The Frostbitten Land

Chapter 3

Herbert anxiously walked back and forth, awaiting Charles's arrival. The moment he'd heard about Charles coming with guilty suspects, and the disappearance of their scouts, he'd immediately headed for the scene. You'd be amazed at how fast a Golurk could fly. It may be a Ground type, but for some reason.. Well, it could turn into a rocket. Either way, it was a good thing. He'd been attracting some strange looks- Arriving in business suits on a Golurk wasn't exactly ideal. He should've probably changed before arriving, but he had to see this himself.

"Pillar? What are you doing here?", Charles said, making him turn quickly. There he was, the Blind Sword, looking at him confused. "Shouldn't you be at.. home?", he added. Herbert sighed in relief, as he walked up to his colleague. 

"Needed to see the suspects. I've heard some.. Other information that you might want to learn. We got lots to talk about.", he said, putting a casual arm around Charles's shoulder. It must've looked even stranger to the bystanders, a man clad in a business suit flying on a Golurk, and then looking friendly with a sword-wielding bodyguard who just came off of a damaged ship. None of them seemed to care much though. Probably because weirder things had already happened. After all, in a world where pink blobs that turned into anything and pokeball-themed balls that could go faster than horses built for speed existed, anything could happen.

"So.. Where's the ship?", Herbert asked as they walked. Charles gestured ahead. Herbert was confused at first, but as they turned a corner around a particularly tall outpost, Herbert spotted the ship from a mile. He'd been waiting at the wrong place the whole time..  Huh.

"Yikes. That ship took a beating.", Herbert commented, taking his arm back. It was getting awkward, slinging it along Charles's shoulders

"Yeah, it looks bad. You wanted to see the men, right? The one from Frostbite.", Charles said. Herbert nodded. If Charles realised he nodded, he didn't let on. He probably did notice though, the man was like a miniature human radar. 

They silently approached the ship, and Herbert could get a better read on the damages now. It looked like someone ran a giant skewer through it. Near where the ship had taken up residence and connected to the port were a group of tied up men and women, all supposedly part of this Frostbite organisation. 

Herbert frowned. He wasn't too aware of Frostbite, but he had heard of it a bit. It originated from the Tula Region(again, go check out Owlwood97), and they favoured the cold a lot if the name was anything to go by. They didn't have informants in Tula yet- It was quite far away, and Gaia wasn't strong enough for actively dealing with foreign threats either way, not unless they were in Hoenn, just informants to get an idea of the ongoings. Believe it or not, even though they had Ground-types to assist in building, establishing a presence in other regions was difficult. Especially since his hotels were having a hard time being certified for the other regions. 

Never the less, that didn't mean he couldn't fight them on his own turf. 

"These are the ones you apprehended?", Herbert asked, gesturing to them. Charles nodded, as the group seemed to quiver in fear upon seeing the two. Herbert had a suspicion that it was because of Charles. He must've battled them and crushed them, probably. 

"Took them out with Tyranitar and Tyrantrum. They were a weak bunch.. Although I did manage to beat the weird Gyarados variant Thief talked about. It disappeared after I beat these goons though", Charles said. 

Herbert had to take a second to remember Thief was Ted. Being part of an incognito organisation gave them an excuse to use codenames, which, while also preserving anonymity, was also just cool to use. When Herbert had been given away to the orphanage, he'd watched lots of those spy shows. Obviously, when he grew up, he made sure he got a cool codename, "Pillar".