"... were stolen."
Everybody had heard this of course. Even the Pokemon living in the wild had noticed, the room remained silent, holding their breathes under his heart-gripping voice.
"You have been summoned here by me, the head of the Pirate Council, Heil of the Axe, by letter. We are requesting your services."
While every other pirate captain was sitting down, Heil put away his chair and started walking circles around the council's table, with his arms behind his back, his eyes travelling from table to table as he continued his speech.
"I must inform you, that this is not an order given from us, the pirate leaders of each of Wayard's corners; Supreme Admiral Yale of the Navy has requested our assistance in finding the one responsible for this.. outrageous income with the artifacts I mentioned before; that pirate, calling himself the Forsaken, has announced that he will control the Navy with such power, and therefore control the world. Now I am quite aware that most of you dislike the Navy and would rather go continue your work, and I agree with you."
After a dramatic pause, the mightiest of all pirates spoke again in an even more serious tone.
"But, I ask you this question: what freedom lies with us, if we let the Forsaken do as he pleases? What treasure will there be for us to acquire if this lone pirate claims the world for his own? We will choose to be his minions, or his defiant, always free pirates?"
Heil's deep voice was getting stronger with each question, and its force was so inspiring some of the pirates shouted hooray and yeah! to which Heil responded by simply closing his eyes and raising his strong arm to stop the disturbances.
"Now, now."
The Haxorus fixed his pirate hat, crossed his arms and turned to Captain Morisson Haglio, the gentleman pirate and a former Navy officer, a Manectric with a monocle and golden shoulderpads.
"Captain Haglio, fill us in on the Forsaken."
Haglio seemed disturbed by Heil's ordering tone, but he stood up, his front feet on the table as Heil sat down quietly, settling down on his chair which almost cracked under his massive weight, glanced at Armand, the Captain of the Shattered Skull pirates. The new voice that cracked in the room was strangely high, but it had almost the same might as the Haxorus'.
".. All the information we have about the Forsaken is from his mails to the Naval HQ, which could not be tracked back to the sender - the Pelippers delivering the letters claim they do not keep track of who is sending what for privacy matters... but that just makes our work harder. Anyway - in those letters, at first, we, and by we, I mean the Naval and Pirate HQ altogether, regarded the Forsaken as a foolish, ambituous and lone pirate that seeked recognition; but with his second later, we started considering him as a true threat - not only to the Naval HQ, but to the entire world and the Pirate HQ, respectively. He is claiming he has stolen the two weather essences, the Groudon's Ray and the Kyogre's Raindrop; we noticed massive weather changes in various regions of Wayard, in result the theft, as well as the folklore about the legendary Soul Essences, to be considered a hundred per cent true."
The news were shocking, Heil grunted and Ingo, the Gengar coughed, as Haglio continued to speak.
"That being said, the Forsaken is now pretty much able to control the weather, which will be a great asset for him. Not only he will be able to crush our ships with terrible, non-stop rains and thunderstorms, but he will also drought the land we set foot on in search of the Soul Essences. As you all know, we are not quite sure about his motives or his intentions towards us, the pirates, and we do not have a single clue about his whereabouts - but, we do have an advantage: we can search for the elements freely, in the four corners of this world, while he has to be hiding. And of course, we also have the full support of the Naval HQ!"
Ingo coughed again and said;
"More like they have the full support of us..."
Heil stood up and faced Ingo, seemingly angered by the Gengar's mouthful remark; but Ingo looked Heil in the eye and continued speak with a nerve of a true pirate; he was the oldest pirate, once the wisest amongst the Pirate Heads.
"It's true, Heil! They're using us, and you do nothing about it!"
The Haxorus slammed his strong fist on the wooden table, shaking it entirely.
"That's disrespect towards the Head of the Pirate Council, Ingo! Are you doubting me? What, are you gonna start a rebellion in the middle of a council?"
He seemed like he was going to attack Ingo for a moment, but he contained his anger; Ingo settled down as well with a small grunt, the worried Haglio sitting back as well, now the Roserade, Azure Flute getting up from her chair. She winked at Tylor and his crew, before she glanced at Heil who nodded, giving her permission to speak, her charming but strong voice running across the room into the ears of everyone.
"Ahem, now that got over this little incident.." she paused, choosing her words, "Like dear Haglio here said before, we won't only need to search for the Forsaken, because we literally have no idea where he is - he could be even be one of us! Could you imagine?"
She chuckled, obviously picturing what she just said; Heil tapped his feet on the floor, making a terrible sound of steel-like claws scratching a rock as he gave the Roserade a death stare.
"On the subject, Flute"
She seemed quite annoyed, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath and continued.
"We thought of instead searching for the Forsaken, search for the Soul Essences themselves - yes, you heard right! Seek and take the Essences, only to secure them by that rotten scourge calling himself Forsaken, and use them, in order to find the rest. Anyway, the Naval HQ has dug up all the folklore it could find about those wonderful jewels, and it seems like we will able to track the locations of most of them, with your help of course."
The Furret with the bloodied fur that was sitting silently on his seat, looking at the ground the whole time, now gently coughed; everyone looked at him, Heil motioned his eyebrow with his arms crossed.
"Excuse me for interrupting you, missey. But who the heck guarantees us that the use of the Soul Essences won't bring the destruction of Wayard? It'd be wiser, in my opinion, to just trap each essence and wait for that Forsaken pirate-wannabe to show up and then we capture or simply kill him, pronto! No need for fussing for the elements!"
His voice sounded high like Haglio's, but childish as well; Heil remained on his seat with his arms crossed, his serious expression fading away.
"Popo, what you're suggesting is impossible. I believe the Forsaken is truly powerful and news for a trap will surely travel across the world, reaching his ears and therefore ruining it - he'll never show up, or he'll just search for the rest of the many Essences; and we can't trap all of them. So, we're sticking to the original plan: find and conquer all the Essences before the Forsaken, and we will meet him on our way there, I'm sure of that. And when that happens, we will crush him like the puny imbecile he is"
Heil continued his speech, after taking a deep breathe everyone heard; he stood up again, walking around the table with the head pirates.
"Now we do have some information regarding the location of a Soul Essence; an ancient source we found in Terra suggests that the "Being of Inspiration" is living somewhere on the Northwest; the translation of the tablet claims that the name of that being is "Mesprit", and it is gifted with the Soul Essence which has the power to inspire the heart - we call it Mesprit's Heart. Its shape is unknown, however that is little of importance to us. What we do need to know, though, is how enter its "resting chamber". Folklore also speaks about a trap in there, a trap for any intruder to come."
Heil raised his right arm with on claw in the air, looking around the pirates; his deep voice was heard once again.
"So, without further ado, and with Azure Flute's permission, we, the mightiest pirates of Wayard, will sail the Northwest Sea Zone's waters in search of that elusive Iris Island Range, where Mesprit rests!"
As Heil roared proudly and the rest of the pirates followed him, a bulky, shady figure wearing a black robe with a hood exited the room subtly; the figure ran down the hill of the Pirate HQ with high speed, jumped onto a tree without having much problem with its robe, then jumped onto another tree and then onto another until it disappeared in the forest.