Rigorous Relationships

Zeak, Zero or Hero?

The girls stared, aghast, at Zeak for a good while before clamoring around him; bombarding him with questions. Zeak waited quasi patiently for their flood of questions to trickle down. But when it became apparent that they weren't stopping anytime soon he barked at them to, quote: "Shut your traps and give me some space!".

The girls, startled by his outburst, promptly took a step away from Zeak, allowing him the chance to place Ash and Cal down on a bed of lush grass. No longer having to carry the two boys Zeak seemed, slightly, more open to answering the girls questions. Though some of them seemed a bit more hesitant to do so.

Diana ended up being the first to cut through the tension between them and Zeak, asking him the general question of what had happened. Zeak crossed his arms and frowned deeply, unnerving Diana and the group. Their unease was ill founded though, as Zeak was simply concentrating on his memory of the events leading up to this.

"I had just arrived in the city," Zeak began, "and had decided to get my Pokémon a checkup at the Pokémon Center. So I set off towards it only to wind up in some obscure ally."

He went on to describe the ally in far greater detail than needed. Making note of it being only two and a half shoulder widths wide, a single door behind an open dumpster with a chute above it; a number of orange bags smelling of chemicals and decay resting in the dumpster, and the entire ally receiving its only light from the sky between the two buildings.

Diana cut off her brother before he decided to describe the texture of the ally floor, or some other irrelevant comment, and asked him to go back to him being in the ally. Zeak seemed mildly annoyed at his sister but didn't make anything of it, knowing that he had gone on a tangent, and picked up his story where he left off.

"I was standing just past the dumpster, and realized I'd reached a dead end so I turned around to head back. Before I could go anywhere though, these two came crashing through the door with fire alarms wailing behind them. At first I didn't recognize them but apparently...", Zeak stopped a second to remember Cal's name but had to be corrected when he called Cal Cow.

"Cow Cal, whatever. He recognized me and asked me for help carrying As-"

"Ash." Serena interjected, preventing Zeak from butchering Ash's name too.

"Yeah... Ash." Zeak said with a mild increase in his annoyance. "Cal asked me to help carry Ash, saying that they had to get to the lake as soon as possible. He didn't get to explain anymore to me though, because these two people in matching dark red cloaks, seemingly appeared out of nowhere and attacked us." Zeak frowned thoughtfully as he spoke the next part of his tale. "Oddly enough they weren't using Pokémon, yet engaged us and our Pokémon in hand to hand combat."

Zeak stopped speaking after revealing this detail; he seemed to be uncomfortable with telling the next part of his story, either unwilling or unable to recount what happened. His inability to tell what happened during the skirmish with the cloaked people proved insignificant though, as Diana and Dena were able to each gain an idea of what happened based on all three of the boys conditions. Zeak had a slight redness to his right knuckles, while Cal had a similar reddening around the area under his left ear. Both of them had other wounds along their arms and legs that all were consistent with defensive injuries. Meanwhile Ash had no visible damage to him, not a cut nor bruise, though his clothes were slightly torn and could have been hiding injuries beneath the fabric.

Zeak didn't give any specifics of the ally fight, neither confirming nor denying the possibility of friendly fire, merely stating that the two people decided to retreat and that afterwards Cal was as incapacitated as Ash. He also seemed to rush through the remainder of his tale, saying only that he couldn't leave Ash and Cal the way they were and had decided to carry them to the lake Cal had wanted to go to.