“Get your hands off of me!”

Those snarled words were my first introduction to Palina- a woman I’d soon grow to like and kind of respect for her gentle nature. But at that moment when I had first lain eyes on her, she was anything but.

“I was just helping you down,” Irida remarked defensively, as if disbelieving of Palina’s aggression.

Palina hopped off of Braviary herself and landed on two feet. She patted herself down with an angry expression on her face and pushed her wavy, shoulder-length brown hair out of her deep purple eyes. She was really tall, I quickly noticed. She towered over Irida and was barely shorter than myself. She wore an all-white Pearl Clan shirt and skirt that exposed her pale legs. A bowtie around the waist secured an apron-like flannel adorned with the Pearl Clan insignia. She had giant goggles wrapped around her neck, for whatever reason. A tiny, overgrown-looking Growlithe hopped off besides her and faintly sniffed at the air.

“I don’t need your help,” Palina jerked her head away from Irida. “I’ve had quite enough of that from you.”

“Palina…”

“I’ve made myself repeatedly clear,” Palina continued. “I told you I never wanted to see your face again.”

Irida’s usually cold-expression started to waver. “Palina, I-”

“You’re dead to me. The friend I knew wouldn’t have betrayed my trust like that. That damnable ritual was the worst thing to have ever happened to you. And you promised to put an end to it.”

“Palina!” for the first time, I saw Irida grow visibly upset. “You don’t understand, I wanted to-”

“No,” Palina cut her off with a slicing motion. “No more excuses. I was willing to endure your betrayal after the ritual…-”

“You know I couldn’t-!”

“…- but then you went and started a war that murdered countless men and women. And for what? To end up getting nowhere. The girl I once knew wouldn’t ever have done that,” Palina shot her a withering glance. “So, I can only conclude that she has died. Irida fell off a cliff. I don’t know who you are.”

Ouch… that was actually quite scathing. I never could’ve thought anyone would’ve been able to get away with speaking to Irida like that, but the Pearl Clan leader looked too stunned to speak. In fact, tears started to well in her eyes. “You don’t mean that.”

Palina snorted. “You think so?”

Mille and Vicus shared a sheepish look. This felt like we weren’t supposed to be watching, but all we could do was stand by and pretend we weren’t listening in.

Irida took an audibly deep breath and gathered herself. “Palina… this is Rei,” she gestured to me and I froze in place. “He’ll help you out with Arcanine.”

Arcanine? Was that their second Noble? It’d have the type advantage against Lilligant, I guessed, but the Diamond Clan still had a second Noble Pokémon up their sleeves somewhere… assuming they could quell it.

Palina broke my musing when she regarded me for the first time with a stern scowl. “You’re actually helping her?”

“Not by choice…” I muttered to myself and averted my eyes.

“I took Rei from the Diamond Clan after he quelled their Lilligant,” Irida, to my surprise, truthfully explained what she had done to me. “He’s originally from Jubilife.”

Palina froze in horror and turned to Irida. “You… did what?!”

“Cyllene was already moving against us, Palina,” Irida’s voice held an almost pleading note to it. “I had to do something drastic before Adaman invades.”

“Cyllene wouldn’t do such a thing. You’re just too paranoid and too… too bloodthirsty to see that!”

“Then explain why she sent a man with a Pokémon powerful enough to duel Lilligant!” Irida snapped back. “He could take on half of our clan with that thing!”

Was she on about Golett? I think she was exaggerating a bit, there… Golett certainly did not duel Lilligant equally. But I kept my mouth shut. Let Irida embellish me if she wants.

“She’ll come here, you know,” Palina spoke softly, though her eyes were widened. “And there’s a chance she’ll defeat Kleavor along the way in retribution.”

There was a guilty silence after that. Palina instantly noticed and her eyes twitched ever so slightly. “…what? What’s wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing in The Heartwood to defeat, Palina,” Irida crouched onto the sand and hugged her knees to her face. “Kleavor’s already dead.”

Silence.

Then, a whisper. “Did you…?”

Irida met her eyes. “I did. I tried to quell it myself, but…”

Palina’s eyes hardened. I saw fury and shock and disgust flash through her face all in quick succession. “That’s just… you’re… I… how could you?! How could you do that?! You’re sick. You’re just… sick!”

“I’m trying my best, Palina!” Irida straightened as fast as lightning and yelled. “Why can’t you understand?!”

Palina didn’t grace her with a response. Instead, she turned away and angrily strode into the tent and, after a moment, Irida gathered herself once more. “Rei,” her focused eyes met mine. “Help Palina with whatever she asks. The rest of you… just look after Leuca.”

Vicus nodded sagely. “As you wish.”

Irida frowned at that and hesitated mid-way through mounting Braviary. “It didn’t have to be this way, Vic.”

We all watched her fly off into the distant clouds. “No…” Vicus exhaled and ran his tongue across his teeth. “It didn’t…”

I sat down by the fire. Now what? I was getting stressed again. There was no indication as to what I should do. Go to Palina? Stay out here? Apparently, the next Noble I had to try and quell was an Arcanine. You know, only the same Pokémon considered to be the equivalent to royalty by most in Sinnoh. Only the same Pokémon known for its overwhelming strength, speed, and bulk.

And I had thought Lilligant was bad enough.

“I’ll talk to Palina…” Mille’s voice broke past my self-formed cloud of misery. She ran a hand through her hair. “At least Irida had the sense to bring her to us.”

“I’ll check on the Walrein,” Vicus beckoned his Empoleon over with a worried glance towards me. “That Braviary always riles them up.”

“I’ll be…” Hectar seemed to struggle to find what to say. “Here…”

I ignored them all.

To be honest, I was running out of ‘I am okays’. There was only so much stress I could take. And now? Irida was intent on sending me in to fight a Noble Arcanine and I’d be forced to watch all of my Pokémon perish before it got to me. There was no way I could do this. No way.

I wasn’t okay anymore. I was alone. Alone with nobody who cared. I wished and wished someone would just swoop in out of the clouds and whisk me back to Sinnoh again. I never asked for this. I never wanted this. All I was doing was fumbling around and hoping it’d work and look where that had gotten me.

And then, out of nowhere.

“Here.”

That one word brought me out of my wallowing and I looked up from the fire. Leuca stood over me, offering me a paper, a block of wood to support it on, and a pencil. “Draw,” her eyes gave away little emotion. And then, as if it explained her actions… “It’s not going to rain anytime soon.”

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I silently took everything from her and stared at the blank white sheet before me. “Thanks,” I mumbled up to her, but when I raised my head, Leuca was already gone.

I didn’t draw in the end. Instead, I started to describe all of the Pokémon I had encountered before scribbling down observational notes for Laventon.

Braviary. Can learn some sort of fire move. Has a fierce intelligence in its eyes.

Toxicroak. I think they enjoy pulling pranks. Will lick their own eyeballs. Quite social.

Bibarel. Float belly-up on water with their infants. I encountered a colony in a pond that was docile. Not all will spit water at trespassers.

Mothim. Highly hostile towards me. I think they eat berries. Travel in eclipses of three to five.

Wormadam. Scouts their surroundings like Watchog as if worried about attack. Hang on tree branches with some sort of retractable string or silk.

Sealeo. Seem fairly mobile. Enjoy swimming in shallow coastal waters. Loud.

Walrein. Constantly bellows. I think they’re quite lazy. A lot of them seem territorial. I’ve only seen one or two actually in the sea. Maybe they live mostly on the sand.

Empoleon. Really big. About eleven or twelve foot tall. I think they attack using their flippers, but I’m unsure.

Machamp. It has four arms and looks like a muscular human. They-

I stopped writing. My eyes had brimmed with tears to the point I could only see a blur. I wiped at my tears and sniffled. A couple of teardrops fell onto the paper. “I want to go home…” fantasies of Hisoko grabbing my arm and using Teleport to get me up Mount Coronet played through my mind, but I knew that was impossible. Teleport only worked on its user and, bah! Why’d I have to logic myself out of my own comforting illusions?! “I just want to go home…”

And so, I sat by the waning fire and quietly sobbed to myself. It took a good few minutes before somebody noticed and put a hand on my shoulder. “Are you okay?”

I flinched and looked up at Palina through tear-streaked eyes. What was once an angry, snarling mien was now brimming with concern. “H-huh?”

“Vicus told me everything,” she sat next to me and wrapped a tender arm around my shoulders. “I apologise for being so harsh earlier.”

“N-no. It’s okay.”

“You poor thing,” Palina embraced me into a full-blown hug. But before I could even react, I felt her whispered voice send tingles into my ear. “I know someone in the Diamond Clan who can help you escape back to Jubilife. I will try and find a chance to get you to him.”

She broke the hug and stared deeply into my eyes. “Times are tough right now, but you’ll find your way through. Do you understand?”

I blinked through drying tears. Was… was she being serious? Or was this some sort of messed up trick to see if I would flee? I tried searching through Palina’s eyes, but all I saw was warmth. “Y-yes.”

“Good,” she smiled. “Now… onto why Irida brought you here.”

“She wants me to quell Arcanine,” I muttered.

“The same way you did with the Diamond Clan’s Lilligant?” Palina’s eyebrows creased slightly.

I nodded. “Yes, but… when she tried to do the same with Kleavor, it… didn’t work. I don’t know why.”

She tapped her cheek with a finger. “Hmm… I am prone to believe that method wouldn’t work on Arcanine, anyways.”

“Why’s that?”

Palina’s Growlithe snuggled up to her leg and she absentmindedly stroked it with a soft smile- which disappeared when she started to speak again. “I used to have two Growlithes, you understand. This little one here, and what is now Arcanine. He evolved two days before that horrid thunderstorm and… oh, you should’ve seen him. He was wonderful. But then…”

I could guess. “He turned crazy…”

“That is one way of describing it,” she admitted with a sigh. “He looked as though he was manic. He just kept snapping and barking and growling and I… I had to flee from him. He never hurt me, you see, but he was just so… yes, I did what I had to. I couldn’t risk staying on Firespit Island.”

This seemed a little different to Lilligant’s situation, I’d noticed. She had no qualms about attacking Arezu but would refuse to release spores in her presence. In Arcanine’s case, it seemed as though he refused to lay a paw on Palina and Growlithe at all. “I think he’s in pain,” Palina continued, gazing into the charred wood as tainted recollections flowed through her eyes. “I wanted to return and help him, but then… they arrived.”

I turned my head to her. “They?”

Palina cringed and she suddenly looked close to tears. “Three women. All with some sort of face paint. They took advantage of our evacuation of Firespit Island and somehow managed to take control of Arcanine.”

My mouth parted slightly and my eyebrows creased. “What do you mean, take control?”

But Palina just shook her head and shrugged defeatedly. “I don’t know. But they were standing around him and it looked like he was doing what they wanted- like he was their Pokémon.”

“Does Irida know all of this?”

“I planned to tell her, but then she admitted to… Kleavor,” Palina’s spare hand fidgeted with the mask around her neck as she spoke. “Irida’s like a natural disaster. Everywhere her and that Glaceon go, ruin follows. If she knew about those three bandits, she’d fly right over and deal with them.”

Realisation struck. “And the bandits would set Arcanine on her to defend themselves.”

Palina drew her Growlithe closer. “We could’ve had three Nobles, but Kleavor’s gone and I don’t think Irida would want to dispose of Arcanine. That would put us at a two versus one against the Diamond Clan. But I can’t risk it. I can’t risk Arcanine’s life. I was there when he was born. I cried with him when his father- the last Noble Arcanine- died saving his life. He’s more than just a Pokémon to me.”

The implication that Irida could take on Arcanine and those bandits by herself was not lost on me.

“I understand,” I dismissed that thought and nodded. I paused while I considered what to say next. “By the way, what is the Pearl Clan’s last Noble Pokémon?”

I’d immediately cursed myself for blurting such a probing question out, but Palina seemed relieved over the slight topic change. “I don’t know.”

I shot her an odd look. “What?”

Palina chuckled slightly at my expression. “I’ve never seen it before. Supposedly, it’s an Avalugg that resides within the Alabaster Icelands, but nobody in the Pearl Clan even knows where it lies. We feared it would emerge after Kleavor and Arcanine turned frenzied, but it’s been dormant- wherever it is.”

“Ah. I’m sorry if this offends,” I clicked my teeth together. “But it kind of sounds like it doesn’t exist.”

A slight smirk. “That is true. But I think Irida might secretly know its location. She once told me it was the most powerful Pokémon in Hisui and that it could decimate the entirety of the Diamond Clan in seconds if mobilised.”

I hoped that was hyperbole. But it did open up an entire can’s worth of questions. Does it exist? Where is it? Does Irida know where it is? Can she control it? Is it frenzied? Is it as powerful as Irida claimed? Why hasn’t Irida used it, then? There must be some sort of cost to using Avalugg- assuming it even was an Avalugg- right?

I settled on a much… easier question. “It sounds like you and Irida knew each other well, right?”

“We used to be inseparable,” Palina actually grew rather distraught. I instantly regretted asking. “But when Cyllene stepped down as leader, we found the Pearl Clan was divided almost in half between Irida and I. To try and unify the clan again, I offered to support her as our new leader on one condition- that she reformed the clan out of its useless traditions and that she outlawed the use of the Heartice ritual.”

The Heartice ritual. It had been occasionally brought up during my journey, but I still didn’t know what it was despite my curiosity. I remained silent, however, as Palina continued. “She agreed wholeheartedly and told me she’d have done so anyways. With my support and her promises to my backers over the reforms that they wanted, we became united and Irida was elected leader. But then,” her voice grew bitter, “none of the changes she promised ever came. And not only did she refuse to ban the Heartice ritual, she actually underwent it herself.”

“She betrayed you.” I summarised.

Palina only offered a nod.

“She betrayed all of us in this camp- bar Leuca,” I whipped around to find Vicus stood sagely with his Empoleon. “Palina blames herself for trusting Irida. But we were all deceived by her. I couldn’t see how power hungry she was underneath her veil of friendliness. And ever since she went through that ritual, Irida has only grown colder.”

Empoleon made a rumbling chirp in agreement.

We chatted by the remains of the fire for a while after that. The air was warm enough that we didn’t have to restart it and we spent the time talking over more happy topics. I was quickly warming to Palina and it was clear she was beloved by everyone in the camp.

But of course, the girl of the hour soon swooped in and Braviary landed with a loud caw.

Irida’s eyes were narrowed as her feet touched the sand, but she soon softened upon sighting Palina. “We’re ready.”

Palina stood, and all of the friendliness she had built up vanished. “Rei and I will take our leave to Firespit, then. Braviary knows the way back, correct?”

“I’m coming with you,” Irida quickly raised her hand to stop Palina’s protest. “Ah! Palina, listen to me. I need to be there with you. I can’t risk anything happening to you. If Arcanine hurt you or even worse…”

Uh oh. I was pretty sure Palina was relying on our isolation in Firespit to somehow sneak me back into Diamond Clan territory, which supposedly lay in the southern arm of the Cobalt Coastlands. With Irida shadowing us, that was likely going to be torn to shreds.

I inwardly sighed. Nothing could’ve gone right for me lately, huh?

But I also noted the genuine emotion within Irida’s eyes. It became hard to grow angry at her for inadvertently ruining my best chance at escape when she looked so distraught at the prospect of losing Palina. For the first time ever, I saw someone other than a sinister tyrant behind that frosty countenance.

Palina saw the writing on the wall. “There truly is no arguing with you, hm? And you’re my leader. So, I cannot disobey an order.”

“Palina. You know that’s not how this is working…”

“No,” Palina jerked her head to the side, chin raised. “It really is, I’m afraid. But if you are truly willing to try and mimic the real Irida, then I will agree to your presence on one condition.”

“Anything,” Irida jumped at the metaphorical olive vine.

Palina’s expression grew smug. “Iscan comes with us.”

Irida’s face darkened. “Palina, you know-”

“That’s my condition,” Palina cut her off. “Either kill me for my disobedience, or fetch Iscan. Your choice.”

For a few seconds, Irida just stared with that unhappy frown and pursed lips. But, almost without warning, she suddenly turned back to Braviary and snarled. “Fine! Give me some time.”

And with jagged, harsh movements that oozed fury, Irida mounted onto Braviary once more and immediately took flight. Palina watched her go with a slightly awed expression. She blinked a few times. “Wow. I honestly did not expect her to agree to that.”

“Who’s Iscan?” I asked her as Vicus drew closer.

“That wasn’t wise, Palina, testing Irida like that,” Vicus scolded with the tone of a disappointed father. But Palina ignored him.

“He’s your way out of Irida’s grasp,” Palina refocused herself onto me with a grin. “Now, we just need to find an opportunity.”