In a world full of floating islands, sky pirates, exiled magicians, and Pokémon, peace is difficult to maintain.
Shaymin, kind Pokémon who'd guided travelers once man learned how to fly, were hunted to extinction for their Gracideas: magical flowers...
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Fifteen days. Three-hundred-and-sixty hours. Over twenty-thousand minutes. That was how long it took White Lightning to finally arrive at the coast closest to Tranquelum's Core Gracidea. Or at least that was what Cyryl had calculated, so bored to death zie took up arithmetic to pass time.
During their days sailing the sky, August busied herself through physical activities. Take care of the ship. Protect Omar when docked in port towns to gather supplies. Start taking part in Gracie's combat training. Make sure Pidge didn't get carried away sparring with Gracie. Keep an eye on Kaso. Investigate Kaso.
The sight of the Parasect made August's gut wrench with zir hollow stare burnt into the back of her mind. Zie should've died ages ago. Kaso was certainly infected with Pokérus, or at least that was what August had believed. Zie'd displayed every symptom of the virus. And yet zie continued to live. According to Gracie, zie even began to talk. Zie hadn't spoken before. Gracie said she wished zie'd go back to being mute.
Lang was even more astonished by Kaso's survival than August. The nurse guessed Kaso's mushroom spores were the reason zie hadn't passed, saying it was possible zir parasite had protected zir from the worse of the virus' toxins. The doubtful look in her eyes betrayed the certainty in her tone.
No matter how hard August looked, she couldn't find the papers Kaso had stored away all those nights before. She knew it wasn't anything important; all their maps and inventory lists remained in their proper places. But her curiosity still ate away at her. The pirate had Gracie ask Kaso about it, but zie gave no answer.
"Zie doesn't say anything zie doesn't want to," Gracie had noted, just as bothered as August by the Parasect's behavior. "Zie's weird." Wordlessly, August had agreed.
Her steely glare watched the Parasect creep to the lower deck, fleeing the scene as Omar's other Pokémon tied the ship to the dock. Unlike Nuri and Marley, Kaso never offered zir help. Omar excused zir, claiming zie was shy. The more he told the lie, August noticed, the less he seemed to believe it.
Like everyone else, Omar was tense from the rough landing they'd succeeded earlier. Their journey had mostly been calm with fair weather favoring their route until they'd reached the southwest side of Tranquelum. It was there they found Dead Man's Coast.
Violent storms exploded across Dead Man Coast's sky as masses of swirling, violet clouds full of forked lightning and deafening thunder. The shrieking winds threw vessels askew and flung them through the air akin to a leaf in a twister. Jagged cliffs made up the coastline, littered with the rotting debris of shipwrecked boats. It took everyone aboard White Lightning to get the ship to safety all just to dock close to the Core Gracidea.
There was a reason sailors steered clear of southwestern Tranquelum, August thought as she glanced at the raging tempest brewing off the coast. Fortunately enough, they'd found a small break between the storm and the isle in order to dock.
