Crumbling Foundation

“Ian, have you finished reading the papers?” I burst into his room, slamming the door behind me. He jumped out of his chair and quickly replied.

“Yes, We’re ready.” He smiled at me before neatly stacking the papers in his mouth.

This was the moment we had secretly prepared for all week: the day we would finally kick out Elizabeth.

Following Ian downstairs, everyone except Elizabeth was already there, convinced it was time for her to go.

“I’ve reviewed everything. You all just need to sign here to finalize it.” Ian pointed to a series of lines at the bottom of the page before he slammed the paper on the table to surprise those who weren’t paying attention.

“Wait, we have to sign something? We didn’t need to sign anything the first time,” Toz pointed out. Confusion washed over us.

“Does that mean Diana was never officially kicked out?” Someone else asked.

Ian hesitated before responding. “…We can discuss that later. Just sign it.” He hurriedly passed the paper to me first.

I leaned over and quickly scrawled in a line that bore no resemblance to my actual name, then I passed it to Tony, who passed it to the next person, and so on and so forth. A minute later, it was done. It was finally done.

A moment of silence fell upon the room as we processed that reality.

A knock sounded from behind the door, but we all remained in our seats, refusing to move.

“Hello? It’s from the guild. You have a letter!” A shy voice came from the other side. Knowing nobody else would, Tony got up and went over. I subtly followed him and watched as he stood on his hinds and unraveled the paper to begin reading. At first, it seemed like nothing important. Then he began to shake. As he continued, I could see the strain in his hands, gripping the paper so hard that it threatened to rip in half. Just as things seemed to screech to a halt, he screamed.

“WHAT THE HELL?!” We rushed over to finally figure out what was going on.

“Tony, what happened?! Did we get fired?” Grey quickly asked.

“No, we got promoted!” With the way Tony said it, you’d believe that being promoted was a secret codeword for being stabbed.

“Isn’t that supposed to be a good thing?” Toz asked the obvious.

“No,” Tony stated dryly. “We got ‘promoted’ to the cannon fodder rank! If I had to guess, they probably sent out the last group to explore beyond the ocean, again. And they died, again!” His breathing began picking up. “You’d think they’d learn their lesson by now, but nope! They just decided that we’re gonna be their next batch of ‘experiments’!” Tony’s composure finally gave out entirely, and a little flame of rage burst out on the top of his head. There was a moment of silence where it looked like he would explode before he spoke again. “You know what? Fuck this! You all can fend for yourselves.” His eyes darted across the room before he looked back at us. “I’m packing my bags. I’ve already got arrangements with another team, the only reason I was staying here was because I was on this team!”

He stormed upstairs, much to our surprise.

“WHAT?!” A single, unanimous voice between us all yelped out.

The room was enveloped in heavy silence, broken only by the distant sound of Tony’s footsteps. The reality of our situation began to sink in, and worried glances were exchanged among the remaining team members.

“Should we stop him?” I looked around the room for a response, but nobody moved a muscle.

“No. He’s made up his mind.” Aza finally said, standing in front of me to block my path to him.

Grey cleared his throat, attempting to break the tension. “Well, what are we going to do now?”

“I- I don’t know. Without Tony or Elizabeth… It’s really up to you guys if we want to continue on,” Toz stammered.

“Errrr… I think Tony had a point,” I mumbled hesitantly. As soon as those words left my mouth, the team was dead. Nobody would show up to our next scheduled meeting, and the guild would only get a resignation letter if they were lucky.

With Tony packing his bags above, kicking out Elizabeth felt more like a mistake than ever.

“It’s just- This is all so sudden.” Toz kept his head down, and we tried our best to comfort him. This whole team thing was his idea after all, so it must have felt shitty to see it all fall apart.

“Hello? I’m home!” Elizabeth announced. But instead of a hello, she was greeted by me, holding a piece of paper with each of our signatures. It took her nearly a full minute to process what she was seeing.

“What? Why?” She asked, and then she stared at me with a blank expression, awaiting my answer.

“Nobody else wanted to be the one to give you this paper, so here you go.” I intentionally avoided answering her question, but it was my downfall as the gears turned in her head and she reached the conclusion that this was all my doing.

“I’ve known every Eeveelution on this entire island, and the one that decides to ruin my life is one I’ve never met before?” She was in a state of shock, standing idly as she spoke.

“If you’ve never met me before, why did you ask me on a date?” She was clearly being rhetorical, but I was being cheeky.

“Because I thought the fact that you wrote in a different language was interesting,” Elizabeth replied without thinking, but at this point it was clear that she didn’t care about being caught anymore.

“So you admit to breaking into my room?” I asked, but she ignored my question, instead going on an internal tangent.

“Why? Why did you have to do this right at the most chaotic time of my life, with my friends leaving me and everyone panicking over being unable to find the human?-…” She stopped, her face went pale, and she stared at me with a blank expression, scanning me up and down.

“You…” My face turned to horror when I figured out she realized, but I was powerless to stop it. “YOU’RE THE HUMAN!”

AN: I have a brand new fic set in the same universe that I would like you all to check out! It’s got better pacing, cameos from this fic, and a plot that’s alive!

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/14283580/1/PMD-The-Team-Aide-REWRITE

https://archiveofourown.org/works/38489956/chapters/96198613