The Path of Destiny Part 60 Part 1

The Path of Destiny

Chapter 60- The Resting Place

Moonlight shone across the surface of a vast lake, but with the shouts and cries of hundreds of pokémon gathered there, the spot was far from peaceful. Swimming nearly every inch of the lake, swarming the shores and patrolling the fields around it, and circling the air in mismatched flocks, were pokémon of every shape and size. Some of the stronger ones made their way through the throng of agitated creatures, shouting orders, shuffling groups around or welcoming returning hunting parties or gatherers.

On the far side of the lake, on the edge of a rocky outcrop, stood a vaporeon. The water type’s gaze was fixated on the shape of a tall mountain in the distance.

“We can reach the mountain in a day if we move quickly,” a voice spoke from behind him, and the lithe shape of an espeon moved forward to stand next to the other eevee evolution. “There’s no mistaking it,” Solus continued. “Some of the scouts have seen for themselves; that’s where Articuno is.”

“And where the electric stone is, right?” a female voice asked from somewhere behind him. Cyclone angled his head toward the speaker, one of his fin ears twitching. The speaker was the scyther Silverbreeze, a pokémon who had proved loyal, despite some of her misgivings regarding Solus’ torture methods. “And you’re certain that’s the one?”

“Very sure,” the vaporeon responded, turning away. “Silverbreeze, help organize the others down there. The psychic pokémon can’t keep track of everyone.”

Wordlessly, the scyther stepped down from the ledge onto the rocky path that led from the outcrop of the boulders down toward smooth ground. She gave Solus a nervous glance as she did so, but the espeon didn’t notice.

As soon as she was gone, the two eevee evolutions heard pawsteps approaching them from higher up in the rocks.

“It better be the right one,” a pokémon growled, huffing as she came to a stop behind Cyclone and Solus. “I’m done waiting. I want my stone like the others have.”

Solus raised his hackles and gave a slight growl at the sight of the other pokémon, but at a look from Cyclone, he forced himself to relax.

The speaker was a manectric, a canine pokémon with spiky blue and yellow fur, and a pointed yellow crest on her head. Yet there was something disturbingly wrong with her. Over large portions of her body, she was completely hairless. Where she did have fur, it was thin and brittle looking, and rather than having a vibrant sheen like a normal manectric’s, its color was dull and faded. The lack of fur showed skin that was rough and dry, either bleeding or caked with dried blood in several places. It was also weirdly discolored, having a deep, sickly green to it that gave off the impression she was seriously ill. But the manectric’s eyes were bright and alert, and Solus knew that her nasty-looking appearance was the result of a human experiment, not illness. Nevertheless, he hated having to be around her. She was disgusting, and her skin looked like it was rotting. Her attitude was even worse.

“It will be, Itora,” Cyclone assured the manectric, his voice uncharacteristically warm. “We’ve confirmed it.”

The pokémon gave another irritated growl at these words, sparks flying off the tufts of yellow and blue fur clinging to her shoulders as she paced back and forth. “If any of them were wrong I hope you claw their throats out,” she growled. “It took us long enough to get here.” Itora gave Cyclone a piercing glare. “If it were me, we wouldn’t be stopping by this lake. We’d be heading straight to the mountain now.”

“If we rest for the night, we can be at the mountain by the time it’s dark tomorrow,” Cyclone said calmly, acting as if he hadn’t noticed the manectric’s display of disrespect.

“By the time it’s dark? How would that help? You think we could surprise the bird?” Itora cried mockingly. “From below a mountain?” She laughed. “You must be crazy! Unless the real reason is that you want to give all those lazy jerks down there a rest. That shouldn’t be our problem. The strongest are going to have to endure worse than that if they think they’re going to swipe an Attack stone right from under Articuno’s beak.”

Cyclone didn’t respond to the manectric’s question. “You want to kill off some humans, don’t you?” he asked calmly. “You’ve waited this long. You can wait another day for this.”

“Fine,” Itora grumbled. “But what are we going to practice on first? We won’t find any humans out here.”

“I know,” Cyclone replied gently. “We won’t be encountering humans for some time. But I want your attacks at full strength for when we do. When we reach the deep caves, you can practice all you want on prey pokémon.”

“Right, right, don’t destroy pokémon habitats. I get it,” the manectric muttered. “But don’t pokémon live in the caves?”

“Not as many,” Solus replied, giving the electric type a sneer. Itora stared right back, her eyes narrowing to slits.

“You got something to say to me?” Itora snapped at the espeon. Solus gave her a dangerous glare and looked away. Itora smirked. “I didn’t think so.”

“Itora, I want you to stay here with the others,” Cyclone stated, giving the manectric a respectful nod as he climbed down the rock ledge and moved toward the group of pokémon.

“Sure, Cyclone,” she replied with a shrug.

Itora peered over the edge, watching as Cyclone moved toward the center of the resting army. Groups of pokémon parted as he passed them, none of them even daring to lay so much as a scratch on their leader, even the ones who had been forced into joining. They knew that if Cyclone was threatened, he just might use his Attack, and it would be all over for the aggressor. The manectric pressed her claws against the rock in frustration. She wanted that sort of power. She wanted what was promised to her. She had waited long enough. This was her first chance at something good – no, wonderful, and if anyone messed it up for her, she would make sure Cyclone made them pay for it.

“Itora, try to be calm,” a smooth voice stated, and the manectric turned her head toward the small but spooky looking form of a misdreavus.

The blue-green ghost type floated gently above a wide ledge next to another pokémon, a yanmega. The large flying bug type was resting, his six legs gripping a pointed spur of rock that tilted slightly upward, which gave Itora a good view of the thick scar that ran perfectly straight along his underside, starting from beneath his neck and ending almost to where his tail met his body. Smaller scars criss-crossed it, showing that it had once been stitched together with some human implement.

The misdreavus, however, bore no scars, yet she hated humans just as much as either of them. Both she and the yanmega had glowing stones hanging from tough vines that hung around their necks, a symbol of the power Itora was anticipating so badly. The misdreavus gave Itora a concerned look, and the manectric sighed. The large yanmega turned his head pointedly in Itora’s direction, even though he didn’t need to do so in order to see her.

“Shut up!” Itora growled at them. “You two already have your Attacks. I’m just a little bit uncomfortable with the fact that we have to go through a legendary to get this one.”

“Cyclone must have a plan. And we’re not even going to be heading to the deep caves yet,” the misdreavus went on. “Yenn and I won’t be able to use our attacks before then either. You aren’t going to fall behind. And there are probably others waiting for Attacks as well.”

“Yeah, but Cyclone hasn’t picked anyone else, has he?” Itora shot back. “We don’t even know where any of the other stones are! Well, apart from the one that houndour has, and supposedly someone’s got the pokémon with the ice attack locked up somewhere. But hey, I actually want to become a part of bettering the world. Put the humans in their place, you know? I can’t just sit down and do nothing after what they’ve done. And I don’t care what pokémon I have to hurt to get there.”

“And neither do we,” the misdreavus replied. “But we can’t do anything until we have enough Attack users to stand a chance.”

“It’s a bit hard to wait after what they did to me, Ashend,” Itora growled.

“Believe me,” Ashend continued, “before this is over, the heads of thousands of humans and their pokémon are going to roll. We’ll make sure of it.”

The yanmega leaned down to where one of Cyclone’s underlings had brought him an offering of several small prey pokémon. He grabbed the limp body of a sandslash in his jaws and snapped through its neck with his fangs, shaking it once so that the head became dislodged and rolled down the rocks to Itora’s feet. “Like that,” he stated. “But picture it happening to some idiot trainer.” He gave a small satisfied laugh.

The electric type smirked. “I can’t wait to see you do that to a real human,” she remarked. “A live one.”

“Neither can I,” the green bug type replied.

“And when we’re ready for that stage of Cyclone’s plan, you can do that, Yenn, but for now…let’s focus on the journey ahead.” Ashend’s eyes flashed with an eerie glow as she turned toward the mountain.

She heard Itora give a yelp as Yenn took to the air, nearly knocking the manectric back with the force of his take off. Ashend assumed he just needed to burn off some energy, but instead he only moved toward the edge of the outcrop beside her. He was looking to the mountain, she presumed, though it was hard to tell, given that his eyes could see in so many directions at once.

“Yeah, it’s easy for you two to wait,” Itora grumbled from behind them, resuming her restless pacing. The yanmega and misdreavus exchanged a wordless glance before looking disdainfully down at the gathered pokémon of the army.

“Worthless idiots…” Ashend muttered, her gaze turning toward a group of cowering new recruits, obviously reluctant to enter Cyclone’s growing army. Beside her, Yenn gave a nod of agreement.

Solus, who had been trying to block out the conversation between the three other pokémon, flattened his ears in annoyance. Cyclone may possibly have picked good candidates in Yenn and Ashend, but he was already fed up with Itora. Still, there was nothing he could do about it, and he had made a point to ignore the manectric when he could. Sighing, he jumped down from the rock and began to make his way through the gathering of pokémon toward where Cyclone had gone. The army’s leader sat near the center of the throng, where the pokémon had cleared a wide circle in the grass. The vaporeon was surrounded by several other high ranking members of the army. Solus had no trouble getting there; the pokémon parted and cleared a path as he walked by as well.

“Cyclone, is everything ready for tomorrow?” he asked as he walked into the center of the makeshift clearing.

Cyclone nodded. “Yes,” he replied, not giving any further explanation.

A rhyperior, looking a bit too unnerved about the whole thing for Solus’s taste, shifted his feet uncomfortably. Solus remembered him. A new recruit. One who had been allowed to join this small circle of high-ranking members through sheer strength and the fact that he’d sought out the army on his own. Unfortunately, he hadn’t shown to be the smartest of pokémon. “And what, exactly, are you and the others going to do when you reach the top of that mountain?” he asked. “How do you expect to slip past Articuno long enough to get to the stone?”

The vaporeon straightened up, letting his cold glare wander over the assembled pokémon. Solus noticed that the scyther, Silverbreeze, couldn’t help but flinch a bit.

“We’re not,” Cyclone said. “What we’re going to do is simple.”

A hushed silence fell over the group, seeming almost eerie despite the noise of the army surrounding them on all sides.

“We’re going to kill a legendary.”

                                                                                  -ooo-

Under the same moon and stars, a gloomy clearing lay empty, untouched by wild pokémon save for a few small rattata foraging in the night. Tall, battered-looking trees surrounded the secluded area on all sides.

Through the bushes on one side of the clearing, a teenage boy fought his way through the leafy vegetation until he emerged from the gloom to stand in the patch of moonlight filtering through the treetops. A nervous jolteon followed him, coming to stand at his side and casting a forlorn look at what was to be their new resting place.

Justin leaned over and gasped for breath, throwing his backpack onto the ground. Spark walked forward into the clearing, pacing anxiously around as he cast several glances to the patch of sky overhead. “It looks big enough,” the pokémon’s trainer muttered. “Go get the others.”

Spark nodded and shot off into the trees, leaving Justin alone.

The boy crouched down, backing into the shadows beneath the trees and toward the shelter of a large bush. He shivered against the cold, his thoughts drifting back to the warm hotel he and Katie had spent their nights in since arriving at Stonedust City. It seemed like much more than a few months since he’d last camped out in the wilderness, and at the moment, he couldn’t fathom why Damian preferred to sleep out in the open.

Katie was going back to Damian’s old camp, retrieving his supplies and tent. She had already picked up their own supplies from the hotel; Katie had been smart enough to realize that there would be trouble if she was found and questioned – being Justin’s roommate – by the police. She had gone back for the supplies the moment they’d informed her of the situation, and luckily had gotten in and out without any trouble. She had left behind just enough unnecessary items to give the impression she still planned to stay, thus, hopefully, removing suspicion.

Justin still couldn’t believe what had happened. The image of the television screen above the city shop was burned into his mind. His worst fears had become a reality, and not for the reasons he’d thought they would. Almost subconsciously, he turned toward the darkness of the forest, longing for his jolteon’s return.

This place was further from the city than any of their camps before. It had to be. The police would expect them to flee into the wilderness. They hadn’t merely vandalized something; they had damaged, possibly irreparably, one of the most important historical buildings in the Inari region, and the rare and valuable information kept inside.

The bushes behind him twitched, and Justin jumped, only to breathe a sigh of relief as Spark came bounding back to him. He managed a small smile as the jolteon nuzzled him gently with his head.

Alex the floatzel darted in next, followed by Rosie and Wildflame. Justin found himself backing up toward them, knowing that the newest addition to the ragtag group of misfits was a scyther. One of those nasty fighting ring pokémon, too. When he found himself standing in the bright moonlight again, his thoughts shifted to wondering if the police had sent out flying types to search for him. He decided he was more afraid of the police than he was of scyther, and edged toward the undergrowth again.

However, the next pokémon to appear were Snowcrystal, Blazefang, and Arien. Both Snowcrystal and Blazefang were limping, but the growlithe seemed more exhausted than hurt. There was blood on the back of her neck, but the wounds only went as deep as her skin. The houndoom was a different story, but from what Justin could see, his wounds didn’t look terribly deep. The bony ridges on his back seemed to have blocked most of the blows. However, he was walking on three legs; one of his shoulders was still glistening with blood. Justin had never liked the houndour – or now, houndoom – but he still felt worried. Would being injured make him weaker mentally, make it easier to trigger the Forbidden Attack?

As the two canine pokémon made it into the clearing, Arien arrived, walking slower than they were. The alakazam had no wounds, but he was still supporting Damian, who looked to be in a state of either shock or near unconsciousness. Justin wasn’t sure which, but whatever the cause, Damian wasn’t reacting to much of anything around him.

Justin turned away to let the alakazam deal with trying to find a place for his trainer to rest. He sat warily beside Spark, dreading the scyther’s appearance yet opting to focus on that rather than on his more pressing fear.

Redclaw appeared next. The arcanine was moving as carefully as he could so as not to agitate the injured heracross on his back, but it was clear that it was proving to be a futile effort. Justin didn’t know how badly Nightshade was hurt, but he didn’t want to think about it. Nightshade was one of their strongest pokémon; they couldn’t afford to lose him.

Once Redclaw had stepped into the clearing and lowered himself to the ground, Justin caught sight of movement in the darkness of the trees. He saw a flash of wicked blue eyes staring in his direction, and the shape of a scyther moved off, slinking away into the forest.

Spark, reluctant to leave his worried trainer, turned his attention away from Thunder, instead looking to the rest of the group. This was one of the times he wished his beloved trainer could understand his words; perhaps he and the other pokémon could reassure him somehow. But with Damian unable to respond much, and Katie currently fetching supplies, no one could help with that at the moment. But Spark could still be there to comfort Justin in whatever way he could, and when he felt the boy grip his fur tightly, the way he did whenever he wanted support, he knew that he was helping, even if only a little.

“So…what’s the plan, Arien?” Spark asked, looking from one pokémon to another, wondering if they had any input as well.

“First, we need to conceal the camp,” the alakazam responded, leaning Damian back against a thick tree. “Katie has a flying type, but all we’ve got now is Fernwing to help create a canopy. Anyone else able bodied, use whatever you can find to hide this clearing from all sides.”

No one objected, and slowly, the uninjured pokémon got up, trudging into the unfamiliar forest. They vanished into the trees, leaving the wounded pokémon where they rested. Spark hesitated.

“Look,” the jolteon began, “we’ve gotta find food. We have no idea where we are, and we need to know where the best hunting spots are if we’re gonna-”

“Katie will get food from the city,” Arien responded, cutting him off. The alakazam didn’t even look at him; his attention was on Damian.

“And how long will that last?” Spark cried. “If they find out she’s helping us they’ll stop her. And for all we know, there could be hostile pokémon in this place! We didn’t come this way when we left from Snowcrystal’s mountain. We have no idea what we’re up against here!”

Wordlessly, Arien released Fernwing from her poké ball, giving her the instructions. The tropius didn’t argue, but merely nodded and flew off to find branches or vines she could stretch between the treetops surrounding the clearing.

“The least we can do is not leave this place unguarded,” Spark continued. “We’ve got several injured pokémon here. I don’t think I should-”

“Go,” said Arien. “I’ve got Inferno and Todd to help as well.”

Spark huffed, but stood up, feeling like arguing with the psychic type would be a waste of time. “Come on, Justin,” he sighed, nudging the boy’s side as a wordless means of communication. “Let’s find bossy-pants some sticks and stuff.”

Justin didn’t need a translation to understand where Spark wanted him to go, but both of them halted in their tracks as a dark shape soared above the clearing. For a moment, Spark and Justin both prepared to dart into the cover of the trees, but as the pokémon descended, they both recognized Katie’s pidgeot.

The bird pokémon was carrying bundles of supplies in his talons. Luckily, they seemed to have managed to get all of Damian’s belongings. Pidgeot set the items down on one edge of the clearing and then landed. Katie hopped off his back and ran toward Damian and Arien.

“He’s…going to be fine, right?” Katie asked.

The alakazam nodded, but motioned for her to leave. Katie ignored him, crouching down so that she was level with the other trainer. “Damian, what-”

“I’m just tired,” Damian said softly, barely lifting his head to look at her.

“He…no longer has any severe injuries,” Arien began, “but….” He trailed off, remembering that Katie could not make any sense out of his words, and he had no psychic link to her.

“That scizor did that?” she mused, straightening up. “Healing him, I mean? He can…really do that…”

“If it’s a Forbidden Attack,” Justin stated, “he shouldn’t.” Katie gave him a glare and he froze. “I meant that he shouldn’t do it again…obviously it’s good that he did it that time!”

“What about the pokémon?” Katie asked, watching her pidgeot converse with Fernwing as the tropius returned with branches. She then ignored them to look at the group of injured pokémon, currently three pitiful-looking shapes lying in the grass. Damian’s pokémon were all back in their poké balls.

“We can’t take them to a pokémon center,” she continued. “Or at least, not the growlithe or the heracross. They know what Nightshade looks like and he has that recognizable scar. And Snowcrystal…well, that goes without saying. Anyone who examines the wounds will see her fur is dyed.”

“So what about Nightshade?” Justin began. “The growlithe isn’t that hurt. But you take the others. Ignore any weird questions they ask. Say you found them in the wild or-”    

“They know I was your roommate at the trainer hotel, Justin,” she began. “If I turn in a heracross that looks just like the one that was registered to Damian…they’re going to think I was connected to this. More importantly, they might find out I’m helping you both hide. But that’s not the only reason I can’t take him.”

“What else, then?” Justin asked.                                      

“Because he could get confiscated at the center,” she began.

Justin remained silent.

“If they think a pokémon is connected to some crime or some criminal, they can confiscate it – keep it under their watch wherever they deem fit – until the whole thing is sorted out. He’d still be at the center but he couldn’t…well, couldn’t be set free. I think they usually put those pokémon up for adoption for other trainers if they turn out to have no owner or the trainer is deemed unfit. We couldn’t do that to Nightshade without his consent…”

“So you’re worried the heracross will get a trainer he doesn’t like?” Justin blurted out. “Why don’t you step in line to adopt him or something? We-”

“Did you not listen to what I was saying before?” she cried. “If I caught Nightshade, or wanted to adopt him, that would just give them another reason to be suspicious of me. I already had to be careful coming to find you out here without being seen. And don’t you think it would seem really strange, bringing in that same heracross the very day they found out the names of the two trainers who set fire to the library?”

“Yeah, but-”

“And honestly, I don’t know what happens to the pokémon they don’t put up for adoption,” Katie continued. “Sure, the people at the pokémon center are great, but in these cases, pokémon that have any connection to crimes are taken away until everything’s found out. And if everything’s found out, they’ll know I was helping you get away. Nightshade wouldn’t belong to me anymore. He’d belong to the city.”

“So why couldn’t we-”

“You don’t hear a lot about what goes on in that place, do you?” Katie snapped. “And no, I’m not talking about the fighting ring. I’m talking about the other things that go on. Not every pokémon facility is a reputable place like that breeding center you got Spark from. A lot of bad things are done to pokémon there and I don’t just mean by the criminals.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Justin growled, his eyes narrowing.

“Plenty of abuse goes on in that city. And…and you know what happens if there are too many of certain wild pokémon too close to the city? They kill them. If you don’t believe me, I can look up the article on my pokégear because as much as the officials don’t want you to hear about it, it’s-”

“Okay, I get it!” Justin cried. “But don’t you think it’s kind of a stretch to assume they’d kill off Nightshade because-”

“No, I don’t,” she began. “An injured, possibly permanently disabled pokémon? Among the thousands of heracross they breed there for trainers? Why wouldn’t they?”

Justin shook his head. “The nurses at the pokémon center wouldn’t allow it.”

“It wouldn’t be up to them,” Katie responded, turning away.

“You know, you’re speaking right in front of them,” Justin stated, gesturing toward the huddled forms of Blazefang and Snowcrystal, and nearby, the prone form of Nightshade. “We might not understand them but they can understand us. I don’t think you’re helping.”

Katie looked ready to argue, but after a brief moment she merely turned her head and sighed. “Look, there are just too many risks. Including risk to you…and Spark. You’re not supposed to be a trainer…what would happen to him?” Justin looked to her in shock, and she could tell that at least she had driven her point home.

“We’ll take care of them ourselves,” she said, walking over to the group of pokémon. “Damian knows the most about treating pokémon wounds; he can help us tomorrow. And I can still buy supplies from the city.”

Katie examined Snowcrystal first. Running her fingers through the growlithe’s fur, she found nothing but bruises, and quickly determined that they were not serious. The bite on her neck was a bit more worrying, but like Justin, she quickly realized that the puncture wounds hadn’t gone deeper than her scruff. “This’ll be easily fixed,” she said to Justin. “I think she’s mostly just exhausted from the fighting.” She smiled a little as Snowcrystal licked her hand.

Katie moved on to Blazefang, who was lying in a heap beside the growlithe. She wasn’t used to seeing the dark type in his much larger houndoom form. His new size made it a bit harder for her to maneuver him in order to see his wounds, but she managed it with little complaint from the houndoom.

“Most of these cuts aren’t as bad as they look,” she said after a moment. “At least…I don’t think they are. We’ll have Damian check in the morning. He’s got a bad wound on his leg but I think it’s mostly just the skin that’s damaged. But his shoulder…that might pose a problem.”

She stood up and walked over to Nightshade, suddenly dreading what she might find. The heracross’s body was smeared with blood in places, and she wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Now that Fernwing and Pidgeot were making a thick canopy overhead, there wasn’t much light to see by. She took out a flashlight, flicking it on and turning it toward the motionless bug type.

“Turn that off, someone’s going to see us!” Justin hissed in a frantic tone.

“No they won’t,” she replied, annoyed at Justin’s paranoia. “Not unless they were standing right outside the clearing. Now, be quiet.”

She shined the flashlight over the heracross, realizing at once that his worst wounds had to be internal. There wasn’t much she could see just by looking at his body, and she knew that the tough shell and dark coloring would make it hard to see even the injuries that were close to the surface. She could see many of what looked like the beginnings of bruises, but it was hard to tell in the darkness.

“It’s hard to tell, but I think he’s got some really bad internal injuries,” she reported, addressing Justin rather than the pokémon around her. “And I think I’ve found out where the blood’s coming from…” She moved the flashlight over the areas of Nightshade’s body where his shell had been cracked, unable to properly analyze the open injuries due to the drying blood covering them. She didn’t think it was a good idea for her to try to clean the wounds on her own. “Damian will have to deal with this,” she said sadly.

Damage like this to a heracross’s shell was more serious than a cut in a pokémon like growlithe or houndoom. She remembered vividly how long Nightshade had had to stay in the pokémon center when they’d first found him, after he was attacked by Thunder.

However, he had sported bad wounds before that happened, according to the pokémon. Scytheclaw had been the one to give them to him, and she knew the scizor’s pincers could cut through just about anything. Nightshade was a tough pokémon; he had dealt with things like that. What worried her were the wounds she couldn’t see. The cracks could possibly be signs of worse damage underneath.

Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to try to take him to the pokémon center. Justin didn’t really understand what could happen, but he understood that it would make it far more likely that the police would follow her back to the camp. At least that would shut him up for a while. Maybe in the morning, when Damian could properly talk to them, they could really see how the pokémon felt about everything.

“I’m going to go back to the city to get some supplies,” she told Justin, standing up. “I’ll find the place again somehow.” She looked up toward her pokémon. “Pidgeot, we’re flying back now!”  

Justin turned away as Katie mounted her pokémon, casting another nervous glance into the woods where that scyther was still lurking somewhere. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep well with that creature slinking about, in spite of all the protection he had. The only one who seemed to have any power to reason with it was the heracross, and he wouldn’t be able to do anything in his state. Perhaps, he thought, in the morning, they could use Arien and Damian to talk back and forth with him. Maybe he could convince the scyther to leave. She sure didn’t seem like she wanted to stay.

Yet underneath all that, the biggest problem screamed at him loud and clear, and his mind was once again brought back to the fact that he had no idea what they were going to do next.

                                                                                  -ooo-

(The rest of the chapter continued in next part...)