Morning has come as daylight illuminates the land. The military transport comes to a halt in front of Misfit Manor. Out comes Luther Lucario, Zach, Betty, Apatite, and Olly. They glance all over the manor, seeing soldiers from the army occupy the balconies and have positions around the front.
Mayor Azumarill approaches the group with soldiers on either side of her. “Hello, Lieutenant, cousin Betty, and friends.”
“What’s going on around here?” Luther asks him. “What’s with all the extra security?”
“We need them,” Mary tells him. “After the clinic incident, Gem got pissed… She and Gas attacked Team Rescuers’ base at three o’clock this morning, as well as the theatre… The explosions scared the entire town and has caused panic.”
“Arecus damn it!” Luther proceeds into the mansion with the others behind him. “It’s like a fortress around here…”
Inside, Gem walks up to Ralph, who is sitting at a desk in the living room area of the manor. “I tell you,” she begins with a smile. “They aren’t coming anywhere close to the manor or clinic, now! One move on that celebi, and she is dead!”
“Indeed,” adds Gas from the chair across.
“I don’t think it was wise to do that, Gem,” Ralph comments. “You’ve stirred up the beedrill’s nest.”
“Nah, I was ‘sending a message,’” Gem continues. She turns around to see the pokemon from the clinic enter. “Hey, guys! Good to see you all! Zach, come here.” She walks up to the riolu in the blue bandana. “Let me look at you.” She stares at him, viewing his newly-acquired black eye. “Ah, you’re handsome!” Zach remains silent and goes to take a seat in a vacant chair, along with the others. Gem turns back to Ralph. “Oh, listen to this; the celebi wants to talk. Can you believe the nerve of this pokemon? She and her friends crap out and already she wants a meeting.”
“R-really?” asks Apatite. “W-what did she say?”
“What she say?” Gem repeats. “What she say? They want us to send Zach for a new proposition. And the promise is the deal is so good, we can’t refuse it. She basically wants to call for peace.”
“What about Jay, the rest of the guild, and their allies?” Ralph queries.
“That’s part of the deal. They will cancel out everything they’ve done; the attacks on town hall, Zach’s squad, Diego’s injury, everything they’ve done to us in the past, etc.”
“We should hear what they have to say…”
The sableye’s smile disappears. “No…” She points to the scorbunny and wanders up to him. “No, no, no! No more! No more meetings, no more talks, no more threats, no more of that celebi’s tricks! You want to give them a message? Tell them we won’t stand for this anymore! I want that celebi’s head on a plate, and I want it now! If we have to fight an all-out war, then we will!”
“Gem, the other guilds wouldn’t agree to a war!”
“Then Cindy needs to come forward!”
Ralph gets up and starts for the other side of the room. “Diego wouldn’t agree to this! This is politics, not personal!”
Gem trails him. “They attacked him, Ralph! You call that politics?! Politics my ass!”
“Even the attempt on Diego’s life was part of politics, not personal! Same with the death of those innocent soldiers in Zach’s squad! May I remind you, we have a safe haven to look after.”
“Then, our safe haven will have to suffer... Do me a favor, Ralph. Don’t tell me about how to patch things up and make peace! That’s not what Gas and I are about!”
“You’re forgetting something, though; Ezma the Mew.”
“What about her?”
“We all know she’s aware of Cindy’s actions, and the rest of the team, and is doing everything in her power to cover things up! What you have to understand, is that while Cindy and the guild are being protected like this, they’re practically untouchable. No one has ever assassinated a guildmaster before. It would be disastrous, Gem! All the guilds of the region would come after you! The misfit pokemon would be outcasts. Even our protection from the Aura Army will scramble and won’t help us! Please… Just take this into consideration…”
The sableye crosses her arms and grunts. “Fine… We’ll wait…”
“We can’t wait,” Zach utters. Gem and Ralph face him with a “huh?” “We can’t wait,” he repeats. “I don’t care what Cindy says about peace; she’s going to continue harassing us and picking us off with all the help she gets; that’s it. She’s not going to stop. We have to get Cindy.”
“Zach’s right,” Betty implies. “This celebi has made enough trouble for all of us. She’s got to go.”
“And what about Ezma, huh?” Luther asks. “What do we do about this guildmaster?”
Gem leans on the wall ahead of the riolu. “Oh, this I need to know. What do you have planned?”
“They want to have a meeting with me, right?” Zach queries. “It would be me, Ezma, and Cindy. So, let’s set the meeting. Get an informant to find out where it’s going to be held. It needs to be a public place; a tavern, a restaurant, a café, or a community center; somewhere where there’s other pokemon, so I feel safe. Now, they’re going to assume I’m dangerous at first and search me when I meet with them, right? So, I can’t carry anything with me, then. But, if Lieutenant Luther finds a way to have a weapon planted there already, I’ll kill them both.” Silence occupies the room with everyone staring at him, until Luther begins to smile and chuckle. Gem looks at him and begins to laugh alongside, as well as Betty, Amber, Niko, and a few other pokemon in the room. Ralph and Mary are the only ones who remain quiet.
Gem walks up to Zach. “Well, look at you; growing up now. What are you going to do, little riolu boy? You didn’t want to be mixed up with politics and trouble before. All of a sudden, your old guildmaster punches you across the face, now you want to get even with her? You think this is another one of your training exercises where you can hit them a mile away? Nah, you’ve got to get up close and personal, and BAM! You blow their brains all over your nice, little, blue bandana and stylish armor. Come here!” She grabs his head and pulls herself close to kiss him on the lips. “Mwuah!” She giggles and points to him. “You’re taking this very personal.” She turns to the scorbunny. “Ralph, this is politics, and this riolu’s taking it personal.”
Zach turns himself to face her as she walks toward Ralph. “Where does it say you can’t kill a guildmaster?”
Ralph forms a faint smile. “Come on, Zachy…”
“Now, wait a minute,” Zach interrupts. “This is not any regular guildmaster! This is a guildmaster who’s done a lot of horrible things to get ahead; a dishonest guildmaster. A corrupt guildmaster, who made the wrong choices, and got what was coming to her! That’s a terrific story! We have pokemon who work in the press, right?”
“We do.”
“They may like a story like that.”
“They might.”
“It would expose Team Rescuers’ true colors,” comments Mary. “Call me crazy, but I’m kind of for this.”
“And it would mean the guilds and high council would finally take swift action,” adds Luther.
Zach pivots to Gem. “It’s not personal, Gem… It’s just politics.”
***
Luther stands before Zach in the cellar of the manor. He presents a small firearm in his paw. “This little thing should be good enough to do the job; untraceable and reliable. I put special tape on the trigger and the butt. Try it out.” Zach takes the gun from his superior’s paw and aims it at the wall ahead. It takes him some time to feel it and try the mechanism. “What’s the matter? Trigger too tight?” With a squeeze, the gun discharges and the blast echoes throughout the room.
“Arecus!” Zach utters.
Luther laughs. “Yeah, I left it noisy. That way it scares any annoying bystanders.” Zach continues to aim with it and gets a feel. “All right, Zach, you killed them both. What do you do now?”
“I… stare at them for a bit… Sit back down…”
“Don’t fool around. The second you blast them both, you need to get out of there fast. Don’t let anybody see you, and you don’t take any chances.” Zach lowers the gun and faces him. “They’ll be scared of you, so you have a good chance. Not like anyone pays attention to the ‘runt riolu’ now, do they?” Zach hands him back the weapon. “Things will go to plan; you take a little vacation, nobody knows where, and you’ll turn out all right.” He examines the pistol and uses some tools to make some tweaks.
“How bad do you think this will become?” Zach asks.
“Pretty bad; there will be an all-out war with Team Rescuers and all the other guilds from every corner of the world. It’ll be a massive vacuum and free-for-all. But, it’s okay; these things need to happen; supposed to get rid of bad blood.” He stops fiddling with the gun. “You know, Zach. We’re all proud of you for stepping up and doing this. If this goes well, you’ll go far.”
“I’m just worried this will null my status as a soldier and deter my chances of being part of a guild.”
“It won’t, because you’ll be doing a service for the whole country. Everyone already knows what these thugs are doing, yet don’t have the guts to go after them. Consider this as doing them all a favor; they’ll be grateful you did.”
Zach takes the pistol. “Thanks, Lieutenant…” He continues to practice with it.
***
Dinner time comes about in the manor, and pokemon sit at the table to eat. Zach is the only pokemon who sits there, not pigging out on food.
Mary comes to the table and takes a seat. “Still nothing… No letter, no envoy… Even the rest of Team Rescuers don’t know where the meeting is going to be held.”
“That’s Cindy Celebi and her goons for you,” Amber says, sarcastically.
“How much time do we have?” asks Zach.
“An hour,” utters Betty. “They’ll pick you up in an hour.”
“We could put a tail on them, see how it turns out,” Barnaby adds.
“Nah,” spurts Niko. “Cindy would lose it going through town.”
Mary turns to Luther. “What’s happening with the negotiator?”
“Oh, they’re playing cards back at the base,” the lucario answers. “They’re happy, my peers are letting them win.”
“Maybe we should call the whole thing off. This is too risky, especially for Zach. I’m not even sure if it’ll all work well.”
“We continue with the plan. The negotiator keeps playing cards until Zach comes back safe.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Gem begins. “Why don’t we just blast whoever’s in the carriage?”
“Too dangerous,” Luther tells her. “They’d know that would be coming.”
“Cindy may not be in the carriage, Gem!” Ralph tells her. Knocking interrupts them.
“I’ve got it,” Gas says, floating away. He comes back to the group after being at the door for fifteen seconds. “It’s at the Weed and Bucket Inn at the crossroads.”
“Is it a reliable place?” asks Mary.
“That envoy was one of our spies at the post office. She says Team Rescuers need to keep this confidential and have it on neutral territory. Anybody know about this place?”
“I do, actually,” says Clara. “It’s perfect for us; it’s a family-owned inn with good food and drinks. Every pokemon who go there minds their own business. They even have an old-fashioned bucket latrine; used to be an outhouse until they connected it up. It still has its box design when they routed the plumbing to it. We may be able to hide the weapon behind it.”
Luther faces Zach. “All right, here’s the plan, Zach: You go into the inn with them, sit down and talk with them for a while. You become relaxed and comfy, and make them comfy and relaxed. You then have to go and use the bathroom, but you ask for permission to go. That’s when you come back and blast them. Two times in the head each, then you bolt out of there.”
“Listen,” Gem begins. “I want someone good to plant that gun. I don’t want that riolu to come out with just his dick in his paws.”
“The gun will be there,” Luther assures her. “I even have some scouts ready to pick him up.”
“All right. Let’s move then, shall we?” Everyone stands up and escorts Zach out of the manor. Gem walks alongside the riolu. “Hey, did he tell you what to do? You know, to kill them and drop the gun?”
“A hundred times,” Zach tells her.
“Make sure you don’t forget anything before you go into hiding.”
“How long will it be all right for me to come back?”
“Shouldn’t be long… Luther Lucario will keep you up-to-date. I’d say like three-to-six months, give or take. It’s an estimate, really. You know how these things are.”
“Best of luck to you, Zach,” Betty tells him. “We’ll be here when you come ‘home,’ okay? Just be careful out there.” The others pass on their blessings.
“Thanks, guys,” Zach says. He looks at the others one last time before passing through the doors.
