From the Vast

Chapter 10: Rest

The long range Teleport that followed their departure had the Gardevoir stop in her tracks and spend the next half a minute or so just catching her breath, Lumi only needing a moment to gather his bearings after suddenly finding himself back on the snowy path before immediately standing guard for his coworker- though thankfully, the sight not too far away from them was keeping a firm hold on the attention of any nearby humans. Once Aria recovered enough to be able to push herself into walking again, she found herself unable to resist that curiosity either, mind complaining as it disguised her once more, this time fortunately only for long enough to take a look at what had happened to Anne's former house from up close.

The previously imposing, multi story structure was reduced to little more than a heap of charred rubble, everything but bricks reduced to ash and an occasional irregular mass of once molten metal, the buildings beside it visibly damaged along the walls that faced the now destroyed household. Aria had no way of knowing whether it was true, whether her actions did indirectly lead to all this destruction in the end, but once she'd gleamed the information about only a couple surface level injuries among the humans that had tried to extinguish the fire, she found herself unable to care all that much about the answer in the end.

With the final sendoff consisting of a few more malicious thoughts aimed at the former homeowner and prayers for all the innocents that got hurt while tending to the inferno done, they could get going for real, the Gardevoir catching up with the Luxray shortly afterwards at the end of the human side road, double checking whether nobody else was around before returning to her normal appearance.

"^It's all rubble now. Sounds like nobody got seriously hurt in that explosion, thankfully.^"

"Good riddance, eh?"

"^...yeah. Good riddance.^"

Right as Aria was about to pick the bags back up and start making her way home, she felt a small, hard to spot mental presence behind her, quickly looking over her shoulder to see whether she'd have to daze one more human today, for real this time, but fortunately only finding a small Magnemite hanging down from one of the cables supported on pillars that seemed to span the whole settlement, presently staring at them curiously.

"^Let's go.^"

Even if each individual bag didn't weigh all that much, any relief was appreciated with how much strain the whole day had put on her, Lumi gladly taking one of the bags in his maw before racing on to drop it off in the girl's room- even if he did ask for a payment of explaining to him what in the world did he walk in on earlier. As unenthused as Aria was at the idea of explaining these events to the hound himself, keeping everyone on the same page was a much more alluring offer, and hopefully they'd be able to find some other scouts on their way over to spread the news- the possibility sounding more than likely with the rapidly setting sun overhead.

Drop the bag at the clinic, make sure everyone is up to date about the girl's situation, discuss a meeting tomorrow to discuss what they were gonna do next, race riiiiiiight back home, and probably spend the next week just catching up on her rest after the bedlam of today. Or at least that's what she wished they could all do- even if they were sure that Anne posed no threat and that nobody else was gonna come looking for her any time soon, there was still the matter of starting to think through a possible way for her to return to humanity in the long term, something that Olive would hopefully end up helping them with-

Before Aria could continue planning in the abstract any more, the stray, passing thoughts she'd begun overhearing after stepping back into the village snapped her right out of her train of thought- worries about the human were expected by now, thinking about them and Ember together in one breath was the kind of information she thought only Autumn and some of the scouts to have access to. There was always an all too likely possibility of someone spilling to Holly, but something inside her told her that this was not quite it, hastening the Gardevoir's steps as she made her way towards the clinic, dreading what she was going to find.