Mawile took the opportunity to yawn with her black jaw, showing off her gleaming teeth before snapping the maw shut.
Floette was all smiles as she opened her mouth to respond.
"Floe, ette, flo," she argued.
Tanya was mildly impressed. It took some gall to be restrained by hostiles, threatened with bodily harm, and then still ask for terms. Luckily for Floette, she was a reasonable person.
"The nearest town is a tourist destination. We can guarantee your safe passage there. I'm certain that should be enough to relieve some of the… pressure you're under." She still found the Pokemon's complaints ridiculous, but if it earned her a firearm, she was willing to make some compromises. "This would be contingent on you providing information that directly leads to Dolan's current location."
Skeptical could not begin to describe what she thought of Floette's claims. However, she held an important card up her sleeve. Said card had taken out her twisted spoon and begun walking toward Floette with a stoic expression.
Tanya placed a firm hand on Ralts' head as she passed, stopping her from getting too close to the oddly calm Pokemon.
"Flo…" the Pokemon visibly mulled over her offer, tapping her chin while still being held upside down. "Floette?"
And she crossed from being impressed to thinking Floette was missing a few of her marbles.
"No, you're not coming. We'd leave you here while we verified his location, and you're not in a position to counteroffer," she bluntly informed. "Now start talking before I revoke what's already on the table."
Floette fell into thought again, and after what Tanya felt was an adequate amount of time, the young girl snapped her fingers.
"Flo–flo–ett," the Pokemon stuttered out while being roughly shaken. Tanya held her palm out and Mawile stopped jostling the Pokemon about. Floette didn't take long to regain her bearings, and she entered into an explanation. "Floette, ette, floe."
That was a far more plausible scenario than she had anticipated. Floette's reputation would be a magnet for distressed Pokemon.
"This escapee you mentioned, the Vivillon, where are they now?"
From what she saw outside, the grove's population was entirely of the Florges line. It was probably too hopeful to think they would be nearby, but it would be remiss of her not to ask.
"Floe, ette," Floette said while shrugging. Tanya was about to follow up when the Pokemon held out a finger. "Ette, floet."
Tanya reluctantly agreed. If she were in Floette's position, why would she care about the fate of a random Pokemon? No, she'd promptly send them on their way with meaningless words and a pat on the back.
She glanced down at Ralts, who endorsed Floette's testimony with a nod.
"And you sat on this information? Doesn't the presence of poachers cause you any alarm?"
Tanya would have rooted them out. Maybe not immediately, as reconnaissance was important, but their days would have been numbered.
"Floe, ette, flo," Floette said while waving a hand toward the door. "Ette, flo."
That was only a little disappointing. Part of her wished it would be a large camp of poachers, but dealing with Dolan alone made the situation simple.
Even without Ralts' confirmation, Tanya was inclined to believe Floette. The Pokemon struck her as a coward, and if there were enough to pose a danger, then she would be long gone.
"Keep going," Tanya instructed, having a feeling she was holding out on her.
Her suspicions were proved correct a moment later as Floette opened her mouth.
"Floett, ett, ette," she explained confidently.
Tanya looked down at Ralts, who took longer than she would have thought to deliver a verdict.
'True,' she said, to the relief of Tanya.
This was an excellent turn of events. They wouldn't be able to make it all the way today, but arriving at the mountain range by tomorrow was well within their capability. Then it would only be a matter of traveling along the base of it until they found Dolan's facility.
"Bin?" Carbink floated down with a questioning look on his face. "Ink?"
He was still hung up on the Vivillon. It was unfortunate that they would not be able to question the bug-type directly, but with such a narrow area now, she didn't see the value in tracking it down.
"Floette, flo," Floette seemed to pick up on Carbink's sensibilities and responded accordingly. "Ette, floet."
She spun a clearly fabricated story where the Vivillon met a nice trainer and joined them on their journey. It was a harmless deception, and Tanya was about to let it slide when Ralts' voice entered her head again.
'True,' she conveyed with a hint of hesitation.
Tanya's eyes narrowed. It wasn't an impossible scenario, but Floette had heavily implied earlier that she had not kept tabs on the Pokemon. Now she was claiming the opposite?
"Bin, bink, car!" Carbink expressed his relief.
Mawile, on the other hand, matched Tanya's expression.
"Maw, ile, mawile?" Mawile asked, dropping the Pokemon to better loom over her.
In Tanya's personal opinion, the menace Mawile was trying to present was lessened by the Pokemon's small stature, but she'd keep those comments to herself.
"Flo," Floette responded simply, as if that would be enough to avert suspicion.
Tanya motioned with her hand, and Mawile hefted the Pokemon by her stem again. Her hands hung limply toward the earth, and she regarded them with a pout.
"We've established you're not a—"
'Mama,' her statement was cut off by a thought entering her mind. 'True?'
She shared Ralts' confusion. They knew Floette was not a sage. Perhaps the Pokemon referred specifically to the title, rather than its broader associations. That might be enough to trick Ralts' senses.
But if Floette could accomplish that, then…
"Have you tried to mislead us?" Tanya asked plainly.
There was something to be said about the Pokemon giving her an earnest nod. It just wasn't anything positive.
"And how have you done this?"
Floette tilted her head with a pondering expression.
"Floet."
Tanya began to wonder whether the Pokemon had head trauma. It would explain why Floette kept forgetting what position she was in. That didn't mean she would believe the 'I don't know' excuse.
She looked down at Ralts only to see the Pokemon's scrunched-up face.
"Are you having trouble?"
Her question caused Ralts' face to tighten more, and the psychic walked forward, placing two hands on either side of Floette's head. Tanya didn't like their proximity, but the rigid determination Ralts carried herself with stayed her hand.
'Mama, ask.'
Tanya considered what to say. If it was anything like those lie detector tests in her first life, they needed to establish a baseline.
"What color is that flower?" she pointed toward the discarded flower on the ground.
Floette glanced at it before speaking slowly.
"Flo."
Yes, it was red. But why was the Pokemon looking at her as if she was the idiot? Tanya put it out of her mind for now and moved on to the next question.
"And where are we?"
"Floe," she said with that same dubious expression.
That wasn't exactly the answer she had been going for. However, that was her fault for not being specific enough.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"I meant the route, but grove is acceptable," she clarified while thinking of a third, less ambiguous question. "Before we entered your chambers, what was the primary species of Pokemon present within your hedged walls?"
It was slightly more complex, but there was still only one answer.
"Ette, floe," she said with a mix of dismissiveness and aggravation.
Tanya wasn't sure what she expected out of the Pokemon.
"Useful idiots isn't a species," Tanya said with a sigh. It hurt that she didn't completely disagree with Floette's assessment. "What would a Pokedex classify them as?"
Floette did not get a chance to provide her answer when Carbink intruded on her interrogation. He'd either missed or chosen to forget Floette's earlier words, because her dim view of her followers was news to him.
"Bink? Bin?" he asked naively with large blinking eyes.
From his vantage point, he could not see Floette's large roll of the eyes.
"Floet," her cheerful voice sounded, containing that angelic property it had from outside. "Ette, flo."
It was a complete 180 from what she had just stated, but Carbink seemed to take it at face value and gained a smile. His innocence continued to surprise her.
'Both true,' Ralts communicated.
That wasn't possible. They were mutually exclusive statements. Floette either cared for her followers or she didn't.
Ralts' strained face told her that fact wasn't lost on her. Did they need to try the megastone again? She was hesitant to bring it out. It was fine when she didn't expect the stone to function, but it had clearly done something and Gurkinn's warnings weighed on her. Ralts wasn't even a Kirlia yet, let alone a Gardevoir. Using it should be a last resort and not a crutch they continued to lean on.
"I don't think you're taking this seriously enough," Tanya said, with an edge to her voice. "Don't make us use more forceful methods to pry the truth out of you."
Floette's eyes traveled from Ralts' glowing horn and then to Tanya; the accusation was silent but obvious.
"Floe, ette, et," Floette pointed out a fact that Tanya had not forgotten, even if she was hoping Floette would have.
Fortunately, that potential problem had already been accounted for.
"Calling your followers to help you won't work. We'll take you hostage, and they wouldn't risk your safety."
Floette nodded along with that assessment a bit too readily for Tanya's liking. Before Tanya could pick out what irked her about it, the Pokemon followed up.
"Flo, ette, floet," she said, gesturing with her hands to display her helplessness in the matter.
Tanya's face hardened. That was a valid observation. If they couldn't reliably tell what was false and what was not, then how were they to believe anything that came out of her mouth?
The only way to determine what was true was to hike up the mountain and look. However, if they had been fooled, then they'd be without recourse. She wouldn't assault the grove for something as dumb as revenge.
Realization dawned on Tanya, and she tensed.
"Well played," she admitted to the Pokemon that had managed to outmaneuver her.
There were two choices in front of her.
The first would be taking the Pokemon at her word. A successful outcome there would entail locating Dolan and then subsequently being required to escort Floette. Failure would mean she would be right back where she started.
The second would involve taking the Pokemon with her. The results would be nearly identical to the first, with the exception being that failure would provide her a new punching bag.
Tanya was not a violent person, and so option two held no special value in her eyes. That was until she stopped to consider what her team might think. They looked up to her—literally—and the thought of disappointing them, for some reason, tasted like ash in her mouth.
The reason for that came a second later. If she allowed a random Pokemon to take advantage of her, then what message would that send the others? They'd run over her authority, and it wouldn't be long until Mawile started suggesting her ridiculous trainer rotation idea again.
Yes, that must have been it. She could find no other reason.
"You're coming with us," Tanya declared, conscious that she was partially playing into Floette's hands. Still, there was one thing the Pokemon may not have accounted for. "Mawile," she addressed with a sly smile. "Shake her until she's green, and then keep going."
—
Floette's departure was a sudden, shocking affair for the grove's residents. Far too many tears were shed, and hugs were forced. By the end, Tanya's hair looked like a rose bed, thanks to all the good luck charms they gave her to protect their sage.
Many had offered to join them on the sage's 'heroic' quest; however, they'd managed to talk them down. Meat shields were nice, but dealing with one Floette was enough for her.
They'd traveled the rest of the day until finding a nice clearing where they could make camp. It had been occupied by a pair of Volbeats, but they'd been happy enough to vacate on the word of the venerable sage.
Tanya was seated on a rock around a small fire. Ralts was next to her, with Carbink and Mawile having wandered off. From the occasional tremble of the ground, she knew they were relatively close. Gabite was nearer, resting behind her against a tree. Floette sat opposite Tanya, watching as she nursed the pot of stew that was meant to be their dinner. The ingredients were courtesy of the grove. She was no charity case, but judging by the look of those fanatics, refusing their offered provisions seemed the more perilous choice. In any case, being able to conserve her own supplies was preferable.
Those were two ways already that Floette's presence had helped, and yet, Tanya found herself irritated.
"Wipe that smile from your face or I'm feeding you to Gabite."
There was a gagging sound as the dragon expressed what she thought of that plan. The target of her threat was far more reserved at her threat, arching an eyebrow at them.
"Flo, ette, floet," she stated factually.
Tanya looked at Gabite, who snorted before turning her nose away. That wasn't a denial, but it wasn't a confirmation either. It did make a certain amount of sense that a dragon would experience indigestion after consuming a fairy, but it seemed like the type of study researchers would frown at testing for.
'Maybe,' Ralts' despondent voice rang.
Tanya lightly squeezed the palm she was holding, running her thumb on the back of Ralts' hand.
"Don't let her get to you," Tanya consoled her. "Your progress has been great."
Those weren't empty words. A few weeks ago, Ralts could only send emotions; now, she could rip images from a Pokemon's mind and play them back to her.
Floette had shaken the psychic. It would have been better if the Pokemon had resisted the mental intrusion. At least then, they would have an explanation for how Floette had managed to deceive them.
After some prodding, she was able to get a description of what she's encountered in that head. She said it was akin to entering an unfamiliar forest; harmless at first glance, but the deeper you entered, the greater the risk of becoming lost.
It was an intriguing defense, and she only wished it had been attached to someone else.
"Flo, ett," added her support.
The statement had the opposite effect, and the lines of Ralts' face grew more pronounced. Tanya wasn't a fan of the stress this was causing Ralts. An idea came to her, and she reached into her pocket.
"Here, I'm allotting you extra phone time." Tiny fingers tried to grasp the device, but she held it out of reach as she finished her statement. "But don't think this will be a regular occurrence. Your usual time limit is still in effect, understood?"
Ralts gave her a firm nod, and Tanya's lips quirked up as she handed the Pokemon the phone and ruffled her hair.
"There you go. Stay within sight."
Her youngest team member rose from her seated position, giving her a quick squeeze before scampering away. She hadn't taken a step away before her thumbs started dancing across the screen, composing some message. For some reason, Ralts was cagey about Tanya overseeing her phone usage. While curious as to what could be so embarrassing that she tried to hide it, Ralts had earned the privilege of privacy.
Well, limited privacy. Where it began and ended was at Tanya's discretion.
"And you," Tanya spoke to the second stray she had been saddled with. "Watch it."
The smile didn't break, and Tanya felt the lesson Mawile had provided was already wearing off. She glanced behind her, seeing Gabite disinterested in the happenings around the fire, and instead focused on the perimeter.
Despite their travels, they weren't that deep in the forest. This was because she'd decided on the safer option of proceeding parallel to the route. They were in the happy middle ground. Far enough from the road so that random travelers wouldn't run into them and close enough so that no truly dangerous Pokemon would claim territory. Any that did would find themselves relocated by the rangers.
"I mean it," she continued, gesturing with her head to the left. "You wouldn't want to upset him."
The doll gave no tells as to what he thought of the newcomer, but given his closeness with Ralts, she didn't imagine it was anything positive.
Floette gave Mimikyu a hard stare before her sight traveled back to Tanya.
"Floe?" she openly questioned Tanya's sanity.
"Don't say I didn't warn you then," Tanya responded, refusing to elaborate further.
She stirred the ladle for a few seconds before reaching for her pack. Tanya retrieved a bundle of pages and started spreading them out on the ground in front of her.
Lumiose City had recently made a push to digitize public records, and that made pulling the city's planning documents easy. That didn't mean they were simple things to make sense of, as their standards for record keeping had changed over the years, and not everything had been kept up to code. It meant extra work had to be done to sort through the mess.
The work had already been done, and Tanya was merely checking Ralts' homework. Included was a map of that part of the city. There was a big red circle under Lysandre Cafe, indicating how large the facility underneath could potentially be. Also highlighted were potential access points through known infrastructure. She wasn't looking forward to trudging around damp sewers, but it wasn't anything worth complaining about.
"Floe?" Floette asked with some perplexity. She'd moved places so that she could see what documents Tanya was working with.
"This has nothing to do with being a trainer," Tanya answered absentmindedly, the bulk of her attention still on the documents. "I'm trying to expose a megalomaniac in charge of a region-spanning cult. You wouldn't have happened to see people with flamboyantly red hair around, would you?"
Floette shook her head dumbly. That was about what she expected, but it didn't hurt to ask.
"Well, be on the lookout because their plan involves destroying the world."
At least, that was what they suspected with the involvement of legendries. Tanya would not blab about this to a human, but she could afford to be looser with her words to Pokemon.
Floette blinked at her before beginning to chuckle. She produced a flask from somewhere and held it up in a toast.
"Floe, ette," she said, while bringing the flask to her lips.
Tanya had checked the bag Floette had brought, and although she found it suspicious that the pack had been ready to go, it had contained no flasks.
"Not on the route." Tanya reached over and snatched the flask. She gave it a cursory sniff before dumping the contents on the ground. Her free hand held back Floette's face as the Pokemon's arms grasped at her in futility. They lost their energy as the last drops of the liquid soaked into the earth. "And this isn't a fantasy I made up to match your heroic quest story. The man in charge of it has members active all over Kalos and is actively searching for the means to accomplish his twisted ambitions. Not to mention he has a veritable army and the resources to do so."
On her end, she had four troublesome Pokemon and Garchomp's pack. There was Clemont as well, but he wasn't fully aware of the conflict.
"Here." Tanya handed back the empty flask and fished in her bag for another folder. "Read this."
Those were files containing everything she had. Most of it was circumstantial, but the broad strokes were there.
Tanya heard the pages flip one after another, speeding up as the Pokemon went deeper into the rabbit hole.
"Flo…" the Pokemon said despondently, staring at her empty flask.
She'd have to put up with it, as Tanya was not allowing that sort of bad influence to infect the others. That being said, she did find the production of alcohol oddly industrious for the Pokemon. There must be a market out there for such types of drinks, and she wondered how developed they were.
Her attention fell back to their dinner.
"Hmm, we're running low on wood for the fire," she said, using an improvised fire poker to stoke the embers. "Mimikyu, if you would."
A shadow streaked out from under his covering. It sounded like a whip had been cracked. The trunk creaked as it began to fall over, having been cut cleanly at its base. On its descent, it fractured into multiple logs. They tumbled to the ground, kicking up dirt.
It was neater than she would have thought, and she regarded Mimikyu with a look of approval before walking over and grabbing one log. They were still too big for the size of their fire, and her fingers flexed as she dug them into the timber, ripping the log in two.
She'd stuffed the pieces under the pot when her eyes traced back to Floette.
Was it her imagination, or had the Pokemon always been that shade of white?
Couple things:
- I know lie detector tests are bullshit.
- Tanya is not counting Marie. Which is rather silly of her.
- Floette is now realizing her easy ride is not easy.