[ti]closed[/ti]The Vanta Flower

Crashing footsteps echoed off the stone-sky walls, the sounds of a metal monster approaching. It wasn't another dark flower —they corroded any metal they touched— so what was it? Torino raised her hands, ready to grapple her chaser.

Was it a trap, triggered to chase and cut her off? A metal boulder come to crush her flat? A-

A massive steel Pokemon stomped around the corner, with a familiar face at its side.

"Alicia!" Torino called, letting her guard fall. She breathed a thin sigh and a sliver of tension left her shoulders. "Seeing you face is good." Having a companion in her quest through the maze would be invaluable, especially someone as strong as Alicia Westfield.

"Your friends are strong!" she said, admiring Bayleef and Duraludon. "Are you here too to find the music?"

At the mention of a team, Torino's UI lit up. The auto-party system had already merged them. Torino's spirit's soared at the list of five members! It felt much better to have an almost full group.

"Solar beam? Hmm, maybe I have." She checked her team movesets and her face dipped in sadness. "No. My only Solar Beam was Girasoli." Everywhere she turned, the impacts of Midas Corp popped up like daisies. She could feel the holes in her team where her friends used to be. "Maybe I can Sunny Day to help your attack!" A swift check and, no, only one Pokemon in her box was capable of that move. And she was gone.

Torino deflated. "I am sorry Alicia, but I will find another way to attack!"

Chimabella the Phanpy was good for defense. But what she needed now was something to attack without being in range of those lashing black vines. She had nothing.

"Oh wait! Me!" Torino raised a hand a fired a blast of greenery at a wall. It hit like a million windblown seeds, covering the wall in a patch of wildflowers that spread and tangled outwards endlessly. "Yes! I can be the attack."

"And the music. Don't you hear it?" To Torino's ear there was a faint hum in the air. Not of electricity but of someone's muffled singing. Torino followed the sound down the hallway and past Alicia. And then stopped. It was behind her now. She spun on the spot, orienting on Alicia. "It is you! You are making the sound!"

Torino moved in close, and found the source quickly. "Oh! It is in your bag!"

A second voice joined the song, this time from Torino's bag. She unclasped it and pulled out the noisy object: the Redacted Ledger.

"Oh that is very amazing!" Torino said, clapping her hands in delight. "It is a good weapon! I will try." Torino peeled off a patch of moss from the wall and focused tightly on it. Her Gardener powers set to work immediately, making it spread and creep along her alarm. "No. Small," she said, willing the floral energy to pack itself into a tighter and tighter bundle. He could feel the strength of her player moves, welling just beneath the surface. It was an amorphous well of power, but given direction perhaps like Alicia she could form it into something.

She clenched her fist and the moss swelled, consuming her hand in a hard shell of dirt and creeping greenery. It was like her hand was stuck in an all-natural bowling ball.

"Our emergency attack," she said to Alicia. "I will hit the plant very hard." She gave a confident smile.

The path here was not a single, crooked passage. Alicia had come from one direction, so Torino fell into a steady pace as they continued down the route. She hadn't seen the strangeness with Alicia's eye. She'd been too focused on her own book. She had tried to read it in the days since Midas Corp, but it was all high-level corporate English. Hard to read AND very boring. And almost every page was covered in stripes of black ink where the words had been blacked out. What secrets were hidden beneath the darkness?

As they walked down shifting corridors, Torino brought up the obvious question. "Have you found your apple? My Pokemon are still missing." Her steps were a little heavy, and Chiambella sensed her mood and walked closer to her.

"Every day I leave food for them and walked around Midas Corp shouting their names. Maybe they are like cats and will come for food." The grin in her face was muted, bent beneath lines of worry. "But I saw them taken. Maybe they are far away now."

Torino nodded, deep empathy already having taken root in her soul. "I will send a message too. It is a good idea." She didn't know it now, but she would stay up some nights, when the air was clear and empty, and draft messages to her friends. The messages were full of borrowed hope, and joy at a reunion that had not come to pass.

"Tunnels!" she said, eyes wide. "Yes! There were many beneath the Midas Corp. Do you think we missed a path down there? But you didn't find anything..." She trusted Alicia to have done a thorough sweep.

Alicia's words sparked hope and kind fury in her heart. "I will be beside you," she said, putting on a determined face. "We can fight together!"

The path they followed lead to a covered section of the maze. Here the ceiling was made of the same stone, an oddly porous compound like granite crossbred with pumice. Hanging from the roof was a forest of dark trees that blocked their path forward. Their barbed branches bent downwards as if they were more sleeping bat than suspended flora, and here and there flowers of orange and purple bloomed amongst the shadows.

Torino tilted her head to the side, looking at the black plants. They looked different to the one that had chased her. Almost as dark but without the dripping Corruption or the compulsion to chase her. "Do you think they are bad?" she asked, approaching the plants.

"Let me be the dumb hero risking life and limb"

Torino thought back to all the moments on EU where she'd been the front line warrior, clashing with some ice being or forcing back raiders with gouts of flame. In a world of such pressing cold, battle had been a rare source of warmth. But in this land of Summer...

She moved on, not making any promises.

Alicia's warning about the monstrous trees flew over Torino's head. "Oh! I know some movies, but I do not watch the monster ones." As they walked between the inverted trees she twisted her body to avoid touching them.

The dark branches hung down around her. Were they ornamental, or were they feelers for some giant creature. As they moved deeper into the forest the flowers drew her attention. The gorgeous blooms of orange and purple were stunning, standing out like splotches of paint on the black and grey canvas.

Torino tried to get closer to one.

The bloom was strangely familiar. Had she seen it in one of the Briarbane gardens? Unlikely, they stocked exclusively black flowers. What about the Dream Kingdom? Perhaps. Midas Corp? No, even the gorgeous flowers in the executive garden had their unique, hidden feel.

"Alicia I do not know what this flower is. Maybe I know it. The color and smell make me think of home." She reached out to the orange flower and stroked the petals. They were delicate. Soft. A sprinkling of black pollen coated her hands. "I want to take some back. Help me?" She pointed at a nearby purple flower. One of each would be perfect.

"No!" Torino said, standing confidently in front of Giyun's charging cannon. The black floral fingers made no move to reach for her. Instead, they avoided her entirely and coiled slowly through the air towards Ciambella, Giyun, and Alicia.

Torino moved into the path of the fingers and they shifted to avoid her, reaching around her pink form.

She looked down at her hand, now covered in black pollen. She wiped some on Ciambella, and the fingers bent away, no longer interested in her Phanpy either.

Torino turned to face Giyun. "Stop. Put that down," she said, in reference to his Flash Cannon charging. "Stay here and do not attack." She slipped forward through the twisting branches of the trees, parting them like water. In a moment she returned with two orange flowers.

Torino stored one of the flowers in her inventory, and held the one out to Alicia. "Here! Touch the seeds. They will keep you safe."