> Open the "mission objective" to see what we still need to do. 'Cause the only thing I remember now is our mission to go to Cianwood. After that, then what? Go back to the mainland, and then what? o.o
Open the what now? You'd accepted the possibility that the voices in your head are a sign of incipient madness, but if the voices themselves have started going mad you don't hold out much hope of getting back to the mainland without announcing you can fly and jumping out of the helicopter.
> Ordinarily I'd rather go in the day when pokemon will be more visible but the only flying nocturnal pokemon I know are the various bats and hoothoot/Noctowl. And the bats will stay in the caves and the birds won't be anywhere near Cianwood, you could probable go now. Ask Elm if the batteries from his three laptops are the right lithium cells to power the pokedex - they're rechargeable too.
Ah yes, the laptop batteries. Of course, they look like they're each the size of the Pokédex on their own, don't they, but who knows? You might be able to fit them into a slot designed to take a pair of button cells.
To take your mind of the depths to which your own imagination has apparently sunk, you check the status of the Bad Egg.
The Egg Watch: It appears to move occasionally. It may be close to hatching.
> Hmm... flying away right now would get you away from Cianwood quickly. However, after having those bad dreams, is it really good for Elm to be flying that helicopter? The last thing you'd want is him falling asleep at the wheel (or whatever you steer helicopters with). Also, who knows what unspeakable horrors may roam the skies during nighttime...
I'd say stay until it is morning again.
> Then again, the fear that the dream caused could help Elm stay awake while he's flying. I say go now, but offer Elm some of the MooMoo Milk before you leave, just to be safe.
> I suppose we're done from here ; we investigated the town as the mysterious metal stranger told us. What about heading back to olivine and go to the lighthouse as we promised.
You don't really think Elm's going to fall asleep at the controls. He's just had several hours' sleep and presumably has got used to taking his sleep in fitful bursts; you don't think his internal clock has been synchronised with true day and night for several years.
Preparing to leave, you kick sand over the fire and it goes out with a sharp hiss; the smoke rises up through the air and, as if waiting for it, something big bursts from the water and soars over your head.
For a moment, you see nothing more than a huge teardrop shape across the moon – and then it slams down onto the ground a little way past where the fire used to be, sending clouds of sand rising up around it like a choking cloak.
With the sudden change in light level you are totally blind; you can't see anything at all except the moon and the glint on the helicopter blades, and you automatically stumble backwards from where you think the thing landed, almost tripping over a half-buried bone.
There is total silence.
If there are more Pokémon around, they aren't attacking. Perhaps the thing in the dark is too fearsome for anything to challenge its kill, you think uneasily. And then, more optimistically: perhaps it's gone.
But then you hear the slow squeal of tortured steel as something unforgiving is dragged along the helicopter's flank, and know that the thing isn't going anywhere at all. It's right here, and it's determined to take the lot of you with it.
The vivid emerald flash of Vesta's attack blinds you all over again, doubling your helplessness with an incandescent after-image – and, worse still, the thing doesn't seemed to have noticed it at all; there is no sound or smell of seared flesh, no cry of a creature in pain.
You want to cry out, but you don't dare speak. You want to know if Elm's OK; you want to tell Vesta that if she can see the creature she needs to boil out of the webbing and kill it. You want to cry out and run over the bone-crushed sands to some fortunate place where there are no uncertain creatures lurking in the dark.
The scraping noise stops.
There is the sudden sound of a hard weight on metal—
A man's voice in the dark—
And then there is nothing.
You stand there for a long time, paralysed by fear, until eventually the moon has perceptibly moved in the sky and you dare to talk:
"Professor?"
"Othodox?"
Vesta, says Vesta.
"You're all right?" you ask.
"Yes," he replies. "I – I think so. I thought I felt something touch me back then, but. I don't know. I might have imagined it."
"I think it's gone," you say. "Did you see what it was?"
"No. Felt sharp and wet. Could have been anything."
Your eyes are becoming accustomed to the gloom now; you can see Elm, a few feet to your right, standing rigid in the dark.
"Let's get out of here," you say.
"Definitely," he agrees.
Neither of you are in any danger of falling asleep right now. Not after that.
The helicopter rises up with a thunderous roar, and soon enough you're heading northeast across the sea – away from this ghastly, haunted island, away from things that multiply around you and never show their face, away from ghoul-haunted nights – and back towards the Eldritch Quilava.
Oh yeah.
You'd forgotten about that.
As dawn inches closer and the sky begins to lighten, Elm frowns and yells to you:
"We need to refuel soon!"
"Well," you reply, "we've got more kerosene, right?"
"Yeah, but it's not in the fuel tank, so it's not exactly useful right now. And we kind of need to land to get it in there."
You glance at the endless sea beneath you, unmarked by even the merest suggestion of land.
"Ah," you say. "How far off is Olivine?"
"I'm not sure," Elm answers grimly. "I'm hoping for close."
Something's here, says Vesta, and you both immediately start looking around wildly, thinking that some Eldritch Flying-type – or one of those unnamed things that Falkner said haunt the former Indigo Plateau – might be closing in on the helicopter, but the skies, as far as you can see, are clear.
"Where, Vesta?" you ask.
I don't know, she replies. Somewhere. I feel... something. Not even like a proper animal.
"Something like you? A little piece of life?"
I don't understand.
"Something that's life, but isn't alive," you say, wondering if that isn't actually more obscure than what you originally said.
Maybe, she says. Her flames are crooked; were she human, you would say her brow was furrowed. I don't know... But we should be careful.
"If it isn't trying to kill us right now," says Elm, "then I think our main priority is getting to Olivine without this thing dropping into the sea."
You are forced to agree with him here. You would much rather have to face a grisly monster when you land than suffer the consequences a sea landing in a helicopter that isn't capable of making sea landings.
"The fuel supply was always meant to be sufficient to take us to the islands and back, with some extra just in case," Elm is telling you. "But, well, the thing was that we were meant to remember to fill the damn tank before we ever got up in the air..."
"Do you really have to go on about that?"
"Sorry."
There is a long silence. The sky seems to sag with the weight of the moon as it slips towards the horizon; you can't help but feel that soon enough you'll be following it, down to the magic point where sky meets sea, and further down still, to a world of green stone cities and hellish fish men – where overlarge eels wind around bones studded with coral, and pearls grow in the bodies of the fat oysters nestled where eyes once were.
By the time Olivine is visible, you are growing fairly desperate. Every jolt and bump feels like a lurch towards the waves; every slip feels like the beginning of a long last plunge into the hungry foam. You tell yourself that helicopters are difficult to fly, and Elm is a novice; you say aloud that flight in small craft is often rather more juddery and uncomfortable than in large ones – but your voice rings hollow in your ears. Try as you might, you can't quite convince yourself.
When something emits an odd metallic crunch behind you, you nearly jump out of your skin.
"What was that?" asks Elm.
You turn, but see nothing besides the electrical equipment and the tins of FLAVOURSOME PASTE. After a long, futile search in the darker recesses, all you've managed to do is hurt your hand on a pointy edge.
"I have no idea," you say. "But I think I'd like to land soon."
"Well," he says, "I think you might be in luck."
You turn back to him, and see, no more than a few hundred feet off, the towering shape of Olivine's lighthouse.
Things like naked condors flap out of the trees, screeching wildly, as the helicopter roars its way back over dry land; a few unidentifiable creatures scuttle away to hide in buildings or burrows as its shadow falls over them.
Then, as dawn begins to break, Elm sets the helicopter gently down in the middle of Olivine's southernmost street.
A ragged cheer goes up from the pair of you who appreciate the danger you were in: you are back in Olivine, and you also appear to have scared most of the surrounding Pokémon away.
You take a deep breath.
God damn it, you hadn't realised how much you missed the mainland until now.