Archive of Our Own

Silver Coast Stories
By WildSnivy

Case I: A Haunting at Black Forest Hill

He didn’t remember what happened or what caused it.

     All he remembered was the headache.

     And the ringing.

     Maybe there was a scream or two.

     He was sat on the ground, elbows on knees, head in hands, eyes shut.

     He didn’t want to open them. He wasn’t even sure he could.

     Where was he anyway?

     When did he get here?

     ...who was he actually?

     His ear twitched as he heard someone call his name out.

     He turned his head, and timidly opened an eye.

     He saw a maelstrom.

     Debris, destruction, devastation.

     Centered around him.

     He shuddered.

     He did this, didn’t he...

     A large broken branch flew towards him.

     That was the last thing he remembered.

Kit’s eyes jumped open as he gasped sharply and hyperventilated for a moment. He quickly looked around his room, at the walls and the pine framing and the sunlit window next to his bed. He flexed his fingers on the wool blankets, and reached over to find the enchanted poplar branch he had since he was a Fennekin.

     His breathing steadied and, after a calm sigh, finally stabilized. He was in his office. He knew where that was. Everything was fine.

     The Delphox slowly got out of bed, yawned, and trundled over to his washroom across the way. It was that dream again. It was probably closer to a memory, he surmised, but since he never fully recalled exactly what happened and all he knew came from secondhand sources – his parents, Ember, Loge – he always called it a dream. It happened every couple weeks or so, and it always played out the same way.

     He strongly disliked it.

     Kit splashed some water onto his face and quickly shook it off once he felt he was sufficiently awake. He examined his reflection in the pool once the ripples sorted themselves out. He was a bit on the tall end for a Delphox but otherwise rather normal on a physical level. Well, apart from his eye. The grey, clouded over left eye that sharply contrasted the deep forest green hue of its counterpart. A handful of scars decorated it accordingly, as a reminder of what happened.

     He grabbed a black eye covering and tied it off around his head, making sure it hid as much of his faulty eye as possible. A white sigil of Arceus was stitched across the main part, which he thought looked a little neat. He was not an actual member of the church, even though he prayed regularly and probably went to talk to the priest more in a week than most people did in their lifetimes. Kit had to correct his clients on more than one occasion that he was not an exorcist, in fact, nor did he have any sort of divine power at all for that matter. Merely he was just another psychic with a knack for finding things.

     And, as Loge would frequently say, never do anything you are good at for free. So after Kit finished cleaning up and retrieved his branch from his bedroom, he quickly marched out into his office’s main area. It was a cozy but open area, complete with his desk, a couple of cabinets for keeping his records organized, and a few chairs for his clients to rest in. On the other side, past the living room, was an open kitchen along with a small dining table. Kit seldom had company over for dinner; Ember lived in Silver Coast but tended to be more busy than not, and Loge always insisted they eat out whenever they met up for an evening. He was honestly not sure why he kept it in his home in the first place. Probably because the space would be there regardless and the kitchen would just seem empty without it. Oh, and he had a policy of never eating at his desk. That was just simply unprofessional. So nobody could really accuse him of not using it.

     Kit pondered what he would do for lunch as he got out a small paper box from a kitchen cabinet and slid it open. He took a small pale blue pill from it and popped it into his mouth. Despite taking these ever since he was a Braixen, he never really found out what was in them. He could pick out a few hints of flavors here and there – payapa berry extract most prominent among them – but that was probably just there for flavoring.

     All he really needed to know was that it helped keep him in “low gear,” to quote the Chansey pharmacist. Just like any other Delphox, Kit had some aptitude with psychic abilities. Unlike his peers, though, Kit’s abilities came in strong and quick. He remembered shoving desks across schoolrooms by merely walking through the door, or watching conveniently timed stones bean bullies on the head shortly after an uninspired remark towards a classmate. He remembered his parents being overjoyed at how fast his powers were progressing, and his teachers constantly chatting about what he should think about doing when he grew up.

     Then the dream happened. Kit remembered a lot of things. The dream was a rarity in that Kit had simply no recollection of what happened during it. Nothing about what he was doing that day. Nothing about school or his house or the people nearby.

     All he remembered was waking up in a clinic, wrapped in bandages, a large amount of gauze secured to his eye.

     All he heard was that there was a massive area of destruction outside of his school.

     All he thought was that this was his fault.

     That was when he was given his medicine for the first time. He did not understand why he needed it at the time, but from what he understood from his parents, he simply did not have a limiter on his powers. Just about every other psychic had some sort of upper bound on what they could do with their abilities, with some naturally having a larger aptitude or capability than others for various reasons. Kit apparently lacked such a bound, according to the doctors, even though none of them seemed to know why or how. It was all a little vague to him at the time, and even now he was still unsure what any of that clearly meant. What he knew for sure was that he needed to take his medicine if he wanted the dream to not become reality again.

     It was the only solution he had or knew.

     Regardless, he swallowed the pill and quickly poured a glass of milk to chase it. After tidying everything away, he picked up an apple from the nearby fruit bowl and strode over to his front door.

     With a tired smile and a bite of the fruit, he opened the door and flipped the sign around on the front.

     The sign read: Kit’s Detective Agency And Consulting Office. Open For Business.

Kit looked over the newspaper article again, then skeptically snapped it down as he leered at the Zoroark leaning on his desk. “And what exactly do you want me to do with this?”

     “You’re a detective, aintcha?” Loge smirked, a bit too enthusiastically for Kit’s liking.

     “Detective, not ghost hunter,” Kit sighed as he handed the paper back to Loge. “How slow do you think business is around here anyway?”

     Loge grumbled a bit and flopped backwards into a chair. “Every time I come in here and you’re not with someone, you’re just sitting around at that desk shuffling papers around like you’re slacking off and just trying to look busy.”

     “Welcome to detective work, Loge. Turns out there’s a lot of reading and research involved.” The Delphox pointed where his friend was sitting. “So are you going to hire me for anything? That chair is for clients only.”

     “I-I am a client!” the Zoroark loudly protested. “Besides, don’t you care about reputation or clout or getting your name out or anything like that?”

     “If it means wasting my time and not making money? Not even slightly.”

     Loge heaved a sigh. “Fine, fine. Far be it for me to get you to have some fun for once.”

     “I have plenty of fun, thank you kindly.”

     “Name the last time you did.” The Zoroark’s eyes narrowed.

     “Ember had a concert last Saturday. That was pretty neat. Weren’t you there?”

     “Yeah. We were a whole third of the audience.”

     “So?”

     “So, maybe next time, let’s hit something a little bigger, ya know?” Loge gesticulated like he was mimicking an explosion. “Like, well, what about Flashfire? I hear they’re gonna be playing at Limestone Amphitheater here next month.”

     “No thanks,” Kit stonefacedly replied.

     Loge looked like he just took a hard blow to the stomach. He sat in stunned silence for a second, then leaped out of his chair and slammed both hands onto Kit’s desk. “N-n-n-no thanks?!? They’re the biggest rock band on the continent! You love that sorta stuff!!”

     “Music’s good, the band is awful though.”

     “Whaddaya mean the...” Loge’s ears perked. “You know the band??”

     “Someone swiped their instruments while they were on tour last winter. I just happened to be near the port at the same time they were.”

     “You gotta tell me this stuff, Kit!” yelled the Zoroark. “I’d have asked you to get an autograph from Hammer if you were...”

     “Didn’t like him.”

     Loge’s eyes narrowed again. “Everyone likes him.”

     “Apparently not,” Kit replied, pointing at himself.

     “Did you do something to him?”

     “Besides get his stuff back, no. Yelled at me regardless.”

     “That’s part of the charm.”

     “Incineroars have an interesting definition of ‘charm’ then.”

     “We need to get you out more, Kit. Seriously, live it up. See the sights. Do some more stuff!”

     A knock came from the other side of Kit’s front door. “Oh darn, Loge, it’s almost like I have a job,” the Delphox sarcastically fired back as he stood up and went to open it.

     Loge grumbled as he watched his friend march across the office. “Remind me why I hang out with you again?”

     “There’s nobody else.”

     Loge heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes a bit as he chased Kit to the door.

A dejected looking Lycanroc sat across from Kit on the living room sofa, his eyes fixated on the floor ever since he entered the office. Kit had found that talking about the case was always the hardest part of hiring someone to investigate it, so he did everything he could to make his visitors comfortable as they did. The chair in front of his desk may have been reserved for clients, but he always took prospective ones in his living room. A wooden coffee table sat bordered by two large sofas: one for Kit himself (and Loge, who sat in on more of these meetings than Kit really felt like he should), and the other for his company. The coffee table had a few blankets stowed below it, plus a box of tissues and some coasters for water glasses. Kit had also laid out a pillow on the floor for the Lycanroc to rest his foot on; the Delphox noticed he was limping as he came in through the door and figured the gesture would be appreciated.

     Kit was diligently taking notes as he nodded along with the story while his friend returned from the kitchen with a few drinks. “Okay...so what happened after you packed up the tent?”

     “Well, it was raining, like I said. Not exactly good backpacking weather,” the Lycanroc explained as Loge set a glass of water in front of him. “Uh, thanks, Mister...?”

     The Zoroark hopped into the chair next to Kit and pointed at himself with a toothy grin. “Loge the Zoroark at your service! I’m Kit’s trusty assistant and self-appointed best fri-ow!” He got interrupted by a small smack to the back of his head, and he scowled at Kit again and rubbed his mane a little.

     “I’m sorry, Mr. Stone. Please continue,” Kit encouraged in between sips of water. “It was raining and you and your son were trying to find the trail again.”

     “R-right,” Mr. Stone affirmed. “Anyway, we only spent the one night out there. Just a quick little overnight trip. It was...a bit of a bust in general. I tried to keep spirits up and all but Rocky wasn’t really enjoying it.”

     “You had a map, surely,” Kit asked, politely.

     “Well, yeah, never go hiking without one, right? Problem of course was it was pouring buckets and I didn’t want to soak it. So I told Rocky to come with me into the trees so we had some cover and I could get oriented.”

     Kit continued scribbling in his notebook. “So he was still with you up to this point?”

     “Correct,” the Lycanroc said between sips of water.

     Loge leaned over to see what Kit had written down, like he was back in school and trying to cheat an exam question.

     His eyebrow raised as he read the location: Black Forest Hill.

     Kit glanced over at Loge curiously, then looked back to his client. “Okay, and what happened next?”

     “Well...” Mr. Stone said, pausing momentarily to cough into his hand. “We went a little ways into the woods, yeah? Not long, just a couple hundred feet or so. I just wanted to get out of the rain. I found a dry patch so I kneeled down and got out my map and compass...”

     Kit continued writing, and he noticed the water in the Lycanroc’s glass starting to shake in his hand.

     “It didn’t take me long. I knew Rocky was behind me when I got down, he asked me if this was a good spot. Good a spot as any, right? S-so I did my orienteering, figured out where we were, and I was about to pack up when...”

     He sniffed a bit.

     “I...I heard this snap, like someone stepped on a branch or something. And I spun around and...”

     His breathing went unsteady and he hid his eyes in his hand.

     “And...I realized I was a horrible father...”

     The office went silent for a bit, save for a few weeps from the Lycanroc.

     Kit was the first to speak up after a minute. “Did you try looking for him?”

     Mr. Stone nodded and sniffled. “I-I-It was the first thing I did. I tried calling his name, I tried to find his pawprints, but every time I thought I was finding him I was just...looping back around to that stupid clearing we were in.”

     “How could you tell?” Loge chimed in.

     “They set up a campfire the night before,” Kit explained. “Probably the ashes were still on the ground or the like?”

     Mr. Stone nodded again and buried his face.

     Kit felt Loge prodding him with his newspaper article. He glared at the Zoroark before he noticed Loge mouthing the words, “It’s linked.” Kit nabbed the newspaper and quietly flipped it back open to the article. He only skimmed it earlier as it failed to spark enough interest to warrant his full attention, but he did so again. It was an expository piece on a chain of missing persons, which was nothing especially new to him. He had seen a lot of theories like this sprout up on the regular, and many of them turned out to be nonsense in one way or another.

     Regardless he kept reading. Multiple missing persons, found again after a few days or so, all of which vanished during their visit...

     Kit blinked (or winked, Loge was unsure which word was correct, and was also unsure if it was polite to ask).

     “I-I’m happy to pay you whatever you need or want,” Mr. Stone spoke up again, trying to suppress a few sobs. “Nothing is unreasonable, but...please...”

     He looked up at Kit, tears running down his cheeks. “Please help me find my son!”

     The Lycanroc buried his face again.

     Kit glanced over at Loge as he scooched a tissue box across the coffee table.

     Loge looked serious. He almost never did unless he was committed to something.

     Mr. Stone started to calm down after a couple more minutes. He felt a hand pat his shoulder as he did.

     “Mr. Stone?”

     He glanced up to see the Delphox kneeling next to the sofa, a reassuring and calm expression on his face.

     “Do you still have that map on hand?”

Emilia Reptilia had been impatiently pacing back and forth along the deck of the ship for the past twenty-seven minutes and eighteen seconds. She had been counting ever since Silver Coast came into view over the water’s horizon and, much like how a kid waiting for Christmas Day would feel, the closer it got, the slower it seemed to come. She had not been able to write anything since stepping onto this Necrozma-forsaken plank thanks to the rocking and sea spray, plus you never know when someone could catch a glimpse of your work and publish your article for you. Moreover, the only other person she could reasonably interview for her almanac was the captain and most of that transcript was just boisterous laughter and sea stories. In other words, hardly anything useful or insightful for the big project itself.

     She quickly checked her oversized bag as she began her twenty-third lap around the deck. That was another thing she disliked about travel. There was a nagging thought in the back of her mind she had forgotten something. She was pretty sure she had everything – the draft of her almanac, plenty of paper and writing utensils with which to add to it, a couple snacks, her ticket, a few pocket tools, her compass, a copy of The Royal Yamper’s Arcean Dictionary Eighth Edition, a copy of The Royal Yamper’s Arcean Dictionary Seventh Edition (she suspected a few words were missing in the update), a handful of seeds of various varieties that she probably should have labeled before the ship cast off, a small sketch of herself in case she went missing and nobody had a description for the police, a toothbrush, some scale lotion, and a few copies of what she considered her most famous articles to date so she had something to read in case of boredom – but it continued to itch at her regardless.

     The Walrein captain piped up in an authoritative, accented baritone near the bridge. “We’re nearing Silver Coast now, Miss Salazzle, if that’s what yer waiting on.”

     Emilia winced a bit and had to suppress a reflex to correct him to her pen name; it simply sounded so much better than just Emilia the Salazzle. Nevertheless, she shut her bag again and hoisted it onto her shoulder, held by the rope drawstrings. “Thank ya!” she replied enthusiastically.

     “Don’t suppose you mind me askin’ what yer cause for visit is?” the captain asked cordially as he began to bring the ship around. “This ‘ere’s one of my regular routes, can help right yer course if ya want.”

     Emilia smiled slyly and rested a foot on the side railing. “Got a story to follow up on, actually. Chain of disappearances happening near the backwoods further inland.”

     “That so?” the Walrein replied, cocking his head. “I wouldn’t get too excited, lass. Most rumors be just Wailord tales and Beautiflies.”

     Emilia scratched the back of her head and tried to recall if her entry on that species was sufficiently fleshed out. It would be rather interesting if any unverified rumors came about as the result of a Beautifly wreaking havoc somehow. How would that even happen? Spores on the wings, maybe?

     The Walrein noticed her getting lost in thought and laughed heartily. “Sorry, lies. Me sailor talk got the better o’ me.”

     “Ah, of course!” Emilia said, making a mental note to write that slang down somewhere once she deboarded. “But I have a good feeling about this one. It has...something to it. I can’t really say what but I want to believe in it. You know?”

     “Trustin’ yer gut, you mean.”

     The Salazzle nodded and admired the city’s skyline as it came closer into view.

     “So this’d make ya a reporter, then?”

     “Kinda,” Emilia shrugged. “Closer to a freelancer. I write stories and people pay me to tell them.”

     “Aha, and ya think this is the biggun?”

     “Not the big one,” she smugly smirked. “A big one. If this follows through and I can find a few more mysteries just like it to write about...” Her purple eyes gleaned like well-polished amethysts as she rubbed her palms together.

     “Well then, I’d say yer first stop should be the police office,” the captain suggested as the ship started to pull in. “It’ll be downtown near the city hall. Ya can ask directions if needed. Otherwise...” He itched his head a little. “...I dunnae, probably they can point ya to someone who can help ya better if they can’t?”

     “I’m smart. I’ll think of something,” Emilia beamed as she moseyed over towards the gangplank.

“I told ya! What did I tell ya? Oh, baby did I call this one! Remember how you almost told me to stuff it earlier? Huh?”

     “Please shut up,” Kit wearily groaned as he turned down the street and towards the harbor.

     “You just don’t wanna admit I got one over you!” Loge continued crowing, following Kit with his nose in the air. “I think I’m gonna start making a journal of these moments. This feels really awesome! Then I can make a memoir out of it once you get famous enough and...”

     “Someone’s kid is missing, Loge,” the Delphox interrupted with a leer. “If you want to help me, fine, but don’t forget why you’re here.”

     The Zoroark gulped sheepishly. “R-right...sorry.”

     Kit’s gaze eased a bit. He always felt a bit bad for snapping at his friends like that, no matter what the context was. Still, the case weighed heavily on his mind. Not to mention he could not begin to image what Mr. Stone went through that day in the forest. Kit was not just locating an outlaw for the police or finding a lost family heirloom. This felt urgent. Very urgent. Like at any moment he would have to report back that Rocky was gone. For good.

     Yet strangely, Kit felt like he was not the one that would take it the hardest between him and his friend.

     The Delphox dug a couple coins out of a pouch and started playing with them using some light telekinesis. “What else do you know about Black Forest Hill?” he asked encouragingly.

     Loge watched the floating coins orbit over and under Kit’s hand for a moment before answering. He found that even the most mundane of Kit’s tricks were fun to witness. “Not much that the article didn’t already spell out, honestly. People head in there on the trail, usually campers or hikers. Most of them groups of two or three, but there were a few solo incidents as well.”

     “Any of them remember what happened?”

     “Well, the stories from the groups are pretty much echoes of what Mr. Stone said earlier, right?” Loge continued as he warmed up to the storytelling. Kit smiled reservedly as he watched his friend’s mood lighten up again. “Someone in the group vanishes even though they could have been right next to someone else, everyone else searches and turns up nothing, they run out and talk to the police first thing once they’re back.”

     “Or us,” Kit added.

     “Though the funny thing is that everyone made it back in one piece.”

     Kit’s ear twitched and he added a third coin to the telekinetic orbit. “Really now?”

     “Yeah, the police would scour the forest soon as the missing persons report got filed and not find a trace of anything or anyone. Then a couple days or so pass and, tada, they’re back and no worse for the wear.”

     “Hmmm...” Kit itched the side of his muzzle with his free hand. “What did they tell the cops? Their friends?”

     Loge locked his hands behind his head and looked up at the clear blue cloudless late morning sky. “It varies wildly from person to person. Some refused to talk, some said they were held hostage by something, a couple others said something about monsters, it’s really messy. Plus the Gazette hasn’t published the names of any of the victims, so it’s not like we can go find them and get more details.”

     “They probably don’t want the attention,” Kit suggested. “How many cases have there been?”

     “I think it’s twelve so far this year. Plus Rocky. Most of them have been happening during the summer here.”

     “So thirteen missing, eh...”

     Loge smirked a bit from behind his friend. “What, the psychic is also superstitious? Never had you pegged for that.”

     “I still think you’re wrong about this case being related to the news article, just based on probability,” Kit clarified. “But in the unlikely event that it is, we can hardly just wait around and tell Mr. Stone what the trend is. A couple days is a prediction, not a hard rule.”

     Loge shrugged. “True enough. So what’s the plan then?”

     “Might as well start our own search party. When was the last time you’ve gone camping?”

     The Zoroark thought for a moment and replied, “Probably with my parents back when I was a kid. Ages ago.”

     “Even if you’re right and we don’t just luckily bump into Rocky in there, I still want to find that clearing where Mr. Stone and Rocky were staying at. He’s probably forgotten more than a few details.”

     The vulpine duo turned a corner and arrived in front of a vibrant green painted building at the harbor front. Above the front doors hung a palm wood sign carved in the rough shape of a surfboard. To the side of it, a Smeargle balanced on a tall ladder to touch up the paint job.

     Kit and Loge gave the ladder he was standing on plenty of room and entered the front doors to Kecleon’s General Store and Sundries.

Emilia Reptilia was upside down with her top half in her bag as she shoved and jostled her possessions aside, grumbling to herself throughout. The shopkeeper, a Grovyle wearing a Kecleon-styled cap with the nametag Leslie pinned to it, rested her elbow on the checkout counter and her head in her hand as she tiredly and exasperatedly watched the Salazzle conduct her search. She had been at this for at least five minutes now, and had there been anyone else in line, the Grovyle would have been tempted to kick her out and get to the actual customers. Alas, this was one of the curses of slow days; she could not even make the argument that she had other things to do right now.

     So the shopkeeper sighed and started drumming her fingers on the counter. “Ma’am, just how big is this bag of yours?” she asked to the swishing black tail, the only part of Emilia that was visible to her.

     “Very!” the tail answered back. “I put it in here somewhere...”

     A few minutes later, Emilia finally relented, exited her bag and stood back up, arms crossed with a frustrated frown on her face. She knew she forgot something.

     “...you don’t have any money on you, do you?” Leslie asked bluntly.

     “I do!” Emilia snapped back as she reached into her bag again. “I’ve just happened to invest all of it in material goods!”

     “Mmhmm...” Leslie groaned with a roll of her eyes.

     “Like here,” spoke the Salazzle as she dropped a small bag onto the table. “One bag of seeds! Various beneficial and offensive effects! Perfect for any adventuring and/or exploration party!”

     The Grovyle stared at the offering, unimpressed. “What kind of seeds?”

     Emilia looked down at the bag for a moment, then back at Leslie. “...mystery flavor?”

     “We don’t buy unidentifiable items here, ma’am.”

     “They are too identifiable! Try one.”

     “My uncle wouldn’t like me setting his store on fire.”

     “You don’t know that’ll happen.”

     “You don’t know it won’t.”

     Emilia’s eyes narrowed. “So, it’s come to this then.”

     “No, ma’am, you just owe me fifteen hundred Poké for groceries.”

     The Salazzle’s tongue flicked in and out of her mouth a couple times. “...buy now, pay later?”

     “Against store policy.”

     Emilia glanced out the window and spotted a Smeargle touching up the store’s sign. “I’ll paint your house?”

     “I live with my parents.”

     “I’ll paint your room,” Emilia snapped her fingers and grinned.

     The bell on the top of the front door dinged as a Delphox and Zoroark strolled in. Leslie immediately righted her posture and clapped her hands together. “Oooookay, I actually have paying customers now, meaning you’re in the way and I get to toss you out.”

     “W-w-w-wait, wait, wait, wait, please!” Emilia started to panic. “Seriously, this is all a giant mix up, I promise I’m good for the cash! I’m a published journalist; let me write a letter to my editor and...”

     “Kit, Loge, what do you guys need help with?” Leslie called from around the Salazzle.

     “Camping stuff,” the Delphox replied. “You have any...easy food? Low waste? Easy to store?”

     “Rice and bread is in Aisle 4, fruits and nuts in 6. Those berry gels are popular as well.”

     “H-hey wait a second!” Emilia interrupted. “We’re in the middle of bargaining!”

     “I see those guys pretty much every week,” Leslie dryly replied. “So I know them. I don’t know you.”

     “...would it help if you did?” the Salazzle asked with intrigue.

     “Probably not, but you can do it anyway.”

     Emilia’s eyebrow raised and she smiled slyly. That meant there was a chance, after all. She proudly posed for the shopkeeper, bowing with her right hand on her chest and her left outstretched behind her. “Well then! I am the soon-to-be world-famous...”

     Leslie just stared back at her, unamused.

     “Uh...r-renowned journalist and...”

     Leslie’s fingers began drumming the countertop.

     “...behavioral...scien...”

     The Grovyle motioned for her to finish.

     Emilia’s voice dropped to a whisper. “...tist...”

     “Emilia Reptilia?” the Zoroark exclaimed. He scampered over to her and skidded to a halt, his eyes lit up like he was a kid walking past a toy shop window.

     Emilia jumped and whirled around like she got ambushed by the police. “Y-y-yes?” she stammered.

     Leslie’s glare snapped to her regular.

     “You wrote that article about Black Forest Hill for the Silver Coast Gazette?”

     Emilia blinked. This was her first time meeting an actual fan like this. “Yes...?”

     “And that interview with Fran Skablam about her performance at Rusalka Manor?”

     “Yes...” She remembered that interview fondly, plus the Meowscarada still sent her tickets to her shows every now and again. She crossed her arms proudly.

     “Did you really solve the haunting of Cobalt Tunnel by just finding that one Mimikyu who lived there and...?”

     The Salazzle wasted no time in looking at her admirer dead in the eyes and flashing him an impressively charismatic smile. “Yes!”

     The Zoroark nearly lost his footing and, overjoyed, dashed over to his friend yelling, “Kit! Kit! Kitkitkitkitkit, get over here!”

     Leslie slipped her face into both of her hands. “Why, Loge...” she mumbled to herself.

     “Told you,” Emilia smirked as she watched her newest fan drag his friend over. “So, now that I’ve established my fame...”

     “Still fifteen hundred Poké. Good try though,” the Grovyle dryly interrupted.

     Emilia grunted defeatedly and started pacing around the store.

Luka centered his breathing and slowly settled into a focused, meditative stance. He shut his eyes, visualizing where his next strike would land. He added the details: the room he was in, the target, the effects...

     After what seemed like hours, his eyes snapped open, and he threw a powerful punch with his right fist. The jab came blindingly fast, almost vanishing in a flash of orange-red light.

     The Lucario exhaled, and audibly clapped his fist against his palm.

     The granite boulder before him cracked, and eventually crumbled to pieces and scattered across the dojo’s floor.

     The twenty-four younger students broke into applause and cheers as their teacher turned and bowed, an esteemed smile on his face and an enthralled one on everyone else’s.

     After a moment, Luka raised a hand and the clapping quickly diminished. “I’m glad you enjoyed that,” he chuckled a little. “But like I mentioned at earlier, this is a demonstration. A glimpse towards what can be possible. What is possible is going to vary. For each of you.”

     He began to walk around the stage a tiny bit. “Everyone in this room right now has recognized some of their power. And this ceremony today is to honor the steps you’ve made in doing so. Before you can take the next step, however, you must recognize not what you can improve, but what you are capable of improving.”

     He saw a few heads in the crowd turn towards each other.

     “I have a friend, another master, who owns a dojo in Treasure Town. He’s a Makuhita. When we first challenged each other, we had to recognize something. Both of us had weaknesses. Weaknesses that, no matter what we did to account for them or improve on them, would still remain. For him, he simply couldn’t match my speed. He was a bit of a heavyweight, if you get my meaning.”

     A couple of the kids giggled.

     “But he knew one thing about my weakness, however. He could take a lot more hits than I can. He wore me down, and a few hard blows later I had to concede defeat,” Luka continued, hiding a small grimace from his class. “Now, if this was just a stage play, this would be the part where we have that montage of me getting smacked in the belly a lot by a bowling ball to work on my endurance or something like that.”

     A few more of the kids laughed.

     “The problem is that I’m just not built like that. I could have trained that way until I fell to my knees and then trained like that some more, but I’ll likely never get anywhere close to winning as many long fights as he will.”

     Luka picked up a chunk of granite and looked at it in his paw. “So I had a couple options. I could continue trying to compensate for a weakness that I knew would be extremely difficult if not impossible to match my comrade on...or I could find new ways to use my strengths.”

     He pointed to the boulder, or at least what was left of it. “This demonstration was also a test for me. Three years ago, I probably wouldn’t have been able to do this for you. Had I decided to fixate on my weaknesses and improve the unimprovable, I still wouldn’t have been able to do this. This is the reward of specializing, and knowing what you’re good at doing.”

     He set the rock down and walked over to a small knee-high table where an array of certificates and rolled-up cloth headbands were spread out. “I do not anticipate every one of you to punch a boulder by the time you graduate from my class. Honestly, most of you probably won’t even touch it. However, I do expect each of you to find a way to destroy it. Smash it. Melt it. Shatter it. Or just simply move it. But it is your job to find a solution. And you will not find it by wallowing in your weaknesses. Play to your strengths. Promise me you’ll do that, and in return I will show you how to navigate any boulder blocking your path.”

     Luka crossed his arms and shouted to his class, “Sound good?”

     A choral reply of, “Yes, master!” echoed throughout the dojo.

     “Alright, let’s get to the celebrations then,” Luka smiled proudly at his class. “When I call your name, you’ll walk onto the stage here for the last time as a yellow belt and walk off it for the first time as an orange. In no particular order...”

     He picked up the first headband and read out the name on the binding. “Rocky!”

     Nothing happened. Luka looked around the room a bit for the Rockruff. “...Rocky?”

     Some of the kids in the class started muttering to themselves.

     Luka’s brow furrowed. There was no notice from his dad that he would be gone either. He turned to a white-furred Vulpix sitting in the front row. “Vixie, did you know where he went?”

     She shook her head. “No, actually I didn’t see him today.”

     The murmurs started back up again as Luka looked down at his truant student’s promotion again.

“Never heard of her,” Kit blankly stated.

     Loge blinked, dumbstruck. “She...she wrote the article. She’s written a lot of them. They’re pretty good.”

     Emilia’s face went red a little as she tried not to think too much about the wastebaskets filled with crumpled up drafts back home. “Y-you think so?”

     “Yeah!” Loge exclaimed. “You wouldn’t be writing for the Gazette otherwise! Like I said, really well known!”

     “Not really,” Kit and Leslie replied together.

     Loge defeatedly crossed his arms. “Hmph, uncultured,” he grumbled to himself.

     Kit shrugged and broke out his coin purse. “What’s our tab, Leslie?”

     She quickly started writing a receipt. “Four packets of berry gel, bread, two pounds of peanuts, five apples, the eggs...let’s call it two thousand?”

     Emilia frowned a bit. “Why do they get a discount?”

     “They’re our regulars, we take care of them,” Leslie shot back. “Besides, you guys are searching for Mr. Stone’s kid, right?”

     Emilia’s eyes sparkled a bit as an idea struck her.

     “How’d you hear about that?” Kit asked, eyebrow raised.

     “Mr. Stone came in earlier this morning. Looked mighty upset, so I said I’d cover his breakfast and he told me about what happened with Rocky. Then I mentioned that I knew a guy and...”

     Kit blinked. “Huh...that’s unusually nice of you.”

     Leslie shot him a leer. “What’s that mean? I’m plenty nice to you!”

     “I mean nicer than usual. I don’t really get referrals that often, never mind from just the person letting me not go hungry,” Kit explained as he counted out the coin.

     Leslie blushed a bit. “Uh...you’re welcome.”

     The Delphox made a stack and slid it over to the Grovyle. “Anyway, here. Two thou...”

     “Hold on!” Emilia slid in and interjected.

     Leslie slipped her eyes into her hand.

     Kit turned to the Salazzle and blankly asked, “For what?”

     “Would you be willing to pick up my groceries?” she asked, politely as she could.

     The Delphox blinked back, unamused.

     “If you do, I can help out with you finding that one guy.”

     “How?” Kit asked, skeptically.

     Emilia smiled widely and slithered over to her bag. “I’ll show ya! Can you guys keep a secret?” she asked as she opened it up and ducked into it.

     Leslie opened her mouth to say something, but Kit raised a finger before she actually did. She settled on a resigned sigh and rested her head in her hand. “Sure,” she groaned.

     “Why not?” Loge answered, much more enthusiastically.

     “Do you...need a hand? It looks like there’s a lot of stuff in there,” Kit mentioned.

     Emilia was lying down on her front, halfway consumed by burlap by now. “No thanks! I have everything organ...aha!”

     The Salazzle began to backpedal out of the bag, and with a few grunts of exertion she emerged again, a large heavy leatherbound book in her arms. One more heave later she lifted it and dropped it onto the counter, upsetting the stack of coins Kit had made earlier.

     Loge walked over and looked at the cover: Emilia Reptila’s Definitive Ultimate Complete Comprehensive Almanac To Pokémon.

     “There!” she beamed and rested an arm on the cover. “My magnum opus! Still in progress of course.”

     “You wrote this?” Kit curiously asked.

     “Every word!” the Salazzle replied, her snout proudly raised. “I’ve been studying folks and different Pokémon species for as long as I can remember, and this book has everything I ever learned about them.”

     “Learned about them, or just took educated guesses at?” Leslie skeptically inquired.

     “You’d be surprised how much you can assume just by knowing who you’re talking to,” Emilia kindly explained. “For example, Grovyles are some of the fastest Pokémon around when it comes to forest travel. You like to use branches for jumping off of.”

     “I go running for exercise, but that’s really about...”

     Kit’s ears perked. “Ah, so that’s what those posts are for.”

     Leslie’s gaze turned towards the Delphox. “What posts?”

     Loge pointed at one of the sturdy horizontal posts jutting out from the walls, near some of the store’s higher shelves, just wide enough for someone to stand on. “Those guys, right, Kit?”

     Kit nodded and continued speaking. “I’ve never seen you restocking the shelves here, come to think of it. Clearly, you never do it while I’m around, but for most people that’s a job that would take quite some time. I’d have probably interrupted you at some point before now in that case. You’re a teenager, so you’re likely reluctant to stay late or wake up early for work of all things. So, the alternative: you’re so quick about it that I’ve never had a chance to see you do it to begin with. I bet your uncle installed those there to better emulate tree branches for you to jump across and speed up that part of your job. Probably the smartest things they ever bought from an efficiency standpoint.”

     Leslie stared back at him, wide eyed.

     Emilia just blinked at the detective. “...huh.”

     “How close did I get?” Kit asked with a reserved smile.

     “You’re spooky,” the Grovyle hissed.

     “You can always take away my loyal customer discount.”

     “W-why would you say that?” Loge interjected.

     “She’s not going to,” the Delphox replied. “She likes us too much.”

     Leslie started rounding up Kit’s purchases and stuffing them into a bag. “Oh just...shut up and take your stuff already,” she growled, embarrassed and flustered.

     Kit chortled to himself and looked down at the counter. The young shopkeeper was packing his items, leaving the Salazzle’s untouched.

     “Emilia, right?” he asked the Salazzle, glancing at her out the corner of his good eye.

     Emilia flinched a little. “Y-yeah?”

     He motioned to her groceries. “How much was Leslie going to charge you for these?”

“Fifteen hundred?” Loge quizzically repeated between bites of apple as the three companions exited the store. “If anything that’s a markup. What’d you do to her?”

     “I...might have left my cash on the boat over,” Emilia sheepishly admitted. “I do a lot of traveling for my job.”

     “And your hobby, presumably,” Kit added, as he finished holding the door for everyone.

     Emilia spun around to face the Delphox and started walking backwards. “Not a hobby! I’m telling you, once my book gets finished, I’ll have enough Poké to...”

     She stumbled and nearly lost her footing as she backpedaled into a ladder, upsetting the Smeargle and a couple of paint cans resting on top. The artist staggered and flailed his arms to keep balance.

     Loge jammed the fruit into his mouth and dashed over to the ladder to stabilize it.

     A paint can tumbled, its trajectory headed for the Salazzle’s head. She peered up, saw the red liquid and its metal container falling above her, and covered her head with her arms...

     For some reason it never impacted her. She opened her eyes and looked around curiously.

     “Sorry about that, sir!” Kit called to the Smeargle as the can and its contents slowly rose back up. He set it back down on a platform with the others, then waved politely and continued down the street.

     The Smeargle wiped his brow in relief and got back to work on the shop’s sign. “Please watch where you’re headed next time?”

     Emilia needed a second to realize that question was for her. She scrambled to her feet and picked her bag back up. “W-will do!” she stated formally. “Sorry for the trouble!”

     Loge let go of the ladder and took another bite of apple. “Take care,” was what the Zoroark tried to say but his full mouth reduced it to unintelligible mumbles. He jogged a bit to catch back up with the others.

     Emilia dusted herself off and readjusted her grip on her oversized bag. “So, what’s the case we’re on?”

     “The case I’m on is a missing person case,” Kit corrected. “I imagine you’re coming along so you can write a follow up to your previous article.”

     “And pay you back for the food,” Emilia added. “Thanks, by the way.”

     “I found your terms agreeable, nothing more or less,” Kit replied. “Meanwhile, Loge is...”

     He was cut off by a loud appley crunch. “I am his trusty assistant and self-appointed best friend,” Loge said through a mouthful of fruit.

     “He’s unemployed,” Kit clarified.

     Loge shot him a glare. “No I’m not! My job is helping you out with your stuff.”

     “That’s a volunteer position at best, and you know it,” the Delphox fired back.

     “How long have you two known each other?” Emilia asked politely.

     “Oh, we go way back!” Loge grinned toothily and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “First time we met was in primary school. Kit was at the top of our class and I...”

     “I was giving a presentation, he illusioned me into looking like a Vanillite, and out of instinct my telekinesis punted him through a wall,” Kit summarized with a grumble. “I don’t like talking about it.”

     “As a Fennekin?” Emilia’s eyebrow raised. “Against a Zorua?”

     “It was a big blast,” Loge stated as he chomped on the apple again. “Besides, we made up with each other easily enough after.”

     “My parents made me invite him to my birthday party,” Kit further explained, with a roll of his eyes.

     “And that’s how we became best friends! Pretty easy to do when you think about it,” Loge beamed and swallowed. “What about you, Emilia? Where are you from?”

     “Bayleef Island,” she happily replied. “My family is...uh...”

     The Zoroark started tossing out suggestions. “Scattered? Big? Dead?”

     “Loge!”

     “Just trying to help, Kit. Unknot your fur.”

     Emilia giggled a bit. “No, they’re still alive. Last time I checked at least. I was actually going to say mixed.”

     “So you’re, like, not a pureblood Salazzle then,” Loge surmised.

     The gears inside Emilia’s head whirred for a second. “I...might be? Probably am? Still figuring that part out.”

     Loge raised an eyebrow. “What species is your old man?”

     “A Pangoro.”

     “So no then.”

     “She could be adopted,” Kit tossed out.

     Loge’s ears drooped as he glanced at the Delphox. “How is saying that better than what I said?”

     “Because at least my suggestion allows for the possibility of her parents being...I don’t know, Loge, alive??”

     “Are you sure you two are best friends?” Emilia softly inquired.

     “Yes!” the two angrily answered together.

     Kit heaved a sigh and turned down a side street. “Anyway, we’re going to stop off at my office to pick up the rest of the gear. We’ll split it up, pack, and we’re off and at the campsite before it gets too dark. Any objections?”

     “None come to mind,” the Zoroark said as he threw away the apple core.

     “Sure we have enough food?” the Salazzle chimed in.

     “We should be fine for a couple days,” the Delphox answered. “Between our supplies plus the things we got for you, there shouldn’t be too much strain on...”

     “Kit the Delphox?” an authoritative voice barked from in front of them.

     The group halted as Kit turned away from his friends and back where he was going. In front of him stood a Lucario, one staring determinedly at him with his arms crossed.

     Loge rifled around in the group’s food sack again. “Can we...help you?”

     “I understand you’re looking for one of my pupils,” the Lucario tersely stated.

     Kit shut his eye and massaged the bridge of his nose. “How in Arceus’ name do so many people know about this case...” he grumbled.

     “Word seems to spread fast here,” Emilia observed, blinking at the newcomer.

     The Lucario slid his feet together, put his right fist to his left palm, and bowed respectfully. “My name is Master Luka of the Silver Coast School of Iron Fist. I must insist that I accompany you on your journey to...”

     “Party’s full enough already,” Kit explained as he already started walking past the Lucario. “We’ll keep your application on file.”

     “Thanks for your interest though!” Emilia cheerfully consoled as she followed along.

     “Have an apple,” Loge said as he tossed one into the air towards Luka. It hung for a second and then landed perfectly on the back of the martial artist’s head.

     Luka’s eyes jumped open as soon as he realized what was going on.

     “Stop wasting our food,” Kit scolded as they marched on.

     “Oh chill, I can always get us more,” Loge pointed out.

     “Where does your money come from anyway?” Emilia asked. “I thought you were unem...”

     Luka nabbed the apple off his head and whirled around at the trio. “Detective, wait! I must insist I join you!”

     “I told you, we don’t have any more room,” Kit called back.

     “I can take care of myself!” Luka yelled, racing to catch up with the others.

     Kit turned around and looked at Luka directly. The Lucario skidded to a halt on the gravel, kicking up a small dust cloud as he did. “How much do you know about my case?” the Delphox sternly asked.

     Luka crossed his arms again and leered back. “One of my classes had their graduation ceremony today. There are twenty-five students in it and I only promoted twenty-four of them. The last one didn’t show up. None of his classmates knew where he was, nor did his dad excuse him ahead of time.”

     Emilia raised a finger. “I don’t suppose your student’s name is Rocky?”

     Luka nodded. “I immediately went to his father’s house after class was dismissed and he told me everything.”

     “So enough, then,” Kit bluntly stated. He was beginning to wonder if Mr. Stone knew what the point of hiring a private detective was.

     “His father is in no condition to help search, so I’d like to assist in his place,” Luka offered and tossed the apple back to Loge.

     The Zoroark caught it and looked over Luka. “...I mean, we are kinda investigating a haunted forest...”

     “If we come close to finding my student, or if there are any hostile forces in play, I’ll know,” Luka asserted. “I’m good at reading people.”

     “So am I,” Kit replied as he turned back towards his firm and waved goodbye. “Sorry, but we’ll keep you appraised once we’re...”

     “I can track him, you know,” Luka stated matter-of-factly. He pulled out a small yellow cloth belt hanging out of the top of his pack and continued marching after the Delphox.

     Kit sighed exasperatedly and turned around, again, to humor him. “With a piece of cloth?”

     Emilia’s eyes lit up excitedly and she dove into her sack.

     “If I wanted to be disrespectful towards my pupil’s achievements, yes, a piece of cloth,” Luka blankly answered. “If I didn’t, it’s actually his belt at my school.”

     “Hmm, guess Mr. Stone would have had it at his house if Rocky didn’t show up,” Loge said as he picked up one of the loose ends and gave it a sniff. “Probably just washed it though. There’s no scent to follow.”

     “He doesn’t need one!” Emilia exclaimed as she dashed over to Luka, pen and paper in hand. She exuberantly started shaking his hand like she just met the mayor. “Emilia Reptilia, Silver Coast Gazette and whoever my publisher will be for my almanac. It’s a pleasure to see this happen up close!”

     “Charmed,” the Lucario stoically replied. “But please relinquish my hand; the more physical contact I can make with the object, the easier the tracking will be.”

     “Oh, sorry!” Emilia promptly obliged and hastily flipped to a fresh sheet of paper.

     Luka shut his eyes and steadied his breathing. The belt seemed to catch fire, but the blue flames engulfing the cloth did not seem to burn either it nor the hands holding it. Emilia scribbled wildly like she was trying to transcribe an auctioneer. Kit watched on with reserved interest while Loge was more visibly amazed at the mystic flames.

     The fire shut off suddenly, the belt still unharmed, and Luka’s eyes shot back open, the irises glowing yellow for a split second before fading back to their normal blue hue. “Which trail were you planning on taking?”

     “Fossil Trail seemed like the easiest one if the destination is the same,” Loge answered.

     Luka shook his head. “They used the South Granite Loop. If we take that we may find something more useful to us.”

     Kit raised an eyebrow. “How do...”

     “Aura tracking!” the Salazzle preempted. “First time I’ve seen it in person!”

     “It’s similar to scent tracking,” the Lucario explained. “Only instead of matching smells, I match auras.”

     “Like that power level life energy voodoo I keep reading in comics?” Loge itched the back of his head.

     “If you want to think of it like that,” Luka replied with resignation.

     “Either way, being able to trace his steps through the forest would be helpful,” Kit observed. “You’ll have to kit up by yourself though. We only prepared for three people on this one.”

     “I will do that,” Luka said, bowing politely. “Thank you for letting me join you.”

     “We need to get some more stuff from my office, but we’re headed out right after. We’ll be at the trailhead in an hour. Is that fine?”

     “Yes. Ample time.”

     “We’ll see you then,” the Delphox said as he started back towards the firm.

     “Bring more food if you want to as well!” Loge encouraged.

     “No mooching off the guests!” Kit yelled back. Loge grinned toothily at the Lucario and ran after his friend.

     Emilia scooped up her bag and smiled at Luka. “Can I bother you for an interview sometime later?”

     “Don’t know why you couldn’t?”

     “Thanks a ton!” she giddily responded before scampering her two vulpine companions, kicking up dust as she did.

     Luka took a long, deep, meditative breath and looked up at the forest looming beyond the various buildings and homes of Silver Coast.

     “You’re in good hands, Rocky.”

Emilia Reptilia’s bag was a bit of an oddity in that it never seemed to be full despite it very clearly having a finite size from the outside. It was almost as tall as she was and should have been at least twice as heavy as she was in addition, yet she never felt encumbered by it. On the contrary, she hauled it around rather effortlessly most days, though whether that was testament to her strength or just merely an unexplored and possibly magical property of the bag was up for debate.

     Not that any of her companions were having any of it. She insisted that she carry the tent, food, toiletries, survival gear, water canteens, and other miscellanea by herself, but Kit felt certain she would break like a toothpick the moment she tried. So the four of them divided up the gear as planned and were now trekking under the sunlit boughs of Black Forest. Emilia felt deceived almost, because there was not anything particularly black about the woods; under sunlight at any rate, it actually looked quite pleasant and not that much different from the comparable areas on Bayleef Island. Though with fewer coconuts and more...

     She sniffed the air a little. “Is that...vanilla?” she asked the Zoroark, directly in front of her on the trail.

     “Yeah! Ponderosa pine trees,” Loge grinned at her over his shoulder. “That’s just what the bark smells like. If you’re lucky you’ll find one that smells like butterscotch.”

     Emilia took her notebook out of a side pouch on her bag and started writing again. As she did, she peered around Loge to see how the rest of the party were doing. Up ahead were Kit and Luka, with the Lucario leading the way uphill. The two of them seemed to be chatting nicely with each other, though they were just out of earshot of the other two.

     Loge noticed and smirked again. “I’ll take a guess and say you’re wondering when you can pull Kit aside for your almanac, arentcha?”

     Emilia flinched and almost dropped her pen. “Y-you can’t prove that,” she blustered as she put her notepad back.

     “Well you clearly have something on your mind about him,” Loge mentioned. “You’ve been looking at him on and off ever since we left the trailhead.”

     “I guess. It’s more of a clarification thing.”

     “How so?” Loge asked as he removed a strategically placed bag of salted peanuts from his backpack.

     “From what I’ve read, Delphoxes usually have a wand or branch or the like they use to channel their abilities, right?”

     Loge nodded and started to shell one of the nuts. “Yup. Kit’s is poplar wood. Had it since he was a Fennekin. Oh, sorry, care for one?”

     “Thanks,” Emilia replied, taking a couple of treats from the offered bag. “Is it true they can use that to see into the future?”

     Loge shrugged and started chewing on one of the nuts. “That’s what I’ve heard.”

     “Okay, so why not just do that, and maybe figure out where Rocky is based on what he sees?” the Salazzle asked. “Then we wouldn’t need to bother Master Luka with having to aura track constantly.”

     “Oh, that’s easy!” Loge smiled as he crunched on his snack. “He’s just not good at it.”

     Emilia cocked her head a little.

     “Lemme tell you a bit about Kit’s family,” Loge explained. “All Delphoxes can do that sort of fortune telling ritual, sure, but just like how you probably didn’t get the same grades as I did in school, psychics like Kit all come in different specializations. His mom’s actually the best in his family at that. She’s a banker and helps issue loans based on what she sees about her borrowers.”

     “I see...” Emilia nodded, intrigued.

     Loge shelled another nut and began counting off Kit’s family members on his fingers. “Then let’s see, Kit is the family telekineticist, you know that already. His sister, Ember, is empathic, so she’s good at reading people’s emotions and pushing them one way or another. And his dad is retrocognitive; he teaches history at one of the higher level schools with it. Super smart guy.”

     “Very interesting...” the Salazzle noted. “So most Delphoxes can do what my almanac says, but they might have variations across them, is what you’re saying.”

     “Yeah!” Loge grinned. “Though sometimes you’ll have some folks who just fit the norm.” He pointed at Emilia’s hand. The Salazzle looked down and noticed that the peanuts she had picked up had vanished.

     Emilia’s tongue flicked in and out of her mouth. “Not sure what I was expecting, given that story about how you met Kit.”

     “Illusions are fun,” the Zoroark snickered. “Though you gotta be careful not to abuse them. It’s one of those powers that’s really easy to take advantage of people with.”

     “You’re telling me...” Emilia nervously nodded.

     “Why?” Loge asked. “Never met a Salazzle before now. What’s your thing?”

     “I...well...uh...it’s uh...” she stammered.

     “Use your words, reporter girl,” Loge encouraged, offering her the bag again. “And I promise there’s no fakes in here this time.”

     “Right,” Emilia said as she shakily took another handful of nuts. “It’s...can I just say it?”

     “I’ve been waiting for you to.”

     “It’s pretty much mind control.”

     “Oh dear.”

     Emilia immediately started stuttering again, waving her hands in front of her defensively. “I-i-it’s not like that! I swear I’m not evil or anything! I haven’t done anything with it yet or even since I evolved!”

     “Relax, I was only teasing,” the Zoroark laughed as he shelled a nut. “Besides, it’s probably pretty obvious when you do use it.”

     “Yeah, it’s a pheromone thing,” she said, trying to calm herself down. “And it’s not, like, full control or anything. Just makes people more...suggestible, I think is the word.”

     “Ah. So it probably has its limits.”

     Emilia nodded. “Not to mention I just don’t like the thought of using it. I could use it to get people into giving me stories for my almanac but that just feels...wrong.” She popped a peanut into her mouth.

     “You really care about that book, don’t you.”

     “I have to,” the Salazzle replied with a weak smile. “It’s the biggest project I’ve ever worked on. That probably anyone’s ever worked on, come to think of it.”

     “How long have you been at it?”

     “Years. And I don’t think I’m anywhere close to done.”

     Loge peered up pensively, towards the crest of the hill they were hiking up. “How long are you planning on staying in the Coast here?”

     “A while. Least until my stint with the Gazette runs out. Then I’m probably off to wherever else wants to pay me for my articles.”

     “Well, for what it’s worth,” Loge replied as he crunched on a nut. “Kit meets some pretty interesting people just by the virtue of his job. If you asked if you could shadow him for a bit...”

     “You think he’d let me?” the Salazzle’s eyes gleamed.

     “He lets me do it all the time,” the Zoroark playfully smiled. “Don’t worry about it, he’s a huge wuss when it comes to this sorta stuff. Just...be confident around him.”

     Emilia blinked. “Confident...okay, I guess I can try...”

     “Bad start!” Loge barked.

     Emilia promptly righted her posture. “Y-yes sir! I’ll march right up to him and demand I follow him!”

     The Zoroark laughed loudly as the two of them continued onward through the forest.

Luka put his student’s belt away again and redoubled his pace. “We’re on track. They stopped on that boulder for water and then pushed on right afterward.”

     “You sure you’re not getting worn out doing that or anything?” Kit inquired, checking over his shoulder to make sure Loge and Emilia were keeping up.

     Luka shook his head. “If anything is going to fatigue me today, it’ll be the trip itself. But thanks for asking.”

     Kit nodded and detached a canteen from his pack. “Mind if I ask how long you’ve known Rocky?”

     “He enrolled in my white belt class last winter. So I’d say six months roughly. May I wonder why?”

     “You seem more than a little concerned for him,” Kit said between sips of water.

     “Would you not?”

     “I can understand his dad, but this is probably not in your job description as a martial arts instructor.” The Delphox handed the canteen forward.

     “I suppose not,” Luka replied after a moment, and he accepted the water. “You’re curious to why I insisted on coming, aren’t you?”

     “I just like knowing who’s on my team is all.”

     “That is, you like knowing who to trust.”

     Kit smiled weakly. “Yeah. I guess you did say you’re good at reading people.”

     “Auras are very reliable when it comes to that,” the Lucario spoke as he took a drink. “They have a way of showing things as they really are.”

     “Sadly, the best I can do is educated guessing,” Kit admitted. “None of that mystical all-knowing peer-into-your-soul stuff or anything.”

     “But you’re a psychic from what I understand?”

     “Telekinesis mostly. And I guess a little pyrokinesis but nothing that doesn’t run in my family.”

     The Lucario chuckled a bit.

     Kit raised an eyebrow. “What’s up?”

     “Nothing,” Luka replied as he tossed the canteen back to Kit. “Just your aura almost certainly doesn’t run in your family.”

     “What are you...?” Kit’s voice trailed off. “...oh. That.”

     “I’m not over a line, am I?” Luka asked kindly. “It was just something I noticed when I started to track Rocky’s aura.”

     “No, no, not your fault,” the Delphox answered. “...what else did you notice?”

     Luka rested his head on his fist. “Hmm...if you don’t mind a full report...”

     “I did ask for it,” Kit admitted. “I think I know what’s in it anyway.”

     “Well then, shortly, your aura is very powerful. Remarkably so. But it’s unwieldy. Chaotic. Still, you have it contained and have no issues tapping into it as needed.”

     “Yeah, that...sounds about right,” Kit sighed, a hint of shame in his voice.

     “Do you resent your gift?” Luka asked.

     Kit didn’t immediately reply.

     Luka bowed his head. “Forgive me if I...”

     “I’m not upset,” Kit cut in. “Just...it’s complicated with me.”

     “If I might ask, how are you currently controlling your power? Meditation? Personal willpower?”

     “Medicine, actually,” the Delphox answered, his words slightly tainted with disdain. “I’ve been taking it since I was a Braixen.”

     “I see,” Luka pondered.

     “...what are you thinking about?”

     “I liken your full abilities to that of a river of whitewater rapids. Strong, enduring, yet easy to fall victim to. Be consumed by. Your medicine, as I understand it, serves as a dam on that river, holding it back and only allowing a small portion of it through at a time, which of course you then use for your abilities proper.”

     Kit nodded. “So you’re saying I should make a better dam?”

     “I think that’s ultimately your decision. If the one you have works fine for your purposes, then feel free to keep it.”

     “I’m not sure if I should be offended by that or not,” the Delphox blankly replied.

     “Please don’t be. You likely know your own abilities better than anyone,” the Lucario answered. “But I will say there’s a gulf between knowing something and understanding it.”

     Kit peered down at the forest floor, pensively. “Yeah. Don’t need to tell me that.”

     Luka looked back at him. “I’m sorry if I got too under your skin. If you don’t mind, I’m interested in seeing what these ‘educated guesses’ of yours look like.”

     Kit perked up a bit, a faint grin on his face. “How far out are we from the clearing?”

     “A couple miles. Should be there in the next half hour or so.”

     Kit adjusted his backpack a little and picked up his pace. “Well, if you’re willing to wait that long, I’d be happy to demonstrate. Master Luka.”

     The Lucario could not help but return a smile back. “And I look forward to learning under you. Detective.”

A small breeze rustled the leaves of the trees surrounding the grassy break in the forest. The sun was close to setting, leaving most of the clearing in the shade with a slowly shrinking patch of sunlight off towards the edge. Near the center was a small ring of stones with a heap of ash and charred wood in the middle, and Kit wasted no time walking over to it and setting his pack down.

     Loge took a moment to look around as he followed Luka in, and whistled a little. “You know, for a haunted forest, it’s actually kinda pretty,” he remarked.

     “It’s not haunted,” the Delphox insisted. “Everything has a nice clean logical explanation for it. Besides, we’re not here to go ghost hunting.”

     Luka opened his eyes and set aside the belt. “The trail is...messy around here.”

     “Define messy?” Emilia asked as she set down her bag and disappeared into it again.

     “Rocky walked around the area quite a lot, doubling back on himself,” he explained. “Finding the precise path he took and when is going to be difficult.”

     “I mean, it’s the campsite, right?” Loge asked as he unloaded a few stakes and a mallet. “Makes sense he’d be walking around a bit, not going too far from the tent.”

     “Does his trail lead deeper into the forest or off the path at all?” Kit asked as he took out the rolled up tent and placed it a safe distance from the firepit.

     Luka shook his head. “It leads a small distance into the trees that way, but no further in any direction.” He pointed towards the setting sun.

     “Hmm, that lines up with what Mr. Stone said,” Kit said, resting his chin in his hand.

     “We could try tracking him the old-fashioned way?” Emilia suggested as she emerged with a pile of chopped firewood, stacked tall enough to block her vision.

     “Normally, but it was raining the day of the disappearance,” Kit answered. “Any tracks left behind would have been destroyed by now. Not to mention you can’t really leave footprints on grass.”

     Luka quickly strode over to the Salazzle. “Do you need help with...”

     “No thanks!” she cheerfully cut in with a touch of strain in her voice. “I’ve carried clunkier stuff before.”

     “The fire pit’s over here, Emilia!” Loge yelled from the other side of the clearing. “Wrong way!”

     Emilia elegantly spun around on one foot and continued hauling her supplies. “I knew that!”

     Luka suppressed a small laugh and followed Emilia towards the rest of the group. He glanced over at the firepit as he did, lacking anything else to examine. Kit probably planned on repurposing it for their trip.

     He also noticed a small black patch of burnt grass a few feet away from the pit.

     The Lucario turned to the two vulpine investigators. “Excuse me, Detective?” he called.

     Emilia unceremoniously dropped the firewood on the ground as he said that, and Kit waited for the noise to stop first. “What’s up?”

     “Would it be unreasonable to assume that most people only make one fire pit when they go camping?”

     “Unless their group is really big. Why?”

     Luka pointed at the ground. “There’s a burn scar here outside of the pit.”

     Kit frowned. It must have been in his blind spot when he walked in; he was usually better at noticing things than this. Nevertheless, he stood up and walked over to the Lucario.

     Emilia peered over as well. “Wow. They’re lucky it stopped there. Grassfires can get out of hand really fast.”

     “Especially when it’s as dry as it has been this year,” Luka added.

     Kit stooped down again to study it. The grass was indeed a bit browner than normal, so the fire could have easily spread very fast. Whoever put it out was quick about it. He peered up a bit more and noticed that, in between the patchy vegetation, were a few spots of dirt. One of which had a small hole bored into it, not more than a few feet away from the firepit itself.

     The Delphox’s eye narrowed. “Loge, you have the map Mr. Stone gave us, right?”

     Loge jogged over with it a moment later. “Right here.”

     “Can you do me a favor and look up where the nearest freshwater source is relative to this clearing? I didn’t hear any running water during the hike so you’re probably looking for a lake.”

     “You got it,” Loge nodded as he started unfolding the map.

     Emilia cocked her head a bit. “The trip was only for one night, right? Wouldn’t you just pack all the water you need ahead of time? It wouldn’t be that much.”

     “Drinking water, maybe,” Kit replied, pointing to the hole. “Take a look at that hole there. How big do you think it is?”

     The Salazzle paced over and gave it a look at. “Probably no more than a half inch wide. It’s relatively deep.”

     “Like our tent stakes?” Loge chimed in as he continued wrestling with the paper.

     “Ah, then this is where they set their tent up,” Luka concluded.

     Kit nodded. “Obviously not very wisely. Having your tent next to your campfire is poetic and all, but have a stray spark fly or a log fall over the wrong way and...”

     “...and my story is on a forest fire instead of just a disappearance string,” Emilia finished.

     In the background, Loge growled and maintained his offensive against the stoically defiant map. “Since we’re talking about fire, I say we turn this thing into tinder once we’re done with it!” he snarled in frustration.

     Kit turned around and pointed at the map. It levitated out of Loge’s hands, neatly unfurled itself, and floated back down.

     The Zoroark stared at it for a moment, then cleared his throat and started scanning it. “It was getting there.”

     “I’m sure,” Kit dryly replied.

     Loge spotted a small lake next to the clearing and did some mental math to figure out the distance. “Found a lake about a half mile east. No major trails leading to it from here though.”

     “Figured,” Kit said as he stood up and put a hand to his forehead. “Mr. Stone seems to have a record of not making intelligent decisions, and I think this might be his least smart one to date.”

     “You mean the tent?” Emilia asked. “Could just be an honest mistake, especially if he’s not gone camping in a while.”

     “Actually, I mean how this fire got extinguished,” the Delphox corrected.

     “You can figure that out just from the burn and where his tent was?” Luka skeptically questioned, an eyebrow raised.

     “The fact the tent was there to begin with tells me that Mr. Stone’s common sense isn’t that common,” Kit stated as he turned towards the Lucario. “Plus let’s not forget that he seems to have told just about everyone in Silver Coast about his case if they so much as asked how his day was going. He clearly doesn’t think his actions through, especially if he’s under emotional distress.”

     “Fair enough I guess,” Loge shrugged as he tried folding the map up. “But how does that tell you how the fire got put out?”

     “You can demonstrate, actually,” Kit responded, motioning towards the Zoroark. “Mind sitting over here?”

     Loge almost mentioned he was busy refolding the map, but then remembered he hated the map, tossed it over a shoulder and sat down where Kit instructed next to the firepit.

     “Next, I need a volunteer to be the tent,” the Delphox stated.

     Emilia’s hand shot up. “Me! I always wanted to be in a play!”

     Kit chuckled a little. “In that case, stand right around where that hole is. Maybe behind it so you don’t destroy it on accident.”

     The Salazzle ran over to assume her starring role.

     “Which makes you the fire, Luka,” Kit said, pointing at the burn scar. “If you’d kindly.”

     Luka seemed a bit puzzled by what the detective was trying to stage, but walked over and took his place regardless.

     “And who or what am I, again?” Loge asked.

     “You’re going to be Mr. Stone,” Kit answered. “And there’s about to be a fire dangerously close to your tent.”

     Emilia shuddered a bit. “Uh oh.”

     “See? She’s already in character,” Kit continued. “Now, fire!”

     Luka raised his hands up and started waving them around. “Fwoosh.”

     “What do you do?” Kit demanded with urgency in his tone.

     Loge immediately started looking around. “Uh, well I stand up first,” he narrated as he got to his feet. “And then...find some water!”

     “Where?” Kit asked.

     “In my canteen,” Loge replied.

     “Out of the question. You use that water for this, and there’s nothing to drink on the hike back.”

     “I beat it out then.”

     “With what? Probably all your stuff’s in the tent. Plus it’ll get beat up if not just burnt.”

     “Detective, my wrists are getting tired,” Luka interrupted.

     “Help,” Emilia nervously squeaked.

     “Bury it with dirt,” Loge attempted again.

     “You’re dumb enough to pitch a tent less than a yard away from your campfire but you know enough about fire safety to bring a shovel?” Kit criticized.

     Loge was beginning to panic. “W-what do I do then? Blow it out??”

     “Better hurry, Emilia’s gonna burn up.”

     “D-do something!” the Salazzle yelled.

     “Yes, please do something,” the Lucario stoically repeated.

     “I...I...” the Zoroark started freezing.

     “Come on, Loge, think fast,” Kit started snapping his fingers. “You didn’t plan for this, you’re panicking, and you have to do something now!”

     “I...” Loge shut his eyes tight in stress.

     “Do something!” the Delphox barked.

     “I STOMP THE FIRE OUT WITH MY FOOT!!” Loge screamed at the top of his voice.

     The clearing went silent for a minute.

     Emilia blinked.

     Luka lowered his wrists and started massaging one of them.

     Loge slowly opened his eyes and peered at his friend. “Wait...he was limping when he came into the office today...”

     Kit knowingly grinned back. “How do you think he got hurt?”

     Luka looked back down at the burn scar. “It is small enough to do that. If he was fast to react...”

     Kit turned to the Lucario with a slight grin. “You asked to see the art of educated guessing, Master.”

     The Lucario nodded in thought. “Not bad, Detective.”

     Emilia raised a hand. “Um, if I can ask, what exactly does this do for your case?”

     The Delphox shrugged. “Right now? Not much.”

     The rest of the quartet blankly stared back at him.

     “...what? It was a strange thing and I wanted to figure it out.”

     “You could have just said what you were thinking, you know,” Loge pointed out.

     “Maybe,” Kit responded as he strode over to the backpacks. “I thought this was more fun though.”

     “And you saved the forest!” Emilia added.

     Loge flinched at the comment. “I-I what?”

     Luka bowed respectfully towards him. “I admit defeat, Not Mr. Stone. You have vanquished me.”

     “Stop taking this so seriously!” Loge barked. “You’re freaking me out!”

     “What does our fearless hero want for his victory feast?” Kit inquired as he rummaged through the group’s groceries.

     “He wants eggy bread!” Emilia hollered, scampering over to help. “Breakfast for dinner.”

     “Seconded,” Luka said as he marched over.

     “Hey hey hey! I’m the guy who saved the forest! Don’t tell me what I want for dinner!” Loge barked as he dashed to his friends.

     “Well, what do you want then?” Kit asked.

     “Uh...actually eggy bread does sound good,” the Zoroark admitted as the sun vanished behind the trees.

Luka set aside the final plate to dry and strode back over to the fire. Emilia tossed another log onto it in a shower of sparks and a flurry of crackles. Night had fully fallen in the forest, and the orange-red glow of the group’s campfire served as their sole source of light. Kit was reviewing some of his notes and Loge was reorganizing some items in his backpack.

     Luka had a seat on the ground and turned to Kit on his right. “I just remembered I never answered your question, Detective.”

     “I don’t recall ever asking you one,” Kit coolly remarked as he continued his reading.

     “On the hike here,” the Lucario reminded. “Why I insisted on coming with you.”

     “I got my answer easily enough,” Kit replied. “You’ve accelerated my investigation by helping me follow precisely in Rocky’s footsteps.”

     “And you made a good wildfire during Kit’s deduction thing!” the Zoroark chimed in.

     “Thank you for not actually stomping on me, by the way,” Luka bowed his head.

     “You bet!” Loge beamed.

     Kit started rubbing the bridge of his nose again. “Like that’s something you have to keep yourself from doing...” he muttered to himself.

     “But even if I haven’t been useful up to now, I’d have insisted on coming regardless,” Luka continued. “I...simply have to make sure you succeed.”

     Kit studied Luka for a moment and then turned back to his notes. “Which is your way of saying you’re worried about Rocky.”

     “Yes. That’s correct.”

     “Not to sound rough or anything,” Loge butted in. “But why you? I get why Mr. Stone would want to get involved, maybe, because Rocky’s his son. But isn’t your relationship with him a bit less...direct?”

     “I don’t see how that changes anything,” Luka calmly responded.

     “I mean, let’s say I vanished one day,” the Zoroark stated, continuing to rifle through his bag. “I wouldn’t expect Leslie to shut down her shop and start chasing leads. That’d be Kit’s job.”

     “Or the police,” the Delphox added.

     “Oh, you’d come looking for me anyways,” Loge grinned. “Don’t pretend you wouldn’t.”

     “I dunno, Loge, policework doesn’t pay as well as my private contracts...”

     The Zoroark snickered. “You’re so mean sometimes.”

     Emilia, who had been content to just listen to the banter up to now, finally spoke up. “If it’s okay, Master Luka, can I make a guess to why you’re so interested in this case?”

     Luka turned back to his left, where the Salazzle was sitting. “If you want.”

     “Where are you from?” she asked.

     “There’s a village near the base of Mt. Whisper off to the east,” Luka said, motioning off towards the treeline. “I studied martial arts as a Riolu full time, and when I grew up and defeated my teacher, I decided to move to Silver Coast and start my school there.”

     Emilia nodded along. “I know of a number of Lucario villages around that area. Given their traditions, I’d have been surprised if you said you were a local.”

     Luka chuckled. “You’re very well-traveled, Miss Emilia.”

     She smiled a little and went on. “From what I understand, Lucario martial arts schools are very traditional. When a Riolu goes to study combat, they spend almost all day and night at the monastery. They don’t see their family much outside of holidays. So when their training finishes, the teacher is often welcomed as an honorary member of their student’s family, to show how grateful they are for watching over their kid for all those years.”

     Luka blinked as Emilia finished her summary and took a small drink of water. “And very well educated to boot, apparently.”

     Emilia shyly smiled again. She liked getting chances to tell stories about places most people have not heard of, never mind seen. “Though, what made you decide on Silver Coast? Most of the time students that graduate go on to become teachers at the monasteries themselves, don’t they?”

     The Lucario nodded. “Most of the time, yes. Students often don’t receive newspapers when they are undergoing training, but the stories that I did read were all about the Swords of Justice.”

     “Like, as in the famous adventuring party?” Loge inquired.

     “That’s them,” Luka replied with esteem. “What I really wanted to do one day was try following in their footsteps. Exploration, mercenary work, it didn’t really matter that much to me. What I did know was that if I stayed at Mt. Whisper, that just wasn’t going to happen.”

     “So what did you do?” Emilia asked. “Did you just run away after you finished your training or?”

     “Oh Arceus no,” the Lucario stated. “But when I explained my intentions to my former master, he gave me a request. If I’m going to strike out on my own, the least I can do is not let our traditions die. He wanted me to continue sharing our power and our knowledge with those that’d come after us. Effectively carrying out what would normally be my job, just somewhere else.”

     “Hence why you opened your school,” Kit deduced.

     Luka nodded again and stared into the campfire. “And also why I have to see this through. My students look up to me to make them stronger, to realize their potential. Don’t I have an obligation to protect them as well?”

     He heaved a sigh.

     “What kind of martial arts master doesn’t fight for the lives he’s been charged with?”

     Loge cocked his head a little bit. “You feel like you’d be dishonoring your tradition or something if you just let us or the police handle it, essentially?”

     The Lucario stayed silent. The campfire snapped and popped as a few sparks flew up and vanished into the night sky above.

     Loge stood up with a grunt and slung his pack over his shoulder. “In that case, then, we’d better get cracking, shouldn’t we?”

     Kit peered over at the Zoroark. “Where are you going?”

     “Well, Rocky’s not gonna come to us, and the sooner we find him, the sooner we can go home and the happier everyone will be, right?” Loge answered as he strode over to the treeline.

     “It’s the middle of the night,” Emilia reminded. “Wouldn’t this be easier in...”

     Loge cupped his hands around his mouth and continued walking into the dark. “Rocky! Here boy! Your dad sent us! Holler back!”

     “Oh, put a lid on it, you dark-loving doofus,” Kit ordered as he stood up. “I’ll come with you.”

     “Are you sure this is a wise plan, Detective?” Luka questioned.

     “Better than him going by himself,” the Delphox replied as he took out his enchanted branch and swiped it against his arm to ignite a flame on the end. “Emilia, do you have a knife or something we can use?”

     “I should, what for?” she answered and disappeared into her sack again.

     “Just want a way to mark our trail so we can double back to you. Do me a favor as well and keep the fire going, it’ll help locate the camp.”

     “We’ll do that,” Luka affirmed. “Stay safe.”

     A survival knife flew through the air spinning towards Kit. The Delphox had barely enough time to stop it midflight and gently levitate it down to his hand. “Watch where you’re throwing things,” Kit scolded the reporter.

     “Sorry!” she sheepishly called back as he chased his friend into the woods.

Loge paused and carved another large X into a tree, and Kit raised his branch-turned-torch to help illuminate. “This would be easier to do in the light you know...” he mentioned with an air of resignation in his voice.

     “Oh come on, we’re seeing fine enough,” Loge retorted as he slipped the knife back into his mane. The large long red mess of fur served as decent storage for things he wanted readily available or wanted to hide from others. “Besides, when was the last time we’ve had some time to just ourselves?”

     “This morning. And just about every day since we met.”

     “...besides that I mean.”

     “Amazingly, if you take away all the times we’ve done something together, it turns out we haven’t ever done anything together.”

     “Exactly!” Loge grinned as he continued his search.

     Kit reluctantly followed with a shake of his head. “You don’t really believe Emilia’s story, right?”

     “What do you mean?” the Zoroark asked over his shoulder.

     “Do you really think Black Forest Hill is haunted?”

     “There a reason it couldn’t?” Loge shrugged. “You’ve met plenty of people that look like ghosts.”

     “‘Ghostlike Thing Lives In Woods’ isn’t a headline.” The Delphox sarcastically wiggled his fingers around for emphasis.

     “No need to undercook it like that,” Loge said as his ears drooped.

     “I’m thinking more like...what, evil spirits? Supernatural phenomena? You know, the stuff that people tell stories over campfires about.”

     “Oh. I see.” The Zoroark spun around, resting the back his head on his interlocked hands and grinning widely. “Mr. Detective wants to know if he can logic his way through this.”

     “Everything has an explanation,” the Delphox blankly stated.

     “Except when it doesn’t,” Loge smirked and turned back around to continue marching. “Like how my toast always lands with the buttered side down when I drop it.”

     “When the toast slides off the plate it only has time for a half rotation before it hits the ground,” Kit quickly explained. “If you were taller or you actually flipped it then it might start landing buttered side up.”

     “Or maybe it’s just what the spirits in charge of our world want to happen,” Loge shot back.

     The Delphox went silent for a second. “What in the world are you on about?”

     “I’m saying, Kit, maybe you’re being a bit narrow. Come on, you’re a psychic of all things! This supernatural stuff should be right up your alley.”

     “Except I know how my telekinesis works and what I can and can’t do with it. It’s just like any other science,” Kit replied, pointing towards the canopy above. “For example, the leaves are rustling and the branches are shaking because it’s windy, not because an evil spirit is trying to spook us.”

     Loge turned around again to look up at where his friend was pointing. Sure enough, the boughs on some of the trees were beginning to shake, disturbing the leaves on them.

     The Zoroark sighed and looked back at Kit. “Alright, fine, maybe there’s...”

     Kit’s eye narrowed. “There’s what?”

     Loge pointed at the flame at the end of Kit’s torch, his hand shaking and his eyes widened.

     Kit peered down at his branch.

     The flame was almost perfectly stable, with no signs of unsteadiness that wind usually brought with it.

     Kit sighed and looked back at Loge. “It’s obviously going to be windier in places where there’s less...”

     A branch snapped behind him.

     Loge jumped and had to stifle a yell.

     Kit looked over his shoulder at the source of the noise, and tried to raise his torch to better look at it.

     All he could see was the forest floor.

     The trees rustled and creaked some more.

     Kit swung his torch around as the noise increased.

     A couple seconds later, it died down.

     The Delphox heaved a sigh and put a hand to his forehead. “I know what you’re about to say, so let me say this early.”

     He turned around. “This place is not...”

     Loge wasn’t there.

     “...haunted.”

     Kit started slowly pacing around the area he was in, waving his torch in whatever shadowy place he could find.

     “Very funny, Loge. You got me. We both know what your game is.”

     Nothing turned up. No sign of the Zoroark.

     “Come on, man. Finding Rocky was your idea after all.”

     Still nothing.

     “...Loge?”

     His ear twitched. It was the wind again.

     No. It was something else. It was faint. A whisper.

     “...starter...”

     Kit started to pick up his pace, trying to find their last mark. “Loge??”

     “...it out...starter...”

     “Where are you??”

     The whispering voices started to pick up. “...put it out...put it out...”

     “LOGE!!!”

     He planted his feet and started whirling around, panicked. He wanted to find a marker. Loge. The source of those voices. Anything that made sense.

     “Put it out...!”

     “WHERE ARE YOU?!?”

     He finally found a marked tree.

     The voices ceased.

     Kit tried to steady his breathing, and he staggered over to the tree.

     An X was carved into it.

     He let out a stifled sigh of relief.

     “Firestarter,” a deep voice grumbled over his shoulder.

     Kit let out a horrified scream and sprinted back towards camp.

Luka sprung up from his seat around the campfire the moment the scream reached his ears. Emilia flinched a bit and looked in the general direction of the noise, and saw a swiftly approaching light similar to the fire’s.

     “What the...” Luka muttered as he squinted and tried to peer towards the fire. In the darkness, he could see the silhouette of a sprinting Delphox, and a moment later he could hear him alternating between panting and frantic yelling.

     “...Detective?”

     “Get out of the way!” Kit yelled as he tried to shove the Lucario aside.

     “Detective, stop!” Luka stood his ground without much effort and blocked Kit’s mad dash by grappling his shoulders. His expression and voice were firm, but the former softened once he examined his traveling companion. Kit weakly stood in front of him, hunched over, out of breath, and uncharacteristically terrified.

     “What happened?” the Lucario asked as he looked around again. “And where’s Loge?”

     “He’s gone...” the Delphox quietly answered. He refused to look at Luka directly.

     “What do you mean, ‘he’s gone?’ You were marking your trail, weren’t you?”

     Kit’s breaths continued unsteadily.

     Luka took Kit’s branch from him and helped the Delphox return to the clearing. He looked like he ran a marathon full tilt. Kit tiredly leaned on Luka as he was escorted back.

     Emilia jogged over as they approached the treeline. “What’s going on?” She got a small glimpse of Kit as the two staggered past her.

     “Miss Emilia, would you kindly get the detective some water and possibly a blanket?” Luka requested. “Something has gone very wrong.”

     “Y-yes, sir!” the Salazzle affirmed as she dashed back towards the tent.

     Luka sat the Delphox down next to the firepit, slowly. Kit blankly stared into the fire, wide eyed, as he hugged his lower legs and took more shaky, hyperventilated breaths.

     Luka shook Kit’s branch to extinguish it, set it down, then sat on his lower legs next to the detective. “Can you hear me?” he softly asked.

     Kit swallowed and nodded slightly, his eyes fixed on the fire.

     Luka shut his eyes and took a slow, long, deep breath. “I’m going to meditate for a moment. You should join me.”

     “I just saw my best friend vanish without a trace into the woods and you want me to start practicing some inner peace hokey pokey nonsense?” Kit snarled.

     “My inner peace hokey pokey nonsense, Detective, I think you’ll find helps clear your head and elucidate your thoughts,” Luka firmly but calmly replied. “Please. Try it at least.”

     Kit took a few more unsteady breaths, but Luka could tell he was trying to pace them.

     A few seconds passed that felt more like hours. Kit did not move. Emilia walked over with a small canteen.

     “...are you okay?” she timidly asked, offering the water to Kit.

     Kit shook his head and took the canteen.

     “Physically, he’s fine,” Luka remarked, slightly opening a glowing eye. “His aura seems normal, and I didn’t see or sense any injuries. He’s just exhausted.”

     “All due respect, Master, he seems a little more than exhausted at the moment,” Emilia sternly corrected, then shook her head. “Sorry, I...I just don’t know what’s happening.”

     “You were right,” Kit quietly said.

     The Salazzle turned to him. “Right about what?”

     “This place is haunted. There’s something out there. That I don’t get. I didn’t listen. And Loge’s gone because of it.”

     Emilia put a blanket over Kit’s back and, for the first time in a while, was unsure of what to say.

     Luka exhaled and opened his eyes fully. “Detective? Please tell us what happened. Maintain your breathing as you do.”

     “I...I...” Kit stammered.

     Emilia sat down and put a hand on his back. “Take your time.”

     “I...” he sniffled a bit. “I...why did I run??”

     Luka blinked and peered at the fire with him. “If I had to guess, something scared you.”

     “That’s not an excuse...”

     “Nobody is immune from fear, Detective.”

     “I don’t get scared like that.”

     Emilia patted the Delphox. “It happens. This can’t have been completely your fault.”

     “It was!” Kit shouted back, angrily glaring at the Salazzle.

     Emilia flinched and took her hand off him.

     Kit took a couple more unsteady breaths and stared back at the campfire. “When I was younger, I lost my left eye in an accident. I kept getting told it wasn’t my fault and there wasn’t anything I could have done. But...the reason I lost it was because I lost control of my telekinesis.”

     Emilia blinked. Luka shut his eyes and resumed his meditations, motioning with his hand to help Kit.

     Kit exhaled. “The doctors couldn’t figure out what caused it exactly, but the reason things got out of hand was...” He paused, visibly trying to find the correct word.

     “If I may, Detective,” the Lucario stepped in. “Was this perhaps around the same time you started taking that medicine you mentioned on the hike here?”

     “Yeah...” Kit whispered. “Yeah, I’ve been on it ever since.”

     Emilia looked up at Luka. “What’s this medicine you’re talking about?”

     “They said I’m...too powerful for my own good,” Kit explained. “Psychics like me tend to have this...limit on how much power they can use before they start hurting themselves. And for some reason I just don’t have that. The only reason I got hurt, according to the doctors, was my telekinesis kicked up so much stuff that I just got hit by a piece of debris.”

     “I...see,” the Salazzle said respectfully. “So since you apparently don’t have a reasonable limit, you were given one.”

     “But it still wasn’t my fault somehow,” Kit solemnly continued. “That’s what they kept saying. But I was clearly at the center of it. Everyone knew it. And it wouldn’t have happened if I wasn’t there. If it wasn’t my fault then whose was it?”

     “Kit...” Emilia patted his back again.

     “That was the first time I felt like I was in a situation out of my control. The first time I was actually scared of something...”

     Luka exhaled again.

     “And I promised myself,” he sniffled. “I promised I wouldn’t let myself get that scared like that ever again. Because every time I do, something bad happens. And if it doesn’t happen to me then it happens to someone around me. And this time...”

     Kit never finished his sentence.

     Emilia shoulder hugged the Delphox.

     Luka continued his meditation.

Loge woke up slowly and groggily, with a ringing headache. He could see a little thanks to his enhanced eyesight but otherwise it was almost impenetrably dark. He put a hand to his head and sat himself up, rubbing his eyes and trying to adjust to the black night. As his vision started to clear up, he noticed two things. First, he was not lying down on the dirt offroad that he and Kit were walking on before he blacked out. He put his other hand down to the ground to stabilize himself and felt the cold dry grass beneath his palm. He had been moved.

     Second, once his eyes readjusted, he noticed that he was in a cage. It took him a second to fully register that, but once the headache calmed down, he walked over and began studying it. It was made out of wood and twine, and very sturdy for something of its design. Loge thought about knocking it over, but when he tried shaking it, he quickly found that the cage was fixed to the ground by what looked like tree roots. He growled for a second and grappled the wooden bars.

     An idea struck Loge after a minute. He readied a fighting stance and formed a claw with his good hand. Loge never liked getting violent with anyone or anything if he could avoid it. But he had to regroup with his friends and explain what happened to him, and this cage of his refused to open any other way. Shadow Claw, in addition to having a name he thoroughly enjoyed saying, also served as a good way to slash through anything he found needed to be slashed through. It was one of his favorite abilities and had not failed him to date.

     Though, this time, the energy was not coming to him. He peered over his shoulder at his hand. Where he expected a number of purple blades of ghostly energy, he instead saw just his hand. And that was it.

     He tried again.

     And again.

     “Come on!” Loge growled at himself. “What’s wrong with you?”

     “If you’re trying to break out, I tried already,” a young voice off to his side chimed in. Loge turned his head and saw another cage, similarly designed, containing a small Rockruff, lying down and curled up with his back to the Zoroark.

     Loge sighed, then walked over to the edge of his cage and sat down, his lower arms resting on his raised knees. “Guessing the same thing happened as well?” he calmly replied.

     “Yeah...” the Rockruff quietly answered with a bit of a whimper.

     There was a small pause.

     “You want me to leave you alone?” Loge asked.

     He could see the kid shake his head and curl up some more. “I just want my dad...”

     “Your dad, eh?” the Zoroark repeated, and then his ears perked. “Ooooh, you must be Mr. Stone’s kid. Rocky, right?” he inquired consolingly.

     Rocky turned his head to finally look at Loge. There was a tear in his topaz-colored eye. “Y-yeah...?”

     Loge smiled back, as confidently and reassuringly as he could in his situation. “I’m actually a friend of your dad’s. He asked me and a few of my friends to help come and find you. You can call me Loge if you want.”

     Rocky turned around and lied back down to face Loge. “Where are they then?” he asked, his voice still steeped in fear.

     “We got a little separated from each other,” Loge admitted with a warm but embarrassed smile. “But don’t worry about that for now. How did you get here?”

     The Rockruff sadly hung his head. “I...I don’t know. I was just following my dad when he went into the woods, and then something grabbed me and started dragging me away and I...”

     “...kinda blacked out?” Loge finished his sentence.

     “I...woke up in here, and there were these...tree monsters moving around and talking about what to do with me and...I’ve been in here since.”

     Loge nodded along with Rocky’s story. “When you say ‘tree monsters,’ what do you mean by that?”

     “They’re...tree monsters. They move around, they have these giant arms and this scary pink eye and...” Rocky started to shake a bit.

     “Okay, bud, okay...you’re alright...” Loge was hardly experienced in helping people calm down, never mind kids, but he thought he was doing okay. “Do you know why they might have done this to you?”

     “No...”

     “That’s fine,” the Zoroark reassured. “We can worry about that later. Right now, we should try getting you back to your dad.”

     “How?” Rocky asked. “Our abilities don’t work in here.”

     “Yeah, and my backpack is gone as well,” Loge added as he went to lie on his back. He felt something hard pressing against the back of his head. He sat back up and looked at the ground, thinking he was resting on a rock. Just more grass instead.

     Loge’s face went bewildered, and then lit up as he reached into his mane.

     “What are you getting?” Rocky quietly asked.

     “They only took my pack from me,” Loge stated as he pulled a sheathed survival knife out of his mane and grinned confidently at the Rockruff. “Not all my stuff was in there.”

     Rocky’s eyes lit up and he jumped to his feet, tail wagging. “You think that’ll work?”

     “Can’t think of why it won’t. I’m gonna do my cage first, okay?” Loge stated as he unsheathed the knife and started sawing at some of the twine with it.

     “Yes sir!” Rocky barked as he sat down and watched the Zoroark get to work.

     A snap of a branch and the creaking of wood came from the cage’s fronts shortly afterward.

     Rocky’s eyes widened. “Oh no.”

     “Is that them?” Loge asked.

     “Y-yeah...” Rocky gulped. “Put the knife away! They’ll catch you!”

     “They’re gonna catch me regardless once they look at the cuts,” Loge retorted as he continued his work.

     The noises became louder and louder as the two could hear footsteps approaching.

     “Hurry!” Rocky quietly encouraged.

     The Zoroark began hacking at the twine now, as powerfully as he could between the cage’s bars. He could see the footsteps begin to take a visible form in the darkness. Rocky’s description was alarmingly accurate. The creature approaching them had a treelike appearance, but it did not in any way behave like a normal tree. It had two arms, three claw-like fingers on each, and its single red eye became brighter and brighter as it approached on an array of spiderlike roots.

     It halted before the cages in a creak of wood and rustle of leaves. “What is this?” it demanded in a loud, deep whisper.

     The twine snapped loose and Loge barged out of his cage, towards the creature.

“And that was the last time you saw Loge?” Luka questioned.

     “Correct,” the Delphox nodded.

     Emilia was fumbling around in her bag again. “I’m confused about something,” she stated from within in between grunts of exertion.

     Kit turned towards the Salazzle’s lower half. “What? Did I say something wrong?”

     “We never felt any wind blowing here,” Luka explained. “It’s been calm all night.”

     Kit stared at the Lucario. “That...that can’t be right, I saw the trees and everything moving up above. The flame on my branch was still, sure, but that must have been the trees blocking it.”

     “You didn’t go that far when you think about it,” Emilia pointed out.

     “We would have felt the same wind you did,” elaborated Luka. “Probably more, since we’re in a clearing.”

     “What else could it have been then?” Kit asked, a bit louder than he meant. “Something had to be moving it, right?”

     His expression seemed to pick up more energy the more he talked. Luka smiled a little as he saw the detective’s strength return.

     “Or someone,” Kit quietly added.

     “You mentioned hearing voices or something similar as well, right?” Emilia asked as she emerged from her sack, heaving her almanac in both arms and waddling towards the campfire.

     “Yeah, they kept saying stuff like ‘put it out’ while I was looking for Loge,” Kit repeated. “Someone called me ‘firestarter’ before I started running back to camp.”

     “Their demands seem clear enough at any rate,” Luka commented. “Whoever lives here, they obviously don’t like fire.”

     Kit put his hands together and rested his chin, his index fingers touching the tip of his nose, then shut his eye and started to think.

     Emilia dropped her almanac on the grass with a thud and began flipping through it as fast as she could.

     Kit’s eye shot open and he pointed forcefully at the burnt grass next to Luka. “How did that get there?”

     Luka looked back the black patch for a moment. “Mr. Stone stomped it out, like you demonstrated.”

     “No, that’s how it was put out. What started it?” Kit clarified.

     “Campfire, of course. Probably an accident,” Emilia suggested.

     “Accidents happen all the time though,” the Delphox stated. “And forest fires happen all the time, usually from lightning strikes. Let’s assume this actually is someone’s doing for now. If this was just an accident and Mr. Stone kept it from getting worse, why would anyone care?”

     Luka’s eyes widened a little. “Are you suggesting Mr. Stone did this on purpose?”

     “Not him. He’s not the one who got taken.”

     Emilia halted and looked up from her work. “Rocky did that??” she asked with a hint of shock.

     Kit coolly nodded and carried on. “It probably wasn’t malicious, if that’s what you’re worried about. Rocky’s young, imaginative and, like a lot of kids, probably still learning what is and isn’t safe to do. I’ll bet you a thousand Poké that he picked up a lit piece of kindling to play with like a wizard or something...”

     “Then he dropped it...” the Lucario continued.

     “And then our skit happened,” Emilia finished.

     “Next day, they pack up, Rocky gets taken, and Mr. Stone arrives at my door the day after to have me – or us, I guess now – look into it,” Kit concluded.

     Luka rested his head against his fist in thought.

     Emilia continued flipping through her almanac. “But how do you know it was Rocky though, Kit?”

     “What do you mean?”

     “I mean, Mr. Stone could have started the fire himself, right?” the Salazzle restated. “And then Rocky could have been abducted to punish him indirectly?”

     “Good question,” the Delphox replied, as he poked at the campfire with his branch. “That was a possibility I considered, but the fact I’m here tells us that couldn’t have happened.”

     Luka blinked. “That...you’re here, Detective?”

     “I believe the people responsible for Rocky’s disappearance are also responsible for Loge’s. Further, I believe their motive extends beyond just wanting to prevent wildfires. If they were that scared of fire, there’s no reason why they would let me carry a torch around off a beaten trail earlier tonight. Or why they would let us have this campfire going for as long as we have.”

     He glanced over at Emilia with a playful grin. “Or why they would ever let a Delphox or a Salazzle, never mind both at once, come anywhere close to this camping spot in the first place, right Emilia?”

     She shuddered and gulped. “N-no...” she stuttered and went back to work.

     Kit turned back to the campfire and continued his deductions. “When I was with Loge, I gave him the knife to mark our trail. He carved markers into the trees we passed along the way with it. Meanwhile, even though I had an open flame for light, I was allowed to leave. Why?”

     The Lucario thought for a moment and sat back up when he found the answer. “You weren’t doing anything harmful with it.”

     “It was an open flame, but it wouldn’t lead to anything as long as I was careful with it. But Loge was probably scarring the trees with how we were making our trail. Suggesting that the people who took him and Rocky...”

     Emilia’s eyes snapped up at Kit and twinkled in the dim light as the duo arrived at the same conclusion.

     “They’re protecting the forest!” the Delphox and Salazzle chorally exclaimed. Emilia started flipping through the pages faster, more purposefully.

     “They took Rocky because, even though it was through negligence and not on purpose, he started a grassfire that could have exploded into acres of burn scar. And Loge was actively harming the forest during our search. Meanwhile, I just got told off as a warning. Put it out, not because we hate fire...”

     “Put it out because it might cause something worse,” Luka finished.

     Kit beamed at the Lucario and rubbed his forehead. “Stupid Zoroark got me all worked up over the place being haunted and it turns out he scared the heck out of me over nothing.”

     Luka smiled consolingly. “You simply needed a moment was all.”

     “I’m sorry for putting myself on you like that, Master,” Kit said politely. “I’m usually better than that.”

     “No apologies required,” Luka bowed. “You already had all the pieces before you. I merely assisted in picking them up.”

     “DETECTIVE!!” Emilia suddenly hollered.

     Kit flinched wildly and glared at the Salazzle.

     “We can hear you just fine, Emilia,” Luka calmly replied.

     “Sorry! Got excited,” she whispered as she scooped up her book and walked over. “But I think I know who took Rocky and Loge.”

     “You can just say that next time,” Kit requested. “Emphasis on ‘say.’”

     The Salazzle nodded and set the book down next to him. “Take a look. My notes line up almost perfectly with what you described.”

     Kit looked over the entry in Emilia Reptila’s Definitive Ultimate Complete Comprehensive Almanac To Pokémon. A hand-drawn sketch of the creature in question took up the upper-right quarter of the page, with the remainder filled almost entirely with statistics, descriptions, notes, interview transcripts and everything else that the author thought to put to paper.

     Including the name, which she wrote in large cursive letters at the top of the page.

     Trevenant.

Magnus uprooted himself from the forest floor and started to return back to The Scar. From what he gathered via the trees’ roots, this newest group did not seem intent on leaving anytime soon, despite the efforts of himself and Hawthorne to scare them off. He did not like it. He suspected they were forming a plot. As to what, he was unsure. Likely they would try looking for the Zoroark and quite possibly that Rockruff the Trevenant duo had taken earlier. They had every intention of releasing them in due time, once they were absolutely certain they posed no further threat to Black Forest. The Rockruff seemed far more...stable than the Zoroark however.

     If the worst were to happen, Magnus figured, he would likely need to use force to drive away these trespassers. And in Black Forest Hill, both him and Hawthorne would have a massive advantage.

     He arrived at The Scar a few moments later, where he saw his comrade keeping watch over their captives. Both of them were asleep, no, knocked out. The Zoroark seemed beat up and in far worse condition than when Hawthorne took him hardly a few hours ago. The Rockruff at least seemed fine, and he continued laying down in his cage, curled up and back turned to his two captors.

     Magnus grumbled as he looked the scene over. “What happened to the black one?” he demanded in a slow rumbling baritone.

     “He broke out of his cage,” Hawthorne detailed. “I was able to defeat him, however. It shall not happen again.”

     “How was that possible?” Magnus glowered. “Did the enchantments on the cage fail?”

     Hawthorne opened a clawlike hand to reveal a knife. “He had this hidden on his person. He cut the door to the cage open with it. I have already repaired it.”

     Magnus nodded. “Good. We will need to more thoroughly check those we bring here.”

     “Agreed,” said the second Trevenant as he stowed the knife again. “What of you? Do the trespassers plan anything?”

     “They may very well be,” Magnus creaked. “And if they are, we may need to confront them before they can invoke any major destruction.”

     “Do you mean to attack them where they are resting?”

     “The group is a Salazzle, Delphox, and Lucario. Two-thirds of this group can easily ignite the forest in open conflict. We must keep them from the trees at all costs.”

     “Even if the forest itself is where our advantage lays?”

     “No. Our advantage is that they still know not of our identities. The only people who have are resting in the cages. If we continue to act stealthily and from distance as we have up to now...”

     Hawthorne nodded. “Of course. We never let them attack in any meaningful way.”

     “Make preparations and proceed towards the clearing. I shall continue monitoring their movements for a time. If they come for the Zoroark, then I shall intercept them and hold them off so you can arrive.”

     “At once,” Hawthorne affirmed.

     “For the forest, Brother,” Magnus bade farewell and ingrained himself once more.

The trio continued through the forest, following the markers Loge left behind. Kit led the way again with his ignited branch, followed by Luka and Emilia. Luka had found the map Loge had been wrestling with before dinner and, as Luka discovered, he left enough of his aura on it for it to provide a faint but still acceptable reference for tracking. Emilia, meanwhile, had a small magenta-colored fireball conjured in her hand that she was using as a light of her own.

     Kit’s eye narrowed as the leaves shuddered overhead. “They probably know we’re here,” he noted. He recalled Emilia’s almanac entry mentioning Trevenants could connect to tree roots like a nervous system, allowing them to do anything from sensing movement to actually manipulating the roots themselves.

     Emilia’s head nervously twitched back and forth. “Are we...going to draw them out or?”

     “Unless Luka has any thoughts on where they would be working out of.”

     Luka shook his head. “Even if I did, it’s unlikely the map would spell it out. As the detective pointed out, they prefer to work quietly.”

     “Unless they’re trying to make a point...” the Delphox grumbled.

     The Lucario looked up from the map. “Are you sure you’re up for this? You were almost out of breath a couple hours...”

     “I have to be,” Kit quietly interrupted. “Rocky and Loge are out there.”

     Luka went silent.

     Emilia spoke back up after a moment. “We’ll get them back.”

     Kit peered over his shoulder. Emilia, forced though it was, tried to smile reassuringly.

     “I’m not the best at fighting, but I have your back regardless,” she encouraged.

     The Lucario nodded. “As do I. Solve this case, Detective.”

     Kit glanced back at his two companions, then turned back towards the trail. “Thank you. I promise I will.”

     Luka passed another X engraved in a tree. “I think that’s the last one Loge made. His trail vanishes a few steps further in. We’re here.”

     Kit halted and knelt down, holding his branch to the forest floor. Some dried pine needles and tinder quickly caught light.

     Emilia scampered over to the Delphox. “What are you doing?” she quietly demanded. “That fire isn’t contained.”

     “As far as they know,” Kit whispered back, and he stood up and waved his branch in a large circle in front of him. A larger ring of fire, about two feet in diameter, drew itself on the ground and encircled the lit flame. Emilia hopped out of the way as it manifested.

     “My flames will keep that fire in check as long as I don’t lose focus,” Kit explained. “All they need to know is that there’s a forest fire starting...”
     Luka put the map away and started meditating. “I’ll look for auras.”

     Emilia looked at the Delphox. “Where should I be?”

     “Kill your light and find somewhere to hide. If they’re detecting us through the tree roots...”

     “Find a boulder, got it!” Emilia blew her flame out, vanished into darkness and scampered away.

     Kit sat down and gazed into the fire. “And now we wait...”

     “I wasn’t aware you could manipulate fire too,” the Lucario noted, remembering to keep his voice down.

     “Pyrokinesis,” Kit replied. “Fire’s just another thing, and telekinesis is all about moving things. It has its uses.”

     Luka nodded and continued looking for aura. “What if they don’t come?” he inquired.

     “I just make it look like a normal fire. Grow the ring, let the fire actual grow with it. They have to respond at...”

     Kit’s ear perked as a branch snapped.

     Luka’s eyes shot open, still glowing yellow from his detection.

     “...some point,” Kit finished.

     The trees shook, almost arching over the fire against the moonless sky.

     There was a rustle of dead pine needles and leaves.

     A creak of wood.

     “Detective! Your right!”

     Kit grabbed his branch and shot a blast of fire at the forest floor. In the amber afterglow, Luka caught sight of a wooden tendril recoiling and sliding away back into the black.

     There was another rustle. “Behind!” Luka called.

     Kit shot a blind blast over his shoulder. Another direct hit on an animated root.

     “Front right, left, back left!”

     Three more shots ignited three more aggressive wooden coils.

     “You don’t scare me anymore, Trevenant!” Kit yelled into the darkness.

     The attacks stopped for a moment. The forest went quiet.

     Kit stoically looked at Luka. “They have to be close.”

     “I’ll try and look deeper,” Luka whispered and redoubled his focus. “Front left.”

     Kit blasted a sixth root away and glared back into the darkness. “We can play this game all night if you want. The longer this goes on, the bigger this fire’s getting!”

     The forest was still, but the Delphox could tell something was watching him. Rather angrily.

     “I can help put it out, but I have conditions. Get out here!”

     The forest fell silent once again. A few moments later, the steady pace of footsteps combined with the creaking of wood began to echo off the trees. Kit looked over his shoulder at the source of the noise, and stood up to face it, the flames to his back.

     Luka’s eyes opened again. “They’re coming to us.”

     “Good,” Kit said, his branch still drawn. “Be ready for a fight.”

     The Lucario solemnly nodded as a pair of Trevenants slowly emerged from the darkness. Kit saw their pink, ghostly eye long before he saw the rest of their form, but once they came into the light of the fire, he was mutedly impressed by how accurate Emilia’s pencil rendition in her almanac was. One stood behind a few feet behind the other, and Kit assumed by the larger size the one in front was the leader.

     “What do you want?” the leader hissed in a slow grumbling voice. “Look at what you do to our forest!”

     “I said I can put it out,” Kit firmly answered. “But I know you have two people in your custody and I demand their release first.”

     “They harmed our land,” the Treveant whispered and pointed at Kit. “And now you have too.”

     “The Rockruff and the Zoroark didn’t know what they were doing. One of them is a kid on the first camping trip of his life and the other came looking for him after you abducted him. And there are no fewer than twelve before them this year alone. I understand you’re protecting your forest and I’m interested in helping, but this is wrong.”

     “We warned you,” the Trevanant growled as he settled into the ground. Kit could hear the roots moving again. “You not only did not listen, but your recklessness has put our entire home at stake.”

     “All you have to do is let our friends go,” Kit offered. “Do that, I kill the fire, and everyone walks away.”

     Luka shut his eyes, took a deep breath, and began to scan for auras again.

     “Please,” Kit reiterated. “You don’t want this to get violent.”

     “It already is,” the Trevenant hissed. “We have scared you away once before, Delphox. And now you will...”

     He was interrupted by the Lucario chuckling.

     Kit glanced over at Luka. His eyes were still shut, but his chuckle quickly escalated into an uproar of laughter.

     Kit looked over at the Trevenant pair.

     He started to snicker a bit as well.

     “What is this?” the lead Trevanant barked. “What have you done?”

     “Nothing, actually,” Kit chortled, his hand covering his mouth. “We really haven’t done anything here.”

     The Trevenant glowered at the Lucario, its pink eye fixated on the martial artist. “What have you done??” he angrily repeated.

     Luka took a deep breath, and opened his shimmering yellow eyes, smiling smugly at the Trevenant. “You’ve already lost this battle.”

     The second Trevenant took a step forward. “Explain yourselves!”

     Kit crossed his arms, tapping the tip of his branch against his shoulder. “Master Luka has a gift for seeing things. Specifically for seeing auras, the life essences of all creatures.”

     The second Trevenant formed a claw with his hand.

     “So think about it. The master saw something with his aura vision that made him laugh. And once he started, I figured out exactly what he saw.”

     “Speak plainly!” the first Trevenant shouted as the roots drew closer to Kit.

     Kit shot the Trevenant a sharp, green one-eyed stare.

     “Auras always show things as they really are.”

     The second Trevenant took a swipe at his colleague. It landed with a resounding smack, like someone took an axe to a tree. The first Trevenant recoiled and put a hand to its side as it tried to recover.

     “Ha...Hawthorne?” the leader gasped.

     “Not really,” the second replied in a familiar sounding voice, before loosing a blast of shadowy black and red energy from himself. The leader grunted in pain as he flew backwards and smacked against a wide-trunked tree. Kit smirked as he watched the other Trevenant perform an unusually acrobatic jump up to a sturdy bough a couple feet above the Delphox.

     “Oh man, you bit on that one hard, didn’t you?” he cockily crowed. His form began to lose its hue and dissolve in a haze of dark purple smoke, slowly revealing a black furred vulpine individual as it did. “Your pal Hawthorne went down in three hits easy! All I had to do was move him, disguise him as the cage me and Rocky broke out of, then just nod and smile the rest of the way!”

     The Trevenant slowly began to right himself with a creak as he shakily pushed himself off the ground.

     Kit looked up at Loge for a second. “Where is Rocky anyways?”

     A muffled voice came out of the Zoroark’s mane. “Mr. Loge? Can I come out now?”

     “Heh, sure,” he snickered. “You were really brave during all of that by the way.”

     The Rockruff’s head popped out of Loge’s bushy red mane and he looked around. His eyes lit up excitedly as he spotted his teacher. “Master Luka!”

     Luka turned and smiled at his pupil. “Are you hurt?”

     “No sir!” Rocky happily barked back.

     “Good,” Luka replied and motioned behind Kit. “Stay behind us for now. It’s not safe just yet.”

     Rocky hopped down from the tree bough and landed relatively softly before dashing behind him and Kit.

     “It’s...not over...!” the Trevenant growled again as he found his bearing.

     “I strongly recommend you stop while you can,” Kit answered. “Your hostages are gone and you’re outnumbered three to one. We can still talk this through.”

     “You burned my forest...assaulted my comrade...and tricked me with fiendish tactics!” the Trevenant grumbled venomously.

     Loge seemed to take offense. “Hey, wait a minute. I’ll take credit for beating up your friend and tricking you, but the fire bit was...”

     Kit opened his mouth to tell Loge to shut up but he was cut off by the sound of the Trevenant ingraining himself and bellowing, “Silence! I am Magnus, keeper of Black Forest! I will protect it at all costs!”

     The roots of the surrounding trees groaned and moaned and cracked and creaked as an uncountable number of them slithered towards the fire and the four Pokémon nearest to it.

Emilia Reptilia had a nose for finding trouble. And if she could not find any, it always seemed to find her instead.

     She did not see that as an inherently bad thing. On the contrary, it was probably one of the major reasons she got into journalism to begin with. However, since her arrival in Silver Coast, she noticed that the second part was getting more and more out of hand. There was her missing coin purse. Then the incident with the painter. Then when she finally got out of the city limits and thought things would begin to balance out, a terrified Kit ran out of the forest instead.

     She quietly grumbled to herself. Emilia never really bothered with plans; she found her day-to-day had too many variables in it to ever try making one. But this time was different.

     She had to get ahead of things again.

     Emilia took a deep breath and pulled together what she knew. Kit was talking with two Trevenants. She was familiar with the root lashing technique she witnessed just earlier.     She also knew that they would need to be connected with the trees in order to use it more. It seemed a disadvantage to not be able to move, but in the middle of a forest, it would be easy to get overwhelmed. Further, while the attack is going on, the Trevenant would know if she tried to navigate the forest floor or use the trees to go somewhere.

     The only conclusion she could draw was that she had to wait. It was hard to see through the fire, but the second Trevenant was just far enough in the shadows to where she could not tell if he was ingrained or not. If he was, then he would be alerted the moment she tried anything.

     Then she saw the leader get attacked by his cohort. There was a flash of violet from behind the flames, then a black and red burst of energy. She recognized who it was immediately.

     And she knew a chance was on its way.

     The Trevenant fell over.

     She immediately leapt off of the boulder and stuck herself on a nearby tree. The Trevenant was in no position to notice her in his state. She saw her opportunity and she did not need anyone to tell her what to do next. That was the last time she would deal with trouble tonight.

     It was time for her to make some of her own.

     She wiped her slightly open mouth with the back of her hand and quickly made sure her poison was ready. The purple liquid glistened off her hand. She smirked a little to herself as she opened her mouth and began to layer the floor of the forest with the substance, taking care not to overdo things and actively harm any of the trees.

     She glanced over at her companions as she wiped her mouth off again. She noticed Loge had rejoined them properly. She started to say hi to him, then quickly stopped herself and leapt over to another tree to continue her work.

“Silence! I am Magnus, keeper of Black Forest! I will protect it at all costs!”

     Kit held his branch defensively as the Trevenant bellowed and prepared to ignite some of the roots clawing towards him and his companions. He was likely the best suited for holding them back, but the truth of the matter is that they were surrounded, and the Delphox could hardly justify burning the forest down in the name of just escaping. He needed a plan, and Magnus would not give him time to make one.

     The multitude of roots surged forward.

     Kit started to conjure a flame wall to meet them.

     A sizzling sound crept across his ears.

     That was not the noise he was expecting. The creaking of wood also ceased somewhat.

     Magnus audibly winced and groaned in pain.

     He peered back up.

     The roots were receding back along the ground. Some of them were smoking.

     Some, he noticed, were doused in a strange purple liquid.

     He smirked again.

     Magnus uprooted himself again and staggered backward. “What now??” he boomed.

     “Magnus, was it?” Kit replied. “I miscounted our ranks. I said it was three-to-one in our favor?”

     With a slap and a soft roar of poisonous fire, a Salazzle landed on all fours in front of the detective. A plume of violet-colored flames coated her underside as she glared menacingly at Magnus.

     “Good read, Miss Reptilia,” Kit commented as she wiped some venom from the corner of her mouth.

     “You can pay me back with an interview?” she suggested eagerly, her tone betraying her pose slightly.

     The Trevenant roared in fury and charged at the trio on the ground.

     “Maybe later!” the Delphox hurriedly shouted back as he dodged out of the way. Luka calmly sidestepped and Emilia rolled to the side just in time for Magnus to stampede past all of them.

     Luka marched forward and assumed a fighting stance as Magnus halted himself near the fire. “You may be our foe but there is no reason to not respect you as a warrior. I am Master Luka, and I shall be your first opponent, Magnus!”

     “Speak not of respect to me!” Magnus hissed. He conjured a pair of sharp javelin-like branches in his hands and flung them in short succession at the Lucario. Luka dashed forward, expertly avoiding the first branch with a well-timed jump, and then snapping the second underfoot as he landed. He pulled back a fist and visualized the boulder at his dojo. Strike at the center swiftly and powerfully. His fist took on a silver sheen as he channeled his strength...

     “Hey, leaf lover!” Loge taunted as he plummeted towards Magnus, three lashes of shadowy energy emanating from his clawed hand. The slash sent the Trevenant reeling backwards as Loge landed, smirking toothily at his foe.

     Luka’s punch connected squarely on Loge’s lower jaw. The Zoroark went flying from the impact and collided heavily with a tree a few feet behind him.

     Loge moaned in pain and shook his head. “What was that for?” he angrily barked.

     “It was your fault for attacking like that to begin with!”  Luka shouted back, then bowed politely to Magnus. “I apologize for my colleague’s dishonorable conduct. He won’t bother us again.”

     “Oh, speak for yourself!” the Zoroark continued to rage. He tried to stand up but quickly sat himself back down and put a hand to his head. “Ow...”

     Luka took a fighting stance again as Magnus righted himself. His expression was intense, but internally his thoughts were reeling. He knew why the Trevenant was not using the forest to help attack; he would have to set himself down first and make himself vulnerable. But this was now two, no three very strong attacks from Loge that he seemed to just shrugged off. He was sturdy. He was reminded of his sparring match in Treasure Town somewhat.

     But this time, he knew what he had to do to defeat his opponent.

     Magnus stood back up and glowered at the Lucario.

     Luka took a slow focused breath, stepped up and threw a jab with his right hand...

     ...and he felt nothing. The punch certainly connected. His fist should have certainly felt something. But his eyes widened in confusion and shock as he watched his arm merely phase through his adversary.

     He could have sworn he saw Magnus smirk as a strong counter punch found its mark right on his abdomen. Luka fell to his knees and then was sent skidding across the forest floor with a slap of wood across his face.

     Luka staggered to his feet and wiped at his cheek, which had gone slightly red from the impact. “What in...”

     “I have watched every person who has entered this forest for the past half century, Master,” Magnus stated as he swung another sharpened branch at the Lucario. Luka blocked it with his forearm and began to turtle up, defending his face.

     Magnus pressed the assault, rushing at the Lucario and forcing his opponent to constantly retreat. “I have done so without ever being detected or noticed. The spirit of the forest flows through me, and you have the temerity to think a mere punch will affect me?”

     Another blow landed, and then another, and another. Luka continued to brace, hoping that he could endure long enough for an opening that might never come...

Kit growled to himself as he watched the fight continue. He would see to Loge later; the Zoroark had taken harder hits from his time doing battle training in school. But Luka was struggling.

     “Emilia, why didn’t that punch land?” he snapped.

     “I’ve seen this before,” she murmured to herself. “It’s a characteristic of many ghostlike Pokémon I’ve written about. I’ve heard about it being used for invisibility or possession, but most often they like to use it for incorporeality...”

     “So...what, we can’t touch him?” the Delphox replied.

     “No, no, we can...!” Emilia clarified in a stammer. “But we need, I don’t know...something...”

     Her eyes sparkled. “Aspected.”

     “Aspected meaning...?”

     “Energized. Like, elemental. Something that doesn’t care about the contact to immediately do damage. Like your fire tricks! Or a psychic attack!”

     “Or Loge’s energy blasts?”

     “Exactly! Which is why his Shadow Claws hit but Luka’s jabs didn’t!”

     “Got it. So what do we have? Luka’s not going to last long. We need to end it in one go...”

     Kit looked over his shoulder at the pillar of mystic fire behind him.

     Emilia glanced over at it as well.

     The Delphox grabbed his branch and began an incantation. “Want to help?”

     The Salazzle grabbed some of the purple-pink flames licking at her belly and formed them into a ball. “Love to,” she said with a grin.

     Kit continued his work and idly looked around. “...Emilia?”

     She looked up as she began adding her flames to the pyre.

     “Where’s Rocky?”

Luka grunted and rose back up to a knee, out of breath and badly beaten up. His arms had numerous cuts and bruises, and his face was not much better. The harsh blows to his stomach had took the wind out of him as well. He was not even sure he could talk. He glared at Magnus defiantly as the Trevenant marched closer and closer to him.

     He glanced off to his side towards Kit’s fire, and saw him and Emilia working on...something. Between a swollen eye and the low light, it was very hard to make out their intentions.

     “Well, Master?” Magnus demanded. “Are you finished?”

     Luka took a few unsteady breaths, and then bowed his head in resignation.

     “You still have your crimes to answer for,” Magnus creaked as he turned toward the fire. “Now, for...”

     He never finished that sentence, as a sharp bite stung his arm. Magnus howled in pain and flung his arm in front of him, sending a Rockruff skidding to a stop but still on his feet.

     “Leave Master Luka alone!” Rocky barked, growling intensely with his teeth bared.

     Luka glanced over at his student with a small sense of shock. He wanted to yell at him to run, but he scarcely had the strength to breathe.

     Magnus just stared at the Rockruff. “What do you precisely intend to do, little firestarter?”

     Rocky went quiet. His gaze turned towards the ground.

     Magnus conjured another spear in his hand. “I thought so.”

     “You’re scared, aren’t you?”

     The Trevenant halted.

     “Master Luka said that during one of his lessons. We’re all scared of something. You take people like me who hurt your home. You’re scared we’ll only make things worse. And maybe you’re right some of time.”

     Rocky glared up at his former captor. “But that doesn’t make it okay! You’re just another bully for doing this! And you’re using fear as an excuse to not think about how what you’re doing is wrong!”

     “Silence!” yelled the Trevenant as he launched a spear towards the Rockruff. Rocky shut his eyes and braced for the impact.

     The spear clattered to the ground instead. Rocky opened his eyes and saw Emilia crouched in front of him on all fours. In the faint purple glow emanated by her flames he saw the sharp branch sliced in two on the ground, a smear of violet poison on either half. Luka released a sigh of relief as he saw the Salazzle’s outline in the scant light.

     She spun around on all fours and her tail flicked a poison towards where Magnus was standing. The green liquid splashed onto the ground and formed a thick, muddy mixture that sizzled beneath him.

     Magnus peered down as he saw the effects and felt his roots grow heavy. “You seek to bind me,” he creaked. “I do not need to move to defeat you.”

     Emilia’s amethyst-colored eyes glimmered in the dark. “I know that.”

     Luka glanced behind her. The fire Kit started and was still burning behind her had been changing hue ever since he resigned his bout with Magnus. It had shifted from a bright orange and red to a rich magenta hue, with red and purple spouts shooting off from it. He also noticed it...moving. Forming itself into a tall pillar, and then bending over towards the ground. And towards the detective.

     Emilia dropped fully to the ground and put a hand on the back of Rocky’s head, shoving him down with her.

     Magnus finally freed one of his roots and glanced back towards the intensifying gout of fire.

     In the light of the blaze, he could see the Delphox bending the flame with his hands and his branch.

     His eye went wide and he tried to free the other roots.

     Kit flipped his branch onto his shoulder and gripped the top of it with both hands.

     The fire manifested itself into a large blazing orb on the end of the branch.

     Magnus heaved another root free.

     Kit fired.

Kit let out a deep breath of relief as the blast subsided. The pyrokinetics used to focus the blast squarely on Magnus without singeing anything else, coupled with the attack itself, took up quite a bit of Kit’s mental energy. He did not feel tired necessarily, but he did feel like he just finished a stressful day of work without a break.

     He kept his branch drawn and waited for the smoke to clear. The fire he had set to lure Magnus out had been used up on that attack alone, so he had only his dark vision to work with. Nevertheless he could still make out Loge, who had staggered to his feet a minute ago but was still recovering from Luka’s massive right hook, along with Emilia and Rocky, who were still in duck and cover mode.

     He began to stride over to them. “Emilia, Rocky! You two alright?”

     Emilia refused to move, her hands plastered to the back of her head. “Th-th-th-that was really close,” she stammered.

     “I-I-I think I’m okay,” Rocky stiffly answered as he slowly turned towards Kit. “That was a...really big bang, Mr. Delphox.”

     “Sorry about that,” Kit apologized. “But I saw your outline along with Emilia’s when I was aiming. I could have easily bended the fire around you if I thought you were too close.”

     “Y-yes sir...” Rocky said as he slowly stood up, shook himself off, and ran over to Luka. “Master Luka?”

     The Lucario groaned, but still smiled reassuringly at his student. “I’m okay,” he grunted softly. “Just need to catch my breath.”

     “How can I help?” Rocky immediately asked. “Mr. Delphox! Do you have any first aid stuff?”

     Kit nodded as the Zoroark finished swerving over to his side. “We have some berry gels we were saving for tomorrow. Loge, you’re fast, can you grab those and the first aid kit? Maybe some water as well?”

     “And how are you doing, Loge? Oh, decent. I just escaped from a mystical jail cell and got punched in the face at full strength by a martial arts teacher, but I’m doing fantastic beyond that.”

     “I’m sorry, you seemed to be fine,” the Delphox laughed a bit. “I’ll get you a drink once we’re back in town if you want.”

     Loge grinned back appreciatively. “Done!” he called back as he started backtracking towards the campground. “Good job, Mr. Detective!”

     Emilia stood up and began dusting herself off. She was about to walk over and check on Luka when the creak of wood began to echo off of the trees. She immediately froze and started to look around. Right at the center of the blast, she could make out Magnus trying to push himself off of the ground. The Trevenant had a number of burns across his body and was clearly not going to fight anymore.

     She also noticed him trying to ingrain back into the forest floor. She immediately pointed and raised the alarm. “Kit, he’s going to...!”

     “No he’s not,” Kit calmly replied as he strode past her. He stopped in front of Magnus and looked down at him.

     Magnus gazed back at the detective, though this time it felt much less wrathful. “You have beaten me...,” he slowly spoke. “You may leave whenever you wish.”

     “You’re not going to try attacking again?” Kit said, motioning towards Magnus’ roots with the branch’s flame.

     Magnus shook his head. “Merely regaining my strength. You have my word.”

     Kit nodded back quietly and pensively.

     “...why are you bothering with me?” Magnus grumbled back. “Take your companions and leave. I will not interfere further.”

     “I still have questions,” Kit coolly replied.

     The Trevenant grunted. “Like what?”

     “What happened here?”

     Magnus went quiet again.

     “Kidnapping people is a very drastic measure for people who harm the forest you call home,” the Delphox explained. “Definitely not a reasonable first reaction. Why would you go through all of this the way you did?”

     Magnus lay still and looked away from the detective. “Why do you care?”

     “Because I’m a detective, Magnus. It’s my job to learn why things happen the way they do. And everything has an explanation.”

     The forest went still and silent for another moment, until Magnus creaked again with a nod.

     “Let me finish healing,” he replied. “And you will have your explanation. Detective.”

Magnus led his quintet of visitors through the blackness of the forest, a route that would have certainly gotten anyone besides him lost if they tried to follow it by themselves. Kit still had his branch out for light, though he noticed the deep dark blue of the sky was slowly starting to give way to a lighter shade. Luka, with the help of some berry extracts and generous bandaging, was back on his feet and following Kit closely, with his Rockruff devotee at his side. Behind them were Emilia and Loge, the latter of whom was presently asking the former if all of his teeth were still in his mouth.

     The Delphox peered down as he felt the ground beneath him start to shift in texture. He lowered his branch and muttered to himself as the flame illuminated a blackened section of the ground, one that was getting blacker and blacker as the group continued onwards. He noticed a large amount of charring on the surrounding trees, which also got worse the further they went.

     Rocky noticed as well, and started to step around the burned areas wherever he could. “Master?” he quietly asked.

     Luka nodded back at his protégé. “This must have been a huge fire...”

     “It was,” Magnus explained. “Eight months ago. This place was a sanctuary. My comrades and I have been watching over Black Forest, hill and all, for as long as I can remember.”

     There was a small silence.

     “So how old are you, exactly?” Loge piped up.

     “Loge!” Kit hissed.

     “It’s a good question!”

     “It is, black one,” the Trevenant calmly replied. “I myself am seventy-five years old. Our elder was more than a hundred fifty when they passed on.”

     Emilia quickly took a mental note and asked another question. “What happened, if you don’t mind my asking?”

     Magnus paused for a moment to make sure they were going the right way, then turned left slightly and continued onward. “A group of campers came to visit Black Forest. We did not think much of them. Not at first. We normally never do. However, as their stay went on, we watched them disrespect the forest more and more. They cut healthy trees for wood. Left contaminants in the lake. All minor infractions of course. As custodians, we were used to not intervening until they left.”

     The surroundings started to shift color again, this time from the burnt black to an eerie snowlike shade of white.

     “And then, one evening, as they were preparing a meal, a piece of equipment fell on their fire, scattering the burning logs. They had water with them, along with plenty of tools to at least mitigate the damage. They decided to flee. And the fire spread, leaving myself and my comrades to put it out.”

     The Trevenant stepped into another clearing. Whereas the one Kit and his friends had pitched their tent on was still rather vibrant, even during the unusually dry weather, this one was the exact opposite. The ground was a coarse mixture of white ashes and charred black grass and wood. The trees arced over the area, barren and dead. Whatever may have been inviting about this place had long since vanished, burnt away by an inferno that the denizens of Silver Coast would only remember in a newspaper.

     “Shoot,” Loge muttered to himself as he reluctantly stepped into the clearing.

     “This is awful,” Rocky quietly muttered, his tail between his legs.

     Emilia jumped as a branch collapsed and a second Trevenant emerged from the woods. His gaze fixed itself on Loge as he approached the group. “You again,” he grumbled.

     “Ah, Hawthorne,” Magnus greeted. “These are our guests tonight.”

     Loge gulped. “I...uh...sorry I kinda...beat you up there.”

     “You are forgiven,” Hawthorne spoke. “You are quite powerful, black one.”

     The Zoroark blinked. “...thanks?”

     Rocky started looking around curiously, and spotted a pair of wooden cages further into the clearing. “Wait. This is where me and Mr. Loge were earlier!”

     Magnus solemnly turned to the Rockruff. “You are correct, little one.”

     “Why here, Magnus?” Kit politely inquired. “This place has to be a pretty sore spot for you, so...why here?”

     “Detective?” Luka chimed in. “There is something wrong with the aura of this place.”

     “Wrong how?” Emilia asked.

     “It’s...it’s almost like it’s missing. I can’t detect anything from it or in it. Not even us.”

     “I am not surprised,” said Magnus. “When the fire was finally contained and the last embers vanished, my brothers and sisters came back here. Where it started. The blaze was so hot and so powerful that we thought nothing short of a miracle would bring this place life again.”

     “Many of us saw this as a failure on our end as keepers of the forest,” Hawthorne added. “Unwilling to bear constant witness to evidence of that, many of us left for other places to call home. Except for us.”

     Magnus turned to Rocky. “Since then, we had no choice but to ensure this would not happen again. Even if it might have just been an accident, we refused to let anyone else hurt our home. Zero tolerance, we decided, was the only way forward. We thought, perhaps, if they saw what could happen, it would serve as a lesson in of itself.”

     He ingrained himself to make himself look less scary to the Rockruff. “We do not expect your forgiveness, little one. We had every intention of releasing you once we were certain you meant no further harm. But at least, please understand.”

     Rocky sat down and looked at the ashen ground quietly.

     Luka strode over, stooped down, and gently patted his student.

     Kit rested his chin in his hand.

     “We know why we were wrong to do this,” Magnus continued. “And we will atone however we can. But we have one request, Detective.”

     The Delphox peered up. “What’s that?”

     “Please,” Hawthorne pleaded. “Do not take us from here. We must protect this place.”

     Emilia started pacing around the clearing.

     Loge walked over to the cage. “Well, we can’t do nothing. If you guys carry on like you’ve been carrying on then this case is just going to spiral more out of control. More unruly people are going to show up and something like this could happen again.”

     He shuddered a bit as he felt two ghostly stares fixate on him.

     “That isn’t a threat,” Kit swiftly clarified. “Like it or not, this place has a reputation for being haunted. People tend to like to visit places like this for bragging rights if nothing else. Sooner or later you will have a group come by who’s just as careless as the one that caused this.”

     “What do you propose?” Magnus questioned.

     “One way or another, we have to take the wind out of those sails,” Kit put forth. “And probably the easiest way to do that is to have you go out into the public.”

     Emilia halted, set her oversized pack down and started frantically digging through it.

     “That would make things worse, would it not?” Hawthorne inquired. “What if someone decides to retaliate?”

     Magnus nodded. “It is not unreasonable to assume that someone may come to destroy us outright if they learn who we are and what we have done.”

     “Not necessarily!” Emilia declared as she scampered back with a notepad and pen. “I know just the solution for this, but I also have a condition.”

     The Trevenant pair glanced at the Salazzle as she spun the pen in one hand flipped to a fresh page with the other. She looked up at them, slyly but enthusiastically.

     “Can I bother you two for an interview?”

“Good morning, sir.”

     “Ah, Kit! It’s been a few days.”

     “Sorry, sir. I...got a little bogged down with work.”

     “And yet you still found time to come here, which I think is praiseworthy.”

     “Thanks...”

     “...that said you sound like you’ve gone through the wringer. You’re not spreading yourself too thin, are you?”

     “No, no. Or...I’m working on it.”

     “We’ve talked about this. Arceus teaches selflessness and devotion but if you give everyone a coin from your purse...”

     “...there will be none for you to eat with. Book five, chapter two. I know.”

     “Good. Then what’s on your mind today?”

     “...I had a case I solved earlier this morning.”

     “Congratulations.”

     “Thank you. But...I felt like it was more of a loss in the end.”

     “Can you tell me about it?”

     “...a kid went missing in Black Forest and his dad hired me to find him. There was a Trevenant conclave living there that were kidnapping people that harmed the forest.”

     “Hmm...did you ever find out what for?”

     “Apparently this fire erupted a while ago that turned some of the area to ash. The blaze was so large that it pretty much sucked the life out of the area itself. And since they didn’t want it to happen again...”

     “I see. And you felt bad for them?”

     “Yeah, but...at one point they tried to scare me away from the case. And...it almost worked. That was the first time since...well, I first lost control I think, that I got scared that bad.”

     “If the situation is as I’m envisioning now, I would imagine that your reaction would have been similar to many others’. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that.”

     “I...just felt awful for that. And then I had to sit with everyone for some time afterward just being...there.”

     “We all get scared, Kit. This Trevenant circle was clearly afraid of others hurting their home. Even I still get scared of being high up on buildings.”

     “Those fears are reasonable though, right?”

     “I never said that they had to be. What are you afraid of, Kit?”

     “...”

     “...”

     “...I’m afraid of myself.”

     “...how so?”

     “Ever since the accident I’ve been taking medicine to make sure it didn’t happen again. I’m not scared of the medicine. It’s just doing its job, right?”

     “As you’ve described it before now, I assume so.”

     “...I’m afraid of what happens if I forget to take it. Or if something just happens one day or the medicine stops working. A mistake is going to happen, and...I’m scared of what comes after that.”

     “I see...”

     “...I don’t have a job where I can afford to be like this. I might not be a police officer or a firefighter or something like that, but...my job puts me in places most people don’t want to go. It forces me to be brave. But if you were watching a play knowing that the hero could at any point just make the situation worse for reasons he can’t control, then...is he really a hero?”

     “Just because the people watching the play know that doesn’t mean the characters on stage do.”

     “At some point they will.”

     “And if that happens then I have confidence you’ll handle it in turn. For now, all they care about is you making their lives better. They don’t need to know that you’re afraid of something that may or may not be in your control. Because, at that moment, you are too busy being that hero to them.”

     “...I don’t want another one of my episodes to happen again. Especially with people I care about around.”

     “Why do you talk of your abilities like they’re something you have to contain at all costs, Kit?”

     “You know what happens if I don’t.”

     “That sounds like someone who’s afraid of them.”

     “Hence my reply.”

     “May I offer a suggestion then?”

     “If you want.”

     “I think the fastest way for you to conquer this fear of yours may be to better learn about and harness these abilities you’ve decided to suppress.”

     “...”

     “You say you’re afraid of yourself, and given your circumstances I don’t think your fear is ill founded. But relying on an external source to keep it in check will at some point fail, for any number of reasons, as you pointed out. So, if that is not the solution, maybe instead of keeping this beast locked up in a cage, you tame it instead. Slowly learn about it. Come to know it better. And eventually, you won’t need a cage to hold it back, because you will be at one with it. And far more powerful with it at your side.”

     “...guess it’s a thought.”

     “One I personally think is worth following up on. At least for curiosity’s sake.”

     “...alright. Thank you, sir.”

     “I’m happy to help. Though, that said, this will be a long journey. And I think you would do well with a coach of some sort, at least to start with.”

     “Of course.”

     “I can give you a recommendation if you like. But if you know someone who is aware of your powers and your current situation, and possibly has some background in meditation, mental fortification, and the like...”

     “...actually, sir. I think I do.”

Emilia Reptilia readjusted her grip on the sofa and grunted as she tried to shove it through the front door of her new home. “Thanks again for...mmmph...letting me stay here.”

     “Least I can do,” Loge strained as he shuffled the couch into his living room from the other end. “This whole remodeling thing would have taken a lot more than a couple days without you.”

     The fourth and final piece of furniture slid through the door and the new roommates set it down in the expansive living room next to the new coffee table. Both of them heaved a sigh and collapsed onto the cushions as soon as it was in place. It had been three days since Emilia arrived in Silver Coast, and when she first stepped off at the harbor, she was ready to check into a long term inn room or at least sign a fast lease for an apartment. That was, of course, until she lost her coin purse and would be waiting a while to get some actual money again.

     Fortunately, not only was Loge’s house very large for just one Zoroark to be living in (she still had no idea how he could possibly afford his current lifestyle), and not only was he willing to let her stay in one of the spare bedrooms, but the article she had sent for editing yesterday had just gone into the day’s edition of the Silver Coast Gazette. It was not on the front page, which took some of the flavor out of her breakfast that morning, but she was otherwise very pleased with how she detailed the root of the Black Forest haunting.

     Of course, Kit and the Silver Coast police department helped. Between her article and the Trevenants’ new public face as the Silver Coast Forest Service, there was no shortage of positive press and optics. After they issued the rest of apologies to the former abductees and served whatever the other pieces of their sentence were, Emilia felt confident that Magnus and Hawthorne’s new arrangement would eventually become a mutually beneficial one for both them and any prospective campers.

     Loge let his breath out and put his feet up on the table. “Whew...that’s the end of it.”

     “Thank Necrozma...” Emilia panted. “Can we not do that again?”

     “Yeah...let’s go bowling next time.”

     “Or food. Food sounds lovely.”

     “How about right now?”

     “In my face.”

     “Grilled cheese?”

     “Perfect,” said the Salazzle as she practically melted into the sofa.

     Loge stood up and shuffled into the kitchen. “We want to invite Kit or Luka over? We never really celebrated.”

     “I think Luka’s holding classes today,” Emilia replied. “And I’m not sure where Kit is. I stopped by his office earlier today and...”

     “Did the sign say he was closed?”

     “Yeah.”

     “He likes to give himself a day off after he closes cases sometimes. Just bang on his door a bit next time.”

     Emilia tongue flipped in and out of her mouth. “Isn’t that a little...intrusive?”

     “Not when I do it!” Loge promptly replied as he started slicing an apple.

     The Salazzle nodded, then hopped out of the sofa and strode into the cooking area herself. “How can I help out?”

     “No need to, honestly,” Loge grinned politely. “I make these all the time and it’s super fast already so...”

     “I’m not a house guest anymore, Loge,” Emilia cut in with a sly smile of her own. “I’m your roommate. And that means if you’re working, so should I.”

     The Zoroark blinked back for a moment, and then chuckled a bit. “Alright then, I’ll get the stove ready. Finish slicing these and we’ll use them on the sandwiches.”

     Emilia stepped in and picked up a knife. “You mean as a side, right?”

     “Nope. On.”

     Emilia’s eyes narrowed in his direction. “...ew?”

     “Don’t ‘ew’ the apple grilled cheese until you’ve tried it!” Loge retorted as he lit the stove and started gathering the rest of the ingredients. “It sounds bad, maybe, but the apple’s sweetness goes really well with the cheddar and gouda we’re using.”

     “Really?” Emilia asked, a hair more sarcastically than she intended.

     “Yeah! Turns out two things you wouldn’t really expect to be used together sometimes make for a good pairing.”

     “Kinda like you and Kit?”

     “Heh, sorta.”

     “You are pretty cheesy come to think of it.”

     “Heeeeeeey...”

     Emilia giggled to herself and got to work slicing.

The orange belt class of The Silver Coast School of Iron Fist was nearly done for the day, and Luka’s students quickly took their places in the main hall for his traditional closing lecture. Luka bowed to his students as soon as the murmurs settled down. “Thank you for your hard work today, as always.”

     “Thank you, Master!” the class cheered back at him.

     “Normally, I’d use these last few minutes here to give you some food for thought or a practice regimen, but today I have some unfinished business that needs attending to.” He smiled and paced over to a small table, where a bright orange cloth belt was resting.

     “Rocky, would you please come onto stage?”

     The Rockruff stood up from the front row and walked up the stairs, stopping next to his teacher onstage.

     “I’m aware that your orange belt was honorary today, so I think we should fix that properly. What do you think, class?”

     The main hall clapped and cheered as Luka secured the belt around Rocky’s neck. Rocky beamed at Luka as he did.

     Luka smiled back, proudly. “After what you did in the forest, I think you deserve this more than anybody,” he quietly said, his voice masked by the applause.

     Rocky bowed his head, his tail wagging at a blurred pace. “Thank you, Master!”

     Luka nodded appreciatively and glanced at the dimly lit back wall. He could see Mr. Stone almost howling with cheers as he watched his son march off the stage with his new rank. The master suppressed an amused laugh as he stood back up. “And with that out of the way, I will see you on Wednesday. Fight on!”

     He clapped his hands authoritatively, the sound echoing throughout the hall, and the class was dismissed.

Luka’s final class for the day finished just before suppertime and he was in the middle of maintaining the school. It was not anything intensive – merely sweeping and mopping and general tidying up. Afterwards, he would retreat to his sanctum for some chai tea and dinner, then prepare his next set of lessons for his classes. Again, routine, but he enjoyed it regardless. He left the front door open to admire the sun as it sank past the ocean and below the horizon, setting the sky alight with purple, red and orange hues.

     He finished adjusting one of the pictures set on the main hall’s walls when a courteous knock came from the doorway. The Lucario turned and saw the outline of a Delphox standing in front of the setting sun.

     “Am I interrupting something?” Kit asked as he leaned in and looked around the main hall curiously.

     “Not at all,” Luka replied with a welcoming smile. “Just cleaning up for the day. What can I do for you, Detective?”

     “I...” Kit started to say, then halted himself.

     Luka’s head cocked to the side. “Everything alright? You’re usually more lucid with your sentences.”

     “...I was hoping I could talk to you privately for a minute.”

     “By all means. Come in. Shut the door if you like.”

     “Thank you, Master.” Kit stepped inside, brushed his feet off on the doormat and shut the door behind him.

     Luka stepped down from the small stool he was standing on and sat down on it. “So, what would you like to talk about?”

     The Lucario’s face went perplexed as Kit walked over to Luka, sat on his feet, and bowed slightly in front of him.

     “I want to build that dam. And I’d appreciate your help in doing so.”

     Luka blinked back for a minute before responding. “What made you change your mind?”

     “I...chatted with a few people, and saw that I need to do more than just take a pill each day and hope for the best,” Kit explained. “My powers are limited. And I’ve been told by everyone that I have to keep them like that for my well-being and everyone else’s.”

     Luka nodded stoically and let Kit continue.

     “But I don’t think that’s the right call long term. The only way I’m going to improve as a person is if I come to terms with who I am and what I am capable of doing. And I’m not going to find that in some medicine I can’t even name the ingredients of. The only way I’m going to get better and not constantly feel like I have something to hide from everyone is if I take charge of myself.”

     Kit looked back up, his emerald eye glaring with determination at Luka.

     “Everyone calls it my telekinesis for a reason. I own my power, not the other way around. It’s time I asserted that for myself.”

     Luka stared back at him, pensively but straight-facedly.

     Kit refused to blink.

     Luka shut his eyes and bowed his head back. “I regret to inform you that I don’t typically do private lessons except for my black-belt students.”

     Kit heaved a sigh and shook his head. “I understand, and it’s illogical for you to rearrange your entire schedule for...”

     “I said private lessons, Detective,” Luka interrupted.

     Kit’s gaze snapped back up to the Lucario.

     “I never said you could not join one of my classes in progress,” Luka clarified. “As you’re a special case, and unofficial friend of the school, I’ll let you enroll for free. I feel like watching your growth will be payment enough.”

     “Master, I...”

     “But you will not get special treatment just from our acquaintance,” the Lucario continued. “If you truly want to see change, and you truly seek my mentorship in realizing your inner potential, then you start at the beginning. I know you’re aware of your powers, and I know I’ve seen them in action. But one does not build a house without first building a foundation. Am I understood?”

     Kit nodded back with determination. “Yes, Master.”

     Luka chuckled a bit. “You only need to call me that within these walls. Don’t conflate our professional relationship with our personal one. I will keep the two separate and so shall you. Is that acceptable?”

     “Of course.”

     “Good. Then your first lesson begins at nine tomorrow. I don’t expect you to be late.”

     “I won’t be.”

     Luka smiled again and bowed towards his newest pupil.

     “Then let’s build you this dam. Detective.”