Order of the Full Moon
Chapter 4: Order of the Full Moon
Tony threw a look right, over at Alice from the back of his Salamence, who was gazing into space atop her perch on her Honchkrow. "Alice, pay attention. Did you hear a thing of what I just said?" Alice jumped at the sound of his voice, and looked over at him as if she hadn't seen him before.
"What? Oh, um. Something about lawnmowers?" The Chatot perched on her shoulder echoed, "Lawnmowers... Lawnmowers..." Tony raised an eyebrow. "You weren't listening, Alice." The woman crossed her arms grumpily. "Well I'm bored! We've been sitting here for an hour, and I'm freezing! It must be like what? Minus ten degrees?"
The scrawny boy sitting on the back of a large Tropius to Tony's left muttered, "31 degrees actually." Alice threw a dirty look at him. "Well thanks, Mr. Know-It-All." Tony interrupted with a loud clear of his throat before they could start an argument. "Alice, Dorin, quiet. It's almost time. Look! Here he comes!"
Tony, Alice, and Dorin hovered over the tournament quietly, watching, listening, and waiting. The judges voice reverberated in the air as he spoke into the microphone. "Next up! Charizard versus Kyra the Lucario!" "Get ready!", Tony called. "Oh, dear...", Alice said anxiously, her attention now focused on the hooded man, and the boy with the ponytail and glasses.
"When I say 'go', we swoop in. Alice, you get in there and keep Coal distracted. Dorin, your job is to distract the Charizard so that Coal won't be able to fly on it. I'll go for Meil and Kyra. We want to do this as quickly as possible. Let's hope nobody gets hurt. But if I get injured, do whatever you can to take Meil and Kyra for me. Do you understand?"
Alice gave a strangled laugh. "Sure, no problem! What the hell could possibly go wrong?!" Dorin simply nodded quietly, adjusting his lab coat absently. "Wait for it...", Tony whispered, holding up his hand. "Let the battle begin!", called the judge. "Now!", Tony yelled, and both Dorin and Alice zoomed in front of him as he yelled, "Go!"
The Salamence beat it's gigantic wings, and began to soar low over the trees. He didn't have time to see how the others were doing, he had to find Meil and Kyra. Alice's Honchkrow cawed loudly and intimidatingly as it swooped upon the hooded man, the Chatot on her shoulder also cawing, yet his were not as intimidating.
The man removed his hood to reveal a pale, pock-marked face, framed by short hair that spiked out in odd directions like static electricity. His eyes were surrounded by dark rings. Between his eyes was a small straight nose. The man looked expressionlessly up at the sudden assault as if he was simply watching a couple of flying birds.
"I should have seen this coming...", the man said to himself as he broke into a run towards the black Charizard. "Charizard, let's move!" The man looked quickly over at the boy with the ponytail and his Lucario, who were backing away as a large Salamence bared down upon them.
People screamed and ran in all directions at the judges table was thrown over as the black Charizard attempted to slash at the Tropius, just hovering out of reach. "Charizard, get the boy!", the man commanded. The Charizard seemed oblivious to his master's orders as the Tropius taunted it with loud cries and the occasion Magical Leaf.
The Charizard flew into the air, it's Flamethrower barely clipping the Tropius's wing as it zigzagged through the air evasively. "Damn it!", the man said under his breath. He sprinted towards the boy and the Lucario, pushing panicking people out of his way as he drew closer to the boy, who was already being dragged away by another tall man wearing a lab coat.
Meil tried to wrench his arm away from the man grabbing him. "What do you want!?", he yelled at the man.
"You and Kyra must get on! Come on now! Go!"
"How do you know her na-"
"I'll explain later! Get on the Salamence!"
All of the sudden, the other man grabbed the hood of Meil's poncho. Meil made a choking sound as he was pulled back. "Your mine!", he man said angrily as he pulled harder. Tony let go of Meil and tackled the man, who released Meil instantly as Tony threw him to the ground. "Coal, let go of him now!" Meil grabbed Kyra as he franticly climbed up the Salamence's scaly back.
Meil watched the man in the lab coat climb in front of him and yell, "Go!" The Salamence was quickly in the air as Coal glared up at them. The Tropius began to swoop away from the enraged Charizard as it started to tire, landing as he watched the three figures fly into the distance.
Coal stormed up to his Charizard in a temper. "Charizard, why didn't you listen to me you son of a bitch!?", he shouted. The Charizard looked at the snow speckled ground with a grim expression on it's dragonish face. "Let's get out of here.", Coal said bitterly, turning to watch the three specks disappear into the overcast sky. "Besides, we'll find them again."
Meil held tightly to the Salamence's hide as it swooped low over snow capped mountains, the frigid wind numbing his entire face. He could feel Kyra's arms wrapped tightly around his waist. "So, can you at least tell us where we are going?", Meil shouted over the roaring in his ears.
"Headquarters of the Order of the Full Moon. I'm Tony, the leader of the organization.", Tony said loudly, his dark curly hair collecting flakes of snow like dandruff. He pointed to his left where a short boy with slick blonde hair, maybe a year younger than Meil, was riding a Tropius that was just visible through the blinding snow.
"That's Dorin, the brains of the order." Then he pointed right, towards a woman wearing a lab coat like the other two, her long, bright red hair flowing out behind her as she flew. "That's Alice. You could say she's the lack of brains of the order." "I heard that!", Alice barked.
"Well then what are you?", Tony asked in an amused tone. "I'm the dumb bitch in the lab coat!" Alice retorted. Tony laughed, "Of course!"
Meil could feel them lower in altitude as the Salamence began to dive into a valley blanketed in white snow. The Salamence flapped it's wings to slow their descent, kicking up swirling clouds of snowflakes. Dorin and Alice landed a few feet away.
Meil looked around, brushing snow out of his hair. The valley was very silent, as the snow absorbed all the sound around them. It was dark too, not only because the overcast sky blocked out the sun, but they were standing in one of the mountains shadows, making the lighting unusually dim. Tall evergreens dotted the inner valley and the slopes of the mountains.
"We're here.", Tony said, sliding off the Salamence's back, his feet sinking a few inches into the snow. "Where are we?", Meil asked, looking up at a mountain as it towered over them like a monstrous, white shadow. "The Snowpoint Mountains. Pretty remote around here. Hikers don't even go this far in."
Meil turned to look at Kyra, who's black, blue, and yellow fur was covered in powdery snow, like a sugar topping. She was wide eyed and shaking slightly. Her face looked pale and sickly. "Kyra, what's wrong?", Meil asked her. "I-I don't think I like flying.", she said, looking like she might pass out.
"Don't worry, we're on the ground now.", he said, in an attempt to comfort her. "Come on! Let's get inside before we freeze to death!", Alice called.
Meil helped Kyra down from the Salamence's back, but her legs were to shaky to support her, and by Meil's request, he carried her instead.
The Salamence, Honchkrow, Tropius, and Chatot were returned to their trainers as Tony began walking down toward what appeared to be a dark cave in the side of one of the mountains. Icicles hung like sharp teeth from the mouth of the cave as they were quickly swallowed by darkness.
Meil heard the faint cries of Zubat's deep within the mountain. "Where is this headquarters?", Meil asked, his voice echoing against the walls of the cave. "Right here.", Tony said, clicking on a flashlight, and pointing it towards a blank stone wall. "I don't see anything.", Meil said flatly, shifting Kyra's weight from one arm to another.
"Watch and learn.", Tony smirked. He crouched down where the floor of the cave connected with the wall. Between these was a three foot long, thin keyboard-like device. It had three tiny scanners, and a row of keys with the numbers 0 through 9. "What is that?", Meil asked, crouching to get a better look at it, while still supporting Kyra in his arms.
"It's to make sure we don't have any unexpected guest at headquarters. As long as you have either me, Alice, or Dorin with you, you can get in." He pointed to each function individually.
"Those three scanners are thumb print scanners. After we scan our thumbs, we put in a secret passcode. Each one of us has a different passcode, as well as a different thumb scanner, to make it harder for anyone intruders intending on getting in."
He placed his thumb on the scanner, which flashed four times, before making a small beep, and a tiny red light began blinking. He quickly typed in the passcode, his fingers flying over the keyboard so fast, you could not even tell what he'd been typing.
There was a sudden rumbling within the wall, and Meil stepped back, alarmed, as if he expected the wall to collapse. A slab of the wall began sliding sideways into the cave wall, revealing a metallic door.
Tony walked to face the door, which scanned his face with a red laser that passed across his face several times before there was a loud, mechanical clanking from within the door, and it slowly slid into the wall to reveal an entrance, with strange, blue light spilling out the doorway onto the stone floor.
Tony, Alice, and Dorin walked through the doorway, followed by Meil and Kyra. The room they entered was a large room full of computers, which explained all the blue light. Tony pressed a red button near the doorway, and the doors slid back into place with a satisfying click.
"Well, home sweet home.", Alice sighed, plopping down in a chair in front of one of the computers, and leaning back in it, exhausted. Tony opened another door located at the back of the computer room. "Your room is down here.", he said, leading Meil and Kyra down a long hallway lined a with doors.
A few of the doors had warnings on them such as, "Keep Out", "Hazardous", and "Caution". "That one is Alice's room.", he said with a laugh, pointing out the room with the sign, "Keep Out".
"There's Dorin's room." A door with a poster of the periodic table. "And that's my room." There was a door that was covered in random posters of space, stars, planets, and other scientific figures. "And the kitchen." He gestured towards a door with the sign, "Human Food Only". "We had that sign installed after Alice accidentally put liquid nitrogen in the cooler.", he said with a grin.
"And, last but not least, is your room. That is to say, yours, and Kyra's room. You'll be sharing the same bed, since we could only fit one." He referred to a the door at the very end of the hallway. Meil looked slightly confused. "What do you mean, 'you could only fit one'?" Tony sighed, running his long fingers through his thick, dark hair.
"Well, let's just say we don't exactly have a whole lot of room here." Meil looked down the hall where there were at least twelve or eleven doors.
Tony seemed to notice this, because he quickly said, "Well, we have a lot of room, but it's most of it is either cluttered or occupied. This was the best we could find. There was room in Alice's bedroom, but we thought you need your privacy, and Alice wasn't exactly agreeing to donate her space anyway."
He opened the door to a small room, though in reality, it wasn't really a room, as much as a closet. Clothes hung from high ceiling of the closet; lab coats, jackets, and other various articles of clothing.
A bed piled with thick sheets and pillows was crammed into a corner.
The room was lit by a light bulb hanging from the ceiling, but because of the clothes, not much light actually made it to the bottom. The clothes were low enough that if sat up in the bed, your head would just touch the bottom of the clothes.
"Okay, so it was actually a wardrobe, but it was the best we could do.", Tony explained as Meil had to bend over to keep his head from colliding with the mass of clothes. Kyra sat down on the bed and bounced a little on the Dratini sheets. "It's nice.", Kyra said politely. Meil sat down on the bed beside Kyra. The bed could barely fit two people.
Meil was somewhat curious of what it would be to sleep in the same bed with Kyra. She had always rested in her Pokeball at night, but usually spent her time out of her Pokeball, simply because she enjoyed being with Meil.
Tony stood in doorway saying, "Meil, I'm sure you have a lot of questions as to why you're here, and why we need you." Meil looked up at him. "Well, yes. I'v been wondering that."
"Well, rest for today. We will explain everything tomorrow. We've got some research to do, so make yourself at home, and if you're hungry, remember the kitchen. The bathroom is the second door to your left.", with this, he closed the door, leaving Meil and Kyra sitting in their new bedroom, if it could be called that. To Meil, it was still a closet with a bed.
Kyra looked over at Meil, her face slightly anxious. "Meil, what's going on?" Meil laid down on the bed, staring up at the clothes that created something like second ceiling. "I have no idea. But sooner or later, we will know." He sat again, and smiled warmly at her. "It'll be all right.", he said soothingly.
"Meil,"
"What?"
"Are you scared?"
"No. Not really."
"I am."
Tony threw a look right, over at Alice from the back of his Salamence, who was gazing into space atop her perch on her Honchkrow. "Alice, pay attention. Did you hear a thing of what I just said?" Alice jumped at the sound of his voice, and looked over at him as if she hadn't seen him before.
"What? Oh, um. Something about lawnmowers?" The Chatot perched on her shoulder echoed, "Lawnmowers... Lawnmowers..." Tony raised an eyebrow. "You weren't listening, Alice." The woman crossed her arms grumpily. "Well I'm bored! We've been sitting here for an hour, and I'm freezing! It must be like what? Minus ten degrees?"
The scrawny boy sitting on the back of a large Tropius to Tony's left muttered, "31 degrees actually." Alice threw a dirty look at him. "Well thanks, Mr. Know-It-All." Tony interrupted with a loud clear of his throat before they could start an argument. "Alice, Dorin, quiet. It's almost time. Look! Here he comes!"
Tony, Alice, and Dorin hovered over the tournament quietly, watching, listening, and waiting. The judges voice reverberated in the air as he spoke into the microphone. "Next up! Charizard versus Kyra the Lucario!" "Get ready!", Tony called. "Oh, dear...", Alice said anxiously, her attention now focused on the hooded man, and the boy with the ponytail and glasses.
"When I say 'go', we swoop in. Alice, you get in there and keep Coal distracted. Dorin, your job is to distract the Charizard so that Coal won't be able to fly on it. I'll go for Meil and Kyra. We want to do this as quickly as possible. Let's hope nobody gets hurt. But if I get injured, do whatever you can to take Meil and Kyra for me. Do you understand?"
Alice gave a strangled laugh. "Sure, no problem! What the hell could possibly go wrong?!" Dorin simply nodded quietly, adjusting his lab coat absently. "Wait for it...", Tony whispered, holding up his hand. "Let the battle begin!", called the judge. "Now!", Tony yelled, and both Dorin and Alice zoomed in front of him as he yelled, "Go!"
The Salamence beat it's gigantic wings, and began to soar low over the trees. He didn't have time to see how the others were doing, he had to find Meil and Kyra. Alice's Honchkrow cawed loudly and intimidatingly as it swooped upon the hooded man, the Chatot on her shoulder also cawing, yet his were not as intimidating.
The man removed his hood to reveal a pale, pock-marked face, framed by short hair that spiked out in odd directions like static electricity. His eyes were surrounded by dark rings. Between his eyes was a small straight nose. The man looked expressionlessly up at the sudden assault as if he was simply watching a couple of flying birds.
"I should have seen this coming...", the man said to himself as he broke into a run towards the black Charizard. "Charizard, let's move!" The man looked quickly over at the boy with the ponytail and his Lucario, who were backing away as a large Salamence bared down upon them.
People screamed and ran in all directions at the judges table was thrown over as the black Charizard attempted to slash at the Tropius, just hovering out of reach. "Charizard, get the boy!", the man commanded. The Charizard seemed oblivious to his master's orders as the Tropius taunted it with loud cries and the occasion Magical Leaf.
The Charizard flew into the air, it's Flamethrower barely clipping the Tropius's wing as it zigzagged through the air evasively. "Damn it!", the man said under his breath. He sprinted towards the boy and the Lucario, pushing panicking people out of his way as he drew closer to the boy, who was already being dragged away by another tall man wearing a lab coat.
Meil tried to wrench his arm away from the man grabbing him. "What do you want!?", he yelled at the man.
"You and Kyra must get on! Come on now! Go!"
"How do you know her na-"
"I'll explain later! Get on the Salamence!"
All of the sudden, the other man grabbed the hood of Meil's poncho. Meil made a choking sound as he was pulled back. "Your mine!", he man said angrily as he pulled harder. Tony let go of Meil and tackled the man, who released Meil instantly as Tony threw him to the ground. "Coal, let go of him now!" Meil grabbed Kyra as he franticly climbed up the Salamence's scaly back.
Meil watched the man in the lab coat climb in front of him and yell, "Go!" The Salamence was quickly in the air as Coal glared up at them. The Tropius began to swoop away from the enraged Charizard as it started to tire, landing as he watched the three figures fly into the distance.
Coal stormed up to his Charizard in a temper. "Charizard, why didn't you listen to me you son of a bitch!?", he shouted. The Charizard looked at the snow speckled ground with a grim expression on it's dragonish face. "Let's get out of here.", Coal said bitterly, turning to watch the three specks disappear into the overcast sky. "Besides, we'll find them again."
Meil held tightly to the Salamence's hide as it swooped low over snow capped mountains, the frigid wind numbing his entire face. He could feel Kyra's arms wrapped tightly around his waist. "So, can you at least tell us where we are going?", Meil shouted over the roaring in his ears.
"Headquarters of the Order of the Full Moon. I'm Tony, the leader of the organization.", Tony said loudly, his dark curly hair collecting flakes of snow like dandruff. He pointed to his left where a short boy with slick blonde hair, maybe a year younger than Meil, was riding a Tropius that was just visible through the blinding snow.
"That's Dorin, the brains of the order." Then he pointed right, towards a woman wearing a lab coat like the other two, her long, bright red hair flowing out behind her as she flew. "That's Alice. You could say she's the lack of brains of the order." "I heard that!", Alice barked.
"Well then what are you?", Tony asked in an amused tone. "I'm the dumb bitch in the lab coat!" Alice retorted. Tony laughed, "Of course!"
Meil could feel them lower in altitude as the Salamence began to dive into a valley blanketed in white snow. The Salamence flapped it's wings to slow their descent, kicking up swirling clouds of snowflakes. Dorin and Alice landed a few feet away.
Meil looked around, brushing snow out of his hair. The valley was very silent, as the snow absorbed all the sound around them. It was dark too, not only because the overcast sky blocked out the sun, but they were standing in one of the mountains shadows, making the lighting unusually dim. Tall evergreens dotted the inner valley and the slopes of the mountains.
"We're here.", Tony said, sliding off the Salamence's back, his feet sinking a few inches into the snow. "Where are we?", Meil asked, looking up at a mountain as it towered over them like a monstrous, white shadow. "The Snowpoint Mountains. Pretty remote around here. Hikers don't even go this far in."
Meil turned to look at Kyra, who's black, blue, and yellow fur was covered in powdery snow, like a sugar topping. She was wide eyed and shaking slightly. Her face looked pale and sickly. "Kyra, what's wrong?", Meil asked her. "I-I don't think I like flying.", she said, looking like she might pass out.
"Don't worry, we're on the ground now.", he said, in an attempt to comfort her. "Come on! Let's get inside before we freeze to death!", Alice called.
Meil helped Kyra down from the Salamence's back, but her legs were to shaky to support her, and by Meil's request, he carried her instead.
The Salamence, Honchkrow, Tropius, and Chatot were returned to their trainers as Tony began walking down toward what appeared to be a dark cave in the side of one of the mountains. Icicles hung like sharp teeth from the mouth of the cave as they were quickly swallowed by darkness.
Meil heard the faint cries of Zubat's deep within the mountain. "Where is this headquarters?", Meil asked, his voice echoing against the walls of the cave. "Right here.", Tony said, clicking on a flashlight, and pointing it towards a blank stone wall. "I don't see anything.", Meil said flatly, shifting Kyra's weight from one arm to another.
"Watch and learn.", Tony smirked. He crouched down where the floor of the cave connected with the wall. Between these was a three foot long, thin keyboard-like device. It had three tiny scanners, and a row of keys with the numbers 0 through 9. "What is that?", Meil asked, crouching to get a better look at it, while still supporting Kyra in his arms.
"It's to make sure we don't have any unexpected guest at headquarters. As long as you have either me, Alice, or Dorin with you, you can get in." He pointed to each function individually.
"Those three scanners are thumb print scanners. After we scan our thumbs, we put in a secret passcode. Each one of us has a different passcode, as well as a different thumb scanner, to make it harder for anyone intruders intending on getting in."
He placed his thumb on the scanner, which flashed four times, before making a small beep, and a tiny red light began blinking. He quickly typed in the passcode, his fingers flying over the keyboard so fast, you could not even tell what he'd been typing.
There was a sudden rumbling within the wall, and Meil stepped back, alarmed, as if he expected the wall to collapse. A slab of the wall began sliding sideways into the cave wall, revealing a metallic door.
Tony walked to face the door, which scanned his face with a red laser that passed across his face several times before there was a loud, mechanical clanking from within the door, and it slowly slid into the wall to reveal an entrance, with strange, blue light spilling out the doorway onto the stone floor.
Tony, Alice, and Dorin walked through the doorway, followed by Meil and Kyra. The room they entered was a large room full of computers, which explained all the blue light. Tony pressed a red button near the doorway, and the doors slid back into place with a satisfying click.
"Well, home sweet home.", Alice sighed, plopping down in a chair in front of one of the computers, and leaning back in it, exhausted. Tony opened another door located at the back of the computer room. "Your room is down here.", he said, leading Meil and Kyra down a long hallway lined a with doors.
A few of the doors had warnings on them such as, "Keep Out", "Hazardous", and "Caution". "That one is Alice's room.", he said with a laugh, pointing out the room with the sign, "Keep Out".
"There's Dorin's room." A door with a poster of the periodic table. "And that's my room." There was a door that was covered in random posters of space, stars, planets, and other scientific figures. "And the kitchen." He gestured towards a door with the sign, "Human Food Only". "We had that sign installed after Alice accidentally put liquid nitrogen in the cooler.", he said with a grin.
"And, last but not least, is your room. That is to say, yours, and Kyra's room. You'll be sharing the same bed, since we could only fit one." He referred to a the door at the very end of the hallway. Meil looked slightly confused. "What do you mean, 'you could only fit one'?" Tony sighed, running his long fingers through his thick, dark hair.
"Well, let's just say we don't exactly have a whole lot of room here." Meil looked down the hall where there were at least twelve or eleven doors.
Tony seemed to notice this, because he quickly said, "Well, we have a lot of room, but it's most of it is either cluttered or occupied. This was the best we could find. There was room in Alice's bedroom, but we thought you need your privacy, and Alice wasn't exactly agreeing to donate her space anyway."
He opened the door to a small room, though in reality, it wasn't really a room, as much as a closet. Clothes hung from high ceiling of the closet; lab coats, jackets, and other various articles of clothing.
A bed piled with thick sheets and pillows was crammed into a corner.
The room was lit by a light bulb hanging from the ceiling, but because of the clothes, not much light actually made it to the bottom. The clothes were low enough that if sat up in the bed, your head would just touch the bottom of the clothes.
"Okay, so it was actually a wardrobe, but it was the best we could do.", Tony explained as Meil had to bend over to keep his head from colliding with the mass of clothes. Kyra sat down on the bed and bounced a little on the Dratini sheets. "It's nice.", Kyra said politely. Meil sat down on the bed beside Kyra. The bed could barely fit two people.
Meil was somewhat curious of what it would be to sleep in the same bed with Kyra. She had always rested in her Pokeball at night, but usually spent her time out of her Pokeball, simply because she enjoyed being with Meil.
Tony stood in doorway saying, "Meil, I'm sure you have a lot of questions as to why you're here, and why we need you." Meil looked up at him. "Well, yes. I'v been wondering that."
"Well, rest for today. We will explain everything tomorrow. We've got some research to do, so make yourself at home, and if you're hungry, remember the kitchen. The bathroom is the second door to your left.", with this, he closed the door, leaving Meil and Kyra sitting in their new bedroom, if it could be called that. To Meil, it was still a closet with a bed.
Kyra looked over at Meil, her face slightly anxious. "Meil, what's going on?" Meil laid down on the bed, staring up at the clothes that created something like second ceiling. "I have no idea. But sooner or later, we will know." He sat again, and smiled warmly at her. "It'll be all right.", he said soothingly.
"Meil,"
"What?"
"Are you scared?"
"No. Not really."
"I am."