Onwards

“Alright, so.”

There they were, in Gren’s office again. Mark hadn’t been doubting the research the Guildmaster was doing, but if he were, that doubt would’ve vanished upon seeing the room. There were stacks upon stacks of books in their office, most of them looking old and encrusted with dust. Even with the team sitting in front of them, Gren still had a book on the desk, opened somewhere in the middle.

“First things first, Siobhan has let me know what happened. Good job out there.” They motioned to the piles of books around them. “Secondly, as you can see I’ve been looking around for Dialga. Reading way too many old books that ended up being mostly useless, as well as asking around town in search of rumors and whatnot.”

“And what did you find? You called us here for something, right?”

“Eager, aren’t we, Rachel? But yes, you’re right. From every source I’ve come across, one location always comes up, that being Unraveling Fortress. Now, I’d never heard of this place up until this, so I’ve been digging around some more. Apparently, it’s an abandoned castle that ended up being the center of a dungeon formation. From what I’ve read, Dialga resides at the very end.”

“Why would a Legendary like Dialga stay at the end of an abandoned fortress?”

“That, I don’t know. But there have been multiple Pokémon that have gone through the dungeon and witnessed them, so I can only believe this is the truth.”

“Okay…” Mark said, pensive. “And where exactly is Unraveling Fortress? How could you, as the Guildmaster, not know that it existed?”

“Yeah, it doesn’t appear on my map either.” Simon responded while searching on the parchment. “Is it as hidden as Apollo’s Sanctum?”

“Apollo’s what?”

“Uh… we can talk about it later. Where’s the fortress?”

“North. There’s a forest past Angel’s Peak. The fortress is supposedly in its heart.”

“That… that is a long trip.” Rachel said, probably calculating the time in her head. “Around two or three days if we’re lucky.”

“Which is why I suggest you spend today preparing and replenishing. I’ll have Lily make you some food to eat during the way there. What I do recommend is you three get some more bags or backpacks or anything of the sort. Better to have too many items than having too few. Oh, and before I forget, have this.”

Gren handed the team a weird device. It wasn’t similar to any kind of item Mark had seen before. It was somewhat resemblant to a claw, but made of metal. It had a button on the top, so it was clear that it did something.

“While reading these old books, I managed to find some blueprints that I didn’t understand. Turns out, they’re for this, a portable force field. You dig these spikes into the ground, and press the button. It creates a force field big enough to protect you three whenever you have to camp. That way nobody needs to take a turn to keep watch.”

Mark carefully grabbed the device while Simon was inspecting it curiously. “Since when do we have this kind of technology?”

“That’s a great question. It apparently uses the same kind of energy us Psychic-types use. You can thank Lance for putting it together, he may not look like it, but he’s a real handyman when it comes to this stuff.”

“And where did you get these books from? I’m surprised we haven’t heard about anything like this before, and I don’t remember seeing them in past iterations.”

“We have an archive in the basement, did nobody tell you that? As to why I didn’t look there in past cycles, that’s something I can’t answer.”

“Right…” Rachel was deep in thought. She looked like she was planning everything in her head, making sure to count for even the worst situation possible. “I guess we should get going then, we have the rest of the day to think things through.”

“Wait, Mark. Can you stay here for a second? I need to talk to you, in private.”

“Oh, uh… Sure. You two go ahead, I’ll catch up in a bit.”

They nodded and left. Gren was looking at him with an expression he couldn’t really decipher. “Mark, I’m going to be honest with you. This is a lot more than anyone thought it would be.” They sighed. “I wouldn’t mind if you got another team to accompany you on the trip. Hell, even I could go. This seems way too dangerous to go alone.”

Mark thought about it. It was true that there was safety in numbers, especially if they went against a Legendary. But this whole issue seemed too personal for him to involve even more people that had nothing to do with it. “No, we’ll be fine. We don’t plan to fight, we just want to get information.” It wasn’t a lie, they really didn’t want to fight, but whether or not they’d have to was another topic altogether.

The Grumpig didn’t approve that sentence, but all they could do was shake their head. “I’m not going to change your mind, am I?” They closed the book in front of them. “Okay. But please, be careful. We don’t want a repeat of the incident with the Abomasnow. I want you all safe and sound when you come back.”

He shivered at the memory of that fight. More so now that he remembered so many different variations of it, all of them ending horribly. “I- Nothing is going to happen, okay? I promise.” That’s what he was trying to convince himself of, anyways.

Mark stood up and left the room without waiting for a response. He took a moment to lean against the door he just closed and collect himself. He had too much on his shoulders, and the pressure was ever so close to finally overthrow him.

‘C’mon, Mark. Get a grip. You can rest when all of this is over. There are things to do now.’

Simon was easy to spot when Mark caught up to his teammates. He was waiting outside of Kecleon’s while Rachel tried to haggle over the price of a tent. It didn’t seem like it was going well, but Mark didn’t really care that much.

“Welcome back. What did Gren want?”

“Nothing, just some words of advice because of the whole… you know…” He looked around to make sure no one else listened. “…human stuff.”

“Right, right.”

As the Squirtle went back to focusing on the verbal fight Rachel was having, Mark stared at him. The weird feeling inside him was back, and he couldn’t take his eyes off his face. The urge to jump in for a hug as tight as his arms could go was strong. And though he wanted to give in to that urge and simply say it, he couldn’t do it.

There was a part of him that thought that he would get rejected, and that the friendship he developed would vanish if he confessed. He didn’t think of himself as lovable enough for a relationship like this to last.

“Mark?”

“H-huh?”

“You’ve been staring at me for a bit, are you okay?”

“Oh! Uh… yeah, I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah! It’s nothing, I’m okay.” The heat on his face said otherwise, luckily Simon didn’t press him further.

It was getting harder and harder to simply have a conversation with him. Just hearing his voice always made his heart skip a beat. He hated that, he hated feeling so powerless to do anything about it, and he hated that he couldn’t ignore it.

Rachel came back soon after, grumbling under her breath. “That jerk ended up making me pay double, can you believe this?!”

“That’s what happens when you try to negotiate with Kecleon. He will rip you off all your money AND he will enjoy it.”

“Yeah well, he will also enjoy the ass beating I’ll give him if he pulls up something like that again.” She gave a bad look to the vendor, almost like she was trying to vaporize him with her non-existent laser eyes. “Anyways, this thing is big enough for the three of us. It doesn’t have any protection but with what Gren gave us, we should be fine.”

“Cool, we have that sorted then. We only need to replenish items now, and we’re good to go.”

And that’s what they did, or at least, that’s what Simon and Rachel did. Mark tuned most of the buying out, opting to keep fighting internally with himself about what he really felt. It was exhausting, always the same reasonings on both sides of the argument. He wanted to let it out, but the fear of the response made him avoid it.

Before he could make a decision, it got late. He and Simon made their way home, but the nervousness Mark felt didn’t go away. It was clear that he would not fulfill his own promise and that he would not confess today. ‘Tomorrow’ he thought, but deep down he knew that it would be easier to just avoid him altogether.

The easy route was looking very tempting at that moment.