I decided to continue my Unova travels since my vacation technically still hadn't ended. This time, I chose to explore Castelia City, the sister city to Nimbasa City. The reasons for choosing Castelia City was because geographically, Castelia City is located at the southern end of Unova and the city was situated very close to Nimbasa, which would mean lesser time spent travelling. It is also slightly warmer there as opposed to the other cities located in the north of Unova.
Furthermore, unlike the other places which I had visited previously, Castelia City is a place meant to attract tourists. There will be many things for us to see and explore here. The only gripe I have was that the regulations here regarding the releasing of pokemon was particularly strict due to the importance of the city to Unova. Such regulations were necessary as Castelia City is the heart of business and economy of Unova.
Castelia City was the first destination I arrived at when I first reached Unova. However back then Sebastian teleported us straight to Nimbasa right after I had disembarked and so I never had the chance to actually tour the place. Castelia City is one of those "must visit" places if a tourist ever comes to Unova, which was another reason why I decided to tour this place.
As usual, Sebastian requested to tag along on grounds of concerns for my personal safety. This time, I agreed, knowing that he is simply trying to do his job as our family's butler and also because by this point I'm almost certain that Dad and Vance left him here in Unova to keep an eye on me in their stead. If having Sebastian by my side helps to let them have a peace of mind I guess I'm fine with having him tagging along every now and then.
Castelia City is a huge seaside city. Geographically, it is also the largest city in Unova. It is a huge sprawling metropolis, sporting many towering skyscrapers and other tall buildings. The centre of the city is a central business district where most of the huge skyscrapers and commercial buildings could be found. A complicated network of alleyways lead into this area and these alleyways are where the smaller shops were set up among the city traffic. Most of these shops sell food-to-go for the busy Castelia residents who always seem to be in the midst of making their way somewhere within the city.
The streets here are almost always constantly crowded and I heard it's only going to be worse during the rush hours. Like how Slateport is in Hoenn, Castelia City is Unova's perfect harbour city, their gateway to the world. The city's outskirts are where their famous harbours were built, where ships that provide traffic to other regions in the world would leave from and also arrive in Unova.
As a result of it being the main harbour city of the region, Castelia City is also heavily influenced by other cultural elements from the other regions because this is where visitors from outside Unova would first arrive at when visiting Unova. Castelia City is well-known to be a melting pot, incorporating cultures and foods from other regions into their everyday lives. In fact, one thing that Castelia is famous for is how artists from all over the world would gather here to meet other artists, exchange pointers, make friends, and open their art galleries. In a manner of speaking, its very similar to how scientists and technological experts from all over the world love to flock to Kanto.
Thus, the first place I decided to visit was the famous Studio Castelia. Despite its fame, it is only a small art gallery located in central Castelia. However, it showcases many beautiful paintings from artists who live in Castelia and it was said that many artists from all over Unova will come to Castelia to get inspiration from the city's Gym Leader, Burgh, and this studio is where they will hang their paintings.
The studio is also a place where up-and-coming young artists would gather in their attempt to kickstart their career and make a name for themselves. You can see many artists setting up roadside stalls along the entire area around where the studio is located in order to sell their paintings. It is a very unique sight because this is not something which I will be able to see in Hoenn. Hoenn isn't very big on the arts.
There were many kinds of paintings on display at the studio. Some were abstract art, some were portraits, some were paintings of famous landmarks or sceneries. Truthfully, touring the studio didn't take up much time. Most of my time was spent exploring the roadside stalls where the up-and-coming artists were displaying their works and hoping that someone would buy them.
One particular painting caught my eye. It was a painting that depicts the scenery of Castelia City. I really loved how the artist captured the magnificence of the city's unique skyscrapers and tall commercial buildings while blending the surrounding environment into the picture as well. He painted the harbours and the sea, and also the tall trees surrounding the city outskirts where pokemon can be found.
"How much are you selling this?" I asked, and the artist seemed genuinely surprised that somebody was actually interested in his work. He's selling it for a thousand pokedollars and while bargaining is accepted in this area, I decided against it because I personally felt that the painting is worth the price. Besides, I am earning money as an interpol agent and I haven't had a chance to really spend it due to how busy with work I was for the past few months. To me, a thousand pokedollars really isn't much, but to the artist, it may help him pay for his rent this month.
Five minutes later, I have a nicely wrapped painting in my arms. I simply stored it in my backpack which I brought along with me for the very purpose of helping me keep any souvenirs I had decided to buy on my trip since it is the newest model that boasts a much larger storage capacity with the latest improvements in Foldable Space Technology. It was after I zipped my backpack shut that I saw Sebastian looking at me as if there's something he wanted to say but didn't get a chance to, and I realised that he actually wanted to help me carry the painting which I just bought but I had kept it in my backpack before he could do or say anything.
"Erm… I was planning to hang the painting in my room…?"
"Ms Velda, my job is to assist you. You do not need to carry the items yourself."
"I will… keep that in mind?" I replied awkwardly, still not used to the idea of having someone waiting on me hand and foot for every little thing because that was not how I was raised. I guess my family really is an oddity among other families of similar statuses, with close to no servants, living in a small house despite owning too many luxurious properties to count and preferring to do everything ourselves, including the chores in the house. Come to think about it, is this a Vera "tradition", or is this simply something that started from my parents' generation?
Maybe I should ask them when I have the chance.
We exited the area and Fuzzy excitedly tapped my shoulder, catching my attention. He pointed to a nearby ice cream stand, obviously wanting to have a taste of ice cream.
"Have you seen your belly?" I lightly poked at Fuzzy's belly, to which he replied with an indignant squeak, telling me that he had not been growing fatter like what I had been insinuating. Still, I walked towards the ice cream stand to get what Fuzzy wanted. For some reason, there is a lack of customers despite the fact that the ice cream stand was situated in an area with high foot traffic.
"Hi, three casteliacones, please," I placed my order after taking a quick look at their menu. Casteliacones is the name of their featured ice cream and its outward appearance was rather similar to a vanillite.
I handed Fuzzy his ice cream and he proceeded to take huge bites out of it instead of licking the ice cream cone, getting cream all over his face as a result. I decided to ignore him for now and handed Sebastian a cone too, which he took after getting over his surprise that I actually bought one for him. The last ice cream cone was for myself and I shared some of it with Rena, who didn't seem to really like eating cold desserts in such cold weather. In the end, I gave my unfinished casteliacone to Fuzzy, who delightfully finished up the entire thing within a minute.
"How are you not getting a brain freeze?" I cannot help but question as I took out a piece of tissue to wipe off the ice cream that Fuzzy had gotten all over his face. Fuzzy replied with a loud squeak, clearly content with his meal.
Seeing Fuzzy eating so ravenously made me a little hungry as well. I decided that we might as well have lunch since it was nearing noon. I found a place that caught my interest after a quick search on the internet, a cafe that goes by the name of Cafe Sonata that's apparently located at Castelia Narrow Street.
"Ms Velda, I propose that we… choose another place."
I could understand why Sebastian said those words as we stood at the entrance of Narrow Street. As it turned out, Narrow Street was not like the other streets that we had walked on earlier today. Narrow street was a back alley with a number of dumpsters and rubbish bins lined up against its sides and like its name suggested, it is a very narrow street. It was poorly lit and contained very few people. It looked exactly like the type of place where unsavoury people would choose to hang out.
Why would any cafe choose to set up shop here?
"It's fine, we are more than capable of taking care of ourselves."
Since we were already here, I decided to continue trying my luck to search for this Cafe Sonata. Also, I am now curious as to why anyone would set up a cafe here in one of the dingiest parts of the city. I would not be surprised if we encountered any shady people on our way there but as I said, we are more than capable of handling any wannabe thugs.
The sour and foul scent of trash lingered in the air as we walked deeper into Narrow street thanks to the dumpsters lined up along the sides of the wall. I could spot small groups of trubbish running around to gather food from the dumpsters and bins although they fled the moment they spotted us. As I suspected, this place was indeed a favourite haunt for thugs and shady people, but Sebastian and his medicham easily put anybody that tried to harass us in place so it wasn't an issue. These thugs quickly learnt not to get in our way.
It was also thanks to one of those thugs that Sebastian had beat up that we finally found the Cafe Sonata that I was looking for. It really was a small cafe, lined with red tile floorings and dimly lit with an orange glow. In the centre of the cafe was a small platform where a guitarist was performing his songs and from what I could see, there's only two other customers present.
We quickly found ourselves a table. For some reason, there didn't seem to be any waiters or waitresses around to give us a menu to look over or to even take our orders, so Sebastian and I decided to simply walk over to the counter to ask for a menu. The person at the counter was a portly man who was talking to a tall muscled young man with short black hair in harsh whispers. A scrafty could be seen beside the young man.
"-telling ya, I need more info bout the-"
"There are other customers, keep your volume down," The portly man behind the counter who I assumed was the cashier reminded the young man before looking over the young man's shoulder to give me a small smile. "My apologies, young lady, we are rather short on staff right now. Please take a seat first, we will attend to you shortly. In the meantime, feel free to have our singer sing a song of your choosing."
I nodded my head in understanding and I heard the young man giving an annoyed click of his tongue as he finally turned his head to look at who the cashier was talking to. The first thing I noticed about him was the unique colour of his eyes, a bright scarlet red, which actually reminded me of Leticia because her eyes were of the exact same colour.
"What'cha staring at?"
"I'm sorry, excuse me," I apologised when I realised I had indeed been staring at the man's eyes for a little too long when I spaced out earlier. Not wanting to incite an argument with the unfriendly man, I decided to walk back to our table to take a seat and wait to be served. The only other customer stood up and left, having already finished his meal. Business here doesn't seem to be too good if this is the number of customers they have for their lunch crowd, but yet the reviews I found on the internet tells a very different story.
We didn't walk into the wrong cafe, did we?
"We are in Cafe Sonata, right?" I asked Sebastian with a soft whisper, who merely nodded his head.
"From what I could see, this is indeed Cafe Sonata, unless there is another Cafe Sonata which we weren't aware of," Sebastian replied, and from the corner of my eye I could see the cashier still talking to the unfriendly young man in soft whispers. It didn't seem like they would be done anytime soon.
"Ms Velda, I think this place doesn't only serve as a cafe. It would be wise to act ignorant if we were to see or hear things we are not supposed to know if we want to avoid trouble," Sebastian spoke to me in a soft volume such that only I can hear him and I cannot help but give this cafe another sweeping glance. If not a cafe, what else is this place supposed to be?
I looked at Rena, who merely gave an indication that nobody here harboured hostile thoughts towards us. To me, that was enough assurance that this place is safe, so I decided to stay and wait.
The guitarist walked up to us and asked if there's any song that we wanted to hear him sing since we currently are the only customers in the cafe if we exclude the red-eyed man. I was too lazy to think of a specific song, so I simply asked him if he could sing something relaxing. It was also at this moment that the cashier was finally done talking to the red-eyed man and came over with the menu. There really wasn't much to choose from because the menu only had five items if we excluded the drinks.
The meals better be worth it, considering that I took all the effort to locate this place after reading the five stars reviews on the internet.
To my delight, our drinks were served almost immediately and the guitarist had also finished re-tuning his guitar at around the same time. The guitarist started off by singing a relaxing song as I had asked him to, his heavenly song and his beautiful voice lifting my mood almost instantly.
"When I was young I'd listen to the radio, waitin' for my favourite songs."
I closed my eyes and idly hummed along with the tune, fully immersing and enjoying myself and the song. It wasn't until the song was nearing the chorus that I suddenly realised that something really wasn't right.
Wait a sec. I know this song.
"Every sha-la-la-la, every wo-o-wo-o, still shines."
"Every shing-a-ling-a-ling, that they're starting to sing, so fine," I whispered the next stanza to myself in an inaudible volume, eyes wide, and my suspicions were confirmed when I was able to match the lyrics word for word to what I remembered in my mind.
I had long forgotten the title and the original singer, but I know for a fact that this song that the guitarist was singing had to be a song from my previous life. I don't remember the full lyrics of the song either, but I certainly remember parts of the chorus and the general tune of the song.
This shouldn't be possible. Why and how on earth does this guitarist know of this song?
"Ms Velda?"
"It's fine," I shook my head after hearing Sebastian's concern, my eyes now glued to the guitarist and trying to observe him a little more closely. There should be only seven of us in this world and I had already met them all. This guitarist is not one of us, I am sure about that.
"Where did you learn this song from?" I asked the moment the guitarist finished singing that very familiar song that I still could not remember the name of.
"It's a nice song, ain't it?" The guitarist replied with a chuckle.
"It is," I agreed, trying to hide my impatience while trying to probe further. "Who composed this song?"
"It was about… close to three months ago, I believe? We had a customer here doing business with old John over there before staying a little longer to have a meal. Actually, I think he sat at the same table you did, and I heard him humming this song to himself while having his meal. Just hearing a portion of it and I knew immediately that this song's gonna be a big hit, so I asked him if he could sell it to me. I was willing to pay any price, man, but he was kind enough to give it to me as long as I paid for his meals and gave him some info I happened to know."
"Do you have his name?"
"Eh, that's the thing, none of us here do," the guitarist shrugged his shoulders helplessly before pointing in the direction of the counter where the portly man who took our orders was currently at. "I mean, you can try asking old John but I doubt you're gonna get a word out of him. His lips are very tightly sealed when it comes to our customers."
"Do you at least know what he looks like?"
"He's… actually kind of handsome in a plain way, I'm not really sure how to describe it but if he simply remained still you won't even notice he's there. His eyes were really striking, that's for sure. Like one look and you know ya not gonna find the same pair of eyes anywhere else."
I frowned a little after hearing that. Like I had suspected, this song was not composed by the guitarist, it was by the hands of somebody else. No, it's more like somebody had regurgitated the entire song from memory and passed it over to him.
Problem is, who? Someone with really unique eyes… Oh.
"I'm going to make a call outside," I told Sebastian and stood up from my seat. He looked like he wanted to follow after me but I had also hinted very clearly that I wanted this call to be private, so he remained at his seat. Still, I made sure to stand outside at an angle such that Sebastian could clearly see me through the window. At least this way, he didn't have to worry about me suddenly being attacked by the thugs that infested Narrow Street.
I dialled the number which I only just received yesterday and my video call was promptly picked up.
"What?"
"Not even a good afternoon?" I asked dryly, noting that Jayce didn't even bother to turn on his camera for the video call.
"If there's nothing else I'm hanging up."
"Did you visit Cafe Sonata in Castelia City a few months ago? The one at Narrow Street?" I quickly asked, knowing for certain that he would really hang up on me if I didn't get to the point. I'm almost certain that the person who gave the guitarist that song was Jayce because it couldn't be Volkner but I have to be sure, because if it wasn't Jayce then we have another issue on our hands to deal with.
"How did you know?"
"You gave the guitarist there a song," I released a hidden sigh after hearing his answer. It's been confirmed, Jayce was the one who gave the song to the guitarist, not anybody else.
"Now that you mentioned it, I think I did something like that. How did the interpol know about that place anyway?"
"I found it through the internet while searching for places with good food. Thought I would try it out after reading the reviews."
There was a brief moment of silence from the other end of the line.
"Velda."
"Yeah?"
"I don't know how that cafe ended up having reviews on the internet, but that place is not just another cafe. That place is a cafe, yes, but that is the farce it shows itself to the public. That cafe is a place where people go to sell and buy information. As long as you are willing to pay for the right price and as long as they have the right information, there's no information that you cannot buy from them. The people running the place are underground information brokers."
This time, it was my turn to remain silent, not knowing how else to reply. Suddenly, everything seemed so obvious in retrospect.
Jayce also seemed to understand why I suddenly went silent because I could hear the sarcasm oozing out of his voice in the next moment.
"Come on, were you really that dumb to believe that there would be people who really chose to set up a cafe at Narrow Street? Even if that's not impossible, wouldn't the lack of any customers in the cafe be a huge red warning flag waving right at your face? Surely you would have bumped into some thugs on your way there? Did you seriously think a cafe would have survived at such a location without being forced to wind up by the end of the month?"
"Yes, yes, laugh at my stupidity for all you want," I sighed and facepalmed. "Still, information brokers? Do they have info on…?"
"Yes, they do. If you wish to buy or sell information you simply have to tell old John that you are ordering a cup of espresso macchiato and you want it on the table in 45 seconds. He will tell you that serving your order in 45 seconds is unreasonable and that moomoo milk is out of stock today. If you reply that now you want a double espresso in 30 seconds, you are telling him that you are here to buy information. If you reply that now you want a ristretto to be served in three minutes, you are telling him that you are here to sell information. The wordings are very important because just a single word out of place and he will assume that you are not here to exchange information. If you ask him directly about his secret business he will deny it till the very end and you can forget about buying or selling information at his place ever again. It is his way of hiding and protecting his business from the local authorities, so do remember that."
"That's… informative. Thanks."
"It's not a big deal. Actually, I had one of my cousins help me get something from them today, assuming that he doesn't get sidetracked and do something else entirely on his way home. If he retrieved any useful info about the Plasmas from the cafe I will have him duplicate a copy for the interpol, so don't worry about that."
"Wait, are you talking about a red-eyed guy?" I straightened my back when I suddenly made the connection. Everything suddenly made sense. "I thought he looked a bit like Leticia."
"You met him? Yeah, that guy's my younger cousin."
"Looks nothing like you."
"Is there anything else? If not, I'm hanging up."
"Fine, I won't disturb you any longer. Bye."
Jayce hung up the call and I walked back into the cafe. It was at the right time too, because our orders were finally served and we finally got to eat. The guitarist continues to sing his songs. This time, I don't recognise any of them to be songs from my previous world.
I think Looker might want to know about the existence of this place, although there may not be a point to it any longer since Jayce was already buying information about Team Plasma from the information broker here and will be giving us a copy which he thinks will be useful for our work. Another sweeping glance through the cafe told me that the red-eyed man who is Jayce's cousin was already gone. He probably had exited through a backdoor since I didn't see anyone exiting from the front while I was outside making a call.
If such places like Cafe Sonata exist right under everyone's noses in a city as bustling and bright as Castelia, it really makes me wonder just how much of these inconspicuous underground information brokers exist back home in Hoenn as well. Who knows, maybe I had walked past or even visited such places during my travels back then without knowing the true nature of these places.
Still, Jayce was right. I really should exercise my common sense a little more and keep my eyes peeled for such places in the future, especially when I found places that looked normal when they clearly are not, just like Cafe Sonata.
83
The ground shook a little when Snap ended the battle with a Hyper Beam. His mastery over this move had gotten a lot better as compared to when he first started it out. Now, Snap can freely change the trajectory of Hyper Beam mid-flight and even retain control over the move while splitting the Hyper Beam into smaller fragments of Hyper Beams, which honestly, still astounded me as to how he really managed to make that a reality. I only ever gave him the idea and some of the theoretical workings of how such an idea could be realised, but he was the one who made it happen.
The opposing vibrava lay in a crater within the private training field outside our residence, having been knocked unconscious by Snap's final attack. My opponent, Hugh, recalled his vibrava back into its pokeball with a defeated sigh.
Hugh Matis is the recent addition into the interpol. He was recommended and introduced to us by Skye herself. According to her, the boy has a knack of digging out places where criminals love to hide themselves, which had caught her attention and subsequently Looker's. Looker had given Hugh a test and he had passed it spectacularly, thus making him a full-fledged member of the interpol just like we are.
The only problem with Hugh is that he's only slightly more than a year into his career and has only earned six badges. As a trainer and a combatant of the interpol, that's unacceptable, because considering the kind of things we will have to handle, the very bare minimum skill level expected of the trainers in the interpol would be Elite level. That meant that our trainers must not only have earned all eight badges, but had also competed in an annual Pokemon League Tournament at least once. As such, Hugh's priority will be to increase his skill and power level of both his pokemon and himself in the shortest time possible.
Looker and Skye both felt that Hugh might be worth the investment, because we are indeed lacking a specialist who can specifically dig up and search for specific places or people when it comes to the crime investigation part of our job. Currently, Skye and I are the ones who are mainly filling in the role, but none of us are trained for it. I'm more inclined to make use of my connections to get the information I need from people in high places, but I'm not that good at searching for information on the ground itself. The same goes for Skye.
That's where Hugh comes in. Like this, if we ever have to bust criminal organisations again and need someone to search for information on the ground, Hugh will be the guy for the job. As long as he made it into the realms of Elite trainers, then there's really nothing much for us to worry about him.
"Don't look so dejected, I've been a trainer for two years longer than you did," I reminded Hugh, who was only two years my junior in terms of physical age. He earned five badges within a year and had just earned his sixth badge, which was honestly an impressive feat considering that global statistics have shown that most trainers dropped out of the gym circuit at around the fourth or fifth gym. At this point in the circuit, more than fifty percent of the trainers in their batch would have dropped out of the circuit thanks to the sheer difficulty of completing it.
"How did you become so strong in just three years?" Hugh half-sighed, half-lamented when he lost the battle again. To my knowledge, he had never won a single battle against any trainers of the interpol that he had met thus far. Nova, Akamu, Skye, and I are all able to defeat him with ease because while Hugh is very talented, he's also too inexperienced. After going through the whole Team Magma and Team Aqua fiasco back in Hoenn and also the Team Rocket incident, the standard rules-regulated battles felt very simple in comparison.
"The difference really lies in the experience," I replied after some thought. "I was involved in the defence of Lilycove and the Battle Frontier, and also in Indigo's war efforts against Team Rocket. I don't mean to sound harsh here, but did you seriously think that as a six badge trainer you stood a chance against someone who had survived those events?"
"No, but…" Hugh scratched the back of his head listlessly. "I felt like I lost too… easily."
"Then be glad that you haven't seen or met the truly crazily powerful ones. If you think I'm a skilled trainer, wait till you meet someone like Volkner. He will drive you up the wall and into despair," I huffed with fond exasperation. I still clearly remembered how any member of his team was able to easily handle Kratos at his worst back when Volkner was kind enough to have his pokemon help train my team when we were at his West Forest.
His electivire was truly a monster. Legendaries and mythicals aside, I would go so far as to say that his electivire could very well be the pinnacle of all electric type pokemon currently in existence.
"That… That powerful?"
"He was the strongest Gym Leader of Sinnoh until his retirement," I helpfully added as I stretched my arms upwards to loosen my stiff muscles before deciding to take my leave since my job of helping him to train his vibrava had been completed. "Alright, I'm off. I know you will be going back into training but remember to take breaks and don't overdo things, okay?"
Hugh nodded back in reply but I knew the boy enough by now to understand that my advice was going to fall on deaf ears. He has an obsession to get stronger because after seeing who the interpol were made up of, he felt inadequate, or at least that was what Rena informed me after she had passively gleaned the boy's emotions with her empathic powers. According to Rena, apparently, the boy had a very brief crush on me too, until Wacky and my ghosts decided that Hugh made a very suitable new target for their pranks. Now, Hugh is a little too afraid of getting close to me aside from the mandatory training sessions, courtesy of Wacky and my ghosts.
"Scare him once more, and I will send your pecha berries back to Hoenn as Macky's present," I spoke softly, having sensed Wacky's mischief through the mental link we share that was formed when he resided in my shadow. I felt my shadow going still, indicating that Wacky had indeed heard my threat.
"At least, leave him alone when he's seriously trying to train, okay? If you want to prank him, do it when he's not busy with something. If so, I can turn a blind eye if you don't exceed the limit of pranking him two times a day," I proposed a middle ground, and I felt Wacky's elation almost immediately along with several other ghosts who were also hiding in my shadow. It might serve to be good training for Hugh too, if he ever found a way to deal with ghosts thanks to the harmless pranks Wacky and co love to pull on him. Experience is the best teacher when it comes to dealing with ghosts and it's better to experience such encounters with tamed ghosts rather than the vicious and wild ones outside.
I gave Snap one last headpat before recalling him back into his pokeball, and once only the smaller members of my team were outside, gave a mental command to my ghosts to Shadow Sneak us back to my room in HQ. I don't fancy staying outdoors now that the weather in Nimbasa has been getting progressively colder with every passing day.
I found myself back in my bedroom once the shadow receded and light shone upon me again. It had been getting easier to issue mental commands to my ghosts without relying on Rena, something which I attributed to my mysterious ability that I'm still trying to explore the limits of. Ghosts are indeed a part of the Mind Arts Trio, so I'm not too surprised that they were able to utilise some weird form of telepathy that is unique to them alone.
Actually, I'm still a little hesitant to refer the unique mental link that I share with my ghosts as "telepathy", as it is quite unlike the psychic kind which I'm more familiar with due to my near daily reliance on Rena to act as my translator when speaking to the rest of my team. I don't know how I know or why I felt this way, but my gut instinct made me feel very strongly that the mental link I share with my ghosts is very fundamentally different from the telepathy that humans usually establish with psychic types.
So far, the mental commands which I can successfully relay to the ghosts in my shadow are limited to simple ones, like attacking in a specific direction or person, or Shadow Sneak to a certain place, for example. I still haven't figured out a way to convey more complex and complicated instructions to my ghosts, but the current method I use to direct them in battle works well enough for our cause. Like Agatha often stressed, nobody can claim to be able to fully control ghosts. As their trainers, we can only try guiding them to help us with what we want them to help us do. Ghosts are free-spirited, so micromanaging them or doing anything to rip this sense of free-spirit from them is only going to result in them acting aggressively in defiance. When things get to that point nothing good is going to happen.
Personally, I feel that this is one reason why so many trainers failed in taming ghosts. Many trainers have the habit of micromanaging their pokemon, subconsciously or not. Some species of pokemon do benefit a lot more from such a relatively hard handed approach because it does help to bring out their full potential. However, ghosts react very negatively to such an approach and very often, for ghosts, such negative emotions begets violence. With ghosts, you have to learn how to compromise, you have to learn how to be understanding of their need of not wanting to be shackled down by anything or anyone.
Most importantly, as their trainers, we have to learn and accept the fact that they will not listen to every single order we issue them. You can befriend them and leverage on the friendship formed to have them assist you in several tasks, but you will have to prepare for the inevitable outcome where they will find loopholes in your words to do what they want to do instead, and all we can do is to turn a blind eye and accept it or risk a violent argument with them. That's why many established Ghost Specialists never give out specific instructions with their ghosts, but rather a rough framework of what the ghost needs to do and complete. As for the specifics of how the task will be completed, you just have to trust that the ghost in question knows what it is doing and that it can reach the final outcome you want it to help achieve with whatever method it chose to use. You cannot possibly expect ghosts to follow a very detailed set of instructions from you word for word and then reprimand it when it does not follow your orders as specified, because it simply is not in their nature to follow instructions. For ghosts, you have to learn how to trust and learn how to let go. You have to learn how to give control to them when you rely on them for help.
Personally, my experience with ghosts led me to believe that giving them a set of "guidelines" to adhere to is a lot more effective than expecting them to follow "rules". Rules are strict and unyielding, but guidelines can be flexible. As long as my ghosts and I set a certain boundary on what lines absolutely cannot be crossed no matter what happens and come to an agreement on that, everything else is negotiable. Like this, everyone is happy.
Ghosts do share a similar trait with dragons in the sense that they will never be anyone's subordinates, at least not in the truest sense. However, while dragons behaved that way due to their sense of pride, ghosts acted in a similar manner due to their free-spirited nature. While dark types actively seek to subvert rules, psychics are often the ones following and enforcing rules. Meanwhile, ghosts merely have a dislike for rules and are content with settling for a compromise in the form of loose guidelines as long as it doesn't encroach on their precious freedom. That is the blurry line of similarities and differences of the Mind Arts Trio, an understanding that I had reached after interacting with so many different kinds of trainers and pokemon and seeing them for myself during my journey.
I took off my coat the moment I was back in my bedroom, and actually needed to shake off some of the snowflakes that had landed on my coat. It was snowing lightly outside earlier, a weather phenomena that I would never experience in Hoenn as Hoenn has a tropical climate, similar to Alola. However, Alola's sun is a lot harsher from what I was told and their monsoons are also a lot more wild compared to Hoenn.
My room is very well heated at all times of the day, of which I had no doubt Vance and Sebastian had a hand in ensuring that my room possessed such a feature before I arrived in Unova because Vance knew just how averse my body is to the cold. I changed out of my sweater and jeans for something more loose-fitting and comfortable. I don't even have the drive to even step out of the building ever since the temperature had started to take a great dip across the region, so most of my time now was spent indoors.
I sat and lazily leaned my back against the headboard of my bed, a book already in hand. Amelia had recommended a few books, this time books that are not of questionable tastes, and I was planning to get some reading done to spend my day. I dipped my right hand into my shadow, watched as my arm sunk into it and I fumbled around trying to reach for that one ghost that had been very beneficial to me thus far.
I brought out a young litwick when I pulled out my right hand from my shadow, placed it on my lap, hugging it close to myself as I started reading the book where I last left off. It was only very recently that I realised that the litwick species are very useful in helping me to ward off the cold. They are small enough to hide themselves, they are ghost types which makes it easy for me to approach them, and as fire types they can easily produce the needed latent heat to help me stay warm if I have to stay outdoors for prolonged periods of time. In fact, I had tried hugging one to sleep before and it was a very pleasant experience. With a litwick around, I don't even need to wear a jacket or to cover myself with a blanket to sleep.
I'm not too sure how long had passed while I was reading my book, but Rena caught my attention when she lazily leapt up onto my bed to join me.
'Mistress, Nova's back.'
I was a little surprised, because Nova hardly stays in this building with us ever since we came over to Unova. Like how Skye and I have our own responsibilities to fulfil as an interpol agent, Nova has her own tasks to complete as well, and hers often brings her to all around the Unova region and as such, we don't actually see each other all that much.
'Her claydol asked for my assistance to relay a message to you from its trainer, if you are free to see her right now.'
"If she's asking for me the moment she's back, then it's either something important or something very interesting," I agreed, bookmarking the page of the book which I'm currently at and putting it aside on the nightstand beside my bed. The litwick which had been nestling on my lap and was actually dozing off in comfort leapt away and jumped back into my shadow, disappearing from view entirely.
"Did her claydol say anything about what the issue is about?" I asked as I started to get myself changed into something appropriate instead of the old and faded shirt and shorts which I was wearing earlier. The warm woollen sweater and the pair of jeans that I was wearing earlier would do just fine.
'I'm afraid not, other than the fact that Nova will be waiting on the third floor.'
"Let's go see what the hubbub is all about," I decided and after using the mirror to check my appearance one last time to make sure that I looked presentable, gave the ghosts in my shadow the mental command to bring me to the third floor with a Shadow Sneak.
"Skye, you are here too?"
"Nova sounded so excited when she called for me, so I decided to head down," Skye grinned. "How's the little runt doing so far?"
"A little too eager to prove himself, but other than that he's fine," I told Skye, knowing that she was referring to Hugh when she asked me that question. Nova entered the meeting room just at that very moment.
"Hey girls, it's been a long while, hasn't it?" Nova greeted enthusiastically with her marowak entering the room behind her. She looked as if she had just returned from some great expedition.
"Where have you been?" Skye asked immediately, sharing the same question I had.
"Oh you wouldn't believe it," Nova replied with a grin. "Say, are the both of you interested in exploring a newly discovered ruin?"
"Say what again?" I couldn't help but ask, although I'm sure that I was doing a poor job in keeping my excitement hidden in my voice. Exploring a newly discovered ruin? Count me in!
"Looker approved of it too, so we can visit there for "work purposes". There's a high chance that this ruin might hold information that the Unova League and the interpol will be interested in getting ahold of, which was why Looker agreed to send us out."
"Sounds fun," Skye agreed with a large smile on her face. "So, just the three of us?"
"Hugh is too young and inexperienced for this so sadly, I'm counting him out of the fun. Besides, Looker wants him to focus on brushing up his skills, not going off gallivanting like we are."
"Sucks to be him," Skye shrugged unapologetically, "so when are we moving out?"
"Whenever you guys are ready, and preferably earlier rather than later. And oh, change your attires. You won't need those warm heavy winter coats."
"Huh?"
"The ruins are located on Route 4, and that place is a huge desert."
84
This is not my first time visiting a desert. I had visited the one back in Hoenn before where I met Snap and found the fossil which Lily was revived from, so I had an idea of what to expect when I headed out with Nova and Skye towards Unova Route 4.
Unlike the other parts of Unova that are all currently experiencing the winter, the desert at Route 4 is scorching hot with the heat of the sun blazing down on us in full force. When night falls, the temperature rapidly drops to freezing levels, which was also something that I had experienced previously when exploring the desert back in Hoenn. Even so, the daily temperature change in Unova's desert was still a lot more drastic as compared to the one I remembered visiting in Hoenn.
"So what kind of ruin are we looking at here?"
"One from a very ancient civilisation over 2,500 years ago. Legend has it that there was a city here that was built by one of the Twin Heroes and one of Unova's dragons," Nova explained as we continued traversing the vast desert in search of the ruin that Nova had brought us here for. Her research on this ancient civilisation was what led her here.
"So we might be able to find clues about either Reshiram or Zekrom?"
"I'm not too sure if we would be able to do that, but one can dream," Nova shrugged as the three of us sat on the moving platform of hardened earth that Kratos had conjured to move us along the desert at high speed. I knew it was the right thing to do to train Kratos to be the pokemon version of Gaara. His skills really came in handy here.
"I think I see a sandstorm incoming," Skye pointed out ahead and true enough, a huge sandstorm was coming our way.
"Can you disperse it?" I turned to look at Kratos, who merely released a haughty huff. He stomped his foot once and immediately, the massive cloud of sand parted way to allow us through.
"Wow, impressive," Skye whistled in appreciation of what Kratos had done. He had made it look easy, but I knew better. It took Kratos a lot of determination and hard work to be able to reach this level of control over manipulation of rocks and sand.
I knew Skye's praise must have inflated Kratos' ego when he puffed his chest out in pride. Snap was flying above us, having a better view of the desert from up above and acting as our scout. I could tell that he's happy to be back in the desert once more from how excited he seems to be.
"It should be around this area," Nova stopped us after a few more boring hours of travel. It had been two days since we stepped foot in here and while it's been relatively peaceful so far, none of us really have a clue just what kind of dangers lurk along Route 4 because hardly anyone stepped foot in here. The wild pokemon here tend to give us a wide berth when they see the kind of pokemon accompanying us, but not all dangers come in the form of ferocious wild pokemon. I have a vague idea of what to expect based on my previous experience in Hoenn, but in the end the two deserts are two very different deserts altogether. Unova's desert has its own unique brand of danger too.
"So we start digging?"
"We start locating before we dig," Nova corrected Skye as she released her entire team. Skye only had her skarmory and aerodactyl out as these are the only two pokemon she has that could easily brave the elements in a desert. As for me, I simply released the pokemon I have that are of either the rock or ground typing to assist Nova and her pokemon.
Skye volunteered to look for a good spot to set up a temporary camp nearby while Nova and I got busy with trying to pinpoint the exact location of the ruins. Skye's skarmory flew high up above in circles, constantly keeping an accurate track of our individual locations just in case something happened within a moment's notice. Telecommunication signals are not as reliable in this part of the region, so it's best to fall back on the old school methods to be on the safe side.
"You are really liking it here, huh," I cannot help but remark when I noticed how Lily was quite literally vibrating in excitement from how much sunlight was basking down at us. She's probably the only one other than Snap who enjoys being in a desert.
Lily excitedly waved her tentacles at me in response. Meanwhile, I'm hiding myself under the shade of the shadow casted by Ness' larger figure.
Our pokemon continued with their search as we accompanied them. Skye returned to us halfway during the search, telling us that she didn't manage to find any good spots nearby that we could possibly use to set up camp. She did spot a few places with quicksand though, so we would have to take great care to avoid these places if we did not want to get caught up in a sticky situation.
I lost track of how much time had passed, but it probably took hours until Bigblue excitedly called us over with a loud bellow. His head fin must have picked up something.
"He says there's something huge below at least a few hundred feet down. As to how huge, even he cannot fully map it out with his fin," Nova kindly translated what she understood from Bigblue with her ability after we gathered around. Finally, our efforts were not in vain.
"Good job," I patted Bigblue on the back in praise, who simply seemed excited at the unexpected find. He's looking forward to the excavation as much as we do.
The excavation took hours, mainly because we have to be very careful not to accidentally damage anything in the process. The difficulty level went up a few notches when nearby wild pokemon had tried ambushing us a few times, and in the process there were twice when the sandstorm suddenly returned and blew past our current location. Still, we managed to overcome these challenges.
Night had fallen by the time we finally saw the ruins for ourselves. We had dug really deep into the ground, pushing away huge quantities of sand in the process. We were all a little tired by the time we uncovered what looked like a huge ancient castle, but seeing the castle for ourselves made everything seem like it was worth all the trouble we had been through.
Now, I think I could understand a little why Nova loved excavation projects.
"This is a freaking goddamn castle."
"It is," Nova agreed with Skye's assessment as she walked up closer to what we presumed to be the entrance of the castle that we uncovered after shifting so much sand away from this area. As for me, I wasted no time snapping pictures of this magnificent ancient architecture wonder, trying to put this memorable experience into picture.
"Those statues are really lifelike," Skye casually remarked as we walked past the five huge darmanitan statues placed near the entrance of the castle in some sort of formation that we could only guess the reason for. I took another closer look at those statues after hearing her remark and ended up agreeing with her statement. These statues are really lifelike.
"Maybe they were once worshipped by this ancient civilisation?"
"Who knows? Ask Nova," Skye shrugged as we joined Nova up ahead, who was busy deciphering what I presumed to be some sort of ancient language inscribed onto the walls of the castle entrance.
"If what I understood from the writings is correct, the name of this place is the "Relic Castle"," Nova told us when Skye and I joined her.
"Relic Castle? What kind of relics are in there?"
"That's for us to find out."
"Annnnnd… let's do that tomorrow morning. I don't know about you guys, but I'm beat," Skye brought up a very good point because it's way past midnight. Now that the adrenaline from the excitement has faded I'm also starting to feel the exhaustion setting in. Now that I think about it, we had probably skipped dinner too without realising it.
"Let's set up camp here," Nova pointed at the sheltered entrance of the castle. At this spot, we will be sheltered from the wind and also not at the risk of being covered by sand when we wake up tomorrow morning. The entrance of the castle is huge enough to accommodate all three of us and several of our pokemon as well.
"My ghosts can keep watch, they don't really need much sleep," I offered, and my offer was quickly taken up by Nova and Skye. Nova and I started feeding all of our pokemon using the pokemon food we had brought along. As for Skye, she had taken out a huge pot from her backpack together with an electric stove cooker and soon, we were starting on cooking a quick and simple meal in the desert. Got to love foldable space technology for allowing us to bring so many things with us.
"Instant noodles, best invention ever," Skye declared as she easily took a mouthful of instant noodles with her chopsticks and placed them in her own bowl.
"Better than dry rations," I agreed, recalling the times when I was exploring Hoenn's desert where my meals mainly consisted of dried packed rations and mineral water.
"Romantic, isn't it? The cloudless night sky, having a picnic in a desert at the entrance of an ancient castle built more than 2,500 years ago," Nova said as she took another mouth of the noodles and chewed on her food.
"Yeah, imagine if we were 2,500 years back into the past and the king of the castle saw what we were doing, picnicking at his doorstep," Skye said wryly before suddenly turning her voice deeper to mimic what she thought a king might do. "Insolent commoners! How dare you eat at the entrance of my palace!"
"So what would the punishment be? Execution? By hanging or decapitation?"
"I was thinking something along the lines of being boiled alive since we were, you know, cooking instant noodles, but that works too."
We didn't take long to finish our meals and clean our utensils. We were preparing for sleep, taking out our sleeping bags, wiping ourselves down and changing into clean dry clothes. I was about to zip up my sleeping bag when I heard the sound of plastic wrapper being ripped, prompting me to open my eyes.
"What's that?" I asked Skye, who had opened the plastic wrapper of something that looked like a bun to me while she was observing the scenic view outside the entrance. We were planning to go deep down to explore the castle tomorrow morning.
"Rage Candy Bar. Never heard of it?"
"Isn't that the local specialty of Mahogany Town?" I asked, and Skye nodded while taking a bite out of her candy. I never really did have a chance to properly tour Indigo thanks to the untimely Team Rocket uprising and by the time we had dealt with the situation our journey to Unova had already been set. I never had the chance to try the many things I had planned to try when I was at Indigo.
As if seeing through me, Skye took out another Rage Candy Bar from her backpack.
"Try it, you won't regret it."
I sat up and took the Rage Candy Bar and quickly tore the wrapping. From the name alone you would expect the sweet to be a candy bar, but in actuality it looks nothing like a candy bar and looks more like some sort of bun or rice cake. Names can really be misleading at times.
Skye's right on one thing about the Rage Candy Bar, it really is sweet. Not to the extent that it's sickening, but enough to make you feel refreshed and content.
I was pretty absorbed in savouring the sweet goodness of the famous Rage Candy Bar, so Skye's sudden exclamation came as a shock.
"Holy- The hell was that?!"
"What is it?" I asked and looked in her direction. Skye's sudden outburst had caught our pokemon's attention as well.
"T-T-The statues! I swear, their eyes just looked in my direction!"
I looked at where Skye was pointing at one of the darmanitan statues. I squinted my eyes really hard, but I could not see anything out of the ordinary.
"I think you are just too tired," Nova yawned, having gotten out of her own sleeping bag as well to check what the commotion was about when Skye had made a din earlier.
"I knew what I saw! I wasn't seeing things!" Skye insisted. "They… Look! Their eyes moved again!"
Nova and I immediately turned our heads back to look at the darmanitan statues but again, they looked the same as we remembered them to be.
"Skye."
"Their eyes moved the moment you took your eyes off them! I swear!"
"You know, if they are coloured, they might very well look just like the real thing," Nova commented with an exhausted yawn as the three of us walked closer to inspect the nearest statue just about twenty or so metres away. No matter how we circled around it and touched it the statue remained as still as… a statue.
"I don't think darmanitans are able to grow into this size though. I don't recall ever seeing or hearing a darmanitan growing this big," I said after taking another closer observation, and had to pull Fuzzy back by his tail when he was trying to gnaw at it with his front teeth.
"No, Fuzzy, this is an ancient relic."
Fuzzy's only response was to pout.
"It's still incredibly lifelike," Nova cannot help but praise after observing the statues closely. "Even for me, this is the first time I saw such a lifelike statue of a pokemon, much less five of them."
"Darmanitans are really rare, right?" Skye asked.
"They are," I answered. "As far as I'm aware they can only be found in Unova and even then, they are very rarely encountered in the wild. Most people can only get their hands on one through a breeder. This is one species of pokemon that can only largely be found in captivity, almost on the same level of rarity as a regional starter."
"See? You were seeing things," Nova told Skye when Nova waved her arms right in front of the darmanitan statue with no observable response from the stone sculpture.
"I'm not!" Skye insisted, her frustration clear in her voice but seeing as how the statue did not even blink or budge an inch no matter what we did to it, at this point I'm more inclined to believe that Skye was really seeing things in her exhaustion. It's been a long and tiring day for all of us.
Skye and Nova began to walk back towards the castle entrance where we had set up a temporary camp for the night, their bickering filling the silence of the desert as their pokemon lazily followed after their trainers. Meanwhile, I continued to observe the statue. I had already taken quite a few good pictures of the five statues but no matter how I look at it, this statue really was too lifelike. It's hard to believe such a level of craftsmanship existed more than 2,500 years ago. Considering that we are in the middle of a desert and the length of time the statues have been buried here, I'm surprised that the statue had not eroded in the slightest.
"Very fascinating, isn't it?" I said out loud to Bigblue who was standing beside me, also observing the statue curiously with a slight tilt of his head. I took out another Rage Candy Bar that I had swiped before walking over here.
"-was real! They were really looking at me!"
"Yes, yes, time to go to sleep, my dear."
Geez, those two are still arguing about that?
I continued to tune out the argument and easily tore open the wrapping of the Rage Candy Bar. I was about to take another bite of my second serving of the delicious sweet when I noticed a very small difference between what I'm seeing now and what I remembered seeing just a few seconds ago.
Where I remembered the eye pupils of the darmanitan statue was looking straight ahead earlier, it's now looking downwards at me.
My body froze without me meaning to, still holding the Rage Candy Bar in my hands and my mouth still partially opened and about to take a bite into the Rage Candy Bar. However, my body had frozen in shock. For some reason I didn't dare to move, I could not bring myself to eat the sweet no matter how I tried because holy shit Skye really wasn't seeing things.
Judging from how Bigblue had frozen in place as well, I'm sure that I'm not the only one who saw what I had seen.
I blinked my eyes twice slowly and as if trying to mock me, the statue mimicked my actions and blinked twice at me as well in slow motion as its reply.
Holy shit, the statue's alive.
"-there's no way that a statue could look-"
"And I'm telling you that it can!"
"Guys?" I called out weakly and started to take a few steps backwards, the Rage Candy Bar already dropped onto the sandy ground as a very sinister premonition started to fill my body and a creeping chill crawled up my spine. I don't care what this statue really is, but we are currently too close to it for comfort and I'm starting to have a very bad feeling about this.
"There's no way a statue can be alive."
"But it clearly is!"
I knew that I wasn't imagining things when the surrounding temperature started to get noticeably hotter. I could see steam silently sizzling from the surface of the statue as colour started to return to the once grey and dull darmanitan statue.
"Guys? Guys!"
"You know what, we can investigate the statues tomorrow morning-"
"I'm not sleeping next to what could possibly be a dangerous living statue for one entire night!"
The fingers of the darmanitan statue started to twitch. Its mouth which was once closed shut started to spread wider in a sinister and predatory grin.
Okay, this is really bad.
"Guys! Get away!"
I quickly backpedalled as far as I could. Bigblue also finally snapped himself out of the shock of seeing the impossible happening right in front of our eyes. He quickly placed himself in front of me and erected a huge shield of Protect. It was just right in time when a powerful blast of hot flames washed over us. That was Incinerate, and it would have either severely wounded or outright killed us at this distance if it wasn't for Bigblue's quick thinking.
I heard Snap roar and he was already by our side at the next second, having been alerted to the sudden danger and ramming the enormous darmanitan away from us with a Dragon Rush. The darmanitan simply rolled harmlessly on the sandy ground before righting itself, hot sizzling flames licking across its body as it answered us with a roar of challenge.
That was no statue. It's a freaking living and breathing wild pokemon.
I heard more roars and to my horror, the other four statues were starting to come to life as well.
"What the-"
"See?! I told you they were real!"
"We can argue about it later!" I snapped back at Nova and Skye. The darmanitans are at least two times larger than the average size of their species and from the brief exchange we had with the first one earlier, they are no pushovers either. These wild darmanitans are really powerful pokemon.
Bigblue unleashed a powerful torrent of water with Surf, forcing the darmanitans to keep their distance and buying time for Nova and Skye to get their act together and call out their better fighters. My ghosts had appeared as well, quickly swarming the five darmanitans in their attempt to overwhelm them through superior numbers but most of them were easily beaten back when one of the darmanitans unleashed a powerful Psychic.
To force ghosts to keep away with just one use of Psychic, the power of the darmanitans was nothing to joke about.
I heard powerful footsteps approaching, turning my head just in time to see Nova's tyrantrum charging in and crunched on a darmanitan with its powerful jaws. The darmanitan shrieked and struggled, its body immediately igniting in fiery blue flames that I recognised to be a sign of Flare Blitz being used. I had seen red or white flames being unleashed before when Flare Blitz was used by a pokemon, but blue flames are another thing entirely because it is a colour that can only be formed when flames are being heated to the extreme. This is something that you would only expect to see from very powerful fire types.
This is not good news.
The heat of the blue flames forced Nova's tyrantrum to release the darmanitan in its jaws and two other darmanitans immediately took this opportunity to gang up on it. Skye's dragonite managed to get in their way with a timely interference. The darmanitans are unexpectedly powerful, but I have no doubt that the three of us can still emerge victorious despite the surprise being sprung on us. We just have one problem.
Our current location was really not suited to hold a battle here. Just one wrong move on our part and all the sand that we had piled at the sides during our excavation could come crashing back down at us in one huge tidal wave and bury us alive. Already, the huge piles of sand around were starting to trickle down at an alarming rate. If nothing is done, the sand will collapse on us and we will be drowned in sand. That is definitely not how I want to die.
"We need to switch the location of the battle!" Skye cried out, obviously having recognised the same problem that I did as she released more pokemon to push the darmanitans back and to buy us some time to come up with a solution.
"I can get my pokemon to harden and stabilise the sand and earth around us, but it's not a failsafe solution! We need to get these darmanitans away ASAP!" Nova agreed as her ground types immediately worked on doing just that while erecting stone barriers between us and the battle ahead for our safety. We need to quickly come up with a plan soon.
"I can get my ghosts to transport them further away with Shadow Sneak, but I don't think I can fight them alone. These darmanitans are not just powerful, they are a little insane," I pointed out after observing the darmanitans' reckless berserker style of battling. I have seventeen pokemon and I can assign an average of three pokemon to handle each darmanitan, but not all of my pokemon are battlers even if they can hold their own. We also cannot allow the darmanitans to destroy the Relic Castle in their mindless rampage, which adds to the difficulty of being forced to battle in a desert.
"I can join you soon enough, have faith in my speed," Skye promised.
"Take my golurk with you. My garchomp and tyrantrum will be right behind," Nova added. I guess there's our plan.
"Alright, see you guys later," I replied and with a mental command, had my ghosts warped the darmanitans to a safe distance away from the Relic Castle. Far enough such that they wouldn't be able to destroy the ruins by mistake unless they managed to get past me, but also close enough to the Relic Castle that I wouldn't get myself accidentally lost in the desert.
I released Kratos immediately now that I don't need to worry about him accidentally destroying anything. In fact, I released my entire team out for battle.
"Take them down! They are really powerful, so be careful! Kratos, lead the charge!"
Kratos charged in with maniacal glee with Toothless close behind, physically clashing with the darmanitans as the sands around us started to swirl and rise in response to his power. Chill started a Rain Dance which Bigblue took advantage of to fire rapid consecutive blasts of Water Pulse. Lily and Ness stood between us as our line of defence, easily blocking any attacks the darmanitans tried to hurl our way.
It didn't take long for me to realise that these darmanitans are largely physical fighters. Their physical strength is tremendous, allowing them to match Kratos blow for blow. Hulk proved to be indispensable here as one of the best physical fighters on the team, forcing one of the darmanitans to constantly pay close attention to him lest it wanted to be flattened by his fists.
Dragon Pulse started to rain from the sky and I looked up, spotting Skye's noivern firing its attacks from a safe distance above. Skye's dragonite crashed down as well, instantly pushing another darmanitan back through its sheer strength.
The ground below us trembled and Nova's garchomp announced its arrival with a bestial roar, its jaws clamping shut around the feet of another darmanitan and proceeded to drag it down underground with it like how its species hunted their prey in the wild. Good, the tides were starting to turn in our favour.
I realised I spoke too soon when the heat was turned up another notch, quite literally.
"How are they still able to produce such hot flames?!"
I had to agree with Skye because ordinarily, no fire type pokemon could constantly release such hot flames without quickly wearing themselves out. Most fire type pokemon have to pace themselves and learn some semblance of control in order not to burn themselves out prematurely before the battle is over, but these darmanitans fight as if they are going at a hundred percent from the get-go without worrying of ever running out of fuel. Not only that, they are starting to produce even hotter flames that, by all means, shouldn't be possible with how fast they are supposed to be burning themselves out.
These darmanitans don't make any sense, period.
Even water type attacks were starting to lose their intended effects as the darmanitans simply turned them into fizzling steam with their hot flames. Even the sand around them started to glass and melt under the heat and I realised that the darmanitans were probably only starting to get serious in the fight now.
"They have to be on the same level of a pillar level pokemon," Skye groaned in dismay when she realised just how much we had underestimated these living statues.
"Yeah, Nova better hurry," I agreed, hoping that Nova can join us as soon as she can after she finished stabilising the sand and ground around the vicinity of the castle. Nova's garchomp emerged from beneath in a furious roar with burns around his body, the darmanitan which it had dragged down previously also emerged similarly in a huge ball of fire. It seems that Nova's garchomp had failed to subdue the darmanitan as well, but at least it is still alive and more than capable of continuing its battle. It's just very furious and I do not want to know what the darmanitan did to piss Nova's garchomp off so badly.
"I can take care of two of them," I stated when I noticed that Nova's tyrantrum and golurk were here as well. "Skye, can you take another two? Like this, garchomp, tyrantrum, and golurk can handle one of them."
"Doable. You guys?" Skye turned to ask Nova's pokemon, who quickly voiced their agreement as well.
"Then let's do this. Dolly, Wacky, Curse."
Dolly and Wacky launched our offensive as the battle exploded into action once more. I knew they managed to inflict Curse on the two darmanitans that we took on when the darmanitans howled in pain and retaliated in equal anger. Now, we are right back to what we are familiar with. Drag the fight out and wait for Curse to take effect.
"Dolly, Snatch! Kel, Taunt!" I quickly ordered when I noticed one of the darmanitans was trying to recover with Rest. Dolly quickly healed up through snatching the healing effects of Rest that the darmanitan was trying to do, angering it in the process. Kel fell back into her usual role of being an elusive saboteur and slinked away into the darkness once Taunt was casted, keeping a close eye on the battle and ensuring that Taunt will always remain in effect.
Kratos and Hulk took on one darmanitan each with everyone else supporting them. Even then, the flames released by the darmanitans were really too hot for it to be natural and we were soon forced to keep our distance from them because Hulk and Kratos were already sporting some nasty burns. The darmanitans knew where their advantages lie and tried to force us to constantly be engaged with them in a physical battle while on the other hand, we have to try and force them to keep their distance.
We cannot get physical with the darmanitans if we want to win. The combination of their intense flames, overwhelming physical strength, and reckless berserker style of battling made them very formidable close range fighters that none of us were suited to deal with. At this point I'm convinced that none of my pokemon can stand up against any of the darmanitans in a one-on-one battle. That's just how unbelievably powerful these darmanitans are.
Fuzzy rained electric attacks down on the darmanitans but all of his attacks seemed to bounce off the darmanitan's skin harmlessly. The darmanitans were being constantly cloaked in fire which acts as a form of defensive armour. The flames were so hot that even Bigblue and Chill weren't able to douse them.
This… really isn't looking good for us.
Just when I was racking my brain to try and think of a solution, help arrived in the least expected manner.
It was dead into the night, so it really wasn't hard to notice the bright balls of light that suddenly dotted the skies and falling onto our location at an alarming speed. The two darmanitans that I was battling against noticed that as well and we all quickly shifted ourselves to avoid that unknown attack. I soon recognised these balls of light for what they were when they came closer. These are Aura Spheres.
The flurry of Aura Spheres seemed to have a mind of their own as they suddenly swerved and homed in on the darmanitans, causing them to screech in pain upon the impact. Rena, who was loyally standing by my side for the entire duration, suddenly went on alert when two figures rapidly closed the distance with one single powerful leap. I could swear that they weren't there before and I had no idea how they evaded detection until now.
The two figures are a huge man and a lucario. The man was being covered entirely from top to toe in a scratchy looking dark blue cloak. His face was being covered entirely with a long scarf and even the top of his head was being wrapped with a bandanna. He only left enough space to reveal a little of his eyes but I couldn't really observe much considering how dark it currently was.
The most striking feature of the man would be how large and muscled he was. His arm looked as if it's thicker than both my thighs combined. The lucario by his side looked incredibly powerful too and most likely, the one that fired the barrage of Aura Spheres earlier.
I could feel the unknown man glancing at me and for a short moment, it felt like he was surprised at seeing me given how his body had frozen for a split second, but that disappeared as soon as it came. It may have been my imagination.
"You don't mind if I take over from here, do you?"
"Go ahead," I gestured, understanding that he's definitely more than capable of handling the darmanitans on his own if the Aura Spheres were anything to go by. This unknown man is undoubtedly a very powerful trainer, someone that has to be on the same level of a Pillar, even if that begged the question of who he might be.
"Thank you," the man nodded once in my direction before speaking to his lucario. "Let's go."
The man and his lucario vanished in a blur and the next thing we knew, they were right in the thick of the battle with the darmanitans. I could feel my jaw dropping in shock. The lucario, I could understand, but the man was so fast that it clearly surpassed the limits of what a human could possibly achieve.
My jaw dropped further when I saw how the man grabbed onto the arm of one of the darmanitans and proceeded to throw it with a shoulder throw. The darmanitan let out a startled yelp, obviously not expecting for a human to possess such strength either or to choose to fight it with his bare hands, but that did not prevent it from being thrown by the man like an oversized baseball. The darmanitan was cloaked from head to toe in blazing flames but yet the man was not hurt or burnt in the very least.
Who on earth is he?
The lucario easily wrapped up the battle within a minute, showing us the difference between us and the lucario. That lucario was in another different league entirely, easily capable of handling the two troublesome darmanitans while my entire team was having troubles trying to even approach the darmanitans when they were cloaked with fire. Furthermore, the lucario was facing a type disadvantage thanks to its steel typing.
The man took out two pokeballs and lazily captured the two darmanitans after they had fallen unconscious. He gave another look at his lucario, who fired another barrage of Aura Spheres into the night sky as the sparkling balls of light curved in a beautiful arc in the air before falling elsewhere. I soon realised that the Aura Spheres were falling towards where Skye and Nova were having their respective battles with the darmanitans.
"Thank you," I thanked the man because he was obviously getting his lucario to help out Skye and Nova with their respective battles as well. The man simply shook his head.
"It's my duty to help a person in need and these darmanitans are dangerous. You did well in staying alive for as long as you did. Not many can claim to be capable of such a thing at your age," the man slowly spoke, his face still obscured by his scarf, but even I can tell that he's observing me closely.
"Uh… Is there anything wrong?" I broke the silence when his gaze started to feel a little uncomfortable. My words seemed to have broken him out of his silent stupor because he shook his head thereafter.
"I apologise, you just… reminded me of someone I knew. Your friends have ended their battles too, you should rejoin them."
"Are you an Ability Holder?" I quickly asked before the man could take his leave, because that was the only logical explanation that I could think of to explain how he could fight a darmanitan barehanded without suffering any burns that could hurt even Kratos. The man stopped in his tracks after hearing my question, proving that my suspicions were true.
"You can say that, although I prefer to use the term Aura Guardian," the man replied, his face turned back to look at me once more and for a moment I felt something mystical gently washing over me as if I was being scrutinised. I cannot explain it, but I just knew that he had done something to me.
"I see… You really are a holder of a Ghost type ability. It's a very rare ability to have but be careful, your kind are highly coveted by the wrong sort of people."
"You…"
"What you sensed was me using Aura to observe you on a closer level, that's all. I apologise if it felt intrusive but I had to be sure, because certain abilities might produce some unexpected and devastating results when mixed together," the man patiently explained. "You know Looker, am I right?"
"How did you know that?"
"Aura, I sensed his presence on you," the man pointed a finger at me as he said that. "Faint, but there, telling me that you had interacted with him recently. I wasn't aware that he's currently in Unova," he was about to take his leave again before he paused in his steps and left me with another piece of advice.
"You should ask him for more details about Ghost type Ability Holders. After all, not only are Ghost type abilities extremely dangerous and prone to running out of control, his teacher is a Ghost type Ability Holder as well. If anybody knows how to train a Ghost type ability, it will be him."
"Wait-"
The man and his lucario disappeared with a powerful leap, easily disappearing into the darkness of the night and blending in with the sand dunes of the desert. There's so many questions I have after encountering this man but it doesn't seem like I would be getting them. I could ask Looker, but I have a feeling that he will be responding with half-truths even if I asked.
'Mistress, do not worry. I do not sense any ill will from him.'
Rena's words were the only thing I could take solace from. If Rena doesn't think that the unknown man harboured ill intentions, then I supposed he can be trusted.
However, there's one thing that the man said which caught my attention.
The man said that Looker's teacher is a Ghost type Ability Holder as well. He knew very well how I was seeking to find information on the ways to better hone my ability.
So, was there a reason why Looker didn't tell me anything about it?
The moon continued to shine overhead, providing the faint glow that lit up the vast and empty desert. A huge man walked along the empty desert, a lucario beside him, as they left their footsteps on the sands of the desert.
The man cannot help but release a huff once he's certain that they were out of earshot. What an unexpected encounter.
They reached a huge boulder soon enough and as if defying all logic and common sense, a huge hole magically opened to allow the man and his lucario entry into the boulder before closing back shut once more.
"You're back? That was faster than expected."
"It's just darmanitans, how long would it take?" The cloaked man retorted as he pulled off his scarf and bandanna, finally revealing his face. His companion didn't seem too impressed as he continued to brew his tea in the surprisingly nicely furnished hidden space within the boulder. Once again, the trainer of the lucario cannot help but marvel just how incredible Secret Power can be under the hands of a master.
"You wouldn't believe who I just met."
"You say that every time you met somebody new," was the reply received by the Aura Guardian but he had long since gotten used to his companion's callous way of talking. The Aura Guardian walked past a sleeping exploud, the pokemon partner of his companion, to get closer to him.
"No, seriously, I met a Ghost type Ability Holder. A little girl."
The Aura Guardian knew that his words had the intended effect when his companion froze in his motions of brewing his tea for a short while before resuming.
"Ghost type? You sure?"
"Oh, that's not all, I sensed… What's the name he goes by nowadays again? Ah- Looker's aura on her as well," the Aura Guardian mentioned nonchalantly as he dropped himself down onto a beanbag to kick back and relax, knowing that his companion will pick up on the unsaid piece of information that he was hinting at.
"Look- He's in Unova? Wait, that means that the girl-"
"Yup."
"... You gotta be pulling my goddamn leg."
"And what would I get from doing that?"
"Fair enough," he conceded, but a part of him was still reeling in disbelief. "But… if the boss knew about this…"
"The boss probably already knew this would happen a long time ago."
"Boss really wasn't lying, and all along I thought the boss was high on drugs-"
"Don't say that in front of her."
"I know, I'm not stupid," the tea brewer groaned and tiredly dragged a palm across his face. "Dammit, you couldn't have chosen another time to visit this forsaken desert?"
"Hey, I finish my task early, we can all go back early. Come to think about it, we really should start on wrapping up our tasks and return to the organisation. It's been a long while."
"It's been a long while," the tea brewer agreed as he took out a black and gold plated card, idly flipping it around with his fingers. On the front of the card was a printed image of a man and a pyroar. With a quick idle flick of his fingers, the back of the card was now facing him. A golden opened eye that was printed on the black background of the card stared back at him. That's the insignia of the organisation that they belong to.
His train of thoughts were rudely broken by that damn Aura Guardian.
"Mind sharing some of that nice tea?"
"Damn freeloader."
"Hey, don't be stingy. I thought we were friends after knowing each other for so long."
"You are in self-denial. Get your grubby hands away from my tea."