-Blessed by Divinity: Eternity-

The City of the Setting Sun

"There it is! Sunyshore City's just ahead now."

Dawn walked ahead with a spring in her step and I wasn't sure if it was because we were close to our destination or something else. May and Elaine followed the blunette as the girls went ahead to scout the entrance to the city.

Once again, Red and I were left to fill in the rear. Now that we were approaching our destination, we had to be on our guard at all times. From what he had told me, Sunyshore City had become a new hot zone for all of these terrorist organisations. It was one thing having to deal with them individually, but now that they seemed to be working with each other, we had a whole new heap of problems.

"..."

Red was right. The criminals we had fought against for years were only now working together. We should consider ourselves fortunate that they didn't have the brainpower to figure out that they were better off working together in the first place. But I guessed that's where egos and pride got in the way, both things we were fortunate not to have.

If anything, I would be more scared of the five of us working together because everyone knows that the best of us is bought out when we have people fighting alongside us.

"Hey guys, over here."

Elaine's hushed voice caught our attention and as we looked over, the three girls were crouched down beside the entrance to the city's gates, hiding under the trees near some smaller bushes. Confused, I looked between where they were positioned and the open city gate in front of me. I quickly realised that they must have spotted the uniformed guards patrolling the entrance to the city.

Quickly, Red and I crouched down beside the girls, the five of us thinking of a plan of action. I looked back to the city's gate noticing something out of place.

"Don't you think those guys are acting a little weird?"

The group followed my gaze and upon looking a second time, it became clear that the guards were indeed acting strange. Their actions seemed robotic and regimented as if they had lost their human elements. Neither of the two guards were wearing a uniform that belonged to a terrorist group, each wearing the usual navy blue outfit of a police officer.

They hadn't spoken a word to each other in the five minutes we had been watching them which made everything all the more strange.

"Well that's really weird. Man, we really can't catch a break." May collapsed to the floor, sitting on the grassy side path. She let out a deep sigh which was reflected on all of our faces.

"I'm guessing a pokemon's controlling them because that definitely isn't natural." I spoke my thoughts, the group agreeing with my quick hypothesis. "We should assume the rest of the city is going to be like this so we have to move carefully."

After a decent amount of planning, we decided that it would be safer to avoid the city's entrance gate. I wouldn't have forgiven myself or anyone else if we had walked into such an obvious trap.

Atop the backs of our flying pokemon, we flew over the surrounding mountains landing on a small hill beside the city's market hall. Now that we were inside, we could clearly see that the streets of the city were filled with people going about their days as usual.

Even though everything looked normal, the five of us were still hesitant to descend the hill. Just as I was about to speak out, something caught Red's attention.

The rest of the group followed his gaze, we could see that in the middle of one of the streets, a uniformed guard was holding a young child by his wrist. A few feet away, a woman I assumed to be his mother was pleading for the guard to let go of the boy. But, the robotic guard wasn't listening, keeping his hand firmly gripped around the young child's wrist even as he squirmed under the intense grip.