In Spikemuth

Cold Nights

Marnie spent all day trying to catch a normal Purrloin from a crowd of them she had spotted, but they were all so stubborn and no matter how weak she got them, they just refused to be caught. She decided to give it a break and take a rest from catching pokemon. It started to get dark and she needed to find somewhere to sleep, but not before dusk. 

She smiled, the darkness reminded her of home. She began missing her brother a bit but snapped out of it. She was doing this to take down Team Yell's reign of terror over Spikemuth. Her brother didn't do a good enough job at keeping them at bay. She huffed, hopefully, that'd be over soon. 

She leaned against a large rock and watched the sun slowly go down. A relieved sigh escaped her lips as she watched the final flash of sunlight disappear under the horizon. She noticed the rock she was leaning on start to faintly gimmer and lifted it up to see a shiny purple and black rock. She grinned and scraped the weak rock away to hoist the Wishing star out of the rock. 

Before dropping the stone into her bag, she weighed it in her hand and smiled. It was pretty heavy, so she was happy with her find. Before she could spot more, the gimmers vanished from the surface and sank into the ground. The cold wind started to pick up and she rubbed her arms for warmth. She wouldn't be able to search for more wishing stars until the next day so decided she might as well see if there was some kind of free shelter around. She pulled her leather jacket downward to cover her cold knees. 

She saw a small Pub on the back of the train station she had come in through and shrugged to herself, it was her best bet at a place to stay. She ringed the bell on the desk and a blonde boy dressed similarly to her jogged over with a towel slung over his shoulder.

"Hey, how can I help?" he asked. Marnie raised her eyebrows, 

"Woah! I adore your accent! Where about are you from?" she asked and leaned on the desk with her hands. The adult raised an eyebrow and scratched the side of his head, 

"Alola. I'm from the Alola region," he said sceptically. Marnie was impressed, from what she knew, Alola was a bunch of islands far, far away. 

"Really?" she said, surprised, "What brings you to Galar then?" The boy seemed confused as to why this random girl was asking him so many questions about his life, but he felt obliged to answer. 

"I left to train in different regions like Kanto and eventually, here. But I ended up needing a job so that's why I'm working here for a bit. But anyway, was there anything you needed?" he said quickly and quietly, almost as if he was embarrassed to say he needed a job other than battling. Marnie snapped back to reality and nodded, 

"Oh, right! I'd like to book a room just for tonight, please," she said and pulled a sleek credit card out of her- well, her brothers- wallet. The teenager seemed to question why a girl her age had a card but didn't say anything. He just took the payment and led her into her room, giving her a key and telling her that she'd be entitled to a thirty percent off her breakfast the next day. Marnie smiled politely and thanked him. 

"Thank you," she scanned his nametag, "Gladion, is it?" The man nodded and slipped out of the room. The door clicked locked as it shut. Marnie flopped onto the plush bed and looked out of the window and into the starry sky. 

She looked down at the people going home and flocking their Wooloo into their pens for the night. She blinked in surprise when she saw a woman with glimmering white hair in a fancy dress walking next to a man with black hair and a dark suit walking down the pathway, laughing together. She squinted and blinked for a minute, but as she did, the couple faded away. She scratched her head-was she going mad? Or was that really her mum and dad? 

"I'm probably just seeing things," she whispered to herself and closed the curtains before wrapping herself in her blanket and drifting off to deep sleep, thoughts of her parents crowding her mind.

~

Sonia yawned and leaned back into her chair, her book on the Darkest day in her hand. What was with these people in the drawings? They hadn't been explained at all in the book. It was all about the scientific readings of the Darkest Day. Her Yamper yapped at her that it was time for her to go home and sleep, and reminded her that she could never study properly-being so tired. 

"Alright, alright, let's go back to Granny's," she said and slipped the book back onto the shelf and switched off all the lights in the building before leaving and locking the door behind her. 

"You know, Yamper, there's bound to be more information on these people in Hammerlocke," she said, tapping her chin in thought, "perhaps we should go there someday." 

Yamper barked in approval and they walked through the cold night toward home.