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Salieri's jaw slacked at the news. "Are you serious?" Sal hissed, making it very clear that this did in fact change things. "Merde." She wiped her hands over her face. "Merde."

Skarada was the one who hammered in the point that preparation was important to Salieri. If Ska sent one of his people to take the Stone, that same person was definitely on the island for reconnaissance. Whether he managed to get any information out to his captain was as important as what that information could've been. This must've been how Ska knew the Stone wasn't in the ocean like Zack had told him, which meant the scout was definitely in contact with Ska before his capture.

"I don't know," Salieri confessed. "Maybe not. Ska may have more intel than I thought." She put her hands on her hips and paced in a tight circle. "But he doesn't know we're working with Ben. So that's our advantage...can't really do anything about it, so."

Sal couldn't help feeling that she was playing right into Skarada's hands, even after planning the trade. Still, it was a rare occasion for her to have any advantage over her foes. She'd roll with the punches like she always did, surprises be damned. This was for Prou.

"Let's stick to the plan, stay on our toes. He's got something other than Trap Cards up his sleeve for sure."

She looked off at Helena in the short distance. "Your sister's attracting psychos like flies," Sal noted. "And she's our best connection to Ratio, too. When this is over, you should pick her brain about that. I'm tired of flying blind."

Sal found some room to smile through the stressful operation. "Getting cold feet?"

"Can't argue with you there," said Sal. "Alright, I'm heading back into the city while the sandbar is still up. I'll call you guys when I'm getting into position."

She gave him an encouraging pat on the back that was accidentally a slap as she walked away, whistling for Banksy. The Torkoal heard, got up, and followed. "Oh, and don't forget to wear sunglasses."

Tower of Mastery

Acolytes watched the training on their way past the courtyard, and a few had gathered on the overlooking walkway like pokémon training was some kind of spectator sport. Their gazes were a mixture of disapproval and appreciation, but Zack didn't care.

The courtyards were almost back to normal. A few cracks here and there, and Zack sure as hell wasn't scrubbing those burn marks off the brickwork, but he had put things back to how they used to be. Or Serene had anyway. As a way to strengthen her special attacks, Zack had given Serene a psychic workout, which had her lifting heavy slabs of shattered rock and placing them where they were before the team had started training. It built up her resilience and finesse, and meant he didn't have to worry about pissing off Gurkinn.

Even the old codger had to have his limits.

'Lethal, good work,' Zack said, patrolling the ranks. Lethal had finally mastered Dragon Pulse, which had given him trouble all morning. He sent a purple-black blast rocketing across the courtyard, shattering a planter into a thousand pieces. Serene's jaw dropped and her eye twitched, but the Clawitzer didn't notice and bubbled happily with his success. He'd have looked like an utter dork, except he wore a Scope Lens, which balanced it out.

Hazard and Malis were dueling nearby. In keeping with his one touch forfeit rules, he had taught them how to make a tally chart, which was currently scratched into the stone floor with Malis's Slash. The marks had started off neat, but the more Hazard racked up, the wilder and angrier they became, so it looked kind of a mess. Zack was sure Oberon could do something with that.

Malis put his Flame Jets to good use. He was as comfortable in the air as any Charizard, and incredibly mobile now that he could redirect himself on bursts of fire. Hazard might have gone easy on him at first, but she became increasingly serious in trying to nail the fire type with her long range attacks. Once, Lethal managed to outmaneuver the ghost pokémon and crack her with Fire Punch. She went flying backwards into the high wall and exploded into a fog of poisonous gas. Recalling that the same thing had happened when Hazard was defeated by Ska, Zack took her aside.

'That needs to stop being an accident,' he said, and Hazard toed the floor sheepishly. 'No, I mean you need to start doing it on purpose. Someone comes at you with an attack, you turn into a cloud and Toxic them instead. Call it Rupture or something.'

And with that, a new technique was born. Hazard was gaseous and incorporeal to begin with, and as a Gengar she had some control over her shape. This was just bringing together a bunch of natural traits. Zack studied the evolution of Rupture as they trained, and each time she tried it, Hazard looked less like a Gengar, and more like a dark, evil cloud. She could hold it for a second or two, then snapped back to her normal form. Malis didn't appreciate the Toxic, but it didn't stop him from trying to beat Hazard's new skill.

In fact, Zack noted as he walked closer, Malis had worn Hazard down. Zack had a bunch of stolen Pecha Berries from last night, which Malis had chewed his way through each time he'd been poisoned, but no healing items were left for Hazard. Looked like each time Malis hit Hazard's Rupture form, she took damage, it was just reduced.

'Change!' Zack yelled, and his pokémon looked his way. 'Malis, you're with Lethal. Hazard take five then you're with Serene.'

They had maybe half an hour before they had to move. The deadline to meet Ska was coming up, and Zack didn't feel the slightest bit prepared. Salieri's memories were fading like Gurkinn said they would, but Zack knew by now that he wouldn't forget them completely. He remembered experiencing Salieri's memories, and he remembered that Ska was an evil son of a b***h. Maybe if Zack had his old team he could walk into this in complete confidence, but for now he'd have to make do with faking it.

Then there was the load Helena dropped about this Jean guy. Zack shook his head like it'd make the thought fly out. One psychopath at a time, please. Another aura user from the sound of things, and the second one Zack knew about who was interested in his sister. There must have been something about her that attracted them, something Zack couldn't comprehend. He believed she could win the league because he knew that she absorbed information like a sponge. What made her seem so special to the psycho squad?

'God dammit,' he grumbled, trying not to dwell. 'Lethal, Malis, I realise there might be some difference in anatomy here, but listen up.' The two pokémon shared an uncomfortable glance. 'Lethal, you're going to teach Malis how to use Swords Dance. Malis, you're going to be really good at this really fast.'

The two pokémon breathed a sigh of relief and got to work. Serene had Teleported over to Hazard, who sat on the floor, taking a break. The two pokémon were talking about something. Or at least Hazard was; Serene just nodded and every time she tried to get a word in, Hazard spoke over her. When Hazard burst into laughter, Serene made a strained smile, and looked for an exit, but instead she found Zack.

'Break time's over, gassy,' Zack said. Hazard stared at him for a second, then burst into another round of laughter. Zack pinched his brow. 'Alright, alright. Hazard, Serene needs to learn Confuse Ray. There's some bonus food in it for you if you don't ******** about. Try to sneak in Toxic if you're got time.'

Hazard hopped to her feet, saluting with utmost seriousness. Then Zack left Serene alone with the ghost, who had already started salivating.

Shalour City

Half an hour flew by in about ten minutes. Zack had enough time to return to his chambers for a shower and picked up a change of clothes from a store in Shalour City. He wore a simple black shirt with red cargo shorts. It was a b***h to get dressed with one of his arms a painful, useless lump of meat and bone, but he could grit his teeth enough to get through anything. Knowing the importance of picking up some sunglasses, he grabbed a pair for him and each of his pokémon at the check out.

Resisting the urge to have his full team walk behind him wearing said sunglasses, Zack found the building that Salieri mentioned. It was a block of apartments that overlooked the bay where the meet would go down. If they got high up, they'd have a perfect vantage point.

'Hey, it's me. I got locked out, any chance you could buzz me up?'
'Buzz off!' said the crackling voice through the door speaker. This was about the sixth apartment Zack had tried, and they all seemed to love that pun. On the ninth, he ran into the only charitable, naive soul in Kalos who buzzed him through, and Zack made his way up the stairs. On the tenth floor, he started testing doors.

'Is this Gary's place?' he asked whenever someone answered his knock. Most of the people who answered said no, but the one Gary who answered wasn't the one Zack was looking for. His Gary was made up. Eventually he knocked on a door and nobody answered. He knocked again, harder, and rang the doorbell, waited a minute. Nothing. Awesome. Zack kicked the door almost off its hinges and it flew open. He closed it again, and kept it shut with a hall table.

'Rrrrrap raprap! Woof!'
'Oh, you must be Gary,' said Zack as the adorable pet Snubbull rounded the corner and snarled at him, hopping up and down, making as much noise as it could without actually attacking. Zack popped Hazard's ball, commanded Hypnosis, and they walked past the snoozing puppy and entered the apartment's living room. It led the balcony, which was perfect.

'Hazard stay on guard,' he said, releasing Lethal, 'and do a better job of it than the last guy.'

The ghost type giggled, and vanished in a puff of toxic gas before reappearing above the doorway, ready to drop on anyone who disturbed them. Lethal appeared in a flash of light, as did Serene a second later. Zack put the scope lens on Lethal, and gave Serene her sunglasses. They positioned themselves on the balcony, Lethal resting his bazooka claw on the railing and his body on a table, which creaked under his weight. Zack leaned on the railing, and let Serene tap him into Manny's psychic link.

He wouldn't let himself be a part of it directly; all correspondence would have to go through Serene. He'd been there, done that where linking his mind up to strangers was concerned. Still, he placed his fingers to his temple, and thought really loudly:

'IT'S ME. I'M IN POSITION.'

Ten seconds of Telepathy later, and Salieri already had a headache. Unlike with Gurkinn, where his Aura invaded her privacy, this was just annoying. But it was also hugely necessary. 'How about we all think less until Ska gets here?'

It turned out they wouldn't have to wait much longer. For only a few more minutes, Salieri watched people come and go. Pedestrian traffic lessened as the sandbar leading to the Tower of Mastery went under the high tide, making access to the tourist attraction much harder.

If Manny was scanning for suspicious characters in the area, he wouldn't find anyone of the sort. No one that seemed like a pirate on Skarada's crew, at least. That alone was probably suspicious.

Eventually she saw her former captain coming down the street, with his Murkrow perched on a shoulder and his open blue longcoat flapping in the wind behind him. 'He's here. Stay alert.'

"Sunglasses," Ska noted with a click of his tongue. "Not taking any chances, ay mate?" He stopped walking, standing across the street from Sal's bench. Salieri and Durendal stood up to match his bravado.

"Not with you. Been there, done that."

With no one coming in between them, the street was empty, and they shared a moment of contemplative silence. Skarada's ever present smile curled down for a second. "Woulda been nice to keep you by my side, Sal. You woulda been our first choice for babysitter."

Sal sighed at that sentiment. It was too little, far too late. "I'm no good with kids."
"Yeah, well. Your treehouse says differently."

She geared up to snap at him, wondering how he knew about Gotengo. "What, think I didn't do my homework? You know me better than that."
"Enough with the games, Ska. It has to stop."
"Oh c'mon. You gotta admit, your time on the Fishbone...wasn't all bad, was it?"
"It wasn't. Except your crew was a bunch of bigots. And then you tried to kill off a small island."
'In my crew's defense," Ska snapped back, still grinning but with a more annoyed tone, "They've got every right to hate this godforsaken place. When foreign boots hit your hometown, and they strip you down to nothin', then you have permission to complain."

He spat on the sidewalk, a gesture of his disdain for Kalos. Salieri almost felt sorry for him. He harbored more hate in his heart now than three years ago. She knew what that was like. Still, that was then. Now was different. "If you're done reminiscing, let's do this. Where's Prou?"

Ska pulled out a Pokéball and released the Armored Gardevoir. Her helmet was fixed again, the visor masking her eyes. Sal gulped at the sight of her, and gave her old friend a comforting nod that wasn't reciprocated in any way.

He also handed her the Pokéball, which she held diligently in one hand. In the other hand, Ska put Sal's Pokédex. The device was wrapped in bubble wrap, rattling back and forth in the Gardevoir's hand with muffled noise. "Couldn't figure out how to shut the bugger down. Where's my stone?"

Salieri produced the Sablenite from her bag and handed it to Durendal. Skarada's eyes practically twinkled when he saw the purple orb. "You came a long way for a rock."
"You know it's more than that, mate." Ska put a hand on the back of Prou's helmet, shaking it back and forth. The Gardevoir allowed it to happen. "This ain't the same girl you used to know. 241's a different animal now. Sure this is the right call?"
"It's the only call."
"Hey, no difference on my end. Let's get down to it, yeah?"

Salieri nodded at Durendal. Attentive as always, he began to walk across the empty street towards Skarada. The pirate gave Prou the go ahead, and she did the same towards Sal.

'Keep it steady guys. Clear on your ends?'

The Apartment

As Salieri and Skarada conversed, the sounds of a toilet flushing and a sink running came from the bathroom of the apartment Zack had comandeered. The sounds may have been lost on Zack and Lethal on the balcony, but Hazard would be able to hear.

The door to the bathroom opened, and out walked a woman. She wore a small orange crop top with a matching long skirt over black shorts with cork sandals. Her skin color, hair color, and overall appearance greatly resembled Salieri. The most striking feature about her were her pink sclera.

"Oh," she mumbled when she saw Hazard at the doorway of the apartment. She looked off to her side, at the wall. "I told you people lived here, I told you," she muttered to no one. Shaking it off, the pink eyed woman gave Hazard a friendly nod and reached to her hip. Hanging from a leather holster was a cream colored book with green trimmings, which she took out.

The woman walked over to the balcony, where Zack, Serene and Lethal were positioned. "S'cuse me," she said as she made to step out. She gave Zack a little wave with the back of her hand, a gesture that asked for him to move over a little. In her hands, the pages of the book gave off a faint green glow.

The Apartment

With her eyes half closed sleepily, the mystery woman stood there as Hazard unleashed a Hypnosis. When it hit her she recoiled a bit, as if it had made physical contact. Then she continued to stand there, blinking with a curiously tilted head. Her pink eyes glowed, as did the eyes of the Chandelure charm necklace she wore.

Pink mist curled from her lips before she stuck her tongue out at Hazard in response, extending it to freakishly long lengths that matched the Gengar’s. It retracted back into her mouth as she walked past the Ghost type.

When she walked, her necklace did not move with her, frozen in place. The mystery woman kept moving, and the chain around her neck lost all slack until it snapped off from the Chandelure charm that remained still in midair. The Chandelure, not a charm at all, grew to their normal size, staring down Hazard while the flames on their head and arms sprouted to life.

“Over here,” said another woman to Hazard from a puff of pink smoke, identical to the first and sitting on the couch with a cup of steaming tea. She sipped it, nonchalant as her face turned red and steam rose from her ears like a kettle. “Riiiiight over here.”

“Actually here, look,” said another identical woman, also appearing from nowhere in another plume of colored mist. This one was on a yoga mat, standing and doing stretches with the same expressionless manner. “Follow my lead, as we do this pose together,” she said, going from a Tree Pose to the Warrior Pose.

“Krrooo?” the Chandelure chimed, now bobbing up and down slowly in midair, floating between Hazard and the balcony.

The first woman stepped onto the balcony, glowing book in hand. The book’s covers lengthened and furled, changing shape until it Transformed into a cream colored sniper rifle with green trimmings. After spending so much time tracking down her target and deciding that sniping them would be most efficient, it was a strange coincidence to her that someone else had broken into the same apartment for the same reason. Strange, but also funny. She chuckled to herself.

“Good hunters share their perch,” she lectured absentmindedly to Zack as she moved to level the rifle onto the railing and aim it at Skarada. The barrel hummed, glowing the same green that the book did. “…so do birds. Birds of a feather."

If Manny was also scanning Zack’s position for perpetrators, he’d be able to sense five Auras in addition to Zack, Lethal, Serene and Hazard. Those five Auras came from the three mystery women, the Chandelure, and the sniper rifle. Each of the women gave off a different Aura, but the one on the balcony was the biggest of the three.

The Apartment

There was supposed to be the sound of a body hitting the floor. Zack frowned and turned away from the scene with Ska in time to see the pink eyed woman multiply around the living room. Hazard looked from the vacant copies to the floating Chandelure then back to Zack and shrugged. Did Hypnosis miss? The sight of that Chandelure made his skin crawl. There was no chance it was the same...?

Whatever. Stick to the important things; Zack remembered this woman and she was no friend. She wouldn't know it, but Zack knew the pink eyed woman through Salieri's memories. Their encounter on the beach ended with this loon going psycho and putting Salieri to sleep. Was she another darkhorse hunter? He was almost worried for a second when the book turned into a sniper rifle, but before the woman could cross the balcony, Zack stepped in front and cut her off.

'Nice trick but Ditto make lousy guns, they just blow themselves up.' Zack grinned, just waiting for this situation to nosedive. He had to assume she was here for revenge after Bonding, which meant he needed to retake control. Zack's demeanor shifted into something a tad more dangerous. 'And I don't share s**t so how about you flock off.'

The Tower of Mastery - Zack's Room

A rustling sound shook the bed, and something scrambled from beneath it. It was pink and fluffy, its face squeezing from the gap between the mattress and floor, followed by its large ears. Once its front paws got some purchase, the rest of its body popped free and it stood on all fours to shake itself down.

But it was worth it. Seelie the Sylveon tossed the salvaged leftovers high into the air and snapped them up on the way down. He was halfway through chewing when he finally noticed Helena and gagged.

Helena stared at the Sylveon as he emerged from the bed mattresses. It was an odd sight, and Helena had to wonder if this Pokemon belonged to Zack. It would be an odd choice, if it did.

"Hi," she said, raising her hand a little in a wave.

Loki didn't break his meditation, instead he continued to focus on manifesting energy.