Chapter 36 - The Vice Opens

The Expedition Society's halls were especially quiet that night. Most of my peers wasted no time retiring to their rooms following what was one of the quickest, least lively dinners we'd ever had. I could hardly blame anyone, of course; the stress of going to Showdown Mountain in response to a direct threat, the strain of trekking through the mud, the fear of legal consequences—it was almost too much for me to stay awake a single second longer.

Almost. By the late hours of the night, when the full moon had risen well above the horizon and dominated the night sky, resolve alone was what kept me awake. And the occasional nudge from Leah when my head started to droop too far.

Whoever had installed cushioned benches outside the eating room had my eternal gratitude. And, perhaps for the best, they had not placed a clock nearby to stare at as the endless minutes dragged by. Entire hours had come and gone since Mawile and Jirachi had begun interrogating Krokorok in there. I was certain I'd dozed more than once, courtesy of Leah falling asleep herself and therefore failing to keep me wide awake.

Still, if not for the occasional distant whimper from Krokorok or grunt from Mawile to give the otherwise-silent headquarters some life, it would come down to small talk with Espurr that kept me from passing out entirely. The crowded bench forced us all to practically squeeze together to fit, though the fact that nobody seemed to mind provided a sense of belonging that I'd never quite taken for granted.

A soft, feminine voice crept into my mind.

I'm assuming this Krokorok character isn't the worst thing you've faced on your adventures?

I gave Espurr an incredulous look. I almost wanted to laugh, knowing the answer before she was even done with her sentence. Instead, however, I laid back and took a bit of time to consider just how much Leah and I'd been through. Eventually I'd shake my head while letting out a muted chuckle.

No, definitely not. You wouldn't believe some of the stuff that's happened to Leah and I, we've been through some of the most crazy—

Hey now. Espurr looked back at me and tried to power her smile straight through the yawn that took over her face. A paw landed tenderly on my arm and held there. Tell me all about it sometime when we're not fighting to stay awake, hm?

I leaned back against the wall, partway against her. I smiled at how soft she was—much softer than the wall or the bench, or even Leah. The desire to fall asleep crept closer. Yeah, that's a good idea. I'll do that.

I failed to hold in a yawn of my own. A general rule of adventuring—at the very least, a rule I'd come up with for myself—was to make the most of downtime. Even Mawile's firm order to remain on standby and awake couldn't keep me from feeling this way. I was with my best friends in the entire world, and all of us were happy and together and…

Not dead. A stupid, lethargic smile crossed my face. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back even further into the wall and further into Espurr's side.

It would be well past midnight when Mawile finally poked her head out from the dining room. I was caught halfway between reality and slumber when she did—a slumber dispatched for all three of us with her sharp voice. "Team Prism. I think we've got what we need."

After stretching our limbs, Espurr and Leah hopped off the bench and headed into the room after Mawile. I followed close behind.

The first thing I noticed was that there were no lights on. Even in the hallway, we'd lit a torch nearby to give us something to see with. Here, there was not so much as a lamp. It hardly mattered, though, because the second thing I noticed was how ridiculously bright the unobstructed moon was shining through the window.

The amount of light pouring in illuminated the exhaustion written on everyone's faces. Mawile might have looked as awake as ever, but the red tint in her eyes deceived the truth. Jirachi was in the middle of a yawn when I walked in, and I shuddered to think what would happen if he fell asleep around so many people. Krokorok looked tired for a handful of reasons.

"Did you torture him?" Leah said with a half-glance in Krokorok's direction. She regarded him as one might view a strange-looking artifact in a museum, not that he noticed. He didn't even seem to notice she'd spoken at all.

Jirachi fought back a laugh. "No, Leah, of course not. The worst thing we did was scare him senseless."

Mawile nodded slowly. She was wearing her glasses again, which always seemed to accentuate the frown underneath. This time was no exception. "Krokorok was very cooperative… most of the time, at least." She walked over next to him and picked up her notebook. I couldn't see what was written from where I was standing, but I could see that the page it was open to had been totally filled. "…I think we've got all of the information we need, assuming he's telling the truth."

Krokorok, meanwhile, looked like a broken Pokemon. He looked like exactly what he was: someone stripped of their purpose and left at the mercy of their adversaries. "So. What's our next move, Mawile?"

For a fleeting moment, her philosophic frown was turned upside down. "I'm glad you asked, Sage."

She tore out two pages from her notebook and held them towards me. I grabbed them with a vine, being careful not to crumple them too much, and held them under the moonlight where Espurr and Leah could see.

"These are some of the notes I took. They should describe the hideout that Krokorok has detailed for us. It's a hideout we've been trying to find for a while now, and I'm sure the police would love to have this information for a sting operation…" Mawile began to pace around the dining table at a leisurely pace, drawing her shadow across the room. "…But we aren't giving this to the police. If we did, they'd find out about our expedition to Showdown Mountain, for one. And two, they'd prevent us from gaining the evidence we need. They don't have a history of sharing criminal information with the Society, unfortunately."

"So instead…" Mawile stopped pacing and turned to face us. The moonlight shone directly on her face now to reveal an intense stare. "We're giving this to you."

"…Not that I'm objecting or anything, but why us?" Leah said, tilting her head in confusion.

"Because you two have something that nobody else has."

Leah lightened up. "Unmatched strength and potential?"

"Try magic scarves," Mawile chuckled. "And besides, Sage, you believe this whole thing to be about you, correct?"

I hesitated. Could I truly answer that if I didn't even know who I was, or what I might've done to cause all this? Then again, I thought, one thing was certain: I was involved for one reason or another, and I needed to find out why.

I finally nodded, after which she continued. "Then I'm giving you permission to end it. Go in there, find the information you need, and we'll start making moves. If you can find out who's behind this, you have my permission to do what you need to do. You're both strong and smart, and I—"

"What about Espurr?"

The room fell to silence. The staring contest that ensued between Mawile and I lasted for only a few seconds, yet it felt longer than the hours spent out in the hall.

A gentle paw touched my shoulder, causing me to be the first to break eye contact and then re-establish it with Espurr. After giving me a nod, the psychic cat took a step towards Mawile and bowed her head respectfully. "Forgive me, but I'd like to accompany my friends on this mission."

Mawile was unphased. "Without a magic scarf? I wouldn't be so sure about that."

Her tone didn't hide her skepticism, or her amusement for that matter. On the other end of the spectrum, Espurr's annoyance became more and more obvious with each passing second.

"I don't need to spontaneously evolve to handle myself around Pokemon ten times tougher than him." She jabbed in the direction of Krokorok, who regarded the argument with only mild interest. "Nor do I appreciate Pokemon like you assuming I'm incapable of doing so."

An annoyed Mawile rubbed her forehead with her fingers. "This really isn't—"

"We aren't leaving her behind," I stepped in. "She's a part of our team now."

Genuine surprise crossed Mawile's face. "…She's a member of your team?"

Espurr blinked. I'm a member of your team?

I swallowed and nodded.

Mawile glared lasers into the back of my skull, but would eventually sigh in defeat. "Alright, fine then. But Leah still has to say yes—"

"Yes!"

"…Well, that's that then. I'll hook you up with a badge and get your paperwork done first thing tomorrow morning." She locked eyes with Espurr once more, regarding her with a new, subtle but irrefutable respect. "Do you consider yourself an early riser?"

Any lingering tension dissolved with the grin that Espurr wore. "Always have."

"Good to hear. And on that note, it's time for all of us to go to bed. Including you."

Mawile walked over to Krokorok and handed him a seed.

He eyed it skeptically. "I-is this a sleep seed?"

"Yes. Now eat it."

His suspicion quickly evolved into shock as he stared back up at the historian. "You serious?"

Nothing about Mawile's expression, demeanor, or the fact that she stared back at him silently suggested she was kidding. He knew it as well as any of us did, and after a moment's hesitation, reluctantly gave in. "Fine, whatever. I wasn't goin' nowhere anyway…"

It took only seconds for the effects of the seed to kick in after swallowing in whole. His eyes dropped, then his entire body went limp as his head fell comfortably into his arms, crossed on the table. Before anyone could even blink, he was already snoring. Seeing of the proud thug fall asleep like a baby made me chuckle, as did everyone else—everyone except Jirachi, who had earlier busied himself by staring out the window.

"That moon sure is bright…" Jirachi mumbled to himself. He floated in place, staring out the window as if petrified by something only he could see. The moon's glare illuminated the exceptionally perturbed look on his face. It took me a moment to realize we'd all been staring.

"Is something wrong?" Mawile said.

He did not react right away. When he turned around, he appeared too deep in thought to have even heard her. He grabbed his bag and a fistful of crumpled up paper and floated towards the door. It seemed as if he planned to leave the room without acknowledging me at all.

When he finally spoke, he opened with a deep sigh. "…I'm not sure. It's nothing of immediate concern, at the very least. I'm just pondering." He projected what I could've sworn was a look of concern towards the window. "I'm gonna go up to the library and take a look around the solar system for a bit. My telescope could use a good polishing anyway. Goodnight to you all." With a final wave, he was out the door.

"Hm." Mawile drummed her claws on the table for a few seconds before pointing us after him. "Get some sleep you three. I mean it."

No issues there. Espurr, Leah, and I wasted no time following orders. The walk down the hall was practically a blur given how tired I was.

It was only when I touched down onto the soft fabric of my bed that I felt unusually awake. For a day with so little action, so much had changed. The entire initiative of the fight had shifted in our favor; even if this was a trap, and Krokorok was lying, it didn't make any sense why the same trap wasn't set at a place like Showdown Mountain. Right?

I asked myself this over and over, flipping the question over and over like a pancake. At some point I felt the curious probing sensation of a psychic-type who clearly couldn't sleep either.

I turned in my bed to face her. Nuzleaf's snoring body sat a few feet away from her, his shadow blocking the moonlight from illuminating her face. You should really start asking permission to poke at my mind like that, I teased. Can't sleep?

I'll fall asleep soon, don't worry. She adjusted her pillow in an attempt to bury the side of her face deeper within its fabric. I guess… everything is just so surreal. This life isn't what I ever expected for myself. Not too long ago I was a kid living a secluded life in a secluded part of the world. I didn't think I'd be… well, how do I phrase it?

I cast a wayward glance at the wall. My eyes were met with the powerful beams of the moon, split by the grated window. …Working with a human?

A soft chuckle reached my temples. Sometimes I forget that detail. That you were a human. To me, you've always just been Sage the Snivy.

A sense of warmth clutched at my heart. Even trusted allies like Mawile and Mincinno would occasionally regard me differently because of my past humanity—something that, in fairness, I didn't understand any better than they did. The level of acceptance she had for me was something I didn't receive often. It was something I wanted to cherish and protect.

Apparently having found an acceptable arrangement for her pillow, Espurr settled down and shut her eyes. It's been a lot to take in so far, but… I think—I think for the first time in my life, I've found a purpose greater than living for myself. And that makes me happy.

Well, I'm happy you're here. I closed my eyes as well and buried my face in my own pillow. Even as the clutches of sleep overcame me, the smile on my face had gone nowhere.

Somehow, I knew she had the same look on her face. Me too…

When I found out that the "mafia hideout" was in Lively Town, I was thrilled. That meant no long trek across an entire ocean, no climbing any crazy mountains, and no breaking silly laws!

Of course, my joy was cut short when I learned immediately afterward that it was located in the worst possible place in town.

Leah scrunched up her face at the news. "We're really going through the sewers?"

Krokorok busied himself with dislodging the metal bar that had occupied him for the past minute. "Ngh—hell yeah. This is the quickest way in. We'll have to step through some gnarly toilet water to get where we gotta go since it rained so recently, but you get used to it."

With a final heave, he pulled the bar out of its hold and let it fall by his feet. "…Besides, it ain't all that far."

We had already climbed into a ditch on the furthest outskirts of town, right after skirting through what Krokorok himself pledged was the shadiest urban district in the Water Continent. More than once I was certain we were about to get mugged, which was pretty amazing considering we were a group of four—even without wearing the clout of our Society badges (Krokorok demanded we remove them, lest he be seen walking around with people from 'the east side'). After that, I figured wading through a little sewage water couldn't be too gut-wrenching.

As we all entered the tunnel through the opening, I could instantly tell Espurr did not feel the same way. Her short legs and fur did her little good here. To compensate, she cleared much of the inch-high substance out of her way with her powers, though it hardly helped the stench creeping up on us from further down the tunnel. I'd been able to smell it from the outside, but the inside was an entirely different gambit. Breathing through my mouth was the only way I could keep my nose from burning like lava.

"Eh? Lighten up, I do this every week," Krokorok half-whispered behind him. He held the torch that Leah had lit for him above his head, illuminating a solid thirty meters of the cylindrical tunnel in either direction. "I'd-a loved to be at today's poker session, but… y'know."

Although he wasn't looking at me, I nodded in understanding. By the looks of it, Krokorok wouldn't be attending any more of those.

Hopefully I wouldn't either, for that matter. Every time I was sure we were on the cusp of ending this, it just led to another chapter in an increasingly complicated chase. That's all this was. Now we were headed straight into the heart of the mafia's den, or whatever.

I was beginning to reach a point where I was no longer surprised.

Mawile, you'd better be right about this…

Leah poked me with one of her paws and leaned in close to my ear. "Are you sure we shouldn't have him tied up? He was left on the mountain for dead and all, but it could be a trap."

A sharp squeal ahead snapped both of us to attention just as our only source of light was extinguished. Unsheathing my vines in a panic, I held them out in a defensive stance with little clue what I'd be swinging at.

Krokorok's panicked yelps echoed throughout the sewers, only ending when Espurr snapped at him to stop. "Relax, it's knocked out cold!"

"Whuh—wha—?"

At once, a new flame sparked in Leah's maw to reveal the area. Lying in the sewage water was the limp body of a single Woobat.

Leah re-lit the torch just as I snatched it from the waste below. Krokorok and I made eye-contact, and for the first time, I felt a little bad for him.

"Ah, yeah…" he mumbled. "That thing wasn't so tough, huh?"

I shook my head and took the lead. "I'm carrying this now. Just walk beside me and guide the way there."

"It's right here." Krokorok squinted. "…I think, er—no, yeah, this is it."

He stopped next to an iron clad door. It had been built into the side of the tunnel, which had doubled in width as we'd trudged deeper through Lively Town's sewers. It wasn't the first door we'd seen like this, nor did it have any traits that made it stand out from any of the others.

Instead of going straight for the handle, Krokorok began looking around the various nooks and crannies nearby, sticking his claws between pipes and glancing around.

"What's up?" Leah said. "Is it booby-trapped or something?"

"Locked," he murmured with his snout stuck in a particularly tight crack, accompanied by a few choice curses during the futile process of pulling himself out. "Key is usually tossed 'round here somewhere…"

"I could try to pick it." Espurr approached the door and placed her paws on it, then frowned. "…At least, if it was actually locked to begin with."

She unlatched the handle and effortlessly pushed the door open.

Krokorok tilted his head. "…Well, I'll be damned. Guess ol' Marshtomp forgot to lock the door." His voice shrunk to a whisper as he signalled for us to keep it down. "Our lucky day, eh? Let's go."

Leah and I shared a glance.

While the labyrinth that followed was not pitch-black like the sewers had been, it still had little to offer in the way of visibility. The stone brick hallways were lit by tiny glowing stones haphazardly placed every few meters. Bringing the torch with us was out of the question; it would flicker off the walls and cast unnatural shadows, Krokorok had insisted. Fair enough.

After only a minute of walking, the stones became slightly more numerous as the straight hallway branched off in two extra directions. Peeking down either corridor revealed various doorways stretching to the end, where the halls would branch off yet again.

"This has been here the whole time?" Leah gaped.

"Quiet!" Krokorok snapped under his breath, glancing hurriedly down each hallway. "None of those damn vocal cords of yours, ya hear? If someone hears us then we are fuuucked."

Leah narrowed her eyes at the thug, but the urgency in his voice reflected in her own pupils. His point was undeniable. These hallways, these corridors—the way we moved through them would be the key to remaining unseen.

"Listen up and listen closely," Krokorok whispered. "Like I said, tonight's poker night. Anyone rangin' from downtrodden folk to money-launderin' politicians get together in one single room and and gamble all their shit. There are still Pokemon walkin' around, but they mostly just get together in the break room and dick around."

"I'll be able to pick up on anyone before they get in our line of sight," Espurr immediately whispered. "Except for dark-types."

Krokorok exhaled. "There's a bunch of those down here, I think." He scratched his chin. "…Assumin' I remember my types correctly, that is. If we're lucky we won't see any of 'em. Or anyone at all."

"But what if we do?" I said. "What if they see us?"

"Just try not to let that happe—"

Leah took a step closer to him, baring her teeth. "What if we get seen?"

Krokorok bared his own fangs back at her, though he was somehow less intimidating even in his own domain. "…If you get seen, you best hope you can knock 'em out quickly and quietly. Sheesh. Now quit wastin' time and follow me."

He began walking to the right, making his way down the hall and casting a tentative glance in every doorway before motioning us forward. It was an excruciatingly slow process. Too many damn doorways, most of them with the door cracked open or missing entirely, littered the halls no matter which path we took. By the fourth or fifth time we'd made a left or right turn, I'd begun to liken the place to a maze.

I snuck looks into each room as I went, noting how similar most of them were and the differences of those few exceptions. Most looked like dormitories, as I'd always notice the bed pushed against the back walls whenever we'd pass by one. Others looked like they were for storage, inside containing crates and shelves full of a myriad of items. From them emanated all kinds of smells that I'd never imagined before. Anything from exotic plants to gunpowder to tactical orbs—it was all there.

And then, a moment came in which I had grown all too complacent. Krokorok had too, apparently, because Espurr barely had time to shove Leah and I into the nearest open room (empty, thankfully) before a Pokemon turned the corner ahead and faced down our hallway.

Krokorok tried desperately to jump into the open room across from ours, but his tail did not cross the threshold in time. My breath froze to ice in my lungs as a "Hey!" echoed from down the hall. We had made it in time, but Krokorok did not. It didn't matter anyway because our room didn't have a door, and there was no way we'd all fit under the bed. We had five seconds.

Across the hall, Krokorok was frozen in place just beyond the door. Wide-eyed, I tried to make eye contact but he looked completely stunned, trembling in place. He couldn't possibly hide now.

The grizzly voice came again—"hey, who the fuck just went in my room?"—a little softer this time, but also so, so much closer. I could hear his footsteps. Time seemed to slow down to a halt, slowing further with the beating of my heart. Now I could see his shadow…

The Cacturne reached the door and stood at the entrance, where he locked eyes with the frozen Krokorok. Half a second of stillness passed before everything exploded around him.

My vines looped around his neck from behind and, as I yanked, met resistance right at his windpipe. Krokorok sprang forward and tackled the Cacturne into the room I was in, planting a claw over his mouth and further denying him oxygen. He tried to call out, but the only sounds he got out were fearful and muffled. A sharp pain sliced straight down to my shoulders as my vines held tight against his spiky body, causing me to cringe as I held on with all my might. Leah has flames already prepared in her mouth, but Espurr's dazzling gleam lit up the room first and slammed into the Cacturne's forehead like a hammer. Another spike of pain coursed down my vines as I finally let go with a grunt.

Out cold. The Cacturne's eyes were a quarter-open and his neck was already swelling, but what mattered was that he was out cold.

Reality took several seconds to sink in as the four of us sat in a square around our victim, each of us breathing as if we'd all nearly drowned.

Krokorok bared his fangs at Espurr. "Why didn't you give the word that he was walkin' up on us, huh?"

Espurr caught her breath in her throat and blankly stared at the crook. "…I can't sense dark-types. I already told you that."

Krokorok looked between Cacturne's unconscious form and Espurr twice. He opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. "He's a…?"

"—Cacturne is a dark-type you idiot," I hissed. "Yes."

Krokorok caught his breath and snorted. "Sorry, sheesh. Not all of us graduated, a'ight? Let's just… keep movin'."

I helped Leah and Espurr roll the knocked out Pokemon under the bed while Krokorok stood watch. Once we were finished, he glanced both ways and motioned for us to follow. "He was alone, looks like," he whispered. "Hopefully nobody was expecting him for somethin'."

Now the adrenaline was really shooting through my limbs. It had just been one Pokemon, but that was all it took to bring attention to the rest. How many would descend upon us if we made one wrong move?

We won't find out, I told myself. We'll be fine.

Krokorok stopped so abruptly that I nearly crashed into him.

"Listen, a'ight…" He began unhinging an air vent on the wall. "The poker room? It's basically a big ol' open hangout area. Lotta space to relax and drink or whatever, but the other side of the complex runs straight through it. So we're gonna crawl above them."

He pulled the grate off and motioned us inside.

"You sure it can support our weight?" Espurr said.

Krokorok shrugged. "They sent me up there once to fix somethin'. It didn't collapse on me then."

Leah was the first to crawl inside the silver tunnel, taking the stick out of her tail and placing it in her mouth so it wouldn't scratch against the ceiling. Balancing it in her mouth, she mumbled, "Good enough for me."

I was next. Although I was the skinniest one there and could simply slither along, the lack of space was deafening under this much pressure to stay quiet. I had such little mobility in here, I could get bottlenecked if—

"Hurry up, damn," Krokorok snapped suddenly.

I crawled forward after Leah, who was already making headway through the vent. Krokorok followed after me, moving awkwardly to avoid scraping his claws along the aluminum. Finally, Espurr took the rear once she figured out how to click the vent back in place from the inside.

The crawl forward was listless and excruciatingly slow. I was caught somewhere between worrying we'd been discovered somehow and worrying we weren't moving fast enough. The little noises we each made as we made our way forward didn't help, nor did Leah's bushy tail brushing my face every few seconds.

After about three minutes of this, I puffed a strand of her fur off the bridge of my nose and whispered behind me. "How well does sound travel through here?"

"Shouldn't haf'ta worry about it," Krokorok said in a voice a little too loud for my tastes. He seemed to notice, because he toned it down immediately before continuing. "Not until we're almost directly above the main room. That's when we've gotta hush up."

I kept crawling, but with a raised eyebrow. "But wait, how are we gonna get up abov—?"

"Woah." Leah stood up on all fours in front of me, causing everyone to halt in place.

What is it? Espurr projected from the back.

I crawled forward a little further and barely managed to stand up in the same space as her. Our flanks pressed together by unforgiving walls, and she let out a surprised sound as I occupied the rest of the space.

"Sorry, I'm just—" I looked straight up and squinted. The vent no longer continued forward, but vertically instead. And a good ten meters at that. "—trying to see."

"Aw shit, does it go straight up?" Krokorok grumbled. "We might'a picked a bad vent…"

"'We'?" Leah snapped with just enough restraint to keep her voice low. "You're our guide."

"Well sorry I don't know the air vents like the back'a my hand," he spit from behind me.

I glanced at Leah, nearly hitting her with the tip of my nose, and then back up. "If I can get up there, I can lift you all up with my vines."

Leah followed my eyes and gaped. "…You could, but how do we get you up there first?"

"Wh—hey!" Krokorok squirmed awkwardly in place as Espurr squeezed past him. She did her best to stand up with us, though with so little space it was really more like leaning against a wall on one side and leaning against Leah and I on the other. Between the three of us, it was now practically an airtight fit.

"I could lift you just high enough to grab and pull yourself up," she said with a paw placed to her temple. "It'll be hard, but I can do it."

I turned my head halfway to raise an eyebrow. "Didn't you pick up an entire tree?"

"A tree is simpler than a Pokemon. It doesn't have a bunch of internal surfaces to concentrate on and keep from imploding your organs. I recommend holding your breath to make this easier on your lungs."

I shut my eyes and sighed. "You had me at imploding organs. Let's do it."

She weaseled her elbow out from between me and the wall and placed her other paw on her temple. Her eyes closed. She concentrated. I took a deep breath and held it as the others waited patiently.

It was the ever-present sensation of gravity that disappeared first. Then the cold metal on the bottoms of my feet. And finally, the fur pressed against either of my flanks as I began my ascent.

Levitating might've been a nice sensation if not for how everything about my body locked up. An off-putting tingle spread across every surface, inside and out. My first impulse was to squirm, but the tingle would only worsen if I tried.

When I finally got close enough to the top and felt release on my vines, I shot them up and dug them into the vent, trying to gain the smallest amount of leverage. Espurr's technique pushed me up ever further, and before I knew it I was shoving myself up onto the new, higher tunnel.

Negotiating my head and tail across the width of the vent was an uncomfortable task, but just possible enough to turn myself completely around and stick my nose back down the shaft. I grumbled under my breath; I'd have to rotate myself all over again once I got everyone up here.

"Alright."

I extended my vines all the way out and let them hang limp. My chest plummeted. At first it looked like it wouldn't be enough. I thought about asking Espurr to carry Leah up with her powers as well, but the way she cradled her head after lifting me led me to throw that idea out.

Leah took the initiative instead, tapping Espurr's shoulder and getting her to hold out her paws like a basket. Leah planted one of her front paws on top of Espurr's platform, then pushed off and replaced it with one of her back paws.

She stared up at me and mouthed "catch me" as she lowered her haunches and launched herself skyward.

Espurr's support gave Leah just enough extra height to reach the end of my vines, which I stiffened up upon her arrival, bracing my legs to avoid being pulled right back down.

I pulled her up in no time, and then the real challenge began. It had taken Leah only seconds to clear the gap and climb up to me; it took us well over a minute to swap positions. By the time we'd accomplished as much, we'd pretty much exchanged scents.

Leah pressed her nose to her tail and made a sound somewhere between a deep cough and a hysterical laugh. "Great. Now I smell like I'm cold-blooded."

A glance back down at Espurr and the exposed snout of Krokorok gave me an idea, but not one I was particularly fond of. With a sigh, I tried looking back at Leah. "Hey… could you hold onto one of my vines? I'm going to see if I can hang down the shaft and lift those two up."

I couldn't really see her face, but I could hear in detail how she suppressed what would've been a fit of giggles. "Y-you're gonna use yourself as a rope?"

"Yes."

I extended a vine back to her and felt her grip it tight with both paws. "Alright, gotcha."

As I pushed my upper body over the edge, I called down to Espurr and Korkorok in a hushed voice. "I'm gonna descend and hold my other vine down. You'll have to—" My stomach lurched as Leah shifted for better positioning, briefly plunging me at a terrifying speed before yanking back to normal. "—you'll have to climb up."

You're going to use yourself as a rope? Espurr projected with a humored grin on her face.

Being directly above her highlighted the unamused look I sent her way.

Yes.

Once I'd stretched both vines to their maximum length, I hung a little over halfway from the bottom. The vine that Leah wasn't holding onto now hung down far enough where Espurr could simply reach her arms up and grab on. She did so, promptly, and began to climb. I tried to make it easier by retracting my vine, but she climbed so quickly that she was staring at me face to face before I could make much progress.

Our eyes only met for a brief moment. She gave me an innocent smile and then proceeded to use my nose as a foothold.

Once she was up top, Krokorok was next. He eyed the vine but stood still. "…So I gotta climb this?"

"Yes, now let's go," I said through gritted teeth. My left shoulder was killing me from supporting Espurr's negligible weight during her climb. I had a feeling Krokorok would be much more unpleasant.

"Aw shit, okay, uh…" he grasped the vine with his claws and tried to pull himself up. His tail ran against the wall and his sheer lack of balance caused him to swing from side to side before he'd barely gotten off the ground. "O-oh shit I didn't sign up for this—"

"Just hold on tight," I grunted. With a heave, I slowly retracted the vine back into my shoulder, eventually guiding him up to eye-level. Then I began retracting my other vine, which sent spikes of pain across my entire upper-body with each burst of effort. Although the vine showed no signs of tearing, it felt like it was being ripped apart in a hundred different places.

When we finally reached the top, we wasted no time moving forward. Now, Espurr was in front, then Leah, then myself, and once again Krokorok in the rear. Once again I settled for a facefull of fluff every few seconds, but I decided it was much better than nearly pulling my shoulders off. I figured that if Espurr was gonna chime in, around now would be the time—

Hmm… Sage, have you been working out lately?

Right on cue. Does fighting for my life count?

I don't see why not.

At some point, we reached a fork in the air vents which we used to readjust our positioning. Now that Krokorok had moved from the back to the front, he was able to guide us through the twists and turns to exactly where we needed to go. He gave us a heads up an entire minute before we found ourselves directly above the main room, but it hardly mattered—we could all hear the ruckus by that point anyway. It sounded like dinnertime at the Expedition Society, except everyone had to fight to the death for their food instead of patiently wait for it. What sounded like a chair smashing against a distant wall echoed through the vent.

At one point, the vent opened up to the massive room below. It was more of a lobby from what I could tell, with numerous tables and furniture for doing just about anything.

The big problem was that we had to crawl over that part of the vent.

Being high up hardly helped when we were this exposed. And to make matters worse, rushing through wasn't an option. Far too risky. It was only three stupid, measley meters long, and it took absolutely forever to cross while remaining silent. The uncomfortable, bottlenecked feeling from earlier returned. I could literally stare down at the Pokemon below through the grating and watch them. All were too intoxicated to notice us. I hoped. I prayed.

And then we were past it. In the following minutes of crawling, I'd heard no sirens, no shouts, no explosions. I heaved a sigh of relief at that..

That sigh morphed into a gasp as the floor disappeared below Leah. Right in front of me, she dropped through an opening in the vent, straight down into—

—a hallway. Perfect. Leah and Espurr glanced back up at me while Krokorok looked both ways. Seeing nothing, he gave me a thumbs up, though I still poked my head out and looked just to make sure.

"We're close now," Krokorok whispered as he led us through the final set of hallways. Nobody was in sight, and the decreased amount of doorways meant less pausing to go along with an increase in pace.

Then, a doorway that was not like the rest. Instead of the same spruce surface every other door had, this one was a deep crimson and laced with gems of all colors.

"Please please please be unlocked—" Krokorok grabbed it and pulled. It didn't budge. "Aw hell."

"Is there a key?" Espurr asked. When Krokorok shook his head 'no', she held her paws to her temple. "…Then step aside."

The door splintered at the hinge—not loud enough to draw attention, but obvious enough to make anyone walking by pause. This was it, then; if we weren't on the clock before, we certainly were now.

"I hope what we came for is in here," she muttered as she led the way inside.

As big as the war room was, it felt boxed in by how much was strewn across the walls. Anything from maps to newspaper articles to a rainbow of countless sticky notes. Like graffiti, it was everywhere, extending from Espurr's waist-level to well above Krokorok's snout.

I stepped forward and glanced around. Only the dim light streaming in from the hall allowed me to take in what I was seeing. When someone flipped on the fluorescent lights above, I was no closer to understanding.

Krokorok took a tentative step forward. His lower jaw hung. "I—I don't… What in the hell is all this?"

I stepped even closer to the back wall, past a central table and towards another table—a desk, actually, pressed against the back of the room. Several knick-knacks were tossed haphazardly on its surface, ranging from markers to tools to a silver scarf.

I grabbed the garment and held it up to the light, eyeing it warily. It wasn't brand new, but it wasn't in bad shape either, and its pattern was similar to that of my own scarf. And… it looked so familiar. Why did it look so—?

A lone memory breached the surface.

The sun was shining and a gentle breeze was blowing across the meadows of Serene Village. Nuzleaf had just come home after a trip to Lively Town—his exhaustion clear as day. Whatever business he'd been doing must've worn him out, I'd surely thought at the time. Of course, he never specified what it was.

Still, he did his best to smile and show me the new stone-colored scarf he'd bought that matched the pattern of mine.

The same color and pattern I was now holding.

I didn't realize until now how tightly I'd been clutching it in my hands. I held it back up to the light; now it was wrinkled. I had to be more careful with it so I could bring it back as evidence.

Evidence.

Evidence…

Evidence against…?

"Sage!"

The trance shattered and I looked up. Espurr and Leah were by the wall to the left. Espurr was motioning towards me with urgency.

I discarded the scarf into my bag and made my way over to them. On the way over I noticed a pattern among the newspaper articles—all of them were about the stone incidents in one way or another. I swallowed and allowed a tiny part of myself to hope that this was the worst we would find.

That tiny part of myself was wrong. I reached Leah and Espurr on the other side of the room and immediately fell still.

On the wall was the largest paper map I'd ever seen (the largest in the room for sure), displaying the entire Water Continent in greater detail than I'd ever seen on my gadget. Countless villages and towns and mountains and valleys that I'd never heard of were recorded here.

That was not what I had been called over for. Next to the map was a bulletin board that had been packed to its entirety with everything I could imagine. Sticky notes. Illustrations. Photographs. More articles. Lines connecting everything. Glossing over them all, I picked out common terms written down such as "stone", "operation", "agent"… and "dead".

And then there was me. A photograph of me, taken what had to have been only days ago. My gut fell ever-further. Leah's picture was directly below mine, and even Ampharos's and Mawile's were bunched in as well. Written on all four in big, red letters: KEEP THEM AWAY.

How long the room had been so silent, I wasn't sure. The three of us had nothing to say in that moment. Even Espurr, whose picture fortunately wasn't there, was figuratively rendered a statue. Even Krokorok was.

It would be Leah who eventually broke the stupor by raising a paw and tracing it in the air. I followed her paw with my eyes, then followed along the bulletin board on the same path. With how many threads connected everything, it was hard to pick one out among the rest; now, however, one line in particular stood out like a Chinchou in the dark. It traced from the edge of our pictures to right around the center of the map.

It ended with a circle and three underlines that concentrated upon one single location.

I held my head in my hands. "Oh, that's just fantastic."

Revelation Mountain.

A/N: I'm adding this a little late, but I figured I'd drop it anyway. I made a discord server for Gravity of Perspective! Anyone is welcome to join and come chat about the story or about PMD in general! You can also chat with some other well-known PMD writers who are friends of mine.

The join code is: Kxbr88m