I tried to push back. I tried to tell Finnegan that this was crazy and we were both going to get killed. Predictably, he didn’t listen.
Instead he went to the door and ordered a passing squad of soldiers to join us for the mission. One of the men was assigned to mind me, and before I could try to escape he had tethered a new rope to the ones that still bound my hands. I tried refusing to walk with the thought that at least he’d have to put effort into dragging me along, but he cuffed the side of my head sharply, which sent a ringing pain through my skull. After that I followed along without fighting back.
Our new group made its way to the western side of the city, as Finnegan had decided it would be easier to get to Brass Tower than Tin Tower. Edwin walked alongside Finnegan the whole time, arguing for why this was a bad idea and making suggestions about alternate plans that could be made. Finnegan shot every single one of them down as unrealistic or not a bold enough move, and he clearly grew more irritated every time Edwin came up with another idea.
The streets were practically deserted and we were moving at a fast march, so we reached the western front faster than I’d expected. It was quickly clear why the advance had stalled: the people of Ecruteak had set up barricades in the streets by tipping over carts and dragging tables out of buildings. I could see moving figures behind the hastily-constructed wall and caught a flash of light from some kind of weapon, but they weren’t attacking. They were just trying to hold the invading force back.
Edwin looked over the barricade that stood before us briefly, then turned to Edwin. “Get us through.”
Edwin grimaced, but he waved his hand in a gesture that brought Fearow flying down to rejoin our group. The bird squawked a question at him, and he nodded. “Take Down from behind should suffice.”
Fearow bobbed his head up and down, then jumped into the sky once more. I watched uncomfortably as the bird lazily glided high up in the air over the barricade, then turned and divebombed into the center of the barricade. Several screams came from behind the barricade as people dove out of the way and Fearow crashed through a pile of logs and chairs, scattering them all over the ground of the clearing where we stood. He got up again easily and shook his wings to resettle his feathers as the center part of the barricade collapsed, leaving a wide gap for us to run through.
After that, reaching the tower was disturbingly easy. Finnegan led us in a fast jog through the streets, and I had no choice but to run and do my best to keep up. Occasionally we would come across a wild Pokemon that hissed at us in defiance, or a cluster of people that shouted and raised an alarm, but between the soldiers’ weapons and Fearow, no one quite dared to attack our group.
Halfway through the run, Edwin relaunched his effort to talk Finnegan down from trying to capture a literal legendary Pokemon. He tried to argue that he could win the wild majū that had already been captured over to their side with enough time; then he suggested that the army retreat to a defensible position and send several crews out to Mt. Mortar to search for tumblestone. That last idea finally made Finnegan snap.
“Trainer Edwin,” the general finally said with a frustrated tone. “We are not going to retreat. I grow tired of your lack of faith in this endeavor. In fact, if you are going to behave this way, I will not require your assistance in the tower after all. Go handle the wild majū on the eastern flank instead, the one that made our creatures stop fighting.”
Edwin stumbled to a halt. “Sir, you will need my help if you insist on doing this,” he said, and he almost sounded desperate. “Fearow and I could –“
“You are dismissed, trainer,” Finnegan snapped coldly.
For a moment Edwin just looked at him with his mouth hanging open. Then he nodded briefly and turned around, heading in the opposite direction. His loping run was slower than before, though, and I saw him look back at us before he disappeared from sight.
“You should listen to him,” I said loudly from my position in the middle of the group. “This is a bad idea.”
Finnegan threw a glare back in my direction. “You are only here because I still believe you know more about how to fix broken poke balls than you’ve revealed,” he said darkly. “If you know anything on that topic that you are ready to share, by all means, tell me more and we can reconsider this plan. Otherwise you will shut your mouth.” The soldier assigned to me raised a hand in a threatening gesture to add an unspoken or else to Finnegan’s statement.
What choice did I have? I shut my mouth and wracked my brain for ideas.
Brass Tower grew larger and larger overhead as we drew closer to it, and eventually we broke through the residential area and could see the building in all of its grandeur. The tiers of blue roofs stood out in remarkable contrast when compared with the autumnal colors of the rest of the city, and the brass panels along the sides of the building shone brilliantly in the afternoon light. There was a large clearing around the tower that featured sand gardens, twisting paths, and a large lake that I didn’t remember at all from my modern-day visits to the city. And the entrance to the tower stood wide open; the inhabitants hadn’t even tried to block it off.
Finnegan barreled straight through the clearing, cutting through a sand garden and ignoring the circuitous paths in favor of a direct line. Which was typical of him, really.
The inside of the tower was one large, open chamber with windows cut into the walls to let in beams of light. My eyes were immediately drawn to the enormous wooden pillar that stood proudly in the middle of the building. It ascended up beyond the ceiling, and if it was anything like the pillar in Tin Tower it probably kept going all the way to the top of the tower as well as down below into the ground.
A small group of monks sat in a circle on the floor before the pillar, talking quietly. One stood up and walked towards us calmly. I blinked when I realized that he was completely bereft of hair – no beard, no eyebrows, nothing.
“Welcome to the tower of sea and sky,” the man said quietly with a small bow. “There is no need for weapons here. All are welcome to spend time in the tower for meditation and rest, even those from outside the city.”
Finnegan snorted. “No need for weapons? That is an odd thing to say, considering the number of majū in here.”
He wasn’t wrong. I had already noticed a Pidgeotto resting of one of the plain sculptures that stood against the wall nearby, and a brown and white Pokemon I didn’t recognize lapped water from a small interior pool. Further searching produced a Rattata and Raticate sitting off in the shadows under the staircase at the back of the room and a Meowth stretched out in one of the window frames.
The monk smiled mildly. “The majū here will not harm you. This tower is meant to foster friendship between humans and majū. They come here to rest, just as we do.” His eyes flickered over to me and he tilted his head to the side a bit before looking back at Finnegan.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“A likely story,” Finnegan grumbled. “Listen, monk. We are going to the top of the tower, and you are not going to get in our way.”
The monk might have raised an eyebrow if he had eyebrows to raise. “I do not believe you will find what you seek. Still, we will not stop you. As I said before, the tower is open to all, though most choose to stay on the lower floors.”
Finnegan seemed disconcerted by this lack of opposition. He ended up assigning two of the guards from our group to stay down on the first floor and watch the monks, just in case. The rest of us started climbing the stairs at the back of the tower up to the next floor. I glanced back once and saw that the monk who had talked to us was watching our group carefully, like he knew something. It was kind of creepy, honestly.
The second floor was similar to the first, just with fewer monks and more Pokemon. It wasn’t until the third floor that I started noticing differences. For some reason, the floor didn’t stretch across the whole building; there were several stretches of open air where you could peer down to see the second floor through the support beams. When I looked up, it seemed like there were even more gaps on the floor above. I understood why when a Butterfree fluttered down through one of the gaps and glided over to rest on a carved wooden sculpture next to one of the walls. The tower had been built just as much to accommodate Pokemon of the sky as the rest of us.
I kept trying to think of something I could say that would make Finnegan abort this crazy mission of his. My best option was to come up with a way to repair the broken poke balls, but honestly, I didn’t like my chances. Even in my own era poke balls were known to be one-use-only. Still, I was desperately thinking of everything I had ever learned about how Pokemon and their energy forms worked, just in case.
We kept going up, to the fourth floor and then the fifth floor. By this point there were no more monks engaged in meditation or everyday tasks, but there were still some scattered Pokemon across each of the floors. The monk from before had been right – none of the Pokemon seemed to care that we were there. The only reaction we got was when our path to the next staircase led us close to a curled-up Furret, and even then the Pokemon stood up and scampered away before we could get too close.
So the climb was oddly peaceful – or, well, it would have been if I wasn’t tied up and tethered to a guard, and if I wasn’t being taken up this tower against my will. But I could see how it would be a unique experience under different circumstances.
That all changed when we reached the sixth floor.
The main difference I noticed was that the floor now had more gaps than floorboards. The landing at the top of the staircase was surrounded by a small square of flooring; then a flimsy-looking plank bridge crossed a gap from the staircase to a patch of floor that surrounded the center pillar. Another bridge led from there to our left, towards where the next staircase had its base.
The center pillar had an elaborate metal structure built around it on this floor, with prongs leading off at multiple angles. From those prongs hung a small colony of Zubat and Golbat who appeared to be sleeping. And since the only route to the next staircase went around that center pillar, we’d have to go right past them.
Finnegan frowned for a moment at the colony. Then he shrugged and led the way forward, walking across the plank bridge without hesitation even though it swung slightly with each step. He seemed to assume that the Zubat and Golbat would react the same way that the Furret had acted earlier. And he was right, mostly. As we drew closer the bats’ ears started twitching, and they began to chitter at each other. Then, one by one, they detached themselves from their perches and glided down through the gaps in the floor to find a quieter resting place.
But one Zubat didn’t leave. The solitary bat seemed to be awake, given that its ears were twitching furiously, yet it kept hanging from the two tails it had curled tightly around one of the prongs. The Pokemon tilted its head to the side in a way that made it look interested, not alarmed or annoyed.
Finnegan didn’t seem to notice the Zubat, or if he did notice he didn’t care. He paused on the floor by the central pillar so he could wait for the rest of us to move off the plank bridge and onto more solid ground. He had his back to the pillar and was facing us, so it took him a moment to notice when the Zubat detached itself from the structure and glided downwards, passing right over his head.
“What the –“ Finnegan stuttered as the little blue bat sailed right above him. The Pokemon glided past the three guards and me, its ears constantly moving. The guards cursed and hurried forward, and the one assigned to me tugged at my tether to drag me along. Not that I minded getting off of the plank bridge; its swaying made me feel uneasy, like it could collapse at any moment.
Once we reached the floor around the pillar I glanced behind me. To my surprise, the Zubat hadn’t followed the others. It had turned in a wide bank and was now swooping towards us again. Yet I didn’t get the feeling it was going to attack. If anything, it seemed like the Pokemon was just curious about who we were.
“Pest,” Finnegan growled. I heard a snicking sound come from his direction, and I looked back to see that he was slowly drawing his sword. His eyes were trained on the Zubat, calculating the best time to attack.
My heart stuttered and I reacted without thinking. “No!” I shouted, lunging forward to get in his way. I caught my guard by surprise and my tether was ripped out of his hands, but Finnegan saw me coming; he took his hand off his sword and stepped out of the way of my charge. For a moment I teetered on the edge of the platform, looking down at the next landing several floors below. Then I threw my weight backwards and landed on the floor with a thump.
Was that stupid of me? Yes, of course. But in that moment I had known at an instinctual level that harming anyone inside the tower was just wrong, that it was something I had to stop. And even if we weren’t in the tower, I couldn’t stand the idea of Finnegan hurting that Zubat when it was just curious, not meaning any harm. I just couldn’t let it happen.
My sudden charge must have startled the Zubat, because it flew up higher in the room to get out of our reach. It hovered there for a few moments, wings flapping to hold itself steady. Then it turned and shot up through one of the holes in the ceiling, retreating to one of the higher floors.
Finnegan didn’t seem to care about the Zubat anymore. He just looked down at me in disgust as the soldier in charge of me sheepishly stepped up to grab my tether and drag me into an upright position. “I will warn you only once,” the general growled as he loomed over me. “Try something like that again, and your life will be forfeit. I will only let you live this time for the knowledge you hold.” He looked me up and down and grimaced. “And because your attempt was so pathetic.”
I blinked at him. Did he think I was trying to kill him? Well, that kind of made sense in retrospect. Though honestly, I was surprised I’d managed to break away at all. Maybe I should have made better use of my impromptu escape.
The general shook his head at my lack of a response and turned away, making his way across the bridge that led to the next staircase. I followed silently, ignoring the threats that my guard hastily whispered about what would happen if I tried to escape again, and just focused on staying on the path.
The seventh, eighth, and ninth floors had more plank bridges and wooden platforms, more precarious paths with no guardrails to keep me from falling down to the floors below. It was terrifying, but in an abstract way. I was too preoccupied by thoughts of what was going to happen next to really focus on the stressors of the moment. I barely even noticed the few Pokemon that rested on these upper floors, especially since they all had settled down in spots far away from the main path. None of them flew towards us like the Zubat had.
Then we climbed the stairs up to the tenth floor, and its layout was incredibly spartan. Here there were no plank bridges; there was just a single thin platform that led from the top of the stairs to the center, then to the southern wall. Against the wall rested a wooden ladder that led up to the roof.
Finnegan silently led the way across the floor and towards the ladder. Then he started climbing up it, and one of the other soldiers climbed up after him. My guard loosened the bindings on my hands and jabbed at my side, roughly ordering me to climb as well.
I stared at him for a moment, silently contemplating. I could use this as an opportunity to make a break for it, to dash back across the platform and down the stairs. And if the soldiers attacked me, I could…
Who was I kidding? I wasn’t a fighter, not like that. I sighed and climbed up the ladder, dreading what would come next.