The New Adventures of Raptor Trainer

A Shady Operation

"...So we're inside the gatezz now, huh?" Rotom whispered, his voice just barely audible from inside his shelter.

{Well...One thing's for sure; it DEFINITELY looks like Team Skull runs things around here,} I gurgled to him. {No doubt about that.}

Po Town was just as run-down as it was rainy...The cobblestone road was eroded along its edges and lined with patches of moss, and the buildings were all in a state of disrepair, with shingles falling from their rooves and the wood rotting away. Paint had been sprayed along the streets and old houses in all sorts of bright colors and messy designs, several of which I recognized as Team Skull's insignia.

The only things in half decent shape were the plants that grew here, the hedges still green and the grass still alive...albeit somewhat yellowish.

{Where do you think they might be keeping that Yungoos?}

"If I were to make a guess, I'd say it might be somewhere in the Shady House."

{Shady House?}

"The big mansion down at the other end of the town. It's Team Skull's base of operationzzz, according to my map data," he explained. "It used to belong to a rich entrepreneur before Team Skull started their business here, but he up and abandoned the place when he knew the takeover was inevitable, bzzt."

{That's a shame...Wonder what this place looked like before it was overrun?}

"Probably pretty nice. Lotsa thezzze buildings look like they could have been nice homes once."

I nodded, trying to visualize it for a moment...How could anyone let something so wonderful and valued end up in a state like this? It was unfathomable to me.

...And yet, for some reason, it felt so strangely familiar.

{Let's try to stay hidden in these hedges,} I chittered to him. {Maybe we can find a way through them without being spotted.}

I noticed that some of the bushes along the vandalized houses had gaps in the bottoms of them; likely a result of neglect, seeing that nobody here probably bothered to make them look nice...If I could find a path through them that stayed concealed from view, I might have a clear shot at the mansion.

I sniffed the air again...The entire atmosphere of the town was rank with the familiar smell of the grunts, but I could pinpoint a few stronger sources of it coming from somewhere to my right...I crawled through one of the gaps in the hedges and made my way to the other side, took a peek around the corner and then immediately withdrew my head...There were two grunts positioned in the center of the road not far from where I now stood, backs turned away from the town door and engaged in a conversation as they stood guard at a low makeshift wall. With hushed breath, I lent an ear.

"Think it's gonna be much longer till she shows up, yo?"

"Not unless she chickened out. But given her streak, I don't think she's gonna give up on this...Good news is she's easy to spot."

"Yeah, and when she comes in through these doors and challenges us, we'll make us some Scarface soup for dinner."

"Chill out a bit, man; we can't take it too far. The boss just said to rough her up a bit...We'll save our own beat down for another time."

So they were planning to go easy on me...Why, I didn't know, but if that was an order from Guzma then it at least meant I had a little less to worry about if I was found by one.

Still, I didn't want them to see me, so I had to form a plan...I ducked back further away from the corner, reached into my bag, pulled out Archer's Poké Ball and released him, hoping the rain and rumbling thunder above would drown out the sounds of the device as it let him out into the open.