Tales of Tabira Chapter 5- The Witch Hunt Part 1

 Look who's back from the dead! I wasn't planning on it, but a few days ago I checked back on and there's a literal witch hunt of sorts going on. I thought it was too good to resist, so here I am. The entire story is pretty long, so I'm splitting it into two parts. This part entails what leads up to the battle against Gilgamarsh the witch, while part two shows the actual battle. It's supposed to be my entry for both Team Nightshade and Team Stargazers, although part one is mainly from Team Nightshade's point of view.

Oh, and since it's required, for Team Nightshade's work for the Decoy team and Team Stargazers working in the suppression team, each of the two teams should earn +1 reputation and favor from each of the four guilds.

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     Maya's legs were still aching as her and Rei stepped into the sunlight. Or rather, the small amount of sunlight that managed to peek through the canopy of the swamp and jungle vegetation overhead. They had only just recently entered the nearby temple hoping to find a lead to a mystery they had been struggling to solve for quite some time now, but all they came out with was a kite, Maya seriously injured and Rei extremely guilty for being responsible for said injuries. 

    "Wanna head back now?" Rei asked gently, Maya could only manage a small nod in response. Rei looked down, not looking Maya in the eye. "Rei," Maya whispered, trying to catch her gaze, " Rei, look at me. Look at me. It's not your fault." "But Maya... I hurt you..." "Well we wouldn't have been able to get out of that temple any other way, we should just be thankful that we're alive." The gastly was silent for a moment before meekly replying, voice shaking slightly "I guess, but I still feel bad. You're my best friend after all..." Maya let out a deep sigh and nudged her friend affectionately. She wanted to say something else, but she was just so tired... "Look, let's just talk about it when we get back home okay?" "Okay" was all Rei managed.

    The two were just about to send the signal to have themselves teleported back home via an Abra, when a purple mass shot out at Rei. "Duck!" cried Maya. Instinctively Rei obeyed and hovered out of the way. Maya gathered just enough strength to lunge forward and use fury swipes at the slimy blob, causing whatever it was to burst and send globs of goo flying everywhere. 

    "Maya! There's more of them!" She heard Rei call behind her. Maya felt a feeling of dread as she realized that that last fury swipes had made her too exhausted to keep fighting "Rei," she panted, "they're weak! You're going to have to fight them without me, I'm too tired." "Okay," she heard her friend say as she heaved herself around to get a better glimpse at the enemy.    

     Rei had already made quick work of quite a few of them while Maya took a swig from their water canteen, hoping it would give her some strength, no matter how small. "Rei! I think that's enough, let's just teleport back home," she said, gathering her strength once more. The gastly glanced at her before taking out another one "Are you sure? They don't seem to be too much trouble, I can take them!" Maya had to admit, despite the two of them just barely finishing a fight against each other not moments ago, Rei was really holding her own against the slug-like monstrosities. But before Maya could reply she saw a shadow looming behind her.

    It was another one of the slime creatures, and this one looked slightly larger. Before she could do anything it descended upon her and wrapped its cold, wet mass around her legs. The zorua kicked and struggled, but it only coiled itself tighter. She bit into it and instantly regretted it as she gagged on its disgusting taste, like rotten vegetables. Another came and pinned her on her back, spreading itself on the rest of her torso. "Rei!" she called out desperately, throwing her head back to see where her friend was, only to find her in a similar situation.

    She needed to get them out of here now. She willed herself to concentrate, to try to send the signal to get them back home. Breath, she thought breath. But the swarm was getting bigger, and before she could ask to be brought home to Tabira they engulfed her completely, suffocating her, paralyzing her.

    She was surrounded in a darkness like being in a frozen sea, cold and wet and dark. She was about to give up all hope when she found the cold and the darkness replaced by a searing heat and light, and before she knew it, she found herself breathing again, the slime creatures gone. She got back on her feet, taking deep gulps of air. "Are you alright, miss?" asked a vulpix who now stood before her. Behind him a shiny Cleffa was checking on Rei, "Um... yes thank you," she managed to say between breaths. The vulpix looked at her wounds, "there's more coming this way. Can you walk?" He asked, a hint of urgency in his voice. "I- I got injured before they showed up," she said, still feeling weak "I'm not sure how long I can manage." 

    He called out to the Cleffa- apparently named Cosmo- who came over with Rei and pulled a clear canteen with a blue liquid from a satchel at his side. "Here, drink this. It should heal you enough to get us to where the guilds are camping, you can get healed there." She obeyed. It tasted like oran berries, only not as tart.  As she finished it, the vulpix used flamethrower, clearing a path between a group of the creatures which were starting to pour in through the trees. "Hurry!" he cried, and the four of them ran into the swamps, finding their way towards safety, hopefully.

    It was late into the night when they reached where the Guilds were set up. The vulpix and the cleffa had ushered Rei and Maya to the medics, who swiftly set to work healing Maya's wounds. One of them also insisted on checking Rei to make sure she was fine, "swallowing the goo can cause a horrible illness, you see," the medic had explained to her. After examining her for a few minutes, he seemed satisfied and let her go, "be sure to come back if you start to feel funny, though." "I will," promised Rei, and with that she went to see what had become of her friend. 

    Rei found Maya nestled in a nearby bed, eating a salad made of leafy greens and unfertilized eggs from a tray before her. Much to Rei's relief, she looked stronger than she had exiting the temple. "You okay?" she asked, "Yeah," replied Maya, "the medics say I should be fine after a good night's sleep. I told them I could recover at home, but they want me to stay the night just to be sure." Rei let out a sigh of relief, "that's good to hear," she said. Behind them one of the medics-an audino- walked in "Excuse me, miss," she said, "sorry to intrude, but it seems you have a visitor."

    Behind the audino, an abra with a serene face levitated towards the bed. "Cassiel!" exclaimed Rei, "How'd you get here!" He cast his gaze at Maya briefly before speaking "I felt a strong sense of distress coming from you two, so I decided to teleport where you were and see if you needed help." He looked up as though recalling an old memory "Instead I was met by a group of rather annoying slime-like creature. They took a while to defeat, but they weren't too troublesome. I spent the rest of the night trying to find you, but I admit without either of your cooperation to form a telepathic connection it was tricky business." 

    "Oh my goodness!" cried Rei, bobbing up and down in embarrassment  "I am so sorry, Cassiel! We were so worried about getting to safety I guess we forgot to let you know!" Maya also murmured an apology from her bed. "Quite alright, girls, quite alright," he said sagely, "now, shall we go home?" He floated closer to the two of them, no doubt to teleport the three of them back to Tabira.

    "Oh! Wait!" the medic cried, rushing towards the bed, "Miss Maya needs her rest! Surely she could wait until tomorrow?" Cassiel glanced at her "I'm sure Maya would find her home a more comfortable place to rest, no?" The audino began to twiddle her fingers nervously, "Well, perhaps, but um..." She turned to Maya "Miss, perhaps now would be a good time to talk with your teammate. I'll give you your privacy." And with that she turned and left the room. Rei looked to her friend in confusion "Maya?Talk about what?"

    Maya let out a sigh "After the nurse was done patching me up, I asked her what those things that attacked us were. She says they're called 'marshoids.' Apparently they're the minions of a.... a witch." 

    Rei's let out a gasp. A witch. She had never met one personally, but she had heard many stories about them in her time at Tabira. From what she had heard, witches were dark and cruel, and unlike mystics gained and used their power to harm both pokemon and the world. But that was not what scared her about them. What really scared her was the fact that when she would hear these stories she would feel awe and fascination rather than the disgust and loathing. Rei had no recollection of her life before Tabira, and one of the first things Maya had taught her about the world was that hurting others and nature was wrong, and Rei felt that her friend was right. And yet she still relished stories about witches, the kind who ripped flesh from bone and turned life into dust. Why was that? 

    That combined with what had happened earlier that day at the temple, the way Rei had been so ruthless in the fight against her own best friend. Was she really as good a person as she thought?

    "Rei?" Maya asked, a look of concern on her asked "Are you okay?" "Wha- oh, um," Rei blinked, "Yeah! I'm good! But what do they want us to do about it?" Maya looked down at her food "Well, the medics say that the Guilds were planning to capture him to save the jungle. They're asking teams to help take it down and they wanted to know if maybe... we wanted to help?" Rei's eyes widened in excitement "Oh Maya! this is exactly what we've been waiting for! A chance to prove ourselves to the Guilds!" She began to bob up and down in excitement, Maya began grinning. "We'll be able to go on cool missions and make tons of money and get a cool house and buy lots of nice clothes and-and-" 

    "Absolutely not." the two turned to look at Cassiel, who had been completely silent until then. "What? Why not?" asked Maya, narrowing her eyes at him in suspicious. Cassiel was their friend and his teleportation services had proven useful, but he was also as capricious as a fairy. "Did you know," he said cooly, "that I can also communicate telepathically with plants? Not just pokemon? It was how I was able to find you in the first place. They would whisper things like 'A star passed by here' or 'two foxes ran by here' or 'a ghost flew past here.' 

    "But they weren't the only things they told me. 'Our home is dying,' they would say, 'Our siblings are gone, and the water breeds death.' After awhile I stopped listening to them, until they told me something...alarming." He looked down at the floor through his crossed legs "I heard one of them say 'the fox is dead, the dragon has eaten it." He looked up at Maia "I thought they were talking about you, Maia, so I asked it to tell me where to find this fox pokemon." He was silent for a moment, and when he continued speaking his voice shook slightly "It wasn't you, thank the stars. It must have been a ninetails. It had been reduced to nothing but bones, and around it was a purple slime, like the ones those marshoids are made out of, only more... acidic, I suppose. It had melted their very flesh away, and the plants surrounding it had melted too."

    He was silent for a moment, letting his words sink in before finishing. "Rei, Maya," he said, looking each of them in the eye as he said their name, "Whatever you have seen, whatever you have fought before, this is a thousand times worse. This is a witch, and a strong one at that. You two are still young and have little experience, you're not ready to take him on. Let the others take care of him, come home to Tabira." 

    The room was silent, the two considered his words. "You have a point," Maya said at last, "but something- I don't know what- tells me I should think about it more." She looked at her friend, "What do you think, Rei?" Rei met her eyes, and then looked up, lost in thought. "Something's also telling me to wait for a bit," she said after a moment. She turned to the Abra, his face stoic "Cass, we want to sleep it over. I-I know it's dangerous, but I think we both need to think about. We'll let you know if we're coming home in the morning, okay?" Cassiel looked for at her for a moment before merely replying "very well." And without another word, he teleported back to Tabira.

    Rei called the medic back, and left Maia to get some rest. She wandered to a cave that she saw a group of pokemon sleeping in. It was late into the night by now, but truth be told she had too much on her mind to call it a night, so she decided to wander through the camping grounds instead. No one seemed awake besides the sentries, but they seemed to pay her no mind, and she did the same. At least until one caught her eye-one who looked familiar.

    "Cosmo?" she asked, recognizing the Cleffa who had saved her life. It was too dark to see his facial expression, but his voice was warm when he spoke "Oh! Hey! How's your friend doing?" "She's doing alright, thanks. Supposedly she just needs some sleep, and then we'll be good to go." "That's good to hear," he said in the dark, "but where do you guys plan on going? It seems kind of dangerous to go back into the jungle with Gilgamarsh and his goons still around." "Oh," she sighed, "we have a friend who can teleport us back home. I'm actually not sure if I'm ready to go back home, though." "Oh, why's that?" he asked, his tone turning from warm to full of concern.

    It felt a bit strange to want to unload her dilemma onto someone Rei had met only hours before, but Cosmo seemed kind and easy to open up to, so she explained everything. Even in the dark, she could tell that he was listening intently throughout her whole story. When she was finished, Cosmo was silent, and Rei began to fear she had been right about telling him everything. She was just about to apologize for wasting his time and go off to bed when she heard him say quietly "You know, me and my brother,Raif, are planning on fighting the witch."

    "You are?!" She said in awe, he chuckled at her reaction "Yeah, we are," he said proudly "we're planning on becoming witch hunters when we're older." "Wow!" her amazement at him was growing with each second. "A-and have you two actually met a witch before?!" "Yeah we did, a couple of times. Although none of them seemed nearly as mean as Gilgamarsh is," he replied bashfully. "Were you scared?" "Totally! They're crazy powerful!" he exclaimed, waving his nubby arms for emphasis. 

    "Are you scared now?" Rei couldn't help but ask, she herself had been growing more worried at the prospect of meeting a witch, and yet it felt... wrong to just abandon everyone. He did not speak for a long time before answering, "yes, I am." Rei was not sure what to think of his answer. "Then how can you keep going?" He seemed to consider this before answering "Because there are more important things to deal with than being afraid,Rei, even more important, maybe, than my life. If we don't stop him, Gilgamarsh will probably pollute all of Tabira's water supply! Or maybe he wouldn't. I don't know. But anyways, he could destroy my home, and the home of so many others. I'm fighting to protect my life here, and even though I may die staying alive- wait. That sounds really contradictory. I'm sorry, I'm not good at this deep stuff." The two of them let out a laugh, until a charmander told them to keep it down.

    "But basically," Cosmo continued, his voice hushed "I guess it's because if I die fighting a witch, then at least I died fighting. Chances are that if we don't fight them, the witch will just come back and kill us later- and by then they may be too strong to stop. Might as well face them sooner rather than later." 

    "And you know," he said softly, "It's not like you'd be fighting him alone. There's dozens of pokemon here working together to take this guy down. You don't even have to fight him, you could pass messages between the teams or maybe help heal the injured." Rei considered his words for a moment. "Thank you, Cosmo. I really needed that," she said at last. "Don't mention it, Rei." And with that, Rei went to bed. She had made her decision.

    The following day both Rei and Maya woke up late, it was nearly the afternoon. Rei found Maya just outside where the medics were stationed. "I wanna stay," Rei blurted out. Maya's eyes widened in surprise. "Rei. Are you sure? This could be incredibly dangerous- we could die!" "I'm sure. I talked to someone last night and they said somethings that got me thinking." She looked her friend in the eye "Maya, I know Gilgamarsh is dangerous, but we won't be fighting alone. Just look around! Look at all these pokemon dedicated to stopping this witch!" Maya did "But are you sure this is enough?" Rei nodded "Look, the person who I talked to claims to have met witches before, and if they feel confident that we'll win, then I think our odds are pretty good." "Well if you really want to..." Maya sighed. "I'll let Cassiel know."

    The duo headed for some nearby caves. They needed somewhere that was quiet. Maya needed somewhere to concentrate, she would need to do a lot of convincing to get Cassiel to let them stay, and that could take a while. She sat down just past the mouth of the cool cavern and closed her eyes, taking deep, calming breaths as she tried reaching out for Cassiel. After a moment she managed to connect with him, her mind clear except for the feeling of his presence. We're staying, she thought, bracing herself for his disapproval. Instead, she seemed to get the feeling that wherever he was, Cassiel was chuckling The moment I told everyone what happened, we knew you two would. Come back safe. 

    And as simple as that, their connection was gone, and she opened her eyes. She found an amethyst-colored bow and cloth headpiece in front of her. They had semiprecious gems and runes embroidered into them, symbols of strength, hope and protection to her people. She knew who made them the moment she saw them. "Did everything go alright?" Rei asked behind her. "Yeah," Maya said as she turned around, handing the bow to Rei, "Here, put this on. My grandmama says hi." She grabbed the headpiece and hastily put it on "Now, let's go find the Guild Leaders. We have a witch hunt to sign up for."