Part 2 – The Meadow

Tigri’s mind drifted as she and her teammates exited the Barrier, and idly watched as the sunlight and shadows resumed their normal appearances and the surrounding trees thinned out into the grassy bluffs outside the forest. Nobody really knew why it was so, but the flowers of Longbloom Meadow very much lived up to the name the villagers had given the place. They were always early to flower, sometimes before the winter snow had even fully melted, and late to wilt, often well after most of the trees had lost their leaves in the fall.

There were many conflicting tales about why the flowers in and around Longbloom Meadow were so different. Some said it was due to a quirk of the local weather, while other villagers insisted that it had something to do with the way the flowers were first seeded. Other explanations Tigri had heard were on the more fantastical side: that the flowers bloomed the way that they did because of the blessing of a god’s visit in the distant past. Or that it was the work of such a Pokémon who took pity on Abri’s residents from afar after they had been forced to flee from the site of an earlier haven untold years ago. Sometime before Elder Gide with all his years as a Ghost-type had even hatched.

Whatever the story behind the meadow’s blooms was, the effect was unmistakable, and every time Tigri and her teammates stepped out from the forest and into the grassy knolls just outside, it was impossible to miss

A sea of yellow flowers, filling the lowlands between the river to the west and the Mazewoods to the east. Tigri watched as the blooms swayed in the wind, and although muddy from her nearsightedness, she could see the rise of the plateau to the north which bounded Longbloom Meadow from the north. The place from which the river they were headed for came cascading down along a set of falls.

And every time she saw it, it filled her with that same sense of awe as the first time she saw it coming out of the Mazewoods with the Furfrou Brothers.

“Heh, It never gets old seeing the meadow like this, does it?” Stig asked.

Except, despite its appearance, Longbloom Meadow was still a place where Pokémon from Abri had to be careful. Wilds came through the place both from the Mazewoods and from the northern plateau, with changelings and Illusionists sometimes catching even experienced teams off-guard.

And sometimes, still greater threats drifted in from afar. Which if the Furfrou Brothers were to be believed, there had been one of that sort which had come through just days ago.

“Just be careful, you two,” Tigri insisted. “I know that the meadow’s considered relatively safe and that Pokémon like Sheriff Ron watch over it, but the Furfrou Brothers did say they saw signs that a human passed through here.”

“It’ll be fine, Tigri!” Rouge insisted. “With my wings, as long as I’m up high enough, I could see any human coming from halfway across Longbloom Meadow!”

Tigri hesitated briefly, before casting a glance back at their empty sled. It obviously wasn’t going to fill itself with salvage from the river, but she couldn’t help but feel a nagging sense of doubt about them being here. Elder Gide and Ticho didn’t say anything about it not being safe to continue doing missions outside Abri, but she couldn’t help but wonder if they’d have been better off trying to do odd jobs in the village until more time had passed, even if it wouldn’t have given as generous of a reward.

She paused and brought a paw to her chin. It was the job of Sheriff Ron and his Officers like the Furfrou Brothers to help watch over teams like them in the safer places outside of Abri like Longbloom Meadow, and they weren’t exactly bad at their jobs. Who knew? Maybe the Furfrou Brothers would even help them in person today. While they hadn’t run into each other much since they stopped working as a Team and started duties as Officers watching over Abri’s periphery, it wasn’t as if they’d stopped being helpful to them since they first led her and Stig to the village.

Tigri shook her head, as the more she thought about it, the more the decision seemed to make itself for her.

“Alright then, just be careful,” she said. “Maybe I’m worrying about nothing, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

---

Before Tigri knew it, she and the rest of Team Aspirant were in the thick of Longbloom Meadow’s flowers, coming up the edge of the plateau that hemmed it in from the north. Allegedly, Patron and his pack made their dens somewhere up on the plateau, but the climb up and down was arduous enough that it wouldn’t have surprised Tigri if it was all just a story, even if she wasn’t sure where else they’d all live.

She opted not to think too hard about it and focus on finding her way forward. The sooner they got to the path, the better. While Longbloom Meadow’s flowers were nice to behold from afar, their height quickly made navigation disorienting for Pokémon who weren’t tall enough to see above them. That left going by the few landmarks which rose above the flowers like the occasional tall shrub or rise, and relying on scents and sounds to fill in the gaps for guessing how far one was to the different ends of the meadow. Or to help find stashes of salvage that had been gathered from the river, but were too heavy or bulky to take back to Abri all at once.

Every now and then, Tigri would stop along with Stig to test their senses as Rouge went on to scout ahead of them from the air. Tigri wasn’t too worried about the local Wilds. She and her teammates had brought their bands to show they were from Abri and the Wilds who came through Longbloom Meadow usually respected them. Or at least enough not to hunt villagers. The Wilds that came from the Mazewoods were always a bit more iffy since the village hadn’t fully made peace with all the Pokémon that lived there. Between its local Zoroark packs, Trevenant groves, and a peculiar glamor about the place that seemed to have a knack for disorienting would-be travelers, the woods lived up to their name quite well. To the point where there was a whole cottage industry in Abri just rescuing villagers who had gone in there and gotten lost.

And of course, Longbloom Meadow was the place where few humans that did come near Abri would first pass through, which was why Furfrou Brothers and Abri’s Snorlax Sheriff stood guard over it. According to village folklore, long ago, the central rise from which one could see the entire meadow had been the site where Abri originally had been attempted to be founded.

Except, as the story went, it was discovered by humans that had managed to make it through the Mazewoods, who then raided it and carried off much of its townsfolk, forcing those left behind to retreat into the forests further south.

Tigri shook her head. She didn’t want to think too hard about that story, let alone how true the tale was.

“Tigri?”

Tigri looked up at the sound of a sharp chirp and wingbeats above her. There, Rouge settled on one of the nearby flowers’ stalks, letting it flex and bring him down towards her level as the Fletchling curiously tilted his head and piped up before gesturing off to the left with a wing.

“You’re going the wrong direction. The path to the river’s that way.”

Right, that was why she and Stig had sought out Rouge as a teammate in the first place. Most other Teams in Abri that took missions around Longbloom Meadow similarly made a point of having a flier or tall Pokémon in their ranks who could serve as a spotter. Even with keen hearing and smell, sometimes there was no substitute for a set of eyes high enough that could see clearly and far into the distance.

“Right, thanks for pointing that out, Rouge.”

The Espurr pushed along, brushing aside stems and petals as she continued along through their shade and keenly listening in case for any potential Wilds passing up ahead. About a minute in, a rise came into view above the flowers. A sign of her approaching destination.

Her paw brushed the flowers aside when she saw blades of green grass that only came up to her waist and stepped out. There was the path over to the river, with the small ledge blocking it off that had to be inched past to the left. Tigri grabbed one of the cords on their sled as Stig took the other and Rouge pushed from behind before they started up the ramp. She or Stig was more than capable of bringing it on their own when it was empty, but for inclines like these, it was generally best to all pitch in as a team. She and Stig lifted it together with telekinetic force when they reached the blocking ledge before they inched around the side of the bluff in the way and caught up with their sled.

It was a straight shot afterwards on the earthen path. The meadows lying below them to the left, with the plateau’s stony face on the right, broken by only that eerie cave entrance. Tigri didn’t know what the story was behind it other than that some villagers said that it was haunted. The thought crossed her mind that it might just be the doing of Patron’s pack, but those stories predated the Zoroark pack’s arrival by quite a while.

Her ears pricked at the sound of rushing water up ahead and mist hanging in the air. She looked up, and there were the falls. The place from which salvage washed in from the outside world for Abri’s villagers to use. For containers, as materials to build shelters, and occasionally to eat whenever something edible washed up. Stig was there idly levitating a rock beside their sled, as he tended to do when he was restless. He dropped it as Rouge circled around and settled on the ground by him, and ruffled his feathers.

“I already went and checked along the riverbank,” the Fletchling explained. “Looks like there’s still plenty of unclaimed salvage left behind from those storms earlier this week”

That was a relief to hear. More salvage meant more money paid out by Achile and his parents. Tigri already had thoughts of what they’d do with the money they earned dancing about in her mind until they reached the riverbank. She and her teammates froze, as her and her brother’s mouths dropped and Stig raised his voice with an incredulous stammer.

“Rouge, you could’ve warned us that the salvage left behind was all bulky!”

Well, that wasn’t fully fair, since there was still some salvage that looked relatively easy to transport left behind in the riverbank’s muck. There were the bottles and cans that there always were, but the pieces that immediately caught the eye really were on the larger side. There was a pitted and scarred white chest big enough for the three of them to fit in and some sort of large hollow spike with white and orange bands on it. There was even a pair of large rubber rings, one with a filled metal center and one without.

Tigri had heard that larger treasures tended to wash up after rainstorms like the ones that had happened earlier in the week but it must have been quite fierce to wash objects this big up. The Espurr turned her attention to the chest and stepped forward to paw at it. It was made of resin, and much to her surprise, as big as it looked, it budged after she pushed it with her paw.

“I… think we might actually be in luck,” she said. “Some of these treasures aren’t as heavy as they look.”

Tigri focused and stared at the chest as a blupinkish aura enveloped it. She held out a paw and turned her gaze as it moved along in her line of sight as she carried it up the riverbank, bringing it over the to sled before she set it down with a sharp clatter. Stig went over and tested the pull cord with his mind and found that the sled still budged under its weight. Rouge himself was also curious, as hopped up onto the rim of the chest, and eyed it closely. There were a few scratches and pecks before the Fletchling popped up again, and peered down with a sharp chirp.

“It could stand to be washed out a bit, but good find, Tigri!” the bird chirped. “Why, it’s big enough for a Pokémon like me to make a nest out of it!”

Tigri went up and tested the pull cord himself. It was definitely heavier than they’d have liked for a single piece of salvage, but it was still manageable and left room for other treasures to be put inside it. She and her brother traded glances briefly before Stig motioned off at one of the hoops lying on the riverbank.

“Hm, let’s try that empty hoop next,” Stig suggested. “Carat has been looking for additional seats for her Juice Bar and it looks like it’d work quite well for one.”

Stig made his way over and focused his mind on the black hoop as a blue aura enveloped it. He raised the hoop, only for the glow to briefly falter and for it to slip his grasp in the air. Tigri reflexively focused and joined in focus, raing her own arm out at the rubber ring as it steadied. It definitely felt heavier, and she could feel her head pulsing more noticeably than when she’d moved the chest. Tigri started to tune out her other senses to keep her mind’s attention on the black hoop, but even so, she stole a glimpse from the corner of her eye at her brother before raising her mind’s voice.

“It feels pretty heavy, Stig. Are we sure the sled will still move if we try to bring it along?“

“We might as well try,” his mind answered back. “Worst comes to worst, we’ll leave it here and let another team take care of it.“

That made sense. And who knew? If they did need to abandon the hoop, Tigri supposed that it wouldn’t be a total waste. If nothing else, they could roll it down the slope back to the meadow, and seeing how fast it could go would probably be entertaining. The Espurr joined in along with her brother, side-stepping as the pair kept their minds focused on the hoop and made their way up the riverbank. The muck gave way to grass and things began to smooth out as Rouge followed watched them in awe.

Except, right as they reached the top, Rouge’s beak fell open and he motioned off at the river with a panicked squawk.

“A-Ahh! H-Human! Human!“

The weight of the ring suddenly doubled in Tigri’s mind as Stig’s focus broke. Tigri’s own mental focus gave out and the rubber hoop crashed to the ground with a loud thump. Tigri didn’t even bother to turn and look and ran down the path as fast as she could. The surroundings flew by until they made it to the ledge, where they jumped down and beelined back for the meadow’s yellow flowers. Tigri darted deep inside it until she couldn’t see anything but blooms around her and crouched down against the flowers as low as she could go as her heart pounded in her chest.

She breathed in and out tensely, only to realize that she was all alone. She tried to remember where she and the others were separated and had to fight to keep the voice in her throat welled up as the one in her mind cried out desperately.

“S-Stig! Stig! Where are you-?!“

“I’m alright! I’m hiding with Rouge right now! Just stay quiet, and don’t move!“

Stig’s voice filled her mind, from where she couldn’t tell since mind voices were usually hard to discern direction with. Though from how faint it felt, she gathered that they were a ways apart from each other. Maybe he and Rouge were hiding at that cave or somewhere close. Trying to find them right now just risked being discovered. All she could do was to keep her eyes trained up past the flowers and try to control her breathing.

Much to her horror, heavy thumps began to ring out and grow louder and louder. The ground started to faintly tremble, as something which looked like a towering, icy block that was dripping water lumbered past the tops of the flowers. There was another creature that had a gait much like a Machoke’s with white fur on the top of its head and some sort of blue pelt that hung loosely around its body.

A human, just as Rouge had warned.

The human said something she couldn’t make out and stooped down. The creature got up again when she saw that it was holding the hoop she and Stig had been moving clasped between a pair of lanky arms. The white-haired creature abruptly stopped, and then the ice block creature did itself, as a low rumbling voice came from it.

“Huh? Did you see something?”

Tigri watched in horror as the icy block turned and a wedge-shaped head with yellow eyes came into view—an Avalugg’s. Or at least based on what Tigri had heard described of them in the past, it looked like an Avalugg. It must’ve been the human’s partner, and it was clearly far stronger than anything she could hope to fight off in battle. Maybe stronger than what even Elder Gide or Sheriff Ron could resist.

She held her breath and fought back screams in her throat as the thumps came closer and closer and the flowers about her started swaying. The human’s strange voice then spoke up again as the figure with the blue pelt turned.

Their eyes met through the flowers, and her last, lingering threads of composure gave way.

Tigri screamed, with both the voice in her throat and one in her mind. Her ears shot up from her head and she didn’t think as light began to pool between her eyes and she blindly flung a pinkish ray up at the figure. There was a startled cry, she turned to run, as the rumbling voice cried out in a bellowing roar.

“Hey! Get back here!”

She didn’t look back. Her mind was too garbled to make sense of the other voices crying out as she ran through the flowers as quickly as her legs could take her.

---

Tigri tore deeper and deeper into Longbloom Meadow as fast as her legs would carry her, her breaths ever tighter and more ragged. She heard shouts and cries, which were intermixed with the sound of rustling stems and petals for frantic seconds that seemed to pass by just as slowly as they did whenever the needles would plunge into her body in the place with the harsh lights.

Her foot slipped on a pebble and she fell forward, landing face-first into the dirt. Tigri flinched and lay there, staring blankly at the earth as she waited for the human or his partner’s shadow to fall over her and then descend on her.

“Tigri! Tigri!“

Stig’s mind voice resonated in hers again, along with the sound of wingbeats. She turned her head up just in time to catch a glimpse of orange flying past. It was Rouge, circling overhead before he braked in the air and waved a wing with a sharp trill.

“Stig! She’s over here!”

Tigri breathed in and out and slowly got up as the Fletchling dropped down into the flowerbed with her. She looked behind her as the blooms rustled and saw Stig popping out, panting heavily, and with eyes that were seemingly wider than normal despite almost constantly being open.

“Tigri, are you alright?” he asked. “You scared us back there.”

Tigri pawed at her chest and took a moment to brush at her fur as she felt her racing heart slowly return to normal.

“Are you two being followed?” she asked.

“I spat up some fire at the human’s partner as a distraction before flying towards the Mazewoods as a feint,” Rouge explained. “If they were still following us, I don’t think that we’d miss them.”

Tigri breathed in and out as she reassured herself that Rouge was probably right. Whenever the human’s Avalugg partner walked, it made the ground quake. It… wasn’t a foolproof way of telling whether or not they were being stalked since humans had ways of hiding their partners until the last second, but she couldn’t imagine the human would want to be alone after being attacked. Perhaps the two had already started going back towards the river, or better yet, off to the Mazewoods…

“What do we do about the salvage we found?” Stig asked.

Tigri set her teeth on edge at her brothers question. If they went back empty-pawed, they’d have wasted an entire day with nothing to show for it. They couldn’t take it for granted that food wouldn’t run scarce this winter, so eating well and storing away what they could now could mean the difference between a lean but tolerable winter and one wracked with hunger.

She hesitated briefly, before turning her attention back to her teammates.

“Rouge, check from the air and see if you can find any sign of the human. The moment he’s gone, we’ll go back up to get our sled before returning to Abri,” she said. “Couaf and Farel are usually on duty near that spot where Sheriff Ron likes to keep watch over the meadow, and it’s on the way back. We’ll ask them for an escort back home when we reach them.”

The two nodded back at her as she turned her gaze uneasily towards the direction of the plateau. Biding their time was about all that they could do right now.

She just hoped that they weren’t making a mistake.

---

The walk back to the sled went by in fits and starts. Tigri would wait for Rouge to pop out above the flowers in short bursts to glimpse at what lay ahead of them and wait for him to return, before they crept ahead little by little. After a few repetitions of the cycle, she and her teammates grew convinced that the human and his partner were gone and continued on normally after reaching the slope and earthen path to the falls.

Or at least, they did until Rouge cried out in alarm from further ahead of them.

“A-Aah!”

Tigri’s ears flared and she froze in place as her eyes fell on the riverbank. Their sled, and the salvage that used to be there was all gone. All that remained of it were impressions in the flowerbeds, along with two sets of footprints leading away. One of a two-legged creature with treaded feet which were roughly the size of a Machoke’s, and one of a quadruped with round, heavy footprints that were set in a wide stance.

Her mind went blank in shock, as Stig’s voice pricked her ears with a stunned murmur.

“There’s nothing left. They took everything.”

Tigri hung her head as her eyes started to grow damp. They’d spent all this time just getting their sled out here and gathering all that salvage, and that human and his partner had come from nowhere and taken it all away.

And like the ones who ran her through with needles in the place with the harsh lights, she just couldn’t understand why.

She felt a nudge at her arm and noticed Stig pawing at her. He looked at her, meeting her eye to eye for a moment, before turning his gaze down the river with a low sigh.

“… Come on. There might still be some stuff elsewhere along the river,” Stig insisted. “Maybe there’s even something lying around which we can use to make a replacement sled.”

Tigri wasn’t sure how well that was going to work when they didn’t have any pull cables for them, but she supposed they could at least move a sled. They had their mind’s strength, and if it came down to it, their bodies’.

It was better than nothing, at least.

Tigri brushed aside some of the moisture from her eyes before turning back to her teammates with a quiet shake of her head.

“Where would we even start looking?” she asked.

“I saw some salvage lying around further downstream on our way over, which I initially figured we’d pick up on our way home,” Rouge said. “The place I saw it at isn’t far from where Sheriff Ron would be if we got into trouble again. Why don’t we start there?”

Tigri wasn’t sure that it’d really make a difference, but just flatly giving up meant going back to Abri and Achille empty-pawed. Who knew how long it’d take for the next batch of salvage to wash up and give them another chance at completing their mission?

When she put things like that, she supposed there was only one logical thing to say in reply:

“Let’s do it. Just… be careful, okay?”

---

The journey over downstream went by without incident… mostly. After the run-in with the human, Tigri and the rest of Team Aspirant made a point of sticking to the meadowed lowlands and not walking directly along the riverbank like they normally would. Just in case.

The trip went by largely without incident barring a brief skirmish with a wild Jigglypuff. Even so, Tigri couldn’t help but sense that something was wrong as they passed the river’s bend and neared the southern rise up to the riverbank, or at least where she remembered it was. The southern rise could usually be seen as one nearing from the way the flowers would thin out to grass and then a well-trodden path, except they just couldn’t find it today. Even Rouge looking down from above see a sign of the ramp, and the bluffs where Longbloom Meadow gave way to the forests just outside of Abri didn’t seem to be getting any closer.

Something wasn’t adding up right now. Even after accounting for their run-in with the Jigglypuff, it didn’t take this long to reach the southern path up to the river…

“Did we make a wrong turn?” she asked.

“No, I definitely remembered seeing the forest in this direction a ways back,” Rouge chirped back to her. “I know that they’re supposed to thin out into a some straggler trees by the river, but I don’t see them.”

Tigri tilted her head. Had they strayed too far east or too far inland? Or had some of those straggler trees fallen down in the storms earlier in the week? They admittedly hadn’t been to this part of the Longbloom Meadow in a while, but it seemed like a strange detail for nobody in the village to mention.

Unless this wasn’t what their surroundings really looked like, and this was-

“Tigri! Look out!”

Tigri jumped aside as the air shimmered in magenta light and a flash of red claws zipped overhead. She rolled aside panting and looked over to see Stig similarly crouched as Rouge spat cinders at their assailant. The air wavered, as holes of magenta light opened up and revealed the earthen slope of the riverbank just off ahead, along with an older-looking Zoroark with scars on his arm who approached crouched and growling.

“Patron?” Stig asked. “What are you doing here?”

The Zoroark paused and looked genuinely confused for a moment, before sizing Tigri and her teammates up carefully. Tigri watched as the fox’s eyes fell on her arm and the small band wrapped around it. His demeanor eased up afterwards, before he waved a claw with a dismissive scoff.

“Oh, you’re more of those village Pokémon. At first, I thought you were with him,” Patron harrumphed. “Get out of here and go back home, I don’t have the patience to deal with your kind interrupting my pack right now.”

“Wh-What are you talking about?” Rouge asked. “What are you doing?”

A flash of light caught Tigri’s attention, as she watched magenta light start to pool by the Zoroark’s legs as the holes in his Illusion started to seal up. The Zoroark turned aside and seemed to sculpt his surroundings with his paws, not bothering to look at her or the others on Team Aspirant as he focused on disguising himself.

“My pack and I are in the middle of tracking an intruder nearby here and it requires making careful illusions to deal with them,” Patron insisted. “Illusions you brats will mess up by rooting around.”

No, the riverbank where they were going to look for their salvage was right there. They didn’t seriously come all this way after everything with the human encounter just for Patron to mess things up because his pack got into some stupid territorial dispute.

… Except, there was no way that any of them could ever hope to beat him. Aside from Elder Gide and Sheriff Ron, just about everyone in Abri would struggle in a fight against Patron.

She gritted her teeth and began to turn aside. Sheriff Ron wasn’t far from here. If they could just wake him up and get him to come over, surely he’d surely force the Zoroark to back down…

“What a bunch of garbage! We were doing work for our village! We’re not doing anything to harm you and you have no right to-!”

Tigri’s breath hitched at the sound of an angry hiss from the voice in Stig’s throat. She felt her pupils briefly shrink as she turned for him.

“Shut up, village runt!”

The next thing she knew, there was a dark-colored pulse that flew in. Tigri tried to shield herself only for the pulse to catch up with her and send her tumbling to the ground as her teammates’ voices cried out. She got up panting and looked up to see Stig lying on the ground with a woozy groan. Her heart pounded in her chest as a blur of black and red pounced on him, and pinned him beneath a set of claws.

“I’m tired of hearing you village ingrates act like you own this place! Like it’s not because of us that you’re able to hide away from everything!” the Zoroark snarled. “Maybe Aegislash and the rest of his useless mouths seeing a few of their own coming back torn up will get the message across!”

Patron raise his free claw as images filtered through Tigri’s mind:

Of being in the place with the harsh lights and watching helplessly through cold metal bars as she heard the voice of Stig’s mind cry out from a place she couldn’t get to.

Of the day when they managed to escape and took off running through the grass outside ugly, blocky structures looming behind them.

Of cringing and hiding away from every footstep in the tall grasses beyond, dreading that it’d belong to a human who’d bring them back there.

Of when they first heard of Abri, the refuge for Pokémon who neither belonged in the wilds nor alongside humans.

Of their first day walking in, and of the sense of awe they had that the stories they’d heard in whispers of the village of Pokémon really were true.

No. She couldn’t let Patron end things here after all of that. She wouldn’t let him.

“Get off of him!“

Tigri ran ahead and leaped up, slapping a paw against the Zoroark’s head. It didn’t do much, but it managed to make him stumble and let go of Stig as he crawled off into the flowers. She fell back for her brother’s side as Rouge flew ahead with a series of sharp pecks at the Zoroark’s face. Patron growled and swiped at the Fletchling, before springing back into the flowers.

They never saw where he landed, as Patron’s body disappeared with a magenta sheen as if he’d been spirited away into thin air.

“A-Ah! He disappeared!” Rouge squawked.

Tigri panted and tried to study her surroundings. No, Patron hadn’t truly disappeared. That wasn’t how he or the others in their pack made their Illusions. They would disguise themselves as someone, or something, or warp their surroundings behind them.

Tigri heard rustling and whirled around. She looked off past Rouge where she thought she heard the noise coming from when she saw it: a patch of flowers that wasn’t moving with the wind.

“Rouge! Behind you!”

It was too late. The flowers melted away in a flash of magenta as Patron lunged forward and brought a downward slash with his claws onto the Fletchling’s wing. The Fire-type shrilled in pain and plummeted to the ground as Tigri tightened her grip on her brother’s body and felt her fur stand on end. Patron flicked a few loose feathers aside, before turning towards her. Their eyes met, as Patron bared his fangs with a low snarl.

“You…“

Tigri felt a chill run down her spine as the Zoroark drew closer and closer. Her mind went blank and the air distorted around her head as a splitting headache built up. The next thing she knew, the flowers around her were ripping away as she let loose a psychic burst. The air grew thick with flying petals and stems, except as it cleared, the Dark-type was still there, with her blow having done little more than muss his fur.

She should’ve known better. That resisting her mind’s power was part of the nature of Patron and his kind. Had she been calm and collected, perhaps she could’ve done something different. But her moment of opportunity had passed and she couldn’t do anything now.

He lunged ahead, red claws filling her vision as she froze in terror.

“Get away from her, Patron!”

Everything went by in a blur afterwards. Patron’s claws never reached her when a flash of cream and black blur shot in and knocked him off course. Tigri stumbled back as the two figures stumbled over each other with sharp snarls when another cream-and-black figure dove in. She glimpsed Rouge in the flowers off to her right and hurriedly went over to his side. He was struggling to get up and holding his wing out funny when he looked back at the sounds of the fighting behind them.

“A-Ah! That’s-!”

Tigri followed her teammates’ eyes and saw them: Couaf and Farel, trying their hardest to pin Patron down with bites and tackles. The Zoroark eventually got the upper paw and flung Couaf off him and then batted aside Farel with a swipe of his claws. Farel stumbled back with a sharp yelp as Patron got back onto his feet and braced himself, readying a Night Daze as a shadowy aura gathered around his body.

He abruptly froze as a yawning growl came from deeper inland, or at least what Tigri thought was from deeper inland. She panted, and for a moment, thought she saw a hint of unease in Patron’s eyes. The Zoroark’s reaction seemed to give Couaf and Farel a shot of determination, as the elder of the Furfrou brothers trotted forward, and turned his snout up with a sharp scowl.

“That’s Sheriff Ron, nice job waking him up for us. You and I both know you wouldn’t beat him in a fight even if Farel and I weren’t here,” Couaf said between pants. “He’s always in a bad mood whenever he has to get up to deal with problems, so I’d strongly suggest you run off if you don’t want to fight him.”

Patron visibly hesitated, before turning his eyes back towards Tigri and her companions. She paused and held her breath. Patron and his kind were always unnerving from the way she just couldn’t pick up anything of their thoughts or feelings beyond what she could read from her own eyes. There was a pause where the seconds seemed to drag on and on before the Dark-type finally backed away. He narrowed his eyes, before turning back to Couaf and Farel with a flash of his fangs.

“Hrmph, so be it. I’ve gotten my message across, and here’s another one for you two to bring back to your ‘Elder’,” he snarled. “Until you all give something to make it worth my pack’s while, you all can hide your miserable ‘village’ by yourselves!“

The Zoroark sprang back as a flash of magenta light overtook him and he vanished into the surroundings. The rustle of flowers being brushed aside lingered in the air, which died down almost as soon as it came, and before long, it was as if Patron had never been there.

Or at least it would’ve been had it not been for her own shaky breaths, or Rouge’s wounded wing, or Stig lying moaning in the flowers a short distance away. Couaf and Farel were there staring blankly off into the surrounding meadow, when the younger of the Furfrou brothers lowered his head with a quiet shake.

“Well this day has just been going fantastic,” Farel murmured. “First that human prowling around, and now this…”

“Save it for later, Farel,” Couaf barked. “Team Aspirant’s hurt!”

Tigri watched as Couaf hurriedly darted over to Stig and rolled him over, and discovered his eyes were closed and there was little sign of life beyond his breathing and a damp and sticky feeling on his chest’s fur. Tigri felt a swell of panic come over her and ran ahead only to hear a sharp squawk behind her.

“Ow!”

She looked back and saw Rouge wincing and holding out his wing. Farel went over and nosed at him, as a quiet grimace came over his face.

Was Rouge’s injury worse than she thought? She’d been so worried about Stig that she hadn’t paid close attention to her Fletchling teammate. Farel’s voice snapped her to attention, as he looked down at the wounded Fire-type and tried to calm him.

“Try not to move your wing, Rouge,” he said. “Let me help you out here.”

The elder Furfrou saw her from the corner of his eye and briefly turned to her with a stern expression.

“Stay with me and your brother for now,” Couaf said. “Farel will take care of Rouge. Stig should be fine after getting patched up a bit, but it’d be for the best to have someone keep an eye on him on the way back to town..”

“… Okay.”

Tigri turned and sidled up against Couaf as he attempted to lift Stig up by the scruff of his neck. Tigri focused as a bluish aura enveloped his body, and she set him on the Furfrou’s back. He crouched, looking over and motioning up with his snout.

“Get on,” he said. “Someone’s going to need to keep him steady on the way back to town.”

Tigri didn’t say anything and obliged. She took her place on Couaf’s back and latched onto him, one paw clinging to his coat, another to her brother’s body. She felt Stig’s chest rise and fall weakly as she looked down at him.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Couaf gave a passing “meet me at the infirmary” to Farel and set off after that. The whole time, Tigri didn’t say anything and looked down at her brother as the meadow drifted away in the corners of her vision.