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Chapter Text

Cyllene was used to hearing the sounds of chaos coming from  Professor Laventon’s office. He always kept the door between their offices open, and the three little Pokémon that he kept in there weren’t exactly tame.

Even one of the little terrors running out of his office into the hallways was a near daily occurrence. Cyllene was forever grateful that none of the Professor’s Pokémon were bug type (or even worse, a Wurmple).

What was unusual was sounds of chaos and then all three of the professor’s Pokémon darting out into the hall, past Bagin at the foot of the stairs, and through the legs of the outside Security Corp guardsman on duty, Beauregard, who had just happened to open the door. Professor Laventon collided with poor Beauregard, almost knocking the man over in his haste to chase after the miscreants. (Bagin, however, had learned to sidestep the Professor by going up the stairs by a few steps. It was practically ingrained in him after the fourth time one of the Pokémon got loose.)

“Agh! Sorry sorry sorry! I’m terribly sorry I just need to-“  started the Professor in his panic.

Beauregard just stepped to the side and sighed. He kept the door open so Laventon could slip by.

“Thank you!” The Professor said to Beauregard on reflex, and then louder, shouting into the street, “ Get back here! Where are you going?!”

Beauregard shook his head fondly as he watched the Professor run out into the streets of Jubilife before turning back into the building. As he caught Cyllene’s gaze, he smiled and strode to her desk.

She set down her papers and nodded when he reached her desk.

Thankfully,  that was enough prompting to get Beauregard to speak, “Captain, I have some news from Ginter about those alphas in the Mirelands.”

She nodded to herself, she had been expecting a report from the Gingko Guild regarding the alpha Tangrowth and an alpha Hippowdon for a few days now. Both were in awkward places for the Gingko guild to avoid on their way to the Diamond clan settlement, and they were hoping that the Galaxy Team could find a solution. She had bought herself some time to think about possible fixes by asking them to note down some details.

Beauregard paused for a moment before continuing in a lighter tone, “But first, will you go out to help the professor round up his troublemakers? Ginter won’t be in town for the next few days and it can wait.”

Cyllene considered this for a moment before shaking her head, “He needs to learn how to control them himself.”

Beauregard’s eyes flicked to her Abra, still floating peacefully in the corner. “You could send him some help…”

Cyllene frowned, “Abra is sleeping.” And it was actually sleeping, she could tell just by its floating. Cyllene had quickly learned the difference between the various ways it floated while it slept, snoozed, dozed, napped, rested, slumbered, and on rare occasions, while it was awake but debating on going back to sleep.

“It’s always sleeping, Captain,” came a voice from the medic ward. Cyllene turned to see Captain Pesselle leaning against the doorway, arms crossed with a knowing smile. “All it does is sleep.”

Cyllene glared at her. Captain Pesselle was a fine medic, but Cyllene was convinced that she kept the door between their offices open just so she could eavesdrop and snoop. As much as Cyllene would never wish for anyone to be hurt (that didn’t deserve it, anyway), she thought that Pesselle was a much better office-neighbor when she had someone to nurse back to health.

Cyllene took a deep breath, “And Abras are supposed to do that. Just like you both have jobs you’re supposed to be doing,” shooting both of them a look.

Beauregard, to his credit, looked a little ashamed, but Pesselle just smirked at her.

“It wouldn’t hurt for you to go take a break and get some sun!” Pesselle said with her I-am-the-medic-you-are-the-incredibly-stupid-patient tone of voice that Cyllene hated. “You’ve been here doing paperwork all day since I came in, and I was here with the sun rise. You’ll turn into a Duskull at this rate!”

Cyllene sighed and relented. There was no use in arguing in Pesselle when she got like this. “Fine, I’ll l go help him if he hasn’t caught them after an hour.”

Ignoring Pesselle’s triumphant smile, Cyllene turned back to Beauregard and ordered, ”Give me Ginter’s report.”

After Beauregard handed over Ginter’s written notes on the alpha’s movements, and recounted Ginter’s verbal explanation of said notes, Cyllene sent him back to his post. As for herself, she went back to her paperwork, fully expecting to have Professor Laventon trudge in over an hour later to sheepishly ask her assistance.

So when only twenty-five minutes passed and she heard the front door open, she didn’t bother to look up.  In fact, she didn’t bother looking up until she heard her name being called.

“Captain! Captain Cyllene!”

“Professor?” She looked up sharply, and indeed, the Professor was striding towards her desk with purpose and looked to be about to vibrate out of his own skin. She set down her paperwork and brush as he started babbling at her with excitement clear in his voice.

“You won’t believe it! I barely barely believe it myself! It’s incredible! She caught all of them! All three! And oh! We have to help her! We must!”

“What are you-“ Cyllene started but the professor cut her off, still rambling even as he finally reached her desk.

“There is a girl! She fell out of the sky! Right onto the beach! Oh, oh! And she is good with Pokémon! She caught all three of the little buggers! In barely any time at all! And! And she agreed to help with the Pokédex! This could be grand! It could be the help we’ve been searching for!”

“Professor, please!” Cyllene held up a hand to try to stop him. “Slow down and start from the beginning!”

And after noticing both Pesselle and Bagin not-so-subtly peeking into her office (why did she agree to an open door policy?), Cyllene dropped her voice and added, “and please keep your voice down.”

The Professor nodded hard enough to make the enormous Pom Pom on his hat wobble, and took a deep breath.

“When I went out to catch the three little runaways, they led me to the beach. And there, a girl fell. Fell! Out of a small rift a few feet off the ground! When I went to go check on her, she had survived! And she’s willing to help with the Pokédex! And more over, she’s great with Pokémon! She caught all three with no problems! I’ve never seen anything like it! And Cyllene, please we have to help her! She’s got no connections here! No place to stay, no family, nothing! We have to help her, please!”

Cyllene put up a hand to stop him from spiraling into babbling again. “You said she caught all THREE of them? Professor, it’s been less than half an hour!”

“I know! I could scarcely believe it and I watched her do it! Look!”

He fished three poke balls out of his coats pockets and tossed them on the ground. Out popped  Rowlett,  Cyndaquil, and  Oshawott. The three that had run out the door. Each of them looked around at her office for a moment or two before waddling off to the Professor’s office next door.

Earth, sea and sky! How did this mystery girl manage it? Even with her own proficiency, it still took Cyllene about 15 mins to sneak up on each Pokémon individually, and this girl caught them all in less time?

A random thought flashed into Cyllene’s head. The Pearl clan had asked about a strange man they had found in a field about a month after the Galaxy Expedition had landed at prelude beach. That man had also been scarily good at befriending Pokémon and had seemingly came out of nowhere. And now he was a respected warden, even if he was  still considered strange in almost every way. Maybe this was a similar situation? Cyllene would have to be a fool to turn this opportunity away!

“What is your impression of this… girl?” Cyllene asked sharply.

The Professor hummed and then responded, “Odd, but… she likes Pokémon and they seem to like her right back, so… overall I think we can trust her!”

Ugh, she was afraid of that. Everyone was still wary of the strange Warden, even now. The Pearl clan had warmed up to him once they decided to just take him in, but it was no secret that he wasn’t exactly a seamless match. And the villagers of Jubilife were skittish towards new things at the best of times. Cyllene couldn’t count on them to think rationally in the face of a Bidoof, much less someone who randomly showed up out of the blue. And if they were odd on top of that… the chances of this going smoothly were quickly vanishing.

She took a deep breath. “And about how old?”

“Oh! Um, I didn’t ask, but…” he folded his arms as he thought, “Probably around Rei’s age? Old enough to help us out, anyway.”

Cyllene nodded absentmindedly. “Give me a moment to think.” She shut her eyes in concentration.

Could she trust the Professor’s judgement on this? Professor Laventon was so quick to trust, and while so far he hadn’t been hurt by that tendency, there was always a first for everything. The big clumsy fool had a heart three times what it should be, for better or for worse. He had unofficially adopted Rei at first sight and it had left Cyllene scrambling to find a place for him in the Galaxy team overall. As much as the people of Jubilife loved children (enough to try to make a new home in a strange land just to have a better future), teenagers were on that thin line of get-to-work-you-lazy-layabouts and we-must-protect-our-future-by-safeguarding-them-at-all-costs.

Rei, having no parents with him to argue for the latter option, was too old to not work for his food, especially when it was so scarce and hard to come by right now. And Rei had been a simple stowaway! Nothing unusual about him, and yet Cyllene had had to fight tooth and nail to get him a place, eventually just sticking him in her own Survey Corps when none of the other captains had been willing to shoulder responsibility for him. Even Kamado had been pressuring her to get him to work or send him on the next boat home. Thank the land and sea that Rei also happened to be highly proficient in crafting, so she could shield him from dangerous missions or too much scrutiny from the commander by having him stay back and make a small mountain of pokèballs.

It didn’t bear thinking about what the paranoid villagers and commander would think about someone who fell out of the sky…

Speaking of, if the girl was still on the beach, maybe Cyllene could make up a story for how she arrived? Maybe washed up from a bad storm? She could work out the details after talking to the girl in question.

Cyllene blinked once, twice, before shaking her head quickly and looking at the Professor again, “I would like to see this girl before we proceed. Is she still at the beach?”

The Professor cocked his head, “No? I brought her into town, she’s waiting by the wallflower? I thought I mentioned that?”

Fuck fuck fuck. So much for trying to make a cover story. Shit, this just got a lot more complicated. If he brought her from the beach to the Wallflower, that means she walked right through the center of town in full view of any villagers who happened to be out and about. And also, that meant Beni…

Oh shit.

“Go back and wait with her. I’ll be right out.”

In a rare show of temper, the Professor crossed his arms and narrowed his eyes at her, “But you haven’t said what you want to do yet? I will not leave without an answer!”

Oh great, why did the Professor only grow a spine when he had a kid to adopt?

“Professor,” she snapped back, “I’m not saying that we won’t help her, but the fact remains that we can’t just give her aid without knowing what she can do. Right now, you are the only one who has seen her in action. I am trusting in your word and your judgement to even give her consideration when you know full well that the commander would have you both out on your ear for even suggesting to bring her in. There will be a trial given and if she passes, I will accept her into the Survey Corps with food and housing and whatever else she will need to succeed. That is the standard procedure and I will not budge on this. We will have a discussion together about the test for her later, after dinner.”

The Professor looked shocked for a moment but then visibly brightened, “Well that seems fair!”

Thank goodness that he was so easy going.

“Now, go and make sure she’s still by the Wallflower. I will come out in a few moments.”

The professor beamed, “Right-o! I’ll go out and talk to her! Maybe I can find Rei and introduce them to each other!”

But as he turned to walk out, Cyllene was struck with a thought.

“Professor?”

He turned back to her with a “hmm?”

“Treat them to the Wallflower. But sit outside.”

The Professor paused for a second. But he brightened again, “Good idea, it’s a lovely day today!” And turned back towards the exit again without any further comment.

Cyllene sat and watched him leave out of her office into the main hall before she got up out of her chair. She gave her Abra a quick pat. It was still asleep, so she only got a soft mmmrrph in response. It would find her at the Wallflower once it woke up. As sleepy as it was, it still loved food too much to skip dinner. She took a deep breath, briefly considered screaming, decided against it, and let out the held breath in a whoosh.

Finally, she gathered herself up and started walking towards the Galaxy Hall’s front door.

“Getting another stray, Cyllene?” teased Pesselle as Cyllene passed the open door to the medical ward.

Cyllene ignored her.

Chapter Text

Sitting in the Wallflower Cyllene felt like she was not tethered to reality. She vaguely overheard the Professor calling her aloof for declining to eat with him and the two teenagers, and then definitely overheard his yelled out order of three potato mochi to Beni. But she hadn’t wanted to eat with them because… well.  She was still reeling from seeing the newcomer.

The Professor failed to mention that the girl, Akari, had been dressed so …strangely. Not only that, Cyllene had taken a quick look at their overall body (which had been fairly easy considering the thin clothes and copious amounts of skin showing). The girl didn’t look like she had the muscles for hard labor and her hands looked more like the Professor’s, soft and uncalloused, suggesting  more scholarly pursuits. Finally, the poor girl had looked… almost confused by everything around her, like she hadn’t seen a village before. Where in the world did she come from to be confused by buildings?

And so the weight of what Cyllene had agreed to, sight unseen, weighed on her mind.

Not that one could tell physically anyway.

In the real world she is sitting upright, posture perfect, hands crossed in her lap, at the small bar that faced the kitchen. Mentally, however, Cyllene was face-down, draped over the counter, slowly banging her head onto the wooden surface and questioning her life decisions up to this point with each thud.

She had chosen this spot to sit because of several reasons. One, she could hear the Professor and Rei speaking to the newcomer through the door. The Professor wasn’t exactly being secretive with his volume and neither were the two teenagers.

Two, she was going to have to deal with Beni and since he had decided that he his cover story was going to be frail old asshole who can only cook potato mochi, he was stuck in the kitchen. So, being near the bar, she could hit several Starly with one rock. First, she could at least try to do some damage control in regards to Beni. Second, she could attempt to plot her next move at the same time. Beni was Kamado’s right hand man (which chafed a bit, honestly. The bastard stayed in his tiny kitchen pretending to be marginally older and grumpier than he actually was while she and the other captains were drowning in work). Still, she needed to play by the rules and If she had any hope of trying to smooth this over she’d had to deal with him first, and then, and only then, she’d have a chance to soothe Kamado’s paranoia.

Three, she was  pretty sure that after eavesdropping to find out more info about the newcomer that she going to stressed enough to stuff her face with potato mochi. And being near the kitchen was the best place to be to fulfill that mission. Also, if she didn’t want an audience to her infamous stress eating, that was her own business. Well, except for Beni of course, who was starting up the fires of his kitchen and shooting looks at her every now and then. Beni, for better or for worse, had seen her stress eat more times than she’d like to admit.

He, thankfully, seemed fine with ignoring her for now as he got started cooking the Professor’s order. She watched him quietly since she didn’t bring any paperwork to distract herself.

“I’m not going to poison them. You don’t have to watch me like a Staraptor,” he muttered as he flipped over a mochi and lightly pressed it down with his long cooking chopsticks.

“I know, and I’m not. I’m just watching while I think about my order,” Cyllene replied mildly.

And the truth of the matter was, she did know. She and Beni may not see eye to eye on several things but she knew that he wouldn’t risk accidentally poisoning an innocent person just to get rid of a newcomer he viewed as a threat. Also, Kamado had only agreed to Beni’s cover story of frail old restaurant owner with a few conditions One, Beni could not poison anyone unless Kamado, Zisu and Cyllene agreed that it was the best way to protect the village. And two, that if anyone so much as got  a bad case of food poisoning from his cooking, Wall-flower owner Beni was going to be “killed” and he’d  have to make a new cover story including a new name. That was honestly the larger threat to Beni. He hated making cover stories as much as a Glameow hated water.)

Beni grunted in response and started arranging some plates, bowls and chopsticks on his serving platter while the mochi browned.

When Abra blipped itself into existence by Cyllene’s left side with a soft  “Aaabaaa”, Beni flicked his eyes up and scowled.

As he opened his mouth (probably to scold her for letting it “sit” a few inches above a stool at the bar like a person), she held a finger up to her mouth and jerked her head towards the window.

Do you want to argue about Abra or listen for information about the newcomer?  

He glared at her for a second but then relented and went back to his cooking.

Cyllene patted Abra on its head with her other hand and gave it a little rub behind its ear. It pushed its head into her hand with a soft sound. She had to resist the urge to coo at it. She really should take the Professor up on helping him with  his theory of proximity to cute Pokémon reducing one’s brain capacity to resist saying inane things about said Pokémon’s cuteness.

 Abra was a welcome distraction at the moment anyway. The conversation outside between the Professor and the two teenagers had been less than useful in terms of information. Mostly it had been Rei and the Professor making small talk about Rei’s recovery from Thunder Shock whilst waiting for their food. Akari, the newcomer, had barely said a word and the words they did say were… odd.

The most confusing one was “Oof, that sucks”, which they had said in response to Rei saying that the Thunder Shock had made him numb overall and more prone to dropping things for three days straight. What did ‘Oof’ mean? Was ‘Oof’ the thing that was sucking? Or was it being sucked on? Why was it sucking in the first place? What the hell did that have to do with Rei’s numbness?

Beni finally plated the Professor’s order and started towards the door with it. As he passed Cyllene on his way out (who kept softly petting Abra because it was a good and adorable little thing who deserved all the pets) he stopped briefly to give her a look.

It was the we-are-going-to-have-a-discussion-about-things-once-I’m-done-pretending-to-be-a-cook-for-the-day. She nodded in response. She had been expecting  that anyway.

Beni continued outside. Cyllene could hear the clatter of plates being passed out and the Professor’s excited thanks to Beni. It was a good thing that the Professor never tired of potato mochi as that was the only thing Beni knew how to cook.

And with the food delivered and Beni just walking back to the kitchen  of the Wallflower, Rei finally asked the question that Cyllene had been dreading.

When the Professor confirmed that Akari came out from a sky rift, Cyllene could see Beni’s head snap up and look  back at the doorway with his mouth agape. His reaction to the answer was much better than Cyllene had expected, in all honesty.

She cleared her throat softly to get his attention away from the trio outside. As his eyes snapped to hers he mouthed silently “the sky?!” with an incredulous look.

She gave a small nod in return. Abra nodded too. (Whether in solidarity or because it was effectively still a baby and just wanted to copy her, she wasn’t sure. She appreciated the gesture regardless.)

She chose this as an opportunity to give her order, to help prevent Beni from storming back out there and doing something unwise. “I’ve decided that I would like the usual tonight, if you please.”

That seemed to do the trick as Bei glared at her. “The usual usual or the one that makes me question if you’re part Snorlax?”

She held his stare for a few moments before he swore under his breath. “How are you not the size of a Drifblim?” he hissed.

“How are you running a restaurant with only one menu item?” she retorted.

He stared at her for a few more beats before putting his head in his hands and growling under his breath.

They sat in silence for a bit listening to the conversation outside turn to how Akari helped the Professor on the beach (and unfortunately, included how, as amazing as it was, it was slightly diminished by the fact that none of them were aggressive).

Beni sighed deeply, then turned and walked back out the door.

Cyllene could hear Beni telling the Professor her order of ten potato mochi, and his not-so-subtle-jab-disguised-as-concern at the Pokèdex’s slow (almost non-existent some days) progress.

What exactly Beni was hoping for as a response, Cyllene wasn’t sure, but she was sure that the Professor’s diplomatic answer definitely wasn’t it. Skies bless that man for having enough brains to be a gentleman about her stress-eating while she was in earshot.

Sure enough, Beni trudged back inside shortly afterward and gave her a look that would maim a lesser person.

Ah yes, the I-changed-my-mind-we-are-discussing-this-NOW look. She had been wondering when that one was going to come out.

He immediately stomped his way back to the kitchen and angrily started moving dishes and pans around, making them clack together nosily as he (finally) got started on her order.

This was of course was a cover for his angrily hissed questions. “You’re going to just accept this girl into the Survey Corps?! Have you even looked at her?! Are you really just going to take the Professor’s word on this? He’s an idiot!”

Cyllene internally rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t say she was surprised at his reaction. Both he and Kamado were paranoid about unknowns and she couldn’t even blame them. Seeing your hometown get reduced to ashes at the hands of Pokémon would scar a person’s soul in ways she couldn’t even begin to imagine. And Beni’s lack of faith in the Professor’s judgement wasn’t unexpected either. But she made a commitment to give the newcomer a chance and she intended to keep it.

“She will have to go through a test, just like everyone else,” Cyllene replied evenly. ”So no, I will not be ‘just accepting her into the Survey Corps’. She will have to prove herself just like Rei and the others. As for the Professor’s judgement, Rei has been a valuable asset that would have otherwise been sent away and lost to us without the Professor advocating for his position.”

Beni angrily flipped a mochi on the hot plate and squished it harder than necessary. He muttered, “As if you had nothing to do with Rei remaining here.”

 He continued in a slightly louder whisper, “And that’s not the point anyway! I know your little ‘tests’ for new recruits.  Try to catch one Pokémon and make notes on five others? That won’t be enough this time. Oh no, it will not!”

It fairness to Beni, the trying to catch one Pokémon portion of the text was optional under normal circumstances. Most people couldn’t do it on the first day, and she didn’t want to turn away any possible recruits for her corps solely on the inability to catch one. She had enough trouble finding people not terrified of Pokèmon in the first place. So she often judged the entry test based on the quality of their field notes instead.

He plopped a small mound of finished mochi onto a plate and shoved it towards her, “Here’s orders one and two. Don’t forget to chew.”

Cyllene did roll her eyes this time. “May I have another plate? I’ll just give Abra a few of mine so it can eat at its own pace.”

Beni glared at her and then at Abra, but dutifully handed over a plate. After she reached into her jacket pocket and dropped a few of Abra’s favorite berries onto the plate, she began ripping the mochi into smaller pieces with her chopsticks to put on the plate as well. She carefully chose her next words as she worked, “I am not opposed to giving her a harder challenge to help prove her worth to our team. In fact, I was considering the idea that she simply repeat the feat she accomplished today. Three Pokémon caught is something that none of us can do without taking most of the day and a pile of Pokèballs. If she can do it twice and prove it wasn’t a fluke, that would be quite a feat, wouldn’t you say?”

Beni  stared at the next batch of mochi cooking on the hot plate, glaring at them as if to cook them faster with the power of his mind. Good, if he was glaring  that hard that meant that he was considering her words. She was hopeful that he would just agree and be, well, agreeable for once. It was a solid plan. Something that, if the Professor was not lying, would not be a challenge to the newcomer, but still enough to show her skill.

Putting the plate of ripped up mochi and berries in front of Abra (who instantly reached out with grabby little claws for a berry), she picked up a mochi for herself and began to eat.

Land, sea and sky, Beni was an asshole but his mochi was so good. Or maybe she was just praising it because it was about the only thing he could cook without burning and she hadn’t eaten all day. Maybe both.

Beni finally spoke up, “What if she’s doing some sort of trick? I want witnesses to this test.”

Cyllene pondered this as she swallowed her bite of mochi. “I can send Rei with her. Besides, how can you fake catching Pokémon?”

“I don’t know but how do people fall from the sky?!”

Fair enough. She did nod her head in acknowledgment of that. “True, but I trust the Professor to be able to spot something like that.”

“The Professor is soft. Just like…just like a mochi! I’ve seen how he coddles Rei and his own Pokémon that he can’t even control! No, there will be more than one witness that I can trust and Rei will not count!”

Cyllene sighed. He wasn’t going to budge on this. “Alright, I will concede your point. I will arrange it so others will be able to see her in action.”

Beni nodded at her sharply. “And you better not pull any trickery on that! If they don’t witness it, it won’t count!”

“Of course.”

They lapsed back into silence as Beni plated up mochi orders three and four on another plate and Cyllene ate. Abra was also still eating, but at a much slower pace. Thank goodness it didn’t pick up her bad habits of eating too much or too fast.

Beni started the next set of orders and while it cooked, he pulled out a few pieces of paper and a stick of charcoal.  He started furiously writing, giving Cyllene a stink eye every now and then.

Cyllene was admittedly curious about what he was writing, but knowing Beni, she’d find out soon enough.

He had paused in his writing long enough to flip the mochi to brown on the other side, before returning to his writing.  This was obviously going to take some time (Beni was literate but had trouble writing), so, she let herself eat in peace. The sun was setting rapidly, making the light through the blinds turn a golden yellow-orange. Abra was floating quietly; nibbling on the mochi with its tiny, adorable sharp teeth. The conversation outside between the Professor and the two teenagers was light and friendly sounding, full of laughter and excitement. And best of all, she had managed to convince Beni to at least give the newcomer a chance instead of escorting her out of town immediately.

Beni slid another plate (orders five and six) towards her and she nodded in thanks at him. He didn’t react and simply went back to his paper.

Huh, she was feeling much less stressed than she was before. Maybe she should cancel the rest of her order, or try to save the rest for a midnight snack? Or even breakfast? She had had much worse than old and slightly soggy -from-its-own-sauce potato mochi for breakfast in the past.

While she was contemplating the pros and cons of canceling the order versus taking the rest home, Beni immediately shoved the piece of paper a few inches from her face.

“Hmm?” she asked as elegantly as she could with a mouth full of half chewed mochi.

“Read it. If you sign off on it being  accurate, I’m going to take it to Kamado right now and  we’ll make it a binding deal.”

Cyllene forcibly swallowed her half chewed bite and set down her chopsticks so she could take the paper.

Quickly skimming through Beni’s Torchic scratch, she noted that he had in fact written down all the important parts of the plan for the newcomer’s trial tomorrow. Except for the very bottom, where he added “Punichment: To be expelled from the village if the trail is failed or otherwise showed signs of trickiness to complete trail.”

“Well,” she began, trying to fight off the rising panic, “First off, that’s not show you spell punishment.”

She glanced up at him to gauge his reaction. So far he had folded his arms and was frowning at her.

She continued, “And you got trial and trail mixed up both times you used it in that section.”

His frown deepened, making his tiny green mustache twitch.

Well, at least he wasn’t yelling. She decided to just get the heart of the problem before he did. “And I don’t believe we discussed any punishments at all, really, so… No, I won’t sign it.”

Beni leaned forward and growled, “If she fails, she cannot stay here.”

“We don’t do that with other recruits that fail! We try to find them another way to be useful first! And even then the protocol is to ship them back home if we truly cannot find a use for them. Exile is reserved for things like stealing or repeated insubordination!”

Beni ‘s face contorted with barely contained rage, “No one is going to give her a chance. You and the Professor are the only ones crazy enough to try! And even if you manage to convince one of the other captains, I won’t allow it. Kamado won’t allow it. And besides. Where. Will. You. Ship. Her. To?! She came out of the FUCKING sky!”

Cyllene froze. Oh fuck, he was right. Where would they even ship her to? It wasn’t as though they could go back down to the beach and re-rip a space-time distortion open to throw her back into. Maybe one of the clans would take her, like the Pearl clan did with that strange man, Ingo, but…there was no guarantee.

Beni gave a cruel smile as he unfolded his arms and handed her the charcoal stick he had been using.

Cyllene was thankful that her face typically didn’t show much emotion as she signed at the bottom of the paper. Not that she even knew what emotion she was feeling at the moment. So far shock and an odd sense of betrayal were winning, but rage was quickly bubbling up, too.

She shoved the paper back at him once she was done. She narrowly resisted the urge to throw the charcoal stick at his face too, but managed to keep it together long enough to hand it back.

He folded the paper and shoved it into his shirt.

“I’ll be back to cook the rest once I get back.”

Cyllene simply nodded, not trusting her voice to keep even and calm right now.

And with that he left out the back of the kitchen, presumably to ninja bullshit his way inside and up the Galaxy Hall to Kamado’s office so he could deliver the paper.

Cyllene sighed and let her shoulders slump now that she was alone.

Fuck. How was she going to get around that?

.

.

.

She couldn’t. That was the unfortunate truth.

And the worse thing of all? She couldn’t even really be mad at Beni. He was simply doing what he thought was needed to protect the village. Even worse was the thought that if it had been anyone besides the Professor (or maybe Zisu or Kamado) trying to get her to accept a random stranger from-who-knows-where, she’d probably be doing similar.

Again, she may not see eye to eye with Beni on a great many things, but she also knew that, like herself, he was willing to get blood on his hands to keep this village safe. While their skill sets differed, their abilities and dedication to Kamado and the village as a whole were on par with each other. The true difference lay in how she wished to try every non-violent option they had first, while Beni would often go for the quickest and simplest solution first.

Abra let out a whine, jolting Cyllene back into the present. It’s little claw fingers were making grabby hand motions at her and it continued to make pitiful sounds even as she turned to look at it, startled.

Cyllene glanced at its plate. It had eaten most of the mochi, but there were still a few sticky pieces left over.

“Are you done with your food?”

It nodded, but still continued grabbing at the air.

She grabbed a cloth napkin and carefully wiped off its sticky little three fingered hands and face. She was hopeful that someday it could learn to use a utensil to eat the mochi but so far it seemed to prefer to eat using its fingers. (She had once offered it a metal spoon only to have it chew on the spoon like a teething human baby. She took the spoon away before it damaged its teeth.)

“Are you worried about me? I will be fine. I’m just… stressed. Like usual.” She tried to give it a reassuring smile, but judging by the way it cocked its head at her, she had failed.

Abra popped itself out of existence before rematerializing in her lap, sitting like a toddler, tail hanging off her legs.

When it leaned back and stared up at her face, she could feel herself give a proper smile (well, as much as she was able to smile considering her face).

She gave it a small chin scratch, and went back to eating. Petting Abra with one hand, eating mochi with her other; she let her mind wander and analyze what she could do to help ensure that the punishment Beni wanted to give wouldn’t happen.

Not if she had anything to do about it.

Chapter Text

Obsidian Fieldlands  onto her desk and weighed it down with stacks of papers at its corners. She had an idea for how to best run the newcomer’s trial, but she needed to verify some details first.

“Professor,” she greeted with a small nod trying to gauge his mood. She was expecting some frustration or even anger directed at her for how she casually told him and the two teenagers the consequences of failure for the trail tomorrow and then just walked off. But she felt like she had to impress upon this girl that she had to take the test seriously or her fate could be dire. And well, Cyllene was known for sometimes forgetting to wrap up a conversation before just walking off.

However, he just gave a small wave and smile in return, “Captain! I am here for our discussion as agreed! I uh, wanted to say something first, however.”

Considering that the Professor hid his emotions about as well as a Snorlax could hide behind a skinny sapling, she could tell that he wasn’t angry with her… Which made her even more curious as to what he was going to say.

“Permission granted,” she said straightening up.

“Captain,” he began while stuffing his hands into his lab coat pockets, ”I understand that there are many things that I am not privy to, and I won’t ask you to divulge any… sensitive information. That being said, however! I just wanted to say that I appreciate that you are even willing to give Akari a trial, and… to not take Rei’s words to heart. You do a lot to protect us and he is- well, he just hasn’t quite learned how to spot that just yet.”

Cyllene just blinked at him, stunned into silence.

She didn’t care that Rei thought she was harsh. She was. She had to be! But she never thought that the Professor would worry about her reaction to what people thought of her.

He shifted his weight from foot to foot and gave her a concerned look.

Oh right, she should probably respond.

“Thank you for your concern, but rest assured that as much as I value Rei and his contributions, I will not worry about what he thinks of me.”

She continued as Professor opened his mouth as if he were going to say something, “As for Akari’s trial, don’t thank me just yet. She will still need to pass it first. I will warn you, Professor, that it won’t be the normal test either.”

 “And I have no doubt in my mind that she will pass will flying colors, no matter what task you throw at her!” he replied brightly.

“Like I said earlier, I hope your confidence is not misplaced. In the meantime, may I ask for your opinion on the current idea for her trial?”

“Oh of course!” he strode over, clapping his hands together and rubbing them together in excitement.

She bent back over the map and began to point at the location that marked the base camp at the top of Aspiration Hill.

“To begin with, I will be sending Rei to accompany her to the Obsidian Fieldlands. There’s no point in sending her far afield and if things go poorly, we can have them both back in the medical ward fairly quickly.”

“To help ensure that the worst cannot happen, I am considering this specific location. There is a guard always stationed here, at the top of Aspiration Hill, as well as, “ she moved her finger to tap the bridge over the river as the base of the hill, “one here. Both have fairly clear sight lines for large portions of the hill. This can offer us a degree of freedom as they will be able to step in if things deteriorate past what Rei can handle.”

And to act as Beni’s witnesses. He hadn’t specified how close the witness had to be, or that they both had to see the newcomer in action at the same time, just that there were two and that they were ones he could trust. I.e. non survey corps members. She didn’t want to make the poor girl nervous by having two grown strangers standing over her shoulder watching her every move. Skies knew that even on a good day Cyllene could whiff a pokèball throw and make a fool of herself. Putting that kind of pressure on the poor girl on top of the potential of exile was just asking for disaster.

And since Beni had left such a neat loophole, she was going to take advantage of it.

Speaking of loopholes…Beni didn’t specify what three Pokémon to catch either. Now to bounce her idea off of the Professor and get some feedback.

“As for the trial itself, I am thinking that a repeat performance, with some minor adjustments, should be enough to show her potential as an asset to the team. Bidoof, Starly and Shinx are commonly found on that hill.”

Wurmple also occasionally wandered over onto the hill, but considering she never wanted to see one again in her life, much less remember it existed; she wasn’t going to mention it.

“Now then, Professor. None of the your Pokémon were being aggressive towards her while on the beach, correct?”

“Oh no! All of them are little rascals, but harmless. Well, unless you forget to feed them…”

“And did they run away from her?”

“I mean…. A bit, but not like how a Starly- oh! I see what you’re doing!”

Cyllene knew that the Professor was smart, but it still impressive to see him connect the dots so easily.

“Indeed. A Bidoof will replicate the conditions that she had on the beach today.  A Starly will show that she is capable of catching Pokémon that are easily startled.  And lastly, a Shinx. Something that is aggressive, but not deadly under most circumstances, to show her bravery. If she can manage to get both a Bidoof and a Starly first, that should be enough to either subdue a Shinx or at the very worst, buy both Rei and the guards time to step in before she is seriously injured.”

The Professor interjected, “I appreciate that you are preparing for the worst, Captain, but I do think you are overdoing it a little!”

“You may think what you like, Professor, but I refuse to have to bury a child when there were precautions that could have been taken.”

At the Professors horrified look, she considered that maybe that came out a bit... much.

She considered trying to apologize or backtrack just to keep the peace, but then Professor got a thoughtful look on his face.

“I suppose you are right… Say, can we provide her with a Pokémon? Just to give her the best chance?”

That was a good idea, but… She was already exploiting several loopholes. Beni would probably throw a fit if she just handed the new recruit a Pokémon. He likely would say that it was equivalent to handing her a sword in terms of a security risk.  

“I don’t think I can just give her a Pokémon when I haven’t done that before for other potential recruits. It is a very good idea though, I wish I could.”

The Professor straightened up and crossed his arms. Cyllene recognized this as the start of his deep thinking pose, and kept silent letting him think and gather his words.

“What if… What if you don’t give it to her?”

Cyllene frowned. What was he suggesting? “Elaborate.”

“Well, I mean,” he shrugged, “I have three Pokémon in my possession. I don’t necessarily need all three at the moment. And they are mine, not the Galaxy Expedition Team’s! I wrote to my colleagues and paid for these Pokémon out of my own pocket! And I’ll defend that to anyone who says otherwise! The Commander told me that he didn’t see the value in bringing three non-native species to see them evolve just on the off chance that previous reports were true and they have unique evolutions!”

As the Professor went on his rant about how it was worth it to see if those reports by previous traders and explorers to Hisui were true and even if they weren’t it would add to the overall scientific knowledge of the world and it was worth every poke coin that he had spent on the little terrors even if they escaped all the time and ate his lunch whenever his back was turned, Cyllene smiled to herself.

He was so clever. Beni couldn’t get angry if the Professor gave one of his own personal Pokémon. And she couldn’t forbid the Professor for giving a gift, now could she?

And all of this for a girl he just met today. Cyllene felt herself somber and decided to just go ahead and ask him a burning question.

“Do you really think that she can help us with the Pokedex? Catching them is one thing, but survival- survival is another. This land is not kind even to its own native clans. This girl… I worry about her. She’s dressed so strangely, and some of her words…” She shook her head slowly. She couldn’t bring herself to voice all of her concerns. The Professor was her subordinate and it wouldn’t do to weigh all of her worries on him. What a terrible leader she was being.

“I will admit that she is… strange. But I have a very good feeling about this!”

He turned his body to face her fully and smiled with his whole face, ”And besides! will look out for her to the best of my ability and I feel safe in saying that you will as well. You are not a cruel woman, Captain, and I doubt that you will start being one now. “

Cyllene wasn’t sure how to respond to that besides a soft, “Thank you, Professor.”

An awkward moment of silence stretched out between them.

“Well, I suppose that’s all we can do for now. The rest will be up to Akari tomorrow. Thank you for your help Professor. I still have some arrangements to take care of, but you should get some rest.”

The Professor smiled, “I’m glad to be of help, Captain! Please make sure you get some rest as well. You’re here before anyway else is almost every day! I don’t know how you do it.”

She waved him off with a hand, “I won’t be long, Abra is already waiting for me in my quarters and it starts to get destructive if I don’t come home within an hour after dinner at the Wallflower.”

The last time she had accidentally left it alone too long it had teleported  all of her clothes out of the chest of drawers and storage and strewn them all over the room. It then proceeded to play in the sunken hearth and get soot over all of the clothes that were nearby. Cyllene wasn’t sure if it was an accident or on purpose that most of the clothes affected were white in color. She had to beg Anthe for help getting some of the stains out of her spare white spats. She could deal with her white underthings being turned grey but she couldn’t bear to show up to work with her visible uniform  anything less than pristine.   

“I will hold you to that! Goodnight, Captain.”

“Good night Professor.”

He left  into his office without further ado, and shut the door behind him. Cyllene started putting her map away as she heard him rustling around in his office through the closed door, presumably feeding the three little terrors before heading to his own quarters. She couldn’t do much for the perpetual stacks of paper that lived in her office, but she could at least tidy it up.

A soft noise caught her attention. Looking up, Pesselle was peeking her head in through the doorway between their offices again.

“Yes, Captain Pesselle?”

Pesselle stepped into the room fully and whispered conspiratorially, “So, how did the negotiations with our resident ninja go?”

Cyllene hummed in response, going back to shifting stacks of papers around. “Well enough I suppose.”

“Always so aloof, Cyllene,” Pesselle huffed,  “What I mean is, were you able to convince him to give the sky-faller a chance or should I start thinking of plausible reasons for why someone around Rei’s age  would suddenly drop dead?”

Cyllene scowled. “He better leave her alone for tonight at least, or I’ll kill him myself. He agreed to a trial; even wrote it down and had me sign it. If he breaks his word, I’ll break him. Kamado be damned.”

“So I see that I was right! You are getting another stray! How many more will you adopt alongside the Professor, hmmm?” Pesselle giggled.

“Pesselle, please,” Cyllene sighed deeply, “Not this again. I haven’t adopted anyone. Rei was a potential valuable asset and this newcomer is one as well. It’s as simple as that. Besides, she still has to pass her trial tomorrow. If she can’t, even the Professor won’t be able to help her.”

Pesselle, in the meantime, just smirked at her, “Of course, Captain. Now you should head to bed, medic’s orders!”

Cyllene rolled her eyes, but nodded. “Yes, alright, I’ll be on my way now. Good night, Captain Pesselle.”

“Good night, Captain Cyllene.”

And with that, Cyllene left the Galaxy Hall to go to her own quarters.

It was a bit strange though. She heard thunder but saw no clouds in the sky. She looked over at the ominous hole over Mount. Coronet’s peak. Hopefully, she was just hearing things and it had nothing to do with that gash in the sky.

Chapter Text

Cyllene was grateful that Abra didn’t mind her waking up early. It did like to cuddle with her at night, but once she got up, it would go back to float-sleeping off in a corner as she got ready.

As she finished getting dressed, she went over the plans for Akari’s trial today in her mind. With the Professor’s idea of giving her a Pokémon to improve her chances and all the precautions she made about the trial itself decided upon, she was feeling… rather hopeful about Akari’s chances, actually.

Cyllene rummaged through one of her drawers and pulled out a white square of cloth. Anthe had given to her to keep her hair out of her face when out in the field, but…Well, she wasn’t allowed in the field anymore, now was she? She tucked it into her jacket and then stared at the sunken hearth for a few moments. She knew she should eat but she was still thrumming with nervous energy and that made her worried about how food would sit in her stomach.  She decided to compromise and eat a few berries for breakfast.

At last, when she was done and cleaned up, she went over to Abra, still snoozing peacefully in the corner. She gave Abra a  small bowl of berries for breakfast and patted it on its head. “Please go on ahead to the office, I have a few errands to do. I will be there soon.”

It nodded and blipped out of existence.

She left her quarters, nodded in greeting to the guards working the main gate, and immediately headed to Anthe’s shop. Thankfully, Anthe was an early riser just like herself, so she was sweeping the street in front of her shop.

“Good morning, Captain! Did you need something?”

“Good morning Anthe, Yes, in fact I do. Have you seen the girl that Professor Laventon brought in?”

“Oh yes! I didn’t talk to her much, but she seems nice. Is there something wrong?”

“No, however, she will have a trial  today to see if she can join the ranks of the Survey Corps.”

Anthe cocked her head, “Forgive me Captain, but what does that have to do with me?”

“Professor seems confident that she will pass the trial, and I am hopeful that he is correct. I would like to commission your services to make her a uniform for when she passes. How soon can you have it done by?”

Anthe blinked in surprise. “You’re that confident in her?! My goodness, she must be something special! As for how soon…Well, I do have the material on hand, and since she seems to be about Rei’s size I could modify some of the patterns or even some of his spare uniforms… Hmmm, sometime after lunch I suppose. Assuming I don’t get any other orders or customers anyway. For spare uniforms, however, I would like more time, please.”

“Of course. Please send word when you have finished. I will come pick it up myself. Have a good day, Anthe.”

“You as well, Captain.”

With Anthe setting her broom down and heading into her shop to work, Cyllene continued on to the Galaxy Hall, greeting Beauregard as usual.

She greeted Bagin as normal as well, however, instead of heading straight to her office, she started up the stairs towards Zisu’s office on the second floor.

Zisu was rarely in her office under normal circumstances, but Cyllene’s gamble this morning paid off. The tall red-head was hunched over behind her desk, nursing a cup of tea in her hands.

Unlike Cyllene, Zisu was not a morning person and needed either tea or exercise (or both) to fully wake up. So when it took Zisu a few seconds to process who was standing in front of her, Cyllene wasn’t surprised.

“Oh! Hey Cy.” Zisu paused to yawn and cover her mouth with her other hand, “What are you doing up here? Need me for something?”

“Good morning Zisu. I need you to send special instructions to two guards today.”

“Special Instructions?” Zisu perked up and set her tea down. “Oooooh, what are we doing today? Does it gotta do with that sky-faller that Kamado’s having a fit over?”

Cyllene could feel her heart skip a beat at the mention of Kamado throwing a fit, but she kept her composure. “Yes, I’m giving them a trial to see if they are capable enough to join my corps. The two guards in question will be in the Obsidian Fieldlands, at the top and bottom of Aspiration hill.”

“Hold on, let me get a map so I can make sure we’re talking about the same spots.”

Zisu rummaged around in her desk for a bit before pulling out the correct map and unrolling it on the desk.

“Ok, so which two guards?”

Cyllene dutifully pointed at the two locations. “This one at the base camp on top of Aspiration Hill, and the one at the bottom of the hill, on the bridge.”

“Huh, ok. What do you need them to do exactly?”

“Watch the newcomer from their posts and write down observations. How many Pokémon they catch, which ones, and if they notice anything…unusual about how she is catching them. In addition, I would like them to step in if the worst happens. Rei will also be nearby, but… well, his Pikachu is still temperamental with him.”

Zisu grimaced at the mention of Rei’s Pikachu. “Ah yeah, poor kid. I keep telling him he needs to bond with it so it’ll handle occasional losses better, but he’s so nervous around it that it doesn’t help. Anyway, I’m assuming that you want them to give their reports as soon as possible, right? I can have them write it up and send a Starly back once the trial is done. I imagine that Kamado is gonna be interested to see the results as soon as he can as well.”

Beni will be too, thought Cyllene. “Yes, that would be best. Thank you, Zisu.”

“Of course! I heard from Pesselle that you and the Professor are adopting this one too, and I wanna help! I always wanted to be an auntie.”

Cyllene scowled and pinched the bridge of her nose, “Of course she said that…”

Zisu laughed, loud and large,  while standing up and nearly knocking her tea over in the process.

“Oh come on, Cy! She means well.” Zisu walked around and patted Cyllene on her back (nearly making her stumble). She then swept up poor Cyllene into a hug that lifted her off the ground., shoving her face right into Zisu’s massive chest.

“You’ve been working too hard and stressing too much! You gotta relaaaaaax!”

Cyllene spluttered and kicked weakly (trying not to hit Zisu in the shins), hissing furiously into Zisu’s chest, “Put me down! Put me down! Put me down! Put me down right  now, Zisu!”

Zisu just laughed again, “Promise to spar with me later this week! It’ll do you some good and I’m bored waiting out by the practice field for people!”

Cyllene slumped in her hold and grumbled, “Fine! I’ll swing by later in the week when I get a chance! Now put me down! I can’t breathe, you overgrown Octillery!”

Zisu finally set her down and stepped back, once again patting her on the back a little too hard. Cyllene straighten her uniform, grumbling to herself. She noticed that two of the guards that were nearby were blushing furiously, although Cyllene wasn’t sure why. Maybe they were embarrassed by Zisu’s sometimes childish behavior.  Maybe they were embarrassed that Cyllene relented to Zisu’s demands so easily. She knew her own face was red because Zisu had just cut off her oxygen supply but that was natural. (And there was no other reason for her blush. Not a single one. Nope.)

Putting the guards’ behaviour out of her mind, (she had more than enough things to worry about) she turned back to Zisu. The red-haired woman in question had turned  to a third guard (who only had a dusting of pink across their face) and asking them to get fetch a messenger Starly. 

“Please let me know when those reports come in. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do. Good day, Captain Zisu.”

Zisu just smiled and waved her off, “Yeah, yeah. You’ll be the first to know, you workaholic. Have a good day, Captain Cyllene.”

And with that Cyllene went back down the stairs to her office. The Professor had re-opened the door between their offices, and as Cyllene passed by it to go pet Abra, he stuck his head out and beamed.

“Good morning, Captain!”

“Good morning, Professor. I trust you are rested and prepared for today?” She pet Abra between its ears and felt its responding mrrrrrph. It’s little bowl of berries was nowhere to be found. It must have already eaten the berries and teleported the bowl back to her quarters.

“As ready as I can be!” He stepped into the doorway and held up an empty bowl. “All three of the little rascals are fed and I’ve already told them what’s going to happen today!”

She continued on to her desk and sat down, “Which of them will you give to her?”

“Oh, I thought I should let her choose!” The Professor was practically vibrating in place. “Each of them seem excited at the opportunity to go help and I’m sure any one of them will be a great partner.”

She nodded and picked up the top paper off the stack to her right. “Very well, Professor. That seems like a good way to handle it.”

She opened her mouth to ask if he had caught the little scoundrels in their balls yet, but then the front door slammed open and two of the security corps rushed in carrying a stretcher. And on the stretcher was a man wearing a  blood stained but familiar red uniform.  

They immediately went to the medical ward and Cyllene could hear Captain Pesselle start to bark out orders to the orderlies. “Get him on the bed! You! Get his shirt off! Grab the bandages!”

Cyllene sighed and felt her shoulders slump a fraction. Another security corps member injured (or maybe worse). If he survived would he want to transfer to another corps? Or even be asked to shipped back down south and leave Hisui altogether?

Beni was right that the Pokèdex’s progress was slow. It was practically at a standstill because everyone sent out into the field (her own corps members or Zisu’s security corps members, it didn’t matter) kept getting injured or killed, or they were so cautious in preventing themselves from being injured or killed that they barely caught any Pokémon or made any good field notes.

Eventually she was going to have to tell Kamado that if he wanted any progress on it, she was going to have to go out and do it herself. Considering how much he hated letting her out of the village after she had nearly died in the Alabaster Icelands, that was going to be a miserable discussion for all parties involved.

She looked over and saw the Professor looking at Pesselle’s office doorway with concern. Was he finally understanding why she was trying to make so many precautions for Akari’s trial? Was he regretting giving her this chance?

It was too late now. Either Akari completed the trial or she got exiled from the village. Beni had made it clear that there would be no second chances for the girl.

But it wouldn’t do to have the Professor fret, either…

She had an idea. Hopefully this would work.  “Professor, can you go into the storage closet and fetch a spare satchel for me? Akari can borrow it for the duration of her trial to store the pokèballs in.”

“Oh!” The Professor practically jumped out of his own skin. “Of course!”

As the Professor stepped back into  his office to head towards the hallway, Rei stepped through the Galaxy Hall’s front door. The teenager nodded to Bagin in greeting and then walked up to her desk.

“Good morning Captain, what are my orders for today?”

“Good morning, Rei. Please go fetch Akari so I can explain what her trial will be to her.”

Rei nodded and then headed right back out to go fetch her. With Rei’s departure and the Professor still off fetching a satchel, Cyllene turned to her paper work. She tried to ignore the intermittent screams and groans of pain from next door.  

But alas, she had only read the first sentence of paper she first picked up when she heard a rhythmic tapping on the window behind her.  

That tapping meant one of two things. One, a wild bird Pokèmon of some sort was trying to get in again, or two, Beni had missed his window of opportunity to speak with her before she got to her desk and now was trying to get her attention by hanging off the window sill  and tapping at her window like a deranged Pachurisu.

She looked over her shoulder and saw Beni’s white headkerchief peeking over the window sill.

Ugh, skies above, now what?

She got up and opened the window. Lo and behold, Beni was hanging off her window sill, several feet off the ground, still dressed as Beni-the-elderly-owner-of-the-Wallflower. Whether or not he looked like a deranged Pachurisu was debatable (but Cyllene certainly thought he did).

“Good morning Beni, you better make this quick. The Professor will be right back and I don’t think you want to explain how you’re hanging off my window sill when you’re supposed to be over 80 years old.”

Beni scowled at her, “I found out about your little plan, Cyllene. I wanted two witnesses at the same time!”

Cyllene wasn’t surprised that he found out. Whether he found out from Pesselle, Zisu, or just eavesdropped himself, she wasn’t sure, but it didn’t matter anyway. “Well, you should have put that on the paper, then. You had every opportunity to.”

Beni growled, “You knew what I meant! And another thing! You’re giving her a Pokémon! That is definitely not what we agreed upon!”

“I am not giving her anything besides instructions, a satchel and some pokèballs. If the Professor decides to give one of his own personal Pokémon, I can’t exactly stop him, now can I?”

As if on cue, the Professors voice floated through the hallways and into her office. “I found one, Captain! But it’s a bit dusty so I’m going to try to clean it off first.”

Turning back to Beni, Cyllene hummed. “Anything else you want to add? He’ll be here soon.”

Beni narrowed his eyes at her, “If you’re so insistent that it’s the Professor giving the skyfaller a Pokémon then fine. Just know that if this goes wrong and she IS playing a trick that I will ensure that he gets a punishment too! One that you can’t protect him from! You can’t expect me to just sit idly  by while you two go around handing out-“ Beni waved one hand dramatically as he looked for the right words and then gave up, “handing out dangerous Pokémon to perfect strangers!”

Cyllene felt her blood run cold. Well fuck. Beni could definitely make the Professor’s life very hard in a variety of ways if he so chose to. Then again, this all relied upon the Professor being wrong. Which Cyllene was 90% positive he wasn’t. Well, maybe 80% after this conversation.

Regardless, Beni was acting as though she was helping the Professor commit treason. And that she would not tolerate. They were going to have a little talk with Kamado after this was all said and done, that was for sure.

Cyllene felt her face harden into a glare. She didn’t have many emotions that showed well on her face but thankfully anger was one of them. “If you’re done being dramatic, Beni,” she hissed, “Some of us have work to do. We can discuss this more later, once Akari has taken the trial. Good day.”

And with that she shut the window firmly and walked back to her chair. The Professor walked in from his office holding the dusted off satchel in his hands.

“Were you talking to someone? I thought I heard you speaking.”

“There was an annoying Starly at the window,” Cyllene replied flatly, “I was simply encouraging it to leave me alone.”

The Professor shook his head fondly, “I wish I could get Pokémon to listen to me the way you can!”

He strode over to her desk and waved a leather bag with straps around. “Anyway, here is the satchel!”

He handed it over swiftly and then began to walk back to his office. “I’ll just go ahead and try to get these three terrors into their balls now. You know, since it might take a bit.”

“Very well, Professor. Good luck.”

Oh, she should probably warn him of Beni’s threat. Worded differently of course. The Professor didn’t know about Beni being a ninja and she wasn’t going to be the one to tell him.

She was still thinking of how to phrase it when Rei came back into Galaxy Hall with Akari in tow.

Well, she could tell the Professor later. She had a trial to explain first.

Chapter Text

Cyllene manages to catch the Professor for a moment while he’s putting the leftover Pokémon away back in his lab. Apparently, Akari had chosen the little Rowlett. The other two were being remarkably well behaved considering they must be so disappointed.

“Professor? A word.”

“Hmm? Yes, Captain?” He had just set the little Oshawott back in its tank and was attempting to corral the Cyndaquil onto its little hearth and not kick up soot everywhere.

“I don’t wish to alarm you, but I’ve received word that your plan to give Akari a Pokémon might have unintended consequences.”

“Unintended…” He looked back at her with confusion all over his face. ”What do you mean?”

“I mean that if our sudden guest should fail or prove to be using trickery, that you would be considered responsible, since you both pushed for her to join and gave her a Pokémon before she completed the trial. I do not know how much I can shield you from said consequences, so I thought I should make you aware of them.”

“I see... What do you recommend?”

“Other than make sure that Akari passes the trial and with no trickery on her part? Nothing. Things have already been set in motion. If, for any reason, you think that she won’t pass or is using some sort of trick you need to tell me now. I can try to mitigate the damage to you to the best of my ability.”

“I have full confidence in her!” The Professor snapped. “I know it seems ludicrous but I swear on my honor as a man of science that Akari is as capable as I have reported!”

His outburst didn’t faze Cyllene in the slightest. Compared to his rants on how some Pokémon were types versus how they should be typed, this was nothing. “Very well.”

She thought for a moment more. Having the Professor sit and fret in his office worrying about Rei and Akari all day was going to be distracting. Maybe she could get him to go with them? “On further thought, I will recommend that you go with both Akari and Rei today out into the field to keep an eye on them. I’m sure they will appreciate your presence and support.”

“I don’t think I will be necessary, but perhaps you are right,” the Professor grumbled.

Cyllene simply nodded and held her gaze. She really didn’t want to tell him that she wasn’t recommending that he go so much as commanding him he needed to go.

The Professor blinked, and then went, “Oh.”

After an awkward moment of silence (the two of them seemed to have quite a lot of those recently), the Professor sighed and then said with a falsely-bright voice, “Well then, I’ll be off now! I’m sure I’ll be back in no time at all with happy news!”

“Hopefully so. Don’t die, Professor.”

He just waved and left. Well, it was alright if he was a little cross with her. It was her duty to try to protect him and she hadn’t foreseen this complication. She really needed to be a better captain to him…

Cyllene went back to her desk. She would reflect on that later in the privacy of her own quarters. Right now, she needed to work on her paperwork while waiting for those Starlies to come back with the news of Akari’s trial.

She managed to get a few sets of papers looked at before she needed to sit up and roll her shoulders. Most of the particular stack she had pulled from were backlogged notes from her own survey corps members. When she had nearly died of hypothermia, a concussion, and a broken arm from a nasty fall in the Icelands and spent the next few weeks recovering, she had fallen behind. While most of the notes were redundant (such is the nature of scientific method) she still needed to make sure that she wasn’t missing anything that could prove to be an interesting or valuable piece of knowledge that Professor Laventon could further study for better knowledge.

Pesselle walks into the office while Cyllene is picking up the next set of papers. Cyllene noted that her face was carefully arranged into a I-have-good-news-and-bad-news expression that she had come to dread.

Cyllene sighed deeply. Time to get to the point. “I’m assuming that Yojiro is in the one in your care. Is he alive?”

Yojiro was one  of the Security Corps, yes, but Zisu had earmarked him as a potential transfer to the Survey Corps. Partly because he was more adventurous and antsy than a good guard should be and partly because he actually liked  and was curious Pokémon! That was such rarity, and he was being such a headache to Zisu that Cyllene had agreed that he could be considered for a transfer once they found a replacement for his post.  She wasn’t sure why or how Yojiro got attacked. Hopefully it was just a fluke and not a sign of bigger problems for other Security and Survey Corps members. She could discuss the specifics of the attack with Zisu later.

“Yes, and he will survive.”

Oh thank the land, sea, and sky! However, Cyllene knew there was more to it or else Pesselle would have been all smiles. “But?”

“His recovery will be long and painful. It might take months for him to perform his duties again.”

At least the poor bastard wasn’t dead unlike some of his unluckier predecessors. “Could he perform duties with another one of the corps once he heals enough? Assuming of course that he wishes to stay here in Hisui and not collect a severance and go back south.”

Pesselle hummed in thought. “If Tao Hua isn’t being grumpy about taking ‘leftovers’ again, Yojiro could conceivably go work with him. Or maybe he could go help one of the villagers who isn’t in a corps. I fear that the other corps will involve too much physical labor and he doesn’t have the knowledge I would need to add him to my own staff.”

Cyllene nodded. “I can try to talk to Tao Hua later. Yojiro’s resting now, correct?”

“Yes, he will be in my care for a few days at least, so we have some time to figure out his future arrangements.”

“Indeed. Thank you, Pesselle, for informing me.”

Pesselle simply gave a small nod and went back to her office. She didn’t close the door, but considering that there was no more screaming at the moment, Cyllene didn’t mind for once.

Well, with someone to look after at least she wouldn’t be as nosey for the next few days, anyway. Cyllene sighed. Time to go back to work.

Or not.

The front door to the Galaxy Hall opened up and Anthe stepped in, holding a bundle of cloth with a pair of straw shoes on top.

Oh! That was quick! Wait, was it lunchtime already?

Anthe chattered as she approached Cyllene’s desk, clearly excited, “I apologize for being sooner than expected!  I found a spare of Rei’s jacket, and then modified one of uh… oh,  what was her name? The one that was around your size but smaller?  Got mauled by an alpha Carnivine? Anyway, I hemmed her spare uniform up and her leggings as well. I wasn’t sure about the shoes, but if they don’t fit, just send her over with them and I will see what I can do.”

“Thank you, Anthe,” Cyllene replied as she took the bundle from her. “Your work is invaluable.” She put the bundle behind one of the bigger piles of paper on her desk.

 Cyllene knew that Anthe was a fast worker, but skies above! She would have to talk to Kamado about giving her a bit extra for her speedy work on such short notice.

“No need to thank me! This is so exciting! I’ve heard all the rumors! A young girl? From the sky?! And did you see her clothes when she first arrived? Do you think that’s the fashion where she is from?”

Oh no. Cyllene was not one to talk fashion, and worse yet, she had no idea if Akari was one for fashion either.  She didn’t mind just wearing the Galaxy Team uniforms every day. They were warm, hard wearing, and fairly easy to clean. She only had one fancy kimono and that was mostly because Anthe herself had talked her into it (also partly because it was patterned a bit like a Spheal and those things were so damn cute). Who knows what Akari, the newcomer from the sky, would prefer to wear.

“I’m sure if she likes clothes you will be the first person she visits.”

Anthe brightened. “Oh, I  hope so! And maybe she can tell me about clothes where she comes from!”

“Maybe so. Now, thank you again for the fast work, but I-“ Cyllene began. Anthe could talk hours about fashion and Cyllene wasn’t sure that she could deal with that.

Thankfully Anthe was good with social cues, “Oh, yes! I will take my leave now. Have a good day, Captain!”

“Have a good day, Anthe.”

As Anthe turned and left, Cyllene went back to her paperwork.

She managed to get another set of papers done when she heard footsteps coming towards her desk. She looked up and saw Bagin walking up to her desk. He had several pieces of paper in one hand.

“Captain, I have some reports for you. They just came by Starly.”

Oh good! Hopefully it was good news about Akari’s trial. “Thank you, Bagin.”

Once, he handed the papers over, and headed back to his post, she immediately started reading them.

The first paper was the report from the security corpsman on top of the hill. His report was very simple. He saw Akari catch one Bidoof very quickly before she moved out of his sight. That was good. The speed at which Akari caught Pokémon would be points in her favor when Cyllene would bring this up to Kamado later.

The second was from the guard on the bridge.  His report noted that she caught one Starly (that took several tries) and one Shinx (although she had apparently accidentally knocked out one before she managed to catch the second). He also mentioned that Warden Mai had come up to him before  the trial started and had been asking for Rei. She also had been “agitated” and curious he had noticed anything odd with her noble, Wyrdeer. And even asking him to tell her if he knows anything about the nobles “acting strangely”. He hadn’t but since she had barely ever talked to him in the first place, and they were such weird requests, he thought it was worth noting.

Well, it was good that Akari had done well in her trial, but the news about Warden Mai was worrying. Cyllene had met all of the Wardens when she had gone out to do an initial survey of the land. While Cyllene was aware that she was not the friendliest person in the Galaxy Team, most  of the Wardens were standoffish. (Or hostile. Or insane. And usually some combination thereof.) Warden Mai was no exception to being standoffish, but she wasn’t actively hostile. And more importantly, she wasn’t insane. If Warden Mai was asking odd questions, that was a cause for concern.

Cyllene contemplated going to talk to Kamado about this concerning news, but then she noticed she still had two more papers in the pile.

Wait… were there more reports? Or did Bagin mistakenly give her unrelated papers?

No, it was a third report! This one was from one …. on the side of Aspiration Hill?

Oh! There was a guard there! Cyllene had forgotten about that post.

This report was poorly written, full of misspellings and misshapen letters, but it was still understandable. This guard had witnessed Akari catch one Bidoof, one Starly (that took several tries, just like the bridge report had said) and one Shinx was captured after she had beat the shit out of another one.

Ok, this was good! Cyllene wasn’t sure how this guard knew to watch the trial and send in his report, but she wasn’t going to argue with it. This extra witness (that happened to see all three of the Pokémon captured!) would be invaluable when she inevitably had to talk to Beni and Kamado about Akari.

Now, what was on the last paper? Cyllene picked it up and quickly read it.

-----

Hey Cy!

After you left I realised that there was another guard post in that area. I took the liberte libertry I decided to just have him watch and send in his report too. You o me a good spar AND showing me yur sword skills!

And mochi

-Zisu

-------

Cyllene gave a small smile. Thank the land, sea, and sky for Zisu! She was a good captain.

A spar, some mochi and a demonstration of skill were a fair price to pay for this favor. Maybe she’d even throw in making her dinner later in the week. (Cyllene wasn’t much of a cook, but she made do, and Zisu never turned down free food.)

She set the papers to the side and picked up her brush. While she waited for the Professor and the two teenagers came back to verbally  confirm  the reports on the trial, she could get a head start on writing a note to Kamado. She would probably catch hell from Beni later, but she was going to go ahead and induct Akari into the Survey Corps (and by connection the entire Galaxy Expedition Team as a whole). That meant that Kamado was going to want to meet her personally.

Hopefully he wouldn’t throw their new recruit down the stairs when he judo threw her…

Chapter Text

Akari’s verbal report confirmed what Cyllene already knew, so really, it had been a formality. She didn’t tell Akari this, however, because she didn’t need to know. She did tell Akari that she had impressed her, because that was the truth. A truth that was worth telling Akari about anyway.

(Cyllene caught Rei’s shocked expression in the corner of her eye. She needed to work on praising Rei more often too, if he was this shocked at such a simple admission of obvious truth.)

Akari went to go change so she could go see the Commander but as soon as the front door had closed Cyllene realized that she had accidentally forgot to give over the headkerchief. It was still in her jacket’s inner pocket.

Hmm, Akari had long hair anyway, she probably needed a hair tie to go with the headkerchief for best results. Cyllene kept her own hair short so she didn’t own any. Pesselle was fiercely protective of her spare hair ties (apparently a relative had made the little pink pom pom things on them). So that left either Zisu or Sanqua to borrow some from. Zisu was probably out by the practice field, but Cyllene knew that she kept some spare ties in a desk drawer in her office. And if that failed, she could probably find Sanqua in her office next door.

“Rei, can you wait for Akari to come back? I need to go upstairs and fetch something.”

“I could go fetch it for you!” Rei offered. He often wanted to do small tasks. Cyllene wasn’t sure if it was him just trying to prove he could be useful to her or if it was just a reflex from helping Professor Laventon so much. She hoped it was the latter.

Cyllene shook her head. “Thank you Rei, but I doubt you know where the item I need is. It will be faster for me to find it.”

“Ah, um. May I interject before you go, Captain?” the Professor’s voice nervously called out.

She turned to see him peeking out of his office again. “Yes, Professor. What is it?”

The Professor stepped into the doorway fully and nervously clasped his hands together. “You just gave Akari a uniform, right?”

“Correct.”

“And you’re having Anthe make spare uniforms in the future?”

“Also correct.”

“I see, I see. Did you… did you by any chance remember to ask Anthe to set aside some… uh, normal clothes for Akari?”

Cyllene blinked at him. “…No. I did not.” Weren’t uniforms normal clothes? At least compared to whatever the hell she was wearing this morning?

The Professor and Rei shared a look. Cyllene recognized it as the We-cannot-tell-Cyllene-about-this look. They then both gave Cyllene awkward smiles.

“Ah, yes, well. I… I have to go do a- a thing. I will also be right back!”

Cyllene watched him do an odd shuffle jog out of her office and into the hallway. Internally sighing, she decided that she could deal with the Professor later.

“Rei, please go wait for Akari out in the hallway. I’ll be right back.”

Ignoring Rei’s stammered assent, she walked past him, past Bagin, and up the stairs. She also ignored the startled “C-Captain Cyllene!” from a Security Corpsman that was coming out of Zisu’s office. She did, however, nod at him in greeting as she breezed by and walked over to the desk.

Pulling open the first drawer revealed that it was full of rocks and small sachets of gravel. Cyllene paused before remembering that Zisu used them to help Pokèmon get stronger in various ways. Although why they were here and not down by the training grounds was a mystery. Skies only knew what went on in Zisu’s head sometimes.

The next drawer was full of papers and an extra brush and ink box. The third drawer finally had what she needed (extra hair ties) as well as a handful of berries and candies. Ah, this must be Zisu’s snack drawer. Cyllene carefully picked out one hair tie and placed it in the same pocket as the folded up headkerchief. 

She decided that she should leave a note for Zisu to let her know that she was “borrowing” a hair tie for Akari (although she suspected that Zisu would brush it off). She carefully shut the drawer and then sat down in Zisu’s chair.

However, as she reached for a blank piece of paper from the second drawer, Abra popped into existence next to her, holding a  folded piece of paper in its little claws.

“Aaaaba,” it said as it waved the paper at her.

Cyllene stared at Abra for a second. Didn’t she leave it back in her office? It had already delivered the note to Kamado and come back earlier, whose paper was it holding?

“Thank you, Abra.” She gave it a quick pat on the head with one hand as she took the paper with the other.

She paused for a moment. She shouldn’t do this, but then again, no one was watching…

Felling a bit guilty, Cyllene opened Zisu’s snack-and-hair-tie drawer, fished out a candy, and gave it to Abra before shutting the drawer quickly.

She… she would pay Zisu back for the candy, it was fine.

With Abra crunching happily on the candy, Cyllene opened the paper.

-----

Captain Cyllene,

In regards to “Akari’s” acceptance into the Survey Corps, while we will be discussing her tonight in further detail, I agree that if she has passed the test that you and Beni came up with that she should be allowed to join the Galaxy Expedition Team and access our resources in exchange for her work.

However, I expect you to keep an eye on her. While it may have been the Professor’s idea to bring her in, he is a notoriously poor judge of character when it comes to those of a nefarious nature.

Please have her come up to see me when she is ready.

- Kamado

In addition,

FOR THE LOVE OF HO-OH STOP USING ABRA TO SEND ME MESSAGES!

I KEEP NEARLY PUNCHING IT OUT OF REFLEX  WHEN IT POPS UP NEXT TO ME!

-----

Oh, it must have sensed that Kamado had a note to return, so it teleported up, got it and then found her.

What a clever thing! Although apparently it had put itself in danger on accident.

Cyllene looked over at Abra, “Did he almost hit you?”

Abra shook its head.

“Hmm, did you accidentally scare him by teleporting very close to him when you delivered my note earlier?”

Abra tilted its head as if confused, but then nodded.

“Make sure you keep a good distance from him when you teleport next time, please. I don’t want him to accidentally hurt you. He’s not a bad person, but he’s … a bit jumpy when it comes to Pokèmon he doesn’t know well. He doesn’t know you like the Professor or Rei do.”

Both the Professor and Rei barely flinched at Abra teleporting in and out anymore but everyone else either practically jumped out of their own skin or screamed. Or both.

Cyllene thought Abra was adorable and quite frankly, the least terrifying Pokèmon she had ever seen. All it did was sleep and eat. Sure, it teleported and could move things with its mind, but it wasn’t aggressive at all.

Honestly, it was better than most people.

 More intelligent too, come to think of it.

At any rate, she had the response she needed from Kamado. Now, to quickly write that note to Zisu and go back downstairs. Akari should be back soon.

After finishing the note and telling Abra to go back to her office, Cyllene had been hoping that she could make it back  downstairs before Akari came back.

That was not the case, as she saw Rei talking to Akari as she came down the stairs, but at least Akari hadn’t gone up to see Kamado yet.

Akari didn’t have any trouble with the hair tie, but had looked at the square cloth of the headkerchief with open confusion in her eyes.

Cyllene did her best to show her how to properly fold it, as well as tips on how to place it and get it to stay on her head. Akari had asked for a “bobby pin” at one point, but Cyllene had no idea what that was. The poor girl had gone wide-eyed for a moment before she said “Oh, uh, never mind” very softly.

Cyllene didn’t know what to say to that, but once the white headkerchief was sitting nicely on Akari’s head, she had nodded in approval at the final result and sent Akari off to go see the commander.

 After seeing Akari trot off up the stairs, Cyllene walked back into her office, trailed by Rei.

As she walked, she asked the teenager, “Rei, how are things going with Warden Mai’s request?”

Rei grimaced, “Uh, I wanted to talk to you about that actually, Captain.”

Cyllene  walked around her desk and sat down as she waited for him to continue. Rei nervously fiddled with his sleeve but managed to speak after only a few moments silence, “I, uh, think that Akari might do better to help with the Warden’s request than me, Capt-Captain.”

“I see.” She opened a drawer and fished out a crafting recipe and a sachet of money that Akari would need for later.  “Can you tell me why you think this?”

Rei nodded, “She’s uh…Reaaaaaalllly good at battling with Pokémon, ma’am. I saw her in action today and it’s kind of… scary? How good she is with it? And since Pikachu still kind of hates me…”

Cyllene sighed. He really did need to work on his bond with that Pikachu. She thought for a moment but was rudely interrupted by a loud thud that came from upstairs.

Both she and Rei looked up at the ceiling. She let out a breath she didn’t know she had been holding once a few more moments passed and no more thuds were heard.

Seems like the Commander didn’t throw Akari down the stairs. There would have been more thumps and probably screaming if he had. (She also would have killed him if he had thrown Akari down the stairs. She had invested a lot of effort into this girl already and on top of that, the Professor would have been a blubbering mess for skies knows how long. Both stab worthy offenses.)

Speaking of the Professor, he had just walked into the office. “Was that thump what I think it was?”

Rei piped up with, “Yeah, probably. You know how the Commander likes to throw people across the room when he first meets them…” He rubbed his shoulder, and Cyllene presumed that he was remembering his own first encounter with the Commander.

(Cyllene had also been thrown when she met him, but considering she had then also rolled back onto her feet and sprung  back at him in one smooth motion with her concealed knife in hand only to be stopped by Beni, she liked to think that she had made an impression. Beni hadn’t been happy, but Kamado had laughed, patted her shoulder, and apologized for setting her combat instincts off so violently. After that, Kamado began to ask people to attack him instead of surprising people with a judo throw.)

The Professor grimaced, “Yes, quite. He’s a… lively sort of chap, in that way.”

In order to cut off the Professor’s incoming retelling of how the Commander had nearly thrown him through a wall, Cyllene decided to step in and redirect the conversation.

 “Rei,” Cyllene said turning back to the teenager, “In regards to Warden Mai’s request, you may ask to see if Akari is willing to help you. However, if she refuses to help or if Warden Mai refuses to let her help, I will still expect you to do your best. In addition, before you take her out to see Warden Mai, take her to the training grounds and do a practice battle with her.”

“Um, alright,” Rei replied. He then mumbled to himself quietly, “She’s going to absolutely murder Pikachu though. That poor Shinx didn’t stand a chance…”

“I do, however, suggest that you do that tomorrow. She needs time to settle in.” Throwing too much at the poor girl too fast would be counter-productive. There wasn’t a hard deadline on the Pokèdex, so they could treat this more as a marathon instead of a sprint.

Rei seemed to relax at that. “Thank you, Captain.”

Cyllene nodded. The Professor looked… oddly pleased considering he had missed the first part of the conversation.

She wanted to ask why he was so happy, but then Akari walked back into the office.

Ah well, it didn’t matter, she supposed. As long as he kept being happy (and doing his job), she was doing her job as captain. And as Captain, she needed to give Akari the tools she would need to succeed out in the wilds of Hisui.

 As soon as both Rei and Akari had stepped out of the building, the Professor turned to Cyllene with a smirk, “I told you she was every bit as capable as I reported, Captain. You worry too much.”

Cyllene internally rolled her eyes. Sure, he thought that way now, but if something had happened, he would have been grateful for her foresight, she was sure of it.

“I’m also glad it turned out so well, Professor,” she replied diplomatically.

She walked around the desk and sat down but the Professor wanted to keep talking.

“Oh I can’t wait to get her out into the field proper! She’s a natural at catching and battling! And the speed of it! Oh, she’s even faster at it than you! N-not that you were slow or anything, Captain! It’s just- It’s just amazing!”

Cyllene cut him off before he worked himself into a nervous frenzy of wavering between praise and apologies, “Do you want to take her out to the Fieldlands today? Once Rei  finishes showing her how to craft Pokèballs of course. There’s still some daylight left and you might as well make use of it.”

The Professor’s eyes lit up as he grinned, “A capital idea! Thank you, Captain! I’ll go inform them of the plan immediately!”

Cyllene nodded and hummed in response. But then she was struck with a thought.

“Professor?”

“Hmm?”

“Did you give Akari an empty Pokèdex yet?”

“…. Oh bollocks.”

Cyllene sighed and opened a drawer in her desk. She pulled out an empty Pokèdex and handed it to him.

The Professor’s chastened smile as he took it from her was oddly adorable. “Thank you, Captain! I’ll, uh, be on my way now.”

“Don’t die out there, Professor,” she said simply as she went back to her paperwork. Akari’s trial and induction had eaten up so much of her time today and she needed to get back to work.

Those paper piles weren’t going to read themselves.

Cyllene was about a third of the way through a set of notes when she heard footsteps approaching her desk.

Looking up, she saw an unusual sight for her office. Sanqua was approaching her desk with a paper in one hand and a plate of mochi in the other.

“Good afternoon, Cyllene! I heard that you skipped lunch again today so I figured I would bring you some.”

Cyllene blinked. She did feel hungry, now that she thought about it. “Thank you, Sanqua. I suppose I did miss lunch.”

Sanqua set down the plate on the desk and smiled.  Cyllene could feel her mouth water at the smell of the fresh mochi.

As Cyllene pulled the plate closer to her, she noticed that Sanqua was still standing there, smiling.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“Actually, yes!” Sanqua replied brightly. She handed over the paper to Cyllene and continued, “I need you and the Professor to sign this very important paper!”

A very important paper that required both the Professor’s and her signature? She wasn’t aware of anything that Sanqua would need from the both of them. Sanqua and the Construction Corps didn’t really interact with the Survey Corps very often.

With that in mind, Cyllene read the paper Sanqua handed over.

---

It will be hereby known that Captain Cyllene and Professor Laventon have added another child to their growing family. They promise to love and protect the skyfaller as much as they do Rei, who has also been previously adopted by them.

Mother: ___________

Father: __________

Witnesses:  Captain Sanqua    Captain Zisu     Captain Pesselle

Commander: _____________

---

Cyllene looked up and gave Sanqua a glare.

Sanqua, however, burst into giggles.

“Oh come on, Cyllene! This just- Ahahahaha!-It just makes it official! You like things being done officially and properly!”

Cyllene rolled her eyes and crumpled up the paper. She then raised her arm to throw the paper ball at Sanqua, who shrieked playfully, and darted back towards Pesselle’s office.

Sanqua wasn’t lucky  or fast enough to avoid the thrown paper ball, but it just bounced off her harmlessly anyway.

“How rude!” Sanqua playfully pouted, “I brought you mochi and everything!”

“You brought me a headache as well, but I’m not going to thank you for that.” Cyllene replied flatly.

Pesselle stuck her head out of the doorway, “What you are doing?! Keep it down!”

“I was just giving her the adoption paper! You know, the one I had you sign earlier?”

Cyllene glared at Pesselle, but she just smiled, “Oh! I thought we were doing that later! The Professor is out in the field right now.”

Cyllene had had enough. She was not letting them drag the poor easily flustered Professor into these silly, unprofessional games!

She pointed at the door and growled, “Out. Both of you, out! We all have work to do! And you won’t do this to the Professor either, or I will bring this up to the Commander.”

Sanqua immediately sobered, “Oh, Cyllene it’s just a joke…”

Pesselle on the other hand, smiled unrepentant, “Don’t worry about the Professor! It’s much better to tease youinstead!”

Cyllene shot her a glare, “Out or I ask Abra to make you get out.”

Abra, as if on cue, yawned and swished its tail. “Abaaa?”

Sanqua held up her hands and sputtered, “Alright, alright! I’m going.”

She and Pesselle shared a look  before she quietly walked out of the room.

Once Sanqua was gone, Cyllene turned to glare at Pesselle again. She was very tired of people sharing looks with each other when she suspected it was about her.

Pesselle simply sighed, “It doesn’t hurt to admit that you care, Cyllene. No one will think less of you. Well, no one worth listening to anyway. I hope one day you can understand that.”

Cyllene blinked, but before she could ask Pesselle to elaborate, the medic retreated into her office.

She wasn’t sure why exactly Pesselle’s words both confused and infuriated her. She didn’t care what people thought of her! She had half a mind to go stomp into Pesselle’s office and tell her as such but her stomach grumbled loudly.

Oh, right. She should probably eat the mochi first.

Cyllene sighed and began to eat her mochi in silence.

The rest of the day passed peacefully. Cyllene never did get up to tell off Pesselle, but it wouldn’t have made a difference anyway. Let Pesselle think what she wants. Cyllene decided to focus her energy on things she could do.

Like her mountains of paperwork.

About an hour before sunset, the Professor and the two teenagers came back into Jubilife. It had been a very fruitful outing judging by the fact that Akari had collected enough information to move up to a One Star rank.

Cyllene had handed over the recipes that One Star ranks were allowed to learn; Heavy Ball, and crucially, a recipe for revives.

She then gave Akari a small talk about the benefits of moving up the in the ranks; both material and social. It was probably not necessary, but since Cyllene wasn’t sure what Akari’s life was like before she fell out of the sky and landed in Jubilife; she just felt that she need to let the poor girl know the keys to getting the villagers (and Kamado, hopefully) to trust and respect her with time.

She then sent the girl off to have dinner at the Wallflower. The Professor and Rei were probably waiting for her, after all.

As for her own dinner, it would have to wait. She needed to talk to the Commander first.  

She gave Abra a quick pat on the head. “I don’t know how long I will be talking to the Commander tonight before I head home. You may go home whenever you feel like, but please don’t make a mess at home. I’ll make you some grain cakes if you behave.”

Abra gave a quiet mrrrrrph and nodded. It wasn’t fully awake, but it was enough of a response to make Cyllene feel assured that it heard and understood her. Whether or not it obeyed her instructions, only time would tell.

With a final rub behind its little ear as goodbye, Cyllene left to walk up the stairs to the Commander’s office.

(If the Commander ever wondered why she liked to use Abra as a messenger to him even though he hated it, she would tell him to his face that she found walking so many sets of stairs tedious.)

She stopped at the base of the final set of stairs, made sure her uniform was perfect, took a deep breath, and then climbed up to Commander Kamado’s office.

The Commander was already waiting for her. He sat behind his desk with the Security Corps reports already arranged in front of him.

She walked in and defaulted to her normal resting posture of arms behind her back. He nodded at her instead of a verbal greeting.

Cyllene did not have to wait long before the Commander broke the silence himself.

“I spoke with Beni earlier. He’s… miffed that you somehow managed to get a third report, but he agrees that these reports are sufficient evidence to… Akari’s skill.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We do not, however, know much about her, do we?”

“Not at the moment, sir, no.”

The Commander harrumphed and his mustache twitched. It reminded Cyllene of when a particularly grumpy Wishcash would huff in annoyance and its feelers would wiggle.

“I am interested to know why  and how you saw fit to induct her into our Team without my express approval.”

Cyllene was grateful that her face naturally defaulted to something akin to an unimpressed Purugly. It wouldn’t do to show weakness or doubt in front of the Commander, especially over such a touchy subject,  “She passed the trial that was given to her, and I did not see any reason to delay an induction. You have never shown an inclination to refuse someone who can work, and she is both able and willing to work.”

The Commander narrowed his eyes but then relaxed and sighed deeply. “I suppose I cannot argue with that.”

His bushy eyebrows furrowed as he continued, “However, I will have to order you and the others to keep an eye on this… skyfaller. Her current goodwill may be… a ruse or a distraction for something more nefarious.”

“Yes, sir. That is acceptable.” Cyllene liked to think herself a decent judge of character, and while she didn’t sense anything particularly malevolent from Akari… it wouldn’t hurt to keep an eye on her anyway.

“Tell me, Captain, what are your thoughts on this girl?”

Cyllene paused for a moment. “She was dressed oddly when she arrived. She also says strange things sometimes. She is also… young. However, she has already gotten enough data for the Pokèdex to be considered a One Star rank. As long as she is not malicious and continues that way, I think we would have to be fools to turn her away. If you will remember, the Pearl Clan also have a member that arrived under mysterious circumstances. He is now a respected Warden. He also has a great skill with Pokémon and has made every attempt to be assimilated into the Pearl Clan and their traditions.”

The Commander grumbled, “Ah, yes. Warden Ingo, I believe.”

“Yes, sir.”

Cyllene nearly missed the Commander’s muttering to himself of “Why do they have to be so strange?” and decided not to comment on it. Warden Ingo was actually very friendly, if loud. And used strange words and gestures. And prone to staring off into the distance while one was talking to him.

Quite frankly, he reminded Cyllene of a Drifloon. Generally harmless, strange, feared by many through their misunderstanding, and  often limply pulled along into things by forces out of his control (usually the Sneasler creature he was tasking with guarding, but she had seen him get dragged along by literal children as well).

So yes, Warden Ingo was a bit off by the Commander’s standards. She couldn’t really argue with him on that.

Thankfully, she didn’t need to argue the point as the Commander sighed again and continued in a louder voice, “I suppose we will just have to wait and see. Dismissed.”

She gave a short bow, “Thank you, sir,” and then left.

Well, that could have gone much worse. Hopefully Kamado’s paranoia would ease as Akari worked her way up the ranks and interacted with more villagers and members of the Galaxy Team.

Maybe she could talk to the Professor about subtly nudging Akari into helping more villagers instead of Rei. Although, she was a little worried that Rei would see it as being replaced or even punished.

As she walked down the stairs of the Galaxy Hall and outside towards her home, she was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she failed to notice that Beauregard had a new wormy friend by his feet when he told her goodnight.

Chapter Text

The day had started well.

She had woken up a little before the sun, dressed, and even eaten some breakfast. Abra had been very well behaved, waiting patiently for its bowl of berries before it teleported ahead into her office.

And then it all came to a screaming halt.

Literally.

She had been walking into the Galaxy Hall, greeting a yawning, still groggy Beauregard like normal, when unlike normal, there had been a chirping sound by his feet.

She looked down and saw a Wurmple staring back at her with its soulless black eyes.

To her credit, she didn’t scream immediately. It took about second for her to realize what she was looking at and then she screamed while stumbling backwards. She ended up bumping into the bamboo scaffolding nearby and making it rattle dangerously. She then fell down and landed on her rear end with a ‘oof!’.

“Wha- C-captain? What’s wrong?!” Beauregard exclaimed, looking around frantically.

Abra popped up next to her with a berry stuffed in its mouth.

She pointed at the little hell spawn Wurmple and ordered, “A-Abra! Teleport it!”

As Abra nodded and lifted up its arms to concentrate, Beauregard  reached out and stammered, “W-Wait! That’s my-“

The awful worm disappeared. Abra lowered its arms. Cyllene breathed a sigh of relief. And Bearegard finished lamely, “-Wurmple…”

Cyllene started to get off the dusty ground and brush herself off. Thank goodness that monster was gone, now she could-

“Where did my beautiful Beauticia go?!”

Wait. Beauticia?!

She looked at him sharply, “That was your…” She struggled for a word that wasn’t some variation of demon before settling on being generic, “Pokémon?”

“Yes! I just got her yesterday!  And now she’s gone! What did your Pokémon do?!”” He screeched.

She straightened her jacket, “Abra teleported it away from here.”

“What’s that mean?!”

Cyllene felt her eye twitch. “It moved her from here to somewhere else instantly.”

Beauregard relaxed a fraction, “So Beauticia’s going to be ok? She won’t be hurt?”

She had to resist the urge to roll her eyes, “Yes, ‘Beauticia’… will be fine.”

“Oh good.” He sighed. Then he looked at her and slowly asked, “But where is she? Where does Abra put them when it moves things?”

“I-“ Cyllene stopped and thought about it. She had no idea where Abra sent bugs when it teleported them away. She hadn’t ever cared (or more importantly, wanted to care) enough to investigate.

“I don’t know?” she admitted.

Beauregard looked at her with wide eyes before he whipped around and started to yell at the top of his lungs.

“Beauticia! Beauuuuuticiaaaaaa! Where did you go, sweetie?”

The sound of several sets of loud, hurried footsteps made her stand up straight and put her hands behind her back on reflex. She had to look professional. She was a Captain, after all.

She turned to see who the footsteps belonged to. Zisu was the first to arrive, while Pesselle was only a few steps behind her. Sanqua and the Professor were quickly gaining on them along with a small group of very concerned looking Security corps members.

Oh skies above! She was never going to be able to live this down!

“What’s going on?!” Zisu asked as soon as she arrived, shooting a questioning look at Beauregard  and then at Cyllene.

“Is anyone hurt?” Pesselle added.

Cyllene took a deep breath and opened her mouth to answer, but Beauregard spoke first.

“My beautiful Beauticia has disappeared!”

Both Zisu and Pesselle stared at Beauregard for a moment as he continued his frantic search of the area before they gave up and looked at Cyllene.

By now Sanqua, Laventon, and the other security corps members showed up and started to crowd around.

Cyllene sighed and shut her eyes.

“I was going inside the building-“ she started to explain.

“Beauticiaaaaaaaaa! Sweetie pie Beauuuuticiaaaaa? Where are youuuuuuu?!”

“and unfortunately, I looked down and saw that-“

“Little one?! Where did you gooooooo?!”

“Beauregard had a –“

“Beauuuuuticiaaaaaaaa!!!”

“Wurmple.” Cyllene gritted her teeth and hissed out the last word with more venom than strictly necessary.

Cyllene could hear Zisu’s facepalm and deep sigh, so she opened her eyes. Zisu was now rubbing her face with her hand and groaning while Pesselle’s mouth was an unimpressed line. Everyone else just looked confused.

Except for the Professor who looked very guilty and  started trying to hide behind someone shorter than himself to avoid her gaze.

She narrowed her eyes at him. Why did he-?

She didn’t get a chance to finish that thought, because the crowd of people parted and Kamado stepped forward.

Oh fuck.

Kamado looked at Cyllene and then at Beauregard (who immediately quieted mid “Beauticia”), gave a harumph that made his impressive mustache twitch and then asked “What happened? Between the screaming and yelling, you’ve woken up half of Hisui, I believe.”

Beauregard gave a sharp salute and immediately broke into a frantic explanation, “Sir! I had just arrived to my post when Captain Cyllene arrived and greeted me as usual, sir! Then she screamed and her Pokemon came out, sir! And then it, uh, teleported? I think she said? Anyway, her Pokemon made my beautiful Beauticia vanish sir! And we don’t know where Beauticia went, so I have been calling for her just in case she can hear me and come back, sir!”

Cyllene could feel the disbelief and confusion roll off of Kamado in turn as Beauregard’s story had unfolded.

He then turned to her and raised an eyebrow. “Is this true, Captain?”

Cyllene fought the urge to sigh, “Yes, sir. I was not expecting to see a -a Pokémon at Beauregard’s feet and I did not know that it was his, so I had assumed it was wild.”

“And so you had Abra teleport it away?”

“Yes, sir.”

“But it’s not wild! I just got it yesterday!” Beauregard exclaimed.

Zisu narrowed her eyes, “How did you get it? You were on guard duty all day yesterday.”

Beauregard blinked, “I asked the new girl to get one for me! I didn’t think she’d get me one the same day, but... Well, I wasn’t going to complain about it!”

“The… new girl?” Cyllene asked, with a sense of dawning horror.

“Yeah! The new Survey  corps recruit? The one from the sky? The Professor can verify it! He was nearby when I spoke to her about it!”

All eyes turned to Laventon, who was unsuccessfully trying to make himself smaller and successfully turning his face a bright shade of pink.

“I – er, didn’t think that she’d complete the request the same day either and I may have… uh, forgot to mention his request to Captain Cyllene?” he said with his voice wavering timidly.

Cyllene continued to stare at him. He quickly looked away from her gaze and fiddled with his sleeve.

Oh, they were going to have a talk later. A long one.

Kamado sighed and waved a hand dismissively, “Well, it seems to have been a simple misunderstanding.”

Looking at Beauregard he continued, “Since Captain Cyllene had no idea that you got a new Pokémon, she was simply acting in self-defense.”

Beauregard frowned but nodded, “Yes, sir.”

Kamado turned to her, “And now that you know that Beauregard has a Pokémon, this will not happen again, I trust.”

Cyllene felt her eye twitch but responded automatically before the rest of her brain kicked in, “Yes, sir.”

Kamado nodded to himself, “Well that just leaves one thing, then. Can you have Abra bring… ‘Beauticia’? Was it?” at Beauregard’s excited nod, Kamado continued, “Bring Beauticia back?”

Cyllene froze. She could order to Abra to at least try to bring that… that thing back, but honestly, she’d rather stab herself in the thigh repeatedly with one of Pesselle’s scalpels. And besides she wasn’t sure if Abra even could bring it back?

She steeled herself and turned to Abra, who was looking up at her expectantly. It had finished the berry, and was probably waiting for her to give it a candy as a reward for teleporting the Wumrple away in the first place.

“Abra,”  she started, very thankful that her voice was steadier than her nerves at the moment, “Can you please… can you please teleport Beauticia back?”

Abra cocked its head to one side and Cyllene felt a wave of Abra’s confusion and utter revulsion at the very concept wash over her mind.

She was pretty sure that if it had been able to speak like a human, it would be saying “Are you serious?”

The silence dragged on for a few moments too long before Zisu rescued her and quietly said, “Erm, Commander?” and then leaned over and whispered in his ear.

Cyllene couldn’t hear what Zisu said, but she had a very good idea of it.

Kamado sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, “I… See.”

He then turned and addressed the small crowd, “Everyone, return to your posts and go about your day. Captain Cyllene, please stay here a moment longer.”

The crowd slowly dispersed, some going out back into the village while others went inside the building, shooting curious glances at Cyllene, Abra, or Beauregard.

However, when Professor Laventon tried to walk by Kamado, the Commander stuck out and arm and said sharply, “Professor, I will need you to stay out here for a bit as well.”

Cyllene could see Laventon wince, but he dutifully replied, “Yes, sir,” and came over to stand next to her, still avoiding her gaze.

Zisu was the last to go in the building, and gave Cyllene a worried look as she passed by.

Once Zisu shut the door behind her, Kamado turned to Cyllene and said, “Your Abra will sometimes follow orders from the Professor, correct?”

She blinked in surprise, but nodded, “Yes, it usually obeys the simple commands that Professor Laventon gives it.”

“Good, tell it to stay out here and obey his next two orders. Then, go inside and return to your duties. The Professor will have Abra bring the Wurmple back to Beauregard and then go back inside.”

Well, that was a reasonable plan. Hopefully Abra would obey the Professor and she wouldn’t have to come back out here and ‘help’.

She turned to the Pokémon floating beside her, “Abra? Please follow the Professor’s orders for the next few minutes. Once he no longer needs your help, you may come back inside.”

And I will give you lots of treats and pats, she added mentally.

Abra swished its tail, clearly unhappy about what it knew was coming.

Please, Momo. We could get into a lot of trouble otherwise,  she pleaded to her own Abra silently.

Abra hesitated for another moment, but nodded and chirped.

Cyllene could feel her shoulders relax.  Thank you, Momo, she thought.

She turned to Kamado, “I will return to my duties now, sir.”

Kamado just nodded and hummed in acknowledgement.

She also shot Professor Laventon a sharp look as she left, one that she hoped that he could tell meant we-will-have-a-long-talk-later, and then proceeded to finally walk into Galaxy Hall.

It was barely past 8 am and it was already a day.

Cyllene did her best to bury herself in her paperwork as soon as she sat down at her desk, but it was proving difficult.

Abra popped into her office after only five minutes. Which, was good! That meant that it had obeyed Professor Laventon fairly quickly.

However, it was now pawing at her sleeve and begging for candies.

Well, she did promise it some treats and pats, and she did normally give it candy after it teleported bugs away anyway.

She opened one of her desk drawers and pulled out three blue candies. She handed the first one to Abra and pat its head while it crunched the candy loudly with its needle sharp teeth.

While she fed it the second candy, she heard the front door to the Galaxy Hall open. She looked up and saw Kamado step in, with Laventon close behind. They both immediately went upstairs, presumably to climb all the way to Kamado’s office.

Cyllene pat Abra’s head absentmindedly. If Kamado was giving a talk to Professor Laventon, she would need to either need to make sure that her own talk with him was gentle or forgo it altogether.

She would wait and see how he was when he came back down from Kamado’s office.

Abra’s insistent tug at her hand brought Cyllene back to reality. She looked down and saw it making grabby motions with its little claws.  She rolled her eyes fondly and handed over the last candy. As Abra crunched it down, she scratched behind its ear and murmured softly,  “Thank you for obeying the Professor so quickly. I’m sure he appreciated it.”

Abra made a quiet chirrup, and leaned into her hand.

Cyllene allowed herself the luxury of petting Abra another minute before she told it that she needed to get back to work.

It whined, but dutifully went back to its corner.

She turned back to her papers and internally sighed. The stacks always seemed to grow overnight.

It was a very silly thought, because they actually grew during the day as various people from various Corps came to drop things off for her look at, do, or sign off on.

If someone had told her five years ago that she would be trapped behind a desk doing paperwork for her job, she would have laughed at them in disbelief. She was so good at what she did that being put to work doing paperwork instead seemed silly.

But Cyllene was happy that she didn’t have to use her sword  anymore (except for training to keep up her skills and showing off when Zisu requested it).

Even if paperwork was boring.

Rei walked in after a few minutes of quiet paperwork, stifling a yawn as he walked up to her desk.

“Good morning, Captain.”

“Good morning, Rei.”

Rei fidgeted in place for a second before he asked, “Uh, do you have any orders for me today, Captain?”

She thought for a moment, before replying, “Continue to work on Warden Mai’s request. You have my full permission to have Akari help you if she is willing to. But you should also try to learn from her as well so you may be more self-sufficient in the future.”

“Yes, Captain.” Rei paused and looked towards the Professor’s office door. “Is the Professor in, yet?”

“He’s in a meeting with the Commander. I don’t know when he will available.”

“Oh. Um. I guess I’ll go try to get Akari up. She seems to be a heavy sleeper…”

He looked up concerned, “Um, Captain, did you hear all the yelling this morning? Do you know what happened?”

Oh skies above, she was not going to catch any breaks today, was she?

She held his gaze and answered as flatly as she could, “There was a minor misunderstanding this morning. Not everyone was informed of Beauregard’s recent acquisition of a Pokémon partner. There was some confusion and fear that a wild Pokémon was inside the walls of the village, hence the scuffle and the noise you heard.”

“Oh, uh, but it’s all sorted right?”

“Yes, it has been handled.” She wanted to add that it wouldn’t happen again, but she already wasn’t sure how she was going to leave the building when it was time to go home…

She was going to have to learn how to scream inside her heart and not… uh, outside her lungs.

Rei didn’t press, thankfully.

“That’s good. Well, I’m going to go get Akari and then see if I can get her to battle me at the training grounds. Uh, just letting you know in case – in case the Professor comes looking for me.”

She nodded and turned back to her paperwork, “I will let him know.”

Rei turned and left without further commentary,  the sound of his footsteps fading as he walked.

Cyllene looked up and sighed. Hopefully Rei could convince Akari to help him. They really needed to fulfill Warden Mai’s request so they could set up a base camp in DeerTrack Heights.

Although that might be putting too much hope in the poor girl’s abilities.

Only time would tell.

She shook her head  slightly to clear her thoughts and turned back to her papers.

Halfway through her next piece of paper, Cyllene heard heavy footsteps approaching her desk.

She looked up and saw Zisu approaching, all smiles and happy energy like usual.

“Hey Cy! Can I ask a favor?”

Cyllene put her paper down to focus on her friend fully. “Of course. What did you need Zisu?”

Zisu rubbed the back of her neck. “Couple of things actually. First, is everything alright from this morning? You know… with the uh…”

Zisu made a vague gesture with one hand, “Beauregard’s new friend?”

Cyllene rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m fine. I suspect that Beauregard’s new friend is fine and back by his side too or we’d be hearing him wail about it right now.”

“Ah, yeah, that’s true. And uh, how are we feeling about his little friend?”

Cyllene stared at Zisu for a moment, incredibly unimpressed with how she was treating her like a child. “It’s his little friend, not mine. How I feel about it is irrelevant.”

“Yeah, sure. As long as those feelings aren’t violent stabbing or slashing feelings I guess that’s true.”

Cyllene pursed her lips to prevent a nasty retort from slipping out and then decided to go for distraction instead, “Is there anything you actually need from me or is this a social call when we should be working?”

Zisu huffed, “Relax, Cy. I just wanted to check in on you first. As a matter of fact I’d like to inform you of a ‘developing situation’ and get your advice on it. There’s been reports from almost all of the regions saying that the Wardens from both Clans are acting really weird and asking about what the guards in each area have seen. All from yesterday and this morning! I don’t know what it means!”

“I did see that the guard stationed at the bridge mention something about Warden Mai acting strange in his report yesterday…” Cyllene murmured.

She hummed in thought and then continued, “Have the space-time distortions been worse than usual in the areas?”

“Not really?” Zisu replied, “They haven’t reported anything unusual in that regard. Although they did say that the local Pokémon are agitated, too.”

Cyllene frowned as a thought struck her, “The Nobles as well?”

“Uhhhh… I don’t know, none of the reports included the Nobles specifically so far…” Zisu confessed.

Cyllene nodded absentmindedly as she tried to piece things together in her mind. Warden Mai hasn’t cancelled her request for help with DeerTrack Heights… and she requested that several days ago… If there were something affecting her Noble beyond what she assured us was ‘a minor annoyance’ when she put in the request… she would be trying to resolve it with her own methods and only coming to the Galaxy Team if she ran out of options… The Clans typically avoid approaching Galaxy Team members unless something was very wrong. And for a Warden to approach a guard and ask what they have seen… They don’t know what’s going on either. And until they feel like talking, we won’t either.

“For now,” Cyllene began slowly, “I suspect that whatever it is, it has something to do with the Nobles… although maybe only some of them. Warden Mai would be canceling her request for assistance if something dire was happening to Wyrdeer, and since she hasn’t, I can only assume that it whatever is going on hasn’t affected her Noble.”

“You really think they wouldn’t ask for help?”

“Not immediately, but if they run out of options, they may reluctantly approach us. For now, I would leave it. Either the guards will spot whatever has got both the Wardens and the native Pokémon spooked or the Clans will approach us and let us know. Once we know what is going on, we can better plan our response.”

Zisu frowned, but nodded. “That seems logical, I guess.”

Cyllene could tell by Zisu’s furrowed brow and downturned lips that she was hoping for a more direct answer to the problem, but without information, there was little she could suggest beyond ‘keep a sharp eye out and don’t die in the meantime’. Which was what the guards were supposed to do anyway.

She decided to press on, “What was the next thing you wanted my help with?”

“Ah, well, I uh, actually wanted to see your new recruit.”

Cyllene blinked. “You mean Akari?”

“Oh, is that her name? I was expecting something weird and super foreign like Ingo’s. Or the Professor’s.”

Cyllene rather liked the Professor’s name, even if he didn’t like it himself. It was interesting. Instead she commented flatly, “My name is weird.”

“Yeah, but … ugh, I can’t explain it! At any rate, I just wanted to see her for myself!”

“Rei has probably dragged her over to the training grounds by now. If you hurry, you might be able to catch part of their match.”

“Ooooooh! Thanks Cy!” Zisu took off immediately.

Cyllene shook her head fondly. If there was one thing Zisu loved, it was watching Pokémon battle and use various moves. Especially new ones she may not know.

She looked over at her Abra. It was peacefully dozing, still in its corner.

Zisu had been so happy when she had been allowed to borrow Abra to see what it knew and what she could teach it. (The Professor had also been excited and had gone through a large chunk of a notebook recording various observations.)

 But ultimately, Abra wasn’t interested in battles, and Cyllene wasn’t much for them either.

Hopefully Zisu and Akari could bond over battling. It would be good for both of them.

And for her own sanity.

Rereading a report for the fourth time because the handwriting was atrocious was slowly chipping away at what little sanity Cyllene had left.

It didn’t help that this particular report  had been compiled by a Survey Corps member that had been injured and sent back south to Johto over three months ago.

She was going to have to try to figure out what the hell it said all by herself, and just the thought of that was giving her a headache.

Cyllene wasn’t the only one with a headache though. At the sound of some grumbles she looked up to see Professor Laventon walking towards her desk rubbing at his temple with one hand.

“Professor?”

“Oh! Good morning Captain! I uh, just finished my… meeting with the Commander.”

Ah, that was a good reason to have a headache.

“How did that go?”

“Uhhhhh… It went well? A-at any rate, he did want me to speak with you about a few, uh, things.”

Cyllene would have raised an eyebrow at that if she had any. It wasn’t like the Commander to send someone else to ask her questions.

Well, color her intrigued.

“Very well, Professor. What did you wish to speak about?”

“Well… First, how are you feeling about Beauregard’s new-“

“Fine. I’m fine.” She interjected.  “It just… startled me because I wasn’t expecting it there.”

“Ah, yes. Well, I – I suppose that is understandable.  But- well, you do realize that Beauregard is going to be keeping it?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re going to have to see it every day?”

She paused. She had realized it, yes, but having it brought up in such direct words was… unpleasant. He better not be insinuating what she thought he was insinuating.

“…Yes. What are you getting at?”

“Well, the Commander just wants to make sure that you won’t be uh…”

“I will be fine.” She was just going to have Abra teleport her in and out every day if that’s what came down to it.

Laventon gave her a look that clearly conveyed that he didn’t believe her. He shifted his weight before he continued, “The Commander also talked to me about your um, difficulties with bug-types.”

She held his gaze but said nothing.

“Remember how I agreed to try to help you with that when I first arrived here?”

She narrowed her eyes and nodded. “Yes and you did. You were happy with the results.”

“Well, yes! I was happy with your progress but don’t think we are quite done yet! You didn’t attack it or run away, that is true, but I think there is room for improvement, yes?”

Cyllene didn’t notice that her hands had curled into fists until she felt her nails start digging into her own skin. She forced herself to relax them and lay them in her lap.

“I suppose.”

“Splendid! I was hoping you would agree! Now, in order to continue working on this … dilemma I would like to propose that we use this as an opportunity for improvement!”

She blinked at him. What the hell did he mean by we? “And how do you propose that we do that?”

Whether he didn’t seem to notice where her emphasis was in her question or he ignored it Cyllene wasn’t sure, because he barreled on either way, “Well! I’m glad you asked! Now, I might be being a bit presumptuous but I’d like for you to refrain from using Abra from teleporting any bug-types away unless they somehow get into the Galaxy Hall itself.”

That would be simple enough to do. “Alright, I can do that.”

“And! For you to not use Abra to get yourself in and out of the building. Unless it’s an emergency, of course. ” He paused and then added quickly, “A real emergency! Like the building is burning down around you emergency!”

Damn! He was on to her! But she wasn’t going to let him know that.

Cyllene leveled the most unimpressed look she could muster at him, “And why are you placing this restriction on me?”

“So you will have to see Beauregard’s Wurmple  every day. A minimum of twice a day, in fact! I think that it will do you good to see one every day in an controlled environment! I am hopeful that with enough exposure to friendly and non-violent bug types that you will become more comfortable with them.”

Well, she could try climbing in and out of a window instead… The drop from her office window to the ground was large enough to make her worry about breaking something, but she’d manage somehow. Beni always did.

“And no climbing out of windows! In order for best effects, you need to use the front door like the rest of us!”

DAMN IT!

She leveled her best glare at him, but he just crossed his arms and held her gaze. For a few moments anyway before his dropped to her desk and he murmured, “Or not. I just think it really would help you…”

Oh, son of a… She was supposed to be cold-hearted, why was this tugging on what was supposed to be non-existent heartstrings?!

Cyllene shut her eyes and sighed. When she opened them again, he was looking at her hopefully.

She was going to regret this, but… “Very well, I will follow your recommendations.”

The Professor’s face lit up with a huge smile.

“However! If that… thing acts aggressively to me or Abra, I will not be held responsible for what happens to it.”

That didn’t seem to dampen the Professor’s elation at all, “Of course! I don’t think anyone will hold it against you if that somehow happens! And I doubt it would ever happen anyway. Beauregard seems like a nice chap and I doubt he would allow his new friend to become so unruly.”

Cyllene wasn’t so sure about that, but she wasn’t going to say it out loud. So she just bit her tongue and kept quiet.

Now looking extremely pleased with himself, the Professor straightened his lab coat and declared, “Well! I suppose that now we will just have to wait and see how it works out! Now, if you will excuse me, I’m going to go relay the plan to the Commander and Beauregard and then go find Rei.”

“If he is still in the village, Rei will most likely be at the training grounds with Akari and Zisu. Otherwise, they will most likely have already left for the Obsidian Fieldlands. They are supposed to be working on Warden Mai’s request today.”

“Oh thank you, Captain! Have a good day!”

That was a nice sentiment, but considering it wasn’t even lunchtime and it had been an awful one so far… Well, maybe it could turn around?

“You as well, Professor. Don’t die.”

He smiled, nodded, and then left, humming to himself.

Cyllene turned back to her headache inducing paperwork and mentally sighed.

Now, did this passage say “Pikachus are fiery and mice” or “Pichus are feisty and nice” ?

Knowing that particular recruit, it could have been either…

Cyllene gave up on that report after another forty-five minutes of staring at it. She was just going to have to have the Professor take a look at it later. Maybe he would be able to divine what the hell it said.

She was halfway through the next stack of papers when Bagin walked into her office.

“Captain? The Commander wants to call a meeting with you and Zisu. Immediately.”

Oh, that was not good. Maybe he received information about what was going on with the Pokémon in the wilds. If she was lucky, she would be wrong about it affecting the Clan’s Nobles. But with how today was going…

Well, there was only one way to find out.

She nodded and set down her papers and brush. “I will head to his office immediately. Thank you, Bagin.”

He just nodded solemnly before walking back out of her office and towards the front doors of the Galaxy Hall.

As he left her office, she got up out of her chair and straightened her uniform.

Once she was happy with it, she went over and gave Abra a quick pat on the head. “I will be back. The Commander wants a meeting. Please do not teleport to me unless there is an emergency or I call for you.”

It gave a small yawn and nodded.

She gave it another pat before she turned and left her office.

The journey up the two sets of stairs was quick and uneventful. When Cyllene arrived, the Commander and Zisu were already waiting for her in his office. While the Commander was not so free with his smiles, it was unusual for Zisu to not be visibly happy.

Already Cyllene had a bad feeling about this.

She was snapped out of her thoughts when she heard Kamado’s gruff command of “Shut the door behind you.”

Once she had done so, instead of a greeting or any usual pleasantries, Kamado immediately handed her some papers.

“Read these while we wait for my dagger to arrive.”

Cyllene took the papers and internally rolled her eyes. Kamado calling Beni ‘my dagger’  just in case someone was eavesdropping was a bit more theatrical and paranoid than she knew how to properly deal with. Still, he was a good leader and everyone had quirks…

The first report was from the Coronet Highlands.

I’ve been hearing lot of booming noises from up the mountain. More than normal, anyway. Approximately  twenty every hour or so.

I would go investigate but that would require getting help from one of the Wardens to get through the area.

Warden Melli is nowhere to be found and Warden Ingo was around but difficult to understand.

When I asked Warden Ingo about the noises he just said that “Lord Electrode’s tracks are closed to all passengers at the moment” but not to worry because “those tracks were under repair as we speak”

I don’t know what that means.

Requesting instructions on how to proceed.

Cyllene hurriedly shuffled the papers to look at the next one.

This one was from the Mirelands. It was more neatly written but no less worrying.

The big bear Pokémon Noble that the Pearl Clan have is being aggressive lately. Normally it just snuffles around and digs up stuff from the ground but today it’s been roaring and charging at other Pokémon that dare approach it’s little raised ring of mud it likes.

The Diamond Clan has also been barring outsiders from going up past their settlement. One of the Gingko Guild salesmen just complained to me that they got escorted out of the village very quickly after saying that they wanted to check for berries near the Lady of the Ridge’s Seat.  

I don’t know if that means anything, but it seemed odd to me and I’m supposed to report anything odd, so I made a report.

Requesting instructions on how to proceed.

The third paper was a Security Corps member report from the Obsidian Fieldlands. The note was messy, obviously written with haste not legibility in mind.

I was looking at an old campsite that the Bandit Sisters were reported to be at the other day but then I heard a lot of crashing sounds from falling trees and Pokémon crying out so I went to go check it out and I saw the Pearl Clan’s Noble - the one with big axes for hands – and it was glowing bright yellow and moving weirdly and the poor little kid in the weird hat they have watching over it was trying to feed it at its little altar thing but it swung at the boy and I screamed and then it looked at me and I ran away because I wanted to live and I don’t think it chased me

But I don’t know if the boy avoided the attack and lived or not! I think his name was Liam?

Can you ask the Pearl Clan people to come and get this THING under control and check on the kid?? It’s terrifying and he might be DEAD!!!!

Shit. Well hopefully Warden Lian was alright. Both he and Warden Sabi weren’t even ten. But death could and often did take the young as well as the old.

Still that made at least three Nobles acting strangely or aggressively. And Lilligant could possibly be a fourth.  

So far the only two regions that didn’t have alarming news were the Coastlands and the Icelands. And they might have troubles that just hadn’t been reported yet.

And there was one paper left.

She immediately recognized Clan Leader Irida’s small and delicate writing.

Commander Kamado,

Thank you for reaching out to inquire about Warden Lian’s health. He is unharmed and well.

I apologize for causing your personnel distress from witnessing Lord Kleavor’s uncharacteristic state.

As you are now aware of his condition, I will confess that Lord Kleavor is behaving strangely and has been since yesterday in the early morning hours.

Warden Lian may be young, but he was chosen by Lord Kleavor himself. It is unheard of for a Noble to turn on their Warden so quickly and violently.

He has tried everything to get his Lord to calm down with no success.

I have conferred with my village’s elders and we have come to an agreement that maybe a fresh perspective from an outside source would be good.

You may not injure or otherwise harm Lord Kleavor (Or capture him in one of those ball things you use!) but any help will be appreciated.

I have instructed Warden Lian to allow you to bring whatever tools or personnel you feel is necessary to Lord Kleavor’s hollow help in the matter.

-Irida

Leader of the Pearl Clan

For Irida to be admitting that they had no idea what was going on with their noble… For the very traditional and extremely strict Pearl Clan elders to agree to having an outsider try to help with what were clearly Clan matters…

This was very bad and had the potential to get much worse.

Cyllene had seen several of the Clan Nobles (often multiple times) while she had been doing an initial survey of each area. The great beasts were sacred, to the point that even letting her or any other Galaxy Team member see them in their favorite lairs been a topic of hot debate in each Clan.

And to make matters worse, Lord Kleavor was the one closest to the village and very capable of mass destruction. While every Pokémon had the potential to be deadly, even one was cute and harmless as  her Abra, she just could not ignore the fact that it had two incredibly large axes as a part of its body. Axes that it used to cut TREES in half.

She hated to think what those axes could do to a human being.

Warden Lian was either incredibly lucky that he was unharmed or maybe his Lord had given him a small shred of mercy in his frenzy. She hoped it was the latter. A small bit of mercy could be key to resolving this without bloodshed.

She looked up at Kamado and saw that he was staring back at her with a grim expression.

“What do you-“ Zisu started asking, but Kamado cut her off, “Let’s wait for Beni to arrive, then we can discuss things.”

Fortunately, within a few seconds there was a quiet knock on the Commander’s office side door to the balcony that made everyone’s head turn to it.

“Enter,” Kamado barked.

And in stepped Beni, still dressed as the restaurant owner.

He shut the door behind him and then took out a smoke bomb.

“Wait!  Beni do-“ Cyllene started, but it was too late. The idiot threw the smoke bomb down towards his feet.

Smoke filled the room and everyone started coughing. Cyllene could feel Zisu brush by as she made her way to the door to open it and let the smoke out.

Once the smoke was at more manageable levels, Cyllene glared at Beni, now dressed in his usual ninja garb.

He had used a smoke bomb indoors just to change outfits?! She was going to stab him one of these days and no one was going to be able to say that he didn’t fucking deserve it!

Zisu shut the side door again and then turned quickly to cuff the back of Beni’s head sharply with a hand, making him cry out and rub at it.

“You didn’t need to do that, dumbass!” she growled.

Beni hissed back, “And you didn’t need to hit me, you giant!”

“Zisu! Beni! Enough!” Kamado barked.

 With all eyes on him, the Commander continued in a quieter growl. “This is an emergency meeting and I need all of us at our best and united for the challenge that lies ahead of us.”

Zisu and Beni gave each other looks, but quietly went to stand on either side of Cyllene.

“To bring you up to speed Beni,” Kamado turned to his right hand man, “several regions have been having reports of the Wardens and native Pokémon acting strangely since yesterday. And now within the space of an hour and a half, I have received three reports referring to several of the Clan’s Noble Pokémon acting strangely.”

“Both Clans, sir?” Beni asked.

“Yes, and worse yet, Lord Kleavor was seen attacking his Warden. The boy is alright, but I don’t think I need to tell you how bad it could have been.”

“What have the Pearl Clan said about the attack?”

“I wrote to Clan Leader Irida to inquire about the boy’s health and to see if she would verify the report.” Kamado explained.  “When she wrote back, she admitted that they don’t know what is going on with the Nobles. She also gave us permission to attempt to calm the beast using whatever tools and personnel we wish.”

Beni scoffed, “Calm it? It’s a giant bug with axes for arms! We should just kill it and be done with it!”

“And risk the Pearl Clan declaring war over the death of one of their sacred Nobles? Are you mad?” Cyllene asked. They had spent so much time and effort arranging that peace treaty between the Clans and Jubilife!

“It’s just a big beast!” Beni shot back, “They may think it’s blessed by ‘Almighty Sinnoh’ or whatever and that- that’s fine until it starts going berserk and starts killing us all!”

“It hasn’t killed anyone yet.” Zisu paused and looked at Kamado,  “Right?”

He nodded but his mustache twitched, “To our knowledge, it has not killed anyone yet. But it also took me asking about Warden Lian’s health before the Pearl Clan even admitted that there was a problem.”

He looked at Cyllene sharply, “Captain Cyllene, has any new data been recorded on the Nobles since the last time you took the Professor out to see them?”

“No,” She answered.

“So your report on them is still accurate?”

“As accurate as the limited information that we have on them will allow, yes.”

She could feel Beni’s disdain coming from her right, but she ignored him and kept her gaze on the Commander.

Kamado sighed and looked at Zisu, “What are your thoughts on the situation, Captain Zisu?”

“Um, well,” Zisu said with a slight tremor in her voice. “I don’t think we should kill it! And having seen the pictures of Lord Kleavor that the Professor took, I’m honestly not sure that we could even just knock it out, much less kill it anyway.  I’ve been training my members on how to use their partner Pokémon in battle, but, uh, I don’t think they could handle a Noble. Especially not one with axes for hands…”

“That is also ignoring that if we kill Lord Kleavor then we will also have to plan for a war with the Pearl Clan.” Cyllene added.  “And while the Diamond Clan is often against everything that the Pearl Clan does, we cannot forget that Lord Electrode is also acting oddly. If we kill Lord Kleavor, they will assume that we will be coming after Lord Electrode next. And I doubt that we can win a war if both Clans are against us.”

“So what do you recommend?” Beni huffed. “We cannot just ignore this problem and hope it goes away!”

“We need to calm it like Irida asked.”

“And how do we do that?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted,  “It may take several days to scout it out and devise a strategy.”

“We do not have days.” Kamado snapped. “We need this solved as soon as possible before it decides to leave it’s lair and attack any poor soul it sees. Considering it attacked its own Warden that it chose, I doubt it will think twice about whether its next target is someone from Jubilife, the Gingko Guild or either of the Clans!”

They all lapsed into silence. What Kamado said was true, but what could they do to stop something that towered over them ?

“Perhaps we can restrain it somehow? And then we can have the Professor study it more easily and see what is causing it to rage? Maybe it’s just something stupid like it’s got an injury that’s making it mad.”

All eyes turned to look at Zisu.

“You know?” She said shyly, “Like that children’s story about a big Snorlax with a thorn in its paw? And when the thorn got taken out it went back to sleep?”

Well it was an idea at least. And Cyllene didn’t have anything better, so might as well endorse it.

“If we can manage to restrain it such that it cannot cause harm to the Professor or anyone else trying to aid it, I think that would be fine.” Cyllene said and nodded at Zisu,  “It would at least buy us time to figure out what’s going on and make a better plan.”

“We don’t have a long enough chain to restrain it.” Beni nitpicked and crossed his arms. “And did you forget how big it is?! We’re not going to be able to net it either!”

“Well, do you have any nonviolent, non-poisoning ideas Beni?” Cyllene sniped back.

Beni narrowed his eyes at her, but eventually replied, “…No.”

“And what are you going to do if it just cuts through the ropes?” Kamado asked, lifting a bushy eyebrow.

Zisu piped up meekly, “Throw a pokéball?”

“They don’t want him captured,” Cyllene reminded her.

“We can just hand them the pokéball with him in it and have them deal with it! We don’t need to keep it once it’s in there!” Beni cried, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

Cyllene straightened up and offered, “I can try to get its attention and distract it so there’s a better chance of getting the ropes in areas it won’t be able to reach and if we run out of ropes, I can try to keep it focused on me so someone can try to throw pokéballs at the back of it. That tends to help with capturing Pokémon.”

The ensuing silence was unexpected, and Cyllene furrowed her non-existent brows in confusion. She looked to her right at Zisu, who was suddenly avoiding her gaze by staring at the carpet. Beni, meanwhile was suddenly very interested in picking at a piece of lint on his clothes. And as for Kamado, he sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Sir?” She asked cautiously.

Kamado rubbed his face and then dropped his arm to his side.  “You will not be doing anything to get its attention or distract it.”

Cyllene froze.

She swallowed and locked her eyes with Kamado, “May I ask why?”

Kamado’s mustache twitched again and his shoulder’s drooped a fraction. But he looked at Zisu instead of answering.

Zisu, who put a hand on her shoulder gently, which made Cyllene nearly jump in surprise, “Because you freaked out at a Wurmple this morning, Cy.”

“And the last time you took the Professor to see Lord Kleavor , you had to the next day off to hide away in your quarters and compose yourself!” Beni scoffed and waved a hand dismissively.

What?! She had just been taking a well-deserved break from work that day! Yes, she spent most of it staring at a wall and hugging Abra tightly, but what she did in her own time was her own damn business!

When Kamado finally spoke, it was laced with pity and exhaustion, “Captain, under normal circumstances I would have you go with the Security Corps to deal with this matter, but I fear that you will not be able to keep your head. And in this situation, were a single misstep could mean death, I feel like that is sending you to certain doom. And worse, I am worried that since you  still inspire so much loyalty in most of the Security Corps that someone maybe injured or worse when they try to step in to help.”

Her fists flexing behind her back reflexively, Cyllene inhaled and opened her mouth to speak, but Kamado cut her off with a wave of his hand.

“I know that you would give yourself over to death if it meant that you protected the village in return, but we have no idea if this will work and even if it does, how effective it will be long term. I am sorry, but I cannot allow you to help on this mission.”

He then stood tall and addressed each of them in turn, “My shield, my sword, and my dagger! I need all of you alive! You are my best tools for protecting this village from all of the threats we face!”

That much was true, but she had been a soldier and a sword-for-hire before on islands rife with bugs! She could deal with bugs much better if she just had a sword in her hand. (Although the Professor would probably not agree with that statement.)

“Yes, thank you, sir. But-“ Cyllene began.

“It is settled,” the Commander declared, shutting his eyes and nodding firmly.

When he opened them again, he looked at Zisu. “Captain Zisu, gather those who you feel will be the most likely to succeed at this mission. Take all of the supplies that you need as well. I want you to have them mobilized within the hour!”

Next he turned to Cyllene and Beni, “Captain Cyllene, I want you to reread your notes and think of new strategies in case this does not work. Beni, I also want you to think of alternate strategies.”

 “We will reconvene tonight after the mission and discuss the results of our efforts,” he continued, then straightened up to his full height. “Dismissed!”

They all gave a respectful bow, a “Yes, Commander”, and then turned to leave the office.

Beni pulled out another smoke bomb, but Cyllene snatched his wrist. “Wait until Zisu and I leave at least.”

He pulled his arm away and nodded sharply, “Fine!”

Zisu shook her head and opened the doors to the stairs, beckoning Cyllene to come walk with her.

They shut the doors behind them, and then descended the stairs, hearing a muffled, “Why can’t you learn to change without these?!” from the Commander as they went.

“Well, I hope it all turns out ok and it’s just a big bunch of nothing,” Zisu muttered once they reached the second floor landing.

Cyllene just sighed. Since nobody, not even Zisu, thought she would be professional and collected enough to help in person against Lord Kleavor, she wasn’t sure what to say that wouldn’t end up  just sounding bitter.

Once they reached the first floor, Zisu gently grabbed Cyllene’s wrist, “Hey, Cy? I know you’re mad, but we’re really just trying to watch out for you…”

She turned to look at Zisu, who had let go of her wrist and was now shyly toying with the hem of her jacket.

And damn it, Zisu was right. If they didn’t care about her, they would have forced her to face that creature knowing full well that she could die from her own fear.

Cyllene sighed and felt a lot of her anger dissipate as she exhaled, “I know, I just wish I could help more.”  

“I mean, you backed my idea up and you also made some very good points. Plus, you helped train me and loads of the other Security Corps members on how to be fast on their feet when you were their captain, so I think you’ve done a lot already!”

Cyllene could feel the corner of her mouth quirk up into a small smile, “Thanks, Zisu.”

“No problem!” Zisu beamed back. She then patted Cyllene on the shoulder and said, “Now, I got to get people and supplies together, so we’ll talk later, yeah?”

“Of course.”

As Zisu turned away to go out the front door of the Galaxy Hall, Cyllene whispered softly under her breath, “Don’t die, Zisu…”