A Brand New Journey: When it All Fades to Black

▪︎Onward to Driftveil▪︎

Overall it was the sun that woke Malerie up. After a few moments of her just laying there with her eyes closed she eventually got up. The first thing she saw was Lilligant and Audino wide awake and sitting on the other bed. Audino looked like she had a piece of paper in her hand, as soon as Malerie had noticed she waved it lightly and handed to her trainer.

"'Ah a note..." she hummed looking it over. "Malerie, sorry I didn't wait for you to wake up, but I had to leave a bit early. I'll most likely see you later, until then just know I'll be thinking of you. See you soon - N.'" Letting out a little 'hmph' Malerie grabbed her bag and entered the bathroom. After exiting in her usual outfit she grabbed her bag and motioned for her pokemon to follow her out the door.

She didn't really say anything until they exited the pokemon center. "Let's head to Driftveil, I'm sure I'll run into someone I know there." She mumbled, walking twords the stadiums and taking a left. After passing by some bakers and street performers her attention was caught by not just Cheren, but Hilda, and Elesa as well. Elesa, had just gotten off the phone and said something to the kids and walked off. Malerie guessed she didn't see her cause they kind of knew each other and usually Elesa would say something if she knew Malerie was there.

Audino and Lilligant followed her until they say Hilda and Cheren, in which they both ran up to the younger trainers. The bridge to Driftveil had just been lowered so she wasn't surprised to see Cheren already attempting to cross, although he was halted with Audino hugging his leg.
She ran up and pried Audino off of the boy, apologizing a little.
"Malerie I wasn't expecting to see you so soon." Hilda said cheerfully, petting Lilligant on the head.

"Hey guys, sorry for the... sudden appearance, I was just in Nimbassa and was headed to Driftveil today... although I wasn't expecting to see you two." She hummed.
"We weren't expecting to see you either," Cheren replied, "Elesa got the bridge lowered for us... so I suppose we should head over before the raise it again."

Malerie nodded and the new small group walked the bridge to Driftveil, the small chatter soon coming to an end when Cheren rushed ahead when they were near the end. "He's always in a hurry... always trying to get ahead of me I guess..." Hilda mumbled, she turned her head twords Malerie. "Hey, so what were you doing in Nimbassa?" The brown haired girl asked. "Oh... I was there with...a friend." Malerie replied, Audino and Lillligant went quiet, glancing at each other although neither girl noticed. "Ah... I got Nimbassa earlier today... I got through Elesa's gym pretty quickly though... so that's why were here so early." Hilda mumbled.

"Although before I could challenge her I had to search for some Plasma grunts... although something weird happened." Malerie was about ask what but the conversation ended when they noticed Clay and Cheren up ahead, and Clay didn't look happy.

They soon learned that the workers at the cold storage had captured Team Plasma grunts causing trouble. Although when the bridge lowered something happened and the grunts managed to escape... and now they all had to help find them
"This is kinda stupid... it wasn't our fault-" Malerie huffed, walking twords the cold storage.
"It not that bad... we just need to find where they're hiding..." Hilda responded.

It took about 15 minutes but they eventually found them all hiding in a box inside the storage. While there were plenty of grunts there was also this other guy Malerie couldn't recognize... he dressed kind of fancier than the grunts did so she figured he was at a higher rank then they were... probably one of those "Sages" She heard of.

After fighting off a few grunts Clay eventually entered with some workers and dragged the grunts and the other guy off. "That was annoying...but at least they got captured." Malerie mumbled, Hilda nodded in response, Cheren had already left... most likely headed to the gym.
The two girls walked to the pokemon center but that was where they separated, Malerie headed to Chargestone cave while Hilda went twords the gym.
She was going to go through the cave but it seemed a Garvantula's nest blocked the way. Not wanting to disturb it she decided to head twords the gym's direction, although what surprised her were the Plasma members walking passed her. She could've sworn she saw Ghetsis glance at her, maybe even scowl.