He cut the wheel in a sudden sharp left turn, just as the road was leveling out. Hibiki looked, and through a clutter of pine trees, he could make out the structure of a tall house in the distance. Eusine nodded at the site, looking pleased with himself. “And this is the very place where I ended up. We’ll be crashing here, if you don’t mind.”
Hibiki gazed at the cabin-house as they pulled up the gravel drive. There were no other cars parked at the end, and he couldn’t detect any evidence of occupation. No seasonal decorations, no steam coming from the chimney, no lights from through the window, nothing. “Eusine,” he began uncertainly, “I understand if you need to sleep, but . . . is it really okay for us to do this? Does anyone live here?”
“Well, there was a guy here last time,” Eusine replied, bringing the vehicle to a halt and shutting off the engine. “But occupied or not, we should be fine, even if we have trespassed without notice. The resident here was a good man. He didn’t speak much, but he healed my Alakazam and let me stay the night. We can trust him.”
Marina shook Kenta. "Hey," she whispered. "Rise and shine. We're here."
Kenta stirred, groaned, and placed a hand on his forehead. "My head hurts."
"We're pretty far above sea level," said Hibiki, opening his door. "Just yawn a lot, and focus on your breathing."
"I'm already yawning a lot," mumbled Eusine, trudging up the gravel path to the cabin porch. "I should just sleep right there in the car." As Hibiki started to follow him, he caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye- the flash of a blue, duck-billed head peeked at them from around the side of the cabin. It was gone a second later.
A pokémon? he thought, though nobody else seemed to have taken notice.
They gathered at the wooden door, and Eusine knocked three times. A few seconds passed, and nobody answered, athough the wind began to pick up again. Marina groaned. "Great. Cold AND windy. Eusine, try the door and see if it's unlocked."
"People do lock their doors, even out here," Eusine said back, but he reached for the knob anyway. Before his hand touched, the cabin door suddenly swung open inwards, and they stood face-to-face with a tall, thin man wearing a brown duster coat. Hibiki swallowed guiltily, thinking about how close they might have been to walking right into an occupied place, but the man's eyes lit up in recognition, and Eusine smiled.
"Well, hello Eusine. You're out and about early. I was just about to head off for some morning fishing."
"Ah, I'm terribly sorry to intrude." Eusine pointed behind him at Kenta, Marina, and Hibiki. "These are my friends, and we were traveling through but couldn't find a place to stay in the area. Guys-" he turned around and held his arm up to the brown-coated man in the cabin. "This is Mr. Durai. He's a pokémon veterinarian."
Kenta held out his hand. "It's nice to meet you, sir."
"Ralts!"
Everyone looked down. At Mr. Durai's feet stood a pokémon barely a foot tall, with a white body, a green helmet-head, and a rounded red horn on its forehead. A moment later, another mostly-white pokémon glided from the back room of the cabin. Hibiki recognized the two pokémon as Ralts and Togetic: two relatively valuable pokémon known for their sensitivity. Ralts looked them over for a few seconds, while Togetic hovered the group in circles. Hibiki got the feeling that they were being scanned, but ironically, he found the presence of the pokémon pleasurable.
"All right, that's enough," laughed Mr. Durai, stepping back from the doorway. "Let's not leave our guests out in the cold wind. Come, warm yourselves by the fire. Unless you have any luggage to carry?"
"No, it's just us. It was a very impromptu trip." Eusine smiled apologetically and crossed the threshold of the door. "Thank you. I really am sorry to be coming to you for aid a second time-" He stumbled suddenly, right as he was passing Mr. Durai, and fell in a kneeling position. Hibiki gasped, and Marina hurried to help him to his feet. "If you were really this exhausted, you could've asked me to drive part of the way," she said, mildly reproachful. "Especially if we were driving on steep slopes like that."
"Yeah, but here's the thing. Nobody touches my baby's steering wheel but me."
Hibiki put a fist to his mouth to stifle a laugh and turned to Kenta, but the laughter died on his lips as he saw his brother's facial expression. Kenta was staring, not at Eusine, but at Mr. Durai's left leg, where Eusine had just been. His expression, just moments ago dull from sleep, was sharp and curious.
Mr. Durai turned and headed into the living room with them, while Togetic shut the door behind him. The room was the largest in the house, with several chairs and couches in a u-shape facing the main mantlepiece. As Durai had said, there was a roaring fire in the hearth, and the group gathered gladly around it. Eusine sighed and dropped sideways on the middle couch, his head plopping onto the cushion.
"I just need . . . a moment . . ." and he was sound asleep.
Mr. Durai looked at Eusine's dozing form for a moment with a sympathetic smile, then glanced over at his teenage audience, still standing. "Well, then. I suppose you'll have to catch me up. What's your story?"
"Uh . . ." Hibiki froze up. What were they supposed to tell this man? That they were patrolling the area on a hunt for Mewtwo and Suiciune? Their actions represented the most extreme defiance to G.R.I.P.'s policies of owning uber pokémon. Not to mention, it risked revealing the fact that they had Master Balls. He and Marina both turned and looked expectantly at Kenta. This was, after all, his plan.
There it was again: that odd, scrutinizing stare, as if Kenta was looking through Mr. Durai and seeing something that nobody else was. "Is this your way of giving us a chance to explain ourselves?" he asked finally, quietly, almost to himself.
Hibiki looked at him doubtfully. "Uh . . . Kenta? Yeah. That's why he asked."
But then he caught sight of Mr. Durai's face: it was also scrutinizing, calculating, eyes narrowed and focused. The room's atmosphere went from warm and friendly to hot and tense in a matter of seconds.
"I will answer your question," Kenta said after another long pause. "But I think it would only be polite to catch my friends up with what's going on."
"Yeah, what IS going on?" asked Marina nervously. "Why are you guys glaring at each other? He just took us in!"
"Maybe. But what is he, I wonder?" asked Kenta. "Mr. Durai, I offered you my hand outside, but you didn't take it."
Hibiki felt his indignation rising. "Oh, come on- you're mad because he didn't shake your hand?"
"And there we stood, with the wind whipping around, but your clothes never moved an inch. And then, when Eusine fell over from lack of sleep, I SAW him fall through you."
Now it was Marina's turn to confront Kenta. "Wha- what are you saying? That he's a ghost?"
"Here, catch." With a sudden flick of his wrist, Kenta sent a Ragecandybar spinning at Mr. Durai. The man veered out of the way, and the chocolate bar struck the wall under the stairs. "Heh. You were fast enough to dodge it this time."
"Kenta!" Hibiki injected, horrified. "Stop throwing candy at our host!"
"I thought he'd be hungry," Kenta responded, shrugging. "You see, he claimed that he was just about to head out on a fishing trip. But I don't see any rods or nets. Do you?"
"Kenta, you are out of line!" said Marina sharply, launching herself off her chair and marching angrily over to his cushion. "What has gotten into you?"
Kenta sat in her shadow, looking at her with cool reserve. "So, you don't buy any of my observations, huh? You think I'm just seeing things?"
"Maybe! I don't know, but this isn't like you! Where is your sense of courtesy?"
"Check the back wall."
"Don't give me that-"
"No, just trust me on this. The back wall, under the stairs. What do you see?"
"Your stupid candy bar!"
"No, above that."
Marina heaved an exhasperated sigh. "I don't kow what you want me to look at."
"Your shadow."
"What about it?"
"You and Mr. Durai are the only two people standing right now."
"So?"
A grim smile settled into Kenta's face. "Where's his?"
Marina's eyes shot back up to the wall, as did Hibiki's. One shadow. They both turned to stare back at Mr. Durai, who smiled and crossed his arms before him. "So," he said in an impressed voice, "I applaud your observation ability. It is far keener than any human's I have seen for a long time, Eusine's included. You are correct. I'm not really here at all."
"It takes an observer to know an observer," Kenta said, facing 'Mr. Durai' fully. "I'm still wondering about your ability to read minds though. It's not an accident that you just happen to have a Ralts and a Togetic standing sentinel at the door- pokémon whose speciality is reading people's hearts and intentions. We 'passed the test' if I'm not mistaken. But that takes us back to the original question: 'What could these well-intentioned people be doing way up here in the mountain, where one of them met a super-powered Pikachu?' A little different than 'tell me your story,' perhaps, but it's more specific."
"Careful," said Mr. Durai lightly. "You'll make too many assumptions."
"Until we establish trust, I have to," Kenta replied. "It's an uphill battle for one who has cloaked his identity from the start."
"You mean like you did?" Hibiki suddenly heard blurt out of his mouth. He inwardly chastised himself. Kenta turned and looked at him, annoyed, yet slightly amused. "Not the time and place, runt. And I didn't start out with disguises."
Hibiki gazed at the cabin-house as they pulled up the gravel drive. There were no other cars parked at the end, and he couldn’t detect any evidence of occupation. No seasonal decorations, no steam coming from the chimney, no lights from through the window, nothing. “Eusine,” he began uncertainly, “I understand if you need to sleep, but . . . is it really okay for us to do this? Does anyone live here?”
“Well, there was a guy here last time,” Eusine replied, bringing the vehicle to a halt and shutting off the engine. “But occupied or not, we should be fine, even if we have trespassed without notice. The resident here was a good man. He didn’t speak much, but he healed my Alakazam and let me stay the night. We can trust him.”
Marina shook Kenta. "Hey," she whispered. "Rise and shine. We're here."
Kenta stirred, groaned, and placed a hand on his forehead. "My head hurts."
"We're pretty far above sea level," said Hibiki, opening his door. "Just yawn a lot, and focus on your breathing."
"I'm already yawning a lot," mumbled Eusine, trudging up the gravel path to the cabin porch. "I should just sleep right there in the car." As Hibiki started to follow him, he caught a sudden movement out of the corner of his eye- the flash of a blue, duck-billed head peeked at them from around the side of the cabin. It was gone a second later.
A pokémon? he thought, though nobody else seemed to have taken notice.
They gathered at the wooden door, and Eusine knocked three times. A few seconds passed, and nobody answered, athough the wind began to pick up again. Marina groaned. "Great. Cold AND windy. Eusine, try the door and see if it's unlocked."
"People do lock their doors, even out here," Eusine said back, but he reached for the knob anyway. Before his hand touched, the cabin door suddenly swung open inwards, and they stood face-to-face with a tall, thin man wearing a brown duster coat. Hibiki swallowed guiltily, thinking about how close they might have been to walking right into an occupied place, but the man's eyes lit up in recognition, and Eusine smiled.
"Well, hello Eusine. You're out and about early. I was just about to head off for some morning fishing."
"Ah, I'm terribly sorry to intrude." Eusine pointed behind him at Kenta, Marina, and Hibiki. "These are my friends, and we were traveling through but couldn't find a place to stay in the area. Guys-" he turned around and held his arm up to the brown-coated man in the cabin. "This is Mr. Durai. He's a pokémon veterinarian."
Kenta held out his hand. "It's nice to meet you, sir."
"Ralts!"
Everyone looked down. At Mr. Durai's feet stood a pokémon barely a foot tall, with a white body, a green helmet-head, and a rounded red horn on its forehead. A moment later, another mostly-white pokémon glided from the back room of the cabin. Hibiki recognized the two pokémon as Ralts and Togetic: two relatively valuable pokémon known for their sensitivity. Ralts looked them over for a few seconds, while Togetic hovered the group in circles. Hibiki got the feeling that they were being scanned, but ironically, he found the presence of the pokémon pleasurable.
"All right, that's enough," laughed Mr. Durai, stepping back from the doorway. "Let's not leave our guests out in the cold wind. Come, warm yourselves by the fire. Unless you have any luggage to carry?"
"No, it's just us. It was a very impromptu trip." Eusine smiled apologetically and crossed the threshold of the door. "Thank you. I really am sorry to be coming to you for aid a second time-" He stumbled suddenly, right as he was passing Mr. Durai, and fell in a kneeling position. Hibiki gasped, and Marina hurried to help him to his feet. "If you were really this exhausted, you could've asked me to drive part of the way," she said, mildly reproachful. "Especially if we were driving on steep slopes like that."
"Yeah, but here's the thing. Nobody touches my baby's steering wheel but me."
Hibiki put a fist to his mouth to stifle a laugh and turned to Kenta, but the laughter died on his lips as he saw his brother's facial expression. Kenta was staring, not at Eusine, but at Mr. Durai's left leg, where Eusine had just been. His expression, just moments ago dull from sleep, was sharp and curious.
Mr. Durai turned and headed into the living room with them, while Togetic shut the door behind him. The room was the largest in the house, with several chairs and couches in a u-shape facing the main mantlepiece. As Durai had said, there was a roaring fire in the hearth, and the group gathered gladly around it. Eusine sighed and dropped sideways on the middle couch, his head plopping onto the cushion.
"I just need . . . a moment . . ." and he was sound asleep.
Mr. Durai looked at Eusine's dozing form for a moment with a sympathetic smile, then glanced over at his teenage audience, still standing. "Well, then. I suppose you'll have to catch me up. What's your story?"
"Uh . . ." Hibiki froze up. What were they supposed to tell this man? That they were patrolling the area on a hunt for Mewtwo and Suiciune? Their actions represented the most extreme defiance to G.R.I.P.'s policies of owning uber pokémon. Not to mention, it risked revealing the fact that they had Master Balls. He and Marina both turned and looked expectantly at Kenta. This was, after all, his plan.
There it was again: that odd, scrutinizing stare, as if Kenta was looking through Mr. Durai and seeing something that nobody else was. "Is this your way of giving us a chance to explain ourselves?" he asked finally, quietly, almost to himself.
Hibiki looked at him doubtfully. "Uh . . . Kenta? Yeah. That's why he asked."
But then he caught sight of Mr. Durai's face: it was also scrutinizing, calculating, eyes narrowed and focused. The room's atmosphere went from warm and friendly to hot and tense in a matter of seconds.
"I will answer your question," Kenta said after another long pause. "But I think it would only be polite to catch my friends up with what's going on."
"Yeah, what IS going on?" asked Marina nervously. "Why are you guys glaring at each other? He just took us in!"
"Maybe. But what is he, I wonder?" asked Kenta. "Mr. Durai, I offered you my hand outside, but you didn't take it."
Hibiki felt his indignation rising. "Oh, come on- you're mad because he didn't shake your hand?"
"And there we stood, with the wind whipping around, but your clothes never moved an inch. And then, when Eusine fell over from lack of sleep, I SAW him fall through you."
Now it was Marina's turn to confront Kenta. "Wha- what are you saying? That he's a ghost?"
"Here, catch." With a sudden flick of his wrist, Kenta sent a Ragecandybar spinning at Mr. Durai. The man veered out of the way, and the chocolate bar struck the wall under the stairs. "Heh. You were fast enough to dodge it this time."
"Kenta!" Hibiki injected, horrified. "Stop throwing candy at our host!"
"I thought he'd be hungry," Kenta responded, shrugging. "You see, he claimed that he was just about to head out on a fishing trip. But I don't see any rods or nets. Do you?"
"Kenta, you are out of line!" said Marina sharply, launching herself off her chair and marching angrily over to his cushion. "What has gotten into you?"
Kenta sat in her shadow, looking at her with cool reserve. "So, you don't buy any of my observations, huh? You think I'm just seeing things?"
"Maybe! I don't know, but this isn't like you! Where is your sense of courtesy?"
"Check the back wall."
"Don't give me that-"
"No, just trust me on this. The back wall, under the stairs. What do you see?"
"Your stupid candy bar!"
"No, above that."
Marina heaved an exhasperated sigh. "I don't kow what you want me to look at."
"Your shadow."
"What about it?"
"You and Mr. Durai are the only two people standing right now."
"So?"
A grim smile settled into Kenta's face. "Where's his?"
Marina's eyes shot back up to the wall, as did Hibiki's. One shadow. They both turned to stare back at Mr. Durai, who smiled and crossed his arms before him. "So," he said in an impressed voice, "I applaud your observation ability. It is far keener than any human's I have seen for a long time, Eusine's included. You are correct. I'm not really here at all."
"It takes an observer to know an observer," Kenta said, facing 'Mr. Durai' fully. "I'm still wondering about your ability to read minds though. It's not an accident that you just happen to have a Ralts and a Togetic standing sentinel at the door- pokémon whose speciality is reading people's hearts and intentions. We 'passed the test' if I'm not mistaken. But that takes us back to the original question: 'What could these well-intentioned people be doing way up here in the mountain, where one of them met a super-powered Pikachu?' A little different than 'tell me your story,' perhaps, but it's more specific."
"Careful," said Mr. Durai lightly. "You'll make too many assumptions."
"Until we establish trust, I have to," Kenta replied. "It's an uphill battle for one who has cloaked his identity from the start."
"You mean like you did?" Hibiki suddenly heard blurt out of his mouth. He inwardly chastised himself. Kenta turned and looked at him, annoyed, yet slightly amused. "Not the time and place, runt. And I didn't start out with disguises."