It’s a horrible feeling when you know something bad is going to happen, and it’s kind of your fault, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
Not that I didn’t try. I kept bashing my head against the problem, trying to think of a way to escape or to change Finnegan’s mind. I held whispered conversations with Florence where we tried to brainstorm some way to get out of the prison. I listened when the adults talked to each other, attempting to come up with something they could do.
But realistically? I was stuck. We were all stuck. The walls and bars of the cell were solid, and the guards who watched us from the inner door were attentive yet refused to listen to anything we said. When a pair of soldiers came to deliver our daily rations in the late afternoon, they forced us to stay well back as they unlocked and opened the door. Our capture had been executed with military precision, and we weren’t going to get out.
At least that pair of guards gave us another piece of information. They stayed back briefly to talk to the inside-guard and told him that the troops were heading out tomorrow. I listened anxiously, ignoring my small bowl of rice and barley, as the men commiserated with one of the two guards who had brought us food; he was in one of the squads that had been assigned to stay behind and protect the town, which they clearly thought would be a great deal less interesting than going to war.
I slept badly that night and only got more anxious the following morning. Michael stood up on the bench so that he could peek out through the window slit and narrated for us as he watched troops of men march down the street outside, all heading towards the western exit. Eventually all the soldiers disappeared, leaving the compound feeling quieter and emptier than before. I could still hear far-off sounds of regular life in the city, but that was it.
And then… I just sat there. What else was there to do? I sat there and stared at the wall, hugging my knees to my chest and trying to think of something I could have done differently. The others appeared to be doing basically the same thing. Sometimes someone would try to strike up a conversation, but it usually fell apart after a few minutes.
Foremost in my mind was a new question: had I seriously messed up the intended flow of time? I was no history expert, but I thought I would have learned about it if Johto had gone through a dictatorship at any point in the recent past. Even if I eventually got out of this prison, got back to Azalea, and found a way to go back to my own time, would I find that home looked nothing like what I remembered?
That was how most of the day went. But later that same day, sometime before our daily rations were delivered, something different happened. The main door to the prison opened to show three soldiers who were clustered in the doorway, talking urgently. They waved at the man standing guard on the inside of the prison to join them as well. I leaned forward, feeling curious despite myself, and caught a few words – ‘disruption’ and ‘wall’ and ‘urgent’. After a few minutes of heated debate, three of the soldiers took off in a fast jog, leaving the fourth man behind.
The soldier watched the others leave for a few moments. Then he hurried inside, closing the door behind him. But he didn’t stay there like the previous guard had; he jogged up to the cell door instead, taking his hat off as he moved.
“Wait,” I blurted out, sitting up straight. “Jordan?”
The teenager grinned cheekily at me as he jangled the set of keys he had somehow obtained and fit them into the cell door. “How is it I always end up having to save you lot from unescapable messes?”
It felt like a cloud of gloom was lifting off of me as I stood up and tentatively smiled back. “Only ‘cause you got yourself into your own mess first.”
He scoffed and waved his hand dismissively. “I was right where I wanted to be, and we got out of it just fine. Sometimes running away is the smart thing to do.” He yanked the door open, then gestured widely at it. “Like now. Come on, let’s get you all out of here.”
I didn’t need to be told twice; I wanted nothing more than to never see the inside of this building again. Everyone else seemed to feel the same way, because we all scrambled to get out of the cell. Only Michael paused and narrowed his eyes. “And where exactly is my partner?” he asked in a skeptical tone as he stayed near the back of the cell.
Jordan huffed out a laugh. “This was her idea. I probably would have just thrown rocks at the gate if it was up to me.” He scratched the back of his head and grinned widely. “She’s up on the west wall with a whole flock of other birds wreaking havoc and buying us time to escape. Now, are you coming or not?”
Michael relaxed and nodded, smiling just a little. The two of them came back out into the main room of the prison and Jordan slapped his hat back onto his head, then opened the outer door just slightly so he could peer outside.
“We should thank you, I suppose,” Isaac said slowly, “but how are we supposed to get out of here? The patrols –“
“Patrols are at a minimum with most of the troops on the march,” Jordan interrupted, still looking outside. “Standard policy. We can take the backways to the southern wall.”
“But the southern gate is blocked,” Cyril pointed out, concerned.
Jordan waved his hand nonchalantly. “Not a problem, my partner has it covered. How do you think I got in here in the first place?”
“Wait,” I said, puzzled. “How did you even know to come here?”
“Hoothoot, obviously,” he replied as he closed the door and turned around to lean against it. “She told my partner what had happened, and he helped me figure it out. I figured if the city was trying to take Michael prisoner, it probably wasn’t for a good reason.”
Michael chuckled. “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?”
Jordan flushed a bit, but barreled forward instead of replying. “The street outside is empty. Are you lot coming with me or not?”
That was how we ended up sneaking through the streets of Violet City, trying to stealthily follow Jordan’s lead. Considering how many people were in our group, we did a pretty awful job of it. But it didn’t really matter, because the military district was eerily empty. Once I was outside I could hear faint sounds of shouting and other strange noises coming from the western side of the city, but Jordan led us in the opposite direction, angling south and to the east. Soon the noises grew too faint to be heard.
We kept mostly to alleys and small backstreets where soldiers were less likely to show up, and Jordan stayed at the front of the group to scout ahead and make sure the way was clear. One time he hurriedly motioned for us all to hide behind a towering stack of logs, and I had to hold my breath and wait while a pair of guards walked by on the road we were about to cross. They called out an idle greeting to Jordan as they passed, and he grunted something about the weather in reply, which they laughed at. Then they continued down the road until they were out of sight.
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Eventually we reached the southern wall. We were nowhere near the gate and there was no ladder nearby, but Jordan didn’t seem to care. He looked around carefully, then pressed up close against the wall and knocked against it twice. “Still there, partner?”
The knock was returned from the other side and followed by a faint “Sudo!”. Jordan backed up a few feet, motioning for us all to back away too. Moments later something came sailing over the wall and clattered noisily on the ground. It took me a few moments to size the item up and realize that I was looking at a rope weighted with a large rock on one end. The rope went up and over the wall, and presumably Sudowoodo held onto the other side.
I looked at the rope with no small degree of dread. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I groaned.
Jordan clapped me on the back and grinned. “It’s good exercise, you know.” He jumped up and grabbed the rope, then started pulling his way up the wall with his feet braced against the wooden surface for balance. Halfway up the wall he paused and looked down at the rest of us. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
I did not want to climb a rope all the way up a city wall, but it wasn’t like I had a choice. Sure, I tried to suggest that we could backtrack and find one of the ladders that the wall guards used, but Cyril pointed out that those were generally close to where the guards themselves were posted. And the soldiers might be distracted for now by whatever Hoothoot was doing, but it wouldn’t last forever.
So when it was my turn I grabbed the rope, placed my left foot against the wall, and started climbing. To say that it was horrible would be an understatement. The rope burned my hands, my arms and shoulders shrieked in protest at the huge strain on muscles I didn’t usually use, and when I looked down to see how far I had gotten the ground seemed dizzyingly far away. I might have stayed there, staring in horror at the dirt far below, except that even holding still in one place hurt. And I couldn’t drop back down again; Isaac had already started climbing up the rope below me, huffing and puffing as he moved. I could only keep going up.
Eventually I reached the top of the wall, and I was surprised to see that Jordan was still there. He immediately motioned for me to crouch down, then glanced to either side before letting me get back up again. “Have to watch out for other patrols,” he muttered in explanation. Then he peered over the front side of the wall and nodded. “All clear. Your turn to go down!”
Looking over the front of the wall and seeing the long way down, with Sudowoodo, Florence, and Hisa waiting far below, made me freeze up. Now I was supposed to go back down all that way with nothing but a rope? Impossible. I wasn’t scared of heights, but I also wasn’t going to do something so outrageously stupid.
… but there was no other way down, unless I found one of the wall guards and turned myself in. I drew in a shaky breath, then grabbed the rope again and hoisted myself over the side of the wall, closing my eyes tightly as my boots hit the wooden posts. Jordan patted my shoulder as I started stepping my way back down.
I kept my eyes shut for the entire climb down, so it came as a surprise when my foot hit dirt instead of air. When I opened my eyes I found that I was back on the good, trustworthy ground that I would never take for granted again. I let myself drop the last foot or so and almost immediately stumbled over the small pile of rocks that anchored the base of the rope. Florence grinned at me when I regained my footing, but I just took a few steps away and sat down, resting my head on my knees while I took deep breaths.
“I am never doing that again,” I huffed out. My arms were trembling and burning like crazy to the point that I was surprised I hadn’t fallen off the rope, and my whole body was aching.
“Woo,” Sudowoodo said in what was maybe supposed to be a consoling tone. I couldn’t bring myself to come up with a reply.
The rest of the group managed to get over the wall and down the rope without issue, though there was a moment when Kiah lost his footing when he was coming back down that nearly gave me a heart attack. It helped a bit to see that I wasn’t the only one who hated that rope with a passion – Kiah refused to talk to anyone after nearly falling, and Isaac laid sprawled on the ground and gasped for breath for several minutes after making his way down.
Jordan was the last one down, and once he reached the bottom he and Sudowoodo worked together to haul the rope back over the wall and coil it up. Then we all jogged hastily for the nearby forest before anyone could pass by on a patrol and notice us.
It turned out that Jordan and Sudowoodo had camped out back at the Ruins of Alph, so we all made our way to that site to wait for Hoothoot. We told them about everything that had happened as we walked, and Jordan filled us in on what he and Sudowoodo had gone through. “The wild majū were really angry with us,” he explained as we walked into the clearing speckled by ruins. “They refused to let us escape! So eventually my partner here had the bright idea that we should go back to these ruins, since most majū avoid them. And he was right – they had all given up the chase by the time we got here.”
“Makes sense,” I replied while I looked around at the ancient site, hugging my arms to myself. “This place still feels creepy.”
I sat on one of the stones around the remains of the campfire from our previous visit to the ruins and tried to stretch out my back, which still ached from all the climbing. Several of the others took the opportunity to sit and rest as well, but Isaac stayed standing.
“I understand that we need to wait for Hoothoot to return,” Isaac said, bowing slightly in Michael’s direction. “But we should discuss what needs to happen next once that is done.”
“I agree,” I said, happy that we were all on the same page. “Now that we’re out of the city, we should come up with a plan to get our majū back from Finnegan.”
Isaac frowned slightly. “That is not what I meant,” he replied. “Our first priority should be to contact Ecruteak. If we can warn them of the impending attack before it happens, they should be able to fight back. Correct, Hisayuki?”
Hisa sighed and rubbed his forehead with both hands. “I… am not sure. Yes, we need to warn the city, and help them if we can. But we cannot simply leave our partners in enemy hands either.”
“Finnegan is crazy,” I said bluntly. “He threatened to destroy Drowzee’s poke ball to make me talk. What do you think he’s going to do when he finds out we all escaped?”
“I agree with Monroe,” Luca said in a quiet voice. He sat all huddled up, and he looked much smaller than he ever had before. “We have a responsibility to protect our partners, don’t we? And I am worried about Piloswine. She is supposed to be resting so she can recover.”
“I know this is difficult,” Michael said in a patient tone, “but we only think that Finnegan might harm the majū. We know he plans to attack the city. We have to prioritize the area where we can do the most good; that is our role as trainers.”
I glared at him. “Easy for you to say, your partner didn’t get captured!”
“Perhaps we are looking at this the wrong way,” Cyril said hurriedly before Michael could respond. “Could we just do both? They both sound like good ideas to me.”
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down, and considered this. Could we do both?
“We do not need many people if we focus merely on warning the city,” Isaac said thoughtfully. “Just one, really, to carry the message.”
“You will also need a majū to provide an escort through the wild, since the main trail will be occupied by the troops,” Kiah pointed out quietly from where he sat on the other side of the ashes.
“Then the rest of us can focus on freeing our partners,” Luca said, lifting his head slightly. “Maybe we can sneak in and ambush Finnegan?”
“That will be difficult,” Cyril said mournfully. “Marching regulations call for at least one trainer and one martial expert to escort the general whenever possible, for protection.”
“So we lure them away with a trick,” Hisa suggested.
“Then attack when the moment is right!” Florence finished with a triumphant smile on her face.
I looked over at Michael and he sighed. “I am sure something will go wrong. It usually does.” Then he shrugged. “But that is no reason to sit around doing nothing.”
“It is settled, then,” Hisa said with a serious look. “As soon as Hoothoot returns, we follow the army’s trail and do our best to intervene.”
I nodded eagerly and grinned. Finally I would be able to do something to help fix this giant mess.