PARAGON

  Unknown Enemy Arc [1]

  Chapter 87 : Reunion

  Sinnoh Region - Paragon Island

  The glass shattered as it hit the floor and Anabel swore loudly.

  She should’ve easily been able to catch the glass as it fell, but missing a right arm and hand made that impossible.

  As she started to lean down to pick the larger pieces up, she realized she wouldn’t be able to sweep up the smaller pieces with only one hand. Scowling, she stood, and sighed. Then, feeling a pair of eyes on her, she turned.

  Zinnia watched her from just outside the kitchen, a blank expression on her face.

  “Can you help me?” Anabel grumbled, nodding at the mess.

  “Sure,” Zinnia said flatly, striding into the kitchen.

  She was nothing if not considerate. While Anabel had expected people to start walking on eggshells around her, Zinnia treated her just the same as usual. Almost too much the same. Anabel wouldn’t mind a bit of pampering, especially from her, but the young Dragon Master practically ignored the fact that Anabel was now down a limb.

  Anabel was sure Zinnia had been watching as she struggled to get a bowl down for herself, and serve some yogurt and granola into it, but she hadn’t once offered her help. Not until Anabel asked for it.

  Zinnia tossed down one of her pokéballs, and her Cyclizar coalesced into a flash of light. “Clean that shit up, Cyclizar,” she said, bored.

  Cyclizar grinned happily and he began to gather the bits of glass in his mottled hands. He was practically humming to himself, seemingly elated to help his trainer, perhaps not realizing Zinnia was just pushing off grunt work on him. As he moved toward the garbage bin to dump the glass shards, the thought popped in Anabel’s mind that he would look good in a maid costume.

  “Thanks,” she said, and Cyclizar beamed.

  Zinnia rolled her eyes and recalled him. “Back to bed with you after you finish that,” she ordered.

  Anabel’s eyes narrowed. “I’m fine. It doesn’t even hurt anymore.”

  “Sylvester’s orders.”

  “Sylvester’s not here.”

  Zinnia met Anabel’s gaze. “But I am. And I say you need to rest.”

  “Nope,” Anabel said curtly, scooping up her bowl of yogurt and heading to the dining room. “I have work to do, since you’re not doing it.”

  “I’m taking care of you,” Zinnia scowled, following after her.

  “I told you, I’m fine. N’s dying out there, and if you’re not gonna help him, who else does that leave?”

  “N’s fine,” Zinnia spat. “It’s all just a bunch of nonsense anyway.”

  As Anabel sat down, Zinnia stood behind the chair at the head of the table. “So, you find anything?”

  Anabel sighed, her hand freezing on her spoon before she could lift it. “No,” she said quietly.

  “There you go.” Zinnia crossed her arms and smirked. “If any of these assignments are that important, Cynthia can come back here and tell me herself.”

  “She’s busy, obviously. Like you should be.”

  Zinnia released an exaggerated groan. “Can we not do this today?”

  “Sure.” Anabel scrolled through her phone, at the myriad assignments they’d received from the International Police over the past couple months. “What do you have planned for today?”

  Zinnia grinned. “Thinking it might be time to pick up a Mega Stone for Altaria, finally.”

  After the destruction of the Tree of Beginning, it seemed Mega Stones had stopped spawning across the world, so naturally, the value of all existing Mega Stones had skyrocketed. People were scrambling for the last remaining ones out in the wild, and the black market was booming. Apparently, someone had even started distributing synthetic Mega Stones, and Anabel coincidentally saw an assignment related to just that as she scrolled.

  Anabel had a feeling Zinnia wasn’t planning on paying money for hers.

  “Why are you so against helping N anyway? I thought you’d prefer that to sitting around here doing nothing all day.”

  Zinnia scowled. “Well, hurry up and heal up so I can leave!”

  “I told you already, I am healed.”

  “No, no, Sylvester said minimum three months, without straining yourself. That means bed all day!”

  “Not happening,” Anabel muttered.

  “Then N will continue to run these assignments all by himself. Your fault, by the way.”

  Anabel’s eyes flashed with anger. “I thought we weren’t doing this today.”

  Zinnia scoffed and glanced away, so Anabel took that time to take another bite of breakfast.

  Last she’d heard from N, he was in northern Kanto assisting the International Police track down and arrest AZ’s acolytes who’d escaped from Rota. Lord Vandrick, AZ’s top lieutenant, had vanished, so there was a concern that he could reorganize and continue his terroristic activities. Thus, Interpol was focused on dismantling his network from the bottom up. Already, they’d arrested hundreds, yet none who they interrogated seemed to know anything about their mysterious benefactor.

  Anabel was itching to get off the island as she finally reached the bottom of the list. N had knocked out a whole slew of them by himself, despite being the only active operative at the moment, as far as she knew. Cynthia and Sylvester had both gone radio silent after they parted ways in Saffron City, and Ash and Sabrina had disappeared right after. She wanted to believe all four were working together on something top secret, but it didn’t smell that way.

  Ash and Sabrina had both abandoned their pokéballs and phones outside of Saffron, leaving their exceedingly confused Gengar to pick them up and take them back to the gym. Anabel would have fully supported it if they’d absconded on a romantic tryst or something, but as the days turned to weeks, it became clear that was not the case. So everyday, she kept her phone close and monitored Paragon’s intel streams, searching for any hint of where they’d gone.

  Cynthia and Sylvester she was less concerned about, though their absence still nagged at her. Cynthia was surely swamped in work from the League and Interpol both, and Sylvester, paranoid as he was about his cousin’s actions, was probably glued to her.

  Or rather, hopefully glued to her.

  In spite of everything, it was strange that the groundskeeper of Paragon Island hadn’t been here in months, especially without any communication. Frankly, Anabel wasn’t used to having to cook her own meals, do her own laundry, and vacuum (her quarters only), and the longer he remained missing, the more poisoned her thoughts became.

  And Zinnia, bless her heart, did little to abate her concerns. But, despite all Anabel’s needling, if Zinnia actually did leave her alone on this island like she kept prodding her to do, Anabel believed she’d probably go crazy from the anxiety.

  Sir Aaron and AZ had turned the world upside down, and Anabel still hadn’t found her footing again.

  “Whatever. Unless one of our people walks through the front door, I want you in bed the rest of the day.”

  “Zinnia, who do you think—“

  A buzz blared through the facility.

  The front door.

  Anabel and Zinnia looked at each other.

  And Zinnia took off down the hall.

  “Wait, Zinnia!” Anabel shouted, sliding out of her chair and hurrying after Zinnia as she marched toward the front door.

  “It’s not N, right?” Zinnia asked as they moved.

  “It shouldn’t be.”

  As the two stopped before the front door, Anabel’s hand curled around one of her pokéballs. No one in Paragon returned to the island without notifying first.

  And yet, a second later, the lock clicked, and the door swung open.

  Immediately, a twinge of emotion shot through Anabel’s entire body like electricity, and her breath caught in her throat.

  Ash and Sabrina stood outside, their hair long and tangled. Pikachu grinned on Ash’s shoulder.

  “Hey,” Ash said.

  Anabel’s grip on her pokéball loosened, and she shivered. She’d assumed the worst. But here they both were, alive and…

  “What the hell?!” Zinnia yelled.

  Before Anabel had even finished processing what she’d seen, Zinnia threw herself into them, wrapping an arm around both of their necks. Both of them gagged and stumbled as Zinnia choked them out.

  “Where the fuck have you two been?!” Zinnia demanded, her voice breaking at the end.

  But just as fast, she recoiled from them, wrinkling her nose. “Ugh, you guys stink!”

  Though her brows were furrowed angrily, her eyes shimmered.

  “Sorry,” Ash smiled. “It’s…kind of a long story.”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Anabel stepped toward Sabrina and raised her hand to brush a thin white scar just below her hairline. “Your head… What happened?”

  “And your arm,” Zinnia said, her voice not nearly as soft.

  Anabel’s gaze drifted down to Sabrina’s wrists, and her eyes widened. Her gauntlet!

  Sabrina blushed. “It’s…also a long story.”

  Anabel took a step back, drinking in the sight of them both. Almost three months they’d been missing without a word to anyone on where they’d gone. And now they were back? Just like that? It felt too dreamlike to be true.

  It was Zinnia who asked the question, just after peeking behind them to see if anyone else was with them.

  “Where’s Cynthia?”

  Ash and Sabrina’s hair were both damp as they sat on the couch across from Anabel and Zinnia, almost like an interrogation. The scent of shampoo wafted from them and they both had food in their laps, a gigantic sandwich with almost everything left in the fridge for Ash, and a bowl of mixed nuts for Sabrina. Beyond not having showered in months, it seemed they’d been lacking in the food department as well.

  On that note, Zinnia could hear Pikachu inhaling a bowl of pokémon food in the other room.

  “I told the others you two have returned,” Anabel reported. “N said he should be back tomorrow.”

  Ash nodded, and just as he was about to take a massive bite of his sandwich, a pokéball flew at him and he caught it in one hand. Then came another, and another, and eventually he had to put his sandwich down as Zinnia pelted him with pokéballs.

  “Your pokémon,” she said.

  Ash dropped his last pokéball just in time to catch a smartphone flying at him.

  “And your phone.”

  “Thanks…,” Ash said, counting them to make sure they were all there.

  Zinnia had no doubt he remembered exactly who he’d left behind despite how much time had passed since he’d lost them.

  “And yours, Sabrina.”

  Zinnia hurled all three at Sabrina at once, and the psychic held up a finger. A dull glow captured the capsules and they froze in midair, before floating gently to Sabrina’s side.

  “Gengar…?” she started to ask.

  “Inside the ball,” Anabel said. “Same with yours, Ash.”

  “Thank you,” Sabrina said, and Ash nodded, his mouth full of sandwich.

  Zinnia’s eyes narrowed, and she unhooked one last pokéball from her belt. “We didn’t open this one, by the way. Since we have no idea what’s inside.”

  When she tossed this one, Sabrina let it fall into her lap. Her cheeks began to darken, and she turned a cautious glance up at the two girls across from her.

  Ash glanced at Sabrina, then down at the Master Ball in her lap, and immediately, Zinnia knew he knew what it was. However, despite that, she asked:

  “That is yours, right?”

  Sabrina nodded slowly, before plucking it from her lap and stowing it beside the others. “Yes. Thank you.”

  It should have infuriated Zinnia that she’d been keeping a secret like that, and infuriated her even more that Sabrina had elected to tell Ash and not her. On any other day, it would have. But on this day of their miraculous return, Zinnia could muster no fury for either of them.

  Even now, it was taking all she had to keep from crying tears of relief and tackling them in a bear hug.

  So, she kept her scowl.

  “So…” Anabel began. “Where have you been?”

  Ash and Sabrina glanced between each other, clearly trying to decide how best to answer that. Zinnia wasn’t sure how long it’d taken for them to get back here, but clearly they hadn’t ironed out who would be saying what.

  Eventually, Ash sighed and threw his hands up. “We were in Hisui.”

  Zinnia raised an incredulous brow. “Hisui?”

  “Remember the morning after Cynthia and Sylvester left? Er…the day we disappeared? That was the day Sabrina and I went with our Guardian friend Riley to open Sir Aaron’s Time Flower. Well, it was the Time Flower. That’s how we were taken to the past.”

  “You’re saying Sir Aaron sent you to the past?” Anabel asked. “We obviously considered your disappearance could have been related to the Time Flower since that was what you guys had planned for the morning, but we didn’t seriously think he’d be responsible.”

  “We even went and asked some Guardians about Time Flowers and they all said Time Flowers are only used to record visions of the past,” Zinnia said. “They aren’t actually a vehicle for time travel.”

  “Yeah, well, this one was special. But things went wrong, and not because of Sir Aaron. We were only supposed to be in the past for a bit of time. Get the Plates and come back.” Ash exhaled and glanced at Sabrina, then fixed Anabel and Zinnia both with a hardened gaze. “What went wrong aside, we did get what we came for. I have Sir Aaron’s Plates.”

  Zinnia’s eyes widened, and she looked Ash up and down. “You mean…you have four of Arceus’ Plates inside you now?”

  “Five,” Sabrina corrected.

  “I thought Sir Aaron only had three,” Anabel said. “Three plus the Electric Plate is…”

  “Things went wrong,” Ash said curtly, and his expression darkened.

  Zinnia frowned. Why did it look like Ash had killed someone to get his fifth Plate? Surely that wasn’t it, right?

  “You mean…all that?” Anabel raised her hand and pointed at Ash’s arms.

  His arms and neck had been covered by thick Hisuian garb when he’d returned, but now, Ash was dressed in a t-shirt that showed off both. Lacy white scars cut across his skin like he’d gotten chewed up and spit out, and Zinnia could only assume his chest, back, and legs were the same. She’d been trying to ignore them and let Ash bring it up on his own, but it seemed Anabel had gotten a little more impatient than her.

  All of a sudden, the grisly gash hiding behind Sabrina’s bangs and her conspicuously absent gauntlet came to the fore of Zinnia’s mind as well.

  “Yeah,” Ash said, tugging on his skin. “That. Among other things.”

  Zinnia glanced at Sabrina, but the girl seemed to be purposely avoiding eye contact, burying her face in her bowl of nuts.

  By Ash’s tone, and Sabrina’s behavior, it occurred to Zinnia that both of them were trying to cover for the other. Neither seemed to mind all that much what had happened to themselves, but they seemed to be sidled with guilt over what had happened to the other.

  If she had to guess—and it was a pretty educated guess, to be fair—both of them had probably almost died in Hisui.

  The thought sent a shock of venom through Zinnia vein’s, and immediately, she realized she needed to change the subject. For their sake, and hers.

  “So Five Plates, huh?” she said, her voice hollow. “That’s insane… Are you even human at this point?” She cracked an awkward smile.

  That earned her a scowl from Sabrina, and it did not escape Zinnia’s notice that it was far fiercer than it probably should have been.

  “Yeah,” Ash said. “I mean, I think. Probably.”

  “What are they?” Anabel asked.

  “Fire, Water, Grass…and Dark.”

  Dark is where things went wrong, huh? Zinnia thought.

  Ash scratched his head. “Anyway, it’s a really long story and at the end of the day, most of it isn’t super relevant, but if you guys don’t mind waiting until Cynthia, Sylvester, and N get back, then we can—“

  “We haven’t heard from Cynthia or Sylvester since the day they left Saffron,” Anabel interrupted. “And since they left the day before you two disappeared, technically, they’ve been MIA longer than you two were.”

  “What do you mean?” Sabrina asked. “Even Sylvester?”

  Anabel nodded. “A lot’s been going on since you two disappeared. The world is still in chaos from the destruction of Rota. N is doing as much as he can, but he’s only one man. I’m guessing Cynthia has Sylvester working overtime too since I’m stuck here and Zinnia refuses to leave.”

  “Good,” Ash said, nodding at Zinnia.

  He didn’t need to say it. Zinnia knew she was right.

  Anabel withered. “Not you too,” she muttered. “I’m fine.”

  As if to prove it, she punched her severed stump, but Zinnia saw her eye twitch in pain.

  That reminded Zinnia that it was time for another round of meds, so she got up to go and get them.

  Would she sneak in some sleeping pills with the usual?

  No. Even she wasn’t that cruel.

  When she returned with the medicine and a glass of water, Anabel was still filling them in on the state of the world, and she offered a curt thanks mid-explanation as Zinnia sat back down.

  “In the chaos, crime has exploded, and the International Police is working overtime to quell the unrest. Team Night…Team Crimson…Team Pluto… It’s getting ridiculous out there. Even though AZ lost, the success of his weapon seems to have inspired all sorts of underground enterprises to make power plays.”

  “What happened to the weapon?” Ash asked.

  “The League has it, apparently…” Anabel’s gaze drifted off. “Interpol doesn’t seem happy about that, but as long as it’s accounted for…”

  “And what did the League say about Albrecht…or Sir Aaron?” Sabrina asked.

  “They gave some speeches and said some words, but at the end of it all, it seems like they’ll be keeping his position empty, though it wouldn’t be the first time they’ve said that. Something about it being in poor taste to replace him so soon after his death. The conference season is still ongoing, but who knows if they’ll actually hold the conferences themselves this year. Everyone’s paranoid that they could be the next Rota.”

  “That seems a bit dramatic…” Ash murmured.

  “Maybe to us, since we know who AZ was and why he attacked Rota. But most of the details haven’t been shared with the rest of the world. For all they know, a madman came out of nowhere and wiped out one of the oldest cities in the world in the span of a single afternoon.”

  “The bastards up top are terrified of reminding people of the dark times,” Zinnia said caustically. “They’ve worked so hard to keep up the veneer of peace they won’t dare mention that AZ is the Kalosian king from the Great War. Then people will start to wonder what else from that era is still alive.”

  “No one anymore,” Ash said grimly. The way his eyes crinkled, he may have been talking about more than just AZ and Sir Aaron. Perhaps the people he’d met in Hisui?

  “That we know of,” Anabel corrected. We had no idea that Sir Aaron or AZ were still alive. There may be others out there.”

  Sabrina’s brows furrowed. “The Founders…” She turned toward Ash. “Ash, remember Riley mentioned the Founders could be Platebearers too?”

  “The Origin Children,” Ash nodded.

  “The Founders?” Zinnia squawked. “You mean, like, the Founders?”

  “It’s possible,” Ash said. “If AZ survived for three thousand years, it’s not crazy that they could’ve survived even longer with the power of the Plates.”

  “What are the Origin Children?” Anabel asked.

  “We met a man in Hisui called Raphael. The Origin Children are what he referred to as Platebearers who played a role in shaping the history of their time. Not… Not everyone who becomes a Platebearer ends up famous…”

  Zinnia almost opened her mouth to tease Ash about his own withdrawn status in the public eye, but she stopped herself. There was a careful reverence in his tone, and a haunted look behind his eyes. This time, it was obvious he was talking about someone from Hisui.

  “Did you meet any low-profile Platebearers in Hisui?” Anabel asked, stealing the question right off Zinnia’s tongue.

  They both shook their heads.

  “He was dead by the time we got there,” Ash said quietly.

  “Are you gonna tell us what happened or not?” Zinnia said, her curiosity getting the best of her. How long were they going to dance around it this?

  “We will when N gets back,” Sabrina spoke up. “He’s still on his way, right?”

  Anabel nodded.

  “Cynthia and Sylvester will just have to read the report later,” Ash smiled. “Which reminds me, Zinnia.”

  The Lorekeeper perked up. “Hm?”

  “The man Raphael, who I mentioned earlier? Turns out he was a Draconid.”

  Zinnia sat up straighter. “Wait, really?”

  Ash nodded. “We asked him about the Great Dragon for you, and he gave us a bit of info. Something I’m not sure you know.”

  “Ok, ok, ok! What is it?!” Zinnia leaned forward as she demanded an answer. She’d never met another Draconid outside her village even in the present. Any she would have surely would’ve been on the same divergent path as her, and it seemed that was no less true centuries ago.

  “Raphael believes the Great Dragon is the guardian of the Hall of Origin. Arceus’ domain.”

  Zinnia’s brows furrowed, Ash’s words echoing through her head. She hadn’t known that. Guardian of the Hall of Origin… The Plates… The war… The oldest type…

  Suddenly, Zinnia shot to her feet. “I gotta go.”

  Without a second thought, she marched toward her bedroom, toward her journal of notes on the Great Dragon.

  “Don’t forget to take your meds later, Anabel!” she called after she was out of sight.

  Anabel sighed and rubbed her temples. “You won’t be seeing her for 48 hours, at least.” She leaned closer. “Okay, now that she’s gone, can you just tell me everything that happened?”

  Ash smiled, and Sabrina shook her head timidly.

  “I promise, once N gets back, we’ll tell you everything,” Ash said. “In the meantime, Sabrina and I have a super long report to put together.”

  “Well, don’t let me interrupt you,” Anabel said haughtily. She eyed Ash, then Sabrina, and her gaze lingered on the psychic. “I’m napping in your room.”

  “Okay.” Sabrina beamed and blushed.

  As he promised, N arrived the next morning.

  Next — Chapter 88 : Night on Paragon Island