging ray of white light shot out, materializing on the table in front of Elilan into a green serpent with a red spot visible on his back. The Zoroark stared intently for a moment, only for his mouth to suddenly curl down in a sour frown, a change that Team Sentinel's members quickly picked up on as they gave worried looks back.

"Administrator, what's wrong?" Aldrich asked.

The Zoroark snatched the Zygarde Cell by its tail, looking unimpressedly as he lifted it up. The serpent dangled limply, leaving Elilan to run a claw along the red spot on its back. A portion of it flaked off in his claw, prompting him to raise it to his nose, and catch a spicy odor in his nostrils.

"You've been tricked. This is not Subject Red."

Team Sentinel's members blanched out of surprise and Ellsberg twitched his antennae puzzledly as Elilan put a nearby jar over the Cell to silence its hearing. The Dark-Type scowled down at the Cell in the jar, before turning back to Team Sentinel's members with a sharp glare.

"What you captured is just one of his Cells with Tamato juice used to mimic his markings," he growled.

Cue the trombone again. :y

"Why can't Commodore Valan keep his lousy snout out in Gestirn?" the shrimp fumed. "Does he really think the Empire will fall apart if I search for the Protector on my own?"

A loud creak followed by sharp yelps rang out in the background, prompting Nagant to turn and see indigo-scarved guards bolting out of the way of a leaning mast hitting the pier with a deafening crash. The Clawitzer and her first mate looked on blankly, before she turned away and waved a claw defeatedly.

"You know what, don't answer that."

Love that comedic timing.

"But what about our last trip to Andaku when we got- ARGH!"

The Wimpod was summarily cut off by a stomp on his back from Hess, leaving the hapless Bug-Type laying against the deck groaning out of pain.

Naughty Hess, you should never step on a niceopod!

Nori glanced around at the surrounding mob when he noticed Roteck nearing them on the platform. The 'mon was a spitting image of Hess, and with how cagey he'd been just being around him…

"I think I've got something," Nori said.

The Marowak shuffled to his feet, baring his teeth and glaring up at Roteck with the loudest, most threatening growl he could muster.

"Grr… you'd better untie me right now, you lousy metal-head!" Nori snarled. "Keep me waiting and I'll take one of your bones and get out of here mysel- AAAAGH!"

Nori was cut off mid-sentence by a heavy punch at his gut from Roteck, leaving the Ground-Type coughing and wheezing for air. Roteck stooped down, grabbing Nori by his throat as Alvise and Valatos recoiled, bringing the hapless Marowak up to his glaring eyes.

"Any more threats you want to throw my way, tough guy?" the Aggron demanded.

Nori squirmed and pulled his tail in towards his body as Roteck tightened his claws about his throat, stammering nervously before he finally managed to squeak out a reply.

"N-No…"

PFFFF. Great job, Nori. Really showed him who's boss.

"Hey! That wasn't part of your deal earlier!" the Marowak protested. "Why do we need to take a bath?!"

"Because you three reek!" Roteck spat. "It's like you rolled around in a trash pile!"

"Hey! We already took a bath before we left Kenobi, alright?!" Alvise snapped back. "We're clean enough!"

"And when was that?" Roteck demanded.

"Uhm… about two weeks ago?" the wolf answered.

Smely. :s

"… Wait, that's what they're all complaining about?" Elty scoffed, tilting an ear back. "I went without baths longer than that on the Iron Fleet!"

SMELY D:

dark blue Barraskewda

SHINY

Ketu glanced up to see Lyn clutching at his chest, pulling his paw back to reveal a red streak on his hide and his paw's pads sticky with blood. The Samurott looked at his reddened paw with his eyes wide with stunned surprise, before brushing it against his hide and hardening his features into a sharp scowl down at his subordinate.

"What's gotten into you?" he demanded. "I thought that you said this was an exercise to get the blood flowing!"

I mean. It technically was, in one manner of speaking. :B


Congrats are in order for Nida evolving. Wonder what her family will think... although I also wonder if everybody'll still be there when she gets back, what with the relocation order. I guess we'll see!