My Name is Marcus: Umbra

II. Lost

The two siblings continued walking along the dirt path in silence until they came to a fork at the end of the road. To the left was a long string of houses separated by large plots of land, and to the right was a smaller string of houses bordering alongside a wall of thick emerald-shaded trees.

"Alright, Mr. "Just follow the smell of food"", Marnie began wryly, "now which way do we go?"

"Oh, that's easy", Piers answered confidently as he pointed a finger at Morpeko, who looked on at him curiously. "We follow Morpeko, and Morpeko follows her nose."

Marnie paused, trying to articulate a witty reply, but to no avail. She could only nod in silence. Shoot, that's actually kinda smart, she thought to herself. She brought her right palm up to her left shoulder where Morpeko was perched, allowing the small Pokemon to climb aboard before gently placing her on the ground.

"Alright, Morpeko", Marnie started, "can you sniff out dinner for us?"

Morpeko closed her eyes and began eagerly sniffing the air, concentrating intently as she scanned the winds for even the faintest aroma of something edible. Suddenly, her eyes shot back open. "Morpeko! Pe, pe!", she squealed in excitement as she began scurrying down the leftward branch of the road.

"She's got something!", Marnie exclaimed as she began to run after her companion Pokemon. "Let's get going!"

Morpeko led the siblings to a property beyond a mossy cobblestone wall. An iron gate was swung wide open, leading into the yard. As far as houses went in these parts, this one in particular was rather lavish-looking. The yard was wide, consisting of a pond beneath a tree and a miniature Pokemon battle arena on one side, a patio dining table and grill on the other, and a full-sized brick garage in between. The house was made of polished pearl-coloured stone bricks and rose two stories tall, much larger than any of the other houses surrounding it. Morpeko scurried in circles by the front door of the house. Whatever she was smelling, it was coming from inside. Was this the place? There was only one way to find out. Marnie gently rapped on the door.

Tap tap tap-tap tap

"What if this isn't the right house?", Marnie asked?

"Then we apologize to the nice people inside and move on", Piers replied nonchalantly.

"Ya know, we wouldn't be having this issue if you'd remembered to get the address", Marnie persisted.

"He's your friend", Piers rebuffed, "how was I supposed to know you didn't already know where he lived?"

"Well if this ain't the place, we should at least ask if they know where to find it", Marnie stated.

"C'mon, Marn, it's not that simple", Piers began in disagreement, "if all somebody had to do to get the champion's address was ask a local, every fanboy and fangirl in Galar would be lined up outside his door."

"You got any better ideas?", Marnie retorted.

Piers sighed. "Look, all I'm sayin' is that this is a tight-knit-lookin' community, yeah? His parents probably asked the neighbors not to give their address away to just anyone and everyone who asks for it, they'd have no privacy otherwise."

"How do ya know that?", Marnie asked with a raised brow.

Piers looked her in the eye and shrugged. "It's what I would've done."

Marnie let out an exasperated sigh. "But we're not just anyone, we're his friends."

"Well yeah", Piers continued, "but ya gotta think, there are people out there who've probably never even met him before who'd still use that excuse if it meant getting a chance to talk to him... it's creepin' me out just thinking about it", he said with an uncomfortable shiver. "Besides, if you lived in these parts your whole life, and two weirdos like us showed up at your door saying they were friends with the champion, would you believe them?"